Two Little Savages

  VII

  Campercraft

  "How'd you sleep, Sam?"

  "Didn't sleep a durn bit."

  "Neither did I. I was shivering all night. I got up an' put the spareblanket on, but it didn't do any good."

  "Wonder if there was a chills-and-fever fog or something?"

  "How'd you find it, Sappy?"

  "All right."

  "Didn't smell any fog?"

  "Nope."

  The next night it was even worse. Guy slept placidly, if noisily, butSam and Yan tumbled about and shivered for hours. In the morning atdawn Sam sat up.

  "Well, I tell you this is no joke. Fun's fun, but if I am going tohave the shivers every night I'm going home while I'm able."

  Yan said nothing. He was very glum. He felt much as Sam did, but wasless ready to give up the outing.

  Their blues were nearly dispelled when the warm sun came up, but stillthey dreaded the coming night.

  "Wonder what it is," said Little Beaver.

  "'Pears to me powerful like chills and fever and then again it don't.Maybe we drink too much swamp water. I believe we're p'isoned withGuy's cooking."

  "More like getting scurvy from too much meat. Let's ask Caleb."

  Caleb came around that afternoon or they would have gone after him.He heard Yan's story in silence, then, "Have ye sunned your blanketssense ye came?"

  "No."

  Caleb went into the teepee, felt the blankets, then grunted: "H-m!Jest so. They're nigh soppin'. You turn in night after night an' sweatan' sweat in them blankets an' wonder why they're damp. Hain't youseen your ma air the blankets every day at home? Every Injun squawknows that much, an' every other day at least she gives the blankets asun roast for three hours in the middle of the day, or, failing that,dries them at the fire. Dry out your blankets and you won't have nomore chills."

  The boys set about it at once, and that night they experienced againthe sweet, warm sleep of healthy youth.

  There was another lesson they had to learn in campercraft. TheMosquitoes were always more or less of a plague. At night they forcedthe boys into the teepee, but they soon learned to smudge the insectswith a wad of green grass on the hot fire. This they would throw onat sundown, then go outside, closing the teepee tight and eat supperaround the cooking fire. After that was over they would cautiouslyopen the teepee to find the grass all gone and the fire low, a densecloud of smoke still in the upper part, but below it clear air.They would then brush off the Mosquitoes that had alighted on theirclothes, crawl into the lodge and close the door tight. Not a Mosquitowas left alive in it, and the smoke hanging about the smoke-vent wasenough to keep them from coming in, and so they slept in peace. Thusthey could baffle the worst pest of the woods. But there was yetanother destroyer of comfort by day, and this was the Blue-bottleflies. There seemed more of them as time went on, and they laid massesof yellowish eggs on anything that smelled like meat or corruption.They buzzed about the table and got into the dishes; their dead,drowned and mangled bodies were polluting all the food, till Calebremarked during one of his ever-increasing visits: "It's your ownfault. Look at all the filth ye leave scattered about."

  There was no blinking the fact; for fifty feet around the teepee theground was strewn with scraps of paper, tins and food. To one sidewas a mass of potato peelings, bones, fish-scales and filth, andeverywhere were the buzzing flies, to be plagues all day, till atsundown the Mosquitoes relieved them and took the night shift of theoffice of torment.

  "I want to learn, especially if it's Injun," said Little Beaver. "Whathad we best do?"

  "Wall, first ye could move camp; second, ye could clean this."

  As there was no other available camp ground they had no choice, andYan said with energy: "Boys, we got to clean this and keep it clean,too. We'll dig a hole for everything that won't burn."

  So Yan seized the spade and began to dig in the bushes not far fromthe teepee. Sam and Guy were gradually drawn in. They began gatheringall the rubbish and threw it into the hole. As they tumbled in bones,tins and scraps of bread Yan said: "I just hate to see that bread goin. It doesn't seem right when there's so many living things would beglad to get it."

  At this, Caleb, who was sitting on a log placidly smoking, said:

  "Now, if ye want to be real Injun, ye gather all the eatables ye don'twant--meat, bread and anything, an' every day put it on somehigh place. Most generally the Injuns has a rock--they call it_Wakan_; that means sacred medicine--an' there they leave scrapsof food to please the good spirits. Av coorse it's the birds andSquirrels gets it all; but the Injun is content as long as it's gone,an' if ye argy with them that 'tain't the spirits gets it, but thebirds, they say: 'That doesn't matter. The birds couldn't get it ifthe spirits didn't want them to have it,' or maybe the birds took itto carry to the spirits!"

  Then the Grand Council went out in a body to seek the _WakanRock_. They found a good one in the open part of the woods, and itbecame a daily duty of one to carry the remnants of food to the rock.They were probably less acceptable to the wood creatures than theywould have been half a year later, but they soon found that there weremany birds glad to eat at the _Wakan_; and moreover, that beforelong there was a trail from the brook, only twenty-five yards away,that told of four-foots also enjoying the bounty of the good spirits.

  Within three days of this the plague of Bluebottles was over, and theboys realized that, judging by its effects, the keeping of a dirtycamp is a crime.

  One other thing old Caleb insisted on: "Yan," said he, "you didn'tought to drink that creek water now; it ain't hardly runnin'. The sunhez it het up, an' it's gettin' too crawly to be healthy."

  "Well, what are we going to do?" said Sam, though he might as wellhave addressed the brook itself.

  "What can we do, Mr. Clark?"

  "Dig a well!"

  "Phew! We're out here for fun!" was Sam's reply.

  "Dig an Injun well," Caleb said. "Half an hour will do it. Here, I'llshow you."

  He took the spade and, seeking a dry spot, about twenty feet from theupper end of the pond he dug a hole some two feet square. By the timehe was down three feet the water was oozing in fast. He got it downabout four feet and then had to stop, on account of inflow. He took abucket and bailed the muddy stuff out right to the bottom, and let itfill up to be again bailed out. After three bailings the water came incold, sweet, and pure as crystal.

  "There," said he, "that water is from your pond, but it is filteredthrough twenty feet of earth and sand. That's the way to get cool,pure water out of the dirtiest of swamps. That's an Injun well."