Part 19

"Well," said George, "we'd need plenty of flour, pork, lard, beans, sugar, tea, and bakin' powder; and we might take some condensed milk, raisins, currants, rice, and molasses, and I'd make somethin' good sometimes."

"That's a good idea," said Hubbard, whose mouth was evidently watering even as mine was. "And we might take some butter, too. And how would oatmeal go for porridge?--don't you think that would be bully on a cold morning?"

"Yes," assented George; "we could eat molasses on it, or thin up the condensed milk."

"We shall probably have caribou meat that we can take along frozen," Hubbard went on. "Frozen caribou meat is bully; it's better than when it's fresh killed. Did you ever eat any, Wallace?"

"No," said I; "the only caribou meat I've ever eaten was what we've had here."

"Then," said Hubbard, "there's a rare treat in store for you. The first I ever ate was on my Lake St. John trip. The Indian I had with me used to chop off pieces of frozen caribou with an axe, and fry it with lard, and we'd just drink down the grease. It was fine."

"It's great," said George.

"Well," said Hubbard, coming back to the present, "I'm dead glad we've decided to strike for the post. If this wind will ever let up, we must get at it and catch some fish. I lay awake most of last night thinking it all over and planning it all."

"I was awake most of the time, too," said George; "my feet were mighty cold."

There was no fishing on the day we decided to turn back, as the wind confined us to camp, and all we had to eat was rice and bacon soup; but our anticipations of home to some extent overcame the clamour of our stomachs, and we passed the time chatting about the things we intended to do when we regained "God's country."

"I'm going to take a vacation," said Hubbard. "I'll visit father and mother, if they're in the east, and sister Daisy, and maybe go to Canada with my wife and stay a little while with her people. What will you do, boys?"

I told of my plans to visit various relatives, and then George described a trip he was going to make to visit a sister whom he had not seen since he was a little boy, closing the description with a vivid account of the good things he would have to eat, and what he would cook himself. It was always so--no matter what our conversation was about, it sooner or later developed into a discussion of gastronomy.

In the evening Hubbard had me make out a list of the restaurants we intended to visit when we got back to New York and take George to. I have the list yet, but since my return I have never had the heart to go near any of the places it mentions. From the talk about restaurants Hubbard suddenly turned to lumber camps, asking George and me if we had ever visited one. We replied that we had not, and wondered what had brought lumber camps into his mind. We soon learned.

"You've missed something," he said. "We'll make it a point to call at Sandy Calder's camp when we go back, and make him give us a feed of pork and beans and molasses to sop our bread in. They're sure to have them."

"Do they have cake and pie?" asked George.

"Yes, in unlimited quantities; and doughnuts, too--at least they used to in the Michigan lumber camps I've visited."

"That sounds good," I remarked--"the pork and beans and molasses, best of all. When I was a boy I was fond of bread and molasses--good, black molasses--but I haven't eaten any since. I'd like to have a chance at some now."

"So should I," said Hubbard; "I'd just roll my bread in it lumberjack fashion."

"Do they have gingerbread in the camps?" asked George.

"Yes," said Hubbard; "gingerbread is always on the table."

"How do they make it?

"Well, I don't just know; but I'll tell you what, George--if you want to know, I'll ask Mrs. Hubbard to show you when we get home, and I know she'll be delighted to do it. She's the best cook I ever knew."

"Do you think she would mind?"

"Oh, no; she'd be very glad to do it. You must stop at our house for a while before you go back to Missanabie, and she will teach you to cook a good many things."

And so our conversation continued until we turned to our blankets and sought the luxury of sleep, I to dream I was revelling in a stack of gingerbread as high as a house that my sisters had baked to welcome me home.

To our ever-increasing dismay, the northwest gale continued to blow almost unceasingly during the next few days. Sometimes towards evening the wind would moderate sufficiently to permit us to troll with difficulty along the lee shore of an island, but seldom were we rewarded with more than a single namaycush, and so far from our getting enough fish to carry us over our long portage to Lake Disappointment, we did not catch enough for our daily needs, and were compelled to draw on our little store of emergency provisions. On Wednesday (September 16th) we ate the last bit of bacon and the last handful of rice we had so carefully hoarded. We succeeded that day in reaching the rapid where we caught the few trout that some animal stole from us, and there we camped. From this point we believed we could more readily gain the bay where we had entered the lake, and begin our retreat when the wind subsided.

The Canada jay, a carrion bird about the size Of a robin that is generally known through the north as the "whiskey jack," had always hovered about our camps and been very tame when, in the earlier days of our trip, we had refuse to throw away; but now these birds called at us from a greater distance, seeming to know we were looking at them with greedy eyes. George told us that their flesh had saved many an Indian from starvation, and that the Indians looked upon them with a certain veneration and would kill them only in case of the direst need. Our compunctions against eating carrion birds had entirely disappeared, and the course of the whiskey jacks in holding aloof from camp when they were most needed used to make George furious.

"See the blamed beggars!" he would ejaculate. "Just look at 'em! We've been feedin' 'em right long, and now when it's their turn to feed us, look at 'em go!"