Rolf in the Woods

Quonab sat up in amazement. Rolf paid no heed, but went on, bawling and drumming and staring upward into vacant space. After a few minutes Skookum scratched and whined at the shanty door. Rolf rose, took his knife, cut a bunch of hair from Skookum’s neck and burned it in the torch, then went on singing with horrid solemnity:

“Evil spirit leave me;
Dog-face do not harm me.”

At last he turned, and seeming to discover that Quonab was looking on, said:

“The dream dog came to me. I thought I saw him lick deer grease from the frying pan behind the shanty. He laughed, for he knew that he made evil medicine for me. I am trying to drive him away, so he cannot harm me. I do not know. I am like my mother. She was very wise, but she died after it.”

Now Quonab arose, cut some more hair from Skookum, added a pinch of tobacco, then, setting it ablaze, he sang in the rank odour of the burning weed and hair, his strongest song to kill ill magic; and Rolf, as he chuckled and sweetly sank to sleep, knew that the fight was won. His friend would never, never more install Skookum in the high and sacred post of pot-licker, dishwasher, or final polisher.

Chapter 35. Snaring Rabbits

The deepening snow about the cabin was marked in all the thickets by the multitudinous tracks of the snowshoe rabbits or white hares. Occasionally the hunters saw them, but paid little heed. Why should they look at rabbits when deer were plentiful?

“You catch rabbit?” asked Quonab one day when Rolf was feeling fit again.

“I can shoot one with my bow,” was the answer, “but why should I, when we have plenty of deer?”

“My people always hunted rabbits. Sometimes no deer were to be found; then the rabbits were food. Sometimes in the enemy’s country it was not safe to hunt, except rabbits, with blunt arrows, and they were food. Sometimes only squaws and children in camp — nothing to eat; no guns; then the rabbits were food.”

“Well, see me get one,” and Rolf took his bow and arrow. He found many white bunnies, but always in the thickest woods. Again and again he tried, but the tantalizing twigs and branches muffled the bow and turned the arrow. It was hours before he returned with a fluffy snowshoe rabbit.

“That is not our way.” Quonab led to the thicket and selecting a place of many tracks he cut a lot of brush and made a hedge across with half a dozen openings. At each of these openings he made a snare of strong cord tied to a long pole, hung on a crotch, and so arranged that a tug at the snare would free the pole which in turn would hoist the snare and the creature in it high in the air.

Next morning they went around and found that four of the snares had each a snow-white rabbit hanging by the neck. As he was handling these, Quonab felt a lump I on the hind leg of one. He carefully cut it open and turned out a curious-looking object about the size of an acorn, flattened, made of flesh and covered with hair, and nearly the shape of a large bean. He gazed at it, and, turning to Rolf, said with intense meaning:

“Ugh! we have found the good hunting. This is the Peeto-wab-oos-once, the little medicine rabbit. Now we have strong medicine in the lodge. You shall see.”

He went out to the two remaining snares and passed the medicine rabbit through each. An hour later, when they returned, they found a rabbit taken in the first snare.

“It is ever so,” said the Indian. “We can always catch rabbits now. My father had the Peeto-wab-i-ush once, the little medicine deer, and so he never failed in hunting but twice. Then he found that his papoose, Quonab, had stolen his great medicine. He was a very wise papoose. He killed a chipmunk each of those days.”

“Hark! what is that?” A faint sound of rustling branches, and some short animal noises in the woods had caught Rolf’s ear, and Skookum’s, too, for he was off like one whose life is bound up in a great purpose.

“Yap, yap, yap,” came the angry sound from Skookum. Who can say that animals have no language? His merry “yip, yip, yip,” for partridge up a tree, or his long, hilarious, “Yow, yow, yow,” when despite all orders he chased some deer, were totally distinct from the angry “Yap, yap,” he gave for the bear up the tree, or the “Grrryapgrryap,” with which he voiced his hatred of the porcupine.

But now it was the “Yap, yap,” as when he had treed the bears.