The Ice Queen Read online

  Chapter VIII.

  JIM'S REBELLION.

  "I tell you what, boys," Tug cried, after a great effort, "there's nouse trying any more till we have smoothed a road, and I think,Captain, you'd better set all hands at that."

  "I'm afraid that is so. Jim, please go back and get the axe, thehatchet, and the shovel. Now, while Tug and I dig at this road, youand Jim, Katy, can bring some of the freight up here, or perhaps takeit clear across, and so save time. The small sled will help you."

  It was tedious labor all around, and the wind began to blow in a waythey would have thought very cold had they not been so warm and busywith work. As fast as a rod or two of road was cleared, the four tookhold and dragged the boat ahead. These slow advances used up so muchtime that when the plateau had been crossed, the sun, peering throughdark clouds, was almost level with the horizon. It now remained to getdown the sudden pitch and rough slope on the farther side. But thiswas a task of no small importance, and Aleck called a council on thesubject.

  CROSSING THE HUMMOCK.]

  "My lambs," he began (the funny word took the edge off the unfortunatelook of affairs, as it was intended to do)--"my lambs, it is growinglate, and it's doubtful if we can get this big boat down that pair ofstairs before dark. Don't you think I'd better order Jim and Katy topack up the small sled with tent and bedding and kitchen-stuff?"

  "'Twon't hold it all!" interrupted Jim.

  "Then, Youngster, you can come back after the bedding. Take thecooking things first, and you and Katy go back to the island where welunched, and make a fire. Tug and I--eh, Tug?--will stay here and chopaway till dark, and then we'll go back to camp with you when you comeafter the blankets, and help you carry the tent."

  "Are you going to leave the boat here all night?" asked Jim, in alarm.

  "Why, of course; what'll harm it? Now be off, and make a big fire."

  So the younger ones departed, and by and by Jim returned for a secondload. He found the two older boys cutting a sloping path through thelittle ice bluff on the farther side of the hummock, and pretty tiredof it. They were not yet done--the shovel not being of much service inworking the hard blue ice--but it was now getting too dark to do more,so they piled the snug bundles of blankets into Jim's sled box, andgave him the rope, while Tug and Aleck put their shoulders underopposite ends of the tent roll. Then together they all skated awaythrough the thickening windy twilight, and over the ashy-gray plain ofice, towards where Katy's fire glowed like a red spark on the distantshore.

  It was a weary but not at all disheartened party that lounged in theopen door of the tent that night, while a big fire blazed in front,and supper was cooking. This was the first time the sail had beenspread as a tent, and it answered the purpose nicely, giving plenty ofroom. The straw Katy had been so anxious about had to be left in theboat, so that they got no good of it. Jim chaffed his sister a gooddeal about this, and Tug rather encouraged him, thinking it was a fairchance for fun at Katy's expense; but when he saw that Katy really wasfeeling badly, not at Jim's teasing words, but for fear she had madethe boys useless trouble, Aleck came to the rescue. Seizing TheYoungster by the shoulder, he spun him round like a teetotum, and wasgoing to box his ears, when Katy cried out, "Oh, don't!" and savedthat young gentleman's skin for the present.

  "Then I'll punish you in another way. Take your knife, go over thereto the marsh"--it was perhaps a hundred yards away--"and cut as manyrushes as you can carry."

  The Youngster never moved.

  "I don't want the rushes," said Katy, trying to keep the peace, buther brother paid no heed.

  "Did you hear what I said?" he asked again of Jim.

  "Yes, I did."

  "Well, that was a Captain's Order, and I advise you to obey."

  "Do it yourself!" shouted the angry Jim, sitting down by the fire.

  Aleck looked at him an instant, saw his sulky, set lips, and thenwalked over to a willow bush near by. From the centre of this bush hecut a thriving switch, and carefully trimmed off all the twigs andcrumpled leaves. It was as pliant and elastic as whalebone. Itwhistled through the air, when it was waved, like a wire or a thinlash. It would hug the skin it was laid upon, and wrap tightly arounda boy's legs, and sting at the tip like a hornet. It wouldn't raise awelt upon the skin, as an iron rod or a rawhide might do, but it wouldhurt just as bad while it was touching you.

  Jim knew all this, and it flashed through his brain, every bit of it,as he saw Aleck trim the switch.

  "Better scoot, Youngster," Tug advised, with a grin that was meantkindly, but made Jim madder than ever.

  "Please get the rushes," coaxed Katy.

  But when Aleck came back the boy still sat there, defiant of orders.

  "Now, James," he said, as he stood over him, "you have been ordered byyour Captain to go and get some rushes. You refuse. You areinsubordinate. I'll give you just one minute to make up your mind whatyou will do."

  Jim glanced up, saw the determined face and stalwart form of hisbrother; saw Tug keeping quiet and showing no intention ofinterfering; saw the awful willow. He rose quickly from his seat, anddarted away into the scrub alders and willows as hard as he could run,but not towards the rushes.

  Aleck didn't follow him. "Never mind," he said. "Go on with yoursupper, Katy. That boy gets those rushes before he has any grub to eator blankets to lie in, unless you both vote against it, and I don'tthink you will, for it was a reasonable order."

  "Well, Captain," said Tug, "I think we might ease up on it a little.It was a little rough on The Youngster sending him alone in the darkto get the stuff. If you had sent me with him, I suppose he'd havegone fast enough. If you'll say so now, I allow he'll surrender andsave his hide. For that matter, I don't mind getting 'em alone ifyou'll let the kid go. I was going to propose it myself just as yougave the order."

  "That's very kind of you, Tug; but I couldn't allow you to get themalone. You may help if you want to."

  "May I tell him so?" Katy asked, eagerly.

  "Yes, if you can find him."

  "I'll find him--look out for the bacon;" and the girl went off intothe gloom and the bushes, calling, "Jim! Jim!"

  It was a good while before she came back, and the boys, tired ofwaiting, had forked out the bacon, and were eating their meal, whichwas what the poets call "frugal," but immensely relished all the same.

  Suddenly Katy and the culprit stalked out of the ring of shadows thatencircled the fire, bearing huge bundles of yellow rushes.

  "That ain't fair!" cried Tug. "You ought to have let me gone, Katy."

  "Oh, I didn't mind, and I wanted Jim to hurry back."

  "I didn't want her to carry none," said Jim, more eager aboutself-defense than grammar. "If I give up, I want to give up all over,and not half-way."

  "Good for you, Youngster," Aleck shouted, leaping up. "Give us yourhand!"

  Thus peace was restored, and the boy sat down happily to hiswell-earned supper, while the older ones spread the crisp reed-straw.Finding there wasn't quite enough, they went off to the marshes andbrought two more armfuls, which made a warm and springy couch for thewhole party.

  These "rushes" were not rushes, properly speaking, but the wild ricewhich grows so abundantly on the borders of the great lakes, andthroughout the little ponds and shallow sheets of water that aredotted so thickly over Wisconsin and southern Minnesota. It is like asmall bamboo jungle, for the close-crowding stiff reeds often standten feet or more above the water. They bear upon the upper part oftheir stalks a few ribbon-like leaves, and each reed carries a plumewhich in autumn contains the seeds, or the "rice."

  The botanical name of the plant is _Zizania aquatica_; and among itflourish not only the common white and yellow water-lilies, but thatsplendid one, the _Nelumbium luteum_, which Western people call thelotus.

  This rice formed an important part of the food of the Indians wholived where it grew. In and out of the marshes run narrow canals, keptopen by the currents, and through these the Indian women would paddletheir canoes, seeking the ripe h
eads, which they would cut off andtake ashore to be threshed out in the wigwam, or else they would shakeand rub out the rice into a basket as they went along. At home therice would be crushed into a coarse flour in their stone mortars, thenmade into cakes baked on the surface of smooth stones heated in thecoals.

  The stalks, round, smooth, and straight, were of service to theIndians also. Out of them they made mats and thatching for theirlodges, and they served as excellent arrow-shafts, a point offire-hardened wood, of bone, or of flint having been fixed in the end.

  JIM AND KATY BRINGING THE RUSHES TO CAMP.]

  In warm weather these broad, submerged marshes, undulating incolor-waves--green in spring, golden-yellow in midsummer, and warmreddish-brown in October--as the breeze swept across the vast extentof pliant reeds, formed the home of a great variety of animals, whosenumbers were almost unlimited. There, in the darkly stained water,lurked hosts of small shells and insects--dragon-flies, beetles, andaquatic bugs and flies, whose habits were always a matter forcuriosity. Then, where insects and mollusks were so numerous, ofcourse there were plenty of fishes, great and small, the little onesfeeding on the bugs and snails, the larger on them, and somegiants--like the big pike--on these again. Nor did this end the list.After the big fish came the muskrat; after the muskrat--in the olddays, at least--sneaked the wolverine; after the wolverine crept thestealthy panther; and for the panther an Indian lay in wait.

  The marshes were full of birds, too, in the bird-season--small, pipingwrens; suspicious sparrows; ducks and rails and gallinules of manykinds and many voices; herons and cranes and hawks; coming and goingwith the seasons, making the yellow reeds populous with busy lives,and vocal with their merriment. Now, however, all was silent.

  Our travellers would have preferred skating across the marshes ratherthan outside upon the windy lake, but it was reported that warmsprings came out of the ooze in many parts of the rice morass, keepingthe ice so weak (though not melting it quite away) as to make skatingunsafe. This danger was not so great, perhaps, in a winter sounusually cold as this one was proving itself to be, as it had beenshown to be in milder seasons; but they did not want to run risks.

  "How noisy it will be all around this islet in three months from now!"Aleck remarked, as they were preparing for bed. "Then you will hardlybe able to hear yourself speak for the frogs."

  "Before there were any lighthouses on the lake," said Tug, "sailingwas pretty much guesswork; but my father told me the sailors, whenthey approached the shore, used to know where they were by listeningto the bull-frogs. The bulls would call out the names of theirports, you know: San--_dusk_--y! To--_l-e-e-e_--do! Mon--_roe_!De--_troi-i-i-i_--it!"