“The honor is mine,” the Woodsman said and sat down immediately by the fireside, legs crossed in the Indian style. He produced from his necessaries pouch a buffalo horn cup and a carved horn spoon. Bilbo ladled him a portion of the stew and he sampled it with attendant groans and hums of delectation. “Why, this is first-rate,” he pronounced. “But you have used a freshly killed varmint in it. I can tell.”
“Naught but the best will suit our company,” Bilbo boasted.
“I admire the sentiment, friend, but nothing flavors a ragout so well as a ’possum hung a few days. It gives the sauce a piquancy like none other. I learnt the recipe from my friends, the Wyandots, who esteem the critter above all other viands save buffalo’s tongue and wolf’s liver.”
“Have you ever, by chance, seen such a prodigy as this?” I asked, hastily producing my sketch of megatherium.
“Why, I have wrestled with them by the legions,” the Woodsman declared. “And won each match, by our George.”
“You have!” said I, astounded. “Do you know what this portrait is supposed to represent?”
“Beaver, o’course,” he stated with certainty, then stole another glance at the paper. “Isn’t it?”
“’Tis megatherium,” I informed him. “Or ground sloth. As big as an ox. A massive but retiring brute who dwells in caves.”
The Woodsman studied the sketch carefully once again, scratching his brow.
“Might I have a glance, friend?” Bilbo asked unctuously, and the stranger obliged by handing it over. The pirate examined the sketch with complete absorption, brought it close to his eyes, held it out at arm’s length, turned it to one side, then the other, and finally turned it upside down, all the while pursing his lips and uttering noises of cogitation. “Hmmmmmmm … hummmmmm … huhhhhhh … hmmmmmm …”
“I admit the sketch is crude.”
“’Tis a queer-looking devil,” he concluded.
“Think of the fortune in pelts, Bilbo,” I added, trying to excite his cupidity. “Why, ’twould compare to your former silkworm prospects as a gold mine to a mere doubloon.”
At the mention of the word silkworms, he turned an ashen shade of green.
“I’d prefer to stopper mere jars o’water than grapple with some two-ton son o’Satan,” he declared with a distasteful air and handed the portrait back to the blonde-headed nimrod.
“I can tell ye this much about your strange beasts o’the forest,” the Woodsman addressed us in a yarn-spinning tone. “Not ten days ago did I lodge a night at the trading station of Francis Bottomley on the junction of the Ohio and Dismal Rivers, an hundred miles from here. There I met two other men, Messers Jukes and Roundtree, whom the said Bottomley had given an order upon for two teeth of a large beast that they were bringing from the falls of the Ohio for delivery to the Ohio Company at Fort Harner. These teeth and the bones of three large beasts were found in a salt lick upon a small creek that runs into the Ohio fifteen miles below the mouth of the Great Miamee—”
“Dost hear, Sammy,” Uncle interrupted excitedly, “hard by the Great Miamee!”
“I hear, brother,” said I, affecting disdain at his ferment. “For I am deaf no longer.”
“Did you say you were cured from deafness?” the Woodsman himself joined the digression. “And that the two of you are brothers?”
“What…?” said I.
“Are we not all brothers here in the wild?” Bilbo remarked deviously.
“Save those that are piratical scum,” I observed, hoping this Woodsman might infer my meaning and the nature of our predicament, but he merely stared across the fire in perplexity. Bilbo thereupon made pretense to guffaw, as though I had launched a jest, and poked me in my ribs. I looked down at my side and saw that the instrument of this poking was not his elbow, but the muzzle of his ever-ready pistol. The hammer was cocked and it was aimed straight at my liver.
“Pray continue, Woodsman,” Bilbo importuned him.
“Do I have your complete attention?” he asked.
“Yes,” we all said. Neddy affirmed with a bark. This Woodsman’s vanity was extreme, I thought. He cleared his throat.
“I was permitted a look at these teeth by Jukes and Roundtree. Each was better than four pounds in weight, appearing to be the farthest tooth in the jaw, a molar, but the size of a loaf o’bread and all acrinkle on top. It had the look of fine ivory about it. Jukes assured me that the rib bones of the largest of these beasts were eleven feet long, and the skull bone six feet across the forehead, and the other bones in proportion, and that there were several other teeth upon the site, some of which he called ‘horns’ that were upward of five feet long, and as much as a man could well carry. One of these he hid at a creek some distance from the place, lest the Indians should carry it away.”
“’Tis a mastodon,” Uncle declared.
“Why, I reckon ’twould be somebody’s master, but not mine, ho ho,” the Woodsman joked. He and Bilbo shared in this drollery a minute.
“At Philadelphia,” said I, “Mr. Charles Willson Peale has erected the skeleton of just such a beast as you describe in his museum.”
“Ah, Philadelphia,” Uncle sighed, wistfully, thinking of his home, “Owl’s Crossing…”
The Woodsman flinched and glanced overhead.
“Owls? Crossing?” he said, evincing much anxiety. At that very moment, deep in the night-shrouded forest, came the shriek of a great horned owl (Bubo virginianus). It certainly made a fellow’s skin crawl. All our party were visibly nonplussed. Bilbo, of course, affected a nervous cackle. Neddy cocked his ear to the night. The Woodsman sat erect, sniffing the chill air.
“Sometimes you can smell ’em,” he stated mysteriously.
“Smell what?” Bilbo asked. “Owls?”
“No. Injuns.”
“Do you smell any now?”
“No,” the Woodsman said. “But there is an herd of seven Virginia deer at about a quarter mile, one elk at an half, several foxes, raccoon, and ’possum aplenty, two, no, three badgers, and rodents innumerable.”
We heard a flapping of wings overhead.
“Also many bats,” the Woodsman added, “and, perforce, an owl.”
“No Indians?” Bilbo pressed.
“Not a one,” the Woodsman declared with confidence. Suddenly, another terrifying cry issued from the darkness. “There is now one less squirrel. A fox has et him.”
“Can thee tell all these things by a mere snuffling of the breeze?” Uncle inquired in wonderment.
“O, yes,” the Woodsman replied. “Why, the forest air is an open book. Were I, by some misfortune, struck blind, I would yet know my exact surrounding.”
“’Tis an amazing art,” Uncle said, and we all agreed.
“Pshaw,” the Woodsman scoffed. “Anyone can develop the faculty. Merely spend five thousand nights in the darkling woods. Avoid the towns and especially the taverns, as nothing so muddles this ability as the stench of tobacco—what ho!” he drew himself erect again, his delicate nostrils aquiver. “Gentlemen,” he said, “a bear has just lumbered across the margin of my scent range.”
“What distance?” I asked.
“A mile and a quarter—hold! Wait a minute! He has shifted direction and is retreating.”
“Do you suppose he smells us?” I asked.
“Not a chance, for he is upwind.”