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автор Harry Herbert Knibbs

LOST FARM CAMP

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Title: Lost Farm Camp

Author: Harry Herbert Knibbs

Release Date: January 21, 2011 [EBook #35034]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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SWICKEY SHOOTS THE BEAR

LOST FARM CAMP

HARRY HERBERT KNIBBS

Author of “Overland Red”

ILLUSTRATED BY HAROLD JAMES CUE

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

BY HARRY HERBERT KNIBBS

TO GRETCHEN

Over a height-of-land the trail

Wanders down to an inland sea

Where never a keel nor a mirrored sail

Has ruffled its broad tranquillity,

Save a golden shadow that fires the blue

When I drift across in my birch canoe....

CONTENTS

Swickey Shoots a Bear
Lost Farm Folk
Much Ado about Beelzebub
The Compact
A Midnight Adventure
Tramworth
The Book and the “Specs”
Smoke Finds Employment
Jim Cameron’s Idea
Barney Axel’s Exodus
That Green Stuff
“Us as don’t know Nothin’”
David’s “Real Good-Bye”
The Flight of Smoke
Boston
The Man in the Street
News from Lost Farm
A Consultation
Piracy
Home for Christmas
The Traps
“Red” Smeaton’s Love Affair
A Confession
Rivals
On the Drive
David’s Return
“I Want Dave”
Complications
Smoke’s Last Stand
Just Fun
The Bluff
Hoss Avery’s Tribute

ILLUSTRATIONS

Swickey shoots the Bear

“Where be they?” she whispered

“Here’s your game,” he said hoarsely

“I didn’t know, Swickey—I thought—there was someone else”

CHAPTER I—SWICKEY SHOOTS A BEAR

Old man Avery hurried from the woods toward his camp, evidently excited. His daughter Swickey stood watching the black kitten Beelzebub play a clever but rather one-sided game with a half-dead field-mouse. As Avery saw the girl, he raised both hands above his head in a comical gesture of imprecation.

“Swickey, thet bug-eatin’ ole pork-thief’s been at the butter ag’in!”

“Why, Pop, thet’s the second time he’s done it!”

“Yes, an’ he scraped all the butter he could outen it, an’ upset the crock likewise. Swickey, we’ve got to git that b’ar or take the butter outen the spring-hole.”

The girl’s brown eyes dilated. “Why don’t you trap ’im, Pop?”

“Law ag’in’ trappin’ b’ars in August.”

“Law ag’in’ shootin’ deer in August, too, ain’t they?”

“Thet’s diff’runt. We’ve got to have fresh meat.”

“Ain’t b’ar meat?” she asked ironically.

“Reckon ’tis.”

“Then, why ain’t you a-shootin’ of him?”

The old lumberman rubbed his hand across his eyes, or rather his eye, for the other was nothing more than a puckered scar, and his broad shoulders drooped sheepishly. Then he laughed, flinging his hand out as though it contained an unpleasant thought which he tossed away.

“Gol-bling it, Swickey, seems to me as lately every time I drawed a bead on a deer, they was three front sights on the gun, and as many as three deer where they oughter been one. ’Sides,” he continued, “I ain’t ketched sight of him so fur. Now, mebby if you seen him you could shoot—”

Swickey grabbed the astonished Beelzebub to her breast and did a wild and exceedingly primitive dance before the cabin door.

“Be-el-zebub!” she cried, “Be-el-zebub! he’s a-goin’ to leave me shoot a b’ar—me! I ain’t shot nothin’ but deer so fur and he’s shot more ’n a million b’ars, ain’t you, Pop?”

“Wa-al, mebby a hun’red.”

“Is thet more ’n a million, Pop?”

The smile faded from Avery’s face. Huge, gray-bearded, pensive, he stood for a moment, as inscrutable as the front of a midnight forest.

Swickey eyed him with awe, but Swickey at fourteen could not be suppressed long.

“Pop, one of your buttins is busted.”

Her father slid his hand down his suspender strap and wrinkled the loose leather end round his thumb.

“How many’s a hun’red, Pop?”

Avery spoke more slowly than usual. “You git the cigar-box where be my ca’tridges.”

“Be I goin’ to shoot now?” she exclaimed, as she dropped the kitten and skipped into the cabin.

“Got to see him fust,” he said, as she returned with the cigar-box and his glasses.

“Here they be, Pop, and here’s your ‘specs.’” Avery adjusted his spectacles, carried the box of cartridges to the chopping-log and sat down. Beelzebub, who had recovered his now defunct field-mouse, tried to make himself believe it was still alive by tossing it up vigorously and catching it with a curved and graceful paw.

“You count ’em, Swickey, as I hand ’em to you.”

“One.”

“One,” she replied hurriedly.

“Two.”

“Two,” she repeated briskly.

“Three.”

“Thr-ee.” She turned the shells over in her hand slowly.

“Four.”

“Four’s ’nough to shoot a b’ar, ain’t it, Pop?”

“Five,” continued Avery, disregarding her question.

Swickey counted on her fingers. “One he guv me; two he guv me; then he guv me ’nother. Them’s two and them’s two and thet’s four, and this one makes five—is thet the name fur it?”

“Yes, five,” he replied.

“Yes, five,” replied Swickey. “Ain’t five ’nough?”

The old man paused in his task and ran his blunt fingers through the mass of glittering shells that sparkled in the box. The glint of the cartridges dazzled him for a moment. He closed his eyes and saw a great gray horse standing in the snow beneath the pines, blood trickling from a wounded forward shoulder, and then a huddled shape lying beneath the horse. Presently Nanette, Swickey’s mother, seemed to be speaking to him from that Somewhere away off over the tree-tops. “Take care of her, Bud,” the voice seemed to say, as it trailed off in the hum of a noonday locust overhead. The counting of the shells continued. Painfully they mounted to the grand total of ten, when Swickey jumped to her feet, scattering the cartridges in the grass.

“I don’t want to shoot no million b’ars or no hun’red to oncet.”

There were tears of anger and chagrin in her voice. She had tried to learn. The lessons usually ended that way. Rebellion on Swickey’s part and gentle reproof from her father.

“Don’t git mad, Swickey. I didn’t calc’late to hurt you,” said the old man, as he stooped and picked up the cartridges.

He had often tried to teach her what he knew of “book larnin’,” but his efforts were piteously unsuccessful. She was bright enough, but the traps, the river, her garden-patch, the kitten, and everything connected with their lonely life at Lost Farm had an interest far above such vague and troublesome things as reading and writing.

Once, after a perspiring half-hour of endeavor on her father’s part and a disinterested fidgeting on hers, she had said, “Say, Pop, I ain’t never goin’ away from you, be I?”

To which he had replied, “No, Swickey, not if you want to stay.”

“Then, ding it, Pop, ain’t I good ’nough fur you jest as I be, ’thout larnin’?”

This was an argument he found difficult to answer. Still, he felt he was not doing as her mother would have wished, for she often seemed to speak to him in the soft patois of the French-Canadian, when he was alone, by the river or on the hills.

As he sat gazing across the clearing he thought he saw something move in the distance. He scowled quizzically over his spectacles. Then he drew his daughter to him and whispered, “See thar, gal! You git the rifle.”

She glided to the cabin noiselessly and returned lugging the old .45 Winchester. Avery pointed toward a lumbering black patch near the river.

“He’s too fur,” she whispered.

“You snick down through the bresh back of the camp. Don’t you shoot less’n you kin see his ear plain.”

The girl stooped and glided behind the cabin, to reappear for a moment at the edge of the wood bordering the clearing. Then her figure melted into the shadows of the low fir trees. Avery sat tensely watching the river-edge.

Swickey had often rested the heavy barrel of the old rifle on a stump or low branch, and blazed away at some unsuspecting deer feeding near the spring in the early morning or at dusk, with her father crouching behind her; but now she was practically alone, and although she knew that bruin would vanish at the first suspicion of her presence, she trembled at the thought that he might seek cover in the very clump of undergrowth in which she was concealed. She peered between the leafy branches. There he was, sitting up and scraping the over-ripe berries from the bushes clumsily. She raised the rifle and then lowered it. It was too heavy to hold steadily, and there was no available branch or log upon which to rest it. A few yards ahead of her was a moss-topped pine stump. Shoving the rifle along the ground she wriggled toward the stump and sighed her relief when she peeped over its bleached roots and saw the bear again. He was sitting up as before, but his head was moving slowly from side to side and his little eyes were shifting uneasily. She squirmed down behind the rifle, hugging it close as her father had taught her. The front sight glistened an inch below the short black ear. She drew a long breath and wrapping two fingers round the trigger, pulled steadily.

With the r-r-r-ri-p-p, boom! of the Winchester, and as the echoes chattered and grumbled away among the hills, the bear lunged forward with a prolonged whoo-owoow, got up, stumbled over a log, and turning a disjointed somersault, lay still.

The old man ran toward the spot. “Don’t tetch him!” he screamed.

From the fringe of brush behind the bear came Swickey, rifle in hand. Disregarding her father she deliberately poked bruin in the ribs with the gun-muzzle. His head rolled loosely to one side. She gave a shrill yell of triumph that rang through the quiet afternoon, startling the drowsy birds to a sudden riotous clamoring.

Avery, panting and sweating, ran to his daughter and clasped her in his arms. “Good fur you! You’re my gal! Hit him plump in the ear.” And he turned the carcass over, inspecting it with a critical eye.

“Goin’ on five year, I reckon. A he one, too. Fur’s no good; howcome it were a bing good shot for a gal.”

“Don’t care if the fur ain’t no good, he’s bigger nor you and me put t’gither, ain’t he, Pop?”

“Wal, not more ’n four times,” said Avery, as he reached for the short, thin-bladed skinning-knife in his belt and began to deftly work the hide off the animal. Swickey, used to helping him at all times, held a corner of the hide here and a paw there, while the keen blade slipped through the fat already forming under the bear’s glossy black coat. Silently the old man worked at cutting up the carcass.

“Godfrey!” The knife had slipped and bit deep into his hand. “Why, Pop! Looks as if you done it a-pu’pose. I was watchin’ you.”

“It’s the specs. They don’t work right somehow.”

The girl ran to the cabin and returned with a strip of cloth with which she bound up the cut.

“Thar, pop. It ain’t hurtin’ you, be it?”

“N-o-o.”

“We kin bile some ile outen him,” said Swickey, as with a practical eye she estimated the results.

“Three gallon, mebby?”

“How much does thet make in money?”

“’Bout a dollar and a half.”

“Say, Pop!” She hesitated.

“Wa-al?”

“Kin I have the money for the ile?”

Her father paused, wiped his forehead with a greasy hand, and nodded toward the pocket containing his pipe and tobacco. She filled the pipe and lighted it for him.

“Say, Pop, I hear somebody singin’.”

“Wha—Jumpin’ Gooseflesh! If I ain’t clean forgot they was fifteen of them lumber-jacks comin’ fur supper. Ya-as, thar they be down along shore. Swickey, you skin fur the house and dig into the flour bar’l—quick! We’ll be wantin’ three bake-sheets. I’ll bring some of the meat.”

CHAPTER II—LOST FARM FOLK

Lost Farm tract, with its small clearing, was situated in the northern timber lands, at the foot of Lost Lake. Below lay the gorge through which the river plunged and thundered, its diapason sounding a low monotone over the three cabins on the hillside, its harsher notes muffled by the intervening trees.

When Hoss Avery first came there, bringing his little girl whom he had fondly nicknamed “Swickey,” he climbed the narrow trail along the river, glanced at the camp, swung his pack from his shoulders, filled his pipe, and sitting on a log drew Swickey down beside him and talked to her, asking her her opinion of some things which she understood and a great many things which she did not, to all of which she made her habitual reply of “Yes, Pop.”

That was when Swickey, ten years old and proudly conscious of a new black-and-red checkered gingham dress, had unwittingly decided a momentous question.

“You like this here place, Swickey?” her father had asked.

“Yes, Pop,” and she snuggled closer in his arm.

“Think you and me can run the shebang—feed them lumber-jacks goin’ in and comin’ out, fall and spring?”

“Yes, Pop.”

“’Course you’ll do the cookin’, bein’ my leetle woman, won’t you?” And the big woodsman chuckled.

“Yes, Pop,” she replied seriously.

“And you won’t git lonesome when the snow comes and you can’t play outside and ketch butterflies and sech things in the grass? They ain’t no wimmen-folks up here and no leetle gals to play with. Jest me and you and the trees and the river. Hear it singin’ now, Swickey! Bet you don’t know what it’s sayin’.”

“Yes, Pop.” But Swickey eyed her father a mite timidly as she twisted her dress round her fist. She hoped he would not ask her what the river was “really-truly, cross-your-heart-or-die, sayin’,” but she had imagination.

“What be it sayin’, Swickey?”

She rose to the occasion pluckily, albeit hesitating at first. “Why it’s—it’s—it’s sayin’, ‘father, father, father,’—jest slow like thet. Then it gets to goin’ faster and faster and says, ‘Hello, Swickey! Hello, Pop! thet you?’—jest like thet. Then it goes a-growlin’ ’long and says, ‘Better stay fur a lo-o-ng time ’cause it’s nice and big and—and—’ and I’m hungry fur supper,” she added. “Ain’t thet what it says, Pop?”

Avery pushed his hat over his eyes and scratched the back of his head.

“Suthin’ like thet. Yes, I reckon it says, ‘Better stay,’ and she says better stay, howcome I don’t jest know—”

“Who is she, Pop?”

“Your ma, Swickey. She talks to me like you hear’n’ the river talkin’ sometimes.”

“She ain’t never talkin’ to me—reckon I be too leetle, ain’t I, Pop?”

“Ya-a-s. But when you git growed up, mebby she’ll talk to ye, Swickey. And if she do, you mind what she’s a-tellin’ you, won’t you, leetle gal?”

“Yes, Pop.” And she looked up at her father appealingly. “But ain’t I never goin’ to see her in my new dress, mebby?” And she smoothed the gingham over her knees with a true feminine hand and a childish consciousness of having on her “good clothes.”

“If God-A’mighty’s willin’, Swickey, we’ll both on us see her some day.”

“Who’s he, Pop? Is he bigger’n you be?”

“Ya-a-s,” he replied gently. “He’s bigger nor your Pop; but why was you askin’ thet?”

“’Cause Jim Cameron, what drives the team, says you be the biggest man that ever come into these here woods.” She paused for breath. “And he said, he did, ‘thet even if you was a old man they warn’t no man he thunk could ever lick you.’” She drew another long breath of anticipation and gazed at her father admiringly. “And mebby you could make God-A’mighty giv my ma back to you.”

“Huh! Jim Cameron said I was a old man, hey? Wal, I reckon I be—reckon I be. But I reckon likewise thet me and you kin git along somehow.” He began to count on his fingers. “Now thar’s the feedin’ of the crews goin’ in to Nine-Fifteen, and feedin’ the strays comin’ out, and the Comp’ny settles the bills. Then thar’s the trappin’, and the snowshoes and buckskin and axe-handles. Oh, I reckon we kin git along. Then thar’s the dinnimite when the drive comes through—”

“What’s dinnimite, Pop?”

Avery ceased his calculating abruptly. He coughed and cleared his throat.

“Wal, Swickey, it’s suthin’ what makes a noise suthin’ like thunder, mebby, and tears holes in things and is mighty pow’ful—actin’ unexpected at times—” He paused for further illustrations, but Swickey had grasped her idea of “dinnimite” from his large free gestures. It was something bigger and stronger than her father.

“Is dinnimite suthin’ like—like God-A’ mighty?” she asked in a timid voice.

“Ya-a-s, Swickey, it are—sometimes—”

So Swickey and her father came to Lost Farm. The river had said “stay,” and according to Swickey’s interpretation had repeated it. They both heard it, the old giant-powder deacon of the lumber company, and his “gal.”

Woodsmen new to the territory had often misjudged him on account of his genial expression and indolent manner, but they soon came to know him for a man of his hands (he bared an arm like the rugged bole of a beech) and a man of his word, and his word was often tipped with caustic wit that burned the conceit of those who foolishly invited his wrath. Yet he would “stake” an outgoing woodsman whose pay-check was inadequate to see him home, and his door was always open to a hungry man, whether he had money or not. He liked “folks,” but he liked them where they belonged, and according to his theory few of them belonged in the woods.

“The woods,” he used to say, “gets the best of most folks. Sets ’em to drinkin’ or talkin’ to ’emselves and then they go crazy. A man’s got to have bottom to live up here. Got to have suthin’ inside of him ’ceptin’ grub and guts—and I ain’t referrin’ to licker nohow—or eddication. When a feller gits to feelin’ as like he was a section of the woods hisself, and wa’n’t lookin’ at a show and knowin’ all the while he was lookin’ at a show; when he kin see the whole works to onct ’thout seein’ things like them funny lights in the sky mornin’s and evenin’s, and misses ’em wuss than his vittles when he be whar they ain’t, then he belongs in the bresh.”

Swickey used to delight in hearing her father hold forth, sometimes to a lone woodsman going out, sometimes to Jim Cameron, the teamster at the “Knoll,” and often to her own wee brown self as she sat close to the big stove in the winter, chin on knees, watching the fleecy masses of snow climb slowly up the cabin windows.

Four summers and four long winters they had lived at Lost Farm, happy in each other’s company and contented with their isolation.

There was but one real difficulty. Swickey’s needlecraft extended little farther than the sewing on of “buttins,” and the mending of tears, and she did need longer skirts. She had all but out-grown those her father had brought from Tramworth (the lumber town down river) last spring, and she had noticed little Jessie Cameron when at the Knoll recently. Jessie, with the critical eye of twelve, had stared hard at Swickey’s sturdy legs, and then at her own new blue frock. Swickey had returned the stare in full and a little over, replying with that juvenile grimace so instinctive to childhood and so disconcertingly unanswerable.

The advent of the bear, and Swickey’s hand in his downfall, offered an opportunity she did not neglect. She had asked her father if he would buy the oil for her before he got the money for it from Jim Cameron. Avery, busy with clearing-up after the men who had arrived that afternoon, said he “reckoned” he could.

“I don’t calc’late to know what’s got into ye. No use in calc’latin’ ’bout wimmen-folks, but I’ll give you the dollar and a half. Mebby you’re goin’ to buy your Pop a new dress-suit, mebby?”

“What’s a dress-suit, Pop?”

“Wal,” he replied, “I ain’t never climb into one, but from what I seen of ’em, it’s a most a’mighty uncumf’table contrapshun, hollered out in front and split up the back so they ain’t nothin’ left but the belly-band and the pants. Makes me feel foolish like to look at em, and I don’t calc’late they’d be jest the best kind of clothes fer trappin’ and huntin’, so I reckon I don’t need any jest now.”

“Huh!” exclaimed Swickey, “I reckon you’re all right jest as you be. Folks don’t look at your legs and grin.”

Avery surveyed himself from the waist down and then looked wonderingly at his daughter. Suddenly his eye twinkled and he slapped his palm on his thigh.

“Wa-al, by the great squealin’ moo-cow, if you ain’t—”

But Swickey vanished through the doorway into the summer night.

CHAPTER III—MUCH ADO ABOUT BEELZEBUB

Fourteen of the fifteen men, who arrived at Avery’s camp that afternoon, came into the woods because they had to. The fifteenth, David Ross, came because he wanted to. Ever since he could read he had dreamed of going into the woods and living with the lumbermen and trappers. His aunt and only living relative, Elizabeth Ross, had discouraged him from leaving the many opportunities made possible by her generosity. She had adopted the boy when his father died, and she had provided for him liberally. When he came of age the modest income which his father’s estate provided was transferred from her care, as a trustee, to him. Then she had offered him his choice of professions, with the understanding that her considerable fortune was to be his at her death. She had hoped to have him with her indefinitely, but his determination to see more of the woods than his summer vacations allowed finally resolved itself into action. He told her one evening that he had “signed up” with the Great Western Lumber Company.

Protests, supplications, arguments were of no avail. He had listened quietly and even smilingly as his aunt pointed out what seemed to her to be the absurdities of the plan. Even a suggested tour of the Continent failed to move him. Finally she made a last appeal.

“If your income isn’t sufficient, Davy, I’ll—”

He interrupted her with a gesture. “I’ve always had enough money,” he replied. “It isn’t that.”

“You’re just like your father, David,” she said. “I suppose I shall have to let you go, but remember there is some one else who will miss you.”

“Miss Bascomb has assured me that we can never agree, on—on certain things, so there is really nothing to keep me here,—except you,” he added in a gentler tone, as he saw the pained look on her kindly old face. “And you just said you would let me go.”

“Would have to let you go, Davy.”

“Well, it’s all the same, isn’t it, Aunt Bess?”

She smiled tearfully at his boyishness. “It seems to be,” she replied. “I am sorry about Bessie—”

The following morning he had appeared at an employment office where “Fisty” Harrigan of the Great Western had “taken him on” as a likely hand, influenced by his level gaze and direct manner. “Fisty” and David Ross promised to become good friends until, during their stay at the last hotel en route to the lumber camp, Harrigan had suggested “a little game wid th’ b’ys,” wherein the “b’ys” were to be relieved of their surplus change.

“They jest t’row it away anyhow,” he continued, as David’s friendly chat changed to a frigid silence. “T’ought you was a sport,” said Harrigan, with an attempt at jocularity.

“That’s just why I don’t play poker with that kind,” replied David, gesturing contemptuously toward the mellow fourteen strung in loose-jointed attitudes along the hotel bar. “I like sport, but I like it straight from the shoulder.”

“You do, hey?” snarled Harrigan, drawing back a clenched fist. Ross looked him full in the eye, calm and unafraid. Fisty’s arm dropped to his side. He tried a new tack. “I was only tryin’ you out, kid, and you’re all right, all right,” he said with oily familiarity.

“Sorry I can’t say the same for you, Harrigan,” replied David. “But I’m going through to the camps. That’s what I came in for. If I don’t go with this crew, I’ll go with another.”

“Forget it and come and have a drink,” said Fisty, trying to hide his anger beneath an assumption of hospitality. He determined to be even with Ross when he had him in camp and practically at his mercy. David declined both propositions and Harrigan moved away muttering.

So it happened that when they arrived at Lost Farm Camp, the last stopping-place until they reached the winter operations of the Company at Nine-Fifteen, Fisty and David were on anything but friendly terms. David’s taciturn aloofness irritated Harrigan, who was not used to having men he hired cross his suggestions or disdain his companionship. When they arose in the morning to Avery’s “Whoo—Halloo” for breakfast, Harrigan was in an unusually sour mood and David’s cheerful “good-morning” aggravated him.

The men felt that there was something wrong between the “boss” and the “green guy,” as they termed David, and breakfast progressed silently. A straw precipitated the impending quarrel.

The kitten Beelzebub, prowling round the table and rubbing against the men’s legs, jumped playfully to Harrigan’s shoulder. Harrigan reached back for him, but the kitten clung to his perch, digging in manfully to hang on. The men laughed uproariously. Fisty, enraged, grabbed the astonished kitten and flung it against the wall. “What’n hell kind of a dump is this—” he began; but Swickey’s rush for her pet and the wail she gave as Beelzebub, limp and silent, refused to move, interrupted him.

Avery turned from the stove and strode toward Harrigan, undoing his long white cook’s apron as he came, but Ross was on his feet and in front of the Irishman in a bound.

“You whelp!” he said, shaking his fist under Harrigan’s nose.

The men arose, dropping knives and forks in their amazement.

Fisty sat dazed for a moment; then his face grew purple.

“You little skunk, I’ll kill you fur this!”

Avery interfered. “If thar’s goin’ to be any killin’ did, promisc’us-like, I reckon it’ll be did out thar,” he said quietly, pointing toward the doorway. “I ain’t calc’latin’ to have things mussed up in here, fur I tend to my own house-cleanin’, understand?”

Ross, who anticipated a “free-for-all,” stood with a chair swung halfway to his shoulder. At Avery’s word, however, he dropped it.

“Sorry, Avery, but I’m not used to that kind of thing,” he said, pointing to Harrigan.

“Like ’nough, like ’nough—I hain’t nuther,” replied Avery conciliatingly. “But don’t you git your dander up any wuss than it be, fur I reckon you got your work cut out keepin’ yourself persentable fur a spell.” He drew Ross to one side. “Fisty ain’t called ‘Fisty’ fur nothin’, but I’ll see to the rest of ’em.”

Harrigan, cursing volubly, went outside, followed by the men. Avery paused to offer a word of advice to Ross.

“He’s a drinkin’ man, and you ain’t, I take it. Wal, lay fur his wind,” he whispered. “Never mind his face. Let him think he’s got you all bruk up ’n’ then let him have it in the stummick, but watch out he don’t use his boots on you.”

Harrigan, blazing with rage, flung his coat from him as Ross came up. The men drew back, whispering as Ross took off his coat, folded it and handed it to Avery. The young man’s cool deliberation impressed them.

Harrigan rushed at Ross, who dropped quickly to one knee as the Irishman’s flail-like swing whistled over his head. Before Harrigan could recover his poise, Ross shot up and drove a clean, straight blow to Harrigan’s stomach. The Irishman grunted and one of the men laughed. He drew back and came on again, both arms going. Ross circled his opponent, avoiding the slow, heavy blows easily.

“Damn you!” panted Harrigan, “stand up and take your dose—”

Ross lashed a quick stinging fist to the other’s face, and jumped back as Harrigan, head down, swung a blow that would have annihilated an ox, had it landed, but David leaped back, and as Harrigan staggered from the force of his own blow, he leaped in again. There was a flash and a thud.

The Irishman wiped the blood from his lips, and shaking his head, charged at Ross as though he would bear him down by sheer weight. Contrary to the expectations of the excited woodsmen, Ross, stooping a little, ran at Harrigan and they met with a sickening crash of blows that made the onlookers groan. Ross staggered away from his opponent, his left arm hanging nervelessly at his side. As Harrigan recovered breath and lunged at him again, Ross circled away rubbing his shoulder.

Harrigan’s swollen lips grinned hideously. “Now, you pup—”

He swung his right arm, and as he did so Avery shouted, “Watch out fur his boots!”

David’s apparently useless left arm shot down as Harrigan drew up his knee and drove his boot at the other’s abdomen. Ross caught Harrigan’s ankle and jerked it toward him. The Irishman crashed to the ground and lay still.

With a deliberation that held the men breathless, Ross strode to the fallen man and stood over him. Harrigan got to his knees.

“Come on, get up!” said Ross.

Harrigan, looking at the white face and gleaming eyes above him, realized that his prestige as a “scrapper” was gone. He thrust out his hand and pushed Ross from him, staggering to his feet. As the trout leaps, so David’s fist shot up and smashed to Harrigan’s chin. The Irishman staggered, his arms groping aimlessly.

“Get him! Get him!” shouted Avery.

Ross took one step forward and swung a blow to Harrigan’s stomach. With the groan of a wounded bull, the Irishman wilted to a gasping bulk of twitching arms and legs.

For a moment the men stood spellbound. Fisty Harrigan, the bulldog of the Great Western, had been whipped by a “green guy”—a city man. They moved toward the prostrate Fisty, looking at him curiously. Ross walked to the chopping-log in the dooryard, and sat down.

“Thought he bruk your arm,” said Avery, coming toward him.

“Never touched it,” replied Ross. “Much obliged for the pointer. He nearly had me, though, that time when we mixed it up.”

One of the men brought water and threw it on Harrigan, who finally got to his feet. Ross jumped from the log and ran to him.

“All right, Harrigan,” he said. “I’m ready to finish the job.”

Harrigan raised a shaking arm and motioned him away.

Ross stepped back and drew his sleeve across his sweating face.

“He’s got his’n,” said Avery. “Didn’t reckon you could do the job, but good men’s like good hosses, you can’t tell ’em until you try ’em out. Wal, you saved me a piece of work, and I thank ye.”

A bully always knows when he is whipped. Fisty was no exception to the rule. He refused Ross’s hand when he had recovered enough breath to refuse anything. Ross laughed easily, and Harrigan turned on him with a curse. “The Great Western’s t’rough wid you, but I ain’t—yet.”

“Well, you want to train for it,” said Ross, pleasantly.

One by one the men shouldered their packs and jogged down the trail, bound for Nine-Fifteen, followed by Harrigan, his usually red face mottled with white blotches and murder in his agate-blue eyes.

David stood watching them.

“So-long, boys,” he called.

“So-long, kid,” they answered.

Harrigan’s quarrel was none of theirs and his reputation as a bruiser had suffered immeasurably. In a moment they were lost to sight in the shadow of the pines bordering the trail.

“Now for the kitten,” said David. “I think he’s only stunned.” He went into the cabin, and much to Avery’s amusement, washed his hands. “A dirty job,” he said, catching the twinkle in the lumberman’s eye.

“A dum’ good job, I take it. Whar you from?”

“Boston.”

“Wal, I seen some mighty queer folks as hailed from Boston, but I don’t recollec’ any jest like you.”

David laughed as he went to the corner and stooped over Swickey, who sat tearfully rocking the limp Beelzebub in her dress.

“What’s his name?” he asked gently.

“Be—el—zebub,” she sobbed.

“Will you let me look at him—just a minute?”

Swickey unrolled her skirt, the kitten tumbled from her knees, turned over, arched his back, and with tail perpendicular shot across the cabin floor and through the doorway as though nothing had happened.

David laughed boyishly.

“He’s got eight of them left, even now.”

“Eight whats left?” queried Swickey, fixing two tearfully wondering eyes on his face.

“Eight lives, you know. Every cat has nine lives.”

Swickey took his word for it without question, possibly because “eight” and “nine” suggested the intricacies of arithmetic. Although little more than a healthy young animal herself, she had instinctively disliked and mistrusted most of the men who came to Lost Farm Camp. But this man was different. He seemed more like her father, in the way he looked at her, and yet he was quite unlike him too.

“That’s a big name for such a little cat,” said David. “Where did he get his name?”

Swickey pondered. “Pop says it’s his name, and I guess Pop knows. The ole cat she run wild in the woods and took Beelzebub ’long with her ’fore he growed up, and Pop ketched him, and he bit Pop’s thumb, and then Pop said thet was his name. He ketched him fur me.”

Just then Avery came in with a pail of water and Swickey set about clearing the table. David, a bit shaken despite his apparently easy manner, strolled out into the sunshine and down the hill to the river. “My chance with the Great Western is gone,” he muttered, “and all on account of a confounded little cat, and called ‘Beelzebub’ at that! Harrigan would fix me now if I went in, that’s certain. Accidents happen in the camps and the victims come out, feet first, or don’t come out at all and no questions asked. No, I’ll have to look for something else. Hang it!” he exclaimed, rubbing his arm, “this being squire of dames and kittens don’t pay.”

Unconsciously he followed the trail down to the dam, across the gorge, and on up the opposite slope. The second-growth maple, birch, and poplar gave place to heavy beech, spruce, and pine as he went on. Presently he was in the thick of a regiment of great spruce trees that stood rigidly at “attention.” The shadows deepened and the small noises of the riverside died away. A turn in the trail and a startled doe faced him, slender-legged, tense with surprise, wide ears pointed forward and nostrils working.

He stopped. The deer, instead of snorting and bounding away, moved deliberately across the trail and into a screen of undergrowth opposite him. David stood motionless. Then from the bushes came a little fawn, timidly, lifting its front feet with quick, jerky motions, but placing them with the instinctive caution of the wild kindred. Scarcely had the fawn appeared when another, smaller and dappled beautifully, followed. Their motions were mechanical, muscles set, as if ready to leap to a wild run in a second.

What unheard, unseen signal the doe gave to her offspring, David never knew, but, as though they had received a terse command, the two fawns wheeled suddenly and bounded up the trail, at the top of which the doe was standing. Three white flags bobbed over the crest and they were gone.

“How on earth did that doe circle to the hillside without my seeing her?” he thought. Then he laughed as he remembered the stiff-legged antics of the fawns as they bounded away, stirring a noisy squirrel to rebuke. On he went, over the crest and down a gentle slope, past giant beeches and yellow birch whose python-like roots crept over the moss and disappeared as though slowly writhing from the sunlight to subterranean fastnesses. Dwarfed and distorted cedars sprung up along the way and he knew he was near water. In a few minutes he stood on the shore of No-Man’s Lake, whose unruffled surface reflected the broad shadow of Timberland Mountain on the opposite shore.

“Well!” he exclaimed, “I suppose it’s time to corral a legion of guide-book adjectives and launch ’em at yonder mass of silver and green glories, but it’s all too big. It calls for silence. A fellow doesn’t gush in a cathedral, unless he doesn’t belong there.” He sat looking over the water for perhaps an hour, contented in the restful vista around him. “I wish Aunt Elizabeth could see this,” he muttered finally. “Then she might understand why I like it. Wonder who owns that strip of land opposite? I’d like to. Great Scott! but my arm’s sore where he poked me.”

A soft tread startled him. He swung round to find Hoss Avery, shod with silent moosehide, a Winchester across his arm, standing a few feet away.

CHAPTER IV—THE COMPACT

“After fresh meat?” asked Ross.

“Nope. Lookin’ fur a man.”

Avery’s good eye closed suggestively and he grinned. Standing his rifle in the crotch of a cedar, he drew a plug of tobacco from his pocket and carefully shaved a pipeful from it. Then he smoked, squatting beside David as he gazed across the lake.

“Purty lake, ain’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” replied David.

“Chuck full of trout—big fellers, too. Ever do any fishin’?”

“A little. I like it.”

“Slithers of deer in thet piece across thar,” pointing with his pipestem to the foot of Timberland Mountain. “Ever do any huntin’?”

“Not much. Been after deer once or twice.”

“Must have been suthin’ behind thet poke you gave Fisty this mornin’, I take it?”

“About one hundred and seventy pounds,” replied David, smiling. Avery chuckled his appreciation. Evidently this young man didn’t “pump” easily.

Puff—puff—“Reckon you never done no trappin’.”

“No, I don’t know the first thing about it.”

Avery was a trifle disconcerted at his companion’s taciturnity. He smoked for a while, covertly studying the other’s face.

“Reckon you’re goin’ back to Tramworth—mebby goin’ to quit the woods, seein’ as you and Fisty ain’t calc’lated to do any hefty amount of handshakin’ fur a while?”

“Yes, I’m going back, to get work of some kind that will keep me up here. I wanted to learn a bit about lumbering. I think I began the wrong way.”

“Don’t jest feel sartain about thet, m’self. Howcome mebby Harrigan do, and he’s boss. He would have put you on swampin’ at one plunk a day and your grub. Reckon thet ain’t turrible big pay fur a eddicated man. They’s ’bout six months’ work and then you git your see-you-later pay-check fur what the supply store ain’t a’ready got.”

“It’s pretty thin picking for some of the boys, I suppose,” said David.

“Huh! Some of ’em’s lucky to have their britches left to come out in.”

“I didn’t expect to get rich at it, but I wanted the experience,” replied David, wondering why Avery seemed so anxious to impress him with the wage aspect of lumbering.

“Don’t calc’late you ever did any spec’latin’, did you?”

“Well, I have done some since I had my fuss with Harrigan this morning.”

Avery tugged at his beard thoughtfully.

“I’m turnin’ a penny onct in a while or frequenter. With the trappin’ winters, feedin’ the crews goin’ in and comin’ out, makin’ axe-handles and snowshoes, and onct in a spell guidin’ some city feller in the fall up to whar he kin dinnimite a moose, I reckon six hundred dollars wouldn’t cover my earnin’s. I could do more trappin’ if I had a partner. Mebby me and him could make nigh on to five hundred a year, and grub.”

“That’s pretty good,—five hundred clear, practically.”

“Ya-a-s.” Avery grunted and stood up, thrusting his pipe in his pocket. “Said I was huntin’ fur a man when you ast me. You’re the man I be huntin’ fur if you want a job bad ’nough to hitch up with me, and Swickey.”

Ross arose and faced him, his surprise evident in the blank expression of his face.

“I’m not out of cash,” he replied.

“Thet ain’t what I ast you fur,” said Avery, a shade of disappointment flickering across his face. “I want a man to help.”

“How much would it cost to outfit?” asked David.

“Wal, I got a hundred and fifty traps, and mebby we could use fifty more, not countin’ dead-falls for b’ar and black-cat. And you sure need a rifle and some blankets and some winter clothes. I figure fifty plunks would fit you out.”

“I didn’t know but that you would want me to put up some cash toward expenses,—provisions, I mean?”

“No,” said Avery. “I reckon you ain’t broke, but thet ain’t makin’ any diff’runce to me.”

“That’s all right, Avery. It wasn’t the expense of outfitting. I simply wanted to know where I would stand if I did accept. But I have no recommendations, no letters—”

“Hell! I guess them two hands of your’n is all the recommendations I want. I’ve fit some m’self and be reckoned a purty fair jedge of hosses, and a man what is a good jedge of hosses knows folks likewise. I ain’t in no hurry fur you to say yes or no.” The old man swung his rifle to the hollow of his arm. “Take your time to think on it, and you kin stay to Lost Farm Camp jest as long as you are wishful. ’Tain’t every day a eddicated man what kin use his hands comes floatin’ into these here woods.”

“Well,” said David, “I’ve decided. There are reasons why I don’t want to go back. It’s a fair offer and I’ll take it.”

“Put her thar!” the huge bony fist of the lumberman closed heavily on David’s hand, but met a grip almost as tense. “Me and you’s partners. Half-and-half share of workin’, eatin’, earnin’s, and fightin’—if there’s any fightin’ to be did. Reckon you’d better go to Tramworth and git fixed up and mebby you calc’late to write to your folks.”

They strode down the trail, Avery in the lead. As they neared the last turn which led them out to the footboard of the dam, he paused.

“My gal Swickey is growin’ up to whar she oughter git larnin’. I sot in to learn her, but she’s always a-squirmin’ out of it by askin’ me things what I can’t answer and then gettin’ riled at her Pa. Now if you could—’thout lettin’ on as you was doin’ it—larn her readin’ and writin’ and sech, I’d be pow’ful glad to pay you extra-like fur it.”

So the cat was out of the bag at last. Avery wanted a teacher for his girl. The old man was willing to take a green hand as partner in trapping and share the proceeds with him for the sake of Swickey’s education. Well, why not?

“I’ll do what I can, Avery.”

“Thet’s the talk. Me and you’ll make a lady of her.”

As they approached the cabin a figure appeared in the doorway and the melodious treble of a girl’s voice rang across the river. She disappeared as Avery’s Triton bellow answered.

“She’s callin’ us fur dinner,” he explained needlessly.

“Did you get anything?” said Swickey, as they entered the cabin.

“He bagged me,” said Ross, laughing.

“Whar’d he bag you?” exclaimed Swickey, solicitously looking at David for visible proof of her father’s somewhat indifferent marksmanship.

“Over on No-Man’s Lake—I think that’s what he called it,” replied David.

“He’s a-goin’ to stay, right along now. I’ve been wantin’ to git a partner to help with the traps fur quite a spell.”

“You ain’t never said nothin’ to me ’bout gettin’ a partner,” said Swickey, her vanity wounded. “You always said I was as good as any two men helpin’ you.”

Avery, a trifle embarrassed at his daughter’s reception of the new partner, maintained an uncomfortable silence while dinner was in progress. He had hoped for delight from her, but she sat stolidly munching her food with conscious indifference to his infrequent sallies.

That evening, after David had gone to bed in the small cabin back of the camp, Avery sat on the porch with his daughter. For a long time she cuddled the kitten, busily turning over in her mind the possibilities of a whole dollar and a half. She had heard her father say that the new man was going to Tramworth in the morning. Perhaps he would be able to get her a dress. A dollar and a half was a whole lot of money. Maybe she could buy Pop some new “specs” with what she had left after purchasing the dress. Or if she had a book, a big one that would tell how to make dresses and everything, maybe that would be better to have. Jessie Cameron could sew doll’s clothes, but her mother had taught her. The fact that Swickey could not read did not occur to her as relevant to the subject. She felt, in a vague way, that the book itself would overcome all obstacles. Yes, she would ask the new man to buy a book for her and “specs” for her Pop. How to accomplish this, unknown to her father, was a problem she set aside with the ease of optimistic childhood, to which nothing is impossible.

“Pop,” she said suddenly.

“Wal?”

“Mebby you kin give me thet dollar-money fur the ile.”

“Ya-a-s,” he drawled, secretly amused at her sudden interest in money and anxious to reinstate himself in her favor. “Ya-a-s, but what you goin’ to do? Buy Pop thet dress-suit, mebby?”

“I reckon not,” she exclaimed with an unexpected show of heat that astonished him. “You said dress-suits made folks ack foolish, and I reckon some folks acks foolish ’nough right in the clothes they has on without reskin’ changin’ ’em.” With this gentle insinuation, she gathered Beelzebub in her arms and marched to her room.

“Gosh-A’mighty but Swickey’s gettin’ tetchy,” he exclaimed, grinning. “Wal, she’s a-goin’ to have a new dress if I have to make it myself.”

When he went into the cabin, he drew a chair to the table and, sitting down, took two silver pieces from his pocket and laid them on Swickey’s plate. He sat for a long time shading his eyes with his hand. He nodded, recovered, nodded again. Then he said quite distinctly, but in the voice of one walking in dreams, “I know it, Nanette. Yes, I know it. I’m doin’ the best I kin—”

He sat up with a start, saw the silver pieces on the plate and picked them up.

“Swickey!” he called, “be you sleepin’?”

“Yes, Pop,” she replied dutifully.

He grinned as he went to her room. As he bent over her she found his head in the dark, and kissed him. “I’m sorry what I said ’bout the clothes, Pop. I don’t want no money-dollar—I jest want you.”

He tucked the money in her hand. “Thar it is. Dollar and a half fur the ile.”

She sighed happily. “I say thanks to my Pop.”

“Good-night, leetle gal.”

She lay awake long after he had left her, turning the coins over in her hot fingers. Presently she slipped from the bed and, drawing the blanket about her, stole softly to the door.

CHAPTER V—A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE

With a soft rush of wings an owl dropped from the interior blackness of the midnight forest and settled on a stub thrust from a dead tree at the edge of the clearing.

Beelzebub, scampering sinuously from clump to clump of the long grass, flattened himself to a shadow as the owl launched silently from the limb, legs pointing downward and curved talons rigid. Wide, shadowy wings darkened the moonlit haze where Beelzebub crouched, tail twitching, and ears laid back. Suddenly he sprang away in long, lithe bounds; a mad patter of feet on the cabin porch and he scrambled to his fastness in the eaves.

Slowly the great bird circled to the limb again, where he sat motionless in the summer night, a silver-and-bronze epitome of melancholy patience.

Below him a leafless clump of branches moved up and down, although there was no breeze stirring. The owl saw but remained motionless. Stealthily the branches moved from beneath the shadow of the trees, and a buck stepped to the clearing, his velvet-sheathed antlers rocking above his graceful neck. Cautiously he lifted a slender foreleg and advanced, muzzle up, scenting the warm night air. Down to the river he went, pausing at times, curiously intent on nothing, then advancing a stride or two until he stood thigh-deep in the stream. Leisurely he waded down shore, lifting a muzzle that dripped silvery beads in the moonlight.

Above him on the slope of the bank a door opened and closed softly. He stiffened and licked his nostrils. With the slight breeze that rippled toward him over the wavering grasses, he turned and plunged toward the shore, whirling into a dusky cavern of tangled cedars. With a swishing of branches he was gone.

“Ding thet deer,” said Swickey, as she hesitated on the cabin porch. She listened intently. Sonorous and regular strains from her father’s room assured her that he had not been disturbed.

She stepped carefully along the porch and into the dew-heavy grass, gathering the blanket closely about her. Beelzebub’s curiosity overcame his recent scare and he clambered hastily from his retreat, tail foremost, dropping quickly to the ground. Here was big game to stalk; besides, the figure was reassuringly familiar despite its disguise. The trailing end of the blanket bobbed over the hummocks invitingly.

“Ouch! Beelzebub, you stop scratchin’ my legs!” Swickey raised a threatening forefinger and the kitten rollicked away in a wide circle. She took another step. Stealthily the kitten crept after her. What live, healthy young cat could resist the temptation to catch that teasing blanket end? He pounced on it and it slipped from her nervous fingers and slid to the ground, leaving her lithe, brown young body bathed in the soft light of the summer moon. She dropped to her knees and extracted Beelzebub from the muffling folds. Then she administered a spanking that sent him scampering to his retreat in the eaves, where he peeked at her saucily, his wide round eyes iridescent with mischief. She gathered the blanket about her and resumed her journey, innocently thankful in every tense nerve that the cabin in which David Ross slept was on the other side of the camp. Patiently she continued on her way, keeping a watchful eye on Beelzebub’s possible whereabouts until she arrived at the smallest of the three buildings. She took the silver pieces from her mouth, where she had placed them for safe-keeping while admonishing the kitten, and rapped on the pane of the open window.

David Ross had found it impossible to sleep during the early hours of the night. The intense quiet, acting as a stimulant to his overwrought nerves, tuned his senses to an expectant pitch, magnifying the slightest sound to a suggestiveness that was absurdly irritating. The roar of the rapids came to him in rhythmic beats that pulsed faintly in his ears, keeping time with his breathing. A wood-tick gnawed its blind way through the dry-rot of a timber, T-chick—T-chick—T-chick—It stopped and he listened for it to resume its dreary progress. From the river came the sound of some one or something wading in the shallows. Each little noise of the night seemed to float on the undercurrent of that deep hum-m-m of the rapids, submerged in its heavier note at times, at times tossed above it, distinctly audible, always following the rushing waters but never entirely lost beyond hearing. Finally, he imagined the river to be a great muffled wheel turning round and round, and the sounds that lifted from its turning became visible as his eyes closed heavily. They were tangible annoyances, imps in stagged trousers and imps in calico dresses. The imps danced away to the forest and the dream-wheel of the river stopped abruptly. So abruptly that its great iron tire flew jangling across the rocks and fell a thousand miles away with a faint clink, clink, clink.

He sat up in bed listening. Clink, clink. He went to the window, leaned out, and gazed directly down into the dusky face of Swickey.

Without preamble she began.

“I shot a b’ar yest’day.”

“You did! Well, that’s pretty good for a girl.”

“My Pop guv me the money fur the ile.”

“Yes, but why did you come out to-night to tell me? Aren’t you afraid?”

“Afraid of what?” she asked, with an innocence that despite itself was ironical.

“That’s so. There’s nothing to be afraid of, is there?”

She hesitated, drawing the blanket closer about her.

“Nothin’—’cept you.”

“Afraid of me? Why, that’s funny.”

“I was sca’d you’d laugh at me.” Then she whispered, “I dassent tetch my clothes, ’cause Pop would have waked up, so I jest put on this, and come.”

“That’s all right, Swickey. I’m not going to laugh.”

“I say thanks fur thet.”

Such intensely childish relief and gratitude as her tone conveyed, caused David to feel a sense of shame for having even smiled at her pathetically ridiculous figure. He waited for her to continue. Reassured by his grave acceptance of her confidence, she unburdened her heart, speaking with hesitant deliberation and watching his face with a sensitive alertness for the first sign of ridicule.

“You’re goin’ to Tramworth in the mornin’, ain’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I reckon you could buy me a book if I guv the money-dollar fur it?”

“A book! What kind of a book, Swickey?”

“Big as you kin git fur this,” she said, thrusting the moist dollar into his hand; “a book what tells everything, to sew on buttins and make clothes and readin’ and writin’ and to count ca’tridges fur a hun’red—and everything!”

“Oh, I see!” His voice was paternally gentle. “Well, I’ll try to get one like that.”

“And a pair of ‘specs’”—she hesitated as his white, even teeth gleamed in the moonlight—“fur Pop,” she added hurriedly.

“All right, Swickey, but I—”

“His’n don’t work right.”

“But I don’t just know what kind of ‘specs’ your father needs. There are lots of different kinds, you know.”

Her heart fell. So this man with “larnin’”—his man who could fight Fisty Harrigans and make dead kittens come alive and jump right up, didn’t know about “specs.” Why, her Pop knew all about them. He had said his didn’t work right.

The troubled look quickly vanished from her face, however, as a tremendous inspiration lifted her over this unexpected difficulty.

“Git ‘specs,’” she whispered eagerly, “what Pop kin skin a b’ar with ’thout cuttin’ his hand.” There! what more was necessary except the other silver piece, which she handed to David with trembling fingers as he assured her he would get “just that kind.” In her excitement the coin slipped and fell jingling to the cabin floor.

“I—beg—your—pardon.”

She had heard David say that and had memorized it that afternoon in the seclusion of the empty kitchen, with Beelzebub as the indifferent object of her apology. She cherished the speech as a treasure of “larnin’” to be used at the first opportunity. Ross missed the significance of her politeness, although he appreciated it as something unusual under the circumstances.

“You won’t tell Pop?” she asked appealingly.

“No, I won’t tell him.”

She retraced her steps toward the main camp, bankrupt in that her suddenly acquired wealth was gone, but rich in the anticipated joy that her purchases would bring to her father and herself accurate eyesight and “book-larnin’.”

David wanted to laugh, but something deeper than laughter held him gazing out of the window, across the cabin roofs to where the moon was rocking in the haze of the tree-tops on the distant hills. Long after she had regained her bedroom and crept hurriedly beneath the blanket to fall asleep and dream of Beelzebubs wearing bright new “specs” and chasing little girls across endless stretches of moonlight, he was still gazing out of the window, thinking of his little friend and her trust.

CHAPTER VI—TRAMWORTH

David was awakened by the sound of chopping. He arose and dressed sleepily. After a brisk ablution at the river’s edge he came up the hill, where he found Avery making firewood.

“Mornin’. Skeeters bother you some?”

“Guess I was too sleepy to notice them,” replied David.

He watched the old man swing the axe, admiring his robust vigor. Then he stooped and gathered an armful of wood. As he lugged it to the kitchen, Avery muttered, “He’s a-goin’ to take holt. I have noticed folks as is a-goin’ to take holt don’t wait to ask how to commence.”

“Where’s Swickey?” said David, as he came for more wood.

“Up to the spring yonder.”

David was about to speak, but thought better of it. When he had filled the wood-box he started for the spring.

“He’s a-goin’ to spile thet gal, sure as eggs,” said the old man, pausing to watch David.

But he whistled cheerfully as he moved toward the cabin. Presently the rattling of pans and a thin shaft of blue smoke from the chimney, a sizzling and spluttering and finally an appetizing odor, announced the preparation of breakfast.

“If they don’t come purty quick,” said Avery, as he came to the doorway and looked toward the spring path, “they’ll be nothin’ left but the smell and what me and Beelzebub can’t eat.”

As he turned to go in, David and Swickey appeared, both laughing. He was carrying both water-pails and she was skipping ahead of him.

“Pop, we seen some fresh b’ar tracks nigh the spring.”

“You did, hey?”

“Yip. Big uns. We follered ’em for a spell, goin’ back into the swamp.”

“Huh! Was you calc’latin’ to bring him back alive, mebby?”

Swickey disdained to answer. Her prestige as a bear hunter was not to be discounted with such levity.

After breakfast Avery tilted his chair against the wall and smoked. David laughingly offered to help Swickey with the dishes. He rolled up his sleeves, and went at it, much to her secret amusement and proud satisfaction. Evidently “city-folks” were not all of them “stuck-up donothin’s,” as Mrs. Cameron had once given her to understand, even, thought Swickey, if they didn’t know how to drain the rinsing-water off.

“When you get to the Knoll,” said Avery, addressing David, “Jim Cameron will hitch up and take you to Tramworth. Like as not he’ll ask you questions so long’s he’s got any breath left to ask ’em. Folks calls him ‘Curious Jim,’ and he do be as curious as a old hen tryin’ to see into a jug. But you jest say you’re outfittin’ fur me. That’ll make him hoppin’ to find out what’s a-doin’ up here. I be partic’lar set on havin’ Jim come up here with the team. I got ’bout fifty axe-helves fur him. He’s been goin’ to tote ’em to Tramworth and sell ’em fur me sence spring. If he thinks he kin find out suthin’ by comin’ back to-night he’ll make it in one trip and not onhitch at the Knoll and fetch you up in the mornin’. If he did thet he’d charge us fur stablin’ his own team in his own stable, and likewise fur your grub and his’n. It’s Jim’s reg’lar way of doin’ business. Now I figure them axe-handles will jest about cover the cost of the trip if he makes her in one haul, and from what I know of Jim, he’ll snake you back lively, wonderin’ what Hoss Avery’s up to this time.”

“I’ll hold him off,” said David, secretly amused at his new partner’s shrewdness.

David departed shortly afterward, striking briskly down the shady morning trail toward the Knoll, some ten miles below. It was noon when he reached Cameron’s camp, a collection of weathered buildings that had been apparently erected at haphazard on the hillside.

Cameron was openly surprised to see him.

“Thought you went into Nine-Fifteen with Harrigan’s bunch?”

“No! I was headed that way, but Harrigan and I had a misunderstanding.”

Curious Jim was immediately interested.

“Goin’ back—goin’ to quit?”

“I have quit the Great Western. I’m going to Tramworth to get a few things.” He delivered Avery’s message, adding that the old man seemed particularly anxious to have the proposed purchases that night. “There’s some of the stuff he declares he must have to-night,” said David, “although I don’t just understand why.”

“Short of grub?” asked Jim.

“By Jove, that may be it! He did tell me to get a keg of molasses.”

Cameron sniffed as he departed to harness the team. “Molasses! Huh! They’s somethin’ deeper than molasses in Hoss Avery’s mind and that city feller he’s in it. So Hoss thinks he can fool Jim Cameron. Well, I guess not! Sendin’ me a message like that.”

He worked himself into a state of curiosity that resulted in a determination to solve the imaginary riddle, even if its solution entailed spending the night at Lost Farm.

“You ain’t had no dinner, have you?” he asked as he reappeared.

“No, I haven’t,” replied David. “But I can wait till we get to town.”

“Mebby you kin, but you ain’t a-goin’ to. You come in and feed up. My missus is to Tramworth, but I’ll fix up somethin’.”

After dinner, as they jolted over the “tote-road” in the groaning wagon, Cameron asked David if he intended to stay in for the winter.

“Yes, I do,” he replied.

“Sort of lookin’ around—goin’ to buy up a piece of timber, hey?”

“No. Avery offered me a job and I took it.”

“Huh!” Curious Jim carefully flicked a fly from the horse’s back. “You’re from Boston?”

“Yes.”

Curious Jim was silent for some time. Suddenly he turned as though about to offer an original suggestion.

“Railroads is funny things, ain’t they?”

“Sometimes they are.”

Jim was a bit discouraged. The new man didn’t seem to be much of a talker.

“Hoss Avery’s a mighty pecooliar man,” he ventured.

“Is he?” David’s tone conveyed innocent surprise.

“Not sayin’ he ain’t straight enough—but he’s queer, mighty queer.”

Ross offered no comment. Tediously the big horses plodded along the uneven road. The jolting of the wagon was accentuated as they crossed a corduroyed swamp.

“I think I’ll walk,” said David, springing from the seat.

“That settles it,” thought Cameron. “He don’t want to talk. He’s afeared I’ll find out somethin’, but he don’t know Jim Cameron.”

The desolate outskirts of Tramworth, encroaching on the freshness of the summer forest, finally resolved themselves into a fairly level wagon-road. Cameron drew up and David mounted beside him.

“Reckon you want Sikes’s hardware store first.” said Jim.

“No. I think I’ll go to the hotel. You can put up the horses. I’ll get what I want and we’ll call for it on the way back.”

At the hotel Cameron accepted his dismissal silently. When he returned from stabling the team he noticed David was standing on the walk in front of the hotel, apparently in doubt as to where he wanted to go first.

“Do you know where there is a dressmaker’s shop,” he asked.

“Dressmaker’s shop?” Cameron scratched his head. “Well—now—let’s see. Dressmaker’s sh—They’s Miss Wilkins’s place round the corner,” he said, pointing down the street.

“Thank you,” said Ross, starting off in the opposite direction.

Cameron’s curiosity was working at a pressure that only the sympathy of some equally interested person could relieve, and to that end he set out toward his brother’s where Mrs. Cameron was visiting. There he had the satisfaction of immediate and attentive sympathy from his good wife, whose chief interest in life, beside “her Jim,” and their daughter Jessie, was the receiving and promulgating of local gossip, to which she added a measure of speculative embellishment which was the real romance of her isolated existence.

After purchasing blankets, a rifle, ammunition, traps, and moccasins at the hardware store, David turned to more exacting duties. The book and the “specs” next occupied his attention. With considerable elation he discovered a shop-worn copy of “Robinson Crusoe,” and paid a dollar for it with a cheerful disregard of the fact that he had once purchased that identical edition for fifty cents.

He found an appalling variety of “specs” at the drug store, and bought six pairs of various degrees of strength, much to the amazement of the proprietor, who was uncertain as to whether his customer was a purchasing agent for an Old Ladies’ Home, or was merely “stocking-up” for his old age.

“Haven’t crossed the Rubicon yet,” muttered David, as he left the drug store and proceeded to the dry-goods “emporium.” Here he chose some mild-patterned ginghams, with Avery’s whispered injunction in mind to get ’em plenty long enough anyhow.

With the bundle of cloth tucked under his arm, he strode valiantly to the dressmaker’s. The bell on the door jingled a disconcerting length of time after he had entered. He felt as though his errand was being heralded to the skies. From an inner room came a pale, dark-haired little woman, threads and shreds of cloth clinging to her black apron.

“This is Miss—er—”

“Wilkins,” she snapped.

“I understand you are the most competent dressmaker in Tramworth.”

Which was unquestionably true. Tramworth supported but one establishment of the kind.

“I certainly am.”

“Well, Miss Wilkins, I want to get two dresses made. Nothing elaborate. Just plain sensible frocks for a little girl.” He gained courage as he proceeded. An inspiration came. “You don’t happen to have a—er—niece, or daughter, or”—Miss Wilkins’s expression was not reassuring—“or aunt, say about fourteen years old. That is, she is a big girl for fourteen—and I want them long enough. Her father says, that is—”

“Who are they for?” she asked frigidly.

“Why, Swickey, of course—”

“Of course!” replied Miss Wilkins.

David untied the bundle and disclosed the cloth.

“Here it is. I’m not—exactly experienced in this kind of thing.” He smiled gravely. “I thought perhaps you could help me—”

Miss Wilkins was a woman before she became a dressmaker. She did what the real woman always does when appealed to, which is to help the male animal out of difficulties when the male animal sincerely needs assistance.

“Oh, I see! No, I haven’t a niece or daughter, or even an aunt of fourteen years, but I have some patterns for fourteen-year-old sizes.”

“Thank God!” said David, so fervently that they both laughed.

“And I think I know what you want,” she continued.

He fumbled in his pocket and brought out a bill.

“I’ll pay you now,” he said, proffering a five-dollar note, “and I’ll call for them in about three hours. There’s to be two of them, you know. One from this pattern and one from this.”

“Oh, but I couldn’t make one in three hours! I really can’t have them done before to-morrow night.”

David did some mental arithmetic rapidly.

“What is your charge for making them?” he asked.

She hesitated, looking at him as he stood, hat in hand, waiting her reply.

“Two dollars each,” she said, her eyes fixed on his hat.

The males of Tramworth were not always uncovered in her presence, when they did accompany their wives to her shop.

“I have to leave for Lost Farm at five o’clock, Miss Wilkins. If you can have one of the dresses done by that time, I’ll gladly give you four dollars for it.”

“I’ve got a hat to trim for Miss Smeaton, and a dress for Miss Sikes and she wants it to-morrow—but, I’ll try.”

“Thank you,” replied David, depositing the cloth on the counter and opening the door; “I’ll call for it at five.”

From there he went toward the hotel, where he intended to write a letter or two. As he turned the corner some one called:—

“Ross! I say, Ross!”

Startled by the familiarity of the tone rather than by the suddenness of the call, he looked about him in every direction but the right one.

“Hello, Davy!”

The round face and owlish, spectacled eyes of “Wallie” Bascomb, son of the Walter Bascomb, of the Bernard, White & Bascomb Construction Company of Boston, protruded from the second-story window of the hotel opposite.

“Come on up, Davy. I just fell out of bed.”

The face withdrew, and David crossed the street, entered the hotel, and clattered up the uncarpeted stairs.

“Hey! where are you, Wallie?”

A door opened in the corridor. Bascomb, in scanty attire, greeted him.

“Softly, my Romeo. Thy Juliet is not fully attired to receive. Shut the door, dear saint, the air blows chill.”

They shook hands, eyeing each other quizzically. A big, white English bull-terrier uncurled himself and dropped from the foot of the bed to the floor.

“Hello, Smoke! Haven’t forgotten me, have you?”

The terrier sniffed at David and wagged his tail in grave recognition. Then he climbed back to his couch on the tumbled blankets.

“Now,” said Bascomb, searching among his scattered effects for the toothbrush he held in his hand, “tell Uncle Walt, why, thus disguised, you pace the pensive byways of this ignoble burg?”

“Outfitting,” said David.

“Brief, and to the point, my Romeo.”

“For the winter,” added David.

“Quite explicit, Davy. You’re the same old clam—eloquent, interestingly communicative.”

David laughed. “What are you doing up here? I supposed you were snug in the office directing affairs in the absence of your father.”

“Oh, the pater’s back again. I guess the speed-limit in Baden Baden was too slow for him. He’s building the new road, you know, N. M. & Q. Your Uncle Wallie is on the preliminary survey. Devil of a job, too.”

“Oh, yes. I heard about it. It’s going to be a big thing.”

“Yes,” said Bascomb, peering with short-sighted eyes into the dim glass as he adjusted his tie, “it may be a big thing if I”—striking an attitude and thumping his chest—“don’t break my neck or die of starvation. Camp cooking, Davy—whew! Say, Davy, I’m the Christopher Columbus of this expedition, I am, and I’ll get just about as much thanks for my stake-driving and exploring as he did.”

Bascomb kicked an open suit-case out of his way and a fresh, crackling blue-print sprang open on the floor.

“That’s it. Here we are,” he said, spreading the blue-print on the bed, “straight north from Tramworth, along the river. Then we cross here at Lost Farm, as they call it. Say, there’s a canny old crab lives up there that holds the shell-back record for grouch. Last spring, when we were working up that way and I took a hand at driving stakes, just to ease my conscience, you know, along comes that old whiskered Cyclops with a big Winchester on his shoulder. I smelled trouble plainer than hot asphalt.

“‘Campin’?’ he asked.

“‘No,’ I said. ‘Just making a few dents in the ground. A kind of air-line sketch of the new road—N. M. & Q.’

“‘Uhuh!’ he grunted. ‘Suppose the new rud ’s a-comin’ plumb through here, ain’t it?’

“‘Right-o,’ said I.

“I guess he didn’t just cotton to the idea. Anyway he told me I could stop driving ‘them stakes’ on his land. I told him I’d like to accommodate him, but circumstances made it necessary to peg in a few more for the ultimate benefit of the public. Well, that old geyser straightened up, and so did I, for that matter.

“‘Drive another one of them,’ he said, pointing to the stake between my feet, ‘and I reckon you’ll pull it out with your teeth.’”

Bascomb lit a cigarette and puffed reflectively. “Well, I never was much on mumble-the-peg, so I quit. The old chap looked too healthy to contradict.”

David sat on the edge of the bed rubbing the dog’s ears.

Bascomb observed him thoughtfully.

“Say, Davy, I don’t suppose you want to keep Smoke for a while, do you? He’s no end of bother in camp. He has it in for the cook and it keeps me busy watching him.”

“The cook? That’s unnatural for a dog, isn’t it?”

“Well, you see our aboriginal chef don’t like dogs, and Smoke knows it. Besides, he once gave Smoke a deer-shank stuffed with lard and red-pepper, regular log-roller’s joke, and since then his legs aren’t worth insuring—the cook’s, I mean. You used to be quite chummy with Smoke, before you dropped out of the game.”

“I’ll take him, if he’ll come,” said David. “Just what I want, this winter. He’ll be lots of company. That is, if you mean it—if you’re serious.”

“As serious as a Scotch dominie eating oysters, Davy mon.”

“Won’t Smoke make a fuss, though?”

“Not if I tell him to go. Oh, you needn’t grin. See here.” Bascomb called the dog to him, and taking the wide jaws between his hands he spoke quietly. “Smoke,” he said, “I’m going to leave you with Davy. He is a chaste and upright young man, so far as I ken. Quite suitable as a companion for you. You stick to him and do as he says. Look after him, for he needs looking after. And don’t you leave him till I come for you, sir! Now, go and shake hands on it.”

The dog strode to David and raised a muscular foreleg. Laughing, David seized it and shook it vigorously.

“It’s a bargain, Smoke.”

The terrier walked to Bascomb, sniffed at his knees and then returned to David, but his narrow eyes moved continually with Bascomb’s nervous tread back and forth across the room.

“What’s on your mind, Wallie?”

“Oh, mud—mostly. Dirt, earth, land, real-estate; but don’t mind me. I was just concocting a letter to the pater. Say, Davy, you don’t want a job, do you? You know some law and enough about land deals, to—to cook ’em up so they won’t smell too strong, don’t you?”

“That depends, Walt.”

“Well, the deal I have in mind depends, all right. It’s hung up—high. It’s this way. That strip of timber on the other side of No-Man’s Lake, up Lost Farm way, has never seen an axe nor a cross-cut saw. There’s pine there that a friend of mine says is ready money for the chap that corrals it. I wrote the pater and he likes the idea of buying it out and out and holding on till the railroad makes it marketable. And the road is going plumb through one end of it. Besides, the pater’s on the N. M. & Q. Board of Directors. When the road buys the right-of-way through that strip, there’ll be money in it for the owner. I’ve been after it on the Q.T., but the irate gentleman with the one lamp, who held me up on the survey, said that ‘if it was worth sellin’, by Godfrey, it was worth keepin’.’ I showed him a certified check that would seduce an angel, but he didn’t shed a whisker. My commission would have kept me in Paris for a year.” Bascomb sighed lugubriously. “Do you want to tackle it, Davy?”

“Thanks for the chance, Wallie, but I’m engaged for the winter, at least.”

“Congratulations, old man. It’s much more convenient that way,—short-term sentence, you know,—if the young lady doesn’t object.”

Bascomb’s banter was apparently innocent of insinuation, although he knew that his sister had recently broken her engagement with David.

If the latter was annoyed at his friend’s chaff, he made no show of it as he stood up and looked at his watch.

“That reminds me, Wallie. I’m due at the dressmaker’s in about three minutes. Had no idea it was so late.”

“Dressmaker’s! See here, Davy, your Jonathan is miffed. Here I’ve been scouring this town for anything that looked like a real skirt and didn’t walk like a bag of onions or a pair of shears, and you’ve gone and found one.”

“That’s right,” said David, “but it was under orders, not an original inspiration.”

“Hear that, Smoke! Davy’ll bear watching up here.”

“Come on, Wallie. It’s only a block distant.”

“All right, Mephisto. Lead on. I want to see the face that launched a thousand—what’s the rest of it?” said Bascomb, as they filed down the stairs.

As they entered the little shop round the corner, Wallie assumed a rapturous expression as he gazed at the garishly plumed hats in the window.

“Might have known where to look for something choice,” he remarked. “Now, that hat with the green ribbon and the pink plume is what I call classy, eh, Davy?”

They entered the shop and presently Miss Wilkins appeared with the new gingham on her arm.

“I just managed to do it,” she said, displaying the frock from ingrained habit rather than for criticism.

“Isn’t it a bit short?” asked Bascomb, glancing from her to David.

Miss Wilkins frowned. Bascomb’s countenance expressed nothing but polite interest.

David was preternaturally solemn.

“Don’t mind him, Miss Wilkins. He’s only a surveyor and don’t understand these things at all.”

“Only a surveyor!” muttered Bascomb. “Oh, mother, pin a rose on me.”

He walked about the shop inspecting the hats with apparent interest while the dressmaker folded and tied up the frock. When they had left the place and were strolling up the street, Bascomb took occasion to ask David how long he had been “a squire of suburban sirens.”

“Ever since I came in,” replied David cheerfully.

“Is the to-be-ginghamed the real peaches and cream or just the ordinary red-apple sort?”

“Neither,” replied his friend. “She’s fourteen and she’s the daughter of your up-country friend the Cyclops, or, to be accurate, Hoss Avery.”

“Oh, Heavings, Davy! But she must be a siren child to have such an intelligent purchasing agent in her employ.”

David did not reply, as he was engaged at that moment in waving the parcel containing the dress round his head in a startling, careless manner.

“Easy with the lingerie, Davy dear. Oh, it’s Cameron you’re flagging—Curious Jim—do you know him?”

“Distantly,” replied David smilingly.

“Correct, my son. So do I.”

Cameron acknowledged the signal by hurrying to the rear of the hotel. In a few minutes he appeared on the wagon, which he drove to the store, and David’s purchases were carefully stowed beneath the seat.

“Where’ll I put this?” said Cameron, surreptitiously squeezing the parcel containing the dress.

“Oh, the lingerie,” volunteered Bascomb. “Put that somewhere where it won’t get broken.”

“The which?” asked Curious Jim, standing astride the seat.

“Lingerie, Jim. It’s precious.”

“How about Smoke?” David turned toward Bascomb.

“I’ll fix that,” said Wallie, calling the dog to him. “Up you go, old fellow. Now, you needn’t look at me like that. Great Scott! I’m not going to sell you—only lend you to Davy.”

The dog drew back and sprang into the wagon. It was a magnificent leap and Cameron expressed his admiration earnestly.

“Whew!” he exclaimed, “he’s whalebone and steel springs, ain’t he? Wisht I owned him!”

“Well, so-long, Davy.” Bascomb held out his hand. “Oh, by the way, I suppose the reason for your advent in this community is—back in Boston wondering where you are, isn’t she?”

David laid a friendly hand on the other’s shoulder.

“Wallie,” he said, speaking low enough to be unheard by the teamster, “you mean right, and I understand it, but it was a mistake from the first. My mistake, not Bessie’s. Fortunately we found it out before it was too late.”

Bascomb was silent.

“And there’s one more thing I wanted to say. Avery of Lost Farm is my partner. I should have told you that before, but you went at your story hammer-and-tongs, before I could get a word in. I’m going to advise him, as a business partner, to hold up his price for the tract.”

Bascomb’s eyes narrowed and an expression, which David had seen frequently on the face of the elder Bascomb, tightened the lips of the son to lines unpleasantly suggestive of the “market.”

“It’s honest enough, Davy, I understand that, but don’t you think it’s a trifle raw, under the circumstance?”

“Perhaps it is, but I should have done the same in any event.”

Bascomb bit his lips. “All right. A conscience is an incumbrance at times. Well, good-bye. I’ll be up that way in a few weeks, perhaps sooner.”

With a gesture of farewell, David climbed into the wagon.

Smoke stood with forepaws on the seat, watching his master. When he could no longer see him, he came solemnly to David’s feet and curled down among the bundles. He, good soldier, had received his captain’s command and obeyed unhesitatingly. This man-thing, that he remembered vaguely, was his new master now.

In the mean time Bascomb was in his room scribbling a hasty note to his father. He was about to seal it when he hesitated, withdrew it from the envelope, and added a postscript:—

“I don’t think Davy Ross knows why we want Lost Farm tract, but I’ll keep an eye on him, and close the deal at the first opportunity.”

CHAPTER VII—THE BOOK AND THE “SPECS”

The wavering image of the overhanging forest was fading in the somnolent, foam-dappled eddies circling lazily past Lost Farm Camp when Jim Cameron’s team, collars creaking and traces clinking, topped the ridge and plodded heavily across the clearing. Smoke swayed to the pitch and jolt of the wagon, head up and nose working with the scent of a new habitation. As the horses stopped, David and Smoke leaped down. Beelzebub immediately scrambled to his citadel in the eaves, where he ruffled to fighting size, making small unfriendly noises as he walked along the roof, peering curiously over the edge at the broad back of the bull-terrier. Cameron unhitched the team leisurely, regretting the necessity for having to stable them out of earshot from the cabin. “I’ll find out what a ‘loungeree’ is or bust,” he confided to the horses, as he whisked the rustling hay from mow to manger.

“We been keepin’ supper fur you,” said Avery, as David came in, laden with bundles. “Set right down. Jim won’t keep you waitin’ long if he’s in his reg’lar health. But where, this side of the New Jerusalem, did you git the dog?”

“That’s Smoke. Here, Smoke, come and be introduced.”

The dog allowed Swickey and her father to pat him, but made no overtures toward friendship. Avery eyed the animal critically.

“He’s a born fighter. Kin tell it by the way he don’t wag his tail at everything goin’ on. Likewise he don’t make up to be friends in a hurry, like some dogs, and folks.”

“I hope he won’t bother Beelzebub,” said David, as Smoke, mouth open and tongue lolling, watched the kitten peek at him from the doorway.

“They’ll be shakin’ hands afore long,” said Avery. “Thet cat’s got spunk and he ain’t afraid of nothin’ reason’ble, but he ain’t seen no dogs yit. He’ll get sorter used to him, though.”

When Cameron came in he glanced at the end of the table. None of the bundles had been opened. He ambled out to the wash-bench and made a perfunctory ablution. Judging by the sounds of spouting and blowing which accompanied his efforts, he was not far from that state of godliness which soap and water are supposed to encourage, but the roller-towel, which he patronized generously, hung in the glare of the lamp, its limp and gloomy folds suggesting that nothing remained for it but kindly oblivion. In fact, David, who succeeded Cameron at the wash-basin, gazed at the towel with pensive interrogation, illumined by a smile as hand over hand he pulled it round and round the creaking roller, seeking vainly for an unstaked claim.

Supper over, the men moved out to the porch and smoked. Swickey, busy with the dishes, glanced frequently at the bundles on the table, wondering which one contained her precious book and the “specs fur Pop.” The dishes were put away hurriedly and she came out and joined the men.

“Now, Swickey,” said her father, “you jest tell Jim how you shot the ba’r. Me and Dave’s got them things to put away and you kin keep Jim comp’ny.”

Swickey, fearing that she would miss the opening of the bundles, gave Cameron a somewhat curtailed account of her first bear hunt, and Cameron, equally solicitous about a certain mysterious package, listened with a vacant gaze fixed on the toe of his dusty boot.

In the cabin David and Avery were inspecting the purchases.

“Glad you got a .45,” he said, handling the new rifle. “They ain’t no use diddlin’ around with them small bores. When you loose a .45 at anything and you hit it, they’s suthin’ goin’ to happen direct. But did you get the dresses?”

“Only one,” replied David. “The other will be ready for us the next time we go to Tramworth. But I want to talk business with you. I met a friend to-day,—a Mr. Bascomb of the new railroad survey.”

Avery hitched his chair nearer.

“You don’t say?” he exclaimed a few minutes later. “Wal, it’s ’bout what I figured, but I can’t make out jest why they’s so mighty pa’tic’lar to get the whole piece of land. You see, if they ain’t suthin’ behind it, land up here ain’t wuth thet money, mine or anybody else’s.”

Cameron came in and took down the drinking-dipper. Over its rim he surveyed the table. The bundles were still unopened. With an expression of disgust he walked to the door and threw half the contents of the dipper on the grass. Then he sat down beside Swickey, moodily silent and glum.

Again he arose and approached the dipper. Still the partners were talking in guarded tones. He drank sparingly and returned the dipper to its nail. The parcels were as he had seen them before.

“Drivin’ team makes a man pow’ful thirsty, eh, Jim?”

“That’s what,” replied Cameron. “’Sides, they’s a skunk prowlin’ round out there,” he added, pointing through the doorway, “and a skunk jest sets my stomach bilin’.”

“Thought I smelled suthin’,” said Avery, with a shrewd glance at the teamster.

“Skunks is pecooliar things,” said Cameron, endeavoring to prolong the conversation.

“Thet’s what they be,” said Avery, turning toward David.

“Them ‘loungerees’ is pecooliar actin’ things, too, ain’t they?” said Cameron.

The old man rose to the occasion superbly, albeit not altogether familiar with the species of animal so called.

“Yes, they be,” he remarked decisively. “I et one onct and it liked to kill me. Reckon it hung too long afore it was biled.”

David had immediate recourse to the drink-dipper. The cough which followed sounded suspiciously like a strangled laugh to Cameron’s sensitive ears.

“Huh!” he exclaimed, with some degree of sarcasm; “sounds as if he’d et one hisself to-day.”

He sat down, filled his pipe and smoked, feeling that if he was not entitled to their confidence he was at least entitled to their society. Presently his pipe fell to the floor as his head nodded in slumber.

“Guess I’ll turn in, Hoss,” he remarked, recovering the pipe and yawning abysmally.

“I fixed up the leetle cabin fur you,” replied Avery. “I’ll go ’long out and onlock it. Keep it locked account of skunks comin’ in and makin’ themselves to home.”

As the teamster and Avery went out, Swickey ran to David. “Where be they?” she whispered. “Quick! afore Pop comes!”

He pointed to the package. She broke the string and whisked off the paper. She opened the book, unfortunately for her first impression, at a picture of the “Man Friday,” clothed with “nothing much before and a little less than half of that behind.” A shade of disappointment crossed her eager face. Evidently there were rudiments to master, even in dressmaking. But it was her book. She had earned it, and her face glowed again with the buoyant rapture of childhood as she clasped the volume to her breast and marched to her room. She dropped it quickly on the bed, however, and returned. “I ’most forgot the ‘specs,’” she said self-accusingly. She untied the smaller package and drew them out, “one, two, three, four,” six pair of glittering new glasses. Evidently the potency of money was unlimited. She laid them down, one at a time, after vainly endeavoring to see through them.

“WHERE BE THEY?” SHE WHISPERED

“Your father’s eyes are different,” explained David.

She danced gleefully across the room and back again. Smoke followed her with deliberate strides. He knew they were to be the friends of that establishment. She ran to the bedroom and returned with her book. Assuming a serious demeanor, one leg crossed over the other, book on knee and a pair of glasses perched on her nose, she cleared her throat in imitation of her father.

“Is he comin’?” she asked.

“Yes, I hear him,” replied David.

“S-s-h!” She held up a warning finger.

Avery had the kitten in his arm when he entered. “Fished him off the eaves and brung him in to get acquainted with the dog—Sufferin’ catfish!” he exclaimed, as he gazed at Swickey. “Where’d you—?” He glanced at David, who nodded meaningly.

Slowly the old man stepped to his daughter’s chair. He took the “specs” and the book gently from her, and laid them on the table. She felt that her father was pleased, yet she knew that if she didn’t laugh right away, she would surely cry. He was so quiet, yet he smiled.

Presently he held out his hands. She ran to him and jumped into his arms, her black hair mingling with his snowy beard as he carried her to her room.

When he returned, he sat down, shading his eyes from the light of the lamp. Presently he chuckled.

“Wal, a feller’s a fool anyway till he’s turned forty. And then if he is a mind to he can look back and say so,—to hisself, quiet-like, when nobody is a-listenin’,—and even then I reckon he won’t believe hisself.”

“Thinking of Cameron?” said David.

“No,” replied Avery sententiously; “wimmen folks.”

David pushed the parcel containing the “loungeree” toward him. Avery untied it and spread the dress across his knees, smoothing it reverently, as the newness of the cloth came to his nostrils. “Makes me think of her mother.” His voice deepened. “And my leetle gal’s growin’ up jest like her.” He sat with his head bent as though listening. Then from the interior of the cabin came Swickey’s laugh, full, high, and girlish. Avery folded the dress carefully and went to her room.

As David arose to go to his cabin, he started and checked an exclamation. Smoke and Beelzebub stood facing each other, the dog rigid and the kitten’s tail fluffed beyond imagination. Beelzebub advanced cautiously, lifted a rounded paw, and playfully touched the dog’s nose.

Smoke moved his head a fraction of an inch to one side. The kitten tilted his own head quizzically, as though imitating the dog. Then he put up his pert, black face and licked Smoke’s muzzle. The dog sniffed condescendingly at the brave little adventurer, who danced away across the floor in mimic fright and then returned as the dog laid down, stretching his forelegs and yawning. The kitten, now that a truce was proclaimed, walked back and forth in front of Smoke, flaunting his perpendicular tail with no little show of vanity.

David spoke to the dog. With an almost shamefaced expression the big terrier got up and followed his master out, across the cool grass, and into still another abode.

To him the man-thing was a peculiar animal. He had one place to eat in, another to sleep in. The man-thing also protected impudent, furry, disconcerting kittens that it wouldn’t do to kill—

CHAPTER VIII—SMOKE FINDS EMPLOYMENT

September drifted imperceptibly into October, and even then there were days when coats were shed and sleeves rolled up as the noon sun burned down on the tawny gold and scarlet of the woodside. It was not until the sedges grew brittle on the river edges and the grasses withered that November sent forth its true harbingers of winter—small fluttering white flakes that covered the ground sparsely.

With the keen tang of the first snow stirring his blood, David swung down the river-trail toward Tramworth, Smoke padding at his heels. With Avery’s help he had built a snug winter camp near the three cabins, and although not in the best location available, it reflected some Celtic astuteness on David’s part, as it was centred on the prospective right-of-way of the new road. His present errand involved the purchase of a stove, cooking utensils, and the other essentials to independent housekeeping. He found out, early in his undertaking to teach Swickey, that he could not maintain the prestige necessary, in her continual presence.

He felt pleased with himself that brisk November morning. He had his own cabin, neat, new, fragrant. He had learned to swing an axe during its construction. He had not missed the first deer he hunted, and thereby had earned Swickey’s condescending approval. She had killed a “b’ar.” In the setting of traps and dead-falls he won Avery’s appreciation by a certain deftness and mechanical ability. But, above all, was the keen joy he felt when he thought of the Bascombs’ recent offer of twenty-five thousand dollars for Lost Farm tract.

“There is something behind it,” he muttered. “Avery gave five thousand for the land. But why don’t they appraise it and sell it from under us. They could. By Jove, I have it! The Great Western Lumber Company is back of the N. M. & Q., and they want the pine. Why didn’t I think of that before.”

Unused to observing signs on the trail, he failed to notice the moccasin tracks in the light snow ahead of him, but Smoke picked up a scent and trotted along, sniffing and blowing. Then he came to heel again, evidently satisfied. The man-thing he followed ought to know that the people who made the tracks were not far ahead, and that one of them had turned off in a clump of firs they were just passing.

He noted the dog’s actions subconsciously, his mind busy with the problem of how to get the best results from the sale which he knew must come eventually, despite Avery’s assertion that “No blamed railrud would come snortin’ across his front yard, if he knew it.”

He had about decided to advise his partner to sell and avoid complications, but only the right-of-way and retain the stumpage—

Wh-e-e-e—Pang! His pack jumped from his shoulders as a bullet clipped a beech and sung off at a tangent with a mournful ping—ouing—ing.

From the hillside above him, again came the sharp Pang! Pang! of a high-power rifle. He flung up both arms, whirled half round, and dropped on the frozen trail. Smoke bristled and growled, pacing with stiff forelegs round his master. He nuzzled the limp hands and whined. He trembled and a ridge of hair rose along his spine. He was not afraid, but the rage of an impotent avenger shook him. This man-thing had been struck down—from where?—by whom?

He sniffed back along the trail till he came to the tracks that swung off into the firs. He leaped to the hunt, following the scene over knoll and hollow. An empty brass shell lay melting the thin snow around it. He nosed it, then another and another. They were pungently disagreeable to his nostrils. The tracks circled back to the trail again. They were leading him to where his master lay—he knew that. Near the fringe of undergrowth that edged the trail the big white terrier stiffened and raised his homely nose. A new man-smell came to him and he hated it instinctively. With the caution and courage of the fighter who loves battle for its own sake, he crept through the low, snow-powdered branches noiselessly. He saw a dark figure stooping above his master.

Smoke gathered his haunches beneath him and shot up, a white thunderbolt, straight for the naked, swarthy neck. The man heard and whirled up his arm, but that hurtling death brushed it aside and the wide straining jaws closed on the corded throat and crunched. The man fumbled for his knife, plunging about on his knees. It had slipped round in front. With a muffled scream he seized the dog’s throat. Smoke braced his hind legs in the man’s abdomen, arched his back, and the smooth thigh muscles jumped to knots as he tugged, once—twice—

Blotched with crimson, muzzle dripping, he drew back from the twitching shape, lay down and lapped his steaming breast and legs. His work was done.

Finally he arose and sniffed at that silent nothing beneath the firs. Then he went over and sat beside the other man-thing, waiting—waiting—

Presently David stirred, groaned, and raised tremblingly on his elbow. Smoke stood up. “Home, Smoke!” he murmured inarticulately, but the dog understood. He sprang up the trail in long leaps, a flying horror of red and white.

“Must have—hurt—himself.” David was gazing stupidly at the dead man. This thing was a joke—everything was a joke—Swickey, her father, Jim Cameron, Smoke, David Ross-ung-gh! His grinning lips drew tense across his clenched teeth. A lightning whip of pain shot through his temples, and the white trail, worming through the dark-green pit of the forest, faded, and passed to the clouds. A smothering blackness swooped down and enveloped him.

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Harry Herbert Knibbs
Lost Farm Camp
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Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу Lost Farm Campавтор Harry Herbert Knibbs

LOST FARM CAMP

CHAPTER I—SWICKEY SHOOTS A BEAR

CHAPTER II—LOST FARM FOLK

CHAPTER III—MUCH ADO ABOUT BEELZEBUB

CHAPTER IV—THE COMPACT

CHAPTER V—A MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE

CHAPTER VI—TRAMWORTH

CHAPTER VII—THE BOOK AND THE “SPECS”

CHAPTER VIII—SMOKE FINDS EMPLOYMENT

Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу Lost Farm Camp
автор Harry Herbert Knibbs