“She took the rifle once again, and glanced at the boy.”

Love of the Wild

BY

ARCHIE P. McKISHNIE

M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY

CHICAGO NEW YORK

Copyright, 1910, by

Desmond FitzGerald, Inc.

All Right Reserved

Made in U. S. A.

CONTENTS

LOVE OF THE WILD

CHAPTER I
The World of the Untamed

The hazy October sunlight sifted through the trees and lay, here and there, golden bits of carpet on the mossy woodland. A glossy black squirrel paused on one of these splashes of sunlight, and, sitting erect, preened his long fur; then as the harsh scolding of a red squirrel fell on his ears he sank on all fours again, and bounded into the heavy shadows of the wood. A pair of pursuing red squirrels sprang from an opposite grove and with shrill chidings crossed the open to the snake fence. By taking this fence they might intercept the quarry’s flight, their object being to make short work of the black, whom they hated with an hereditary hatred harking back to the dim past.

In and out they flashed, their yellow-red bodies painting zigzag streaks of gold upon the forest background of green. Suddenly they halted and with tails slashing angrily poured out a tirade of abuse upon the human frustrator of their designs.

He stood leaning against the fence, his young face moody, his eyes focused somberly on the new schoolhouse with its unpainted boards, hanging to the face of the hill across the creek. He turned now, his tall form erect, accusation in his glance. Nineteen years among the wild of the wild had schooled him in the knowledge of signs such as that which confronted him, and which were forerunners of the tragedies so numerous in the wooded fastness. “So you would, eh?” he grated, “you little murderers, you.”

At the sound of his voice the male squirrel, less courageous than his mate, sprang to earth and scurried up a scraggy beech. The female, not to be cheated out of her wicked pleasure, attempted the old ruse of dropping to the bottom rail of the fence and darting past the boy in this way. But the boy had learned the ways of squirrels as he had learned the ways of all the things of the wild, and as the little animal sprang forward his tall body bent earthward. A muffled squeal came from the buckskin cap he held in his hand, and when he arose his brown fingers nipped the animal securely by the back of its neck.

“So it’s you who’ve been drivin’ the black squirrels out of the bush?” he said. “Well, you won’t drive any more out, I guess. You’ve had your last run except the one me and pup’ll give you, and that won’t be a very long one. Here, Joe,” he called, “come here, old feller; I’ve got something for you.”

From the far end of a long fallow came loping a gaunt Irish setter. He hurled his shaggy form upward, but the boy held the prize out of his reach.

“Come into the clearin’ and we’ll have a chase, pup,” he said. They passed over to an open spot in the wood and the boy turned the captive about so that it faced him.

“Now, Joe,” he said, “I’ll just——” He broke off and stood gazing at the animal which had ceased to struggle and now hung passive, its little heart throbbing under its white breast-fur.

“Joe,” whispered the boy, “she’s got young ’uns somewhere.”

The dog sprawled on the warm moss and rolled over and over.

“I reckon some little codgers’ll be missin’ their mammy, pup.”

Joe cocked his ears and looked up at his master.

“They’ll be lookin’ to see her maybe by now,—but,” savagely, “ain’t never goin’ to see her no more.”

The squirrel twisted and attempted to dig its long yellow teeth into the hand that held it prisoner.

“She’s just like everythin’ else that has babies,” frowned the lad, “savage and foolish. Here, you,” he called to the dog, “where are you goin’, Joe?”

The setter was trotting slowly away.

“What’s got into him, I wonder,” muttered the young man; “never knowed Joe to run away from sport before, unless it was that time the old she-’coon slashed his nose, after we’d cut down her tree and found her babies.”

Once more he turned the animal about and looked into its big soft eyes.

“I’m goin’ to give you another chance,” he said. “Pup don’t seem to hanker for your life, and I guess if a dog thinks that way about it I ought to think the same way. It’s a mighty good thing for you that you’ve got young ’uns. And now, you thievin’, murderin’ little devil—get.”

He tossed the squirrel on the moss. The frantic thing crouched for a second, then sprang away and sought the sheltering branches of a nearby tree. From this secure refuge she cursed the boy viciously in squirrel language. The boy nodded, then scowled.

“You’re quite welcome, I’m sure,” he said, and cramming his hands deep into the pockets of his buckskin trousers he walked thoughtfully back to his old post.

Slowly he climbed the fence and perched himself on its topmost rail, his knees drawn up, his chin sunk in his hands. Once more he gazed somberly across the stumpy clearing to the new schoolhouse on the hill. He hated it; hated the brazen sound of its bell. Mentally he combated it as he combated other elements of civilization. All the young soul of him rebelled against what he considered the defacing of Nature. Those wide swaths which man had mowed through the forest to him meant no advancement. They were scars made by interlopers upon the face of a great sweet mother. Nature had endowed the boy’s spirit with her own moods. His soul held the shadows of her quiet places as it retained the records of her swishing songs of trees and waterfalls. He knew no order save that of the great Brotherhood of the Untamed. His was a broad kingdom. It was being usurped and would soon be a toppling power.

Moody and unmoving be sat until the gold splashes crept from the open spaces of the wood and the patches of the yellow-tops of the slashing turned from yellow to bronze-brown and from bronze-brown to gray. A covey of brown quail scurried from a tangled patch of rag-weed to a dry water-run, to scuttle, a long animated line, to the thicket of sumach. Far down in the corner of the fallow another scattered brood were voicing the shrill, mellow call of retreat, and all throughout the darkening wood there sounded the medley of harmonious voices of wild things in twilight song. Only in the soul of the boy was there a discord that rose and fell and disturbed an old-time restfulness that had been his for nineteen years. Perhaps the indefinable something that whispered to him pitied him also, for resentment and combativeness sank away from his heart with the hazy glow of day. Like his great Wild that nestled in the peace of twilight, his soul threw off its struggles and seemed to rest. When darkness came he climbed down from the fence. Through the forest-trees murmured the low song of early night-breezes, and to him they voiced a prophecy. Something brushed against him, and the boy bent down and drew the shaggy head of a dog over against his breast.

“Damn ’em,” he cried chokingly, and shook a clenched fist toward the swaths of civilization. Then slowly he passed out into the darkness, the dog at his heels.

At the edge of the hill he halted and gazed down the long dark hollow of the creek-bed to where a white splash of water slept beneath the rising moon. All along the wooded vista whip-poor-wills piped their wakeful joy-notes, and the musical whistle of migrating woodcock made a shrill treble note to the harsher wing-song of incoming wild ducks. Dew-mists, laden with the scent of dead leaves and moldy woods, crept to him, and he breathed the sweetness in long, sensuous breaths. But all the while the boy looked toward the bay and the golden trail of moonlight across it, to the uneven, scrag-line of Point aux Pins Forest, and wondered vaguely at the savagery of civilization that sought, as it was seeking, to destroy God’s life and beauty.

A pair of woodcock arose from a swale and passed between him and the water. Against the moonlight their bronze breasts flashed out for a second and faded, and their mellow wing-notes reverberated dyingly from the shadow. Right across their track a flock of ducks came speeding, their goal the reedy ponds of Rond Eau Bay.

“Joe,” the young man said wistfully, “it’s funny, isn’t it, now? Some goin’ and some comin’. Woodcock flyin’ south ’cause they hate the cold; ducks flyin’ north ’cause they love it.”

They passed on, the dog taking the lead. At the edge of a wide clearing they paused alert. The dim outline of a log-house lay before them. From the windows streamed the glow of candlelight. Across the open from the house a figure was advancing, and to the dog’s low growl the boy chided a whispered, “Be still, Joe.” When the figure came close to where they waited the boy stepped out and stood before it. His arms were folded tight across his breast and his mouth narrowed to a thin line.

“Did you tell her?” he questioned quietly. The tall man thus accosted stepped back with a startled exclamation.

“Well, Boy McTavish, is it you?”

Young McTavish half crouched, then quickly drew himself up again.

“Yes, it’s me, teacher,” he said. “What I want to know is, did you tell her?”

“Yes, I told her.”

“All right, get out of my way, then.”

“Wait a moment, Boy,” returned the man. “You understand, don’t you, that it is my duty to report all pupils who do not attend school regularly?”

The boy changed his position so that the moonlight would fall full upon the face of the man before him.

“Do you suppose I care for your reportin’ me?”

The tone was wondering, contemptuous.

“Why, teacher, you can’t hurt me, and you know it. Do you suppose I was thinkin’ of myself when I asked you not to tell her? And do you suppose any man would have done what you’ve done?”

“Hush,” warned the other, “I can’t let you talk to me in this way, Boy. Remember who I am. I won’t have it, I say.”

“Well, I can’t see how you’re goin’ to help it. I want to tell you somethin’, Mr. Simpson, and you’ve got to listen. Don’t you move or by God I’ll sic Joe on to you. I’m goin’ to tell you again what I told you before. Ma’s sick in bed and maybe she ain’t never goin’ to get up no more. I told you that, remember?”

“Yes, you told me that—well?”

“Well, she’s been thinkin’ that I’ve been to school and you and me know I haven’t. I couldn’t stay in your school and live, but I was willin’ to take the hick’ry or anythin’ you said, if you wouldn’t tell her.”

The teacher was silent.

“Pup,” said the boy, “see that he answers up better.”

The dog growled, and the man spoke quickly.

“I was only doing my duty.”

“And it’s your duty to tell a dyin’ mother that her boy’s goin’ to hell—I say goin’ to hell, and her so near the other place? Do you call that duty?” demanded the boy bitterly.

The moon floated further into the open, lighting up the two; the boy erect and accusing with the shaggy dog beside him, and the tall man before them in an attitude half defiant, half ashamed.

“I didn’t quite understand, Boy,” apologized Simpson. “I am sorry; believe me, I am. No, I didn’t understand.”

“And you never will understand. You’re maybe all right in your own world, teacher, but you ain’t at home in ours. You don’t fit this place, and there ain’t no use of your ever tryin’ to understand it or us. Teacher, you take my advice—go back to the clearin’.”

The boy spoke slowly, weighing each word and closely watching the face upon which the white moonlight fell. It was a young face, not many years older than his own. But it was weak and conceited. It grew sullen now, as the significance of young McTavish’s words became apparent.

The man turned toward the path to the creek, and the boy stood tall and straight before him.

“Of course, you understand why us Bushwhackers can’t just be friends with you, teacher,” said the boy. “It’s because you are one of them—and they are doin’ all they can to break into our little world.”

He pointed toward the open.

“Out there is where they belong; them and you. Go back there, teacher, and tell them to go. It’s best, I tell you—best for everybody.”

Away down across the clearing on the far bank of the creek, a burst of yellow-red light fluctuated against the skies, and the metallic ring of a saw twanged out, silencing the whip-poor-will’s call. Colonel Hallibut’s mill was running overtime. All this stimulated that restlessness that had lately been born in the soul of the young Bushwhacker. He stepped out from the shadow and shook his fist at the red glow.

“Damn ’em,” he cried. And paying no heed to the figure which stood, with bowed head, on the path, he stepped away across the clearing toward the pale light streaming from the log-house window.

CHAPTER II
Glow and Gloss

Boy opened the door and passed silently inside. Beside the wide fireplace the long gaunt figure of a man was bent almost double. He had a thick shock of sandy hair tinged with gray. His bewhiskered face was hidden behind tobacco-smoke. A time-stained fiddle lay across his knee, his sock feet rested on the hickory fender, and the ruddy glow of the log fire threw a grotesque shadow of him against the whitewashed wall. A pair of high cowhide boots, newly greased and shiny, rested on his one side, while a piece of white second-growth hickory, crudely shaped to the form of an ax-handle, lay on the other. In one corner of the room a bunch of rusty rat-traps lay, and across deer antlers on the wall hung a long rifle, a short one, and a double-barreled fowling-piece.

The lad simply glanced at the man without speaking, and taking the dipper and wash-basin from the bench, passed outside again. When he re-entered, a girl of about eighteen years of age was pouring tea from a pewter pot into a tin cup. Her face was toward him, and a smile chased the shadow from the lad’s face as his eyes rested upon it. He dried his hands on the rough towel hanging on the door, and crossed over to the table. He drew back the stool, hesitated, and asked of the girl in a low tone:

“Is she sleepin’, Gloss?”

The girl shook her head. Her hair was chestnut-brown and hung below her waist in a long, thick braid. Her eyes were large, gray, and long-lashed like a fawn’s.

“You’d best not go in yet, Boy,” she said. “Granny’s readin’ her the chapter now.”

“I’ll just go in for a minute, I guess.”

He entered the inner room and stood gazing across at the low bed upon which a wasted form rested. An old woman sat beside the bed, a book in her blue-veined hands. When she closed the book, Boy advanced slowly and stood beside the bed.

“Are you feelin’ some better, ma?” he inquired gently.

“Yes, Boy, better. I’ll soon be well.”

He understood, and he held the hot hand, stretched out to him, in both his own.

“You’re not nigh as well as you was this mornin’,” he said hesitatingly; “I guess I know the reason.”

She did not reply, but lay with her eyes closed, and Boy saw tears creep down the white cheeks. He spoke fiercely.

“He threatened as he’d do it, and he did——”

He checked himself, biting the words off with a click of his white teeth.

“I know just what he told you, ma. I know all he told you, and he didn’t lie none. I haven’t been to his school. I can’t go to his school. I’ve tried my best to stay ’cause I knowed you wanted me to. But I go wild. I can’t stay still inside like that and be in prison. It chokes me, I tell you. I don’t want more learnin’ than I have. I can read and write and figure. You taught me that, and I learned from you ’cause—’cause——”

His voice faltered and feebly the mother drew him down beside her on the bed.

“Poor old Boy,” she soothed tenderly, smoothing the dark curls back from his forehead; then sorrowfully, “I wonder why you should hate that for which so many people are striving?”

“Don’t, ma—don’t speak about it. You know we talked it all over before. You called it enlightenment, you remember? I don’t want enlightenment. I hate it. I’ll fight it away from me, and I’ll have to fight it—and them.”

He shuddered, and she held him tight in her weak arms.

“Dear Boy,” she said, “it will be a useless struggle. You can’t hope to hold your little world. Now go, and God bless you. Kiss me good-night, Boy.”

He bent and kissed her on the forehead, then springing up crossed the room. At the door he halted.

“Yes, ma,” he said gayly, in response to her call.

“Did you meet the teacher?”

One moment he vacillated between love and truth. Once he had lied, uselessly, to save her. But he hated a liar. He went back to the bed slowly.

“Yes, I met him, and I told him that he best be leavin’ these parts.”

Her eyes rested upon him in mingled love and wonder.

“I don’t like—I don’t trust that man,” said the mother earnestly. “Now go, Boy, and God bless you.”

When Boy sought the table again the tea and meat were stone cold. He smiled at the girl, who was standing beside the fireplace, and she said teasingly:

“I told you you better not go.”

The man with the fiddle across his knees straightened up at her words, and he looked over at Boy with a puzzled expression on his face.

“Thought maybe you’d joined a flock of woodcock and gone south,” he remarked. “Wonder you can leave the bush long enough to get your meals. Where’ve you been, Boy?”

“Nowhere much,” answered the boy, looking hard at his plate.

“Well, we had that teacher chap over again to-night,” said the father, “—smart feller that.”

Boy glanced up quickly and caught a gleam of humor in the speaker’s blue eyes. Then he looked at the girl. She was laughing quietly.

“The teacher says that you’ve been absentin’ yourself from school,” went on the man. “I asked him if absentin’ was a regular habit in scholars same as swappin’ jack-knives, and you ought to have seen the look he gave me.

“ ‘It’s a punishable offense,’ says he.

“ ‘Well, I don’t mind you whalin’ Boy some,’ says I; ‘I’m sure he needs it.’

“ ‘I won’t whip a big boy like him,’ says he. ‘I don’t have to, and I won’t.’

“ ‘Well, I don’t know as I blame you for not wantin’ to,’ says I. ‘Boy’s some handy with his fists, bein’ a graduate in boxin’ of long Bill Paisley’s.’ ”

The big man stood up and stretched his six-foot-two figure with enjoyment. In his huge fist the old fiddle looked like a hand-mirror. He threw back his shaggy head and laughed so loudly that the burning log in the fireplace broke in twain and threw a shower of red and golden sparks up the wide chimney.

“When we were talkin’ and I was coaxin’ the visitor to set up to supper and make himself to home, who should drop in but Bill Paisley himself. Gosh, it was fun to see how he took in the teacher. ‘Nice night, sir,’ says Bill, bowin’ low and liftin’ off his cap. I shook my head at him, but he didn’t pay any attention, so I went on eatin’ and let ’em alone. Bill got out his pipe and felt in all his pockets, keepin’ his eyes right on the teacher and grinnin’ so foolish that I nearly choked on a pork-rind.

“ ‘Would you mind obligin’ me with a pipeful of Canada-Green?’ he asks; ‘I suppose you have a plug of twist in your pocket, sir?’

“The teacher frowned at him. ‘I don’t smoke Canada-Green,’ says he, short and crisp-like.

“ ‘Chaw, maybe?’ grinned Bill, puttin’ his pipe away and lickin’ his lips expectant.

“ ‘No, nor chaw—as you call it.’

“ ‘Dear me,’ sighed Bill, and after while he says, ‘dear me’ again.

“By and by Paisley limbered up and told the teacher he was right down glad to meet a man fearless enough to come to this wild place in the cause of learnin’.

“ ‘You’re a martyr, sir,’ says Bill, ‘a brave man, to come where so many dangers beset the paths. Swamp fevers that wither you up and ague that shakes your front teeth back where your back teeth are now and your back teeth where your front ones should be. There are black-snakes in these parts,’ says Bill, ‘that have got so used to bitin’ Injuns they never miss a stroke, and they’ll travel miles to get a whack at a white man, particularly a stranger,’ says he. ‘Then there be wolves here big as two-year-old steers, and they do get hungry when the winter sets in.’

“The teacher squirmed. ‘I’ll get used to all that,’ says he.

“ ‘Sure,’ agreed Bill, ‘but just the same it’s a good thing you’re a brave and a husky chap. Met any of our Injuns yet?’

“ ‘A few,’ said the young feller, lookin’ scared.

“ ‘Injuns are mighty queer reptiles,’ says Bill, ‘but you’ll get along with ’em all right if you humor ’em with presents and attend their pow-wows. Might be a good idea to let on there’s Injun blood in you. But whatever you do, if you should happen to have a little nigger blood in you, don’t tell ’em. Injuns naturally hate niggers.’

“Bill got up and went in to say ‘howdy’ to ma. ‘She wants to see you, mister,’ he says to the teacher, when he came out. ‘I suppose you’ve learned, among other things, that there’s such a thing as talkin’ too much, so be careful.’

“When Bill went away Gloss and me sat down and listened to what Simpson and your ma had to say to each other. He told her all about you stayin’ away from school and a lot of things that seemed to worry her. I thought it queer, ’cause ever since he has been comin’ across here we’ve tried to make him feel at home. But I just put it down that he had it in for you, Boy, on some account or other.”

Boy glanced at the girl and her eyes fell.

“If it hadn’t been our own house I would have throwed him out,” McTavish declared.

“I met him down by the creek as I was comin’ home,” said Boy absently. “I told him he’d best be leavin’ these parts.”

The girl came over and leaned across the table toward him.

“Boy,” she said, “do you think he will go?”

“Would you rather he’d stay?” he asked quickly.

“No.”

“Then he’ll go.”

She passed from the room, and Boy sat huddled before the table, his head in his hands, his eyes fastened upon the guns hanging on the wall. From the shadows Big McTavish’s fiddle was wailing “Ye Banks and Braes.” The fire died and the long-armed shadows reached and groped about the room, touching the dried venison strips and the hams and bacon hanging from the ceiling, glancing from the oily green hides stretched for curing on the walls, hovering above the bundles of pelts and piles of traps in the corners of the room. But Boy’s mind was not on the trapping activities that soon would bestir the times once more. In his soul he was pondering over the question of his new unrest: a question which must be answered sooner or later by somebody.

CHAPTER III
The Babes in the Wood

The father arose and hung the fiddle on its nail.

“Best go to bed, Boy,” he yawned, picking up the huge clasp-knife with which he had been shaping the ax-handle and putting it in his pocket. When he withdrew his hand it held a letter.

“Well, now, if I didn’t forget all about this here epistle,” he exclaimed, frowning. “Jim Peeler gave it to me this afternoon. That man Watson, the land-agent at Bridgetown, gave it to Jim to give me. You read it, Boy, and see what he wants.”

Boy took the letter and broke it open with nervous fingers.

“Watson says he’s comin’ over here to see you to-morrow, dad. Seems like he wants to get hold of this place.”

He threw the letter from him and walked over to the window.

“By hickory!” expostulated the father, “what do you think of that?”

“What do I think? It’s just what I expected, that’s all.”

Boy lifted the window and leaned out. The moon was flooding the outer world with a soft radiance. The bark of a wolf came faintly to his ears from the back ridges. Old Joe lay stretched in the moonlight beside the ash-leach. As Boy watched him the dog arose, shook himself happily, turned three times around, and lay down again. An owl hooted mournful maledictions from a neighboring thicket, and in the nearby coop the fowl stirred and nestled down again, heads beneath wings. Boy came back and stood beside his father.

“I guess maybe I’m selfish, dad,” he said slowly. “It isn’t for me to say what I think, although it’s mighty good of you to ask. This place ain’t mine; it’s yours. You’ve worked hard and long to clear what you’ve cleared here, and that’s a great deal more than any of the other Bushwhackers have done. I haven’t been anythin’ of a help to you much. ’Course I could be from now on. I’m a man growed, nearly, and as soon as the trappin’ is over I might pitch in and help you with the loggin’.”

The father laid his pipe down on the table and combed his long beard with his fingers.

“Boy,” he said, “every hanged stick of timber and every foot of this four hundred acres of bushland is as much yours as mine, and you know it. I ain’t wantin’ to clear the land any more than the rest of the Bushwhackers are. What do I want with cleared land? Gosh sakes alive, I’d be so lonesome for the woods that I couldn’t live. I can’t sleep now if I don’t hear the trees swishin’ and the twigs poundin’ the roof nights. And ain’t we tolerably happy, all of us together here, even if the little ma is purty sick and it’s mighty hard not to be able to help her? And ain’t we hopin’ and prayin’ that she’ll get to be her old self once more, here where the woods breathes its own medicine? And don’t we know them prayers’ll be answered?”

He bent over and laid his big hand on the lad’s shoulder.

“Then we’ll naturally put in some great nights, crackin’ hickory-nuts by the fire and playin’ the fiddle. Why, I wouldn’t part with one acre of this piece of bush for all the cleared land in western Ontario.”

Boy stooped and picked up the letter.

“Watson writes that he has a cultivated farm near Clearview that he’ll swap for this of ours,” he said. “Where’s Clearview, dad?”

“Why, it’s a strip of sandy loam between Bridgetown and Lake Erie. It’s too light even to grow Canada-thistles. Well, I guess maybe Watson would be willin’ to swap that sand for our place. I don’t like that man Watson. I can’t say why, unless it’s on account of some things I’ve heard of him and that other feller, Smythe, who’s a partner of his in some way.”

“You mean the Smythe who keeps the store at Bridgetown?”

“The same. You know him pretty well, I guess. He cheated you out of a dozen mink-hides, didn’t he?”

“He tried to,” answered Boy with a smile.

“Mr. Watson’ll find that we’re not wantin’ to trade farms,” affirmed the father.

“There’s Gloss,” suggested Boy. “If she was where there was a good school——” He hesitated and looked at Big McTavish.

The man laughed.

“Why, bless your heart,” he cried, “you couldn’t drag the girl away from this bush. She loves it—loves every nook and corner of it.”

Boy sighed.

“She sure does,” he agreed. “She sure does.”

The father brought a pine board from the wood-box and began to whittle off the shavings for the morning fire-making. This done, he gathered them together with a stockinged foot, glancing now and then at the boy, who had resumed his old attitude.

“Watson and Smythe want to get hold of our property for some reason,” said the father, “and I reckon it’s pretty easy to guess who they’re trying to get it for. It’s that big landowner, Colonel Hallibut, who has his mill on Lee Creek. I hear that Colonel Hallibut swears he’ll own every stick of timber in Bushwhackers’ Place.”

“That’s what troubles me,” returned Boy quickly. “You know what them rich Englishmen are like, dad. They have always got hold of everythin’ they wanted, and now this one is goin’ to try and get our place. But we ain’t goin’ to let him,” he cried, springing up. “We’ll fight him, dad; we’ll fight him off, and if he tries to take it we’ll——”

“Hush, Boy; there’s no reason to take on that way. What makes you think he’ll try to drive us?”

Big McTavish stood up straight. Something of the boy’s spirit had entered into him for an instant.

“You see, dad, we’re poor. That is, we have no ready money, though we have everythin’ we need for comfort. Then we’re lackin’ in that somethin’ called sharpness among businessmen. We’ve never learned it. We are like the other wild things that creep farther back into the woods before what they can’t understand. We don’t know their ways. I tell you, Hallibut would steal this bushland from us, and he’s goin’ to try. It’s valuable. There’s enough walnut and oak and the highest class of timber on this place to make us rich—rich, d’ye know that, dad? And ain’t Hallibut and his agents tryin’ to get every other Bushwhacker under their thumbs same as they’re tryin’ to get us? But, dad, listen—they won’t get us, by God; they won’t get us.”

The lad was trembling and his face was white and perspiring.

“Boy,” chided the father sternly, “you mustn’t swear. Watson nor Hallibut nor any other man is that bad. You’ve let the woods get into you until you’re fanciful. Read your Bible, and pray more.”

“I didn’t mean to swear, dad. I’ve swore more to-day than I have for years. I can’t stand to think that them men will steal this beautiful spot that is ours now, and cut and cripple it and drive its wild things away.”

“Hallibut’s sawmill is runnin’ nights,” said the father thoughtfully. “He made French Joe an offer for his timber through Watson the other day, but I guess it wasn’t much. Joe owed him money.”

“Well, us Bushwhackers are goin’ to hang together,” said Boy. “We own over two thousand acres of the best timber in Ontario. We can keep it by fightin’. If we don’t fight——”

He turned and walked toward the door.

“Boy,” warned the elder man, “don’t you do anythin’ you’ll be sorry for. Just forget all about Watson and Hallibut for a time, ’cause I want to tell how we all come to be in this place we love so much.

“Before you were born, Boy, I lived in the States; ranched it in Arizona. And there was a man down there who as much as stole everythin’ I had in the world. It was because of a woman that he lived to enjoy it all for a time. That woman was his wife, your ma’s more’n friend, little Glossie’s mother.”

Boy looked up quickly, then dropped his head again.

“That woman was a lot to me and your mother. She was a lady, every inch of her, and educated, too. She taught your ma to be the scholar she is, and she was the kindest-hearted, sweetest woman that could be found in the world. Seems as she run off from a fine home and rich people to marry that man. He was a bad ’un, her man; bad in every way a man can be bad, I guess. He drank and he abused her——”

Big McTavish caught his breath hard.

“ ’Course,” he went on, “we might have killed him—lots of us there would have done more’n that for his wife. But you see that woman stuck to him in spite of all he did to make her life hell; so we let him alone. Your ma worshiped her, or as near it as mortal can worship mortal, and they were a lot together. Women are not very plentiful on the Plains, Boy. When I lost everythin’ to her husband, through his cheatin’ me on a deal, and made up my mind to quit ranchin’ and strike for some new country, she promised us that after her baby was born she’d come to us, no matter where we might be. You see it had come to such a pass that she simply couldn’t live with that man no longer.”

The big man paused to light his pipe, and Boy asked:

“Did she come?”

“No. We came direct here to Ontario and settled in this hardwood, me an’ your ma and Granny McTavish. All we had in the world was the clothes we wore and three hundred dollars in money. I took up as much land as the money would buy from the Canadian Government and started in to cut out a home. You was born soon after we’d settled here. Peeler came and he settled alongside us and soon after that Declute came.

“We wrote to the poor little woman out West and told her the latch-string was out for her whenever she could come. You see I’d built this house by then, and we all felt tolerably happy and well-to-do. We never got an answer to our letter, and the followin’ spring I left you and your ma and Granny with the neighbors and struck the back trail for Arizona. I found that her man had been killed in a quarrel with a Mexican, but nobody seemed to know where she and her baby had gone. I hunted high and low for them, but at last had to give it up. I thought maybe she had gone back to the home of her people, ’cause I learned that her husband had left some money behind him. When I got back here I found two babies where I’d left but one. You had a little girl companion sleepin’ in your hammock beside you, Boy. Your ma picked her up and put her in my arms and she cried a good deal, your ma did, and by and by she showed me a little gold locket that she had found tied about the baby’s neck. I opened one of the doors and a tiny picture lay there. Then I knowed at once whose baby it was that God had sent to us, and I knowed, too, that the baby’s mother would never come now. An old Injun was there, and he told me how a man in Sandwich had given him money to tote the baby down to us. He couldn’t tell us much about the man. We called the youngster Gloss, ’cause that was the name the old Injun gave her.”

McTavish arose and knocked the ashes from his pipe.

“Now you know how we all come to be here, Boy,” he said gently, “and you know why old Injun Noah seems so near to us all. He was the man who brought our girl to us.”

Boy did not speak, and the father quietly left the room. At the door he turned and looked back. The boy was sitting with his chin in his hands. Outside, the moon was trailing low above the tree-tops, and the owl’s hoot sounded far-off and muffled.

CHAPTER IV
Bushwackers’ Place

On that triangular forestland of extreme south-western Ontario there was a block of hardwood timber, consisting of something over two thousand acres. This was known as Bushwhackers’ Place. On its left lay a beautiful body of water called Rond Eau, and so close to this natural harbor grew the walnut trees that when the night was old the moon cast their shadows far out across the tranquil waters. From the edge of the bay northward and westward the forest swept in valleys and ridges until the lower lands were reached. Then the hard timber gave way to the rugged softwoods of the swales, where the giant basswood, elms, and ash trees gripped the damp earth with tenacious fingers that ran far underground, forming a network of fiber, which to this day wears down the plow-points of the tillers of the soil.

Why this upland was called Bushwhackers’ Place, or why the people who held possession there were called Bushwhackers, has never been explained. In fact, those simple people were not bushwhackers, but hunters, trappers, and fishermen. True, each landowner had cleared a little land, quite sufficient to raise the vegetables necessary for his table and fodder for his sheep, oxen, and pigs, during the winter months; but the common tendency among the Bushwhackers seemed to be to let the timber stand until it was required for firewood.

All buildings in Bushwhackers’ Place were constructed of logs mortised at the ends. The beams, rafters, and floors of the homes were split or hewn from the finest grained timber procurable. When the walls were raised to a sufficient height doors and windows were cut in them, the rafters of the roof were laid, and the wide slabs, split from straight-grained ash blocks, were placed on the roof, overlapping one another so as to shed the rain. Blue clay was dug from the earth to fill in the chinks between the logs. The Bushwhacker’s home was roomy, warm, and comfortable.

Nineteen years ago Daniel McTavish, or Big McTavish, as he was commonly called on account of his great size, had settled in this spot with the determination of making it a home for himself and wife. The shadowy bushland appealed to him. He set to work with an ax and built a home. Shortly after it was finished a little McTavish was ushered into the world. Meanwhile, two other families had taken up claims near by. These were Jim Peeler and Ander Declute, and they with their wives came over to help name the baby.

Naming a baby in those old days was just as hard as it is in these. Each person had a particular name to fasten upon the new arrival. Peeler wanted to name him Wolfe, after a famous general he had heard of, but his wife protested on the grounds that the Government was offering a bounty for wolves and somebody might get mixed up and “kill him off.”

Mrs. Declute wanted to call the boy after some Bible hero. Moses, she thought, would be a good name. He looked just like Moses must have looked at his age, she said.

“I’ll tell you how we’ll decide,” said Ander Declute, after the debate had lasted some three hours. “We all of us have a different name we want to hitch to the youngster. I move that we let Mac here write out them names on a piece of paper and we’ll pin it to a tree and let the little chap decide for himself.”

“How?” asked the others.

“Well, after we’ve tacked up the paper somebody’ll hold a rifle and we’ll let the baby pull the trigger. The name the ball comes nearest to we’ll choose. What do you say?”

Everybody thought it a capital plan. The names were written on the sheet of paper and it was pinned to a tree. The baby’s mother held the light rifle and pressed the baby’s finger on the trigger. The little Bushwhacker did not so much as blink at the report.

The bullet bored one of the names through the letter O, and the name was B-O-Y.

“That’s the one I picked on,” grinned Declute, “an’ it’s a good one.”

So the baby was called Boy.

Others came to Bushwhackers’ Place and took up homesteads.

One, Bill Paisley, drifted in, from nobody knew where, and started “clearin’ ” near to Declute’s place. He was a tall, angular young man, with blue eyes which laughed all the time, and a firm jaw with muscles that had been toughened by tobacco-chewing. His hair was long and inclined to curl, and altogether he was a hearty, fresh, big piece of manhood. He could swing an ax with any man on Bushwhackers’ Place, and cut a turkey’s comb clean at eighty yards with his smooth-bore. He needed no other recommendations. The neighbors had a “bee” and helped Paisley up with his house. The Bushwhackers loved bees and “changin’ works,” for it brought them together. And although on account of much talking, one man could have accomplished more alone than three could at a bee, there was no hurry, and, as Peeler said, “a good visit beat work all hollow anyway.” Whiskey was plentiful and a jug of it could always be seen adorning a stump when a bee or “raisin’ ” was in progress. But because it was good, cheap, and as welcome as the flowers of the woodland, nobody drank very much of it. Maybe it would be a “horn all ’way ’round” after work was done, or a “night-cap” after the evening dance was over; for, be it known, no bee or raising was considered complete without a dance in the evening. Every Bushwhacker’s home had a jug of whiskey in it—usually under the bed,—a dog on the doorstep, and sheep, pigs, and cattle in the barnyard. These barnyards had tall rail-fences around them. In the winter months the wolves sometimes tried to scale the fences, and bears tried to dig beneath them. Then the dog would bark and the man would come out with his long brown rifle, and besides bear-steak for breakfast next morning there would be a pelt for the Bushwhacker.

And so the years passed, and the Bushwhackers lived their simple, happy lives and found life good. Little Bushwhackers were born, named, and set free to roam and enjoy the Wild as they wished. Sometimes one of them might stray away too far into the big forest, and then there would be a hunt and the little strayaway would be brought safely back.

When the youngsters were old enough to be taught reading and writing, their mothers washed their faces with soft home-made soap and sent them over to “Big Mac’s” for their lessons.

Mrs. McTavish—a self-educated woman—found great pleasure in teaching these children. They were quick to learn and slow to lose what they were taught. As Peeler put it, “every child should know how t’ read and write and do sums,” so the children of the bush were not allowed to grow up in ignorance.

Bill Paisley, also, took a hand in instructing the youngsters of Bushwhackers’ Place. He taught the boys how to shoot and handle a rifle. It was quite necessary for one who shot to shoot well, as ball and powder were costly commodities. He took the lads on long tramps through the woods when the autumn glow was on the trees. He showed them how to watch a deer-run and taught them how to imitate the wild turkey call.

Boy McTavish was his constant companion, and as a result Boy came to know the wild things of bush and water well. He knew the haunts of the brown and black bears, the gray wolves, and the wary deer. He knew just what part of the clear, deep creek the gamey bass or great maskilonge would be lying in wait for some unsuspecting minnow, and he could land the biggest and gamest of them, too. Many a glorious summer morning’s sport did he have drifting down the creek in his canoe and out on the white bosom of Rond Eau Bay, trolling for bass. Boy loved those beautiful mornings of the summer season when the air was all alive with birds and their voices. Through the mist arising from the face of the water he would watch the great bass leap, here and there, a flash of green and gray high in air, and tumble back to glide and sight and dart upon the shiners—wee innocent minnow-fish these, swimming happily upstream like little children just out of school. There would be a shower of little silvery bodies as the minnows in sheer terror leaped from the water before the greedy cannibal’s rush, and Boy’s hook, with a shiner impaled upon it, would alight amid the commotion, and there would come a tug at his line that made the strong sapling rod bend and dip.

Many a string of great, beautiful bass did he catch on this creek close beside his home, sometimes with Paisley, sometimes with Gloss, sometimes alone.

Boy loved those early mornings of his dominion of marsh and wood; for Rond Eau was very beautiful with morning tints upon her face, as up above the pine-studded Point the lights of dawn came bounding. With that dawn, swift-winged almost as its arrows of crimson, the wild, harsh-voiced ducks came dipping and swerving, to settle and feed in the rich rice-beds of the bay.

Along the marshes, blue-winged teal would hiss and whistle in their irregular flight. Earliest of all the wild-ducks, they came when the time was between darkness and daylight. Next came the blacks and grays, quacking their way noisily along the shores. High above them a long, dark line would whistle into view and pass onward with the speed of a cloud-shadow. These were red-heads, newly arrived from the south. Still swift of wing, though weary, they would follow on until their leader called a halt. Now lost against the slate sky, now sweeping into view against a splash of crimson, they would turn and flash along the farther shore, sinking lower with diminished speed as they passed an outstretching point of land. A number of their kind, arrived the night before, would be feeding and resting there. Onward the line would pass, and then turning drop down slowly and the ducks would settle among their fellows with muffled spats and heads facing the wind.

Far over the pines of the Point another dark bunch would grow into space, and, turning, throw a gleam of white upon the watcher’s sight. These were blue-bills, hardiest of all wild-ducks. They were tired and unafraid and ready to make friends with any water-fowl, whether they were of their own kind or a flock of despised coot. Great flocks of peerless canvasbacks, their wings dipping in unison, their white backs gleaming in the morning light, would grow up and fade and grow to life again. They would sweep around and around the bay, craning their long necks suspiciously, settling ever lower, and passing many a flock of dozing ruddy ducks, that were resting, having fed long before the dawn of day.

Boy would watch these wild, free things with all the joy of a wild thing in sympathy with them. As far as the eye could reach were ducks, and beyond the bay was the wild Point, and above all the wild sky with angry darts of light like ragged knives, slashing its breast here and there.

Naturally Boy resented the advance of anything that tended to destroy the pictures of his world.

A big man from Civilization, who owned the strip of timber across the creek, had built a mill thereon, and all day long, now, that mill sang its song of derision, and the swaths in the wood were growing wider. It was his own timber the man was cutting—nobody could gainsay that fact; but he was destroying, each day, the creek, that silver thread that had been for so long a home for duck and mink and water-rat. He was destroying beauty and crippling the usefulness of the best trapping and fishing ground of the Bushwhackers. A discord had been set vibrating throughout that wooded fastness. The sibilant song of Hallibut’s mill was driving the fur-bearing animals to seek more secluded haunts. The wood-ducks that had nested close in along the wooded shore drifted far back to another creek, and the black ducks did not flutter lazily along the marsh throughout the breeding season now, but high in air and remote from the noise and smoke and jar that was a new and fearful thing to them.

Boy McTavish hated that mill; and that schoolhouse of white boards clinging to the hill he hated, too. Hatred was a strange element with him. It sickened his soul, crushed him, and robbed him of all his old-time restfulness of spirit. The discord could not pass him by.

CHAPTER V
Comrades of the Hardwoods

Even in this golden, hazy dawn it was with him, as he stood gazing across the creek. The crimson sun warmed his cheeks and the heavy scent of over-ripe woods-plants stole to his senses like a soothing balm. But that scar upon which his eyes rested had reached his inmost soul, and for him the old gladness of sweet, dewy mornings must hereafter be tempered with a new and strange bitterness.

From the tall smokestack of Hallibut’s mill a thin wreath of blue smoke ascending cut a spiral figure against the fleecy clouds.

Boy turned and walked up the path, his head bowed and his hands deep in his pockets. Behind him trailed the setter, looking neither to the right nor to the left. His moods were always suited to his master’s. For some reason Boy was sad. Therefore, Joe was sad.

Where the path forked Boy turned and, catching sight of the dog’s wistful face, he threw back his head and laughed. Then he turned and, bending, caught the setter about the neck with strong arms.

“Joe,” he whispered, “you’re an old fool.”

The dog submitted to the caress gravely and sat down, looking up into his master’s face with deep sympathetic eyes.

Adown through the woods came a voice in rollicking song:

“Massar gone away, de darkey say ‘Ho! ho!’

Mus’ be now dat de kingdom’s comin’

I’ de year ob jubiloo.”

“That’s Bill, pup,” laughed Boy. “He always sings when he’s washin’ his breakfast dishes. Come on, let’s go over and borrow his pitch-fork. You and me have got to dig taters to-day.”

A few hundred yards further on they found the singer. He was clad in Bushwhacker buckskins from head to foot.

“Hello, Boy, how’s your ma?” he called as he caught sight of the visitors.

“Just about the same, I guess,” Boy answered. “Nobody up when I left, so I can’t just say how ma spent the night. Want to borrow your fork, Bill.”

“Take it and anythin’ else you see as you’d like. Say, won’t you step in the house and have a cup of tea?”

“I ain’t much on tea drinkin’, as you know, Bill, and I must be hittin’ the back trail soon, ’cause we want to get the taters dug before night.”

“All right, as soon as I put these dishes away I’ll get you the fork.”

Boy’s eyes followed his friend sympathetically, and when Paisley rejoined him he asked hesitatingly:

“Say, Bill, why do you live alone here like you do? Ain’t it lonesome for you?”

“Some.” Paisley dried his hands on a towel and sat down on a stump. “It’s some lonesome; yes. But I’ve sort of got used to it, you see.”

Boy seated himself on a log and leaned back, nursing his knee in his hands.

“How about Mary Ann?” he asked.

Bill shook his head.

“Too good and too young for me, Boy. She don’t just think me her style, I guess. That young teacher chap, now, he is just about Mary Ann’s style.”

Boy’s eyes narrowed.

“He’s just about Gloss’s style, too,” he said slowly. “He’s some different from us bush-fellers, is Mr. Simpson.”

“I don’t take to him very well myself,” said Paisley, looking away, “but, of course, Mary Ann’s bound to see him a lot, him boardin’ at her mother’s, and maybe he’ll see as he can’t afford to miss gettin’ a girl like Mary Ann, pervidin’ she’s willin’.”

“How many times have you asked her, Bill?”

“Twice a year—every spring and fall, for the last three years.”

Paisley laughed queerly and stooped down to pat the setter’s shaggy sides.

“Boy,” he said, “don’t ever get carin’ for a woman; it’s some hell.”

Boy leaned back with a deep breath. His eyes were on a tiny wreath of smoke drifting between the tree-tops and the sky.

“I ask her twice a year regular,” went on Paisley. “It’s got to be a custom now. It’ll soon be time to ask her again.”

A yellow-hammer swooped across the open and, alighting on a decayed stub, began to grub out a breakfast. He was a gay, mottle-breasted chap, with a dash of crimson on his head. The drab-colored thrush that had been preening himself on a branch of a nearby tree ruffled his feathers and flew further back into the bush. Boy frowned at the intruder and arose slowly from his log. He glanced up, to find Paisley looking at him.

“Somethin’s wrong with you, Boy,” said the man; “what is it?”

“I was watchin’ them birds,” Boy answered. “You saw what the big greedy chap did to the thrush—he drove him away; and it made me think of what Hallibut and his agents are tryin’ to do with us Bushwhackers.”

“They can’t do it,” cried Paisley. “Just let ’em try it on.”

“Hallibut threatens that he’ll own all this part of the country. He’s too much of a coward to come over and try to get it himself, but he’s tryin’ to get it through others, as you know.”

“Watson?” questioned Paisley.

Boy nodded.

“Watson’s likely comin’ over to-day. Dad got a letter from him.”

Paisley crammed his hands in his pockets and shrugged his shoulders.

“I scented trouble when the Colonel built that mill over on Totherside,” he declared, “but there was no way of stoppin’ him. It was his own land he built on; it’s his own timber he’s been sawin’. I understand he’s layin’ plans to get our timberland, and there ain’t no tellin’ just what a man like him will do to gain his ends. But, Boy, we’re here first—don’t you forget that.”

“I’m not forgettin’ it,” returned Boy grimly.

“Say,” said Bill, abruptly changing the conversation, “when is Gloss’s birthday?”

The shadow left Boy’s face and he looked up with a smile.

“Why, it’ll soon be now,” he answered; “she’s nineteen next month.”

“I didn’t figger on lettin’ you in on this,” grinned Paisley, “but I reckon you need cheerin’ up. You know them silver-fox furs that Smythe offered me my own price for? Well, I’m not goin’ to sell ’em to Smythe nor anybody else. They’re for Gloss.”

“For Gloss?” repeated Boy, “—for Gloss? Say, Bill, you can’t afford to give them furs away—not even to Gloss.”

“Me and Injun Noah are makin’ her coat,” chuckled the man. “Such a coat, Boy! No lady in this land has ever had such a coat before; never will have such a coat again. Silver-fox pelts at three hundred dollars apiece. Think of it, Boy! And there’s six of ’em—four grays and two blacks. And the coat’s to be lined with mink-skin, too—think of that!”

He took his friend by the arm and led him into the house. Boy liked Paisley’s home; it was always so bright, so tidy, and so cheerful. The wide table of heavy oak with solid legs artistically carved, standing in the center of the main room, the carved high-backed chairs fashioned by a master hand, the crude charcoal sketch of marsh and wood and water scenes on the whitewashed walls, gave him a sense of restfulness.

A great iron tea-kettle suspended over the fire of hickory logs was disgorging a cloud of steam that drifted to the rafters. Paisley came forth from an inner room carrying a huge platter piled high with fowl.

“Never seen the pa’tridge in better condition,” he avowed. “I shot six last night and I’ve been feastin’ ever since. Just pull up and devour, Boy, while I give old Joe some of his choice bones. I’ve been savin’ ’em up for him. I’ll get you some of my special brew of tea soon’s I wipe the reproach out of that setter’s brown eyes.”

Boy drew up to the table and fell to with an appetite such as only men of the woods possess.

Having attended to Joe’s wants, Paisley placed a pot of fragrant tea at his guest’s elbow, and, leaning back in his chair with a smile of content, lit his well-seasoned clay pipe and smoked.

His eyes followed those of Boy, who was gazing on the smaller of two rifles hanging above the fireplace.

“You’ve often wondered why I never use that little gun,” he remarked, drawing his chair forward and leaning upon the table, “and I’ve never told you. I’m goin’ to tell you now. I won that rifle from a man down near Sandwich. He was a bad man all round, and up until I met him just about made the laws of his community. I happened along there one night, and bein’ in no hurry, made up my mind to stay around for a time. The feller I speak of owned that rifle. He was a big chap, about five years older than me, and was supposed to be a fisherman. In reality he was a smuggler, and he was a slick one, and no mistake. When he wasn’t smugglin’ he was gamblin’ with the sailors and passengers of the lake boats. A poor little hunchbacked sister kept house for him, and he used to ill-treat her. Once I happened along and stopped him from strikin’ her with a whip. Of course, he always hated me after that. One afternoon there was a shootin’-match in the neighborhood, and he beat me shootin’.”

Paisley sat back and smiled.

“Yes, he beat me shootin’, Boy. Then he got boastin’; but I didn’t say a word. He finally offered to bet his rifle against mine that he could beat me again. I didn’t want more hard feelin’s; but I simply had to be game. A man couldn’t just take a dare in that wild country, so we had the match right there, and I won his rifle. He didn’t say anythin’, but he looked murder. I left the place soon after that, and about a year later I came along that way again. I heard then that the fisherman chap had cleared out to no one knew where, and left his sister sick and in want.

“I went over to their shanty and found the little woman dyin’. She knew me, and she seemed to want to tell me somethin’. But the end came before she could say it.”

Paisley nodded toward the rifle.

“I’ve never shot that gun since, and I won’t. I’d be ashamed to shoot a gun that belonged to a man who’d leave his crippled sister to starve.”

“Did the sister know where her brother had gone?” asked Boy.

“No; or if she did she couldn’t tell me.”

Boy pushed back his chair and arose from the table.

“I don’t understand how any man could do such a thing, Bill. What was the feller’s name?”

“His name was Watts, Jim Watts,” answered Paisley, swinging the kettle off the fire. “I ain’t thinkin’ as I would know him again, now, even if I happened to run across him. This all happened sixteen years ago.”

He followed Boy outside and the two walked over to an out-house standing in a grove of beeches.

“I haven’t had much use for this fork since the wolves got poor old Mooley last winter,” said Paisley. “Guess I’ll be gettin’ another milk-cow soon, ’cause it’s quite a bother havin’ to go to Peeler’s for my butter.”

“I was goin’ to ask you about Peeler,” said Boy. “I wish, Bill, you’d see him and persuade him not to sell one stick of his timber to Hallibut or his agents. Jim’s an easygoin’ sort, who might be led off quite easy, and it’s up to us to see that he isn’t.”

“I’ll see him—leave that to me,” Paisley replied. “And I’ll see the rest of the Bushwhackers, even old man Broadcrook and his sons, who haven’t any particular use for me, somehow.”

“I guess what the Broadcrooks do won’t matter much,” laughed Boy. “They hate everybody and everything it seems. I don’t know why.”

He picked up the fork and turned toward the path. A west wind had piled up a bank of long drab clouds above the wood. The wind was damp, and from the distance came the dull boom of the waters beating upon the mucky shore of the bay.

A few yards down the path Boy halted.

“Say, Bill, dad was tellin’ me about the talk you had with the teacher. I wish you’d get better acquainted with him and make him see that his place isn’t here.”

“If he was half as smart as he thinks he’d see that it isn’t,” replied Paisley.

“And, Bill,” called Boy from the edge of the wood, “I guess Mary Ann knows a real man when she sees one. Keep askin’ her till she says ‘yes,’ Bill.”

As Boy found the creek path a gust of wind, damp with the spray of Rond Eau, smote against his face with biting force.

From across the creek came the jarring notes of the school bell.

Then the wind fell, and the clouds parted to let a misty web of warm sunlight through to the world.

CHAPTER VI
The Go-Between

A big man, past middle age, and seated astride a small white horse, came picking his way between the huge beech and maple trees, down through the quiet morning of the woods. He had shaggy red brows and a big mouth that drooped at the corners. The little eyes, flashing sideways in search of the blaze on the trees, were sharp and calculating. Where the ridge sloped to the valley he reined up.

“Must be somewhere about here,” he mused aloud. “Don’t know how I can miss seeing McTavish if he happens to be outside—land knows he’s big enough to see.—Hello, who are you?”

Something animated in the shape of a boy had stirred from a log directly in the path. Leaping out it stood before the rider—a boy with long yellow curls and big brown eyes. The old white horse shied, and the boy rocked backward and forward on the path, voicing low, plaintive sounds. As the rider watched him a small animal crept from the thicket and climbed upon the lad’s shoulder. The horse reared, and the boy, lifting his brown arms, began to wave them to and fro. At the same time he broke into a wild, tuneless chant, the words of which were unintelligible to the wondering observer. It was a shrill, weird note, fluted and varying like the call of a panther. Suddenly boy and animal vanished as though the Wild had reached forward and gathered them into its arms.

“Heavens!” shuddered the man, and struck the horse sharply with his spurs. Where the trail curved off abruptly to the valley he reined up once more, and, turning about, looked back.

“Well, I’ll be shot!” he soliloquized. “No matter where you find the Creator’s handiwork and beauty you’ll find His imperfections, too. Ugh! how those big eyes did probe me! It’s enough to make a saint shiver, let alone a chap who has climbed up as I have—not caring who I have tramped on.”

He shivered again, and felt in his pocket for his pipe. His hand brought forth a leather wallet. A hard smile warped his mouth as he opened the wallet and drew out a small photograph. It was the likeness of a young woman with sweet face and great eyes. He tapped the likeness and a lock of brown hair leaped out like a snake and twined about his finger. He brushed it back with a shudder, and, snapping the case, put it back in his pocket.

“I’ll find that Big McTavish and get this deal closed,” he mused as he rode along.

The horse stumbled and a grouse whizzed along the trail, passing close to the man’s head, with a thundering, nerve-wracking sound. He sat erect and sank his spurs into the old gray’s heaving flank.

“Get epp, you lazy old bag of bones,” he commanded. “Let’s find that big innocent and get hold of his deed. We’ll give him a dollar or so to see us back along that lonesome trail. I wouldn’t go back along that spooky path for all old Hallibut’s money. I’ve seen enough snakes and wolves and bears since two o’clock this morning to last me a lifetime. And that last animal—that crazy boy!—ugh!”

He slashed the old mare into a faster walk and sat huddled up and pondering until a twist in the path brought an open glade into view. The buzz of a saw and the pant of a weary engine came to his ears like welcome music.

“Totherside,” he chuckled. “Let’s see, Bushwhackers’ Place lies just across from it. But there’s the creek. Guess I’ll have to ride down to the narrows.”

Finally, with much grumbling, he reached the farther side of the creek, and, pulling in his horse, he gazed about him.

“Ha, look at that for timber!” he exulted. “And to think that Smythe and I will have control——”

He did not finish the sentence aloud, but sat nodding his head up and down. Very soon he drew up before the long log-house. Big McTavish stepped out and pointed to a log-building in a grove of butternuts.

“Put your horse in there,” he invited.

“I will, and more,” agreed the arrival. “I’ll enjoy a bite of bread and a slice of dried venison or anything else your larder affords. I’m hungry as old Nick.”

“You’re welcome to the best we have,” replied McTavish. “You’re Mr. Watson, I suppose. Am I right?”

“Watson I am—Robert W. O. Watson, that’s me. I’m pretty well known through these parts; that is to say, better maybe a little east of here. This place is kind of off the map, you know. Just give the lazy skate anything that’s handy,” he growled, referring to the patient steed that stood with drooping head and sanctimonious air, “but you needn’t be in any hurry to feed her. She’s Smythe’s horse and used to waiting.”

“I always see that my oxen get their meals same as I do,” said Big McTavish. “I wouldn’t feel just like eatin’ unless they had their fodder, too. We’ll step inside and I’ll have Gloss fix you up a meal. She’s down at the spring now gettin’ the cream ready for the churnin’, but she’ll be back direct.”

As they crossed from the stable a small form flitted by them and vanished among the trees. Watson gasped and he clutched McTavish’s arm.

“That’s him,” he cried; “that’s the crazy boy I met a couple of miles away. How did he get here this soon, do you suppose?”

“Oh, that’s Daft Davie,” smiled McTavish. “Nobody knows exactly when he’ll turn up. He runs like a deer and is as shy as the wild things he plays among.”

“Plays among?” repeated the other. He followed McTavish into the house and sat down heavily on a stool. “What do you mean by ‘plays among’?”

“I mean that he moves among the wild things and they are not scared of him same as they are of you and me or anybody else. They do say that he can fondle the cubs of bears, and wolf-kittens. I’ve seen him playin’ with a big snake, myself,—not a poisonous one, of course. Seems as though Davie can pick out the things that are harmful quick enough. Nobody pays any attention to him much in Bushwhackers’ Place, but leaves him to himself, knowin’ that God’ll protect the soul He didn’t give over-much reasonin’ power to.”

“Humph,” grunted the other, “I see you’re a pious man, McTavish—pious, God-fearing, and honest. Good plan to work along that line. Had a good bringing up myself. Mother’s prayers, early teaching, and that sort of thing have a lot to do with making a big man. My mother is largely—I should say was largely—responsible for my success. She’s dead now, poor old lady. Of course, a fellow who climbs has a right to some credit himself, I suppose. Made up your mind, I can see, to swap this forsaken wilderness for a piece of cultivated land,” he said, abruptly opening the subject nearest his heart and fixing on the big man his little pig-eyes.

“Aha, I thought you would, McTavish. Says I to Smythe this morning: ‘Smythe, it doesn’t seem to me that this is a very good piece of business judgment on our part; but,’ says I, ‘Smythe, we must consider others rather than ourselves in this matter. McTavish now,’ says I, ‘he has a couple of youngsters growing up, and they should secure an education such as the Clearview school can give them, and if that’s the case, we can’t blind our eyes to our duty as Christian men.’ Smythe is a good Christian man and just that soft-hearted that it’s no wonder my words affected him. He says: ‘Mr. Watson, money is not everything. Go forth on an errand of mercy, and offer Mr. McTavish of Bushwhackers’ Place one bright and fertile hundred acres of loam in Clearview in exchange for his bit of wilderness.’—His very words, McTavish. So I wrote you briefly in order to break the good news gently, and now I am before you to perform an act which, believe me, gives me as much pleasure, in a sense, as it does you. I have all the necessary papers, and although the journey has been a trying one, I will not complain. I have been five hours in the saddle and have endured a cowardly nigger as guide as far as the Triple Elms. Seems like, between loneliness and mosquitoes, I’m just about fagged out. They are a d—I mean they are a hanged nuisance, mosquitoes.”

While his guest unburdened himself, Big McTavish steeped strong tea, and fried strips of bacon. Gloss had not yet returned from the spring. The savory smell of the frying meat whetted Watson’s appetite, and he needed no second invitation to “set up and eat hearty.” He ate wolfishly, his little eyes darting from his food to the face of McTavish, his heavy jaws working, and the muscles of his throat contracting with boa-like elasticity, as he gulped down huge mouthfuls of meat and bread. At last he pushed his chair back from the table and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

“Now, Mac,” he said affably, “we’ll just have you sign those papers, and I’ll turn you over this deed I hold here in exchange for the one you now have. Says I to Smythe this morning: ‘Smythe, it’s a nice sort of glow a fellow feels after doing a worthy act, anyway. Think what this will mean to the McTavishes.’ And do you know he was that soft-hearted he couldn’t answer me, and stood there swallowing with tears in his eyes.”

“I’m thinkin’ that we won’t make any swap,” said Big McTavish quietly. “Neither me nor Boy nor any of us care to leave this big woods. We’ve been here so long we’ve grown into it somehow. You see we’re not hankerin’ to leave.”

Watson sat up with a jerk, and the pipe he was filling fell to the floor and broke into a dozen pieces.

“What!” he cried, “do you mean to say, McTavish, that you won’t deal?”

“That’s what I mean,” nodded the big man.

“And you won’t exchange this block of tangled brush for one hundred acres of good, cultivated land?” Mr. Watson leaned forward. “Are you sure you realize what you are missing?” he asked impressively.

“All I know is, we’re thankful to God for what we have now,” said Big McTavish fervently. “We don’t feel like insultin’ Him by tradin’ what He’s given us, sight and unseen.”

“Oh, come now, McTavish,” blustered Watson, “you must be crazy. Why, man, you will never get another chance such as the one we offer you. Besides, you can’t stay here very much longer, anyway. Of course, you’ve heard what Colonel Hallibut intends to do with you Bushwhackers?”

A deep line appeared between Big McTavish’s eyes.

“We don’t want any trouble with Colonel Hallibut,” he said. “We hear that he has his eyes on our timber. When he comes after it he’ll find us here. As for you, Mr. Watson, I wouldn’t take your sand farm as a gift, thankin’ you just the same.”

“Then why in hell have you been letting me waste my breath on you for the last hour?” snarled Watson, his face purple.

McTavish stood up.

“That’ll do now,” he warned. “There’s Gloss comin’ up the path, and swearin’ is somethin’ she has never heard in this house, and before I’ll have her hear you usin’ cuss-words I’ll cram this down your throat, and don’t you forget it.”

He lifted a hairy fist, then sat down and resumed his smoking.

Gloss entered the room, singing blithely. Her shapely arms were bare to the elbows. Her big gray eyes, dancing with life and health, swept the room and rested wonderingly on Watson. He in turn gazed at the girl, and an ashy whiteness wiped out the mottled color of his cheeks. He drew back whispering something under his breath.

“This is Mr. Watson, Gloss,” said Big McTavish.

“Good-morning, sir,” saluted the girl. “I didn’t know that we had a visitor. I see uncle has got you your breakfast, but surely you’ll enjoy a glass of fresh buttermilk. I’ll fetch it.”

She slipped from the room, and Watson looked across at Big McTavish.

“That girl,” he asked quickly, “is she your own child?”

The big man looked up, astonishment written on his face.

“No,” he answered, “but she’s just as dear as though she was our own. Her dyin’ mother sent her to us. Why do you ask that?”

Watson was reaching for his cap and rifle. Perhaps he did not hear the question. At any rate he did not reply.

Fifteen minutes later he mounted the weary gray horse and without so much as a word of adieu rode away through the timber.

McTavish stood on the edge of the clearing, his long arms folded, and watched his visitor disappear. Turning, he found the daft child beside him.

“Well, Davie,” he said kindly, “hadn’t you best run home now, lad? You’re all wet with the dew.”

The boy waved his arms above his head and imitated an eagle’s scream. Then he pointed to the white patch that marked the first blaze of the long trail.

“You mean the man on the white horse, Davie?” asked McTavish, smiling. “Yes, lad, I know.”

The boy gazed about him with wide and expressive eyes. Then once more he waved his arms like an ascending eagle, gave a wild call of victory and defiance, and, bending, sped swiftly away and was lost in the heavy shadow.

CHAPTER VII
Where the Brook and River Meet

Big McTavish walked slowly back to the house. In the doorway stood Gloss awaiting him.

“Is he gone?” she asked.

“Yes, Glossie, he’s gone.”

McTavish picked up the ax which was leaning against the ash-block and turned toward the bush.

“You might just keep your eyes on the soap-fire, Gloss. I’m goin’ down to the swale to cut some sassafras for the yearlin’s—they seem ailin’. While I’m down there I might as well mark some basswood saplin’s that’ll make good sap-troughs. Promised myself last sugar-makin’ that I’d have new troughs before another syrup-boilin’.”

“The potatoes must be about ready to dig,” said the girl.

“Yes, Boy’s over to Paisley’s after a fork, and when he gets back we’re goin’ to start in on ’em. There’s this satisfaction about raisin’ taters,” he laughed, “—the squirrels and crows don’t molest the crop any like they do the corn. It does seem we can’t keep them out of the corn, though.”

“It looks fine since you’ve got it cut and shocked up,” declared the girl; “and it does seem so good that we’re gettin’ such a nice piece of land cleared. Granny was tellin’ me what that man who just left wanted you to do, and I had to laugh when I thought how he could be so foolish as to think we’d be willin’ to leave Bushwhackers’ Place. ‘Why, Granny,’ says I, ‘what do we want of a farm in Clearview when we’ve got one right here?’ ”

The big man’s face lit up.

“You’re sure good medicine, Gloss,” he said. “Yes, we are gettin’ quite a nice plot of ground cleared, and I look for quite a nice yield this year, both in corn and taters. Trappin’ don’t seem to promise much for this winter, though. The noise and clatter of Hallibut’s mill seems to be drivin’ the mink and rats across the bay.”

“Can’t we make him take the mill away from Lee Creek?” asked the girl. “I hate the sound of it. Its noise drowns the song of the birds and its smoke hides the blue of the sky between the trees. What right had he to put that mill there, uncle?”

“Well, he owns a strip of bush on Totherside,” explained McTavish. “It comes right up to Lee Creek. So you see the mill is on Hallibut’s own property.”

“Oh, look, uncle,” cried the girl, “there’s some black squirrels crossing the corn-stubble now—five of them. I do believe aunty would relish a bit of stewed squirrel. I meant to tell Boy to shoot one or two for her this mornin’, but he was gone before I was up.”

Joe, the setter, broke from the thicket and loped across the cornfield. All summer he had acted as custodian of the field, and even now the squirrels stood in mortal terror of him, and the crows cursed him in guttural croaks from the tops of tall trees beyond the danger-line.

As the squirrels took to a lone hickory in the center of the field, Boy McTavish came quickly around the corner of the house. He stood the clumsy hand-made fork he carried up against the lean-to, and mopped his face with his sleeve.

“Whew!” he whistled, “but it’s turned out a fine day after all. Never knowed Injun summer to hang on so long. Hope it keeps up, dad, and we’ll get the corn all husked yet before trappin’-time. Suppose we have a bee and a dance at night, same as we did at the wood-bee? Declute is goin’ to have a loggin’-bee soon.

“Hello, Gloss,” he called, catching sight of the girl, “how’s ma this mornin’?”

“Better, and hungry for squirrel,” she answered, her eyes on the treed blacks.

She ran into the house and returned with a rifle. She handed Big McTavish the powder-horn and, bracing her feet, cocked the gun.

“How far?” she asked, throwing it to her shoulder with a practiced hand.

“Sixty yards, anyway,” answered Big McTavish.

“Nigher eighty,” asserted Boy. “Too far, Gloss; you’ll miss sure.”

A gleam of mischief shone in the gray eye sighting along the brown barrel. Then the rifle cracked, and a black ball detached itself from the hickory and went swinging down to earth in tiny circles. The dog gave a low whine and came bounding forward, the squirrel in his mouth, and allowed Boy to take it from him.

“Right between the eyes,” said Boy proudly.

Big McTavish reloaded the rifle and handed it back to Gloss. His face was wrinkled in a grin of mingled surprise and admiration.

“Neither you nor me could do any better, Boy,” he said hesitatingly by way of admission.

“The one on the left next,” motioned the girl, and the rifle spoke once more.

“Missed,” gasped the man. “Can’t always make a bull’s-eye, Glossie.”

“Missed nuthin’,” cried Boy; “there he comes now.”

The second squirrel spun about on the limb a couple of times, then went crashing through the branches.

“As Bill Paisley would say, ‘that’s remarkable shootin’,’ ” chuckled McTavish. “That distance is well over eighty yards, else I don’t know distance.”

“Nearer a hundred, I should judge,” contended Boy. “She’s got all the rest of the McTavishes beat, dad.”

“Try another, Gloss,” suggested McTavish, placing the cap on the nipple of the rifle with clumsy fingers.

“I thought maybe two would be enough,” said the girl.

She took the rifle once again and glanced at Boy.

“Oh, go on, Gloss,” he encouraged, “only one more. Fact is I’m a bit hungry for corn-fed squirrel myself.”

“And I’m thinkin’ I wouldn’t turn up my nose at a plateful of stewed squirrel either,” seconded the father.

“All right, just one shot more, then, hit or miss,” laughed Gloss. “See that chap’s two ears and part of his head stickin’ up above the knot? I’ll take him this time, I guess, though it’s no easy shot.”

She fired, and the squirrel dropped from the limb. Another whine from Joe proclaimed it a clean kill.

Big McTavish, without so much as a word, took the gun inside. Boy held the animals up by their bushy tails and the girl who was watching him said:

“You ain’t carin’ much to see the blacks killed ever since the time you had Tommy for a pet, are you, Boy?”

“Well, I don’t know as I’m carin’ much either one way or t’other,” he answered slowly. “Tommy was a cute little beggar, but he wasn’t really a black. He was a gray squirrel. Grays are gentler and make better pets than blacks. Tom Peeler one time had a black for a pet, and used him mighty good for two years. But one day that black pretended he wanted Tom to play with him and tickle him as he was used to doing, and it gave him a bad bite. No, the blacks are too cross for pets.”

“Boy,” said the girl suddenly, “I meant to tell you before—old Injun Noah was tellin’ me yesterday that there’s a big gray fox who makes his home on the Point. Noah says he’s the biggest silver-gray he ever saw. Says he’s as big as a timber-wolf. But he is so cunnin’ nobody can get a shot at him.”

“Well,” smiled the boy, “I guess we needn’t go after that feller, and you needn’t worry about one little silver-gray. Just you wait a while and you’ll know what I mean.”

He winked mysteriously, and Gloss laughed. Then her face grew grave.

“That man Watson was over here this mornin’, Boy,” she said. “You know what he wanted and you know how he’d get it. Well, I guess him and uncle had words. I was hidin’ in a bunch of willows at the spring when he was goin’ back, and when he passed me he was swearin’ awful.”

“Was he ridin’ toward the trail or goin’ toward Totherside?” asked Boy, his face darkening.

“I watched him cross th’ creek, and when he got across he rode toward the schoolhouse.”

Boy turned away. Then he paused and looked at the girl.

“Boy,” she said wistfully, “I wish we didn’t have no school in this place. I wish Simpson would go away.”

“Why?” he asked quickly.

Slowly her eyes sank and her bosom heaved as her breath came in quick gasps.

He reached out and caught her, and for the first time in their young lives the girl struggled in his arms. He let her go and stood back, wondering. She looked at him and smiled. Her face was pale, and her long lashes did not conceal a look of dumb entreaty.

“Gloss——” he commenced.

“Boy,” she whispered, “we’re built for chums, and chums we’ll always be. But the old rompin’ days are over now. Boy, you mustn’t take me—you mustn’t hold me like that again. We ain’t boy and girl no more.”

He bent and picked up the squirrels. When he stood up again she had gone.

“ ‘We ain’t boy and girl no more,’ ” he repeated.

He walked to the spring repeating the words over and over—“ ‘no more.—Boy and girl no more!’ ”

From Totherside came the clang of the school bell.

“I wonder what she meant. I wonder why she wished that school—I wonder why she wishes Simpson——”

Suddenly he flung the squirrels from him, and, bending forward, gazed with hard eyes toward the white schoolhouse clinging to the hill.

“If he thinks harm to her, then God curse him,” he breathed, “and help me to kill him.”

A wee hedge-sparrow, drunk with the hazy Indian summer sunshine, perched itself on a branch above his head and poured out the simple little song that he had always loved above all other songs of wood-birds, because it was always the first song in new spring; the last in dreary fall. The little singer was about to leave the wood wherein he had nested and enjoyed a season’s happiness. He was about to fly far south, and was trilling a promise to Boy to come back again another springtime. And Boy listened to the simple song and wondered at the gladness in it. Nothing of the deep unrest of his own soul was there,—only the gladness of a heart brimful of God’s deep joy. Boy sat down on a log and watched the bird.

“Little chap,” he murmured, “you’ve got a long ways to fly. I guess I know you about as well as anybody could know you, unless it’s Daft Davie, who’s wild like yourself, and I can’t understand why you should be glad when you’re leavin’ all this——”

He looked about him. “—All this big nestin’-place. The great woods has been mighty good to you, little feller—mighty good. There’s a nest you built here, and you’ve got to leave it behind.”

A shadow floated across the hazy sunlight and a cold wind swept in from the bay. With a last sweet note of good-by the bird sprang to wing, and beating skyward high above the trees, faded, a little darting speck in the somber clouds rolling up in the south. Boy watched it until its tiny gray body was lost against the sky’s gray fringe. Then he sighed, picked up the squirrels, and proceeded to strip them, deftly, of their glossy coats. This done, he washed them carefully and carried them to the house. Gloss was standing by the table in the kitchen and spoke to him as he entered.

He answered her almost rudely and strode outside. The hazy light of morning had vanished. The skies had darkened, and a low wind was shaking the dead leaves from the trees. Boy plunged down the path and into the wood. A shaggy dog, snoozing beside the ash-leach, watched him furtively from half-closed eyes. When Boy’s figure disappeared behind the slope the dog arose, shook himself, and with stiffened muscles trailed his master stealthily.

Deep into the woods, Boy paused before a small grove of baby maples. Beneath their spreading branches stood a playhouse built of rough bark and twigs. He and Gloss had built this house; she, girl-like, to play at mimic life therein; he, boy-like, that she might own her little joy. There stood the table, a basswood block, set for a feast, with broken bits of crockery and glass for dishes. It seemed but yesterday that he and Gloss had sat before that table and eaten an imaginary repast of earth’s luxuries from those broken dishes. It all seemed so poor, so lonely, and deserted now.

In the twig high-chair slept Peggy, the rag doll, her arms dangling, her whole attitude one of peaceful repose.

Boy crept in and shamefacedly swept the cob-webs from her poor little face. Then he sat down on the stump-chair, and, laying his arms on the table, rested his head upon them.

In the open the clouds scudded low above the trees, and it began to snow. Boy arose and walked about the little house, his eyes searching it for the small trinkets the girl had treasured there. A bunch of dead flowers rustled in the cracked cup on the bark shelf. They were tied with a gorgeous bit of red flannel, which, he remembered, Gloss had been careful to explain was watered silk. Boy smiled and pressed the knot between his fingers.

On the floor lay a home-woven straw hat. Its decorations, too, were of woodland flowers faded to ashes and scentless. Boy caught it up and held it at arm’s length; then he threw it from him and sprang out into the darkening wood again.

He hurried on, passing the tree-swing where he and the girl had played so many summers. He passed through the hickory grove where they had garnered the nuts for the winter’s cracking; through this and into the heavier timber and deeper shadow where the light was very dim and forest whispers stirred and vibrated. A fox glided across his path, switching into a clump of hazel-bushes. A cock grouse, drumming upon a decayed log, arose on thundering wing to dip into a clump of trees far to the left. Farther into the wood the cluck of a wild turkey sounded. Boy heeded none of these things. On and on he strode,—his an aimless goal; his one desire, to come up with that something urging and elusive,—something he feared though treasured and could not understand.

Later, he stood in the low-lying wilderness of the Elm Swamp. And there, perhaps, his great Mother pityingly solved for him the problem of a new unrest. There where day’s light wavered faintly like foggy starlight, his soul shook off its brooding, and the old glad fearless light came back to his eyes.

“No, we ain’t girl and boy no more,” he whispered; and lifting his arms high he laughed.

What he had received from the forest soothed his spirit as the starry snowflakes, falling on his upturned face, soothed his burning flesh.

At mid-day the setter crept back to his old place by the ash-leach and lay down. A little later Boy came up the path. He stooped down and patted the dog’s head, and noting his tangled hair, laughed softly.

“Joe, old pup, I thought it was me who had to roam among the briers and the burrs, but I see you’ve been there, too.”

And Joe looked up and yawned sleepily, just as if he had been awakened from his forenoon’s nap.

Boy ate his dinner in silence. When he arose he glanced at Gloss. She was standing before the window, and Boy saw her perfect face, crowned by a mass of heavy chestnut hair, clear-lined against the light of an outer world. Her great eyes were looking into space: she was dreaming. The young man sought the open with surging pulse. The whistle of Hallibut’s mill sounded its challenge, and, squaring his broad shoulders, he laughed. Something new had come to him. Not strength; though strength was of it. Not defiance; though it held the power to defy. Boy did not attempt to define that new thing: it was enough for him to know that he possessed it.

CHAPTER VIII
Through the Deep Wood

Gloss, standing in the kitchen doorway, gazed outward across the bronze-tipped trees to the drab-colored sky resting above Rond Eau.

There was a smile on her lips and her eyes were alive with the light of genuine girlish happiness. She did not know why she should be so glad; but to-day she felt like singing; like racing out into the hardwoods and tramping the long leaf-carpeted aisles. She wanted to be out in the open. A flock of wild geese wedged their way between two tiny strips of blue sky and were lost in a heavy snow-cloud above the Point. The girl clapped her hands joyfully and, springing backward like a young gazelle, she snatched her cap from a peg and tiptoed into the inner room.

Granny McTavish looked up from her knitting, a smile on her wrinkled face.

“Lass,” she said softly, “but ye are gettin’ mair like your dear mither every day. And she was bonnie, aye, she was bonnie, lassie.”

The girl sank on her knees and took the old hands in hers.

“Am I like my mother, Granny?” she asked eagerly. “Very like her?”

“Aye, dearie, ye have her eyes and ye have her beautiful hair; ye have her face and ye have her smile. Ye tak me awa back to the time I first saw your mither, Gloss. Ye will na gangin’ oot i’ th’ snaw, pet,” noting with concern that Gloss had on her cap and coat. “I ne’er lak ta see ye ramblin’ aboot i’ th’ woods after th’ snaw falls on account o’ th’ wolves, cheeld.”

“And she was beautiful, and I am like her,” said the girl softly. “Oh, Granny, I’m beginnin’ to miss my mother!”

“Cheeld, cheeld,” said the old woman, drawing the girl over to her bosom. “It’s ever the way. The mither is missed always, but the cheeld canna miss her lak the woman. And ye are growin’ into a woman, Gloss; ye are growin’ into a woman fast, lassie.”

She picked up her knitting and rocked to and fro, crooning to herself. The girl arose and, bending, kissed her softly on the smooth white hair. Then she crossed the kitchen and peeped into the larger of the bedrooms.

“She’s sleepin’, lass; best slip awa’ and no disturb her,” whispered Granny. “She’ll no last much langer, dearie; she’ll no last much langer, I fear.”

A look of sorrow came into the girl’s eyes and her mouth trembled.

“God won’t let her die, Granny,” she said chokingly; “He knows we need her so much.”

“Maybe He needs her th’ mair, lassie.”

“No, no, He can’t. And, Granny, she wouldn’t—she wouldn’t be happy away from Boy and—and us.”

“Ye dinna ken, lassie, ye dinna ken; it’s a braw warld and your mither has been lookin’ for her comin’ full lang, I ha’ noo doot. They were greet friends. They looed ain anither reet weel.”

“But mother would not mind waitin’ some longer, Granny. I know she would rather let auntie live a while longer for our sakes. She has got used to waitin’.”

“Lass, you mus’na cry,” said the old woman gently. “If she gangs awa’ it wull be God’s good pleasure. If she bides ’twull be His mercy. We wull hope and pray for the best, Glossie.”

When Gloss sought the wood a white, sweet-scented mist was rising from the leafy carpet where a thin veil of snow had rested. The low calls of the feathered denizens of the Wild sounded mellow and indistinct from the soft-wood swales, for the sky was changing to the slate-blue of eventide. Down in the stumpy potato-patch Boy and Big McTavish were busily engaged in turning the snowy tubers out of the black soil.

Gloss skirted the patch, keeping a thicket between her and the workers, and passed on southward until she reached a wide ridge of giant beech trees, whose long outstretched arms were fruited with the toothsome nuts which the first frost of autumn would send in a shower to the earth.

Black and red squirrels were busy among the trees, garnering their winter’s food. They worked noisily, chattering and scolding. They were a busy little body of workers, and they could not afford to pay much attention to the wood-nymph whom they had become accustomed to see in their kingdom. The old-time restfulness and happiness had stolen back to the heart of the girl. Her great eyes were alive with life and joy, and she passed on, humming a merry tune to herself, drinking in the golden beauty, the songs, and the scents of nature.

Beyond a tangled clump of trees Gloss came unexpectedly upon another creature of the wood. A young doe was browsing among the tender shoots of the brush-pile, and at the girl’s soft footsteps it lifted its shapely head and stood quivering, its nostrils dilated and its sides heaving. And so the two animals of the Wild gazed at each other with a deep and growing wonder.

Nature had built those two after the same fashion. Both were slender and graceful; both were alert and watchful; both possessed long-lashed eyes; both were wild, free, and beautiful.

The doe stood with her slender muzzle lifted, her sensitive lips a-tremble, her humid eyes fastened upon the girl of the forest, who, instinctively, she felt, would do her no harm.

For a moment the two creatures stood gazing at each other. The doe reached forward timidly and plucked another mouthful of the juicy twigs, then with a sudden start leaped into the thicket on the right.

Gloss turned quickly. A little man with a small face fringed with whiskers, and light-blue eyes blinking from beneath a coon-skin cap, stepped out from behind a tree and lowered the hammer of his long rifle.

“Jinks and ironwood!” he ejaculated; “you stud right in my way, Glossie. I’d o’ had that doe sure pop if I hadn’t been a trifle timid about hittin’ you.”

“Did—did you want to shoot that pretty little thing, Ander?” asked Gloss, her cheeks aflame.

“Wall, I don’t know,” laughed the little man, coming forward. “I tell you that war as fine a doe as I’ve seen this season, girl.”

“Poor thing,” sighed Gloss; then hotly, “I’m glad she got away; I’m glad she got away.”

“Somebody else’ll get her,” said the man. “She’s pretty tame and she’ll get shot sooner or later.”

The girl stood looking away through the wood.

“Ander,” she said, “I know you are a pretty good man. I want you to promise me that you won’t shoot things—things like her. It’s terrible. Why, they are so young they don’t know any danger. You’ll give them all a chance, won’t you?”

Declute looked puzzled. He scratched his head and grinned; then he looked down.

“Why, I don’t mind promisin’ that,” he stammered. “I ain’t carin’ much to shoot—any deer without givin’ it somethin’ of a chance. And I will say that to shoot ’em without goes somethin’ again’ my grain. All right, Gloss, old Ander’ll promise not to shoot that doe or any other like her. Dang me, but you and her seemed a lot, a lot alike to me somehow. I reckon I’m good enough of a shot to have got by you, girl; but somethin’ kept my rifle down. I see you two lookin’ at each other—her eyes, your eyes—wall, I can’t say what makes me think you two are alike, but you are. No, siree, Ander won’t shoot any more does—at least, not this season. Now, Gloss, I want you t’ come along over to my place and see my missus. She’s bound to have a loggin’-bee right soon, and she wants you to help her lay out the eatin’ line. I can’t say much—you know what Rachel’s like. When she takes a notion to do a thing I might as well give in right on the start and save trouble. I don’t know why we wanter log, but that don’t matter—we’re goin’ to log ’cause Rachel says so. Come along over and sorter give th’ old woman a tip or two about what she should get together for the table. I’ll see you back through th’ bush, ’cause I wanter see Boy about some traps.”

They started out, the man keeping up a running fire of conversation, his short legs taking two steps to the tall girl’s one, and his little eyes, by force of habit, shooting here and there through the bush.

As they approached Declute’s home, a house of logs close to the shore of Rond Eau, a couple of wire-haired mongrel curs came yelping out to meet them.

“There’s David and Goliath,” said Ander. “Rachel named them dogs. She’s great on Bible names, is Rachel—too danged great,” he finished in a lower key.

Gloss opened the door and stepped inside. Mrs. Declute turned slowly from the table and a smile spread across her flour-streaked face.

“Oh, you dear,” she said, pounding forward and implanting a resounding smack on the girl’s rosy cheek. “You little dear, to come just now of all times, when I most wanted to see you.”

Mrs. Declute smiled again and a bit of powder fell from her face. It was a big matronly face, with big-heartedness written clean across it, and real kindness gleaming in its large black eyes. She was a big woman, “nigh two hundred and thirty,” as Ander put it.

“Where are the babies?” asked Gloss, sitting down on a stool and glancing about the small room.

“Sleepin’ like angels, th’ troublesome little good-fer-nothin’s,” smiled the woman fondly. “Moses is just that troublesome I think sometimes I’ll have to tie him up. Only this mornin’ he upsot the cradle and spilt little Martha out on the floor ker-bump. Give my life if I wasn’t so provoked I could have beeched him if he hadn’t been just gettin’ over th’ jaundice.”

“Ander tells me that you are thinkin’ of havin’ a loggin’,” said Gloss. “Is there anythin’ I could help you to do, Mrs. Declute?”

“Just what I was wantin’ to see you about,” cried the beaming woman, sitting down and wiping her face with her apron. “Thought first as I’d run across to Totherside and ask widder Ross to come over. Then I thought about her havin’ that teacher boardin’ there, and I didn’t want to put her out any. Fine cook is the widder, but somehow I can’t think as anybody can cook meats and sarve ’em up quite like you, Glossie. I’m fixin’ up some dried-apple pies. Sent over to Bridgetown this mornin’ by Jim Peeler for the dried-apples. Guess he’ll be along soon.”

“He’s comin’ right now,” called Declute from the door. “I’ll go along and give him a hand, I guess. He’s got some tobaccer for me—leastways I hope he has; I sent for some.”

“Ain’t that a man for you?” winked Mrs. Declute. “Ain’t that a man, though? Glossie, my dear, don’t you ever marry a man; don’t you ever do it. You’ll be sorry all the days of your life if you do. Even I am almost sorry sometimes, an’ Ander’s an exception of a man. There ain’t no other like him. And sakes alive, he’s bad enough, dear knows.”

Ander and a short, heavy-set man entered, and the latter laid a number of parcels on the table. He had a jolly round red face with crow’s-feet about the corners of brown eyes, stamped there by much smiling. It was said of Jim Peeler that he had never been known to lose his temper. He stood a short rifle in a corner and sat down near the table. Mrs. Declute arose and brought a steaming teapot from the hearth, also a plate of bread and cold meat.

After disposing of a goodly portion of the victuals before him, Jim turned to Gloss with the question:

“How’s the sick?”

“No better,” answered Gloss, her face growing grave.

“Dear me, how thinkless I am!” exclaimed Mrs. Declute. “I knowed there was somethin’ I wanted to ask you, Gloss. That’s it. How’s th’ dear little woman?”

Ander was cutting off a piece of black chewing-tobacco from a big slab.

“Why don’t you tell old Betsy ’bout her, Glossie?” he asked.

“Shet up, Ander,” flashed his wife. “Be you a Christian, or be you a heathen as believe in witches?”

“There, there,” laughed Peeler soothingly, “I guess Ander is a good Christian. But I was talkin’ to a real Christian to-day; a real pious, right-down good man.”

“Smythe?” questioned Declute, the piece of tobacco poised half-way to its expectant goal.

“The same,” answered Peeler. “And, by the way, I met that man Watson as I was comin’ home. He must have been over here, eh?”

“He was here this mornin’,” said Gloss. “He was tryin’ to—to buy our place.”

“Oh, was he?”

Peeler’s face lost its smile and his bushy eyebrows met in a scowl. “How about you, Ander?”

Declute squirmed.

“Oh, I ain’t thinkin’ much about it, Jim. I ain’t worryin’ none.”

His wife gazed at him contemptuously.

“You ain’t brains enough to worry about anythin’,” she exclaimed. “Was Watson ridin’ alone, Jim?”

“Well, no, he wasn’t. That teacher chap was with him. He was ridin’ the bay belongin’ to Hallibut’s engineer.”

Gloss looked up, her eyes wide.

“Then they were together?” she asked.

“Yes,” replied Peeler. “I suppose the teacher was seein’ him through part of the bush. I was talkin’ to Blake, the sawyer, over at the mill a while ago, and he tells me Colonel Hallibut has hired Smythe and Watson to help get our timberland.”

“Where’bouts on the trail did you meet ’em?” asked Declute.

“Why, they had only got nicely started, I guess. It wasn’t more than two or three miles out at most.”

“Where has Watson been all day, I wonder?” cried Gloss. “He was at our place shortly after sun-up.”

From the next room came a commotion, and three round-eyed youngsters, between the ages of three and six, protruded their heads from beneath the buckskin door-curtain.

“Get back in thar, Moses and Zaccheus,” commanded the mother; “you ain’t had half enough sleep yet.”

“Oh, let me hug them, Mrs. Declute,” pleaded Gloss.

She ran across and gathered the babies up, all together, in her arms. They twined their chubby arms about her neck and rubbed their sleepy eyes against her face. They were sweet, wholesome youngsters, and the girl loved them. She kissed them all, three times around, then set them down.

“Guess we’d better be goin’, Ander,” she said, “that is, if you have to come. But I’m not the least timid about goin’ alone.”

“Course he’ll go,” declared Mrs. Declute, “and you, too, Jim Peeler, ’cause I’ve got to get on with them pies. Tell Libby the bee’s next Thursday, and I’ll want her to help with the table. Much ’bliged for your kindness, Jim. Good-night, Glossie.”

CHAPTER IX
And the Twilight

“Guess I’ll step through the oak ridge here and look in on Bill Paisley for a minute or so,” said Jim Peeler, as the three found the path leading to the creek.

“He’s singin’ his old pet song,” smiled Gloss. “Hark, can’t you hear him?”

Upon the tree-fringe of Rond Eau a red disk of a sun was dripping gold and amethyst glory and all the wild-wood was full of life and harmony. From the thickets the hardiest of the song-birds were bidding good-by to the wood. It was their last night in the old nesting-place.

Mingled with the symphony came Paisley’s voice, trilling happily:

“Massar’s gone away, de darkey say, ‘Ho, ho!’

Mus’ be now dat de kingdom’s comin’

I’ de year ob jubiloo.”

“He’s a happy beggar,” chuckled Declute. “He’s a happy beggar, is Bill, and the biggest-hearted, softest-hearted baby of a man as ever lived.”

“God built some big things,” said Peeler: “that,” waving a hand toward the mellow glory above; “this,” looking about him; “an’ Bill. Yes, He built Bill, and nobody has ever spoiled His work.”

“And nobody can spoil His work,” said Gloss gently, “dear old Bill.”

“Run along, children,” laughed Peeler, “I’ve got my pockets full of things that Paisley sent to town for. Silk thread, silk cloth—three dollars a yard; look here.” He tapped one of his large, bulging pockets. “Bill’s gone into the dressmakin’ business, it seems.”

Gloss clasped her brown hands and her eyes danced.

“Oh,” she begged, “won’t you let me come too? I want to see all those things. I surely do.”

“Tut, tut,” scolded Peeler, screwing up his face, “that wouldn’t do at all. I’m tellin’ too much. I’m a poor hand at keepin’ secrets.”

He plunged among the trees, his face frowning and his eyes laughing, and when he had put one of the wide ridges between himself and Gloss he clapped his hands and laughed like a boy.

“She don’t know that Bill is gettin’ all this costly finery for her. Bless her,” he murmured, wiping his eyes, “she don’t suspect a thing—not a thing. God bless her dear heart. Ah, but all the silver-fox hides in all this big woods couldn’t make a coat good enough for our girl, let alone six as Bill has. But it’s Bill’s little wish,” he added; “it’s just Bill’s little wish. And Bill’s one of God’s big men.”

Bill scarcely looked his part on this particular evening. Peeler found him sitting just outside his home, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his sinewy arms shining with bear-oil. Across his seamed face were a number of greasy smears, left there by brushing away a troublesome mosquito. Between his teeth he gripped a short clay pipe. At his feet lay a pile of traps, tangled together and red with rust.

“Got back, eh?” he grinned as Peeler approached. “Get them things, Jim?”

“Sure, Bill,” and Peeler commenced emptying his pockets.

“Jim,” said Paisley, “I guess I’d best have your good wife help me out on this coat. I thought maybe she’d do the linin’. Suppose she would?”

“Do I suppose? Wall, I do better,” answered Peeler, “I know she will.”

“Then don’t empty out till you get home. I’ll drop over to-morrow night. I’ve got to get these traps in shape if I’m goin’ to do any trappin’ this season. Who’d you see over at Bridgetown, Jim?”

“Just a few that Declute wants over to his loggin’,” answered Peeler, seating himself on a bench, “an’ that man Smythe who keeps the store.”

“What do you think o’ that feller?”

Paisley made a dip for the pan of bear-oil and started scrubbing another trap.

“Well, I don’t just think I’m takin’ to him much,” replied Peeler. “I don’t like the way he has of shiftin’ his eyes, and he always seems to be expectin’ somebody. He sort of makes me nervous. He tried to find out all about every person that lives here, but I wasn’t sayin’ much. Somehow I wish Tom Gray hadn’t sold out his store to this feller, Bill. I don’t know why, but I can’t take to him.”

“Pshaw,” grunted Paisley, “I guess we’re all too quick at takin’ dislikes. I’ll own I feel purty much the same as you. Did he tell you that he was hand in hand with Watson? I haven’t ever seen Watson yet, but I’m anxious to meet him.”

“He was askin’ me about widder Ross,” said Peeler. “Wanted to know how much property she owned, and all that. Said that he liked her—what he had seen of her.”

Paisley dropped his trap and stared through the twilight at his friend.

“By gum!” he exclaimed, “what do you think of that?”

“He told me quite a lot of things about Colonel Hallibut,” said Peeler, coming over and seating himself close beside Paisley. “Bill, it looks as if Hallibut was bound to scoop us off this place. Smythe says as he is a bad man to hinder, once he has made up his mind. He says as both him and Watson is in sympathy with us, and if we’ll only let on we’re agreeable to leave, that him and Watson’ll see he don’t get hold of the leases.”

Paisley took his pipe from his mouth and laid it on a nearby block.

“Jim,” he said, “I don’t know Smythe very well, but you can bet on this—the man’s a liar. Him and Watson are hand in hand with old Hallibut, and it’s my impression they’re all a pack of rascals. Hallibut threatens to drive us into the bay if we refuse to be reasonable—as he calls it. I was talkin’ to one of the fellers who runs that mill of his, this afternoon, and he says Hallibut rides over to Bridgetown most every day and lays plans with Smythe and Watson. He said as to-day Hallibut intended goin’ over there. Didn’t see him, I suppose?”

Peeler shook his head.

“No, but I met Watson to-night—him and Simpson.”

“There you are,” cried Paisley; “there you are. Watson intended to come here to-day, and you can bet that old reprobate Hallibut has a hand in anything Watson does.”

“Then you think them fellers are goin’ to try some funny work, do you, Bill?”

“Jim,” answered Paisley, “it’s my opinion that there’s goin’ to be trouble here soon. Them people have laid plans to get our woods, and of course we’ll naturally see that they don’t. But what I’m afraid of is that Boy McTavish is goin’ to kill somebody sure. You know what he’s like, Jim, so I want to ask you to do this: no matter what you see or hear, don’t tell Boy. I’ve just about raised him, you might say, and I know his moods. There’s enough trouble over there at Big Mac’s now. If we just keep cool everythin’ ’ll come out all right. We’ll keep our eyes and ears open, and whatever we see and hear we’ll try to meet without Boy knowin’ anythin’ about it. What d’ye say, Jim?”

“Sure,” answered Peeler. “I think same’s you, Bill. It won’t do to be too hasty if things come to the worst, which I hope they won’t.”

“Amen to that,” said Paisley fervently. “I trust there’ll be no trouble, Jim. Old Injun Noah was here to-day, and I could see that somethin’ was worryin’ him. You know he won’t talk—only to Gloss; so I couldn’t get anythin’ out of him.”

“When old Noah worries there’s somethin’ in the wind all right,” said Peeler. “Good old Noah!”

“He stayed here with me quite a time,” said Paisley, “and he never said a word till he was leavin’. Then he said:

“ ‘Bushwhacker no shoot, no kill big man. That mean bad, bad for Bushwhacker. Bushwhacker wait—wait and see.’ And before I could ask him anythin’ he was gone.”

“He comes mysterious and he goes mysterious,” said Peeler slowly, “but I reckon he knows even more than we do about old Hallibut and his gang.”

He arose and walked toward the path.

“Will you come over to Big Mac’s, Bill?” he asked.

“Sure, I will.”

Paisley dived into the house, washed his hands and face, threw on a jacket, and came forth a bright and smiling six feet of manhood.

“I’m wantin’ some to see the little sick woman,” said Peeler, “and hear Big Mac’s fiddle again.”

“Boy was here this mornin’,” said Bill as the two struck off down the path, “and he says the ma is awful sick. I guess she won’t be stayin’ long.”

When the men reached the McTavish home night had fallen, and a big moon was lifting her face from the forest far eastward.

A damp wind off the bay bore on its wings the scent of bog and marsh, and from high overhead came the wing-songs of inflying wild ducks. From inside came the music of the fiddle playing “Ye Banks and Braes.”

CHAPTER X
Colonel Hallibut

“Jno. T. Smythe; Seller of guns, ammunition, and provisions; Buyer of furs and game.”

This sign creaked and complained against a dingy little building of unplaned boards. It was gray and forsaken-looking, being one of about two hundred others just like it, of gloomy and sullen aspect. This was Bridgetown. On its one side, stretching eastward, lay a drab-gray fallow of partly cleared land. Here and there stood a clump of trees; here and there a solitary stub, ax-scarred or fire-blackened. In these, Nature seemed to be voicing her resentment of the ravishes of man. In this, the close of an October day, the little town seemed as dead as the slain beauties that had once reigned in her place. Westward, beginning with a stubble of second-growth beeches and maples, the land rolled and undulated, at each step southward and westward taking on a more picturesque appearance of natural grandeur. For ten miles inland lay the scars that civilization had left upon the forest. Then the marks were seen no more. A yellow ridge of golden-oak marked the boundary-line, and behind this line lay Bushwhackers’ Place.

Mr. Smythe, the storekeeper, stood gazing out from the dirty pane at the dreary panorama, occasionally lifting his shifting light-blue eyes heavenward. A big storm-cloud was rolling in above the forest from the west.

“Watson ought to be back by now,” he mused for the twentieth time in half an hour. “God forgive me if I did wrong in letting him take gray Fan. He’s three stone too heavy for the mare.” He turned from the window and glanced toward the door. A heavy step was approaching. From without came a sonorous voice calling and scolding a pack of hounds that now came scrambling and barking up the deserted street.

“It’s Colonel Hallibut,” whispered Smythe in dismay. “Why does he want to show up just at this time of all times? Watson might have known that he would put in his appearance just when he wasn’t wanted. All right, sir. Yes, sir, I’ll open for you, Colonel. Come in, sir; come in.”

A big form filled the doorway and a big voice spoke.

“Nice storekeeper you are, Smythe, to have your door locked this way. What’s the matter with you, anyway? Let the dogs come in; poor chaps, they’re tired.”

“They don’t take to me, your hounds don’t, Colonel,” ventured the storekeeper. “That brindle fellow took hold of my leg the last time I let ’em in. However, there you are. Nice doggies, come in and make yourselves to home.”

“Finest pack in Ontario; finest pack in the whole Dominion, I say—those fellows,” laughed Hallibut, jolting, in the semi-darkness, against a pile of furs and toppling it over on the floor.

Immediately three of the tired dogs stretched themselves out on the soft bed, as though it had been arranged for them, and went to sleep. Hallibut threw himself into a chair by the fireplace and laughed at the other’s dismay.

“Better not try to disturb ’em, Smythe,” he cautioned. “They’re ugly, I tell you. Get them something to eat, will you? And say, Smythe, just have that nigger of yours get me up a snack, too, like a good fellow; I’ve been riding since morning.”

“St. Thomas?” asked Mr. Smythe, shifting his light eyes to the Colonel’s face and patting his thin hair with his long fingers.

“It doesn’t matter,” returned the other. “Where is Watson?”

“I’m sorry to say,” commenced Smythe; but the Colonel turned upon him, his black brows knit in a frown.

“You needn’t finish. I know.”

He arose stiffly and walked around behind the counter.

“Give me the key, Smythe,” he demanded, holding out his hand.

The Colonel took the key and unlocked a small oak cupboard, extracting from it a bottle of red liquor.

“I’m afraid if Watson persists in drinking I’ll have to find a new agent,” he said, walking to the door and throwing the bottle across the street.

“Seems he can’t resist the drink, Colonel,” stammered the groceryman.

His long face had turned to a yellow-white, though, it was hid by the advancing night-shadows from the black orbs of the ponderous man before him.

“I’ll go and have you a meal prepared. Make yourself comfortable, Colonel Hallibut.”

Not until the door of the inner room closed upon him did the soul of Smythe vent itself in whispered imprecations. He clenched his claw-like fists and shook them fiercely. He let forth a tirade of murmured oaths that would have made a Newfoundland fisherman gasp in wonder. Finally, he turned and, prying through the gloom, sought out the recumbent figure of his colored man-of-all-work, who was peacefully sleeping on a cot of willow-boughs. Smythe crept forward and bent above the sleeper. A prolonged snore met him. He reached forward and, feeling down the wide bridge of the negro’s nose until he got the desired hold, he deliberately gave that member such a violent twist that Sam came out of Magnolialand to this trying sphere with a suppressed snort.

“Yes, massar,” he cried, struggling up.

“Light the candles and put some bacon to fry,” commanded Smythe. “Colonel Hallibut is here.”

“Lawd save us!” groaned the colored man. “Where am dem candles at, I wonder? Hab he got de dorgs, sah?” shading a match with his hands so that its flickering light showed the apprehension in his white eyeballs.

“Some of them, yes. Don’t stand there shaking. Get his supper ready, then go down to the Triple Elms and wait for Watson. They mus’n’t meet until I’ve seen Watson. You tell him the Colonel is here and to lie low until he leaves.”

Sam had lit the candles and now stood tongueing his thick lips.

“It’s gwine to be a bad night, sah, an’ dey do say a-pack of wolves——”

Smythe lifted his hand.

“Hurry up—I hear him tramping out there. What did I tell you?”

The heavy voice of the Colonel was heard requesting that lights be brought and the fire be made more cheerful.

“You’d better take a rifle with you,” said the storekeeper, turning to the negro, his hand on the latch.

Sam waited until the door had closed behind his master. Then he gave way to silent mirth.

“Massar Smiff don’ want Watson t’ meet de Kennel. An’ de Kennel a-waitin’ out dar fer Massar Watson ter pop in any time. He! ho! he! ho!”

He quickly prepared the visitor’s meal, and, lifting the rifle from its pegs, slipped out by the back door.

After he had eaten his supper Hallibut pushed his chair back from the table and felt for his pipe.

“When was Watson over to Bushwhackers’ Place last?” he asked, his eyes on Smythe’s face.

“Let me see—why, I think it was on Tuesday, sir. He said you asked him to use his influence with those misguided people who prefer savagery to civilization.”

“Your friend has a vivid imagination,” remarked Hallibut. “He came to see me and told me a lot of nice things the Bushwhackers intended doing to me if I didn’t mind my own business. Knowing Watson to be even a bigger prevaricator than you are, I believed half what he said and let the rest go by me. However, I know the Bushwhackers haven’t any use for me. I don’t know why. Guess they think I’d do anything to gain what I’d set out to,—and they’re not far wrong. He suggested that I let you and him handle this deal for me, and after consideration I thought maybe I had better. I’m too short-tempered to ever use diplomacy, and as I’m no hypocrite I couldn’t soft-soap the Bushwhackers into coming to my way of thinking. I’m willing to pay them whatever the timber is worth. It ought to be a good thing for them, and I’m inclined to think they’ll be sensible and sell the timber. I only want the biggest of the hard stuff.”

“They’re a bunch of bad ones,” declared Smythe; “a regular band of cut-throats. They know no law and they hold life as cheap as water. Big McTavish has incited the others against you. They swear they will kill you if you set foot on Bushwhackers’ Place.”

“I’m not anxious to set foot on Bushwhackers’ Place, providing I can secure the timber through an agent. But the timber I must have. I gave Watson money with which to start the ball rolling. Maybe I’ll see that money again and maybe I won’t. As I said before, I don’t trust either you or Watson very far. But both of you know me.”

“We will do our very utmost to get the timber,” said Smythe; and as the Colonel turned toward him he added, “for you.”

“It might be a good idea,” said Hallibut. “As for those Bushwhackers, I’m not caring a cent what they think of me. I tried to show them that I was interested in their welfare by building that schoolhouse, that they might educate their children, and by giving it to them—it and the land it stands on. I’ve hired young Simpson to teach the school, or you did with my money, which amounts to the same, and after all this you say the Bushwhackers want to kill me. Grateful, aren’t they?”

“If you hadn’t built that mill until after you had got possession of the timber——” faltered Smythe; but the Colonel interrupted him.

“See here, I built that mill on my own land, didn’t I? Surely I don’t have to ask permission from anybody else when I want to do anything with my own.”

“I was merely going to say that the mill has driven the fur-bearing animals out of the creek,” smiled Smythe. “The Bushwhackers say you have spoiled the best trapping, sir.”

“Well, I’m sorry for that; but my intentions were good. I looked upon those people as a simple-hearted lot of men and women whose friendship was worth the winning. It’s funny—me wanting friends at my age. But I’m getting old and fanciful, I guess.”

Smythe scratched his chin and squinted along his beak-like nose as though he were aiming the remark at a crack in the floor, as he said:

“They’re not particular about having the trees cut down. They live mostly by shooting and trapping. But I do know that two thousand acres of walnut, beech, and hickory is worth a fortune to somebody.”

“Humph! And how long have you known that? Seems queer to me that you and Watson haven’t tried to corner this timber for yourselves.”

The storekeeper lifted his hands.

“Surely you know us better than that,” he protested.

“I know dogs better than I do men,” said Hallibut, “and I can trust dogs. I’ve never seen many men that I could trust. It was a man stole the best thing I ever had in life.”

“Ah,” Mr. Smythe rubbed his hands together and smiled, “a woman?”

Hallibut looked at him, an expression of disgust on his face.

“Yes, but not the kind of woman you know. This one was my sister.”

“Just so,” smirked the grocer; and then he whispered again, “just so.”

“Did you or Watson tell the Bushwhackers what I intend to do with the boat?” asked Hallibut after a little time had elapsed.

“Yes, and they say that as soon as you try and put your schooner up Lee Creek there will be trouble. They told Watson to tell you so,” said Smythe.

“So they warn me, eh?”

Hallibut left his chair and paced up and down the floor.

Smythe sat with a smile of satisfaction on his weasel-like face.

“Of course, they can’t stop you from entering the harbor and sailing across Rond Eau; neither can they prevent you from sailing up the creek. But,” he added impressively, “they can burn your boat.”

“Don’t talk foolishness,” cried Hallibut. “They aren’t quite crazy. If they tried anything like that on with me, I’d wipe ’em out; you hear me—wipe the whole bunch of ’em out.”

“I think Mr. Watson and I may make some amicable arrangements with the misguided people,” said Smythe.

“Well, see that you do. Neither of you are honest, and you should make a success of any job that requires underhand work. But this is a straight, fair, and square offer. See that you make the Bushwhackers understand that I want to treat them squarely.”

He sat down and gazed across at Smythe. Slowly the purple died in his face, and he relighted his pipe and smoked it thoughtfully.

“It’s hard to understand some men,” he said, “—mighty hard. But then it’s mighty hard to understand some dogs, too. I’ve seen dogs, and owned ’em, intelligent enough to understand most everything I said to them. But somehow I never got to know their language. Still I’m called a dog’s superior. Strange, isn’t it? Now, your friend Watson reminds me of a dog that would wag and fawn all he could out of you.”

He nodded his great head slowly and sent a cloud of smoke ceilingward.

“As the case stands, I’ve trusted him with my money. The question is, will he play square?”

Mr. Smythe opened his milk-blue eyes wide.

“Oh, you may trust him, my dear Colonel,” he said earnestly. “Mr. Watson, sir, is an honest servant; a faithful Christian.”

“Humph, think so? Well, maybe you’re right. I’m not feeling exactly like myself to-night, Smythe, and I’m fanciful, I guess. The fellow who’s rigging my schooner told me a story this morning—not a nice story, either—and I’ve been thinking ever since about a poor little woman who died with not a single friend near her. Here’s the sailor’s story:

“A man by the name of Watts, who was supposed to be a ferryman, lived on the Detroit River somewhere near Sandwich. A crippled sister kept house for him, and he, according to report, was a bad one all round. One night he brought across from the American side a woman and her baby. They had come a long distance, it seems, and the woman was sick—in fact, she was dying. This Watts saw she had money, and he took her to his home, where she died that very night. Before the end came she consigned the baby to the care of Watts and obtained a promise from him that he would try and find a man—the sailor couldn’t remember the name—and place the baby, along with a certain parcel she was carrying, with him.”

Smythe laughed uneasily.

“That was a pretty big contract for Watts to take on.”

“Of course, he never intended to keep it,” said Hallibut. “She gave him money with which to seek out her friends. The sailor says he put it in his pocket and let the County bury the poor woman.”

“And the baby?” queried Smythe, his face twitching.

“I’m coming to that. It seems this Watts’ hunchback sister was a good woman at heart. She wanted to keep the baby. But he sent the child away into the forest with an Indian on a wild-goose chase and kept the parcel.”

Smythe made five dots on the paper before him.

“What was in the parcel?” he asked, wiping his eyes.

“The sailor didn’t know, but it was reported to be money. You’ll make me wish I hadn’t told you this harrowing story, Smythe.”

“Poor mother; poor little orphan,” sighed the storekeeper.

The Colonel stared at him.

“Did I say that the baby’s father had died?” he asked. “You’re right though, its father was dead. The woman told Watts as much.”

Hallibut arose and stretched his long arms. He was a man far past middle age, with iron-gray hair, a large face, and deep, kindly eyes. He stood over six-foot-two, was broad of shoulder, and straight as an arrow.

“That’s the story the sailor told me,” he said grimly. “I’ve been thinking of that poor woman all day. Poor little thing—sick and dying amongst strangers. And that man—think of what he did, Smythe. Could you imagine any man being so inhuman?”

Smythe sat huddled up on his chair.

“How long ago did this thing happen?” he asked.

“It was nineteen years ago; maybe twenty. There’s no doubt about the baby being dead long ago. Of course, the Indian would reason that it was less trouble to let the baby die than it was to keep it alive.”

The Colonel locked his hands behind him and paced up and down the room. He paused before Smythe at last and looked down upon him with misty eyes.

“I guess I’m not very well,” he said with a short laugh, “—why, this thing happened twenty years ago; and maybe after all the sailor was lying.”

Mr. Smythe raised his head.

“Sailors have a habit of lying,” he agreed.

The door opened and Sambo burst into the room.

“I put de hoss inter de stable, Massar Smiff,” he cried.

“Why, who had your horse, Smythe?” asked Hallibut.

Smythe’s weasel eyes shifted from the big man to Sambo.

“I loaned her to—to Alexander Wilson this morning,” he faltered.

“That’s funny,” returned the Colonel. “I met Wilson driving a span of oxen as I was coming here. Say, Sambo, feed my dogs, like a good fellow; I want to push on.”

Half an hour after the hoof-beats of Hallibut’s horse had died away Watson crept into the room. He was breathing heavily and his swarthy face was drawn and haggard. Mr. Smythe wisely asked no questions.

The agent sank into a seat before the fire. He sat fumbling in his pocket and from it finally drew out a leather wallet. He opened it and extracted from it a photograph. He held it out in a shaking hand and looked at Smythe.

“I’ve hung on to this,” he faltered, “because you thought we ought to keep it—because you thought if the baby was alive we might know it from this likeness.”

Smythe nodded, and Watson leaned forward and put the photograph in the red coals.

“You were right,” he shivered. “I found it. I found it to-day, and I knew it by that likeness of its mother. Yes, I found the girl, Smythe.”

Smythe glanced fearfully at the snoring Sambo in the corner.

“Where was she?” he asked in an awed whisper.

Watson did not reply. He picked up the poker and bent above the fire. The cardboard he had tossed in the coals lay there charred and curled. As he gazed upon it, fascinated, a little baby flame sprang out and kissed it to glowing life so that from it a face flashed out, sweet, glad, and triumphant. Then a breeze from the Wild swooped down the wide chimney and carried it away.

CHAPTER XI
The Wild of the Wild

Colonel Hallibut rode the lone trail, his hounds at his heels. A spent moon draggled across a spiteful, crumpled sky, low down above the fringe of ravished forest. The wind had died, and the night was still, except for the calls of the forest things that voice their woes and joys at night. There were the low “whoo-hoos” of the owls, the “perru-perrs” of the night-hawks, and away far down toward the westward came, now and again, a fluted call dying in a wail that bespoke the lynx’s unsuccessful stalking. Deeper down in the forest a stray timber-wolf called hopelessly to a wandering pack. Anon the call was answered faintly, but clearly, far above; then a new note came into the strayer’s voice, and the yelp was sharper, clearer than before.

Colonel Hallibut rode on, his head low and his rifle thrown across his saddle-pommel. Occasionally his lips moved and he sat erect with a jerk.

“Hate me, do they?” he mused. “I wonder why? And I wonder why I should care? I am growing old and fanciful, I guess. Thank God I have my dogs—and a dog is a true friend.”

The thin moon dropped down behind the heavy fringe and the night blackened as the trail narrowed.

“I don’t know but I’ve made a mistake in making Watson and Smythe my agents,” thought the man. “I can’t trust either of them, and——”

From far ahead there came again the long, low cry of a wolf; not the undulating cry; but the long-drawn, unvarying note that bespoke the rejoining of the pack. Hallibut lifted his head and half-reined in his horse.

“Howl, you devils,” he cried. Then he slapped the horse’s neck with the rein. “If it were mid-winter now,” he soliloquized, shrugging his shoulders, “I wouldn’t just feel safe in this place.”

Miles of the trail still lay before him—miles of lonely land. But the man was inured to the Wild; he had ridden the night trail many, many times. Still the life had taught him caution. He knew that in mid-winter, when the food was scarce, the timber-wolves grew fearless and were bad company. In winter he would not have thought of journeying on this trail alone. But it was barely autumn now, and he gave himself not the slightest thought of danger, but rode boldly on.

The Colonel was the big man of his particular day. The village of St. Thomas, miles onward, he practically owned, as well as the greater portion of the partly cleared land surrounding it. St. Thomas was simply a drab-colored blotch on the Wild as yet, but the lake lay close to it and its natural resources promised to make of the half-cleared country about it a great land some day not far future. Hallibut owned the grand home of the country-side; a big, rambling house of planed boards, with wide rooms and oiled hardwood floors. It sat on the crest of a hill among a grove of butternuts, and near it stood the stables and kennels, famous far and near.

Horses were a rarity in those old days, but in Colonel Hallibut’s stables were some of the best blood-horses of the time. He loved riding and he loved the chase. Being of English birth he had adopted the customs of his homeland and carried them to the limit. His cellar contained bitter ale, beer, and choice wines. He loved to sit beside his wide fireplace with his long pipe alight, a mug at his elbow, and hounds snoozing about him, and there dream, with his pets, of the events of the day’s chase. He was a power in his land. No man dared to gainsay his command. He held more than money-power; he represented the law as well. He was a monopolist. He had secured land for the asking; land for a pittance; land for an hour or two of patient head-work. He owned thousands of acres. The scarcity of hard timber, occasioned by heavy northern forest fires, had recently enhanced its price so materially that one thousand acres of prime hardwood was worth a small fortune, provided there were facilities for shipping the timber. Hallibut owned the facilities in the shape of a trim schooner, which he now felt he could use to advantage; for he had long realized the wealth resident in those beautifully timbered ridges of the Bushwhackers. Having seen the great maple and beech, the magnificent walnut and the yellow and black and white oak, now worth many dollars a thousand, Hallibut was willing to pay a good price for the timber. He had purchased a strip of timber along Lee Creek across from the Bushwhackers, and erected a portable mill there.

In order to show the Bushwhackers that he wished to be neighborly, the big man had built them a schoolhouse and supplied a teacher for it, in doing which he felt that he had been actuated by pure magnanimity, without thought of gain.

But the Colonel was finding out that the Bushwhackers resented his advances of friendship, and he wondered why. Now they were threatening him, and they must learn that he did not fear them.

The Colonel had never married, but kept as his housekeeper an old-country woman of advanced years. Her name was Davis, and her grown-up son, Dick, lived with them and looked after the kennels and stables.

Austere as he appeared to be to the people in village and country-side, Colonel Hallibut was in reality a man of great and generous impulses. He was a man of reserve, for in his heart rested a pitiful little story—pitiful because so simple.

Years ago, on a fine estate in England, he had possessed a little sister who was all the kin he could claim in the world. He more than loved the girl—he worshiped her as few men have been known to do. She could not make a wish he would not gratify. And the girl—she loved the big brother better than anything in the world, until that other love awakened within her. One day she forsook the brother, leaving a brief note behind. She had married a man who was beneath her station in life, and fled with him across the ocean. Hallibut faced his grief and went the way alone. From that day his world had been a lonely world. Change of scenes, excitement, or even the chase could never make him forget. The sister’s face was always there. He sold the estate and sought forgetfulness in travel. Then he did what he should have done at first—he sought the girl. But he found her not. He joined the army, but even the thrill of the fight gave him no respite from sad memories. At last he turned for solace to the Wild; and in the big house, with one old family servant, he had lived for years now. Out in the open all day long, and at night by his fireplace with a picture in the glowing coals and a portrait looking from the wall—this was the man’s life as it was lived.

As the horseman penetrated deeply into the forest gloom and the heavy shadows settled more closely about him, making the trail hard to keep in its blackness, he began to wish he had asked Dick to come out and meet him, as he sometimes did when forced to return after night. The woods had a way of playing pranks upon him. He was not bred for the bush, and therefore there were things about it that he could never hope to learn at his age. Still he knew the trail he was on well enough to have followed it blindfolded, had it been necessary. He settled lower in the saddle, and with his mind on Smythe and Watson and the Bushwhackers, he passed down the trail.

He had been perhaps two hours in the saddle, and was nearing what was known as the Fire-Lick, a low, charred scar of territory that had been swept by fire years ago, when he was aroused from his meditations by the growls of his hounds. The dogs were acting in a most peculiar manner, running ahead for a few feet and then retreating almost beneath the horse’s heels. The horse, too, seemed to catch their spirit, for he reared once or twice, and would have thrown the rider had he been other than Hallibut himself.

“What the devil!” cried the man, striking the horse with the quirt and whistling to the hounds.

“What’s the matter with you all, anyway?”

The horse leaped forward so suddenly that an overhanging branch caught the rider’s cap and swept it from his head. With a promise that he would teach the animal to act differently, the Colonel slid down from his saddle and with the bridle-rein over his arm stooped to feel in the darkness for his cap. A hound almost beneath the horse lifted its head and howled, and the frightened beast with a snort reared and, jerking away from the man, sprang down the trail in the direction from which he had come.

Hallibut arose and fumbled the hammer of his rifle. He had his hands full with the dogs, for they crowded around him whining and growling and in every way manifesting fear of the unseen enemy. He did not understand it. It was a pretty predicament for him to be in, surely. It meant ten miles of a walk, and he was tired. He stepped out and, followed by the dogs, made to cross the Fire-Lick that stretched like a black lake before him. At its border a circle of gleaming eyes met him.

“Wolves!” he shuddered, and throwing forward the rifle he drew a bead on those shifting balls of fire and pulled the trigger. The hammer fell dead. No explosion followed, and the circle narrowed toward man and dogs. Hallibut sprang for a nearby tree and drew himself up into its branches.

As he swung aloft a dark shape hurled itself into the air, and he heard the wolf’s teeth snap within a few inches of his pendant legs.

“They’ll get my hounds,” thought the man. “Back, Pinch; back, Gabe; Nell, you fool, get back there,” he cried excitedly.

But the fighting blood was up in the dogs. In numbers they were inferior to the foe, but in fighting tactics they were superior. The master knew each dog by its voice. And now it was Pinch gurgled a challenge, and the whimper of Nell bespoke her eagerness to back him. Gabe, the heaviest of the hounds, had closed on the wolf which had first sprung. Hallibut heard the snapping of bones—then a number of other wolves hurled themselves forward. He could hear the dogs snarling as they fought, and he lent his voice to their encouragement.

“Easy, Gabe,” he shouted; “Nell, girl, easy now. Lead ’em into the open. Don’t let ’em get you in the thick timber.”

Hallibut had placed another cap on the nipple of his rifle, and as the struggling mass surged back into the charred space he fired into it point-blank. A wild howl told that a wolf had been hit.

“That’s all I can do, poor chaps,” he called.

His powder and ball were in the saddle-bags.

“They’ll kill them all,” cried the man. “They’ll kill my dogs. Ha, if Dick only knew and would loose the big ’uns.”

The “big ’uns” were a pack of wolf-hounds which on account of their vicious natures Hallibut kept in confinement.

Even as he spoke upon his ear fell the sharp crack of a rifle far eastward on the trail, and as its echo died there arose the deep musical bay of the wolf-hounds. Hallibut scrambled upright on a limb and probed the darkness with his eyes. Those gallant hounds beneath had heard the baying, too, and they were fighting as they never had fought before. One of the dogs retreated backward, fighting feebly with two gaunt shapes that strove to bear it to earth. Hallibut, with a cry that was half a sob, forgot all caution in the animal love he bore his best and dearest companions.

“They’d do it for me,” he cried; and clubbing his rifle he leaped to the ground. He was barely in time to save the brave Nell, who with torn sides and lolling tongue had fallen at last, fighting still and snapping with all her remaining force. Just as one of the wolves sprang, Hallibut brought the heavy rifle-barrel down upon its head, crushing the skull as though it had been an egg-shell. The dog scrambled up and met the other wolf as it sprang toward her master. Then a cyclone of panting, bounding bodies swept in and there was grand play in the Fire-Lick for a brief space of time.

“Oh, Colonel!” cried a voice.

“This way, Dick, lad, and be quick,” the man responded breathlessly.

Dick found his master leaning weakly against a tree.

“Are you ’urt, sir?” he asked, dismounting.

“No. See if they’ve killed Gabe and Pinch, Dick. Lord! but how those little hounds did fight!”

Dick returned in a short time.

“I found two dead wolves, and I can’t find any of the dogs, sir,” he said. “Listen!—they’re givin’ of ’em ’ell, sir, an’ no mistake.”

Hallibut sat down on a log and drew the maimed dog over against his knee.

“Nell, old girl,” he said chokingly, stroking her long ears, “you’re a tartar, Nell.”

The dog whined and licked his hand.

“Pinch, sir,” cried Dick, “ ’e be limpin’, but he be none the worse beyond bein’ sore as anythink, sir.”

In half an hour the rest of the pack had returned and were gamboling and leaping about Hallibut. Great, deep-chested, throaty dogs those wolf-hounds were. Their one consuming desire being to tear down and kill, they felt for the man before them only the blind devotion of dog for master. Hallibut had given them more blows than pats, but he knew how to command respect among dogs.

“How many was in the pack, sir?” asked Dick. He had drawn two dead wolves into the open and was now dragging a third.

“Somewhere about ten, I should judge,” replied the Colonel. “But I can’t understand why they should be on the rampage at this time of year.”

“Look at this one, sir,” cried Dick. “ ’E’s so thin that ’e must ’ave nigh starved to death. All of ’em are thin. There’s only one reason as I can think of that would make ’em vicious, sir: they’re starvin’—that’s why.”

“Nonsense,” cried Hallibut. “Why, the heavy timber is alive with food.”

“Yes, sir, I know that. But you see, sir, these wolves can’t get into th’ ’eavy timber; at least they won’t go. They won’t go through a peopled settlement, an’ they can’t pass back into the woods by the way they came, sir.”

“And why can’t they?”

“Well, sir, I think it’s ’cause you’ve put that mill on the creek. You see they must ’ave come by way of the lower swale—hit’s the only way they could come. An’ when you built th’ mill the saws frightened ’em back further so that they’ve been all through th’ second-growth and they’ve naturally been starvin’ slow, an’ it’s come to such a pass as they’ve growed desperate, sir.”

“By George, Dick, I believe you’re right,” cried Hallibut.

He arose stiffly and looked about him.

“Well, my putting that mill there might have been the death of me all right,” he said. “But, lad, you haven’t told me why you came to meet me with the hounds.”

“Yes, sir; it was this way. A man from the village was chased by this ’ere pack last night. ’E was over at the stables to-night an’ ’e told me. I came out a ways and listened for a time, an’ when I ’eard ’em ’owl I let the big ’uns loose, thinkin’ as you ’ud not mind my doin’ it under th’ circumstances, sir.”

“You did just right, lad,” said Hallibut. “But did you bring their leashes, Dick?”

“Right ’ere in my saddle-bag, sir.”

“Well, you’d better tie ’em up before they happen on an Indian. This country is getting so’s Indians are becoming more valuable every day.”

Dick chuckled.

“They do ’ate Injuns an’ niggers, sir; an’, sir, that reminds me, there’s an old Injun from the Point by the name of Noah Sturgeon waitin’ up at th’ place to see you, sir.”

The Colonel knit his brows.

“Sturgeon,” he repeated; “Noah Sturgeon,—don’t think I ever heard of him——”

“Your ’orse, sir?” questioned Dick, looking about him.

“Never mind about my horse—I’m going to ride yours. You follow up and keep a tight grip on the hounds. I don’t want that old Indian to get eaten up.”

They passed on down the black trail, and the spot that had witnessed the struggle between the “big ’uns” and the starving things of the Wild grew silent again with a great and oppressive silence. Only the tiny bare branches of the trees clicked under the restless wind that slumbered fitfully when the night grew old. The clouds crept from the sky away down and below the forest-fringe; then the white stars came out and rested, looking down on the Fire-Lick. Their soft light swept the open and fell across the crumpled forms of the dead things that had roamed the forest-Wild. They lay pitifully silent and huddled, their red tongues lolling; their starving days at an end. Further into the second-growth bushland there were others of them, lying cold, beyond all life of the Wild. They had been cut off from their own; they had starved and fought and died. But they were only wolves after all.

CHAPTER XII
Injun Noah

The cold dawn was stealing across the lake when Colonel Hallibut rode into his yard and, dismounting, turned the horse over to Dick. The hounds leaped and fawned upon him and he sternly commanded them to keep down. He led them through the door into the great kennel-yards and there arose a bedlam of glad yelps and growls of rage, as some favorite was petted or felt the fangs of jealousy of a stronger fellow. The master played the whip among them, laughing and shouting.

“Oh, you beauties!—Black Dan, you fire-eater. Down, Gabe, you branch of the devil. Poor old Jep; come on, pup, and let me pat your old sides; poor old Jep, noble old Jep. Weren’t in the fight last night, were you? Too old, boy; too old and stiff. Every dog has his day, Jep, and every man, too. Egad, boy, I thought for a while last night that mine was over!”

The old hound laid his wrinkled chin in his master’s hand and gazed up at him with age-weakened eyes. Some of the younger dogs of the pack retreated snarling, with bristles erect, and lying down a short distance away, licked the wounds received in the night’s encounter. Hallibut walked across to a wide, low building and unlocked the door.

“In there, all of you,” he shouted; and the dogs sprang toward the door.

Old Jep came last, limping painfully, his whole attitude one of protest.

“Not you, old fellow,” said the man; “you can stay out, and you’d best hang close to me.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders, and with the old favorite following, crossed the yard and entered the stables. Dick was cleaning out the fetlocks of the horse the Colonel had just ridden in. He looked up as his master entered, then went on with his work.

“Where’s Fury?” asked Hallibut, peering into an empty stall.

“Turned ’im hout in th’ yard, sir,” stammered Dick. “ ’E was kicked in the night some’ow, sir. I’m sorry, but hit couldn’t be ’elped; ’e broke ’is ’alter, sir.”

“That flame of Hades is always breaking his halter,” cried Hallibut. “Well, of course that wasn’t any fault of yours. Here’s ten dollars—buy a halter he can’t break, and keep what’s over to get yourself a new jacket. I see this one you’re wearing has been played with recently, eh?”

“Why, sir, that’s so,” laughed Dick. “It do seem, sir, as I can’t keep anythink whole any, more, that stud Dobo is that playful, sir.”

“Well, you best look out that Dobo don’t get your head some time. And now when you’ve eaten and rested a bit I want you to put the saddle on Bay Tom and ride some of the kicks out of him. Go after the mare that turned traitor last night and fetch the wolf-pelts back with you. They’ll make the hounds a nice warm bed for the winter, and I guess they belong to the hounds all right. Don’t know but what I owe those dogs something myself.”

“I don’t think, sir, as Bay Tom’ll take like t’ carryin’ raw furs. ’E do seem t’ ’ate th’ scent of blood. ’E’ll like raise the mischief, sir, ’e will, and maybe kill me, sir.”

“Well, if he kills you,” said Hallibut dryly, “I won’t ever ask you to ride him again. Now, you understand. And, Dick, I want that horse put through his paces. Use quirt and spur, and lather him till he weakens. I’d do it myself only I’ve got to get the schooner stocked for a cruise.”

“Very well, sir. And sir, the old Injun, ’e be waitin’ to speak with you.”

“By George! I had forgotten. Yes, I’ll go in and see him now.”

The Colonel’s housekeeper met him at the kitchen door.

“Oh, sir,” she cried, raising her hands, “I’m so glad you’ve returned. Hall night hi’ve been scared most to death, sir. ’E’s in there yet, sir, sittin’ by the fireplace. ’E’s hawful to look hat, sir.”

Hallibut chuckled and laid his hand on the old lady’s shoulder.

“You mean the old Indian, Nancy? Bless your heart, woman, he’s harmless as a baby most likely. Bet a dollar he’s been at my decanters. I’ll go in and see him. Just lay the table for two of us. Like as not, being an Indian, he can eat whether he’s hungry or no.”

“But, sir,” protested the old woman, “you’ll not ’ave ’im sit with you, sir?”

“My dear Nancy, after what I’ve been through I’d welcome the company of a snake, providing it was a real snake and was clean. You’ll please see that two plates are laid.”

The big man stalked forward and opened the door into the wide sitting-room. Before the log fire was bent a slight figure clad in buckskin. The Colonel saw an old withered man, his thin face seamed with wrinkles, his black eyes peering from deep hollows that age had sunk there. His hair was crow-black and long, falling about his narrow shoulders. He arose with a lithe motion as the Colonel entered.

“How?” he said in good English.

“How?” returned the master of the house, holding out his hand.

The old Indian looked at it, but made no motion toward taking it. He raised his arm and pointed about the room.

“Good,” he said; “much good.”

“Sit down,” invited the Colonel. “Now tell me what brings you here. You live on ‘Point Aux,’ I understand. It’s a long way to the Point.”

The Indian’s eyes were fastened upon the portrait hanging on the wall. They did not leave it as he spoke.

“Much,” he said; “very much. Noah wish to speak of Bushwhacker. You leave Bushwhacker there; no touch. You know Bushwhacker girl—Gloss—you know; good.”

He pointed toward the portrait. It was that of a young girl with glorious long-lashed eyes and smiling lips. Hallibut followed his gaze, frowned, then going over to the sideboard glanced along the array of bottles there. He picked up a glass and sniffed it.

“Have you been sampling of any of these bottles?” he asked sternly.

“Noah no drink until he speak. Noah know her,” pointing to the portrait. “Noah tote her, wee papoose, many day journey. White man pay Noah money and Noah lay papoose in Big Chief wigwam. You know Big Chief Bushwhacker. Ugh, you know her,—Gloss!”

He stretched a claw-like finger toward the portrait.

“You know white girl; good. You no touch Bushwhacker.”

Hallibut stood frowning upon the old Indian.

“Listen,” he said, sitting down beside the old man, “you must understand that the portrait you see on the wall is not of a Bushwhacker girl or of anyone else you know. That’s the likeness of a sister I had and lost years and years ago. It was painted in England, a land across the Great Waters, Noah.”

“No, no,” cried the Indian. “Noah have good eyes. He can see and understand. Big man need not lie—white girl Noah’ good friend.”

Hallibut arose and wiped his streaming brow. Then he sank into a chair and ran his fingers through his gray hair.

“I’m hanged if I know what he’s driving at,” he mused. “Apparently he thinks I want to wipe the Bushwhackers off the map.” Aloud he said: “Who sent you here, my good man?”

Noah did not answer. He was looking into the coals.

“Bushwhacker know big man would steal bush,” he said at length. “They no want big man there. Noah no want see big man steal good friend’ home. Big man no come; no send other man. Gloss big man’ friend.”

Once more Colonel Hallibut looked puzzled. “I’m hanged if I understand what he means,” he muttered.

“Big man no send vessel,” went on the Indian. “Bushwhacker no want ’um. Scare duck plenty bad. Noah come tell big man no send.”

“Ah,” exclaimed Hallibut, “I’m beginning to see light. They sent you over to tell me I mus’n’t send my schooner up the creek, eh?”

“No one send; Noah come himself. Noah know Bushwhacker shoot when big man come take timber. Big man no come—no send agent again.”

The Colonel arose and paced up and down the room.

“Well, of all things!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of all this, Phoebe, girl——” turning to the picture, “what do you think of those impudent Bushwhackers?”

The aged Indian had risen and was wrapping his blanket about him.

“Noah,” said Hallibut, “the Bushwhackers haven’t any particular use for me, I understand. It’s pretty near war between us. But I’m going to send my vessel up that creek just the same. I’m willing to promise you that I won’t do the Bushwhackers any harm until they try to do me harm. They threaten to burn my schooner, and maybe they will—we’ll see. I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I’m going to send that schooner around the Point and into the bay soon. I want you to meet her at the narrows and act as watchman aboard her. If you don’t want the Bushwhackers to come to any harm, you must see that my vessel is not burned. I believe you are honest, and I will pay you well. What do you say, Noah?”

Noah pointed once more to the portrait.

“You do much for her?” he asked simply.

The big man started. Then he smiled and said gently:

“Old man, God only knows how much I would do—if I could.”

“Noah will meet big man’ vessel,” said the Indian, holding out his hand.

After the strange messenger had eaten and gone, Hallibut paced to and fro across the wide room, pondering deeply upon what he had learned. He stopped at last before the portrait on the wall.

“I wonder why the poor old chap should think he knows you, Phoebe?” he said, addressing the girl in the frame.

It was a custom of his to speak all his inner thoughts to the picture. One may lose summer forever; but he can treasure a dead flower, because its perfume clings to it and never quite dies.

“I like the old man because he thinks he knows you,” he murmured, “—just because he thinks he knows you, Phoebe.”

His head dropped and he strode toward the door.

“I don’t know why I should not teach those Bushwhackers a lesson!” he ejaculated.

He turned and let his frowning eyes rest on the painting, and as he gazed his face softened. The big eyes seemed to be pleading with him.

“Maybe there really is a girl who looks like you, Phoebe,” he said gently; “a little girl of the Wild that looks like you.”

And the face smiled on him as he passed out through the doorway.

CHAPTER XIII
On the Creek Path

It was early twilight when the old Indian once again reached Bushwhackers’ Place. All day he had kept to the trail, jogging along without a mouthful to eat, simply tightening his belt when hunger gnawed at his stomach. It was a long journey from Rond Eau Point to St. Thomas, and over rough ground—a very long journey for a man of Noah’s age to attempt. But he was an Indian and his years did not weigh him down. His sinews were tough like the seasoned hickory fiber, and his spirit was young like the spirit of the great shadowed woodland. Age counted for naught where life derived its strength from its environment.

To the old man Gloss was a star that had loosened itself from some strange firmament and strayed into the green uplands. He had watched her grow from a slender girl into a graceful creature with beauty that nothing of the woodland could match. One with eyes that held all the lights that ever shone on lake or wood, and life that bubbled and laughed and defied.

For her and her protectors Noah had undertaken the trying mission of visiting the rich man Hallibut, and advising him to leave the men of the hardwoods alone.

He had taken the portrait on the lonely man’s walls for that of Gloss, but this was not strange. The old man’s eyes were growing dim and they sometimes played pranks on him. But the incident was sufficient to bind his loyalty to the man who threatened the Bushwhackers.

Noah was willing to act as watchman aboard the schooner. He had lost all the impetuosity of youth. He was old and wise, and he would watch and wait—and act, if necessary, when the time came.

Gloss, coming up from the spring with a pail of foaming milk, newly strained and ready for “setting,” caught sight of her old friend and gave a call like the trill of a marsh-lark. The Indian, without speaking, overtook her and reached for the pail, which he carried to the house and set on the block outside the cellar door.

Big McTavish was chopping logs for the evening fire, and caught sight of Noah as he came around the corner of the house.

“Well, well, Chief,” he cried, “thought maybe you was on the warpath. Ain’t seen you here for days. Come along in and get some supper.”

“Good,” grunted the old man, and followed McTavish into the kitchen. Gloss laid the cloth for the visitor’s supper. Her eyes brightened and her red lips smiled when the old man turned his wrinkled face toward her.

“Noah,” she said, “you mus’n’t stay away from Gloss so long again. It’s heap lonely without you here.”

Noah’s eyes flashed at the words, and he spoke, using only the mellowest words of the English tongue, as was his custom.

“Wild-bird no lonely where wild world be. Gloss speak to make Injun heart glad: now Injun speak to make wild-bird sing. Big water,” pointing southward, “big forest,” sweeping his arm about, “all stay same. No change. Good, much good. Noah, he know.”

Granny McTavish, coming from the bedroom, caught the words of the Indian.

“Reet, Noah,” she smiled, “there’ll be na’ change teel God wulls, and may He na’ wull it frae lang.”

“Ugh, you tell Boy,” said Noah, “tell ’um Noah say it.”

The old lady held up her hands.

“There’s na’ tellin’ him at all whatever,” she sighed. “He’s muckle disturbed and he’ll na’ listen to reason. He’s oot there noo trudgin’ the wet woods, but he’ll noo get comfort there, mon; he maun seek it i’ the guid Book. I’ve told him o’ it, aye, I’ve told him o’ it aften enoo. God forgive him for th’ wild creature he is—and he’s a guid lad at heart enoo, a guid lad at heart——”

“Tush, Granny,” chided Big McTavish. “Boy’s not worryin’ over anythin’. He’s a bit unsettled, that’s all. He’s out in the woods ’cause he loves th’ woods. See, you’ve spoiled Noah’s supper for him. He’s thinkin’ Boy’s a bit crazy, maybe.”

Noah pushed back his chair from the table and arose.

“You’re not going so soon, surely, Noah?” cried Gloss.

“Noah must go to Point,” answered the Indian. “Canoe down on Eau shore.”

Gloss snatched up her cap.

“I’ll go down to th’ shore with you,” she cried. “Maybe I’ll meet Boy.”

“No,” said Noah, “Gloss no come.”

“But I say yes,” replied Gloss, dancing nimbly in front of the old man. “Remember, I haven’t seen you for ages, and I must go. Come along.”

She took his hand and they passed out together. They walked along, Gloss taking the lead, and neither speaking a word. They understood each other well, and something unbreakable bound them together while life should last.

When they reached the canoe, hidden in thick rushes on the edge of the bay, the girl patted the old Indian’s wrinkled cheek gently and bade him good-by.

When the black rushes of the moon-lit Eau hid his craft, the girl turned homeward on the path again. A tender smile was on her face, and the red blood was dancing in her veins. Her whole young being was alive and calling—calling for—she wondered what!

Where the woodland trail met the creek path a wide sheet of moonlight lay shrouding the dead leaves. When she reached this spot she clasped her hands and raised them to the deep chaotic arch of the skies.

“Boy,” she breathed chokingly, “oh, Boy——” Then the long lashes hid her eyes and something splashed upon the dead sheeted leaves. “—Oh God, I mean,” she whispered, “take care of him; take care of Boy.”

Far down in the dark swales a panther wailed and a loon sent its weird call from the marshlands. A fleeting cloud drifted across the moon and the path darkened. The girl quickened her pace into a run. As she rounded a curve in the path she gave a little cry.

Standing directly in the path was a man.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, “it’s only me.”

“You?” she repeated. “Oh, yes, it’s Mr. Simpson. I must hurry on—I must——”

He did not attempt to move aside, and the girl’s head went back and her eyes flashed.

“Please let me past,” she said imperiously.

Simpson laughed.

“All in good time. But I want to say something first. Won’t you listen, Gloss?”

“If it’s what you said before, I don’t want to hear it,” she answered. “You—you mus’n’t keep me here; it’s dangerous—dangerous for you.”

“Or you?” he laughed.

He came toward her and she recoiled.

“You held me once—in your arms,” she panted, “and against my will. You mus’n’t hold me so again. If you do—I’ll kill you.”

“I’ll take the chance,” he said hoarsely; “it’s worth dying for.”

She stood tall and white before him, her great eyes fastened to his, and looking deep into the craven soul of him. He reached for her hands—then something, a new and strange helplessness, overpowered him, and he sank trembling on the moss.

“Mr. Simpson,” said the girl quietly, “you must go—for your own sake. You must go now.”

“Gloss, oh Gloss!” he murmured brokenly, “how I love you, girl! You cannot know how much. I was mad—mad. Can you forgive me, Gloss?”

“No, I can’t forgive you. I have no power to forgive you. It wasn’t me you hurt once—it’s not me you would hurt again.”

“Don’t say that,” he cried. “I merely held you in my arms, and kissed you. Yes, I held you in my arms—I kissed you——”

He struggled to his feet, trembling, his hair matted to his brow with perspiration.

“I did kiss you once,” he repeated, “and I would give my life either to undo it or to do it again.”

“You haven’t the power to do either,” she said earnestly; “believe me, you have not.”

“You are right,” he sighed. “Oh, yes, you are right. That other night when I met you on the path I was actuated by a passing fancy—just a passing fancy. I took you in my arms. You struggled. I kissed you. I looked into your soul—I looked into your soul, and saw what I must forever be banished from, Gloss. Am I not punished! Do you think I can ever forget?”

“I—I don’t know. Now, I must go.”

He stood aside and let her pass.

“Will you forgive?” he asked.

“Will you be strong?”

He shivered, but his moving lips gave out no sound.

When the moon trailed down below the tree-fringe of the Point he was still standing where the girl had left him. The panther’s howl was still, but away down in the mucky marshlands the loon sent his weird cry to the cold stars.

CHAPTER XIV
Paisley Reconnoiters

The early autumn twilight had fallen when Bill Paisley stepped from the wood into the fallow. He dropped the long muzzle-loading rifle into the hollow of his arm and peered down through the gathering dusk toward Totherside.

“Why, there sure is a light at widder Ross’s,” soliloquized the man. “Now, it might be that I’d find out some things we should know if I’d just drop over there casual-like. What I’ve heard concernin’ Watson, and Peeler seein’ him and the teacher on the trail together, has roused my suspicions to the boilin’ point. I hope he’s at the widder’s to-night; I want to ‘get to know him better,’ as Boy put it.”

Paisley leaned against a tree and laughed silently.

“He don’t like me very much. I could see that the other night. And I suppose it’s natural that I shouldn’t think much of him.”

He walked on, his feet making not the slightest sound upon the sward that now gleamed gold-brown beneath the moonlight. At the edge of the creek he stepped into a skiff and with one movement of the paddle sent it sweeping into the rushes on the farther shore.

Widow Ross’s home was built much after the style of the homes in Bushwhackers’ Place. It was long and low and constructed of logs. The chinks between the logs were filled with yellow-blue clay. Paisley approached the place cautiously, once or twice hesitating as if he would draw back. He opened the door gently in response to a loud “come in,” and peered about the room as though in search of somebody. A tall, angular woman, dressed in native homespun, and working a huge spinning-wheel, turned as he entered, and, without taking her pipe from her mouth, said shortly:

“Shut that door, Bill Paisley. And you, Tom Ross, stop terrifyin’ that cat.”

A freckle-faced lad of about nine arose from a corner and, administering a last wholesome kick to a sickly looking pussie, came shuffling forward.

“Hello, Bill,” he said, “what’s new! I heard that you and the rest of the Bushwhackers was actin’ balky with Colonel Hallibut for wantin’ to buy your timber. What’s the matter!”

“Want to keep our timber to make bows and arrows with,” answered Paisley dryly. “How’s things at the mill, Tom? Runnin’ overtime, I see.”

“We’re expectin’ old Hallibut down soon,” said Tom. “I heard the boss sayin’ that the Colonel was comin’ in with a boat. Says he’s goin’ to have all your timber before the bay freezes over.”

“Yes?—He’ll get it when Hell freezes over.”

“Bill Paisley,” frowned the woman, taking her pipe from her mouth, “no swearin’—not here, if you please, sir.”

“Excuse me, Mrs. Ross,” said Bill from behind his hat.

Tom kicked the visitor gently with his bare foot, and Mrs. Ross, resuming her smoke, went on:

“We are feelin’ the influence of education and refinement since Mr. Simpson has been boardin’ here. No home that contains a teacher is a place for perfanity. Mr. Simpson says: ‘Perfanity,’ says he, ‘is the most useless sin of all sins. No gentleman swears.’ ”

Mrs. Ross snorted and turned her swarthy face toward her visitor.

“Livin’ in daily intercourse with an educated young man has its advantages. Look what Mr. Simpson has done for our Tom. Look at him, Bill Paisley, and tell me, don’t you see a difference in that boy?”

“I do,” said Bill slowly; “I sure do, widder, now you speak about it.”

“That young man of education did it,” said the widow. “The teacher did it all.”

“Great Christopher Columbus! but he’s smarter than I thought him,” grinned Paisley. “Wonder if he’d cut mine?”

The widow turned her black eyes upon him.

“Cut yours?” she repeated. “What be you talkin’ about?”

“Why, my hair,” said Bill. “I said I wonder if he’d cut mine, seein’ he’s made such a good job of Tom’s.”

Tom tittered and the woman turned her back on the two.

“Swine,” she muttered; “bushwhacker swine.”

“Where’s the teacher to-night?” asked Bill blithely.

“Him and Mary Ann——” commenced Tom.

But his mother, turning, quickly advanced upon him, and catching him by the collar with one powerful hand, administered with the other such a cuff that young Tom went spinning to his corner. The mangy cat sneaked over and crept under Paisley’s chair.

“And how is Mary Ann?” asked Bill after a time. “Ain’t seen her but once or twice for the last month. I suppose she often speaks of me, Mrs. Ross?”

“Indeed she doesn’t, then, so you needn’t flatter yourself. Mary Ann’s got no use for a Bushwhacker, let alone a worthless one who would make a joke at his own mother’s funeral. So, there.”

“If I ever made a joke at my mother’s funeral it was ’cause I was too young to know better,” said Paisley pensively. “My little ma died when I was born. I ought to be worth a whole heap, marm—I was bought at a big price.”

He picked up the cat and smoothed her crumpled fur with his big hand.

“That was nigh on to forty year ago,” he said, “and I’ve been wanderin’ about the bush ever since, exceptin’ a few years I was down in the Southern States, ranchin’ it. I picked up a lot down there, but nothin’ worth keepin’, I guess. What I was goin’ to say was, I never see a mother and her boy together without a big somethin’ I can’t name standin’ right out before me, and that somethin’ is what I’ve missed by not havin’ a mother.”

Widow Ross laid her pipe on the table.

“Tommy,” she commanded, “you go right down to the spring and bring up that bucket of milk, and don’t you spill it, or I’ll pull every one of them red hairs out of your head. I don’t suppose you’ve lost your appetite none lately, Bill?”

“Periodically only, marm. I ain’t got over my likin’ for brick-cooked bread and milk, particularly the bread of a lady I know to be the best cook on Totherside.”

Mrs. Ross showed two rows of white teeth in a pleased smile. Then her face grew stern again.

“Totherside,” she flashed, “why, I don’t take that as much of a compliment, Bill Paisley. Ain’t I the only woman on Totherside?”

“Beggin’ your pardon, I mean on the whole country-side—Bridgetown included,” retrieved Bill gallantly.

“What be you all goin’ to do about Hallibut?” asked the woman, sitting down at the spinning-wheel.

Bill shook his long hair and chuckled.

“I got scolded once for sayin’ what I thought about sellin’ our timber, so don’t ask me.”

The widow’s heavy brows met in a frown.

“Here you are forty years old, and that’s old enough for you to have some sense if you’re goin’ to have any. And I must say I don’t think you nor Big McTavish nor any of you Bushwhackers have an ounce of sense among you. Here you are fightin’ off a fortune, or at least keepin’ money, which you might have, out of your pockets. Bosh! I believe that Boy McTavish has got you all under a spell.”

“Boy is sure the strongest and bitterest fighter amongst us,” agreed Bill, “but we’re all of one opinion. We like the woods, and I guess we have reason to. It has give us all a mighty good livin’, and somehow wood-life has somethin’ about it that cleared land ain’t got—smells and sounds and silence and I’ll be——”

“Be careful now, you nigh swore again,” admonished the woman. “There you, Tom, set the pail down on the table; then go to the out-house and bring in the bread, the brick-baked loaf.”

“Mrs. Ross,” said Paisley, “you’re not only a good-lookin’ woman, but you’re a good-hearted woman. Once I hoped I might be your son-in-law and have all the brick-baked bread I wanted, and the corncake which only you can bake. But Mary Ann she seems to think different, and I’m thinkin’, after all, she had some reason, seein’ she is only somethin’ about twenty-two years old and me nearly twice that.”

The widow put her finger on her lip and glanced fearfully toward the door. Then she looked with commiseration at Paisley, and approaching him in a crouching attitude, whispered:

“Mary Ann is goin’ to marry the teacher.”

Bill’s stool, poised on two legs, came to the floor with a thump.

“Marry the teacher!” he repeated; “marry the teacher! Well now, I’ll be turkey-trapped. I didn’t think he was brave enough to ask her.”

“I ain’t sayin’ that he has asked her, am I?” cried the widow. “But I’ve got two eyes to see with, haven’t I, Bill Paisley?”

“Aye, marm, to do whatever you like with,” answered Bill pleasantly, his own eyes on the loaf of bread which Tom had just brought in. Then noting the widow’s ruffled dignity, he smoothed it with: “I’d know who baked that bread by the appetizin’ smell of it. Says I to Big McTavish just yesterday, ‘There are some good bread-makers in this here place, but none of ’em quite like widder Ross.’ ”

“Time Big McTavish had his last loggin’-bee he sent for me to come and help with the cookin’,” said the widow, as she poured the foaming milk from the pail into the big earthen bowls. “I made a custard in the dishpan. There was forty-two eggs in it, and it was good, if I do say it myself. Not one man in the lot of ’em that set down to the table but asked for a second helpin’. Big Mac he told ’em all who made it, and since that I’ve liked him better than ever. I’m makin’ another just like it for Mrs. Declute, and if you’re at Declute’s loggin’-bee next Thursday you’ll be able to sample it. Big McTavish says that Ander’s loggin’ ’ll be a good ’un, all right, if I make a custard for it.”

“He’s one man in five hundred, marm, is Big Mac,” answered Bill. “Why, Mrs. Ross, there’s not an Injun in the bush, no, or on the Point either, who wouldn’t fight tooth-and-nail for him. He’s been mighty good to the Injuns, has Mac. Any time they want anythin’ he has, they go to him and get it. And Gloss, why she can simply tie them Injuns about her little finger. They all think the world of her.”

“I’d like to know who don’t think the world of Gloss. She’s a dear girl—bless her sweet face.”

Bill with a spoonful of milk-soaked bread well on the way to its destination, suspended operations for a moment.

“Widder Ross,” he said, “God never made a better girl, nor a better lookin’ one, unless it was your Mary Ann.”

His repast finished, he reached for his rifle.

“Must be goin’,” he said in answer to the widow’s invitation to ‘set longer.’ “I’ll call in on you again soon, widder. Good-night.”

“Good-night,” responded the woman.

She was lighting her clay pipe and did not so much as turn as Bill walked out.

Paisley skirted the scrubby walk and passed along the edge of the butternut grove toward the path across the fallow. A whip-poor-will was voicing its joys from the limb of a dead ash. The moon had sunk above the bay, and its wide splash of light lay across the fallow, a blanket of milky haze. Bill lifted his head and breathed in the clear wood-scented air. From the valley came the monotonous buzz of a saw. Suddenly Paisley dived into the hazel thicket. He had heard footsteps approaching, and rightly divined that it was the teacher and Mary Ann.

Not until the young people had passed through the grove and emerged into the interval beyond did Paisley step out from his hiding-place. Then he looked toward the sinking moon and sighed.

“She’s not for the likes of you, Bill,” he murmured as he turned to the path again.

Tommy stood before him.

“Bill,” he said excitedly, “I want to tell you somethin’. I’ve got to tell you, Bill, or I’ll bust.”

“Why, Tommy,” said Bill, “thought you’d gone to bed.”

“No, I slipped out and follered you, but I saw them comin’ too, and I ducked same as you did. Say, Bill, you don’t think much of Mr. Simpson, do you?”

Paisley laughed queerly.

“Well, Tommy, and what if I don’t?”

“Well, I overheard him and that Watson man plannin’ some things together the other day. I thought I wouldn’t tell anybody, but I can’t keep it any longer.”

He stood on tiptoe and whispered something in the man’s ear. Paisley gripped the lad’s arm.

“You’re dreamin’,” he cried.

“No, Bill, I heard ’em make it up between ’em,” gasped Tom. “An’ what I want to know is, what’s going to be done about it?”

“I don’t know,” answered Paisley dazedly. “I don’t know—I’ll have to study this thing out.”

His square jaw was set and he toyed with the lock of his rifle.

“You haven’t told anyone else, Tommy?” he asked.

“Nary a soul.”

“Then don’t. I’ll see you in a night or two. Keep your eyes on the teacher. Remember, if Big McTavish or Boy hear what you’ve told me they’ll kill him sure. You know what that will mean.”

“I won’t tell anybody, cross my heart,” promised the lad, and then darted away.

CHAPTER XV
War Tactics

Paisley paddled slowly across the creek, drew his skiff into the willow bushes, and picking up his rifle, walked along the edge of the creek until he reached the bay. It slept gray and cold beneath the moon, and all about its tranquil waters a ragged tree-frame stood spiral-like and shadowy—a disheveled cloud in an open blotch of sky. Paisley gazed across the bay, his face fixed and his whole attitude one of protest.

“They want to take this away from us,” he mused,”—all this. And the d—— villains want to steal her away from all this. Well, let them try.”

He turned, lifting his head to catch the low night-calls that floated from the far-away corridors of the deep wood. The forest was breathing its nocturnal song—a hushed chant, interspersed with the notes of the wild things that roamed and fed and voiced their gladness after the manner of their kind. The shrill bark of a fox sounded from nether swales, and away beyond a lynx wailed sadly like a lost child. A little way into the thicket a brood of partridges huddled, peeping with plaintive voices.

“I guess they can’t understand very well what all this means to us.”

Paisley turned and strode on through the scanty wood-fringe along the Eau shore until he came to an open spot of nearly two acres. A dim light twinkled from the window of a log-house, and a couple of dogs came forward with fierce yappings which changed to whines of welcome as they recognized the visitor. The door of the house flew open, and a woman, whose frame filled the doorway completely, sent a scolding command out to the dogs.

“David and Goliath,” she commanded, “come in here t’ once er I’ll break your no-account backs with this poker.”

“Night, Mrs. Declute,” called Paisley. “Ander in?”

“Ander,” rasped the woman, “be you hum? ’Cause if you be, Bill Paisley wants t’ know it.”

The huge form was nudged aside and Declute’s grinning face peered out into the night.

“Come right on in, Bill,” invited the lord and master. An ironwood pole leaned against the house, and on it hung a splendid specimen of buck newly killed. On the floor of the house lay a smaller deer already skinned, and now being dissected by the trapper. Three children of various sizes sat about the carcass, each munching a piece of corncake from a chubby fist.

“How’s the babies, marm?” asked Paisley, carefully stepping through and over the wide-eyed little Declutes and sitting down on a stool near the fireplace. “Ander, two deer in an afternoon ain’t such bad luck, eh?”

“I hit another,” cried Ander, “bigger’n th’ one outside. Shot about an inch too high, though. But I trailed him down an’ I’ll get him in th’ mornin’. Might have killed a doe, too. Had a good chance, but I didn’t take it.”

“Zaccheus has got a tetch of p’isin-ivy,” said the woman. “That’s what makes him squirm so uneasy like. I’m treatin’ it with sassafras ’ile an’ potash. How’ve you been yourself, Bill?”

“Feedin’ and sleepin’ like a babe, thankee,” replied Paisley. “What I dropped round for was to find out just what you folks think of the way them town-fellers are actin’. Did Hallibut or Watson make you any offer for your timber?”

“Wall, yes, they did,” answered Ander slowly. “Offered me three hundred dollars for the big stuff on my place only a day or two ago. Said that you and McTavish and Peeler and most of the others had taken an offer they made you for yours, and I said t’ the feller, ‘If th’ other chaps see it that way I guess I’ll see it that way, too.’ I’m to take my deed t’ Bridgetown when I tote these furs over next Saturday, an’ they’re goin’ to give me another deed and the money.”

“Who did you see?” asked Paisley.

“That storekeeper Smythe. He says, says he, ‘The money’ll be ready fer you when you come, an’,’ says he, ‘don’t tell any o’ your neebors, ’cause we’re payin’ you more’n we are them, an’ they won’t like it.’ ”

“I don’t take t’ this way they have of wantin’ Ander t’ keep dark,” said the woman. “I ain’t takin’ kind like t’ lettin’ the timber go anyway. We don’t really need that money. Ander he makes enough outin trappin’ and shootin’ fer our wants, and if they come in here what are they goin’ t’ do t’ our property? That’s what I want to know.”

Paisley bit off a piece of tobacco and shrugged his shoulders.

“Ander,” he asked, watching the trapper roll up the green hide, “how much did you make in furs and deer-meat last fall and winter?”

“He made four hundred and three dollars,” answered the wife proudly.

“Well, then, let me tell you somethin’.” Paisley tapped the stalk of his rifle impressively with his knuckles. “Just as soon as you take Smythe’s money your trappin’ days and all other days are over here, for all time. They’ll have you just where they’ve been tryin’ to get the rest of us. Once they get hold of your deed you can whistle. This land is worth thousands more’n they offer you, and they know it. What has Hallibut’s mill done for the ma’sh-trappin’? I guess you know. They’ll drive the furs off and they’ll drive you’n me off, and they want to do just that, too.”

Declute arose from the floor.

“If I thort that——” he commenced; but his wife broke in:

“If you thort! Just as if you could thunk, you thick-head you. Didn’t I tell you that I suspicioned them fellers, and don’t Bill Paisley here know? Don’t he allars know? Shet right up, Ander, an’ don’t you try an’ think. You had no right to act without seein’ Bill here an’ Big Mac, anyway.”

“But I wasn’t goin’ to, Rachel,” drawled Declute. “I war goin’ over to Big Mac’s this very night, lookin’ in on Bill on the way over. Don’t you get too danged crusty, wife.”

The ponderous woman waved a hand toward the progeny on the floor.

“You, David an’ Moses an’ Zaccheus,” she commanded, “scramble out o’ th’ road instantly, I’m wantin’ to get over t’ th’ cubboard.”

There was a hurried scramble out of the way, and the mother rolled across the room and secured a paper from an inner recess of the home-built cupboard.

“Bill Paisley,” she said, passing the paper over to the visitor, “you be goin’ to keep this here deed for me an’ Ander—ain’t I right, Ander?” she nodded, the corner of her mouth drawn down warningly.

“If you say so, ma—in course,” consented Ander.

“Good idea,” grinned Paisley, folding the paper and placing it in his pocket. “Now, Ander, after you’ve finished cuttin’ up that carcass, suppose you come along with me and we’ll look in on the rest of the Bushwhackers and see if we can’t get their deeds, too.”

Declute glanced at his spouse. She nodded, and with much alacrity the little man arose.

“Don’t know as I’ll be much of a help to you, Bill,” he laughed, “but I’ll go along anyway.”

It was midnight when Paisley opened the door of the McTavish home and with a voiceless laugh waved the bundle of deeds above his head. The candle was burning dimly; the fire in the wide fireplace was almost dead. Boy sat before it alone, looking thoughtfully into its depths. Paisley crossed over to him and placed the deeds in his hand.

“They can’t get the timber without the deeds,” he chuckled, “and to get the deeds I guess they’ll have to get us, eh?”

Boy caught his friend’s hand and pressed it. He tried to speak, and, noting his feelings, Paisley drew forth his pipe and filled it as he gave, in an undertone, an account of his great night’s work.

“I guess all the Bushwhackers’ll have reason to thank you, Bill,” said Boy. “I ain’t sure that they all feel like I do about holdin’ this,” he swept his arm about him and a glow came into his eyes. “It’s been a lot to me—a lot. Nobody can guess what it would mean to me to see this woods crippled. Somehow I haven’t been just myself since they started it over there. I can’t sleep like I used to. I know it’s foolish, but that saw gets buzzin’ in my dreams and I’m fightin’, fightin’ all night long for this, Bill, this woods and all it holds. I was thinkin’ that I’d come over and see you, when you stepped in. Bill, we don’t ever say much, us Bushwhackers; but to-night I couldn’t help but be glad me and you have always been what we have to each other. Some things come over me lately that grip tight hold of me and hold me without hurtin’, and I seem to like the feelin’, too. It’s like frost that kills without hurtin’. If I wasn’t strong I’d think I was gettin’ sick.”

There came from the inner room a voice mumbling in troubled sleep. Boy lifted his head and smiled.

“It was your name she called, Boy,” whispered Paisley wonderingly.

“Ma says she often calls out that way,” said Boy. “Sometimes it’s my name and sometimes it’s dad’s. Gloss dreams a lot, I guess.”