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The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Lady of Big Shanty
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Title: The Lady of Big Shanty
Author: F. Berkeley Smith
Release date: July 22, 2004 [eBook #12989] Most recently updated: December 15, 2020
Language: English
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The Lady of Big Shanty
By
F. BERKELEY SMITH
1909
TO THE READER
This story, written by a man who has passed many years of his life inthe Adirondack woods, strikes a note not often sounded—the power ofthe primeval over the human mind.
Once abandoned in the wilderness, wholly dependent upon what canbe wrested from its clutch to prolong existence, all the ordinarystandards and ambitions of life become as naught: for neither love,hatred, revenge, honour, money, jewels, or social success will bring acup of water, a handful of corn or a coal of fire. Under this tortureNature once more becomes king and man again an atom; his judgmentclarified, his heart stripped naked, his soul turned inside out. Theuntamed, mighty, irresistible primitive is now to be reckoned with,and a lie will no longer serve.
Such is the power of the primeval, and for the unique way in which ithas been treated between these covers, the father takes off his hat tothe son.
F. HOPKINSON SMITH.
September, 1909.
THE LADY OF BIG SHANTY
CHAPTER ONE
It was the luncheon hour, and The Players was crowded with itsmembers; not only actors, but men of every profession, from the tall,robust architect to the quiet surgeon tucked away among the cushionsof the corner divan. In the hall—giving sound advice, perhaps, to anewly fledged tragedian—sat some dear, gray-haired old gentleman inwhite socks who puffed silently at a long cigar, while from out thelow-ceiled, black-oak dining room, resplendent in pewter and hazy withtobacco smoke, came intermittent outbursts of laughter. It was thehour when idlers and workers alike throw off the labours of the dayfor a quiet chat with their fellows.
Only one man in the group was restless. This was a young fellow whokept watch at the window overlooking the Park. That he was greatlyworried was evident from the two tense furrows in his brow, and fromthe way his eyes scanned the street below.
"The devil!" he grumbled. "I wonder if Billy's missed histrain—another Adirondack express late, I suppose." He flicked theashes from his cigarette and, wheeling sharply, touched a bell.
"John," he said, as the noiseless old steward entered.
"Yes, Mr. Randall."
"Find out at the desk if a Mr. William Holcomb from Moose River hascalled or telephoned."
"Very good, sir."
"He's a tall, sun-burned young man, John—and he may be waiting below. You understand."
"I'll go and see, sir," and the steward turned.
"And, John—tell August we shall be five at luncheon."
The next moment two hands gripped him from behind by both shoulders.
"Well! I'm gladyou're here, Keene, at any rate!" cried Randallas he smashed the bell hard. "Two dry Martinis"—this to theyellow-waistcoated steward now at his elbow. "It's Billy Holcombyou've come to meet. He wrote me he was coming to New York on businessand I made him promise to come here first. He and I hunted togetherlast fall and I wanted you and Brompton to know him. What I'm afraidof is that he has missed the night express. Moose River's a long waysfrom the railway, and you know what an Adirondack road is this time ofyear. I hope The Players won't scare him."
"Oh! we'll take care of him," laughed Keene good-humouredly. "ThankGod he's not a celebrity; I'm sick of celebrities. It'll be a treat tomeet a plain human being. Hello! here comes Brompton!"
Randall rose to his feet.
"Glad you could come, old man. There's only five of us—you, andKeene, Sam Thayor, and a friend of mine from the woods. Touch the belland give your order."
Again the noiseless John appeared.
"Any news, John?"
"Yes, sir; Mr. Holcomb is waiting for you below, and Mr. Thayor hastelephoned he will be here in a moment."
Jack started for the stairs.
"Good!" he cried. "I'll be back in a second."
If the actor and Keene had expected to see a raw-boned country boy,reticent and ill at ease, they got over it at the first glance. Whatthey saw approaching with his arm in their host's was a young man oftwenty-three, straight as an arrow, with the eyes of an eagle; whoseclean-cut features were so full of human understanding that both theactor and Keene fell to wondering if Randall was not joking when helabeled him as hailing from so primitive a settlement as Moose River.To these qualities there was added the easy grace of a man of theworld in the pink of condition. Only his dark gray pepper-and-saltclothes—they had been purchased in Utica the day before—confirmedRandall's diagnosis, and even these fitted him in a way that showedboth his good taste and his common sense. The introductions over andthe party seated, Randall turned again to his friend.
"I worried about you, Billy; what happened?"
"Oh, we had a washout just this side of Utica, and the train wasnearly three hours late. But I had no trouble," he said with a quietsmile. "I came down a-foot—let's see—Fourth Avenue, isn't it? Assoon as I saw the Park I knew I was on the right trail," he laughed,his white teeth gleaming in contrast with his nut-brown skin.
"Oh, I'd trust you anywhere in the world, trail or no trail. That'sthe way you got me out of Bog Eddy that night, and that's the way yousaved Sam Thayor. He's coming, you know. Wants to meet you the worstkind. I'm keeping you for a surprise, but he'll hug himself all overwhen he finds out it's you."
The young man raised his eyes in doubt.
"Thayor? I don't know as I—"
"Why, of course you remember the Thayors, Billy! They were at Long Lake three or four summers ago."
"Oh! a short, thick-set man, with grayish hair?" replied Holcomb inhis low, well-modulated voice—the voice of a man used to the silenceof the big woods. "Let's see," he mused—"wasn't it he that cuthimself so badly with an axe over at Otter Pond? Yes, I remember."
"So does Thayor, Billy, and it'll be a good many years before heforgets it," declared Jack. "You saved his life, he says. That's onething he wants to see you for, and another is that he's played out andneeds a rest."
"Bless me!" cried Brompton in the tragic tones of his profession. "Yousaved his life, me boy?"
Holcomb, for the first time, appeared embarrassed.
"Well, that's mighty good of him to think so, but I didn't do much,"he replied modestly. "Now I come to think of it, he was badly cut andI helped him down to Doc' Rand's at Bog River. That was, as I figureit, about three years ago—wasn't it, Randall?"
"You mean," returned Randall, "that you took him down on your back,and if you hadn't Sam Thayor would have bled to death."
"Bless my soul!" cried the actor.
"Well, you see," continued Holcomb ignoring the interruption, "thereare some that can handle an axe just as easily as some fellows canfiddle, and again there are some that can't. It's just a little knack,that's all, gentlemen, and, of course, Mr. Thayor wasn't used tochopping."
"The only thing Sam Thayor can handle is money," interposed Keene. "He's got millions, Billy—millions!"
"Millions," chuckled Randall; "I should think so. He owns about fiveof 'em." As he spoke he half rose from his chair and waved his hand toa well-dressed, gray-haired man whose eyes were searching the crowdedhall. "Thayor!" he shouted.
As the new-comer moved closer the whole group rose to greet him.
"I'm afraid, my dear Jack, I've kept you all waiting," the bankerbegan. "A special meeting of the Board detained me longer than I hadanticipated. I hope you will forgive me. I am not usually late, Iassure you, gentlemen. This for me?" and he picked up his waitingcocktail.
Holcomb, although his eyes had not wavered from Thayor, had not yetgreeted him. That a man so quiet and unostentatious belonged to thefavoured rich was a new experience to him. He was also waiting forsome sign of recognition from the financial potentate, the democracyof the woods being in his blood.
Randall waited an instant and seeing Thayor's lack of recognitionblurted out in his hearty way:
"Why, it's Holcomb, Sam; Billy Holcomb of Moose River."
Thayor turned and formally extended his hand.
"Oh, I beg your pardon! I—" then his whole manner changed. "Why,Holcomb!" he exclaimed with delightful surprise. "Oh, I'm so glad tosee you! And—er—your dear father—how is he?"
"First rate, thank you, Mr. Thayor. It seems kind of natural to seeyou again. Father was speaking about you the very day he left. He wenton Monday to Fort Ti' with my mother for a visit."
"Ah, indeed!" returned Thayor, drawing up a chair beside the boy,and before even the glasses were entirely emptied the two had beguntalking of the woods and all it held in store for them, the bankerdeclaring, as he followed Randall into the dining room, that if hecould arrange his business he would make a quick trip to the Lake withHolcomb as guide.
If the luncheon that followed was a surprise to the stranger fromMoose River, Holcomb's modest naturalness and innate good breedingwere a revelation to Randall's friends. This increased to positiveenthusiasm when one of the actor's massive turquoise rings struck therim of the stranger's wine glass, nearly spilling the contentsinto Holcomb's lap, and which Holcomb's deft touch righted withthe quickness of a squirrel, before a drop left its edge, a feat ofdexterity which brought from the actor in his best stage voice:
"Zounds, sir! A little more and I should have deluged you"—Holcombanswering with a smile:
"Don't mention it. I saw it coming my way."
Even those at the adjoining tables caught the dominating influence ofthe man as they watched him sitting easily in his chair listeningto the stories of the Emperor of the First Empire—as Brompton wascalled, he having played the part—the young woodsman joining in withexperiences of his own as refreshing in tone and as clear in statementas a mountain spring.
Suddenly, and apparently without anything leading up to it, and as ifsome haunting memory of his own had prompted it, Thayor leaned forwardand touched Billy's arm, and with a certain meaning in his voiceasked:
"There is something I have wanted to ask you ever since I came,Holcomb. Tell me about that poor hide-out—the man your father fed inthe woods that night. Did he get away?"
Holcomb straightened up and his face became suddenly grave. Thesubject was evidently a distasteful one.
"Whom do you mean, Mr. Thayor?"
"I don't know his name; I only remember the incident, but it hashaunted me ever since."
"You mean Dinsmore."
"What has become of him?"
"I haven't heard lately." He evidently did not want to discuss itfurther—certainly not in a crowded room full of strangers.
"But you must have learned something of him. Tell me—I want to know. I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life."
Holcomb looked Thayor squarely in the face, read its sincerity andsaid slowly, lowering his voice:
"He is still in hiding—was the last time I saw him."
"When was that?" asked Thayor, his eyes boring into the youngwoodsman's.
"About a month ago—Ed Munsey and I were cutting a trail at the time."
"Would you mind telling me?" persisted Thayor. "I have always thoughtthat poor fellow was ill treated. Your father thought so too."
Holcomb dropped his eyes to the cloth, rolled a crumb of bread betweenhis fingers and said, as if he was thinking aloud:
"Ill treated! I should say so!" Then he lifted his head, drew hischair closer to the group, ran his eyes around the room to be sure ofhis audience, and said in still lower tones:
"What I'm going to tell you, gentlemen, is between us, remember. Noneof you, I am sure, would want to get him into any more trouble, if youknew the circumstances as I do. One night about nine o'clock, during apouring rain, Ed and I lay in a swamp under a lean-to. Ed was asleep,and I was dozing off, when I heard something step in the brush on theother side of the fire. I couldn't see anything, it was so dark, butit sounded just like an animal slouching and stepping about as lightas it could. It would stop suddenly and then I'd hear the brush crackagain on the left."
Thayor was leaning now with his elbows on the table, as absorbed as achild listening to a fairy tale. The others sat with their eyes fixedon the speaker.
"Any unusual noise at night must be looked into, and I threw a handfulof birch bark on the fire and reached for Ed's Winchester. I had tocrawl over him to get it, and when I got my hand on it and turnedaround a sandy-haired fellow was standing over me with a gun cockedand pointed at my head.
"I knew him the minute I laid eyes on him. It was Bob Dinsmore, whokilled Jim Bailey over at Long Pond. He'd been hiding out for months.He was not more than thirty years old, but he looked fifty; there wasa warrant out for him and a reward to take him dead or alive. He keptthe gun pointed, drawing a fine sight on a spot between my left eyeand my ear.
"'Hold on, Bob!' said I; 'sit down.' He didn't speak, but he liftedthe muzzle of his gun a little, and there was a look came into hiseyes, half crying, half like a dog cornered to fight.
"'S-s-h!' said I; 'you'll wake up Ed.'
"'I got to kill ye, Bill,' said he.
"'Sit down,' I said, for I saw he was so weak his thin legs weretrembling. 'Neither Ed nor I are going to give you away—sit down,'and I shook Ed. He sat up blinking like an old toad in a hard shower.'By whimey!' said Ed, staring at Bob as if he had seen a ghost.
"'I'm hongry, Bill,' said Bob. 'Bill, I'm hongry,' and he began tostagger and cry like a baby. I got hold of his rifle and Ed caught himjust as he fainted.
"By and by he came to and Ed and I fixed up a stiff hooker of liquorand some hot tea and gave him a mouthful at a time. Just beforedaylight he rose on one elbow and lay there following us with hiseyes, for he was too weak to talk. It seemed as if he was clean beatout and that his nerve was gone. What grit he had he had used upkeeping away from the law."
Again Holcomb paused—the round table was as silent as a court roombefore a verdict.
"Neither Ed nor I liked the idea of being caught with Dinsmore," heresumed, "with three counties after him harder than an old dog after afive-pronged buck, so when it came daylight we shifted camp over backof a fire-slash where I knew all hell couldn't find him. We had tocarry him most of the way. That was on a Wednesday. We never saidanything to him about his killing Bailey—he knew we knew. We fed himthe best we knew how. Saturday, 'long toward night, I killed a smalldeer, and the broth did him good.
"In a couple of days—Hold on, I've got ahead of my story; it wasSunday night when Bob said: 'Boys' said he, as near as I can repeatit in his dialect—'you've treated me like a humin, but I dassent stayhere. It ain't fair to you. What I done I done with a reason. You'veheard tell, most likely, that I been seen in Lower Saranac 'bout threeweeks ago, ain't ye?'
"'Yes,' said Ed, 'we heard something about it. That Jew horse-trader,Bergstein, told us, but there warn't nobody that seen ye, that wassure it was you.'
"'They lied then,' said Bob, 'for there was more'n a dozen in thevillage that day that knowed me and warn't mistook 'bout who I was.As to that red-nosed Jew, Bergstein, he'll quit talkin' 'bout me andeverythin' else if I kin ever draw a bead on him.'
"Then Bob began to tell us how he walked into the big hotel at Saranacabout noon and flung a hind-quarter of venison on the counter in frontof the clerk and said: 'What I come for is a decent meal; I ain't gotno money, but I guess that'll pay for it.' The clerk got white aroundthe gills, but he didn't say anything; he just took the venison andshowed Bob into the big dining hall. Bob says they gave him the meal,and he kept eating everything around him with his Winchester acrosshis knees. There wasn't a soul that spoke to him except the hired girlthat waited on him, although the dining room was crowded with summerboarders.
"'Tea or coffee?' asked the hired girl when he had eaten his pie.
"'No, thank ye,' says Bob, 'but I won't never forgit ye if ye can gitme four boxes of matches.' Bob said she was gone a minute and when shecame back she had the matches for him under her apron. 'Good luck toye, Bob,' she says—her cheeks red, and her mouth trembling. It wasMyra Hathaway—he'd known her since she was a little girl. 'Bob,for God's sake go,' she begged—'there's trouble coming from thevillage.'
"It wasn't long before Bob crossed Alder Brook about forty rods thisside of the Gull Rock. They saw his tracks where he crossed the nextday, but Bob had the matches, and the sheriff and about forty thatwent out to get him came back that night looking kind of down in themouth. There wasn't a sign of him after he crossed Alder Brook. Heknew those woods like a partridge. When he got through telling how hegot the square meal at Lower Saranac, Ed said to him:
"'Bob, you're welcome to what I've got,' and I told him, 'What I'vegot is yours, and you know it.'
"He tried to say a little something, but he choked up, then he said: 'Boys, I'm sick of bein' hounded. There's been nights and days when I've most died; if I can only get into Canady there won't none of 'em git me.'
"Ed and I had about eleven dollars between us. 'That will get youthere, Bob,' I said, 'if you look sharp and don't take risks and keepto the timber.' We gave him the eleven dollars and what cartridges andmatches we could spare, and what was left of the deer. I never sawa fellow so grateful; he didn't say anything, but I saw his old gritcome back to him. That was Monday night, and about nine o'clock weturned in. Before daylight I woke up to attend to the fire and saw hewas gone."
The men drew a deep breath. Keene and the actor looked blankly at eachother. Compared to the tale just ended, their own stories seemed buta reflex of utterly selfish lives. Even the Emperor experienced astrange thrill—possibly the first real sensation he had known sincehe was a boy. As to Thayor—he had hung on every word that fell fromHolcomb's lips.
"And what motive had Dinsmore in killing Bailey?" asked Thayor,nervously, when the others had gone to the hall for their coffee andliqueurs. "I asked your father but he did not answer me, and yet hemust have known."
"Oh, yes, he knew, Mr. Thayor. Everybody knows, our way, but it's oneof those things we don't talk about—but I'll tell you. It was abouthis wife."
Thayor folded his napkin in an absent way, laid it carefully besidehis plate, unfolded it again and tossed it in a heap upon the table,and said with a certain tenderness in his tone:
"And did he get away to Canada, Holcomb?"
"No, sir; his little girl fell ill, and he wouldn't leave her."
"And the woman, Holcomb—was she worth it?" continued Thayor. Therewas a strange tremor in his voice now—so much so that the young manfastened his eyes on the banker's, wondering at the cause.
"She was worth a lot to Bob, sir," replied Holcomb slowly. "They hadgrown up together."
CHAPTER TWO
That same afternoon the banker passed through the polished steelgrille of his new home by means of a flat key attached to a plain goldchain.
The house, like its owner, had a certain personality of its own,although it lacked his simplicity; its square mass being so richlycarved that it seemed as if the faintest stroke of the architect'ssoft pencil had made a dollar mark. So vast, too, was its baronialhall and sweeping stairway in pale rose marble, that its owner mighthave entered it unnoticed, had not Blakeman, the butler, busyinghimself with the final touches to a dinner table of twenty covers,heard his master's alert step in the hall and hurried to relieve himof his coat and hat. Before, however, the man could reach him, Thayorhad thrown both aside, and had stepped to a carved oak table on whichwere carefully arranged ten miniature envelopes. He bent over them fora moment and then turning to the butler asked in an impatient tone:
"How many people are coming to dinner, Blakeman?"
"Twenty, sir," answered Blakeman, his face preserving its habitual Sphinx-like immobility.
"Um!" muttered Thayor.
"Can, I get you anything, sir?"
"No, thank you, Blakeman. I have just left the Club."
"A dinner of twenty, eh?" continued Thayor, as Blakeman disappearedwith his coat and hat—"our fourth dinner party this week, and Alicenever said a word to me about it." Again he glanced at the namesof the men upon the ten diminutive envelopes, written in an angularfeminine hand; most of them those of men he rarely saw save at his owndinners. Suddenly his eye caught the name upon the third envelope fromthe end of the orderly row.
"Dr. Sperry again!" he exclaimed, half aloud. He opened it and hislips closed tight. The crested card bore the name of his wife. As hedropped it back in its place his ear caught the sound of a familiarfigure descending the stairway—the figure of a woman of perhapsthirty-five, thoroughly conscious of her beauty, whose white armsflashed as she moved from beneath the flowing sleeves of a silktea-gown that reached to her tiny satin slippers.
She had gained the hall now, and noticing her husband came slowlytoward him.
"Where's Margaret?" Thayor asked, after a short pause during whichneither had spoken.
The shoulders beneath the rose tea-gown shrugged with a gesture ofimpatience.
"In the library, I suppose," she returned. Then, with a woman'sintuition, she noticed that the third envelope had been touched. Herlips tightened. "Get dressed, Sam, or you will be late, as usual."
Thayor raised his head and looked at her.
"You never told me, Alice, that you were giving a dinner to-night—Inever knew, in fact, until I found these."
"And having found them you pawed them over." There was a subtle,almost malicious defiance in her tone. "Go on—what else? Come—bequick! I must look at my table." One of her hands, glittering with therings he had given her, was now on the portiere, screening the diningroom from out which came faintly the clink of silver. She stopped,her slippered foot tapping the marble floor impatiently. "Well!" shedemanded, her impatience increasing, "what is it?"
"Nothing," he replied slowly—"nothing that you can understand," andhe strode past her up the sweeping stairs.
Margaret was in the biggest chair in the long library, sitting curledup between its generous arms when he entered. At the moment she wasabsorbed in following a hero through the pages of a small volume boundin red morocco. Thayor watched her for a moment, all his love for herin his eyes.
"Oh, daddy!" she cried. Her arms were about his neck now, the browneyes looking into his own. "Oh, daddy! Oh! I'm so glad you've come.I've had such a dandy ride to-day!" She paused, and taking his twohands into her own looked up at him saucily. "You know you promised mea new pony. I really must have one. Ethel says my Brandy is really outof fashion, and I've seen such a beauty with four ducky little whitefeet."
"Where, Puss?" He stroked her soft hair as he spoke, his fingerslingering among the tresses.
"Oh, at the new stable. Ethel and I have been looking him over; shesays he's cheap at seven hundred. May I have him daddy? It looks sopoverty-stricken to be dependent on one mount."
Suddenly she stopped. "Why, daddy! What's the matter? You look halfill," she said faintly.
Thayor caught his breath and straightened.
"Nothing, Puss," he answered, regaining for the moment something ofhis jaunty manner. "Nothing, dearie. I must go and dress, or I shallbe late for our guests."
"But my pony, daddy?" pleaded Margaret.
Thayor bent and kissed her fresh cheek.
"There—I knew you would!" she cried, clapping her hands in sheerdelight.
Half an hour later, when the two walked down the sweeping stairs, hersoft hand about his neck, the other firmly in his own, they foundthe mother, now radiant in white lace and jewels, standing before thewhite chimney piece, one slippered foot resting upon the low brassfender. Only when the muffled slam of a coupe door awoke her toconsciousness did she turn and speak to them, and only then with oneof those perfunctory remarks indulged in by some hostesses when theirguests are within ear-shot.
In the midst of the comedy, to which neither made reply, the heavyportieres were suddenly drawn aside and Blakeman's trained voice rangout:
"Dr. Sperry!"
A tall, wiry man with a dark complexion, alluring black eyes and blackmoustache curled up at the ends, entered hastily, tucking the thirdenvelope in the pocket of his pique waistcoat.
A peculiar expression flashed subtly from Alice's dark eyes as shesmiled and put forth her hand. "I'm so glad you could come," shemurmured. "I was afraid you would be sent for by somebody at the lastmoment."
"And I am more than happy, I assure you, dear lady," he laughed back,as he bent and kissed the tips of her fingers.
"And yet I feel so guilty—so very guilty, when there is so muchsickness about town this wretched weather," she continued.
Again he smiled—this time in his best professional manner, in themidst of which he shook hands with Margaret and Thayor. Then he addedin a voice as if he had not slept for months—
"Yes, there is a lot of grippe about."
Thayor looked at him from under lowered lids.
"I wonder you could have left these poor people," he saidsententiously.
Alice, scenting danger, stretched forth one white hand and touched thedoctor's wrist.
"You came because I couldn't do without you, didn't you, dear doctor?"
Again the portiere opened.
"Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Van Rock—Mr. Kennedy Jones—Miss Trevor,"announced Blakeman successively.
Mrs. Thayor's fourth dinner party that week had begun.
* * * * *
As the door closed at midnight upon the last guest, Margaret kissedher father and mother good-night and hurried to her room, leaving thetwo alone. The dinner had been an ordeal to her—never before had sheseen her father so absorbed.
"You were very brilliant to-night, were you not?" exclaimed Alice assoon as she and Thayor were alone.
Thayor continued silent, gazing into the library fire, his handsclenched deep in his trousers pockets, his shoulders squared.
"A beautiful dinner," she continued, her voice rising—"the best Ihave had this season, and yet you sat there like a log."
The man turned sharply—so sharply that the woman at his side gave astart.
"Sit down!" he commanded—"over there where I can see you. I havesomething to say."
She looked at him in amazement. The determined ring in his voice madeher half afraid. What had he to say?
"What do you mean?" she retorted.
"Just what I said. Sit down!"
The fair shoulders shrugged. She was accustomed to these outbursts,but not to this ring in his voice.
"Go on—what is it?"
Thayor crossed the room, shut the door and turned the key in the lock.She watched him in silence as he switched off the electric lightsalong the bookcases, until naught illumined the still library but thesoft glow of the lamp and the desultory flare from the hearth.
Still he did not speak. Finally the storm broke.
"What I have to say to you is this: I'm sick of this wholesale givingof dinners."
Alice let go her breath. After all, it was not what was uppermost inher mind.
"Ah! So that's it," she returned.
"That's a part of it," he cried, "but not all."
"And the other part?" she asked, her nervousness returning.
"I'll come to that later," said her husband, with an accent on thelast word. "It is necessary that I should begin at the beginning."
"Go on," she murmured nervously, gazing absently into the fire, hermind at work, her fears suddenly aroused. For the first time itswavering light seemed restful. "Go on—I'm listening."
"The first part is that I'm sick of these dinners. I've told you sobefore, and yet you had the impertinence to-night to give another andnot say a word to me about it." The voice had a cold, incisive note init—the touch of steel to warm flesh.
"Impertinence! Your ideas of hospitality, Sam, are peculiar." Anytopic was better than the one she feared.
"Hospitality!" he retorted hotly. "Do you call it hospitality tosquander my money on the cheap spongers you are continually invitinghere? Do you call it hospitable to force me to sit up and entertainthis riff-raff night after night, and then be dragged off to the operaor theatre when I am played out after a hard day's work down town forthe money you spend? And just look at Margaret! Do you suppose thatthese people, this sort of life you daily surround her with, is a saneatmosphere in which to bring up our daughter? That's the first thingI've got to say to you, and I want to tell you right here that it'sgot to stop."
She looked up at him in a half frightened way, wondering whether therewas not something back of this sudden tirade, something she could notfathom—something she feared to fathom.
"The second thing that I have to tell you is this: I am at the endof my rope, or will be if I keep on. A man can't keep up month inand month out, living my life, and not break down. I saw Leveridgeyesterday and he wishes me to get some relief at once. Young Holcomb,who did me a service once at Long Lake, is here, and I am going backhome with him. I intend to take a rest for a fortnight—possibly threeweeks—in camp."
For an instant she could not speak—so quick came the joyful rebound.Then there rushed over her what his absence might, or might not, meanto her.
"When do you start?" she asked with assumed condescension—her old wayof concealing her thoughts.
"Saturday night."
"But Saturday night we are giving a dinner," she rejoined in apositive tone. This was one at which she wanted him present.
"You can give it, but without me," he replied doggedly.
"I tell you you'll do nothing of the sort, Sam. I'm not going toabide by the advice of that quack, Leveridge, nor shall you!" The olddominating tone reasserted itself now that she had read his mind tothe bottom.
"Quack or not, you would not be alive to-day but for him, and it isdisgraceful for you to talk this way behind his back. And now I amgoing to bed." With this he turned off the remaining light, leavingonly the flicker of the firelight behind, shot back the bolt andstrode from the room.
As he passed Margaret's door there came softly:
"Is that you, daddy?"
"Yes, dear."
"Come in, daddy, dear." Her clear young voice was confident andtender.
He stopped, pushed back the door and entered her dainty room. She laypropped up among the snowy whiteness of the pillows, smiling at him.
Like her mother, Margaret in her womanhood—she was eighteen—was wellmade; her figure being as firm and well knit as that of a boy. For aninstant his eyes wandered over her simple gown of white mull, tied atthe throat with the daintiest of pink ribbons, her well shaped earsand the wealth of auburn hair that sprang from the nape of her shapelyneck and lay in an undulating mass of gold all over her pretty head.Whatever sorrows life had for him were nothing compared to the joy ofthis daughter.
All his anger was gone in an instant.
"Little girl, you know it's against orders, this reading in bed," hesaid in his kindly tone. Never in all her life had he spoken a crossword to her. "You'll ruin your eyes and you must be tired."
She closed her book. "Tired—yes, I am tired. Mother's dinners aresuch dreadfully long ones, and, then, daddy, to-night I've beenworrying about you. You seemed so silent at dinner—it made my heartache. Are you ill, daddy? or has something happened? I tried tosleep, but I couldn't. I've been waiting for you. Tell me what hashappened—you will tell me, won't you, daddy?" Her smooth, young armswere about his neck now. "Tell me," she pleaded in his ear.
"There's nothing to tell, little girl," he said. "I'm tired too, Isuppose; that's all. Come—you must go to sleep. Pouf!" and he blewout the flame of the reading candle at her bedside.
* * * * *
For a long time that night Thayor sat staring into the fire in hisroom, his mind going over the events of the day—the luncheon—thetalk of those around the table—the tones of Holcomb's voice ashe said, "It was about his wife," and then the added refrain: "Hecouldn't get away; his little girl fell ill." How did his case differ?
Suddenly he roused himself and sprang to his feet. No! he was wrong;there was nothing in it. Couldn't be anything in it. Alicewas foolish—vain—illogical—but there was Margaret! Nothingwould—nothing could go wrong as long as she lived.
With these new thoughts filling his mind, his face brightened. Turningup the reading lamp on his desk he opened his portfolio, covered halfa page and slipped it into an envelope.
This he addressed to Mr. William Holcomb, ready for Blakeman's hand inthe morning.
CHAPTER THREE
Two days subsequent to these occurrences—and some hours after hiscoupe loaded with his guns and traps had rumbled away to meet Holcomb,in time for the Adirondack express—Thayor laid a note in his butler'shands with special instructions not to place it among his lady's mailuntil she awoke.
He could not have chosen a better messenger. While originally hailingfrom Ireland, and while retaining some of the characteristics of hisrace—his good humor being one of them—Blakeman yet possessed thatsmoothness and deference so often found in an English servant. In hisearlier life he had served Lord Bromley in the Indian jungle duringthe famine; had been second man at the country seat of the Duke ofValmoncourt at the time of the baccarat scandal, and later on hadrisen to the position of chief butler in the establishment of anunpopular Roumanian general.
It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that he was at forty-five pastmaster in domestic diplomacy, knowing to a detail the private historyof more than a score of families, having studied them at his easebehind their chairs, or that he knew infinitely more of the world atlarge than did his master.
Blakeman had two absorbing passions—one was his love of shooting andthe other his reverent adoration of Margaret, whom he had seen developinto womanhood, and who was his Madonna and good angel.
At high noon, then, when the silver bell on Alice's night tablebroke the stillness of her bedroom, her French maid, Annette, enterednoiselessly and slid back the soft curtains screening the bay window.She, like Blakeman, had seen much. She was, too, more self-containedin many things than the woman she served, although she had been bredin Montmartre and born in the Rue Lepic.
"Did madame ring?" Annette asked, bending over her mistress.
Alice roused herself lazily.
"Yes—my coffee and letters."
The girl crossed the room, opened a mirrored door, deftly extractedfrom a hanging mass of frou-frous behind it a silk dressing jacket,helped thrust the firm white arms within its dainty sleeves, tucked asmall lace pillow between Alice's shoulders and picking up the glossymass of black hair, lifted it skilfully until it lay in glisteningfolds over the lace pillow. She then went into the boudoir andreturned with a dainty tray bearing a set of old Sevres, two butteredwafers of toast and two notes.
Alice waited until her maid closed the bedroom door, then, withthe impatience of a child, she opened one of the two notes—the oneAnnette had discreetly placed beneath the other. This she read andre-read; it was brief, and written in a masculine hand. The woman wasthoroughly awake now—her eyes shining, her lips parted in a satisfiedsmile. "You dear old friend," she murmured as she lay back upon thelace pillow. Dr. Sperry was coming at five.
She tucked the letter beneath the coverlid and opened her husband'snote. Suddenly her lips grew tense; she raised herself erect andstared at its contents:
I shall pass the summer in the woods if I can find suitable place for you and Margaret. Make no arrangements which will conflict with this. Will write later.
SAM.
Again she read it, grasping little by little its whole import: allthat it meant—all that it would mean to her.
"Is he crazy?" she asked herself. "Does he suppose I intend to bedragged up there?"
It was open defiance on his part; he had done this thing withoutconsulting her and without her consent. It was preposterous andinsulting in its brusqueness. He evidently intended to change herlife—she, who loathed camp life more than anything in the world wasto be forced to live in one all summer instead of reigning at Newport.She understood now his open defiance in leaving for the woods withHolcomb, and yet this last decision was far graver to her than histaking a dozen vacations. Still deeper in her heart there lurked thethought of being separated from the man who understood her. The youngdoctor's summer practice in Newport would no longer be a labour oflove. It really meant exile to them both.
At one o'clock she lunched with Margaret, hardly opening her lipsthrough it all. She did not mention her husband's note—that she wouldreserve for the doctor. Between them she felt sure there could bearranged a way out of the situation. Again she devoured his note.Yes—"at five." The intervening hours seemed interminable.
That these same hours were anything but irksome to Sperry would havebeen apparent to anyone who watched his use of them. The day, likeother days during office hours, had seen a line of coupes waitingoutside his door. Within had assembled a score of rich patientswaiting their turn while they read the illustrated papers in strainedsilence—papers they had already seen. There was, of course, noconversation. A nervous cough now and then from some pretty widow,overheated in her sables, would break the awkward silence, or perhapsthe voice of some wealthy little girl of five asking impossibleexplanations of her maid. During these hours the mere opening of thedoctor's sanctum door was sufficient to instantly raise the hopes andthe eyes of the unfortunates.
For during these office hours Dr. Sperry had a habit of openingthe door of this private sanctum sharply, and standing there for aninstant, erect and faultlessly dressed, looking over the waiting ones;then, with a friendly nod, he would recognize, perhaps the widow—andthe door closed again on the less fortunate.
It was, of course, more than possible that the young woman was illover her dressmaker's bill, rather than suffering from a weak heart oran opera cold. Sperry's ear, however, generally detected the cold.It was not his policy to say unpleasant things—especially to youngwidows who had recently inherited the goods and chattels of theirhard-working husbands.
"Ill!—nonsense, my dear lady; you look as fresh as a rose," he wouldbegin in his fascinating voice—"a slight cold, but nothing serious, Iassure you. You women are never blessed with prudence," etc., etc.
To another: "Nervous prostration, my dear madame! Fudge—allimagination! Silly, really silly. You caught cold, of course, comingout of the heated theatre. Get a good rest, my dear Mrs. Jack—I wantyou to stay at least a month at Palm Beach, and no late suppers,and no champagne. No—not a drop," he adds severely. Then softening,"Well, then, half a glass. There, I've been generous, haven't I?"etc., etc., and so the day passed.
On this particular day it was four o'clock before he had dismissed thelast of his patients. Then he turned to his nurse with an impatienttone, as he searched hurriedly among the papers on his desk:
"Find out what day I set for young Mrs. Van Ripley's operation."
"Tuesday, sir," answered the nurse.
"Then make it Thursday, and tell James to pack up my big valise andsee that my golf things are in it and aboard the 9.18 in the morning."
"Yes, sir," answered the girl, dipping her plump hands in a pinksolution.
All this time Alice had been haunted by the crawling hands of theclock. Luxurious as was her house of marble, it was a dreary domainat best to-day, as she sat in the small square room that lay hiddenbeyond the conservatory of cool palms and exotic plants screening oneend of the dining room—a room her very own, and one to which onlythe chosen few were ever admitted; a jewel box of a room indeed, whosewalls, ceiling and furniture were in richly carved teak. A corner, bythe way, in which one could receive an old friend and be undisturbed.There was about it, too, a certain feeling of snug secrecy whichappealed to her, particularly the low lounge before the Moorishfireplace of carved alabaster, which was well provided with softpillows richly covered with rare embroideries. To-day none of theseluxuries appealed to the woman seated among the cushions, gazingnervously at the fire. What absorbed her were the hands of the clock,crawling slowly toward five.
* * * * *
He did not keep her waiting. He was ahead of time, in fact—Blakemanleading him obsequiously through the fragrant conservatory.
"Ah—it is you, doctor!" she exclaimed in feigned surprise as thebutler started to withdraw.
"Yes," he laughed; "I do hope I'm not disturbing you, dear lady. I waspassing and dropped in."
Alice put forth her hand to him frankly and received the warm pressureof his own. They waited until the sound of Blakeman's footsteps diedaway in the conservatory.
"He's gone," she whispered nervously.
"What has happened?" asked the doctor with sudden apprehension.
"Everything," she replied womanlike, raising her eyes slowly to hisown. Impulsively he placed both hands on her shoulders.
"You are nervous," he said, his gaze riveted upon her parted lips. Hefelt her arms grow tense—she threw back her head stiffly and for amoment closed her eyes as if in pain.
"Don't!" she murmured—"we must be good friends—good friends—doyou understand?"
"Forgive me," was his tactful reply. He led her to the corner of the lounge and with fresh courage covered her hand firmly with his own. "See—I am sensible," he smiled—"we understand each other, I think. Tell me what has happened."
"Sam," she murmured faintly, freeing her hand—"Sam has dared to treatme like—like a child."
"You! I don't believe it—you? Nonsense, dear friend."
"You must help me," she returned in a vain effort to keep back thetears.
"Has he been brutal to you?—jealous?—impossible!" and a certainquery gleamed in his eyes.
"Yes, brutal enough. I never believed him capable of it."
"I believe you, but it seems strange—psychologically impossible. Why, he's not that kind of a man."
Alice slipped her hand beneath a cushion, drew forth her husband'snote and gave it to him.
"Read that," she said, gazing doggedly into the fire, her chin in herhands.
"'I may pass the summer in the woods'"—he read. "'Make noarrangements—' Well, what of it?" This came with a breath of relief.Alice raised her head wearily.
"It means that my life will be different—a country boarding houseor a camp up in those wretched woods, I suppose—anexistence"—shewent on, her voice regaining its old dominant note—"not life!"
"And no more Newport for either of us," he muttered half audibly tohimself with a tone of regret.
Alice looked up at him, her white hands clenched.
"I won't have it!" she exclaimed hotly; "I simply won't have it. Ishould die in a place like that. Buried," she went on bitterly, "amonga lot of country bumpkins! Sam's a fool!"
"And you believe him to be in earnest?" he asked at length. She madeno reply; her flushed cheeks again sunk in her jewelled hands. "Doyou, seriously?" he demanded with sudden fear.
"Yes—very much in earnest—that's the worst of it," she returned,with set, trembling lips.
For some moments he watched her in silence, she breathing in nervousgasps, her slippered feet pressed hard in the soft rug. A suddendesire rushed through him to take her in his arms, yet he dared notrisk it.
"Come," he said, at last, "let us reason this thing out. We're neitherof us fools. Besides, it does not seem possible he will dare carry outanything in life without your consent."
"I don't know," she answered slowly. "I never believed him capableof going to the woods—but he did. And I must say, frankly, I neverbelieved him capable of this."
"You and he have had a quarrel—am I not right?"
She shrugged her shoulders in reply.
"Perhaps," she confessed—"but he has never understood me—he isincapable of understanding any woman."
"Quite true," he replied lightly, in his best worldly voice; "quitetrue. Few men, my dear child, ever understand the women they marry.You might have been free to-day—free, and happier, had you—"
He sprang to his feet, bending over her—clasping her hands clenchedin her lap. Slowly he sought her lips.
"Don't," she breathed—"don't—I beg of you. You must not—youshallnot! You know we have discussed all that before."
"Forgive me," said he, straightening and regaining his seat. The icehad been thinner than he supposed, and he was too much of an expertto risk breaking through. "But why are you so cold to me?" he askedgloomily, with a sullen glance; "you, whose whole nature is thereverse? Do you know you are gloriously beautiful—you, whom Ihave always regarded as a woman of the world, seem to have suddenlydeveloped the conscience of a schoolgirl."
"You said you would help me," she replied, ignoring his outburst, hereyes averted as if fearing to meet his gaze.
"Then tell me you trust me," he returned, leaning toward her.
She raised her eyes frankly to his own.
"I do—I do trust you, but I do not trust myself. Now keep yourpromise—I insist on it. Believe me, it is better—wiser for us both."
"Come, then," he said, laying his hand tenderly on her shoulder—ithad grown dark in the teakwood room—"let me tell you a story—a fairytale."
She looked at him with a mute appeal in her eyes. Then with a halfmoan she said: "I don't want any story; I want your help and never somuch as now. Think of something that will help me! Be quick! No moredreams—our minutes are too valuable; I must send you away at six."
For some minutes he paced the room in silence. Then, as if a newthought had entered his mind, he stopped and resumed his professionalmanner.
"What about Margaret?" he asked quietly. "Is she fond of the woods?"
"Why—she adores them." She had regained her composure now. "The childwas quite mad about that wretched Long Lake. What a summer we had—Ishudder when I think of it!"
"Did it ever occur to you, my dear friend, that Margaretneeded thewoods?" His eyes were searching hers now as if he wanted to read herinmost thought.
"Needed them—in what way?"
"I mean—er—wouldn't it be better for her if she went to them? Awinter at Saranac—or better still, a longer summer at the camp—ifthere is to be a camp. In that case her father would not leave heralone; there would be less chance, too, of his insisting on your beingthere—should you refuse. At least that would be a reason for hisspending as much time as possible in camp with Margaret, and you mightrun up occasionally. I'm merely speaking in a purely professional way,of course," he added.
A sudden pallor crept over her face.
"And you really believe Margaret to be delicate?" she asked in atrembling voice full of sudden apprehension.
Sperry regained his seat, his manner lapsing into one that he assumedat serious consultations.
"I am a pretty good diagnostician," he went on, satisfied with theimpression he had made. "Don't think me brutal in what I am going tosay, but I've watched that young daughter of yours lately. New York isnot the place for her."
"You don't mean her lungs?" she asked in a barely audible tone.
The doctor nodded.
"Not seriously, of course, my dear friend—really not that sort ofcondition at present—only I deem it wisest to take precautions. I'mafraid if we wait it will—er—be somewhat difficult later.Margaret must be taken in time; she is just the sort of temperamenttuberculosis gets hold of with annoying rapidity—often sooner thanwe who have had plenty of experience with the enemy suspect. I havealways said that the Fenwick child might have been saved had it notbeen for the interference of Mrs. Fenwick after the consultation."
"And you are really telling me the truth?" Alice gasped—her lips set,her breast heaving.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders.
"Unfortunately—yes," was his reply.
Alice straightened to her feet, crossed to the mantel and stood forsome moments with her forehead pressed against the cool edge of themarble, Sperry watching her in silence.
"Poor Margie!" he heard her say—then she turned to him with astrange, calm look in her eyes.
"You must go," she said with an effort; "it is late. Blakeman will behere in a moment to turn on the lights." She stretched forth her handsto him. For a second he held them warm and trembling in his own, thenBlakeman's rapid step in the conservatory was heard.
"Good-night," he said in a louder tone, as the butler appeared. "Ishall see you at the Van Renssalaer's Thursday—we are to dine ateight, I believe."
She smiled wearily in assent.
"And remember me to your good husband," he added. "I hope he will havethe best of luck."
"They say hunting is a worse habit to break than bridge," she returnedwith a forced little laugh.
Blakeman followed the doctor to the door. Reverently he handed himhis stick, coat and hat—a moment later the heavy steel grille closednoiselessly.
Blakeman stood grimly looking out of the front window, his jaw set,his eyes following the doctor until he disappeared within his coupeand slammed the door shut.
"Damn him!" he said. "If he tells that child that I'll strangle him!"
CHAPTER FOUR
In a deserted lumber clearing up Big Shanty Brook a chipmunk skittedalong a fallen hemlock in the drizzle of an October rain. Suddenly hestopped and listened, his heart, thumping against his sleek coat. Hecould hear the muffled roar of the torrent below him at the bottom ofthe ravine, talking and grumbling to itself, as it emptied its volumeof water swollen by the heavy rains and sent it swirling out into thelong green pool below.
"Was it the old brook that had frightened him?" he wondered. "Perhapsit was only the hedge-hog waddling along back from the brook to hishole in the ledge above, or it might be the kingfisher, who had tiredof the bend of the brook a week before and had changed his thievingground to the rapids above, where he terrorized daily a shy familyof trout, pouncing upon the little ones with a great splashing andhysterical chattering as they darted about, panic-stricken, in theshallowest places.
"Perhaps, after all, it was only the creaking of a tree," he sighed,with a feeling of relief. Before he could lower his tail he heardthe sound again—this time nearer—more alarming—the sound of humanvoices coming straight toward him.
Then came the sharp bark of a dog. At this the chipmunk went scurryingto safety along the great hemlock and over the sagging roof of thedeserted shanty lying at its farther end, where he hid himself in apile of rock.
There was no longer any doubt. Someone was approaching.
"If Billy Holcomb had only give us a leetle more time, Hite," came avoice, "we'd had things fixed up slicker'n they be; but she won'tleak a drop, that's sartain, and if this here Mr. Thayor hain't toopertickler—"
"Billy allus spoke 'bout him as bein' humin, Freme," returned hiscompanion, "and seein' he's humin I presume likely he'll understandwe done our best. 'Twon't be long now," he added, "'fore they'll githere."
Two men now emerged into the clearing. The foremost, Hite Holt, as hewas known—was a veteran trapper from the valley—lean and wiry, andwearing a coonskin cap. From under this peered a pair of keen grayeyes, as alert as those of a fox. His straight, iron-gray hair reachedbelow the collar of his coat, curling in long wisps about his earsafter the fashion of the pioneer trapper. As he came on toward theshanty the chipmunk noticed that he bent under the weight of a packbasket loaded with provisions. He also noticed that his sixty yearscarried him easily, for he kept up a swinging gait as he picked hisway over the fallen timber.
His companion, Freme Skinner, was a young lumberman of thirty, withred hair and blue eyes; a giant in build; clad in a heavy woollenlumber-man's jacket of variegated colours. One of his distinguishingfeatures—one which gained for him the soubriquet of the "Clown" thecountry about, was the wearing of a girl's ring in his ear, the slithaving been made with his pocket knife in a moment of gallantry. Atthe heels of the two men trotted silently a big, brindle hound.
They had reached the dilapidated shanty now and were taking a rapidglance at their surroundings.
"Seems 'ough it warn't never goin' to clear up," remarked Hite Holt,the trapper, slipping the well-worn straps from his great shouldersand staggering with ninety pounds of dead weight until he deposited itin the driest corner of the shanty. Then he added with a good-naturedsmile: "Say, we come quite a piece, hain't we?"
During the conversation the dog stalked solemnly about, took a carefullook at the shanty and its surroundings and disappeared in the thicktimber in the direction of the brook. The trapper turned and lookedafter him, and a wistful, almost apologetic expression came into hisface.
"I presume likely the old dog is sore about something," he remarked,when the hound was well out of hearing. "He's been kind er down in themouth all day."
"'Twarn't nothin' we said 'bout huntin' over to Lily Pond, was it?"ventured Freme.
"No—guess not," replied the trapper thoughtfully. "But you knowyou've got to handle him jest so. He's gettin' techier and older everyday."
Imaginative as a child, with a subtle humour, often inventing storiesthat were weird and impossible, this strange character had lived thelife of a hermit and a wanderer in the wilderness—a life compellinghim to seek his companions among the trees or the black sides ofthe towering mountains. All nature, to him, was human—the dog was abeing.
The Clown swung his double-bitted axe into a dry hemlock, the keenblade sinking deeper and deeper into the tree with each successivestroke, made with the precision and rapidity of a piston, until thetree fell with a sweeping crash (it had been as smoothly severed as ifby a saw) and the two soon had its full length cut up and piled nearthe shanty for night wood.
It was not much of a shelter. Its timbered door had sagged from itshinges, its paneless square windows afforded but poor protectionfrom wind and rain, while a cook stove, not worth the carrying away,supported itself upon two legs in one corner of the rotting interior.
Stout hands and willing hearts, however, did their work, and by thenext sundown a new roof had been put on the shanty, "The Pride of theHome" wired more securely upon its two rusty legs and the long bunkflanking one side of the shanty neatly thatched with a deep bed ofspringy balsam. Thus had the tumble-down log-house been transformedinto a tight and comfortable camp.
* * * * *
The next morning (the rain over) dawned as bright as a diamond, itslight flashing on the brook below, across which darted the kingfisher,a streak of azure through the green of the pines—while in a clumpof near-by firs two red squirrels played hide-and-seek among thebranches.
At the first sunbeam the Clown stretched his great arms above hishead, whistled a lively jig tune, reached for a fry pan, and soon hada mess of pork hissing over the fire. Later on, from a bent sapling asmoke-begrimed coffee pail bubbled, boiled over, and was lifted off tosettle.
"A grand morning ain't it, Hite?" he shouted in high glee, rubbing hiseyes as he squatted before the blaze. "Yes, sir—a grand mornin'. Themdeer won't hev' time to stop and make up their beds arter the old doggits to work on 'em to-day. I'm tellin' ye, Hite, we'll hev' ven'son'fore night if Mr. Thayor and Billy takes a mind to go huntin'."
"Mebbe," replied the trapper guardedly, "and mebbe we won't. Thereain't no caountin' on luck, specially deer. But it's jest as well tobe ready"—and he squeezed another cartridge into the magazine of hisWinchester and laid the rifle tenderly on its side in a dry place asif fearful of disturbing its fresh coat of oil.
Suddenly the old dog, who had been watching the frizzling bacon,lifted his ears and peered down in the basin of the hemlocks.
"Halloo!" came faintly from below where the timber was thickest.
The Clown sprang to his feet.
"Thar they be, Hite!" he said briskly. "By whimey—thar they be!"
The trapper strode out into the tangled clearing and after a resonantwhoop in reply stood listening and smiling.
"Jest like Billy Holcomb," he remarked. "He's took 'bout as mean goin'as a feller could find to git here." Then he added, "But you nevercould lose him."
"Whoop," came in answer, as the tall, agile figure of Holcomb appearedabove the tangle of sumac, followed by a short, gray-haired man inblue flannel, who was stepping over a refractory sapling that Holcombhad bent down.
The trapper and the Clown strode clear of the brush and saw for thefirst time the man whose home they had been preparing.
Not the Samuel Thayor that Holcomb had talked to during that memorableluncheon at The Players, when he sat silent among Randall's guests;nor the Samuel Thayor who had faced his wife; nor the Samuel Thayor,the love of whose daughter put strength in his arms and courage inhis heart. But a man with cheeks ruddy from the sting and lift of themorning air; all the worn, haggard look gone from his face.
"Wall, I swan!" shouted the trapper to Holcomb, as he came near enoughto shake his hand, "you warn't perticler 'bout the way you come,Billy. If your friend ain't dead beat it ain't your fault."
"I hadn't any choice, Hite," laughed Holcomb. "You fellows must havebeen drowned out last night; the log over the South Branch is gonein the freshet; we had to get round the best way we could. Stepup, Freme," he said. "I want you to know Mr. Thayor. This is FremeSkinner, Mr. Thayor, and this is Hite Holt, and there's no betteranywhere round here."
Thayor stretched out both hands and caught each extended palm in ahearty grip.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Thayor," said the trapper, hisgreat freckled paw tight in the white hand of the stranger. "By goll,you done well, friend. But what did ye let Billy lead you throughsich a hell-patch as he did, Mr. Thayor?" There was a certain silentdignity about the trapper as he greeted the new-comer. As he spoke theold dog sniffed at Thayor's knees, and with a satisfied air regainedhis resting place once more.
"Well, it was about all I cared to do for one morning," answeredThayor between his breaths, "but you see we found the old trailimpossible. And so you received our telegram in time," he said,glancing in delight at the freshly thatched roof of the shanty.
"Oh, we got it," answered the trapper. "Joe Dubois's boy come in withyour telegram to the valley, and as soon as I got it I dug outfor Freme, and we come in here day 'fore yesterday to git thingscomfortable."
"Breakfus, gentlemen!" announced the Clown, for the bacon was doneto a turn. "How do you like yourn, Mr. Thayor—leetle mite o' fat andlean?"
"Any way it happens to be," replied the millionaire, as he squeezedinto his place at the rough board table next the trapper. "But beforeI touch a mouthful I want you all to understand that I don't wish tobe considered as a guest. I'm on a holiday and I'm going to take myshare of whatever comes."
"Thar, Freme!" exclaimed the trapper, "I told ye Mr. Thayor warn'tperticler."
* * * * *
That night after supper the four sat chatting within the glow of thestove, while the old dog lay asleep. Possibly it was the persuasionlatent in a bottle of Thayor's private reserve, that little by littlecoaxed the trapper into an unusually talkative mood, for until farinto the night the man from the city lay on his back on the springyboughs, listening and smoking, keenly alive to every word the old manuttered.
"Most times now," he went on, as he leaned forward and patted the dog,"I let the old dog have his way—don't I, dog?—but then it warn't aweek ago that 'twas t'other way. Me and him was follerin' a buck onBald Mountin, and he got set on goin' by way of West Branch, 'stead oftravellin' a leetle mite to the south, what would have brung us aout,as I figger it, jest this side o' Munsey's. Wall, sir, arter we'd beena-travellin' steady, say, for more'n four hours the old feller givein. Says he to me, 'I'm beat,' says he, julluk that, and he stoppedand throwed up this gray snout of his'n to the wind and then he says,kinder 'shamed like, 'I led ye off consid'ble, hain't I?' says he. Isee he was feelin' bad 'bout it, and I says, says I, 'It warn't yourfault,' says I, 'we come such a piece; a dog's jest as liable to bemistook as a humin'; and arter that it warn't more'n an hour 'forewe was out to the big road and poundin' for home. Thar, now"—here hepushed the old dog gently from him—"lie down and take another snooze;ye're gittin' so blamed lazy ain't no comfort livin' with ye."
Thayor bent the closer to listen. Every moment brought some newsensation to his jaded nerves. This making a companion of a dog andendowing him with human qualities and speech was new to him.
The Clown now cut in: "And it beats all how ye kin understand him whenhe talks," he laughed, too loyal to his friend to throw doubt on theold trapper's veracity, "and yet it's kind o' cur'ous how a dog as oldas him and that's had as much experience as him kin git twisted julluksome pusillanimous idjit that ain't never been off the poor-houseroad."
Thayor laughed softly to himself, not daring to bring the dialogue toa close by an intervention of his own.
"Now, there's Sam Pitkin's woman," the Clown continued with increasedinterest, "she's jest the same way; hain't never had no idee of whar ap'int lays; takes sorter spells and forgits which way't is back to thehouse. Doc' Rand see her last September when he come by with themnew colts o' his'n. 'You're beat aout,' said he, 'and there ain't noscience kin cure ye. Ye won't more'n pull aout till snow flies if yedon't give aout 'fore that'—so he fixed up some physic for her andshe give him a dollar and arter he tucked up the collar o' that newsealskin coat o' his'n and spoke kinder sharp to Sam's boy what washoldin' the colts, he laid them new yaller lines 'cross their slickbacks and begun to talk to 'em: 'Come, Flo! Come, Maudie!' says he.'Git, gals!' and he drawed the lines tight on 'em, and Sam's boy saysit jest seemed as if they sailed off in the air."
Thayor broke out into a roar of laughter, and was about to ask theClown whether the physic had killed the pneumonia or the woman, whenthe trapper slanting his shoulders against the bunk broke in with:
"Ye ain't laid it on a bit too thick, Freme." "I knowed Sam's woman,and I knowed her mother 'fore she married Bill Eldridge over to CedarCorners."
"That's whar she was from—I seen her many a time. My old shantywarn't more 'n forty rod from where Morrison's gang built the newone."
Thayor's delighted ears drank in every word. The perfunctorydiscussion of a Board of Directors issuing a new mortgage was so manydull words compared with this human kind of speech.
"And now ye are here whar I kin get at ye, Billy," continued thetrapper, "let me tell ye how bad I feel when I think ye never beenover to see me, or stopped even for a night. Why it actually sets myblood a-bilin'—makes me mad, as the feller said—" Here he noddedtoward Thayor—"Some folks is that way, Mr. Thayor."
"I'd like to have come," pleaded Holcomb, "but somehow, Hite, I nevermanaged to get over your way. You see I live so far off now, and yetwhen I come to think of it, I must have passed close by it when I wasgunning last fall over by Bear Pond."
"Yes—I knowed ye was gunnin', and we cal'lated ye'd come in with themfellers what was workin' for Joe Dubois. Me and the old dog never giveup lookin' for ye. The dog said he seen ye once, but you was too furoff to yell to."
"I want to know!" exclaimed the Clown, as he re-crossed his long legs.
"Goll—I felt sorry for the cuss; he took it so hard," Hite went on."Then he owned up—tellin' me that when he see I felt so lonesome anddisappointed at ye not comin', he'd be daddinged if he could hold outany longer and see me so miserable; so he jest ris his ears and madebelieve you was a-comin' and that he see ye, and that there warn'ttime to let ye know."
"Say—don't that beat all!" roared the Clown as he slapped his leg atthe thought of the old dog's sagacity. Here the old dog cocked an earand looked wistfully up into his master's face. Thayor could hardlybelieve the dog did not understand.
Hite paused in his narrative for breath. When these men of the woods,living often for weeks and months with no fellow-being to talk to,loosen up they run on as unceasingly as a brook.
"But dang yer old hide, Billy, what I got most again' ye is that yeain't writ afore," and he slapped his young friend Holcomb vigorouslyon the back. "'Twarn't a night that passed when I was to hum in thevalley last winter, but what I'd kinder slink away from the storearter they'd sorted out what mail thar was, feelin' ashamed, jullukthe old dog does when he's flambussled into a trout hole ahead of ye.'Why, how you take it,' my old woman would say; 'like as not Billy'sbeen so busy he hain't had time to write ye and it hain't come,' saysshe. 'No,' said I, 'if he's writ I'd had it 'fore this. United Statesmail don't lie,' says I."
"But I did write you," declared Holcomb earnestly.
"Yes, so ye did, for I hadn't more'n said it 'fore down comes DaveBrown and says: 'Eke says thar's a letter come for ye in to-night'smail,' 'Why, haow you talk!' says I, and I reached for my tippet anddrawed on my boots and started for Munsey's. 'For the land's sakes!'my old woman yelled arter me. 'Whar are ye a-goin' a night like this,Hite Holt?' 'Don't stop me,' says I, 'the old cuss has writ—the oldcuss has writ—jest as I knowed he would. Most likely,' says I, 'he'sbroke his leg or couldn't git out to the settlement 'count the snow,or he'd writ 'fore this. Don't stop me,' says I, and aout I wentand tramped through four feet of snow to the store and there lay yerwelcome wad as neat as a piney in a little box over the caounter, andthe lamp throwin' a pinky glow over its side, and that scratchy oldhandwritin' o' yourn I'd knowed three rod off. Thar it lay kinderlaughin' at me and slanted so's I could jest read it. Gosh! but I wastickled!"
The trapper drew a sliver of wood from the stove, shielded its yellowflame in the hollow of his hand and re-lit his pipe.
Back in the shadow of the bunk lay Thayor drinking in every word ofthe strange talk so full of human kindness and so simple and genuine.For some moments his gray eyes rested on the gentle face of theold trapper, the wavering firelight lighting up the weather-beatenwrinkles.
Soon he straightened up, threw the white ash of his cigar toward thestove and slid gingerly to the dirt floor, his muscles lame from themorning's tramp, and calling to Billy to follow him, went out into thecool air.
The banker made his way carefully through the tangle until he reachedthe edge of the ledge overhanging the boiling torrent below, white asmilk in the moonlight. He selected a dry log and for some minutes satsmoking and gazing in silence at the torrent, whose hoarse roar wasthe only sound coming up from the sleeping forest. So absorbed washe with his own thoughts that he seemed unconscious that Holcomb wasbeside him. His gaze wandered from the brook to the forest of hemlocksbristling from the opposite bank, their shaggy tops touched withsilver. Beyond lay the wilderness—a rolling sea of soft hazy timberhemmed in by the big mountains, flanked by wet granite slides thatshone like quicksilver.
"Billy," he began at length.
Holcomb started; it was the first time the banker had called him "Billy."
Suddenly Thayor looked up, and Holcomb saw that the gray eyes were dimwith tears.
"You're not sick, are you, Mr. Thayor?" asked Holcomb, starting towardhim.
"No, my boy," replied Thayor huskily; "I've been happy for a wholeday, that is all. Happy for a whole day. Think of it!"
"I'm glad—and you haven't found it too rough; and the things werecomfortable, too?" ventured Holcomb.
"Too rough! Why, man, this is Paradise! Think of it, Billy—yourfriends have been actually interested inme—inmy comfort—me,remember!"
"Why, of course," returned Holcomb. "They think a heap of your beinghere—besides, there are not two better-hearted men in these wholewoods than Freme and the old man."
Again the gray eyes gazed down into the torrent.
"What I want to say to you is this: I want you to let me know what youthink would be right at the end of our stay, and I'll see that theyget it."
Holcomb straightened and looked up with surprise.
"But they're not here, Mr. Thayor, for money; neither of them wouldaccept a cent from you."
"What! Why, that isn't right, Billy. You mean to say that Holt andSkinner have come up here and fixed up this shanty to hunt with us fornothing!" stammered the financier. "I won't have it."
"Yes," answered Holcomb, his voice softening, "it's just as I'mtelling you. That's the kind of men the Clown and Hite are. You'd onlyinsult them if you tried to pay them. There are a lot of things theold man has done in his life that he has never taken a cent for; andas for the Clown, I've seen him many a time doing odd jobs for somepoor fellow that couldn't help himself. I've seen him, too, after ahard month's chopping in the lumber woods working for Pat Morrison,come into Pat's hotel and pay the whole of his month's wages out intreat to a lot of lumber jacks he'd meet maybe Saturday night, andknew maybe he'd never see again by Monday morning."
"And yet you tell me they are both poor."
"Poor isn't the word for it. Why, I've seen Freme when he's been brokeso he didn't have the price of a glass of beer at Pat's, build a doghouse for some of the children, or help the hired girl by stacking apile of wood handy for her."
It was a new doctrine for the banker—one he had never been accustomedto; and yet when he thought it over, and recalled the look in the oldtrapper's face and the hearty humour and independence of the Clown, hefelt instantly that Holcomb was right. Something else must be donefor them—but not money. For some moments he sat gazing into the weirdstillness, then he asked in one of his restful tones:
"Billy—who owns this place?"
"You mean the shanty?"
"I mean as far as we can see."
"Well," answered Holcomb, "as far as we can see is a good ways.Morrison owns part of it—that is from the South Branch down tothe State Road, and—let's see—after that there's a couple of lotsbelonging to some parties in Albany; then, as soon as you get acrossabove the big falls it is all state land clear to Bear Brook—yes,clear to the old military road, in fact."
"Are there any ponds?" asked Thayer.
"Yes—four," replied Holcomb. "Lily Pond, and little Moose and Still Water and—"
"I see," interrupted Thayor.
"Why do you ask?" inquired Holcomb, wondering at the drift of Thayor'sinquiry.
"Oh, nothing. That is, nothing now. How many acres do you think it allcovers?"
"I should say about fifteen thousand," replied Holcomb.
"Only fifteen thousand, eh?"
For an instant he paused and looked out over the sweep of forest,with the gaunt trees standing like sentinels. Then he raised his handsabove his head and in a half-audible voice murmured:
"My God, what freedom! I'll turn in now if you don't mind, Billy."
And so ended the banker's first day in the wilderness.
CHAPTER FIVE
All through the night that followed Sam Thayor slept soundly on hisspring bed of fragrant balsam, oblivious to the Clown's snoring or thesnapping logs burning briskly in the stove, his head pillowed on hisboots wound in his blanket. Beneath the canopy of stars the torrentroared and the great trees whined and creaked, their shaggy topswhistling in the stiff breeze. Not until Hite laid his rough hand onhis shoulder and shook him gently did he wake to consciousness.
"Breakfus's most ready," announced the trapper cheerfully.
Thayor opened his eyes; then, with a start, he sat up, rememberingwhere he was. As he grew accustomed to the light he caught a glimpseoutside of Billy and the Clown busy over the frying pan, and thesteaming pail of coffee. Its fragrance and the pungent smoke from thefire now brought him fully awake.
"How'd ye sleep, friend?" inquired Hite, his weather-beaten facewrinkled in a kindly grin.
"How did I sleep?" returned the millionaire smiling; "like atop—really I don't know; I don't remember anything after Holcombcovered me up."
"Breakfast!" shouted the Clown from without.
"Wait'll I git ye some fresh water," said the trapper, tossing thesoapy contents of a tin basin into the sun and returning with itre-filled. "Thar, dip yer head into that, friend—makes a man feelgood, I tell ye, on a frosty mornin'." Then lowering his voice to awhisper he added: "The old dog's sot on gittin' an early start; he'smighty pertickler 'bout it. The old feller's been up 'long 'foredaylight. He told me he never seen no nicer mornin' for a hunt. Ifwe don't git a deer 'fore noon you kin have all that's on my plate."There was a confident gleam in the old man's eyes—an enthusiasm thatwas contagious.
The gray head of the millionaire went into the tin basin with a will.Big Shanty Brook, that morning, was as cold as ice. He rubbed hisface and neck into a glow, combing his hair as best he could withhis hands. He was as hungry as a wolf. Thayor was now beginning tounderstand their unwillingness to accept pay for their services.
Breakfast over, the four struck into the woods in single file, enroute for their runways, Hite taking the lead, the old dog trotting atthe Clown's heels in silence, Holcomb bringing up the rear.
"Now, friend," began Hite in a low tone to Thayor, "you'd better comewith me, I presume; and, Billy, we'll go slow so's you'll have timeto git down to whar that leetle brook comes into Big Shanty." And thebanker and the trapper, followed by the dog, struck off to the left,up the densely wooded side of the mountain.
It was all a mystery to Thayor, this finding a blind trail in theforest, but to the trapper it was as plain as a thoroughfare.
"'T won't be long 'fore the old dog'll git down to business thismornin'," he muttered to Thayor in his low voice, as he steadied himalong a slippery log. "The dog says Freme's allys sot on keepin' uptoo high. He thinks them deer is feedin' on what they kin git low downin the green timber underneath them big slides. I ain't of course,sayin' nothin' agin Freme. Thar ain't a better starter in these hullmaountins, only him and the old dog ain't allus of the same idee."
Presently Big Shanty Brook flashed ahead of them through the trees,and the trapper led the way out to a broad pool, a roaring cauldron ofemerald green steaming in mist. Just above it lay a point ofboulders out of which a dense clump of hemlocks struggled for a roughexistence—the boulders about their gnarled roots splitting the courseof the mountain torrent right and left.
"Thar, Mr. Thayor!" shouted the trapper in a voice that could be heardabove the roar of water. "Guess you'll be better off here whar ye kinsee up and down—if the deer comes through here he's liable to crossjest above whar ye see them cedars noddin' to us, or like's not he'lltake a notion to strike in a leetle mite higher up, and slosh downtill he kin git acrost by them big rocks. Take your time, friend, andif ye see him comin' your way, let him come on and don't shoot till heturns and ye kin see the hull bigness of him."
"I'll do my best," returned Thayor above the roar, as he settledhimself behind the pile of driftwood the trapper had indicated. "Butwhere are you going, Mr. Holt?"
"Me? Oh, further up. 'T ain't likely he'll come my way, but if ye wasto miss him I'll be whar he can't git by without my gittin' the gunon him if he undertakes to back track up the brook. Let's see!" heexclaimed, after a moment's hesitation, again casting his keen eyesover Thayor's vantage point. "Guess ye'd be more comfortable, wouldn'tye, if ye was to set over thar whar ye won't git sloppin' wet. Gosh!how she's riz!" he remarked, as Thayor re-settled himself. "If you wasto hear me shoot," said the old man, as he took his leave, "come backup to whar I be. 'T ain't more 'n half a mile."
Thayor watched the gaunt figure of the trapper as he went off to hisrunway, leaping with his long legs from one slippery boulder to thenext, as sure-footed as a goat—watched until he disappeared beyondthe clump of torrent-scarred trees.
The man from the city was alone. He sat there listening and watchingas eager as a boy. An hour passed. Time and again since he had takenup his vigil he had started up excitedly, glancing here and there,confident he heard the baying notes of a hound above the roar ofBig Shanty. Voices, too, rang in his ears from out of that deceptivetorrent as it boiled and eddied past him in the sunlight. Again, itseemed as if quarrelling had broken out among the boulders—quarrelsthat changed to girlish laughter and distant choruses. Once his mindreverted to the note he had sent by Blakeman; he wondered what effectthe news had had upon Alice. When he faced her again would he have togo through what he had gone through before? or would she come to hersenses, and be once more the loyal, loving wife she had always beenuntil—No; he would not go into that. Then Margaret's eyes looked intohis. Again he felt her arms about his neck; the coo and gurgle of hervoice, and laughter in his ears. Here she, at least, would be happy,and here, too, they could have those long days together which hehad always promised himself, and which his life in the Street madeimpossible.
He rose to stretch his legs. As he did so the strange fascination ofthe mountain torrent—fascination that grew into a stranger feeling ofisolation, almost of fear, took possession of him. He knew the trapperwas somewhere, but half a mile above him. He was glad of this unseencompanionship, and yet he realized that he was helpless to find hisway back to the shanty. Big Shanty Brook had lost men before, andcould again.
Suddenly the hoarse bellowing of a hound brought him again to hisfeet.
"Oo—oo—wah!" it rang over the roar; then the baying grew fainterfrom far up under the black slides as the dog turned in his course.
At this instant he became conscious of a presence which he could notat first make out—but something alive—something that moved—stoodstill—still as the tree behind which it slunk—and moved again. Hegrasped his Winchester and peered ahead, straining his eyes. Beforehim, barely thirty yards away, stood a man, the like of whom he hadnever seen before. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, unshorn, his matted beard andhair covered by a ragged slouch hat. Resting in the hollow of his armwas a rifle, and around his waist a belt of cartridges. That he hadnot seen Thayor was evident from the way he stood listening to thebaying of the hound, his hand cupped to his ear.
Suddenly the figure crouched; sank to the ground and rolled behind afallen log. At the same instant the old dog bounded out of the bushesand sprang straight at where the man lay concealed.
Thayor waited, not daring to breathe. The old dog had evidently lostthe deer tracks.
Thayor settled once more in his place, now that the mystery wasexplained; looked his rifle over, laid it within instant reach of hishand and gave a low cough in the direction of the concealed figure.Should the deer charge this way it was just as well to let the manknow where he sat, or he might stop a stray bullet. Quick as theanswering flash of a mirror a line of light glinted along the barrelof a rifle resting on the fallen log, its muzzle pointed straight athim.
Thayor shrank behind the drift and uttered a yell. Almost every yearsomeone had been mistaken for a deer and shot.
At this instant there rang through the forest the stamping splash ofhoofs in the rapids above him; a moment more and he saw the spray flyback of a boulder. Then he gazed at something that obliterated allelse.
A big buck was coming straight toward him. He came on, walkingbriskly, his steel-blue coat wet and glistening, a superb dignityabout him, carrying his head and its branching horns with a certainfearless pride, and now that he had struck water, wisely taking histime to gain his second wind.
In a flash the buck saw him, turned broadside and leaped for the clumpof nodding hemlocks.
Bang! Bang! Thayor was shooting now—shooting as if his lifedepended upon it. His first shot went wild, the bullet strikingagainst a rock. The second sent the buck to his knees; in a second hewas up again. It was the fourth shot that reached home, just asthe deer gained the mass of boulders and hemlocks. The buck sprangconvulsively in the air—the old dog at his throat—turned a halfsomersault and fell in a heap, stone dead, in a shallow pool. With acry of joy the trapper was beside him.
"By Goll! you done well!" Hite declared with enthusiasm. "By Goll!friend, you done well! I knowed you had him soon's I heard the guncrack. Thinks I, he ain't liable to git by ye if he comes in wharI knowed he would. Well, he's consider'ble of a deer, I swan!" hedeclared, running his hand over the branching prongs.
"He's a beauty!" cried Thayor.
"Yes, sir, and he'll dress clus to a hundred and seventy. Must havemade him think this perticler section was inhabited when ye waslettin' drive at him. Fust shot I know ye shot too quick. I warn'tmor'n a hundred yards from him, then I knowed ye was gittin' stiddierwhen I heard ye shoot again."
"Hurrah, boys!" shouted a voice from the bank. It was Holcomb. "There's our saddle for Randall," he cried as he leaped toward them.
"But, Billy, I came pretty near not getting him after all," exclaimedThayor with a laugh. "I was trying to keep your friend in the runwayacross the brook from shooting me, but I forgot all about him when Iheard the deer come crashing down stream. If he got a crack at him atall I didn't hear it, I was so excited. You ought to have told me, Mr.Holt, you had somebody else watching out across the brook, or I mighthave let drive at him by mistake, or he at me." And Thayor laughedheartily. He was very happy to-day.
The trapper looked at him in wonder.
"Freme warn't down this way was he, Billy?"
Holcomb shook his head—a curious expression on his face.
"Oh, it wasn't Freme," retorted Thayor. "This man was half the size ofSkinner, and a regular scarecrow. Looked as if he hadn't had anythingto eat for weeks—but he could handle a gun all right. That's whatworried me; I was afraid he would use it on me until the old dog laydown beside him."
The trapper gazed at the hound long and earnestly as if to read hismind, and then he answered thoughtfully:
"No—he warn't none of our folks, Mr. Thayor—one o' them gunners, Iguess. They all know the old dog. And now," continued the old man, "Ipresume, likely, arter we've washed up a mite, we'd better be makin'tracks for home. I'm gittin' hollerer 'n a gourd. How be you, friend;hongry?"
"Hungry as a wolf," returned Thayor, still beaming over his good luck.
The Clown now appeared, and drawing his heavy knife, began dressingthe buck.
"Here, Freme," cried the trapper, when the deer had been quartered,"that's yourn," and he slung the forequarters over the Clown's neck."Ride nice?" asked the old man. "Kinder hefty, ain't it, Freme?"
"Wall, it ain't no ear-ring," laughed the Clown, shifting his burdento a finer balance.
"I'll take the hind quarters," said Thayor, straddling them acrosshis neck, as the Clown had done, and with his own and Thayor's riflespliced to the buck's head, the Clown led the way back to camp.
* * * * *
Some mornings after the hunt, during which Thayor had become sosaturated with the life about him that the very thought of his work athome was distasteful, the banker called Holcomb to one side, and thetwo took their seats on a fallen tree, sections of which had warmedtheir tired and rain-soaked bodies more than once during his stay inthe wilderness.
The open-air life—the excitement of the hunt—the touch of the coolwoods, had removed from Thayor's mind every lingering doubt of hisfuture plans. With the same promptness which characterized all hisbusiness transactions, he decided to return to New York the next day.
"Billy," began the banker, when he had settled himself comfortably,and lighted his cigar, "do you suppose Skinner can get a despatch outfor me in the morning?"
"Yes, he might," replied Holcomb.
"Well, will you please see that he does then? And, Billy, one thingmore—how many acres did you tell me the other day there was as far aswe can see?" and he waved his hand to the stretch below him.
"About fifteen thousand, sir."
"Well, that will do for a beginning. I'm going to settle here, Billy,permanently—all my life. I want you to start to-morrow and find outwho owns, not only this fifteen thousand acres, but what lies next toit. I'm going to buy if I can, and you're the man to help me."
"But, Mr. Thayor," faltered the young woodsman.
"No—there are no buts. I am not buying timber land, you understand,in the ordinary way, to destroy it. I want this beautiful country tobe my own. No," he added smiling, "our own, Billy. That's the betterway to put it."
"I'll do my best," replied Holcomb simply, when he got his breath. "It's a big purchase and I must go slowly."
"Then the sooner you begin on them, my boy, the better. I shall sendmy lawyer, Mr. Griscom, up to you immediately; he will see that we getfair play legally, but as to the question of what and what not to buy,I leave that entirely to your judgment; what money you need you havebut to ask Mr. Griscom for."
"I'm afraid they will hold the tract at a high price, Mr. Thayor,"said Holcomb.
"Whatever they hold it at within reason I'll pay," declared themillionaire.
"Then you'll have it," replied the young woodsman in a positive tone,"at the fairest figure I can get it for."
"I haven't a doubt of it, Billy. And now let me tell Holt andFreme—they are just inside the shanty. Ah—Mr. Holt, I was justtelling Holcomb that I'm off in the morning, and before I go I wantto tell you and Freme that I shall miss you dreadfully—miss you morethan I can tell.
"Yes—so we mistrusted," answered Freme, in a regretful tone, "when weoverheard ye talkin' 'bout telegrams."
"Goll! I hate to have ye go," declared the trapper, clearing histhroat. "Seems 'ough you hain't but jest come, Mr. Thayor. But you gotwhat ye come for, didn't ye? I dunno as I ever see a nicer deer."
"Yes, thanks to you and the old dog. But I'm coming back."
"Thar! what did I tell ye, Hite?" exclaimed the Clown.
"And when I do come back it will be to stay—at least during thesummer months—perhaps for all the months."
The Clown and the trapper looked up with a puzzled expression.
"And as it is a decision which concerns all of us," Thayor resumed,"I want to tell you now that I have decided to buy Big Shanty Brook asfar as we can see, and build a home here for myself and my family."
"Gee whimey!" cried the Clown. "I want to know!" The keen eyes of thetrapper opened wide in astonishment.
"I have left the matter of purchase," continued Thayor, "entirely inHolcomb's hands. He will be my superintendent. I now ask your help,my friends, both of you; and so if you are willing you may consideryourselves under salary which Billy will settle with you, beginningfrom the morning I first saw this shanty. And now, Billy, if you don'tmind, I want to see Big Shanty Brook once more before it gets dark.Maybe we can pick out a place for the new camp."
For some time neither the trapper nor the Clown spoke. Both satamazed, silently gazing into the fire. Then Hite said slowly, turningto the Clown:
"Freme, I dunno as if I ever seen a nicer man."
* * * * *
Once outside Thayor stretched his arms above his head.
"Ah—what a day, it has been, Billy," he sighed. "What a full,glorious day, and what a rest it has all been. At what hour do westart in the morning?" and a touch of sadness came into his voice.
"At seven," Holcomb replied; "Freme will take us out to the railroadwith a team from Morrison's. We can send your telegram there."
"Good!" cried Thayor, brightening. "And, Mr. Holt—isn't he comingtoo?"
"I'm afraid not; he said to me before lunch that he and the dog weregoing to stay on for a spell."
"What—not alone! Oh, Billy, I wouldn't want to leave him here alone.He's an old man, you know, even if he is tough as a pine knot. Can'twe persuade him to go with us? He's been so loyal and lovable I hateto leave him."
"I don't think you need worry, sir—he won't be alone."
"But Skinner is going with us."
"Yes—but he'll have company."
"Who?"
"The man you saw yesterday. You didn't suspect, perhaps, but that was Bob Dinsmore, who killed Bailey."
"The hide-out!" exclaimed Thayor, with a start.
"Yes, he's been around here ever since we came."
"Oh! I'm so sorry! Why didn't you let me see him?"
"Well, we didn't think any good would come of it, sir. Hite won't lethim go hungry if he can help it, and he can now. We haven't eaten halfthe grub we brought."
Thayor stood for a moment in deep thought, reached down into hispocket and took from it a roll of bills.
"Hand this to Holt, Billy, and tell him to give it to the poor fellowfrom me."
CHAPTER SIX
When Blakeman opened the steel grille for his master at an early hourthe day following, the thought uppermost in his mind was the change inThayor's appearance. He saw at a glance that the wilderness had puta firmness into his step and a heartiness in his voice, as well asa healthy colour in his cheeks, such as he had not seen in him foryears. He would gladly have sacrificed his month's salary to have beenwith him, and more than once during his absence had he gone to hisroom, finding a certain consolation even in looking for rust spots onhis favourite gun.
With the casting off of his heavy travelling coat and hat, Thayor'sfirst words were of his daughter.
"And how is Miss Margaret?" he asked, as Blakeman followed himupstairs with his gun and great-coat.
Dr. Sperry's villainous verdict still rankled in the butler's mind,and at first he had half decided to tell Thayor all he had overheardin the teakwood room. Then the pain it would give his masterrestrained him.
"Miss Margaret is quite well, sir," he returned in the unctious, calmvoice he assumed in service.
"Ah, that's good. She's asleep, I suppose, at this hour."
"I presume so, sir, as she was out rather late last night. I begpardon, sir, but might I ask if you have had good luck?"
"Well, I managed to kill a fine buck, Blakeman," returned his master,as he continued up the stairs.
"Did you, indeed, sir!" exclaimed Blakeman, his face lighting up. "Well, I'm happy to hear it, sir—I am, indeed. A full blue-coat, sir, I dare say."
"Yes, and a splendid set of horns."
They had reached the broad corridor leading to his wife's bedroom, Blakeman continuing up to Thayor's room with his traps.
Thayor stepped briskly to Alice's door and knocked, then stood therewaiting for her response, keyed up for the scene he knew would ensuethe moment he crossed the threshold. The next instant, in responseto her voice, he opened the door and entered. To his amazement Aliceraised her eyes to his and smiled.
"So you're back," she laughed, re-tying a ribbon at her throat.
"Yes," he replied, closing the door and drawing a chair mechanicallyto her bedside. "Yes, I'm back and I've had a good time, dear."In spite of her disarming welcome he could not dispel a lingeringdistrust of her sincerity. "How do I look?" he added.
She leaned toward him, her head pillowed on her hand, and regardedhim intently, a smile playing about the corners of her mouth. Again hesearched for the truth in her eyes, and again he was baffled.
"Splendid, Sam—like a man who had never been ill."
Instantly the doubt faded. A sense of mingled relief and of intensehappiness stole through him. If she would only believe in him now, hethought, and understand him, and be a help and a comfort to him.
"I was ill when I left," he continued in a softened tone. "You wouldnot believe it, dear, but I was. I should have been ill in bed if Ihad stayed a day longer."
"Yes," she answered carelessly, "you must have been, otherwise I doubtif you would have had pluck enough to leave me as you did. It wasquite dramatic, that little exit of yours, Sam."
"And so you got my note?" he inquired, stiffening up, yet determinedto ignore her touch of sarcasm, and so preserve the peace.
"Oh, yes; Blakeman did not forget. He never forgets anything you tellhim. I must say it was very thoughtful of you after our interview anight or two before." This came with a shrug of her shoulders, thesmile still flickering about her mouth. "Of course you had a goodtime?"
"Yes, and I feel twenty years younger," he ventured; "couldn't helpit, the way those men took care of me."
"Who?" she asked, still gazing at him curiously.
"Young Holcomb and—"
"Ah, yes, I remember," she mused, while she played with the lace onthe sleeve of her gown.
"And there was Freme Skinner and a grizzled, kindly old trapper,named Hite Holt," he added. "I have never met with such sincerehospitality."
"What deliciously amusing names," she sighed, changing her positionbeneath the lace with the swift suppleness of a kitten. "And what luckhunting?" she asked, as she loosened the ribbon at her throat.
"I killed a smashing big buck," he declared with boyish enthusiasm.
She buried her head once more among the lace pillows and ran one handthrough her wealth of hair.
"So you intend to stay up there all summer?" in the same half playful,half sneering tone.
"No, dear; I intend to buy a tract of land and build a house, or camp,that will house you properly."
This last came as a distinct shock, but she did not waver.
"And your decision is final, I suppose," she returned, as shereadjusted her rings. "And when will this be?" she added.
"As soon as I can get the title deeds—not later than a month at theoutside. Would you like me to tell you about the country?"
She shrugged her shoulders, raising herself among the pillows.
"No, I shouldn't know anything more about it."
"But you haven't the slightest idea what Big Shanty Brook is like,"he said with conviction—"a superb wilderness, an unbroken forest.Imagine a—"
She raised her hand with a bored little laugh.
"Now, Sam, dear, don't," she protested. "I hate long descriptions ofplaces; besides, I can imagine it perfectly—a muddy old stream witha lot of sad looking trees sticking about in a wilderness miles awayfrom any human being anyone in his or her right mind would ever careto see. As for your Holcomb and the other two tramps, they wouldsimply bore me to death."
The assumed tenderness in her voice had vanished now. After allshe had not changed. What he had supposed was a return of the oldcameraderie was but another of her covert sneers.
She drew her knees up under the embroidered coverlid, resting herchin firmly upon them, and for some moments gazed in dogged silence infront of her, with half-closed eyes.
"Then you have settled the matter," she said at length, withoutlooking up.
"Yes," he replied. "You have known for years that I have longed forjust such a place; now I'm going to have it."
She raised herself on her elbow and looked straight at him.
"Then you'll have it to yourself," she burst out, "and you'll live init without me; do you understand? You and Margaret can have whateveryou want up there together, but you'll count me out. Oh, you need notgo out of your head," she cried, noticing his sudden anger.
Thayor sprang from his chair, all his anger in his face.
"You'll do as I say!" he exclaimed, "and when my camp up at Big ShantyBrook is built you will come to it—come to it as any self-respectingwife should—out of your duty to me and to your daughter."
"I will not!" she retorted, her breast heaving.
"You will do as I say, madam," he returned, lowering his voice. "Thisluxury—this nonsensical life you crave is at an end. From this dayforth I intend to be master of my own house and all that it contains.Do you understand?"
She stared at him fixedly, her hand on her throat. A certain flash ofpride in the man before her welled up in her heart. She hadn't thoughtit was in him.
"Yes—and master of you," he went on, pacing before her. "I'll sellthis house if need be!" he cried with a gesture of disgust. "I don'twant it—I never did; it was your making, not mine. Tell me what lifeI have had in it? There has not been a day since it was built thatI would not have given twice its cost to be out of it. From this dayforth my time is my own," and with a blow he brought his fist downon the back of the chair. Then squaring his shoulders he lookedfearlessly into her eyes. Something of the roar of the torrent ofBig Shanty Brook was in his voice as he spoke—something, too, of theindomitable grit and courage of the old dog.
For some seconds she did not answer. The outburst had given her timeto think, but what move should she make next? Up to now she had livedas she pleased and had managed to be selfishly happy. She knew hecould force her into a life she loathed, and she realized, too,that, shrewd and resourceful as her friend the doctor was, there wereobstacles that neither he nor she could overcome. Instantly her coursewas determined upon.
"Sam," she began, a forced sob rising in her throat, "I want you tolisten to me." Her voice had changed to one of infinite tenderness;now it was the voice of a penitent child, asking a favour.
Thayor looked at her in astonishment.
"Well," he said after a moment, strangely moved by the appeal in hereyes and the sudden pathos in her tones.
"Since you intend to force me into exile, I'm going to make the bestof it. I won't promise you I'll be happy there; I'll simply tell youI'll make the best of it." He started to speak, but she stopped him."I know what my life there will mean; I know how unhappy I shallbe, but I'll go because you want me to—but Sam, dear, I want you topromise me that for one month in the year I shall be free to go whereI please—alone if I choose. Won't you, Sam?"
Thayor started, but he did not interrupt.
"What I ask is only fair. Everyone needs to be alone—to be free, Imean, at times—away from everything. You, yourself needed it, and youwent—and how much good it has done you!"
"Yes," he said after a moment's hesitation—"I understand. Yes—thatis fair."
"Is it a bargain?" she asked.
"Yes, it is a bargain," he answered simply. "I accept your condition."
"And you will give me your word of honour not to interfere during allthat month?"
He put out his hand.
"Yes, you shall have your month. And now, Alice, can't we be friendsonce more? I've been brutal to you, I know," he said, bending overher. "I am sorry I lost my temper; try to understand me better. I amso tired of these old quarrels of ours. Won't you kiss me, Alice? It'sso long since you kissed me, dear."
"Don't!" she murmured; "not now—I can't stand it. Let me thank youfor your promise—won't that do?"
He turned from her with set lips and began to pace the floor.
Again her mood changed.
"I wish you'd sit down, Sam," she said. Her helpless tone had gonenow. "You make me nervous walking up and down like a caged lion. Sitdown—won't you, please?"
"I was thinking," he said.
"Well, think over in that chair. I have something to say to you whichis important—something about Margaret's health."
He stopped abruptly.
"What do you mean? Is she ill?"
"No, not now, but she may be."
Thayor strode rapidly to the door.
"Come back here—don't be a fool. She is asleep after the Trevisdance. The child did not get home till after three."
"And you let her get ill?" he cried.
"Sit down, will you—and listen. Dr. Sperry came here the day youleft, and he told me he had not liked the child's appearance for along time, and that she ought to have the air of the mountains atonce."
"And you called that charlatan in to see my daughter!" he criedindignantly. All his anger was aroused now. When any wall was raisedin his path, this man Sperry was always behind it.
"I did not," she retorted savagely, "and Dr. Sperry is not acharlatan, and you know it. It was owing to his good heart that hecame of his own accord and told me."
Thayor gripped the arm of his chair.
"Why didn't you call Leveridge?" he cried.
"There was no necessity. Dr. Sperry merely told me that Margaret wasnot over strong, and that she needed a change of air, and where shecould be kept out of doors. He said there was no immediate danger,"she went on steadily, "because the child's lungs are still untouched."
"Does Margaret know?" he asked between his teeth. Sperry and Margaretwere the two poles of a battery to Thayor.
"Does she know? Of course not! Do you consider Dr. Sperry a fool?"
"Do I think him a fool? Yes, and sometimes I think he's worse," andhe looked at her meaningly. "I'll see Leveridge at once—now—beforeI change my clothes. He's seen Margaret almost every day since shewas born and this silk-stocking exquisite of yours hasn't seen her tentimes in his life!" And he strode from the room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Thayor's interview with Alice only made him more determined thanever to carry out his plans at Big Shanty. If he had hesitated at thedanger to Margaret, he got over it when Leveridge said, with markedprofessional courtesy:
"I should not have diagnosed her case as seriously; I should not worryin the least," adding confidentially—"I should be very much surprisedif Dr. Sperry were right. However, I'll keep an eye on Margaret, andif I see things going the wrong way I might advise Lakewood in thespring. To send that child to as severe a climate as the woods inwinter, would, in my opinion, be the worst thing in the world for her,Sam."
Thayor had repeated Leveridge's words to Alice, and she had replied:
"Well, if you are fool enough to believe in Leveridge I wash my handsof the whole affair."
Margaret, as Thayor had expected, was radiantly happy over the idea ofthe camp. She and her father talked of nothing else, Margaret takingan absorbed interest in every detail concerning the new home. Everyletter from Holcomb was eagerly scanned by her. She even treasured inher bureau drawer a duplicate set of the plans, as well as memorandaof the progress of the work, and so knew everything that the youngwoodsman was doing. Furthermore, the frank simplicity of his lettersto her father appealed to her—showing, as they did, a manlinesssadly lacking in the fashionable young men about her. Thus it was notstrange that she began to take a personal interest in Holcomb himself,whom she dimly remembered at Long Lake. With this there developed inher mind a certain feeling of respect and admiration for the youngsuperintendent, due more to her democratic spirit than to anythingpersonal about the man. Then, again, those who were natural appealedto her. As to men of Dr. Sperry's stamp and the idle youths whochattered to her in the world which her mother had forced her into,these she detested.
* * * * *
During the long winter months Big Shanty lay buried under tons of snowand ice. The broad bed of the stream became unrecognizable; its roarmuffled. Along its wild course the boulders showed above the heavydrifts, capped with a sea of white domes, like some straggling city ofsunken mosques. Along the bed of the brook open wounds gaped here andthere, while at the bottom of these crevasses the treacherous blackwater chuckled and grumbled through a maze of passages, breaking outat rare intervals into angry pools, their jagged edges piled with floeice. For days at a time the big trees moaned ceaselessly; often thesnow fell silently all through the day, all through the bitter cold ofthe night, until the knotted arms of the hemlock were cruelly laden tothe cracking point, and the moose hopple and scrub pines lay smotheredup to their tops. Always the crying wind and the driving snow.
As the winter wore itself out the sun began to assert its warmth.All things now steamed at midday, dripping and oozing in sheergratefulness; the snow became so soft that even the tail of a woodmouse slushed a gash in it, the dripping hemlocks perforating thesnow beneath them with myriads of holes. Soon the woods were oozing inearnest, the warm sun swelling the young buds. Day by day the roar ofBig Shanty Brook grew mightier, its waters sweeping over the boulderswith the speed of a mill race, tearing away its crumbling banks.
With the opening of spring Holcomb started work in earnest. The woodsreverberated with the shouts of teamsters. Soon the deserted clearingbecame the main centre of activity, echoing with the whacking strokesof axes and the crash of falling trees. Horses strained and slippedin their trace chains, snaking the big logs out to the now widenedclearing—slewing around stumps—tearing and ripping right and left.
By early March the clearing had widened to four times its originalsize, reaching for rods back of the shanty; the air had becomefragrant, spiced with the odour of fresh stumps and the great piles oflogs stacked on the skidways.
At last the work of chopping ceased. Then began the ripping whine ofsaws and the wrenching clutch of cant hooks; loads of clean planksnow came clattering up the rough road from the sawmill in the valleybelow—men cursed over wheels sunk over their hubs in mud—over brokenaxles and shifted loads.
The clearing had now become Holcomb's home—if a square box providedwith a door and a factory-made window can be called a home. In ithe placed a cot bed and a stove, the remainder of its weather-proofinterior being littered with blue prints, bills, and receipts. Beforelong these had resulted in the development of the skeleton of apretentious main structure; its frame work suggesting quaint eaves anda broad piazza. At the same time a dozen other skeletons were erectedabout it, flanking a single thoroughfare leading to the road. This,too, had undergone a radical change. Before many weeks had passed thenewly cut road lay smooth as a floor in macadam.
Strange men now appeared at Big Shanty on flying trips from Albany andNew York—soulless looking men, thoroughly conversant with gas enginesand lighting plants; hustling agents in black derby hats withsamples, many of whom made their head quarters at Morrison's, awaitingHolcomb's word of approval. Most of these the trapper and the Clowntreated with polite suspicion.
Wagon loads of luxuries then began to arrive—antique furniture,matchless refrigerators, a grand piano and a billiard table—cases ofpictures and bundles of rare rugs. So great was the accumulation ofluxuries at Big Shanty that little else was talked of.
"How much money do ye cal'late Sam Thayor's got?" one of the prophetsat Morrison's would ask. The "Mr." had been long since dropped fromlack of usage.
"Goll—I hain't no idee," another would reply, "but I presume if thehull of it was dumped inter Otter Pond you'd find the water had rizconsider'ble 'round the edge."
During all this time Thayor had not once put in an appearance. He hadleft Holcomb, as he had promised, entirely in charge. Billy worriedover the ever-increasing expenditure which had grown to a proportionhe never dreamed of at the beginning, and was in constant dread ofbeing asked for explanations—yet the vouchers he sent to New Yorkinvariably came back "O.K.'d" without a murmur or a criticism from theman who had told him to buy Big Shanty "as far as he could see."
CHAPTER EIGHT
The only thing that caused the young superintendent any real anxiety,and one he had tried in vain to stop—was the sale of liquor to hismen at Morrison's. When pay-day came half of his gang were invariablyabsent for several days, including even his trustworthy andever-to-be-relied-upon Freme Skinner, the Clown.
Holcomb had reasoned with Freme and had threatened him with dischargea dozen times, his example being a bad one for the French Canadiansunder his immediate care. As a last resort he had taken Belle Pollard,Freme's sweetheart, a waitress at Morrison's, into his confidence. IfBelle could keep Freme sober over Sunday—it was impossible to keephim away from her—Holcomb would speak a good word to Thayor for Fremeand Belle and then they could both get a place as caretakers of thehouse during the coming winter, be married in the fall and so livehappy ever after.
The girl promised, and the next Saturday the test came.
"If Freme will let liquor alone," he had written to Thayor the daythese final arrangements were completed, "you couldn't have abetter man or a better girl, but I'm afraid we'll have to move BillMorrison's bar-room into Canada to accomplish it."
The result of this bargain Holcomb learned from the girl herself asshe sat in his cabin, the glow of a swinging lamp lighting up herface.
On Saturday night, as usual, so Belle said, the Clown, his wages inhis pocket, had sat in one corner of Morrison's bar-room, the heels ofhis red-socked feet clutched in the rung of his chair. A moment beforethere had been a good-natured, rough-and-tumble wrestle as he andanother lumber jack grappled. The Clown had thrown his antagonistfairly, the lumberjack's shoulders striking the rough floor with awhack that made things jingle. The next moment the two had treated oneanother at the bar, and with a mutual, though maudlin appreciationof each other had gone back to their respective chairs among the linetilted against the wall.
At that moment she had opened the bar-room door and announced supper.Instantaneously the front legs of the line of tilted chairs came tothe floor with a bang. The Clown reached the girl and the half-opendoor first.
"Blast you, Freme Skinner," she said, "be you a-goin' in or out?"
"Wall, I swow, Belle," remarked the Clown, steadying himself andturning his bleary eyes on the closed door, "you be techier 'n asp'ilt colt, ain't ye?"
Soon the long table was filled by the hungry crowd. They sat heavilyin their chairs, their coats off, their hair slicked down for theoccasion. The Clown was seated at one end of the table, nearest theswing door leading to the kitchen. He wore a red undershirt, cut lowabout his bull neck. It was Belle's ring that dangled from one ear.Loosing the strap about his waist he began to sing:
"My gal has a bright blue eye, And she steps like a fox in the snow; And a thousand miles I'd tra-vel To find her other beau."
Then in crescendo:
"She used to live in Stove-pipe City—"
Here the girl kicked the swing door and appeared with the firstassortment of bird dishes.
"Here, boys, you'll kinder have to sort 'em out for yerselves," shelaughed, her eager eyes watching the Clown.
Freme started in again, unconscious of the girl's anxiety—too drunkto notice anything in fact:
"She used to live in Stove-pipe—"
He stopped short and looked at the girl with a half-drunken leer, thenwiped his mouth with the sleeve of his red shirt.
"Ham an' eggs, fried pork, tea or coffee, mince or apple pie," rattledthe girl, holding the dishes under Freme's nose.
Skinner leaned back, tried to fix his gaze upon her, lurched in hischair and slid heavily to the floor. Such breaches of etiquette werenot infrequent occurrences at Morrison's.
The men filed out, crowding around the red-hot stove in the bar-room.When Belle burst in again to clear the table, the Clown lay snoringflat on his back.
By daylight Monday morning Morrison's hotel held but a singleguest—the rest, penniless by Sunday night, had gone back to work. TheClown, with a dollar still in his pocket, remained. When the othershad gone he came down softly in his sock feet from his room and drewup a chair to the stove in the stagnant and deserted bar-room. Theroom had not yet been either swept or aired. Then he rose, opened thedoor leading to the porch and let in the tingling frosty air and thesunlight. For a long time he played with the kitten under the stove,but he did not take a drink. He had promised Belle that he would not,and she had kissed him as a reward. A new light shone in the girl'seyes as she busied herself with the dishes in the kitchen beyond thebar-room—now and then she sang to herself the refrain of a popularsong. Finally she opened the door of the kitchen and entered thebar-room. The next moment the Clown placed his great paw of a handabout her slim waist.
"I hain't took no drink," he said shakily, with an embarrassed laugh.
She looked up at him.
"I knowed you wouldn't, Freme," she answered searching his blood-shotblue eyes. "You promised, Freme, and—you know I'll marry ye," shesaid, "jest as I said I would if ye'll only keep to what ye promised.I guess we kin be as happy as most folks," she added, smiling bravelythrough tears.
"Thar ain't no guessin' 'bout it, Belle. Thar—you needn't cry 'boutit," he replied.
"You was awful drunk, Freme," she went on. "There warn't no one couldhandle ye 'cept me. They was tryin' to get ye upstairs and to bed, butye was uglier 'n sin."
"Pshaw—I want to know," drawled the giant sheepishly. "Didn't nonegit hurted, did they?"
"None 'cept Ed Munsey; ye throwed him downstairs."
"Ed ain't hurted, be he?" he asked in alarm.
"His shoulder was swelled bad when he come back to work," sheconfessed. She nodded to the door behind the bar and the splinterssticking through its panel.
"Gosh all whimey!" he exclaimed; "who done that?"
"You done it, Freme; you was crazy drunk. There warn't none of 'emcould handle you 'cept me, I tell ye. I spoke to ye and ye come'long with me back inter the kitchen and set there lookin' at mestrange-like for most an hour. Arter I got my dishes washed I took yeup to the little room at the end of the hall."
The Clown scratched his head as if trying to remember.
"Warn't it Ed that throwed that buffalo hide over me?" he asked aftera moment of useless research.
"No," she said, "I wouldn't let one of 'em tech ye."
"And do you think he'll keep his promise, Belle?" asked Holcomb, whenshe had finished the story.
"I dunno. He will if I kin stay 'longside of him. But if he don't he'sgot to git along without me. He says he loves me better 'n liquor, andI guess maybe he does."
The following night Freme swung into the forest and took the short cutto Big Shanty, and that same night Holcomb welcomed him with a heartyhandshake and the morning after set him to work. When the next daycame around and Freme shook his head when the liquor passed, thosearound the stove at Morrison's marvelled at his grit and speculatedhow long it would last, wondering if Freme had "got religion"—towhich the girl had answered, "Yes, he has—I'm his religion."
* * * * *
But liquor was not the only menace that threatened the work downMorrison's way. Drunkenness Holcomb could handle to some extent—hadhandled it in the cases of both the Clown and the Clown'shead-chopper, a little French Canadian by the name of Le Boeuf, fromwhom Holcomb himself had extracted a pledge, which, to the littleKanuck's credit, he manfully kept. What was more to be feared was thedrove of stragglers, outlaws, and tramps who, attracted by the unusualexpenditure at Big Shanty, made Morrison's their resting place as longas they had a dollar to pay for a lodging or a glass of whiskey.
In addition to these there came a more prosperous and, for thatreason, a more dangerous class—speculators, lumber sharps, landagents, and the like, each one with a scheme for the improvement ofsome part of Big Shanty. Most, if not all of them, Holcomb turned downwith a curt "No—don't want it." Now and then someone more shrewdthan the others would write direct to Thayor, and on the strength ofa formal business answer—"You might inquire of my superintendent, Mr.William Holcomb," etc., etc., would use the document to pave the wayfor an introduction.
One evening in June a rickety buck-board rattled up to Morrison'sand inquired the way to Big Shanty. The passenger was short andbroad-shouldered; wore a derby hat shading a pair of crafty eyes asblack as his thick, scrubby beard. In his hand he carried a smallblack valise.
The stranger stepped into the bar, emptied his glass, waited untilMorrison had cleared his throat and uttered the customary remark of "Igoll—we cal'late to keep the best—" and then asked:
"How far did you say this place of Thayor's was?" The voice was harshand peremptory—with a nasal twang in it and a faint trace of Jewishaccent, despite the fact that he spoke the dialect of the country fromhabit.
"'Bout two miles, we cal'late it by the new road," returned theproprietor as he re-corked the bottle. "You'll see the new road 'bouta hundred rod 'bove here to the left; you can't miss it."
"I've got a letter from Thayor himself," explained the stranger, as hesquinted over his hooked nose and searched cautiously the contentsof an inside pocket. "It's for a man named Holcomb—he's Thayor'ssuperintendent, ain't he?"
"Yes," said Morrison, "and a durn good one, too. I'll warrant Sam Thayor got the feller he was lookin' for when he got Billy."
"Ain't the job gettin' too big for him?" ventured the man with anattempt at a grin under the thick beard that grew to the corners ofhis crafty eyes.
"He kin handle any job he's a mind to," said Morrison with roughemphasis.
"Um!" grunted the man. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Bill Morrison—and yourn?"
"Bergstein."
Morrison leaned forward over the bar and his brow tightened:
"Guess I've hearn of you before—horse-trader, bean't ye?"
"Yes; if you ever want a good horse"—and his small, black eyesglittered—"let me know."
"Got 'bout all I kin afford," replied Morrison; "twenty to work onmy job now." Again Morrison looked at him; this time from his scrubbyblack beard to his dust-covered shoes. "Seems to me I heard your namebefore. There was a man by that name that was mixed up in that JimBailey murder. You ain't he, be ye?"
"No—I come from Montreal," replied Bergstein in a more positive tone."The name's common enough." Here he opened the black valise stuffedwith business papers and handed Morrison a card.
Morrison looked at it carefully, tucked it in a fly-specked screenbehind the bar, and with a satisfied air said:
"Let's see—you hain't had no supper, hev ye? Supper's mostready—I'll go and tell the old woman you're here."
"No—I ain't stoppin' for supper," replied Bergstein, paying for hisglass. "I'm going up to Thayor's place now; this feller Holcomb'sexpectin' me."
"Suit yourself, friend," returned Morrison, and he pulled down theheavy shutter screening the array of bottles.
Bergstein left with a brusque good-night and walked slowly up theroad.
He had not told Morrison all he knew. Trading horses was not the Jew'sonly business; he was equally adept in buying and selling timber-landsand the hiring of men. When he was successful—and he was generallysuccessful—his gains were never less than fifty per cent; less thanthat would have spelled failure in his eyes. For in Bergstein's veinsran the avaricious tenacity of the Pole and the insincerity of theIrishman. The former he inherited from his father, a peddler, thelatter from his mother, the keeper for many years of a rough dive forsailors along the quay in Montreal. Both had died when he was a childand from an early age he shifted for himself, made no friends andneeded little sleep and pursued his business with ferocious energy bynight as well as by day. Added to this was a certain secretiveness. Heappeared in localities mysteriously and left them as suddenly. It wasoften his habit to walk to unfrequented stations and take hischances of boarding a train. His movements were carefully planned andguarded—evidently he did not care to have many of them known.
He was not long in reaching the camp, though it was getting dark whenhe started, the straight road of macadam showing white among the gloomof the trees.
When he arrived hardly a detail of the new camp escaped his shiftyglance. Once in the good graces of the millionaire, he said tohimself, he would stick to him like a leech.
Holcomb's expression, when he greeted him, showed plainly a feeling ofdistrust and dislike. He received him courteously because of a letterfrom Thayor which reached camp the day before, telling him to takecare of a man of his name from Montreal, if he came—he having heardthat he had some excellent horses for sale—and as Billy had needed apair this was his opportunity. As Holcomb looked at him he felt thatif Thayor had ever seen the man he would not have sent him to BigShanty at this or any other time. There was a glitter in those small,black eyes that the young man did not like. Neither was the Clown'snor the trapper's opinion of him any more flattering. As for the olddog, he showed his dislike by discreetly keeping away from him.
Though Bergstein left Big Shanty at a quarter before eight in themorning with the order for the horses in his pocket, it was noon bythe sawmill whistle before he reached Morrison's. There he engaged asingle rig to take him out to the railroad.
What he had done, or where he had been in the meantime, no one knew.
CHAPTER NINE
Early in August Big Shanty was ready for its owner; ready, too, whenit had been promised. Thayor was expected within a few days. He hadwritten Holcomb that he would come alone; Mrs. Thayor and Margaretwere to arrive a week later, accompanied by Blakeman and Annette;the rest of the servants being already in camp under charge of thehousekeeper.
Now that only a few days intervened before Thayor's arrival, Holcomb,for the first time in his active life, experienced a feeling ofgenuine nervous anxiety. Would the man who had entrusted all to himbe satisfied? he wondered. The thought made him strangely silent. Thetrapper was the first to mention it as he and the Clown sat smokingwith Billy in the dusk outside the latter's cabin the evening beforeThayor's arrival. Holcomb, squatting on the ground, had been whittlinga twig to a fine point—now he leaned forward and drove it out ofsight in the cool earth with his heel. Then, closing his jack-knife,he gazed across the tidy clearing at the big camp, and the line oflow-roofed cabins showing dimly in the twilight against the trees. Buttwo lights were visible—one in the servant's quarters opposite andone through the window of the men's shanty at the lower end of theclearing.
"What ails ye, son?" asked the trapper, breaking the silence.
"Ain't feelin' bad, be ye, Billy?" inquired the Clown with kindlyapprehension.
Holcomb shook his head. Presently he said, still gazing straightbefore him:
"I've been wondering, boys, if Mr. Thayor is going to be satisfied."
"Thar—I knowed it!" exclaimed the trapper. "Ye needn't worry a mite, Billy."
"If he hain't satisfied I'll eat my shirt!" declared the Clown,clenching his brawny fist with a gesture of conviction, as he jumpedup simultaneously on his long legs. "Thar ain't a man livin' thatcould hev done a better job 'n you done for him," he declared. "Jestlook 'round ye! Look what it was when we fust come. Reg'lar ruin,warn't it?"
"You've come pretty close to it, Freme," confessed Holcomb.
"If it warn't for the old brook roarin' down thar," remarked thetrapper, "a feller wouldn't know whar he was. Wall, sir, if it don'tbeat all I ever see in the way of a camp! The old dog was a-tellin' meonly yisterday that he never see the beat nowhar, and he's travelledsome, I kin tell ye."
"Jest so—jest so," affirmed the Clown, his blue eyes beaming withenthusiasm as he resumed: "Wall, sir, you'd oughter seen Ed Munseywhen he fust seen it. 'Gol,' says Ed; and his eyes stuck out likemarbles. 'Godfrey Mighty!' says Ed; 'wall, sir,' says he, 'if it ain'tthe slickest fixed up place I ever seen.' Goll! Ed was tickled. 'Must'er cost more 'n forty cents,' says he. 'No,' says I, 'thar warn'tno expense 'bout it; we just throwed some odds and ends together,'"chuckled the Clown, as he sat down hard.
Holcomb was himself again. The Clown's cheeriness was alwayscontagious to him.
"I've done my best," he said, smiling. "But then, we've spent a lot ofmoney, boys," he added thoughtfully.
Night settled and it was not long before the three rose, filed intothe cabin and kindled a fire, a delicate attention which the olddog was grateful for. He had been prowling around by himself in theclearing and now that he scented smoke came stalking into thecabin, his nails clicking across the floor, and with a mournful yawnstretched himself comfortably before the blaze.
* * * * *
By the next twilight Sam Thayor had seen with his own eyes everydetail of his forest domain. Only when this tour of inspection withHolcomb was over did he lead Billy back into the living hall of hisnew house. His manner, after the hearty greeting given him on hisarrival, had lapsed into one of mute enthusiasm. His delight had morethan convinced Billy of his approval. Now that they were alone in theliving hall, he turned suddenly, faced his superintendent and held outboth his hands to him.
"Thank you," was all he could manage to say, wringing Billy's handsheartily.
"Come, my boy, draw up a chair. That fire feels good—think ofit—even in August. Oh, if you only knew how glad I am to get here!"He rubbed the palms of his hands together with satisfaction. "What aplace it is, what a place, Billy! And to find everything far betterthan I ever dreamed it would be."
"I'm glad you're satisfied," was Holcomb's simple reply.
The housemaid appeared with a silver tray.
"Ah, there's our toddy!" exclaimed Thayor. "Thank you, Mary; you mayput it between us. Bring us that little low table in the corner." Asthe girl busied herself in arranging the table Thayor paused to lookabout him.
The square room, with its low, heavily beamed ceiling and walls ofbirch, stained to a rich sienna, glistening in fresh spar varnish; thefire licking up the throat of the wide chimney-piece built of roughboulders from the bed of Big Shanty; the floor laid with rare rugs;the easy chairs and shaded lights—all gave to this living room acharm that none in the house of marble possessed. This artisticresult was due to the personal supervision and good taste of the samearchitect who had designed the house of marble. Fortunately AliceThayor had taken no interest in it.
"Excellent!" exclaimed Thayor, as he poured the hot water into Billy'stemperate portion of Scotch. "The bedrooms are a delight. I'm glad tosee the gun-room paved in brick—muddy boots cannot do any harm there;it will wash as clean as a stable."
"It has been the expense I have worried over," ventured Holcomb, asthe two settled back in their chair. "The vouchers I was obliged tosend you last month, I mean—wasn't the plumber's bill putting thescrews on a little tight?"
"Nonsense!" returned Thayor, smiling, "you don't seem to realize,Billy, that had it not been for your honesty and good will and thefaithful help of our friends. Skinner and Holt, Big Shanty would havecost me twice as much; and if it had"—he paused and gazed into thefire, while the corners of his mouth twitched from side to side as ifforming his words, a habit of his when giving a decision—"yes, if ithad cost three times the amount, I should be more than satisfied."
The colour crept up under Billy's bronzed cheek.
"It makes me feel good—to hear you say this to me," he said. "It'sbeen a long job, but I drove things along the best I could. Whenthings got stuck in the mud there was nothing to do but jump in andpull them out and get them started and moving, and I want you to knowthat Freme—since his sweetheart made him sober—and old man Hite didall they could. I could never have done it without them."
"I believe you, Billy," declared Thayor briskly. "You have done what I knew you would. Ah, yes—you're right about those two good fellows, Holt and Skinner. Their greeting to me this afternoon touched me deeply. Why, even the old dog remembered me."
"Remembered you? Of course he did. Hite says the old dog has never gotover your killing that buck."
"And the old dog, I suppose, still talks to him?" laughed Thayor.
"I've never known Hite to lie," replied Holcomb with a grin.
"And now tell me about poor Dinsmore. I have watched the papers but Ihave seen nothing of his arrest and so I suppose he is safe in Canada,or is he still about here?"
"I think he is still in hiding, sir," replied Holcomb in an evasivetone. The least said about Dinsmore the better—the better forDinsmore. His safety was in being entirely forgotten.
"And you haven't seen him?"
"No, not since we began work."
For some seconds Thayor drummed with his fingers on the arm of hischair; then he said in a strangely serious tone—as if to himself:
"Dinsmore had to kill him, perhaps. That's the only way out sometimes,and that's what would happen every time if I had my way."
Holcomb made no reply. No good could come to the hide-out bystirring up his case. All his friends said he was dead; that is, tostrangers—some of whom might be sheriffs.
The talk now entered another channel—one more to Holcomb's liking."By the way, before I forget it"—here Thayor drew from his pocket apackage of letters—"how about this Mr. Steinberg, the dealer who soldus the horses?" he inquired.
"Who, Bergstein?"
"Yes, this Mr. Bergstein, as you call him. I gather from your lastletter—I thought I had it with me," he said, searching hurriedlyamong the packet of correspondence, "but I have evidently left it—Igather," he resumed, "from your last letter that he did not makea very favourable impression. I can't understand it," he went onseriously, "for he was recommended by one of the vice-presidents ofone of our Canadian companies, a man whom I have had dealings withby letter for years. I should hesitate to believe he would recommendanyone to us whom he did not thoroughly know about—who, shall we say,was sharp in his dealings."
Holcomb for a moment did not reply. Then suddenly he looked straightinto the eyes of his employer.
"I know a man may sometimes be wrong in sizing up another," he began,"but Bergstein seems to me to have considerable of the peddler inhim."
"And yet you say, Billy, the horses he sent were sound, and the pricefair."
"The price he asked was not," replied Holcomb. "I gave him what I knewthey were worth—he wasn't long in taking it. That's where the peddlerpart of it struck me."
Thayor made no attempt to reply; he was listening as calmly as alawyer to a defence.
"There are a lot of the boys here who think Bergstein is all right,"Holcomb continued, "but neither Freme, Hite, nor myself liked hislooks from the first. He's too mysterious in his movements—whangingoff at night to catch a train and turning up again—sometimes beforedaylight."
"Yet you say he is a good worker," interrupted Thayor, settling in hischair.
"There isn't a lazy bone in him," confessed Holcomb. "He's all hustle,and smarter than a steel trap—that's why I put him in charge of thegang in the lower shanty—besides, I saw the boys wanted him."
"I must see Mr. Bergstein in the morning," was Thayor's reply.
"He left day before yesterday," said Holcomb. "He told me an uncleof his had died in Montreal; he'll be back, he said, in three or fourdays."
"Ah, indeed," said Thayor with a nod. "I trust we are all mistakenin the fellow. You know, my boy," he said turning suddenly about,"we must all learn to be tolerant of others—of their ignorance. I'vefound in life a true philosophy in this. It's my creed, Billy—'Betolerant of others, even of those who at times seem intolerable toyou.'"
Holcomb was not the man to censure another without the strength ofhis conviction. He had been frank in giving his opinion of Bergstein,since Thayor had put the question point blank to him. Their talkbefore the fire had been a genial one, save for this somewhatunpleasant subject, yet despite Thayor's kindly optimism in regard toBergstein, owing purely to his excellent recommendation, Holcomb felta distrust of the mysterious stranger who had wormed his way intoBig Shanty. He could not help being personally convinced that thevice-president of the Canadian company was either a rascal or a man ofpoor judgment. It was also possible that the said vice-president hadnever seen Bergstein at all.
CHAPTER TEN
Two nights later Holcomb again bade Thayor good-night in the squareroom with its heavy-beamed ceiling. All the accounts had now been goneover—even to the minutest detail, and Billy felt supremely happy andrelieved at his employer's enthusiastic approval of all he had done,so much so that even the one discordant note—Bergstein—seemed ofvague importance.
He crossed the clearing on his way to his cabin cautiously, feelinghis way with his feet to avoid tripping over an unseen root. The nightwas intensely dark—so dark that as he neared his cabin he was forcedto stop and feel for his card of matches. At that instant someone inthe pitch darkness ahead of him coughed.
"Is that you, Freme?" called Holcomb, watching the sputtering sulphurblaze into flame.
"No," answered a hard nasal voice to the right, and within a rod ofhim; "it's me—Bergstein. Got any gin in your place? the nigh hoss onJimmy's team is took bad with the colic."
"Come inside," said Holcomb.
"Bad luck," muttered Bergstein, as he followed Holcomb into the cabin;"there ain't a better work hoss on the place. Must have catched colddrawin' them heavy loads on the mountain."
Holcomb lighted a candle, extracted a bunch of keys, unlocked acupboard, and handed Bergstein a black bottle.
"I thought you were in Canada," he said, eyeing Bergstein closely.
"I jest got back—I didn't wait for the funeral."
"Well, keep that horse covered," Holcomb added; "you'll find someextra heavy blankets back of the feed bin." After his door was closed,Holcomb stood thinking for some moments, his eyes fastened on thecandle flame.
"That nigh horse seemed all right this fore-noon," he said to himself. "That's the second horse with colic."
Thayor's first meeting with Bergstein occurred the next morning. Itwas brief and business-like, but it left a good impression on Thayor'smind. What little he had seen of the man, he told Holcomb, hadconvinced him of his honesty and ability; that the nigh horse had diedwas no fault of Bergstein's, since he and the boys at the lower shantyhad evidently done everything that could be done. What pleased himmost was Bergstein's humane and untiring efforts to save the poorbeast, adding that he had decided to order him to leave for Montrealat once with instructions to purchase another horse, together withsome other things, amounting to over three thousand dollars inall, which were badly needed. He liked, too, his quick return fromCanada—this showed his interest in his work.
An hour later the two, with Bergstein, stood on the veranda before thelatter's departure.
"Is there anything else you can think of that we need, Billy?" Thayorasked.
"That's about all I can think of," returned Holcomb, glancing over thelong list that Bergstein held in his hand.
"He was a hard-working man," Bergstein casually remarked, referring tothe uncle who had so suddenly succumbed. There was nothing to lead upto it, but that was a way with Bergstein. As he spoke he folded thelist and tucked it into his black portfolio.
"Married?" asked Thayor.
"Yes, and to as nice a little woman as you ever see, Mr. Thayor.He ain't left her much, not more than will keep her out of thepoor-house." Bergstein's voice had grown as soft as an Oriental's."I buried him at my own expense. It's hard on her—she's got a littlegirl who was always ailin'—sickly from the first." He fumbled at hisscrubby black beard, his rat-like eyes focussed on the ground.
"One moment, Mr. Bergstein," said Thayor, suddenly turning on his heeland going into the house. Presently he returned and handed Bergsteinan unsealed white envelope. "Will you kindly give this to the motherand the little girl," he said. "You will oblige me by not saying whomit is from."
"Well, now, that's mighty good of you, Mr. Thayor," Bergsteinfaltered; "she'll—"
"I trust you will have a pleasant journey," returned Thayor and witha nod to Billy the two disappeared through the door of Thayor's den,before the man with the scrubby beard could finish his sentence.
Bergstein tucked the envelope within the black portfolio and went downthe steps to the buckboard waiting to take him out to the railroad.The boy Jimmy drove, Bergstein taking the back seat. He waited untilthey were well into the stretch of wood between the camp and the lowershanty, then he hurriedly extracted the envelope and glanced within.It contained a new one-hundred-dollar bill.
That night Bergstein put up at the best hotel in Troy.
* * * * *
Three days after Bergstein's departure Holcomb sat in his cabin goingover his accounts. When it grew dark he lighted his kerosene lamp anddrew a chair beside his desk. As he bent over and unlaced his shoesthe sash of the square cabin window in front of him was raisedcautiously and four bony fingers slipped in and gripped the sill. Ashe sprang to his feet the gaunt face of a man rose slowly above thewindow sill and a pair of brilliant, cavernous eyes, framed in a shockof unkempt beard and sandy hair, stared into his own.
It was Bob Dinsmore—the hide-out. The next instant Holcomb was out ofhis boots and had raised the sash with a whispered welcome. With thequickness of a cornered cat Dinsmore was inside.
"It's took me most a week to git this chance to see ye, Billy,"the hide-out began in a faint, husky voice weakened by exposure.He glanced about him nervously, his thin body shivering under thepatchwork of skins and threadbare rags that covered him. Holcomb,without a word, crossed to the cupboard.
"Eat, Bob," he said, putting a dish of cold meat and beans andanother bottle on the table. For the space of a quarter of an hour thehide-out ate hurriedly in silence, his food and drink guarded betweenhis soaked forearms like an animal fearful lest its prey be stolen.Holcomb watched him the while with now and then a friendly word. Whenhe had finished eating, the cavernous eyes looked up gratefully.
"I dasn't risk it until to-night, Billy," he resumed. "When I seenthat skunk Bergstein leave I thought I'd let ye know." He leanedforward, one hand fumbling under the rags. "That's what I found," hesaid in a whisper, as he drew out a piece of twisted paper. "I hadhard work to get it," he added, carefully untwisting the fragment anddisclosing a teaspoonful of whitish powder. "It may be pizon andit mayn't—I ain't tried it on nothin' yet, but he was so all-firedperticler in hidin' it I thought I'd bring it along."
"Where did you find it?"
"Under that hell-hound's mattress. He's got more of it in a blue box.Thar warn't nobody seen me. Damn him!"—he muttered—"it was him thattold the sheriff last month down to Leetle Moose that he seen me crosshis trail. I'd crep' down to see my leetle gal, and he stepped 'moston top of us. We weren't more 'n forty rod this side o' whar shelived, and the skunk went in and told how he'd seen somebody skulkin'off, and, of course, they knowed then. They made it hot 'nough forme. I been layin' for him ever since; I was watchin' him through thewinder when I see him hunt for this powder. Folks don't keep stufflike that whar he kep' it 'less it's sumpin perticler. Somebody'llfind him in the woods some time with a hole in him."
Holcomb laid the powder on the table. What he suspected he dared notformulate into words, let alone tell the hide-out.
"I ain't never forgot ye, Billy, for what ye've done for me,"continued the hide-out with a choke in his feeble voice. Then,starting to his feet, the old fear returning, he whispered hoarsely:
"'Tain't safe here for me; I dasn't stay longer."
"Bob," said Holcomb, "you're safe here until daylight; there's mybed."
"No! No! I dassent, Billy."
"But you're wet to the skin," insisted Holcomb.
"So be everything when it rains. I'm wet most of the time. Now I'ma-goin', and a-goin' quick. That's what I come to give ye," and henodded to the crumpled bit of paper and its contents lying under thelamp's glow.
"Is there anything I can do for you, Bob, down below? I saw Katie lasttime I drove in."
A hungry eager look stole into the man's face; tears started in hiseyes and lost themselves in his matted, unkempt beard.
"Ye see Katie, Billy?" he moaned. "God—how I'd like to! Growing,ain't she? Most 'leven now. Some weeks back since I dared go down.Last time I see her she cried and went on so holdin' on to me I comenear givin' myself up I felt so bad; then I knowed that wouldn't gitnowhars."
"No, Bob, better keep moving. I'm going to speak to Mr. Thayor whenthe time comes—but it isn't yet. Hold on—here's matches and what'sleft in the cupboard." Taking two of his own shirts and a pair ofhis woollen trousers, he wrapped up the food and a little cheer; thenblowing out the lamp he again raised the sash cautiously, and with ahurried handshake bade him good-night.
"If ye want me again Hite Holt kin find me—he knows whar I be," hewhispered softly. Then he slipped out into the darkness and was gone.
Holcomb regained his chair, folded the paper containing every grain ofthe powder into an envelope and slipped it into his desk.
One thing he was resolved upon—not to tell Mr. Thayor of hissuspicions until there was no question of his proof.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It is a long drive in from the railroad to Morrison's. Hite called iteighteen good miles; the Clown put it at nineteen; what the olddog estimated it at none knew. He had always trotted the distancecheerfully.
From Thayor's private flag station, the main road into Big Shantysnakes along over a flat, sparsely settled valley before it entersthe deep woods. Once in the heavy timber it crossed chattering brooksskirting the ragged edges of wild ravines. On it goes through theforest mile after mile, up hill and down, until it emerges abruptlyinto the open country at the head of the "Deadwater," passesMorrison's, is met half a mile farther on by the new road leading downfrom Big Shanty camp, and continues straight ahead through a roughnotch out to a valley twelve miles beyond.
It was over this road that Alice Thayor went to her exile.
Thayor and Holcomb, this rare August afternoon, were at the flagstation to meet the "Wanderer"—the banker's private car, with aspick-and-span three-seated buckboard and a fast team of bays. Aboardthe car were Alice and Margaret, Blakeman and Annette.
Alice Thayor's first meeting with Holcomb since the time when he savedher husband's life, consisted of a slight nod of recognition and anannoyed "How do you do?" She wore a smart travelling gown of Scotchhomespun and a becoming toque of gray straw enveloped in a filmydragon-green veil. Holcomb thought it strange that Thayor kissed hisdaughter and simply greeted his wife with the question, "I do hope youwere comfortable, dear, coming up?"
"The heat was something frightful," she replied, lifting thedragon-green veil wearily and binding it straight across her forehead."My head is splitting."
Holcomb glanced at her exquisite features. The brilliancy of herdark eyes was enhanced by the pallor of her ivory skin. Alice Thayorloathed travelling.
Margaret had greeted him far more graciously; she had extended herfirm little gloved hand to him, with genuine delight in her browneyes, and had told him how very glad indeed she was to see him—whichwas the truth. During the drive in her mother scarcely opened herlips. She sat in the middle seat beside her daughter, haughtilygracious and inwardly bored. Margaret's enthusiasm irritated her.The woman going to her exile was in no mood to enthuse over nature.Holcomb drove, with Thayor on the front seat beside him; on the backseat sat Blakeman and Annette, in respectful silence. As they enteredthe deep woods at a smart trot, Margaret half closed her eyes in sheerecstasy and drew in a long, delicious breath of forest air.
"My—but that's good, daddy!" she exclaimed. Everything was of intenseinterest to her. The sudden glimpse of some great mountain toweringabove the trees; the velvety green, billowy moss; the merry littlebrooks they crossed; the whirring flight of a startled partridge andnow the sinking sun flooding the silent woods with gold. When she wasnot in ecstasies over these, her brown eyes glanced at the clean-cut,handsome profile of the young woodsman who was so skilfully drivingthe bay team.
He was no longer the awkward and embarrassed young fellow sheremembered that summer at Long Lake. He had, she realized much to heragreeable surprise, the ease and manner of a well-bred man abouthim now. His honest, cheery frankness appealed to her; moreover, shethought him exceedingly handsome.
"That's where the line crosses," said Holcomb, pointing quickly to ablazed hemlock.
"Oh, look, mother—quick!" cried Margaret.
"We're in Big Shanty tract now, dear," explained Thayor. "The line wehave just passed strikes due east from here and runs—how far, Billy?"
"Oh—clear to Alder Brook—about fifteen miles, before it cornerssouth."
Alice's lips grew tense; she was beginning to realize the vastness ofher husband's purchase. She began to wonder, too, how much it had costhim—this folly of Sam's.
"And is it all as beautiful as this?" asked Margaret of the young manwhose strong brown hands held the reins.
"Yes, Miss Thayor, and some of it is a good deal better looking."
"You shall see, dearie," added Thayor; "I've a surprise in store foryou both—yes, a hundred surprises. We will cross the East Branch ofBig Shanty Brook in a moment—that is surprise number one. How is theheadache, Alice—better?"
"A little," she returned indifferently.
"Listen!" said Thayor; "hear it? That's the East Branch roaring."
"Oh—I'm just crazy to see it!" cried Margaret. "It was on the West Branch you killed the deer, wasn't it, daddy?"
Thayor nodded and smiled.
"Now look, puss!" he commanded, as they reached the rough bridgespanning the East Branch.
Margaret peered down into the heavy black water a hundred feet belowthem.
"Daddy, it's gorgeous—simply gorgeous," exclaimed Margaret. "Look,mother, at the water swirling through that green pool. Oh,do look,mother." Alice condescended to look.
"Isn't it superb, Alice?" ventured Thayor.
"Yes—Sam—but lonely."
In the twilight the great brook boiled below them.
"It ain't so lonely," remarked Holcomb pleasantly, turning to Mrs.Thayor, "when the sun is shining." He had dropped into his nativedialect, which now and then cropped out in his speech.
"I suppose itain't," said Alice in a whisper to Margaret. The girltouched her mother's arm pleadingly.
"Please don't," she said; "he might hear you. It really isn't kind inyou, mother. You know they speak so differently in the country."
Holcomb had heard it, but not a muscle twitched in resentment. Hetightened the reins, and for a mile drove in silence.
"And this is the man your father lunched with at The Players,"continued Alice under her breath.
Margaret did not reply.
Presently they came out into the valley at the head of the Deadwater,still as ink, reflecting the barkless trees it had killed so clearlythat it was difficult to see the point of immersion. Then the plaingabled roof of Morrison's came into view above a flat of youngpoplars, the silver leaves shivering in the breeze.
Morrison, who had been sweeping off his narrow porch, in hisshirt-sleeves, came out into the road at the rapid approach of thebuckboard.
"Hello thar!" he shouted, and Holcomb stopped at an insistent gesturefrom the proprietor.
"Hain't seen nothin' of a barril of kerosene fer me down thar, hevye?" he asked. "Gosh durn it!—it oughter been here more'n a weekago."
"Nothing there for you. Jimmy's coming along with the trunks," replied Holcomb. "He won't start before the freight gets in."
"Evenin', Mr. Thayor," said Morrison. "Wall, ye've got 'em all herenow, haven't ye?" he remarked, running his shrewd eyes over the filledseats.
"Mrs. Thayor and my daughter, Mr. Morrison," said Thayor.
"Pleased to meet you, marm." Morrison raised his hat and stretched outa coarse red hand. Alice extended three fingers of her own despite herrepulsion. There was really no other way out of it. "And here's thelittle gal, I 'spose," continued the proprietor. Margaret laughed asshe shook hands. "Won't ye stop and take something, friend?" he askedBlakeman. Blakeman raised his eyebrows in protest.
"Mon Dieu!" whispered Annette.
"Relations of yourn, Mrs. Thayor?" asked Morrison, noticing Annette'sembarrassment.
Alice straightened. "My maid!" she said stiffly.
"Wall, I'm sorry none of ye ain't dry," said Morrison.
"No, thank you," replied Thayor; "we must be getting up to camp."
Again the bays fell into a brisk trot.
Alice was furious.
"Who is that dreadful person, Sam?" she asked.
"You must not mind him, Alice. He meant well enough," explained herhusband. "Morrison's rough, I'll grant you, but he's a good fellow atheart."
"It was only his way," added Holcomb. "He didn't mean to be impolite, Mrs. Thayor."
"Of course he didn't, mother," added Margaret with a glance at Holcomb.
The bays turned suddenly to the left into the new road. Alice emitteda sigh of relief. There was a sense of luxury—of exclusiveness—inpassing over its smooth surface. Morrison and his common hotel, withits blear-eyed windows, were now well out of sight. Presently the camplay ahead of them—an orderly settlement of trim buildings. Margaretwas too excited to do more than gaze ahead of her with eager interest.
"Here we are!" exclaimed Thayor. "There, Alice, you can thank Mr. Holcomb for all you see; I really had nothing to do with it."
His wife did not reply. Only Margaret's eyes met his own—a pair ofbrown eyes that seemed to be half sunshine and half tears.
As they drew up to the wide veranda of the camp, the trapper and theClown came slowly across the compound to meet them; at the heels ofthe trapper stalked the old dog, watching the new arrivals with acertain dignified interest.
There was nothing strange in the fact that when Alice Thayor saw BigShanty Camp she made no comment. It was a bitter disappointment toThayor, yet he knew in his heart that he could not have expected herto do otherwise. Having reached her exile she had been careful toconceal any outward expression of her approval or dislike. Had thecamp at that moment been filled with a jolly house-party, includingDr. Sperry, she could have been content to romp in a fashionable waywithin it for a week—even a fortnight. It was the thought that it washer home—a home which she had tried to evade and had been brought tobodily in the end—that rankled in her heart. She retired early, butcould not sleep. She lay in bed for an hour or more, turning over inher mind the situation. The realization of her defeat stirred withinher the old dominant spirit. She realized that her imprisonment hadbegun. After half an hour more of restless thinking she crept outof bed, tucked her feet into a pair of slippers, drew a silk wrapperabout her and crossed to the open window. Leaning with her elbows uponits sill she stood for a long time gazing out over the wilderness.
The night was mild and hushed. It was almost certain that with dawnwould come a downpour of rain; the tree-toads already heraldedthe good news. The dry hemlocks whispered it. Bathed in a gauzeof moonlight the forest rolled away—silent—mighty in itsexpanse—promising nothing. Big Shanty Brook gleamed defiantly past ina riot of rapids and whirlpools. Flashing in the crisp sunlight,these rapids and whirlpools shone in inviting splendour; at night theybecame terrible.
It was this torrent that swept below the woman leaning on the windowsill; it mocked her, roaring with joy, chuckling to itself at theprisoner, every leaping crest in the chaos of foam rearing again fora last glimpse of the exile, and, having seen, dashed on to give placeto those who followed. Little waves fawned by, partisans in the samemockery.
Suddenly she buried her face in her ringless hands:
"My God—I can't stand this!" she moaned. "I can't and I won't!" shemuttered helplessly. Then she broke into hysterical sobbing, pressingher nails into the sensitive flesh of her temples; her lips tremblingin a nervous chill. Her body grew cold, chilling even her bare feetthrust deep in her slippers. The torrent of Big Shanty became to hera jeering crowd, unlimitless—that poured from nowhere and dashed oninto the unknown. She shut her eyes tight. In the darkness now she sawonly Sperry; she saw him plainly—close to her, as one sees a facein a dream. She felt the idle, comforting tone of his voice—the warmpressure of his hand—and with her mental vision, looked into hiseyes.
"Be patient, dear friend," he said to her quite clearly. Could shehave looked on Sperry at that moment she would have found him playingbilliards at his club, his whole mind occupied in making a difficultcarom shot. When he made it he ordered a fresh brandy and soda.
The roar of Big Shanty continued. An owl screamed hoarsely fromsomewhere in the timber below. Alice shuddered, her cheeks burningagainst the palms of her cold hands, and crept back to bed.
Margaret, too, had been gazing out of her window. Big Shanty to hermeant a new life—she, too, had been crying, but from sheer happiness.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Some mornings after Alice's arrival—she had spent most of the hoursin her room in the interim—she came gaily into the room where herhusband and Margaret were at breakfast, her face all smiles,her figure clothed in a jaunty walking dress which fitted her toperfection. Thayor looked up from his coffee and bacon; he thought hehad never seen her look so pretty.
"Why, Alice!" he exclaimed, all his love for her in his eyes.
"Yes—I don't wonder you are astonished," she said, regarding themboth mischievously. "The day is too glorious to breakfast in bed;besides, I've slept like a top. Sam, the camp is exceedingly pretty,"she went on, as Blakeman ceremoniously pushed a chair beneath her andhurriedly laid the unexpected cover.
"And now may I ask where you two gad-abouts are going?" she inquired,noticing Margaret's short skirt and Sam in a pair of stout trampingboots.
"To a pond, mother—the nearest, I believe. Think of it—we have fourof them," announced Margaret proudly.
"Then I'm going too," declared her mother.
"Good!" cried Thayor. "Holcomb says he can easily take us there andback in time for luncheon."
Alice turned to her husband, and patting the back of his hand, said:
"Sam, you'll forgive me for my lack of enthusiasm since I came, won'tyou? I was really ill; the heat was something frightful coming up."The tone of her voice was captivating.
Thayor covered her hand with his own.
"Of course I will—you were tired out, dear—that was all. Hurry upand drink your coffee," he continued, looking at the clock over thechimney-piece in the breakfast room; "Holcomb is waiting for us. Butput on your heaviest boots, Alice, before you start; the trail is aptto be damp in places after the misty night. We are lucky not to havewaked up in a drizzling rain."
Margaret looked across the table at her mother:
"Oh, what a night it was!" she burst out. "Could there be anythingmore beautiful than the wilderness in the moonlight? It really seemeda sin to go to bed. I hope you saw it too—I was coming to wake you,it was so lovely."
"And so I gather," returned Alice with a smile, "that you went to bedvery late."
"Yes, I did," confessed Margaret; "and so I have every night since wecame—never have I seen anything so grand as the tumbling water. Oh,I just love it!" and she laid her little hand in her father's as asilent tribute to his generosity in giving it to her.
The breakfast hurriedly finished, Thayor went out to the veranda andlighted a long, slim cigar. He felt like a man who had just receivedgood news. For some moments he paced jauntily up and down, waitingfor Holcomb to appear. Alice's sudden change of manner had made himas happy as a boy. It was so extraordinary and so unexpected that hecould hardly believe it was true. Her whole attitude during the drivein, and since, had been a bitter disappointment to him; now it seemedas if he had awakened from a bad dream. The caressing touch of herhand had put new life in him. Was she at last really repentant? hewondered; was there after all, a throb of love in her heart for him?
Suddenly he caught sight of Holcomb coming across the compound. Hewore his gray slouch hat, a short jacket and his high boots. Very fewof the young fellows about him had his build and breadth, and none hiseasy grace.
"Good morning, Billy!" he called.
"Good morning, Mr. Thayor," returned Holcomb cheerily.
"And what a day, Billy!" answered Thayor, rubbing his hands in boyishglee.
"Just about as nice as they make them. You look happy, Mr. Thayor, andyou look hearty—that's best of all."
"I am, Billy—who wouldn't be well and happy a morning like this?And I've got a piece of news for you, too—good news; Mrs. Thayor iscoming along with us. How will the new trail be—a little rough forher, do you think?"
"Not a bit of it! Clear going all the way—besides it isn't more thantwo miles there and back. Freme has made a clean job of it. There's ashort swamp just before we get to the pond, but I guess we can manageto get the ladies across without their getting wet."
"Oh, that air—just smell it, Billy!" reiterated the owner of BigShanty enthusiastically. Think of the poor people in the city who havenone of it. I must send for Randall as soon as we get settled, andsome of those fellows we met at The Players that day, and let themhave a whiff of it—do them a lot of good. Randall loves it. Poorboy—he needs a change now worse than I did. And have you seen Mrs.Thayor this morning?"
"No."
"Well—you never saw her look better; she tells me she sleptsplendidly. Why, think of it, my boy, she actually came down tobreakfast—a thing I have not known her to do in years."
"I'm mighty glad to hear Mrs. Thayor is better," returned Billythoughtfully—he wished it might include her manners. "She did notseem well yesterday or the day before."
"No—one of her old headaches. It must have been pretty hot, even inthe 'Wanderer.' Here they are now!"
Alice and Margaret appeared on the veranda.
"Good morning, Mr. Holcomb," said Alice, nodding pleasantly. "Yousee," she added with her most captivating smile, "you must show methis wonderful little pond my daughter has told me about, too. May Icome?"
Holcomb lifted his slouch hat from his head.
"Why, certainly, Mrs. Thayor. We can make it there and back by noon,"and his eyes wandered over the trim and graceful figure accentuated socharmingly by her short skirt.
Margaret had also followed the lines of the costume. "You must alwayswear a short skirt, mother—it is most becoming."
"And so comfortable, my dear," added Alice nonchalantly as she placedboth hands about her flexible waist and half turned. It was herstronghold, this figure—she would have been adorable in sackcloth andashes, she knew, but she preferred a tailor-made.
Soon the little party, lead by Holcomb, were seen picking their wayalong the trail; Margaret keeping close to the young woodsman andplying him with innumerable questions. She thought she had neverseen him look so handsome, debonair and manly. Then, too, his wideknowledge of the woods was a delight to her. Little by little heexplained, as he followed the trail, those secrets of woodcraft notfound in books.
At length the trail ended in an opening at the edge of a smallpond—nameless, and round as a dollar, its circumference framed inan unbroken line of timber. A few rods from this opening, where thelittle party was now seated, a big trout plunged half out of thewater.
"He's after that miller," explained Holcomb. The others strained theireyes, but they could see nothing but the widening rings where thetrout had disappeared. Again he rose out of a basin of moultenturquoise like a flash of quicksilver. "The old fellow will get himyet," remarked Billy; "the miller's wing is broken—he's lying flat onthe water."
"Your eyes are better than mine, Holcomb," declared Thayor.
"Take an old trout like that," explained Holcomb, "and he'll alwaysstrike with his tail first; he broke that miller's wing the secondtime he rose."
Alice and Margaret were straining their eyes to catch, if possible, aglimpse of the unfortunate moth.
"I can't see him," confessed Margaret; "can you, mother?"
"My dear child, my eyes are not fitted with a microscope," Alicelaughed.
"There!" cried Holcomb, as the trout splashed still farther out on thequiet pond. "He's got him!"
"And we'll gethim some day," exclaimed Thayor, the fever of fishingtingling within him.
"There are some big trout in here, Mr. Thayor," continued Holcomb."I've known this pond for several years and it has been rarely, ifever, fished."
"Then, Billy, we'll have to go at them at twilight," declared Thayor. "You had better tell Freme to bring in one of the canvas canoes."
The four retraced their way over the trail. As they reached a muddyplace half way home Holcomb noticed the imprint of Margaret's trimlittle feet. It was evident to Alice, who had been watching him, thatthe tracks puzzled the young woodsman. There were four of these daintytracks instead of two; soon the mystery was cleared as Alice Thayorpassed ahead of him and Holcomb saw that Margaret's and her mother'sfootprint were identical in size.
"You seem puzzled," Alice remarked, as Holcomb steadied her along asunken log.
"I was looking where you had stepped, Mrs. Thayor," he confessed.
Alice laughed, a low, delicious laugh.
"You see," she explained frankly, putting forth her trim boot, "mydaughter and I wear the same size."
Again Margaret and Holcomb took the lead. Thayor and Alice followedthem leisurely, Thayor talking of his purchase of which he had yetonly seen a small portion, Alice listening eagerly. During a pause shesaid carelessly:
"It must be frightfully hot in town, Sam. New York is dirty anddeserted; I pity those who cannot get away." He stopped and grewenthusiastic again over the rare purity of the air.
"We ought to be thankful forthat," he said, as he filled his lungswith a deep breath. "Think of how many poor devils and delicate womenstruggling for a living, and little children it would save."
"And the other people, too," she ventured boldly. "Poor Dr. Sperrytold me he would be lucky if he got out of New York at all thissummer. There are some important cases of his, I believe, which mayneed him at any moment."
The mention of the doctor's name would have jarred on Sam at any othertime, but this morning he was too happy to care, and Alice, quick tonotice it, pressed on:
"I do wish he could come up here for a rest. I saw him at the TrevisesThursday; he seemed utterly used up. Do you think he would come if weasked him, Sam? Besides," she added cleverly, "I should like him tosee Margaret."
Thayor stopped abruptly and looked at his wife with a curiousexpression.
"So should I," he replied with some severity. "I should like him tosee that child now, if for nothing more than to have the satisfactionof seeing how much even these few hours in the woods haveaccomplished, and what a mistake he made when he said the child'slungs needed looking after. Sperry is a surgeon, not a physician—andhe only makes himself ridiculous when he tries to be."
"I am quite of your opinion, Sam," Alice declared, not daring tocontradict her husband—a feeling of infinite rest creeping throughher veins as she spoke.
"He will then see for himself, I believe, that he was mistaken,"continued Thayor in the same positive tone. "Margaret delicate!Nonsense, my dear! By George—his diagnosis was not only brutal, itwas ridiculous. Why, Leveridge—"
"Be tolerant, Sam," returned Alice. "You know you always tell othersto be tolerant. Dr. Sperry evidently said what he believed to be thetruth. If he has been wrong I am sure he will be the first one toacknowledge it, as any gentleman who has been mistaken would."
"Then he shall have the chance," replied Thayor. "You may invite himat once, Alice, if you wish, but for one week only. Too much of Sperrygets on my nerves."
* * * * *
When Alice reached her bedroom she locked the door and threw herselfon the bed in an ecstasy of tears. After some moments she arose withan exultant look in her eyes, went over to her desk, unlocked a jewelcase and extracted from between the lining of a hidden compartment asmall photograph of Sperry at thirty, taken at Heidelberg.
Below the torrent of Big Shanty laughed in the sunlight.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
For Thayor to welcome Sperry with a warm grasp of the hand and anoutburst of—"Oh! I'm glad you are here; it seems like a specialProvidence," was so strange and unusual a performance that it is nowonder Alice, moving toward the buckboard to add her own greeting toher husband's, was lost in astonishment even when the cause of theoutburst became clear to her.
Her husband's mental attitude toward the doctor, if the truth be told,was one of the things that had never ceased to trouble her. Polite ashe was to everybody, he had been so particularly polite to Sperry thatit always aroused her suspicions. She knew he had sent for him purelyto oblige her and to help her over the chasm which divided Big Shantyfrom Newport, but what other reasons her husband had for inviting himto share his hospitality at the camp, she was not so familiar with. Ittherefore came as a distinct surprise when she heard him repeat withincreased warmth in his manner:
"Yes, a special Providence, my dear Dr. Sperry"—nor did the realcause of the doctor's welcome set her mind at rest.
"This way, doctor," continued Thayor, dragging Sperry with him."Blakeman will bring your bag. One of our men is badly hurt; I wason my way to him when I heard you driving up. He's only a few rodsaway—hurry!"
The little man lay on his back on the floor of the lower shanty wherethe men had carried him. The chain cinching down a heavy saplingbinding a load of shingles had snapped, and the wiry littleFrenchman—Gaston Le Boeuf—who was standing on top of the load, hadbeen shot into the air and landed in a ditch with his rightforearm splintered in two. The pain was intense, both bones of theforearm—the ulnar and radius—being shattered transversely, the ulnarpoking through the flesh in an ugly blue wound.
When Thayor and the doctor reached him, the Clown was holding thebroken arm taut—he had to keep up a steady pull, for with theslightest release the knotty sinews and muscles would cause the brokenforearm to fly back at right angles. Although this had happened adozen times while they were bringing him in, the wiry little man didnot utter a groan. He lay there white, in a cold sweat, the corners ofhis black eyes crinkling over his bad luck. He had known what pain wasbefore. Once on Bog River his skinning knife had slipped while he wasdressing out a deer, and the keen blade had gone through his knottycalf, severing the nerve; yet he had walked nearly a dozen miles backto Morrison's.
As Sperry entered, the circle of lumber jacks about the wounded manwidened, then closed again about him, watching the doctor who soon hadthe broken arm in an improvised splint.
The man from the city rarely gets very close to a backwoods peopleunless he possesses sincerity, democracy, and an inborn love of thewoods—three virtues without which a man may remain always a strangerin the wilderness.
The New York doctor possessed none of these qualities; moreover, hewas pitifully unadaptable outside of the artificial world in whichhe posed. So much so that at first sight of the trapper and theClown—two men whom Thayor had pointed out to him as being his mostreliable assistants next to Holcomb—his only thought had been how SamThayor could have such eccentric boors on the place. He noticed, too,with irritation and astonishment, that none of the men raised theirhats until Alice and Margaret arrived on the scene; then not a manamong them remained covered.
What he did not notice, however, was the way the men around him were,to use the Clown's expression, "sizin' him up," as they did all citymen and this before he had been ten minutes among them, with theresult that the trapper had concluded that he looked like a man whowas afraid of spoiling his clothes; that Holcomb and the Clown thoughthim sadly lacking in Sam Thayor's frank simplicity; while the othersstood about waiting for some word or gesture on which to hang theiropinions.
But all this was changed now. With his ready skill Sperry had become,by the turn of his hand, so to speak, the Medicine Man of the tribe.They were even ready to let down their social barriers and extend tohim all their friendship—a friendship he could have relied on for therest of his days.
"Dunno as I ever see a neater job," remarked a big fellow—a formerdoubter—peering over the shoulders of the crowd, intent on thedoctor's handling of the wounded arm.
"Yes—yes—" drawled the Clown. "Goll! seems 'ough he knowed jest wharto take hold."
"There," said Sperry, as he gave a final adjustment to the improvisedbandage. "You had better get him to bed."
"By gar, Doc'," grunted the little man between his teeth, "what yougoin' to do now, hein! I feel lot bettaire I tink eff I tak a drink."He had not even asked for a drop of water before, nor had he spoken aword.
"He may have it," said Sperry, in the voice he used at consultations.
The Clown poured a tin cup full of whiskey and the little man drainedit to the last drop.
"He'll suffer," said Sperry, turning to the trapper, "when the armbegins to swell under the bandage."
"Broke bad, Doc'?" asked the trapper.
"Yes, a compound fracture; but he'll be all right, my man, in a fewweeks." Sperry opened a thin leather case, which he took from his bag,extracted a phial, and shook two whitish gray pills into the trapper'spalm. "Give him one in an hour, and another to-night if he can'tsleep," he said. He went over to the patient, felt his pulse, thenwith a nod to the rest, he started toward the door.
"Hold on, Doc'!" came from half a dozen in the group of lumber jacks;"won't ye take a leetle somethin' 'fore ye go?"
Sperry shook his head and smiled. "No, thank you," he said, halfamused. "I seldom take anything before luncheon."
"But, say—we'd like to fix it with ye—what's the damage, Doc'?" andhalf a dozen rough hands went into their trousers pockets. But Sperryonly waved his hand in an embarrassed way in protest, and added:
"Of course not—what I have done for one of you men, I would do foranybody. I shall see him in the morning"—and he strode out of theshanty.
By this time the little Frenchman's eyes were closed, and he wasbreathing heavily—he was dead drunk.
"Goll! warn't that an awful hooker ye give him, Freme?" askedthe trapper. He turned to the sufferer, now that the doctor haddisappeared, and drew an extra blanket tenderly over him.
"Wall, he ain't no home'path," replied the Clown with a grin; "'sides, I presume likely he needed all he could git down him."
* * * * *
The days that followed were full of joy to Alice. Never had Thayorseen her in so merry a mood. Le Boeuf's broken arm had somehowchanged Thayor's attitude toward his guest—so much so that theman's personality no longer jarred on him. He concluded that whateversuspicions he had had—and they were never definite—were groundless.Alice was simply bored in New York and Sperry amused her. That was thesecret of his success with his women patients; she was bored here, andagain Sperry amused her! Why not, then, give her all the pleasureshe wanted? With this result fixed in his mind, his attitude to the"Exquisite" changed. He even sought out ways in which his guest's staycould be made happy.
"You must see the trout pond, doctor," he would say. "Ah! you don'tbelieve we've got one—but we have; you must show it to the doctor, mydear"—at which her eyes would seek her friend's, only to be met withan answering look and the words:
"Delighted, my dear Mrs. Thayor," as he dropped a second lump of sugarin his cup. Whereupon the two would disappear for the day, it beingnearly dusk before they returned again to camp; Alice bounding intothe living room radiant from her walk, her arms full of wild flowers.
There came a day, however, when Sperry, with one of his suddenresolves, preferred the daughter's company to the wife's. What hadinfluenced his decision he must have confided to Alice—that is, hisversion of it—for when he asked Margaret to come for a walk, and hadreceived the girl's answer, "I'm afraid we haven't time for a walkbefore luncheon," Alice had replied: "Of course you have. The walkwill do you good."
What really determined him to seek Margaret's companionship was adesire to fathom her heart. She was her father's confidante, and assuch might be dangerous, or useful. To have refused him Margaret knewwould only have made matters worse. Much as she disliked him, she wasgrateful to him for having set the little Frenchman's arm; so she raninto the house and returned in a moment, her fresh young face shadedby a brim of straw covered with moss roses.
"What a pretty hat!" exclaimed Sperry, as they crossed the compoundto the trail leading down to the brook. "Oh, you young New York girlsknow just what is and what is not becoming."
"Do you think so?" returned Margaret vaguely, not knowing just whatanswer to make. "It was my own idea."
Sperry looked at the young girl, fresh and trim in her youth, and amemory rushed over him of his Paris days. Margaret reminded him ofLucille, he thought to himself, all except the eyes—Lucille's eyeswere black.
"Yes, it's adorable," he replied, drinking in the fresh beauty of theyoung girl. "You are very pretty, my dear—just like your mother."This line of attack had always succeeded in sounding the hearts of theyoung girls he had known.
The girl blushed—the freedom of his tone troubled, and then halffrightened her. So much so that she walked on in silence, wishing shehad not come. Then again it was the first time she had been entirelyalone with him, and the feeling was not altogether a pleasant one.There was, too, a certain familiarity in his voice and manner whichshe would have resented in a younger man but which, somehow, she hadto submit to.
She stopped abruptly as they came to a steep rock.
"Please go on ahead," she said with an appealing look in her browneyes, as he put out his hand to help her down. "I can get down verywell myself."
"Come, be sensible, little girl," he returned; "we must not haveanother accident to-day. Pretty ankles are as hard to mend as brokenarms."
Again the colour mounted to her cheeks; no one had ever spoken to herin this way before.
"Please don't," she returned, her voice trembling.
"Don'twhat, may I ask?" he laughed.
"Please don't call me 'little girl'; I—I don't like it," shereturned, not knowing what else to say and still uneasy—outraged,really, if she had understood her feelings. She sat down quickly,and as he turned to look at the torrent below, slid down the rockin safety. Sperry's brow knit. What surprised him was to find herdifferent from the girls he had known. Then he said in an absent way:
"What splendid rapids!"
"It's the most beautiful old stream in the world," replied Margaret,glad he had found another topic besides herself.
"But be careful," he cautioned her a few rods farther on; "it'sslippery here. Come, give me your arm."
Again she evaded him.
"I'm not an invalid," she laughed—she was farther from him now andher courage had accordingly increased.
"Of course you're not—whoever said you were. Invalids do not havecheeks like roses, my little girl, and yours are wonderful to-day."
The girl turned away her head in silence, and the two picked theirsteps the remainder of the way down to the brook without speaking.There she made a spring and landed on a flat rock about the edge ofwhich swirled the green water of a broad pool. Sperry, undaunted,seated himself beside her.
"Margaret," he began, "why don't you like me? I seem to have offendedyou. Tell me, what have I said? I wouldn't offend you for the world,and you know it. Why don't you like me?" he repeated.
"Why, doctor!" she exclaimed with a forced little laugh that trembledin her fresh, young throat, "what a funny question!"
"I am quite serious," he added, with a sudden vibrant tone in hisvoice. Impulsively his hand closed over hers; she felt for a secondthe warm pressure of his fingers, the next instant she started to herfeet.
"Don't!" she cried indignantly, flushing to the roots of her fairhair, her wide-open eyes staring at him. "You mustn't do that; I don'tlike it!" Her lips were trembling now, her eyes full of tears. Thenshe added helplessly "We had better be going—we shall be late forluncheon."
He was standing beside her now. "Then tell me you like me," heinsisted. "Besides, we have loads of time. Why, it's only twentyminutes to one," he said, looking hurriedly at his watch, careful toconceal the tell-tale hands of its dial from her frightened glance.
Without answering the girl turned and began to retrace her steps.
"But you haven't said you like me," he called out, hurrying to herside.
Margaret did not speak; she only knew that her head was throbbing,that she heard but indistinctly the words of the man who kept close toher as they went on up the steep trail. At the rock where she had beentoo quick for him, Sperry abruptly stepped in front of her, barringher way.
"Come now," he said; "be sensible. You must not go in to luncheonlooking as you do." He put forth both hands to assist her up the rock;she offered her own mechanically, in a helpless sort of way, knowingit would be impossible to ascend otherwise while he was there. Aquick, steady pull, and she was abreast of him, the brim of hergay little hat touching for a second his waistcoat. The moment wasirresistible—in that second he was conscious of the fragrance andwarmth of her girlhood. He felt her soft brown hands in his own,straining to release themselves.
"Don't!" she faltered; "please—I beg of you—"
A voice behind him brought him to his senses:
"Beg pardon, miss, but luncheon is served."
It was Blakeman. The butler stood respectfully aside to let them pass.Slowly he followed the retreating form of the doctor and Margaret,his hands clenched. For some seconds he stood immovable, then he brokehastily into the woods, cross-cutting back to his pantry.
"Damn him!" he muttered, as he squeezed the cork from a bottle of Pomard. "I hadn't a second to lose!"
At luncheon Blakeman served the Burgundy without a trace upon hisround, smug face of the indignation surging within him. His skilledhand replenished Sperry's glass generously.
The doctor grew talkative; he told his complete set of luncheonstories with enthusiasm, while Margaret sat in grateful silence; shewas in no mood to talk herself; the incident of the morning had lefther depressed and nervous.
"She's pulling out of it," he said to Alice when the girl had left theroom. "Colour good and walks without losing her breath. I think nowyou can dismiss all anxiety from your mind. The woods have saved herlife." What he said to himself was: "I made a mess of this morning'swork; she's not such a fool as I thought."
The end of the week, and Sperry's last (for Thayor, despite all ofAlice's numerous hints, had not asked that his visit be prolonged),brought Alice's paradise to a close. So far their days together hadseemed like a dream—his departure the next morning would mean therenewal of an ennui which would continue until she reached the monthof freedom which her husband had promised her.
If Thayor had noticed his wife's anxiety he made no sign. He hadgratified her wishes and she had been happy; further than that he didnot care to go.
As to Alice, that which occupied her waking thoughts was how toprolong the situation without letting the doctor feel her need of him.Then again there was her husband. Would he agree to a continuance ofSperry's visit if she proposed it outright? She had lately noticeda certain reserved manner in Thayor whenever he found themtogether—nothing positive—but something unusual in one souniversally courteous to everybody about him, especially a guest.Would this develop into antagonism if he read her thoughts?
That same day Sperry went twice to the lower shanty to see Le Boeuf.His increasing his usual morning visit to glance at the slowly mendingfracture was sufficient to make Thayor inquire anxiously about thelittle Frenchman's condition.
"Is poor Le Boeuf worse?" he asked the doctor as they sat over theircigars in the den after dinner.
Sperry rose, bent over the lamp chimney and kindled the end of a fresh Havana.
"I am afraid," he said, resuming his seat, "that the poor fellow'sarm is in a rather discouraging condition. I shall see him againto-night."
Thayor frowned—the old worried look came again into his eyes.Suffering of any kind always affected him—suffering for which in ameasure he was responsible was one of the things he could not bear.
"You don't say so!" he exclaimed; "thatis bad news. I'm very, verysorry. You know my men are my children; there is not one of themwho would not stand by me if I was ill or in danger. And you reallyconsider Le Boeufs condition alarming?"
Sperry shrugged his shoulders. "A fracture like that sometimes givesus serious trouble," he replied in his best professional manner."Frankly, I do not like the looks of things at all."
"And he needs a doctor," Thayor said, suddenly looking up. "You will,of course, stay until he is out of danger?"
"No, I must return to New York," Sperry protested. "I feel I havealready imposed on you and your good wife's hospitality; besides,there are my patients waiting. It is neither right nor fair to myassistant, Bainbridge. His last letter was rather savage," laughedSperry.
"But can Le Boeuf be moved?"
"Well—er—no. Frankly, I would not take the risk."
"Then you consider his condition alarming?"
"Alarming enough to know that unless things take a sudden turn for thebetter, blood-poisoning will set in. We shall then have to amputate.These cases sometimes prove fatal."
"Then I will not hear of your going," Thayor said in a decisivetone—"at least not until Le Boeuf is out of danger. You have set hisarm and are thoroughly in touch with the case. You must stay here andpull him through."
Sperry raised his arms in hopeless protest.
"Really, my dear Mr. Thayor, it is impossible," he said.
"No—nothing is impossible where a man's life is at stake," Thayorcontinued, lapsing into his old business-like manner. "As to yourpractice, you know me well enough to know I would not for a moment putyou to any personal loss."
"But my dear Thayor—"
"I won't listen to you, Dr. Sperry. It is a matter of the life ordeath of one of my men—a man who, Holcomb tells me, has been mostfaithful in his work. I will not hear of your going, and that endsit!"
Sperry rose, and for some moments regarded intently the blue spiral ofsmoke from his cigar curl lazily past his nose; then with a smile ofill-concealed triumph and a slight shrug of acquiescence, he replied:
"Of course, if you insist; yes, I'll stay. I shall do my best to savehim."
"Thank you," cried Thayor. "Now we will join Alice and Margaret. Heheld back the heavy portiere screening the door of the living room.
"Not a word to Margaret, remember," Thayor whispered, "about Le Boeuf,nor to Mrs. Thayor—she doesn't like these things and I try to keepthem from her all I can."
"Certainly not," returned the doctor. "It would only worry her. Besides, I think I have a fighting chance to save him."
As they entered the living room Alice raised her eyes. Margaret putdown a treatise on forestry that Holcomb had lent her, rose, and saidgood-night. She did not relish the thought of general conversationwhen the doctor was present—especially after the experiences she hadhad.
"Ah, Alice," said Thayor, as he crossed the room to where his wife wassitting, "I have a bit of news for you, my dear. Our friend here haspositively refused to leave. Oh—it's the air," he added as thedoctor laughed, "and the charm of old nature. You know, doctor, it'scontagious, this enchantment of the woods." Alice gave an involuntarystart and the little ball of blue worsted in her lap dropped to thefloor, and unravelled itself to the edge of the Persian rug.
"Not really!" she exclaimed, smothering her secret joy. "You see whata useless person I am at persuasion, doctor. Come, be truthful—didn'tI try to persuade you to stay?"
"Yes, my dear lady, to be truthful you did; but I had no intention ofwearing my welcome into shreds."
The sense of an exquisite relief thrilled every nerve in Alice's body. Sperry saw her breast heave a little, then their eyes met.
Thayor touched the bell for whiskey and soda. As the doctor drainedhis second glass he snapped out his watch.
"I must look in on Le Boeuf," he said briskly.
Again Thayor touched the bell. "Blakeman will accompany you with alantern, doctor."
Sperry turned and bid Alice a formal good-night. "Don't wait up forme; I may not be in until late—my overcoat, Blakeman"—and the twopassed out into the night.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The days added to the doctor's visit were not wholly given to the careof the sick. One morning Holcomb, who had been cross-cutting back tocamp after looking over some timber in the thick woods through whichchattered a small brook, heard the murmur of voices almost withinreach of his hand. His skill as a still hunter had served him well—soquick was he to stop short in his tracks and so noiseless had been hisapproaching step, that neither Alice nor the doctor, seated beside thebrook, had been aware of his presence.
For the space of a quarter of an hour he stood motionless as a rock.
"It is a serious case," he heard the doctor laugh.
"Very," Alice sighed. "And he will get well?"
"Yes—of course he'll get well, in a week at best."
"And you're not bored in this dreadful place? And are still willing tostay?"
"Bored? Ah—you have been so sweet to me, dear friend," he ventured.
"I?" she returned. "I have not been even charitable. Your gratefulnessis almost pathetic."
For some moments neither spoke. The still hunter stood his ground; hebecame part of the great hemlock beside him, his eyes riveted upon theman and woman. Now she dipped her hands in the cool, pure water, thedoctor sitting close to her upon the edge of her skirt which shehad spread for him, her trim feet placed firmly against a rock, thefrou-frou of her petticoat framing her silken ankles.
"You see," she resumed at length, as if speaking to a spoiled child,"because you have been very, very good we are still friends—goodfriends—am I not right?"
"Yes," he confessed gloomily, irritated by her words. "And how long am I to be your model friend?"
"Until you cease to be," she replied, smiling mischievously throughher half-closed eyes.
"And then?" he asked eagerly.
"Then you may go home," she returned in a cool, delicious voice.
With an impatient gesture the doctor tossed his half-smoked cigaretteinto the stream. He shrugged his shoulders, gazing absently at thecigarette bobbing along in the current.
"You cast me off like that," he muttered gloomily, nodding to thecigarette. "Did you notice," he added, "how it still fought to burn?"
"And how quickly it sizzled and went out when it had to?" she laughed.
Impulsively he took her hand—a hand which she did not withdraw, forshe was trembling. Slowly his face bent nearer her own, his words weresunk to a whisper, but in his eyes there gleamed the craving of herlips.
"Don't!" she protested, raising her free hand—"for God's sake don't!You shall not!"
"I must," he answered, hotly.
"You shall not," she replied. "I should only suffer—I am unhappyenough as it is," and she buried her face in her clenched hands, hershoulders quivering.
Even the quiver did not evade the eyes of the man stock still besidethe hemlock; no detail of the drama that was being enacted beside thebrook escaped him. He who could observe with ease the smashing of amoth's wing thirty rods from shore, possessed a clearness of visionakin to that of a hawk. A bird fluttered in the underbrush near them.
"What was that?" she asked, with a guilty little start, withdrawingher hand.
"A bird—nothing more dangerous," he laughed outright, amused at herfright.
Holcomb's features, as he gazed at them, were like bronze. His firstthought, as he gazed out from his ambush, had been Margaret's mother!His second thought was his dislike for Sperry. He watched halfunwillingly, with a feeling of mingled curiosity and disgust. He hadnot pried upon them; it was pure chance that had brought him where hewas. At length he withdrew.
He was still thinking of the incident when he heard the brush crackahead of him. Then the smug face of Blakeman emerged from a thicket.It was the butler's afternoon off, and he was out after birds. He letdown the hammers of his gun as Holcomb drew near.
"Any luck?" asked Holcomb.
The butler drew from the wide pocket of a well-worn leather huntingcoat a pair of ruffled partridges.
"Good enough!" exclaimed Holcomb.
"'Twas a bit of devil's luck," returned Blakeman, dropping into hisnative brogue, which he always suppressed in service. "Both birdsjumped back of me, but I got 'em."
"You're a good shot," declared Billy.
"No, my friend," replied Blakeman modestly, "Iused to be a goodshot; I'm only a lucky shot now. It's not often I make a double. Wherehave you been?"
"Over to look at some timber on the West Branch."
"I heard voices," Blakeman said, "full half an hour ago"—and hepointed in the direction from which Holcomb had come—"and did you seeanybody?"
"Yes," said Holcomb, after a moment's thoughtful hesitation, "I did."
"Whom?"
"Mrs. Thayor and the doctor, out for a walk."
"Of course," said Blakeman, looking queerly into Holcomb's eyes. "Yousaw them quite by chance, I'll wager. You're not the kind of a lad toprowl on the edge of other people's affairs."
Holcomb did not reply. He was weighing in his mind the advisabilityof making a confidant of Blakeman against the wisdom of telling himnothing.
"When you know these people of the world as well as I do, my friend,"continued Blakeman, as the two seated themselves to rest, "what you'vejust seen won't rob you of much sleep," and he laid his favourite guntenderly upon a log. "The very last people in the world—women—whomyou wouldn't suspect—are usually the ones. Most of them do as theyplease if they've enough money."
"Blakeman," exclaimed Holcomb, unable to contain himself longer, "theman whom you and I serve is my friend. Sam Thayor never did a meanthing in his life—he's not that kind. It's his daughter, too, whom Iam thinking about. You've known them both as well as I do—longer infact—"
"And far better," added Blakeman. "It is a pleasure to serve a masterlike Mr. Thayor, and Miss Margaret is as good as gold." He scraped themud from his boots as he continued: "Didn't I serve an archduke once,who was a pig in his household and a damned idiot out of it?—butneither you nor me are getting to the point. What you really want totalk about is madam, and since I believe in you I intend to post youfurther. It may be the means of keeping two people happy who deserveto be, if nothing else."
"That's about what I was going to say," confessed Holcomb simply,drawn by the butler's frankness.
Blakeman smiled—a bitter smile that terminated with a sudden gleam inhis eyes as he leaned forward.
"Last winter," he went on hurriedly, as he glanced at the settingsun, "I stumbled on them both just as you've done, only my trail ledthrough the conservatory of the New York house. They were both hardpressed, do you see, for a way out; that's how I first knew about Mr.Thayor's intention to purchase this property."
"The telegram Mr. Thayor sent, you mean?"
"No—a letter. It meant separation to them. I saw her hand it to thedoctor to read. Do you know what he did? He condemned Miss Margaret'slungs—told her mother the child had consumption. By God—I could havestrangled him!"
Holcomb gripped the log on which he sat, staring grimly at the butler.
"Yes, ordered her here!" continued Blakeman. "That wastheir wayout. Damn him! Ordered her here—winter and summer, knowing that herfather would go along with her, and let the wife do as she pleased. Itwas damnable!"
There are two kinds of anger that seize a man—explosive andsuppressed. Holcomb was now suffering under the latter—a subtle angerthat would undoubtedly have meant serious injury to the immaculateSperry had he been unlucky enough to have crossed his path at themoment.
As Blakeman, little by little, unfolded more of the doctor's villainy,Holcomb's muscles relaxed and his indignation, which had risen bydegrees until it boiled within him, now settled to reason. He had notonly Thayor's happiness to think of, but Margaret's as well. Both,he determined, must be kept in ignorance of what, so far, only he andBlakeman knew.
"The morning the little fellow, Le Boeuf, got hurt," Blakeman went on,"the doctor took Miss Margaret for a walk. I was in the pantry andsaw them start off together in the woods down by the brook. I followedthem—I couldn't help it; I had a little girl myself once in the oldcountry, and I've seen too much of Sperry's kind. Europe is full ofthem."
The tenseness in Holcomb returned. "What did you see?" he askedgrimly.
"No more than I expected," returned the butler. "The doctor is asnake—and Miss Margaret is young and pretty; well—he would havekissed her—but I announced luncheon."
Holcomb caught his breath. "And she was willing?" he asked, lookingsternly at Blakeman.
"Willing! She was frightened to death."
Holcomb threw up his head with a jerk—his clenched fists rigid on thelog.
"I'm telling you this," Blakeman went on, not waiting for him toreply, "because I believe you can help. I have always made it arule in service to keep silent, no matter what passes in a family. Imeddled once at Ostend in an affair of the like of this, and it taughtme a lesson. There'll be trouble here if things go on like this—maybelater a divorce—and a divorce is the devil in a family like Mr.Thayor's. Neither you nor me want that; we must stand by the littlegirl and the master and avoid it."
"What do you intend to do?" inquired Holcomb, staring grimly at theground.
"I'm going to give madame a chance—she's a fool, but she's notcrooked; that is, I don't think she is," Blakeman replied. "Then I'llspeak out."
"Do you think Mr. Thayor suspects anything?" asked Holcomb, after amoment's hesitation.
"He's not that kind. I dare not tell him—never in the world wouldtell him. You might—he would listen to you. Butlers are seldombelieved—I've tried it."
He gathered up the pair of fat partridges and stuffed them in hispocket.
"And you advise me to tell him?" asked Holcomb slowly.
"No," returned Blakeman, "I don't. It would go hard with him and MissMargaret; he's had hell enough in his life already; he's happy now—sois Miss Margaret. It's not always you find two people happy in thesame family." He buttoned the collar of his shooting coat about hisneck, for the sun was burning below the edge of the forest and withits last rays the woods grew still and cold. "I propose to watchmadame and find out whether she is bad or whether she's onlylosing her head," said Blakeman, as he rose to go. "Mind you do thesame—mind you promise me you will."
Blakeman had lifted his mask. Holcomb saw in him no longer the suave,trained domestic, but a man of intelligence—a man with a heart and awide experience in a world which he as yet knew but little of.
"You can count on me," said Holcomb, as he straightened to his feet.
Blakeman rested his gun in the hollow of his arm.
"We must be going," he said, "or I shall be late for my table. Haveyou a short cut home in your memory?"
"Come on," said Holcomb, and the two disappeared in the thick timber.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The next morning Thayor handed Alice a telegram. It was from Jack Randall, accepting Sam's invitation to visit him.
"I am so glad he's coming!" he exclaimed, rubbing his hands indelight. "Jack is a host in himself. Ah, that was a good idea of mine,dear—splendid idea! I want Holcomb to dine with us, of course, whileRandall is here over Sunday; it's a pity he can't stay longer." Thayorhad not said a word to her about his "idea" until he had shown herRandall's acceptance.
Alice said nothing, except to remark that she would be glad to see Mr.Randall again—he was always so amusing; she did not relish the ideaof Holcomb sharing their table during his visit. She wonderedwhether Thayor was paying her back for the many she had given withoutconsulting him.
"Who do you think is coming?" exclaimed Margaret, who had run overto Holcomb's cabin to tell him the news that afternoon; "nice JackRandall!" she cried before he could even begin to think.
Holcomb opened his eyes in surprise.
"Father said you had met him at The Players," added Margaret.
"Met him—why I've known Mr. Randall for years! It seems mighty goodto think I'm going to see the dear fellow again. Well, thatis goodnews—dear old Jack!"
They were standing in the open doorway of the cabin. Holcomb thoughthe had never seen her look prettier than she did this sunny morningwithout her hat—dressed as she was in a simple frock of some softwhite fabric cut low about her plump brown throat.
"May I come inside," she asked timidly, as she peeped into the newinterior.
"Why, certainly. Come in and sit down; you are really the only visitorI've had except your father—sit down—won't you?" He drew a chair upto his freshly scrubbed deal table.
Margaret looked up into his eyes—half seriously for a moment, as shestood by the proffered chair.
"You are coming to dine with us while he's here," she said in herfrank way. "Father says you must."
Billy's embarrassment was evident. "That's really kind of him," hereplied, "but don't you think I'd better wait until—"
"There—you're going to refuse; I was half afraid you would. Butyou will come—won't you? Please, Mr. Holcomb!" She seated herselfopposite him, resting her adorable little chin in her hands, her eyesagain looking into his own.
"I mean I'd rather your mother had asked me," he said, after amoment's hesitation. "I'm afraid Mrs. Thayor would be better pleasedif I did not come, much as I'd like to."
The brown eyes were lowered and the corners of the young mouthquivered; she lifted her head and he saw the eyes were dim with twobig tears.
"You'll come, won't you?" she faltered, trying hard to smile. Hestarted to rise, looking helplessly about him as a man who casts abouthim for a remedy in an emergency.
"There, I shouldn't have said what I did," he explained as she brushedaway the tears. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to hurt you."
"You haven't hurt me," she said; "you couldn't."
There was an awkward pause during which she buried her face in herdimpled brown hands. Holcomb breathed heavily.
"You don't understand," she resumed bravely, trying to clear thequaver in her voice, "and it's so hard for me to explain—and Iwantyou to understand—about—mother, I mean. Mother is dreadfully rude topeople at times—she is that way to nearly everyone whom she does notconsider smart people." Her young voice grew steadier. "I meanwhom she likes and are in her own set. It makes me feel so ashamedsometimes I could cry."
"Come," coaxed Holcomb, "you mustn't feel badly about it. People areall different, anyway. It's just Mrs. Thayor's way, I suppose, just asit's your way, and your father's way, to be kind to everyone," he saidtenderly. He saw the colour flush to her cheeks.
"Mother has hurt you!" she cried indignantly. "I have seen it over andover again. Oh, why can't people be a little more considerate. It'snot considered smart, I suppose. In society nearly everyone is rude toone another—some of them are perfectly nasty and they think nothingof saying horrid things about you behind your back! I hate New York,"she exclaimed hotly; "I never knew what it was to be really happyuntil I came to Big Shanty and these dear old woods. You have hadthem all your life, so perhaps you can't understand what they mean tome—how much I love them, Mr. Holcomb."
"They mean considerable to me," he replied. "They seem like home. Iliked what I saw in New York, and I had a good time down there withJack, but I know I'd get pretty tired of it if I had to live there inthat noise."
"I hate New York," she repeated impetuously, her brown hands tremblingafter the tears. "If you had to go out—out—out—all the time tostupid teas and dances, you would hate it too. It was hard waitingfor the camp. I—I—used to count the days—longing for the days youpromised it would be ready. It was so hard to wait—but I knew youwere doing your best, and daddy knew it too."
Holcomb reddened. "I'm glad you trusted me," he said, and added, "Ihope you will trust me always."
"Why, yes, of course I will!" she exclaimed, brightening. "Oh, youknow I will, don't you?"
Holcomb was conscious of a sudden sensation of infinite joy; it seemedto spring up like an electric current from somewhere deep within him,and tingled all over him.
"I'm glad you'll always trust me," he said, as he rose suddenly fromhis chair and, going over to her, held out his hand. The words he hadjust spoken he was as unconscious of as his impulsive gesture. "Ihope you'll always trust me," he repeated. "You see I wouldn't like todisappoint youever" he went on gently.
She gave the strong fingers that held her own a firm little squeeze,not knowing why she did it.
"Of course I will. Oh, you know I'll trust you—always—always." Shesaid it simply—like a child telling the truth. "I must be going," sheventured faintly. "You will come to the dinner—I mean—to dine withus as long as they are here—promise me!" Again she looked appealinglyinto his eyes as if she were speaking in a dream.
"Yes, if you want me," he said softly, almost in a whisper, stillthrilled by the pressure of her warm little hand. He stood watchingher as she slowly re-crossed the compound. Then he went in and shutthe door of his cabin and stood for some moments gazing at the chairin which she had been seated—his heart beating fast.
* * * * *
The dinner was all that Thayor could have wished it. In this he hadconsulted Blakeman, and not Alice. The soup was perfect; so werea dozen young trout taken from an ice-cold brook an hour before,accompanied by a dish of tender cucumbers fresh from the garden andsmothered in crushed ice; so was the dry champagne—a rare vintageof hissing gold poured generously into Venetian glasses frail asa bubble, iridescent and fashioned like an open flower; so was thesaddle of mutton that followed—and so, too, were the salad andcheese—and the minor drinkables and eatables to the very end.
Moreover, Alice was in her best humour and in her best clothes; thedoctor genial; Thayor beaming; Margaret merry as a lark; Holcomb'sease and personality a delight (Mrs. Thayor had at the last momentsent a special invitation by Margaret, and he had come)—and Jack anever-ending joy. That rare something which made every man who knewhim love him, bubbled out of him as ceaselessly as the ascendingcommotion in the golden vintage. Moreover, this good fellow wasoverjoyed at the change in his host; he felt that Thayor's splendidhealth was largely due to his advice.
Jack's repertoire was famous; he had been a prime favourite at theUniversity smokers for years, and so when dinner was over, and theguests were grouped about the roaring fire in the living room, Sperrynext to Alice, Blakeman passing the coffee, liqueurs and cigars,he was ready to answer any call. And thus it was that Thayor, amidgeneral applause, led—or rather dragged—Jack triumphantly to the newgrand piano, finally picking him up bodily and depositing him beforethe keyboard, where he held him on the stool with the grip of asheriff, until this best of fellows raised his hands hopelessly andsmiled to his eager audience.
Few skilled pianists possessed Jack's touch; his playing was snappyand sympathetic—it was gay, and invested with a swing and rhythmthat were irresistible. He had at his command a vast host ofmemories—everything from a Hungarian "Czardas" to Grieg. He rippledon fantastically, joining together the seemingly impossible by aseries of harmonic transitions entirely his own. His crisp executionwas as facile as that of a virtuoso; he did things contrary to eventhe first principles found in the instruction books of the pianoforte.He rushed from the Dance of the Sun Feast of the Sioux Indians,through a passage of rag time into the tenderest of cradle songs thatemerged in turn, by an intricate series of harmonic byways, into thetrio from Faust and leaped, as a climax at a single bound, to theRakoczy March—the shrill war march of Hungary, the rhythm of whichstirs the blood and made men fight up hill with forty clarionets inline in the days when the Magyar took all before him—a march thatbrought the blood to Alice Thayor's cheeks and diffused a lazybrilliancy in her eyes—eyes that looked at Sperry under their curvedlashes. Under its spell there welled within her an irresistible desireto scream—to dance savagely until she swooned. The last chord was asvibrant as the crack of a whip.
As for Holcomb, a strange happiness had come to him. He had heardAlice voice her surprise at his ease of manner and good breeding. "Heis a gentleman, Sam; I never could have believed it," and his eyes hadlighted up when his employer had replied, "As well-bred as Jack,my dear. I am glad to hear you acknowledge it at last." But even agreater joy possessed him,—a happiness which he dared not speakabout or risk the danger of destroying. Margaret trusted him!—that initself was enough for the moment. She had a way of looking earnestlyinto his eyes now—moments when he made awkward attempts at concealinghis joy. There was, too, a certain note of tenderness in her voicewhen she spoke to him. That firm pressure of her soft little hand—hertears! What had she meant by it? he wondered. She seemed a differentbeing to him now—divine—not of this world. When they were alonetogether her very presence made him forget all else save his loyaltytoward Thayor—in brief moments such as these he would gaze at her,when she was not looking; conversation he found difficult. There weremoments, too, when he experienced a feeling of silent depression, andother times when there sprang up within him a positive fear—thefirst fear he had ever experienced. The dread that he might lose hisself-control and tell her frankly all that lay in his heart—how muchhe thought of her—how much he would always think of her. Yet hewould rather have left Big Shanty forever than have offended her. Howstrange it all seemed to him! Could she really care for him?—thisgirl, the very essence of refinement—this child of luxury. Therealization of the wide social breach that lay between them was plainenough to him; he was not of her world—not of her blood.
The hopelessness of this thought brought with it a feeling ofbitterness. Once he dreamed she had kissed him. It was all so realto him in his dream—they were a long way off in the woods somewheretogether, back of Big Shanty, near a pond which he had never seen; hewas leading her down to its edge through some rough timber, when shesighed, "I am so tired, Billy," and sank down in a little heap halffainting from exhaustion. He took her into his arms and carriedher—she cuddled her head against his throat. Then she kissed himtwice, and he awoke.
For a long time he sat wondering on the edge of his cot—the lightfrom a waning moon streaking across the cabin floor. He tried to goto sleep, in the hope that his dream might continue, but he dreamed ofhorses breaking through the ice. He wakened again at the first glimmerof dawn—dressed and went out in the crisp air for a tramp, stillthinking of his dream and the memory of her dear lips against hischeek.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The day at last arrived when Sperry must return to New York. His mailduring the last few days compelled his immediate presence. Althoughhe gauged the contents of several letters as false alarms there werethree that left no room for refusal: one meant an operation that hedared not leave to his assistant's hands; the other two meant money.He had begun to notice, too, a little coldness on the part of hishost; Holcomb's manner toward him had also set him to thinking. Uponone occasion Thayor's strained silence, when he was alone with himsmoking in his den and Alice had retired, had thrown Sperry into astate of positive alarm and kept his heart thumping the while, untila yawn of his host and a cheerful good-night relieved him of his fear.The doctor, like others of his ilk, was innately a coward.
On the last night of his visit, Alice and Sperry sat together in acorner of the veranda. Thayor had gone over to Holcomb's cabin for atalk; Margaret had retired early.
Alice had been strangely silent since dinner. The doctor's figure inthe wicker armchair drawn close to her own, showed dimly in the dusk.Tree toads croaked in the blackness beyond the veranda rail; the airsmelled of rain. All growing things seemed to have ceased living;the air was heavy and laden with a resinous, dreamy vapour—magnetic,intoxicating. Such a night plays havoc with some women. Underthese stifled conditions she is no longer normal; she becomes weak,pliable—she no longer reasons; she craves excitement, deceit,misadventure, confession—quarrels—jealousy—love—stringing theirnerves to a tension and breeding a certain melancholy; it tortures byits suppression; a flash of lightning or a drenching rain would havebeen a relief.
For some moments neither had spoken. The man close to her in the duskwas biding his time.
"Dear—" he whispered at length.
She did not answer.
He leaned toward her until the glow from his cigar illumined her eyes;he saw they were full of tears. His hand closed upon her own lyingidle in her lap. She began to tremble as if seized with a nervouschill. It was the condition he had been waiting for. He watched hernow with a thrill of satisfaction—with that suppressed exultance of agambler holding a winning card.
"There—there," he said affectionately, smoothing with comfortinglittle pats her trembling fingers. Being a born gambler he sat in thisgame easily; just as he had sat in many a game before when the stakeswere high—yet he knew that never in his whole discreditable life hadhe played for as high stakes as this woman's heart.
Her silence irritated him. He threw his half-smoked cigar into theblackness beyond the veranda rail and leaned close to her whitethroat, framed in the soft filmy lace of her gown.
"Why are you so silent?" he asked. "Is it because—of to-morrow?"
"Sh-sh-sh! Do be careful," she cautioned him; "someone might hearyou."
"We are quite alone, you and I," he returned curtly. "You know heis with Holcomb and Margaret is in bed." His voice sunk to infinitetenderness. "You are very nervous, dear," he said, raising both herhands firmly to his lips.
"Don't," she moaned faintly. "Can't you see I'm trying to be brave;can't you see how hard it is?You must not!"
He bent closer with slow determination until she felt the warmth ofhis breath upon her lips.
"Kiss me," he pleaded tensely; "I love you."
Her breath came quick, her whole body trembling violently. There was ahushed moment in which he saw her dark eyes dilate and half close witha savage gleam.
He sprang toward her.
"For God's sake, don't!" she gasped, as he tried to take her in hisarms.
"I love you—I love you!" he repeated fiercely. "Don't you trust me?You will—youshall listen to me. I can't leave you like this; itmay be months before we shall see each other again. It is your rightto be happy—to be loved—every woman has—Why don't you take it?"
"What do you mean?" she stammered, her blood running cold.
"I mean that neither he nor your daughter loves you—that you aremine—not theirs."
She lay back in the wicker chair, scarcely breathing.
"Yes, it's my fault," he continued pitilessly; "but it is because Ilove you—because you are dearest to me. I want you near me—close tome always. I've thought it all out. Come to New York; there we shallfind an enchanted island, the paradise I have longed for—that we'veboth longed for."
Her eyes looked straight into his own. They were wide open—filled forthe instant with a strange look of amazement.
Her breath came in quick little gasps; a subtle anger seemed to closeher throat.
She sprang to her feet, steadied herself by the chair back, andwithout another word, her white hands clenched to her side, turnedslowly into the opening leading to the hall.
Her astonishment and disgust were genuine.
At this instant the door of Holcomb's cabin swung back and a flow oflight streamed out. Sperry halted and stood immovable in a protectingshadow. Thayor moved slowly across the compound. As his foot touchedthe lower step of the veranda a thin, dry laugh escaped the doctor'swhite lips.
"I've been waiting patiently for a nightcap with you," he said.
"Mental telepathy," returned his host. "I was just thinking of itmyself. It's so late everybody has gone to bed, but I expect wecan——No—here's Blakeman. Brandy and soda, Blakeman, and somecracked ice."
"Very good, sir—anything else, sir," replied Blakeman, pulling hisface into shape—he had heard every word that had passed.
"No, that will do."
"Thank you, sir."
Sperry studied the butler's impassible face for a moment, measuredwith his eye the distance from the pantry window to the corner of theveranda, then he drew a long breath—the first he had drawn in someminutes.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Sperry left early the next morning; only his host and Blakeman saw himoff. When he had reached his train and had slipped off his overcoat,he found all the tips he had given Blakeman in its outside pocket.
The doctor was not the only man that morning that awoke with ananxious mind. His host was equally preoccupied; all through breakfasthe had caught his thoughts straying from those usually given to adeparting guest. In his talk with Holcomb, the night before, hismanager had gone straight to the point.
"You remember, do you not," he had said, "that a horse Bergsteinbought died a week after its arrival—the first horse we lost, Imean?"
"Yes, Billy, I remember," Thayor had answered. "Poor beast. I rememberalso that you said in the letter that Bergstein was indefatigable inhis efforts to save him."
"Perhaps so—but I don't think so now, and I'll tell you why in aminute. You remember, too, that Jimmy said he was all right thatnight when he got through work and put him in the barn for the night?"Thayor raised his eyes in surprise. "That barn was locked," Holcombwent on, "and Bergstein had the key."
"What was the veterinary's opinion?" Thayor had asked seriously, aftera moment's thought.
"Quite different from mine," declared Holcomb; "he pronounced itcongestion."
"Was he a capable man?" demanded Thayor.
"So Bergstein said," replied Holcomb slowly. "He got him from Montreal."
Thayor bent his head in deep thought.
"And what do you think, Holcomb?"
"That the horse was poisoned, sir."
Thayor started. "That's a serious charge. What proof have you got?"
"This"—and he opened the wisp of paper the hide-out had given himand laid it on the table. "There's strychnine enough in that to killa dozen horses. This was found under Bergstein's mattress—the rest ofit is in the gray horse's stomach." Then had followed the sum of hisdiscoveries in which, however, no mention was made of the hide-out'shelp. That was too dangerous a secret to be entrusted to anyone not ofthe woods.
These discoveries had revealed a condition of things Thayor littledreamed of, and yet the facts were undeniable. Within the last monthtwo horses had died; another had gone so lame that he had been givenup as incurable. Leaks had also been frequent in expensive piping.Moreover, the men had begun to complain of bad food at the lowershanty; especially some barrels of corned beef and beans which were ofso poor a quality and in such bad condition that the shanty cook hadrefused to serve them.
That not a word concerning these things had reached Thayor's ears wasowing, so Holcomb told him, to the influence of the trapper and theClown, who prevented the men from coming to him in open protest. Inthe meantime he—Holcomb—had been secretly engaged in ferretingout the proofs of a wholesale villainy at the bottom of which wasBergstein. What he destroyed he replaced at such a good profit tohimself that he had, during his connection with Big Shanty, alreadybecome exceedingly well off. Not content with laming and poisoningdumb beasts to buy others at a fat commission, he had providedcondemned meat for the men under him at the lower shanty, had secretlydamaged thousands of dollars' worth of expensive plumbing, andhad sown hatred among the men against the man whose generosity hadbefriended him. He had accomplished this systematically, little bylittle, carrying his deeds clear from suspicion by a shrewdness anddaring that marked him a most able criminal. He had had freedom to doas he pleased for months, and no profitable opportunity had escapedhim. These gains he had deposited in inconspicuous sums in ruralsavings banks. What he did not deposit he had invested in timberland. The evidence against him had been collected with care. Upon twooccasions Holcomb said he took the trapper with him as a witness. Thetwo had moved skilfully on, the trail of the culprit and hadwatched him at work; once he was busy ruining a costly system ofwater-filters. They had let him pass—he having stepped within a rodof them unconscious of their presence.
* * * * *
With these facts before him Thayor came to an instant conclusion.The result was that a little before noon on this same day—the day ofSperry's departure—the owner of Big Shanty sent for Bergstein. Boththe trapper and Holcomb were present. Thayor stood beside the broadwriting table of his den as Bergstein entered; his manner was againthat of the polite, punctilious man of affairs; he was exceedinglycalm and exasperatingly pleasant. To all outward appearances theblack-bearded man, grasping his dusty derby in his hand, mighthave been a paying teller summoned to the president's office for anincrease of salary.
"Mr. Bergstein" Thayor said, "dating from to-morrow, the 8th ofSeptember, I shall no longer need your services. You may thereforeconsider what business relations have existed between us at an end."
A sullen flash from the black eyes accompanied Bergstein's firstwords, his clammy hand gripping the rim of the derby lined with soiledmagenta satin.
"See here, Mr. Thayor," the voice began, half snarl, half whine.
"That will do, Mr. Bergstein," returned Thayor briskly. "I believethe situation is sufficiently clear to need no further explanation oneither your part or mine. I bid you good morning."
Bergstein turned, with the look of a trapped bear, to Holcomb and theold man; what he saw in their steady gaze made him hesitate. He puton his hat and walked out of the door without again opening his thicklips.
"You ain't goin' to let him go free, be ye?" exclaimed the trapperin astonishment. Holcomb started to speak, glancing hurriedly at theretreating criminal.
"What he has taken from me," interrupted Thayor, "I can replace; whathe has taken from himself he can never replace." He turned to a smallmahogany drawer and extracted a thin, fresh box of Havanas. "Let usforget," he said, as he pried open the fragrant lid. "Be tolerant,Billy—be tolerant even of scoundrels," and he struck a match for thetrapper.
The news of Bergstein's discharge demoralized the gang at the lowershanty. They no sooner heard of it than Thayor became a target fortheir unwarranted abuse. I say "the news" since Bergstein did not putin an appearance to officially announce it. His mismanagement of thecommissary department was laid at Thayor's door. The men's grumblinghad been of some weeks' duration; their opinions wavering, swayingand settling under Bergstein's hypnotic popularity as easily as aweather-vane in April. Nowhere had they earned as good wages as atBig Shanty. They, too, looked at Thayor's purchase as a gold mine.Morrison had done a thriving business with the stout little tumblerswith bottoms half an inch thick. Bergstein frequently treated—whenthey growled over the bad food he treated liberally, and they forgot.He blamed it on Thayor and they agreed. They made no secret of thefact among themselves as well as outsiders, that if it were not forthe high wages they would have deserted in a body long ago; no lumberboss they had ever known or worked for had dared feed them like this.These lumber jacks were used to good, plain food and plenty of it.
It is needless to say neither the trapper nor the Clown complained.They, like Holcomb, were fully aware of the fact that Bergstein wasplaying a dangerous game. They were waiting for thedenouement. Attimes when the men gave vent to their grievances Hite Holt and FremeSkinner did their level best to smooth things over; they did not wantto trouble Thayor.
The same afternoon of Bergstein's discharge the gang at the lowershanty struck. The bar-room at Morrison's became packed. Little elsewas talked of but the injustice of the owner of Big Shanty. Later inthe day a delegation of awkward, sinewy men came upon his veranda.They were for the most part sober. It might be said they were thesoberest. Le Boeuf was among them. Men of the sea and men of the woodsair their grievances in the same way—a spokesman is indispensable.
This man's name was Shank Dollard—a man with a slow mind and a quicktemper. Their interview with Thayor was brief. His polite firmness andhis quiet manner made Shank Dollard lower his voice.
"I know precisely what you are going to say," Thayor began as thedeputation shuffled into his den. "In the first place I hear there hasbeen general dissatisfaction over the food at the lower shanty."
"You ain't fur from the p'int," blurted out Dollard; "it hain't beenfit to feed to a dog."
"One moment, Mr. Dollard—you will wait until I get through speaking,"Thayor said as he lifted a pile of bills. "These," he went on, "arethe complete list of supplies since Bergstein took charge of yourcommissary department. A glance at the items and their cost will, Ifeel sure, force you men to acknowledge that they are the best moneycan buy." He passed half the file to Dollard, the remainder he handedto a big fellow next him for distribution. The totals alone werestartling.
"We hain't had a dollar's worth of them things, and you know it," Dollard exclaimed surlily, looking up suddenly, as he read.
"Of course you haven't," Thayor smiled in return, "and yet you censureme for terminating my business relations with Bergstein—a man you menunanimously chose."
There was an awkward pause and a sheepish look on the faces of the menas they craned their corded, bronzed necks over the shoulders of thosewho held the accounts.
"Wall, I swan!" drawled one.
"Reg'lar damned skin!" muttered another.
"I need not explain to you further," Thayor resumed, "that thestatements are pure forgeries. You will readily see that it wasBergstein's method to open a small account at these reputable housesand add the rest."
"I tink he been one beeg rascal—hein!" grinned Le Boeuf.
There were others present who were still unconvinced.
"Anything further, Mr. Dollard?" asked Thayor sharply.
"About this 'ere grub," returned the spokesman; "it ain't fit, I tellye, for a dog."
"It will be fit enough by to-morrow night," answered Thayor. "I haveattended to that by telegraph." There was a slight murmur of approval.
"See here, Mr. Thayor," resumed Dollard, gaining courage over thepromise of good food. "Maybe the food'll git so's we kin git along,but you hain't been treatin' us no whiter 'n you're a mind to. Weain't gittin' paid no more'n keep us out the poor-house."
"I goll, you're right, Shank Dollard," came from somewhere in the backrow.
"Ah!" exclaimed Thayor, "I was waiting for that. Where, may I ask,have you received as high wages as I have paid you? Not even on ariver drive," he went on coolly—"dangerous work like that, I know,commands a just reward."
"When we was to work for Morrison," interrupted a round-shoulderedlumber jack, "we—"
"You need not enlighten me with figures," resumed Thayor; "I have themhere," and he turned to a yellow pad. "When, I say, have you been paidas much and as steadily?"
"That may be, but we ain't as satisfied over what we git as you be,"retorted Shank Dollard.
"Then let me tell you plainly—and I wish you to understand me clearlyonce for all," returned Thayor, glancing quickly into the faces ofthe men before him, "you'll stay at Big Shanty for the wages you aregetting or you'll go. Moreover, the man that leaves my employ leavesfor good."
Again there was an awkward silence. Thayor turned, seated himselfpromptly at his desk and began methodically filing away the forgedaccounts in a pigeon hole. The men moved toward the open door leadingon to the veranda, muttering among themselves. Shank Dollard shot avicious glance at the man seated at his desk. To exit thus, beaten bythe truth, was not easy—a gentleman is always a difficult opponent.
"Good mornin'," he sneered as he started to follow the last manthrough the door; "a hell of a lot you done for us."
"Good morning," returned Thayor, looking up—"and good-bye. You may goto Holcomb, Dollard, for whatever is due you at once."
Dollard straightened aggressively and with an oath passed out,slamming the door behind him. The closed door muffled somewhat thegrumbling from the group on the veranda. Now it increased, plentifullyinterlarded with profanity.
Sam Thayor, sitting at his desk, did not move. He drew from a drawera packet of vouchers and began studying them, jotting the totals uponthe yellow pad. After a few moments the sound of heavy boots stampingdown the veranda steps reached his ears—grew fainter and died away.Thayor started to rise. As he did so, his foot struck something heavyand muscular beneath his desk; then a cold, wet muzzle touched hishand.
It was the old dog.
He had been plainly visible from where the men stood during the entireinterview; he had arrived early, unperceived. The look in his brave,gray eyes might have had something to do with Shank Dollard's exit.
On the other side of the closed door leading out to the living room, Alice stood breathless for a quarter of an hour—listening.
She had passed a sleepless night; in the gray dawn she had left herbed and taken a seat by the window. She had tried the balcony—but thenight air chilled her to the bone and she had gone back to bed, herteeth chattering.
As she listened, her cheek close to the panel, straining her ears, herheart beating fast with a dull throb, her hands like ice, there weremoments when she grew faint—the faintness of fear. Now and then shemanaged to catch disconnected grumbling sentences; occasionally shewas enabled, through the glimmering light of the half-closed keyhole,to distinguish with her strained, frightened eyes, the figure of herhusband speaking fearlessly as he flung his ultimatum in the faces ofthe rough men in front of him. What manner of man was this whom shehad defied?
Suddenly an uncontrollable fear fell upon her; with a quick movementshe gathered her skirts about her and fled upstairs to her own room.
That night the photograph taken in Heidelberg, and all the letters Sperry had written her, lay in ashes in her bedroom grate.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Before dawn Alice awoke in a fit of coughing. Her bedroom was a blank.The open window overlooking the torrent had disappeared. She sat upchoking—staring with wide open, stinging eyes, into an acrid haze.She felt for the matches beside her bed and struck one. Its flameburned saffron for an instant and went out as if it had been plungedinto a bottle. At this instant she would have shrieked with frighthad not the sound of a man leaping up the stairs leading to her roomreached her ears. Then her door crashed in clear of its hinges. Sheremained sitting bolt upright in bed, too terrified to move. A pair ofsinewy arms reached out for her, groping in the strangling haze.
"Who's there?" she gasped.
"Keep your mouth shut!" commanded a voice close to her ear; then thearms lifted her bodily out of bed and swung her clear of the floor;a glimmering tongue of flame licking up the stairway revealed thefeatures of the man in whose arms she struggled.
"Holcomb!" she started to cry out, but the acrid fog closed herthroat.
"Keep your mouth shut—do you hear!" he muttered in her ear; "we'll beout of this in a minute." He lunged with her headlong over the smasheddoor and reached the top of the flight, feeling for the first stepcautiously with his foot. She screamed this time, beating his facewith her clenched hands.
"Keep your mouth shut," he mumbled; "you'll strangle."
Her arm became limp. "Where's Sam?—where's—" she pleaded feebly.Then a dull roar rang in her ears; she lay unconscious, a dead weightin his arms.
Holcomb began to stagger on the bottom step, reeling like a drunkard;again he proceeded, stumbling on through the passageway leading toBlakeman's pantry. The ceiling of varnished yellow pine above himrained down sputtering drippings of flame; they burned his neck, hishands, his hair. He dashed on through a pantry of sizzling blisters,past a glowing wall in a hot fog of yellow smoke, one burned handcovering her mouth. Then he turned sharply to the left, striking hisshoulder heavily against a corner beam!
The blow made him conscious of a man crawling on his hands and kneestoward them. The man rose—groped blindly like an animal driven to bayand rushed straight at him.
"Give her to me, Billy," he hissed in his ear, "Quick—save yourself!" Then a burned fist struck straight out and missed—struck again and Holcomb fell senseless.
With the quickness of a cat the man caught the woman in his arms,groped his way to the open, laid her prostrate body on the charredgrass—sprang back into the swirl and choke of the deadly gasand smoke, and the next instant reappeared with the stunned andhalf-conscious Holcomb on his back, his hair singed, his clothes onfire; then he tripped and fell headlong.
The shock brought Holcomb to his senses. The man was stooping overhim, his ear close to his cheek.
"It's me, Billy—Bob Dinsmore. I didn't want to hurt ye, but I seeye couldn't manage her and yerself and thar warn't no other way; ye'dboth been smothered. She's all right—they're tendin' to her."
Holcomb clutched at the hide-out's sleeve.
"No—I dassent stay—nobody seen me but you"—and he was swallowed upin the shadows.
Two men and a girl now swept past the half-dazed man, halted for amoment, and with a cry of joy from the girl, aided by the trapper andthe Clown, dragged him clear of the rain of burning embers.
When Holcomb regained consciousness Margaret was bending over him.
"No, Billy—don't move, dear. Please, oh, please—" and she kissedhis cheek—two soft little kisses—the kisses he had remembered in hisdream. Then she left him.
He forgot the pain racking his arm; his brain grew clearer. He reachedhis feet, lurching unsteadily toward Thayor, who sat by Alice who wassobbing hysterically. The banker put out his left hand and coveredHolcomb's burned fist tenderly, his gaze still fixed on the leapingflames, but neither spoke. The situation was too intense for words.
* * * * *
During this utter destruction not a man among the gang employed hadput in an appearance. This fact, in itself, was alarming; nor had oneoutside of these come to the rescue. There was no doubt now that thegeneral desertion had been as premeditated as the fire. Who were theprime movers of this dastardly revenge remained still a mystery.
The housekeeper, the cook, the two maids and the valet—all butBlakeman and Annette, who had awakened at the first alarm—had madetheir escape in terror down the macadam road; they were just in time;this road—the only open exit leading out from Big Shanty being nowbarred by flame. Worse than all, this barrier of fire had widened sothat now two roaring wings of burning timber extended from the veryedge of the torrent in a vast semi-circle of flame—sinister andimpenetrable—across the compound and far into the woods on the otherside. It was as if the last life boat had been launched from a sinkingship, leaving those who were too late to die!
Their only way out now lay through that trackless wilderness behindthem.
Here was a situation far graver than the burning of Big Shanty. Thegray-haired man with his back against the hemlock realized this. Hestill stood grimly watching the fire—his ashen lips shut tight.
Big Shanty burned briskly; it crackled, blazed, puffed and roared,driven by a northeast wind. The northeast wind was in league withthe flames. It was on hand; it had begun with the stables—it had nownearly finished with the main camp. The surrounding buildings—theinnumerable shelters for innumerable things—made a poor display; theywent too quickly. It was the varnish in the main camp that went madin flame—rioting flames that swept joyously now in oily waves. Thenortheast wind spared nothing. It seemed to howl to the flames: "Keepon—I'll back you—I'm game until daylight."
Walls, partitions, gables, roofs, ridge-poles, stuff in closets,furniture, luxuries, rugs, pictures, floors, clapboards, jewels,shingles, a grand piano, guns, gowns, books, money—in twenty minutesbecame a glowing hole in the ground. The destruction was complete; theheel of the northeast wind had stamped it flat. Big Shanty camp hadvanished.
The man braced against the trunk of the hemlock saw all this with theold, weary, haggard look in his eyes, yet not a syllable escaped hislips. He saw the northeast wind drive its friend the fire straightinto the thick timber of the wilderness; trees crackled, flaredand gave up; others ahead of them bent, burst and went under—thenortheast wind had doomed them rods ahead; it swept—itannihilated—without quarter. It scattered the half-clad group ofrefugees to shelter across Big Shanty Brook upon whose opposite shore,as yet untouched, they re-gathered to watch—out of the way.
It began to drizzle—a drizzle of no importance, but it cooled thefaces of those who were ill.
In an hour Big Shanty Brook had sacrificed three miles of its shorein self-defence. Its bend above the nodding cedars—where Thayor hadkilled his deer—had succeeded in turning the course of the fire. Theshore upon which the refugees stood was untouched. The brook in thechaos of running fire had saved their lives.
Still the fire roared on and although the torrent kept it at bayit went wild in the bordering wilderness. The burned camp was now aforgotten incident in this devilish course of flame. The northeastwind had not failed. The woods became a fire opal—opaque in smoke,with the red glint of innumerable trees glowing in gleaming strata,marking the course of the wind. Many a bird fluttered and dropped in avain effort to escape from the heat—the heat of a blast furnace. Thehedgehog being lazy and loath to move—lay dead—simmering in hisfat. The kingfisher jeered in safety—never before had he seen somany little dead fish. It was a gala day for him. They stuck againstcharred branches conveniently in shallow, out-of-the-way pools. He satperched on the top of a giant hemlock chattering over his good luck.The chipmunk, at the first sinister glare, had skittered away tosafety. He had not had a wink of sleep and his little nose was asblack as his hide from running over charred timber. Often it was aclose squeak with him to keep from burning his feet.
Nothing can tear through a forest like a fire. Its speed isunbelievable; it strikes with the quickness of a cat—slipping outmyriads of snake-like tongues right and left into the dryest places.It reasons—it decides—rarely it pardons. It is more dangerous thanan incoming sea; the sea gives warning—the fire gives none. Yourdeath is only one of many—a burned detail. The forest fire has a leapwhich is subtle—ferocious. Things it misses it goes back for untilthey crumble and are devoured at its edge. It cuts with the sweep ofa red-hot scythe. All this occurs above the surface. What happensbeneath is worse. It gnaws with the tenacity of a cancer deep into theground, lingering hidden until suspicion has passed; then it assertsitself in a new outbreak in places least suspected. When it is allover the region lies desolate for years. It becomes a waste, a tangleof briers—pitiful upstarts of trees and burned stumps.
Had it not been for the trapper's and the Clown's forethought thefugitives would have fared worse. They had managed to rescue anondescript collection of clothing, blankets, mackintoshes, socks,brogans and two teamsters' overcoats from the partly destroyed lowershanty. In the storehouse adjoining they, with Blakeman's assistance,found three hams, matches, a sack of flour, some tea, half a sack ofbeans and a few cooking utensils. Everything else had been stolen,including possibly the new stock of provisions Thayor had telegraphedfor, the debris of two new boxes and the gray ashes of excelsiorgiving little doubt that the new provisions had arrived. Holt andSkinner had only time to bundle these valuables together when the firereached them. Heavily loaded they managed to regain the others keepingalong the edge of the torrent.
Alice Thayor presented a strange appearance; a pair of lumberjack'strousers, a mackinaw shirt, rough woollen socks, a pair of brogansand one of the teamster's overcoats, its collar turned up against herdishevelled hair, had transformed her into a vagabond. She was stillweak from shock, but she went to work with Margaret and Annette,brewing a pail of tea, while Thayor, Holcomb and the rest straightenedout their weird bivouac in the acrid opal haze. The Clown was againbusy with his fry-pan, the old dog watching him with bloodshot eyes.
There was little or no conversation during the preparation of thathurried meal. When at last it was ready Blakeman started to serve it.Thayor caught his butler's eye and motioned him to a seat beside him.
"You are as hungry as the rest of us," he said with an effort;"there's no need of formality here, Blakeman." He glanced witha peculiar, weary smile from one to another of the little groupsquatting around the improvised meal, and his voice faltered.
"Big Shanty is gone," he resumed; "but I thank God it was no worse.Whatever is in store for us we must share. What that will be nobodycan tell, but it's going to be a hard experience and we must meet it.It would be sheer folly to attempt to get clear of all this by way ofMorrison's; that road is completely cut off—am I right, Holt?"—andhe turned to the trapper.
The old man, who had eaten sparingly and in silence, raised his head.
"Yes, ye'r right, Mr. Thayor, but it won't do for us to stay whar webe no longer 'n we're obleeged to, that's sartain. Them hell-houndsain't done yit. Yer life ain't safe," he added slowly.
Alice Thayor gave a little gasp, riveting her frightened gaze on thespeaker. Margaret turned and looked at her mother with trembling lips;then she patted Alice's hand affectionately. Annette began to cry.
"It's hard to tell ye the truth, friend," continued the old man, "butI might as well tell yenow. There ain't nothin' left for us to dobut to git out o' this hell-hole as quick as God'll let us. We gotplenty of things in our favour——No, sir, it ain't as bad as it mightbe with them woods full of smoke. Thar's a railroad over thar"—hecontinued, nodding to the wilderness beyond them. "I cal'late we couldmake the railroad in, say, four days. Let's see—Bear Pond—as furas the leetle Still water; then over them Green Mount'ins and throughAlder Swamp."
"And it's clear goin', Hite," interposed the Clown, "as fur as BuckPond. I was in thar once with the survey." Holcomb did not speak; itwas a country which he had never entered.
"I had a trappin' shanty at Buck Pond once," continued Holt, "mostthirty years ago. I knowed that country in them days as well as I knowmy hat and I presume likely it ain't changed. A day from Buck Pond,steady travellin', ought, in my idee, to git us out to the cars. I'lldo my best to git ye thar."
Thus it was hurriedly decided that the trapper should lead the way.Holcomb suggested that he and the trapper should return to the burnedcamp in the hope, if possible, of finding something left which mightbe of use on the journey. They were sadly in need of an axe; the dullhatchet they had found in the cook's shanty they knew would prove nextto useless. So Holcomb and Holt set off at once for the scene of thedisaster while the rest got together into more practical carryingshape all that they possessed, ready for a start immediately on theirreturn.
Soon Holcomb and the trapper were trudging about in the stifling heatof the ruins; they had drenched themselves to the waist in the brookand were thus enabled to make a hurried search within the fire zone.The first ruins they came upon were the stables—not a horse hadescaped.
Although they found it impossible to approach the still blazing ruinsof the main camp, they discovered among the smouldering, charredtimbers of Holcomb's cabin the blade of a double-bitted axe, its helveburned off. A few rods further on, in the blinding smoke, they found akeg of nails. The only things the flames had left around them were ofiron. An iron reservoir lay on its side where it had fallen; twistedgirders loomed above the cauldron of desultory flame, marking therectangle of the main camp. They shovelled the hot nails and theblades of the two axes into a blackened tin bucket and started back tothe brook.
The trapper led. He had gone about a dozen rods farther on when hehalted abruptly, peering under the palm of his hand at a smoulderinglog ahead of him.
"God Almighty!" he cried, staring back at Holcomb, as he pointed tothe smoking log.
Holcomb, with stinging eyes, saw a claw of a hand thrust above thelog. The bones of the wrist were visible; the rest resembled a misfitglove, the fingers hanging in shreds. The hand connected with the bodyof a man lying close against the opposite side of the log. The legsfrom the knees down were gone; the remainder of the man was a mass ofburned flesh and rags. Near the stump of the right arm lay a charredkerosene can.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Under the trapper's guidance the party left the burned camp behindthem. They pushed on in silence, following mechanically the tall,lank figure of the old man ahead of their single file. He led them uptimbered ridges and along their spines; he swerved down into swampyhollows choked with wind-slash, around which they were obliged to maketedious detours. The fine drizzle had turned into a steady soft rainthat pattered on the broad moose-hopple leaves. Often they plungedinto swamp mud nearly to their knees. The fallen logs over which theyclimbed were as slippery as wet glass—the branch spikes on these logsas dangerous under slipping feet as upturned pitchforks. The men weretop-heavy under their packs; the women uncomplaining and soaked totheir skins. The moist air was still impregnated with the scent ofsmoke—a sinister odour which kept in their minds the events of themorning.
During such a forced march in the wilderness conversation isdifficult; one is content with one's own thoughts. Under themental and physical strain they were enduring their bodies movedautomatically. During this unconscious process of locomotion onecan dream over one's thoughts and still go on. Legs and arms movethemselves; sore muscles become reconciled to their burden—theybecome numb; the mind is thus left alone in peace.
Alice Thayor's thought was occupied with the incidents leading to herlast evening with Sperry. Every feature stood out in bold relief. Eventhe tones of the doctor's voice rang clear. As these thoughts crowdedin, one after another, her brain reeled, her eyes became dim. Missingher footing she sank back in the mud, steadied herself against a tree,brushing the damp hair out of her eyes and staggered on, her gazefixed upon the swaying pack ahead of her fastened to the Clown'sshoulders.
The old dog now fell out of file; she felt his steaming muzzle bumpunder the palm of her hand. Since they started from their refugeacross Big Shanty Brook the old dog had gone thus from one to theother. Twice she had patted him; she wanted him near her now in herweariness, but he left her the next moment to join Margaret. Herhusband trudged on under his heavy pack in front of the Clown; hespoke encouragingly to those in front and behind him—and to her.Once in a while, when they came to a halt in a difficult place, hesupported her with his arm and a cheery word. She would have marvelledat his grit had she not overheard his talk to Dollard. Now and thenshe could see Margaret, her ankles incased in rough woollen socksshowing above the tops of the Clown's brogans. Margaret followedHolcomb when it was possible, and the two often walked abreast talkinglow and earnestly. Twice Alice was about to call her maid. The fatiguewas telling terribly on this woman accustomed to luxury. Then sheremembered her husband's words: "Whatever is in store for us we mustshare in common." Farther on Blakeman noticed his mistress turn herwhite face over her shoulder and look at him appealingly. He cametoward her lurching under his load.
"What is it, madam?" he asked.
"Oh, Blakeman, I'm so tired! Stand here with me a minute—and you—dothe straps cut your shoulders?"
A curious expression—one of intense surprise, followed instantly byone of tenderness and pity—crossed his countenance. Never before, inall their intercourse, had she spoken to him one word of kindness—onepersonal to himself.
"No, madam," he answered quietly, "I'm all right, thank you."
When he overtook Holcomb later on he related the incident, at whichHolcomb's eyes filled. "It is the Margaret in her," Billy had saidto himself. Perhaps, after all, he had misjudged her. The butler saidnothing of what he had seen and heard behind the pantry door. She hadconfirmed his diagnosis made to Holcomb that day in the woods—"She'sa fool but I don't think she's crooked." Better let well enough alone.
Night began to settle. The monotonous forest of trees becameindistinct; for half an hour the rain fell in sheets—ghostly whitein the dusk. It became difficult now to evade the roots and holes. Itgrew colder, yet there was no breeze. Still the gaunt figure ofthe trapper ahead of them led on without pity. They followed himblindly—now stumbling in the shadows—some of these proved to bemud—others water—still others the soaked underbrush. Whatever theystumbled into now the sensation was the same.
"Sam!" called Alice feebly.
"Yes, dear," came his voice ahead. He fell out of line and waited forher, bent and dripping under his pack. She looked at him, hermouth trembling and he patted her cheek with a numb hand. "A littlemore—only a little more courage, dear," he said kindly; "Holt tellsme we are near Bear Pond. You have been so plucky."
"And so have you—Sam," she faltered. He smiled wearily, turned awayfrom her and regained his place in the line.
The rain ceased—the trees grew shorter; hemlock and spruce resolvedthemselves into a stunted horizon of tamarack; then came a glimmeringlight through an open space and a sheet of water, glistening likesteel, appeared ahead of them and they emerged suddenly upon a hard,smooth point of sand.
"Bear Pond!" the trapper announced cheerily as he halted. "Here we be,by whimey! I was afeared some of ye'd give out, but I dassent stopa minute. You folks'll begin to feel better soon's we git a firestarted."
Already Holcomb's and the Clown's axes were being swung with a will.They soon emerged from the forest dragging out on the smooth sandspit, where the line of tamaracks ended, enough dry timber for a firewhich the trapper soon roused into a welcome blaze. He used but onematch—often he travelled a week on seven. When they were wet herubbed them in his hair.
Again the sharp whack of the axes cut out a ridgepole and two forkedsupports. Before it grew dark they had a snug lean-to built andcovered with boughs at the edge of the tamaracks—out of the wind.Here, after a warm meal, they passed the first night of their flight.The women shared one side of the lean-to, grateful for the dryblankets; the men, tired from their heavy loads, crept in noiselesslyin their sock feet beside them and were soon asleep. The old dogwaited patiently until they were settled, then entered and lay downin the only space left. Back of them, far away over the horizon of thewilderness, the sky was pink.
Alice Thayor slept soundly until midnight, then she lay awake untilthe first glimmer of dawn. She half rose upon her elbow and lookedcalmly at the face of her husband asleep next to her. It seemedstrange to her to be sleeping next to him. His face was drawn andhaggard; he breathed heavily. Margaret was curled next to her on theother side, the curve of her lovely mouth showing above the coarseedge of the horse blanket.
Then an irresistible desire came over her to get away—away from thismisery—out of these rough clothes—away from these men. The fire infront of her blazed up, illumining the thatched roof of the lean-to.She looked at her hands—they were dirty, the nails black fromscrambling over logs. At that moment she would eagerly have exchangedher jewels for a boudoir and a bath. Her jewels—they were gone inthe fire. Gone, too, before it began were a packet of letters and atell-tale photograph! This fact was the only one in her desolationthat comforted her.
Then came moments when her surroundings became exasperating; whatfresh misery would she be forced to endure—days worse, perhaps, thanthe one she had just passed through might follow. If she could onlyfly! But where? Out in that wilderness? She had sense enough left toknow that had she stolen out beyond sight of the lean-to she wouldhave been hopelessly lost. She did not know, however, all that itmeant; the terror that would await her—the suffering, stumblingblindly in a circle—hungry, yet afraid to eat had she hadfood—thirsty, yet not daring to stop even at a clear spring. Herbody beaten and bruised—her mind weak from fear—half naked—herhair dishevelled, her scalp bleeding; reeling toward any quarter whichseemed like the way out. All this, had she but known it, had happenedto the three men sleeping in the lean-to: the trapper, when he waseighteen, found barely breathing after twelve days of torture, thedog chain which he had wrapped round his waist after starting a deer,having deflected the needle of his compass; Holcomb, picking his wayout along the shores of a chain of lakes, with no matches and but ahandful of cartridges; and the Clown, blind drunk on Jamaica gingerand peppermint essence, in a country whose unfamiliarity nearly causedhis death. A man without his stomach and physique would have died; bysome miracle he lived to reach Morrison's unaided—he wanted a drink.
And yet there was not a portion of this wilderness that couldlose these three men now, past masters as they were in the art ofwood-craft. Yes—it was just as well that The Lady of Big Shanty knewnone of these things. Miserable as she was, here, she was protected.Her hand went out unconsciously and rested for a moment on herhusband. Again she fell asleep—a troubled sleep—in which she dreamedshe confronted a face with sinister eyes and hot cheeks from which shefled in terror. When she awoke she looked out into a blanket of mist.In the breaking dawn the surface of Bear Pond lay like a mirror. Theothers were still asleep. The fire in front of the lean-to was abed of white ashes. A kingfisher screamed past, following the limpidturquoise edge of the shore. Beyond the mist rose a great mountain,the filmy, ragged edges of the fog blanket sweeping in curling riftsbeneath a precipice of black sides.
The sun presently turned the mist into rose vapour; the mirror becamea greenish black, shining like polished metal. She looked out uponthis scene with a sense of restful fascination. It was the firstsunrise of its kind this woman—to whom morning meant the perfunctorydrawing of her bedroom curtains—had seen for years. It was as if shehad been transported to a new world, shutting out the other worldshe had known so well—the world in which she had fluttered sosuccessfully, spending lavishly the money of the man who at thatmoment lay next to her, worn out by calamity and fatigue. He had beenpatient through years of her unreasonable extravagance—through herselfish domination—through her tyranny. He was patient now.
Alice Thayor thought of these things as she gazed out upon thestrange, silent pond. It was the first time in her later life she hadtaken time to think. Mental anguish has its sudden changes. When wehave suffered enough we seek the pleasant; to suffer requires effort.When at last we shirk the work of being unhappy we forget our sorrow.Alice, little by little, was forgetting hers—even in the midst ofthese trying circumstances.
Soon she noticed that Margaret's blanket had slipped from hershoulders. She leaned forward and drew it tenderly back to its place;then she bent over and kissed the cheek of the sleeping girl.
The grip of the primaeval had laid hold of her heart!
When she again gazed across the thin rose vapour, disappearing rapidlyunder the first rays of the sun, hot, scalding tears were streamingdown her face.
CHAPTER TWENTY
With the breaking of the full dawn the Clown called the old dog, roseand stretched himself, and, noticing Alice awake, whispered:
"Good mornin',—how d'ye stand it? Kinder coolish, warn't it, 'long'bout three o'clock?"
Alice placed her finger on her lips.
"Yes—let 'em sleep," whispered the Clown.
He rose, drew on his brogans and tiptoed noiselessly out to the ashesof the dead fire. With the crackling of a blaze freshly built, therest awoke. The second day of their flight had begun.
It was rough and slow going along the shore of Bear Pond, with theexception of the spit of sand on which they had camped. The shorewas lined with dead trees and jagged masses of rock; there was noalternative but to follow the shore, the swamp lands, which were evenworse, extending far back of the dead timber. By noon they had onlyreached the foot of the range of mountains. By another twilight theyfound themselves on the other side of the range and within half aday's tramp of Alder Swamp.
All that day Alice kept patiently on with the rest. Her husband's gritwas a revelation to her; not once since they left the burned camp hadhe mentioned the catastrophe.
Thayor's mind was also occupied. His loss had been a heavy one; thecamp he loved had been criminally laid in ashes—such had been hisreward for generosity. The very men he had befriended had burned himout with murderous intent. They would at that moment take his lifecould they find him. His money had been the cause of jealousy anddiscontent; it had resulted in a catastrophe—one that had beenpremeditated, carefully planned and carried swiftly into execution,presumably by the help of Morrison's liquor. It was clear, too,that the fire had started simultaneously in half a dozen places. Theidentity of the burned man was still a mystery. "Pray God it wasn'tpoor Bob Dinsmore hunting for food!" he said to himself. If Holcomband the trapper had any suspicion they made no comment. They had leftthe body lying where it was. Neither had they referred to the hero whohad risked his life to save both Holcomb and Alice.
As for Holcomb's thoughts, they had been all fastened on Margaret.In fact, there was no moment when she was out of his mind. He wascontinually near her during every step of their forced march as theyfollowed the trapper—often her hand in his for better support.
It was while helping her over the hard places, she leaning on his arm,clasping his fingers for a better spring over a wind-slash or slipperyrock that the currents of their lives flowed together.
Margaret, who, though tired out, had kept up her spirits all day, hadwandered off by herself a little way into the silent woods duringa half hour's rest and had sunk down on a bed of moss behind thelean-to. There, half hidden by a thicket of balsam, Holcomb haddiscovered her pitiful little figure huddled in the rough ulster. Shedid not hear him until he stood over her and, bending, laid his handon the upturned collar of the overcoat that lay damp against the fairhair.
"Don't cry," he had said tenderly; "we'll soon be out of this."
"I know," she returned faintly, meeting his eyes in an effort to bebrave, "but—but—Billy, I'm so unhappy."
"But that's because you're tired out. That's what's the matter.It's been too rough a trip for you. I told Holt yesterday we must goslower."
"No," she moaned, "no—it's not that."
"But it will come out all right," he pleaded, "I feel sure of it.Think of it—to-morrow you will be out of the woods and—and—safelyon your way home." Yet he was not sure of either.
She looked up at him with her brown eyes wide open, her lipstrembling.
"But thenyou will be gone, Billy!"
His own lips trembled now. That which he had tried all these days totell her, she had told him out of her frank young heart. He took oneof her plump, little hands in both his own, holding it as gently as hewould have held a wounded bird. A strange sensation of weakness stolethrough him. He bent lower, until his bronzed cheek felt the flush ofher own through the maze of spun gold. Then he sank on his knees inthe damp moss, pressing his lips to the warm fingers.
"God knows!" he burst out, "I have no right to talk to you. I've triednot to, but I must tell you."
"Don't, Billy—don't!" she sobbed, and she looked into his eyesthrough her tears, her limp form in the coarse ulster swaying as ifshe was about to faint.
He felt the hot tears strike his hand; saw the dim wonder in her eyes. Then slowly, still trembling, she sank in his arms.
"And I love you too, Billy," she breathed as she yielded her lips. "Ilove you with all my heart—with all my soul!"
None of these happenings did they ever breathe to Alice—time enoughfor that when the fear that haunted them all had passed. The motherhad looked at them both in wonder when the two fell into line again,noting the new spring in their steps and the glad light in the girl'seyes, but she made no comment.
They had now reached a desolate region of oozy moss and dead trees;here they camped for the second night. It was a place even a hungrylynx would have avoided. The stillness was oppressive—a silence thatone couldhear. Before it grew quite dark this audible hush wastwice broken by the plaintive note of a hermit thrush—a bird so shythat he leaves his mate, seeking his hermitage among forgotten places.The place was inanimate—dead like the trees—their skeletons risingweirdly from the spongy moss.
The moon rose at length, seemingly shedding its light over thedesolate spot out of pity. Again Alice Thayor lay awake until longpast midnight. The very desolation fascinated her. Again she thoughtof Sperry, and again her face flamed with indignation—in fact, hehad seldom been clear of her mind, try as she might to banish him.She wondered if he would have roughed it with the grit her husbandhad shown. Not once had Sam complained. This, in itself, was arevelation—she who had dared to complain of everything that thwartedher comfort or her plans. Nor had he once failed in all the hours oftheir long tramp to look after her comfort as best he could. With allthis his heavy pack had been badly balanced, so much so that he hadbeen obliged to stop now and then to re-pad the ropes cutting underhis armpits with moss—Holcomb helping him—the straps rescued fromthree charred pack-baskets being reserved for the heavier loads of theClown, the trapper, and Holcomb.
As these things developed in her mind another feeling arose in herheart: a feeling of pride in the man trudging on ahead of her—pridein his pluck, in his patience, in his cheeriness, and last, in hisbodily strength, for to her great surprise her husband proved to bestronger than Blakeman and the match of Holcomb. She had not believedthis possible.
At dawn she fell asleep, awaking with a violent headache. She felt asif she had been beaten; every bone in her body ached; her cheeks wereburning; her hands were like ice. She shuddered now in a chill, yetshe crawled deeper into her blanket and called no one. All through thecold of the early dawn she suffered intensely—shivering with cold andburning with fever, by turns. She dare not move lest she might wakeMargaret or Sam. Toward morning her legs grew warm; the old dog hadlain across them. Then she fell into a troubled sleep.
When she regained consciousness two days had elapsed. She saw dimlythat the rest were at breakfast. It was raining. The old dog againlay across her feet; he was hungry, but he had not moved through thenight. She tried to sit up, but the trees danced in front of her.Margaret and Thayor started toward her.
"You've slept so well, mother," she could hear Margaret saying; "youfeel better, don't you?" Thayor was on his knees beside her—he puthis arm under her shoulders and placed a tin cup to her lips.
"Come, dear—drink this"—she heard his voice faintly. Her lips movedspasmodically. "It's broth," he said softly. "Billy killed a deer thismorning at daylight."
She stared up at him with a pair of vacant, feverish eyes. "Mrs. VanRenssalaer cannot come—send these people away, Sam—I want them sentaway—at once—at once—Blakeman." The spasmodic movement of her jawcontinued, but her words ceased to be audible.
"Drink a little, dear," Sam pleaded. "It will do you good." The lipssmiled feebly, pressing wearily against the rusty edge of the tin cup;then she sank back in his arms in a dead faint.
* * * * *
By the second morning her splendid physique came to the rescue.Weakened as she was by fever, she would, she insisted, take herplace with the others when they were ready to start. To this Thayorassented, as they were now nearing their last resting place, therailroad lying but half a day's tramp beyond where they were camped.
As the thought of her freedom rose in her mind a strange feeling cameover her.
"Won't somebody sing?" she asked. "It's been so dreary for so manywretched long miles. Maybe I can." They were grouped about thesmouldering fire at the time, Margaret's head in her lap, Holcomb, theold trapper and the others in a half circle.
Thayor looked at his wife with mingled pride and astonishment: pridein her pluck and her desire to lighten the hearts of those abouther—astonishment—amazement really, in the change that had come overher.
Alice lifted her eyes to her husband and began, in her rich contraltovoice, a song that recalled the days when he had first known and lovedher. She sang it all through, never once taking her eyes from the manwho sat apart from the others, his head buried deep in his hands.
As the last note died away a crackling in the brush behind the lean-towas heard. The two woodsmen sprang instantly to their feet; Annettescreamed. The drums of Alice's ears were thumping with the beating ofher heart. Holcomb reached for his rifle laying between his own andthe Clown's pack, and hurriedly cocked it. The old dog had alreadyplunged ahead into the underbrush with a low growl.
"Hold on, Billy," came a thin voice out of the blackness beyond and tothe left of the lean-to. "Don't shoot!"
A short, gaunt figure now leaped noiselessly—rather than strode—outinto the firelight. He moved with the furtive agility of an animal,making straight for the fire, over which he stood for some momentswarming himself.
The silent apparition stood in a pair of soaked moccasins. On his legswere worn trousers of deerskin, patched here and there with the skinsof muskrats and squirrels; one thin brown knee showed bare through arent. Over a tattered woollen shirt hung an old cloth coat twice toobig for him—moss-green from exposure, the sleeves of which hung inshreds over his bony fingers. Framed by a shock of sandy hair fallingto his shoulders, and by an unkempt, tow-coloured beard, his eyesshone out in the firelight over his cheek-bones, with the cavernousbrilliancy of an owl's. To have guessed his age would have beenimpossible. The truth was he was thirty-one.
No one spoke. They watched.
The trapper rose to his feet and laid his hand on the stranger'sshoulder. The figure, with a wistful look in his eyes, twisted hisemaciated body and held out his hand. The trapper grasped the thin,sinewy fingers in both his own.
"Friend," he said, turning to Thayor, "I'd like to make ye acquaintedwith my son—Bob Dinsmore."
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The sudden apparition of this pitiful outcast, worn by exposure anduntold suffering—coming as he did into the midst of the little bandof refugees struggling with their own misfortunes, and the confidenceof the trapper in those he was leading to safety, had brought a suddenjoy to the old man's heart. He vowed inwardly now that his son shouldwander no longer—he would save him with the rest.
It had not been the first time the trapper had acknowledged thehide-out as his son. A week after Bailey was shot he had told Holcomband Freme—with them he knew his son's secret was safe; they, too, hadhelped the outcast more than once.
Years ago this strange old man had come out of the forest into thevalley below Big Shanty, settled there and, after some years, married.No one knew where he came from, neither did they know he had beenmarried before. As to his son's name, "Bob Dinsmore," it could hardlybe called assumed, for he had never been known by any other. Whena boy of sixteen he had, like his father, appeared in the valley,hailing, like so many others in that remote region, from nowherein particular. He gave out that he had worked for a man on BlackRiver—that was sufficient. The two built a cabin and the old man andthe boy became boon companions. There was nothing strange in this.When Bob Dinsmore became twenty-two years of age he married—later hekilled Bailey. That was the whole story.
After that the old man had become a hermit from choice, helping hisson when he could—often at the risk of his own life. Finally thisbecame impossible and he was obliged for a time to let him savehimself.
During this enforced exile he had developed both the shyness and thedaring of an animal. With him it had become an instinct, when he movedfar, or in a dangerous locality, to travel by night—like the panther,whose tracks though rarely seen by others, he often found in hiswanderings. When he was forced to take to the woods by day, he eitherproceeded cautiously or slept. Both his hearing and his eyesighthaving become acute, he saw and heard with the alertness of a fox,and lived as free—a cruel freedom that became a mockery. He had noclothes save the makeshifts he stood in. When it rained he remainedsoaking wet, like the ground and the trees about him; he became one ofthem, drying when they did; drenched, frozen or warmed at the willof the weather. He no longer spoke; he became silent like the thingsabout him—when his own voice escaped him it startled him.
Yet even in his isolation he made friends: the cave that shelteredhim; the tree whose rotten core always burned for him under his flintand steel; some pure, unfailing spring,—all these had for him acertain dumb comradeship.
And now to be fed and warmed at the same time! To be eating no longeralone, crouched in the dark like a hungry lynx, often in the drenchingrain, or hidden under the cold roof of some rock; but among humanbeings whom he did not fear, men and women who spoke to him kindlyand gave him the best they had in their own misfortune. To meet againBilly and Freme; to feel the friendly pressure of the old dog's headupon his thin knees; to be within sight once more of a snug, drylean-to ready to rest his tired body. These were mercies he had neverthought to see again. Yet, thankful as he was for them, they weresecondary to his silent joy at seeing his father.
Occasionally the old man spoke to him in a low tone, as he piled thefreshly cut night wood beside the fire. In reply the outcast eithernodded or shook his head. When he had finished eating—and he ateravenously—he rose, went over to Thayor, and laying his hand timidlyon his arm, motioned him aside.
"I've got something to say to ye, Mr. Thayor," he whispered. "That'swhat I come for; I'd like to talk to yenow."
Thayor nodded and, turning to the others, said:
"Mr. Dinsmore and I have a little matter to talk over."
At last the two had met face to face—this man who, try as he wouldto banish him from his mind, always rose before him: in the dead ofnight; before his fire in his own room at home, his wife out at somesocial function or asleep on the floor below him; in his walks throughthe woods when he would stop and listen, hoping he might again see thesame, worn, shambling figure he had watched from across the brook theday he shot the buck. Why, he could not tell. Perhaps it was becauseof their mutual loneliness. Perhaps it was because of a woman.Whatever the cause there was something which seemed to link themtogether.
With a quick gesture he turned to Holcomb. "Will you keep up the fire, Billy? I want all of you to get some sleep."
"What does it mean, Sam?" asked Alice nervously.
"News, I hope," replied Thayor. "Go to sleep, dear; you need it."
The hide-out stood gazing nervously at the ground. "Do you feelbetter?" she asked, approaching him. "You are to sleep next to yourfather, I believe."
"Yes, marm," he stammered awkwardly; "I'm warm. Thank ye for thesupper—I ain't hongry no more."
She nodded good night and went back to her blanket next to Margaret.Bending over the girl she lifted the mass of fair hair and kissed heron the forehead. Then she drew her own blanket about her.
Thayor and the hide-out seated themselves on a log lying on the otherside of the fire, out of hearing.
"Mr. Thayor," began Dinsmore, after a moment's silence, "they'vetreated ye like a dog."
Thayor met the owl-like eyes grimly, a bitter smile playing about hisunshaven chin, but he did not confirm the statement.
"But there's one that'll never trouble ye no more," exclaimed Dinsmore, looking queerly at the man beside him.
"Who?" asked Thayor.
"Bergstein, damn him!" returned Dinsmore slowly; "I seen him."
"But he left the camp days ago—the morning I discharged him."
"He's started on consid'ble of a tripnow," replied the hide-out. "Isee what was left of him."
"Dead!" exclaimed Thayor.
"Burned blacker 'n a singed hog. They ain't much left of him, and whatthey is ain't pleasant to look at. He ain't got but one arm left andthat's clutchin' a holt of a empty ker'sene can."
Thayor gave a short gasp.
"And it was that cheat, Bergstein!" he cried in amazement.
"More devil than cheat," replied Dinsmore—"and three-quarters snake.The gang he trained agin ye done what he told 'em to—they burned yeout with him a-leadin' 'em. I watched him and know—see him with thecan 'fore the fire began. It's as plain as day, Mr. Thayor. Father'sright—yer life ain't safe till ye git to the cars."
Thayor's grizzled, unshaven jaw closed hard. He sat staring into thefire, every muscle in his haggard face tense.
"There's men me and you know in these woods now," continued Dinsmore,"who ain't no more to blame in this ornery business 'n I be."
Again Thayor looked up in surprise.
"I had hoped as much," he said slowly, shaking his head. "Therewas not one of them, however, that came forward to help us—I amexcepting, you understand, your father, Freme, and Holcomb. I owethem a debt of gratitude which I can never repay. Why haveyou come,Dinsmore?" he added, turning abruptly, with something of the brisknessof his old business-like manner.
"Because ye've been good to me," replied the hide-out; "that's why Icome; I wanted to do ye a good turn—I ain't got nothin' else to giveye."
"Good to you—I don't understand."
"I come to thank ye, Mr. Thayor. I see ye once the day ye got thebuck. Father told me your name after ye'd gone. He and me eat up whatye left, and I got the money ye left fer me—Myra Hathaway's takin'care of it—she's got my leetle gal. Yes—I seen ye more 'n once. Youain't never seen me—folks don't see me as a rule; but I've seen youmany a time when ye've stepped by me and I've been layin' hid out;times when I'd starved if it hadn't been for him"—and he noddedacross the fire to Blakeman.
"I caught a partridge once he'd winged," he went on, "and give itto him, seein' he was a city man and wouldn't know me. He see I waspoor—thought I had run away from some gov'ment place and I let it goat that. He used to give me what was left from the kitchen; he'd comeout and leave it hid for me 'long 'bout dark—your hired man asleepover thar, I'm talkin' 'bout. He said you wouldn't mind—not if youknowed how bad off I was for a snack to eat. I might hev stole it fromye more'n once, but I ain't never stole nothin'—I ain't a thief, Mr.Thayor."
"Why didn't you come to me?" asked Thayor, after a moment's pause. He was strangely moved at the man's story. "I would have helped you, Dinsmore. I have told Holcomb repeatedly I wanted to help you."
"So Billy told me, and so did my father—but I 'most give up bein'helped."
"How long have you been in this misery of yours?"
"A long time," he replied nervously; "a long time. Thar's been daysand nights when I wished I was dead."
"After you killed Bailey?" asked Thayor quietly, meeting the eyes ofthe outcast. The figure beside him began to tremble, clenching hisbony hands in an effort to steady them; then he looked up.
"You know?" he faltered huskily. "You know?" he repeated.
Thayor nodded.
"You know what I done! God knows I had a right to! They say I ain'tfit to live among men."
Again Thayor stared into the fire.
"How they've hounded me," Dinsmore went on, clearing his thin voice asbest he could—a voice unaccustomed to conversation. "The winter's theworst; you ain't never been hounded in winter. You ain't never knowedwhat it is to go hongry and alone. It'll give ye a new idee consarnin'folks. I used to think I knew the woods, but I tell ye I know 'emnow. I've got friends in 'em now," he went on, as if confiding asecret; "sometimes a fox will leave me what he ain't ate—I've known awolverine git a dum sight more human than them that's been huntin'me. Him and me shared the same cave—he got to know me—he was a greatfisher. I got him out of a trap twice—he see I warn't goin' to hurthim."
Thayor sat looking steadily into the hollow, tired eyes like a man ina dream, forgetting even to question him further. Moreover, he knew hewas telling the truth, and that Dinsmore's frankness was proof enoughthat he had much to say to him of importance. Somehow he felt that inhis disconnected narrative he would slowly lead to it. His characterin this respect was much like his father's.
"Winter's the worst," repeated Dinsmore, the effort of speakingalready perceptible in his drawn features—"nights when yer heartseems froze and ye wait for mornin' and the sun to thaw in; the sun'smost as good as food when yer that way. I tried, twice, to git acrossthe line into Canady, but I come back. I hadn't no friends thar, andsomehow these here woods I knowed seemed kinder. Besides, I alwayshad the chance of seein' father and sometimes Billy and Freme; andsometimes—my little gal." He paused, trying to proceed more directlywith the drift of what he wished to say. For some moments his mindseemed vacant. At length he resumed:
"I knowed ye couldn't git clear of them fellers by way of Morrison's.I was layin' hid when I see the fire start; I see some fellers fromwhar I was run across the road; thar was more of 'em sneakin' off backto the camp. They was someways off from me, but I could see 'em plain.I'd hev got to ye then but I dassent run no risk; thar's a reward outon me dead or alive. Bimeby I see ye all cross the brook and I knowedye was safe and that father'd do the best he knowed how fer ye. Whenit come night I begun to travel, hopin' to strike yer tracks, but thefire cut me off and I had to lay hid till the wind shifted. Soon's Isee it was safe to travel I come along huntin' for ye and father. 'Twarn't till I come through the swamp at Bear Pond that I struck yertracks—seen 'em plain then and the way ye was a-goin'. Long 'boutfour o'clock to-day I heared some fellers' voices ahead of me down ina holler. Then I see smoke and knowed they was camped close by. BimebyI crawled out from whar I was hid and clum a tree. I see 'em plainthen—six of 'em; they was eatin' dinner—all of 'em lumber jacks fromthe lower shanty; one was a Frenchy from his talk. Thar warn't none of'em I knowed in perticlar 'cept Eph Edmunds, and he was layin'drunk 'longside the fire. I heared one of 'em say thar warn't no usefollerin' ye further; that ye'd most likely got to the cars. Thenanother feller says, says he, "I tell ye we'vegot to find him; 'twon't do to let him git away—there'll be hell to pay."
Thayor shook his head gloomily.
"What have I done, Dinsmore, that I should be hunted even like you?"he sighed. For some moments the hide-out did not speak. Finally hecontinued:
"I had a reason for what I done," and a strange glitter came into hiseyes. "See here, Mr. Thayor, you're human and maybe you'll understand;I'm goin' to tell ye the truth. I give Bailey all the chance in theworld; I even come to him like a friend and says to him what'smine ain't yours; I ain't never troubled ye nor your woman—we washappy—me and my wife, 'fore he begun to put notions in her head. 'Twarn't long 'fore she begun to think thar warn't nobody like Bailey.He kep' store then close by whar we lived, and he give her mostanythin' she wanted. She called it 'credit'.
"One day Bailey went off to Montreal, where Bergstein had a placefixed up for her. I'd been off trappin' up Big Shanty, and when I comeback home next night she was gone. She didn't come back for most aweek, and when she come I see she was drunk. Bailey come back the nextday. I sot waitin' for him on the store porch. When he see me he comeup to me uglier'n sin. 'Who in hell invitedyou? he says. He weighedtwice as much as me, and I see he was fightin' mad. He leapt like acat to one side of me and 'fore I knowed it he had me down. Them whatwas in the store come out, but thar warn't one of 'em that darst layhands on Bailey. We wrastled some in the road—the dust blinded me.Then he begun to kick me in the mouth and back; I couldn't see for theblood. When I woke up I was to home and I seen she was gone. BimebyI crawled out of bed into the kitchen and I see Ed Sumner settin''longside the stove. 'Bob,' says he, 'he used ye awful, no usetalkin'—he liked to killed ye; I hauled him clear o' ye and carriedye back home. Ye'd better git back into bed,' says he. 'Doc' Rand'llbe here 'fore long; I'll be back in an hour,' says he. 'Fore I knowedit he was gone. That was 'bout three o'clock; the sun was shinin'warm in the kitchen and I sot thar thinkin' and gittin' steadier andmadder. Bimeby I filled the magazine of my Winchester and started tofind Bailey. Thar was more'n a dozen on the store porch when I comeup. When they seen me they slunk back in the store and shut the door.I stood thar waitin' in the road; then I see Bailey come out. 'Hain'tyou got your satisfy?' he says, 'you—' and I see him jerk out arevolver. He was jest steppin' off the porch when my first ball hithim. He give a scream, tumbled in the road and started to git up onhis hands and knees; the second ball broke his neck. Then I walkedinto the store. 'I'm through,' I says, 'but the first man that layshands on me I'll kill same's I killed him.' Thar warn't none of 'emthat spoke or moved. What I needed I took and paid for; a box ofca'tridges, matches and a can of beef. I had a dollar bill and I laidit on the counter and walked out the store and started into the woods.That's the hull of it, Mr. Thayor. 'Sposin it had been your wife, oryour leetle gal. You'd hev done the same's I done, wouldn't ye?"
Thayor breathed heavily.
"Wouldn't ye?" insisted Dinsmore. "He ruined her, body and soul—hestole her, I tell ye; he warn't satisfied with that—he got her todrinkin'. Wouldn't ye a-killed him, Mr. Thayor?"
Thayor's eyes sought the shadows between the pines; for an instanthe did not reply. Suddenly Sperry's face loomed before him and asinstantly vanished, only to appear again as certain excuses hithertoexplainable became for the first time obscure and suggestive. Then thewords of Alice's song rang in his ears and a thrill of joy quiveredthrough him.
Again the hide-out repeated the question.
"Wouldn't ye, Mr. Thayor?"
Thayor turned his head and faced the hide-out.
"Yes," he said slowly, between his clenched teeth; "I would havekilled him too, Mr. Dinsmore."
"And yet they say I ain't fit to live 'mong men," murmured the thinvoice, grown fainter from speaking. "God knows they've made me sufferfor what I done."
"Where is she?" asked Thayor, a certain tenderness creeping into hisvoice.
There was no reply.
"Have you no news of your wife?"
"I dunno; I ain't never laid eyes on her since," he answered wearily."I can't even ask no one; father said he heard she was in Montreal,where Bergstein had some hold on her. I'd have took her back if I'dbeen free. 'T won't never be no use now—I won't never be free, Mr.Thayor."
Again silence fell upon the group; each one was occupied with hisown thoughts. The old man had slouched closer and had settled himselfbeside his son, his hand on the outcast's knee. Thayor's voice brokethe silence.
"Where are these men you ran across, Dinsmore?" he asked abruptly, aring of determination in his voice.
"'Bout eight mile from here, I figger it—in a holler southeast ofAlder Swamp," answered the hide-out, returning to a sense of hissurroundings.
"And you say they were camped?"
"Yes, I see them cut some timber for a lean-to. Like as not theycal'lated to make it a kind of headquarters for a day or so, strikin'off by twos to find ye. That's what I come to tell ye; I didn't wantye to be took. I knowed I'd find ye if I kep' on—I'm more used thanmost of 'em to travellin' in the dark."
"Could you find them again, Dinsmore?"
"Yes, but I'd hev to be twice as keerful. It'd be all up with me ifthey was to see me."
"I will take care of that," replied Thayor briskly.
"What do ye mean?" stammered Dinsmore.
"I mean that you shall take me to them to-morrow."
"But I ain't goin' to let ye risk yer life if I—"
"I mean what I say, Dinsmore. I start at daylight."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Before sunrise the next morning two men were seen by a circling hawkmoving steadily southeast. The man leading stopped now and thento glance carefully about him; in these pauses he studied theground—often a weed trodden down in dew turned their course abruptly.After six miles of this careful back-tracing Dinsmore halted—thistime to listen. Both could now faintly distinguish voices ahead.
"Keep straight on over that thar hemlock ridge," whispered thehide-out; "they're in the holler on t'other side." He held out hishand to Thayor, pointed again in the direction he had indicated, anddisappeared as easily as a partridge.
Sam Thayor went on alone.
* * * * *
It was a day of dreary anxiety to those who awaited his return. Thetrapper blamed himself for having allowed him to go. "It ain't rightfor ye, friend, to risk yer life like this," he had declared. "Themfellers won't stop at nothin' now—I've done my best to git ye clearof 'em and I'll git ye clear and 'board the cars by to-morrow—allof ye, if ye'll let me." To which Thayor, laying his hand on the oldman's shoulder, had replied:
"I refuse to expose any of you. It is a matter that concernsmyself alone. I hardly think they will attempt to molest a single,defenceless man. As for your son, I'll take care that no one seeshim."
As the day wore on and no tidings came from either Thayor or thehide-out, Holcomb's and the Clown's uneasiness became more and moreapparent. The midday meal passed in comparative silence. By noon thesky became overcast and it drizzled intermittently. This told sadlyupon Alice, who went back to her blanket. There she closed her eyes,but sleep was impossible.
Again she reviewed the events not only of this summer but of thewinter preceding it. She thought of Sperry, slowly going over in hermind their days together—all that had happened; all that he haddared to ask her to do. With astonishing clearness she now weighed hisworth. Bit by bit she recalled their last hours together that night onthe veranda. Then the sturdy honesty of men like Holcomb, the trapperand the Clown in contrast with Sperry, and many of her guests at home,rose in her mind. Their kindness to her; their unselfishness, despitethe fact that she had once treated them like a pack of uncouth boors.But for Billy Holcomb she would have burned to death. She knew hisworth now. Sam had been right.
Then her mind dwelt on the close friendship that had grown up betweenMargaret and the young woodsman. Was it friendship, really? Again shethought of Sperry and again her cheeks burned. He had not asked her toseek a divorce and marry him—he had demanded briefly that she leaveall and follow him. With this thought her face paled with anger.Instantly her husband rose clear in her mind; he who, never once inall his life, had asked her, or anyone else, to do a dishonourablething. She wondered at his patience and his pluck, even when sheremembered their many quarrels in which he had lost control ofhimself.
With a low moan she buried her face in her hands as little by littleher mind reverted to her own cruelty; to the days of her dominationover him; to her outbursts of temper: he, a man of strength, with thecourage of his convictions. This he had proved during theirforced march in a hundred different ways—was proving it to-day,magnificently. One ray of comfort shone through it all—that, foolishand vain as she had been, she could still look her husband in theface.
At length she rose shakily, and moving slowly crossed the small spaceabout the fire to where the trapper was chopping firewood for thenight.
"And he is not back yet?" she said to the trapper in a hopeless tone.
"No, marm, not yet," he answered gloomily. "It'll be night 'fore long;thar ain't much daylight left him to travel in."
Alice caught her breath. "But you think he'll come, don't you, Mr.Holt?" "Yes, marm, I do," he answered, laying down his axe. "'T ain'thardly possible he won't; I cal'late they'll both git in 'fore dark.It won't do to borry trouble 'fore it comes. It was my fault, marm—Ishouldn't hev let him go—it warn't right—but he would hev his way."
"And you don't think they're lost?" she ventured timidly.
"Not so long as he stays by my son, marm—no, 't ain't likely they'relost; it warn'tthat I was thinkin' of." He saw the sudden terror inher eyes.
"But you think he will be back, don't you? Oh! you do, Mr. Holt—don'tyou?"
"Yes, marm, I tell ye I do. He had grit 'nough to go, and I cal'latehe'll hev grit 'nough to git back. He seemed to know what he wasdoin'."
She turned away that he might not see her tears. She could hear thedull whack of the old man's axe as she retraced her steps to her placeby the crackling fire.
For another anxious hour she sat shivering before it, then the Clownannounced apologetically that supper was ready. Blakeman handed hera cup of tea, but she did not taste it. Annette put to rights the fewcomforts within the lean-to and re-folded the blankets. Margaret andHolcomb whispered together. All moved as if in the shadow of a greatcalamity.
It was now pitch dark and raining. The camp sat in strained silence.Finally Margaret came over to her mother and whispered something inher ear. A weary smile crossed Alice's lips; then she beckoned toHolcomb, laid her hand on his arm, and looking up into his face saidin a broken voice:
"Youwill look after Margaret, Mr. Holcomb, won't you, if—ifanything has happened?"
"All my life, Mrs. Thayor."
Before she could speak the girl leaned over and hid her face on hermother's shoulder. A light broke over the mother's face; then shefound her voice.
"And it is true, Margaret?" she said, smoothing the girl's cheek. "What will your father say?"
"He knows I love Billy," she whispered, as she threw her arms aroundher mother's neck and burst into tears.
A grave and ominous anxiety now took possession of the camp. Thatsomething must be done, and at once, to find Thayor, had becomeevident as the night began to settle. But no man in the camp lagged.Billy and the trapper were busy tearing long strips of yellow barkfrom a birch tree for torches, while the Clown, who had been hurriedlycutting two forked sticks, stood fitting them with the twistedbark. For some moments the three woodsmen held a low and earnestconversation together, Alice watching them with startled eyes. Shecaught also the figure of the trapper and the old dog standing at thelimit of the firelight waiting for Holcomb, and the flare of the twobark torches that the old man held in his hands.
At that instant the old dog sprang into the darkness beyond thetrapper, barking sharply. Holcomb, followed by Margaret, who had neverleft his side since he had determined to go in search of her father,rushed forward, following the waning light from the torches nowglimmering far ahead as the trapper leaped on after the old dog.
Alice, now left alone with Blakeman and Annette, sat peering into thevoid, her ears open to every sound. Every now and then she would rise,walk to the edge of the firelight, stand listening for a few momentsand sink back again on her seat by the embers.
Suddenly Blakeman rose to his feet, his hand cupped to his ear, hiswhole body tense. His knowledge of the woods had taught him theirunusual sounds. Stepping quickly over the surrounding logs, he movedto the edge of the darkness and listened, then walked quickly into theblackness.
The dim flicker of approaching torches, like will-o'-the-wisps, nowflashed among the giant trees. Alice sprang up, caught the end of thelong overcoat in her fingers and, guided by the sound of Blakeman'sfootsteps, calling to him at every step, dashed on into the darkness.Then she tripped, and with a piercing shriek fell headlong.
A posse of men were approaching. The torches drew nearer andnearer—voices could be heard. She strained her ears—but it was notthat of her husband. Again she staggered to her feet, reeled, andwould have fallen had not Blakeman caught her. He had seen the partyand turned back before he reached them.
"He's all right, madam—there he comes—they are all coming."
Thayor pushed his way ahead. He had heard the scream and recognizedthe voice.
"My God, Blakeman. What's the matter?" He was on his knees beside hernow, her head resting in the hollow of his elbow.
"Madam's only fainted, sir. We got worried at your being gone solong."
Margaret tried to throw herself down beside her mother, but Holcombheld her back.
"No—let your father alone," he whispered—"and let us come away."
The trapper and the others, followed by Holcomb and Margaret, movedtoward the camp, the torches illumining their faces. No one saw thehide-out. He was there—within touching distance, but he moved only inthe shadows.
Alice opened her eyes and clasped both her arms around her husband'sneck.
"Oh, Sam! tell me it is you—and you are safe, and nothing hashappened? Oh! Sam—I have been so wretched!"
"There, dear—compose yourself. It's all right—everything is allright, and we have nothing to fear anywhere. Come, now—let me helpyou to your feet and—"
"No, Sam—not yet—not yet! Please listen—I've been so wicked—sofoolish—Please forgive me—please tell me you love me. Don't let itmake any difference. I can stand everything but that. Sam, we onceloved each other—can't we again? I love you—I do—Ido!"
For an instant he held her from him gazing into her eyes. Therevulsion was so great—the surprise so intense, he could hardlybelieve his senses. Then a great uplift swept through him.
"Hush," he breathed. "Tell me again that you love me. Say it again,Alice. Say it!" The vibrant trembling of her body, close held in hisarms, thrilled him; he could see dimly in the shadow the same oldlook in her eyes—the eyes of the girl he loved. The hour of theirbetrothal seemed to be his once more.
"I don't want to go home, Sam; I never want to see it again," sheswept on. "I want to live here. Will you rebuild Big Shanty for youand me, dearest, and for Margaret and Billy? They love each otherand—"
He folded her in his arms.
"Kiss me again!" she pleaded.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Half supporting her, one arm about his neck, her hands clinging to hisas if she was afraid some unseen power would take him from her, thetwo regained the camp, the blaze of freshly heaped-up logs havinglighted the way.
"Give Dinsmore something hot to drink at once," were Thayor's firstwords on reaching the group. "He's been in water up to his neck. Hadit not been for him we should have had to lie out all night; he seesin the dark like an owl. We've had a hard tramp." He stood steamingbefore the fire as he spoke—drenched to the skin, the others crowdinground him, too happy for the moment to ply him with questions. Hehimself was quivering with an inward joy. Alice's kisses were still onhis lips.
The trapper edged nearer. "And what did them fellers say, Mr. Thayor,when ye found 'em?" he asked. He had asked the question before, butThayor only waved his hand saying he would wait until they reachedcamp so all could hear the story.
"What did they say to me, Hite? They told me for one thing that theyhad done their best to find me, and I guess that was true," and hesmiled grimly. "And now, who do you think was leading them, Billy?"
"Shank Dollard, I guess," returned Holcomb.
"No—Le Boeuf!"
"That Frenchman—and you kept the doctor a week to look after him!"exclaimed Holcomb indignantly.
"Yes. That was the reason he hunted for me."
The men crowded about the speaker, the women drawing closer, the olddog closest of all. Dinsmore, who was seated on a stump just outsidethe firelight, listened eagerly. He had heard the story before, buthe wanted every detail of it again. His father had pulled the drippingcoat from his back when they reached the fire, and he was now wrappedin one of the blankets that Margaret had placed about his thinshoulders.
"Yes—Le Boeuf," continued Thayor. "His arm was still in a sling, buthe and his crowd—there were six of them in all—had done their bestto overtake us before we got to the railroad. He was more afraid of methan I was of him. When I walked in among them he jumped to his feetand came straight toward me. I was alone—with Mr. Dinsmore withinreach but out of sight—and, Hite, they never saw your son—just as Ipromised you—"
"'I hear you men are looking for me,' I said. 'What can I do for you?'They all stood around, their eyes on Le Boeuf, as if they wanted himto speak. A more surprised and frightened lot of men I never saw.
"'Well, we didn't burn de house,' Le Boeuf began. 'We 'fraid you comeand 'rest us. We haf no money to fight reech man like you—we wantwork for you again. We know who burn de house—it not us.'
"'That's all right, Le Boeuf,' I said. 'I know you didn't haveanything to do with the fire or you wouldn't be here. Now go back homeall of you, and if I rebuild Big Shanty I'll send for you to help.Good-bye!' and I turned on my tracks, picked up Mr. Dinsmore where hehad hidden himself and started back. We really have been running awayfrom our shadows—" and Thayor laughed one of his hearty laughs thatshowed how greatly his mind was relieved.
"And what kep' ye so long?" broke in the trapper.
"The fear of running across some of them who would know your son. Yousee we had to go around the lake, and we didn't know which side of itthey would take. The rain, too, made the night settle the earlier.We were almost within sight of the camp here when we saw the torches.Holcomb and Margaret reached us first. I guess you carried her overthe rough places—didn't you, Billy? Well, I don't blame you, myboy." There was a twinkle in his eye when he spoke. He was very happyto-night! "And so you see we have had our scare for nothing."
"And now one thing more before I turn in," he added in his quick,business-like way. "This has been on my mind all day, and as we haveno secrets now that we can't share with each other, I want you all tohear what I am going to say. Will you come closer, Mr. Dinsmore"—itwas marvellous how he never omitted the prefix; "would you mind movingup so that you can listen the better? I am going to do what I can toend your sufferings." The hide-out shambled up and sat in a crouchingposition, the blanket about his shoulders, his hollow eyes fixed onThayor.
"What I want to say to you all is this: I have had several conferenceswith this poor fellow and he has my deepest sympathy. I believe everyword he has told me. What I intend to do now is to find a place forhim among the lumber gangs in the great Northwest. There he willbe safe; there, too, he can earn his living for he knows the woodsthoroughly, but he must get to Canada without a day's delay. I canhandle the matter better there than here. I have some friends inMontreal who can help, and some others farther north—correspondentsof mine."
The head of the hide-out dropped to his breast; then he muttered, halfto himself:
"I dassent—ain't nobody to look arter her but me; 'taint much, butit's all she's got."
Thayor turned quickly. "You mean your little girl? I've thought ofthat; she shall join you whenever you're safe." Then he added ina lower tone—so low that only Dinsmore heard: "Your wife was inMontreal, remember, when you last heard from her, and now thatBergstein's dead she may get free."
The owl-like eyes stared at the slowly dying fire; hot tears trickledover the cavernous sockets and stopped in the unkempt beard. Before hecould answer there came a voice behind him:
"Didn't I tell ye so, son—didn't I tell ye ye could trust him?"
"I hope so, Hite," returned Thayor—"and you heard what I said abouthis getting to Canada, didn't you?"
"Yes, I heard ye, Mr. Thayor." "And are you willing?"
"Yes."
Thayor paused a moment, then he said thoughtfully: "There is only onething that worries me and that is how to get him clear of the woodsand across the line. Somebody must help. The question is now whom canwe trust?"
"That needn't worry ye a mite," answered the old man in a decidedtone. "He's got all the help he wants."
Thayor looked up. "Who?" he asked in some surprise.
"Me and the old dog. We'll git him thar."
THE END
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