Making the Best of It
Quite a wave of excitement spread over the neighbourhood when the news of Pam’s encounter with the lynxes got abroad. Hunting parties were organized, and enthusiastic young men spent nights of watching in the forest. When Nathan Gittins had three sheep mauled the excitement grew to fever heat, everything else was let slide, and the district rose as one man to rid the place of such a serious menace to property.
During these days neither Pam nor Sophy went beyond the few cleared fields surrounding Ripple. Kindly neighbours visited them at intervals of every two or three days to see that they wanted for nothing, bring their mail, and take letters to post for them. The Doctor rode in that direction when he had patients anywhere near, and Don showed a brotherly devotion that set up some private wonders in the mind of Sophy. Of course he had always been kind to her, and better than most brothers; but she argued to herself that his conduct now was not according to nature, and she was shrewd enough to guess that she was not the chief reason of his many journeys across the forest from his father’s house at The Corner. The Doctor lived at The Corner because it was the middle of everything; and although it appeared to be misnamed, it had really been so called because it stood at the angle or corner of the hill, just where the creek went tearing down through a wooded defile to join the river a little below Hunt’s Crossing.
At last the patience and perseverance of the hunters were rewarded, and both of the great cats were killed. The dwellers at the lone farms lived in peace after that, and children were able to go to school again. The snow was thick in the forest now, and it was owing to their footmarks that the wily animals had been tracked to their doom.
The day after the second lynx was killed a party of men, with Don Grierson at their head, arrived at Ripple to bank the sides of the house with snow. Pam enquired in a rather scared fashion of Sophy how much she would be expected to pay for the work, but Sophy assured her that there would be no charge. She might if she liked give them hot coffee all round when the work was finished, but nothing else was either expected or desired.
“Coffee and cakes it shall be, then!” exclaimed Pam, commencing to roll her sleeves above her elbows. “I shall have to make the cakes, though, for we have scarcely any in the house. I can manage it if I make haste.”
“Make soda-biscuit, that is the quickest,” said Sophy. “I will make up the fire for you, and I can bring the things for you and wait upon you. No, they won’t want you to help; it is hardly work for girls, and there are enough of them to do the work comfortably. I see Nathan Gittins is there, but I don’t think Mose Paget is among the lot. I wonder whether he is better yet?”
“Is he ill? I had not heard.” Pam did not pause in her work, she was in too much of a hurry for that; but she looked at Sophy with considerable interest and some anxiety. She was remembering that she owed her life twice over to the ragged, down-at-heel Mose Paget, who had the reputation of being the very laziest man in the township.
“Mrs. Buckle told me that he was bad; that was when she was here the day before yesterday. But of course she is such a kindly old soul that she would say he was ill, even if it was only a lazy fit that was keeping him from work.”
There was the sound of a crash outside at this minute, and Pam cried out in alarm. But Sophy, who ran out to see what was the matter, came back to say that it was nothing of great importance, only Don, who had been on a ladder banking the snow, had taken a header into the drift he was helping to pile higher. He was cut rather badly on the cheek, for he had fallen on a shovel, and he came in to have his wound washed and bandaged. Sophy cried out in dismay then, and she turned so white that it was Pam who left her cake-making and ran to offer first aid.
“No, the sight of a cut does not frighten me very much,” she laughed, as she dabbed the cut with a handkerchief dipped in warm water. “I have three brothers, you see, so I have served an apprenticeship in looking after cuts and hurts of all sorts.”
“It is a great pity that Mose Paget did not let you look after his hurts a bit that time when the lynx clawed him.” Don winced as her hand came down rather heavily on the wound, but she was too startled by what he had said to notice that she had hurt him.
“Is Mose ill from his wounds, and is your father looking after him?” Her eyes were anxious now, for she was in a measure responsible, or that was how she felt.
“Mose has gone off to Fredericton, and he was going from there to St. John, so Reggie Furness said this morning. Reggie is half-brother to Mose, you know—a poor half-starved kid, who does chores for Miss Gittins to earn his food. He told me this morning that Mose was real bad from his hurts, and I guessed it was largely his own fault for not keeping them clean.”
“We ought to have made him get them washed!” cried Pam in acute distress. “He was so careful to clean the wounds of the dog, but he would not hear of our doing anything for himself.”
“It was downright pig-headedness on his part; but he is like that, and it is of no use to worry about it,” said Don, trying to put the best face on the matter that he could.
Later on, when all the men came in and were gathered about the stove, drinking coffee and eating the soda-biscuits hot from the oven, the talk turned again to Mose Paget, and what his step-brother had said of his condition.
“It would not be so serious if he had been better nourished and a cleaner living man,” said Nathan Gittins, his voice sounding mumbled by reason of his mouth being full of soda-biscuit. “But a whisky-drinking, half-starved chap like that hasn’t a chance when it comes to a case of blood-poisoning.”
“It is all my fault!” Pam’s voice was full of self-reproach. “I ought to have insisted on his taking proper care. He saved my life twice on that dreadful day, and I just let him alone when I might have looked after him.”
“I should rather like to see the person who could make Mose Paget do anything he did not want to do!” exclaimed Nathan with a great laugh, which was promptly echoed by the other men. Then they proceeded to tell Pam stories about the doings of Mose Paget, whose father had been a mighty hunter, and had lost his life in an encounter with a bear.
“Mose has got courage of a sort,” said one man, between bites of hot biscuit. “To me he always seems a good sort spoiled in the making. There is what would have made a decent man, only so much laziness and drunkenness is down underneath that it keeps coming up and spoiling everything, don’t you see.”
The other men nodded in perfect accord with this pronouncement; then the talk veered to other things—the latest news from Europe, the chances of an extra severe winter, and the possibilities of grain-farming out west. But Pam, darting to and fro waiting on these guests of hers who had come to help her that day, kept repeating to herself that Mose had twice saved her life in one day, and so deserved her warmest gratitude.
She went out later to see the effect of the snow-banking, and cried out in dismay at the unsightly appearance of the house, which looked more like a cutting by the side of a dug-out railway than anything.
“It is so dirty to look at!” she complained in confidence to Sophy, who had followed her out.
“It will be all right next time it snows,” Sophy answered. “It is the treading on it and the shovelling that make it look dirty. The frost will not get in so easily, and a banked-up house is so much warmer than one that is not banked. I think we ought to sleep downstairs at night now, because of the stove. If you do not like to use your grandfather’s room, we might put a bed in the best sitting-room.”
“We might use his room, then it would be aired if he should come back suddenly,” Pam replied, then immediately thought how disastrous it would be for him to come back with the responsibility of Sam Buckle’s death hanging over him.
Sophy made no answer. She had tact and sympathy, and was too fond of Pam to say or do anything which might add to the burden of her endurance.
There was a slow monotony about the days now, and the nights were so long that some mornings it seemed as if the day would never dawn. The outside work was very little now, for, acting on the advice of Nathan Gittins, Pam had sold the sheep when the first snow came. It was not wise to keep sheep through the winter in this forest district. If the weather was very severe the wolves always gathered in bands, and a sheepfold, however well protected, would offer no serious obstacles to them. The pigs were also reduced in number, those that were left having comfortable quarters at the end of the barn. The cow was in the barn for a permanency during this bad weather, and the rooster with half a dozen hens spent languid days in picking up crumbs at the door of the house, or standing idly on one leg in the sunshine when there was any.
The money from the sale of the pigs had been lodged with the storekeeper at The Corner. That was Sophy’s wisdom. The storekeeper had two prices for everything, one rather high for the people who wanted credit, the other very reasonable indeed for the people who were able to lodge money with him at the beginning of the winter. The difference would mean the saving of many dollars at the end of the winter. As she was there to guard the interests of her grandfather, Pam felt justified in spending so much of his money on necessaries. The money she was to receive for the twenty acres of lumber would be banked for her grandfather’s use should he come back to need it. Mrs. Buckle would not take back the twenty dollars she had lent to Pam to meet the needs of the old man if he should return, and that money was kept in the house to be handy if required.
Pam spent laborious hours in the barn, sawing wood to keep the stoves going. Never had she realized what a lot of wood one stove could consume in twelve or fifteen hours, and when it became necessary to have a fire at night also, wood-cutting bade fair to become her sole occupation. But it was fine, healthy work, and it sent her to bed so tired that she slept without dreams until morning, and that was surely worth while, considering the unprotected condition of herself and Sophy.
It had been snowing for two days without stopping—not a raging blizzard, but a steady downfall, which had piled a thick layer of the most dazzling white all over the banked-up house, and had weighed down the forest trees until the air was filled with the creaking, groaning, and snapping of straining branches.
“Will anyone ever come near us again, do you expect? And were you ever shut up in such a fashion before?” demanded Pam, as they sat down to breakfast on the third morning of their isolation.
“I have had it worse that this,” Sophy answered. She was looking radiantly content this morning. It was mail-day, and there would probably be a letter for her from George Lester, who was serving in the Mounted Police out in the wild Skeena country.
“Worse?” Pam’s eyebrows went up. To her it did not seem possible that there could be anything worse than this white imprisonment, walled in on every side, and with the silent but persistent fall of snow.
Sophy laughed, and nodded. “Two years ago I had to go over and keep house for Aunt Marion while she went to Europe. She lives ever so far from here, right away in the beech wood district beyond Selkirk. Her husband, Uncle Horace, had to go to the town for stores. It came on to snow as it has been doing these last two days, and he could not get back, and I was alone with Leo and Winnie, the two children. Leo was ten, and Winnie six. The worst of it was, our stores were nearly out. We had so little kerosene that we had to creep to bed when it got dark, and stay there until daylight came again. We had no sugar, the flour was almost out, and it was nearly a week before anyone could get through to help us.”
“What did you do?” gasped Pam.
“Oh, the best we could. We told each other things. I taught the children how to spell, and we recited the multiplication table every day. Their father said their education had taken great strides by the time he came home. It was just a question of making the best of it, and not worrying. Of course, it was horrid being short of provisions, but we had potatoes, a pail of lard, and some bacon, so we might have been worse off.”
“Sophy, you are one of the world’s splendid women, and I am just proud to know you!” Pam sprang up from her seat as she spoke, and swept Sophy a low bow. They were both laughing over her exaggerated deference when Don came gliding out from the forest on snow-shoes, and they rushed to the door to give him a welcome.
“I tried to get here last night, but the strap of my shoe broke, and as I sank in over my knees, I knew that it was not safe to try.” Don was modestly apologetic, but Sophy cried out in horror that he should have even thought of risking his life in such a fashion.
“Father was out,” said Don. “He was called to a woman who was very ill on the other side of the Ridge. He did not get home until dawn this morning, and then Nathan Gittins came for him to go over to their place and have a look at that boy, Reggie Furness. Nearly starved the poor kid has been, I should fancy, since Mose Paget has been away. He has been living on in their shack alone—‘doing for himself’ he called it; ‘doing without’ would be a better way of expressing it, I fancy. He fainted whilst he was doing chores at Gittins’ place yesterday, and Galena put him to bed there. He didn’t get better as she hoped, and was off his head a good bit in the night, and she was so scared about him that she sent Nathan to get Father first thing this morning.”
“When is Mose coming back?” asked Sophy, who was making fresh coffee for her brother, whilst Pam fried bacon at the stove.
“When he is better, I suppose,” replied Don. “He has had a near squeak for his life, I should fancy, and it will take him a little while to get over it. Reggie will be all right now he is with the Gittins, and Galena will not let him go until Mose comes home. She is real kind-hearted, only I always find that a little of her goes a long way; but she means all right, and that is the chief thing. Here is your letter, sis, and such a fat one! An industrious fellow is George, though it beats me what he can find to say!”
Sophy took the letter with a look of positive rapture on her face, and retired to the bedroom, where the fire was not yet out, to read it in peace. This was just what Don wanted, and had counted upon. He liked to talk to Pam best when no one else was by. But this morning she was abstracted and rather dull, a wonderful thing for her. Don thought perhaps it was because there were no letters for her, and he hastened to cheer her by saying he did not believe the English mail was in, for they had said at the post office that no European letters had been received.
“I was not thinking of letters,” replied Pam, and her smile was rather wan. “Mother may not write this mail—she has not much time, you know. Indeed, I always used to write her letters for her, and I think she must miss me so dreadfully at the business, for she always hated writing. I am feeling so bad about that poor Reggie Furness. I have never seen him, but I am constantly hearing about him, and in a way I am responsible for his having been left in such a plight. If I had only insisted on cleansing his brother’s wounds, they would not have done so badly, and then the poor boy would not have been left to such hardship.”
“Why not go a bit farther back when you are at it?” said Don impatiently. “If Mose had only been a clean-living fellow, he might not have been so susceptible to blood-poisoning. If only he had had a pleasanter manner he would have accepted your offer of water and washed his hurts himself. Oh, I have no patience with all the sentimental sympathy that is wasted on that miserable pair!”
“All the same, you need not allow it to colour all your behaviour when you appear in polite society,” remarked Pam demurely, whereat Don glared at her in downright anger for a moment. Then they both burst out laughing, and the air cleared at once. He offered to teach her to walk on snow-shoes, and Pam, delighted at the prospect of getting out of doors, ran to wrap up warmly.
Sophy came too, and for the next two hours there was riotous fun on the open space before the house. The snow was so soft that every spill meant floundering in billowy clouds of white dust. Pam went down so many times that at the end of the lesson she declared herself tired out. But she had learned to stand erect, to pass one foot before the other, and then to poise herself properly for the next step, so that she was fairly well over the worst drudgery of learning to walk on snow-shoes.
“The snow will pack in a few days, then you will get on fine!” said Don, who was proud of his pupil.
“Pack? Do you mean that it will go away?” she asked with a bewildered air.
“It won’t go away under normal conditions before March or April. By packing, we mean settling down in a close and firm mass. After a few weeks it gets so hard anyone can walk on it without sinking in, even if he has no snow-shoes. That is when life begins to get worth living in these parts. We have parties nearly every night, and we contrive to see more of each other than can be managed in all the rest of the year.” Don found himself growing almost eloquent under the spell of Pam’s interested face, and he launched into a vigorous account of the pleasures of winter parties that lasted until he had to go.
“Your brother must think that I am made of queer stuff if he imagines that I am going here and there enjoying myself this winter,” said Pam, when Don had gone and the two girls were busy in the house again.
“I do not see that there is anything to prevent you from going round and seeing folks when you have the chance,” Sophy answered, looking a little surprised, for she knew what a social person Pam was, and she could not understand the reason of her proposed abstinence from party-going.
“Do you think that people would care to have me at their parties when they all know that my grandfather will have to stand his trial for something that is next door to murder when he is found?” Pam’s tone was very bitter. She had been musing a great deal during these days of isolation, and the result was that deep down in her heart she was getting absolutely scared at the thought of going about and seeing people. Going to church at The Corner, once a fortnight, was bad enough, but then it was possible to sit at the back and to leave early. Church-going could not be called social intercourse either, and the less she had to do with her neighbours while she was under a cloud the better.
But Sophy only laughed, and putting her hands on Pam’s shoulders gave her a gentle shake.
“As if anyone thought the worse of you for a thing you cannot help! Besides, we all want to make much of you for the dear, plucky way in which you have tackled a difficult situation. You will have to find a better excuse than that if you want to be unsociable!”
Someone’s Desperate Plight
The weeks of winter wore on, and Christmas passed in quite a whirl of hard work and social activities. There were packing bees, when everyone worked with perspiring energy at packing apples in boxes and barrels for sending to the cities. Pam liked that work; the apples reminded her of summer, and they linked her up with warmth and sunshine. There were also bees for making lard, but they were not so interesting. The fat portions of several pigs were cut into small squares, and boiled down in great pans, then strained. It was greasy, horrid work, but, like other unpleasant tasks, it was very necessary, and, as no one else seemed to mind the grease, Pam decided that it was of no use for her to make a fuss about it either.
Christmas brought the most acute home-sickness for Pam, who had never before been away from her family at the great festival. They wanted her rather badly, too, which fact did but add to her pain. Greg was ill with rheumatic fever—very ill, her mother wrote. Pam knew that the doctor’s bill for Muriel’s illness was not all paid off yet, so it was ghastly to think of another being piled on to it. Mrs. Walsh was in great trouble about Pam, and she wrote that as soon as Greg was able to leave his bed Jack would travel to New Brunswick to help her. It was this last piece of information that gave Pam the courage to wear a smiling face, and to hold her own at the gatherings with which the forest-dwellers beguiled the winter nights.
It had been difficult to travel the forest ways after dark in the summer-time and in the fall. Now, with snow on the ground and the trees bare of leaves, it made little difference, while the moonlight nights were almost as light as the days. Don Grierson had a sleigh with fur robes made from the skins of animals he had shot himself—quite a luxurious vehicle—and he would come driving along after dark to take Sophy and Pam out to the various gatherings. The dog would be left to guard the house, and the two went away feeling certain that all would be right until they came back again.
The new year came in with raging storms, and these were followed at the middle of the month by still colder weather, such cold as Pam had never even dreamed of before. Then people began to talk of having heard wolves howling round the lone farms at night. The children were not allowed to go to school alone, and men traversing the forest after dark carried fire-arms.
Even Pam carried an ancient but useful fowling-piece when she walked the forest ways. She had learned to shoot, and she could manage to hit the thing she aimed at. One day she contrived to shoot a hare, and although she cried over it all the way home, she had to admit that it was uncommonly good eating, and made a most agreeable change in their usual food. Besides, as Sophy pointed out, the creature would probably have fallen a victim to a wolf or a fox, or it might have perished miserably of starvation.
“I will take the next hare I shoot to Mrs. Buckle; she is not very well, Amanda told me.” Pam rose from her seat at table with largely increased courage and determination; if there was a worse fate for hares than being shot she might as well kill a few and help her neighbour.
“You had better go soon, it gets dark so early. I can do these dishes; in fact, I shall be glad to move about a little, for I am nearly frozen with sitting still.” Sophy shivered, for the day though bright was intensely cold.
“I will be off at once, then.” Pam was wriggling into her coat with all speed. “If I get anything I shall go straight to Mrs. Buckle before coming back. Have you any message for her?”
“You can tell her that I have nearly finished mending those sheets, and when they are done I will start at Amanda’s frock right away.” Sophy was darting to and fro as she talked, intent on getting the noonday meal cleared and the dishes washed, but she came out of the door to watch Pam start, and to beg her to be careful with the gun, which had an uncomfortable trick of kicking in unaccustomed hands.
Pam secured her hare without much trouble, and walking briskly across the cleared fields and over the boundary line, where the broken fence would never be repaired again, she walked in upon Mrs. Buckle and bestowed the hare which had fallen to her gun. She delivered the message also, and then turned back towards Ripple, quickening her steps a little, for it was later than she had intended to be, and there were the “chores” waiting to be done before dark.
She had almost reached the fence again when she saw a man moving towards her along the trail; and her heart gave a great bound as she recognized the slouching figure of Mose Paget. She had not seen him since the day when he saved her life twice over, and now, seeing that he looked as if he were going to avoid her by turning into a cross-trail, she shouted to him to stop, and then ran to catch him up.
“Are you better?” she asked a trifle breathlessly. She was annoyed at the man’s rudeness in turning away when she wanted to speak to him, but that was just as he always treated people, Sophy had told her, and there was nothing to be done save to ignore his rudeness as much as possible.
“Yes, thank you, Miss,” he replied, and then his hand went with a grudging motion towards his cap, and he lingered awkwardly as if waiting to see if she had any more to say to him.
“I was so very sorry to hear that you had been ill from the wounds you got when you came to my help that day.” Pam’s colour was coming and going; she felt that the man did not want to talk to her, and yet she positively had to do something to let him know she was not ungrateful.
He shifted from one foot to the other in an uneasy manner.
“It ain’t nothing to worry about, Miss,” he said. “The Doctor told me straight that I had only myself to thank for being so bad, and I suppose he ought to know if anyone did. He was honest about it, too, and said just what he thought. It would not have been much loss to anyone if I had gone under, but I pulled through, as you see.”
“It would have been a very lasting regret to me,” said Pam with crushing dignity. Then, because she did not know what to say, she asked if Reggie were better, although Mrs. Buckle had told her only half an hour ago that the boy was doing his work as usual.
“He is quite well again now, thank you, Miss,” said Mose. He moved as if to go on, hesitated, stopped, then lowering his voice to a cautious undertone, although probably there was no one within half a mile of them, he said, “Do you know that the old man has been seen?”
“Grandfather, do you mean?” cried Pam, and the colour ebbed out of her face, leaving her cheeks like ashes.
Mose Paget nodded, gave her a swift but furtive glance, and then his gaze dropped to the ground.
“Where?” she cried. Her tone was imperious now; the man seemed so unwilling to speak, but know she must.
“I ran up against a fellow in St. John who knew him. He said that he had seen the old man at work in a lumber camp away in a back creek of the Miramichi River.”
“Was the man quite sure?” Pam forced the question from her parched lips, while her heart beat with sledge-hammer force.
“I don’t see how he could have been mistaken,” replied Mose. “The fellow knew Wrack as well as I do. He said the old man did not seem to want to be talked to, which was natural under the circumstances. You need not look so scared, Miss; the man wouldn’t give him away to the police—we none of us would do that. I shouldn’t have told you, only I thought you would be glad to know the poor old man was alive.”
Pam nodded, for she could not speak. She felt nearly choked, and a dreadful doubt had crept into her mind as to whether she was glad that her grandfather was alive. She had sought tirelessly for his dead body, and if she had found it she would have grieved for him, cut off untimely, as it seemed to her. In such a case there would have been an end of her fear; but now she would know no peace. She would always be fearing that the police would find him, and that he would have to stand his trial for being the cause of Sam Buckle’s death.
“We would not betray him to the police,” said Mose again in a tone more emphatic than before. “It is his turn to-day, it might be ours to-morrow, and I take it that we should do as we would be done by. Good day, Miss!”
Lifting his cap he turned away abruptly and walked off, and Pam stood staring after him with fearful dismay in her heart. To be linked even in seeming with a man of this sort was dreadful. He would not betray her grandfather to the police, because he might be in fear of being betrayed himself another day. Her grandfather would be regarded as a “pal” by this down-at-heels tramp. Oh, it was hateful! She stood with clenched hands, staring at the trail by which the man had disappeared, until warned by the cold that it was not wise to linger. As she went her way home she debated with herself as to whether she would tell Sophy, but she shrank in her hurt pride from the humiliation of such a confession, and so decided that for the present she would keep the knowledge to herself.
Reaching Ripple, she had to hurry over the evening “chores”, for she had lingered longer with Mrs. Buckle than she should have done, and the meeting with Mose on the way home had, of course, made her later still. She looked so white and pinched when she came indoors to supper that Sophy cried out in dismay at her appearance, thinking she must be ill.
“I am tired, that is all. We will go to bed early to-night,” Pam answered, and strove to hide her aching heart under a brave show of good spirits, until she could lie down and shut her eyes on her misery.
Sophy nodded, and said no more. She supposed that Pam was home-sick; she understood the symptoms now, and never bothered or fussed when the attack was extra severe. Pam’s conscience was a bit troubled about the deception, for it was like defrauding Sophy of what it was her right to know, to hide this news of the old man having been seen and recognized; but she could not bring herself to talk of it.
They were getting to bed in the room which had been Wrack Peveril’s when they were startled by a hideous howling all round the house.
“What is it?” asked Pam, her eyes wide with alarm. The dog was raging and tearing round the kitchen, and barking fit to burst itself.
“Wolves!” murmured Sophy, and she looked so badly scared that Pam rallied her own courage, and began to make fun of her.
“Suppose there are wolves outside, they cannot get inside, so what does it matter? Of course, the poor dear old dog may have nervous breakdown from too much barking, but otherwise I can’t see that we are to be much the worse.”
“The noise is so weird. A wolf’s howl always does get on my nerves,” faltered Sophy, who was white and trembling from fright.
Pam, who had been undressing, now began to put on her garments again with quick, determined fingers.
“What are you going to do?” cried Sophy in dismay. “You are surely, surely not going out of doors? Why, Pam, it would not be safe!”
“It would be rather silly to go out, seeing that there is nothing to be gained by it,” said Pam. “I am not going out, but I am going upstairs to see if I can get a shot at the creatures. Your brother cleaned that rifle of Grandfather’s last week, and I might be able to kill one of those singing beasties yonder; and just think how well it would sound in one of my letters home!”
Sophy shivered, but uttered no further protest. At the worst Pam would only catch a cold, and if she stopped the howling by scaring the wolves away, she would have accomplished something well worth doing. She heard Pam go upstairs, heard her tramping to and fro on the bare floors; there was silence for a little, then came another burst of wolf music. A shot rang out, and shortly after Pam came down, saying that she believed she had driven the wolves away. The two went to bed then, sleeping without disturbance until morning.
A brilliant day it was, with blazing sun and sparkling frost. The Doctor drove up soon after breakfast, and for a wonder he had Mrs. Grierson with him. They wanted to know if Pam and Sophy would like to go to a lard-making bee at Hunt’s Crossing that night. Mindful of the howling of the wolves last night, both Pam and Sophy declared that they would rather be at home, so Mrs. Grierson was given a message for Don, telling him not to come, as they had no fancy for lard-making just then.
The Doctor said a quiet word to Pam as he was going away.
“Have you heard the rumour there is going round just now that your grandfather has been seen at work in a lumber camp on the Miramichi?”
“Yes, Mose Paget told me yesterday,” faltered Pam; and then she added in an outburst of candour: “But I feel so bad about it. Why has he never sent to see how it fares with his home? Why has he never come back for the money he left behind? It was not much, but every little helps when a man has to earn his daily bread. I have thought about it and thought about it until I begin to wonder whether the person might not be mistaken, and if the man he saw was not Grandfather at all.”
Dr. Grierson nodded thoughtfully.
“That was just my impression,” he agreed. “Still, seeing that the fellow had nothing to gain by setting the story afloat, there seems no reason beyond actual fact why he should have done so. There is nothing to be done that I can see, except to await developments. If it is not true, it is still very bothering that the rumour should have been started, because it puts the assumption of the old man’s death farther away. I mean that supposing he is not heard of again, you will have to take the date at which this man says he saw him at the lumber camp as the last time he was seen alive. That is three months later, don’t you see?”
Pam did see, and the seeing brought no comfort with it. She could not tell the Doctor that she was deadly ashamed of being related to her own grandfather; she could not explain that the disgrace and humiliation that had come to her were almost too hard to be borne.
For the remainder of the day she chopped and sawed wood with great vigour, working off the depression which threatened to break her down. She had a sick longing for someone of her own to turn to, her mother or Jack. As a matter of fact, she had never been in the habit of leaning on her mother, and Jack was mostly sitting in judgment upon her, so that the two had not been greatly in sympathy in those old days, which in retrospect looked so sheltered and so dear. Not a word had she said to Sophy as yet about her grandfather having been seen, and she did not believe that the Doctor had spoken of it either. By and by she would tell Sophy—indeed, it would be necessary for her to be warned, as the old man might come home when he thought the search for him had died down somewhat.
Very silent and absorbed was Pam that evening, and Sophy, thinking that she was tired, suggested that they should go to bed early. There was no probability of visitors to-night, everyone would be gone to the lard-making frolic at Hunt’s Crossing. There was no reason at all why they should sit up if they would be more comfortable in bed. When Sophy proposed it Pam rose and stretched her arms above her head, declaring that there was nothing that she would like better.
It was at that moment that the howl of a wolf sounded somewhere near the house, and Pam’s sleepiness vanished as if it had never been.
“Those wretched creatures round the place again?” she cried. “The uncanny beasts! I thought I had given them something to remember me by last night. We won’t go to bed yet awhile, for I want to see if I can’t bag one. If they come as close to the place as they did last night I ought to be able to manage it.”
“You will get so cold!” objected Sophy.
“I will put my thick coat on. Honestly, I can’t stand that noise, and I am going to end it somehow or know the reason why. Your mother said it was the smell of the pigs that attracted them. But we cannot afford to get rid of our pigs, so the only thing is to show the wolves that this is not a healthy neighbourhood.”
Taking the gun, Pam went upstairs into the cold, unused bedrooms. Putting her lamp on the table of the chamber in which she had slept on first coming to Ripple, she passed into the next room, and, shutting the door behind her, groped her way across the floor until she reached the window. Softly opening the casement she peered out into the night. It was most intensely cold. There was no moon, but the stars shone with a hard brilliance, and the soft radiance of the snow made even distant objects visible. Soon a long-drawn howl broke the stillness, and this was promptly answered by another and yet another. The wolves seemed to be all round the place, but Pam realized that they were by no means close, and she was just going to draw in her head because of the stinging quality of the cold when she caught sight of a figure gliding in and out among the trees, which on that side grew quite close to the house.
Her heart beat violently. Who was it that lurked yonder among the trees instead of openly approaching the house? Was it her grandfather, who, pressed by his necessities, had found his way back to his home? Her sense of disgrace slipped from her as if it had never been. If her grandfather was out there among the trees, then she must do her best to induce him to come in and be sheltered from the cold. He would be quite safe for that one night at least. He might even lie hidden for days in that lone place without any outsider being the wiser.
“Grandfather!” she called. “Grandfather, is it you? Come to the door, and I will run downstairs and let you in. It is quite safe.”
There was no answer to this, only to her straining eyes it seemed that the figure gliding in and out among the trees waved to her, then sank farther back into the shadows, becoming an indistinguishable blur in the gloom.
“Grandfather, don’t be afraid, you will be quite safe!” she called again, and not waiting this time to get an answer she shut the window, and, groping her way to the door of the next room, picked up the lamp and hurried down the stairs.
Sophy met her at the bottom wearing an anxious look.
“Pam, what is the matter? I heard your voice and I came to see if you wanted me.”
“It is Grandfather out there in the cold, and I am trying to get him inside. Think of it, Sophy, an old man like that and wandering without shelter on such a night!”
“Your grandfather?” cried Sophy in amazement. “Pam, are you sure? Just think, it is months ago since he was heard of, and we have thought him dead.”
Pam groaned. If only she had told Sophy when she had heard the rumour! It was so senseless to keep a thing like that to herself.
“He is not dead, he has been seen; the knowledge is all over the place, but I was ashamed and silly and I would not tell you. Please forgive me, dear, and help me all you can.” Pam was fumbling with the fastening of the door as she spoke. She was so clumsy in her anxiety and distress that she could not get it unfastened, and Sophy came to her help.
“Pam, you should have told me. I cannot help you if I do not know,” she said in her quiet way, and that was all the reproach that Pam ever heard from her. A heaven-sent friend for such a time of trouble!
The door was open at last, and Pam stood on the threshold peering out at the night. The lamp which Sophy was holding in the background threw a shaft of light that sharply outlined her figure, making its anxious pose as plain as spoken words.
“Grandfather, where are you?” Breathlessly Pam waited for the answer to her call. But none came, only presently the howl of a wolf sounded much nearer than before. This was answered from another direction. Then all was silent again. The two girls stood on the threshold, the keen cold wrapping them round. Then suddenly Pam remembered that Sophy had only her indoor garments on and might take a severe chill. “Go, dear, put a coat on and a muffler; cover your head up or you will have bad toothache to-morrow,” she said urgently; adding, as if by an afterthought: “I am going over to those trees yonder to see if I can find the poor old man and bring him into the house.”
“No, you do not, unless I come too,” burst out Sophy, with an explosive vigour that showed how dead in earnest she was. “If you will not wait until I can get a cloak I will come just as I am.”
“I will wait, only make haste.” Pam jerked the words out, for she was feeling nearly desperate. She did not dare let the dog out, although the creature was raging to and fro in the inner room. She was afraid that it would go in pursuit of the wolves and be torn to pieces by them.
What a long time Sophy was! Pam felt that she could not wait another minute, especially as a long-drawn howl close at hand told her that the unpleasant beasts were getting much nearer to the house. Then Sophy came out of the inner room wrapped to the eyes, and holding the dog by her handkerchief slipped through its collar.
“Don’t let it loose, we shall never get it back again to-night,” said Pam, and then she stepped out on to the snow, closely followed by Sophy and the dog, which strained and whimpered in its efforts to get free.
“Grandfather, it is I, Pam Walsh! There is nothing to fear; you can come into the house, at least for to-night!” Pam sent her voice out in a reassuring shout which must have carried far in that lone place. But there was no reply, although they lingered long, standing in the shadow of the trees and hearing the howling of the wolves in the distance.
“What is that?” whispered Sophy sharply, and Pam’s heart gave a sudden leap of dread. It was a faint cry for help that had reached their ears, and at the sound the dog struggled to be free, tugging and tugging at the lead just as if it understood.
“Come along, he is over there. I expect he has fallen and has hurt himself,” cried Pam, dashing across the snow at a great rate, followed by Sophy and the dog.
“Help! Help!” The cry was louder and more urgent now. The person in trouble had a wavering, cracked voice like an old man’s, and there was not a shadow of doubt in the mind of either girl that it was Wrack Peveril who was calling for help. Why he should have been so close to the place and then have gone away again puzzled Pam, but she put it down to his natural fear of a police trap and his ignorance of what kind of girl his granddaughter really was. They went on and on, answering the call, searching and searching, yet never finding what they looked for. Then suddenly they had an awful scare, for there came a scurrying rush of feet, and an animal of some kind bounded past them, followed by some four or five wolves in full cry. Pam lifted her rifle and fired wildly, as there was no time to take aim, and at that moment the dog wrenched itself free from Sophy’s grasp and tore away in mad pursuit.
“What was it, oh, what was it?” cried Pam.
“A young moose, I expect,” answered Sophy. Then she took hold of Pam, saying urgently: “Come home, dear, we can do no good here!”