Searching
Days passed. The police came and went. Indeed, they might be said to haunt Ripple at this time. The dog grew so used to strange faces and visitors at all hours that it took no notice of them at all. It was tired, too. Morning, noon, and night Pam was searching for some trace of the old man whom she had come so far to live with, and yet had never seen; and where she went the dog went too. It was a dead body she was looking for now, and she had tramped the fields until she knew the land literally foot by foot. Then she penetrated into the forest, going very warily at first, for she had all a city girl’s dread of the unknown, and who could tell what terrors might lurk unseen beneath the brambles and the undergrowth?
She did not find anything. Sometimes the dog would stop suddenly, and lifting its head, would howl in a manner calculated to make the warm blood in her veins turn cold, for she believed herself on the brink of a find; but always there was nothing.
While Pam was away searching, Sophy sat in the house and sewed. She was to be married in the spring, as her father had said, and she had her own ideas as to the amount of plenishing it was proper to take with her to her husband. At home she was harassed and hurried between her duty and her inclination. Here there was no duty to harass her, and she felt as if she was having the best holiday she had known for years. Every morning after the “chores” were done she and Pam cleaned a room; when that was finished, Sophy sat down to her sewing, and Pam started out to search. The house was beginning to look different already, and it had lost the odour of exceeding fustiness which had struck them both on the night of the surprise party.
Then the inevitable happened, and Pam lost her way in the forest one day. She walked on and on, realizing that she was getting more hopelessly bewildered every minute. Suddenly she remembered the dog, and catching the creature round the neck, she told it all about her difficulty, winding up by telling it in the most forcible language she possessed to take her home.
“Woof! woof! woo-o-o-h!” The dog flung up its head and howled in such a fearfully dismal fashion that Pam gave an involuntary cry.
“You must not make such an awful row, I simply cannot bear it!” she exclaimed, seizing the creature round the neck and giving it a great hug. “We are in trouble, both of us, but you must learn to keep yours to yourself a bit, my friend; this sort of thing is past bearing. Now, take me home, dear, and make haste about it, or Sophy will certainly have a fit.”
The animal gave a short bark as if perfectly understanding what was required of it, then started off along a cross-trail, going at a businesslike trot, but looking round every few minutes as if to make sure that Pam was following all right. The trail turned suddenly through a belt of beechwood thick with foliage into a bare and desolate region, which made Pam cry out in amazement. As far as she could see the forest had been burned. Even the ground appeared to have been charred, and there was hardly a vestige of green to be seen anywhere. The mighty trunks had been the sport of the winter tempests since being ravaged by fire, and here and there they were blown into heaps of gigantic confusion. They lay in piles, or were bunched together in groups, while heaps of cinders and charred fragments lay in all directions. The dog went steadily on through this desolate region, and Pam saw that the creature was following a well-defined trail. She was beginning to wonder where she would find herself by and by, when her guide turned short round into the living forest once more, the trail grew broader and broader, and suddenly she was in a little clearing where there was a long, low, brown house in front of her, and just beyond the shimmering waters of the creek.
“Oh, how pretty!” she murmured to herself, for the autumn sunshine fell full on the water, while a little wind was ruffling the surface, making it catch a thousand sparkles that seemed to light the woodland and the strip of brown field through which it ran.
An elderly woman came to the door of the house, and seeing Pam and the dog, beckoned her to come nearer. Pam went at once, needing no second invitation, for she was very anxious to know where she was, and how long it would take her to reach home again. But the dog was growling and growling, while a ridge of hair bristled erect along its spine.
“There, there, mend your manners, can’t you? Don’t you see that the lady is a friend?” cried Pam, catching at the old strap which the dog wore round its neck by way of a collar, for she was afraid that it was going to fly at the woman who was smiling in such friendly welcome.
“Now, say, ain’t that Wrack Peveril’s dog? And I do believe you must be his granddaughter! My dear, I do take it kind that you should have come to see me so soon. Come in, come in, and don’t take no notice of the dog growling. Because men fall out is no reason why women should be at enmity, and it is glad I am to see you, my dear!”
Pam suddenly began to tremble, tried to speak and could not, then, giving herself a shake, gasped out, “Are you Mrs. Buckle?”
“Why, yes, my dear, of course. Didn’t you know, and hadn’t you come to see me?” There was so much disappointment in the woman’s face and manner that Pam hastened to soothe her.
“I would have come before if I had had the faintest idea that you would care to see me, but I naturally supposed that I was the very last person you would want to have for a visitor.” To her exceeding dismay Pam found herself on the verge of tears. It was dreadful to think that she should have blundered into the presence of the woman whom of all others she would have chosen to avoid.
“I should have come to Ripple myself to see you,” said Mrs. Buckle, shaking hands with Pam in the friendliest fashion imaginable, and then leading her into the house, and literally forcing her to sit in the big cushioned chair that stood between the window and the stove. “But, you see, the trouble is I haven’t got my widow’s bonnet made yet, and it would not be honouring to poor Sam’s memory for me to go paying calls in a hat with a blue feather, which is all the outdoor wear I’ve got at the present. I went to the funeral in Mrs. O’Rafferty’s bonnet, a dreadfully shabby affair, as you may guess, for her man has been gone nearly two years, and she was never good at taking care of things. She is not too clean either, and I did not fancy wearing her bonnet, I can tell you. Miss Johnson, the milliner at The Corner, was quite out of widows’ crape—that is, the sort with the big tear-drops, you know—so I had to wait until she had got a fresh lot in from St. John.”
“It was very kind of you to think of coming in to see me!” murmured Pam, when Mrs. Buckle paused for want of breath. “I am so very, very sorry for the trouble you have had, but I cannot think that my grandfather, an old man himself, would have knocked Mr. Buckle about so cruelly.”
“Ah, you never knew my poor Sam!” cried Mrs. Buckle, shaking her head, as she wiped away a tear to her husband’s memory. “He was the most aggravating man that ever was, and I ought to know, seeing that I bore with his infirmity for hard on twenty-nine years. And, my dear, if your grandfather didn’t do it, poor man, why should his axe, with his name branded on the handle, have been found lying on the ground close to the broken fence?”
“Was it found there?” breathed Pam in a cold horror, and from that moment the iron of a deep humiliation and disgrace entered into her very soul.
“Why, yes. Didn’t they tell you?” asked Mrs. Buckle. “But, there! I expect they kept it back just to spare your feelings, poor child!” The kindly woman came nearer as she spoke, and her work-worn hand dropped in a consoling fashion on to Pam’s arm. “But you must not blame the poor old man too much, for doubtless he was angered past bearing. Everyone knew that he had a violent temper, and he would be deaf and blind to the consequences when once he began to lay on. It is well when people learn to restrain themselves when they are young, for when they have come to years they lose control over their passions. I wish your grandfather had stayed to face the music, though. I am sure that the inquiry would have brought in that there were extenuating circumstances, and so he would have got off lighter. Now, he will have to face the very worst when they find him.”
“Oh, I do not think they will find him alive; it is his dead body that I am looking for!” said Pam, and her voice was sharp with pain.
Mrs. Buckle shook her head.
“You did not know your grandfather, and so you think of him as a feeble old man; but he was not, he was strong and vigorous. I saw him once knock Sam down as clean as if he were bowling a ninepin over, and I did not pity Sam either, for that time, at least, I knew very well he deserved all he got. From my heart I pity your grandfather now; it is cruel hard that a man at his time of life should have to be a wanderer.”
“Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful!” wailed Pam, hiding her face in her hands. The trouble had been bearable when she thought of her grandfather as dead, for then he at least would have been beyond the reach of hunger and cold; but if he had done this terrible thing of beating a fellow-man to death, and was forced by his crime to be a fugitive from justice, how the poor old man would suffer! She would never be at peace now, but would always be looking for him to come stealing back to his home for money, for food, and for shelter.
“Child, you must not take on like that!” said Mrs. Buckle, whose own tears were falling like rain. “You have just got to be bright and brave, and to keep your end up as best you can. It is hard lines for you to be pitchforked into a trouble of this sort, but just figure to yourself how much worse it would have been for the poor old man if you had not been at Ripple just now. The place would have been in the hands of strangers; there would have been no one to look after his interests or to keep the place going. Now he will most likely come creeping back some stormy night this fall, for he will want money to help him get clear away from parts where he is known. You must keep some handy for him when he comes. Have you got any?”
“Only a few shillings—I mean, dollars,” replied Pam, who had constantly to remind herself of the difference in currency.
“I thought as much!” muttered Mrs. Buckle. Telling Pam to sit still a minute, she went away to an inner room, whence she returned a minute later to thrust a bundle of dirty-looking papers into the girl’s hand. “Take that, my dear, it is only twenty dollars, but it is all I have to spare; and it may make the difference for him between starvation and security, for he is a man that can do with very little, from having lived alone so long.”
“But I cannot take your money, yours of all people’s, to help my grandfather!” protested Pam, in a voice of awe, and she looked up at the kindly old woman, trying to thrust back the little bundle of paper money.
But Mrs. Buckle was obdurate.
“You must take it, please, my dear,” she insisted. “It is my right to spare myself what suffering I can, for I have had enough to bear. I feel that it would be the last straw to my endurance if the police were to find your grandfather, and all that old trouble had to be raked up in a court of justice. It is not likely I have many more years to live, and they might as well be peaceful years, but I should never know another happy hour if your grandfather were put in prison for wounding my husband. I’ve no doubt that poor Sam’s aggravating ways were a sort of infirmity, like a hare-lip or a crooked back, and I would rather leave the punishment of the man who did him to death in the hands of Almighty God; so you will please take the money and say no more about it. Only you must keep it in a place where the poor old man can get it himself if he happens along when there is no one about; for he may break into his own house, don’t you see, because he won’t know how we feel about his escaping.”
“The desk in his bedroom is locked,” said Pam faintly. She could protest no more, and taking the roll of notes, she thrust it for security into the front of her blouse.
“Try if you have got a key that will open it,” said Mrs. Buckle, who was plainly a person of resource. “If not, perhaps I can pick it for you as soon as I get my bonnet and can come to pay a call. Oh, it wouldn’t be the first lock I have picked by a good many. When a woman has a husband who keeps her as short as my man kept me, she is apt to do things that won’t bear daylight; but he is dead now, and his faults ain’t going to be talked about except in the way of stopping other people from having to suffer for them. You are a dear good girl for coming to see me; it has done me a power of good to have you to talk to. I feel better than I have done since Sam was taken.”
“It is very sweet of you to feel like this, Mrs. Buckle, and I thank you for myself and for my mother. But oh, I wish that I had some way of repaying you for your kindness to us!” Pam’s eyes were wet with tears as she leaned forward and warmly kissed Mrs. Buckle’s cheek.
“There is something that perhaps you may be able to do for me if you have a mind,” said Mrs. Buckle slowly.
“Oh, tell me, please, what it is, and I will so gladly do it if it is in my power.” Pam was thinking how she must in her own person expiate what she could of her grandfather’s wrong-doing. She could not bring Sam back to life again, but she might be able to do some service for the widow.
Mrs. Buckle hesitated. She was not a woman of fine feeling, and yet she hated to tell this nice girl, with the straightforward, fearless gaze, that the old man, her grandfather, was a thief. Yet there it was, and although she might soften it down, the ugly fact remained the same. Nervously she cleared her throat, and a hot flush crept over her kindly old face as she burst into speech.
“Sam was found with his pockets cleared out. Some money he had on him, I know, but whether it was much or little I can’t say, and of course I shan’t ever know now; but what upset me more than the loss of the money was that poor Sam’s watch had been taken. A good watch it was, and it had belonged to my father, who gave it to Sam when he died. My word, but I did value that watch! Of course I’m not saying that your grandfather took it for the sake of stealing from the man he’d hurt so badly, but I think perhaps, when he found that he had knocked the sense out of Sam, he just took the money and the watch to make it look as if the whole thing had been done by someone for the sake of stealing. If your grandfather comes creeping back some night, and you see him, I want you to ask him to give you back the watch. Tell him from me that he can keep the money and welcome, for it is sorely he will need it, poor man, if he has got to be a wanderer all through this bitter wintertime that lies before us.”
“I will tell him, Mrs. Buckle; I will be sure not to forget,” answered Pam, her eyes shining with earnestness. “But oh, since you have told me of the robbery, I am quite sure that Grandfather did not do that. You see, my mother has told us so much about Grandfather, and what an upright man he was; hard and difficult to live with, but straight as a die. I can understand that he might have quarrelled with Mr. Buckle, and in the heat of anger might have beaten and injured him, but I am not going to believe that Grandfather stole the money and the watch. Someone must have come along afterwards and done that. Oh, what a fearful business it is!”
“You are right, my dear; it is a fearful thing, and no mistake about it!” cried Mrs. Buckle, following Pam to the door. Then she exclaimed sharply, “Why, whatever are you hanging round here for, Mose Paget?” and Pam saw the untidy figure of the man whom she had once taken for a tramp leaning against the angle of the house. He was white and trembling, and she was sorry that Mrs. Buckle felt it necessary to speak so harshly to him.
“I’m bad!” the man said briefly. “I was working in my creek-lot when I was took queer, so I came up here to see if you had anything you could give me, something to stop the pain,” and he pointed vaguely at his chest as if to indicate the seat of the trouble.
“Come straight in and sit down!” cried the widow heartily. “I wouldn’t turn a sick dog from my door, and certainly I would not turn you away, seeing how you helped me when my husband lay dying. I expect it is colic that you have got, and I’ve a fine remedy for that, though it is a bit nasty. No, Miss Walsh, you need not trouble to stop, for I do just know that you are wanting to get away home. I have got Amanda Higgins here if I want anyone; she is away down in the corner lot picking berries, and I shall just whistle for her if I want her.”
Pam was glad to go. Mrs. Buckle had shown her the right trail to take, telling her that she could make no mistake; nor did she, for, crossing the creek on the log footbridge at the ford, she passed the fence which had been the cause of all the trouble between her grandfather and Sam Buckle, and was at once on their own land at Ripple.
Mrs. Buckle’s account of her grandfather’s axe having been found close beside the injured man had been a great shock to Pam. She had refused to let herself believe that her grandfather would hurt anyone so badly and then disappear, and not a word had been said in her presence of the axe. But when Mrs. Buckle had spoken of the robbery, a gleam of comfort had stolen into her heart again. She was quite, quite sure that her grandfather would not steal money and a watch. Disagreeable he was, and so hard to live with that her mother had been glad to run away from him; but he was bed-rock honest. He owed no man anything, and would rather have lived on buckwheat porridge all the time than run up an account at the store for groceries for which he could not pay. Perhaps he was entirely innocent of this thing, although it did look so black against him. But where was he hiding? And if he had done nothing to be ashamed of, why was he hiding?
These questions, which she could not answer, brought Pam back to her old theory of something having happened to him, and she reached the house at Ripple thoroughly tired out with her search, but with courage unabated to go on again. She told Sophy of her visit to Mrs. Buckle, and how that kindly woman had given her money to supply her grandfather’s need if the poor fugitive should come back; and Sophy dropped her sewing, and sat with parted lips, staring at Pam as she listened to the extraordinary story.
“Just to think of it! Why, Pam, Sam Buckle must have been a tyrant if his widow can feel so kindly to the man who is believed to have caused his death! If I thought all men were like that I should change my mind about getting married. But I know that George is good and kind.”
“People are not all alike, of course,” said Pam, as she leaned back in the big chair and fanned herself with her hat, for the day was hot. “I think that even the very disagreeable ones would not be so bad if they were properly handled. Take Grandfather, for instance. I know he was hard to live with, but half of his disagreeableness came because he was so upset at Mother wanting to marry Father, who was not particularly hard-working, and I am afraid not too steady. Mother was wayward, she would have her own way, but ah, how bitterly she has had to pay!” Pam sighed as visions of her childhood rose up before her eyes.
Sophy nodded in perfect sympathy, but she asked no questions about those old, sad memories. Pam’s past did not concern her, so why be curious about it? Her needle went in and out of the white seam with such soothing regularity, and the house in the forest was so quiet, that presently Pam fell fast asleep, curled up in the big chair with the tired dog at her feet.
The First Snow
Pam had been five weeks at Ripple. She was getting used to the forest solitude. She was rosy and energetic, keenly resolved to do her very best to keep the farm going until her grandfather came back or made some sign. She was more puzzled than ever that he should have gone and never left one word or sign. It was cruel to her, so she told herself sometimes, because he knew that she was coming; and what a plight she would have been in but for the Griersons! Mrs. Grierson, a kindly but rather dreary woman, had been over once or twice to see the girls at Ripple, and she had told Pam that Sophy should stay through the winter with her. It was a solitary place for two girls alone, but farther down the creek Mrs. Buckle was living with only little Amanda Higgins for company. There was nothing to be afraid of except solitude, and people had to get used to that. Pam was getting used to it, and she was so occupied from morning to night that she had not much time to think about herself.
The neighbours were kind, although they lived so far away. Galena Gittins came over regularly every week, and it was she who was instructing Pam in the mysteries of farmwork. Galena had a shrewd head on her shoulders, and knew what had to be done and the best way to do it, so Pam was rigorously put through her paces. She spent laborious days in the forest with Galena gathering beech-nuts for the pigs, to be stored against the time when the snow would prevent the creatures foraging for themselves. She toiled over harvesting the roots that were still in the fields, and with her own hands dragged the loads on a truck to the house, where the capacious cellar received them and would keep them safe from fear of being spoiled by frost. There was not a horse on the place. Pam had wondered at first how her grandfather had managed without a beast of burden, but Galena told her that a good many people who had only a few cleared fields kept no horses, for the keep of the animals was a big consideration in winter, and it was possible to hire a man and a team when they were needed for purposes of cultivation.
“I am glad not to have a horse to look after, but it will seem rather far to walk to The Corner or to Hunt’s Crossing every time I want to post a letter when the snow comes,” said Pam, who was looking forward to being snowbound with considerable dread, only she took good care that no one should know it. She did not choose that these people, to whom the forest was so well known and familiar, should ever guess how scared she was at the thought of the long dark nights and the cheerless days which would have to be faced before the summer came again.
THE DOG AND THE UNKNOWN FURY WERE ROLLINGOVER IN THE DEADLIEST OF COMBATS
THE DOG AND THE UNKNOWN FURY WERE ROLLINGOVER IN THE DEADLIEST OF COMBATS
It was not in her nature to give up, and so much hung on her ability to keep the place going through the winter. If her grandfather did not return in a year, and if he gave no sign of being alive, it was probable that the authorities would allow his death to be assumed. Then, in the event of no will being found, his daughter would naturally take what was left. It was the future of her mother and the other children that Pam was guarding, and she was minded to do her very best.
Ah, how home-sick she was for them during those shortening days, while the forest trees flamed through splendours of crimson and gold to the brown and russet of dead leaves! But she would not speak of her pain, she would not even grumble over her misery. It was when she was most hilarious that Sophy guessed the home-sickness raged the fiercest.
There had been no need for Mrs. Buckle to practise her lock-picking skill on the desk in Wrack Peveril’s sleeping-chamber. When Pam’s heavy luggage was brought from Hunt’s Crossing she discovered that the key of her writing-desk served also to open the desk which the old man had used. This when opened had not been found to contain much. Some money there was, but only a little. There was a small heap of letters well worn with much reading. They were letters from Pam’s mother, and Pam cried over them more bitterly than she had ever cried before, for they revealed a side of her home life that she had only faintly guessed at. Mrs. Walsh had not found her marriage a happy one, and she had poured out her bitter disappointment and grief to the old man, her father, whom she had set at naught and run away from in her desperate eagerness to get her own way.
Those letters did not appear to have been answered. Indeed, almost every one of them began with a reproach because the old man had not written. Some of them begged for money to meet some pressing need. The babies had come so fast, and the needs had been so great.
Pam wondered why the old man had not asked his daughter to come home again after the death of her husband. But he had not. He had never even hinted that he would like to see her again. It made Pam shiver to think of it. She could not imagine being parted for years from her mother without her mother wanting to see her again. But she was too just to condemn the old man. Of course there was another side to the question, her mother’s side. Without doubt Pam gained a greater insight to the natural laws, the ethics of give and take between parent and child, in that reading of the letters in her grandfather’s desk, than she would have done from any other source.
Her grandfather must be found somehow; then, when she had found him, it must be her work to bring about a reconciliation between him and her mother. Then her mother must come home. Without doubt the place of Mrs. Walsh was at Ripple. The children would love the wild free life of the forest. The boys would grow into strong men here, and if the effort to get an education was greater, the chances were that they would prize it more.
It was this planning for the good of her family that kept Pam’s heart warm in those shortening days of the fall. The mornings grew colder and colder; the pond behind the barn which drained into the creek was fringed with ice, and she had to use a long pole to keep a space of open water for the animals. Later on that would not be possible, and she would have to melt snow for them in the boiler that was built into the out-shed which stood between the house and the barn. There was no snow as yet, but it might come any day now. There would be an end to all search for the old man when once the land was covered in its winter mantle, so Pam took advantage of every day when she could spare the time to take long tramps across the forest in every direction. Don Grierson had brought her a pocket compass, and armed with this she found her way back, however hopelessly she might get confused in trying to strike a trail.
There came a day in early November when the dawn seemed as if it could not penetrate through the cloud masses that brooded so closely down over the forest trees. A grey, dreary day, which made Pam more home-sick than ever, though apparently in the wildest of spirits. She rushed about between the house and the barn, doing the morning “chores“, and as she hurried to and fro she sang at the top of her voice, the sound of her singing having a weird effect on that drear, cold morning.
Luke Dobson, from Hunt’s Crossing, came along about ten o’clock, and wanted to know what was to be done about the lumber-felling. Her grandfather had arranged for twenty acres of black spruce to be cut this fall, and Luke Dobson wanted to know if the work was to be carried through, or what was to be done in the matter.
“You say that Grandfather had settled price and everything?” asked Pam, who was so terribly in the dark about business matters that she had to rely on other people. It was a great comfort to her that this man looked honest and respectable, and Sophy had told her that he did most of the lumbering in the district this side of the Ridge.
“No. If the price had been settled and the contract signed there would have been nothing for me to do but warn you of the transaction, and cut the lumber at my own convenience,” said Mr. Dobson, who had rather a bothered air. He did not like having to do business with women, for, privately, he considered them lacking in common sense; and this one was only a girl—a girl, moreover, with a skittish look, just for all the world like a young colt, so he told himself, in severe disapproval of Pam’s radiant good spirits and smiling face.
“How much did Grandfather want, and how much were you prepared to give?” asked Pam, who had her own theories on the way to do business.
Mr. Dobson stated the price he was prepared to give and the sum for which Wrack Peveril had stood out, a matter of only a few dollars in reality. He was sufficiently straightforward to say that black spruce was going up in price, and he was willing to make a small advance on his first offer, if Pam was able to do business with him.
“Oh, I am quite willing to do business,” replied Pam in an airy tone. Then she dropped suddenly into graver speech, while lines of care showed on her face. “The trouble is to know what power I have to sell anything belonging to my grandfather. Supposing I took your offer, and when you had cut the lumber he came back and objected to the transaction, it would be out of your power, or mine either, to put the trees back on their stumps again; and what would be my position?”
Mr. Dobson shook his head and looked dubious, hesitated a minute, then said rather uneasily:
“I take it that you are here to do your best for the old man, or if he is dead, for your mother, who is his natural heir. You can leave that lot of trees standing another year if you would prefer it. But if your grandfather comes home, and the police get hold of him for the part he is supposed to have had in the death of Sam Buckle, there will be the expense of his defence, and all the other things that arise out of an action at law, and you will be hard put to it perhaps to find ready money when you most need it. If, on the other hand, he is dead, or is never heard of again, your mother would agree that you had acted for the best in selling, and your trees would be hard cash, and safe from any danger of being destroyed in a forest fire.”
Pam shivered. She was thinking of that awfully desolate region that spread over so many acres of forest near to where Mrs. Buckle lived. Her grandfather’s black spruce would not be worth the trouble of lumbering if a forest fire happened along that way. But she had a cautious streak in her character, and she knew how dreadfully ignorant she was, so she said frankly: “I should like to take your offer straight away, but I think I ought just to ask the advice of someone outside. Dr. Grierson will be round this way to-day or to-morrow; do you mind letting it stand over until then?”
“That will suit me very well indeed, and I will wish you good morning,” said Mr. Dobson, getting to his feet in a great hurry. But Pam had a question to ask before he went—one that she had been wanting to ask all the while Luke Dobson had been talking.
“Do you mind telling me where that twenty acres of black spruce is?” she asked nervously. Of course she ought to know every bit of her grandfather’s land by this time, and as a matter of fact she had supposed that she did know it, but puzzle her head as she would she could not remember any plantation of trees which would be twenty acres in extent. What a lot of trees there would be on twenty acres of land—a piece that was twice as big as the cleared field at the back of the house! Don Grierson had told her that was ten acres—the ten-acre lot he called it.
“Ah! you would have gone the round of the quarter-section boundary posts,” said Luke Dobson slowly, and then he turned to a roughly-drawn map that was nailed to the wall opposite the window and called Pam’s attention to it. “You see this map, Miss Walsh? Well, this red line is your grandfather’s boundary.” His broad finger was travelling slowly round the red line for her benefit, but he paused where a thick black line crossed the red. “This black line here shows the old tote road.”
“What is a tote road?” demanded Pam.
Luke Dobson rubbed his head in a rueful fashion.
“I don’t know. It has always been called the tote road ever since I can remember, and I have lived about these parts all my life, but I never heard anyone ask before.”
“I know!” cried Sophy, looking up from her work. “A tote road is so called because it is the road along which people ‘tote’ things—that is, carry them. That road leads straight away through the forest to the river miles below Hunt’s Crossing. It is rarely used now, but I have heard some of the old people say that is the way the lumber used to be carried from these parts to be floated down river to Fredericton.”
“Well now, I shouldn’t wonder but what you are right!” exclaimed Mr. Dobson, who was fairly amazed at such a reasonable solution of the mystery.
“What a thing it is to be clever!” cried Pam, and then crossed the room on purpose to give Sophy a little hug, just to show that she had no intention of making fun of her.
“Your grandfather bought that lot cheap about fifteen years ago,” said Luke Dobson, his big finger covering the small red-lined patch on the farther side of the old tote road. “There was a half-breed lived up there, a mighty hunter he was too. But he got caught napping one day and was clawed by a b’ar, died of it, he did too, and his wife—she was a white woman from St. John—she sold the land at what anyone would give her for it, and cleared out sharp. They used to live in a bit of a shack standing on the tote road; I expect it is standing there still, bits of it, but no one has lived there since.”
“I am sure that I have not been in that direction yet, or I should have seen the house,” said Pam, who was studying the map with close attention. It was bewildering to her to get her bearings in the forest, and she had not hitherto understood the significance of the roughly-drawn map.
“You had better take a stroll round there before fixing up with me about lumbering that bit,” Mr. Dobson advised her as he took his leave, and Pam made up her mind that she would go right away.
The tote road ran on the side of her grandfather’s land farthest away from the trail to Hunt’s Crossing. It was thick forest in that direction, and Pam with the dog at her heels had to make her way by a narrow trail that was really an old game path; but presently she emerged on a wide avenue running in a straight line east and west, and looking as if it stretched for miles and miles, as indeed it did. It was fast being choked with rubbish, brambles and so forth, but it would not take much trouble to make it fit for traffic once more, and the ground was solid and level beneath her feet, very different from the mossy, marshy trails which abounded in these parts.
“So this is the old tote road!” she murmured, as she stood surveying it. But it was too cold to stand long, and she was anxious to start her inspection of the lot of black spruce. She had learned all she could about trees and lumber generally since she had been at Ripple, and her education was so far advanced that she could tell black spruce when she saw it, also cedar, ash, maple, birch, and oak. She was wise enough already to understand that it was a really valuable lot of trees that stood in serried rows bordering on the old tote road. Sophy had told her that black spruce was valuable because it was so largely used for pulp for paper-making. All those long lines of trees at which she was gazing were potential newspapers, or novels, or perhaps hymn-books. How strange it was to think that trees could be made into paper, a material that she in her ignorance had always associated with rags and straw! She laughed a little as she thought of all the wonders science had wrought, and the dog at the sound of her voice crept closer to her side, pressing its head against her knee with a whimper of affection.
She stooped to pat the shaggy head, for the love of the creature was really precious to her. Suddenly the dog gave a low, savage growl, then stood with its teeth bared, snarling, while a ridge of hair stood up along its spine, sure sign indeed of something wrong.
“Have you heard someone about, or is it only a fancy that you have got in your thick old head?” asked Pam; but although the dog wagged its tail at the sound of her voice, it began to growl again the next moment, and then went creeping forward, its teeth still bared, and looking so fierce and ugly that Pam was more than half-afraid.
Then she caught sight of the angle of a shingled roof, and guessed that she was close to the half-ruined shack that stood on her grandfather’s land.
“Did the poor dear see a house, and didn’t the poor dear like it?” she asked the dog, jumping at once to the conclusion that it was the nearness to a dwelling-place that made the dog growl. It took no notice of her this time, but crept forward with great caution, growling so low down in its throat that it seemed to be swallowing its own voice.
A queer purring noise, such as a very big cat might make, broke on the ears of Pam. The dog heard it too, and growled more fiercely than before. Pam had a cold sensation, and her limbs seemed suddenly paralysed. She lifted one foot by a great effort, took a step forward, tried to lift the other, failed, and would have fallen, for she trembled so badly, only she gripped at the slender stem of a young spruce growing close to the edge of the tote road, and clung to it, quite helpless from the overmastering terror that had seized upon her.
Without doubt it was that same terror which saved her life. If she had not been so badly scared she would have moved forward when the dog went. As it was, she clung to the trunk of the tree, the rough bark bruising her bare hands, her heart beating so fast that it made her feel downright sick.
The broken door of the shack was half-open. The dog was close to it now, creeping and creeping, as if ready for a spring. The purring sound had dropped to silence, and a minute passed which seemed to Pam as long as hours. Then came an awful, ear-splitting yell, as a lithe grey creature hurled itself out from the shattered door like an arrow from a bow straight at the dog. Pam heard a shriek of pure terror, yet had no idea that it was herself who had screamed. The dog swerved, the lithe grey thing hit the ground beside it, and then dog and the unknown fury were rolling over in the deadliest of combats.
The dog would be killed, Pam was sure of it, and she simply could not stand by to see her dumb friend done to death. Instead of running away, which under the circumstances would have been the highest discretion, she dashed towards the door of the shack, intending to get hold of a piece of wood which might do for a weapon. She had almost reached the door when out bounded another creature, sinuous of body, grey of hue, with a thick head, short ears, and fetid breath that seemed to smite her like a poison blast as the beast bowled her over in its mad rush to get away. Pam was somewhat stunned by her fall, for her head struck against a stump, and she lay where she had been flung, too dazed to rise.
She came to her senses to find a weirdly dishevelled figure helping her to her feet, a man with a familiar voice, but his face so smothered in dirt and blood that it was not easy to remember where she had seen him before. Then she recalled the man whom at the first she had supposed to be a tramp. He was speaking to her, but she had difficulty in understanding what he said, for he mumbled so, and his mouth was bleeding.
“Did the beast claw you? Say, now, did it claw you?” he was asking with desperate anxiety.
Pam put her hand to her head.
“It was a fearful bang I had where my head struck the tree, but I don’t think I am hurt anywhere else. But you—oh, what will you do? You are most fearfully wounded!” she cried, fairly appalled at his condition.
Mose Paget shook his head.
“I have a few scratches where the beast clawed me, but it isn’t worth talking about. It is lucky, though, that I heard you scream, for it might have gone hard with you and the dog if I had not been here.”
“Is the dog killed?” cried Pam, starting up to run back to the spot where the plucky creature had been so mixed up in the fray with the savage grey animal of the sinuous shape.
Mose stopped her with a gesture.
“No, it isn’t dead, but it is a bit clawed about, and it will be a week or two before it is fit to walk again, I’m afraid. I am going to carry it home for you, only I might as well fasten this door, so that those beasts can’t take shelter here again.”
“What were they?” asked Pam. She was shaking horribly still, and she had a feeling of nausea that was horrible.
“Canada lynx is their book name, but we call them Indian devils, and the name fits them to a nicety,” he answered, as he put his head into the tumbledown shack; but he hastily withdrew it, the odour from the animals which had found a shelter there being unpleasantly overpowering. “They are the cutest and wickedest beasts that are found anywhere in the forests. They are very rare, though, and happily they are getting rarer. I had an uncle who was so badly clawed by one that he carried the marks to his grave; fifty years ago that must have been, and I have not heard of any in this neighbourhood since.”
“I shall be afraid to venture into the forest alone after this,” cried Pam, and again she shivered violently, feeling deadly sick, and not understanding that the nausea was almost entirely due to the shock to her nerves.
“No, you won’t,” Mose contradicted her harshly, then drew the broken door close and fastened it, so that no wild creature could get inside. “You won’t see that charming pair again, I’ll be bound. There will be a score of men out hunting for them directly word goes round that they have been seen, and it is not likely that you will see another pair if you live in these parts until you are an old woman.”
“Oh, the poor dog!” cried Pam, as they reached the spot where the animal lay. It was already feebly trying to lick its wounds—a good sign, Mose told her, for if it had been mortally wounded it would have lain still and not troubled at all. He lifted it carefully, as if it had been a baby, and then went striding back on the way to Ripple, while Pam stumbled along in the rear. He was bleeding from his numerous hurts, but would not let her bind him up with her handkerchief, and he stalked on ahead with the savage dignity which she had always connected with an Indian chief.
It was beginning to snow, but not with the leisurely falling flakes to which Pam had been accustomed in England. The air was suddenly full of a white smother, fine as dust, which, filling eyes and nose and mouth all at once, set up such a choking and confusion that Pam felt as if she would be suffocated. The man in front grew into an indistinct blur, although she was so close to him that by reaching out her hand she could have gripped his coat. A fear seized her that they would be lost and would both perish miserably. Her breath was beaten out of her by the sting of that awful cold, and she cried out sharply.
Mose stopped so suddenly at the sound of her cry that she punted into him without being able to help herself.
“What is wrong, miss; have you hurt yourself?” he asked in a jerky tone, for the dog was heavy and he was short of breath.
“I—I thought we were lost, and this snow is awful!” Pam cried.
“You are close home now; here is the house!” he said in an encouraging tone, just as one might speak to a frightened child.
Pam peered through the snow-blur, and there, just ahead, was the outline of the house, as he had said. A moment later and the door was flung open, and they staggered into the room, where Sophy fell upon them in tearful thanksgiving that Pam had escaped with her life. The blizzard had come on so suddenly that she had been frightened at the thought of Pam exposed to its fury.
While Pam explained the situation in a hurried, incoherent fashion, Mose Paget was caring for the dog. Calling for hot water, he washed its wounds, and bound them so that the dirt could not get into them. Then he made the animal as comfortable as possible on a bit of carpet and some cushions at the back of the stove, called for milk, warm milk, and fed it himself, taking as much care as if the creature had been a human being. But when they wanted to bring him water and bandages for his own hurts, he brushed them aside brusquely, declaring that there was nothing needed for him.
“I want to get home for my gun; I must have a shot at that vermin if I can,” he said hurriedly. “I am only sorry I could not do for the one the dog had its teeth fixed in. Gee, but the critter had a grip on it, and no mistake!”
“You cannot possibly go out in this storm; you will lose your way and perish!” cried Pam.
“It is clearing, and I have faced worse weather,” he answered briefly. He was so eager to be gone that Pam could not insist on his staying longer, especially as Sophy was curiously silent on the matter.
Mose was quite right. The gloom was lifting and the snowfall was thinner when he opened the door, and, shutting it with a bang, disappeared from view. Not a cent would he accept for the work he had done, though Pam had begged him to take some money, if only to pay for the time he had wasted on her and the dog. He warned Pam to keep to the house for a day or two, until the lynxes were either killed or driven away from the neighbourhood, and then he was gone.
“It is dreadful to have him go like that, for I know he is badly hurt, and he saved my life twice over. If I had escaped the lynx, I certainly should have perished in the snow, it is so bewildering.” Pam was distinctly tearful, for she was shaken by the nerve-wracking experience she had gone through.
“Fancy Mose Paget turning out like that!” cried Sophy. “I thought he was bad all through.”
“Even the worst people have streaks of good in places,” answered Pam.