"I want to find out if you'll take care of my father."
"Judging from what I've read in the papers, your dad's taking pretty good care of himself."
Ted said hesitantly, "He can't stay in the Mahela forever. Sooner or later, they'll get him."
"Sooner or later," John McLean said, "they get everybody. Wish people would stop making a joke out of that old saw, 'Crime Doesn't Pay.' It doesn't."
He resumed poking through the desk while Ted stood uncomfortably, not knowing whether or not he'd been dismissed. Two minutes later, John McLean whirled on him.
"Is your dad guilty?"
"No!"
"How do you know?"
"He said he isn't!"
John McLean chuckled. "Simmer down. I don't want to fight you. Just wanted to find out if you had a good reason for thinking your dad innocent."
"Is the reason good enough for you?"
As though forgetting Ted, the attorney opened another drawer and leafed through its contents.... He said suddenly, "I'll take the case."
Ted sighed relievedly, "Oh, thank you!"
"Better save that until after the trial."
"But—"
"Save your worries, too."
"Then you can help him?"
"We'll figure out something. Who did shoot this Delbert?"
"I wish I knew."
"So do I."
Ted said uneasily, "I haven't any money right now, but I'll have at least two hundred and fifty-five dollars, and perhaps a great deal more, right after deer season."
John McLean murmured, "It'll help. The price of justice is too often too blasted high."
"Do—Do you want to talk with Dad soon?"
"Where is he?"
"Laying out in the Mahela."
"The Mahela's a big place."
Ted said honestly, "I don't know where he is. I haven't seen him since he left but—I could get a message to him."
"I won't ask you how. Does your dad mind laying out?"
"No."
"Then leave him until the time's right. It would have been better if he'd given himself up right away; but staying out now will do more good than harm. People, even prosecuting attorneys, can forget quite a bit in a short time."
"Is there anything else?"
"When he comes in, or when you bring him in, I want to be the first to talk with him. Can you arrange that?"
"I'm sure I can."
That night, back at the Harkness house, Ted took Tammie's harness from the closet and emptied it of junk. He replaced the junk with an equal weight of food, added a handful of matches, thrust a pad of paper and a pencil into one of the pockets and strapped the harness on Tammie. Ted took his dog to the back door and let him into the darkness.
"Take it to Al," he ordered. "Go to Al, Tammie."
Tammie, who hadn't been able to see any sense in the pack but who saw it now, raised his drooping ears and wagged his tail. He raced away in the darkness. Ted had scarcely closed the back door when there was an imperative knock at the front.
He opened it to admit Jack Callahan.
The sheriff stood tall in the doorway, his face unreadable, while at the same time he seemed to strain forward like an eager hound on a hot scent.
Disconcerted, showing it and aware that he showed it, Ted fought for self-possession. He said, "Well hello."
"Hello, Ted." Callahan was not unfriendly. "How are things?"
Ted tried to cover his confusion with a shrug. "Not much change."
"You seem," Callahan was looking narrowly at him, "a bit nervous."
"Is that strange?"
"Guess not." Callahan was too casual. "It's probably a nerve-wracking business. Uh—thought I heard you talking?"
"You might have. I was talking to Tammie."
"Your dog, eh?"
"That's right."
"I don't see him around."
"I just let him out the back door. He likes to go for a little run at night."
"I'm darned," Callahan said, "if I didn't think I caught a glimpse of you letting him out. Tammie looked awful big."
"He's a big dog."
Just how much had Callahan seen? Definitely, a pack-laden collie was not going camping and Callahan would know where it was going. The sheriff dropped into a chair and crossed his right leg over his left knee.
"I know he's big, I've seen him before. But he sure looked bigger than usual. That's a mighty good dog, Ted."
"Yes, he is."
"Highly-trained, too, isn't he? That dog will do almost anything you want him to, won't he?"
"Oh, sure," Ted said sarcastically. "Every night he sets his own alarm for five o'clock. Then he lays and lights a fire so the house will be warm when I get out of bed."
"Aw now, Ted!" Callahan said reproachfully. "You know darn' well what I mean! Why only the other night I found Silly Ass Stacey running down the road like a haunt was chasing him. 'Don't go up there!' he told me. 'Don't go up to Harknesses! They have a man-eating dog and it just ate me!'"
Doubtless unintentionally, Callahan had given something away. The Harkness house was being closely watched or the sheriff wouldn't have been on the Lorton Road at the hour when Sammy ran down it. In full control of himself now, Ted did not let himself reveal what he had just learned. He said grimly, "Sammy was in our chicken coop."
"Hm-m.Want me to pick him up for it?"
"I doubt if he'll be as fond of chicken stealing from now on. Tammie knocked him down and did a little snarling over him. He didn't hurt him."
Callahan grinned. "Figured that out all by myself; nobody who'd most been eaten could run as fast as Silly Ass was running. Hope it does teach him a lesson; if he gets rid of his oversized notions, he won't be anything except a harmless sort of nut. Jail might make him vicious. But that's what I mean about your dog. You've really got him trained."
"I spend a lot of time training him."
"You have to if you want results, but it's worth it. You have a dog you can really work."
"There are limits."
"Of course. Of course there are. A dog's a dog. But I'll bet," Callahan looked squarely at Ted, "that Tammie would even go find your father if you told him to."
"You're sure?"
"Well, who could be sure? But I admire trained dogs no end and yours is the best I ever saw. Call him back, will you? I'd like to see him again."
"I—" Ted hesitated and hated himself because Callahan noticed his hesitation. "I don't know if I can. Tammie takes some pretty long rambles at night and he may be out of hearing."
"You'll have Loring on your tail if he bothers game."
"Tammie doesn't bother anything unless he's ordered to do it."
Callahan said admiringly, "That's where training comes in. This could even be a story!"
"What could?"
"Why, your dad laying out in the Mahela. He doesn't have any grub except the load he cooked the night Loring and I were here—and wasn't I the dope not to see through that? He needs about everything. You can't take it to him because you could be followed. But you have a big, strong, well-trained dog. You, oh you might even make a pack for him. Then you load the pack and send it to your dad. Who's going to follow Tammie? Get it?"
Ted looked at the floor. Coming at exactly the wrong second, Callahan had seen enough to rouse suspicion but not enough to be sure of anything. The boy conceded, "It's a story all right."
"Could even be atruestory, huh?"
"You're doing the guessing."
"Oh, well," Callahan shrugged, "I didn't come here to bother you. But I sure would like to see that dog of yours again and I haven't much time. Call him back, will you?"
Both hands in front of him, fingers tightly locked, Ted walked to the back door. When Tammie took anything to Al, he usually ran. If he had run this time, and kept on running, he would be out of hearing. If he was not out of hearing, he would come back. Ted hoped Callahan didn't see him gulp. If Tammie returned with the pack, it would be all the evidence Callahan needed that the dog could find Al. But not to call him would serve only to convince the sheriff, anyhow, that Tammie was on his way to Al.
Ted opened the back door and whistled. He waited a moment, whistled again and closed the door behind him.
"He'll come if he heard."
"And if he didn't," Callahan commented, "he's a long way back in the Mahela, huh?"
"That's right."
"Now that's strange," the sheriff mused. "I know a little about dogs. You take an airedale, for example. He'll make long tracks, if he gets a chance. But I always thought a collie was pretty much the home type. I never figured they'd get very far from their doorsteps. Unless, of course, maybe it's a trained collie that's sent away."
"Dogs vary."
"Of course, of course. There's no rule says two of any one breed have to be alike. Couple of years ago, over beyond Taylorville, we had to get a pack that was running wild and, believe it or not, there was a Boston bull with them. Now who'd think a Boston bull—What's that?"
"I—I didn't hear anything."
"Well, I did. Ah! There it is again!"
A second time, and unmistakably, Tammie's distinctive whine sounded at the back door. Ted's heart plummeted to his toes and his throat went dry. He was about to rise and let Tammie in—the only thing he could do—but he was forestalled by Jack Callahan.
"There he is. He heard you, all right. I'll let him in."
He walked to the back door ... opened it. Ted hoped his gasp was not as loud as it seemed. Wearing no pack, Tammie came sedately in, greeted Callahan with a wag of his tail and tripped across the floor to sit down beside his master. The boy bent his head to conceal ecstatic eyes. Poker-faced Callahan showed nothing of what he must be feeling.
"Just as handsome as I remember him!" he said admiringly. "That dog's a real credit to you, Ted!"
"He has just one little flaw," Ted said gravely. "Sometimes he thinks he sees things he never saw at all."
Callahan grinned engagingly. "Some people make that mistake, too. Especially when there's deep shadow. How are you making out, Ted?"
"All right. My camp's rented for five weeks and I may rent it for woodcock season, if the flight comes in."
"Loring told me there's flight birds at Taylorville. He said there's quite a few, and he thinks there'll be a big flight."
"Hope it comes here!"
Callahan said soberly, "If it'll help you, so do I. I'm sorry you're in trouble."
"Trouble comes."
"I know, but being the sheriff who makes it isn't the snap job it's cracked up to be. I've had to hurt a lot of people I'd rather not bother, but when I swore to uphold the law, I didn't make any exceptions and I'm not going to make any. I hope you don't hold that against me."
"I don't."
"Just so you understand. A lot of people who cuss peace officers would find out for themselves what a mess they'd be in if there weren't any."
"I know that, too."
"Then you know why I must bring your dad in. When I do, and I will, he'll get every break I'm able to offer. By the same token, Smoky Delbert may have some breaks coming. So long for now, Ted."
"So long."
Callahan left and Ted was alone with Tammie. He tickled the big dog's soft ears.
"The Lord watches over idiots!" he murmured. "He sure enough does!"
What had happened was obvious. Disliking the pack anyway, Tammie hadn't gone more than a couple of hundred feet before ridding himself of it. Only he knew how he'd unclasped the buckles, but he'd managed. Of course, when ordered to do so, he should have gone to Al. But he could be forgiven this time.
"I'd best get to bed," Ted told him. "I don't know where you left that pack, but do know I'd better find it before Mr. Callahan comes back this way. That man has sixteen eyes, and don't ever let's think he's dumb! He came right close to tipping over our meat house tonight!"
Ted was up an hour before dawn and had breakfasted by the time the first pale light of day began to lift night's shroud from the great beech trees. With Tammie at his side, he stepped out the back door and formed a plan of action.
He didn't know exactly how much time had passed between his whistle and Tammie's appearance at the door, but it couldn't have been more than fifteen or twenty seconds. Certainly the collie had needed some little time to rid himself of the pack. It couldn't possibly be far from the cabin. Ted petted the dog.
"You lost it," he scolded gently. "Why don't you find it?"
Tammie raced ahead twenty yards, whirled, came back to leap at and snap his jaws within a quarter inch of Ted's right hand, then flew away again. He continued running around and around, stopping at intervals to snap. But though he never missed very much, he never hit either.
Ted walked slowly, on a course parallel to the cabin, and he turned his head from side to side as he walked. There were no thickets or windfalls here. There was nothing at all except the big beeches. Wherever Tammie had dropped it, the pack wouldn't be hard to see.
Descending into a little swale, Ted flushed three woodcock out of it. Their distinctive, twittering whistle, which Ted had always thought was made by wind rushing through stiff flight feathers, sounded as they flew. The boy's eyes glowed with pleasure.
The ruffed grouse was a marvelous game bird and nobody who knew him well, or even fairly well, would ever deny it. But there was a very special group—Ted himself belonged to it—who held the woodcock in highest esteem. Swift-winged and sporty, the woodcock had an air of mystery and romance possessed by few other wild things.
Measuring eleven inches, from the tip of his bill to the end of his tail, the woodcock's plumage varied from black to gray, with different shades of brown predominant. So perfectly did they blend with their surroundings that, even though a hunter might watch a flying woodcock alight on the ground, he was often not able to see it afterwards. Their legs were short and their bills, with which they probed into soft earth for the various larvae and worms upon which they fed, were ridiculously long. But their eyes remained their outstanding characteristic.
Placed near the top of the head, they were luminous and expressive, as though, somehow, they mirrored all of nature. They were very large in proportion to the bird's size. Whoever saw them would never forget them and who knew the woodcock knew one of the finest and most delightful of all wild creatures.
Ted marked the trio down, but he did not approach them again. The season was not open, and nobody could ever be sure of woodcock. Perhaps these were stragglers. Maybe they marked the vanguard of a big flight that would be in the Mahela when the season opened and maybe they didn't. He'd have to wait and see and, even then, neither he nor anyone else could be sure. Cover that might be alive with woodcock one day could be empty, or hold only a few birds, the next. During the night, every woodcock had often picked up and moved on.
When he'd gone as far as he thought he should, Ted moved twenty-five yards deeper into the woods and swung back on a course parallel to the one he'd followed. He began to worry.
The pack couldn't possibly be far because Tammie hadn't had time to go far. It was good sized, so it should be easy to see. Ted made another swing about. Two hours after he had started hunting, he stopped. He was a half mile from the house, definitely the extreme limit Tammie might have reached. The boy went back to cover the same area more carefully.... He went through it a third time. By midday, he was wholly baffled.
The pack was not here. Where was it? Had Jack Callahan, nobody's fool, seen more than he had admitted seeing? Had he slipped back after leaving Ted and found the pack himself? It seemed improbable. Recovery of the pack, so obviously for a dog and not for a man to wear, would be proof within itself that Ted had intended to send Tammie to Al. And if Callahan had the least reason to suppose that Tammie could really find Al, he'd be in the house right now, insisting that he do it. Ted petted the collie.
"Why can't you talk?" he murmured. "Why can't you tell me what you did with it?"
Tammie licked his master's fingers and wagged his tail. Ted sighed. He'd looked in all the places where the pack might be and hadn't found it. It stood to reason that nobody else was going to find it either, or at least, they wouldn't find it easily. Still worried, Ted went back to the house and fixed a lunch. He thought of looking for the pack some more and decided against it. There was no other place to look but there were things to do. He hadn't been at the camp since the night Al was accused of shooting Smoky. If he intended to rent it to hunters, he'd better go see how things were.
Ted chose to walk, for he had been doing a great deal of serious thinking and had changed many of his ideas. Running a successful resort, or even a successful camp, involved a great deal more than just being a gracious host. In any city, or even any town, such a camp probably wouldn't rent at all because it was so radically different from what urban residents had come to expect in their dwellings. But it fitted the Mahela, and for a short time each year, it would be appreciated because it offered a refreshing change from conventional living. But there was still more involved.
Few people wanted to get into the out-of-doors merely for the sake of being there. The place must offer something, and beyond any doubt the Mahela's prime attraction was its deer herds. But nobody, regardless of whether he was running Crestwood or renting camps, could hope to make a living just from the three-week deer season alone. He would also have to lure all the small game hunters and all the fishermen he could, and if he didn't lure them honestly, they'd never come back. It stood to reason that nobody who lived a couple of hundred miles from the Mahela could know what was taking place there. They must be kept informed, and Ted wished to walk now because he wanted to judge for himself whether or not there would be a worthwhile flight of woodcock.
The birds might be anywhere at all. Ted had flushed them from the very summit of Hawkbill. But as a rule they avoided the thickest cover and haunted the streams, bogs and swamps because they found their food along stream beds and in swamps. With Tammie trailing happily beside him. Ted followed the course of Spinning Creek.
He flushed two woodcock from a sparse growth of aspens and watched them wing away and settle on the other side of the creek. Then he put up a single and, farther on, a little flock of five. In the clearing, almost at the camp's door, another single whistled away and dropped near Tumbling Run. That made nine woodcock between the Harkness house and the camp. Definitely it was not a substantial flight and no hunter should be advised to come to the Mahela because of them. But there were more than there had been.
A doe and two spring fawns were nosing about the apple trees. Bears had been climbing the same trees, leaving scarred trunks and broken branches in their wake. Black bears, of which there were a fair number in the Mahela, would come almost as far for apples as they would for honey. But they came only at night and did a lot of damage when they climbed the trees. However, these tough apple trees had been broken by bears every year they'd borne a crop and they'd always recovered. They'd recover again, and Ted supposed bears had as much right as anything else to the apples. He grinned. The fruit was gnarled and wormy, but it was a woodland delicacy and woodland dwellers competed for it as fiercely as a crowd of undisciplined children might compete for a rack of ice-cream cones.
Ted walked all around the camp, saw nothing amiss and unlocked the door. He pulled the hasp back, went in—and saw Tammie's pack lying under the table. Momentarily alarmed, he stopped. Only one person could have left the pack! He picked it up and thrust his hand into a side pocket. He found and pulled out a page torn from the pad of paper he'd inserted in the pack and read the penciled note.
Dear Ted; I was cuming to see you last nite. Tammy met me a sniff from the dor and I snuck up and saw Calhan. Gess he wants to see me rite enuf but I don't want to see him!Hope taking Tammy's pak don't throw you off.I can get along a good spel with the stuf in the pak and wudcok seson cuming on. I've saw a mess of flite wudcok. Don't send Tammy agen without you know it's safe and send him after midnite. I won't be so far away he can't get to me and bak. Watch Calhan. He's sharp.Your dadP.S. I got the kyote.
Dear Ted; I was cuming to see you last nite. Tammy met me a sniff from the dor and I snuck up and saw Calhan. Gess he wants to see me rite enuf but I don't want to see him!
Hope taking Tammy's pak don't throw you off.
I can get along a good spel with the stuf in the pak and wudcok seson cuming on. I've saw a mess of flite wudcok. Don't send Tammy agen without you know it's safe and send him after midnite. I won't be so far away he can't get to me and bak. Watch Calhan. He's sharp.
Your dad
P.S. I got the kyote.
Ted heaved a mighty sigh of thanksgiving. Al had the pack's contents and there were three blankets missing from the camp. For the first time, the dark clouds that surged around the boy revealed their silver lining. Al was still a fugitive, but he had enough to eat and he was sleeping under blankets. It seemed a great deal.
Ted read the note again and smiled over it. A hunted outlaw, Al was still abiding by the principles in which he believed. He might have been justified in killing game for food, but the reference to woodcock season indicated that he had done no such thing. Possibly—Ted remembered that he had his coyote traps—he had caught a bobcat or so. The season was never closed on bobcats and, if one could overcome natural squeamishness, they were really delicious eating. Ted lifted the stove lid, put the note within, applied a lighted match, waited until the paper burned to ashes, then used the lid lifter to pound the ashes to dust.
He looked fondly at Tammie, who had been nowise derelict. Ordered to go to Al, he had done exactly that and it was none of Tammie's doing if Al had been within a "sniff" of his own back door.
Ted said cheerfully, "Guess we'll go home, Tammie. But we'll come back for the pack tonight, Mr. Callahan, or some of his friends, probably will be patroling here and there."
That night there were three more letters, two from deer hunters who wanted the camp the usual first two weeks of the season and one from a grouse hunter who wanted the first week. Ted advised them of the camp's present status, put his letters in the mailbox and lifted the red flag to let the carrier know there was mail to pick up. The next night there were five letters, two of which had been sent airmail. Ted opened the first.
Dear Mr. Harkness: Your letter intrigued us no end. We haven't seen a good flight of woodcock for ten years and didn't think there was any such thing any more. Should they come in, by all means call me and reverse the charges. My business phone is TR 5-4397; my home is LA 2-0489. Call either place and we'll start an hour afterwards. There'll be seven of us, and I enclose a ten-dollar check as deposit.Cordially,George Beaulieu
Dear Mr. Harkness: Your letter intrigued us no end. We haven't seen a good flight of woodcock for ten years and didn't think there was any such thing any more. Should they come in, by all means call me and reverse the charges. My business phone is TR 5-4397; my home is LA 2-0489. Call either place and we'll start an hour afterwards. There'll be seven of us, and I enclose a ten-dollar check as deposit.
Cordially,
George Beaulieu
The second airmail letter read:
Bless you, Ted! You've started me dreaming of Damon and/or Pythias. One or the other will do, but nothing else, please! By your own invitation, you're stuck with me for the full twenty-one days. I'll see you the day before the season opens.Gratefully,John L. Wilson
Bless you, Ted! You've started me dreaming of Damon and/or Pythias. One or the other will do, but nothing else, please! By your own invitation, you're stuck with me for the full twenty-one days. I'll see you the day before the season opens.
Gratefully,
John L. Wilson
There was a check for a hundred dollars enclosed and almost grimly Ted folded both checks in his wallet. He'd have to spend some money for food, but not a great deal. The freezer was almost full and much of the garden remained to be harvested. He stared at the far wall.
He had not planned it this way. He had looked forward to a happy venture, to enjoying and helping his guests, and if he made money in so doing, that would be fine. Had things turned out as he'd planned, there was already enough money in sight to build and equip another camp. But that was not to be. Al had to come out of the Mahela some time. When he did, they were in for a fight, and money would be a powerful weapon in that all-out battle. They must win, and anything else must be secondary.
The other three letters were from deer hunters who wanted the camp the first two weeks of the season.
Ted devoted the next fortnight to harvesting the garden. He dug the potatoes, emptied them in the cellar bin and stacked squash and pumpkins beside them. Bunches of carrots and turnips were stored in another bin, and shelled beans were put in sacks.
Almost every mail brought more letters, and two out of three were from deer hunters. Ted rented his camp for the season's third week. Maybe nobody could make a living from deer hunters alone, but anybody who had enough camps, perhaps ten or twelve, could certainly earn a decent sum of money from just deer hunters.
The Mahela changed its green summer dress for autumn's gaudy raiment and the frosts came. Woodcock continued to drift in, and two days before the season opened, they arrived in force. Where there had been one, there were thirty, and still they came. Ted drove into Lorton and called from the drugstore.
"Mr. Beaulieu?"
"Yes?"
"This is Ted Harkness, Mr. Beaulieu. The woodcock are in."
"A big flight?"
"The biggest in years."
"We'll be there tomorrow," George Beaulieu said happily. "Hold the camp for us!"
"I'll do that, and anybody in Lorton can tell you where to find me."
"Thanks for calling. We'll be seeing you."
In the beech forest, just beyond Tumbling Run, a buck so young that budding antlers did little more than part the coarse hair on its head stamped a front hoof and snorted. Old enough to have a vast admiration for himself and his own powers, but too young to have any sense, the little buck snorted again and tried to sound as ferocious as possible. Nosing about for any apples that might remain under the trees near Ted's camp, he had stood his ground gallantly when Ted and Tammie approached.
Not ten minutes before their arrival, he'd chased a rabbit away from the trees and he was so impressed by that feat that he thought he could chase anything. But when Ted and Tammie refused to run, he'd trotted into the forest to do his threatening from a safer place. He snorted again, more hopefully than angrily, and when he did not regain possession of the apple trees, he looked sad. Ted grinned at him.
"Junior's almost decided he can't bluff us, Tammie. Poor little guy! He'd just about convinced himself that he's a real ripsnorter of a buck. Oh, well, it's a hard world for everybody."
Ted continued to string clotheslines between the apple trees. He pulled them tight, tested their tension with an experimental finger and turned thoughtfully back to the camp. It might be a hard world for adolescent bucks, but if it weren't for the fact that his father was still laying out in the Mahela, right now it would be a pretty good one for Ted.
True to his promise, George Beaulieu and his six companions had arrived the day before woodcock season opened. In his mid-fifties, Beaulieu was branch manager for an insurance company. Of the six men with him, only twenty-six-year-old George Junior, an insurance salesman who thought his father was the greatest man in the world and who wanted nothing more than to follow in his footsteps, had been less than middle-aged. The other five were a filling station owner, a dentist, a toolmaker, an electrical appliance dealer and a printer. Their party had been complemented by two dogs, an English setter and a springer spaniel.
There had been nothing sensational about any of them, including the dogs. Except for George Beaulieu, his son and the printer, none of the men had been even fair hunters. The three, far and away the best of the seven gunners, had averaged three shots for every woodcock brought down. The worst gunner, the electrical appliance dealer, who appropriately enough was named Joseph Watt, had fired at least fifteen times for every woodcock he put in his pocket. Yet Ted felt that the happy man had lived through an uplifting and a near-sensational experience.
Although unpretentious, his guests had definitely not been meek or demure. Whoever missed an easy shot, which practically all of them did at least twice a day, was needled mercilessly by the others. Not one among them, under the best of conditions, could have made even a meager living as a professional hunter. Yet they represented the best type of present-day game seekers.
They had come to shoot woodcock and they would have been disappointed not to shoot some. But they did not pursue their quarry with the calculating coldness of a Smoky Delbert or, for that matter, with the intense concentration of an Al Harkness, when Al was after a pelt he wanted. They were out for fun and they had fun, and although game mattered, meat did not. There were so many woodcock that everybody, even Joseph Watt, got some. But considering the shells they shot, the camp rental, food, transportation and licenses, their game probably cost them at least fifteen dollars a pound!
After the first week ended and there seemed to be more woodcock than ever—the flight was still coming in—they had decided that another ten years might pass before they saw this again and stayed the second week. They'd left only this morning, promising to be back next year if there was another flight of woodcock, or for grouse if there was not.
Ted hummed as he started toward the camp. The Beaulieu party had been wonderful guests and certainly they were welcome back. If the Mahela was good for them, they were just as good for the Mahela.
Ted gathered up as much bedding as he could carry. He'd been a little worried about it because he'd provided neither sheets nor pillowcases. But lack of them hadn't seemed to worry the Beaulieu party in the slightest. Most people who hunted all day were too tired by night to care whether their beds were formal, or anything except comfortable. Next year—always supposing his father and he still had the camp, Ted thought that they would have to provide linens, too. Summer campers spent more time in camp than hunters did, and they were apt to be more particular.
Ted hung the blankets and quilts on the lines he had strung and pinned them securely. If they aired all day long, they'd be fresh by night. The grouse hunters—Ted had corresponded with an Arthur Beamish—were due some time after supper and there would be ten in the party.
The small buck, that had been lurking hopefully near and awaiting a chance to come back, snorted his astonishment when the bedding began to blow in the wind and ran away as fast as he could. The little fellow thought he was fully capable of dealing with anything natural, but wind-blown bedclothes smacked of the supernatural. Ted lost himself in thought.
The camp was completely rented, except for the third week of small game season, and it would return a little more than four hundred dollars in rent. Added to that was the money he'd certainly get from John Wilson, and the total was more than it had cost to build and furnish the camp. Some of it would have to go for food and John Wilson probably would expect good things to eat, but he'd get them. Ted had six woodcock, a gourmet's delight, in the freezer, and he would add the legal two days' possession limit of six grouse. He'd need more than that, but even after buying whatever was necessary, he'd still have enough money to put up a hard legal battle for Al when his father finally had to surrender. There would be at least twice as much money as Ted had told John McLean he would have. If more was needed, and it probably would be, he'd sell the camp.
Ted gathered up the dirty towels and wash and dish cloths, put them in a bushel basket brought along for that purpose and replaced them with fresh, clean laundry. The Beaulieu party, another proof of their sportsmanship, had left the camp in fine shape, with the dishes washed and stacked where they belonged and the floor clean. Tammie came in the open door and Ted grinned at him.
"Guess we can go, Tammie, and you'd better rest a bit. You're going into the hills tonight."
Tammie wagged an agreeable tail and trotted out to the pickup with his master; Ted eased the little truck onto the road.
He'd sent Tammie, with a load of food, the night before the Beaulieu party arrived and everything had gone without a hitch. Tammie had left shortly after midnight and returned two and a half hours later. The pack was empty save for the note Al had thrust in it.
Dear Ted: Tammy cum al rite. This works good, huh? I got enuf to last me anyhow 2 weeks mor. Don't send Tammy befor. The les you got to send him, the beter it is. Good luk and thanks.Your dad
Dear Ted: Tammy cum al rite. This works good, huh? I got enuf to last me anyhow 2 weeks mor. Don't send Tammy befor. The les you got to send him, the beter it is. Good luk and thanks.
Your dad
Ted sighed wearily. He'd hoped that, with passing time, the situation would clear itself or be cleared. If anything, it was worse.
Definitely out of danger, but due for a long convalescence in the Lorton hospital, Smoky Delbert had told everything. Starting from the Fordham Road, he had gone up Coon Valley with the intention of finding good places to set fox traps. He'd carried his rifle because there was always a chance of seeing a fox or bobcat, predators upon which there was a bounty. He'd known Al Harkness was ahead of him, for Al's distinctive boot marks had been left in the soft place where the spring overflowed the Coon Valley trail. Nearing the three sycamores, and without any warning at all, Al had risen from behind Glory Rock and shot.
It was a simple, straightforward story and one that bore out other known facts. By his own admission, Al had been in Coon Valley the same day. He did wear boots with soles of his own design, and therefore they were distinctive. Smoky Delbert, a woodsman of vast experience, might very well have seen these tracks, in spite of the fact that Loring Blade had missed them. Ted sighed again.
The papers had printed Smoky's story and most were sympathetic. There had even been a couple of resounding editorials demanding that Al be brought in—regardless of the cost and effort that might be expended to apprehend him—and face the justice he so richly deserved. But editors were not the only ones who had swung to Smoky's side.
Time, John McLean had asserted, made people forget. Only, in this instance, it had made too many of them forget that Smoky Delbert was a vicious poacher. He had, instead, become the wronged innocent, and when Ted went into Lorton now there were those who averted their faces when they passed him or even crossed to the other side of the street to avoid meeting him at all.
Carl Thornton had become something of a local hero. Nobody knew how the news had leaked out, but everyone knew that Crestwood's owner was paying all of Smoky's extensive hospital bills. That puzzled Ted, for Thornton had never seemed the type to care about anyone's welfare save his own. But he would do anything that worked to his own advantage, and perhaps he thought it worth his while, at the price of Smoky's hospital expenses, to have Lorton solidly behind him. There could be no doubt that Lorton was there.
"Cut it out!" Ted urged himself. "You don't like Thornton, but give him credit, if credit's due."
Ted swung up the Harkness drive and parked. While Tammie went off on an inspection tour to assure himself that everything was as it should be, the boy took the basket of laundry inside. He grimaced. Modern in some respects, Al had by no means accepted the streamlined age as an unmixed blessing. He'd bought a freezer and refrigerator because their advantages were obvious. But he scorned washing machines and was sure that, though clothes emerging from one might look clean, they couldn't possibly be as pure as those that were washed on a scrub-board.
Ted put the washtub on its stand, filled it with hot water, added soap and went to scrubbing. He rinsed the laundry, ran it through a hand wringer and hung it on a line stretched behind the house.
An hour before sundown, he went back to camp to replace the bedding and wind his clotheslines on a spool. He got his own supper, fed Tammie, washed the dishes and had just finished putting them where they belonged when the collie whined a warning. A car, followed by a second, came up the drive and, a moment later, there was an unnecessarily loud knock on the door.
Ted opened it to confront a rather plump man, who was probably in his mid-thirties. He was dressed in a gaudy wool shirt, hunting pants, ten-inch lace boots, and around his middle was belted a hunting knife almost long enough to be a small sword. His black hair was a little wild and so were his eyes, but his smile was pleasant and his outstretched hand was quite steady.
"Ted?"
"That's right."
"I'm Beamish," the other stated, a little thickly. "B'-gosh, we found you!"
"You certainly did!"
Ted smiled faintly. Hunters going into camp often did a little anticipatory celebrating and evidently Arthur Beamish had been overdoing it.
"This the camp?" he asked.
"No, the camp's farther up the road."
"Good!" Arthur Beamish said happily. "You go in the woods, you go in the woods! More woods, the better! That's what I always say! What do you always say?"
"Same thing." Ted grinned. "If you want to follow me, I'll show you the way up there."
"Ride with ya," Beamish declared. "Tha's just what I'll do."
"You're welcome."
Ordering Tammie to stay in the house, Ted guided his exuberant guest to the pickup and opened the door for him. Arthur Beamish bellowed, "Follow us, men! Ah, wilderness!"
He sat companionably close and draped a friendly arm across Ted's shoulder. "Lots of grouse?"
"Plenty. You like grouse hunting, eh?"
"Best darn' game there is!" Beamish exploded. "I rather get me one grouse than forty-nine deer! And I get 'em, too!"
"You do?"
"Didn't you ever hear about me?"
"I—" Ted hesitated. Obviously, he was supposed to know his guest. But he didn't, yet to say the wrong thing might mean to give offense, "Uh—aren't you—?"
"Tha's right!" Beamish said happily. "I'm Beamish, the trapshooter! Traps in summer, grouse in season! Br-br-br! Up they go! Bang! Down they come! Every time!"
Ted twisted uneasily. Three grouse was the daily bag limit. Nobody should need, or take, more than that. He calmed himself. As yet, nobody had taken more. He pulled in to the camp and stopped.
"Fine camp!" enthused Beamish, who could see only that part of it which was illuminated by the pickup's lights. "Best I ever did see! Great lil' camp!"
The other two cars stopped and the rest of the hunters got out. Even in the night, there was that about them which at once set them apart from the quiet Beaulieu party. They were younger, more restless, and they fairly oozed that nervous sparkle which so often marks young executives. They were also sensible—only Arthur Beamish and one other had been over-indulging themselves. Definitely, the drivers of the two cars were in full possession of all their faculties.
The three beautiful setters that had ridden in a pen in one of the car's trunks were as smartly turned out as the men. Obviously, they were hunting dogs, the best money could buy. But this crowd had money to spend.
"Come 'round!" Arthur Beamish bellowed. "Wan'sha to meet Ted!"
One by one, Ted was introduced to the rest of the party and as he met them, he liked them. If they were young and restless, they were also competent and talented and they had an air of belonging here in the wilderness. Probably this was not the first camp they'd ever seen.
"Let's go in," Ted suggested.
Arthur Beamish bubbled, "You get the best ideas!"
Ted let the men into the camp, watched closely as they inspected it and knew definitely that they'd been in such places before. Their glances were quick but all encompassing.
One of them, and although Ted did not remember all the names, he thought this one was Tom Strickland, turned with a smile. "This will do very well. Do you know where we can get a wet nurse?"
"A what?"
Strickland grinned, "A sort of combination cook, fire-builder, sweeper-upper, dishwasher; we'll want to spend our time hunting."
"I think I can find somebody. Is nine dollars a day all right?"
"Sure. Can you send him up tomorrow?"
"Send him tonight!" somebody yelled.
Strickland said scathingly, "I wouldn't inflict you wild hyenas on anyone tonight. I'll cook breakfast."
"Oh, my aching ptomaine!"
Ted grinned. "I'm sure I can send somebody tomorrow. Everything's O.K., eh?"
"Right as rain."
Ted got grimly back into the pickup and started down the road. Nine dollars a day for fourteen days meant another hundred and twenty-six dollars that probably would be sorely needed when Al had his inevitable day in court, but Ted hadn't wanted to accept the job tonight because, somehow, doing so would have seemed grasping. But he'd swallow his pride and take it tomorrow. He must think of nothing except clearing his father's name.
Back at the house, Ted loaded Tammie's pack very carefully. Laying out in the Mahela, Al would not expect and did not need luxuries. Ted packed cornmeal and oatmeal, desiccated soup, a parcel of dried apricots, powdered milk, sugar, tea, flour. But when everything else was in, there was room for a parcel of frozen pork chops. Ted added them and a note.
Dad: Everything's fine. There are grouse hunters in camp now and there will be bear hunters next. Take care of yourself and let me know what you need.Love,Ted
Dad: Everything's fine. There are grouse hunters in camp now and there will be bear hunters next. Take care of yourself and let me know what you need.
Love,
Ted
At five minutes past midnight, he strapped the pack on Tammie, took him to the back door and let him out. Just as he did, there was an almost timid knock on the front door. He jumped nervously.
"Go to Al!" he urged. "Take it to Al, Tammie! And please run!"
He shut the back door and perspiration broke on his brow as he stood anxiously near it. Callahan, whose suspicions should have been effectively lulled, was not lulled at all. He'd merely bided his time, struck at the right hour and Ted was trapped.
He crossed the floor on shaky legs and opened the front door to come face to face with Nels Anderson. Ted gasped.
His one-time working partner was pale and looked ill. Weariness had left its impression in great blue patches beneath both eyes, but it was not entirely physical weariness. Nels had suffered some terrible shock—and in his extremity he had come to his friend.
"Nels! What's wrong?"
"I," Nels forced the shadow of his former smile, "am all right."
"Come on in!"
"I—I do not want to bother you. But I saw your light and—"
"What on earth have you been doing?"
"Walkin'. Yoost walkin'."
"All night?"
"I—" Nels looked at the floor. "I did not want to see Hilda. I—I lose my yob."
"How come?"
Nels smiled again, but it was a sickly smile. "Mrs. Martin, she's helpin' in the kitchen while huntin' season's on, she says, 'Nels,' she says, 'the door on the walk-in cooler is stuck. I can't open it. Can you?' I say I open it and Thornton comes. 'Told you to stay out of here!' he yells. He was awful mad. 'Now get out and stay out!' So, no more yob."
"You'll get another one."
"Oh sure. I get another one easy. You—You know where?"
Ted said recklessly, "I know where you can work for the next two weeks. There's a bunch of hunters in my camp and they're looking for somebody to do their cooking and odd jobs. Get up there tomorrow morning and say I sent you. The pay is nine dollars a day."
Stars shone in Nels' woebegone eyes. "You mean it?"
"Sure I mean it."
"Yah! I go tell Hilda!"
Nels had shuffled in the door but he seemed to float out of it. Ted stared grimly at the black window. He needed the money himself, but Nels had a wife and five children and whether or not they ate regularly depended on whether Nels worked steadily. Ted paced back and forth, then sank into a chair.
Weariness overcame him and he dozed.... He awakened suddenly, sure he'd heard something. Then Tammie whined for admittance and Ted got up to let him in. He took off the pack and looked for the note he knew he would find.
Dear Ted: Tammy cum agen, as you know. I'm set rite nise now. There is no need to send Tammy agen for a cuple weeks. Tel your bear hunters that a lot of bears hang out in Carter Valley.Your dad
Dear Ted: Tammy cum agen, as you know. I'm set rite nise now. There is no need to send Tammy agen for a cuple weeks. Tel your bear hunters that a lot of bears hang out in Carter Valley.
Your dad
Ted had had an awakening.
Four days after he sent Nels to work for the Beamish party, Nels had come back singing their praises in the loftiest tones. They were all gentlemen of the highest order. Nobody cared what he cooked as long as there was plenty of whatever it was. Driving Nels into Lorton, Mr. Strickland had asked him to order groceries and had paid the rather large bill without a murmur. That night they'd voted him the best camp cook they ever saw and given him a ten-dollar tip.
Of course, they were a little bit queer. He'd told them his name at least a dozen times, but everybody insisted on calling him Hjalmar. They pronounced it exactly as it was spelled, too. Nels didn't mind because Hjalmar was certainly a fine old name. But it had taken him almost a day to get used to it.
They were wonderful hunters, especially that Mr. Beamish. The first day he'd shot five grouse, the second seven, and on the two succeeding days he'd shot five and seven. That made twenty-three grouse in four days and he'd used just thirty-two shells. It must be some kind of record or something, Nels didn't know. However, each day everyone else in the party had paid Mr. Beamish money. Nels understood if Mr. Beamish scored too many misses, he'd have to pay all the others. Still singing the praises of the Beamish party, Nels hurried off to resume his duties with them.
Ted was left to ponder a problem that he had hoped he would never have to face.
Too many people—who were too often intelligent people—took game laws far too lightly. They shot what they wished when they wished to, and few of them ever thought that they were doing any wrong. Actually, in every sense of the word, they were thieves. Bag and possession limits, insofar as it was humanly possible to apportion wild game justly, were provided so everyone might have a share and still leave some behind. Who took more than his share, took from all the others.
Beyond the shadow of a doubt, it was the duty of anyone who knew of game law violations to report the violator to the nearest warden so the proper action could be taken. But how could Ted report Arthur Beamish's when Beamish was his guest? The boy still hadn't made a decision when, the next day, Loring Blade came in.
The warden said quietly, "I've been watching the grouse hunters in your camp."
"You have?"
"Yes, and I arrested one of them this morning, a man named Beamish. He's killed nineteen grouse that I know of, seven over anything he should have had, in four days."
Ted said reluctantly, "He's killed twenty-three."
"How do you know?"
"Nels told me."
"Wish I'd known that, but I think he'll toe the mark now."
"What'd you do to him?"
"Took him before Justice McAfee. Mac fined him fifty dollars and a positive revocation of his license if he violates any more."
"But—"
"But what?"
"There's a twenty-five dollar fine for every illegal grouse. As long as you were taking him in, you should have had him fined a hundred and seventy-five dollars."
"Not him," Loring Blade declared. "You can't hurt him too much by hitting him in the pocketbook. His hunting privileges are what he holds dear."
It was, Ted decided after the warden had left, a smart way to do things. The penalty for breaking game laws should be harsh, but fining Arthur Beamish a hundred and seventy-five dollars would bother him less than a ten-dollar fine might inconvenience a Stacey or a Crawford. However, Beamish's hunting privileges really meant something to him.
At any rate, the warden's method worked. Nels, who lost none of his admiration for the grouse hunters, gave Ted a complete report at intervals. Nobody in the camp took more than the limit after Beamish was fined—and there was still another angle. Ted had always known that he and his father were in the minority—sometimes it seemed that nobody except he and Al cared what happened to the Mahela. But now the boy was assured that others worked for its best interests, too.
The grouse hunters had gone home and for a whole week there would be nobody in the camp. There was nothing to worry about in the immediate future. Al, as his last note indicated, was doing all right. The Beamish party, who'd really liked Nels, had expressed their satisfaction in more lavish tips and for the first time in three years, Nels' family could get by for a while, even if he did not work. However, he could certainly work all through deer season. The Andersons might face a bleak New Year, but they would have a happy Christmas.
Ted had decided to seize the week's interlude as a fine time to go over the camp from top to bottom, but there was little to do. Nels would never write a learned dissertation about Shakespeare, or come up with a startling new aspect of the nuclear fission theory, but whoever hired him got all they paid for, plus a substantial bonus. Working by the day, in Nels' opinion, meant working twenty-four hours, if that were necessary. The cabin was spotless. Even the blankets had been aired.
With time heavy on his hands, Ted fretted. He collected the six grouse to which he was entitled and put them in the freezer. For lack of something else to do, he went twice more to the three sycamores near Glory Rock, the scene of Smoky Delbert's shooting. He didn't find anything, but he hadn't really expected to discover any new evidence or clues. Looking for them had helped kill time while he waited anxiously for the bear hunters.
Deer were not especially hard to get, if all one wanted was venison; there were does and young deer that wouldn't even run from hunters. But the big old bucks with acceptable racks of antlers got big because they were wary and they were difficult to bring down. Woodcock were sporting and who hunted grouse successfully had every right to call himself a hunter. Squirrels were fun, providing one hunted them with a rifle instead of a shotgun. But unless one used dogs to bring them to bay—and it was against the law to use dogs on any big game in the Mahela—black bears were far and away the most difficult game of all.
Keen-nosed and sharp-eared, they almost always knew when hunters were about. Wise, they were well aware of the best ways to preserve their own hides. As circumstances prescribed, they could slink like ghosts or run like horses and they laid some heartbreaking trails. Fifty miles was no unusual distance for a black bear to cover in a day and they were full of tricks. Ted himself had followed black bears on snow and come to where the trail ended abruptly. The bears had walked backwards, stepping exactly in the tracks they had made running forward, and made a long sidewise jump that always delayed their pursuer and sometimes baffled him.
Some men who'd spent their lives in black bear country had yet to see their first one. It took hunters of the highest caliber to get them, and thus Ted looked forward to those who would occupy his camp. But while he waited there was little else to do and he spent some of his time in Lorton.
Just another sleepy little town for forty-nine weeks of the year, Lorton was almost feverishly preparing for its moment of glory. If it was not exactly the center of all eyes, due to its geographical position as the town nearest the Mahela, it was the center of deer hunting. Every room in its two hotels and three motels had long since been reserved and any householder with a room to rent could have a choice of at least ten hunters. In the next few weeks, Lorton would see at least twice as many deer hunters as it had permanent residents. Its normally quiet streets would have bumper-to-bumper traffic. Parking space would be at a premium; there'd be crowds waiting in every eating place; stores would sell more merchandise than they did at any other time of the year; and any Lortonite who knew anything at all about the Mahela, even if his knowledge was limited to how to get into it and out of it again, could have a job guiding deer hunters, if he wanted it.
In addition, every camping ground in the Mahela would have its quota of trailers, tents and hardy souls who either slept in cars or made their beds on the ground. Sometimes, in the event of heavy storms, these venturesome ones got into trouble and were trapped until snowplows or rescue parties reached them. But this fall the weather had been mild, almost springlike, and there was every indication that it would continue to be so.
Twice, just after the grouse hunters left and again four days later, Ted sent Tammie to Al. He would send him again just before deer season opened, for that was an uncertain time. There would be hunters everywhere and no assurance as to what they would do. Horses, cattle, sheep, leaves fluttering in the wind and men had all been mistaken for bucks with nice racks of antlers and punctured accordingly with high-powered ammunition. If Tammie should be delayed and have to come back in daylight, there was no guarantee whatever that some trigger-happy hunter would not consider him a choice black and white deer. Stocking Al with plenty of everything he needed meant that Tammie would not have to go out again until deer season ended.
Ted spent the two days prior to the opening of bear season cutting more wood for the camp. On the afternoon before, he built and banked a fire in the heating stove so that the camp would be reasonably warm and dry when the hunters arrived. Then he prepared his supper and Tammie's and was ready for the knock on his door when it sounded. He opened the door and blinked in astonishment.
The man who stood before him was young, not much older than Ted himself, and very grave. He wore hunting clothes and hunting boots, but perhaps because they were new, they seemed somewhat ill-fitting. Strapped around his middle were two belts, one containing a knife with a blade at least a foot long and the other supporting two enormous 45 caliber revolvers. He was making every effort to appear nonchalant, but it was an effort so strained that the effect was a little ludicrous. His eyes brimmed with a lilting excitement and a vast anticipation.
"Mr. Harkness?"
"Yes."
"I'm Alex Jackson."
"Oh, yes." Ted extended his hand. "Glad to see you, Mr. Jackson."
"As you can see," Alex Jackson indicated the two revolvers, "I'm ready for them."
"Uh—are you going bear hunting with revolvers?"
"Oh, no! Definitely not. I have my rifle, too. It's just that one must be prepared when the beasts charge."
"Ah—What'd you say?"
"I said—Oh, before I overlook it."
Alex Jackson took out his wallet and counted out the thirty-five dollars still due on the camp rental. Ted tried to collect his spinning thoughts. Expecting a seasoned, experienced hunter, he'd met instead a youngster who talked seriously about black bears charging. Or hadn't Ted heard correctly? He slipped the money into his pocket and looked sidewise at his guest.
"If you'll follow me, I'll take you to the camp."
"Would you have a little time to talk?"
"Of course."
"May I bring the fellows in?"
"Certainly."
The man turned to beckon, and somebody shut off the car's idling motor and flicked off its lights. Five more hunters came into the house, and Ted was introduced as they came. None were older than Alex Jackson. Two, Alex's brother Paul and a youngster named Philip Tarbox, looked as though they should be behind their high-school desks, rather than in a hunting camp. Alex Jackson turned with a smile.
"Now you know us. How do you like us?"
"Fine," Ted murmured. "Uh—how much bear hunting have any of you done?"
Alex Jackson's eyes were full of dreams. "None of us have ever hunted any big game, but I've read all about it."
"You've never hunted?"
"Not big game," Alex Jackson said modestly. "You see, I just came of age last month and thus was able to handle my own affairs. But I've always wanted to hunt big game, especially bears."
"Do—do your folks know you're here?"
"Paul and I haven't any, and I am now Paul's guardian. But the other fellows' parents do. Yes, of course, and they were glad to have them in my charge. I've been counsellor for three summers at Camp Monawami. You needn't worry about our ability to handle firearms. We've all hunted rabbits. But I would like to ask your advice."
"Sure." Ted felt weak.
"Philip, Steve, Arnold and Wilson are armed with nothing but shotguns. Do you think I should return to the town through which we just passed and buy them rifles and revolvers?"
"Gosh no!"
"I'm worried," Alex Jackson said seriously. "Grimshaw, in hisBears of the North, says that when the beasts charge—"
"Grimshaw was writing about grizzlies. These are black bears."
"Oh!" Alex Jackson elevated his brows. "You can say definitely that they will not charge?"
"Nobody can say that. They're wild animals."
"I thought so!" Alex Jackson seemed vastly relieved. "Will a shotgun halt them when they charge?"
"Oh, yes."
Ted wished he could sink through the floor. Expecting hunters, he had his hands full of what, very literally, were babes in the woods. But they had a great dream and a great hope, and regardless of who told them that not once in 1000 times will even a wounded black bear charge a hunter, they wouldn't believe it because they did not care to believe it. They had come bear hunting to live dangerously!
Alex Jackson nodded happily. "Thank you very much. Now will you please show us the camp?"
"Follow me."
As he drove up the Lorton Road, Ted gave himself over to his own grim thoughts. Obviously, there was much more to building and renting camps than met the casual eye. One never knew who was coming or what they'd do. Now he was certain only that this crew of naive hopefuls should not venture into the Mahela alone. He wasn't even sure that they should be permitted to stay in camp without supervision, but he'd risk that much for at least one night. He parked in front of the camp, waited for his guests and admitted them.
"Just what I'd hoped for!" Alex Jackson exclaimed. "Semi-primitive surroundings! Delightful!"
Ted asked, "Can you handle the stoves and everything?"
"Oh, yes! Oh, indeed yes! But perhaps you will tell us where we have the best chance of encountering bears?"
"I'll do better than that. I'll show you."
"That's good of you. Would you care to start at daylight?"
"I'll be here."
"We'll be ready."
On arriving at the camp a half hour before daylight the next morning, Ted saw that it was not burned down and that his young guests had made no obvious blunders. Rather, with breakfast eaten and the dishes stacked away, they seemed to be doing pretty well for themselves. But, even though they knew what to do around a camp, the fact remained that none of them had ever hunted big game.
Ted exchanged greetings and looked out of the window. Renting hunting camps might be a nice way to earn a living, but there must be easier ones! The very fact that he'd rented his camp to them implied an obligation. Six hunters who knew exactly what to do had little enough chance of getting a bear. These youngsters had one in a thousand. But if there was any way to do it, Ted still had to offer them their money's worth and he considered himself responsible for them. Sending them into the Mahela alone probably, and at the least, meant that they would get lost.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Let's go!" Alex Jackson said happily.
Ted led the six into the lightening morning. Since there was no snow, it was futile even to think of tracking a bear. Without any experience, these youngsters had no hope whatever of staging a successful drive, or putting four of their number in favorable shooting positions while the rest beat through the forest and tried to drive a bear past them. Only Alex Jackson and his brother were armed with rifles, therefore they were the only two who had even a slight chance of getting a bear, should one be sighted at long range. But the possibilities of even seeing a bear were so slim anyway that Ted had not wanted Alex to buy rifles for the other four.
There was just one faint hope.... This was the season of the Great Harvest. Frost had opened the pods on the beech trees and beech nuts had fallen like rain into the forest litter below. Tiny things, they were in vast quantity. Deer, bears, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, foxes, practically every creature in the Mahela was spending almost full time filling itself with beech nuts or storing them away. Winter, that would bring hunger and lean bellies, was just ahead and well the wild things knew it.
If Ted posted his crew at favorable places among the beech trees and if they sat absolutely quiet, one or more of them might at least see a bear. Very definitely there was not much of a chance, but there was none at all if they did anything else.
Al had told of a lot of bears in Carter Valley and Ted took his hunters there. He left them in various strategic places where scraped and pawed leaves told their own story of being turned aside so that hungry creatures might partake of the beech nuts hidden beneath. Lacking snow, there was no foolproof way to tell just what had been scraping or pawing, but something had and it might be bears.
After the rest had been posted, Ted took Alex Jackson out to the rim of Carter Valley. The slope pitched sharply downwards and rose just as sharply on the other side, but here the valley was shallow, with perhaps a hundred yards to its floor. It was possibly another hundred yards from rim to rim, and the opposite rim was almost treeless. About a half mile away across the treeless slope was a crumbling slag pile. Years ago a vein of coal had been discovered here and mined as long as it paid off. But it had ceased to pay and had been abandoned long before Ted was born. Only the tunnel and the slag pile were left.
The opposite slope was covered with beech brush that would be jungle thick to anyone within it. But from this vantage point, eyes could penetrate the brush. Any bear going up or down the valley, and one might do just that, would certainly travel through the beech brush and any hunter posted here would surely have some good shooting. Ted turned to Alex Jackson.
"You stay here."
"Here?"
"Yes. Move as little as possible and make no noise. Watch the beech brush across there. Sooner or later a bear's going through it. I'll pick you up tonight."
"Right-o."
That night, the bear hunters were still reasonably happy. All had seen squirrels and feeding grouse. Four had seen deer and three had watched turkeys feeding. Paul Jackson had thought he'd seen a bear, but it turned out to be a black squirrel running on the opposite side of a fallen tree, with only its bobbing back appearing now and then.
For the next few days, the sextette stayed quite happy. Then deer, squirrels and turkeys began to pall. They were proud bear hunters, and so far they hadn't seen even a bear's track. The last day, disappointment was in full reign. They'd not only told their friends they were going to get a bear but, Ted suspected, Alex Jackson had done considerable talking about the way bears charged hunters.
Nevertheless, they all followed Ted back into Carter Valley and the five younger hunters took the places assigned them. It was the best way. They'd occupied these same stands for six days without seeing any bears, but sooner or later the law of averages would send one along.
With Alex Jackson in tow, Ted started back toward the valley's rim. Alex Jackson touched his arm.
"I say, would you mind if I just wandered about on my own?"
"Not if that's the way you want it."
Alex Jackson had arrived so full of dreams and spirit and now he seemed so despondent. "I won't get lost—and I may find something," he said quietly.
"Good luck," Ted replied gently.
Ted wandered gloomily out to the rim of the valley and sat down in the place Alex Jackson had been occupying. Not every hunter can leave the woods with a full bag of game, but Ted felt that, somehow, he had failed this eager young group. His guests might at least haveseena bear. Carrying no rifle—he was the guide—and with nothing special to do, Ted basked in the warm sunshine.
An hour later, his eye was caught by motion down the valley. Coming out of the semi-doze into which he had fallen, he looked sharply at it and gasped. A bear, not a monstrous creature but no cub—it weighed perhaps 250 pounds—was coming through the beech brush. It was about two hundred yards down the valley and halfway up the other slope, and it was not in the slightest hurry. It stopped to sniff at some interesting thing it discovered and turned to retrace its steps a few yards. Then it came on.
Ted groaned inwardly. A rifleman posted here could have an easy shot—and Alex Jackson had sat here idly for six days! The bear came on for another sixty yards, lay down beside a huge boulder and prepared itself for a nap.
Ted crawled away. Bears have a remarkable sense of scent and good hearing, but very weak eyes. This one couldn't see him. If it smelled him, it certainly would not be where it was. If he was very careful, it might not hear him. As soon as Ted thought he was far enough from the valley's rim, he rose and ran back to where he'd left Paul Jackson.
That alert youngster heard him coming and had his rifle ready, but its muzzle was pointed at the ground. Paul Jackson lacked experience, but not sense. He wasn't going to shoot at anything until he knew what was in front of his rifle.
Ted came close and whispered, "Come on! I've got one spotted!"
"You have?"
"Take it easy and quiet! He won't be there if you don't!"
Nearing the valley's rim, Ted dropped back to a crawl. He peered at the boulder and breathed easily again; the bear had not moved. He put his mouth very close to Paul Jackson's ear.
"There he is!"
"Where?"