“Colonel Hallibut,Respected Sir: I may never see you in life again. Mr. Smythe will explain. I am willing to die in fulfilling my duty to you, but, sir, I beg that you will not venture among the Bushwhackers. They have sworn to shoot you on sight and to burn your schooner if you sail her into the bay. The six hundred dollars you gave me toward leasing the timber was taken from me as I lay helpless among the ruffians who tried to kill me. It proved my salvation, for, as they fought among themselves for the money, I managed to crawl away. Good-by, sir, and if we never meet again on earth—but I cannot finish.Yours,An erring onewho has been led to the light,Thomas Watson.”
“Colonel Hallibut,
Respected Sir: I may never see you in life again. Mr. Smythe will explain. I am willing to die in fulfilling my duty to you, but, sir, I beg that you will not venture among the Bushwhackers. They have sworn to shoot you on sight and to burn your schooner if you sail her into the bay. The six hundred dollars you gave me toward leasing the timber was taken from me as I lay helpless among the ruffians who tried to kill me. It proved my salvation, for, as they fought among themselves for the money, I managed to crawl away. Good-by, sir, and if we never meet again on earth—but I cannot finish.
Yours,
An erring one
who has been led to the light,
Thomas Watson.”
The Colonel folded up the letter, pitched it into the coals, and sat down. He refilled his pipe, a half smile on his face. Then he turned to Smythe, whose features were working, and who was vainly trying to force a tear down his cheek.
“So you managed to convert poor dying Watson?” he observed. “You’ve led an erring one to the light, have you?”
“In my poor way, sir,” nodded Smythe, “I have.”
“Where does Watson want to be buried?” asked the Colonel gravely.
The other started.
“Buried!” he gasped. “What do you mean, Colonel!”
“Why, judging from his letter, he expects to die very soon, and sometimes people are fanciful about where they are laid to rest——”
He paused, and his lips met in a thin line.
“Smythe,” he said, holding the visitor with his eyes, “you and Watson are both danged humbugs. Watson didn’t write that letter: you wrote it. Watson may be a villain, but there’s not hypocrite enough about him to dictate a letter like that I just read. I’m not sparing him. He was quite willing for you to work this game for him. So my money was taken from him, was it? Well, I suppose it’s just as well to lose it one way as another. But I want you to confess that you wrote that letter. Did you?”
“I did,” answered Smythe fearfully. “Watson’s arm was too sore. He asked me to write it. I didn’t mean anything wrong, sir.”
“Of course not,” agreed Hallibut dryly.
“What do you mean by saying those Bushwhackers will burn my vessel?”
“I mean that they intend to do it,” asserted Smythe. “If you doubt me, sir, you may anchor off Lee Point and convince yourself that I speak the truth.”
“Humph!” grunted Hallibut. “Well, let me tell you something. When the Bushwhackers burn my schooner, I’ll believe they’re ready to shoot me on sight; not before. I sent word to them that I would ship a cargo of lumber—my own lumber—from Lee Creek before the Eau froze over, and I’ll do it.”
He frowned down on Smythe and nodded his shaggy head.
“I’ve just come from seeing that same schooner start on her trip to Rond Eau Bay,” he said, “and heaven help the Bushwhacker that meddles with it or any other property of Colonel Hallibut’s.”
“Perhaps some day you’ll know that Mr. Watson and myself have done our best for you, Colonel,” said Smythe reproachfully. “I know we’ve erred in some respects; but over-zealousness is perhaps the cause of failure. You will pardon my suggesting that you have maybe been unduly influenced against Mr. Watson on account of his not, as yet, having been able to convince the Bushwhackers of your good intentions.”
“Perhaps you are right,” returned Hallibut coolly.
Smythe reached for the bottle and poured some brandy into his glass with a hand that shook. His face, always pinched and gray-white, was grayer and more sunken as he arose to go.
“Have you any word to send to Mr. Watson, sir?” he asked.
“Only that I hope to see him again before he makes up his mind to die,” smiled the Colonel.
Hallibut called to the housekeeper from the dining-room:
“Rachel, get this pale rider something to eat, will you, while I have Dick get out his horse?”
He slapped the drooping Smythe between the shoulders and, laughing loudly, stamped out of the room.
As Smythe viciously attacked the cold meat and bread set before him, a long, weird howl came floating and trembling on the air. He dropped his fork and sat erect, fear written in his shifting eyes. Once again came the cry, and Smythe arose and went to the window. Through the narrow oaken slabs of the kennel-fence, he caught sight of four heavy-chested, yellow-white dogs. They were creeping slowly across the inclosure with heavy jaws half open and saliva dripping from their red tongues. As the watching man gazed, fascinated, one of them lifted its head and sent a heart-chilling cry upward. Then, chancing to catch sight of the fear-stricken man at the window, the huge dog hurled itself against the solid bars of its prison, only to fall back on its haunches. But it placed its deeply-cloven muzzle against the narrow opening and drew in its breath with a whistling, sobbing sound that sent a shiver to the watcher’s heart, for the dog’s red eyes were fastened hungrily upon him. Colonel Hallibut, entering, noted Smythe’s look, and followed up the impression the dog had made.
“I wouldn’t give a penny for your chance if Trailer there caught you in the open, Smythe,” he said soberly. “Better not watch him if you care to sleep to-night. Guess I’d better get rid of that Trailer. He scares me, and I’m used to him.”
“What do you keep those awful animals for?” asked Smythe with a husky voice.
“Smythe,” said Hallibut, “I’ve kept those dogs—well, because they’ve been good friends to me, and I can’t make up my mind to kill them.”
Smythe shuddered and reached for his cap. He walked slowly from the room and climbed into his saddle. The Colonel watched him take the trail, then, his duty as a host done, he turned into the house with an expression of disgust.
Once Smythe had rounded the clump of bushes, he slashed the sleepy, over-fed mare into a gallop, which was not slackened until he was many miles down the trail. Then he dipped into a hollow, reined up, and whistled softly. Watson came from among the trees leading a bay horse by the bridle-rein. He glanced at Smythe’s face and his own darkened.
“I told you he wouldn’t believe you,” he flashed. “What did he say?”
Smythe leaned forward in the saddle.
“ ‘My friend,’ he answered, ‘tell Watson I hope to see him before he dies.’ ”
Watson did not reply. He sprang into the saddle and the two rode for a mile or two in silence. Then Smythe remarked:
“Hallibut’s schooner left for Rond Eau to-day, and I think Amos Broadcrook will not allow me to lose the wager he believes I made with the dear Colonel. He is waiting for the vessel to drop anchor.”
“Then you think the schooner will burn?”
“If I read Amos aright—well, yes, I do. Although, let us hope not; let us hope not.”
“Then, when will we kidnap the wood-nymph?” asked Watson. “She must be got rid of, for Simpson threatens to undo our little plans if we fail him, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” answered Smythe. “Well, we’ll not disappoint Simpson. Three people there are who must become American citizens soon, and stay American citizens: Old Noah, Simpson, and——”
He clicked his tongue and Watson looked with some sort of admiration at his friend.
“Smythe, you’re a great man,” he asserted.
Smythe raised his weak eyes toward the lowering skies.
“God knows,” he sighed. “God knows best, my friend. I try to do my little part well. ’Tis all that I can do.”
A little further on Watson broke the oppressive silence again. “When will we do it, then?”
“Say Saturday night,” directed Smythe quietly. “Poor little girl!—But it must be; it has to be, my friend.”
“You are a great man,” flattered Watson. “You deserve success, Smythe. I hope you win widow Ross and her snug bit of land. And I hope after the Bushwhackers are convinced that Hallibut would kidnap their queen as a hostage, they will realize that they need you and me as custodians of their deeds.”
He laughed over his shoulder, and Smythe, digging his spurs into his old white mare, trotted up alongside him.
“Courting was always an unsatisfactory game with me,” he said, “and in the case of widow Ross it has been no exception. I find she is a selfish woman. I found her a heathen and I showed her the light——”
“And she showed you the door, eh?”
“Not so fast, my friend,” smiled Smythe, “she did not. It was that boy of hers who spoiled my visits. That boy played a nasty trick upon me the last time I visited the widow. I have not been back since.”
“Tell me about it,” said Watson.
“Not now.” Smythe shook his head. “Later, perhaps, but not now. Let us each earnestly review our plans for Saturday night, my friend, and for our own personal safety, as well as for business motives, think out a line of action.”
Watson shuddered back into his saddle.
“I wish to God it was over,” he muttered.
He struck his horse with the quirt and it bounded forward, leaving Bridgetown’s general merchant far in the rear.
It was quite agreeable to that gentleman to be left to himself. When he reached the edge of the town he reined up and gazed southward through the hazy twilight.
Miles away sounded the deep note of a steam whistle.
“Hallibut’s mill on Totherside,” mused Smythe. “I wonder if the widow is waiting and watching for me? I wonder what she is doing now?”
CHAPTER XXIWidow Ross Backslides
Just at that particular moment the widow was frying the potatoes for supper. She was singing, and snapped the words out as though determined to do what was right under any circumstances. The mangy cat crouched beneath the stove, its lanky body sunk between its shoulder blades, its big yellow inquiring eyes staring out at Tommy, who was molding bullets over in a corner of the room. He looked back at the cat and shook his head.
“Cross the river of Jordan,Happy, happy, happy, happy,Oh, we’ll cross the river of Jordan,Happy in the Lord.”
“Cross the river of Jordan,Happy, happy, happy, happy,Oh, we’ll cross the river of Jordan,Happy in the Lord.”
“Cross the river of Jordan,Happy, happy, happy, happy,Oh, we’ll cross the river of Jordan,Happy in the Lord.”
“Cross the river of Jordan,
Happy, happy, happy, happy,
Oh, we’ll cross the river of Jordan,
Happy in the Lord.”
Widow Ross persisted in the task and the cat crept across and talked close range to Tommy.
“I tell you I don’t know,” whispered the youngster shrilly, making a kick at the cat. “Get out, you moon-eyed old beggar—you want to know all about everythin’.”
The woman gave the browning potatoes a stir with the knife and glared over her shoulder. She had just finished the verse for the fiftieth time, and she had sufficient breath left to say:
“You’ll get licked yet before you get into bed. What’s the matter with you now? Who are you talkin’ to, Tom Ross?”
“Cat,” answered Tom shortly.
“What are you sayin’ to her?”
“She wants to know what’s the matter with you, ma.”
“What’s the matter with me? Why, there’s nothin’ the matter with me. Can’t one be a Christian woman and sing hymns without you and Mary Ann and the cat even taking objections? Where is that cat?”
Mrs. Ross left the potatoes and seized hold of the broom. The cat sprang on Tommy’s neck, and, assisted by the claw-hold it found there, bounded to the rafters of the ceiling. Widow Ross made a sweep at it, but failed to reach it. Tommy grinned.
“Here you, climb up there and throw her down,” commanded the woman. “I’ll show her.”
That was just what Tommy wanted to see.
“I’ll get the old beggar down in a jiffy, ma,” he chuckled.
He pulled forth a chest and with much grunting turned it on end. Then he climbed up on it and reached for pussy. “Nice kitty,” he said, trying to get hold of the elusive feline. Kitty’s tail swelled and she reached down and left three little pink scratches on Tommy’s wrist.
“Gol darn,” whispered Tommy.
“Come down here to once,” ordered his mother.
Tom climbed down and stood sheepishly sucking his wrist.
“You said ‘gol darn,’—I heard you,” cried the widow.
“She scratched,” whimpered Tommy.
Mrs. Boss lifted the frying-pan from the fire and laid hold of a long stick of white hickory.
“Since Mr. Smythe’s been here and talked so nice to me about Christianity, I’ve been mendin’ my ways a lot,” she sighed, “but with a trial of a boy like you it’s most useless to try and keep good for long. You’ve broke up my hymn-singin’ and now you’ve gone and swore. Think what that God-fearin’ man, Mr. Smythe, would think of me if he knowed I let you go on in your wicked ways. I must lick you, and I’m goin’ to do it.”
She made a slash at the lad and he ducked. Out of four sweeps Tommy received one, and it was not a very hard one. He cried with his dirty face and laughed in his young heart. He wondered if ever a boy had an easier ma than he had. The cat in the meantime had taken advantage of the “whipping” to make herself scarce. Widow Boss went on with her singing as she set the supper table. Occasionally a smile would cross her face and she would sigh. Tommy wondered if Christianity made all people act funny. When Mary Ann came in with a big basket of hickory-nuts gathered from the ridges, her mother glanced at her and frowned. She watched the girl swing the heavy basket to a shelf on the wall, and a gleam of motherly pride lit up her face. Tommy, the fire-poker concealed beneath his homespun jacket, edged toward the door.
“See the cat as you was comin’ in, Mary Ann?” he asked carelessly.
His sister laughed and grabbed him.
“No, you don’t, sonny,” she said. “I know what you want to do with Sarah. My, but you’re a wicked imp, Tommy.”
“Imp is a swear-word,” charged the widow. “I’m surprised at you usin’ it, Mary Ann.”
“Why, ma,” exclaimed the girl, “you’re gettin’ awful pious, ain’t you?”
“Mr. Smythe would say that ‘imp’ is a swear-word,” said Mrs. Ross, “and Mr. Smythe is the best Christian in Bridgetown.”
“Did he tell you he was?” asked the girl.
“He did. Says he, ‘Mrs. Ross, I’m a godly man. I try to do right, and I love my neighbor.’ ”
“Maybe you’d like to move to Bridgetown, ma,” laughed Mary Ann.
“I know what you mean,” returned Mrs. Ross, “but I ain’t hankerin’ for Mr. Smythe’s love exactly. You believe he is a good man, don’t you?” she asked, fastening her black eyes on her daughter’s face.
“It don’t matter what I believe,” said Mary Ann.
“Well, Mr. Smythe has been a Christian for a long time. He ought to know swear-words from ordinary ones. He says, ‘Mrs. Ross, I would like to see the hypocrites in this world taken out of it. It would be a fine world then,’ says he.”
“He wouldn’t be here to see how fine, though,” smiled the girl.
“Then you don’t believe what he says?”
“I don’t believe what he says, and I don’t believe what that Watson man, who comes here with him, says. They’re both liars, and Mr. Simpson is as bad as they are.”
Widow Boss dropped a dish on the floor.
“Why, what are you talkin’ about?” she cried. “You must be crazy, Mary Ann. What if the teacher should hear you?”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt him to hear it again. I’ve told it to him once already.”
Widow Boss stood speechless.
“Well, I never!” she said with amazement, when she could find words.
Mary Ann drew her tall figure up and her big eyes flashed.
“The other day when Mr. Simpson and Mr. Watson came home here half killed from what they said was a fallin’ tree you believed them, and I didn’t open my mouth,” said the girl.
“And why shouldn’t I believe them?” snorted the widow. “Why shouldn’t I? Didn’t poor Mr. Watson have an arm in a sling and wasn’t he that bruised he couldn’t move without groanin’? And Mr. Simpson, poor man, didn’t he have the awfulest pair of eyes you ever did see in a head? Didn’t that godly man, Mr. Smythe, who was here with me all afternoon, believe ’em?”
“Fallin’ trees don’t use people up just that way,” said Mary Ann slowly. “No, ma, I’ll tell you just what kind of a tree fell on them fellers. It was Bill Paisley. They thought they would try some sharp wort on the Bushwhackers, and Bill——” The girl’s face flushed and her bosom heaved. “—Bill was there and, of course, could whip a dozen excuses like those two. And he did do it, too.”
The widow sat down on a stool, her swarthy face a picture.
“And do you mean to say that them two men went over there to make trouble?” she asked blankly.
Mary Ann nodded.
“What for?”
“I don’t know—yet.”
“Do you mean you’re goin’ to know?”
“Yes, and for that reason Mr. Simpson mus’n’t know that we’ve learned anythin’.”
Mrs. Ross went outside to call Tommy to supper. When she returned she shook her head once or twice and muttered to herself. “The teacher’s gone to Bridgetown to-night,” she said after a time.
Mary Ann sat down to the table.
“Mary Ann,” asked the woman gently, “ain’t you carin’ for him none?”
“No, ma.”
“And if he’d ask you, you’d say——?”
“No, ma.”
The widow poured out the tea and dished up the potatoes. She slopped the tea and spilled the potatoes and then she sat down and, stretching over her arm, patted her daughter’s brown hand.
“You’re the right kind of girl for a widder to own,” she said, her eyes humid with feeling; “just the right sort.” She sat erect and slapped the table so hard that the dishes clattered. “But that Bill Paisley is a ruffin—a no-count ruffin, Mary Ann.”
The daughter did not reply. She began her supper with a zest born of open air and sunshine. Tommy was stowing away ham and hashed potatoes, and spoke with his mouth full.
“Mill ain’t goin’ to run to-morrow,” he said. “I was over to Hallibut’s shanty just after quittin’ time and Jim Dox says there’s somethin’ wrong with the boiler.”
“I wish the old b’iler would bust,” exclaimed widow Boss. “Course I’d want all the men to be in the shanty at the time. But I’m tired of that noise. I hate that saw and I hate that whistle. This place ain’t seemed the same nohow since the Colonel built that mill.”
“I think the whistle is just bully,” grinned Tommy. “Wish I could blow it all day, I’d do it.”
“A whistle is all you need to make you perfect,” said Mary Ann. “What’s the matter with the boiler, Tommy?”
“Why, there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with it,” laughed the boy. “Fact is, the mill-boys want to go out on a hunt. Seems that Boy McTavish, Jim Peeler, and Ander Declute are goin’ over to the Point to hunt a big silver-gray fox. They say he’s as big as a cow, but I ain’t believin’ that. Anyhow, Peeler is goin’ and take his hound Brindle. He’s as good as any of Colonel Hallibut’s hounds,” Jim says, “and he’s a tartar after fox.”
“And them men is lettin’ on that the machinery is broke!” gasped the widow. “What would Mr. Smythe think of such deceit as that now, I wonder?”
Here Tommy took a convulsion and it was some time before he got his breath back. His mother gazed at him sternly until the paroxysm had passed.
“Now, maybe you’ll explain this un-Christian conduct, sir,” she said.
“I suppose even Christians laugh sometimes,” gurgled Tommy, as he wiped his eyes. “I was just thinkin’ of the last time Mr. Smythe was here, ma. You remember Daft Davie came over that same afternoon, and how he scared Mr. Smythe by lookin’ at him. Well, I’ll tell you somethin’ you don’t know.
“Davie had a pair of little green grass-snakes in his pocket that he’d found in the lowlands and was takin’ home to his collection. When you and Mr. Smythe was talkin’ religion me and Davie went outside for him to show me his new tumble he’d learned. You know, Mary Ann,” turning to the girl, “how Davie can turn handsprings? Well, Davie wanted me to hold the snakes, and I said I would, only I don’t like snakes like he does, so I put ’em in Mr. Smythe’s overcoat pocket. His coat was hangin’ up outside the door. We both forgot all about ’em then, and when Mr. Smythe come out to get his old gray mare he put his hand in his pocket after his mits, and——”
Tommy laid back and roared again, and Mary Ann joined him. The widow sat stern and accusing. “Go on,” she commanded.
“Smythe was tryin’ to convert me, I guess,” said Tommy. “ ‘Young man,’ says he, ‘beware of sin. It’s a bad habit. It lies in wait in quiet places. It’s a snake in the grass,’ says he; and just then he pulled out one of the green snakes and howled. Oh, how he did howl and prance about! ‘Take him off, take him off,’ he hollered. He dropped the snake and Davie picked it up and put it in his blouse. Mr. Smythe he stood there shiverin’, and by and by put his hand creepy like into his pocket again. The other snake twisted around his wrist and he fell down and rolled over and over. Davie got the snake and I helped the storekeeper up.”
“ ‘Did you see ’em?’ he yells; ‘did you see them snakes?’
“ ‘Why, no, sir,’ I says, ‘what snakes?’
“ ‘Great big snakes,’ he hollers. And then he swore; cross my heart, ma, that good Christian man swore somethin’ awful.”
“My gracious,” sighed the good woman, surprise wiping maternal sternness from her face. “Are yousureheswore, Tommy?”
“No one of the Broadcrook boys could swear worse or longer,” asserted Tommy.
“And what did he do then?” laughed Mary Ann, tears running down her cheek.
“Why, then Mr. Smythe turned to Davie and asked him if he’d seen any snakes, and you know what Davie’d do. He just looked at the storekeeper out o’ them big eyes o’ his and didn’t say a word. I was dyin’ to laugh, but dasn’t. Just then along comes Jim Dox from Hallibut’s shanty.
“Mr. Smythe was settin’ down on a stump lookin’ mighty used up.
“ ‘Sick?’ asked Jim. ‘Come over to the shanty and I’ll give you some whiskey.’
“At the word ‘whiskey’ Mr. Smythe jumped up and pranced about like a wild man.
“ ‘I’ve drunk too much whiskey,’ he yells, ‘I’ve drunk too much of the stuff that stingeth like an adder.’
“ ‘You act as though you had ’em,’ said Jim.
“ ‘I have got ’em,’ yelled the storekeeper. ‘I’ve seen snakes, all kinds, breeds, and colors of snakes. I’m a sick man. I want to get home where I can pray and pour all my whiskey through a knot-hole in the wall. I’ll never drink it again, so help me, I won’t.’
“Dox he looked at me and winked and I didn’t say nothin’. After the storekeeper left I told Jim all about the little grass-snakes, and I ast him what Mr. Smythe meant when he said he had ’em, and then Jim tried to get a joke on me about men who drink whiskey seein’ things as are not pleasant to look at. He didn’t do it, though.”
“I’m mighty surprised, surprised and disturbed,” said the widow. “I thought Mr. Smythe was everythin’ a man should be. Ain’t it funny how one can be fooled by a man?”
Mary Ann looked up.
“Somehow Mr. Smythe didn’t fool me,” she said. “I knew he drank whiskey, because he smelled of it. I knew he swore by the way his tongue and eyes fought with each other. I knew he lied because he said he loved all men. There’s nobody alive and natural built that way.”
The girl sat looking steadily across at her mother. Finally she leaned forward and asked:
“What did Smythe ask you to do, ma?”
“Did I say he asked me to do anythin’?” flared the widow with a start.
“No, but I know he did. What was it?”
The mother’s eyes blazed indignantly.
“I wasn’t goin’ to speak about it,” she said, “ ’cause Mr. Smythe said it was the duty of a Christian not to let his right hand know what anyone else’s was doin’, or somethin’ like that, meanin’ that whatever I did in the cause of Christianity should be kept to myself. He preached me a sermon here and he said that the Bushwhackers was a poor lot of misguided men who needed enlightenment. He said they was in danger of havin’ their property-deeds took from them by force, and they was in need of the help of a good Christian man. He said my duty was to go over there and reason with ’em and, suggest to ’em that they give over their deeds to him for safe-keepin’. I said I would, and was goin’ over to McTavish’s to-morrow to try and get ’em to let Mr. Smythe take care of their deeds for ’em. I’m not goin’ now,” finished the woman; “no, not a step.”
Mary Ann made as if to speak, then looked at her mother.
“I see the cat out on the shed, Tommy,” she said.
The boy jumped, and when he had vanished, with the poker, through the doorway, Mary Ann said hesitatingly:
“If Bill Paisley ever asks you if I’m engaged to the—teacher, you know what to tell him, ma.”
The widow nodded. There was a yearning in her heart to take the wild wood-girl to her bosom and confess that she had already told Bill Paisley too much. But mothers are peculiar creatures. She stifled the impulse and simply said:
“I know what to tell that no-count Bushwhacker, Mary Ann.”
Mary Ann arose and, taking the milk-pails from the shelf, went out to the cow-stable to milk the three spotted cows. Widow Ross got up from the table and looked through the little window across toward Bushwhackers’ Place.
“I don’t blame ’em,” she whispered. “I don’t blame Boy nor Mac nor Paisley nor Declute. I don’t blame any of ’em for not trustin’ them men.”
She turned and went over to the fireplace. On the shelf above it lay her long clay pipe. She picked it up as tenderly as she would a pet.
“He said it was wicked in a woman and mother to smoke. Smythe said that, and I believed him. I’ve been a fool and a ninny—not only for believin’ him, but for denyin’ myself tobaccer all these long days an’ nights. I’ll light up and smoke a while.”
Half an hour later Tommy and Mary Ann came into the house with two pails of foaming milk. Their mother was seated before the blazing log puffing clouds of blue smoke ceilingward. There was an atmosphere of homely tranquillity about the place. Tommy sniffed the air. He had missed the scent of tobacco. Through the open door came draggling a lazy day-breeze from off the Eau. It was sweet and soft with the smell of ripened water-plants.
“Can I go to the Point with ’em to-morrow, ma?” asked the boy.
He had divined that the proper moment for making an exceptional request was now.
“You kin,” answered the mother.
The lean, yellow-eyed cat looked in at the door, and Tommy patted his patched trouser leg. She came over to him trustingly, and the boy lifted her up and stroked her scanty fur.
Outside, the whip-poor-will was alive, for the song of the mill was dead.
CHAPTER XXIIThe Shot in the Dark
For the first night since the long nights had come Big McTavish’s fiddle was silent. It hung on the wall and the man sat before the fire, his chin in his hands. Mrs. McTavish reclined on a couch of willows beside him, and her eyes rested on her husband’s face sympathetically.
“You mus’n’t worry about it, Mac,” she said. “They can’t take our place from us, I know.”
“It’s not that, Mary,” replied the husband. “It’s the thoughts of what might happen if they should try. They don’t know the men here in Bushwhackers’ Place. They don’t know ’em like I know ’em. You know what the law of the wood is, Mary. Please God, they don’t try to drive our boys any. I shudder to think of what might happen if they tried that. I fear trouble now that Hallibut has sent his schooner around.”
Boy entered the house as the father was speaking. He carried a double-barreled fowling-piece and across his back hung a string of wild ducks. Gloss, who sat beside the table knitting, glanced up as he entered, and a soft gleam stole into her eyes. Then, noting the haggard lines in Boy’s face, she approached him with outstretched hands. He smiled, and, putting the gun on its rack, let his game fall to the floor. Then he took the girl’s hands in his and stroked them caressingly.
“Wild duck, Gloss,” he laughed; “big dinner to-morrow, girl.”
She gazed at him with wide eyes, her hands unconsciously tightening on his. Boy glanced toward the woman on the couch. Gloss turned to her work, and he went and sat beside his mother.
“Was it rough, Boy?” she asked fondly, putting her arm about his neck.
“Aye, ma, it was; and the white-caps were dancing all afternoon. Wind blowin’ from the east and the ducks crazy with not knowin’ where to light. Never saw such decoyin’ in all my life, although Hallibut’s schooner lay there in the open water.”
“Were you out on the bay, Boy?”
“No, I was decoyin’ off Lee Point. I got somethin’ like fifty red-head and blue-bill. They always decoy well when it looks like snow. I left a bunch of ’em at old Betsy’s.”
Big McTavish raised his head.
“And did she speak cross at you, lad?” he asked with a smile.
“No, sir, she didn’t. She’s changin’ wonderful for some reason. I’ll always like Betsy after what she’s done for us.”
“Amen to that,” said McTavish fervently. “She has been good to us all.”
“Auntie,” said Gloss, “you are tired. Hadn’t you better go to bed now? We want you to be hungry for the duck dinner to-morrow. We’ll have Mary Ann Ross and Bill Paisley over, won’t we, Granny?”
The old lady looked up from her knitting and smiled.
“Aye, lassie, we’ll invite Bill and Mary Ann t’ dinner,” she agreed.
Boy bent and kissed his mother gently on the cheek, and when she and Big McTavish had gone from the room Gloss came over and stood before the young man.
“Tell me,” she whispered, her cheeks flaming.
“Tell you?” he exclaimed. “Tell you what, Gloss?”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Why, nothin’, Glossie; nothin’,” said Boy, looking up.
“You are troubled about somethin’,” she persisted. “Won’t you tell me?”
He shook his head.
“Don’t worry about me, little girl,” he smiled, “there ain’t really anythin’ the matter.”
A slight tremor went through the girl’s form and the long lashes fell and hid her eyes. She turned slowly and walked toward the door. On its threshold Boy caught her, and then as quickly let his arms fall.
She leaned against the wall, her eyes still closed. The color had left her cheeks and her lips trembled. When she opened her eyes Boy was sitting before the fire, his head drooping.
“Good-night,” she called softly, and passed into her room.
He looked up slowly. “Good-night,” he whispered.
He drew his chair over to the table, which was spread with his evening meal. He was hungry, and still he could not eat. He arose and, catching up his cap, opened the door and passed out into the autumn night.
It was late when he returned. As he drew near to the house he noted that the candles were still burning in the big room. Through the window he saw three neighbor men sitting beside his father at the table. They seemed to be conversing earnestly. When he entered the house they all looked up, and Bill Paisley put his finger on his lips.
“I suppose,” he said dryly, when Boy was seated beside them, “I suppose you just naturally want that head of yours shot off clean, don’t you? Else why would you be wanderin’ around this night the way you’ve been, Boy?”
Boy reached over for a slice of cornbread. His walk in the wood had soothed the new tempest that had lately come to sway his soul.
“Boy,” said Big McTavish, “you didn’t tell us that you’d been fired on to-day.”
Boy dropped his corncake and looked about him quickly.
“Well, I didn’t tell anybody, for the matter o’ that. How did you know I was shot at, dad?”
“I told him,” declared Declute.
“Well, who told you?” asked the boy.
“Never mind that now. We all know as you was fired on and that Hallibut and his gang is responsible.”
“Tell us, lad,” urged the father; “why do they want to kill you?”
Boy shrugged his shoulders.
“Maybe it’s because they don’t want to be killed themselves, dad,” he answered.
Paisley chuckled.
“That’s the way to talk, by gosh,” he said, bringing his fist down. “There’s goin’ to be fightin’—there can’t help but be fightin’. It’s gotter be first drop and make every shot count from this time forward.”
“I don’t like it; no, I don’t like it,” sighed Big McTavish. “Why do people want to come here and molest us? Why do they want to shoot my boy down? Ain’t we humans, I wonder?”
Boy sprang up and climbed the attic ladder in search of dry clothes.
“Listen, Mac,” said Paisley, hitching his chair forward and pinching off a pipeful of Canada-Green, “there are two reasons why they want to kill us off. They want to own this little world of ours, and they hope to drive us back into the bush like they are drivin’ the deer and turkeys. They ain’t thinkin’ a Bushwhacker’s life is worth a great deal. I’ve studied this thing out purty well, and I’ve concluded that we’ve got to stand up for our own. Jim and Ander here think the same. You might as well fall in with our views, Mac, and if they want fightin’, give it to ’em.”
McTavish shook his head.
“It’s a terrible thing to take life,” he declared, “an awful thing. I’d give in first and be driven into the lake before I’d shoot a man down. No, Bill, I can’t take up a gun again’ a human nohow.”
Jim Peeler attempted to speak and Paisley lifted his hand.
“There’s another reason,” he whispered, peering at the dark attic door. “I’m goin’ to tell you the reason now, Mac, although I had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.” He drew the big man into a corner and spoke to him in an undertone.
“What!” Big McTavish sprang erect, his beard fairly bristling. “What do they want to do that for?”
He gazed about him with flashing eyes, and Paisley laid a restraining hand on his arm.
“Boy mus’n’t know—remember,” he cautioned.
“Bill,” said McTavish hoarsely, “if that’s what Hallibut would do, why of course I’ll fight him.”
“That’s the talk,” nodded Paisley. “But, of course, it may be all a scare game, and maybe they shot at Boy just ’cause they thought they’d scare us into sellin’ our timber to ’em for a mere nothin’. I don’t think there’s an ounce of sand in the whole parcel of ’em myself.”
“Who told you I was shot at, Ander?” said Boy, rejoining the men. “I didn’t intend to worry anybody by tellin’ about it. There wasn’t anybody near. It was down on Oak Ridge. I was comin’ in from the bay that way to have a look at my turkey-traps. It was near the middle trap that this thing happened. There wasn’t anybody near, except the one that did the shootin’—that I know of.”
Declute expectorated on the coals and scratched his head.
“You stopped at old Betsy’s on your way home, didn’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, I did—why?”
“Wall, I ain’t sayin’ as she knowed somethin’ might happen you, this bein’ Friday an’ an unlucky day, ner I ain’t sayin’ as she prevented that bullet from gettin’ you. I ain’t superstitious at all, although my wife, Rachel, declares I be. Neither am I sayin’ as old Betsy’s a witch, as she’s commonly called. But, Boy, she follered you an’ she heard the shot. It was too dark fer her t’ see the shooter, but we all know he wasn’t a Bushwhacker. Betsy stopped in to see th’ wife an’ she ups an’ tells about th’ shootin’. When I gets home Rachel tells me. I goes over an’ tells Bill, an’ me an’ him picks up Jim thar on our way down here. That’s all.”
Boy glanced toward his father and a spasm of pain crossed his face.
“Suppose we change the subject,” he suggested. “Bill, somebody has been meddlin’ with my turkey-traps.”
“And mine, too,” complained Paisley. “Some thief is takin’ the turkeys out of my traps. I’m goin’ to find out who’s doin’ it, right soon.”
“That big Amos Broadcrook, I met him t’other day when I was landin’ at Mud Pond after bein’ out on the bay, an’ he told me as he’s seen Tom Dodge, from th’ P’int, carryin’ turkeys along the Eau shore two er three times,” observed Declute.
“Well, I wouldn’t believe one of them Broadcrooks on oath,” said Peeler. “They’re all thieves themselves. Not a man among us here but has lost traps, and who stole ’em, I ask? Why, Broadcrooks, for sure.”
Big McTavish looked up.
“Tom Dodge wouldn’t steal nothin’,” he said. “He’s too honest for that. I don’t want to hear anybody say anythin’ against any of the Injuns. And if any Broadcrook tries to fasten turkey stealin’ on to them innocent fellers, I’m goin’ to break him in two. Remember that, and tell ’em so.”
Paisley punched Boy.
“Fightin’ spirit stirrin’ already,” he whispered. “Well, fellers,” he said aloud, “suppose we be hittin’ the back trail—it’s gettin’ late.”
The other men arose.
“Things are just at this point,” said Bill, as he opened the door, “we can expect somethin’ startlin’ right soon. Keep your peepers open, Mac, and you, too, Boy, and if anybody does shootin’ you see that yours is done first. And, Mac,” he whispered in McTavish’s ear, “don’t you let Gloss outside this house very far—certain not into the woods.”
When the men had gone Big McTavish arose and, taking the pine board from behind the door, whittled the shavings off for the morning’s fire. Then he stretched his long arms and looked at Boy with deep, awakened eyes.
“Bumpy,” he said, letting his big hand rest on Boy’s shoulders.
Bumpy was an old baby name. He had not used it for years, but to-night he used it—he couldn’t have explained why.
“Bumpy,” he repeated, “don’t you let ’em get you.” At his bedroom door he looked back and said earnestly: “Even if you have to fire first, don’t you let ’em, Bumpy.”
As Boy arose to seek his bed in the attic the outer door opened and Bill Paisley stealthily entered. He made a sign for silence, and, taking Boy by the arm, drew him outside. There he spoke to him in low tones.
“Well, now,” said Boy, after Paisley had concluded, “we ought to catch the turkey-thief that way all right, Bill.”
“It just popped into my mind after I left Peeler and Declute at the Forks,” explained Bill. “I know some fellers who tried it in the Michigan woods, and it worked fine. And, Boy,” he added, “if the thief is who we expect it is, won’t we give him a scare? Now then, remember, to-morrow night we’ll try it. You drop in on me early.”
He pushed Boy into the house and softly closed the door. Boy removed his moccasins and as he placed them before the fireplace he turned quickly. The swish of a dress had caught his ears. Before him stood Gloss, her long hair down about her waist, her cheeks wet and burning. As he gazed upon her wonderingly, her lips trembled.
“I heard you all talkin’,” she confessed. “I didn’t mean to listen, but Bill speaks so loud I couldn’t help hearin’. You were shot at, and, oh, Boy, you didn’t tell me!”
Boy’s pulses were throbbing.
“Why, Gloss,” he stammered, “it wasn’t really anythin’.”
She raised her head and looked at him then.
“Yes, it was,” she said earnestly: “it was everythin’. Promise me you’ll be careful, Boy.”
He took a step toward her, drawn by the tempestuous soul of her. But she stepped back, her lips parted, her great eyes humid and compelling, her hand raised warningly.
“We ain’t boy and girl any more,” she said softly.
Then once again she was gone, and the great gaunt shadows flickered on the wall against which the old violin hung pitifully alone and soundless. And not until the shadows had crept away and the room was dark and cold did Boy climb the ladder to his rush bed.