THE sky was clear, and the rays of the sun fell hot upon the dry woods that morning when Master and the children and their Uncle Silas reached the landing at Catamount. Its eastern shore lay deep under cool shadows. The water plane was like taut canvas on which a glowing picture of wooded shore and sky and mountain had been painted. Golden robins darted across a cove and sang in the tree-tops.
Master righted his canoe and put the children aboard and took his place in the stern-seat.
"I'll slip over to R-Robin," said the Emperor as he shoved the canoe into deep water. With him to "slip" meant to go, and in his speech he always "slipped" from one point to another.
Master pushed through the pads and slowly cut the still shadow. The inverted towers of Painter Mountain began to quake beneath his canoe. Sue sat in the bow and Socky behind her. The curly hair of the girl, which had, indeed, the silken yellow of a corn-tassel, showed beneath her little pink bonnet. Something about her suggested the rose half open. Socky wore his rabato and necktie and best suit of clothes. They were both in purple and fine linen, so to speak—-no one had thought to tell them better.
As they came near the point of Birch Cove, Master began to turn the bow and check his headway. There, on a moss-covered rock, stood the maiden whom he had seen the day before. A crow with a small scarlet ribbon about his neck clung upon her shoulder. The girl was looking at the two children. The bird rose on his wings and, after a moment of hesitation, flew towards them, the ends of the scarlet ribbon fluttering in the air. Socky drew back as the crow lighted on a gunwale near his side. Sue clung to the painter and sat looking backward with curiosity and fear in her face. The crow turned his head, surveying them as if he were, indeed, quite overcome with amazement.
"Sit still," said Master, quietly. "He won't hurt you."
The bird rose in the air again, and, darting downward, seized a shiny buckle above the visor of the boy's cap, which lay on the canoe bottom, and bore cap and all to his young mistress. Socky began to cry with alarm.
Master reassured him and paddled slowly towards the moss-covered rock. Silently his bow touched the shore. He stuck his paddle in the sand. He stepped into the shallow water and helped the children ashore. In the edge of the tamaracks and now partly hidden by their foliage, Miss Dunmore stood looking at the children. Her figure was tall, erect, and oddly picturesque. Somehow she reminded Master of a deer halted in its flight by curiosity. Her face, charming in form and expression, betrayed a childish timidity and innocence. Her large, blue eyes were full of wonder. Pretty symbols of girlish vanity adorned her figure. There were fresh violets on her bodice, and a delicate, lacy length of the moss-vine woven among her curls. The girl's hair, wonderfully full and rich in color, had streaks of gold in it. A beaded belt and holster of Indian make held a small pistol.
"Miss Dunmore, I believe?" he ventured.
The girl retired a step or two and stood looking timidly, first at him and then at the children. Her manner betrayed excitement. She addressed him with hesitation. "My—my name is Edith Dunmore," she said, in a tone just above a whisper. With trembling hands she picked a spray of tamarack that for a moment obscured her face.
"You are the nun of the green veil. I have heard of you," said Master.
"I—I must not speak to you, sir," she said, as she retreated a little farther.
"My name is Master—Robert Master," said he. "I shall stay only a minute, but these children would like to know you." While speaking he had returned to his canoe. Socky and Sue stood still, looking up at the maiden.
"Children!" she exclaimed, in a low, sweet, tremulous, tone, as she took a step towards them. "The wonderful little children?"
"Sometimes I think they are brownies," he answered, with a smile of amusement. "But their uncle calls them little fawns."
Her right hand, which held the spray of tamarack, fell to her side; her left hand clung to a branch on which the crow sat a little above her shoulder, and her cheek lay upon her arm as she looked down wistfully, fondly, at the children. Her blue eyes were full of curiosity.
Socky and Sue regarded the beautiful maiden with a longing akin to that in her. In all there was a deep, mysterious desire which had grown out of nature's need—in them for a mother, in her for the endearing touch of those newly come into the world and for their high companionship. Moreover, these two little ones, who had now a dim and imperfect recollection of their mother, had shaped an ideal—partly through the help of Gordon—to take its place. Therein they saw a lady, young and beautiful and more like this one who stood before them than like any they had yet beheld. Sue grasped the hand of her brother, and both stood gazing at the maiden, but neither spoke nor moved for a moment. Edith Dun-more leaned forward a little, looking into their faces.
"Can you not speak to me?" she asked.
Socky began to be embarrassed; his eyes fell; he shook his head doubtfully.
Edith Dunmore looked up at the stalwart figure of the young man. Their eyes met. She quickly turned away. The tame crow, on the bough above, began to laugh and chatter as if he thought it all an excellent joke.
"May—I—take them in my arms?" she asked, with hesitation.
"Yes; but I warn you—they have a way of stealing one's heart."
"Ah-h-h-h-h!" croaked the little crow, in a warning cry, as if he had seen at once the peril of it.
She had begun to move slowly, almost timidly, towards the children. She knelt before them and took the little hand of Sue in hers and looked upon it with wonder. She touched it with her lips; she pressed it against her cheek; she trembled beneath its power. The touch of the child's hand was, for her, it would almost seem, like that of One on the eyes of Bartimeus. Suddenly, as by a miracle, Edith Dunmore rose out of childhood. The veil of the nun was rent away. She was a woman fast coming into riches of unsuspected inheritance. She put her arms about the two and gently drew them towards her and held them close. Her embrace and the touch of her breast upon theirs were grateful to them, and they kissed her. Her eyes were wet, her sweet voice full of familiar but uncomprehended longing when she said, "Dear little children!"
"Tut,tut!" said the tame crow, who had crept to the end of his branch, where he stood looking down at them. In a moment he began to break the green twigs and let them fall on the head of his mistress.
Sue felt the hair and looked into the face and eyes of the maiden with wondering curiosity. Socky ran his fingers over the beaded belt. Both had a suspicion which they dared not express that here was an angel in some way related to their mother.
"You are a beautiful lady," said the boy, with childish frankness.
Master has often tried to describe the scene. He confesses that words, even though vivid and well spoken, cannot make one to understand the something which lay beneath all said and done, and which went to his heart so that for a time he turned and walked away from them.
"Do you remember when you were fairies?" the girl asked of the children.
The latter shook their heads.
"Tell us about the fairies," Sue proposed, timidly.
"They are old, old people—so my father has told me," said the beautiful lady. "They came into this world thousands of years ago riding in a great cloud that was drawn by wild geese. The fairies came down, each on a big flake of snow, and got off in the tree-tops and never went away. At first they were the teentiest folks—so little that a hundred of them could stand on a maple leaf—and very, very old. My father says they were never young in their lives, and I guess they have always lived. They rode around on the backs of the birds and saw everything in the world and had such a good time they all began to grow young. Now, as they grew young they grew bigger and bigger, and every spring a lot more of the little old people came out of the sky and began to grow young like the others. And by-and-by some of them were as big as your thumb and bigger."
"How big do they grow?" the boy asked.
"As they grow young they keep growing bigger. By-and-by the birds cannot carry them. Then they have to walk, and for the first time in their lives they begin to get hungry and learn to cry and nobody knows what is the matter with them. The fairies complain about the noise they make, and one night a little old woman takes them down into the woods to get them out of the way. And violets grow wherever their feet touch the ground, and they sit in a huckleberry bush and make a noise like the cry of a spotted fawn. The fawns hear them and know very well what they are crying for. The fawns have always loved them. When the fairies come down out of the tree-tops they always ride on the fawns, and where they have sat you can see a little white spot about as big as a flake of snow. That's why the fawns are spotted, and you know how shy they are—they mustn't let anybody see the fairies. Well, the young ones sit there in a huckleberry bush crying. The little animals come and lick their faces and tell them of a wonderful spring where milk flows out of a little hill and has a magic power in it, for even if one were crying and tasted the milk he always became happy. The young fairies climb on the backs of the fawns and ride away. By-and-by the fawns come to their mothers and their mothers tell them that no one who has teeth in his head can drink at the spring. So they wonder what to do. By-and-by they go to the woodpecker, for he has a pair of forceps and can pull anything, and the woodpecker pulls their teeth. Then the young fairies do nothing but ride around—each on a spotted fawn—and drink at the wonderful spring and grow fat and lazy, and the birds pull every hair out of their heads to build nests with. They live down in the woods, for they cannot climb the trees any more, and one day they fall asleep for the first time and tumble off the fawns and lie on the ground dreaming.
"They dream of the fairy-heaven where they shall grow old again and each shall have a mother and his own wonderful spring of milk. Now that day trees begin to grow in the ground beneath them. The trees grow fast, and all in a night they lift the sleeping fairies far above the ground. The wind rocks them and they lie dreaming in the tree-tops until a crane, as he is crossing over the sky, looks down and sees them and goes and takes them away. You know the cranes have to go through the sky every day and pick up the young fairies."
She paused and sat holding the hands of little Sue and looking at them as if their beauty were a great wonder.
"Where do they take them?"
Master was returning, and the girl rose like one afraid and whispered to the children, "I will tell you if—if you will come again."
"I shall ask your father if I may come and see you," said Master as he came near.
"Ha! ha! ha!" the bird croaked, fluttering in the air and lighting on the shoulder of his mistress.
The children stepped aside quickly, as if in fear of it.
She took the crow on her finger and held him at arm's-length. He turned and tried to catch an end of the scarlet ribbon. She was a picture then to remind one of the days of falconry. She ran a few paces up a green aisle in the thicket. She stopped where the young man was unable to see her.
"Could—could you bring the children again, sir?" she asked.
"On Thursday, at the same hour," he answered.
He heard again the warning of the little crow and her footsteps growing fainter in the dark trail of the deer.
MASTER paddled slowly to the landing where he had left Strong, and gathered lilies while they waited. He pushed up to the shore as soon as the Emperor had arrived. "Sp'ilt," said the latter, pointing in the direction of Robin Lake.
"You mean that we cannot use the camp over there?"
"Ay-ah," Strong almost whispered, with a face in which perspiration was mingled with regret and geniality.
"S-see 'er?"
"Yes," Master answered. "The children were a great help. She fell in love with them. We are to meet her again Thursday."
"Uh-huh!" Strong exclaimed, in a tone which seemed to say, "I told you so."
"S-sociable?" he inquired, after a little pause.
"No, but interested."
"Uh-huh, says I!" the Emperor exclaimed again, with playful conceit. When he was in the mood of self-congratulation he had an odd way of bringing out those two words—"says I."
"She was afraid of me. I backed away and said very little," Master explained.
"Th-they'll t-tame her," the Emperor assured him.
"She has a wonderful crow with her," said the young man.
"Her g-guide," Strong explained. "Alwus knows the n-nighest way home."
"If you'll help me, I'll make my camp here," said Master.
"Ay-ah," the Emperor answered.
His manner and his odd remark were full of approval and almost affectionate admiration. In half a moment his tongue lazily added, "L-lean her 'gin th-that air rock." In his conversation he conferred the feminine gender upon all inanimate things—a kind of compliment to the sex he revered so highly.
"How long will it take?"
"Day," said Strong, surveying the ground.
"I have to speak in Hillsborough on the Fourth. Suppose we tackle it on my return?"
Strong agreed, and while he and the children set out for camp Master remained to fish.
Two "sports" had arrived in the absence of the Emperor and were shooting at a mark—a pastime so utterly foolish in the view of Silas Strong that he would rarely permit any one at Lost River camp to indulge in it. He who discharged his rifle without sufficient provocation was roughly classed with that breed of hounds which had learned no better than to bark at a squirrel.
"Paunchers!" he muttered, as he came up the trail.
It should be explained here that he divided all "would-be sportsmen" into three classes—namely, swishers, pouters, and paunchers. A swisher was one who filled the air within reach of his cast, catching trees and bushes, but no fish; a pouter, one who baited and hauled his fish as if it were no better than a bull-pout; a pauncher was wont to hit his deer "in the middle" and never saw him again.
The Emperor stopped suddenly. He had seen a twig fall near him and heard the whiz of a bullet.
"Whoa!" he called, his voice ringing in the timber. "H-hold on!"
The Migleys—father and son—of Migleyville, hastened to greet the "Emperor of the Woods."
They were the heralds of the great king of which Strong had complained that night he laid his heart bare and whose name was Business—a king who ruled not with the sword, but with flattery and temptation and artful devices. The Emperor knew that they were the men who had bought his stronghold; that they were come to shove the frontier of their king far beyond the Lost River country; that axes and saws and dams and flooded flats and whirling wheels and naked hill-sides would soon follow them.
"How are you, Mr. Strong?" said the elder Migley, who, by his son, was familiarly called "Pop." He overflowed with geniality. "Glad to see you. Hot an' dry out in the clearing. Little track-worn. Thought we'd come in here for a breath o' fresh air an' a week or two o' sport. Have a drink?"
He winked one eye in a significant manner, which seemed to say that he had plenty and was out for a good time.
"N-no th-thanks," said Strong, as he surveyed the stout figure of the elder Migley.
Here was one of the royal family of Business, in dress neatly symbolic, for Mr. Migley wore a light suit of clothes divided into checks of considerable magnitude by stripes that ran, as it were, north, south, east, and west. The broad convexity of his front resembled, in some degree, an atlas globe. One might have located any part of his system by degrees of latitude and longitude. His equator was represented by a large golden chain which curved in a great arc from one pocket of his waistcoat to the other. As he walked one might have imagined that he was moving in his orbit. His large, full face was adorned with a chin-whisker and a selfish and prosperous-looking nose. It had got possession of nearly all the color in his countenance, and occupied more than its share of space. The son, "Tom," had older manners and a more severe face. He carried with him a look of world-weariness and a sense of all-embracing knowledge so frequently derived from youthful experience. He was the-only-son type of domestic tyrant—overfed, selfish, brutal, wearied by adulation, crowned with curly hair.
"Look at that boy," the elder Migley whispered, pointing at the fat young man of twenty-three who sat on a door-sill cleaning his rifle. "Ain't he a picture? Got a fast mark in Hash-ford Seminary." Mr. Migley owned a number of trotting-horses, and his conversation was always flavored with the cant of the stable.
Strong looked sadly at the fat young man, who was, indeed, the very personification of pulp, and thought of the doom of the woods.
The elder Migley, as if able to read the mind of Strong, offered him the consolation of a cigar. Then he reached to the pegs above him and lowered a quaking whip of greenheart which he had put together soon after his arrival.
"Heft it," he whispered, pressing his rod upon the Emperor. "Ain't that a dandy?"
He looked into the eyes of the woodsman. He winked a kind of challenge, and added, "Seems to me that ought to fetch 'em."
"Mebbe," Strong answered, gently swaying the rod. He was never too free in committing himself.
"Got it for Tommy," said the new sportsman. "Ketched a four-pounder with it—ask him if I didn't." Mr. Migley had the habit of self-corroboration, and Strong used to say that he never believed that kind of a liar.
"Le's go an' try 'em," Migley suggested.
The Emperor smoked thoughtfully a moment.
"D-down river, bym-by," he said, pointing at the cook-tent as if he had now to prepare the dinner.
Strong had seen the Migleys before, although he had never entertained them. They had paunched and pouted in territory not far remote from Lost River, and won a reputation which had travelled among the guides. They worked hard, and hurried out of the woods with all the fish and meat they could carry, and no respect for any law save one—the law of gravitation. They sat down or lay upon their backs every half-hour. Now, it seemed, they were to abandon the vulgar art of the pouter for one more gentle and becoming.
Strong hastened to the cook-tent, where he found Sinth treating the children to sugared cakes and words of motherly fondness.
"Teenty little dears!" she was saying when Silas entered the door.
She rose quickly, and hurried to the stove with a kind of shame on her countenance. Silas kept a sober face while he went for the water-pail, as if he had not "took notice." His joy broke free and expressed itself in loud laughter on his way to the spring.
"Snook!" Sinth exclaimed, her face red with embarrassment as she heard him. She poked the fire with great energy, and added: "Let the fool laugh. I don't care if he did hear me."
A new impulse from the heart of nature entered the Migley breast. Father and son were seeking an opportunity to use their muscles. The son seized a girder above his head and began to chin it; the father went to work with an axe, and his enthusiasm fell in heavy blows upon a beech log.
Strong peered through the window at him and muttered the one contemptuous word, "W-woodpecker!"
A poor chopper in that part of the country was always classed with the woodpeckers.
Dinner over, the elder Migley opened his tin fishing-box and displayed an assortment of cheap flies and leaders.
"Well, captain," said the young man, as he turned to Strong, "if you'll show us where the trout live, we'll show you who they belong to." He passed judgment and bestowed rank upon a great many people, and most of his brevets, if he had been frank with them, would have put his life in peril.
"Pop" Migley touched a rib of the Emperor with his big, coercive thumb, shut one eye, and produced a kind of snore in his larynx.
The wit of his son had increased the cheerfulness of Mr. Migley. He began telling coarse tales, and continued until, as the Emperor would say, he had "emptied his reel." The man who talked too much always had a "big reel," in the thought of the Emperor, and "slack line" was the phrase he applied to empty words.
With everything ready for sport, they proceeded to the landing on Lost River and were soon seated in a long canoe.
"We'll t-try Dunmore's trout," said Strong as they left the shore.
"Dunmore's trout?" said the elder Migley.
"Ay-uh," the Emperor answered. "He hitched onto an' l-lost him."
"Oh, it's that fish I've heard about that grabbed off one of Dunmore's flies," said the elder Migley.
"Uh-huh," the Emperor assented.
As a matter of fact, the old gentleman who lived on the shore of Buckhorn had done a good deal of talking about this remarkable fish.
Father and son sat with rods in hand while Strong worked through the still water and down a long rush of rapids and halted below them near a deep pool flecked with foam.
"C-cast," said he.
With a wild swish and a spasmodic movement of arm and shoulder, "Pop" Migley, who sat amidships, tipped the canoe until it took water.
Strong dashed his paddle and recovered balance. The young man swore.
"C-cast yerf-flies," Strong suggested, and his emphasis clearly indicated that the fisherman should cease casting his body.
Again thenouveauworked his rod, whipping its point to the water fore and aft. Flies and leader clawed over the back of Silas Strong, fetching his hat off. Before he could recover, the young man went into action. Strong ducked in time to save an ear, splashing his paddle again to keep the canoe on its bottom. The tail-fly had caught above his elbow. When Strong tried to loosen its hold the young man was tugging at the line. Strong endeavored to speak, but somehow the words wouldn't come. Suddenly the other rod came back with a powerful swing and smote him on the top of his head.
He had been trying to say "See here," but his tongue had halted on the s. Then he took a new tack, as it were, and tried a phrase which began with the letter g, and had fair success with it.
Both Migleys gave a start of surprise. The Emperor waited to recover self-control and felt a touch of remorse.
"Le' me c-climb a t-tree," he suggested, presently.
The elder Migley burst into loud laughter.
"Stop fooling!" said the young man. "I'd like to get some fish."
He swung his rod, and was again tugging at the shirt-sleeve of the Emperor.
Strong blew as he clung to the leader.
"C-cast c-crossways," he commanded, with a gesture.
The fishermen rested a moment. A hundred feet or so below them Strong saw a squirrel crossing the still water. Suddenly there was a movement behind him, and he sank out of sight. In half a moment he rose again, swimming with frantic haste to reach a clump of alder branches. Strong knew the mysterious villain of this little drama of the river, but said not a word of what he had seen.
The "sports" resumed fishing with less confidence and more care. Soon they were able to reach off twenty feet or so, but they raked the air with deadly violence, and every moment one leader was laying hold of the other or catching in a tree-top. Strong pulled down bough after bough to free the flies. Presently they were caught high in a balsam.
"Take us where there's trout. What do you think we're fishing for, anyway?" said young Migley.
"B-birds," Strong answered, as he continued hauling at the tree-top with hand and paddle. He used language always for the simple purpose of expressing his thoughts. Soon the elder Migley began to feel the need of information. He passed his rod to the Emperor.
"Show me how ye do it," said he.
Strong paddled to a large, flat rock which rose, mid-stream, a little above water. He climbed upon it and sat down lazily.
Nature had taught him, as she teaches all who bear heavy burdens, to conserve his strength. He had none to waste in the support of dignity. When he sat down his weight was braced with hand, foot, and elbow so as to rest his heart and muscles. Now he seemed to anchor himself by throwing his right knee over his left foot. His garment of cord and muscle lay loosely on his bones. There was that in the pose of this man to remind one of an ox lying peacefully in the field. He drew a loop of line off the reel, and with no motion of arm or body, his wrist bent, the point of the rod sprang forward, his flies leaped the length of his line and fell lightly on the river surface. They wavered across the current. He drew another loop of line. The rod rose and gave its double spring, and his flies leaped away and fell farther down the current. So his line flickered back and forth, running out and reaching with every cast until it spanned near a hundred feet.
Still the Emperor smoked lazily, and, saving that little movement of the wrist, reposed as motionless and serene as the rock upon which he sat.
Suddenly Strong's figure underwent a remarkable change. He bent forward, alert as a panther in sight of his prey. His mouth was open, his eyes full of animation. The supple wrist bent swiftly. The flies sprang up and flashed backward; the line sang in its flight. Where the squirrel rose a big trout had sprung above water and come down with a splash. But he had missed his aim. Again the flies lighted precisely where the trout sprang and wavered slowly through the bubbles. A breath of silence followed. The finned arrow burst above water in a veil of mist; down he plunged with a fierce grab at the tail-fly. The wrist of the fisherman sprang upward. The barb caught; the line slanted straight as a lance and seemed to strike at the river-bottom. The rod was bending. The fish had given a quick haul, and now the line's end came rushing in. The shrewd old trout knew how to gather slack on a fisherman. Strong rose like a jack-in-the-box. His hand flashed to the reel. It began to play like the end of a piston. He swung half around and his rod came up. The fish turned for a mad rush. With hands upon rod and silk the fisherman held to check him. Strong's line ripped through the water plane from mid-river to the shadow of the bank. The strain upon the fish's jaw halted him. He settled and began to jerk on the line. Strong raised his foot and tapped the butt of his rod. The report seemed to go down the line as if it had been a telephone message. It startled the trout, and again he took a long reach of silk off the reel. Then slowly he went back and forth through an arc of some twenty feet, and the long line swung like a pendulum. Weakened by his efforts, he began to lead in. Slowly he came near the rock, and soon the splendid trout lay gasping from utter weariness an arm's-length from his captor.
As the net approached him he dove again, hauling with fierce energy. The man was leaning over the edge of the rock, his rod in one hand, his net in the other. He came near losing his balance in the sudden attack. He scrambled into position. Again the trout gave up and followed the strain of the leader. Strong let himself down upon the river-bottom beside the rock, and stood to his belt in water. The fish retreated again and came back helpless and was taken.
He filled the net. A great tail-fin waved above its rim. The Emperor hefted his catch and blew like a buck deer, after his custom in moments of great stress. Then came a declaration of unusual length.
"Ye could r-reel me in with a c-c-cotton th-thread an' p-pick me up in yer f-fingers."
It was growing dusk. Strong clambered to the top of the rock. "Pop" Migley brought the canoe alongside.
The Emperor gave a loud whistle of surprise.
"Dunmore's t-trout!" he said, soberly. He had found a "black gnat" embedded in the fish's mouth, its snell broken near the loop. He put the struggling fish back in the net and tied his handkerchief across the top of it.
The Migleys both agreed that they were ready for supper.
The Emperor got aboard and requested the elder Migley to keep the fish under water, while he took his paddle and pushed for camp. They put their trout in a spring at the boat-house.
The sports hurried to camp. Master came down the path and met Strong.
"I've got D-Dunmore's t-trout," said the latter.
"Good!" Master answered; "that will give us an excuse to go and call on him."
THAT evening, while the others went out to sit by the camp-fire, Silas Strong put the children to bed and lay down beside them. They begged him for a story, he had neither skill nor practice in narration, he had, as the rustic merchant is wont to say, a desire to please. He knew that he had disappointed the children and was doing his best to recover their esteem. Possibly he ought to try and be more like other folks. He rubbed his thin, sandy beard, he groped among the treasures of his memory.
Infrequently he had gone over them with Sinth or the Lady Ann, but briefly and with halting words and slow reflection. He had that respect for the past which is a characteristic of the true historian, but, in his view, it gave him little to say of his own exploits. He was wont to observe, ironically, that others knew more of them than he knew himself. Owing, it may be, to his little infirmity of speech, he had never been misled into the broad way of prevarication. Brevity had been his refuge and his strength. He regarded with contempt the boastful narratives of woodsmen.
Now the siren voices of the little folks had made him thoughtful. Had he nothing to give them but disappointment? He hesitated. Then he fell, as it were, but, happily, for the sake of those two he had begun to love, and not through pride. It was a kind of modesty which caused him to reach for the candle and blow it out. Then, boldly, as it were, he began to sing a brief account of one of his own adventures. He could sing without stammering, and therefore he sang an odd and almost tuneless chant. He accepted such rhyme and rhythm as chanced to drift in upon the monotonous current of his epic; but he turned not aside for them. He sang glibly, jumping in and out of that old, melodious trail of "The Son of a Gamboleer." Strong called this unique creation of his
"One day yer Uncle Silas went for to kill a bear,
An' a dog he took an' follered which his name was
little Zeb;
Bym-by we come acrost a track which looked as big
as sin,
An' Zeb he hollered 'twas a bear, which I didn't quite
believe in
Until I got down on my knee, an' then I kind o'
laughed,
For su'thin' cur'us showed me where he'd wrote his
autygraft,
An' which way he was travellin' all in the frosty snow;
An' I follered Zeb, the bear-dog, as fast as I could go,
An' purty soon I see
Where the bear had tore his overcoat upon a hem
lock-tree,
An' left some threads behind him which fell upon his
track,
Which I wouldn't wonder if he done a-scratchin' of
his back,
Which caused me for to grin an' laugh all on ac
count o' my feelin's."
Here came a pause, in which the singer sought a moment of relaxation, as it would seem, in a thoughtful and timely cough.
"Bym-by I come up kind o' dost an' where that I
could see
Zeb was jumpin' like a rabbit an' a-hollerin' t' me;
An' I could see the ol' bear's home all underneath a
ledge,
An' the track of his big moggasins up to the very edge.
I took an' fetched some pine-knots an' a lot of ol'
dead limbs,
An' built a fire upon his door-step an' let the smoke
blow in;
An' then I took a piece o' rope an' tethered Zeb away
So's that he'd keep his breeches fer to use another
day.
An' purty soon I listened an' I heard the bear
a-coughin',
An' he sneezed an' bellered out as if he guessed he'd
be excused.
All t' once he bust out an' the rifle give a yell,
An' I wouldn't wonder if he thought—"
The narrator was halted for half a moment by another frog in his throat—as he explained. Then he went on:
"An' Zeb he tore away an' took an' fastened on the
bear,
An' they rolled down-hill together, an' the critter
ripped the air,
An' I didn't dast t' shoot him for fear o' killin' Zeb,
So I clubbed my rifle on the bear an' mellered up his
head."
Moist with perspiration, Silas Strong rose and stood by the bedside and blew. Fifty miles with a boat on his back could not have taxed him more severely. He answered a few queries touching the size, fierceness, and fate of the bear. Then he retreated, whispering as he left the door, "Strong's ahead."
Zeb lay on the foot of the bed, and Socky, being a little timid in the dark, coaxed him to lie between them, his paws on the pillow. With their hands on the back of Zeb, they felt sure no harm could come to them.
"Do you love Uncle Silas?" It was the question of little Sue.
Socky answered, promptly, "Yes; do you?"
"Yes."
"Hunters don't never wear good clothes." So Socky went on, presently, as if apologizing to his own spirit for the personal appearance of his uncle. "They git 'em all tore up by the bears an' panthers."
"That's how he got his pants tore," Sue suggested, thinking of his condition that day they met him on the trail.
"Had a fight with a 'kunk," Socky answered, quickly. He had overheard something of that adventure at Robin Lake.
They lay thinking a moment. Then up spoke the boy. "I wisht he had a gold watch."
With Socky the ladder by which a man rose to greatness had many rounds. The first was great physical strength, the next physical appearance; the possession of a rifle and the sacred privilege of bathing the same in bear's-oil was distinctly another; symbols of splendor, such as watches, finger-rings, and the like, had their places in the ladder, and qualities of imagination were not wholly disregarded.
Sue tried to think of something good to say—something, possibly, which would explain her love. It was her first trial at analysis.
"He wouldn't hurt nobody," she suggested.
"He can carry a tree on his back"—so it seemed to Socky.
"He wouldn't let nothin' touch us," said Sue, still working the vein of kindness which she had discovered.
"He's the most terrible powerful man in the world," Socky averred, and unconsciously twisted the soft ear of Zeb until the latter gave a little yelp of complaint.
"He can kill bears an' panthers an' deers an'—an' ketch fish," said Sue.
"He could swaller a whale," Socky declared, as he thought of the story of Jonah.
"Aunt Sinthy has got a hole in her shoe." The girl imparted this in a whisper.
Both felt the back of Zeb and were silent for a little.
"She blubbers!" Socky exclaimed, with a slight touch of contempt in the way he said it.
"Maybe she got her feet wet and Uncle Silas Spanked her."
"Big folks don't get spanked," the boy assured Sue.
"Do you like her?"
He answered quickly, as if the topic were a bore to him, "Purty well."
Sue had hoped for greater frankness. Her own opinion of her Aunt Cynthia, while favorable, was unsettled. She thought of a thing in connection with her aunt which had given her some concern. She had been full of wonder as to its hidden potentialities.
In a moment Sue broached the subject by saying, "She's got a big mold on her neck."
"With a long hair on it," Socky added. "Bet you wouldn't dast pull that hair."
Sue squirmed a little. That single hair had, somehow, reminded her of the string on a jumping-jack. She reflected a moment, "I put my finger on it," said she, boastfully.
"That's nothing," Socky answered. "Uncle Silas let me feel the shot what he got in his arm. Gee, it was kind o' funny." He squirmed a little and thoughtfully felt his foot.
Sue recognized the superior attraction of the buried shot and held her peace a moment. Both had begun to yawn.
"Wisht it was t'-morrow," said Sue.
"Why?"
"'Cause I'm going to see the beautiful lady."
"An' the crow, too," Socky whispered.
They were, indeed, to see her sooner than they knew—in dreamland.
Zeb now retired discreetly to the foot of the bed.
After a little silence Sue put her arms about her brother's neck and pressed him close.
"Wisht I was in heaven," she said, drowsily, with a little cry of complaint.
"Why?"
"So I could see my mother."
"She's way up a Trillion miles beyond where the hawks fly," said the boy, as he gaped wearily.
Thereafter the room was silent, save for the muffled barking of Zeb in his slumber. He, too, was dreaming, no doubt, of things far away.