"Who, Jim here?" returned Melchior. "Not on yer sweet life! Jim don't give a hooray what the old man thinks of him or says to him—nor what any one else says or thinks, I guess. Why, he told pa where he got off at the first minute they met an' has been doin' it ever since. But what's wrong with yer lip, Mark? An' yer nose? They're all puffed up."
"Zat so, Mel?" returned Mark. "Puffed up, hey? Somethin' wrong with them, hey? They suit me all right. I wouldn't swap 'em for no other lip nor nose on this river. Take another look, Mel, an' then if ye're still in the same mind about 'em—if ye don't like their looks—tell me about it an' step outside an' see if ye kin fix 'em for me."
"Oh, if that's how ye're feelin', they look fine," answered Mel. "If they suit you, they suit me. I got one hour an' then I'll have to move along, for I left the mare down at the Fork. What about a little game?"
"I'm agreeable," said Sam. "Five cent ante, as usual, hey?"
"When I was a young man a-sparkin' round an' a-courtin' the girls, I didn't uster waste my time with the men an' the cards," said old Archie McKim.
"Yer dead right, Archie," retorted old Hercules Ducat. "Ye was too danged scart o' losin' a dollar! Courtin' was cheaper!"
"Maybe it was in them days," laughed Melchior, pulling a chair up to the table and seating himself as if he intended business.
"What about you, Jim?" asked Mark.
"Delighted," said Jim.
"D'ye know poker?"
"It's my middle name."
The grandfathers, Mrs. Ducat, and the girl did not join in the game. Jim played with discretion and luck. Mel lost for an hour and a quarter, then remembered his mare hitched in the woods at the fork of the roads four miles away, wished everyone good night and departed. Flora saw him to the door and stood in whispered conversation on the threshold for half a minute.
"Does he come here often?" asked Jim of Mark, in a low aside, as Uncle Sam dealt the cards with mighty heaves of the shoulders as if each bit of pasteboard weighed fifty pounds.
"Every chance he gets," replied Mark. "Whenever he kin give Amos the slip. Dang if I know if it's Flora or the cards fetches 'im! Reckon it's Flora. But she don't worry. They all look the same to her, I guess."
It was eight-thirty by the Ducats' kitchen clock when Melchior Hammond departed to return to his tethered mare four miles off and continue on his interrupted way toward Bird's Corner. It was ten by the same clock when Jim Todhunter left the Ducat kitchen, after cordial handshakes all around and a promise to return on the morrow or the day after, and set out briskly for Millbrook. He walked at his best pace, in a pleasant humor with himself and the world. He approved of Piper's Glen. Flora Ducat was a charming girl. He had enjoyed his evening and his fight with Mark Ducat. He liked Mark and all the Ducats. He reached the Hammond residence on the stroke of twelve, midnight, and found the front door unlocked. Amos Hammond was as mild of manner as a lamb next morning at breakfast. Jim made no pretense of working in the store that day or of inquiring into any branch of Hammond's business. Amos Hammond kept out of Jim's way as much as possible.
A week passed, during which period of time Jim made several trips up to Piper's Glen. On the eighth day after his first meeting with the Ducats, he visited them for the fourth time and remained in that hospitable kitchen until eleven o'clock at night. It was past one when he reached Millbrook. The front door was locked, the back door was locked, and he tossed gravel up against Hammond's window until lamplight shone forth. Up went the lower sash with a bang and rattle and the man of the house looked out and down.
"The doors are locked," said Jim.
"Spawn of the devil!" cried Amos. "Cumberer of the earth! Eater of the bread of idleness and corruption! I warn ye to go away from here! Ye've held me up to derision in the sight of my wife and children, but the Lord is on my side an' I charge ye never to darken my door again!"
"Very impressive, but it won't do," replied Jim. "I'm a part of your establishment. I must really insist upon darkening your door again."
At that, Mr. Hammond's language fell from the classical to the colloquial.
"Beat it!" he screamed. "Get to hell out o' this afore I lose my temper an' pull the triggers."
"Triggers?" queried Jim coolly.
"Aye, triggers! Two of 'em—an' both standin' at full-cock."
"What number shot, if you don't object to my asking?"
"Number two, dang ye! An' my fingers is twitchin'!"
"All right! Pass out my baggage and I'll go."
"Baggage? Ye got no baggage here!"
"Boxes, bags, trunks, and so on."
"Ye got nothin' in this house! Clear out or I'll be the death o' ye!"
"So you've turned my stuff out, have you? Well, that'll save time. Where did you put it?"
"There's nothin' of yers on my premises, inside nor out, an' never was; but if ye don't beat it before I count ten there'll be a dead corpse in the yard. Git!"
Jim got. He went around to the front door, stood his gun against the side of the house and kicked the door in with one terrific smash of the right heel against the lock. He entered the dark hall and was feeling his way toward the stairs with extended arms when his right hand touched something alive. Quick as thought, hard as iron, he grabbed and gripped with both hands.
"It's me, Jim! Leggo, for God's sake—an' run!" whispered the voice of Melchior. "I come down to warn ye. He's murderin' mad. Threw a knife at me an' missed by an inch—an' he'll shoot you. Here he comes!"
A light appeared at the top of the stairs. Jim turned and started for the open door on the jump, tripped over the threshold, and fell out on to the veranda and flung himself to one side at the very instant of touching the floor. And then a gun roared within and a shower of number two shot ripped into the flooring where he had been lying a moment before. Was that both barrels or only one? He didn't know. He scrambled to his feet, snatched his own gun from where it leaned and ran. As he jumped the fence, the gun banged again, but the charge went wide and high.
"He's off his nut and the gun's a breech-loader," he reflected; and he continued his flight.
A third bang proved the soundness of his reasoning and the wisdom of his course.
The village was aroused from its slumber by the reports of Amos Hammond's gun, but by the time the villagers were out of their houses, Jim Todhunter was far out of sight, and even the flying beat of his heavy boots on the hard road was out of earshot.
Jim had forseen the disturbance and curiosity of the neighbors and felt in no mood to calm the disturbance or satisfy the curiosity. In fact, he had nothing to say. He was a fighter, but not a gun-fighter. He was sane, and he believed Hammond to be mad. He had run from a gun, though he had a gun in his own hands and ammunition in his pockets. He could have returned Hammond's fire, shooting to frighten rather than to hit, and closed with the fellow eventually and hammered him into submission. He had considered this course and dismissed it early in his flight. The truth is, he was glad to be rid of the responsibility to the Hammond family which he had assumed in promising Mrs. Hammond to stick to the household as long as possible. That promise no longer held. Even the most good-natured and altruistic person in the world would not be expected by even the least altruistic to continue to cling to a household against the efforts of the head-of-the-house to dislodge him with smokeless powder and swan-shot.
Jim felt that he was well rid of the Hammonds and of all responsibility toward them. Other plans for the future had been developing brightly in his mind of late. Now he was free to follow these plans. He would remove his baggage from the Hammond premises on the morrow and have done with that blunder forever.
It was a frosty night. Jim went up-river, for in that direction were his friends and the matter of his plans for the immediate future. He had slowed to a walk as soon as the bridge over Millbrook was crossed, and from there onward to the fork of the roads he took his time. There he paused, considering two courses of action. Would he make camp until daybreak, or would he press on and disturb the slumbering Ducats? The air tingled with frost, he had overheated himself in his flight, and he was without overcoat or blanket. He decided to go on up the glen.
The Ducat dogs hurled themselves upon him from the woodshed, only to retire at a word. He found the kitchen door on the latch, entered noiselessly and closed the door. There was still a glow in the big old cookstove which stood bodily in the older fireplace. He laid his gun aside, removed his boots, sank into old Archie Me Kim's armchair and fell asleep.
Flora Ducat always lit the kitchen fire (now that she was considered grown-up) and then banged on the stove-pipe with an iron spoon. At that signal, men arose and descended and went out to the feeding, and the milking—Mark and his father and uncle when they were at home, the grandfathers at other times. On this particular morning, Flora descended to the kitchen in a red blanket dressing gown, with her dark hair about her ears and a lamp in her right hand, and beheld a man lolling sound asleep in a chair beside the stove. She was startled, but she neither screamed nor dropped the lamp. She recognized the sleeper almost instantly. It just happened that she had been thinking of this young man while she donned the red dressing gown and descended the backstairs and crossed the kitchen; so the discovery was no more than a realization of the mental vision by the physical vision, and therefore not an overwhelming shock.
Jim opened his eyes to the shine of the lamp, blinked owlishly at the flame, then glanced higher. The girl, meeting his look squarely, saw bewilderment give way to astonishment and astonishment to admiration.
"Why are you here, Jim?" she asked.
"Ah! So I'm awake!" he exclaimed, sitting up straight. "Of course! I remember now. Didn't want to disturb you," he added.
"When did you come back?" she asked.
"It must have been between three and four. Amos Hammond got after me with a gun. Fired three shots."
He pulled on his boots and stood up without lacing them.
"Did he—hit you?" she asked, her voice gone to a whisper.
He smiled and shook his head.
"And now?" she queried.
"I'm going in with Mark," he answered. "I've stood for all I'm going to from that hypocritical, mad, crooked psalm-singer."
"I'm glad he didn't hit you, but I'm glad he fired at you," she returned.
They lit the fire together and Jim filled the kettle. Flora banged the pipe with the iron spoon and went upstairs. Mark came down and found Jim lacing his boots.
"Hammond locked me out, and when I kicked his front door in he opened on me with a shotgun," explained Jim.
Mark laughed and shook hands.
"I knew he'd bust out at ye pretty soon," he said. "It was just that or lose his reputation for righteousness; an' I reckon he figgered it out how his reputation was worth a few more dollars to 'im, in the long run."
After breakfast Jim and Mark drove in to Millbrook with a pair of horses and a heavy wagon. They drew rein in front of the Hammond house.
"Look there, will ye!" exclaimed Mark, who had heard all the details of the encounter between Jim and the storekeeper.
Jim looked and saw a patch of new flooring on the veranda, directly in front of the door.
"Quick work," he replied.
"He's quick as a mink an' sly as a fox an' heartless as a weasel, is that skunk Amos Hammond," returned Mark.
The store stood on the other side of the road, directly opposite the dwelling. Several teams stood hitched before it. Mark and Jim descended from the wagon, crossed the road and entered the store. Three or four customers were there, and Amos Hammond stood behind a counter and talked confidentially across it to a tall countryman with a face full of uncontrolled whiskers. Amos glanced at the newcomers from a corner of his near eye, but went on with his conversation. Jim went straight up to the bewhiskered man's elbow and addressed Hammond.
"I've come for my baggage," he said.
The tall fellow looked sideways at him, but Amos didn't give him a glance or pause in his talk.
"I've come for my baggage," repeated Jim. "For my rifle, my trunks full of clothes, my boots, my fishing-rods, my books, and my dispatch-box containing private papers and one hundred and twelve dollars in Canadian currency. I'll let the wages you owe me go."
"Young feller, that's sure sayin' a mouthful," remarked the hairy stranger, eyeing Jim with interest. "What's all this about yer boots an' yer baggage, anyhow?"
"He's a liar!" exclaimed Hammond, suddenly losing his pose. "Ain't I just told ye all about it, Mr. Hart? About his one trunk, an' his ungodly nighthawkin' up to Piper's Glen an' his bustin' into my house at two o'clock this mornin', drunk as a soldier, an' how I had to chase 'im away with a gun loaded with salt? If ye don't believe me, come along over an' look at his baggage yerself."
"Sure, let's go," agreed the whiskery one. "It's the cleanest job ye've put me to yet, Hammond, this lookin' at a trunk. Cleaner an' more to my taste nor foreclosin' mortgages an' evictin' widows."
He turned and saw Mark Ducat and extended a hairy hand.
"How do, Mark," he said.
"How do, Sheriff," returned Mark, shaking his hand.
"Speakin' of widows," continued Hart, sagging an elbow to the counter and crossing his long legs, "have ye seen old Widow Wilson of Kingswood Settlement since the deacon here sicked the law on to her an' run her off her little old farm?"
"No, I ain't seed her, but I heered tell the Duffys took her in," returned Mark.
"They did that, sure enough," said the other, "but they can't keep her in. She's went that clean off her head since losin' her home that ye can't do nothin' with her. Can't keep her housed, anyhow, though she's reasonable enough about eatin' an' sleepin' whenever she stops in anywheres. Hoofs the roads all day an' sometimes all night—an' winter a-comin' on. Well, let's go along an' look at this here baggage."
"What brought ye up-river so early in the day, Sheriff?" asked Mark. "Looks to me kinder like ye'd been sent fer."
"Not aigzactly, Mark, but I heered a kinder rumor as how righteousness had bust out so hot in Deacon Hammond here that he'd up an' murdered a young man for settin' in to a hand at cribbage. So I come in my official capacity to take a look at the corpse, but I reckon there's nothin' to see but some baggage, after all."
Amos Hammond led the four men across the road and through his front door and pointed to a leather trunk in the front hall, all in a black silence.
"Yer trunk, young man?" asked Mr. Hart of Jim.
"It is one of them," replied Jim, producing a folded paper from a pocket and handing it to the hairy official. "Here is a list."
The sheriff read the list aloud, slowly.
"Hell!" he exclaimed, in a voice of wondering admiration.
"I'll have no cussin' in this house!" cried Hammond.
"Where'd ye leave it all?" inquired Hart, eyeing Jim.
"Every article of it in this house, except my shotgun and what I'm wearing," replied Jim. "Two or three boxes are in the outer kitchen and all the rest of the stuff is in my bedroom."
Amos Hammond led the way to the outer kitchen. No boxes were there. He led the way to Jim's bedroom. It, too, was empty.
"Search the house, if ye want to," sneered Hammond.
"I've had enough of this tomfoolery," said Jim. "I've given you a chance to hand over my things, and you haven't done it. You have overreached yourself this time. But for your wife and family, I would have filled you with partridge-shot last night. I had a gun in my hands, too. And but for these same unfortunate persons, I would send you to jail now. I brought my stuff to Covered Bridge as freight, and here are my vouchers, and the freight agent at Covered Bridge has another set of them, and he is a witness that the things were loaded on to your wagon, and every member of your family is a witness that they were unloaded in this house, and were still here when I was last in the house. Very crude! Last night's fit was too much for you. I'm afraid that you are off your head permanently. I'll overlook last night's attempted murder and to-day's attempted robbery—but, sane or mad, the next time you try anything on me will be the last time!"
Hammond screamed and snatched the vouchers from Jim's hand. Jim let them go and struck. Hammond fell unconscious. While Mark and Jim worked over the householder with cold water, Mr. Hart calmly examined the crumpled vouchers.
"I reckon ye're right, Mr. Todhunter," he said. "It sure does look like he was off his nut for keeps, tryin' to put over a fool play like this right under the nose of the law, so to speak."
Hammond recovered consciousness in a few minutes and, under pressure from Hart, led the way to a loft above the wagon-shed, rolled aside a wall of empty barrels and disclosed Jim's baggage to view. Then, to the amazement of the three, he turned to Jim with bowed head.
"James, it wasn't yer worldly gear I wanted," he said in a trembling voice. "I run the risk of hanging an' I run the risk of jail, an' I told a lie, all in a vain effort to save yer soul from the hellish lure of Piper's Glen. But the devil's been too strong for me! I forgive ye the blow, James, for it was not yerself who struck me but Old Adam. Take yer empty vanities an' depart in peace."
"Empty?" queried Mark Ducat, lifting inquiringly on the end of a trunk. "No, I guess they're full enough, but ye may's well get out yer keys an' take a look, Jim."
Mr. Hart stared at Hammond with horrified eyes.
"Amos, ye'll go too far one of these days," he said earnestly. "The Almighty is long-sufferin', so I've heered tell, but it ain't in reason to insult Him like ye've just done an' expect to get away with it every time. Have ye no fear, to make a mock of Him by sinnin' in His very name? Look out that a bolt from heaven don't strike ye dead some day!" He turned to Jim. "Any charge agin' this man, Mr. Todhunter?" he asked.
"None, sir," replied Jim. "I'll leave it to the bolt from heaven."
Half an hour later, Jim and Mark drove off toward Piper's Glen with the baggage intact. They discussed their plans for the winter. They would go north and west beyond the rise of Piper's Brook to the headwaters on Kettle Creek and there trap furs. It was a promising country. An old half-breed, dead now these five years, had once taken a black fox somewhere up around Kettle Pond. Perhaps he had taken more than one of those priceless pelts, but he had shown only one on the river. If he had killed others and kept quiet about them he had practiced commendable business discretion, for Amos Hammond had bought that one from him—after priming him with gin—for fifteen dollars. Mark knew that country fairly well, having hunted moose there several times and cruised timber on the fringe of it once; and he had worked a winter in a lumber camp at the mouth of Kettle Creek and spent his Sundays spying out the land to the north and west of the camp.
The partners decided to look over the ground immediately, before snow, and perhaps bag a supply of fresh meat while they were about it. They toted their dunnage straight across to the river by way of a rough and narrow trail, for even as the homing bee flies, the distance between the Ducat place and the nearest point on Racket River is three miles. There Mark uncovered a bark canoe from a brush-screened cleft between big rocks. A thorough examination disclosed leaks in three seams, and these were treated with a melted mixture of resin and lard. The canoe was launched, the dunnage stowed amidship and Jim placed in a cramped position in the bow with a paddle in his hands. Mark stood aft and plied a long pole of spruce, the working end of which was bound with a wide ring of iron. Jim knew nothing about paddling a canoe, but he worked away at it and heeded Mark's comments and corrections.
Two hours of easy work against swift water brought them to the mouth of Kettle Creek. In the creek the water was deeper and less swift for a few miles, so Mark slid the pole inboard and manned a paddle. He returned to the pole before noon, and at noon they went ashore and boiled the kettle. At three o'clock they had to go ashore again, unload, and carry canoe and dunnage around Rusty Trap Falls. At sundown they made camp for the night at a spot which Mark calculated to be within a few miles of half way between the mouth of the creek and Kettle Pond, the heart of the land of promise.
"But it's heavy goin' from here on," he said.
He was right. They were ashore almost as much as they were afloat next day. They scrambled over rocky portages. They jumped from boulder to boulder in mid-stream, with burdens on their backs and heads.
"I believe we've carried that canoe more than she has carried us," said Jim, toward the close of the strenuous day.
"Guess ye're right," returned Mark. "Water's lower'n I looked for. We'll wait for snow to fetch in the rest of the stuff—straight acrost from the head of the glen to this valley."
They reached the head of navigable water late in the afternoon of the third day of their journey. Here Kettle Creek, creeping out of Kettle Pond, twisted feebly among scores of great boulders; and the voyagers were forced to make a half-mile carry into the little lake.
The country was full of game.
"We'll take it easy," said Mark. "More'n half my livin' is in the woods, so I look on all the beasts that are worth eatin' or skinnin' as property. So we'll act here like this Kettle Pond country was our own farm, Jim. I don't hold with slaughterin' for the fun of shootin' this early in the season, an' then have a bunch of good meat rot on me come a spell of warm weather."
They cruised the country on all sides for likely lines for traps. They built a solid little hut of logs and poles, all complete with a hearth and chimney. They chinked the cracks in the walls with moss, the cracks in the chimney with clay, and made the roof tight with sheets of birch bark. Between bouts of construction work and exploration, Mark instructed Jim in the art of handling a canoe in still water. The nights fell suddenly from snappy to shivery.
Mark made a horn of birch bark one night and, by producing a variety of grunts and gurgles and groans from it, lured a big bull moose into the open beside the lake. Jim shot the deluded creature by the light of the Hunter's Moon.
They decided, next day, that one of them should take out the canoe and the moose-meat before the water-route was closed by ice; and that the other should remain on the ground and build a second hut six miles to the northward and then go south and east to the glen on foot; after which they would return together on the snow to Kettle Pond with traps and a toboggan and the balance of the winter's supplies. As Jim didn't know the way out across country he volunteered to take out the canoe and moose-meat.
Todhunter made the home trip safely, but not a day too soon. His work on the portages was doubled. Singlehanded, he had to go and come twice every time with the moose-meat and make a third round with the canoe. Strong as he was, he found the canoe a staggerer, for he had not yet acquired the trick of balancing it. He spent two days and several hours of a third in negotiating the reaches of rocks and white waters. But, once clear of the obstructed areas, he traveled with both speed and ease, running with the lively current and dipping the paddle occasionally with a twist or sweep. Rusty Trap Falls forced him ashore again to a short bout of carrying, but from that onward the way was swift and open. Following Mark's instructions, he descended Racket River to a point within twenty yards of the fork of the roads, there cached the canoe among the bushes and the meat in a tree and completed his homeward journey on foot.
It was night and bitterly cold, with a skin of ice along the edges of the river and over every pool of still water, and the white stars fairly snapping. Jim reached the Ducat house at nine o'clock, found the family at home, and Melchior Hammond and another young man present. At sight of Jim, Flora jumped to her feet and upset the album, laughed and sat down again; Peter and Sam went out to hitch up and go after the canoe and moose-meat; and Mrs. Ducat stopped her rocking and darning and said, "Flora, you get a good hot supper for Jim with cream to his preserves."
Melchior shook hands with Jim, inquired politely after Mark's health and whereabouts and then remarked that he guessed he might as well go along with the men as far as the fork of the roads.
"And you might as well take Homer along with you," said Flora. "It's late for him to be out and he's got a long way to go."
But Mr. Steeves didn't go. Melchior didn't urge him. He recovered the album from the floor without a word and glared at it in a lowering silence. Flora laughed, took Jim by the hand, and led him into the kitchen. Melchior followed them, donned his overcoat and hat and gloves, wished everybody a cheery good night and departed. Jim, standing awkwardly with his left hand still clasped by the girl's right hand, felt that there had been a peculiar significance in the smile which Melchior had bestowed upon him at the moment of closing the kitchen door. He looked at the girl, whose extraordinary eyes were already upon him.
"I believe you are trying to make Mel jealous," he said, smiling uneasily.
"Leggo the young man's hand an' git 'im his supper," said old Archie McKim.
Flora laughed and released Jim's hand. Jim blushed and seated himself at the table.
Flora fried bacon and potatoes and boiled coffee for Jim's belated supper. She spread the table with a white cloth for him and set out cream and strawberry jam and Washington pie. She placed the hot dishes before him, poured his coffee and then sat down opposite him with her elbows on the table and her vivid face and remarkable eyes shaded a little between her hands. Jim ate with a good appetite.
In answer to a few questions, Jim told the girl about the Kettle Pond country and the trips in and out and the shooting of the moose.
Homer Steeves appeared suddenly at Flora's elbow and scowled across the table at Jim.
"I thought you had started for home long ago," said the girl.
"I ain't gone yet," he replied sullenly.
"Well, that's your name, and you'd better live up to it—Homer."
"I know my name, an' I know other folks' names—but what I want to know is if I ain't got as much right 'round here as Mel Hammond."
"Why, of course you have: he hasn't any."
"Ain't he courtin' you, Flora?"
"Nobody's courting me."
"He comes here often enough, anyhow! What does he come for?"
Jim looked up, frowning slightly.
"Steeves, Flora is Mark Ducat's sister, and Mark is my friend and partner," he said. "You wouldn't bawl your ill-mannered questions at her if Mark were here, so don't do it now."
"Maybe I would an' maybe I wouldn't, but you ain't Mark Ducat," retorted the other. "Mark could eat three like you an' I could eat two! If you don't believe me, come along outside!"
"But Mark couldn't," said Flora.
Jim smiled at her and shook his head very slightly. Then he stood up and said quietly, "If I do, Steeves, I'll have to carry you in again and put you to bed, and that will be an inconvenience to both of us and to Mrs. Ducat."
"Talk don't scare me," sneered Homer.
"He can have Mark's bed," said Flora reflectively.
Mr. Steeves eyed her questioningly, uncertainly.
"And there's still some of the same arnica we used on the last man who picked a fight with you, Jim," she added.
"Who was he?" asked Homer.
"A better man than you," replied the girl.
The two young men eyed one another searchingly for several seconds. Then Steeves turned away, took up his coat and cap from the big settle beside the chimney, and went out, Jim sat down and took up his spoon. Flora refilled his cup.
"Perhaps I should not have interfered," said Jim, glancing across the table. "Perhaps I had no right to, after all?"
"You said you had a right to, as Mark's friend and partner," she answered.
The Racket River country froze hard and deep that night and all the next day and yet harder and deeper on the following night. The river froze clear across, except in places of broken white water; and a third night of intense freezing sealed even the rapids, leaving only a steaming airhole here and there. Caught naked, without their white blankets of snow, the clearings and rocky shores and hardwood swales looked dead, as if the swift frost had struck home to their summer hearts. Then came the merciful snow, after a red dawn. The snow continued to fall throughout a day and a night.
Uncle Sam Ducat had engaged himself and a team of horses and a complete outfit of rigging for twitching and hauling to Henry Lunn for the winter. Mr. Lunn was operating on Ripping Brook, ten miles to the south and fifteen miles to the east of Piper's Glen; so Sam made an early start, muffled in a coon-skin coat, to a frosty jangle of bells, with dry snow puffing up from his horses' legs and the frozen vapor of their nostrils and the smoke of his pipe ascending in the nippy sunshine.
Half an hour after Uncle Sam's departure, Jim Todhunter hitched the strawberry colt Dexter to the red pung and set out for Millbrook to purchase steel traps and provisions. He followed Sam Ducat's track, but the going was heavy. He had no more than reached the fork and straightened out on the river road than he was forced to draw rein. Someone, a human being of some sort, stood fair in the center of the snowy track, motionless.
"Anything wrong?" asked Jim, standing up and looking over the tall colt at the obstruction.
He saw then that it was an old woman wearing a brown hood and bulky with much sombre-hued clothing. Her hands were in red mittens; in one she held a little basket and a long staff and in the other something lengthy wrapped in a shawl. She looked at Jim with bright eyes out of a shriveled face. She did not answer his question.
"May I have the pleasure of driving you to the village?" he asked.
"No, I thank 'e," she replied. "Ye got beautiful manners, but I ain't a-goin' that way."
She continued to stand motionless in the middle of the road, however, knee-deep in the dry snow between the hoof-tracks of Sam Ducat's team.
"Isn't there anything I can do for you?" he asked.
"Be ye carryin' a gun?—an' maybe some cartridges, Mister?"
"Yes. I thought I might get a shot at something."
The old woman advanced past the colt and stood beside the pung. She placed her basket on the seat of the pung, leaned her staff against it and removed the shawl from the longish parcel, thereby disclosing a single-barrel shotgun.
"I shot away all my ca'tridges yesterday," she said. "It ain't often I hit a rabbit, but I be thankful enough when I do."
Jim looked at the gun more closely and saw that it was a breechloading number twelve. He dipped into a pocket and brought up three cartridges and gave them to the old woman. She accepted them eagerly.
"Now are you sure you are quite safe here on the road?" he asked.
"Aye, Mister, safe enough, thank 'e," she answered, slipping one shell into her gun and the others into a pocket. She wrapped the shawl around the gun, took up the basket and staff and stepped back a pace. Jim shook the reins and the colt got into motion.
"Good hunting, Granny," called Jim over his shoulder.
"Thank 'e kindly, sir, an' God bless ye!" called the old woman after him.
Jim reached the village without further interruption and found Melchior Hammond alone in the store. He asked after the family and was told that all were well as could be expected under the circumstances.
"What circumstances?" he asked.
"I wish ye'd jailed the old man when ye had 'im cold!" exclaimed Melchior. "He ain't fit to live with—no, nor half-way fit! Ever since you caught 'im cold, right in front of Deputy-Sheriff Hart, tryin' to rob ye, he's been havin' prayers every mornin' an' noon an' talkin' murder every night."
"Where is he now?"
"Up-river somewheres. He went yesterday to put a crimp into some poor folks up that way who borrowed money from him at four hundred per cent. interest. He's havin' the time of his life, I bet!"
"Four hundred per cent.!"
"Sure—but it don't show on paper. That's how he did business with old Widow Wilson. Bein' his son is bitter diet, Jim! If I was worth a can of sardines, I'd of cleared out long ago!"
Jim made his purchases, refused an invitation to dinner, and set out on the homeward journey. He passed several teams bound for the village; and within a hundred yards of the fork of the roads he came face to face with Amos Hammond. He pulled out to the left to let the store-keeper go by, but, instead of taking advantage of the space, Amos drew rein. So Jim brought the strawberry colt to a standstill. Amos was in a sleigh, despite the fact that he must have left home on wheels yesterday, when there wasn't any snow; and Jim wondered at that. The explanation was simple. Hammond had traded the unseasonable wagon for the sleigh and robes and new harness with an unwilling countryman whose note was in his possession.
"D'ye ever see Melchior up this way?" asked Hammond.
"Pull out," said Jim. "I want my share of the road. I'm in a hurry."
"I asked ye a question."
"Which I have no intention of answering. Pull out!"
"Young man, answer my question. Have ye ever seen my son in that house of iniquity where you now make your ungodly home?"
"House of iniquity? What do you mean by that?"
"The Ducat house, that sink of cardplayin' an' blasphemy."
Jim was out of the red pung like a flash and at the head of Hammond's mare in a second. He pulled the mare to one side, not ungently, then jumped along to the side of the sleigh, struck Hammond such a terrific chop across the right wrist with his mittened fist that the reins were released, and yanked him out and down.
"You mad, dirty, lying cur!" he cried.
He shook Amos Hammond until hairs flew from his dog-skin coat. He slapped his face. He cuffed his ears. He rolled him in the snow. He bumped him and thumped him, then grabbed him up in both arms and flung him back in the sleigh.
"Get along home, you unspeakable cur, and thank God that I don't lose my temper!" he cried.
He jumped into the pung and put Dexter along the Glen road at a thumping trot. He was no more than around the first curve and over the first rise than he heard the report of a gun behind him. He looked back without drawing rein, but saw nothing. He drove on, wondering if Hammond had fired a wild shot after him, or if the queer old woman was still hunting rabbits in the vicinity of the fork.
Jim did not tell the Ducats of his encounter with Amos Hammond on his way home, but he spoke of his meeting with the old woman on his way to the village. Mrs. Ducat said that the queer old person with the basket and the staff must have been Widow Wilson from Kingswood Settlement, and the others agreed with her. Peter Ducat, who had been suffering increasing twinges of rheumatism all morning and half the night before, held forth at length and bitterly on the subjects of Widow Wilson's sad case and Amos Hammond's hypocrisy and cruelty.
After dinner, Jim decided to master the art of snowshoeing immediately, so as to be ready for the long cross-country journey to the Kettle Pond country before Mark's arrival. There were plenty of snowshoes in the house. Flora selected a pair for him and showed him how to arrange and tie the thongs. He fastened them to his moccasined feet there and, after a few preliminary shuffles and stumbles around the kitchen, to the peril and amusement of the grandfathers and the disgust of the suffering Peter, he flopped and staggered out into the snow. Flora could not accompany him, for it was baking day. He got clear of the farmstead in the course of half an hour, with the dogs leaping around him with yelps of encouragement and derision. After that he began to see how to avoid stepping on himself; and within the hour he was footing the white aisles of the forest, and surmounting white barriers where brush fences lay buried with astonishing ease and security. He kept at it until the sun was low.
Upon his return to the house, Jim found Flora alone in the old kitchen preparing supper. Peter Ducat had retired to bed with his rheumatism, Mrs. Ducat was upstairs rubbing his tortured joints with liniment, and the grandfathers were out at the barn. Flora turned from the stove on the instant of Jim's entrance and advanced swiftly to meet him. Her face was pale and her eyes were even brighter than usual.
"You must go right away!" she whispered. "No, rest a few minutes—and then travel fast. I have grub all packed, and your rifle and ammunition ready, and blankets, and a compass. Sit down and rest!"
"But what's the rush?" he asked staring at her. "I promised to wait here for Mark. I can't carry the whole outfit—traps and all."
"You must go west, not north," she replied. "They'll look for you at Kettle Pond. I've planned it all out. Don't stand there like a booby! Sit down and rest while you can."
"What's it all about? You don't seem yourself, Flora."
"Don't be a fool! Homer Steeves has been here. He saw Amos Hammond. Met him on the road and drove him home."
"My dear girl, what are you talking about?"
Flora's eyes filled with tears.
"You can't fool me!" she cried.
"I don't want to fool you. Why should I fool you?"
"Will you go away then, and hide in the woods?"
"I'll go away, if you want me to particularly, but I won't hide. That's flat! Why should I hide? From Amos Hammond, do you mean?"
"Yes—and well you know it! He was still alive when Homer got him to the village, but he may be dead by now! Murder is what the law will call it, however much he deserved to be killed. You didn't tell about meeting him this morning—and now I know why."
"Dead! Murder! Are you crazy? I didn't hurt him. I rolled him about in the snow a bit and slapped his lying face and then threw him back into his sleigh. He drove off all right. I didn't even land him one good crack. I didn't tell you about it because it wasn't worth telling."
"But he is shot! Homer was on the road—quite a piece behind you. He saw Hammond coming, and then he heard a gun. Hammond was all blood when he got to him, and he took him home. So what's the good of bluffing, Jim? You must go, quick!"
"I heard a shot, too! I thought he'd taken a wild one at me for knocking him about, so I kept right on."
"Please don't, Jim. Please shut up and get out of here before the sheriff comes looking for you."
"I'll do nothing of the kind. I didn't shoot the old rube, so why should I run away and hide? I'm not ashamed of what I did do to him, and the sheriff is welcome to the whole story. Flora, do you think I would shoot a man? I didn't return his fire even that night he was blazing away at me."
"But—who shot him, if you didn't?"
"I don't know."
"The law will fasten it onto you, so you must hide! You threatened him one day before Sheriff Hart. How can you prove your innocence?"
"I don't have to. The law has to prove my guilt. I won't run away, that's flat! Anyone who thinks that I fired on a man sitting unarmed in a sleigh is a fool!"
He stood his snowshoes behind the door and pulled off his heavy outer coat. The girl turned back to the stove. The grandfathers came in with the milk pails. Flora did not speak a dozen words during supper. Mrs. Ducat returned to her husband immediately after supper, the old men fell to arguing and smoking beside the stove, and Jim and Flora washed the dishes. Flora washed and Jim dried. The girl was nervous and the young man was decidedly cool. He wasn't worrying about the possible effect upon himself of the assault upon Amos Hammond, but he was hurt and disappointed and offended at the thought that this girl, his friend, could for a moment believe him capable of firing on an unarmed man.
"Will you go to-night?" she asked, clattering the dishes in the pan. "I have it all planned for you and everything ready."
"No, I won't!"
"Then I have to go myself," she whispered, with bowed head and averted face.
"You, Flora? What are you thinking of? Why should you go?"
"To get away! To escape!"
"What are you talking about?"
She turned her head and looked at him with a flushed face and eyes flashing green through tears.
"Flora, what do you mean?" he continued. "Why did you say that?"
"I—I must get away—before morning—from the police!"
"You? Stop crying or I'll shake you! What have the police to do with you?"
"I—I did it. I shot Amos Hammond."
"You! You are mad, Flora! You knew nothing about it until this afternoon. You knew nothing until Steeves told you."
"I pretended not to know, naturally. I wasn't in when you got home before dinner, was I? I came in fifteen or twenty minutes after you. You noticed that, Jim. I shot him. I was in the woods, and I saw him suddenly on the road—and I shot him!"
"Good Lord! Why?"
"I thought of poor old Widow Wilson, and of the time he tried to kill you, and of things he has said about us."
"Good heavens!"
"So you see, I must get away—before morning."
Jim dried three cups in silence.
"I'll go," he said, his voice low but steady. "Tell me what you have planned after the old boys have turned in: and I'll get away before dawn."
"But you said you didn't do it!"
"Well?"
"Why—why have you changed your mind about going?"
"To give the sheriff a run for his money. All you will have to do is keep quiet. You would be safe enough from suspicion without my going, I think, but you'll be doubly safe if I take to the woods."
"Do you believe that of me?"
"What?"
"That I shot Amos Hammond?"
"Haven't you just now told me that you shot him? I don't know what you are trying to get at! Did you shoot him, or didn't you?"
"You should know."
"I believe what you tell me, mad as it sounds."
"Of course I did it. Haven't I told you so? I wonder what you must think of me—for doing such a thing."
"I think you acted on a mad impulse. But that's not what's sticking in my crop. I can understand that, but why did you try to get me to run away and confirm Homer Steeves' suspicion before you told me the truth?"
She gazed at him with many and conflicting expressions in her remarkable eyes—amazement, protest, appeal, anxiety, scorn, doubt, and a gleam of something unutterably tender and kind. Then she suddenly turned from him, sobbing.
"Now ye done it, Jim!" exclaimed Grandfather Ducat from the stove. "Ye're comin' along, lad! Ye're the only young man I see yet could make Flora cry."
Jim lit a cigarette and joined the old men. Flora dried her eyes, put the dishes away on the dresser shelves and went upstairs. Jim and the grandfathers played three-handed cribbage until ten o'clock, and the girl did not reappear once during that time. The old men retired at last, leaving Jim to bank the fire and wind the clock. Jim had no intention of going to bed that night. He was determined to see Flora and speak to her again before his flight. He owed this to her as well as to himself. He must know what she had meant by the look he had seen in her eyes, and he had to give her a chance to thank him for the very serious sacrifice he was about to make for her sake. Also, his heart was set on telling her once more that he thought none the less of her for the mad thing she had done.
He sat by the fire, extinguished the lamp, and smoked a cigarette. He considered the disastrous situation from many angles, but not for a moment did he consider the advisability of standing his ground and stating his innocence and leaving the solving of Flora's problem to herself and the law. He didn't give that course a moment's thought, for Flora was a girl, and all the Ducats were his friends.
He smoked two cigarettes, waiting and listening in the dark, angry and depressed and helpless. At last he fell asleep, despite his determination to remain awake and interview the girl.
He sat up with a jerk and opened his eyes. A gray hint of light was at the eastern windows. The fire was burning and a kettle was steaming on the stove. Flora had been here and had put on the kettle for him. His heart lightened. He lit the lamp at his elbow and looked around the kitchen. He was alone. But perhaps she would be down again? Of course she would be down again! But a glance at the table took the edge off that hope. There lay a sheet of white paper marked with penciled lines, the points of the compass and a dozen words of instruction. A small pocket-compass held it down. About these were clustered dishes, the teapot, cream, bread and butter, sliced cold ham, and a jar of strawberry preserves. On the end of the big table lay his rifle and a large pack made up of a bag of provisions and a roll of heavy blankets.
"Here's you hat: what's your hurry?" said Jim, bitterly.
He pocketed the paper and compass after a brief examination, poured boiling water on the tea, pulled on stockings and moccasins and turned to the food with a grim but workman-like air. Then, full-fed, he fastened on his snowshoes, donned blanket coat and fur cap, hoisted the pack to his shoulders and made it fast, lit a cigarette, and went out from the warm old kitchen. He circled the cluster of buildings and struck due west, according to instructions. The dogs leaped about him, and it went sore against his nature to have to turn them homeward by flourishing his cased rifle at them. For a long time they refused to believe that he really meant it, that it wasn't a new game, but at last they turned and retired. And Jim Todhunter was alone; he had never felt so absolutely alone before.
Flora Ducat was in the kitchen again within fifteen minutes of Jim's departure. She cleared the table, pausing frequently to listen as if she expected to hear something at the door. When all signs of Jim's breakfast were removed and the table was reset, she banged the stovepipe with the iron spoon. Then she went to the door and opened it. The dogs came bounding in. She closed the door behind her and stood motionless in the biting cold for half a minute, listening and gazing westward over the lightening wastes of snow and forest. There were shadows in her eyes, and her lips trembled pitifully.
Breakfast that morning was an unhappy experience for Flora.
"Ain't Jim been called yet?" asked her mother. "Maybe he's all tuckered out with his snowshoein' yesterday an' would like to eat in bed. Well, he can if he wants to."
"He has gone out," said the girl. "He had something to eat before he went, I guess."
"An' took his snowshoes an' rifle along!" exclaimed the observant Grandfather Ducat. "What's eatin' 'im? He ain't fool enough to strike out for Kittle Pond all by himself, I hope. He's left the new traps behind, anyhow. Jist out a-cavortin' round on his snowshoes for the good o' his health, like as not. Ye can't ever tell what these outsiders will do next."
The morning passed, but James Todhunter did not return. Investigations on the part of old Hercules Ducat disclosed the fact that bacon, flour, tea, bread, sugar, blankets, and Peter's compass were missing. From this he deduced the theory that Jim had gone forth with every intention of making a long journey; and if a long journey, what journey but northward to Kettle Pond and his partner? He explained it all at dinner.
"Reckon that's easy enough," he concluded triumphantly.
"A fool could see it," remarked Grandfather McKim.
Three o'clock came and brought Sheriff Hart in a yellow pung behind a long-gaited gray. The sheriff threw the buffalos over the gray and entered the kitchen before the grandfathers had a chance to get outside to welcome him and to insist on stabling the horse; for Bruce Hart, being a fair man and a kindly one who never exceeded his duties and frequently gave ear to the spirit rather than the letter of the law, was personally popular and usually accepted with resignation in his official capacity. After the workmanlike dispatch of his entrance and a swift professional glance around the kitchen, his attitude relaxed. He shook hands with Mrs. Ducat, with the old man, and with Flora, and asked after the healths and whereabouts of Sam and Peter and Mark and the young man from the States—all with the politest and most sociable air. Mrs. Ducat told him of Peter's rheumatism and Sam's departure for the woods and Mark's venture away up in the Kettle Pond country.
"There'd ought to be fur a-plenty up that way," said the sheriff, laying aside his coon-skin coat and accepting a rocking chair. "Young Todhunter's Mark's partner, so I hear. He bought some traps from Mel Hammond. Is he round anywheres handy now?"
"We ain't seen him all day," said Grandfather McKim. "He's took all of a sudden to larnin' how to snowshoe, an' I reckon he be out rollickin' round somewheres on his webs this very minute."
At that moment, the door opened and old Widow Wilson from Kingswood Settlement entered the kitchen with her staff and her basket and her single-barreled shotgun wrapped up in a shawl. She was cordially welcomed by everyone, the sheriff included. Flora relieved her of her burdens, Mrs. Ducat brushed the snow from her feet, Sheriff Hart closed the door behind her, and Hercules Ducat gave her his own chair. She accepted these attentions graciously, turned back her hood, loosed her cloak and fixed her bright glance knowingly on the sheriff's hairy face.
"I see ye from the windy," said the old woman, "an' I sez, quick as winkin', there goes the sheriff a-lookin' for whoever shot Amos Hammond, sez I. So I lights out an' takes a short cut an' tops the fences like a breechy steer, an' here I be."
"How's that?" exclaimed old Hercules. "Someone shoot Amos Hammond?"
"Aye, he got a pepperin' with partridge shot," returned Widow Wilson brightly. "But I wisht it had been buckshot," she added, yet more brightly.
"Ye're right, Mrs. Wilson," said the sheriff. "An' I may's well be open an' above-board about it in this company, now's ye've mentioned it. Amos Hammond ain't hurt serious, but he's most scart to death, an' he charges James Todhunter with the shootin'."
"What's that?" cried old Hercules. "Amos Hammond's a liar an' a fool! Jim shoot a man? Only a liar would say it an' only a fool would believe it! I know that lad. We all know 'im in this house. Ye're barkin' up the wrong tree, Sheriff. Ain't I right, Flora?"
But Flora didn't answer. She sat with bowed head and averted face. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and the knuckles were white as ivory.
"Reckon yer right this time," said old Archie McKim. "Right in part, anyhow. Jim's quality. If he was desperate enough to shoot a man he'd use a bullet an' have a proper duel. He ain't the kind to pump no partridge shot into any man."
"Aye, that's right," said Widow Wilson, with her clear, smiling glance still upon the long arm of the law. "That young gentleman didn't shoot Amos Hammond. It was me shot 'im. An' who's got a better right to shoot that flinty-hearted weasel, I'd like to know? Ye didn't reckon the poor old widdy woman had the spunk to up an' fire off a gun, did ye now? I borrowed the ca'tridges from the young gentleman—I know a gentleman when I see 'im, an' always did—an' told 'im how I was huntin' rabbits. So he driv off to the village an' I waited round in the woods an' kep' an eye on the road, for I knew Amos Hammond was up-river at his dirty work. I waited till he come drivin' down the road, an' then I see the young gentleman a-drivin' home. Hammond, he pulls up fair in the middle of the track an' starts right in sassin' the lad an' miscallin' this house. Out hops Mr. Todhunter an' jerks Amos Hammond down from his seat an' slaps his face an' drags 'im round an' scrudges his face in the snow an' then heaves 'im up into the sleigh again. Then he jumps into his pung an' drives off up the glen. 'That's good,' sez I to meself, 'but it ain't enough. There be more a-comin' to 'im, even afore he's smit by the wrath o' God. He's been cheatin' an' lyin' an' slanderin' an' persecutin' all these years,' sez I to meself—an' so I ups an' shoots a shoot into his dirty carcass."
"Youdid it?" cried Flora, turning a bloodless face and stricken eyes upon the old woman.
"Sure I done it; an' I wisht it was buckshot," replied the brisk old dame.
The girl got out of her chair clumsily, crossed the kitchen with bowed head and vanished up the back stairs. The others gazed after her, some anxiously, all inquiringly.
"She needn't feel that bad for me," said Mrs. Wilson. "It's real sweet of her, bless her heart, but I ain't worryin'."
"Ain't ye tryin' to play a joke on us, ma'am?" asked the sheriff.
"The joke was on Amos Hammond, if it was a joke," replied the widow cheerily.
"Maybe ye've imagined it all in yer own mind, ma'am."
"In my own mind? It would have been buckshot, an' he'd be dead now, if that was the way of it!"
"Ye ain't yerself to-day, ma'am. Yer troubles have got onto yer brain. Yer thoughts have got the better of yer judgment, so to speak."
"What d'ye mean by that, Bruce Hart? Be ye tryin' to make me out a loony? Well, ye best quit right now! My troubles have nigh broke my heart, but my mind's as good as ever it was an' I know what I'm about. Take me along to Amos Hammond, an' ye'll soon see whether I be cracked or sane. I'll tell 'im how it was me who shot 'im, an' why; an' if he puts the law onto me, then I'll tell the jedge why I done it. But he won't put the law onto me, never fear! Where'd he be then, him an' his psalm-singin', if I was to git up in front of a jedge an' jury an' tell all I know about 'im? All ye got to do's take me to 'im an' see if he dare make a charge agin me. Do ye dooty, Sheriff!"
Old Hercules began to chuckle and slap his knee.
"She be right," he exclaimed. "Dead right. She knows what she's about; an' she knowed what she was about when she pulled the trigger. She got Amos Hammond by the short hair, whatever way ye take it! Fetch her back here as soon's she's had her little say to Amos. There be a plate an' a chair an' a bed for her under this roof as long as she wants to use 'em."
Twenty minutes later, the sheriff and the cheerful widow drove amiably off together. Ten minutes after that, Flora left the house, stealthily by way of the seldom-used front door. She carried a pack and a shotgun and snowshoes, and was clothed for both warmth and action. She made a cautious detour of the farmstead before pausing to slip her feet into the toe-straps of the snowshoes and tie the leather thongs. The two dogs came leaping and yelping about her; and, after a moment's hesitation, she decided to let them accompany her. Then she and the enthusiastic dogs struck westward in Jim Todhunter's tracks. A light drift of snow had obliterated the tracks in open places, but in the lee of thickets and in the woods they were deep and plain.
Flora carried food, blankets, and a belt ax in her pack. She traveled at a good pace for half an hour, after which the weight of the pack began to tell on her, but she held anxiously on her way. The sun went down behind the black forests of the west, and a rind of new moon and many white stars did their best to replace it; and the girl hoisted the pack higher and continued to advance. Soon after the setting of the sun, a wind started up and set the dry snow running in open places and awoke many weird voices among the harsh spires of the spruces and in the crowns of tall pines. Flora was glad that she had allowed the dogs to come along with her. The dogs ceased their hunting of rabbits to right and left after the sun went down and kept to the trail of Jim's snowshoes. The trail was all in the forest now, under shaking branches, in a whispering gloom pierced here and there by a rift of pale shine.
Flora was not accustomed to carrying a pack and she had to drop it at last. She made a shelter in the heart of a thicket of young firs, built a good fire, cut small boughs for her bed, fed the dogs, ate her own cold supper and rolled herself in three double blankets. But several hours passed before sleep came to her. It was her first night in the woods and, warm as she was, she shivered continually, and a creeping chill played on the nape of her neck at every rush and whisper and sly footfall of wind and wood and frosty snow. But her conscience disturbed her even more than her fears. At last she fell asleep, with a big dog curled on either side.
It was close upon supper time when Mrs. Ducat went to Flora's room and discovered her absence. A note on the dressing table said:
"I have gone to look for Jim. Don't worry."
The grandfathers toddled forth and took a look around by lantern-light but the tracks of the snowshoes were already drifted full. They agreed that both Jim and the girl had gone north and that, as they had plenty of grub, there was nothing to worry about.
The reduced Ducats were half-way through supper when Sheriff Hart and Widow Wilson got back from Millbrook. The sheriff and the widow had interviewed Amos Hammond separately and together, and Amos (from whom the pellets of lead had been picked by a doctor) had withdrawn his charge against Jim Todhunter and refused to make one against the indomitable widow. The sheriff drove away after supper. He hadn't been gone more than twenty minutes before Homer Steeves arrived. Homer twiddled his thumbs for half an hour, then asked point-blank why Flora was not in evidence.
"She's out, an' I can't rightly say exactly when she'll be home," said Mrs. Ducat uneasily.
"Don't know when she'll be home?" cried the youth. "Maybe ye don't know where she is—at this time of night!"
"Now don't ye be sassy, Homer," said old Hercules. "That there sarcastic tone of voice ain't for use twixt young folk an' their elders."
"Where is she, then? Out to a spree somewheres with the dood?"
"That ain't much better, Homer. Sounds to me like yer four hosses an' fifteen head o' cattle was talkin' more'n yer manners. Us Ducats an' McKims be easy-goin', hospitable folks, but I licked both yer gran'pas, an' I licked yer pa, an' for a chew o' baccy I'd up onto my two hind legs an' lam ye a wallop!"
"I don't mean to be sassy, Mr. Ducat, an' all I want's a civil answer to a civil question."
"An' I give it to ye, Homer. Jim Todhunter went out early this mornin' on a pair of snowshoes an' he ain't come back yet, an' Flora went out a spell before supper to look for 'im an' she ain't got back yet. There be yer civil answer. She be out, an' we can't rightly say aigzactly when she'll be home agin—jist like her ma told ye."
"He run, did he? I reckoned that's what he'd do! But what did Flora go huntin' 'im for? Couldn't she leave it to the police?"
"What's the police gotter do with it?" asked Hercules.
"It's all up with yer dood, folks," replied Homer derisively. And then, with a swift change of tone, "Will you rig me out with snowshoes an' a rifle?" he continued. "I'll stable the mare an' take a look around. Todhunter don't know the woods an' maybe some accident has happened to him, an' Flora ain't ust to travelin' the woods at night. I guess it won't do no hurt to take a look round."
"Reckon ye're right, Homer, as usual," said Hercules. "Stable the mare, an' welcome. I'll rig ye out with webs an' a rifle."
Archie McKim parted his whiskers with the very evident intention of saying something important, but a furtive hack on the shin by Hercules, accompanied by a terrific scowl, caused him to change his mind. Then Hercules got to his feet, whispered a few words in Widow Wilson's ear, and took a lantern from a nail in the wall and lit it. Homer Steeves took the lantern and went out to stable his mare. The moment the door was shut, old Ducat hobbled to the dresser and from a lower drawer produced a few brass shells. He laid these on the table, in the lamplight, and, looking around at old Archie, his daughter-in-law, and the widow, he winked three times.
"There be no fool like a young fool," he said.
The shells and protruding bullets were large and of simple construction, for his rifle was a Snider. He removed the bullets, working swiftly with deft fingers, a pointed knife-blade and pincers, then extracted the explosive charges and returned the bullets to the shells. The job was completed and all evidences of it were cleared away by the time Homer reentered the kitchen.
"Here be my own trusty rifle, an' here be my own snowshoes," said Hercules to Hornet, "An' Jane'll put up a pa'cel o' cooked grub for ye. But here be only four cartridges."
"Four'll be plenty," returned the young man.
Knowing nothing of old Mrs. Wilson's confession, Homer believed Jim Todhunter to be a fugitive from the law. Flora's action puzzled him, but he put it out of his mind, for she had frequently puzzled him before by word and deed and look. But the smart of jealousy remained. Now was his chance to get that formidable rival out of the way without a downright declaration of the degrading and unpopular passion. He would go out to hunt for Flora, which was only right and proper and a thing any young man of spirit would do, and, with luck, he would find the man who was wanted for shooting Amos Hammond. With a little more luck, he would bring that young man out of the woods with him and hand him over to the sheriff. He might meet with resistance. He might have to use old Hercules Ducat's rifle. In that case he might need a sled.
Homer left the kitchen with a rifle, a day's provisions, a lantern, and blankets. By the light of the lantern he hunted out the light, strong sled which was used for hauling turnips and carrots from the root-house to the stables. Thus completely equipped, he made straight for the nearest edge of timber, which lay to the southwest of the farmstead. He realized that it would be useless to look for tracks in the open—as useless as to accept old Ducat's suggestion that the fugitive and the girl had gone north toward Mark's trapping ground. He was a shrewd fellow, this Homer. He turned northward upon reaching the shelter of the spruces, with the lighted lantern swinging low and his gaze on the ground. No wild-goose chase for him! He would find the tracks and start right, even if he was forced to make a complete circuit of the clearings to do so. But he was in luck. He found the tracks before he had gone two hundred yards—tracks of two pairs of snowshoes and of one or two dogs, leading due west.
Flora awoke early and suddenly as the first faint gray of dawn sifted through the windless and frozen forest. She sat bolt upright at the instant of waking and stared about her in bewildered dismay for several seconds before she remembered the events of the night and realized her position. Her conscience smote her immediately and dismay gave way to shame and anxiety. She scrambled away from her snowy blankets, and the dogs leaped to their feet. She built the fire up from its ash-filmed, red heart, boiled snow water and brewed tea, breakfasted, and fed the dogs. She was away on Jim's trail again within a half-hour of opening her eyes.
She traveled through heavy woods, over uneven country, throughout the long, windless morning. The trail led up and down, up and down, but steadily westward. The colorless sunshine struck down to her through the somber browns and dull greens of the crowding forest. The dogs ran ahead and on the flanks, coursing rabbits and now and again putting a grouse up in a whirl of snow. She traveled fast, but was forced to rest often to ease her shoulders of the weight of the unaccustomed pack. She always did this by leaning back against a convenient tree. At noon she made a fire, fried bacon, and toasted bread and rested for an hour.
She had not gone more than five hundred yards after the noon rest when she came to the edge of a wide, white expanse of open country and the end of the visible trail. The wind of yesterday had filled and obliterated the imprints of Jim's webs with drifting snow. A sudden sense of desolation possessed the girl. She left the woods and advanced upon the barren with a strange reluctance of spirit. Clumps of dead trees and stunted brush showed here and there between her and the distant line of black hills, and to her right and left the white emptiness extended to the colorless horizon. She was without a compass, but she walked as straight a course as possible under the circumstances, by selecting and advancing upon one landmark after another. The sun, red as fire, was on the crest of the tumbled black horizon in front of her by the time she reached the western edge of the barren ground.
Flora moved to the right, in the shelter of the trees, seeking the lost trail. She went half a mile in that direction without success, then retraced her steps to the point at which she had entered the timber. The sun and its red glow were gone by now, the stars shone but faintly, the barren was a vague pallor and the forest was utter gloom. The girl realized the uselessness of continuing the search for Jim's tracks in the dark, and so dropped her pack and gun and felt about in the underbrush for dry wood for a fire. She found some dead stuff, hacked it down with the short ax, and dragged it out. Soon a flame was crackling in the rusty red needles. She fed it with dry boughs, and it leaped high and clear. She glanced around in the widening circle of wavering light, saw the dogs, the brown boles and drooping branches of the trees, the trampled white about the fire and, at the very edge of the firelight, a thing that might be a shadow and yet might be something else. She ran to it and stooped above it. It was a deep imprint of a snowshoe, a link of the lost trail. And here was another, and beyond yet another.
Flora reshouldered her pack, took up the gun and followed the tracks into the darkness, leaving the fire to flare and glow and expire of neglect. The dogs dashed after her. She moved slowly, stooping low after every step or two. The tracks led through tangles of brush. The dogs passed her and ran ahead. She struggled forward, fouling her snowshoes frequently and falling into the harsh brush and feathery snow. At last she heard the dogs barking and yelping far ahead.