"It's just nice to see something around here that's not hell-bent to shoot something else."
Barr remained alert. "Whar'd ye get Blazer's dog?"
"Found him over beyond Cressman," Jeff said truthfully. "Do you keep dogs?"
"Houn's," Barr admitted. "Wouldn't pester myself with a no-account dog such as that."
Jeff cast for a way to lull Barr. "Depends on what you want in a dog, wouldn't you say?"
"Could. What do you want?"
Jeff did his best to look like a man who faces a desperate situation, but who was mightily cheered because his dog saw fit to track him down. If he did everything exactly right, and with split-second precision, his plan had at least an even chance of working.
Escape would not solve everything. Pete would still be unpunished and if the Whitneys should meet him, Jeff, again, they would not bother to take him prisoner. They'd shoot on sight. But he could name Johnny Blazer's killer. That would start things, and maybe he'd be able to finish them.
Regardless of what might happen in the future, this was now. Jeff had to get out of the cabin before he could do anything else, but it was as though Barr could read his mind.
"You're ponderin'," he accused.
"Is that a crime in these hills?"
"If," Barr said deliberately, "you try to make a break, I'll kill ye in your tracks. I have spoke it."
Jeff said irritably, "Don't be a darn fool!"
"Don't you be one, nuther. You're gettin' a chanst."
"Yes," Jeff sighed, "a big chance." He looked again at the candle. "Any of your hounds ever get you out of jail, Barr?"
"Pah!How might a houn' do such?"
"Well, Pal got me out."
"Those words I mistrust."
"He did," Jeff insisted. "It was in Cressman—"
He told of the Cressman jail and of how he was literally thrown out of it because, when he played the mouth organ, Pal howled. He spoke of inquiring the way to Delview as a ruse to throw Pop and Joe Parker from his trail, for he suspected that they had intended to have him rearrested there. Instead of going to Delview, he had come over the hills to Smithville.
Barr chuckled derisively. "Peddlin' teach you sech tall tales?"
"It's true."
"Ha! You toot music an' the dog howls?"
"Let me show you."
Jeff took a mouth organ from his pack, blew a soft note and Pal responded with a moaning wail that trailed out on a soft soprano note.
Barr seemed dumfounded. "Doggone!"
Jeff's eyes strayed to the candle. Barr rose, wrenched it from its drippings and put it down at the far end of the table. He resumed his seat. "I can see best when hit's thar," he announced grimly. "You wa'nt havin' notions 'bout that candle, was you?"
"Why, no, of course not."
Jeff managed to appear innocent, even while he mentally kicked himself. His chance had come and gone. There'd be another chance and Barr seemed more at ease.
"This night I learn't what I knew not. A dog howls to noise."
"This one does."
"Make him do hit ag'in. 'Tis a mighty curious thing."
Jeff blew another note and Pal howled again. Barr's eyes sparkled. An elemental creature himself, he was interested in the elemental and this fascinated him. He must find the answer, but while seeking it he did not forget to keep his eyes on Jeff and Pete.
"Why's he do hit?" he asked.
"I don't know," Jeff admitted. "Can't figure it myself."
"Have him do hit some more."
At the first note, Pal obliged with a banshee wail that subsided, then gathered force and mounted again. The sound filled the cabin and offered the illusion of being not only real, but all reality. It was as though the door burst open of its own accord, and Jeff rubbed his eyes in disbelief.
Ike Wilson stood framed in the doorway.
He was slim, supple, smiling, but behind the smile there was something hard as stone and there was nothing to provoke humor in the cocked, double-barreled shotgun he carried. Half erect in his chair, Barr froze there. Pete's face turned white. Ike grinned happily.
"Hi, peddler!"
"Hi, Ike! Where the blazes did you come from?"
"Broadview Prison. Stopped by Granny's an' she told me you was about. Heerd the dog howl an' calc'lated you'd be nigh." His chuckle was rich and very audible. "I didn't expect a hul nest of you. Good thing I peered in the window glass afore I come in."
Barr snarled, "This ain't your mix!"
"Oh, yes, it is! Yes, it is my mix! Now just hand me that lil' old rifle gun, Barr. Stock foremost."
Fighting against so doing but unable to help himself, Barr relinquished his rifle. Ike threw it through the open door.
"Now, Pete," he coaxed, "I need your'n."
Pete remained rooted. Smiling, but with a deadly something behind the smile, Ike tightened his finger on the shotgun's trigger.
"Don't like to shoot settin' pat'tidges, but I will."
Pete handed his rifle over. Ike tossed it out and slammed the door. Holding the shotgun with one hand, he drew a length of buckskin from his pocket and whipped it straight. He spoke as though he were addressing a petulant child. "Now just put your hands behin't the chair, Barr. This shotgun might go off accidental like, an' it makes quite a hole."
Tight-lipped, Barr did as he was ordered. Expertly Ike laced his hands and then his feet. He approached Jeff apologetically.
"'Feard I'll have to tie you too, peddler."
"But—"
"Now don't gimme no fuss." Ike rubbed the friendly Pal's head. "Jest do like Uncle Ike says."
Jeff thrust his hands behind the chair and permitted himself to be bound. Ike slipped a rawhide thong through Pal's collar and tied him to the chair rung. He stood erect and looked around, his manner that of one who has just done a job and done it well.
Jeff asked, "What's the big idea, Ike?"
Ike chuckled again. "Business! Say, how come these Whitneys had a gun on you?"
"Barr," Jeff inclined his head, "had the idea that I'm a policeman."
"Fer snort's sake!" Ike faced Barr. "Your brain soft? He's a peddler an' a good 'un. I ought to know. I was in jail with him."
"Leave me loose," Barr snarled, "an' I won't hurt ye."
"'Pears to me you won't anyhow."
"Ye'll not git back down the ridge!"
"Now, now," Ike soothed, "jest leave that to Uncle Ike. I got up it, didn't I?"
Ike whirled to face Pete and something inside of Jeff turned cold. He had seen angry men, but suddenly he knew that not even Barr Whitney was as strong in anger as Ike Wilson. It was an inward quality, for outwardly he remained very gentle and he did not raise his voice.
"I come fer Bucky."
Pete muttered sullenly, "Got nothin' to do with Bucky."
"Oh, yes, you have," Ike corrected him. "Yes, you have. Bucky's still in Broadview, but you're goin' to help get him out. Bet that if you strained yourself, you could mind the night we got Wheeler's chickens. You was goin' to stay behin't, you said, an' leave us know should somebody come. But when the police come, you was a long ways behin't. What'd they pay you fer turnin' us in, Pete?"
Sweat glistened on Pete's brow. "I had naught to do with it!"
"You'll never git anywhere, Pete, lyin' in such a way. Are you comin' like a little man, or am I goin' to scatter your spare parts from here to Cressman?"
Pete gasped, "What you goin' to do with me?"
"Jest lay in the hills," Ike soothed. "Leastwise we'll lay thar 'til I can send word to that smart Joe Parker. Goin' to tell him, I am, that I know who stuck up the Cressman bank. Goin' to tell him that, when Bucky comes into the hills, he'll find that man tied to a tree. I reckon Parker'll swap for that."
"If he doesn't," Jeff said suddenly, "you can offer more. Pete killed Johnny Blazer!"
"He did?" Ike's eyes glowed eagerly. "Now I know I got me a swap! Come 'long, Pete."
Herding his captive, he started for the door. Suddenly he stopped and ordered, "Wait thar!"
Pete stood still. Ike glided to Jeff, sliced the bonds that tied his hands, and bent to whisper, "Gimme five minutes, peddler—jest five minutes an' kiss Granny fer me."
"I will," Jeff promised, "and I'll tell her that you'll deliver one to her yourself in a few days."
He waited ten minutes before stooping to untie his feet. He rose, and before freeing Barr he glanced out of one of the small windows.
The first hint of dawn was in the sky and the horizon was endless. He had found binding ties in these hills, but somehow he had found limitless freedom, too.
was born in New York City. Happily enough, he was still in the pre-school age when his father decided to move the family to the Pennsylvania mountains. There young Jim grew up among some of the best hunting and fishing in the United States. He says: "If I had pursued my scholastic duties as diligently as I did deer, trout, grouse, squirrels, etc., I might have had better report cards!"
Jim Kjelgaard has worked at various jobs—trapper, teamster, guide, surveyor, factory worker and laborer. When he was in the late twenties he decided to become a full-time writer. He has published several hundred short stories and articles and quite a few books for young people.
His hobbies are hunting, fishing, dogs, and questing for new stories. He tells us: "Story hunts have led me from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Arctic Circle to Mexico City. Stories, like gold, are where you find them. You may discover one three thousand miles from home or, as in THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON, right on your own door step." And he adds: "I am married to a very beautiful girl and have a teen-age daughter. Both of them order me around in a shameful fashion, but I can still boss the dog! We live in Phoenix, Arizona."
BIG RED
REBEL SIEGE
FOREST PATROL
BUCKSKIN BRIGADE
CHIP, THE DAM BUILDER
FIRE HUNTER
IRISH RED
KALAK OF THE ICE
A NOSE FOR TROUBLE
SNOW DOG
TRAILING TROUBLE
WILD TREK
THE EXPLORATIONS OF PERE MARQUETTE
THE SPELL OF THE WHITE STURGEON
OUTLAW RED
THE STORY OF THE MORMONS
CRACKER BARREL TROUBLE SHOOTER
THE LOST WAGON
LION HOUND
TRADING JEFF AND HIS DOG