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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-02-03 16:58:10 -0800 |
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diff --git a/old/62652-h/62652-h.htm b/old/62652-h/62652-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 8757ff9..0000000 --- a/old/62652-h/62652-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4060 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> -<head> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> -<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Tom Akerley, by Theodore Goodridge Roberts</title> - <link rel='coverpage' href='images/cover.jpg' /> - <style type="text/css"> - body { margin-left:8%;margin-right:8%; } - p { text-indent:1.15em; margin-top:0.1em; margin-bottom:0.1em; text-align:justify; } - h2 { text-align:center; font-weight:normal; page-break-before: always; - font-size:1.0em; margin-top:3em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - div.section { page-break-before:always; margin-top:4em; margin-bottom:4em; } - div.chapter { } - hr.tbk { border:none; border-bottom:1px solid black; - margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:25%; width:50% } - table.toc {} - table { page-break-inside: avoid; width:100%; } - table.tcenter { border-collapse:collapse; padding:3px; - margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } - td { vertical-align:top; } - td.c1 { text-align:right; padding-right:0.7em; } - td.c2 { font-variant:small-caps; } - div.cbline { margin-left:1.4em; text-indent:-1.4em; } - .caption { text-indent:0; padding:0.5em 0; text-align:center; font-size:smaller; } - @media handheld { - table.tcenter { margin-left:2em; } - } - - - h1.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 190%; - margin-top: 0em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h2.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 135%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - page-break-before: avoid; - line-height: 1; } - h3.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 110%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - h4.pgx { text-align: center; - clear: both; - font-weight: bold; - font-size: 100%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - word-spacing: 0em; - letter-spacing: 0em; - line-height: 1; } - hr.pgx { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pgx" title="">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tom Akerley, by Theodore Goodridge Roberts, -Illustrated by Ernest Fuhr</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Tom Akerley</p> -<p> His Adventures in the Tall Timber and at Gaspard's Clearing on the Indian River</p> -<p>Author: Theodore Goodridge Roberts</p> -<p>Release Date: July 15, 2020 [eBook #62652]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM AKERLEY***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4 class="pgx" title="">E-text prepared by Roger Frank<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff; width: auto; margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/tomakerleyhisadv00robe"> - https://archive.org/details/tomakerleyhisadv00robe</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<h1 style='font-weight:normal; text-align:center; font-size:1.6em;'>TOM AKERLEY</h1> -<div style='text-align:center'>HIS ADVENTURES IN THE TALL TIMBER AND<br /> -AT GASPARD’S CLEARINGS ON THE INDIAN RIVER</div> -<div class='section'></div> -<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '> -<div style='font-size:0.9em;'>STORIES BY</div> -<div style='font-size:1.1em;margin-bottom:0.5em;'>Captain Theodore Goodridge Roberts</div> -</div> -<div style='text-align:center; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto'> -<div style='display:inline-block; text-align:left;'> -<div class='cbline'>Comrades of the Trails</div> -<div class='cbline'>The Red Feathers</div> -<div class='cbline'>Flying Plover</div> -<div class='cbline'>The Fighting Starkleys</div> -<div class='cbline'>Tom Akerley</div> -</div> -</div> -<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '> -<div>THE PAGE COMPANY</div> -<div style='font-size:0.9em;'>53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.</div> -</div> -<div class='section'></div> -<div id='ifpc' style='margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:10.0%; width:80%;'> - <img src='images/illus-fpc.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -<p class='caption'>“THE BEAR’S GREASE PROVED TO BE AS POTENT AS IT SMELT.”</p> -</div> -<div class='section'></div> -<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '> -<div style='font-size:1.4em;'>TOM AKERLEY</div> -<div style='margin-top:0.5em;'>His Adventures in the Tall Timber and at</div> -<div>Gaspard’s Clearing on the Indian River</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em;'>RELATED BY</div> -<div style='font-size:1.1em;'>Captain Theodore Goodridge Roberts</div> -<div style='font-size:0.8em;margin-top:0.5em;'>Author of “The Fighting Starkleys,” “Comrades of the Trails,”</div> -<div style='font-size:0.8em;'>“Red Feathers,” etc.</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em;'>ILLUSTRATED BY</div> -<div>Ernest Fuhr</div> -</div> -<div style='margin-left:40%; width:20%; padding-top:1em; padding-bottom:1em;' > - <img src='images/title.png' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -</div> -<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '> -<div style='margin-top:1em;'>BOSTON</div> -<div>L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY</div> -<div style='font-size:0.9em;'>(INCORPORATED)</div> -<div style='font-size:0.9em;'>MDCCCCXXIII</div> -</div> -<div class='section'></div> -<div style='font-size:0.8em'> -<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '> -<div style='font-style:italic;'>Copyright, 1922,</div> -<div style='margin-bottom:1em;font-variant:small-caps;'>By Perry Mason Company</div> -<div style='font-style:italic;'>Copyright, 1923</div> -<div style='font-variant:small-caps;'>By L. C. Page and Company</div> -<div style='margin-bottom:1em;'>(INCORPORATED)</div> -<div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>All rights reserved</div> -<div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>Made in U. S. A.</div> -<div style='margin-bottom:0.7em;'>First impression, April, 1923</div> -<div>PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY</div> -<div>BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.</div> -</div> -</div> -<div class='section'></div> -<table class='toc tcenter' summary="" style='margin-bottom:3em'> -<thead> -<tr> -<th colspan='2' style='font-weight:normal;padding-bottom:1em;'>CONTENTS</th> -</tr> -</thead> -<tbody> -<tr><td class='c1'>I</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chI'>The Flight</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>II</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chII'>The Girl and the Man</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>III</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chIII'>Catherine’s Plan</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>IV</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chIV'>The Heaviest Hitter</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>V</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chV'>The Plan Succeeds</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>VI</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chVI'>Mick Otter, Injun</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>VII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chVII'>Taking to the Trail</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>VIII</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chVIII'>Black Forests and Gray Swamps</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>IX</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chIX'>Gaspard Understands</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>X</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chX'>Mick Otter, Match-Maker</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class='c1'>XI</td><td class='c2'><a href='#chXI'>The Military Cross</a></td></tr> -</tbody> -</table> -<div class='section'></div> -<div style='text-align:center'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</div> -<ul style='list-style-type:none;'> - <li><a href='#ifpc'>“The bear’s grease proved to be as potent as it smelt.”</a></li> - <li><a href='#i045'>“They sat side by side on a small heap of straw”</a></li> - <li><a href='#i089'>“‘He was figgerin’ to lose ye in the woods’”</a></li> - <li><a href='#i174'>“It was hard work and slow progress”</a></li> - <li><a href='#i271'>“He ... thrust his head and shoulders out of the window”</a></li> -</ul> -<div class='section'></div> -<div style='text-align:center; text-indent:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; '> -<div style='font-size:1.4em;margin-top:4em;'>TOM AKERLEY</div> -</div> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chI' title='I: The Flight'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER I</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>THE FLIGHT</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>The night was hot and hazy. The aerodrome was in darkness save for a -moving light in the black maw of one of the hangars and a shine from the -open window of the office on the other side of the ground. All the -machines were down and in.</p> -<p>Two men were in the small hut which served as field-headquarters and -office for this particular unit of the Dominion Air Force. They sat at -opposite sides of a large table, one leaning back in his chair with a -cigar in his mouth, the other stooped forward over a map which he -studied intently. Clerks, orderlies, pilots, observers and mechanics all -were gone, with the exceptions of these two and the man with the lantern -across at the hangars.</p> -<p>“Ottawa seems determined to decorate every one who ever flew, be he -alive or dead,” remarked the elder of the two, without removing the -cigar from his mouth and still gazing upward at the low ceiling. “We -seem to have more Military Crosses and such things than we know what to -do with.”</p> -<p>“Yes, sir?” returned the younger officer inquiringly, looking up from -the map.</p> -<p>“It seems so to me,” continued Colonel Nasher. “You knew a fellow named -Angus Bruce, I believe.”</p> -<p>“Yes, I knew Angus Bruce.”</p> -<p>“Ottawa suggests a posthumous Military Cross for him.”</p> -<p>The younger officer said nothing to that, although the expression of his -face suggested that he wanted to say a great deal. Instead of speaking -he fell to studying his map again. The line of his mouth was tense. Even -the set of his broad, lean shoulders looked tense. A keen observer would -have noticed a general air of tenseness about him—tenseness of -self-control practiced under difficulties.</p> -<p>“But I think my letter to Ottawa will fix that,” added the colonel, -still speaking around his cigar.</p> -<p>The other looked across the table again.</p> -<p>“Fix it?” he queried.</p> -<p>His voice was low but slightly tremulous.</p> -<p>“Kill it,” replied the colonel.</p> -<p>“I don’t understand you, sir,” said the junior, still speaking quietly. -“Bruce earned it several times, to my personal knowledge.”</p> -<p>“I don’t agree with you. I knew the fellow for years. We used to live in -the same town. There’s a yellow streak in the breed. You can’t make a -silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”</p> -<p>“He had no yellow streak. He proved his courage a dozen times—scores of -times—his courage and his worth.”</p> -<p>“So you say, major.”</p> -<p>At that the major pushed his chair back and stood up.</p> -<p>“Yes, that’s what I say!” he cried.</p> -<p>Colonel Nasher sat up straight, plucked his cigar from his mouth and -stared at his second-in-command.</p> -<p>“And I mean what I say,” continued the major, in a loud and shaken -voice. “And I know what I am talking about.”</p> -<p>“But you forget to whom you are talking!” roared the colonel.</p> -<p>“No I don’t,” retorted the younger man, wildly. “I am talking to you—and -there is some true talk coming to you. You’ve been asking for it ever -since I joined this outfit. I know what your game is. You want to get me -out—to make people believe that my nerve is gone and I’m no longer fit -for the service. I’m fit enough—fit for anything but to sit and listen -to you lie about a friend of mine—about the memory of a friend who was -killed over the Boche lines. You’re not fit to name a man like Angus -Bruce. You never saw him fight. You never saw anybody fight. A yellow -streak? I have seen him go up alone after four of them! You’ll swallow -that lie, Colonel Nasher, here and now!”</p> -<p>The colonel got to his feet, glaring. He was a large man with a large -face. The only small things about him were his heart and mind. His eyes -looked like polished gray stones in his red face.</p> -<p>“Your dead friend won’t get his cross and you’ll lose yours!” he cried, -pointing a thick finger at the ribbons on the major’s breast. “I’ll -break you for this, you upstart! Consider yourself under arrest. I’ll -teach you that you’re not in France now!”</p> -<p>The major stepped swiftly and with smooth violence around the end of the -table; and then, quick as a flash, his right fist came in contact with -the colonel’s red chin. Down went the colonel with a crash.</p> -<p>The major stood above his prostrate C. O. for a few seconds, staring -down at the motionless bulk and shaking as if with fever chills.</p> -<p>“What’s the use!” he exclaimed hysterically, turning away. “I’m as -helpless as if I were under French mud with Angus Bruce.”</p> -<p>He took his leather cap and leather coat from a hook on the door, opened -the door and stepped into the dark warm night. He saw the lantern beyond -the level field and hastened across to it.</p> -<p>“I want the old bus out again, Dever,” he said.</p> -<p>“Very good, sir,” replied Dever.</p> -<p>They wheeled the ’plane from the open hangar. The major put on his -leather coat and cap and climbed in. He started the engines and switched -on the internal lights. Then he leaned over and said, “You remember -Major Angus Bruce, don’t you?”</p> -<p>“Yes, sir, I remember him well,” replied the man on the ground. “We -don’t forget that kind, sir, do we—nor ever will.”</p> -<p>“A good soldier, Angus Bruce.”</p> -<p>“One of the smartest and bravest in the Old Force, sir. He crashed his -sixth just a day after you crashed your seventh, sir.”</p> -<p>“Yes, I remember it. Now get me off, Dever, and then go over to the -office and see if the colonel wants anything. If he needs a stimulant I -think you’ll find something of the sort in the right-hand drawer on his -side of the table.”</p> -<p>“Very good, sir. When’ll you be back?”</p> -<p>“Not before sunrise. Don’t wait up for me.”</p> -<p>Dever gave a downward heave on a propeller-blade. Then the wide, white -’plane slid, roaring, into the darkness.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>Akerley was flying low; and when he saw the little smudge of yellow -light on the black expanse beneath him he went down to it like a -wing-weary duck to the sheen of water. The numbness of indifference and -confusion that had possessed him for an hour or more passed swiftly from -his brain and spirit. His nerves snapped back to duty and his vision -cleared. The light expanded to his gaze as he neared it and by its form -and position he judged it to come from an open doorway of modest -dimensions. It streamed out upon a green level; and he reasoned -hopefully that the level ground would, very likely, be of considerable -extent in front of the building. So he shut off his flagging engines, -swooped around, dipped and flattened.</p> -<p>The machine ran, swaying and lurching, through old Gaspard’s half-grown -oats; and just as Akerley was about to congratulate himself on the -soundness of his reasoning, the right plane came in violent contact with -an ancient and immovable stump of pine.</p> -<p>Akerley recovered consciousness in the dew-wet grain, in the gray dawn. -He lay on his left side, with his left shoulder dug into the soft soil. -The sappy stems of the young oats had saved his face and head from -serious injury; but there was blood on his cheek. He felt a stab of pain -through his shoulder as he sat up and looked dizzily around; and his -first thought was that a bullet had gone through him. Then he remembered -his changed situation and altered circumstances.</p> -<p>He saw the machine on its nose beside the sturdy old stump. One wing was -ripped off and twisted hopelessly. That sight did not distress him, for -he had finished with the machine anyway. It had served his purpose.</p> -<p>He sat in a field of half-grown oats, ten or twelve acres in extent, -rimmed all around by dense forest. A large log-house and two barns stood -in a group near the farther edge of the clearing.</p> -<p>Akerley got slowly and painfully to his feet and moved toward the house, -the door of which stood open. He had been so badly shaken by his throw -from the machine that he had to sink to his knees and right hand several -times on the way. He reached the door-step at last and sat down on it. -So far, he had not caught a glimpse of anything human and alive. A few -hens scratched about a stable door and a small black dog eyed him -inquiringly from a distance.</p> -<p>The door stood open upon the main apartment of the house, which was very -evidently kitchen and living-room in one. It contained a long, -high-backed settle against one wall, a deal table against another and a -dresser of unstained pine against a third. Plates, platters and bowls, -yellow, blue-and-white and a few adorned with flowery designs in -gorgeous hues, and a big brown tea-pot, stood on the shelves of the -dresser. There was a wide chimney with a fireplace containing fire-dogs -and a crane with dangling pot-hooks; and to one side of the chimney, -with an elbow of pipe leading into the rough masonry, stood a small -stove. Both hearth and stove were cold. A few rag mats, and two deer -skins worn bald in patches, lay on the floor of squared timbers. The log -walls were sheathed with thin strips of cedar, the partitions and -ceiling were of wide pine boards. Rough hewn rafters ran across the -ceiling. There was no sign of plaster anywhere in that wide room. There -were closed doors in the partitions to the right and left, and one in -the log wall beside the chimney, opposite the open door. A wide ladder -went steeply up from a corner to an open trap in the ceiling.</p> -<p>Akerley got stiffly to his feet and crossed the threshold. He knocked -sharply on the open door; he crossed to the stove and hit the top of the -oven with the poker; he shouted, “Wake up!”, “Good morning,” and “Is any -one at home?” Knocks and shouts alike failed to produce a response of -any sort except from the little black dog. The dog looked in at him -across the threshold with an expression of sharp but good-humored -curiosity on his black face; and when the intruder addressed him -familiarly by the name of “Pup” and asked him where the devil every one -was gone to, he wriggled with delight but continued to keep his -distance.</p> -<p>Akerley opened the back door and looked out, under the roof of a narrow -porch and across a wood-yard, at the high edge of the forest. Sunshine -was flooding over the clearing by this time like a bright, level tide. -The porch ran the length of the house; and in its shelter stood an -upright churn, a couple of tubs, and two benches supporting empty pails -and pans and “creamers” which shone like silver in the sun. Also, there -were two old splint-bottom rocking-chairs on the porch; and on the seat -of one of these lay an open book on its face.</p> -<p>Akerley stepped out onto the rough hewn flooring of the porch and stared -about him inquiringly. Here was a comfortable and well-kept home; here -were the material things of peaceful industry and leisure; but where had -the people gone to? He knew that they had been at home last night, for -the light from their open door had guided him to his landing. He sat -down in one of the chairs, for he was still weak from the shaking and -the pain in his shoulder, and lifted the book from the other.</p> -<p>“My hat!” he exclaimed. “Where am I?”</p> -<p>The book was the elder Dumas’ “Three Musketeers,” printed in the -original language of that great and industrious romancer.</p> -<p>He replaced the book and reëntered the house. The dog, who had advanced -as far as the middle of the room, immediately beat a wriggling retreat -to his old position beyond the threshold. Akerley ascended the ladder -and searched through the loft, which was divided into three chambers—a -bedroom, a storeroom and a lumber-room. Nobody was hidden there. He -descended and opened the closed doors off the main room. Behind them he -found a pantry and storeroom combined, a long apartment containing a -carpenter’s table and several large grain bins, and a bedroom. They were -all as empty of humanity as the kitchen and upper floor.</p> -<p>It was now fifteen minutes past six by the clock on the chimney-shelf; -and the intruder felt keen stirrings of hunger. He had not eaten since -an early hour of the previous day. He made a fire in the stove with -kindlings and dry wood which lay ready to hand, and then looked about -for water. There was none in the house. He took an empty pail from the -porch and followed a path that ran from the chip-yard into the green -gloom of the forest. He found the spring within ten paces of the edge of -the clearing, roofed over and fenced about with poles. The clear water -brimmed the oblong basin that had been dug for it; and in the lower end -of the basin stood two tin “creamers” held down by a stone-weighted -board across their tops.</p> -<p>“Last night’s milk, I suppose,” said Akerley, as he filled his pail. -“What about this morning’s milking? Are they leaving that to me, I -wonder?”</p> -<p>He returned to the house and cooked and ate a very good breakfast. He -found everything he wanted—bread, tea, sugar, butter, bacon and jam. -Then he lit a cigarette.</p> -<p>“I won’t wash dishes, anyway,” he said, “I draw the line at that. I’ll -dirty every cup and plate in the house first. But I suppose I’ll have to -go and look for those blasted cows.”</p> -<p>His shoulder felt better, but still very stiff. He placed a dish of -bread and milk on the floor and pointed it out to the little dog, then -hung two tin pails on his arm and went out to look for the dairy herd. -On his way, he searched the barns. The stables were empty, save for a -few dozens of scratching fowls. He found a pig-house of two pens and -open runs behind one of the barns. One suite was occupied by a large sow -and the other by five promising pink youngsters. They all greeted the -sight of him enthusiastically.</p> -<p>“Pigs!” he exclaimed. “I suppose they think I’ll attend to their -confounded pigs.”</p> -<p>He entered the pig-house and found there a small iron stove and large -iron pot. The pot, which had a capacity of about two flour barrels, was -half-full of a stiff sort of porridge. Beside it stood a spade with a -short handle. He set the pails on the floor and spaded a quantity of -this mess into the troughs to right and left. The exertion sent stabs of -pain through his injured shoulder. He glared at the big sow on his right -and the small pigs on his left, who had dashed in from their yards at -the sounds of his spading and were now sunk to the eyes and knees in -their untidy breakfast.</p> -<p>“They’d better come home before that pot is empty,” he said. “If they -think I’m going to cook for a bunch of pigs while they go fishing -they’re everlastingly mistaken.”</p> -<p>The big field of oats spread completely around the barns, but from the -barn-yard a fenced road led through the crop to a second clearing behind -a screen of trees. This clearing, which was rough pasture, was fenced -and occupied by three horses and a foal; and in a small, square yard at -the near edge of it stood five cows in expectant attitudes. One cow had -a bell at her neck, which she ding-donged restlessly.</p> -<p>Akerley had learned to milk when he was a small boy and used to visit a -brother of his mother’s housekeeper in the country. The knack of it is -not easily lost, though the muscles of hands and wrists may suffer from -neglect of the exercise. He milked the five cows, grumbling at the -necessity; and he was glad that two of them proved to be remarkably -light producers. He then let them into the pasture with the horses; and -upon seeing them hasten toward a green clump of alders in a far corner, -he knew that he would not have to carry water for them. Owing to the -painful condition of his shoulder, he was forced to make two trips with -the milk. He found the house still unoccupied, save by the little black -dog.</p> -<p>One thing led naturally to another; and Akerley found no time that -morning to consider the graver problems of his situation. He was -conscientious to an extraordinary degree and knew just enough about farm -life to feel the responsibilities of his peculiar position. Milking led -to the care of milk and the washing of creamers. He carried the skimmed -milk to the pigs, cooked and ate his dinner, then fell asleep in one of -the chairs on the porch.</p> -<p>Akerley slept heavily and senselessly for several hours; but at last his -head slipped along the back of the chair into so uncomfortable a -position that his brain shook off its torpor and busied itself with the -spinning of dreams. They were startling and distressing dreams. They -were of flying in fogs and over strange cities and through resounding -barrages, of fighting against fearful odds, and of -falling—falling—falling. Crash!—and he awoke just in time to save -himself from tumbling sideways off the chair.</p> -<p>He opened his eyes wide and straightened himself with a gasp. His heart -was going at a terrific rate, his nerves were all twanging, and for a -second or two he felt numb with fear. Then he saw the afternoon sunlight -along the edge of the forest and remembered. He laughed with relief.</p> -<p>“This is better,” he said to the black dog, who sat on the edge of the -porch and faced him with an expression of undiminished interest and -expectancy. “Yes, a great deal better, you black pup. Better for the -nerves and better for everything—and you can take a flight-commander’s -word for it, Pup.”</p> -<p>So great was his relief at awakening from his nightmares to those -peaceful and rustic surroundings that, for several minutes, his mood and -manner of whimsical complaint were forgotten. He surveyed the yard, with -its cord wood, chips and saw-horse; and the path leading into the brown -and green shades of the forest; and the dog wagging its tail in front of -him, with the keenest satisfaction. His appreciative glance lowered to -the floor between his feet and the dog.</p> -<p>“What’s this!” he exclaimed, staring. “Where’d it come from?”</p> -<p>He stooped forward and picked up a piece of folded white paper. It was -written on with pencil, in a round hand, as follows:—</p> -<div style='margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-right:2em; margin-left:2em'> -<p style='text-indent:0'>“<i>Sir</i>; My Grandfather refuses to return for he will not believe that -you are not a devil. He is not an educated man, and has not been more -than forty miles from here in the last thirty years. He has always -believed in the Devil, but never in aëroplanes or anything of that kind, -although I have shown him pictures of them. I am glad you were not -killed and sorry you broke your aëroplane. You did not find the calves, -which are in a pen at the far end of the cow-stable. I fed them a few -minutes ago. The cows do not pasture with the horses, as Jess kicks -cows—so I let them out. The bars in the brush-fence are just beyond the -brook among the alders. I shall bring my grandfather back to the house -as soon as he recovers from his foolish fright; but how soon that will -be I cannot state definitely, for he is a very stubborn old man. I have -left him asleep in the woods. He made me promise not to speak to you.</p> -<div style='margin-top:1em; text-align:right; margin-right:4em;'>Yours very truly,</div> -<div style='text-align:right; font-variant:small-caps'>Catherine MacKim.”</div> -</div> -<p>Akerley read with astonished haste, studied the signature, then re-read -the letter slowly from the beginning. This done, he raised his head and -gazed searchingly around him.</p> -<p>He entered the house and looked at the clock on the chimney-piece. It -pointed to four; and he corrected the watch on his wrist by it. Again he -read the note before putting it carefully away in his pocket-book. He -stood for some time in the center of the room, deep in thought, -fingering his stubbly chin. Then he entered the bedroom.</p> -<p>This was evidently Grandfather’s sleeping-place and nothing else. Its -walls of natural wood were bare save for a few earthy and unshapely -garments of coarse material hanging from nails. A pair of mud-caked -boots with high legs stood crookedly in a corner. On the window-sill lay -a black clay pipe, the heel of a plug of black tobacco and a shabby -spectacle-case. The only articles of furniture were a large chest and a -bed. The chest was not locked; and Akerley rummaged through it in search -of a razor. He found an ancient suit of black broadcloth, a leather -wallet fat with ten and twenty-dollar bank notes, flannel shirts, rifle -cartridges rolled up in a woolen sock, a packet of papers, cakes of -tobacco, suits of winter underclothes so aggressively wooly that his -back itched as he beheld them, a Bible, a cardboard box full of -trinkets—and, last of all, a razor in a stained red case.</p> -<p>He had to go up to the bedroom in the loft to find a mirror; but he did -not shave there, feeling that he would be taking an unwarrantable -liberty in doing so. With the mirror and a purloined cake of pink soap -he returned to the kitchen. Nothing like a shaving-brush was to be -found, high or low, so he did without. The pink soap proved to be a poor -producer of lather, and the ancient razor seemed to prefer either -sliding or digging to cutting; and so it was twenty minutes to five -before Akerley considered himself shaved. He returned the mirror and -soap to their places and went out to his crippled machine.</p> -<p>Akerley had no further use for the plane. He felt that it had fulfilled -its mission, quite apart from the fact that it was damaged beyond -immediate repair with the tools and materials at hand. He judged by the -atmosphere and appearance of his surroundings and the fact that the old -man of the place had mistaken him for a devil, that he had gone far -enough. And the nearest supply of petrol was sure to be many weary miles -away. So much the better—for petrol stood for the very things he was -most anxious to avoid at this particular stage of his career. Now he was -anxious to put the machine out of sight in the shortest possible time, -and for a few minutes he seriously contemplated breaking it to pieces -and burning and burying the fragments. But he decided against this -violent course. He hadn’t the dull toughness of heart for the task; for -this plane had served him well, as many others had served him well and -truly in the past. So he set briskly to work at dismantling it.</p> -<p>It was after seven o’clock when Akerley went for the cows. He found them -waiting outside the bars in the brush fence among the alders, yarded -them and milked them. He then fed the calves and pigs, prepared and ate -his own supper, and returned to his work on the machine. Later, he found -and lit a lantern. It was close upon midnight when his task was -completed to his satisfaction. Then he threw himself, boots and all, on -the old man’s bed, and sank into dreamless sleep.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chII' title='II: The Girl and the Man'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER II</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>THE GIRL AND THE MAN</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>The twilight of dawn was brightening over the clearing when Akerley was -suddenly awakened by the grip of fingers on his injured shoulder. He -could not have leapt back to consciousness more swiftly and violently if -a knife had been driven into him. He sat up with a jerk and opened his -eyes in the same instant of time; and fear shone visibly in his eyes for -a fraction of a second. The look of fear gave place to one of relief, -and that changed in a wink to an expression of polite and embarrassed -surprise.</p> -<p>A girl stood beside the bed, staring at him wide-eyed. Her lips were -parted and she breathed hurriedly.</p> -<p>“Get up,” she whispered. “You must hide in the woods. Grandfather is -coming. Climb out the window and run.”</p> -<p>He swung his feet to the floor and stood up before her.</p> -<p>“But why should I run and hide?” he asked.</p> -<p>She placed her hands on his breast and pushed him backward until he -brought up against the wall beside the open window.</p> -<p>“He will kill you,” she replied. “He has his rifle. Get out, quick, and -hide in the woods. Please go! And watch the house. And I’ll tell you -later. Crawl away. Don’t let him see you.”</p> -<p>“But why does he want to shoot me?”</p> -<p>“Go! Go! I don’t want you to be killed!”</p> -<p>“I am not afraid of any old man with a rifle!”</p> -<p>The girl’s eyes blazed and the color faded out of her cheeks. She raised -her right hand as if she would strike him in the face. Daunted and -bewildered, Akerley turned quickly and slipped out of the window into -the dew-wet grass. He moved toward the edge of the woods by the shortest -line, on his hands and knees, without pausing once to look back. Upon -reaching the shelter of bushes and round spruces along the front of the -forest, he lay flat and turned and surveyed the house and clearing. His -shoulder hurt him, and he felt angry and hungry and generally abused; -but his mind was soon diverted from himself by the sudden appearance of -a tall old man within fifteen or twenty paces of where he lay.</p> -<p>The old man stared at the house from beneath the brim of a wide and -weather-stained felt hat. Abundant white whiskers showed with startling -distinctness against the breast of his dark shirt. He held a rifle in -his right hand, at the short trail. After standing motionless for half a -minute, he stooped almost double and advanced toward the house with long -strides. He reached the porch and vanished from view through the back -door.</p> -<p>“She was right,” soliloquized Akerley. “The old bird is out for blood -and no mistake. He certainly has his nerve with him—if he still thinks -I’m a devil.”</p> -<p>He lay still, watching the house. The minutes dragged past; and his -hunger and the soreness of his shoulder again attracted his attention. -Presently the girl appeared in the doorway, paused there for a moment -and then stepped out onto the porch with her grandfather close at her -heels. The old man was in the act of passing her when she turned swiftly -and halted him, and stayed him with a grip of both hands on the front of -his shirt. Akerley, watching intently, again forgot his discomfort and -hunger. He knew something of the strength of those small hands.</p> -<p>“I hope she’ll pull out his blasted whiskers,” he muttered.</p> -<p>The two were evidently of different opinions on some matter of -importance. The old man seemed to be all for leaving the porch -immediately, and the girl for having him remain there. He waved his left -hand violently. He waved his right hand, in which the steel of the -rifle-barrel shone blue. She continued to cling to the front of his -shirt. It was plain to be seen that they argued the point hotly. He -side-stepped toward the edge of the porch and she pulled him back -sharply to his former ground. He struggled to get away and she struggled -to retain her hold on him. He broke away suddenly and fell backwards off -the edge of the raised floor. It was a drop of about two feet. The rifle -flew from his grasp as he struck the ground. He lay on his back for a -few seconds, then turned over and raised himself to his hands and knees. -From that position he got slowly to his feet. He stood facing Akerley’s -hiding-place for a moment, swaying uncertainly, then staggered forward a -few paces, reeled suddenly, fell heavily on his face and lay still. The -girl sprang down from the porch and knelt beside him.</p> -<p>Akerley saw the girl make several attempts to get the old man to his -feet. He left his cover after the third unsuccessful attempt and -approached the yard. He was half-way to the porch when the girl raised -her head and saw him. She signalled him to make haste; and he -immediately broke into a run.</p> -<p>“He is hurt!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “He is unconscious. He has -not opened his eyes since he fell. There’s no doctor this side of -Boiling Pot. What am I to do?”</p> -<p>“He is stunned, that’s all,” replied Akerley. “He breathes right enough, -and his heart is working away like a good one. Very likely he knocked -the back of his head on a stone or something when he crashed. We had -better carry him in-doors, I think, and pour some water over him.”</p> -<p>Akerley lifted him by the shoulders, the girl gathered him up by the -knees, and so they carried him into the house and laid him on his own -bed. Akerley asked if there were any brandy or whiskey on the premises.</p> -<p>“Not for him!” she cried. And then, in a lower tone, “There is some -brandy, but I have hidden it from him,” she continued. “It is the worst -thing in the world for him, for it inflames his temper; and I think it -is his temper that is the matter with him, mostly. He has been like that -twice before, and both times he was in a terrible rage.”</p> -<p>“Pleasant company, I don’t think,” remarked Akerley. “But the trouble -isn’t entirely bad temper this time, Miss MacKim. Here’s the bump where -he assaulted something hard with the back of his skull. It doesn’t seem -serious—but he is very old, I suppose.”</p> -<p>The girl investigated the bump with her fingers.</p> -<p>“I’ll bathe that,” she said. “See, he looks better already. It was -foolish of me to be afraid. Please get out of sight before he opens his -eyes. Get your breakfast now, please, and make as little noise about it -as possible; and I’ll keep him here until you have finished, even if he -recovers consciousness in the meantime.”</p> -<p>“Does he still think I am a devil?” he asked.</p> -<p>“Yes—and that it is his sacred duty to kill you,” she replied. “He was -terrified at first; but he is not at all afraid of you now. The very -thought of you, and of the way you frightened him when you rushed down -from the sky, fills him with fury.”</p> -<p>“But am I to hide from him always?”</p> -<p>“Always? Did you come here to settle for life?”</p> -<p>“My machine is smashed and I have dismantled it; and I need a rest.”</p> -<p>“You will not get much rest with Grandfather hunting you all the time; -and there are other and more usual ways of leaving here than by -aëroplane. But go now—quick!”</p> -<p>Akerley left the room and closed the door behind him. He lit a fire in -the stove stealthily, boiled water and made tea. He did not fry bacon, -for fear that the smell of it might start the old man into action again; -so he breakfasted on bread and butter and jam. He was about to light a -cigarette—the last one in his case—when the girl appeared from the old -man’s bedroom. She came very close to him, with a finger on her lip for -warning.</p> -<p>“He has come around, but he is very weak and shaken,” she whispered. “He -seems quite dazed, just as he did the other times; but he will soon -recover his wits and energy, you may be sure. He may be like this all -day, or perhaps only for a few hours; and then he’ll be out with the -rifle again, looking for you. What have you done with your aëroplane?”</p> -<p>Akerley eyed her steadily and thoughtfully before replying.</p> -<p>“I have hidden the parts here and there,” he said. “I’ll show you, any -time you say. One plane is badly smashed, but not hopelessly. I may mend -it some day; but just now the important thing for me is to have all the -parts out of sight.”</p> -<p>“So that Grandfather can’t find them and destroy them?” she queried.</p> -<p>“That is one reason,” he replied. “The fact is, I should not like any -one from outside to find any trace of the old bus around here. It might -prove very awkward for me. The less known about me and the machine the -better for me, Miss MacKim. If I tell you why I’ll put myself at your -mercy—which I shall do sometime when we can talk in more security. Now I -think I had better milk and do the chores.”</p> -<p>“Are you in danger?” she whispered.</p> -<p>“I shall be glad to explain my position to you, as far as possible, at -the first opportunity,” he answered, smiling. “But there are other -things to do now that need to be done quick—the milking, for one—and if -I could get hold of your grandfather’s ammunition I’d extract the charge -from every cartridge. Then I’d feel less uneasy. My nerves are not in -the best shape, as it is.”</p> -<p>She went to the front door with him and instructed him to keep out of -line of the old man’s window, not to bring the milk to the house but to -leave it on the floor of the larger barn, and to remain in the barn -until he saw her again.</p> -<p>“And I’ll bring you every rifle-cartridge I can find,” she concluded.</p> -<p>He thanked her and started off to attend to the cows; but before he had -gone a dozen paces he turned and came back to where she still stood on -the threshold.</p> -<p>“I had forgotten the milk-pails,” he explained.</p> -<p>After milking and turning the cows out, he fed the pigs. He could not -feed the calves, for he had not brought their breakfast of hay-tea and -skimmed milk from the house. He retired to the barn then and gave his -mind to very serious and painful thought.</p> -<p>“What’s the use?” he exclaimed, at last. “Thinking won’t undo what’s -already done. The past is out of my hands—and I hope to heaven it is -buried! I can only help myself in the future.”</p> -<p>The girl found him a few minutes later. She carried a small basket -containing sixty cartridges.</p> -<p>“These are all I could find,” she said. “I took them from the box in his -room, and from behind the clock, and from the rifle and even from his -pockets. He is feeling much stronger already.”</p> -<p>She took up the pails of milk and was about to go when Akerley begged -her to wait a minute. He produced a knife of parts from a pocket and -with one of its numerous attachments pried the bullet out of a cartridge -and extracted the explosive charge. Then he refixed the bullet in the -empty shell and handed it to the girl.</p> -<p>“Please put that in his rifle,” he said. “Nothing will go off but the -cap when he pulls the trigger on that. I’ll have the rest of them -fool-proof in a couple of hours.”</p> -<p>She complimented him on his cleverness, told him not to budge from the -barn until her return, and went away with the milk and the harmless -cartridge. He was very busy throughout the next two hours. He counted -the seconds of the third hour, paced the dusty floor and looked out -every minute.</p> -<p>She came at last, with his dinner in a basket covered with a linen -napkin. Everything looked as right as could be to him then—and he did -not know why. He thought it was because he felt hungry. His pleasure lit -his eyes upon beholding her and sounded in his voice when he welcomed -her; and these things did not escape her notice and at once pleased and -puzzled her.</p> -<div id='i045' style='margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:10.0%; width:80%;'> - <img src='images/illus-f45.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -<p class='caption'>“THEY SAT SIDE BY SIDE ON A SMALL HEAP OF STRAW.”</p> -</div> -<p>They sat side by side on a small heap of straw in a corner of the -threshing-floor, and she set out the dinner at their feet—sliced cold -chicken, bread and butter, pickles, two large wedges of Washington pie -and a pitcher of hot coffee.</p> -<p>“I left Grandfather eating his in bed, so I’ll have mine with you,” she -said.</p> -<p>She told him that the old man had recovered sufficiently to demand his -rifle, and that she had placed the chargeless cartridge in the breech -before giving it to him.</p> -<p>“He still thinks it was a devil who lit in the oats,” she ran on, “so if -you intend to stay here for some time we must think of a way of leading -him to believe that you are not the person who came down from the sky. -You must get some other clothes, and a pack, and walk into the clearing -as if you had come in all the way from Boiling Pot on foot. I may be -able to fix over some of his things so that he won’t recognize them. -Haven’t you a hat? And is that your only coat? You must have been very -cold up in the air.”</p> -<p>“I have a cap and a wool-lined leather coat,” he replied. “They are both -hidden away with the engine of the poor old bus; and if I am wise I will -hide this one, too.”</p> -<p>She looked at him curiously, and he returned her gaze gravely.</p> -<p>“This is a military coat, isn’t it?” she asked.</p> -<p>“Yes, a khaki service jacket.”</p> -<p>“You are a soldier, then.”</p> -<p>“An officer of the Royal Air Force.”</p> -<p>“I knew you were a soldier when I saw you asleep in the chair yesterday. -I knew by that ribbon.”</p> -<p>She placed the tip of a finger on the left breast of his jacket, and he -kinked his neck and looked down at it.</p> -<p>“The Legion of Honor. So you have seen that ribbon before.”</p> -<p>“I have it—the cross and ribbon. It belonged to my Grandfather MacKim. -He won it in the Crimean War.”</p> -<p>“That old boy?”</p> -<p>“No, not that one. His name is Javet, Gaspard Javet—and he was never a -soldier. What are the other ribbons?”</p> -<p>“One is the Military Cross and the others are service medals. But tell -me about your Grandfather MacKim, please.”</p> -<p>“Not now. I am the questioner to-day. You came here without being -invited, so I have a right to ask you questions. It is my duty to do -so.”</p> -<p>“Of course it is. It is one of your duties as a hostess. Ask away, and -I’ll tell you the truth or nothing.”</p> -<p>“Very well. Are you in great danger?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know. If people from the outside don’t find me or learn that I -am here I shall be safe enough for the present—except from your -grandfather; and I am not seriously afraid of him.”</p> -<p>“But you ran away from something or someone! You flew away! What were -you afraid of, to make you fly away? You are not a coward. What are you -afraid of?”</p> -<p>“Of disgrace for one thing.”</p> -<p>“Have you done a disgraceful deed?”</p> -<p>“No—but you wouldn’t understand. My nerves are not quite right—and I -lost my temper. I struck a senior officer.”</p> -<p>“And you are a soldier! And the king has decorated you!”</p> -<p>“Any soldier would have done it. You would have done it yourself, under -the same circumstances. It was about a friend of mine who is dead. Those -swankers who have never seen the whites of the enemies’ eyes don’t -understand. He lied about him! I got out and up, and flew and lost -myself, and when my petrol was done I made a landing to your light—and -here I am.”</p> -<p>“Did you kill him?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know. I hope not. I didn’t wait to see. My nerves aren’t right -yet. I hit him with my fist. Any man in my place with an ounce of blood -in him would have done what I did. But I’m afraid that won’t help me -much if they find me, even if he was only knocked out for the count.”</p> -<p>“Listen! It is Grandfather shouting for me. I must go, or he may get out -of bed to look for me. You stay here.”</p> -<p>“For how long?”</p> -<p>“Until I come back—which will be as soon as I can get away. I’ll take -these cartridges. Climb into a mow, and if you hear anyone coming hide -under the hay.”</p> -<p>“I am in your hands. You believe what I have told you?”</p> -<p>“Yes, everything.”</p> -<p>“Even that you would have done it yourself?”</p> -<p>“Yes, I believe that. There!—he is shouting again!”</p> -<p>“Will you bring me something to smoke? I haven’t a cigarette left.”</p> -<p>“Yes, yes,” she cried, and ran from the barn.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chIII' title='III: Catherine’s Plan'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER III</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>CATHERINE’S PLAN</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>Old Gaspard Javet did not return to the war-path with the celerity -feared by Catherine. He kept to his bed all that afternoon and all the -next day, his rifle on the patchwork quilt beside him, without showing -any sign of his usual energy beyond the power of his voice and an -occasional flash of the eyes. The tumble had given his dry joints and -stiff muscles a painful wrenching; and his mind had also suffered from -the sudden shock of the fall and the emotional explosion that had led to -it. Now and then, for brief periods, his memory of the immediate past -served him faithfully and he thought clearly and violently on the -subject of the unwelcome intruder; and at other times, for hours -together, he lay in a state of peace and mild bewilderment.</p> -<p>To understand this old man, one must know that he was more Scottish than -French, (despite his name), and that a dark old strain of Iroquois blood -ran in his veins. He had lived rough and wild most of the years of his -life, and neither the ministers of the Kirk nor the priests of the -Church of Rome had enjoyed a fair opportunity of shaping him to any -authorized form of religious thought and practice. He had been a scoffer -and unbeliever until past middle-life; but for years now he had been -deeply, and sometimes violently, religious according to his own lights -and to laws of his own conception. Born in the wilderness far north of -the city of Quebec eighty years ago, of a father of two strains of blood -and a mother of three, he had been bred early to self-reliance, -privation, loneliness, and physical dexterity and endurance. He spoke -French and English fluently but incorrectly, several Indian languages -with as much fluency as their vocabularies permitted, and he read -English with difficulty. All his reading was done in Holy Writ; and, -considering the laborious process of that reading, the ease and freedom -of his interpretations were astonishing.</p> -<p>While the old man was confined to his bed, Akerley was permitted almost -unlimited freedom of action; but he was not allowed to enter the house -or intrude on the field of vision of Gaspard’s bedroom window. He milked -the cows, fed the calves and pigs, and hoed in a secluded field of -turnips and corn. For two nights he made his bed in the hay of the big -barn, with blankets brought to him by the girl. She also supplied him -with a clay pipe and tobacco belonging to her grandfather; and though he -had smoked cigarettes for years and the first pipeful made his head -spin, he soon learned to take his tobacco hot and heavy according to the -custom obtaining in those woods. He saw and talked to the girl -frequently during that time. She frankly seized every opportunity of -leaving her grandfather and her household tasks to be with him. She did -not question him further, just then, concerning his deed of violence, -nor did her manner toward him suggest either fear or repugnance after he -had made his confession. And yet her manner was not entirely as it had -been before his frank answers to her questions had placed him at her -mercy. It was changed for the better. It was more considerate of his -feelings. In short, it was the manner of a sympathetic and trusting -friend; and yet she knew nothing more of him, good or bad, than the bad -he had told of himself. He was wise enough, understanding enough, not to -doubt her full recognition of the fact that he had placed his freedom, -his honor and perhaps his life, in her hands. He believed that her -manner of sympathy was sincere. He credited her with a heart of utter -kindness and an unshaken faith in her own instincts concerning the -hearts of others; and he was deeply moved by admiration and gratitude.</p> -<p>She brought him his supper at seven o’clock in the evening of the second -day of his residence in the barn, and went back to the house -immediately. He made short work of the food, then took up a position -behind the barn-yard fence, from which he had a clear view of the house, -and awaited her reappearance. When eight o’clock came with no sight of -her he felt a sudden restlessness and began to pace back and forth. By -half-past eight he was in a fine fume of impatience and anxiety; and -then he suddenly realized the silliness of it and made bitter fun of -himself. She was safe, there in her own home not two hundred yards -away—so why worry about her? And who was he to worry about her? She had -never heard of him, nor he of her, four days ago. Why should he expect -her to come hurrying back to talk to him? Wouldn’t it be the natural -thing for her to prefer her grandfather’s company to his?</p> -<p>He asked himself all these questions and answered them all with -disinterested logic; and yet he felt no less anxious and no less -impatient. He climbed the fence and stared accusingly at the house. He -was joined by the little black dog, with whom he was now on familiar -terms. Together they strolled to the far side of the barns, where -Blackie started a chipmunk along the pasture fence; but Akerley could -not wait to watch the excitement. He left the chase in full cry and -hastened back to a point from which he could see the house as if he had -been absent a year. It had been out of his sight for exactly five -minutes; and still she was not on her way. He wondered if he had said -anything that could possibly have offended her, anything that she could -possibly have misunderstood, and wracked his memory for every word that -they had exchanged since morning. He could not recall anything of the -kind or anything in her manner to suggest anything of the kind. Again he -took himself to task for his foolishness.</p> -<p>“Your nerves are crossed, Tom Akerley,” he said. “Your wind is up in -vertical gusts. Your brains are addled. You are so devilish lonely that -you’ve gone dotty. You expect a girl who doesn’t know you from Adam to -sit around and entertain you all the time and neglect her poor old -grandfather; and it isn’t because you are used to it, old son, for no -other woman ever neglected so much as a dog to entertain you. Buck up! -Pull yourself together! Forget it!”</p> -<p>He filled and lit the clay pipe and sat on the top rail of the fence and -smoked. Twilight deepened to dusk, the stars appeared, bats flickered -and fire-flies blinked their sailing sparks; and lamplight glowed softly -from the windows of the house.</p> -<p>It was long past ten o’clock when Catherine made her appearance, -carrying a lighted lantern in her left hand and a large bundle under her -right arm. She found Akerley on the top rail of the fence. He slid to -his feet the moment the swinging circle of light discovered him, and -strode forward to meet her.</p> -<p>“I was afraid you were never coming,” he said. “I began to fear that the -old man had mistaken you for the devil. What have you there?”</p> -<p>“I thought I’d find you asleep,” she replied. “I didn’t say I was coming -back to-night, you know. But I had to. Grandfather is feeling much -better and will be up and out bright and early in the morning, so I have -had to get these clothes ready for you to-night. And here are an old -quilt and things—a frying-pan and old kettle—to make a pack of. You must -leave here before sunrise and come back about breakfast-time. I’ll show -you the road to come in by now—the road from Boiling Pot.”</p> -<p>Akerley took the bundle from her.</p> -<p>“You have been working all evening for me; and I am not accustomed to -this sort of thing,” he said. “You are a very wonderful person, -Catherine MacKim.”</p> -<p>“What do you mean by wonderful?” she asked curiously.</p> -<p>“You are wonderfully kind. I don’t believe there are many girls in the -world who would take the trouble to fit me out like this. I may be -wrong, for I don’t know many girls or women.”</p> -<p>“Didn’t a woman have anything to do with—with what you did?”</p> -<p>“A woman! Bless you, no! What made you think that?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know. Please put these things in the barn, and then I’ll show -you the road.”</p> -<p>He obeyed and returned to her. She extinguished the lantern.</p> -<p>“He may be awake,” she explained. “He is very restless to-night; and -there is no saying what he might do if he saw a lantern wandering about -the edge of the woods.”</p> -<p>It was a still, vague night of blurred shadows and warm gloom. The dim -stars did no more than mark out the close sky. The girl found a path -through the oats and led the way along it until they came to the edge of -the forest and the opening of the rough track that wound away from old -Gaspard Javet’s clearings to the nearest settlement.</p> -<p>“There has never been a wheel on this end of it,” she said. “We do our -hauling in winter; and we don’t pay road-taxes. Grandfather doesn’t seem -to mind how far out of the world he lives.”</p> -<p>“Thank Heaven for that!” replied Akerley.</p> -<p>They walked for a short distance along this track, feeling the way with -cautious feet and frequently brushing against the dense undergrowth to -right and left. She halted suddenly, so close to him that her shoulder -touched his arm for a moment.</p> -<p>“Do you think you will be able to find it in the morning?” she asked.</p> -<p>“Easily,” he assured her. “It is due south from the house.”</p> -<p>“Yes, just to the right of the two big pines. But that will not be all. -You must invent a story about how you came in, and why, and all sorts of -things. He is slightly mad about devils from the sky, you know. He has -been expecting one. So, to save your life, you had better say that you -lost your canoe and outfit—everything but the quilt and frying-pan—in -the rapids below Boiling Pot.”</p> -<p>“But what is this boiling pot?”</p> -<p>“It is the pool below the falls, and it is also a little settlement, -about fifteen miles from here. We are on the height-o’-land, you know, -and you can’t get to within six miles of us from any direction by water, -even in a canoe. The spring where we cool our creamers and the one in -the pasture are the beginnings of Indian River. But what will you say -about yourself?—who you are and what you are looking for? And what kind -of person will you pretend to be?”</p> -<p>“I’ll think of something to-night—but I wish your grandfather was more -modern and rational. I know a good deal about the woods, though this -part of the country is new to me; and I can use an ax, and manage a -canoe in white water. So don’t worry. I’ll think up something pretty -safe. But have you told him that the devil has cleared out?”</p> -<p>“Yes, I told him so yesterday; and he thinks I am mistaken. Are you sure -that the aëroplane is hidden where he won’t find it? I don’t see how it -can be.”</p> -<p>“I took it to pieces, and the pieces are carefully hidden. I meant to -tell you before what I had done with them. The engines are packed and -stowed away in the little loft over the pig-house. The planes are under -the hay in the small barn, where they should be safe until I can think -of a better place for them. The old machine is scattered as if a shell -had made a direct hit on her. I even took the liberty of putting a few -small but very valuable parts in your room.”</p> -<p>“I found them. They are safe there.”</p> -<p>“So you see, Catherine, I have not only put my own fate in your hands, -but that of the old bus as well. I have not practiced half-measures.”</p> -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> -<p>“Just that—my liberty and honor. Suppose you were to let people know -that I am here—that a stranger had come here by air? What would become -of me? I might run into the woods and hide—and starve. The game would be -played out and ended, whatever I did.”</p> -<p>“But you have never thought that there was any danger of such a thing!”</p> -<p>“Never. Not for a moment. But what right had I to treat you like this—to -tell you the truth about myself and then throw myself on your mercy? You -must think me a poor thing.”</p> -<p>“You have not asked for mercy from me; and you have told me that any man -of spirit would have done what you did.”</p> -<p>“Any man of spirit and jangled nerves.”</p> -<p>They returned to the barn-yard in silence. There they lit the lantern.</p> -<p>“Don’t forget to put on the old clothes,” she said. “And please give me -that coat now. I will take good care of it, ribbons and all; and I will -give it back to you when you want to fly away from here.”</p> -<p>“I have neither the petrol nor the desire for flight,” he returned. -“There are letters in the pockets, so please hide it securely.”</p> -<p>He took off the jacket, folded it and laid it over her arm.</p> -<p>“Good night,” she said, and hurried away.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chIV' title='IV: The Heaviest Hitter'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER IV</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>THE HEAVIEST HITTER</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>Akerley lay awake for hours on a blanket spread on a mattress of -innumerable springs—a ton or more of last year’s timothy, bluejoint and -clover. He had air enough, though it was still and warm; for one of the -wide doors stood open and the fingers could be thrust anywhere between -the horizontal poles of which the sides and ends of the barn were -constructed. Only the roof was weather-tight.</p> -<p>His thoughts kept him awake; and yet he let them deal only with the -immediate past and the immediate to-morrow. He did not think backward or -forward beyond this forest-farm. What was the use of brooding over the -past or dreaming of the future? After much reflection, he decided on the -character in which he was to emerge from the woods into the clearing and -encounter that formidable old Gaspard Javet. He would come as a -backwoodsman from the upper waters of the main river, two hundred miles -or more away to the west and south, looking for new land and seclusion. -He had known that country well, years ago. This was a part that he could -act with a degree of interest and realism; and he would explain it to -the old man—sooner or later, as circumstances determined—that the -game-wardens of his old stamping-grounds wanted him in connection with a -little matter of spearing salmon at night by the light of a torch. The -confession of a crime against the Game Laws was not likely to prejudice -the old woodsman against him; and this was a particularly mild offense. -He knew enough of back-countrymen to believe that his story would excite -Gaspard’s sympathy—if Gaspard were true to type.</p> -<p>He worked out his part carefully, giving all his thought to it until he -considered it to be as nearly perfect as was possible to bring it before -the actual performance. He saw that certain details of character and -action would have to be left until the illumination of the psychological -moment. As the thing had to be done, it must be well done—with all his -brain, all his will and all his skill. If not, then it was not worth -attempting. This was the spirit in which he had set his hand and mind to -every task, congenial or otherwise, in the lost past. Success had been -won by him again and again in this spirit; and though the task before -him was but a play, a game, the stakes for which he was to play were -serious enough to give it the dignity of a great adventure. The stakes -were honor and freedom.</p> -<p>Still he did not sleep. Invention seemed to have agitated his mind. He -continued to keep his thoughts within the former limits of time, but he -could not soothe them to rest. They made pictures for him of every one -of his waking hours since his first awaking among the young oats in the -gray dawn. He heard mice rustling in the hay and scampering on the -rafters. At last he slept. He awoke sharply at the first hint of dawn. -He continued to lie still for a little while, recalling the details of -his plan of action for the new day. Then he donned the ancient and -rustic garments which Catherine had brought him and hid his own shirt -and breeches. His high, moccasin-toed boots were in part with his new -character. He hid his wrist-watch and identification disc, then took up -his bundle and left the barn. He made his way swiftly and cautiously to -the nearest point of woods and, behind a screen of saplings, to the -road. He followed this road toward Boiling Pot for several miles through -the awakening forest. Here and there, in swampy hollows, he encountered -mud-holes and intentionally stepped into them. By the time he sat down -on an old stump and lit his pipe he looked as if he had come a long and -rough journey.</p> -<p>He had not been seated more than ten minutes when his reveries were -disturbed by the appearance of a large young man with an axe on his -shoulder and a pack on his back. The stranger came into view suddenly -and close at hand, around a bend in the track from the direction of -Boiling Pot.</p> -<p>He halted abruptly at sight of Akerley.</p> -<p>“Good day,” said Akerley, coolly.</p> -<p>“Where’d you come from?” exclaimed the other.</p> -<p>“I’m a stranger in these parts,” returned Akerley; “and what I want to -know is, where’ve I got to?”</p> -<p>“Into the woods, that’s where. But you know where you come from, don’t -you? You ain’t just been born right here, I reckon.”</p> -<p>“Maybe I was.”</p> -<p>“Say, you know where you’re headin’ for, don’t you?”</p> -<p>“Sure thing. I’m heading for somewhere north of here on this track.”</p> -<p>“Well, it’s got a name, ain’t it?”</p> -<p>“I don’t know.”</p> -<p>“T’ell you say! Where do you cal’late to fetch up at?”</p> -<p>“Somewhere quite a way north of this—if I don’t have to spend all day -answering questions.”</p> -<p>“Looka here, friend, you don’t want to git too cussed sassy.”</p> -<p>“Friend nothing! I choose my friends.”</p> -<p>“Say, d’you reckon you’re talkin’ to me?”</p> -<p>“That’s what I am dead sure of. It’s you I am talking to; and unless you -change your line of conversation for the better pretty quick I’ll quit -talking.”</p> -<p>The big young man in the road flung down his ax and pack, uttered a -string of blistering language and spat on the palms of his hands.</p> -<p>“What’s the idea?” queried Akerley, still smoking his pipe, still -hunched forward with his elbows on his knees.</p> -<p>The other raised and flipped his feet about as if in the opening steps -of a popular rustic dance, and at the same time began to chant in -sing-song tones of a marked nasal quality.</p> -<p>“Stan’ up an’ take yer medicine, ye pore skunk,” he chanted. “Git up -onto yer hind legs so’s I kin knock ye off’n ’em again, ye slab-sided -mistake. Git onto yer splayed feet, or I’ll sure lam ye in the lantern -right where ye set.”</p> -<p>“I don’t know if you want to dance or fight,” said Akerley, calmly but -clearly, “but I’ll tell you this—I don’t feel like dancing. And I warn -you not to start anything else, for I am a smart man with my hands.”</p> -<p>“Git up,” sang the other, continuing to jink about on his booted feet -without shifting his ground. “Git up so’s I kin swing onto ye. Stan’ up -on yer feet, dad blast ye, or git down onto yer prayer-handles an’ say -ye’re bested already—for I’m Ned Tone, the heaviest hitter in Injun -River.”</p> -<p>“So be it—but never say that I didn’t warn you,” replied Akerley, laying -aside his pipe.</p> -<p>Then he complied with Ned Tone’s reiterated request with speed and -violence suggestive of the releasing of tempered springs within him. His -feet touched the ground in the same instant of time that his right fist -touched the cheek of the heaviest hitter on Injun River. That was a -glancing blow. Ned Tone turned completely around in his tracks, but he -did not fall. He staggered and lurched. He recovered his balance quickly -and plunged at his antagonist. He spat blood as he plunged, for his -cheek had been cut against his teeth. He flailed a murderous blow—but it -returned harmlessly to him through the non-resistant air. He jumped -again, quick as thought, with a jab and a hook.</p> -<p>Akerley employed all his skill of defense, for he realized in a moment -that the big bushwhacker was a practical fighter and that he possessed -agility as well as weight. In height and reach there was little to -choose between them—but that little was in favor of the woodsman. -Akerley’s left shoulder was still tender; and when he caught a swing on -it like the kick of a mule he gasped with pain and realized that now was -the time for him to do all that he knew how for all that he was worth. -His left was useless for offense, but he managed to keep it up so that -it looked dangerous. After a little more clever foot-work, which seemed -to bewilder and madden the heaviest hitter on Indian River, he stepped -close in and did his very best at the very top of his speed.</p> -<p>Akerley was glad to sit down and press his hands to his head. He felt -dizzy and slightly sick with the pain in his shoulder and neck. The -dizziness and nausea passed almost instantly; but he continued to sit -limp and gaze contemplatively at the sprawled bulk of the heavy hitter.</p> -<p>Ned Tone lay flat on the moss of that woodland road. For a few minutes -he lay face-down; then he turned slowly over onto his broad back, with -grunts of pain. He opened one eye slowly, only to close it immediately.</p> -<p>“Feeling bad?” asked Akerley, drily.</p> -<p>“Kinder that way,” replied Tone, thickly.</p> -<p>“As if you’d had enough, perhaps?”</p> -<p>“Too durned much.”</p> -<p>“You’ll be right as you ever were in a little while, so cheer up. I -didn’t hit you hard.”</p> -<p>“Ye hit me hard enough, I guess—but I ain’t complainin’.”</p> -<p>“You remember that I warned you.”</p> -<p>“Sure thing. I ain’t complainin’ none. Leave me be, can’t ye?”</p> -<p>“I’m talking for your good, just as it was for your own good that I -hammered your ugly mug.”</p> -<p>“Sure. I feel real good.”</p> -<p>Akerley laughed, then took his frying-pan in hand and went along to a -green, alder-grown dip in the road. There he found water, and after -drinking deep and bathing his face, neck and wrists, he filled the pan -and returned to the heavy hitter. Tone drank what he could of that -panful and asked that the rest be poured over his damaged face. Akerley -humored him in this; after which Tone sat up groggily.</p> -<p>“Ready to start?” asked Akerley.</p> -<p>“Start nothin’!” retorted Tone, in a voice of bitter disgust. “I ain’t -goin’ back nor forrards till my grub gives out or my face mends. I’m -makin’ camp right here. I ain’t fit to show myself at Javet’s place nor -yet back home.”</p> -<p>“Javet’s place? Who’s Javet?”</p> -<p>“Gaspard Javet. He’s an old codger got a farm back here in the woods.”</p> -<p>“Is it far from here?”</p> -<p>“Ol’ Gaspard’s farm? Seven or eight mile to the west of this. Ye turn -off jist round that bend. Ye can’t miss the track.”</p> -<p>“Thanks. And where does this road go to?”</p> -<p>“Straight north to nowhere. Maybe ye’d find an old camp if ye went far -enough.”</p> -<p>“Javet’s place for me,” said Akerley, turning and moving away.</p> -<p>“Watch out on yer left,” Ned Tone called after him. “The road to -Gaspard’s clearin’s turns off jist past the next bend.”</p> -<p>The unexpected encounter with the heavy hitter had delayed the -intruder’s plan by nearly an hour, so now he stepped forward briskly. -But he did not feel very brisk. The mill with the big woodsman had been -a more strenuous before-breakfast job than he liked or was accustomed -to; and now his shoulder and neck felt even worse than when he had first -opened his eyes in the young oats in the gray dawn. He decided to blame -the imaginary accident in the rapids below Boiling Pot for the crippled -condition of his left shoulder.</p> -<p>When he issued from the green shade of the forest into the wide light of -Gaspard’s clearings he saw that the front door of the house stood open -and smoke trailed straight up into the sunshine from the gray chimney. -He moved slowly but unfalteringly toward the house.</p> -<p>He had not gone far before Catherine appeared in the doorway, only to -vanish instantly. Then old Gaspard Javet appeared, with the rifle in the -crook of his right arm. The devil-hunter stepped across the threshold -and stood with a hand raised to shade his eyes.</p> -<p>Akerley thought of the extracted cordite and smiled. He was more than -half-way to the house before the old man broke his dramatic attitude in -front of the door and moved forward with the obtrusive rifle at the -port.</p> -<p>“What are you doing with that gun?” cried Akerley, halting. “Do you take -me for a moose? What’s the matter with you, anyhow?”</p> -<p>Old Gaspard Javet continued to advance with long and even strides. He -came to a standstill within three paces of the intruder and regarded him -searchingly for several seconds. The young man returned the gaze -steadily.</p> -<p>“I’m out gunnin’ for a devil,” said Gaspard. “At fust glimp I kinder -hoped you was him, but now I reckon ye ain’t. Ye’re in luck. Hev ye seen -him by any chance?”</p> -<p>“Seen who?”</p> -<p>“The devil.”</p> -<p>“I don’t know him by sight.”</p> -<p>“He’s somewheres ’round in these woods.”</p> -<p>“I met a fellow back along that track a few miles who may be a devil. -His temper was bad enough; but he said his name was Ned Tone. I haven’t -seen anyone else.”</p> -<p>“Ned Tone, hey? No, that ain’t the one I’m lookin’ fer.”</p> -<p>“I don’t know what you’re looking for or what you’re talking about—but -if you asked me if I had a mouth I’d make a guess at what you meant.”</p> -<p>“Come along to the house an’ hev some breakfast. Ye look all played out, -that’s a fact.”</p> -<p>“Now you’re talking English.”</p> -<p>Gaspard turned and led the way to the house. Akerley followed him into -the wide living-room. Breakfast was on the table; and between the stove -and the table stood Catherine, with a glow of conflicting excitements -and emotions in her eyes and on her cheeks.</p> -<p>“This here’s a young feller jist in time for a bite of breakfast,” said -Gaspard. “He ain’t a devil, nor he ain’t seen the devil. Don’t know his -name nor his business.”</p> -<p>“My name is Anderson,” said Akerley, with an apologetic smile at -Catherine.</p> -<p>“Good morning,” she replied, none too steadily.</p> -<p>They sat down at the table, and the old man made a long arm and speared -half a dozen pancakes from a central platter with his fork. Catherine -poured coffee.</p> -<p>“The young feller here says as how he see Ned Tone a ways back along the -road,” said Gaspard, spanking butter on the hot cakes.</p> -<p>The girl started and shot a quick glance of anxious inquiry at her -guest. Guessing the reason for her alarm, he smiled reassuringly at her. -They had not considered or guarded against that ghost of a chance of his -meeting anyone on the road.</p> -<p>“Is Ned Tone coming here?” she asked.</p> -<p>“I think not,” answered Akerley. “Not for a few days, anyway.”</p> -<p>“Why ain’t he comin’ here?” said Gaspard. “Not that he’s wanted—but he’s -comin’ all the same! Where else would he be on his way to but here?”</p> -<p>“He told me he wasn’t,” replied Akerley, pouring molasses on his cakes. -“He said he would stay where he was—where I met him—as long as his grub -hung out.”</p> -<p>His hearers did not make the slightest effort to hide their -astonishment.</p> -<p>“Ye’re crazy!” exclaimed the old man. “What’s the matter with him, that -he ain’t comin’ here? He’s been here often enough before, durn his pesky -hide!”</p> -<p>Akerley looked fairly into the girl’s eyes for a moment, then turned his -glance back to her grandfather.</p> -<p>“He doesn’t consider himself fit to be seen either here or back where he -came from,” he said. “He has a black eye, a cut cheek, a swollen ear, a -split lip and a skinned nose.”</p> -<p>“He run agin the devil, that’s sure!”</p> -<p>“You’re wrong. He started roughing it with me, when I was sitting as -quiet and polite as you please, smoking my pipe. He asked for it. But -for my hurt shoulder I’d have given him more than he asked for.”</p> -<p>“What’s that ye say? Walloped Ned Tone! Bested the heaviest hitter on -Injun River an’ split his lip! Stranger, I wisht it was true—but it -ain’t. It couldn’t be done by no one man as ever I see—leastwise not -since my own j’ints begun to stiffen. Young man, ye’re a liar.”</p> -<p>“Grandfather!” exclaimed Catherine.</p> -<p>“That’s as may be—but it is no lie when I tell you I pounded the pep out -of Ned Tone,” replied Akerley. “You can go and see for yourself. You’ll -find him at the edge of the road, about two miles from here.”</p> -<p>“That so? Reckon I’ll go take a look after I’ve et my breakfast. But -it’s that devil out o’ the sky I wanter see! I got what he needs an’ -don’t want, young man—bullets nigh an inch long, in nickel jackets!”</p> -<p>The old man had a fine appetite; and he could do several things at the -same time. He could not only talk with his mouth full but he could quaff -coffee from his saucer in the same breath. He asked many questions. He -heard that his guest’s name was Tom Anderson, that Tom had come from -somewhere about the upper waters of the main river and lost his canoe -and outfit, and injured his left shoulder, on Indian River.</p> -<p>But Akerley did not tell his story gracefully, though it was to save his -life.</p> -<p>“Whereabouts on Injun River?” asked Gaspard.</p> -<p>“In white water, below a big pool and a fair-sized fall.”</p> -<p>“B’ilin’ Pot. An’ how’d ye git here?”</p> -<p>“I took a track ’round the pool and the falls and struck a road that led -me into the crease in the woods that brought me here.”</p> -<p>“Didn’t ye see no clearin’ nigh the Pot?”</p> -<p>“Maybe I did. What does it matter what I saw? I was heading for the tall -timber; and when Ned Tone overhauled me this morning I wasn’t more than -two miles from here. After our fight—after Tone woke up—he told me to -take the first turn off to the west and follow that track seven or eight -miles and I’d strike Gaspard Javet’s farm—but I guessed he was lying by -the look in his available eye, so I didn’t turn off to the west.”</p> -<div id='i089' style='margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:5.0%; width:90%;'> - <img src='images/illus-f89.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -<p class='caption'>“‘HE WAS FIGGERIN’ TO LOSE YE IN THE WOODS.’”</p> -</div> -<p>“Did he tell you that?” cried the girl. “To go to the west—seven or -eight miles! And he saw that you hadn’t a rifle, or any food! And he -didn’t know that you knew better than to go to the west!”</p> -<p>“Knowed better!” exclaimed the old man, testily. “It wasn’t what he -knowed brought him here—it was the hand of Providence. That thar Ned -Tone’s a pore skunk! He was layin’ to lose ye in the woods; for ther -ain’t a house due west o’ this here within sixty mile, an’ all ye’d find -at the end o’ that loggin’ road is an empty shack that was built by Mick -Otter the Injun an’ me one year we cut out a bunch o’ pine timber. He -was figgerin’ to lose ye in the woods, the mean critter!”</p> -<p>“The coward!” exclaimed Catherine, pale with scorn.</p> -<p>Old Gaspard eyed her contemplatively for a moment. Akerley felt a -pleasant warmth at his heart.</p> -<p>“I’ll step along an’ take a look,” said Gaspard. “Ye kin stop right -here, young man, an’ rest up. I ain’t heared all about ye I wanter know -yet. Maybe ye’re a liar, fer all I know.”</p> -<p>“Liar or not, you’ll find me right here when you get back,” replied -Akerley.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chV' title='V: The Plan Succeeds'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER V</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>THE PLAN SUCCEEDS</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>Old Gaspard Javet was no more than out of the house before Akerley -commenced a detailed account of the morning’s adventure; and when that -was finished—and it was brief as it was vivid—the girl expressed her -delight at Ned Tone’s defeat. But she confessed her satisfaction was -somewhat chilled by apprehension of trouble of the bully’s making. -Akerley made light of her fears on that score.</p> -<p>“I am glad it happened just as it did,” he said. “He picked the fight. -I’m not worrying about him, so long as you are glad I did the beating. -And I don’t think he will talk about it, even after his lip heals.”</p> -<p>“The less he talks the more he will think,” she said. “He is stupid and -ignorant; and now we know he is bad—a murderer at heart. What brains he -has are inclined to craftiness and cunning. Hatred will stimulate -them—and he is sure to hate you for that thrashing.”</p> -<p>“I believe you. He has hopes of my starving in the woods. But hatred is -not the only sentiment I inspire in him. He is afraid of me.”</p> -<p>“Of course he is afraid of you. He will never stand up to you again in a -fair fight, if he can avoid it.”</p> -<p>“That is not all. Fear of my fists is not his greatest fear of me. He -would rather know me to be dead in the woods, by his lies, than know me -to be here. This came to me when your grandfather was talking. Now I am -beginning to understand things that I used to half see and -half-heartedly wonder at; and of course I have read about them in books, -as you have, too, I suppose. This has been an illuminating morning to -me.”</p> -<p>She looked at him inquiringly; and there was a shadow of embarrassment -in her eyes. She smiled and lowered her glance.</p> -<p>“When you talk like this I am certainly reminded of things I have read -in books,” she said. “But that is not enough intelligent conversation, -is it? What things do you mean?”</p> -<p>Akerley took pipe and tobacco from his pocket and regarded them fixedly -in the palm of his hand.</p> -<p>“I mean jealousy—and things like that,” he said, in a somewhat stuffy -voice. “Jealousy of one man for another—about a woman—and that sort of -ro—er—thing.”</p> -<p>“Oh, that sort of thing! Are you really ignorant of things like -that?—you, who have lived in the big world of men and women?”</p> -<p>Akerley glanced at her, then back at his pipe and tobacco. He produced a -knife and fell to slicing a pipeful.</p> -<p>“It is a fact,” he said. “Ever since I was a small boy I have had to -drive all my brains and energy at other things. I have been only an -onlooker at games of that sort, big and little; and as I didn’t know the -rules, and couldn’t guess them by looking, I wasn’t an interested -onlooker. But I have learned a great deal since I landed in this -clearing; and this very morning Ned Tone tried to lose me in the woods -simply to keep me away from here. Nothing like that ever happened to me -before.”</p> -<p>Catherine colored slightly.</p> -<p>“I wonder if you know anything of the horrors of loneliness,” she said -in a low voice.</p> -<p>“I have been lonely in cities and on crowded roads,” he replied; “and I -have been lonely in the air, sometimes with the old earth like a colored -map below me and flying blind in the fog, and with sunlit clouds under -me like fields and drifts of solid snow.”</p> -<p>“But you had your work,” she said; “and you were not always alone; and -in crowds you were always elbowed by strangers. I have never seen a -crowd of people. You have not known such loneliness as this—of endless -woods, and empty clearings, and winds lost in everlasting tree-tops, and -empty skies with only a speck of a hawk circling high up. You worked and -fought—but I had nothing to do. But for books I’d have gone mad, I -believe.”</p> -<p>“I can imagine it—but I wish you would tell me all about it.”</p> -<p>At that moment the expression of her eyes changed and she got quickly up -from the table.</p> -<p>“What if Grandfather tells Ned Tone about your arrival!” she exclaimed. -“About the devil he is looking for? Ned is from the settlements. He -often goes out to the towns on the main river. He would know it was an -aëroplane, and he would suspect the truth about you.”</p> -<p>“He may not mention it,” said Akerley; “so why go to meet trouble?”</p> -<p>Then he did a thing that astonished himself more than it seemed to -surprise Catherine. He stood up, stepped around the table and took her -passive right hand awkwardly in his.</p> -<p>“We have both read of this in books, and I have often seen it done on -the stage,” he said, in a wooden tone of voice; and he raised her hand, -bowed his head and touched his lips to the backs of her fingers. -Releasing her hand swiftly he turned, went out by the back door, took -two pails from the bench against the wall and started for the cow-yard.</p> -<p>The young woman ran after him and called from the porch that she and her -grandfather had already attended to the milking. He returned and -replaced the milk-pails.</p> -<p>“It is just as well,” he said. “I could only use one hand, anyway, for -that big rube caught me one smasher on my lame shoulder.”</p> -<p>She advised him to bathe the shoulder and put arnica on it. She gave him -the arnica along with the advice; and he accepted both. After that he -helped her with the work about the house; and then they sat on the porch -and she told him a great deal about her parentage and herself while they -awaited the reappearance of Gaspard Javet.</p> -<p>Catherine MacKim had been born twenty-one years ago, in this very house -in this clearing. She could not remember anything of her mother, -Gaspard’s daughter, for she had been left motherless at two years of -age; but her father, a son of the Crimean veteran, had often talked to -her about Catherine Javet, whom he had met and married, cherished and -buried in this wilderness. Hugh MacKim had been utterly lacking in -worldly ambition; and though not a weakling in mind or body, he had -possessed none of that particular blunt yet narrow variety of strength -by which thousands of men force themselves successfully through life. He -had been born in a big house in a prosperous farming district in -Ontario. His father, Major Ian MacKim, who had been awarded the Cross of -the Legion of Honor for his services before Sevastopol when an ensign in -an infantry regiment of the line, had moved to Canada soon after his -retirement from the active list of the army. Whatever the major may have -been when operating against the enemies of his King and Country, he had -proved himself an extraordinarily violent, stupid and difficult person -in civil life. As a farmer he had made himself an object of terror and -dislike to his neighbors and of fear and distress to his family. The -fact that he had contracted the causes of that bitter and unreasoning -temper while serving his country at the risk of his life excused it to -those of his connections and acquaintances who were so fortunate as -never to come into contact with it; but the truth is that rheumatism -from Russia and a liver whose action had been dulled and deranged in -India had made that valiant old soldier a terror to his own children.</p> -<p>Under the circumstances young Hugh MacKim, (who was later Catherine’s -father), had been glad to leave the farm and go to school in Montreal; -and when his school years had come to an end and he had been ordered to -return to the farm, he had taken to the woods instead. That life had -suited him. He had given up, without regret, most of the things to which -he had been born and bred; and of all that collection of inherited and -acquired tastes and habits, only his mild affection for books, his good -manners and his sense of fair play had survived. From one point and -another of the northern fringe of settlement he had written occasionally -to his mother.</p> -<p>After the major’s death the widow had sent the Cross of the Legion of -Honor to her strayed son Hugh, hoping that it might act as a spur to -hereditary pride and ambitions. It had pleased him mildly, that was all. -So the widow had turned to her younger son for an acknowledgment of -family and class responsibilities. Then Hugh had come into the Indian -River country, “cruising timber” for a big firm of Quebec operators; and -here he had discovered Gaspard Javet and his secluded clearings and his -beautiful daughter. Hugh had not gone farther. He had even neglected to -retrace his steps to Quebec and submit his report on the timber of the -lands which he had gone forth to explore. He had simply fallen in love -with Catherine Javet and thrown in his lot with her father.</p> -<p>Hugh MacKim had known happiness and contentment in his height-of-land -for seven years—until his wife’s death; and after that—after time had -dulled the cutting edge of his loneliness for her—he had known -contentment for the remaining years of his life. His appetite for the -woods, and for those dexterities of hand and eye which life in the -wilderness called for, had never failed him. He had been a poet in his -appreciation of nature. His eye for the weather had never been as -knowing as Gaspard’s, but always more loving. He had always seen more in -dawns and sunsets than promises of rain or wind or frost. And his had -been the knowledge and skill, but never the ruthlessness, of a -first-rate trapper and hunter. He had delighted in the companionship of -his father-in-law from the first; and admiration and affection had been -mutual in the friendship of those two. His love for his daughter had -been tender and unfaltering. He had taught her the delight of books and -of the life around her. He had taught her to read two languages from -printed pages and the hundred tongues and signs of wood, water and sky. -He had died two winters ago.</p> -<p>“I should like to have known your father,” said Akerley. “I believe he -was right about himself, his own life—but didn’t he ever look ahead? Did -he picture you here in the woods always?”</p> -<p>“There was no place in the big world for him,” she replied. “We belonged -to these woods, he and I; and, of course, he did not know that he was to -die so soon. His health was good. He was ill only a few days.”</p> -<p>“Part of his brain must have been asleep,” said Akerley. “He thought of -you always as a child, I suppose. All this would be well enough if you -never grew up; but you are grown up already. And your grandfather cannot -live for ever. He is queer, anyway—with this crazy idea in his head -about devils.”</p> -<p>“Here he is,” said Catherine.</p> -<p>Gaspard Javet stepped out onto the back porch and stood his rifle -against the wall. He sat down and reflectively combed his beard with -long fingers crooked with the toil of the woods. Then he looked at -Akerley with a new interest, new curiosity and a distinct light of -kindliness in his gray eyes.</p> -<p>“I found Ned Tone,” he said. “He tol’ me how he’d had a fight with a -b’ar—an’ he looked it. I didn’t gainsay him.”</p> -<p>“Did you tell him anything, Grandad?” asked Catherine.</p> -<p>“Yes, I told ’im how I’d like fine to see the b’ar.”</p> -<p>“Nothin’ about the devil, Grandad?”</p> -<p>“Not me—to be laughed at fer an old fool by them fat-heads down round -B’ilin’ Pot.”</p> -<p>“Did you ask him why he told this gentleman to go to the westward to -find these clearings?”</p> -<p>“I didn’t tell ’im nothin’ about what doesn’t consarn ’im. If he wants -to know what’s happened to this young feller he kin take the old road to -the west an’ try to find out.”</p> -<p>“I think you are very clever and wise, Grandad,” said the girl; and she -glanced at Akerley with relief in her eyes.</p> -<p>Akerley felt relief, too. The heavy hitter was off his trail for the -moment, at least. But something else worried him.</p> -<p>“About that devil,” he said, turning to Gaspard. “What makes you think -it was a devil?”</p> -<p>“I heared it miles an’ miles away,” replied the old man, “It was a -devilish sound, hummin’ all ’round in the dark. It was foretold to me -long ago in a dream—how I’d be beset by a devil, an’ how I’d best ’im if -I kep’ my eyes skinned an’ my gun handy. I ain’t afeared of ’im—but I -was at first. I hid in the woods; but pretty soon that old dream come -back to me about how a devil would beset me one day fer the cussin’, -unbelievin’ ways o’ my youth, but how I’d surely git ’im in time if I -kep’ after ’im.”</p> -<p>“What would you do if you found him?” asked Akerley.</p> -<p>The old man twitched a thumb toward the rifle against the wall.</p> -<p>“But if he’s a devil you couldn’t hurt him with a bullet.”</p> -<p>“Ye’re wrong. In my dream I shot ’im dead as pork. And now that I’ve -told you all about that devil, young man, I’d like to hear more about -yerself.”</p> -<p>“Have you ever heard of men flying in the air?”</p> -<p>“What’s that?” exclaimed Gaspard, with a swift change of voice and a -queer, dangerous gleam in his gray eyes. “Men flyin’? No, I ain’t! Nor I -don’t want to. Devils may go disguised, in lonely places as well as in -towns, fer to dig pit-falls fer the feet of men. But men can’t fly!”</p> -<p>Catherine gave the intruder a warning glance.</p> -<p>Akerley sighed and told a story of his past—a very patchy one—along the -lines which he had planned while lying awake in the barn the night -before. But his heart was not in it. He felt that the old woodsman was -doing him an injustice and an injury in believing in flying devils and -at the same time refusing to believe in flying men. He felt that, but -for this crazy kink in Gaspard’s brain, he could safely be as frank with -him as he had been with Catherine—for he saw the qualities of kindness -and understanding in the old man. But he had to invent a silly story as -he valued his life.</p> -<p>He was from the big river, he said: but he had lived in towns sometimes -and even gone to school. He had made his living in the woods of late -years in lumber-camps and on the “drives” and that sort of thing. He had -trapped for one winter, without much success; and he had taken city -sportsmen up-country several times, for fishing in summer and to hunt -moose and deer in the fall. He was not a registered guide, and he had -not kept to any one part of the country for long at a time.</p> -<p>“What started ye fer Injun River?” asked Gaspard.</p> -<p>“I had to start for somewhere, and quick at that,” replied Akerley.</p> -<p>“Had to, hey? Chased out?”</p> -<p>“I didn’t wait to see if I was chased. I had plenty of gas, as it -happened, and—”</p> -<p>“Hey?”</p> -<p>“Grub. I shifted my ground quick and stepped light so’s not to leave any -tracks in the mud. My canoe was ready.”</p> -<p>“I reckon ye mean that the Law’s on yer tracks,” said Gaspard, eyeing -him keenly. “Ye don’t look like a law-breaker to me—onless maybe it was -a game-law ye busted.”</p> -<p>“Anything you prefer.”</p> -<p>“Well, some game-laws have hoss-sense an’ reason to ’em and others -ain’t.”</p> -<p>“He wouldn’t kill deer or moose or caribou out of season,” said -Catherine, looking intently at the intruder. “But I wouldn’t think the -worse of anyone who took a salmon out of a rented pool, as Mick Otter -did on Indian River.”</p> -<p>There was something in her glance that caused Akerley to sit up and use -his brains quick.</p> -<p>“I am glad you feel that way,” he said, quite briskly.</p> -<p>He remembered an actual incident of a trip he had made into the wilds -years ago.</p> -<p>“I dipped into a pool with a spear that was given me by an old Indian,” -he continued. “I got a fine fish—twenty-four pounds. You should have -seen him come up like a ghost through the black water to the light of -the birch-bark torch. Great sport—but it isn’t inside the law -now-a-days.”</p> -<p>“Ye’re right!” exclaimed old Gaspard Javet. “I ain’t speared a salmon in -thirty years—but I reckon I’ve done worse.”</p> -<p>“So here I am—with a frying-pan and an old quilt,” said Akerley.</p> -<p>“Thar’s grub enough fer ye here, an’ work too,” said Gaspard. “Grub an’ -work, an’ blankets to sleep in—which is enough fer any sensible man. -Ye’re welcome to all three fer as long as it suits ye, fer I like yer -looks.”</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chVI' title='VI: Mick Otter, Injun'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER VI</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>MICK OTTER, INJUN</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>The newspapers had a great deal to say about the extraordinary behavior -and mysterious disappearance of Major T. V. Akerley, M. C., of the Royal -Air Force. Why had he hit Lieutenant-Colonel E. F. Nasher on the point -of the chin? That was the question; and no one seemed to be so ignorant -of the answer as Colonel Nasher himself. Many young men who possessed -pens of ready writers (more or less) and little else dealt lengthily -with the problem.</p> -<p>The Press soon came to the conclusion that the major had hit the colonel -out of pure cussedness—that a young and distinguished officer had -committed assault and battery; insubordination with violence; behavior -unbecoming an officer and a gentleman; and desertion coupled with theft -of Government property, all in an outburst of causeless and unreasoning -temper.</p> -<p>Then military men, demobilized and otherwise, of various arms of the -Service and various ranks, began dipping unaccustomed pens on the -vanished Akerley’s behalf. One wrote, “I was Major Akerley’s groom when -he was a cavalry lieutenant. He was the quietest officer I ever knew. -Some of our officers ...; but that Mr. Akerley didn’t even get mad, so’s -you’d notice when his batman burnt his boots he’d paid seven guineas for -in London. I guess Major Akerley had a reason for doing what he did.”</p> -<p>Many other warriors wrote in the same vein, among them a retired -major-general. Much was written of Akerley’s reserve of manner, devotion -to duty, skill as an airman and cool courage as a fighter. All these -champions had known Akerley in France, of course; and all denied any -personal knowledge of Colonel Nasher, whose military activities had not -carried him beyond Ottawa.</p> -<p>The result of all this literary effort on the part of the veterans was a -very general sympathy, strong and wide-spread, for the run-away Ace—but -as neither newspapers nor the faintest echoes of public opinion reach -Gaspard’s clearings, Akerley knew nothing of it. The civil and military -police continued to scratch their heads, and run finger-tips (not -entirely free from splinters) across and around maps of the world, and -submit reports to their respective headquarters through the proper -channels, with a view to the disciplining and undoing of Major Akerley -and the recovery of the aëroplane.</p> -<p>Tom Akerley, known to old Gaspard as Tom Anderson, lived his new life -from day to day and tried not to worry. His shoulder mended rapidly, and -he worked about the farm with a will. He spent much of his time in -Gaspard’s company, working in the crops, mending fences and clearing -stones from the fields; and the fact that the old man’s rifle always lay -or stood near at hand at once amused and irritated him.</p> -<p>Gaspard continued to cling to his belief that he had been visited by a -devil, a fiend of darkness out of the night, and that the visitor was -still somewhere in the vicinity; and sometimes Tom joined him on these -fruitless hunts for the intruder through the surrounding forests. On -these occasions, Tom was armed with a muzzle-loading, double-barrelled -gun, the left barrel rammed with a bullet and the right with duck-shot.</p> -<p>“Would you know him if you saw him?” asked Tom during one of these -expeditions, as they rested after a stumbling struggle through an alder -swamp.</p> -<p>“He’d be discovered to me quick as the flash of an eye,” replied the old -man. “Fer years have I bin expectin’ him, in punishment for the reckless -ways o’ my youth; an’ I’ll know ’im when I set eyes on ’im, ye kin lay -to that!”</p> -<p>“And then what will you do?” asked Tom.</p> -<p>“Pump it to ’im! Pump it into ’im!” exclaimed the old man, heartily; and -he illustrated his pleasant intention by crooking and wiggling the -trigger-finger of his right hand.</p> -<p>Even the knowledge of the fact that the cartridges in the rifle were -harmless failed to put Tom entirely at his ease.</p> -<p>Tom enjoyed the evenings and rainy days. Then he read or played chess -with Catherine or listened to Gaspard’s stories of the past. The old man -told some stirring tales of his physical prowess; and always at the -conclusion of such narratives he would say, in a fallen voice, “Vanity, -vanity, all sich things is vanity.”</p> -<p>The grass ripened for the scythe; and Tom drew Gaspard’s attention to -the fact.</p> -<p>“Mick would feel reel put out if we started hayin’ before he got here,” -said Gaspard. “He ain’t missed a hayin’ in twenty year, Mick Otter -ain’t.”</p> -<p>“Where does he live?” asked Tom.</p> -<p>“Everywheres,” replied the old man. “Mostly crost the height-o’-land, I -reckon. He can’t keep still fer long, that Injun. Soon as the ice busts -up he’s off, runnin’ the woods till the grass is ripe. He lights out -agin after harvest, an’ lives on the gun till the snow lays a foot deep -over these clearin’s. He’ll be here inside the week, to mow the first -swath—onless somethin’s happened to ’im.”</p> -<p>They took down the scythes next morning, and Tom turned the grindstone -while Gaspard ground the long blades. They were intent on their task in -the sunshine when a shadow fell suddenly upon the stone. Tom glanced up -and saw a squat figure standing within a few feet of him. He ceased to -turn the stone and straightened his back. Old Gaspard poured water from -a rusty tin along the edge of the blade, tested its keenness with a -thumb and said, “How do, Mick.”</p> -<p>“How do,” replied the old Maliseet. “You start hayin’, what?”</p> -<p>“Reckoned ye’d be along in time to cut the first swath,” returned -Gaspard.</p> -<p>Mick Otter nodded his head and looked at Tom. His eyes were round and -dark and very bright. He stared unwinking for several seconds, then -turned again to Gaspard.</p> -<p>“You got young man for Catherine, what?” he said.</p> -<p>Gaspard smiled.</p> -<p>“That’s as may be,” he replied. “Ask Catherine herself, if ye wanter -know. Howsumever, this here’s Tom Anderson, from ’way over on the upper -St. John. He speared a salmon an’ the wardens chased ’im out.”</p> -<p>“That so?” said Mick Otter. “Chase ’im quite a ways, what?”</p> -<p>Tom laughed goodnaturedly.</p> -<p>The three went into the house, where Catherine welcomed Mick Otter -cordially and produced a second breakfast. The Maliseet ate swiftly, -heartily and in silence, nodding or shaking his head now and then in -answer to a question. Then the three men returned to the scythes and the -grindstone. Fifteen minutes later they were mowing in the oldest and -ripest meadow. Mick Otter led along the edge of the field; old Gaspard -followed and Tom brought up the rear. Tom had learned to swing a scythe -when a small boy. Like swimming and milking, it is a knack not easily -forgotten. Catherine came out and sat on the fence. Mick Otter left his -place and walked over to her, wiped his long blade with a handful of -grass and then played on it with his ringing scythe-stone. Returning the -stone to his hip-pocket, he said, “How that young feller come here, -anyhow?”</p> -<p>“Why, how would he come?” returned the girl, “not in a canoe, that’s -certain; and he didn’t bring a horse.”</p> -<p>“Maybe he walk here, hey?”</p> -<p>“That seems reasonable, Mick.”</p> -<p>“An’ maybe he don’t walk, what?”</p> -<p>Catherine glanced over to assure herself that her grandfather was out of -ear-shot, then descended from her perch on the top rail and stepped -close to the old Maliseet.</p> -<p>“What do you mean, Mick Otter?” she asked in a whisper.</p> -<p>“That young feller no guide nor lumberman,” said Mick. “Big man, him. -See his picter in the paper, all dress up like soldier.”</p> -<p>While he spoke his round, bright eyes searched her eyes.</p> -<p>“Keep quiet,” she whispered. “Grandad doesn’t know—nobody knows. I’ll -tell you first chance I get. You are my friend, Mick. You’ll keep quiet, -won’t you? Grandad thinks it was a devil—and he is always hunting around -with his rifle.”</p> -<p>“That a’ right,” said the Indian; and he returned to his work.</p> -<p>Catherine soon found an opportunity for speech with Akerley. She told -him of her conversation with Mick Otter.</p> -<p>“I am not afraid of him,” she continued. “He is kind and sane: He will -keep your secret, if we are perfectly frank with him. I am afraid of the -newspapers. A mail comes in once a fortnight to Millbrow, and that is -only ten miles below Boiling Pot; and perhaps Ned Tone has already seen -a paper with your photograph and story in it.”</p> -<p>Tom’s face paled for an instant.</p> -<p>“Please don’t think that I am afraid of Ned Tone,” he said. “I am only -afraid of being driven away from here. But perhaps there is no real -danger of it. That fellow’s eyes may not be as sharp as Mick Otter’s. If -the old Indian is to be trusted I’ll just carry on and let Ned Tone make -the next move; but I think he would have been nosing around before this, -if he had recognized my phiz in a newspaper.”</p> -<p>“But he does not know you are here,” said the girl. “He has every reason -to believe that you are lost in the woods, wandering about eating wild -berries—or dead.”</p> -<p>When old Mick Otter heard Tom Akerley’s story from Catherine, he -permitted himself the faintest flicker of a smile. The thing that -tickled his sense of humor was the position of his old friend Gaspard -Javet.</p> -<p>“Gaspar’ he hate devil darn bad an’ like Tom darn well, what?” he -remarked. “We bes’ fix them catridges again before Gaspar’ shoot at deer -or bobcat, or maybe he smell somethin’, hey?”</p> -<p>“But what shall we do if Ned Tone sees a newspaper and suspects the -truth about Tom?” asked Catherine.</p> -<p>“How you know that until he come, hey? He don’t git no newspaper, maybe, -down to B’ilin’ Pot. We watch out sharp, anyhow; an’ if Ned Tone make -the move, me an’ Tom take to the big woods; an’ nobody find ’im then, -you bet. Ned Tone got nothin’ in his skull ’cept some muscle off his -neck.”</p> -<p>With this the girl had to be satisfied, but she believed that both Tom -and the old Maliseet under-rated Ned Tone’s cunning and the possible -danger which he represented.</p> -<p>The weather held fine and the hay-making went briskly on day by day; and -in odd half-hours, usually late at night, Mick and Tom worked at -replacing the explosive charges in Gaspard’s cartridges. Catherine -helped in this, by carrying and returning, as she had helped Tom in the -work of withdrawing the same charges of cordite. She and Tom felt no -fear now of the old man’s recognizing Tom as the being that had swooped -down from the sky; and Tom felt so sure now of Gaspard’s friendship and -sanity that, but for the girl, he would have confessed the facts of the -case to him. She would not hear of this, however.</p> -<p>“You don’t know him as well as I do,” she argued. “He is a dear, kind -old man—but he is quite mad on that one subject of a visit from a devil. -But, of course, if you want to be shot dead, if you are tired of life in -this dull place, tell Grandad.”</p> -<p>“Then I’ll not tell him—for I was never more interested in life than I -am now,” said Tom, gravely.</p> -<p>Soon all the grass was cut, cured and housed, except that in the “new -clearin’.” This piece of land was actually four, five and six years old -as a clearing. Though not more than four acres in extent it represented -three seasons’ brushing and burning. Old Gaspard Javet had cleared every -rod of it single-handed. Each spring, as soon as the ground was dry, he -had set to work, cutting out the brush and smaller growth at the roots -but leaving waist-high stumps in the felling of the larger timber. Then, -having trimmed and twitched out the stuff for fence-rails and firewood, -he had piled the brush and branches and set fire to them, piled them -again and burned them again, then scattered his oats and grass-seed and -harrowed them into the ashes among the scorched stumps. Thus he had -taken a crop of grain, or a crop of fodder if the frosts fell early, -from each patch of new land in the first year, and harvests of hay in -the following years. Now the whole clearing stood thick with long spears -of timothy grass that topped the gray and black stumps.</p> -<p>The new clearing lay north of the older fields and was separated from -them by a belt of woods several hundred yards wide.</p> -<p>Tom cut into the ripe timothy early one morning, while Gaspard Javet and -Mick Otter were still engaged in an argument concerning the relative -merits of several methods of trapping mink. He cut along the northern -edge of the field—a wavering swath, owing to obtrusive stumps. He was -about to return to the starting-point when the excited barking of -Blackie, the little dog of obscure antecedents, attracted his attention. -There was a serious, threatening note in Blackie’s outcry that was new -to it—a tone that Tom had never heard when chipmunks, or even -porcupines, were the cause of the excitement.</p> -<p>“He has found something interesting,” said Tom, and he immediately -balanced the scythe on the top of a stump, vaulted the brush-fence and -made for the sound through the thick undergrowth of young spruces. The -dog continued to bark; and suddenly Tom realized that he was moving to -the right in full cry. So he quickened his own pace and shouted to the -dog as he ran. Then he heard the crashing of a heavy body through the -thickets, receding swiftly; and Blackie’s angry yelps, also receding, -took on a breathless note. He ran at top speed for several hundred -yards, avoiding the trunks of trees but setting his feet down blindly, -until a sprawled root tripped him and laid him flat on the moss. He sat -up as soon as he had recovered his breath.</p> -<p>“It didn’t sound like a deer,” he reflected. “It wasn’t jumping. The pup -doesn’t pay any attention to deer. It may have been a bear or a -moose—though I can’t quite imagine either of them running away from that -pup.”</p> -<p>He got to his feet and spent a few minutes in searching around for -tracks in the moss. Though rain had fallen during the night, he failed -to discover any marks of hoof or claw. So he returned to the clearing; -and there he found Gaspard and Mick.</p> -<p>“What you bin chasin’, hey?” asked the Maliseet.</p> -<p>Tom told them. Mick immediately discarded his scythe and scrambled -through the fence. Old Gaspard Javet grinned and stroked his white -whiskers.</p> -<p>“There goes that durned Injun, fer a run in the woods,” he said, with an -expression of face and voice as if he were speaking of a beloved infant. -“He’s the everlastin’est wild-goose chaser I ever see. He’d foller a -shadder, Mick would—aye, foller its tracks, an’ overhaul it, too—an’ -maybe try to skin it. But he’s more for the chase nor the kill, Mick -is—more for the hunt nor the skin. He’s what Cathie’s pa uster call a -good sportsman, I reckon—that gad-about old Injun.”</p> -<p>Then he swung his scythe with a dry swish through the stems of tall -timothy and a thousand purple-powdered heads bowed down before him.</p> -<p>Gaspard and Tom moved steadily among the stumps for about half an hour; -and then Mick Otter scrambled back through the fence with the little dog -panting at his heels.</p> -<p>“That b’ar got boots on, anyhow,” said Mick.</p> -<p>“Boots, d’ye say?” exclaimed Gaspard. “Boots!—an’ spyin’ ’round like a -wild critter instead of walkin’ up to the house an’ namin’ his business -like a Christian. I reckon I best take a look at him an’ his boots.”</p> -<p>He laid aside the scythe and took up his ever-handy rifle.</p> -<p>“You think him devil, what?” said Mick.</p> -<p>“Ye can’t never tell,” returned Gaspard, climbing the barrier of brush -that shut the forest from the clearing.</p> -<p>Mick Otter and the little dog followed. Tom checked his own impulse to -go rambling in the cool woods, filled and lit his pipe and returned to -the mowing. He had not gone half the length of the field before -Catherine came running to him, straight through the standing crop.</p> -<p>“Ned Tone is at the house,” she said, breathlessly; and then, “Where are -the others?” she asked.</p> -<p>Tom told her of the morning’s excitement.</p> -<p>“That was Ned Tone,” she said. “He had been running, I know. You didn’t -see him; and I am sure he didn’t see you, by the questions he asked. But -he wouldn’t have come spying like that if he didn’t think there was a -chance of your being here.”</p> -<p>“Do you suppose he has seen a paper and suspects something?” asked Tom.</p> -<p>“I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything in his manner to suggest it. He -was just as he always is—except that he asked if I had seen anything of -a stranger recently.”</p> -<p>“Where is he now?”</p> -<p>“Sitting on the porch. I told him to wait there—that I would soon be -back.”</p> -<p>“And he didn’t wait!” exclaimed Tom. “He came sneaking after you.”</p> -<p>He stepped past the girl and ran forward through the tall grass.</p> -<p>“I see you,” he shouted as he ran. “What are you prying ’round here for? -Stand up and show yourself.”</p> -<p>Ned Tone advanced reluctantly from the belt of forest that separated the -old clearings from the new, with an air of embarrassment and anger. Tom -walked aggressively up to him, halting within a yard of him. They were -in plain sight of Catherine.</p> -<p>“So it’s you!” exclaimed Tom. “Were you looking for me?”</p> -<p>“Nope, I wasn’t,” said Tone. “Who be ye, anyhow?”</p> -<p>“I’m the man who didn’t take the track to the left, as you know very -well,” replied Tom, smiling dangerously. “Your face looks better than it -did when I last saw you. Your lip has healed quite nicely.”</p> -<p>“’S that so! Mind yer own business, will ye? Have I got to ask yer leave -to come to Gaspard Javet’s clearin’s?”</p> -<p>“Certainly not—but I thought you didn’t know the way. You told me that -Gaspard’s place lay to the west. What were you spying ’round here for, -half an hour ago?”</p> -<p>Tom jerked a thumb toward the northern edge of the field.</p> -<p>“What of it?” retorted the other. “I go where I choose. I was here afore -ye ever come an’ I’ll be here still, after ye’re gone. I don’t step -outer my tracks fer every tramp an’ thief that runs the woods. Don’t -think ye own this country jist because the game-wardens chased ye away -from where ye belong.”</p> -<p>“What do you know about the game-wardens?” asked Tom, in surprise, -wondering where the fellow had heard the yarn which he had been forced -to tell to old Gaspard Javet.</p> -<p>“I ain’t a fool,” returned Ned Tone, with a knowing leer. “What else -would ye’ve come into this country for? But if ye don’t clear out, I’ll -put old Gaspard wise to ye; an’ he’ll run ye outer these woods.”</p> -<p>Tom laughed cheerfully; and Catherine heard it and caught the note of -relief in it.</p> -<p>“Gaspard is hunting you with his rifle this very minute,” he said. “He -and Mick Otter are on your tracks.”</p> -<p>“Huntin’ me!” exclaimed Tone. “Me an’ this family is old friends.”</p> -<p>Catherine MacKim joined them at that moment.</p> -<p>“You are not a friend of ours, Ned Tone,” she said, looking him straight -in the eyes. “Grandad and I don’t have cowards and liars for friends.”</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chVII' title='VII: Taking to the Trail'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER VII</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>TAKING TO THE TRAIL</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>Ned Tone flinched and reddened at the insult.</p> -<p>“That ain’t no way to talk to me!” he cried. “You wouldn’t dare say it -if ye was a man.”</p> -<p>“Yes, I would. You showed yourself in your true colors when you -misdirected this stranger. That was the lowest, meanest trick ever -played in these woods by white man or Indian.”</p> -<p>“’S that so. Maybe <i>he’s</i> the liar. Who is he, anyhow, an’ what’s he -hidin’ ’round here for? Where’d he come from? He’s a slick talker; an’ I -reckon that’s all ye know about him, Catherine MacKim.”</p> -<p>“We’ll just step back into the woods, you and I, out of the lady’s sight -and hearing, if she’ll excuse us for a few minutes,” said Tom, in a -quiet voice.</p> -<p>“Not me,” replied the big woodsman. “I got nothin’ to say to ye in -private. If ye’re lookin’ fer a fight ye’re lookin’ up the wrong tree, I -wouldn’t dirty my hands on ye.”</p> -<p>“Again, you mean.”</p> -<p>“So ye’ve bin braggin’ about that, have ye?”</p> -<p>“Well, it was something to brag about, don’t you think so?—to beat up -the heaviest hitter on Indian River? Gaspard Javet wouldn’t believe it -possible until he saw you—and you told him you’d had a scrap with a -bear.”</p> -<p>“It ain’t true,” snarled Tone. “It’s all lies. My word’s as good as -yourn—an’ better. I won’t fight, anyhow.”</p> -<p>“In that case, please go away from here immediately!” exclaimed -Catherine.</p> -<p>Her voice shook and her face was pale with anger and scorn.</p> -<p>“D’ye mean that?” cried Tone. “Order me off like a dog, without bite or -sup, because I won’t fight with this here tramp? An’ me a neighbor from -B’ilin’ Pot! Treat me worse’n ye’d treat a drunk Injun! That ain’t the -way we do things in this country, Catherine MacKim. We don’t turn agin -our neighbors jist to please slick-spoken hoboes a-sneakin’ ’round -tryin’ to shake the game-wardens. Like enough there’s more nor -game-wardens after this smart Alec—the police theirselves, like as not.”</p> -<p>“I wonder why you stand there talking when no one wants to listen to -you,” said the girl.</p> -<p>Tone received those quiet words as if he had been struck in the face. He -had been amazed and angered before—but the amazement and anger which he -now felt were beyond anything of the sort he had ever known or even -imagined. His eyes darkened with the dangerous shadows of outraged -vanity and goaded fury. So he stared at her for a few seconds; and then, -quick as a flash, he turned and flung himself upon Tom Akerley.</p> -<p>Tom, who had not seen the change in the other’s eyes, was not ready for -the onslaught. Over he went, flat on his back in the long grass, with -the big bushwhacker on top of him; and so he lay—for a fraction of a -second.</p> -<p>Ned Tone’s fingers were on Tom’s windpipe, and one of his knees was on -the chest and the other in the pit of the stomach of the prostrate one, -when Tom suddenly turned over on his face and humped himself like a -camel. Tone felt a grip as of iron on both wrists, a cracking strain on -the muscles of his arms and shoulders, and then a sense of general -upheaval. His feet described an arc in the air and he struck the ground -full-length with jarring force.</p> -<p>Tone got up slowly and saw Tom standing beside Catherine.</p> -<p>“You don’t know any more about wrestling than you do about boxing,” said -Tom, pleasantly. “But even if you were trained you wouldn’t be much -good, for all your weight and muscle—because you haven’t any spirit, any -grit.”</p> -<p>Tone turned without a word and started slowly for the road that cut -through the belt of forest and connected the new clearing with the older -fields. The others followed him, Tom smiling and the girl still pale -with indignation and scorn. Tone did not look around. As he passed close -to the house, on his way to the road that led afar through the -wilderness to Boiling Pot, Tom overtook him and suggested that he should -rest awhile and have something to eat. Tone’s reply to the offer of -hospitality would scorch the paper if written down. So Tom let him go. -Tone turned at the edge of the woods and shook his fist.</p> -<p>Tom turned to Catherine, who had come up and halted beside him, and -said, “He is so futile that I feel sorry for him.”</p> -<p>“He would be dangerous if he knew—but it is quite evident that he -doesn’t know,” she said. “But he’ll do you some injury if he possibly -can. I think he hates you. I am afraid I would not have let him off so -easily if I had been in your place to-day, after that treacherous -attack.”</p> -<p>“He doesn’t seem to like me, that’s a fact,” returned Tom, with a quiet -smile. “I suppose it is natural that he should feel that way about me, -for several reasons; and I am not sorry.”</p> -<p>Catherine glanced at him quickly, and the color was back in her cheeks.</p> -<p>“You are wonderfully good-natured,” she said, “and you seem to have a -marvelous control of your temper. I can’t understand your striking that -colonel.”</p> -<p>“My nerves are better than they were then,” he replied. “But even -now—well, when it comes to a fellow like that saying that your dead -friend was a coward!—but he was fat and out of condition, and I -shouldn’t have hit him on the chin.”</p> -<p>“I am not finding fault with you for that,” she said. “Far from it.”</p> -<p>She entered the house, and Tom returned to his mowing in the new -clearing. As he took up his scythe he muttered, “I wonder what’s going -to happen to me here—and when?”</p> -<p>Gaspard and Mick Otter were late for dinner, but they found Catherine -and Tom waiting at the table for them. After hearing all about Ned -Tone’s visit, Gaspard used threatening language. Mick Otter plied his -knife with a preoccupied air.</p> -<p>“You don’t like him, hey?” he queried, looking at Gaspard.</p> -<p>“No, or never did, durn his hide!” exclaimed the other.</p> -<p>“Guess he feels sore,” said the Maliseet, looking reflectively at -Catherine. “You like ’im one time maybe, hey Cathie?”</p> -<p>“Never!” cried the girl. “I never liked him!”</p> -<p>Mick wagged his head and glanced at Tom.</p> -<p>“You best watch out or maybe he shoot you from b’ind a tree one day,” he -said.</p> -<p>The hay was all cut and gathered in; the oats and buckwheat were -harvested; the potatoes were dug and stored; and still old Mick Otter -stuck to the clearings and the hard work, and in all that time nothing -more was seen or heard of Ned Tone from Boiling Pot. Gaspard Javet -continued to keep his rifle handy, but whether in readiness for a snap -at the fiendish visitor or at the heaviest hitter on Indian River the -others were not sure.</p> -<p>Mid-September came, with nights of white frost, mornings of gold and -silver magic, and noons of sunshine faintly fragrant with scents of -balsamy purple cones and frost-nipped berries and withering ferns. Red -and yellow leaves fell circling in windless coverts; and cock -partridges, with trailing wings and out-fanned tails, mounted on -prostrate trunks of old gray pines, filled the afternoons with their -hollow drumming. Then a change came over Mick Otter. His interest in -agricultural pursuits suddenly expired. Fat pigs, well-fed cattle, full -barns and his comfortable bed suddenly lost all meaning for him. He -sniffed the air; and his eyes were always lifting from his work to the -hazy edges of the forest. Even the virtues of Catherine’s cooking -suddenly seemed a small and unimportant matter to him.</p> -<p>One evening at supper he said, “Set little line o’ traps ’round Pappoose -Lake maybe. Plenty musquash, some fox, some mink, maybe. You don’t trap -that country long time now, hey?”</p> -<p>“Ain’t trapped it these five years,” replied Gaspard. “I’d help ye set -the line but I be afeared o’ rheumatics—an’ I gotter watch out ’round -these here clearin’s.”</p> -<p>“You come, hey?” queried Mick, turning to Tom. “Git plenty fur, plenty -money, plenty sport.”</p> -<p>“Where is it?” asked Tom, without enthusiasm.</p> -<p>“Five-six mile,” replied Mick. “You come back when you like to see -Gaspar’, what?”</p> -<p>Tom reflected that money might be useful in the future, although he had -lived through these last three months without a cent. He could see no -likelihood of ever being able to touch the few hundreds of dollars to -his credit in the bank, in the distant world from which he had fled. -Yes, he might need money some day; and furs of almost every variety -brought a high price now, he had heard. So why not join Mick Otter in -this venture? If their activities took them no farther afield than -Pappoose Lake he would be able to visit the clearing twice or thrice a -week—and oftener, with luck. He glanced covertly at Catherine.</p> -<p>Catherine had been watching him; and the moment their eyes met, she -nodded slightly and smiled.</p> -<p>“That a’ right!” exclaimed Mick Otter, whose sharp eyes and active wits -had missed nothing.</p> -<p>“Yes, I’ll go with you,” said Tom, with an embarrassed grin. “But I warn -you that I don’t know anything about trapping fur.”</p> -<p>“That a’ right,” returned the Maliseet. “Mick Otter got the brain for -the both of us, you got the arm an’ the leg for the hard work. Take -plenty fur, you bet.”</p> -<p>They set out for Pappoose Lake, six miles to the northward, two days -later. They carried blankets, axes, Mick Otter’s rifle, a small bag of -flour, tea, bacon, a kettle, a frying-pan and half a dozen traps. It -took them three hours to get to the lake, for the way was rough and not -straight and their loads were heavy. There Tom rested for half an hour; -and Mick cruised around for a likely site for their camp. Then Tom -returned to the clearings, dined with Gaspard and Catherine, loaded up -with more provisions, four more traps and a tarpaulin, and headed -northward again for Pappoose Lake.</p> -<p>Catherine followed him from the house, and called to him just as he was -climbing the brush-fence at the northern edge of the new clearing. He -turned very willingly and lowered his pack to the ground.</p> -<p>“I have just thought of something,” she said. “Ned Tone is still -dangerous, and we should be ready for him if he comes back. The danger -of his seeing something, or hearing something, to cause him to suspect -your identity, isn’t passed, you know.”</p> -<p>“I know it,” said Tom. “I realize that I am still in danger of -discovery. That is the only thing that worries me now.”</p> -<p>“And if you are found, it will be through Ned Tone,” she said. “You must -be careful. Whenever you come back, take a look at the house before you -show yourself. If there is danger I’ll show something white in my -window.”</p> -<p>“And at night?”</p> -<p>“A candle on my window-sill. But that is not all. If the danger seems -acute, if there is a chance of people searching the woods for you, I’ll -come and warn you.”</p> -<p>“But do you know the way?”</p> -<p>“Yes, I have been to Pappoose Lake.”</p> -<p>Tom thanked her somewhat awkwardly for her thoughtfulness, hoisted his -lumpy pack to his shoulders again and scrambled slowly across the -brush-fence. He turned on the other side.</p> -<p>“Perhaps I’ll be able to tell you—to show you, some day—to prove to -you—what I think of your kindness—and you,” he said.</p> -<p>Then he turned and vanished in the underbrush; and the girl turned and -went back to the house, thoughtful but happy.</p> -<p>Mick Otter and Tom made two camps, one on the western end of Pappoose -Lake and the other seven miles away to the northwest, on Racquet Pond. -The first was nothing more than a lean-to, walled with woven brush and -roofed with the tarpaulin. The second was built of poles chinked with -moss—four walls broken by a doorway and a tiny window-hole. In the -middle of the mossy floor lay a circular hearth of stones; and directly -above the hearth, in the sloping roof of poles and sods, gaped a square -hole.</p> -<p>Mick Otter was proud of the Racquet Pond camp—but Tom didn’t think very -highly of it. Having completed the camps to the old Maliseet’s entire -satisfaction, they set the lines of traps—five traps in the vicinity of -Pappoose Lake and five around Racquet Pond. For three weeks they made -the lean-to their headquarters; and in that time Tom made half a dozen -visits to Gaspard Javet’s farm; finding that everything was right there -and that nothing more had been seen or heard of Ned Tone.</p> -<p>The last week of October was one of miserable weather. A heavy frost had -frozen the swamps and driven the woodcock south; and this was followed -by days of chilly rain—rain so exceedingly chilly that it sometimes fell -in the form of hail. It was in this time of discomfort that Mick Otter -suggested the removal of headquarters to Racquet Pond. He said, very -truthfully, that the farther camp was warmer and drier than the lean-to -and that the farther line of traps had already beaten the Pappoose line -by three mink and a fox.</p> -<p>“Do pretty good with ten traps on Racquet,” he said.</p> -<p>“Take the traps, if you want to,” replied Tom, “but I stay right here -until something happens.”</p> -<p>So Mick moved alone, taking his blankets, the kettle and frying-pan, -some of the grub and two traps along with him. Bad as the weather was, -Tom immediately set out for the clearings, to borrow another pan and -another kettle. He spent a very pleasant evening with Catherine and her -grandfather.</p> -<p>Tom was to recall that happy and comfortable evening often before -spring. Catherine was as frankly friendly as ever—but the old man’s -attitude toward him was not quite as usual. It was as friendly as ever, -but different. Tom caught the old man gazing at him several times with -an expression of new interest, curiosity and wonder in his searching -eyes.</p> -<p>“You aren’t saying much to-night,” remarked Tom, after his host had sat -silent for nearly an hour and two games of chess had been played.</p> -<p>“An’ thinkin’ all the more, lad,” replied Gaspard, pleasantly.</p> -<p>“But what about, Grandad?” asked Catherine.</p> -<p>“One thing an’ another, one thing an’ another—but mostly about human -vanity an’ ignorance an’ the hand o’ Providence,” answered Gaspard.</p> -<p>The young people let it go at that. They smiled at each other across the -corner of the table and set up the chessmen again. The subjects of human -vanity and ignorance did not touch their imaginations, and they were -well content with the workings of the hand of Providence.</p> -<p>Tom left the house after breakfast, with a light pack on his shoulder. -His heart was light, too, though the sky was gray and a cold and gusty -wind blew smothers of icy rain across the clearings. Upon reaching camp -he immediately built up the fire, which lay full length across the front -of the lean-to, dried himself thoroughly and smoked a pipe. The heat and -cheery light beat into the shelter, thrown forward by mighty back-logs. -Hail-stones rattled in the trees, hopped on the frozen moss and hissed -in the hot caverns of the fire. A big, smoke-blue moose bird or “whiskey -jack” fluttered about the camp, harsh of voice, confiding, and possessed -of curiosity in that extreme degree that is said to have killed a cat.</p> -<p>Tom felt happy in the present moment and situation. He even felt that -his happiness might well be established here for a lifetime, if only the -great world, from which he had parted so violently and suddenly, would -continue to leave him in peace. He was glad that he had not followed -Mick Otter and the lure of peltries seven miles farther afield. He felt -that the distance of six miles was quite far enough for any sane person -to be separated from Gaspard Javet’s clearings.</p> -<p>He dined at mid-day on tea and bacon and Catherine’s bread and -Catherine’s home-made strawberry jam. He fed the attentive moose bird -with rinds of bacon and bits of bread soaked succulently in hot fat. The -rain and hail ceased early in the afternoon. He left the shelter and -worked his ax for an hour, felling and trimming selected trees for fuel. -The moose bird kept him company, flitting about him and attending upon -every stroke of the ax as if expecting it to produce bacon rinds, -instead of chips. Then he inspected the three traps that Mick had left -with him. They were empty—but their condition did not chill his sense of -contentment in the least.</p> -<p>Soon after supper he heaped the long fire high with green logs and -rolled himself in his blankets. The night was frosty, but the gusty wind -had gone down with the sun; and the fire-lit shelter seemed an -exceedingly comfortable and secure retreat to him. To fully appreciate -comfort, one must be within arm’s-length of discomfort or but recently -emerged from it. Thousands of persons in steam-heated places with -electric bells and janitors do not know what they are enjoying—or what -they are missing.</p> -<p>Tom was fully conscious of his comfort. He lay for some time with his -eyes half open, gazing up at the flicker of firelight on the poles and -tarpaulin overhead; thinking drowsily of Catherine MacKim, and of -Gaspard with his good heart and extraordinary beliefs; and of Mick -Otter. He liked Gaspard better than any other elderly person of his -acquaintance, despite the old woodman’s embarrassing ambition to deal -with the supposed devilish powers of the air with a rifle. And he liked -Mick Otter, too. In short, he liked every one he had met in Gaspard’s -clearings except Ned Tone. It was really wonderful how full his heart -was of affection and how entirely he seemed to have finished with -worldly ambition. He would make an early start on the morrow for Racquet -Pond, to see how that amusing old Indian was getting along; and he would -visit the clearings again on the day after that, for a game of chess. A -fine game, chess—an old and romantic game—an ancient pastime of kings -and queens. He fell asleep and dreamed of kings and queens in romantic -costumes playing chess with ivory pieces—and all the queens looked like -Catherine MacKim.</p> -<p>Tom was awakened by the clutch of a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t -believe it at first. He tried to sink back, to submerge again, to that -delicious depth of sleep from which the hand had partially raised him. -But the grip of fingers tightened on his shoulders and he became -conscious of an insistent voice in his ear. He opened his eyes and saw -dimly that some one crouched over him. There was no more than a ghost of -light to see by—a pale filter of faint starshine; and there was no glow -from the fire across the open front of the lean-to, for it had fallen to -a bank of ash-filmed embers against the charred back-log.</p> -<p>“What’s the matter, Mick?” he asked, sleepily.</p> -<p>The dim figure drew back and stood upright.</p> -<p>“It isn’t Mick,” said Catherine, in an excited and distressed whisper. -“Ned Tone and another man are at the house—a policeman of some sort—a -detective. They came this afternoon—looking for you, Tom. I got away as -soon as they were asleep, to warn you.”</p> -<p>Tom was sitting up before she got this far with her statement, you may -be sure. He threw aside his blankets, stepped out from the shelter of -the tarpaulin and kicked a little pile of dry spruce branches onto the -coals. Tongues of flame licked up through the brush, crackling sharply; -and in the flickering light he turned to the girl and took her mittened -hands in his bare hands.</p> -<p>“You came alone!” he exclaimed. “Six miles through these woods in the -dark, alone! Cathie, you’re a wonder.”</p> -<p>“That’s nothing,” she said. “I knew the way and I’m not afraid of the -dark. The thing was to get here quickly. You must pack up immediately -and move over to Racquet Pond; and Mick Otter will know where to go from -there. You are lucky to have Mick for a friend.”</p> -<p>“I am lucky in my friends, sure enough,” he replied.</p> -<p>He persuaded her to enter the shelter and rest. He placed more wood on -the fire.</p> -<p>“How did it happen?” he asked. “What did Tone and the other fellow say? -Have they the right dope?—or is Tone just trying to start something on -his own?”</p> -<p>“They know you are Major Akerley—at least, Ned Tone feels sure that you -are. He saw an old newspaper in Millbrow, with your story and photograph -in it—a copy of the same paper that Mick Otter saw, I suppose. Then he -got hold of this detective and brought him in. They reached the -clearings about supper-time. They haven’t told Grandad what they want -you for, so of course he thinks the stranger is a game warden from the -St. John River. Ned Tone showed me the paper and sneered about my new -friend who is wanted by the police—but I laughed at him. His idea is -that you came down somewhere in the woods and that I didn’t know who you -were until he told me—that you had lied to me and fooled me.”</p> -<p>Tom put on his boots and outer coat. He looked at his watch and saw that -it was one o’clock in the morning.</p> -<p>“We had better start,” he said. “You won’t get much sleep, as it is.”</p> -<p>“We?” she queried. “You have to pack and go to Racquet Pond and warn -Mick.”</p> -<p>“I’ll see you safely home first.”</p> -<p>“But there is no time for that, Tom! You are in danger. You must get -away with Mick Otter as soon as possible.”</p> -<p>“I need ammunition for Mick’s rifle, and my leather coat. You must let -me go with you—or I’d worry all the time until I saw you again. We -really do need cartridges, Cathie—and I don’t think a couple of hours -will make any difference. They won’t make a bee-line for Pappoose Lake -in the morning.”</p> -<p>So he saw her home; and on the way they decided on the following plan of -campaign. Tom was to keep far away from Gaspard’s clearings, in such -hidden recesses of the wilderness as seemed best to Mick Otter, for six -full weeks. If he and Mick were still at liberty and unmolested at the -end of that time, Mick was to pay a cautious visit to the camp on -Racquet Pond. There he would find either a blank sheet of writing paper -or a sheet of paper marked with a black cross; and the blank paper would -mean that they might safely return to the clearings, to the best of -Catherine’s belief; and the black cross would mean that the danger was -still imminent. Should Mick find the cross, he and Tom would take to the -trackless wilds again without loss of time and refrain from visiting -Racquet Pond in search of further information until after the middle of -January.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chVIII' title='VIII: Black Forests and Gray Swamps'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER VIII</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>BLACK FORESTS AND GRAY SWAMPS</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>The house in the clearing was dark and quiet as the grave when Catherine -and Tom reached it. Blackie did not bark at them, for he was with them, -shivering cheerfully at Tom’s heels from the combination of loyal -enthusiasm and chilliness. Catherine entered the house, as silent as a -shadow of the night. Tom went to one of the barns and unearthed his -wool-lined leather coat and with it on replaced the patched mackinaw of -Gaspard’s which he had been wearing. He returned to the house just as -Catherine reappeared with twenty-five of her grandfather’s cartridges, -half a dozen cakes of his tobacco and a small bag of flour.</p> -<p>Tom received these things from her hands with mumbled words of thanks. -He behaved so awkwardly that he dropped the tobacco and had to get down -on his hands and knees to recover it.</p> -<p>“Snowshoes and moccasins,” she whispered. “I almost forgot them; and I’m -sure it will snow before morning.”</p> -<p>Again she slipped into the sleeping house; and again she returned, this -time with a pair of cowhide moccasins, an assortment of woolen socks and -two pairs of snowshoes. They retired to a safe distance from the house -and there made everything into a pack of sorts. She helped him lift the -pack to his shoulders and adjust it.</p> -<p>“Now you must go, you must hurry,” she said.</p> -<p>He extended his mittened hands and rested them lightly on her shoulders.</p> -<p>“I’ll go—and I’ll hurry, of course,” he replied, in husky and hurried -tones. “But if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t move an inch—I’d let them -catch me and court-martial me and break me. Hunted by those fellows! A -fugitive! But they’ll forget it some day—and that’s the day I am praying -for—the day when I can tell you what I think of you, Cathie MacKim!”</p> -<p>Next moment she was gone from beneath his extended hands—gone, and -vanished in the gloom toward the blacker gloom of the silent house.</p> -<p>He stood motionless for fully a minute, scarcely breathing, with his -hands still extended. Then his arms sank slowly to his sides and his -breath escaped in a gasping sigh of suggestive astonishment and even -greater emotion. He hitched his pack higher, turned abruptly and headed -northward through the cold and dark. But cold as it was and dark as it -was he felt as warm as toast and stepped out as assuredly as if the sun -were shining.</p> -<p>“By thunder, she kissed me!” he whispered. “Quick as winking—but that is -what it was! They can’t catch me now, the poor Rubes—not in fifty -years!”</p> -<p>He would probably have continued in this high strain for several minutes -had he not strode squarely into the raking barrier of a brush-fence. -After that, he walked with more circumspection; but in spite of a -scratched face and a barked skin he felt at the top of his form.</p> -<p>The snow which Catherine had predicted began to circle down just as Tom -reached his camp on Pappoose Lake. He placed his pack in the lean-to, -fed the fire, and then went out and brought in his three traps. One had -a mink. Returning to the camp he made all his possessions—including the -tarpaulin and the dead mink—into two formidable packs. He shouldered one -of these and started for Racquet Pond.</p> -<p>It was close upon seven o’clock in the morning, and snow was still -falling, when Tom reached the camp on Racquet Pond. He found Mick Otter -up and breakfasting by the light of the fire in the middle of his floor. -He explained the situation without loss of time, in the fewest possible -words.</p> -<p>“Got you,” said the old Maliseet, gulping the last of his mug of tea as -he rose to his feet. “I go. You eat breakfas’, then fetch in two trap by -brook, then pack. Git other five trap sometime maybe. Don’t matter now.”</p> -<p>Tom breakfasted and lit his pipe. He brought in the two nearest traps, -which were empty. The snow continued to circle down through the windless -air. The morning came on grayly, without a gleam of sunshine. He made -another pack of everything that he could find about the camp—pelts dried -and fresh, provisions and blankets and the two traps—and wondered what -was to be done with all this luggage.</p> -<p>It was ten o’clock when Mick Otter appeared, staggering. He dropped his -load, shook and beat the clinging snow from his head and shoulders and -sat down with a grunt in the doorway of the shack.</p> -<p>“You make darn bad pack,” he said.</p> -<p>He pulled the mitten from his right hand, produced a short clay pipe -from somewhere about his person and passed it over his shoulder, without -turning his head.</p> -<p>“You fill a pipe,” he said. “You got dry ’baccy, what?”</p> -<p>He was a generous man, but he always made a point of cadging tobacco.</p> -<p>Tom, who stood behind him, took the pipe, filled it and returned it, -then lit a splinter of wood at the fire and held the flame to the bowl. -Mick puffed strongly.</p> -<p>“That a’ right,” he said. “Chuck fire out now. Smoke smell long ways.”</p> -<p>Tom obeyed, tossing the fire out into the new snow brand by brand.</p> -<p>“Good,” said Mick. “This snow darn good too, you bet. Don’t let up -one-day, maybe. We make toboggan now an’ git out, what.”</p> -<p>“Whatever you say,” replied Tom. “You are in command, so long as we stay -on the ground. But what shall we make the toboggan of, and how long will -the job take us? We are supposed to be in a hurry, I believe.”</p> -<p>Mick got to his feet, ax in hand, and walked to a big spruce that -towered nearby, all of it but the brown base and lower branches lost to -view in the twirling white veils of snow. He hoisted himself to the -lowest branch and lopped it off. Thus he cut six tough, wide branches. -With these, and strips cut from a blanket, he quickly fashioned what he -was pleased to call a toboggan. Upon it he laid all the packs and -fastened them down with the tarpaulin. He rigged strong traces of -blanket to the forward end of the thing.</p> -<p>“Now we pull him,” he said. “Guess he slide pretty good; an’ the snow -fill up his track darn quick.”</p> -<p>They rounded the western end of the pond, dragging their possessions at -their heels. They headed north then, pulling like horses, each with a -rope of blanket over a shoulder and gripped in both hands. The toboggan, -so called, stuck frequently and had to be yanked this way and that and -lifted by the stern. It was hard work and slow progress—but they kept at -it without rest until three o’clock in the afternoon; and the snow -continued to fall thickly and windlessly all that time.</p> -<p>They pulled into a close thicket of young spruces, made a small fire and -boiled snow for tea. After eating a few slices of bread and drinking a -kettleful of tea, they lit their pipes and continued their journey. The -visionless day darkened to black night; and still they toiled forward. -The light, new snow took them to the knees. It was rough going all the -way, with never more than a few yards of level ground at a time—over -blow-downs and hidden hummocks of moss and hidden rocks, and through -tangles of every variety of underbrush. Mick Otter missed his footing -and fell twice and Tom did the same thing four times. Twice one of the -packs worked loose and fell off; and at last the sledge itself fell -apart from sheer wear and tear.</p> -<div id='i174' style='margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:5.0%; width:90%;'> - <img src='images/illus-f174.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -<p class='caption'>“IT WAS HARD WORK AND SLOW PROGRESS.”</p> -</div> -<p>“Guess we go far ’nough to-night,” said the old Maliseet.</p> -<p>They cleared themselves a space in the heart of a clump of cedars and -rigged the tarpaulin for a roof. As the snow was still falling thickly -they permitted themselves a good fire. They took to their blankets and -fell asleep before the bowls of their after-dinner pipes were cold.</p> -<p>When the fugitives awoke just before the first pale shimmer of dawn the -snow had ceased to fall—but it lay all around them almost hip-deep and -clung to the bowed tops and branches of the forest in great masses. They -fried bacon and boiled the kettle at a mere pinch of fire. They -constructed a new and stronger drag for their baggage, changed their -boots for moccasins, donned their snowshoes and pulled out. The east -showed silver, then red, then gold through the snow-burdened towers of -the forest. Presently the sun lifted above the world’s edge, and with it -arose a vigorous wind. Before that wind the light snow went up in -clouds, even in the sheltered woods; and it fell from the shaken trees -in showers and masses.</p> -<p>“Good,” said Mick Otter. “Snow hide our track yesterday, wind hide him -to-day.”</p> -<p>“We seem to be playing in luck,” replied Tom; and then, “Are you heading -for anywhere in particular?” he asked.</p> -<p>“Git to one dam good camp by sundown, maybe,” answered Mick. “Have -buckwheat flapjacks an’ molas’ for supper, maybe.”</p> -<p>“A camp!” exclaimed Tom. “Do you mean a lumber-camp? That would be a -crazy thing to do!”</p> -<p>“Nope, don’t mean lumber-camp. Camp I make long time back. Live in him -three-four week las’ winter.”</p> -<p>An hour later, while crossing a corner of open barren, they were almost -smothered by the drifting snow. And the cold was piercing. Also, the -lightness of the snow made the “going” exceedingly difficult—but this -condition improved as the wind drove it into white headlands and packed -it tight.</p> -<p>Before noon, the backs of Tom’s legs were attacked by snowshoer’s cramp. -It was exactly noon when he relinquished the painful struggle and sat -down with a yelp of pain. Mick Otter saw what the trouble was at a -glance. He made a fire and dragged Tom close to it. Then he produced a -pot of bear’s grease from the luggage, melted a quantity of it and -rubbed it vigorously into the cramped muscles of Tom’s legs. Tom held -his nose.</p> -<p>“If the detective gets a whiff of that he will track us around the -world,” he said, at the conclusion of the operation.</p> -<p>“We don’t go ’round the world, so that a’ right,” replied the Maliseet.</p> -<p>The bear’s grease proved to be as potent as it smelt; and by the time -dinner had been cooked and eaten, Tom’s muscles were free from pain and -comparatively limber. But it was not until a full hour after sunset that -Mick Otter halted and said they had arrived. He let fall his trace and -vanished in a wall of spruces. Tom backed up and reclined on the loaded -drag; and presently he saw the glow of firelight through the heavy -branches and crowded stems of the thicket.</p> -<p>“Come in,” called Mick. “Plenty time unload after supper.”</p> -<p>The camp was one to be proud of. It was at least thirty feet long. In -width it dwindled from about fifteen feet to as many inches, and its -height permitted Tom to stand upright. Its front wall was built of logs -and a part of the roof of poles and brush. The sides and the greater -part of the roof were of rock and earth. It pierced the rugged hill at a -gentle slant. It had been a brush-filled little gully backed by a little -cave inhabited by a large bear, when Mick Otter first found it, many -years ago.</p> -<p>When Tom scrambled through the small doorway, his snowshoes still on his -feet, he found the place full of smoke from the newly lighted fire. The -fire burned in a chimney of mud-plastered stones that went crookedly -upward against one rocky wall and vanished through the roof of poles. -Tom remarked on Mick’s evident appetite for smoke, remembering the camp -on Racquet Pond.</p> -<p>“A’ right pretty soon, you bet,” said Mick. “Coons make nest in the -chimley, maybe, or maybe snow stuff him up. One darn good chimley, -anyhow. He suck up smoke fine most times.”</p> -<p>Snow was the trouble; and at that moment a bushel of it slid down and -extinguished the fire, leaving the owner and his guest in absolute -darkness.</p> -<p>“That a’ right,” said Mick. “Now he suck up smoke fine.”</p> -<p>He quickly cleared the snow and wet faggots from the hearth and laid and -touched a match to dry bark and dry wood. He was right—the smoke went -straight up the chimney in the most knowing manner. He was pleased.</p> -<p>“You don’t find no better chimley nor him in Fredericton nor Noo York -nor Muntree-hall,” he said.</p> -<p>Then, working by the increasing illumination from the hearth, he raised -a square of poles from the floor—a thing that looked more like a -miniature raft than a door—and propped it across the low entrance of the -cave.</p> -<p>“He have two good hinges made of ol’ boot las’ winter, but some darn -b’ar come along an’ bust him in, I guess,” he explained.</p> -<p>“Don’t apologize,” said Tom, kicking off his snowshoes and throwing -aside his fur cap and leather coat. “If I had been the bear I would have -stayed right here till spring, once I had forced the door.”</p> -<p>He sat down on a heap of dry brush close to the fire. Mick went to the -far end of the cave, to investigate the condition of the stores which he -had left there the winter before.</p> -<p>“That b’ar stop plenty long enough!” he exclaimed. “He eat all the prune -an’ all the backum, darn his long snout!”</p> -<p>“Is that so!” cried Tom, now keenly interested. “And what about the -molasses?”</p> -<p>“He don’t git that molas’, no,” replied Mick. “He don’t have no -corkscrew ’long with him that trip, I guess.”</p> -<p>“And the buckwheat meal? How about that?”</p> -<p>“Buckwheat a’ right, too.”</p> -<p>“I’ll fetch the pan and the kettle and the baking powder.”</p> -<p>The supper was a success. The flapjacks, fried in a pan greased with a -rind of bacon and flooded with molasses at the very moment of -consumption, were delicious. Even the two that missed the pan in the act -of turning and flapped into the fire lost nothing in flavor.</p> -<p>After supper they brought in the outfit and spread their blankets to -warm. There was enough dry fuel inside to last for several days. -Outside, the wind continued to blow and the snow to drift before it.</p> -<p>In the morning they found the hingeless door banked high with snow; and -upon pushing their way out they found the trail of their approach -drifted full up to the edge of the dense wood which screened the front -of their retreat. A land of small, heavily wooded hills lay around them. -The sky was clear, a thin wind was still blowing and the air was -bitterly cold. They made their way over the roof of their dwelling and -up the rough slope behind, plunging and squirming through tangles of -brush and snow hip-deep; and, upon reaching the crown of the hill, Tom -climbed into the spire of a tall spruce. From that high perch he could -look abroad for miles in every direction. He looked back over the -country through which they had made the laborious journey, and saw -nothing but black forests and gray swamps; with here and there the pale -trunks of birch trees, and here and there a ridge of high gray maples -and beeches, and patches and strips of gleaming snow everywhere. Nothing -moved but the wind, and thin, sudden clouds of snow that puffed up and -ran and sank before it. No least haze of smoke, no sign of human -habitation or trafficking, tinged the clear air above the forests or -marred the white of the open spaces. He turned his head and searched the -bright horizon all around the world and every square yard of the -landscape within his range of vision. There was no smoke or ghost of -smoke anywhere, nor any break in the timber that looked as if it had -been cut by the hand of man, nor any sign of movement on the patches and -lanes of snow. He descended and reported to Mick Otter.</p> -<p>“That a’ right,” said Mick. “Guess we stop here an’ see what happen, -hey? Don’t make no tracks in front an’ lay low, what?”</p> -<p>“Sounds good to me—but what about our smoke?” asked Tom.</p> -<p>Mick pointed down the southern slope of the hill, where the underbrush -between the boles of the wide-limbed spruces and firs grew thick and -interlaced.</p> -<p>“Darn little smoke git through that,” he said. “Burn dry hard-wood all -day, anyhow—an’ mighty little of him.”</p> -<p>“It seems to me that we might stay here until Tone and the detective -chuck it. If we keep a sharp look-out they won’t catch us in daylight; -and they’ll never find that cave at night. It suits me. I don’t want to -go any farther away than I have to.”</p> -<p>“Maybe—but we stop here only two-three day, to rest up an’ look out. Go -north an’ west then, to place I know where we buy grub—an’ find little -camp of mine pretty near the hull way. Maybe they don’t know nothin’ -’bout you over to Timbertown—so we trap an’ make some money, what?”</p> -<p>“Buy grub? We have enough to last us weeks—and I haven’t a dollar.”</p> -<p>The Maliseet smiled and tapped his chest with a mittened finger.</p> -<p>“Got plenty dollar an’ plenty fur, me, Mick Otter,” he said.</p> -<p>They worked all that day and the next at the construction of a real -toboggan, leaving their work only to eat, and to climb into the top of -their look-out tree once in every couple of hours of daylight. They -failed to discover any sign of pursuit.</p> -<p>This toboggan was made of thin strips of seasoned ash which Mick had -prepared for this very purpose two years ago. These were held in place, -edge to edge, by numerous cross-pieces of the same tough wood; and as -they lacked both nails and screws they had to tie the cross-pieces down -with thongs of leather. They were without a gimlet; they hadn’t even a -small bit of wire to heat and burn holes with; so the numerous holes -through which the thongs of leather were passed had to be bored and cut -with knives—Mick Otter’s sheath-knife and Tom’s pen-knife. The strips of -ash of which the floor of the toboggan was formed were an inch thick. -They bored and they gouged. They raised blisters in unexpected places on -their hard fingers. Tom broke the tips off both blades of his knife. But -they stuck to it and made a good job of it.</p> -<p>They buried half of their wheat flour and a little of their bacon in the -cave, along with the half-full jug of molasses and the tin can of -buckwheat meal, and banked the low door with logs and brush. Then they -dragged their new toboggan up and over the hill and down its northern -slope. The newly-risen sun showed a hazy face above the black hills, and -the light wind that fanned along out of the east had no slash or sting -in it.</p> -<p>“That snow work for us agin, maybe,” said Mick Otter.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chIX' title='IX: Gaspard Understands'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER IX</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>GASPARD UNDERSTANDS</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>Back in Gaspard’s clearings the days had not passed so pleasantly nor so -uneventfully. You may remember Catherine’s parting with Tom in the dark, -outside the big log house, and the effect of her parting action on Tom. -In that case I need only say that she had been almost as keenly and -deeply affected as Tom by her action. Her astonishment had been almost -as great as his—but not quite, of course. She had slipped into the house -again and safely up to her room without disturbing any one of the three -sleepers, and had lain wide awake for hours. At five o’clock she had -heard sounds in the house—the voices of Ned Tone and the detective, then -the voice of her grandfather; then the rattling and banging of the lids -and door of the stove. But she had continued to lie still, denying her -hospitable instincts. She had heard the front door open and shut half an -hour later; and then she had left her bed, gone to her open window and -thrust her hand out between the woolen curtains. She had smiled happily -at the touch of the big snow-flakes on her hand. Then she had dressed -and gone downstairs and found her grandfather seated alone at the -lamp-lit table, feeding scraps of scorched bacon to Blackie.</p> -<p>“I didn’t cook fer ’em nor eat with ’em,” he had said.</p> -<p>Gaspard had worked about the barns all that morning. Ned Tone and the -detective had returned to the house at noon. They had immediately asked -questions: Had the man who called himself Tom Anderson gone away alone? -Did he know these woods? When had they seen him last? Was he alone then? -Had he provisions and a rifle?</p> -<p>Catherine had smiled at these questions and Gaspard had scowled at them. -Neither had made the least pretence of answering them. Then Ned Tone had -blustered and spoken in a large, loose manner of the might of the law; -and old Gaspard Javet had confronted him with bristling eye-brows, -flashing eyes and quivering whiskers and threatened to throw him out of -the house. Then the stranger, the detective, had said, “Don’t lose your -temper and do anything rash, old man. I represent the Law here.”</p> -<p>“Prove it!” Gaspard had retorted.</p> -<p>The other had opened his inner coat and displayed a metal badge. Gaspard -had sneered at that, and had said, “I warn the two of ye right here an’ -now to git out o’ my house an’ off my land. I reckon ye don’t know who I -am, stranger. If I fight my own battles agin the likes of Ned Tone an’ -yerself, it ain’t because I hev to; an’ if I was to do a mite o’ -shootin’ meself it wouldn’t be because I had to. This here Law ye talk -about wasn’t made jist so’s ignorant, no-count lumps like yerself an’ -Ned Tone can clutter up an honest man’s kitchen. Clear out, or there’ll -be some shootin’ now—an’ maybe some law later.”</p> -<p>The man-hunters had gone reluctantly out into the storm and built -themselves a camp half a mile away. They had brought in with them -blankets, and enough provisions to last them ten days, from Boiling Pot.</p> -<p>“Do you think that was wise, Grandad?” Catherine had asked.</p> -<p>“It was right, anyhow,” the old woodsman had replied. “We ain’t hidin’ -Tom. He went off with Mick Otter to trap fur, didn’t he; an’ if they -don’t know Mick’s along with him that’s thar own look-out. If any harm -ever comes to Tom, it won’t be my fault—nor yers either, I reckon.”</p> -<p>For two days after the expulsion of Ned Tone and the detective from the -kitchen, Catherine and Gaspard saw nothing of those unwelcome invaders; -and during that time the old man talked a great deal in a very truculent -manner of what he would do if they crossed his threshold again; and how -he would have handled Ned Tone in his prime; and what would happen to -them if they did catch Tom and Mick Otter; and what in thunder the world -was coming to, anyhow. It was loose and careless talk for so stiff and -elderly a person—but it warmed Catherine’s heart to hear.</p> -<p>On the third day Gaspard left the house immediately after breakfast, -rifle in hand as usual, and did not return until close upon one o’clock. -He stood the rifle in a corner and sat down to his dinner without a -word. He ate in silence, looking at the girl frequently with an -expression of accusing inquiry in his deep-set eyes.</p> -<p>“What is the matter?” she cried, at last. “Why do you look at me like -that, Grandad?”</p> -<p>The old man was evidently embarrassed by the questions. He pushed back -his chair from the table and hooked his pipe from his pocket before -attempting an answer; and even then his answer was a counter-question.</p> -<p>“I wanter know if ye figger as how I be crazy?” he asked.</p> -<p>“Crazy?” said the girl, in her turn embarrassed.</p> -<p>“Yes, crazy,” he replied. “Not ravin’, but queer.”</p> -<p>He tapped his forehead with a long finger, in an explanatory manner, -looking at her keenly but kindly.</p> -<p>“Queer about that thar devil,” he continued. “Kinder cracked about the -devil. That’s how ye figgered it out, I reckon.”</p> -<p>“Yes,” replied Catherine. “You acted very queerly about that, Grandad, -raving around with your rifle.”</p> -<p>Gaspard nodded his head and sighed. Catherine left her seat and went -over and stood beside him, with a hand on his shoulder. She shook him -gently until he looked up at her.</p> -<p>“Do you remember that Tom once tried to tell you that man can fly, and -what you said and how you looked?” she asked.</p> -<p>“I remember,” he said. “I was queer.”</p> -<p>“It was Tom himself who flew down from the sky that night,” she said, -speaking quickly. “You would have shot him if you had found him before I -did. But as soon as he knew you, he wanted to tell you—but I wouldn’t -let him, I honestly thought you would kill him even then, Grandad.”</p> -<p>“Not after I knowed ’im, Cathie. I was queer—but knowin’ that lad, an’ -workin’ longside ’im an’ talkin’ to ’im made me feel happier an’ put the -thoughts o’ that devil outer my head. An’ now the police are huntin’ -that lad—not the game-wardens, but the police!”</p> -<p>“You knew, before I told you, Grandad. You found out about Tom to-day. -Where have you been?”</p> -<p>“I’ve bin studyin’ on it fer quite a spell now; an’ when I was forkin’ -over some hay in the north barn this mornin’ I come on a queer -contraption that kinder put me wise. So I went over to Ned Tone’s camp; -an’ the both of ’em was still settin’ thar eatin’ breakfast. So I sez, -‘All ye lads ’ill ever catch in these woods is a cold’; an’ after a -little chat about the law I sez, ‘Ye seem almighty wrought up about a -salmon. That’ll be an all-fired costly fish by the time ye catch Tom -Anderson, I reckon.’ Then they up an’ told me how Tom’s name is Akerley -an’ how he’s wanted by the police an’ the military for worse things nor -spearin’ a salmon.”</p> -<p>“I’ll tell you all about that, Grandad,” said the girl; and she told -him.</p> -<p>“And it was all my fault that he told you that story about losing his -canoe below Boiling Pot and about spearing salmon—because I told him -that you would shoot him for a devil if he didn’t make up a story—and so -you would have,” she concluded.</p> -<p>“Ye’re right,” said Gaspard, deeply moved. “I was ignorant—but I’ve -larned a lot since Tom come to these clearin’s. How was I to know that -men can fly in the air, like birds—onless Old Nick himself had his -finger in it? But it seems they can; an’ if Tom done it then I ain’t got -nothin’ to say agin it—but it do seem like temptin’ Providence. An’ -soldierin’ in the air! That do seem to me a mite presumptuous—a flyin’ -’round an’ fightin’ in the sky, like the angels o’ the Lord!”</p> -<p>Catherine went up to her room, and returned in a minute with Tom’s -service jacket. She explained the rank badges and the decoration and -medal ribbons to the old man. He recognized the red ribbon of the Legion -of Honor; and he had frequently heard from his son-in-law the story of -how Major MacKim had won that white and gold cross in the Crimea. Then -Catherine told him about the Military Cross, and what the war medals -signified—the ’14-15 Star, the General Service and the Victory.</p> -<p>“Tom fought on the ground before he fought in the air,” she said—“before -he knew how to fly, even. He was a lieutenant in a cavalry regiment that -went over without its horses with the First Canadian Division and fought -in the trenches as infantry—a regiment of Seely’s brigade. When our -cavalry was sent out of the line to get its horses—that was after Currie -had taken command of the division—Tom joined the Flying Corps, because -he thought that the mounted troops wouldn’t get much fighting. That was -in the winter of Nineteen-Fifteen; and since then he flew and fought all -the time, except when he was in hospital, until the end of the war.”</p> -<p>“An’ now this here detective, an’ this here bully from B’ilin’ Pot, -figger on catchin’ him an’ havin’ the law on him—fer hittin’ a fat -feller who named his dead friend, who died fightin’ in France, a -coward!” exclaimed Gaspard, in tones of rage and disgust. “Whar’s the -sense or the jedgment or the decency in that, I’d like to know? An’ him -still jumpy when he done it from flyin’ round an’ round ’way up in the -sky a-shootin’ at them Germans an’ them a-shootin’ at him! Law? Show me -law that ain’t got reason nor decency nor jedgment in it an’ I’m dead -agin it! What does Ned Tone know about shootin’?—’cept shootin’ off his -mouth an’ pluggin’ bullets into moose an’ sich that can’t shoot back? I -don’t know Seeley nor Currie, nor never heared of ’em before, but I know -that lad Tom; an’ ye kin tell me all ye want to about that war, Cathie. -I’d be glad to larn about it, for I reckon I be kinder ignorant an’ -behind the times.”</p> -<p>Catherine told him what she knew of those momentous years and events, -which wasn’t very much. During the war she had seen an occasional -newspaper and magazine, and recently Tom had told her a good deal of -what he had seen. At the conclusion of the talk her grandfather was -deeply moved and torn with regret that he had not trimmed his whiskers -and shouldered his rifle and gone to war; and of two things he was -sure—that the Emperor of Germany had started a terrible thing in a -cowardly and dishonorable way and that Tom Akerley had jumped into it -and stopped it.</p> -<p>“An’ Ned Tone, the heaviest hitter on Injun River, reckoned as how he -could do what that thar Kaiser couldn’t!” he sneered.</p> -<p>When Gaspard went to the camping-place of Tone and the detective next -day, he found the shelter deserted and a trail heading toward Boiling -Pot. Two days later he found a new trail of snowshoes and a toboggan -running northward to the west of his clearings. He returned to the house -and informed Catherine of this: and together they followed it to -Pappoose Lake, where they found Ned Tone and the detective encamped, -with a tent and a fine supply of grub. They went back to the house -without having disclosed themselves to the sleuths. Gaspard set out -before sunrise the next day and found that the man-hunters had again -broken camp and moved on. He followed their tracks five or six miles -beyond the lake before turning back. He was late when he reached the -house, and his ancient muscles were very stiff and sore. But there was -great stuff in Gaspard Javet; so, after a day’s rest and a brief but -violent course of bear’s grease, Minard’s liniment and elbow grease, he -set out again on the trail of the trailers, this time carrying food and -blankets and an ax as well as his rifle. The snow was thoroughly -wind-packed by this time. None had fallen since that first heavy and -prolonged outpouring. He took a straight line to the point at which he -had turned back two days before; and from there he followed a difficult -trail. The erasing wind had been busy. There was no faintest sign of -that trail except where it pierced the heaviest growths of spruce and -fir; and even in such sheltered spots it was drifted to nothing but -occasional white dimples. He lost it entirely before sundown; but he -knew that it passed far beyond, and well to the westward of Racquet -Pond. He struck out for home next morning and accomplished the journey -without accident.</p> -<p>Two weeks passed without sight or sound of Ned Tone and the detective or -any news of the fugitives; and then one gray noon, when snow was -spilling down with blinding profusion, a knock sounded on Gaspard’s door -and Catherine opened to a fur-muffled and snow-draped Ned Tone.</p> -<p>“Stop whar ye be!” cried Gaspard from his seat at the dinner-table. “If -ye cross that threshold I’ll do fer ye. I run ye outer this house once, -an’ that was for keeps.”</p> -<p>Catherine stood aside, leaving the door open.</p> -<p>“Ye’re a hard old man,” said Tone, without moving. “What have I ever -done to ye that ye treat me like this—worse nor a dog? If it wasn’t that -we uster be friends, Gaspard Javet, I’d have the Law on ye for -interferin’ with the course o’ justice.”</p> -<p>“Go ahead,” replied the old man, drily. “It’ll make a grand story to -tell the magistrates down on the main river.”</p> -<p>Tone shuffled his feet uneasily.</p> -<p>“What I come here now for is to tell ye an’ Cathie as how I’ve quit -huntin’ that feller who was here,” he said. “I’ve told the police, that -detective ye seen with me, that I was mistook about that feller.”</p> -<p>“Ye must be reel popular with him,” remarked Gaspard.</p> -<p>“All I want is decent treatment from old friends,” continued the big -young woodsman. “That tramp’s nothin’ to me, whatever he done to git the -police after him—but he ain’t fit company for a girl like Cathie. I’ve -scart him away, an’ I’m ready an’ willin’ to let it rest at that.”</p> -<p>“Whar’s yer friend?” asked Gaspard.</p> -<p>“He’s went on out. I told him I’d made a mistake. He was sore at me, an’ -I had to pay him for his time—but let bygones be bygones, sez I.”</p> -<p>“Ned Tone,” said the old man, slowly and clearly, “ye’re lyin’ quicker’n -a horse can trot right thar whar ye stand. I’d know it even if I didn’t -know yerself, fer it’s in yer eyes. Ye’re lookin’ fer money from the -Gover’ment, an ye’re lookin’ fer vengeance agin a young man whose got -more vartue in his little toe nor ye’ll ever have in yer hull carcass. -Ye fit him fair once, an’ he trimmed ye; then ye tried yer durndest to -send him astray in the woods, without a rifle an’ without grub; an’ then -ye fit him dirty an’ got trimmed agin; an’ now yer huntin’ him with the -help o’ the police. An’ ye know as how he be a better man nor yerself—a -man who sarved his country whilst ye hid under the bed; an ye know that -the thing he done that the law’s huntin’ him for, wouldn’t have been -nothin’ if it wasn’t that he’d sarved his country as a soldier an’ still -wore the uniform. An’ still yer so all-fired scart o’ Tom Akerley that -ye’d jump a foot into the air if ye knowed he was standin’ behind ye -this very minute.”</p> -<p>Ned Tone jumped and turned in a flash. But there was nothing behind him -except the twirling curtains of snow.</p> -<p>“Confound ye!” he cried.</p> -<p>“That’s all I got to say to ye, Ned Tone,” said Gaspard. “Shut the door, -Cathie.”</p> -<p>Cathie shut the door; and Ned Tone went slowly away and rejoined the -detective at the edge of the woods.</p> -<p>“I told them we was gettin’ out,” said Ned.</p> -<p>“Has Akerley been back?” asked the other.</p> -<p>“Guess not. They didn’t say.”</p> -<p>“Well, I got something better to do than spend the winter cruisin’ these -woods for a man you say is Major Akerley. A gent like that one would -head for a big town, as I’ve told you before. If you don’t show me him -or his machine inside the nex’ two weeks I’ll get out in earnest.”</p> -<p>“Keep yer shirt on! It was yer idee chasin’ him, wasn’t it? All we got -to do is hang ’round here, out o’ sight o’ the old man and the girl, -until he comes snoopin’ back.”</p> -<p>“Then he’d better come snoopin’ pretty darned quick or he won’t have the -honor of bein’ arrested by me.”</p> -<p>They moved to a secluded and sheltered spot five miles to the eastward -of the clearings and there went into camp. The snow filled in the tracks -of their snowshoes and toboggan.</p> -<p>In the meantime, Mick Otter and Tom Akerley held on their way -undisturbed, traveling in fair weather and remaining in camp in foul. -Day after day they moved through a wilderness that showed neither smoke -nor track of human occupation, nor any sign of man’s use save occasional -primitive shelters, and small caches of provisions and mixed -possessions, for which Mick Otter was responsible. This was Mick’s own -stamping-ground, his country, the field of his more serious activities -and (apart from what food he ate at Gaspard’s place) the source of his -livelihood. Sometimes a whim drew him to the east or the west or the -south, but this was the area of wilderness that knew him every year and -had paid toll to him in good pelts for many years. He was familiar with -every rise and dip and pond and brook of it; and when on the move he -looked forward from each knoll and hill-top, as he gained it, with the -clear picture already in his mind’s eye of what he was about to see; as -a scholar foretastes familiar pleasures when turning the leaves of a -beloved book.</p> -<p>Of late years, however, Mick’s trapping operations in this wilderness -region of his own had been of a sketchy and indolent nature—had been -just sufficient, in fact, to let other Maliseet trappers know that he -was still in occupation.</p> -<p>He told this to Tom Akerley.</p> -<p>“But why?” asked Tom. “Aren’t furs worth more now then they ever were?”</p> -<p>“You bet,” replied Mick. “Worth four-six time more nor ever before. Sell -red fox two dollar long time ago—fifty year ago, maybe. But I got plenty -money now an’ plenty pelt too. You want some money, hey?”</p> -<p>“I’ll very likely want some, and want it badly, one of these days—if -those fellows don’t catch me,” replied Tom.</p> -<p>“Never catch you on this country long’s Mick Otter don’t die; an’ when -you want money, a’ right.”</p> -<p>“You are very good, Mick.”</p> -<p>“Sure. Good Injun, me.”</p> -<p>They were now far over the height-of-land; far out of the Indian River -country; far down a water-shed that supplied other and greater streams. -Even Mick’s trapping country was left far behind—but still he knew the -ground like a book.</p> -<p>One day, immediately after breakfast, Mick said, “Go down to Timbertown -to-day an’ buy some molas’ an’ pork an’ baccy. Come back to-morrow. You -stop here. Maybe they hear about you.”</p> -<p>“Will you trust me for the price of a razor?” asked Tom.</p> -<p>“Sure. But you don’t shave off them fine whisker till that policeman -quit huntin’ you. What else you want, hey?”</p> -<p>“What about a book for Cathie? But I don’t suppose they sell books in -Timbertown.”</p> -<p>“Good bookstore in that town, you bet. Buy plenty everything there. That -one darn good town. You smoke cigar, maybe.”</p> -<p>“Not a cigar, Mick—but I often wonder if cigarettes still taste as good -as they used to.”</p> -<p>“You like fat cigarette or little thin feller, hey? Doc Smith smoke the -fat feller an’ Doc Willard don’t smoke nothin’ but eat whole lot.”</p> -<p>“Books, cigarettes and two doctors!—it sounds like a city! But still I -haven’t any money.”</p> -<p>“That a’ right. You smoke him fat or thin, hey?”</p> -<p>“What about a little package of fat ones, Santa Claus? And I’ll write -down the name of a few books.”</p> -<p>Mick went away with his rifle on his shoulder and a few slices of bread -and cold pork in his pockets. He arrived home an hour before sundown of -the following day with a pack on his tough old back as big as the hump -on a camel.</p> -<p>“Buy all I kin tote,” he said, as Tom helped him ease the load to the -snow. “Take two-three a’mighty strong feller to tote what I got plenty -’nough money for to buy, you bet.”</p> -<p>They examined the pack after supper, by the light of candles which it -had contained. Here were cakes of tobacco, a small jug of molasses, -bacon, salt pork, a copy of Staunton’s “Chess,” a copy of Stevenson’s -“Black Arrow,” and a well-thumbed romance by Maurice Hewlett named -“Forest Lovers.” Also, here were cigarettes, a razor, a shaving-brush, -sticks and cakes of soap, rifle ammunition and a green and red necktie -of striking design.</p> -<p>“Give him Gaspar’ for Chrismus,” said Mick Otter, holding the tie aloft. -“He shine right through Gaspar’s whiskers, what?”</p> -<p>“You are right—but tell me about this book. Is there a second-hand -book-shop in Timbertown? I didn’t put it on the list, either—but it is a -good story. Where’d you get it?—this old copy of ‘Forest Lovers’?”</p> -<p>“That book? Doc Smith send him for you an’ Cathie.”</p> -<p>“What does he know about Cathie and me? Have you been talking all over -Timbertown about me?”</p> -<p>“Nope. Nobody there know you fly into the woods—but Doc Smith, he know -you fine—so I tell him.”</p> -<p>“He knows me! And you told him where I am hiding! Have you gone mad, -Mick? What’s your game?”</p> -<p>“Doc Smith one darn good feller. You trust him like yer own -trigger-finger, you bet. Good friend to me, Doc Smith—an’ good friend to -you, too. He know you at the war, doctor you one time, some place don’t -know his name, when you have one busted rib.”</p> -<p>“Smith? Not the M. O. with the red head; a jolly chap who sang ‘The -Fiddler’s Wedding’, who hung out just east of Mont St. Eloi in the -spring of ’Seventeen?”</p> -<p>“Sure. He say St. Eloi. He read all about you, but nobody ’round -Timbertown hear ’bout how you hide in these woods. He read how that -feller you hit go live on farm when all the soldier write to the paper -how he ain’t no good an’ you one a’mighty fine fighter; an’ Gover’ment -take your money outer bank an’ say how you still owe him seven thousand -dollar for flyin’ machine.”</p> -<p>“Is that so,” remarked Tom, reflectively. “Seven thousand—and took my -money?”</p> -<p>He lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly, in a silence so vibrant with -deep and keen thought that Mick Otter respected it.</p> -<p>“They’ve got my money,” he said, at last, “and they’ll have the old bus, -too, some day—but they’ll never catch me to hold a court on me. They’ll -never get my decorations!”</p> -<p>“What you mean, bus?” asked the Maliseet.</p> -<p>“The machine. The ’plane. Do you know where I can get oil and petrol? -Are there any gasoline engines in Timbertown?”</p> -<p>“Sure. Doc Smith got one, you bet, for to pump water. He got bath-tub, -too; an’ one little Ford what can jump fence like breachy steer.”</p> -<p>“Then he is the man I must see.”</p> -<p>Tom and Mick left the camp together next day, with an empty toboggan at -their heels. They timed their progress so as not to reach the town -before sunset. They went straight to Doctor Smith’s house and were -fortunate enough to find him at home and about to sit down to his -evening meal with Mrs. Smith, a lady of whose existence Mick Otter had -not informed Tom.</p> -<p>Smith recognized Tom instantly, in spite of the beard, and welcomed him -cordially.</p> -<p>“Dickon, this is Major Akerley, of whom I told you last night,” he said -to his wife; and at the look of consternation on Tom’s face he laughed -reassuringly.</p> -<p>“She is safe, major,” he continued. “She’d never peach on a good -soldier. I first met her under bomb-fire; and she wears the Royal Red -Cross when she’s dressed up.”</p> -<p>Tom talked freely during dinner; and after dinner he made known to the -Smiths his intention of assembling the aëroplane and returning it to the -Government in the spring. He said that he should require petrol and oil -and certain tools.</p> -<p>“Guess I can fit you out,” said the doctor; “but I advise you not to fly -up to the front door of Militia Headquarters and send your card in to -the Inspector General. Even those who don’t know why you hit Nasher -think that you did a good thing—but for all that, there’s the old mill -waiting to grind you. Keep away from it, major. Don’t force it to do its -duty.”</p> -<p>“You are right,” returned Tom. “If I can get the old bus patched up I’ll -fly her over here somewhere for you to discover and pass on. And I’ll -continue to lie low, officially lost—unless some fool starts another -war.”</p> -<p>“But do you mean to continue to hide in the woods until your case is -forgotten?” asked Mrs. Smith.</p> -<p>“There are worse places than the woods,” replied Tom.</p> -<p>“So Mick Otter tells me,” remarked the doctor.</p> -<p>Tom and Mick did not go to bed that night; and long before sunrise they -pulled out of Timbertown with a small but hefty load on the toboggan. -They reached camp early in the afternoon; and before the next sunrise -they commenced their slow and cautious return to Mick’s -trapping-grounds. Again the wilderness was all around them, trackless -and smokeless save for the smoke and tracks of their own making. Days -passed without disclosing to them any sight or sign of Ned Tone and the -detective. One morning Mick killed a fat young buck deer. In time they -reached the cave, the snuggest and least conspicuous of Mick’s posts, -and found it undisturbed. Here they set out a short line of traps; and -then the Maliseet went on alone to Racquet Pond.</p> -<p>Mick found the little camp on Racquet Pond just as he had left it, save -for snow that had drifted in at the doorway and fallen in through the -square hole in the roof. If the pursuers had found it they had left no -sign behind them; but in a corner lay a square of white paper marked -with a black cross. Mick snorted at sight of the paper, then pocketed it -and laid in its place a red woolen tassel from the top of one of his -stockings.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chX' title='X: Mick Otter, Match-Maker'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER X</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>MICK OTTER, MATCH-MAKER</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>Mick Otter scouted cautiously around Racquet Pond and took up the two -traps which had been left behind in the haste of the flight across the -height-of-land. One of them, set near an air-hole in a brook, had -evidently made a catch of a mink—but a fox, or a lynx, or perhaps -another mink, had visited the trap ahead of the trapper.</p> -<p>Mick returned to the cave and showed the marked paper to Tom; so the two -extended their line of traps and settled down to pass the time until the -middle of January as comfortably and profitably as possible. They kept -their eyes skinned, as the poet has it. Tom made a practice of climbing -the look-out tree four times a day when the weather was clear. They -refrained from firing the rifle; and they were careful to burn only the -driest and least smoky wood on their subterranean hearth, except at -night. Snow fell frequently and thickly. They were fortunate with their -traps, taking a number of red foxes and one patch, a few mink, an otter -and half a dozen lynx—all fine pelts; and with some very small traps -from one of Mick’s caches they even managed to catch a few ermine.</p> -<p>In the clearings, Catherine and Gaspard carried on and hoped for the -best. Catherine had made the trip to Racquet Pond with the warning to -the fugitives in a snow-storm, and so had left no tracks either going or -coming. Gaspard spied on the camp of the sleuths now and again; and, -finding it always in the same spot, he twigged their game. He wondered -how long their patience would last.</p> -<p>One morning the detective came knocking on the door of the big log -house. Catherine opened to him; and he entered weakly and sat down -heavily on the floor. One of his cheeks was discolored just below the -eye and his lower lip was swollen.</p> -<p>“A drink, please,” he said, in a voice of distress. “Anything—even cold -tea. I feel all tuckered out.”</p> -<p>The girl gave him a cup of coffee.</p> -<p>“Ye look kinder like ye’d caught up to Tom Anderson,” remarked Gaspard. -“An’ whar’s yer pardner?”</p> -<p>“Him!” exclaimed the detective, his voice shaken with anger. “That big -slob! He’s lit out for home—and beyond.”</p> -<p>“But he told us, weeks ago, that you had gone out to the -settlements—that both of you had given up looking for Tom Anderson,” -said the girl.</p> -<p>The detective swallowed the last drop of coffee, shook his mittens from -his hands, pulled off his fur cap and pressed his hands to his head.</p> -<p>“The liar!” he cried. “He’s a fool—and he’s made a fool of me, with his -story about that man Anderson bein’ an officer—the great Major Akerley. -I must hev been crazy to believe him for a minute. And now the big slob -has beat it for the settlements; and he’ll keep right on goin’, for the -Law’s after him now—or will be as soon’s I’m fit to travel agin.”</p> -<p>“Maybe yer lyin’, an’ again maybe yer tellin’ the truth,” said Gaspard. -“Howsumever, we’re listenin’.”</p> -<p>“I’m talkin’ Gospel,” replied the man on the floor. “Tone lit out last -night—but he beat me up before he left. He jumped onto me when I wasn’t -lookin’; and I guess he bust me a rib or two. I’m about all in, anyhow.”</p> -<p>So saying, he sagged back against the wall, toppled slowly sideways and -lost consciousness.</p> -<p>Gaspard Javet was greatly put out by this accident. He glared at the -unconscious man on the floor.</p> -<p>“If I was to lay him out in the snow till he come to, an’ then run him -off the place with the toe o’ my boot, it wouldn’t be more’n fair play,” -he muttered. “Tom would be in jail now if this sneak had had his way—an’ -here he comes an’ lays down on my floor. I’m right glad Ned Tone smashed -’im; an’ I wish he’d smashed Ned Tone too.”</p> -<p>“We must do something for him,” said Catherine. “He may be seriously -hurt. The sooner we doctor him the sooner he’ll go away, Grandad.”</p> -<p>Gaspard snorted angrily and lifted the detective from the floor.</p> -<p>“I hope I’ll drop ’im an’ bust all the rest o’ his ribs,” he said; and -so he carried him carefully into his own room and put him down gently on -his own bed.</p> -<p>When the detective recovered consciousness he found himself very snugly -established between the sheets of Gaspard’s bed, and the old man -standing near with a steaming bowl in his hand. The bowl contained -beef-tea, and the detective drank it eagerly.</p> -<p>“Yer ribs ain’t bust, I reckon,” said Gaspard. “They ain’t stove clear -in, anyhow—but they do look kinder beat about,—an’ the color o’ yer eye. -What did Ned Tone hit ye with?”</p> -<p>“He knocked me down with his fist and then he whaled me with a stick of -firewood,” replied the other.</p> -<p>“I’m goin’ out to scout ’round a bit,” said Gaspard. “If ye git hungry -or thirsty while I’m gone give a holler an’ Cathie’ll hear ye. I put -arnica on yer ribs an’ tied ’em up with bandages.”</p> -<p>The old man went out and straight to the most recent camping place of -the sleuths. There he found the tent still standing, snugly banked with -snow: but Ned Tone was not there, nor were his snowshoes or rifle. The -provisions were scattered about, the tea-kettle lay upset in the ashes -of the fire, and an air of violence and haste possessed the entire camp. -A few bright spatters of blood marked the trampled snow; and Gaspard -correctly inferred that one of Ned Tone’s blows had landed on the -detective’s nose. Large, fresh, hasty snowshoe tracks led away from the -camp southward into the forest.</p> -<p>“He was sartinly humpin’ himself,” remarked the old man, setting his own -feet in the tracks. “I reckon he’s quit an’ lit out for home, like the -stranger said—but I’ll make sure.”</p> -<p>He followed the trail of Ned Tone steadily for more than an hour; and -every yard of it pointed straight for Boiling Pot.</p> -<p>Gaspard and Catherine nursed and fed the detective as well as if he had -been a beloved friend, and so had him up in a chair beside the stove in -two days; on his feet in three; and well able to undertake the journey -out to the settlements within the week. And he was as eager to go as -they were to have him gone—eager to go forth on the trail of Ned Tone -and to follow that trail until the treacherous, violent, cowardly -bushwhacker was brought to his knees before the might and majesty of the -Law. As for the case of Tom Anderson, he no longer felt the least -interest in it. It was his firm belief that even Tone had never really -suspected Anderson of being Major Akerley, but had invented the case -from motives of personal spite and greed. He did not find Ned Tone in -Boiling Pot, however; nor did he find him at Millbrow; nor yet in any -town on the big river. In short, he never caught up with the ex-heaviest -hitter on Injun River; and, for all I know, and for all the detective -knows, Ned Tone may still be on the run.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>Tom Akerley and Mick Otter returned to the clearings on the evening of -January the Seventeenth, in time for supper; and Catherine was ready for -them with roast chickens, mince pies and the best coffee they had tasted -since their departure from that wide and hospitable room. All four were -in high spirits—but it was Gaspard who made most noise in the expression -thereof. He told all that he knew of the adventures of Ned Tone and the -detective in the most amusing manner; and when he wasn’t talking he -chuckled.</p> -<p>“You feel darn good, what?” remarked Mick Otter, eyeing him keenly but -kindly. “Maybe you catch that devil an’ shoot him flyin’, hey?”</p> -<p>“Ye’re wrong thar,” replied Gaspard. “I found ’im, but he wasn’t flyin’. -Caught ’im on the ground—but I ain’t shot him yet. But I got his wings.”</p> -<p>Tom looked at Catherine and was relieved to see her smiling at her -grandfather.</p> -<p>“If you catch him on the groun’ why you don’t shoot him, hey?” asked -Mick. “You make a’mighty noise ’bout shootin’ him one time.”</p> -<p>“An’ Mick Otter laughin’ all the time at pore old Gaspard Javet for a -durn ignorant old fool. Well, I don’t blame ye, Mick, I’d hev laughed -meself to see me a-devil-huntin’ all the time, with my rifle handy an’ -the devil mowin’ grass at my elbow or totin’ the old duck-gun ’round -helpin’ me to hunt himself.”</p> -<p>“So you know!” exclaimed Tom, getting quickly to his feet and staring -anxiously at the old man.</p> -<p>Gaspard made a long arm across the table.</p> -<p>“Lay it thar, lad,” he said, “Thank God I didn’t know when the -vainglorious madness was on me, when I was that et up with the pride o’ -my wild youth an’ present piety that I reckoned on havin’ a reel devil -sent to me for to wrastle with—for I like ye, lad.”</p> -<p>“Me, too,” said Mick Otter. “You pretty big feller on these woods, Tom, -you bet. Gaspar’ like you too much for to shoot, an’ Mick Otter like -you; an’ maybe Cathie like you, too, one day, now Ned Tone go ’way with -policeman chasin’ him, what?”</p> -<p>Both old men gazed quizzically at the girl with their bright, kindly -eyes. She smiled a little, looked squarely at the swarthy round face of -the Maliseet, then at the bewhiskered visage of her grandfather, blushed -suddenly and deeply, and then said,</p> -<p>“I like him much more than either of you do—or both of you together; and -he knows it.”</p> -<p>Then Mick Otter actually chuckled; and as for Gaspard Javet, his -delighted laughter filled the room. And Catherine and Tom joined in the -old man’s mirth, but with an air of not quite seeing the joke. Gaspard -became silent at last and helped himself to a second piece of mince pie.</p> -<p>“She never told me before,” said Tom, very red in the face and short of -breath. “Not like that. And I—well, you know how it has been with me—and -still is, to a lesser degree. I had to keep how I felt under my hat—more -or less, I mean to say—as much as I could. She knew all the time, of -course. Didn’t you? How I felt, I mean—and that sort of thing. But as -things were with me—and still are, I suppose—well, I had to lie doggo. -What I mean is, I was a fugitive from justice. Only honorable thing to -do, you know. But now that you’ve seemed to notice it, and have -mentioned it, I feel myself at liberty to say that when I fell into this -clearing I fell for her, for you, I mean for Cathie. First time I saw -her, anyhow; and it has got worse—more so, I mean to say—ever since. But -I always wished that you knew the truth about me, Gaspard—for I didn’t -like pretending, and I wanted you to know that I was—that I wasn’t just -a breaker of game-laws—what I mean to say is, I wanted you to know that -I have fought bigger things than Ned Tone. I have been happier ever -since I landed to your light than ever before in my life, and—and now -that I know—well, I hope that I shall never again be chased out of these -clearings.”</p> -<p>The old men exchanged glances and approving nods; and Tom got hold of -Catherine’s hand under the edge of the table.</p> -<p>Life continued to go forward sanely and delightfully in the secluded -world of Gaspard Javet’s clearings. A spirit of cheer and security -possessed the big log house and the brown barns. Gaspard read his Bible -with more hopeful eyes than of old. He was in fine form and full of -brisk stories of his youth. He had learned to play chess—a game which, -until recently, he had eyed somewhat askance as an intricate and -laborious example of human vanity. Mick Otter spent much of his time in -the woods, but went no farther northward than to Racquet Pond nor -remained away from home for longer than four days at a time. He made one -trip south to Boiling Pot and found the villagers blissfully ignorant -and unsuspicious of the mysterious affair of Tom Anderson and Tom -Akerley, the flying major. His cautious inquiries proved them to be -equally ignorant of the whereabouts of Ned Tone. It was quite evident -that the heaviest hitter had kept his suspicions and the story of his -and the detective’s activities strictly under his hat.</p> -<p>Catherine and Tom were happy; but after that mutual declaration at -supper on the night of Tom’s return from the north, they both avoided -any further mention of the inspiration of their happiness. They knew -that their position was not yet secure from the menace of the outside -world. But they were not afraid, and they understood each other. Their -brains cautioned them to keep a sharp look-out beyond the southern edge -of the clearings and a firm grip on their dreams; and their hearts told -them that their future happiness was as secure as if no fat colonel had -ever been hit on the chin; and they heeded both their brains and their -hearts and sailed a delightful middle course.</p> -<p>Tom attended to a string of traps near Pappoose Lake, but seldom allowed -that business to keep him abroad all night. Also, he worked about the -barns with Gaspard and cut out firewood and rails. Catherine often -worked with him in the woods. The girl could swing an ax with the force -and precision of an expert chopper. She also helped with the threshing -of the oats and buckwheat, which was done at odd times; and in handling -a flail the extraordinary grace of her swing detracted nothing from the -force of her blow.</p> -<p>The necessity of making a journey to Boiling Pot, to obtain a supply of -wheat and buckwheat flour, made itself undeniably evident in the last -week of March. Mick Otter and Tom were both to go, for it was likely to -prove a formidable expedition owing to the fact that the long road -through the forests was entirely unbroken; but as Tom had done away with -his disguising beard, it was decided that he should not venture all the -way to the grist-mill in the village. Preparations were made during the -day before the start. A track was broken across the drifted clearing, -from the barn-yard to the mouth of the road. A few high drifts had to be -cut through with shovels. On the road, itself, the snow was not more -than knee-deep, for there had been a great deal of melting weather of -late. But there was a stiff crust which would have to be broken for the -safety of the horses’ legs. A light set of bob-sleds were fitted with a -light body and loaded with ten two-bushel bags of buckwheat and rations -of hay and oats.</p> -<p>Tom was up at four o’clock next morning, to water and feed the horses. -Breakfast was eaten half an hour later, by lamplight; and the horses -were hitched to the sled and a start made well before six. The air was -still and cold and the horses lively. For a few miles Tom led the way, -breaking the cutting crust ahead of the eager horses, and Mick held the -reins. Then, for a few miles, Mick broke the crust and Tom teamed. So -they toiled forward until noon; and as Tom was heavier and longer in the -leg and stronger than the old Maliseet, he did more breaking than -teaming. After a rest of two hours the journey was continued; and before -dusk they struck a well-broken road and the impatient horses went -forward at a trot. Tom dropped off a mile this side of the settlement, -with blankets and provisions, and made camp about fifty yards in from -the road.</p> -<p>Mick Otter did not reappear until noon. The return journey proved to be -an easy and speedy affair compared to the outward trip, in spite of the -heavier load. There was no crust to break, and Tom walked only -occasionally, for the exercise. It was not quite seven o’clock when they -issued from the forest into the clearing and saw the yellow lights of -the big log house gleaming on the snow. Tom was holding the lines at the -time and Mick was sitting hunched up beside him; and as the horses swung -to the left and pulled for the barns with a sudden burst of enthusiasm, -Mick slipped a small package into the pocket of Tom’s leather coat that -was nearest to him.</p> -<p>A few minutes later, in the kitchen, when Tom was stuffing his mittens -into his pockets, he felt the small package and produced it. He stepped -toward the lamp on the table, holding the package extended on the palm -of his hand.</p> -<p>“What’s this?” he said. “Where’d it come from?”</p> -<p>“Ye’d best open it an’ look, if ye don’t know,” suggested Gaspard, -crowding against his left elbow.</p> -<p>And so, with Gaspard on one side of him and Catherine and Mick Otter on -the other, Tom unwrapped the little package. Within the wrapper he found -a cardboard box, and within that a smaller box of a different shape and -material. This inner box had a hinged top that was fastened down with a -catch; and when Tom undid the catch and turned back the top he gasped -with astonishment at the thing he saw. Old Gaspard’s white whiskers -shook with excitement and Cathie’s cheeks and eyes brightened like roses -and stars. Mick Otter alone showed no sign of emotion.</p> -<p>“I didn’t buy this,” said Tom to the girl. “I haven’t any money, as you -know, and still owe the Government some thousands on account of a stolen -aëroplane. If this were mine, and all danger of my being cashiered were -past—”</p> -<p>“It was in your pocket,” said the girl.</p> -<p>“True; and I’ll pay for it when my skins are sold. Show me a finger, -please.”</p> -<p>She raised her left hand and extended to him a finger of peculiar -significance.</p> -<p>“On the understanding that you will transfer it to another finger if I -am caught and broken,” he said; and then he slid the ring into place.</p> -<p>“Never,” she whispered, closing her hand tight; and the little diamond -flashed defiant fire from her small brown fist.</p> -<p>“Mick Otter have to larn ’em how to get engage’,” said the old Maliseet, -in a voice of pity and mild scorn.</p> -<p>“Vanity! Vanity!” exclaimed old Gaspard, shaking his head slowly. “But I -reckon I never see a purtier little ring,” he added.</p> -<p>“What’s for supper?” asked Mick Otter, in sentiment-chilling tones. -“Hungry man can’t eat rings, nor vanity neither.”</p> -<p>They were seated at supper, and Gaspard was in the middle of a story of -his vainglorious past to which only Mick Otter was paying any attention, -when the latch of the front door lifted, the door opened slowly and a -figure muffled in blankets stepped noiselessly into the room. Gaspard, -who sat facing the door, ceased articulating suddenly and stared with -open mouth. Catherine and Tom glanced over their shoulders and Mick -Otter got to his feet and hurried to the visitor.</p> -<p>“Got sick pappoose here,” said the muffled figure, closing the door with -a heel and leaning weakly against it; and before Mick could get a grip -on it, it sagged slowly to the floor.</p> -<p>In his attempt at succor, Mick pulled a fold of the blanket aside, thus -disclosing the haggard face of a young squaw. The blanket fell lower and -a ragged bundle clutched tight in thin arms came to view; and at that -moment a faint, shrill wail of complaint arose from the bundle. This -brought Catherine flying and lifted Gaspard and Tom out of their chairs -and stunned Mick Otter to immobility. The girl took the bundle swiftly -but tenderly from the relaxing arms even as the squaw closed her eyes.</p> -<p>Fifteen minutes later both the mother and pappoose were in Gaspard’s -wide and comfortable bed, more or less undressed. A nip of strong -coffee, then a nip of brandy, had been successfully administered to the -squaw and a little warm milk had been spoon-fed to the baby; and all -this, except the carrying, had been accomplished by Catherine. Gaspard -and Mick Otter were of no use at all, though Mick was eager to get busy -asking questions. Tom warmed milk very well and filled two bottles with -hot water which were placed at the foot of the bed.</p> -<p>The pappoose wailed with a thin and plaintive voice for an hour, then -took a little more nourishment and fell asleep. The mother drank a bowl -of warm milk and slept like a log. It was close upon midnight when -Gaspard’s fur robes and blankets were laid on the floor of the big room, -between the robes and blankets of Mick’s and Tom’s humble and mobile -pallets.</p> -<p>Mick Otter questioned the young squaw industriously next day, but -acquired very little information. Her answers were suspiciously vague. -She did not seem to know how far she had come, or where from, or why. -She said again and again, in answer to every question, that the baby was -sick and needed a doctor; but the baby, full-fed now, seemed to be in -the pink of condition. Hunger and fatigue seemed to be the only thing -the matter with either of them. In three days they were both as right as -rain, beyond a doubt; and still the young woman would not say where she -had come from or why she had left home and seemed to entertain no idea -whatever of where she was bound for.</p> -<p>Mick Otter, anxious and thoroughly exasperated, took the case firmly in -his own hands at the end of a week. He made a snug apartment in one of -the barns, established a rusty old stove in it and, deaf to Cathie’s -protests, moved the visitors out of Gaspard’s room. The weather was mild -by this time. The barn-chamber was very comfortable. Mick made a fire in -the stove every morning and saw that every spark was dead before -bed-time. He carried all the squaw’s food and the baby’s milk to the -barn, forbade the others visiting the strangers and refused the -mysterious squaw admittance to the house. He was hard as flint in the -matter. One day he lost his temper with Catherine, who threatened to -have the mother and baby back in the house in spite of his cruel whims.</p> -<p>“You know her, an’ why she come here?” he cried. “Nope, you don’t know. -You know why she run away?—what she run away from? Nope nor me neither. -When we know, then you call Mick Otter one darn fool all you want -to,—maybe. What Mick Otter think,—what he see before two-three time—that -squaw run away from big sickness maybe with her pappoose. So you keep -’way—an’ shut up!”</p> -<p>Tom and Gaspard were far too busy to worry much about Mick Otter’s -peculiar treatment of the strangers. They had cleared the -threshing-floor of the largest barn and turned it into a work-shop; and -there, in a week, they had straightened and mended the buckled plane of -Tom’s old bus.</p> -<div class='chapter'> -<h2 id='chXI' title='XI: The Military Cross'> - <span style='font-size:1.2em'>CHAPTER XI</span><br /><span style='font-size:1.0em'>THE MILITARY CROSS</span> -</h2> -</div> -<p>The machine was brought together bit by bit, from this hiding-place and -that. The little engines were assembled and tested. The car was put -together and the engines were fastened in place. Gaspard and Mick, and -even Catherine, could scarcely believe their dizzied eyes when the -little engines first turned the thin blades of the propeller over, and -then over and over until nothing was to be seen of those blades but a -gray vortex into which they had dissolved and out of which roared a wind -that threatened to blow the barn inside-out. The noise of that wind -frightened fur folk great and small miles away and sent crows cawing and -flapping out of distant tree-tops. It almost stunned the secretive squaw -with terror—for I think her conscience was not quite at ease; and it -even distressed Catherine. But Catherine was not feeling up to the mark -at this time. She had caught a slight cold, she thought; so she drank a -little ginger-tea and said nothing about it.</p> -<p>One evening in the first week in May an Indian came to the house and -asked if his squaw and pappoose were here and, if so, how they were -getting along. He looked an honest and somewhat dull young man and -complacent beyond words.</p> -<p>“You Gabe Peters from Tinder Brook,” said Mick Otter.</p> -<p>The visitor nodded. Then Mick took him by an elbow, backed him to the -threshold of the open door and talked to him swiftly in the Maliseet -tongue. The other replied briefly now and then. Mick became excited. His -excitement grew by leaps and bounds; and at last he turned Gabe Peters -of Tinder Brook completely around, kicked him from the threshold into -the outer dusk and shut the door with a bang.</p> -<p>Gaspard and Tom were stricken voiceless with amazement by Mick Otter’s -treatment of the visitor. Catherine seemed scarcely to notice it, -however. Mick turned from the door and went straight to the girl, where -she sat close to the stove.</p> -<p>“You go to bed,” he said. “Take plenty medicine an’ go to bed darn -quick.”</p> -<p>She protested, but without much spirit.</p> -<p>“Go to bed!” cried the old Maliseet, violently.</p> -<p>The girl stood up and moved toward the steep stairs. Tom hastened to -her, took her hands and looked at her closely.</p> -<p>“What is it, Cathie?” he asked. “Your hands are hot, dear.”</p> -<p>“I have a cold, I suppose,” she replied. “My head aches—and I think Mick -is crazy. But I’ll go to bed,—just to keep him quiet. Don’t worry.”</p> -<p>She went up to her room. Mick got Tom and Gaspard each by an elbow.</p> -<p>“Diptherie at Tinder Brook,” he whispered harshly. “That why Gabe -Peters’ squaw run ’way with pappoose. He don’t have it but he bring it -here, I guess. Cathie gettin’ sick, anyhow. Guess she need doctor pretty -darn quick.”</p> -<p>Gaspard Javet groaned. He had been so happy of late—or had his happiness -been only a dream? He sat down heavily in the nearest chair. Tom Akerley -paled but did not flinch. He looked steadily at the old Maliseet and in -a steady voice said,</p> -<p>“It may not be anything more than a cold, Mick. I’ll get a doctor -immediately—but you don’t think she is seriously ill, now, do you?”</p> -<p>“Dunno. Take too darn much chance a’ready, anyhow. Where you get a -doctor quick, hey? No doctor at B’ilin’ Pot. Go way out to Millbrow an’ -find one darn poor doctor maybe. Take a’mighty long time anyhow—an’ -maybe we don’t find him.”</p> -<p>Tom opened the door and looked up at the sky. It was a fine night. He -aroused Gaspard and sent him up to Catherine to consult her in the -matter of treatment for her own cold. Then, with two lanterns, he and -Mick Otter went out to the big barn. Tom set to work immediately. Mick -visited the mother and baby. He found Gabe Peters there and devoted a -few minutes to telling all three what he thought of them. He was -particularly severe with the squaw, because of her secretive behavior. -Then he returned to the work-shop and assisted Tom for three hours.</p> -<p>Tom was the first of the household to wake next morning. The first thing -he did was to go out and look at the weather. There was not a breath of -wind. The dawn of a fine spring day was breaking in silver and gold -along the wooded east. He woke Gaspard then, lit the fire and dressed. -Gaspard went up to Catherine’s room and found her sleeping—but she -tossed and moaned in her sleep. Her face was flushed.</p> -<p>Tom opened the doors of his work-shop wide and fell to work by the level -morning light. Mick Otter cooked the breakfast. Gaspard looked after -Catherine, who drank a little weak tea and complained of a sore throat.</p> -<p>Breakfast was eaten in ten minutes. Mick fed the three unwelcome guests -and locked them in their quarters. Then Tom, Mick and Gaspard worked -like beavers for two hours; and by the end of that time the ’plane -squatted wide-winged before the barn, like a wounded goose of gigantic -proportions. The three wheeled it to the top of the oldest and levelest -meadow.</p> -<p>Tom donned his leather coat and went to the house. He entered and called -up the stairs to Catherine. She answered him and he went up. He found -her lying bright-eyed and flushed of face, staring eagerly at the door.</p> -<p>“Oh, I am glad you are real!” she cried. “I was queer last night—and I -thought you weren’t real.”</p> -<p>He laughed.</p> -<p>“I am one of the realest things you ever saw, of my own kind,” he said. -“I’m no dream, Cathie. And now I’m going to make a little journey, to -fetch you a doctor—so when you hear my engines wish me luck, girl—put up -a little prayer for me.”</p> -<p>He stooped, touched his lips lightly and quickly to her hot forehead, -and left her. He ran to his machine and started the engines. He put on -his cap and goggles. He twirled the propeller; and suddenly it hummed.</p> -<p>“Stand clear!” and he scrambled to his seat.</p> -<p>The old bus thrilled, lurched, then moved forward down the field, slowly -for a few yards, then less slowly, then fast. Gaspard and Mick stared -after it, frozen with awe; and when they suddenly realized that the -little wheels were no longer on the mossy sod they felt as if their -hearts were stuck in their windpipes. Yes, the little wheels were off -the ground! And the wide wings were climbing against the green wall of -the forest; now they were swooping around; and now they were against the -morning blue; and still the great bird circled as it rose. Now it was -high over the house, high above the blue smoke from the chimney. Now it -was over the barns, and over the woods beyond, still circling and -rising. Four times it circled the clearings, flying wider and higher -each time; and then it headed north and flew straight away into the -blue.</p> -<p>Then those two aged woodsmen suddenly recovered the use of their lungs -and limbs. They shouted triumphantly and waved their arms in the air. -They leaped together and embraced.</p> -<p>The frail thing that flew northward with so much of their pride and love -dwindled and dwindled and at last vanished from their sight.</p> -<p>“An’ that’s the man Ned Tone fit with,” said Gaspard, in a voice -thrilled with pride and shaken with awe.</p> -<p>“An’ you an’ me help him fasten it together,” said Mick Otter, in tones -of reverence and satisfaction.</p> -<p>Gaspard returned to the house, and Mick went to the barn in which he had -shut the people from Tinder Brook and unlocked the door. The man and the -woman were in a tremor of fear. The fierce song of the birdman’s flight, -striking down at them through the roof, had chilled them with a nameless -dread. Mick gave them provisions, blankets, a kettle and frying-pan, and -told them to get out and travel quick. They obeyed with alacrity. He -told them that if they ever mentioned the great sound they had heard -that morning a terrible fate would overtake them swiftly, no matter how -far they traveled or where they hid; and they believed him, for truth -gleamed in his eyes.</p> -<p>Gaspard found Catherine sitting straight up in a tumbled bed, staring at -the window.</p> -<p>“Has he gone?” she cried. “Was it Tom? Has he flown away?”</p> -<p>“Now don’t ye worry, Cathie,” returned the old man, with an unsuccessful -attempt to speak calmly. “Yes, it was Tom. An’ he flew—ay, he surely -flew. He’ll fetch in a doctor for ye, girl, if thar be a doctor in the -world to fetch. I’ve saw eagles an’ hawks fly in my day, an’ wild geese -an’ ducks an’ crows, but nary a bird o’ the lot could fly like Tom. The -sight of it shook me to the vitals. If I was a young man only a few -years younger, nor what I be, I’d sure git him to larn me how to do it. -It was the shiverin’est sight I ever see—shiverin’er nor the swash an’ -wollop an’ windy roar o’ fifty gray geese gittin’ up all of a suddent -out o’ the mist at yer very feet; an’ ye mind how that sets yer heart a -gulpin’, girl.”</p> -<p>Catherine lay back heavily on her pillow.</p> -<p>“Yes, I mind,” she said. “All the great wings beating the air. I wish I -had seen Tom fly. Now that my head feels so queer it all seems like a -dream to me—all about Tom—how he flew down to us that night, to the -light of our open door—and how brave and strong he is. I wonder if it is -true.... I wish I had a drink, Grandad. My throat is burning—and it -aches.”</p> -<p>Gaspard hastened away, pottered about the stove and the dairy, and soon -returned with milk hot and cold, cold spring water and hot tea. She -drank thirstily of the cold milk and water, talked for a few minutes in -a vague and flighty vein that terrified the old man, and then drifted -off into a restless doze.</p> -<hr class='tbk' /> -<p>Tom Akerley flew straight and swift, high up in the spring sunshine, -into the clean bright blue of the northern sky. He held his course by -compass and sun, and read his progress on the ever unrolling expanse of -hill and vale and timbered level beneath him—so far below him that the -mightiest pines looked smaller than shrubs in a window-box and forests -through which he and Mick Otter had toiled for weary hours were scanned -from edge to edge at a glance. He saw the silver shine of lakes and -ponds like scattered coins and bits of broken glass; black and purple -vasts of pine and spruce and fir; gray dead-lands and brown barrens; and -here and there his exploring eyes caught a flush of red-budded maples, a -pale green wave of poplars in new leaf, and a smudge of yellow where -crowded willows hung out their powdery blooms. A flock of geese flying -northward with him at the same altitude, swerved from their course by a -few points as they came abreast of him and drew slowly ahead and away. -His machine was not the swiftest in the world, by any means, but it slid -along those free tracks of air at an unvarying rate of sixty miles an -hour; its taut sinews humming against the wind of its flight and its -trusty engines singing full and strong and smooth with a voice of -loyalty and power.</p> -<p>Doctor Smith and Mrs. Smith, of Timbertown, lunched that day with one of -the windows of the dining-room wide open, so bland and bright was the -air. They had trout from the mill-pond—the first of the season—and -steamed apple-pudding. Their trusty cook, who also waited on table, had -the platter of trout bones in one hand and the pudding in the other, and -was on the point of removing the first from before the doctor and -replacing it with the second, when a shadow fell across a corner of the -table. All three looked up and beheld a bare-headed young man in a -leather coat at the window.</p> -<p>The cook set the pudding down with a thump that split it from top to -bottom; but as the doctor and his wife jumped to their feet without so -much as a glance at the wrecked pastry, the cook also ignored it and -retired hastily with the platter of bones.</p> -<p>“Hello!” exclaimed the doctor. “Speak of the—we were just talking about -you, major. Come in. Glad to see you.”</p> -<p>“I’d better not,” replied Tom. “I’ve come to take you to Gaspard Javet’s -clearings. His grand-daughter is ill, and Mick Otter thinks it is -diphtheria,—thinks it came with some Indians from Tinder Brook. The bus -is about two miles away,—so if you’ll give me a tin of gas and come -along, I’ll be greatly obliged.”</p> -<p>The Smiths looked greatly concerned.</p> -<p>“I’m with you,” said the doctor. “A tin of gas? Right-o. Better put on -furs, hadn’t I? Eat something while I hustle. Feed the major, Dickon.”</p> -<p>As Tom persisted in his refusal to enter, from fear that he might have -the germs of diphtheria on his person, Mrs. Smith fed him on the -window-sill with cold ham and pudding and coffee.</p> -<p>“We were speaking of you just a little while before you appeared,” she -said. “Last week’s Herald arrived this morning, with good news; and we -were just wondering how we could get word to you; and here you are—with -bad news. But you mustn’t worry, major. Jim is a great doctor.”</p> -<p>“I know he is,” replied Tom. “I’ve seen him at work. He is a two-handed -man. And I haven’t wasted any time. Mick Otter threw the scare into me -last night and I nailed the old bus together and started this morning.”</p> -<p>“I am glad you hurried—but you’ll be careful, won’t you? Try not to -crash with Jim, please.”</p> -<p>“I’ll do the very best I know how, you may be sure. I promise you that -I’ll bring him back just as carefully as I take him away. I can’t say -more than that.”</p> -<p>“No, indeed. Now where is that Herald? Here is it.”</p> -<p>The lady picked up a newspaper from the floor and began to search its -columns for a particular item; but before she had found what she wanted -the doctor entered the room. He wore a fur cap and carried a fur coat on -his arm; in one hand was a professional bag and in the other a can of -gasoline. The lady folded the paper small and stuffed it into one of his -pockets.</p> -<p>“Take it with you,” she said. “It should bring you luck on the journey.”</p> -<p>He set his burdens on the floor and embraced her.</p> -<p>“Don’t expect me back till you hear us coming,” he said. “And don’t -worry, Dickon. If I had the pick of the whole Air Force for this trip -I’d pick the major.”</p> -<p>He took up his burdens and left the room, joining Tom in front of the -house. Tom led the way at a sharp pace to where the aëroplane lay in a -secluded clearing about two miles from the outskirts of the town. The -doctor had picked up a slight knowledge of air-craft during his service -in the army, so together they filled the petrol-tank and went thoroughly -over the machine. The result of the inspection was satisfactory. Then -Tom stowed the doctor and his bag aboard and donned his cap and goggles.</p> -<p>It was exactly three o’clock when the old bus took wing and flew -straight away into the south.</p> -<p>Mick Otter was the first of the family to catch the song of the homeward -flight. He was out in the wood-yard at the time, splitting up an old -cedar rail for kindlings. He dropped his ax and cocked his head. He -scanned the clear horizon and the blue vault above it, blinking his eyes -when he faced the west. At last he spotted it, and it looked no bigger -than a mosquito. It grew steadily in his vision and yet did not seem to -move; grew to the size of a snipe—continued to grow, hanging there -against the sky, until it looked like a lonely duck homing to its -feeding-grounds. And the sound of its flight grew too, droning in from -all round the horizon. Little Blackie heard it then and crawled -apologetically under the back porch.</p> -<div id='i271' style='margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:10.0%; width:80%;'> - <img src='images/illus-f271.jpg' alt='' style='width:100%' /> -<p class='caption'>“HE ... THRUST HIS HEAD AND SHOULDERS OUT OF THE WINDOW.”</p> -</div> -<p>Gaspard Javet heard it. He left his chair beside Catherine’s bed, -crossed the floor on tip-toe and thrust his head and shoulders out of -the window. He saw it, rubbed his eyes and looked again to make sure, -then withdrew from the window and turned to the girl in the bed.</p> -<p>“Here he comes,” he said.</p> -<p>Catherine moved her head restlessly on the pillow. Her eyes were wide -open, but she paid no attention to her grandfather’s remark. Instead, -she put out a hand gropingly toward a mug of water which stood on a -chair beside the bed. Gaspard went to her in one stride, raised her head -on his arm and gave her a drink. She swallowed a sip or two with -difficulty.</p> -<p>“Hark, Cathie girl,” he whispered. “Don’t ye hear it now? the hum o’ -Tom’s flyin’-machine?”</p> -<p>“I’ve heard it for hours,” she answered faintly. “It isn’t true. It is -in my poor head.”</p> -<p>“But I see it this very minute dear, when I looked out the winder. Thar -it was, plain as a pancake, a-hummin’ home like a big June-bug. It’s -Tom, I tell ye, and if he ain’t got a doctor with him then all the -doctors has died! Don’t ye hear it gittin’ louder an’ louder?”</p> -<p>“Yes, it is growing louder,” she said, slowly, “louder than the noise in -my head has ever been—as loud as when Tom flew down out of the dark that -night and frightened you into the woods.”</p> -<p>Gaspard lowered her head to the pillow and hastened from the room in his -socks. He was in such a hurry that he left the door open behind him and -took the short, steep stairs at a slide. He got outside in time to see -the ’plane sink below the top of the dark wall of forest, flatten out -and run on the sod. He raced Mick Otter to it, shouting as he ran.</p> -<p>The doctor went up alone to see Catherine; while Tom, Mick and Gaspard -sat on the back porch and stared at the resting ’plane without a word. -Tom still had his great gloves on his hands, his goggles on his eyes and -his fur-lined cap on his head.</p> -<p>The doctor returned to them in fifteen minutes; at sight of the -expression on his face they all sighed with relief, and Tom pulled off -his gloves and head-dress.</p> -<p>“Mick, you were right,” said the doctor. “That’s what is the matter with -her, but it hasn’t got much of a hold. And she is strong and I’m here in -plenty of time.”</p> -<p>Mick Otter nodded his head just as if this good news was no news to him. -Gaspard leaned heavily on Tom’s shoulder. Tom took off his goggles and -fell to polishing them diligently with a handkerchief.</p> -<p>“Bless that old bus,” he said, making a swift and furtive pass with the -handkerchief across his eyes.</p> -<p>Doctor Smith pulled a cigarette-case and a folded newspaper from a -side-pocket of his coat. He lit a cigarette and then unfolded the paper.</p> -<p>“Ah! here it is,” he said. “Dickon and I were wondering how we could get -word to you about it, Tom. Here you are.”</p> -<p>He handed the big sheet to Tom, indicating this official advertisement -with a finger.</p> -<div style='margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-right:2em; margin-left:2em'> -<p>“Major Thomas Villers Akerley, M. C. This officer is hereby instructed -to apply at his early convenience for transfer to the Reserve of -Officers, with his present rank and seniority, and to return to any -Officer of the Permanent or Active Militia, with a complete statement -attached, all such Government Property for which he is officially -responsible. Major Akerley will understand that, in consideration of his -distinguished services, fine record and good character and the peculiar -circumstances of his case, his compliance with these instructions will -cause the cessation of all Official action in the matter.</p> -<div style='text-align:right; margin-right:4em;'>(Signed) T—— W——</div> -<div style='text-align:right;'>Deputy Minister of Militia.”</div> -</div> -<p>Tom read it three times, very slowly. The full meaning of it struck him -suddenly, and he trembled. The wide sheet shook between his hands, -fluttered clear and swooped to the floor. Mick Otter picked it up and -stared at it like an owl.</p> -<p>“I see the mark of your finger in that,” said Tom to the doctor.</p> -<p>“And of the fingers of every other old soldier in Canada,” returned the -doctor.</p> -<p>“When may I show it to Catherine?” asked Tom.</p> -<p>“To-morrow, I think. I am counting on that bit of news to save me a lot -of medicine and professional effort.”</p> -<p>Six days later, very early in the morning, Tom Akerley and Dr. Smith -flew away from Gaspard’s clearings—but not northward across the -height-of-land toward Timbertown. They carried the Winter’s catch of -furs with them, which included several exceptionally fine pelts of otter -and mink and a few of “patch” fox. Tom wore the same clothes, ribbons -and all, in which he had landed so violently amid the young oats on that -June night, now almost a full year ago.</p> -<p>They passed high over Boiling Pot and made a landing in a meadow on the -outskirts of a small town. There they attracted a good deal of -attention; so they took flight again as soon as the doctor had -dispatched a telegram to Timbertown and procured petrol and a map.</p> -<p>Their second and last landing was made in the Agricultural Exhibition -Park of a city. Leaving the machine in the charge of a policeman, and -taking the package of pelts with them, they went to the nearest hotel. -From the hotel Tom rang up Militia Headquarters and the doctor rang up a -dependable dealer in furs.</p> -<p>An hour later, Tom gave his name to an orderly. The orderly was back in -fifteen seconds.</p> -<p>“The general will see you now, sir,” he said. “This way, if you please.”</p> -<p>He opened a door and backed inwards with it, keeping his hand on the -knob.</p> -<p>“Major T. V. Akerley, M. C.,” he announced; and as Tom crossed the -threshold three paces, halted with a smack of his right heel against his -left and saluted, the door closed behind him.</p> -<p>The Inspector General, a large man in a large suit of gray tweed, looked -up from some papers on his desk and said, “How are you, Akerley? Glad to -see you.”</p> -<p>“Thank you, sir,” returned Tom, standing very stiff.</p> -<p>The general left his desk, advanced and extended his hand. Tom grasped -it.</p> -<p>“Glad to hear the machine is all right,” said the general. “You have had -a long flight. Loosen up, my boy. You are not on the carpet, I’m glad to -say.”</p> -<p>Tom’s back and shoulders relaxed a little.</p> -<p>“I can scarcely believe it, sir,” he replied. “May I ask how it -happened? Did Colonel Nasher say how the trouble began?”</p> -<p>“Something like that,” said the general. “Not of his own free will, of -course. It came hard, but we scared it out of him. One of your men, -Dever by name, told of your speaking to him of poor Angus Bruce just -before you flew away that night. And we had Nasher’s letter objecting to -Bruce’s name on the list of posthumous awards; a letter fairly reeking -with cowardly spite. A disgraceful letter. I looked into that matter and -learned that Nasher and the father of Angus Bruce were enemies of long -standing in their home town. I was inspired to put one and one together -and suspect the result of being two; so I sent for Nasher, to see if the -answer really was two. He came; and I saw at a glance that his wind was -up already. The Vets were hot on his tracks by that time, you know. Half -the old soldiers in Canada had pen in hand, most of them painting you in -colors almost too good to be true; and the remainder demanding to know -why, when and by whom, a person like Nasher had been given a commission. -So, when I asked Nasher, in this very room, what he had said to you -about your friend, young Bruce, fear shook enough of the truth out of -him to satisfy me that you had done exactly what I should have done in -your place.”</p> -<p>“You would have knocked his head clean off, sir,” said Tom.</p> -<p>The general grinned and walked across the room to an open window. He -stood there for half a minute, with his hands behind his back. He turned -suddenly, strode back and laid a hand on the airman’s shoulder.</p> -<p>“If you feel fit for it, Akerley, I shall be glad to have you carry on,” -he said. “The past year can be called sick-leave. There was something of -the sort due you, anyway.”</p> -<p>Tom changed color several times before he found his voice.</p> -<p>“I feel fit for a fight, sir—but not for peace-time duty, I’m afraid,” -he replied. “I feel that I need to be in the woods, sir, where I’ve been -ever since last June. But if you will put me in the Reserve, sir, so -that I may come back if needed—to fight, you know—I’ll be very much -obliged,—as I am about everything now—more than I can say.”</p> -<p>“That shall be done,” said the general. And then he added, “So you’ve -been in the woods? What did you do in the woods?”</p> -<p>“Farmed and trapped, sir. It’s a great life.”</p> -<p>“I believe you. Have you bought land?”</p> -<p>“Not yet, sir; but I hope to do so.”</p> -<p>“That reminds me! You must go to the Pay Office. Show them this receipt -for the machine you brought back.”</p> -<p>Then the general walked Tom to the door, still with a hand on his -shoulder, and opened the door. They halted and faced each other on the -threshold.</p> -<p>“Did Angus Bruce get his M. C., sir?” asked Tom.</p> -<p>“He did,” replied the general. “His mother has it. And that reminds me! -You are improperly dressed, Akerley.”</p> -<p>“I am sorry, sir,” returned Tom, in confusion. “I hadn’t any other -clothes to put on.”</p> -<p>“That’s not what I refer to,” said the general, placing a finger-tip on -the ribbon of the Military Cross on Tom’s left breast. “You have been -awarded a bar to this. Get it and put it up before you go back to the -woods, or there’ll be trouble. Send me your permanent address. Good-by. -Good luck.”</p> -<p>It was a long and round-about journey back to Gaspard’s clearings. But -Tom Akerley made it with a light and eager heart, thinking fearlessly of -the past and dreaming fearlessly of the future.</p> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pgx" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM AKERLEY***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 62652-h.htm or 62652-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/2/6/5/62652">http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/6/5/62652</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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