The Red Pirogue - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian Wilds

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Title: The Red Pirogue - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian Wilds
Author: Goodridge Roberts, Theodore
Language: English
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THE RED PIROGUE

A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE CANADIAN WILDS

STORIES BY
Captain Theodore Goodridge Roberts

Comrades of the Trails
The Red Feathers
Flying Plover
The Fighting Starkleys
Tom Akerley
The Red Pirogue

L. C. PAGE & COMPANY (Inc.)
53 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.

[Illustration: “UP CAME THE RAGING WATERS, UP AND PAST THE JUMPING,
SQUIRMING CANOE.”]

The RED PIROGUE

A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian Wilds

RELATED BY
Captain Theodore Goodridge Roberts

Author of “The Fighting Starkleys,” “Comrades of the Trails,”
“Red Feathers,” “Tom Akerley,” etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY
Frank T. Merrill

BOSTON
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
MDCCCCXXIV

Made in U.S.A.

First Impression, January, 1924

PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS COMPANY
BOSTON, MASS., U. S. A.

CONTENTS

I. A Queer Fish
II. The Drifting Fire
III. The Strange Behavior of Dogs and Men
IV. Obstructing the Law
V. Visitors to French River
VI. Hot Scent and Wet Trail
VII. A Trap for the Hungry
VIII. The Red Dogs at Work
IX. The Sick Man
X. In the Nick of Time

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

“Up came the raging waters, up and past the jumping,
squirming canoe.”

“The old man drew alongside and peered at Ben”

“Sat down on a convenient chopping block”

“‘To shoot gentlemen with?’ asked the little girl
in an awe-struck whisper”

“‘Stand there and stand steady’”

THE RED PIROGUE

CHAPTER I

A QUEER FISH

Young Ben O’Dell emerged from the woodshed into the dew and the
dawning day with a paddle in his hand, crossed a strip of orchard,
passed through a thicket of alders and choke cherries and between
two great willows and descended a steep bank to a beach of sand and
pebbles. Thin mist still crawled in wisps on the sliding surface of
the river. Eastward, downstream, sky and hills and water were awash
and afire with the pink and gold and burnished silver of the new
day.

Ben was as agreeably conscious of the scents of the place and hour
as of the beloved sights and sounds. He sniffed the faint fragrance
of running water, the sweeter breath of clover blooms, the sharper
scent of pennyroyal. He could even detect and distinguish the mild,
dank odors of dew-wet willow bark, of stranded cedar blocks and of
the lush-green stems of black rice and duck grass.

He crossed the beach to the gray sixteen-foot pirogue which was used
for knocking about between the point and the island and for tending
the salmon net. It wasn’t much of a craft—just a stick of pine
shaped by ax and draw knife and hollowed by ax and fire—but it saved
Uncle Jim McAllister’s canvas canoe much wear and tear. It was heavy
and “crank,” but it was tough.

Ben launched the pirogue with a long, grinding shove, stepped aboard
and went sliding out across the current toward the stakes and floats
of the net. The upper rim of the sun was above the horizon by now
and the shine and golden glory of it dazzled his eyes.

It was now that Ben first noticed the other pirogue. He thought it
was a log, but only for a moment. Shading his eyes with his hand he
made out the man-cut lines and the paint-red glow. It was a pirogue
sure enough and the largest one Ben had ever seen. It was fully
twenty-five feet long, deep and bulky in proportion and painted red
from end to end. It lay motionless on the upper side of the net,
caught lengthwise against the stout stakes.

Ben, still standing, dipped his long paddle a dozen times and in a
minute he was near enough to the strange pirogue to look into it.
The thing which he saw there caused him to step crookedly and
violently backward; and before he realized what he had done the
crank little dugout had rolled with a snap and he was under water.

He came to the surface beside his own craft which had righted but
was full of water and no more than just afloat. He swam it into
shallow water, pushed it aground, threw his paddle ashore and then
turned again to the river and the big red pirogue lying motionless
against the net stakes.

“Nothing to be scared of,” he said. “Don’t know why I jumped like
that. Fool trick!”

He kicked off his loose brogans one by one, dipped for them and
threw them ashore.

The sun was up now and the light was brighter. The last shred of
mist was gone from the river.

[Illustration: “FOR A FEW SECONDS THE TWO GAZED IN SILENCE.”]

“It startled me, that was all,” he said. “It would startle any
man—Uncle Jim himself, even.”

He waded until the swift water was halfway between his belt and his
shoulders, then plunged forward and swam out and up toward the red
pirogue. He hadn’t far to go, but now the current was against him.
He made it in a few minutes, however. He gripped a gunnel of the big
dugout with both hands and hoisted himself high and looked inboard.
At the same moment the occupant of the strange craft sat up and
stared at him with round eyes. For a few seconds the two gazed in
silence.

“Who are you?” asked the occupant of the red pirogue.

“I’m Ben O’Dell,” replied the youth in the water, smiling
encouragingly and brushing aside a bang of wet hair. “I live on the
point when I’m not away downriver at school. I was surprised when I
first saw you—so surprised that I upset and had to swim.”

“Is that O’Dell’s Point?” asked the other.

“Yes. You can’t see the house for those big willows on the bank.”

“Are you Mrs. O’Dell’s boy?”

“Yes, I’m her son. I’m not so small as I look with just my head out
of water. I guess I’d better climb in, if you don’t mind, and paddle
you ashore.”

“You may climb in, if you want to—but I can paddle myself all
right.”

“Is she steady? Can I put all my weight on one side, or must I get
in over the end?”

“She’s steady as a scow.”

Ben pulled himself up and scrambled in. A paddle lay aft. He took it
up and stroked for the shore.

“It was a funny place to find you,” he ventured.

“Why funny?” she asked gravely.

“Well—queer. A little girl all alone in a big pirogue and caught
against the net stakes.”

“I’m eleven years old. I caught the pirogue there on purpose because
I thought I was getting near to O’Dell’s Point and I was afraid to
land in the dark.”

“Do you know my mother?”

“No-o—not herself—but I have a letter of intr’duction to her.”

They stepped ashore and crossed the beach side by side. Ben felt
bewildered, despite his eighteen years of life and six feet of
loosely jointed height. This small girl astonished and puzzled him
with her gravity that verged on the tragic, her assured and superior
manners, her shabby attire and her cool talk of “a letter of
intr’duction.” He possessed a keen sense of humor but he did not
smile. Even the letter of introduction struck him as being pathetic
rather than funny. He was touched by pity and curiosity and
profoundly bewildered.

They climbed the steep, short bank.

“You are big,” she remarked gravely as they passed between the old
apple trees. “Bigger than lots of grown men. I thought you were just
a little boy when I couldn’t see anything but your head. You must be
quite old.”

“I’m eighteen; and I’m going to college this fall—if mother makes
me. But I’d sooner stop home and work with Uncle Jim,” he replied.

At that moment they cleared the orchard and came upon the ell and
woodshed of the wide gray house and Mr. James McAllister in the door
of the shed. McAllister backed and vanished in the snap of a finger.

“He is shy with strangers, but he’s a brave man and a good one,”
said Ben.

Mrs. O’Dell appeared in the doorway just then.

“Mother, here’s a little girl who came from somewhere or other in a
big red pirogue,” said Ben. “I found her out at the net. She has a
letter for you.”

Mrs. O’Dell was a tall woman of forty, slender and strong, with the
blue eyes and warm brown hair of the McAllisters. She wore a cotton
dress of one of the changing shades of blue of her eyes, trim and
fresh. The dress was open at the throat and the sleeves were rolled
up to the elbows. She stepped forward without a moment’s hesitation
and laid a strong hand lightly on one of the little girl’s thin
shoulders. She smiled and the blue of her eyes darkened and
softened.

“A letter for me, dear?” she queried.

“Yes Mrs. O’Dell—from dad,” replied the stranger.

“You are Richard Sherwood’s little girl?”

“Yes, I’m Marion.”

“And you came alone? Not all the way from French River?”

“Most of the way—alone. I—dad——”

Ben became suddenly aware of the fact that the queer little girl was
crying. She was still looking steadily up into his mother’s face but
tears were brimming her eyes and sparkling on her cheeks and her
lips were trembling. He turned away in pained confusion. For several
minutes he stared fixedly at the foliage and green apples of the
orchard; when he ventured to turn again he found himself alone.

Ben passed through the woodshed into the kitchen. There he found his
uncle frying pancakes in a fever of distracted effort, spilling
batter, scorching cakes and perspiring.

“Where are they?” he asked.

Uncle Jim motioned toward an inner door with the long knife with
which he was working so hard and accomplishing so little. Ben took
the knife away from him, cleared the griddle of smoking ruins and
scraped it clean.

“You didn’t grease it,” he said. “I’ll handle the pork and do the
turning and you handle the batter.”

This arrangement worked satisfactorily.

“Where’d you find her, Ben?” whispered McAllister.

“In a big pirogue drifted against the stakes of our net,” replied
the youth. “She was asleep when I first glimpsed her and I thought
it was somebody dead. It gave me a start, I can tell you.”

“It sure would. Well, I reckon she’s as queer a fish as was ever
taken in a salmon net on this river.”

“It was a queer place to find her, all right. Who’s Richard
Sherwood, Uncle Jim? Do you know him? How did mother come to guess
who she was?”

“I used to know him. All of us did for a few years, a long time ago.
He was quality, the same as your pa—but he wasn’t steady like your
pa.”

“Quality? You mean he was a gentleman?”

“That’s what he’d ought to been, anyhow—but I reckon the woods up
French River, and one thing and another, were too much for his
gentility. Ssh! Here they come!”

Mrs. O’Dell and little Marion Sherwood entered the kitchen hand in
hand. The eyes of both wore a suggestion of recent tears and hasty
bathing with cold water, but both were smiling, though the little
girl’s smile was tremulous and uncertain.

“Jim, this is Dick Sherwood’s daughter,” said the woman. “You and
Dick were great friends in the old days, weren’t you?”

“We sure was,” returned McAllister awkwardly but cordially. “He was
as smart a man in the water as ever I saw. Could dive and swim like
an otter. And a master hand with a gun! He could shoot birds
a-flying easier’n I could hit ’em on the ground. John was a good
shot, too, but he wasn’t a match for your pa, little girl. I hope he
keeps in good health.”

“Yes, thank you,” whispered Marion.

“Marion’s pa has left French River for a little while on business,
and Marion will make her home with us until he returns,” said Mrs.
O’Dell.

There was bacon for breakfast as well as buckwheat pancakes, and
there were hot biscuits and strawberry preserves and cream to top
off with. The elders did most of the talking. Marion sat beside Jim
McAllister, on his left. Jim, having taken his cue from his sister,
racked his memory for nice things to say of Richard Sherwood. He
sang Sherwood’s prowess in field and stream. At last, spooning his
preserves with his right hand, he let his left hand rest on his knee
beneath the edge of the table.

“And brave!” he said. “You couldn’t scare him! I never knew any man
so brave as Dick Sherwood except only John O’Dell.”

Then a queer change of expression came over his face. Young Ben, who
was watching his uncle from the other side of the table, noticed it
instantly. The blue eyes widened; the drooping mustache twitched;
the lower jaw sagged and a vivid flush ascended throat and chin and
cheek beneath the tough tan of wind and sun. Ben wondered.

Breakfast over, the man and youth went outside, for there were
potatoes to be hilled and turnips to be thinned.

“What was the matter with you, Uncle Jim?” inquired Ben.

“Me? When?” asked McAllister.

“Just a little while ago. Just after you said how brave Mr. Sherwood
was—from that on. You looked sort of dazed and moonstruck.”

“Moonstruck, hey? Well, I’ll tell you, Ben, seeing as it’s you. That
little girl took a-holt of my hand when I said that about her pa.
And she kept right on a-holding of it.”

“Girls must be queer. I knew something was wrong, you looked so
foolish. But if her father was such a fine man as you tried to make
out at breakfast, what’s the matter with him? You told me that the
woods had been too much for his gentility, Uncle Jim.”

“Sure it was—the woods or something; but he was smart and brave all
the same when I knew him. I wasn’t lying; but I’ll admit I was
telling all the good of him I could think up, so’s to hearten the
poor little girl. It worked, too.”

“Do you know why he left French River? And why did he leave her to
come all that way alone?”

“I’ll ask Flora, first chance I get. I’m just as curious as yerself,
Ben.”

They were halfway to the potatoes with their earthy hoes on their
shoulders when Ben halted suddenly and faced his uncle with an
abashed grin.

“I forgot to tend the net,” he said. “It may be full of salmon for
all I know—and all the salmon full of eels by this time.”

McAllister’s long, lean frame jerked with laughter.

“That suits me fine, Ben,” he exclaimed as soon as he could speak.
“We’ll go tend it now. I’d sooner be on the river this fine morning
than hilling potatoes, anyhow; and maybe we’ll find another grilse
from French River.”

Uncle Jim was impressed by the red pirogue. He had seen bigger ones
but not many of them. In the days of his unsettled and adventurous
youth, when he was a “white-water boy,” chopping in the woods every
winter and “stream-driving” logs every spring, he had once helped to
shape and dig out a thirty-five-foot pirogue. But that had been
close onto fifty miles farther upriver and back in the days of big
pine timber.

“She’s a sockdolager, all right,” he said. “Didn’t know there was
any such pines left on French River. What’s underneath the blankets,
aft there?”

Ben stepped into the grounded craft, went aft and lifted the
blankets, disclosing a lumpy sack tied at the neck with twine, a
battered leather gun case and a bundle wrapped in a rubber ground
sheet and securely tied about with rope.

“It’s her dunnage!” exclaimed Uncle Jim. “Off you walked and left it
laying! You’re a fine feller to catch a young lady in a net, you
ain’t! Where was your wits, Ben?”

“I was upset, that’s a sure thing,” admitted the youth. “And I’m
still a good deal puzzled about these Sherwoods,” he added.

In the net they found four salmon, three still sound and one already
fallen a prey to devouring eels. Several eels had entered the
largest fish by way of the gills and mouth and what had been salmon
was now more eel. The silver skin was undamaged and the eels were
still inside.

With Marion Sherwood’s baggage, the salmon and the skinful of eels,
Ben and his uncle had to make two trips from the river to the house.
The eels were thrown to the hogs as they were, alive and in their
attractive container. The undamaged fish were cleaned, salted and
hung in the smokehouse. During that operation and the journey to the
potato field and between brisk bouts of hoe work, James McAllister
told his nephew most of what he knew of the Sherwoods of French
River.

Mr. Richard Sherwood first appeared at O’Dell’s Point twenty-six
years ago when James McAllister was only twenty years of age. He was
direct from England, by way of the big town sixty miles downriver.
He arrived with three loaded canoes and six Maliseet canoemen from
the reservation near Kingstown and jumped knee-deep into the water
before the canoes could make the shore and set up a shout that
started the echoes on the far side of the river.

“Jack O’Dell. Guncotton Jack! Tally-ho! Steady the Buffs!”

The Maliseets wondered; the mowers on island and mainland ceased
their labors to give ear; and John O’Dell, in the orchard, hooked
his scythe into the crotch of an apple tree and started for the
beach at top speed with Jim McAllister close at his heels. O’Dell
went down the bank in two jumps. The stranger saw him and splashed
ashore. They met halfway between the willows and the water and shook
hands two-handed. They were certainly glad to see each other.

That was how Richard Sherwood came to O’Dell’s Point. He was a
fine-looking young man, red and brown, with a swagger in his
shoulders and a laugh in his dark eyes. But all the world was young
then. Even Captain John O’Dell was only twenty-six.

Sherwood had been a lieutenant in O’Dell’s company of the second
battalion of the Buffs. The two young men had served together in a
hill war in India; and Sherwood had been present when O’Dell,
refusing to accept another volunteer after three had been shot down,
had advanced with a cigarette between his lips and lighted the fuse
of the charge of guncotton which the first volunteer had placed
under the gate of the fort. He had lighted the fuse with the coal of
his cigarette, while the entire garrison shot down at him and his
men shot up at the garrison and then had turned and walked downhill
to the nearest cover with blood flowing down his neck, the top gone
from his helmet, the guard of his sheathed sword smashed on his hip
and a slug of lead in the calf of his right leg—still smoking the
cigarette.

John O’Dell had resigned his commission soon after the death of his
father and returned home to Canada and his widowed mother and the
wide gray house at O’Dell’s Point. That had been just two years
before Richard Sherwood’s arrival on the river.

Sherwood lived with the O’Dells until December. He was a live wire.
He worked on the farm, swam in the river, shot duck and partridge
and snipe, hunted moose and made a number of trips upstream in
search of land to buy and settle on. He wanted thousands of acres.
He had big but somewhat confused ideas of what he wanted. He liked
the life. It was brisk and wild. He confided to young Jim McAllister
that he wouldn’t object to its being even brisker and wilder than he
found it in the vicinity of O’Dell’s Point. The O’Dells, he said,
were just a trifle too conscious of their duty toward, and
superiority to, the lesser people of the river.

Jim McAllister admired Sherwood vastly in those days and was with
him on the river and in the woods as often as possible. The
McAllisters lived in the next house above the point. The family
consisted then of Ian and Jim and Agnes and Flora and their parents
and a grandfather.

They were not like the O’Dells exactly, those McAllisters, but they
were just as good in their own way. Their habitation was less than
the O’Dell house by four bedrooms, a gun room, a library and a
drawing-room with two fireplaces; and their farm was of one hundred
and sixty acres against the square mile of mainland and forty-acre
island of the O’Dells. And yet the two families were loyal friends
of long standing. The first McAllister to settle on the river one
hundred and ten years ago had been a sergeant in the regiment of
which the first O’Dell had been the commanding officer.

Jim McAllister took Mr. Richard Sherwood upriver in December,
twenty-six years ago, to introduce him to some of the mysteries of
trapping fur. Sherwood was restless and traveled fast. After a time
they struck French River at a point about ten miles from its mouth
and within a few hundred yards of the log house of Louis Balenger.
Balenger had Iroquois blood in his veins and was from the big
northern province of Quebec. He had come to French River with his
family five or six years before, traveling light and fast. When Jim
McAllister saw where he was he urged Sherwood to keep right on, for
Balenger had the reputation of being a dangerous man.

But Louis sighted them and hailed them, ran to meet them and had
them within the log walls of his house as quick as winking. And
there was rum on the table and the fire on the hearth burned
cheerily and Mrs. Balenger said that dinner would be ready in half
an hour. The dinner was plentiful and well cooked, the eyes of the
Balenger girls were big and black and bright and the conversation of
Louis was pure entertainment though somewhat mixed in language.

That was the beginning of Richard Sherwood’s fall from grace in the
eyes of the O’Dells and McAllisters and most other people of unmixed
white blood on the big river. Jim McAllister returned to O’Dell’s
Point alone; and even he had turned his back reluctantly on the
exciting hospitality of the big log house. Even as it was, he had
remained under that fateful roof long enough to lose the price of a
good young horse to his merry host at poker. He made all haste down
the white path of French River for ten miles and then down the wider
white way of the big river for twenty miles and reported to his
friend John O’Dell before showing himself to his own family.

Captain O’Dell gave Jim two hours in which to rest, eat and rub the
snowshoe cramps out of his legs with hot bear’s grease; and then the
two of them headed for French River, backtracking on Jim’s trail
which had scarcely had time to cool. They reached Balenger’s house
next day, before noon. Mrs. Balenger opened the door to them and
welcomed them in. Jim McAllister followed John O’Dell reluctantly
into the big living room. There sat Sherwood and Balenger at a table
beside the wide hearth with cards in their hands, just as Jim had
last seen them two days before.

Louis Balenger laid down his cards, sprang to his feet and advanced
to meet the visitors. He expressed the honor which he felt at this
neighborly attention on the part of the distinguished Captain
O’Dell. But Richard Sherwood did not move. John O’Dell was very
polite and cold as ice and dry as sand. He bowed gravely to Madame
Balenger and her daughters, refused a glass of punch from the hand
of Louis on the plea that he was already overheated and requested
Dick Sherwood to settle for the play and come along. Sherwood
refused to budge. He was angry and sulky.

O’Dell’s Point saw nothing more of Richard Sherwood for nine long
months. He appeared one August evening in a bark canoe, spent the
night with the O’Dells and headed upriver again early next morning,
swearing more like a river-bred “white-water boy” than an English
gentleman. The captain told Jim McAllister something of what had
passed between himself and Sherwood. Sherwood, it seems, had lost
all his little property—the price of a good farm, at least—to Louis
Balenger, and he had wanted a few hundred dollars to set about
winning it all back with.

John had refused to lend him money for poker but had offered him
land and stock and a home and help if he would cut his acquaintance
with Louis Balenger and the entire Balenger tribe. Sherwood refused
to consider any such offer, said that Delphine Balenger was worth
more than all the other inhabitants of the country rolled together
and that he would not lose sight of her even if he had to work his
fingers to the bone in the service of Louis, and went away in a
raging temper.

Once a year, for eight years, John O’Dell tried to get Sherwood away
from the Balengers and French River but always in vain. Sherwood
worked for Louis and according to Louis’ own methods; and as he was
always the goat he was frequently on the run from the wardens of the
game laws.

Down at O’Dell’s Point life went on evenly and honestly and yet with
a fine dash of romance. Captain John O’Dell wooed and wed Flora
McAllister and Jim McAllister was jilted by a girl at Hood’s Ferry
and several elderly people died peacefully. Up on French River,
Delphine Balenger ran away with a lumberman from the States after
Dick Sherwood had spent ten years in slavery and disgrace for love
of her; and Sherwood set out on the lumberman’s track with murder in
his heart. He lost his way and was found and brought home by
Delphine’s younger sister. Then Sherwood quarreled with Louis
Balenger and Louis shot him twice, left the Englishman for dead and
vanished from French River forever. Julie Balenger nursed poor
Sherwood back to life and strength and, soon after, married him.

This is what Uncle Jim told young Ben O’Dell of the Sherwoods of
French River.

CHAPTER II

THE DRIFTING FIRE

When the little Sherwood girl first saw the library she did not
believe her eyes. It was not a large room, and there were not more
than six hundred volumes on the shelves; but Marion had to pull out
and examine a score of the books before she believed that the rest
were real. She had not known that there was so much printed paper in
the whole world. She had seen only three books before this discovery
of the O’Dell library, the three from which her father had taught
her to read. He had told her of others and she had pictured the book
wealth of the world on one shelf three feet long.

Ben O’Dell looked into the library through one of the open windows.

“Have you read ‘Coral Island’?” he asked.

Marion shook her head.

“It’s good,” continued Ben. “But ‘Treasure Island’ is better. They
are both on my shelves, farther along. ‘Midshipman Easy’ is fine,
too—but perhaps it’s too old for you. Have you read many books?”

“I’ve read three,” she replied. “Dad taught me to read them. He
taught Julie and me to read at the same time, and he said we were
very clever. He could read as easy as anything.”

“Who is Julie?” he asked.

“She is my mother,” replied the little girl, with averted face.
“They taught me to call her Julie when I was a baby and they used to
laugh. She—she was ill two years ago—and I haven’t seen her
since—because she’s in Heaven.”

Ben’s face grew red with pity and embarrassment; for a minute both
were silent. He found his voice first.

“What books have you read?” he asked.

“‘Rob Roy,’ by Sir Walter Scott,” she answered in a tremulous
whisper which scarcely reached him. “It was quite a big book, in
green covers—and I liked it best of all. And ‘Infantry Training.’ It
was a little red book. Julie and I didn’t find it very interesting.
The third was ‘The Army List.’ It had dad’s name in it and _your_
father’s too, and hundreds and hundreds of names of other officers
of the king.”

“But—you read those—‘Infantry Training’ and ‘The Army List’?”

“Yes—plenty of times.”

“And only one story like ‘Rob Roy’?”

“We hadn’t any more.”

Ben O’Dell leaned his hoe against the side of the house and hoisted
himself through the open window. The little girl looked at him; but,
knowing that there were tears in her eyes he did not meet her
glance. Instead, he took her by the hand and led her across the room
to his own particular shelves of books.

“Here’s what I used to read when I was your age,” he said. “I read
them even now, sometimes. ‘Treasure Island’—you’ll like that.” He
drew it out and laid it on the floor. “‘From Powder Monkey to
Admiral,’ ‘My Friend Smith,’ ‘The Lady or the Tiger,’ ‘Red Fox,’
‘The Gold Bug,’ ‘The Black Arrow,’ ‘Robbery Under Arms,’ ‘Davy and
the Goblin’—you’ll like all these.”

The little girl stared speechless at the pile of books on the floor.
Ben recrossed the room, climbed through the window and reshouldered
his hoe. He met Uncle Jim at the near edge of the potato patch.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” said McAllister. “I don’t want to take
any advantage of you by starting in at these spuds ahead of you.”

“I stopped a minute to show the little Sherwood girl some good books
to read,” explained the youth.

“Can she read?” asked Uncle Jim. “How would she learn to read, way
up there on French River?”

“Her father taught her. He taught her and her mother to read at the
same time. And her mother’s dead. I’m sorry for that kid, Uncle Jim.
Mighty tough, it seems to me—no mother—and to be left all alone in a
big pirogue by her father. I’d like to know why he did that.”

“So would I,” returned McAllister. “I asked your ma and she didn’t
seem to know exactly. Couldn’t make out anything particular from the
letter nor from what the little girl told her—but it’s something
real serious, I guess. He had to run, anyhow. He is fond of the
little girl, no doubt about it. His letter to Flora told that much.
And he was mighty fond of his wife too, I reckon; and I wouldn’t
wonder if there wasn’t more good in him than what we figured on,
after all. He had wild blood in him, I guess; and Louis Balenger was
sure a bad feller to get mixed up with.”

They worked in silence for half an hour, hilling the potatoes side
by side.

“I’d like to know why he left her in the pirogue. Why he didn’t
bring her all the way,” said Ben, pausing and leaning on his hoe.

“How far down did he bring her?” returned McAllister.

“I don’t know.”

“Likely he was scared. Maybe the wardens were close onto his heels.
It looks like he figgered on just coming part way with her, by his
having the letter to your ma already written.”

Again they fell to work and for ten minutes the hoes were busy. Then
McAllister straightened his back.

“It’s years since I was last on French River,” he said. “I’d like
fine to take another look at that country. We’d maybe learn
something we don’t know if we got right on the ground. We wouldn’t
have to be gone for long. Two days up, one day for scouting ’round
and one day for the run home—four or five days would be plenty.”

“When can we go?”

“Not before haying, that’s a sure thing. Between haying and harvest
is the best time, I reckon. I feel real curious about Dick
Sherwood’s affairs now—more curious than I’ve felt for years.”

“He sounds mighty interesting to me! and I shouldn’t be surprised to
learn that you were wrong when you said the woods had been too much
for his gentility, Uncle Jim.”

“Neither would I, myself. But how d’ye figger it, Ben?”

“Well, the little girl has good manners.”

“She sure has! I never saw a little girl with better manners. I’m
hoping her pa hasn’t done something they can jail him for—or if he
has, that they can’t catch ’im. I’m all for keeping the laws—even
the game laws—but maybe if I’d lived on French River along with
Louis Balenger instead of at O’Dell’s Point alongside O’Dells all my
life, I’d be busy this minute keeping a jump ahead of the wardens
instead of hilling potatoes. You never can tell. There’s more to
shootin’ a moose in close season nor the twitch of the finger.
There’s many an outlaw running the woods who would have been an
honest farmer like yer Uncle Jim if only he’d been born a McAllister
and been bred alongside the O’Dells.”

“I’ve been thinking that myself,” returned Ben gravely.
“Environment, that’s it! The influence of environment.”

“It sure sounds right to me, all right,” said McAllister. “We’ll
call it that, anyhow; and we won’t forget that Dick Sherwood taught
his little girl good manners and how to read.”

The thought of getting away from the duties of the farm for a few
days was a pleasant one to both the honest farmer and his big
nephew. Jim McAllister was not an enthusiastic agriculturalist. He
loved the country and he didn’t object to an occasional bout of
strenuous toil; but the unadventurous round of milking and weeding
and hoeing day after day bored him extremely even now in his
forty-sixth year. But for the mild excitement of the salmon net in
the river and his love for his widowed sister and his nephew and his
respect for the memory of the late Captain John O’Dell he would long
ago have turned his back on the implements of husbandry and taken to
the woods.

Young Ben, on the other hand, was keen about farm work. He preferred
it to school work. He was young enough to find excitement where none
was perceptible to his uncle. He loved all growing things, but he
loved cattle more than crops, horses more than cows. The practical
side of farm life was dear to him and he took pleasure in the duties
which seemed humdrum to his uncle; but the side issues, the sporting
features, were even dearer. He loved the river better than the
meadow and he saw eye to eye with McAllister in the matter of the
salmon net. A flying duck set his blood flying and the reek of
burned powder on the air of a frosty morning was the most delicious
scent he knew. He loved wood smoke under trees and the click of an
iron-shod canoe pole on pebbles, and the tracks of wild animals in
mud and snow. The prospect of a visit to French River was far from
unwelcome to him.

That was an unusually warm night, without a breath of air on
O’Dell’s Point. Ben went to bed at ten o’clock and somehow let three
mosquitoes into his room with him. He undressed, extinguished his
lamp and lay sweltering in his pajamas on the outside of his bed.
Then the mosquitoes tuned their horns and sounded the charge. They
lasted nearly half an hour; by the time they were dead Ben was wider
awake than he had been at any time during the day. He went to the
window and looked out at the sky of faint stars and the vague dark
of the curving river. His glance was straight ahead at first, then
eastward downstream.

Ben saw a light, a red light, drifting on the black river. His first
thought was that it might be some one with a lantern, but in a
moment he saw that the light could not be that of a lantern, for it
grew and sparks began to fly from it. A torch, perhaps. The torch of
a salmon spearer? Not likely! For years it had been unlawful to kill
salmon or bass with the spear and there was no lawbreaker on the
river possessed of sufficient hardihood to light his torch within
sight of O’Dell’s Point. More than this, the light was running with
the current; and it was increasing every moment in height and length
far beyond the dimensions of any torch.

Ben groped for his shoes and picked them up, felt his way cautiously
out of the room and down the back stairs. In the woodshed he put on
his shoes and equipped himself with paddle and pole. Then he ran for
the river, ducking under the boughs of the old apple trees and
descending the bank in a jump and a slide. Dim as the light was he
saw that the big pirogue was gone before he reached the edge of the
water. The sixteen-footer was there but nothing was to be seen of
the giant from French River. He looked downstream and saw the light
which had attracted him from his window vanishing behind the head of
the island, out in the channel. It was like a floating camp fire by
this time.

Ben threw pole and paddle into the sixteen-footer, ran her into the
water and leaped aboard. He shot her straight across the current for
a distance of several hundred yards, until he was clear of the head
of the island, then swung down on the track of the drifting fire. He
paddled hard, urged by a very natural curiosity. This and the
disappearance of the red pirogue from the point and the fact that he
was out on the dark river in his pajamas instead of tossing on his
hot bed, thrilled him pleasantly.

He drew steadily down upon the fire which was now leaping high and
tossing up showers of sparks and trailing blood-red reflections on
the black water. As he drew yet nearer he heard the crackle of its
burning and the hiss of embers in the water. He heard a dog barking
off on the southern shore. He heard the roaring breath of the fire
and felt its heat. He swerved slightly and drew abreast of it.

He saw that the fire was in a boat of some sort, that the vessel was
full of flame and crowned with flame, that it was heaped high from
bow to stern with blazing driftwood and dry brush. The lines of the
craft showed black and clear-cut between the leaping red and yellow
of the flames above and the sliding red of the water below. He
looked more intently and recognized the lines and bulk of the big
red pirogue.

The red pirogue, the property of his mother’s guest, adrift and
afire in the middle of the river! Who had dared to do this thing? No
neighbor, that was certain. Canoes, nets, all sorts of gear, were as
safe on the beach at O’Dell’s Point as in the house itself. This
must be the work of a stranger and of an insane one, at that.

Ben continued to drift abreast of the red pirogue and watch it burn.
He kept just out of range of the showering sparks and the scorching
heat. He felt indignant and puzzled. But for the assurance of his
own eyes he could not have believed that any inhabitant of the
valley possessed sufficient temerity thus to remove property from
O’Dell land and destroy it. If he should ever discover the identity
of the offender he would make him regret the action, by thunder! He
would show him that the O’Dells were not all dead. No other theft of
such importance as this had been made on the O’Dell front in a
hundred years. But could this be properly classed as a theft? It
seemed to Ben more like an act inspired by insolence than the
performance of a person driven by greed or necessity.

“Hello! Hello!” hailed a voice from the gloom on the right.

“Hello,” answered Ben, turning his face toward the sound.

A small sturgeon boat appeared in the circle of fierce light,
paddled by a square-shouldered old man with square whiskers whom Ben
recognized as Tim Hood of Hood’s Ferry.

[Illustration: “THE OLD MAN DREW ALONGSIDE AND PEERED AT BEN.”]

“Hold hard there!” cried Hood. “What pranks be ye up to now?”

“Pranks? What are you talking about?” returned the youth.

The old man drew alongside and peered at Ben, shading his eyes with
a hand against the glare of the fire.

“Oh, it’s yerself!” he exclaimed. “Well, what d’ye know about this
here? What be the joke an’ who be the joker?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” replied Ben, turning again to
contemplate the drifting fire.

The mass of wood had settled considerably by this time and was now a
mound of hot crimson and orange with low flames running over it. The
gunnels of the pirogue were burning swiftly, edging the long mass of
glowing embers with a hedge of livelier flame. The big pirogue
hissed from end to end and was girdled by misty puffs of steam.

“Looks to me like a pirogue,” said old Tim Hood. “A big one, like
the ones we uster make afore all the big pine was cut off
hereabouts.”

Ben was about to tell what he knew but he checked himself. Pride and
perhaps something else prompted him to keep quiet. Why should he
admit to this old ferryman that some one on the river had dared to
take a pirogue from the O’Dell front? Very likely it would amuse
Hood to believe that the influence of this distinguished family for
honesty and order was waning, for the ferryman was the only person
within ten miles of O’Dell’s Point who had ever openly denied the
virtue of the things for which the O’Dells of the Point had stood
for more than a hundred years. During Captain John’s term of
occupation, and even in the days of Ben’s grandfather, Tim Hood had
openly derided the elegant condescension of the O’Dell manners and
the purity of the O’Dell speech and made light of learning, military
rank and romantic traditions. So Ben did not tell the old man that
the pirogue had been set adrift from O’Dell’s Point.

“I saw it from my bedroom window and couldn’t make out what it was,”
he said.

“Same here,” replied Hood. “An’ whatever it was, it won’t be even
that much longer.”

He swung the sturgeon boat around and paddled away into the gloom.

Ben also deserted the fated pirogue which was now shrouded in a
cloud of steam. He backed and headed his sluggish craft for the
bulky darkness of the left shore.

“I’m glad I didn’t tell him,” he reflected. “He’d have laughed and
sneered, the way he does about everything he doesn’t know anything
about. And I’m mighty glad I didn’t say anything about the little
girl—about her coming to the point all alone and me finding her
drifted against the net stakes. He’d have made the worst of
that—would have said Sherwood had run away and deserted her and
sneered at both of them.”

When he got into shallow water he headed upstream and exchanged the
paddle for the pole. He had paddled and drifted far below the tail
of the little island. The water was not swift and the bottom was
firm. He poled easily, keeping close inshore. He searched his
knowledge of his neighbors and his somewhat limited experience of
life and human nature for a solution of the puzzle and for a reason
for the removal and destruction of the red pirogue. But he failed to
see light. The more he thought of it, the more utterly unreasonable
it seemed to him. It was a mystery; and he had inherited a taste for
the mysterious with his McAllister blood.

Upon reaching the tail of the island Ben kept to his course and
entered the thoroughfare between the island and the left shore. Here
the shallow water ran swiftly over sand and bright pebbles in a
narrow passage. In some places the water was so shoal that Ben had
to heave straight down on the pole to scrape over and in other
places it eddied in deep pits in which water-logged driftwood lay
rotting and big eels squirmed. Both the island shore and the
mainland shore were grown thick and tall with willows, water maples
and elms. Under the faint stars the thoroughfare was black as the
inside of a hat.

Ben was almost through the dark passage, almost abreast of the head
of the island, when he thrust the pole vigorously into seven feet of
water instead of into seven inches and lost his balance. The crank
little pirogue did the rest and Ben went into the hole with a mighty
splash. He came to the surface in a second, overtook the drifting
craft in a few strokes and herded it into shallow water under the
wooded bank. He waded hurriedly toward the stranded bow and collided
with something alive—something large and alive.

Ben was staggered, physically and in other ways, for several
seconds. Then he pulled himself together, shook his O’Dell courage
to the fore and jumped straight with extended arms. But the thing
was gone. He stumbled, recovered his balance and listened
breathlessly. Thing? It was a man! He had felt clothing and smelled
tobacco. He heard a rustle at the top of the bank and instantly
dashed for the sound. But the bank was steep and tangled with
willows. He ripped his pajamas, he scratched his skin and finally he
lost his footing and rolled back to the stranded dugout. He stepped
aboard, pushed off and completed his journey.

Uncle Jim smote Ben’s door with his knuckles next morning, as usual,
and passed on his way down the back stairs. Ben sighed in his sleep
and slept on. Mrs. O’Dell came to the door twenty minutes later and
was surprised to find it still closed. She knocked and received no
answer. She opened the door and looked into the little room. There
was Ben sound asleep, his face a picture of health and contentment.
The mother smiled with love and maternal pride.

“He is so big and young, he needs a great deal of sleep,” she
murmured.

Her loving glance moved from his face and she saw the front of his
sleeping jacket above the edge of the sheet and her eyes widened.
The breast of the jacket was ripped in three places and stained in
spots and splashes with brown and green. And on one of his long arm
a red scratch ran from wrist to elbow.

“Ben!” she cried.

He opened his eyes, smiled and sat up.

“Look at your arm!” she exclaimed. “And your jacket is torn! What
has happened to you, Ben dear?”

Then he remembered and told her all about his midnight adventure.
She sat on the edge of his bed and listened gravely. The more she
heard, the graver she became.

“I bet the man I bumped into is the one who did it,” concluded Ben.

“Yes—but I can’t think what to make of it,” she said. “Something
queer is going on. Perhaps an enemy of poor Mr. Sherwood’s is
lurking around. I shall tell Jim, but nobody else.”

“The little girl will ask about her red pirogue some day,” said Ben.
“It was a fine pirogue—the best I ever saw.”

“We must try not to let her know that it was willfully burned,”
replied his mother. “The poor child has suffered quite enough
without knowing that her father has an enemy mean enough to do a
thing like that. We must see that no harm comes to her, Ben.”

CHAPTER III

THE STRANGE BEHAVIOR OF DOGS AND MEN

Five days after the burning of the red pirogue, another queer thing
happened at O’Dell’s Point. It happened between three and five
o’clock of the afternoon.

Jim McAllister had driven off downstream early that morning with two
horses and a heavy wagon to buy provisions at the town of Woodstock.
The round trip was an all-day job. Ben O’Dell shouldered an ax after
dinner and, accompanied by the youngest of the three O’Dell dogs,
went back to mend a brush fence and see if the highest hay field was
ripe for the scythe. Mrs. O’Dell and little Marion Sherwood washed
and dried the dinner dishes and Mrs. O’Dell took a great ham from
the oven and set it to cool in the pantry. At three o’clock she and
the little girl took an armful of books to the old orchard between
the house and the river. Red Lily went with them; Red Chief, the
oldest of the O’Dell setters, remained asleep in the kitchen.

Mrs. O’Dell and the little girl from French River returned to the
house at five o’clock, having finished “Treasure Island.” Red Chief
arose from his slumbers and welcomed them with sweeps of his plumed
tail. Mrs. O’Dell went to the pantry to see how the ham looked—and
the ham wasn’t there!

Some one had been in the pantry, had come and gone by way of the
kitchen, and yet Red Chief had not barked. Mrs. O’Dell was not only
puzzled but alarmed. A thief had visited the house of the O’Dells, a
thing that had not happened for generations; and, worse still, a dog
of the famous old red strain had failed in his duty. And yet Red
Chief had many times proved himself as good a dog as any of his
ancestors had been. Red Chief, the wise and true and fearless, had
permitted a thief to enter and leave the house without so much as
giving tongue. It was a puzzling and disturbing thought to the woman
who held the honor of her dead husband’s family so high that even
the honor of the O’Dell red dogs was dear to her.

She said nothing about the stolen ham to her little guest but she
took the old setter by his silken ears and gazed searchingly into
his unwavering eyes. But there was neither guile nor shame in those
eyes. Devotion, courage, vision and entire self-satisfaction were
there. The old dog’s conscience was clear.

Mrs. O’Dell went through the pantry. Two loaves of bread had gone
with the ham. She searched here and there through the rest of the
house but could not see that anything else had been taken. Nothing
of value was gone, that was certain, and she felt less insecure
though as deeply puzzled. She decided not to mention the vanished
food and the old dog’s strange passivity to her son or her brother.

A week passed over O’Dell’s Point without an unusual incident. Ben
and Uncle Jim commenced haying in the early upland fields; and then
O’Dell’s Point received its first official visit from the law. Ben
brought the horses in at noon, watered them and followed them into
the cool and shadowy stable; and there he found Mel Lunt and a
stranger smoking cigars. Ben was startled, for he knew Mel Lunt to
be the local constable; and the consciousness of being startled
drove away his natural shyness and added to his indignation at the
glowing cigars. His eyes brightened and his cheeks reddened.

“Young man, what do you know about Richard Sherwood?” asked the
stranger, stepping forward and knocking the ash from his cigar.

“We don’t smoke in here, if you don’t mind,” said the overgrown
youth. “It isn’t safe.”

“This here’s Mr. Brown from Woodstock, Ben,” said Lunt hastily.
“He’s depity sheriff of the county.”

“Mel’s said it. Don’t you worry about the cigars, young man, but
tell me what you know, an’ all you know, about Richard Sherwood.”

Ben’s face grew redder and his throat dry.

“I must ask you—again—not to smoke—in this stable,” he replied, in
cracked and jerky tones.

“Yer stalling, young feller!” exclaimed the stranger. “Tell me what
I’m asking you an’ tell it straight. Yer trying to hide something.”

Jim McAllister stepped into the stable at that moment.

“Sure he’s trying to hide something, Dave Brown,” said McAllister.
“He’s trying to hide what he thinks of you for a deputy sheriff—that
you’re as ignorant as you are fresh. He’s remembering his manners
and trying to hide your want of them. He’s half O’Dell an’ half
McAllister; so if you two want to talk in this stable about Richard
Sherwood or anything else, I guess you’d better go out first and
douse those cigars in a puddle or something.”

“I’m here in the name of the law, Jim McAllister,” said Mr. Brown,
uncertainly.

“Same here, only more so,” returned Uncle Jim pleasantly.

“He’s in the right of it, Mr. Brown,” said Mel Lunt.

The officials left the stable, ground their cigars to extinction
with the heels of their boots and came back.

“Yer darned particular,” remarked the deputy sheriff.

“Nothing out of the way,” returned McAllister.

“Well, we’re looking for Richard Sherwood from French River,” said
the other. “He cleared out a couple of weeks ago an’ took his little
girl with him. She’s gone too, anyhow. I heard he used to be a
friend of the folks living here, so I come to ask if you’d seen him
in the last two weeks. I didn’t come to set yer darned stable
afire.”

“No, we haven’t seen Sherwood,” replied McAllister. “What’s the
trouble? Has he taken to poaching again?”

“It’s worse than poaching, this time. I was up on French River ten
days ago, taking a look over the salmon pools and one thing an’
another, to see if the game wardens were onto their job, an’ darn it
all if I didn’t trip over a bran’ new grave in a little clearing.
There’s an old Injun who calls himself Noel Sabattis lives there,
an’ he told me he’d buried a dead man there a few days ago. I asked
questions and he answered them; and then he helped me dig—and there
was a man who’d been shot through the heart!”

“You don’t say!” exclaimed McAllister. “Who was he?”

“Louis Balenger.”

“Balenger? What would bring him back, I wonder? What else did you
find out?”

“Nothing. We’re looking for Richard Sherwood.”

“What has he ever done that would lead you to suspect him of a thing
like that? I used to know him and he was no more the kind to kill a
man than I am. Did the old Injun say Sherwood did it?”

“No, not him. He wouldn’t say a word against Sherwood. But he don’t
matter much, one way or the other, old Noel Sabattis! He ain’t all
there, I guess. He says he found Balenger in Sherwood’s pirogue,
dead, when Sherwood and the little girl were off trout fishing. When
Sherwood come back he helped Noel dig the grave; and next day he lit
out and took the girl with him—so that Injun says.”

“Why don’t you blame it on the Injun?”

“He didn’t run away.”

“That’s so. Well, we haven’t seen Richard Sherwood around here.”

“Nor anything belonging to him, I suppose?”

Jim McAllister scratched his chin.

“We have seen his daughter,” said Ben O’Dell, with dignity. “She is
our guest. She’s in the house now, with my mother. She’s only a
little girl—only eleven years old—and I hope you don’t intend to
question her about Balenger’s death.”

“That’s what I heard. She’s stopping here, you say, but you ain’t
seen her father. That’s queer. How’d she come?”

Ben told of his discovery of the pirogue and the girl against the
stakes of the salmon net, but he did not mention the letter which
the little voyager had brought to his mother. That letter, whatever
it contained, seemed to him entirely too private and purely social a
matter to be handed over to the inspection of a deputy sheriff.

“Did she come down all the way from French River alone, a little
girl of eleven?” asked Brown. “Is that what ye’re trying to stuff
into me?”

“You can’t talk to Ben like that,” interrupted McAllister. “He’s a
quiet lad but he’s an O’Dell—and if you’d been born and bred on this
river you’d know what I mean. Ask Lunt.”

“That’s right,” said Lunt. “The O’Dells hev always been like that.
If they tell anything, it’s true—but I ain’t sayin’ as they always
tell all that they know. Now Ben here says the girl was alone when
he found her, but he ain’t said that he knows she come all the way
from French River alone by herself. How about that, Ben?”

“She told me that her father came part way with her,” said Ben.

“How far?” asked the deputy sheriff.

“She didn’t tell _me_.”

“Well, maybe she’ll tell _me_.”

“No, she won’t—because you won’t ask her that or anything like it,”
said young O’Dell.

“What d’ye mean, I won’t ask her?”

“There you go again!” interrupted Jim McAllister. “Didn’t I tell you
that Ben here’s an O’Dell?”

“Well, what about it? I’m the deputy sheriff of this county and
O’Dells are nothing to me when I’m in the performance of my duty.”

“Let me try to explain,” said Ben, crimson with embarrassment and
the agitation of his fighting blood. “I respect the laws, Mr. Brown,
and I observe them. I was taught to respect them. But I was also
taught to respect other laws—kinds that you have nothing to do
with—officially. Laws of hospitality—that sort of thing. My father
was a good citizen—and a good soldier—and I try to do what I think
he would do under the same circumstances. So if you attempt to
question that—that little girl—my mother’s guest—about her
father—whom you’re hunting for a murderer—I’ll consider it
my—unpleasant duty to knock the stuffing out of you!”

The deputy sheriff stared in amazement.

“Say, that would take some knocking!” he retorted. “How old are you,
young feller?”

“I’m going on eighteen,” replied Ben quietly.

“And you think you can best me in a fight?”

“Yes, I think I can. I’m bigger than you and longer in the reach—and
I’m pretty good.”

“But yer sappy. And yer all joints. I’m no giant but I’m weathered.
The milk’s out of my bones.”

“My joints are all right, Mr. Brown. You won’t find anything wrong
with them if you start in questioning that little Sherwood girl
about her father.”

“I wasn’t born on this river,” said the deputy sheriff, “and I’m a
peaceful citizen with a wife an’ children in Woodstock, but I
consider myself as good a sportsman as any O’Dell who ever waved a
sword or a pitchfork. There’s more man in me than deputy sheriff.
I’ll fight you, Ben, for I like yer crazy ideas; and if you trim me
I’ll go away without asking the girl a single question about her
father. But if I trim you I’ll question her.”

Ben looked at his uncle and the lids of McAllister’s left eye
fluttered swiftly.

“That wouldn’t be fair,” said Ben, turning again to Brown. “And I
can’t make it fair, for I’m determined that you shall not worry my
mother’s guest, whatever happens. If you did manage to beat me,
there’d still be Uncle Jim. So you wouldn’t get a square deal.”

Brown looked at McAllister.

“Does he mean that _you_ would object to me asking the girl a few
civil questions?” he inquired.

“Sure, I’d object,” said McAllister.

“But you ain’t one of these O’Dells!”

“I’m a McAllister—the same kind even if not exactly the same
quality.”

Mr. Brown looked puzzled.

“I’m a little above the average myself,” he said thoughtfully. “Tell
me why you two’ve got to bellyaching so about me wanting to ask that
little girl a few questions, will you? Maybe I’m stupid.”

“Suppose some fool of a sheriff found a dead man and thought you’d
killed him and found out where you’d run to from one of your own
kids,” said McAllister. “The kid loves you, wouldn’t hurt you for a
fortune, but in her innocence she tells what the sheriff wants to
know and he catches you. And we’ll suppose you did it and they prove
it on you. Nice game to play on your little daughter, wouldn’t it
be?”

The deputy sheriff turned to Mel Lunt.

“How does it strike you, Mel?” he asked.

“It’s a highfalutin’ notion, all right for O’Dells an’ sich, but no
good for ordinary folks like us,” replied the constable.

“Is _that_ so!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “You guess again, blast yer
cheek! If you can’t see why a little girl hadn’t ought to be set to
catch her own father an’ maybe send him to jail or worse, I can.
Yes, I can see it, by thunder! Any gentleman could, once it was
explained to him. So you don’t have to worry about that, Ben.”

At that moment a gong sounded.

“That’s for dinner,” said Ben, “and I know my mother will be
delighted if you’ll dine with us. Uncle Jim, will you take them to
the house while I feed the horses?”

McAllister said a few words in his sister’s ear which at once
enlightened and reassured her. There were fresh salmon and green
peas for dinner and custard pies. The meal was eaten in the dining
room. Badly painted and sadly cracked pictures of O’Dells, male and
female, wonderfully uniformed and gowned, looked out from the low
walls.

The deputy sheriff rose to the portraits and the old table silver.
His manners were almost too good to be true and his conversation was
elegant in tone and matter. He amused Ben O’Dell and McAllister and
quite dazzled little Marion Sherwood; but it was impossible to know,
by looking at her, whether Mrs. O’Dell was dazzled or amused. Her
attitude toward her unexpected guests left nothing to be desired. A
bishop and a dean could not have expected more; two old Maliseets at
her table would not have received less.

Only Mel Lunt of the whole company did not play the game. He opened
his mouth only to eat. He raised his eyes from his plate only to
glance swiftly from one painted and sword-girt gentleman on the wall
to another and then at the brow and nose of young Ben O’Dell which
were the brow and nose of the portraits; and all his thought was
that a deputy sheriff was pretty small potatoes after all and that a
rural constable was simply nothing and none to a hill.

A little later Mel Lunt’s mare was hitched to the buggy and Mel had
the reins in his hands when Mr. Brown paused suddenly with one foot
on the step.

“Guess I might’s well take a look at the pirogue,” he said, with his
face turned over his shoulder toward Ben and McAllister.

“She’s gone,” replied Ben. “She was taken off our beach one night
nearly two weeks ago.”

The deputy sheriff lowered his foot and turned around.

“Taken?” he asked. “Who took her?”

Ben said that he didn’t know and explained that he believed she had
been taken, because she would have run aground on the head of the
island if she’d simply drifted off.

“That sounds reasonable,” returned Brown. “Heard anything of her
being picked up below here?”

“Not a word,” said Ben.

The deputy sheriff climbed to the seat beside the constable then and
the pair drove away.

Ben and Jim McAllister returned to the haying and worked in the high
fields until after sundown. Little Marion Sherwood went to bed
immediately after supper. Uncle Jim went next, yawning, and was soon
followed by Ben. The moment Ben sank his head on his pillow he
discovered that he wasn’t nearly so sleepy as he had thought. For a
few minutes he lay and pictured the fight between himself and the
deputy sheriff which had not taken place. He was sorry it had not
materialized, though he felt no bitterness toward Mr. Brown. He
rather liked Mr. Brown now, in fact. But what a fine fight it would
have been. The thought suggested to him the great fight in “Rodney
Stone,” which he tried to remember, only to find that the details
had become obscure in his mind. He left his bed and went downstairs
with the intention of fetching the book from the library. He was
surprised to find his mother busily engaged in locking and double
bolting the front door.

“What’s the idea, mother?” he asked. “Why lock that old door now for
the first time since it was hung on its hinges?”

She told him of the disappearance of the ham and bread.

“But wasn’t one of the dogs in the house?” he asked.

“Yes, Red Chief was in the kitchen; and he didn’t make a sound,” she
answered. “He must have mistaken the thief for a friend, for you
know how he is about strangers. It has made me nervous, Ben.”

“And nothing was taken except the ham and bread?”

“I haven’t missed anything else.”

“It can’t be much of an enemy, whoever it is, to let us off as easy
as that. It sounds more like a hungry friend to me.”

“You are thinking of Richard Sherwood, Ben.”

“Yes, mother. He might be hanging ’round and not want even us to
suspect it. It’s an old trick I guess, from what I’ve read—not going
as far away as the police expect you to.”

“But Red Chief doesn’t know Richard Sherwood. It was Red Chief’s
grandfather, I think, that Mr. Sherwood used to take out when he
went shooting. I believe he trained several of the red dogs to the
gun. He had a wonderful way with animals.”

“Do you think that any of our neighbors are hungry enough to steal
from us, mother? It never happened before. They always came and
asked for anything they wanted.”

“I am sure it was not a neighbor. I can’t understand it. I am
afraid, Ben.”

Ben felt no anxiety concerning their safety or that of their
property but he was puzzled. He could not think of any explanation
of Red Chief’s behavior. He did not draw his mother’s attention to
the fact that any one wishing to enter the old house could still do
so by any one of the many windows on the ground floor, none of which
had a fastening.

They entered the library together and Mrs. O’Dell held the lamp
while Ben searched along his own shelves for “Rodney Stone.” He
found the book but he missed several others.

“Has the little girl any books upstairs?” he asked.

“No, she puts every one back in its place before supper, always.”

“I wonder if Uncle Jim has ‘Charles O’Malley’ and ‘Vanity Fair’ up
in his room.”

“I’m sure that he hasn’t—but shall we go and see?”

They went. Uncle Jim was sound asleep. The missing books were not in
his room. They searched every inhabited corner of the house but
failed to find either “Charles O’Malley” or “Vanity Fair.”

“They were in their places yesterday,” said Ben.

“They must have been taken last night,” said his mother.

“And it was Red Lily who was in the house last night; the old dog
and the pup were loose outside.”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s go to bed, mother. Who’s afraid of a burglar who steals
books?”

CHAPTER IV

OBSTRUCTING THE LAW

Mrs. O’Dell ceased to worry about the mysterious thefts and the red
setter’s failures in duty when her son presently told her what he
had heard from the deputy sheriff of the tragedy on French River.
Now all her anxiety was for the little girl who had come to her so
trustingly in the big pirogue, the little girl whose mother was dead
and whose father was a fugitive from the police. She pitied
Sherwood, too, but her mental attitude toward him was more confused
than her son’s.

Ben refused to believe for a moment that Dick Sherwood had shot his
enemy, Louis Balenger, or any other unarmed man. His reasoning was
simple almost to childishness. Balenger had evidently been shot from
cover and when in no position to defend himself; and that, and the
fact that Sherwood had been John O’Dell’s friend for years, were
proof enough for Ben that Sherwood was innocent of Louis Balenger’s
death.

Jim McAllister wasn’t so sure, but he suspected that the old Indian,
Sabattis, had put something over on Sherwood as well as on the
deputy sheriff and constable. Jim had known Dick Sherwood as a good
sportsman; had seen him laugh at fatigue and danger; had watched him
work with young dogs and young horses, training them to the gun and
the bit, gentle and understanding. Jim admitted that there was wild
blood in Sherwood, but no mean blood. A man like Sherwood might be
fooled by a clever rascal like Balenger into forgetting some of the
social duties and niceties of his kind—yes, even to the extent of
breaking a game law occasionally under pressure. But it would be
dead against his nature to draw trigger on an unarmed man. Jim
maintained that Sherwood had been nobody’s enemy but his own. But to
the question of why he had run away, if innocent, he could find no
answer.

Ben had an answer—but it was so vague and obscure that he had not
yet found words in which to express it.

Mrs. O’Dell did not try to weaken her son’s and brother’s belief in
the fugitive’s innocence. But her knowledge of human nature was
deeper than theirs both by instinct and experience. She did not
judge Sherwood in her heart, however, or voice her thought that he
was probably guilty. He had been guilty of lesser crimes, lesser
madnesses. He had forgotten his traditions and turned his back on
his old friends. He had followed his wild whims at the expense of
his duty to life and in the knowledge of better things; and she
suspected that such a course might, in time, lead even a gentleman
to worse offenses than infringements of the game laws. But she knew
that he loved his child and had loved the child’s mother. And so she
felt nothing for him but pity.

In the short note which little Marion had brought from her father
Sherwood stated his innocence of Balenger’s death far more
emphatically than he wrote of his love for his daughter and her
mother. And yet Flora O’Dell believed in his love for the little
girl and the dead woman and was not at all sure of his innocence.

The deputy sheriff and the local constable returned to O’Dell’s
Point within two days of their first visit. They confronted Ben and
Uncle Jim as the two farmers descended to the barn floor from the
top of a load of hay.

“Look a here, young feller, why didn’t you tell me all you knew
about that pirogue?” demanded Mr. Brown in a nasty voice, with a
nasty glint in his eyes. “You went an’ made yerself out the champion
man of honor an’ truth teller in the world an’ then you went an’
lied to me!”

“What was the lie?” asked Ben.

“You said somebody stole Sherwood’s pirogue.”

“Took it off our front, that’s what I said.”

“No use arguing. The pirogue was filled up with dry wood and set
afire, and you know it! And you know who set her afire! Out with
it—an’ save yerself from jail. I’m listening.”

“Old Tim Hood has been talking to you, I suppose.”

“Yes, he has.”

“Then you know as much about it as I do—and maybe more. Yes, and
maybe more, if you know all he knows—for he’s the only person I can
think of around here who’d have the cheek to take anything off our
front and destroy it.”

“Cheek! Come off the roof! I got yer measure now, young man; so tell
me why you set that pirogue afire, and be quick about it.”

“I didn’t set it afire, I tell you! I saw it burning from my bedroom
window and paddled down after it and took a look at it. Tim Hood
came out in a sturgeon boat to take a look, too. That’s all I know
about it.”

“Say, d’ye see any green in my eye?”

“Easy there, Dave Brown!” cautioned McAllister. “You know all Ben
knows about the burning of that blasted pirogue now—and now you go
asking him about yer eye. What’s the sense in that? That’s not the
way to handle a lad like Ben.”

“Cut it out, Jim McAllister! You can’t put any more of that
high-an’-mighty, too-good-to-sneeze O’Dell slush over on me. I fell
for it once, but once was enough. O’Dell! Save it to fool Injuns
with!”

Ben’s face was as colorless as his shirt.

“You’ve done it now,” said McAllister grimly.

“I reckon ye’ve went a mite too far, Mr. Brown,” said Mel Lunt.

“Come into the next barn where there’s more room,” said young Ben
O’Dell in a cracked voice.

“I’m not fighting to-day, I’m arresting,” replied Brown.

“Arresting any one in particular?” asked Uncle Jim.

“This young man.”

“What for?”

“I suspect him of burning Sherwood’s pirogue with the intention of
destroying evidence.”

Mel Lunt shook his head. McAllister laughed. Ben stood straight and
grim, waiting.

“You are a deputy sheriff, Dave Brown, but you ain’t the law,” said
McAllister. “You don’t know the law—nor you don’t know this
river—and somebody’s been filling you up with hot air. What you need
is a licking to kind of clear yer brain. After that, you can tell
Judge Smith down at Woodstock all about it—and see what happens.
Ben’s the doctor. Will you take your treatment here or in the other
barn where there’s more room?”

Mr. Brown lost his temper then, turned and hurled himself at Ben.
Ben sent him back with a left to the chest and a right to the ribs.

“Yer in the wrong of it, Mr. Brown,” complained the constable. “I
warned ye that Tim Hood was sartain to git ye in wrong.”

The deputy sheriff paid no attention to Lunt but made a backward
pass with his right hand. Ben jumped at the same instant. There was
a brief, wrenching struggle; and then the youth leaped back and
dropped an automatic pistol at his uncle’s feet. McAllister placed a
foot on the weapon. Again Brown rushed upon Ben and again he
staggered back. There was no room for circling or side-stepping in
the narrow space between the load of hay and the hay-filled bays. It
had to be action front or quit.

The deputy sheriff was shaken but not hurt, for young O’Dell had
spared his face. He lowered his head and charged like a ram. Ben
gave ground before that unsportsmanlike onset; and, alas for Mr.
Brown’s nose and upper lip, he gave more than ground.

“Ye’d best quit right now,” wailed Mel Lunt. “Yer gittin’ all messed
up an’ ye ain’t in yer rights an’ folks’ll maybe think as I was
mixed up in it too.”

Brown made a fourth attack and tried to obtain a wrestler’s hold low
down on the overgrown youth; but Ben, cool as a butter firkin in a
cellar, hooked him off. Brown charged yet again, and then once more,
and then sat down on the floor.

They bathed his face and held cold water for him to drink. Ben
fetched sticking plaster from the house, covertly, and applied
strips of it here and there to his late antagonist’s damaged face.

“Never see such a hammerin’ since Alec Todd fit Mike Kane up to
Kane’s Lake twenty year ago,” said Mel Lunt, extracting crushed
cigars from his superior’s vest pockets. “But them two fit with feet
an’ everything, an’ Ben here didn’t use nothin’ but his hands. I
reckon they larn ye more’n joggofy where ye’ve been to school. Dang
me if even his watch ain’t stopped!”

The deputy sheriff and the constable drove away fifteen minutes
later, the deputy sheriff sagging heavily against his companion’s
shoulder.

“Now they’ll maybe let us get along with the haying,” remarked
McAllister.

“And perhaps he will get along with his own job of hunting for the
man who shot Balenger, instead of wasting his time talking about
that pirogue,” said Ben. “How would the pirogue help him? What did
he mean by speaking of it as evidence?”

“Old Tim Hood’s put that crazy notion into his head, where there’s
plenty of room for crazy notions,” replied the uncle. “Old Tim’s a
trouble hunter and always was—a master hand at hunting trouble for
other people. And he don’t like the O’Dells and never did. Yer
gran’pa gave him a caning once, a regular dusting, for starving an
old horse to death.”

“Do you think I’ll have to go to jail for fighting Brown?” asked Ben
with ill-concealed anxiety. “It would be a blow to mother—but I
don’t see what else I could do but fight him, after the things he
said.”

“Now don’t you worry about that,” said McAllister, smiling. “Brown
hasn’t much sense but he’s got a lot of vanity—and a little ordinary
horse sense too, of course. He and Mel Lunt are busy this very
minute making up as likely sounding a story as they can manage
between them all about how he fell down on his face.”

Nothing more was seen or heard of the deputy sheriff at O’Dell’s
Point. He evidently carried his investigations farther afield. No
further inquiries were made concerning the fate of the big, red
pirogue. Nothing more was heard of Louis Balenger or Richard
Sherwood.

But more bread vanished from the pantry and again the red dogs
failed to give the alarm. And the stolen books reappeared in their
exact places on the library shelves.

The little girl was kept in ignorance of the suspicions against her
absent father and also of the thefts of food and the mysterious
borrowing of the books. The others discussed the situation
frequently, but always after she had gone to bed. Ben was of the
opinion that Richard Sherwood was in hiding somewhere within a few
miles of the house and that it was he who had helped himself from
the pantry and library. He held to this opinion in spite of the
behavior of the dogs.

His mother and uncle believed otherwise. They maintained that
Sherwood, innocent or guilty, would go farther than to O’Dell’s
Point for a place in which to hide from the police. Otherwise, why
run at all? they argued. He had started well ahead of the chase,
judging by what they had heard, with plenty of time to get clear out
of the province. Jim believed that the food and books had been taken
by an Indian. He knew several Indians in the neighborhood who could
read and more who were sometimes hungry because they were too lazy
to work; and they were all on friendly terms with the dogs. A sick
Indian would ask for food, but a well one wouldn’t for fear that a
little job of work might be offered him. Haying was the last time in
the year to expect one of those fellows to come around asking for
anything. As for the books, an Indian who was queer enough to want
to read would be queer enough to take the books on the quiet and
return them on the sly. That’s how James McAllister figured it out.

The last load of hay was hauled in and Ben told his mother of the
contemplated trip up to French River. She replied that she was
afraid to be left alone with little Marion Sherwood in a house which
neither doors nor dogs seemed able to guard. Ben had not thought of
this, for he felt no suggestion of violence, of any sort of menace,
in the mild depredations of the mysterious visitor.

“I’m sorry that I’m not as brave as I used to be,” said Mrs. O’Dell.
“I want you to have your trip. Perhaps your Uncle Ian will sleep
here while you two are away. He is sometimes very reasonable and
unselfish, you know, and this may be one of the times.”

Ben crossed lots to the old McAllister homestead two miles above the
point, where Ian McAllister, a fifty-year-old bachelor, lived in
manly discomfort and an atmosphere of argument, hard work and
scorched victuals with his old friend and hired man, Archie Douglas.
Both Ian and Archie were known as “characters” on the river. Both
were bachelors. In their earlier years, before Ian had acquired the
farm of his fathers, they had been brisk fellows, champion choppers
in the woods, reckless log cuffers and jam busters on the drives,
noted performers of intricate steps at barn dances and plowing
frolics and foolish spenders of their wages—white-water boys of the
first quality, in short.

But time and the farm had changed them for better and for worse.
They never left the farm now except to go to Woodstock on business
and to pay the O’Dells two brief visits every month. They worked in
rain and shine. They read a few heavy theological volumes and argued
over them. They played chess and the bagpipes in a spirit of grim
rivalry. They did the cooking week and week about and week and week
about they likewise condemned the cooking.

The McAllister hay of this year had been a heavier crop than usual
and the price of beef promised to be high next Easter, so Ben O’Dell
found his Uncle Ian in an obliging humor. Ian promised to sleep at
the O’Dell house every night while his nephew and brother were away
from home.

“It be Archie’s week for the cookin’,” he said, “so I reckon a
decent breakfast an’ human supper every day for a while won’t do me
no harm. But what’s the matter with yer ma? What’s come over her? It
ain’t like Flora to be scairt. What’s she scairt of?”

In justice to his mother Ben had to tell Ian something of the recent
strange happenings at the Point. He told of little Marion Sherwood’s
arrival, of her father’s flight from French River and the suspicions
of the deputy sheriff and of the elaborate destruction of the red
pirogue, but he did not mention the thefts. He feared that Ian
McAllister’s attitude toward a thief, even a hungry and harmless
thief, would not be as charitable as his own or his mother’s or his
Uncle Jim’s.

“Mother’s more afraid for the little girl than for herself,” he
said. “Coming to us like that, all alone in the pirogue, mother
wouldn’t have anything happen to her for the world. She doesn’t want
her to be frightened, even. Whatever Richard Sherwood may have done,
the poor little girl is innocent.”

“Well, I ain’t surprised to hear that Sherwood’s shot that feller
Balenger,” said Ian. “Sherwood’s been headin’ for destruction a long
time now, what with one foolishness an’ another—an’ Balenger needed
shootin’. But Sherwood hadn’t ought to of done it, for all that!
That’s what comes of bein’ wild an’ keepin’ it up.”

“I don’t believe Sherwood did it,” said Ben. “He was my father’s
friend once and Uncle Jim says he was a good sportsman, so I don’t
believe he would ever be coward enough to shoot an unarmed man.”

“Ye never can tell,” returned Ian, wagging his head. “Louis Balenger
led him a dog’s life for years, so I’ve heard tell, an’ I reckon his
spirit was jist about broke by the time Louis shot a hole in him an’
beat it. He lived quiet enough an’ law-abidin’ all the years
Balenger was away, I guess; an’ now it looks like Balenger had come
back to French River to start some more divilment an’ Sherwood had
up an’ shot ’im. Sure it was cowardly—but once ye break a man’s
spirit, no matter how brave he was once, ye make a coward of him. If
he didn’t do it, why did he run away?”

“That’s what I can’t figure out, Uncle Ian—but it seems to me a good
sportsman might be broken down to some kinds of cowardice and not
others. His nerves might get so’s they’d fail him without his—well,
without his soul turning coward—or even his heart. There’s many a
good horse that shies at a bit of paper on the road that has the
heart to pull on a load till it drops.”

“Mighty deep reasonin’,” said Ian McAllister. “That’s what comes of
schoolin’. We’ll chaw it over, me an’ Archie; but whatever kind of
coward Richard Sherwood may be, I’ll look after yer ma an’ the
little girl while yer away.”

Ben and Uncle Jim set out for French River next morning at an early
hour in the canvas canoe. They made ten miles by noon, poling close
inshore all the way. They boiled the teakettle, ate the plentiful
cold luncheon with which Mrs. O’Dell had supplied them and rested
for an hour and a half. Six miles farther up they came to heavy
rapids around which they were forced to carry their dunnage and
canoe.

“Here’s where he left her and the pirogue, I wouldn’t wonder,” said
McAllister. “Once clear of the rapids, she’d be safe to make the
point. But if she was my daughter, I’d take her all the way to
wherever she was going, no matter what was chasing me! He ain’t the
man he was when I first knew him, I guess.”

“Why didn’t you stick to him then?” asked Ben. “What did you all
drop him for, just because he got mixed up with a bad crowd? That
was no way to treat a friend.”

“John kept after him eight or nine years. Once a year, year after
year, yer father made the trip to French River and tried to get him
to break with the Balengers and offered him land and a house down to
the point.”

“But what did you do? You didn’t do anything, Uncle Jim.”

“I was leery about visiting French River, in those days. I’d seen
just enough of that outfit to guess how easy it would be to get
mixed up with them. And Sherwood wasn’t encouraging. All he’d do
would be to cuss John out for a prig and a busybody. And it’s a long
way between his clearing and O’Dell’s Point.”

“Well, he’s hiding for his life now like a wounded snipe; and I
guess he wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been so scared about your own
respectability, Uncle Jim.”

McAllister scratched his chin at that but said nothing.

They reached the mouth of French River before sundown and made camp
there for the night. They were early astir next morning, breakfasted
before the mist was off the water and then launched into the black
deep tide of the tributary stream. The fall of the banks was sheer
down to and beneath the water’s edge. Poling was out of the
question, so the paddles were used. Ben occupied the stern of the
canoe, being a few pounds heavier than his uncle and a glutton for
work. Wood duck and whistlers flew up and off before their approach.
A mink swam across their bows. They passed old cuttings where the
stumps of giant pines were hidden by a second growth of tall young
spruces and firs.

They paddled for two hours before they marked any sign of present
human habitation. They saw a film of smoke then, frail blue against
the dark green of the forest. Ben swung into the left bank, which
was considerably lower and less abrupt here than farther down, and
edged the canoe against a narrow strip of muddy shore. Here was a
path, deep-worn and narrow, leading up through the tangled brush;
and in the shallow water lay a few rusty tins.

They ascended the path up and over the bank and through a screen of
underbrush and water birches into a little clearing. At the back of
the clearing stood a small log cabin with an open door and a chimney
of sticks and clay. From this chimney ascended the smoke that had
attracted them. When they were halfway across the clearing a short
figure appeared in the black doorway.

“Injun,” said Uncle Jim over his shoulder.

The man of the clearing came a short way from his threshold and sat
down on a convenient chopping block. He had a pipe in his mouth and
in his right fist a fork with a piece of pork rind impaled on its
prongs. Odors of frying buckwheat cakes and Black Jack tobacco
drifted forward and met the visitors. The visitors halted within a
few yards of the old Maliseet.

“Good morning, Noel Sabattis,” said McAllister.

“Good day,” returned Noel, regarding the two with expressionless and
unwinking eyes.

[Illustration: “SAT DOWN ON A CONVENIENT CHOPPING BLOCK.”]

“I’m afraid your pancakes are burning,” said Ben.

The Maliseet ignored this.

“You police?” he asked.

“Not on yer life!” replied Uncle Jim. “I’m Jim McAllister and this
is Ben O’Dell and we’re both from O’Dell’s Point down on the main
river.”

“Come in,” said Noel, getting quickly to his feet and slipping
nimbly through the doorway ahead of them.

He was stooping over the griddle on the rusty little stove when the
others entered the cabin. He invited them to share his meal, but
they explained that they had already breakfasted. So he broke his
fast alone with amazing swiftness while they sat on the edge of his
bunk and watched him. A dozen or more pancakes generously doused
with molasses and three mugs of boiled tea presented no difficulties
to old Noel Sabattis. When the last pancake was gone and the mug was
empty for the third time, he relit his rank pipe and returned his
attention to the visitors. He regarded them searchingly, first
McAllister and then young Ben, for a minute or two in silence.

“Li’l girl git to yer place a’right?” he asked.

“Yes, she made it, and she’s safe and well,” answered Jim.

“Police git Sherwood yet? You see Sherwood, hey?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. And we haven’t set eyes on him. But Dave
Brown and Mel Lunt gave us a couple of calls. They said they’d been
up here and seen you.”

“Dat right,” returned Noel. “You t’ink Sherwood shoot dat Balenger
feller maybe?”

“I don’t!” exclaimed Ben.

“I hope he didn’t,” said Jim. “We’re his friends.”

“Friends? Dat good,” returned the Maliseet slowly. “Didn’t know he
had none nowadays ’cept old Noel Sabattis.”

CHAPTER V

VISITORS TO FRENCH RIVER

Old Noel Sabattis talked more like a Frenchman than the kind of
Indian you read about. He wasn’t reticent. Perhaps he had a thin
strain of French blood in him, from away back, long ago forgotten.
He called himself pure Maliseet. His vocabulary was limited but he
made it cover the ground. Sometimes he grunted in the approved
Indian manner but he could say as much with a grunt as most men can
with six words. His heart was in it; and with grunts and blinks of
the eye and his limited vocabulary he told Ben O’Dell and Jim
McAllister all that he knew about poor Sherwood.

Noel was a lonely man. He had been a widower for close upon thirty
years. His children had grown up and gone to the settlements a
lifetime ago. But he had refused to go to any settlement. He had
left his old trapping and hunting grounds on the Tobigue and come on
to French River about ten years ago. He found Sherwood and Julie and
their baby on the river in the big log house that had been Louis
Balenger’s. They were the only regular settlers on the stream but
there was a big camp belonging to a fishing club five miles farther
up.

Julie Sherwood was a fine little woman though she was Balenger’s
daughter, and prettier than you had any right to expect to see
anywhere. Sherwood was quite a man when she was close to him; but
even then Noel thought that he wasn’t all he might have been. He had
a weak eye—honest enough, but weak; and whenever his wife was out of
his sight he was like a scared buck, ready to jump at a shadow. But
he was kind and generous and Noel liked him. Julie was generous and
friendly, too. They offered Noel as much room as he needed in their
house and a place at their table; but Noel was an independent fellow
and said that he’d have a roof of his own. He set to work at
chopping out a clearing within a few hundred yards of Sherwood’s
clearing, and Sherwood helped him.

It wasn’t long before Noel Sabattis knew a great deal about Dick
Sherwood and, naturally, about the Balengers. Both the man and the
woman talked to him as if they trusted him; but she was the more
confiding of the two. It was she who told of Sherwood’s treatment at
the hands of her father and her older sister. She was bitter against
both her father and her sister, but she made the bitterest
accusations when her husband was not within earshot, for they would
have humiliated him. And he was already too humble and she was
giving all her thought and love to awakening his old self-respect in
his heart.

She told Noel that her father had impoverished Sherwood years ago,
when she was a child of ten or eleven, by cheating at cards, and
then had tricked him into his debt and his power by further
cheating—and all under the guise of friendship and good-fellowship.
Her mother had told her so in a deathbed confession. Then her father
had tried to make a rogue of Sherwood. He had succeeded temporarily,
but with such difficulty and by means of such cruel efforts that he
had made a coward of him. Yes, a coward—and that was worse than all
the rest, it had seemed to Julie. She told the Maliseet that he,
Richard Sherwood, who had been a soldier, had no courage now except
what he got from her.

Noel used to advise them to leave French River. He put it strong, in
spite of the fact that he would have been desolate if they had gone.
Julie said they were planning to go to the settlements as soon as
the baby was big enough to travel and Sherwood agreed with her. Noel
suggested that Louis Balenger might come back and pump two more
bullets into Sherwood. At that the big, broken Englishman paled
under his tan but the woman didn’t flinch. She said that her father
would never return but that she was not afraid of him anyway.

Noel and the Sherwoods lived peacefully in their adjoining clearings
year after year. Noel and Sherwood trapped fur together; but
Sherwood never went very far afield. His mind and nerves went
“jumpy” whenever he got more than a few miles away from his wife and
child. As the years passed he seemed normal enough when with them,
more nearly a sound man each year; but once out of sight of them his
eyes showed fear.

Noel often tried to argue him out of his fear. When a young man and
a soldier he had not been afraid of hurts or life or death, so why
be a coward now, Noel argued. His old enemy Balenger was gone, so
what was he afraid of? He had broken game laws and stolen furs from
other men’s traps and even acted as Balenger’s tool once in the
matter of a “rigged” game of poker down in Woodstock—but he was
living as honestly now as any man and had the best wife and daughter
in the province. So why continue to be ashamed and afraid? He was
his own master now. He had education and strong muscles. Why didn’t
he go away to the settlements with Julie and the child and forget
all about French River? He owed it to himself and those two, Noel
argued; and if he’d only forget Louis Balenger he’d be as good a man
as he’d ever been.

Strange to say, Julie did not back Noel Sabattis as strongly as she
should have in his efforts to get her husband to leave the scene of
his disgrace. She, brave as a tiger in her attitude toward every
known peril and ready to give her life for either her husband or
child, was afraid of the unknown. She was afraid of the world of
cities and men beyond the wilderness. Her parents had brought her to
French River when she was scarcely more than a baby but she had
fragmentary memories of streets of high houses and wet pavements
shining under yellow lamps and her mother in tears and a stealthy
flight. Even her father, clever and daring and wicked, had been
forced to flee in fear from a city! How then would Dick Sherwood
fare among men? Her fear of cities haunted her like a
half-remembered nightmare.

Julie said that they would leave French River in a year or two—and
always it was put off another year or two.

Julie died very suddenly of a deadly cold. She was ill for only two
days. It shook old Noel Sabattis even now to think of it. Sherwood
was like a man without a mind for weeks. He moved about, sometimes
he ate food that was placed before him, but he seemed to be without
life. He didn’t understand. He couldn’t believe his wife was gone.
Realization of his loss came to him suddenly; and Noel had to strike
him, club him, to save him from self-destruction.

Sherwood’s courage was all gone after that. Without Julie he knew
that he was good for nothing and afraid of everything. Because he
was worthless and a coward Julie had died. A doctor could have saved
her and if he had lived in the settlements she could have had a
doctor.

A year passed and Noel tried to arouse Sherwood. There was still the
little girl to think of. Why didn’t Sherwood get out with the girl
and work among men and make a home for her? What right had he to
keep her in the woods on French River? But Sherwood was hopeless. He
knew himself for a failure. He had failed in the woods in the best
years of his life, and he knew that he would fail in the
settlements. He had thought it over a thousand times. Failure
outside, among strangers, would make the future terrible for the
child. What could he do in towns or cities now, he who clung to an
old Indian and a little girl for courage to live from day to day?

Strangers? He would not dare look a stranger in the face!

But Marion might sicken suddenly as her mother had and die for the
need of a doctor! Then he would be guilty of her death, as he was
already guilty of Julie’s death—because he was weak as water and a
coward! Noel was right. He would take the girl away. He would take
her downriver. He would forget the few poor shreds of pride left to
him and ask the O’Dells to help her and him. He would go soon,
sometime during the summer, before winter at the latest.

Then Louis Balenger came back to French River, all alone, and gave
Sherwood the glad hand and Noel a cigar and little Marion a gold
ring from his finger. He and Sherwood talked for hours that night
after Noel had returned to his own cabin. Sherwood told Noel about
it in the morning, early, while Balenger still slept. Balenger had
offered Sherwood a job in a big city, a job in his own business, a
partnership—and comfort and education and security for the little
girl. But Sherwood knew that Balenger was lying—that there would be
no security with him—that the business was trickery of some sort and
that a weak and cowardly tool was required in it. And Noel, who had
looked keenly into Balenger’s eyes at the moment of their meeting,
knew that Sherwood was right.

Sherwood took his daughter fishing up Kettle Brook and told Noel not
to let Balenger know where he was. He was pitifully shaken. Noel
kept away from the other clearing all morning. He went away back
with his ax, hunting for bark with which to patch his canoe. He was
in no hurry to see more of Balenger; but he went to face him at
noon. There was no sign of the visitor in or around the house. He
went to the top of the bank and saw the red pirogue grounded on the
narrow lip of mud, half hidden from him by the over-hanging brush.
But he saw that there was something in the pirogue. He went down the
narrow path and looked closer—and there lay Louis Balenger in the
pirogue, dead! He had a bullet hole in him. He had been shot through
the heart.

Sherwood and the little girl came home before sundown with a fine
string of trout. Noel met them at their own door, cleaned the trout,
then led the father away while the daughter set to work to fry the
fish for supper. He told Sherwood what had happened and Sherwood was
dumbfounded. He could see that Sherwood had not done the shooting.
For that matter, the distracted fellow had not taken his rifle up
the brook with him.

Noel showed the body—where he had hidden it in the bushes. He took
Sherwood to the pirogue and showed him faint stains in it. He had
tried to wash away the stains but with only partial success.

Sherwood spoke then in a whisper, trembling all over. He said that
he didn’t do it but that he had planned to tell Balenger to get out
that night and shoot him if he refused to go. Then he grabbed Noel
by the arm and accused him of killing Balenger. His eyes were wild,
but old Noel kept cool. Old Noel said that he knew nothing of the
shooting, that neither of them had done the thing and that the woods
were wide open. Sherwood didn’t care who had pulled the trigger. It
was all up with him, whoever the murderer was! His only chance was
to run and run quick. Every one knew what was between him and Louis
Balenger and he would be hanged for a murderer if he was caught. And
what would become of Marion then?

Noel had a difficult time with Sherwood, who was mad with terror for
a few minutes, but he calmed him at last sufficiently to take him
back to the house. Sherwood ate his supper in a quivering silence.
When the little girl kissed him he burst into tears. As soon as
Marion was asleep Noel and Sherwood dug a grave and buried Balenger.
Sherwood worked like a tiger. His mood had changed. He was defiant.
The law would never catch him to misjudge him! Fate and the world
were all against him now but he would fool them! Nothing would hurt
his little daughter while he was alive—and he intended to live!

He would take Marion to the O’Dells and make his way into the States
and get work where no one knew he was a failure or had ever been a
coward. For he was not a coward now, by Heaven! He feared nothing
but the hangman. Fate had hit him just once too often, kicked him
when he was down and tried to crush his little girl. But he would
outwit fate!

They returned to the cabin. Sherwood’s eyes gleamed in the lamplight
and his face was flushed. He wrote a note, telling Noel it was for
Mrs. O’Dell, the widow of his old friend. He packed a bag, his gun
and a bed roll, muttering to himself all the while. Then he went
outside and looked up at the summer stars and laughed. Noel was
frightened. Sherwood walked about the clearing for a few minutes,
stumbling over stones and bumping against stumps and muttering like
a crazy man. He quieted down and Noel got him into the house and
onto his bed. He was limp as a rag by that time. Noel brewed tea for
him, which he drank. He fell asleep; but he didn’t get much rest,
for he twitched and muttered and jumped in his sleep all night. Noel
spent the night on the floor beside Sherwood’s bed, wide awake.

Sherwood looked much as usual next morning, except for his eyes.
There was something more than fear in his eyes, something Noel
couldn’t find a name for. And he wouldn’t talk, beyond telling the
little girl that they were going away and what she was to do with
the letter which he gave her. She kissed him and asked no questions
but her eyes filled with tears. Noel tried to turn him, to change
his mind about running away, pointing out that if he left French
River now the law would be sure that he was guilty of his enemy’s
death.

It was useless, even dangerous, to argue, for he turned on the old
Maliseet for an instant with a look in his eyes that shook even that
tough heart. Noel was wise enough to understand that misfortune had
at last goaded Sherwood beyond endurance, that it was useless to
reason, now that all control was gone with one who had never
listened to reasoning even under the most favorable circumstances.

Sherwood put his dunnage into the pirogue. The faint stains were
well forward and he covered them with ferns and stowed the dunnage
over all. He placed the little girl amidships, tenderly. She was an
expert canoeman but he placed her as carefully as if she were still
a babe in arms. Then he paddled downstream in the big pirogue
without so much as a backward glance at his friend, old Noel
Sabattis.

Noel gave the pirogue a start to the first bend in the stream, then
launched his old bark canoe and gave cautious chase. He was afraid
of that poor, broken, weak, cowardly, crazy Dick Sherwood. Crazy,
that was right! That’s why he suddenly felt afraid of him.

Noel had to paddle hard to catch sight of the pirogue before it
turned into the main river. He kept close inshore, glimpsing the
pirogue every now and again without showing himself in return. He
saw Sherwood and the child disembark at the head of the rapids and
make a line fast to the stern of the big dugout and drop it slowly
down through the white and black water. That eased his anxiety
considerably, for he saw that Sherwood was sane in his care of
little Marion, at least. Had he been mad in every respect he would
have run the rapids or made a try at it.

Noel carried his canoe around to the pool below; when he next caught
sight of the big pirogue he was astonished to see that the little
girl was in the stern, paddling steadily and easily and that
Sherwood had vanished. Perhaps Sherwood had taken to the woods in a
spasm of terror or perhaps he was still in the pirogue, lying low.
Noel continued to follow cautiously. He saw nothing more of
Sherwood. He saw Marion rest and drift. He saw her eat. Once she ran
the bow of the pirogue against the beach and remained there for more
than an hour, seated motionless, save for slow turning of her head,
as if she listened and watched for something or some one. At last
she continued her journey and Noel followed again. He felt quite
sure that Sherwood had taken to the woods. Mad!

When within five or six miles of O’Dell’s Point Noel turned and
headed upstream for home. He knew that there was no dangerous water
between Marion and the Point and that she would reach safe landing
soon after sundown. He got back to French River next day.

That was his story. It was the story he had told to the deputy
sheriff and Mel Lunt, though he had not given those worthies so
detailed a version of it.

“Are you the only settler on the river?” asked Ben.

“Only one left,” replied Noel.

“But don’t strangers come here sometimes, sportsmen and that sort of
thing?”

“Yes—but the sports who fish dis river don’t come dis summer. But I
see one stranger. I tell Sherwood ’bout dat feller, but he don’t
care. He too crazy. I tell Lunt ’bout ’im too an’ Lunt call me a
liar.”

“What about the stranger?” asked McAllister. “Suspicious-looking
character was he, or what?”

“Dat right. He come onto dis clearin’ one day, sudden, an’ look
t’rough dat door at me an’ say ‘Hullo, frien’, you know good feller
’round here somewheres name of Louis Balenger, hey, what?’ ‘Nope,
don’t never see Balenger,’ I tell dat man. ‘Balenger go off dis
river ten-twelve year ago an’ don’t come back. You his brodder,
maybe, hey?’ ‘Brodder be tam!’ dat stranger say. ‘Do bizness wid him
one time. Got somet’ing for him, but it don’t matter. Good day.’ Den
he walk off quick, dat stranger, an’ I don’t foller him, no. He
smile kinder nasty at me, wid two-t’ree gold tooth, so I t’ink maybe
Noel Sabattis may’s well go right on wid cookin’ his little dinner.
Don’t see dat stranger no more.”

“When was that?” asked Ben.

“When dat feller come ’round? Four-five day afore Louis Balenger
come back, maybe.”

“_Before_ he came back? Did you tell him about it?”

“Tell Balenger? Nope. Don’t tell Balenger not’ing. Don’t like dat
feller Balenger, me.”

“And the stranger went away? He didn’t wait for Balenger?”

“Dat right. Don’t see ’im, anyhow. Don’t see no canoe, don’t smell
no smoke.”

“Perhaps he hid and waited for him. Perhaps he did the shooting!”

“P’r’aps. Dat what I tell Sherwood—but he don’t listen. He don’t
care. He don’t git it, Sherwood. Too scairt. Too crazy. Tell Lunt
’bout how maybe dat stranger shoot Balenger, too. Dat when he call
me a liar.”

Noel showed his visitors the exact spot in which the big pirogue had
lain when Balenger had been found dead in it and explained its
position and that of Balenger’s body.

Ben took a stroll by himself, leaving his uncle and the old Maliseet
smoking and yarning. He walked up and down the river along the
narrow strip of shore under the bank, a few hundred yards each way,
trying to picture the shooting of Louis Balenger. Then he walked up
and down along the top of the bank, sometimes at the edge of the
tangle of trees and brush and sometimes in it, still trying to make
a picture in his mind. He busied himself in this way until supper
time.

Ben took to his blankets early that night and was up with the first
silver lift of dawn. He left the cabin without waking the others,
hurried down to the edge of the river, got out of his shirt and
trousers and moccasins almost as quickly as it can be said and
plunged into the cool, dark water. He swam down with the current a
short way, out in midstream, then turned and breasted the smooth,
strong river. There was gold in the east now but the shadows were
deep under the wooded banks. Fish rose, breaking the surface of the
water into flowing circles that widened and vanished. Birds chirped
in the trees. Crows cawed from high roosts. Rose tinged the silver
and gold in the east and the river gleamed. Ben swam slowly, with
long strokes, thrilled with the wonder of the magic of water and
wood and the new day.

Ben landed on the other side of the river in a level wash of
sunshine and flapped his arms and hopped about on a flat rock. In a
minute his blood raced warm again and his skin glowed. He was about
to plunge in again for the swim down and across to Noel’s front when
his attention was attracted to the bank behind and above him by a
swishing and rustling in the brush.

CHAPTER VI

HOT SCENT AND WET TRAIL

Ben turned and looked upward. He saw dew-wet branches shaking, as if
some one or something of considerable bulk was moving in the thick
underbrush at the top of the bank. A red deer most likely, perhaps a
moose, possibly a bear, he reflected. He felt thrilled. Moose and
deer were not uncommon things in his experience but they always gave
his heart a fine tingle. The thought of a bear was yet more
thrilling.

The shaking of the brush continued. The movement was progressive.
Whatever the animal was, it was descending the heavily screened bank
directly toward the young man. Ben realized that if it was anything
as tall as a full grown moose it would be showing a head, or ears at
least, by this time. The disturbance of stems, branches and foliage
descended to within five yards of him. Then the round black head of
a big bear emerged from the green covert.

Ben knew that bears were not dangerous except under unusual
conditions and that they were never more willing to attend to their
own peaceful affairs and avoid unpleasant encounters than in the
late summer of a good year for berries; and yet he felt
embarrassingly defenseless as he regarded the round mask and pointed
muzzle. One may derive a slight feeling of preparedness in emergency
from even so little as the knowledge of being strongly shod for
flight or kicking or the knowledge of being toughly garbed in
flannel and homespun against minor scratches. But Ben wore neither
flannel, leather nor homespun to support his morale. He decided that
deep water would be the only place for him if the bear should take a
fancy to the flat rock upon which he stood.

The bear was evidently puzzled and somewhat discouraged by Ben’s
appearance. It stared at him for half a minute or more and Ben
returned the stare. Then it withdrew its head from view and again
the alders and birches and wide-boughed young spruces shook and
tossed to its passage through them. But now the disturbance receded.
It moved up the steep pitch of the bank and was lost to Ben’s sight
in the dusk of the forest.

“There’s the power of the human eye for you!” exclaimed Ben.

But he was wrong. The human eye had nothing to do with it. The
impulse necessary for the bear’s retreat was derived from bruin’s
own optic nerves rather than from the masterful glare of Ben’s orbs.
In short, that particular bear had never before encountered an
undressed human being, had been puzzled for a minute to know just
what species of the animal world he belonged to and had then quite
naturally jumped to the shocking conclusion that some one had
skinned the poor man without killing him. So the bear had turned and
retired.

Instead of plunging immediately into the brown water and swimming
back to Noel’s front and breakfast, Ben stepped ashore. He was
interested in the bear. He was curious to know just how far he had
chased it with his masterful glance. Had the big berry eater only
retreated to the top of the bank or had he kept right on? If he
hadn’t kept right on another glance would set him going again, that
was a sure thing.

Ben moved cautiously, not on account of the bear but in
consideration of his own skin. Wild raspberries flourished among the
tough and rasping bushes and saplings and perhaps poison ivy lurked
among the groundlings. So Ben moved cautiously and slowly up the
bank, parting the brush before him with his hands and looking twice
before every step. But despite his care he received a few scratches.
When halfway up the steep slope he paused, stood straight and
glanced around him over and through the tops of the tangle. He saw
the bow of his uncle’s canoe outthrust from its slanting bed in the
bushes on Noel’s front. He saw the spot, the edge of moist dark
soil, where the big pirogue and its grim freight had been discovered
by Noel Sabattis.

Ben continued his cautious ascent of the bank, still with curiosity
concerning the bear in the front of his mind but with the mystery of
Louis Balenger’s death looming largely behind it. He gained the
level ground at the top of the bank, still with his gaze on his
feet. He was about to stand upright again and survey his
surroundings when a glitter in the moss a few inches from his
forward foot caught his eye.

Ben stooped lower and picked up a sliver of white metal. It was a
part of a clip for keeping a fountain pen in a pocket and he
instantly recognized it as such. He stooped again and examined the
moss; and, a second later, he found the pen itself. He was on his
knees by this time, searching the moss with eager eyes and all his
fingers. And here was something more—a little pocket comb in a
sheath of soft leather.

Ben forgot all about the bear and was seized by an inspiration. He
turned around and lay down flat on the moss, braving prickles and
scratches. He placed his chest on the very spot where he had found
the broken clasp, the pen and the comb, then raised himself on his
elbows and looked to his front, his right and his left. He was now
in the prone position of firing, the steadiest position for straight
shooting.

Ben turned his face in the direction of the tree-screened clearings
downstream on the other shore. He looked through a rift between
stems and trunks and foliage, clear through and away on a slant
across the narrow river to the spot of moist shore against which the
big pirogue had lain with the dead body of Balenger aboard. His view
was unobstructed.

“Not much under three hundred yards,” he said. “Pretty shooting!”

Then he discarded his imaginary rifle, marked his position by
uprooting a wad of moss, gripped the broken clasp, the pen and the
comb securely in his left hand and got to his feet. His blood was
racing and his brain was flashing. The bear was forgotten as if it
had never been.

He descended the bank with considerably less caution than he had
exerted in the ascent, but with more speed, and he paid for his
haste with his skin. But the price didn’t bother him. He didn’t
notice it. He regained the flat rock, glanced down and across over
the sunlit surface of the brown water, then dived. He swam swiftly,
though he kept his left hand clasped tight. When he landed and
opened his hand he found the water had scarcely touched the leather
case of the little comb. He donned his clothes in about six motions
and leaped up the path.

Ben found McAllister and the old Maliseet busy at the little rusty
stove, frying bacon and pancakes as if for a prize.

“Hullo, you were up early,” said Uncle Jim. “Did you catch the first
worm?”

“I guess I did something like that,” answered Ben breathlessly.
“Look at these.”

He stepped over to the table and laid the sliver of silver, the pen
and the comb in a row beside one of the tin plates. He turned to old
Noel Sabattis.

“Did you ever see these before?” he asked.

“Yep, sure I see ’em afore,” replied Noel. “Where you git ’em dis
mornin’, hey? Where you been at, Ben? What else you got?”

“A fountain pen,” said McAllister. “And a slick little comb in a
leather case. Where’ve you been shopping so early, Ben?”

Ben paid no attention to his uncle. His eyes were on Noel’s wrinkled
face.

“Do they belong to you?” he asked.

“Nope. What you t’ink I want wid a comb, hey?”

“Were they Sherwood’s?”

“Nope. Never see t’ings like dat on Sherwood. See ’em on dat
stranger I tell you about.”

“I thought so!” cried Ben. “I thought so! We’ve got him on toast!
And Sherwood’s clear!”

He took up the comb.

“Look at this,” he said, pointing at gilt lettering stamped into the
soft leather of the case. “Read it, Uncle Jim. ‘_Bonnard Frères,
Quebec, P. Q._’ How’s that for a morning’s work on an empty
stomach?”

Uncle Jim was bewildered.

“The stranger came from Quebec,” he said. “Sure, I get that. Noel
saw these things on him, and now you’ve found them somewheres. It
proves he was here; but Noel told us that yesterday. I can’t see how
it proves he shot any one—Balenger nor any one else. If you’d found
his rifle, now that would be something. But a fountain pen?”

“You meet him dis mornin’, hey, an’ rob ’im, hey?” queried Noel.

“Nothing like it!” exclaimed Ben. “I found these things in the moss
at the top of the bank on the other side of the river. That’s the
very spot where he lay when he fired at Balenger. He broke the
snap—the clasp there—when he was wriggling about for a clear shot
through the brush, I guess, and the pen and the comb fell out of his
pocket. He was in such a hurry to get away after he’d fired, when he
saw he’d hit, that he didn’t notice the pen and comb. They were
pressed into the moss. I know that’s what happened; and we know he
came from Quebec; and Noel knows what he looks like. That’s enough,
I guess—enough to save Sherwood, anyhow.”

“Yer figuring quite a ways ahead, Ben,” said Uncle Jim.

“He shoot Balenger a’right, sure ’nough,” said Noel. “But how you
show dem police he do it wid one little pen an’ one little comb?”

“It’s simple. You’ll understand about the shooting when you see the
place. It’s simple as a picture in a book. And for the rest of it,
he must have been a friend of Balenger’s before he became his enemy.
Perhaps he and Balenger were partners of some sort. Then he was a
bad character, like Balenger—and dangerous. He was dangerous, right
enough—and a dead shot. So the police would know something about
him, wouldn’t they—the Quebec police? That stands to reason. Didn’t
he look like a bad character, Noel?”

“Yep, mighty bad. Nasty grin on him an’ bad eye, too. Dat feller
scare me worse nor Balenger scare me. When he look at me, den I
can’t look at his eye an’ I look lower down an’ see dat comb an’ dat
pen a-stickin’ outer de pocket on his breast.”

“There you are,” said Ben to McAllister. “Very likely the Quebec
police have his photograph and thumb prints; and I guess they have
more brains than Mel Lunt. I’ll write down Noel’s description of him
and all the other particulars I know, and go to Quebec and fix it.”

Ben was in high spirits, gobbled his breakfast and then had to wait
impatiently for the others to finish and light their pipes. The tin
dishes were left unwashed, the frying pan and griddle unscoured and
the three embarked in old Noel’s leaky bark and went up and across
the river to the flat rock. On the way Ben told of his experience
with the bear, saying that but for the peculiar behavior of bruin he
would not have gone ashore and climbed the bank and found the clew
that was to clear Sherwood’s name in the eyes of the law.

“Just chance,” he said. “But for that bear, I might have hunted a
week and never happened on those things.”

Uncle Jim and Noel were deeply impressed by the story of the bear.

“That was more than chance,” said McAllister, voicing a whisper of
his old Highland blood. “I’ve heard of happenings like that from old
Gran’pa McAllister when I was a boy. Nature won’t hide murder, he
used to say. I guess yer right, Ben, after all. I reckon it’ll work
out the way you figure it—but it sure did look kinder mixed up to me
when you first told it.”

They climbed the bank above the flat rock, found the spot and there
each lay down in his turn, set his elbows in the correct position
and looked through and over the sights of an imaginary rifle at the
spot three hundred yards away where the bad heart of Louis Balenger
had suddenly ceased to function.

“Dat’s right,” said Noel Sabattis.

“Guess we’ve got him, Ben,” said Uncle Jim.

The visitors set out on their homeward journey within an hour of
Ben’s demonstration of how the shot had been fired by the owner of
the fountain pen and pocket comb. But before packing their dunnage
they marked the murderer’s position with a peg in the ground and
blazes on several young spruces and they measured the distance in
paddle lengths from that point to the point where the bullet had
done its work. Then they went, in spite of old Noel’s protests and
Uncle Jim’s willingness to remain until next morning. But Ben was in
a fever of impatience. Now was not the time to humor Noel’s love of
talk or his uncle’s instinctive objections to unseemly haste. Now
was the time to follow the clew, to jump onto the trail and keep
going, to hammer out the iron while it was hot. This was no time for
talk. They had talked enough, reckoned enough, told enough and heard
enough. Now was the time for action, for speed. Ben was right, and
he had his way as far as McAllister and Noel Sabattis were
concerned.

Ben took the stern of the fine canvas canoe and humped all his
weight onto the paddle. Not only that, but he requested a little
more weight from Uncle Jim in the bow; and the canoe boiled down
French River like a destroyer.

It was about five o’clock in the afternoon when they approached the
thrashing, flashing head of the big rapids on the main river. Uncle
Jim waved his paddle toward the landing place above the first untidy
rank of jumping, jostling white and black water. The imposing shout
and hum of the rapids came threateningly to their ears.

“We’ll run her,” cried Ben.

“D’ye know the channel?” shouted McAllister, glancing back over his
shoulder.

“I asked Noel. It’s close along this shore. He’s often run it.”

“But it ain’t easy at low water. We’d best land and carry around.”

“You can’t miss it, Noel says. And we’re in a hurry. Sit tight and
keep your eye skinned, Uncle Jim. Here we go!”

They went. McAllister was an old riverman and had been down these
rapids many times in past years, but never before when the river was
low. In high water it was a simple matter for any good canoeman to
shoot Big Rapids, but in dry seasons it was only attempted by the
most skilled or most daring and not always successfully. Uncle Jim
was seasoned, but he got a lot of thrills in a short time at five
o’clock by the sun of this particular afternoon.

As usual, it seemed to him that the jouncing, curling, black
“ripples” with their fronts shot with green and amber and their tops
crested with white lather, rushed up to the canoe. That is the way
with strong black and white water. The canoe seemed to be
stationary, trembling slightly from bow to stern as if gathering
herself to spring at the last moment to meet the shock, but
otherwise as motionless as if held by ropes. Up came the raging
waters, up and past the jumping, squirming canoe. Big black rocks
bared themselves suddenly from white veils of froth and green veils
of smooth water, shouldered at the canoe, roared at her, then
vanished to the rear.

Uncle Jim felt a strong impulse, an impulse of curiosity, to look
back at young Ben O’Dell. But he did not obey it. He kept his
half-shut eyes to the front and now made a dig with his paddle to
the right and now a slash to the left. Spray flew. The canoe
jounced, shivered and jumped and yet seemed to hang unprogressing
amid the furious upward and backward stream of water and rock and
rocky shore. Thin films of water slipped in over the gleaming
gunnels and heavy lumps of water jumped aboard and flopped aboard,
now from the right and now from the left. Uncle Jim received a
tubful of it smash in the chest.

Uncle Jim enjoyed it, but he did not approve of it. It was too
darned reckless; and he still believed that the very least that
would happen to them before they reached smooth water would be the
destruction of the canoe. But he wondered at Ben. He had taught Ben
to handle a canoe in rough water and smooth, but never in such rough
and tricky water as this. And here was the young fellow twisting and
shooting and steadying her down in a manner which McAllister had
never seen surpassed in his whole life on the river. His anxiety for
Ben was almost topped by his pride in Ben.

And it looked as if they’d make it, by thunder! Here was the last
ripple roaring up at them, baring its black teeth between white
lips. And here was the slobbering black channel, shaking with
bubbles and fringed with froth, and here was the canoe fair in it.
The shouldering rocks sloshed past. Through!

Uncle Jim heard a sharp _crack_ clear above the tumult of the
rapids. He knew what had happened without looking. Ben’s paddle had
snapped. He shot his own paddle backward over his shoulder. But he
was too late, though he could not possibly have been quicker. The
canoe swerved like a maddened horse and struck the last ledge of Big
Rapids with a bump and a rip. Then she spun around and rolled over
and off.

Uncle Jim and Ben swam ashore from the pool below the rapids, Ben
with his uncle’s paddle gripped firmly in one hand.

“We were through,” said Ben. “If my paddle had lasted another ten
seconds we’d have made it.”

McAllister grasped his hand.

“Sure thing we were through!” he cried. “Ben, I’m proud of you! I
couldn’t of done it, not for my life! Never saw a prettier bit of
work in a nastier bit of water in all my born days!”

Ben beamed and blushed.

“It was great, wasn’t it?” he returned. “But I’m sorry about the
canoe, Uncle Jim. She is badly ripped, I’m afraid. There she is,
still afloat. I’ll go out and fetch her in.”

“But what about those things—the pen and comb?” asked Uncle Jim with
sudden anxiety. “Were they with the dunnage?”

“They’re safe in my pocket here, sewn in and pinned in,” replied
Ben. “I thought something like this might possibly happen and I
wasn’t taking any chances.”

McAllister smiled gravely and tenderly.

“I guess you were taking more chances than you knew about, lad,” he
said. “But it was a fine shoot, so why worry?”

Ben took off his wet coat, jumped into the pool, swam out to the
wounded canoe and brought it ashore. Together they emptied her and
lifted her out of the water. Her strong, smooth canvas was torn
through and ripped back for a distance of two feet and five of her
tough, flat ribs were cracked and telescoped.

“We had a barrel of fun, Ben, but I reckon we didn’t save much
time,” said Uncle Jim.

They hid the canoe where she would be safe until they could return
for her, and continued their journey on foot. They walked along the
edge of the river, on pebbles and smooth ledges of rock, until long
after sunset. Then they climbed the high bank and hunted about for a
road of some sort that might lead them to a house and food. They
were on the wrong side of the river to find the highroad; and after
half an hour of searching they decided that they were on the wrong
side of the river for finding anything. McAllister had matches in a
watertight box, so they built a big fire, made beds of ferns and dry
moss and fell asleep hungry but hopeful.

CHAPTER VII

A TRAP FOR THE HUNGRY

Ben O’Dell and Jim McAllister reached home soon after dinner time
next day, canoeless, baggageless and empty but very well pleased
with themselves. They found Mrs. O’Dell and little Marion Sherwood
drying the last spoon.

Mrs. O’Dell gave the returned voyagers just one look before
replacing the chicken stew on the stove to reheat and the baked
pudding in the oven. Then she looked again and welcomed them
affectionately.

“I hope you had a good time,” she said. “We didn’t expect you home
so soon. Why didn’t you bring your blankets and things up with you?”

“We didn’t fetch them home with us,” said Uncle Jim. “Left them a
long ways upriver, Flora. There wasn’t much to fetch back—a few old
blankets and a teakettle and a mite of grub. But we had a good time.
For a little while there I was having more fun than I’ve had in
twenty years, thanks to Ben.”

“I ran Big Rapids, mother,” said Ben, with a mixed expression of
face and voice. “I was paddling stern, you know, and we were in a
hurry, and I let her go. The water was at its lowest and worst, but
we got through—all but.”

“Sure we got through!” exclaimed McAllister. “It was the prettiest
bit of work I ever saw! We were clean through, and we’d of been home
earlier, blankets an’ all, if Ben’s paddle hadn’t bust.”

“Jim McAllister! You let Ben shoot Big Rapids at low water?—that
boy? What were you thinking of, Jim?”

“Let nothing, Flora! He was aft, because he’s a bigger man than I am
and a better one—though a mite reckless, I must say. I warned him,
but not extra strong. And he did it! If there’s another man on the
river could do it any better, show him to me!”

“You are old enough to have more sense, Jim. And if you did it,
where’s your dunnage? Why did you leave it all upriver?”

“Did you run a canoe through those rapids, Ben?” asked the little
Sherwood girl. “Right down those rapids between here and French
River—those rapids all full of rocks and black waves and
whirlpools?”

“Yes—just about,” answered Ben.

“You are very strong and courageous,” she said.

Ben’s blush deepened and spread.

“Oh, it wasn’t much. Nothing like as bad as it looks. And we didn’t
quite make it, anyhow. My paddle broke off clean just above the
blade just before we struck smooth water—and so we struck something
else instead!”

“You are very courageous. Dad wouldn’t do it, even in our big
pirogue. We let it through on a rope.”

“And he did right,” said Uncle Jim. “Yer dad showed his sense that
time. I ain’t blaming Ben, you understand, for I don’t. It was
different with Ben. He didn’t have any little girl in the canoe with
him, but only a tough old uncle who was seasoned to falling into
white water and black before Ben here was ever born. I enjoyed it.
Ben was right, sure—but Dick Sherwood was righter, Marion. He came
down those rapids with you just the way any other real good father
would of done it.”

The little girl said nothing to that, but she went over and stood
close to Uncle Jim and held his hand. Flora O’Dell grasped her son’s
big right hand in both of hers. Her blue eyes filmed with tears.

“Ben, you upset in Big Rapids?” she whispered faintly.

“We were clear through, mother, and upset into the pool,” he said.

“I want you to be brave,” she continued, her voice very low in his
ear. “But I want you to remember, dear, that you are the only O’Dell
on this river now—on this earth—and that life would be very terrible
for me without—an O’Dell.”

Ben was deeply touched. Pity and pride both pierced his young heart.
Now he fully realized for the first time the wonder and beauty of
his mother, of the thing that brightened and softened in her brave
eyes, her love, her loneliness, her love for him. And now she called
him an O’Dell; and he knew that she thought of all O’Dells as men
possessed of the qualities of his heroic father. His heart glowed
with pride.

“I’ll remember, dear—but we were really in a hurry, mother,” he
answered.

For fully ten minutes he felt twenty years older than his age.

After Ben and Uncle Jim had eaten and the little girl had gone out
to the orchard with a book Ben told his mother all they had learned
from old Noel Sabattis and of the clew he had discovered to the
identity of Balenger’s murderer. He showed her the pen and comb. She
felt remorse for having doubted poor Sherwood’s innocence.

“Then he must be crazy—and that is almost as unfortunate,” she said.
“It is almost as bad for both of them.”

“I don’t believe he’s really insane,” said Ben. “He acted like it
part of the time, by Noel’s account, but not all the time. He was
sane enough when he dropped the pirogue down the rapids on a rope
instead of trying to run them. His nerves are bad and I guess he’s
sick. What Noel said sounded to me as if he was sick with fever—and
he’s afraid—afraid of all sorts of things. But I guess he’d soon be
all right if he knew he was safe from the law and was decently
treated. He hasn’t got Balenger to worry about now. Was any more
food taken while we were away, mother?”

“You still think it is Richard Sherwood who takes the food?” she
asked nervously.

“I think so more than ever now, since Noel told us about him. He
hadn’t the nerve to go far away from his daughter.”

“I wouldn’t wonder if Ben’s right,” said McAllister.

“I hope he isn’t!” exclaimed Mrs. O’Dell in a distressed voice. “A
cruel thing happened last night and it was my fault. I—I told Ian
about the thefts when he asked me why I was afraid to sleep without
a man in the house. I didn’t want him to think me just a—an
unreasoning coward. And he set a trap in the bread box last night, a
steel fox trap. I didn’t know anything about it. I would have taken
it away if I had known.”

“A trap!” cried Ben, his face flushing and then swiftly paling and
his eyes darkling. “A trap in this house! To hurt some one in need
of bread! If he wasn’t your brother I’d—I’d——”

“Same here!” muttered Uncle Jim.

“I didn’t know until this morning,” continued Mrs. O’Dell, glancing
from her son to her brother with horrified eyes. “I found it
outside, with an ax lying beside it. He had pried it open with the
ax. There was blood on it. I—I went over to see Ian then—he’d gone
home early—and I saw him and told him what—how I felt. I think he
understood—but that won’t help the—the person who was hurt.”

She was on the verge of tears but Ben comforted her.

Ben and Jim McAllister spent the remainder of the afternoon in
searching the woods for the poor fellow who had put his hand into
the trap. Ben was sure that the person whom they sought was Sherwood
and Uncle Jim agreed with him; but whoever the unfortunate thief
might be, Ben felt that he was entitled to apologies and surgical
aid and an explanation. These things were due to the sufferer and
also to the good name of O’Dell. In setting a trap to catch a hungry
thief in the O’Dell house Ian McAllister had flouted a great
tradition of kindness and smudged the honor of an honorable family.

The woods were wide, the ground was dry and showed no tracks, the
underbrush was thick. Their search was in vain. They shouted words
of encouragement a score of times, at the top of their voices, but
received no reply.

The three talked late that night after the little girl had gone to
bed. Ben was determined to follow up the clew which he had obtained
on French River immediately and personally, to save the poor fellow
who had once been his father’s friend from the blundering of the law
and from destruction by his own fears. And not entirely for the sake
of the old friendship, perhaps. There was their guest to consider,
the brave child upstairs. His mother and uncle saw the justice of
his reasoning, but without enthusiasm. His mother felt uneasy for
him, afraid to have him to go to a big city on such a mission. He
had been away from home for months at a time during the past six or
seven years, but that had been very different. He had been at school
in a quiet town on the river, among people she knew. And she feared
that his efforts in Sherwood’s behalf would interrupt his education.
She said very little of all this, however, for she knew that in this
matter her son’s vision was clearer and braver and less selfish than
her own. Uncle Jim felt no anxiety concerning Ben, for his faith in
that youth had grown mightily of late, but he wanted to know what
was to become of the harvest.

It was decided that a good Indian or two should be hired to help
McAllister with the harvesting of the oats, barley and buckwheat,
and that Ben should go to Woodstock next day and discuss Richard
Sherwood’s unhappy situation with Judge Smith and return to O’Dell’s
Point for a night at least before going farther. Mrs. O’Dell and
Uncle Jim would do everything they could to find Sherwood and
reassure him. All three were convinced by now that Sherwood and the
unfortunate thief were one, in spite of the fact that the red dogs
had behaved as if the thief were an old and trusted friend.

Ben set out for Woodstock after an early breakfast. The long drive
was uneventful. The road was in excellent condition for a road of
its kind, the mare was the best of her kind on the upper river, the
sun shone and the miles rolled steadily and peacefully back under
the rubber tires of the light buggy.

Ben stabled the mare at the Aberdeen House stables, saw her rubbed
dry and watered and fed, then sat down to his own dinner. He was
well along with his meal when Deputy Sheriff Brown walked into the
hotel dining room, turned around twice as a dog does before it lies
down, then advanced upon Ben’s table. Ben felt slightly embarrassed.
He saw that Mr. Brown’s face still showed something of the effects
of their last meeting. The deputy sheriff held out his hand and Ben
arose and took it.

“I’ll eat here too, if you don’t mind,” said Mr. Brown.

Ben was relieved to see that, despite the faint discoloration around
the other’s eyes, the expression of the eyes was friendly.

“You gave me a good one, Ben,” said the arm of the law, speaking
between spoonfuls of soup. “I’ve been thinkin’ it over ever since
and the more I think on it the clearer I see why you did it. I was
danged mad for a spell, but I ain’t mad now. Yer a smart lad, Ben,
if you’ll excuse me for sayin’ so; and jist pig-headed enough to be
steady and dependable, if you don’t mind me expressin’ it that way.”

“It is very kind of you to think so,” replied Ben.

“Oh, I’m like that. No meanness in Dave Brown. If he’s wrong he’s
willin’ to admit it once he’s been shown it—that’s me! I guess you
were right that time in yer barn, Ben. I know darn well that you
acted as if right was on yer side, anyhow.”

Ben looked him steadily but politely in the eye for several seconds,
then leaned forward halfway across the narrow table.

“I came down to-day to tell something important to Judge Smith and
perhaps to ask his advice about it, but I think I’ll tell it to you
instead,” he said in guarded tones.

The deputy sheriff’s eyes brightened and he too leaned forward.

“Something about French River?” he whispered.

“You’ve guessed it, Mr. Brown. Uncle Jim and I went up there and saw
old Noel Sabattis and heard all he had to tell. Among other things,
we heard about that stranger Noel saw once a few days before Louis
Balenger showed up again.”

“There was nothin’ to that, Ben. The old man said he didn’t see hair
nor track of him after that one minute. It wasn’t even a good lie.
It was jist the commencement of one—an’ then Noel got wise to the
fact that he couldn’t git it across even if he took the trouble to
invent it.”

Ben smiled and sat back. The waitress was at his elbow. He ordered
peach pie with cream and coffee. Mr. Brown ordered apple pie with
cheese on the side and tea, and the waitress retired. Again Ben
leaned forward.

“That wasn’t a lie, and that stranger shot Balenger,” he said.

“Shoot. I’m listenin’.”

“He shot him from the top of the bank on the other side of the
river, upstream, exactly two hundred and eighty-six yards away.”

“Was yours apple or mince?” asked the waitress, suddenly reappearing
with both arms full of pieces of pie and brimming cups.

The deputy sheriff turned the face of the law on her.

“Leave it an’ beat it an’ don’t come back to-day!” he cried.

“He came from the city of Quebec,” continued Ben, “and I wouldn’t be
surprised to learn that the police there know something about him.”

Mr. Brown looked at once suspicious and impressed.

“It wouldn’t surprise you much to learn anything, Ben,” he said.
“Have you got him tied under yer chair? Introduce me, will you?”

Ben laughed good-naturedly, produced the pen, the comb and the
broken clip and told all that he knew about them, including old
Noel’s searching description of the stranger’s appearance.

“Ben, I hand it to you,” said the deputy sheriff. “I give you
best—for the second time. Yer smart and yer steady—and yer lucky!
What’s yer next move?”

“What would you suggest, Mr. Brown?”

“Me suggest? That’s polite of you, Ben, but I’d sooner listen to
you. I got a high opinion of the way you work yer brains—_and_ yer
luck, if you don’t object to me mentionin’ yer luck.”

“I was thinking that you might make a special constable of me or if
I’m too young for that you might engage me as a private detective,
and we’ll go to Quebec and find out what the chief of police there
knows about an acquaintance of Louis Balenger’s with three gold
teeth and a scar just below his right ear.”

“Exactly what I was goin’ to suggest!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Shake
on it! I’ll fix it—an’ the sooner the quicker. What about the day
after to-morrow? If you get here as early as you did to-day we can
take the two-o’clock train.”

Ben spent hours of the next day searching in the upland woods and
the island thickets for Richard Sherwood. The incident of the trap
had increased his pity for and his sense of responsibility toward
the broken fugitive. Again his efforts were unsuccessful. He found
nothing—no ashes of a screened fire, no makeshift shelter, no
furtive shape vanishing in the underbrush. He left a message in the
woods and down among the willows, repeated on half a dozen of pages
torn from his notebook and impaled on twigs. Here is the message:

You are safe and we are your friends. The trap was a mistake. Please
come to the house.

Ben O’Dell.

He told his mother and Uncle Jim what he had done and they approved
of it. He and Uncle Jim drove away next morning; and he and the
deputy sheriff caught the two-o’clock train for Quebec.

O’Dell’s Point experienced busier days than usual after Ben O’Dell’s
departure on the trail of the marksman from Quebec. The harvest was
heavy, and Jim McAllister was the busiest man on the river. By the
application of a few plugs of tobacco as advances on wages he
procured the services of Sol Bear and Gabe Sacobie, two good
Indians. They were good Indians, honest and well-intentioned and
hardy, but they were not good farm hands. If McAllister had hired
them to take him to the head of the river they would have toiled
early and late, bent paddles and poles and backs, made the portages
at a jog trot and grinned at fatigue. That would have been an
engagement worthy of a Maliseet’s serious consideration and effort.
But the harvesting of oats and barley was quite a different matter.
Sol and Gabe could see nothing in the laborious pursuit of the dull
oats but the wages. Squaws’ work, this. So Uncle Jim had to keep
right at their heels and elbows to keep them going.

Jim McAllister kept the sad case of Sherwood in his mind. After the
day’s work and the milking and feeding, when the Maliseets were
smoking by the woodshed door and his sister and little Marion were
sewing and reading in the sitting room, he wandered abroad with a
stable lantern. He showed his light in the high pastures, along
brush fences and through the fringes of the forest. Sometimes he
whistled. Sometimes he shouted the name of the man who had tried to
teach him to shoot duck and snipe on the wing half a lifetime ago.
He did these things five nights running but without any perceptible
result. And no food had been missed since the night the trap had
been set and sprung. It looked to Jim as if his brother’s cruel and
stupid act had driven Sherwood away, had shattered his last thread
of courage, dispelled the last glimmer of his sense of
self-preservation and his last ray of hope.

Jim McAllister believed that misfortune, grief and fear had been too
much for Dick Sherwood’s sanity even at the time of Balenger’s
death. He believed him to have been temporarily insane even
then—partially and temporarily insane. His caution at Big Rapids
showed that he had then possessed at least a glimmer of reasoning
power and nervous control. Friendship, companionship, assurance of
his own and Marion’s safety might have saved him then, Jim
reflected. But now Jim couldn’t see any hope for him. The trap had
finished what Louis Balenger’s cruelty and Julie’s death had begun.
Sherwood had undoubtedly taken to the limitless wilderness behind
O’Dell’s Point, sick, hungry, wounded and crazy with fear. He was
probably dead by now.

Sunday came, a day of rest from hauling oats and barley. Sol and
Gabe and Gabe’s squaw breakfasted in the kitchen. Mrs. O’Dell and
Uncle Jim and the little Sherwood girl breakfasted in the dining
room. Uncle Jim was at his third cup of coffee and already dipping
into a pocket for his pipe when his sister startled him by an
exclamation.

“Hark! Who’s that?”

He pricked up his ears.

“It’s only the Injuns talking, Flora,” he said.

“No, I heard a strange voice.”

The door between the kitchen and dining room opened and old Noel
Sabattis entered. He closed the door behind him with a backward
kick.

“How do,” he said.

His shapeless hat of weather-beaten felt was on his head, a dark
pipe with a rank aroma protruded from his mouth. He held a paddle in
one hand and an ancient double-barreled duck gun, a muzzle loader,
in the other. Marion Sherwood stared at him wide-eyed for a moment.
Then she shot from her chair, flew to him and embraced him.

“Mind yerself!” he exclaimed. “Look out for dat gun!”

“Why have you come, Noel?” she cried, pulling at his belt. “Why
didn’t you come to see me before? Has dad come home?”

“Nope, not yet. Two-t’ree day he come. How you feel, hey?”

“I am very well, thank you,” she replied, “but worried about dad—and
I’ve missed you. Now you must take off your hat and speak to Mrs.
O’Dell, who is very kind.”

McAllister and the little girl relieved the old Maliseet of his gun,
paddle and hat and Mrs. O’Dell brought a chair to the table for him
and fetched more eggs and bacon from the kitchen.

Noel inquired about Sherwood at the first opportunity.

“He’s gone, I guess,” said Jim. “I’m afraid he’s done for. One night
when Ben and I were away, the last night we were away, a darned
nasty thing happened. My brother, Ian McAllister, set a fox trap in
the pantry. Whoever has been taking the food got a hand into it and
had to pry himself clear of the jaws with an ax—and nothing’s been
taken since. It was dirty work! If Sherwood was the man, then I
guess there’s no chance of ever finding him—not alive, anyhow. I’ve
hunted for him, night and day, but ain’t seen track nor hair of him.
He’s kept right on running till he dropped, I guess. That would jist
about finish him, that trap. He’d think the whole world was against
him for sure.”

“Yer brodder do dat, hey?” cried old Noel, angry and distressed.
“You got one fool for brodder, hey? Go trappin’ on de pantry for to
catch dat poor hungry feller Sherwood! You better keep ’im ’way from
me, Ma-callister; or maybe he don’t last long!”

“He thought it was a local thief, I guess,” answered Jim.

“Maybe Sherwood don’t run far,” said Noel. “But he lay mighty low.
You hunt ’im wid dem red huntin’ dogs, hey?”

“No, I didn’t take the dogs in with me. They’re bird dogs. They
don’t follow deer tracks nor man tracks. The only scent they heed is
partridge and snipe and woodcock.”

Noel shook his head.

“No dog ain’t dat much of a fool,” he said.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RED DOGS AT WORK

Jim McAllister and old Noel Sabattis set out for the woods back of
the point within an hour of Noel’s arrival. They took uncooked food
and a kettle and a frying pan in a bag, a cold lunch and a flask of
brandy in their pockets, four blankets, two waterproof ground
sheets, an ax and Noel’s old duck gun. They took Red Chief and Red
Lily, the oldest and next older of the three red dogs. They moved
inland along a thin screen of alders and choke-cherries and
goldenrod until they reached a point of dense second-growth spruce
and fir—this to avoid attracting the attention of Sol Bear, Gabe
Sacobie and Molly Sacobie. The red dogs moved obediently “to heel”
until the cover of the wood was gained.

The point of woods soon widened and merged into the unpeopled forest
which lay unbroken behind the river farms for scores of miles to the
right and left and spread northward for scores of unbroken miles. An
eighty-rod by ten-mile strip of this forest belonged to the O’Dell
property. This strip of wilderness had supplied generations of
O’Dells with timber and fuel and fencing without showing a
scar—nothing but a few stumps here and there about the forward
fringe of it and a mossy logging road meandering in green and amber
shadows. Generations of O’Dells and McAllisters had shot and hunted
here without leaving a mark. Maliseets had taken toll of it in bark
for their canoes, maple wood for their paddles and ash wood for the
frames of their snowshoes for hundreds of years; and yet to any but
the expert eye it was a wilderness that had never been discovered by
man.

Jim and Noel and the dogs quartered the ground as they moved
gradually northward, a man and a dog to the right, a man and a dog
to left, out for five hundred yards each way and in and out again,
expanding and contracting tirelessly through brush and hollow. The
men kept direction by the sunlight on the high treetops and touch
with each other by an occasional shrill whistle. Red Chief, the
oldest dog, worked with Noel, and Red Lily with Jim.

The fact that Jim did not carry a gun puzzled Red Lily, and the fact
that Noel Sabattis carried a gun and did not use it puzzled Red
Chief even more. Red Lily caught the scent of partridge on leaf and
moss, stood to the scent until McAllister called her off or ran
forward impatiently and flushed the birds. She did these things half
a dozen times and the man always failed to produce a gun or show any
interest in the birds. Then she decided that he wasn’t looking for
birds, so she hunted hares; but he recalled her from that pursuit in
discouraging tones. She smelled around for something else after
that. And it was the same with Red Chief. That great dog, the
present head of that distinguished old family of red sportsmen gave
Noel Sabattis five chances at partridge and two at cock without
getting so much as an acknowledgment out of the ancient Maliseet.
The fellow didn’t shoot. He didn’t even make a motion with the duck
gun. And yet he looked to Red Chief like a man who was after
something and knew exactly what it was; so Red Chief ignored the
familiar scents and tried to smell out the thing Noel was looking
for.

At noon the men and dogs met and sat down beside a tiny spring in a
ferny hollow. McAllister made a small fire and boiled the kettle.
The cold lunch was devoured by the four and the men drank tea and
smoked pipes. Then the fire was trodden out and the last spark of it
drenched with wet tea leaves. The search was resumed.

The sun was down and though the sky was still bright above the
treetops a brown twilight filled the forest when the efforts of the
searchers were at last crowned with success. The honor fell to the
lot of Red Chief. Noel was about to turn and close on the center
with the intention of rejoining Jim and making camp for the night
when he heard the dog yelp excitedly again and again. He hurried
toward the sound. He forced his way straight through tangled brush
and over mossy rocks and rotting tree trunks, straight into the
heart of a tree-choked hollow. The dusk was almost as deep as night
in there but he saw the red dog yelping over something on the
ground. He joined the dog and looked close. The thing on the ground
was a man. It was Richard Sherwood, unconscious, perhaps dead.

Noel’s tough old heart failed him for a moment. It seemed to turn
over against his ribs and he withdrew his glance from his friend
and, for a moment, put an arm over the red dog’s shoulder for
support. Then he laid his gun down and produced the flask from his
hip. He forced a few drops of brandy between Sherwood’s colorless
lips. His hand shook and some of the liquor spilled and ran into the
wild, gray-shot beard. He felt unnerved—far too unnerved to go on
with this thing alone. He believed that Sherwood was dead; and
though he was glad of the red dog’s presence he wanted human
companionship, too.

He moved away a few yards and discharged the right barrel of the old
gun into the tops of the gloomy forest. The report thumped and
thundered through the crowding, listening forest. Reserving the left
barrel for a second signal, he returned to the body, raised the
inert head again and forced a little more of the brandy between the
cold lips. Red Chief whined and thrust his muzzle into Sherwood’s
face. Noel drew back a little, gathered dry twigs and moss together
blindly and set a match to them. The red and yellow flames shot up.
The light steadied his nerves but did not ease his heart. He fed a
few sticks to the fire, moved off hurriedly and fired the second
barrel of the big gun. When the echoes of the report had thumped to
silence he heard the shrill, faint whistle of Jim’s reply.

Noel became aware of a new note in the dog’s whines and yelps. He
stooped close and saw that Sherwood’s eyes were open and alive.

“I’ve fooled you,” whispered Sherwood. “I’m as good as dead—and the
little girl is safe.”

Then he closed his eyes. Red Chief ceased his whining, moved back a
yard and lay down. Noel built up the fire.

Red Lily came leaping to the fire, followed by Jim McAllister. She
yapped with delight and anxiety at sight of Sherwood, nosed his
beard, flashed a red tongue at his pale forehead. Again he opened
his eyes for a few seconds.

McAllister and Noel Sabattis worked over Sherwood for hours. The
poor fellow was delirious, exhausted, burning with fever and
suffering intense pain. They managed to get a little brandy and
about a gill of water down his throat. He did not know them. He
thought Louis Balenger was there.

“I’ve fooled you this time,” he said. “Marion is safe. Safe with
people you can’t scare or trick. Safe from me—and safe from you.
Leave her alone—or you’ll get caught in a trap—and die of it—like
me.”

Later, he said, “You can’t touch her, Balenger. Even the red dogs
would kill you. They’re my friends.”

His right hand and arm were in a terrible state. The hand had been
crushed straight across and torn by the steel teeth of the trap
which Ian McAllister, in unthinking cruelty, had set in the O’Dell
pantry. Hand and wrist were dark and swollen. The arm was swollen to
the shoulder. Jim bathed it with warm water, then with hot water.
They applied wads of hot, wet moss to the arm; but they had no
bandages and nothing of which to make bandages for the wounded hand.
And in their haste they had come without medicines—without quinine
or iodine.

Sherwood was still alive at dawn. He even seemed to be a little
stronger and in less suffering. His arm was no worse, that was
certain. They gave him a little more stimulant and a few spoonfuls
of condensed milk diluted in warm water. It was evident from his
appearance that he had been without nourishment of any sort for days
and yet he seemed unconscious of hunger. He was far too ill and weak
to feel anything but the pain of his hand and arm.

Jim set out for home after breakfast, on a straight line, to fetch
in bandages and quinine and to get his sister’s advice as to the
wisdom of using iodine. He believed that nourishment and simple
remedies would revive Sherwood so that they could safely remove him
to the house in the course of a day or two. Then he would get a
doctor from Woodstock, Doctor Scott whom he knew, to deal with the
injured hand. He believed that the inflammation of the hand and arm
could be reduced in the meantime by simple treatment. He left both
dogs and the gun with Noel Sabattis and the sick man.

The searchers must have covered close upon thirty miles of ground in
their hunt for Sherwood but they had not gone more than eight miles
straight to the northward. McAllister traveled a bee line, pausing
now and then to look up at the sun from an open glade. He reached
the house within two hours and twenty minutes of leaving the camp in
the secluded hollow.

Back in the heart of the tree-choked hollow old Noel Sabattis bathed
Sherwood’s hand and arm and applied wads of steaming moss to the arm
and shoulder just as Jim McAllister had done. Sherwood and the dogs
slept. Noel felt sleepy, too. He had been awake through most of last
night and through half of the night before and during the past two
days he had exerted himself more than usual. He blinked and blinked.
His eyelids wouldn’t stay up. He looked at his sleeping friend and
the sleeping dogs. His eyes closed and he made no effort to open
them. Instead, he sank back slowly until his head and shoulders
touched the soft moss.

Old Noel Sabattis slept deep and long. The moss was soft and dry.
The sun climbed and warmed the still air and sifted shafts of warm
light through the crowding boughs. Sherwood lay with closed eyes,
motionless, muttering now and again. Red Chief arose, shook himself,
hunted through the woods for a few minutes, circled the hollow, then
returned to the fallen fire and sleep. The other dog awoke a little
later, scouted around for ten minutes, drank at the ferny spring and
returned to sleep. The hours passed. Red Chief awoke again, sniffed
the still air and got purposefully to his feet. He entered and
vanished into the heavy underbrush with a single bound. Red Lily
awoke in a flash and flashed after him. They were both back in less
than a minute. They awoke Noel Sabattis by licking his face
violently. They were in too great a hurry to be particular.

Noel awoke spluttering and sat up. The big dogs jumped on him and
over him a few times, then turned and disappeared in the underbrush.
The old man wiped his face with the back of his hand and reached for
the duck gun. He had reloaded it before breakfast. He raised the
hammers, produced two copper percussion caps from a pocket of his
rag of a vest, capped each nipple and lowered the hammers to half
cock. Then he crawled after the dogs. He found them awaiting him
impatiently at the outer edge of the hollow. They jumped about him,
nosed him and made eager, choky noises deep in their throats. They
moved forward slowly and steadily then, with Noel crawling after.
But they did not advance far; suddenly they lay down.

Noel listened. He heard something. He set his best ear close to
ground while one dog watched him with intent approval and the other
gazed straight ahead. He raised himself to his knees, lifted his
head cautiously and looked to his front through a screen of tall
brakes. He saw two men approaching, one of whom he recognized as Mel
Lunt; and though he could see only their heads and shoulders he knew
that they were placing their feet for each step with the utmost
care. Also, he saw that each had a rifle on his shoulder.

Noel’s round eyes glinted dangerously. Man hunters, hey! Sneaks!
Sneaks sneaking around to jail poor Sherwood, hunting him down by
tracking his friends. He stooped for a moment and patted each dog on
the head.

“Lay close,” he whispered.

He stood straight, advanced two paces and halted. He brought the old
gun up so that the muzzles of the two barrels were in line with the
heads of the intruders and in plain sight and the butt was within a
few inches of the business position in the hollow of his right
shoulder.

“How do. Fine day,” he said.

Old Tim Hood of Hood’s Ferry and Mel Lunt the local constable
stopped dead in their tracks as if they were already shot. They
didn’t even lower their rifles from their shoulders. Their startled
brains worked just sufficiently to warn them that a move of that
kind might not be safe. For a few seconds they stared at Noel in
silence. Then Tim Hood spoke in a formidable voice that matched his
square-cut whiskers.

“What d’ye mean by p’intin’ that there gun at us?” he asked.

“What it look like it mean?” returned Noel.

“That’s all right, Tim,” said Mel Lunt. “He’s a friend of mine.”

“T’ell ye say!” retorted Noel.

“Well, ye know me, I guess. I was up to yer place on French River.
I’m the constable, don’t ye mind? Me an’ Sheriff Brown was up
there.”

“Sure t’ing, Lunt. What you want now?”

“Ye can’t talk to me like that!” exclaimed Hood. “I don’t take sass
from no Injun nor from no danged O’Dell! Where’s this here Sherwood
the law be after? Take us to ’im!”

“Keep dat rifle steady, Lunt,” cautioned Noel. “An’ you too, old
feller. I got jerks on de finger when I was little papoose an’
mighty sick one time—an’ maybe still got ’em, I dunno. Got hair
trigger on dis old gun, anyhow.”

“Don’t ye be a fool, Noel Sabattis,” said Lunt. “I’m a constable. I
want this man Richard Sherwood, who’s suspicioned of the murder of
the late Louis Balenger, an’ I know ye’ve got him somewheres ’round
here. I’m talkin’ to ye official now, Noel, as the arm o’ the law ye
might say. Drop yer gun an’ lead us to him.”

“Sherwood? Ain’t I told you he don’t shoot dat feller Balenger? He
don’t shoot nobody. You ask Brown. You ask Ben O’Dell. Ask anybody.
Pretty near anybody tell you whole lot you don’t know, Lunt!”

“’Zat so? I’ll ask Mr. Brown when I see ’im, don’t ye fret! I reckon
we kin stand here’s long as ye kin hold up that old gun; and
then—but we’ll show ye all about that later.”

“Maybe,” said Noel. “Hold ’im good long time, anyhow.”

He glanced down and behind him, under his left elbow, for an
instant. Red Lily still lay flat among the ferns but Red Chief was
not there. He wondered at that but he did not worry. His admiration
for the red dogs was great, though his acquaintance with them had
been short.

In the meantime, Jim McAllister was returning on a bee line through
the woods, with iodine and quinine and bandages and boric powder in
his pockets and a basket containing a bottle of milk and a dozen
fresh eggs in his right hand. When he was within half a mile of poor
Sherwood’s retreat he was met by Red Chief. The old dog leaped about
him, squirmed and wriggled, ran forward and back and forward again.
Jim knew that he was needed for something and quickened his pace.
Red Chief led him straight. Soon the dog slackened his pace and
glanced back with a new expression in his eyes. It was as if he had
laid a finger on his lips for caution. Jim understood and obeyed,
anxious and puzzled. He stooped, looked keenly to his front and set
his feet down with care.

Jim heard voices. A few seconds later, he glimpsed the shoulders of
two men among the brown boles of the forest, topping the underbrush.
He saw rifles slanted on their shoulders. He set the basket of eggs
and milk securely in a ferny nook and continued to advance with
increased caution. He recognized the voice of Mel Lunt. Then he
heard Noel’s voice. He heard the old Maliseet say, “I kin hold her
annoder hour yet. Den maybe git so tired me finger jerk, hey? Maybe.
Dunno.”

He saw Noel facing the others, standing with his back square to the
dense growth of Sherwood’s retreat. He saw the duck gun. In a flash
he understood it all; and in another flash of time indignation
flared up in him like white fire. Lunt, that brainless sneak! And
old Tim Hood, whose only pleasure was derived from the troubles of
others! So they had spied on him, had they? Tracked him on his
errand of mercy!

McAllister ran forward. Noel saw him coming, grinned and steadied
the big gun. McAllister seized a rifle with each hand and yanked
them both backward over their owners’ shoulders. He moved swiftly
around and confronted the intruders. The glare of his gray eyes was
hard and hot. He tossed one rifle behind him and held the other in
readiness after a jerk on the bolt and a glance at the breech.

“Guess I go bile de kittle now,” said Noel Sabattis; and he lowered
the duck gun and retired. His old arms trembled with fatigue, but
his old heart was high and strong.

“What have you two got to say for yerselves?” asked McAllister,
turning his unnerving gaze from Lunt to Hood and back to Lunt.
“Ain’t you read the game laws for this year? Hunting season opens
October first, as usual. Or maybe you forgot I’m a game warden.”

“Cut it out, Jim McAllister!” retorted Lunt. “I’m a constable. Ye
ain’t forgot that, I guess.”

“Sure, I know that. And as you won’t be one much longer, I’ll use
you now. Arrest Tim Hood an’ take him down to Woodstock to the
sheriff—an’ hand yerself over too while ye’re about it. The charge
is carrying loaded rifles in these woods in close season.”

“None o’ that,” said old Tim Hood. “Ye can’t fool me, Jim. Me an’
Mel ain’t here to kill moose or deer—an’ well ye know it. We be here
to take a man the law wants for murder. So back out an’ set down,
Mr. Jim McAllister. This ain’t no job for a game warden.”

“I’ll be as easy on you as I can,” returned Jim. “Ye’re out for
Sherwood, I know. Well, Sherwood didn’t murder anybody. The shooting
was done by a stranger from Quebec and Dave Brown and young Ben
O’Dell are looking for him now in Quebec.”

“I ain’t been officially notified o’ that,” said Lunt. “As a private
citizen I reckon it’s a lie—an’ as an officer of the law I couldn’t
believe it anyhow. I’m here to do my duty.”

“Did you call me a liar, Mel?”

“I ain’t here to pick over my words with you nor no man. I’m here to
do my duty.”

“Toting a rifle in close season. Show me yer warrant for Richard
Sherwood’s arrest.”

“Show nothin’,” snarled old Tim Hood.

Jim moved backward until he reached the discarded rifle. He laid the
second rifle beside it. Red Lily had joined him and Red Chief at the
moment of their arrival on the scene.

“Guard ’em, pups,” he said.

The big red dogs stood across the rifles. McAllister walked close up
to the intruders, unarmed, his hands hanging by his sides.

“Hood, ye’re an old man and a spiteful one, and because of yer age
I’m only telling you to get off O’Dell land as quick as you know
how,” he said. “I’ll keep yer rifle till you pay yer fine for
carrying it in close season. Beat it! But ye’re not too old to kick,
Mel Lunt. Ye’re my own age and heft and it ain’t my fault ye’re not
as good a man. You had ought to thought of that before you called me
a liar.”

He swung his right hand, wide open, and delivered a resounding smack
on the constable’s left ear. Lunt staggered, cursing. Jim stepped in
and placed a smart left on the nose and upper lip. Lunt made a
furious but blind onslaught and was met by a thump on the chest that
shook his hat from his head and his socks down about his ankles. Jim
was unskilled as a boxer; but he was powerful and in good condition;
the Highland blood of the McAllisters and the pride of the O’Dells
were raging in him and he had picked up a few notions from young
Ben. He biffed Mel again, but not in a vital spot.

Old Tim Hood, that bitter soul, was not idle. He dashed toward the
rifles on the ground, his square-cut white whiskers fairly bristling
with rage. Murder was in his heart—but there was no courage back of
it. He beheld the masks of the red dogs—wrinkled noses, curled lips,
white fangs and blazing eyes. His dash stopped suddenly within a
yard of the rifles. He heard throaty gurgles. The bristles went out
of his whiskers. He turned and jumped away in a cold panic. But rage
still shook in his heart. He stooped and fumbled in the moss and
ferns for a stone with which to smash Jim McAllister on the back of
the head. It was a style of attack with which he had been familiar
in his younger days. He found the thing he wanted, conveniently
shaped for the hand and about seven pounds in weight.

Hood straightened himself, stone in hand, just in time to glimpse a
red flash. Then something struck him all over and down he went, flat
on his back, and the stone went rolling. For half a second he kept
his eyes open. Half a second was long enough. He saw white fangs
within an inch of his face, crimson gums, a black throat, eyes of
green fire. His heart felt as if it would explode with terror. He
screamed as he waited for the glistening fangs to crunch into his
face. He waited and waited.

Mel Lunt was glad to run as soon as he realized that McAllister was
too good for him. He saw that the thing to do was to run while he
could and get to Woodstock as soon as possible and interview the
high sheriff of the county. There might be something in the story
about the man from Quebec, though he doubted it. He needed a warrant
for Sherwood’s arrest, anyway; and after that he would settle with
McAllister and old Noel Sabattis. So he staggered southward; and Jim
sped him with a kick.

Then Jim turned and whistled Red Chief off Tim Hood’s chest. The old
dog came trotting, waving his red plume. Red Lily continued to stand
guard over the rifles. Jim walked over to where Hood lay motionless
with closed eyes.

“Get up,” he said. “You ain’t hurt. No one touched you.”

Mr. Hood opened his eyes, sat up and looked around him.

“Lunt has gone south,” said Jim. “I reckon you can overhaul him if
you hurry. Beat it!”

The bitter old ferryman got to his feet without a word and headed
south at a very creditable rate of speed.

* * * * *

In the city of Quebec, in the midst of excitements and novelties,
Deputy Sheriff Brown and young Ben O’Dell went earnestly and
successfully about their business. Mr. Brown’s mind and heart were
set on catching a murderer; Ben’s thoughts and efforts were all bent
upon clearing and saving the innocent. The success of either meant
the success of both, so they worked in perfect accord.

Ben was the superior in imagination and intelligence but Brown knew
the ways of the police and of cities. Brown obtained audience with
the chief of police and Ben’s manner of telling the story of the
French River shooting did the fine work. The stranger who had
dropped his pen and comb on French River was soon identified as one
Norman Havre, alias “Black” McFay, alias Joe Hatte, known to the
police. Louis Balenger’s record was also known to them.

CHAPTER IX

THE SICK MAN

Jim McAllister and Noel fed Sherwood with milk, dosed him with
quinine, bathed his hand with a hot solution of boric powder and
touched it with iodine, placed hot compresses on his arm and
bandaged him generously if not scientifically. He responded
encouragingly to the treatment. It was easy to see that the pain in
his arm had lessened. For a few hours of the afternoon he appeared
to be cooler and felt cooler, lay awake without gabbling and slept
without muttering and tossing. Once he recognized Noel Sabattis and
spoke to him by name; and Noel patted his head and told him not to
worry about anything for everything was going fine.

Sherwood was delirious during the night but not to the extent of the
night before. In the morning he showed marked improvement, took his
bitter dose of quinine as if he knew that it was good for him, drank
an egg beaten up in milk, spoke affectionately to the red dogs and
then to Jim McAllister, in puzzled tones, with something of
recognition and more of fear and suspicion in his eyes.

“What are you going to do with me?” he asked.

“Take you home, Dick, and get a doctor for you,” replied Jim.

“What’s the idea?”

“I’m Jim McAllister. I live with my sister and young Ben O’Dell and
your little girl—all one family—at O’Dell’s Point. And that’s where
Noel and I mean to take you to. That’s the idea. So there’s nothing
for you to worry about.”

“Where’s Louis Balenger?”

“You don’t have to worry about him any more. He’s dead.”

“Yes, I remember that. Noel and I buried him. You remember that,
Noel? He was dead, wasn’t he?”

“Yep, he won’t never move no more,” replied the Maliseet.

“Did I shoot him?” asked the sick man.

“No, you didn’t,” said Jim sternly. “You weren’t anywheres near him
when he was shot; and if you hadn’t been sickening with fever you
wouldn’t of run away. Balenger was shot by a man from Quebec and Ben
O’Dell is hunting him this very minute.”

“Who’s Ben O’Dell?”

“He’s John’s son. Now you quit talking and take a rest.”

“I was at John’s funeral. You didn’t know it but I was there. No one
knew it, for I was ashamed to show myself. He was my friend. He was
my company commander once.”

“I know all about that, Dick. But you mustn’t talk any more now. Yer
a sick man.”

Sherwood fell asleep. Jim and Noel made a stretcher of two poles,
crosspieces and a pair of blankets; at ten o’clock they broke camp.
They made a mile in slow time, then set the stretcher down and fed
their patient. They marched again, walking with the utmost care, but
Sherwood soon became excited and they had to halt, make a fire and
bathe and dress his hand and arm. Again they dosed him and fed him.
They rested until long past noon. They thought him to be asleep when
they raised the stretcher for the third time, but he awoke
instantly.

“Leave me alone!” he cried. “You can’t fool me! I know you. You set
a trap for me.”

They kept on.

“That trap wasn’t set for you, Dick,” said McAllister over his
shoulder. “That was a mistake.”

“I didn’t shoot Balenger, honest I didn’t!” pleaded Sherwood. “I was
going to—if I had the nerve—but I didn’t do it. I was scared—afraid
they’d hang me and Marion would starve—that’s why I ran. But you set
a trap for me—and caught me—and now you’ve got me.”

“Nobody catch you!” cried Noel. “You all safe now. Jim an’ me take
you to Marion. You sick an’ crazy, dat’s all. Go to sleep. Shut up!”

He was quiet for a time but again broke out in terrified ravings
before they had gone far. They had to set him down to quiet him.
Again they built a fire, boiled the kettle, applied hot compresses
to his arm. They fed him a hot drink and he went to sleep. But Jim
saw that it would be dangerous to try to carry him farther that day,
that all the traveling must be done in the morning when the fever
was at its lowest. They had already covered about four of the eight
miles. Old Noel rubbed his arms and said he had never before
traveled such hard miles.

Jim was tired and anxious, but more anxious than tired. His anxiety
was for the farm and his sister and the little girl almost as much
as for the sick man. He was afraid of old Tim Hood, though he didn’t
admit it frankly even to himself. But Hood had always been a tricky
character as well as a spiteful one and he had held a grudge against
the O’Dells for many years; yesterday, when the old fellow’s eyes
had met his for an instant after the humiliating adventure with Red
Chief, Jim had seen danger there. So after drinking a mug of tea he
continued on his way, promising to return some time during the
night. He took one of the rifles and Red Lily with him.

Jim reached home in time for supper. The last load of grain was in,
but Bear and Sacobie and Mrs. Sacobie had not yet taken their
departure. He asked all three to remain until after breakfast next
morning, which they gladly agreed to do; and then, without his
sister’s knowledge, he arranged with the men that one should stand
guard on the barns all night and one on the house. He told them that
he had caught Tim Hood in the woods with a loaded rifle and disarmed
him and that the old man was mad enough for anything. Hood was not
popular with the Indians or any other poor and needy folk on the
river, so Jim knew that the watch would be well kept.

He didn’t say a word about Mel Lunt. He wasn’t worrying about the
constable, knowing that his worst faults were stupidity and
professional vanity. That Lunt would try to get even with him was
very likely, but by means and methods within the law—to the best of
Mel’s knowledge and belief, at least. He would probably make another
effort to arrest Sherwood if he was able to obtain a warrant through
the blundering of his superiors at Woodstock; and he was sure to try
to get a warrant for Jim’s arrest. But Jim didn’t worry about
anything Mel Lunt might do. Old Hood was the man he feared.

Jim managed a few minutes of private conversation with his sister,
and they decided that if Sherwood should reach the house next day
the little girl should be kept in ignorance of his identity—at least
until medical care had cured him of his wild delirium. They believed
that Doctor Scott and good nursing would accomplish this in a day or
two. Little Marion was not of a prying disposition. To tell her that
the sick man in the big spare room was not to be disturbed would be
enough. The big spare room was so far from Mrs. O’Dell’s room, in
one corner of which Marion occupied a small bed, that there would be
no danger of poor Sherwood’s humiliating and pitiful and cruelly
illuminating fever talk reaching the child’s ears.

Jim spent a few minutes with the little girl before she went to bed.
She took him to the library, set the lamp on the floor, sat down
beside it and pulled a portfolio of old colored prints out from
under one of the bookcases. She had discovered it a few days ago.
The prints were of hunting scenes—of men in red coats and white
breeches riding tall horses after red foxes, flying over green
hedges, tumbling into blue brooks, but always streaming after the
black and liver and white dogs who streamed after the fox.

“My dad once told me about that,” said Marion. “He used to do it
before he came out to this country, whenever he wasn’t soldiering.”

“Rough on the fox,” said Uncle Jim. “Worse than trapping him, I
guess. Why didn’t they shoot him and be done with it?”

“That’s what I said to dad,” replied Marion. “But he said it wasn’t
so, for as soon as the fox felt tired he jumped into a hole in the
ground and then the hunt was finished. They must have chased foxes a
great many years in England, for I am sure these pictures are a
great deal older than dad.”

“Sure thing, much older,” agreed Jim. “Those pictures were bought in
London by Ben’s great-grandfather.”

The little girl returned the portfolio to its place and drew forth a
shallow box of polished mahogany.

“Have you seen these, Uncle Jim?” she asked.

McAllister smiled. He had seen the contents of the box, but he also
saw what she was up to. She was entertaining him in the hope that by
so doing she might be allowed to sit up a few minutes past her usual
bedtime.

“I don’t mind seeing them again,” he said.

She raised the lid of the box and disclosed to view two short brown
pistols beautifully inlaid with silver about the grip and lock, a
little metal flask, a cluster of bullets, a little ramrod, a lot of
paper wads and dozens of tiny metal caps. All these curious articles
lay on dark-green felt, the pistols in a central position, each of
the different sorts of munitions in its own little compartment. The
barrels of the pistols were short but large of bore.

“Ben showed me these,” she said. “He told me all about how to load
them. They are very, very old. You don’t just put a cartridge in,
like you do with a rifle or shotgun, but you ram the bullets and
powder and wads down the muzzles, with that little stick and then
put those little caps on, the same way Noel Sabattis does with his
duck gun. I’ve seen Noel put the caps on his gun, but dad’s was like
a rifle. Noel’s duck gun must be very old.”

“Yes, but it’s still of more use than those pistols ever were,”
replied Jim, thinking of the good work the Maliseet’s great weapon
had done only yesterday and of the purpose for which the little
dueling pistols had been so beautifully and carefully made in the
ignorant days of the gay youth of one of Ben O’Dell’s kind but
conventional ancestors.

“What were the little pistols used for, Uncle Jim?” asked Marion.

“Well, you see, in the old days it wasn’t all clover being a man of
high family,” he said. “It had its drawbacks. You were a man of
mark, for sure. If a man is sassy to you nowadays, calls you names
or anything like that, all you got to do is sass him back or kick
him if you can; and all he can do is kick back—and that’s all there
is to it, no matter who you are or who yer grandfather used to be.
But in the old days when these pistols were made it was different.
If a man was rude to you then—said he didn’t like the way yer nose
stuck out of yer face or that the soldiers in yer regiment all had
flat feet or maybe got real nasty and called you a liar—you had to
throw a glassful of port wine or sherry wine into his face. Then it
was up to him to ask you, as polite as pie, to fight a duel with
him. And you had to do it or yer friends would say you weren’t a
gentleman—and that was considered a rough thing to say about a man
in those days. So you had to do it, even if the law was against it.
That’s what those little pistols were for.”

[Illustration: “‘TO SHOOT GENTLEMEN WITH?’ ASKED THE LITTLE GIRL IN AN
AWE-STRUCK WHISPER.”]

“To shoot gentlemen with?” asked the little girl in an awe-struck
whisper.

“Yes—but they’d hit almost any kind of man if they were aimed
right.”

“And have these ones done that—shot people, Uncle Jim?”

“I guess they never shot anybody very seriously, dear. The O’Dell
who owned them was a kind man, like all the O’Dells before and
since, and brave as a lion and steady as a rock and a dead-sure
shot. So whenever he was fussed and tricked into proving he was a
gentleman—which everybody knew already—by fighting with a fool, he’d
shoot the other lad in the hand that held the pistol—or the elbow or
maybe the shoulder. It wasn’t long before folks quit being rude to
him.”

Just then Mrs. O’Dell entered the library. Marion closed the box,
shoved it back beneath the bookcase and kissed McAllister good
night.

Jim posted Sol Bear and Gabe Sacobie, charged them to keep a sharp
lookout and armed them with sled stakes. Enthusiastic Indians were
not to be trusted with explosive weapons on such a job as this at
night. And he left Red Lily with them. With two good Indians and a
red dog outside and a squaw and another red dog in the kitchen he
felt that old Tim Hood would not accomplish any very serious damage
no matter how spiteful and reckless he might be feeling. Then he set
out for the spot in the wilderness, due north and four miles away,
where he had left the sick man and Noel Sabattis and Red Chief.

Jim might have spared himself these elaborate precautions had he
known that Tim Hood’s cowardice was still in excess of his rage. The
old fellow still agreed with Mel Lunt, the thrice foiled but ever
hopeful, that the safest and quickest way of getting in the first
return blow at Jim McAllister was through the unfortunate Sherwood.
So he continued to work with Lunt, to support the might and majesty
of the law as interpreted by that persistent local constable. The
O’Dell barns were not threatened that night. Sol and Gabe twirled
their sled stakes in vain and at last fell asleep at their posts.

Jim found the camp without much difficulty. Sherwood was sleeping
then but Noel said that he had been awake and raving for hours. Jim
slept for an hour, then bathed and dressed the sick man’s hand and
arm, with Noel’s assistance, dosed him with quinine and a full mug
of cold water. All was quiet after that until about three o’clock,
when Sherwood’s restlessness again awoke the others. Again they
applied hot compresses to his arm and gave him water to drink and
tucked his blankets securely around him.

Sherwood awoke again shortly after dawn, hungry, clear of eye and as
sane as you please. He drank fresh milk, a bottle of which Jim had
brought in last night. He recognized Jim and of course he knew Noel
Sabattis. He thanked them for all the trouble they were taking for
him and said that he wasn’t worth it.

“When I made sure Marion was safe and would soon be happy enough to
forget me I didn’t care how soon I pegged out,” he said. “I was ill,
very ill. The sickness had been in me for weeks, I think—I don’t
know how long. I was delirious even in the daytime and my nights
were wide-awake nightmares. All my past haunted me. If I had ever
been unkind to Julie or the baby I’d of gone mad and killed myself.
But I’d never been unkind to them—not intentionally—just weak and a
coward.”

“You a’right now, anyhow,” interrupted Noel. “Marion a’right too.
Take annoder drink.”

Sherwood drank obediently.

“The last night I crawled in,” he continued, “and got my hand in
that trap—well, that finished me! I don’t know how I got the trap
clear of my hand. I don’t know how I got into the woods.”

“My brother Ian set that trap and no one else knew anything about
it,” said Jim. “I guess he didn’t stop to think what he was doing.
Ben and I were away. But Doctor Scott’ll fix yer hand, don’t you
worry.”

“But will I be safe, Jim? From the law?”

“Sure thing! There’s nothing you need fear the law about. I reckon
Ben and Dave Brown know exactly who shot Balenger by this time and
like enough they’ve caught him. But that don’t matter one way or the
other. The police know you didn’t do it. But why didn’t you tell us
you wanted food? Why didn’t you come right in and eat with us?”

“I was ashamed. And I was crazy with fear. I was sick, too—sick with
fever, I suppose. I thought every one was hunting me to hang me and
half the time I thought I’d really shot Balenger. I had a picture in
my mind of just how I did it. But I couldn’t go far away from the
little girl.”

“How was it the dogs never tackled you?” asked Jim.

“Never mind dat!” exclaimed Noel. “Shut up an’ lay quiet! You shut
up too, McAllister! You start him talkin’ crazy ag’in, maybe.”

“Dogs know me, and that red breed better than any,” said Sherwood.
“I think that the red dogs inherited a friendship for me.”

“Maybe so, Dick; but Noel is right. Rest now. Don’t try to think any
more or yer fever’ll be up again. We’ve got four miles to carry you
yet.”

They started after breakfast with Sherwood in the stretcher. They
made the four miles by noon. They set the stretcher down behind a
clump of bushes at the back of the barnyard and Jim went ahead to
warn his sister and get little Marion out of the way. Marion was
given lessons to learn in the library.

Sherwood was unconscious, murmuring, dry of hand and lip and flushed
of brow by the time Jim laid him on the bed in the big spare room.
His appearance shocked Mrs. O’Dell and at sight of his right hand
she turned away to hide her tears. But she dried her tears and set
to work as soon as the men had cut and pulled away Sherwood’s
tattered clothing and placed him between the cool sheets. She gave
the torn hand and swollen arm the most thorough and tender treatment
it had yet received.

The little girl was told of the sick man in the spare room whom
Uncle Jim and Noel Sabattis had found in the woods. She was
cautioned not to play in the hall outside his door or make a noise
in the garden under his windows, for he was very weak and needed
sleep. She was impressed. She questioned old Noel.

“Where did you find him in the woods, Noel?” she asked.

“Way off nort’, layin’ on de moss,” replied Noel. “Red Chief find
’im first.”

“Do you often find sick men lying in the woods?”

“Nope. Sometime.”

“It is a good thing the bears didn’t find him and eat him up.”

“B’ars don’t eat men up.”

“I hope dad isn’t in the woods still. I saw him go into the woods,
away upriver, but he said he would come here for me in a few weeks.”

“Sure, he come here for you. Come in two-t’ree days now, maybe.”

“If he was sick and got lost in the woods like the man in the big
spare room, what would happen to him, Noel?”

“What happen to him if he get lost in de woods, hey? Same what
happen to dis feller—me an’ Jim McAllister an’ dese here dogs find
’im. Nobody git lost ’round here widout we find ’im quick an’ fetch
’im home.”

Jim drove away soon after dinner, headed for Woodstock and Doctor
Scott. He reached the town in two hours. He drove to the doctor’s
house, only to learn that the doctor was out in the country,
downriver, and wasn’t expected home for an hour or two.

Jim stabled the mare, treated himself to a big cigar and strolled
along Front Street. He was greeted by several people he knew. Soon
he was greeted by a man he didn’t know but who evidently knew him.

“Yer Jim McAllister, ain’t you?” inquired the stranger, halting
squarely in his path.

The stranger wore the uniform of a policeman. Jim didn’t like his
looks or his voice.

“Christened James,” said Jim, dryly, “and with a handle in front of
it when I’m smoking a fifteen-cent cigar.”

“Yer wanted, Mister James McAllister,” returned the other. “Come
along, cigar an’ all.”

“Who wants me?”

“Sheriff Corker.”

“Lead me to him, sonny. I can do some business with the sheriff
myself. But I’m in a hurry.”

They walked along side by side. The sheriff was not at home.

“We’ll wait,” said the policeman to the sheriff’s cook.

Jim McAllister looked at his watch.

“I guess not,” he said. “We’ll call again, some other day.”

“Guess again,” returned the young man in blue.

“My second guess is the same,” retorted Jim.

“I’ve heard about you, Mr. McAllister. Yer smart, but you ain’t the
only one. I know yer a game warden an’ a big man upriver, but all
that don’t cut no ice to-day. There’s a warrant out for you.”

“You don’t say! Sworn out by Mel Lunt and old Tim Hood, hey? Where
is it, chief?”

“I ain’t the chief. And I ain’t got the warrant. But the sheriff
will know what to do next.”

“If he don’t I can tell him. Mel got two, didn’t he—two warrants?
One was for Richard Sherwood, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“Suppose we take a scout around for Sheriff Corker. I’m in a hurry.”

“Guess we best set right here an’ wait for him.”

“What’s yer name?”

“My name? Bill Simpson.”

“Jerry Simpson’s son, from down on Bent Brook.”

“That’s right, Mr. McAllister.”

“I know yer father well. Smart man, Jerry Simpson. You look like
him. Now about the hurry I’m in. There’s a sick man out at the
O’Dell house and I’ve got to get out to him with Doctor Scott. He’s
the man poor Mel Lunt’s got the warrant out for. Mel’s crazy. I’ve
got Mel cold—and old Hood too—for toting rifles and ball ca’tridges
through the woods in close season. There’s nothing against Sherwood
and Dave Brown is up in Quebec now, looking for the man who did the
thing they’re chasing poor Sherwood for. Mel Lunt is making a fool
of Sheriff Corker. You come along with me, Bill, and save the
sheriff’s face—and maybe an innocent man’s life, too. Mel’s fool
enough to drag Sherwood right out of bed, sick an’ all.”

“I’d sure like to do it, Mr. McAllister, but I dassint. I’m on duty
in town all day. If I went with you I’d lose my job.”

“Now that’s too bad, but if you can’t, you can’t. The sheriff will
wish you did when Dave Brown gets back from Quebec. I’ll have to go
by myself, then.”

“Sorry, Mr. McAllister, but I got to keep you right here till the
sheriff comes home. Rules is rules.”

“And reason is reason, Bill—and when a man can’t see reason it’s
time to operate on his eyes.”

There was a brief, sharp scuffle in the sheriff’s front hall. Young
Bill Simpson proved too quick for Jim McAllister. He didn’t hit any
harder than he had to with his official baton—but it was too hard
for Uncle Jim.

CHAPTER X

IN THE NICK OF TIME

By four o’clock, Richard Sherwood seemed to be as ill as when his
friends had found him in the forest—as hot and dry with fever, as
grievously tortured with pain, as blackly tormented of mind. That he
was much stronger than he had been and that the mangled hand and
inflamed arm looked better were just now the only indications of
improvement.

Mrs. O’Dell and Noel Sabattis did everything they could think of for
his relief. Mrs. O’Dell feared for his life, but old Noel was
hopeful.

“Tough feller, Sherwood,” he said. “Dat four-mile trip to-day fuss
’im up some, but he ain’t so bad like when we find ’im. T’ink he
dead man for sure dat time, me an’ Jim. Doctor fix ’im a’right.”

Mrs. O’Dell left the sick room for a little while. Marion saw tears
on her cheeks.

“Won’t the man from the woods get well, Aunt Flora?” she asked.

“He is very ill, dear—and in great pain—with a wounded hand,”
replied the woman, kissing her.

“Does Noel think he will have to be put in the ground—like Julie
was—my mother Julie?”

The woman held the little girl tight for a moment.

“Noel thinks he will get well,” she whispered.

At six o’clock Sherwood was sleeping quietly, heavy with fever and
evidently unconscious of his hand. By seven he was tossing and
talking wildly again. There was no sign of Jim McAllister or the
doctor.

Eight o’clock came, and still there was no word or sign of Jim or
Doctor Scott. The sick man was bathed in perspiration by this time.

“Dat fix ’em,” said Noel to Flora O’Dell. “Dat sweat out de fever
off his blood, a’right.”

Marion went to bed at eight-thirty. Five minutes later wheels
rumbled, the red dogs barked and a knock sounded on the kitchen
door. Mrs. O’Dell heard the dogs and wheels and came hurrying down
the back stairs. Noel, who was already in the kitchen, hastened to
the door. The lamp was on the table behind him. He pulled the door
wide open, and in the instant of recognizing Mel Lunt and old Hood
on the threshold he also saw and recognized the muzzle of a shotgun
within six inches of his chin.

Noel stepped back a few paces and the visitors followed him sharply.
Hood kicked the door shut behind him just in time to keep out the
red dogs. While Lunt kept Noel covered, Hood snapped the steel
bracelets into place.

“Yer arrested,” said Hood. “Where’s McAllister?”

At that moment, both intruders saw Mrs. O’Dell standing near the
foot of the back staircase, gazing at them with amazement and
growing apprehension in her blue eyes.

“I don’t want to p’int no weepon at a lady, but you come away from
there an’ set down an’ keep quiet,” said Lunt.

Mrs. O’Dell sat down on the nearest chair, which was only a few feet
away from the narrow staircase.

“Where’s yer brother Jim, ma’am?” asked Lunt.

“He went to Woodstock for a doctor,” she replied.

“None o’ yer lies, mind!” cried Hood.

The expression of Flora O’Dell’s eyes changed, but she did not
speak.

“Then he’s in jail by this time,” said Lunt.

“I don’t understand,” said Mrs. O’Dell, turning her darkling glance
from Hood to Lunt. “He went to town for Doctor Scott. Why should he
go to jail? And why have you put handcuffs on Noel Sabattis?”

“It be for us to ask questions an’ for ye to answer ’em,” cried old
Hood in his worst manner. “Ye got a sick man here in the house,
ain’t ye? Come now, speak up sharp. Ain’t no use yer lyin’ to us.”

“Yes, he is very sick,” Mrs. O’Dell replied, her voice low and
shaken. “He is dangerously ill. My brother has gone to get a doctor
for him.”

“He kin be doctored in jail,” said Hood.

“That’s right, ma’am,” said Lunt. “The doctor can ’tend him in jail.
We gotter take him now. Where is he?”

“It would kill him to move him to-night!”

“Well, what of it? He’ll likely be hung anyhow,” retorted the bitter
old ferryman.

“That is not true and you know it!” cried Mrs. O’Dell. “You are
persecuting him in wicked spite. You are a spiteful, hateful old
man! And you, Melchar Lunt—you must be crazy to enter this house,
armed, and threaten me and my guests!”

Hood uttered a jeering laugh.

“We got the warrants all straight and proper,” said Lunt. “I’m in my
rights, performin’ my duty under the law, whatever ye may think. We
wouldn’t be so ha’sh if we wasn’t in a hurry.”

“You are in a hurry because you know that you haven’t much time for
your dirty, cruel, cowardly work, and you are afraid!”

“Misnamin’ us won’t help ye none, nor the murderer upstairs
neither,” sneered Hood, moving toward her.

She sprang to her feet and stood with her back to the narrow foot of
the staircase. Noel Sabattis made a jump at Hood, but Lunt seized
him and flung him down and threatened him with the gun. Hood
advanced upon Mrs. O’Dell and suddenly clutched at her, grabbing her
roughly by both arms. He gripped with all the strength of his short,
hard fingers and tried to wrench her away from the staircase. She
twisted, freed a hand and struck him in the face, twisted again,
freed the other hand and struck him again. He staggered back with
one eye closed, then rushed forward and struck furiously with his
big fists, blind with rage and the sting in his right eye. Several
blows reached her but again she sent him staggering back.

“Quit that!” cried Lunt. “Ye can’t do that, ye old fool!”

He grabbed Hood by the collar, yanked him back and shook him.

“Are ye crazy?” he continued. “Young O’Dell would tear ye to bits
for that! Go tie the Injun’s legs. Then we’ll move her out of the
way both together, gentle an’ proper, an’ go git the prisoner.”

Hood obeyed sullenly. He bound Noel’s feet together with a piece of
clothesline and tied him, seated on the floor, to a leg of the heavy
kitchen table.

* * * * *

Little Marion Sherwood had heard the dogs and the wheels and
immediately slipped out of bed. Perhaps it was Ben, she had thought.
That would be fine, for she missed Ben. Or it was Uncle Jim and the
doctor from Woodstock to make the sick man well. She had gone to the
top of the back stairs and stood there for a long time, listening,
wondering at what she heard. She had been puzzled at first, then
frightened, then angered. She had fled along the upper halls to the
head of the front stairs and down the stairs. She had felt her way
into the library and to a certain bookcase and from beneath the
bookcase she had drawn the shallow, mahogany box which contained the
little pistols with which gentlemen had proved themselves gentlemen
in ancient days.

She had opened the box and worked with frantic haste—with more haste
than speed. She had worked by the sense of touch alone and fumbled
things and spilled things. Bullets had rolled on the floor, powder
had spilled everywhere, wads and caps and the little ramrod had
escaped from her fingers again and again; but she had retained
enough powder, enough wads, two bullets and two caps. She had
returned up the front stairs and along the narrow halls.

* * * * *

Now that Noel was tied down, Lunt stood his gun against the wall and
gave all his attention to Mrs. O’Dell.

“I don’t want to hurt ye,” he said. “An’ I ain’t goin’ to hurt ye.
But I gotter go upstairs, me an’ Tim Hood, an’ fetch down the
prisoner ye’ve got hid up there. I’m sorry Tim mussed ye up, ma’am,
but ye hadn’t ought to obstruct the law. Will ye kindly step aside,
Mrs. O’Dell?”

“I won’t! If you force your way past me and carry that man off
to-night you’ll be murderers, for he’ll die on the road. If you try,
I’ll fight you from here every step of the way.”

“We’re in our rights, ma’am. I’m a constable an’ here’s the warrant.
It ain’t my fault he’s sick—even if that’s true. You grab her left
arm, Tim, an’ I’ll take her right, an’ we’ll move her aside an’ nip
upstairs. But no rough stuff, Tim!”

A voice spoke in a whisper behind Mrs. O’Dell, from the darkness of
the narrow staircase.

“Put your right hand back and take this pistol.”

The woman recognized the voice but failed to grasp the meaning of
the words. The little girl was frightened, naturally. That thought
increased her unswerving hot rage against the men in front of her.
She did not move or say a word in reply.

She felt something touch her right hand, which was gripped at her
side. Again she heard the whisper.

“Take it, quick. It’s all loaded, the way Ben told me. I have the
other. Point it at them, quick!”

The men moved toward her. She opened her fingers and closed them on
the butt of a pistol. She felt a weight on her shoulder and saw a
thin arm and small hand and the other old dueling pistol extended
past her ear. She raised her own right hand and cocked the hammer
with a click.

“They are loaded!” cried the little girl shrilly. “And the caps are
on, and everything. Ben showed me how to load them. And I’ll pull
the trigger if you come another step, you old man with the queer
whiskers! The bullets are big. And I put two in each pistol and
plenty of powder.”

“Stand close together, you two, and move to the left,” said Mrs.
O’Dell. “Do you hear me, Lunt? Do as I tell you, or I’ll shoot—and
so will the little girl. These are real pistols. That’s right.
That’s far enough. Stand there and stand steady.”

“This is a serious matter, Mrs. O’Dell,” exclaimed Lunt. “You are
guilty of threatenin’ the law with deadly weapons—of resistin’ it
with firearms.”

Mrs. O’Dell put up her left hand and relieved the child of the other
pistol, at the same time speaking a few words in a low voice but
without taking her glance or her aim off the intruders. Marion
slipped past her, ran over and took Lunt’s gun from where he had
stood it against the wall.

[Illustration: “‘STAND THERE AND STAND STEADY.’”]

“Steady, both of you,” warned the woman. “Keep your eyes on me. You
will notice that I am not aiming at your heads. I’m aiming at your
stomachs—large targets for so short a range.”

Marion carried the shotgun over to the table and placed it on the
floor beside old Noel Sabattis. Then, moving swiftly and with
precision, she opened a drawer in the table, drew out a knife and
cut the thin rope which bound the Maliseet’s legs together and to
the table.

Noel seized the gun at the breech with his manacled hands and got
quickly to his feet. With both hands close together on the grip of
the stock, he pushed the lever aside with a thumb. The breech fell
open, disclosing the metal base of a cartridge. He closed the breech
by knocking the muzzle smartly on the edge of the table. His hands
had only an inch of play, but that was enough. They overlapped
around the slender grip, with the hammer within easy reach of a
thumb and the trigger in the crook of a finger.

“Dat a’right,” he said, glancing over the intruders. “Good gun, hey?
Light on de trigger, hey?”

“Sure she’s light on the trigger!” cried Lunt. “Mind what ye’re
about, Noel! A joke’s a joke—but ye’ll hang for this if ye ain’t
careful!”

Noel smiled and told them to sit down on the floor. They obeyed
reluctantly, protesting with oaths. Then he asked the little girl to
open the door and admit the dogs, which she did. The red dogs
bounded into the kitchen, took in the situation at a glance and
surrounded the two seated on the floor. Red Chief and Red Lily
showed their gleaming fangs, whereupon old Tim Hood became as silent
and still as a man of wood.

“I think you have them safe, Noel,” said Mrs. O’Dell.

Noel nodded.

“Then I’ll go up and give him his quinine,” she said, handing the
pistols over to the enthusiastic little girl.

Noel and Marion sat down on chairs in front of the constable and the
ferryman. The three dogs stood. Everything pointed at the two on the
floor—five pairs of eyes, the muzzles of firearms and the muzzles of
dogs.

“Forgit it, Noel,” said Mr. Lunt. “Cut it out. What’s the use? I’m
willin’ to let bygones be bygones. Call off yer dogs an’ swing that
there gun o’ mine off a p’int or two an’ Tim an’ me will clear out.
Careful with them pistols, little girl, for Heaven’s sake! Noel,
ain’t she too young to be handlin’ pistols? She might shoot
herself.”

Noel smiled and so did Marion.

“I’ll give ye the warrants, Noel, an’ say no more about it,”
continued the constable. “We got three warrants here—an’ the charges
agin’ ye are real serious—but I’m willin’ to forgit it. So there
ain’t no sense in keepin’ us here, clutterin’ up Mrs. O’Dell’s
kitchen.”

“She don’t care,” replied Noel. “An’ Marion don’t care. You like it
fine, Marion, hey? ’Taint every night you git a chance for to set up
so late like dis, hey?”

“Yes, thank you, I enjoy it,” said the little girl. “It is great
fun. It is like a story in a book, isn’t it, Noel?”

“Hell!” snorted old Tim Hood.

Noel cocked an eye at the ferryman and he cocked the gun at the same
time.

“Lemme unlock yer handcuffs for ye,” offered Lunt. “Ye’ll feel more
comfortable without ’em, Noel.”

“Guess not,” returned Noel. “Feel plenty comfortable a’ready.”

Wheels sounded outside, and voices; and the youngest of the red dogs
barked and turned tail to his duty and frisked to the door. The
others stood firm and kept their teeth bared at the men on the
floor, but their plumed tails began to wag. Old Noel’s glance did
not waver, but Marion’s eyes turned toward the door.

The door opened and men crowded into the kitchen and halted in a
bunch and stared at the unusual scene before them. There was Doctor
Scott, with a black bag in his hand. There was Uncle Jim, with a
white bandage on his head which made his hat too small for him. And
there was Sheriff Corker fixing a cold glare on the two men seated
on the floor. And over all showed the smiling face of young Ben
O’Dell.

Jim McAllister was the first to speak.

“Where’s Flora?” he asked.

“Upstairs,” answered Noel. “Everyt’ing a’right an’ waitin’ for de
doctor.”

He stood up, lowered the hammer of the gun and placed the weapon on
the table.

“Now you take dis handcuffs off darn quick, Mel Lunt,” he said.

The constable scrambled heavily to his feet and obeyed.

Doctor Scott crossed the room and vanished up the narrow stairs.
Sheriff Corker found his voice then and addressed Lunt and old Tim
Hood at considerable length and with both force and eloquence. His
words and gestures seemed to make a deep and painful impression on
them, but the rest of the company paid no attention. Ben kissed the
little girl, shook hands with Noel Sabattis, grabbed the leaping
dogs in his arms, told fragments of his Quebec adventures to any one
who chose to listen and asked question after question without
waiting for the answers.

Uncle Jim seated himself beside the table and lit a cigar, cool as a
cucumber, smiling around. Sheriff Corker marched Lunt and Hood out
of the kitchen and out of the woodshed, still talking, still
gesticulating violently with both hands. Those in the kitchen heard
wheels start and recede a minute later. Marion went to Uncle Jim and
asked him what he had done to his head. He told her of his
difficulty with the young policeman which had caused all the delay,
of the home-coming of the sheriff when Doctor Scott was bandaging
his head, and of the arrival of Ben and Mr. Brown at the sheriff’s
house a few minutes later.

“But what are you doing with those old pistols?” he asked.

“Those two men came to take the sick man away,” she said. “They tied
Noel to the table and fought with Aunt Flora. I heard them; so I
loaded the pistols—and then they were at our mercy.”

Mrs. O’Dell appeared and ran into her son’s arms. She backed out
presently, and they both moved over to where Uncle Jim and the
little Sherwood girl sat side by side, hand in hand. Noel Sabattis
and the dogs followed them.

“The doctor says it is slow fever, but that the worst is over with,”
said Mrs. O’Dell. “He must have had it for weeks and weeks. And the
arm can be saved. The crisis of the fever came to-night—and a drive
into town to-night would have killed him.” She slid an arm around
the little girl. “But for Marion, they would have taken him,” she
continued. “Noel was tied to the table and I couldn’t have kept them
off much longer—and she loaded the dueling pistols in the dark and
brought them to me—just in the nick of time.”

“She saved his life, sure enough,” said Jim McAllister.

“Flora done mighty good too,” spoke up old Noel Sabattis. “She fit
’em off two-t’ree time an’ bung Hood on de eye.”

Mrs. O’Dell laughed and blushed.

“I did my best—but you and the old pistols saved him, dear,” she
whispered in Marion’s ear. “And by to-morrow, perhaps, or next day,
he will be well enough to thank you.”

The child looked intently into the woman’s eyes and the lights in
her own eyes changed gradually. Her thin shoulders trembled.

“Who—is—he?” she whispered in a shaken thread of voice.

“Your very own dad,” replied Mrs. O’Dell, kissing her.

Jim McAllister made coffee. The doctor joined the men in the
kitchen, for his patient was sleeping. Ben told of his and Mr.
Brown’s successful search for the man who had shot Louis Balenger on
French River. He admitted that the actual capture of Balenger’s old
enemy had been made by the police of Quebec—but he and Dave had been
very busy. While he talked he toyed with the pistols which Marion
had left on the table. He removed the caps. He looked into one
barrel and saw that it was loaded to within a fraction of an inch of
the muzzle. He produced a tool box in the shape of a knife from his
pocket and opened a blade that looked like a small ice pick. With
this he picked a few paper wads out of the barrel. With the last wad
came a stream of black powder.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed, forgetting his adventures in Quebec.

He thumped the muzzle of the pistol on the table until another wad
came out, followed by two bullets. The others, watching intently,
exchanged glances in silence. Ben withdrew the charge from the other
pistol.

“She put the bullets in first!—in both of them!” he cried.

“But it worked,” said Uncle Jim. “It turned the trick. She saved her
pa’s life—so I guess _that’s_ all right!”

THE END

*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Red Pirogue - A Tale of Adventure in the Canadian Wilds" ***

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