CHAPTER X
Someone’s Desperate Plight
The weeks of winter wore on, and Christmas passed in quite a whirl of hard work and social activities. There were packing bees, when everyone worked with perspiring energy at packing apples in boxes and barrels for sending to the cities. Pam liked that work; the apples reminded her of summer, and they linked her up with warmth and sunshine. There were also bees for making lard, but they were not so interesting. The fat portions of several pigs were cut into small squares, and boiled down in great pans, then strained. It was greasy, horrid work, but, like other unpleasant tasks, it was very necessary, and, as no one else seemed to mind the grease, Pam decided that it was of no use for her to make a fuss about it either.
Christmas brought the most acute home-sickness for Pam, who had never before been away from her family at the great festival. They wanted her rather badly, too, which fact did but add to her pain. Greg was ill with rheumatic fever—very ill, her mother wrote. Pam knew that the doctor’s bill for Muriel’s illness was not all paid off yet, so it was ghastly to think of another being piled on to it. Mrs. Walsh was in great trouble about Pam, and she wrote that as soon as Greg was able to leave his bed Jack would travel to New Brunswick to help her. It was this last piece of information that gave Pam the courage to wear a smiling face, and to hold her own at the gatherings with which the forest-dwellers beguiled the winter nights.
It had been difficult to travel the forest ways after dark in the summer-time and in the fall. Now, with snow on the ground and the trees bare of leaves, it made little difference, while the moonlight nights were almost as light as the days. Don Grierson had a sleigh with fur robes made from the skins of animals he had shot himself—quite a luxurious vehicle—and he would come driving along after dark to take Sophy and Pam out to the various gatherings. The dog would be left to guard the house, and the two went away feeling certain that all would be right until they came back again.
The new year came in with raging storms, and these were followed at the middle of the month by still colder weather, such cold as Pam had never even dreamed of before. Then people began to talk of having heard wolves howling round the lone farms at night. The children were not allowed to go to school alone, and men traversing the forest after dark carried fire-arms.
Even Pam carried an ancient but useful fowling-piece when she walked the forest ways. She had learned to shoot, and she could manage to hit the thing she aimed at. One day she contrived to shoot a hare, and although she cried over it all the way home, she had to admit that it was uncommonly good eating, and made a most agreeable change in their usual food. Besides, as Sophy pointed out, the creature would probably have fallen a victim to a wolf or a fox, or it might have perished miserably of starvation.
“I will take the next hare I shoot to Mrs. Buckle; she is not very well, Amanda told me.” Pam rose from her seat at table with largely increased courage and determination; if there was a worse fate for hares than being shot she might as well kill a few and help her neighbour.
“You had better go soon, it gets dark so early. I can do these dishes; in fact, I shall be glad to move about a little, for I am nearly frozen with sitting still.” Sophy shivered, for the day though bright was intensely cold.
“I will be off at once, then.” Pam was wriggling into her coat with all speed. “If I get anything I shall go straight to Mrs. Buckle before coming back. Have you any message for her?”
“You can tell her that I have nearly finished mending those sheets, and when they are done I will start at Amanda’s frock right away.” Sophy was darting to and fro as she talked, intent on getting the noonday meal cleared and the dishes washed, but she came out of the door to watch Pam start, and to beg her to be careful with the gun, which had an uncomfortable trick of kicking in unaccustomed hands.
Pam secured her hare without much trouble, and walking briskly across the cleared fields and over the boundary line, where the broken fence would never be repaired again, she walked in upon Mrs. Buckle and bestowed the hare which had fallen to her gun. She delivered the message also, and then turned back towards Ripple, quickening her steps a little, for it was later than she had intended to be, and there were the “chores” waiting to be done before dark.
She had almost reached the fence again when she saw a man moving towards her along the trail; and her heart gave a great bound as she recognized the slouching figure of Mose Paget. She had not seen him since the day when he saved her life twice over, and now, seeing that he looked as if he were going to avoid her by turning into a cross-trail, she shouted to him to stop, and then ran to catch him up.
“Are you better?” she asked a trifle breathlessly. She was annoyed at the man’s rudeness in turning away when she wanted to speak to him, but that was just as he always treated people, Sophy had told her, and there was nothing to be done save to ignore his rudeness as much as possible.
“Yes, thank you, Miss,” he replied, and then his hand went with a grudging motion towards his cap, and he lingered awkwardly as if waiting to see if she had any more to say to him.
“I was so very sorry to hear that you had been ill from the wounds you got when you came to my help that day.” Pam’s colour was coming and going; she felt that the man did not want to talk to her, and yet she positively had to do something to let him know she was not ungrateful.
He shifted from one foot to the other in an uneasy manner.
“It ain’t nothing to worry about, Miss,” he said. “The Doctor told me straight that I had only myself to thank for being so bad, and I suppose he ought to know if anyone did. He was honest about it, too, and said just what he thought. It would not have been much loss to anyone if I had gone under, but I pulled through, as you see.”
“It would have been a very lasting regret to me,” said Pam with crushing dignity. Then, because she did not know what to say, she asked if Reggie were better, although Mrs. Buckle had told her only half an hour ago that the boy was doing his work as usual.
“He is quite well again now, thank you, Miss,” said Mose. He moved as if to go on, hesitated, stopped, then lowering his voice to a cautious undertone, although probably there was no one within half a mile of them, he said, “Do you know that the old man has been seen?”
“Grandfather, do you mean?” cried Pam, and the colour ebbed out of her face, leaving her cheeks like ashes.
Mose Paget nodded, gave her a swift but furtive glance, and then his gaze dropped to the ground.
“Where?” she cried. Her tone was imperious now; the man seemed so unwilling to speak, but know she must.
“I ran up against a fellow in St. John who knew him. He said that he had seen the old man at work in a lumber camp away in a back creek of the Miramichi River.”
“Was the man quite sure?” Pam forced the question from her parched lips, while her heart beat with sledge-hammer force.
“I don’t see how he could have been mistaken,” replied Mose. “The fellow knew Wrack as well as I do. He said the old man did not seem to want to be talked to, which was natural under the circumstances. You need not look so scared, Miss; the man wouldn’t give him away to the police—we none of us would do that. I shouldn’t have told you, only I thought you would be glad to know the poor old man was alive.”
Pam nodded, for she could not speak. She felt nearly choked, and a dreadful doubt had crept into her mind as to whether she was glad that her grandfather was alive. She had sought tirelessly for his dead body, and if she had found it she would have grieved for him, cut off untimely, as it seemed to her. In such a case there would have been an end of her fear; but now she would know no peace. She would always be fearing that the police would find him, and that he would have to stand his trial for being the cause of Sam Buckle’s death.
“We would not betray him to the police,” said Mose again in a tone more emphatic than before. “It is his turn to-day, it might be ours to-morrow, and I take it that we should do as we would be done by. Good day, Miss!”
Lifting his cap he turned away abruptly and walked off, and Pam stood staring after him with fearful dismay in her heart. To be linked even in seeming with a man of this sort was dreadful. He would not betray her grandfather to the police, because he might be in fear of being betrayed himself another day. Her grandfather would be regarded as a “pal” by this down-at-heels tramp. Oh, it was hateful! She stood with clenched hands, staring at the trail by which the man had disappeared, until warned by the cold that it was not wise to linger. As she went her way home she debated with herself as to whether she would tell Sophy, but she shrank in her hurt pride from the humiliation of such a confession, and so decided that for the present she would keep the knowledge to herself.
Reaching Ripple, she had to hurry over the evening “chores”, for she had lingered longer with Mrs. Buckle than she should have done, and the meeting with Mose on the way home had, of course, made her later still. She looked so white and pinched when she came indoors to supper that Sophy cried out in dismay at her appearance, thinking she must be ill.
“I am tired, that is all. We will go to bed early to-night,” Pam answered, and strove to hide her aching heart under a brave show of good spirits, until she could lie down and shut her eyes on her misery.
Sophy nodded, and said no more. She supposed that Pam was home-sick; she understood the symptoms now, and never bothered or fussed when the attack was extra severe. Pam’s conscience was a bit troubled about the deception, for it was like defrauding Sophy of what it was her right to know, to hide this news of the old man having been seen and recognized; but she could not bring herself to talk of it.
They were getting to bed in the room which had been Wrack Peveril’s when they were startled by a hideous howling all round the house.
“What is it?” asked Pam, her eyes wide with alarm. The dog was raging and tearing round the kitchen, and barking fit to burst itself.
“Wolves!” murmured Sophy, and she looked so badly scared that Pam rallied her own courage, and began to make fun of her.
“Suppose there are wolves outside, they cannot get inside, so what does it matter? Of course, the poor dear old dog may have nervous breakdown from too much barking, but otherwise I can’t see that we are to be much the worse.”
“The noise is so weird. A wolf’s howl always does get on my nerves,” faltered Sophy, who was white and trembling from fright.
Pam, who had been undressing, now began to put on her garments again with quick, determined fingers.
“What are you going to do?” cried Sophy in dismay. “You are surely, surely not going out of doors? Why, Pam, it would not be safe!”
“It would be rather silly to go out, seeing that there is nothing to be gained by it,” said Pam. “I am not going out, but I am going upstairs to see if I can get a shot at the creatures. Your brother cleaned that rifle of Grandfather’s last week, and I might be able to kill one of those singing beasties yonder; and just think how well it would sound in one of my letters home!”
Sophy shivered, but uttered no further protest. At the worst Pam would only catch a cold, and if she stopped the howling by scaring the wolves away, she would have accomplished something well worth doing. She heard Pam go upstairs, heard her tramping to and fro on the bare floors; there was silence for a little, then came another burst of wolf music. A shot rang out, and shortly after Pam came down, saying that she believed she had driven the wolves away. The two went to bed then, sleeping without disturbance until morning.
A brilliant day it was, with blazing sun and sparkling frost. The Doctor drove up soon after breakfast, and for a wonder he had Mrs. Grierson with him. They wanted to know if Pam and Sophy would like to go to a lard-making bee at Hunt’s Crossing that night. Mindful of the howling of the wolves last night, both Pam and Sophy declared that they would rather be at home, so Mrs. Grierson was given a message for Don, telling him not to come, as they had no fancy for lard-making just then.
The Doctor said a quiet word to Pam as he was going away.
“Have you heard the rumour there is going round just now that your grandfather has been seen at work in a lumber camp on the Miramichi?”
“Yes, Mose Paget told me yesterday,” faltered Pam; and then she added in an outburst of candour: “But I feel so bad about it. Why has he never sent to see how it fares with his home? Why has he never come back for the money he left behind? It was not much, but every little helps when a man has to earn his daily bread. I have thought about it and thought about it until I begin to wonder whether the person might not be mistaken, and if the man he saw was not Grandfather at all.”
Dr. Grierson nodded thoughtfully.
“That was just my impression,” he agreed. “Still, seeing that the fellow had nothing to gain by setting the story afloat, there seems no reason beyond actual fact why he should have done so. There is nothing to be done that I can see, except to await developments. If it is not true, it is still very bothering that the rumour should have been started, because it puts the assumption of the old man’s death farther away. I mean that supposing he is not heard of again, you will have to take the date at which this man says he saw him at the lumber camp as the last time he was seen alive. That is three months later, don’t you see?”
Pam did see, and the seeing brought no comfort with it. She could not tell the Doctor that she was deadly ashamed of being related to her own grandfather; she could not explain that the disgrace and humiliation that had come to her were almost too hard to be borne.
For the remainder of the day she chopped and sawed wood with great vigour, working off the depression which threatened to break her down. She had a sick longing for someone of her own to turn to, her mother or Jack. As a matter of fact, she had never been in the habit of leaning on her mother, and Jack was mostly sitting in judgment upon her, so that the two had not been greatly in sympathy in those old days, which in retrospect looked so sheltered and so dear. Not a word had she said to Sophy as yet about her grandfather having been seen, and she did not believe that the Doctor had spoken of it either. By and by she would tell Sophy—indeed, it would be necessary for her to be warned, as the old man might come home when he thought the search for him had died down somewhat.
Very silent and absorbed was Pam that evening, and Sophy, thinking that she was tired, suggested that they should go to bed early. There was no probability of visitors to-night, everyone would be gone to the lard-making frolic at Hunt’s Crossing. There was no reason at all why they should sit up if they would be more comfortable in bed. When Sophy proposed it Pam rose and stretched her arms above her head, declaring that there was nothing that she would like better.
It was at that moment that the howl of a wolf sounded somewhere near the house, and Pam’s sleepiness vanished as if it had never been.
“Those wretched creatures round the place again?” she cried. “The uncanny beasts! I thought I had given them something to remember me by last night. We won’t go to bed yet awhile, for I want to see if I can’t bag one. If they come as close to the place as they did last night I ought to be able to manage it.”
“You will get so cold!” objected Sophy.
“I will put my thick coat on. Honestly, I can’t stand that noise, and I am going to end it somehow or know the reason why. Your mother said it was the smell of the pigs that attracted them. But we cannot afford to get rid of our pigs, so the only thing is to show the wolves that this is not a healthy neighbourhood.”
Taking the gun, Pam went upstairs into the cold, unused bedrooms. Putting her lamp on the table of the chamber in which she had slept on first coming to Ripple, she passed into the next room, and, shutting the door behind her, groped her way across the floor until she reached the window. Softly opening the casement she peered out into the night. It was most intensely cold. There was no moon, but the stars shone with a hard brilliance, and the soft radiance of the snow made even distant objects visible. Soon a long-drawn howl broke the stillness, and this was promptly answered by another and yet another. The wolves seemed to be all round the place, but Pam realized that they were by no means close, and she was just going to draw in her head because of the stinging quality of the cold when she caught sight of a figure gliding in and out among the trees, which on that side grew quite close to the house.
Her heart beat violently. Who was it that lurked yonder among the trees instead of openly approaching the house? Was it her grandfather, who, pressed by his necessities, had found his way back to his home? Her sense of disgrace slipped from her as if it had never been. If her grandfather was out there among the trees, then she must do her best to induce him to come in and be sheltered from the cold. He would be quite safe for that one night at least. He might even lie hidden for days in that lone place without any outsider being the wiser.
“Grandfather!” she called. “Grandfather, is it you? Come to the door, and I will run downstairs and let you in. It is quite safe.”
There was no answer to this, only to her straining eyes it seemed that the figure gliding in and out among the trees waved to her, then sank farther back into the shadows, becoming an indistinguishable blur in the gloom.
“Grandfather, don’t be afraid, you will be quite safe!” she called again, and not waiting this time to get an answer she shut the window, and, groping her way to the door of the next room, picked up the lamp and hurried down the stairs.
Sophy met her at the bottom wearing an anxious look.
“Pam, what is the matter? I heard your voice and I came to see if you wanted me.”
“It is Grandfather out there in the cold, and I am trying to get him inside. Think of it, Sophy, an old man like that and wandering without shelter on such a night!”
“Your grandfather?” cried Sophy in amazement. “Pam, are you sure? Just think, it is months ago since he was heard of, and we have thought him dead.”
Pam groaned. If only she had told Sophy when she had heard the rumour! It was so senseless to keep a thing like that to herself.
“He is not dead, he has been seen; the knowledge is all over the place, but I was ashamed and silly and I would not tell you. Please forgive me, dear, and help me all you can.” Pam was fumbling with the fastening of the door as she spoke. She was so clumsy in her anxiety and distress that she could not get it unfastened, and Sophy came to her help.
“Pam, you should have told me. I cannot help you if I do not know,” she said in her quiet way, and that was all the reproach that Pam ever heard from her. A heaven-sent friend for such a time of trouble!
The door was open at last, and Pam stood on the threshold peering out at the night. The lamp which Sophy was holding in the background threw a shaft of light that sharply outlined her figure, making its anxious pose as plain as spoken words.
“Grandfather, where are you?” Breathlessly Pam waited for the answer to her call. But none came, only presently the howl of a wolf sounded much nearer than before. This was answered from another direction. Then all was silent again. The two girls stood on the threshold, the keen cold wrapping them round. Then suddenly Pam remembered that Sophy had only her indoor garments on and might take a severe chill. “Go, dear, put a coat on and a muffler; cover your head up or you will have bad toothache to-morrow,” she said urgently; adding, as if by an afterthought: “I am going over to those trees yonder to see if I can find the poor old man and bring him into the house.”
“No, you do not, unless I come too,” burst out Sophy, with an explosive vigour that showed how dead in earnest she was. “If you will not wait until I can get a cloak I will come just as I am.”
“I will wait, only make haste.” Pam jerked the words out, for she was feeling nearly desperate. She did not dare let the dog out, although the creature was raging to and fro in the inner room. She was afraid that it would go in pursuit of the wolves and be torn to pieces by them.
What a long time Sophy was! Pam felt that she could not wait another minute, especially as a long-drawn howl close at hand told her that the unpleasant beasts were getting much nearer to the house. Then Sophy came out of the inner room wrapped to the eyes, and holding the dog by her handkerchief slipped through its collar.
“Don’t let it loose, we shall never get it back again to-night,” said Pam, and then she stepped out on to the snow, closely followed by Sophy and the dog, which strained and whimpered in its efforts to get free.
“Grandfather, it is I, Pam Walsh! There is nothing to fear; you can come into the house, at least for to-night!” Pam sent her voice out in a reassuring shout which must have carried far in that lone place. But there was no reply, although they lingered long, standing in the shadow of the trees and hearing the howling of the wolves in the distance.
“What is that?” whispered Sophy sharply, and Pam’s heart gave a sudden leap of dread. It was a faint cry for help that had reached their ears, and at the sound the dog struggled to be free, tugging and tugging at the lead just as if it understood.
“Come along, he is over there. I expect he has fallen and has hurt himself,” cried Pam, dashing across the snow at a great rate, followed by Sophy and the dog.
“Help! Help!” The cry was louder and more urgent now. The person in trouble had a wavering, cracked voice like an old man’s, and there was not a shadow of doubt in the mind of either girl that it was Wrack Peveril who was calling for help. Why he should have been so close to the place and then have gone away again puzzled Pam, but she put it down to his natural fear of a police trap and his ignorance of what kind of girl his granddaughter really was. They went on and on, answering the call, searching and searching, yet never finding what they looked for. Then suddenly they had an awful scare, for there came a scurrying rush of feet, and an animal of some kind bounded past them, followed by some four or five wolves in full cry. Pam lifted her rifle and fired wildly, as there was no time to take aim, and at that moment the dog wrenched itself free from Sophy’s grasp and tore away in mad pursuit.
“What was it, oh, what was it?” cried Pam.
“A young moose, I expect,” answered Sophy. Then she took hold of Pam, saying urgently: “Come home, dear, we can do no good here!”