CHAPTER XI
Who was It?
Neither Pam nor Sophy had realized how far away they had wandered, when they followed that faint cry for help. Indeed, just at the first Pam could not think where they were, or which direction they ought to take to find the house. The night was clouding over, the fine brilliance was gone, and a chill wind moaned through the leafless trees.
The dog had not come back. Pam had whistled and called until she was tired. Then she turned to help Sophy back, blaming herself bitterly because she had followed that will-o’-the-wisp call for help, which had given them such a fruitless chase.
“Ah!” The ejaculation was forced from Sophy as her foot slipped on an upstanding root, and she went down with a crash.
“You poor thing! Oh, you poor thing!” cried Pam, who was more remorseful than before.
“It was fearfully clumsy of me, and now I have hurt my foot. Pam, whatever shall we do?” There was tragic dismay in Sophy’s tone, and it found its echo in the heart of Pam, in whose ears the howling of the wolves seemed to be still sounding.
“I will get you home somehow, if I have to carry you on my back,” she cried valiantly. It seemed to be half the battle to be brave outwardly, and indeed the sound of her own voice speaking cheerfully took away a lot of her secret fear.
“I am quite sure that you cannot carry me, for I am as big as you, and heavier,” said Sophy, and Pam knew this was true, for they had weighed each other only two days before, when they were using the big scales that were in the barn. “Perhaps I could hop on one foot like a robin if you held me up.”
“I will hold you,” replied Pam. “Come along, it is much too chilly to linger out here. I don’t want to be obliged to render first aid for frost-bite. It will be quite as much as I can do to doctor your hurt foot. I think it is going to snow again. Ah, that was a flake I felt on my face! Sophy, we must make haste, no matter how it hurts you, dear! I can’t find my way in the falling snow, it bewilders me so dreadfully, and to lose our way means that we must perish miserably almost within sight of home.”
“Clutch me tightly, and don’t take any notice if I groan,” muttered Sophy, who was standing on one foot now, and steeling her courage to endure. “I am not made of heroic stuff, but we have to get home, as you say, no matter at what cost!”
A short distance was traversed: to Sophy it seemed like miles. She had uttered no sound of pain, but what it cost her to put her hurt foot to the ground no one but herself could know. But it was death to linger, and pain did not count when compared with the greater terrors of the forest at night. Then Pam called out in glad relief that she could see the house, Sophy gathered up her courage to endure a little longer, and they pressed forward at the best pace they could make.
“There is a light in our room; did we leave one there?” asked Pam in a bewildered tone as she half-led, half-carried Sophy the remaining distance to the door.
“I am sure that I did not, for I went into the room in the dark; at least, there was no light except the glimmer from the stove.”
“Then Grandfather has come home,” announced Pam. “Unless, indeed, the stove has somehow contrived to set the place on fire.”
“Go and see, go and see!” cried Sophy, wrenching herself free from Pam’s supporting grip, and pushing her forward. “Don’t trouble about me, I can manage. Hurry, Pam, hurry, or the house may be burned down, and think how helpless we are!”
“I am not helpless, and I don’t think it is fire, it doesn’t flicker. Most likely it is Grandfather. Oh, I do hope that he will be nice to us!” Pam darted ahead as she spoke, and opening the door burst with impetuous haste into the living-room. This appeared to be exactly as they had left, it. The lamp was standing on the table, the stove was sending out a cheerful glow, and the place was as cosy and comfortable as any home could be. One rapid glance round Pam gave, then pushed open the door into the best sitting-room. All was dark here, but she knew her way too well to stumble over the furniture, and crossing the floor with a brisk, determined tread, she pushed open the door of the inner room, which they had been using as a bedroom.
The place was not on fire. Her first glance told her that. Her second revealed the fact that no one was there; then all at once she realized that someone had been there, someone who had lighted the lamp which stood on the table by the window, and who had then been at the desk in the corner and had wrenched open the lid.
A little inarticulate cry escaped her. She seemed to understand what had happened so well. Her grandfather had doubtless been frightened from his work in the lumber camp when he was recognized, and he had made his way home, hard-pressed perhaps for money. But finding his home occupied, and being afraid to make himself known to his granddaughter, who was of course a stranger to him, he had hovered about the place, and had beguiled them from the house, luring them away from the place on a false trail. Then he must have hurried home, and, entering the house, have gone straight to the desk in his own room, and pulled it open by force. Great force he must have used, for it was a strong old desk, of the home-made variety, and it would need a powerful wrench to get it open.
A hasty inspection showed her that the money was gone, not only the amount which she had found there when she had opened the desk with her own key, but also the twenty dollars which Mrs. Buckle had given her as a loan, and had refused to take back.
Pam leaned against the rifled desk with a queer mixture of relief and repulsion in her heart. She was thankful that the old man had not stayed to be sheltered and hidden by her. It was humiliating beyond words to have someone belonging to her who was in the unfortunate case of being wanted by the police. It would have been horrid for Sophy to have been mixed up even indirectly with a matter of this sort, seeing that Sophy was going to be married to a member of the mounted police force. The repulsion was because, try hard as she might, Pam could not fight down a bitter dislike for the man who would beat another man, however much in the wrong, as poor Sam Buckle had been beaten. It was horrible, it was brutish, and she was ashamed of being descended from an individual with such a cruel and callous nature.
Then she remembered Sophy. Leaving the room as she had found it—open desk, the lamp burning, and everything—she hurried back through the best sitting-room, to find when she reached the living-room that Sophy had crept into the house, and shutting the door, had sunk down on the nearest bench, too exhausted to go any farther.
“The place is not on fire!” shouted Pam in a cheery tone. “So there is no danger of our having to take refuge for the night with the cow and the pigs, or, worse still, of our having to convey ourselves as far as Mrs. Buckle’s for a night’s lodging. But someone has been here while we were hunting for the supposed person in trouble in the forest, and before I attend to that foot of yours, I am going round the house, just to make sure that the someone has really taken himself off again.”
“You must not go alone, I will come with you,” said Sophy, making a valiant attempt to bear yet more suffering without crying out.
“Indeed you will do no such thing!” Pam cried with decision. “If you are equal to any more exertion, just creep a little nearer to the stove, and get a good warm, while I go my rounds. Oh, I am not afraid; I shall take the poker—it is light and handy, and I could make very good use of it if need arose.”
“I do not doubt it!” murmured Sophy in honest admiration; then clinging to the furniture she crept slowly to the low seat by the stove which Pam had made from the half of an old apple barrel, and sinking on to it, she thankfully gave up her Spartan pose, and did not even try to feel brave any longer.
Pam went back to the bedroom for the other lamp, and made an exhaustive inspection of the room. It would have been difficult for a cat to have remained hidden in places where she searched for a full-grown man, but, as she told herself in a vigorous undertone, in such a case it did not do to take any risks, and she meant to be quite sure that they were alone before she went to sleep. The bedroom inspected, she opened the window, and getting hold of the heavy wooden shutter she dragged it across the window, and slipped the bolt into the socket. They were now as secure as bolts and bars could make them. Carrying the lamp with her, she then inspected the sitting-room, and passed out to the living-room, where Sophy crouched by the stove.
“Pam, the dog has come home, it is scratching at the door.” Sophy’s voice had a distinct sound of tears in it, but this Pam wisely ignored for the present, being much too busy to have time for consolation just then.
“I will let the silly beast in, and I very much hope that it found itself out of the running when it came to chasing wolves. It is valiant enough to attack anything, but it has no sense at all in regard to being beaten,” she remarked, as she crossed the floor, and slipping back the bolt let the dog into the house. The animal jumped about her in an ecstasy of joyfulness at being indoors again. Then it sniffed curiously about, and finally went to the door of the sitting-room and whined to be let in.
“Ah, the wise beast!” cried Pam, with a catch in her breath. “Do you see, it knows that its old master has been here—evidently it thinks he is here still! No, my dear dog, you are not going into that room, and equally you are not going out into the night again. You are going to stay here with Sophy while I go to examine the upper story of this desirable and beautiful residence.”
“Oh, Pam, how frivolous you sound!” cried Sophy in a rather shocked tone. “To hear you, no one would dream of what we had gone through to-night. Oh, I never saw anything more horrible than the wolves chasing that poor moose; I cannot even imagine anything worse, can you?”
“Yes,”—Pam’s face paled a little as she turned to go upstairs—“I can imagine how very much worse it would have been if those wolves had been chasing us. I feel that we were horribly impulsive and indiscreet to go out as we did, and it is a fine thing for us that nothing worse was the result.”
The dog followed her up the stairs, and sniffed round the rooms in an inquiring fashion. Once it lifted its head as if about to howl, but happening to see the movement, Pam gripped the creature by its collar, shaking it vigorously.
“No, you don’t, not if I know it!” she said sharply. “That poor girl downstairs has had enough to bear by way of nervous strain to-night, without any uproar from you to add to her burden.”
“You are sure that it was your grandfather who came to-night?” Sophy asked later, when her ankle had been bathed and bandaged, and she was lying at peace in bed.
“Yes, about as sure as if I had seen him.” Try as she would, Pam could not keep the scorn from her voice. “He must have come indoors and gone straight to his room, where he wrenched open the desk and took the money we had been keeping there for him.”
“If it had been your grandfather would he not have had a key to the desk?” Sophy stirred a little restlessly as she spoke; it was very disturbing to have a thing of this kind happen, and she thought she would be afraid to be left alone in the house after this, and, as a rule, she was left alone so much.
“He had a key, I suppose, seeing that the desk was locked, but he might have lost it, or he might have left it somewhere else with his baggage, if he had any baggage. A hundred things might have happened to make it necessary for him to break open his own desk in his own house like an ordinary thief. But, Sophy, we have got to keep the affair to ourselves; no one must know about his coming, do you understand?”
“Not even Father?” demanded Sophy, lifting her head from the pillow to stare at Pam, who was undressing, and rather spinning the business out because the stove was burning so well, and there was such a sense of restful leisure in her heart.
“Not even Dr. Grierson.” Pam was very emphatic. “You see, he might drop a chance word or hint of what had happened, without in the least meaning to injure Grandfather, of course, and then the police might get hold of it and follow up the clue. I should imagine it is not so easy to cover one’s tracks in winter as it is in summer; and, Sophy, I believe that I should die with shame if the poor old man were taken and made to stand his trial!”
“Poor Pam!” murmured Sophy in the deepest, truest sympathy; but Pam wriggled her shoulders impatiently by way of expressing her distaste for pity.
“Proud Pam would be nearer the mark,” she said. “I am quite sure that at the bottom it is my private and personal pride which makes me suffer so badly at the mere thought of Grandfather being taken. I never saw him, of course, and I never received any kindness direct from him. Even the money which paid my passage was sent for Jack. The way my mother has talked of him has not made it easy to feel any strong love for him. Yet I would do anything, and suffer almost anything, rather than give the slightest clue to those whose business it is to find him.”
“Then people must not know that we went out to find him to-night,” said Sophy. She blinked sleepily at the lamp, and was conscious of a rather acute disappointment. It would have made her feel almost like a heroine if she could have talked of that escapade of theirs. She knew very well that she was not made of heroic stuff, and it would have given her a very solid satisfaction to have been able to speak of the wild chase they had witnessed, when the pack of wolves dashed past them at the heels of the moose.
“No, indeed!” Pam was more emphatic than ever. “It was a mad thing to rush out of the house in the night like that. I did not realize what fearful risks we might be running until I saw that poor hunted moose. I did not know moose ever came so near to houses before; I thought they kept entirely to the wild lands.”
“They do usually, but pressed by winter and deep snow they will come right into settled places,” replied Sophy, who was plainly getting drowsy. “I have known them come round the houses at The Corner, and they have even helped themselves to Father’s haystacks when the weather has been very severe.”
“I cannot think what men are made of. I should hate to go moose-hunting!” cried Pam with a shiver.
“Wait until you have tasted moose-meat,” murmured Sophy, and then she drifted into dreamland before she could say any more.
Pam was very wide awake, and she sat for a long time crouched over the stove, her eyes fixed on the glowing embers and her thoughts very busy with the future. She would have to work hard to get some more money ready for her grandfather by the time he should need it. How long would the lot he had taken to-night last him? She had no first-hand knowledge of his habits to guide her. When he had been at home he had been apparently something of a miser, unless, indeed, he had been very, very poor. Of course, he might make that money go for a long time. But she would never feel safe, and she must have some more for him if he needed it. Of course there was the money for the black spruce, but she could not touch that; it was lodged in the bank in trust for her grandfather if he should want it for his trial, and to ask for a portion of it might bring suspicion upon him.
The hopelessness of it all weighed upon her as she sat brooding by the fire. Her grandfather might even choose to sell the house and land, when she would be stranded in a strange country, with only her own exertions and the kindness of friends to help her. She had left home with a brave determination to win a place for her brothers in this land of promise. She had cheerfully faced the hardest and most laborious work, just because she was holding their inheritance for them, but to-night the question in her mind was as to whether she was really doing anything for her family at all. Ripple belonged to her grandfather, and he was plainly alive and in hiding, so that he was still master, even though he might not be able to show his face in his home; and the rosy future she had planned for the boys and Muriel was dependent on what he might choose to do with his own.
A man in hiding would not be able to make a good bargain if he tried to sell his property, so she told herself, and from her mother’s description of her grandfather she could not imagine the old man being willing to let the place go at less than its market value. He would be more likely to give her discretionary powers to do her best with the place, and hand over some portion of the profits as he might need them. She wondered when he would come again, and if she would see him next time. It was a pity that she could not live at Ripple alone, then he would not be afraid to venture. She herself had perfect trust in the fidelity of Sophy, but unless she could see her grandfather and talk to him, she could not make him understand this.
“If only Jack were here what a comfort it would be just now!” Pam murmured the words to herself, then yawned and rose from her seat. It was very late, nearly midnight, and there was much wood-sawing waiting for her to-morrow.
She would write and tell her mother as much as it seemed wise, and, after all, it would not be long to wait now until Jack came. Pam laughed softly to herself at the difference Jack would find in her. Oh, she knew that she had changed; the old carelessness was gone, she was more heedful of consequences than before. She had learned a lot of self-reliance too. Of course she still made blunders, some of them rather ghastly ones too; but then, as she argued, Rome was not built in a day, and she could not expect to learn wisdom all at once, so it was of no use being dismal when she made mistakes.
She crept into bed beside Sophy and quickly fell asleep. Outside the house a wild snowstorm was raging, the wind howled round the lone abode, and presently Pam began to dream that the old man, her grandfather, had come back, and was reproaching her for letting his money be stolen.
“But you came and stole it yourself!” she exclaimed in surprise, and then was awakened by the sound of her own voice. The lamp which she had left burning was going out for want of oil, and the dog was scratching at the door, sure sign that morning had come.