CHAPTER XV A NIGHT PROWLER
I was a very tired pony that night, but I did not get much sleep.
I knew something was going to try to happen to my dear young master, and I was to prevent it.
I don't know how animals—dogs and horses especially, have these warnings—I only know that we just have them.
I had been put, not in pony stall number eight, for I fidgeted when Cassowary motioned me in there. I did not wish to be tied, so she gave me a loose box stall. This stall had a rolling door, always much better for a stable because a swinging door is apt to catch a pony or horse and give him a good whack. This was also better for my plans, for like those naughty people who can always get out of jail, I can nearly always find a way to open a door if it is not locked.
This night, all I had to do was to take hold of the metal handle with my teeth and pull the door back. I was the only pony on that side of the big stable—in fact there were only two horses on the other side. The other horses and ponies were still out to pasture.
These two Clydesdales had been working hard in the hay field and were so sleepy that they paid little attention to my movements.
The entrance doors were wide open, so I slipped out and stood in the shadow and looked about me.
It was a beautiful moonlight night. A big round Lady Moon stared and stared down at Fawn Lake and the Devering Farm. The electric lights were out, but one scarcely missed them owing to this wonderfully bright bigger light in the sky.
Now what was I fussing about? Everything was calm and still. There was not a breath of wind. Drunkard, whose real name was Baywell, was travelling head down about the house and grounds like a swift fleet shadow-dog. Occasionally he looked up at the moon, but he did not make a sound that would wake anyone up.
Some owls hooted gently in the distance. How foolish I was to worry. This was a very safe region. No one ever heard of anyone being attacked or injured.
But something was going to happen. I just knew it, and nothing would satisfy me, but to keep near my young master, so I paced slowly toward the house.
Drunkard passed me on the dead run. "Smelling out trouble?" he asked me as he flashed by.
"Stop!" I said, and he pulled up.
"Do you feel anything in your bones?" I asked.
"Not a thing," he replied, "except a little rheumatism. All hunting dogs get it in time."
"Will you just keep your ears open, old fellow?" I said. "Something, or someone, is going to surprise us to-night."
He didn't laugh at me. We animals have a great regard for each other's ability to smell, hear or feel things that often escape human beings.
"Is it the ghost?" he asked.
"No—whose ghost?"
"The old Highlander's. You know he was the first white man to come to this Lake. He traded with the Indians before they were all moved to the Reservation."
"Oh! is that why we see no Indians here—well, tell me about the Highlander."
Drunkard and I were by the garden as we talked, and the old dog settled down on the gravel walk and began to lick a sore place on his paw. Between whiles he told me about the Highlander who used to wear a rabbit cap and a coonskin coat, and who had the gift of second sight to a marked degree.
"I've often seen him," said Drunkard, "especially on moonlight nights like this. He goes all over the place—a kind of shadowy furry figure, and then he smiles and disappears in the log cabin. I think he sleeps in the loft."
"I believe I've seen that old coonskin coat," I said. "I once saw a kind of misty shape bending down from the wheat mow in the log cabin. It was hovering over me. He knew I was a stranger."
"Wait till you've been here long enough," said Drunkard. "You'll see him quite plainly. He's a nice, kind old fellow and he loves to know that the Deverings have this place. Did you know Mr. Devering had gone with the warden to catch the bad poachers who shot at the White Phantom?"
"Yes," I said, "I watched them paddling up the Lake."
"I hate to have him away," said Drunkard gloomily. "Mrs. Devering sometimes forgets to tie me up when daylight comes."
"Can't you keep straight for one night?" I asked.
"No. I can't and there's an end of it. I have the dogging habit."
"I'll tie you up," I said. "I'm pretty good with my teeth if I have a rope."
"No you won't tie me up," he said hastily. "I enjoy a run in the woods. It's lovely to feel the springy moss underfoot and——"
"And you chase deer," I interrupted. "How can you?"
"I never run them down. I give them a gallop, then I switch off and try another lot. It's such fun to see the graceful creatures go bounding through the bush."
"Fun for you," I said, "but what about them?"
"I never dogged the White Phantom," he said.
"I wonder how she is now?" I remarked. "I do hope she won't die."
"She must not die," said Drunkard. "She is the pearl of the woods. It makes me feel quite moonstruck to look at her. Hark! the owls are giving the latest bulletin from her. One just flew across from Old Woman's Islands."
We listened to the low-pitched deep-toned, "Whoo, hoo, hoo, hoo," coming from the nearby tree tops.
"Oh! that's good," exclaimed Drunkard. "The White Phantom is better, and has nibbled some maple tips from the hand of the soldier."
"Bless her," I said, "I scarcely know her, but it would grieve me if she died."
"Her eyes are like forest pools," said Drunkard. "Hist!—who goes there? Maybe it's your something."
We both listened. The night was solemnly quiet. It always takes me a little while to get used to the dead stillness of a backwoods night—so different from a night in the open farming country, where one can hear creatures calling to each other and enlivening the solitude.
Out of the great silence up the road came a faint pit-a-pat growing louder and louder.
"Human being," said Drunkard.
"I've got it!" I exclaimed. "I might have known. I'll wager anything it's that Russian coming to see my young master. Perhaps he'd like to coax him away from here. Let's go meet him, Drunkard. I wish we could drive him away. It would frighten the timid young Dallas to wake up and find that hairy creature bending over him."
"All right," said Drunkard, and we both went loping down the driveway to the road.
It was the Russian, and he was grinning along the moonlit way as if he were doing something very smart. The pale yellow light poured down on his tousled head. It was touching to see tightly clenched in his fist a little bouquet of wild flowers who were crying out that he was choking them to death, only the poor boor could not understand them. They were for the boy he admired.
"We've got to obey the law of the road," growled Drunkard. "We can't touch him here, but the minute he tries to enter the farm gates we have a right to stop him."
Alas! Poor Drunkard. When he stood up to the Russian, growling horribly and showing his white teeth, all except the front one that Mr. Devering had taken out when he had toothache, the Russian just gave an extra grin at the good dog strutting up and down between the gateposts, and lifting him on the toe of his big boot sent him flying into the air.
The unfortunate dog came down so heavily that he was shunned, and lay perfectly still.
Bolshy stopped short and gazed at him quite sadly. He really was sorry that he had hurt him, and bent over him grunting in a sympathetic manner. Then he raised himself and took up his march to the house.
Learning a lesson from Drunkard's mishap, I took care not to be in the spot I had been a few minutes before, and I trotted to my young master's windows.
Bolshy was coming on and on. I knew he would not hurt my beloved Dallas. I guessed that he had come merely to feast his eyes on him, or to try to induce him to go away and live with him and the soldier and be their little boy. Well! I would have something to say to that.
I could hear him plodding along the veranda, trying to go quietly, but in reality making quite a noise. However, the children were all fine sleepers and he woke no one up.
He bent over Big Chief, Champ, Sojer, and Big-Wig. No, they were not the dear one he sought. When he came to the part of the veranda where I stood, his face brightened, and brushing me aside as if I had been a fly he entered the room.
The moon showed him the beautiful face on the pillow, and he gave a snort of satisfaction, and stared as if he would never have enough of this interesting sight.
Now was my time to act. I hated to alarm Mrs. Devering, but my young master must be protected. I went on soft shoes to her room and passing Mr. Devering's empty bed nipped the black hair lying spread over the pillow.
My gentle pulling awoke her at once, and she said composedly, "Well, Pony—are you having nightmare?"
I whinnied entreatingly, and being a clever woman, she sat up, seized a warm gown hanging at her bed-head, and taking a small shining thing from under her pillow, motioned me forward.
I took her to Bolshy, who at a word from her dropped his wild flowers pretty quick, and lifted both hands in the air.
"Now march——" she said, "go home—don't come again."
I ventured to place myself between her and Bolshy. I felt that the poor creature, standing there with tears running down his cheeks, was terribly distressed to think that she thought he would hurt anyone belonging to her when she had been so kind to him.
At that moment, there was a queer sound from Bolshy. He had caught sight of a picture that I had seen Mr. Devering hanging on the wall very hurriedly before he went away with the warden.
Ponies and other animals, though they can enjoy natural scenery, do not get much out of flat pictures, but I heard the Deverings talking about this photograph afterward, so I found out what it was.
Mr. Devering wished the lad to find out that his mother was alive in some way that would not shock him, so he hung on the wall this large photograph of her in the costume of a Red Cross nurse. He hoped that Dallas would piece together her story from what Bolshy had said in the afternoon. However, as it turned out the boy had no chance to examine the picture.
The overjoyed Bolshy, forgetting all about keeping his hands up, sprang across the room, unhooked the picture, and hanging it round his neck began to hug it as if it had been a bag of gold.
Mrs. Devering smiled, then knowing that she could not get this man mountain out of the room herself, she stepped to the veranda and gave the Devering Farm yodel for help.
It rang out startlingly clear in the still night air, and in a jiffy Mr. Talker came tearing down the road, dressing as he came, and the Macedonian rolled heavily along from the carriage-house.
Bolshy, paying no more attention to them than if they had been two more ponies, went on talking rapid Russian to the picture, not noticing Dallas, who was now wide awake, and curious, but not at all frightened, I was glad to see.
"Send him home, please," said Mrs. Devering. "Tell him the soldier will be angry with him."
The yodel had waked the children up, and they came staggering to the room sleepy but unafraid like true children of the wild.
Big Chief scowled and placed himself beside his mother, while Cassowary threw protecting arms about the little ones.
"Send him home," repeated Mrs. Devering. "Quick!"
"Go home, sir," said Mr. Talker with dignity.
Bolshy put his head on one side, and said something deep in his throat to the picture.
Mr. Talker nodded to Samp, and each man put a hand on Bolshy's shoulder, and tried to propel him toward the veranda.
Bolshy stood firm, whereupon the Macedonian promptly laid him on the floor.
Bolshy was astonished. Getting up, and holding his precious picture so that he would not break the glass, he stared at the Macedonian as if to say, "Who are you that you can throw me down?"
Then he began to jabber to him in Russian and Samp replied in some foreign gibberish that delighted Bolshy so completely that he patted him on the back and stroked his cheeks.
The affair ended by Bolshy's insisting on shaking hands with Samp. Then he bowed deeply to everyone present, especially Mrs. Devering, and went up the road between the two men, talking most sociably to them.
"If you can, Mr. Talker," Mrs. Devering called after them, "make him understand that we do not care for midnight calls."
"And now, Mother," said Big Chief, "what's all this fuss about?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Nothing much, my son. The Russian had an impulse to call on us."
"On us?" asked Big Chief, "or on him," and he pointed an accusing finger at the sleepy blinking Dallas, who was sitting straight up in bed.
"On him, if you will," she said. "He has taken a fancy to your cousin."
"Did you know he was coming?" asked Big Chief solemnly of the bed.
My young master was not as sleepy as he looked, and rising up on his knees he made Big Chief a profound bow. "Yes, Sir Curiosity Box," he said in a ridiculous voice, "I had full knowledge of the honor in store for me. Pardon me for not informing your knightship."
The Deverings, who were always ready to laugh, burst into a howl of amusement at Big Chief's confounded face. Then Mrs. Devering, checking her laughter, said, "Back to bed, children."
"I wanths to go theepy with you," said little Big Wig. "My beddieths cold."
Big Chief turned on him in a hateful way and said, "'Fraid cat."
The baby gave him a good slap in the face, and the discomfited Big Chief, seeing that his brothers and sisters were again convulsed with amusement at his funny twisted features, took his cross self back to his bed.
"Feels his oats," said Champ. "Dad's away."
"Ah! children—we should not have laughed at him," said Mrs. Devering sweetly.
"Where's Drunkard?" asked Cassowary suddenly. "How did that Russian get by him?"
"Perhaps he's off to the bush," said Mrs. Devering.
"No, Mother, it isn't daylight yet," replied Cassowary. "He's hurt. I feel it."
"I'll go with you to look him up," said Champ.
"Everybody to bed but Cassowary and me," said a sudden voice.