A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST
By EVELYN RAYMOND
CHAPTER XI
Departure
SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.
Brought up in the forests of northern Maine, and seeing few persons excepting her uncle and Angelique, the Indian housekeeper, Margot Romeyn knows little of life beyond the deep hemlocks. Naturally observant, she is encouraged in her out-of-door studies by her uncle, at one time a college professor. Through her woodland instincts, she and her uncle are enabled to save the life of Adrian Wadislaw, a youth who, lost and almost overcome with hunger, has been wandering in the neighboring forest. To Margot the new friend is a welcome addition to her small circle of acquaintances, and after his rapid recovery she takes great delight in showing him the many wonders of the forest about her home. Many weeks later, in one of their conversations, a remark from Adrian causes Margot to question her uncle as to her father’s whereabouts. It is just this knowledge that her guardian, knowing it to be best, has so carefully kept from her. Fearing that Adrian’s presence might, in some way, increase the girl’s interest in her father, he puts the matter before the young man. It is then decided that it were better for Adrian to take his departure.
BUT Adrian need not have dreaded the interview to which his host had summoned him. Mr. Dutton’s face was a little graver than usual, but his manner was even more kind. He was a man to whom justice seemed the highest good, who had himself suffered most bitterly from injustice. He was forcing himself to be perfectly fair with the lad, and it was even with a smile that he motioned toward a chair opposite himself. The chair stood in the direct light of the lamp, but Adrian did not notice that.
“Do not fear me, Adrian, though for a moment I forgot myself. For you, personally—personally—I have only great good will. But—will you answer my questions, believing that it a painful necessity which compels them?”
“Certainly.”
“One word more. Beyond the fact, which you confided to Margot, that you were a runaway, I know no details of your past life. I have wished not to know and have refrained from any inquiries. I must now break that silence. What—is your father’s name?”
As he spoke the man’s hands gripped the arms of his chair more tightly, like one prepared for an unpleasant answer.
“Malachi Wadislaw.”
The questioner waited a moment, during which he seemed to be thinking profoundly. Then he rallied his own judgment. It was an uncommon name, but there might be two men bearing it. That was not impossible.
“Where does he live?”
“Number —, Madison Avenue, New York.”
A longer silence than before, broken by a long drawn “A-ah!” There might, indeed, be two men of one name, but not two residing at that once familiar locality.
“Adrian, when you asked my niece that question about her father, did you—had you—tell me what was in your mind.”
The lad’s face showed nothing but frank astonishment.
“Why, nothing, sir, beyond an idle curiosity. And I’m no end sorry for my thoughtlessness. I’ve seen how tenderly you both watch her mother’s grave, and I wondered where her father’s was. That was all. I had no business to have done it—”
“It was natural. It was nothing wrong, in itself. But—unfortunately, it suggested to Margot what I have studiously kept from her. For reasons which I think best to keep to myself, it is impossible to run the risk of other questions which may arouse other speculations in her mind. I have been truly glad that she could for a time, at least, have the companionship of one nearer her own age than Angelique or myself, but now—”
ADRIAN TOOK THE ACCOUNT BOOK
He paused significantly, and Adrian hastened to complete the unfinished sentence.
“Now it is time for her to return to her ordinary way of life. I understand you, of course. And I am going away at once. Indeed, I did start, not meaning to come back, but—I will—how can I do so sir? If I could swim—”
Mr. Dutton’s drawn face softened into something like a smile; and again, most gently, he motioned the excited boy to resume his seat. As he did so, he opened a drawer of the table and produced a purse that seemed to be well filled.
“Wait. There is no such haste, nor are you in such dire need as you seem to think. You have worked well and faithfully, and relieved me of much hard labor that I have not, somehow, felt just equal to. I have kept an account for you, and, if you will be good enough to see if it is right, I will hand you the amount due you.”
He pushed a paper toward Adrian, who would not, at first, touch it.
“You owe me nothing, sir, nor can I take anything. I thank you for your hospitality, and some time”—he stopped, choked, and made a telling gesture. It said plainly enough that his pride was just then deeply humiliated, but that he would have his revenge at some future day.
“Sit down, lad. I do not wonder at your feeling, nor would you at mine if you knew all. Under other circumstances we should have been the best of friends. It is impossible for me to be more explicit, and it hurts my pride as much to bid you go as yours to be sent. Some time—but, no matter. What we have in hand is to arrange for your departure as speedily and comfortably as possible. I would suggest”—but his words had the force of a command—“that Pierre convey you to the nearest town from which, by stage or railway, you can reach any further place you choose. If I were to offer advice, it would be to go home. Make your peace there; and then, if you desire a life in the woods, seek such with the consent and approval of those to whom your duty is due.”
Adrian said nothing at first; then remarked:
“Pierre need not go so far. Across the lake to the mainland is enough. I can travel on foot afterward, and I know more about the forest now than when I lost myself, and you, or Margot, found me. I owe my life to you. I am sorry I have given you pain. Sorry for many things.”
“There are few who have not something to regret; for anything that has happened here no apology is necessary. As for saving life, that was by God’s will. Now—to business. You will see that I have reckoned your wages the same as Pierre’s—thirty dollars a month and ‘found,’ as the farmers say, though it has been much more difficult to find him than you. You have been here nearly three months, and eighty dollars is yours.”
“Eighty dollars! Whew! I mean, impossible. In the first place, I haven’t earned it; in the second, I couldn’t take it from—from you—if I had. How could a man take money from one who had saved his life?”
“Easily, I hope, if he has common sense. You exaggerate the service we were able to do you, which we would have rendered to anybody. Your earnings will start you straight again. Take them, and oblige me by making no further objections.”
Despite his protests, which were honest, Adrian could not but be delighted at the thought of possessing so goodly a sum. It was the first money he had ever earned, therefore better than any other ever could be, and as he put it, in his own thoughts, “it changed him from a beggar to a prince.” Yet he made a final protest, asking:
“Have I really, really, and justly earned all this? Do you surely mean it?”
“I am not in the habit of saying anything I do not mean. It is getting late, and if you are to go to-night, it would be better to start soon,” answered Mr. Dutton, with a frown.
“Beg pardon. But I’m always saying what I should not, or putting the right things backward. There are some affairs ‘not mentioned in the bond’: my artist’s outfit, these clothes, boots, and other matters. I want to pay the cost of them. Indeed, I must. You must allow me, as you would any other man.”
The woodlander hesitated a moment as if he were considering. He would have preferred no return for anything, but again that effort to be wholly just influenced him.
“For the clothing, if you so desire, certainly. Here, in this account book, is a price list of all such articles as I buy. We will deduct that much. But I hope, in consideration of the pleasure that your talent has given me, that you will accept the painting stuff I so gladly provided. If you choose, also, you may leave a small gift for Angelique. Come. Pride is commendable, but not always.”
“Very well. Thank you, then, for your gift. Now, the price list.”
It had been a gratification to Mr. Dutton that Adrian had never worn the suits of clothing which he had laid out ready for use on that morning after his arrival at the island. The lad had preferred the rougher costume suited to the woods, and still wore it.
In a few moments the small business transactions were settled, and Adrian rose.
“I would like to bid Margot good-by. But, I suppose, she has gone to bed.”
“Yes. I will give her your message. There is always a pain in parting, and you two have been much together. I would spare her as much as I can. Angelique has packed a basket of food and Pierre is on the beach with his canoe. He may go as far with you as you desire, and you must pay him nothing for his service. He is already paid, though his greed might make him despoil you, if he could. Good-by. I wish you well.”
Mr. Dutton had also risen, and as he moved forward into the lamplight, Adrian noticed how much altered for the worse was his physical bearing. The man seemed to have aged many years, and his fine head was now snow-white. He half extended his hand, in response to the lad’s proffered clasp, then dropped it to his side. He hoped that the departing guest had not observed this inhospitable movement—but he had. Possibly, it helped him over an awkward moment, by touching his pride afresh.
“Good-by, sir, and again—thank you. For the present, that is all I can do. Yet I have heard it was not so big a world, after all, and my chance may come. I’ll get my traps from my room, if you please, and one or two little drawings as souvenirs. I’ll not be long.”
Fifteen minutes later Pierre was paddling vigorously toward the further side of the lake and Adrian was straining his eyes for the last glimpse of the beautiful island which, even now, in his banishment from it, seemed his real and beloved home. It became a vague and shadowy outline, as silent as the stars that brooded over it; and again he marveled what the mystery might be which enshrouded it, and why he should be connected with it.
“Now that I am no longer its guest, there is no dishonor in my finding out; and find out—I will!”
“Hey?” asked Pierre, so suddenly that Adrian jumped and nearly upset the boat. “Oh! I thought you said somethin’. Say, ain’t this a go? What you done that make the master shut the door on you? I never knew him do it before. Hey?”
“Nothing. Keep quiet. I don’t feel like talking.”
“Pr-r-r-rp! Look a here, young fello’. Me and you’s alone on this dead water, and I can swim—you can’t. I’ve got all I expect to get out of the trip, and I’ve no notion o’ makin’ it. Not ’less things go to my thinkin’. Now, I’ll rest a spell. You paddle!”
With that he began to rock the frail craft violently, and Adrian’s attention was recalled to the necessity of saving his own life.
CHAPTER XII
A DISCLOSURE
AS the sun rose, Margot came out of her own room, fresh from her plunge that had washed all drowsiness away, as the good sleep had also banished all perplexities. Happy at all times, she was most so at morning, when, to her nature-loving eyes, the world seemed to have been made anew and doubly beautiful. The gay little melodies she had picked up from Pierre, or Angelique—who had been a sweet singer in her day—and now again from Adrian, were always on her lips at such an hour, and were dear beyond expression to her uncle’s ears.
But this morning she seemed to be singing them to the empty air. There was nobody in the living room, nor in the “study-library,” as the housekeeper called the room of books, nor even in the kitchen. That was the oddest of all! For there, at least, should Angelique have been, frying, or stewing, or broiling, as the case might be. Yet the coffee stood simmering at one corner of the hearth and a bowl of eggs waited ready for the omelet which Angelique could make to perfection.
“Why, how still it is! As if everybody had gone away and left the island alone.”
She ran to the door and called, “Adrian!”
No answer.
“Pierre! Angelique! Where is everybody?”
Then she saw Angelique coming down the slope and ran to meet her. With one hand the woman carried a brimming pail of milk and with the other dragged by his collar the reluctant form of Reynard, who appeared as guilty and subdued as if he had been born a slave, not free. To make matters more difficult, Meroude was surreptitiously helping herself to a breakfast from the pail and thereby ruining its contents for other uses.
“Oh! the plague of a life with such beasts! And him the worst o’ they all. The ver’ next time my Pierre goes cross-lake, that fox goes or I do! There’s no room on the island for the two of us. No. Indeed, no. The harm comes of takin’ in folks and beasties and friendin’ them ’at don’t deserve it. What now, think you?”
Margot had run the faster, as soon as she descried poor Reynard’s abject state, and had taken him under her own protection, which immediately restored him to his natural pride and noble bearing.
“I think nothing evil of my pet, believe that! See the beauty now! That’s the difference between harsh words and loving ones. If you’d only treat the ‘beasties’ as well as you do me, Angelique, dear, you’d have less cause for scolding. What I think now is—speckled rooster. Right?”
“Aye. Dead as dead; and the feathers still stickin’ in the villain’s jaws. What’s the life of such brutes to that o’ good fowls? Pst! Meroude! Scat! Well, if it’s milk you will, milk you shall!” and, turning angrily about, Snowfoot’s mistress dashed the entire contents of her pail over the annoying cat.
Margot laughed till the tears came. “Why, Angelique! only the other day, in that quaint old ‘Book of Beauty’ uncle has, I read how a Queen of Naples, and some noted Parisian beauties used baths of milk for their complexions; but poor Meroude’s a hopeless case, I fear.”
Angelique’s countenance took on a grim expression. “Mistress Meroude’s got a day’s job to clean herself, the greedy. It’s not her nose’ll go in the pail another mornin’. No, no, indeed.”
“And it was so full. Yet that’s the same Snowfoot who was to give us no more, because of the broken glass. Angelique, where’s uncle?”
“How should I tell? Am I set to spy the master’s ins and outs?”
“Funny, Angelique! You’re not set to do it, but you can usually tell them. And where’s Adrian? I’ve called and called, but nobody answers. I can’t guess where they all are. Even Pierre is out of sight, and he’s mostly to be found at the kitchen door when meal time comes.”
“There, there, child. You can ask more questions than old Angelique can answer. But the breakfast. That’s a good thought. So be. Whisk in and mix the batter cakes for the master’s eatin’. ’Tis he, foolish man, finds they have better savor from Margot’s fingers than mine. Simple one, with all his wisdom.”
“It’s love gives them savor, sweet Angelique, and the desire to see me a proper housewife. I wonder why he cares about that, since you are here to do such things.”
“Ah! The ‘I wonders!’ and the ‘Is its?’ of a maid! They set the head awhirl. The batter cakes, my child. I see the master comin’ down the hill this minute.”
Margot paused long enough to caress Tom, the eagle, who met her on the path, then sped indoors, leaving Reynard to his own devices and Angelique’s not too tender mercies. But she put all her energy into the task assigned her and proudly placed a plate of her uncle’s favorite dainty before him when he took his seat at the table. Till then she had not noticed its altered arrangement, and even her guardian’s coveted “Well done, little housekeeper!” could not banish the sudden fear that assailed her.
“Why, what does it mean? Where is Adrian? Where is Pierre? Why are only dishes for three?”
“Pst! ma p’tite! Hast been askin’ questions in the sleep. Sure, you have ever since your eyes flew open. Say your grace and eat your meat, and let the master rest.”
“Yes, darling, Angelique is wise. Eat your breakfast as usual, and afterward I will tell you all—that you should know.”
“But I cannot eat. It chokes me. It seems so awfully still and strange and empty. As I should think it might be were somebody dead.”
Angelique’s scant patience was exhausted. Not only was her loyal heart tried by her master’s troubles, but she had had added labor to accomplish. During all that summer two strong and, at least one, willing lad had been at hand to do the various chores pertaining to all country homes, however isolated. That morning she had brought in her own supply of firewood, filled her buckets from the spring, attended the poultry, fed the oxen, milked Snowfoot, wrestled over the iniquity of Reynard, and grieved at the untimely death of the speckled rooster. “When he would have made such a lovely fricassee. Yes, indeed, ’twas a sinful waste!”
Though none of these tasks were new or arduous to her, she had not performed them during the past weeks, save and except the care of her cow. That she had never entrusted to anybody, not even the master; and it was to spare him that she had done some of the things he meant to attend to later. Now she had reached her limit.
“Angelique wants her breakfast, child. She has been long astir. After that the deluge!” quoted Mr. Dutton, with an attempt at lightness which did not agree with his real depression.
Margot made heroic efforts to act as usual, but they ended in failure, and as soon as might be her guardian pushed back his chair, and she promptly did the same.
“Now, I can ask as many questions as I please, can’t I? First, where are they?”
“They have gone across the lake, southward, I suppose. Toward whatever place or town Adrian selects. He will not come back, but Pierre will do so, after he has guided the other to some safe point beyond the woods. How soon I do not know, of course.”
“Gone! Without bidding me good-by? Gone to stay? Oh, uncle, how could he? I know you didn’t like him, but I did. He was—”
Margot dropped her face in her hands and sobbed bitterly. Then ashamed of her unaccustomed tears, she ran out of the house and as far from it as she could. But even the blue herons could give her no amusement, though they stalked gravely up the river bank and posed beside her, where she lay prone and disconsolate in Harmony Hollow. Her squirrels saw and wondered, for she had no returning chatter for them, even when they chased one another over her prostrate person and playfully pulled at her long hair.
“He was the only friend I ever had that was not old and wise in sorrow. It was true he seemed to bring a shadow with him, and while he was here I sometimes wished he would go, or had never come; yet now that he has—oh, it’s so awfully, awfully lonesome. Nobody to talk with about my dreams and fancies, nobody to talk nonsense, nobody to teach me any more songs—nobody but just old folks and animals. And he went—he went without a word or a single good-by!”
It was, indeed, Margot’s first grief; and the fact that her late comrade could leave her so coolly, without even mentioning his plan, hurt her very deeply. But, after awhile, resentment at Adrian’s seeming neglect almost banished her loneliness; and, sitting up, she stared at Xanthippé, poised on one leg before her, apparently asleep but really waiting for anything which might turn up in the shape of dainties.
“Oh, you sweet vixen! but you needn’t ‘pose.’ There’s no artist here now to sketch you, and I don’t care, not very much, if there isn’t. After all my trying to do him good, praising and blaming and petting, if he was impolite enough to go as he did—Well, no matter!”
While this indignation lasted she felt better, but as soon as she came once more in sight of the clearing and of her uncle finishing one of Adrian’s uncompleted tasks, her loneliness returned with double force. It had almost the effect of bodily illness, and she had no experience to guide her. With a fresh burst of tears she caught her guardian’s hand and hid her face on his shoulder.
“Oh! it’s so desolate. So empty. Everything’s so changed. Even the Hollow is different and the squirrels seem like strangers. If he had to go, why did he ever, ever come!”
“Why, indeed!”
Mr. Dutton was surprised and frightened by the intensity of her grief. If she could sorrow in this way for a brief friendship, what untold misery might not life have in store for her? There must have been some serious blunder in his training if she were no better fitted than this to face trouble; and for the first time it occurred to him that he should not have kept her from all companions of her own age.
“Margot!”
The sternness of his tone made her look up and calm herself.
“Y-es, uncle.”
“This must stop. Adrian went by my invitation. Because I could no longer permit your association. Between his household and ours is a wrong beyond repair. He cannot help that he is his father’s son, but being such, he is an impossible friend for your father’s daughter. I should have sent him away at my very first suspicion of his identity, but—I want to be just. It has been the effort of my life to learn forgiveness. Until the last I would not allow myself even to believe who he was, but gave him the benefit of the chance that his name might be of another family. When I did know—there was no choice. He had to go.”
Margot watched his face as he spoke, with a curious feeling that this was not the loved and loving uncle she had always known, but a stranger. There were wrinkles and scars she had never noticed, a bitterness that made the voice an unfamiliar one, and a weariness in the droop of the figure leaning upon the hoe which suggested an aged and heartbroken man.
Why, only yesterday, it seemed, Hugh Dutton was the very type of a stalwart woodlander, with the grace of a finished and untiring scholar, making the man unique. Now, if Adrian had done this thing, if his mere presence had so altered her beloved guardian, then let Adrian go! Her arms went round the man’s neck and her kisses showered upon his cheeks, his hands, even his bent white head.
“Uncle, uncle! Don’t look like that! Don’t. He’s gone and shall never come back. Everything’s gone, hasn’t it? Even that irreparable past, of which I’d never heard. Why, if I’d dreamed, do you suppose I’d even ever have spoken to him? No, indeed. Why, you, the tip of your smallest finger, the smallest lock of your hair, is worth more than a thousand Adrians! I was sorry he treated me so rudely, but now I’m glad, glad, glad. I wouldn’t listen to him now, not if he said good-by forever and ever. I love you, uncle, best of all the world, and you love me. Let’s be just as we were before any strangers came. Come, let’s go out on the lake.”
He smiled at her extravagance and abruptness. The times when they had gone canoeing together had been their merriest, happiest times. It seemed to her that it needed only some such outing to restore the former conditions of their life.
“Not to-day, dearest.”
“Why not? The potatoes won’t hurt, and it’s so lovely.”
“There are other matters, more important than potatoes. I have put them off too long. Now—Margot, do you love me?”
“Why—uncle?”
“Because there is somebody whom you must love even more dearly. Your father.”
“My—father! My father? Of course; though he is dead.”
“No, Margot. He is still alive.”
CHAPTER XIII
CARRYING
PIERRE’S ill temper was short-lived, but his curiosity remained. However, when Adrian steadily refused to gratify it his interest returned to himself.
“Say, I’ve a mind to go the whole way.”
“Where?”
“Wherever you’re going. Nothing to call me back.”
“Madoc?”
“We might take him along.”
“Not if he’s sick. That would be as cruel to him as troublesome to us. Besides, you need go no further than yonder shore.”
“Them’s the woods you got lost in.”
“I know them better now.”
“Couldn’t find your road to save your life.”
“I think I could. Besides, you will be wanted at the island. I don’t think Mr. Dutton is a well man. With nobody but an old woman and a young girl he’ll need somebody. You’re not much good, still—”
Pierre laughed. They had about reached the forest and he rested his paddle.
“You hear me. I’m going to where you go. That was the master’s word. I wouldn’t dare not do it. If I did, my mother’d make me sorry. So that’s settled.”
Adrian had doubts as to the truth of this statement of the islander’s commands. He recalled the words, “as far as you desire.” After all, this was not setting a time limit, and it was perfectly natural that anybody should like company through the wilderness. Why, it would be a wild, adventurous journey! the very sort of which he had dreamed before he had tasted the prosaic routine of the lumber camp. He had his colors and brushes, the birch-bark which served so many forest purposes should be his canvas. They had food, and Pierre, at least, his gun and ammunition—no lad could have protested further.
“All right. It will be a lark after my own heart. We can quit as soon as we’re tired of it; and—look here, Mr. Dutton said you were paid to take me to the nearest town. How far is that? How long to get there?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Donovan’s nighest. Might go in four days—might a week. Canada’s closer, but you don’t want to go north. South, he said.”
“Ye-es. I suppose so. Fact is, I don’t care where I go nor when. I’m in no hurry. As long as the money and food hold out, I’m satisfied.”
“Speakin’ of money, I couldn’t afford to waste my time.”
Adrian laughed at this sudden change of front. It was Pierre who had proposed the long road, but at the mention of money had remembered prudence.
“That’s all right, too. It was of that I was thinking, you greedy fellow. What do guides get here in the woods?”
Pierre stepped ashore, carefully beached his canoe, and as carefully considered his reply before he made it. How much did this city lad know? Either at camp or on the island had he heard the just rates of such service?
“Well—how much you got?”
“I’m asking a question, not you.”
“About four dollars, likely.”
“Whew! not much. You can get the best of them for two. I’ll give you a dollar a day when we’re resting and one-fifty when we’re traveling.”
Adrian was smiling in the darkness at his own sudden thrift. He had taken a leaf out of his comrade’s book, and beyond that, he almost loved his precious earnings, so soon as the thought came of parting with them. He instantly resolved to put aside a ten-dollar piece to take the “mater,” whenever he should see her. The rest he would use, of course, but not waste. He would paint such pictures up here as would make his old artist friends and the critics open their eyes. The very novelty of the material which should embody them would “take.” Already, in imagination, he saw dozens of fascinating “bits” hung on the line at the old Academy, and felt the marvelous sums they brought swelling his pockets to bursting. He’d be the rage, the hit of the next season; and what pride he’d have in sending newspaper notices of himself to Peace Island. How Margot would open her blue eyes, and Angelique toss her hands, and the master slowly admit that there was genius where he had estimated only talent.
“There’s such a wide, wide difference in the two!” cried Adrian, aloud.
“Hey? What?”
The dreamer came back to reality, and to Pierre, demanding:
“Make it one-seventy-five, and I’ll do it.”
“Well, I will. Now for to-night. Shall we camp right here or go further into the forest. In the woods I’m always ready for bed, and it’s later than usual now.”
“Here. I know the very rocks you got under in that storm. They’ll do as good as a tent, and easier.”
Adrian, also, knew that spot, and in a few moments both lads were asleep. They had not stopped even to build the fire that was customary in such quarters.
Pierre was awake first, on the next morning, and Adrian slowly rose, stretching his cramped limbs and yawning widely.
“Well, I must say that Angelique’s good mattress beats rocks. You don’t catch me doing that again. I guess I’ll walk down to the water and have a last look at the island.”
“I guess you won’t. You’ll eat your breakfast right now. Then you’ll fix that birch for the carry. If I do the heavy work you’ve got to do the light.”
“Sounds fair enough, but you’re paid and I’m not.”
“It is fair.”
Adrian did not contest the point, the less readily because he saw that the fried chicken Angelique had given them was rapidly diminishing in quantity.
“Think I’ll fall-to myself. My, but I’m hungry! Wish I had a cup of coffee.”
“Can’t waste time now. We’ll have some to-night.”
“Did they give us some?”
“Look in the pack.”
“After breakfast I’ll oblige you.”
Pierre grinned and helped himself to a wing.
Adrian seized the tin basin which held the fowl and placed it behind himself. “Enough’s as good as a feast. We shall be hungry again. See here. What kind of a bird was this? or birds? all legs and arms, no bodies. Freaks of nature. Eh? How many breast portions have you devoured?”
“Three.”
“Oh! Then, travel or no travel, you get no wage this day. Understand. I’m commander of this expedition. I see to the commissariat. I’ll overhaul the pack, and take account of stock.”
Pierre assisted at the task. Though he had been impatient to get away from that locality, still too dangerously near his mother’s rule, he intended to keep an eye on everything. Paid or not paid, as Adrian fared so would he—only rather better.
“Why, they must have thought we would be in the woods a long time. They were certainly generous.”
They had been, but Pierre considered that they might have been more so.
“This was for both trips. Half is mine.”
“Nonsense. But—there. We’re not going to squabble all the time, like children. And we both know exactly what we have to depend on. We must fish and shoot—”
“How’ll you do that? The only gun is mine.”
“It’s part of the outfit. Let’s see. A good little tent cloth—not big enough to cover any but good-natured folks—salt pork, beans, sugar, coffee, tea, flour, meal, dishes. Hello! We’re kings, Ricord! Monarchs of Maine.”
“Cut the splints.”
After all, it seemed to be Pierre, who did the ordering, but Adrian had sense to see that he was the wiser of the two in woodcraft; even though he himself had made it a study during the last weeks. He seized the axe and attacked a cedar tree, from which he had soon cut the binding strips he wanted. Then he laid the paddles in the boat, fastening them with rootlets to the three thwarts. He also fastened two broad bands of the pliable splints in such a way that when it was inverted the weight of the canoe could be borne in part by the forehead and shoulders. He was ready almost as soon as Pierre had retied the pack, which was to be Adrian’s burden.
“All right! I’ll swing her up. This ‘carry’ isn’t a long one, and the first thoroughfare is ten miles before we come to dead water. But it’s up-stream that far, and we’ll have to warp up some. Part is fair, but more is rips.”
If Pierre thought to confound his mate by his woodland slang he was disappointed. Margot had been a good teacher, and Adrian had been eager to learn what he had not already done from the loggers. Pierre had been puzzled by “commissariat” and “expedition,” and felt that he had evened matters nicely.
“Oh! I know. A thoroughfare is a river, and a dead water is a lake. And a carrier is—yourself!”
To show his new skill he caught up the canoe and inverted it over his own head. He, also, had been calculating a bit, and realized that the birch was really the lighter burden. So he generously left the pack to his neighbor and started forward bravely.
“All right, like you say. One little bit, then you change. Then, too, maybe I’m not ready.”
With a whistle and spring Pierre hoisted the pack to his shoulders, wound its straps around his body, and started off through the forest at a sort of dog-trot pace, pausing neither for swamp nor fallen tree, and Adrian realized that if he were to keep his companion in sight he must travel equally fast.
Alas! this was impossible. The birch which had seemed so light and romantic a “carry” became suddenly the heaviest and most difficult. He caught its ends on tree trunks, and righting these blunders he stumbled over the rough way. The thongs that had seemed so smooth cut his forehead and burned into his chest, and putting pride in his pocket he shouted:
“Pierre! Pierre Ricord! Come back or you’ll get no money!”
It would have been a convincing argument had it been heard, but it was not. Pierre had already gone too far in advance. Yet at that moment a sound was borne on the breeze toward Adrian which effectually banished all thought of fatigue or of ill-treatment. A long-drawn, unmistakable cry that once heard no man with the hunter instinct ever forgets. The boy’s heart beat faster.
“A moose! and Pierre has the gun!”
[TO BE CONTINUED]