The lean, yellow-eyed cat looked in at the door, and Tommy patted his patched trouser leg. She came over to him trustingly, and the boy lifted her up and stroked her scanty fur.
Outside, the whip-poor-will was alive, for the song of the mill was dead.
CHAPTER XXII
The Shot in the Dark
For the first night since the long nights had come Big McTavish’s fiddle was silent. It hung on the wall and the man sat before the fire, his chin in his hands. Mrs. McTavish reclined on a couch of willows beside him, and her eyes rested on her husband’s face sympathetically.
“You mus’n’t worry about it, Mac,” she said. “They can’t take our place from us, I know.”
“It’s not that, Mary,” replied the husband. “It’s the thoughts of what might happen if they should try. They don’t know the men here in Bushwhackers’ Place. They don’t know ’em like I know ’em. You know what the law of the wood is, Mary. Please God, they don’t try to drive our boys any. I shudder to think of what might happen if they tried that. I fear trouble now that Hallibut has sent his schooner around.”
Boy entered the house as the father was speaking. He carried a double-barreled fowling-piece and across his back hung a string of wild ducks. Gloss, who sat beside the table knitting, glanced up as he entered, and a soft gleam stole into her eyes. Then, noting the haggard lines in Boy’s face, she approached him with outstretched hands. He smiled, and, putting the gun on its rack, let his game fall to the floor. Then he took the girl’s hands in his and stroked them caressingly.
“Wild duck, Gloss,” he laughed; “big dinner to-morrow, girl.”
She gazed at him with wide eyes, her hands unconsciously tightening on his. Boy glanced toward the woman on the couch. Gloss turned to her work, and he went and sat beside his mother.
“Was it rough, Boy?” she asked fondly, putting her arm about his neck.