“You’re shakin’,” he said; “you ain’t just yourself. You mus’n’t take on hard like you’re doin’, Boy. I guess maybe Joe had more soul in his poor dog’s body than all them cut-throats had among the lot of ’em, but Joe is done with this life. Boy, don’t you take it hard.”
He drew the young man towards the house, and half-way across the yard Boy stopped and hurled a look down across the valley.
“Bill,” he cried, “I told you I would wait till you came back, and now you’re back I’m goin’.”
“Boy,” said Paisley, “he ain’t there.”
“Where’s he gone?”
“He got away last night,” said Paisley. “He was hurt bad. I guess old Joe did it. They carried him off, and he won’t ever come back here again, Boy.”
“Let me go,” cried the young man, shaking himself free. “I don’t care where he’s gone, Bill, I’ll follow him—and——”
He snatched up the rifle leaning against the ash-leach and dashed across toward the creek. Paisley followed more slowly. He came up as Boy was pushing his canoe into the ice-coated creek.
“The ducks are leavin’ to-day, Boy,” he said, “look at ’em. They’ve had a glad time here this season, I guess, take it all round. Look at ’em, Boy,—they don’t seem to want to go very much, do they?”
Boy glanced up, then he stood erect in the boat and watched the detached flocks of frantic water-fowl swerve and pitch and at last mingle in the greater flocks, fading south. Sweetly and shrilly their strong wings beat the frosty air, the sound of their pinions now rising, now fading, and at last thundering as the great flocks dropped low as though to bid the old marsh feeding-ground a last good-by.