“There were some friends of Mr. Gay’s on the boat we came in,” said Mrs. Walsh, as she lingered sitting at the table with Pam and Jack when the others had rushed away again. “They were in the first class, of course, and we were in the second, but they used to come to pay us visits nearly every day. They are going west to British Columbia for the summer, and young Mr. Gay—he is a nephew of the Mr. Gay who was so kind to Jack—asked if he could come here for shooting in the autumn. He and his friend want a moose if they can get one. They will bring a man with them, and they would rather not stay at Ripple, which they declare would be too civilized. I told them if nothing else offered we would build them a shack right out in the forest. They are going to pay me well for coming.”
“It is a shockingly busy time for shack-building,” said Pam. “They would want an extra special kind, too, because they are not used to roughing it, but we shall certainly have to do what we can, because old Mr. Gay was so good to Jack.”
“Why not rig up that old house in the tote road?” suggested Jack. “Nathan told me that is a wonderful place for moose, and as for other game, why, they might almost lie in bed and shoot the stuff that passes the house.”
“Oh, they could not go there, it is such a shocking ruin, and it is haunted too!” cried Pam with a shiver, whereupon Jack burst out laughing. But Mrs. Walsh wanted to know what place they were talking of.
“There is a little house, very dilapidated, standing on some ground which borders the old tote road. Grandfather bought the land some few years ago, so Luke Dobson told me,” explained Pam.
“I remember the place now,” said Mrs. Walsh. “The man who lived there was an Indian, or else he had an Indian wife, I don’t remember which. But, Pam, don’t you see that this bears out what I have said, that your grandfather was not poor, or he would not have been able to buy land?”
“It was only twenty acres, and he might have taken a mortgage for the bigger part of the price,” replied Pam.
Mrs. Walsh shook her head. She began to talk of other things soon after, but all the time she was puzzling out the matter of her father’s disappearance.
Pam and Jack had to work all the harder in the days that followed to make up for the holiday they had allowed themselves to welcome their mother and the younger children. But life was so much easier that the hard work scarcely counted in comparison. It was beautiful to throw down their hoes at noon, and come walking indoors to find a well-cooked meal spread ready for them to eat. It was even more delightful still to have no supper to cook at the end of a long and fagging day. Then Mrs. Walsh bought a horse and a wagon, for she said that it would never do for Muriel to have so many miles to walk to attend school. Oh, life was easier all round; only there was the one cloud that did not lift, and Pam could not be happy because of that still unexplained mystery of her grandfather’s disappearance.
Don Grierson came and went. He was so fortunate as to win the esteem of Mrs. Walsh, while the younger children adored him. But Pam was resolute in her determination to permit no engagement between him and herself while they still lived under the shadow of what might be a disgrace.