At last the patience and perseverance of the hunters were rewarded, and both of the great cats were killed. The dwellers at the lone farms lived in peace after that, and children were able to go to school again. The snow was thick in the forest now, and it was owing to their footmarks that the wily animals had been tracked to their doom.
The day after the second lynx was killed a party of men, with Don Grierson at their head, arrived at Ripple to bank the sides of the house with snow. Pam enquired in a rather scared fashion of Sophy how much she would be expected to pay for the work, but Sophy assured her that there would be no charge. She might if she liked give them hot coffee all round when the work was finished, but nothing else was either expected or desired.
“Coffee and cakes it shall be, then!” exclaimed Pam, commencing to roll her sleeves above her elbows. “I shall have to make the cakes, though, for we have scarcely any in the house. I can manage it if I make haste.”
“Make soda-biscuit, that is the quickest,” said Sophy. “I will make up the fire for you, and I can bring the things for you and wait upon you. No, they won’t want you to help; it is hardly work for girls, and there are enough of them to do the work comfortably. I see Nathan Gittins is there, but I don’t think Mose Paget is among the lot. I wonder whether he is better yet?”
“Is he ill? I had not heard.” Pam did not pause in her work, she was in too much of a hurry for that; but she looked at Sophy with considerable interest and some anxiety. She was remembering that she owed her life twice over to the ragged, down-at-heel Mose Paget, who had the reputation of being the very laziest man in the township.
“Mrs. Buckle told me that he was bad; that was when she was here the day before yesterday. But of course she is such a kindly old soul that she would say he was ill, even if it was only a lazy fit that was keeping him from work.”
There was the sound of a crash outside at this minute, and Pam cried out in alarm. But Sophy, who ran out to see what was the matter, came back to say that it was nothing of great importance, only Don, who had been on a ladder banking the snow, had taken a header into the drift he was helping to pile higher. He was cut rather badly on the cheek, for he had fallen on a shovel, and he came in to have his wound washed and bandaged. Sophy cried out in dismay then, and she turned so white that it was Pam who left her cake-making and ran to offer first aid.
“No, the sight of a cut does not frighten me very much,” she laughed, as she dabbed the cut with a handkerchief dipped in warm water. “I have three brothers, you see, so I have served an apprenticeship in looking after cuts and hurts of all sorts.”
“It is a great pity that Mose Paget did not let you look after his hurts a bit that time when the lynx clawed him.” Don winced as her hand came down rather heavily on the wound, but she was too startled by what he had said to notice that she had hurt him.
“Is Mose ill from his wounds, and is your father looking after him?” Her eyes were anxious now, for she was in a measure responsible, or that was how she felt.