“Dinner is quite ready, and if you have it now I can get the dishes washed while you are away,” replied Sophy.
“Have it now, by all means. I am almost hungry enough to start on eating the old horse, although by the look of it the creature would be tough,” said Jack. He ducked his head nearer to that of the animal, and worked his jaws in a fashion so fierce and suggestive that the horse suddenly started forward, drew the wagon close to the house door, and stopped again, while the three laughed until the tears came, over the success of Jack’s manœuvre.
They carried the luggage into the house, tied the horse to the hitching-post and gave it a feed of hay, then went indoors to the dinner which Sophy had ready for them. It was so warm that they had the door wide open, letting in the sunshine, the scents of trees and flowers, and the rippling notes of the bobolink in the big red maple near the house. Oh! the forest was a delightful place on a day in early spring, and Pam, stealing glances at Jack’s face, realized that behind the nonsense in which he was indulging, he was fighting back a whole storm of emotion.
The two went off when the meal was over, to restore the horse and wagon to Mrs. Buckle. When they came back there would be the afternoon “chores” to get through, and a lot of other things which Pam had been forced to neglect in order to reach Hunt’s Crossing in time to meet Jack. Even then she had not reached the river until long after the boat had passed. Last summer the boats up from Fredericton had done the journey in the daytime, passing Hunt’s Crossing in the afternoon; now they left the wharf of the city at midnight, and so reached the nearest point for Ripple early in the day.
“Do we pass the fence that made all the trouble?” Jack asked, as the horse moved away from the hitching-post, and broke into a shambling trot when it found it had its head towards home.
“Yes, I will show you,” said Pam, and then they began to talk of the mystery of their grandfather’s disappearance afresh.
“I can’t see why he needed to run away at all,” said Jack. “The two men quarrelled, and started to fight, I expect, and for aught we know Grandfather might have been as badly hurt as the other man. He might even have crawled into the shelter of the trees to die. I say, Pam, where was it the bones were found when you were sugaring? Anywhere near here?”
“No, miles away in an opposite direction,” she answered. “Besides, you forget the money which had been taken from Grandfather’s desk was found with those remains. I thought, as you have done, that he might have crept into the woods to die, and I tramped through the undergrowth in every direction last fall; the police hunted too. But he has been seen alive since then, you know.”
Jack nodded.
“I had forgotten that. I don’t suppose it is of any use for me to try to spring new theories on to you, seeing that you have been on the spot, and have had all the winter to think the matter round. You will have to be patient with me when I start any extra silly idea about it. But I can’t rest while we don’t know what has become of him. It does not seem right to enjoy being here either, for it is his place, and not ours at all.”