And accordingly Elmer, instead of taking warning from his fears and turning back, continued resolutely along the course he had marked out for himself. He would beard the lion in its den, and try to convince this same poacher Jem that he had nothing to fear from a party of boys out on a holiday. Perhaps Elmer may have also had some little scheme in mind whereby they could do more or less good by utilizing some of those superabundant stores which George had cleverly advised Rufus to lay in, under the possibility of their being storm-bound up in the woods, with a great need for much provisions. A little present of excellent tea might quite win the heart of Jem's wife, provided he had one; and Elmer had even known of a case where the fragrant odor of coffee had entirely disarmed a woods bully, who had been half inclined to clean out the camp previous to his inhaling that delicious perfume.
Now and then the boy would pause and commence sniffing the air. He knew that he had been walking directly up the wind for quite a while now, and hence more than half expected that he might catch the whiff of hard-wood smoke, telling of the presence of a fire not far distant, and dead ahead.
It was when Elmer was standing still and looking about him that he suddenly heard a sound that sent a peculiar thrill through his whole person. There was nothing so strange about the sound in itself, only the oddity of hearing it under such peculiar conditions.
"Why, upon my soul, I do believe that's a violin being tuned up!" he whispered, straining his ears still more while speaking. "Yes, it is, for I can hear the plain chords now. Perhaps some fiddler who plays at country barn dances is passing through the woods, and has stopped over night at Jem's shack. Why, he seems to have a knack for striking wonderfully fine chords, it seems to me. I'll just push on and see what it means."
This he accordingly did, and as he began to catch the sound of music more plainly as he kept advancing, Elmer found his curiosity rising to fever heat. Now the notes of the weird music came floating to him on the soft air, more and more distinctly. It seemed to the boy as though the violin fairly sobbed with the spirit of the one whose fingers trailed the bow across those taut strings.
"It's wonderful, that's what!" Elmer was telling himself for the tenth time as he kept on walking, and straining his hearing more and more. "Why, I've heard some pretty fine players, but never anything like that! Whoever can it be! I'd wager a heap that the gift of inherited genius is back of that playing. I can see that he isn't an educated violinist at all; but the notes are meant to express the language of the soul within. Oh, I'm glad now I decided to start out; because I wouldn't have missed this for anything!"
He knew that he was by now close to the spot, for the sounds came very distinctly. As he continued to advance, Elmer kept watching, wondering what manner of person he was going to see. Could some professional violinist have taken a notion to spend his summer up here amidst the solitudes, communing with Nature, so as to secure new inspiration for his work? It would not be improbable, though there was that about the playing to suggest an utter lack of training.
Now only a screen of bushes seemed to intervene. Once he had crept to the further edge of these and Elmer would be able to see the one who handled that bow so eloquently.
Three minutes later and he found himself looking eagerly out of his leafy screen, to receive a fresh shock. Instead of a man with the looks of a professor, or even a lady performer, he discovered that the party responsible for those sweet chords and sad strains that pierced his heart, was only a flaxen-haired boy not over ten years of age!
He sat there with his slender legs coiled up on a stump, and drew the wonderful notes from his fiddle without any apparent effort, just as though the music was in him, and had to find an outlet somehow. He was barefooted, and dressed shabbily. Yet, despite these evidences of poverty, Elmer could note what seemed to be a distinguished air about the lad that fairly stunned him. He thought at once of Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper." Was this a real prince masquerading in dingy apparel?