There were still several other advantages. This lake was surrounded by precipitous mountains; no lumbermen, even, were likely to operate there; the stream flowing out of it soon crossed the border line, finding escape into the St. Lawrence valley at a point some twenty miles distant; a short carry enabled him to reach the Fox Hole which flowed by Tim’s Place, and so this served as an excellent whip road in case of pursuit.
His transient asylum at Tim’s Place also served as a vantage point in another way.
Here all who entered this portion of the wilderness invariably halted,–officers and wardens as well,–and as by this time McGuire had become an outlaw murderer, with a reward offered for his capture, this outpost was of double advantage.
Caution was a strong point in his make-up, yet he was daring as well. He still visited the settlements occasionally, to sell furs and obtain ammunition and whiskey; and when he, as ill luck would have it, happened there at the time his child was left motherless, some malign impulse led him to take her to Tim’s Place and leave her in servitude there.
There was also another chance caller at this outpost–a half-breed trapper and hunter named Bolduc, who had established himself in a lone cabin on the Fox Hole, some ten miles up from Tim’s Place. He was a repulsive minor edition of McGuire. A wildcat, with laudable intentions, had essayed putting an end to his career, and succeeded to the extent of one eye and some blood. He had been the accomplice and partner of McGuire in many a whiskey-smuggling trip. He also dealt in this pernicious, but valuable, fluid, was a poacher ever ready to pot-hunt for a lumbering camp in winter, or find a moose yard on snow-shoes, after slaughtering the helpless inmates of which, he would sell them to the busy wood-choppers.
He, too, could be classed as brigand of the wilderness, and while no warrants or charges against him were rife, he felt it wise to avoid meeting minions of the law. Tim’s Place was a convenient point to obtain information as to location of new lumber camps or possible visits of officers. An occasional bottle of whiskey secured Tim’s favor. The evenings and meals there impressed Pete with the advantages of owning a woman’s services, and as Chip matured in domestic and other possibilities, a desire to possess her began to increase his visits.
His wooing met no response, however, and when persisted in always awoke on her part the same instinct once displayed toward him by a wildcat.
Then recourse to her father’s greed for money was taken, with results as described.
The only thing that saved poor Chip from pursuit and capture, however, was his wholesome fear of her finger-nails, and the belief that it was best to let her father earn the balance of her price and fetch her, as agreed. Acting upon this theory, Pete had departed from Tim’s Place at dawn, to await her arrival at his cabin, quite oblivious of the fact that his bird had flown.
All that long day he waited in great expectancy. Toward evening he returned to Tim’s Place to learn that Chip had not been seen since the previous night; that her father had also vanished without comment. That he was a party to this trick and deception, and, after securing his three hundred dollars, had taken her away, was Pete’s conclusion, and he vowed a murderous revenge. He returned to his cabin, little realizing that twenty miles away poor Chip, faint with hunger and the terror of a vast wilderness, was fighting her way through bush, bramble, and swamp in a mad attempt to escape.