“There’s no town between here and Canada,” he said; “no, indeed, nor for a hundred miles north of the border either. And there are no houses in the direction the Edmonds boys went, nor camps—and roads, bless you, these woods don’t have roads. Just trees—and trees—and trees—and Heaven help the man who loses his bearings amongst them!”
“Are people still looking for them?” cried Hugh; “surely they haven’t given up hope yet!”
“There is no hope,” Nels answered with a sigh; “we would look for a year if it would be of any use; but why go on searching when we know they cannot be found?”
He got to his feet to go, leaving Hugh still sitting, stunned, trying to think what this cruel news must mean to him. At the door Nels paused and, even without the encouragement of a question, actually volunteered a remark of his own.
“There is something I must tell you also,” he said, “for others may say it to you and perhaps not with kindness. It is that John Edmonds left his accounts in bad shape at the bank, that his books are confused and there is talk of money missing. So there are some people, and presently there will be more and more, who say that even if he is not dead in the woods he will never come back.”
“That is not true,” cried Hugh, springing from his seat, “that cannot possibly be true.”
“No,” returned Nels, “I do not think it can be. There are many rascals in this neighborhood, but John Edmonds is not one of them.”
He put on his battered old hat that was so big it came far down over his ears, took up his thick umbrella, opened the door and went out. Hugh sat by the table, his chin in his hand, thinking deeply long after Nels had gone. It was hard to know what to believe, what to think and above all what to do.
He could hear Linda Ingmarsson talking to her children in the next room and presently one small boy came in and seated himself, without saying a word, on a chair by the door. He seemed to think that politeness demanded his sitting with the guest, although to talk to him was far beyond his power. Linda’s husband stood at the door a moment, but went away again. He was a big, quiet man, seeming much like an overgrown edition of his small son. Hugh, beginning to look about him, concluded that this room was quite the cleanest place that he had ever seen. The boards of the floor were worn smooth with much scrubbing, the copper kettles on the shelves winked in the firelight. In one corner stood a quaintly carved cupboard, painted a most brilliant blue, that must surely have come from Sweden, or have been made by the patient labor of Ingmarsson’s great rough hands. In the center of the table was another bit of carving, a really beautiful wooden bowl with a raised wreath of water lilies fashioned about its edge. It was full of moss and gay red bunches of partridge berries. The Ingmarsson child saw Hugh’s eyes resting upon it and, with a mighty effort, managed to speak.
“My Uncle Oscar, he made it,” the youngster said in his little Swedish voice; “he brought it to us with the berries in it the last time he came from the mountain.”