“I were expectin’ he’d try t’ steal Tom Angus’s third o’ th’ fur he hunted, whatever,” declared Uncle Ben, “but I weren’t certain he’d steal your fur, too, lads. Good gracious, no! I knew he were bad, but I didn’t think he’d do that! And he’s gone with un all, lock, stock and barrel! And we’ll never see him again. The scamp! Good gracious, yes, a scamp! Nothin’ else but a scamp, and such a scamp as I never thought lived! D-e-a-r eyes!”
“A wonderful scamp!” agreed Hiram.
Uncle Ben and Hiram had struck up their traps, and then come up the river to Seal Lake to “keep an eye,” as Uncle Ben said, on Indian Jake until the break-up. They had expected to return with the boys and Indian Jake, stopping at their tilt for their own furs as they passed down the Nascaupee, and then, still acting as guard, continue with the boys until the furs were safely delivered to Thomas at The Jug.
“You lads need us now to cheer you a bit! Dear eyes! You needs cheerin’,” Uncle Ben declared. “We’ll wait here for th’ break-up and all go home together, and we’ll cheer you. Good gracious, yes!”
But now that David and Andy were assured their precious furs were really gone they felt anything but cheered. And that night, and for many nights that followed, their hearts were heavy indeed.
“What, now, would become of Jamie?” was the question always on their mind, and they could not answer it, and they even forgot Doctor Joe’s cheerful song.
They could picture Jamie, and their father, and Margaret, and Doctor Joe, with loving and abiding confidence and faith in them waiting at home for their return. Jamie’s lifelong happiness depended upon the furs that had been stolen. Doctor Joe had said that Jamie would become blind if he did not go to the great doctor for the cure. Now Jamie could not go, and the ordeal of their homecoming empty-handed, and the disappointment of Jamie and the others, seemed to them more than they could bear. And when they thought of all this they almost regretted that they had not indeed perished in the blizzard, or starved in the tilt.