"We'll never get it across the river to the markets," he said dolefully. "I came over this morning in a canoe. Ice is all out."
"What about the Onondaga Jam?" I said. He winked.
"That'll do. I'd forgotten it," he answered, and chirped up right away like a kid.
But I hadn't forgotten the Jam. It had been a regular gold-mine to me all that open winter, when the ice froze and thawed every week and finally jammed itself clean to the river bottom in the throat of the bend up at Onondaga, and the next day the thermometer fell to eleven degrees below zero, freezing it into a solid block that bridged the river for traffic, and saved my falling fortunes.
"And where's the whiskey hidden?" he asked after awhile.
"No you don't," I laughed. "Parson or pal, no man living knows or will know where it is till he helps me haul it away. I'll trust none of you."
"I'm not a thief," he pouted.
"No," I said, "but you're blasted hard up, and I don't intend to place temptation in your way."
He laughed good-naturedly and turned the subject aside just as Lige Smith and Jack Jackson came in with an unusual companion that put a stop to all further talk. Women were never seen at night time around Jake's; even his wife was invisible, and I got a sort of shock when I saw old Cayuga Joe's girl, Elizabeth, following at the boys' heels. It had been raining and the girl, a full blood Cayuga, shivered in the damp and crouched beside the stove.
Tom Barrett started when he saw her. His color rose and he began to mark up the table with his thumb nail. I could see he felt his fix. The girl—Indian right through—showed no surprise at seeing him there, but that did not mean she would keep her mouth shut about it next day, Tom was undoubtedly discovered.