CHAPTER II — A Slight Miscalculation
The distance was so slight that a score of strokes drove the canoe to shore. Nothing in the nature of a path was to be seen, and there was so much undergrowth that when Mike glided under the vegetation, only the rear of the boat was visible to any one on the lake. He drew the craft up the bank far enough to prevent its floating away during his absence, and began picking his way through the bushes. A few rods and the wood grew more open, though not being much accustomed to that sort of traveling, he made considerable noise in his progress. He was thus engaged with his head bent and his arms thrust out in front feeling his way, when a low horizontal limb slid under his chin and as it almost lifted him off his feet brought him to a sudden stop.
“Worrah! I wonder if me hid is left on me shoulders!” he exclaimed, vigorously rubbing his neck; “yis,—the most of me is here, as Tarn Murry said whin he came down after being blowed up in a powder mill.”
A few rods farther and he came upon a sight which caused him to halt as abruptly as before, with a strong inclination to turn about and go back to his canoe.
In a small open space a fire of pine cones, twigs and branches was burning beside the trunk of a fallen tree. Resting on the top of the blaze was a tomato can, filled with bubbling coffee, whose aroma reached the nostrils of Mike at the moment he caught sight of the fire. On the log sat a ragged, frowsy tramp, with a crooked stick in his hand tending the blaze, while on the ground half lying down and half sitting up, was a second vagrant sucking a corncob pipe.
You remember the two nuisances who called upon Dr. Spellman and because of their insolence were sharply rebuffed by him, though his wife, in the kindness of her heart, gave them food. These were the same hoboes, who it will be noted had not as yet wandered far from the physician’s home. You remember, too, their characteristic names,—Buzby Biggs and Saxy Hutt. Lazy, shiftless, dirty, rugged of frame, thieves and unmitigated pests, they were straggling through this part of Maine, in mortal dread of two afflictions,—work and a bath. They were ready to suffer harsh treatment and privation rather than submit to either.
Mike’s sensitiveness revolted at sight of them, but before he could turn away, both of the men, who must have heard his approach, raised their heads and looked toward him. Hutt, who was smoking the pipe, slowly rose to his feet, stretched his arms over his head, and beckoned with his grimy forefinger.
“Welcome, my lord!” he called in his husky voice; “wilt thou not come into our baronial castle and partake of a flagon of wine with us?”
The grotesqueness of the invitation appealed to Mike and he walked forward, recalling that he had not his buckthorn cane with him. Had he gone for a tramp through the woods he would have held it in his hand, but it was in his way when using the canoe. He never carried firearms, for to do so is to disobey one of the strictest rules of the Boy Scouts, besides which, as you know, an Irishman believes in the use only of nature’s weapons, with the addition perhaps now and then of a stout shillaleh. Not that Mike Murphy expected any trouble with these men, but the thought which came to him was natural under the circumstances.
He approached in his confident fashion, with a grin on his face, halted a pace or two from the fire, and with the couple examining him, made the Boy Scout salute.