XIII. AUNT JANE
PETER approached the shanty-boat cautiously but there was no sign of danger. Indeed, finding Buddy gone, the five men who had come to the boat were quite satisfied to get Booge. Four were but little interested in helping Briggles pick up a small boy, and nobody wanted Peter, but Booge, being a tramp and having assaulted a bearer of a court order, was a desirable capture. Booge, when he felt reasonably sure Peter had reached safety, ended his half-joking parley abruptly, and said he was willing to accompany his captors in peace. He was satisfied he would not be given much more than six months in the county jail for the assault, and six months would carry him through the winter, into good, warm, summer weather. There was nothing to be gained by a struggle against five men except more trouble.
Once more in his cabin, Peter put Buddy to bed in the dark, and ate his much delayed supper. Buddy seemed to take the flight as a matter of no moment. Flights, he probably thought, were a part of every small boy's life, and he dropped asleep the moment he was tucked in the bunk. Peter, however, did not sleep. He had much to think over. When an hour had elapsed he lighted his lamp, knowing it could not be seen from any distance, and set to work preparing to leave the boat forever. He had few portable belongings worth carrying away. What food was left he made into a parcel. He cut, with his jack-knife, strips from one of his blankets to wind about his legs, and sliced off other pieces in which to tie his feet, for his shoes were thin and worn through in places. He cut a hole in the center of what was left of the blanket, making a serape of it for Buddy. Later he cut a similar hole in the other blanket for himself. All Buddy's toys he stored away under the bunk, with his shotgun. Then he baked a corn cake and stowed pieces of it in his pockets. He was ready for his flight. His sister Jane should afford a refuge for him and the boy.
Long before sunrise he awakened Buddy and fed him, ate his own breakfast, tied his feet in the pieces of blanket and left the shanty-boat. They were two strange looking objects as Peter worked his way down the slough, taking care to avoid the snow patches and keeping to that part of the ice blown clear by the wind. Peter had dressed Buddy and himself for comfort and not for show. The blue serape enveloped Buddy and hung below his feet as Peter carried him, and both Peter and Buddy had strips of blanket tied over their heads to protect their ears. Peter, in his own gray blanket, tied about the waist with seine twine, looked like an untidy friar, his feet huge gray paws.
A quarter of a mile below the shanty-boat Peter turned and crossed the island, and, issuing on the other side, the whole broad river lay before him. It was still dark as he began his long tramp across the river, and on the vast field of ice it was frigidly cold. There the wind had a clearer sweep than in the protected slough, and one could understand why Peter had risked the return to the boat for additional garments after having once fled from it. The wind carried the snow in low white clouds, lifting it from one drift to deposit it in another, piling it high against every obstruction on the ice. Without their blanket serapes it would have been impossible for Peter, hardened as he was, to withstand the cold of the long journey he had planned.
For a quarter of a mile, after leaving the island, Peter had to struggle over the rough hummocks that had been drift ice until the river closed, but beyond that the going was smoother. In places the ice was so glassy that he could not walk, but had to slide his feet along without lifting them. The wind cut his face like a knife and the blowing snow gathered on his eye lashes, and Buddy grew heavier and heavier in his arms. He could have carried him all day pickaback, but he did not dare risk that mode lest he slip and fall backward on the little fellow. His arms and back ached with the strain, but still he kept on, making straight across the river, and not until he had passed the middle did he set Buddy down. Then, believing he was beyond the jurisdiction of an Iowa court order, he rested, sitting flat on the ice with Buddy in his lap.
“I can walk, Uncle Peter,” said Buddy.
“Uncle Peter will carry you awhile yet, Buddy,” said Peter. “By and by, when he gets tired again he'll let you walk. Uncle Peter is in a hurry now.”