"A good chap," said Jim. "Known Peter this many a year. Good master, eh, Joe?"
"None better," came the prompt answer. "They treat me as if I were a son. He's used to this tracking?"
"He's a good man, you may say," agreed Jim. "But he don't often track men—moose perhaps, and a bear sometimes. This Hurley'll be a different matter."
"Now, Joe, jest you get right off to bed," commanded George, who seemed to take almost a paternal interest in our hero. "By sunrise to-morrow you'll be feeling fine, and you'll thank me."
That the advice was good there was little doubt, and since Jack supported it with vehemence, Joe obeyed, though he felt far from sleepy. Indeed, he was almost too excited to be that; for, recollect, the events of the day had been sufficiently rousing for a youth of his age and experience. He had been engaged in a desperate struggle with a bully, with a man who would have killed him with pleasure, and who, in fact, did his best to bring about that ending. And now he and his friends were in chase of the murderer. He, Joe, was away in the wilds of Canada, in the backwoods, with the open sky above him, about to Sleep beneath it for the first time in his life. He drew a blanket which Jack had brought round his body, and lay down on a bed of spruce that Jim had cut. And there for a while he lay without movement, his eyes blinking at the glowing embers of the fire. A little later his head dropped lower, while the men chatting in low voices round the fire heard his sonorous breathing.
"Good plucked 'un, him," remarked Jim, pulling his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stem at the recumbent figure. "There's many as would have backed out of that 'ere ruction and left Tom to fend for hisself. He's the sort we want in this country. A chap as can put up a fight with a murderer double his size can face the troubles that come to all colonists. Pass the 'bacca, Jack. I came away in such a hurry that I've none."
"Do you know his history?" asked Jack Bailey after a while, when they had smoked silently for some few minutes, the smoke from their pipes ascending into the cool evening air and mingling with that from the fire where it met the leaves overhead. "He's a better sort—one of the better class in England."
"As you can see," agreed George. "Heard anything of him, Jim?"
"Jest this," came the answer. "There's a man named Fennick as was close handy to me this five years back. Well, seems he came out with Joe, and they write to one another every now and again. In fact, this Joe's going along to join him one of these days as soon as he's learned farming. Fennick just swears by the lad; says as he organized a band of volunteers on the way out when the ship got afire, and helped to fight the flames. So Joe ain't fought a murderer only; that's why I agreed as he was a good plucked 'un. Now I'm fer bed; most like we shall have a hard day of it ter-morrer. I know Mike; he's a boy fer pushing ahead. There's nothing tires him. Gee! I wouldn't wonder if we was in fer a hairy sort of time on this business. Joe are likely to come up agin trouble beside which his fight with Hurley warn't nothing."
Peace reigned over the slumbering camp within half an hour. The watchful stars glowed down upon the little band and seemed to guard them. Slowly the hours drew along towards morning, when the pursuit of the murderer would be taken up in earnest. And which one of the band could say what sort of experience awaited them? Perhaps Jim would be right. It was more than likely that Joe might find himself plunged into a conflict beside which his fight this day was a mere scrimmage. But whatever the prospect might be, it did not disturb his slumbers. Joe hardly so much as turned till the first rays of a brilliant sun streamed into his eyes on the following morning.