When it was over Charlie thawed out still more, and his black eyes twinkled as he looked over his acquisitions.
“Tom, you good fellow. Say, I show you how to trap. You git heap mink here.”
Charlie kept his promise. He stayed three days, looked the field over, and gave Tom quantities of concise expert advice where to set his traps and what bait to use. He expounded deadfalls to him—how to lay blood trails along a trap line, how to stretch and cure the pelts properly. Altogether his instructions were worth almost as much as his traps, and during his stay Tom caught another mink and two muskrats. The boys grew to be great friends in those days, and then Charlie collected his property again and launched his canoe.
“Bo’ jour, Tom!” he said. “You good fellow. I see you again some time, mebbe.”
He went off down the stream, the red and green tie fluttering over his shoulder. Tom hated to see him go. The old barn by the lake seemed doubly lonesome now, but the visit had given him the dose of fresh courage he needed to carry out his enterprise.
CHAPTER III
THE FISH SHARP
It rained all the next day—a cold, dismal rain that was enough to depress anybody’s spirits. The fire sizzled and smoked, sending choking clouds into the old barn, where Tom had to keep under cover. He employed himself in putting a better edge on the broken ax, and in trying to reharden some of the old nails he had gathered. Before another rain could come, he decided, he would construct some sort of shed over his fireplace, so that it would be water-tight.
Getting out the old boards from the rear of the barn, he put up a partial, rough partition so as to make a room about fifteen feet square near the door. Almost destitute of tools, he made a poor job of it, but it helped to pass a dreary day. When the rain slackened once or twice he made brief excursions into the wet woods with his rifle, returning once with a partridge and once with a rabbit. In the bad weather the game lay close and was not shy.
But the next morning the weather had turned mild and sunny and seemed likely to stay so. Visiting his traps late in the afternoon, he found two minks in the steel traps, and a muskrat under one of the deadfalls. He was greatly encouraged and prepared the pelts with the utmost pains, according to Indian Charlie’s directions.
Cold as the rain had seemed, yet it brought the spring. The birches on the ridge began to be shrouded in a mist of pale green, the maples showed crimson buds, and the patch of struggling grain in the old clearing began to come on vigorously. Apparently it was autumn rye, and Tom began to look at it with more interest. It would be yet another small source of profit, if he stayed to harvest it.