The clapboard roof was a scant three feet above the dusty floor of the attic. Stooping, the young man made his way to the bed-tick near the little window. He did not sniff with scorn at his humble surroundings. He had travelled long and far and he had slept in worse places than this. He was drawing off his boots when Striker again stuck his head and shoulders through the opening and laid his roll of blankets on the floor.
"Eliza jist stuck her head out to tell me to shut this trap-door, so's my snorin' won't keep you awake. I fergot all about my snorin'. Like as not if I left this door open the whole danged roof would be lifted right off'm the cabin 'fore I'd been asleep five minutes. Well, good night. I'll call you in the mornin' bright an' early."
The trap-door was slowly lowered into place as the shaggy head and broad shoulders of the settler disappeared. The young man heard the scraping of the ladder as it was being removed to a place against the wall.
He pried open the tight little window, letting a draft of fresh air rush into the stifling attic. Then he sat on the edge of the tick for a few minutes, ruminating, his gaze fixed thoughtfully on the sputtering, imperilled candle. Finally he shook his head, sighed, and began to unstrap his roll of blankets. He had decided to remove only his coat and waistcoat. The sharp, staccato barking of a fox up in the woods fell upon his ears. He paused to listen. Then came the faraway, unmistakable howl of a wolf, the solemn, familiar hoot of the wilderness owl and the raucous call of the great night heron. But there was no sound from the farmyard. He said his prayers—he never forgot to say the prayer his mother had taught him—blew out the candle, pulled the blankets up to his chin, and was soon fast asleep.
He did not know what time it was when he was aroused by the barking of Striker's dogs, loud, furious barking and ugly growls, signifying the presence in the immediate neighbourhood of the house of some intruder, man or beast. Shaking off the sleep that held him, he crept to the window and looked out. The moon was gone and the stars had almost faded from the inky black dome. He guessed the hour with the acute instinct of one to whom the vagaries of night have become familiar through long understanding. It would now be about three o'clock in the morning, with the creeping dawn an hour and a half away.
Suddenly his gaze fell upon a light moving among the trees some distance from the cabin. It appeared and disappeared, like a jack o' lantern, but always it moved southward, obscured every few feet by an intervening trunk or a clump of brush. As he watched the bobbing light, he heard some one stirring in the room below. Then the cabin door creaked on its rusty hinges and almost immediately a jumble of subdued hoarse voices came up to him. He felt for his pistols and realized with something of a shock that he had left them in the kitchen with Zachariah. For the first time in his travels he had neglected to place them beside his bed.
The dogs, admonished by a sharp word or two, ceased their barking. This reassured him, for they would obey no one except Phineas Striker. Whoever was at the cabin door, there was no longer any question in his mind as to the peaceful nature of the visit. He crept over to the trap-door and cautiously attempted to lift it an inch or so, the better to hear what was going on, but try as he would he could not budge the covering. The murmur of voices went on for a few minutes longer, and then he heard the soft, light pad of feet on the floor below; sibilant, penetrating whispers; a suppressed feminine ejaculation followed by the low laugh of a man, a laugh that might well have been described as a chuckle.
For a long time he lay there listening to the confused sound of whispers, the stealthy shuffling of feet, the quiet opening and closing of a door, and then there was silence.
Several minutes passed. He stole back to the window. The light in the forest had vanished. Just as he was on the point of crawling into bed again, another sound struck his ear: the unmistakable rattle of wagon wheels on their axles, the straining of harness, the rasp of tug chains,—quite near at hand. The clack-clack of the hubs gradually diminished as the heavy vehicle made its slow, tortuous way off through the ruts and mire of the road. Presently the front door of the cabin squealed on its hinges, the latch snapped and the bolt fell carefully into place.
He could not go to sleep again. His brain was awake and active, filled with unanswered questions, beset by endless speculation. The first faint sign of dawn, creeping through the window, found him watching eagerly, impatiently for its appearance. The presence of a wagon, even at that black hour of the night, while perhaps unusual, was readily to be accounted for in more ways than one, none of them possessing a sinister significance. A neighbouring farmer making an early start for town stopping to carry out some friendly commission for Phineas Striker; a settler calling for assistance in the case of illness at his home; hunters on their way to the marshes for wild ducks and geese; or even guardians of the law in search of malefactors. But the mysterious light in the woods,—that was something not so easily to be explained.