From under the snow in the dismantled shed he unearthed a smaller frying-pan and two steel traps, and slung these with a string through handle and chains across his shoulder. Then he took up the gun and was ready.
"I guess this'll see me through," he said lightly.
Old Asa gazed at him through dimmed eyes. "No, you must take a blanket, Mose," he said. "I won't hear no for an answer—you must! There's plenty more for us. If they ain't, we can git more. They're cheap as dirt. And Mose," the old man rose from his chair as he spoke, "I was a-goin' to ask you to sing for me afore you went, but I—I guess we'd better let that go till we meet again. You'll be all right in the woods——"
"Why, I know twenty places," put in Mose, "where I'll be as snug as a bug in a rug. I'll make straight for a deer yard. Mebbe"—he chuckled at the thought—"I'll be bringing you in some venison some o' these nights. Prob'ly I'll hang it up on a tree—the old butternut by the fork—so't Job can come out and git it in the mornin'. And in the spring—why you must come in the spring and—and be with me in the woods."
The old man's strength had waned once more, and he seated himself.
"Mebbe," was all he said, in a dubious voice, and with his head bowed on his breast.
He did not lift his head, when Mose shook hands with him; he did not raise his glance to follow him, either, when, with the traps and frying-pan clattering about his neck, Mose let himself out by the shed door and was gone.
He did not even seem to hear when, two or three minutes later, the reverberating crack of revolver shots—one! two! three! four! five!—set the echoes clamoring all around the Whipple house.
CHAPTER V.
THE DEPUTY MARSHAL.
As soon as Job Parshall heard the sound of firearms outside the Whipple cabin, he darted to the nearer of the front windows, scratched away some of the thick frost from one of its panes, and put his eye to the aperture.