“Going home with Pop!” she kept repeating. “Going to see Smoke and Beelzebub and—Pop and I’ll go hunting and get that moose.”
“That moose” was a huge bull that had been haunting the outskirts of Lost Farm, seen by Avery on his rounds to and from the traps, and mentioned to Swickey in the letter which had preceded his arrival in Tramworth to take her home for Christmas.
With snowshoes slung over her shoulder, she reappeared in the sewing-room, laughing happily at Miss Wilkins’s expression of pleased surprise.
“You look like a regular—exploress, Nanette.”
“I’m Swickey, now, till I come back,” she replied. “And I’m ready, Pop.”
Avery donned his coat and muffler and shook hands with Miss Wilkins. She followed them to the door, beaming with the reflection of their happiness.
“Good-bye. Don’t catch cold. And do be careful, dear.”
Cameron drove over from the hotel and they climbed into the sleigh, Avery on the seat with the teamster, and Swickey, bundled in blankets, sitting back to them in the rustling straw. The horses plunged through the roadside drift and paced slowly down the main street of Tramworth. Swickey reached under the seat and found the parcel her father had spoken of. “It’s from Dave, but I wonder what’s in it?” She drew off her glove and picked a small hole in the paper. Another layer of paper was beneath it. She broke a hole in this and disclosed a wooden box. It was long and narrow and its weight suggested metal. “I know!” she exclaimed. “It’s the rifle Dave wrote about.” She hugged the package childishly, whispering, “My Dave! and just for my own self.”
Through the silent outskirts they went, the team trotting at times, then walking as the town road merged imperceptibly into the forest trail. The big horses arched their necks and threw their shoulders into the harness as the deep snow clogged the runners of the sleigh. Sometimes the momentum of the load carried them down a short pitch, the sleigh close on the horses’ heels. Cameron talked almost constantly to his team, helping them with his voice, and at each “spell” he would jump down, lift their feet and break out the accumulated clogs of snow. Avery swung his arms and slapped his hands, turning frequently to ask Swickey if she were warm enough.
The long, gloomy aisle winding past the hardwoods in their stiff, black nakedness, and the rough-barked conifers planted smoothly in the deep snow, their cold brown trunks disappearing in a canopy of still colder green, crept past them tediously. The sleigh creaked and crunched over snow-covered roots, the breathing of the horses keenly audible in the solemn silence, as their broad feet sunk in the snow, and came up again, the frozen fetlocks gleaming white in the gloom of the winter forest.