“Harrigan, Smeaton and Company is doin’ fine—doin’ fine,” he said, as he unsprung the fifth trap and shoved its victim into his bag. “Got enough fur here to keep us in booze a week, and ole Hoss Avery is payin’ for it, or if he ain’t payin’ for it, he’s losin’ it—the ole white pirut.”
Smeaton’s dislike for Avery had no tenable foundation, save that Harrigan hated the old man and it was natural for “Red” to follow Harrigan’s lead. Fisty had befriended Smeaton when he was able to do so, and now that Fisty’s fortunes were on the wane, Smeaton held unwaveringly to his boss, with a loyalty worthy of a bigger cause and a better man.
Harrigan was wont, when in liquor, to confide the Lost Farm secret to Smeaton, with many mysterious allusions to “doing for certain folks that stood in his way,”—all of which Smeaton digested with drunken gravity until he became inoculated with the idea that he, too, had a grudge against the Lost Farm folk. From Camp “Fifteen-Two” to Avery’s “line” was a comparatively short journey. Harrigan had suggested pilfering the fur, and Smeaton promptly acted on the suggestion by making cautious rounds of the traps. Twice he had gathered in Avery’s lawful spoils, and this trip was the third. He approached the end of the “line” with considerable hesitancy, peering through the trees as he shuffled toward No-Man’s Lake, at the head of which Camp “Fifteen-Two” lay hidden in the towering pines of Timberland Mountain.
“Here’s where my tracks fur ‘Fifteen’ don’t go no furder,” he muttered, dropping the bag and unlacing his snowshoes.
Tying them to the pack, he swung the load to his shoulders, stepped to the lake, and skirted the edge of the timber, keeping on a strip of bleak, windswept ice that left no trail. As he came to a little cove where the wind had banked the snow breast-high round its edges, he climbed to a slanting log and began to cross it. Halfway over, and some six feet from the frozen lake beneath, he slipped on the thin snow covering the log. He tottered and almost regained his poise when a chip of bark shot from beneath his foot and he fell, striking the frozen lake with the dead shock of his full weight, the bag and snowshoes tumbling beside him. Dazed, he turned to get up, but sank to his face with clenched teeth and a rasping intake of breath. He lay still for a few seconds and then tried again. His right leg, on which he had fallen, dragged and turned sideways unaccountably. He drew the bag to him and propped himself against it. Carefully he felt down his leg. A short distance below the hip it was numb, while above the numbness it pained and throbbed horribly.
“She’s bruk—damn it. If I holler, like as not ole Hoss’ll come sky-hootin’ along and finish the job, and I wouldn’t blame him at that. Can’t drag myself furder than the shore in this snow, but I’ll do time that fur anyhow.”
Painfully he pushed the bag ahead of him and crawled toward the trees, his face ghastly with the anguish that made him, even in his distress, a caricature of suffering. His red hair stuck stiffly from beneath the visor of his cap, and his freckled face became grotesque as his features worked spasmodically.
He made himself as comfortable as he could and, with the sang-froid of the true woodsman, lit his pipe and smoked, planning how best to attract attention to his plight, “A fire might fetch the boys. Yes, a fire—”
The faint c-r-r-ack of a rifle sounded from somewhere over Timberland Mountain way. Then came an almost palpable silence following the echoes. He raised on his elbow. A speck appeared on the opposite shore of the lake, moved swiftly down it a short distance, and then shortened as it swung in his direction. It grew larger until he was able to distinguish the wide horns and twinkling legs of a moose, as it came unswervingly across the frozen waters, directly toward him. Larger and larger it grew until he could see the wicked little eyes and the long ears distinctly.
“By gravy! He’s a-comin’ right in at the front gate. Reckon I’ll have comp’ny in no time or less’n that. He’s hit somewhere, but not bad—he’s travelin’ too stiddy. Mostly scared.”