“It’s mighty nigh time—you’re right,” said Axel. “When a boss gits crazy ’nough to come at the men he’s hirin’, with a gun, it’s about time to quit. And I’m goin’,” he added, stalking to where his snowshoes were planted in a drift; “and if you dast, shoot ahead while I’m gettin’ ready.”
Harrigan stood watching him as he laced the thongs of his snowshoes. He realized that Axel’s going meant the squelching of his prospects, the unmasking of the find on Lost Farm, and he temporized gruffly.
“You can’t make it by to-night, Barney.”
“Can’t, eh? Well, my bucko, I’m goin’ to.”
He straightened to his gaunt height and shook first one foot, then the other. “Guess they’ll stick.”
Then he swung down the road, passed the men at work, without a word to them, and disappeared in the forest.
The pulse of his anger steadied to a set purpose with the exertion of breaking a trail through the fine-bolted snow which lay between him and the Tramworth “tote-road.” When he came out on the main road, he swung along vigorously. At the end of the second mile he stopped to light his pipe and shed the mackinaw, which he rolled and carried under his arm. It was piercingly cold, but, despite the stinging freshness of the morning, he was sweating. He knew that he must reach Lost Farm before nightfall. He trudged along, a tall, lonely figure, the lines of his hard-lived forty years cut deep in his weather-worn face. The sun rode veiled by a thin white vapor, a blurred midday moon. He glanced up and shook his head. “She’s a-goin’ to snow,” he muttered. From nowhere a jay flashed across the opening ahead of him. Again he stopped and lit his pipe. Then he struck up a brisker gait. The long white miles wound in and out of the green-edged cavern through which he plodded. Click! clack! click! clack! his snowshoes ticked off the stubborn going. He fell to counting. “A dum’ good way to git played out,” he exclaimed. He fixed his gaze on the narrow, tunnel-like opening left by the snow-feathered branches that seemed to touch in the distance and bar the trail, endeavoring to forget the monotonous tick of his snowshoes.
A little wind blew in his face and lifted a film of snowdust that stuck to his eyelashes. He pulled off his mitten and brushed his eyes. There on the trail, where had been nothing but an unbroken lane of undulating white, stood a great brown shape. As Barney tugged at his mitten the shape whirled, forelegs clear of the snow, and Whish! a few shaking firs, a falling of light snow from their breast-high tops, and the moose was gone.
“Go it, ole gamb’l roof!” shouted Barney, as the faint plug, plug, plug, of those space-melting strides died away. Before he realized it he was counting again. Then he sang,—a mirthless, ribald ditty of the shanties,—but the eternal silence swallowed his chant so passively that he ceased.
A film of snow slid from a branch and powdered the air with diamond-dust that swirled and settled gently. Above, a thin wind hissed in the pine tops.