Herb, turning back at that minute to wait for his party, experienced a shock of curiosity which was new to him, at seeing the three in close counsel, shouldering each other upon a trail a couple of feet wide.
But the sensation passed. Dol for once was not guilty of an indiscretion, waking or sleeping. The woodsman got no hint of what matter had been discussed until more than two weeks later, when he stood in the main street of Greenville, beside a tanned, muscular, newly shaven trio, waiting for their departure for Boston.
A few pleasant days, marked by no particular excitements, had been spent at the log camp on Millinokett after that wonderful trip into the forests of Katahdin. Then the weather turned suddenly blustering and cold; and Cyrus, as captain, ordered an immediate forced march to Greenville.
Under Herb’s guidance that march was made with singularly few hardships. He managed to hire a “jumper” from a new settler who had a farm a couple of miles from their camp. This contrivance was a rough sort of sled, formed of two stout ash saplings, and hitched to a courageous horse. The “jumper’s” one merit was that it could travel along many a rough trail where wheels would be splintered at the outset. But since, as Herb said, it went at “a succession of dead jumps,” no camper was willing to trust his bones to its tender mercies. However, it answered admirably for carrying the tent, knapsacks, and trophies of the party, tightly strapped in place, including Neal’s bear-skin, which was duly called for, and the moose-antlers, more precious in Dol’s sight than if they had been made of beaten gold.
Thus the campers journeyed homeward with their backs as light as their spirits, caring little for the chills of a couple of nights spent under canvas and rubber coverings.
Two gala evenings they had,—one with Uncle Eb in his bark hut near Squaw Pond, where they were regaled with a sumptuous supper, for “coons war in eatin’ order now;” and the second with Doctor Phil Buck at his little frame house near Moosehead Lake.
Dear old Doc was as ever a power,—a power to welcome, uplift, entertain.
The campers sought him immediately on their arrival at Greenville; and he stood by them while Cyrus made a full statement before the local coroner about the death and burial of the half-breed, Chris Kemp, the Farrars and Herb confirming what was said with due dignity.
But dignity was blown to the four winds by the very unprofessional and very woodsman-like cheer that Doc raised, and that was echoed thunderously by Joe Flint and a few other guides and loungers who had collected to hear the story, when Cyrus described the splendid rush which Herb made, with the dying man in his arms, and the clay of the landslide half smothering him.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t near to try and do something for the poor fellow,” said the doctor, later on, when his friends were gathered round a blazing wood-fire in his own snug house. “But I doubt if I could have helped him. I guess he was born with the hankering for whiskey, and when that is in the mongrel blood of a half-breed it is pretty sure to wreck him some time. We must leave him to God, boys, and to changes larger than we know.”