Putting down his book, Ree looked thoughtfully into Tom’s face.
“Of course,” said he, “John and I have wondered about that—that matter—but we have considered that you had some reason for not talking of it, or telling us what it meant; and it was really none of our business. But I want to say, Tom, that I would rather you would not tell me anything which I must keep from John. He and I—well, you know how we have always been together, and we have no secrets from each other.”
“Bless ye, Ree, lad,” exclaimed the old woodsman, “ye kin tell him all ye please of what I’m goin’ to tell ye. The only reason I don’t talk before him is—he’s so full o’ fun ye know; and ain’t always keerful what he says. I don’t keer when we’re spinnin’ yarns; but this here—it ain’t no triflin’ thing.”
“It’s John’s way. He would not hurt your feelings for anything, Tom.”
The hunter did not answer at once, but buried his face in his hands. Ree could plainly see that some great trouble was on his mind. Presently, however, he raised his head, and with a sigh clasped his hands over his knee.
“Arthur Bridges,” he began, “was as fine a young feller as ever the Colonies produced; an’ excep’ for bein’ a little wild, ye wouldn’t a’ asked to clap yer eyes on a promisin’er chap. It was odd he made up t’ me the way he did, me bein’ old enough to be his father, a’most, but ye see we was both at Valley Forge together, an’ all men was brothers there. We had jist one pair o’ shoes betwist us,—Art an’ me—an’ he wore ’em one day, an’ me the next, an’ so on. When grub was scant, we shared each with t’other, an’ when he got down sick I took keer on him.
“Art tol’ me all about himself then, an’ it was pitiful. His ol’ pap back in Connecticut was as pesky an’ ol’ Tory as ever did the Continental troops a bad turn; but his mother was loyal as anybody could be. She was born an’ bred in this kentry, an’ her husband had come from England; that was just the difference betwixt ’em, to start on. The upshot on it was, that Art believed as his mother did, an’ it was nat’ral as could be that he should run off an’ join General Washington’s army. That is what he did anyhow, an’ his father swore that he hoped the lad would be killed, though his mother was prayin’ for his safety night an’ day.
“Once in a long time Art would get some word from home—always from his mother, tellin’ him to stick true through thick an’ thin an’ all would come right by an’ by. I guess maybe he believed it would, too; but I didn’t ever have much hope on it myself. Bein’ a little wild, as ye might say, Art got wilder yet in the army, though there was always a great love for his mother in him. But he got so toward the last that he hated his father—yes, hated him fearful. Then for a long stretch he didn’t hear nothin’ from home an’ didn’t see anybody as had heard anything about his folks.
“That’s how matters stood when the war was over. He says to me as how he was goin’ home, anyhow, an’ I tol’ him he better do that same. As for me, I was always for rovin’ an’ I lit out for Kaintucky which we was hearin’ was a great place for fightin’ an’ huntin’. So that’s how it come about that Art an’ me parted company.
“I was in Kaintucky an’ ’round thar for more’n four years; some o’ the time with Col. Boone an’ some o’ the time with other chaps. Then I got to longin’ to go back east an’ I went. I wasn’t thinkin’ o’ meetin’ up with Art Bridges again, as I reckoned on him bein’ up in Connecticut all settled down an’ married, prob’ly. But who should I meet up with one day but Art himself, lookin’ wilder an’ more reckless than when I seen him last. He comes up to me and slaps me on the shoulder an’ calls me by name a’most before I knowed him. An’ it did give me a big surprise to see how he had changed; not so much in looks as in his ways. He was that rough like. After a while he tol’ me all about himself, an’ I could a jist cried tears for him like a baby.