"I didn't know he had another pair of snow shoes," he said. "Still, it is quite a time since I have seen him—a number of weeks. I came down in the early November snow. He is not far away or he would have taken his rifle. Probably setting a few fresh poison-baits after the storm."
They heard the sweep of a low wind. It often came at night after a storm, usually from off the Barrens to the northwest. Something thumped gently against the outside of the cabin, a low, peculiarly heavy and soft sort of sound, like a padded object, with only the log wall separating it from the bunk. Their ears caught it quite distinctly.
"Tavish hangs his meat out there," the Missioner explained, observing the sudden direction of David's eyes. "A haunch of moose, or, if he has been lucky, of caribou. I had forgotten Tavish's cache or we might have saved our meat."
He ran a hand through his thick, grayish hair until it stood up about his head like a brush.
David tried not to reveal his restlessness as they waited. At each new sound he hoped that what he heard was Tavish's footsteps. He had quite decidedly planned his action. Tavish would enter, and of course there would be greetings, and possibly half an hour or more of smoking and talk before he brought up the Firepan Creek country, unless, as might fortuitously happen, Father Roland spoke of it ahead of him. After that he would show Tavish the picture, and he would stand well in the light so that it would be impressed upon Tavish all at once. He noticed that the chimney of the lamp was sooty and discoloured, and somewhat to the Missioner's amusement he took it off and cleaned it. The light was much more satisfactory then. He wandered about the cabin, scrutinizing, as if out of curiosity, Tavish's belongings. There was not much to discover. Close to the bunk there was a small battered chest with riveted steel ribs. He wondered whether it was unlocked, and what it contained. As he stood over it he could hear plainly the thud, thud, thud, of the thing outside—the haunch of meat—as though some one were tapping fragments of the Morse code in a careless and broken sort of way. Then, without any particular motive, he stepped into the dark corner at the end of the bunk. An agonized squeak came from under his foot, and he felt something small and soft flatten out, like a wad of dough. He jumped back. An exclamation broke from his lips. It was unpleasant, though the soft thing was nothing more than a mouse.
"Confound it!" he said.
Father Roland was listening to the slow, pendulum-like thud, thud, thud, against the logs of the cabin. It seemed to come more distinctly as David crushed out the life of the mouse, as if pounding a protest upon the wall.
"Tavish has hung his meat low," he said concernedly. "Quite careless of him, unless it is a very large quarter."
He began slowly to undress.
"We might as well turn in," he suggested. "When Tavish shows up the dogs will raise bedlam and wake us. Throw out Tavish's blankets and put your own in his bunk. I prefer the floor. Always did. Nothing like a good, smooth floor...."