There seemed to be something else involved and Ted could find no precise bracket in which it fitted. It concerned the grouse he'd held in his hand, the cool morning breeze, the view from Hawkbill, his father—everything Ted loved and held dear.
His mind was a whirlpool in which nothing at all was clear except that he could not shoot the two bucks for Thornton. It would be as easy to shoot Tammie—his lips formed a sick grin at that thought! Yesterday his dreams had been bright as bubbles in the sun. Today all the bubbles were burst. There wasn't the faintest possibility of getting a job at another resort for the simple reason that there was no other resort.
Of course, if he left the Mahela—But he couldn't do that either.
Ted was a half mile from their house when he saw Al's tobacco pouch lying beside the road. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. Obviously his father had been here—probably he'd been scouting mink sign along Spinning Creek and had walked back up the road—and he was forever losing his pouch. But somehow somebody always found it and brought it back to him.
Ted tried to put a spring in his step and a cheerful smile on his lips. A man faced up to his own troubles and did not inflict them on other people. He tried to whistle and succeeded only in hissing.
He was a hundred yards from the house when Tammie, who'd caught his scent, hurried to meet him. Sleek fur rippling and short ears jiggling, he advanced at the collie's lope, which seems so restrained and is so incredibly fast. Tammie came to a graceful halt in front of Ted and looked at him with dancing eyes.
"Hi, dog! Hi, Tammie!" Ted ruffled his head with a gentle hand as Tammie fell in beside him. Plucking the tobacco pouch from his pocket, he gave it to the collie. "Here. Take it to Al."
The tobacco pouch dangling by its drawstrings, Tammie streaked up the road. Disdaining the drive leading into the house, he cut through the woods and disappeared. Ted squared his shoulders, tried again to whistle—and succeeded. His father must be home. When Ted was working and Al went out, Tammie always went with him.
Ted turned up the drive and was halfway to the house when Tammie came flying back to meet him. They went to the shed in the rear; Al would be working. Ted peered through the open door and his father, shaping another stretching board, glanced up to greet him.
"Hi, Ted!"