Ted chose to walk, for he had been doing a great deal of serious thinking and had changed many of his ideas. Running a successful resort, or even a successful camp, involved a great deal more than just being a gracious host. In any city, or even any town, such a camp probably wouldn't rent at all because it was so radically different from what urban residents had come to expect in their dwellings. But it fitted the Mahela, and for a short time each year, it would be appreciated because it offered a refreshing change from conventional living. But there was still more involved.
Few people wanted to get into the out-of-doors merely for the sake of being there. The place must offer something, and beyond any doubt the Mahela's prime attraction was its deer herds. But nobody, regardless of whether he was running Crestwood or renting camps, could hope to make a living just from the three-week deer season alone. He would also have to lure all the small game hunters and all the fishermen he could, and if he didn't lure them honestly, they'd never come back. It stood to reason that nobody who lived a couple of hundred miles from the Mahela could know what was taking place there. They must be kept informed, and Ted wished to walk now because he wanted to judge for himself whether or not there would be a worthwhile flight of woodcock.
The birds might be anywhere at all. Ted had flushed them from the very summit of Hawkbill. But as a rule they avoided the thickest cover and haunted the streams, bogs and swamps because they found their food along stream beds and in swamps. With Tammie trailing happily beside him. Ted followed the course of Spinning Creek.
He flushed two woodcock from a sparse growth of aspens and watched them wing away and settle on the other side of the creek. Then he put up a single and, farther on, a little flock of five. In the clearing, almost at the camp's door, another single whistled away and dropped near Tumbling Run. That made nine woodcock between the Harkness house and the camp. Definitely it was not a substantial flight and no hunter should be advised to come to the Mahela because of them. But there were more than there had been.
A doe and two spring fawns were nosing about the apple trees. Bears had been climbing the same trees, leaving scarred trunks and broken branches in their wake. Black bears, of which there were a fair number in the Mahela, would come almost as far for apples as they would for honey. But they came only at night and did a lot of damage when they climbed the trees. However, these tough apple trees had been broken by bears every year they'd borne a crop and they'd always recovered. They'd recover again, and Ted supposed bears had as much right as anything else to the apples. He grinned. The fruit was gnarled and wormy, but it was a woodland delicacy and woodland dwellers competed for it as fiercely as a crowd of undisciplined children might compete for a rack of ice-cream cones.
Ted walked all around the camp, saw nothing amiss and unlocked the door. He pulled the hasp back, went in—and saw Tammie's pack lying under the table. Momentarily alarmed, he stopped. Only one person could have left the pack! He picked it up and thrust his hand into a side pocket. He found and pulled out a page torn from the pad of paper he'd inserted in the pack and read the penciled note.
Dear Ted; I was cuming to see you last nite. Tammy met me a sniff from the dor and I snuck up and saw Calhan. Gess he wants to see me rite enuf but I don't want to see him!
Hope taking Tammy's pak don't throw you off.
I can get along a good spel with the stuf in the pak and wudcok seson cuming on. I've saw a mess of flite wudcok. Don't send Tammy agen without you know it's safe and send him after midnite. I won't be so far away he can't get to me and bak. Watch Calhan. He's sharp.
Your dad
P.S. I got the kyote.
Ted heaved a mighty sigh of thanksgiving. Al had the pack's contents and there were three blankets missing from the camp. For the first time, the dark clouds that surged around the boy revealed their silver lining. Al was still a fugitive, but he had enough to eat and he was sleeping under blankets. It seemed a great deal.
Ted read the note again and smiled over it. A hunted outlaw, Al was still abiding by the principles in which he believed. He might have been justified in killing game for food, but the reference to woodcock season indicated that he had done no such thing. Possibly—Ted remembered that he had his coyote traps—he had caught a bobcat or so. The season was never closed on bobcats and, if one could overcome natural squeamishness, they were really delicious eating. Ted lifted the stove lid, put the note within, applied a lighted match, waited until the paper burned to ashes, then used the lid lifter to pound the ashes to dust.
He looked fondly at Tammie, who had been nowise derelict. Ordered to go to Al, he had done exactly that and it was none of Tammie's doing if Al had been within a "sniff" of his own back door.