And Dick himself?
At present all other feelings were swallowed up in the warmth of gratitude. But that night, as he stood in the dark enclosure in front of the log-house which in summer was ablaze with flowers, he was aware of a little cool spot in the midst of his gratitude. He was ashamed of it, but there it was. For he knew that the hard, steady labour he had to look forward to would be very dull after the idle, gipsy-like life and the freedom to which he had been accustomed.
Ever since that terrible day of their father's death, the Collinson homestead had been home to himself and Stephanie also, and apparently it would be so for some years to come. All this he told himself, as he stood and watched the pale moon of early winter rising behind the trees; but it did not do away with that little cool thought. And he quickly decided that he would take all the pleasures in the shape of sport or travel that came in his way.
It was a cold night; but for some reason, after deciding this, Dick did not feel like facing the kind bright faces in the bright room. He did not know that it had been another step in the lifelong fight between duty and inclination—between the love of wandering that was rampant in his blood and the clear call of quiet, unromantic, unceasing work that lay before him—and that, in the one little lazy, selfish thought, he had lost.
He was roused from his reverie by a fearful clamour that broke out among the farm buildings. All the geese hissed and screamed as if they had another Rome to save, and the hens fluttered and clucked, and squawked after the manner of their foolish kind. Roger hurried out with a shot-gun, and he and Dick ran towards the scene of the tragedy. But they were too late. The fox had already gone, and with him had departed a venerable gander.
"We have got to get you, my friend," growled Roger, "or we shan't have a bird left. And I repaired the fencing myself. Oh, you villain!"
"Let me go to-morrow," said Dick promptly.
The older boy looked at him and laughed, with one of the flashes of insight which sometimes comes to slow people. "I can see you would rather be a mighty hunter before the Lord than a humble tiller of the soil," he said, "and if my father says yes, you might as well catch the thief if you can. But you had better take Peter Many-Names with you."
"Who is he?" asked Dick.
"Well," answered Roger slowly, "he is—himself. An Indian boy about my own age, and the cleverest fellow with a gun or a snare or a paddle that I ever saw. But beyond that—well, he's an Indian, so I don't know anything more about him. He's been round here lately, selling fish. He wraps them in wet leaves and brings them over from the river—the Otonabee, you know. There are a lot of settlers over there now, I 've heard, and I wish we were nearer the river ourselves. Peter has promised to bring mother some fish to-morrow, and if he turns up you ask him to go fox-hunting with you, and you will have good sport after a fashion. His methods are funny, but they 're interesting, and a day in the woods with him is always jolly." So it was arranged that next day, if the Indian arrived, he and Dick were to go and catch the marauding fox.