“No, Vic, no; my work with you in search of your brother is done, my father’s home now claims my chief care. You are wrong in saying I can do no good here; look round at the wreck and mess. There is much to be done. Now I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll remain here all day and all night too. You will return home and send me the little punt, if it can be spared, for I shall have to row to the outhouses a good deal, and round the house too. As you see, nothing can be done without a craft of some sort. Send Peegwish with it, without Wildcat, she would only be in the way.”
Victor tried to induce his friend to change his mind, but Ian was immoveable. He therefore returned to Willow Creek in the canoe, and sent Peegwish back with the punt—a tub-like little boat, with two small oars or sculls.
Left alone, Ian Macdonald leaned on the sill of a window in the gable of the house, from which he could see the house at Willow Creek, and sighed deeply. “So then,” he thought, “all my hopes are blighted; my air castles are knocked down, my bear-hunting has been in vain; Elsie is engaged to Louis Lambert!”
There was no bitterness in his heart now, only a feeling of profound loneliness. As he raised himself with another sigh, the top of the window tipped off his cap, which fell into the water. He cared little for the loss, but stood watching the cap as it floated slowly away with the current, and compared its receding form with his dwindling joys. The current, which was not strong there, carried the cap straight to the knoll several hundred yards off, on which stood the smoking-box of old Sam Ravenshaw, and stranded it there.
The incident turned the poor youth’s mind back to brighter days and other scenes, especially to the last conversation which he had held with the owner of the smoking-box. He was mentally enacting that scene over again when Peegwish pulled up to the house and passed under the window.
“Come along, you old savage,” said Ian, with a good-humoured nod; “I want your help. Go round to the front and shove into the passage. The doorway’s wide enough.”
Peegwish, who was fond of Ian, replied to the nod with a hideous smile. In a few minutes the two were busily engaged in collecting loose articles and bringing things in general into order.
While thus engaged they were interrupted by Beauty cackling and screaming with tremendous violence. She was evidently in distress. Running up a ladder leading to the garret, Ian found that the creature had forced her way through a hole in the roof, and entangled herself in a mass of cordage thrown in a heap along with several stout ropes, or cables, which Angus had recently bought with the intention of rigging out a sloop with which to traverse the great Lake Winnipeg. Setting the hen free, Ian returned to his work.
A few minutes later he was again arrested suddenly, but not by Beauty this time. He became aware of a peculiar sensation which caused a slight throbbing of his heart, and clearly proved that, although lacerated, or even severely crushed, that organ was not quite broken!
He looked round at Peegwish, and beheld that savage glaring, as if transfixed, with mouth and eyes equally wide open.