The Boy, though secretly delighted at this evidence of something like conversion, eyed Jabe doubtfully. He was not sure of the latter’s capacity for the tireless patience and long self-effacement necessary for such an adventure as this.
“Well, Jabe,” he answered hesitatingly, “you know well how more than glad I’d be of your company. It would just about double my fun, having you along, if you were really interested, as I am, you know. And are you sure you could keep still long enough to see anything?”
Jabe would have resented this halting acceptance of his companionship had he not known in his heart that it was nothing more than he well deserved. But the doubt cast upon his woodcraft piqued him.
“Hain’t I never set for hours in the wet ma’sh, never movin’ a finger, waitin’ for the geese?” he asked with injury in his voice. “Hain’t I never sneaked up on a watchin’ buck, or laid so still I’ve fooled a bear?”
The Boy chuckled softly at this outbreak, so unexpected in the taciturn and altogether superior Jabe.
“You’re all right, Jabe!” said he. “I reckon you can keep still. But you must let me be captain, for to-night! This is my trick.”
“Sartain,” responded the woodsman with alacrity. “I’ll eat mud if you say so! But I’ll take along a hunk of cold bacon if you hain’t got no objection.”
On the trail through the ghostly, moonlit woods, Jabe followed obediently at the Boy’s heels. Silently as shadows they moved, silently as the lynx or the moose or the weasel goes through the softly parting undergrowth. The Boy led far away from the brook, and over the crest of the ridge, to avoid alarming the vigilant sentries. As they approached the head of the canal, their caution redoubled, and they went very slowly, bending low and avoiding every patch of moonlight. The light breeze, so light as to be almost imperceptible, drew upward toward them from the meadow, bringing now and then a scent of the fresh-dug soil. At last the Boy lay down on his belly; and Jabe religiously imitated him. For perhaps fifty yards they crept forward inch by inch, till at length they found themselves in the heart of a young fir thicket, through whose branches they could look out upon the head of the 51 canal and the trees where the beavers had most recently been cutting.
Among the trees and in the water, all was still, with the mystic, crystalline stillness of the autumn moonlight. In that light everything seemed fragile and unreal, as if a movement or a breath might dissolve it. After a waiting of some ten minutes Jabe had it on the tip of his tongue to whisper, derisively, “Nothin’ doin’!” But he remembered the Boy’s injunction, as well as his doubts, and checked himself. A moment later a faint, swirling gurgle of water caught his ear, and he was glad he had kept silence. An instant more, and the form of a beaver, spectral-gray in the moonlight, took shape all at once on the brink of the canal. For several minutes it stood there motionless, erect upon its hind quarters, questioning the stillness with eyes and ear and nose. Then, satisfied that there was no danger near, it dropped on all fours and crept up toward the tree that was partly cut through.