Hammond laughed and smote his knee. His laugh was broken, abrupt, like the yapping of a dog. But it was quite evident to Jim that he was trying to be agreeable.
Wild pastures were passed, and miles of forests, and occasional cultivated and inhabited clearings. Hammond had little to say, but he continued to be as agreeable as his mood and nature permitted. The last mile of the fifteen winding between Covered Bridge and Millbrook was taken by the big grays at a thumping trot.
CHAPTER III
PIPER'S GLEN
There were queer people in Piper's Glen on Racket River—queer by the confused and materialistic standards of more populous communities, at least. The first settlers in the glen had been Ducats—a Frenchman and his Maliseet wife and three half-breed children. At that time there wasn't another clearing within forty miles of the place in any direction. Later, McKims and McElroys came to the glen, and other settlers to other sections of the river; a mill was built twenty miles lower down, and roads were made. Generations passed. Children grew up and married in the glen, or went away with the river into the great world, and died eventually in either case. Ducats married McKims and McElroys and folk from neighboring settlements. Once upon a time there were seven dwellings in Piper's Glen—but that was at the height of its prosperity. It was situated too far from the river to attract people from outside or hold all of its own folk, and too much of its acreage stood too nearly on end for easy or profitable farming. Agriculture was neither arduously nor scientifically followed there. Potatoes and buckwheat were grown sufficient for home consumption, and in winter the men went into the woods, some to chop timber in the camps of big and little "operators," and others to trap fur and kill wild meat.
Young Melchior Hammond from Millbrook visited the Ducats whenever he came to the glen, and that was as often as he could slip away from his father and his father's business. The senior Hammond was not only a storekeeper but a money-lender, and his methods were devious. Melchior became popular with the Ducats, despite his parentage. He was a simple youth, taking his character from the spindle side; and yet he was not without spirit, although not a "white-water boy." He disapproved of his father's dealings with the needy and easy; and when far enough away from home, particularly when in Piper's Glen, he was wont to state his disapproval frankly. He never came to the glen without a pocketful of cigars for old Hercules Ducat and old Archie McKim, and a box of candy for Flora Ducat; and he never refused to sit into a game of cards with Peter and Uncle Sam and Mark Ducat, though it was known to all that Amos Hammond looked upon a pack of cards as fifty-two admission tickets to hell. To be caught by his father in the act of ruffling a deck would cost Melchior his home and his inheritance, and yet the young man never refused to sit in at forty-fives or black-jack or poker under the Ducat roof, though he was seldom a winner. But he did not give all his time in Piper's Glen to the playing of cards. He devoted part of it to conversation with Flora.
It was easy to see that Melchior Hammond, like several others of the young men of the district, thought Flora Ducat much to be admired. Also, her brother Mark was man to be cultivated. Title of Cock of the River was a revered one in that part of the country.
CHAPTER IV
THE ROAD TO PIPER'S GLEN
Millbrook joins Racket River from the west, and the village of Millbrook lies about the junction of the two streams. The mill from which the brook derives its name was built by an early settler, generations ago, and is now no more than a broken wall of masonry on a bank, and a few slimy, silted timbers beneath the brown water showing where the dam has been. It had been a gristmill, but now no wheat is grown in that country and the settlers buy their flour in barrels from Amos Hammond and haul their buckwheat to Covered Bridge to be ground.