Flora Ducat was in the kitchen again within fifteen minutes of Jim's departure. She cleared the table, pausing frequently to listen as if she expected to hear something at the door. When all signs of Jim's breakfast were removed and the table was reset, she banged the stovepipe with the iron spoon. Then she went to the door and opened it. The dogs came bounding in. She closed the door behind her and stood motionless in the biting cold for half a minute, listening and gazing westward over the lightening wastes of snow and forest. There were shadows in her eyes, and her lips trembled pitifully.
Breakfast that morning was an unhappy experience for Flora.
"Ain't Jim been called yet?" asked her mother. "Maybe he's all tuckered out with his snowshoein' yesterday an' would like to eat in bed. Well, he can if he wants to."
"He has gone out," said the girl. "He had something to eat before he went, I guess."
"An' took his snowshoes an' rifle along!" exclaimed the observant Grandfather Ducat. "What's eatin' 'im? He ain't fool enough to strike out for Kittle Pond all by himself, I hope. He's left the new traps behind, anyhow. Jist out a-cavortin' round on his snowshoes for the good o' his health, like as not. Ye can't ever tell what these outsiders will do next."
The morning passed, but James Todhunter did not return. Investigations on the part of old Hercules Ducat disclosed the fact that bacon, flour, tea, bread, sugar, blankets, and Peter's compass were missing. From this he deduced the theory that Jim had gone forth with every intention of making a long journey; and if a long journey, what journey but northward to Kettle Pond and his partner? He explained it all at dinner.
"Reckon that's easy enough," he concluded triumphantly.
"A fool could see it," remarked Grandfather McKim.
Three o'clock came and brought Sheriff Hart in a yellow pung behind a long-gaited gray. The sheriff threw the buffalos over the gray and entered the kitchen before the grandfathers had a chance to get outside to welcome him and to insist on stabling the horse; for Bruce Hart, being a fair man and a kindly one who never exceeded his duties and frequently gave ear to the spirit rather than the letter of the law, was personally popular and usually accepted with resignation in his official capacity. After the workmanlike dispatch of his entrance and a swift professional glance around the kitchen, his attitude relaxed. He shook hands with Mrs. Ducat, with the old man, and with Flora, and asked after the healths and whereabouts of Sam and Peter and Mark and the young man from the States—all with the politest and most sociable air. Mrs. Ducat told him of Peter's rheumatism and Sam's departure for the woods and Mark's venture away up in the Kettle Pond country.
"There'd ought to be fur a-plenty up that way," said the sheriff, laying aside his coon-skin coat and accepting a rocking chair. "Young Todhunter's Mark's partner, so I hear. He bought some traps from Mel Hammond. Is he round anywheres handy now?"