“Smart boy. Bill Tangler,” he said at last. “Knows timber and folks, he does; and I larned him purty nigh all he knows about timber. We’ve cruised the woods together months on end, him and me.”
“Will you be my partner, Mr. Mace, and go up to Uncle Bill’s camp with me to trap fur all winter?”
“I sure will, Young Dan. I ain’t got hoof nor claw o’ livestock, and this old house is used to bein’ empty, so I cal’late we’d best start upstream bright and early to-morrow mornin’. I’ll call at yer place about seven o’clock, if that’ll suit ye.”
“It suits me fine.”
“So we’re pardners, you and me. What I got in here will just about offset the camp.” Andy pressed a finger-tip to his forehead. “We’ll figger out the cost o’ grub come spring, and I’ll pay ye my half in good green money. Folks hereabouts name me for a rich miser behind my back, as ye’ve heared with yer own ears like enough, Young Dan; and that’s because I’m a bach, and live in a log house, and let my whiskers grow. Well, boy, they’re dead wrong about me bein’ a miser. I’d smoke ten-cent seegars if they tasted as good to me as a pipe, and it ain’t the cost o’ city life that keeps me from movin’ to Harlow or Centreville or to Noo York. No, sir-ee! I live here like I do because it is the place and the way that suits my tastes; and I’d still do it if it cost me twenty dollars every week. You ask Bill Tangler. We took a ja’nt once to the Sportsman’s Show in Noo York, him and me together. Ask yer Uncle Bill about me bein’ a miser.”
“Folks round here didn’t have Uncle Bill sized up just right, either,” returned Young Dan. “I guess the most of them don’t see much more than what hits them plumb in the eye.”
The old man chuckled delightedly at that.
“Come inside and have a go at my ginger cookies,” he invited. “I’ve been makin’ ginger cookies nigh onto a hundred years, off and on, and now I just naturally turn out the best ye ever tasted.”
By the time Young Dan started on his homeward journey, which wasn’t until after dinner, he was full of admiration for his partner—not to mention pumpkin pie, Washington pie and ginger cookies.
Old Andy Mace came to the Evans’ place on foot next morning, at the stroke of the hour, with a pack of formidable proportions on his shoulders and a rifle in his hand. He found Young Dan ready for him, with the thin ice broken from the edge of the stream and Bill Tangler’s canoe launched and loaded. Young Dan took the post of honor and effort aft and plied the long pole. They reached Squaw Falls by half-past ten, made the portage, lunched and reembarked by noon. Old Andy Mace took the pole then, for three hours. The water, high and swift, humped itself over submerged mossy boulders. Andy pushed the loaded canoe up steadily and at a good pace, with no more show of effort than an ordinary person would make in cutting tobacco for a pipe. The sun went down before they reached the Prongs. It was night, with stars in the sky and an aching cold over everything, when they unlocked the door of Uncle Bill Tangler’s camp.