During the afternoon Young Dan visited four traps on the eastward line. He found a mink in one and nothing in the others, and left all alike sprung and harmless. He did not travel as briskly as usual, for he did not feel very spry. The exertions of the day before had slowed and stiffened even his elastic sinews a little. His spirits were high, however, thanks to the mental relief due to the arrival of Pete Sabatis. Pete solved the problem which had frozen his immediate actions. With Pete’s help, everything seemed possible now: Andy would have his medicine, the Conley woman and children would be looked after, Jim Conley’s suspicious activities would be investigated and one line of traps, at least, would be kept in operation. Apart from all this, the Maliseet promised to be an entertaining companion. Young Dan had felt a liking for him at the first sound of his voice and a keen interest in him at the first glimpse of his patched eye. His arrival had been as dramatic as it was opportune; his greeting of and reception by old Andy Mace had been decidedly picturesque; his Puckish humor was as unusual as his appearance. In short, he made a strong romantic appeal to the young trapper.
“He’s queer, like some of the folks in those stories,” reflected Young Dan. “Queer as the queerest of them, but real, too—more real than any of them. And he’s all right. Andy says so.”
Young Dan exploded two cartridges that afternoon. The bullet of each knocked the head off a partridge. Upon his return to camp he skinned the birds in half the time it would have taken him to pluck them, and fried them for supper with a little pork. After supper he made a map of the route to Andy Mace’s house and explained it at length to Pete Sabatis. All three retired early to their blankets.
Pete Sabatis was the first to leave the camp next morning. He carried food and tobacco in his pockets, a note from Young Dan for Amos Bissing, the map of the route, the key to Andy’s door, and his rifle and blankets. He moved off swiftly, with the reddening dawn on his right-front, leaving an azure trail of smoke on the still air.
“It’s lucky for us that he turned up when he did,” remarked Young Dan to his partner, as he made up a modest parcel for the Conleys of tea and flour and two tins of condensed milk. “Did he come looking for you, or was it just chance?”
“He’ll tell us what he come for when he’s good an’ ready, an’ not a minute sooner, Young Dan,” answered Andy. “Maybe he come all the way acrost from Tobique to see me, but I reckon that ain’t likely. How would he know if I was alive or dead any more’n I knowed if he was alive or dead? It was chance landed him right here at this camp, anyhow, for all he ever knowed about my whereabouts was that I hailed from the Oxbow—an’ that was twenty year ago. But we won’t fret ourselves about why he’s here or why he come. He is here, an’ he’s a danged good Injun, an’ that’s enough for us.”
Young Dan took the northern track, which led crookedly to the Conley cabin. He inspected the traps to the right and the left as he advanced, bagged a fox and left all sprung and harmless behind him. He reached the Conley cabin before noon and found Mrs. Conley chopping wood beside the door. She said that Jim was off somewhere attending to his traps.
“I don’t want to see him,” said Young Dan. “I came to bring these few things for you and the children, from my partner and me, because we know that he didn’t bring much grub back from the settlements with him.”
He entered the cabin without removing his snowshoes and placed the parcel of provisions on the table. The woman followed him, undid the parcel and thanked him. She seemed nervous.
“How d’ye know Jim didn’t fetch in any grub?” she asked.