Andy Mace paused to relight his pipe.
“Talk,” said Pete Sabatis. “Too much talk. You lemme tell how that happen, so we don’t set up all night. Pretty soon we come to one little clearin’ in the woods, with one log shanty on him. We go to door an’ open him an’ step inside. There we find the folk I look for a’right. Andy Mace look at them like he don’t know nothin’ at all—an’ so he don’t. I push him back on the door till it shut an’ give him the gun. Then I take one step acrost at that half-breed man, an’ the woman grab somethin’ from the wall back of him and BANG—an’ Pete Sabatis don’t know nothin’ else for quite a spell.”
“I cal’late I’m tellin’ this story!” interrupted Andy. “Young Dan ain’t got a notion what yer talkin’ about. He’s smart, but he’s only human. Why, he don’t even know yet who them folks was an’ what you had come to see them about.”
“An’ you didn’t, neither,” retorted Pete. “So after long while I open one eye an’ feel mighty sick. They got me in the bunk then, with head all tie up an’ brandy inside me, an’ Andy Mace an’ them two lookin’ down like they think I don’t never open one eye any more, maybe. Then that woman, who is my daughter, say, ‘I shoot out your eye. What for you come here, anyhow?’ Then I say, ‘You shoot my eye clear out, hey?’ Andy say then, ‘You got only one eye now, Pete, an’ that’s gospel.’ Then that woman, my papoose one time, say, ‘You come to kill Pierre, so I shoot quick.’ I feel mighty sick, you bet, for that pain in my head an’ the think how I got only one eye left, but I pretty near laugh.”
“That’s right!” exclaimed Andy Mace. “He come about as nigh to laughin’ real hearty then as ever I see him, durn his old leather face. Ye see, pardner, that squaw, Pete’s daughter, had made a mistake. Her husband, that there halfbreed, Pierre, had stole fur on Pete years before, till Pete had chased him out o’ the country. But they’d come sneakin’ back that winter, an’ Pete had heard about it an’ studied on it. He didn’t like that feller, Pierre; but he figgered out as how he’d go look the two of ’em over an’ kinder give them his blessin’ an’ some money if he seen that Pierre was doin’ right by his wife, who was Pete’s own daughter. An’ his daughter up an’ shot an eye out o’ him before he could say ‘howdy’. An’ what d’ye reckon Pete Sabatis done then, Young Dan? He sez, ‘Pretty good breed, that Pierre, if she like him so darn much still—an’ he give them some money an’ said how he was glad to see them back in the Tobique country even if he had only one eye to see them with.’ And next day he snowshoed back to Howard Frazer’s camp. That’s how he lost his eye, twenty-four years ago this winter; an’ now there’s five of us who know about it instead of only four. An’ he quit choppin’ for only two days after gittin’ back to camp. That’s the sort o’ man Pete Sabatis is!”
“Talk, talk, talk! That’s the kind of feller Andy Mace is,” said the Maliseet, winking his only eye at Young Dan very deliberately.
Young Dan was greatly impressed by the story of Pete’s just temper and amazing physical stamina. He said so. Then, at Andy’s request, he read a story of the wizard of Harley Street. Andy interrupted the narrative frequently, but the Maliseet listened in keen silence.
“It couldn’t be done, nohow,” said Andy, at the conclusion of the tale. “The devil himself couldn’t of worked it out like that.”
“Maybe,” said Pete. “I dunno.”
Young Dan left the camp bright and early next morning with his uncle’s rifle, axe and blankets, a pack of fine furs and grub enough to last him to Bean’s Mill. He pushed along steadily all day and slept in a hole in the snow that night. He crossed the river well above his father’s farm and gave it and the village at the Bend a wide offing. He reached the outskirts of the settlement of Bean’s Mill about noon and dined well beside his own fire in a thicket of young spruces before appearing to the settlers. Then he went straight to Luke Watt’s store.