CHAPTER IV
THE HEAVIEST HITTER
Akerley lay awake for hours on a blanket spread on a mattress of innumerable springs—a ton or more of last year’s timothy, bluejoint and clover. He had air enough, though it was still and warm; for one of the wide doors stood open and the fingers could be thrust anywhere between the horizontal poles of which the sides and ends of the barn were constructed. Only the roof was weather-tight.
His thoughts kept him awake; and yet he let them deal only with the immediate past and the immediate to-morrow. He did not think backward or forward beyond this forest-farm. What was the use of brooding over the past or dreaming of the future? After much reflection, he decided on the character in which he was to emerge from the woods into the clearing and encounter that formidable old Gaspard Javet. He would come as a backwoodsman from the upper waters of the main river, two hundred miles or more away to the west and south, looking for new land and seclusion. He had known that country well, years ago. This was a part that he could act with a degree of interest and realism; and he would explain it to the old man—sooner or later, as circumstances determined—that the game-wardens of his old stamping-grounds wanted him in connection with a little matter of spearing salmon at night by the light of a torch. The confession of a crime against the Game Laws was not likely to prejudice the old woodsman against him; and this was a particularly mild offense. He knew enough of back-countrymen to believe that his story would excite Gaspard’s sympathy—if Gaspard were true to type.
He worked out his part carefully, giving all his thought to it until he considered it to be as nearly perfect as was possible to bring it before the actual performance. He saw that certain details of character and action would have to be left until the illumination of the psychological moment. As the thing had to be done, it must be well done—with all his brain, all his will and all his skill. If not, then it was not worth attempting. This was the spirit in which he had set his hand and mind to every task, congenial or otherwise, in the lost past. Success had been won by him again and again in this spirit; and though the task before him was but a play, a game, the stakes for which he was to play were serious enough to give it the dignity of a great adventure. The stakes were honor and freedom.
Still he did not sleep. Invention seemed to have agitated his mind. He continued to keep his thoughts within the former limits of time, but he could not soothe them to rest. They made pictures for him of every one of his waking hours since his first awaking among the young oats in the gray dawn. He heard mice rustling in the hay and scampering on the rafters. At last he slept. He awoke sharply at the first hint of dawn. He continued to lie still for a little while, recalling the details of his plan of action for the new day. Then he donned the ancient and rustic garments which Catherine had brought him and hid his own shirt and breeches. His high, moccasin-toed boots were in part with his new character. He hid his wrist-watch and identification disc, then took up his bundle and left the barn. He made his way swiftly and cautiously to the nearest point of woods and, behind a screen of saplings, to the road. He followed this road toward Boiling Pot for several miles through the awakening forest. Here and there, in swampy hollows, he encountered mud-holes and intentionally stepped into them. By the time he sat down on an old stump and lit his pipe he looked as if he had come a long and rough journey.
He had not been seated more than ten minutes when his reveries were disturbed by the appearance of a large young man with an axe on his shoulder and a pack on his back. The stranger came into view suddenly and close at hand, around a bend in the track from the direction of Boiling Pot.
He halted abruptly at sight of Akerley.
“Good day,” said Akerley, coolly.
“Where’d you come from?” exclaimed the other.
“I’m a stranger in these parts,” returned Akerley; “and what I want to know is, where’ve I got to?”