Tom thanked her somewhat awkwardly for her thoughtfulness, hoisted his lumpy pack to his shoulders again and scrambled slowly across the brush-fence. He turned on the other side.
“Perhaps I’ll be able to tell you—to show you, some day—to prove to you—what I think of your kindness—and you,” he said.
Then he turned and vanished in the underbrush; and the girl turned and went back to the house, thoughtful but happy.
Mick Otter and Tom made two camps, one on the western end of Pappoose Lake and the other seven miles away to the northwest, on Racquet Pond. The first was nothing more than a lean-to, walled with woven brush and roofed with the tarpaulin. The second was built of poles chinked with moss—four walls broken by a doorway and a tiny window-hole. In the middle of the mossy floor lay a circular hearth of stones; and directly above the hearth, in the sloping roof of poles and sods, gaped a square hole.
Mick Otter was proud of the Racquet Pond camp—but Tom didn’t think very highly of it. Having completed the camps to the old Maliseet’s entire satisfaction, they set the lines of traps—five traps in the vicinity of Pappoose Lake and five around Racquet Pond. For three weeks they made the lean-to their headquarters; and in that time Tom made half a dozen visits to Gaspard Javet’s farm; finding that everything was right there and that nothing more had been seen or heard of Ned Tone.
The last week of October was one of miserable weather. A heavy frost had frozen the swamps and driven the woodcock south; and this was followed by days of chilly rain—rain so exceedingly chilly that it sometimes fell in the form of hail. It was in this time of discomfort that Mick Otter suggested the removal of headquarters to Racquet Pond. He said, very truthfully, that the farther camp was warmer and drier than the lean-to and that the farther line of traps had already beaten the Pappoose line by three mink and a fox.
“Do pretty good with ten traps on Racquet,” he said.
“Take the traps, if you want to,” replied Tom, “but I stay right here until something happens.”
So Mick moved alone, taking his blankets, the kettle and frying-pan, some of the grub and two traps along with him. Bad as the weather was, Tom immediately set out for the clearings, to borrow another pan and another kettle. He spent a very pleasant evening with Catherine and her grandfather.
Tom was to recall that happy and comfortable evening often before spring. Catherine was as frankly friendly as ever—but the old man’s attitude toward him was not quite as usual. It was as friendly as ever, but different. Tom caught the old man gazing at him several times with an expression of new interest, curiosity and wonder in his searching eyes.