“They know you are Major Akerley—at least, Ned Tone feels sure that you are. He saw an old newspaper in Millbrow, with your story and photograph in it—a copy of the same paper that Mick Otter saw, I suppose. Then he got hold of this detective and brought him in. They reached the clearings about supper-time. They haven’t told Grandad what they want you for, so of course he thinks the stranger is a game warden from the St. John River. Ned Tone showed me the paper and sneered about my new friend who is wanted by the police—but I laughed at him. His idea is that you came down somewhere in the woods and that I didn’t know who you were until he told me—that you had lied to me and fooled me.”
Tom put on his boots and outer coat. He looked at his watch and saw that it was one o’clock in the morning.
“We had better start,” he said. “You won’t get much sleep, as it is.”
“We?” she queried. “You have to pack and go to Racquet Pond and warn Mick.”
“I’ll see you safely home first.”
“But there is no time for that, Tom! You are in danger. You must get away with Mick Otter as soon as possible.”
“I need ammunition for Mick’s rifle, and my leather coat. You must let me go with you—or I’d worry all the time until I saw you again. We really do need cartridges, Cathie—and I don’t think a couple of hours will make any difference. They won’t make a bee-line for Pappoose Lake in the morning.”
So he saw her home; and on the way they decided on the following plan of campaign. Tom was to keep far away from Gaspard’s clearings, in such hidden recesses of the wilderness as seemed best to Mick Otter, for six full weeks. If he and Mick were still at liberty and unmolested at the end of that time, Mick was to pay a cautious visit to the camp on Racquet Pond. There he would find either a blank sheet of writing paper or a sheet of paper marked with a black cross; and the blank paper would mean that they might safely return to the clearings, to the best of Catherine’s belief; and the black cross would mean that the danger was still imminent. Should Mick find the cross, he and Tom would take to the trackless wilds again without loss of time and refrain from visiting Racquet Pond in search of further information until after the middle of January.
CHAPTER VIII
BLACK FORESTS AND GRAY SWAMPS
The house in the clearing was dark and quiet as the grave when Catherine and Tom reached it. Blackie did not bark at them, for he was with them, shivering cheerfully at Tom’s heels from the combination of loyal enthusiasm and chilliness. Catherine entered the house, as silent as a shadow of the night. Tom went to one of the barns and unearthed his wool-lined leather coat and with it on replaced the patched mackinaw of Gaspard’s which he had been wearing. He returned to the house just as Catherine reappeared with twenty-five of her grandfather’s cartridges, half a dozen cakes of his tobacco and a small bag of flour.