Gaspard had worked about the barns all that morning. Ned Tone and the detective had returned to the house at noon. They had immediately asked questions: Had the man who called himself Tom Anderson gone away alone? Did he know these woods? When had they seen him last? Was he alone then? Had he provisions and a rifle?
Catherine had smiled at these questions and Gaspard had scowled at them. Neither had made the least pretence of answering them. Then Ned Tone had blustered and spoken in a large, loose manner of the might of the law; and old Gaspard Javet had confronted him with bristling eye-brows, flashing eyes and quivering whiskers and threatened to throw him out of the house. Then the stranger, the detective, had said, “Don’t lose your temper and do anything rash, old man. I represent the Law here.”
“Prove it!” Gaspard had retorted.
The other had opened his inner coat and displayed a metal badge. Gaspard had sneered at that, and had said, “I warn the two of ye right here an’ now to git out o’ my house an’ off my land. I reckon ye don’t know who I am, stranger. If I fight my own battles agin the likes of Ned Tone an’ yerself, it ain’t because I hev to; an’ if I was to do a mite o’ shootin’ meself it wouldn’t be because I had to. This here Law ye talk about wasn’t made jist so’s ignorant, no-count lumps like yerself an’ Ned Tone can clutter up an honest man’s kitchen. Clear out, or there’ll be some shootin’ now—an’ maybe some law later.”
The man-hunters had gone reluctantly out into the storm and built themselves a camp half a mile away. They had brought in with them blankets, and enough provisions to last them ten days, from Boiling Pot.
“Do you think that was wise, Grandad?” Catherine had asked.
“It was right, anyhow,” the old woodsman had replied. “We ain’t hidin’ Tom. He went off with Mick Otter to trap fur, didn’t he; an’ if they don’t know Mick’s along with him that’s thar own look-out. If any harm ever comes to Tom, it won’t be my fault—nor yers either, I reckon.”
For two days after the expulsion of Ned Tone and the detective from the kitchen, Catherine and Gaspard saw nothing of those unwelcome invaders; and during that time the old man talked a great deal in a very truculent manner of what he would do if they crossed his threshold again; and how he would have handled Ned Tone in his prime; and what would happen to them if they did catch Tom and Mick Otter; and what in thunder the world was coming to, anyhow. It was loose and careless talk for so stiff and elderly a person—but it warmed Catherine’s heart to hear.
On the third day Gaspard left the house immediately after breakfast, rifle in hand as usual, and did not return until close upon one o’clock. He stood the rifle in a corner and sat down to his dinner without a word. He ate in silence, looking at the girl frequently with an expression of accusing inquiry in his deep-set eyes.
“What is the matter?” she cried, at last. “Why do you look at me like that, Grandad?”