Tom Akerley / His Adventures in the Tall Timber and at Gaspard's Clearing on the Indian River

by Theodore Goodridge Roberts

“It was Tom himself who flew down from the sky that night,” she said, speaking quickly. “You would have shot him if you had found him before I did. But as soon as he knew you, he wanted to tell you—but I wouldn’t let him, I honestly thought you would kill him even then, Grandad.”

“Not after I knowed ’im, Cathie. I was queer—but knowin’ that lad, an’ workin’ longside ’im an’ talkin’ to ’im made me feel happier an’ put the thoughts o’ that devil outer my head. An’ now the police are huntin’ that lad—not the game-wardens, but the police!”

“You knew, before I told you, Grandad. You found out about Tom to-day. Where have you been?”

“I’ve bin studyin’ on it fer quite a spell now; an’ when I was forkin’ over some hay in the north barn this mornin’ I come on a queer contraption that kinder put me wise. So I went over to Ned Tone’s camp; an’ the both of ’em was still settin’ thar eatin’ breakfast. So I sez, ‘All ye lads ’ill ever catch in these woods is a cold’; an’ after a little chat about the law I sez, ‘Ye seem almighty wrought up about a salmon. That’ll be an all-fired costly fish by the time ye catch Tom Anderson, I reckon.’ Then they up an’ told me how Tom’s name is Akerley an’ how he’s wanted by the police an’ the military for worse things nor spearin’ a salmon.”

“I’ll tell you all about that, Grandad,” said the girl; and she told him.

“And it was all my fault that he told you that story about losing his canoe below Boiling Pot and about spearing salmon—because I told him that you would shoot him for a devil if he didn’t make up a story—and so you would have,” she concluded.

“Ye’re right,” said Gaspard, deeply moved. “I was ignorant—but I’ve larned a lot since Tom come to these clearin’s. How was I to know that men can fly in the air, like birds—onless Old Nick himself had his finger in it? But it seems they can; an’ if Tom done it then I ain’t got nothin’ to say agin it—but it do seem like temptin’ Providence. An’ soldierin’ in the air! That do seem to me a mite presumptuous—a flyin’ ’round an’ fightin’ in the sky, like the angels o’ the Lord!”

Catherine went up to her room, and returned in a minute with Tom’s service jacket. She explained the rank badges and the decoration and medal ribbons to the old man. He recognized the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor; and he had frequently heard from his son-in-law the story of how Major MacKim had won that white and gold cross in the Crimea. Then Catherine told him about the Military Cross, and what the war medals signified—the ’14-15 Star, the General Service and the Victory.

“Tom fought on the ground before he fought in the air,” she said—“before he knew how to fly, even. He was a lieutenant in a cavalry regiment that went over without its horses with the First Canadian Division and fought in the trenches as infantry—a regiment of Seely’s brigade. When our cavalry was sent out of the line to get its horses—that was after Currie had taken command of the division—Tom joined the Flying Corps, because he thought that the mounted troops wouldn’t get much fighting. That was in the winter of Nineteen-Fifteen; and since then he flew and fought all the time, except when he was in hospital, until the end of the war.”

“An’ now this here detective, an’ this here bully from B’ilin’ Pot, figger on catchin’ him an’ havin’ the law on him—fer hittin’ a fat feller who named his dead friend, who died fightin’ in France, a coward!” exclaimed Gaspard, in tones of rage and disgust. “Whar’s the sense or the jedgment or the decency in that, I’d like to know? An’ him still jumpy when he done it from flyin’ round an’ round ’way up in the sky a-shootin’ at them Germans an’ them a-shootin’ at him! Law? Show me law that ain’t got reason nor decency nor jedgment in it an’ I’m dead agin it! What does Ned Tone know about shootin’?—’cept shootin’ off his mouth an’ pluggin’ bullets into moose an’ sich that can’t shoot back? I don’t know Seeley nor Currie, nor never heared of ’em before, but I know that lad Tom; an’ ye kin tell me all ye want to about that war, Cathie. I’d be glad to larn about it, for I reckon I be kinder ignorant an’ behind the times.”