“If you catch him on the groun’ why you don’t shoot him, hey?” asked Mick. “You make a’mighty noise ’bout shootin’ him one time.”
“An’ Mick Otter laughin’ all the time at pore old Gaspard Javet for a durn ignorant old fool. Well, I don’t blame ye, Mick, I’d hev laughed meself to see me a-devil-huntin’ all the time, with my rifle handy an’ the devil mowin’ grass at my elbow or totin’ the old duck-gun ’round helpin’ me to hunt himself.”
“So you know!” exclaimed Tom, getting quickly to his feet and staring anxiously at the old man.
Gaspard made a long arm across the table.
“Lay it thar, lad,” he said, “Thank God I didn’t know when the vainglorious madness was on me, when I was that et up with the pride o’ my wild youth an’ present piety that I reckoned on havin’ a reel devil sent to me for to wrastle with—for I like ye, lad.”
“Me, too,” said Mick Otter. “You pretty big feller on these woods, Tom, you bet. Gaspar’ like you too much for to shoot, an’ Mick Otter like you; an’ maybe Cathie like you, too, one day, now Ned Tone go ’way with policeman chasin’ him, what?”
Both old men gazed quizzically at the girl with their bright, kindly eyes. She smiled a little, looked squarely at the swarthy round face of the Maliseet, then at the bewhiskered visage of her grandfather, blushed suddenly and deeply, and then said,
“I like him much more than either of you do—or both of you together; and he knows it.”
Then Mick Otter actually chuckled; and as for Gaspard Javet, his delighted laughter filled the room. And Catherine and Tom joined in the old man’s mirth, but with an air of not quite seeing the joke. Gaspard became silent at last and helped himself to a second piece of mince pie.
“She never told me before,” said Tom, very red in the face and short of breath. “Not like that. And I—well, you know how it has been with me—and still is, to a lesser degree. I had to keep how I felt under my hat—more or less, I mean to say—as much as I could. She knew all the time, of course. Didn’t you? How I felt, I mean—and that sort of thing. But as things were with me—and still are, I suppose—well, I had to lie doggo. What I mean is, I was a fugitive from justice. Only honorable thing to do, you know. But now that you’ve seemed to notice it, and have mentioned it, I feel myself at liberty to say that when I fell into this clearing I fell for her, for you, I mean for Cathie. First time I saw her, anyhow; and it has got worse—more so, I mean to say—ever since. But I always wished that you knew the truth about me, Gaspard—for I didn’t like pretending, and I wanted you to know that I was—that I wasn’t just a breaker of game-laws—what I mean to say is, I wanted you to know that I have fought bigger things than Ned Tone. I have been happier ever since I landed to your light than ever before in my life, and—and now that I know—well, I hope that I shall never again be chased out of these clearings.”