The machine was brought together bit by bit, from this hiding-place and that. The little engines were assembled and tested. The car was put together and the engines were fastened in place. Gaspard and Mick, and even Catherine, could scarcely believe their dizzied eyes when the little engines first turned the thin blades of the propeller over, and then over and over until nothing was to be seen of those blades but a gray vortex into which they had dissolved and out of which roared a wind that threatened to blow the barn inside-out. The noise of that wind frightened fur folk great and small miles away and sent crows cawing and flapping out of distant tree-tops. It almost stunned the secretive squaw with terror—for I think her conscience was not quite at ease; and it even distressed Catherine. But Catherine was not feeling up to the mark at this time. She had caught a slight cold, she thought; so she drank a little ginger-tea and said nothing about it.
One evening in the first week in May an Indian came to the house and asked if his squaw and pappoose were here and, if so, how they were getting along. He looked an honest and somewhat dull young man and complacent beyond words.
“You Gabe Peters from Tinder Brook,” said Mick Otter.
The visitor nodded. Then Mick took him by an elbow, backed him to the threshold of the open door and talked to him swiftly in the Maliseet tongue. The other replied briefly now and then. Mick became excited. His excitement grew by leaps and bounds; and at last he turned Gabe Peters of Tinder Brook completely around, kicked him from the threshold into the outer dusk and shut the door with a bang.
Gaspard and Tom were stricken voiceless with amazement by Mick Otter’s treatment of the visitor. Catherine seemed scarcely to notice it, however. Mick turned from the door and went straight to the girl, where she sat close to the stove.
“You go to bed,” he said. “Take plenty medicine an’ go to bed darn quick.”
She protested, but without much spirit.
“Go to bed!” cried the old Maliseet, violently.
The girl stood up and moved toward the steep stairs. Tom hastened to her, took her hands and looked at her closely.
“What is it, Cathie?” he asked. “Your hands are hot, dear.”