“Caw, caw, Billee, Billee!” Mike was quite beside himself with enjoyment as he watched the angry cook pick up the fallen clothes, which he was too wise to rehang while the black rascal was at liberty. Besides, many of them must be returned to the tub.
“I’ll blow your blasted head off, that’s what I will!” shouted the cook furiously as he disappeared in the cabin with the last of the wash. In a moment he was out again with a shotgun in his hands. Walter grabbed Pat by one arm. “You’re not going to let him shoot, are you, Pat?” he asked in real alarm.
Pat chuckled. “Don’t yez worry about Moike,” he said. “’Tis not fer nothin’ Oi named him Crafty. He knows a gun as well as Oi do, an’ just how far it will carry.”
The cook was now sneaking toward the pine, apparently quite unconscious that he was all the time in plain view of his would-be victim. Mike waited until he was half-way there, then spread his wings. The cook threw up the gun and blazed away with both barrels, though the range was hopelessly long, while Mike’s derisive, “Caw, caw, Billee, Billee!” floated back from the shelter of a thick clump of hemlocks beyond.
“But won’t the cook get Mike when he comes back?” Walter asked with real concern.
“Moike won’t come back to-night unless Oi call him,” replied Pat. “’Tis a woise burrd he be afther bein’! Whin Oi go in Oi’ll tell cookie how much the byes will enjoy th’ joke whin they come in. He’ll shware a bit an’ thin he’ll be afther beggin’ me not to say a wurrd about it. Oi’ll promise if he’ll promise to lave Moike alone, an’ that’ll be th’ ind av it till nixt toime.” It was evident that Pat and Mike knew their man and were wise with the wisdom of experience.
“Moike is a great burrd,” continued Pat. “He’s as full av tricks as a dog is av fleas, an’ th’ wurst thafe in three counties, bad cess ter him. He’d shtale th’ shmoile off yez face if it was broight enough an’ he could pry it loose. He’d follow me into th’ prisince av th’ saints. Oi have ter shut him up whiniver Oi lave th’ camp or, glory be, he’ll be taggin’ along an’ mebbe gettin’ me in all sorts av throuble. But Oi love th’ ould rascal just th’ same.”
At Pat’s mention of Mike’s thieving proclivities a startling thought flashed into Walter’s mind. Had he at last found the long lost clue?
“Pat,” he broke in abruptly, “did Mike ever follow you to Woodcraft?”
Pat scratched his head in an effort to remember. “Oi couldn’t say,” he replied. “Oi think loikely, fer there’s few places he hasn’t followed me.”