For there were other guests at the farm; a party of prospectors going north into the woods to locate timber for the next season’s cutting. These would be glad of Pierre’s company and help, and would pay him “the going wages.” But they would not return by the route he had come, though by leaving theirs at a point well north, he could easily make his way back to the island.
“So you shot the poor moose for nothing. You cannot even have his horns,” said Adrian, reproachfully. “Well, as soon as I can vote, I mean to use all my influence to stop this murder in the forest.”
The strangers smiled and shrugged their shoulders. “We’re after game ourselves, as well as timber, but legislation is already in progress to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of the fast-disappearing moose and caribou. Five hundred dollars is the fine to be imposed for any infringement of the law, once passed.”
Pierre’s jaw dropped. He was so impressed by the long words and the mention of that, to him, enormous sum, that he was rendered speechless for a longer time than Adrian ever remembered. But, if he said nothing, he reflected sadly upon the magnificent antlers he should see no more.
Adrian’s affairs were, also, speedily and satisfactorily arranged. Farmer Donovan would willingly take him to the nearest stage route; thence to a railway would be easy journeying; and by steam he could travel swiftly, indeed, to that distant home which he now so longed to see.
The parting of the lads was brief, but not without emotion. Two people cannot go through their experiences and dangers, to remain indifferent to each other. In both their hearts was now the kindliest feeling and the sincere hope that they should meet again. Pierre departed first, and looked back many times at the tall, graceful figure of his comrade; then the trees intervened and the forest had again swallowed him into its familiar depths.
Then Adrian, also, stepped upon the waiting buckboard and was driven over the rough road in the opposite direction.
Three days later, with nothing in his pocket but his treasured knife, a roll of birch bark, and the ten-dollar piece which, through all his adventures, he had worn pinned to his inner clothing, “a make-peace offering to the mater,” he reached the brownstone steps of his father’s city mansion.
There, for the first time, he hesitated. All the bitterness with which he had descended those steps, banished in disgrace, was keenly remembered.
“Can I, shall I, dare I go up and ring that bell?”