“Nothin’ like makin’ yourself to hum,” he remarked, “and that there blaze does go to the right spot—no, to the right spots, by ginger! for those clothes o’ mine must ’a’ been leakin’ all over. My notion is, we’re mighty lucky to be right here this minute. Tell you a house comes in mighty handy when you need one. By the way, Varley”—he paused briefly—“by the way, I s’pose these boys told you how once this crowd was amazin’ glad to put up at old Calleck’s shack.”
“I’ve heard something about it,” said Paul, “but not the whole story.”
Lon was grinning reminiscently. “Like this case it was, some ways—other ways ’twa’n’t. Blizzard caught us that time, and now it’s a flood. Both times, though, we needed fire and a roof—generally do in these parts, ’less it may be for a month or so in summer. So old Calleck’s ruin seemed mighty good to us. This house’s a reg’lar palace ’longside of it. But what’d you expect? Old Calleck was a queer coot, that went away from other folks to build a place in the woods, while Dominie Pike cleared his place in the woods to kind o’ encourage other folks to come in and settle. And some folks do say this must be jest the spot where the Dominie and the Indian had their big run-in. But then likely’s not you’ve all heard that yarn.”
“We haven’t!”
“Tell us!”
“Fire ahead!”
Lon grinned again. No doubt he was well pleased to see his plan to draw the boys’ thoughts from their plight bearing results.
“Wal, way the story’s handed down’s about like this: The Dominie was an explorer, and he worked in here ahead of the settlers. But for all he knew the ways of the woods, he was plumb lost when he came to Sugar Valley. And one reason he’d missed his bearin’s was that for two-three days he’d been kinder bothered by a notion somebody was doggin’ his track. Funny part was, he couldn’t be sure—that is, he couldn’t get a squint at the critter he sensed was after him. And, bein’ the man he was, the Dominie didn’t let the huntin’ go all on one side. He turned to and hunted the hunter, which was what we’d call a sporty proposition, but helped to mix him up. Course, if he hadn’t been bothered, he could ’a’ found the road back; but bein’ a lot bothered, he was as good as lost, for the time bein’. And so one night he was bivouackin’ out in the open, right along here, I guess; and bunkin’ close to a big tree and keepin’ one eye open and maybe both ears listenin’—well, after a while, he was surer than ever that t’other party was mighty clost. Now, the Dominie wasn’t the citizen to make trouble walk its legs off comin’ to meet him. He started for the half-way point or better, with his old flintlock primed and ready to do business. There was a big moon, and when he came to a nat’ral meadow, he could see ’most as plain as day. And all of a sudden he did see something. An Injun was stealin’, stealthy like, out of the opposite edge of the woods. Just as the brave cleared the cover, though, something else shot like a growlin’ streak off the limb of a tree, and in a jiffy there was the pootiest Injun-panther fight you ever heard of.
“The Dominie’s gun jumped to his shoulder—that was what you’d call instinctive, I guess. Then he run forward. Way things were, he didn’t feel like wastin’ powder and ball—took time, remember, to charge up them old shootin’ irons. Then something mighty queer happened.
“The big cat was chain lightnin’, but that Injun wa’n’t so slow himself. He’d half ducked the panther’s spring, though he’d caught a clawin’ doin’ it; and the cat had overshot, as you might say, and was crouchin’ for a second spring when it sighted the Dominie. For about a second it was a three-cornered puzzle, with the Dominie with his gun at his shoulder, and the Injun trainin’ his artillery for action—yes, he had a gun, too—and the panther switchin’ its tail and makin’ up its mind whether it’d jump for the white man or the red. And the brave’s gun was a-swingin’ as if he wa’n’t quite clear whether he’d better pot the brute or the white man. Now seein’ these things, as the Dominie seen ’em, there’s some folks as ’d kept that Injun covered, anyhow, sayin’ as how the scrap was his to begin with. But that wa’n’t Dominie Pike’s way. Sot in his notions, the Dominie was; and one of them was that he’d rather shoot wild beasts than humans. So he put a ball through that panther’s head, and took his chances o’ the red brother collectin’ his scalp. Which he didn’t—as this house, which the Dominie built years afterward, shows.”