Tug Blackstock sat on a log, smoking and musing, on the shore of that
wide, eddying pool, full of slow swirls and spent foam clusters, in
which the tumbling riot of Brine's Rip came to a rest. From the mills
behind him screeched the untiring saws. Outstretched at his feet lay
Jim, indolently snapping at flies. The men of the village were busy in
the mills, the women in their cottages, the children in their schools;
and the stretch of rough shore gave Tug Blackstock the solitude which
he loved.
Down through the last race of the rapids came a canoe paddle, and began
revolving slowly in the eddies. Blackstock pointed it out to Jim, and
sent him in after it. The dog swam for it gaily, grabbed it by the top
so that it could trail at his side, and brought it to his master's
feet. It was a good paddle, of clean bird's-eye maple and Melicite
pattern, and Tug Blackstock wondered who could have been so careless as
to lose it. Carelessness is a vice regarded with small leniency in the
backwoods.
A few minutes later down the rapids came wallowing a water-logged
birch-canoe. The other things which had started out with it, the
cushions and blankets and bundles, had got themselves tangled in the
rocks and left behind.
At sight of the wrecked canoe, Tug Blackstock rose to his feet. He
began to suspect another of the tragedies of Dead Man's Run. But what
river-man would come to grief in the Run at this stage of the water?
Blackstock turned to an old dug-out which lay hauled up on the shore,
ran it down into the water and paddled out to salvage the wrecked
canoe. He towed it to shore, emptied it, and scrutinized it. He
thought he knew every canoe on the river, but this one was a stranger
to him. It had evidently been brought across the Portage from the east
coast. Then he found, burnt into the inside of the gunwale near the
bow, the letters J.C.M.W.
"The Englishman," he muttered. "He's let the canoe git away from him
at the head of the Run, likely, when he's gone ashore. He'd never have
tried to shoot the Run alone, an' him with no experience of rapids."
But he was uneasy. He decided that he would get his own canoe and pole
up through the rapids, just to satisfy himself.
Tug Blackstock's canoe, a strong and swift "Fredericton" of polished
canvas, built on the lines of a racing birch, was kept under cover in
his wood shed at the end of the village street. He shouldered it,
carrying it over his head with the mid bar across his shoulders, and
bore it down to the water's edge. Then he went back and fetched his
two canoe poles and his paddles.
Waving Jim into the bow, he was just about to push off when his
narrowed eyes caught sight of something else rolling and threshing
helplessly down the rapid. Only too well he saw what it was. His face
pale with concern, he thrust the canoe violently up into the tail of
the rapid, just in time to catch the blindly sprawling shape before it
could sink to the depths of the pool. Tenderly he lifted it out upon
the shore. It was battered almost out of recognition, but he knew it.
"Poor devil! Poor devil!" he muttered sorrowfully. "He was a man all
right, but he didn't understand rapids for shucks!"
Then he noticed that in the dead man's right hand was clutched a tiny
child's jacket. He understood--he saw the whole scene, and he swore
compassionately under his breath, as he unloosed the rigid fingers.
Alive or dead, the little one must be found at once.
He called Jim sharply, and showed him the soaked red jacket. Jim
sniffed at it, but the wearer's scent was long ago soaked out of it.
He looked it over, and pawed it, wagging his tail doubtfully. He could
see it was a small child's jacket, but what was he expected to do with
it?
After a few moments, Tug Blackstock patted the jacket vigorously, and
then waved his arm up-stream.
"Go, find him, Jim!" he ordered. Jim, hanging upon each word and
gesture, comprehended instantly. He was to find the owner of the
little jacket--a child--somewhere up the river. With a series of eager
yelps--which meant that he would do all that living dog could do--he
started up the shore, on the full run.
By this time the mill whistles had blown, the screaming of the saws had
stopped, the men, powdered with yellow sawdust, were streaming out from
the wide doors. They flocked down to the water.
In hurried words Blackstock explained the situation. Then he stepped
once more into his canoe, snatched his long, steel-shod pole, and
thrust his prow up into the wild current, leaving the dead man to the
care of the coroner and the village authorities. Before he had battled
his way more than a few hundred yards upwards through the raging
smother, two more canoes, with expert polers standing poised in them
like statues, had pushed out to follow him in his search.
The rest of the crowd picked up the body and bore it away reverently to
the court-room, with sympathetic women weeping beside it.
Racing along the open edge of the river where it was possible, tearing
fiercely through thicket and underbrush where rapids or rocks made the
river's edge impassable, the great black dog panted onwards with the
sweat dripping from jaws and tongue. Whenever he was forced away from
the river, he would return to it at every fifty yards or so, and scan
each rock, shoal or sand spit with keen, sagacious eyes. He had been
told to search the river--that was the plain interpretation of the wet
jacket and of Tug Blackstock's gesture--so he wasted no time upon the
woods and the undergrowth.
At last he caught sight of the little fluffy-headed figure huddled upon
the sand spit far across the river. He stopped, stared intently, and
then burst into loud, ecstatic barkings as an announcement that his
search had been successful. But the noise did not carry across the
tumult of the ledge, and the little one slept on, exhausted by his
terror and his grief.
It was not only the sleeping child that Jim saw. He saw the bear, and
his barking broke into shrill yelps of alarm and appeal. He could not
see that the sluice between the sand spit and the bank was an effective
barrier, and he was frantic with anxiety lest the bear should attack
the little one before he could come to the rescue.
His experienced eye told him in a moment that the river was impassable
for him at this point. He dashed on up-stream for another couple of
hundred yards, and then, where a breadth of comparatively slack water
beneath a long ledge extended more than half-way across, he plunged in,
undaunted by the clamour and the jumping, boiling foam.
Swimming mightily, he gained a point directly above the sand spit.
Then, fighting every inch of the way to get across the terrific draft
of the main current, he was swept downward at a tremendous speed. But
he had carried out his plan. He gained the shallow side channel,
splashed down it, and darted up the sand spit with a menacing growl at
the bear across the sluice.
At the sound of that harsh growl close to his ears the little one woke
up and raised his head. Seeing Jim, big and black and dripping, he
thought it was the bear. With a piercing scream he once more hid his
face in his hands, rigid with horror. Puzzled at this reception, Jim
fell to licking his hands and his ears extravagantly, and whining and
thrusting a coaxing wet nose under his arms.
At last the little fellow began to realize that these were not the
actions of a foe. Timidly he lowered his hands from his face, and
looked around. Why, there was the bear, on the other side of the
water, tremendous and terrible, but just where he had been this ever so
long. This creature that was making such a fuss over him was plainly a
dog--a kind, good dog, who was fond of little boys.
With a sigh of inexpressible relief his terror slipped from him. He
flung his arms about Jim's shaggy neck and buried his face in the wet
fur. And Jim, his heart swelling with pride, stood up and barked
furiously across at the bear.
[Illustration: "He flung his arms about Jim's shaggy neck and buried
his face in the wet fur."]
Tug Blackstock, standing in the stern of his canoe, plied his pole with
renewed effort. Reaching the spit he strode forward, snatched the
child up in his arms, and passed his great hand tenderly through that
wonderful shock of whitey-gold silken curls. His eyes were moist, but
his voice was hearty and gay, as if this meeting were the most ordinary
thing in the world.
"Hullo, Woolly Billy!" he cried. "What are you doin' here?"
"Daddy left me here," answered the child, his lip beginning to quiver.
"Where's he gone to?"
"Oh," replied Tug Blackstock hurriedly, "yer dad was called away rather
sudden, an' he sent me an' Jim, here, to look after you till he gits
back. An' we'll do it, too, Woolly Billy; don't you fret."
"My name's George Harold Manners Watson," explained the child politely.
"But we'll just call you Woolly Billy for short," said Tug Blackstock.