In a deserted lumber clearing up Big Shanty Brook a chipmunk skitted
along a fallen hemlock in the drizzle of an October rain. Suddenly he
stopped and listened, his heart, thumping against his sleek coat. He
could hear the muffled roar of the torrent below him at the bottom of
the ravine, talking and grumbling to itself, as it emptied its volume
of water swollen by the heavy rains and sent it swirling out into the
long green pool below.
"Was it the old brook that had frightened him?" he wondered. "Perhaps
it was only the hedge-hog waddling along back from the brook to his
hole in the ledge above, or it might be the kingfisher, who had tired
of the bend of the brook a week before and had changed his thieving
ground to the rapids above, where he terrorized daily a shy family
of trout, pouncing upon the little ones with a great splashing and
hysterical chattering as they darted about, panic-stricken, in the
shallowest places.
"Perhaps, after all, it was only the creaking of a tree," he sighed,
with a feeling of relief. Before he could lower his tail he heard
the sound again--this time nearer--more alarming--the sound of human
voices coming straight toward him.
Then came the sharp bark of a dog. At this the chipmunk went scurrying
to safety along the great hemlock and over the sagging roof of the
deserted shanty lying at its farther end, where he hid himself in a
pile of rock.
There was no longer any doubt. Someone was approaching.
"If Billy Holcomb had only give us a leetle more time, Hite," came a
voice, "we'd had things fixed up slicker'n they be; but she won't
leak a drop, that's sartain, and if this here Mr. Thayor hain't too
pertickler--"
"Billy allus spoke 'bout him as bein' humin, Freme," returned his
companion, "and seein' he's humin I presume likely he'll understand
we done our best. 'Twon't be long now," he added, "'fore they'll git
here."
Two men now emerged into the clearing. The foremost, Hite Holt, as he
was known--was a veteran trapper from the valley--lean and wiry, and
wearing a coonskin cap. From under this peered a pair of keen gray
eyes, as alert as those of a fox. His straight, iron-gray hair reached
below the collar of his coat, curling in long wisps about his ears
after the fashion of the pioneer trapper. As he came on toward the
shanty the chipmunk noticed that he bent under the weight of a pack
basket loaded with provisions. He also noticed that his sixty years
carried him easily, for he kept up a swinging gait as he picked his
way over the fallen timber.
His companion, Freme Skinner, was a young lumberman of thirty, with
red hair and blue eyes; a giant in build; clad in a heavy woollen
lumber-man's jacket of variegated colours. One of his distinguishing
features--one which gained for him the soubriquet of the "Clown" the
country about, was the wearing of a girl's ring in his ear, the slit
having been made with his pocket knife in a moment of gallantry. At
the heels of the two men trotted silently a big, brindle hound.
They had reached the dilapidated shanty now and were taking a rapid
glance at their surroundings.
"Seems 'ough it warn't never goin' to clear up," remarked Hite Holt,
the trapper, slipping the well-worn straps from his great shoulders
and staggering with ninety pounds of dead weight until he deposited it
in the driest corner of the shanty. Then he added with a good-natured
smile: "Say, we come quite a piece, hain't we?"
During the conversation the dog stalked solemnly about, took a careful
look at the shanty and its surroundings and disappeared in the thick
timber in the direction of the brook. The trapper turned and looked
after him, and a wistful, almost apologetic expression came into his
face.
"I presume likely the old dog is sore about something," he remarked,
when the hound was well out of hearing. "He's been kind er down in the
mouth all day."
"'Twarn't nothin' we said 'bout huntin' over to Lily Pond, was it?"
ventured Freme.
"No--guess not," replied the trapper thoughtfully. "But you know
you've got to handle him jest so. He's gettin' techier and older every
day."
Imaginative as a child, with a subtle humour, often inventing stories
that were weird and impossible, this strange character had lived the
life of a hermit and a wanderer in the wilderness--a life compelling
him to seek his companions among the trees or the black sides of
the towering mountains. All nature, to him, was human--the dog was a
being.
The Clown swung his double-bitted axe into a dry hemlock, the keen
blade sinking deeper and deeper into the tree with each successive
stroke, made with the precision and rapidity of a piston, until the
tree fell with a sweeping crash (it had been as smoothly severed as if
by a saw) and the two soon had its full length cut up and piled near
the shanty for night wood.
It was not much of a shelter. Its timbered door had sagged from its
hinges, its paneless square windows afforded but poor protection
from wind and rain, while a cook stove, not worth the carrying away,
supported itself upon two legs in one corner of the rotting interior.
Stout hands and willing hearts, however, did their work, and by the
next sundown a new roof had been put on the shanty, "The Pride of the
Home" wired more securely upon its two rusty legs and the long bunk
flanking one side of the shanty neatly thatched with a deep bed of
springy balsam. Thus had the tumble-down log-house been transformed
into a tight and comfortable camp.
* * * * *
The next morning (the rain over) dawned as bright as a diamond, its
light flashing on the brook below, across which darted the kingfisher,
a streak of azure through the green of the pines--while in a clump
of near-by firs two red squirrels played hide-and-seek among the
branches.
At the first sunbeam the Clown stretched his great arms above his
head, whistled a lively jig tune, reached for a fry pan, and soon had
a mess of pork hissing over the fire. Later on, from a bent sapling a
smoke-begrimed coffee pail bubbled, boiled over, and was lifted off to
settle.
"A grand morning ain't it, Hite?" he shouted in high glee, rubbing his
eyes as he squatted before the blaze. "Yes, sir--a grand mornin'. Them
deer won't hev' time to stop and make up their beds arter the old dog
gits to work on 'em to-day. I'm tellin' ye, Hite, we'll hev' ven'son
'fore night if Mr. Thayor and Billy takes a mind to go huntin'."
"Mebbe," replied the trapper guardedly, "and mebbe we won't. There
ain't no caountin' on luck, specially deer. But it's jest as well to
be ready"--and he squeezed another cartridge into the magazine of his
Winchester and laid the rifle tenderly on its side in a dry place as
if fearful of disturbing its fresh coat of oil.
Suddenly the old dog, who had been watching the frizzling bacon,
lifted his ears and peered down in the basin of the hemlocks.
"Halloo!" came faintly from below where the timber was thickest.
The Clown sprang to his feet.
"Thar they be, Hite!" he said briskly. "By whimey--thar they be!"
The trapper strode out into the tangled clearing and after a resonant
whoop in reply stood listening and smiling.
"Jest like Billy Holcomb," he remarked. "He's took 'bout as mean goin'
as a feller could find to git here." Then he added, "But you never
could lose him."
"Whoop," came in answer, as the tall, agile figure of Holcomb appeared
above the tangle of sumac, followed by a short, gray-haired man in
blue flannel, who was stepping over a refractory sapling that Holcomb
had bent down.
The trapper and the Clown strode clear of the brush and saw for the
first time the man whose home they had been preparing.
Not the Samuel Thayor that Holcomb had talked to during that memorable
luncheon at The Players, when he sat silent among Randall's guests;
nor the Samuel Thayor who had faced his wife; nor the Samuel Thayor,
the love of whose daughter put strength in his arms and courage in
his heart. But a man with cheeks ruddy from the sting and lift of the
morning air; all the worn, haggard look gone from his face.
"Wall, I swan!" shouted the trapper to Holcomb, as he came near enough
to shake his hand, "you warn't perticler 'bout the way you come,
Billy. If your friend ain't dead beat it ain't your fault."
"I hadn't any choice, Hite," laughed Holcomb. "You fellows must have
been drowned out last night; the log over the South Branch is gone
in the freshet; we had to get round the best way we could. Step
up, Freme," he said. "I want you to know Mr. Thayor. This is Freme
Skinner, Mr. Thayor, and this is Hite Holt, and there's no better
anywhere round here."
Thayor stretched out both hands and caught each extended palm in a
hearty grip.
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr. Thayor," said the trapper, his
great freckled paw tight in the white hand of the stranger. "By goll,
you done well, friend. But what did ye let Billy lead you through
sich a hell-patch as he did, Mr. Thayor?" There was a certain silent
dignity about the trapper as he greeted the new-comer. As he spoke the
old dog sniffed at Thayor's knees, and with a satisfied air regained
his resting place once more.
"Well, it was about all I cared to do for one morning," answered
Thayor between his breaths, "but you see we found the old trail
impossible. And so you received our telegram in time," he said,
glancing in delight at the freshly thatched roof of the shanty.
"Oh, we got it," answered the trapper. "Joe Dubois's boy come in with
your telegram to the valley, and as soon as I got it I dug out
for Freme, and we come in here day 'fore yesterday to git things
comfortable."
"Breakfus, gentlemen!" announced the Clown, for the bacon was done
to a turn. "How do you like yourn, Mr. Thayor--leetle mite o' fat and
lean?"
"Any way it happens to be," replied the millionaire, as he squeezed
into his place at the rough board table next the trapper. "But before
I touch a mouthful I want you all to understand that I don't wish to
be considered as a guest. I'm on a holiday and I'm going to take my
share of whatever comes."
"Thar, Freme!" exclaimed the trapper, "I told ye Mr. Thayor warn't
perticler."
* * * * *
That night after supper the four sat chatting within the glow of the
stove, while the old dog lay asleep. Possibly it was the persuasion
latent in a bottle of Thayor's private reserve, that little by little
coaxed the trapper into an unusually talkative mood, for until far
into the night the man from the city lay on his back on the springy
boughs, listening and smoking, keenly alive to every word the old man
uttered.
"Most times now," he went on, as he leaned forward and patted the dog,
"I let the old dog have his way--don't I, dog?--but then it warn't a
week ago that 'twas t'other way. Me and him was follerin' a buck on
Bald Mountin, and he got set on goin' by way of West Branch, 'stead of
travellin' a leetle mite to the south, what would have brung us aout,
as I figger it, jest this side o' Munsey's. Wall, sir, arter we'd been
a-travellin' steady, say, for more'n four hours the old feller give
in. Says he to me, 'I'm beat,' says he, julluk that, and he stopped
and throwed up this gray snout of his'n to the wind and then he says,
kinder 'shamed like, 'I led ye off consid'ble, hain't I?' says he. I
see he was feelin' bad 'bout it, and I says, says I, 'It warn't your
fault,' says I, 'we come such a piece; a dog's jest as liable to be
mistook as a humin'; and arter that it warn't more'n an hour 'fore
we was out to the big road and poundin' for home. Thar, now"--here he
pushed the old dog gently from him--"lie down and take another snooze;
ye're gittin' so blamed lazy ain't no comfort livin' with ye."
Thayor bent the closer to listen. Every moment brought some new
sensation to his jaded nerves. This making a companion of a dog and
endowing him with human qualities and speech was new to him.
The Clown now cut in: "And it beats all how ye kin understand him when
he talks," he laughed, too loyal to his friend to throw doubt on the
old trapper's veracity, "and yet it's kind o' cur'ous how a dog as old
as him and that's had as much experience as him kin git twisted julluk
some pusillanimous idjit that ain't never been off the poor-house
road."
Thayor laughed softly to himself, not daring to bring the dialogue to
a close by an intervention of his own.
"Now, there's Sam Pitkin's woman," the Clown continued with increased
interest, "she's jest the same way; hain't never had no idee of whar a
p'int lays; takes sorter spells and forgits which way't is back to the
house. Doc' Rand see her last September when he come by with them
new colts o' his'n. 'You're beat aout,' said he, 'and there ain't no
science kin cure ye. Ye won't more'n pull aout till snow flies if ye
don't give aout 'fore that'--so he fixed up some physic for her and
she give him a dollar and arter he tucked up the collar o' that new
sealskin coat o' his'n and spoke kinder sharp to Sam's boy what was
holdin' the colts, he laid them new yaller lines 'cross their slick
backs and begun to talk to 'em: 'Come, Flo! Come, Maudie!' says he.
'Git, gals!' and he drawed the lines tight on 'em, and Sam's boy says
it jest seemed as if they sailed off in the air."
Thayor broke out into a roar of laughter, and was about to ask the
Clown whether the physic had killed the pneumonia or the woman, when
the trapper slanting his shoulders against the bunk broke in with:
"Ye ain't laid it on a bit too thick, Freme." "I knowed Sam's woman,
and I knowed her mother 'fore she married Bill Eldridge over to Cedar
Corners."
"That's whar she was from--I seen her many a time. My old shanty
warn't more 'n forty rod from where Morrison's gang built the new
one."
Thayor's delighted ears drank in every word. The perfunctory
discussion of a Board of Directors issuing a new mortgage was so many
dull words compared with this human kind of speech.
"And now ye are here whar I kin get at ye, Billy," continued the
trapper, "let me tell ye how bad I feel when I think ye never been
over to see me, or stopped even for a night. Why it actually sets my
blood a-bilin'--makes me mad, as the feller said--" Here he nodded
toward Thayor--"Some folks is that way, Mr. Thayor."
"I'd like to have come," pleaded Holcomb, "but somehow, Hite, I never
managed to get over your way. You see I live so far off now, and yet
when I come to think of it, I must have passed close by it when I was
gunning last fall over by Bear Pond."
"Yes--I knowed ye was gunnin', and we cal'lated ye'd come in with them
fellers what was workin' for Joe Dubois. Me and the old dog never give
up lookin' for ye. The dog said he seen ye once, but you was too fur
off to yell to."
"I want to know!" exclaimed the Clown, as he re-crossed his long legs.
"Goll--I felt sorry for the cuss; he took it so hard," Hite went on.
"Then he owned up--tellin' me that when he see I felt so lonesome and
disappointed at ye not comin', he'd be daddinged if he could hold out
any longer and see me so miserable; so he jest ris his ears and made
believe you was a-comin' and that he see ye, and that there warn't
time to let ye know."
"Say--don't that beat all!" roared the Clown as he slapped his leg at
the thought of the old dog's sagacity. Here the old dog cocked an ear
and looked wistfully up into his master's face. Thayor could hardly
believe the dog did not understand.
Hite paused in his narrative for breath. When these men of the woods,
living often for weeks and months with no fellow-being to talk to,
loosen up they run on as unceasingly as a brook.
"But dang yer old hide, Billy, what I got most again' ye is that ye
ain't writ afore," and he slapped his young friend Holcomb vigorously
on the back. "'Twarn't a night that passed when I was to hum in the
valley last winter, but what I'd kinder slink away from the store
arter they'd sorted out what mail thar was, feelin' ashamed, julluk
the old dog does when he's flambussled into a trout hole ahead of ye.
'Why, how you take it,' my old woman would say; 'like as not Billy's
been so busy he hain't had time to write ye and it hain't come,' says
she. 'No,' said I, 'if he's writ I'd had it 'fore this. United States
mail don't lie,' says I."
"But I did write you," declared Holcomb earnestly.
"Yes, so ye did, for I hadn't more'n said it 'fore down comes Dave
Brown and says: 'Eke says thar's a letter come for ye in to-night's
mail,' 'Why, haow you talk!' says I, and I reached for my tippet and
drawed on my boots and started for Munsey's. 'For the land's sakes!'
my old woman yelled arter me. 'Whar are ye a-goin' a night like this,
Hite Holt?' 'Don't stop me,' says I, 'the old cuss has writ--the old
cuss has writ--jest as I knowed he would. Most likely,' says I, 'he's
broke his leg or couldn't git out to the settlement 'count the snow,
or he'd writ 'fore this. Don't stop me,' says I, and aout I went
and tramped through four feet of snow to the store and there lay yer
welcome wad as neat as a piney in a little box over the caounter, and
the lamp throwin' a pinky glow over its side, and that scratchy old
handwritin' o' yourn I'd knowed three rod off. Thar it lay kinder
laughin' at me and slanted so's I could jest read it. Gosh! but I was
tickled!"
The trapper drew a sliver of wood from the stove, shielded its yellow
flame in the hollow of his hand and re-lit his pipe.
Back in the shadow of the bunk lay Thayor drinking in every word of
the strange talk so full of human kindness and so simple and genuine.
For some moments his gray eyes rested on the gentle face of the
old trapper, the wavering firelight lighting up the weather-beaten
wrinkles.
Soon he straightened up, threw the white ash of his cigar toward the
stove and slid gingerly to the dirt floor, his muscles lame from the
morning's tramp, and calling to Billy to follow him, went out into the
cool air.
The banker made his way carefully through the tangle until he reached
the edge of the ledge overhanging the boiling torrent below, white as
milk in the moonlight. He selected a dry log and for some minutes sat
smoking and gazing in silence at the torrent, whose hoarse roar was
the only sound coming up from the sleeping forest. So absorbed was
he with his own thoughts that he seemed unconscious that Holcomb was
beside him. His gaze wandered from the brook to the forest of hemlocks
bristling from the opposite bank, their shaggy tops touched with
silver. Beyond lay the wilderness--a rolling sea of soft hazy timber
hemmed in by the big mountains, flanked by wet granite slides that
shone like quicksilver.
"Billy," he began at length.
Holcomb started; it was the first time the banker had called him
"Billy."
Suddenly Thayor looked up, and Holcomb saw that the gray eyes were dim
with tears.
"You're not sick, are you, Mr. Thayor?" asked Holcomb, starting toward
him.
"No, my boy," replied Thayor huskily; "I've been happy for a whole
day, that is all. Happy for a whole day. Think of it!"
"I'm glad--and you haven't found it too rough; and the things were
comfortable, too?" ventured Holcomb.
"Too rough! Why, man, this is Paradise! Think of it, Billy--your
friends have been actually interested in _me_--in _my_ comfort--_me_,
remember!"
"Why, of course," returned Holcomb. "They think a heap of your being
here--besides, there are not two better-hearted men in these whole
woods than Freme and the old man."
Again the gray eyes gazed down into the torrent.
"What I want to say to you is this: I want you to let me know what you
think would be right at the end of our stay, and I'll see that they
get it."
Holcomb straightened and looked up with surprise.
"But they're not here, Mr. Thayor, for money; neither of them would
accept a cent from you."
"What! Why, that isn't right, Billy. You mean to say that Holt and
Skinner have come up here and fixed up this shanty to hunt with us for
nothing!" stammered the financier. "I won't have it."
"Yes," answered Holcomb, his voice softening, "it's just as I'm
telling you. That's the kind of men the Clown and Hite are. You'd only
insult them if you tried to pay them. There are a lot of things the
old man has done in his life that he has never taken a cent for; and
as for the Clown, I've seen him many a time doing odd jobs for some
poor fellow that couldn't help himself. I've seen him, too, after a
hard month's chopping in the lumber woods working for Pat Morrison,
come into Pat's hotel and pay the whole of his month's wages out in
treat to a lot of lumber jacks he'd meet maybe Saturday night, and
knew maybe he'd never see again by Monday morning."
"And yet you tell me they are both poor."
"Poor isn't the word for it. Why, I've seen Freme when he's been broke
so he didn't have the price of a glass of beer at Pat's, build a dog
house for some of the children, or help the hired girl by stacking a
pile of wood handy for her."
It was a new doctrine for the banker--one he had never been accustomed
to; and yet when he thought it over, and recalled the look in the old
trapper's face and the hearty humour and independence of the Clown, he
felt instantly that Holcomb was right. Something else must be done
for them--but not money. For some moments he sat gazing into the weird
stillness, then he asked in one of his restful tones:
"Billy--who owns this place?"
"You mean the shanty?"
"I mean as far as we can see."
"Well," answered Holcomb, "as far as we can see is a good ways.
Morrison owns part of it--that is from the South Branch down to
the State Road, and--let's see--after that there's a couple of lots
belonging to some parties in Albany; then, as soon as you get across
above the big falls it is all state land clear to Bear Brook--yes,
clear to the old military road, in fact."
"Are there any ponds?" asked Thayer.
"Yes--four," replied Holcomb. "Lily Pond, and little Moose and Still
Water and--"
"I see," interrupted Thayor.
"Why do you ask?" inquired Holcomb, wondering at the drift of Thayor's
inquiry.
"Oh, nothing. That is, nothing now. How many acres do you think it all
covers?"
"I should say about fifteen thousand," replied Holcomb.
"Only fifteen thousand, eh?"
For an instant he paused and looked out over the sweep of forest,
with the gaunt trees standing like sentinels. Then he raised his hands
above his head and in a half-audible voice murmured:
"My God, what freedom! I'll turn in now if you don't mind, Billy."
And so ended the banker's first day in the wilderness.