“Mink Havers, me’n him was pardners,” old Buck said.
I tried to walk alongside him the better to hear his narrative but the
way through the tangled thicket was so narrow that I was forced to
follow. Now and again he would hold the brush apart so that I might pass
through. Occasionally we were able to proceed side by side. He told me
that in the fall an old trail was visible here. In the spring and summer
when the foliage was thick, he followed it by instinct. He did not go
back and forth often enough to make a permanent opening through the
brush.
“Yes,” I encouraged, “and he got possessed?”
“Crazy like,” he said.
“Oh, yes.” I caught his meaning then.
“We was trappers and hunters ’round here, me’n Mink was. We got bear and
deer aplenty in them days. Me’n him, we didn’t think nothin’ o’ hoofin’
it ter Newburgh in them days. More often I’d hoof it ter Suffern ’n’ go
daown ter Noo York on the cars. I ain’t seed a train close by fer twenty
year. Ole Haley Corbett, he was engineer them days. Reckon you didn’t
guess when yer looked me over I’d ben in Noo York, now, did yer? I seed
‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ in Fourteenth Street. Them wasn’ real bloodhounds;
reckon I know a bloodhound when I see one. Hed two on ’em here jes’
after the war.”
“The Civil War, you mean?”
“Me, I wuz usual the one ter go ter Noo York with furs.”
“And I dare say you had a pretty good time when you went there, eh?”
“Ever ter Barnum’s Museum?” he asked.
“That was before my time,” I said.
“Me’n old Haley we was there nigh on every time I went daown with furs.
Ever hear o’ Union Square?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Ever hear o’ Joe Pollock?”
“No, I never did. I suppose probably he’s dead.”
“Him it was I’d fetch furs to. He wouldn’ say nuthin’, I wouldn’ say
nuthin’.”
“Why, was there anything wrong in it?” I asked.
“Ony huntin’ outer season, mebbe a few days or so.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Ain’t nuthin’ so wrong in that, I reckon?”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” I laughed.
“Watch out fer that poison ivy,” he said, as he pulled a bush aside for
me to pass through.
Here, I thought, was a rather attractive picture of old times,
refreshing to think of in these days of speeding autos and rushing
trains. I pictured this hunter emerging from his wild haunts with his
stock of furs and walking to Suffern to get on a train for New York.
“Good old Erie Railroad,” I said to myself, “and you have romance and
tradition too.” It must have been fine to travel on one of those
old-time trains (probably the only train to go in the day) and to hobnob
with the engineer and go to Barnum’s Museum with him. I fancied Long
Buck Sanderson as rather a gay visitor to the metropolis in those days.
The business men of that time were not all too scrupulous either. For
how about Joe Pollock, who received furs not always legally procured.
Well, well.
I asked him how long ago it was that his partner, Mink Havers, had
become possessed. The nearest he could come to it was that it was twenty
or thirty years, or perhaps more. He seemed to remember events and
places better than dates.
“Well, and what happened to Mink?” I asked him.
“It was a heap o’ years ago leastways,” he said. “I come back from Noo
York with three thousand dollars. These scout boy youngsters thinks
hunters ain’t never got nuthin’ but their guns. I come back with three
thousand dollars--a bit more, even. I wuz always the one ter go ter Noo
York ’count o’ bein’ more cityfied; good at the bargaining.”
I smiled inwardly at the thought of his being “cityfied.”
“Yes, and then?” I encouraged.
He continued, “Me’n Mink wuz livin’ in the cabin, same as you’ll see,
’n’ he wuz waitin’ fer me ter come back. Barney Wythe’s gang, they wuz
there ter see him--low, sneaky varmints they wuz, every one on ’em. He
was the wust. Yer know the likes o’ that tribe--game wardens----”
“Oh,” I said.
“They wuz tellin’ him we had a heap o’ prohibit furs. They says they wuz
watchin’ on us.”
I was tactful enough to refrain from asking him if this were true.
“They wuz turnin’ the cabin outer winders huntin’ ’n’ pawin’ roun’, ’n’
all the while me comin’ back from Noo York with three thousand dollars.
That wuz pay fer three stocks, that wuz; Pollock he weren’t so regular,
but honest, I’ll say that. He went ter Europe owin’ us close on a
thousand, he did.”
It occurred to me that the enterprising Pollock could ill have afforded
to cheat these distant associates.
“Well,” he continued, “they leaves the cabin mad ’n’ pricked up like a
ole porkeypine. They says they’d ketch us yet ’n’ hev us behind bars. I
comes up from Suffern ’n’ cuts through along Torne Brook, never knowin’!
I heads it east up by Conklin Cabin ’n’ aroun’ Pine Meadow Mountain and
’long Woodtown Trail. There wuz Mink a-waitin’ fer me right where the
trail goes by Green Swamp. He says, ‘Barney Wythe’s gang wuz ter the
cabin ’n’ overhauled us complete; smoked out the place like we wuz
woodchucks.’ I says, ‘Well, they didn’ get nuthin’.’ Mink says, ‘No, but
they’re comin’ agin ’n’ we ain’t goin’ ter fetch that money ter the
cabin, not yet, Buck,’ he says. ‘They’ll want the whole on it, they
will, ter leave us free, they will.’
“Well, I told him he was right in that way of it and good he come out
like he did ter meet me. ‘But,’ I says, ‘I ain’t goin’ ter leave it
roun’ Green Swamp here, yer can lay ter that. We want it near where we
can keep a bead on it,’ I says. Wasn’ I right?”
“I guess you were,” I said.
“Well,” he continued, “we talked ’baout different places and I says
Conner’s well is the best place--near and safe and all growed over.”
Suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulder with his old, brown hand and for
just a second I was a little fearful that he had lured me into a trap
for some dark purpose. I suppose it was because the place was so remote
and dense. But it was for only a second.
“Look over there,” he said; “there’s Conner’s well. Yer see that ole
foundation? That’s Conner’s ole place, that is. That’s my cabin in there
among the trees.”
We were emerging from an area of underbrush into the shelter of solemn
woods. In my first glance I did not see all that he had pointed out, for
my eyes caught sight of a young girl standing in the open door of a log
cabin, watching us eagerly as we approached. It was like a shock,
withdrawing my thoughts from those old scenes with hunters and game
wardens and treasure brought from distant parts so long ago, and
presenting in their stead this winsome little maid waiting for her old
grandfather and guardian to come home.