Buck Sanderson did not interrupt his narrative to greet his young
granddaughter. Before approaching the cabin he strolled into the woods
and I followed him to the old foundation, which was, perhaps, a hundred
yards or so from his abode.
A small house had evidently once stood there, though the fallen
stonework bore no resemblance now to a foundation. Near-by was a clump
of bush and as Buck pulled some of this aside I looked down into a dank,
black hole. I can smell the damp earth of the place even now as I write.
As I looked in I saw a long, thin, gray something on the masonry a yard
or so below the surface. At first I thought it was a snake but it was
only one of the myriad tentacles of root from a great elm which stood a
few feet distant. I shuddered as I looked down into the darkness of that
frightful place.
“So that’s where you hid it, eh?” I commented.
“That’s where Mink fetched it to,” the old man said. “He fetched it
there whilst I goes on to our cabin. No sooner I lights a candle ’n’
gets off my city clothes than along comes Barney Wythe--that much of a
narrow escape it wuz fur us--just like that. He says, ‘Yer back, Buck? I
reckon yer made a passable good sell in Noo York.’ That much of a narrow
squeak we had of it with them varmints! He says, ‘Yer got some money,
huh?’
“Well, I tells him he can search the cabin; I tells him I wouldn’t talk
with the likes o’ him. He asks where Mink is and I says he wuz about his
business. Well, then, they must fuss aroun’, turnin’ things about agin.
I lights my pipe ’n’ lets ’em search me. I says, ‘It’s a bad season fer
game in my pockets, Barney; yer kin see fer yerself.’
“Well, they says they would wait fer Mink. So they waited suspicious
like, ’n’ they waited ’n’ they waited ’n’ Mink never come. I knowed he
wuz holdin’ off on account of ’em--he smelled ’em. I knowed our money
wuz safe in that well. Pretty soon they puts their heads together
whisperin’ ’n’ they goes away ’n’ says they’ll come again.”
Old Buck Sanderson looked straight at me with his shrewd old gray eyes
and he said, “Pardner, I ain’t never seed them lyin’, thievin’, law
hounds since. I ain’t never seed Mink since, leastways not so he could
tell me nuthin’. I waited more’n two hours, then I goes out ter look fer
Mink. There he wuz, lyin’ like dead, near that there ellum, with a big
cut in his forehead. I carries him to our cabin ’n’ he comes to, ’n’
don’t remember nuthin’. After that he was possessed. He was always
huntin’ fer the money. He don’t know where he put it, that’s what he
says. He was plum, clean gone, crazy as a loon after that. ’Long ’baout
a year after that, he wanders away ’n’ I ain’t seed or heerd nuthin’ of
him since.”
He ceased and I glanced about the scene, unable for a moment or so to
speak. “You searched in the well, of course?” I asked.
“Sure fer certain,” says he. “But ’tweren’t no need, fer them law hounds
got it. They knocked Mink’s senses out and got it. They got my pardner
and they got our money. I jes’ soon drop a game warden as a skunk. I
calls ’em skunks but that ain’t no way ter talk ’baout skunks--hey
Junie? That ain’t no way to talk ’baout them nice, little animals what I
made yer a purty fur collar out of, now is it?”
The young girl had come running to him as we approached the cabin, and
it was pretty to see how she clung to him as they walked.
“Junie ain’t er goin’ ter no Home along while ole Grandpa Buck is
’raoun’, is she now? Junie, she knows more ’baout the woods ’n all them
dum’ fool scout boys put tergether. Ain’t she a nice little girl--that’s
Junie.”
It was a pretty picture; perhaps it was all the prettier because there
was a shadow behind it. For old Buck Sanderson was not going to be in
his old hunting ground much longer. He was going to another hunting
ground--the Happy Hunting Ground, as the Indians called it. And what
about little June Sanderson then?