_Cameron’s Task Completed._
No sooner had the lawyers completed the legal details for the transfer
of the House of Cariboo to the purchaser, Nick Perkins, than rumors
were afloat that all was not as it seemed about Cameron’s having to
sell the mansion to satisfy his creditors. Strange, if it were so,
mused Fraser the carpenter, for the day following the sale he saw from
his wheelwright’s place the strangers from the city grouped before
the door of the smithy, around Bill Blakely and Laughing Donald. The
jesting and laughter which he could plainly hear were joined in by
Blakely and even Davy Simpson, who left his blazing forge to appear at
the door of the shop to witness the pleasure of his friends.
A feeling of uneasiness took possession of the little undersized
carpenter, and he drew back from the door and shuffled around among
the shavings upon the floor of his workshop. Fear and apprehension had
closed in around him so surely that there was no chance of evading the
awful certainty of the truth that Perkins had been most artistically
duped, and that he had been the one through whom the scheme was
so successfully worked. Nick Perkins had acted entirely upon the
information he had carried to him, and now as he looked through the
dimmed window panes of his workshop and recognized the same men who had
so flippantly discussed the affairs of Cameron back from The Front at
the station, the extent of the humiliation and expense he had forced
upon Perkins, and the extreme satisfaction he had given his enemies,
dawned unmercifully upon him.
Again he squirmed in his peculiar sliding fashion around the extent of
his place. Stopping at the carpenter’s bench, he took up his plane and
tried to forget his predicament in violent muscular exertions. Soon a
knock came at the door. At first he paid no attention to it, thinking
Bill Blakely had come over to poke fun at him in his very provoking
manner. Another knock followed, and the door opened to admit the
short, officious personage of Perkins. At sight of his caller, Fraser
collapsed into a frightened, shrinking heap, sorrowful to see. Slamming
to the door, Perkins glared at the cringing object before him.
“A nice mess you have made of it, Fraser! It’s a wonder you were not
in the trick with the rest of them, but they wanted you where you
were to do just what you have done—to ruin me, to put every dollar I
am worth in the world into that useless house, a monument to Cameron.
Every dollar I ever made in the county I have given to Cameron, and
he has paid it back to the same people I got it from. The entire
cost of that house is not more than fifty thousand. I have paid that
back to Cameron. He did not owe a cent to those people you said
were representing his creditors in the city, and what is more, I am
satisfied now that the talk of the gold in the corner stones is a hoax,
like all the rest put up by Cameron to use me in carrying out his
philanthropy, which has not cost him a dollar. Yet he has the glory,
while I am ridiculed!”
Poor Fraser, confronted by such a terrible arraignment of what he knew
to be facts, was utterly confounded. He made no answer, but as Perkins
turned in resentment and disgust to go, Fraser, in a weak, thin voice,
like a wail of despair, said: “I thought I was doing you a service,
Mr. Perkins.” Again Perkins turned, but with a look of dark hatred and
disgust cast in his direction, he went out, slamming the door to after
him.
* * * * *
It was possibly a week or ten days later when Cameron and LeClare stood
again upon the veranda at Laughing Donald’s. Andy’s Dan awaited his
passenger at the boat landing for the leave taking of the two friends.
“Lucy and I will expect you, Andy,” earnestly pleaded LeClare. “With
you present we shall want for nothing to make our wedding a union of
complete happiness.”
Mr. Cameron grasped the extended hand of his faithful associate and
friend, saying in his quiet, determined way, “LeClare, we have faced
disappointment together, we have endured hardships of a kind to test
the merits of our friendship many times before. Defeat we have never
acknowledged; sorrow we have borne together side by side in the
valley of death. Success and wealth are ours, and happiness, sweetest
happiness, Edmond, is yours. Wherever I may be at the call of your
wedding bells I will go to add one more good wish for a long journey of
life and joy to you.”
At another conference held in the office of Donald Ban, Mr. Cameron had
told of his plans for the future. Addressing his friend the lawyer, he
had said: “My mission at The Front is finished. The death of Barbara
has been avenged. The hypocrites, her tormentors, have been brought
very low, the weak are much stronger in person, and justice at last has
prevailed. I ask for no thanks or recognition but from our children in
Arcadia; in the generations to come may they look awe-inspired as they
pass the strange mansion, and be mindful of the moral which was taught
when we builded the House of Cariboo.”
THE GROWING MASKINONGE
[Illustration]
It was Sunday morning at the “Point.” And over across the bay the last
of the phantoms in “Ghost Hollow” had crept up the lampless posts
of the walk through “Spook Grove,” and, vaulting in an uncanny way,
reached cover in the branches of the birch trees that were thickly
clustered around the cottages lining “Spirit Lane” west to the bowling
alley. It was through “Ghost Hollow” that the cottagers living to the
westward passed while going to and returning from the boat landing and
the hotel over at the Point.
At the misty dawn on this Sunday morning the forlorn spectres of the
spirits which frequented the small bay were stalking from the water,
answering from the hidden abode among the dark cottages of the lane
the homing call of the doleful strains of a “chella.” In obedience to
their spirit queen they wafted wearily through the rushes and ferns
upon the bank; borne by the receding shades of darkness, they sought
their resting places under the rafters and the eaves of the gruesome
roof of the bowling alley, which crouched along by the vine-covered
wall at the brow of the hill. It was then an Indian, from the tribe of
St. Regis, on the mainland, stole unnoticed upon the scene and beached
his canoe upon the east shore of the bay. He looked about for signs of
the awakening day, then stealthily he dropped on his knees, and from
beneath a covering in the bow of his “dug-out” dragged up upon the bank
a forty-pound maskinonge.
“Hi! hi!” he cackled in the weird voice of his race. “Hotel man like
much Injun.” Then disappearing to the rear of the out buildings, life
to him soon became brighter by visions of “fire water” and a warm
breakfast—he had sold the fish.
There was an ominous quiet hanging upon the early sunlight. The
suppressed calm was something greater than that inspired by the sight
of a few devout people starting out upon the yacht for early mass. The
guests were appearing singly upon the broad verandas of the hotel.
Each in turn as he appeared seemed possessed of the same apprehension,
a nervousness of manner. The sleep of this Sunday morning was the
closing of a week of wild and reckless dissipation among the guests.
Such intense excitement at the island had not been experienced in many
summers. From the wharf of the castle across the bay at the other side
of “Ghost Hollow” the gramophone had sung “coon songs” and recited at
length for several evenings in succession, and a music box in the main
corridor of the hotel had given a continuous performance from twelve to
twelve, till the nerves of the martyred guests had reached a state fit
to be recited in a patent medicine advertisement.
“What’s that I don’t know, a big fish?” And Mr. Hot Water, dressed
in his new bicycle suit, strode excitedly a few steps forward on the
veranda, then backed up, balanced himself and side-stepped a little to
get a fresh start. Then he came on again, with his meerschaum pipe
tightly grasped in his right hand.
“By Gum! That’s a terror. If it isn’t a pickerel it’s a maskinonge.
It’s either one, anyway, if it isn’t a maskinonge. Who caught it?”
Then he looked at the three individuals before him for the first time.
What he saw made him change the meerschaum quickly from the right
to the left hand, and then he blinked his eyes till recalled by Mr.
Du Ponté. When Mr. Hot Water (a regular patron of the hotel, known
to be threatened musically, and also as a local weather authority)
comprehended the outfit before him he saw a large fish, of the
maskinonge family, strung on an inch pole suspended between two trees
eight feet apart. He saw, also, three of his fellow guests at the Point
strangely arrayed before him, one dressed in white duck trousers,
with a red silk scarf tightly knotted above the knee, another with
hand and fore-arm wound with linen handkerchiefs and hung in a sling
across his breast, while the third, Mr. Du Ponté, was, aside from his
loquaciousness, apparently in his normal condition, i. e., he had
escaped from the terrible catastrophe that had overtaken his friends
with no severe injuries to his person.
Mr. Hot Water, being somewhat of a “sport” himself, was led to inquire
for the particulars of the landing of the large fish. After stepping
cautiously around the group for a few minutes, he placed the meerschaum
between his teeth again and began to mutter questions which showed him
to be in a credulous state of mind. “By Gum! I don’t know, by Gum! Now,
I have been here, and I’ve been down to my club fishin’, fishin’; I’ve
been down to Kitskees Island, too. That’s right. My guide—my guide
rowed me down there and all the way back, too. I had out a thousand
feet of line, but I never caught anything like that.” He looked
cunningly out of the corner of his eye toward Mr. Du Ponté and inquired
again what the fish weighed. Three other guests filled with curiosity
had now joined the group, and Ponté began to explain.
“Fifty-seven pounds is the weight of this fish. He has just been
weighed in the ice-house around there back of the hotel, near the
landing.” (Thirty-seven pounds had been the original quotation.) “You
see, Mr. Hot Water, this is no ordinary maskinonge. Take, for instance,
the back extension from shoulder to shoulder, which denotes a terrible
propelling force, and then if you notice these spots (pointing with a
twig he had cut for the purpose) they are not the marks of a common
fish. This ‘ere fish was a leader of his tribe; a king, so to speak,
among his fellows.”
“Perhaps he’s a ‘King Fish’,” suggested Mr. Hot Water, with apparent
concern, at the same time winking both eyes at the “cottager” with the
red handkerchief tied about the trousers at the knee.
“No,” returned Du Ponté; “we have looked him up and we find that having
those spots, and the second bicuspid tooth being black, prove him to be
a regular ‘King Filipino’ maskinonge.”
“By Gum! that’s funny—I wonder how he got here. Must have followed the
‘line boat’ up the Suez Canal, I guess, or p’raps he didn’t. He must
weigh more than fifty-seven pounds—though I don’t know. I guess not,
though those fish grow, those Filipino fish grow very fast. They say
they do, though I couldn’t say myself. I should think he would weigh
more, though, being a king. Here’s Mr. Mac, he ought to know a ‘King
Filipino,’ he goes to the market every day,” continued Mr. Hot Water.
Again he blinked both eyes at the “cottager” with the red handkerchief
about the knee, and the laugh didn’t seem to be on Mr. Hot Water.
Mr. Mac was another weekly visitor at the Island, spending the half
holiday about the rush beds and channels in quest of the sly “Wall
Eye.” For many seasons he had been doing this sort of thing. The
distinguishing mark of the pickerel, the pike and the maskinonge were
as familiar to him as were the quotations on the Exchange, upon which
he was an active operator six days of the week. The responsibility of
Mac’s habit of listening courteously to what a fellow had to say, for
the time carefully concealing his final verdict, dates back for its
origin to the conservative atmosphere of old Glengarry County, where he
had spent the days of his boyhood.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said Mr. Mac, in a slow, deliberate voice,
slightly pitched, as he reached the inner circle surrounding the
fish suspended between the two small hickory trees. The peak of his
blue yachting cap was pulled well down over his nose, which shielded
from the principals in the “fish game” the twinkle in the eye which
would have been the only clue detectable upon his imperturbable
features to indicate his belief, skeptical or otherwise, concerning
the proceedings. “Well, now, that is a pretty good morning’s catch,
that one fish is. Where did you get him, might I ask?” and Mac raised
his head slowly backward till his eyes from under the shield of his
cap rested on the level of the faces of the three bandaged principals
guarding the fish. “Must have had some trouble, too, in landing him,”
and he indicated with an inclination of the yachting cap toward the red
bandage around the white duck trousers at the knee of the “cottager.”
“Yes,” quickly responded Du Ponté, “I hooked him on a small perch line
out there,” indicating the spot near shore, “in front of my friend’s
cottage, not more than three rods from shore. He can tell you”—nodding
to the “cottager”—“he saw me from his gallery, which is over the small
dock near where I was fishing, throw the pole overboard and heard me
shout for help. Now, friend,” nodding to the man with the wounded limb,
“tell Mr. Mac how we got him ashore.”
“There isn’t much to say about what we did,” began the “cottager,” “but
it’s what the fish did to us. Look at Ribbon Gibbon! His hand lacerated
to the wrist; Du Ponté, here, with a dislocated shoulder, while I have
a jagged wound at the knee.” Mac viewed them as requested, his features
at the time screwed up as though a bright sunlight were shining on his
face.
“I had just finished dressing,” the “cottager” continued, “and had
stepped out on the balcony to see what the weather was to be, before
I went into the tower to run up the flag. Then it was I saw Du Ponté
at his regular trick of fishing the perch bank dry before anybody else
was up and stirring. The next instant I heard a despairing yell, and,
looking in the direction from whence it came, I saw Du Ponté making
frantic efforts to raise the stone anchor to his boat, and calling at
the same time for help to capture his fishing pole, which was making
down stream in a zig-zag course at lightning speed. As I watched the
pole it came, now and then, to the surface. I saw that its mysterious
kidnapper was making for the small bay which lay where you see, there,
between my cottage and the hotel here. An idea seized me, and, with
swiftness born only of excitement, I sped down the stairs, out into the
roadway which leads through ‘Ghost Hollow,’ shouting as I ran to Ribbon
Gibbon, who had just emerged from the hotel, to meet me at the bend of
the bay in ‘Ghost Hollow.’
“‘Who’s drowning?’ said Ribbon.
“‘Nobody,’ said I, all out of breath with excitement; ‘Du Ponté has
hooked a sturgeon, and he made off into the bay here with his pole and
line. Look!’ says I. ‘There it goes again,’ and the bamboo pole shot
inward a couple of rods nearer shore. Ribbon saw the pole this time,
and we set out together to capture the fish.
“‘Let’s take that boat lying over there on the other shore,’ said he,
and we made a run for it. I jumped at once into the boat in my haste
to reach the runaways, but Ribbon stopped to push off from the rocks.
I lost my balance and fell over the sharp end of the oar-lock, and
that’s how I cut my leg. Before I had got righted up again I heard a
terrible splashing, and, looking over the end of the boat into the
bay, I saw Ribbon with an oar striking wildly at something in the
water, a boat length from shore. ‘We’ve got him, we’ve got him!’ he
wailed, hysterically, but suddenly losing his footing he fell full
length upon the monster as he lay struggling to free himself from the
maze of twisted fishlines with which he found himself securely tied.
Immediately a cry of pain came from the water, and Ribbon held up a
bleeding hand. In his fall he had encountered the sharp teeth of the
fish you see here before you in full view.”
At this point in the narrative Ribbon groaned, and, holding his injured
arm at the elbow, turned slowly away. “Stunned by the beating he had
received from Ribbon with the oar,” continued the “cottager,” “and
exhausted by his efforts to free himself from the coils of the line,
Mr. Fish gave up the struggle, and with the aid of Ponté, who had now
reached the shore, we rolled him up upon the beach. We have weighed him
over at the ice-house, and he tips the scales at exactly eighty-seven
pounds and one-quarter.”
The “cottager” then limped to the side of Du Ponté, Ribbon Gibbon edged
up beside the “cottager,” then Mac, after placing his thumbs in the
sleeve-holes of his vest and elevating his head till his eyes had a
chance from under the peak of his cap, a cunning smile o’erspreading
his face, spoke quietly and deliberately.
“Well, gentlemen,” said he, “it is remarkable, and only that I have
the honor of knowing you three chaps, and know you to be absolutely
truthful, I might say to you that you are the best trio of liars I have
ever met.” Then he made a catlike grin at the “cottager,” and, keeping
his thumbs in the arm-holes of his vest, he turned and sauntered out of
the group.
The number of people who now stood gaping with undisguised wonder
pictured on their faces edged in closer, forming a compact circle
surrounding the terrible monster of the deep, and viewing the disabled
subjects of his vicious attack.
Du Ponté was about to order the fish returned to the ice-house, when he
espied emerging from the doorway of the stairs leading to the sleeping
apartments in the annex the tall, graceful figure of Harry Weiner
Sneitzel. “Here is a rare chance,” thought Du Ponté to himself. “Why,
boys,” in an undertone, aside, “the fun is only beginning; now, Ribbon,
it’s your turn. Give it to him good.”
Harry Weiner Sneitzel was a general favorite at the “Point.” He was
endowed with a liberal share of good looks, a fine form, with graceful
movements, and possessed of a rare interpretation of what a courteous
manner should be. His bearing, too, was further dignified by a three
years’ course at a medical college. When Harry stepped out upon the
gravel walk in front of the hotel that Sunday morning, his white canvas
shoes shining with a fresh coat of pipe clay, and his tall, erect
figure swaying to his easy strides, he truly looked “a winner.”
[Illustration: “‘Well, it’s pretty bad,’ said Du Ponté, ‘but Ribbon
needs you the worst of any of us.’”]
As he turned toward the group surrounding the suspended fish and saw
his friends in such evident distress, he hastened his steps in their
direction. An expression of deep sympathy and concern had o’erspread
his classic features, and he elbowed himself quickly to the side of
his companions. “By Jove, old man, it’s pretty tough! Where have you
been?” Ribbon was speaking in an accusing tone, holding his bandaged
arm tenderly to his breast. Harry quickly looked from Du Ponté to the
“cottager” for an explanation. “Well, it’s pretty bad,” said Du Ponté,
“but Ribbon needs you the worst of any of us; his hand is in a bad
shape.” “Oh, you don’t tell me!” replied Harry, sorrowfully. “Can I do
anything for you?” he eagerly inquired.
“By Jove, old chap,” went on Ribbon, with apparent difficulty, “I
thought you had gone away last night on the ‘liner,’ or I would have
been after you sooner. I’m all done up. My hand is in a bad way. This
confounded fish has chewed me up. The fellows here tied this bandage
all about, but it hurts like the deuce, and I’m afraid of blood
poisoning.” “Better do something for him,” muttered Du Ponté. Harry
was deeply impressed with the responsibility that was being heaped
upon him. He placed the palms of his hands over his hips and drew up
his shoulders till they rested akimbo, and then he was completely
confused by the suddenness of the call upon his professional skill.
“Quick, Harry,” snapped the “cottager,” “that hand needs to be dressed
immediately, then afterward you can take a look at the cut in my
leg.” “Say, old chap,” complained Ribbon, “mother will be down here
in a minute; then there will be a deuced row if she sees this.” And
he gingerly handled the bandaged arm for effect. “But I have no—no
medicines,” stammered Harry, just recovering his composure. “Medicine!”
shouted Du Ponté. “Don’t need medicines; get some cotton batting, get
lint, get any old thing—but hustle; there’ll be trouble here soon!”
“That’s right, Harry,” spoke the “cottager” assuringly. “Find the
cotton batting; then we’ll get to work.” “Cotton batting will be good
for that—first rate for a wound,” replied Harry, suddenly awakening.
“Why, we had some yesterday over at your cottage, fixing up your rig
for the masquerade. It’s in the extension; I know where to get it,” and
he bolted through the crowd over the side hill and down through “Ghost
Hollow,” up again on the opposite rise of ground, and fled through the
white birch grove, disappearing into the grounds of the castle across
the bay. Before the arch conspirators could hold a conference as to
their further conduct of the “fish case,” which was now assuming an
alarming aspect, Harry was flying back through “Spirit Lane,” his arms
flapping up and down, his long legs dangling, in his haste resembling
the flight of a water crane startled from a reed bank.
“Spread it out here,” suggested Du Ponté, and he guided Harry to
the edge of the veranda, where he unfolded the roll of cotton. The
“cottager” had limped to the veranda and seated himself. Ribbon
followed him reluctantly. “Go lightly now, old chap; I am afraid it’s
pretty bad,” said Ribbon. “Better dampen that cotton in witch hazel or
Pond’s extract,” suggested the “cottager,” “for, if it’s blood poison
you need an antiseptic.” “Excuse me, old chap, won’t you,” interrupted
Ribbon; “this is quite serious, I fear. Would you mind getting that
bottle of Pond’s extract up on your dresser? It would be safer for you
to use it, don’t you know.” “Oh, of course, I never thought of that.”
And Harry was off again, up the stairway this time, four steps at a
bound, out again on the gravel walk, the bottle of extract clinched
in his excited grasp. As Harry hurried to the side of his suffering
patient to proceed with the bandaging, Mr. Mac had quietly reached the
front. “If you will allow me to offer a suggestion,” he began, in his
cautious, convincing way, “my family physician will arrive here in
half an hour from the city; he will have all the necessaries, which I
believe you require for this job, and it might be safer all around to
postpone this operation till he comes.” “Quite right, quite right,”
Du Ponté replied at once. “Mind you,” continued Mac, “I only wish to
suggest; I am not interfering with your case, Harry.” “Oh, that’s all
right, Mr. Mac,” said Harry; “the doctor probably has antiseptics, and
that will be very necessary in this case.” “You had better go in to
your breakfast, Harry,” suggested Ribbon; “I can stand this for half an
hour, and the other doctor will need you when he comes.” Harry, still
under the mesmeric spell, obeying orders, hurried into the hotel for
breakfast.
The principals fell back, again surrounding the maskinonge, which was
now stiffening in the sun. They were considering the plan of their
escape from the Island in whispered consultation. In the meantime Harry
Weiner Sneitzel had swallowed his first cup of coffee, and began to
think. At the second thought he looked out of the window toward the
suspended fish, then he sank back in his chair; an expression of fear
and incredulity was forming upon his countenance.
“Scamps,” he was heard to remark, as he gazed for the second time out
through the window at the group upon the lawn. Then, quickly rising, he
headed for the office. Hatless he sprang out upon the veranda. Grabbing
up a sabre which was thrown aside by a masquerader of the night before,
he bore down upon the three conspirators who had made him the victim of
their practical joke. As he leaped in one mad stride from the piazza to
the ground his long, thin front locks stood straight up in the wind
like the scalp feathers of an Indian.
“Sneak!” yelled Du Ponté. In a flash the conspirators were out of the
crowd which surrounded the fish. Over the side hill they scampered,
Harry in pursuit, swinging the flashing sabre in the air. Down through
the Hollow they sped, and in their flight, as did the ghost spirits
of the bay, they mysteriously disappeared into the mazes of the dark
cottages, amidst the white birch grove in “Spirit Lane.”
[Illustration]
Transcriber’s Notes:
Quotation marks have been standardized.
Page 7. Chap. VIII _changed to_
Chap. VIII.
Page 8. Chap. XVIX. LeClare to _changed to_
Chap. XIX. LeClare to
Page 14. the group, picnicing with their friends _changed to_
the group, picnicking with their friends
Page 54. the wheelright’s place _changed to_
the wheelwright’s
Page 60. just to show, as he said that there _changed to_
just to show, as he said, that there
Page 108. Barbara Sickness she herself had ever known _changed to_
Barbara. Sickness she herself had ever known
Page 139. the fulfill the legal requirements _changed to_
to fulfill the legal requirements
Page 201. dark cottages of the lane the homeing _changed to_
dark cottages of the lane the homing
Page 206. and the laught didn’t seem to be _changed to_
and the laugh didn’t seem to be
Page 213. “Better do something for him.” _changed to_
“Better do something for him,”
Page 214. at the cut in my leg,” “Say, old chap,” _changed to_
at the cut in my leg.” “Say, old chap,”
Page 215. it’s pretty bad.” said Ribbon. _changed to_
it’s pretty bad,” said Ribbon.