MICK OTTER, MATCH-MAKER
Mick Otter scouted cautiously around Racquet Pond and took up the
two traps which had been left behind in the haste of the flight
across the height-of-land. One of them, set near an air-hole in a
brook, had evidently made a catch of a mink—but a fox, or a lynx, or
perhaps another mink, had visited the trap ahead of the trapper.
Mick returned to the cave and showed the marked paper to Tom; so the
two extended their line of traps and settled down to pass the time
until the middle of January as comfortably and profitably as
possible. They kept their eyes skinned, as the poet has it. Tom made
a practice of climbing the look-out tree four times a day when the
weather was clear. They refrained from firing the rifle; and they
were careful to burn only the driest and least smoky wood on their
subterranean hearth, except at night. Snow fell frequently and
thickly. They were fortunate with their traps, taking a number of
red foxes and one patch, a few mink, an otter and half a dozen
lynx—all fine pelts; and with some very small traps from one of
Mick’s caches they even managed to catch a few ermine.
In the clearings, Catherine and Gaspard carried on and hoped for the
best. Catherine had made the trip to Racquet Pond with the warning
to the fugitives in a snow-storm, and so had left no tracks either
going or coming. Gaspard spied on the camp of the sleuths now and
again; and, finding it always in the same spot, he twigged their
game. He wondered how long their patience would last.
One morning the detective came knocking on the door of the big log
house. Catherine opened to him; and he entered weakly and sat down
heavily on the floor. One of his cheeks was discolored just below
the eye and his lower lip was swollen.
“A drink, please,” he said, in a voice of distress. “Anything—even
cold tea. I feel all tuckered out.”
The girl gave him a cup of coffee.
“Ye look kinder like ye’d caught up to Tom Anderson,” remarked
Gaspard. “An’ whar’s yer pardner?”
“Him!” exclaimed the detective, his voice shaken with anger. “That
big slob! He’s lit out for home—and beyond.”
“But he told us, weeks ago, that you had gone out to the
settlements—that both of you had given up looking for Tom Anderson,”
said the girl.
The detective swallowed the last drop of coffee, shook his mittens
from his hands, pulled off his fur cap and pressed his hands to his
head.
“The liar!” he cried. “He’s a fool—and he’s made a fool of me, with
his story about that man Anderson bein’ an officer—the great Major
Akerley. I must hev been crazy to believe him for a minute. And now
the big slob has beat it for the settlements; and he’ll keep right
on goin’, for the Law’s after him now—or will be as soon’s I’m fit
to travel agin.”
“Maybe yer lyin’, an’ again maybe yer tellin’ the truth,” said
Gaspard. “Howsumever, we’re listenin’.”
“I’m talkin’ Gospel,” replied the man on the floor. “Tone lit out
last night—but he beat me up before he left. He jumped onto me when
I wasn’t lookin’; and I guess he bust me a rib or two. I’m about all
in, anyhow.”
So saying, he sagged back against the wall, toppled slowly sideways
and lost consciousness.
Gaspard Javet was greatly put out by this accident. He glared at the
unconscious man on the floor.
“If I was to lay him out in the snow till he come to, an’ then run
him off the place with the toe o’ my boot, it wouldn’t be more’n
fair play,” he muttered. “Tom would be in jail now if this sneak had
had his way—an’ here he comes an’ lays down on my floor. I’m right
glad Ned Tone smashed ’im; an’ I wish he’d smashed Ned Tone too.”
“We must do something for him,” said Catherine. “He may be seriously
hurt. The sooner we doctor him the sooner he’ll go away, Grandad.”
Gaspard snorted angrily and lifted the detective from the floor.
“I hope I’ll drop ’im an’ bust all the rest o’ his ribs,” he said;
and so he carried him carefully into his own room and put him down
gently on his own bed.
When the detective recovered consciousness he found himself very
snugly established between the sheets of Gaspard’s bed, and the old
man standing near with a steaming bowl in his hand. The bowl
contained beef-tea, and the detective drank it eagerly.
“Yer ribs ain’t bust, I reckon,” said Gaspard. “They ain’t stove
clear in, anyhow—but they do look kinder beat about,—an’ the color
o’ yer eye. What did Ned Tone hit ye with?”
“He knocked me down with his fist and then he whaled me with a stick
of firewood,” replied the other.
“I’m goin’ out to scout ’round a bit,” said Gaspard. “If ye git
hungry or thirsty while I’m gone give a holler an’ Cathie’ll hear
ye. I put arnica on yer ribs an’ tied ’em up with bandages.”
The old man went out and straight to the most recent camping place
of the sleuths. There he found the tent still standing, snugly
banked with snow: but Ned Tone was not there, nor were his snowshoes
or rifle. The provisions were scattered about, the tea-kettle lay
upset in the ashes of the fire, and an air of violence and haste
possessed the entire camp. A few bright spatters of blood marked the
trampled snow; and Gaspard correctly inferred that one of Ned Tone’s
blows had landed on the detective’s nose. Large, fresh, hasty
snowshoe tracks led away from the camp southward into the forest.
“He was sartinly humpin’ himself,” remarked the old man, setting his
own feet in the tracks. “I reckon he’s quit an’ lit out for home,
like the stranger said—but I’ll make sure.”
He followed the trail of Ned Tone steadily for more than an hour;
and every yard of it pointed straight for Boiling Pot.
Gaspard and Catherine nursed and fed the detective as well as if he
had been a beloved friend, and so had him up in a chair beside the
stove in two days; on his feet in three; and well able to undertake
the journey out to the settlements within the week. And he was as
eager to go as they were to have him gone—eager to go forth on the
trail of Ned Tone and to follow that trail until the treacherous,
violent, cowardly bushwhacker was brought to his knees before the
might and majesty of the Law. As for the case of Tom Anderson, he no
longer felt the least interest in it. It was his firm belief that
even Tone had never really suspected Anderson of being Major
Akerley, but had invented the case from motives of personal spite
and greed. He did not find Ned Tone in Boiling Pot, however; nor did
he find him at Millbrow; nor yet in any town on the big river. In
short, he never caught up with the ex-heaviest hitter on Injun
River; and, for all I know, and for all the detective knows, Ned
Tone may still be on the run.
* * * * *
Tom Akerley and Mick Otter returned to the clearings on the evening
of January the Seventeenth, in time for supper; and Catherine was
ready for them with roast chickens, mince pies and the best coffee
they had tasted since their departure from that wide and hospitable
room. All four were in high spirits—but it was Gaspard who made most
noise in the expression thereof. He told all that he knew of the
adventures of Ned Tone and the detective in the most amusing manner;
and when he wasn’t talking he chuckled.
“You feel darn good, what?” remarked Mick Otter, eyeing him keenly
but kindly. “Maybe you catch that devil an’ shoot him flyin’, hey?”
“Ye’re wrong thar,” replied Gaspard. “I found ’im, but he wasn’t
flyin’. Caught ’im on the ground—but I ain’t shot him yet. But I got
his wings.”
Tom looked at Catherine and was relieved to see her smiling at her
grandfather.
“If you catch him on the groun’ why you don’t shoot him, hey?” asked
Mick. “You make a’mighty noise ’bout shootin’ him one time.”
“An’ Mick Otter laughin’ all the time at pore old Gaspard Javet for
a durn ignorant old fool. Well, I don’t blame ye, Mick, I’d hev
laughed meself to see me a-devil-huntin’ all the time, with my rifle
handy an’ the devil mowin’ grass at my elbow or totin’ the old
duck-gun ’round helpin’ me to hunt himself.”
“So you know!” exclaimed Tom, getting quickly to his feet and
staring anxiously at the old man.
Gaspard made a long arm across the table.
“Lay it thar, lad,” he said, “Thank God I didn’t know when the
vainglorious madness was on me, when I was that et up with the pride
o’ my wild youth an’ present piety that I reckoned on havin’ a reel
devil sent to me for to wrastle with—for I like ye, lad.”
“Me, too,” said Mick Otter. “You pretty big feller on these woods,
Tom, you bet. Gaspar’ like you too much for to shoot, an’ Mick Otter
like you; an’ maybe Cathie like you, too, one day, now Ned Tone go
’way with policeman chasin’ him, what?”
Both old men gazed quizzically at the girl with their bright, kindly
eyes. She smiled a little, looked squarely at the swarthy round face
of the Maliseet, then at the bewhiskered visage of her grandfather,
blushed suddenly and deeply, and then said,
“I like him much more than either of you do—or both of you together;
and he knows it.”
Then Mick Otter actually chuckled; and as for Gaspard Javet, his
delighted laughter filled the room. And Catherine and Tom joined in
the old man’s mirth, but with an air of not quite seeing the joke.
Gaspard became silent at last and helped himself to a second piece
of mince pie.
“She never told me before,” said Tom, very red in the face and short
of breath. “Not like that. And I—well, you know how it has been with
me—and still is, to a lesser degree. I had to keep how I felt under
my hat—more or less, I mean to say—as much as I could. She knew all
the time, of course. Didn’t you? How I felt, I mean—and that sort of
thing. But as things were with me—and still are, I suppose—well, I
had to lie doggo. What I mean is, I was a fugitive from justice.
Only honorable thing to do, you know. But now that you’ve seemed to
notice it, and have mentioned it, I feel myself at liberty to say
that when I fell into this clearing I fell for her, for you, I mean
for Cathie. First time I saw her, anyhow; and it has got worse—more
so, I mean to say—ever since. But I always wished that you knew the
truth about me, Gaspard—for I didn’t like pretending, and I wanted
you to know that I was—that I wasn’t just a breaker of
game-laws—what I mean to say is, I wanted you to know that I have
fought bigger things than Ned Tone. I have been happier ever since I
landed to your light than ever before in my life, and—and now that I
know—well, I hope that I shall never again be chased out of these
clearings.”
The old men exchanged glances and approving nods; and Tom got hold
of Catherine’s hand under the edge of the table.
Life continued to go forward sanely and delightfully in the secluded
world of Gaspard Javet’s clearings. A spirit of cheer and security
possessed the big log house and the brown barns. Gaspard read his
Bible with more hopeful eyes than of old. He was in fine form and
full of brisk stories of his youth. He had learned to play chess—a
game which, until recently, he had eyed somewhat askance as an
intricate and laborious example of human vanity. Mick Otter spent
much of his time in the woods, but went no farther northward than to
Racquet Pond nor remained away from home for longer than four days
at a time. He made one trip south to Boiling Pot and found the
villagers blissfully ignorant and unsuspicious of the mysterious
affair of Tom Anderson and Tom Akerley, the flying major. His
cautious inquiries proved them to be equally ignorant of the
whereabouts of Ned Tone. It was quite evident that the heaviest
hitter had kept his suspicions and the story of his and the
detective’s activities strictly under his hat.
Catherine and Tom were happy; but after that mutual declaration at
supper on the night of Tom’s return from the north, they both
avoided any further mention of the inspiration of their happiness.
They knew that their position was not yet secure from the menace of
the outside world. But they were not afraid, and they understood
each other. Their brains cautioned them to keep a sharp look-out
beyond the southern edge of the clearings and a firm grip on their
dreams; and their hearts told them that their future happiness was
as secure as if no fat colonel had ever been hit on the chin; and
they heeded both their brains and their hearts and sailed a
delightful middle course.
Tom attended to a string of traps near Pappoose Lake, but seldom
allowed that business to keep him abroad all night. Also, he worked
about the barns with Gaspard and cut out firewood and rails.
Catherine often worked with him in the woods. The girl could swing
an ax with the force and precision of an expert chopper. She also
helped with the threshing of the oats and buckwheat, which was done
at odd times; and in handling a flail the extraordinary grace of her
swing detracted nothing from the force of her blow.
The necessity of making a journey to Boiling Pot, to obtain a supply
of wheat and buckwheat flour, made itself undeniably evident in the
last week of March. Mick Otter and Tom were both to go, for it was
likely to prove a formidable expedition owing to the fact that the
long road through the forests was entirely unbroken; but as Tom had
done away with his disguising beard, it was decided that he should
not venture all the way to the grist-mill in the village.
Preparations were made during the day before the start. A track was
broken across the drifted clearing, from the barn-yard to the mouth
of the road. A few high drifts had to be cut through with shovels.
On the road, itself, the snow was not more than knee-deep, for there
had been a great deal of melting weather of late. But there was a
stiff crust which would have to be broken for the safety of the
horses’ legs. A light set of bob-sleds were fitted with a light body
and loaded with ten two-bushel bags of buckwheat and rations of hay
and oats.
Tom was up at four o’clock next morning, to water and feed the
horses. Breakfast was eaten half an hour later, by lamplight; and
the horses were hitched to the sled and a start made well before
six. The air was still and cold and the horses lively. For a few
miles Tom led the way, breaking the cutting crust ahead of the eager
horses, and Mick held the reins. Then, for a few miles, Mick broke
the crust and Tom teamed. So they toiled forward until noon; and as
Tom was heavier and longer in the leg and stronger than the old
Maliseet, he did more breaking than teaming. After a rest of two
hours the journey was continued; and before dusk they struck a
well-broken road and the impatient horses went forward at a trot.
Tom dropped off a mile this side of the settlement, with blankets
and provisions, and made camp about fifty yards in from the road.
Mick Otter did not reappear until noon. The return journey proved to
be an easy and speedy affair compared to the outward trip, in spite
of the heavier load. There was no crust to break, and Tom walked
only occasionally, for the exercise. It was not quite seven o’clock
when they issued from the forest into the clearing and saw the
yellow lights of the big log house gleaming on the snow. Tom was
holding the lines at the time and Mick was sitting hunched up beside
him; and as the horses swung to the left and pulled for the barns
with a sudden burst of enthusiasm, Mick slipped a small package into
the pocket of Tom’s leather coat that was nearest to him.
A few minutes later, in the kitchen, when Tom was stuffing his
mittens into his pockets, he felt the small package and produced it.
He stepped toward the lamp on the table, holding the package
extended on the palm of his hand.
“What’s this?” he said. “Where’d it come from?”
“Ye’d best open it an’ look, if ye don’t know,” suggested Gaspard,
crowding against his left elbow.
And so, with Gaspard on one side of him and Catherine and Mick Otter
on the other, Tom unwrapped the little package. Within the wrapper
he found a cardboard box, and within that a smaller box of a
different shape and material. This inner box had a hinged top that
was fastened down with a catch; and when Tom undid the catch and
turned back the top he gasped with astonishment at the thing he saw.
Old Gaspard’s white whiskers shook with excitement and Cathie’s
cheeks and eyes brightened like roses and stars. Mick Otter alone
showed no sign of emotion.
“I didn’t buy this,” said Tom to the girl. “I haven’t any money, as
you know, and still owe the Government some thousands on account of
a stolen aëroplane. If this were mine, and all danger of my being
cashiered were past—”
“It was in your pocket,” said the girl.
“True; and I’ll pay for it when my skins are sold. Show me a finger,
please.”
She raised her left hand and extended to him a finger of peculiar
significance.
“On the understanding that you will transfer it to another finger if
I am caught and broken,” he said; and then he slid the ring into
place.
“Never,” she whispered, closing her hand tight; and the little
diamond flashed defiant fire from her small brown fist.
“Mick Otter have to larn ’em how to get engage’,” said the old
Maliseet, in a voice of pity and mild scorn.
“Vanity! Vanity!” exclaimed old Gaspard, shaking his head slowly.
“But I reckon I never see a purtier little ring,” he added.
“What’s for supper?” asked Mick Otter, in sentiment-chilling tones.
“Hungry man can’t eat rings, nor vanity neither.”
They were seated at supper, and Gaspard was in the middle of a story
of his vainglorious past to which only Mick Otter was paying any
attention, when the latch of the front door lifted, the door opened
slowly and a figure muffled in blankets stepped noiselessly into the
room. Gaspard, who sat facing the door, ceased articulating suddenly
and stared with open mouth. Catherine and Tom glanced over their
shoulders and Mick Otter got to his feet and hurried to the visitor.
“Got sick pappoose here,” said the muffled figure, closing the door
with a heel and leaning weakly against it; and before Mick could get
a grip on it, it sagged slowly to the floor.
In his attempt at succor, Mick pulled a fold of the blanket aside,
thus disclosing the haggard face of a young squaw. The blanket fell
lower and a ragged bundle clutched tight in thin arms came to view;
and at that moment a faint, shrill wail of complaint arose from the
bundle. This brought Catherine flying and lifted Gaspard and Tom out
of their chairs and stunned Mick Otter to immobility. The girl took
the bundle swiftly but tenderly from the relaxing arms even as the
squaw closed her eyes.
Fifteen minutes later both the mother and pappoose were in Gaspard’s
wide and comfortable bed, more or less undressed. A nip of strong
coffee, then a nip of brandy, had been successfully administered to
the squaw and a little warm milk had been spoon-fed to the baby; and
all this, except the carrying, had been accomplished by Catherine.
Gaspard and Mick Otter were of no use at all, though Mick was eager
to get busy asking questions. Tom warmed milk very well and filled
two bottles with hot water which were placed at the foot of the bed.
The pappoose wailed with a thin and plaintive voice for an hour,
then took a little more nourishment and fell asleep. The mother
drank a bowl of warm milk and slept like a log. It was close upon
midnight when Gaspard’s fur robes and blankets were laid on the
floor of the big room, between the robes and blankets of Mick’s and
Tom’s humble and mobile pallets.
Mick Otter questioned the young squaw industriously next day, but
acquired very little information. Her answers were suspiciously
vague. She did not seem to know how far she had come, or where from,
or why. She said again and again, in answer to every question, that
the baby was sick and needed a doctor; but the baby, full-fed now,
seemed to be in the pink of condition. Hunger and fatigue seemed to
be the only thing the matter with either of them. In three days they
were both as right as rain, beyond a doubt; and still the young
woman would not say where she had come from or why she had left home
and seemed to entertain no idea whatever of where she was bound for.
Mick Otter, anxious and thoroughly exasperated, took the case firmly
in his own hands at the end of a week. He made a snug apartment in
one of the barns, established a rusty old stove in it and, deaf to
Cathie’s protests, moved the visitors out of Gaspard’s room. The
weather was mild by this time. The barn-chamber was very
comfortable. Mick made a fire in the stove every morning and saw
that every spark was dead before bed-time. He carried all the
squaw’s food and the baby’s milk to the barn, forbade the others
visiting the strangers and refused the mysterious squaw admittance
to the house. He was hard as flint in the matter. One day he lost
his temper with Catherine, who threatened to have the mother and
baby back in the house in spite of his cruel whims.
“You know her, an’ why she come here?” he cried. “Nope, you don’t
know. You know why she run away?—what she run away from? Nope nor me
neither. When we know, then you call Mick Otter one darn fool all
you want to,—maybe. What Mick Otter think,—what he see before
two-three time—that squaw run away from big sickness maybe with her
pappoose. So you keep ’way—an’ shut up!”
Tom and Gaspard were far too busy to worry much about Mick Otter’s
peculiar treatment of the strangers. They had cleared the
threshing-floor of the largest barn and turned it into a work-shop;
and there, in a week, they had straightened and mended the buckled
plane of Tom’s old bus.