Ted sighed wearily. He'd hoped that, with passing time, the situation
would clear itself or be cleared. If anything, it was worse.
Definitely out of danger, but due for a long convalescence in the Lorton
hospital, Smoky Delbert had told everything. Starting from the Fordham
Road, he had gone up Coon Valley with the intention of finding good
places to set fox traps. He'd carried his rifle because there was always
a chance of seeing a fox or bobcat, predators upon which there was a
bounty. He'd known Al Harkness was ahead of him, for Al's distinctive
boot marks had been left in the soft place where the spring overflowed
the Coon Valley trail. Nearing the three sycamores, and without any
warning at all, Al had risen from behind Glory Rock and shot.
It was a simple, straightforward story and one that bore out other known
facts. By his own admission, Al had been in Coon Valley the same day. He
did wear boots with soles of his own design, and therefore they were
distinctive. Smoky Delbert, a woodsman of vast experience, might very
well have seen these tracks, in spite of the fact that Loring Blade had
missed them. Ted sighed again.
The papers had printed Smoky's story and most were sympathetic. There
had even been a couple of resounding editorials demanding that Al be
brought in--regardless of the cost and effort that might be expended to
apprehend him--and face the justice he so richly deserved. But editors
were not the only ones who had swung to Smoky's side.
Time, John McLean had asserted, made people forget. Only, in this
instance, it had made too many of them forget that Smoky Delbert was a
vicious poacher. He had, instead, become the wronged innocent, and when
Ted went into Lorton now there were those who averted their faces when
they passed him or even crossed to the other side of the street to avoid
meeting him at all.
Carl Thornton had become something of a local hero. Nobody knew how the
news had leaked out, but everyone knew that Crestwood's owner was
paying all of Smoky's extensive hospital bills. That puzzled Ted, for
Thornton had never seemed the type to care about anyone's welfare save
his own. But he would do anything that worked to his own advantage, and
perhaps he thought it worth his while, at the price of Smoky's hospital
expenses, to have Lorton solidly behind him. There could be no doubt
that Lorton was there.
"Cut it out!" Ted urged himself. "You don't like Thornton, but give him
credit, if credit's due."
Ted swung up the Harkness drive and parked. While Tammie went off on an
inspection tour to assure himself that everything was as it should be,
the boy took the basket of laundry inside. He grimaced. Modern in some
respects, Al had by no means accepted the streamlined age as an unmixed
blessing. He'd bought a freezer and refrigerator because their
advantages were obvious. But he scorned washing machines and was sure
that, though clothes emerging from one might look clean, they couldn't
possibly be as pure as those that were washed on a scrub-board.
Ted put the washtub on its stand, filled it with hot water, added soap
and went to scrubbing. He rinsed the laundry, ran it through a hand
wringer and hung it on a line stretched behind the house.
An hour before sundown, he went back to camp to replace the bedding and
wind his clotheslines on a spool. He got his own supper, fed Tammie,
washed the dishes and had just finished putting them where they belonged
when the collie whined a warning. A car, followed by a second, came up
the drive and, a moment later, there was an unnecessarily loud knock on
the door.
Ted opened it to confront a rather plump man, who was probably in his
mid-thirties. He was dressed in a gaudy wool shirt, hunting pants,
ten-inch lace boots, and around his middle was belted a hunting knife
almost long enough to be a small sword. His black hair was a little wild
and so were his eyes, but his smile was pleasant and his outstretched
hand was quite steady.
"Ted?"
"That's right."
"I'm Beamish," the other stated, a little thickly. "B'-gosh, we found
you!"
"You certainly did!"
Ted smiled faintly. Hunters going into camp often did a little
anticipatory celebrating and evidently Arthur Beamish had been overdoing
it.
"This the camp?" he asked.
"No, the camp's farther up the road."
"Good!" Arthur Beamish said happily. "You go in the woods, you go in the
woods! More woods, the better! That's what I always say! What do you
always say?"
"Same thing." Ted grinned. "If you want to follow me, I'll show you the
way up there."
"Ride with ya," Beamish declared. "Tha's just what I'll do."
"You're welcome."
Ordering Tammie to stay in the house, Ted guided his exuberant guest to
the pickup and opened the door for him. Arthur Beamish bellowed, "Follow
us, men! Ah, wilderness!"
He sat companionably close and draped a friendly arm across Ted's
shoulder. "Lots of grouse?"
"Plenty. You like grouse hunting, eh?"
"Best darn' game there is!" Beamish exploded. "I rather get me one
grouse than forty-nine deer! And I get 'em, too!"
"You do?"
"Didn't you ever hear about me?"
"I--" Ted hesitated. Obviously, he was supposed to know his guest. But
he didn't, yet to say the wrong thing might mean to give offense,
"Uh--aren't you--?"
"Tha's right!" Beamish said happily. "I'm Beamish, the trapshooter!
Traps in summer, grouse in season! Br-br-br! Up they go! Bang! Down they
come! Every time!"
Ted twisted uneasily. Three grouse was the daily bag limit. Nobody
should need, or take, more than that. He calmed himself. As yet, nobody
had taken more. He pulled in to the camp and stopped.
"Fine camp!" enthused Beamish, who could see only that part of it which
was illuminated by the pickup's lights. "Best I ever did see! Great lil'
camp!"
The other two cars stopped and the rest of the hunters got out. Even in
the night, there was that about them which at once set them apart from
the quiet Beaulieu party. They were younger, more restless, and they
fairly oozed that nervous sparkle which so often marks young executives.
They were also sensible--only Arthur Beamish and one other had been
over-indulging themselves. Definitely, the drivers of the two cars were
in full possession of all their faculties.
The three beautiful setters that had ridden in a pen in one of the car's
trunks were as smartly turned out as the men. Obviously, they were
hunting dogs, the best money could buy. But this crowd had money to
spend.
"Come 'round!" Arthur Beamish bellowed. "Wan'sha to meet Ted!"
One by one, Ted was introduced to the rest of the party and as he met
them, he liked them. If they were young and restless, they were also
competent and talented and they had an air of belonging here in the
wilderness. Probably this was not the first camp they'd ever seen.
"Let's go in," Ted suggested.