AN AWKWARD SITUATION
Upon his return to the house, Jim found Flora alone in the old
kitchen preparing supper. Peter Ducat had retired to bed with his
rheumatism, Mrs. Ducat was upstairs rubbing his tortured joints with
liniment, and the grandfathers were out at the barn. Flora turned
from the stove on the instant of Jim's entrance and advanced swiftly
to meet him. Her face was pale and her eyes were even brighter than
usual.
"You must go right away!" she whispered. "No, rest a few
minutes--and then travel fast. I have grub all packed, and your
rifle and ammunition ready, and blankets, and a compass. Sit down
and rest!"
"But what's the rush?" he asked staring at her. "I promised to wait
here for Mark. I can't carry the whole outfit--traps and all."
"You must go west, not north," she replied. "They'll look for you at
Kettle Pond. I've planned it all out. Don't stand there like a
booby! Sit down and rest while you can."
"What's it all about? You don't seem yourself, Flora."
"Don't be a fool! Homer Steeves has been here. He saw Amos Hammond.
Met him on the road and drove him home."
"My dear girl, what are you talking about?"
Flora's eyes filled with tears.
"You can't fool me!" she cried.
"I don't want to fool you. Why should I fool you?"
"Will you go away then, and hide in the woods?"
"I'll go away, if you want me to particularly, but I won't hide.
That's flat! Why should I hide? From Amos Hammond, do you mean?"
"Yes--and well you know it! He was still alive when Homer got him to
the village, but he may be dead by now! Murder is what the law will
call it, however much he deserved to be killed. You didn't tell
about meeting him this morning--and now I know why."
"Dead! Murder! Are you crazy? I didn't hurt him. I rolled him
about in the snow a bit and slapped his lying face and then threw him
back into his sleigh. He drove off all right. I didn't even land
him one good crack. I didn't tell you about it because it wasn't
worth telling."
"But he is shot! Homer was on the road--quite a piece behind you.
He saw Hammond coming, and then he heard a gun. Hammond was all
blood when he got to him, and he took him home. So what's the good
of bluffing, Jim? You must go, quick!"
"I heard a shot, too! I thought he'd taken a wild one at me for
knocking him about, so I kept right on."
"Please don't, Jim. Please shut up and get out of here before the
sheriff comes looking for you."
"I'll do nothing of the kind. I didn't shoot the old rube, so why
should I run away and hide? I'm not ashamed of what I did do to him,
and the sheriff is welcome to the whole story. Flora, do you think I
would shoot a man? I didn't return his fire even that night he was
blazing away at me."
"But--who shot him, if you didn't?"
"I don't know."
"The law will fasten it onto you, so you must hide! You threatened
him one day before Sheriff Hart. How can you prove your innocence?"
"I don't have to. The law has to prove my guilt. I won't run away,
that's flat! Anyone who thinks that I fired on a man sitting unarmed
in a sleigh is a fool!"
He stood his snowshoes behind the door and pulled off his heavy outer
coat. The girl turned back to the stove. The grandfathers came in
with the milk pails. Flora did not speak a dozen words during
supper. Mrs. Ducat returned to her husband immediately after supper,
the old men fell to arguing and smoking beside the stove, and Jim and
Flora washed the dishes. Flora washed and Jim dried. The girl was
nervous and the young man was decidedly cool. He wasn't worrying
about the possible effect upon himself of the assault upon Amos
Hammond, but he was hurt and disappointed and offended at the thought
that this girl, his friend, could for a moment believe him capable of
firing on an unarmed man.
"Will you go to-night?" she asked, clattering the dishes in the pan.
"I have it all planned for you and everything ready."
"No, I won't!"
"Then I have to go myself," she whispered, with bowed head and
averted face.
"You, Flora? What are you thinking of? Why should you go?"
"To get away! To escape!"
"What are you talking about?"
She turned her head and looked at him with a flushed face and eyes
flashing green through tears.
"Flora, what do you mean?" he continued. "Why did you say that?"
"I--I must get away--before morning--from the police!"
"You? Stop crying or I'll shake you! What have the police to do
with you?"
"I--I did it. I shot Amos Hammond."
"You! You are mad, Flora! You knew nothing about it until this
afternoon. You knew nothing until Steeves told you."
"I pretended not to know, naturally. I wasn't in when you got home
before dinner, was I? I came in fifteen or twenty minutes after you.
You noticed that, Jim. I shot him. I was in the woods, and I saw
him suddenly on the road--and I shot him!"
"Good Lord! Why?"
"I thought of poor old Widow Wilson, and of the time he tried to kill
you, and of things he has said about us."
"Good heavens!"
"So you see, I must get away--before morning."
Jim dried three cups in silence.
"I'll go," he said, his voice low but steady. "Tell me what you have
planned after the old boys have turned in: and I'll get away before
dawn."
"But you said you didn't do it!"
"Well?"
"Why--why have you changed your mind about going?"
"To give the sheriff a run for his money. All you will have to do is
keep quiet. You would be safe enough from suspicion without my
going, I think, but you'll be doubly safe if I take to the woods."
"Do you believe that of me?"
"What?"
"That I shot Amos Hammond?"
"Haven't you just now told me that you shot him? I don't know what
you are trying to get at! Did you shoot him, or didn't you?"
"You should know."
"I believe what you tell me, mad as it sounds."
"Of course I did it. Haven't I told you so? I wonder what you must
think of me--for doing such a thing."
"I think you acted on a mad impulse. But that's not what's sticking
in my crop. I can understand that, but why did you try to get me to
run away and confirm Homer Steeves' suspicion before you told me the
truth?"
She gazed at him with many and conflicting expressions in her
remarkable eyes--amazement, protest, appeal, anxiety, scorn, doubt,
and a gleam of something unutterably tender and kind. Then she
suddenly turned from him, sobbing.
"Now ye done it, Jim!" exclaimed Grandfather Ducat from the stove.
"Ye're comin' along, lad! Ye're the only young man I see yet could
make Flora cry."
Jim lit a cigarette and joined the old men. Flora dried her eyes,
put the dishes away on the dresser shelves and went upstairs. Jim
and the grandfathers played three-handed cribbage until ten o'clock,
and the girl did not reappear once during that time. The old men
retired at last, leaving Jim to bank the fire and wind the clock.
Jim had no intention of going to bed that night. He was determined
to see Flora and speak to her again before his flight. He owed this
to her as well as to himself. He must know what she had meant by the
look he had seen in her eyes, and he had to give her a chance to
thank him for the very serious sacrifice he was about to make for her
sake. Also, his heart was set on telling her once more that he
thought none the less of her for the mad thing she had done.
He sat by the fire, extinguished the lamp, and smoked a cigarette.
He considered the disastrous situation from many angles, but not for
a moment did he consider the advisability of standing his ground and
stating his innocence and leaving the solving of Flora's problem to
herself and the law. He didn't give that course a moment's thought,
for Flora was a girl, and all the Ducats were his friends.
He smoked two cigarettes, waiting and listening in the dark, angry
and depressed and helpless. At last he fell asleep, despite his
determination to remain awake and interview the girl.
He sat up with a jerk and opened his eyes. A gray hint of light was
at the eastern windows. The fire was burning and a kettle was
steaming on the stove. Flora had been here and had put on the kettle
for him. His heart lightened. He lit the lamp at his elbow and
looked around the kitchen. He was alone. But perhaps she would be
down again? Of course she would be down again! But a glance at the
table took the edge off that hope. There lay a sheet of white paper
marked with penciled lines, the points of the compass and a dozen
words of instruction. A small pocket-compass held it down. About
these were clustered dishes, the teapot, cream, bread and butter,
sliced cold ham, and a jar of strawberry preserves. On the end of
the big table lay his rifle and a large pack made up of a bag of
provisions and a roll of heavy blankets.
"Here's you hat: what's your hurry?" said Jim, bitterly.
He pocketed the paper and compass after a brief examination, poured
boiling water on the tea, pulled on stockings and moccasins and
turned to the food with a grim but workman-like air. Then, full-fed,
he fastened on his snowshoes, donned blanket coat and fur cap,
hoisted the pack to his shoulders and made it fast, lit a cigarette,
and went out from the warm old kitchen. He circled the cluster of
buildings and struck due west, according to instructions. The dogs
leaped about him, and it went sore against his nature to have to turn
them homeward by flourishing his cased rifle at them. For a long
time they refused to believe that he really meant it, that it wasn't
a new game, but at last they turned and retired. And Jim Todhunter
was alone; he had never felt so absolutely alone before.
Flora Ducat was in the kitchen again within fifteen minutes of Jim's
departure. She cleared the table, pausing frequently to listen as if
she expected to hear something at the door. When all signs of Jim's
breakfast were removed and the table was reset, she banged the
stovepipe with the iron spoon. Then she went to the door and opened
it. The dogs came bounding in. She closed the door behind her and
stood motionless in the biting cold for half a minute, listening and
gazing westward over the lightening wastes of snow and forest. There
were shadows in her eyes, and her lips trembled pitifully.
Breakfast that morning was an unhappy experience for Flora.
"Ain't Jim been called yet?" asked her mother. "Maybe he's all
tuckered out with his snowshoein' yesterday an' would like to eat in
bed. Well, he can if he wants to."
"He has gone out," said the girl. "He had something to eat before he
went, I guess."
"An' took his snowshoes an' rifle along!" exclaimed the observant
Grandfather Ducat. "What's eatin' 'im? He ain't fool enough to
strike out for Kittle Pond all by himself, I hope. He's left the new
traps behind, anyhow. Jist out a-cavortin' round on his snowshoes
for the good o' his health, like as not. Ye can't ever tell what
these outsiders will do next."
The morning passed, but James Todhunter did not return.
Investigations on the part of old Hercules Ducat disclosed the fact
that bacon, flour, tea, bread, sugar, blankets, and Peter's compass
were missing. From this he deduced the theory that Jim had gone
forth with every intention of making a long journey; and if a long
journey, what journey but northward to Kettle Pond and his partner?
He explained it all at dinner.
"Reckon that's easy enough," he concluded triumphantly.
"A fool could see it," remarked Grandfather McKim.
Three o'clock came and brought Sheriff Hart in a yellow pung behind a
long-gaited gray. The sheriff threw the buffalos over the gray and
entered the kitchen before the grandfathers had a chance to get
outside to welcome him and to insist on stabling the horse; for Bruce
Hart, being a fair man and a kindly one who never exceeded his duties
and frequently gave ear to the spirit rather than the letter of the
law, was personally popular and usually accepted with resignation in
his official capacity. After the workmanlike dispatch of his
entrance and a swift professional glance around the kitchen, his
attitude relaxed. He shook hands with Mrs. Ducat, with the old man,
and with Flora, and asked after the healths and whereabouts of Sam
and Peter and Mark and the young man from the States--all with the
politest and most sociable air. Mrs. Ducat told him of Peter's
rheumatism and Sam's departure for the woods and Mark's venture away
up in the Kettle Pond country.
"There'd ought to be fur a-plenty up that way," said the sheriff,
laying aside his coon-skin coat and accepting a rocking chair.
"Young Todhunter's Mark's partner, so I hear. He bought some traps
from Mel Hammond. Is he round anywheres handy now?"
"We ain't seen him all day," said Grandfather McKim. "He's took all
of a sudden to larnin' how to snowshoe, an' I reckon he be out
rollickin' round somewheres on his webs this very minute."
At that moment, the door opened and old Widow Wilson from Kingswood
Settlement entered the kitchen with her staff and her basket and her
single-barreled shotgun wrapped up in a shawl. She was cordially
welcomed by everyone, the sheriff included. Flora relieved her of
her burdens, Mrs. Ducat brushed the snow from her feet, Sheriff Hart
closed the door behind her, and Hercules Ducat gave her his own
chair. She accepted these attentions graciously, turned back her
hood, loosed her cloak and fixed her bright glance knowingly on the
sheriff's hairy face.