THE TIMBER CRUISER
Mr. Howbridge got up from his chair and advanced to meet the
backwoodsman with hospitable hand. The roughly dressed, bewhiskered
forester did not impress the young folks at first as being different
from the men who had driven the sledges to the camp or those who had
brought the party up Long Lake in the ice-boats.
Ike M'Graw had an enormous moustache ("like that of a walrus," Cecile
whispered), but his iron-gray beard was cropped close. His face was
long and solemn of expression, but his gray eyes, surrounded by
innumerable wrinkles, had a humorous cast, and were as bright as the
eyes of a much younger person.
He seized Mr. Howbridge's hand and pumped it warmly. His grip was
strong, and Mr. Howbridge winced, but he continued to smile upon the
old man.
"Mr. Birdsall told me that if I wanted to know anything up here, or
wanted anything done, to look to you, Mr. M'Graw," said the lawyer, as
their hands fell apart.
"I bet he didn't say it jest that way, Mr. Howbridge," chuckled the
man. "No. I reckon he jest called me 'Ike.' Now, didn't he? And 'Old
Ike,' at that!"
Mr. Howbridge laughed. "Well, he did speak of you in that way, yes,"
he admitted.
"I reckoned so," M'Graw said. "Yep, I'm 'Old Ike' to my friends, and
what my enemies call me don't matter at all--not at all."
"I fancy you don't make many enemies up here in the woods, M'Graw,"
said Mr. Howbridge, waving the visitor to a comfortable seat before
the fire.
"Nor friends, nuther," chuckled the man. "No, sir, there ain't sech a
slather of folks up here to mix in with, by any count."
Before the woodsman took his seat the lawyer introduced him to Mrs.
MacCall and to Ruth, individually, and to the rest of the group in
general.
"Hi gorry!" exclaimed Ike M'Graw, "you've got a right big fam'ly,
haven't you? You won't be lonesome up here--no, you won't be
lonesome."
"And that is what I should think you would be," Mr. Howbridge said.
"Lonesome. If you get snowed in you don't see anybody for weeks, I
suppose?"
"Better say 'months,' Mister," declared M'Graw. "I've been snowed into
my cabin back yonder in the valley from the day before Christmas till
come St. Patrick's Day. That's right."
"I understood you lived near the Lodge, here, Ike?" said the lawyer.
"Oh, I do in winter, since Mr. Birdsall asked me to," the man said.
"But sometimes--'specially when there was visitors up here--the
population of this here ridge got too thick for Old Ike. Then I'd hike
out for my old cabin in the valley."
Quickly Mr. Howbridge put in a query that had formed in his mind early
in the evening:
"Have you been troubled with visitors up here this winter?"
"No, sir! It's been right quiet here, you might say."
"Nobody here at all until my party came yesterday?"
"Well, not many. Some timbermen went through for Neven. His company's
got a camp over beyond the Birdsall line. Yes, sir."
"Strangers have not been here, then?"
"Why, no. Not to my knowledge," said M'Graw, with a keener look at the
lawyer. "You wasn't meanin' nothin' special, was you? I've been away
over to Ebettsville for a week. Nothin' stirring here before I went."
The conversation had become general again among the main party. Mr.
Howbridge drew his chair nearer to the old man's ear.
"Listen," he said. "When my men came up yesterday and opened the house
with the key I had given them, they found somebody had been in here
not many hours before they arrived."
"How'd they know?"
"The fire had scarcely died out in one of the grates upstairs."
"Hum! Fire, eh? And I hadn't been inside this Lodge since b'fore
Thanksgiving. Kinder funny, heh?"
"Yes."
"Anything stole?"
"Not a thing touched as far as we know. No other traces but the embers
in that grate--"
"Hold on, Mister!" exclaimed M'Graw, but in a low voice. "What grate
are you referrin' to? Which room was this fire in?"
Mr. Howbridge told him. The old man's face was curious to look upon.
His brows drew down into a frown. His sharp eyes lost their humorous
cast. Of a sudden he was very serious indeed.
"That thar room," he said slowly, and at length, "was Miz'
Birdsall's."
"So I believed from the way it was furnished and from what Frank had
told me of the house."
"Yes, Mister. That was her room. She thought a heap of sittin' in that
room; 'specially in stormy weather. And the little shavers used to
play there with her, too."
"Yes?"
"Them little shavers thought a sight of their mom," pursued M'Graw.
"I gathered as much from what Frank told me," Mr. Howbridge said
seriously.
"By the way, Mr. Howbridge," said M'Graw in a different tone, "where
are the little shavers?"
"You mean the twins, of course? Ralph and Rowena?"
"Yes, sir."
The guardian of the Birdsall twins rather hesitatingly told the old
man just why he had not brought Ralph and Rowena to Red Deer Lodge at
this time.
"Ran away? Now listen to that!" murmured the old man. "That don't
sound right. Wasn't they with folks able to take keer of 'em?"
"I thought they were," said Mr. Howbridge. "Rodgers, the butler, and
his wife."
"Whoof!" exclaimed the backwoodsman, expelling his breath in a great
snort of disgust. "That butler! Wal, what for a man wants to buttle
for, I don't know. I never could make it out that it was a real man's
job, anyway. And that Rodgers was one useless critter. I don't blame
them little shavers for runnin' away from Rodgers an' that sour-apple
wife of his. I know 'em both."
"If that is the case," said the lawyer sadly, "I wish I had known them
as well as you appear to. Then I should have made other provision for
the twins right at the start."
"But shucks!" said M'Graw, suddenly grinning. "Them two little shavers
will turn up all right. Ralph and Roweny are right smart kids."
"That may be. But we don't know where they have gone to. Of course,
Ike, they couldn't have got up here to Red Deer Lodge, could they?"
"I don't know 'bout that," said the old man. "I reckon they could have
got here if they'd wanted to. But I know well 'nough they didn't--not
before I went away to Ebettsville a week ago."
"Of course not! Somebody would have seen them at Coxford. And then, if
they had come here, where are they now?"
"That's right, Mister," agreed Ike M'Graw. "But--but who started that
fire in the grate?"
"If it had been the children wouldn't they have been found here?"
"Mebbe. Tell you the truth"--and the old man's weather-beaten face
reddened a little. "Well, to tell you the truth, when you spoke of the
fire in the grate, I was some took aback. Miz' Birdsall bein' killed
here. And she likin' that room so. And she finally dyin' in it--well,
I don't know--"
"Ike! you are superstitious, I do believe," said the lawyer.
"Mebbe. But that never killed nobody," said the man. "And funny things
do happen. Howsomever--Say!" he exclaimed suddenly, "how'd these folks
that made the fire get into the house and out again?"
"Hedden, my man, says he found nothing broken or burst open. It must
have been by the use of a key. And the only key I knew of up here was
yours, Ike."
"That's right," said the backwoodsman, nodding. "Mine's the only key
up here."
"But the intruders couldn't have used that."
"Yes, they could, too! I didn't take it with me when I went away from
here."
"Who would know where it was?"
"Anybody might have seen it that looked into my shack," admitted the
old man. "I ain't in the habit of hidin' things. We don't have
burglars up here, Mister. That key, and others, hung right on a nail
beside my chimley-place. Yes, sir!"
"Then any person passing by could have found the key and entered the
Lodge?" asked Mr. Howbridge.
"Only we don't have many folks passin' by," returned Ike thoughtfully.
"I can't understand it."
"It is a puzzle," admitted M'Graw. "Hi gorry! I ain't been to my shack
yet since comin' back from Ebettsville. Mebbe the key ain't thar no
more."
"To what door was it?" asked the lawyer.
"This here," replied M'Graw, jerking a thumb toward the main entrance.
"Padlock on the outside of the door. All the other doors was barred on
the inside. Oh, she was locked up hard and fast!"
"I don't understand it," said the lawyer. "You look when you go home
and see if the key is hanging where you left it."
"Hi gorry! I will," promised the backwoodsman. "I'd better bring the
key over here tomorrow, anyway. And I reckon you want them figgers on
the timber Neven wants to cut?"
"Yes. Of course, Ike, you have made no mistake in cruising the
timberland?"
"I never make mistakes, Mister," said the old man. "That wouldn't do
in the woods. The man that's brought up, as I was, with wildcats an'
bears an' sech, can't afford to make mistakes. This was a lots wilder
country when I was a boy from what 'tis now."
"I find that Neven's figures are very different from yours."
"Likely. And I reckon they're in his favor, ain't they?" and M'Graw
chuckled. "Ye-as? I thought so. Well, you take it from me, Mister: I'm
working for Birdsall's youngsters, not for Neven."
"I believe that to be a fact," the lawyer agreed warmly. "I have
already told Neven that there are other companies that will make a
contract with us if he doesn't care to accept your report."
"I b'lieve I know this Birdsall strip a leetle better'n any other
feller in these parts. I've lived on it twenty year, and knowed it
well before that time. I've seen some o' this timber grow. Reckon I
ain't fooled myself none."
After that Mr. Howbridge drew the old into the general conversation.
Ike approved vastly of the young people, it was evident. Agnes and the
smaller children were popping corn. There were apples roasting on the
hearth. The cider was handed about in glasses which one of the
servants brought.
"We shall look to you for help in amusing these young people, Ike,"
Mr. Howbridge said. "Is it going to snow enough tonight to keep them
indoors tomorrow?"
"No, no," the old woodsman assured them. "It's snowing some, but not
much yet awhile. This here storm that's comin' has got to gather fust.
We'll get a heavy fall, I don't doubt, in the end; but not yet. Like
enough, 'twill be purty fair tomorrow."
Reassured by this prophecy, the little folks soon after went to bed.
Nor were the older members of the party long behind them. They had had
a long and wearying day, and the beds beckoned them.