ALL DOWN HILL
The party of young people with the bobsled was very merry indeed just
as soon as they got out of hearing of the Lodge. By striking into a
path which opened into the wood right behind the barns, they cut off
any view the two little girls and Sammy Pinkney might have caught of
their departure.
"I feel somewhat condemned for leaving them behind," Ruth said. "Yet I
know it is too far for such little people to go along and get back for
lunch."
"Oh, they are having a good time," Cecile said. "You make yourself a
slave to your young family, Ruthie," and she laughed.
"We will make it up to the kids," Luke joined in. "After we have tried
the slide they can have a shot at it."
"That's all right," grinned Neale O'Neil. "But if Tess Kenway thinks
she has been snubbed or neglected--well! you will not hear the last of
it in a hurry, believe me."
This part of the wood into which the young people had entered was a
sapling growth. Not many years before the timber had been cut and
there were only brush clumps and small trees here now.
Flocks of several different kinds of birds--sparrows, buntings, jays,
swamp robins, and others--flew noisily about. There were berries and
seeds to be found in the thickets. The birds had begun to forage far
from the swamps--a sign that the snow was heavy and deep in their
usual winter feeding places.
"The dear little birdies!" cooed Agnes, waving her gloved hand at a
flock that spread out fan-wise in the covert, frightened by the
approach of the young people.
Suddenly there arose a vast racket--a whirring and trampling sound, as
though it were of runaway hoofs. Agnes shrieked and glanced about her.
The other girls looked startled.
"That horse! It's running away!" cried Agnes. "Oh, Neale!"
"Shucks!" said that youth, scornfully. "'The dear little birdies!' Ho,
ho! I thought you liked 'em, Aggie?"
"Liked what?" she demanded, as the noise faded away into the wood.
"The birdies. That was a flock of partridges. They can make some
noise, can't they? Food in the swamps must be getting mighty scarce,
or they would not be away up here."
"Who ever would have thought it?" murmured Cecile. "Partridges!"
"Wish I had a gun," said Luke.
"Don't be afraid. They won't bite," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "And we
won't be likely to meet anything much more dangerous than birds in the
day time."
"Yet we saw that big cat yesterday," Ruth said.
"It ran all right. We might have brought Tom Jonah; only he was
playing with the kids," said Neale. "Anyway, the best he would do
would be to scare up creatures in the thickets that we otherwise would
not know were there."
"Now, stop that, Neale O'Neil!" cried Agnes. "Are you trying to
frighten us?"
"Shucks, Aggie!" he returned. "You know the kind of wild animal we
scared up this morning when we found Ike M'Graw's place."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Agnes, with laughter.
"What's the joke?" asked Luke.
So Neale told the rest of the party how he and Agnes had followed the
footprints of the "deer" clear to the old man's cabin.
"And there we could hear them squealing in their pen," was the way
Neale finished it.
"Two mighty hunters, you!" chuckled Luke.
The road over which they dragged the sled soon became steep. They were
now climbing a long hill through heavier timber. It was a straight
path, and the crown of the ascent was more than a mile from Red Deer
Lodge.
Half way up they passed a fork in the timber road. The roads were not
rutted at all, for they were full of firm snow. This second road
dipped to the north, running down the steep hill and out of sight.
"That chap who told me about this slide told me to 'ware that road,"
Luke said. "Around that curve he said it was steep and there'd be no
stopping the sled for a long way. If we stick to the right track, well
slide back almost to the Lodge itself."
"That'll help some," Cecile said. "I am getting tired tramping over
this snow. It's a harder pull than I imagined it would be."
"We were very wise not to let the children come," Ruth remarked.
Uphill for all of a mile was, in truth, no easy climb.
Agnes and Neale O'Neil began to bicker.
"I'm no horse," said Neale rather grumpily, when Agnes suggested that
the boys could drag the girls on the sled.
"No; your ears are too long," she retorted impishly.
"Now, children!" admonished Ruth, "How is it you two always manage to
fight?"
"They're only showing off," chuckled Luke Shepard. "In secret they
have a terrible crush on each other."
"Such slang!" groaned his sister.
"Real college brand," said Agnes cheerfully. "I do love slang, Luke.
Tell us some more."
"I object! No, no!" cried Ruth. "She learns quite enough high-school
slang. Don't teach her any more of the college brand, Luke."
They puffed up the final rise and arrived at the top of the ascent.
This was the very peak of the ridge on which Red Deer Lodge was built.
Because it was winter and all but the evergreens and oaks were denuded
of leaves, they could see much farther over the surrounding landscape
than would have been possible in the leafy seasons; however, on all
sides the forest was so thick at a distance that a good view of the
country was not easily obtained.
The valley toward the north was black with spruce and hemlock. One
could not see if there were clearings in the valley. It seemed there
to be an unbroken and primeval forest.
This valley was included in the Birdsall estate, and the timber which
the Neven Lumber Company wished to cut practically lay entirely in
that wild valley.
The hills to the west were plainly visible. Their caps were either
bald and snow covered, or crowned with the black-green forest. Toward
the lakeside the slopes were alternately tree covered and of raw
stumpage where the timber had recently been cut. These "slashes" were
ugly looking spots.
"That is what all that part yonder of this estate will look like when
the lumbermen get through," said Ruth. "Isn't it a shame?"
"But trees have to be cut down some time. I heard M'Graw say that much
of the timber on this place was beginning to deteriorate," Luke said
in reply.
"Shucks!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil, "if a tree is beautiful, why not let
it stand? Why slaughter it?"
"There speaks the altruistic spirit of the young artist," laughed
Luke. "Ask Mr. Howbridge. How about the money value of the tree?"
"Shucks!" Neale repeated, but with his eyes twinkling. "Is money
everything?"
"Let me tell you, boy," said Luke a little bitterly; "it buys almost
everything that is worth while in this world. I want beautiful things,
too; but I know it will cost a slew of money to buy them. I am going
to set out and try for money first, then!"
"Hear the practical youth!" said Cecile. "That is what he learns at
college. Say! aren't we going to slide downhill? Or did we come up
here to discuss political economy?"
Luke, holding up his hand in affirmation, declared: "I vow to discuss
neither polit, bugs, pills, psyche, trig--"
"Oh, stop!" commanded Ruth, yet with curiosity. "What are all those
horrid sounding things?"
"Pshaw!" cried the collegian's sister, "I know that much of his old
slang. 'Trig' is trigonometry, of course; 'psyche' is psychology;
'pills' means physics; 'bugs' is biology; and 'poit,' of course, is
political economy. Those college boys are awfully smart, aren't they?"
"I want to sli-i-ide!" wailed Agnes, stamping her feet in the snow. "I
am turning into a lump of ice, standing here."
"Get aboard, then," answered Neale.
She plumped herself on the sled. Luke straddled the seat just behind
the steering wheel. The other girls took their places in rotation
after Agnes, while Neale made ready to push off and then jump on
himself at the rear.
"Ready?" he cried.
"Let her go!" responded the steersman.
"Hang on, girls!" commanded Neale, as he started the sled with a
mighty shove.
The bobsled moved slowly. The runners grunted and strained over the
soft snow that packed under them and, at first, retarded the movement
of the sled. But soon the power of gravitation asserted itself. Neale
settled himself on the seat. The wind began to whistle past their
ears. In front a fine mist of snow particles was thrown up.
Faster and faster they rushed down the descent. The young people had
thought this trail very smooth as they climbed it; but now they found
there were plenty of "thank-you-ma'ams" in the path. The bobsled
bumped over these, gathering speed, and finally began to leave the
snow and fairly fly into the air when it struck a ridge.
The girls screamed when these hummocks arrived. But they laughed
between them, too! It was a most exciting trip.
Like an arrow the sled shot past the fork in the road, keeping to the
left. But it would have been a very easy matter, as Luke Shepard saw,
to turn the sled into the steeper descent.
They started up a gray and white rabbit beside the path, and it raced
them in desperate fright for several hundred yards, before it knew
enough to turn off the road and leap into the brush. Luke's head was
down and his eyes half closed as he stared ahead. But Neale gave voice
to his delight in reechoed shouts.
There were slides in Milton. The selectmen gave up certain streets to
the young folk for coasting. But those streets were nothing like this.
On and on the bobsled flew, its pace increasing with, every length.
Although this woodroad was in no place really steep, the hill was so
long, and its slant so continuous that the momentum the sled gathered
carried it over any little level that there might be, and at the foot
of the decline still shot the merry crew over the snow at a swift pace
and for a long distance.
Indeed, when the sled stopped they were almost at the back of the Red
Deer Lodge premises. A mellow horn was calling them to lunch when they
alighted.
"Oh! wasn't it bully?" gasped the delighted Agnes. "I never did have
such a sled-ride!"
"How about your trip up the lake!" Cecile asked.
"Oh! But that scooter was different."
The other girls were quite as pleased with the slide as Agnes; and the
three ran into the house to dress for lunch, chattering like magpies,
while the boys put the sled away under the shed.
When Luke and Neale went into the house they found Ike M'Graw skinning
the fox in the back kitchen, Tom Jonah being a much interested
spectator. The woodsman beckoned Neale to him.
"Look here, young feller," he said. "You seen this critter shot last
night, you say?"
"Yes," replied the boy.
"Where was it shot from? I'm derned if I can find any place where the
feller stood along the edge of the woods to shoot him."
"No. I couldn't find any footprints either," Neale confessed.
"Not knowing from which direction the bullet came--"
"Oh, but I do know that, Mr. M'Graw. I am pretty positive, at least. I
have been doubtful whether to say anything about it or not--and that's
a fact."
"What d'you mean?" demanded the old man, eyeing him shrewdly.
"Well, I thought when I heard the shot and the fox was killed that the
explosion was right over my head."
"What's that? Over your head! In the attic?"
"That is where the shot came from--yes."
"Air you positive?" drawled the old man.
"I went up there this morning and saw the place where the fellow had
rested the barrel of his gun across the window sill to shoot."
"My! My!" muttered Ike thoughtfully. "And there wasn't nobody up there
this morning?"
"No. And I asked Hedden, and he said neither of the other men knew how
to use a gun and that they all were in bed at the time the fox was
shot."
"Do tell!" muttered the woodsman. "Then they--well, the feller that
shot the fox was up there in the attic about bedtime, was he?"
"Yes. Who do you suppose he was, Mr. M'Graw?" asked Neale curiously.
"Well, I wouldn't want to make a guess. This here man workin' in the
kitchen tells me that there wasn't a foot mark in the snow at all when
he got up and went out of the back door here the fust time this
morning. And, of course, there wasn't no footprints at the front of
the house, was there?"
"Oh, no! Not until after breakfast time."
"Uh-huh! Well, after this John had tramped back an' forth to the
woodshed and the like half a dozen times, anybody could have gone out
of here without their footprints being noticed. Ain't that a fac'?"
He said this to himself more than to Neale, who had become vastly
interested in the subject. He eagerly watched the old man's
weather-beaten face.
Suddenly the woodsman raised his head and looked at Neale
thoughtfully. He asked a question that seemed to have nothing at all
to do with the subject in hand.
"What kind of a dog is this here Tom Jonah?" Ike demanded. "Ain't he
got no nose?"