THE NICK O’ TIME
The boy poled slowly up the bright and lively water. Sometimes where the
stream was very shallow he got out and waded for fifty yards or more,
pulling the canoe along with him; occasionally he stopped to examine the
shore for signs, but all the while his thoughts were busy with his
uncle. He had seen fire in the eye of that merry, kindly man—and he
hoped never to see it again. Why had he made him promise to stop at the
camp over night? A vague but frightful suspicion possessed him. Uncle
Bill had hinted at a mystery concerning his character and pursuits. What
had he meant? He had said that he was something other, something
smarter, than people believed him to be around these parts, and that he
hid his light under a peck-measure because he was shy. Now what had he
meant by all that? And why had he seemed so queer about his camp? Was he
a criminal of some sort—and was the secret of his dark career hidden in
the camp?
Young Dan remembered that he had never known his uncle to be without a
roll of paper money in his pocket; but what he did to earn money beyond
guiding a sportsman now and then, was more than the boy knew. Was it
possible that this mild and entertaining uncle, who had two ways of
talking and who often vanished from the Oxbow country for months at a
time, was a robber? And might it not be that he sometimes committed
robbery with violence? He always carried a pistol in the woods. A
struggle might lead to a murder now and then! Miss Carten had been up
here with her money!
Young Dan worked his way slowly up the swift and shallow stream and at
noon he stopped to fry some bacon, but spent most of the interval
thinking. For two hours he sat there in the warm sunshine with his back
against a tree and his eyes gazing off into space. His heart was heavy
and numb with sinister suspicions of Uncle Bill. He had always admired
and liked that amiable and versatile relative; but he would go on and
learn the worst. When he finally went back to his canoe he realized that
he would have to hurry to reach the camp above the Prongs by sundown.
There were no clearings or human habitations on the Oxbow above Old
Squaw Falls. The voice of the stream was lonely; the cries of birds in
the woods were like the very voice of desolation; and the long, yellow
day was as lonely as a deserted house. The sun was close to the wooded
hills when Young Dan reached the Prongs. He continued his journey up the
Right Prong. It was already evening in that narrow, tree-crowded valley.
The water was so shallow there, and the bed of the stream was so broken
with mossy boulders, that he ran the canoe ashore and waded forward.
The sun was far below Young Dan’s narrowed field of vision, and the deep
track of the stream was full of brown twilight when he reached the foot
of the path that led back through the woods to Uncle Bill’s camp. The
plaintive cry of a whippoorwill rang from an umber gloom of cedars; an
owl hooted dismally in the tall spruces beyond; a fox barked on the
darkening hillside. Night-hawks swooped on twanging wings high overhead
against a sky of dulling green, and bats wove their flickering black
threads of flight in the deepening dusk of the valley. Behind and
through and over all lurked the spirit of the wilderness, watchful,
waiting, still—a spirit of mystery and menace.
Young Dan’s heart was shaken by a vague dread. He felt fear as he had
never felt it before, at any hour of the day or night, when alone in the
woods. He started along the thread of path that was worn among the roots
of the underbrush. He gripped his axe close to the blade and questioned
the gulfs of shadow to his right and left with straining eyes. So he
advanced for fifteen or twenty yards; and then, suddenly, he remembered
the character in which he had undertaken his journey. He knelt, struck a
match, cupped the flame in his hands and held it close to the trodden
earth.
There was a track, fresh and deep, that he had not expected to find—the
track of big soles thickly studded with blunted calks. Uncle Bill had
been in moccasins that day; he never wore calked boots in the woods; and
these tracks pointed only one way—forward.
After a moment of reflection, Young Dan continued to advance. He was
puzzled. When he reached the edge of the little clearing he saw that the
camp was occupied. Yellow lamp-light streamed from its one small window.
He hesitated, staring forward and around, then dropped on his hands and
knees and crawled from the shelter of the woods. His right hand still
gripped the axe close up to the heavy blade. So he moved among mossy
hummocks and blackened stumps toward the lighted window, pausing often
to listen and peer about him. As he drew near he noticed that the door
was shut; and as he drew still nearer he heard the murmur of a voice
from within. He crawled close to the log wall of the cabin, directly
beneath the open window, and crouched there motionless.
One voice was talking within—a thick, unpleasant voice that he did not
know. And this is what it was saying:
“So he’ll be home to-night, will he? He’ll be home _to-morrow_, that’s
when he’ll be home. An’ here I be, an’ you’re goin’ to hand over all the
money you’ve got tucked away in this shack. Fust of all ye was sassy an’
now ye’re sulky. Have a drink! This here is good stuff an’ powerful hard
to git these days. Here, pour yerself a drink an’ swaller it down—or
I’ll open yer mouth an’ make ye take it.”
“If my husband were here he’d open that door and kick you out!” replied
another voice—a voice known to Young Dan. “If you belonged to these
parts and knew him you’d go now before he comes back and kills you, you
drunken brute!”
“D’ye reckon to scare me?” sneered the other. “Then ye gotter think of
somethin’ bigger an’ better than this here Mister William Tangler ye’re
yappin’ about. I reckon I’ll stop right here till he comes home, and
then ye’ll know who’s the best man of the two of us. But ye ain’t took
yer drink yet! Take it, d’ye hear! It’ll loosen yer tongue.”
The dazed boy beneath the open window heard a clink of glass, a scream
and sounds of scuffling. He raised himself and looked into the cabin. A
lamp stood among dishes on the table in the middle of the little room.
Beyond the table, against the wall, a man struggled with a woman. The
man had his back to the window. He was big and a stranger. The woman was
Miss Carten.
Young Dan’s quick eyes spotted a wooden rolling-pin on a corner of the
table. He laid his axe on the ground and went through the window as
quick and as noiseless as thought. Two swift and silent steps brought
him to the corner of the table. He grasped a handle of the rolling-pin,
advanced two more paces, judged the distance, swung his arm and struck.
One strike meant out in that game.
Young Dan bound the unknown and unconscious bushwhacker with thongs from
a pair of snowshoes on the wall and placed a folded blanket under his
sore head and let him lie where he had fallen. Then he sat and watched
his new aunt make coffee and warm up a panful of beans for him. She told
him of her secret courtship by Uncle Bill, and of their flight and
marriage by a parson friend whom Bill had sworn to secrecy—all because
William Tangler was the most bashful man in the world. She told of how
Bill, who was thought to be so idle and aimless by the people on the
Oxbow, was in reality an expert in the science of forestry and in the
employ of the Government as such. Bill had gone out that morning to mail
an official report and also to mail his young bride’s resignation as
teacher in the little school at the Bend. In a few days they would go
out to civilization together.
Every now and then Miss Carten thanked Young Dan for saving her from the
drunken bushwhacker and she said so many complimentary things that her
visitor’s face turned the color of ripe choke-cherries. She said among
other things that she believed he was almost as clever and brave as his
uncle.
“If I were Uncle Bill I wouldn’t of been so shy,” said Young Dan, who
felt greatly relieved by the outcome of his activities and very proud of
himself.
When the coffee and beans were ready, and the big ruffian on the floor
was beginning to grunt and sigh, Young Dan remarked, “I guess Mister
Holmes couldn’t of done that job much slicker himself.” Suddenly he
cocked his head to listen. “I can hear Uncle Bill coming up the trail,”
he said. “He offered to be my Doctor Watson, but I didn’t need him.”
[Illustration]