A THIEF WITH CLAWS
Young Dan Evans was done with school; and he had almost decided to hire
out with Josh Tod, as a “swamper” in the lumberwoods, when a letter from
Uncle Bill Tangler caused him to change his plans for the winter. The
letter, which came from Mr. Tangler’s office in a distant city, ran as
follows:
Dear Young Dan:
Now that the frost is on the punkin (as a leading poet has
remarked) and the swamps back of your pasture are frozen so
hard that no woodcock can stick his bill into the mud any
more this year (a fact overlooked by said leading poet) and
folk on the Oxbow are frying fresh pork with their buckwheat
pancakes and making sausages and fattening turkeys, my
thoughts are with you frequently and enviously. It is a
great country, Young Dan, and a grand season of the year for
him who has wild blood in his veins and unimpaired organs of
digestion. I should like fine to be away up beyond the
Prongs this very morning, putting an edge to an appetite,
instead of sitting here at this expensive desk trying to
look like the only real know-it-all in the Government’s
service; but now that I have a wife who needs two new hats
and an evening frock, and a furnace that eats up coal, I
must sit in tight and steady to this lady-like job. But what
about you, Young Dan? You have exhausted the educational
resources of the Bend; you haven’t a wife or a furnace; so
why don’t you go up beyond the Prongs? You may use the camp
as if you owned it. As for grub, you’ll find enough there of
everything except bacon and condensed milk to last till
spring—enough for two. So you had better go into partnership
with someone—with old Andy Mace, for choice. He is an honest
man and was a mighty hunter and fur-taker in his day. You
will find half a dozen traps in your own garret and a lot
more in the loft of the camp, all in good shape. You are
welcome to them, and to my rifle as well, and my snowshoes
if they are better than your own. Help yourself. That is a
great country for fox and mink and lynx. You should have a
prosperous winter—so go to it, with your Uncle Bill’s
blessing.
P. S. Here is a little check. Take it to Amos Bissing at the
Bend and you’ll find him willing to swap a few dollars for
it, I guess. Your Aunt Stella sends her love to you and will
mail you another book about Mr. S. Holmes as soon as she
gets it ready for the post.
Young Dan was delighted with the letter. He showed it to his parents.
Dan’l Evans didn’t think very highly of it as a specimen of epistolary
art, though he had no objections to make to the advice and suggestions
which it contained.
“Bill’s reckoned a smart man, an’ educated at that, but if this here
ain’t the foolishest writ letter ever I read, then I’ll eat it,” he
said. “I guess them Forestry people have kinder over-rated him. That’s
the Gover’ment for ye, and always has been. Let a man have a slick way
with him, an’ slithers of easy talk, an’ the Gover’ment gives him a job
of work with nothin’ to do. This here’s a plumb foolish letter, anyhow.
Take this here about his indigestion now, an’ this talk about the
woodcock! What d’ye reckon he means? I ain’t had much education, but——”
“Ye’re right there, Dan’l Evans,” interrupted Young Dan’s mother, who
had held a very high opinion of her brother’s abilities ever since he
had become a successful citizen of the great outside world. “Much
education! No, indeed. Bill’s clever, an’ always was—an’ I, for one,
always knew it. I always knew he should be clever, anyhow, seein’ he was
a Tangler; an’ if I ever acted crusty with him it was his own fault for
hidin’ his light from me in a bushel-bag, so to speak. He didn’t write
that letter to you anyhow, Dan’l Evans, so what you think about it don’t
matter a mite to my brother Bill nor anybody.”
This discussion concerning the letter from a purely literary standpoint
did not disturb Young Dan in the least, for neither of his parents
offered any objection to his acceptance of Uncle Bill Tangler’s offers
and advice. He set out first thing in the morning to put the proposition
before old Andy Mace, who lived three miles below the Bend, in a log
house in a small clearing. It was a morning of sun and frost. The road,
recently deep with mud, was hard as iron; the sky was bluer than at
midsummer; a flock of geese went over, high up, winging tirelessly
southward; and there was a skim of black ice along the lips of the
Oxbow. It was a grand morning to be a-wing or a-foot and Young Dan
pictured Uncle Bill Tangler seated at his desk in the distant city with
a twinge of pity. Though there was no wind, red and yellow leaves of
maple and birch snapped their stems loose in some mysterious way and
circled down to the frosty moss, and the sounds of their falling came
out of the woods on both sides of the road like a soft whisper.
Young Dan found Andy Mace splitting stove-wood beside the back-door of
his primitive habitation. Andy had lived a great many years—eighty or
perhaps as many as eighty-five—and most of them rough. His joints were
not as supple as they had been thirty years ago, but he was still an
able man and a first-class hand at all forms of sylvan activity.
Experience had taught him the easiest way of doing everything well, and
his inherent and acquired wisdom saw to it that he made the most of that
knowledge. This fact was demonstrated even in his present employment.
The round sticks of dry maple and birch fell apart under the lightest
strokes of his axe in a manner that suggested magic to Young Dan.
“You do that slick, Mr. Mace,” said the young man.
“Well, I’d ought to, at my time o’ life,” replied Andy, straightening
his back slowly. “I’ve been splittin’ wood nigh onto a hundred years,
off and on, so it’s no more’n to be expected that I’d be a purty slick
hand at the job by now.”
“I got a letter here from Uncle Bill Tangler, and if you’ll read it I
won’t have to tell you what’s in it,” said Young Dan.
“That sounds reasonable,” replied the old man, taking the letter and
seating himself on the chopping-block.
He fished a pair of spectacles from a hip-pocket and donned them with
great care. He chuckled now and again as he read the letter.
“Smart boy. Bill Tangler,” he said at last. “Knows timber and folks, he
does; and I larned him purty nigh all he knows about timber. We’ve
cruised the woods together months on end, him and me.”
“Will you be my partner, Mr. Mace, and go up to Uncle Bill’s camp with
me to trap fur all winter?”
“I sure will, Young Dan. I ain’t got hoof nor claw o’ livestock, and
this old house is used to bein’ empty, so I cal’late we’d best start
upstream bright and early to-morrow mornin’. I’ll call at yer place
about seven o’clock, if that’ll suit ye.”
“It suits me fine.”
“So we’re pardners, you and me. What I got in here will just about
offset the camp.” Andy pressed a finger-tip to his forehead. “We’ll
figger out the cost o’ grub come spring, and I’ll pay ye my half in good
green money. Folks hereabouts name me for a rich miser behind my back,
as ye’ve heared with yer own ears like enough, Young Dan; and that’s
because I’m a bach, and live in a log house, and let my whiskers grow.
Well, boy, they’re dead wrong about me bein’ a miser. I’d smoke ten-cent
seegars if they tasted as good to me as a pipe, and it ain’t the cost o’
city life that keeps me from movin’ to Harlow or Centreville or to Noo
York. No, sir-ee! I live here like I do because it is the place and the
way that suits my tastes; and I’d still do it if it cost me twenty
dollars every week. You ask Bill Tangler. We took a ja’nt once to the
Sportsman’s Show in Noo York, him and me together. Ask yer Uncle Bill
about me bein’ a miser.”
“Folks round here didn’t have Uncle Bill sized up just right, either,”
returned Young Dan. “I guess the most of them don’t see much more than
what hits them plumb in the eye.”
The old man chuckled delightedly at that.
“Come inside and have a go at my ginger cookies,” he invited. “I’ve been
makin’ ginger cookies nigh onto a hundred years, off and on, and now I
just naturally turn out the best ye ever tasted.”
By the time Young Dan started on his homeward journey, which wasn’t
until after dinner, he was full of admiration for his partner—not to
mention pumpkin pie, Washington pie and ginger cookies.
Old Andy Mace came to the Evans’ place on foot next morning, at the
stroke of the hour, with a pack of formidable proportions on his
shoulders and a rifle in his hand. He found Young Dan ready for him,
with the thin ice broken from the edge of the stream and Bill Tangler’s
canoe launched and loaded. Young Dan took the post of honor and effort
aft and plied the long pole. They reached Squaw Falls by half-past ten,
made the portage, lunched and reembarked by noon. Old Andy Mace took the
pole then, for three hours. The water, high and swift, humped itself
over submerged mossy boulders. Andy pushed the loaded canoe up steadily
and at a good pace, with no more show of effort than an ordinary person
would make in cutting tobacco for a pipe. The sun went down before they
reached the Prongs. It was night, with stars in the sky and an aching
cold over everything, when they unlocked the door of Uncle Bill
Tangler’s camp.
While Andy lit two fires, one on the open hearth and the other in the
little cook-stove, and shook out blankets to air, Young Dan carried the
outfit up from the landing. Then, by lantern-light and firelight, they
examined the provisions which Bill Tangler had left behind.
“Jumpin’ Josh-ee-phat, look-a here!” exclaimed Andy Mace. “Here’s a box
been bust open—box o’ prunes—and the prunes took. There’s some dried
apples gone, too, and some flour, I reckon. Take a look at the windy,
Young Dan.”
The window was shuttered on the outside when the camp was not occupied.
The shutter was of plank, hinged to the window-frame at the top and,
when secured, fastened at the bottom by a hasp and a padlock. But now
the shutter was not fastened. The long staple had been wrenched from the
tough plank and now hung uselessly from the log window-sill, together
with the hasp and padlock.
“A b’ar,” said Andy. “Trust a b’ar to sniff out prunes.”
“A bear wouldn’t take flour,” said Young Dan.
“Ye can’t never tell what a b’ar will do, for b’ars are natural born
jokers,” replied Andy. “I’ve knowed the critters for nigh onto a hundred
years, and that’s my opinion of them.”
“It wasn’t done yesterday, nor even the day before,” said the youth.
“The prunes he’s left in the box are pretty dry. And he has had a go at
the molasses, too. He’s left the stopper out, see; and look at the track
of dried molasses down the front of the jug. It’s a wonder he didn’t
upset it. And he’s ripped the bean-bag open, darn his hide! But how come
it he didn’t upset the jug? Maybe it wasn’t a bear at all, Mr. Mace. A
man could have done it, I guess.”
“It be a reg’lar b’ar trick,” replied Andy. “He didn’t upset the jug o’
molasses, that’s true—and I’m glad he didn’t—but all that shows is some
b’ars is smarter or more careful nor others. He h’isted the jug in his
two paws and took a swig, that’s what he done. Look at the beans he’s
chawed and spit out on the floor. D’ye reckon a man would do that?”
“Some men are smarter and more careful than others,” replied Young Dan.
They closed the inner glazed sash of the window and nailed a strong bar
of wood across it. Then they cooked and ate their supper and retired to
their bunks, for they were bone-tired. The affair of the thieving bear
would keep very well until morning.
They awoke bright and early. Young Dan hopped from his bunk in a lively
and limber manner, feeling nothing of yesterday’s exertions; but Andy
Mace grunted a few times as he sat up in his blankets and a few more
times as he lowered his feet to the floor.
“I ain’t as soupel as I was eighty years ago,” he said.
When Young Dan opened the door the cold fairly caught him by the nose.
He made a quick trip across the little clearing and down the steep path
to the landing-place, with two pails in his hands. He found the shallow
Right Prong shelled in black ice from shore to shore save for a few
little air-holes. He had to break the ice with a stone before he could
fill his pails. Then he took a quick and splashy bath right there. Wow!
Wow! But after it he felt as if he could eat his weight in bacon and
pancakes and fight his weight in wild-cats.
They went out and examined the ground beneath the window after
breakfast. Frosts and rains had done much to wipe out the tracks of the
thief, but they found a few unmistakable claw-marks here and there. Mr.
Mace put his white beard to the ground in the intensity of his scrutiny;
but the best he could do was trace the marks for a distance of seven or
eight paces from the window.
“I cal’late he’s denned himself up somewheres long before this, and lays
sleepin’ snug as ye please on a bellyful o’ Bill Tangler’s superior
prunes,” he said. “He’s a big feller, jedgin’ by the claws. I’d like
fine to happen onto his den.”
“Same here,” replied Young Dan. “I’d sure like to have a look at him. A
bear as smart as that one ought to be in a circus or teachin’ school.”
They cruised the woods from sunrise to sunset for the next three days,
choosing the likeliest country for their lines of traps. They spent four
more days in setting the traps exactly to Andy’s taste in four lines of
about equal length radiating from the camp. By that time everything that
wasn’t kept indoors or underground, or that wasn’t clothed in wool, fur,
or feathers, was frozen stiff. The Right Prong was roofed strongly over,
except in one spot where the swift water kept itself an open
breathing-place in some mysterious way. The ice was strong to the very
edge of that hole; and, to save himself the trouble of keeping another
hole chopped clear, Young Dan always walked out to it for his morning
and evening pails of water. There the little river flashed always bright
and naked and untouched, sliding over mossy rocks as green as in summer.
There were other and lesser streams and half a dozen small ponds within
the circle of Andy’s and Young Dan’s operations, and these were all
frozen hard.
Andy arranged the routine of the everyday tasks. They breakfasted before
sunrise, by lantern-light. Then Young Dan set out on one of the crooked
six-mile strings of traps, outfitted with rifle, axe, and frozen bait,
and a pocketful of sandwiches in case of need. Andy cleared away the
breakfast things and fell to the ever-urgent task of rustling wood; and
between bouts of chopping and splitting he prepared the dinner and
sometimes even pulled off such extra stunts as a panful of ginger
cookies or a pie. Young Dan was usually home, with or without a pelt or
two, by half-past twelve or one o’clock. After dinner, Andy armed
himself and lit out on another six-mile string, and Young Dan washed the
dinner dishes and rustled wood. Andy was usually back, with luck, in
time to cook supper. In the evening they gave the skins whatever
attention was necessary and the old partner talked and the young one
gave ear. In this way, each of the four lines of traps was visited every
other day.
Snow descended upon that wilderness on the twentieth of November and
continued to descend for two whole days and nights. It came to stay.
Owing to the storm, the partners lost touch with their traps for two
days. The third day was still and clear. The forest was fairly
smothered, aloft and below. Young Dan set out at the first streak of
daylight, sinking deep on his wide snowshoes at every step. He traveled
slowly and experienced a good deal of difficulty in locating some of the
traps. It was noon when he got to the end of the line, empty-handed. He
rested there and ate half of his sandwiches of bread and cold bacon. He
had tramped himself a nest in the snow, and made a little fire of dry
twigs for the appearance of comfort; and now, having eaten, he continued
to sit on his snowshoes and feed the fire. He was about to leave this
retreat and set out on the back-trail when a muffled disturbance of the
snow-heaped brush on his right attracted his attention. He glanced up in
time to see a human figure issue from the tangle, its head held low and
its shoulders hunched against the showers of dislodged snow.
Young Dan was astonished at the sight, but he did nothing to show it.
The intruder shook himself free of snow, halted and stood straight. He
was on snowshoes and carried a rifle in a blanket stocking. Young Dan
noticed that his rough jacket and trousers were old and patched and that
they appeared to be several sizes too large for him.
“Have you anything to eat?” asked the stranger, in a voice that puzzled
the trapper. “If you have, please give me a bite.”
Young Dan produced the remaining sandwiches from his pocket and handed
them over without a word. The stranger crouched by the little fire and
bit off a very small corner of frozen bread and frosty bacon.
“I was watchin’ you quite a spell,” he said. “When I seen you was only a
young feller I wasn’t scart.”
“Only a young feller!” exclaimed Young Dan. “Is that so? Well, what of
it? You don’t look like much of a man yerself.”
“Which I ain’t, nor don’t pretend to be,” replied the stranger,
swallowing hard on the chilly fare. “I wisht you had yer teakittle
along. No, I ain’t much of a man. I’m a married woman, with a husband
sick a-bed not five mile from here, an’ my name is Mrs. May Conley—an’
me an’ Jim Conley an’ the younguns are jist about starved, if you want
to know. Whereabouts is yer camp from here?”
“About six mile from this, dead south. I got a partner there, old Andy
Mace; and we’ve got quite a store of grub, of one kind and
another—condensed milk, too.”
“We ain’t got a cent to buy grub with. Jim was away till a few weeks
back, an’ then he come home to us without a dollar of his summer wages
an’ went sick.”
“That’ll be all right about the money; but what ails yer husband?”
Mrs. Conley’s answer to that was a cheerless smile and a shake of the
head.
“I suppose you shoot fresh meat, anyhow,” continued Young Dan, feeling
embarrassed. “You got a rifle, I see.”
“If you mean deer an’ the like by fresh meat, then I tell you I don’t
shoot it—but I’ve shot at it a few times,” replied the woman. “It’s a
sight too knowing an’ lively for me to hit.”
“Tell you what I’ll do, m’am,” said Young Dan. “You come to this very
spot at ten o’clock to-morrow and you’ll find me here with some grub.
Will tea and canned milk and sugar and fifteen pounds of white flour be
any use to you?”
“Will spring water quench thirst?” returned the woman, her sad face
brightening. “But can’t I have it sooner?—some of that there milk,
anyhow? Young man, my two babies was cryin’ with hungry pains when I
started out; an’ the biggest of ’em isn’t as long as this here
snowshoe.”
“If I had it here I’d give it you right now—but all our grub’s back at
our camp, six mile away. Will you go along with me and carry away what
you’re in most need of, m’am?”
“Will a duck swim?”
Young Dan meant well, but he did not realize that the mother of two
children who cry with hunger is almost sure to be weak for want of
food—he did not realize it until he heard a soft thud behind him and
turned to find his companion flat on her face in the snow. He raised her
to a sitting position and pulled her back until she rested against a
small spruce. He built a big fire in the trail and cut many fir boughs
to serve her as a couch and covering. He removed her snowshoes.
“Guess I’m all in—till I have a cup of tea,” she said.
“I’ll fetch a kettle,” replied Young Dan. “You stop right there till I
get back.”
He made the remaining three miles to the camp on Right Prong in record
time. He told what he knew of Mrs. Conley’s story briefly to Andy, while
they made up a small pack of provisions in a blanket. He attached a
small frying-pan and a kettle to the pack.
“Best go all the way home with her, if ye ain’t clean tuckered out,”
said the old man. “I cal’late it wouldn’t be a bad idee to have a look
at this here Jim Conley, for he don’t sound to me like a desirable
neighbor nor a valued citizen. You kin size him up while yer restin’,
and take yer time on the home-trip. It shapes for a fine night.”
“I’ll do that,” said Young Dan.
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