The Coming of Dave
THE castaways, forgetting that there were dishes to be washed, stood in
an eager row on the bank above the beach. The floating object continued
to approach. Soon they could see why it moved; the blade of a broad
paddle gleamed in the sunlight.
"It's a boat!" cried Marjory.
"A canoe," announced Mr. Black. "See, one end is low, the other fairly
out of the water. Let's stand behind these bushes, girls--the shack is
so far back that the man in the canoe won't notice it if he doesn't
see the tablecloth. I'll take it down, I guess. You see, there's just
a chance that that fellow might not land if he saw people here--and we
need him in our business. We'll be quiet, too. He seems to be making
for this little bay."
The boat and its occupant were an even shade of dark brown, but the
paddle gleamed golden in the sunshine. The canoe, skilfully propelled
by a practised hand, shot rapidly toward the strip of sand at the very
feet of the almost breathless watchers and, in a very few seconds more,
was safely beached. A snarling, stealthy dog leaped ashore and began
to sniff suspiciously at the sand; but his owner, fortunately, paid
no attention to him. The paddler proved to be an Indian half-breed,
bareheaded and clad only in shirt and trousers. His clothes were old
and greasy, his bare brown feet far from clean. He flung from the canoe
a fish-net, two dead muskrats, and, although it was out of season, a
small saddle of venison. He spread the net on the sand to dry, threw
the venison upon his shoulder, and climbed the bank.
Mr. Black, stepping from the sheltering bush, met him when he reached
the top.
"Good-morning," said he.
The startled Indian almost dropped his burden.
"Goo'-morn'," he grunted, surlily.
"Why!" exclaimed Mr. Black, closely scrutinizing the half-breed's not
very prepossessing countenance, "I think I've met you before. You're
Dave Gurneau, the man I bought this land from."
"Yass, I guess, mebbe-so," returned Dave. "You ol' Pete Black, I t'ank
so?"
"Yes," admitted the gentleman, "I'm old Pete Black. But what are _you_
doing here? I thought I bought this land with the understanding that
you were to vacate it--leave it--get off of it? How long have you lived
here?"
The culprit wriggled his toes in the sand.
"Ever since Ah'm sell heem," returned Dave, whose small black eyes were
shifty.
"Well!" gasped Mr. Black, "that's nerve for you--stayed right here, did
you?"
"Yass, Ah'm stay hon dose plass. Me, I must sell dese lan' to you so I
can buy proveesion enough for leeve hon heem--som' leetle onion, som'
potate, som' flour----"
"You--you sold me the land so you could live on it!"
"Yass--Ah'm got to buy proveesion sometam'. You good, easy man, Ah'm
tole."
"He means easy mark," breathed Mrs. Crane.
"Well, I'll be--switched," declared Mr. Black, endeavoring to frown at
guilty Dave; but, meeting Bettie's dancing eyes, he laughed instead.
"Dave," said he, "you're an unprecedented rascal. You've caught my
fish, picked my berries, killed my game; but I'll forgive you if you'll
do an errand for me. Do you think you could walk to Lakeville?"
"Sure t'ing," replied Dave, whose shifty eyes had traveled
speculatively from one to another of the group. "Ah'm walk dere plantee
tam'. Got to sleep two-t'ree hour, den go."
"Very well," returned Mr. Black; "I'd _rather_ you'd start at once, but
if you need sleep, you'd better get it now than on the way. I'll write
Saunders (Saunders was Mr. Black's trusted secretary) to send a launch
or a wagon for us and horses for the automobile."
"Peter," queried Mrs. Crane, wistfully, "do we _have_ to go home? You
know we talked of coming here to camp, anyway. Now that we're here,
why can't we stay? I suppose it's a crazy scheme; but that road is
too rough to travel over very often, and you know I never did like
the water--I'm always seasick. Saunders could send us all the things
we need--tents and everything else. And all the parents would be
willing--they were all in favor of a camping trip _sometime_. We'd
write and explain----"
"Oh, _do_ stay," cried Jean.
"Oh, _do_," implored Bettie, flinging her arms about Mr. Black's neck.
"_Please_ do," begged Henrietta, impulsively seizing a hand.
"Oh, do, do, _do_," shrieked Marjory, seizing the other hand.
"I'll wash all the dishes," promised Mabel, throwing her arms about Mr.
Black's stout waist, "and everybody knows that that's a job I hate."
"I'll get fat," promised Bettie.
Now, Mr. Black was ever a warm-hearted and obliging man, with a
wonderful love for children in general--his own little dark-eyed
daughter had died in infancy--and for Bettie in particular. Even if
the plan did seem a bit wild and venturesome (and Mr. Black himself
was something of an adventurer, in the best sense of that word), it
was not easy to say no with all those clinging arms about him, those
eager, pleading young faces upturned expectantly to his. Moreover, few
persons, Mr. Black least of all, were able to resist the appeal in
Bettie's big, black, always rather pathetic eyes. And already, best
argument of all, the slender little maid seemed to be improving under
these new conditions.
"Well," capitulated Mr. Black, "it will take Dave some hours to get
to Lakeville, and it may take considerable time for Saunders to find
a boat or horses to come up here--we'll have to leave all that part
of it to his discretion. It may be to-morrow morning before we are
rescued. Now, I'll agree to this. We'll send him a list of everything
we need. If we are still desirous of staying when the things come, and
if there's nothing in my mail to call me to town, we'll stay. If we're
tired of it, we'll just cart the stuff home again. We'll each make out
a list----"
"On what, I'd like to know?" interrupted Mrs. Crane. "I've used all the
wrapping paper to start fires."
Mr. Black, shaking off the clinging children, searched in the pockets
of his clothes.
"Nothing doing," said he. "The only scrap of paper I can spare is
already covered with memoranda."
Dave, who had been silently waiting, laughed appreciatively. It was an
unexpectedly pleasant sound, too; for the half-breed's voice was soft
and deep.
"Lots of paper on top of som' tree," he said. "Ah br-r-reeng som'."
"I can see leaves," laughed Henrietta, squinting upward, "but no pages."
"He means birch bark," explained quick-witted Marjory. "See, he's
cutting big squares of it."
When the squares were peeled into many thin sheets (the girls thought
that great sport) Mr. Black distributed them among the other castaways.
"Here are two pencils," said he. "I'll use my fountain pen."
"And I always have pencils in my bag," said Mrs. Crane. "I'll tend to
the provisions, Peter, if you'll look out for the other things. Be
sure, girls, to ask for extra shoes and stockings; you'll need those
and something warm to sleep in."
Noting that one more pencil was needed, Dave began to fumble in an
apparently bottomless pocket. From the depths he finally produced a
grimy, greasy stub, which he offered to pencil-less Marjory.
But Marjory, fastidious little maid that she was, drew back from it,
loathingly, and declined.
Gentle-mannered Jean, promptly surmising that Dave's feelings might be
hurt, handed her own clean, long pencil to Marjory and accepted Dave's
offering, with a sweet-voiced "thank you."
From that moment, Dave was Jean's abject slave; and, if the proofs of
his devotion were not always welcome, they at least proved numerous.