It was about four o’clock when, from a thick clump of young balsam trees
about a hundred yards ahead of our party, there came the sharp barking
of dogs. The boys thrilled. At last the big moment had arrived; the end
of their pursuit was at hand. There could be no doubt that the camp they
had come upon was the camp of the thief.
If any doubt remained it was speedily removed by the sight of the roof
of a small tent standing amid the dark green trees. It was a white man’s
tent of the wall type, a variety that an Indian would scorn to use. From
the top of it stuck a small stove-pipe, an unwonted sight in wilderness
travel. A stream of smoke coming from the pipe showed that the tent was
occupied.
From the camp the four dogs who had heralded the arrival of the boys and
their old guide came prancing and snuffing, their tails curled and teeth
shown in a snarl. But from the tent itself, beyond the smoke that curled
up from the stovepipe, there came no sign of life.
They halted and held a council of war.
“Let’s go right up to the tent and demand the man to surrender to us,”
suggested Jack.
But old Joe negatived this with a shake of the head.
“He is ver’ bad man,” said he, “maybe so he hide in the trees and shoot.
Moost be ver’ careful.”
“He may be peering out at us now,” breathed Tom, glancing about him
uneasily.
“Oui; maybe so he have us covered weez hees rifle at dees moment,”
agreed old Joe, without the flicker of an eyelash. With amazing coolness
he squatted down and filled his pipe.
“Moost hav’ smoke to teenk,” he explained.
For some seconds, while the boys were in an agony of suspense and the
strange dogs stood with bristling hackles and snarling teeth at a
respectful distance from old Joe’s team, the veteran of the northern
wilds drew placidly at his old brier. To look at him no one would have
imagined that the venerable-looking old man was revolving in his mind
the capture of a desperate rascal, who even at that moment might have
him covered from some point of vantage.
The suspense was a cruel test of the boys’ nerves. Remember that they
were out in the open, affording an easy mark for anyone lurking within
the shadows of the dark balsams that screened the tent with its smoking
stove-pipe. For all they knew, in fact, the man might not be alone. He
might be one of a gang regularly organized to raid traps and skin
stores. Such organizations were not rare in that part of the country, as
the boys well knew.
At length old Joe rose, knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and faced the
boys. They knew that he had at last decided upon a plan. It was a simple
one. The wonder was that he had taken so long to arrive at a conclusion.
“I am going to call out to dees man,” said Joe. “I tell heem if he ees
fool he will fight us; if he ees wise man he weel do what we say.”
Before they could stop him the old man had stepped forward, using the
trunk of a balsam tree as a shield between himself and the door of the
tent. A minute later someone stirred within the tent; then came a voice:
“Who’s there?”
Joe gave a little laugh.
“Someone to see you,” he said. “I ask you, please shove outside any
weapon you have weez you. It ees no good for you to fight. We have
caught you at last.”
There was a silence inside the tent. Then the boys saw the flap raised
and a rifle thrust out. Old Joe’s face beamed. This was going to be
easier than he had imagined. He beckoned to the boys, and, as they
joined him, he flung open the flap and stepped inside the tent.
Stretched out on the ground right across the doorway was a small,
wizened looking man covered with a shabby blanket made of mangy-looking
skins. His head and shoulders were propped up on a couple of filled
packs.
Even in the dim light within the tent it could be seen that his cheeks
were drawn and gray and that pain had etched lines of suffering on them.
The boys stood amazed just at old Joe’s elbow.
Was it possible that this little gray man with the look of pain on his
face was the robber whom they had pictured during the long days and
nights of the pursuit as a savage, truculent fellow ready to give them a
fight rather than yield up the stolen skins? They actually felt pity as
they looked at the little wasted form on the ground.
As for Joe, he appeared to be equally dumfounded, but he soon recovered
his faculties.
“And so, mon ami, we have found you at zee last, eh?”
“Real pleased you come, too! Real pleased,” was the answer the little
gray man gave in a high, piping treble.
The boys took in the details of the tent. The small sheet-iron stove
with its pipe going through the roof, the queer-looking snowshoes, and
the pile of duffle left in a corner just as it had been thrown from the
sled. Old Joe looked more taken aback than ever. He had come prepared to
fight some rascal who would put up a desperate resistance. Instead, he
found a little wasted man who had nothing to say but that he was glad to
see them.
There was a pause while Joe reconstructed things. It was broken in upon
by another piping up of the thin voice of the man on the ground.
“See that sack over thar, stranger?” said the little man, indicating a
partially filled pack-bag in one corner of the tent.
“Oui! I see heem,” rejoined Joe in a dazed voice.
“Wa’al, thar’s fish in thar. I’d take it real kind in yer ef yer’d jes’
feed my dorgs, mister. They ain’t hed much ter sot their teeth in
lately, me being hurried like along the trail.”
The boys exchanged glances. They had met with many strange experiences,
but this appeared to be the cap-sheaf of them all. Old Joe simply
shrugged his shoulders; he was bereft of speech. In the face of this
astonishing end to their long, grim chase, he was, for the time being,
incapable of finding words.
He crossed over to the sack and began pulling out fish, but in the midst
of the operation he found his voice again.
“Say, you, what’s zee matter weez you, anyhow?”
“I’m sick,” responded the man under the shabby blanket, “right sick.”
“I see you seeck, all right,” said Joe, “but what ails you? Boosh!” he
concluded, puffing out his sun-burned cheeks.
“I don’t rightly know,” rejoined the other; “it’s a sorter pain all
over.”
He moved uneasily under the shabby blanket and the boys saw his hands,
which lay outside the covering, clench and unclench, as if he were
suffering a sudden spasm of pain.
Outside the tent there came a sound of plaintive yapping and howling.
The little man’s mamelukes had smelled the fish.
“Reckon they’re hungry, poor beasts,” said the little man.
Joe did not reply, but moved to the door of the tent. He threw out the
fish. The dogs sprang upon it ravenously, tearing it as if they had
fasted for days. Joe watched them for a minute with an odd look on his
bearded face. Then he turned to the man again.
“What your name, anyhow?”
“Dolittle—Peabody Dolittle,” said the man, “but somehow folks mostly
call me Pod.”
Pod! The boys, despite the situation, could almost have laughed at the
name.
Here was a bold thief who, by all the rules of fiction, should have
borne some name that would fit with his supposedly desperate character,
and instead of that he told them that he was “mostly called Pod.”
As for Joe, he could only gasp and shrug his shoulders helplessly.
“Boosh!” he exclaimed after an interval. “Pod, you an’ me and dese
garçon got to have some talk, Pod.”
“Go right ahead, mister,” said Pod.