Chapter VII: New Business Connections

The village was aroused from its slumber by the reports of Amos Hammond's gun, but by the time the villagers were out of their houses, Jim Todhunter was far out of sight, and even the flying beat of his heavy boots on the hard road was out of earshot.

Jim had forseen the disturbance and curiosity of the neighbors and felt in no mood to calm the disturbance or satisfy the curiosity. In fact, he had nothing to say. He was a fighter, but not a gun-fighter. He was sane, and he believed Hammond to be mad. He had run from a gun, though he had a gun in his own hands and ammunition in his pockets. He could have returned Hammond's fire, shooting to frighten rather than to hit, and closed with the fellow eventually and hammered him into submission. He had considered this course and dismissed it early in his flight. The truth is, he was glad to be rid of the responsibility to the Hammond family which he had assumed in promising Mrs. Hammond to stick to the household as long as possible. That promise no longer held. Even the most good-natured and altruistic person in the world would not be expected by even the least altruistic to continue to cling to a household against the efforts of the head-of-the-house to dislodge him with smokeless powder and swan-shot.

Jim felt that he was well rid of the Hammonds and of all responsibility toward them. Other plans for the future had been developing brightly in his mind of late. Now he was free to follow these plans. He would remove his baggage from the Hammond premises on the morrow and have done with that blunder forever.

It was a frosty night. Jim went up-river, for in that direction were his friends and the matter of his plans for the immediate future. He had slowed to a walk as soon as the bridge over Millbrook was crossed, and from there onward to the fork of the roads he took his time. There he paused, considering two courses of action. Would he make camp until daybreak, or would he press on and disturb the slumbering Ducats? The air tingled with frost, he had overheated himself in his flight, and he was without overcoat or blanket. He decided to go on up the glen.

The Ducat dogs hurled themselves upon him from the woodshed, only to retire at a word. He found the kitchen door on the latch, entered noiselessly and closed the door. There was still a glow in the big old cookstove which stood bodily in the older fireplace. He laid his gun aside, removed his boots, sank into old Archie Me Kim's armchair and fell asleep.

Flora Ducat always lit the kitchen fire (now that she was considered grown-up) and then banged on the stove-pipe with an iron spoon. At that signal, men arose and descended and went out to the feeding, and the milking--Mark and his father and uncle when they were at home, the grandfathers at other times. On this particular morning, Flora descended to the kitchen in a red blanket dressing gown, with her dark hair about her ears and a lamp in her right hand, and beheld a man lolling sound asleep in a chair beside the stove. She was startled, but she neither screamed nor dropped the lamp. She recognized the sleeper almost instantly. It just happened that she had been thinking of this young man while she donned the red dressing gown and descended the backstairs and crossed the kitchen; so the discovery was no more than a realization of the mental vision by the physical vision, and therefore not an overwhelming shock.

Jim opened his eyes to the shine of the lamp, blinked owlishly at the flame, then glanced higher. The girl, meeting his look squarely, saw bewilderment give way to astonishment and astonishment to admiration.

"Why are you here, Jim?" she asked.

"Ah! So I'm awake!" he exclaimed, sitting up straight. "Of course! I remember now. Didn't want to disturb you," he added.

"When did you come back?" she asked.

"It must have been between three and four. Amos Hammond got after me with a gun. Fired three shots."

He pulled on his boots and stood up without lacing them.

"Did he--hit you?" she asked, her voice gone to a whisper.

He smiled and shook his head.

"And now?" she queried.

"I'm going in with Mark," he answered. "I've stood for all I'm going to from that hypocritical, mad, crooked psalm-singer."

"I'm glad he didn't hit you, but I'm glad he fired at you," she returned.

They lit the fire together and Jim filled the kettle. Flora banged the pipe with the iron spoon and went upstairs. Mark came down and found Jim lacing his boots.

"Hammond locked me out, and when I kicked his front door in he opened on me with a shotgun," explained Jim.

Mark laughed and shook hands.

"I knew he'd bust out at ye pretty soon," he said. "It was just that or lose his reputation for righteousness; an' I reckon he figgered it out how his reputation was worth a few more dollars to 'im, in the long run."

After breakfast Jim and Mark drove in to Millbrook with a pair of horses and a heavy wagon. They drew rein in front of the Hammond house.

"Look there, will ye!" exclaimed Mark, who had heard all the details of the encounter between Jim and the storekeeper.

Jim looked and saw a patch of new flooring on the veranda, directly in front of the door.

"Quick work," he replied.

"He's quick as a mink an' sly as a fox an' heartless as a weasel, is that skunk Amos Hammond," returned Mark.

The store stood on the other side of the road, directly opposite the dwelling. Several teams stood hitched before it. Mark and Jim descended from the wagon, crossed the road and entered the store. Three or four customers were there, and Amos Hammond stood behind a counter and talked confidentially across it to a tall countryman with a face full of uncontrolled whiskers. Amos glanced at the newcomers from a corner of his near eye, but went on with his conversation. Jim went straight up to the bewhiskered man's elbow and addressed Hammond.

"I've come for my baggage," he said.

The tall fellow looked sideways at him, but Amos didn't give him a glance or pause in his talk.

"I've come for my baggage," repeated Jim. "For my rifle, my trunks full of clothes, my boots, my fishing-rods, my books, and my dispatch-box containing private papers and one hundred and twelve dollars in Canadian currency. I'll let the wages you owe me go."

"Young feller, that's sure sayin' a mouthful," remarked the hairy stranger, eyeing Jim with interest. "What's all this about yer boots an' yer baggage, anyhow?"

"He's a liar!" exclaimed Hammond, suddenly losing his pose. "Ain't I just told ye all about it, Mr. Hart? About his one trunk, an' his ungodly nighthawkin' up to Piper's Glen an' his bustin' into my house at two o'clock this mornin', drunk as a soldier, an' how I had to chase 'im away with a gun loaded with salt? If ye don't believe me, come along over an' look at his baggage yerself."

"Sure, let's go," agreed the whiskery one. "It's the cleanest job ye've put me to yet, Hammond, this lookin' at a trunk. Cleaner an' more to my taste nor foreclosin' mortgages an' evictin' widows."

He turned and saw Mark Ducat and extended a hairy hand.

"How do, Mark," he said.

"How do, Sheriff," returned Mark, shaking his hand.

"Speakin' of widows," continued Hart, sagging an elbow to the counter and crossing his long legs, "have ye seen old Widow Wilson of Kingswood Settlement since the deacon here sicked the law on to her an' run her off her little old farm?"

"No, I ain't seed her, but I heered tell the Duffys took her in," returned Mark.

"They did that, sure enough," said the other, "but they can't keep her in. She's went that clean off her head since losin' her home that ye can't do nothin' with her. Can't keep her housed, anyhow, though she's reasonable enough about eatin' an' sleepin' whenever she stops in anywheres. Hoofs the roads all day an' sometimes all night--an' winter a-comin' on. Well, let's go along an' look at this here baggage."

"What brought ye up-river so early in the day, Sheriff?" asked Mark. "Looks to me kinder like ye'd been sent fer."

"Not aigzactly, Mark, but I heered a kinder rumor as how righteousness had bust out so hot in Deacon Hammond here that he'd up an' murdered a young man for settin' in to a hand at cribbage. So I come in my official capacity to take a look at the corpse, but I reckon there's nothin' to see but some baggage, after all."

Amos Hammond led the four men across the road and through his front door and pointed to a leather trunk in the front hall, all in a black silence.

"Yer trunk, young man?" asked Mr. Hart of Jim.

"It is one of them," replied Jim, producing a folded paper from a pocket and handing it to the hairy official. "Here is a list."

The sheriff read the list aloud, slowly.

"Hell!" he exclaimed, in a voice of wondering admiration.

"I'll have no cussin' in this house!" cried Hammond.

"Where'd ye leave it all?" inquired Hart, eyeing Jim.

"Every article of it in this house, except my shotgun and what I'm wearing," replied Jim. "Two or three boxes are in the outer kitchen and all the rest of the stuff is in my bedroom."

Amos Hammond led the way to the outer kitchen. No boxes were there. He led the way to Jim's bedroom. It, too, was empty.

"Search the house, if ye want to," sneered Hammond.

"I've had enough of this tomfoolery," said Jim. "I've given you a chance to hand over my things, and you haven't done it. You have overreached yourself this time. But for your wife and family, I would have filled you with partridge-shot last night. I had a gun in my hands, too. And but for these same unfortunate persons, I would send you to jail now. I brought my stuff to Covered Bridge as freight, and here are my vouchers, and the freight agent at Covered Bridge has another set of them, and he is a witness that the things were loaded on to your wagon, and every member of your family is a witness that they were unloaded in this house, and were still here when I was last in the house. Very crude! Last night's fit was too much for you. I'm afraid that you are off your head permanently. I'll overlook last night's attempted murder and to-day's attempted robbery--but, sane or mad, the next time you try anything on me will be the last time!"

Hammond screamed and snatched the vouchers from Jim's hand. Jim let them go and struck. Hammond fell unconscious. While Mark and Jim worked over the householder with cold water, Mr. Hart calmly examined the crumpled vouchers.

"I reckon ye're right, Mr. Todhunter," he said. "It sure does look like he was off his nut for keeps, tryin' to put over a fool play like this right under the nose of the law, so to speak."

Hammond recovered consciousness in a few minutes and, under pressure from Hart, led the way to a loft above the wagon-shed, rolled aside a wall of empty barrels and disclosed Jim's baggage to view. Then, to the amazement of the three, he turned to Jim with bowed head.

"James, it wasn't yer worldly gear I wanted," he said in a trembling voice. "I run the risk of hanging an' I run the risk of jail, an' I told a lie, all in a vain effort to save yer soul from the hellish lure of Piper's Glen. But the devil's been too strong for me! I forgive ye the blow, James, for it was not yerself who struck me but Old Adam. Take yer empty vanities an' depart in peace."

"Empty?" queried Mark Ducat, lifting inquiringly on the end of a trunk. "No, I guess they're full enough, but ye may's well get out yer keys an' take a look, Jim."

Mr. Hart stared at Hammond with horrified eyes.

"Amos, ye'll go too far one of these days," he said earnestly. "The Almighty is long-sufferin', so I've heered tell, but it ain't in reason to insult Him like ye've just done an' expect to get away with it every time. Have ye no fear, to make a mock of Him by sinnin' in His very name? Look out that a bolt from heaven don't strike ye dead some day!" He turned to Jim. "Any charge agin' this man, Mr. Todhunter?" he asked.

"None, sir," replied Jim. "I'll leave it to the bolt from heaven."

Half an hour later, Jim and Mark drove off toward Piper's Glen with the baggage intact. They discussed their plans for the winter. They would go north and west beyond the rise of Piper's Brook to the headwaters on Kettle Creek and there trap furs. It was a promising country. An old half-breed, dead now these five years, had once taken a black fox somewhere up around Kettle Pond. Perhaps he had taken more than one of those priceless pelts, but he had shown only one on the river. If he had killed others and kept quiet about them he had practiced commendable business discretion, for Amos Hammond had bought that one from him--after priming him with gin--for fifteen dollars. Mark knew that country fairly well, having hunted moose there several times and cruised timber on the fringe of it once; and he had worked a winter in a lumber camp at the mouth of Kettle Creek and spent his Sundays spying out the land to the north and west of the camp.

The partners decided to look over the ground immediately, before snow, and perhaps bag a supply of fresh meat while they were about it. They toted their dunnage straight across to the river by way of a rough and narrow trail, for even as the homing bee flies, the distance between the Ducat place and the nearest point on Racket River is three miles. There Mark uncovered a bark canoe from a brush-screened cleft between big rocks. A thorough examination disclosed leaks in three seams, and these were treated with a melted mixture of resin and lard. The canoe was launched, the dunnage stowed amidship and Jim placed in a cramped position in the bow with a paddle in his hands. Mark stood aft and plied a long pole of spruce, the working end of which was bound with a wide ring of iron. Jim knew nothing about paddling a canoe, but he worked away at it and heeded Mark's comments and corrections.

Two hours of easy work against swift water brought them to the mouth of Kettle Creek. In the creek the water was deeper and less swift for a few miles, so Mark slid the pole inboard and manned a paddle. He returned to the pole before noon, and at noon they went ashore and boiled the kettle. At three o'clock they had to go ashore again, unload, and carry canoe and dunnage around Rusty Trap Falls. At sundown they made camp for the night at a spot which Mark calculated to be within a few miles of half way between the mouth of the creek and Kettle Pond, the heart of the land of promise.

"But it's heavy goin' from here on," he said.

He was right. They were ashore almost as much as they were afloat next day. They scrambled over rocky portages. They jumped from boulder to boulder in mid-stream, with burdens on their backs and heads.

"I believe we've carried that canoe more than she has carried us," said Jim, toward the close of the strenuous day.

"Guess ye're right," returned Mark. "Water's lower'n I looked for. We'll wait for snow to fetch in the rest of the stuff--straight acrost from the head of the glen to this valley."

They reached the head of navigable water late in the afternoon of the third day of their journey. Here Kettle Creek, creeping out of Kettle Pond, twisted feebly among scores of great boulders; and the voyagers were forced to make a half-mile carry into the little lake.

The country was full of game.

"We'll take it easy," said Mark. "More'n half my livin' is in the woods, so I look on all the beasts that are worth eatin' or skinnin' as property. So we'll act here like this Kettle Pond country was our own farm, Jim. I don't hold with slaughterin' for the fun of shootin' this early in the season, an' then have a bunch of good meat rot on me come a spell of warm weather."

They cruised the country on all sides for likely lines for traps. They built a solid little hut of logs and poles, all complete with a hearth and chimney. They chinked the cracks in the walls with moss, the cracks in the chimney with clay, and made the roof tight with sheets of birch bark. Between bouts of construction work and exploration, Mark instructed Jim in the art of handling a canoe in still water. The nights fell suddenly from snappy to shivery.

Mark made a horn of birch bark one night and, by producing a variety of grunts and gurgles and groans from it, lured a big bull moose into the open beside the lake. Jim shot the deluded creature by the light of the Hunter's Moon.

They decided, next day, that one of them should take out the canoe and the moose-meat before the water-route was closed by ice; and that the other should remain on the ground and build a second hut six miles to the northward and then go south and east to the glen on foot; after which they would return together on the snow to Kettle Pond with traps and a toboggan and the balance of the winter's supplies. As Jim didn't know the way out across country he volunteered to take out the canoe and moose-meat.