Double Challenge Part 15

He'd have sworn, knowing how hard the deer was. .h.i.t, that it would never run five hundred yards. Obviously he had guessed wrong, and what now?

Anything he did would be little better than a shot in the dark, but if he could help it, he would not leave an injured beast to a lingering, terrible death. Wounded wild things were apt to seek a haven in thickets. Perhaps, if he cast back and forth through brush tangles, Tammie would scent the deer again.

Ted made his way to a grove of scrub hemlock, cut from there to a laurel thicket and pushed and crawled his way through half a dozen snarls of beech brush. He knew that he was not going to find the wounded deer and he sorrowed for the suffering animal. About to drop his hand to Tammie's head, he found that the collie was no longer beside him.

He was about twenty feet back, dancing excitedly in the trail. His ears were alert, his eyes happy, and there was a doggy smile on his jaws. He had a scent, but it was not the scent of a wounded deer. Ted took his handkerchief from his pocket and gave it to the dog.

"Take it to Al," he ordered quietly. "Take it to Al, Tammie."

Carrying the handkerchief, Tammie streaked into the forest and disappeared. Ted walked down c.o.o.n Valley and waited at the truck. An hour and a quarter later, no longer carrying the handkerchief, Tammie joined him. Ted petted him and looked somberly at the forest. He didn't know where Al was hiding and he didn't want to know.

But Tammie knew.

6

MESSENGER DOG

In the gathering gloom of the beech woods, a silver-throated thrush sang its evening song. Then, starting where it had ended, the thrush repeated the same notes backwards. Ted paused to listen and Tammie halted beside him. The boy grinned faintly. Because it first seemed to wind itself up and then to unwind, Al had always insisted on calling this thrush the "winder bird." It was, Ted supposed, as good a name as any.

Tammie sat down and turned a quizzical head to look at the harness he was wearing and, for excellent reasons, could wear only at night. Ted himself had made the harness from a discarded pack sack. It had a chest strap to keep it from sliding backwards, a belly strap to prevent it from falling off, and on either side was a s.p.a.cious pocket with a flap that could be fastened. Right now, the pack was laden with thirty pounds of junk that Ted had picked up around the house.

Tammie tried to sc.r.a.pe the harness off with his right hind paw. Ted stooped to pet and coax him.

"Come on, Tammie. Come on. That's a good boy!"

Tammie sighed and got to his feet. He didn't know why he was thus burdened and he had no aspirations whatever to become a pack dog. But if Ted wanted it, he would try to do it. He followed to the end of the drive and stood expectantly while Ted opened the mailbox.

The metropolitan daily in which Ted had placed his ad, and that was always delivered to the Harknesses a day late, lay on top. Beneath were thirteen letters.

Ted's heart began to pound. He'd watched the mail every day, but except for the paper, the usual hopeful bulletins addressed to "occupant," and a few miscellaneous items, there had been nothing interesting. Ted had almost despaired of getting anything, but he realized, as he stood with the letters in his hand, that he hadn't allowed hunters enough time to answer his ad.

The thirteen letters represented more first-cla.s.s mail than the Harknesses usually received in three months, and Ted held them as though they burned his fingers. They were important, perhaps the most important letters he had ever had or ever would have, for the future of the Harknesses could depend on what was in them.

Ted ran back up the drive. Running with him, Tammie was too busy to pay attention to the obnoxious pack. Ted burst into the house, slammed the door behind him, laid the letters and papers on the table and knelt to take the pack from Tammie. He thrust it, still laden, into the darkest corner of a dark closet and turned excitedly back to the mail.

Sighing with relief, Tammie curled up on his bearskin. Ted looked at the sheaf of letters. Except for two, they were addressed in longhand. He picked one up, made as though to open it then put it back down. If the news was good, it would be very good. If bad, it would be very bad. His eye fell on a box on the paper's front page.

GUNMAN STILL AT LARGE

After a week's intensive manhunt, Albert, "Al" Harkness is still at large in the wild Mahela. Harkness, named by Clarence Delbert as the man who shot him from ambush, escaped from two officers the same night he was apprehended. Delbert, still in critical condition, has supplied no additional details. Corporal Paul Hausler, of the State Police, has expressed confidence that Harkness will be captured.

Ted pushed the paper aside and stared across the table. For three days the hunt had been pressed with unflagging zeal. Only Pete Tooms and the duly deputized Delberts had gone out for two days after that and now, Ted understood, even they were staying home. They had discovered for themselves what Ted and Loring Blade had known from the start: if Al chose to hide in the Mahela, he couldn't be found. But the item in the paper cast a shadow of things to come.

Al could hide for a while, perhaps for a long while, but without proper equipment or a place to stay, even he couldn't live in the wilderness when winter struck with all its fury. Sooner or later, he would have to come out, and what happened when he came was so terribly dependent on what was in the letters! Ted slit the first one open and read,

Dear Mr. Harkness:

I saw your letter in the _Courier_ and we would like to rent your camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Can you let me know at once if it is available? There will be ten of us.

Ted put the letter aside and picked up the next one. That likewise wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. There would be eight in the party. But there was a very welcome, "I enclose an advance to hold our reservation," with a twenty-dollar check made out to Ted. He folded the note over the check and took up the third letter. That also wanted the camp for the first two weeks of deer season. Ted turned to Tammie.

"Doesn't anybody hunt anything except deer?"

But the fourth letter, containing a deposit of ten dollars, was from a party of grouse hunters who wanted the camp during the first two weeks of grouse season, and the fifth had been written by a man representing a group of hunters who obviously liked to do things the hard way. Scorning anything as easy as deer, grouse, squirrels, or cottontails, they wanted the camp for bear season. There was no deposit enclosed, but if they could be persuaded to send one, the camp would be rented for another week. The next five letters, two of which contained deposits of twenty dollars each, were all from deer hunters who wanted to come the first two weeks of the season and the one after that was from a confirmed grouse hunter who wished to come the first week. Ted picked up the last letter, one of two that were typewritten, and read:

Dear Ted Harkness:

For lo, these many years, my silent feet have carried me into the haunts of big game and my unerring rifle has laid them low. I have moose, elk, grizzlies, caribou, sheep and goats to my credit.

Honesty compels me to admit that I also have several head of big game to my discredit, but that happened in the days of my callow youth, when I thought hunting and killing were synonymous.

Presently, in my mellow old age, I still love to hunt. But I have become--heaven help me!--a head hunter. In short, I want 'em big or I don't want 'em. I do not have a whitetail buck to which I can point with pride. Living in the Mahela, and I envy you your dwelling place!, you must know the whereabouts of such a beastie.

The simplicity of your ad was most impressive and I always did admire people who sign themselves "Ted" rather than "Theodore." I do not want your camp, but do you want to guide a doddering old man? Find me a room, any old room at all as long as it's warm and dry, and I'm yours for three weeks. Find me a buck that satisfies me and, in addition to your guiding fee, I'll give you a bonus of twenty-five dollars for every inch in the longest tine on either antler.

Humbly yours, John L. Wilson

Ted re-read the letter, so friendly and so obviously written by a hunter who had experience, time and--Ted tried not to think it and couldn't help himself because his need was desperate--money. The Harkness house was very large and, now that Al was not in it, very empty. There was no reason whatsoever why John L. Wilson, whoever he was, should not stay here. Twelve dollars a day was not too much to ask for board, room and guide services. As for the twenty-five dollars an inch--there were some big bucks in the Mahela!

Ted sat down to write, "Dear Mr. Wilson: Thanks very much for your letter--" He crumpled the sheet of paper and started over, "Dear Mr.

Wilson: There are some big bucks--" Then he crumpled that sheet and did the only thing he could do. "Dear Mr. Wilson: I am going to tell you about Damon and Pythias."

Ted told, and he was scrupulously honest. His father, born in the Mahela almost fifty years ago, had never seen bigger bucks. Certainly they were the biggest Ted had ever seen. In their prime now, royal trophies, a couple of years would see them in their decline. Ted gave it as his personal opinion that both were at their best this year. Next season, they would not be quite as good and the year after, Ted thought, both would bear the misshapen antlers that are so often the marks of old bucks. But just getting a shot at either would involve more than a routine hunt. The two bucks were very wise; many hunters had tried for them and n.o.body had come near to getting either. It might very well take three weeks just to hunt them, and Ted could not guarantee success.

However, though they were far and away the biggest, by no means were Damon and Pythias the only big bucks in the Mahela. He concluded by writing that Mr. Wilson could stay with him, and that his fee for board, room and guide service would be twelve dollars a day.

Ted sealed the letter, addressed it, put two stamps on, marked it air mail and turned to the others. He shook a bewildered head. The way Carl Thornton ran Crestwood, catering to guests had always seemed the essence of simplicity. Obviously, it had its headaches.

Of the dozen applicants for his camp, eight wanted it in deer season only and all wanted the first two weeks. Ted screened the letters again, then narrowed them down to the three who had sent advances. They'd offered earnest intent of coming, the rest might and might not appear.

But which of the three should he accept?

Ted solved it by consulting the postmarks on the letters. All had been mailed the same day, but one had been stamped at ten A.M. and the other two at two P.M. Ted wrote to the author of the letter with the earliest time mark, a Mr. Allen Thomas, and told him that the camp was his for the first two weeks of deer season. The other two checks--if only he had three camps!--he put in envelopes with letters saying that, he was very sorry, but the camp had already been reserved for the time they wanted.

Then, in a flash of inspiration, he opened both letters and added a postscript, saying that the camp was still available for the last week of the season. He grinned ruefully as he did so and seemed to hear Al saying, "'Most missed a pelt there, Ted."

Ted a.s.sured the other deer hunters that his camp was reserved for the first two weeks but open the third. He contemplated bringing his price down to forty-five dollars for that week. Then he reconsidered. Most hunters thought that hunting would be much better the first of the season than it ever could be the last, and, in part, they were right.

Unmolested for almost a year, during the first days of the season game was apt to be less wary. As compensation, during the latter part of any season there were seldom as many hunters afield. Anyhow, deer hunters who really wanted a camp would not let an extra fifteen dollars stand in the way of getting one.

Writing to the bear hunters, Ted accepted a tentative reservation that would be confirmed as soon as he received a deposit of ten dollars. Too many people made reservations with no deposit; then, if something arose that prevented their honoring their reservations, they simply didn't come. Anyone who paid money in advance would be there or cancel in plenty of time to get their money back.

Ted told the grouse hunters who'd sent a ten-dollar deposit that the camp was theirs for the first two weeks of the season and he pondered over the other grouse hunter's letter.

n.o.body at all had applied for woodc.o.c.k season because, Ted decided, woodc.o.c.k are so uncertain. One of the finest of game birds, they are also migratory. A few nested in the Mahela, but they were too few to attract sportsmen. Depending on conditions, flight birds might and might not be in the Mahela during the season and some years they by-pa.s.sed it completely. But when they came, they offered marvelous shooting.

Ted wrote the second grouse hunter, a Mr. George Beaulieu, that the only vacancy he had left was for the third week of grouse season. But was he interested in woodc.o.c.k? If he was, and if he would advise Ted to that effect, Ted would be happy to call him long distance in the event of a worthwhile flight.

Tammie rose, yawned prodigiously and lay down to sleep on his other side for a while. Ted shuffled the pile of letters, which he needn't put in the mailbox because he was definitely going into Lorton in the morning, and pondered.