Lost Farm Camp Part 4

"Now for the kitten," said David. "I think he's only stunned." He went into the cabin, and much to Avery's amus.e.m.e.nt, washed his hands. "A dirty job," he said, catching the twinkle in the lumberman's eye.

"A dum' good job, I take it. Whar you from?"

"Boston."

"Wal, I seen some mighty queer folks as hailed from Boston, but I don't recollec' any jest like you."

David laughed as he went to the corner and stooped over Swickey, who sat tearfully rocking the limp Beelzebub in her dress.

"What's his name?" he asked gently.

"Be-el-zebub," she sobbed.

"Will you let me look at him-just a minute?"

Swickey unrolled her skirt, the kitten tumbled from her knees, turned over, arched his back, and with tail perpendicular shot across the cabin floor and through the doorway as though nothing had happened.

David laughed boyishly.

"He's got eight of them left, even now."

"Eight whats left?" queried Swickey, fixing two tearfully wondering eyes on his face.

"Eight lives, you know. Every cat has nine lives."

Swickey took his word for it without question, possibly because "eight"

and "nine" suggested the intricacies of arithmetic. Although little more than a healthy young animal herself, she had instinctively disliked and mistrusted most of the men who came to Lost Farm Camp. But this man was different. He seemed more like her father, in the way he looked at her, and yet he was quite unlike him too.

"That's a big name for such a little cat," said David. "Where did he get his name?"

Swickey pondered. "Pop says it's his name, and I guess Pop knows. The ole cat she run wild in the woods and took Beelzebub 'long with her 'fore he growed up, and Pop ketched him, and he bit Pop's thumb, and then Pop said thet was his name. He ketched him fur me."

Just then Avery came in with a pail of water and Swickey set about clearing the table. David, a bit shaken despite his apparently easy manner, strolled out into the suns.h.i.+ne and down the hill to the river.

"My chance with the Great Western is gone," he muttered, "and all on account of a confounded little cat, and called 'Beelzebub' at that!

Harrigan would fix me now if I went in, that's certain. Accidents happen in the camps and the victims come out, feet first, or don't come out at all and no questions asked. No, I'll have to look for something else.

Hang it!" he exclaimed, rubbing his arm, "this being squire of dames and kittens don't pay."

Unconsciously he followed the trail down to the dam, across the gorge, and on up the opposite slope. The second-growth maple, birch, and poplar gave place to heavy beech, spruce, and pine as he went on. Presently he was in the thick of a regiment of great spruce trees that stood rigidly at "attention." The shadows deepened and the small noises of the riverside died away. A turn in the trail and a startled doe faced him, slender-legged, tense with surprise, wide ears pointed forward and nostrils working.

He stopped. The deer, instead of snorting and bounding away, moved deliberately across the trail and into a screen of undergrowth opposite him. David stood motionless. Then from the bushes came a little fawn, timidly, lifting its front feet with quick, jerky motions, but placing them with the instinctive caution of the wild kindred. Scarcely had the fawn appeared when another, smaller and dappled beautifully, followed.

Their motions were mechanical, muscles set, as if ready to leap to a wild run in a second.

What unheard, unseen signal the doe gave to her offspring, David never knew, but, as though they had received a terse command, the two fawns wheeled suddenly and bounded up the trail, at the top of which the doe was standing. Three white flags bobbed over the crest and they were gone.

"How on earth did that doe circle to the hillside without my seeing her?" he thought. Then he laughed as he remembered the stiff-legged antics of the fawns as they bounded away, stirring a noisy squirrel to rebuke. On he went, over the crest and down a gentle slope, past giant beeches and yellow birch whose python-like roots crept over the moss and disappeared as though slowly writhing from the sunlight to subterranean fastnesses. Dwarfed and distorted cedars sprung up along the way and he knew he was near water. In a few minutes he stood on the sh.o.r.e of No-Man's Lake, whose unruffled surface reflected the broad shadow of Timberland Mountain on the opposite sh.o.r.e.

"Well!" he exclaimed, "I suppose it's time to corral a legion of guide-book adjectives and launch 'em at yonder ma.s.s of silver and green glories, but it's all too big. It calls for silence. A fellow doesn't gush in a cathedral, unless he doesn't belong there." He sat looking over the water for perhaps an hour, contented in the restful vista around him. "I wish Aunt Elizabeth could see this," he muttered finally.

"Then she might understand why I like it. Wonder who owns that strip of land opposite? I'd like to. Great Scott! but my arm's sore where he poked me."

A soft tread startled him. He swung round to find Hoss Avery, shod with silent moosehide, a Winchester across his arm, standing a few feet away.

CHAPTER IV-THE COMPACT

"After fresh meat?" asked Ross.

"Nope. Lookin' fur a man."

Avery's good eye closed suggestively and he grinned. Standing his rifle in the crotch of a cedar, he drew a plug of tobacco from his pocket and carefully shaved a pipeful from it. Then he smoked, squatting beside David as he gazed across the lake.

"Purty lake, ain't it?"

"Yes, it is," replied David.

"Chuck full of trout-big fellers, too. Ever do any fis.h.i.+n'?"

"A little. I like it."

"Slithers of deer in thet piece across thar," pointing with his pipestem to the foot of Timberland Mountain. "Ever do any huntin'?"

"Not much. Been after deer once or twice."

"Must have been suthin' behind thet poke you gave Fisty this mornin', I take it?"

"About one hundred and seventy pounds," replied David, smiling. Avery chuckled his appreciation. Evidently this young man didn't "pump"

easily.

Puff-puff-"Reckon you never done no trappin'."

"No, I don't know the first thing about it."

Avery was a trifle disconcerted at his companion's taciturnity. He smoked for a while, covertly studying the other's face.

"Reckon you're goin' back to Tramworth-mebby goin' to quit the woods, seein' as you and Fisty ain't calc'lated to do any hefty amount of handshakin' fur a while?"

"Yes, I'm going back, to get work of some kind that will keep me up here. I wanted to learn a bit about lumbering. I think I began the wrong way."

"Don't jest feel sartain about thet, m'self. Howcome mebby Harrigan do, and he's boss. He would have put you on swampin' at one plunk a day and your grub. Reckon thet ain't turrible big pay fur a eddicated man.

They's 'bout six months' work and then you git your see-you-later pay-check fur what the supply store ain't a'ready got."

"It's pretty thin picking for some of the boys, I suppose," said David.

"Huh! Some of 'em's lucky to have their britches left to come out in."

"I didn't expect to get rich at it, but I wanted the experience,"

replied David, wondering why Avery seemed so anxious to impress him with the wage aspect of lumbering.