“Now, then, stay where you are, boy! If you come a step nearer I will set the dog at you.” Wrack’s aspect was so threatening that Reggie decided it to be the best part of valour to stay where he was, especially as a powerful dog which had been lying on the ground rose at this moment and growled in a menacing fashion.
“I’ve come to tell you something that you will be glad to know,” called Reggie.
“Tell it, then, and be off. I don’t want a lot of loafers on these premises,” growled the old man. And enraged though he was, Reggie’s face twitched in a grin of amusement. One small and perspiring boy who had run all the way from the schoolhouse could hardly be described as a lot of loafers.
“Gittins’s folks and a lot of women are going to have a surprise party here to-night. They are going to bring supper, and dance to an accordion afterwards,” called out Reggie in clear tones which carried amazingly in the hot, still air. If he had been able to whisper the information it would not have seemed so bad, but to be obliged to shout out what in honour he ought to have kept silent about made him so angry that he hated the old man he had come so far to serve.
Wrack gave a scornful, cackling laugh, and the dog growled in sympathy.
“If the surprise party come here it is likely they may find themselves a bit surprised,” the old man called back, then went on cleaning his gun as if no one were there.
“Ain’t you going to give me nothing for coming all this way to tell you?” demanded Reggie in a shrill tone of indignation. It was past believing that this disagreeable old man should actually refuse to reward him for all his trouble.
“I’ll give you the stick if you don’t clear out of this sharp,” the old man retorted with a snarl, and he looked as if he meant it.
Reggie was insistent, and inclined to clamour for what he deemed his rights, so he burst into noisy abuse after the manner of his kind.
“Think I’m going to put up with that sort of treatment, do you? A regular old skin-flint you are, and no mistake. I hope the surprise party will come, scores of ’em, and I hope they will dance and dance till your carpets are in rags, and they have worn holes in your floors.”
“Here, dog, after him!” exclaimed the old man, swinging his hand with an air of exasperation in Reggie’s direction. But Reggie was not going to stay on the chance of a mauling. The dog was a big animal, and he was only rather a small boy; so he fled away with the speed of a hunted fox, and the dog, having pursued him to the end of the cleared ground, gave up the chase, returning towards the house at a languid trot, as if the exertion was too much on such a hot day.
There was no slackening of Reggie’s speed until he was well on his way; then, as the ascent of the Ridge grew steeper, he dropped into a walk. There was black hate in his heart for the old man who had treated him so badly, and he was meditating all manner of wildly impossible schemes for getting the better of him as he toiled over the Ridge, then broke into a trot again where the ground sloped to the schoolhouse.
He would be late, he was sure of it, and he would have the cane. He had broken a confidence reposed in him, and he had gained nothing by it. No wonder he was furious. As he turned to enter the school door he shook his fist in impotent rage at the wooded ridge he had just crossed.
CHAPTER III
The Surprise Party
Pam stepped off the boat at Hunt’s Crossing. There was a curious sense of unreality all about her. She felt as if she were walking in her sleep, and she half-expected to wake presently and find herself back in the top bedroom of the boarding-house in London, which she had shared with her mother and Muriel.
The forest had been pushed back a little at Hunt’s Crossing. There were three wooden houses and several barns grouped near the river, but they all had a ragged, unfinished look which jarred on Pam, and forced her to the realization of being in a strange land. If she had been merely dreaming these things would not have troubled her.
There was no one to meet her; she had not expected there would be. Her mother, once she had agreed to Pam’s plan, had told her all about the road from Hunt’s Crossing to Ripple. The trail wound sharply round past Bond’s store, which was the Post Office, curved round the angle of the hill, and then stretched in a straight line for three miles and a half to Ripple. There were cross trails here and there, but there was no mistaking the way. Pam even felt as if she had been here before when she saw the cluster of houses near to the river, the tumbledown barns, and the various trails that converged at the crossing.
She went into the store and arranged for her heavy baggage to be kept there until she could send or come for it; then, carrying her bag, her umbrella, and a waterproof, she set her face to the trail.
Curious glances followed her as she left the little cluster of houses. It was so rarely that a stranger of the softer sex left the river boats at this point. Men there were in plenty who came and went, intent on selling something, or looking for something to buy. But a well-dressed girl, who arranged for her baggage to be left at the store and then went marching along the forest trails as if she had lived there all her life, was, indeed, something to speculate over. Life moved fairly easily with the people at Hunt’s Crossing, so they were able to lean over their front fences and continue their speculations without any serious upset to the day’s work.
It was late in the afternoon, and the October sunshine had a mellow tinge, as if the reflected glories of the crimson and gold of the oaks and maples had somehow coloured the glow of the sunshine to a warmer tint. Pam kept bursting into “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” of pleasure as she trod the trail with a sprightly step, and gazed on all the wealth of colour with which the forest was painted on that sunny autumn afternoon. Accustomed as her eyes had been to the soft neutral tints of London, and fresh as she was from a week of gazing on the grey Atlantic, all this flaming beauty of the woodland affected her senses, making her giddy.
For a mile or more she went ahead at a brisk pace, but her bag was heavy, her coat was hot, and presently, sitting down for a brief rest, she found herself so comfortable that she fell asleep. It was a foolish thing to do, of course, but who can expect fully-fledged wisdom and hoary-haired discretion in a girl of twenty? Pam awoke with a start after a delicious dream of her grandfather’s warm welcome at the end of the journey; she thought he was telling her with tears in his tired old eyes that he was sure she would be the joy of his life and the solace of his lonely days, but that he would know no real happiness until her mother and the other children came to live with him also.
The glory had faded from the forest, and a cool wind stirred among the rustling leaves. The sun had dropped out of sight, and with a sharp exclamation of dismay Pam rose to her feet to continue her journey. How idiotic she had been to fall asleep in this fashion when she should have been marching straight on! By the way, in which direction did she require to go? Straight on—but now she was not sure which direction was straight on, or which led back to Hunt’s Crossing. If by ill luck she took the wrong way darkness would overtake her, and she would have to ask for a night’s lodging at one of the three houses there. Even if she went forward on the right road she would still have difficulty in reaching Ripple by the time it grew dark, for now she was finding one foot very sore where her boot had rubbed it. She limped along the trail for a few hundred yards, gazing to right and left in a perfect fever of anxiety. There was forest on either side. Cedar, birch, beech, oak, and ash jostled each other, or stood singly or in groups, with wide stretches of lesser growth. It looked so exactly like the way she had been traversing before she went to sleep that after ten minutes or so Pam became convinced that she had turned round and was going back by the way she had come.
“Oh, I am in a hopeless muddle!” she murmured