“When we were talkin’ and I was coaxin’ the visitor to set up to supper and make himself to home, who should drop in but Bill Paisley himself. Gosh, it was fun to see how he took in the teacher. ‘Nice night, sir,’ says Bill, bowin’ low and liftin’ off his cap. I shook my head at him, but he didn’t pay any attention, so I went on eatin’ and let ’em alone. Bill got out his pipe and felt in all his pockets, keepin’ his eyes right on the teacher and grinnin’ so foolish that I nearly choked on a pork-rind.
“ ‘Would you mind obligin’ me with a pipeful of Canada-Green?’ he asks; ‘I suppose you have a plug of twist in your pocket, sir?’
“The teacher frowned at him. ‘I don’t smoke Canada-Green,’ says he, short and crisp-like.
“ ‘Chaw, maybe?’ grinned Bill, puttin’ his pipe away and lickin’ his lips expectant.
“ ‘No, nor chaw—as you call it.’
“ ‘Dear me,’ sighed Bill, and after while he says, ‘dear me’ again.
“By and by Paisley limbered up and told the teacher he was right down glad to meet a man fearless enough to come to this wild place in the cause of learnin’.
“ ‘You’re a martyr, sir,’ says Bill, ‘a brave man, to come where so many dangers beset the paths. Swamp fevers that wither you up and ague that shakes your front teeth back where your back teeth are now and your back teeth where your front ones should be. There are black-snakes in these parts,’ says Bill, ‘that have got so used to bitin’ Injuns they never miss a stroke, and they’ll travel miles to get a whack at a white man, particularly a stranger,’ says he. ‘Then there be wolves here big as two-year-old steers, and they do get hungry when the winter sets in.’
“The teacher squirmed. ‘I’ll get used to all that,’ says he.
“ ‘Sure,’ agreed Bill, ‘but just the same it’s a good thing you’re a brave and a husky chap. Met any of our Injuns yet?’
“ ‘A few,’ said the young feller, lookin’ scared.
“ ‘Injuns are mighty queer reptiles,’ says Bill, ‘but you’ll get along with ’em all right if you humor ’em with presents and attend their pow-wows. Might be a good idea to let on there’s Injun blood in you. But whatever you do, if you should happen to have a little nigger blood in you, don’t tell ’em. Injuns naturally hate niggers.’
“Bill got up and went in to say ‘howdy’ to ma. ‘She wants to see you, mister,’ he says to the teacher, when he came out. ‘I suppose you’ve learned, among other things, that there’s such a thing as talkin’ too much, so be careful.’
“When Bill went away Gloss and me sat down and listened to what Simpson and your ma had to say to each other. He told her all about you stayin’ away from school and a lot of things that seemed to worry her. I thought it queer, ’cause ever since he has been comin’ across here we’ve tried to make him feel at home. But I just put it down that he had it in for you, Boy, on some account or other.”
Boy glanced at the girl and her eyes fell.
“If it hadn’t been our own house I would have throwed him out,” McTavish declared.
“I met him down by the creek as I was comin’ home,” said Boy absently. “I told him he’d best be leavin’ these parts.”
The girl came over and leaned across the table toward him.
“Boy,” she said, “do you think he will go?”
“Would you rather he’d stay?” he asked quickly.
“No.”
“Then he’ll go.”
She passed from the room, and Boy sat huddled before the table, his head in his hands, his eyes fastened upon the guns hanging on the wall. From the shadows Big McTavish’s fiddle was wailing “Ye Banks and Braes.” The fire died and the long-armed shadows reached and groped about the room, touching the dried venison strips and the hams and bacon hanging from the ceiling, glancing from the oily green hides stretched for curing on the walls, hovering above the bundles of pelts and piles of traps in the corners of the room. But Boy’s mind was not on the trapping activities that soon would bestir the times once more. In his soul he was pondering over the question of his new unrest: a question which must be answered sooner or later by somebody.
CHAPTER III
The Babes in the Wood
The father arose and hung the fiddle on its nail.
“Best go to bed, Boy,” he yawned, picking up the huge clasp-knife with which he had been shaping the ax-handle and putting it in his pocket. When he withdrew his hand it held a letter.
“Well, now, if I didn’t forget all about this here epistle,” he exclaimed, frowning. “Jim Peeler gave it to me this afternoon. That man Watson, the land-agent at Bridgetown, gave it to Jim to give me. You read it, Boy, and see what he wants.”
Boy took the letter and broke it open with nervous fingers.
“Watson says he’s comin’ over here to see you to-morrow, dad. Seems like he wants to get hold of this place.”
He threw the letter from him and walked over to the window.
“By hickory!” expostulated the father, “what do you think of that?”
“What do I think? It’s just what I expected, that’s all.”
Boy lifted the window and leaned out. The moon was flooding the outer world with a soft radiance. The bark of a wolf came faintly to his ears from the back ridges. Old Joe lay stretched in the moonlight beside the ash-leach. As Boy watched him the dog arose, shook himself happily, turned three times around, and lay down again. An owl hooted mournful maledictions from a neighboring thicket, and in the nearby coop the fowl stirred and nestled down again, heads beneath wings. Boy came back and stood beside his father.
“I guess maybe I’m selfish, dad,” he said slowly. “It isn’t for me to say what I think, although it’s mighty good of you to ask. This place ain’t mine; it’s yours. You’ve worked hard and long to clear what you’ve cleared here, and that’s a great deal more than any of the other Bushwhackers have done. I haven’t been anythin’ of a help to you much. ’Course I could be from now on. I’m a man growed, nearly, and as soon as the trappin’ is over I might pitch in and help you with the loggin’.”
The father laid his pipe down on the table and combed his long beard with his fingers.
“Boy,” he said, “every hanged stick of timber and every foot of this four hundred acres of bushland is as much yours as mine, and you know it. I ain’t wantin’ to clear the land any more than the rest of the Bushwhackers are. What do I want with cleared land? Gosh sakes alive, I’d be so lonesome for the woods that I couldn’t live. I can’t sleep now if I don’t hear the trees swishin’ and the twigs poundin’ the roof nights. And ain’t we tolerably happy, all of us together here, even if the little ma is purty sick and it’s mighty hard not to be able to help her? And ain’t we hopin’ and prayin’ that she’ll get to be her old self once more, here where the woods breathes its own medicine? And don’t we know them prayers’ll be answered?”
He bent over and laid his big hand on the lad’s shoulder.
“Then we’ll naturally put in some great nights, crackin’ hickory-nuts by the fire and playin’ the fiddle. Why, I wouldn’t part with one acre of this piece of bush for all the cleared land