Joyce of the North Woods Part 37

"Gaston. But not for what you think. Jude, he's after you." Jared paused for effect.

"After me?" The ugliness gave place to a dull fear.

"You, my son. He wants you to free Joyce." Evidently this announcement failed to reach Jude's intelligence.

"Free her? Me? What's got you, old man? Didn't she cut, herself?"

"You don't catch on, Jude. He wants to do the big, white thing by the girl--marry her out of hand clean and particular, and he wants to get your word that you won't make any trouble."

A silence followed this. Jude was struggling to digest it; but the result was simple.

"Well, by thunder! Won't he have to pay high for it?"

There was excitement and feverish energy in Jude's voice now.

"Maybe he'll fling a bone to you--but don't you see, son, you can hold off and make him pay, and pay and pay?

"Now tell me, so true as you live, what was _you_ going down to St. Ange for?"

"I was going down to"--Jude hesitated. "Well, I was tired of being hounded, and having to hide and starve. I was going down to get--what--I could--and no questions asked." A foolish laugh followed. Beside Jared's subtlety, Jude seemed a babbling infant with feeble aims.

Jared was contemptuous.

"Gosh darn it, Jude! It's good I fell across your path again. You might have thrown away the one, great, shining opportunity of your life.

Listen to _my_ plans. You better stay where you are, and let me run this here show. I got the tracks all laid out. I'm sort o' inspired where it comes to plotting for them I love. I'm going to write a touching letter to her. It's going to state that Gaston is laid up from an accident in a hut, further up to the north. A lumberman is going to write the letter--catch on? and she's wanted up to Gaston's dying bedside. The lumberman is going to meet her at Laval's. When she's caught safe and sure, Jock Filmer--he's the go-between in all this--will get that information, or the part about her going away, to Gaston; then the game's in our hands. If Gaston means business, he'll pay what _we_ say.

If he ain't sharp set as to a big figger, we've got Joyce; and by thunder! who's got a better right? Then we'll make tracks, after the spring freshet, to another place I know of where laws is stationary and folks ain't over keen, and where a handsome woman like Joyce will help.

I've got money enough left from the wreck to tide us over, my son--unless Gaston planks down."

All this completed Billy's demoralization. His teeth chattered louder, and for the life of him he could not control an audible sound, half sob, half sigh. But Jude was evidently as much overpowered as Billy, for the boy suddenly heard him emit an oath, and then a volley of questions designed to clear the air after Jared's storm of eloquence.

"She'll come, all right." Jared had his answers ready. "It's an all-fired queer state of things down there to St. Ange. You and me ain't never struck Gaston's kind before. Joyce'll go when he calls, and don't you forget it--all I've got to do is to make the lumberman's letter real convincing.

"Sure! I'm the lumberman, all right. Camp up north? Nothing. I'll land her here where her rightful and loving husband will be waiting for her till further developments. How did I find out the lay of the land? Gosh!

that was a tight squeeze. I found out he was over to Hillcrest, Gaston you know; and I run up, after dark to his shack, planning to get a haul from Joyce. I got into the back kitchen while she was outside, and before I could get away--in walks Gaston. What I saw and heard that evening, Jude, ain't necessary here, but it blazed our trail, boy, and I cut later--taking more than I planned for." Birkdale breathed hard. "You leave Gaston to me, curse 'im!

"Make trouble for us? How in thunder is a man to make trouble for a husband who is taking his own wife to his dishonoured bosom? Lord! Jude, you've got about as much backbone as an angle worm.

"What?" Some muttered words followed that Billy could not catch. Then--

"Trust me! Does any one know to this day, you blamed fool, who shot that government detective that was snooping into that clearing you and me made--five years back? Gaston'll pay or you'll take one of them never-failing shots of yours, and----"

It had been a hard day for Billy, and he was only fourteen.

The low, smoke-filled loft seemed to draw close about him, and it smothered the life out of him. He thought he screamed, but instead, an unseen power laid a kindly hand upon his trembling mouth, and a pause came in his troubled life. It was not sleep, nor was it faintness that struck like death the frightened boy--but an oblivion, from which he issued clear-headed and strengthened.

When he again realized his surroundings he was cramped and cold, and hungry as a wolf. From below two deep, unmusical snores rose comfortingly. There was but one thing to do--and Billy must prepare for it.

He ate every crumb of food that remained in his bag; then he rubbed himself until his numbness lessened. At last he was ready to set forth for St. Ange, and, be it forever to his glory, Billy the Redeemed, had only Joyce in mind when his grim little freckled face once more turned toward home!

Christmas, the joys of the bungalow, all, all were forgotten. It was a big and an awful thing he had on hand, but he must carry it out to the end. Floating gossip gained strength in Billy's memory as he trudged through the black morning of that second hard day.

Childhood was not much considered in St. Ange, but childhood protects itself to a certain degree, and Billy had never fully understood what the gossip about Joyce had meant. All at once he seemed to have become a man; and, oh! thank G.o.d, a man with a warm heart. A kinship of suffering and hope with Joyce made him wondrous tender. He'd stand by her. They should all see what he could do. And that hated Jared Birkdale should be driven forever from St. Ange.

It was a long, dreary journey which Billy took that day. The plentiful morning meal had beggared the future, but it had given the boy power to start well.

With daylight and home in view, although at a dim distance, Billy felt that he controlled Fate.

It would be some days before Jared could possibly get the letter to Joyce. Long before it came he, Billy, would be on the spot, and nothing could pa.s.s unnoticed before his eyes.

At eight o'clock of that second day, the boy, worn to the verge of exhaustion, staggered into his mother's kitchen, and almost frightened Peggy to death by simply announcing:

"I've cut, and I'll be eternally busted if I ever go back, so there! And I'm starved."

With the latter information Peggy could deal; the former was beyond her.

She prepared a satisfying repast for her son; noting, as she hovered over him, the change that had come. He was no longer a child, therefore he was to be respected. An awe possessed Peggy. The awe of Man as she had ever known him. Her Billy was a man! Then she noticed how thin he was, and how his mouth drooped, and how black the circles were under his big eyes.

Had they been cruel to him in camp? They could be so cruel; but then, Billy was a favourite.

What had happened?

It was proof of Billy's spiritual and physical change that Peggy did not cuff him and demand an explanation.

CHAPTER XV

Billy ate long and uninterruptedly. Peggy supplied his demands before they were voiced, and Maggie, the small and unimpressed sister, eyed him from across the table with keen, unsympathetic stare. Occasionally she made known her opinions with a calm, sisterly detachment that roused no resentment in the new being who had hurled himself upon them.

"You eat like a real pig," Maggie remarked with a sniff. She was being trained for the bungalow fete, and she had suffered in the process.

Billy eyed her indifferently.

"Push them 'taters nearer," was all he replied.

"Your father'll kill you," Peggy ventured timidly, as she filled Billy's cup for the fourth time with a concoction which pa.s.sed in St. Ange for coffee, because Leon Tate so declared it.

"No, he won't, neither," Billy said; "n.o.body ain't ever going to kill me, never!"

He turned a tense, defiant face to his mother, but there was something in his eyes that drew tears to Peggy's. She came behind his chair and, half afraid, let her hand rest upon his thin shoulder.

Wonder of wonders! Billy did not shake off the unfamiliar caress. On the contrary he smiled into the work-worn face above him.

"Ain't Billy terrible speckled when the tan's off?" Maggie broke in, "and his hair's as red as my flannel petticoat."

Peggy cast a threatening glance at her daughter.

"Clear off the table!" she commanded, for Billy was at last finished.