Lost Farm Camp Part 47

Smoke lay, a crushed and b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.s, his teeth still fixed in the throat of the moose. "Smoke, old boy," whispered David, as he knelt by him and patted his head, "you stood to your guns when I was a tottering idiot."

He thought of the many times he had teased the dog, telling him he was "no good" and "a bother," which Smoke had seemed to understand and accept with a cheerful wagging of his tail as if trying to say, "I know you are only joking."

Finally he arose and went to Swickey. "Come, girl, get in the canoe.

I'll be back in a minute."

"What are you going to do?" she asked. "Don't touch that moose! Oh, Dave, Dave-"

"d.a.m.n the moose. I'm going to bury Smoke-your dog."

Swickey was crying, but the sound of digging, as David sc.r.a.ped a shallow hole in the shingle, brought her to her feet.

"Oh, Dave, he's dead, and I killed him."

She knelt and drew the mangled body to her knees.

"Swickey, don't!" He grasped her arm roughly.

She shook it off and bent over the dog.

"Here, stop it! I can't stand that," he said more gently.

"I'll do what you say, Dave," she said, a new light coming to her eyes.

David had never commanded her before. "I loved Smoke," she sobbed. "Now he's gone, and there's no one-"

"Swickey!" His hand went out to her to help her up. She drew toward him, clinging to his arm, her head thrown back, her lips quivering. His arms went round her and his head bent slowly to hers. "I didn't know, Swickey-I thought-there was some one else."

His lips found hers gently, and the color ran to her face again. Her arms slipped round his neck and she reached up and caressed his cheek, her fingers creeping up to his hair. She touched the scar near his temple, and shuddered. Then her eyes filled again.

"Oh, Dave, _he_ didn't know, and you didn't-but I knew when I fired. I had to shoot, Dave,-and I saw white-"

She broke down and sobbed pa.s.sionately, her grief and her love so commingled that it shook her to the very soul.

"I know," he said, drawing her hot face up to him. He kissed her eyes and mouth, as her lips parted and the hunger of her girl-heart pa.s.sed from her in the wonderment and sweet content of womanhood that gives and gives, and asks no other happiness.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I DIDN'T KNOW, SWICKEY-I THOUGHT-THERE WAS SOMEONE ELSE"]

Avery, hurrying down the river-trail, stopped abruptly. "Heard 'em shoot! Huh!" he muttered, as he saw them. "Reckon they was just celebratin'. This ain't no place fur me. Guess I'll go down the river a piece and then holler."

CHAPTER x.x.x-JUST FUN

For weeks after the Lost Farm folk returned from the hunting that had ended so disastrously, Beelzebub wandered about the camp and the stable, poking his broad, sleek fighting-face into odd corners, and mewing plaintively as each nook disclosed an emptiness that he could not understand. Finally, he gave up looking for his vanished friend. When the snow came he resumed his old place beside the kitchen stove, philosophically dozing away the long winter days in luxurious content.

One December afternoon, as Avery sat weaving the mesh of a snowshoe, Beelzebub stretched himself, yawned, and sidled over to the old man. He crouched and sprang to his lap, rubbing a black nose ingratiatingly against his sleeve.

"Wal, Beelzebub, what's ailin' you now? Lonesome with jest me here? Wal, Dave and Swickey's comin' back afore long." He glanced at the clock.

"Int'rested in this here snowshoe? No. Don't like the smell of it, hey?

What be you askin' fur? Smoke? Wal, Smoke's gone huntin'-up a long trail where huntin' 's easy and they's lots of it. Now I reckon you better hop down ag'in so 's I kin finish this here job. Thar!"

The big cat rubbed sinuously against a table leg, circled the room, and crouched beside the stove again.

"Wouldn't mind bein' a cat myself," soliloquized Avery. "Nothin' to do but eat and sleep and feel plumb sat'sfied with everything. 'Specially a he cat what ain't got no young ones to raise and nuss. But it's diff'runt with me. Now, there's my Swickey-but what's the good of talkin'! Young folks is goin' to do jest the same as their pas and mas done, if they don't do no wuss."

The old man bent busily over the racquette, which was nearly completed.

Finally, he tossed it to the floor and stood up, pushing back his spectacles and yawning sonorously.

"Wal, it do beat the old scortch how things keeps a-proddin' a man to keep him movin'. A'ter suthin' happens and he ain't got nuthin' to do but jest live and wait fur-wal, gits settled kind of easy and comf'table a'ter one shakin' up, long comes suthin' unexpected-like and says, 'Here, you're takin' it too all-fired easy'; and then, like enough, he gits over thet, and gits settled ag'in, and afore he's got his feet on the stove and his pipe lit, long comes, wal, mebby a railrud and runs slam-bang through a feller's barn. Now, he's either got to hire a man to open and shet the doors every time a train comes rippety-clickin'

through or sell out and move on like a Injun. And if the hired man happened to fergit to open the door-suthin' 'ud git busted, so I reckon we'll sell out and move over to Timberland, hey, Beelzebub?"

"Yas," he continued, moving to the window, "young folks likes new things and ole folks likes ole things and both on 'em likes to live as long as they kin, even if they be some one over yonder, back of them clouds up thar on the mountain, callin' and callin' like as if they'd been expectin' a feller fur a long time. Wal, I reckon it ain't a-goin' to be a long time afore Swickey comes blushin' up to her Pop and says she's a-goin' away fur a spell-with Dave. Things are pintin' thet way, howcome they ain't _said_ nothin' yit. Shucks! but I be gettin' as fussy as a hen sca'd offen eggs. G.o.d-A'mighty never set out to make a better man than Dave, or a healthier gal than my Swickey, and come so clus to finishin' the job. 'Course, Dave come from the city-thet's the only thing ag'in' him marryin' my gal, fur she ain't never goin' to be like them city kind; howcome he says he ain't a-goin' back ag'in to stay, and he never bruk his word yit. Wal, they'll git married and raise half a dozen strappin' fine young ones, like as not, and they's things wuss than thet happenin' every day. Reckon I ought to be as happy as a pockapine in a bar'l of apples, but I ain't. Feel like as if I was losin' suthin' I was never goin' to git back ag'in.

"Used to calc'late if I had a lot of money, they'd be nothin' to fuss about. Now I got money and more a-comin' in and it's jest good for buyin' vittles and buildin' houses and sech, and gettin' things ready to be comf'table in, but thar's jest where it lays back and folds its hands and says, 'Now go ahead and _be_ comf'table'-and thet's diff'runt."

The big iron kettle on the stove simmered contentedly. Avery rammed a stick of wood into the fire and poked the door shut with another. The short winter afternoon crept into the sombre cavern of the forest, and each pallid star took on a keener edge as twilight swiftly lost itself in the dusk of a December night. Over the silence came the sound of voices-a laugh-and Avery was at the door.

"Here they be, Beelzebub!" he exclaimed, "racin' fur the camp like a couple of young ones thet's killed a snake."

"That's not fair!" cried Swickey, as she stumbled, and David pa.s.sed her, a cloud of silvery dust swirling up from his snowshoes.

He turned back, laughing, and helped her from the drift. "Now, we'll start again. Are you ready-one-two-three!"

He allowed her a generous start and she beat him to the doorway.

"h.e.l.lo, Pop!" she panted, as she stooped to unlace the snowshoes. "My!

but that was fun. We raced from the edge of the woods all the way up here, and I beat Dave."

"Yes, she got ahead of me," said David, as with a lift of his foot and a twist of his ankle he freed himself from his snowshoes.

"You must teach me that hitch, Dave. I always have to unfasten mine."

"That's the Micmac hitch. My old guide Tommy showed me that," replied David, picking up the racquettes and entering the house with Swickey.

"What was you racin' fur?-Supper?" queried Avery, winking at David.

Swickey glanced at David and laughed. "He will tell you, Pop. He lost."

"I think the winner should treat, don't you, Avery?"

"Sure certain!"

"All right," said Swickey, unb.u.t.toning her coat and tossing it to a chair. She ran to her father and kissed him.

"Huh! You didn't race _goin'_ to Jim's, did you?" said the old man, holding her at arm's length and admiring her deepening color. Her eyes brimmed with mischief.