Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp Part 17

Some of the choppers had already gone on ahead to the part of the tract where the marked trees were being felled. Now the pluck, pluck, pluck of the axe blows laid against the forest monarchs, reached the girl's ears.

She thought the flat stuttering sound of the axes said "pluck" very plainly, and that that was just the word they should say.

"For it does take lots of pluck to do work of this kind," Nan confided to her uncle, who walked up and down on the porch smoking an after-breakfast pipe.

"Yes. No softies allowed on the job," said he, cheerfully. "Some of the boys may be rough and hard nuts to crack; but it is necessary to have just such boys or we couldn't get out the timber."

"But they want to fight so much!" gasped Nan.

"Sho!" said her uncle, slowly. "It's mostly talk. They feel the itch for hard work and hard play, that's all. You take lively, full-muscled animals, and they are always bucking and quarreling--trying to see which one is the best. Take two young, fat steers they'll lock horns at the drop of a hat. It's animal spirits, Nan. They feel that they've got to let off steam. Where muscle and pluck count for what they do in the lumber camps, there's bound to be more or less ructions."

Perhaps this might be; but Nan was dreadfully sorry, nevertheless, that Uncle Henry had this trouble with Mr. Gedney Raffer. The girl feared that there had been something besides "letting off steam" in the challenge her uncle had thrown down to his enemy, or to the men that enemy could hire to attack him.

The timber sledges soon began to drift back, for some of the logs had been cut before the big storm, and had only to be broken out of the drifts and rolled upon the sleds with the aid of the men's canthooks. It was a mystery at first to Nan how they could get three huge logs, some of them three feet in diameter at the b.u.t.t, on to the sled; two at the bottom and one rolled upon them, all being fastened securely with the timber-chain and hook.

How the horses strained in their collars to start the mighty load! But once started, the runners slipped along easily enough, even through the deep snow, packing the compressible stuff in one pa.s.sage as hard as ice.

Nan followed in this narrow track to the very bank of the river where the logs were heaped in long windrows, ready to be launched into the stream when the waters should rise at the time of the spring freshet.

Tom managed his team alone, and unloaded alone, too. It was marvelous (so Nan thought) that her cousin could start the top log with the great canthook, and guide it as it rolled off the sled so that it should lie true with timbers that had been piled before. The strain of his work made him perspire as though it were midsummer. He thrust the calks on his bootsoles into the log and the shreds of bark and small chips flew as he stamped to get a secure footing for his work. Then he heaved like a giant, his shoulders humping under the blue jersey he wore, and finally the log turned. Once started, it was soon rolled into place.

Nan ran into the cook shed often to get warm. Her uncle was busy with the boss of the camp, so she had n.o.body but the cook and his helper to speak to for a time. Therefore it was loneliness that made her start over the half-beaten trail for the spot where the men were at work, without saying a word to anybody.

None of the teams had come by for some time; but she could hear faintly the sound of the axes and the calling of the workmen to each other and their sharp commands to the horses.

She went away from the camp a few hundred yards and then found that the trail forked. One path went down a little hill, and as that seemed easy to descend, Nan followed it into a little hollow. It seemed only one sled had come this way and none of the men were here. The voices and axes sounded from higher up the ridge.

Suddenly she heard something entirely different from the noise of the woodsmen. It was the snarling voice of a huge cat and almost instantly Nan sighted the creature which stood upon a snow-covered rock beside the path. It had ta.s.seled ears, a wide, wicked "smile," bristling whiskers, and fangs that really made Nan tremble, although she was some yards from the bobcat.

As she believed, from what her cousins had told her, bobcats are not usually dangerous. They never seek trouble with man, save under certain conditions; and that is when a mother cat has kittens to defend.

This was a big female cat, and, although the season was early, she had littered and her kittens, three of them, were bedded in a heap of leaves blown by the wind into a hollow tree trunk.

The timberman driving through the hollow had not seen the bobcat and her three blind babies; but he had roused the mother cat and she was now all ready to spring at intruders.

That Nan was not the person guilty of disturbing her repose made no difference to the big cat. She saw the girl standing, affrighted and trembling, in the path and with a ferocious yowl and leap she crossed the intervening s.p.a.ce and landed in the snow within almost arm's reach of the fear-paralyzed girl.

Chapter XVI. "INJUN PETE"

Nan Sherwood could not cry out, though she tried. She opened her lips only to find her throat so constricted by fear that she could not utter a sound. Perhaps her sudden and utter paralysis was of benefit at the moment, after all; for she could not possibly have escaped the infuriated lynx by running.

The creature's own movements were hampered by the deep drift in which she had landed. The soft snow impeded the cat and, snarling still, she whirled around and around like a pinwheel to beat a firmer foundation from which to make her final spring at her victim.

Nan, crouching, put her mittened hands before her face. She saw no chance for escape and could not bear to see the vicious beast leap at her again. "Momsey! Papa Sherwood!" she thought, rather than breathed aloud.

Then, down the hill toward her, plunged a swift body. She rather felt the new presence than saw it. The cat yowled again, and spit. There was the impact of a clubbed gun upon the creature's head.

"Sacre bleu! Take zat! And zat!" cried a sharp voice, between the blows that fell so swiftly. The animal's cries changed instantly from rage to pain. Nan opened her eyes in time to see the maddened cat flee swiftly.

She bounded to the big tree and scrambled up the trunk and out upon the first limb. There she crouched, over the place where her kittens were hidden, yowling and licking her wounds. There was blood upon her head and she licked again and again a broken forefoot between her yowls of rage and pain.

But Nan was more interested just then in the person who had flown to her rescue so opportunely. He was not one of the men from the camp, or anybody whom she had ever seen before.

He was not a big man, but was evidently very strong and active. His dress was of the most nondescript character, consisting mainly of a tattered fur cap, with a woolen m.u.f.fler tied over his ears; a patched and parti-colored coat belted at the waist with a frayed rope. His legs disappeared into the wide tops of a pair of boots evidently too big for him, with the feet bundled in bagging so that he could walk on top of the snow, this in lieu of regular snowshoes.

His back was toward Nan and he did not turn to face her as he said:

"Be not afeared, leetle Man'zelle. Le bad chat is gone. We shall now do famous-lee, eh? No be afeared more."

"No, no, sir," gasped Nan, trying to be brave. "Won't, won't it come back?"

"Nev-air!" cried the man, with a flourish of the gun which was a rusty-barreled old weapon, perhaps more dangerous at the b.u.t.t end than at its muzzle. "Ze chat only fear for her babies. She have zem in dat tree. We will go past leeving zem streectly alone, eh?"

"No!" cried Nan hastily. "I'm going back to the camp. I didn't know there were such dangerous things as that in these woods."

"Ah! You are de strange leetle Mam'zelle den?" responded the man. "You do not know ze Beeg Woods?"

"I guess I don't know anything about this wilderness," confessed Nan.

"My uncle brought me to the camp up yonder this morning, and I hope he'll go right home again. It's awful!"

"Eet seem terrifying to ze leetle Mam'zelle because she is unused--eh?

Me! I be terrified at ze beeg city where she come from, p'r'aps. Zey tell Pete 'bout waggings run wizout horses, like stea'mill. Ugh! No wanter see dem. Debbil in 'em," and he laughed, not unpleasantly, making a small joke of the suggestion.

Indeed his voice, now that the sharpness of excitement had gone out of it, was a very pleasant voice. The broken words he used a.s.sured Nan that his mother tongue must be French. He was probably one of the "Canucks"

she had heard her cousins speak of. French Canadians were not at all strange to Nan Sherwood, for in Tillbury many of the mill hands were of that race.

But she thought it odd that this man kept his face studiously turned from her. Was he watching the bobcat all the time? Was the danger much more serious than he would own?

"Why don't you look at me?" cried the girl, at length. "I'm awfully much obliged to you for coming to help me as you did. And my uncle will want to thank you I am sure. Won't you tell me your name?"

The man was silent for a moment. Then, when he spoke, his voice was lower and there was an indescribably sad note in it.

"Call me 'Injun Pete', zat me. Everybody in de beeg Woods know Injun Pete. No odder name now. Once ze good Brodders at Aramac goin' make scholar of Pete, make heem priest, too, p'r'aps. He go teach among he's mudder's people. Mudder Micmac, fadder wild Frinchman come to dees lakesh.o.r.e. But nev-air can Pete be Teacher, be priest. Non, non! Jes'

Injun Pete."

Nan suddenly remembered what little Margaret Llewellen had said about the fire at Pale Lick, and "Injun Pete." The fact that this man kept his face turned from her all this time aroused her suspicion. She was deeply, deeply grateful to him for what he had just done for her, and, naturally, she enlarged in her mind the peril in which she had been placed.

Margaret had suggested this unfortunate half-breed was "not right in his head" because of the fire which had disfigured him. But he spoke very sensibly now, it seemed to Nan; very pitifully, too, about his blasted hopes of a clerical career. She said, quietly:

"I expect you know my uncle and his family, Pete. He is Mr. Sherwood of Pine Camp."

"Ah! Mis-tair Hen Sherwood! I know heem well," admitted the man. "He nice-a man ver' kind to Injun Pete."

"I'd like to have you look at me, please," said Nan, still softly. "You see, I want to know you again if we meet. I am very grateful."

Pete waved her thanks aside with a royal gesture. "Me! I be glad to be of use, oh, oui! Leetle Man'zelle mus' not make mooch of nottin', eh?"

He laughed again, but he did not turn to look at her. Nan reached out a tentative hand and touched his sleeve. "Please, Mr. Pete," she said. "I, I want to see you. I, I have heard something about your having been hurt in a fire. I am sure you must think yourself a more hateful sight than you really are."