Swamp Cat Part 10

Visiting the game warden, Joe Wilson, and listening to his old friend's sage advice had started Andy on a whole fresh train of thought and furnished new ideas. He sat at the table in his little house and devoted himself to serious thinking.

Muskrat pelts were fairly valuable in the fall, as soon as the weather turned cold enough to make them so. But they were far and away at their best, and brought the highest prices, if taken in late winter or early spring. In order to realize the maximum profit from his venture--and even to think about anything else would be silly--the entire crop of pelts would have to be harvested in a comparatively short time. This posed a problem which, until now, Andy had not even considered.

Nor had he thought of sharing with his neighbors, he admitted honestly.

He now saw this as a near necessity, aside from being a kindly gesture.

Though everything looked favorable, as yet he could not possibly know whether his plan to turn the swamp into one big muskrat ranch would end in success or failure. But he did know that there could be no intermediate point. Muskrat pelts, which, depending on the fur market, might bring a little more or a little less than two dollars each--and probably would average that--were not so valuable that a few, or even a few dozen, would be worthwhile. He had to take a great many. But if he restricted himself to the best part of the trapping season--even though he worked as many hours as possible seven days a week during that time--how many pelts would one man, working alone, be able to handle?

Without knowing the limit, he was sure that there had to be one.

Merely setting enough traps and moving them whenever a sufficient number of muskrats had been taken from any one portion of the swamp would, within itself, be no small task. In fact, though most of it could be done before trapping started, just patrolling the swamp and deciding how many pelts might safely be taken, and still leave an adequate foundation breeding stock, would be a big job. Then there would be skinning the catch, making stretching boards and stretching the pelts. All of this not only had to be done, but it must be well done. A poorly cleansed or badly stretched pelt was not worth nearly as much as one cared for expertly.

It would be to his benefit--and theirs, too--if he accepted Joe Wilson's advice and asked the Casman brothers and Old Man Haroldson and his sons whether they cared to partic.i.p.ate. Since Andy was furnishing the swamp, all the initial investment and all the basic work, it would be feasible and acceptable to work something out on a share basis. It would, naturally, be useless to ask Luke Trull to cooperate with anybody in anything. Andy caught up a stub of pencil and a scratch pad and began to figure.

He had planted twelve muskrats, of which he had six, two pairs and two lone females, left. They had produced thirty-eight young, and though Andy could not be sure--he had found the remains of two baby muskrats without identifying what had killed them--he thought that at least thirty remained. He intended to plant twenty more mated pairs, and judging from past experience, he could expect to lose half of them. If the rest, and supposing ten females survived, propagated in proportion to the first planting, there would be somewhat more than ninety young.

If each adult female produced at least one more litter--

Andy threw his pencil down and stared across the table. So many factors entered into the picture that there was about as much possibility of accurately forecasting how much increase there would be as there was of knowing definitely which cow in a herd would switch its tail to the left first. If he could keep furred and feathered predators down and Luke Trull out, and if he were lucky, there might be anywhere between 150 and 200 muskrats in the swamp with the coming of spring. That would not be nearly enough to start reaping a harvest of pelts. It wouldn't even be an adequate breeding stock, and perhaps there would not be enough muskrats to start trapping the following spring. But by the third year, always a.s.suming that luck was on his side, the venture should show at least a modest return.

At any rate, he would see Ira and Jud Casman and Old Man Haroldson and his five strapping sons in the near future. He would explain what he was doing and what he hoped to do and he would point out that, if he had their co-operation, which he thought he'd get, n.o.body would become rich but there would be something for all who cared to join in. Coming in the spring, when other work was slack, such funds would be welcome. Luke Trull was and would have to remain Andy's problem.

Rising, the boy walked to the window and peered into the darkness. He hadn't seen the frost-coated kitten since early morning, and in addition to anxiety, he felt an unaccountable sense of disappointment. Somewhat irritably, he tried to shrug it away. Why should he have sensed a powerful bond between the kitten and himself? And why was he forever getting ideas and fancies which no one else seemed ever to entertain?

Obviously the kitten, at best a half-wild thing, had gone back into the wilderness out of which it had come. That was its privilege.

Andy resumed his seat at the table and again took up his pencil and scratch pad. A second time he started calculating as to exactly what was going to happen, and a second time he gave it up as useless. He'd thought everything was carefully planned and well executed, but all the books he had read and all the information at his disposal, while definitely valuable, could at the very best only help guide him. No book ever written could tell him exactly what muskrats would do in his swamp, for the simple reason that there had never before been any muskrats there. Though he would certainly apply what he already knew, experience alone could teach him the rest. Andy started suddenly.

He listened, sure he'd heard the cry of a cat, but when the sound was not repeated he decided he had heard only the wind whining around a corner of his house. Two minutes later, and there was no mistake this time, he heard the cry again. He walked to the door, opened it, and Frosty padded in.

As meticulously clean as though he had done nothing all day long except groom himself, tail erect and eyes friendly, but at the same time managing to preserve his own great dignity, he came straight to Andy and arched against his legs. But when Andy stooped to pick him up, the frost-coated kitten dodged aside. He retreated about four feet, sat down on the floor with his tail curled around his legs and regarded Andy with grave eyes.

Understanding, Andy grinned. Some cats might love to be fondled and cuddled, but obviously Frosty was not one of them. He was a partner, not a possession, and his were a partner's rights. The boy's grin widened.

Again, as he had this morning, he saw something about this proud kitten that fitted exactly his own ideas. Independent, intelligent and spirited, Frosty knew what he wanted and what he did not want, and certainly he wanted no condescension or patronizing. Andy spoke to him.

"I don't know where you've been all day, Frosty, but wherever it was, you should be hungry now. How about some grub?"

He himself had dined on chicken, and he took a leg from the cold remains that were stored in his icebox. Cutting the meat away from the bone, he laid it on a clean saucer and placed the saucer on the floor. After a moment's grave deliberation, Frosty padded forward and ate daintily. He cleaned his face and whiskers and came over to settle himself near Andy's chair. The closed door and the fact that he was shut in were of little importance, for he had satisfied himself that the door would be opened again.

Purring, he gave himself over to slumber as sound as he would ever enjoy after Andy had reached down to stroke him gently. He would never be satisfied always to stay in the house; he had large ideas which called for ample s.p.a.ce in which to execute them. But again he had found a refuge. As long as he was in the house, he need not be constantly alert, for no danger threatened here.

Andy picked up a magazine devoted to furs and fur raising and thumbed through it, but his mind was not on the printed pages. When encroaching civilization forced them to change their way of life, the Gates clan had scattered. But two of the Gates clan, Andy and his father, had been unable to leave the swamp. It was a home to which they were bound by unbreakable ties--but it was also a way of life that n.o.body else would have chosen and n.o.body at all understood. Even to the hillmen, far closer to it than any town dweller could possibly be, anyone who elected deliberately to live in the swamp was throwing his life away.

Andy could not live elsewhere, but he knew suddenly that his life had taken a turn for the better. He not only had a companion, but one that had chosen of its own free will to join him. In addition, although Andy had no way of knowing where Frosty had been, it went without saying that he must have been prowling somewhere, and his new partner was evidently not only able to cope with but to triumph over the rigors and challenges that such a life offered. Andy needed to know no more.

After a while he rose, undressed, gave himself a sponge bath with warm water from the stove's reservoir, put on his pajamas and went to bed.

He lay wakeful in the darkness, and when something jumped on the bed he put out a hand to touch Frosty. He smiled contentedly and went to sleep.

Andy was up with the dawn, and as he built a fire in the kitchen stove he started pondering a new problem that faced him. His own way of life had for so long been so well worked out that it had fallen into a routine pattern. In summer, since he had only an icebox and visited the town infrequently, he never bought fresh meat which he himself would be unable to use before it spoiled. He depended on staples, ham and bacon, a very few canned meats, eggs, fish from the swamp, an occasional chicken and vegetables from his garden. After hunting season opened and icy weather set in, he froze the game he shot and occasionally he purchased from or traded with the Casman brothers or one of the Haroldsons for a side of pork. Having Frosty meant that he must make provision for him, but it was not an urgent matter and it could be taken care of when he went into town. Possibly he would buy some cans of commercial cat food to supplement what he already had to offer.

Andy breakfasted on eggs, opened a can of milk for Frosty and washed the dishes. Frosty slipped out with him and composed himself on the porch when his companion left the house. Andy gave him a farewell pat and set his face toward the Casman brothers' farm.

Ira and Jud, bachelors, lived two miles back in the hills. The various abandoned farms Andy pa.s.sed on his way to them were sufficient evidence that, in their own way, the Casman brothers were as hard as the granite boulders that reared humped gray backs out of their fields and pastures. The Gateses had not been the only ones to leave the hills.

Many of the Casmans and Haroldsons, and all the Trulls excepting Luke, had gone, too. Ira and Jud, like Old Man Haroldson and his sons, had not only managed to hang on but even did quite well. They never had more than modest sums of money, but they never knew want either, and they were happy with the life they led.

Andy pa.s.sed the one-room, one-teacher country school which he had attended and which was now kept open solely for the numerous offspring of Old Man Haroldson's sons. He swung up a hill, descended the other side and saw the Casman farm.

The house and outbuildings were well back from the dirt road. Five cattle and about sixty sheep grazed in a pasture and the fields were green with various crops. Andy swung up the lane toward the house and the Casmans' big, friendly dog--there were far fewer rattlesnakes away from the swamp--bounded forward. He barked a happy welcome and Andy stooped to pet him. Straightening, he saw Jud Casman standing in the doorway.

Jud was lean as a greyhound, tough as an oak knot, suspicious and approximately as talkative as a wary buck. There was no certain way to determine his age. He had taken an active part in the Trull-Casman-Gates feud, but, like Andy, he knew that belonged to the past. He murmured,

"Mawnin', Andy."

"Good morning, Jud."

"You et?"

"I've had breakfast, Jud. I've come to talk with you and to ask something from you and Ira."

"Ira's afield. Call him in if'n you like."

"That isn't necessary. You can tell him. I'm trying to do something in my swamp. Now--"

Andy described his project. He spoke of the muskrats he had already liberated, and of the increase in them. He told of the twenty pairs that were due in a few days. If the plan worked, Andy said, it would work very well--so well, in fact, that he would need help. Therefore, he would share with any hillman who cared to join him. He himself must retain complete control and he would say how many muskrats might be taken from any one section of the swamp. It would be the trapper's job to take the muskrats, pelt them and stretch the pelts. For so doing, he would receive half the value of such pelts as he handled and Andy would do the marketing.

Jud listened in attentive silence. When Andy was finished, he spoke.

"What you want of Ira'n me?"

"A chance," Andy said frankly, "and nothing more. The best way I can figure it, there won't even be an adequate breeding stock next spring.

There can't possibly be any trapping; maybe there can't even be any the following spring. But we should be able to start the spring following that. All I want from you, or anyone, is to leave the muskrats alone until the time is right."

"Me'n Ira got no call to pester 'em."

"Thanks, Jud."

"M-_mm_. You're gittin' twenty mo' these mushrats?"

"Forty. Twenty mated pairs."

"Quite a pa.s.sel to tote."

"I'll make three trips."

"You needn't," Jud declared. "Come get our Tom horse. He packs good an' just turn him loose when you're done. He'll come home."

Andy led Tom, the Casman brothers' gentle brown pack horse, off the road and down the trail to his house. The halter rope was slack. Tom knew he had a job and was entirely willing to do it. Sure-footed as a goat, he threaded his way among the boulders in his path and matched his pace to Andy's. Since it was unnecessary to watch the horse, Andy gave himself to reflection.

There was a change in his relations with the Casman brothers and Old Man Haroldson and his sons. n.o.body had mentioned it and it could not be seen, but it could be felt. His reception by each of the Haroldsons had been approximately the same as that which the Casmans had accorded him.