The Protector Part 13

Vane left him shortly afterwards with a sense of shame. He felt he had bought the girl and that, if she ever heard of it, she would find it hard to forgive him for the course he had taken. By and by he met Carroll, who looked at him inquiringly.

"I've had a talk with Chisholm," said Vane. "It has upset my temper--I feel mean. There's no doubt that you were right."

Carroll smiled and showed that he could guess what was in his comrade's mind. "I wouldn't worry too much about the thing," he replied. "The girl probably understands the situation. It's not pleasant, but I expect she's more or less resigned to it. She can't help herself."

Vane gazed at him with anger. "Does that make it any better? Is it any comfort to me?"

"Take her out of it. If she has any liking for you, she'll thank you for doing so afterwards."

Vane, who made no answer, strode away, and n.o.body saw any more of him for an hour or two.

He had her father's consent, but he felt he could not plead his cause with Evelyn just then. With her parents on his side, she was at a disadvantage, and he shrank from the thought that she might be forced upon him against her will. This was not what he desired, and she might hate him for it afterwards. She was very alluring; there had been signs of an unusual gentleness in her manner, but he wanted time to win her favour, aided only by such gifts as he had been endowed with. It cost him a determined effort, but he made up his mind to wait.

CHAPTER X

WITH THE OTTER HOUNDS.

A week or two had slipped away since Vane's eventful interview, when he lounged upon the terrace after breakfast chatting with Carroll.

Suddenly a long, faint howl came up the valley, and was answered by another in a deeper note. Then a confused swelling clamour, which slightly resembled the sound of chiming bells, broke out, softened by the distance. Carroll stopped and listened.

"What in the name of wonder is that?" he asked. "The first of it reminded me of a coyote howling, but the rest's more like the noise the timber wolves make in the bush at night."

"You haven't made a bad shot," Vane laughed. "It's a pack of otter hounds hot upon the scent."

The sound ceased as suddenly as it had begun, but a few moments later Mabel came running towards the men.

"I knew the hounds met at Patten Brig, but Jim was sure they'd go down-stream," she cried breathlessly. "They're coming up, and I think they're at the pool below the village. Get two poles--you'll find some in the tool-shed--and come along at once."

She clambered into the house through a window, calling for Evelyn, and Carroll smiled.

"We have our orders," he remarked. "I suppose we'd better go."

"It's one of the popular sports up here," said Vane. "You may as well see it."

They set out a few minutes later, accompanied by Evelyn, while Mabel hurried on in front and reproached them for their tardiness.

At length, after crossing several wet fields, they came into a rushy meadow on the edge of the river, which spread out into a wide pool, fringed with alders which had not yet lost their leaves and the barer withes of osiers. There was a swift stream at the head of it, and a long rippling shallow at the tail, and a very mixed company was scattered along the bank and in the water.

A red-coated man with whip and horn stood in the tail outflow, and three or four more with poles in their hands were spread out across the stream behind him. These and one or two in the head stream appeared by their dress to belong to the hunt, but the rest, among whom were a few women, were attired in everyday garments and of different walks in life: artisans, labourers, people of leisure, and a belated tourist or two.

Three or four big hounds were swimming aimlessly up and down the pool; a dozen more or thereabouts trotted to and fro along the water's edge, stopping to sniff and give tongue in an uncertain manner now and then; but there was no sign of an otter.

Carroll looked round with a smile when his companions stopped. "There'll be very little work done in this neighbourhood to-day," he said. "I'd no idea there were so many folks in the valley with time to spare. The only thing that's missing is the beast they're after."

"An otter is an almost invisible creature," Evelyn explained, "You very seldom see one, unless it's hard pressed by the dogs. There are a good many in the river, but even the trout fishers, who are about at sunrise in the hot weather and wade in the dusk, rarely come across them. Are you going to take a share in the hunt?"

"No," replied Carroll, glancing humorously at his pole. "I don't know what I brought this thing for, unless it was because Mopsy sent me for it. I'd sooner stay and watch with you. Splashing through a river after a little beast which I don't suppose they'd let an outsider kill doesn't interest me, and I don't see why I should want to kill it, anyway. Some of you English people have sporting ideas I can't understand. I struck a young man the other day--a well-educated man by the look of him--who was spending the afternoon happily with a ferret by a corn stack, killing rats with a club. He seemed uncommonly pleased with himself because he'd got four of them."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mabel, "you're as bad as the silly people who call killing things cruelty. I wouldn't have thought it of you."

"I've seen him," said Vane, "drop a deer going almost as fast as a locomotive through thick brush, with a single-shot rifle, and I believe he once a.s.sisted in killing a panther in a thicket you couldn't see two yards ahead in. The point is, that he meant to eat the deer, and the panther had been taking a rancher's hogs."

"Then I'm sorry I brought him," said Mabel decidedly. "He's not a sportsman."

"I really think there's some excuse for the more vigorous sports,"

Evelyn declared. "Of course, you can't eliminate a certain amount of cruelty; but admitting that, isn't it just as well that men who live in a luxurious civilisation should be willing to plod through miles of heather after grouse, risk their limbs on horseback, or spend hours in cold water? These are bracing things; they imply moral discipline. It can't be nice to ride at a dangerous fence, or flounder down a rapid after an otter when you're stiff with cold. The effort to do so must be wholesome."

"A sure thing," Carroll agreed. "The only drawback is that when you've got your fox or otter, it isn't worth anything. A good many of the folks in the newer lands have to make something of the kind of effort you described every day. In their case, the results are waggon-trails, valleys cleared for orchards, new branch railroads. I suppose it's a matter of opinion, but if I'd put in a season's risky work I'd sooner have a piece of land to grow fruit on, or a share in a mineral claim--you get plenty of excitement in prospecting--than a fox's tail.

But there are people in Canada who wouldn't agree with me."

He strolled along the water's edge with Evelyn, and presently looked round.

"Mopsy's gone, and I don't see Vane," he said.

"After all, he's one of us. If you're born in the North Country, it's hard to keep out of the river when you hear the otter hounds."

They took up their station behind a growth of alders, and for a while the dogs went trotting by in twos and threes or swam about the pool, but nothing else broke the surface of the leaden-coloured water. Then there was a cry, an outbreak of shouting, a confused baying, and half a dozen hounds dashed past. Evelyn stretched out her hand.

"Look!" she said.

Carroll saw a small grey spot--the top of the otter's head--moving across the slacker part of the pool, with a very slight, wedge-shaped ripple trailing away from it. It sank next moment; a bubble or two rose, and then there was nothing but the smooth flow of water.

A horn called shrilly, a few whip-cracks rang out like pistol shots, and the dogs took to the water, swimming slowly here and there. Men scrambled along the bank and while some, entering the river, reinforced the line spread out across the head rapid, others joined the second row, wading steadily up-stream, and splashed about as they advanced with iron-tipped poles. Nothing rewarded their efforts; the dogs turned and went down-stream; and then suddenly everybody ran or waded towards the tall outflow. A clamour of shouting and baying broke out, and floundering men and swimming dogs went down the stream together in a confused ma.s.s. Then there was silence, and the hounds came out and trotted to and fro along the bank, up which dripping men clambered after them. Evelyn laughed as she pointed to Vane, who looked wetter than most, among the leading group.

"I don't suppose he meant to go in. It's in the blood," she said.

"There's no reason why he shouldn't, if it amuses him," Carroll replied.

A little later, the dogs were driven in again, and this time the whole of the otter's head was visible as it swam, up-stream. The animal was flagging, and on reaching shoaler water it sprang out altogether now and then, rising and falling in the stronger stream with a curious serpentine motion. In fact, as head and body bent in the same sinuous curves, it looked less like an animal than a plunging fish. The men guarding the rapid stood ready with their poles, and more were wading and splashing up both sides of the pool. The otter's pace was getting slower; sometimes it seemed to stop, and now and then it vanished among the ripples. Carroll saw that Evelyn's face was intent, though there were signs of shrinking in it.

"Now," he said, "I'll tell you what you are thinking--you want that poor little beast to get away."

"I believe I do," Evelyn confessed.

They watched with strained attention. The girl could not help it, though, she dreaded the climax. Her sympathies were now with the hard pressed, exhausted creature that was making a desperate fight for life.

The pursuers were close behind it, the swimming dogs leading them; and ahead lay a foaming rush of water which did not seem more than a foot deep with men spread out across it. The shouting from the bank had ceased, and everybody waited in tense expectancy, when the otter disappeared.

The dogs reached the rapid, where they were washed back a few yards before they could make head up-stream. Men who came splashing close upon their tails left the river to scramble along its edge; and then stopped abruptly, while the dogs swam in an uncertain manner about the still reach beyond. They came out in a few minutes, and scampered up and down among the stones, evidently at fault, for there was no sign of the otter anywhere. The hunted creature had crept up the rush of water among the feet of those who watched for it, and vanished unseen into the sheltering depths beyond.

Evelyn sighed with relief. "I think it will escape," she said. "The river's rather full after the rain, which is against the dogs, and there isn't another shallow for some distance. Shall we go on?"

They strolled forward behind the dogs, which were again moving up-stream; but they turned aside to avoid a wood, and it was some time later when they came out upon a rocky promontory dropping steeply to the river. The hunt was now widely scattered about the reach. Men crept along slippery ledges above the water, and moved over steeply-slanting slopes, half hidden among the trees.

A few were in the river, and three or four of the dogs were swimming; the rest, spread out in twos and threes, trotted to and fro among the undergrowth, Carroll did not think they were following any scent, but a figure creeping along the foot of the rock not far away presently seized his attention.