The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dick's Desertion, by Marjorie L. C. Pickthall This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Dick's Desertion A Boy's Adventures in Canadian Forests Author: Marjorie L. C. Pickthall Release Date: September 26, 2010 [EBook #34002] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DICK'S DESERTION *** Produced by Al Haines Cover art "The great branch torn from a neighbouring maple told all the tale."--<I>p.</I> 20 "The great branch torn from a neighbouring maple told all the tale."—p. 20 DICK'S DESERTION A Boy's Adventures in Canadian Forests A TALE OF THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF ONTARIO By MARJORIE L. C. PICKTHALL WITH SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS Toronto: The Musson Book Company, Limited. 1905 CONTENTS. CHAP. I. IN THE HEART OF THE WOODS II. THE FALL OF THE TREE III. FRIENDS INDEED IV. A DAY IN THE WOODS V. A BACKWOODS CHRISTMAS VI. THE CALL OF THE FOREST VII. A MESSAGE FROM THE WANDERER VIII. A WOOD'S ADVENTURE IX. ON THE PRAIRIE X. IN THE GRIP OF THE STORM XI. BACK TO STEPHANIE XII. TO A GOODLY HERITAGE ILLUSTRATIONS "The great branch torn from a neighbouring maple told all the tale." . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece "'If I had fifty rivers and fifty canoes, I could not leave Stephanie.'" "They began to sing the old carols their mother had taught them long before." "He flung out his arm, circled with savage ornaments—flung it out with a wild gesture, and began to speak." "He held out a tiny package, wrapped in birch-bark, with an inquiring glance towards her." "'For pity's sake, let me alone!' Dick pleaded. 'Go on and leave me.'" "'Dick! Dick! Where are you?'" DICK'S DESERTION: A Boy's Adventures in Canadian Forests. CHAPTER I. In the Heart of the Woods. It was early fall, and all the world was golden. Golden seemed the hazy warmth of the sky; golden were the willow leaves and the delicate foliage of the birches; even the grass, pale from the long heat of the summer, had taken on a tinge of the all-pervading colour. Far as the eye could reach, the woods and uplands were bright with gold, relieved only by the deep sombre green of pines and hemlocks. Save for these, it seemed a country that some gracious Midas had touched, turning everything to ethereal, elfin gold. The Midas-touch had even included the little log-cabin and its untidy clearing, for broad-disced sunflowers were scattered over the neglected garden, and between them bloomed late goldenrod, which had crept in from the wilds outside; and a small patch of ground was covered with shocks of Indian corn, roughly bound together, yellowing also beneath the influence of sun and frost. The land was beautiful to look upon—Ontario scenery, marred little by the works of man in that autumn of 1820, when His Most Gracious Majesty George IV. was king. And the log-cabin and its clearing were picturesque enough to the eye of an artist, though speaking of all lack of skill and thrift and industry to the eye of a farmer. Even the garden in front of the cabin was being slowly and surely swallowed up into the wilderness again. The sunflowers flourished and bloomed and seeded, forming food-stores for multitudes of birds; and the squirrels would flicker down the tree-trunks and feast upon the seeds which the birds dropped, spitting the hard shells deftly to right and left through their whiskers. But the wild asters and the long convolvulus vines were choking the blossomless pinks and the sweet-williams and the few shy English flowers that were left. There were only very few of these fading alien plants for the healthy native growth to smother and kill, most of them having been taken away to set upon the grave of the woman who had cherished them. In the centre of this neglected garden grew a clump of sumach trees, heavy with their clumsy crimson cones; and beneath these, in a little hollow lined with all the dead drift of the October woods, a boy was lying. He was about sixteen, burnt brown as any young savage of the forests, but with sun-bleached fair hair and blue eyes to proclaim his English birth. His clothes were of very coarse homespun, and he wore a pair of old moccasins and a deerskin belt, brightened with gaudy Indian-work of beads and dyed grasses. The whole clearing was crying out for some skilled hand to tend and reclaim it once more from the encroaching wilderness; but this sturdy lad lay there with all the busy idleness of a savage, very deftly making a tiny canoe of birch-bark. He seemed a fit occupant for the tangled garden and the half-cultivated fields. Five years before, a certain Captain Underwood, flying from financial disaster in England, had come to Canada with his wife and his two children, Dick and Stephanie. There was roving blood in the Underwoods, so perhaps it was not surprising that the unfortunate captain should have ranged farther afield in Ontario than others had then done; for he left the settlements and the surveyed townships behind him, and struck farther north, wishing to get as far away as possible from the world that had brought him ruin. In the friendly forests, a little beyond the region where the white settlers had penetrated, but not entirely out of touch with them, he found a natural clearing, and here he had built his tiny cabin and roughly marked out his small fields. Here, perhaps, the poor man, knowing nothing of the country, had thought to live a sort of idyllic hermit existence. But he found it very different. It was a terrible life to which he had brought his wife and children; and when Mrs. Underwood died, three years after leaving England, he blamed himself for her death. Most of his heart he buried with her in that lonely grave under the mighty maples on the hill; and afterwards he turned to the wild life around him as to his only help and comfort. But he had no longer the courage to fight the farmer's fight, the primitive conflict between man's skill and nature's strength. Soon the garden that his wife had loved became overgrown with native flowers and weeds. Soon the bushes and the grass crept inwards over his fields. Soon his son and daughter shot up from childhood to youth, perfectly healthy in their hard life. Stephanie was fifteen years old, and being as strong as a young lynx, she did all the work of the log-cabin. She made a rough sort of corn cake which served for bread, she prepared the endless pea-soup and pork, she washed and mended and even made the clothes. Dick helped his father, or idled away on little hunting expeditions of his own, from which he returned happy and rarely empty-handed. It was a strange life for a boy and girl, carefully and lovingly brought up amid English comforts and ease, to lead. Their nearest neighbours, the Collinsons, with whom Captain Underwood did most of his little trading, were twenty miles distant. Kindly Mrs. Collinson had offered Stephanie a home when Mrs. Underwood died, but the girl had chosen to stay with her father and Dick, and be the one influence which restrained that little household in the woods from lapsing into the happy-go-lucky sort of savagery to which even the most cultivated are liable in a new land. I do not think that we of this generation can quite realise the life which was led in Upper Canada eighty years ago, when forest and swamp and bush foretold nothing of the great farms and cities and thriving towns which now replace them to such a great extent. Those first settlers did not foresee the heights of prosperity and hope to which the land would rise in the time of their children. They looked upon it rather as some unfriendly place from which they might wrest a living, than as a goodly country given them that they and their children and their children's children might labour in it and love it and enjoy it—and fight and die for it if need were. All their love and remembrance they gave to those little Isles across the sea; but, willy-nilly, they were obliged to give their wit and muscle to Canada. They fought against hardships and privations that were almost incredible, chiefly in the hope that they might win enough from the New World to take them back in comfort to the Old. They thought chiefly of making provision for present needs, not foreseeing that their toil went to the making of a nation, the building of an Empire. They wrought indeed better than they knew. No prophetic vision of the mighty future came to Dick Underwood as he lay beneath the sumachs that golden October day, nearly ninety years ago. He gave all the sentiment of which his boyish heart was capable to his fading memories of his English home, even as his father did—laying these recollections aside, as it were, in a sacred place. But here the likeness to his father ceased; for he looked forward in vast, ignorant, splendid dreams to the possibilities of the land of his adoption—not the possibilities of trade and agriculture, which seldom attract youth—but to the more alluring chances of those great Unknown Lands, to the wonder and mystery of the Indian-haunted North. He did not put this feeling into words. Indeed, he did not know how to describe it, or what it was. But it is written in the history books that in Talon's time the welfare of the French colony was endangered by the number of young men who took to the woods, obeying the "call of the wild." It was this that moved Dick Underwood. It moved him then as he lay lazily in the sweet, new-fallen leaves, so deftly shaping that little canoe of birch bark; and he wished, with a half smile at himself, that it might turn out to be a fairy canoe, suddenly growing to full size, and bearing him away on some new risen fairy river, into the land of his dreams. "But if I had fifty rivers and fifty canoes," he said to himself with a sigh, "I could not leave Stephanie." "'IF I HAD FIFTY RIVERS AND FIFTY CANOES, I COULD NOT LEAVE STEPHANIE.'" It was the old struggle, though he did not know it—the voice of the wilderness striving against the voice of the home ties. This time the voice of the home ties sang in triumph at thought of Stephanie; but there comes a time occasionally in a man's life when his mother the woman may mean less to him for a space than his mother the earth. But with Dick the crisis had not yet come; and he scrambled to his feet very contentedly, and proceeded to a little marsh close at hand, where all sorts of fair swamp plants grew—feathery green things, and jewelled touch-me-not, and jacks-in-the-pulpit, and long-stemmed violets in season. For the tiny canoe was to be filled with little ferns and soft mosses as a gift for Stephanie, and that thought of the fairy river was forgotten. This important business attended to, he turned slowly and reluctantly towards home. But the woods were full of sights and sounds that appealed to every half-awakened instinct in the boy's soul. A small, brown, hawk-faced owl lay stupidly at the mouth of a sort of tunnel it had made for itself in the long, bleached grasses. So perfectly did it resemble a piece of decayed and mottled wood that even Dick's keen eye almost passed it over, until it sprang up from this cosy day-time retreat, and blundered away among the trees. Dragon-flies, unlike their brethren of the earlier year, in that they were clad in crimson and russet plush, and not in green and pink and sapphire mail, took their flashing flights among the faded undergrowth. The air was warm and golden still, but a keen nose might detect in it a threatening of frost; and the fallen leaves yielded a delicate fragrance as of damp earth and new mown hay. A chipmunk ran down a tree trunk and scolded him viciously, and then fled before him to another tree, where it awaited him angrily, evidently under the impression that he was following it with evil designs upon its winter stores. In this way it preceded him to the edge of the corn-field, and finally vanished into a hole in a half-dead pine that stood near the clearing, putting out its head once more with a last outpouring of abuse. "Oh! little fellow," said Dick, "I am afraid your nuts will be wasted, for to-morrow we chop the tree down. But I 've promised Stephanie that first I 'll climb up and poke you out with a stick—and get bitten for my pains, I suppose, you little spitfire. So you need not be afraid you 'll be killed." He ran a hand over the smooth bark, blue-black, mottled with fragile green lichens, with no thought of its beauty. "Half rotten," he said to himself, "and it ought to go down as easily as a bulrush." And he turned away, his mind full of the fascinating way in which the bright blades of the axes would bite deep through that beautiful dark bark into the sweet-smelling white wood beneath; of how the chips would scatter and fly, and lie like creamy shreds of ivory underfoot; of the tremor that would seem to shake the neighbouring woods at the sound of the falling of the tree. CHAPTER II. The Fall of the Tree. Next morning the year had grown perceptibly older; or so it seemed to Stephanie, as she stood in the doorway of the log-cabin, looking across the misty clearing to the golden forests that encircled it. The fallen leaves looked browner, each furred at the edge with a delicate fringe of hoar-frost; and the newly risen sun strove as yet in vain to send some heat through the faint, cold haze. It was more penetratingly chill than if it had been the drier winter time. Stephanie snuggled into her little gray shawl with a keen appreciation of its rough warmth, and watched her breath floating as tiny silver clouds in the almost motionless air. She was a tall, strong girl, with an unexpectedly plaintive face—a quaint, dark-eyed face which suited well with her quaint foreign name. Already she looked older than Dick, for her eyes were grave, and her mouth had taken a firm, responsible curve; it was a look which comes sometimes to motherless girls who have men-folk to manage and care for. The room behind her was neat and clean, but almost bare of even such comforts as might have been found in pioneer homes. Here and there some little stool or shelf showed that her brother's deft fingers had been at work; but in this as in most things he lacked the steadiness of application which would have served to better their lot. And Captain Underwood was a broken man, plunged in a lethargy of remorse and disappointment which threatened never to lighten. Since her mother's death, life would have been almost unendurable to Stephanie had it not been for two things: these were the passionate affection existing between herself and Dick, and her intense love for and kinship with nature. All her scanty hours of idleness she spent roaming about the clearing or the edge of the forest—she knew the haunts of every weed and flower for a mile around. In the winter, flocks of little hungry birds were her pensioners, and it is likely that she would have seriously diminished their own stores in feeding them, had not Dick collected berries and wild rice and seeds in the fall as a provision for emergencies. On this keen autumn morning there were very few birds about; the robins had flown, and the owls were going to bed; far away some noisy crows wheeled and cawed above the trees, but no longer could Stephanie hear the innumerable small twitterings and tentative songs of a morning in the summer. The forest was very silent. Indeed, the only sound that broke the half-awakened quietness was the distant thud and throb of axes biting deep into the trunk of a tree. It was a curiously insistent sound, that seemed to claim more notice than it was worth. Very clearly on the clear air was borne the noise of every blow, and occasionally a faint crack as of a blade being wrenched away. It forced itself on Stephanie's attention, growing louder and fainter as slight breaths of wind moved the hazy air, but never ceasing in its continual, irregular thud—thud; thud—thud. Her father and Dick were chopping down the half-dead pine; she could distinguish the difference between the weight of their respective strokes. Half unconsciously she listened. There was no cessation in the dull noise; and to her it seemed full of threat and menace. She fancied that the other trees must be shaking all their remaining leaves in fear that a like fate might befall them, and she hoped that Dick had remembered to chase the chipmunk out of his hole. The chipmunk had been a friend of hers, and she used to drop acorns at the foot of the tree where he might find them. Vaguely she wondered whether she would recognise the little fellow again if she saw him in some other tree, and concluded that it was scarcely possible. While all the time the thud—thud of the axes seemed to weave itself into a sort of irregular accompaniment to her wandering thoughts. And then suddenly she was aware that it had stopped, and that a brief silence had once more fallen over the golden woods and the hazy field of corn. The silence was broken by a sharp crack. Then a series of small tearing, rushing, rending sounds ended in a mighty crash. Stephanie knew that the tree was down, and an odd little feeling of regret came over her; once more there was a moment of utter silence. Then, sharp and keen and terribly distinct, she heard a wild cry from Dick. She had run down the garden almost before that cry ceased to ring in the air, and now she fled over the rough ground outside with as swift and sure a step as a young deer might use. Her face was grey and drawn with the sense of coming disaster, but neither her feet nor her breath failed her as she breasted the low rise of ground, slippery with pine needles, which lay between her and the place from which that cry had come. As she gained the crest of the hill, she staggered back a step and almost fell, but recovered and ran on, though for a minute she was blind and deaf and scarcely conscious. The pine, shorn of its few branches, lay upon the ground, and near the stump lay her father, with Dick kneeling beside him. When her sight came back to her, she found that she also was kneeling there, staring stupidly at her brother's agonised face, and at the great branch torn from a neighbouring maple, which told all the terrible tale. Somewhere in the silent woods a chipmunk chattered shrilly, and she wondered when it would stop, for the noise hurt her head. Someone seemed to be saying drearily over and over again, "What are we to do? What are we to do?" and she felt angry with the momentous question. Surely silence was the only fitting thing. Then her senses seemed suddenly to wake into painful life again, and she stood up and looked about in dry-eyed desperation. That her father was seriously injured she knew, for the branch had struck him at the base of the head. But he appeared to be still living; and what were they to do for the best? A feeling of their utter loneliness swept over her, bringing back that other irremediable loss of two years ago. Once more she knelt in the rustling leaves, sobbing her heart out. "Oh, mother!" she cried, "oh, mother, mother, mother!" The words held the most passionate prayer she had ever prayed in her life. And presently she rose to her feet again, with dimmed eyes and trembling lips, but strong to do and to endure. She seemed almost to have grown a woman in that moment, and unconsciously she took the lead, though she was the younger of the two. "Dick," she said steadily, "go and harness Murphy. We must take father to the Collinsons." Dick stumbled off blindly to do her bidding. Murphy was the one lean ox who had done all their carting and ploughing; and before long the boy came back again, driving the slow brute in the clumsy, creaking ox-cart. Between them they managed to draw their father up two inclined boards until his inert body rested safely in the cart; and then fleet-footed Stephanie ran back to the cabin for all the coverings and pillows in their poor store. Before half-an-hour had passed, the clumsy conveyance was creaking down the rough old Indian trail which led by many windings to the Collinson homestead, bearing the unconscious Captain, while Dick and Stephanie walked beside, urging Murphy to his best pace. Their hearts were sick with dread; motherless they had been for two years—were they now to be fatherless also? It had all been so terribly sudden they had scarcely time to think, but it was the best thing they could do. At the Collinson homestead their father would be certain to receive the tenderest care, and perhaps medical attendance if things turned out fortunately. But would they ever get him alive over those long, jolting miles? The same fear was in the eyes of each as they looked at one another. They were never to reach their journey's end. Before long the Captain began slowly to regain consciousness, and his first question was a faintly-uttered "What's this? Where are you taking me?" They told him, with white, anxious faces bending over the rough sides of the cart, while Murphy tried to reach a tempting bit of green grass under the trees. But the injured man shook his head. "It is no use, my dears," he said feebly, "another two miles would kill me at once. And I must die where she died, for I cannot recover. Stephanie"—it was curious how he turned from the elder child to his younger—"Stephanie, take me back! Promise to take me back!" Who could have withstood the pitiful appeal in his eyes? With aching hearts they promised, and once more he relapsed into unconsciousness, muttering fragments of old orders which he had given as captain of the great merchantman Theseus, in the long ago days. They looked at each other in miserable helplessness. Dick broke the wretched silence. "Stephanie," he said, "you must take him home again, and I must go on to the Collinsons—for if he will not be taken to help, help must be brought to him. I shall be able to take two or three short cuts, and they will ride or drive back with me, so it won't be so very long. But oh, my dear, I do hate to leave you!" Stephanie shook her head. "We are thinking of him now," she said quietly, and without another word turned Murphy round. With a last hurried look, Dick plunged rapidly into the bushes at the side of the trail, and she could hear the rustling of his footsteps growing fainter in the distance. Then began the weary journey home again. They had only travelled a short distance from the little clearing, but to Stephanie it seemed hours before the log- cabin and the field of corn came into view. And having reached home, she had to face a new difficulty. She could not, unaided, lift her father from the cart. So she backed it into a sheltered place among the trees, and brought the rough chairs and barrels from the log-cabin to support the shafts. Then she unharnessed Murphy, and led him to his shed, moving as if she were in some terrible dream. Returning to the cabin, which already looked deserted and strange, she ransacked every corner until she found a little of some coarse, crude spirit in an old bottle. Mixing it with water, she strove to force some into her father's mouth, but he did not seem able to swallow. So she began her long helpless vigil beside the cart, knowing that there was nothing she could do. If only Dick were there! The shadows grew long and longer, and still the Captain lay motionless in the cart beneath the great trees; and still Stephanie kept her patient watch beside him. Only once did her father speak in all those terrible hours. She had been bending over him adjusting his coverings, when she found him looking up at her with a brighter, more gentle look than she had seen upon his face for years. "I thought you were your mother, little girl," he said faintly, "your hands move as hers did." "They are not as soft as hers, father," said Stephanie in a broken voice. "No," answered the Captain, "they are not as soft, poor brave little hands. But their touch is as tender, my dear, their touch is as tender." After that the silence fell again—a greater, deeper, more divine silence, though Stephanie did not know it. And still she sat beside the cart in the gathering shadows, waiting for the help that was to come. CHAPTER III. Friends Indeed. Mr. Collinson pulled the red handkerchief from his grey head and broad weather-beaten face, and crossing the room, threw a handful of pine splinters on the fire. It was a fire such as one seldom or never sees nowadays. First came the great back log, some four feet long and twenty inches thick; then upon the "dogs" were laid sticks of the same length, but only about six inches in diameter; and lastly, upon these, a mighty pile of pieces of pine and various chips of wood. In those days, fire-building was an art. The flames leapt up, and caught the handful of pine chips into a blaze of heat and brightness, which showed every corner of the room. It was a large and cheerful room, with two windows which now were covered with red cotton blinds. The walls were of smooth match-boarding, and a few gay water- colour sketches and old portraits in little oval brass frames were tacked upon them. The furniture was rough and home- made, but comfortable; and in a corner, partly hidden with a red cotton curtain, three cot-bedsteads, covered with red quilts, were trying hard to pretend they were sofas. It was a cheerful room; and most of the people in it were cheerful too. Mr. Collinson was cheerful certainly; and Mrs. Collinson, small and round, with cheeks as pink as roses, seemed made for tender words and smiling. Two tall lads of eighteen, twins, stood before the blazing fire, and their faces were as broad and merry as anyone could desire. Perhaps the only faces in the room that bore shadows in them were those of Dick and Stephanie. Stephanie sat near one of the windows, patiently stitching at a shirt, which from its dimensions seemed intended for Mr. Collinson. She was dressed in black, and the gown was of very different material and cut from that she had last worn. There were dark shadows under her dark eyes, and her face was thin; but beyond these signs of a recent and terrible grief, she seemed brighter and better for the cheerful companionship of the Collinson homestead. Dick was as patiently sitting before little Mrs. Collinson, holding the yarn that she was winding. He had discarded his wild Indian finery, and was dressed as were the two older boys on the rug before the hearth. He and Stephanie might have been another son and daughter of the house, as far as treatment went; but they had that shadow of sorrow in their eyes which the rest had not. But now all faces, grave and gay, were turned to Mr. Collinson; for when the good man woke himself thus emphatically from his evening nap, and brightened up the blazing fire, it generally meant that he had something important to say. So no one was surprised when he cleared his throat and put himself into an attitude for speaking. Only the larger and merrier of the twins looked anxious, and edged imperceptibly nearer to Stephanie. "Mrs. C," he began, with a bow to his wife, "and young people—Stephanie, Dick, Roger and William Charles—I have something to say which concerns us all, because it concerns Stephanie and Dick here especially. I would not speak of it at all, but it seems to me, and also to the wife, that things need to be discussed a bit." Stephanie glanced up quickly, with an expression that was both anxious and relieved, anxious because the future seemed so dark, and relieved in that the subject had at last been mentioned. Dick looked dejected, he hated discussions. "You know, my dears," said Mr. Collinson, smiling at his two guests, "that I would not for the world bring up, unnecessarily, any subject such as this, which is bound to give you pain. But things had better be talked over, for good and all, to-night." He gazed thoughtfully into the glowing heart of the fire for a moment, and then continued. "Six or seven weeks ago, Stephanie, my dear," he went on, "you came here, and welcome indeed you both were. Since then I have been looking after matters a little, and as far as I can tell, things are like this: Your poor father was more a hermit in the wilderness than a proper settler; he just put up his lodge in the woods as an Indian might have done. He did not put in his claim for any land in the townships as he ought to have done, but must needs wander off by himself. He found this clearing—the worst land in the region, by the same token—and here he managed to keep body and soul together on what he grew, and the little money he had left. But he was not really a settler, and he had no right there. Though it's not likely anyone would have interfered with him until the country came to be surveyed, which may never happen. But the land, I fancy, was no more his than mine, as he was there but four years—though I may be wrong in thinking so, knowing little of the law. But at any rate, what I want to say is this, the land is worthless—the poorest in that part, from what I saw of it; so my advice is this—let it go, and when Dick is of age he can have his pick of a dozen fine claims—a hundred, maybe, if the country opens up fast. Meanwhile, I 'll take over anything of value up there—Murphy, and the corn, and the plough, and such, at a fair price, and put the money to the credit of both of you equally. Think of it, and if you agree, the future is arranged. So, now for the present." He looked at his wife meaningly, and then back at the fire again. After a moment he went on slowly and deliberately. "The beauty of it is," he said, "that the very day before you came to stay with us, I said to the wife that we had too much room in the house." There was a faint sound, which might have been either assent or amazement, from Mrs. Collinson; and Roger, the largest twin, gazed at his father in open admiration; while the cots, squeezed into the corner behind the red curtain, took on a reproachful expression. "And I also said," continued the serene voice, "that my wife wanted someone to be company in the house and help a little with things, and that I could do well with another handy youngster for outside work; I have often," he continued softly, "longed for a daughter, and I don't mind another son. So, Dick and Stephanie, what do you say? Will you stay here until you get a place of your own to go to? I shall not be a loser in the bargain." Stephanie was crying quietly into the sleeve of the shirt, and Dick went over to Mr. Collinson. "Sir," he said, choking, "you 're a good man, and I hope you will never have to regret what you 've done for me. You know what Steenie is, and need have no fear for her." He spoke steadily and seriously, unlike himself, while Mrs. Collinson went over to Stephanie and patted her hand softly. And so, after some further discussion, it was settled. What else could Dick and Stephanie do? Even if Mr. Collinson had been one from whom they would not have received such kindness without a painful sense of obligation, there was no other opening for them. As it was, they accepted his offer warmly and gratefully, all the more so for knowing that they would and could be of use to him and his wife. And his plain, sensible, hopeful words had touched the dark future with a glow of rose-colour, which, even before their sorrow, it had lacked. Already Stephanie saw herself keeping house for Dick in the midst of peace and plenty. And Dick himself? At present all other feelings were swallowed up in the warmth of gratitude. But that night, as he stood in the dark enclosure in front of the log-house which in summer was ablaze with flowers, he was aware of a little cool spot in the midst of his gratitude. He was ashamed of it, but there it was. For he knew that the hard, steady labour he had to look forward to would be very dull after the idle, gipsy-like life and the freedom to which he had been accustomed. Ever since that terrible day of their father's death, the Collinson homestead had been home to himself and Stephanie also, and apparently it would be so for some years to come. All this he told himself, as he stood and watched the pale moon of early winter rising behind the trees; but it did not do away with that little cool thought. And he quickly decided that he would take all the pleasures in the shape of sport or travel that came in his way. It was a cold night; but for some reason, after deciding this, Dick did not feel like facing the kind bright faces in the bright room. He did not know that it had been another step in the lifelong fight between duty and inclination—between the love of wandering that was rampant in his blood and the clear call of quiet, unromantic, unceasing work that lay before him—and that, in the one little lazy, selfish thought, he had lost. He was roused from his reverie by a fearful clamour that broke out among the farm buildings. All the geese hissed and screamed as if they had another Rome to save, and the hens fluttered and clucked, and squawked after the manner of their foolish kind. Roger hurried out with a shot-gun, and he and Dick ran towards the scene of the tragedy. But they were too late. The fox had already gone, and with him had departed a venerable gander. "We have got to get you, my friend," growled Roger, "or we shan't have a bird left. And I repaired the fencing myself. Oh, you villain!" "Let me go to-morrow," said Dick promptly. The older boy looked at him and laughed, with one of the flashes of insight which sometimes comes to slow people. "I can see you would rather be a mighty hunter before the Lord than a humble tiller of the soil," he said, "and if my father says yes, you might as well catch the thief if you can. But you had better take Peter Many-Names with you." "Who is he?" asked Dick. "Well," answered Roger slowly, "he is—himself. An Indian boy about my own age, and the cleverest fellow with a gun or a snare or a paddle that I ever saw. But beyond that—well, he's an Indian, so I don't know anything more about him. He's been round here lately, selling fish. He wraps them in wet leaves and brings them over from the river—the Otonabee, you know. There are a lot of settlers over there now, I 've heard, and I wish we were nearer the river ourselves. Peter has promised to bring mother some fish to-morrow, and if he turns up you ask him to go fox-hunting with you, and you will have good sport after a fashion. His methods are funny, but they 're interesting, and a day in the woods with him is always jolly." So it was arranged that next day, if the Indian arrived, he and Dick were to go and catch the marauding fox. They returned to the house, Dick in great glee. All his dreams that night were of the delight and freedom of the forests. And miles away in the woods, an Indian lad slept beside his fire, with a basket of fish hung up on a branch in the shadow overhead. Next day these two were to meet. What would be the outcome of the meeting? CHAPTER IV. A Day in the Woods. The following morning Dick was up and out before even the early rising Collinsons were stirring. It was one of those mornings in late November which seem to be a faint, sad recollection of spring. The sun had not yet appeared above the far-off edge where the misty forest lands faded into mistier skies, but the promise of his approach thrilled the leafless, songless world to deeper quiet. Everything was hushed and dark; but in the east a clear bar of amber broadened and brightened slowly. Yet it would be some time, Dick knew, before it became really light. He wandered through the frosty garden, the noise of his footsteps in the dried leaves sounding harsh and clamorous; but save for this, and for the lanterns which moved about the farm buildings as some of the hands attended to the stock, the world seemed wholly given up to shade and silence. The air was damp and very chill, and the ghostly half-light was full of unexpected gleams and shadows. But Dick wandered on restlessly, until he came to the boundary of the enclosure. Here the land dipped sharply, and the cultivated ground ended in a low stump fence. Beyond this fence there was a small and rocky ravine, which ran up in a constantly narrowing cleft into the very midst of the fertile fields. On the crest of the dip Dick paused, and peered attentively over and down into the little valley, which here was scarcely fifty feet across—a mere sword-cut of beautiful worthlessness in the rich acres around—for his nose had been greeted by a small, savoury odour of cooking. His eyes were as keen as his nose, and presently he made out a very tiny spiral of blue smoke rising from among the bushes. No sooner had he seen it than he scrambled silently, but with difficulty, over the barricade of the stump fence, and crept cautiously round the trees to get a clearer view. As he half expected, an Indian lad crouched beside the tiny fire, busy with the preparation of his wild breakfast. Dick had thought to steal upon him unheard, but he was disappointed, for the lad's eyes sought him out immediately and unerringly. It had grown much lighter now, and each was able to see and take stock of the other. Dick saw a boy of about his own age, smaller and slighter, but hardened so by the ways of his life that he appeared older; his every movement had the silence and precision of an animal's; and he was made up of a shock of black hair, a smooth brown skin, sharp white teeth, and a compact mass of light bones and untirable muscles. He was dressed in what had originally been a respectable suit of homespun, probably presented to him by good Mrs. Collinson, but it was patched and pieced out with all manner of skins and rags. A scarlet blanket served to keep out the frost. But his eyes were what attracted at once the attention of an observer; they were not black, nor even dark, but a very light, bright, greenish grey; this, and their utter lack of expression, rendered them unpleasantly impressive. No one might say whether such eyes portended good or evil, but most people would have inclined to the latter. Peter Many-Names glanced at Dick with a grave sort of indifference, which was annoying and yet amusing. He saw a good-looking youngster, strongly built and fresh coloured, who bore himself as if life owed him something very easy and pleasant. Peter also saw that the English boy would not go more than one mile to his own two on the trail; that while he was probably a good shot, he lacked patience; and that he moved with excessive noise; so Peter valued him accordingly, though his eyes gave no sign. Dick nodded cheerfully, and Peter returned the nod with ceremonial gravity; then he bent once more over the little fire, and left to the other the task of opening the conversation. Dick felt somewhat at a loss; Roger had told him that the Indian understood English perfectly well, though speaking it according to his own taste, but he felt that his questions were too trivial to break the massive silence with which the young savage surrounded himself. It was the first time he had come into contact with that dignity which is not the outcome of education, but which is a characteristic of some races. Indians he had seen, but not such an Indian as this. "You 're Peter, I suppose," he began at last, and then waited for some confirmation of his words. But the other was raking among the wood ashes with a little stick, and merely nodded again in answer, seeming to think it a matter of entire indifference whatever Dick chose to suppose. "When you 've been up to the house," continued Dick, "I want to know if you 'll come with me after a brute of a fox that is taking our poultry." It appeared better to put the matter briefly. Peter Many-Names regarded him gravely still. He knew enough of the mannerless ways of white folks not to be shocked at this abrupt introduction of business. So after a few minutes' meditation, he grunted agreement. "All right, I come," he said. Then he turned his back calmly, and went on with his culinary operations. There was no mistaking the hint, so Dick walked back to the homestead again. Shortly after appeared Peter, with some fine fish, and a somewhat less taciturn manner; and before an hour had passed, the two lads, some provisions, guns, and an excited dog, were all on the trail of the fox. The Indian strode on ahead with the dog straining in the leash, and left to Dick their weapons and the food, which vexed him mightily. Nor was his temper improved when he noticed that Peter carefully moderated his pace from time to time as if out of consideration for his companion's weaknesses. It is not pleasant to know that your comrade can run twice as fast as you can, and to know that he knows it also. He had always prided himself on his strength and fleetness, and to find himself relegated to the position of follower and burden-bearer by the first Indian into whose company he was thrown was a salutary lesson. In this manner they proceeded for some two or three miles. Every now and then Dick made valiant efforts to gain upon his companion, but Peter, as if maliciously aware of it, always kept the same distance ahead. Once, restraining the dog with difficulty, he pointed to a little piece of grey down caught on a thorn—pathetic reminder of the perished gander. Then once more they went on, following unerringly the fresh scent, until, all at once, the character of the country changed, and a small, low, sandy hillock, almost bare of trees and underwood, thrust itself upwards amidst the encircling forests. In a confident manner, which Dick found vaguely annoying, Peter announced it to be the end of their journey. Dick looked back. They had not come far, as distance was counted in those days, but the land was entirely strange to him. However, to the Indian and the dog it appeared to be familiar enough; for Peter Many-Names, after a few minutes' search, unearthed two broad discs of thick wood from beneath the accumulation of leaf and vine which had safely concealed them. Dick looked at him inquiringly, but he did not seem disposed to give explanations. "Me here bin before," he remarked, "catch fox. These hidy then." Not thus had the English boy dreamed of the hunt. Rather had he thought of a progress through the woods in lordly wise, killing or sparing at his pleasure, with the Indian as an appreciative audience. He resented the way in which Peter took the whole affair into his own hands, competent and cunning though the said hands were. But now the Indian's proceedings arrested his attention. After much cautious scrambling and struggling, the dog led them to the mouth of a burrow, where, Peter declared, the thief must now be securely and gorgedly sleeping. At the same time, he gave Dick clearly to understand that he, and he alone, would compass the fox's destruction. "You sit see watch," he commanded. Were anyone else concerned in this matter, Dick would have disputed this order with heat. But already he had fallen under the spell of that savage nature, so much wilder, so much stronger, than his own. There seemed to be something in the keen, dark face, with its strange eyes, which required obedience, and he yielded it without a word. In the wilds, the soul and will of the savage at once became dominant, not to be disregarded. So Dick meekly conveyed himself to a little distance, and sat down on a little mound from whence he could "see watch" the whole affair, which promised to be interesting, and even peculiar. He wondered why the Indian had brought only one dog. "I suppose he's going to smoke it out," he murmured doubtfully to himself. But that was not it. For first Peter cut small branches into slender poles about three or four feet long, until he had quite a bundle of them. These he pushed into the burrow until it was completely though loosely filled for some four feet from its mouth. Next he took one of the flat discs of wood, and fitted it carefully into the opening, using earth to wedge it firmly, and finally blocking it with a big stone. This process, which mystified Dick entirely, he repeated at a second hole that he said was the other exit from the burrow. Then he rested from his labours with a satisfied air. "And what about the fox?" demanded Dick. Whereupon Peter Many-Names unbent sufficiently to enter into a long and curiously worded explanation, the gist of which was as follows:— When the fox found the narrow entrance of his burrow blocked with the little poles, he would at once set cleverly to work to pull and kick and scratch them away, which he could easily do. But in so doing he built a barrier in the burrow behind him as he worked, and by the time he had pushed them all back, he faced the immovable plug of wood, and was penned into a section of the tunnel of little more than his own length. He could neither move backwards nor forwards, and so fell an easy victim when the plug was removed. As Peter pointed out, his industry was his own undoing. Dick scarcely knew whether to admire or laugh at the quaint stratagem. But the fact remained that their work for that day was done, and done without his help or advice. He supposed there was nothing to do but go back to the homestead, and his face showed how little he relished the idea. The Indian watched him with keen eyes, seeming to read his thoughts. At last he spoke, quietly and indifferently, as was his wont. "Why you not stay with me this to-day?" he said, not even looking at Dick. A sparkle sprang into the boy's eyes. To have one more day of lazy freedom! One more day of the wood-running in which his soul delighted! One more day with no will but his own to follow, with no cares, no work, no restraint! One more day of the deep silent undergrowth and the stately uplands, of the clear chill skies and the keen cold wind! One more day of the wilderness that was dearer and fairer to him than the farm and the fruitful fields! To wander for one more day, with no master but his own pleasure, no one calling to sterner labour; and only the silent crafty savage, himself the very incarnation of the wilds, his comrade! His face grew bright and dreamy at the thought. It was the look which all restless folk wear at times, reflecting the love of God's "unmanstifled places" which glorifies their profitless wandering. Profitless only in the worldly sense of material gain, yet often the stronger soul is shown in resisting the call to freedom and to nature. But Dick had not yet learnt his lesson; and once more he chose the way that pleased him best. "Yes, I will stay," he said. Peter Many-Names nodded, his usual mode of assent; to him Dick's evident struggle between inclination and duty had been amusing, and there was a rare gleam of merriment in his dark face. He had a far keener appreciation of the situation than had Dick, and it gave him a boy's feeling of pride to think of all the wonders of the woods he might show to his white comrade if he chose. "Come, then," he said, with a flash of his white teeth, "and I show you bear, sleeping much for winter. Come quiet." The forests were bright with that soft recollection of spring which the early morning had promised. The bare twigs seemed as full of life and colour as if the sap had been rising instead of falling, and the recent frosts but made the going better. Very silently, Peter Many-Names turned into the undergrowth, Dick following closely in his track, and the well- trained dog following Dick as closely. He was troubled in his mind, this dog, remembering an unguarded bone near the woodpile, and longing to end such foolish, aimless rambling as his two-legged companions indulged in. Many were the wistful glances he cast back. But Dick's face was set to the forests of his dreams, and duty called him to the homestead in vain. CHAPTER V. A Backwoods Christmas. That was the last time for some months that Dick yielded to his inborn love of wandering. He had spent a night and the best part of two eventful days in the woods with Peter Many-Names. And on the second day he returned to the homestead by devious ways, very much ashamed of himself. He became more than ever ashamed when no notice was taken of his desertion. Roger greeted him somewhat resentfully at first, owing to the fact that he had had to do all Dick's work as well as his own, during the younger boy's absence, and Stephanie looked anxious and grieved. But beyond this, nothing was said or done to remind him of his fault. No better course could have been taken to bring Dick to a state of almost excessive penitence, and remorse speedily overtook him. His moods were always intense while they lasted; and now he settled down to his hard daily tasks with a fury of sorrowful determination which Mr. Collinson regarded doubtfully, considering it too good to continue. But if Dick grew weary of his resolute toil, he gave no sign. Outwardly, he was again contented with his lot, and seemed to desire no other. So well did he work, so cheerful and patient he was, that the anxious look gradually cleared from Stephanie's face. But Mr. Collinson, shrewd man that he was, still regarded the boy with a certain grave and wholly affectionate distrust. The days passed and November gave place to December. The wheat lay warm beneath a foot of snow, and Christmas was at hand. The Collinsons always kept Christmas as nearly as possible in good old English fashion. Dick and Stephanie, used to all sorts of privation, thought that the preparations for the coming feast were positively luxurious. Everyone at the homestead worked early and late. Mrs. Collinson was intent upon bread-making; so Dick and Rog...