Chapter 9

KIDDIE'S "SELFISHNESS"

Kiddie's fall had been violent, and might easily have been fatal; but it had been neither sudden nor unexpected, while his experience with bucking bronchos, and his great skill as a horseman, had helped him to avoid serious physical injury.

He was bruised, he was shaken; but no bones were broken, and his worst injury was his sprained ankle. This gave him acute pain and inconvenience for many days, requiring care and rest.

Naturally he fretted under the forced inactivity; he became impatient, and when at length he could limp from his room to the veranda, he wanted to mount a horse and ride along to the forest clearing to superintend the building of his cabin.

"There's no need fer you ter go an' see things," Rube Carter insisted. "Jus' you have a good rest until you're quite well. Everything's goin' on famous. We've gotten the roof on, an' we're now fixin' up your bedroom, so's you kin occupy it while the rest of the shanty's bein' finished."

"Yes," pursued Kiddie. "But I want to be there right now. I'm hankerin' badly to see how it looks, ter judge what it'll be like when all the work's done and we've got the fixings in--the books and pictures and all that. I'm envying you terrible, Rube, being there every day and watching the thing grow. I'm envying you being able to see the wild critters while I'm kept a prisoner here on account of a fool saddle that was broken and mended with rotten string. I guess you've seen heaps of things this morning--new birds, new insects, new beasts, and wild flowers that you couldn't put a name to, eh?"

"Dunno 'bout that," said Rube. "Dunno as I saw anythin' as I hadn't seen before."

"Ah, you've got a heap to learn yet, Rube," Kiddie rejoined. "Why, when I'm out and about there's never a day, never an hour, hardly a minute, but I see something new, learn something fresh in woodcraft and scoutcraft. You don't go along with your eyes shut and your ears and nostrils closed, do you? What did you see early this mornin', for example, when you went across the grass patch, the dew still lying?"

"Say, now, how d'you know I saw anythin'?" Rube asked. "You was in bed."

"Yes, but I could see you from my pillow. You went aside from the straight trail."

"That's so," acknowledged Rube. "I was tryin' ter foller a track in the dew--some biggish animal, I guess; but thar wasn't no footmarks--not in the long grass--an' the track didn't lead to nothin'--only a root of dandelion with the leaves chewed off."

"Perhaps you went the wrong way," suggested Kiddie. "Was the track lighter than the rest of the grass, or darker?"

"Um! Now you puzzle me," demurred Rube. "I ain't just sure; but I guess it was darker. Yes, it was sure darker. Why? What's that gotter do with it?"

"Why? Well, a scout would sure know that grass blades bent towards him look dark; bent away from him, light. If the trail of your biggish animal this morning was darker than the grass, then you didn't follow him, you were going away from him all the time. He was probably a stoat on the track of a jack-rabbit. If you'd followed the other way, you might have seen where that stoat chased his victim into its burrow, and you might have seen where he came out again alone, after his feed underground. There's a heap of information in a track, Rube, altogether independent of plain footprints."

Rube rested his chin in his hands, listening.

"Suppose a bicycle or an automobile car had gone along a dusty or a muddy trail," continued Kiddie, "and you wanted to know which way it was travelling, what 'ld you do ter discover? You'd look at the rut the wheel had made. You'd see that the loose dust or the wet mud feathered out from it in the direction in which the wheel was going. No need ter search for footprints. It's the same with drops of blood from a wound, drops of water splashed from a jug or a bucket--any drippin' liquid; the drops splash forward in the direction in which the person splashing them was movin', the splashes being longer or shorter according to the person's pace. If you aim at being a capable scout--a good tracker--don't study the obvious things alone: look as well at the smaller signs, which often tell you more. And wherever you are, whatever you're doing, keep your senses busy--your sight, your hearing, your senses of smell and touch. At the present moment my senses tell me there's a mosquito in this yer veranda: I c'n hear the critter humming away back of me. I know that we're goin' to have bacon and eggs for dinner; I c'n smell them bein' fried. The kitchen's some warm; your mother has opened the window; I c'n feel the draught from it."

In the days of Kiddie's convalescence, Rube learnt many a lesson in scoutcraft; lessons which he hastened to put into practice. It was afterwards, however, when Kiddie was well, and they could go camping out together in the wilds, that he learnt most. In the meantime, there was the work of building the woodland cabin to attend to.

He had at first intended that the cabin should be constructed by his own hands alone, of rough, unhewn timber; that it should contain only one room, and that of the simplest. It was to be merely a trapper's log hut in the forest, and he was to live as a simple trapper, quite alone, forgetting that he was a wealthy English nobleman.

But gradually his ideals had developed, and he had decided to make the place comfortable and convenient as well as simple and solitary--to make it, as it were, his headquarters, where he could store his trophies of the chase and keep his guns and books and pictures.

If he wished to go away on hunting trips, he could leave the cabin in safety, and take his pony and his tent and knapsack and live as a lone trapper in the woods, moving from place to place, always having a home to come back to if he wished. What he had always to fight against was an inclination towards luxury and labour-saving convenience. He had bought a patent camp cooking-stove in New York. It was capable of cooking anything, from a sirloin to a savoury. But when he unpacked it he saw how incongruous such a thing was with the domestic economy of a shanty in the forest.

"What does a plain trapper want with fancy fixings like this, anyway?" he asked himself. "If he's hankerin' after delicacies an' dainty cookery, he'd best quit right back to London. My food's goin' ter be frizzled over an open wood fire, and that dinky, high-class kitchen range is goin' right away to the bottom of Sweetwater Pond."

He allowed himself to stain the outer planks of the dwelling, but not to use any decorative paints which an ordinary trapper or an Indian could not procure. A garden, with flowers as well as vegetables, and creepers for the veranda, he considered necessaries, just as frames for pictures, shelves for his books, racks for his guns, and cupboards for his crockery were necessary.

There were three rooms in the cabin--a large living-room, which was also kitchen, a workroom, and a bedroom; and they were all three very simply furnished. Not far behind the cabin were the sheds and outhouses, the stables, cow-house, and barns; and down at the lakeside was a boathouse, in which to keep his canoes and fishing materials.

This was the secluded home which Lord St. Olave was making for himself, in preference to a grand house in London and a great mansion on his vast estate in Norfolk, with innumerable servants to wait upon him, and crowds of fashionable friends to enjoy his hospitality. He was realizing his wish to abandon the social whirl of London and to return to his native wilds. But he was not yet wholly satisfied with his choice.

He entered the living-room one afternoon looking weary and untidy, and flung himself into an easy-chair, giving a curt nod of greeting to Gideon Birkenshaw, who had strolled down from the homestead to have tea with him.

"Tired, Kiddie?" Gideon inquired. "Bin workin' too hard?"

"No," returned Kiddie, "I ain't tired. I'm never tired."

"Ankle still hurtin' you some, mebbe?" pursued Gideon.

"Ankle's gettin' along all right," Kiddie assured him. "Guess it'll soon be's well's ever. Shall we have tea? Rube'll get it ready."

Gideon did not respond to the invitation.

"Buildin's progressin' all s'rene," he observed. "I like this yer room. It's real homesome; and the view fr'm your front windows and the veranda's real elegant. Time you gets a collection o' choice flowers in your door-yard, you'll have 'bout the most desirable residence in the hull state of Wyoming. Ain't you satisfied? What's the matter?"

"I'm just some worr'ed, Gid," Kiddie answered, flinging a leg over the arm of his chair.

"My!" exclaimed Gideon. "What in creation 've you gotter worry about?"

"Just the cabin," Kiddie answered dreamily. "Just the cabin and my living in it all lonesome; enjoyin' it--enjoyin' it too much. It's just what I've wanted. Everything's all as I planned. But I've bin thinkin', Gideon; thinking hard."

"That ain't a new experience fer you, Kiddie," said Gid. "You was allus' a deep thinker. Guess it's the Injun blood in you assertin' itself. An' what's the matter wi' the cabin ter make you meditate an' worry?"

"Why," Kiddie responded slowly, keeping his Western manner of speech, as was usual with him when addressing Gideon Birkenshaw, "I've come to the conclusion as it ain't just right an' proper o' me ter live here with everything I most covet in the shape of personal comfort--a cosy home in beautiful scenery, with the perfumed pine trees all around, the woodland solitude, where I c'n study the wild critters, beasts an' birds an' insects; the creek an' the lake, where I c'n paddle an' fish; my time all my own, with no slavish duties, no tasks, no responsibilities. An' it's all selfish, Gid, real mean an' selfish."

"Selfish, Kiddie?" Gideon screwed up his eyes in wonder.

"Yes. It ain't anyways right for a man ter live for himself alone, shirkin' his duties ter humanity. What did I do this mornin' that was any good whatever to anybody in th' world but myself? I went out 'fore sunrise, when the blue mist was hangin' round the mountain tops an' in among the trees. It was like a fairy dream. I listened t' th' orchestra of the birds--the woodthrush, the veery, the scarlet tanager an' the rest of the thrillin' songsters--and the music was more delicious 'n any opera I've heard in London an' Paris. I wasted a full hour watchin' a fool centipede that had gotten himself tangled in a spider's web--watched th' manoeuvres of that spider for a full hour, I did."

"I allow you learnt suthin', too, since the spider was at home," interrupted Gid. "Them critters has wonderful skill in tactics. I'm figurin' as that hour wasn't a whole lot wasted, Kiddie."

"It was wasted in selfish enjoyment, selfish gratification," Kiddie insisted.

"Git!" exclaimed Gideon. "You dunno what selfishness means, Kiddie, an' you couldn't be selfish if you tried. You's allus doin' suthin' unselfish. Here's you comin' back to this yer camp an' the Sweetwater district, an' right straight away you starts helpin' other folks, pertectin' their homes from hostile Injuns, makin' their lives smoother an' safer. Is it selfish ter do what you've already done? What about your takin' Jim Thurston's place in th' Express, riskin' yer life, an' precious near losin' it? Was that a act of selfishness?"

"It was my fault that Jim was hurt. I couldn't do otherwise than take his place."

"You wouldn't ha' done it if you'd bin selfish. You'd ha' let somebody else carry on the job," argued Gideon. "You's allus thinkin' of others; doin' 'em good turns, givin' 'em pleasure. You've given me a gold timepiece, you've given Isa a hoss, you've given us new guns all round. Thar's not a housewife along the trail as hasn't gotten suthin' as you brought her from England--cloth for a frock, trimmin' fer a hat, a box of scented soap, a machine fer mincin' meat. An' the children--the boys an' gels--what about them, eh? You brought 'em toys an' dolls an' pictur' books, whips, boxes of paints, needlecases with scissors an' thimble all complete. You've filled their little hearts with a joy they never knowed afore. Selfish! Great snakes!"

"Tea's ready," announced Rube Carter, breaking in upon the conversation. "I've opened a new tin o' peaches, and thar's cream."

In spite of Kiddie's efforts to be homely and unassuming, Gideon Birkenshaw was not always entirely at his ease in his presence. The old man recognized that his own upbringing and education had been sadly deficient and that his roughness of speech and manners became painfully obvious in comparison with Kiddie's unvarying courtesy and refinement.

"Kiddie," he said now, as they sat at tea, "thar's a many things in you, I notice, as makes you a whole lot different from what you was in th' old days, 'fore you made the surprisin' discovery that you was a aristocratic nobleman. In a heap o' ways you's the same Kiddie. Nothin' c'n alter your natur' or wipe away th' effects of your early trainin' as a frontier scout. You've lost none o' your skill an' cleverness, but added suthin' to them that makes you inches taller an' bigger'n you was. I guess it's the things you acquired in England as makes you diff'rent. Rubbin' shoulders with them high-class friends o' yours over thar has kinder wore off the rough corners."

"'Twas high time I quitted, perhaps," mused Kiddie. "If I'd stopped over there any longer, I guess there wouldn't have been any corners left to know me by. I should have been worn round as a pebble, exactly like all other pebbles without character and individuality."

"Thar you are!" nodded Gideon, "'without character an' individuality,' says you, as if you'd lifted the phrase outer a printed book. You wouldn't ha' used sich choice an' dainty langwidge 'fore you went away. Your speech has growed more c'rrect, more elegant, same as your dress."

"My dress, Gid? What's the matter with my dress?"

"Oh, yes," pursued Gideon. "You wears buckskins an' flannels an' a frontier hat; you goes about with your shirt-sleeves rolled up an' a scarf 'stead of a stiff starched collar; but you takes care that thar's allus elegant underclothin' nex' yer skin. You've gotten surprisin' clean habits, too: washes yourself three or four times a day, allus shaves yerself mornin's an' oils an' brushes yer hair. You don't go ter bed wi' yer boots and breeches on; you sleeps in a dinky suit o' pyjamas with stripes on 'em, an' braid, an' fancy buttons. I ain't complain'n' none, mind you. I gotter tremendous admiration fer all these yer signs of gentlemanhood. Only they makes me feel ter'ble humble, Kiddie. I feel 's if I oughter be sayin' 'sir' or 'your lordship' all the time."

"I'm glad you never commit such an outrageous mistake, Gid," said Kiddie, helping himself to preserved peaches with the spoon especially provided for them. Rube had just used his own spoon for the same purpose.

"An' thar's another thing--your manners at table," went on Gideon. "You're that dainty in your ways of eatin' an' drinkin', you make me feel like a brute animal 'stead of a well-brought-up human. Allus uses yer fork, you do; never shovels th' food inter yer mouth with a knife; never touches a bone wi' yer fingers. Seems ter me, Kiddie, if you was livin' on a desert island, same's that chap Robi'son Crusoe, you'd still show a example of perlite table manners t' the poll parrot an' the nanny goat."

Kiddie smiled in amusement.

"Well, well, Gid," he said, "you just wait until Rube an' I come back from our camp in the forest. I shall have dropped all the objectionable politeness by then. We shall take no forks or plates, but will tear our food with our teeth. We will sleep in our boots under blankets of balsam branches, and forget the comforts of pyjamas and hot shaving water. We're going to live like a pair of primitive savages, talkin' in the sign language, killin' an' cookin' our own food, takin' with us nothin' that you c'd buy in a city emporium, except, of course, our guns and huntin' knives. An' even then we shall be a heap better off than Robinson Crusoe, for, although he had his shot gun an' the fixin's he'd gotten from the wreck, yet he had ter build his own boat, while we shall have our birch bark canoe, and I guess the things we shall carry in the canoe an' in our pockets and haversacks 'll give us an enormous advantage over the shipwrecked mariner."

"An' when d'you purpose startin' on this yer outlandish trip, abandonin' the delights o' civilization?" Gideon inquired. "It's the fust I've heard of it. You ain't bin makin' no preparations. When d'you reckon on startin'?"

Kiddie glanced aside at Rube.

"As soon's Rube's ready," he announced.

"Why, I bin ready fer days an' days," said Rube. "I ain't thought o' nothin' else ever since yer told me it was goin' ter happen!"

"What about the weather prospects?" Kiddie asked.

"Weather's all right," answered Rube. "I've had me eye on it a lot. It's plumb sure t' be fine. Birds are flyin' high; flowers ain't got much scent in 'em; the sheep are grazin' with their heads to the wind; cattle are quiet. Mother's clothes line's saggin' betwixt the poles; spiders' webs are slack, too, an' thar's crowds of 'em on every bush. This mornin', when I looked out, great white mountains of cloud were banked up in th' sky. 'Fore I'd dressed an' got out, the clouds had melted clean away. All them signs mean fair weather, I reckon."

"That's so," agreed Kiddie, "especially the spiders' webs an' the quickly meltin' clouds. Guess we may's well start right now."

"Some sudden, ain't it?" said Gideon in surprise.

"No advantage in delay," returned Kiddie, rising from his seat and signing to Rube to begin at once. He went methodically about the cabin collecting things--a sack of potatoes, a bag of flour, some tins of milk, supplies of lard, salt, onions, rice, bacon, tinned fruit, and eggs, tea, cocoa, sugar, and butter, with various cooking utensils, his medicine chest, a hurricane lamp, candles, and a can of oil. Rube had made out a long list of their requirements, and busied himself collecting them.

"How many blankets?" he inquired.

"None," Kiddie answered. "Two ground sheets an' our sleepin' bags 'll be enough. An' we'll take the Indian teepee. It's better 'n a canvas tent. Shift all these fixin's inter the garden, an' then we'll start puttin' back everything we c'n do without. What d'you want the books for? You'll have no time fer readin'; we'll talk instead. You c'n do without a lookin' glass. Put tin dippers in place of the china cups an' saucers. Where's the fryin'-pan? Don't ferget soap an' towels."

In the garden he rejected a surprising number of things which Rube had thought necessary. He reduced the equipment to the smallest possible bulk. Nevertheless, he forgot nothing that was essential and included nothing which did not afterwards prove indispensable. The whole outfit occupied only a small space in the canoe.

They were carrying the bundles down to the lakeside when Rube, who was leading, stopped and looked back. Kiddie had come to a halt, and, still with the wigwam poles over his shoulder, was staring curiously at the ground at his feet.

"You passed by without noticin' that, Rube," he said, when the boy went back to him. What he was staring at was the stub of a cigarette. "It wasn't lyin' there when I went along here this mornin', I guess. You c'n see by the ash that it hasn't been here long. Less'n an hour, I'd say. Who dropped it, I wonder? There ain't anybody in this yer camp smokes cigarettes."

He searched for footprints, but could discover none; a newly-broken twig was all the sign that he could see. He glanced around among the trees, but there was no visible movement, and a whip-poor-will was singing undisturbed from a high bough of a balsam tree close at hand.

"No occasion ter worry about a trifle like that," he remarked, as he went on in the direction of the lake. "All the same, I'm some curious."

He did not look back while carrying the long teepee poles through the narrow ways between the closely-growing trees. Had he done so, even the sureness and quickness of his eyesight might still have missed the cleverly hidden form of Broken Feather, who lay at full length in the midst of an elder bush, stealthily watching him.