CHAPTER XXII

The Shot in the Dark

For the first night since the long nights had come Big McTavish’s fiddle was silent. It hung on the wall and the man sat before the fire, his chin in his hands. Mrs. McTavish reclined on a couch of willows beside him, and her eyes rested on her husband’s face sympathetically.

“You mus’n’t worry about it, Mac,” she said. “They can’t take our place from us, I know.”

“It’s not that, Mary,” replied the husband. “It’s the thoughts of what might happen if they should try. They don’t know the men here in Bushwhackers’ Place. They don’t know ’em like I know ’em. You know what the law of the wood is, Mary. Please God, they don’t try to drive our boys any. I shudder to think of what might happen if they tried that. I fear trouble now that Hallibut has sent his schooner around.”

Boy entered the house as the father was speaking. He carried a double-barreled fowling-piece and across his back hung a string of wild ducks. Gloss, who sat beside the table knitting, glanced up as he entered, and a soft gleam stole into her eyes. Then, noting the haggard lines in Boy’s face, she approached him with outstretched hands. He smiled, and, putting the gun on its rack, let his game fall to the floor. Then he took the girl’s hands in his and stroked them caressingly.

“Wild duck, Gloss,” he laughed; “big dinner to-morrow, girl.”

She gazed at him with wide eyes, her hands unconsciously tightening on his. Boy glanced toward the woman on the couch. Gloss turned to her work, and he went and sat beside his mother.

“Was it rough, Boy?” she asked fondly, putting her arm about his neck.

“Aye, ma, it was; and the white-caps were dancing all afternoon. Wind blowin’ from the east and the ducks crazy with not knowin’ where to light. Never saw such decoyin’ in all my life, although Hallibut’s schooner lay there in the open water.”

“Were you out on the bay, Boy?”

“No, I was decoyin’ off Lee Point. I got somethin’ like fifty red-head and blue-bill. They always decoy well when it looks like snow. I left a bunch of ’em at old Betsy’s.”

Big McTavish raised his head.

“And did she speak cross at you, lad?” he asked with a smile.

“No, sir, she didn’t. She’s changin’ wonderful for some reason. I’ll always like Betsy after what she’s done for us.”

“Amen to that,” said McTavish fervently. “She has been good to us all.”

“Auntie,” said Gloss, “you are tired. Hadn’t you better go to bed now? We want you to be hungry for the duck dinner to-morrow. We’ll have Mary Ann Ross and Bill Paisley over, won’t we, Granny?”

The old lady looked up from her knitting and smiled.

“Aye, lassie, we’ll invite Bill and Mary Ann t’ dinner,” she agreed.

Boy bent and kissed his mother gently on the cheek, and when she and Big McTavish had gone from the room Gloss came over and stood before the young man.

“Tell me,” she whispered, her cheeks flaming.

“Tell you?” he exclaimed. “Tell you what, Gloss?”

“Tell me what happened.”

“Why, nothin’, Glossie; nothin’,” said Boy, looking up.

“You are troubled about somethin’,” she persisted. “Won’t you tell me?”

He shook his head.

“Don’t worry about me, little girl,” he smiled, “there ain’t really anythin’ the matter.”

A slight tremor went through the girl’s form and the long lashes fell and hid her eyes. She turned slowly and walked toward the door. On its threshold Boy caught her, and then as quickly let his arms fall.

She leaned against the wall, her eyes still closed. The color had left her cheeks and her lips trembled. When she opened her eyes Boy was sitting before the fire, his head drooping.

“Good-night,” she called softly, and passed into her room.

He looked up slowly. “Good-night,” he whispered.

He drew his chair over to the table, which was spread with his evening meal. He was hungry, and still he could not eat. He arose and, catching up his cap, opened the door and passed out into the autumn night.

It was late when he returned. As he drew near to the house he noted that the candles were still burning in the big room. Through the window he saw three neighbor men sitting beside his father at the table. They seemed to be conversing earnestly. When he entered the house they all looked up, and Bill Paisley put his finger on his lips.

“I suppose,” he said dryly, when Boy was seated beside them, “I suppose you just naturally want that head of yours shot off clean, don’t you? Else why would you be wanderin’ around this night the way you’ve been, Boy?”

Boy reached over for a slice of cornbread. His walk in the wood had soothed the new tempest that had lately come to sway his soul.

“Boy,” said Big McTavish, “you didn’t tell us that you’d been fired on to-day.”

Boy dropped his corncake and looked about him quickly.

“Well, I didn’t tell anybody, for the matter o’ that. How did you know I was shot at, dad?”

“I told him,” declared Declute.

“Well, who told you?” asked the boy.

“Never mind that now. We all know as you was fired on and that Hallibut and his gang is responsible.”

“Tell us, lad,” urged the father; “why do they want to kill you?”

Boy shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe it’s because they don’t want to be killed themselves, dad,” he answered.

Paisley chuckled.

“That’s the way to talk, by gosh,” he said, bringing his fist down. “There’s goin’ to be fightin’—there can’t help but be fightin’. It’s gotter be first drop and make every shot count from this time forward.”

“I don’t like it; no, I don’t like it,” sighed Big McTavish. “Why do people want to come here and molest us? Why do they want to shoot my boy down? Ain’t we humans, I wonder?”

Boy sprang up and climbed the attic ladder in search of dry clothes.

“Listen, Mac,” said Paisley, hitching his chair forward and pinching off a pipeful of Canada-Green, “there are two reasons why they want to kill us off. They want to own this little world of ours, and they hope to drive us back into the bush like they are drivin’ the deer and turkeys. They ain’t thinkin’ a Bushwhacker’s life is worth a great deal. I’ve studied this thing out purty well, and I’ve concluded that we’ve got to stand up for our own. Jim and Ander here think the same. You might as well fall in with our views, Mac, and if they want fightin’, give it to ’em.”

McTavish shook his head.

“It’s a terrible thing to take life,” he declared, “an awful thing. I’d give in first and be driven into the lake before I’d shoot a man down. No, Bill, I can’t take up a gun again’ a human nohow.”

Jim Peeler attempted to speak and Paisley lifted his hand.

“There’s another reason,” he whispered, peering at the dark attic door. “I’m goin’ to tell you the reason now, Mac, although I had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary.” He drew the big man into a corner and spoke to him in an undertone.

“What!” Big McTavish sprang erect, his beard fairly bristling. “What do they want to do that for?”

He gazed about him with flashing eyes, and Paisley laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Boy mus’n’t know—remember,” he cautioned.

“Bill,” said McTavish hoarsely, “if that’s what Hallibut would do, why of course I’ll fight him.”

“That’s the talk,” nodded Paisley. “But, of course, it may be all a scare game, and maybe they shot at Boy just ’cause they thought they’d scare us into sellin’ our timber to ’em for a mere nothin’. I don’t think there’s an ounce of sand in the whole parcel of ’em myself.”

“Who told you I was shot at, Ander?” said Boy, rejoining the men. “I didn’t intend to worry anybody by tellin’ about it. There wasn’t anybody near. It was down on Oak Ridge. I was comin’ in from the bay that way to have a look at my turkey-traps. It was near the middle trap that this thing happened. There wasn’t anybody near, except the one that did the shootin’—that I know of.”

Declute expectorated on the coals and scratched his head.

“You stopped at old Betsy’s on your way home, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes, I did—why?”

“Wall, I ain’t sayin’ as she knowed somethin’ might happen you, this bein’ Friday an’ an unlucky day, ner I ain’t sayin’ as she prevented that bullet from gettin’ you. I ain’t superstitious at all, although my wife, Rachel, declares I be. Neither am I sayin’ as old Betsy’s a witch, as she’s commonly called. But, Boy, she follered you an’ she heard the shot. It was too dark fer her t’ see the shooter, but we all know he wasn’t a Bushwhacker. Betsy stopped in to see th’ wife an’ she ups an’ tells about th’ shootin’. When I gets home Rachel tells me. I goes over an’ tells Bill, an’ me an’ him picks up Jim thar on our way down here. That’s all.”

Boy glanced toward his father and a spasm of pain crossed his face.

“Suppose we change the subject,” he suggested. “Bill, somebody has been meddlin’ with my turkey-traps.”

“And mine, too,” complained Paisley. “Some thief is takin’ the turkeys out of my traps. I’m goin’ to find out who’s doin’ it, right soon.”

“That big Amos Broadcrook, I met him t’other day when I was landin’ at Mud Pond after bein’ out on the bay, an’ he told me as he’s seen Tom Dodge, from th’ P’int, carryin’ turkeys along the Eau shore two er three times,” observed Declute.

“Well, I wouldn’t believe one of them Broadcrooks on oath,” said Peeler. “They’re all thieves themselves. Not a man among us here but has lost traps, and who stole ’em, I ask? Why, Broadcrooks, for sure.”

Big McTavish looked up.

“Tom Dodge wouldn’t steal nothin’,” he said. “He’s too honest for that. I don’t want to hear anybody say anythin’ against any of the Injuns. And if any Broadcrook tries to fasten turkey stealin’ on to them innocent fellers, I’m goin’ to break him in two. Remember that, and tell ’em so.”

Paisley punched Boy.

“Fightin’ spirit stirrin’ already,” he whispered. “Well, fellers,” he said aloud, “suppose we be hittin’ the back trail—it’s gettin’ late.”

The other men arose.

“Things are just at this point,” said Bill, as he opened the door, “we can expect somethin’ startlin’ right soon. Keep your peepers open, Mac, and you, too, Boy, and if anybody does shootin’ you see that yours is done first. And, Mac,” he whispered in McTavish’s ear, “don’t you let Gloss outside this house very far—certain not into the woods.”

When the men had gone Big McTavish arose and, taking the pine board from behind the door, whittled the shavings off for the morning’s fire. Then he stretched his long arms and looked at Boy with deep, awakened eyes.

“Bumpy,” he said, letting his big hand rest on Boy’s shoulders.

Bumpy was an old baby name. He had not used it for years, but to-night he used it—he couldn’t have explained why.

“Bumpy,” he repeated, “don’t you let ’em get you.” At his bedroom door he looked back and said earnestly: “Even if you have to fire first, don’t you let ’em, Bumpy.”

As Boy arose to seek his bed in the attic the outer door opened and Bill Paisley stealthily entered. He made a sign for silence, and, taking Boy by the arm, drew him outside. There he spoke to him in low tones.

“Well, now,” said Boy, after Paisley had concluded, “we ought to catch the turkey-thief that way all right, Bill.”

“It just popped into my mind after I left Peeler and Declute at the Forks,” explained Bill. “I know some fellers who tried it in the Michigan woods, and it worked fine. And, Boy,” he added, “if the thief is who we expect it is, won’t we give him a scare? Now then, remember, to-morrow night we’ll try it. You drop in on me early.”

He pushed Boy into the house and softly closed the door. Boy removed his moccasins and as he placed them before the fireplace he turned quickly. The swish of a dress had caught his ears. Before him stood Gloss, her long hair down about her waist, her cheeks wet and burning. As he gazed upon her wonderingly, her lips trembled.

“I heard you all talkin’,” she confessed. “I didn’t mean to listen, but Bill speaks so loud I couldn’t help hearin’. You were shot at, and, oh, Boy, you didn’t tell me!”

Boy’s pulses were throbbing.

“Why, Gloss,” he stammered, “it wasn’t really anythin’.”

She raised her head and looked at him then.

“Yes, it was,” she said earnestly: “it was everythin’. Promise me you’ll be careful, Boy.”

He took a step toward her, drawn by the tempestuous soul of her. But she stepped back, her lips parted, her great eyes humid and compelling, her hand raised warningly.

“We ain’t boy and girl any more,” she said softly.

Then once again she was gone, and the great gaunt shadows flickered on the wall against which the old violin hung pitifully alone and soundless. And not until the shadows had crept away and the room was dark and cold did Boy climb the ladder to his rush bed.