November Joe/Chapter 1
NOVEMBER JOE
CHAPTER I
SIR ANDREW'S ADVICE
It happened that in the early autumn of 1908 I, James Quaritch, of Quebec, went down to Montreal. I was at the time much engaged in an important business transaction, which, after long and complicated negotiations, appeared to be nearing a successful issue. A few days after my arrival I dined with Sir Andrew McLerrick, the celebrated nerve specialist and lecturer at McGill University, who had been for many years my friend.
On similar occasions I had usually remained for half an hour after the other guests had departed, so that when he turned from saying the last good-bye, Sir Andrew found me choosing a fresh cigar.
"I cannot call to mind, James, that I invited you to help yourself to another smoke," he said.
I laughed.
"Don't mention it, Andrew; I am accustomed to your manners. All the same"
He watched me light up. "Make the most of it, for it will be some time before you enjoy another."
"I have felt your searching eye upon me more than once to-night. What is it?"
"My dear James, the new mining amalgamation the papers are so full of, and of which I understand that you are the leading spirit, will no doubt be a great success, yet is it really worth the sacrifice of your excellent health?"
"But I feel quite as usual."
"Quite?"
"Well, much as usual."
Upon this Sir Andrew bent his pronounced eyebrows and brilliant dark eyes upon me and put me through a catechism.
"Sleep much as usual?"
"Perhaps not," I admitted unwillingly.
"Appetite as good as usual?"
"Oh, I don't know."
"Tush, man, James! Stand up!" Thereupon he began an examination which merged into a lecture, and the lecture in due course ended in my decision to take a vacation immediately,—a long vacation to be spent beyond reach of letter or telegram in the woods.
"That's right! that's right!" commented Sir Andrew. "Nothing will do you more good than to forget all these mining reports and assays in an elemental moose-hunt. What do the horns of that fellow with the big bell, which you have hanging in your office, measure?"
"Fifty-nine inches."
"Then go and shoot one with a spread of sixty."
"I believe you are right," said I,―for in the short periods I have been able to spare from my business, I have made many hunting trips, and know that there is nothing like them for change of thought—"but the worst of it is that my guide, Noel Tribonet, is laid up with rheumatism and will certainly not be fit to go with me just now. Indeed, I doubt if he will ever be much good in the woods again."
"But what if I can recommend you a new man?"
"Thanks, but I have had the trouble of training Noel already."
Once again Sir Andrew allowed his penetrating black eyes to rest upon me. Then he broke into his short, rare laugh.
"I can guarantee that you will not find it necessary to train November Joe."
"November Joe?"
"Yes, do you know him?"
"Curiously enough, I do. He was with me as dish-washer when I was up with Tom Todd some years ago in Maine. He was a boy then."
"What did you think of him?"
"I hadn't much opportunity of judging. Todd kept him in camp cooking most of the time. But I do remember that once when we were on the march and were overtaken by a very bad snowstorm, Todd and the boy had a difference of opinion as to the direction we should take."
"And Joe was right?"
"He was," said I. "Todd didn't like it at all."
"Tom Todd had quite a reputation, hadn't he? Naturally he would not like being put right by a boy. Well, that must be ten years ago, and Joe's twenty-four now."
"And a good man in the woods, you say?"
"None better. The most capable on this continent, I verily believe."
I was surprised at Sir Andrew's superlatives, for he was the last man to overstate his case.
"What makes you say that?"
"A habit of speaking the truth, my dear friend. If Joe is free and can go with you, you will get your moose with the sixty-inch horns, I have very little doubt."
"I am afraid there is very slight chance of his being free. You must not forget it's just the beginning of the still-hunting season."
"I know that, but I believe he was retained by the Britwells, who employed him last year, and now at the last minute old man Britwell has decided that he is too busy to go into camp this fall. But there may still be this difficulty. I understand that November Joe has entered into some sort of contract with the Provincial Police."
"With the police?" I repeated.
"Yes. He is to help them in such cases as may lie within the scope of his special experience. He is, indeed, the very last person I should like to have upon my trail had I committed a murder."
I laughed.
"You think he'd run you down?"
"If I left a sign or a track behind me, he would. He is a most skilled and minute observer, and you must not forget that the speciality of a Sherlock Holmes is the everyday routine of a woodsman. Observation and deduction are part and parcel of his daily existence. He literally reads as he runs. The floor of the forest is his page. And when a crime is committed in the woods, these facts are very fortunate."
"In what way?"
"My dear James, have you never given any consideration to the markedly different circumstances which surround the wide subject of crime and its detection, where the locality is shifted from a populous or even settled country to the loneliness of some wild region? In the midst of a city, any crime of magnitude is very frequently discovered within a few hours of its committal."
"You mean that the detectives can get after the guilty person while his trail is fresh?"
"Yes, but in the woods it is far otherwise. There Nature is the criminal's best ally. She seems to league herself with him in many ways. Often she delays the discovery of his ill-doing; she covers his deeds with her leaves and her snow; his track she washes away with her rain, and more than all she provides him with a vast area of refuge, over which she sends the appointed hours of darkness, during which he can travel fast and far. Life in the wilderness is beautiful and sweet, if you will, but it has its sombre places, and they are often difficult indeed to unveil."
"All things considered, it is surprising that so many woods crimes are brought home to their perpetrators."
"There you are forgetting one very important point. As you know, my profession, that of medicine, touches, at one point, very closely upon the boundaries of criminal law, and this subject of woods crimes has always possessed a singular fascination for me. I have been present at many trials and the most dangerous witnesses that I have ever seen have been men of the November Joe type, that is, practically illiterate woodsmen. Their evidence has a quality of terrible simplicity; they give minute but unanswerable details; they hold up the candle to truth with a vengeance, and this, I think, is partly due to the fact that their minds are unclouded by any atmosphere of make-believe; they have never read any sensational novels; all their experiences are at first-hand; they bring forward naked facts with sledge-hammer results."
I had listened to Sir Andrew with interest, for I knew that his precise and accurate mind was not easily influenced to the expression of a definite opinion.
"For some years," he continued, "I have studied this subject, and there is nothing that I would personally like to do better than to have the opportunity of watching November Joe at work. Where a town-bred man would see nothing but a series of blurred footsteps in the morning dew, an ordinary dweller in the woods could learn something from them, but November Joe can often reconstruct the man who made them, sometimes in a manner and with an exactitude that has struck me as little short of marvellous."
"I see he has interested you," said I, half smiling.
"I confess he has. Looked at from a scientific standpoint, I consider him the perfect product of his environment. I repeat there are few things I would enjoy more than to watch November using his experience and his supernormal senses in the unravelling of some crime of the woods."
I threw the stump of my cigar into the fire.
"You have persuaded me," I said; "I will try to make a start by the end of the week. Where is Joe to be found?"
"As to that, I believe you might get into touch with him at Harding's Farm, Silent Water, Beauce.
"I'll write to him."
"Not much use. He only calls for letters when he feels inclined."
"Then I'll cable."
"He lives twenty-seven miles from the nearest office."
"Still they might send it on to him."
"Perhaps; but it is a lonely part of the country, and messengers are likely to be scarce."
"Then I'll go to Harding's and arrange the trip by word of mouth."
"That would certainly be the best plan, and, anyhow, the sooner you get into the woods, the better. Besides, you will be more likely to secure Joe by doing that, as he is inclined to be shy of strangers."
I rose and shook hands with my host.
"Remember me to Joe," said he. "I like that young man. Good-bye and good luck."