November Joe/Chapter 12
Chapter XII
Kalmacks
On Friday I got Joe—who, true to his promise, had, I heard, arrived at dawn in Quebec—on the long-distance telephone, and by that means arranged that he should meet us at Priamville, the nearest point on the railway to those mountains in the heart of which the estate of Kalmacks was situated. I myself arranged to accompany the Petershams.
Into the story of our journey to Priamville I need not go, but will pick up the sequence of events at the moment of our arrival at that enterprising town, when Linda, looking from the car window, suddenly exclaimed:—
"Look at that magnificent young man!"
"Which one?" I asked innocently, as I caught sight of November's tall figure awaiting us.
"How many men in sight answer my description?" she retorted. "Of course I mean the woodsman. Why, he's coming this way. I must speak to him."
Before I could answer, she had jumped lightly to the platform, and turning to Joe with a childlike expression in her blue eyes, said:—
"Oh, can you tell me how many minutes this train stops here?"
"It don't generally stop here at all, but they flagged her because they're expecting passengers. Can I help you any, miss?"
"It's very kind of you."
At this moment I appeared from the car. "Hullo, Joe!" said I. "How are things?"
"All right, Mr. Quaritch. There's two slick buckboards with a pair of horses to each waiting, and a wagonette fit for the King o' Russia. The road between this and the mountains is flooded by beaver working in a backwater 'bout ten mile out. They say we can drive through all right. Miss Petersham need n't fear getting too wet."
"How do you know my name?" exclaimed Linda.
"I heard you described, miss," replied Joe gravely.
Linda looked at me.
"Good for the Old Mossback!" said I.
Her lips bent into a sudden smile. "You must be Mr. November Joe. I have heard so much of you from Mr. Quaritch. You were in the Maine woods when you got his cable, were n't you?"
"Yes. Mrs. Harding sent it along by an Indian. He near missed me, but I come on his tracks following my line of traps. I guessed from them he had a message for me."
Linda opened her eyes. "You guessed from his tracks that he had a message for you! I don't understand."
"It's plumb simple," said Joe. "He kept cutting for my trail all along the line of traps, but never visited none of them. An Indian won't never pass down a line of traps without having a look to see what's caught; he's that curious unless he's in a hurry and got some object. And why should this Indian come chasin' after me so fast unless he had a message for me? But I'm talking, and anyways, I got the message. Give me them bags, Mr. Quaritch."
We went out, and loaded our baggage upon the waiting buckboards. One of these was driven by a small, sallow-faced man, who turned out to be the second game-warden, Puttick.
Mr. Petersham asked how Bill Worke, the wounded man, was progressing.
"He's coming along pretty tidy, Mr. Petersham, but he'll carry a stiff leg with him all his life."
"I'm sorry for that. I suppose you have found out nothing further as to the identity of the man who fired the shot?"
"Nothing," said Puttick, "and not likely to. They're all banded together up there."
On which cheerful information our little caravan started. At Linda's wish Joe took the place of the driver of Mr. Petersham's light imported wagonette, and as we went along, she gave him a very clear story of the sequence of events, to all of which he listened with the characteristic series of "Well, nows!" and "You don't says!" with which he was in the habit of punctuating the remarks of a lady. He said them, as usual, in a voice which not only emphasized the facts at exactly the right places, but also lent an air of subtle compliment to the eloquence of the narrator.
And so we went onwards. At first over flat expanses of muddy plain, splashing axle-high through the mire of the so-called road, until at last the purple mountains ahead of us began to turn blue, hardening again to green as we neared the foothills. And all the time I found myself envying November Joe.
When we stopped near a patch of pine trees to partake of an impromptu lunch, it was his quick hands that prepared the camp-fire, and his skilled axe that fashioned the rude but comfortable seats. It was he also who disappeared for a moment to return with three half-pound trout, that he had taken by some swift process of his own from the brook of which we only heard the murmur. And for all these doings he received an amount of open admiration from Linda's blue eyes, which seemed to me almost exaggerated.
"I think your November Joe is a perfect dear," she confided to me.
"If you really think that," said I, "have mercy on him! You do not want to add his scalp to all the others."
"Many of the others are bald," said she. "His hair would furnish a dozen of them!"
So the afternoon passed away, and as it became late, we entered great tracks of gloomy pine woods. A wind, which had risen with the evening, moaned through their tops, and flung the dark waters of innumerable little lakes against their moss-bordered shores.
I noticed that Puttick unslung his rifle and laid it among the packs upon the buckboard beside him, and whenever the road dipped to a more than usually sombre defile, his eyes, quick and restless as those of some forest animal, darted and peered into the shadows. The light of the sun was fading when there occurred the one incident of our journey. It was not of real importance, but I think it made an impression on all of us. The road along which we were driving came suddenly out into an open space, and here in front of a shack of the roughest description a man was engaged in cutting logs. As we passed, he glanced up at us, and his face was like that of some mediæval prisoner—a tangle of wild beard, a mass of greyish hair, and among it all a pair of eyes which seemed to glare forth hatred. It may have been, indeed, it probably was, merely the rooted and natural dislike of strangers, so common to the mountain districts, but to us, wrought up with the stories we had heard, there was something ominous about the wolfish face.
It was already dark when we arrived at the house, a long, low building of surprising spaciousness, set literally among the pines, the fragrant branches of which tapped and rustled upon the windows. In the midst of a peaceful countryside it would be hard to imagine a more delightful summer residence, but here, in this wild district, the gloom of the thick woods that surrounded us on all sides was daunting.
We went in, and while dinner was preparing, Mr. Petersham, Joe, and I went to the room where the wounded game-warden, Worke, lay upon a bed smoking a pipe with a candle guttering on a chair beside him.
"Yes, Mr. Petersham," said he, in answer to a question. "When you went away last fall I did think things was settling down a bit; and, indeed, all was quiet enough through the winter. I'm not saying that there was n't some trapping done, but it was most all over the lands where you gave liberty. The squatters, wild as they are, seemed contented-like, and though they was n't friends with us game-wardens,—which could n't be expected,―they was n't enemies either. Well, Friday, a week ago, while Puttick was on the eastern boundary, I thought I'd go up to Senlis Lake, where last year Keoghan had the brook netted. I went along, but I was a bit late starting, so that it was dusk before I got my camp tidied up to rights. I was making a fire to boil my kettle, when a shot was fired from the rocks up above, and the next I knew was that I was hit pretty bad through this knee."
"From how far away was the shot fired?"
"Eighty yards, or maybe a hundred."
"Go on."
"As I say, it was coming on dark, and I rolled into a bush for cover, but whoever it were did n't fire at me again. I don't think he wanted to kill me, if he had he could have put the bullet into my heart just as easy as in my leg. I tied up the wound the best way I could, lucky the bullet had n't touched any big artery. Next morning I crawled up the hill and lit signal smokes, till Puttick came. He brought me in here."
"I suppose Puttick had a look round for the tracks of the fella who gunned you?" asked November.
"He did, but he did n't find out nothing. There was a light shower between dark and dawn, and the ground on the hill above there is mostly rock."
"Well, Bill," said Mr. Petersham, "I'm sorry you got wounded this way in my employ. I suppose you have not the slightest suspicion as to who it was fired at you."
Worke shook his head. "Nary notion," said he.