Silas Strong 6

Silas Strong 6

"B-bears plenty!" he exclaimed, as he felt of the socks and looked

them over. This remark indicated that a season of unusual happiness and

prosperity had arrived.

 

Worked in white yarn at the top of each leg were the words, "Remember

me."

 

"T-till d-death," he whispered.

 

"With me on your mind an' them on your feet you ought to be happy," said

Annette.

 

"An' w-warm," he answered, soberly.

 

Presently she read aloud to him from the _St. Lawrence Republican_.

 

"S-some day," said Silas, when at last he had risen to go.

 

"Some day," she repeated, with a smile.

 

The only sort of engagement between them lay in the two words "some

day." They served as an avowal of love and intention. Amplified, as it

were, by look and tone as well as by the pressure of the hand-clasp,

they were understood of both.

 

To-day as Annette returned the assurance she playfully patted his cheek,

a rare token of her approval.

 

Silas left her at the door and made his way down the dark road. He began

to give himself some highly pleasing assurances.

 

"S-some day--tall t-talkin'," he stammered, in a whisper, and then he

began to laugh silently.

 

"Patted my cheek!" he whispered. Then he laughed again.

 

At the store he had filled his pack with flour, ham, butter, and like

provisions for Lost River camp. At Annette's he had filled his heart

with renewed hope and happiness and was now prepared for the summer.

While he walked along he fell to speculating as to whether Annette could

live under the same roof with Cynthia. A hundred times he had considered

whether he could ask her, and as usual he concluded, "Ca-can't."

 

The hunter had an old memorandum-book which was a kind of storehouse

for thought, hope, and reflection. Therein he seemed always to regard

himself objectively and spoke of Strong as if he were quite another

person. Before going to bed that evening he made these entries:

 

_"June the 23. Strong is all mellered up.

 

"Snags."_

 

With him the word "meller" meant to soften, and sometimes, even, to

conquer with the club.

 

The word "snags" undoubtedly bore reference to the difficulties that

beset his way.

 

 

 

 

V

 

SILAS and his sister ate their breakfast by candle-light and were off

on the trail before sunrise, a small, yellow dog of the name of

Zeb following. Zeb was a bear-dog with a cross-eye and a serious

countenance. He was, in the main, a brave but a prudent animal. One day

he attacked a bear, which had been stunned by a bullet, and before he

could dodge the bear struck him knocking an eye out. Strong had put it

back, and since that day his dog had borne a cross-eye.

 

Zeb had a sense of dignity highly becoming in a creature of his

attainments. This morning, however, he scampered up and down the trail,

whining with great joy and leaping to lick the hand of his master.

"Sinth" walked spryly, a little curt in her manner, but passive and

resigned. Silas carried a heavy pack, a coon in a big cage, and led a

fox. When he came to soft places he set the cage down and tethered the

fox, and, taking Sinth in his arms, carried her as one would carry a

baby. Having gained better footing, he would let Sinth down upon a log

or a mossy rock to rest and return for his treasures. After two or three

hours of travel the complaining "Mis' Strong" would appear.

 

"Seems so ye take pleasure wearin' me out on these here trails," she

would say. "Why don't ye walk a little faster?"

 

"W-whoa!" he would answer, cheerfully. "Roughlocks!"

 

The roughlock, it should be explained, was a form of brake used by

log-haulers to check their bobs on a steep hill. In the conversation of

Silas it was a cautionary signal meaning hold up and proceed carefully.

 

"You don't care if you do kill me--gallopin' through the woods here jes'

like a houn' after a fox. I won't walk another step--not another step."

 

"Rur-roughlocks!" he commanded himself, as he tied the fox and set the

coon down.

 

"Won't ride either," she would declare, with emphasis.

 

"W-wings on, Mis' Strong?" Silas had been known to ask, in a tone of

great gentleness.

 

She would be apt to answer, "If I had wings, I'd see the last o' you."

 

Then a little time of rest and silence, after which the big, gentle

hunter would shoulder his pack and lift in his arms the slender

and complaining Miss Strong and carry her up the long grade of Bear

Mountain. Then he would make her comfortable and return for his pets.

 

That day, having gone back for the fox and the coon, he concluded to try

the experiment of putting them together. Before then he had given the

matter a good deal of thought, for if the two were in a single package,

as it were, the problem of transportation would be greatly simplified.

He could fasten the coon cage on the top of his pack, and so avoid

doubling the trail. He led the fox and carried the coon to the point

where Sinth awaited him. Then he removed the chain from the fox's

collar, carefully opened the cage, and thrust him in. The swift effort

of both animals to find quarter nearly overturned the cage. Spits and

growls of warning followed one another in quick succession. Then each

animal braced himself against an end of the cage, indulging, as it would

seem, in continuous complaint and recrimination.

 

"Y-you behave!" said Silas, wamingly, as he put the cage on top of his

basket and fastened a stout cord from bars to buckles.

 

"They 'll fight!" Sinth exclaimed.

 

"Let 'em f-fight," said Silas, who had sat down before his pack and

adjusted the shoulder-straps.

 

The growling increased as he rose carefully to his feet, and with a

swift movement coon and fox exchanged positions. Sinth descended the

long hill afoot, and Silas went on cautiously, a low, continuous murmur

of hostile sound rising in the air behind him. Each animal seemed to

think it necessary to remind the other with every breath he took that he

was prepared to defend himself. Their enmity was, it would appear, deep

and racial.

 

At Cedar Swamp, in the flat below, the big hunter took Sinth in his

arms. Then the sound of menace and complaint rose before and behind him.

Slowly he proceeded, his feet sinking deep in the wet moss. Stepping on

hummocks in a dead creek, he slipped and fell. The little animals

were flung about like shot in a bottle. Each seemed to hold the other

responsible for his discomfiture. They came together in deadly conflict.

The sounds in the cage resembled an explosion of fire-crackers under a

pan. Sinth lifted her voice in a loud outcry of distress and accusation.

Without a word the hunter scrambled to his feet, renewed his hold upon

the complaining Sinth, and set out for dry land. Luckily the mud was not

above his boot-tops. The cage creaked and hurtled. The animals rolled

from side to side in their noisy encounter. The indignant Sinth

struggled to get free with loud, hysteric cries. Strong ran beneath his

burden. He gained the dry trail, and set his sister upon the ground. He

flung off the shoulder-straps, and with a stick separated the animals.

He opened the cage and seized the fox by the nape of the neck, and,

before he could haul him forth, got a nip on the back of his hand. He

lifted the spitting fox and fastened the chain upon his collar. Then

Silas put his hands on his hips and blew like a frightened deer.

 

"Hell's b-bein' raised," he muttered, as if taking counsel with himself

against Satan. "C-careful!" He was in a mood between amusement and

anger, but was dangerously near the latter.

 

A little profanity, felt but not expressed, warmed his spirit, so that

he kicked the coon's cage and tumbled it bottom side up. In a moment

he recovered self-control, righted the cage, and whispered, "S-Satan's

ahead!"

 

The wound upon his hand was bleeding, but he seemed not to mind it.

 

Having done his best for the comfort of his sister, he brushed the mud

from his boots and trousers, filled his pipe, and sat meditating in a

cloud of tobacco-smoke. Presently he rose and shouldered his pack and

untied the fox and lifted the coon cage.

 

"I'll walk if it kills me!" Sinth exclaimed, rising with a sigh of utter

recklessness.

 

"'T-'tain't fur," said Strong, as they renewed their journey.

 

It was past mid-day when they got to camp, and Sinth lay down to

rest while he fried some ham and boiled the potatoes and made tea and

flapjacks by an open fire.

 

When he sat on his heels and held his pan over the fire, the long

woodsman used to shut up, as one might say, somewhat in the fashion of

a jack-knife. He was wont to call it "settin' on his hunches." His great

left hand served for a movable screen to protect his face from the heat.

As the odor and sound of the frying rose about him, his features took on

a look of-great benevolence. It was a good part of the meal to hear him

announce, "Di-dinner," in a tender and cheerful tone. As he spoke it the

word was one of great capacity for suggestion. When the sound of it rose

and lingered on its final r, that day they arrived at Lost River camp, Sinth awoke and came out-of-doors.