Silas Strong 38
He spread the webs upon his wound, and held them close awhile under his
great palm. Soon he moistened a lot of tobacco and put it on the
webs and held it there. After an hour or so the blood stopped. Then,
gradually, he relieved the tension of his handkerchief, and by-and-by
used it for a bandage on his wound.
He rose and shouldered his pack and began to search for the tracks of
his enemy. He soon discovered those of the bear which had fled before
him that morning.
"S-see here, Strong," he muttered, "th-this won't scurcely do. I arrest
you, S. Strong, Esquire. Y-you're my prisoner. T-tryin' t' kill a
man--you b-bloodthirsty devil! C-come with me. We'll hunt fer b-bears."
The Emperor had often addressed himself with severe and even copious
condemnation, but this was the first time that he had ever taken S.
Strong by the coat-collar and violently faced him about.
He could see clearly where the bear had broken through the wet briers on
his way down to the flat country. It was a moment of peril, and he gave
himself no time for argument. He hurried away in the trail of the bear.
It lay before him, unmistakable as the wake of a boat, and would show
where the animal was wont to cross the water below. He came soon to a
great log lying from shore to shore of that inlet of Rainbow which was
called Bushrod Creek. He could see tracks near the end of the log, and
there, with a spruce pole for a lever, he set his traps in the sand so
that, if the first were not sprung, the second would be sure to take
hold. He covered the great, yawning, seven-toothed jaws of steel and
fastened heavy clogs upon both trap chains. Then he took the piece of
bacon from his pack and hung it on a branch above the traps.
Shrewdly the hunter had made his plan.
That bear would probably return to the dead buck, and the scent of the
bacon would attract him to that particular crossing.
He tore two pages from his memorandum-book, and wrote this warning on
each:
STOP TRAPS AHED
S. STRONG.
He fastened them to stakes and posted them on two sides of the point of
danger.
It was then past eleven and too late for the long journey to Lost River
camp. He decided to go to Henyon's on the Middle Branch and get the
trapper to come and keep watch while he took Sinth and the children to
Benson Falls.
On his way out of the slash he killed a deer, and dressed and hung him
on a tree. Then he set out for the trail to Henyon's.
He had walked for an hour or so when his pace began to slacken.
"T-y-ty!" he whispered, stopping suddenly. "S. Strong, what's the
m-matter? Yer all of a-tremble."
Strong felt sick and weary, and took off his pack and sat down to rest
on a bed of leaves. Then he discovered that the handkerchief upon his
arm was dripping wet. Again he stopped the blood by cording.
He lay back on the ground suffering with faintness and acute pain. Soon
obeying the instinct of man and beast, which prompts one to hide his
weakness and even his death-throes, he crept behind the top of a fallen
tree.
His heart had been overstrained of late by worry and heavy toil. Now for
the first time he could feel it laboring a little as if it missed the
blood which had been dripping slowly but steadily from his arm. At last
a day was come that had no pleasure in it--a day when the keepers of the
house had begun to tremble.
Soon the warm sunlight fell through forest branches on the great body
of Strong, who had lost command of himself and become the prisoner of
sleep.
In the memorandum-book there is an entry without date in a script of
unusual size. Those large letters were made slowly and with a trembling
hand. It was probably written while he sat there in the lonely, autumn
woods before giving up to his weakness. This is the entry:
_"Theys days when I dont blieve God is over per-ticklar with a man bout
swearin."_
XXXIII
SOON after breakfast that morning Master had hitched the ox to the
boat-jumper.
"My land! Where ye goin'?" Sinth inquired.
"To-morrow we're going out to Benson Falls with you and the children,"
said Master. "I thought we'd better take the ox and what things you need
to-day as far as Link Harris's. That's about four miles down the Leonard
trail. The ox will have all he can do to-morrow if he starts from
Harris's."
The young man said nothing of another purpose which he had in mind--that
of learning, as soon as possible, the nearest way out of the Rainbow
country.
"What does that mean?" Sinth asked.
"Only this--we may have trouble with these pirates, and we want to get
you out of the way. We'll have to travel, and we can't leave you in
the camp alone. You and the children can ride over, and we'll come back
afoot."
So Sinth packed her satchels and a big camp-bag, and all made the
journey to Harris's where they left the ox and the jumper.
It was near six o'clock when they returned to the little camp at
Rainbow. Strong was not there, and after supper, while the dusk fell,
they sat on a blanket by the fire, and Sinth raked the old scrap-heap
of family history to which a score of ancestors had contributed, each
in his time. It was all a kind of folk-lore--mouldy, rusty, distorted,
dreamlike. It told of bears in the pig-pen, of moose in the door-yard,
of panthers glaring through the windows at night, of Indians surrounding
the cabin, and of the torture by fire and steel.
At bedtime Silas had not arrived. Sinth, however, showed no sign of
worry. He knew the woods so well, and there were bear and fish and
sundry temptations, each greater than his bed.
"Mebbe he's took after a bear," Sinth suggested, while she began to
undress the children.
"You remember we heard him shoot soon after he left here," said Master.
"It may be he wounded a bear and followed him."
"Like as not," she answered.
In a moment she put her hand on Master's arm and whispered to him.
"Say!" said she, "I don't want to make trouble, but if I was you I
wouldn't wait no longer for that old fool."
She stalled the needles into her ball of yarn and rolled up her knitting.
She continued, with a sigh of impatience:
"I'd go over to Buckhom an' git that girl, if I had to bring 'er on my
back."
"That's about what I propose to do," said the young man, with a laugh.
"I'm sick o' this dilly-dally in'," said Sinth, "an' I guess she is,
too."
With that she led Socky and Sue into the tent. When the others had gone
to bed Master began to think of the shot which had broken the silence
of the autumn woods that morning. He lighted a lantern and followed
as nearly as he could the direction his friend had taken. By-and-by he
stopped and whistled on his thumb and stood listening. The woods were
silent. Soon he could see where Strong had crossed a little run and
roughed the leaves beyond it. Master followed his tracks and came to the
dead deer. He saw that a bear had found it, and near by there were signs
of a struggle and of fresh blood. Now satisfied that Strong had shot and
followed the bear, he hurried back to camp.
He spread a blanket before the fire and laydown to think and rest in the
silence. Buck-horn was only four miles from the upper end of Rainbow.
One could put his canoe in the Middle Branch and go without a carry to
the outlet of Slender Lake--little more than a great marsh--then up the
still water to a landing within half an hour of Dunmore's. He would make
the journey in a day or two, and, if possible, take the girl out of the
woods.
The night was dark and still. He could hear now and then the fall of
a dead leaf that gave a ghostly whisper as it brushed through high
branches on its way down.
Suddenly another sound caught his ear. He rose and listened. It was a
distant, rhythmic beat of oars on the lake. Who could be crossing
at that hour? He walked to the shore and stood looking off into inky
darkness. He could still hear the sound of oars. Some one was rowing
with a swift, nervous, jumping stroke, and the sound was growing
fainter. Somehow it quickened the pulse of the young, man a little--he wondered why.
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