Double Challenge Part 29

The other looked suspiciously at him. "Do you feel all right?"

"I never felt better!"

Ted's heart sang. Game laws were game laws, and they applied to Carl Thornton as well as to everyone else. But Crestwood was important to the economy of the Mahela. One did not jeopardize the livelihood of those who worked there, or the sorely needed money Crestwood's guests spent in the Mahela, because of a single illegally killed buck or half a dozen of them. But now Ted was free to act. He sought and found John Wilson.

"Shall we go?"

"Guess we might as well. Looking holes right through this buck won't bring the other one in range. Wonder how the lucky cuss got it?"

"I have an idea."

"I expect you have. _Br-r!_ It's getting cold."

"It will be colder. We have to hurry."

John Wilson looked at him curiously. "What's up?"

"I'll tell you in a minute."

They got into the pickup. Ted started the motor that had not yet had time to cool completely, and a trickle of warmth came from the heater.

John Wilson looked sharply at Ted.

"All right. Give."

"Did you notice anything unusual about that buck?"

"Only that it's the biggest I ever saw."

"It's also frozen solid."

"I--I don't understand."

"The weather hasn't been cold enough to freeze deer. Thornton never killed that buck today."

"Then he--?"

"That's it exactly."

There was a short silence. John Wilson broke it with a quiet, "Is there a story behind it?"

"There is."

"Want to tell me?"

Ted told of his love for the Mahela, and of a heart-rooted desire to dedicate his life to helping people enjoy it. He spoke of his work at Crestwood, and of his great dream to have a similar place, one day. He related as much as he knew, which was as much as anyone knew, of the story of Damon and Pythias. He told of Carl Thornton's commissioning him to get both bucks before the season opened, of his refusal to do so and the consequent loss of his job.

He described the camp, and how and why it was built. Then the bombsh.e.l.l; Smoky Delbert's shooting and Al a fugitive in the Mahela. He spoke of his father's near-pa.s.sionate interest in true conservation, and of his near-hatred for those who violated the sportsman's code. However, aware of Crestwood's importance to the Mahela, knowing that this violation would hurt and perhaps ruin Thornton, Al himself would not have reported it. But now that Thornton was leaving, was there any reason why he should be s.h.i.+elded?

There was another brief silence before John Wilson said quietly, "Don't do it, Ted."

"You mean let him get away with it?"

"Under any other circ.u.mstances," John Wilson said, "I'd say drive into Lorton and report him to the game warden. As things are with you now, if you do, you'll hate yourself. How are you going to decide exactly whether you turned him in to settle a grudge or because you're a believer in conservation? I agree that he should be arrested and fined.

But arresting him won't return the buck to Burned Mountain. It won't do anything at all except bring Thornton a hundred-dollar fine, and he can spare the money. Yes, I'd say let him go and good riddance."

"But--"

"You asked my advice and you got it. If you turn him in, you'll hurt yourself more than you will him. By all means report law violators, but never let even a suspicion of personal prejudice influence your report.

It won't work."

"I guess you're right."

"I hope I am."

That night the temperature fell to zero, and every buck on every game rack in the Mahela froze solid. There was no longer any evidence whatever to prove that Damon, as Ted thought of the great buck on Crestwood's game rack, had been taken by other than legal means.

Even if Ted wanted to do something now, his chance was gone.

For twenty days, always leaving the Harkness house before dawn and never getting back until after dark, Ted and his guest had hunted Pythias.

They had seen deer, dozens of them, and Ted had dropped a nice eight-point so close to his house that they had needed only fifteen minutes to dress it out, slide it in over the six inches of crisp snow that now lay in the Mahela and hang it on the game rack. John Wilson had had his choice of several bucks, and at least four of them had been fine trophies. But he had come to hunt the big buck that still lurked on Burned Mountain and he was determined to get that one or none.

It looked as though it would be none, Ted reflected as he sat in front of the blazing fire, tearing a bolt of red cloth into strips. Pythias, who had sucked in his woodcraft with his mother's milk, had only contempt for any mere human who coveted his royal rack of antlers.

The second day of the season, giving John Wilson ample time to post himself in the white birches, Ted had gone to the bed in which they'd seen Pythias on the first day. A small buck and two does had gone through, but Pythias had not. Most deer have favorite runways, or paths, that are as familiar to them as sidewalks are to humans. Pythias seldom used one, and he never took the same route twice in succession.

Hunted hard every day, he hadn't let himself be chased from the top of Burned Mountain. Staying there, he knew what he was doing. Spa.r.s.ely forested, the top of the mountain was given over to a devil's tangle of twining laurel and snarled rhododendron. Some of the stems from which the latter evergreen grew were thick as tree trunks, and some of the winding, snaking branches were thirty feet long. It was heartbreaking work just to go through one, and impossible for a man to do so without making as much noise as a running horse. Once within the laurel or rhododendron, and some thickets were a combination of both, it was seldom possible to see seven yards in any direction. Often, visibility was restricted to seven feet.

Pythias haunted those thickets that varied from an eighth of an acre to perhaps eighty acres. Chased out of one, he entered another, flitting like a gray ghost through the scrub aspen that separated them. Then he lingered until the hunters came and entered another thicket. Only when going through the aspens, where he knew very well he could be seen, did he run. In the thickets he walked or slunk, and he never made a foolish move.

Every day there'd been snow--and John Wilson and Ted had had tracking snow for seventeen of the twenty days--they'd found Pythias' bed and his fresh tracks. His hoofmarks were big and round, and they indicated him as surely as a robe of ermine or a scepter marks a king. But except for the first day, when he'd been hopelessly out of range, the two hunters hadn't seen him even once. Pythias could never conceal the fact that he had walked in the snow. But he could hide himself.

Methodically, Ted continued to tear strips from his bolt of red cloth and lay them on the table. Tammie, grown fat and lazy during the three weeks he'd been confined to the house--even though Ted had let him out for a run every night--raised his head and blinked solemnly at the fireplace. Bone tired, John Wilson turned in his chair and grinned.

"You have enough of those red ribbons so you could fasten one on half the deer in the Mahela. Think they'll work?"

"I don't know of anything else. We've tried everything."

"It's been a good hunt," John Wilson said contentedly, "and a most instructive one. I don't have to have a buck."

"But you'd like one?"

"Not unless it's Pythias."

"We have one more day and I have plans. Here, let me show you."