Lost Farm Camp Part 45

There's no great hurry-and you'll miss the fall hunting."

"It's time I left," replied Bas...o...b.. glancing up from his task. "If I stayed here much longer I'd qualify for the b.o.o.by-hatch sure. I asked Swickey to marry me last night."

"Swickey? To marry you?"

"Yes, Solomon,-why not? Don't get fussed up-she isn't going to."

"I didn't imagine you were hit that hard, although-"

"Go ahead, Davy. I'm bomb-proof now."

"Although I saw you two by the river last night. I didn't intend to intrude. I came upon you in the dark before-"

"No, Davy, it was just after. I don't understand her exactly. Perhaps she is a 'siren child,' after all."

"You mean that she'd lead a chap on and then drop him?" David's brows tightened to a frown.

"I don't know," replied Bas...o...b..listlessly. "Perhaps I took too much for granted. She's not like other girls."

"Well, Walt, I think I understand. It's one of the men that went under in the rapids that time. Swickey hasn't been the same since. She will hardly speak to me now. I don't know why. She used to be the greatest youngster for fun-"

"Well," interrupted Bas...o...b.. "she isn't a youngster any more, Davy. I can tell you that much. I'm the kid-or goat-it's all the same."

"When you get back home you'll feel differently about it," said David.

"When you get among your own kind again."

"Oh, d.a.m.n that song about 'my own kind.'" His face flamed and paled again. "This caste business makes me sick. Why, Swickey's worth any six Back Bay dollies in Boston. There's more real woman about her than a whole paddock of them."

"Well, that's going some for you, Walt, but you're pretty nearly right."

"You, too?" said Bas...o...b.. with a quick smile.

David bit his lip and a slow tide of color crept under his tan, but Bas...o...b.. bending again over his packing, did not see. Finally he arose, and, swinging the pack to his shoulders, stepped out and across to Avery's camp.

Swickey saw him coming, and, shaking the dish-water from her fingers, she wiped her hands on her ap.r.o.n and came to the door.

"Good-morning, Swickey."

"Good-morning," she murmured, stooping to pat Smoke.

"I'm going out-'where duty calls,' you know. Came to say good-bye." He extended his hand and she took it nervously. "Good-bye, Swickey. I'll be up again some day. By the way, I want to make you a present. Keep Smoke.

He's yours anyway, by preference, but I want to give him to you."

"Thanks, Wallie. I understand. Pop's gone over to Timberland, but I'll say good-bye for you. He didn't expect that you'd be going so soon."

"Neither did I," he replied. "Davy's going to jog down the road a piece with me-as far as the work-train. Special car for mine-little red one with green flags-to Tramworth. Good-bye."

She watched him as he joined David and turned with him down the tracks toward the south. Smoke stood in the doorway watching the retreating figures. Then he came into the room, sniffed sonorously at Beelzebub as he pa.s.sed him, and threw himself down beneath the table with a grunt.

"Smoke," said Swickey, as she returned to the dishes, "you're getting fat and lazy. I wonder if you know whom you really belong to now. But you always belonged to me, didn't you?"

As though he understood, the dog got up and came to her, looking up with an expression that said plainly, "Do you doubt it?"

CHAPTER XXIX-SMOKE'S LAST STAND

As each morning brought a crisper edge to the air and a crisper outline to the margin of the forest against sunrise and sunset, the Lost Farm folk grew restless, and this restlessness was manifested in different ways. Avery, returning from Timberland in the afternoons, busied himself in cleaning and oiling his already well-cared-for traps and rifle. He also prepared malodorous bait from fish, which he cut in strips, bottled, and hung in the sun. Swickey took long walks with Smoke, never asking her father nor David to accompany her. The railroad camps had moved north, following the progress of the road toward the Canadian boundary. David, naturally p.r.o.ne to a healthy serenity, and although satisfied with the progress of the work, grew unnaturally gruff and short-spoken. Night after night he walked and smoked alone, till even Avery's equanimity was disturbed by his partner's irritable silence.

"A good huntin' trip'll fix him up, and September's crawlin' along to where they ought to be good moose-huntin'," he remarked one evening.

"He's been workin' like the old scortch, and he needs a leetle spell of play. A man what don't play and holler onct in a while ain't actin'

nacheral."

"Why don't he go?" said Swickey.

"I dunno. I tole him the moose 'ud be gettin' frisky purty quick, and he wants to git a head fur Wallie. But he didn't say nothin'. What's wrong atween you and Dave, anyhow?"

"Me and Dave?" exclaimed Swickey, reverting to a favorite expression of her earlier days; "why, nothing."

"Wal, Swickey, mebby they's nothin' jest _wrong_, but they's suthin' as ain't jest _right_, or else I be gettin' pow'ful fussy in my head."

"Don't worry about Dave, or me," she replied, going to her father and sitting Indian fas.h.i.+on at his feet. "You need a rest, Pop; you're older than Dave-and a hunting trip would be fine. I'd like to get a moose, too."

"Wal, a huntin' trip ain't sech a snoozer of a _rest_, howcome it's mighty nigh time I got shet of that eye-waterin' railrud. I reckoned when we fust come to Lost Farm, we come to stay. It was purty then. Now it looks like the back yard of Beelzebub's rightful home, with them piles of ties and rails and thet bridge up thar in the gorge, grinnin'

like a set of store teeth. Huntin'! Ya-s-s! I feel like huntin' fur a new place to live, 'stead of killin' moose what's doin' the same 'count of this here railrud."

The old man arose and walked back and forth uneasily.

"Wal," he said finally, "I'll see what Dave says. You kin git your things ready 'nless you'd ruther go with jest me."

"I don't care," replied Swickey.

"All right." Avery stepped out and closed the door. "She says she don't care, and thet's a woman's way of sayin' she do care, sometimes. Funny how young folks gits to thinkin' their fathers warn't young folks onct."

"Dave," he said, as he approached the open door of the other's cabin, "how do you feel 'bout packin' up and goin' fur a moose up Squawpan way?"

"Bully! Wouldn't like anything better."

"Swickey's goin' likewise. We kin camp on the pond and take Smoke and the whole outfit. Got to take him anyway, seein' as we're like to be out three-four days."

"I'll get ready. When do you start?"

"In the mornin'-early. We kin paddle up as fur as the head of the lake, and then tote over to Squawpan, and I reckon we kin make the pond by night. They's a shack I built over on the pond and we kin take thet leetle tent of your'n."

"Will the canoe carry three of us-and Smoke?"

"We'll take the twenty-footer, jest in case we git a head. Reckon she'll float thet much, howcome we kin go back a'ter the meat-if you want it."