The partners aroused Jim Conley, who grumbled savagely at being disturbed.

We’re going, anyhow, said Young Dan, upon seeing that the fellow had not suffered seriously by Andy Mace’s method of persuasion.

Stop here all night, if you want to—and freeze to death! You’re old enough an’ ugly enough to look after yerself.

Conley sat up at that and violently demanded immediate information concerning his whereabouts.

You’re in the woods, replied Young Dan. In the woods, where you’d be froze stiff in the snow by now, but for Andy Mace.

Conley got slowly to his feet.

That’s right—lost in the woods, he said, in a flat voice. I call it to mind now. Kinder lost my way, I reckon.

He put on his snowshoes with fumbling hands, breathing heavily and muttering to himself the while.

I’ll tote this along for you, said Young Dan, laying a hand on the lumpy sack.

The other snatched it from him and shouldered it.

Guess I kin carry that myself! he exclaimed.

Young Dan went in front, sensing the way in the dark. Andy went next, making heavy weather of it with his stiff leg. Jim Conley brought up the rear, plunging and grumbling and frequently falling. They reached the camp at last. Young Dan left the door open behind him and went straight to the hearth and stove and fed both with fuel. Andy Mace, exhausted by his stiff-legged efforts and the pain of them, sank to the floor and lay flat as soon as he had crossed the threshold. Then Jim Conley floundered hurriedly and unsteadily from the cold outer gloom into the warm inner darkness, sack on shoulder. He tripped over Andy’s prostrate form and pitched forward to his hands and knees, and the lumpy sack hurtled from his shoulder and struck the floor with a smashing crash.

Young Dan threw a roll of birch bark on the open fire, and in a few seconds the camp was luridly illuminated; and then he saw his partner and Conley on the floor, Andy sitting bolt-upright and the latter facing him on all-fours, glaring in rage and astonishment at each other; and beyond them he saw the lumpy sack squashed to half its former bulk and leaking puddles of gin. The sight was too much for his sense of humor, tired and hungry though he was. He laughed until tears melted the ice on his eyelashes and his knees sagged beneath him. He sat down weakly on a convenient chair and continued to laugh helplessly until sudden and violent action on the floor recalled him to a more serious aspect of the affair. Conley had grabbed Andy Mace by the beard with his left hand and by the windpipe with his right, at the same time flinging his whole weight forward; and the old woodsman had smashed in two life-sized wallops on the sides of Conley’s head, one with his right fist and one with his left, even as he sank beneath the younger man’s hands.

Young Dan jumped to the struggle. His snowshoes were still on his feet. He gripped Conley with both hands by the neck of his several coats and shirts, wrenched him clear of Andy and thumped him violently on the floor, face-downward.

Quit it! cried Conley. Lemme be, cantcher!

Young Dan left him without a word and shut the door. He removed his snowshoes then, and his cap and outer coat, lit the wick of the lantern and placed a new chimney in the battered frame.

Reckon I’ll stop right here till I git my supper, said Andy Mace from the floor.

Jim Conley turned over on his back, but did not attempt to rise.

Young Dan collected rifles and axes from the floor and stood them in a corner, set a big frying-pan on the stove and filled the kettle from a pail by the door—all in a grim silence. After slicing venison into the pan, along with some fat bacon, he removed his partner’s snowshoes and brushed him off with a broom.

Is everything busted in that there sack? inquired Conley, anxiously, raising himself slowly on an elbow.

Young Dan untied the sack and shook its contents out onto the floor. There were fragments of four square-faced black bottles. The other articles, the bacon and tea and tobacco, were saturated with gin. Young Dan pushed the mess together with his foot, in scornful silence.

That’s sure a grand outfit o’ grub to take home to a woman an’ two childern, remarked Andy Mace.

Jim Conley swore long and loud and strong.

Shut up! snapped Young Dan.

Someun will pay for that! cried Conley. Good an’ plenty.

Young Dan stepped forward and stooped down and stared into the eyes of his unwelcome guest.

I warn you, Jim Conley, to mend your ways an’ mind your manners, or you’ll find yourself crowded for elbow-room in this neck o’ woods, he said, slowly and clearly. And I warn you that it won’t be me who’ll have to clear out when the crowding commences. Think it over; and the less you say about your spilt gin and who’s to pay for it—and who has already paid for it—the better for you.

What’s that ye say? returned the other, trying unsuccessfully to keep his eyes steady and his voice big and careless.

It was a warning.

About who paid for the gin—that’s what I’m askin’ ye. What d’ye mean by that? That’s what I want to know, young feller.

You know what I mean by that; so keep your mouth shut, or I’ll forget about your family and light right into you.

Conley laughed uneasily and dropped the subject.

If yer askin’ me to stop to supper, I’ll take off my snowshoes an’ mitts, he said.

We’ll feed you, now that we’ve saved you from freezing to death in the snow, replied Young Dan, ungraciously, returning to the stove.

Two pots of tea were drunk and two pans of venison steak were devoured. Then the partners crawled into their bunks and their guest went to sleep on the floor.

Jim Conley departed after breakfast next morning, with his reduced, high-flavored sack on his shoulder and a reflective and uneasy expression in his close-set eyes. The partners were glad to be rid of him. They discussed him at considerable length. You scared him, said Andy—but I’m thinkin’ ye maybe said a mite too much about who paid for the licker. He don’t look overly smart, but I reckon there’s somethin’ inside his skull, even if it’s only porridge; an’ yer warnin’ was strong enough to start porridge a-bubblin’. We ain’t got anythin’ on him the law kin touch him for, far’s I kin see. It wasn’t him robbed the camp, an’ we can’t swear he was at our traps. You hadn’t ought to give yer suspicions away like that, Young Dan.

Maybe yer right, said Young Dan. I sure did talk kind of out-an’-out. But what of it? I want to warn him, because he’s got to feed his wife and kids. If he suspicions that we suspicion him of robbing our traps, then he’ll quit. If I was tryin’ to jail him I wouldn’t of talked to him like that. But I was warnin’ him and throwin’ a scare into him to steady him.

Ye don’t want to warn a feller like him till after ye catch ’im. He don’t look smart—but ye can’t never tell by looks. He knows as how we suspicion ’im now, and so he’ll do us all the harm he’s able to. I see it in his eye. You had ought to had the goods on ’im before ye warned ’im, Young Dan. Why, we don’t even know where he’s been to—where he traded the skins he took out! An’ we don’t know that he ain’t got a big bunch o’ traps set of his own.

Young Dan smiled.

He traded his skins at Bean’s Mill, down at the mouth of Oxbow, he said. I guess he didn’t show up at the Bend at all, though Amos Bissing’s store is just as good as Luke Watt’s. He got his tea and tobacco and everything he had in his sack from Luke Watt down to Bean’s Mill; and I guess Luke’s got his skins; and I guess we’ve got his hide, if we want it.

Young Dan, yer a smart lad—the smartest I ever see—an’ I won’t say nay to nary a one o’ yer propositions—but it do seem to me ye’re doin’ a powerful lot o’ guessin’ right now.

Honest to goodness, Andy, I’m not guessing. Do you know Luke Watt? Have you ever bought goods from him?

Sure, I know Luke Watt o’ Bean’s Mill. Yes, I’ve traded with him, too. What of it?

Then you know his hand-writing. Uncle Bill Tangier took me down to Bean’s Mill one day two summers ago, and he bought a lot of stuff for me and the youngsters at Watt’s store, and Mr. Watt figgered up the bill on one of the parcels. He has a stiff right wrist, as you know—broke it in the woods when he was a lad and it wasn’t set right. He used his whole arm when he put down the figgers, working from the shoulder like a man sawing a board. I don’t believe there’s another man in the world who writes or makes figgers just like Luke Watt. And here is the paper Jim Conley’s tobacco was wrapped up in. I changed it this morning for another piece of brown paper, before Conley was awake. Here’s the complete bill all figgered out in Luke Watt’s own original big up-an’-down figgers.

Young Dan unfolded a large, smudged piece of brown paper and passed it to his partner. Andy Mace held it in his two corded hands and stared at it in amazed silence.

Look at that nine-fifty multiplied by seven, said the youth. Conley bought seven bottles. He paid sixty-six dollars and fifty cents for gin; and he was well into number five when you found him lost in the woods. And Watt soaked him six dollars for fifty bum cigars. He must of had some good skins. But of course that bill is no proof that Conley traded his skins with Luke Watt. I guess he did, though; for he wasn’t gone long enough to travel all the way down to Harlow and back. He did all his buying from Luke Watt, anyhow.

The old woodsman refolded the paper carefully and returned it to his partner. Then he filled his pipe and lit it with deliberate motions.

Young Dan, I was feelin’ kinder fretful a while back when I talked to ye that-a-way, he said at last. My knee was hurtin’ me cruel. Yer guess is as good to me as another man’s oath. What d’ye reckon to do, pardner?

I reckon to go out and fetch a doctor in to fix your knee for you, first thing, replied Young Dan, as he stowed the paper away safely in a breast-pocket.

Andy Mace shook his head.

This here j’int plays out on me like this every now an’ agin, he returned and I got medicine for it at home, made for me by Doc Johnston down to Harlow—inside medicine. The trouble’s a touch o’ rheumatics in my blood, so the Doc said, an’ maybe the fight I had with the Quebecer fifty year ago ain’t got as much to do with it as I let on—an’ then agin, maybe it has. Anyhow, Doc Johnston’s medicine loosens up the j’int every time, an’ I got two bottles in my pantry this minute as good as new. If I had them here I’d be right as wheat in a day or two.

Why didn’t you tell me so before? asked Young Dan.

Well, I reckoned it would sound kinder babyish; an’ I was hopin’ all along until yesterday that it would quit hurtin’ an’ loosen up any minute. I was bankin’ on the b’ar’s grease. But last night didn’t help it none.

Young Dan went out with his axe to chop wood and at the same time to consider the imposing problem which confronted him. Andy Mace must have his medicine as soon as possible—and that meant a two-day trip; and Mrs. Conley and the two little Conleys must be fed, since the bread-winner had brought nothing in for them except a pound of bacon—and that meant a day; and Jim Conley’s little game must be investigated at both ends—and that might well mean a week or more. What about his traps scattered along four six-mile lines? His business was bound to suffer—but that was not the thought that worried him most in connection with the traps. He fretted at the thought of waste on one hand, and on the other of again supplying Jim Conley with the means of acquiring more gin. These things were bound to happen, he believed, so long as the traps remained set and baited, and unattended by Andy Mace or himself. Animals bearing valuable pelts would be caught only to suffer the unprofitable fate of being devoured, pelts and all, by other fur-bearers, or to be skinned by Jim Conley. The traps must be sprung; and that meant a hard two-day job. But to leave Andy Mace without his medicine for four days instead of two was out of the question!

It’s more’n one man can do! exclaimed Young Dan, sinking his axe deep into the prostrate maple upon which he stood. A man can do two or three things at once, maybe, but not all in different places, I guess. I can’t anyhow; and that’s all there is to it! Now the question is, what’s to be done first? Guess I’ll leave it to chance and toss for it.

He produced a quarter from a pocket, flipped it into the air off a thumb-nail, caught it in his right hand and slapped his left over it.

Heads I get Andy’s medicine first, tails I don’t, he said.

The coin lay tails up in his palm.

That’s too darned bad! he exclaimed. Poor Andy!

You talkin’ ’bout Andy Mace hey? asked a voice from the brush on his right.

Young Dan turned and beheld a stranger standing within five yards of him and regarding him intently with one eye. It was this matter of the one eye that made the first and sharpest impression on the youth. The stranger’s left eye was covered by a patch of black cloth. In addition to these interesting facts, Young Dan saw that he was an Indian and past middle-age, that he wore snowshoes and carried a pack and a rifle in a blanket case, and that no smoke issued from his lips or from the bowl of the short pipe which protruded from a corner of his mouth.

Sure I’m talking about Andy Mace, replied Young Dan, recovering swiftly from his astonishment.

Good, returned the stranger. Andy Mace the feller I wanter see pretty quick. Maybe he got plenty tobac, what?

Young Dan shouldered his axe and descended from the trunk of the prostrate maple. He slipped his feet into the thongs of his snowshoes and put on his coat and mittens.

I guess he has enough, he said, pleasantly. Come along with me and find out. He’s my partner.

They found Mr. Mace seated by the stove, with his stiff leg in a chair.

How do, Andy, said the stranger. Long time you no see me. Mr. Mace sat up straight and stared from beneath shaggy eyebrows. Then he smiled and relaxed.

Yer dead right it’s a long time, Pete Sabatis! he exclaimed. Yer right there, old hoss. Glad to see ye agin at last, anyhow. Set down an’ make yerself to home. What’s brought ye away acrost into these woods, anyhow? Be they crowdin’ ye over on the Tobique country, Pete?

The visitor cleared himself from his outside things, including his snowshoes, discarded his pack and rifle, then sat down close to the stove and took the cold pipe from his mouth. He held the pipe up and fixed the keen glance of his uncovered eye on Andy.

He don’t burn no tobac this four-five day, he said.

Mr. Mace laughed and turned to Young Dan.

What d’ye think o’ that, pardner? he asked. Here’s Pete Sabatis, that I ain’t set eyes on this twenty year, come all the way acrost from the Tobique country to bum a fill o’ baccy!

You got it a’right, said the Maliseet, without so much as a flicker of a smile. That feller say you got plenty. You make joke jes’ like you ust to, hey?

I reckon ye’re the reel joker, Pete, answered Andy, handing over a plug of tobacco. You got the reel face for it, anyhow—the same old wooden face an’ the same identical old eye. Well, yer jokes is harmless; and if ye come all these hunderds o’ miles for somethin’ more’n a smoke I reckon ye’ll spit it out sooner or later. I be right-down glad to see ye agin, anyhow.

Same here, said Young Dan. If you’re a friend of Andy’s I hope you’ll stop a while with us.

A good idee! exclaimed Andy. Sure he’s a friend o’ mine, and one I’d trust with my last pound o’ bacon! Where’re ye headin’ for, Pete? Anywheres in particular?

Dinner, said Pete Sabatis, lighting his pipe.

The same old bag o’ tricks, said Andy to his partner. I reckon he cal’lates to stop right here with us a spell. That’s yer idee, ain’t it, Pete?

Yep, replied the Maliseet.

Young Dan was glad, for in this one-eyed Indian he saw the solution of the problem that had been causing him such a weight of mental distress all day. He said nothing of what was in his mind, however, but put wood in the stove, washed his hands and commenced preparations for dinner.

Andy Mace talked and Pete Sabatis watched Young Dan with his lively bright eye. Every now and then, Pete uttered a grunt of satisfaction at what he saw.

It was a good dinner, a bang-up dinner, by Right Prong and Tobique standards. It consisted of baked pork-and-beans in a brown crock, very juicy and sweet, and a flock of hot biscuits, and a jar of Mrs. Evans’s strawberry preserve, and tea strong enough to be employed in the heaviest sort of manual labor.

Pete Sabatis was not a large man; and so Young Dan decided that he must have been hollow from his chin clear down to his knees before dinner. After clattering the iron spoon all around the inside of the bean-crock and lifting the last preserved strawberry to his mouth on the blade of his knife, Mr. Sabatis drained the teapot and sat back in his rustic chair. He produced his pipe and looked at Andy Mace.

Tobac, he said.

You pocketed a whole plug o’ mine before dinner, returned Andy. An’ ye’ve got a knife to cut it with an’ a pipe to smoke it in. Here’s a match. Hope yer breath to puff with ain’t all gone.

The Maliseet drew forth the cake of tobacco thus delicately referred to by his old friend, filled his pipe and lit it.

I’d like to tell him how we’re fixed, and perhaps he’d lend us a hand, said Young Dan to his partner.

Sure he’d lend us a hand, replied Andy. Tell him our story. Pete Sabatis kin be trusted with anything in the world, I reckon, secrets or goods—exceptin’ baccy.

So Young Dan told of their experiences with, and suspicions of, Jim Conley, and of the problem which confronted him.

That a’right, said Pete. What do you do first, hey?

That depends on you, replied the youth. Do you know the way to Andy’s house?

Know him a’right when you tell me.

I’ll draw a map for you, if you’ll get Andy’s medicine.

To-morrow.

That’s fine. I’m mighty glad you turned up. I’ll go out now and spring a few traps, and to-morrow I’ll take some grub back to the Conleys and see what’s up. When you get home from Andy’s place with the medicine I will light right out for Bean’s Mill.

During the afternoon Young Dan visited four traps on the eastward line. He found a mink in one and nothing in the others, and left all alike sprung and harmless. He did not travel as briskly as usual, for he did not feel very spry. The exertions of the day before had slowed and stiffened even his elastic sinews a little. His spirits were high, however, thanks to the mental relief due to the arrival of Pete Sabatis. Pete solved the problem which had frozen his immediate actions. With Pete’s help, everything seemed possible now: Andy would have his medicine, the Conley woman and children would be looked after, Jim Conley’s suspicious activities would be investigated and one line of traps, at least, would be kept in operation. Apart from all this, the Maliseet promised to be an entertaining companion. Young Dan had felt a liking for him at the first sound of his voice and a keen interest in him at the first glimpse of his patched eye. His arrival had been as dramatic as it was opportune; his greeting of and reception by old Andy Mace had been decidedly picturesque; his Puckish humor was as unusual as his appearance. In short, he made a strong romantic appeal to the young trapper.

He’s queer, like some of the folks in those stories, reflected Young Dan. Queer as the queerest of them, but real, too—more real than any of them. And he’s all right. Andy says so.

Young Dan exploded two cartridges that afternoon. The bullet of each knocked the head off a partridge. Upon his return to camp he skinned the birds in half the time it would have taken him to pluck them, and fried them for supper with a little pork. After supper he made a map of the route to Andy Mace’s house and explained it at length to Pete Sabatis. All three retired early to their blankets.

Pete Sabatis was the first to leave the camp next morning. He carried food and tobacco in his pockets, a note from Young Dan for Amos Bissing, the map of the route, the key to Andy’s door, and his rifle and blankets. He moved off swiftly, with the reddening dawn on his right-front, leaving an azure trail of smoke on the still air.

It’s lucky for us that he turned up when he did, remarked Young Dan to his partner, as he made up a modest parcel for the Conleys of tea and flour and two tins of condensed milk. Did he come looking for you, or was it just chance?

He’ll tell us what he come for when he’s good an’ ready, an’ not a minute sooner, Young Dan, answered Andy. Maybe he come all the way acrost from Tobique to see me, but I reckon that ain’t likely. How would he know if I was alive or dead any more’n I knowed if he was alive or dead? It was chance landed him right here at this camp, anyhow, for all he ever knowed about my whereabouts was that I hailed from the Oxbow—an’ that was twenty year ago. But we won’t fret ourselves about why he’s here or why he come. He is here, an’ he’s a danged good Injun, an’ that’s enough for us.

Young Dan took the northern track, which led crookedly to the Conley cabin. He inspected the traps to the right and the left as he advanced, bagged a fox and left all sprung and harmless behind him. He reached the Conley cabin before noon and found Mrs. Conley chopping wood beside the door. She said that Jim was off somewhere attending to his traps.

I don’t want to see him, said Young Dan. I came to bring these few things for you and the children, from my partner and me, because we know that he didn’t bring much grub back from the settlements with him.

He entered the cabin without removing his snowshoes and placed the parcel of provisions on the table. The woman followed him, undid the parcel and thanked him. She seemed nervous.

How d’ye know Jim didn’t fetch in any grub? she asked.

We saw what he had, replied the trapper. Didn’t he tell you about stopping a night at our camp? About losing himself in the woods an’ Andy Mace finding him?

No, he didn’t. But he’s sure got it in for you and yer old pardner! He’s been cussin’ the two o’ ye steady ever since he come home. He says how he had lashin’s o’ bacon an’ flour an’ was robbed of everything but some bacon an’ tea.

I suppose you believed him, m’am.

Not so’s ye’d notice—but that’s neither here nor there. What you best do now is clear out o’ this before he comes home.

Do you think I’m afraid of him?

I guess not—but I wisht ye’d beat it.

Young Dan immediately complied with her wish. As soon as he was out of sight of the cabin he left the narrow trail of his own snowshoe tracks and broke into the woods and started on a big curve which, if followed long enough, would encircle the Conley habitation. Young Dan did not go so far as that, however. He found what he was looking for before he had made a semicircle of the curve—a line of new snowshoe tracks. He did not join this trail or cross it, but backed a few paces from it, changed direction and moved parallel with it, keeping an eye on it through the intervening screen of brush and branches. This course took him southward, mile upon mile, and after a couple of hours of it he found himself on his own and Andy Mace’s trapping-ground. He continued to parallel Jim Conley’s tracks, moving without sound and parting the forest growth before him with the minimum of disturbance; and at last he came to a place which he recognized as being on his own eastern line of traps. There he halted and squatted to rest, as still as a waiting lynx in the snow.

Large white flakes began to circle down from the low sky. The sun, which had risen red, was now no more than a small blotch of radiance as colorless as clear ice. The snow descended more thickly and swiftly, blinding the weak sun and seeming to draw the sky down to the tops of the tall spruces—and down even lower than that, until the soaring trees were blanketed and hidden by it for half their height. Then Young Dan moved again, this time on a straight course for the camp, and at his best pace. This flurry of snow was altogether too thick and fast to take liberties with. He wondered what Pete Sabatis would make of it with his one eye. He was sorry that it had descended so violently as to interfere with his investigations before he had actually caught Jim Conley at his trapping. He felt reasonably certain, however, of the identity of the traps which engaged Mr. Conley’s attentions. That was enough to work ahead on. He decided not to spring the traps on the eastern line, but to leave them as they were for the thief’s immediate profit and final undoing.

Young Dan reached home safely. The snow ceased falling shortly before sundown, but with the setting of the sun a wind arose which set the feathery flakes drifting and flying.

Andy Mace was in as talkative a mood as ever that night, despite the fact that he was very evidently suffering a great deal of pain. He admitted the pain, confessing that more joints than his right knee hurt him now.

But that there medicine o’ Doc Johnston’s ’ll melt the misery out o’ me all right, he said. I’ll be takin’ a dose of it this time to-morrow night; and ye’ll see me to work agin within a couple o’ days, Young Dan, spry as a cat an’ loose as ashes.

Don’t you worry about the work, Andy, returned Young Dan. Give the medicine a fair chance when you get it. I hope Pete will be back by to-morrow night—but he couldn’t of traveled much this afternoon, in that storm and in country strange to him.

That’s where ye’re wrong, replied Andy. I never knowed a likelier man nor that same Pete Sabatis to go to wherever he wanted to git to. He could do that trip backwards, an’ with both eyes patched instead of only one. That flurry o’ snow wouldn’t stop him a minute, in strange country or old.

What happened to his eye, anyhow? asked Young Dan.

Andy rubbed his thin knees with his thin hands for several seconds in silence, gazing thoughtfully into the red draft of the stove. Then he looked at his partner and combed his long whiskers with long fingers.

Maybe he wouldn’t care for me to tell ye that, lad, he said. I reckon he wouldn’t yet awhile, till he knows ye better. But I kin tell ye this much, pardner—I was with him when he lost it, twenty-four year ago—and he is as good a man with one eye as ever he was with two. He lost it in a kinder private affair, ye understand: and there ain’t a prouder man walkin’ the woods either side the height-o’-land nor him—exceptin’ in the matter o’ baccy.