Mick Otter scouted cautiously around Racquet Pond and took up the two traps which had been left behind in the haste of the flight across the height-of-land. One of them, set near an air-hole in a brook, had evidently made a catch of a mink—but a fox, or a lynx, or perhaps another mink, had visited the trap ahead of the trapper.

Mick returned to the cave and showed the marked paper to Tom; so the two extended their line of traps and settled down to pass the time until the middle of January as comfortably and profitably as possible. They kept their eyes skinned, as the poet has it. Tom made a practice of climbing the look-out tree four times a day when the weather was clear. They refrained from firing the rifle; and they were careful to burn only the driest and least smoky wood on their subterranean hearth, except at night. Snow fell frequently and thickly. They were fortunate with their traps, taking a number of red foxes and one patch, a few mink, an otter and half a dozen lynx—all fine pelts; and with some very small traps from one of Mick’s caches they even managed to catch a few ermine.

In the clearings, Catherine and Gaspard carried on and hoped for the best. Catherine had made the trip to Racquet Pond with the warning to the fugitives in a snow-storm, and so had left no tracks either going or coming. Gaspard spied on the camp of the sleuths now and again; and, finding it always in the same spot, he twigged their game. He wondered how long their patience would last.

One morning the detective came knocking on the door of the big log house. Catherine opened to him; and he entered weakly and sat down heavily on the floor. One of his cheeks was discolored just below the eye and his lower lip was swollen.

“A drink, please,” he said, in a voice of distress. “Anything—even cold tea. I feel all tuckered out.”

The girl gave him a cup of coffee.

“Ye look kinder like ye’d caught up to Tom Anderson,” remarked Gaspard. “An’ whar’s yer pardner?”

“Him!” exclaimed the detective, his voice shaken with anger. “That big slob! He’s lit out for home—and beyond.”

“But he told us, weeks ago, that you had gone out to the settlements—that both of you had given up looking for Tom Anderson,” said the girl.

The detective swallowed the last drop of coffee, shook his mittens from his hands, pulled off his fur cap and pressed his hands to his head.

“The liar!” he cried. “He’s a fool—and he’s made a fool of me, with his story about that man Anderson bein’ an officer—the great Major Akerley. I must hev been crazy to believe him for a minute. And now the big slob has beat it for the settlements; and he’ll keep right on goin’, for the Law’s after him now—or will be as soon’s I’m fit to travel agin.”

“Maybe yer lyin’, an’ again maybe yer tellin’ the truth,” said Gaspard. “Howsumever, we’re listenin’.”

“I’m talkin’ Gospel,” replied the man on the floor. “Tone lit out last night—but he beat me up before he left. He jumped onto me when I wasn’t lookin’; and I guess he bust me a rib or two. I’m about all in, anyhow.”

So saying, he sagged back against the wall, toppled slowly sideways and lost consciousness.

Gaspard Javet was greatly put out by this accident. He glared at the unconscious man on the floor.

“If I was to lay him out in the snow till he come to, an’ then run him off the place with the toe o’ my boot, it wouldn’t be more’n fair play,” he muttered. “Tom would be in jail now if this sneak had had his way—an’ here he comes an’ lays down on my floor. I’m right glad Ned Tone smashed ’im; an’ I wish he’d smashed Ned Tone too.”

“We must do something for him,” said Catherine. “He may be seriously hurt. The sooner we doctor him the sooner he’ll go away, Grandad.”

Gaspard snorted angrily and lifted the detective from the floor.

“I hope I’ll drop ’im an’ bust all the rest o’ his ribs,” he said; and so he carried him carefully into his own room and put him down gently on his own bed.

When the detective recovered consciousness he found himself very snugly established between the sheets of Gaspard’s bed, and the old man standing near with a steaming bowl in his hand. The bowl contained beef-tea, and the detective drank it eagerly.

“Yer ribs ain’t bust, I reckon,” said Gaspard. “They ain’t stove clear in, anyhow—but they do look kinder beat about,—an’ the color o’ yer eye. What did Ned Tone hit ye with?”

“He knocked me down with his fist and then he whaled me with a stick of firewood,” replied the other.

“I’m goin’ out to scout ’round a bit,” said Gaspard. “If ye git hungry or thirsty while I’m gone give a holler an’ Cathie’ll hear ye. I put arnica on yer ribs an’ tied ’em up with bandages.”

The old man went out and straight to the most recent camping place of the sleuths. There he found the tent still standing, snugly banked with snow: but Ned Tone was not there, nor were his snowshoes or rifle. The provisions were scattered about, the tea-kettle lay upset in the ashes of the fire, and an air of violence and haste possessed the entire camp. A few bright spatters of blood marked the trampled snow; and Gaspard correctly inferred that one of Ned Tone’s blows had landed on the detective’s nose. Large, fresh, hasty snowshoe tracks led away from the camp southward into the forest.

“He was sartinly humpin’ himself,” remarked the old man, setting his own feet in the tracks. “I reckon he’s quit an’ lit out for home, like the stranger said—but I’ll make sure.”

He followed the trail of Ned Tone steadily for more than an hour; and every yard of it pointed straight for Boiling Pot.

Gaspard and Catherine nursed and fed the detective as well as if he had been a beloved friend, and so had him up in a chair beside the stove in two days; on his feet in three; and well able to undertake the journey out to the settlements within the week. And he was as eager to go as they were to have him gone—eager to go forth on the trail of Ned Tone and to follow that trail until the treacherous, violent, cowardly bushwhacker was brought to his knees before the might and majesty of the Law. As for the case of Tom Anderson, he no longer felt the least interest in it. It was his firm belief that even Tone had never really suspected Anderson of being Major Akerley, but had invented the case from motives of personal spite and greed. He did not find Ned Tone in Boiling Pot, however; nor did he find him at Millbrow; nor yet in any town on the big river. In short, he never caught up with the ex-heaviest hitter on Injun River; and, for all I know, and for all the detective knows, Ned Tone may still be on the run.

Tom Akerley and Mick Otter returned to the clearings on the evening of January the Seventeenth, in time for supper; and Catherine was ready for them with roast chickens, mince pies and the best coffee they had tasted since their departure from that wide and hospitable room. All four were in high spirits—but it was Gaspard who made most noise in the expression thereof. He told all that he knew of the adventures of Ned Tone and the detective in the most amusing manner; and when he wasn’t talking he chuckled.

“You feel darn good, what?” remarked Mick Otter, eyeing him keenly but kindly. “Maybe you catch that devil an’ shoot him flyin’, hey?”

“Ye’re wrong thar,” replied Gaspard. “I found ’im, but he wasn’t flyin’. Caught ’im on the ground—but I ain’t shot him yet. But I got his wings.”

Tom looked at Catherine and was relieved to see her smiling at her grandfather.

“If you catch him on the groun’ why you don’t shoot him, hey?” asked Mick. “You make a’mighty noise ’bout shootin’ him one time.”

“An’ Mick Otter laughin’ all the time at pore old Gaspard Javet for a durn ignorant old fool. Well, I don’t blame ye, Mick, I’d hev laughed meself to see me a-devil-huntin’ all the time, with my rifle handy an’ the devil mowin’ grass at my elbow or totin’ the old duck-gun ’round helpin’ me to hunt himself.”

“So you know!” exclaimed Tom, getting quickly to his feet and staring anxiously at the old man.

Gaspard made a long arm across the table.

“Lay it thar, lad,” he said, “Thank God I didn’t know when the vainglorious madness was on me, when I was that et up with the pride o’ my wild youth an’ present piety that I reckoned on havin’ a reel devil sent to me for to wrastle with—for I like ye, lad.”

“Me, too,” said Mick Otter. “You pretty big feller on these woods, Tom, you bet. Gaspar’ like you too much for to shoot, an’ Mick Otter like you; an’ maybe Cathie like you, too, one day, now Ned Tone go ’way with policeman chasin’ him, what?”

Both old men gazed quizzically at the girl with their bright, kindly eyes. She smiled a little, looked squarely at the swarthy round face of the Maliseet, then at the bewhiskered visage of her grandfather, blushed suddenly and deeply, and then said,

“I like him much more than either of you do—or both of you together; and he knows it.”

Then Mick Otter actually chuckled; and as for Gaspard Javet, his delighted laughter filled the room. And Catherine and Tom joined in the old man’s mirth, but with an air of not quite seeing the joke. Gaspard became silent at last and helped himself to a second piece of mince pie.

“She never told me before,” said Tom, very red in the face and short of breath. “Not like that. And I—well, you know how it has been with me—and still is, to a lesser degree. I had to keep how I felt under my hat—more or less, I mean to say—as much as I could. She knew all the time, of course. Didn’t you? How I felt, I mean—and that sort of thing. But as things were with me—and still are, I suppose—well, I had to lie doggo. What I mean is, I was a fugitive from justice. Only honorable thing to do, you know. But now that you’ve seemed to notice it, and have mentioned it, I feel myself at liberty to say that when I fell into this clearing I fell for her, for you, I mean for Cathie. First time I saw her, anyhow; and it has got worse—more so, I mean to say—ever since. But I always wished that you knew the truth about me, Gaspard—for I didn’t like pretending, and I wanted you to know that I was—that I wasn’t just a breaker of game-laws—what I mean to say is, I wanted you to know that I have fought bigger things than Ned Tone. I have been happier ever since I landed to your light than ever before in my life, and—and now that I know—well, I hope that I shall never again be chased out of these clearings.”

The old men exchanged glances and approving nods; and Tom got hold of Catherine’s hand under the edge of the table.

Life continued to go forward sanely and delightfully in the secluded world of Gaspard Javet’s clearings. A spirit of cheer and security possessed the big log house and the brown barns. Gaspard read his Bible with more hopeful eyes than of old. He was in fine form and full of brisk stories of his youth. He had learned to play chess—a game which, until recently, he had eyed somewhat askance as an intricate and laborious example of human vanity. Mick Otter spent much of his time in the woods, but went no farther northward than to Racquet Pond nor remained away from home for longer than four days at a time. He made one trip south to Boiling Pot and found the villagers blissfully ignorant and unsuspicious of the mysterious affair of Tom Anderson and Tom Akerley, the flying major. His cautious inquiries proved them to be equally ignorant of the whereabouts of Ned Tone. It was quite evident that the heaviest hitter had kept his suspicions and the story of his and the detective’s activities strictly under his hat.

Catherine and Tom were happy; but after that mutual declaration at supper on the night of Tom’s return from the north, they both avoided any further mention of the inspiration of their happiness. They knew that their position was not yet secure from the menace of the outside world. But they were not afraid, and they understood each other. Their brains cautioned them to keep a sharp look-out beyond the southern edge of the clearings and a firm grip on their dreams; and their hearts told them that their future happiness was as secure as if no fat colonel had ever been hit on the chin; and they heeded both their brains and their hearts and sailed a delightful middle course.

Tom attended to a string of traps near Pappoose Lake, but seldom allowed that business to keep him abroad all night. Also, he worked about the barns with Gaspard and cut out firewood and rails. Catherine often worked with him in the woods. The girl could swing an ax with the force and precision of an expert chopper. She also helped with the threshing of the oats and buckwheat, which was done at odd times; and in handling a flail the extraordinary grace of her swing detracted nothing from the force of her blow.

The necessity of making a journey to Boiling Pot, to obtain a supply of wheat and buckwheat flour, made itself undeniably evident in the last week of March. Mick Otter and Tom were both to go, for it was likely to prove a formidable expedition owing to the fact that the long road through the forests was entirely unbroken; but as Tom had done away with his disguising beard, it was decided that he should not venture all the way to the grist-mill in the village. Preparations were made during the day before the start. A track was broken across the drifted clearing, from the barn-yard to the mouth of the road. A few high drifts had to be cut through with shovels. On the road, itself, the snow was not more than knee-deep, for there had been a great deal of melting weather of late. But there was a stiff crust which would have to be broken for the safety of the horses’ legs. A light set of bob-sleds were fitted with a light body and loaded with ten two-bushel bags of buckwheat and rations of hay and oats.

Tom was up at four o’clock next morning, to water and feed the horses. Breakfast was eaten half an hour later, by lamplight; and the horses were hitched to the sled and a start made well before six. The air was still and cold and the horses lively. For a few miles Tom led the way, breaking the cutting crust ahead of the eager horses, and Mick held the reins. Then, for a few miles, Mick broke the crust and Tom teamed. So they toiled forward until noon; and as Tom was heavier and longer in the leg and stronger than the old Maliseet, he did more breaking than teaming. After a rest of two hours the journey was continued; and before dusk they struck a well-broken road and the impatient horses went forward at a trot. Tom dropped off a mile this side of the settlement, with blankets and provisions, and made camp about fifty yards in from the road.

Mick Otter did not reappear until noon. The return journey proved to be an easy and speedy affair compared to the outward trip, in spite of the heavier load. There was no crust to break, and Tom walked only occasionally, for the exercise. It was not quite seven o’clock when they issued from the forest into the clearing and saw the yellow lights of the big log house gleaming on the snow. Tom was holding the lines at the time and Mick was sitting hunched up beside him; and as the horses swung to the left and pulled for the barns with a sudden burst of enthusiasm, Mick slipped a small package into the pocket of Tom’s leather coat that was nearest to him.

A few minutes later, in the kitchen, when Tom was stuffing his mittens into his pockets, he felt the small package and produced it. He stepped toward the lamp on the table, holding the package extended on the palm of his hand.

“What’s this?” he said. “Where’d it come from?”

“Ye’d best open it an’ look, if ye don’t know,” suggested Gaspard, crowding against his left elbow.

And so, with Gaspard on one side of him and Catherine and Mick Otter on the other, Tom unwrapped the little package. Within the wrapper he found a cardboard box, and within that a smaller box of a different shape and material. This inner box had a hinged top that was fastened down with a catch; and when Tom undid the catch and turned back the top he gasped with astonishment at the thing he saw. Old Gaspard’s white whiskers shook with excitement and Cathie’s cheeks and eyes brightened like roses and stars. Mick Otter alone showed no sign of emotion.

“I didn’t buy this,” said Tom to the girl. “I haven’t any money, as you know, and still owe the Government some thousands on account of a stolen aËroplane. If this were mine, and all danger of my being cashiered were past—”

“It was in your pocket,” said the girl.

“True; and I’ll pay for it when my skins are sold. Show me a finger, please.”

She raised her left hand and extended to him a finger of peculiar significance.

“On the understanding that you will transfer it to another finger if I am caught and broken,” he said; and then he slid the ring into place.

“Never,” she whispered, closing her hand tight; and the little diamond flashed defiant fire from her small brown fist.

“Mick Otter have to larn ’em how to get engage’,” said the old Maliseet, in a voice of pity and mild scorn.

“Vanity! Vanity!” exclaimed old Gaspard, shaking his head slowly. “But I reckon I never see a purtier little ring,” he added.

“What’s for supper?” asked Mick Otter, in sentiment-chilling tones. “Hungry man can’t eat rings, nor vanity neither.”

They were seated at supper, and Gaspard was in the middle of a story of his vainglorious past to which only Mick Otter was paying any attention, when the latch of the front door lifted, the door opened slowly and a figure muffled in blankets stepped noiselessly into the room. Gaspard, who sat facing the door, ceased articulating suddenly and stared with open mouth. Catherine and Tom glanced over their shoulders and Mick Otter got to his feet and hurried to the visitor.

“Got sick pappoose here,” said the muffled figure, closing the door with a heel and leaning weakly against it; and before Mick could get a grip on it, it sagged slowly to the floor.

In his attempt at succor, Mick pulled a fold of the blanket aside, thus disclosing the haggard face of a young squaw. The blanket fell lower and a ragged bundle clutched tight in thin arms came to view; and at that moment a faint, shrill wail of complaint arose from the bundle. This brought Catherine flying and lifted Gaspard and Tom out of their chairs and stunned Mick Otter to immobility. The girl took the bundle swiftly but tenderly from the relaxing arms even as the squaw closed her eyes.

Fifteen minutes later both the mother and pappoose were in Gaspard’s wide and comfortable bed, more or less undressed. A nip of strong coffee, then a nip of brandy, had been successfully administered to the squaw and a little warm milk had been spoon-fed to the baby; and all this, except the carrying, had been accomplished by Catherine. Gaspard and Mick Otter were of no use at all, though Mick was eager to get busy asking questions. Tom warmed milk very well and filled two bottles with hot water which were placed at the foot of the bed.

The pappoose wailed with a thin and plaintive voice for an hour, then took a little more nourishment and fell asleep. The mother drank a bowl of warm milk and slept like a log. It was close upon midnight when Gaspard’s fur robes and blankets were laid on the floor of the big room, between the robes and blankets of Mick’s and Tom’s humble and mobile pallets.

Mick Otter questioned the young squaw industriously next day, but acquired very little information. Her answers were suspiciously vague. She did not seem to know how far she had come, or where from, or why. She said again and again, in answer to every question, that the baby was sick and needed a doctor; but the baby, full-fed now, seemed to be in the pink of condition. Hunger and fatigue seemed to be the only thing the matter with either of them. In three days they were both as right as rain, beyond a doubt; and still the young woman would not say where she had come from or why she had left home and seemed to entertain no idea whatever of where she was bound for.

Mick Otter, anxious and thoroughly exasperated, took the case firmly in his own hands at the end of a week. He made a snug apartment in one of the barns, established a rusty old stove in it and, deaf to Cathie’s protests, moved the visitors out of Gaspard’s room. The weather was mild by this time. The barn-chamber was very comfortable. Mick made a fire in the stove every morning and saw that every spark was dead before bed-time. He carried all the squaw’s food and the baby’s milk to the barn, forbade the others visiting the strangers and refused the mysterious squaw admittance to the house. He was hard as flint in the matter. One day he lost his temper with Catherine, who threatened to have the mother and baby back in the house in spite of his cruel whims.

“You know her, an’ why she come here?” he cried. “Nope, you don’t know. You know why she run away?—what she run away from? Nope nor me neither. When we know, then you call Mick Otter one darn fool all you want to,—maybe. What Mick Otter think,—what he see before two-three time—that squaw run away from big sickness maybe with her pappoose. So you keep ’way—an’ shut up!”

Tom and Gaspard were far too busy to worry much about Mick Otter’s peculiar treatment of the strangers. They had cleared the threshing-floor of the largest barn and turned it into a work-shop; and there, in a week, they had straightened and mended the buckled plane of Tom’s old bus.