CHAPTER III.
WHAT THE RIVER BROUGHT.
That spring I was very busy. For, as it happened, Uncle Fred had sprained his ankle, and Gus Swanson's rheumatism laid him up for a week at a stretchy and so the bulk of the work fell on me.
There was the garden to be planted and the grain to be sown and a patch of winter clearing to be broken and fenced, and a score of odd jobs done. And so I was hard at it from dawn to dusk; and, though I was strong beyond my years, I would nod over my supper and fall into a dead sleep immediately afterward.
Though I worked cheerfully enough, in my heart I loathed the labor. And while I worked my thoughts were not of the tasks in hand, but of the fall and camp fires in the hills and mysterious, lonely waterways and still, dark-fringed lakes where moose and caribou and deer drank in the dawn fogs and the cold dusks.
At last there came a time when the new fence stood, and the raw soil of the fresh clearing lay uppermost, and the wheat and oats sprouted green in the drills; and in our garden the peas shot out delicate tendrils, and the potatoes pushed upward sturdy stalks of dark green, and all flourished.
Then I had breathing space to employ as I saw fit, and my inclinations led me to the water front, where I drove fresh stakes and made a new log landing and painted our two canoes, and sometimes sat for half an hour idle, my eyes on the ospreys wheeling against the blue and the vivid, darting, chattering kingfishers, or watching the slow, brown current slip by.
Here Peggy joined me one quiet afternoon, and we sat talking of the future and wondering what it might hold for us.
Suddenly Peggy exclaimed:
"Look, Bob, there's a canoe!"
I looked up. A canoe had rounded the bend and was coming toward us. It held two men. The one in the stern was an Indian, a particularly worthless Cree whom we knew as Joe Fishbelly. The other man was white, and a stranger. He was not paddling, though a paddle rested athwart the canoe in front of him. He lay with his back against a roll of dunnage, and seemed satisfied to let the Indian do the work, which was, of course, quite proper, for no doubt he was paying for it, but looked lazy. As he saw us, he turned and spoke to the Cree, who swung the nose of the canoe in on our landing.
When they were close, I could see that the white man was young, and, though big of frame, very pale and thin, which was the more noticeable because he was naturally of a dark complexion. His head was bare, and his black hair clipped close to the scalp. His cheek bones seemed ready to start through the skin, and his cheeks were flat against his teeth, without any kindly padding. The angles of his jaw stood out prominently. Indeed his face, owing to his exceeding leanness, seemed all knobs and angles, and there were sad-colored hollows beneath his eyes. The eyes themselves put me in mind of some one's whom I knew, being full of a strange, whimsical, quizzical, quenchless deviltry, and yet steady and cool. And suddenly it came to me that in expression they were like Dinny Pack's, though his were blue and these were almost black.
The canoe slid alongside the landing, and its passenger straightened up from his recumbent position and bowed to Peggy.
"Good afternoon!" he said, smiling at us. The words were common enough, and yet there was something in his voice and manner which made us aware that he was not a man of the woods and rivers. "Can you tell me," he asked, "how far it is to Tom Ballou's? Man afraid of a paddle back there"—and he nodded back over his shoulder at Fishbelly—"says it's about twenty miles, as nearly as I can understand him, and that we can't make it to-day."
"He's a liar," I said, for I held Fishbelly in contempt, and did not care whether I hurt his feelings or not. "It's not more than five."
"I suspected something like that," said he. "Thank you. You hear that, my oxidized friend! I believe in my soul Ananias was a Cree!"
"They're not all like him. But there's nobody at Ballou's. They're away somewhere—gone prospecting, I think—and they won't be back for two or three weeks, and perhaps longer."
"The deuce they are!" he ejaculated ruefully, and rubbed his clipped scalp in comical perplexity. "I beg your pardon. But that puts me in a nice fix. Here, I'll come ashore for a minute, if you don't mind." He did so rather slowly, as though his legs were weak beneath him, and bowed once more to Peggy. "Before I tell you my troubles," said he, "permit me to introduce myself. My name is Dunleath, first name James, usually shortened down to a nonapostolic 'Jim.' I am a friend of Mr. Wallace Dent Fothergill, whom I think you know. I presume I am addressing Miss Cory and her brother, am I not?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "I'm Bob Cory, and this is my sister Peggy."
He bowed again, smiling, and Peggy smiled and I laughed without knowing why; but just, I suppose, because of the big, radiant friendliness of his smile and his eyes.
"So now I'll unload my troubles," he went on. "I was going to spend a month or so with Ballou, just loafing and camping anywhere. The medical sharps thought that would set me up again. Of course you can see that I'm slightly pulled down. In fact I'm far from being a strong dog yet. Nothing infectious, I assure you. I'm no lunger—merely a pneumonia-typhoid convalescent. Fothergill told me about this country, and it looked good to me. But with Ballou away things are complicated. Is there any one else I can get? Man afraid of his paddle is barred for obvious reasons. I want a white man for guide, philosopher, and friend."
"I'm afraid there isn't any one," I replied.
"Tough luck!" he said gloomily. "I guess I'll have to go back. I wouldn't spend a month with this Indian on a bet." Suddenly he brightened. "I wonder now! Couldn't you arrange to come with me yourself? I'd make it worth your while, and I think we'd get along together all right."
"Oh, but Bob couldn't go!" Peggy exclaimed, putting in her oar unasked, as girls will.
"Why not?" I demanded. "The crop is all in. I'll ask uncle about it."
"Good—with due apologies to you, Miss Peggy," said Dunleath. "It's a case with me. If I can steal your brother I'll do it."
"Well, he's really worth stealing," she laughed. "But he's my chum, and I don't want to lose him. Here is uncle now. You'd better ask him."
Uncle Fred came limping down the trail, and I think he liked Mr. Dunleath as we did. However, he would give him no answer as to me, but invited him to stay with us for a few days; an invitation which Mr. Dunleath accepted frankly, but with the proviso that he should live in his own tent so as not to incommode us. And so I helped him pitch his tent, and he got rid of Fishbelly, though the rascal overcharged him. And while he was settling himself in his new quarters, Peggy and I went back to our house together.