CHAPTER II
THE BROWN BEAR’S SKIN
IT was not until some hours after his dismaying discovery that Hugh was able to get any particulars of what had really happened to John and Dick Edmonds. A dozen people at once tried to tell him of the affair, putting in much comment on what they themselves thought and what they had said to friends at the time, with most confusing results. Although he was so bewildered, he began at least to understand one thing, that Rudolm was not at all the town he had believed it to be. He had considered it lonely, empty of friends, dull and lifeless, and behold, it was quite otherwise! In fifteen minutes—probably the exact length of time required by little Nels Larson to travel the whole length of the street and tell every one of the newcomer who was a friend of the lost Edmonds—words of kindliness and sympathy began to pour in upon him. Long before the small, unofficial towncrier had come to the last house, the first sunburned face had appeared in Linda Ingmarsson’s doorway, and the first heavy Swedish voice had asked for “that boy that vas Edmonds friendt.” The shyness and reserve that usually stood firm between these people and any stranger, melted away at the sight of some one who was in trouble. It was, at last, by the very greatness of their proffered kindness that Hugh began to realize how serious his trouble was.
It was only the last visitor who gave him the actual facts of the affair, Nels Larson, Senior, a little elderly Swede with a wrinkled skin and puckered eyes that were mere pin-pricks of blue. He chanced to be left alone with Hugh and proved so shy and slow of speech that he was able to answer direct questions and make the truth clear without complicating it with opinions of his own. He said that the two Edmonds boys had gone hunting, and expected, so far as any one knew, to be gone but a day, that they had possibly meant to meet an Indian guide in the woods but had left Rudolm alone save for their dog. That one day of their absence had passed, and two, without causing any anxiety, that search had been made on the third day and the fourth and fifth, but without result.
“But does no one know which way they went?” asked Hugh desperately. “Couldn't they have got to some other town? Couldn't they just have taken a wrong road? Aren't people often lost that long and still able to get back?”
The other slowly shook his head.
“There's no town between here and Canada,” he said; “no, indeed, nor for a hundred miles north of the border either. And there are no houses in the direction the Edmonds boys went, nor camps—and roads, bless you, these woods don't have roads. Just trees—and trees—and trees—and Heaven help the man who loses his bearings amongst them!”
“Are people still looking for them?” cried Hugh; “surely they haven't given up hope yet!"
“There is no hope,” Nels answered with a sigh; “would look for a year if it would be of any use; but why go on searching when we know they cannot be found?”
He got to his feet to go, leaving Hugh still sitting, stunned, trying to think what this cruel news must mean to him. At the door Nels paused and, even without the encouragement of a question, actually volunteered a remark of his own.
“There is something I must tell you also,” he said, “for others may say it to you and perhaps not with kindness. It is that John Edmonds left his accounts in bad shape at the bank, that his books are confused and there is talk of money missing. So there are some people, and presently there will be more and more, who say that even if he is not dead in the woods he will never come back.”
“That is not true,” cried Hugh, springing from his seat, “that cannot possibly be true.”
“No,” returned Nels, “I do not think it can be. There are many rascals in this neighborhood, but John Edmonds is not one of them.”
He put on his battered old hat that was so big it came far down over his ears, took up his thick umbrella, opened the door and went out. Hugh sat by the table, his chin in his hand, thinking deeply long after Nels had gone. It was hard to know what to believe, what to think and above all what to do.
He could hear Linda Ingmarsson talking to her children in the next room and presently one small boy came in and seated himself, without saying a word, on a chair by the door. He seemed to think that politeness demanded his sitting with the guest, although to talk to him was far beyond his power. Linda’s husband stood at the door a moment, but went away again. He was a big, quiet man, seeming much like an overgrown edition of his small son. Hugh, beginning to look about him, concluded that this room was quite the cleanest place that he had ever seen. The boards of the floor were worn smooth with much scrubbing, the copper kettles on the shelves winked in the firelight. In one corner stood a quaintly carved cupboard, painted a most brilliant blue, that must surely have come from Sweden, or have been made by the patient labor of Ingmarsson's great rough hands. In the center of the table was another bit of carving, a really beautiful wooden bowl with a raised wreath of water lilies fashioned about its edge. It was full of moss and gay red bunches of partridge berries. The Ingmarsson child saw Hugh’s eyes resting upon it and, with a mighty effort, managed to speak.
“My Uncle Oscar, he made it,” the youngster said in his little Swedish voice; “he brought it to us with the berries in it the last time he came from the mountain.”
It was his only attempt at conversation and, although bravely undertaken, lapsed immediately into frightened silence.
Linda, entering just then, finally broke the quiet of Hugh’s reflections.
“Supper will soon be ready,” she said. "Carl, take the visitor upstairs and show him where to put his things.”
The small guide went obediently before Hugh, climbed the narrow stairs and opened the door of the guest's room, a tiny place with sloping ceiling and square dormer windows, everything shining with the same cleanliness so evident below. Carl opened the cupboard doors, pulled out the drawers of the press and finally, evidently thinking that hospitality demanded his speaking again, pointed to a picture on the wall.
“That is the two Edmonds,” he said; “did you know them?”
Hugh, looking closely at the faded little photograph, managed to recognize Dick Edmonds, but had no knowledge of the older brother whom he had never seen. Beside Dick, with his nose in his master's hand, stood a big, white dog.
“That is Nicholas,” announced Karl; “he came from Russia. We Swedes do not like Russians, but we all loved Nicholas. John Edmonds said he used to belong to a prince in Russia, so he was different from our dogs. He used to laugh and call him the Grand Duke. With men and other dogs Nicholas was very proud but he always would play with us. So we liked him. And how he could run
“He is a beauty,” Hugh agreed heartily; “I should like to see him."
He turned toward the window where the hinged sash stood open and through which he could look out at the sunset and at the distant mountain black against a flaming sky. He could see most of the little town also where the children were running home and men were coming from their work and gay voices could be heard calling greetings from one doorway to another. The tiny houses had a comfortable, cozy look, now that he knew what warm-hearted people lived within. Carl came to his side, seeming to feel more at ease, and began to point out one place after another.
“That is Nels Larson's house," he said, “and that is the landing where the boats come in from the lake and that," pointing to the mountain, “is Jasper Peak. My Uncle Oscar lives way out beyond there.”
“He lives on the mountain?” said Hugh; “that must be very far away.”
“No, not on the mountain,” corrected Carl, “beyond it. On the mountain there lives a—a—another man.”
“What sort of a man?” inquired Hugh, caught by the little boy’s change of tone.
“Oh, a strange man. He is half Indian; people call him a pirate; his name is Jake.”
“Has he no other name?” asked Hugh; “is every one so afraid of him as you are?”
“His whole name is Half-Breed Jake, and, yes, every one is afraid of him except just my mother and her brother Oscar and maybe Dick Edmonds and the dog Nicholas. Every one else.”
“Does he live out there on the mountain all alone?” Hugh inquired.
“Yes, he will not let any one live near him. He will not let any one shoot in his woods or fish in his streams or paddle a canoe on his end of the lake.”
“And are they all his?” In spite of being so absorbed in other things Hugh was growing interested.
“Not really his, he just says they are,” Carl explained vaguely. “No one dares go near his place now after—after some things that have happened. The Indians will do anything he says, they and even some of the Swedes say that the bullets from his gun can shoot farther than any other man’s, and that his ill will can find you out no matter where you hide. Yes, we call him the Pirate of Jasper Peak.”
“But you say your Uncle Oscar lives out there too?”
“Oh, yes,” assented Carl, “but you know with my Uncle Oscar it is all different.”
Linda called from below, causing her small son to rush clattering down the stairs and leave Hugh alone. He stood long by the window watching the sunset fade and pondering deeply.
“So there can be pirates this far north after all,” he was thinking, “and father was right.”
With the thought came a sudden pang of homesickness, a longing for his father, for the comfortable, ordinary life at home, for everything that was usual and familiar. What would become of him here, he wondered, what could be the end of this venture “on his own”? What a strange place it was to which his journey had led him, what strange people he had met or heard of that day, the clumsy, friendly Swedes, kind-hearted Linda Ingmarsson, that mysterious Jake out on the mountain, that brother Oscar whose road it was that climbed the hill. He ran through the list over and over and found that his mind, with odd insistence, kept coming back to the road that “now went nowhere but some day would go far.”
The announcement that supper was ready interrupted his reflections, after which he received a pressing invitation from Carl to go with him to get the mail. Rudolm knew no such luxury as a postman, it went every night to fetch its letters at the general store where John Benson sold meat and calico and mackinaw coats. The little postmistress who sorted the mail behind her own official counter was an expert at her task, for no one besides herself could make head or tail of some of the Swedish and Finnish scrawls that came from the Old Country or the French-Canadian flourishes on the addresses of the picture postcards. No one else could have remembered that Baptiste Redier liked to have his papers accumulate for six months while he was away at the lumber camp, or that Gus Sorenson must not be trusted with the Malmsteads’ mail if he had been drinking, or that it was a kind act to pretend to look through the pigeonholes when an Indian asked for mail, even though it was well known that none of these Chippewas ever got a letter. “Stamp-stamp,” would go the marking machine behind the window, “stamp”—a long pause and then another brisk “stamp-stamp.” No matter in what a hurry were the patrons of the Rudolm postoffice, they must wait, every man, woman and child of them, until Miss Christina had read all the postals.
The little place was already crowded when Hugh arrived, mostly with men and children, for the women did not often come for the mail, it was their hour for washing dishes. Hugh sat down on a bench in the corner to listen to the talk going on about him in all degrees of broken English. It concerned mostly the lost Edmonds boys, but occasionally drifted back to the universal subject, the war, for this was the time when the American army was gathering in France, when Russia was crumbling, when the first pinch of winter was beginning to be felt abroad and the cry was going up over all the world to America for bread. By and by the general talk died away and all began to listen to some one who was airing a grievance very loudly on the other side of the room. He was a big man with a rough corduroy coat and a rougher voice which he raised very loud in the height of his indignation.
“I tell you there wasn’t a better bale of furs in the whole Green River country. I got some myself, trapping, and bought some from the Indians, and there wasn’t one pelt but was a beauty, but the brown bear skin was the best of all. Five hundred dollars I would 'a’ got for them, just that little bale, not a cent less—and when I come to myself again every hide and hair of them was gone
“And you can’t tell who took them?” questioned one of his audience.
“I can’t tell but I could guess right enough. I didn’t see nobody, only a billion or two stars when I was hit over the head in the dark, and that was all. There’s only one man around here who will do that kind of dirty work and he hails from Jasper Peak. That’s the kind of fur trading he likes to do, let some other man go through the snow and the cold, spending his good money, risking his life, tramping along his line of traps or from one Indian camp to another, wheedling the red rascals into selling their furs, and just as a fellow’s nearly home again, dreaming about the profit there’s going to be this time, here comes some one sneaking behind in the dark and the whole thing’s gone!”
“You was lucky he did not shoot you, Ole Peterson,” commented another friend. “He does not care much who he shoots, that Jake he doesn’t.”
“I would just like to meet up with him somewhere,” Peterson returned quickly. “A man can’t do nothing when they sneak up on him in the dark, but if I ever have the chance, why, I’ll just show him once. I wouldn’t have sold those furs for less than seven hundred dollars, I swear. And that bear skin, I tell you, was a prize.”
“Wass it so beeg?” asked an old Swede, sitting in the corner near Hugh.
“No, sir, it wasn’t big, but it was rare. Just a bear cub it was, but a cub that had turned out blond by some freak and surprised his old black mother some. I’ll be bound. Not the brown, even, that grizzly bears are, but a light, gold, yellow brown. The Indian who had it vowed he wouldn’t sell it, not for any price, but at last I got it away from him. And I’d like just to meet the fellow that stole it from me. Shooting would be too good, I’d—”
Miss Christina opened her window at this point and put an end to the fearful threats of Ole Peterson. Hugh received his mail almost the first of all, a short and very hasty note from his father, which did not say openly that they were about to embark but contained more than one veiled hint to that effect. He read it through three times, trying to make the most of the censored information it contained. Then, his attention caught by the complete silence that had fallen around him, he looked up to see what had happened.
Nothing, apparently, had really occurred except that a newcomer had entered abruptly and banged the door behind him. Yet as he strode over to the middle of the room every person in the crowded place drew back, the big Swedes elbowing the quick Canadians, the children standing on tip-toes to peer under the arms or around the shoulders of their protecting elders. The space that had been filled a moment before by a chattering, friendly group, became all in an instant silent and empty with the big man standing quite alone.
He was very big, as Hugh noticed at first glance, taller than any other man there, and strong and heavy in proportion. One of his broad shoulders sagged a little under the strap of a heavy pack which he presently unbuckled and dropped upon the floor. His hair was very long and black under his slouch hat and his skin was so dark that Hugh felt sure he must be an Indian.
“Any mail for me?” he called across to the postmistress without troubling himself to turn around.
Miss Christina had disappeared somewhere into the protecting depths of the postoffice department. Her voice rose, trembling, from behind the partition,
“I think so,” she said, “but it’s been here some time. I will have to look it out.”
“No hurry,” returned the man with an insolent laugh at the quavering of her voice; “don’t disturb yourself so much. I can wait.”
He threw himself down upon one of the benches and pushed back his hat. Hugh felt something like a shudder when he first saw his eyes; they were blue, a pale unlovely blue that looked terrifyingly strange, set in his dark face.
“Hello, friends,” the stranger continued genially. “I thought I would look in and get my mail before I was off down-State to sell my furs. I’ve got a fine lot this year, the best that’s come out of Canada for a long while.”
There was no answer, unless one could call little Eva Stromberg’s frightened squeak a reply, or the uneasy shifting of old Nels Larson’s big feet.
“Would you like to see what I’ve got?” the man went on, seemingly quite untroubled by the lack of friendliness. “You won’t see anything so fine again for quite a month of Sundays, nor anything that’s worth so much money, you poor penny-pinchers. Come here, sis,” he added to one of the smaller children; “you would like to see my furs, now, wouldn’t you?”
The little girl, afraid to disobey, advanced with something of the air of a charmed bird, and came trembling to his side. He opened the big pack and spread out its contents on the floor.
“That’s otter,” he said to her; “don’t be frightened, just feel of it. Isn’t it silky and soft?”
She passed her hand obediently over the silvery brown surface and then, bursting into terrified sobs, ran to take refuge behind her father. The stranger, undisturbed, went on spreading out his wares.
“This wolf skin now should bring me something big,” he said. “Of course wolf isn’t much compared to otter but I’ve never seen finer fur. Step up, folks, and look, it’s a dead wolf that isn’t going to bite you.”
It was Hugh alone who felt sufficient curiosity to come nearer. A wolf skin, an otter skin! He had never seen one before. He came closer and closer as the man unrolled more and more of the soft, furry pelts.
“Now this—”
He stopped, for even he must take notice of the gasp that went through the crowd, a gasp of surprise and indignant protest. Only Hugh, eager and excited, took no notice of the strange tension in the air, so astonished was he at the sight of what lay in the man’s hands.
“Why,” he blurted out, “it’s Ole Peterson’s brown bear skin!”
A quiver seemed to run through the whole of the crowd, while the silence became so complete that Miss Christina’s clock upon the wall went tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, three times before any one seemed to move or before the storm of the stranger’s fury broke forth.
“Whose did you say?” he snarled, rising suddenly and standing over Hugh, a threatening, towering figure. “Whose did you say it was?”
Hugh thought afterwards that never, as long as he lived, would he forget how terrible were those shifty, pale-blue eyes in that lowering face. He could never say it was real courage, but only rash, hot anger that made him answer defiantly,
“I said it was Ole Peterson’s. He told us it was the only one in the country and that it was stolen from him.”
The man gave a queer, harsh laugh.
“Ole, come here,” he ordered.
There came out from the corner a very different Peterson from the reckless, angry person who had voiced his wrongs a few moments before. This poor creature was fairly sallow with terror, and was apparently trying to make his large figure as small and inconspicuous as possible. He swallowed convulsively two or three times before he was able to speak.
“What is it, Jake?” he questioned meekly.
The man called Jake flung the skin toward him.
“Is that yours?” he asked in a tone that said plainly, “Claim it if you dare.”
Ole passed his hand lovingly over the lustrous brown gold of the thick fur. He held it up so that all could see the shape of the chubby little bear cub whose coat it once had been, and the dark hairy paws that still dangled from it. He smoothed the dark shadings of the fur and looked at them with longing.
“Is it yours?” Jake insisted, turning from Hugh to advance a threatening step toward Ole.
“No,” said Peterson at last in a frightened husky voice. “No, it ain’t mine, Jake.”
“Then what the—?” The stranger made one stride toward Hugh and caught his shoulder in a grasp that made the bones grind together. The boy looked about him desperately, surely some one of all these men would come forward to his aid. He saw pity in the eyes of many of them, and one or two making a movement toward him and then drawing back. It needed only that to prove to him at last that this was the much-feared Pirate of Jasper Peak.
Yet before either could move further, before Jake could finish his question, help came from an unexpected quarter. The door beside them opened and closed quickly, and Linda Ingmarsson came in. The wind had blown her yellow hair from under her kerchief, her cheeks were glowing and her eyes bright. She made a single step to Hugh’s side and laid her strong, firm fingers on Jake’s crushing hand. He withdrew it as quickly as though something had stung him.
“So you are at your old bullying ways,” she said scornfully; “you found long ago that there was one woman not afraid of you, now you find a boy. It is like you to believe that he would fear you as the rest do, but this time you are wrong. And you know that there is nothing that can make you so angry as to find some one you cannot terrify.”
He muttered something but did not speak aloud.
“Come,” she said to Hugh, and, “Come, Carl,” she added as she held out her hand to her small son and moved toward the door. But Jake barred the way.
“He tried to tell me that bear skin wasn’t mine,” he blustered. “He said it was Ole Peterson’s, but Peterson vows it isn't his. What do you make of that? Has he any right to call me a thief?”
Linda answered quite undisturbed.
“He is a shrewder boy than are we Swedes,” she said, “and has been quick to see the truth. Yet he is not the only one to know you for a thief.”
The man’s blazing eyes narrowed into slits and his grating, harsh voice was full of suppressed fury.
“There are not many who have dared to call me that, Linda Ingmarsson,” he said, “and whoever does it, whether man, woman or boy, will live to be bitterly sorry. John Edmonds did, and where is he? Out there in the woods, I hear, lost, dead beyond a doubt, he and his brother, the worthless two of them. I heard the whistles blowing as I came down the valley, and I thought to myself, ‘You can blow them until they split, but you will never call him back.’” He lowered his voice, yet still spoke so that all could hear—“He didn’t want to be called back.”
“John Edmonds and his brother will come back,” insisted Linda steadily, “for they have friends who believe in them and will help them still. Whatever John has left in confusion he will make plain and straight when he returns.”
“What friends has he?” cried Jake scornfully. “Before another day has passed every one in Rudolm Valley will know just why they went, both of them, and then where will their friends be?”
“There is still my brother Oscar,” returned Linda.
“And do you think your brother Oscar can save them? He does not even know what has happened, and if he did, what help could he give?” Jake laughed harshly. “He is having all that he can do to save himself, these days, has Oscar Dansk.”
Hugh could feel Linda’s hand tighten on his arm as though, in spite of herself, she winced under the last words. He stepped in front of her to face their common enemy, but she spoke before he could.
“The Edmonds are not friendless,” she declared. “No matter what all the world may say there will still be some of us who know they are honest and who will find and save them in the end.”
She moved to the door, and Jake, seeing that he could no longer block her way, suddenly stepped back and flung it open with a great flourish.
“I wish you luck,” he said; “it will be a long task, finding and saving two men who either have fled the country or are already dead.”
Linda turned back to speak her last word as she and Hugh and Carl went out together into the dark.
“I know they have not fled the country,” she said, “and I am certain they are not dead. Had anything happened to them, their dog would have been here to tell us. So I know they are alive since Nicholas has not come back.”