"No, I don"t suppose anything of the kind. You are forgetting that Mr.
Grider didn"t even know of my existence at that time--if he does now,"
she added, after a moment"s hesitation.
"Grider knew, and he knew that we were cousins," Prime insisted. "That is a guess, but you will see that it will turn out to be the right one.
But even that doesn"t explain why he should come up here in the woods and cut a hole in our canoe, confound him!"
"It doesn"t explain a good many things which are much more mysterious than they were before," said Lucetta; and shortly after that she smoked her tent blue with a bit of smudge wood and disappeared for the night, leaving Prime to pull reflectively at a clumsy pipe which he had contrived to whittle out of a bit of birch wood during the day of waiting, to smoke and to hope that the threatening rain-storm would materialize and drown a few millions of the tormenting mosquitoes.
XV
JEAN BA"TISTE
ON a morning which Prime, consulting his notched stick, named as the twenty-fourth of July, they gave the canoe patches another daubing of pitch for good luck, relaunched their argosy, loaded the dunnage, and began to learn the art of paddling anew--the relearning being made strictly necessary by the new green-wood paddles.
From a boisterous mill-race in its upper reaches, their river had now subsided into a broad stream with a current so leisurely that they had to paddle continuously to make any headway. With this handicap their progress was slow, and it was not until the afternoon of the second day that they began to see signs to hint that they were approaching the settlements.
The signs were neither numerous nor indicative of any recent habitancy: a few old clearings with their stumps weathered and rotting; here and there a spot luxuriantly green to mark an area where slashings had been burned; in one place a decaying runway to show where the logs had been skidded into the river; all these proved that they were not pioneers; but withal they saw no human being to dispute possession with them.
In the evening of this second day they camped on the right-hand bank a short distance below one of the old clearings, kindling their night fire a few yards from the river in a small grove of second-growth pines. The place was not entirely to their liking; the river-bank was high, and they could not draw the canoe out without partially unloading it. While Lucetta was busying herself with the supper, Prime, as a precautionary measure, made a porter of himself to the extent of carrying a good part of the dunnage up to the fire, and after thus lightening the canoe he hauled it out of water as far as the steep bank would permit.
While they were eating supper an unexpected guest turned up. Lucetta was the first to hear the dip of a paddle in the stream, and a moment later they both heard the grating of a boat bottom on the sand. Prime sprang up, rifle in hand, and went to meet the newcomer, prepared to do battle if needful. When he returned he was followed by a small man, dark, bearded, and with bead-like black eyes roving and shifty. He was dressed more like an Indian than a white man; there were fringes on his moccasins and also on the belted coat, which was much the worse for wear and hard usage.
"_Moi_, Jean Ba"tiste; I mek you de good evenin", _m"sieu" et madame_,"
he said, introducing himself brusquely, and as he spoke the roving eyes were taking in every detail of the bivouac camp. Then, with no more ado, he squatted beside the fire and became their supper guest, saying simply: "You eat?--good; _moi_, I eat, too."
Since there seemed to be no question of ceremony, Prime made the guest welcome, heaping his tin plate and pouring tea for him in the spare cup.
The small man ate as if he were half starved, and was saving of speech during the process, though the roving eyes seemed to be doing double duty. The meal devoured, he produced a black clay pipe with a broken stem and uttered a single word, "Tabac"?" and when the want was supplied he crumbled himself a pipeful from the twist which Prime handed him.
Prime filled his own home-made pipe, and at its lighting the guest began a curt inquisition.
"W"ere you come from?"
Prime explained without going into any of the kidnapping details.
"You campin" out for fon, mebbe, yes?" was the next query.
"A little that way," said Prime.
"You shoot wiz ze gon? W"ere all dat game w"at you get?"
"It isn"t the game season," Prime parried. "We haven"t tried to shoot anything."
"But you "ave ze gon. Lemme see "um," holding out a hand for the rifle.
Prime pa.s.sed over the gun nearest at hand and drew the other one up within reach. The inquisitive supper guest looked the weapon over carefully and seemed to be trying to read something in the scratches on the stock.
"_Vraiment!_ she"s one good gon," he commented, pa.s.sing it back. "W"ere you get "um?"
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Vraiment!_ she"s one good gon," he commented.... "W"ere you get "um?"]
Prime did not answer the question. He thought it was high time to ask a few of his own.
"What river is this?" he wanted to know.
"You make canoe on him and you not know dat? She is Mishamen; comes bimeby to Riviere du Lievres."
"How far?"
"One, two, t"ree day; mebbe more."
"You mean that we will reach a town in two or three days?"
"Mebbe so, if you don" get los"."
Prime exchanged a quick glance with his fellow castaway. Lucetta signalled "Yes," and he acted accordingly.
"What will you charge to show us the way to the nearest town?" he asked.
The small man did not seem especially eager for money. He was examining the gun again. "_Moi_, I can"t go--too bizzee. W"ere you got dis gon?"
"It came with our outfit," said Prime shortly. "We got it when we got the canoe."
"And w"ere you got dat canoe?"
The inquisition was growing rather embarra.s.sing, but Prime answered as best he could.
"We got the outfit up at the big lake where we started from. We have come all the way down the river."
With this the restless-eyed querist appeared to be satisfied. At all events he did not press the questioning any further, and was content to take another pipe-filling from Prime"s tobacco twist and to tell a little more about himself. He was "one ver" great trapper," in his own phrase, and was also a "timber looker" for a lumber company. Lucetta had withdrawn to the privacy of her tent, and Prime could not divest himself of the idea that the small man whose tongue had been so suddenly loosened was merely sparring for time, time in which to accomplish some end of his own. In due course the battery was unmasked.
"You say you begin _voyageur_ on ze big lake. W"ere you leave Jules Beaujeau an" Pierre Cambon, eh, w"at?"
"I don"t know them," said Prime, telling the simple truth.
"Dis Pierre Cambon"s gon," said the little man, suddenly tapping the weapon he had been inspecting. "She "ave hees name on ze stock. An" ze birch-bark down yonder; she"s belong" to Jules Beaujeau. You buy "um?"
Prime scarcely knew what to say; whether to tell the truth, which would not be believed, or to make up a lie, which might be believed. As a compromise he chose a middle course, which is always the most dangerous.
"I don"t know these two you speak of, by name; but the two men who owned the canoe and the guns are both dead."
The supper guest sprang up as if a bomb had been exploded under him and quickly put a safe distance between himself and the camp-fire.
"You--you kill "um?" he demanded.