Part 13 (1/2)

In the morning Darry occupied himself repairing the damage done by the fire.

After he had done all the ch.o.r.es, even to a.s.sisting Mrs. Peake wash the breakfast dishes, and there seemed nothing else to be undertaken, he took Joe's shotgun on his shoulder and walked toward the marsh.

The woman, seeing how much he looked like her lost boy with the gun and the clothes, had a good cry when left to herself; but Darry did not know this.

As he approached his first trap he found himself fairly tingling with eagerness.

This was not because of the value involved in the skin of a muskrat, though it seemed as though each year the price was soaring as furs became more scarce; but he wanted to feel that he had learned his lesson well, and followed out the instructions given in Joe's little handbook.

The trap was gone!

He saw this with the first glance he cast over the low bank.

Did it have a victim in its jaws or had some marauder stolen it?

With a stick he groped in the deeper water, and catching something in the crotch he presently drew ash.o.r.e the trap.

He had caught his first prize.

Of course he understood that when compared with the mink and the fox, a muskrat is an ignorant little beast at best, and easily captured; but for a beginning it was worth feeling proud over.

Setting the trap again in the hope that there might be others in the burrow, one of which would set his foot in trouble on the succeeding night, Darry went on.

He found only one more victim to the half dozen traps.

Perhaps he had been too careless with the others and left plain traces of his presence that had warned the cunning rodents.

Having placed all his traps in the water again, he started back home, swinging the two ”muskies” in one hand, while carrying his gun in the other.

After leaving the marsh he chanced to look back and was surprised to see a boy come out and start on a run toward the village.

Darry had very little acquaintance with the village lads, and could not make up his mind whether he had ever seen this fellow before or not; but once or twice he thought he detected evidence of a limp in his gait when he fell into a walk, and this brought to mind Jim and his two cronies.

It was not Jim, but at the same time there was no reason why it should not be one of his bodyguard, ”the fellows who sneezed when Jim took snuff,” as Mrs. Peake had said in speaking of the lot.

Suppose this did happen to be Sim Clark or Bowser, what had he been doing in the marsh?

Could it be possible that the fellow had been spying on him, and was now hastening to report to his chief?

They might think to annoy him by stealing the traps he had placed, or at least robbing them of any game.

Darry shut his teeth hard at the idea.

He made up his mind that he would go out earlier on the following day, even if, in order to do so, he had to get up long before daylight to accomplish his various ch.o.r.es.

No doubt he made rather a sorry mess of the job when he came to removing those first pelts--at least it took him half a dozen times as long as a more experienced trapper would have needed in order to accomplish the task.

Still, when he finally had them fastened to a couple of boards left by Joe, he felt that he had reason to be satisfied with his first attempt.

Mrs. Peake declared they seemed to look all right, and as each represented a cash money value of some forty or fifty cents, Darry realized that there was a little gold mine awaiting him in that swamp, providing those miserable followers of Jim allowed him to work it.