Part 5 (1/2)

CHAPTER VIII-A NOVEL BEAR TRAP

”You don't know of anybody hereabouts that wants to hire a good hand, I s'pose?” asked a stranger one August afternoon, as, without unslinging his pack, he set his gun against the log wall beside the door, and leaned upon his axe at the threshold.

By degrees Seth Beeman had enlarged his clearing so far that he already needed stronger hands than Nathan's to help him in the care of the land already in tilth and in the further extension of his betterments, but he scanned the man closely before he answered. Though unprepossessing, low-browed, and surly looking, he was evidently a stout fellow, and accustomed to work. At length a reply was made by asking such questions as were a matter of course in those days, and are not yet quite obsolete in Yankeeland.

The stranger readily said his name was Silas Toombs, that he was from Jersey way, and wished, when he had earned enough, to take up a right of land hereabouts, in a region he had often heard extolled by his father, who had served here in Captain Bergen's company of Rogers's Rangers.

Seth had previously ascertained that no grown-up son of any of his neighbors could be spared to help him, so he finally hired this man, who proved to be efficient and faithful, although not a genial companion, such as an old-time farmer wished to find in his hired help. Ruth treated him with the kindness so natural to her, though she could scarcely conceal her aversion. This, if he understood, he did not seem to notice any more than he did the undisguised dislike of Nathan.

The remainder of the summer and half of the fall pa.s.sed uneventfully, till one day, when Ruth had been called to the bedside of Mrs. Newton, who was ill of the fever so prevalent in new clearings, Nathan and his sister were left in charge of the house, while their father and hired man worked in a distant field.

The children spent half the pleasant forenoon in alternate rounds of housework and out-door play, now sweeping the floor with hemlock brooms, now running out into the hazy October suns.h.i.+ne to play ”Indians” with Nathan's bow and arrows and Martha's rag doll. This was stolen and carried into captivity, from which it was rescued by its heroic little mother. Then they threw off their a.s.sumed characters and ran into the house to replenish the smouldering fire, and to find that the suns.h.i.+ne, falling upon the floor through the window, was creeping towards the ”noon mark,” making it time to begin dinner.

Nathan raised the heavy trap-door to the cellar and descended the ladder, with butcher knife and pewter plate, to get the pork, but had barely got the cover off the barrel when he was recalled to the upper world by a loud cry from his sister:

”Nathan, Nathan, come here quick!”

He scrambled up the ladder and ran to her, where, just outside the door, she was staring intently toward the creek.

”Who be them?” she asked anxiously, as she pointed at two figures just disclosed above the rushes, as they moved swiftly up the narrow channel in an unseen craft.

”I guess they're Injins,” said Nathan, after a moment's scrutiny, ”and I guess they're a-trappin' mushrat. Let's run over to the bank and see.”

So they ran to the crown of the low bank, where they could command a good view of the rushy level of the marsh, and the narrow belt of clear water that wound through it, reflecting the hazy blue of the sky, the tops of the scarlet water maples, the bronze and yellow weeds, and, here and there, the rough dome of a newly built muskrat house. At each of these the two men, now revealed in a birch canoe, halted for a little s.p.a.ce, and then, tying a knot in the nearest tuft of sedge, pa.s.sed on to the next. There was no mistaking the coppery hue of the faces, the straight black hair, though men of another race might wear the dirty, white blanket coats, and as skilfully manage the light craft.

”Yes, they be Injins,” said Nathan, ”and I wish they'd let my mushrat alone. But I s'pose there's enough for them and me.”

Presently the Indians pa.s.sed quite near them, and one, speaking so softly that the children thought his voice could never have sounded the terrible war-whoop, accosted them:

”How do? You Beenum boy?”

”Yes,” Nathan answered; and then, obeying the Yankee instinct of inquiry, asked: ”Be you gettin' many mushrat?”

”No ketch um plenty,” the Indian replied. ”Ol' Capenteese ketch um mos'

all moosquas,” and Nathan understood that he attributed the scarcity of muskrats to Job, whose fame as a hunter and trapper was known to every Waubanakee who visited this part of the lake.

”Me come back pooty soon,” the Indian said, pointing up the creek with his paddle. ”Den go house, see um Beenum. Buy um some pig eese. S'pose he sell um lee'l bit?”

Pork

Nathan nodded a doubtful a.s.sent, and then, reminded of dinner-getting by the mention of pork, caught Martha's hand and hurried homeward, while the Indians resumed their way upstream.

When the children entered the open door, they were for a moment dumb with amazement at the confusion that had in so short a time usurped the tidiness whereof they had left the room possessed. The coverlets and blankets of one bed were dragged from their place, two or three chairs were overturned, and the meal barrel was upset and half its contents strewn across the floor.

”What in tunket,” cried Nathan, when speech came to his gaping mouth.

”Has that old sow got outen the pen?” Then he saw in the scattered meal some broad tracks that a former adventure had made him familiar with, and he heard a sound of something moving about in the cellar.

”It's a bear,” he cried, ”and he's down cellar.”