Chapter VIII · The Saving of Boy’s Pond

WHEN, early in the winter, the lumbermen moved into these woods which Jabe had cruised over, establishing their camp about two miles down-stream from the spot where the Boy and the woodsman had had their lean-to, Jabe came with them as boss of a gang. He had for the time grown out of the mood for trapping. Furs were low, and there was a “sight” more money for him in lumbering that winter. Popular with the rest of the lumbermen––who most of them knew of the Boy and his “queer” notions––Jabe had no difficulty in pledging them to respect the sanctity of Boy’s Pond and its inhabitants. In fact, in the evenings around the red-hot stove, Jabe told such interesting stories of what he and the Boy had seen together a few months before, that the reckless, big-hearted, boisterously profane but sentimental woodsmen were more than half inclined to declare the whole series of ponds under the special protection of the camp. As for Boy’s Pond, that should be safe at any cost.

Not long after Christmas the Boy, taking advantage of the fact that some fresh supplies were being sent out from the Settlement by team, came to visit the camp. The head of the big lumber company which owned these woods was a friend of the Boy’s father, and the Boy himself was welcome in any of the camps. His special purpose in coming now was to see how his beavers got on in winter, and to assure himself that Jabe had been able to protect them.

The morning after his arrival in camp he set out to visit the pond. He went on snowshoes, of course, and carried his little Winchester as he always did in the woods, holding tenaciously that the true lover of peace should be ever prepared for war. The lumbermen had gone off to work with the first of dawn; and far away to his right he heard the axes ringing, faintly but crisply, on the biting morning air. For half a mile he followed a solitary snowshoe trail, which he knew to be Jabe’s by the peculiar broad toe and long, trailing heel which Jabe affected in snowshoes; and he wondered what his friend was doing in this direction, so far from the rest of the choppers. Then Jabe’s track swerved off to the left, crossing the brook; and the Boy tramped on over the unbroken snow.

The sound of the distant choppers soon died away, and he was alone in the unearthly silence. The sun, not yet risen quite clear of the hilltops, sent spectral, level, far-reaching gleams of thin pink-and-saffron light down the alleys of the sheeted trees. The low crunching of his snowshoes on the crisp snow sounded almost blatant in the Boy’s tensely listening ears. In spite of himself he began to tread stealthily, as if the sound of his steps might bring some ghostly enemy upon him from out of the whiteness.

Suddenly the sound of an axe came faintly to his ears from straight ahead, where he knew no choppers were at work. He stopped short. That axe was not striking wood. It was striking ice. It was chopping the ice of Boy’s Pond! What could it mean? There were no fish in that pond to chop the ice for!

As he realized that some one was preparing to trap his beavers his face flushed with anger, and he started forward at a run. That it was no one from the camp he knew very well. It must be some strange trapper who did not know that this pond was under protection. He thought this out as he ran on; and his anger calmed down. Trappers were a decent, understanding folk; and a word of explanation would make things all right. There were plenty of other beaver ponds in that neighbourhood.

Pressing through the white-draped ranks of the young fir-trees, he came out suddenly upon the edge of the pond, and halted an instant in irresolution. Two dark-visaged men––his quick eye knew them for half-breeds––were busy on the snow about twenty paces above the low mound which marked the main beaver house. They had a number of stakes with them; and they were cutting a series of holes in a circle. From what Jabe had told him of the Indian methods, he saw at once that these were not regular trappers, but poachers, who were violating the game laws and planning to annihilate the whole beaver colony by fencing in its brush pile.

The Boy realized now that the situation was a delicate if not a dangerous one. For an instant he thought of going back to camp for help; but one of the men was on his knees, fixing the stakes, and the other was already chopping what appeared to be the last hole. Delay might mean the death of several of his precious beavers. Indignation and compassion together urged him on, and his young face hardened in unaccustomed lines.

Walking out upon the snow a little way, he halted, at a distance of perhaps thirty paces from the poachers. At the sound of his snowshoes the two men looked up scowling and apprehensive; and the kneeling one sprang to his feet. They wanted no witnesses of their illegal work.

“Good morning,” said the Boy politely.

At the sound of his soft young voice, the sight of his slender figure and youthful face, their apprehensions vanished; but not their anger at being discovered.

“Mornin’!” growled one, in a surly voice; while the other never opened his mouth. Then they looked at each other with meaning question in their eyes. How were they going to keep this unwelcome visitor from betraying them?

“I’m going to ask you,” said the Boy sweetly, “to be so kind as to stop trapping on this pond. Of course you didn’t know it, but this is my pond, and there is no trapping allowed on it. It is reserved, you know; and I don’t want a single one of my beavers killed.”

The man with the axe scowled fiercely and said nothing. But the other, the one who had been driving the stakes, laughed in harsh derision.

“You don’t, hey, sonny?” he answered. “Well, you just wait an’ watch us. We’ll show ye whose beaver they be!” And turning his back in scorn of his interlocutor’s youth, he knelt down again to drive another stake. The man who had not spoken, however, stood leaning on his axe, eying the Boy with an ugly expression of menace.

The Boy’s usually quiet blood was now pounding and tingling with anger. His alert eyes had measured the whole situation, and noted that the men had no firearms but their rifles, which were leaning against a tree on the shore fully fifty yards behind them.

“Stop!” he cried, with so confident a tone of authority that the kneeling man looked up, though with a sneer on his face. “Unless you go away from this pond at once, I’ll get the men from the camp, and they’ll make you go. They’ll not be so polite as I am. You’re just poachers, anyway. And the boys will like as not just run you clean out of the country. Will you do as I ask you, or shall I go and get them?”

The man with the axe spat out some French curse which the Boy didn’t understand very clearly. But the man at the stakes jumped up again with a dangerous grin.

“You’ll stay right where you are, sonny, till we’re done with you,” he snarled. “You understand? You’re a-goin’ to git hurt ef ye gits in our way any! See?”

The Boy was now in a white rage; but he kept his wits cool and his eyes watchful. He realized at this moment that he was in great danger; but, his mettle being sound, this only made him the more resolute.

“All right. You’ve decided!” he said slowly. “We’ll see what the boys will have to say about it.”

As he spoke he made a movement as if to turn, but without taking his eyes from the enemy. The movement just served to swing his little Winchester into a readier position.

At his first move the man with the axe took a step forward, and swung up his axe with a peculiar gesture which the Boy understood. He had seen the woodsmen throw their axes. He knew well their quickness and their deadly precision. But quickness and precision with the little Winchester were his own especial pride,––and, after all, he had not turned any further than was just right for a good shot. Even as the axe was on the verge of leaving the poacher’s hand, the rifle cracked sharply. The poacher yelled a curse, and his arm dropped. The axe flew wide, landing nowhere near its aim. On the instant both the half-breeds turned, and raced for their rifles on the shore.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot you both!” shouted the Boy, now with embarrassment added to his wrath. In their wild fury at being so balked by a boy, both men trusted to his missing his aim––or to the hope that his gun was not a repeater. They ignored his command, and rushed on. The Boy was just going to shoot again, aiming at their legs; when, to his amazement and inconceivable relief, out from behind the tree where the poachers’ rifles leaned, came Jabe.

Snatching up one of the guns, he echoed the Boy’s command.

“Stop right there!” he ordered curtly. “An’ up with your hands, too! Mebbe youse kin fling a knife slick ez ye kin an axe.”

The half-breeds stood like stones. One held up both hands; but the other only held up his left, his right being helpless. They knew there was nothing to say. They were fairly caught. They were poaching. The tall lumberman had seen the axe flung. Their case was a black one; and any attempt to explain could do no less than make it worse. They did not even dare to look at each other, but kept their narrow, beady eyes fixed on Jabe’s face.

The Boy came swiftly to Jabe’s side.

“Neat shot!” said the woodsman; but the note of astonished admiration in his tone was the most thrilling compliment the Boy had ever received.

“What are you going to do with them, Jabe?” he inquired, mildly.

“That’s fer you to say! They’re yourn!” answered Jabe, keeping his eyes on the prisoners.

The Boy looked the two culprits over carefully, with his calm, boyish gaze. He was overwhelmingly elated, but would have died rather than show it. His air was that of one who is quite used to capturing two outlaws,––and having axes hurled at his head,––and putting bullets through men’s shoulders. He could not help feeling sorry for the man with the bullet through his shoulder.

“Well, Jabe,” he said presently, “we can’t let them go with their guns, because they’re such sneaking brutes, they’d shoot us from behind a tree. And we can’t let them go without their guns, because we can’t be sure they wouldn’t starve before they got to their own homes. And we don’t want to take them into camp, for the fellows would probably treat them as they deserve,––and I don’t want them to get anything so bad as that!”

“Maybe it might be better not to let the hands git hold of ’em!” agreed Jabe. “They’d be rough!”

A gleam of hope came into the prisoners’ eyes. The unwounded one spoke. And he had the perspicacity to address himself to the Boy rather than to Jabe, thereby conciliating the Boy appreciably.

“Let us go!” he petitioned, choking down his rage. “We’ll swear to quit, right now an’ fer good; an’ not to try to git back at yez!”

“Ye’ll have to leave yer guns!” said Jabe sternly.

“They’re the only guns we got; an’ they’re our livin’, fer the winter!” protested the half-breed, still looking at the Boy.

“If we take away their guns, what’s the good of making them swear?” demanded the Boy, stepping up and gazing into their eyes. “No, I reckon if they give their oath, they’ll stick to it. Where’s your camp, men?”

“Over yonder, about three mile!” answered the spokesman, nodding toward the northeast.

“If we give you back your guns,” went on the Boy gently, “will you both give us your oath to clear right out of this country altogether, and not trap at all this side of the line? And will you take oath, also, that you will never, in any way, try to get even with either him or me for having downed you this way?”

“Sartain!” responded the spokesman, with obvious sincerity. “I’ll swear to all that! An’ I won’t never want to git even, if you use us so gentlemanlike!”

“And will you swear, too?” inquired the Boy, turning to the silent one who had thrown the axe at him. The fellow glared at him defiantly for a moment, then glanced at his wounded arm, which hung limp at his side. At last he answered with a sullen growl:

“Yes, I’ll swear! Got to! Curse you!”

“Good!” said the Boy. “That’s the best way for all of us. Jabe, will you take their oaths. You know how better than I do!”

“All right!” responded the latter, shrugging his shoulders in a way which said––“it’s your idee, not mine!” Then he proceeded to bind each man separately by an oath which left no loophole, and which was sealed by all that their souls held sacred. This done, he handed back the rifles,––and the two poachers, without a word, turned their backs and made off at a swift lope straight up the open pond. The Boy and Jabe watched them till they vanished among the trees. Then, with a shy little laugh, the Boy picked up the axe which had been hurled at his head.

“I’m glad he left me this,” he murmured, “to kind of remember him by!”

“The sneakin’ skunk!” growled Jabe. “If I’d had my way, it’d be the penitentiary for the both of ’em!”

That evening, when the whole story was told, the woodsmen were indignant, for a time, because the half-breeds had been let go; but at last they gave heed to Jabe’s representations, and acknowledged that the Boy’s plan had saved a “sight of bother.” To guard against future difficulties, however, they took a big piece of smooth board, and painted the following sign, to be nailed up on a conspicuous tree beside the pond.

NOTICE

THIS IS BOY’S POND. NO TRAPPING HERE. IF ANYBODY WANTS TO SAY, WHY NOT? LAWLER’S CAMP WILL LET HIM KNOW.