Fur Pirates/Chapter 2

a certain spring morning, when I was rising eighteen years of age and grown into a strong, dour, silent lad given to solitary rambles and daydreams which I kept entirely to myself, I rose before the light and went out to get a deer. For at that time we observed no close season, killing as we needed meat; but we killed only bucks at that season, and of them no more than sufficed.

I slid, silent-footed, through the dawn fogs which rolled along the river bottoms, and the night dews on the brush soaked me to the hide. That I did not mind at all, being used to it; but the sun rose and gathered up the mists, and I saw no deer. Indeed, it was past noon when I killed a small buck. And when I came to look around, I found myself about seven miles from home and but a couple from Ballou's. Therefore I decided that instead of packing part of the meat home I would take the whole carcass to Ballou's, and get him or Louis to paddle me back, in return for which I would, of course, give them a hind quarter if they could use it.

But when I arrived at their cabin, very hot from the weight of the buck and the roughness of the going, and being pestered by flies as well, brought by the scent of the blood, to my disgust I found no one at home.

I dumped my load on the bank beside their landing and lay down and drank from the river, and then I peeled off and dived in. Afterward I sat on the bank, kicking my heels, uncertain whether to wait or to quarter up the buck and pack what I could overland. Finally I got out my knife, and, as I did so, a canoe came down the river, but its occupant was neither Louis nor Tom.

I did not know him. He was an old man, lean and sinewy, bald save for a fringe of hair back of his ears, with a weather-beaten face, a long neck wrinkled like a turkey's, and small gray eyes very cold and steady. His canoe held a scanty outfit, but I saw a gold pan, and judged him a prospector. He drew in to the landing and caught a stake of it, while he glanced from me to the buck.

"How's chances to git some meat?" he asked, in a high, nasal voice. "Give ye a dollar for a ham."

"All right," I said. "I'll skin it out for you."

He put his weather-beaten craft ashore and rose stiffly, a hand on the small of his back, and he swore as if it gave him pain. I observed that he wore a gun belt, and the butt of a heavy revolver stuck out from a worn holster, and this rather surprised me, for with us belt guns were not common, though, of course, most men traveled with rifles as a means of getting meat. He stretched himself on the grass and filled an ancient, charred pipe.

"I'd give a whole lot if I was as soople in the back as you be, young feller," he said, as he watched me.

"What's the matter with your back?" I asked.

"Pretty close to seventy years," he answered, with a wry grin. "Them, mostly, and a few kidneys and rheumatiz and things. Sho! What's the use of tellin' a kid like you? Your folks live here?"

"No; you passed my uncle's place about five miles back."

"Pretty gal there?"

"My sister."

"Well, she's good people," he declared. "Staked me to a mess of early greens and some spuds. Wouldn't take nothin' for it. Don't run in the family, though."

"I'd have given you a chunk of meat," I retorted, "but you asked for a ham. A ham's worth a dollar. If you think it isn't, you don't need to take it."

He chuckled. "If it wasn't I wouldn't give it. Who lives here, anyway?"

I told him, and he straightened up with a smothered oath as his stiff back caught him.

"Tom Ballou!" he cried, staring. "Is he a big, skookum, brown-haired cuss with a hooked nose and a square chin?"

I told him that Ballou's hair was gray, and I didn't know what his chin looked like because he wore a beard. But he had a big nose and a trick of narrowing his eyes when he was in earnest about anything.

"It's him," he exclaimed, "sure as a gun sight! Course he'd be gray—I'd forgot that. And this here Louis Beef—is he gray, too?"

"Not a bit. His hair is black and curly."

"Head like a bull and chest like a bar'l?"

"That's Louis," I agreed.

"Them Frenchmen don't git gray 'count of so much grease in their wool," he said. "Nor bald. I never see a bald peajammer yet. Gosh! And to think of runnin' up on Tom and French Louis here! Where be they?"

But I could not tell him that.

"I'll wait," he announced, "if it takes a week." And he threw his outfit ashore, drew up his canoe, and turned it over. "Now," he said, "we'll go up to the shack and cook us some meat. Tom an' Louis here! Well, blight me standing! Who'd have thought it?"

"You know them?" I said.

"Well, some! We're old tillikums. Why, we was spreadin' our blankets together before you was born." And when we went to the cabin, he looked around. "Nice shack they got. Nice and comfortable. Not so durn much, maybe, but more'n most of us old-timers can show. Most of us ain't got nothin'. What we got we blowed. How's Tom fixed for money? Pretty strong?"

I didn't know anything about that, and said so. And then he asked me how long they had been living there and where they came from before that, and my own name.

"My name's Hayes," he informed me—"Jack Hayes. S'posin' you rustle some kindlin's, Bob. You're several years younger'n I be."

When I came in with the kindlings, he was nosing about in Ballou's belongings. I suppose my face expressed surprise and disapproval. But Hayes explained that he was looking for a needle to take a sliver from under his nail. I found one for him, and he went to the door for better light and picked the sliver out while I was busy with the stove. While I cooked and while we ate he asked continual questions about Tom and Louis. And afterward he filled his pipe again and lay on the bunk while I washed up, which I did with great care, putting each thing back where I had found it, as was the custom.

Meanwhile, a stiff wind had sprung up, and the sky had clouded heavily. Looking out, I saw Ballou and Louis fighting their way up to the landing against wind and current. Evidently it was hard work, for both bent to it with snapping, driving strokes; but nevertheless the canoe would not keep way, checking the moment the paddles left the water. I called Hayes, and he peered out at the rhythmically swaying figures.

"Sure, that's them," he said. "I wonder if they'll know me. They ain't seen me for years. I won't tell 'em who I am for a while."

Ballou and Louis made the landing, took a look at Hayes' canoe, and came up to the house.

"Hello, Bob!" said Ballou, and nodded to Hayes.

"I've been sorter makin' myself to home," said the latter. "Been usin' your layout to cook me some muckamuck."

"Sure, that's right," said Ballou heartily, and yet with a puzzled note in his voice. He eyed Hayes for a moment, and the perplexity crept into his face. "Old-timer," he said, "do I know you?"

"Well, now you mention it, your face seems sort of familiar to me," Hayes returned. "We might have met some place." He chuckled to himself. "Now whereabouts do you s'pose it might be?"

Ballou's eyes narrowed as he studied the other intently, but he shook his head. Hayes picked up his hat and put it on.

"Does that help any?" he said.

"Jackstraws!" cried Ballou.

"Well, by gar!" exclaimed Louis Beef.

"Surest thing you know, boys!" chuckled old Hayes. "Jackstraws! Lordy, I ain't heard that name for so long I'd almost forgot it. Well, ain't you hyas yutl tumtum to see me again?"

If they were glad of heart they did not say so.

"Mo' gee!" cried Louis, "I'll t'ink for sure you'll be dead. How you'll stand off le diable so long, hey?"

Hayes grinned. "I'm a hard old bird, Louis."

Louis cooked more venison, and he and Tom ate, keeping up a running fire of conversation with Hayes, chiefly concerning men and happenings quite strange to me.

Meanwhile the wind had increased to a gale, and waves crisped the river. It began to rain, in driven sheets which beat and slatted on the widow. To get home by canoe was out of the question, and to go by the bush was decidedly unpleasant.

"You'd better stay the night," said Ballou. "Your folks will know where you are."

And so I remained. Darkness came, and we gathered around the stove, for the night was raw and chill. The men's talk continued, winnowing the years since they had met.

"Got any whisky?" Hayes asked presently.

To my surprise—for I had never seen him drink—Ballou, after a moment's hesitation, produced a demijohn from a cupboard. Hayes sniffed the neck with approval.

"Rum!" he decided. "Good hooch. It lays over rye an' Scotch an' such soft stuff. 'S a ho, Tom! The old boys and the old days!"

They had a drink, and another. The smoke of their pipes filled the room. I grew sleepy and nodded by the fife.

"Better turn in," said Ballou. "Needn't wait for us. Take the new bunk in there."

He nodded toward the other room of the cabin, and, very glad to accept his suggestion, I kicked off my moccasins, rolled up in a blanket, and was asleep as quickly as a tired puppy. How long I slept I do not know, but when I woke, some time in the night, they were still talking, and their voices were loud. There was no door between us, and I could hear plainly.

I suppose the liquor Hayes had drunk made him quarrelsome. At any rate, at some remark of Louis', he seemed to lose his temper. And he cursed the Frenchman bitterly in a voice which heightened and shook in a sudden gust of rage. Out of the sudden silence that followed came Louis' voice, quite stripped of its jeering tone:

"Go easy, Jackstraws! I don't let no man call me dose t'ing! You say somet'ing more, now, an' for sure I wring your ol' neck!"

"I guess not," Hayes returned grimly. "You won't wring nobody's neck, you" And he added a phrase quite unprintable.

Came a bellow from Louis, the crash of an overturned chair, and the report of a pistol shot, shattering in that confined little space. I leaped from my bunk to the doorway.

Louis had Hayes by the throat with his right hand, while with his left he held Hayes' right, which held a smoking six-shooter, toward the roof. For a moment they seemed to stand motionless, statuesque, in the white drift of the powder smoke which eddied in the lamplight, for this was in the days before smokeless powder had much favor. I knew that Louis, with his tremendous strength, could break Hayes in pieces. But, as I looked, Ballou sprang in, twisted away the gun, and cursed them both for a couple of old fools. He saw me standing in the door, and scowled blackly, but only for a moment.

"Woke you up, did they, Bob? Well, there'll be no more of it. We're all going to bed."

His eyes challenged contradiction. To my surprise, the two combatants made no objection. They grinned sardonically at each other.

"Well, I guess I was too fast with my tongue and too slow with my gun," said Hayes. "In the old days you wouldn't have got your hands on me."

"Mebbe I'm leetle faster myself when I'm yo'nger," Louis returned. "I guess we have 'noder leetle drink, an' hit dose blanket."

Ballou followed me to my bunk, and, sitting down, began to unlace his moccasins.

"I'm sorry this happened when you were here, Bob," said he. "They got a jolt or so too much. However, they're good friends now. Still I wouldn't want any one else to know about it."

"I won't say anything," I promised. "I don't talk much."

"I know you don't. That's one thing I like about you. You've got better judgment than a lot of men. I s'pose it was the shot woke you up?"

"Yes, I guess so," I answered, which was not quite true, but eminently discreet; and, anyway, I had no idea what they had been talking about. He nodded.

"Well, don't say nothing about it. If it got around, your uncle might not like your comin' here, and I wouldn't blame him, though nothin' like this is goin' to happen again. And then I was thinkin' that this fall you might come along with us on a hunt, and if he knew of this racket he might put his foot down on that."

Which made my silence absolutely sure, for a hunting trip in the hills had been my dream for years, and I would not imperil its realization. And as for telling Peggy, though she was as a rule my confidante, naturally there must be many things in a man's life of which he does not speak to his womenkind.