Moosemeadows/Chapter 5

FTER the conversation with Amy Bear, I took a stroll around the barns and yards. The dogs, Duster and Spud were afield with Deblore, and Lion was indoors somewhere, doubtless keeping an eye on old Ruben. By this time I firmly believed Glashner to be less than half-witted, and something more than a suspicion of his being dangerously insane was growing in me. I felt sorry for Tom Deblore. Public opinion and conditions for which he was not personally responsible had forced upon him as a guest a man whose character and habits and appearance were all equally objectionable, who was obviously and by report a hardened liar, whose attitude was unmistakably that of a spy or, at best, an impertinent meddler, and whose mental processes were quite evidently defective. He was a menace as well as a danger. I wondered that, with those eyes and that beak, Tom had not already lost his self-control and floored the fellow with the handiest piece of furniture.

I took a turn around the barns, then sloped around, through a bit of old orchard, to the front of the house. I noticed that a shutter at one of the ground-floor windows was ajar that had been tight shut in the morning. I have a quick eye for that sort of thing. I stepped close and looked in. The lower sash was raised. For a moment I could see nothing, so obscure was the interior, but presently my eyes adjusted themselves to the gloom so that bulking pieces of furniture took shape and wide expanses of carpeted floor became evident. I saw, to my right, a bulging chimney and the maw of a vast fire-place, and before the hearth something large that moved slightly.

This something was the huge tawny dog, Lion, who sat looking at me over a shoulder. He wagged his brush on the floor, but did not shift his ground. He sat with his front to the fireplace. I waited; and the dog moved his head again into line with his body. He cocked an ear. I heard a slight sound from the chimney; and a small dark cloud, as of soot, puffed from the fireplace. The dog stood up and backed off a few paces. There was more sound of the same scraping character, and more puffs of soot hazed across the fireless hearth and into the dusky room. Lion backed farther and moved aside and submerged himself in heavy shadow. Something moved in the black of the chimney and immediately issued into view in a floating veil of black dust, stooped and staggering. It was old Ruben Glashner. He had both hands raised to his face; and his shoulders jerked to the recoil of partially suppressed sneezes and coughs. I withdrew from the window.

Half an hour later, Ruben joined me where I sat on the top rail of the orchard fence.

"Hev ye saw the yeller dog?" he asked.

I glanced over my shoulder. "There he is, at the kitchen door," I said. "You two seem to be great friends—inseparable."

His reply to that was a string of oaths.

"A remarkable dog," I continued. "Dog?" he cried. "He's a devil!"

"You have a black smudge on your face, Mr. Glashner," I said.

He started, staring at me. He rubbed a gnarled hand over his face.

"And your hands are worse than your face," I continued. "Where have you been? What have you been doing? Cleaning out a stove? Or up a chimney?"

His gaze flickered aside from mine. His Adam's apple went up and down. Presently he stole a slanting glance back at me, slanted and swift.

"I wouldn't wonder—" he began, only to pause and stare at the nearest old apple tree. "I wouldn't wonder—" he repeated; and again his dry voice caught in his throat. His claw-like hands trembled on the top rail. Again he shot an oblique glance at me.

"What wouldn't you wonder?" I asked.

"Maybe ye ain't sich a fool as ye look," he said.

His voice was anxious, reflective, without suggestion of irony.

I laughed. "You must excuse me," I said. "You must work out the answer to that for yourself."

He faced me then and blinked at me. The expression of his one eye and weathered face was grave, anxious and crafty.

"Now looky here, Mr. Swayton, ye be young an' eddicated," he said. His voice was earnest and eager, yet fearful. "Young, an' rich like as not. An' ye'd come here to rob an old man. If I was in yer boots—young an' rich an' eddicated—I'd think shame of meself ."

I glanced aside; for I had made up my mind to play up to the old fellow, in the hope of discovering his game. So I shifted my eyes and held my tongue.

"I'd think shame," he continued. "Rich an' eddicated—an' ye l'arn what he don't know, readin' in old family papers, maybe, an' come back here into the woods to take what don't belong to 'e. Or maybe it ain't so easy to find as ye figgered on? But I knowed what ye was after the minute I see yer face. Nothin' else would fetch ye into Moosemedders to live with the likes of Tom Deblore."

He paused; and I maintained my silence. He chuckled. He laid a hand on my arm. "I'll watch ye," he said. "Ye can't lay a finger on it without me knowin'. Ye know, and ag'in maybe ye don't know, bein' it's so long since it was wrote down—that thar old letter. Things has changed in all them years—trees an' the like, an' even parts of the house, maybe—landmarks. Ye won't find it easy, that's my opinion, not workin' all alone by yerself; an' I'll watch ye every minute—no need to be hostile. Two heads is better'n one. What d'ye say to us two workin' together?"

I laughed. "That would be all right for you, but perhaps I'm not such a fool as I look," I said. "But I'll give you one item of information that may save you a lot of trouble in the future. What you are hunting for isn't up a chimney."

He fairly shook with rage and disappointment, but he turned and walked back to the house without another word. As he neared the kitchen door he picked up a stick of stove-wood and hurled it at Lion. The big dog side-stepped it easily, without loss of dignity.

I left the orchard fence and went in search of Deblore. Guided by the sound of his axe, I soon found him where he was busy chopping out alders and young water-birches from the corner of a pasture. At sight of me he sank his axe in a root and let it stand, pulled on his coat, sat down and lit his pipe.

"What's old Glashner looking for?" I asked.

"Trouble," he answered, and wriggled his whiskers.

"He might find enough of that without going up the chimney," I returned; and I told of what I had seen through the window, and of our conversation at the edge of the old orchard. Tom was furious, and he made no effort to conceal the fact. Also, he was uneasy. He quite obviously tried to divert my attention from his anxiety with the violence of his rage. What he named old Ruben was as strong as anything of the kind I have ever heard—strong enough, one would think, to skin the ears and blister the back of the neck at five hundred yards. He ceased only when his vocabulary failed him.

"What is it that he thinks I know about?" I asked. "His mention of old family papers? What was he driving at?"

"How should I know? The man's mad!"

"You have set the big dog to watch him?"

"Certainly. He might set the house afire. He's dangerous."

"Is there some old legend about a hidden treasure, or anything of that sort? Lunacy is not creative. It requires something to work on, to distort or exaggerate—so I've read somewhere."

"Hidden treasure? Where'd you get that notion, Gidwicke? Captain Kidd was never as far inland as this. No, Glashner's stark crazy, I tell you; and what he imagines he's looking for I haven't the faintest idea. But it's just as likely to be the foot of the rainbow as anything else. But he's dangerous—and I wish he was dead and buried. I've set Lion to watch him. That dog has more brains than most men. And I advise you to keep an eye on him, too, Gidwicke, for if he thinks you know anything about whatever it is he thinks he's hunting for, he'll try to get the knowledge out of you, by hook or by crook."

"I believe you. But I wish you wouldn't call me Gidwicke. Call me Swayton, or Giddy. Gidwicke always makes me feel as if I had been making a fool of myself. But about Lion. The dog is a wonder, I admit, but the old man is crafty. He knows that the dog is watching him. I feel afraid for the dog. He's a good dog; and you have set him a dangerous task."

Tom Deblore's prominent eyes seemed to protrude even farther than was usual with them, and a daunting glow illumined them.

"If he was to harm that dog, I'd kill him like a rat," he said, in a tone that carried conviction. "Like a rat? Like a murderer. I'd walk right up to him and drive a knife into him."

"And be hanged by the neck for murder," I returned. "The thing to do, Cousin Tom, is to get that old fellow out of the house and keep him out. There is surely some way of causing him to leave of his own free will. We must think of a way of getting rid of him without exciting the hostility of your neighbors to violence."

Deblore shook his head. "I've been working on that ever since he came," he replied. "I've let him see that I don't want him here, as you may have noticed, but he's got no self-respect."

"I'll try to think of something," I promised.

My private papers, my only papers, are of but little value even to myself; but they have accumulated with the years; and at the time of which I write they formed quite an important-looking collection in a battered Gladstone bag. The bag was without a key. There were a number of maps of my wanderings in the collection, both trench and ordinary, old notebooks, rolls of platoons and gun-crews long since shot to pieces or demobilized, worthless old letters, and several uncompleted papers on the migration of caribou and kindred subjects. My papers were unimportant, as I have said; but I knew exactly where each one of them was to be found in the collection, and the look and the feel of it.

Five days passed without any notable incident. I plowed, cut out bushes and mended fences. Old Glashner continued to pretend to be deaf to Deblore's insults and to keep an eye on me whenever I was in or near the house, and the dog, Lion, continued to watch old Glashner. Nothing happened.

On the morning of the sixth day, a line from one of my poetic efforts popped into my head even while I was in the act of pulling on my boots. It was a good line and it called for the next—but I had forgotten the next. I drew the old Gladstone bag from beneath the bed and opened it; and I knew that my papers were out of order the moment I set my hand on them. I looked them over swiftly. Not only were they out of order, but three were missing. My memory identified the missing papers in a moment. One was a map by my own hand of a small section of a certain trench system long since crumbled in; another was an old letter from my mother; and the third was a page of "figuring," a vain effort, in the neat hand of an enterprising person whose lost salmon-rod factory had absorbed my modest patrimony. No one of them could possibly be of any interest or value to anybody in the world. For a moment I suspected rats of having carried them off for the lining of a nest; but, upon second thought, realized that rats do not open and close Gladstone bags.

After breakfast, I went afield with Deblore, Sol Bear, the horses and the lesser dogs. I told Deblore of the missing papers.

"Glashner," he said.

"But a glance would have shown him that they were of no use," I protested.

"He can't read," said Tom. "I know. He's taken away all he could lay hands on of my papers. He always returns them. He takes them to some house in the settlement, or somebody meets him halfway—someone who can read. He isn't working alone. He isn't the only fool 'round here—the only fool and knave."

Just then the big dog, Lion, joined us, wagging his fine brush. We patted him, and Duster and Spud leaped about him.

"You see!" said Deblore. "Glashner must be at least a quarter of a mile from the house. Lion never follows him farther than that, but he'll pick him up again before he gets back. And you'll find those papers in your bag again tomorrow morning, and others gone for inspection."

"That's not a bad idea," I said, and chuckled.

"What's that?" asked Tom.

"Something I just now thought of. I'll tell you later—as I go along. Or you'll see for yourself. What are these moosemeadows? Are they lakes—or what?"

"They were lakes, ponds, once upon a time, I believe. Thousands of years ago, it must have been. There are patches of open water in them still, full of pond-lilies. The rest is filled up with mud and moss and hardhack growing thick as hair on a dog's back."

"I'd like to see them. The sooner the better. What about today?"

"They'll be spongy for quite a while yet. You wouldn't see much but desolation and wild ducks. They dry out pretty well during the summer, though there's always water underneath and at the airholes. That's when the moose come out and feed there—walk right over the, mind you, and feed on the lily-roots. But what's the bright idea, Giddy?"

"You'll get it in time—-before Glashner does, I hope. Will you take me to the Moosemeadows now? I want to give them the once-over."

"I wouldn't go that far from the house under the circumstances—Ruben Glashner—for ten thousand dollars. But don't let that stop you, Giddy. It's no trick to find them from here. There are two of them, north and south. Four miles back from the house, due east, will bring you to the western edge of North Meadow. That's just about on my rear line. I edge over a few hundred yards into the hardhack."