Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/429

 422 remarkable the familiarity between him and the other men. These men, though they understood the management of a boat well, as almost all dwellers on the shores of the American lakes do, were not regular sailors, but fellows who could turn their hands to anything, each man boasting himself able to chop and pile three cords of wood between sun up and sun down when he chose—the standard of perfection in a backwoodsman. They were three strong, rough, hardy-looking young fellows, well adapted for the rude labour of pioneering the way to a forest settlement.

As the scow drew near the shore two or three enormous old butternuts became conspicuous.

“Well, boys, what do you think of our new home?” said the new settler. “See what a noble water frontage it has got, and the land that raises such timber as that can’t be very poor.”

“I guess it’s well we brought plenty of axe-heads,” was the reply of one of the young men, “for those trees look like trying their edge.”

“Cutting them into cordwood won’t be no child’s play,” said another, “but it looks a first-rate place, and I reckon I’ll bring my spark here some of these days to set up her fixins.”

“Supposing she’ll come, Luke,” added one of his comrades.

“Yes, sir, she’ll come, and no mistake.”

“I’d leave her where she is, Luke; matrimony’s a risky job at best, and any girl who would tie herself to a chap like you must be a precious bad bargain.”

Rough jokes and loud laughter followed, till the new settler suddenly turning round, called out loudly, “Keefe, Keefe, where’s that boy?”

A boy about nine or ten years old, who had been lying asleep behind the sails, started up and sprang forward, followed by a rough little terrier dog. He was as brown as a beech nut from exposure to sun and wind, but his large, deep, clear, blue eyes looked out through tangled curls of bright chesnut hair with an engaging expression of spirit and frankness, and his broad forehead and square jaw gave an air of character and determination to his face remarkable in one so young

“There’s our new home; Keefe, how do you like it?” asked his father, pointing to the shore.

The boy gazed keenly and scrutinisingly about him, and at last his glance became fixed on the rocky headland, its huge white cliff, and dark pines; his face began to work, as if his mind was struggling with some vague reminiscence, then his brow cleared, his colour heightened, and turning his full bright eyes on his father, he cried eagerly:

“Father! ain’t that big rock like Carrig-bawn behind our house, where mother used to take me to watch for you coming up the glen after you had been away in the mountains? Isn’t it, father?”

Instead of answering, the settler pushed him rudely away, as if the movement had been wrung from him by some sharp pang of agony, but quickly recovering his external composure, he gazed for a few seconds at the cliff with a compressed lip and frowning eye. Whatever were his thoughts, their thread was quickly broken by Luke, who called out—

“I guess that’s the creek in among them cedars, Dillon, ain’t it?”

“That’s the very spot, Luke; put her about now, and she’ll go in right away.”

“I’ll be on shore first!” cried the boy Keefe, who was too well used to rough manners to attach much weight to the rude repulse he had just received from his father.

“Go it, then, boy!” said Dillon.

Keefe dashed into the water, and half-swimming half-wading soon gained the beech, followed by his dog. He was met by an unexpected foe. A large wild-cat was crouched on a branch of one of the butternut-trees, its tail and hair erect, its eyes flashing fire, and its mouth spitting venom; and, springing on the little terrier while he was shaking the water from his rough coat, it fastened in his neck a fierce and tenacious gripe. The brave little terrier made the most desperate efforts to free himself, but every exertion only served to fasten the teeth and claws of the cat more firmly in his throat and sides, and the poor little dog’s fate would soon have been sealed had not Keefe darted forward, and, seizing the cat round the neck with both hands, choked it till its hold relaxed. Its jaws unclosed, and Keefe dashed it on the ground, its power of mischief gone for ever. By this time the scow had been run safe into the creek, whose depth allowed her to come very near the shore, and the men on board had witnessed the spirit Keefe had shown in defence of his favourite.

“That boy of yours will be an honour to you yet, Dillon,” said Luke; “he’s just the chap to make a name for himself some of these days. I’m greatly mistaken if he was born to live all his life in the woods.”

“He couldn’t live in a better place,” said Dillon, gruffly. “There’s liberty in the woods, at any rate, and the wildest Indians in them can’t be greater savages than those I left behind me.”

“Well,” said Luke, “I always thought the Irish no better than savages, but they don’t often like to own it themselves.”

“If a man’s taken out of his house with a rope round his neck, ready to hang him on the next tree—if he escapes by the merest chance, and comes home to find his house in flames, his wife a blackened corpse in the midst, he may well call them savages that did it.”

“Great God, Dillon! who did that?” exclaimed the young men.

“Never mind who did it—it was done to me. Since then I’ve asked for nothing but a quiet life and good liquor, and here’s a keg of the best,” he added, with a sudden transition from gloomy fierceness to a reckless lightness of tone. “Slip down that plank, Zeke, till I roll this keg ashore. Clear out of the way, Keefe! never mind Viper, he’ll do well enough—you’ve saved his life this time, at any rate.”

All was now bustle and excitement, laughter, shouting, singing, and swearing. A fire was kindled in a dry, sheltered nook, near which a bright crystal spring bubbled out of a stony chasm. Dillon tasted the water, and pronounced it excellent, but vowed at the same time that but little of it in its native purity should ever pass his