Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/271

Rh time and again, and especially after young Jim began growing up and Neal's girl was growing up, too; and a year or so ago, when he began seeing that Leigh was caring for young Jim more than for anyone else, in spite of what he said, Neal hated the boy worse. He forbade him his house; and he did a good many other things against him, and the reason for all of it even I couldn't make out until this last hunt."

The old sportsman stood still now, picked up his fur cap and thoughtfully began drawing on his big gloves.

"We had gone up this year, as of course you know from the papers, into the Ontario reserve, just north of the Temagami region, for deer and moose. The season is good there, but short, closing the middle of November. Then we were going to cross into Quebec where the season stays till January. Young Jim Tyler wasn't with us, for this hunt was a sort of exclusive fixture just for the old ones, Neal and I, Findlay and Chapin. But this time, the second day in camp, young Jim Tyler comes running in upon us—or rather, in on me, for I was the only one in camp that day, laid up with a bad ankle. He had his gun with him, one of our new Sheppard-Tylers which we were all trying out for the first time this year. But he hadn't followed us for moose. He'd come to see Neal. For the people that had bought his father's old house had been tearing it down to make room for a business building, and they'd found some papers between the floors which they'd given to young Jim, and that was what sent him after us, hot after Neal. He showed them to me; and I understood.