The Red Pirogue/Chapter 7

Ben O'Dell and Jim McAllister reached home soon after dinner time next day, canoeless, baggageless and empty but very well pleased with themselves. They found Mrs. O'Dell and little Marion Sherwood drying the last spoon.

Mrs. O'Dell gave the returned voyagers just one look before replacing the chicken stew on the stove to reheat and the baked pudding in the oven. Then she looked again and welcomed them affectionately.

“I hope you had a good time,” she said. “We didn't expect you home so soon. Why didn't you bring your blankets and things up with you?”

“We didn't fetch them home with us,” said Uncle Jim. “Left them a long ways upriver, Flora. There wasn't much to fetch back—a few old blankets and a teakettle and a mite of grub. But we had a good time. For a little while there I was having more fun than I've had in twenty years, thanks to Ben.”

“I ran Big Rapids, mother,” said Ben, with a mixed expression of face and voice. “I was paddling stern, you know, and we were in a hurry, and I let her go. The water was at its lowest and worst, but we got through—all but.”

“Sure we got through!” exclaimed McAllister. “It was the prettiest bit of work I ever saw! We were clean through, and we'd of been home earlier, blankets an' all, if Ben's paddle hadn't bust.”

“Jim McAllister! You let Ben shoot Big Rapids at low water?—that boy? What were you thinking of, Jim?”

“Let nothing, Flora! He was aft, because he's a bigger man than I am and a better one—though a mite reckless, I must say. I warned him, but not extra strong. And he did it! If there's another man on the river could do it any better, show him to me!”

“You are old enough to have more sense, Jim. And if you did it, where's your dunnage? Why did you leave it all upriver?”

“Did you run a canoe through those rapids, Ben?” asked the little Sherwood girl; “Right down those rapids between here and French River—those rapids all full of rocks and black waves and whirlpools?”

“Yes—just about,” answered Ben.

“You are very strong and courageous,” she said.

Ben's blush deepened and spread.

“Oh, it wasn't much. Nothing like as bad as it looks. And we didn't quite make it, anyhow. My paddle broke off clean just above the blade just before we struck smooth water—and so we struck something else instead!”

“You are very courageous. Dad wouldn't do it, even in our big pirogue. We let it through on a rope.”

“And he did right,” said Uncle Jim. “Yer dad showed his sense that time. I ain't blaming Ben, you understand, for I don't. It was different with Ben. He didn't have any little girl in the canoe with him, but only a tough old uncle who was seasoned to falling into white water and black before Ben here was ever born. I enjoyed it. Ben was right, sure—but Dick Sherwood was righter, Marion. He came down those rapids with you just the way any other real good father would of done it.”

The little girl said nothing to that, but she went over and stood close to Uncle Jim and held his hand. Flora O'Dell grasped her son's big right hand in both of hers. Her blue eyes filmed with tears.

“Ben, you upset in Big Rapids?” she whispered faintly.

“We were clear through, mother, and upset into the pool,” he said.

“I want you to be brave,” she continued, her voice very low in his ear. “But I want you to remember, dear, that you are the only O'Dell on this river now—on this earth—and that life would be very terrible for me without—an O'Dell.”

Ben was deeply touched. Pity and pride both pierced his young heart. Now he fully realized for the first time the wonder and beauty of his mother, of the thing that brightened and softened in her brave eyes, her love, her loneliness, her love for him. And now she called him an O'Dell; and he knew that she thought of all O'Dells as men possessed of the qualities of his heroic father. His heart glowed with pride.

“I'll remember, dear—but we were really in a hurry, mother,” he answered.

For fully ten minutes he felt twenty years older than his age.

After Ben and Uncle Jim had eaten and the little girl had gone out to the orchard with a book Ben told his mother all they had learned from old Noel Sabattis and of the clew he had discovered to the identity of Balenger's murderer. He showed her the pen and comb. She felt remorse for having doubted poor Sherwood's innocence.

“Then he must be crazy—and that is almost as unfortunate,” she said. “It is almost as bad for both of them.”

“I don't believe he's really insane,” said Ben. “He acted like it part of the time, by Noel's account, but not all the time. He was sane enough when he dropped the pirogue down the rapids on a rope instead of trying to run them. His nerves are bad and I guess he's sick. What Noel said sounded to me as if he was sick with fever—and he's afraid—afraid of all sorts of things. But I guess he'd soon be all right if he knew he was safe from the law and was decently treated. He hasn't got Balenger to worry about now. Was any more food taken while we were away, mother?”

“You still think it is Richard Sherwood who takes the food?” she asked nervously.

“I think so more than ever now, since Noel told us about him. He hadn't the nerve to go far away from his daughter.”

“I wouldn't wonder if Ben's right,” said McAllister.

“I hope he isn't!” exclaimed Mrs. O'Dell in a distressed voice. “A cruel thing happened last night and it was my fault. I—I told Ian about the thefts when he asked me why I was afraid to sleep without a man in the house. I didn't want him to think me just a—an unreasoning coward. And he set a trap in the bread box last night, a steel fox trap. I didn't know anything about it. I would have taken it away if I had known.”

“A trap!” cried Ben, his face flushing and then swiftly paling and his eyes darkling. “A trap in this house! To hurt some one in need of bread! If he wasn't your brother I'd—I'd”

“Same here!” muttered Uncle Jim.

“I didn't know until this morning,” continued Mrs. O'Dell, glancing from her son to her brother with horrified eyes. “I found it outside, with an ax lying beside it. He had pried it open with the ax. There was blood on it. I—I went over to see Ian then—he'd gone home early—and I saw him and told him-what—how I felt. I think he understood—but that won't help the—the person who was hurt.”

She was on the verge of tears but Ben comforted her.

Ben and Jim McAllister spent the remainder of the afternoon in searching the woods for the poor fellow who had put his hand into the trap. Ben was sure that the person whom they sought was Sherwood and Uncle Jim agreed with him; but whoever the unfortunate thief might be, Ben felt that he was entitled to apologies and surgical aid and an explanation. These things were due to the sufferer and also to the good name of O'Dell. In setting a trap to catch a hungry thief in the O'Dell house Ian McAllister had flouted a great tradition of kindness and smudged the honor of an honorable family.

The woods were wide, the ground was dry and showed no tracks, the underbrush was thick. Their search was in vain. They shouted words of encouragement a score of times, at the top of their voices, but received no reply.

The three talked late that night after the little girl had gone to bed. Ben was determined to follow up the clew which he had obtained on French River immediately and personally, to save the poor fellow who had once been his father's friend from the blundering of the law and from destruction by his own fears. And not entirely for the sake of the old friendship, perhaps. There was their guest to consider, the brave child upstairs. His mother and uncle saw the justice of his reasoning, but without enthusiasm. His mother felt uneasy for him, afraid to have him go to a big city on such a mission. He had been away from home for months at a time during the past six or seven years, but that had been very different. He had been at school in a quiet town on the river, among people she knew. And she feared that his efforts in Sherwood's behalf would interrupt his education. She said very little of all this, however, for she knew that in this matter her son's vision was clearer and braver and less selfish than her own. Uncle Jim felt no anxiety concerning Ben, for his faith in that youth had grown mightily of late, but he wanted to know what was to become of the harvest.

It was decided that a good Indian or two should be hired to help McAllister with the harvesting of the oats, barley and buck wheat, and that Ben should go to Woodstock next day and discuss Richard Sherwood's unhappy situation with Judge Smith and return to O'Dell's Point for a night at least before going farther. Mrs. O'Dell and Uncle Jim would do everything they could to find Sherwood and reassure him. All three were convinced by now-that Sherwood and the unfortunate thief were one, in spite of the fact that the red dogs had behaved as if the thief were an old and trusted friend.

Ben set out for Woodstock after an early breakfast. The long drive was uneventful. The road was in excellent condition for a road of its kind, the mare was the best of her kind on the upper river, the sun shone and the miles rolled steadily and peacefully back under the rubber tires of the light buggy.

Ben stabled the mare at the Aberdeen House stables, saw her rubbed dry and watered and fed, then sat down to his own dinner. He was well along with his meal when Deputy Sheriff Brown walked into the hotel dining room, turned around twice as a dog does before it lies down, then advanced upon Ben's table. Ben felt slightly embarrassed. He saw that Mr. Brown's face still showed something of the effects of their last meeting. The deputy sheriff held out his hand and Ben arose and took it.

“I'll eat here too, if you don't mind,” said Mr. Brown.

Ben was relieved to see that, despite the faint discoloration around the other's eyes, the expression of the eyes was friendly.

“You gave me a good one, Ben,” said the arm of the law, speaking between spoonfuls of soup. “I've been thinkin' it over ever since and the more I think on it the clearer I see why you did it. I was danged mad for a spell, but I ain't mad now. Yer a smart lad, Ben, if you'll excuse me for sayin' so; and jist pig-headed enough to be steady and dependable, if you don't mind me expressin' it that way.”

“It is very kind of you to think so,” replied Ben.

“Oh, I'm like that. No meanness in Dave Brown. If he's wrong he's willin' to admit it once he's been shown it—that's me! I guess you were right that time in yer barn, Ben. I know darn well that you acted as if right was on yer side, anyhow.”

Ben looked him steadily but politely in the eye for several seconds, then leaned forward halfway across the narrow table.

“I came down to-day to tell something important to Judge Smith and perhaps to ask his advice about it, but I think I'll tell it to you instead,” he said in guarded tones.

The deputy sheriff's eyes brightened and he too leaned forward.

“Something about French River?” he whispered.

“You've guessed it, Mr. Brown. Uncle Jim and I went up there and saw old Noel Sabattis and heard all he had to tell. Among other things, we heard about that stranger Noel saw once a few days before Louis Balenger showed up again.”

“There was nothin' to that, Ben. The old man said he didn't see hair nor track of him after that one minute. It wasn't even a good lie. It was jist the commencement of one—an' then Noel got wise to the fac' that he couldn't git it across even if he took the trouble to invent it.”

Ben smiled and sat back. The waitress was at his elbow. He ordered peach pie with cream and coffee. Mr. Brown ordered apple pie with cheese on the side and tea, and the waitress retired. Again Ben leaned forward.

“That wasn't a lie, and that stranger shot Balenger,” he said.

“Shoot. I'm listenin'.”

“He shot him from the top of the bank on the other side of the river, upstream, exactly two hundred and eighty-six yards away.”

“Was yours apple or mince?” asked the waitress, suddenly reappearing with both arms full of pieces of pie and brimming cups.

The deputy sheriff turned the face of the law on her.

“Leave it an' beat it an' don't come back to-day!” he cried.

“He came from the city of Quebec,” continued Ben, “and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the police there know something about him.”

Mr. Brown looked at once suspicious and impressed.

“It wouldn't surprise you much to learn anything, Ben,” he said. “Have you got him tied under yer chair? Introduce me, will you?”

Ben laughed good-naturedly, produced the pen, the comb and the broken clip and told all that he knew about them, including old Noel's searching description of the stranger's appearance.

“Ben, I hand it to you,” said the deputy sheriff. “I give you best—for the second time. Yer smart and yer steady—and yer lucky! What's yer next move?”

“What would you suggest, Mr. Brown?”

“Me suggest? That's polite of you, Ben, but I'd sooner listen to you. I got a high opinion of the way you work yer brains—and yer luck, if you don't object to me mentionin' yer luck.”

“I was thinking that you might make a special constable of me or if I'm too young for that you might engage me as a private detective, and we'll go to Quebec and find out what the chief of police there knows about an acquaintance of Louis Balenger's with three gold teeth and a scar just below his right ear.”

“Exactly what I was goin' to suggest!” exclaimed Mr. Brown. “Shake on it! I'll fix it—an' the sooner the quicker. What about the day after to-morrow? If you get here as early as you did to-day we can take the two-o'clock train.”

Ben spent hours of the next day searching in the upland woods and the island thickets for Richard Sherwood. The incident of the trap had increased his pity for and his sense of responsibility toward the broken fugitive. Again his efforts were unsuccessful. He found nothing—no ashes of a screened fire, no makeshift shelter, no furtive shape vanishing in the underbrush. He left a message in the woods and down among the willows, repeated on half a dozen pages torn from his notebook and impaled on twigs. Here is the message:

He told his mother and Uncle Jim what he had done and they approved of it. He and Uncle Jim drove away next morning; and he and the deputy sheriff caught the two-o'clock train for Quebec.

O'Dell's Point experienced busier days than usual after Ben O'Dell's departure on the trail of the marksman from Quebec. The harvest was heavy, and Jim McAllister was the busiest man on the river. By the application of a few plugs of tobacco as advances on wages he procured the services of Sol Bear and Gabe Sacobie, two good Indians. They were good Indians, honest and well-intentioned and hardy, but they were not good farm hands. If McAllister had hired them to take him to the head of the river they would have toiled early and late, bent paddles and poles and backs, made the portages at a jog trot and grinned at fatigue. That would have been an engagement worthy of a Maliseet's serious consideration and effort. But the harvesting of oats and barley was quite a different matter. Sol and Gabe could see nothing in the laborious pursuit of the dull oats but the wages. Squaws' work, this. So Uncle Jim had to keep right at their heels and elbows to keep them going.

Jim McAllister kept the sad case of Sherwood in his mind. After the day's work and the milking and feeding, when the Maliseets were smoking by the woodshed door and his sister and little Marion were sewing and reading in the sitting room, he wandered abroad with a stable lantern. He showed his light in the high pastures, along brush fences and through the fringes of the forest. Sometimes he whistled. Sometimes he shouted the name of the man who had tried to teach him to shoot duck and snipe on the wing half a lifetime ago. He did these things five nights running but without any perceptible result. And no food had been missed since the night the trap had been set and sprung. It looked to Jim as if his brother's cruel and stupid act had driven Sherwood away, had shattered his last thread of courage, dispelled the last glimmer of his sense of self-preservation and his last ray of hope.

Jim McAllister believed that misfortune, grief and fear had been too much for Dick Sherwood's sanity even at the time of Balenger's death. He believed him to have been temporarily insane even then—partially and temporarily insane. His caution at Big Rapids showed that he had then possessed at least a glimmer of reasoning power and nervous control. Friendship, companionship, assurance of his own and Marion's safety might have saved him then, Jim reflected. But now Jim couldn't see any hope for him. The trap had finished what Louis Balenger's cruelty and Julie's death had begun. Sherwood had undoubtedly taken to the limitless wilderness behind O'Dell's Point, sick, hungry, wounded and crazy with fear. He was probably dead by now.

Sunday came, a day of rest from hauling oats and barley. Sol and Gabe and Gabe's squaw breakfasted in the kitchen. Mrs. O'Dell and Uncle Jim and the little Sherwood girl breakfasted in the dining room. Uncle Jim was at his third cup of coffee and already dipping into a pocket for his pipe when his sister startled him by an exclamation.

“Hark! Who's that?”

He pricked up his ears.

“It's only the Injuns talking, Flora,” he said.

“No, I heard a strange voice.”

The door between the kitchen and dining room opened and old Noel Sabattis entered. He closed the door behind him with a backward kick.

“How do,” he said.

His shapeless hat of weather-beaten felt was on his head, a dark pipe with a rank aroma protruded from his mouth, he held a paddle in one hand and an ancient double-barreled duck gun, a muzzle loader, in the other. Marion Sherwood stared at him wide-eyed for a moment. Then she shot from her chair, flew to him and embraced him.

“Mind yerself!” he exclaimed. “Look out for dat gun!”

“Why have you come, Noel?” she cried, pulling at his belt. “Why didn't you come to see me before? Has dad come home?”

“Nope, not yet. Two-t'ree day he come. How you feel, hey?”

“I am very well, thank you,” she replied, “but worried about dad—and I've missed you. Now you must take off your hat and speak to Mrs. O'Dell, who is very kind.”

McAllister and the little girl relieved the old Maliseet of his gun, paddle and hat and Mrs. O'Dell brought a chair to the table for him and fetched more eggs and bacon from the kitchen.

Noel inquired about Sherwood at the first opportunity.

“He's gone, I guess,” said Jim. “I'm afraid he's done for. One night when Ben and I were away, the last night we were away, a darned nasty thing happened. My brother Ian McAllister set a fox trap in the pantry. Whoever has been taking the food got a hand into it and had to pry himself clear of the jaws with an ax—and nothing's been taken since. It was dirty work! If Sherwood was the man, then I guess there's no chance of ever finding him—not alive, anyhow. I've hunted for him, night and day, but ain't seen track nor hair of him. He's kept right on running till he dropped, I guess. That would jist about finish him, that trap. He'd think the whole world was against him for sure.”

“Yer brodder do dat, hey?” cried old Noel, angry and distressed. “You got one fool for brodder, hey? Go trappin' on de pantry for to catch dat poor hungry feller Sherwood! You better keep 'im 'way from me, Ma-callister; or maybe he don't last long!”

“He thought it was a local thief, I guess,” answered Jim.

“Maybe Sherwood don't run far,” said Noel. “But he lay mighty low. You hunt 'im wid dem red huntin' dogs, hey?”

“No, I didn't take the dogs hr with me. They're bird dogs. They don't follow deer tracks nor man tracks. The only scent they heed is partridge and snipe and woodcock.”

Noel shook his head.

“No dog ain't dat much of a fool,” he said.