The Girl From Tim's Place. Charles Clark Munn
entering a new world–the enchanted garden of love. Or like two souls merged into one in impulse, yet in no wise conscious why or for what all-wise purpose.
For them alone the sun shone, birds sang, leaves rustled, flowers bloomed, and the blue lake rippled. For them alone was all this charming chance given, with all that made it entrancing. For them alone was life, love, and lips that met in ecstasy.
Oh, wondrous beatitude! Oh, heaven-born joy! Oh, divine illusion that builds the world anew, and building thus, believes its secret safe!
But Old Cy, wise old observer of all things human, from the natural attraction of two children to the philosophy of content, saw and understood.
Not for worlds would he hint this to Angie or Martin. Full well he knew how soon this “weavin’ o’ the threads o’ affection,” would be frowned upon by them; but he loved children as few men do.
This summer-day budding of romance would end in a few weeks, these two were happy now–let them remain so, and perhaps in Chip’s case it might prove the one best incentive to her own improvement.
And now as he watched them day by day, came another feeling. Homeless all his life so far, and for many years a wanderer, these two had awakened the home-building impulse in his. He could not have a home himself, he could only help them to one in the future, and to that end and purpose he now bent his thought.
The weeks there with Ray had opened Old Cy’s heart to him. Even sooner, and with greater force, had Chip’s helpless condition made the same appeal, and as he watched her wistful eyes and willing ways, in spite of her speech and in spite of her origin, he saw in her the making of a good wife and mother. Her heritage, as he now guessed, was of the worst, her education was yet to be obtained; but for all that, a girl–no, a child–of sixteen who would dare sixty miles of wilderness alone to save herself from a shameful fate, was of the metal and fibre to win, and more than that, deserved the best that life afforded.
How he could at present aid her, he saw not. A few years of help and time to study must be given her, and as Old Cy realized how much must be done for her and how uncertain it was whether Angie would find time, or be willing to do it, then and there he determined to share that duty with her.
It was midsummer when Martin and his party returned to the lake with Chip. In two weeks the new log cabin–a large one, divided into three compartments–was erected and ready for occupation, and so convenient and picturesque a wildwood dwelling was it that a brief description may be tolerated.
All log cabins are much alike–a square enclosure of unhewn logs thatched with saplings and chinked with mud and moss. A low door of boards or split poles is the usual entrance, with one small window for light; its floor may be of small split logs or mother earth, and at best it is a cramped, cheerless hovel.
But Martin’s was a more pretentious creation. Its location, well out on the birch-clad point, back of which stood the hermit’s hut, commanded a view of the lake. A group of tall-stemmed spruce, amid which it stood, gave shade, yet allowed observation. It was of oblong shape, with a wide piazza of white birch poles and roof of same; two four-pane windows to each room gave ample light; a small Franklin stove had been brought for the sitting room, and a cook stove occupied the “lean-to” cook room back of the main cabin. Beds, chairs, and benches were fashioned from the plentiful white birch stems, and floor and doors were of planed boards.
It was but a crude structure, compared to even the humblest of civilized dwellings; and yet with all its fittings conveyed into this wilderness in one bateau, and with only axes, a saw, and hammer for tools, as was the case, it was a marvel.
Working as all the men had done from dawn until dark to complete this cabin, no recreation had been taken by any one except Ray and Chip; and now Martin, a keen sportsman, felt that his turn had come. The trout were rising night and morn all over the lake, partridges so tame that they would scarce fly were as plenty as sparrows, a half-dozen deer could be seen any time along the lake shore–in fact, one had already furnished them venison–and so Martin now anticipated some relaxation and sport.
But Fate willed otherwise.
One of Old Cy’s first and most far-sighted bits of work, after being left with the hermit the previous autumn, had been the erection of an ice-house out of large saplings. It stood at the foot of a high bank on the north of the knoll and close to the lake, and here, out of the sunshine, yet handy to fill, stood his creation. Its double walls of poles were stuffed with moss, its roof chinked with blue clay, a sliding door gave ingress, and even now, with summer almost gone, an ample supply of ice remained in it.
In the division of duties among these campers, Levi usually started the morning fire while Old Cy visited the ice-house for anything needed. One morning after the new cabin was completed, he came here as usual.
A fine string of trout caught by Martin and Ray the day before were hanging in this ice-house, and securing what was needed, Old Cy closed the door and turned away. As usual with him, he glanced up and down the narrow beach to see if a deer had wandered along there that morning, and in doing so he now saw, close to the water’s edge and distinctly outlined in the damp sand, the print of a moccasined foot.
It was of extra large size, and as Old Cy bent over it, he saw it had recently been made. Glancing along toward the head of this cove, he saw more tracks, and two rods away, the sharp furrow of a canoe prow in the sand.
“It’s that pesky half-breed, sure’s a gun,” he muttered, stooping over the track, “fer a good bit o’ his legs was turned up to walk on, and he wore moccasins t’other day.”
Curious now, and somewhat startled, he looked along where the narrow beach curved out and around to the landing, and saw the tracks led that way. Then picking his way so as not to obscure them, he followed until not three rods from the new cabin they left the beach and were plainly visible behind a couple of spruces, in the soft carpet of needles, which was crushed for a small space, where some one had stood.
Returning to camp, Old Cy motioned to Levi and Martin. All three returned to the ice-house, looked where the canoe had cut its furrow, took up the trail to its ending beside the two trees, and then glanced into one another’s eyes with serious, sobered, troubled faces.
And well they might; for the evening previous they had all been grouped upon the piazza of this new cabin until late, while scarce three rods away a spying enemy, presumably this half-breed, had stood and watched them.
CHAPTER VII
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