Sir Charles G. D. Roberts

“ I won't give up all I've worked for and schemed for and sold my very soul for, just because at last I've met a real man. Oh, I'd soon spoil your life, no matter how much you love me. You'd soon find how cruel, and hard, and selfish I am. An' I'd ruin my own life, too. Do you think I could settle down to spend my life in the backwoods? Do you think I have no dreams beyond the spruce woods of Nipsiwaska County? Do you think you could imprison me in Brine's Rip? I'd either kill your brave, clean soul, Tug Blackstock, or I'd kill myself! ”

“ He scrutinized with appraising care a big brown rabbit which came bounding in a leisurely fashion down the tote-road and sat up on its hindquarters near the stump, staring about with its mild, bulging eyes, and waving its long ears this way and that, to question every minutest wilderness sound; and he decided that the rabbit, for all its bulk and apparent vigour of limb, would not be a dangerous opponent. In fact, he thought of hopping down from his perch and putting the big innocent to flight, just to compensate himself for having had to flee from the fox. ”

“ The clamour of the crowd was hushed as Blackstock put a few questions, terse and pertinent, to the excited boy. The people of Nipsiwaska County in general had the profoundest confidence in their Deputy Sheriff. They believed that his shrewd brain and keen eye could find a clue to the most baffling of mysteries. Just now, however, his face was like a mask of marble, and his eyes, sunk back into his head, were like points of steel. The murdered man had been one of his best friends, a comrade and helper in many a hard enterprise. ”

“ Blackstock, with Jackson close behind him and Jim pulling eagerly on the leash, was now within twenty yards of the hut door, but hidden behind a thick young fir tree. He breathed the call of the horned owl—a mellow, musical call, which nevertheless brings terror to all the small creatures of the wilderness—and then, after a pause, repeated it softly.
He waited for a couple of minutes motionless. His keen ears caught the snapping of a twig close behind the hut.
"Big Andy's big feet that time," he muttered to himself. "That boy'll never be much good on the trail." ”

“ He had not contemplated the possibility of any beast, even bear or bull-moose, daring to face him, because he knew that, except in mating-time, the boldest of them would give a man wide berth. But, as he now reflected, here on this narrow ledge even a buck or a lynx would become dangerous, finding itself suddenly at bay.
The steepness of the rise in the trail at this point almost drove Peddler to helping himself with his hands. As he neared the next turn, he was surprised to note, far out to his right, a soaring eagle, perhaps a hundred feet below him. ”

“ For some ten miles above the long, white, furrowed race of Brine's Rip, where Blue Forks Brook flows in, the main stream of the Ottanoonsis is a succession of mad rapids and toothed ledges and treacherous, channel-splitting shoals. These ten miles are a trial of nerve and water-craft for the best canoists on the river. In the spring, when the river was in freshet and the freed logs were racing, battering, and jamming, the whole reach was such a death-trap for the stream-drivers that it had come to be known as Dead Man's Run. ”

“ Utterly bewildered at this incomprehensible outburst, Blackstock could only stammer lamely:
"But—I thought—ye kind o' liked Brine's Rip."
"Like it!" The uttermost of scorn was in her voice. "I hate, hate, hate it! I just live to get out into the great world, where I feel that I belong. But I must have money first. And I'm going to study, and I'm going to make myself somebody. I wasn't born for this." And she waved her hand with a sweep that took in all the backwoods world. ”

“ The rabbit, writhing out from under the struggle, went leaping off into cover, bleeding copiously, but carrying no fatal hurt. He had recovered his wits, and had no idle curiosity as to how the battle between his enemies would turn out.
The hawk, for all her great strength and the crushing superiority of her weapons, had a serious disadvantage of position. The weasel, maintaining his deadly grip and working inwards like a bull-dog, had hunched up his lithe little body so that she could not reach it with her talons. ”

“ His mighty forearm fended the stroke so that it hissed down harmlessly past his head and clattered on the stone floor of the trail. At the same instant, before the bull could recover himself for another such pile-driving blow, the bear, who had been gathered up like a coiled spring, elongated his body with all the force of his gigantic hindquarters, thrusting himself irresistibly between his adversary and the face of the rock, and heaving outwards. ”

“ Down through the last race of the rapids came a canoe paddle, and began revolving slowly in the eddies. Blackstock pointed it out to Jim, and sent him in after it. The dog swam for it gaily, grabbed it by the top so that it could trail at his side, and brought it to his master's feet. It was a good paddle, of clean bird's-eye maple and Melicite pattern, and Tug Blackstock wondered who could have been so careless as to lose it. Carelessness is a vice regarded with small leniency in the backwoods. ”

“ It was hard to keep his mind off cats, and squirrels, the worrying of old boots, and other doggish frivolities. Hence, at times, some painful misunderstandings between teacher and pupil. In the main, however, the education of Jim progressed to a marvel.
They were a pair, indeed, to strike the most stolid imagination, let alone the sensitive, brooding, watchful imagination of the backwoods. Tug Blackstock was a tall, spare figure of a man, narrow of hip, deep of chest, with something of a stoop to his mighty shoulders, and his head thrust forward as if in ceaseless scrutiny of the unseen. ”

“ But Mary Farrell knew how to manage children and dogs as well as men. She ignored both Jim and Woolly Billy. She did it quite pointedly, yet with a gracious politeness that left no room for resentment. Neither the child nor the dog was accustomed to being ignored. Before long Mary's amiable indifference began to make them feel as if they were being left out in the cold. ”

“ A few seconds later a slim little light-brownish creature, with short legs, long, sinuous body, short, triangular head, and cruel eyes that glowed like fire, came into view, following hard upon the rabbit's trail. It was nothing like half the rabbit's size, but the interested watcher on the branch overhead understood at once the rabbit's terror. He had never seen a weasel before, but he knew that the sinuous little beast with the eyes of death would be as dangerous almost as the fox. ”

“ The sound carried far through the still iridescent spaces of the wilderness. It reached the ears of a foraging fox, who was tiptoeing with dainty care over the slippery crust. He turned hopefully to investigate, trusting to get a needed breakfast out of some fellow-marauder's difficulties. At the edge of the glade he paused, peering through a bush of crystal fire to size up the situation before committing himself to the venture.
Desperately preoccupied though she was, the hawk's all-seeing eyes detected the red outlines of the fox through the bush. ”

“ I want ye!"
Instead of obeying, Black Dan dashed up the bank, running like a deer, and vanished into the bushes.
"I knew it! That's the skunk, boys. Go home, you Billy!" cried Blackstock, and started after the fugitive. The rest followed close on his heels. But Jackson cried:
"Ye'd better call off Jim quick. Dan's got a gun on him."
The Deputy gave a shrill whistle, and Jim, who was just vanishing into the bush, stopped short. At the same instant a shot rang out from the bushes, and the dog dropped in his tracks with a howl of anguish.
Blackstock's lean jaws set themselves like iron. ”

“ For the creatures of the wild seldom fight for fighting's sake. They fight for food, or, in the mating season, they fight in order that the best and strongest may carry off the prizes. But mere purposeless risk and slaughter they instinctively strive to avoid. The airy ledge across Bald Face was not a place where the boldest of the wild kindred—the bear or the bull-moose, to say nothing of lesser champions—would wilfully invite the doubtful combat. ”

“ All I have is at your feet, Mary, an' I could make' it more in time. But I'm not a big enough man for you. I'm all yours—an' always will be—but I can't make myself no more than I am."
"Yes, you could, Tug Blackstock," she cried. "Real men are scarce, in the great world and everywhere. You could make yourself a master anywhere—if only you would tear yourself loose from here." ”

“ The great bird was already in the air, carrying her deadly burden with her. The fox leapt straight upwards, hoping to pull her down, but his clashing jaws just failed to reach her talons. Labouring heavily in her flight, she made off, striving to gain a tree-top, where she might perch and once more give her attention to the gnawing torment which clung beneath her wing.
The fox, being wise, and seeing that the hawk was in extremest straits, ran on beneath her as she flew, gazing upwards expectantly. ”

“ The hawk had never before seen a bird like the bright figure standing on the stump, and he paused in his flight, hanging for a moment on motionless wing to scrutinize the strange apparition. But he was hungry, and he considered himself more than a match for anything in feathers except the eagle, the goshawk, and the great horned owl. His hesitation was but for a second, and, with a sudden mighty thrust of his wide wings, he swooped down upon this novel victim.
The big hawk was accustomed to seeing every quarry he stooped at cower paralysed with terror or scurry for shelter in wild panic. ”

“ As Tug Blackstock had foreseen, the trail of the fugitive was easily picked up. Confident in his powers as a runaway, Black Dan's sole object, at first, had been to gain as much lead as possible over the expected pursuit, and he had run straight ahead, leaving a trail which any one of Blackstock's posse—with the exception, perhaps, of Big Andy—could have followed with almost the speed and precision of the Deputy himself. ”

“ Half the pool went up in the colossal eruption of blown flame and steam and smoke. Even here on his perch the eagle found himself spattered and drenched. When the shrunken surface of the pool had closed again over the awful vortex, and the smoke had drifted off to join itself to the dark cloud which hung over the city, the little flock of ducks and coot was nowhere to be seen. It simply was not. But a bleeding fragment of flesh, with some purple-and-chestnut feathers clinging to it, lay upon the bottom of the cage. This morsel caught the eagle's eye. ”

“ The black-whiskered stranger had been overtaken by his pursuers about ten miles beyond Brine's Rip, sleeping away the heat of the day under a spreading birch tree a few paces off the road. He was sleeping soundly—too soundly indeed, as thought the experienced constable, for a man with murder on his soul. ”

“ The little one, unable any longer to endure the dreadful sight, backed to the extreme edge of the sand, covered his face with his hands, and fell to whimpering piteously, an unceasing, hopeless, monotonous little cry, as vague and inarticulate as the wind.
The bear, convinced at length that the sluice just here was too strong for to cross, drew back to the shore reluctantly, It moved slowly up-stream some forty or fifty yards, looking for a feasible crossing. ”

“ Woolly Billy withdrew the stick and thought for a moment. He reasoned that a thing that jingled was not at all likely to bite. He dropped the stick and cautiously inserted his hand to the full length of his little arm. His fingers grasped something which felt more or less familiar, and he drew forth a bank-note and several silver coins.
Woolly Billy's eyes grew very round and large as he stared at his handful. He was sure that money did not grow in hollow trees. Tug Blackstock kept his money in an old black wallet. ”

“ As he approached, Jim suddenly went bounding on ahead with a yelp of greeting. He fawned upon a small, shadowy figure which was seated on a pile of deals close to the water's edge. Tug Blackstock hurried up.
"You here, Mary, all alone, at this time o' night!" he exclaimed.
"I come here often," answered Mary, making room for him to sit beside her.
"I wish I'd known it sooner," muttered the Deputy.
"I like to listen to the rapids, and catch glimpses of the water slipping away blindly in the dark," said Mary. "It helps one not to think," she added with a faint catch in her voice. ”

“ And the piteous whimpering of the little figure that cowered, with hidden face upon the sand spit, gradually died away. That white fleece of silken locks, dried in the sun and blown by the warm breeze, stood out once more in its radiance on the lonely little slumbering head.
III
Tug Blackstock sat on a log, smoking and musing, on the shore of that wide, eddying pool, full of slow swirls and spent foam clusters, in which the tumbling riot of Brine's Rip came to a rest. From the mills behind him screeched the untiring saws. Outstretched at his feet lay Jim, indolently snapping at flies. ”

“ He felt that the smashed car, so lately his prison, was a foe which he had vanquished by his own unaided prowess. His pride was not altogether unnatural.
The place where he stood, preening the red glory of his plumage, was in the very heart of the wilderness. The only human habitation within a dozen miles in either direction was a section-man's shanty, guarding a siding and a rusty water tank. The woods—mostly spruce in that region, with patches of birch and poplar—had been gone over by the lumbermen some five years before, and still showed the ravages of the insatiable axe. ”

“ As the fish-hawk is one of the most estimable of all the wilderness folk, both brave and inoffensive, troubling no one except the fat and lazy fish that swarmed in the lake below, and as he is protected by a superstition of the backwoodsmen, who say it brings ill-luck to disturb the domestic arrangements of a fish-hawk, the big nest, conspicuous for miles about, was never disturbed by even the most amiable curiosity. ”

“ He wanted time to think.
"We kin all make mistakes," he announced sententiously. "Come here, Jim. Seek 'im, boy, seek 'im." And he waved his hand at large.
Jim bounced off with a joyous yelp, and began quartering the ground, hither and thither, all about the tree. Big Andy, at a complete loss for words, stood staring from one to another with eyes of indignant and incredulous reproach.
Suddenly a yelp of triumph was heard in the bushes, a little way down towards the lake, and Jim came racing back with a dark magenta article in his mouth. ”