By the time the strange procession had got back to the scene of the tragedy it had been swelled by half the population of the village. At Blackstock’s request, Zeb Smith, the proprietor of the store, who was also a magistrate, swore in a score of special constables to keep back the crowd while awaiting the arrival of the coroner. Under the magistrate’s orders – which satisfied Blackstock’s demand for strict formality of procedure – the prisoner was searched, and could not refrain from showing a childish triumph when nothing was found upon him.
Passing from abject terror to a ridiculous over-confidence, he with difficulty restrained himself from seizing the opportunity to harangue the crowd on the merits of “Mother, Home, and Heaven.” His face was wreathed in fatuous smiles as he saw the precious book snatched from its case and passed around mockingly from hand to hand. He certainly did not look like a murderer, and several of the crowd, including Stephens, the game-warden, began to wonder if they had not been barking up the wrong tree.
“I’ve got the idee,” remarked Stephens, “it’d take a baker’s dozen o’ that chap to do in Jake Sanderson that way. The skate as killed Jake was some man, anyways.”
“I’d like to know,” sneered Hawker, “how ye’re going to account for that piece o’ paper, the book-agent’s paper, ’at Tug Blackstock found there under the body.”
“Aw, shucks!” answered the game-warden, “that’s easy. He’s been a-sowin’ ’em round the country so’s anybody could git hold of ’em, same’s you er me, Sam!”
This harmless, if ill-timed pleasantry appeared to Hawker, in his excitement, a wanton insult. His lean face went black as thunder, and his lips worked with some savage retort that would not out. But at that instant came a strange diversion. The dog Jim, who under Blackstock’s direction had been sniffing long and minutely at the clothes of the murdered man, at the rifled leather bag, and at the ground all about, came suddenly up to Hawker and stood staring at him with a deep, menacing growl, while the thick hair rose stiffly along his back.
For a moment there was dead silence save for that strange accusing growl. Hawker’s face went white to the lips. Then, in a blaze of fury he yelled:
“Git out o’ that! I’ll teach ye to come showin’ yer teeth at me!” And he launched a savage kick at the animal.
“JIM!! Come here!” rapped out the command of Tug Blackstock, sharp as a rifle shot. And Jim, who had eluded the kick, trotted back, still growling, to his master.
“Whatever ye been doin’ to Jim, Sam?” demanded one of the mill hands. “I ain’t never seen him act like that afore.”
“He’s always had a grudge agin me,” panted Hawker, “coz I had to give him a lickin’ once.”
“Now ye’re lyin’, Sam Hawker,” said Blackstock quietly. “Ye know right well as how you an’ Jim were good friends only yesterday at the store, where I saw ye feedin’ him. An’ I don’t think likely ye’ve ever given Jim a lickin’. It don’t sound probable.”
“Seems to me there’s a lot of us has gone a bit off their nut over this thing, an’ not much wonder, neither,” commented the game-warden. “Looks like Sam Hawker has gone plumb crazy. An’ now there’s Jim, the sensiblest dog in the world, with lots more brains than most men-kind, foolin’ away his time like a year-old pup a-tryin’ to dig out a darn old woodchuck hole.”
Such, in fact, seemed to be Jim’s object. He was digging furiously with both forepaws beneath the big white stone on the opposite side of the pool.
“He’s bit me. I’ll kill him,” screamed Hawker, his face distorted and foam at the corners of his lips. He plucked his hunting-knife from its sheath, and leapt forward wildly, with the evident intention of darting around the pool and knifing the dog.
But Blackstock, who had been watching him intently, was too quick for him.
“No, ye don’t, Sam!” he snapped, catching him by the wrist with such a wrench that the bright blade fell to the ground. With a scream, Hawker struck at his face, but Blackstock parried the blow, tripped him neatly, and fell on him.
“Hold him fast, boys,” he ordered. “Seems like he’s gone mad. Don’t let him hurt himself.”
In five seconds the raving man was trussed up helpless as a chicken, his hands tied behind his back, his legs lashed together at the knees, so that he could neither run nor kick. Then he was lifted to his feet, and held thus, inexorably but with commiseration.
“Sorry to be rough with ye, Sam,” said one of the constables, “but ye’ve gone crazy as a bed-bug.”
“Never knowed Sam was such a friend o’ Jake’s!” muttered another, with deepest pity.
But Blackstock stood close beside the body of the murdered man, and watched with a face of granite the efforts of Jim to dig under the big white stone. His absorption in such an apparently frivolous matter attracted the notice of the crowd. A hush fell upon them all, broken only by the hoarse, half-smothered ravings of Sam Hawker.
“’Tain’t no woodchuck Jim’s diggin’ for, you see!” muttered one of the constables to the puzzled Stephens.
“Tug don’t seem to think so, neither,” agreed Stephens.
“Angus,” said Blackstock in a low, strained voice to the constable who had just spoken, “would ye mind stepping round an’ givin’ Jim a lift with that there stone!”
The constable hastened to obey. As he approached, Jim looked up, his face covered thickly with earth, wagged his tail in greeting, then fell to work again with redoubled energy.
The constable set both hands under the stone, and with a huge heave turned it over. With a yelp of delight Jim plunged his head into the hole, grabbed something in his mouth, and tore around the pool with it. The something was long and whitish, and trailed as he ran. He laid it at Blackstock’s feet.
Blackstock held it up so that all might see it. It was a painted Indian belt, and it was stained and smeared with blood. The constable picked out of the hole a package of bills.
For some moments no one spoke, and even the ravings of Hawker were stilled.
Then Tug Blackstock spoke, while every one, as if with one consent, turned his eyes away from the face of Sam Hawker, unwilling to see a comrade’s shame and horror.
“This is a matter now for jedge and jury, boys,” said he in a voice that was grave and stern. “But I think you’ll all agree that we hain’t no call to detain this gentleman, who’s been put to so much inconvenience all on account of our little mistake.”
“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it,” protested the book agent, as his guards, with profuse apologies, released him. “That’s a mighty intelligent dawg o’ yours, Mr. Blackstock.”
“He’s sure done you a good turn this day, mister,” replied the Deputy grimly.
III. THE HOLE IN THE TREE
I
It was Woolly Billy who discovered the pile – notes and silver, with a few stray gold pieces – so snugly hidden under the fish-hawk’s nest.
The fish-hawk’s nest was in the crotch of the old, half-dead rock-maple on the shore of the desolate little lake which lay basking in the flat-lands about a mile back, behind Brine’s Rip Mills.
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.
But Woolly Billy, not fully acclimatized to the backwoods tradition and superstition, and uninformed as to the firmness and decision with which the fish-hawks are apt to resent any intrusion, had long hankered to explore the mysteries of that great nest. One morning he made up his mind to try it.
Tug Blackstock, Deputy Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County, was away for a day or two, and old Mrs. Amos, his housekeeper, was too deaf and rheumatic to “fuss herself” greatly about the “goings-on” of so fantastic a child as Woolly Billy, so long as she knew he had Jim to look after him. This serves to explain how a small boy like Woolly Billy, his seven-years-and-nine-months resting lightly on his amazingly fluffy shock of pale flaxen curls, could be trotting off down the lonely backwoods trail with no companion or guardian but a big, black dog.
Woolly Billy was familiar with the mossy old trail to the lake, and did not linger upon it. Reaching the shore, he wasted no time throwing sticks in for Jim to retrieve, but, in spite of the dog’s eager invitations to this pastime, made his way along the dry edge between undergrowth and water till he came to the bluff. Pushing laboriously through the hot, aromatic-scented tangle of bushes, he climbed to the foot of the old maple, which looked dwarfed by the burden of the huge nest carried in its crotch.
Woolly Billy was an expert tree-climber, but this great trunk presented new problems. Twice he went round it, finding no likely spot to begin. Then, certain roughnesses tempted him, and he succeeded in drawing himself up several feet. Serene in the consciousness of his good intentions, he struggled on. He gained perhaps another foot. Then he stuck. He pulled hard upon a ragged edge of bark, trying to work his way further around the trunk. A patch of bark came away suddenly in his grip and he fell backwards with a startled cry.
He fell plump on Jim, rolled off into the bushes, picked himself up, shook the hair out of his eyes and stood staring up at a round hole in the trunk where the patch of bark had been.
A hole in a tree is always interesting. It suggests such possibilities. Forgetting his scratches, Woolly Billy made haste to climb up again, in spite of Jim’s protests. He peered eagerly into the hole. But he could see nothing. And he was cautious – for one could never tell what lived in a hole like that – or what the occupant, if there happened to be any, might have to say to an intruder. He would not venture his hand into the unknown. He slipped down, got a bit of stick and thrust that into the hole. There was no result, but he learnt that the hole was shallow. He stirred the stick about. There came a slight jingling sound in return.
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. Woolly Billy liked money because it bought peppermints, and molasses candy, and gingerpop. But this money was plainly not his. He reluctantly put it back into the hole.
Thoughtfully he climbed down. He knew that money was such a desirable thing that it led some people – bad people whom Tug Blackstock hated – to steal what did not belong to them. He picked up the patch of bark and laboriously fitted it back into its place over the hole, lest some of these bad people should find the money and appropriate it.
“Not a word, now, not one single word,” he admonished Jim, “till Tug comes home. We’ll tell him all about it.”
II
It was five o’clock in the sleepy summer afternoon, and the flies buzzed drowsily among the miscellaneous articles that graced the windows of the Corner Store. The mills had shut down early, because the supply of logs was running low in the boom, and no more could be expected until there should be a rise of water. Some half-dozen of the mill hands were sitting about the store on nail-kegs and soap-boxes, while Zeb Smith, the proprietor, swung his long legs lazily from the edge of the littered counter.
Woolly Billy came in with a piece of silver in his little fist to buy a packet of tea for Mrs. Amos. Jim, not liking the smoke, stayed outside on the plank sidewalk, and snapped at flies. The child, who was regarded as the mascot of Brine’s Rip Mills, was greeted with a fire of solemn chaff, which he received with an impartial urbanity.
“Oh, quit coddin’ the kiddie, an’ don’t try to be so smart,” growled Long Jackson, the Magadavy river-man, lifting his gaunt length from a pile of axe-handles, and thrusting his fist deep into his trousers’ pocket. “Here, Zeb, give me a box of peppermints for Woolly Billy. He hain’t been in to see us this long while.”
He pulled out a handful of coins and dollar bills, and proceeded to select a silver bit from the collection. The sight was too much for Woolly Billy, bursting with his secret.
“I know where there’s lots more money like that,” he blurted out proudly, “in a hole in a tree.”
During the past twelve months or more there had been thefts of money, usually of petty sums, in Brine’s Rip Mills and the neighbourhood, and all Tug Blackstock’s detective skill had failed to gain the faintest clue to the perpetrator. Suspicions there had been, but all had vanished into thin air at the touch of investigation. Woolly Billy’s amazing statement, therefore, was like a little bombshell in the shop.
Every one of his audience stiffened up with intense interest.
One swarthy, keen-featured, slim-waisted, half-Indian-looking fellow, with the shapely hands and feet that mark so many of the Indian mixed-bloods, was sitting on a bale of homespun behind Long Jackson, and smoking solemnly with half-closed lids. His eyes opened wide for a fraction of a second, and darted one searching glance at the child’s face. Then he dropped his lids slowly once more till the eyes were all but closed. The others all stared eagerly at Woolly Billy.
Pleased with the interest he had excited, Woolly Billy glanced about him, and shook back his mop of pale curls self-consciously.
“Lots more!” he repeated. “Big handfuls.”
Then he remembered his discretion, his resolve to tell no one but Tug Blackstock about his discovery. Seeking to change the subject, he beamed upon Long Jackson.
“Thank you, Long,” he said politely. “I love peppermints. An’ Jim loves them, too.”
“Where did you say that hole in the tree was?” asked Long Jackson, reaching for the box that held the peppermints, and ostentatiously filling a generous paper-bag.
Woolly Billy looked apologetic and deprecating.
“Please, Long, if you don’t mind very much, I can’t tell anybody but Tug Blackstock that.”
Jackson laid the bag of peppermints a little to one side, as if to convey that their transfer was contingent upon Woolly Billy’s behaviour.
The child looked wistfully at the coveted sweets; then his red lips compressed themselves with decision and resentment.
“I won’t tell anybody but Tug Blackstock, of course,” said he. “An’ I don’t want any peppermints, thank you, Long.”
He picked up his package of tea and turned to leave the shop, angry at himself for having spoken of the secret and angry at Jackson for trying to get ahead of Tug Blackstock. Jackson, looking annoyed at the rebuff, extended his leg and closed the door. Woolly Billy’s blue eyes blazed. One of the other men strove to propitiate him.
“Oh, come on, Woolly Billy,” he urged coaxingly, “don’t git riled at Long. You an’ him’s pals, ye know. We’re all pals o’ yourn, an’ of Tug’s. An’ there ain’t no harm at all, at all, in yer showin’ us this ’ere traysure what you’ve lit on to. Besides, you know there’s likely some o’ that there traysure belongs to us ’uns here. Come on now, an’ take us to yer hole in the tree.”
“Ye ain’t agoin’ to git out o’ this here store, Woolly Billy, I tell ye that, till ye promise to take us to it right off,” said Long Jackson sharply.
Woolly Billy was not alarmed in the least by this threat. But he was so furious that for a moment he could not speak. He could do nothing but stand glaring up at Long Jackson with such fiery defiance that the good-natured mill-hand almost relented. But it chanced that he was one of the sufferers, and he was in a hurry to get his money back. At this point the swarthy woodsman on the bale of homespun opened his narrow eyes once again, took the pipe from his mouth, and spoke up.
“Quit plaguin’ the kid, Long,” he drawled. “The cash’ll be all there when Tug Blackstock gits back, an’ it’ll save a lot of trouble an’ misunderstandin’, havin’ him to see to dividin’ it up fair an’ square. Let Woolly Billy out.”
Long Jackson shook his head obstinately, and opened his mouth to reply, but at this moment Woolly Billy found his voice.
“Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!” he screamed shrilly, stamping his feet and clenching his little fists.
Instantly a heavy body was hurled upon the outside of the door, striving to break it in.
Zeb Smith swung his long legs down from the counter hurriedly.
“The kid’s right, an’ Black Dan’s right. Open the door, Long, an’ do it quick. I don’t want that there dawg comin’ through the winder. An’ he’ll be doin’ it, too, in half a jiff.”
“Git along, then, Woolly, if ye insist on it. But no more peppermints, mind,” growled Jackson, throwing open the door and stepping back discreetly. As he did so, Jim came in with a rush, just saving himself from knocking Woolly Billy over. One swift glance assured him that the child was all right, but very angry about something.
“It’s all right, Jim. Come with me,” said Woolly Billy, tugging at the animal’s collar. And the pair stalked away haughtily side by side.
III
Tug Blackstock arrived the next morning about eleven. Before he had time to sit down for a cup of that strenuous black tea which the woodsmen consume at all hours, he had heard from Woolly Billy’s eager lips the story of the hole in the tree beneath the fish-hawk’s nest. He heard also of the episode at Zeb Smith’s store, but Woolly Billy by this time had quite forgiven Long Jackson, so the incident was told in such a way that Blackstock had no reason to take offence.
“Long tried hard,” said the child, “to get me to tell where that hole was, but I wouldn’t. And Black Dan was awful nice, an’ made him stop botherin’ me, an’ said I was quite right not to tell anybody till you came home, coz you’d know just what to do.”
“H’m!” said the Deputy-Sheriff thoughtfully, “Long’s had a lot of money stole from him, so, of course, he wanted to git his eyes on to that hole quick. But ’tain’t like Black Dan to be that thoughtful. Maybe he hasn’t had none taken.”
While he was speaking, a bunch of the mill-hands arrived at the door, word of Blackstock’s return having gone through the village.
“We want to go an’ help ye find that traysure, Tug,” said Long Jackson, glancing somewhat sheepishly at Woolly Billy. A friendly grin from the child reassured him, and he went on with more confidence:
“We tried to git the kiddie to tell us where ’twas, but wild steers wouldn’t drag it out o’ him till you got back.”
“That’s right, Long,” agreed Blackstock, “but it don’t need to be no expedition. We don’t want the whole village traipsin’ after us. You an’ three or four more o’ the boys that’s lost money come along, with Woolly Billy an’ me, an’ the rest o’ you meet us at the store in about a couple o’ hours’ time. Tell any other folks you see that I don’t want ’em follerin’ after us, because it may mix up things – an’ anyways, I don’t want it, see!”
After a few moments’ hesitation and consultation the majority of the mill-hands turned away, leaving Long Jackson and big Andy Stevens, the blue-eyed giant from the Oromocto (who had been one of the chief victims), and MacDonald, and Black Saunders, and Black Dan (whose name had been Dan Black till the whim of the woodsmen turned it about). Blackstock eyed them appraisingly.
“I didn’t know as you’d bin one o’ the victims too, Dan,” he remarked.
“Didn’t ye, Tug?” returned Black with a short laugh. “Well, I didn’t say nawthin about it, coz I was after doin’ a leetle detective work on me own, an’ mebbe I’d ’ave got in ahead o’ ye if Woolly Billy here hadn’t a’ been so smart. But I tell ye, Tug, if that there traysure’s the lot we’re thinkin’ it is, there’d ought ter be a five-dollar bill in it what I’ve marked.”
“H’m!” grunted the Deputy, hastily gulping down the last of his tea, and rising to his feet. “But Woolly Billy an’ me and Jim’s a combination pretty hard to git ahead of, I’m thinkin’.”
As the party neared the bluff whereon the tree of the fish-hawk’s nest stood ragged against the sky, the air grew rank with the pungent odour of skunk. Now skunks were too common in the region of Brine’s Rip Mills for that smell, as a rule, to excite any more comment than an occasional disgusted execration when it became too concentrated. But to-day it drew more than passing attention. MacDonald sniffed intently.
“It’s deuced queer,” said he, “but I’ve noticed that there’s always been a smell of skunk round when anybody’s lost anything. Did it ever strike you that way, Tug?”
“Yes, some!” assented the Deputy curtly.
“It’s a skunk, all right, that’s been takin’ our money,” said big Andy, “ef he don’t carry his tail over his back.”
Every one of the party was sniffing the tainted air as if the familiar stench were some rare perfume – all but Jim. He had had an encounter with a skunk, once in his impulsive puppy days, and the memory was too painful to be dwelt upon.
As they climbed the slope, one of the fish-hawks came swooping down from somewhere high in the blue, and began circling on slow wings about the nest.
“That cross old bird doesn’t like visitors,” remarked Woolly Billy.
“You wouldn’t, neether, Woolly Billy, if you was a fish-hawk,” said Jackson.
Arrived at the tree, Woolly Billy pointed eagerly to a slightly broken piece of bark a little above the height of the Deputy’s head.
“There’s the hole!” he cried, clapping his hands in his excitement as if relieved to find it had not vanished.
“Keep off a bit now, boys,” cautioned Blackstock. Drawing his long hunting-knife, he carefully loosened the bark without letting his hand come in contact with it, and on the point of the blade laid it aside against the foot of the trunk.
“Don’t any of you tech it,” he admonished.
Then he slipped his hand into the hole, and felt about.
A look of chagrin came over his face, and he withdrew his hand – empty.
“Nothin’ there!” said he.
“It was there yesterday morning,” protested Woolly Billy, his blue eyes filling with tears.
“Yes, yes, of course,” agreed Blackstock, glancing slowly around the circle of disappointed faces.
“Somebody from the store’s been blabbin’,” exclaimed Black Dan, in a loud and angry voice.
“An’ why not?” protested Big Andy, with a guilty air. “We never said nawthin’ about keepin’ it a secret.”
In spite of their disappointment, the mill-hands laughed. Big Andy was not one to keep a secret in any case, and his weakness for a certain pretty widow who kept the post-office was common comment. Big Andy responded by blushing to the roots of his blonde hair.
“Jim!” commanded the Deputy. And the big black dog bounded up to him, his eyes bright with expectation. The Deputy picked him up, and held him aloft with his muzzle to the edges of the hole.
“Smell that,” he ordered, and Jim sniffed intently. Then he set him down and directed him to the piece of bark. That, too, Jim’s nose investigated minutely, his feathered tail slowly wagging.
“Seek him,” ordered Blackstock.
Jim whined, looked puzzled, and sniffed again at the bark. The information which his subtle nose picked up there was extremely confusing. First, there was the smell of skunk – but that smell of skunk was everywhere, dulling the keenness of his discrimination. Then, there was a faint, faint reminiscence of Woolly Billy. But there was Woolly Billy, at Tug Blackstock’s side. Certainly, there could be no reason for him to seek Woolly Billy. Then there was an elusive, tangled scent, which for some moments defied him. At last, however, he got a clue to it. With a pleased bark – his way of saying “Eureka!” – he whipped about, trotted over to big Andy Sevens, sat down in front of him, and gazed up at him, with tongue hanging and an air of friendly inquiry, as much as to say: “Here I am, Andy. But I don’t know what Tug Blackstock wants me to seek you for, seein’ as you’re right here alongside him.”
Big Andy dropped his hand on the dog’s head familiarly; then noticing the sudden tense silence of the party, his eyes grew very big and round.
“What’re you all starin’ at me fer, boys?” he demanded, with a sort of uneasy wonder.
“Ax Jim,” responded Black Dan, harshly.
“I reckon old Jim’s makin’ a mistake fer once, Tug,” drawled Long Jackson, who was Andy’s special pal.
The Deputy rubbed his lean chin reflectively. There could be no one more above suspicion in his eyes than this transparently honest young giant from the Oromocto. But Jim’s curious action had scattered to the winds, at least for a moment, a sort of hypothesis which he had been building up in his mind. At the same time, he felt dimly that a new clue was being held out to him, if he could only grasp it. 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. At the foot of the tree he stopped, and looked at Blackstock interrogatively. Receiving no sign whatever from his master, whose face had lit up for an instant, but was now as impassive as a hitching-post, he stared at Black Dan for a few seconds, and then let his eyes wander back to Andy’s face. In the midst of his obvious hesitation the Oromocto man stepped forward.
“Durned ef that ain’t one o’ my old mittens,” he exclaimed eagerly, “what Sis knit fer me. I’ve been lookin’ fer ’em everywheres. Bring it here, Jim.”
As the dog trotted up with it obediently, the Deputy intervened and stopped him. “You shall have it bime-by, Andy,” said he, “ef it’s yourn. But jest now I don’t want nobody to tech it except Jim. Ef you acknowledge it’s yourn – ”
“Of course it’s mine,” interrupted Andy resentfully. “An’ I want to find the other one.”
“So do I,” said Blackstock. “Drop it, Jim. Go find the other mitt.”
As Jim went ranging once more through the bushes, the whole party moved around to the other side of the tree to get out of the downpour of the noon sun. As they passed the magenta mitten Black Dan picked it up and examined it ostentatiously.
“How do ye know it’s yourn, Andy?” he demanded. “There’s lots of magenta mitts in the world, I reckon.”
Tug Blackstock turned upon him.
“I said I didn’t want no one to tech that mitt,” he snapped.
“Oh, beg pardon, Tug,” said Dan, dropping the mitt. “I forgot. ’S’pose it might kind o’ confuse Jim’s scent, gittin’ another smell besides Andy’s on to it.”
“It might,” replied the Deputy coolly, “an’ then agin, it mightn’t.”
For a little while every one was quiet, listening to Jim as he crashed about through the bushes, and confidently but unreasonably expecting him to reappear with the other mitten. Or, at least, that was what Big Andy and Woolly Billy expected. The Deputy, at least, did not. At last he spoke.
“I agree with Mac here, boys,” said he, “that there may be somethin’ more’n skunk in this skunk smell. We’ll jest look into it a bit. You all keep back a ways – an’ you, Long, jest keep an eye on Woolly Billy ef ye don’t mind, while I go on with Jim.”
He whistled to the dog, and directed his attention to a spot at the foot of the tree exactly beneath the hole. Jim sniffed hard at the spot, then looked up at his master with tail drooping despondently.
“Yes, I know it’s skunk, plain skunk,” agreed the Deputy. “But I want him. Seek him, Jim – seek him, boy.”
Thus reassured, Jim’s tail went up again. He started off through the bushes, down towards the lake, with his master close behind him. The rest of the party followed thirty paces or so behind.
The trail led straight down to the lake’s edge. Here Jim stopped short.
“That skunk’s a kind o’ water-baby,” remarked Long Jackson.
“Oh, do you think so?” queried Woolly Billy, much interested.
“Of course,” answered Jackson. “Don’t you see he’s took to the water? Now, yer common, no-account skunk hates wettin’ his fur like pizen.”
The Deputy examined the hard, white sand at the water’s edge. It showed faint traces of moccasined feet. He pursed his lips. It was an old game, but a good one, this breaking a trail by going into the water. He had no way of deciding whether his quarry had turned up the lake shore or down towards the outlet. He guessed at the latter as the more likely alternative.
Jim trotted slowly ahead, sniffing every foot of ground along the water’s edge. As they approached the outlet the shore became muddy, and Jackson swung Woolly Billy up on to his shoulder. Once in the outlet, the foreshore narrowed to a tiny strip of bare rock between the water and an almost perpendicular bank covered with shrubs and vines. All at once the smell of skunk, which had been almost left behind, returned upon the air with fresh pungency. Blackstock stopped short and scanned the bank with narrowed eyes.
A second or two later, Jim yelped his signal, and his tail went up. He sniffed eagerly across the ribbon of rock, and then leapt at the face of the bank.
The Deputy called him off and hurried to the spot. The rest of the party, much excited, closed up to within four or five paces, when a wave of the Deputy’s hand checked them.
“Phew!” ejaculated Black Dan, holding his nose. “There’s a skunk hole in that there bank. Ye’ll be gittin’ somethin’ in the eye, Tug, ef ye don’t keep off.”
Blackstock, who was busy pulling apart the curtain of vines, paid no attention, but Long Jackson answered sarcastically:
“Ye call yerself a woodsman, Dan,” said he, “an’ ye don’t know that the hole where a skunk lives don’t smell any. Yer reel skunk’s quite a gentleman and keeps his home always clean an’ tidy. Tug Blackstock ain’t a-goin’ to git nawthin’ in the eye.”