CHAPTER XVII
ALL DOWN HILL
The party of young people with the bobsled was very merry indeed justas soon as they got out of hearing of the Lodge. By striking into apath which opened into the wood right behind the barns, they cut offany view the two little girls and Sammy Pinkney might have caught oftheir departure.
"I feel somewhat condemned for leaving them behind," Ruth said. "Yet Iknow it is too far for such little people to go along and get back forlunch."
"Oh, they are having a good time," Cecile said. "You make yourself aslave to your young family, Ruthie," and she laughed.
"We will make it up to the kids," Luke joined in. "After we have triedthe slide they can have a shot at it."
"That's all right," grinned Neale O'Neil. "But if Tess Kenway thinksshe has been snubbed or neglected--well! you will not hear the last ofit in a hurry, believe me."
This part of the wood into which the young people had entered was asapling growth. Not many years before the timber had been cut andthere were only brush clumps and small trees here now.
Flocks of several different kinds of birds--sparrows, buntings, jays,swamp robins, and others--flew noisily about. There were berries andseeds to be found in the thickets. The birds had begun to forage farfrom the swamps--a sign that the snow was heavy and deep in theirusual winter feeding places.
"The dear little birdies!" cooed Agnes, waving her gloved hand at aflock that spread out fan-wise in the covert, frightened by theapproach of the young people.
Suddenly there arose a vast racket--a whirring and trampling sound, asthough it were of runaway hoofs. Agnes shrieked and glanced about her.The other girls looked startled.
"That horse! It's running away!" cried Agnes. "Oh, Neale!"
"Shucks!" said that youth, scornfully. "'The dear little birdies!' Ho,ho! I thought you liked 'em, Aggie?"
"Liked what?" she demanded, as the noise faded away into the wood.
"The birdies. That was a flock of partridges. They can make somenoise, can't they? Food in the swamps must be getting mighty scarce,or they would not be away up here."
"Who ever would have thought it?" murmured Cecile. "Partridges!"
"Wish I had a gun," said Luke.
"Don't be afraid. They won't bite," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "And wewon't be likely to meet anything much more dangerous than birds in theday time."
"Yet we saw that big cat yesterday," Ruth said.
"It ran all right. We might have brought Tom Jonah; only he wasplaying with the kids," said Neale. "Anyway, the best he would dowould be to scare up creatures in the thickets that we otherwise wouldnot know were there."
"Now, stop that, Neale O'Neil!" cried Agnes. "Are you trying tofrighten us?"
"Shucks, Aggie!" he returned. "You know the kind of wild animal wescared up this morning when we found Ike M'Graw's place."
"Oh! Oh!" cried Agnes, with laughter.
"What's the joke?" asked Luke.
So Neale told the rest of the party how he and Agnes had followed thefootprints of the "deer" clear to the old man's cabin.
"And there we could hear them squealing in their pen," was the wayNeale finished it.
"Two mighty hunters, you!" chuckled Luke.
The road over which they dragged the sled soon became steep. They werenow climbing a long hill through heavier timber. It was a straightpath, and the crown of the ascent was more than a mile from Red DeerLodge.
Half way up they passed a fork in the timber road. The roads were notrutted at all, for they were full of firm snow. This second roaddipped to the north, running down the steep hill and out of sight.
"That chap who told me about this slide told me to 'ware that road,"Luke said. "Around that curve he said it was steep and there'd be nostopping the sled for a long way. If we stick to the right track, wellslide back almost to the Lodge itself."
"That'll help some," Cecile said. "I am getting tired tramping overthis snow. It's a harder pull than I imagined it would be."
"We were very wise not to let the children come," Ruth remarked.
Uphill for all of a mile was, in truth, no easy climb.
Agnes and Neale O'Neil began to bicker.
"I'm no horse," said Neale rather grumpily, when Agnes suggested thatthe boys could drag the girls on the sled.
"No; your ears are too long," she retorted impishly.
"Now, children!" admonished Ruth, "How is it you two always manage tofight?"
"They're only showing off," chuckled Luke Shepard. "In secret theyhave a terrible crush on each other."
"Such slang!" groaned his sister.
"Real college brand," said Agnes cheerfully. "I do love slang, Luke.Tell us some more."
"I object! No, no!" cried Ruth. "She learns quite enough high-schoolslang. Don't teach her any more of the college brand, Luke."
They puffed up the final rise and arrived at the top of the ascent.This was the very peak of the ridge on which Red Deer Lodge was built.
Because it was winter and all but the evergreens and oaks were denudedof leaves, they could see much farther over the surrounding landscapethan would have been possible in the leafy seasons; however, on allsides the forest was so thick at a distance that a good view of thecountry was not easily obtained.
The valley toward the north was black with spruce and hemlock. Onecould not see if there were clearings in the valley. It seemed thereto be an unbroken and primeval forest.
This valley was included in the Birdsall estate, and the timber whichthe Neven Lumber Company wished to cut practically lay entirely inthat wild valley.
The hills to the west were plainly visible. Their caps were eitherbald and snow covered, or crowned with the black-green forest. Towardthe lakeside the slopes were alternately tree covered and of rawstumpage where the timber had recently been cut. These "slashes" wereugly looking spots.
"That is what all that part yonder of this estate will look like whenthe lumbermen get through," said Ruth. "Isn't it a shame?"
"But trees have to be cut down some time. I heard M'Graw say that muchof the timber on this place was beginning to deteriorate," Luke saidin reply.
"Shucks!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil, "if a tree is beautiful, why not letit stand? Why slaughter it?"
"There speaks the altruistic spirit of the young artist," laughedLuke. "Ask Mr. Howbridge. How about the money value of the tree?"
"Shucks!" Neale repeated, but with his eyes twinkling. "Is moneyeverything?"
"Let me tell you, boy," said Luke a little bitterly; "it buys almosteverything that is worth while in this world. I want beautiful things,too; but I know it will cost a slew of money to buy them. I am goingto set out and try for money first, then!"
"Hear the practical youth!" said Cecile. "That is what he learns atcollege. Say! aren't we going to slide downhill? Or did we come uphere to discuss political economy?"
Luke, holding up his hand in affirmation, declared: "I vow to discussneither polit, bugs, pills, psyche, trig--"
"Oh, stop!" commanded Ruth, yet with curiosity. "What are all thosehorrid sounding things?"
"Pshaw!" cried the collegian's sister, "I know that much of his oldslang. 'Trig' is trigonometry, of course; 'psyche' is psychology;'pills' means physics; 'bugs' is biology; and 'poit,' of course, ispolitical economy. Those college boys are awfully smart, aren't they?"
"I want to sli-i-ide!" wailed Agnes, stamping her feet in the snow. "Iam turning into a lump of ice, standing here."
"Get aboard, then," answered Neale.
She plumped herself on the sled. Luke straddled the seat just behindthe steering wheel. The other girls took their places in rotationafter Agnes, while Neale made ready to push off and then jump onhimself at the rear.
"Ready?" he cried.
"Let her go!" responded the steersman.
"Hang on, girls!" commanded Neale, as he started the sled with amighty shove.
The bobsled moved slowly. The runners grunted and strained over thesoft snow that packed under them and, at
first, retarded the movementof the sled. But soon the power of gravitation asserted itself. Nealesettled himself on the seat. The wind began to whistle past theirears. In front a fine mist of snow particles was thrown up.
Faster and faster they rushed down the descent. The young people hadthought this trail very smooth as they climbed it; but now they foundthere were plenty of "thank-you-ma'ams" in the path. The bobsledbumped over these, gathering speed, and finally began to leave thesnow and fairly fly into the air when it struck a ridge.
The girls screamed when these hummocks arrived. But they laughedbetween them, too! It was a most exciting trip.
Like an arrow the sled shot past the fork in the road, keeping to theleft. But it would have been a very easy matter, as Luke Shepard saw,to turn the sled into the steeper descent.
They started up a gray and white rabbit beside the path, and it racedthem in desperate fright for several hundred yards, before it knewenough to turn off the road and leap into the brush. Luke's head wasdown and his eyes half closed as he stared ahead. But Neale gave voiceto his delight in reechoed shouts.
There were slides in Milton. The selectmen gave up certain streets tothe young folk for coasting. But those streets were nothing like this.
On and on the bobsled flew, its pace increasing with, every length.Although this woodroad was in no place really steep, the hill was solong, and its slant so continuous that the momentum the sled gatheredcarried it over any little level that there might be, and at the footof the decline still shot the merry crew over the snow at a swift paceand for a long distance.
Indeed, when the sled stopped they were almost at the back of the RedDeer Lodge premises. A mellow horn was calling them to lunch when theyalighted.
"Oh! wasn't it bully?" gasped the delighted Agnes. "I never did havesuch a sled-ride!"
"How about your trip up the lake!" Cecile asked.
"Oh! But that scooter was different."
The other girls were quite as pleased with the slide as Agnes; and thethree ran into the house to dress for lunch, chattering like magpies,while the boys put the sled away under the shed.
When Luke and Neale went into the house they found Ike M'Graw skinningthe fox in the back kitchen, Tom Jonah being a much interestedspectator. The woodsman beckoned Neale to him.
"Look here, young feller," he said. "You seen this critter shot lastnight, you say?"
"Yes," replied the boy.
"Where was it shot from? I'm derned if I can find any place where thefeller stood along the edge of the woods to shoot him."
"No. I couldn't find any footprints either," Neale confessed.
"Not knowing from which direction the bullet came--"
"Oh, but I do know that, Mr. M'Graw. I am pretty positive, at least. Ihave been doubtful whether to say anything about it or not--and that'sa fact."
"What d'you mean?" demanded the old man, eyeing him shrewdly.
"Well, I thought when I heard the shot and the fox was killed that theexplosion was right over my head."
"What's that? Over your head! In the attic?"
"That is where the shot came from--yes."
"Air you positive?" drawled the old man.
"I went up there this morning and saw the place where the fellow hadrested the barrel of his gun across the window sill to shoot."
"My! My!" muttered Ike thoughtfully. "And there wasn't nobody up therethis morning?"
"No. And I asked Hedden, and he said neither of the other men knew howto use a gun and that they all were in bed at the time the fox wasshot."
"Do tell!" muttered the woodsman. "Then they--well, the feller thatshot the fox was up there in the attic about bedtime, was he?"
"Yes. Who do you suppose he was, Mr. M'Graw?" asked Neale curiously.
"Well, I wouldn't want to make a guess. This here man workin' in thekitchen tells me that there wasn't a foot mark in the snow at all whenhe got up and went out of the back door here the fust time thismorning. And, of course, there wasn't no footprints at the front ofthe house, was there?"
"Oh, no! Not until after breakfast time."
"Uh-huh! Well, after this John had tramped back an' forth to thewoodshed and the like half a dozen times, anybody could have gone outof here without their footprints being noticed. Ain't that a fac'?"
He said this to himself more than to Neale, who had become vastlyinterested in the subject. He eagerly watched the old man'sweather-beaten face.
Suddenly the woodsman raised his head and looked at Nealethoughtfully. He asked a question that seemed to have nothing at allto do with the subject in hand.
"What kind of a dog is this here Tom Jonah?" Ike demanded. "Ain't hegot no nose?"
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