Much more important was the fact that they had had no visitors. As winter advanced, there would be no likelihood of any. Nobody was going to hike sixteen miles through snow just to look at an abandoned coal mine and a tumbledown cabin. When spring returned a venturesome hiker might come, but Billy would worry about spring after it arrived.
For the next ten days Billy busied himself chopping a great store of firewood which he stacked on all sides of the cabin. He left the window unobstructed and enough space to swing the door open, but otherwise the cabin was banked to the roof with firewood. That would help keep the chinking in and the cold and storm out.
As he worked, Billy Dash pondered his future. He was a hunted fugitive, but his last consideration was walking in and giving himself up. It made no difference that the shooting of Uncle Hat was strictly accidental. It was enough that he was in trouble, and if he surrendered to the police, Billy thought, he would only be in more trouble.
With the first snow he stopped worrying about the possibility of being discovered, at least in the immediate future. But there were certain things that must be done. The meager supplies he had brought with him were almost gone; only scrapings and crumbs remained in the bottoms of the various cans and parcels.
Billy fingered the fifteen dollars pinned in an inner pocket. Somehow and some way he had to make contact with a store where he might get at least basic supplies, such as flour and salt. He himself dared not show his face near a store and he knew of no one who would act as his messenger. But Billy had an abiding faith that all problems could be worked out, and he was not yet desperate.
When the snowshoe hares donned white winter coats, a signal that fur was prime, Billy started out with his traps. He did not hope to catch a great store of fur and he hadn’t the least idea of where he would sell it if he caught any. But the cabin was in good shape, he had plenty of firewood, and he was restless. He must have action of some sort because a man who had nothing to do was apt to start thinking too much about himself and his problems, and that was never good.
Billy made his first set under a cut bank where, as he saw by their tracks, mink had been running. The rest of the traps in his pack sack, he struck into the thickets where foxes would certainly be hunting.
This was primarily a scouting trip, meant to refresh himself on the lay of the land. Billy set no more traps for hours, and at noon sat down to lunch on a chunk of unsalted venison. Habit, more than the thought that someone might see him, made him seek the seclusion of a laurel thicket while he ate lunch, and it was natural for him to find a high knob from which he could see the surrounding country.
Billy was half through his lunch when he saw a man coming. He stiffened, let his hand drop to the big .45 at his belt. He took his hand away again There must be no more shooting. It was far better simply to fade into the brush and avoid a meeting.
Billy was about to slip through the laurel when he recognized the approaching man. It was Crosby Marlett, the trapper. A hill man himself, Crosby was noted throughout the Wintapi as an expert trapper and a great man to mind his own business. Crosby Marlett was perfectly happy as long as he was left alone to do his trapping, and as long as nobody interfered with his traps, he was friendly.
Billy knew that the time had come to take a chance. He sat perfectly still until the trapper was opposite him, then spoke quietly.
“Hello, Crosby.”
“Uh-Hello.”
Billy rose. Crosby Marlett saw him, nodded, and amended his greeting.
“Hello, Billy. How you doin’?”
“Good enough. How ‘bout you?”
“All right. I’m layin’ out a new fox line.”
“How fa’you goin’?”
“Allerton Crick.”
Billy Dash said, “I’ll stop at the Crick, then.”
Crosby Marlett nodded. It was an entirely satisfactory agreement. They had divided the trapping territory, and each knew that the other would not trespass. Crosby looked at Billy’s traps.
“Didn’t know you was in this country, Billy.”
“I get around.”
“So I see.” Marlett grinned at him. “You get far enough?”
Billy grinned back. “Well, I haven’t got to the stoah at Cedar Run yet.”
“I get there. Goin’ next week.”
“Then maybe you’d bring me some salt and flour and such-like?”
“Sure.”
Billy Dash took a thin sheaf of bills from his inner pocket. “Spend it all,” he said.
Crosby’s adam’s apple bobbed. “Maybe we should have a rondy-voo?”
“The big pine with the bent top at Allerton Crick would suit me.”
“Me, too.”
They parted, and Billy strode serenely homeward. He had made the necessary contact. Crosby Marlett knew very well that he was on the dodge; any man who was not could go to the store at Cedar Run for himself. But Crosby had not asked why, nor would he ask.
Four days later, when Billy visited the big pine with the twisted top at Allerton Creek, he found a packed parcel hanging in it. He took it without bothering to see what it contained. Crosby Marlett, who spent all his time in the woods, would know what other men doing the same thing should have.
As the winter advanced, sometimes they met at the big tree. More often Billy simply left his pack sack safely cached in one of the branches, with a few pelts in the sack. They were as good as money and the storekeeper at Cedar Run would take them in trade. Nobody would think it unusual because Crosby Marlett was catching a large amount of fur, or that he needed an extraordinary amount of supplies. Besides, even if they might wonder, Crosby did not take kindly to questions about his personal affairs.
*
As soon as he and Penny reached the edge of the Jordan clearing, Sean stopped to look back. It was a gesture that his various skirmishes with men had taught him; he wanted to see his back trail and find out whether or not they were being pursued.
There was no sign of any life save the one faint light in the early-rising tenant’s house. A door slammed as the tenant went from his house to the cow barn. Barn windows glowed when he snapped the lights on there. Satisfied, Sean turned to Penny.
She danced coquettishly away from him, her jaws spread in a doggy grin, then whirled and ran. Sean made no attempt to interfere because she was running into the forest and not back to the clearing. He had won. He had a companion to travel with him and now he did not care where they went as long as they stayed away from any place where people lived.
Deliberately holding himself back so that his head was even with her shoulders, Sean ran with Penny. He could outdistance her if he wanted to, but it was enough just to have her with him and to know that there would be no more lonely days and nights. She whirled, and without breaking stride, took a playful nip at his ear. In the same motion she dodged away, then dived purposefully in to strike his shoulder with hers.
She struck hard enough to knock him sideways. Sean clawed for a hold on the glazed crust, recovered his balance, and closed his big jaws over her front leg when she followed up the attack. Like a pair of overgrown puppies they frolicked and leaped. They reared, front paws clawing at front paws and heads diving and ducking for a hold. Neither had, and neither wanted, the advantage. This was strictly play, a wonderful frolic such as Sean had not enjoyed since leaving Danny Pickett’s clearing.
Running beside her, playing when she felt like playing, Sean guided them deeper into the beech woods. Without knowing why he did it, she followed willingly when he circled to get into the wind.
Sean analyzed the air currents that blew in his nose and realized that they were not being followed. His restlessness departed. Nevertheless, now that his mission had succeeded far better than he had hoped, he wanted to put as much distance as possible between them and the Jordan place. They would be safe only in the deep wilderness that reached from the head of Forks Valley to the pines where the black squirrel and the ravens lived.
As dawn broke slowly out of a cl
oudy sky, they stopped to drink from a bubbling little stream and pushed on. Penny, going into the wilderness for the first time, had an overwhelming curiosity about everything around them.
She dashed at a red squirrel that had just finished his morning visit to a cache of beechnuts and was now returning to his nest in a hollow tree. Sean watched her indulgently, knowing that she wouldn’t catch the squirrel but willing to let her have her way. Then she investigated a Canada jay that tilted on a branch, ran in mad pursuit of a covey of grouse thai thundered up in front of them, and barked at a woodpecker that drummed high on the skeleton of a dead tree. She raced, barking hysterically, after a herd of deer that speedily left her behind.
Finally she licked hungry lips and sniffed expectantly about. Kenneled, Penny had received only one meal a day, but in the kennel she had needed no more. Since running away with Sean she had exercised more than she normally would in a whole week, and she wanted something to eat.
Sean watched her quizzically as she tasted a bit of snow, licked her lips again, and trotted toward a beech tree. Penny sniffed its trunk. She found nothing to eat there and no promise of anything, so when Sean came near she nipped him savagely. He backed off a few feet, unwilling to meet her punishing teeth with his own. When he started off through the beeches she followed sulkily along.
Sean had found the Jordan clearing only by accident, and he had stayed and returned only because Penny was there. But he had hunted close to it often enough so that he knew where some good hunting lay. He led Penny to a thicket where, as he remembered, a number of rabbits lived. As they entered the brush, Sean’s nose told him that rabbits were feeding.
Driven underground by the first cold spell, the cottontails couldn’t stay there any more than the grouse could huddle perpetually beneath the evergreens or the deer could forever remain in warm shelters. All had to feed some time, and when the pangs of hunger became intense, all had to venture out.
Sean chose his ambush carefully, and slunk along toward it. Because this was a new and delightful game, Penny was willing to follow in his paw prints. Sean crawled behind a moss-grown stump that was surrounded by a few sprigs of laurel and blackberry canes. Here four trails crossed where cottontails came from four different directions to get to various feeding grounds.
Sean lay motionless, flat on the ground. His muscles were tense, ready to launch his body at the right moment. He smelled a cottontail coming and a second later he saw it.
In no hurry to rush into trouble, the rabbit was hopping along one of the four paths. The little brown beast halted beneath an overhanging arch of blackberry canes. The rabbit could be seen and it was well aware of that fact. Wise in wilderness lore, it had halted beneath the blackberries to see if it could tempt the strike of any predator that might be hunting. Nothing happened. The rabbit continued its deliberate way, straight toward Sean’s waiting jaws.
Suddenly, no longer able to contain the excitement that had trembled within her since her first sight of the rabbit, Penny leaped up and over Sean. Straight at the rabbit she dove. Never hesitating, the rabbit whirled, whisked its tail in Penny’s face, and was gone. Penny gave near-hysterical chase.
Sean rose, knowing that his ambush was spoiled, but holding no resentment because of it. Many of his ambushes had been ruined before. He prowled through the thicket, jumped at a rabbit that dodged away from him, then heard the unmistakable snap of Penny’s jaws.
The rabbit she had chased had fled straight to a burrow and dived in. Penny was lingering at the burrow’s mouth, drinking in the hot scent of the game she had missed, when Sean flushed the second rabbit. It had headed for the same burrow, completely unaware of Penny’s presence. She twisted herself almost double to catch it, but she caught it.
When Sean came up to her, the limp rabbit dangled from Penny’s jaws. She looked at Sean, growled a warning for him to keep off, and trotted away.
Penny laid her catch on the snow and pawed it with her foot. Accustomed to the food the kennel men gave her, she did not know quite what to do with this. If she had been well-fed she would have left the rabbit where it was. But she was hungry. Penny took an experimental bite, shook her head to clear her teeth of the fur and fluff that tangled in them, then was down to raw flesh. While Sean looked on, she ate.
Sean whirled suddenly to face the breeze. His head went up and his nostrils worked as he read the message it brought him. He looked questioningly at Penny.
Penny’s abduction had finally been discovered and there were men coming. They came slowly for, in spite of the snow, the hard crust left no clear line of tracks. There were only scattered claw marks on the snow, and long stretches where there was not even that much. The pursuers could travel swiftly only when they came across a rare place where wind had whipped powdered snow across the crust and Penny and Sean had walked in it.
Penny, who had eaten everything except the rabbit’s skin and paws, looked indifferently up when Sean warned her. Her sense of smell was as keen as his, and she, too, knew the men were coming. But Penny saw no reason for flight because she was acquainted with the men. None of them had ever hurt her.
Sean trotted into the brush, away from pursuit, and looked anxiously back. Puzzled, Penny followed him. But Penny was too new to the woods to understand what Sean wanted and she was not at all averse io welcoming the pursuers. She sat down on the crust and lifted a cold forefoot.
There was no hesitation and no uncertainty about Sean now. He bounded back to her side, and gone was all pretense of playing when he nipped her. Penny cried out, whirled to face him with bared fangs, then quailed before the sheer savagery of Sean’s onslaught. Her ears flattened, her tail drooped. The next time Sean started away, she followed. She need not share the game she caught, but Sean was obviously going to make the decisions about when and where they should go.
He took her across forested ridges, down into the valleys that separated them, and up the opposite slopes. Not forgotten was the first lesson he had learned on snow; when the earth was snow-laden he could be followed. Though he had eaten nothing since feasting from the dead buck, Sean dared not stop to hunt.
The big Setter was guided by an inborn sense that is present in many animals and in some people. A hound-pressed fox will not go near its den, and thus betray its cubs. Billy Dash, in trouble, had not run to his home. Now Sean, pursued, did not take Penny back to Forks Valley as he would have done had there been no men following them.
Sean led Penny southeast, on a course that led directly away from the wild valley. He had never been in this section before and knew nothing about it, but it was wilderness and that was all he wanted.
Penny limped on three legs now, the ball of her left front paw sore and bleeding a little from unaccustomed contact with rough snow. She swung in behind Sean and followed tiredly. When they reached a laurel thicket, she coaxed him into stopping. Side by side they lay, Sean’s head over Penny’s back as he kept his nose into the prevailing winds. An hour and a half after they stopped to rest, he caught the scent of the persistent trackers on their trail. Rested, Penny followed more willingly when Sean insisted that they strike off again.
They came to an unfrozen stream and Sean swung to follow its brawling course. A half mile down, a succession of quiet pools were frozen solid, and Sean led Penny out on them. Water had banked against the ice, flowed over it, and melted the snow. The glare ice was not so hard on Penny’s feet as was the hard crust, and it was on the ice that Sean finally found something to eat.
A magnificent brown trout, fully two feet long, had come downstream with the rushing water, been washed over the ice with it, and now lay on its side, frozen solid. Sean’s jaws had rended frozen food before and they could again. He ate his fill while the dainty Penny looked on disinterestedly. This was no proper food for a patrician Irish Setter.
Again they lay up in a thicket and again were routed by the pursuing men. Sean cut through a forest of gloomy, big pines, broke from them into slender aspens, and circled a little. Never wa
s his circling or changing course without purpose; he always wanted to be where the winds blew to best advantage. They would tell him everything he wanted to know.
With night a full moon tilted on the crest of the tallest mountain, and by its light Sean and Penny traveled on. The moon waned, and utter blackness shrouded the wilderness. Until nearly morning the two lay up in a thicket, and morning brought a gently blowing west wind with more snow. Their tracks were hidden.
All that day Sean traveled slowly, and by nightfall was satisfied that the pursuers were no longer on their trail. At last, he could lead his new mate to the country he liked best. He struck an angling course that would take them back to Forks Valley.
Sean could not know that, in leading the trackers away from Forks Valley instead of toward it, he had thrown off pursuit for good. Penny was a valuable dog, a sure winner in any show, and the search would be continued. But it would center around here instead of in Sean’s home range.
9. Frozen Hunger
NOW THAT THEY had shaken all pursuit from their trail, Sean was no longer in a hurry. He loafed along, hunting when they were hungry, and resting when they were tired. Penny, very much the tenderfoot, never strayed very far from his side. Not only was she afraid to be alone, but she was learning to trust him. However, even though all this was new to her, and Penny lacked both the patience and the technique to lay a good ambush, she did have her own ways of hunting. They were unusual, but they worked.
Penny’s first experience in a rabbit thicket remained firmly implanted in her mind. Paying no attention whatever to Sean, she sought the first burrow from which hot rabbit scent came in sufficient quantity, and stayed there. Sean, rambling around, was sure to flush a rabbit to her and Penny was quick enough to catch whatever came.
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