Margot had turned upon her guest with a fear. As near as she had ever come to hating anything she hated the men, of whom she had heard, who used this wonderful northland as a murder ground. That was what she named it, in her uncompromising of those who killed for the sake of , for the of blood that was in them.
“Yes. I reckon I am a ‘dreadful’ hunter, for I am a poor shot. But I’d like a try at that fellow. What horns! What a head! And how can that fellow in the canoe keep so close to him, yet not finish him!”
Adrian was so excited he could not stand [Pg 85]still. His eyes gleamed, his hands , and his whole appearance was changed. Greatly for the worse, the girl thought, regarding him with disgust.
“Finish him? That’s King Madoc, Pierre’s trained bull-moose. You’d be finished yourself, I fear, if you harmed that splendid creature. Pierre’s a lazy fellow, mostly, but he spent a long time teaching Madoc, and with his temper—I’m thankful you lost your gun.”
“Do you never shoot things up here? I saw you giving the fox and herons what looked like meat. You had a for supper, and fish for breakfast. I don’t mean to be impertinent, but the sight of that big game—— Whew!”
“Yes. We do kill things, or have them killed, when it is necessary for food. Never in sport. Man is almost the only animal who does that. It’s all terrible, seems to me. Everything upon something else, weaker than itself. Sometimes when I think of it my dinner chokes me. It’s so easy to [Pg 86]take life, and only God can create it. But uncle says it is also God’s law to take what is provided, and that there is no mistake, even if it seems such to me.”
But there Margot perceived that Adrian was not listening. Instead, he was watching, with the intensest interest, the closer approach of the canoe, in which sat idle Pierre, holding the of a harness attached to his steed. The moose swam easily, with powerful strokes, and Pierre was singing a gay melody, richer in his unique possession than any king.
When he touched the shore and the great animal stood shaking his wet hide, Adrian’s found in a whirlwind of questions that Pierre answered at his leisure and after his kind. But he walked first toward Margot and offered a great bunch of trailing arbutus flowers, saying:
“I saw these just as I pushed off and went back after them. What’s the matter here, that the flag is up? It was the biggest storm [Pg 87]I ever saw. Yes. A deal of beasties are killed back on the mainland. Any dead over here?”
“No, I am glad to say, none that we know of. But Snowfoot’s shed is down and uncle is going to build a new one. I hope you’ve come to work.”
Pierre laughed and his shoulders.
“Oh! yes.”
But his interest in work was far less than in the stranger whom he now answered, and whose presence on Peace Island was a mystery to him. Heretofore, the only visitors there had been or traders, but this young fellow so near his own age, despite his worn clothing, was of another sort. He recognized this, at once, as Margot had done, and his curiosity made him ask:
“Where’d you come from? Hurricane blow you out the sky?”
“About the same. I was lost in the woods and Margot found me and saved my life. What’ll you take for that moose?”
[Pg 88]
“There isn’t money enough in the state of Maine to buy him!”
“Nonsense. Well, if there was I haven’t it. But you could get a good price for it anywhere.”
Pierre looked Adrian over. From his appearance the lad was not likely to be of much cash, but the moose-trainer was eager for capital, and never missed an opportunity of seeking it.
“I want to go into the show business. What do you say? would you furnish the tents and fixings? And share the profits. I’m no scholar, but maybe you’d know enough to get out the hand-bills and so on. What do you say?”
“I—say—— What you mean, Pierre Ricord, keepin’ the master waitin’, your foolishness, and him half sick? What kept you twice as long as you ought? Hurry up, now, and put that moose in the cow-yard and get to work.”
The interruption was caused by Angelique, [Pg 89]and it was curious to see the fear with which she inspired the great fellow, her son. He forgot the stranger, the show business, and all his own interests, and with the of a little child obeyed. Unhitching his odd steed, he turned the canoe bottom upward on the beach and hastily led the animal toward that part of the island clearing, where Snowfoot stood in a little fenced-in lot behind her ruined shed.
Adrian went with him, and asked:
“Won’t those two animals fight?”
“Won’t get a chance. When one goes in the other goes out. Here, , you can take the range of the island. Get out!”
She was more willing to go than Madoc to enter the
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