Pat set a stiff pace. He seemed in a hurry to get back to the cabin. As he opened the cabin door and looked in a flash of what looked to Upton very much like relief crossed his face as he saw that it was empty, it being too early for Alec to have returned. This puzzled Walter more than ever, but he held his tongue and forbore to ask questions. He felt sure that in his own good time Pat would unburden himself. The latter at once went to work on the broken shoe, replacing the twine4 with a rawhide5 thong6 made pliable7 by soaking in water. This would contract in drying and the broken frame would be stronger than ever.
He had just finished the job when Alec came in with two marten. "Any signs of our friends, the enemy?" asked Pat whimsically.
Alec shook his head. "No one has been near the traps," he replied. "I dinna think they will dare come so near the cabin."
"You've got another guess coming, Alec," retorted Pat. "The murthering thaves killed two deer within a mile of here yesterday."
"What!" exclaimed Walter and Hal in unison8, while Alec suspended his skinning knife in mid9 air and shot a keen glance at Pat.
"It's a fact," Pat went on. "Sparrer will tell you so."
Sparrer nodded in confirmation10 of Pat's surprising statement.
"But we didn't hear any guns," protested Hal.
"No," replied Pat, "for the very good reason that no guns were fired. They were not hunting; they were butchering." Then he graphically11 described for Alec's benefit Upton's experience with the buck that morning, and the story lost nothing in the telling. "Walt," he continued, "knows enough about deer to realize that the deer he saw did not behave as he expected they would, and he's been puzzling over it ever since. I'll tell you the reason. They've been hunted and harried12 in that yard till their nerves are on the jump so that they will run from their own shadows, all but the buck, and I guess now after his scrap13 with the snow-shoe he will be as bad as the does. As it was he was simply fighting mad, knowing their helplessness outside the yard. Ordinarily he would have simply trotted14 off quietly with the does. But they were hunted yesterday to a point where the old fellow was desperate, and the proof of it is what Sparrer and I found."
"What was it?" demanded Walter eagerly.
"We found where a fawn15 and a doe had been driven into the deep snow and butchered with a knife," replied Pat. "The story was plain enough for any one who can read signs. It was no trick at all for those bloody16 poachers on snow-shoes to run them down and drive them into the snow. After that no gun was needed. Besides, a gun is too noisy for thieves and lawbreakers. Walt didn't tell you what he saw yesterday. Fire away, Walt, and tell 'em."
Upton told briefly17 what he had seen on the peak by the pass and his reasons for telling only Pat. Alec's face hardened as he listened and a steely glint crept into his eyes. When Walter had finished Pat continued.
"You fellows wondered why I was so keen on getting back to the cabin. It was because I don't believe it is safe to leave it unguarded. As long as the snow was soft those thieves kept away from the Hollow, but with this crust to leave no tracks they've come down here, and they've been watching us. They know how many of us are here and are watching our movements. They'd raid the cabin in a minute if they saw the chance. But as long as anybody is here they'll keep out of sight. Hereafter we'll leave a guard when we go out. To-morrow Alec and I will start before daybreak to look for those fellows and leave you youngsters to amuse yourselves. I have an idea that their camp isn't so far away as Alec thought it was. Now we'll have dinner, and this afternoon Alec and I will look over a couple of the short lines, one of you can keep guard here and the other two can go with us or do anything else you please."
Upton insisted that he should keep guard, Hal decided18 to go with Alec, and Sparrer with a little hesitancy confessed that he would like to hunt rabbits. The experience of Christmas morning had whetted19 his taste for hunting and following a trap line seemed tame sport in comparison. He was eager to try his luck alone, and when Walter offered the loan of his rifle his happiness was complete. When the others had departed he shouldered the rifle and at Upton's suggestion started to follow the course of the brook20 up to the beaver21 ponds so as to see the houses and dams and then go on to the swamp at the head of the ponds where Spud Ely had found the rabbit tracks which had ultimately led to his finding of Alec Smith the fall before.
It did not take him long to reach the first or big dam. It was difficult for this boy of the city to believe that this could be the work of animals and not men, and had he not seen some of the beaver cuttings in the Bronx Park at home he would have been inclined to think that Upton had been stuffing him when he told him about the dam. There was little opportunity to examine the construction, because it was covered with snow and was in effect a long solid wall of glistening22 white. Beyond stretched the smooth even surface of the big pond, with nothing to break the dead level of it but three white mounds24 over toward the north shore. These he knew must be the houses of which Upton had told him, and he at once decided to go over and investigate them.
As he approached them he discovered several small mounds around two of the houses, but thought nothing of this until he noticed that the snow around them had been recently disturbed, and that the mounds themselves were not crusted. Instantly every sense which his Scout25 training had developed was aroused. Here was something peculiar26, and to be investigated. Could this be the work of the beavers27? He would find out. Rapidly he dug into one of the mounds and presently disclosed evergreen28 boughs29 over which the snow had been heaped. Could this be some work of the strange little animals of which he had never heard? He lifted one of the boughs and looked at the butt30. It had been broken off and not cut by teeth. Moreover, it was freshly broken. He examined another with the same result. Underneath31 was a larger one, and this had been cut with an axe32.
Sparrer straightened and looked keenly in all directions. A sudden suspicion was rapidly crystallizing into conviction in his mind. This was the work of man. What did it mean? So far as he could see there was not another living thing in all that great white waste. The vast silence was oppressive. Involuntarily he shivered. For the first time the loneliness of complete solitude33 gripped him, the more so that hitherto in all his life he had never known what it was to be absolutely alone. From babyhood he had been surrounded night and day by human beings, many of them evil, but human nevertheless. Even since he had entered the woods he had not been out of speaking distance of one or more of his companions until now. An overwhelming sense of littleness and insignificance34 swept over him. There was something
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