The Best of Gene Stratton-Porter

  “Freckles! Freckles!” called the voice of the Bird Woman.

  They were at the trail on the instant.

  “Both those revolvers loaded?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Freckles.

  “Is there a way you can cut across the swamp and reach the chicken tree in a few minutes, and with little noise?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go flying,” said the Bird Woman. “Give the Angel a lift behind me, and we will ride the horse back where you left him and wait for you. I finished Little Chicken in no time and put him back. His mother came so close, I felt sure she would enter the log. The light was fine, so I set and focused the camera and covered it with branches, attached the long hose, and went away over a hundred feet and hid in some bushes to wait. A short, stout man and a tall, dark one passed me so closely I almost could have reached out and touched them. They carried a big saw on their shoulders. They said they could work until near noon, and then they must lay off until you passed and then try to load and get out at night. They went on—not entirely from sight—and began cutting a tree. Mr. McLean told me the other day what would probably happen here, and if they fell that tree he loses his wager on you. Keep to the east and north and hustle. We’ll meet you at the carriage. I always am armed. Give Angel one of your revolvers, and you keep the other. We will separate and creep toward them from different sides and give them a fusillade that will send them flying. You hurry, now!”

  She lifted the reins and started briskly down the trail. The Angel, hatless and with sparkling eyes, was clinging around her waist.

  Freckles wheeled and ran. He worked his way with much care, dodging limbs and bushes with noiseless tread, and cutting as closely where he thought the men were as he felt that he dared if he were to remain unseen. As he ran he tried to think. It was Wessner, burning for his revenge, aided by the bully of the locality, that he was going to meet. He was accustomed to that thought but not to the complication of having two women on his hands who undoubtedly would have to be taken care of in spite of the Bird Woman’s offer to help him. His heart was jarring as it never had before with running. He must follow the Bird Woman’s plan and meet them at the carriage, but if they really did intend to try to help him, he must not allow it. Allow the Angel to try to handle a revolver in his defence? Never! Not for all the trees in the Limberlost! She might shoot herself. She might forget to watch sharply and run across a snake that was not particularly well behaved that morning. Freckles permitted himself a grim smile as he went speeding on.

  When he reached the carriage, the Bird Woman and the Angel had the horse hitched, the outfit packed, and were calmly waiting. The Bird Woman held a revolver in her hand. She wore dark clothing. They had pinned a big focusing cloth over the front of the Angel’s light dress.

  “Give Angel one of your revolvers, quick!” said the Bird Woman. “We will creep up until we are in fair range. The underbrush is so thick and they are so busy that they will never notice us, if we don’t make a noise. You fire first, then I will pop in from my direction, and then you, Angel, and shoot quite high, or else very low. We mustn’t really hit them. We’ll go close enough to the cowards to make it interesting, and keep it up until we have them going.”

  Freckles protested.

  The Bird Woman reached over, and, taking the smaller revolver from his belt, handed it to the Angel. “Keep your nerve steady, dear; watch where you step, and shoot high,” she said. “Go straight at them from where you are. Wait until you hear Freckles’s first shot, then follow me as closely as you can, to let them know that we outnumber them. If you want to save McLean’s wager on you, now you go!” she commanded Freckles, who, with an agonized glance at the Angel, ran toward the east.

  The Bird Woman chose the middle distance, and for a last time cautioned the Angel as she moved away to lie down and shoot high.

  Through the underbrush the Bird Woman crept even more closely than she had intended, found a clear range, and waited for Freckles’s shot. There was one long minute of sickening suspense. The men straightened for breath. Work was difficult with a handsaw in the heat of the swamp. As they rested, the big dark fellow took a bottle from his pocket and began oiling the saw.

  “We got to keep mighty quiet,” he said, “and wait to fell it until that damned guard has gone to his dinner.”

  Again they bent to their work. Freckles’s revolver spat fire. Lead spanged on steel. The saw-handle flew from Wessner’s hand and he reeled from the jar of the shock. Black Jack straightened, uttering a fearful oath. The hat sailed from his head from the far northeast. The Angel had not waited for the Bird Woman, and her shot scarcely could have been called high. At almost the same instant the third shot whistled from the east. Black Jack sprang into the air with a yell of complete panic, for it ripped a heel from his boot. Freckles emptied his second chamber, and the earth spattered over Wessner. Shots poured in rapidly. Without even reaching for a weapon, both men ran toward the east road in great leaping bounds, while leaden slugs sung and hissed around them in deadly earnest.

  Freckles was trimming his corners as closely as he dared, but if the Angel did not really intend to hit, she was taking risks in a scandalous manner.

  When the men reached the trail, Freckles yelled at the top of his voice: “Head them off on the south, boys! Fire from the south!”

  As he had hoped, Jack and Wessner instantly plunged into the swale. A spattering of lead followed them. They crossed the swale, running low, with not even one backward glance, and entered the woods beyond the corduroy.

  Then the little party gathered at the tree.

  “I’d better fix this saw so they can’t be using it if they come back,” said Freckles, taking out his hatchet and making saw-teeth fly.

  “Now we must leave here without being seen,” said the Bird Woman to the Angel. “It won’t do for me to make enemies of these men, for I am likely to meet them while at work any day.”

  “You can do it by driving straight north on this road,” said Freckles. “I will go ahead and cut the wires for you. The swale is almost dry. You will only be sinking a little. In a few rods you will strike a cornfield. I will take down the fence and let you into that. Follow the furrows and drive straight across it until you come to the other side. Be following the fence south until you come to a road through the woods east of it. Then take that road and follow east until you reach the pike. You will come out on your way back to town, and two miles north of anywhere they are likely to be. Don’t for your lives ever let it out that you did this,” he earnestly cautioned, “for it’s black enemies you would be making.”

  Freckles clipped the wires and they drove through. The Angel leaned from the carriage and held out his revolver. Freckles looked at her in surprise. Her eyes were black, while her face was a deeper rose than usual. He felt that his own was white.

  “Did I shoot high enough?” she asked sweetly. “I really forgot about lying down.”

  Freckles winced. Did the child know how close she had gone? Surely she could not! Or was it possible that she had the nerve and skill to fire like that purposely?

  “I will send the first reliable man I meet for McLean,” said the Bird Woman, gathering up the lines. “If I don’t meet one when we reach town, we will send a messenger. If it wasn’t for having the gang see me, I would go myself; but I will promise you that you will have help in a little over two hours. You keep well hidden. They must think some of the gang is with you now. There isn’t a chance that they will be back, but don’t run any risks. Remain under cover. If they should come, it probably would be for their saw.” She laughed as at a fine joke.

  Chapter 7

  Wherein Freckles Wins Honor and Finds a Footprint on the Trail

  Round-eyed, Freckles watched the Bird Woman and the Angel drive away. After they were from sight and he was safely hidden among the branches of a small tree, he remembered that he neither had thanked them nor said good-bye. Considering what they had been through, they never would come ag
ain. His heart sank until he had palpitation in his wading-boots.

  Stretching the length of the limb, he thought deeply, though he was not thinking of Black Jack or Wessner. Would the Bird Woman and the Angel come again? No other woman whom he ever had known would. But did they resemble any other women he ever had known? He thought of the Bird Woman’s unruffled face and the Angel’s revolver practice, and presently he was not so sure that they would not return.

  What were the people in the big world like? His knowledge was so very limited. There had been people at the Home, who exchanged a stilted, perfunctory kindness for their salaries. The visitors who called on receiving days he had divided into three classes: the psalm-singing kind, who came with a tear in the eye and hypocrisy in every feature of their faces; the kind who dressed in silks and jewels, and handed to those poor little mother-hungry souls worn toys that their children no longer cared for, in exactly the same spirit in which they pitched biscuits to the monkeys at the zoo, and for the same reason—to see how they would take them and be amused by what they would do; and the third class, whom he considered real people. They made him feel they cared that he was there, and that they would have been glad to see him elsewhere.

  Now here was another class, that had all they needed of the world’s best and were engaged in doing work that counted. They had things worth while to be proud of; and they had met him as a son and brother. With them he could, for the only time in his life, forget the lost hand that every day tortured him with a new pang. What kind of people were they and where did they belong among the classes he knew? He failed to decide, because he never had known others similar to them; but how he loved them!

  In the world where he was going soon, were the majority like them, or were they of the hypocrite and bun-throwing classes?

  He had forgotten the excitement of the morning and the passing of time when distant voices aroused him, and he gently lifted his head. Nearer and nearer they came, and as the heavy wagons rumbled down the east trail he could hear them plainly. The gang were shouting themselves hoarse for the Limberlost guard. Freckles did not feel that he deserved it. He would have given much to be able to go to the men and explain, but to McLean only could he tell his story.

  At the sight of Freckles the men threw up their hats and cheered. McLean shook hands with him warmly, but big Duncan gathered him into his arms and hugged him as a bear and choked over a few words of praise. The gang drove in and finished felling the tree. McLean was angry beyond measure at this attempt on his property, for in their haste to fell the tree the thieves had cut too high and wasted a foot and a half of valuable timber.

  When the last wagon rolled away, McLean sat on the stump and Freckles told the story he was aching to tell. The Boss scarcely could believe his senses. Also, he was much disappointed.

  “I have been almost praying all the way over, Freckles,” he said, “that you would have some evidence by which we could arrest those fellows and get them out of our way, but this will never do. We can’t mix up those women in it. They have helped you save me the tree and my wager as well. Going across the country as she does, the Bird Woman never could be expected to testify against them.”

  “No, indeed; nor the Angel, either, sir,” said Freckles.

  “The Angel?” queried the astonished McLean.

  The Boss listened in silence while Freckles told of the coming and christening of the Angel.

  “I know her father well,” said McLean at last, “and I have often seen her. You are right; she is a beautiful young girl, and she appears to be utterly free from the least particle of false pride or foolishness. I do not understand why her father risks such a jewel in this place.”

  “He’s daring it because she is a jewel, sir,” said Freckles, eagerly. “Why, she’s trusting a rattlesnake to rattle before it strikes her, and of course, she thinks she can trust mankind as well. The man isn’t made who wouldn’t lay down the life of him for her. She doesn’t need any care. Her face and the pretty ways of her are all the protection she would need in a band of howling savages.”

  “Did you say she handled one of the revolvers?” asked McLean.

  “She scared all the breath out of me body,” admitted Freckles. “Seems that her father has taught her to shoot. The Bird Woman told her distinctly to lie low and blaze away high, just to help scare them. The spunky little thing followed them right out into the west road, spitting lead like hail, and clipping all around the heads and heels of them; and I’m damned, sir, if I believe she’d cared a rap if she’d hit. I never saw much shooting, but if that wasn’t the nearest to miss I ever want to see! Scared the life near out of me body with the fear that she’d drop one of them. As long as I’d no one to help me but a couple of women that didn’t dare be mixed up in it, all I could do was to let them get away.”

  “Now, will they come back?” asked McLean.

  “Of course!” said Freckles. “They’re not going to be taking that. You could stake your life on it, they’ll be coming back. At least, Black Jack will. Wessner may not have the pluck, unless he is half drunk. Then he’d be a terror. And the next time—” Freckles hesitated.

  “What?”

  “It will be a question of who shoots first and straightest.”

  “Then the only thing for me to do is to double the guard and bring the gang here the first minute possible. As soon as I feel that we have the rarest of the stuff out below, we will come. The fact is, in many cases, until it is felled it’s difficult to tell what a tree will prove to be. It won’t do to leave you here longer alone. Jack has been shooting twenty years to your one, and it stands to reason that you are no match for him. Who of the gang would you like best to have with you?”

  “No one, sir,” said Freckles emphatically. “Next time is where I run. I won’t try to fight them alone. I’ll just be getting wind of them, and then make tracks for you. I’ll need to come like lightning, and Duncan has no extra horse, so I’m thinking you’d best get me one—or perhaps a wheel would be better. I used to do extra work for the Home doctor, and he would let me take his bicycle to ride around the place. And at times the head nurse would loan me his for an hour. A wheel would cost less and be faster than a horse, and would take less care. I believe, if you are going to town soon, you had best pick up any kind of an old one at some second-hand store, for if I’m ever called to use it in a hurry there won’t be the handlebars left after crossing the corduroy.”

  “Yes,” said McLean; “and if you didn’t have a first-class wheel, you never could cross the corduroy on it at all.”

  As they walked to the cabin, McLean insisted on another guard, but Freckles was stubbornly set on fighting his battle alone. He made one mental condition. If the Bird Woman was going to give up the Little Chicken series, he would yield to the second guard, solely for the sake of her work and the presence of the Angel in the Limberlost. He did not propose to have a second man unless it were absolutely necessary, for he had been alone so long that he loved the solitude, his chickens, and flowers. The thought of having a stranger to all his ways come and meddle with his arrangements, frighten his pets, pull his flowers, and interrupt him when he wanted to study, so annoyed him that he was blinded to his real need for help.

  With McLean it was a case of letting his sober, better judgment be overridden by the boy he was growing so to love that he could not endure to oppose him, and to have Freckles keep his trust and win alone meant more than any money the Boss might lose.

  The following morning McLean brought the wheel, and Freckles took it to the trail to test it. It was new, chainless, with as little as possible to catch in hurried riding, and in every way the best of its kind. Freckles went skimming around the trail on it on a preliminary trip before he locked it in his case and started his minute examination of his line on foot. He glanced around his room as he left it, and then stood staring.

  On the moss before his prettiest seat lay the Angel’s hat. In the excitement of yesterday all of them had forgotten it. He went and p
icked it up, oh! so carefully, gazing at it with hungry eyes, but touching it only to carry it to his case, where he hung it on the shining handlebar of the new wheel and locked it among his treasures. Then he went to the trail, with a new expression on his face and a strange throbbing in his heart. He was not in the least afraid of anything that morning. He felt he was the veriest Daniel, but all his lions seemed weak and harmless.

  What Black Jack’s next move would be he could not imagine, but that there would be a move of some kind was certain. The big bully was not a man to give up his purpose, or to have the hat swept from his head with a bullet and bear it meekly. Moreover, Wessner would cling to his revenge with a Dutchman’s singleness of mind.

  Freckles tried to think connectedly, but there were too many places on the trail where the Angel’s footprints were yet visible. She had stepped in one mucky spot and left a sharp impression. The afternoon sun had baked it hard, and the horses’ hoofs had not obliterated any part of it, as they had in so many places. Freckles stood fascinated, gazing at it. He measured it lovingly with his eye. He would not have ventured a caress on her hat any more than on her person, but this was different. Surely a footprint on a trail might belong to anyone who found and wanted it. He stooped under the wires and entered the swamp. With a little searching, he found a big piece of thick bark loose on a log and carefully peeling it, carried it out and covered the print so that the first rain would not obliterate it.

  When he reached his room, he tenderly laid the hat upon his bookshelf, and to wear off his awkwardness, mounted his wheel and went spinning on trail again. It was like flying, for the path was worn smooth with his feet and baked hard with the sun almost all the way. When he came to the bark, he veered far to one side and smiled at it in passing. Suddenly he was off the wheel, kneeling beside it. He removed his hat, carefully lifted the bark, and gazed lovingly at the imprint.