CHAPTER IX
KIDDIE'S "SELFISHNESS"
Kiddie's fall had been violent, and might easily have been fatal; butit had been neither sudden nor unexpected, while his experience withbucking bronchos, and his great skill as a horseman, had helped him toavoid serious physical injury.
He was bruised, he was shaken; but no bones were broken, and his worstinjury was his sprained ankle. This gave him acute pain andinconvenience for many days, requiring care and rest.
Naturally he fretted under the forced inactivity; he became impatient,and when at length he could limp from his room to the veranda, hewanted to mount a horse and ride along to the forest clearing tosuperintend the building of his cabin.
"There's no need fer you ter go an' see things," Rube Carter insisted."Jus' you have a good rest until you're quite well. Everything's goin'on famous. We've gotten the roof on, an' we're now fixin' up yourbedroom, so's you kin occupy it while the rest of the shanty's bein'finished."
"Yes," pursued Kiddie. "But I want to be there right now. I'mhankerin' badly to see how it looks, ter judge what it'll be like whenall the work's done and we've got the fixings in--the books andpictures and all that. I'm envying you terrible, Rube, being thereevery day and watching the thing grow. I'm envying you being able tosee the wild critters while I'm kept a prisoner here on account of afool saddle that was broken and mended with rotten string. I guessyou've seen heaps of things this morning--new birds, new insects, newbeasts, and wild flowers that you couldn't put a name to, eh?"
"Dunno 'bout that," said Rube. "Dunno as I saw anythin' as I hadn'tseen before."
"Ah, you've got a heap to learn yet, Rube," Kiddie rejoined. "Why,when I'm out and about there's never a day, never an hour, hardly aminute, but I see something new, learn something fresh in woodcraft andscoutcraft. You don't go along with your eyes shut and your ears andnostrils closed, do you? What did you see early this mornin', forexample, when you went across the grass patch, the dew still lying?"
"Say, now, how d'you know I saw anythin'?" Rube asked. "You was inbed."
"Yes, but I could see you from my pillow. You went aside from thestraight trail."
"That's so," acknowledged Rube. "I was tryin' ter foller a track inthe dew--some biggish animal, I guess; but thar wasn't nofootmarks--not in the long grass--an' the track didn't lead tonothin'--only a root of dandelion with the leaves chewed off."
"Perhaps you went the wrong way," suggested Kiddie. "Was the tracklighter than the rest of the grass, or darker?"
"Um! Now you puzzle me," demurred Rube. "I ain't just sure; but Iguess it was darker. Yes, it was sure darker. Why? What's thatgotter do with it?"
"Why? Well, a scout would sure know that grass blades bent towards himlook dark; bent away from him, light. If the trail of your biggishanimal this morning was darker than the grass, then you didn't followhim, you were going away from him all the time. He was probably astoat on the track of a jack-rabbit. If you'd followed the other way,you might have seen where that stoat chased his victim into its burrow,and you might have seen where he came out again alone, after his feedunderground. There's a heap of information in a track, Rube,altogether independent of plain footprints."
Rube rested his chin in his hands, listening.
"Suppose a bicycle or an automobile car had gone along a dusty or amuddy trail," continued Kiddie, "and you wanted to know which way itwas travelling, what 'ld you do ter discover? You'd look at the rutthe wheel had made. You'd see that the loose dust or the wet mudfeathered out from it in the direction in which the wheel was going.No need ter search for footprints. It's the same with drops of bloodfrom a wound, drops of water splashed from a jug or a bucket--anydrippin' liquid; the drops splash forward in the direction in which theperson splashing them was movin', the splashes being longer or shorteraccording to the person's pace. If you aim at being a capable scout--agood tracker--don't study the obvious things alone: look as well at thesmaller signs, which often tell you more. And wherever you are,whatever you're doing, keep your senses busy--your sight, your hearing,your senses of smell and touch. At the present moment my senses tellme there's a mosquito in this yer veranda: I c'n hear the critterhumming away back of me. I know that we're goin' to have bacon andeggs for dinner; I c'n smell them bein' fried. The kitchen's somewarm; your mother has opened the window; I c'n feel the draught fromit."
In the days of Kiddie's convalescence, Rube learnt many a lesson inscoutcraft; lessons which he hastened to put into practice. It wasafterwards, however, when Kiddie was well, and they could go campingout together in the wilds, that he learnt most. In the meantime, therewas the work of building the woodland cabin to attend to.
He had at first intended that the cabin should be constructed by hisown hands alone, of rough, unhewn timber; that it should contain onlyone room, and that of the simplest. It was to be merely a trapper'slog hut in the forest, and he was to live as a simple trapper, quitealone, forgetting that he was a wealthy English nobleman.
But gradually his ideals had developed, and he had decided to make theplace comfortable and convenient as well as simple and solitary--tomake it, as it were, his headquarters, where he could store histrophies of the chase and keep his guns and books and pictures.
If he wished to go away on hunting trips, he could leave the cabin insafety, and take his pony and his tent and knapsack and live as a lonetrapper in the woods, moving from place to place, always having a hometo come back to if he wished. What he had always to fight against wasan inclination towards luxury and labour-saving convenience. He hadbought a patent camp cooking-stove in New York. It was capable ofcooking anything, from a sirloin to a savoury. But when he unpacked ithe saw how incongruous such a thing was with the domestic economy of ashanty in the forest.
"What does a plain trapper want with fancy fixings like this, anyway?"he asked himself. "If he's hankerin' after delicacies an' daintycookery, he'd best quit right back to London. My food's goin' ter befrizzled over an open wood fire, and that dinky, high-class kitchenrange is goin' right away to the bottom of Sweetwater Pond."
He allowed himself to stain the outer planks of the dwelling, but notto use any decorative paints which an ordinary trapper or an Indiancould not procure. A garden, with flowers as well as vegetables, andcreepers for the veranda, he considered necessaries, just as frames forpictures, shelves for his books, racks for his guns, and cupboards forhis crockery were necessary.
There were three rooms in the cabin--a large living-room, which wasalso kitchen, a workroom, and a bedroom; and they were all three verysimply furnished. Not far behind the cabin were the sheds andouthouses, the stables, cow-house, and barns; and down at the lakesidewas a boathouse, in which to keep his canoes and fishing materials.
This was the secluded home which Lord St. Olave was making for himself,in preference to a grand house in London and a great mansion on hisvast estate in Norfolk, with innumerable servants to wait upon him, andcrowds of fashionable friends to enjoy his hospitality. He wasrealizing his wish to abandon the social whirl of London and to returnto his native wilds. But he was not yet wholly satisfied with hischoice.
He entered the living-room one afternoon looking weary and untidy, andflung himself into an easy-chair, giving a curt nod of greeting toGideon Birkenshaw, who had strolled down from the homestead to have teawith him.
"Tired, Kiddie?" Gideon inquired. "Bin workin' too hard?"
"No," returned Kiddie, "I ain't tired. I'm never tired."
"Ankle still hurtin' you some, mebbe?" pursued Gideon.
"Ankle's gettin' along all right," Kiddie assured him. "Guess it'llsoon be's well's ever. Shall we have tea? Rube'll get it ready."
Gideon did not respond to the invitation.
"Buildin's progressin' all s'rene," he observed. "I like this yerroom. It's real homesome; and the view fr'm your front windows and theveranda's real elegant. Time you gets a collection o' choice flowersin your door-yard, you'll have 'bout the most desira
ble residence inthe hull state of Wyoming. Ain't you satisfied? What's the matter?"
"I'm just some worr'ed, Gid," Kiddie answered, flinging a leg over thearm of his chair.
"My!" exclaimed Gideon. "What in creation 've you gotter worry about?"
"Just the cabin," Kiddie answered dreamily. "Just the cabin and myliving in it all lonesome; enjoyin' it--enjoyin' it too much. It'sjust what I've wanted. Everything's all as I planned. But I've binthinkin', Gideon; thinking hard."
"That ain't a new experience fer you, Kiddie," said Gid. "You wasallus' a deep thinker. Guess it's the Injun blood in you assertin'itself. An' what's the matter wi' the cabin ter make you meditate an'worry?"
"Why," Kiddie responded slowly, keeping his Western manner of speech,as was usual with him when addressing Gideon Birkenshaw, "I've come tothe conclusion as it ain't just right an' proper o' me ter live herewith everything I most covet in the shape of personal comfort--a cosyhome in beautiful scenery, with the perfumed pine trees all around, thewoodland solitude, where I c'n study the wild critters, beasts an'birds an' insects; the creek an' the lake, where I c'n paddle an' fish;my time all my own, with no slavish duties, no tasks, noresponsibilities. An' it's all selfish, Gid, real mean an' selfish."
"Selfish, Kiddie?" Gideon screwed up his eyes in wonder.
"Yes. It ain't anyways right for a man ter live for himself alone,shirkin' his duties ter humanity. What did I do this mornin' that wasany good whatever to anybody in th' world but myself? I went out 'foresunrise, when the blue mist was hangin' round the mountain tops an' inamong the trees. It was like a fairy dream. I listened t' th'orchestra of the birds--the woodthrush, the veery, the scarlet tanageran' the rest of the thrillin' songsters--and the music was moredelicious 'n any opera I've heard in London an' Paris. I wasted a fullhour watchin' a fool centipede that had gotten himself tangled in aspider's web--watched th' manoeuvres of that spider for a full hour, Idid."
"I allow you learnt suthin', too, since the spider was at home,"interrupted Gid. "Them critters has wonderful skill in tactics. I'mfigurin' as that hour wasn't a whole lot wasted, Kiddie."
"It was wasted in selfish enjoyment, selfish gratification," Kiddieinsisted.
"Git!" exclaimed Gideon. "You dunno what selfishness means, Kiddie,an' you couldn't be selfish if you tried. You's allus doin' suthin'unselfish. Here's you comin' back to this yer camp an' the Sweetwaterdistrict, an' right straight away you starts helpin' other folks,pertectin' their homes from hostile Injuns, makin' their lives smootheran' safer. Is it selfish ter do what you've already done? What aboutyour takin' Jim Thurston's place in th' Express, riskin' yer life, an'precious near losin' it? Was that a act of selfishness?"
"It was my fault that Jim was hurt. I couldn't do otherwise than takehis place."
"You wouldn't ha' done it if you'd bin selfish. You'd ha' let somebodyelse carry on the job," argued Gideon. "You's allus thinkin' ofothers; doin' 'em good turns, givin' 'em pleasure. You've given me agold timepiece, you've given Isa a hoss, you've given us new guns allround. Thar's not a housewife along the trail as hasn't gotten suthin'as you brought her from England--cloth for a frock, trimmin' fer a hat,a box of scented soap, a machine fer mincin' meat. An' thechildren--the boys an' gels--what about them, eh? You brought 'em toysan' dolls an' pictur' books, whips, boxes of paints, needlecases withscissors an' thimble all complete. You've filled their little heartswith a joy they never knowed afore. Selfish! Great snakes!"
"Tea's ready," announced Rube Carter, breaking in upon theconversation. "I've opened a new tin o' peaches, and thar's cream."
In spite of Kiddie's efforts to be homely and unassuming, GideonBirkenshaw was not always entirely at his ease in his presence. Theold man recognized that his own upbringing and education had been sadlydeficient and that his roughness of speech and manners became painfullyobvious in comparison with Kiddie's unvarying courtesy and refinement.
"Kiddie," he said now, as they sat at tea, "thar's a many things inyou, I notice, as makes you a whole lot different from what you was inth' old days, 'fore you made the surprisin' discovery that you was aaristocratic nobleman. In a heap o' ways you's the same Kiddie.Nothin' c'n alter your natur' or wipe away th' effects of your earlytrainin' as a frontier scout. You've lost none o' your skill an'cleverness, but added suthin' to them that makes you inches taller an'bigger'n you was. I guess it's the things you acquired in England asmakes you diff'rent. Rubbin' shoulders with them high-class friends o'yours over thar has kinder wore off the rough corners."
"'Twas high time I quitted, perhaps," mused Kiddie. "If I'd stoppedover there any longer, I guess there wouldn't have been any cornersleft to know me by. I should have been worn round as a pebble, exactlylike all other pebbles without character and individuality."
"Thar you are!" nodded Gideon, "'without character an' individuality,'says you, as if you'd lifted the phrase outer a printed book. Youwouldn't ha' used sich choice an' dainty langwidge 'fore you went away.Your speech has growed more c'rrect, more elegant, same as your dress."
"My dress, Gid? What's the matter with my dress?"
"Oh, yes," pursued Gideon. "You wears buckskins an' flannels an' afrontier hat; you goes about with your shirt-sleeves rolled up an' ascarf 'stead of a stiff starched collar; but you takes care that thar'sallus elegant underclothin' nex' yer skin. You've gotten surprisin'clean habits, too: washes yourself three or four times a day, allusshaves yerself mornin's an' oils an' brushes yer hair. You don't goter bed wi' yer boots and breeches on; you sleeps in a dinky suit o'pyjamas with stripes on 'em, an' braid, an' fancy buttons. I ain'tcomplain'n' none, mind you. I gotter tremendous admiration fer allthese yer signs of gentlemanhood. Only they makes me feel ter'blehumble, Kiddie. I feel 's if I oughter be sayin' 'sir' or 'yourlordship' all the time."
"I'm glad you never commit such an outrageous mistake, Gid," saidKiddie, helping himself to preserved peaches with the spoon especiallyprovided for them. Rube had just used his own spoon for the samepurpose.
"An' thar's another thing--your manners at table," went on Gideon."You're that dainty in your ways of eatin' an' drinkin', you make mefeel like a brute animal 'stead of a well-brought-up human. Allus usesyer fork, you do; never shovels th' food inter yer mouth with a knife;never touches a bone wi' yer fingers. Seems ter me, Kiddie, if you waslivin' on a desert island, same's that chap Robi'son Crusoe, you'dstill show a example of perlite table manners t' the poll parrot an'the nanny goat."
Kiddie smiled in amusement.
"Well, well, Gid," he said, "you just wait until Rube an' I come backfrom our camp in the forest. I shall have dropped all theobjectionable politeness by then. We shall take no forks or plates,but will tear our food with our teeth. We will sleep in our bootsunder blankets of balsam branches, and forget the comforts of pyjamasand hot shaving water. We're going to live like a pair of primitivesavages, talkin' in the sign language, killin' an' cookin' our ownfood, takin' with us nothin' that you c'd buy in a city emporium,except, of course, our guns and huntin' knives. An' even then we shallbe a heap better off than Robinson Crusoe, for, although he had hisshot gun an' the fixin's he'd gotten from the wreck, yet he had terbuild his own boat, while we shall have our birch bark canoe, and Iguess the things we shall carry in the canoe an' in our pockets andhaversacks 'll give us an enormous advantage over the shipwreckedmariner."
"An' when d'you purpose startin' on this yer outlandish trip,abandonin' the delights o' civilization?" Gideon inquired. "It's thefust I've heard of it. You ain't bin makin' no preparations. Whend'you reckon on startin'?"
Kiddie glanced aside at Rube.
"As soon's Rube's ready," he announced.
"Why, I bin ready fer days an' days," said Rube. "I ain't thought o'nothin' else ever since yer told me it was goin' ter happen!"
"What about the weather prospects?" Kiddie asked.
"Weather's all right," answered Rube. "I've had me eye on it a lot.It's plumb sure t' be fine. Birds are fly
in' high; flowers ain't gotmuch scent in 'em; the sheep are grazin' with their heads to the wind;cattle are quiet. Mother's clothes line's saggin' betwixt the poles;spiders' webs are slack, too, an' thar's crowds of 'em on every bush.This mornin', when I looked out, great white mountains of cloud werebanked up in th' sky. 'Fore I'd dressed an' got out, the clouds hadmelted clean away. All them signs mean fair weather, I reckon."
"That's so," agreed Kiddie, "especially the spiders' webs an' thequickly meltin' clouds. Guess we may's well start right now."
"Some sudden, ain't it?" said Gideon in surprise.
"No advantage in delay," returned Kiddie, rising from his seat andsigning to Rube to begin at once. He went methodically about the cabincollecting things--a sack of potatoes, a bag of flour, some tins ofmilk, supplies of lard, salt, onions, rice, bacon, tinned fruit, andeggs, tea, cocoa, sugar, and butter, with various cooking utensils, hismedicine chest, a hurricane lamp, candles, and a can of oil. Rube hadmade out a long list of their requirements, and busied himselfcollecting them.
"How many blankets?" he inquired.
"None," Kiddie answered. "Two ground sheets an' our sleepin' bags 'llbe enough. An' we'll take the Indian teepee. It's better 'n a canvastent. Shift all these fixin's inter the garden, an' then we'll startputtin' back everything we c'n do without. What d'you want the booksfor? You'll have no time fer readin'; we'll talk instead. You c'n dowithout a lookin' glass. Put tin dippers in place of the china cupsan' saucers. Where's the fryin'-pan? Don't ferget soap an' towels."
In the garden he rejected a surprising number of things which Rube hadthought necessary. He reduced the equipment to the smallest possiblebulk. Nevertheless, he forgot nothing that was essential and includednothing which did not afterwards prove indispensable. The whole outfitoccupied only a small space in the canoe.
They were carrying the bundles down to the lakeside when Rube, who wasleading, stopped and looked back. Kiddie had come to a halt, and,still with the wigwam poles over his shoulder, was staring curiously atthe ground at his feet.
"You passed by without noticin' that, Rube," he said, when the boy wentback to him. What he was staring at was the stub of a cigarette. "Itwasn't lyin' there when I went along here this mornin', I guess. Youc'n see by the ash that it hasn't been here long. Less'n an hour, I'dsay. Who dropped it, I wonder? There ain't anybody in this yer campsmokes cigarettes."
He searched for footprints, but could discover none; a newly-brokentwig was all the sign that he could see. He glanced around among thetrees, but there was no visible movement, and a whip-poor-will wassinging undisturbed from a high bough of a balsam tree close at hand.
"No occasion ter worry about a trifle like that," he remarked, as hewent on in the direction of the lake. "All the same, I'm some curious."
He did not look back while carrying the long teepee poles through thenarrow ways between the closely-growing trees. Had he done so, eventhe sureness and quickness of his eyesight might still have missed thecleverly hidden form of Broken Feather, who lay at full length in themidst of an elder bush, stealthily watching him.