"They'll be better off without me. I can't help mother any, nor she me, yet awhile. Can't you let her know I'm safe some way?"

"Oh, yes, I'll happen round there some day to rights. How in tunket did she ever come to mate wi' that surly red-haired dog? You know I hain't seen her since they was married. Women is onaccountable critters, anyhow, an' I've been marcifully presarved from ever bein' tackled to one on 'em;" yet he sighed, as he looked about the littered room, that showed so plainly the lack of housewifely care.

After the supper of fried venison and johnny-cake was eaten, they sat in the twilight and firelight talking over the past and plans for the future, till the boy, worn out with the events of the day, was given a nest of furs in the loft, where he would be safe from detection by any chance visitor, and Job, after barring the door and carefully covering the fire, betook himself with the hound to their accustomed couch on the floor.

CHAPTER XII-A FREE LIFE

The borders of the clearing were dimly defined in the dusk of the next evening, and Nathan was beginning to feel lonely, though he had the hound for company, when Job came in with his gun on his shoulder.

"Well, what news?" Nathan asked, after a little impatient waiting for Job's account of his trip abroad.

"Well, I happened in just arter noon. Your nice stepfather sot by the fireplace a smokin'. 'Where's Nate,' says I, an' he up an' answered mighty quick, 'Run away, but he'll be back quick enough.' Your mother was lookin' turrible worrited, an' it was quite a spell afore I could git a chance to do my arrant with Toombs right in the room. Bimeby I made out to have a turrible pesterin' sliver in my right hand an' got your mother to pick it out wi' a needle. I'd ruther have a leg took off 'an to have a woman jabbin' at a sliver. Whilst she was at it, me wi' my back towards Toombs, I whispered you was at my house and all right, an'

you'd ortu seen her face light up. Then we played the sliver was out, an' arter I'd wished you was to home to go fishin' with me an' wondered what on airth you'd run away f'm such a good home for, I come off. An' I tell you, boy, that ere ol' scoundrel thinks he's killed you. When I come off towards where he chopped that tree, he follered along to see if I went nigh it, an' all the time I could see he was scairter'n he was mad."

"I don't care, I can't go back if you'll let me stay with you."

"Sartainly, an' glad to have you."

Nathan readily adapted himself to the ranger's way of living, helping him in the cabin work and that of the clearing. At intervals, through his friend, he sent his mother tidings of his welfare and learned of her own. Through the same way, and his mother's ready a.s.sistance, he gained possession of his other clothes-a tow shirt, a blue frock, a pair of gray breeches, and two pairs of thick woolen stockings, as large a wardrobe as most backwoods dwellers could boast of.

"Your mother stuck this out of the loft winder as I come away," said Job one day, handing him his father's cherished gun.

"Oh, I am glad to get this, and see, it is longer'n I be yet. But I'm growing, for I measured when Toombs put this up loft so't he could hang his gun on the hooks over the fireplace. See, I can hold it at arm's length long enough to see to shoot," and he stretched out the long-barrelled gun with pride.

"Toombs was out a burnin' log heaps," Job went on. "She says he's dretful narvous an' jumps at every sound. I ruther guess he's gittin'

his pay as he goes along, my boy."

In preparation for the fall trapping, which was the ranger's chief dependence, the two, accompanied by Gabriel, made long ranges through the forest, marking their line by blazed trees, to build deadfalls for martens on the upland and for mink along the brook and larger streams, and larger traps for martens, otters, fisher, and beaver, and when the leaves began to fall they daily gathered their furry harvest. Day after day, too, the woods rang with Gabe's deep, melodious voice as he drove the deer to water. Many an adventure on lake or in forest spiced the half wild life, and the loving trust of the old man so sweetened it that time glided swiftly past. Many a lesson of woodcraft the boy also learned, as well as the priceless one of love and charity to all created things, if Indians and Toombs were excepted. Perhaps, in time, their turn for forbearance would come.

One day late in the fall Nathan ventured to the Fort, as much to visit the garrison boys, for whose companionship he often longed in his isolation, as to carry some fine partridges to the commandant's lady. He had shot them himself with his father's gun, in the use of which he was becoming expert.

"Whativer has coom o' your redheaded stepfather? He didn't coom here sin he coom marryin' your mother," said one of the English boys.

After this information, visits to the Fort were more frequent, since there was no fear of meeting Toombs. The sentinel, who, with his musket shouldered high above his left hip and his clubbed queue bobbing in unison to his slow, measured steps, always paced before the gate, made but a show of challenging him, and Nathan was almost as free as the inmates to every part of the Fort, excepting the officers' quarters and the vigilantly guarded magazine. The drill and parade of the soldiers, in their spotless scarlet uniforms and shining arms, though there were less than fifty, rank and file, seemed a grand martial display, and he was always thrilled with the stirring notes of drum and fife.

Occasionally he met the commandant's wife walking on the parapet, so refined and different from the toil-worn women he had been accustomed to see, that she seemed a being of another world.

Once that fall Job and his young companion went far back into the solitude of the primeval forest to hunt moose. Even the thunder of Ticonderoga's guns was never echoed there, and from morning till night they heard the sound of no human life but their own. At night the dismal chorus of the wolves was heard far and near, and now and then, what was a pleasanter sound, the call of a moose, soft and mellow, in the distance. With a birch bark horn Job simulated this call, and lured a moose into an ambuscade, where, within short range, the huge creature was killed. When with much labor the meat was transported and safely stored in the cabin, they were in no danger of a winter famine. Soon winter came, with days of s...o...b..und isolation, and its days of out-door work and pleasant, healthful pastime.

The gloom of a bl.u.s.tering, snowy February day was thickening into the gloom of night, when a traveller and his jaded horse appeared at the door of the little log house.

"I've somehow missed my way on the lake," said he to Job, when the door was opened. "I'm bound for Bennington. Can you give me and my poor beast shelter till morning and then set me on the right road?"

"Sartainly, come in, come in," was answered, heartily. "You're welcome to such as I've got of bed an' board, an' your hoss'll be better off in the shed wi' corn fodder'n he'd be a browsin' in the woods."

When the stranger had seen his jaded horse cared for and had come in, the firelight revealed a man in the prime of life, of fine face and figure and of military bearing, though he was clad in the plain dress of a civilian. He proved a genial guest, and amused his companions with stories of his recent journey to Canada, and of his home in Connecticut, and with relations of the stirring events in that and the other colonies that portended a revolt against the mother country. In turn he was interested in everything pertaining to the New Hampshire Grants, the progress of the quarrel with New York claimants, the temper of the inhabitants toward England, but, particularly, was he curious about the condition of the adjacent fortress. Concerning its garrison and the plans of the fortification he found Nathan well informed.

"I like to remember such things about a place that has been so famous,"

the stranger observed, as he made notes in a memorandum book.

"I would like to visit the fort sometime. How many men did you count the last time you saw them parade, did you say?"

It was well into the night when the precious embers were covered and the three betook themselves to sleep, with the wind roaring in the woods and the snow driving gustily against the oiled-paper windows of the cabin.

When they awoke the storm was spent. Beneath the cloudless morning sky the forest stood silent as the army of spectres that its snow-powdered trunks resembled. After breakfast Job put on his snowshoes and led his guest to the desired road to the southward settlements. This break in the winter monotony was often dwelt upon by the fireside in the little log house. A chance visit, if aught occurs by chance, yet it proved of vast importance.

CHAPTER XIII-FOREBODINGS OF STORM

After many days of fair promises tardily fulfilled, spring had come. The soft air was full of its sounds and odors, the medley of harsh and liquid notes of the myriad blackbirds that swarmed in the trees along the creek, the crackling croak of the frogs, the whimpering call of the muskrats, the booming of bitterns, the splashing and quacking of wild ducks, and the murmur of running waters. There were the spicy fragrance of pine and hemlock, and the fresh smell of warming mould and bursting buds, while the perfume of wild flowers added a moiety to the spring time odor. The shad trees shone like snowdrifts in the gray woods, and the yellow catkins were alive with humming bees.

Amid the pleasant sights of nature's progress, Nathan and his friend sat near the door, taking off and stretching on pliant bows the skins of the last catch of muskrats.

"It's about time to quit trappin' for this year," said Job, as he slipped a skin onto the bow that he held between his knees. "They're gettin' a leetle off prime, though better'n they be in the fall an' no kits as there is then," and he fastened the skin in place, with a cut near its edge, into each horn of the bow. "Good land! What's Gabe hullabalooin' at now, I wonder?"

Nathan peered cautiously around the corner and whispered:

"It's neighbor Newton. I'll go up loft." Accordingly he climbed the ladder and crept softly to the side of the loft above the door. Through the wide cracks of the loose flooring he could see a patch of the chip strewn, sunlit earth outside, with Job's long legs stretching across it and his hands idle a moment as he called in the hound, who presently appeared, and behind him the stout stockinged legs of neighbor Newton.

"Job, have you heard the news?" Newton asked excitedly.

"News? What news?" Job's knife stopped half-way in the slit it was making along a muskrat's throat.

"There's ben a fight down in the Bay Colony 'twixt our folks and the king's troops and our folks whipped 'em."

"Our folks a fightin' the king's troops?" said Job incredulously.

The other hastily related such particulars of the momentous conflict as he had learned. Nathan, whose heart was beating fast at the stirring news, saw the muskrat drop to the ground.

"I al'ys said them reg'lars, shootin' breast high at nothin', couldn't stan' agin our bushfighters, aimin' to kill," Job said exultantly; "but what next, Dan'l?"

"War-it means war. The country's all a-risin'. Every man's got to choose the side he'll take. Which side is yourn, Job?"

There was a silence, and the answer came with slow deliberation. "I hoped to end my days in peace. I've had enough o' fightin', the Lord knows. When I've fit it was for the land I was born in-if it was under the British flag-an' I shan't never fight for no other."

"Every man in these clearin's is all right, so far as we know, exceptin'

that aire sour-faced Toombs. He hain't no good will towards our side. A Tory in Seth's shoes, and him red-hot for liberty. He's got a Canuck a-workin' for him, and I'd livser trust a wolf'n one o' them pea-soupers. I hain't no patience wi' Ruth for marryin' that critter.

Where do you s'pose her boy is?" There being no reply the speaker went on: "I b'lieve that devil has made way with him. He acts turrible cur'us, scared and startin' at every sound," and the two walked off towards the creek.

Half an hour later when Job returned, he asked Nathan: "Well, what do you think o' the news, my boy?"

"Oh, is it true about the fight? How I wish I could go and help our folks. Father'd go quick."

"Well, well, stay where ye be. If it goes on, it's sure to strike the ol' war-path," and the old ranger swept his arm towards the lake.