that the son of the rich Van Camps of the Bluffs, whose sporting possessions dot the country from Canada to Florida, needed a man to tend his boat house that lay further round the bay, and to take him occasionally to the ducking grounds at the crucial moment of wind and weather. Thus far, though several landsmen had attempted it, no one had kept the job long owing to its loneliness, and the fact that they lacked the outdoor knack, for the pay was liberal.
In a few words father told of the requirements. Shaking the sand from his garments the Markis stood up, new light in his eyes—“What! that yaller boat house round the bend, with all the contraptions and the tankboat painted about ’leven colours that Jason built? I’d better get to work smart in the mornin’ and weather her up a bit, it ’ud scare even a twice-shot old squaw the way it is! The weather is softenin’; come to-morrow there’ll be plenty o’ birds comin’ in and we’ll soon learn him how to fetch home a show of ’em, which is what most o’ them city chaps wants more’n the eatin’—won’t we, Maje? Yes, Doc, I’ll take the ockerpation straight and honourable and won’t go back on you! Go home with you for supper and the night? That’s kindly, we air some used up, that’s so! And something in advance of pay to-morrow? and he’ll let me raise a shingle and pick up what I can takin’ other folks fishin’ and shootin’ when he don’t need me? and he’ll most likely supply me clothes—a uniform like a yacht sailor’s, you say? Well, I suppose these old duds are shabby, but me and they’s kept company this long time and wild-fowl’s particular shy o’ new things, and the smell of them I reckon! Weathered things is mostly best to my thinkin’, likewise friends, Doc!”
When young Van Camp, arriving at the shore one day at dawn for his first expedition, saw his new employee and his aged dog, he shuddered visibly and for a moment inwardly questioned father’s sanity; but having been about with half-breed guides too much to judge the outdoor man by mere externals, he laughed good-naturedly and abandoned himself to the tender mercies of the Markis and the Major, saying lightly as he glanced at the faded sweater and soft hat, “It’s cold down here; I’m sending you a reefer and some better togs to-morrow.”
So the three went out across the still-water to the ducking grounds and brought back such a bunch before the fog closed in the afternoon that Van Camp clapped the Markis on the back and declared the Major must be a Mascot, and that he deserved the finest sort of collar!
“A Mascot! that’s what he is, in addition to being the wisest smell-dog on the shore!” affirmed the Markis solemnly, the eyelid on the off side drooping drolly. “All he has to do is to smell the tide when it turns flood, and he knows jest where the ducks’ll bed next night!” All of which Van Camp, Junior, believed, because it seemed suitable that the dog he hired with the man should be superlatively something; and next day there arrived, together with the reefer, a yacht captain’s cap, a set of oil-skins, and a great tin of tobacco—a broad brass-studded collar, such as bull-dogs wear, but an ornament unknown to self-respecting “smell-dogs” even if, like the Major, they were bar sinister.
The morrow was New Year’s day, and the day after, just at evening, the Markis, clad in a trim sailor suit from cap to trousers, was seen sauntering down the village street toward the cross-roads at the Centre, where his tangled trails to and from the two saloons had before-times often puzzled the Major’s acute sense of smell. Behind the Markis loped the Major with drooping tail and the heavy collar, too large for his lean neck, hanging about his ears. But had not his master fastened the hateful thing upon him? That was reason enough for wearing it, at least for the time being!
Slowly the Markis passed the two saloons and nonchalantly entered the market, where he carefully selected a whole bologna and a ham! Crossing to the grocery he bought a month’s provisions to be sent to “Van Camp’s Boat House, for Capt’n Burney!” Then pulling on a fresh corn-cob pipe in leisurely fashion he stopped at the paint shop, from whence he took a sign board, that he carried, letters toward him; next he repassed the saloons and gradually gained the wooded lane that skirts the marsh meadows.
Once under cover he pulled off the new reefer, wrapped it around the board, and began to run, never pausing until he gained the boat house.
Throwing open the door he quickly stripped off the new stiff, confining garments, and slipped eel-like into loose trousers and the gray sweater that made him one with the seaweed and the sands. Then drawing the old soft hat well down to his very eyes he opened the tool chest that stood under the window and, taking therefrom gimlet, screw eyes, and hooks, he mounted an empty box, and proceeded to fasten the sign he had brought over the door. When it hung exactly even and to his liking, he walked backward, slowly surveying his handiwork, talking to the dog meanwhile. “What do you think of that, Maje? You and me hev got a business, we hev! employment with a name to it! Don’t yer remember what she said? No, you wasn’t the dog, though; ’twere old Dave, yer granddad! There’ll be jest two o’ us in the business, man and dog. You know the saying as two’s a company. Onct maybe I’d chose a woman partner! when they’re young wimmen’s prettier, but fer age give me er dog! Dogs is more dependable, likewise they don’t talk back, eh, Maje?”
On the swinging white board, edged with bright blue, in blue letters he read these words aloud, slowly, and with deep-drawn satisfaction:—
THE MARKIS AND THE MAJOR.
Decoys and Fishing Tackle to Rent.
Sailing, Gunning, Fishing and Retrieving done with Neatness
and Dispatch.
Reëntering the boat house he gazed about with a sigh of perfect content, dropped into the ship-shaped bunk that was his bed, hat still on his head, and stretching himself luxuriously, said to the Major, who crouched beside, “I reckoned we’d hev ter make a change long first o’ the year, and I reckon we hev!” The coffee-pot upon the new stove in the far corner brooded comfortably and gave little gasps before being fully minded to excite itself to boiling, while the wild blood, even a few drops of which often makes its owners think such long, long thoughts that stretch back to the dawn of things, coursed evenly on its way until a delicious sleep, such as had been unknown for months, laid its fingers on the eyelids of the Markis.
Cautiously the Major rose to his feet, looked about the room narrowly, sniffed the floor and then the air, shook his head and pawed persistently until the heavy new collar slipped over his ears and clattered to the floor. For a moment, minded to lie down again, he paused, sniffed the fresh air from the open window in the corner, then lifting the offending collar carefully in his mouth he gripped it firmly and crossed the room, jumped for the open sash, missed, tried again, and disappeared in the boat house shadows.
A loon laughed far out on the water, and the Major trembled guiltily. Gaining the beach crest he kept on to tide-water mark, where, digging deep, he buried the offending bit of leather, covering it well, kicking backward at it, dog fashion, with snorts of contemptuous satisfaction. Then trotting gaily back he entered by the window, and soon two rhythmic snores, added to the bubbling of the overboiling coffee-pot, told that the Markis and the Major slept the peaceful winter sleep, while the sharp crescent moon of January slipped past the window, lingering over still-water to cover the bedded wild-fowl with a silver sheet.
II
THE STALLED TRAIN
FEBRUARY—THE COON MOON
He was no kin to the man of Whittier’s eulogy, though he might well have been; Jim Bradley was only the conductor on the milk freight that fussed and fumed its way down the valley of the Moosatuck every evening, at intervals leaving the single track road of the Sky Line to rest upon the sidings while a passenger train or the through express took right of way.
To Miranda Banks, however, Bradley seemed a hero as he sprang from the caboose, swinging his lantern, when his train took the switch and halted on the side track below the calf pastures.
To be sure his claim to heroism had, so far, rested upon the fact that both he and his vocation moved. In Hattertown very