The Huntress. Footner Hulbert

morning I was shaving outside. Had my mirror hanging from a branch around by the shore. I was nervous account of this, and I cut myself. See, there's the mark. I come to the house to get a rag.

      "You was all in plain sight—cookee inside, Jack and Husky sittin' at the door waitin' for breakfast, Shand in the stable. I could see him through the open door. He couldn't have got to the tree and back while I was in the house. When I got back my little mirror was hangin' there, but——"

      "Well?" demanded big Jack.

      "It was cracked clear across."

      "Oh, my God, a broken mirror!" murmured Husky.

      "I—I left it hanging," added Joe.

      Meanwhile the chair, the table, and the boxes were quickly consumed, and the fire threatened to die down, leaving them in partial obscurity—an alarming prospect. The only other movable was the bed.

      "What'll we do?" said Joe nervously. "We can't break it up without the axe, and that's outside."

      Husky's eye, vainly searching the cabin, was caught by the sleeping figure in the corner.

      "Send cookee out for wood," he said. "He hasn't heard nothing."

      "Sure," cried Joe, brightening, "and if there's anything out there we'll find out on him."

      "He'll see we've burned the stuff up," objected Shand, frowning.

      "What of it?" asked Big Jack. "He's got to see when he wakes. 'Tain't none of his business, anyhow."

      "Ho, Sam!" cried Husky.

      The recumbent figure finally stirred and sat up, blinking. "What do you want?" Sam demanded crossly.

      As soon as this young man opened his eyes it became evident that a new element had entered the situation. There was a subtle difference between the cook and his masters, easier to see than to define. There was no love lost on either side.

      Clearly he was not one of them, nor had he any wish to be. Sam's eyes, full of sleep though they were, were yet guarded and wary. There was a suggestion of scorn behind the guard. He looked very much alone in the cabin—and unafraid.

      He was as young as Joe, but lacked perhaps thirty pounds of the other youth's brawn. Yet Sam was no weakling either, but his slenderness was accentuated in that burly company.

      His eyes were his outstanding feature. They were of a deep, bright blue. They were both resolute and prone to twinkle. His mouth, that unerring index, matched the eyes in suggesting a combination of cheerfulness and firmness. It was the kind of mouth able to remain closed at need. He had thick, light-brown hair, just escaping the stigma of red.

      There was something about him—fair-haired, slender, and resolute—that excited kindness. There lay the difference between him and the other men.

      "We want wood," said Husky arrogantly. "Go out and get it."

      An honest indignation made the sleepy eyes strike fire. "Wood!" he cried. "What's the matter with you? It's just outside the door. What do you want to wake me for?"

      "Ah!" snarled Husky. "You're the cook, ain't you? What do we hire you for?"

      "You'd think you paid me wages to hear you," retorted Sam. "I get my grub, and I earn it."

      "You do what you're told with less lip," said Husky threateningly.

      At this point Big Jack, more diplomatic, considering that a quarrel might result in awkward disclosures, intervened. "Shut up!" he growled to Husky. To Sam he said conciliatingly: "You're right. Husky hadn't ought to have waked you. It was a bit of thoughtlessness. But now you're awake you might as well get the wood."

      "Oh, all right," said Sam indifferently.

      He threw off his blanket. As they all did, he slept in most of his clothes. He pulled on his moccasins. The other four watched him with ill-concealed excitement. The contrast between his sleepy indifference and their parted lips and anxious eyes was striking.

      Sam was too sleepy and too irritated to observe at once that the table and chair were missing. He went to the door rubbing his eyes. He rattled the latch impatiently and swore under his breath. Perceiving the bar at last, he flung it back.

      "Were you afraid of robbers up here?" he muttered scornfully.

      "Close the door after you," commanded Jack.

      Sam did so, and simultaneously the mask dropped from the faces of the men inside. They listened in strained attitudes with bated breath. They heard Sam go to the wood-pile, and counted each piece of wood as he dropped it with a click in his arm. When he returned they hastily resumed their careless expressions. Sam dropped the wood on the hearth.

      "Better get another while you're at it," suggested Jack.