slipped an arm under his, and then, with her horse following, she led him toward the cabin.
“Cappy, I’m more in need of a true friend than ever before in all my life,” she said, soberly.
“Why, lass, you talk as if you hadn’t any!” returned Tanner, reprovingly.
“I haven’t. Not one single friend—unless it’s you.”
“Wal, Nesta, I don’t savvy thet, but you can depend on me.”
“Cappy, I don’t mean no one cares for me. . . . Rich, and Sam Playford—and—and others—care for me, far beyond my deserts. But they boss and want and force me. . . . They don’t help. They can’t see my side. . . . Cappy, I’m in the most terrible fix any girl was ever in. I’m caught in a trap. Do you remember the day you took me on a round of your traps? And we came upon a poor little beaver caught by the foot? . . . Well, I’m like that.”
“Nesta, I’m awful interested, but I reckon not much scared,” replied Cappy, with a laugh that did not quite ring true.
They reached the three huge spruces overspreading the cabin, and Nesta turned to unsaddle her pony. Sam Playford, who evidently had been waiting, approached from the porch.
“I’ll tend to him, Nesta,” he said.
“Thank you, Mr. Playford,” she returned, with sarcasm. “I can manage as well here as I had to at Snells’.”
Mescal and Manzanita ran out to overwhelm Tanner, shouting gleefully, “Here comes Santa Claus!”
“Wal, mebbe, when Christmas comes, but not now,” retorted the trapper, resolutely. He had once before encountered a predicament similar to this.
“Uncle, when will you open the pack?” begged Manzi.
“Wal, some time after supper.”
“I can’t eat till you do open it,” declared Mescal, tragically.
“If I do open it before supper, then you won’t eat nothin’ but candy,” declared Tanner.
“Candy!” screamed Manzanita. “Who wants to eat deer meat and beans if there’s candy?”
“Ooooummm!” cried her sister, ecstatically.
“Wal, let’s have a vote on it,” said the trapper, as if inspired. “Mescal an’ Manzi have declared for openin’ the pack before supper. . . . What do you say, Mrs. Ames?”
“Supper ain’t ready yet,” she rejoined, significantly.
“How about you, Nesta?”
“Me! How about what?” she returned, as she deposited her saddle on the porch, apparently unaware of Sam Playford’s disapproval.
“Why, about openin’ my pack. I fetched you-all a lot of presents.”
“Cappy!—Open it now!” she flashed, suddenly radiant.
“An’ what do you say, Mr. Playford?”
“Cappy, if you don’t mind,” replied that worthy, “if you’re includin’ me, I’ll say if you got anythin’ to give anybody, do it quick.”
“Hey, Rich, you’re in on this,” went on the trapper.
“Cap, suppose you leave it to me?” responded Rich, with tantalizing coolness.
“Wal, I’m willin’. You ’pear to be the only level-headed one hyar.”
“Open the pack after Nesta an’ the twins have gone to bed.”
The feminine triangle thus arraigned burst out with a vociferous, incoherent, yet unanimous decision that they never would go to bed.
“Wal, reckon I’ll compromise,” decided Tanner. “Right after supper, then, I’ll open the show.”
“Come in, Cap,” said Rich. “This November air gets cold once the sun goes down.”
The living-room extended the width of the cabin, and perhaps half the length. With a fire burning in the stone fireplace it presented a cheery, comfortable aspect. It also served as dining-room, and two beds, one in each corner, indicated that some of the family slept there. A door near the chimney opened into the kitchen, a small and recent addition. Two other rooms completed the cabin, neither of which opened into this large apartment. Rich Ames, like all the Tontonians, liked open fires, to which the three yellow stone chimneys rising above the cabin gave ample testimony.
“Manzi, you an’ Mescal wash up, an’ brush your hair,” observed Mrs. Ames from the kitchen. Nesta had vanished.
“How’s tracks, Rich?” queried Tanner, with interest.
“Cap, I never saw so much game sign since I can remember,” replied Ames, with reflective satisfaction. “Dad once told me aboot a fall like this. Reckon ten year ago, long before the Pleasant Valley war.”
“Wal, thet’s good news. What kind of tracks?”
“All kinds. Beaver, mink, marten, fox—why, old timer, if you catch all of the varmints in Doubtful you can buy out the fur companies. How are prices likely to be?”
“Top notch. An’ ain’t it lucky to come when fur is plentiful? Reckon it’s a late fall, too.”
“Shore is. Hardly any snow heah at all. An’ only lately on top. Bear, deer, turkey so thick up Tonto that you can kick them out of the trails. An’ lots of lions, too.”
“I reckon feed is plentiful, or all this game would be somewhere else?”
“Just wonderful, Cap. Acorns on the ground thick as hops. Berries aplenty, a good few wild grapes, an’ the first big crop of piñon nuts for years. The game is high up yet, an’ shore won’t work down till the weather gets bad. We had lots of rain at the right season, an’ the winter snows will be late. I’ll bet I know of a hundred bee trees. We been waitin’ for you, rememberin’ your weakness for honey.”
“Haw! Haw! As if you didn’t have the same?—How about you, Playford, on Tonto honey?”
“Me? I’ve as sweet a tooth as one of these Tonto bears.”
“Wal, thet’s all fine for me,” declared the trapper, with gratification. “I reckon you boys will throw in with me, this winter anyway?”
“We shore will, Cap,” replied Rich.
“I’m darn glad of the chance,” added Playford. “My place is all tidy for the winter, even to firewood cut.”
“Jest luck thet I fetched a sack of new traps,” said Tanner.
“Hey, Rich,” called his mother from the kitchen, “come pack in the supper before I throw it out.”
Rich responded with alacrity, and every time he emerged from
