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CHAPTER VII
Into the Backwoods

"Jest you sit right up and take a sip at this. Now then, head back; make a try, lad. It'll pull you round; time's pressing."

Joe heard the voice afar off and stirred. There was a familiar note about it, a kindly bluntness to which he was accustomed. So being the sort of lad whose nature it was to make an effort always, if only for the reason that he was of a decidedly active temperament, and perhaps also because he hated, like many another person, to be beaten, he lifted his head, feeling at once a hand placed beneath it. Then he opened his eyes and stared upward, blinking all the while, at a huge expanse of blue sky such as dwellers by the edge of the Mediterranean rave about.

"Eh?" he gasped, attempting to moisten his lips. "Time to get up, eh?"

"Jest take a sip, and then you'll be feeling lively," he heard again in the well-known voice. "You ain't knocked out altogether. That thar Hurley ain't quite beaten you, I guess."

The mention of the bully's name brought Joe to an upright position. He sat up abruptly, and then, seeing a tin mug just before his face, and being consumed by a terrible thirst, seized the said tin mug and drained it.

"Ah!" he gasped. "I wanted that. Where's Hurley?"

"That's jest the very question we're axin' ourselves. Sit up agin, lad," he heard, undoubtedly in Peter Strike's voice. He turned at once and gazed into the rough, unshaved face of his master.

"You?" he asked in bewilderment. "Why, I left you way back at the shack!"

"So you did, lad, so you did; but that's two hours ago, and perhaps more. I was out lookin' at the pigs, and thinkin' as the time was coming close when I'd drive some of 'em over to Sudbury, where I'd be sure to make dollars on 'em, when the missus comes rushin' out. 'Peter,' she shouts, 'where have you got to? Drat the man!' she says aloud to herself, 'drat the man! Where's he got to? Never here when I want him, but – ah, there you be!' she hollers out, suddenly catching a view of me over by the pigs. 'There you be, Peter.'"

Joe sat up with a vengeance now. His stay with the excellent Peter and Mrs. Strike had taught him to like them very much, and Peter's description of what had happened was so faithful to what must have actually occurred. Joe himself had heard the bustling spouse of his master calling her lord in peremptory tones, and he grinned now at the recollection.

"Yes," he smiled, "you were there."

"I was that," laughed Peter. "And then I heard that there had been a ruction, and that you was in it. Of course I slipped into the shack fer my gun at once, hopped on to a hoss, and was away fer Jim Canning's in a jiffy. He'd got his hosses harnessed into the rig already, and we went on in company till we struck along by Jack Bailey's. Wall, now, he's a bright lad is Jack, though he ain't so very long from an office stool in London. There he was with his cousin George, with the rig loaded up with provisions.

"'Most like we'll be away from home a bit,' sang out Jack as we come up. 'So we've put together a little grub and drink, besides a kettle and sichlike. What'll you do?'

"'Get right along to Hurley's and see what's happened,' I answered. 'This Tom's come in in a hurry, and maybe things ain't as bad as they seem. Anyway, we'll make along there. I'll gallop ahead. I've rung up the central station Sudbury, and told the missus to call for the North-west Police, because this job's bound to be a police job anyway.' Wall, here we are. How's yerself?"

Peter had filled his tin mug again, and when he offered it to Joe the lad took it with pleasure. He could sit up alone now, and presently could actually stand, though he felt giddy. However, they brought a chair from Hurley's shack and placed him in it. Then Jack Bailey, the immigrant who not so long ago had been a clerk in the city of London, and who was now on the high road to becoming a successful farmer in the Dominion, stood over him and gently dressed the wound Hurley had given.

"Not so bad, after all," he said cheerily, as he carefully washed the part where the bully's stick had fallen. "Little more than an inch long, and not deep. It won't even send you to bed. Just stay still while I clip the hair away and tidy things up a little."

For ten minutes he busied himself with Joe's head, snipping the hair away all round the ugly wound which Hurley had given our hero; for your city clerk is no fool, and Jack knew that no scalp wound can be safely left unless the hair be removed and thorough cleanliness thus ensured. He produced a little roll of strapping which his thoughtful wife had provided, and, having placed a small dressing over the wound, applied the strips of strapping, getting them to adhere by the simple expedient of lighting a match and heating the adhesive material.

"Now you'll do," he said, surveying his work with some pride. "How do you feel? Giddy, eh?"

Joe felt distinctly giddy and positively sick; for a concussion is often followed by sickness. But he was game, and fought down the feeling heroically; in fact, he struggled to his feet, plunged his hands into his pockets, and actually whistled.

"Showing as you ain't beaten by a long way," said Peter, emerging from the shack and looking with approval at our hero. But there were grave lines about his face, and for a little while he was in close and earnest conversation with his friends. Perhaps an hour later a horseman came galloping towards them, and was hailed with pleasure.

"That you, Mike?" sang out Peter. "I sent along over the 'phone for you, and guessed it wouldn't take you long to reach."

"Horse was already saddled, and me almost mounted when the message came," replied the newcomer, dropping out of his saddle. "I was jest off in the opposite direction, so it war lucky you 'phoned jest then. I rode down to the station, and put horse and self aboard a freighter about to steam out. They dropped me down about opposite here, and I've legged it for all I could. What's the tale?"

A magnificent specimen of humanity he was, this newcomer. Even Joe was not so sick that he could not admire him. For Mike Garner stood six feet in his stockinged feet, nothing less, and was burly in proportion; also he seemed to be as agile as a cat, while none could accuse him of fatness.

His muscular calves filled the soiled and stained butcher boots he wore. A pair of massive thighs swelled his khaki breeches, while the dun-coloured shirt was stretched tight over a brawny chest, open at the neck, and with sleeves rolled to the elbows, exposing a pair of arms tanned to the colour of nut-brown, and swelling with muscle and sinew. In fact, Mike was just a specimen of that fine body of men, the North-west Police of Canada, who, in spite of paucity of numbers, keep law and order in the land. But it is only fair to mention that out in the settlements their task is simple, as a general rule; for your newcomer to Canada, as well as the old settlers, are law-abiding people, given to toil and thrift and not to broiling. However, here and there there is trouble, and Mike had galloped over to investigate the case of Hurley.

"What's the tale?" he asked abruptly, dropping his reins over the big horse's neck and leaving it there unattended, while he came towards the shack rolling a cigarette. "Hurley's broken out, you say. Guessed he might. I've had an eye on him this two years back. There's been complaints of ructions at the shack. We had a man in a month back who said he'd been knocked about."

"It's wuss this time," answered Peter gravely. "I'll give yer the yarn in a few words. I sent this here chap Joe over to fetch a seeder Hurley had borrowed two years ago and hadn't returned. Wall, he heard shouts as he come up to the shack, and saw Hurley whacking Tom here, the lad he'd got apprenticed to him. Joe wasn't having that, nohow. Eh?"

He looked over at our hero as if for corroboration. Then Tom chimed in.

"Hurley's a bully," he cried. "He was tying me to the post when Joe asked him to leave off. He was polite, was Joe. But Hurley swore and threatened him too. Then he struck at him, and there was a shindy. My, but Joe stuck to his man and hammered him in fine style! If it hadn't been for the rake handle, Joe would have beat him, big though Hurley is. But he struck Joe over the head, and then I ran for help."

"Seems to me as this here Joe did well," declared Mike curtly. "Wall, now?"

"There ain't much to tell. Tom reached Jim Canning's, and he rang me up. We was all of us along here as quick as possible. Hurley took the rig and drove off, and there ain't a doubt that he's taken a gun with him. He cleared Joe's pockets of every cent – about sixty dollars, he reckons – as well as a letter of some value. But that ain't all. There's been trouble in the shack. That ere brute set upon his wife and made an end of her."

When the whole tale came to be understood, there was little doubt that the brute Hurley had flown into a furious temper, and had become almost mad with passion. His unfortunate wife he had killed with a knock-down blow, while the reader has learned of his subsequent movements.

"Wall?" asked Peter, looking expectantly at Mike.

"You wait a bit, mate," said the other. He dropped his cigarette, lifted his hat solemnly, and entered the shack. There was a severe air on his handsome, sunburned face as he emerged.

"Of course," he said, "we've got to follow; that is, I have. If you gentlemen – "

"You don't need to ax," exclaimed Peter, with added bluntness. "We're here. Ef you want us, we're right alongside you all the time. Murders ain't often done in the settlements, but when they are, then it's every man's job to find the brute as did it. You lift yer little finger, and you've every man Jack willing and ready."

"Thanks," said Mike swiftly, looking about him and proceeding to roll another cigarette. "We'll move slippy; we'll get right back along the tracks this fellow made, and make use of the first telephone. This Hurley didn't have one, so we can't send news from here. If he's taken to the railway, we'll send along either way, and they'll have him quick. But most like he's turned north, in which case we've a pretty business before us. Ready now?"

"You kin guess so," said Peter, clambering on to his horse. "Tom, you ain't afraid to follow?"

That young fellow shook his head vigorously; his eyes were sparkling. At that moment he looked more of a boy, more resolute than he had done ever since he came to the Hurleys'. "I'm game," he said. "If Joe was game to tackle him alone, I'm right with the lot of you."

"Then you climb right into Jack's rig and take Joe with you. He'll want a bit o' nussing for a while. Reckon, Mike, if this here business is going to take us away north, we'd do well to lay in a stock of ammunition. What say?"

The policeman was in his saddle already and turned his head.

"We'll get all we want from the station," he said. "Let's move."

Waiting to allow Mike to gain some yards start, so that he might follow Hurley's track without difficulty, the others followed in single file, first Peter, and then Jack and his cousin in their rig, with Tom and Joe beside them, while Jim brought up the rear. Half an hour later they struck the railway, running clear and unfenced across the land. Here Mike turned east, still following the wheel marks left by the rig which Hurley had stolen. About four miles farther along the marks left the railway and ran towards a stretch of wooded country. Perhaps a quarter of a mile within this they came upon the rig itself, deserted, while the horses and Hurley himself were nowhere to be seen. Mike dropped out of his saddle, where Peter joined him. As for Joe, the jolting and the excitement of the chase seemed to have done him a vast amount of good, for his head had ceased to ache, and he was hardly giddy. But for the pain in his scalp and a certain stiffness about his limbs, he might never have come by an injury.

"Unhitched his cattle here and made off with 'em," declared Mike, standing well clear of the rig, and walking slowly round it. "Struck due north, as I guessed he might. He'll be hiding up amongst the woods, and it'll take a tracker to find him. Tell you, Peter, it ain't no manner of use for us to follow right off. We might lose his tracks any moment, then there'd be difficulties. Guess the best thing to do is to camp right here and wait. I'll make back to the railway and 'phone along. Late to-night, perhaps, or to-morrow morning I'll be back agin with you, and then I'll have someone along with me as can follow any track, as can scent out a white man almost. You sit tight right here. Got it?"

"You've hit it true," agreed Peter. "There ain't no manner of sense in plunging on. This country right north is jest a huge forest for miles. There's swamps, too; then stretches of rock over which a man might ride and never leave a sign that a white man could follow. So we'll camp right here, and you kin get back and fix things. Don't forget that we'll want shooters. I've a revolver and a gun; Jack there and George ain't got a gun between 'em, nor Joe nor Tom. It ain't sense to go after a chap same as Hurley without having the things to meet him with. He'll shoot, he will."

"Sure," declared Mike, with the directness of one who knew; "he'll shoot on sight. There's a rope waiting fer his neck, and he knows it. You boys had best understand that right away."

He glanced round at the party, his eyebrows elevated, a question on his lips. But they sent him off promptly, laughing at his caution, eager as ever, whatever the dangers, to follow the miscreant who had killed his wife and wellnigh done the same for our hero.

"Best get the hosses out o' the rigs and let 'em feed," said Peter, who took the lead now that Mike had gone. "Jack, you and George has the cooking things and the grub, so reckon it's up to you to cook us a meal. Jim and me'll scout round a while. We ain't likely to cover the tracks left by Hurley, and it'll be well to follow a goodish bit, so as to make sure he ain't too handy. It wouldn't be kinder nice to get eating and then have a bullet plumping amongst us."

There was bustle about the little clearing for some few minutes. Joe lent a hand to the Baileys, and soon had the horses out of the rig and tied by a long rein to trees, allowing them freedom to graze. By then Tom had gathered sufficient sticks to form a fire, and had helped to take the horses from Jim's rig; for the latter had already departed with Peter. In a little while there was a blaze in the centre of the camp, and Jack had a kettle of water suspended over it with the help of a couple of forked sticks. George produced from a mysterious parcel a lump of meat, and having cut it into dainty slices, skewered them in a long row on a maple stick he had cut and cleaned, and at once began to toast them over the flames.

"Makes you get hold of an appetite, young fellow," he said, winking at Joe. "Now don't it? There's a flavour about open-air cookery that just sets a man's mouth watering. Ever been out camping?"

"Never," admitted Joe. "Ripping, I should say."

"Then you're about right," cried George, his face ruddy beside the flames. "I mind the time when I first came out to Canada. Didn't I just pity Jack back in the Old Country! For I went off with a prospecting party north to see what sort of a line there was for a new railway. It wasn't half as bad as people had painted, for there were few muskegs, as the swamps are called, and fewer mosquitoes. As for food, there wasn't a day passed but the Indians along with us brought in beasts of every sort; so we dined handsomely. And camping was a fair treat. Talk about a difference between it and the old life – living in a tiny villa south of London, mugging in a London office, and being half-stifled with winter fogs! There we were in the open day and night, such nights too! Fresh air, fresh food, and heaps of exercise all the time. I just revelled. This steak frizzling here, and the scent it throws out, reminds me of that time."

Joe sniffed eagerly. His headache and even his pains were gone now, while the trouble his wound gave him was infinitesimal. In fact, it was the weight of the blow which Hurley had delivered which brought unconsciousness. The wound was trifling. A thick skull had resisted damage, and now that his brain tissues were recovering from the jar they had received, Joe was almost himself again. He sniffed with eager anticipation, and agreed that open-air cooking had its attractions. He went to the far end of the maple switch and, holding out a hand, took it from George.

"You'll make a cook all right," laughed the latter. "Now see that none of the steaks get burned. I'll pop tea into the kettle and get other things ready. Those two will be back before very long; it stands to reason that they won't go very far. Take my advice, Joe; get inside a blanket just as soon as you have had a meal, and sleep. You'll be as fit as a daisy come morning."

About an hour later, when the first brew of tea had been finished, Jim and Peter put in an appearance.

"We kin camp without a thought of danger so far as I kin see," said the latter, throwing himself down by the fire. "That thar Hurley's made tracks slick north, and he ain't going to wait for no one. We followed the trace of his hosses' hoofs fer three mile and more. By the way, they ain't his hosses; they're mine. Jingo! That makes another count up agin him. But I was saying as he's gone north slick as anything. He'll want no end of catching. Seems to me this chase'll last a week on end, and ef that's to be, I'll make across to the railway after I've had a bite, and get on to the nearest telephone. Then I kin ring up Jack's wife and my own and tell 'em. How's that?"

"Just what was bothering me," cried Jack, who was at that moment burying his teeth in a juicy steak. "I was saying to myself a little while ago that it seemed as if this wouldn't be a one-day affair, and I was bothering to let the wife know. Not that I'm going back till the matter's finished. Not much – this is a duty."

"You've put it fair and square," agreed Peter, with flushing face. "This here are a duty, sure. Out in the settlements there ain't so many cases of murder and theft. A man soon gets known, seeing as there's so few of us, and mostly in settlements close together; and ef he's a bad man – why, out he goes sooner or later. But bad men mostly gets into the towns. There's a sight of 'em always hanging about the saloons, and so on. Some of 'em make a regular business of watching out fer green 'uns, fellers just out from home; and mostly the rogues strip the poor chaps of every dollar. They're up to all sorts of tricks. Most like they'll pretend to have land to sell, ready-made farms, you might say. The bad man is Canada's curse, jest that and nothing less; and reckon not a few of 'em is the relics of the wasters and the wont-works who was sent out here long ago from the Old Country, to get 'em out of the way or to give 'em a new chance."

"In fact, just the class that modern-day Canada is determined not to have," chimed in George. "And one can't blame the Government. In future, jailbirds won't be sent direct to the Dominion instead of to prison, simply because they'll be turned back at the ports; just the same as folks with obvious disease of the lungs will be turned back. But you can pass me along another of those steaks, Tom; and don't go on looking at 'em like that. Pitch in at them, my boy. There's enough there and to spare fer everybody."

Tom had indeed been eyeing the frizzling steaks somewhat hungrily, and, if the truth had but been known, it was only from force of habit. Hurley had been very much the master. His apprentice had put up with short fare and many blows.

"How was it you was put with him, lad?" asked Peter, when he had finished his meal and had lit up a pipe preparatory to his setting out for the railway. "Surely the folks who put you there hadn't met Hurley?"

Tom shook his head emphatically. "They'd never seen him," he said. "My uncle wished me to come out from England, and saw an advertisement offering to take a lad for a premium. He paid the money and I came, only to find that I was a sort of slave."

"Huh!" growled Peter. "Jest what I thought. That's another turn the bad man gets up to. But boys ain't always treated same as that. I've had 'em meself, and know others who've taken lads. The Barnardo Boys' Home sends a goodish lot out to Canada and places them out on the farms. But, bless you! they ain't finished with 'em by a long bit, and rightly so. There's inspectors who go round and make surprise visits, and if they find that a boy isn't getting fair and square and liberal treatment, why, away he's taken, and put somewhere else. And the result is that we're bringing up in Canada a heap of young chaps who come out jest at the very right age, when they ain't yet learned any farming and when their minds is – wall, now, what are the term?"

"Receptive," cried Jack, who was quite a scholar. "The young, untutored mind is readily receptive."

"Put it like that," agreed Peter, who was a wonderfully talkative and jolly fellow. "The kids learn, and ain't got no bad tricks to unlearn. Folks has got to set great store by 'em, for they're likely obedient lads, and there's more demands for 'em than there's boys. They get looked after. There ain't no bullyin' and half-starving same as in Tom's case. What's more, farmers is willing and eager to pay 'em wages and keep 'em, and not jest have their work for nothing, and a handsome premium into the bargain. That 'ere Hurley's a bad hat."

He knocked the ashes out of his pipe, leaped to his feet, and swung his leg over his horse. Without troubling to put a saddle on the beast, he hitched the rein free from the tree and went off whistling.

"A good chap," said Jim. "Known Peter this many a year. Good master, eh, Joe?"

"None better," came the prompt answer. "They treat me as if I were a son. He's used to this tracking?"

"He's a good man, you may say," agreed Jim. "But he don't often track men – moose perhaps, and a bear sometimes. This Hurley'll be a different matter."

"Now, Joe, jest you get right off to bed," commanded George, who seemed to take almost a paternal interest in our hero. "By sunrise to-morrow you'll be feeling fine, and you'll thank me."

That the advice was good there was little doubt, and since Jack supported it with vehemence, Joe obeyed, though he felt far from sleepy. Indeed, he was almost too excited to be that; for, recollect, the events of the day had been sufficiently rousing for a youth of his age and experience. He had been engaged in a desperate struggle with a bully, with a man who would have killed him with pleasure, and who, in fact, did his best to bring about that ending. And now he and his friends were in chase of the murderer. He, Joe, was away in the wilds of Canada, in the backwoods, with the open sky above him, about to Sleep beneath it for the first time in his life. He drew a blanket which Jack had brought round his body, and lay down on a bed of spruce that Jim had cut. And there for a while he lay without movement, his eyes blinking at the glowing embers of the fire. A little later his head dropped lower, while the men chatting in low voices round the fire heard his sonorous breathing.

"Good plucked 'un, him," remarked Jim, pulling his pipe from his mouth and pointing the stem at the recumbent figure. "There's many as would have backed out of that 'ere ruction and left Tom to fend for hisself. He's the sort we want in this country. A chap as can put up a fight with a murderer double his size can face the troubles that come to all colonists. Pass the 'bacca, Jack. I came away in such a hurry that I've none."

"Do you know his history?" asked Jack Bailey after a while, when they had smoked silently for some few minutes, the smoke from their pipes ascending into the cool evening air and mingling with that from the fire where it met the leaves overhead. "He's a better sort – one of the better class in England."

"As you can see," agreed George. "Heard anything of him, Jim?"

"Jest this," came the answer. "There's a man named Fennick as was close handy to me this five years back. Well, seems he came out with Joe, and they write to one another every now and again. In fact, this Joe's going along to join him one of these days as soon as he's learned farming. Fennick just swears by the lad; says as he organized a band of volunteers on the way out when the ship got afire, and helped to fight the flames. So Joe ain't fought a murderer only; that's why I agreed as he was a good plucked 'un. Now I'm fer bed; most like we shall have a hard day of it ter-morrer. I know Mike; he's a boy fer pushing ahead. There's nothing tires him. Gee! I wouldn't wonder if we was in fer a hairy sort of time on this business. Joe are likely to come up agin trouble beside which his fight with Hurley warn't nothing."

Peace reigned over the slumbering camp within half an hour. The watchful stars glowed down upon the little band and seemed to guard them. Slowly the hours drew along towards morning, when the pursuit of the murderer would be taken up in earnest. And which one of the band could say what sort of experience awaited them? Perhaps Jim would be right. It was more than likely that Joe might find himself plunged into a conflict beside which his fight this day was a mere scrimmage. But whatever the prospect might be, it did not disturb his slumbers. Joe hardly so much as turned till the first rays of a brilliant sun streamed into his eyes on the following morning.