第53章

In fact, he anticipated his next step with shaky confidence.He would now be called upon to buy four or five teams of horses, and enough feed to last them the entire winter; he would have to arrange for provisions in abundance and variety for his men; he would have to figure on blankets, harness, cook-camp utensils, stoves, blacksmith tools, iron, axes, chains, cant-hooks, van-goods, pails, lamps, oil, matches, all sorts of hardware,--in short, all the thousand and one things, from needles to court-plaster, of which a self-sufficing community might come in need.And he would have to figure out his requirements for the entire winter.After navigation closed, he could import nothing more.

How could he know what to buy,--how many barrels of flour, how much coffee, raisins, baking powder, soda, pork, beans, dried apples, sugar, nutmeg, pepper, salt, crackers, molasses, ginger, lard, tea, corned beef, catsup, mustard,--to last twenty men five or six months?

How could he be expected to think of each item of a list of two hundred, the lack of which meant measureless bother, and the desirability of which suggested itself only when the necessity arose? It is easy, when the mind is occupied with multitudinous detail, to forget simple things, like brooms or iron shovels.With Tim Shearer to help his inexperience, he felt easy.He knew he could attend to advantageous buying, and to making arrangements with the steamship line to Marquette for the landing of his goods at the mouth of the Ossawinamakee.

Deep in these thoughts, he wandered on at random.He suddenly came to himself in the toughest quarter of Bay City.

Through the summer night shrilled the sound of cachinations painted to the colors of mirth.A cheap piano rattled and thumped through an open window.Men's and women's voices mingled in rising and falling gradations of harshness.Lights streamed irregularly across the dark.

Thorpe became aware of a figure crouched in the door-way almost at his feet.The sill lay in shadow so the bulk was lost, but the flickering rays of a distant street lamp threw into relief the high-lights of a violin, and a head.The face upturned to him was thin and white and wolfish under a broad white brow.Dark eyes gleamed at him with the expression of a fierce animal.Across the forehead ran a long but shallow cut from which blood dripped.The creature clasped both arms around a violin.He crouched there and stared up at Thorpe, who stared down at him.

"What's the matter?" asked the latter finally.

The creature made no reply, but drew his arms closer about his instrument, and blinked his wolf eyes.

Moved by some strange, half-tolerant whim of compassion, Thorpe made a sign to the unknown to rise.

"Come with me," said he, "and I'll have your forehead attended to."The wolf eyes gleamed into his with a sudden savage concentration.

Then their owner obediently arose.

Thorpe now saw that the body before him was of a cripple, short-legged, hunch-backed, long-armed, pigeon-breasted.The large head sat strangely top-heavy between even the broad shoulders.

It confirmed the hopeless but sullen despair that brooded on the white countenance.

At the hotel Thorpe, examining the cut, found it more serious in appearance than in reality.With a few pieces of sticking plaster he drew its edges together.

Then he attempted to interrogate his find.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"Phil."

"Phil what?"

Silence.

"How did you get hurt?"

No reply.

"Were you playing your fiddle in one of those houses?"The cripple nodded slowly.

"Are you hungry?" asked Thorpe, with a sudden thoughtfulness.

"Yes," replied the cripple, with a lightning gleam in his wolf eyes.

Thorpe rang the bell.To the boy who answered it he said:

"Bring me half a dozen beef sandwiches and a glass of milk, and be quick about it.""Do you play the fiddle much?" continued Thorpe.

The cripple nodded again.

"Let's hear what you can do."

"They cut my strings!" cried Phil with a passionate wail.

The cry came from the heart, and Thorpe was touched by it.The price of strings was evidently a big sum.

"I'll get you more in the morning," said he."Would you like to leave Bay City?""Yes" cried the boy with passion.

"You would have to work.You would have to be chore-boy in a lumber camp, and play fiddle for the men when they wanted you to.""I'll do it," said the cripple.

"Are you sure you could? You will have to split all the wood for the men, the cook, and the office; you will have to draw the water, and fill the lamps, and keep the camps clean.You will be paid for it, but it is quite a job.And you would have to do it well.If you did not do it well, I would discharge you.""I will do it!" repeated the cripple with a shade more earnestness.

"All right, then I'll take you," replied Thorpe.

The cripple said nothing, nor moved a muscle of his face, but the gleam of the wolf faded to give place to the soft, affectionate glow seen in the eyes of a setter dog.Thorpe was startled at the change.

A knock announced the sandwiches and milk.The cripple fell upon them with both hands in a sudden ecstacy of hunger.When he had finished, he looked again at Thorpe, and this time there were tears in his eyes.

A little later Thorpe interviewed the proprietor of the hotel.

"I wish you'd give this boy a good cheap room and charge his keep to me," said he."He's going north with me."Phil was led away by the irreverent porter, hugging tightly his unstrung violin to his bosom.

Thorpe lay awake for some time after retiring.Phil claimed a share of his thoughts.