During October and early November they were heard of as a pack of bad sheep-killers, time and again; but they now followed their evil practices at a distance from their former homes, where, indeed, the farmers took the precaution of carefully guarding their sheep. On one night of October they killed three calves in a farmer's field, four miles from the Frost farm. Several parties set off to hunt them, but they escaped and lived as outlaws, subsisting from nocturnal forays until snow came, when they were tracked to a den beneath a high crag, called the "Overset," up in the great woods.
It was Rufus Frost and Emerson Needham, the former owner of Bender, who tracked the band to their retreat. Finding it impossible to call or drive the criminals out, they blocked the entrance of the den with large stones, and then came home to devise some way of destroying them--since it is a pretty well-established fact that when once a dog has relapsed into the savage habits of his wild ancestry he can never be reclaimed.
Someone had suggested suffocating the dogs with brimstone fumes; and so, early the following morning, Rufus and Emerson, heading a party of fifteen men and boys, came to the Edwards farm and the Old Squire's to get brimstone rolls, which we had on account of our bees. Their coming, on such an errand, carried a wave of excitement with it. Old Hewey Glinds, the trapper, was sent for and joined the party, in spite of his rheumatism. Every boy in the neighborhood begged earnestly to go; and the most of us, on one plea and another, obtained permission to do so.
All told, I believe, there were thirty-one in the party, not counting dogs. Entering the woods we proceeded first to Stoss Pond, then through Black Ash Swamp, and thence over a mountainous wooded ridge to Overset Pond.
In fact we seemed to be going to the remote depths of the wilderness; and what a savage aspect the snowy evergreen forest wore that morning!
At last, we came out on the pond. Very black it looked, for it was what is called a "warm pond." Ice had not yet formed over it. The snow-clad crag where the cave was, on the farther side, loomed up, ghostly white by contrast.
Rufus and Emerson had gone ahead and were there in advance of us; they shouted across to us that the dogs had not escaped. We then all hurried on over snowy stones and logs to reach the place.
It was a gruesome sort of den, back under an overhang of rocks fully seventy feet high. Near the dark aperture which the boys had blocked, numbers of freshly gnawed bones lay in the snow, which presented a very sinister appearance.
Those in advance had already kindled a fire of drift-stuff not far away on the shore. The hounds and dogs which had come with the party, scenting the outlaw dogs in the cave, were barking noisily; and from within could be heard a muffled but savage bay of defiance.
"That's old Bender!" exclaimed Emerson. "And he knows right well, too, that his time's come!"
"Suppose they will show fight?" several asked.
"Fight! Yes!" cried old Hewey, who had now hobbled up. "They'll fight wuss than any wild critters!"
One of the older boys, Ransom Frost, declared that he was not afraid to take a club and go into the cave.
"Don't you think of such a thing!" exclaimed old Hewey. "Tham's desperate dogs! They'd pitch onto you like tigers! Tham dogs know there's no hope for them, and they're going to fight--if they get the chance!"
It was a difficult place to approach, and several different plans of attack were proposed. When the two hounds and three dogs which had come up with us barked and scratched at the heavy, flat stones which Rufus and Emerson had piled in the mouth of the cave, old Bender and Tige would rush forward on their side of the obstruction, with savage growls.
Yet when Rufus or any of the others attempted to steal up with their guns, to shoot through the chinks, the outlaws drew back out of sight, in the gloom. There was a fierceness in their growling such as I never have heard from other dogs.
The owner of Watch, the collie, now crept up close and called to his former pet. "I think I can call my dog out," said he.
He called long and endearingly, "Come, Watch! Come, good fellow! You know me, Watch! Come out! Come, Watch, come!"
But the outlawed Watch gave not a sign of recognition or affection; he stood with the band.
Tige's former master then tried the same thing, but elicited only a deep growl of hostility.
"Oh, you can whistle and call, but you won't get tham dogs to go back on one another!" chuckled old Hewey. "Tham dogs have taken an oath together. They won't trust ye and I swan I wouldn't either, if I was in their places! They know you are Judases!"
It was decided that the brimstone should be used. Live embers from the fire were put in the kettle. Green, thick boughs were cut from fir-trees hard by; and then, while the older members of the party stood in line in front of the hole beneath the rocks, to strike down the dogs if they succeeded in getting out, Rufus and Emerson removed a part of the stones, and with some difficulty introduced the kettle inside, amidst a chorus of ugly growls from the beleaguered outlaws. The brimstone was then put into the kettle, more fire applied, and the hole covered quickly with boughs. And now even we younger boys were allowed to bear a hand, scraping up snow and piling it over the boughs, the better to keep in the smoke and fumes.
The splutter of the burning sulphur could plainly be heard through the barrier, and also the loud, defiant bark of old Bender and the growls of Tige.
Very soon the barking ceased, and there was a great commotion, during which we heard the kettle rattle. This was succeeded presently by a fierce, throaty snarling of such pent-up rage that chills ran down the backs of some of us as we listened. After a few minutes this, too, ceased. For a little space there was complete silence; then began the strangest sound I ever heard.
It was like the sad moaning of the stormy wind, as we sometimes hear it in the loose window casements of a deserted house. Hardly audible at first, it rose fitfully, moaning, moaning, then sank and rose again. It was not a whine, as for pity or mercy, but a kind of canine farewell to life: the death-song of the outlaws. This, too, ceased after a time; but old Hewey did not advise taking away the boughs for fifteen or twenty minutes. "Make a sure job on't," he said.
Choking fumes issued from the cave for some time after it was opened and the stones pulled away. Bender was then discovered lying only a few feet back from the entrance. He appeared to have dashed the kettle aside, as if seeking to quench the fire and smoke. Tige was close behind him, Watch farther back. Very stark and grim all four looked when finally they were hauled out with a pole and hook and given a finishing shot.
It was thought best to burn the bodies of the outlaws. The fire on the shore was replenished with a great quantity of drift-wood, fir boughs and other dry stuff which we gathered, and the four carcasses heaved up on the pile. It was a calm day, but thick, dark clouds had by this time again overspread the sky, causing the pond to look still blacker. The blaze gained headway; and a dense column of smoke and sparks rose straight upward to a great height. Owing to the snow and the darkening heavens, the fire wore a very ruddy aspect, and I vividly recall how its melancholy crackling was borne along the white shore, as we turned away and retraced our steps homeward.
CHAPTER XXX
A HEARTFELT THANKSGIVING AND A MERRY YOUNG MUSE THAT VISITED US UNINVITED
Thanksgiving was always a holiday at the old farm. Gram and the girls made extensive preparations for it and intended to have a fine dinner.
Besides the turkey and chickens there were "spareribs" and great frying-panfuls of fresh pork which, at this cold season of the year, was greatly relished by us. On this present Thanksgiving-day, two of Gram's nephews and their wives were expected to visit us, as also several cousins of whom I had heard but vaguely.
It chanced, too, that on this occasion we had especially good reason to be thankful that we were alive to eat a Thanksgiving dinner of any kind, as I will attempt to relate. Up to the day before Thanksgiving the weather, with the exception of two light snow storms, had been bright and pleasant, and the snow had speedily gone off. On that day there came a change. The Indian-summer mildness disappeared. The air was very still, but a cold, dull-gray haze mounted into the sky and deepened and darkened. All warmth went out from beneath it. There was a kind of stone-cold chill in the air which made us shiver.
"Boys, there's a 'snow bank' rising," the Old Squire remarked at dinner.
"The ground will close for the winter. Glad we put those boughs round the house yesterday and banked up the out-buildings."
The sky continued to darken as the vast, dim pall of leaden-gray cloud overspread it, and cold, raw gusts of wind began to sigh ominously from the northeast. Gramp at length came out where we were wheeling in the last of the stove-wood. "Have you seen the sheep to-day?" he asked Addison. "There is a heavy snow storm coming on. The flock must be driven to the barn."
None of us had seen the sheep for several days; the flock had been ranging about; and Halse ran over to the Edwardses to learn whether they were there, but immediately returned, with Thomas who told us that he had seen our sheep in the upper pasture, early that morning, and theirs with them.
Immediately then we four boys rigged up in our thickest old coats and mittens, and set off--with salt dish--to get the sheep home. The storm had already obscured the distant mountains to eastward when we started; and never have I seen Mt. Washington and the whole Presidential Range so blackly silhouetted against the westerly sky as on that afternoon, from the uplands of the sheep pasture.
The pasture was a large one, containing nearly a hundred acres, and was partially covered by low copses of fir. Seeing nothing of the sheep there, we followed the fences around, then looked in several openings which, like bays, or fiords, extended up into the southerly border of the "great woods." And all the while Tom, who was bred on a farm and habituated to the local dialect concerning sheep, was calling, "Co'day, co'day, co'nanny, co'nan." But no answering ba-a-a was heard.
"They are not here," Addison exclaimed at length. "The whole flock has gone off somewheres."
"Most likely to 'Dunham's open,'" said Tom, "and that's two miles; but I know the way. Come on. We've got to get them."
We set off at a run, following Thomas along a trail through the forest across the upper valley of the Robbins Brook, but had not gone more than a mile when the storm came on, not large snowflakes, but thick and fine, driven by wind. It came with a sudden darkening of the woods and a strange deep sound, not the roar of a shower, but like a vast elemental sigh from all the surrounding hills and mountains. The wind rumbled in the high, bare tree-tops and the icy pellets sifted down through the bare branches and rattled inclemently on the great beds of dry leaves.
"Shall we go back?" exclaimed Halse.
"No, no; come on!" Thomas exclaimed. "We've got to get those sheep in to-night."
We ran on; but the forest grew dim and obscure. "I think we have gone wrong," Addison said. "I 'most think we have," Thomas admitted. "I ought to have taken that other path, away back there." He turned and ran back, and we followed to where another forest path branched easterly; and here, making a fresh start, we hastened on again for fifteen or twenty minutes.
"Oughtn't we to be pretty near Dunham's open?" demanded Addison.
"Oh, I guess we will come to it," replied Tom. "It is quite a good bit to go."
Thereupon we ran on again for some time, and crossed two brooks. By this time the storm had grown so blindingly thick that we could see but a few yards in any direction. Still we ran on; but not long after, we came suddenly on the brink of a deep gorge which opened out to the left on a wide, white, frozen pond. Below us a large brook was plunging down the "apron" of a log dam.
Thomas now pulled up short, in bewilderment. Addison laughed. "Do you know where you are?" said he. "Tom, that is Stoss Pond and Stoss Pond stream. There's the log dam and the old camp where Adger's gang cut spruce last winter. I know it by those three tall pine stubs over yonder."
Tom looked utterly confused. "Then we are five miles from home," he said, at length.
"We had better go back, too, as quick as we can!" Halse exclaimed, shivering. "It's growing dark! The ground is covered with snow, now!"