He sat on a log, ate at dinner-time and drank his
last drop of water. The heat of June was growing intense. Even on the
west of the swamp, where one had full benefit of the breeze from the
upland, it was beginning to be unpleasant in the middle of the day.
He brushed the crumbs from his knees and sat resting awhile and watching
the sky to see if his big chicken were hanging up there. But he came to
the earth abruptly, for there were steps coming down the trail that
were neither McLean's nor Duncan's--and there never had been others.
Freckles' heart leaped hotly. He ran a quick hand over his belt to feel
if his revolver and hatchet were there, caught up his cudgel and laid
it across his knees--then sat quietly, waiting. Was it Black Jack,
or someone even worse? Forced to do something to brace his nerves, he
puckered his stiffening lips and began whistling a tune he had led in
his clear tenor every year of his life at the Home Christmas exercises.
"Who comes this way, so blithe and gay,
Upon a merry Christmas day?"
His quick Irish wit roused to the ridiculousness of it until he broke
into a laugh that steadied him amazingly.
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