University of Virginia Library

52. CHAPTER LII.
HARLEY AND PUCCOON IN THE HUT.

It was the voice of Puccoon, but something had changed it
greatly. It was no longer the old, rough, sonorous ring—that of a
man in high physical health. It was low, husky, and a cough
interrupted it.

Puccoon had come from the opposite direction, followed by his
faithful dog, gun on shoulder, knife in belt, but without game. He
reached the cabin just as Harley dismounted and tied his horse to
a limb of one of the trees.

“Glad to see you, squire! Glad to see you,” said Puccoon, wheezing.
“Come in!”

“You seem to have a cold, Puccoon,” said Harley, grasping his
hand—“too much night-hunting!”

“Worse'n a cold I'm afeard, squire—somethin' in the chist.
It's been on me for more'n ten days now, and I'm gittin' a little
oneasy.”

In fact Puccoon looked downhearted. He went in, followed by
Harley, and held his hands over the fire, in front of which Fanny
had placed his supper.

“Can't eat much now, squire; help yourself. Not hungry? Nor
I. Where is my little girl, I wonder? Dropped asleep, I reckon,
in there, waitin' for me. Well, I won't disturb her, all the more as
I want to talk a little with you, squire.”

“Talk with me, Puccoon?”

“About her.”

Puccoon pointed with his rugged finger over his shoulder toward
the small room. He had taken his seat upon a stool, politely
yielding the only chair to Harley.

For some moments Puccoon remained silent, except that from
time to time he burst into a husky cough, and put his hand on his
breast.

“I'm rather skeery, I know, squire,” he said, at length, “but I
think I'm goin' to be sick, and men like me find being sick a bad
business; they mostly die.”

“All fancy, Puccoon,” said Harley. “You have a bad cough,
that is all.”

“Maybe, squire,—can't tell—but something may happen to me.”

“Something may happen, as you say, to all of us, friend.”

“And maybe to me, squire. I don't say it will, but I say it may,
squire!”

“Well.”

“And then—

Puccoon stopped and looked dispirited.

“You see I'm thinking of my little Fanny.”

“You mean that if you were to die she would be without a protector?

“Jest so, squire.”

“That shows your good heart, friend, and I honor you for your
forethought. Yes, something may happen to you—if not now, at
some future time—and then little Fanny will need a home, and she
must be provided with one.”

Harley reflected for some moments, and then said:

“Listen, my dear Puccoon. You are an old and true comrade;
there is nothing that I would not do for your daughter, whom I am
attached to for her own sake. I am going to Europe, but it is probable
that Sainty will marry soon. Well, let Fanny come and live
at Huntsdon, and make it her home.”

Puccoon turned away his head. His eyes filled with tears of
gratitude.

“You were always a good friend, squire!”

“And you a good comrade!”

He stretched out his hand and grasped Puccoon's.

“Your little daughter shall never want a home, as long as I or
Sainty have one.”

Puccoon coughed; it was half from emotion.

“That brings up something I ought to tell you, squire.”

“Something you ought to tell me?”

“I'm a-deceivin' you.”

“Deceiving me, Puccoon!”

“Fanny—”

“Puccoon stopped.

“Fanny ain't—”

Puccoon stopped again.

“Fanny ain't my daughter, squire. There, it's out!”

Having said this, Puccoon began to tremble.

Harley received the announcement with great astonishment, and
said:

“Not your daughter!”

“No, squire! It breaks my heart to say it, but trouble's comin'
on me, I think, and if I die, I don't mean to die a-deceivin' anybody,

much less you, that are a true friend, and offer to look after
my child—for she is my child! Oh, yes! she is my child, for
all!”

Puccoon began to sob, and regained his equanimity with difficulty.
He then proceeded to tell Harley what follows:

Six or seven years before, he had gone out hunting, and remained
absent all day. He hunted day and night then. His wife had just
died, and he had no rest if he was not tramping—tramping and
wearing himself out, and coming home too tired and broken down
to think about his poor old woman, who had gone and left him
after they had lived together so long. Well, on this day he had
hunted hour after hour till evening, and, seeing that night was
coming, had gone back slowly to his desolate cabin, where he now
spent his dreariest moments, because there was not a sound to be
heard there, and no voice to welcome him—nothing but the whispering
of the tall cypress trees, and the moan of the wind in the
laurels, and they were not cheerful. He had half a mind to lie
down in the woods and sleep till daybreak, and not go to the cabin
at all; but he was hungry with his long tramp, and thinking he
would broil some meat, and eat it, and stretch himself like a dog
on the floor, and forget that there was no one but himself there in
sleep, he went on toward the hut. When he was within a few feet,
he heard something like a child's cry. Then he stopped, wondering.
He went on a few more steps. The cry came again, and he fell
a-trembling. A third cry made him run in, and there was a little
girl, seemingly three or four years old, who had been lying wrapped
in a cloth cloak, in front of the fire, and had waked, crying, “Papa!
papa! Where is papa?”

Harley listened with deep attention and unconcealed astonishment.

“And that was Fanny!” said Puccoon, in a low tone.

“Fanny! Is it possible?”

“As I'm a Christian man, squire, it was Fanny!”

“And who left the child in your cabin?”

“I don't know, no more squire 'n the babe unborn!”

Harley knit his brows in deep thought.

“A strange story!” he said. “And no one ever came to claim
her?”

“Nobody.”

“She could tell you nothing?”

“She could only babble something with her dear little mouth,
squire! But I couldn't make anything of it. All I could make out
was something about her `papa' and `a horse,' and then she was
skeered at the blood of a deer I had killed, on my coat-sleeve—

blood has skeered her ever sence—and hid her head in the cloak,
and burst out crying.”

“And—you say you could never find any traces of her father?
He never claimed her?”

“Never, squire—but—”

Puccoon lowered his voice.

“I can tell you her name. It was on her clothes.”

“Her name!”

“Her name is Fanny Gontran,” whispered Puccoon.

Harley startled so perceptibly when Puccoon uttered these
words, that even the trapper, absorbed as he was in his singular
narrative, observed it.

“Do you know—did you ever hear of any one by that name,
squire?”

Harley had opened his eyes wide, fixed them on the trapper, and
seemed to be struggling with some idea which filled him with
wonder.

“Fanny—Gontran!” he said.

“Yes, squire.”

“Gontran!”

“Squire! you know this Gontran! You can tell me if—”

Harley felt that the eyes of the trapper were seeking to drag the
truth from him—they were riveted upon his face—and he resumed
his self-possession by an effort.

“Gontran?” Yes, I knew a person of that name once—a very
long time ago.”

“But—”

“I do not know where he is now. There may be many persons
of that name, Puccoon. But you have not told me one thing. Why
have you concealed the fact that the child was not your own?”

“I couldn't! Oh! I couldn't tell it!” exclaimed Puccoon.
“She got to love me soon—and I loved her—and I thought maybe
somebody would come and take her! And I felt 's if I couldn't
live without her, squire!”

“Yes, I understand!”

“She was all I had! I tended her, and keered for her, and I
saw her grow up and look so sweet and beautiful—and to think
that some day some man might come and say, `The child ain't
yourn!' So I kept quiet, squire. I never even told Fanny she
wasn't my daughter. I wouldn't 'a' told even you, if I hadn't had
this here cough—which is shakin' me, and well on to killin' me—
and then what 'd become of her, without you knowed and was her
friend?”

“Yes! yes!”

“And if I died, I didn't want to die deceivin' you! So I told
you, squire!”

A slight sound in the small apartment caught the quick ear of
the trapper.

“Take keer, squire!” he said, in a low tone, “they're stirrin'—
that is Fanny! I'll see you again, squire. And—if I die—it is
understood—”

Harley took Puccoon's hand, rising as he did so.

“You know me,” he said. “She shall never want a home. Oh!
no, as God sees me, she shall be cared for, watched over, provided
for, as I would provide for—my own daughter!”

He grasped Puccoon's hand so powerfully that the strong trapper
winced. He then went out of the cabin, mounted his horse, and
rode away, muttering.

“Good heavens! That child—Fanny—is—Fanny Gontran!”

The slight stir in the small apartment behind the cabin had been
caused by a sudden movement of the Lady of the Snow. Leaning
against the door, she had heard all that Puccoon had said to Harley.