| CHAPTER
I.
EVERYBODY
along the river knew old “Andy” Lavergne;
for years he had been “the lamplighter,”
if such an office could exist in the rough backwoods
settlement that bordered that treacherous stream in
the timber country of northern Ontario. He had been
a great, husky man in his time, who could swing an axe
with the best of the lumbermen, but an accident in a
log jam had twisted his sturdy legs and hips for life,
and laid him off active service, and now he must cease
to accompany the great gangs of choppers in the lumber
camps, and do his best to earn a few honest dollars
about the settlement and the sawmill. So the big-hearted
mill hands paid him good money for doing many odd jobs,
the most important of which was to keep a lantern lighted
every dark night, both summer and winter, to warn them
of the danger spot in the Wildcat river, that raced
in its treacherous course between the mill and their
shanty homes on the opposite shore.
This danger spot was a perfect
snarl of jagged rocks, just below the surface of the
black waters that eddied about in tiny whirlpools, deadly
to any canoe in summer, and still more deadly in winter,
for the ice never formed here as in the rest of the
river. Only a thin, deceptive coating ever bridged that
death hole, and the man who mistook it for solid ice
would never live to cross that river again. So, on the
high bank above this death trap old Andy lighted his
lantern, year in and year out. Sometimes he was accompanied
by his old gray horse, who followed him about like a
dog. Sometimes little Jacky Moran, his young neighbor,
went to help him on very [Page 127]
stormy or windy nights. Sometimes both Jacky and the
horse would go, and as a reward for his assistance old
Andy would always lift the boy to the gray’s back
and let him ride home. Then one wet spring old Andy
got rheumatism in his poor, twisted legs, and the first
night he was unable to leave his shanty Jacky came whistling
in at nightfall and offered to take the lantern up stream
alone. Andy consented gratefully, and, with the horse
at his heels, Jacky set out for the bank above the dangerous
spot.
“I believe, old Gray,
it’s the lantern you love as much as you love
Andy,” laughed the boy as he struck a match and
sheltered its flame from the wind. “Here you are
following me and the lantern just as if belonged to
us, or as if Andy were here. How’s that?”
But the old gray only stood watching the lamp-lighting.
His long, pathetic face was very expressive, but, try
as he would, he could not speak and tell the boy that
he had learned to love him as well as Andy. So he only
put his soft nose down to Jacky’s shoulder, and
in his own silent way coaxed the boy to mount and ride
home, which Jacky promptly did, bursting into the old
Frenchman’s shanty with the news that the gray
had followed the lantern.
“Don’t you believe
it, Jacky,” chuckled Andy. “The gray loves
the lantern, I know, but it’s you he’s followed.
You see that horse knows a lot, and he knows that his
old master is never likely to light that lantern again,
and he wants you for his master now.”
“Well, he may have me,”
smiled the boy. “We’ll just light up together
after this.” Which they certainly did, for that
was the beginning of the end. Andy could never hobble
much further than his own door, and Jacky took upon
his young shoulders the duties of both lamp-lighting
and feeding and caring for his now constant companion,
the gray.
“I see your Jacky is helping
old Andy since he’s been [Page 128]
laid up,” said Alick Duncan, the big foreman,
some weeks later, as he paddled across the river with
the boy’s father.
“Oh, he likes Andy,”
replied Mr. Moran, “and he likes the old horse,
and he likes the work, too. He feels important every
time he lights that lantern to steer the mill hands
off danger.”
“Speaking of the horse,”
went on the big foreman, “they’re short
one up at the lumber camp. The boss sent down yesterday
that we had to get him an extra horse by hook or crook.
They’ve started hauling logs. It would be a great
thing if Andy could sell that nag at a good figure.
It would help him out. He’s hard up for cash,
I bet. I’ll speak to him to-night about it.”
At supper Tom Moran mentioned
what a fine thing it was for Andy that there was an
urgent demand for a horse at the lumber camp; that he
could get twice the money for old Gray that the animal
was worth. Mrs. Moran agreed that it would be a great
help to old Andy, but Jacky’s small face went
white, he ceased his boyish chatter, and his little
throat refused to swallow a mouthful of food.
As soon as he could, he escaped,
slipped outside, and made for Andy’s shanty as
fast as his young legs could carry him. With small ceremony
he flung open the door, to find the old Frenchman sitting
in his barrel chair, a single tallow candle on the shelf
above his head, his ever present pipe between his lips,
and his lame leg stuck up on a bench before a tumbledown
stove, where a good spruce fire crackled and burned.
For the first time the extreme poverty of the place
struck Jacky’s senses. He realized instantly,
but for the first time, how much in need of money the
poor old cripple must be, but, nevertheless, his voice
shook as he exclaimed, “Oh, Andy, you won’t
sell old Gray? Oh, you won’t, will you?”
“Why not, youngster?”
asked a deep voice from the gloom beyond the stove,
and Jacky saw with a start that Alick Duncan was already
there with his offer to buy. [Page 129]
“Because,” began
the boy, “because—well, because he helps
us, Andy and me; he helps us light up at night.”
It was a lame excuse, and poor Jacky knew it.
“It appears to me Andy
ain’t doing much lighting up these days,”
went on the foreman. “And you know, kid, Andy’s
old and sick, and money don’t come easy to him.
If he gets one square meal of pork and beans a day,
he’s getting more than I think he does. The horse
is no use to him now. He can’t even pay for its
keep when next winter comes. He can’t use it,
anyhow, and Andy needs the money.”
But the boy had now recovered
his balance.
“But timber hauling would
kill old Gray. He wouldn’t last any time at it;
he’s too old,” he argued.
“That’s so, sonny,”
said the foreman; “he sure can’t last long
at that work, but don’t you see Andy will have
his money, even if the horse does peg out?”
“But—but Gray will
die,” said the boy tremulously.
“Maybe,” answered
the foreman, “but Andy will have something to
live on, and that is more important.
“But I’ll help Andy,”
cried the boy enthusiastically. “I’m used
to the lighting up now. I can do all the work. Can’t
the mill hands go on paying him just the same as ever?
Can’t they, Andy? I’ll do the lamp-lighting
for you, and we’ll just keep old Gray. Won’t
you, Andy? Won’t you?”
The boy was at Andy’s
shoulder, his thin young fingers clutched the old shirt-sleeve
excitedly, his voice arose, high and shrill and earnest.
“Why, boy,” said
the old Frenchman, “I didn’t know you cared
so much. I don’t want to sell Gray, and
I won’t sell him if you help me with
my work for the mill hands.”
Alick Duncan rose to his feet,
his big, hearty laugh ringing out as Jacky seized his
hand with the words, “There, Mr. Duncan. Andy
won’t sell Gray. He says so. You heard
him.” [Page 130]
The big foreman stooped, picked
up the boy, and swung him on his shoulder as if he had
been a kitten.
“All right, little Jack
o’ Lantern, do as you like. We mill hands will
go on with Andy’s pay, only you help him all you
can—and maybe he’ll keep the old gray—just
for luck.”
“I know it’s
for luck,” laughed Jacky. “The gray knows
so much. Why, Mr. Duncan, he knows everything;
he knows as much as the mill hands.”
“I dare say,” said
the big foreman dryly. “If he didn’t he
wouldn’t have even horse sense.”
“But why do you call me
that—‘Jack o’ Lantern’?”
asked the boy from his perch on the big man’s
shoulder.
“Because I thought the
name suited you,” smiled the foreman. “I’ve
often seen the little Jack o’ Lantern hovering
above the marshes and swales, a dancing, pretty light,
moving about to warn woodsmen of danger spots, just
as your lantern, Jacky, warns the rivermen of that nasty
‘wildcat’ place in the river.”
“But,” said the
boy, “dad has always told me that the Jack o’
Lantern is a foolish light, that it deceives people,
that it misleads them, that sometimes they follow it
and then get swamped in the marshes.”
“Yes, but folks know enough
to not follow your lantern, boy,” answered
the foreman seriously. “Your light is a warning,
not an invitation.”
“Well, the warning light
will always be there, as long as I have legs to carry
it,” assured Jacky, as the big foreman set him
down on the floor. Then—“And when I fail,
I’ll just send the gray.”
They all laughed then, but none
of them knew that, weeks later, the boy’s words
would come true. [Page 131]
CHAPTER
II.
IT
WAS late in January, and the blackest night that the
river had ever known. A furious gale drove down from
the west and the very stars were shut in behind a gloomy
sky. Little Jacky Moran trimmed his lantern, filled
it with oil, whistled for Gray, and set forth as the
black night was falling. The oncoming darkness seemed
to outdo itself. Before he was half way up the river,
night fell, and he found that he could see but a very
few feet before him, although it was not yet half-past
five o’clock. At six the men would leave the mill
over the river, and, journeying afoot across the ice,
would reach home in safety if the lantern were lighted,
and if not, any or all of them might be plunged into
the treacherous “Wild Cat,” with no hope
of ever reaching shore alive.
“He
called me Jack o’ Lantern,” the boy said
to himself. “It’s a dancing, deceiving light,
but he’ll find to-night that I’ll deceive
nobody.” And through the darkness the child plodded
on. Behind him walked the stiff-kneed old horse, solemn-faced
and faithful, following the lantern with stumbling gait,
his soft nose, as ever, very near the boy’s shoulder.
The way seemed endless, and Jacky, with stooped and
huddled shoulders, bent his head to the wind and forged
on. Then, just as he was within fifty yards of the turn
that led up to the danger spot, an unusually wild gust
swept his cap from his head and sent it bounding off
the narrow footpath. Boylike, he reached for it, and
failing to recapture it, started in pursuit. In the
darkness he did not see the little ledge of earth and
rock that hung a few feet above a “dip”
on the left side, and in his hurried chase he suddenly
plunged forward, and was hurled abruptly to a level
far below the footpath. He fell heavily, badly. One
foot got twisted somehow, and as he landed he heard
a faint sharp “crack” in the region of his
shoe. Something seemed to grow numb [Page 132]
right up to his knee. He tried to struggle to his feet,
but dropped down into a wilted little heap. Then he
realized with horror that he was unable to stand. For
a moment he was bewildered with pain and the utter darkness,
for in his fall the lantern had rolled with him, then
gone out. The boy struck a match, and with but little
difficulty lighted the lantern. It seemed strange that
the gale had ceased so suddenly, until, in looking about,
he saw that he was in a hollow, and the wind was roaring
above his head. He was quite sheltered where he lay,
but his brief gratitude for this gave way to horrified
dismay when he discovered that the light, too, was sheltered—that
the ledge of earth and rock arose between him and the
river bank, that he could never reach the dreaded danger
spot with his warning light, and, near to it though
he was, the flame was completely obscured from the sight
of anyone crossing the ice.
For
a moment the situation overwhelmed him. He sat and shivered.
The agony of his injured foot was now asserting itself
above the first numbness, and the realization that he
was failing to warn the mill hands, that he was only
a Jack o’ Lantern after all, seized on his young
heart and brain like a torturing claw. Despair settled
down on him, blacker, more terrible than the coming
night. He fancied he could hear the mill hands crash
through the death hole, and he called wildly, “Help!
Oh, somebody help me!” all the time knowing that
the shanties were too far away for anyone there to hear,
and that the footpath above him was too lonely for any
chance lumberman to be taking at this hour. No one ever
passed that way but himself, and in the old days Andy
and the gray—oh, he had not thought of the gray—where
had the animal gone? Instantly he whistled, called,
whistled again, and over the ledge above his head looked
a long, serious face, with great solemn eyes, and a
soft, warm nose. The very sight gave the boy courage,
and at his next whistle the old horse carefully picked
his way down [Page 133] the bank, and
reaching down his long neck, felt Jacky’s shoulder
with his velvety muzzle.
“Oh,
Gray,” cried the boy, “you must help me.
You must do something, oh, something, to help!”
Then he made an attempt to stand, to get on the animal’s
back, but his poor foot gave out, and he huddled down
to the ground again in pitiful, hopeless pain. The horse’s
nose touched his ear, starting him from a fast oncoming
stupor. At the same instant the six o’clock whistle
blew at the mill across the frozen river. In a few moments
the men would be coming home, crossing the ice, perhaps
to their death instead of to the warm supper awaiting
them at their shanty homes. The thought of it all gripped
Jacky’s young heart with fear, but he was powerless
to warn them. He could not take a single step, and he
was rapidly becoming paralyzed with cold and pain. Once
more the soft nose of the old horse touched his ear.
With the nearness of the warm, friendly nose, his quick
wit returned.
“Gray!”
he almost shouted, “Gray-Boy, do you think you
could take the lantern? Oh, Gray-Boy, help me think!
I’m getting so numb and sleepy. Oh, couldn’t
you carry it for me?” With an effort
the boy struggled to his knees, and slipping his arms
about the neck of his old chum, he cried, “Oh,
Gray, I saved you once from dying at the logging camp.
They’d have killed you there. Save the mill hands
now just for me, Gray, just for Jack o’ Lantern,
because I’m deceiving them at last.”
The
warm, soft nose still snuggled against his ear. The
horse seemed actually to understand. In a flash the
boy determined to tie the lantern to the animal’s
neck. Then, in another flash, he realized that he had
nothing with which to secure it there. The horse had
not an inch of halter or tie line on him.
Then
across Jacky’s tense ears fell the horror of the
six o’clock whistle. No time now to kneel there
and beg the animal with words it could not understand.
An inspiration [Page 134] came to him
like an answer to prayer, and within two seconds he
acted upon it. Ripping off his coat, he flung it over
the horse’s neck, the sleeves hanging down beneath
the animal’s throat. Slipping one through the
ring handle of the lantern, he knotted them together.
The horse lifted his head, and the lantern swung clear
and brilliant almost under the soft, warm nostrils.
“Get
up there, old Gray! Get up!” shouted the boy desperately,
“clicking” with his tongue the well-known
sound to start a horse on the go. “Get up! And
oh, Gray, go to the danger spot, nowhere else. The danger
spot, quick! Get up!”
The animal turned, and slowly
mounted the broken ledge of earth and rock. Jacky watched
with strained, aching eyes until the light disappeared
over the bluff. Then his agonized knees collapsed. His
shoulders, with no warmth except the thin shirt-sleeves
to cover them, began to sting, then ache, then grow
numb. Once more his huddled into a limp little heap,
and this time his eyes closed.
*
* *
* *
*
“Do
you know, father, I’m anxious about Jacky,”
said Mrs. Moran, as they sat down to supper without
the boy. “He’s never come back since he
started with the lantern, and it’s such an awful
night. I’m afraid something has happened to him.”
“Why,
nothing could have happened,” answered Mr. Moran.
“The lantern was burning at the ‘death-hole’
all right as we crossed the ice.”
“Then
why isn’t Jacky home long ago?” asked Mrs.
Moran. “He never goes to Andy’s at this
hour. He is always on time for supper. I don’t
like it, Tom, one bit. The night is too bad for him
not to have come directly home. There, hear that wind.”
As she spoke the gale swept around the bend of the river,
and the house rocked with the full force of the storm.
[Page 135]
Tom
Moran shoved back his chair, leaving his meal half finished.
“That’s so,” said he, a little anxiously,
as he got into his heavy coat. “I’ll go
up shore and see. Oh, there’s Alick now, and ‘Old
Mack,’” as a thundering knock fell on the
door. “They said they were coming over after supper
for a talk with me.” Then, as the door burst open,
and the big foreman, accompanied by “Old Mack,”
shouldered their way into the room, Tom Moran added:
“Say, boys, the kid ain’t home, and his
mother is getting nervous about him. Will you two fellows
take a turn around the bend with me to hunt him up?”
“What!”
yelled the big foreman. “Our little Jack o’
Lantern out in this blizzard? You better believe we’ll
go with you, Tom. And what’s more, we’ll
go right now. Hustle up, boys.” And Alick Duncan
strode out again, with a frown of anxiety knitting his
usually jovial face.
“Lantern’s
there all right,” he shouted, as they neared the
bank above the danger spot. He was a few yards in advance
of Jack’s father and “Old Mack.” Then
suddenly he stood stock still, gave vent to a long,
explosive whistle, and yelled, “Well, I’ll
be gin-busted! Look a’ there, boys!” And
following his astounded gaze, they saw, on the brink
of the river, an old gray horse, with down-hanging head,
his back to the gale, and about his neck a boy’s
coat, from the knotted sleeves of which was suspended
a lighted lantern.
Tom
Moran was at the animal’s side instantly. “His
mother was right,” he cried. “Something
has happened to Jacky.” And he began searching
about wildly.
“Now
look here, Tom,” said the big foreman, “keep
your boots on, and take this thing easy. If that horse
knows enough to stand there a-waiting for the boy, he
knows enough to help us find him. We’ll just pretend
to lead him home, and see what he’ll do.”
And relieving the horse of the lantern, he tied the
little coat closer about the long throat, and, using
it as a halter, induced the gray to follow him. Down
the bank from the danger spot [Page 136] they
went, round the bend to the footpath, along the trail
for fifty yards. Then the horse stopped. “Come
on here! Get up!” urged the big foreman, as he
strained at the coat sleeve. But the horse stood perfectly
still, and refused to be coaxed further. “I’ll
bet Jack o’ Lantern is around here somewhere.
Jack o’—oh, Jack o’!” he shouted,
for Tom Moran’s throat was choked. He could not
call the boy’s name.
“Jack
o’ Lantern—where are you?” reiterated
Alick Duncan. But there was no reply.
Meanwhile
“Old Mack” had been snooping around the
hollows at one side of the trail, and Jacky’s
father was peering about the ledges opposite. Presently
he stopped, leaned over, and with love-sharpened eyesight,
saw a little, dark heap far below lying in the snow.
“There’s something here, boys,” he
called brokenly.
Alick Duncan sprang to the ledge,
looked over, made a strange sound with his throat, and
with an icy fear in his great heart, that never had
known fear before, he laid his big hand on Tom Moran’s
shoulder and said, “Stay here, Tom. I’ll
go. It will be better for me to go.”
And slipping over the ledge, he dropped down beside
the unconscious boy. In another minute he was rubbing
the cold hands, rousing the dormant senses. Presently
Jacky spoke, and with a shout of delight the big foreman
lifted the boy in his huge arms, and, struggling up
the uneven ledge, he shouted, “He’s all
O.K., Tom—just kind of laid out, but still in
the fight.”
With
the familiar voice in his ears, Jacky’s senses
returned, for, lifting his head, he cried, “Oh,
Mr. Duncan, did Gray-Boy take the lantern to the danger-spot?”
“Bet
your boots he did, son,” said Tom Moran, stretching
down his arms to help the big foreman lift his burden.
“We found him standing still and firm as a flag
pole, with that light hoisted under his chin.”
“Thank
goodness!” sighed the boy. “Oh, I was so
afraid he’d go home with it, instead of to the
river.” [Page 137] Then, with
a little gasp, “Mr. Duncan, I told you once Gray
had as much sense as a man. He saved you.”
“No, Jack o’ Lantern,”
said the big foreman gently, as he wrapped his great
coat around the half-frozen boy, “no, siree, it
was you, and your quick wits, that did it. Old Gray
got the lantern habit, but it would have done no good
had you not had sense enough to sling the light around
his neck; and you leaving yourself to freeze here without
a coat—bless you, youngster! The mill hands and
this big Scotchman won’t forget that
in a hurry.”
And it was on faithful old Gray’s
back that the injured boy rode home—home to warm
blankets, warm supper, and the warm love of his mother,
but also to the knowledge that one of the smaller bones
in his ankle had broken when he heard that snapping
sound. But it did not take so long to mend, after all,
and one day in the early spring the big foreman appeared,
his shrewd eyes twinkling with fun, although he made
the grave statement that Andy had at last consented
to sell old Gray.
“It isn’t true!
It can’t be true!” gasped Jacky. “Sell
Gray-boy after what he did to save the mill hands? Oh!
I can’t believe Andy would do such a
thing.” And his thin little face went white, and
his poor foot dragged as he stood erect, as if to fight
for the horse’s rights.
“But Andy has sold him,
nevertheless,” grinned Alick Duncan, “sold
him to me and the other mill hands, and we’re
going to give him away.”
“Away?” cried the
boy, with startled, agonized eyes.
“Yes, lad,” answered
the big foreman seriously; and placing his strong hand
on Jacky’s head, he added, “Give him away
to the bravest little chap in the world—a chap
we all call Jack o’ Lantern.”
For a moment the boy stood speechless,
then held out his arms—for the old gray horse
had come slowly up to the shanty, and with downbent
head was laying his soft, warm muzzle against Jacky’s
ear. [Page 138]
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