Produced by David Widger





THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR

By Holman Day

1906

[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: Frontispiece]




THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR




CHAPTER ONE--THE TRYING-OUT OF ONE RODNEY PARKER, ASSISTANT ENGINEER

All at once the stump-dotted, rocky hillside became clamorous and
animated. From the little shacks sheathed with tarred paper, from the
sodded huts, from burrows sunk into the hillside men suddenly came
popping out with shrill cries.

Three men, shouldering surveying instruments, stopped in their tracks
on the freshly-heaped soil of a new railroad embankment, and gazed up at
the hillside. The railroad skirted its foot and the sudden activity on
the slope was in full view. “Your lambs seem to be blatting around the
fodder-rack once more, Parker,” observed the man who lugged the transit.
He was a thin, elderly man and his tone was somewhat satirical.

The men were running toward a common center, uttering cries in shrill
staccato and sounding like yelping dogs.

Parker drove the spurs of his tripod into the soft soil and stared up at
the hillside, his tanned brow puckering with apprehension.

“I don't think there's much of the lamb to that rush,” observed the
third man; “they sound to me more like hyenas after raw meat.”

“It will be Dominick they'll eat, then,” said the elderly man.

“I'm afraid you put the Old Harry into 'em last week when you took their
part and straightened out Dominick's bill of fare,” he went on. “They
probably think they can get quail on toast now if they yap for it.”

“I believe in letting dagoes fight it out among themselves,” announced
the third man with much derision. “Helping one of 'em is like picking a
hornet out of a puddle. You'll get stung while doing it.”

The men on the hillside had knotted themselves into a jostling group
before the door of a long, low structure sheathed with tarred paper
like the shacks. In the sunshine an occasional glint flashed above their
heads.

“Yes, their stingers are out,” remarked the elderly man drily. “If
they've got Dominick cornered in that eating camp I'm thinking this will
be the day that he'll get his----whatever it is, they've laid up for
him.”

“He promised me there should be no more weevils and no more spoiled
meat,” cried the one who had been addressed as Parker, a young man whose
earnest face now expressed deep trouble. “As matters were going, those
Italians were half starved and doing hardly half a day's work in nine
hours. Their padrone was putting the food rake-off into his own pocket.”

“I'm not backing up Dominick,” said the other. “But when you took the
men's part and laid down the law to him on the grub question you gave
them their cue for general rebellion. Ten chances to one the padrone has
done as he agreed. I reckon you scared him enough for that. Now they're
probably around with knives looking for napkins and sparkling red wine.
I tell you, Parker, you're inviting trouble when you go to boosting up
what you call the oppressed multitude.”

“That's a pretty hard view to take of the world and the people in it,
Mr. Searles,” replied the youth. “There ought to be a bit of merit and
encouragement in a man's going out of his way to right a wrong.”

“Well, Parker, I'm hired as construction engineer on the P. K. & R.
railroad system and I've worked for the road a good many years and found
that I get along best when I am attending strictly to my own business
in my own line. I told you at the time you butted into that dago row you
were laying up trouble either for yourself or for some one else--and I
guess it's some one else.”

A series of pistol shots popped smartly on the hillside, the reports
partly muffled by the thin walls of the shack. The cries of the men
outside became shrieks. The next instant the side wall bellied outward
and then burst asunder. A man came hustling through the opening,
evidently self-propelled, for he struck lightly on his feet and began to
run down the steep hill. A soiled canvas apron fluttered at his waist.
Stones rained after him. The knot of men at the door scattered like
quicksilver and howling runners pursued him.

Probably fear helped him as much as agility, for he kept well ahead of
the rout, leaped a low fence at the bottom of the hill, scurried across
a little valley and came floundering up the soft soil of the railroad
embankment, scrambling toward the little group of engineers.

“It's Dominick,” said Searles. “There seems to be a little more work cut
out for you in your side line of philanthropist.”

“I do it whatta you say,” screamed the man as his head came over the
edge of the embankment. “Nice! Good! All good to eat. But they want
mucha more--too mucha!”

He struck himself repeated blows on the breast with one fist and pointed
with the other hand at the men who came swarming up the side of the
graded road bed.

“You coma look--look to the nice br-read, meat all good, beer--plenty
much to eat, dr-rink!” the padrone gasped in appeal, as he circled about
Parker to put him between the rioters and himself.

The men who came after, screaming and cursing, jerking their arms above
their heads, rolling back their lips from their yellow teeth, were
apparently so many lunatics whose frenzy was not to be stayed. But
undisciplined natures whose excesses spring from lack of self control
are all the more ready to respond to the masterful control of others.

First of all the men recognized in Parker the champion who had won their
first rights from the padrone.

They stopped their shrill vituperation and, crowding about him, began to
bleat their explanations and appeals. But he threw out his arms, pushed
them back a safe distance from the panting Dominick and roared them into
silence, brandishing his fists, as he would have quelled a noisy school.

When they understood that he wished them to be quiet they were silent,
all leaning forward, their eyes shining, their lips apart, their fists
clinched as tho they were holding their tongues in leash by that
means, their dark, brown faces alight with wistful, almost palpitating
eagerness. The regard they fixed on his face was baleful in its
intentness.

“Looka what they do,” yelled Dominick rushing to his side. He had
stripped his sleeve back from his arm. Blood was trickling from a knife
gash.

Then the tumult broke out again from the crowd. Two men leaped forward
shaking their hats in their hands and screaming assertions and pointing
quivering fingers at bullet holes in the crowns.

“Shut up!” barked the young man. The presence of the satiric and
unsympathetic old engineer nerved him to settle the dispute, if he
might. The hint from the other that he had been meddling in what was
outside his business gave him an uncomfortable sense of responsibility.

“About face and back to the camp,” he shouted. “I will look at your
dinner and we shall see!”

They hesitated a moment, but he went among them, pushing them down the
bank.

He followed with the padrone behind the jabbering throng, and the two
engineers came along at his earnest request.

“Mr. Searles,” said Parker after a little while, as they walked side by
side, “being an older and wiser man than I am you are probably right in
suggesting that I did wrong in interfering in this affair at the outset.
But,” he half-chuckled, “I am going to lay the blame on my professor in
sociology. He set me to thinking pretty hard in college and I guess I
haven't been out from under his influence long enough to get hardened
into the selfish views of my fellowman.”

There was earnestness under his smile.

“My boy,” said the elder, “I am not blaming you for what you have
done for the poor devils. But I have been all for business in my life.
Business hasn't seemed to mix well with philanthropy. I haven't dared to
think of what I ought to do. I have thought only of what I had to do, to
earn a living for my family.”

“Well,” said Parker, “if the P. K. & R. folks decide that I've been
meddling in matters that are none of my business I have no family to
suffer for my indiscretion--but I have prospects and I know that a
discharged man is worse off than a man who has started.”

The elder man patted Parker's arm.

“As it stands now--and I'm speaking as a friend, young man, and not as a
captious critic--you have set this Italian camp all askew by giving them
countenance in the first place. They haven't any regulators in their
heads, you see! When you're feeding charity to that kind of ruck you've
got to be careful Parker, that they don't trample you down when they
rush for the trough.”

The young man walked along up the hillside in silence. But just as
they arrived in front of the long camp the scowl of puzzled hesitation
disappeared from his forehead.

“As old Uncle Flanders used to say,” he muttered, “'When a man sticks
his finger into a tight knot-hole he'd better pull it out mighty quick,
before it swells, even if he does leave some skin on the edges.'”

The men halted and grouped themselves about the door. Their eager looks
and nudgings of each other showed plainly that they expected their
champion to take up their cause against the padrone once more.

Dominick prudently halted at a little distance.

“You go look for yourself, Sir Engineer,” he shouted; “on the kettle, in
the table all about and you see whatta I feed to those beasts when I try
to satisfy.”

The men retorted in shrill chorus leaping about and gesticulating till
their joints snapped.

Parker resolutely pushed through the throng without trying to understand
what they were saying to him and slammed the door in the faces of the
few who attempted to crowd in with him. Those who anxiously peered
through the windows saw him examine the food set out on the table for
the noon meal, lift the covers from the stew pans on the rusty stove and
then pass into the little building behind the main camp. The great stone
ovens for the bread-baking were located there.

When at last he came out he faced them with grim visage, squared the
shoulders that had borne many a football assault and called to Dominick.

“Go inside,” he said, “and coax those two helpers of yours out of those
ovens. They couldn't understand my Italian. Tell them that they are
safe. Let the padrone through, men! Do you hear?”

The crowd sullenly parted and Dominick trotted up the lane they left,
hastening with apprehensive shruggings of his shoulders.

“Go about your work,” said Parker, clutching his arm a moment as the
padrone hastened past. “I can see it isn't your fault this time.”

“Now, men,” he cried, turning to the throng, “few words and short so
that you may all understand. Dominick's dinner is good. Good as any
in the line boarding camps. I'm going to eat here. You come in and eat
too.”

A mumbling began among them and immediately it swelled into a jabbering
chorus as the few who understood translated his words to the others.

He leaped down off the muddy stoop and strode among them, cuffing this
one and that of those malcontents who were noisiest.

“That young man certainly understands dago nature,” muttered Searles to
the other engineer. “A club, good grit and a hard fist will drive them
when a machine gun wouldn't.”

“I stood up for you when you were not used right,” shouted the young
man. “He has given you what I told him to give you--what you asked for.
Go in there and get it.”

He knew who the ring-leaders in the mutiny were and he drove those into
the camp first. The others followed. In five minutes they were all at
their places at table munching quietly. Another man, even with equal
determination, might have not succeeded. But the greediest grumbler
among them understood that this young man had first been as valiant to
secure their rights as he was now ready to curb their rebellion.

In his own heart he was loathing this role of arbiter and mentor. His
first interference had come out of his natural sense of justice. He had
pitied this herd of men who had been so helplessly appealing against
their wrongs.

As he stood at one end of the room now and gazed at them, he realized
with a little pang of self-reproach that his latest exploit had been
prompted by as much of a desire to set himself right with the company as
to square the padrone's critical case.

Later, when they were trudging down the hill together Searles said with
a little touch of malice,

“For a philanthropist, Parker, you seem to relish rough-house about as
well as any one I ever saw, I've heard for a long time that football
makes prizefighters out of college boys--so much so that they go looking
for trouble. Is that so?”

“I wish you'd let the matter drop, Mr. Searles,” said the young man.
“I'm thoroughly ashamed of the whole thing.”

“Well, I was going to say,” went on the elderly man, “that civil
engineers in these days get just as good wages without being
shoulder-hitters. You'll get along faster on the peace basis.”

That was Parker's reflection two days later when he was in the room of
the chief engineer of the P. K. & R. system, at the company's general
offices.

“By the way,” said the chief, after his subordinate had finished his
regular report, “Mr. Jerrard wishes to see you.”

Jerrard was general traffic manager and chief executive.

The young engineer went slowly down the long corridor, apprehension
gnawing at his heart. He huskily muttered his name to the clerk at the
grilled door and was admitted. He fairly dragged his feet along the
strip of matting that led to the general manager's private office. It
was like the Bridge of Sighs to him.

“Parker, eh?” repeated the general manager, whirling in his chair and
letting his eyeglasses drop against his plump “front elevation,” as
Parker whimsically termed it in his thoughts, even in this moment of his
distress.

Jerrard gazed at him for a little while, a rather curious expression in
his eyes under their shaggy gray brows, then whirled back to his desk
and scrabbled among his papers. He drew forth a sheet of memoranda, gave
Parker another shrewd glance and inquired:

“Is it true, sir, that you have been interfering in the padrone system
of the construction department?”

“I suppose what I did might be termed that, tho I wasn't intending to be
meddlesome, Mr. Jerrard.”

“Nothing in general instructions, was there, to lead a cub assistant in
the engineering corps to revise a boarding house bill of fare?”

“No, sir.”

“I find it further mentioned that you were back next day and herded
about seventy-five Italians into a victualling camp as you would drive
steers to a fodder rack. Don't you know that we reserve that sort of
business for a squad of police?”

“Mr. Jerrard,” said the young man, recovering some of his
self-possession tho his tone was apologetic, “since I have been on the
road I saw what happened once when the police came with their clubs and
revolvers. There was a free fight and two men were killed. I thought
I saw a chance for one man to arbitrate a little difficulty--and
arbitration is pretty highly recommended in these days by good
authorities. When I found that arbitration didn't make things stay put
I meddled once more in order to undo my first mistake--if we may call
it that. It probably was a mistake, looked at officially. But you see--”
 his voice faltered a little, for the manager was surveying him with
rather a hard look in his eyes, “I hoped that putting the padrone into
line on his food question would prevent a strike; when I drove the men
to table I had only the interests of the road at heart, for the strike
was then fairly on.”

“Well,” said the manager, a bit of a smile at the corners of his mouth,
“you certainly were not thinking very hard of your own interests when
you went into that rabid gang.”

“I can see that I made a botch of it generally, Mr. Jerrard. I will save
you the trouble of requesting my resignation.”

But as he bowed and turned Jerrard spoke sharply.

“Not so fast, young man,” he said. “As the executive of the P. K. & R,
system it wouldn't be exactly official and proper in me to approve your
judgment in that matter of the Italians; but as a man--plain man, now,
you understand,--I know grit when I see it and--” he dropped his bluff
stiffness got out of his chair and came along and squeezed Parker's
muscular arm, “you've got a brand of it that I admire. Yes, I do. No
mistake! But that is just between you and me. That is simply my own
personal opinion. I don't believe the directors relish the idea of
gladiators in the engineering corps. Just respect this little private
hint of mine hereafter please.”

He surveyed the young man with twinkling and appreciative eyes.

“Parker,” he said, “once in a while there comes up in the railroad
business a demand for a man who has brains and spunk and muscle all
rolled up in one bundle. I haven't tested you out yet on the first named
but the chief engineer speaks in your behalf. The last two you certainly
have. There's the story of a man who was going home late at night and
picked up what he thought was a kitten and found it to be a pole-cat. It
was good judgment to set it down again mighty sudden. But the skin was
worth something and he resolved to have the skin to pay for the damage.
Now President Whittaker and myself have been up in the north woods this
season--among the big game, you understand. We picked up what we thought
was a kitten. It has turned out to be something else. But we are not
going to drop it.”

The young engineer was looking at him with puzzled gaze.

“You don't understand a bit of it, do you?” laughed the traffic manager.
“Well, I can't explain the thing just yet. I'll simply leave it this way
today: Do you want to take a pole-cat and skin it for us? I don't
mean by that that it's a job that any enterprising young man should be
ashamed or afraid of. It's a job in your line. It's something of close
personal interest to the president of this system and myself. It is
going to take you away into the big woods. Do you want it--yes or no?”

The engineer hesitated only a moment.

“I'll take it,” he said simply.

“That's the boy!” cried Jerrard. His tone was so enthusiastic that
Parker's instinct told him that this bluff offer was another test of his
readiness in an emergency and had succeeded.

The manager put his hand against his shoulder and gently pushed him out
of the office.

“Get ready for a cold winter out of doors and practice your tongue on
the names To-quette Carry' and 'Colonel Gideon Ward' until you are not
afraid of the sound of them.”

With a chuckle he shut the door on the astonished young man, but opened
it again before Parker had moved from the mat outside.

“Don't be worried, my boy, because I cannot explain the whole situation
today.” There was kindly reassurance in his tones. “You'll make out all
right, I'm sure of that.” A queer little smile puckered the corners of
his eyes and his voice again became teasing. “The idea is, you've taken
a contract to do up the Gideonites of the Wilderness in a lone-handed
job. But I think you're good for the trick.” He shut the door again.




CHAPTER TWO--THE WHIM THAT PROJECTED THE FAMOUS “POQUETTE CARRY
RAILROAD”

Weeks passed before Rodney Parker got any more light on the matter in
which he had blindly given his word.

He understood this silence better when the situation was set before him
at last. There are some projects that captains of industry dilate upon
with pride. But big men are cautious about letting the world know
their whims. And whims that lead to exasperating complications that
no business judgment has provided for, do not form pleasant topics for
conversation or publicity.

Many railroad projects have been launched, some of them unique, but
never before was enterprise conceived in just the spirit that gave the
Poquette Carry Railway to the transportation world. There have been
railroads that “began somewhere and ended in a sheep pasture.” The
Poquette Carry Road, known to the legislature of its state as “The
Rainy-Day Railroad,” is even more indifferently located, for it twists
for six miles, from water to water, through as tangled and lonely a
wilderness as ever owl hooted in.

Yet it has two of the country's railroad kings behind it and at its
inception some very wrathful lumber kings were ahead of it, and the
final and decisive battle that was fought was between the champions of
the respective sides--an old man and a young one.

The old man had all the opinionated conservatism of one who despises new
methods and modern progress as “hifalutin and new-fangled notions.”
 The young man, fresh from a school of technology and just completing an
apprenticeship under the engineers of a big railroad system, had not an
old-fashioned idea.

The old man came roaring from the deep woods, choleric, impatient of
opposition, and flaming with the rage of a tyrant who is bearded in his
own stronghold for the first time. The young man advanced from the city
to meet him with the coolness of one who has been taught to restrain his
emotions, and armed with determination to win the battle that would make
or break him, so far as his employers were concerned.

Jerrard was the avant-courier of this novel railroad. Jerrard had been
traffic-manager of the great P. K. & R. system for many years, and when
he grew bilious and “blue” and very disagreeable, the doctor told him
to go back into the woods so far that he would not think about tariff or
rebates or competition for two months.

Jerrard chose Kennegamon Lake. A New England general passenger-agent
whom he had met at a convention told him about that wilderness gem,
and lauded it with a certain attractiveness of detail that made
Jerrard anxious to test the veracity of New England railroad men,
whose “fishin'-story” folders he had always doubted with professional
scepticism.

The journey by rail was a long one, and it afforded leisure for so much
cogitation that when Jerrard napped he dreamed that the ends of his
nerves were nailed to his desk back in the P. K. & R. general offices,
and that as he proceeded he was unreeling them as a spider spins its
thread.

When he left the train at Sunkhaze station he was still worrying as to
whether the assistant traffic-manager would be able to beat the O. & O.
road on the grain contract. In thinking it over about a month later it
occurred to him that he had dropped all outside affairs right there on
that station platform.

In the first place the mosquitoes and black flies were waiting. He had
never seen or felt black flies before. He would have scouted the idea
that there were insects no bigger than pinheads that in five minutes
would have his face streaming with blood.

“They do just love the taste of city sports,” said the guide. “We old
sanups ain't much of a delicacy 'long side of such as you. Here, let
me put this on.” He daubed the white face of the city man with an
evil-smelling compound of tar and oil.

Jerrard's mind was rapidly freeing itself from transportation worries.
Then came the long paddle across Spinnaker Lake, with only the
unfamiliar insecurity of a canoe beneath him, and after that the
six-mile Poquette carry.

By this time Jerrard had forgotten the P. K. & R. entirely.

The canoe and duffel went across the carry slung upon a set of wheels.
Jerrard rode in the low-backed middle seat of a muddy buck-board.

The wheels ran against boulders, grated off with indignant “chuckering”
 of axle-boxes, hobbled over stumps and plowed through “honey-pots” of
mud.

“For goodness' sake,” gasped Jerrard, holding desperately to the seat,
“why don't you get into the road?”

The driver, a French-Canadian turned and displayed an appreciative grin.

“Eet ban de ro'd vat you saw de re,” he explained, pointing his whip to
the thoroughfare they were pursuing.

“This a road?” demanded Jerrard, with indignation.

“Oui, eet ban a tote-road.”

“I never heard of this kind before,” ejaculated Jerrard, between bumps,
“but the name 'road' ought not to be disgraced in any such fashion. How
much of it is there?”

“Sax mal'.”

“Six miles! All like this?”

“Aw-w-w some pretty well, some as much bad.”

“Well, I don't know just what you mean,” muttered Jerrard, “but I fear
I can imagine.” After what seemed a long interval, and when Jerrard,
dizzied by the bumps and the curves, believed that the end must
be near,--for six miles are but an inconsiderable item to the
traffic-manager of a thousand-mile system,--he asked how far they had
come. The driver looked at the trees. “Wan mal', mabbee, an' some leetle
more.” The railroad man opened his mouth to make a discourteous retort
reflecting on the driver's judgment of distances, but just then one of
the rear wheels slipped off a rock. It came down kerchunk. Jerrard bit
his cheek and his tongue. After that he sat and held to his seat with a
hopeless idea that the end of the road was running away from them.

Half-way through the woods he bought two fat doughnuts and a piece
of apple pie at a wayside log house. He munched his humble fare with a
gusto he had not known for years. The jolting, the shaking, the tossing
had started his sluggish blood and cleared his business-befogged brain.
His food was spiced with the aroma of the hemlocks, and when they took
to the road again he began to hum tunes.

[Illustration: Then he fell to chuckling 049-050]

Then he fell to chuckling. And when a smooth stretch suffered him to
unclasp his cramped hold, he slapped his leg mirthfully. He was thinking
what President Whittaker of the P. K. & R. would be saying in two weeks.

President Whittaker was a rotund, flabby man, whom long indulgence in
rubber-tired broughams and double-springed private cars had softened
until he reminded one of a fat down pillow.

“Jerrard,” he had said, at parting, “if you find good fishing I'll
follow you in two weeks. I need a little outdoor relaxation myself.”

Jerrard sent an enthusiastic letter right back by the tote-road driver.
He took the word of his guide about the fishing in prospect. In his new
and ebullient spirits he felt that he could hardly wait two weeks for
the spectacle--Whittaker in the middle seat of a buck-board, on that
six-mile carry road. And when the day came, Jerrard, now bronzed, alert
and agile walked out over the Poquette Carry, paddled down to Sunkhaze,
and received his superior with open arms.

The unconsciousness of the corpulent Whittaker as he left the train,
spick and span in tweed and polished shoes appealed to Jerrard's sense of
the ludicrous so acutely that the president, following the baggage-laden
guide down to the shore of the lake, stopped and looked at his friend
with puzzled gaze.

“I say, Jerrard, you seem to be in a good humor.”

“Nothing like the ozone of the forest to make you sparkle,” chuckled the
traffic-manager.

It is unnecessary to describe the incidents of the trip across the
lake, the apprehensive flinching of the fat president whenever the canoe
lurched, and his fear of breaking through the bottom of the frail shell.

But when they were well out on the carry road in the buckboard, Jerrard,
gazing on the indescribable mixture of reproach, horror, pain and
astonishment that the president's face presented laughed until Whittaker
forgot dignity, cares and fears, and laughed, too.

Two days later, as they were eating their lunch beside the famous spring
in the north cove of Kennemagon Whittaker stretched himself luxuriously
on the gray moss, and said;

“Jerrard, it's an earthly paradise! I never had such fishing, never saw
such scenery. I want to come here every summer. I'd like to buy a tract
here. But that six-mile drive--O dear me! It makes me shiver when I
think I've got to bump back over it in two weeks.”

That evening one Rowe, a timber-land exploring prospector, whose
employment was locating tracts for the cutting of pulp stuff, stopped at
the camp and accepted hospitality for the night. After supper the three
lay in their bunks and chatted, while the guide pottered about the
household tasks.

“Much travel over the Poquette Carry?” asked Whittaker.

“Good deal,” said Rowe. “It's the thoroughfare between the West Branch
and Spinnaker, you know. All the men for the woods leave the train at
Sunkhaze, boat it across Spinnaker, and walk the carry at Poquette. All
the supplies for the camp come that way, too. They bateau goods up the
river from the West Branch end of the carry.”

“Why doesn't some one fix that road?” asked the president. “Looks to me
as if they had brought rocks and thrown them into the trail just to make
it worse.”

“It's all wild lands hereabouts,” explained the prospector. “The county
commissioners lay out the roads and the landowners are supposed to build
them, but they don't. Timber-land owners don't like roads through their
woods, anyway.”

“I see they don't,” replied Whittaker dryly. “What did you pay, Jerrard,
for having your canoe and truck carried across?”

“Fifteen dollars for the duffel, and four dollars each for the guide,
myself and you.”

“How's that for a tariff?” laughed the president. Then he took out his
pencil and book and put a series of interrogations to Rowe. At the close
he pondered a while, and said to Jerrard:

“According to our friend here, at least five thousand men cross
that carry each year, making ten thousand through fares one way.
Supplies--pressed hay, grain, foodstuffs and all that sort of
freight--from ten to fifteen thousand tons. Then there's the sportsman
traffic, which could be built up indefinitely if there were suitable
transportation conveniences here. Say, Jerrard, do you know there's a
fine place for a six-mile narrow-gage railroad right there on
Poquette Carry? You and I didn't come down here looking up railroad
possibilities, but really this thing strikes me favorably. Slow time and
not very expensive equipment, but think what a convenience! It will
also give you and me an excuse to come down here summers, eh?” he added,
humorously.

“We'll establish a colony here on Kennemagon,” suggested Jerrard, half
in jest, “and start a land boom.”

“Seriously,” went on Whittaker “the more I talk about that little road
the more I am convinced it would pay a very good dividend. You and I
can swing it. We can use some P. K. & R. rails, fix up one of those
narrow-gage shifters they used on the grain spur, and have a railroad
while you wait. If we only clear enough to pay our own passage twice a
year we'll be doing fairly well. And I'll be willing to pass dividends
for the sake of riding from Spinnaker to the West Branch on a car-seat
instead of a buckboard. Say, Rowe,” he went on, jocosely, “I suppose
they'll have a mass-meeting and pass votes of thanks to Jerrard and
myself if we put that project through, won't they?”

Rowe squinted his eye along the sliver he was whittling. “I don't know
of any one specially that's hankering for railroad-lines round here,”
 said he.

“You don't mean to tell me that abomination of stones and muck-holes
suits the public, do you?”

“I know the folks I work for don't want to have it a mite smoother than
it is. They're the public that's running this part of the world.”

“Here's a brand-new thing in transportation ideas, Jerrard!” cried the
president of the P. K. &R.

“Nothing strange about our side of it,” said the prospector. “The people
I work for own more than a million acres of timber land for feeding
their pulp-mills, and the more city sports there are hanging round on
the tracts and building fires, the more danger of a big blaze catching
somewhere. And railroads bring sports. You don't hear of any lumbermen
grumbling about the Poquette carry.”

“I should say, then, this section should have a little enterprise shaken
into it,” said Whittaker, tartly. This promised opposition promptly
fired his modern spirit of progress.

After he and his manager had returned to their duties in the city, the
surprising word began to go about the district that next year there
would be a railroad across Poquette carry. When the rumor was traced to
Rowe, he found himself in for a good deal of rough badinage for allowing
two city sportsmen to “guy” him.

The postmaster at Sunkhaze was a subscriber to a daily paper, every
word of which he read. One day, among the inconspicuous notices of “New
Corporations,” he found this paragraph:

“Poquette Carry Railway Company, organized for the purpose of
constructing and operating a line of railroad between Spinnaker Lake and
West Branch River. President, G. Howard Whittaker; vice-president and
general manager, George P. Jerrard; secretary and treasurer, A. L.
Bevan. Capital stock $100,000; $5,000 paid in.”

After the postmaster had read that twice, he strode out of his little
pen. Men in larrigans and leggings were huddled round the stove, for
the autumn crispness comes early in the mountains. The postmaster's eye
singled out Seth Bowers, the guide.

“Say, Seth,” he inquired, “wa'n't your sports last summer named
Whittaker and Jerrard--the men ye had in on the Kennemagon waters?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you boys listen to this,” and the postmaster read the item with
unction.

“Looks 's if they were going ahead, and as if there wasn't so much wind
to it, after all,” observed one of the party.

“That Poquette Carry road hasn't been touched by shovel or pick for more
than three years, and I don't believe that Col. Gid Ward and his crowd
ever intend to hire another day's work on it. Colonel Gid says every
operator and sport from Clew to Erie goes across there, and if there's
any ro'd-repairin' all hands ought to turn to an' help on the expense.”

“This new railroad idea ought to hit him all right, then,” remarked
Seth, the guide.

“Well,” remarked the postmaster, “I'd just like to be round--far enough
off so's the chips and splinters wouldn't hit me--when some one steps
up and tells Col. Gid Ward that a concern of city men is going to put a
railroad in across his land--that's all!”

“Gid Ward has always backed everybody off the trail into the bushes
round here” said Seth. “But he's up against a different crowd now.”

“Do ye think, in the first place, that Colonel Gid is going to sell 'em
any right o' way across Poquette?” asked the postmaster. “He owns the
whole tract there.”

“Oh, there's ways of getting it,” replied Seth. “Let lawyers alone for
that when they're paid. If Gid don't sell, they can condemn and take.”

In a week a portion of Seth's prediction concerning lawyers was
verified.

Mr. Bevan, tall and thin and sallow, stepped off the train at Sunkhaze.
He was a prominent attorney in one of the principal cities of the state,
and served as clerk of this new corporation.

When he heard that Col. Gideon Ward was fifty miles up the West Branch,
looking after a timber operation on Number 8, Range 23, he borrowed
leggings, shoe-pacs and an overcoat and hastened on by means of a
tote-team.

A week later, silent and grim and pinched with cold, he unrolled himself
from buffalo-robes and took the train at Sunkhaze. The postmaster and
station-agent gave him several opportunities to relate the outcome of
his negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn.

The first news came down two week later by Miles McCormick, a swamper
on Ward's Number 8 operation. The man had a gash on his cheek and a big
purple swelling under one eye. When a man of Ward's crew came down from
the woods marked in that manner, it was not necessary for him to say
that he had been discharged by the choleric tyrant who ruled the forest
forces from Chamberlain to Seguntiway. The only inquiry was as to method
and provocation.

“He comes along to me as I was choppin',” related Miles to the Sunkhaze
postmaster, “and he yowls, 'Git to goin' there, man, git to goin'!'
'An',' says I, 'sure, an' I'll not yank the ax back till it's done
cuttin'.' An' then he” Miles put his finger carefully against the
puffiness under his eye, “he hit me.”

“Was there a tall stranger come up on the tote-team two weeks or so
ago?” asked the postmaster.

“There were,” Miles replied, listlessly, and intent on his own troubles.

“Hear anything special about his business?”

“No. The old man took the stranger into the wangun camp, where it was
private, and they talked. None of us heard 'em.”

“And then the stranger went away, hey?” “Oh, well, at last we heard
the old man howlin' and yowlin' in the wangun camp and then he comes
a-pushing the tall stranger out with such awful language as you know he
can. An' he says to the stranger, 'Talk about charters and condemning
land till ye're black in the face, I say ye can't do it; and every rail
ye lay I'll tie it into a bow-knot. An' I'll eat your charter, seals and
all. An' I'll throw your engine into the lake. An' how do ye like the
smell of those?' When he said it he cracked his old fists under the
stranger's nose. An' the stranger gets into the team and goes away. So
that's all of it, and none of us knowed what it meant at all.”

The postmaster darted significant glances round the circle of faces at
the stove, and the loungers returned the stare with interest.

“What did I tell ye?” he demanded.

“Just as any one might ha' told that lawyer,” said a man, clicking his
knife-blade.




CHAPTER THREE--ENGINEER PARKER GETS FINAL ORDERS FOR “THE LAND OF THE
GIDEONITES.”

The long autumn passed and winter set in. Snow fell on the carry and the
big sleds jangled across. Men went up past Sunkhaze settlement into the
great region of snow and silence, and men came down--bearded men, with
hands calloused by the ax and the cross-cut saw.

But Col. Gideon Ward's well known figure was not among the passengers
on the tote-road. The upgoing men were bound for his camps, and were
inquiring as to his whereabouts; the downgoing men stated that he was
roaring from one log-landing to another, driving men and horses to make
a record-breaking season, and so busy that he would not stop long enough
to eat.

Hearing the discussion of the traits and deeds of this woods ogre,
the stranger might readily believe him as terrifying as the celebrated
“Injun devil”--and as much a creature of fiction.

But each of the messengers that Ward sent down to the outer world
bore unmistakable sign that this ruler of the wilderness was in
full possession of his autocracy. This talisman was one of the most
picturesque features of Ward's reign over the “Gideonites,” as his men
were called all through the great north country.

He never intrusted money to woodsmen, for he deemed them irresponsible;
he found that writings and orders were too easily mislaid. Therefore,
whenever he sent a messenger to town or a man down the line with a
tote-team for goods, he scrawled on his back with a piece of chalk the
peculiar hieroglyph of crosses and circles that made up the Gideon Ward
“log-mark.” This mark was good for lodging and meals at any tavern, was
authority for the transfer of goods, and procured transportation for the
man whose back was thus inscribed.

When Colonel Ward sent a crew of men into the woods he marked the back
of each one in this fashion, as if the employees were freight parcels.
The exhibition of that chalk-mark and the words “Charge to Ward” were
enough. And such was the fear of all men that the chalk-mark was never
abused.

Furthermore, on each grand spring settling day most of the dollars that
circulated in the region came through the hands of Col. Ward. This fact
naturally increased the deference paid him.

“A railroad?” sneered one man, just down from Number 4 camp. “A railroad
across Poquette? Across Gid Ward's land, spouting sparks and settin'
fires and hustlin' in sports? Well, you don't see any railroad-buildin'
goin' on, do you?”

There was certainly but one reply to this.

“And ye won't see any, either. Gid Ward just bellowed once at that
lawyer, and he ran away, ki-yi! ki-yi! You'll never hear any more
railroad talk.”

He expressed the public opinion, for even Seth, the guide, regretfully
came to the conclusion that the tyrant of the West Branch had “backed
down” the city men by his belligerent reception of their emissary.

But soon after the first of January the postmaster's daily paper brought
some further news. The state legislature had assembled in biennial
session that winter. In the course of its reports the newspaper stated
that the “Po-quette Carry Railway Company,” a corporation organized
under the general law, had brought before the railroad commissioners a
petition for their approval of the project, and that a day was appointed
for a hearing.

“The city men had the sand, after all,” was his admiring comment. “They
don't propose to start firing till they get all their legal ammunition
ready, and that's why they've been waitin'. We're goin' to see warm
times on the Spinnaker waters.”

For that matter the daily newspaper brought to snow-heaped Sunkhaze
intelligence of “warm times” at the hearing. The legal counsel and
lobbyists who represented the puissant timber interests of the state
protested against allowing this railroad corporation to acquire any
rights across the wild lands.

It was pointed out that a dangerous precedent would be established; that
forest fires would be sure to originate from the locomotive's sparks,
and that the Poquette woods were the center of the great West Branch
timber growth.

The counsel for the incorporators said that his clients realized this
danger, and anticipated that this objection, a potent one, would
be made. They were willing to show their liberal intent by binding
themselves to run their trains only in rainy or “lowery” weather, or
when the ground was damp. In times of dangerous drought they would
suspend operations.

“The Rainy-Day Railroad,” as it was nicknamed immediately, excited
considerable hilarity at the state-house and in the newspapers.

The matter was fought out with much animation. The counsel for the
railway made much of the fact that these timber owners had fought
the very reasonable state tax that had been imposed on their vast and
valuable holdings. He drew attention to the needs of the sportsman
class, that was spending much money in the state each year, and declared
that unless they were treated with some courtesy and generosity, they
would go into New Brunswick.

But those deepest in the secrets of the very vigorous legislative fray
knew that the timber-land owners feared more results than they advanced
in their arguments against the charter.

For some years there had been rumors that extensive capital was ready
to tap a certain big railway and afford a shorter cut to the sea. Such
a cut-off would mean opening great tracts of woodland to the steam
horse--and where the steam horse goes there go settlers. The timberland
owners had found that settlers do not wait for clear titles, but squat
and burn and plant until evicted, and eviction by course of law means
expense and damage.

To be sure, the Poquette Carry line appeared on the surface to be so
innocent that to allege against it the great whispered scheme seemed
ridiculous. Therefore the counsel of the timber barons did not bring out
in the committee-room hearings all they suspected, for fear that they
would be laughed at.

So the Poquette Carry Road got what it asked for at last, the opposition
daring to put forward only its slight pretexts. But the timber interests
retired growling bitterly, and angrily apprehensive. They could not
understand that big men are sometimes actuated by whims. Here they saw
the controllers of the great P. K. & R. system behind this insignificant
project in the north woods. They gave these shrewd railroad men no
credit for ingenuousness. And the resolve that was thereupon made at
secret conclave of the timber men to fight that first encroachment on
their old-time domains and rights was a stern and a bitter resolve.
The knowledge of it would have mightily astonished--might have daunted
effectually a certain young engineer who was just then learning from
Manager Jerrard the details of his new commission.

In the end, late in March, Whittaker and Jerrard found themselves with
a charter and a location approved by the state railroad commissioners,
permitting them to build a six-mile railroad across Poquette Carry; to
carry passengers, baggage, express and freight, but with the limitation
that when the state land-agent should think the condition of drought
dangerous and should so notify the company, the road should cease to run
any trains until rain wet down the woods.

The location was taken by right of eminent domain, and all the
provisions of the law were complied with. No settlement for the damage
caused to Colonel Ward through the loss of his land was possible, altho
the railroad company made liberal offers, and he was finally left to
pursue his remedy in the courts.

Up to this time Jerrard had kept his negotiations with young Parker a
private matter between the two of them, even as he had kept some of the
annoying legislative details away from his superior.

“What engineer can you send down there and handle the thing for us?”
 asked President Whittaker, when Jerrard informed him that all the legal
details had been settled. “I want some one who knows enough to get the
line going in season for our August trip--and above all to keep still. I
don't want to hear a word about it till I get out of a canoe at Poquette
Carry next summer. Here we want to build a wheelbarrow road, and I
have been having hard work to convince some of our bankers that I'm not
planning a coup against the Canadian Pacific. Bosh!”

“These timber-land owners started most of that foolishness,” said
Jerrard. “But speaking of a man, there's Rodney Parker.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He's been with the engineers two years on the Falls cut-off's new work.
I can't think of any one else who will suit us as well.”

“'Tisn't going to take any very wonderful man to build this road,” the
president snapped, rather impatiently.

A smile crept into the wrinkles about Jerrard's shrewd eyes.

“Whittaker,” said he, “there's a side to our railroad enterprise that
neither you nor I appreciated at first. I've been getting some points
from our counsel, who had a talk with Bevan. When we were up at the
lake, you remember something that Rotre said about the timber-land
owners not especially hankering for a railroad at the carry. Well, Bevan
says the land there is owned by a man named Ward--Col, Gideon Ward, one
of the big lumber operators of that section. From Bevan's account, Ward
must be something like a cross between a bull moose and a Bengal tiger,
Bevan went up to see him. He thought he could make a deal for the
right of way, and thus would not be obliged to bother with condemnation
proceedings and stir up talk and all that. Devan declares that getting a
charter is one thing but the building of that road will be another.”

“We've got the law--”

“Law gets very thin when you step over the line into an unorganized
timber township. They tell me that old Ward comes pretty near making his
own laws, and makes them with his fists or a club or else through his
gang that they call 'The Gideonites' in that country.”

“Your Parker, is he--”

“I've got him out in my room. I've been talking with him. Better have
him step in here.”

The president pushed his desk button, and the messenger hastened on his
errand.

“Parker,” explained the traffic manager, “doesn't look any more savage
than a house cat. But he's the man who went down into the camp of
those Italians at the Fall's cut-off when they were having their bread
squabble, and he backed the whole gang into the camp and made them sit
down at the table. Of course, we hope we shall need only an engineer and
not a warrior at Poquette, and we trust that Ward will be tractable and
all that; but, Whittaker, if we're going to build that road, and are not
to be backed down in such a way that we'll never dare to show our faces
before the grinning natives at Sunkhaze then we need to send along a
chap like--”

“Mr. Parker!” opportunely announced the boy, at the door.

Parker seemed tall and angular and rather awkward. The brown of
out-of-doors was upon his skin. His eyelids dropped at the corners in
rather a listless way, but the eyes beneath were gray and steady. He was
young, not more than twenty-five, so Whittaker judged at his first sharp
glance.

“Do you think you can build that road that Jerrard has been telling you
about?” asked the president, briskly.

“I think so, sir.” Parker spoke with a drawl.

“You understand what the plan is?”

“Mr. Jerrard has explained quite fully.”

“Are you afraid of bears and owls?” The president spoke jocosely, but
there was a significant tone in his voice.

“I don't think I should spend much time climbing trees,” replied Parker,
smiling.

“Do you understand that the man we send must take the whole undertaking
on his own shoulders? Neither Mr. Jerrard nor myself cares to think
about the matter, even.” “I'll be glad to be instructed, sir.” “You'll
have instructions as to limit of construction cost per mile, authority
to draw on us as you need money, and the road must be in operation by
the middle of July. Now Jerrard speaks well of your qualifications. What
do you think?” “I am ready to accept the commission, sir.” “You'll have
to get away at once, Parker,” said Jerrard. “You must get construction
material and supplies across Spinnaker before the ice breaks up. You can
depend on the most of April for ice.”

“I can start when you say the word.” “We shall rush material. Suppose
you start to-morrow morning?” “I'll start sir.”

He left the room when he was informed that his instructions would await
him that evening.

“Jerrard,” said the president, gazing after the young man, “your friend
isn't an especially _pretty_ frog but I'll bet he can jump more than
once his length.”




CHAPTER FOUR--IN WHICH THE DOUGHTY “SWAMP SWOGON” ASTONISHES SUNKHAZE
SETTLEMENT

Two days afterward Parker ate his supper at the Sunkhaze tavern and
spent the evening going over the schedule of material that was following
him by freight, its progress over connecting lines hastened by all the
“pull” inspired by the P. K. & R.'s bills of lading.

The next morning, even while the frosty sun was red behind the spruces,
he had arranged with the station agent for side-track privileges, and
then questioned that functionary regarding local conditions.

“I need twenty or more four-horse teams,” said Parker. “What's the best
way to advertise here?” “I reckon you can advertise and advertise,”
 replied the station agent, “but that's all the good it'll do you.
Colonel Gid Ward has about every spare team in this county yardin' logs
for him this winter.”

“What does he pay?”

“Thirty-five a month for a span o' hosses, and hosses and man kept.”

“I'll pay forty-five and feed.”

“I shouldn't want to be the man that went up on Gid Ward's operations
and tried to hire his teams away!” growled the agent. “You can't hire
any one round here for an errand of that kind.”

“I'd go myself if I thought I could get the horses,” said Parker.

“I'd advise you to save yourself a fifty-mile ride up the tote-road,”
 the agent counseled. “Even if Ward didn't catch you, you'd find that no
man would da'st to leave there. Furthermore, you've only got a little,
short job here, scarcely worth while.”

The logic of the reply impressed Parker.

He could not spare the time anyway, to travel far up into the woods in
quest of horses. His material must be conveyed across Spinnaker Lake in
some other way.

“How far is it up the lake to Poquette?” he asked the agent.

“Sixteen miles.”

An hour later Parker, after a tour of inspection, had settled his
problem of transportation in his own mind. His plan was ingenious.

There were half a dozen men available in Sunkhaze, and more were
arriving daily, straggling down from the woods or roaring in fresh from
the city, hurrying on the way up.

The postmaster owned a hardwood tract, and Parker set his little crew
at work chopping birch saplings and fashioning from them huge sleds,
strongly bolted. As for himself, he entered into a contract with
the local blacksmith, threw his coat off and went to work on some
contrivances, round which the settlement's loungers congregated from
dawn till dark the next day, watching the progress and wondering audibly
“what such a blamed contraption was goin' to turn out to be.”

Parker kept his own counsel. At the end of two days, with the assistance
of the blacksmith, he had remodeled four ox-cart tires. Each tire was
spurred with bristling steel spikes, bolted firmly. In reply to his
telegram, “Rush loco, all equipments and coal,” the little narrow-gage
engine arrived, at the tail of the procession of flat cars, loaded with
materials of construction.

By this time Parker's crew had been increased to a score of laborers,
and he had picked up three yokes of oxen and four horses from the few
pioneer farmers who lived near Sunkhaze. With tackle and derrick the
locomotive was swung upon a specially constructed sled, and the spurred
tires were set upon its drivers. Then the great idea locked in Parker's
head became apparent to the population of Sunkhaze.

[Illustration: Then the great idea Frontispiece]

“Gorry!” said the postmaster. “If that young feller hain't got a horse
there that'll beat anything that even Colonel Gid Ward himself ever sent
across Spinnaker Lake!”

Amid the utmost excitement of the spectators, the “engine on runners”
 was “snubbed” down the steep hill and eased out upon the road leading
to the lake. Two hours' work with levers and wedges had adjusted the
machine until the spurred wheels had the requisite “bite” upon the ice.

At dark on the day of the “launching” Parker gazed off across the level
of the lake, and said to his men:

“To-morrow, boys, the Spinnaker Lake Air-Line Railroad will run its
first train to Po-quette Carry. No freight this time. I want to lay
out my landing up there. So all aboard at nine o'clock. Three cars,” he
said, pointing to the new sleds, “and a free ride for all of you, with
my compliments.”

An honest cheer greeted his jocular announcement, and that evening
all the Sunk-haze male population assembled round the stove in the
post-office to discuss the matter. When the evening was yet young, a
red-faced, red-whiskered man, snow-shoes on his back and fresh from the
up-country trail, came and warmed himself, listening with interest to
the lively discussion.

“So that's what that thing is down on the lake?” he said, at last.
“'Twas dark when I came by, and I swan if it didn't scare me. Want to
know if that's the engine we've been hearin' about up our way?”

His tone was significant.

“Where ye from, stranger?” asked one of the loungers.

“Number 7 cuttin'.”

“Oh, one of Gid Ward's men?”

“Yes.”

“Say, has Ward heard about the railroad preparations?” inquired the
postmaster. This query had been propounded with eagerness to every new
arrival from the woods for the past three days.

“Yes.”

The interest of the men quickened, and they crowded round the newcomer.

“What does he say?”

“He hain't said anything special yet, so I heard,” replied the man.
“Hain't done anything but swear so far, so they tell me.”

“Has he--has he started to come down?”

“Feller from up the line telephoned across the carry that a streak of
fur, bells and brimstone went past his place, and so I should judge that
Colonel Gid is on the way down,” drawled the man.

“An' he'll come across that lake in the morning,” said the postmaster,
jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, “scorchin' the snow and leavin' a
hot hole in the air behind him.”

The door opened and Parker came in to post his letters. The crowd
gazed on him with new interest and with a certain significance in their
glances that caught his eyes. The postmaster noticed his mute inquiry,
and remarked:

“News from the interior, Mr. Parker, is that you prob'ly won't have any
ice in Spinnaker to-morrow to run your engine on.”

“Why?” demanded the young man, with some surprise. The postmaster's
sober face hid his jest. Parker surveyed wonderingly the grins curling
under the listeners' beards.

“Oh, Colonel Gid Ward is comin' across in the mornin' and it's reckoned
he'll burn up the ice.”

A cackle of laughter came from the assemblage.

“There's plenty of room on Spinnaker for both of us, I think,” Parker
replied, quietly.

“Better hitch your engine,” suggested one of the group. “She's li'ble to
take to the woods and climb a tree when she hears old Gid. And you can
hear him a good way off, now I can tell you.”

The postmaster knuckled his chin humorously.

“Wal, you'll hear him 'bout the same time you see him. Five years ago
he was arrested down to the village for drivin' through the streets
lickety-whelt without bells. Run over two or three people, first and
last. Gid said he'd give 'em bells enough, if that's what they wanted.
He began collecting bells all the way from a cow-bell down. At last
accounts he had about two hundred on his hoss and sleigh, and was still
addin'. Now he makes every hoss on the street run away. The men wish
they'd let him alone in the first place. He'll prob'ly want your
engine-bell when he sees it to-morrow.”

Another cackle from the crowd.

Parker left without answering, and went to his dingy little room in the
tavern. He did not doubt that the timber-land owners, beaten in their
earlier and formal opposition, were inciting the irascible old colonel
to pit might against right. The young man went over his papers once
more, carefully and methodically posted himself as to his rights and
powers, and then slept with the calmness of one who knows his course and
is prepared to follow it.

The next morning all the male population of Sunkhaze settlement surveyed
with rapt interest the preliminaries of getting up steam under the
“Swamp Swogon,” as one of the guides had humorously nicknamed the little
locomotive.

Suddenly a bystander leveled his mittened hand above his eyes and gazed
up the long trail across the lake. The road was “brushed out” by little
bushes set along at regular intervals.

Away off on the distant perspective a dot was advancing. It resolved
itself into horse and sleigh. Puffs of vapor from the steaming animal
indicated the urgent precipitancy of its speed.

“I reckon that'll be Colonel Gideon Ward!” called the man who had just
observed the team.

Parker, busy with his gages and oil-can, gave one look up the road and
went on with his labors. In a few moments the jangling beat of many
bells throbbed on the frosty air. As if answering a challenge, the
locomotive's escape valve shot up its hissing volume of steam.

“We are very nearly ready, gentlemen!” called Parker. He gave an order
to his volunteer fireman, and suggested that intending passengers get
aboard the sleds.

“I'll sound the whistle,” said he. “There may be some still waiting up
at the store.”

The whistle shrieks were many and prolonged. The horse, speeding down
the lake, was only a few rods away. He stopped, crouched, and dodged
sidewise in terror. An old man stood up and began to belabor the
frightened animal.

He was a queer figure, that old man, in the high-backed, high-fender
sleigh. On his head was a tall peaked fur cap, with a barred coon tail
flopping at its apex. A big fur coat, also covered with coon tails, made
the man's figure almost Brobdingnagian in circumference. It was Colonel
Gideon Ward.




CHAPTER FIVE--HOW COLONEL GIDEON WAS BACKED DOWN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN
HIS LIFE

Above the purple knobs on his cheekbones Colonel Gideon Ward's little
gray eyes snapped malevolently. He roared as he lashed at his trembling
horse. The animal dodged and backed and stubbornly refused to advance
on the strange thing that was pouring white clouds into the air and
uttering fearful cries.

At last the horse reared, stood upright and fell upon its side,
splintering the thills. Several of the men ran forward, but before the
animal could scramble to its feet Ward leaped out, tied its forelegs
together with the reins, and left it floundering in the snow. Then
he came forward with his great whip in his hand. The crowd drew aside
apprehensively, and he tramped straight up to the locomotive.

“What do ye mean,” he roared, “by having engines out here to scare
hosses into conniptions? Take that thing off this lake and put it back
on the railroad tracks up there where it belongs!” He shook his fists
over his shoulder in the direction of the distant embankment.

“You will observe,” said Parker, blandly, “that there is some twenty
inches difference between the gage of the wheels and the gage--”

“I don't care that”--and Colonel Ward snapped the great whip--“for your
gages and your gouges! Take that engine off this ro'd.”

“I don't care to discuss the matter,” returned Parker, quietly. “I am
busy about my own affairs--too busy to quarrel.”

“There's no use of me and you backin' and fillin'!” shouted the old
man. “You know me and I know you. You think you're goin' to tote your
material up over this lake and build that railroad across my carry at
Poquette?”

“Yes, that's what I am going to do.”

Ward shot out his two great fists.

“Naw, ye ain't!” he howled.

Parker turned and consulted his steam-gage and water indicator. Then he
rang the bell.

“All aboard!” he shouted. “First train for Poquette.”

A nervous little laugh went round at his quiet jest, and twoscore men
boarded the sleds. For the first time in his roaring, reckless and
quarrelsome life Colonel Gideon Ward found himself in the presence of
a man who defied him scornfully and facing an obstacle that promised
ridiculous defeat.

The titter of the crowd spurred his rage into fury. He took his whip
between his teeth, and grasping the hand-rods, was about to lift himself
into the cab. Parker put his gloved hand against the old man's breast.

“Not without an invitation, Colonel Ward,” he said. “Our party is made
up.”

“Don't want to ride in your infernal engine!” bellowed Ward, “I'm goin'
to hoss-whip you, you--”

“Colonel Ward, you know the legal status of the Poquette Carry Railroad,
don't you?”

“I don't care--”

“If you don't know it, then consult your counsel. You are on the
property of the Poquette Railroad Company. I order you off. There's
nothing for you to do but to go.”

Eyes as fiery as Ward's own met the colonel. The pressure on his breast
straightened to a push. He fell back upon the snow.

The next moment Parker pulled the throttle. The spike-spurred
driving-wheels whirred and slashed the ice and snow until the “bite”
 started the train, and then it moved away up the long road, leaving Ward
screaming maledictions after it.

“Well,” panted the fireman, “that'll be the first time Colonel Gid Ward
was ever stood round in his whole life!”

“I'm sorry to have words with an old man,” said Parker, “but he must
accept the new conditions here.”

“This is new, all right!” gasped the fireman, with an expressive sweep
of his hand about the little cab.

Parker was watching his new contrivance with interest. His steering-gear
was rude, being a single runner under the tender with tiller attachment,
but it served the purpose. The road was so nearly a straight line that
little steering was necessary.

The snow on the lake road was solid, and the spikes, with the weight of
the engine settling them, drove the sleds along at a moderate rate of
speed. The problem of the lake transportation was settled. When Parker
quickened the pace to something like twelve miles an hour, the men
cheered him hoarsely.

The trip to Poquette was exhilarating and uneventful. Parker left his
fireman to look after the “train,” and accompanied by an interested
retinue of citizens, tramped across the six miles of carry road on a
preliminary tour of inspection.

He returned well satisfied.

The route was fairly level; a few détours would save all cuts, and the
plan of trestles would do away with fills. With the eye of the practised
engineer, Parker saw that neither survey nor construction involved any
special problems. Therefore he selected his landing on the Spinnaker
shore, and resolved to make all haste in hauling his material across the
lake.

When the expedition arrived at Sunkhaze at dusk, the postmaster brought
the information that Colonel Ward had stormed away on the down-train
with certain hints about getting some law on his own account. He had
sworn over and over in most ferocious fashion that the Poquette Carry
road should not be built so long as law and dynamite could be bought.

For two days Parker peacefully transported material, twenty tons a
trip and two trips a day. On the evening of the third day Colonel Ward
arrived from the city, accompanied by a sharp-looking lawyer. The two
immediately hastened away across the lake toward Poquette.

Parker had twenty men garrisoned in a log camp at the carry, and had
little fear that his supplies would be molested. It was hardly credible,
either, that a man with as extensive property interests as Colonel Ward
possessed would dare to destroy wantonly the goods of a railroad company
in the strong position of the Poquette road. However, Parker resolved
to make a survey at once, in order to put the swampers at work chopping
trees and clearing the right of way.

When he left the cab of his engine the next forenoon at Poquette, he saw
the furred figure of Colonel Ward in front of his carry camp a sort of
half-way station for the timber operator's itinerant crews. The lawyer
was at his elbow.

Parker ignored their presence.

A half-hour later the young engineer had established his Spinnaker
terminal point, and was running his lines. Still no word from the
colonel, who was tramping up and down in front of the camp. Parker's
whimsical fancy pictured those furs and coon tails as bristling and
fluffing like the hair of an angry cat.

[Illustration: Appearance of an enraged Polar bear 078-100]

The young man wondered what card his antagonists were preparing to play.
He found out promptly when he ordered his swampers to advance with their
axes and begin chopping down the trees on the right of way. At the first
“chock” ringing out on the crisp silence of the woods Ward came running
down the snowy stretch of tote-road, presenting much the same appearance
as would an up reared and enraged polar bear. The lawyer hurried after
him, and several woodsmen followed more leisurely.

“Not another chip from those trees! Not another chip!” bawled the
colonel. The men stopped chopping and looked at each other doubtfully.

“We've been told to go ahead here,” said the “boss.”

“I don't care what yeh've been told. You all know me, don't you?” Ward
slapped his breast. “You know me? Well, I say stop that chopping on
my--understand?--on _my_ land.”

Parker, who was in advance of the choppers with his instruments, heard,
and came plowing through the snow. He found Colonel Ward roaring oaths
and abuse, brandishing his fists, and backing the crew of a dozen men
fairly off the right of way. Ward's own band of “Gideonites” stood at a
little distance, grinning admiringly.

Parker set himself squarely in front of the old man, elbowing aside
a woodsman to whom the colonel was addressing himself. The young
engineer's gaze was level and determined.

“Colonel Ward,” he said, “you are interfering with my men.”

The answer was a wordless snarl of ire and contempt.

“There's no mistaking your disposition,” continued Parker. “You have set
yourself to balk this enterprise. But I haven't any time to spend in a
quarrel with you.”

“Then get off my land.”

“Now, see here, Colonel Ward, you know as well as I that my principals
have complied with all the provisions of law in taking this location.
This road is going through. I am going to put it through.”

“Talk back to me, will you? Talk to me! ni--I'll--” Ward's rage choked
his utterance.

“Certainly I'll talk to you, sir, and I am perfectly qualified to boss
my men. Go ahead there, boys!” he called.

“A moment, Mr. Parker,” broke in the suave voice of the lawyer. “I see
you don't understand the entire situation. Briefly, then, Mr. Ward has
a telephone-line across this carry. You may see the wires from where
you stand. I find that your right of way trespasses on Colonel Ward's
telephone location. In this confusion of locations, you will see the
advisability of suspending operations until the matter can be referred
to the courts.”

“There is room for Colonel Ward's telephone and for our railroad, too,”
 he retorted. “If we are compelled to remove any poles, we'll replace
them.”

Of course Parker did not know that the telephone-line was, in fact, only
Colonel Ward's private line, and after the taking by the railroad was
on the location wholly without right. But that was a matter for his
superiors, and not for him.

“Another point that I fear you have not noted. Colonel Ward's telephone
wires are affixed to trees, and your men are preparing to cut down these
same trees in clearing your right of way. You see it can't be done, Mr.
Parker.”

There was an unmistakable sneer in the lawyer's tones. Parker's anger
mounted to his cheeks.

“I'm no lawyer,” he cried, “but I have been assured by our counsel that
I have the right to build a railroad here, and I reckon he knows! I've
been told to build this railroad and, Mr. Attorney, I'm going to build
it. I've been told to have it completed by a certain time, and I haven't
days and weeks to spend splitting hairs in court.”

“No, I see you're not much of a lawyer!” jeered the other. “Mr. Parker,
you may as well take your plaything,” pointing to the engine, “and
trundle it along home.”

“We'll see about that!” Parker snatched an ax from the nearest man. “Mr.
Lawyer, you may _go_ back to the city and fight your legal points with
the man my principals hire for that purpose, and enjoy yourself as much
as you can. In the meantime I'll be building a railroad. Men, those
trees are to come down at once.” He began to hack at a tree with great
vigor.

The choppers, encouraged by his firm attitude, promptly moved forward
and began to use their axes.

“The club you must use, Colonel, is an injunction,” advised the
crestfallen lawyer after he had watched operations a few moments. Ward
was swearing violently. “I'll have one here in twenty-four hours.”

The irate lumberman whirled on his counsel.

“Get out of here!” he snarled. “Your injunction would prob'ly be like
the law you've handed out here to-day. You said you'd stop him, but you
haven't.”

“There's no law for a fool!” snapped the attorney.

“Get along with your law!” roared Ward. “I was an idiot ever to fuss
with it or depend on it. 'Tain't any good up here. 'Tain't the way for
real men to fight. I've got somethin' better'n law.”

He shook his fists at Parker. “Better'n law!” he repeated, in a shrill
howl. “Better'n law!” he cried again. “And you'll get it, too.”

At first the engineer believed that Ward was about to rally his little
band at the carry camp, but the old man turned and stumped away. His
lawyer tried to interpose and address him, but the colonel angrily
shoved him to one side with such force that the attorney tumbled
backward into the snow.

“Get out my horse!” the colonel screamed, as he advanced toward the
camp.

A helper precipitately backed the turnout from the hovel. Ward leaped
into the sleigh, pulled his peaked fur cap down over his ears, and took
up the reins and big whip. He brandished his great fist at the little
group he had just left.

“Better'n law!” he shouted again. “That for your law!” and he struck his
rangy horse with a crack as loud as a pistol-shot.

The animal leaped like a deer, fairly lifting the narrow sleigh, and
with tails fluttering from his fur robes, his cap's coon tail streaming
behind, away up the tote-road went Gideon Ward on his return to the
deep woods, the mighty din of his myriad bells clashing down the forest
aisles. At the distant turn of the road he hooted with the vigor of a
screech owl, “Better'n law!” and disappeared.

“Your client doesn't seem to be in an especially amiable and lamb-like
mood this morning,” said Parker.

The lawyer dusted the snow from his garments.

“Beautiful disposition, old Gid Ward has!” he snarled. “Left me here to
walk sixteen miles to a railroad-station, and never offered to settle
with me.”

“You forget the 'Poquette and Sunkhaze Air-Line,” Parker smiled. “You
are free to ride back with us when we go.”

“No hard feelings, then?” asked the lawyer.

“I'm not small-minded, I trust,” returned Parker. The lawyer looked
at the self-possessed young man with pleased interest. This generous
attitude appealed to him.

“Do you realize, young man,” he inquired, “that old Gideon Ward never
had a man really back him down before?”

“I don't know much about Colonel Ward personally, except that he has a
very disagreeable disposition.”

“You've made him just as near a maniac as a man can be and still go
about his business. There'll be a lot of trouble come from this. Hadn't
you better advise your folks to call it off? They haven't the least
idea, I imagine, what a proposition you are up against.”

“I shall keep on attending to my business,” Parker replied. “If any one
interferes with that business, he'll do so at his own risk.”

“I am afraid you are depending too much on your legal rights and on the
protection of the law. Now Gideon Ward has always made might right in
this section. He is rough and ignorant, but the old scamp has a heap of
money and a rich gang to back him. I tell you, there are a lot of things
he can do to you, and then escape by using his money and his pull.”

“From what I have seen of the old man's temper, I am prepared to put
a pretty high estimate on his capacity for mischief; but on the other
hand, Mr. Attorney, suppose I should go back to my people and say I
allowed an old native up here in the woods to back me off our property?
I fear my chances for promotion on the P. K, and R. system would get a
blacker eye than I shall give him if he ever shakes his fist under
my nose again. Have all the people up here allowed that old wretch to
browbeat and tyrannize over them without a word of protest?”

“Oh, he has been whaled once or twice, but it never did him any good.
For instance, a favorite trick of his is to make every one flounder out
of a tote-road into the deep snow. He won't turn out an inch. Most of
the men he meets are working for him or selling him goods, and they
don't dare to complain. However, one teamster he crowded off in that
way broke two ox-goads on the old man. But that whipping only set him
against other travellers more than ever.

“Another time Ward got what he deserved down at Sunkhaze. A man opened a
store there and put in a plate-glass window, being anxious to show a bit
of progress. There's nothing old Ward hates so much as he does what he
calls 'slingin' on airs,' When he drove down from the woods and saw
that new window he growled, 'Wal, it seems to me we're gettin' blamed
high-toned all of a sudden!' He got out, rooted up a big rock and hove
it right through the middle of that new pane of glass the only pane of
plate glass Sunkhaze ever saw. Well, the storeman tore out and licked
Ward till he cried. Storeman didn't know who the old man was till after
it was all over. Neither did old Gid know how big that storeman was till
he saw him coming out through that broken glass. Otherwise both might
have thought twice.

“Ward boycotted and persecuted him till he had to sell out and leave
town. He has persecuted everybody. His wife has been in the insane
asylum going on ten years; his only girl ran away and got married to
a cheap fellow, and his son is in state prison. The boy ran away from
home, got into bad company, and shot a policeman who was trying to
arrest him. If you are not crazy or dead before he gets done with you,
then you'll come out luckier than I think you will.”

With this consoling remark the lawyer plodded up to the camp, to wait
until it should be time to start down the lake.

As Parker toiled through the woods that day he reflected seriously on
his situation. He fully appreciated the fact that Ward's malice intended
some ugly retaliation. The danger viewed here in the woods and away from
the usual protections of society seemed imminent and to be dreaded.

But the young man realized how skeptically Whittaker and Jerrard would
view any such apprehensions as he might convey to them, reading his
letter in the comfortable and matter-of-fact serenity of the city. He
knew how impatient it made President Whittaker to be troubled with any
subordinate's worry over details. His rule was to select the right
man, say, “Let it be done,” and then, after the manner of the modern
financial wizard inspect the finished result and bestow blame or praise.

Parker regretfully concluded that he must keep his own counsel until
some act more overt and ominous forced him to share his responsibility.

That evening, as he sat in his room at the tavern, busy with his first
figures of the survey, some one knocked and entered at his call, “Come
in!”




CHAPTER SIX--IN WHICH “THE CAT-HERMIT OF MOXIE” CASTS HIS SHADOW LONG
BEFORE HIM

It was the postmaster who appeared at Parker's invitation to enter. That
official stroked down his beard, tipped his chair back, surveyed the
young man with the solemnity of the midnight raven and observed:

“I hear you and Colonel Gid had it hot and tight up to Poquette to-day.”

“There was an argument,” returned Parker, quietly.

“I don't want to be considered as meddlin' with your affairs, Mr.
Parker, but I've known Gid Ward for a good many years, and I want to
advise you to look sharp that he doesn't do you some pesky mean kind of
harm.”

“I have been warned already, Mr. Dodge.”

“Yes, but you don't seem to take it to heart enough. Or if you do, you
don't show it. That was the reason I was afraid you didn't realize what
a man you have to deal with.”

“He seems to me like a blustering coward. Your really brave and
determined men don't make so much talk.”

“Oh, Gid Ward has tried his usual game of scare with his mouth, and it
didn't work. He won't come again at you that way in the open right way.
But”--the postmaster brought his chair down on its four legs and leaned
forward to whisper--“he'll come again at you in the dark, and it's then
that he's dangerous.”

“Of course I needn't tell you, Mr. Dodge, that I do not propose to be
backed down and driven out of this section by a man like that. I dare
say he is planning mischief, but I have my work to do here, and I shall
keep on as best I can.”

“I admire your spunk, young man,” said the postmaster, heartily, “and I
hope you'll come through this all right. But I have felt it my duty to
see that you were warned good and solid. I know how Gid Ward got his
start in life--and by as mean a trick as ever a man put up.

“His brother Joshua Ward, enlisted for the war in the sixties. Bachelor,
Joshua was. He was going with one of the Marshall girls in Carmel,
and the thing was settled final. Hows'ever, Josh went away to the war
without getting married, because he allowed that if he got killed, an
unmarried girl wouldn't have to take last pickings of the men, like a
widow would. Mighty kind, square, good-hearted chap that Josh Ward now
I can tell ye! Thought of others first all the time. He owned a mighty
nice place that his aunt had willed to him. She liked Josh, but hated
the sight of Gid, same's every one else did.

“Before Josh went away he deeded his farm and everything to that
Marshall girl. Told her that if he came back they would get married, and
it would be all right. If he didn't come back, he wanted her to marry a
good man, and told her that the farm would make a home for them and help
her to get the best kind of a husband. As I told you, that Joshua Ward
was as good as wheat.

“For a year that Marshall girl heard from Josh regularly, and then the
papers reported that he was killed in a big battle, and from then to the
end of the war--two years or more--there wasn't a word from him or of
him. Meanwhile Gid laid his plan. The Marshall girl had an idea that if
she married Gid--though he wasn't her style--it would please Josh, for
then the place would stay in the family. She mourned for Josh terribly,
but Gid was right after her all the time, and there she was with a farm
on her hands, and so she finally up and married him.

“In Joshua Ward's case it happened, as it did in hundreds of other
cases, where the poor chaps weren't important enough to be heard about
or from. He was just captured instead of killed, and went from Libby to
Andersonville, from Andersonville to Macon, and when Lee surrendered he
came home, thin's a shadow, shaking with ague and with eyes bigger
than burnt holes in a blanket. Pitiful figure he was, I tell you. I was
running a livery business in Carmel village then, and Josh hired me to
take him out to the farm.

“I broke the thing to him on the way. Made my throat ache, now I tell
you, Mr. Parker. Made my eyes smart and the fields and sky look blurry
to see that poor wreck, with everything gone, and know that the hog that
had stayed to home was enjoying it all.

“And what made me, as a man, despise Gid Ward more was the fact that he
had been colonel of a state regiment in old militia days, boosted there
by a gang that trained with him, and as soon as war broke out and the
regiment was mustered in he resigned like a sneak, and couldn't be
touched by a draft.

“Josh always was a quiet chap. He humped over a little more when I told
him, and looked thinner, and I had to help him more when he got out at
the farm than I did when he got aboard at the stable. He allowed he'd go
to the farm just the same. Said he didn't have any money, or any other
place to go, and he guessed 'twas his home, anyway.

“Mr. Parker, I haven't got the language to tell ye how that woman looked
when she came to the door and saw me helping Josh out to the ground.
No sir, I don't want to think of it--how she sank right down in that
doorway, and her head went over sidewise and her eyes shut and--and her
heart stopped, I guess.”

The postmaster blew his nose and snapped his eyes and cleared his throat
with difficulty. Parker had forgotten his figures.

“Gid came round the corner of the house, seeing the team drive up, and
what do you suppose he said when he saw his brother back from the grave,
as you might say? He looked him over, not offering to shake his hand,
and then he says, 'Well, living skelington, it's goin' to cost something
to plump you out again, ain't it?'

“When I saw the look on Josh's face at that, I'd have hauled off and
cuffed Gid's head up to a pick, swan if I wouldn't, but the Marshall
girl--excuse me, Mis' Ward--came tearin' down the path, and threw her
arms round Josh's neck and cried, 'O my poor brother!' And I came away.

“It was too much for me. My eyes were so full that I run against a tree,
and pretty near took a wheel off.

“Wal, Josh stayed, and as soon as he was able he took a-hold of
farm-work, and things went along for a time all quiet. One evening
Josh was sitting out at the corner of the house, smoking as usual, and
meditatin' in the way he had, when Gid came along and sat down on the
door-stone.

“''Bout time to have a business understanding, ain't it, Josh?' Gid
asked.

“'Yes, perhaps it is,' said Joshua.

“'Well then, ye'll answer a fair question. If ye continue to stay here,
where's the money for your board comin' from?'

“'Board?' says Josh.

“'Yes, board! You don't reckon to run a visit over three months, do ye?'

“'Why, I didn't think there'd be any question of this sort between us,
Gid.'

“'Business is business. If you'd had more business to you, you wouldn't
be a pauper now.'

“'A pauper!'

“'That's what I said. You deeded this place to Cynthy Marshall, didn't
ye? Well, she has deeded it to me. 'Tain't much of a husband that don't
have his property in his own name.'

“'But see here, Gideon, you know why I deeded this property. You know
how matters have come out. Between brothers in such a case there should
be no such thing as stickin' to the letter of deeds.'

“'Nearer the relatives be to ye, closer you ought to follow the law,'
snapped Gid, 'or else ye'll get cheated worse than by a stranger!'

“'He didn't seem to be takin' any of that to himself.'

“'I've been thinkin' I'd give half the place to Cynthy as a weddin'
present, and we could--'

“'Why, you've given it all to her, hain't ye?'

“Josh had to say yes, of course. Never was any hand to argue his own
rights.”

“'Well, she has given it to me and it was hers to give. Now, I say, can
ye pay board?'

“'I haven't any money, Gid.'

“'Well, then, ye'll have to get a job somewhere. I don't need a hired
man just now. Ye won't starve, Josh. The gov'ment will take care of
soldiers,' he sneered. Then he got up and went into the house.

“That's the way it was told to me by Joshua Ward himself, Mr. Parker,”
 concluded the postmaster. “He had to get out. He didn't have any money
to fight in law. He didn't want to stir up the thing on poor Cynthy's
account. And he was ashamed to have the whole world know how mean a man
he had for a brother.”

“What has become of this Joshua?” asked the young man, his heart hot
with new and fresh bitterness against this unspeakable tyrant of the
timber country.

“Josh did what so many other heart-broken men have done. He went into
the woods, on an island in Little Moxie, built a cabin, has his pension
to live on, and has become one of those queer old chaps such as you
will find scattered all the way from Holeb to New Brunswick. There's old
Young at Gulf Hagas, and the Mediator at Boarstone, and a lot like them.
They call Joshua the 'cat hermit of Moxie.'

“They say he's got cats round his place by the hundred. Spends all his
time in hunting meat and catching fish for 'em. Well, most everybody is
cranky about some notion or others, whether it's in the city or in the
woods, and I reckon that Josh has a right to keep cats if he wants to.
No one ever sees him out in civilization now. Cynthy's in the asylum.
Most people think it's just the trouble of the thing preying on her
mind. And then again, I guess that Gid wasn't ever any too good to her.
Hard case, ain't it, Mr. Parker?” The postmaster's voice trembled.

“It's as sad a story--as anger-stirring a story as I ever listened to,
Mr. Dodge,” replied the young man, passionately. “I cannot understand
how a scoundrel of that style should have been allowed to stamp
roughshod over people without a champion arising in some quarter. It is
small wonder that he has come to think that he can run the universe. He
needs a lesson.”

“There's no doubt about his needin' the lesson,” replied the postmaster.
“But for years half the wages that are paid out in this section have
come through the hands of Gideon Ward. Laboring men with families to
support and the traders have to stand in with him or be side-tracked. I
don't know as Gid ever did a real up-and-down crime, any more than what
I've been telling you--and some men in the world would be mean enough to
gloss all that over, saying that it's only right to look out for number
one first of all. But I tell ye honestly, Mr. Parker, Gid would have to
do something pretty desperate and open to have the prosecuting officers
of this county take it up against him. Now you can understand the width
of the swath he cuts in these parts. Where would the witnesses come
from? He owns his men, body and soul.”

Parker's forehead wrinkled doubtfully.

“What do you think will be his next move in regard to me?”

“I can't make a guess, but you need smellers as long as a bobcat's and
as many eyes as a spider.” With this cheering opinion expressed, the
postmaster went away.

There was no more work for Parker on his plans that night.

The grim pathos of the story that he had heard haunted him. This
pitiful tragedy in real life stirred his youthful and impressionable
sensibilities to their depths.

Despite his brave outward demeanor during his tilt with the ferocious
old man he had feared within himself. He possessed no gladiatorial
spirit and did not relish fray for the sake of it. But he did have
accurate notions of right and wrong, of the justice of a cause and of
manliness in standing for it. He had exhibited that trait many times to
the astonishment of those who had been deceived by his quiet exterior.
In this instance his employers had put a trust into his hands. He had
resolved to go through with his task. But now there was added another
incentive--a very distinct determination to give Gideon Ward at least
one check and lesson in his career of wholesale domination.

A queer grief worked in his heart and a wistful tenderness moistened
his eyes as he thought upon that injured brother, living out his wrecked
life somewhere in the heart of those great woods about him. Perhaps
there was a bit of prescience in the warmth with which he dwelt on the
subject, for Fate had written that Joshua Ward was to play an important
part in the life of Rodney Parker.

He went to sleep with the sorrow of it all weighing his mind, and his
teeth gritting with determination as he reflected on Gideon Ward and his
ugly threats.




CHAPTER SEVEN--HOW “THE FRESH-WATER CORSAIRS” CAME TO SUNKHAZE

In the morning Parker's foreman was waiting for him in the men's room
of the tavern. It was so early that the smoky kerosine lamp was still
struggling with the red glow of the dawn.

“Mr. Parker,” said the foreman earnestly, “have you go it figured what
the old chap is goin' to do to us?”

“That is hardly a fair question to put to me Mank,” said the engineer,
pulling on his mittens. “You knew him up this way better than I. Now you
tell me what you expect him to do.”

But the foreman shook his head dubiously.

“It'll never come at a man twice alike,” he said.

“Sometimes he just snorts and folks just run. Sometimes he kicks,
sometimes he bites, sometimes he rears and smashes things all to pieces.
But the idea is, you can depend on him to do something and do it quick
and do it mighty hard. We've known Gideon Ward a good many years up this
way and we've never seen him so mad before nor have better reason for
being mad. The men are worrying. I thought it right to tell you that
much.”

“Well, I'm worrying, too,” said Parker. He tried to speak jestingly,
but the heaviness of the night's foreboding was still upon him and the
foreman detected the nervousness in his voice. The man now showed his
own depression plainly.

“I was in hopes I could tell the men that you could see your way all
free and clear” he said.

“Then the men are worrying?”

“That they are, sir. A good many of us own houses here in Sunkhaze and
there's more than one way for Colonel Gideon Ward to get back at
us. Several of the boys came to me last night and wanted to quit. I
understand that the postmaster has been talking to you and he must
have told you some of the things that the old man done and hasn't been
troubled about, either by his conscience or the law. You see what kind
of a position that puts us in.”

“You don't mean that the crew is going to strike, or rather slip out
from under, do you, Mank?” asked Parker, struck by the man's demeanor.

“Well, I'd hardly like to say that. I ain't commissioned to put it that
strong. But we've got to remember the fact that we'll probably want
to live here a number of years yet, and railroad building won't last
forever. Still, it's hardly about future jobs that we're thinking now.
It's what is liable to happen to us in the next few days. It will be
tough times for Sunkhaze settlement if the Gideonites swoop down on us,
Mr. Parker.”

The engineer threw out his arms impetuously.

“But I'm in no position, Mank, to guarantee safety to the men who
are working for the company,” he cried. “It looks to me as tho I were
standing here pretty nigh single-handed. If I understand your meaning,
I can't depend on my crew to back me up if it comes to a clinch with the
old bear?”

“The boys here are not cowards,” replied the foreman with some spirit.
“They're good, rugged chaps with grit in 'em. Turn 'em loose in a woods
clearing a hundred miles from home and I'd match 'em man for man with
any crowd that Gid Ward could herd together. I don't say they wouldn't
fight here in their own door yards, Mr. Parker. They'd fight before
they'd see their houses pulled down or their families troubled. But as
to fighting for the property of this railroad company and then taking
chances with the Gideonites afterward--well, I don't know about that!
It's too near home!” Again the foreman shook his head dubiously. “As
long as you can reckon safely that the old one is goin' to do something,
the boys thought perhaps you'd notify the sheriff.”

But Parker remembered his instructions. Reporting his predicament to the
sheriff would mean sowing news of the Sunkhaze situation broadcast in
the papers.

“It isn't a matter for the sheriffs,” he replied shortly. “We'll
consider that the men are hired to transport material and not to fight.
We can only wait and see what will happen. But, Mank, I think that when
the pinch comes you will find that my men can be as loyal to me, even
if I am a stranger, as Ward's men are to the infernal old tyrant who has
abused them all these years. I'm going to believe so at any rate.”

He turned away and started out of doors into the crisp morning. “I'm
going to believe that last as long as I can,” he muttered.

“It'll help to keep me from running away.”

He found his crew gathered in the railroad yard near the heaps of
unloaded material for construction. The men eyed him a bit curiously and
rather sheepishly.

“I know how you stand, men,” he said cheerily. “I don't ask you to
undertake any impossibilities. I simply want help in getting this stuff
across Spinnaker Lake. Let's at it!”

His tone inspired them momentarily.

They were at least dauntless toilers, even if they professed to be
indifferent soldiers.

The sleds or skids were drawn up into the railroad yard by hand and
loaded there. Then they were snubbed down to the lake over the steep
bank. On the ice the “train” was made up.

Even Parker himself was surprised to find what a load the little
locomotive could manage. He made four trips the first day and at dusk
had the satisfaction of beholding many tons of rails, fish-plates and
spikes unloaded and neatly piled in the yarding place at the Spinnaker
end of the carry.

Between trips, while the men were unloading, he had opportunity to
extend his right-of-way lines for his swampers and attend to other
details of his engineering problem.

'Twas a swift pace he set!

He dared to trust no one else in the cab of the panting “Swamp Swogon”
 as engineer, and rushed back from his lines when the fireman signalled
with the whistle that they were ready for a return trip. It may readily
be imagined that with duties pressing on him in that fashion Parker had
little time in which to worry about the next move of Colonel Ward. And
the men worked as zealously as tho they too had forgotten the menace
that threatened in the north.

In three days fully half the weight of material had been safely landed
across the lake.

But on the evening of the third day Parker was more seriously alarmed
by the weather-frowns than he had been by the threats of Gideon Ward
himself.

The postmaster presaged it, sniffing into the dusk with upturned nose
and wagging his head ominously.

“I reckon old Gid has got one more privilege of these north woods into
his clutch and is now handlin' the weather for the section,” he said.
“For if we ain't goin' to have a spell of the soft and moist that will
put you out of business for a while, then I miss my guess.”

It began with a fog and ended in a driving rainstorm that converted the
surface of the lake into an expanse of slush that there was no dealing
with.

Parker's experience had been with climatic conditions in lower latitudes
and in his alarm he believed that spring had come swooping in on him and
that the storm meant the breaking up of the ice or at least would weaken
it so that it would not bear his engine.

But the postmaster, who could be a comforter as well as a prophet of
ill, took him into the little enclosure of his inner office and showed
him a long list of records pencilled on the slide of his wicket.

“Ice was never known to break up in Spinnaker earlier than the first
week in May,” said Dodge, “and this rain-spitting won't open so much as
a riffle. You just keep cool and wait.”

At the end of the rain-storm the weather helped Parker to keep cool. He
heard the wind roaring from the northwest in the night. The frame of the
little tavern shuddered. Ice fragments, torn from eaves and gables, went
spinning away into the darkness over the frozen crust with the sound of
the bells of fairy sleighs.

When Parker, fully awakening in the early dawn, looked out upon the
frosty air, his breath was as visibly voluminous as the puff from an
escape-valve of the “Swogon.” With his finger-nail he scratched the
winter enameling from his window-pane, and through that peep-hole gazed
out upon the lake. The frozen expanse stretched steel-white, glary and
glistening, a solid sheet of ice.

“There's a surface,” cried Parker, in joyous soliloquy, “that will
enable the Swogon to haul as much as a P. K. & R. mogul! Jack Frost is
certainly a great engineer.”

He at once put a crew at work getting out more saplings for sleds. In
two more trips, with his extra “cars” and with that glassy surface, he
believed that every ounce of railroad material could be “yarded” at the
Po-quette Carry. When the sun went down redly, spreading its broad bands
of radiance across ice-sheeted Spinnaker, the Swogon stood bravely at
the head of twenty heavily loaded sleds. The start for the Carry was
scheduled to occur at daybreak.

The moon was round and full that evening, and Parker before turning in
went out and remained at the edge of the lake a moment, looking across
Spinnaker's vast expanse of silvery glory.

“You could take that train acrost the lake to-night, Mr. Parker,”
 suggested the foreman, who had followed him from the post-office. “It's
as light as day.”

“Do you know,” admitted the young man, “I just came out with the uneasy
feeling, somehow, that I ought to fire up and start out. I suppose the
old women would call it a presentiment. But the men have worked too
hard to-day to be called out for a night job. With a freeze like that we
haven't got to hurry on account of the weather.”

The foreman patted his ears briskly, for the night wind was sweeping
down the lake and squalling shrewishly about the corners of buildings in
the little settlement. Suddenly the man shot out a mittened hand, and
pointed up the lake.

“What's that?” he ejaculated.

Parker gazed. Far up Spinnaker a dim white bulk seemed to hover above
the ice. It was almost wraith-like in the moonlight. It flitted on like
a huge bird, and seemed to be rapidly advancing toward Sunkhaze.

[Illustration: A dim white hulk seemed to hover 117-140]

“If it were summer-time and this were Sandy Hook,” said Parker, with a
smile, “I should think that perhaps the cup-race might be on.”

“I should say, rather, it is the ghost of Gid Ward's boom gunlow,”
 returned the man, not to be outdone in jest. “He's got an old scow with
a sail like that.”

Both men surveyed the dim whiteness with increasing interest.

“Are there any ice-boats on the lake?” inquired the engineer.

“I never heard of any such thing hereabouts.”

“Well, I have made that out to be an iceboat of some description. And
with that spread of sail it is making great progress.” Parker rolled
up his coat collar and pulled down his fur cap. A feeling of disquiet
pricked him. “I think I'll stay here a little while and watch that
fellow,” he said.

“So will I,” agreed his employé.

The approaching sail grew rapidly. Soon the craft was to be descried
more in detail. Under the sail was a flat, black mass. And now on the
breeze came swelling a chorus of rude songs, the melody of which was
shot through with howls and bellows of uproarious men.

“Trouble's coming there, Mr. Parker!” gasped the foreman,
apprehensively. “The wind behind 'em an' rum inside 'em.”

“Ward's men, eh?” suggested the engineer.

“That they are! The Gideonites! They can't be anything else.”

“Get our men together!” Parker cried, clapping his gloved hands. “Rout
out every man in the settlement.”

The foreman started away on the run, banging on house doors and bawling
the cry:

“Whoo-ee! All up! Parker's crew turn out! All hands wanted at the lake!”

In the excitement of the moment Mank did not question the command nor
pause to reflect that he might be calling his neighbors into trouble
that they would not relish.




CHAPTER EIGHT--THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT WENT SWIMMING AND THE ENGINEER WHO
WAS STOLEN

In a few moments the bell of the little chapel was sending its jangling
alarm out over the village. Doors banged, men burst out of the houses
and poured down to the lake shore, buttoning their jackets as they ran.

They required no explanation. Ever since the incident at Poquette some
such irruption of Ward's reckless woods hordes had been anticipated. But
this tempestuous night arrival under sail, this sudden and terrifying
descent appalled the newly awakened men.

The craft was now close to shore, and was making for the stolid Swogon
and its waiting sleds. The stranger's method of construction could
now be distinguished, A good half-score of tote-sleds had been lashed
together into a sort of runnered raft The sail was the huge canvas used
in summer on Ward's lake scow.

As the great boat swung into the wind, a jostling crowd of men poured
out on the ice from under the flapping sail. Each man bore a tool of
some sort, either ax, cant-dog, iron-shod peavey-stick, or cross-cut
saw; and the moonshine flashed on the steel surfaces. It was plain
that the party viewed its expedition as an opportunity for reckless
roistering, and spirits had added a spur to the natural boisterous
belligerency of the woodsmen.

Most of Parker's crew had brought axes, and now as he advanced across
the ice toward the locomotive, his men followed with considerable
display of valor.

'A giant whiskered woodsman led the onrush of the attacking force;
and the gang interposed itself between the railroad property and its
defenders.

“Hold up there, right where ye are, all of ye!” the giant shouted.

“What is your business here?” demanded the young man.

“Are you that little railro'd chap that thinks he's runnin' this end of
the country on the kid-glove basis?” roared the big man. He swung his ax
menacingly.

“My name is Parker,” replied the engineer. “That is my property yonder.
You will have to let my men pass to it.”

The giant looked squarely over the engineer's head into the crowd of
Sunkhaze men.

“You all know me,” he cried, “an' if ye don't know me ye've heard of me!
I reckon Dan Connick is pretty well known hereabouts. Wal, that's me.
Never was licked, never was talked back to. These men behind me are all
a good deal like me. I know the most o' you men. I should hate to hurt
ye. Your wives are up there waitin' for ye to come home. Ye'd better
go.”

But the crowd made no movement to retreat. Parker still stood at their
head.

“Ye'd better go!” bellowed Connick. “Understand? I said ye'd better go.
Go an' mind your business, an' if ye do that, not a man in my crew will
step a foot on the Sunk-haze shore. But if ye stay here and meddle, then
down come your houses and out go your cook-stoves. You know me! Get back
on shore.”

A tremendous roar from his men emphasized his demand.

“If ye want these hearties loose up there, ye can have 'em in about two
minutes!” he cried, threateningly.

The Sunkhaze contingent rubbed elbows significantly, mumbled in
conference, and scuffled slowly toward the shore.

“Are you going to back down, men?” Parker shouted.

“We've got wives an' children an' houses up there, mister,” said a voice
from the crowd, “an' it's a cold night to be turned out-o'-doors. We
know these fellers better'n what you do.”

“But, men,” persisted Parker, “they won't dare to sack your village.
Such things are not done in these days. The law--”

“Law!” burst from Connick, jeeringly. “Law! Law!” echoed his men, with
mocking laughter.

“Why,” yelled Connick, “there ain't deputy sheriffs enough in this
county to round us up once we get acrost the Poquette divide! There
ain't a deputy sheriff that will dare to poke his nose within ten miles
of our camps.”

“That's right, Mr. Parker,” agreed one of the Sunkhaze crowd. “Once a
crew burnt a smokin'-car when they were comin' up from--”

“No yarns now, no yarns now!” Connick thrust himself against the
Sunkhaze men and roughly elbowed them back. “Get on shore an' stay
there.”

Parker was left standing alone on the ice. His supporters scuffled away,
muttering angry complaints, but offering no resistance. When the giant
woodsman returned after hastening their departure, he was faced by the
young man, still defiant. Connick cocked his head humorously and looked
down on the engineer. Under all the big man's apparent fierceness there
had been a flash of rough jocoseness in his tones at times. Parker saw
plainly that he and his followers viewed the whole thing as a “lark,”
 and entertained little respect for their adversaries.

“Connick, I warn you--” Parker began; but the giant chuckled, and said,
tauntingly:

“'Cluck, cluck!' said the bear.

“I want to say to you, sir, that you are dealing with a large
proposition if you propose to interfere with this railroad property. My
backers--”

“'Bow-wow!' said the fish.” The woodsman cried the taunt more
insolently, and yet with a jeering joviality that irritated Parker more
than downright abuse would have done.

He started toward his engine, but Connick put out his big arm to
interpose.

“Poodle,” he said, “I've got a place for you. I'm the champion
dog-catcher of the West Branch region.” He reached for Parker's collar,
but Parker ducked under his arm, and as he came up struck out with
a force that sent the astonished giant reeling backward. Fury and
desperation were behind the blow.

“Wal, of all the--” gasped Connick, pushing back his cap and staring in
astonishment. His men laughed.

“I'll wring your neck, you bantam!” he bawled; and he came down on
Parker with a rush.

On that slippery surface the odds were with the defensive. Moreover,
Parker, having an athlete's confidence in his fists, suddenly responded
to the instincts of primordial man. He leaped lightly to one side,
caught the rushing giant's foot across his instep, and as Connick's
moccasined feet went out from under him, the young engineer struck him
behind the ear. He fell with a dismal thump of his head on the ice, and
lay without motion.

But Parker's panting triumph was shortlived. As he stood over the giant,
gallantly waiting for him to rise, he discovered that the rules of
scientific combat were not observed in the woods. A half-dozen brawny
woodsmen leaped upon him, seized him, threw him down, tied his arms and
legs with as little ceremony as if he were a calf, and tossed him upon
the ice-boat.

Connick had risen to a sitting posture, and viewed the struggle with
mutterings of wrath while he rubbed his bumped head.

He scrambled up as if to interfere, but as his antagonist had by this
time been disposed of, he roared a few sharp orders, and his willing
crew set at work. Men with axes chopped holes a few feet apart in a
circle about the engine. There were many choppers, and although the ice
was three feet thick, the water soon came bubbling through. As soon as
a hole was cut, other men stuck down their huge cross-cuts and began to
saw the ice.

All too soon Parker, craning his neck where he lay on the ice-boat,
heard an ominous buckling and crackling of ice, and saw his faithful
Swogon disappear below the surface of the lake, her mighty splash
sending the water gushing like a silvery geyser into the moonlight. The
attached sleds, loaded with the rails and spikes and other material,
followed like a line of huge, frightened beavers seeking their hole.

“There,” ejaculated Connick, wiping the sweat from his brow, “when that
hole freezes up the Poquette Carry Railro'd will be canned for a time,
anyway. Now three cheers for Colonel Gid Ward!”

The cheers were howled vociferously.

He pointed to the men of the settlement, who were now joined by their
wives and children, and were watching operations from the bank.

“Three cheers for the brave men and the sweet ladies o' Sunkhaze!”

Loud laughter followed these cheers. The people on the shore remained
discreetly silent.

“Three groans for the Poquette Railro'd!”

The hoarse cries rang out on the crisp night wind, and at the close one
of those queer, splitting, wide-reaching, booming crackles, heard in the
winter on big waters, spread across the lake from shore to shore.

“Even the old lake's with us!” a woodsman shouted.

Connick and his men had finished what they had come to Sunkhaze to do.
They climbed aboard the huge ice-craft. The sheet was paid off, and with
dragging peavey-sticks instead of centerboard to hold the contrivance
into the wind, the boat moved away on its tack across the lake.

“Say good-by to your friend here!” Connick bellowed. “He says he thinks
he'll go with us, strange country for to see.”

“Tell inquirin' admirers that his address in futur' will be north pole,
shady side,” another rough humorist added.

The men on the shore did not reply. They understood perfectly the
uncertain temper of “larking” woodsmen. There had been cases in times
past when a taunting word had turned rude jollity into sour hankering
for revenge.

The bottle began to go about on the sleds, and the refrain of a
lumberman's chorus, with its riotous, “Whoop fa la larry, lo day!” came
floating back to Sunkhaze long after the great sail had merged itself
with the silvery radiance of the brilliant surface of the lake.

“Apparently there's other folks as have new schemes of travellin' acrost
Spinnaker Lake,” observed the postmaster, breaking a long silence in
the group of spectators. “Wal, I did all I could to post him on what he
might expect when Gid Ward got his temper good an' started. It's too bad
to see that property dumped that way, tho.”

“Ain't Gid Ward ever goin' to suffer for any of his actions?” demanded
Parker's foreman, disgustedly.

“What are we goin' to do?” bleated another man.

“I'll write a letter to the high sheriff,” said the postmaster, and then
he added, bitterly, “an' he'll prob'ly wait till it's settled goin' in
the spring, same's he did when we sent down that complaint about Ward's
men wreckin' Johnson's store. An' by that time he'll forget all about
comin'. Talk about kings and emperors! If we hain't got one on West
Branch waters, then you can brand me for a liar with one of my own date
stamps.”

Parker maintained grim silence as he lay on the sled. No one spoke to
him. The men were too busy with songs and rough jests over the business
of the evening. The engineer would not confess to himself that he was
frightened, but the wantonness and alacrity with which the irresponsible
men had destroyed valuable property impressed him with ominous
apprehension of what they might do to him. He wondered what revenge
Connick was meditating.

It was a strange and tedious ride for the young man. The woodsmen sat
jammed so closely about him that he could see only the frosty stars
glimmering wanly in the moonlight. When the songs and the roaring
conversations were stilled for a moment, he could hear the lisp of the
runners on the smooth surface and the slashing grind of the iron-clad
peavey-sticks.

Although the bodies of his neighbors had kept the cold blast from him,
he staggered on his numb feet when they untied his bonds at Poquette
and ordered him to get off the sled. Connick came along and gazed on the
young man grimly while they were freeing him.

“Aha, my bantam!” he growled.

Parker braced himself to meet a blow. He felt that the giant would now
take satisfactory vengeance for the discomfiture he had suffered before
his men at Sunkhaze. Connick raised his hand, that in its big mitten
seemed like a cloud against the moon, and brought it down. The young man
gathered himself apprehensively, but the expected assault was merely
a slap on his shoulder--a slap with such an unmistakable air of
friendliness about it that Parker gazed up into the man's face with
astonishment. Now he was to experience his first taste of the rude
chivalry of the woods, a chivalry often based on sudden whim, but none
the less sincere and manly--a chivalry of which he was to have further
queer experience.

“My bantam,” said the big man, admiringly, “faith, but that was a tidy
bito' footwork ye done down at Sunkhaze.” Good-humored grins and rueful
scowls chased one another over his face, according as he patted Parker's
back or rubbed the bump on his own head. “Sure, there's a big knob
there, my boy. There's only one thing that's harder than your fist, an'
that's Spinnaker ice.”

Parker attempted some embarrassed reply in way of apology, for this
magnanimity of his foe touched him. The giant put up a protesting hand.

“Ye sartin done it good, my little man, an' I'm glad to know ye better.
But Colonel Gid Ward, sure he lied about ye, or I'd never called ye
names at Sunkhaze.”

“You didn't expect that man to tell the truth about me, did you?” Parker
demanded.

“Why, he said ye was a little white-livered sneak that wouldn't dare to
put up your hands to a Sunkhaze mosquito of the June breed, an' that ye
were tryin' to come in here an' do business amongst real men. I couldn't
stand that, I couldn't!”

“But my business--my reasons for being here--my responsibilities!” cried
Parker. “I see he must have lied about that part of it.”

“Ah, I don't know anything about your business, nor care!” Connick
growled. “I only know there's something about a Poquette railro'd in
it. But all that's between you and Gid Ward. You can talk that over with
him.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you and your men have destroyed that
railroad property without having any special grudge against the
project?”

“Why, railro'ds ain't any of our business,” the giant replied, with his
eyes wide open and frank.

“What are you--slaves?” Parker cried, angrily. In addition to his
lesson in woods' thivalry he was getting education regarding the
irresponsibility of these unconventional children of the wild lands.

The taunt did not seem to anger the men.

“This railro'd is Gid Ward's business,” said Connick. “We work for Gid
Ward, He owns the Poquette land, don't he? He said he didn't want any
railro'd there. He told us to come down an' dump the thing. We come
down, of course it's been dumped. You can fix that with him. But you're
a good little fighter, my man. He didn't tell the truth about you.”

The young man groaned. The ethics of the woods were growing more opaque
to his understanding.

“I'll introduce myself more formal,” said the woodsman, apparently with
affable intent to be better acquainted with this young man who had shown
that he possessed the qualities admired in the forest. “My name is Dan
Connick, and these here are my hearties from Number 7 cuttin'.” He waved
his hand, and the nearest men growled good-humored greetings.

“Well, Mr. Connick,” said Parker, dryly, “I thank you for the evening's
entertainment, and now that you have done your duty to Colonel Ward I
suppose I may return to Sunkhaze.” His heart sank as he thought of the
poor Swogon weltering in the depths of the lake.

“Oh, ye've got to come along with us!” beamed Connick. “Colonel Ward has
sent for ye!”




CHAPTER NINE--UP THE WINDING WAY TO THE “OGRE OF THE BIG WOODS.”

“I have no further business with Colonel Ward at this time,” protested
Parker, amazed at Connick's refusal to release him. “Wal, he says you
have, an' them's our orders. The men that work for Gid Ward have to obey
orders.”

“Your Colonel Ward has already injured me enough,” exclaimed Parker,
bitterly, “without dragging me away into the woods fifty or a hundred
miles from my duty! I'll not see any more of him.”

“Oh, but ye will, tho!” Connick was grinning, but under his amiability
his tones were decisive. “I don't know what he wants to talk with you
about, but I reckon it's railroad. We here can't do that with ye. So
ye'll have to come along. But we all think you're a smart little man.
Ain't that so, hearties?”

The men growled gruff assent.

“Ye see, ye're pop'lar with us,” Connick went on. “Ye can be as friendly
with us as tho we was your brothers, but ye don't want to try any
shenanigan trick like dodgin' away. We've been told to take you to
Number 7 camp, and to that camp ye're goin'. So understandin' that we'll
move. There's a snack waitin' here for us at the carry camp, and then
for the uptrail.” The men moved along, taking Parker with them in the
center of the group.

“How far is it to Number 7?” the young man inquired, despondently.

“They call it fifty miles from the other end of the carry. Ye needn't
walk a step if ye don't want to. There's a moose sled an' plenty of men
to haul ye.”

After a breakfast of hot beans, biscuits and steaming tea at the camp,
the procession moved. Parker was wrapped in tattered bunk blankets and
installed in state on a long, narrow sledge. He was given the option of
getting off and walking whenever he needed the exercise to warm himself.

The march was brisk all that day, for the brawny woodsmen followed the
snowy trail unflaggingly. After the six miles of the carry tote-road,
their way led up the crooked West Branch on the ice. There were detours
where the open waters roared down rough gorges fast enough to dodge
the chilling hand of Jack Frost; there were broad dead waters where
the river widened into small lakes. Parker was oppressed by the nervous
dread of one who enters a strange new country and faces a danger toward
which a fate stronger than he is pressing him.

At noon they ate a lunch beside a crackling fire which warmed the cooked
provisions they had brought from the carry camp.

Parker walked during the afternoon to ease his cold-stiffened limbs.
Toward dusk the party left the river and turned into a tote-road that
writhed away under snow-laden spruces and hemlocks, coiled its way about
rocky hummocks, and curved in “whip-lashes” up precipitous hillsides.
There was not a break in the forest that stretched away on either hand.

Late in the evening they saw in a valley below them a group of log huts,
their snowy roofs silvered by the moonlight. Yellow gleams from the low
windows showed that the camp was occupied.

“That's the Sourdanheunk baitin'-place,” Connick explained, in answer
to a question from his captive. “One o' Ward's tote-team hang-ups an'
feedin'-places.”

The cook, a sallow, tall man encased in a dirty canvas shroud of an
apron, was apparently expecting the party. More beans, more biscuits,
more steaming tea--and then a bunk was spread for Parker. His previous
night of vigil and his day spent in the wind had benumbed his faculties,
and he speedily forgot his fears and his bitter resentment in profound
slumber.

The next morning the cook's “Whoo-ee!” called the men before the dawn,
and they were away while the first flushes presaged the sunrise. It
seemed that day that the tortuous tote-road would never end. Valley
succeeded to “horseback” and “horseback” to valley. Woods miles are long
miles.

Parker's railroad eye and engineer's discernment bitterly condemned the
divagations of the wight who wandered first along that trail and imposed
his lazy dodgings on all who might come after him. The young man amused
himself by reflecting that the tote-road was an excellent example of
the persistence of human error, and in these and other philosophical
ponderings he was able to draw his mind partially from its uncomfortable
dwellings on the probabilities awaiting him at the hands of Gideon Ward.

The sun was far down in the west and the road under the spruces was
dusky, when a singular obstacle halted the march. A tremendous thrashing
and crashing at one side of the road signaled the approach of some large
animal. A network of undergrowth hid the identity of this unknown, and
the men instinctively huddled together and displayed some uncertainty
as to whether they should remain or run. But the suspense was soon
over, for the nearer bushes parted suddenly and out upon the tote-road
floundered an immense moose, his bulbous nose wagging, his bristly mane
twitching, his stilted fore legs straddled defiantly.

The next moment a great bellow of laughter went up from the crowd.

“The joke's on us!” cried a woodsman, who had been among the first to
retreat.

“Hullo, Ben Bouncer!” Connick shouted.

“What do you mean by playin' peek-a-boo with your friends in that
manner?”

The moose uttered a hoarse _whuffle_.

“This is Ben Bouncer, the mascot of Number 7 camp,” the foreman
announced. He pushed Parker to the front rank of the group. “He won't
hurt ye,” he added. “He has got used enough to men to be a little sassy,
an' he's got colty on Gid Ward's grain, but he's mostly bluff.”

The engineer gazed on the moose with considerable interest, for the
spectacle was entirely new.

“Ben went to loafin' round 7 camp early this winter. He yarded down here
two miles or so. You understand, of course, that a moose picks out a
good feedin'-place in winter, when the deep snows come, a place where he
can reach a lot of twigs and yards there, as they call it in the woods.”

“When the snow got crusty and scraped his legs, Ben seemed to have a
tired fit come over him, and began to come closer an' closer to the
horse hovels to steal what loose hay he could. No one round the camp
wanted to hurt him. After a time we all became sort of interested in
him, and toled him up to the camp by leavin' hay an' grain round where
he could get at it. You can see what a big fat fellow we've made of him.
Our feedin' him makes the colonel mad, for hay is worth something by
the time ye get it in here to camp. I bet if ye put it all together the
colonel has chased him more'n forty miles with a bow whip.

“He was goin' to shoot Ben, but the boys got up on their ear and made it
known that if he killed the camp mascot they'd throw up their jobs.
An' if you know anything about a woods crew you'd know it's the little
things that they get the maddest about. An' now whenever the colonel
comes round he takes it out in chasin' Ben with a whip. Ben just lopes
round in a circle of a mile or two, and comes back lookin' reproachful,
but still perfectly satisfied with Number 7 as a winter residence. The
boys think a lot of Ben. Ben thinks a lot of the boys. But the colonel
is sp'ilin' his temper some with that bow whip. I reckon why Ben jest
come out there lookin' so savage was because he thought old Ward was
comin' up to camp.”

The moose finished his critical survey of the group, snorted, and then
thrust himself out of sight in the bushes.

“If we ever have any serious fallin' out with Colonel Gid it's like to
be over that moose,” drawled a man.

“To judge by the moose, we must be near Number 7 camp,” Parker
suggested.

“Just over the hossback,” was the laconic answer.

Parker was soon looking down on it from the hilltop. There were two
long, low main camps--one for the sleeping quarters of the men, the
other crowded with long, roughly made tables, at which they ate, The
space that separated the camps was roofed and had one side open to the
weather. This shelter was called the “dingle,” and contained the camp
grindstone and spare sled equipment.

At a little distance was a small camp containing the stores, such as
moccasins, larigans, leggings, flannel shirts and mittens, all for sale
at double the prices ruling in the city and for Colonel Ward's profit.
The woods name for this store is the “wangan camp.”

The hour was still too early for the few men left at Number 7 to be in
from the cutting. Only the cook and his helper, “the cookee,” were at
the camp.

The cook came out and advanced to meet the new arrivals, having been
attracted from his kettles and pans by the view-halloo they sent down
from the hilltop.

“Colonel left word to lock him in the wangan,” reported the cook,
rolling his bare arms more tightly in his dingy apron.

“Where is the colonel?” asked Connick.

“He's out at the log landin'. Be in at supper-time, so he said.” The
cook eyed the captive with curiosity not unmixed with commiseration.
“Has he been takin' on much?” he inquired of one of the men.

“Nope. Stiff upper lip--an' he licked Dan,” the man added, behind his
palm.

“Sho!” the cook ejaculated, looking on Parker with new interest. “Ain't
he worried by thinkin' of the colonel?”

“Naw-w! Says he'll eat him raw!” fabricated the men, enjoying the cook's
amazement. “Says he's glad to come up here. Been hankerin' to get at
Ward, he says.”

“Wal, you don't say!” The cook surveyed Parker from head to foot with
critical inspection. This scrutiny annoyed the young man at last.

“Do I owe you anything?” He snapped.

“Heh--wal--blorh-h--wal, I hope ye don't!” spluttered the cook,
retreating. “Land, ain't he a savage one?” he gasped, as he hastened
back into his realm of pots. He transferred his news to the amazed
cookee.

“They tell me,” he magnified, so as not to be outdone in sensationalism,
“that this feller has licked every man that they've turned him loose on
between here and Sunkhaze, an' now is just grittin' his teeth a-waitin'
for the colonel.”

“Wal,” said the cookee, solemnly, “if the r'yal Asiatic tiger--meanin'
Colonel Gid--and the great human Bengal--meanin' him as is in the
wangan--get together in this clearin', I think I'd rather see it from up
a tree.” And the two were only diverted from their breathless discussion
of possibilities by the noisy arrival of Gideon Ward, clamoring for his
supper.

[Illustration: Colonel Ward stamped in 149-174]

Parker had hardly finished in solitude his humble supper brought by the
cookee, when there was a rattling of the padlock outside. Open flew the
door of bolted planks, and Colonel Ward stamped in, kicking the snow
from his feet with wholly unnecessary racket of boots. A hatchet-faced
man, whose chin was framed between the ends of a drooping yellow
mustache, followed meekly and closed the door. Parker rose with a
confident air he was far from feeling.

Ward gazed on his prisoner a moment, his gray hair bristling from under
his fur cap, his little eyes glittering maliciously. His cheek knobs
were more irately purple than ever. He took up his cry where he had left
it at Poquette Carry, and began to shout:

“Better'n law, hey? Better'n law! Ye remember what I said, don't yeh?
Better'n law!”

The young man faced him.

“Colonel Ward, there's a law against trespass, a law against conspiracy,
a law against riots and destruction of property, and a law against
abduction. I promise you here and now that you'll learn something about
those laws later.”

“Still threat'nin' me right on my own land, are yeh, hey?”

“I am not threatening. I am simply standing up for my rights as a
citizen under the law.”

“Wal, I ain't here to argue law nor nothin' else with yeh. I've had you
brought up here so's I can talk straight business with you. You've had
a pretty tart lesson, but I hope you've learned somethin' by it. I've
showed ye that a railro'd can't be built over Gideon Ward's property
till he says the word. An' he'll never say the word. Ye're licked. Own
up to it, now ain't ye?” Ward's voice was mighty with a conqueror's
confidence.

“Not by any means. You have simply incurred the penalty of being sent to
state prison. And while you're there I'll be building that railroad.”

Fury fairly streamed from Ward's eyes. He choked, grasped at his throat,
writhed as if he were strangling, and stamped his foot until the camp
shook. At last he recovered his voice.

“I'll pay ye for that! Now see here!” He jammed a paper into Parker's
hands. “Sign that docyment, there an' now. Sign it an' swear ye'll stick
by your agreement; 'cause if ye go back on it, may the Lord have mercy
on your soul, for Gid Ward never will!”

Parker glanced at the crudely drawn agreement. It bound him as agent for
his principals to withdraw all material from the Po-quette Carry, and
abandon his railroad undertaking. It furthermore promised that he
would make no complaint on account of damages to property or
himself--admitting that he had been guilty of trespass.

Parker indignantly held the paper toward the colonel. The latter refused
to take it.

“Sign it!” he roared. “Sign it, or you'll take your medicine!”

“Do you think I am a fool, Colonel Ward? Or are you one? I cannot bind
my principals in any such manner. Furthermore, a signature obtained
under duress is of no value in court. I claim that I am under duress.”

“You refuse to sign, then?”

“Absolutely. It would be easy enough to sign that paper and then go away
and do as I like. But I am not going to lie to you even for a moment.
The paper would be worthless in court.”

“It ain't a paper that's goin' into court,” Ward retorted. “It's a paper
by which you agree to get out of here. It's you an' me. It just means
that ro'd shan't be built.”

“Put into other words, I am to be scared out, and run back home and
report that the road is impracticable?”

“There's no one else in the world but you that would be fool enough to
start in here an' buck me!” Ward shouted.

“And therefore you think if I agree to leave, no one else will dare
to undertake the thing? You do me too much honor, Colonel Ward. But I
repeat, I shall not run away.”

“Don't you realize I have gone too far into this thing to pull back now?
I warn you that I may have to do things I don't like to do in order to
protect myself. I can't back out now--no, sir!”

“You shouldn't have started in, then!” Parker sat down and looked away
as if the incident were closed. He slowly tore up the agreement and
tossed the pieces on the floor.

This bravado made Ward choke.

“Stand right up, do you, an' threaten to put me into state prison?”

“You went into this with your eyes open. You must take the consequences.
You are a business man, and are supposed to have arrived at years
of understanding. This matter isn't like kicking over a mud house at
school.”

“Look here, I've got every lumber operator in this section behind me in
this matter. You hain't realized yet what you're up against.”

“If that is the case,” Parker replied, his eyes kindling, “I can see
that this state is in for one of the big scandals of its history.”

Ward, who had been carried away by his passion and desire to intimidate,
understood now how this admission would compromise men who would be
ruined politically if any hint of such an illegal combination should be
noised abroad.

When he had offered to defeat the actual construction of the road, he
had been warned that he must take all the responsibility upon himself.
He had willingly assumed it, for he was as proud of his reputation
for savage obstinacy as other men are of popular credit for more noble
attributes. Col. Gideon Ward had confidently boasted to his associates
that he would prevent the building of the Poquette railroad. He would
rather lose half his fortune than confess to them that he had been
beaten by a youth.

Now his hardy nature shivered at the thought that not only might the
youth win, but that he had the power to make the agent of the timber
barons doubly execrated and an outcast among his own people. Ward was
faced by the most serious problem of his life, and the uncomfortable
reflection pricked him that he had allowed his anger to steal his
brains.

“Young man,” said he, “I've been on earth a good while longer'n you
have. I expect to stay some time yet. And I expect to live right here in
this section. _You_ hain't got to live here. Now do you think Gid Ward
can afford to be put on his back just yet? I know just who'd tromp on
me, an' I know it better'n you. Now I tell you fair an' square you've
got to give in.” He bellowed the word “got” and thunked his fist on his
knee.

“There is no answer to that required from me, Colonel Ward.”

“All right, then. Come along, Hackett!” Ward commanded. “We'll give this
critter a little time to figure this thing over, an' think whether he's
got any friends that he'd like to get back to.” They went out and locked
the door.




CHAPTER TEN--THE WANGAN DUEL

AFTER the fashion of any prisoner, Parker's initial impulse was to
examine the place in which he was confined. At first, escape was in his
mind. The more he pondered on the lawless performance of the old timber
baron and on the wilful destruction of the company's property, the more
eager he was to get to a telegraph instrument.

Nothing had been taken from his person. He had his huge, sharp,
jack-knife. The door was strong and thick but he believed that if he
attacked the wood vigorously he might be able to whittle out the lock.

There were wooden bars on the windows outside and within, rude
protection against thieves who might want to ransack the stock of the
wangan store. His stout knife would take care of them, too.

But after whittling vigorously at a bar for a few moments he stopped
suddenly, shut his knife and rammed it into his pocket with an
exclamation of sudden resolve.

He reflected that even if he got out of the camp that night, he was more
than fifty miles from Poquette, the only point in that wilderness whose
location was known to him. He was without food for a journey and had his
weary way to make through Gideon Ward's own country.

“He has brought me here to bluster at me and frighten me into running
away out of the section,” he reflected. “I'll stay and disappoint him.”

His own respect for law and order was still so strong within him that he
feared no extreme measures. His honest belief was that the colonel, like
most men who find they have picked up a brick too hot for them, would
drop him in good time and allow him to return to his work.

In order to force the old man to this issue he determined to put on a
bold front, defy his captor still more doggedly and in the end accept
release under conditions of his own making. He felt that Ward was
compromised and now to a certain extent in his power.

It was a decidedly comforting reflection, that, for a prisoner, and he
tucked himself into the blankets of his bunk and went to sleep with his
mind eased.

The cook's shrill morning call woke him and without rising he listened
to the bustle of men preparing for the day's work. He heard the
continuous rattle of tin dishes, the mellow rasp of axes on turning
grindstones, the squeak of footsteps departing over the crisp snow and
the squealing of the runners of sleds. And when all were gone, there was
as yet only the faintest glimmering of the dawn against the window of
the wangan camp.

The engineer was up and dressed when the key rattled in the door.
Colonel Ward came first, “sipping” his tongue against his teeth in a
manner that showed he had just finished breakfast. The morning light
showed redly on his face as he came ill, and in that glow he seemed to
be in more gracious spirit than on the evening before.

The man who had previously accompanied him, the man of the hatchet
visage, followed at his heels bearing several tin dishes that contained
breakfast.

“There ain't no intention here to starve ye nor use ye in any ways
contrary to gen'ral regulations--that is, so fur as we can help,”
 began the colonel. “Of course, if you were a little more reasonable and
bus'ness-like we could use you better. Hackett, set down the breakfast!
Fall to, young man, and eat hearty jest as tho ye relished your
vittles.”

It was evident that Colonel Ward was making desperate attempts to appear
cordial.

He even endeavored to force a smile but it was hardly more than a
ridging of his cheek muscles under his bristly beard. Parker imagined
that he could hear the skin crackling at this unaccustomed facial twist.
The struggle to appear cheerful was so grim that the engineer dreaded
his antagonist in this new guise more than he did when he was brutally
open in his warfare.

“Sit down, Hackett,” commanded the colonel. “Hackett's a friend o'
mine--that is, in so far as I have friends, and he might as well be here
to listen to what I have to say to you and what you have to say to me.
There's northin' like a witness of transactions, Mr. Parker. Now you and
me ain't got together right up to now. I'm allus pretty much fussed up
by my bus'ness and kept cross-grained all the time by havin' to handle
so many blasted fool woodsmen, and the man that meets me for the
first time might natch-rally think I was uglier'n a Injun devil in
fly-time--which I ain't, Parker, No, I ain't I want you and me should be
good friends and bus'ness men together, which we ain't been so far, all
on account of a misunderstandin'. Now, you're goin' to find me square
and honest and open.”

Ward looked at the young man eagerly and waited as tho for some
encouraging word.

“Even under the circumstances in which you have placed me, not only
on my personal account but with my employers, by destroying their
property,” said Parker, after pondering a moment, “I am ready to talk
business with you if you are now ready to talk it.”

“Well, let's say that we can talk it all nice and friendly. Won't you
say that you'll talk it all nice and friendly?” He had Hackett in the
corner of his eye, as tho soliciting that individual to take careful
note of the conversation.

“The fact is, Colonel Ward,” replied the engineer, “human nature isn't
to be driven to and fro quite like an ox team. What I mean by that is,
I might say, 'Go to, now! Be friends!'--say that to myself. But that
wouldn't make me feel friendly--not in present circumstances. But I'm
going to say to you that I'd like to be friends, and if you will start
in now and show me some reason why we should be friends I'll give you my
word to come more than half way.”

“Wal, that sounds reasonable and as much as any one can expect on short
notice,” broke in Hackett, who sat straining his attention.

“You shut up, Hackett,” roared the colonel, who realized Parker's mental
reservation better than his man Friday. “I'll show ye all in good time
why we should be friends, Parker,” he went on, addressing the engineer.
“But first of all I'll show ye how much it is goin' to hurt me to have
that railroad built acrost Poquette. And when I show you that, then
you'll understand what the trouble was that you and me didn't start
in on the basis of good friends. I tell ye, Parker, it's a serious
proposition for me and my associates. I can tell ye just why that road
can't and mustn't be built.”

The old man straddled his legs, leaned forward and set his right
forefinger into his left palm with the confident air of one who is
prepared to prove his contentions.

“I say,” he went on, “that the road must not be built, and as a business
man--”

“Colonel Ward,” broke in Parker, mildly yet firmly, “if that line of
talk is what you are proposing to me I think I'd better tell you at the
start that you'll have to take the question of whether the road must
or must not be built to my employers. I have no right to enter upon any
such discussion. Nothing will be gained. They have sent me to Poquette
to build the road. I shall keep on with the work until my first
orders are countermanded from our headquarters. And if you want them
countermanded you'll be obliged to go to headquarters. It seems to me
that ought to be pretty plain to you.”

The old man, his finger still boring his palm, sat for some moments and
stared at the engineer. He tried to keep from scowling but his brows
twisted into knots in spite of himself.

“You _will_ keep on till orders are countermanded, hey?” he inquired
grimly. “Ain't you got no commonsense nor reason to you?”

“It isn't a question of that, Colonel. It's a question of obeying my
employers.”

The old man gave him another thorough looking-over and then whirled on
Hackett.

“You go 'tend to something else,” he ordered bluffly. And after Hackett
had closed the door on himself he again turned to his scrutiny of the
young engineer.

“I ain't no great hand to beat about the bush, young feller,” he
declared. “Now look at the position you're in. You might say, you're
more than half queered already with your company. Your engine and all
that collateral has been dumped into the lake--sayin' nothin' about how
it happened. The main point is, it's there! And you're here! I ain't
makin' any threats--not as yet--but you're here, and you can't gainsay
that much. Now the idea is, with your stuff under water and you here,
how long do you think it's goin' to be before you git to work ag'in?”

Parker made no reply.

“Needn't answer any question that you can't answer,” continued Ward.
“And that's one that you can't answer. You tell me you've got to build
that road. You're goin' to tell me that if you don't build it some one
else will. Mebbe they will! Mebbe they will!” His eyes grew shrewd.
“Mebbe I'll build it myself! I can say this much, that I'd rather build
it than have outsiders come in here and git a foothold. There's too big
interests in this region and owned by them that's allus lived here, my
son, to have outsiders come in now and meddle. It's the very first run
of potater bugs that you want to keep out of the garden. And the first
run can be handled easier than the settlers after they have set up
housekeeping. Now you see the point, I reckon! So the whole thing
simmers down to this: I want to discourage them city fellers. It's a
long arm they're reachin' down this way, and I won't have to tread on
their fingers many times till they'll be mighty glad to pull back. It's
only a side issue with them, and they won't let a side issue keep 'em
awake too many nights when there's a way to get rid of the bother. When
they are discouraged enough to be willin' to sell the charter and the
stuff they've got on the spot--and under water,” he added with a wicked
grin, “then I'll step in with the cash in my hand. I reckon we can
handle our own railroad build-in' down this way. If I ain't got you
discouraged already, young man, then I don't understand human natur'
as well as I think I do. So now I want to hire you in the discouragin'
business--you understand it fairly well. I need an assistant
discourager. And here's my proposition! I'll give ye five thousand
dollars bonus smack down in your fist and promise you in the name of
the Lumbermen's Association a steady job. We're goin' to build three big
dams along the West Branch and a four-mile canal cut-off at headwaters.
You'll find work enough, if that's what you're lookin' for.”

“And you'll be looking for me to sell out your interests at my first
opportunity,” said Parker.

“Ours is a different proposition--a different proposition,” blurted Ward
earnestly. “Your men ain't got any right to be here on our own stamping
ground--not as bus'ness men. We ain't goin' down where they are to
bother them. They hadn't ought to be up here. If you leave 'em and come
with us we'll consider that it's showin' that you understand what a
square deal in bus'ness matters means. And furthermore,” he said with a
certain air as tho he had reserved his trump card, “we'll make our trade
in black and white for a ten years' contract at a third more wages than
your railroad people are paying and tip you off regular on timber deals
where you can make an extry dollar. I don't mind tellin' ye, Parker,
that I've had ye looked up and I know that we ain't buyin' any gold
brick.” This with a certain cordiality.

“I must say, Colonel Ward, that you have taken a rather peculiar method
of getting me interested in your enterprises.” Parker's tone was a bit
resentful, but the old man believed he could understand that resentment,
and grew more cheerful and confident.

“You had to be discouraged,” chuckled the colonel. “Didn't I tell you
that you had to be discouraged? Why, if you hadn't been shown what kind
of a proposition you were up against you might have kept on thinkin'
that the P. K. &. R. railroad company was the biggest thing in the
world. All young men want to work for the biggest folks. But I reckon
by this time you have found out that Gideon Ward and the Lumbermen's
Association come pretty near bein' lord of all they survey in this
country. There, young man! The cards are down. Look at 'em! I'm pretty
rough and I'm pretty tough and I play the game for all that's in me. But
when it's over you won't find any cards up my sleeve nor down the back
of my neck--and you can't always say that of your smooth city chaps.”

Parker sat with his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor, his
forehead wrinkled. He was a pretty sturdy young American in principles
and conduct, but at the same time he had all of young America's
appreciation of the main chance. And the main chance in these days lies
along the road where the dollars are sprinkled thickest. He reflected
that the building of the little bob-tail railroad had been tossed at him
as a rather silly and secret escapade of two big men who were already
half ashamed of the whole business. He realized that in their present
frame of mind they would be inclined to close out the whole thing
in disgust as soon as they received news of the destruction of the
property.

When he got back to town he would simply remind them of a mutual failure
to accomplish, and the history of such reminders is that they have been
side-tracked in some places where their presence could not remind.

“You know there isn't goin' to be any hurry about your givin' up your
present job--not till spring has got well opened and the ice is out
of Spinnaker,” said Colonel Ward slyly, breaking in on the young man's
meditations. “There's always a right time for re-signin' and we'll
discover that time. But your five thousand will be put to your credit in
Kenduskeag Bank the next day after you sign our papers, and your salary
with us will begin the minute the ink is dry. You'll have double pay for
a while, but I reckon you'll be earnin' it.” He chuckled once more.

Parker, surveying his red cheek knobs, his cruel gray eyes narrowed now
in evil mirth, recollected with a photographic flash of memory of the
details of that story the postmaster at Sunkhaze had told him. This
was the same man who had coolly stolen wife and property from his own
brother and then had jeered at him, probably with that same expression
puckering about his evil, gray eyes. In the sudden revulsion of his
feelings Parker wondered if he really had been tempted by the bait held
out to him. At least, he had been weighing the chances. He remembered
cases where other men who had stopped to weigh advantages had ended in
becoming disloyal. He promptly forgot with a mental wrench the bribe
that had been offered. It was a coaxing bait and he bravely owned that
it had tempted for a moment. He was honest enough to own to himself
that, offered by another, it might have won him--and he felt a little
quiver of fear at the thought.

But when he pictured himself as the associate of this old harpy who sat
leering at him, hands on his knees, and already swelling with a sense of
proprietorship, he almost forgot his personal wrongs in the hot flush of
his indignation on behalf of the cheated brother.

“That's a proposition that sort of catches ye, hey?” inquired Ward,
misunderstanding the nature of the flush that sprung to Parker's cheeks.

“I'm going to be honest enough to say that it did catch me for a
moment,” replied the young man.

“Oh, I know all about what temptation is to any men--especially a young
man,” said the colonel blandly.

“But I'll bet you a hundred dollars to a toothpick you never knew what
it was to resist temptation,” shouted Parker. “And I'm going to tell you
now and here that I'd no more accept your offer and take a job with you
than I'd poison myself with paris green.” He flung himself back in his
chair and glared at his tempter with honest indignation.

For a little while Ward stared at him, open-mouthed. His surprise was
greater, for he believed that he had landed his fish.

“And don't you make me any more offers. I've no use for them or for you,
either,” cried the young man, his voice trembling.

“I've read about such critters as you be,” said the colonel slowly, “but
it was in a dime novel and it was a good many years ago and I didn't
believe it. I believe it said in the novel that the young man died young
and went to heaven--the only one of his kind. P'raps I'm wrong and he
didn't die--went to heaven jest as he stood in his shoes and co't and
pants.”

Parker merely scowled back at the biting irony of this rejoinder.

“There's no dime novel or any other kind of a novel to this affair,
Colonel Ward. I'm not especially fitted to be the hero of a book. Nor to
be one of your hired men, either.”

“Then ye've made up your mind to straddle out your legs and play
Branscome's mule, hey?”

“What was his special characteristic?”

The question was drawled coolly.

“He kicked when ye tried to drive him with a whip and he bit and
squealed when ye tried to coax him along with sweet apples. So if ye
won't neither lead nor drive, then out with it man fashion.”

“I simply demand my liberty.”

“And what be ye goin' to do with it?”

“That is my own affair.”

The two men sat and looked at each other a long time, the old man's
choler rising the higher from the fact that it had been so long
repressed. The young man's glance did not fall before this furious
regard.

At last Ward quivered his fists above his head, stamped around the
little room and went to the door.

“You've got a few hours to do a little more thinkin' in, and then you
look out for yourself, for it's up to you, you--,” he slammed and locked
the door and went away, cursing horribly.




CHAPTER ELEVEN--THE BEAR THAT WALKED LIKE A MAN

That in this age of law and order Gideon Ward meditated any actual
violence to his person Parker found it hard to believe as he sat there
in the “wangan” and pondered on his situation. He could not avoid
the conclusion that at heart Colonel Ward was a coward. But sometimes
circumstances that a brave man will not suffer to rule him will drive a
coward into crime.

It was a long and dreary day for him.

From the window he saw Colonel Ward go scurrying away on a jumper,
evidently bound for the choppings.

The cook and cookee surveyed his prison at a distance. They seemed to
have no desire to come into close contact with a man of whom they had
heard such sinister reports.

Hackett, who hung about camp, apparently to serve as general “striker”
 and man of all work, brought food at noon and left it without engaging
in conversation.

Parker made a dull day of it.

After the chill dusk had fallen and he had stuffed his rusty little
stove with all the wood it would hold, he heard the men returning.

A colloquy that occurred after supper interested him.

He heard Colonel Ward bellow at some one who was evidently advancing
toward the wangan.

“Here you, Connick, where are you goin'?”

“Just to pass a word with the lad,” the man replied.

“Have you got your knittin'?” squalled Ward sarcastically. “There's no
call for you to go passin' talk around that wangan camp, Connick. You
come away from it.”

But when Connick spoke again it was evident he had not retired.

“It's only right to let him come into the men's camp for a bit this
evening, Colonel Ward. There'll be a snatch or so of fiddlin' that he'll
like, to cheer him up, and a jig and a song or so. I don't see the harm
in mentionin' it to him, to find if he'd like to come. I'll answer for
it that he's put back in his nest ag'in all right.”

“Who's runnin' this camp, me or you?”

“You're the man, sir.”

“Well, then, there'll be no invitin' out nor passin' talk. You men have
nothin' to do with that chap in that wangan and you'll keep away from
him or get your heads broken open. Do you hear what I say? Why don't you
come away when I speak?”

“I'm not the man to disobey orders,” growled Connick. “But I'm a man as
likes man's style. I've always done your biddin', Colonel Ward, and I
done your biddin' when I brought him here. Now I've found him a lively
young chap that I'm proud to know and tho I speak for myself alone
I speak as a man that likes fair play, and I say it's dirty bus'ness
keepin' him like a chicken in a coop, after you've had your bus'ness
talk with him.”

“You infernal bundle of hair and rags, do you dare to stand there and
tell me how to run my own affairs?” roared Ward, thoroughly incensed.

“Keep your bus'ness your own bus'ness for all I care,” Connick answered
angrily. “But when it gits to be bus'ness that can't be backed up
man-fashion then ye may find that day's wages don't buy the whole earth
for ye.”

The reply was a bit enigmatical but Ward understood that it signified
mutiny. He gasped a few times and then Parker heard Connick exclaim:

“Don't ye strike me with that sled-stake, Colonel Gideon, or it might be
the worse for ye. I'll not bother your man in the wangan till I find
out more about what you're doin' to him--but don't you hit me with that
stick.”

Both men went back into the big camp, Ward furiously chewing the
reflection that for the first time he had been bearded in his own camp.

Gideon Ward sat until midnight in his little pen off the main camp,
poking his fire and meditating. He had reckoned that he was justified in
proceeding to extremes with this young man, confident that in the end
he would break his spirit and frighten him out of the woods. But he
realized now with sinking heart that his violence had endangered all the
political influence of the gigantic timber interests. The youth had a
powerful weapon, and he, Gideon Ward, would be accused of furnishing it.

Perspiration dripped from under the old man's cap. He rasped his rough
palms together nervously. At last he rose and tip-toed into the main
camp. All the men were asleep, snoring with the lusty heartiness of a
tired lumber crew. The colonel advanced cautiously to Hackett's
bunk, and stirred that worthy with his finger until the man awoke. He
beckoned, and Hackett followed him into the pen.

“Hackett,” said he, “yeh have worked for me a good many years.”

“Yes, colonel.”

“I've let yeh have money on a mortgage for one or two little favors
yeh've done me.”

“Yes.”

Hackett began to grow pale.

“Now I'll lift that whole mortgage for another favor--an' don't get
scared. I sha'n't ask yeh to do any more'n I propose to do myself.”
 Ward had noted the look of alarm on the man's face. “If we're both in it
neither can say anything. I took yeh along with me last night and to-day
so's yeh could hear how that young fool insults me on my own land.”

“I heard what he said, colonel, an' no man can blame ye for feelin' put
out.”

Ward looked at him steadily for a moment.

“Listen to me. Few words when there's work to do: that's my motto. I've
done the thinkin' part of this thing. What I want you for is to help on
the work.”

The man stared with stupid inquiry.

“Hackett, here's my plan. You and I don't want to hurt that man. We
can't afford to hurt him. But he's on my hands, an' he won't back down,
an' it puts me in a hard place--a mighty hard place, Hackett. You heard
what passed between us? Now he's got to be put out of this camp an'
shoved where he can't blab this thing round about. Why, he's half got
that fool of a Connick on his side already.

“The only thing, Hackett, is for you to take him across into that
Tumble-dick camp an' keep him there--keep him there! Tie him to a beam
and feed him like yeh would a pup. Keep him there till he weakens an'
quits, or till I can think up some plan further. It'll give me time,
Hackett.”

“'Tain't any extra sort of job for me, Colonel Ward!” grumbled Hackett
“I've got to watch that critter day in an' day out, an' Tumble-dick
camp is all o' twenty miles from here, or from any other camp, for that
matter.”

“That's why I want him there, Hackett. We'll tie him on a moose sled,
an' you start in an hour, whilst the men are still asleep. I'll break a
window out of the wangan, an' on this crust there'll be no foot-tracks.
It'll be thought he broke out and ran away--an' that'll be his own
lookout.”

His voice became low and husky. “Yeh needn't hitch him too tight in
Tumble-dick camp, Hackett, providin' you hide the most of his clothes
an' it looks like a storm comin' on. If he wants to duck out away from
a good home into the woods, with grub an' fire twenty-five miles away,
why, that's his own lookout.”

The man licked his lips nervously.

“That ain't our liability, yeh knew.”

The man pondered.

“It's eight hundred for you, Hackett, an' always a good job with me as
long as I hire men,” persisted Colonel Ward.

At last Hackett got up and struck his elbows against his sides.

“I'll do it!” he grunted.

Parker's first alarmed awakening was with a cloth about his neck,
choking him so that his cry of fright rattled in his throat. He fought
bravely, but two strong men are better than one who has struggled and
gasped until he has only a trickle of air in his lungs. He was bound,
his head muffled in a strip of torn blanket, and he was carried out into
the night. He could not see his captors, but he knew that Ward was one
of the assailants, because a hoarse command to Hackett had betrayed him.

After he had been dragged a distance Parker realized by a penetrating
odor that he was near the horse hovels. There was a mumbled discussion
between his captors as to whether he should be tied to the moose sled.
It was decided that his arms should be left pinioned as they were, and
Hackett growled:

“I won't tie him to the sled! I'll be needin' him on the steep pitches.”

As his arms were tied behind his back, when they put an old fur coat
on him they pulled the sleeves of it on his legs and buttoned the coat
behind. In spite of the bandage over his eyes, he easily recognized
these operations, and then felt himself lifted upon the familiar moose
sled. Several bags full of something were thrown on. With his ears
strained for every sound that would give him any information, he heard
some one approaching even before the two men, busy between camp and
sled, were warned.

“Hark!” grunted the voice of Colonel Ward, at last. “Who's that movin'
round back of the hoss hovel? Look out, Hackett! Throw something acrost
the sled. He's comin' this way.” A moment after, his tones full of
disgust, he snorted, “It's that infernal old moose! Here, hand me that
ax!”

A hurry of feet, and then Parker heard the impact of a crushing blow
and the muffled groan of a stricken animal. The ax blows continued,
apparently dealt with fury, and in a few moments the old man creaked
across the crust, dragging some heavy object.

“Here's your fresh meat, Hackett--two hind-quarters,” he panted. “Load
it on.”

“The boys will be r'iled to find Ben here in the mornin'!” whined the
other man.

“He won't eat any more grain f'r me!” the colonel boomed, wrathfully.
“Then again, it will show that after Mister Railroad Man broke out of
the wangan camp he killed the moose to get grub to last him for his
trip, bein' afraid to tackle Gid Ward's camps. The boys will be ready
to massacree him if they can lay hands on him, but,” his tones became
ominously significant, “remember your lines now, man! Get away and I'll
look after this end.”

Parker felt the loaded sled glide over the crust. He could hardly
believe that these men meditated anything except a change in his
place of imprisonment; but as the sled moved on and on, and in his
helplessness he weighed the situation, he began to feel a vague fear of
possibilities. He began to plan means of escape. When at last the sled
went scaling down a long slope, he rolled off on the crust.

As he lay there, he expected every moment to hear the man shout an oath
and return. When the hasty creaking of the footsteps died away, he knew
that the lightened sled, following of its own momentum, had not betrayed
him.

Hoodwinked and pinioned, it was no easy task to travel among the trees
and across the slippery crust. As Parker scrambled along, he was tempted
to cry out and appeal to the man to return. Now that his sudden panic
of the flitting sled was over, the dull, cold fear of a helpless and
abandoned man came upon him. But he clinched his teeth to keep back the
cry that struggled to follow the man of the sled, and kept pushing on
into the undergrowth.

At last he stopped and began to scrub his forehead against the rough
bark of a tree, endeavoring to remove the bandage. After a time he
worked it above his eyes, although it still bound his head like a
turban.

He could see the crisp stars through the interlocking branches. He found
the pole star. But as he had been unable to guess the direction his
captor had taken in leaving the camp, the points of the compass mattered
little in this wilderness, where all was strange.

Parker went on, reflecting uneasily that every step might be taking him
directly back to Colonel Ward's camp. His grotesque garb hampered his
movements. He lumbered along as awkwardly as a bear. After a time he
came through some little spruces that whipped his face, and discovered
a tote-road that had been long abandoned, for the bushes grew in it and
the crust was unmarked.

He pondered a while. Then he shut his eyes, whirled until he dropped,
scrambled up, and started away in the direction in which chance had
faced him. He smiled as he thought upon this childish resource, but in
that bewildering region he had at least been enabled to make up his mind
quickly by the device.

The rosy light of the dawn touched him as he plodded along. His advance
was slow, for the sleeves of the fur coat impeded free use of his legs.
The day was clear and cold, with a stinging wind that tossed the roaring
branches of the spruce-trees. The crust held firm. Parker's constrained
arms were aching and his hands were numb. He jerked and twisted at the
thongs until his wrists were raw, but the knots were too strong for him.

He had passed so many crossings and fork-ings of the bush-grown road
that he gave up trying to keep the ramifications in mind for his use
should he find it necessary to turn back. He now went on doggedly,
choosing this way or that, as it chanced, hoping to hear a ringing ax or
a hunter's gun or a teamster's shout somewhere in those solitudes.

In the late afternoon the road led him to an ice-sheathed stream. Here
the way divided.

He took the road that led down-stream. It undoubtedly ended at a lake,
thought he. Log-landings are on lakes. There would be men to release
him from the torture of aching muscles and gnawing stomach. Parker would
have welcomed the sight of Colonel Gideon Ward himself when that second
night came through the trees.

It was beyond human endurance to walk farther, but Parker realized that
if he lay down in that state of cold, weariness and hunger he would
never rise again. He marshaled in his mind all the people, all the
interests he had to live for; the parents who depended on him, a certain
young girl who was waiting so anxiously for his return, his prospects in
life. He did this methodically, as if he were piling fagots for a fire
at which to warm himself. Then he mentally kindled the heap with the
blaze of a mighty determination to live, and standing under a great
spruce, he began to stamp about it and count aloud. Half a dozen times
during that long night he staggered and fell, as if an invisible hand
had struck him down. But the next moment, with a cry of “I'll stay
awake!” he was up again and at his self-set task, mind, muscles and
nerves centering in his one desperate resolve.

Then the dawn came peeping over the big spruces, and found him still
at his grim gambols. He set forth once more down the road, slipping
and stumbling, his body doubled forward. A few miles and a few hours
more--it was the most he could hope for.

All at once his dull ears heard the zin-n-ng of a rifle-bullet close to
his head; and almost immediately, as he ducked and rolled upon his back,
the sinister shriek of another ball made it plain that he was the game
aimed at. Two smart cracks at some distance indicated the location of
the marksman.

Animal instinct is alike in brute and man. Parker leaped at the sound
of the first bullet, fell, and rolled behind a snow-covered boulder.
Had Ward or his minion tracked him? Were they now carrying out their
desperate plan? The double report was proof that the man or men were
determined on slaughter.

After a long time he dared to peer cautiously. At some distance down the
tote-road an old man was crouching beside a moose sled. On the sled
was the carcass of a deer. Parker realized that this old man must be a
poacher.

An assassin sent after a man would not be wasting his ammunition on deer
in close time.

The old man remained motionless, with the stolidity of the veteran
hunter waiting to make sure. Torpor rapidly seized on Parker's mind.
He shouted as best he could, but his voice was hoarse from hours of
shouting into the vastness of the deserted woods. His faculties were
growing befogged. He dared not exert himself enough to keep awake, for
his rock was but a narrow bulwark. It seemed to be a choice of deaths,
only.

At last he desperately leaped up and danced behind his protecting
boulder, uttering such cries as he could. But he saw the old man
throw his rifle up and take aim. Down he dropped, and the bullet sang
overhead.

He realized then that his garb made him resemble some strange beast--a
bear, perhaps--and he gritted his teeth as he pondered that this might
be part of Gideon Ward's vindictive scheme. If he attempted to show
himself long enough to convince the old man that he was human he would
only be inviting the bullet.

Until his blurring senses left him he occasionally shouted or thrust up
his head; but the old still-hunter was relentless, and evidently had not
the clear vision of a youth. He was always ready with a shot.

At last, with tears freezing on his cheeks, Parker gave himself up to
the fatuous comfort of the man succumbing to cold and hunger.




CHAPTER TWELVE--THE STRANGE “CAT-HERMIT OF MOXIE”

Afterward it seemed that he began to dream. Somber individuals were
crushing his limbs between great rollers. Frisky little ghouls were
sticking needles into him, and there were so many needles that it seemed
that every inch of his skin was being tortured at the same instant.

[Illustration: Every inch of his skin was being tortured 197-224]

The agony grew intense. He was trying to cry out, and a giant hand was
over his mouth. And when the pain became so excruciating that it did not
seem as if nature could longer endure it, he opened his eyes.

A sludge-dish hooked to a beam shed its yellow glimmer of light upon a
strange interior.

There was no more strange figure in the place than Parker himself. He
was stripped and seated in a half-hogshead filled with water, from which
vapors were rising. His first wild thought was that the water was hot
and was blistering him. He screamed in the agony of alarm and strove to
rise.

But hands on his shoulders forced him down again. These hands were
rubbing snow upon him. Then the young man realized that his sensations
were produced by icy cold water. Parker felt that cloths bound snow and
ice to his ears and face.

A glance showed him that he was in a rude log camp. The chinked walls
were bare and solid. The interior was spacious, and a big fireplace
promised warmth.

The most astonishing of all in the place were its visible tenants--a
multitude of cats. Some were huddled on benches, their assorted colors
and markings composing a strange medley. Others stalked about the cabin.
Many sat before the embers in the fireplace. A half-score were grouped
about the hogshead and its occupant, with their tails wound round their
feet, and were solemnly observing the work of reanimating the stranger.
Here and there among taciturn felines of larger growth little spike-tail
kits were rolling, cuffing, frolicking and miauing. For a moment the
scene seemed a part of his delirium.

Parker turned round to survey his benefactor. He found him to be an old
man, shaggy of beard and hair. A pointed cap of fur covered his head.

He was dressed in rough garb--belted woolen jacket, trousers awkwardly
patched, leggings rolled above the knee, and yellow moccasins. Although
he was the ordinary type of the woods recluse, there was kindliness in
his expression, as well as a benignant gleam in his eye that was not
usual.

“How d'ye feel?” he asked, solicitously.

“As if I were being pounded with mallets and torn by pincers.”

“All over?”

“Yes, all over!” snapped Parker, rather ungraciously.

“That's good,” drawled the old man, rubbing more snow briskly on the
aching flesh. “I guess I'm goin' to save ye, down to the last toe.”

“If aches will do it I'm saved!” groaned the young man.

“I wouldn't 'a' gi' a copper cent for ye when I got ye here to camp,”
 the old man proceeded, “but I've done the very best I could, mister, to
fetch ye round. I hope ye ain't a-goin' to complain on me,” he added,
wistfully.

“Complain on you?” Parker demanded. “Do you think I owe myself a grudge
for coming back to life?”

“I should like to ask ye a fair question,” said the old man.

“I'll answer any questions.”

“Be ye a game-warden?”

“No, sir, I am not.”

The honest ring of that negative was unmistakable. The old man sighed
with relief.

“When I found ye done up in that co't I thought ye was a game-warden,
sure.”

“Look here,” Parker demanded, with asperity, “did you sit there and
blaze away at me with any suspicion that I was a human being?”

“Land bless ye, no!” cried the old man, with a shocked sincerity there
was no doubting. “I never harmed any one in all my life. But I was
feelin' so good over savin' ye that I had to have my little joke. I was
out this mornin' as us'al, after meat for my cats. I have to work hard
to keep 'em in meat, mister. I can't stand round and see my kitties
starve--no, s'r! Wal, I was out after meat, an' was takin' home a deer
when I see what any man, even with better eyesight than mine, would have
called a brown bear trodgin' round a tree an' sharp'nin' his claws. What
he was up to out of his den in such weather I didn't know, but of course
I fired, an' I kept firin'. An' when at last I fired an' he didn't bob
out any more, I crept up an' took a look. I thought I'd faint when I
see what I see--a man in a buffl'ler co't wrong side to an' his head all
tied up an' his arms fastened behind him. Land, if it didn't give me a
start! Wal, I left my deer right there an' h'isted ye on my sled, and
struck across Little Moxie for my camp here on the double-quick, now I
can tell ye. Ye was froze harder'n a doorknob, but I guess I'm goin' to
have ye out all complete. Lemme see your ears.”

He carefully undid the cloths, to an accompaniment of groans from
Parker.

“They're red's pinys. No need to worry one mite, mister. Come out o'
your water whilst I rub ye down. Then to bed with a cup o' hot tea, and
hooray for Doctor Joshua Ward!”

“I might have known you were Joshua Ward when I noticed all those cats,”
 said Parker. So this was Colonel Gideon's brother! He was too weak and
ill to feel or display much surprise at the meeting.

“Most every one hereabouts has heard o' me,” the old man admitted,
mildly. “Some men have fast hosses, some men have big liberies, some men
like to spend their money on paintin's an' statues. But for me, I like
cats, even if they do keep me running my legs off after meat. Hey,
pussy?” and he stooped and stroked the head of a huge cat that arched
its back and leaned against his leg.

“Mr. Joshua Ward,” said Parker, grimly, “you'd probably like to know how
I happened to be prowling round through the forest dressed up so as to
play bear?”

“I was meditatin' that ye'd tell me by n' by, if it wa'n't any secret,”
 the old man replied, humbly.

“Well, I think you have a right to know. You possess a personal interest
in the matter, Mr. Ward. I was tied up and sent away to be killed or to
be turned out to die by a man named Colonel Gideon Ward.”

To Parker's surprise the old man did not stop in his rubbing, but said,
plaintively, “I was almost afeard it might be some o' Gid's works,
or, to say the least his puttin' up. He don't improve any as he grows
older.”

“You have pretty good reason to know how much chance there is for
improvement in Gideon Ward,” suggested Parker, bitterly.

“Fam'ly matters, fam'ly matters, young man,” murmured Joshua,
reprovingly. “But I ain't tryin' to excuse Brother Gideon, ye
understand. I'm afeard that when the time of trial does come to him, he
will find that the hand of the Lord is heavy in punishment. I've had a
good part of a lifetime, young man, to think all these things over in
this place up here. A man gets near to God in these woods. A man can
put away the little thoughts. The warm sun thaws his hate; the big winds
blow out the flame of anger; the great trees sing only one song, and
high or low, it's 'Hush--hush-h-h--hush-h-h-h!'” The voice of the man
softly imitated the soughing of the pines.

Parker stumbled to his bunk, his feet still uncertain, drank his tea,
and slept.

The next morning, after the breakfast of bread and venison, the host
said: “Young man, now that you have slept on your anger, I wish you'd
tell me the story of your trouble with my brother Gideon. I know that he
has been rough and hard with men, but many have been rough and hard with
him. This is a country where all the men are rough and hard. But I fear
that had it not been for the good God and these old hands of mine, my
brother would be now little else than a murderer. Tell me the story.”
 His voice trembled with apology and apprehension.

Parker stated all the circumstances faithfully and impartially. At the
conclusion Joshua's eyes glowed with fires that had not been seen in
them for years. He struck his brown fist down on his rude table.

“Defying God's law and man's law to the disgrace of himself and all his
name! And you had not been rough and hard to him,” he cried. “Bitter,
bitter news you bring to me, Mr. Parker.”

There was a long pause, and at last Joshua Ward went on:

“Mr. Parker, that man is my own--my only brother, no matter how other
people look at him. I have saved your life. Will you give me one chance
to straighten this matter out?”

“You mean?”

“I mean that if Gideon Ward will pay for the damage he has done your
property, ask your forgiveness as a man, and promise to keep away and
let you alone, will you be charitable enough to let the matter rest?”

Parker pondered a while with set lips. It cost a struggle to forego
vengeance on that wretch, but many issues were involved, principally
the early completion of the railroad and his consequent favor with his
employers.

“Mr. Ward,” he declared, at last, “I came down here to build a railroad,
not to get entangled in the courts. For your sake and the sake of my
project I will give your brother an opportunity to make atonement on the
conditions you name. I owe my life to you, and I will discharge part of
my obligation in the way you ask.”

“Are you afraid to accompany me back to Number 7 camp?”

“No, sir!” In his turn Parker struck the table. “I am ready to go
back there alone and charge that man with his crime, and depend on the
manhood of his crew to stand neutral while I take him and deliver him
over to the law. And that I will do if you fail in your endeavors.”

The old man was silent. He made no attempt to soften the young man's
indignation or resolution. Parker noted that his lips tightened as tho
with solemn, inward resolve.

During the remainder of his convalescing stay in the camp the subject of
Gideon Ward was not broached again.

The hermit beguiled the hours with simple narratives of the woods, his
cats on knees and shoulders. He had no complaints for the past or the
present and no misgivings as to the future, so it appeared from his
talk.

Parker came to realize that under his peculiar and, to the casual
observer, erratic mode of life there was a calm and sound philosophy
that he had cultivated in his retirement. He had the strange notions of
those who have lived much alone and in the wilderness. An unkind critic
would have dismissed him brusquely with the belief that his troubles had
unbalanced his mind. But Parker saw beneath all his eccentricity, and
as the hermit wistfully discoursed of the peace that the woods had given
him the young man conceived both respect and affection for this strange
character. His knowledge of Joshua's life tragedy pre-disposed him to
pity. He was grateful for the tender solicitude the old man had shown
toward him. At the end of his stay he sincerely loved the brother of his
enemy.




CHAPTER THIRTEEN--THE BEAR OF THE BIG WOODS “BAITED” AFTER HIS OWN
FASHION

On the third morning Parker was able to travel. Joshua Ward had brought
the carcass of the slain deer across the lake on his sled, and the cats
of Little Moxie were left to rule the island and feast at will until the
return of the master.

On the day they set forth it was shortly after dark,--for they had
proceeded slowly on account of the young man's feet, when Parker again
looked down from the ridge upon Number 7 camp. If Colonel Gideon Ward
was not there, they proposed to follow along his line of camps until
they found him. Parker carried a shotgun with two barrels. The old man
bore his rifle. They advanced without hesitation over the creaking
snow, straight to the door of the main camp, and entered after the
unceremonious fashion of the woods.

A hundred men were ranged on the long benches called “deacons' seats,”
 or lounged on the springy browse in their bunks. A man, with one leg
crossed over his knee, and flapping it to beat his time, was squawking a
lively tune on a fiddle, and a perspiring youth danced a jig on a square
of planking before the roaring fire. The air was dim with the smoke of
many pipes and with the steam from drying garments hung on long poles.

Connick removed his pipe when the door opened, and gazed under his hand,
held edgewise to his forehead.

“Why, hello, my bantam boy!” he bawled, in greeting. “What did you break
out o' the wangan and run away for?”

The fiddle stopped. The men crowded up from the bunks and deacons'
seats. All were as curious as magpies. They gazed with interest on
Parker's companion. But no one threatened them by look or gesture.

“Is Gideon Ward here?” inquired Joshua, blandly.

“Yes, I'm here!” came the answer, shouted from the pen at the farther
end. “What's wanted?”

“It's Joshua!” called the brother. “I'll come in.”

“Stay where you are!” cried Gideon; and the next moment he came
shouldering through the men, who fell back to let him pass.

The instant his keen gaze fell on the person who bore his brother
company he seemed to understand the situation perfectly. There was just
the suspicion of fear when he faced the blazing eyes of Parker, but he
snorted contemptuously and turned to his brother.

“Wal, Josh,” he cried, “out with it! What can I do for you?”

“The matter isn't one to be talked over in public, brother,” suggested
Joshua.

“I hain't any secrets in my life!” shouted Gideon, defiantly, as if he
proposed to anticipate and discount any allegations that his visitors
might produce.

“Ye don't refuse to let me talk a matter of business over with ye in
private, do ye, Gideon?”

“Colonel Ward,” said Parker, stepping forward, “your brother is ashamed
to show you up before these men.”

“Here, Connick, Hackett, any of you! Seize that runaway, and throw him
into the wangan till I get ready to attend to him!” commanded Ward.

The men did not move.

“Do as I tell ye!” bawled the colonel. “Twenty dollars to the men--fifty
dollars to the men who ketch an' tie him for me!”

Several rough-looking fellows came elbowing forward, tempted by the
reward. Parker raised his gun, but Connick was even quicker. The giant
seized an ax, and shouted:

“Keep back, all of ye! There's goin' to be fair play here to-night, an'
it's Dan Connick says so!”

“Connick,” Gideon's command was almost a scream, “don't you interfere in
what's none o' your business!”

“It's my business when a square man don't get his rights,” Connick
cried, with fully as much energy as the colonel, “and that chap is a
man, for he licked me clean and honest!”

A murmur almost like applause went through the crowd.

“Men,” broke in Parker, “I cannot expect to have friends here, and you
may all be enemies, but I have come back, knowing that woodsmen are on
the side of grit and fair dealing. Listen to me!”

In college Parker had been class orator and a debater of power. Now he
stood on a block of wood, and gazed upon a hundred bearded faces, on
which the flickering firelight played eerily. In the hush he could hear
the big winds wailing through the trees outside.

Ward stood in advance of the rest, his mighty fists clinched, his face
quivering and puckering in his passion. As the young man began to speak,
he attempted to bellow him into silence. But Connick strode forward,
put his massive hands on Gideon's shoulders, and thrust him down upon
a near-by seat. The big woodsman, his rebellion once started, seemed to
exult in it.

“One of the by-laws of this ly-cee-um is that the meetin' sha'n't be
disturbed!” he growled. “Colonel Gid Ward, ye will kindly listen to this
speech for the good of the order or I'll gag ye! You've had a good many
years to talk to us in and you've done it. Go ahead, young man! You've
got the floor an' Dan Connick's in the chair.” He rolled his sleeves
above his elbows and gazed truculently on the assemblage.

“For your brother's sake,” cried the young engineer, “I offer you one
more chance to listen to reason, Colonel Gideon Ward! Do you take it?”

“No!” was the infuriated shout.

“Then listen to the story of a scoundrel!”

[Illustration: Listen to the story of a scoundrel 216-246]

The men did listen, for Parker spoke with all the eloquence that
indignation and honest sentiment could inspire. He first told the story
of the wrecked life of the brother, and pointed to the bent figure
of the hermit of Little Moxie, standing in the shadows. Once or twice
Joshua lifted his quavering voice in feeble protest, but the ringing
tones of the young man overbore his halting speech. Several times
Connick was obliged to force the colonel back on the deacons' seat, each
time with more ferocity of mien.

Then Parker came to his own ambitions to carry out the orders of his
employers. He explained the legal status of the affair, and passed
quickly on to the exciting events of the night on which he had been
bound and sent upon his ride into the forest, to meet some fate, he
knew not what. He described the brutal slaughter of the moose, and the
immediate dismemberment of the animal. He noticed with interest that
many men who had displayed no emotion as he described poor old Joshua's
sufferings now grunted angrily at hearing the revelation concerning
the fate of Ben, the camp mascot. This dramatic explanation of Ward's
furious cruelty to the poor beast proved, curiously enough, the turning
point in Parker's favor, even with the roughest of the crew. Then Parker
described how he had been rescued and brought back to life by the old
man whom Gideon Ward had so abused.

“And now, my men,” he concluded, “I am come back among you; and I ask
you all to stand back, so that it may now be man to man--so that I may
take this brutal tyrant who has abused us all, and deliver him over to
the law that is waiting to punish him as he deserves.”

He leaped down, seized a halter, and advanced with the apparent
intention of seizing and binding the colonel.

“Are ye goin' to stand here, ye hunderd cowards, an' see the man that
gives ye your livin' lugged away to jail?” Gideon shouted, retreating.
He glared on their faces. The men turned their backs and moved away.

He crouched almost to the floor, brandishing his fists above his head.
“I've got ten camps in this section,” he shrieked, “an' any one of them
will back me aginst the whole United States army if I ask 'em to! They
ain't the cowards that I've got here. I'll come back here an' pay ye off
for this!”

Before any one could stop him, for the men had left him standing alone,
he precipitated his body through the panes of glass of the nearest
window, and almost before the crash had ceased he was making away into
the night Connick led the rush of men to the narrow door, but the mob
was held them for a few precious moments, fighting with one another for
egress.

“If we don't catch him,” the foreman roared, “he'll be back on us with
an army of cut-throats!”

But when the crew went streaming forth at last, Colonel Ward was out of
sight in the forest. Lanterns were brought, and the search prosecuted
earnestly, but his moccasined feet were not to be traced on the frozen
crust.

The chase was abandoned after an hour, for the clouds that had hung
heavy all day long began to sift down snow; and soon a blizzard howled
through the threshing spruces and hemlocks.

“It's six miles to the nearest camp,” said Connick, when the crew was
again assembled at Number 7, “an' in order to dodge us he prob'ly kept
out of the tote-road. I should say that the chances of Gid Ward's ever
get-tin' out o' the woods alive in this storm wa'n't worth that!” He
snapped his fingers.

“It is not right for us to come back here an' leave him out there!”
 cried the brother.

“He took his chances,” the foreman replied, “when he went through that
window. There's a good many reasons why I'd like to see him back here,
Mr. Ward, but I'm sorry to have to tell ye, ye bein' a brother of his,
that love ain't one o' them.”

“I shall go alone, then,” said the old man, firmly.

“Brotherly love is worth respect, Mr. Ward,” Connick declared, “but I
ain't the kind of man that stands idle an' sees suicide committed. Ye've
done your full duty by your brother. Now I'm goin' to do my duty by you.
You don't go through that door till this storm is over!”

The next day the wind raged on and the snow piled its drifts. Joshua
Ward sat silent by the fire, his head in his hands, or stood in the
“dingle,” gazing mournfully out into the smother of snowflakes. It would
be a mad undertaking to venture abroad. He realized it and needed no
further restraint.

But the dawn of the third day was crisp and bright. Soon after sunrise a
panting woodsman, traveling at his top speed on snow-shoes, halted for a
hasty bite at Number 7. He was a messenger from the camp above.

“Colonel Gid Ward was picked up yesterday froze pretty nigh solid!” he
gulped out, between his mouthfuls. “I'm goin' down for a doctor,” and
then he went striding away, even as Joshua Ward took the up-trail.

Parker spent all that day in sober thought, and then, forming his
resolution, took passage on the first tote-team that went floundering
through toward Sunkhaze. His departure was neither hindered nor
encouraged.




CHAPTER FOURTEEN--HOW RODNEY PARKER PAID AN HONEST DEBT

The engineer found his little garrison holding the fort at the Poquette
Carry camp--and confining their attentions wholly to holding the fort.
Not an ax blow had been struck since his hurried departure.

“We didn't work no more,” explained one of the men, “because we'd give
up all idea of seein you ag'in. Of course we reckoned that a new boss
would prob'ly be comin' along pretty quick and we thought we'd wait and
find out just what he wanted us to do.”

“Well, it will be the same old boss and the same old plan,” replied
Parker curtly. The idea that the men had considered him such easy prey
made him indignant. “You'll consider after this that I'm the Colonel
Gideon Ward of this six-mile stretch here.”

“I reckon there won't be any real Gid Ward any more,” said the man.
“Feller went through here last night, hi-larrup for 'lection, to git a
doc for Gid. Seems he got caught out and froze up somehow--tho I never
s'picioned that weather would have any effect on the old sanup. P'rhaps
you've been hearin' all about how it happened? Feller wouldn't stop long
enough to explain to us.” The man's gaze was full of inquisitiveness and
the others crowded around to listen.

But with self-repression truly admirable Parker told them that he had no
news to give out concerning Colonel Ward, of any nature whatsoever.
He ordered the driver of the tote-team to whip up and rode away toward
Sunkhaze, leaving the men gaping after him.

He observed the same reticence at the settlement, tho he was received
with a demonstration that was something like an ovation.

Although his better sense told him that the men were justified in
preserving neutrality at the time of the raid, yet he could not rid
himself of the very human feeling of resentment because they had
surrendered him so readily into the hands of his adversaries. But the
chief influence that prompted silence was the fear lest details of his
mishap and the reasons therefor would get into the newspapers to the
annoyance of his employers.

“I am back and the work is going on just as tho nothing had happened,”
 he said to the men who crowded into the office of the tavern to
congratulate him. “Matters have been straightened out and the less talk
that's made the better.”

But the postmaster, presuming on more intimate acquaintance, followed
him up to his room, where his effects had been carefully preserved for
him.

“I reckoned you'd get back some time,” said Dodge. “I've predicted that
much. But, I swanny, I didn't look for you to come back with your tail
over the dasher, as you've done. That is, I didn't look for you to come
that way not until that feller blew in here to telegraft for a doctor
for old Gid. Then I see that it was him that was got done up instead of
you. But speakin' of telegraftin', there ain't no word gone out from
here as yit about the hoorah--not a word.”

“Do you mean that Sunkhaze has kept the Swamp Swogon affair and my
kidnapping quiet?” demanded Parker, his face lighting up. He had been
fearing what might have gone out to the world about the affair.

“A good many was all of a to-do to telegraft it to the sheriff and to
your bosses,” said the postmaster calmly. “But it seemed better to me to
wait a while. I says, 'Look here, neighbors, it's goin' to be some time
before the sheriff can git his crowd together and git at Ward--and even
then there'll be politics to consider. The sheriff won't move anyway
till he gits the word of the Lumbermen's Association. And it'll probably
happen by that time that the young man will show up here again. All
we'll git out of it hereabouts is a black eye in the newspapers--it
bein' held up that Sunkhaze ain't a safe place to settle in. And all
that truck--you know! Furthermore, from things you've dropped to me,
Mr. Parker, I knew you were playin' kind of a lone hand and a quiet game
here. My old father used to say, 'Run hard when you run, but don't start
so sudden that you stub your toe and tumble down.' So in your case I
just took the responsibility and held the thing back.”

The postmaster's eyes were searching Parker's face for signal of
approbation.

The engineer went to him and shook his hand with hearty emphasis.

“You've got a level head, Mr. Postmaster,” he said, delightedly. “We'll
start exactly where we left off and so far as I am concerned the place
will never get a bad name from me. In return for your frankness and your
service to me, I'll give you a hint as to what happened to Colonel Ward.
I know you won't abuse my confidence.”

When he had finished, the postmaster said earnestly, “Mr. Parker,
however much old Gid Ward owes you, you owe Josh Ward a good deal more.
He ain't a man to dun for his pay. But if he ever does ask you to square
the account you won't be the man I take you for if you don't settle. If
you feel that you owe me anything for the little service I've done you
and your bus'ness, just take and add it to the Josh Ward account. Of all
the men on earth I pity that man the most.”

There were tears in Dodge's eyes when he stumbled down the tavern
stairs.

One cheerful moment for Parker had been when the postmaster informed
him of Sunkhaze's equilibrium in the matter of news-monging But a more
cheerful moment was when Mank, his foreman, standing with him on the
ice above the submerged Swogon told him that a sandbar made out into the
lake at that point and that the locomotive was probably lodged on the
bar, only a little way below the surface.

When they had sawed the ice and sounded they found this to be true. As
soon as a broad square of ice had been removed they saw her, all her
outlines clear against the white sand. The sunken sleds were equally in
evidence. It was not a diver's job, then, as Parker, in his worryings,
had feared. On the thick ice surrounding the whole there was solid
foothold for the raising apparatus and Parker's crew set at work with
good cheer.

It was a cold, wet and tedious job, the grappling and the raising, but
his derricks were strong and his rigging plentiful. Moreover, the water
was not deep.

All the material that could not be recovered by the grapples was
duplicated by means of quick replies to wired orders, and the work of
transportation across the lake was successfully completed.

It was well into a warm May, and his men for the last week had been
moving soil and building culverts before the case of Col. Gideon Ward
was brought to Parker's attention in a manner requiring action. One
evening just after dusk his foreman scratched on the flap of the
engineer's tent, in which he was now living at Poquette.

“Come in!” he called.

The canvas was lifted and a man entered. Parker turned the reflector of
his lantern on the visitor.

“Joshua Ward!” he exclaimed, as he started up and seized the old man's
outstretched hand.

He led him to a camp-stool. They looked at each other for a time in
silence. Tears trembled on Joshua's eyelashes, and he passed his knotted
hand over his face before he spoke.

“Mr. Parker,” he said, tremulously, “I've come to bring ye money to
pay for every cent's worth o' damage to property 'an loss o' time an'
everything.” He laid a package in the young man's hand. “Help yourself,”
 he quavered. “I'm goin' to trust to your honesty, for I'm certain I can.
Take what's right. Gid and I don't know anythin' about railroads an'
what such things as you lost are worth. All we can do is to show that we
mean to square things the best we can now. Gid's sorry now, Mr. Parker,
he's sorry--sorry--sorry--poor Gid!” The old man sobbed outright.

“Did he--” The young man paused, half-fearing to ask the question.

Joshua again ran his rough palm across his eyes. Then, in dumb grief, he
set the edge of his right hand against his left wrist, the left hand to
the right wrist, and then marked a place on each leg above the ankle.

“All off there, Mr. Parker.” The old man bent his head into his hollowed
palms. Tears trickled through his fingers. There was a long silence. The
young man did not know how to interrupt that pause.

“I'm feedin' an' tendin' him like I used to when he was a baby an' I a
six-year-old. He's at my camp, Mr. Parker. He don't ever want to be seen
agin in the world, he says--only an old, trimmed, dead tree, he says.
Poor old Gid! No matter what he's been, no matter what he's done, you'd
pity him now, Mr. Parker, for the hand o' punishment has fell heavy on
my poor brother.”

The engineer, truly shocked, stood beside Joshua, and placed his hand on
the bowed shoulders.

“Mr. Ward,” he said, with a quiver in his voice, “never will I do
anything to add one drop to the bitterness in the cup that has come to
you and yours.”

“I told Gid, I told Gid,” cried the old man, “that you'd say somethin'
like that! I had to comfort him, you know, Mr. Parker; but I felt that
you, bein' a young man, couldn't make it too hard for us old men. He
ain't the same Gid now. See here, sir!”

With tremulous hands he drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to
Parker. It was a writing giving sole power of attorney to Joshua Ward.
The old man pointed to a witnessed scrawl--a shapeless hieroglyph at the
bottom of the sheet.

“Gid's mark!” he sobbed. “No hands--no hands any more! I feed him, I
tend him like I would a baby, an' the only words he says to me now are
pleasant an' brotherly words.

“An' more'n that, Mr. Parker, I'm on my way down to town. I've got some
errands that are sweet to do--sweet an' bitter, too. There's new fires
been lit in the dark corners of my poor brother's heart. I've got here
a list of the men that Gideon Ward hain't done right by in this
life,--that he's cheated,--an' a list of the widows of the men he hain't
done right by, an' by that power of attorney he's given me the means,
an' he says to me to make it square with them people if it takes every
cent he's worth. It won't cost much for me an' Gid to live at Little
Moxie, Mr. Parker--an' poor Cynthy--”

He looked into vacancy a while and was silent. Then he went on:

“We'll have our last days together, me an' Gid. All these years that
I've lived alone up there the trees an' the winds an' the skies an' the
waves of the lake have been sayin' good things to me. I told Gid about
them voices. He has been too busy all his life to listen before now. But
sittin' there in these days--sit-tin' there, always a-sittin' there, Mr.
Parker! Nothing to do but bend his ear to catch the whispers that come
up out o' the great, deep lungs o' the universe! He has been listenin',
an'”--the old man rose and shook the papers above the head of the
engineer--“God an' the woods have been talkin' the truth to my poor
brother Gideon.”

The old man slept that night in Parker's tent and went on his way at
morning light, and tho the engineer pressed back again into his hands,
unopened, the packet that was proffered, and assured him that no harm
should befall Gideon Ward through complaint or report for which he was
responsible, Parker still felt that somehow there was a balance due old
Joshua Ward on their books of tacit partnership in well-doing;--such was
the honest faith, and patient self-abnegation of the good old man, who
had endured so much for others' sake.




CHAPTER FIFTEEN--THE DAY WHEN POQUETTE BURST WIDE OPEN

Through the spring and the early summer Poquette Carry was an animated
theater of action. Woodsmen, went up and woodsmen came down, and mingled
with the busy railroad crews. All examined the progress of construction
with curiosity, and passed on, uttering picturesque comment. Strange
old men came paddling down West Branch from unknown wildernesses, and
trudged their moccasined way from end to end of the line, as if to
convince themselves that Colonel Gideon Ward really had been conquered
on his own ground. Newspaper reporters came from the nearest city, and
pressed Engineer Parker to make a statement “Gentlemen,” he said, with
a laugh, “not a word for print from me. I was sent here to build this
bit of a railroad quietly and unobtrusively. Circumstances have paraded
our affairs before the public in some measure. Now if you quote me, or
twist anything I may say into an interview, my employers will have good
reason to be disgusted with me, as well as with the situation here.
Furthermore, there are personal reasons why I do not wish to talk.”

Whether Parker's eager appeal had effect upon the reporters, or whether
the timber barons influenced the editors, the whole affair of the sunken
engine was lightly passed over as the prank of roistering woodsmen,
and Colonel Ward was left wholly undisturbed in his retreat. Even the
calamity that had befallen him was not mentioned except by word of mouth
among the woodsmen of the region.

With self-restraint that is rare in young men, Parker still refused to
talk about the matter even in Sunkhaze. When he first returned, a
sense of chagrin at his discomfiture along with reasons that have been
mentioned kept him silent, it is true, but now, with complete victory
in his hands, he was sincerely affected by the misfortune that had
overtaken his enemy.

The “Swamp Swogon,” now that it was running on its own rails and was
hauling building materials along the crooked railroad, was renicknamed
“The Stump Dodger.” Parker's chief pride in the road was necessarily
based on the fact that it had been constructed without exceeding the
appropriation, a fact that excused many curves.

Late in June the last rails were laid and the ballasting, such as it
was, was well under way.

The “terminal stations,” as the engineer jocosely called them, were neat
little structures of logs, and there was a log roundhouse, where the
Stump Dodger retired in smutty and smoky seclusion when its day's toil
was finished.

So the engineer prepared for the day of opening, and requested the state
railroad commissioners to make their final inspection of the road. The
three officials gravely travelled from end to end of the line in the
secondhand P. K. & R. coach, the only passenger-car of the road, and
after some jocular remarks, issued a certificate empowering the Poquette
Carry Road to convey passengers and collect fares. Then, after a
telegraphic conference with his employers, Parker announced the day for
the formal opening of the road.

At first he had not intended to make any event of this. His idea had
been that, after the commissioners authorized traffic, he would
merely arrange a time-table instead of the irregular service of the
construction days, and would start his trains, observing the care that
had been promised in seasons of drought.

But his foreman of construction--none other than Big Dan Connick, who
had chosen railroad work under Parker instead of the usual summer labor
on the drive--came to him at the head of a group of men.

“Mr. Parker,” he said, “we represent the men who have been building this
road. We represent also our old friends of the West Branch drivin' crew
of a hundred men, who are twenty miles up-river and are hankerin' for
a celebration. We represent all the guides between Sunkhaze and
Chamberlain, and every man of 'em is glad that this carry has been
opened up. The whole crowd respectfully insists that seein' as how this
is our first woods railroad up here, it's proper to have a celebration.
If ye don't have the official opening we shall take it as meanin' we
ain't worth noticin'.”

There was no denying such earnestness as that nor gainsaying the
propriety of the demand. Parker made his principals understand the
situation. And the result was that they themselves set the opening date,
and promised to be on hand with a party of friends.

The rolling-stock of the Poquette Railroad consisted of the Stump
Dodger, four flat cars designed especially for the transportation
of canoes and bateaux, three box cars for camp supplies and general
freight, and the coach transplanted from the P. K. & R. narrow-gage.

Parker announced that on the opening day no fares would be collected,
that the train would make hourly trips, and that all might ride who
could get aboard.

Not to be outdone in generosity, the crew through big Dan Connick,
declaring that they proposed to make all the preparations for the
celebration free of charge--that is, they would accept no wages for
their work.

They built benches on the platform cars and fitted up the box cars in
similar fashion. They trimmed the Stump Dodger with spruce fronds till
the locomotive looked like a moving wood-lot. Every flag in Sunkhaze was
borrowed for the decoration of the coach, and then, in a final burst of
enthusiasm, the men subscribed a sum sufficient to hire the best brass
band in that part of the state.

“It took us some little time to wake up enough to know how much we
needed a railroad acrost here,” said Dan, “but now that we're awake
we propose to let folks know it. Them whose hearin' is sensitive had
better take to the tall timber that day.”

Parker met his party at Sunkhaze station on the morning of the great
occasion. They came in the P. K. & R. president's private car, that was
run upon a siding to remain during the week the railroad men entertained
their friends at their new Kennemagon Lake camp.

“I expect,” said Parker, as the little steamer puffed across sunlit
Spinnaker toward Poquette, “that the men have arranged a rather rugged
celebration for to-day; but I know them well, gentlemen, and I want to
assure you that all they do is meant in the best spirit.”

As the steamer approached the wharf, tooting its whistle, there was an
explosion ashore that made the little craft appear to hop out of the
water. All the anvils of the construction crew had been stuffed with
powder, and all were fired simultaneously with a battery current!

With a yell the shore crowd rushed to the side of the steamer. Dan was
leading, his broad face glowing with good humor. Groups of cheering men
clutched the squirming, protesting railroad owners and their friends,
and bore them on sturdy shoulders to the waiting train. The band from
its station on a platform car boomed “Hail to the Chief,” the engine
whistle screaming an obligato.

Then the men swarmed upon the cars, crowding every corner, occupying
every foothold--but with the thoughtful deference of the woods not
venturing to encroach upon the privacy of the coach after they had
deposited their guests there.

On the “half-way horseback,” so-called, Parker ordered the train halted,
for he wished to show Mr. Jerrard an experiment in culvert construction,
in which he took an originator's pride. The band kept on playing and the
men roared choruses.

After the young engineer had bellowed his explanation in Jerrard's ear,
and Jerrard had howled back some warm compliments, striving to make
himself heard above the uproar, the two climbed the embankment and
approached the coach. The band was quiet now.

“Speech!” cried some one, as Jerrard mounted the steps. He smiled and
shook his head.

“Speech! Speech!” The manager turned to enter his car, still smiling,
tolerant but disregarding. At a sudden command from Connick, men
reached out on both sides of the train and clutched the branches of
sturdy undergrowth that the haste of the construction work had not
permitted the crews to clear entirely away.

“Hang on, my hearties!” shouted Dan.

Parker, when he mounted the steps, had given the signal to start, but
when the engineer opened his throttle, the wheels of the little engine
whirled in a vain attempt at progress. With a grade, a heavy load, and
the determined grip of all these brawny hands to contend against, the
panting Stump Dodger was beaten. Sparks streamed and the smokestack
quivered, but the train did not start.

“Speech! Speech!” the men howled. “We won't let go till we hear a
speech.”

Entreaties had no effect. First Jerrard, then Whittaker, then Parker,
and after them all the guests were compelled to come out on the car
platform and satisfy the truly American passion for a speech. And not
until the last man had responded did the woodsmen release their hold on
the trees.

“Who ever heard of a railroad being formally opened and dedicated
without speeches?” cried Connick, as he gave the word to let go. “We
know the style, an' we want everything.”

The guides served a lunch at the West Branch end of the line that
afternoon, and while the railroad party was lounging in happy
restfulness awaiting the repast, a big bateau came sweeping down the
river, driven by a half dozen oarsmen. Several passengers disembarked
at the end of the carry road, and were received respectfully yet
uproariously by the woodsmen who had just arrived in a fresh train-load
from the Spinnaker end.

Connick came elbowing through the press that surrounded them.

“Mr. Shayne,” he cried, “she's come, after all, hasn't she? Are you and
your friends goin' to ride back on her across the carry? I tell you she
beats a buckboard!”

The man whom he addressed smiled with some constraint, and exchanged
glances with his companions.

“I guess we'll stick to our own tote-team as usual, Connick,” said
another in the party, jerking his thumb at the muddy buckboard that was
waiting.

“Oh say, now, ye've got to meet these here railroad fellers. They're
your style--all business!” bawled Connick. “We ain't fit to entertain
'em up here, but you rich fellers are. Just come along. They'll be glad
to see you. Bring 'em along, boys.”

The crowd obediently hustled the new arrivals toward Whittaker and his
friends, disregarding the surly protests.

“Here's some of the kings of the spruce country, gentlemen!” big Dan
cried, by way of introduction. “Here's Mr. Shayne, the great timber
operator on the Seboois waters. Here's Mr. Barber of the Upper
Chamberlain, an'--”

Several of the new arrivals began to deprecate this unceremonious manner
of introduction, but the railroad men, recognizing their peers in the
business world in these sturdy land barons, came forward with a hearty
welcome.

Ten minutes later the timber kings were eating lunch, although with some
embarrassment. Occasionally they eyed the railroad men, wondering if
the memory of the stubborn legislative battle still lingered. But the
railroad men constantly grew more affable.

“Gentlemen,” said Whittaker, at last, “we are not affected in this case
by any interstate commerce regulations. Therefore, on behalf of myself
and my associates, I should like to tender you annual passes over our
new road. Of course the courtesy is a trifling one, but it will indicate
that we shall appreciate your cooperation in turning your freight
business our way. We'll save you at least two-thirds of the expense on
the haul across Poquette.”




CHAPTER SIXTEEN--THE PACT THAT OPENED RODNEY PARKER'S PROFESSIONAL
FUTURE

When one understood all that had gone before, the moment was an electric
one for the future of the Poquette region.

In this apparently trivial offer the railroad king had formally offered
the olive branch. He gazed at the lumber barons eagerly yet shrewdly.

It was evident that they had silently fixed on Shayne to reply.

After a moment Shayne began his answer, and as he had glanced from one
to another of his companions, he evidently understood from their eyes
that he had permission to speak for all. “Mr. Whittaker,” he said, with
hearty frankness, “on behalf of myself and my associates I am going to
make an earnest apology to you for the obstacles we threw in your way
at the outset of this enterprise. But you must take into account the
isolation of our lumbering interests and the jealousy we felt at the
intrusion of outside men and capital. We feared what it might lead
to. We have been doing business as our fathers did it, and we probably
needed this awakening that the new railroad has given us. For now that
it is built, we, as business men, see that the advantages it will afford
us are desirable in every way. I speak for my friends here when I say
that we are heartily glad you have beaten us.”

His tone was jocose yet sincere.

The men of business--railroad officials and lumber kings--broke out into
a hearty laugh, the laugh of amity and comradeship. Shayne went on, more
at his ease after that:

“Now we are going to afford you a proof that we mean what we say.
We--this party right here--control fifty miles or more of timber
country, reaching from here up to the West Branch on both sides, and
extending as far inland. The river is broken by rapids and falls along
this stretch. Our drives from up-country are sometimes held up a whole
season when a bad jam forms in dry times. Every year in dynamiting these
jams thousands of feet of logs are shattered. More are split on the
ledges. We have agreed that we need a railroad. Considering our losses,
we can afford to pay well for having our logs hauled to the smooth
water. If you and your friends will finance and build such a road, we'll
give you free right of way, turn over to you annually twenty million
feet of timber for your log trains, and give you the haul of all our
crews and camp supplies. Further than that, with spur tracks to lots now
inaccessible by water, you can quadruple the value of our holdings and
your own business at the same time. And this will be only the first link
of a railroad system that we need all through the region. The thing
has come to us in its right light at last, and we're ready to meet
you half-way in everything.” He smiled. “We want the right sort of men
behind the scheme, and you have plainly showed us that you _are_ the
right sort of men.”

President Whittaker thought a little.

“Gentlemen,” he said, at last, “I cannot give you a conclusive answer
to-day, of course, but I can guarantee that no such offer as that is
going to be refused by my associates and myself. Bring forward your
proposition in writing. We'll come half-way, too, and be glad of the
chance. If men and money can accomplish it, a standard gage road will be
ready for your season's haul next year.”

He turned and touched Parker's shoulder.

“This young man,” he said, “will be our representative, with full powers
to treat with you. Parker, are you ready for two years more in the
wilderness? It's a big project, and your financial encouragement will be
correspondingly big. I haven't said yet how thoroughly I appreciate
your energy and loyalty and self-reliance in the matter of this little
plaything of the past winter. I do not need to say anything, do I,
except to urge you to take this new responsibility, and to add that your
acceptance will encourage me to go ahead at once?”

Parker reached out his brown hand to meet the one extended to him.

“We also want to say to Mr. Parker,” went on Shayne, “that on our part
we'll do more to assist him than we'd do for any other man you could
place here. We have a little explanation to make to him and--”

“No explanations for me--if it's along the lines I apprehend, Mr.
Shayne!” cried the young man, jokingly yet meaningly. He bent a
significant look on the lumber king as he went forward to take his hand.

“Hush!” he murmured. “I keep my own counsels in business matters when I
can do so without betraying the interests of my employers, and when they
don't want to be bothered by my personal affairs.”

Shayne gave the engineer a long stare of honest admiration.

“Parker,” he gasped, “you never said a word? You're a---- Here, give me
you hand again!”

[Illustration: Parker give me your hand again 254-286]

A half hour later the lumbermen went across the Poquette Carry in a
train made up of the engine and the coach--“the first real special train
over the road,” Parker said.

Before the young engineer left for his summer vacation, he made a
long canoe journey up into the Moxie section, ostensibly on a fishing
expedition. He was gone ten days, a longer period than he had predicted
to his assistant manager.

When he came down the West Branch one afternoon he helped Joshua Ward
to lift a crippled man out of their canoe, and he carefully directed the
helpers who carried the unfortunate person to the coach.

“I'm afraid the trip across the carry in a buckboard after the old
manner would have been too rough for you, Colonel Ward,” remarked
Parker, as the train clanked along under the big trees. “I think I was
never more glad to offer modern conveniences to any traveller across
this carry. You understand how deep my sincerity is in this, I am
positive.”

“I understand everything better than I did, Parker,” returned Colonel
Ward, feelingly, turning away wet eyes.

The astonishment in Sunkhaze settlement when the doughty ex-tyrant was
borne through to the “down-country” train, accompanied by Parker and
Joshua, was so intense that only the postmaster recovered himself in
season to put a few leading questions. After the train had gone he
announced the results of his findings to the crowd that clustered about
him on the station platform.

“Near's I can find out,” he said, “that young Parker has been way up
into the Moxie region an' found old Gid, and spent a week gettin' round
him and coaxin' him to go 'long with him and Josh to the city, and be
fitted to new hands and feet, that, so they tell me, is so ingenious a
fellow can walk round and cut his own victuals and all that. Well, that
will help old Gid a little. If the blamed old sanup could only be fitted
out with a new disposition at the same time, we folks round here would
be more pleased to see him, come back.”

“Postmaster,” cried Dan Connick, who had been one of those who bore
the colonel from the landing in a chair, “don't you ever worry any more
about a new disposition for Gid Ward. Those things come from the hand of
God, and Colonel Gid has already been fitted out with the heart and soul
of a man!”

“Then,” declared Dodge, gazing to where the smoke wreaths from the
departing locomotive hung above the distant treetops, “I reckon we've
just seen in bodily shape the passin' of the old in this section as well
as the comin' of the new.”


THE END





End of Project Gutenberg's The Rainy Day Railroad War, by Holman Day