_ "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.
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. _