King Spruce, A Novel

On and on went the yelping staccato of the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt. The Honorable Pulaski D. was discoursing on his favorite topic, and his voice was heard above the rattle a...

When the timber barons came in sight of the camp at noon, Tommy Eye, returned emissary, was seated on the edge of the wangan platform with attitude and countenance of alarmed ex...

"So we fellers of the camp, when the wind-spooks rave and ramp, We fasten up the dingle-door with spike and extry clamp; For it ain't a mite against 'em if the boldest chaps do...

When April came, and with caressing fingers began to stroke the softening snow from the mountain flanks, she found full half a million of the Enchanted cut still on the yards.

"Oh, the road to 'Castle Cut 'Em' is mostly all uphill. You can dance along all cheerful to the sing-song of a mill; King Cole he wanted fiddles, and so does old King Spruce, Bu...

"We dug him out of his blankets, and hauled him out to the light-- His eyes were red with the tears he had shed, but now he wanted to fight. And screaming a string of curses, he...

"Warmth and comfort? Ay, all these Under the arch of the great spruce trees; But our cup o' content holds naught but foam!-- No woman's hand to make a home."

"Wilderness lord of the olden time, Stalwart and plumed pine; They have dragged thee down to the roaring town From the realms that once were thine. And he who reigns in thy stat...

"For even in these days P. I.'s shake At word of the phantom of Brassua Lake; And all of us know of the witherlick That prowls by the shores of the Cup-sup-tic; Of the side-hill...

"And I'll say to you what I'm tellin' to them here, Mr. Wade," continued the teamster. "You saw for yourself what happened here last night. A ha'nt done it. And the ha'nt done t...

"I reckon if gab had been sprawl, He'd have climb' to the very top notch. As it was, though, he made just one crawl To a perch in a next-the-ground crotch."

Larry Gorman, "the woodsman's poet," whose songs are known and sung in the camps from Holeb to Madawaska, was with Rodburd Ide's incoming crew. His three most notable lyrics are...

Days of winter snow and blow; days of sunshine, hard and cold as the radiance from a diamond's facets; days of calm and days of tempest; days when the snowflakes dropped as stra...

"And down from off the mountains in the shooting sheets of flame The devils of Katahdin come to play their reg'lar game. So 'tis: men hold tight! Pray for mornin' light! Katahdi...

"We 'lowed he was caught, and we never thought we'd see Mike any more; But he took and he kicked a bubble up, and he rode all safe to shore."

"We know how to riffle a log jam apart, Though it's tangled and twisted and turned; But the love of a woman and ways of the heart Are things that we never learned."

"Twenty a month for daring death--or fighting from dawn to dark-- Twenty and grub and a place to sleep in God's great public park. We roofless go, with the cook's bateau to foll...

"The clank of the press and the scream of the saws, The grunt of the grinder that slavers and chaws At the fibre o' pulp-wood, the purr of the plane, Sing only one song to the b...

"Here's a good health to you, family man, From the depths of our hearts and the woods; Boughs for our bunks and salt hoss in junks Ain't hefty in way o' world's goods. Keep your...

"Though it ain't for me nor for any one To say how the awful thing was done, We know that the hand of a grief-crazed man Is set to many a desperate plan."

Rodburd Ide, fresh-arrived from Castonia in hot haste, saw well to it that he and Dwight Wade were safe from interruption in the wangan camp. He even drove a sliver from the woo...

The fire-lookout at the Attean station winked this ditty humorously with playful heliograph to "Ladder" Lane, lookout on the high, bald poll of old Jerusalem Knob. The Attean lo...

"Pete Lebree had money and land, Paul of Olamon had none, Only his peavy and driving pole, his birch canoe and his gun. But to Paul Nicola, lithe and tall, son of a Tarratine, H...

"And the good, kind skipper and all his crew Got a purse and some medals, tew, And a lot o' praise for a-savin' me From an awful death in the ragin' sea. And I got jawed 'cause...

"The people in the city felt the shock of it that day. And they said, in solemn gloom, 'The drive is in the boom, And O'Connor's drawn his wages; clear the track and give him ro...

Two days later the "It-'ll-git-ye's," as sombre prophets, were distinctly cheered by the sight of Boss Colin MacLeod borne past Rodburd Ide's store on a litter. They were hurryi...

"We're bound for the choppin's at Chamberlain Lake, And we're lookin' for trouble and suthin' to take. We reckon we'll manage this end of the train, And we'll leave a red streak...

When Christopher and Wade started up and hurried into the lean-to, the cook of the "Lazy Tom" camp went ahead carrying a lamp to light the place whose rude interior had so sudde...

Just how Tommy Eye escaped so nimbly from the ruck of the fight at the foot of Pugwash Hill he never knew nor understood, his wits not being of the clearest that day--and the ot...

When they came out upon the bare granite, long after mid-day, they fell upon their faces, and lay there without speaking or the desire to speak. They did not open their smarting...