CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT JAM AT STONE PINE RAPIDS

Every one who saw it declared that it was the pluckiest thing that Sergeant Silk had ever done. He himself did not consider it an extraordinary thing to do. But, then, a man is seldom the best judge of his own bravery.

The incident occurred at the logging camp at Stone Pine Rapids, where some hundreds of men--lumber-jacks, hook-tenders, buckers, and snipers--were engaged in the work of driving an immense procession of forest logs down the stream.

The camp was at a sharp bend of the river, and the rafts had become hopelessly jammed. They had been jammed for the best part of a week, and crowds of river men had gathered from far and near to give help in the difficult task of dislodging the obstinate barrier of floating timber that filled and choked the narrow throat of the waterway.

There was a lot of drinking, gambling, and quarrelling going on, and Sergeant Silk had come along in the interests of law and order.

The mere presence of a member of the North-West Mounted Police, with his conspicuous red tunic and his bandolier of brightly-polished cartridges, had almost a magical effect in preserving peace. His duties were light, and he went about the thronged encampment as a friendly and welcome visitor rather than as a stern and dreaded representative of the law.

So little had he expected to be called upon to exercise his authority that he had brought young Percy Rapson as his companion--Percy Rapson, the aristocratic English boy, who had been sent out to Canada to learn farming on Rattlesnake Ranch, and who had now sought variety from his tuition in agriculture by accompanying his friend on an easy patrol to witness the wonders of a great logging camp at work.

On the second morning of their arrival at Stone Pine they had left their mounts in stable and strolled down to the waterside to see if the workers had yet located the key logs, which held the vast mass of floating timber locked in the bend of the river.

To Percy Rapson the sight had all the interest of novelty, and he lingered, watching, in the hope of seeing the jam break loose. The breast of the barrier of logs rose to a height of some thirty feet above the water's level, in a confused pile. The giant tree trunks, flung into a hopeless tangle, were becoming with every hour more tightly crushed by the mighty pressure of the crowded logs in the rear.

As far back as the eye could see the surface of the river was hidden under its brown pavement of drifting timber.

On the great jam itself men were at work with their peavies industriously picking at the huge logs, heaving and rolling them downward into the rapids beyond, where they might be caught and swept away by the current.

But the key logs, which held the main pile plugged in its position, had not yet been found, and even an occasional charge of dynamite had so far failed to stir the barrier.

Percy had been so absorbed in watching the preparation of a new charge of dynamite that he had not noticed that Sergeant Silk had left his side. He went in search of him, and found him seated astride one of the logs that were stranded on the river bank in front of the camp.

The boy went up to him, and, looking over his shoulder, saw, to his surprise, that the soldier policeman was engaged in making a crude pencil sketch of a Canadian canoe poised perilously on the brink of a cataract.

"My hat, Sergeant!" Percy exclaimed. "I never suspected you of havin' any pretensions to bein' an artist!"

Silk held the slip of paper at arm's length in front of him, contemplating his handiwork.

"I don't pretend to be anything of the sort," he denied. He closed one eye and regarded the drawing critically. "There's something plumb wrong about that boat," he objected. "'Tisn't natural, somehow. Looks heaps more like a general's cocked hat than a canoe!"

He turned half round to a man who stood near him against the log, busily trimming an oil lamp.

"Say, Sharrow," he said, "you're a river man. You know a thing or two about river craft. Tell us what's wrong with this Indian canoe that I've been trying to draw."

Eben Sharrow took the drawing that was handed to him and held it in his very dirty fingers. He shook his head.

"I don't just know," he answered. "Seems ter me as it's all of it wrong--wrong from start to finish. Thar' ain't anythin' right about it. I've seen kids in school doin' better pictures than that on their slates."

"Ah!" Sergeant Silk took the paper back. "I guessed you'd say something like that. I was always a lame hand at fancy work. Every man to his trade, eh? We can none of us do everything."

He folded the paper very slowly and precisely, as if it were of value. His boy companion noticed that as he did so he was paying curious regard to the greasy black finger marks which Eben Sharrow had left upon the clean, white surface.

Sharrow presently took up his lamp and strode away in the direction of one of the camp fires, around which a group of lumber-men stood or sat drying their wet clothes.

Percy Rapson watched the man walking awkwardly up the slope in his spiked boots.

"Sergeant?" he said.

"Well?"

"Why did you show your sketch to that lumber-jack? I'm sure you don't care a brass farthing for his opinion. And why are you so precious careful of the drawing, folding it so neatly and stowing it away in your pocket-book, as if it were a bank-note? It isn't worth preservin'."

Sergeant Silk slipped down from his perch on the log.

"That's so," he said. "It isn't worth preserving. But you may have noticed that I never throw bits of paper away. They make any place look so untidy."

Percy was thoughtfully silent for a while, but at length, when Silk turned to stroll up towards the camp, he said abruptly--

"I think I can guess what you did it for. It was a jolly 'cute trick of yours."

"A trick?"

"Yes," pursued Percy. "You made that drawing and invited Sharrow's criticism of it simply and solely to get him to take hold of a piece of white paper and leave his dirty finger marks on it. I believe you want to identify him with some chap who left finger-prints somewhere else. I've heard of that method of identification. It's said to be a dead sure way of telling one man from another."

"Yet I should say it is rather an uncertain method for any but experts to follow," the sergeant observed. "I shouldn't care to trust to it myself. Certainly I shouldn't venture to accuse any man of a serious crime on such flimsy evidence as a finger mark."

Rapson glanced at him curiously.

"That chap Ebenezer Sharrow doesn't look as if he could be guilty of committin' a serious crime," he ventured. "And yet I suppose you are here on his track."

"I did not say so," Silk returned sharply, reprovingly. "You appear to think that because I'm a policeman I must always be on some poor fellow's trail, hunting him down. Sharrow was personally a stranger to me until last night, when I met him for the first time in the bunkhouse."

"Then why did you go out of your way to get hold of his finger-print?" Percy insisted. "You never do anything without a reason."

Sergeant Silk did not answer him. Perhaps they were too near to the men about the drying fire for him to enter into explanations without risk of being overheard. Perhaps he had reasons for not wishing to explain.

He led the way into the circle and stood there, quietly rolling a cigarette while he casually glanced round at the men. They were all of the ordinary type of lumber-jack--grim-featured, keen-eyed, weather-beaten.

All wore thick woollen trousers stuffed into the tops of their knee boots, and their boots were furnished with formidable spikes to enable them to get secure foothold on the floating logs upon which they worked.

In their perilous climbing about the jammed tree trunks many of them had got wet through, and as they sat within the warmth of the fire the steam from their drying clothes mingled with the smoke from their tobacco pipes.

"Say, we was just talkin' 'bout you, Sergeant," said one of them as Silk bent over and took up a flaming twig.

"Indeed?" nodded the officer, puffing thoughtfully at his cigarette.

"Yep," went on the spokesman. "Andy O'Reilly thar' was kinder relievin' hisself of the opinion as you boys of the Mounted P'lice have got a whole lot too much power in your hands."

Sergeant Silk looked across at the man indicated.

"Y'see," said Andy O'Reilly, "you kin do pretty nigh anythin', an' you kin do it without waitin' for orders. Nobody durst hinder you. You kin enter any house you like, an' search it through an' through. You kin apprehend a man without a warrant. You've even got authority to kill. You've got all the power of the Russian secret police."

"Exactly," Silk acknowledged, seating himself on one of the logs and making room beside him for Percy Rapson. "I don't deny we have a very considerable amount of power, one way and another. But I guess, after all, it's for the ultimate good of the community. It's all in the interests of public security. What?"

"Just my argyment," declared the first speaker, rescuing a flagon of tea from the edge of the fire. "An' them as complains, they dunno what they're talkin' about. They'd have cause ter grumble supposin' that power was abused--if ever the wrong man was arrested or if the guilty one was ever allowed ter escape."

"As to that," rejoined Silk, "we are all liable to make mistakes. I have known a case or two of wrongful arrest, and I won't say that we have invariably succeeded in bringing criminals to justice. Some of them have escaped."

"Yes," resumed O'Reilly, "thar's no denyin' as some of 'em escape. With all your power and cleverness, you've let a-many of 'em slip through your fingers. Thar's was the business of Lost Horse Meadow was never cleared up. Thar's was the post-office robbery at Coyote Landing, which is still a mystery. And, say, wasn't it yourself that had that same job in hand? I kinder recollect hearin' your name mentioned."

"That is so," Sergeant Silk signified. "It happened two winters ago, and, as you say, it is still a mystery, and likely to remain one."

"Don't know as I ever heard tell of that story," said the man who had spoken first, pouring some hot tea into a gallipot. His name was Bob Wilson. He was foreman of a gang of lumber-jacks.

Percy Rapson noticed that Sergeant Silk again glanced slowly round the circle of fire-lit faces, and that his gaze lingered with curious, furtive scrutiny upon the face of Eben Sharrow.