Part 10

"Get a sleigh and haul him into camp," he ordered. Laviolette, mad with excitement, tried to break away. Joe gripped the teamster by the throat and shook him violently, despite a grinding pain in his side which made the forest swim. "Do you hear me, damn you?" he thundered. "A sleigh, I say, or----" His fingers tightened.

"Sure, sure," croaked the teamster. "_Oui, m'sieu!_ Mo' Gee, I choke!"

Joe released him and bent over MacNutt. Suddenly the world grew black and he pitched down head foremost beside his foreman. Thus neither of them saw the finish of McCane's camp.

The gang roared through the woods and stormed the camp like demons. McCane's cook, game enough, grabbed an axe. Instantly an iron pot, thrown with full force, sailed through the air and broke his right arm. The cookee emerged from the bunk-house with a gun in his hand and found himself face to face with Cooley. He levelled the weapon. The big riverman grinned at him.

"Put it down an' ye won't be hurted," he said. "Shoot, an' the boys will burn ye alive."

There was no mistaking the temper of the gang, and the cookee wisely did as he was told. The men raided the van and broached a barrel of kerosene oil. They threw the contents by the pailful inside the buildings.

"Here she goes to hell!" shouted big Cooley as he struck a match.

The light blue flames ran up the oil-soaked wood and took hold. It began to crackle and then to roar. Outside, Kent's crew danced with glee. Some one found a keg of whiskey. Regan smashed in one end and upset the contents on the snow.

"No booze," said he. "This is no work to get drunk at."

From a neighbouring knoll most of McCane's crew looked on with curses loud and deep, but they had no collective stomach for further warfare just then. When nothing but charred end-logs and glowing coals remained, Kent's men tramped off through the deep snows shouting gibes and taunts at their enemies. Their vengeance had been ample and satisfying.

XIV

MacNutt was able to boss the job on the following day; but Kent was less fortunate. Pains in side and head attacked him, what of the pounding he had received. After waiting a couple of days for them to disappear, with a healthy man's confidence in his own recuperative powers, he was driven back to Maguire's, where he took train for Falls City. There his injured side was strapped and he was ordered complete rest and quiet.

Early in the winter, because he was alone in the world, he had leased his house and moved to an apartment building. This now seemed to him about as cheerful as a prison. He longed for human companionship of some sort, and he would have disobeyed his doctor's orders and gone out in search of it, but for the fact that his face, covered with bruises, would have attracted attention. But in the afternoon of his first day's confinement came William Crooks and Miss Jack.

That young lady took charge of the situation with calm capacity.

"Now, Joe," she said, "you're coming up to the house until you're well. Doctor's orders. So tell me what things you want and I'll pack them for you."

"I couldn't think of troubling you," he protested. "I'm not sick, you know. Just a cracked rib and a jolt on the head. I feel all right, really."

"You do as you're told," she replied. She began to pull out the drawers of his chiffonier. "What a mess your things are in! Nothing where it ought to be. Where _do_ you keep your pajamas? Dad, look in that closet for his suit case."

"This is kidnapping," said Joe.

"Call it what you like," chuckled Crooks. "Do as Jack tells you and quit kicking. _I_ have to." He brought out a suit case and a deep club bag. "Fire in what you think he needs, Jack."

Joe watched uneasily her selection of articles supposedly indispensable to his comfort, and gave in.

"Hold on, Jack, or else get a trunk. Let me show you, if I have to go."

"That's better," said Crooks. He paused and regarded Joe critically. "Well, you did get a pounding. Did the whole crew jump on your face?"

"It felt that way at the time," said Joe, "but you ought to see Finn Clancy's." He told the story of the fight briefly, making little mention of his own part in it. "So you see I was out of the fun at the wind-up," he concluded.

"Too bad," said Crooks with a sympathy born of personal experience. "There will be trouble over that, though. They'll call it contempt of court, and malicious destruction, and the Lord and Locke only know what else."

This prophecy proved to be correct. As soon as he could be located writs, summonses, and orders to appear and show cause showered on Joe. These passed on to Locke, who secured delay by physicians' certificates, affidavits, motions--all the methods by which the experienced attorney can clog the slowly moving wheels of the law.

Meanwhile Joe nursed his knitting ribs and rested completely. Jack established an invisible wall about him through which no business affairs penetrated.

"Dad and Mr. Wright can look after things for a week or two," she explained. "Mr. Locke says you needn't worry about law matters. Everything at the camps is going well. So, young man, you just make yourself comfortable and be lazy. That's your job for the present."

When a few days had accustomed him to inaction it proved to be a very pleasant job. He developed an unsuspected capacity for sleep. This meant the restorage of his nerve cells. The pains in his head lessened and ceased, and the bruised flesh gradually assumed a normal hue.

His favourite place was Jack's den. There was a bow window with a south exposure, and in the recess stood a huge easy-chair. Joe lay in it and absorbed sunshine, for the days were warming and lengthening, and stared up into the blue sky dotted with little white-wool clouds, or watched Jack, who had made the den her workroom. He found the latter pursuit the more entertaining.

Jack affected white, with a superb disregard of laundry bills. It set off her lithe, straight figure, the small uplifted head with the abundant coils of dark hair, and the pretty piquant face with the firm yet tender mouth. From top to toe she was spotless and neat and trim and dainty. Her conversation was a tonic in itself. She was direct of speech, frank, and often slangy when slang best expressed her meaning. There were many odd "characters" dependent upon the open-handed bounty of William Crooks, and from them she had heard strange philosophies born of twisted lives, odd expressions which occasionally crept into her speech, and scraps of forgotten song. She had listened by the hour to old Micky Keeliher who tended the garden; to the widowed Mrs. Quilty who came once a week to do the washing; to crippled Angus McDougal, once a mighty riverman, whose strength had departed, and to a dozen others. Not one of them but would have died for William Crooks's daughter. To her they sang the songs of their youth in cracked, quavering voices; for her they unlocked the storehouses of their experience and gave of it freely. She absorbed their songs, their sayings, their tales; and as nearly as her youth would permit she understood their viewpoint of life.

Joe, buried in his chosen chair, listened to the queer tunes she lilted--tunes which had stirred the hearts of by-gone generations in other lands--and by turns stared at the bright out-of-doors and slept. And Jack, on her part, felt a strange happiness, as if the room held all that was best and most to be desired. She did not analyze the feeling; she was content that it was hers. Bending over her sewing one bright afternoon during the last days of Joe's convalescence she crooned:

"Is it far away ye're goin', Danny, dear? Is it lavin' me ye arre, widout a tear? Sure the ship's white sails is swellin', But it's this to ye I'm tellin'-- Ye shall love an' seek me out widin the year,

"By the spell that's laid upon ye ye shall come agin to me, The dear, bould, handsome head of ye shall drop upon me knee. While ye sleep or while ye wake, It's the heart of ye shall ache Wid love o' that poor weepin' gyurl ye left beside the sea!"

"That's a cheerful song," said Joe ironically from his chair. "Did he come back?"

"Of course," laughed Jack. "Unfortunately, he died as his head touched her knee, and naturally she was inconsolable. Like to hear her lament?" She drew her face into lines of sorrow and threw back her head in a preliminary wail, as a dog howls.

E-e-yah-h-h! Oh, why did he die? Oh-h-h-h, why did----

"Stop!" cried Joe. "Look here, Jack, remember I'm an interesting invalid. I want something cheerful."

"Well, that _is_ comparatively cheerful. Now, if I sang you a real Hielan' lament----"

"Don't you dare," Joe interrupted. "I am still far from strong."

Jack laughed. "You smoked yesterday. Doctor Eberts says that a man who can enjoy a smoke is well enough to work."

"Good for the doc!" cried Joe. "Me for the office and then back to the woods. Hooray!"

"Not for a day or two," said Jack. "Things are going all right. You keep quiet."

Joe sank back in his chair. "I suppose so, but--well, I want to look after them myself." Far off against the blue sky a wedge of black specks bored through space, swinging off beyond the limits of the town. "Look, Jack! The first geese going north. That means the end of winter and open water. We'll start our drives in a few weeks."

"Yes, Joe." She perched on the arm of the big chair and stared after the birds, her face clouded with discontent. "That's life, and you can live it. Oh, heavens! Why wasn't I a boy? I'd love it so. I want to go up to the camps and see the rollways broken out and the banking grounds emptied. I want to wear spiked boots and ride a stick in white water and use a peavey. I want to come back to the wanegan at night, and eat and dry off by a big fire and sleep out of doors. I want--don't you dare to laugh at me, Joe Kent--I want to come into town with the bully-boys, with a hat pulled down over my eyes and a cigar in my mouth sticking up at an angle, and sing 'Jimmy Judge,' and 'From Far Temiskamang.' I want"--she faced him defiantly--"I want to ride up town in a hack--_with my feet out of the window!_ Yes, I do. And now tell me you are shocked."

"I might be if I saw you do it," said Joe. "I've felt the same way myself--like breaking loose from everything. If you were a man you wouldn't, though. Only the shanty boys tear off these stunts. _We_ can't."

"All very well for you to talk--you could if you wanted to," said Jack disconsolately. "I'm a girl. I can't even go up to the camps unless dad takes me." She voiced her grievance again. "I wish I had been a boy."

She turned to the window and stared out. Joe rose and stood beside her, looking down at the burnished brown of her hair and the soft profile of her cheek. Once more the nameless thrill he had felt before when he had touched her hand possessed him. Hesitatingly, awkwardly, impelled by something which was not of his own volition, he put his arm around her. Instantly, as if a curtain had been rolled up--as if a screen had been withdrawn--he saw his own mind clearly.

Why, he loved her!

It came to him with a shock of utter amazement. Little Jack Crooks, his playmate, his friend, his confidant, the girl he had looked at so long with unseeing eyes--she, she was the only woman in the wide world for him. She had always been the only one. Edith Garwood? Pshaw! How could he have been so blind? Not all her radiant beauty and deceptive sweetness could compare with straight, loyal, little Jack, his chum and his love.

She seemed unconscious of his arm until he spoke her name. Then she turned her head slowly and her dark eyes looked directly into his. What she saw there brought the red to her cheeks in a wave. Up and up the telltale crimson tide leaped to her brow, to the roots of her glossy brown hair, but her gaze did not waver.

"Should you, Joe?" she asked simply.

Stumblingly, humbly he told her, and she listened, nestling in his arms as one who has found her own place. And so, when bluff old William Crooks came home, he found them sitting in the twilight, planning wonderful things. Joe put the situation simply.

"Jack has consented to marry me, sir."

William Crooks stared at him and then at his daughter.

"Fact, dad," she confirmed.

"Well, I'll be--" began Crooks out of his unbounded astonishment.

She put her hand over his lips. "I hope not, dad."

"Well, you take a man unawares," growled Crooks. "How long has this been going on?"

"About two hours, I think," said Joe happily.

"Oh," said Crooks; "I was afraid you had been holding out on me. You're sure about this, I suppose?"

They were very sure.

"Well," said Crooks judicially, "I don't know any young fellow I'd rather give Jack to, Joe. Shake hands, you robber. But, mind you, you've got to put your business on its feet before you marry her."

"I'll do it," Joe promised.

"Of course he will," Jack asserted with perfect faith.

Bill Crooks regarded them wistfully. In their youth and hope he saw his own. He thought of a far day when he and a girl had faced the world together, determined to wring from it success. The success had come, but the woman of his heart no longer shared it with him. Suddenly he felt old and lonely. He roused himself with a sigh and a shake of his big shoulders. No one, not even his daughter, suspected old Bill Crooks of sentiment. His thoughts were his own.

XV

Joe Kent tore himself away from his new happiness, visited Tobin's and Deever's camps, spent a few days at each, and wound up at Wind River. The banking grounds were full--great piles of timber stretching along the water's edge waiting the going of the ice. The winter roads were failing fast and the last logs were coming out the woods in half loads. Most of the hauling was done by night, for then the roads hardened with frost. By day the air was mild and the depth of snow sank sensibly. Then came the first rain of the season, destroying the roads utterly.

All the men, save the driving crew, were paid off. Since a lumber camp is a self-contained community including a store or "van" at which the hands purchase most of their simple necessaries, paying off involves an adjustment of accounts, A lumber jack seldom keeps a record of his purchases, and is thus dependent upon the honesty of his employer's bookkeeping. The custom is to run rapidly over the account of each man in his presence. If he remembers the purchases and is satisfied, as he is in the majority of cases, well and good. If he does not remember or is not satisfied after reasonable explanation he is tendered a check and told to see a lawyer. But there have been logging firms who have robbed their men shamelessly.

"Jack," one employer is alleged to have said, "you remember that pair of socks you got in December?"

Jack, after an effort, remembered.

"That's one pair," said the employer, and went on rapidly. "And you remember the pair you didn't get in January--that's two pairs." And Jack agreed. Keener men have been flimflammed by much the same formula.

But, on the whole, the men get a square deal, few employers being small enough to charge excessive prices for supplies, much less to make fictitious entries against them. There was no dissatisfaction among Kent's men. Differences of opinion never reached the point of absolute assertion.

"Well, Billy," MacNutt would say, "there's the entry in our books made at the time. If you say flat you didn't get the goods we'll let it go, because we know you're a straight man, and think you're right. But if you just say you don't remember, why, then, our books show we do."

This unusual but effective system had been installed by William Kent and worked like a charm. Seldom did a man, having it put up to him in that way, flatly contradict the books. And then it prevented all friction.

After the surplus men had been paid off, the weather hardened. A bitter wind held in the north by day; the nights were still, clear, and cold. Ice actually made and thickened in the river.

It was unheard-of. Each morning the rivermen rose, cocked wise eyes at the sky, and cursed the weather. Each night they sat around the stove, for the cold was penetrating.

"It's the qualified adjective moon," said Cooley. "The weather will break when she changes."

"She'll break when she gets ready," said Jackson. "This will make a late drive."

"But high water when it does come," said another.

Joe Kent took to looking into the sleeping camp for an hour or so each night. He had brought a banjo with him, and he exhausted his song repertory. The men enjoyed it thoroughly. It was, perhaps, bad for discipline, but it developed a feeling of comradeship. His authority was not in danger, for they had seen him hold his own against the redoubtable Mike Callahan, who was a dangerous fighter; and he had also bested big Finn Clancy, who had whipped many a good man in his day.

Suddenly the weather changed. One morning a southerly wind and a cloudy sky greeted them; by noon there was a warm rain slashing against the earth; at night mists and fog hung everywhere.

"She breaks up this time," said Cooley, who was engaged in saturating his driving boots with oil and hot tallow, not with intent to keep his feet dry, but to preserve the leather.

"An' time it is," said Regan, busy with a file at the inch spikes which studded the soles of his footgear. "She's a fortnight later nor she should be."

This was so, but it had caused Joe little uneasiness, for his margin seemed ample. His plan was to drive the Wind River cut down the Wind to the Mattawagan. Tobin and Deever would drive down the Missabini to the latter stream. The drives would unite at McColl's Sney, where the main drive would be formed. Thence it would proceed down that great water artery past Falls City to Wismer & Holden's booms. It was all very simple--on paper.

But it took a week for the ice to move in the Wind. The driving crew chafed and cursed, for they regarded Kent's interests as their own, and they longed to feel a rocking log beneath their feet once more. When the ice finally moved they attacked the rollways with fury, and the huge piles of great sticks cascaded thunderously into the water like huge amphibians. At that point the river was deep and had little current. Therefore the logs strung out slowly and in an orderly manner with a dignity befitting their weight and age.

When the drive began to string with the slow current, MacNutt sent part of the crew downstream to keep the logs moving and prevent jams. The remainder divided and strung along either bank, releasing such sticks as grounded in the shallows or caught in the "sweepers" from the banks.

Last of all came the "wanegan," also known as the "sweep." This was a long, heavy, flat bottomed scow, of primitive but enormously strong construction. It was the base of supplies for the driving crew. It held tents, provisions, clothing, and tools, and it was manned by the cook, cookees, and blacksmith. For propulsion it possessed long sweeps; but since it had merely to keep pace with the logs and the logs moved no faster than the current, these were used only for guidance. In slow water the life of its crew by day was one of dreamy, idyllic ease; but in fast water this condition was reversed. The scow was big, heavy, and unwieldly. It refused to be guided, checked or restrained; it bumped malevolently against boulders, grounded on sandbars, scraped its crew against overhanging limbs, and dragged them, cursing, into the water when they tried to line it down a fast, obstructed current.

For the first few days they always endeavoured to control their craft; after that they let it go and trusted to luck, clinging perfunctorily to the sweeps and damning the grinning rivermen who shouted sarcastic comment and advice from the banks and solitary logs.

At night the crew sought the wanegan and ate voraciously. They were always wet to the waist and often to the ears. They changed and dried their soaked clothing on pole racks by roaring fires, smoked, and slept in little tents pitched ready for them. Before the first light they had breakfasted, and they stepped into ice water in the gray dawn. But with it they were happy and contented, for the drive was the crowning glory of the year.

The drive made average progress. There were small jams, easily broken, minor delays which always occur, but both MacNutt and Joe were pleased.

"The late opening won't matter," said the former as they spread their blankets in the little wedge tent. "The head will hit the first dam to-morrow, sometime. We ought to sluice her through inside two days. Then there's the second dam. If we have luck we'll tie into the main drive pretty near on time. The others'll be about as late as we are."

"I hope so," said Joe. "We don't want to hang up anywhere. I suppose McCane's drive will be out of our way?"

"Sure to ---- unless he jams somewhere," said MacNutt. "Lebret Creek is faster than the Wind and opens earlier. It's good drivin'. He ought to be through the second dam by now."

Lebret Creek joined the Wind above the second dam. They were then some twenty-five miles from the confluence, and four miles above the first dam.

The day broke clear and splendid. Joe and MacNutt set off down stream for the dam half an hour behind a dozen of the crew. They cut through the woods across a three-mile bend of the stream and came suddenly upon it again.

"By the G. jumping Jasper!" cried MacNutt.

The river seemed to have shrunk. Logs lay along the banks, were caught in shallows, rocked in the feeble current. As far as the eye could reach stretched the shaggy backs of the brown herd, motionless or nearly so. The ancient bed of the stream appeared as it had been before the dams were built--a flat, rocky bottom over which a foot or so of water brawled noisily and ineffectively, utterly useless from the standpoint of a logger. The drive was plugged for want of water.

A man appeared through the trees. He was running. "Dam's gone out!" he shouted as he came within hailing distance.

Joe and the foreman looked at each other. There was no need to put the single thought into words.

"Come on," said Joe briefly, and broke into a trot.

They found the men gathered by the remnants of the dam. The wings of the structures sagged forlornly, and through the wrecked centre the stream poured over a rocky bed. The debris had been swept downstream by the rush of released water, and the ruin was beautifully complete. The cause of its going out must remain speculation merely.

"What's the best thing to do?" Joe asked MacNutt.

"Ward," said MacNutt, "you hike. Bring every man here, a-jumping. Load up a peakie with tools, blocks and tackle and dynamite and run her down river somehow. Load up another with tents, blankets, and grub, and tell the cook to bring her down. Camp is here till we move the logs. Get a move on you, now!"

"There's only one thing to do," he continued to Kent. "The dam has got to be put in again. There's no fall to speak of, and four foot of water will float the best part of the logs. The rest we'll have to sack out. It means a week, but we can't help it."

Regan, who after examining the wreck narrowly had taken to the bank, appeared above them. He carried a piece of timber, twisted and riven. This he dumped down before the boss.

"Found her back in the brush," said he. "They used powder. I knowed that dam never went out by herself."

"The infernal scoundrels!" said Joe.

Regan looked at him hopefully. "I seen an Injun yesterday. He says McCane's drive is jammed near the mouth of Lebret. Say the word, boss, an' we'll mosey over an' half murder every mother's son of them!"

"Thank you, Regan, but I can't say it," said Joe. "I have to get these logs out. If I don't get them I bust. Tell the boys that."