King Spruce Part 29

--_Ha'nt of Pamola._

John Barrett, millionaire, realized rather vaguely that he had left something on the bald poll of Jerusalem k.n.o.b. It was after he had grasped Dwight Wade's hand, both of them standing shelterless under the skies, the welcome rains beating into their faces.

John Barrett, millionaire, stumbling weariedly to shelter at the foot of Jerusalem k.n.o.b, having left something in that upper vastness where soul forgot the petty things, realized--vaguely again--that he had found what he had left. The Honorable Pulaski D. Britt seemed to pa.s.s it to him in a hand-clasp.

On Jerusalem, John Barrett had left much of his insolence, more of his selfishness, and all of his vindictiveness. Dwight Wade, generous in his own triumph, had shamed the baser feelings out of him. And yet that new poise of a sincerer manliness seemed to be charmed away suddenly by the mere touch of Pulaski Britt's big hand. That hand represented the brutal tyranny of the barons of the woods. It was thrust out in welcome over the threshold of the w.a.n.gan camp, and Britt hauled in his fellow-baron with boisterous greeting.

"It's been h.e.l.l for all of us, John, but I reckon you've been in the hottest corner of it if what they tell me is true. I didn't have time to ask for any details, not with that infernal fire on my hands, but it isn't the first time that rascals have poked up fools in these woods to pay off old grudges against timber-land owners. I've hit back hard a few times myself. This time we'll hit hard enough to teach 'em a lesson that will stick awhile." He put his head out of the door and yelled an order to the cook.

"It--it may not be best to push things too hard," faltered Barrett, spreading his wet, blue hands to the blaze of the Franklin stove.

"Things have come up that--"

"They've tried the same bluff on me," bl.u.s.tered the host. "They loaded old Lane up with threats of what he'd do. It's all conspiracy and blackmail. There's more behind it than we realize now. But we'll dig 'em out, Barrett. We've got to smash the whole thing now or they'll have us on the run. I didn't suppose Barnum Withee was the kind of man to work out a grudge the way he did, but it shows us the danger in bein' too easy with any of 'em. Old Lane is only crazy. It's this Wade we want to bang the hardest. I'll tell you what I believe, John. I'll bet cents to saw-logs he's been hired to come up here and start a rebellion. There are interests in this State that will do it. By Judas, in twenty-four hours I'll show 'em!"

The tacit partnership of honorable reparation bound by hand-clasp on Jerusalem had not the elements to make it endure in Pulaski Britt's domains, with Pulaski Britt to sound his old-time rallying call of greed and tyranny. That earlier partnership, sealed by the arms f Old King Spruce, had never been dissolved, and Barrett was once more becoming "Stumpage John," cold and hard and calculating.

"Look here, Pulaski," he blurted out, in sudden confidence, "there's a little more to this than you understand just now. I'm in a devil of a position. I--I--" He hesitated, staring into the fire and waving his hands slowly in the steam that rose from his sodden garments.

"I haven't done just right, I suppose, but there are reasons why, that a man like you will understand. I just left that Wade fellow up on the top of Jerusalem. We've had a talk. He didn't understand very well."

"Did he offer to trade something for the sake of gettin' that daughter of yours that he's in love with?" demanded Britt, maliciously.

"I don't know," confessed the other. "I'm under obligations to him, Pulaski. He cut me loose from a tree to-day in Pogey Notch. In another ten minutes the fire would have got me."

"Great Jehosaphat!" exploded the host. "Tried to kill you! A timber grudge carried that far!" He stamped about the little camp. His face wrinkled with apprehension and fury. He had a sudden vivid mind-picture of his own reign of tyranny, and realized that if John Barrett had been attacked, Pulaski Britt had more reason to fear. "It's a call for a lynchin', John," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "And I've got a crew that will do it."

"It was Lane that tied me--the fire-station warden," Barrett went on.

"And Withee turned you over to him, knowin' he'd do it!" stormed the baron. "His men blabbed it that Lane had taken you. Withee, Wade--we'll clean out the whole coop of 'em!"

But John Barrett did not seem to warm up to this plan of vengeance. He still kept his eyes on the fire. His shoulders were hunched forward with something of abjectness in their droop.

"You haven't got some whiskey handy, have you, Pulaski?" he asked, plaintively. "I don't feel well. I've had an awful night and day."

Britt brought the liquor from a cupboard, cursing soulfully and urging vengeance. But after Barrett drank from the pannikin he leaned his face to the blaze again and broke upon the Honorable Pulaski's vicious monologue.

"I've told the wrong end first--but there are some things easier to say than others. It was Linus Lane who tied me to that tree and left me to die there, but"--Barrett rolled his head sideways and gave Britt a queer glance from his eye-corners--"did you ever see my daughter Elva, Pulaski?"

Britt blinked as though trying to understand this sudden shifting of topic, and wagged slow nod of a.s.sent.

"Have you ever seen that girl of the Skeet settlement--the one that doesn't belong to them?" Barrett half choked over the question.

"Have I seen her?" roared the Honorable Pulaski, no longer paying attention to incongruity of questions. "Why, that's the draggle-tailed lightnin'-bug that set this fire that we've been fightin' for forty-eight hours, and that only this rain stopped from bein' a fifty-thousand-acre crown-fire! Have I seen her! I was there when she set it, and only the grace o' G.o.d and that Wade's fist saved her from bein' shot, and shot by me! I would have killed her like I'd kill a quill-pig!"

Barrett did not look up from the fire.

"Then you've seen both those girls, you say? I haven't seen this one in the woods here. But this Wade told me to-day that they very much resemble each other. He has heard some gossip and is making threats. He seems to think I ought to take the girl and care for her."

Britt began a bitter diatribe, coupling the name of Wade and the girl as examples of all that is inimical to timber interests and timber owners--but he checked himself suddenly as soon as his native shrewdness mastered his pa.s.sion. A flicker in his eyes showed that a light had burst upon his mind. He strode back and forth behind Barrett's stool, and gazed down upon the stumpage king's bent back.

"Look here, John," he demanded, bluffly, at last, "was there any truth in the story that was limpin' round in these woods about you almost twenty years ago? There was a woman in it--somebody's wife. I've forgotten who."

"It was Lane's wife," admitted Barrett, finding confession good for the soul of one who stood bitterly in need of practical advice--and Pulaski Britt was nothing if not practical. "I was up here prospecting, and she was bound to follow me up to camp, and I was infernal fool enough to let her. And when it came time for me to go out of the woods I couldn't take her--you can see that for yourself! I thought I had provided for her--I would have done it, but she dropped out of sight, and I couldn't go hunting around and stirring up gossip. Same way about the child."

"Young one has had a nice, genteel bringin'-up," remarked the Honorable Pulaski, sarcastically. Hard though his nature was, he had the sincerity of the woods, and he felt sudden contempt for this man who had uprooted for one brief sniff of its perfume a woods blossom that he could not wear.

"I didn't realize it until Lane told me at Withee's camp. I had hoped she had fallen into good hands. It's a devil of a position to be in,"

the other mourned, returning to his prior lament.

"Well," remarked Britt, inexorably, "you can't exactly complain because you are now gettin' only a little of what Lane and the girl have been gettin' a whole lot of all these years. It ain't any use to whine to me, John. I don't pity you much. I've been hard with men, but, by Cephas, I've never been soft with women! It don't pay."

"It seems as though you ought to be willin' to advise me a little,"

pleaded Barrett. "I'm ready to do what I can for the girl, now that I've found out about her. But Lane insisted on my taking her out with me and declaring her to the world as my daughter. And when I refused he tied me to the tree."

"Oh, ho! It wasn't just for the old original revenge, then?" queried Pulaski, his expression indicating a more charitable view of "Ladder"

Lane's a.s.sault on the vested timber interests as represented by Stumpage John Barrett. "Well, if the girl is your young one she ought to have a chance!"

In his turn, Barrett got up and paced the floor. "Such a thing would kill my chances of being the next governor of this State, and you and the whole timber crowd have got a lot at stake there."

"Well, I've got to admit, havin' played politics myself somewhat," said Britt, unconsolingly, "that a quiet little frost of scandal will nip off a budding leaf that a wind like this wouldn't start."

He tapped the frame of the chattering window. In the hush of their voices they heard the wind volleying through the trees and roaring high overhead among the black clouds. Night had fallen. The crew had long before finished supper, and the cook had twice summoned the inattentive two in the w.a.n.gan to a second table spread more sumptuously.

"And what kind of a trade is it your friend Wade wants to make with you?" inquired Britt. "Takin' the thing by and large, you must be in for a prime hold-up. If he should say, 'Your daughter or your life--political life!'--I reckon you'd have to change your mind about his qualifications as a son-in-law, wouldn't you?" He eyed Barrett keenly and heard his oaths with relish. "You see," persisted the host, "though old Lane is probably out of this for good, after trying to kill you, and you can handle Barnum Withee and the rest of these woods cattle in one way or another, this Wade chap is sittin' across from you with about every trump in the deck under his thumb. What does he say he wants?"

"He doesn't say," muttered Barrett. "He hasn't asked for anything. He's thinking it over."

"It's the cat and the mouse, and him the cat!" suggested the Honorable Pulaski, with manifest intent to irritate. "I should have most thought you would have thrown your arms around his neck after your rescue and yelled in his ear: 'My daughter is yours, n.o.ble man! Take her and my money, and live happy ever after!' These fellows that write novels always have 'em do that sort of thing--and the novel-writers ought to know!"

"There's no novel about this thing!" retorted Barrett, angrily. "My girl knows whom she is expected to marry--and she'll marry him when the right time comes. And it won't be a college dude without one dollar to rub against another! I'm in a devil of a hole, Pulaski, but do you think for one minute that I'm going to let that Wade make a slip-noose of this thing and hang me up with my heels kicking air? I'll either choke him with thousand-dollar bills, or--or--"

He glanced at Britt and forbore to finish the sentence.

The door opened just then and Tommy Eye, teamster, poked in his grizzled head.

"Cook has lost his voice hollerin' 'Beans!' gents," he reported, and Britt whirled on his heel and led the way out.

"After supper, after supper, John!" he snapped, testily, when the other repeated his plea for advice. "We'll come back here and find a plan blossoming in our cigar smoke." They hurried away to the cook-camp, bending against the rush of the wind. "Put some wood on that fire, Tommy," Britt called over his shoulder.

With the scent of the inebriate, Tommy had sniffed whiskey when he opened the camp door; his drunkard's eye caressed the bottle that the Honorable Pulaski had forgotten to replace in the cupboard. He stood dusting from his sleeves the bark litter of the wood he had brought and softly snuffled the moisture at the corners of his mouth as he gazed.

One wild impulse suggested that he take the bottle and run into the woods.

"No," said Tommy, aloud, in order that his voice might brace his determination. "It would be stealin', and, bless G.o.d, Tommy Eye never stole when he was sober. I may have stole when I was drunk and didn't know it, but I never stole when I was sober." He paused. "I wish I wasn't sober," he sighed. He took up the bottle, turned it in his grimy hands, gustfully studied the streakings of its oil on the gla.s.s, and at last sniffed at the open mouth. "Ah-h-h-h, rich men have the best, and they have plenty. Some people don't think it is wrong to steal from rich men. I do. But if he was here he'd probably say: 'Tommy, you have brought the wood--you have mended the fire. It is a cold night, and sure the wind is awful! Tommy, take one drink with me and work the harder for P'laski Britt on the morrer.'"

He took the bottle away from his nose, stared at the window's black outline, listened to the clattering frame, and muttered, again sighing: "Sure and them wor-rds don't sound just like the wor-rds that P'laski Britt would say, but in a night like this it isn't always easy to hear aright. I wouldn't steal--but I'll dream I heard him say 'em. 'One drink, Tommy,' I hear him say."

He set the bottle to his lips, tipped it, closed his eyes, and drank until at last, breathless and choking, he felt the bottle suck dry.