King Spruce Part 35

on here that I don't understand the inside of up to now; but as for that young man, I picked him for square the first time I laid my eyes on him at Castonia. I've had him looked up by friends of mine outside, and now I know he's square. You can't break up our partnership by that kind of talk, Britt. Now own up! What's the n.i.g.g.e.r in the woodpile here, anyway?" The little man was still unbending, but his eyes snapped with curiosity.

But the Honorable Pulaski's shifty eyes dodged the inquiring stare of the Castonia man. The view down the tote road in the direction in which Nina Ide and Kate Arden had disappeared under convoy of Christopher Straight seemed to be a more welcome prospect than that frankly inquisitive face. And the view down the trail also suggested a safer topic for conversation.

"I believe in indulgin' a girl's whims, Rod, but this is a time when you've let yourself go too far. That lucivee[2] kitten that your daughter has lugged off home set this fire that we've been fightin' up here. She set it maliciously, in the face and eyes of Sheriff Rodliff and myself. She's the worst one of the whole lot, and as a plantation officer you know the Skeets and Bushees pretty well. Are you goin' to let your girl take a critter like that back home with her?" He noted a flicker of consternation in the little man's eyes. "Now, don't be a fool in this thing. Let a half-dozen men run after that girl and fetch her back. She don't belong in any decent home. John Barrett and I have arranged a plan to take care of her and keep her out of mischief."

[Footnote 2: Lynx, corruption of the French-Canadian name, _loup-cervier_.]

But again the timber magnate's eyes failed to meet the test of Ide's frank stare.

"I've known you a good many years, Pulaski," said he. "I've done a lot of business with you, and you can't fool me for a minute. You've been into a milk-pan, for I can see cream on your whiskers."

"I'm only warnin' you not to harbor such a criminal!" stormed the other.

His wrath slipped its leash once more. The presence of Dwight Wade, his very silence, seemed tacit proclamation of victory and the boast of it.

"The girl belongs back here, and we're goin' to have her back. If your men don't fetch her, mine will."

But Ide set his short legs astride a little more solidly.

"As first a.s.sessor of the nearest plantation, I can handle the State pauper business of these parts, and do it without help," he said.

"You mean that meddlin' girl of yours is runnin' it," taunted Britt.

In his heart the fond father realized the force of the taunt, and knew why he was blocking that trail so resolutely. A mother bear would have shown no more determination in closing the retreat of her cubs.

"If for any reason that I don't understand as yet you want the guardianship of that girl, Britt," he declared, "come down any time you want to and get your rights legally. But just now I'm tellin' you again that you and your men can't get past here. And if you do, you'll go with cracked heads."

And once more Pulaski D. Britt subst.i.tuted oaths for action.

Stamping back towards his men, he saw Tommy Eye squatting like a jack-rabbit on the top of the Durfy camp. That guileless marplot offered a fair target for his rage against the world in general.

"MacLeod," bawled Britt to the boss, who had not yet pulled himself together after that final flash of scorn from the eyes of Nina Ide, "pull that drunken loafer off that roof and yard the men back to camp!"

"I'm discharged out of your crew, Mr. Britt," squealed Tommy, a quaver of apprehensiveness in his voice. "I've discharged myself. I've told the truth about what you was tryin' to do. So I ain't fit for you to hire."

It was not the unconscious satire of the statement that put a wire edge on the Honorable Pulaski's temper. It was Tommy Eye's rebelliousness, displayed for the first time in a long life of utter subservience.

"You won't be fit for anything but bait for a bear-trap ten minutes after I get you back to camp," bellowed the tyrant. "MacLeod, get that man down!"

"Don't you want to hire a teamster, Mr. Ide?" bleated Tommy, crawfishing to the peak of the low roof. "You know what I be on twitchro'd, ramdown, or in a yard. You don't find my hosses calked or shoulder-galled." He hastened in nervous entreaty: "You hire me, Mr. Ide. I never had a team sluiced yet. You know what I can do in the woods."

The plaintiveness of the frightened man's appeal touched Wade. He realized the weight of misery this pathetic turncoat might expect thereafter at the hands of Britt and his crew of "Busters." MacLeod was advancing towards the ladder that conducted to the roof, his sullen face lighting with a certain amount of satisfaction. Wade put himself before the ladder.

"Hirin' men out from under isn't square woods style, Tommy," said Ide, shaking his head.

"That man isn't a slave," protested Wade. "He is the only man I've found in these woods with courage enough to stand up for what's right, Mr.

Ide. I don't believe in leaving him to those who are going to make him suffer for it."

"Up to now, you dude, you've done about everything that shouldn't be done in the woods!" cried Britt. "But there's one thing you can't do, and that's take a man out of my crew."

"It's an unwritten law, Wade," protested his partner. "It isn't square business to meddle with another operator's crew."

"When a case like this comes up, it's time to change the law, then,"

declared Wade, with savageness of his own, the menacing proximity of MacLeod acting on his anger like bellows on coals.

"I can't afford to be mixed into anything of the sort," persisted Ide.

"And n.o.body but a fool would try it, Rod. I've warned you to get rid of him. You can see for yourself now! He don't fit. He's protectin'

fire-bugs, standin' out against timber-owners' interests, and breaking every article in the code up here."

"And I'm likely to keep on breaking the kind of code that seems to go north of Castonia!" cried the young iconoclast. For a moment his flaming eyes dwelt on the face of the Honorable John Barrett, and that gentleman, who had been wondering just what shaft his own recalcitrancy would next draw from this champion of the oppressed, looked greatly perturbed. "Mr. Ide, do you forbid me to hire this man?"

"N-no," admitted his partner, rather grudgingly.

"Then you're hired, Eye." Wade looked up and answered the grat.i.tude in Tommy's eyes by a nod of encouragement. "Come down, my man, and get into our crew. You've acted man-fashion, and I'll back you up in it."

"Let it stand--let it stand as it is," whispered Barrett, huskily, clutching at the arm of Britt as that furious gentleman surged past him.

"If we tackle the young fool now he's apt to blab all he knows about me.

It's a ticklish place. Handle it easy."

"I'll handle it to suit myself!" stormed Britt, yanking himself loose.

"You set back there if you want to, and play dry nurse to your twins--your family scandal on one arm and your governor's boom on the other. But when it comes to my own crew and my private business, by the Lord Harry, I'll operate without your advice!"

He began to call on his men, rallying them with shrill cries. He ordered them to surround the camp and take the rebel. In the next breath he bade MacLeod to go up the ladder and pull Tommy down.

"Poet" Larry Gorman, who had been gradually edging near the spot which he had sagely picked as the probable core of conflict, set himself suddenly before Colin MacLeod as the boss advanced towards Wade with a look in his eye that was blood-l.u.s.t. MacLeod had a weather-beaten ash sled-stake.

"Sure, and a gent like him don't fight with clubs," said Gorman. "We've all heard about his lickin' ye once, and man-fashion, too! Now, go get your reputation. Start with me." The redoubtable bard poked his shillalah into MacLeod's breast and drove him suddenly back. At this overture of combat the men for Enchanted came up with a rush. They met the "Busters" face to face and eye to eye.

"We're all axe-t.o.s.s.e.rs together, boys!" cried Gorman. "Ye know me and you've sung my songs, and ye know there's no truer woodsman than me ever chased beans round a tin plate. Now, Britt's men, if ye want to fight to keep a free man a slave when he wants to chuck his job, then come and fight. But may the good saints put a cramp into the arm of the man that fights against the interests of woodsmen all together!"

Under most circ.u.mstances even such a cogent argument as this would not have stayed their hands. But coming from Larry Gorman, author of "Bushmen All," it made even the "Busters" stop and think a moment. And when MacLeod was first and only in renewing hostilities--obeying Britt's insistent commands--Gorman again held him off at the end of his bludgeon, and shouted:

"Oh, my c.o.c.k partridge, you're only brisk to get into the game because you're daffy over a girl. You'd wipe your feet on Tommy Eye or any other honest woodsman to polish your shoes for the courtin' of her."

It was a taunt whose point the "Busters" realized and relished. It was even more forceful than Larry's first appeal. Some of the men grinned.

All held back. But for MacLeod it was the provocation unforgivable. He drew back his arm and swept his stake at Larry's head. That master of stick-play warded and leaped back nimbly.

"Fair, now! Fair!" he cried. "They're all lookin' at us, and there can't be dirty work." Gorman's face glowed, for he had won his point. His wit had balked a general combat. His ma.s.sing fellows had tacitly selected him as their champion. He had put the thing on a plane where the "Busters" were a bit ashamed to take part. They turned their backs on Britt in order to watch the duellists more intently. They knew that Larry Gorman was vain of two things--his songs and his stick-swinging.

"What say ye to waitin' till your shoulder ain't so stiff?" he inquired, with pointed reference to the injury MacLeod had received at the hands of Wade. His mock condolence p.r.i.c.ked Colin to frenzy. He drove so vicious a blow at the bard that when the latter side-stepped the boss staggered against the side of the camp.

"But sure I can make it even," said Larry, facing him again without discomposure; "for I'll sing a bit of song for you to dance by."

The merry insolence of this brought a hoa.r.s.e hoot of delight from both sides. And pressing upon his foe so actively that the crippled MacLeod was put to his utmost to ward thwacks off his head and shoulders, this sprightly Cyrano of the kingdom of spruce carolled after this fashion:

"Come, all ye good shillaly men.

Come, lis-ten unto me: Old Watson made a walkin'-cane, And used a popple-tree.

The k.n.o.b it were a rouser-- A rouser, so 'twas said-- And when ye sa.s.sed old Watson He would knock ye on the head."

MacLeod got a tap that made his eyes shut like the snap of a patent cigar-cutter.