Lost Farm Camp Part 14

"He said that, did he?" Harrigan's heavy brows drew together. Smeaton nodded. Harrigan spat on the glowing stove viciously. "Things at the 'Wing' ain't runnin' jest to suit me. Barney's been boss there just three years too long. He's sufferin' fur a new job, and he'll get it."

Then he turned to Smeaton. "Joe, you can take charge at the 'Wing' in the mornin'."

Early next day Fisty and Joe Smeaton drove over to Axel's camp. They found him in the woods, hard at it with his men, as usual. The "Wing"

was the best-managed camp at Nine-Fifteen.

"Barney," said Harrigan, taking him to one side, "I'm thinkin' you'd like a better job."

"Ain't got no kick, Denny," said Axel, eyeing Smeaton suspiciously.

"You've been foreman here for three years. I'm thinkin' you'd like a change-to a better payin' job."

"Well, if it's more pay-I would that," said Axel. "What's the job?"

Harrigan stepped close to him. "It's lookin' fur another one," he said.

"You kin go!"

A wolfish grin twisted Axel's lips and Harrigan reached for his hip-pocket; but, disregarding him, the discharged foreman leaped to Smeaton and planted a smashing blow in his face. "That's one I owe you, Joe. Stand up ag'in and I'll pay the whole 'count and int'rest."

Smeaton, on his knees, the blood dripping from his mouth and nose, spat out curses and incidentally a tooth or two, but he refused to stand up.

Harrigan had drawn his gun and stood swinging it gently, and suggestively. Axel swung round and faced him, his eyes contemptuous as they rested on the blue gleam of the Colt.

"Got any fust-cla.s.s reason for firin' me so almighty fast?" he asked quietly.

"No," said Harrigan, "'cept I'm t'rough wid you."

"Don't be so ram-dam sure of that, Mr. Denny Harrigan," he said, turning his back and going for his mackinaw, which was down the road near the men.

Smeaton looked up and saw the gun in Harrigan's hand. He arose and walked quietly toward his boss, who was still watching Axel. Fisty felt the gun jerked from his grip, and before he could even call out, the big .44 roared close to his ear and he saw Axel's shirt-sleeve twitch, a second before he leaped behind a spruce for protection.

Smeaton flung the gun from him and ran toward the shanty, as the men came up from here, there, and everywhere. The shot had been too near them to pa.s.s unnoticed.

Harrigan recovered the Colt and slid it in his pocket, as Axel came from behind the tree, white, but eyes burning.

"It's all right, boys," he shouted. "Went off by accident. n.o.body's goin' to get shot."

They picked their steps back through the heavy snow, one "Pug" Enderly grunting to his companion, "Dam' a man that'll carry a gun, anyhow."

"Keep your hands easy, Denny Harrigan," said Axel. "I got a better way to get even with you, and you knows it."

Harrigan fingered the b.u.t.t of the Colt in his pocket. So Barney was going to peach about-no, he couldn't prove anything about Ross and the Indian, but he did know too much about a certain find on Lost Farm tract. Harrigan snarled as he realized that Axel held the whip-hand.

He jerked the gun from his pocket, murder gleaming in his agate-blue eyes.

"Now, you git, quick!" he snapped, leveling the short, ugly barrel at Axel's head.

"It's mighty nigh time-you're right," said Axel. "When a boss gits crazy 'nough to come at the men he's hirin', with a gun, it's about time to quit. And I'm goin'," he added, stalking to where his snowshoes were planted in a drift; "and if you dast, shoot ahead while I'm gettin'

ready."

Harrigan stood watching him as he laced the thongs of his snowshoes. He realized that Axel's going meant the squelching of his prospects, the unmasking of the find on Lost Farm, and he temporized gruffly.

"You can't make it by to-night, Barney."

"Can't, eh? Well, my bucko, I'm goin' to."

He straightened to his gaunt height and shook first one foot, then the other. "Guess they'll stick."

Then he swung down the road, pa.s.sed the men at work, without a word to them, and disappeared in the forest.

The pulse of his anger steadied to a set purpose with the exertion of breaking a trail through the fine-bolted snow which lay between him and the Tramworth "tote-road." When he came out on the main road, he swung along vigorously. At the end of the second mile he stopped to light his pipe and shed the mackinaw, which he rolled and carried under his arm.

It was piercingly cold, but, despite the stinging freshness of the morning, he was sweating. He knew that he must reach Lost Farm before nightfall. He trudged along, a tall, lonely figure, the lines of his hard-lived forty years cut deep in his weather-worn face. The sun rode veiled by a thin white vapor, a blurred midday moon. He glanced up and shook his head. "She's a-goin' to snow," he muttered. From nowhere a jay flashed across the opening ahead of him. Again he stopped and lit his pipe. Then he struck up a brisker gait. The long white miles wound in and out of the green-edged cavern through which he plodded. _Click!

clack! click! clack!_ his snowshoes ticked off the stubborn going. He fell to counting. "A dum' good way to git played out," he exclaimed. He fixed his gaze on the narrow, tunnel-like opening left by the snow-feathered branches that seemed to touch in the distance and bar the trail, endeavoring to forget the monotonous tick of his snowshoes.

A little wind blew in his face and lifted a film of snowdust that stuck to his eyelashes. He pulled off his mitten and brushed his eyes. There on the trail, where had been nothing but an unbroken lane of undulating white, stood a great brown shape. As Barney tugged at his mitten the shape whirled, forelegs clear of the snow, and _Whish!_ a few shaking firs, a falling of light snow from their breast-high tops, and the moose was gone.

"Go it, ole gamb'l roof!" shouted Barney, as the faint _plug, plug, plug_, of those s.p.a.ce-melting strides died away. Before he realized it he was counting again. Then he sang,-a mirthless, ribald ditty of the shanties,-but the eternal silence swallowed his chant so pa.s.sively that he ceased.

A film of snow slid from a branch and powdered the air with diamond-dust that swirled and settled gently. Above, a thin wind hissed in the pine tops.

The sun had gone out in a smother of ashy clouds, and the trees seemed to be crowding closer. _Pluff! pluff!_ a ma.s.s of snow slid from the wide fan of a cedar, and breaking, dropped softly in the snow beneath.

Barney quickened his stride. A single flake, coming out of the blind nothingness above, drove slanting down and sparkled on his leather mitten. Then came another and another, till the green-fringed vista down which he trudged was suddenly curtained with whirling white. The going became heavier. The will to overcome the smothering softness that gave so easily to the forward thrust, yet hung a clogging burden on each lift of the hide-laced ash-bows, redoubled itself as he plunged on. Presently the trail widened, the forest seemed to draw back, and he found himself on the wide, white-masked desolation of Lost Lake.

Panting, he stopped. Instantly the rising wind struck freezing through his sweat-dampened shirt. He jerked on his coat. "I'll make her yet-but I guess I'll stick to the sh.o.r.e. How in tarnation I come to miss the road gets me, but this is Lost Lake all right, and a dum' good name fur it."

He turned toward the forest that loomed dimly through the hurtling white flakes. When he reached its edge he looked at his watch. It was four o'clock. He had been traveling six hours without food or rest. He followed the sh.o.r.e line, frequently stumbling and falling on the rocks that lay close to the surface of the snow. The wind grew heavier, thrusting invisible hands against him as he leaned toward it. It was not until after his third fall that the possibility of his never reaching Lost Farm overtook him. Before he realized it, night was upon him, and he could scarcely see the rim of his snowshoes as he drew them up, each step accomplished by sheer force of will. He thought of the men who had left the camp above and had never been heard from. It was bad enough, when a man's light went out in a brawl, or on the drive; but to face the terror of the creeping snow, lost, starving, dragging inch by inch toward a hope that was treason to sanity. Finally, raving, cursing, praying, dying, alone-

Well, it was "up to him" to walk. He struggled on in the darkness. Had he known it, he was almost opposite the trail that crossed the dam at the foot of Lost Lake and wound up the hillside to Avery's camp. Again he stumbled and fell. The fury of despair seized him and he struggled in the resistless snow. His foot was caught in some buried branches. Had it been daylight he would have reached down and carefully disentangled himself, but the terror of night and uncertainty was on him. He jerked his leg out and was free, but the dangling web of a broken snowshoe hung about his ankle. The ash-bow had snapped.

"Done!" His tone commingled despair and anger. Then the spirit, which had buoyed on the lashing current of many a hazardous enterprise, rallied for a last attempt.

"What! Quit because I think I'm done? The dam' snowshoe is busted, but I ain't-yet."

He hobbled toward the trees, fighting his slow way with terrible intensity. Beneath a twisted cedar he rested. The cold took hold upon him and lulled him gently.

"I'll fix her up and plug along somehow." He examined the shoe. "Take a week to fix that," he muttered. "Guess I'll start a fire and wait till mornin'."

He felt in his pockets. He had used his last match in lighting his pipe.

"Wal, I was a fool to fly off the handle 'thout grub or matches or nothin'. Wal, I kin cool off now, I reckon."

He felt drowsily comfortable. The will to act was sinking as his vitality ebbed beneath the pressure of cold and hunger.

He gritted his teeth. "What! let my light go out afore I get a finishin'

crack at Denny Harrigan?"

In the blanket of night a pin-p.r.i.c.k of red appeared. It moved, vanished, moved again.

"Dreamin'," he grumbled. His head sunk on his chest. Once more he lifted his frosted eye-lids. The red point _was_ moving.

"Last call fur supper," he said; and bracing his hands against the cedar, he drew in a great breath and shouted.