Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp Part 11

"Of course the back of winter's about broken now. But we may have some cold snaps yet. Anyhow, you look warmer than you did."

And that was true, for Nan was dressed like a little Esquimau. Her coat had a pointed hood to it; she wore high fur boots, the fur outside. Her mittens of seal were b.u.t.toned to the sleeves of her coat, and she could thrust her hands, with ordinary gloves on them, right into these warm receptacles.

Nan thought they were wonderfully served at the hotel where they stopped, and she liked the maid on her corridor very much, and the boy who brought the icewater, too. There really was so much to tell Bess that she began to keep a diary in a little blank-book she bought for that purpose.

Then the most wonderful thing of all was the message from Papa Sherwood which arrived just before she and Uncle Henry left the hotel for the train. It was a "night letter" sent from Buffalo and told her that Momsey was all right and that they both sent love and would telegraph once more before their steamship left the dock at New York.

Nan and Uncle Henry drove through the snowy streets to another station and took the evening train north. They traveled at first by the Milwaukee Division of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad; and now another new experience came Nan's way. Uncle Henry had secured a section in the sleeping car and each had a berth.

It was just like being put to sleep on a shelf, Nan declared, when the porter made up the beds at nine o'clock. She climbed into the upper berth a little later, sure that she would not sleep, and intending to look out of the narrow window to watch the snowy landscape fly by all night.

And much to her surprise (only the surprise came in the morning) she fell fast asleep almost immediately, lulled by the rocking of the huge car on its springs, and did not arouse until seven o'clock and the car stood on the siding in the big Wisconsin city.

They hurried to get a northern bound train and were soon off on what Uncle Henry called the "longest lap" of their journey. The train swept them up the line of Lake Michigan, sometimes within sight of the sh.o.r.e, often along the edge of estuaries, particularly following the contour of Green By, and then into the Wilderness of upper Wisconsin and the Michigan Peninsula.

On the Peninsula Division of the C. & N. W. they did not travel as fast as they had been running, and before Hobart Forks was announced on the last local train they traveled in, Nan Sherwood certainly was tired of riding by rail. The station was in Marquette County, near the Schoolcraft line. Pine Camp was twenty miles deeper in the Wilderness.

It seemed to Nan that she had been traveling through forests, or the barren stumpage where forests had been, for weeks.

"Here's where we get off, little girl," Uncle Henry said, as he seized his big bag and her little one and made for the door of the car. Nan ran after him in her fur clothing. She had found before this that he was right about the cold. It was an entirely different atmosphere up here in the Big Woods from Tillbury, or even Chicago.

The train creaked to a stop. They leaped down upon the snowy platform.

Only a plain station, big freight house, and a company of roughly dressed men to meet them. Behind the station a number of sleighs and sledges stood, their impatient horses shaking the innumerable bells they wore.

Nan, stumbling off the car step behind her uncle, came near to colliding with a small man in patched coat and cowhide boots, and with a rope tied about his waist as some teamsters affect. He mumbled something in anger and Nan turned to look at him.

He wore spa.r.s.e, sandy whiskers, now fast turning gray. The outthrust of the lower part of his face was as sharp as that of a fox, and he really looked like a fox. She was sure of his ident.i.ty before uncle Henry wheeled and, seeing the man, said:

"What's that you are saying, Ged Raffer? This is my niece, and if you lay your tongue to her name, I'll give you something to go to law about in a hurry. Come, Nan. Don't let that man touch so much as your coat sleeve. He's like pitch. You can't be near him without some of his meanness sticking to you."

Chapter XI. PINE CAMP AT LAST

It was the first shade upon Uncle Henry's character that displeased Nan. He was evidently a pa.s.sionate man, p.r.o.ne to give way to elemental feelings, literally, "a man of wrath."

Gedney Raffer, weazened, snakelike, sly, and treacherous, had doubtless wronged Uncle Henry deeply. But this fact could not excuse the huge lumberman's language on the platform of the Hobart Forks station.

Nan wanted to stop her ears with her fingers and run from the spot.

The tough fellows standing around enjoyed the war of words hugely. Mr.

Sherwood was too big to strike Gedney Raffer, and of course the latter dared not use his puny fists on the giant.

The blunt club of the lumberman's speech was scarcely a match for the sharp rapier of Raffer's tongue. As the crowd laughed it was evident that the fox-faced man was getting the verbal best of the controversy.

Nan's ears burned and tears stood in her eyes. Uncle Henry descended to personal threats and the smaller man called out:

"You jest put your hand on me, you big, overgrown sawney! That's all I'm a-waitin' for. You 'tack me and I'll have you in the caboose, sure's my name's Gedney Raffer. Try it!"

The quarrel was most distressing. Nan pulled at her uncle's coat sleeve.

The rough men eyed her curiously. She had never felt so ashamed in her life.

"Do come, Uncle Henry," she whispered. "I'm cold."

That statement started the fuming giant at once. Nan's sensitiveness to a rude quarrel did not impress the man; but her sensitiveness to the weather shocked him immediately.

"My goodness, girl! We'll go right up to the hotel," he said, kindly.

"Any of you fellows seen Rafe or Tom in town this morning with the sled and roans?"

"Hey, Hen!" cried the station master, waving a yellow paper. "Here's a telegraph despatch for you."

It was really for Nan, and from Papa Sherwood filed just before the Afton Castle sailed from New York:

"Momsey and papa send love and kisses. Be cheerful and good. Write often. We think of you always. Kind wishes for Henry, Kate and boys.

We look forward to fair voyage and safe landing. Will cable from other side. Expect happy meeting in spring. R. and J. Sherwood."

"They got a good start," commented Uncle Henry, putting all thought of his quarrel with Ged Raffer behind him at once. "We'll hope they have a safe voyage. Now! Where are those boys of mine?"

The town of Hobart Forks was by no means a lumber town. Millions of feet of timber was boomed on the river within the limits of the town every season, and there were great mills along the banks of the stream, too.

But there were other industries, as well as churches, amus.e.m.e.nt places and many pleasant dwellings. It was no settlement of "slab shanties"

with a few saloons and a general store. Nan had yet to see this latter kind of settlement.

But what she saw about the central market place of Hobart Forks opened her eyes considerably to an appreciation of the rough country she had come to, and the rough people to be met therein.

The storekeepers she saw through the frosted windows were dressed like storekeepers in Tillbury; and there were well dressed women on the streets, a few, at least.

But most of the men striding through the snow were as roughly dressed as her uncle, and not many were as good looking as Mr. Sherwood. Some who came out of the swinging doors of saloons staggered, and were very noisy in their speech and rude in their actions. Of course n.o.body spoke to Nan, or troubled her; Henry Sherwood was undoubtedly a man of standing in the settlement and highly respected.

Not far from the market place they came upon a sprawling old tavern, with a fenced yard at one side. As they approached, a sled drawn by a wild looking pair of rough, red-roan ponies, dashed out of the yard and stopped at the broad front portico of the hotel.

"Hey, Tom! What's the matter with you?" called Uncle Henry. "Here we are!"

The driver turned a broad, good-humored face to look over his burly shoulder. Nan saw that Tom Sherwood strongly resembled his father.

"That you, Dad?" he drawled. "I'd about given you up. I didn't want to drive down to the depot with these crazy creatures. And if I'd left 'em standing they'd have kicked Phil's shed to pieces, I do believe. The train's been in half an hour and more."

"I know," said his father. "I had a mess of words with Ged Raffer. That delayed me."

"You ought to give him the back of your hand, and say no more about it,"

declared Tom, in a tone that showed he warmed in his bosom the family grudge against the fox-faced man.

"Here's your Cousin Nan, Tom," said his father, without making rejoinder to the young man's observation. "She must go into Phil's and get warm and have a cup of hot coffee. I'll take some in a new-fangled bottle I bought down in Chicago, so we can all have a hot drink on the way home."

"'Twon't keep warm twenty miles," said Tom.

"Yes 'twill. It'll keep HOT for twenty miles and more. They call it a thermos bottle. It'll keep coffee hot, or cold, for a day, just as you please."

"Jehosaphat, Dad! What kind of a swindle's that? How does the bottle know whether you want your drink hot or cold? Huh! Those city folks couldn't make me believe any such thing," objected the son.

Nan had to giggle at that, and Uncle Henry demanded: "Did you ever see such a gump? Go on down to the station and tell Abe to fling that trunk and the bags into the back of the sled. We'll have our coffee, and get the thermos bottle filled, too, by the time you come back."