The Rules of the Game Part 16

"I don't know," replied the riverman, "but I wouldn't lay around and wait."

"Why don't some of you fellows go out there and storm the fort, if you feel that way?" asked Bob.

"Why?" demanded the riverman, "I won't let any boss stump me; but why in h.e.l.l should I go out and get my hide full of birdshot? If this outfit don't know enough to get its drive down, that ain't my fault."

Bob had seen enough of the breed to recognize this as an eminently characteristic att.i.tude.

"Well," he remarked comfortably, "somebody'll be down from the mill soon."

The riverman turned on him almost savagely.

"Down soon!" he snorted. "So'll the water be 'down soon.' It's dropping every minute. That telegraft of yours won't even start out before to-morrow morning. Don't you fool yourself. That Twin Falls outfit is just too tickled to do us up. It'll be two days before anybody shows up, and then where are you at? h.e.l.l!" and the old riverman relapsed into a disgusted silence.

Considerably perturbed, Bob hunted up La.r.s.en.

"Look here, La.r.s.en," said he, "they tell me a delay here is likely to hang up this drive. Is that right?"

The old man looked at his interlocutor, his brow wrinkled.

"I wish Darrell was in charge," said he.

"What would Darrell do that you can't do?" demanded Bob bluntly.

"That's just it; I don't know," confessed La.r.s.en.

"Well, I'd get some weapons up town and drive that gang off," said Bob heatedly.

"They'd have a posse down and jug the lot of us," La.r.s.en pointed out, "before we could clear the river." He suddenly flared up. "I ain't no river boss, and I ain't paid as a river boss, and I never claimed to be one. Why in h.e.l.l don't they keep their men in charge?"

"You're working for the company, and you ought to do your best for them," said Bob.

But La.r.s.en had abruptly fallen into Scandinavian sulks. He muttered something under his breath, and quite deliberately arose and walked around to the other side of the fire.

Twice during the night Bob arose from his blankets and walked down to the riverside. In the clear moonlight he could see one or the other of the millmen always on watch, his shotgun across his knees. Evidently they did not intend to be surprised by any night work. The young fellow returned very thoughtful to his blankets, where he lay staring up against the canvas of the tent.

Next morning he was up early, and in close consultation with Billy the teamster. The latter listened attentively to what Bob had to say, nodding his head from time to time. Then the two disappeared in the direction of the wagon, where for a long interval they busied themselves at some mysterious operation.

When they finally emerged from the bushes, Bob was carrying over his shoulder a ten-foot poplar sapling around the end of which was fastened a cylindrical bundle of considerable size. Bob paid no attention to the men about the fire, but bent his steps toward the river. Billy, however, said a few delighted words to the sprawling group. It arose with alacrity and followed the young man's lead.

Arrived at the bank of the river, Bob swung his burden to the ground, knelt by it, and lit a match. The rivermen, gathering close, saw that the bundle around the end of the sapling consisted of a dozen rolls of giant powder from which dangled a short fuse. Bob touched his match to the split outer end of the fuse. It spluttered viciously. He arose with great deliberation, picked up his strange weapon, and advanced out over the logs.

In the meantime the opposing army had gathered about the disputed clump of piles, to the full strength of its three shotguns and the single rifle. Bob paid absolutely no attention to them. When within a short distance he stopped and, quite oblivious to warnings and threats from the army, set himself to watching painstakingly the sputtering progress of the fire up the fuse, exactly as a small boy watches his giant cracker which he hopes to explode in mid-air. At what he considered the proper moment he straightened his powerful young body, and cast the sapling from him, javelin-wise.

"Scat!" he shouted, and scrambled madly for cover.

The army decamped in haste. Of its armament it lost near fifty per cent., for one shotgun and the rifle remained where they had fallen.

Like Abou Ben Adam, Murdock led all the rest.

Now Bob had hurled his weapon as hard as he knew how, and had scampered for safety without looking to see where it had fallen. As a matter of fact, by one of those very lucky accidents, that often attend a star in the ascendent, the sapling dove head on into a cavern in the jam above the clump of piles. The detonation of the twelve full sticks of giant powder was terrific. Half the river leaped into the air in a beautiful column of water and spray that seemed to hang motionless for appreciable moments. Dark fragments of timbers were hurled in all directions. When the row had died the clump of piles was seen to have disappeared. Bob's chance shot had actually cleared the river!

The rivermen glanced at each other amazedly.

"Did you _mean_ to place that charge, bub?" one asked.

Bob was too good a field general not to welcome the gifts of chance.

"Certainly," he snapped. "Now get out on that river, every mother's son of you. Get that drive going and keep it going. I've cleared the river for you; and if you'd any one of you had the nerve of my poor old fat sub-centre, you'd have done it for yourselves. Get busy! Hop!"

The men jumped for their peavies. Bob raged up and down the bank. For the moment he had forgotten the husk of the situation, and saw it only in essential. Here was a squad to lick into shape, to fashion into a team. It mattered little that they wore spikes in their boots instead of cleats; that they sported little felt hats instead of head guards. The principle was the same. The team had gone to pieces in the face of a crisis; discipline was relaxed; grumblers were getting noisy. Bob plunged joyously head over ears in his task. By now he knew every man by name, and he addressed each personally. He had no idea of what was to be done to start this riverful of logs smoothly and surely on its way; he did not need to. Afloat on the river was technical knowledge enough, and to spare. Bob threw his men at the logs as he used to throw his backs at the opposing line. And they went. Even in the whole-souled, frantic absorption of the good coach he found time to wonder at the likeness of all men. These rivermen differed in no essential from the members of the squad. They responded to the same authority; they could be hurled as a unit against opposing obstacles.

Bob felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and whirled to stare straight into the bloodshot eyes of Roaring d.i.c.k. The man was still drunk, but only with the lees of the debauch. He knew perfectly what he was about, but the bad whiskey still hummed through his head. Bob met the baleful glare from under his square brows, as the man teetered back and forth on his heels.

"You got a h.e.l.l of a nerve!" said Roaring d.i.c.k, thickly. "You talk like you was boss of this river."

Bob looked back at him steadily for a full half-minute.

"I am," said he at last.

XVI

Roaring d.i.c.k had not been brought up in the knowledge of protocols or ultimatums. Scarcely had Bob uttered the last words of his brief speech before he was. .h.i.t twice in the face, good smashing blows that sent him staggering. The blows were followed by a savage rush. Roaring d.i.c.k was on his man with the quickness and ferocity of a wildcat. He hit, kicked, wrestled, even bit. Bob was whirled back by the very impetuosity of the attack. Before he could collect his wits he was badly punished and dazed. He tripped and Roaring d.i.c.k, with a bellow of satisfaction, began to kick at his body even before he reached the ground.

But strangely enough this fall served to clear Bob's head. Thousands of times he had gone down just like this on the football field, and had then been called upon to struggle on with the ball as far as he was able. A slight hint of the accustomed will sometimes steady us in the most difficult positions. The mind, b.u.mping aimlessly, falls into its groove, and instinctively shoots forward with tremendous velocity. Bob hit the ground, half turned on his shoulder, rolled over twice with the rapid, vigorous twist second-nature to a seasoned halfback, and bounded to his feet. He met Roaring d.i.c.k half way with a straight blow. It failed to stop, or even to shake the little riverman. The next instant the men were wrestling fiercely.

Bob found himself surprisingly opposed. Beneath his loose, soft clothing the riverman seemed to be made of steel. Suddenly Bob was called upon to exert every ounce of strength in his body, and to summon all his acquired skill to prevent himself from being ignominiously overpowered.

The ferocity of the rush, and the purposeful rapidity of Roaring d.i.c.k's attack, as well as the unexpected variety thereof, kept him fully occupied in defending himself. With the exception of the single blow delivered when he had regained his feet, he had been unable even to attempt aggression. It was as though he had touched a b.u.t.ton to release an astonishing and bewildering erratic energy.

Bob had done a great deal of boxing and considerable wrestling. During his boyhood and youth he had even become involved in several fisticuffs.

They had always been with the boys or young men of his own ideas. Though conducted in anger they retained still a certain remnant of convention.

No matter how much you wanted to "do" the other fellow, you tried to accomplish that result by hitting cleanly, or by wrestling him to a point where you could "punch his face in." The object was to hurt your opponent until he had had enough, until he was willing to quit, until he had been thoroughly impressed with the fact that he was punished. But this result was to be accomplished with the fists. If your opponent seized a club, or a stone, or tried to kick, that very act indicated his defeat. He had had enough, and that was one way of acknowledging your superiority. So strongly ingrained had this instinct of the fight-convention become that even now Bob unconsciously was playing according to the rules of the game.

Roaring d.i.c.k, on the contrary, was out solely for results. He fought with every resource at his command. Bob was slow to realize this, slow to arouse himself beyond the point of calculated defence. His whole training on the field inclined him to keep cool and to play, whatever the game, from a reasoning standpoint. He was young, strong and practised; but he was not roused above the normal. And, as many rivermen had good reason to know, the normal man availed little against Roaring d.i.c.k's maniacal rushes.

The men were close-locked, and tugging and straining for an advantage.

Bob crouched lower and lower with a well-defined notion of getting a twist on his opponent. For an instant he partially freed one side. Like lightning Roaring d.i.c.k delivered a fierce straight kick at his groin.

The blow missed its aim, but Bob felt the long, sharp spikes tearing the flesh of his thigh. Sheer surprise relaxed his muscles for the fraction of an instant. Roaring d.i.c.k lowered his head, rammed it into Bob's chin, and at the same time reached for the young man's gullet with both hands.

Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of time. As they closed again Roaring d.i.c.k's right hand was free. Bob felt the riverman's thumb fumbling for his eyeball.

"Why, he wants to cripple me, to kill me!" the young man cried to himself. So vivid was the astonishment of this revelation to his sportsman's soul that he believed he had said it aloud. This was no mere fight, it was a combat. In modern civilized conditions combats are notably few and far between. It is difficult for the average man to come to a realization that he must in any circ.u.mstances depend on himself for the preservation of his life. Even to the last moment the victim of the real melodrama that occasionally breaks out in the most unlikely places is likely to be more concerned with his outraged dignity than with his peril. That thumb, feeling eagerly for his eye-socket, woke Bob to a new world. A swift anger rushed over him like a hot wave.

This man was trying to injure him. Either the kick or the gouge would have left him maimed for life. A sudden fierce desire to beat his opponent into the earth seized Bob. With a single effort he wrenched his arms free.

Now this fact has been noted again and again: mere size has often little to do with a man's physical prowess. The list of anecdotes wherein the little fellow "puts it all over" the big bully is exceptionally long.

Nor are more than a bare majority of the anecdotes baseless. In our own lumber woods a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound man with no other weapon than his two hands once nearly killed a two-hundred-pound blacksmith for pushing him off a bench. This phenomenon arises from the fact that the little man seems capable often of releasing at will a greater flood of dynamic energy than a big man. We express this by saying that it is the spirit that counts. As a matter of truth the big man may have as much courage as the little man. It is simply that he cannot, at will, tap as quickly the vast reservoir of nervous energy that lies beneath all human effort of any kind whatsoever. He cannot arouse himself as can the little man.