The Trail Of The Axe Part 28

"If I'm short on the cut you must not mind too much. I can easily make it up when things straighten out. These hands I'm taking on are mostly 'green.' I can only thank my stars I'm able to find them up here. I can't think where they come from. However, they can work, which is the great thing, and though they need considerable discipline--they're a rebellious lot--I mean to make them work."

It was a great thought to the master of the mills that he had such men as Bob Mason in his service. He glowed with satisfaction at the thought, and it largely compensated him for the difficulties besetting him. He put the letter away, and looked over the desk for a memorandum pad. Failing to find what he required, he crossed over to a large cupboard at the far corner of the room. It was roomy, roughly built, to store books and stationery in. The top shelf alone was in use, except that Dawson's winter overcoat hung in the lower part. It was on the top shelf that Dave expected to find the pad he wanted.

As he reached the cupboard a terrific crash of thunder shook the building. It was right overhead, and pealed out with nerve-racking force and abruptness. It was the first attack of the threatened storm.

The peal died out and all became still again, except for the shriek of the saws beyond the part.i.tion walls. He waited listening, and then a strange sound reached him. So used was he to the din of the milling floor that any unusual sound or note never failed to draw and hold his attention. A change of tone in the song of the saws might mean so much.

Now this curious sound puzzled him. It was faint, so faint that only his practiced ears could have detected it, yet, to him, it was ominously plain. Suddenly it ceased, but it left him dissatisfied.

He was about to resume his search when again he started; and the look he turned upon the door had unmistakable anxiety in it. There it was again, faint, but so painfully distinct. He drew back, half inclined to quit his search, but still he waited, wondering. The noise was as though a farrier's rasp was being lightly pa.s.sed over a piece of well-oiled steel. At last he made up his mind. He must ascertain its meaning, and he moved to leave the cupboard. Suddenly a terrific grinding noise shrieked harshly above the din of the saws. It culminated in a monstrous thud. Instinctively he sprang back, and was standing half-inside the cupboard when a deafening crash shook the mills to their foundations. There was a fearful rending and smashing of timber. Something struck the walls of the office. It crashed through, and a smashing blow struck the cupboard door and hurled him against the inner wall. He thrust out his arms for protection. The door was fast.

He was a prisoner.

Now pandemonium reigned. Crash on crash followed in rapid succession.

It was as though the office had become the centre of attack for an overwhelming combination of forces. The walls and floor shivered under the terrific onslaught. The very building seemed to totter as though an earthquake were in progress. But at last the end came with a thunder upon the cupboard door, the panels were ripped like tinder, and something vast launched itself through the wrecked woodwork. It struck the imprisoned man in the chest, and in a moment he was pinned to the wall, gasping under ribs bending to the crushing weight which felt to be wringing the very life out of him.

A deadly quiet fell as suddenly as the turmoil had arisen, and his quick ears told him that the saws were still, and all work had ceased in the mill. But the pause was momentary. A second later a great shouting arose. Men's voices, loud and hoa.r.s.e, reached him, and the rushing of heavy feet was significant of the disaster.

And he was helpless, a prisoner.

He tried to move. His agony was appalling. His ribs felt to be on the verge of cracking under the enormous weight that held him. He raised his arms, but the pain of the effort made him gasp and drop them. Yet he knew he must escape from his prison. He knew that he was needed outside.

The shouting grew. It took a definite tone, and became a cry that none could mistake. Dave needed no repet.i.tion of it to convince him of the dread truth. The fire spectre loomed before his eyes, and horror nigh drove him to frenzy.

In his mind was conjured a picture--a ghastly picture, such as all his life he had dreaded and shut out of his thoughts. His brain suddenly seemed to grow too big for his head. It grew hot, and his temples hammered. A surge of blood rose with a rush through his great veins.

His muscles strung tense, and his hands clenched upon the imprisoning beam. He no longer felt any pain from the crushing weight. He was incapable of feeling anything. It was a moment when mind and body were charged with a maddening force that no other time could command. With his elbows planted against the wall behind him, with his lungs filled with a deep whistling breath, he thrust at the beam with every ounce of his enormous strength put forth.

He knew all his imprisonment meant. Not to himself alone. Not to those shouting men outside. It was the mills. Hark! Fire! Fire! The cry was on every hand. The mills--his mills--were afire!

He struggled as never before in his life had he struggled. He struggled till the sweat poured from his temples, till his hands lacerated, till the veins of his neck stood out like straining ropes, till it seemed as though his lungs must burst. He was spurred by a blind fury, but the beam remained immovable.

Hark! The maddening cry filled the air. Fire! Fire! Fire! It was everywhere driving him, urging him, appealing. It rang in his brain with an exquisite torture. It gleamed at him in flaming letters out of the darkness. His mill!

Suddenly a cry broke from him as he realized the futility of his effort. It was literally wrung from him in the agony of his soul; nor was he aware that he had spoken.

"G.o.d, give me strength!"

And as the cry went up he hurled himself upon the beam with the fury of a madman.

Was it in answer to his prayer? The beam gave. It moved. It was so little, so slight; but it moved. And now, with every fibre braced, he attacked it in one final effort. It gave again. It jolted, it lifted, its rough end tearing the flesh of his chest under his clothing. It tottered for a moment. He struggled on, his bulging eyes and agonized gasping telling plainly of the strain. Inch by inch it gave before him.

His muscles felt to be wrenching from the containing tissues, his breathing was spasmodic and whistling, his teeth were grinding together. It gave further, further. Suddenly, with a crash, it fell, the door was wrenched from its hinges, and he was free!

He dashed out into the wreck of his office. All was in absolute darkness. He stumbled his way over the debris which covered the floor, and finally reached the shattered remains of the doorway.

Now he was no longer in darkness. The milling floor was all too brilliantly lit by the leaping flames down at the "shoot" end of the No. 1 rollers. He waited for nothing, but ran toward the fire. Beyond, dimly outlined in the lurid glow, he could see the men. He saw Dawson and others struggling up the shoot with nozzle and hose, and he put his hands to his mouth and bellowed encouragement.

"Five hundred dollars if you get her under!" he cried.

If any spur were needed, that voice was sufficient. it was the voice of the master the lumber-jacks knew.

Dawson on the lead struggled up, and as he came Dave shouted again.

"Now, boy! Sling it hard! And pa.s.s the word to pump like h.e.l.l!"

He reached out over the shoot. Dawson threw the nozzle. And as Dave caught it a stream of water belched from the spout.

None knew better than he the narrowness of the margin between saving and losing the mills. Another minute and all would have been lost. The whole structure was built of resinous pine, than which there is nothing more inflammable. The fire had got an alarming hold even in those few minutes, and for nearly an hour victory and disaster hung in the balance. Nor did Dave relinquish his post while any doubt remained. It was not until the flames were fully under control that he left the lumber-jacks to complete the work.

He was weary--more weary than he knew. It seemed to him that in that brief hour he had gone through a lifetime of struggle, both mental and physical. He was sore in body and soul. This disaster had come at the worst possible time, and, as a result, he saw in it something like a week's delay. The thought was maddening, and his ill humor found vent in the shortness of his manner when Dawson attempted to draw him aside.

"Out with it, man," he exclaimed peevishly.

Dawson hesitated. He noticed for the first time the torn condition of his chief's clothes, and the blood stains on the breast of his shirt.

Then he blurted out his thankfulness in a tone that made Dave regret his impatience.

"I'm a'mighty thankful you're safe, boss," he said fervently. Then, after a pause, "But you--you got the racket? You're wise to it?"

Dave shrugged. Reaction had set in. Nothing seemed to matter, the cause or anything. The mill was safe. He cared for nothing else.

"Something broke, I s'pose," he said almost indifferently.

"Sure. Suthin' bust. It bust on purpose. Get it?"

The foreman's face lit furiously as he made his announcement.

Dave turned on him. All his indifference vanished in a twinkling.

"Eh? Not--not an accident?"

In an access of loyal rage Dawson seized him by the arm in a nervous clutch, and tried to drag him forward.

"Come on," he cried. "Let's find him. It's Mansell!"

With a sudden movement Dave flung him off, and the force he used nearly threw the foreman off his feet. His eyes were burning like two live coals.

"Come on!" he cried harshly, and Dawson was left to follow as he pleased.

CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST OF THE SAWYER

Dave's lead took the foreman in the direction of the wrecked office.

Now, in calmer moments, the full extent of the damage became apparent.

The first three sets of rollers were hopelessly wrecked, and the saws were twisted and their settings broken and contorted out of all recognition. Then the fire had practically destroyed the whole of the adjacent northwest corner of the mill. The office was a mere skeleton, a shattered sh.e.l.l, and the walls and flooring adjoining had been torn and battered into a complete ruin. In the midst of all this, half a dozen heavy logs, in various stages of tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, lay scattered about where the machinery happened to have thrown them.

It was a sickening sight to the master of the mills, but in his present mood he put the feeling from him, lost in a furious desire to discover the author of the dastardly outrage.