by Holman Day
CHAPTER XVI
IN THE PATH OF THE BIG WIND
"So we fellers of the camp, when the wind-spooks rave and ramp, We fasten up the dingle-door with spike and extry clamp; For it ain't a mite against 'em if the boldest chaps do hide When the big old trees go tumblin', crash and bang, on ev'ry side."
--_Ha'nt of Pamola._
John Barrett, millionaire, realized rather vaguely that he had leftsomething on the bald poll of Jerusalem Knob. It was after he hadgrasped Dwight Wade's hand, both of them standing shelterless under theskies, the welcome rains beating into their faces.
John Barrett, millionaire, stumbling weariedly to shelter at the foot ofJerusalem Knob, having left something in that upper vastness where soulforgot the petty things, realized--vaguely again--that he had found whathe had left. The Honorable Pulaski D. Britt seemed to pass it to him ina hand-clasp.
On Jerusalem, John Barrett had left much of his insolence, more of hisselfishness, and all of his vindictiveness. Dwight Wade, generous in hisown triumph, had shamed the baser feelings out of him. And yet that newpoise of a sincerer manliness seemed to be charmed away suddenly by themere touch of Pulaski Britt's big hand. That hand represented the brutaltyranny of the barons of the woods. It was thrust out in welcome overthe threshold of the wangan camp, and Britt hauled in his fellow-baronwith boisterous greeting.
"It's been hell for all of us, John, but I reckon you've been in thehottest corner of it if what they tell me is true. I didn't have time toask for any details, not with that infernal fire on my hands, but itisn't the first time that rascals have poked up fools in these woods topay off old grudges against timber-land owners. I've hit back hard a fewtimes myself. This time we'll hit hard enough to teach 'em a lesson thatwill stick awhile." He put his head out of the door and yelled an orderto the cook.
"It--it may not be best to push things too hard," faltered Barrett,spreading his wet, blue hands to the blaze of the Franklin stove."Things have come up that--"
"They've tried the same bluff on me," blustered the host. "They loadedold Lane up with threats of what he'd do. It's all conspiracy andblackmail. There's more behind it than we realize now. But we'll dig 'emout, Barrett. We've got to smash the whole thing now or they'll have uson the run. I didn't suppose Barnum Withee was the kind of man to workout a grudge the way he did, but it shows us the danger in bein' tooeasy with any of 'em. Old Lane is only crazy. It's this Wade we want tobang the hardest. I'll tell you what I believe, John. I'll bet cents tosaw-logs he's been hired to come up here and start a rebellion. Thereare interests in this State that will do it. By Judas, in twenty-fourhours I'll show 'em!"
The tacit partnership of honorable reparation bound by hand-clasp onJerusalem had not the elements to make it endure in Pulaski Britt'sdomains, with Pulaski Britt to sound his old-time rallying call of greedand tyranny. That earlier partnership, sealed by the arms f Old KingSpruce, had never been dissolved, and Barrett was once more becoming"Stumpage John," cold and hard and calculating.
"Look here, Pulaski," he blurted out, in sudden confidence, "there's alittle more to this than you understand just now. I'm in a devil of aposition. I--I--" He hesitated, staring into the fire and waving hishands slowly in the steam that rose from his sodden garments.
"I haven't done just right, I suppose, but there are reasons why, that aman like you will understand. I just left that Wade fellow up on the topof Jerusalem. We've had a talk. He didn't understand very well."
"Did he offer to trade something for the sake of gettin' that daughterof yours that he's in love with?" demanded Britt, maliciously.
"I don't know," confessed the other. "I'm under obligations to him,Pulaski. He cut me loose from a tree to-day in Pogey Notch. In anotherten minutes the fire would have got me."
"Great Jehosaphat!" exploded the host. "Tried to kill you! A timbergrudge carried that far!" He stamped about the little camp. His facewrinkled with apprehension and fury. He had a sudden vivid mind-pictureof his own reign of tyranny, and realized that if John Barrett had beenattacked, Pulaski Britt had more reason to fear. "It's a call for alynchin', John," he said, hoarsely. "And I've got a crew that will doit."
"It was Lane that tied me--the fire-station warden," Barrett went on.
"And Withee turned you over to him, knowin' he'd do it!" stormed thebaron. "His men blabbed it that Lane had taken you. Withee, Wade--we'llclean out the whole coop of 'em!"
But John Barrett did not seem to warm up to this plan of vengeance. Hestill kept his eyes on the fire. His shoulders were hunched forwardwith something of abjectness in their droop.
"You haven't got some whiskey handy, have you, Pulaski?" he asked,plaintively. "I don't feel well. I've had an awful night and day."
Britt brought the liquor from a cupboard, cursing soulfully and urgingvengeance. But after Barrett drank from the pannikin he leaned his faceto the blaze again and broke upon the Honorable Pulaski's viciousmonologue.
"I've told the wrong end first--but there are some things easier to saythan others. It was Linus Lane who tied me to that tree and left me todie there, but"--Barrett rolled his head sideways and gave Britt a queerglance from his eye-corners--"did you ever see my daughter Elva,Pulaski?"
Britt blinked as though trying to understand this sudden shifting oftopic, and wagged slow nod of assent.
"Have you ever seen that girl of the Skeet settlement--the one thatdoesn't belong to them?" Barrett half choked over the question.
"Have I seen her?" roared the Honorable Pulaski, no longer payingattention to incongruity of questions. "Why, that's the draggle-tailedlightnin'-bug that set this fire that we've been fightin' forforty-eight hours, and that only this rain stopped from bein' afifty-thousand-acre crown-fire! Have I seen her! I was there when sheset it, and only the grace o' God and that Wade's fist saved her frombein' shot, and shot by me! I would have killed her like I'd kill aquill-pig!"
Barrett did not look up from the fire.
"Then you've seen both those girls, you say? I haven't seen this one inthe woods here. But this Wade told me to-day that they very muchresemble each other. He has heard some gossip and is making threats. Heseems to think I ought to take the girl and care for her."
Britt began a bitter diatribe, coupling the name of Wade and the girl asexamples of all that is inimical to timber interests and timberowners--but he checked himself suddenly as soon as his native shrewdnessmastered his passion. A flicker in his eyes showed that a light hadburst upon his mind. He strode back and forth behind Barrett's stool,and gazed down upon the stumpage king's bent back.
"Look here, John," he demanded, bluffly, at last, "was there any truthin the story that was limpin' round in these woods about you almosttwenty years ago? There was a woman in it--somebody's wife. I'veforgotten who."
"It was Lane's wife," admitted Barrett, finding confession good for thesoul of one who stood bitterly in need of practical advice--and PulaskiBritt was nothing if not practical. "I was up here prospecting, and shewas bound to follow me up to camp, and I was infernal fool enough to lether. And when it came time for me to go out of the woods I couldn't takeher--you can see that for yourself! I thought I had provided for her--Iwould have done it, but she dropped out of sight, and I couldn't gohunting around and stirring up gossip. Same way about the child."
"Young one has had a nice, genteel bringin'-up," remarked the HonorablePulaski, sarcastically. Hard though his nature was, he had the sincerityof the woods, and he felt sudden contempt for this man who had uprootedfor one brief sniff of its perfume a woods blossom that he could notwear.
"I didn't realize it until Lane told me at Withee's camp. I had hopedshe had fallen into good hands. It's a devil of a position to be in,"the other mourned, returning to his prior lament.
"Well," remarked Britt, inexorably, "you can't exactly complain becauseyou are now gettin' only a little of what Lane and the girl have beengettin' a whole lot of all these years. It ain't any use to whine to me,John. I don't pity you much. I'
ve been hard with men, but, by Cephas,I've never been soft with women! It don't pay."
"It seems as though you ought to be willin' to advise me a little,"pleaded Barrett. "I'm ready to do what I can for the girl, now that I'vefound out about her. But Lane insisted on my taking her out with me anddeclaring her to the world as my daughter. And when I refused he tied meto the tree."
"Oh, ho! It wasn't just for the old original revenge, then?" queriedPulaski, his expression indicating a more charitable view of "Ladder"Lane's assault on the vested timber interests as represented by StumpageJohn Barrett. "Well, if the girl is your young one she ought to have achance!"
In his turn, Barrett got up and paced the floor. "Such a thing wouldkill my chances of being the next governor of this State, and you andthe whole timber crowd have got a lot at stake there."
"Well, I've got to admit, havin' played politics myself somewhat," saidBritt, unconsolingly, "that a quiet little frost of scandal will nip offa budding leaf that a wind like this wouldn't start."
He tapped the frame of the chattering window. In the hush of theirvoices they heard the wind volleying through the trees and roaring highoverhead among the black clouds. Night had fallen. The crew had longbefore finished supper, and the cook had twice summoned the inattentivetwo in the wangan to a second table spread more sumptuously.
"And what kind of a trade is it your friend Wade wants to make withyou?" inquired Britt. "Takin' the thing by and large, you must be infor a prime hold-up. If he should say, 'Your daughter or yourlife--political life!'--I reckon you'd have to change your mind abouthis qualifications as a son-in-law, wouldn't you?" He eyed Barrettkeenly and heard his oaths with relish. "You see," persisted the host,"though old Lane is probably out of this for good, after trying to killyou, and you can handle Barnum Withee and the rest of these woods cattlein one way or another, this Wade chap is sittin' across from you withabout every trump in the deck under his thumb. What does he say hewants?"
"He doesn't say," muttered Barrett. "He hasn't asked for anything. He'sthinking it over."
"It's the cat and the mouse, and him the cat!" suggested the HonorablePulaski, with manifest intent to irritate. "I should have most thoughtyou would have thrown your arms around his neck after your rescue andyelled in his ear: 'My daughter is yours, noble man! Take her and mymoney, and live happy ever after!' These fellows that write novelsalways have 'em do that sort of thing--and the novel-writers ought toknow!"
"There's no novel about this thing!" retorted Barrett, angrily. "My girlknows whom she is expected to marry--and she'll marry him when the righttime comes. And it won't be a college dude without one dollar to rubagainst another! I'm in a devil of a hole, Pulaski, but do you think forone minute that I'm going to let that Wade make a slip-noose of thisthing and hang me up with my heels kicking air? I'll either choke himwith thousand-dollar bills, or--or--"
He glanced at Britt and forbore to finish the sentence.
The door opened just then and Tommy Eye, teamster, poked in his grizzledhead.
"Cook has lost his voice hollerin' 'Beans!' gents," he reported, andBritt whirled on his heel and led the way out.
"After supper, after supper, John!" he snapped, testily, when the otherrepeated his plea for advice. "We'll come back here and find a planblossoming in our cigar smoke." They hurried away to the cook-camp,bending against the rush of the wind. "Put some wood on that fire,Tommy," Britt called over his shoulder.
With the scent of the inebriate, Tommy had sniffed whiskey when heopened the camp door; his drunkard's eye caressed the bottle that theHonorable Pulaski had forgotten to replace in the cupboard. He stooddusting from his sleeves the bark litter of the wood he had brought andsoftly snuffled the moisture at the corners of his mouth as he gazed.One wild impulse suggested that he take the bottle and run into thewoods.
"No," said Tommy, aloud, in order that his voice might brace hisdetermination. "It would be stealin', and, bless God, Tommy Eye neverstole when he was sober. I may have stole when I was drunk and didn'tknow it, but I never stole when I was sober." He paused. "I wish Iwasn't sober," he sighed. He took up the bottle, turned it in his grimyhands, gustfully studied the streakings of its oil on the glass, and atlast sniffed at the open mouth. "Ah-h-h-h, rich men have the best, andthey have plenty. Some people don't think it is wrong to steal from richmen. I do. But if he was here he'd probably say: 'Tommy, you havebrought the wood--you have mended the fire. It is a cold night, and surethe wind is awful! Tommy, take one drink with me and work the harder forP'laski Britt on the morrer.'"
He took the bottle away from his nose, stared at the window's blackoutline, listened to the clattering frame, and muttered, again sighing:"Sure and them wor-rds don't sound just like the wor-rds that P'laskiBritt would say, but in a night like this it isn't always easy to heararight. I wouldn't steal--but I'll dream I heard him say 'em. 'Onedrink, Tommy,' I hear him say."
He set the bottle to his lips, tipped it, closed his eyes, and drankuntil at last, breathless and choking, he felt the bottle suck dry.
"Bless the saints!" he gasped; "it was one drink he said, and sure withmy eyes shut I couldn't see how big was the drink." He felt the thrillof the mighty potation from head to toes. His meek spirit becameexalted. "If I should go out now," he mumbled, "he would say that Istole it. But I will stay here with the bottle in my hand just as it waswhen I took the one drink. I will show him. And, after all, it is notmuch he can do to me--now!" He rubbed a consolatory palm over hisglowing stomach. He stood there, beginning at last to rock slowly fromheel to toe, until he heard voices and footsteps. The preoccupied baronshad not lingered over their repast. "No, I'll not run away. I'll notsteal," muttered Tommy Eye, "but--but I'll just crawl under the bunk,here, to think over the snatch of a speech I'll make to him. And a bitlater I'll feel more like bein' kicked."
From the safe gloom of his covert he noted that they had brought backwith them the boss, Colin MacLeod. Britt turned down the wooden buttonover the latch of the door and gave his guests cigars.
They smoked in silence for a while, and then Britt spat with a snap ofdecision into the open fire and spoke.
"MacLeod, a while ago, when we were talkin' about Rodburd Ide's girl,Nina, I told you that I wouldn't interfere in your woman affairsagain--or you told me not to interfere--I forgot just which!" There wasa little touch of grim irony in his tones--irony that he promptlydiscarded as he went on. "About that Ide girl--you ought to know thatyou can't catch her--after what has happened. I know something aboutwomen myself. The girl never took to you. If she had cared anythingabout you she would have run to you and cried over you when you werelying there in the road where Dwight Wade tossed you. That's woman whenshe's in love with a man. Don't break in on what I'm saying! This isn'tany session of cheap men sittin' down to gossip over love questions. Itmay sound like it, but it's straight business. Don't be a fool anylonger. But there's a girl that you have courted and a girl that thinksa lot of you, because I heard her say so one night on Jerusalem Knob.You ought to marry that girl."
The Honorable Pulaski again checked retort by sharp command.
"That girl isn't of the blood of the Skeets and Bushees, and you knowit. She is a pretty girl, and once she is away from that gang anddressed in good clothes she will make a wife that you'll be proud of.Now, what do you say, Colin? Will you marry that girl?"
MacLeod stared from the face of his employer to the face of JohnBarrett, the latter displaying decidedly more interest than thequestioner. Then he stood up and dashed his cigar angrily into the fire.Blood flamed on his high cheek-bones and his gray eyes glittered.
"What has marryin' got to do with my job, or what have you got to dowith my marryin'?" he asked, in hot anger.
The Honorable Pulaski continued bland and conciliating.
"Keep on all your clothes, Colin, my boy," he counselled. "Don't sayanything to me that you'll be sorry for after I've shown you that I'monly doin' you a friendly turn. But I've found out a mighty interestingthing about this girl--Kate Arden,
they call her. As a friend of yoursI'm givin' you the tip. It would be too bad to have a girl with a nicetidy little sum of money comin' to her slip past you when all you haveto do is to reach and take her."
The boss's face was surly.
"You must have been talkin' with some one in Barn Withee's crew," hesuggested.
"And what does Withee's crew say?" demanded Britt, with heat.
"It wasn't a sewin'-circle I was attendin' out on that fire-line,"retorted MacLeod, with just as much vigor. "There was somethin' bein'talked, but I didn't stop to listen."
"Look here, MacLeod," cried his employer. Britt came close to himand clutched the belt of his wool jacket. "There are some nastyliars in these woods just now. There are some of them that will go tostate-prison for attempted blackmail. You are too bright a man not torealize which is your own side. I know you well enough to believe thatall the lunatics and slanderers this side of Castonia couldn't turn youagainst your friends. And you've got no two better friends than JohnBarrett and I."
"I'm not gainsaying it, Mr. Britt. But what has joinin' this matrimonialagency of yours got to do with your friendship or my work?"
"I've found out, Colin, that this girl has got money comin' to her fromher folks. She doesn't know about it yet. No one knows about it, exceptus here. She never belonged to the Skeets and Bushees. She was stolen.This money has been waitin' for her. Barrett and I are bank-men, andthings like this come to our attention when no one else would hear ofit. There's--there's--" Britt paused and slid a look at Barrett fromunder an eyebrow cocked inquiringly. Barrett slyly spread ten fingers."There's ten thousand dollars comin' to her in clean cash, Colin. Now,what do you think of that?"
"I think it's a ratty kind of a story," said MacLeod, bluntly.
Britt's temper flared.
"Don't you accuse me of lyin'," he roared. "The girl has got the moneycomin', I say."
"Maybe it _is_ comin'," replied the boss, doggedly; "but has she got anyname comin'? Has she got any folks comin'? Has she got anything comin'except somebody's hush-money?"
The woodsman's keen scenting of the trail discomposed the HonorablePulaski for a moment. But after a husky clearing of his throat hereturned to the work in hand.
"Folks, you fool! You can't dig folks up out of a cemetery. If her folkshad been alive they'd have hunted up their girl years ago. They weregood folks. You needn't worry about that. There's no need now to botherthe girl about her folks or the money. She wouldn't know how to handleit if she had it in her own hands. It needs a man to care for her andthe cash. We don't want a cheap hyena to fool her and get it. You're theman, Colin. Marry her, and the ten thousand will be put into your fistthe day the knot is tied."
"It sounds snide and I won't do it," growled MacLeod, seeming to fairlybristle in his obstinacy. "Not if she was Queen of Sheby."
"Le' him go, then!" murmured a voice under the bunk. "Here's a gen'lumpuffick--ick--ly willin'."
The Honorable Pulaski turned to behold the simpering face of drunkenTommy Eye peering wistfully from his retirement.
"I'll do it ch-cheaper, so 'elp me!" said Tommy, pounding down the emptybottle to mark emphasis.
"Yank that drunken hog out o' there, MacLeod!" roared Britt, after apreface of horrible oaths. And when Tommy stood before him, swayinglimply in the boss's clutch, he cuffed him repeatedly, first with onehand, then with the other. The smile on the man's face became a sicklygrimace, but he did not whimper.
"'Spected kickin'," he murmured. "Jus' soon be cuffed." He held up theempty bottle that he still clung to desperately. "Want to 'splain 'boutone drink--" he began. But Britt wrenched the bottle from his hand,raised it as though to beat out Tommy's brains, and, relenting, smashedit into a corner.
"So you've laid there and listened to our private business," he said,malevolently. "You've heard more than is good for you, Eye."
"Didn't hear nossin'," protested Tommy. "Was thinkin' up speech. Jus'heard him say he wouldn't marry--marry--"
"Marry who?"
"'Queen of Sheby,' says he, with all her di'monds. I'll marry her. I'llsettle down wiz Queen of Sheby."
"He's too drunk to know anything," said MacLeod. "Open the door, Mr.Britt, and I'll toss him out."
And he flung the soggy Tommy out on the carpet of pine-needles with aslittle consideration as though he were a bag of oats.
He turned at the door and looked from Britt to Barrett.
"You've put a big thing up to me, gents, and you've sprung it on me likea crack with a sled-stake. If I got dizzy and answered you short it wasyour own fault. Give me a night to sleep on it."
Outside he twisted his hand into the collar of Tommy Eye and startedtowards the main camp, dragging the inebriate. "I'll see that he keepshis mouth shut, gents," he called back to them.
"You needn't worry, John," announced Britt, closing the door and pullingout another cigar. "He'll do it." He waited for the sulphur to burn fromthe match, and lighted his tobacco, a smile of triumph wrinkling underhis beard.
"You don't usually tackle Pulaski D. Britt for good, practical advicewithout gettin' it," he went on. "The girl is crazy after MacLeod.You'll find MacLeod square when he makes a promise. He's got foolnotions about those things. And when she's married to him and settleddown here in these woods, where she belongs, the chap that wants to makeher Exhibit A in a slander against John Barrett will find himself upagainst a mighty tough proposition. You see that, don't you? Now thenext thing is to get her out of the hands of that gang that want to useher against you."
He mused a moment.
"All that we need to do is to send a man up to Jerusalem to-morrow, andsay that you're all ready to start for outside and propose to take thegirl along. If any one in this world has any rights over her, you have.They can't refuse. And now we'll go to bed, John, for if ever two menneeded sleep, I reckon we're the ones."
But it was not unbroken slumber that came to them. The big winds outsideroared with the sound of a bursting avalanche. Over the camp the sawinglimbs of the interlaced crowns shrieked and groaned. There were deeper,further, and more mystic sounds, like mighty 'cellos. And when the greatblow was at its height the wangan camp, built upon the roots of thesplay-foot spruces, swayed with the writhing of the roots, creaked inits timbers, and seemed to toss like a craft on a crazy sea. There werenoises near at hand in the woods like the detonations of heavy guns.Every now and then the earth shivered, and thunderous echoes boomed downthe forest aisles.
"Do you hear 'em John?" called Britt, at last. He had long been awake,and had marked the restless stirrings of the other in the bunk belowhim.
"I've been listening an hour," said Barrett, despondently, "and it's bigstuff that's coming down. Our loss by fire was small change to what thismeans to us, Pulaski. Withee has devilled my lands until there isn't awind-break left."
A roar like the awful voice of a park of artillery throbbed past them onthe volleying wind.
"I feel as though it was kissing a thousand dollars good-bye every timeI hear one of those noises," said Britt. "The devil can play jack-strawsin the Umcolcus region after this night, and find a new bunch everyday."
At last they looked dismally out on the dawn. The great gale had blownoverhead and away, the rearguard clouds chasing it, and the hard growth,stripped of every vestige of leaf, gave pathetic testimony to thebitterness of the conflict of the night.
The two lumber barons, staring anxiously up at the slopes of the blackgrowth for signs of ravage, were confronted by Tommy Eye, meek,repentant, and shaky.
"Sure, the witherlicks and the swamp swogons did howl last night, gents,and they all did say as how Tommy Eye ought to be ashamed of the size ofhis drink. And I've come back to you to get my kick." He turned humbly.
The Honorable Pulaski D. Britt accepted the invitation with alacrity,and dealt the kick with a vigor that fetched a squawk from the teamster.The timber tyrant's mood that morning welcomed such an opportunity, evenas a surcharged cloud welcomes a lightning-rod or a farm-house chimney.But once
the kick had been dealt the Honorable Pulaski felt less wire onthe edge of his meat-axe temper.
"And now I'll take my discharge," said Tommy. "MacLeod gave me an orderon you for my pay."
Britt snatched away the paper and tore it up.
"Get into that hovel and look after your horses." But when Tommy turnedto go his employer called him back. "I've got another job for you justnow, you snake-chaser. You need to chew fresh air, and you'll find a lotof it on top of Jerusalem. I don't know just how much you understood ofour business in the wangan camp last night, Eye, and I don't care. Youknow me well enough to understand that if you ever blab any of it I'llhave your ha' slet out of you!" Tommy cringed under a furious glare. "Itwill depend on how well you do an errand for me now whether or not Ifeed you to bobcats. You get that, do you?"
Again the teamster bowed his wistful assent.
"I wish I hadn't let Sheriff Rodliff and his men leave," remarked Brittto "Stumpage John," eying Tommy with some disfavor. "But perhaps thisfool can do the trick better than a sheriff's posse. Sending the possemight make talk and stir suspicions."
"The quieter it's done the better," suggested Barrett. "After my talkwith Wade--which was pretty soft, as I remember it--it will seem naturalfor me to send after the girl--and by just such a messenger as this."
"So we'll send the fool--you're right!" affirmed Britt. "Tommy," hedirected, wagging a thick finger under the man's attentive nose to markhis commands, "you hump up to that fire station on Jerusalem as quick asleg-work will get you there, and you'll find a young girl. There are notenough young girls up there so that you'll make any mistake in the rightone. You tell the one that's in charge, or whoever claims to be incharge, that the girl has been sent for. You'll probably find thatfellow Dwight Wade takin' the responsibility. Tell him that it's allright, and that the gentleman he made the talk with is prepared to backup all promises. Bring the girl back with you."
"Girls was never much took with me, and I never was handy in makin' upto girls," protested Tommy, his face puckering in alarm. "She prob'lywon't come, and then I'll get kicked again."
"You'll get kicked again mighty sudden if you don't do as I tell you,and do it quick and do it right!" roared Britt, starting off the campplatform. And Tommy, cowed by his tyrant, stood not upon the order ofhis going. He was trotting with a dog-waddle when he disappeared up theJerusalem trail.
"He ought to be back by noon," said Britt. "In the mean time we'll eatbreakfast and then cruise for blowdowns. And I'm thinkin' it isn't goin'to be a very humorous forenoon for timber-land owners."
Nor was it. Dolefully and silently they traversed wastes of splintereddevastation, blocked ram-downs, choked twitch-roads, and hideous snarlsof cross-piled timber.