King Spruce, A Novel

by Holman Day

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE HOME-MAKERS OF ENCHANTED

  "The clank of the press and the scream of the saws, The grunt of the grinder that slavers and chaws At the fibre o' pulp-wood, the purr of the plane, Sing only one song to the big woods o' Maine. So here's for a billion down race-way and sluice-- Hell for the hemlock, the pine, and the spruce."

  --Off for the Woods.

  John Barrett was first to break the embarrassed silence that fell uponthe four men left at the camp. Rodburd Ide's brows were wrinkled, andhis lips were parting to ask the questions that his curiosity urged.Britt was wrathfully gazing after the insolent Larry. Dwight Wade hadtaken up his pack and calipers, and was waiting for Ide with someimpatience.

  "Mr. Wade," began the Umcolcus baron, nervously, "I hope you willunderstand my position in this matter, and see why it was necessary tomake some change in the plan we discussed on Jerusalem."

  "I sha'n't try to understand it," snapped Wade. "You volunteeredpromises. I took those promises to the person most interested, andyou've seen fit to drop out from under. That ends our business--all thebusiness we had in common, Mr. Barrett."

  But the baron was anxious to placate. He began guarded explanations, towhich Ide was listening intently, but Wade cut them short with a scornthere was no mistaking.

  "The only sort of interest I took in that unfortunate girl has beenmaliciously misinterpreted, Mr. Barrett. She was thrown on my hands in away that you thoroughly understand. Mr. Ide, as a plantation officer,has relieved me of the responsibility. You can talk with him hereafter."

  "But what--what are you going to say to him?" faltered Barrett, forcedto show his anxious fear, since Wade was moving away.

  In his physical weakness, in the illness that was sapping his nerve, hebecame wistfully paltering.

  "Nothing," replied the young man, curtly, but with a decisiveness therewas no misunderstanding. "The matter has ceased to be any business ofmine. My business hereafter--and I say this to my partner--is concernedwholly and entirely with certain lumbering operations on Enchantedtownship."

  He went away, following the crew. Rodburd Ide, eager to be gone, andseeing in the affair thus flatly dropped by Wade only a phase of theolder animosity between Britt and the young man--a quarrel that mightseek any avenue for expression, even a State pauper--demanded ofBarrett:

  "Do you lay any special claim to the girl?" His tone was that of anofficial only.

  "Of course he doesn't," broke in Britt, seeing that his associate wasgroping for a reply. "We did think of trying to help her, but what's theuse? There isn't any more gratitude in that sculch than there is in apine knot. Send her back to the tribe."

  The little Castonia magnate looked relieved.

  "She's all right with my girl till I get home," he said. "Then theaffair will take care of itself, like all those things do."

  Barrett had picked up one of the discarded bludgeons and was supportinghimself on it. His legs trembled visibly when he walked to Ide's side.

  "Rodburd," he said, appealingly, "I can see that you think this thingstrange. I don't want you to have wrong ideas. You and I have known eachother too long to get into quarrels. You have seen that I have beentrying to smooth matters here to-day. I can't talk it over with you now.I'm sick--I'm a sick man, Rodburd! I've been through a dreadfulexperience up here."

  "You don't look well," returned Ide, solicitously, his ever-readysympathy enlisted.

  Barrett's face was haggard and his eyes were bloodshot. He wavered onhis feet, tipping from heel to toe like a drunken man.

  "You ought to get out of these woods as quick as you can," the Castoniaman went on.

  Even Britt saw now that his associate was in a bad way. He gave a keenglance at him, and shouted to MacLeod, who was waiting at the edge ofthe woods, "Send back four of my men!"

  "I feel dreadfully," mourned Barrett. His grit and his excitement hadbeen keeping him up. Now, like most strong men who have to confess thatthey are conquered, he gave way to his illness with utter abandonment ofcourage.

  "Mr. Barrett," said Ide, surveying him pityingly, "I can see that you'rea sick man. I don't want to say that to frighten you, but because youought to know it. You'd better only try to make Castonia, and have adoctor sent there. My girl will be there as soon as you are. You go tomy house, and get doctored up before you tackle the trip down-river.That buckboard ride will kill you if you try it in the shape you're innow."

  "You'd better do as he says, John," advised Britt, checking the timberbaron's feeble protests. "I'm going to have these four men make a litterfor you and lug you. You can stand that sort of ridin', but unless youare in better shape when you get to Castonia you wouldn't be good forthat stage ride. Use common-sense, and rest up at Rodburd's house."

  "Give the men their orders," whispered the little Castonia magnate in anaside to Britt. "It's fever, and a bad one if I ain't mistaken. By thetime he's got to my place he'll probably be too sick to give any ordersof his own. I never saw a man grow sick so fast. Tell the men to leavehim there." He talked impatiently, for his crew had disappeared up thetrail. "I've got to be hurryin'," he added. "Mr. Barrett, make my homeyours!" he cried over his shoulder, as he trotted off. "I'll be back ina few days--as soon as I get this crew of mine located."

  The four men were already at work securing poles and boughs for thelitter.

  Barrett sat down upon a tussock, and held his throbbing head in hishands. He began weakly to complain that Britt had made a mistake inbringing his men and insisting on possession of the girl.

  The Honorable Pulaski promptly checked the incoherent expostulations ofthe stumpage baron.

  "No, I haven't committed you, either," he blurted. "Bluff it out! It'sthe only way to do. It's the way I advised you to do in the first place.The thing looks big to you here in the woods. You're down on the levelwith it. Get back into the city, and get your tail-coat on and yourdignity, and sit up on top of that governor's boom of yours, and thestory will only be political blackmail if they try it on you. But theywon't. That Wade fellow is one of those righteous sort of asses thatlike to read moral lessons to other people, and especially to you, sohe can work out his grudge. But he's all done. I know the sort. Thething began to scorch his fingers and he chucked it. He's got enough toattend to in these woods. Don't you worry."

  "But I do worry," mourned Barrett. "And there's the girl to consider.God save me, Pulaski, she's mine! Her looks show it. I can't sleepnights after this, unless she is taken care of in a decent way."

  "There'll be a dozen methods of doin' it when the time is ripe," urgedthe other, consolingly. "As it is now, you get out of these woods andstay out, and attend to your business--which is my business, too, whenit comes to the governor matter. By ----, you've seen enough in thistrip to understand that we haven't got any too safe timber laws as itis. If the farmers get control next trip it means trouble for such of usas take to the tall timber. Buck up, man! Don't believe for a minutethat we're goin' to let a college dude and a State pauper queer you. Thething will work itself out."

  He uttered a sudden snort of disgust, gazing over Barrett's shoulder.

  "Foolish Abe" of the Skeets had edged out of the bush, the silence afterthe uproar of voices and conflict encouraging him. He seemed pitifullybewildered. An instinct almost canine prompted him to take the trail tothe south, for his only friend, the girl of the tribe, had gone thatway. But a strange female had gone with her, and of strange females heentertained unspeakable fear.

  "Here, you cross-eyed baboon," called the Honorable Pulaski, "go!Scoot!" He pointed north in the direction in which the Enchanted crewhad disappeared. "Young man want you. Follow him. Stay with him. Run!"He picked up his discarded sled-stake, and the fool hurried away towardsthe Notch. "I'd like to see that human nail-keg plastered onto theEnchanted crew for the winter," remarked Britt, with malice. "There's nofillin' him up. He'll eat as much as three men, and that Wade is justenough of a soft thing not to turn him out. If I can't bo
re an enemywith a pod-auger, John, I'll do it with a gimlet--a gimlet will let moreor less blood."

  Five minutes later Barrett was borne on his way south, his couragebraced by some final arguments from his iron associate, his mind made upto adopt the course of indignant bluff suggested by the belligerentBritt.

  And Britt was stumping north, driving the blubbering Abe before him withsundry hoots and missiles.

  When the poor creature came crawling to the fire on hands and knees atdusk that evening, hairy, pitiable, and drooling with hunger, RodburdIde accepted him with resignation, though he recognized Britt's pettymalice; for unless he were driven, Abe Skeet would never have come pasta well-stocked lumber-camp to follow wanderers into the wilderness.

  That night the Enchanted crew camped on Attean Stream, a short day'sjourney from their destination. The tired men snatched supper from theirpacks and fell back snoring, their heads on their dunnage-bags.

  They were away in the first flush of the morning, Rodburd Ide leadingwith his partner. Wade welcomed the little man's absorbed interest inthe business ahead of them. Ide asked no questions about the incident atDurfy's. Wade put the hideous topic as far behind other thoughts as hecould, and soon other thoughts crowded it out.

  As they passed from the zone of striped maple, round-wood, witch-hobble,and mountain holly that Mother Nature had drawn across her naked breastafter the rude hand of Pulaski Britt had stripped the virgin growth,his heart lifted. Under the great spruces of Enchanted the town'sbricks, streets, and human passions seemed very far away.

  Before he slept that night he had had an experience that thrilled thesense of the primitive self hidden within him, as it is hidden in allmen, and covered by conventions.

  He had staked the metes and bounds, the corners, the frontage, all thedimensions of a new home, where no roof except the crowns of trees hadever shut sunlight off the earth.

  Mankind in general opens eyes within walls that the hands of thosecoming before have built.

  Many have no occasion to seek ever for other quarters than those theirfathers have given them. With most the limit of exploration is the questfor a new rental. Mankind who build, build along settled streets, firsttaking note that sewers and water systems have been installed.

  Even in the woods most crews come up to find that the advanceskirmishers have builded main camp, meal camp, horse-hovels, and wangan.Owing to the sudden forming of Rodburd Ide's partnership with the youngman whom Fate threw in his way, and his equally sudden determination tooperate on virgin Enchanted, there had been no time for preliminaries.Even the tote teams with the first of the winter's supplies were milesaway down the trail, for in the woods the human two-foot outclasses theequine four-foot.

  Therefore, Wade, perspiring in the forefront of the toilers, saw thefirst tree topple, heard it crash outward from the site of the camp, andtugged with the others when it was set into place as the sill. When hestood back and wiped his forehead and gazed on that one lonesome log itmade roofless out-doors seem bigger and more threatening. The rain waspattering from a cold sky. The thrall of centuries of housed ancestorswas on him. Roof and walls had attached themselves to his sentiency,even as the shell of the snail is attached to its pulp.

  But the next moment Larry Gorman started a song, and the rollickinghundred men about him took it up and toiled with merry thoughtlessnessof all except that God's good greenwood was about them and God's skyabove them, and Wade bent again to labor, ashamed that he had countedshingles and plaster as standing for so much.

  They put up eight-log walls for the main camp, notching the ends. Ahundred willing men made the buildings grow like toadstools. While thewalls were going up men laid floors of poles shaved flat on one side.Others brought moss and chinked the spaces between the logs of thewalls. The first team up brought tarred paper and the few boards neededfor tables and like uses. The tarred paper and cedar splints roofed allcomfortably.

  The second team brought stove, tin dishes, and raw staples--and cook andcookee walked behind.

  And when old Christopher Straight came at the tail of the procession asfast as he could hurry back from Castonia settlement, the camps stoodnearly complete under the frown of Enchanted Mountain, Enchanted Streamgurgling over brown rocks at the door.

  The distant whick-whack of axes told where the swampers were clearingthe way, and the tearing crash of trees punctuated the ceaseless "ur-rrick-raw!" of the cross-cut saws. The only axe scarf on Ide's trees wasthe nick necessary to direct their fall. They were felled by the saw.

  Two days of exploration on the spruce benches straight back from thestream showed up several million feet of black growth easily availablefor a first season's operation.

  Ide, Wade, and old Christopher cruised, pacing parallels and countingtrees. And when they sat down on an outcropping of ledge the young manmade so many sagacious observations that Ide's eyes opened in amazement.

  "Where did you learn lumberin'?" he demanded.

  "I wasn't aware that I knew it--not as it is viewed from a practicalstand-point," replied Wade, humbly. "I was going to ask you in a momentif you wouldn't like to have me keep still so that you and Christophercould talk sense."

  "I never heard better opinions on a stand of timber and a lay of land,"affirmed his partner. "It looks as though you'd been holdin' out on me,"he added, with a grim smile.

  The young man smiled back. There was a certain grateful pride in hisexpression.

  "I know how old woodsmen look at book-learned chaps, Mr. Ide. PulaskiBritt told me once. I was simply trying on you a bit of an experimentwith my little knowledge of books. I was waiting to have you andChristopher pull me up short. I'm rather surprised to find that youthink what I said was good sense. But after a book-fellow has bumpedagainst practical men like--like Mr. Britt for a time, he begins todistrust his books. It's simply this way, Mr. Ide: I had a few young menin my high-school who were interested in forestry of the modern sort,and I worked with them to encourage them as much as I could. It isalmost impossible for a reading-man in these days not to take aninterest in the protection of our forests, for the folks at Washingtonare making it the great topic of the times."

  "Well," remarked Ide, with a sigh of appreciation, "I never read a bookon forestry in my life, and I never heard of a lumberman in these partswho ever had. But if you can get facts like those you've stated out ofbooks, I reckon some of us better spend our winter evenin's readin'instead of playin' pitch pede." He got up and gave the young man acomplimenting palm. "Wade," he said, earnestly, "I'll own up that I'vebeen a little prejudiced against book-fellows myself. Instead of givin'an ignorant man the contents of the book--the juice of it, as you mightsay---in a way that won't hurt, they are so anxious to have him knowthat it's book-learnin' they've got, they'll bang him across the facewith it, book-covers and all. I like your knowledge, because it's goin'to help us in handlin' this thing we've bit off up here. But I'll beblamed if I don't like your modesty best of all."

  He picked up his calipers, stuck them under his arm, and started forcamp with a haste that showed full confidence in his partner's ability.

  And the next morning he buttoned the camp letters in his coat, andstarted south for Castonia with the outgoing tote team.

  "I don't worry about this end," he said, at parting, "and you needn'tworry about mine. Don't be afraid of going hungry. There's nothin' likefull stomachs to make axes and saws run well. It will have to behand-to-mouth till snow flies, then I'll slip you in stores enough tofill that wangan to the roof. Good heart, my boy! We're goin' to makesome money."

  Wade followed him to the edge of the clearing with his first sense ofloneliness tugging within him.

  "Safe home to you, Mr. Ide," he said, "and my respectful regards to MissNina, if you will take them. I suppose--she will--probably--the girl shetook away--" he stammered.

  "By thunder mighty!" cried the Castonia magnate, whirling on him, "I'dforgotten all about that Skeet girl, or Arden girl, or whatever theycall her."

  He eyed the young m
an with a dawning of his old curiosity, but Wade methis gaze frankly.

  "The affair of the girl is not mine at all," he said. "Simply becauseshe seemed superior to the tribe she was with, I hoped Mr. Barrett woulddo as he partly promised--use a few dollars of his money to help herfrom the muck. Such cases appeal to me, because I'm not accustomed toseeing them, perhaps."

  "If my girl is interested in that poor little wildcat, you needn't thinktwice about her bein' taken good care of," cried the admiring father.

  And gazing into the wholesome eyes and candid face of the little man,Wade reflected that perhaps Fate had handled a problem better for JohnBarrett's abandoned daughter than he himself, in his resentful zeal, hadplanned.

  He shook Ide's hand hard, and, with the picture of John Barrett's otherdaughter in his dimming eyes and the love of John Barrett's otherdaughter burning in his lonely heart, he turned back towards the woods,whose fronded arms, tossing in the October wind, beckoned him to hisduty.