by Holman Day
CHAPTER XXII
THE HOSTAGE OF THE GREAT WHITE SILENCE
"Round the bellowin' falls of Abol we lugged him through the brush, And Death had marked his forehead: 'To a Woman. Kindly Rush!'"
When Christopher and Wade started up and hurried into the lean-to, thecook of the "Lazy Tom" camp went ahead carrying a lamp to light theplace whose rude interior had so suddenly been made mystic by death.
"'Yes, s'r,' says I to him," he repeated, with queer, bewildered,hysterical sort of chuckle. "I says to him, jolly as a chipmunk in abeech-nut tree, I says, 'Set up and have a doughnut all fresh laid,' andI'll be bunga-nucked if he wa'n't dead! And that's a joke on me, allright!"
He held the lamp over the features of old "Ladder" Lane, and Dwight Wadeand Christopher Straight bent and peered.
"Look; if he ain't grinnin'!" whispered the cook, huskily. For onehorrid moment it seemed to Wade that the fixed grimace of the death-maskexpressed hideous mirth. The scrawl that the young man still clutchedin his fist held the words that the dead lips seemed to be mouthing:"You stole my wife. I've got your daughter. Now, damn you, crawl andbeg!" And at the thought of Elva Barrett, hidden, lost--worse thanlost--somewhere in that great silence about them, Wade's agony and angerfound vent in the oath that he groaned above the dead man, who seemed tolie there and mock him.
But Christopher Straight gently laid his seamed hand on the shaggyfringe of the gray poll.
"It was a hot fire that burned in there, poor old fellow," he murmured."And those that knew you can't be sorry that it's gone out."
He pressed his hand up under the hanging jaw, and smoothed down thehalf-opened eyelids. And when he stepped back, after his sad and kindlyoffices, the old man's face was composed; it was the worn, wasted faceof an old man who had suffered much; grief, hardship, hunger, and allhuman misery were writ large there in pitiful characters, in hollowtemple, sunken cheeks, pinched nostrils, and lips drawn as one drawsthem after a bitter sob. And over its misery, after a long look ofhonest grief, the old woodsman drew up the edge of the bunk's worn grayblanket, muttering as soothingly as though he were comforting a sickman: "Take your rest, old fellow! There's a long night ahead of you."
With bowed head Wade led the way into the main camp. He stumbled alongblindly, for the sudden tears were hot in his eyes. He regretted thatinstant of anger as a profanation that even his harrowing fears for ElvaBarrett could not excuse. For Linus Lane, lying there dead, hereflected, was the spoil of the lust of Elva Barrett's father, as hispeace of mind and his sanity had been playthings of John Barrett'scontemptuous indifference; and who was he, Dwight Wade, that he shouldsit in judgment, even though his heart were bursting with the agony ofhis fears?
"In the woods a tree falls the way of the axe-scarf, Mr. Wade," said oldChristopher, patting his shoulder. "John Barrett felled that one inthere, and he and his got in the way of it. Don't blame the tree, butthe man that chopped it."
"Where is she, Christopher? What has he done with her?" demanded theyoung man, hoarsely. He did not look up. His eyes were full. He wastrying to unfold the scrap of paper, but his fingers trembled soviolently that he tore it.
They had not marked the hasty exit of the cook. But his return broke inupon the long hush that had fallen between Wade and the woodsman. He wasbringing Barnum Withee, operator on "Lazy Tom," and his chopping-boss,and the men of "Lazy Tom" came streaming behind, moved by curiosity.
"And I says to him--and these gents here will tell you the same--I says,'Set up and have a fresh-laid doughnut!'" babbled the cook, retailinghis worn story over and over.
"I didn't know you were here," said the hospitable head of the camp,"till cook passed it to me along with the other news, that poor Lane hadparted his snub-line. I looked him over when he was brought in, but Ididn't see any chance for him." And after inviting them to eat and make"their bigness" in the office camp, he went on into the lean-to.
"Put on your cap, boy!" said old Christopher, touching Wade's elbow. Thegrumble of many voices, the crowd slowly jostling into the camp, thehalf-jocose comments on "Ladder" Lane disturbed and distressedChristopher, and he realized that the young man was suffering acutelyfrom a bitter cause. "Come out with me for a little while."
The wind had lulled. The heavens were clear. The Milky Way glowed withdazzling sheen above the forest's nicking, where the main road led.Wherever the eye found interstice between the fronds of spruce andhemlock the stars spangled the frosty blue. There was a hush so profoundthat a listener heard the pulsing of his blood. And yet there wassomething over all that was not silence, nor yet a sound, but arhythmical, slow respiration, as though the world breathed and one heardit, and, hearing it, could believe that nature was mortal--friend orkin.
Christopher walked to the first turn of the logging-road, and the youngman followed him; and when the trees had shut from sight the snow-heapedroofs and the yellow lights and all sign of human neighbors, Christopherstopped, leaned against a tree, and gazed up at the sparkling heavens.
"I reckoned your feelings was gettin' away from you a bit, Mr. Wade,"said the old man, quietly, "and I thought we'd step out for a whilewhere we can sort of get a grip on somethin' stationary, as you mightsay. In time of deep trouble, when they happen to be round, a chap feelsinclined to grab holt of poor human critters, but they ain't much of aprop to hang to. Not when there's the big woods!"
"The big woods have got her, Christopher," choked the young man,despairingly. "And I'm afraid!"
"The big woods look savagest to you when you're peekin' into them from acamp window in the night," declared the old man. "But when you're rightin 'em, like we are now, they ain't anything but friendly. Look aroundyou! Listen! There's nothing to be afraid of. Let the big woods talk toyou a moment, my boy. Forget there are men for just a little while. I'velet the woods talk to me in some of the sore times in my life, andthey've always comforted me when I really set myself to listen."
"My God, I can only hear the words that are written on this scrap ofpaper!" cried Wade. He shook "Ladder" Lane's crumpled letter before thewoodsman's face, and Christopher quietly reached for it, took it, andtore it up.
"When a paper talks louder than the good old woods talk, it's time toget rid of it," he remarked, and tossed the bits over the snow.
"I ain't goin' to tell you not to worry," Christopher went on, after atime. "I'm no fool, and you're no fool. It's a hard proposition, Mr.Wade. A lunatic whirling in a snow-cloud like a leaf, round and round,and then driftin' out, and no way in the world of tellin' where he camefrom! And there's some one--off that way he came from--that you wantterrible bad! Yet even that lunatic's tracks have been patted smooth bythe wind. It's no time to talk to human critters, Mr. Wade. It would be'Run this way and run that!' Let the woods talk to you! They've beenwrastlin' the big winds all day. They'll probably have to wrastle 'emagain to-morrow. And they'll be ready for the fight. Hear 'em sleep? Thesame for you and for me, Mr. Wade. Go in and sleep, and be ready forwhat comes to-morrow."
He walked ahead, leading the way back to camp, and Wade followed, everyaching muscle crying for rest, though his heart, aching more poignantly,called on him to plunge into the forest in search of the helplesshostage the woods were hiding.
It is not in the nature of woodsmen to pry into another's reason forthis or that. Barnum Withee gave Christopher Straight a chance to tellwhy he and his employer were so far off the Enchanted operation; butwhen Christopher Straight smoked on without explaining, Barnum Witheesmoked on without asking questions. In one of the dim bunks of thewangan Wade breathed stertorously, drugged with nature's opiate of utterweariness. And after listening a moment with an air of relief,Christopher broke upon Withee's meditations.
"Was you tellin' me where Lane has been makin' his headquarters since heskipped the fire station?" he inquired, innocently.
"I was thinkin' about him, too," returned Withee, promptly."Headquarters! Does an Injun devil with a steel trap on his tail haveheadquarters while he's runnin' and yowli
n'? Whether he's been in theair or in a hole since he went out of his head, time of the fire, Idon't know. Eye ain't been laid on him till he come out of thatsnow-squall, walkin' like an icicle and hootin' like a barn owl."
"Heard of any goods bein' missed from any depot camps?" pursued thewoodsman, shrewdly. "That might tell where he's been hangin' out."
"No," said the operator, suddenly brusque. Then he looked up from thesliver that he had been whittling absent-mindedly, and fixed keen eye onStraight. "Say, look here, Chris, if you and your young friend are overhere huntin' for Lane, or for any documents or papers or evidence tomake more trouble for Honorable John Barrett, I've got to tell you thatyou can't ring me in. Honorable Barrett and me has fixed!"
"I reckoned you would," said Christopher. "Stumpage kings usually gettheir own way."
"Well, it's different in this case," declared the operator,triumphantly, "and when I've been used square I cal'late to use theother fellow square, and that's why I'm tellin' you, so that you won'tmake any mistakes about how I feel towards Mr. Barrett. I don't approveof any move to hector him about that Lane matter. He says to me atCastonia--"
"When?"
"No longer ago than yesterday. I came through from down-river with twonew teamsters and a saw-filer, and hearin' Mr. Barrett was able to setup and talk a little business for the first time, I stepped into RodIde's house, and we fixed. He throwed off all claims for extry stumpageand damages on Square-hole. And when a man gives me more than I expect,that fixes me with him."
"Ought to, for sartin," agreed Christopher. "Change of heart in him, orbecause you knowed about the Lane case?" The tone was rather satirical,and Withee flushed under his tan.
"You don't think I went to a sick man's bedside and blackmailed him, doyou, like some--"
"Friend Barn," broke in the old woodsman, quietly, "don't slip out anyslur that you'll wish you hadn't."
"Well," growled the operator, "it may be that 'Stumpage John' Barrettain't always set a model for a Sunday-school, but if I had as pretty adaughter as that one that was settin' in his room with him, and as nicea girl as she seems to be, though of course she didn't stoop to talk toa grizzly looservee like me, I'd hate to have an old dead and decayedscandal dug up in these woods, and dragged out and dumped over myfront-yard fence in the city!"
And Christopher remembered what he had remarked on one occasion toDwight Wade, when they had seen the waif of the Skeet tribe on MiseryGore, and now he half chuckled as he squinted at Withee and muttered inhis beard, "Lots of folks don't recognize white birch when it's polishedand set up in a parlor."
"What say?" demanded the operator, suspiciously.
"I'm so sleepy I'm dreamin' out loud," explained Christopher, blandly,"and I'm goin' to turn in." And he sighed to himself as he rolled inupon the fir boughs and pulled the spread about his ears. "There's somefeller said that good counsel cometh in the morning. Mebbe so--mebbe so!But it will have to be me and the boy here for the job, because oldDan'l Webster, with all his flow of language, couldn't convince BarnWithee now that it's John Barrett's daughter that is lost in the woods.I know now why something told me to go slow on the hue and cry."