XV
Two days later Welton returned to the mill. At his suggestion Bob stayedwith the drive. He took his place quietly as a visitor, had the goodsense to be unobtrusive, and so was tolerated by the men. That is tosay, he sat at the camp fires practically unnoticed, and the rivermentalked as though he were not there. When he addressed any of them theyanswered him with entire good humour, but ordinarily they paid no moreattention to him than they did to the trees and bushes that chanced tosurround the camp.
The drive moved forward slowly. Sometimes Billy packed up every day toset forth on one of his highly adventurous drives; again camp stayed forsome time in the same place. Bob amused himself tramping up and down theriver, reviewing the operations. Occasionally Roaring Dick, in hiscapacity of river boss, accompanied the young fellow. Why, Bob could notimagine, for the alert, self-contained little riverman trudged along inalmost entire silence, his keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly on allthere was to be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or comment, he answeredby a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or the monosyllable was neversullen or hostile or contemptuous; merely indifferent. Bob learned toeconomize speech, and so got along well with his strange companion.
By the end of the week the drive entered a cleared farm country. Thecultivation was crude and the clearing partial. Low-wooded hills dottedwith stumps of the old forest alternated with willow-grown bottom-landsand dense swamps. The farmers lived for the most part in slab or loghouses earthed against the winter cold. Fences were of split rails laid"snake fashion." Ploughing had to be in and out between the blackenedstumps on the tops of which were piled the loose rocks picked from thesoil as the share turned them up. Long, unimproved roads wandered overthe hills, following roughly the section lines, but perfectly willing toturn aside through some man's field in order to avoid a steep grade orsoft going. These things the rivermen saw from their stream exactly as atrainman would see them from his right-of-way. The river was thehighway, and rarely was it considered worth while to climb the lowbluffs out of the bottom-land through which it flowed.
In the long run it landed them in a town named Twin Falls. Here were awater-power dam and some small manufactories. Here, too, were saloonsand other temptations for rivermen. Camp was made above town. In theevening the men, with but few exceptions, turned in to the sleeping tentat the usual hour. Bob was much surprised at this; but later he came torecognize it as part of a riverman's peculiar code. Until the driveshould be down, he did not feel himself privileged to "blow off steam."Even the exceptions did not get so drunk they could not show up thefollowing morning to take a share in sluicing the drive through the dam.
All but Roaring Dick. The latter did not appear at all, and was reported"drunk a-plenty" by some one who had seen him early that morning.Evidently the river boss did not "take this drive serious." His absenceseemed to make no difference. The sluicing went forward methodically.
"He'll show up in a day or two," said the cook with entire indifference,when Bob inquired of him.
That evening, however, four or five of the men disappeared, and did notreturn. Such was the effect of an evil example on the part of theforeman. Larsen took charge. In almost unbroken series the logs shotthrough the sluiceways into the river below, where they were received bythe jam crew and started on the next stage of their long journey to themills. In a day the dam was passed. One of the younger men rode the lastlog through the sluiceway, standing upright as it darted down the chuteinto the eddy below. The crowd of townspeople cheered. The boy waved hishat and birled the log until the spray flew.
But hardly was camp pitched two miles below town when one of the jamcrew came upstream to report a difficulty. Larsen at once made ready toaccompany him down the river trail, and Bob, out of curiosity, wentalong, too.
"It's mossbacks," the messenger explained, "and them deadheads we beencarrying along. They've rigged up a little sawmill down there, wherethey're cutting what the farmers haul in to 'em. And then, besides,they've planted a bunch of piles right out in the middle of the streamand boomed in their side, and they're out there with pike-poles, nailin'onto every stick of deadhead that comes along."
"Well, that's all right," said Larsen. "I guess they got a right to themas long as we ain't marked them."
"They can have their deadheads," agreed the riverman, "but their pileshave jammed our drive and hung her."
"We'll break the jam," said Larsen.
Arrived at the scene of difficulty, Bob looked about him with greatinterest. The jam was apparently locked hard and fast against a clump ofpiles driven about in the centre of the stream. These had evidently beenplanted as the extreme outwork of a long shunting boom. Men workingthere could shunt into the sawmill enclosure that portion of the driveto which they could lay claim. The remainder could proceed down the openchannel to the left. That was the theory. Unfortunately, this divisionof the river's width so congested matters that the whole drive had hung.
The jam crew were at work, but even Bob's unpractised eye saw that theirtask was stupendous. Even should they succeed in loosening the breast,there could be no reason to suppose the performance would not have to berepeated over and over again as the close-ranked drive came against theobstacle.
Larsen took one look, then made his way across to the other side anddown to the mill. Bob followed. The little sawmill was going full blastunder the handling of three men and a boy. Everything was done in themost primitive manner, by main strength, awkwardness, and old-fashionedtools.
"Who's boss?" yelled Larsen against the clang of the mill.
A slow, black-bearded man stepped forward.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"Our drive's hung up against your boom," yelled Larsen.
The man raised his hand and the machinery was suddenly stilled.
"So I perceive," said he.
"Your boom-piles are drove too far out in the stream."
"I don't know about that," objected the mossback.
"I do," insisted Larsen. "Nobody on earth could keep from jamming, theway you got things fixed."
"That's none of my business," said the man steadily.
"Well, we'll have to take out that fur clump of piles to get our jambroke."
"I don't know about that," repeated the man.
Larsen apparently paid no attention to this last remark, but trampedback to the jam. There he ordered a couple of men out with axes, andothers with tackle. But at that moment the three men and the boyappeared. They carried three shotguns and a rifle.
"That's about enough of that," said the bearded man, quietly. "You letmy property alone. I don't want any trouble with you men, but I'll blowhell out of the first man that touches those piles. I've had aboutenough of this riverhog monkey-work."
He looked as though he meant business, as did his companions. When therivermen drew back, he took his position atop the disputed clump ofpiles, his shotgun across his knees.
The driving crew retreated ashore. Larsen was plainly uncertain.
"I tell you, boys," said he, "I'll get back to town. You wait."
"Guess I'll go along," suggested Bob, determined to miss no phase ofthis new species of warfare.
"What you going to do?" he asked Larsen when they were once on thetrail.
"I don't know," confessed the older man, rubbing his cap. "I'm justgoin' to see some lawyer, and then I'm goin' to telegraph the Company. Iwish Darrell was in charge. I don't know what to do. You can't expectthose boys to run a chance of gittin' a hole in 'em."
"Do you believe they'd shoot?" asked Bob.
"I believe so. It's a long chance, anyhow."
But in Twin Falls they received scant sympathy and encouragement. Theplace was distinctly bucolic, and as such opposed instinctively tolarger mills, big millmen, lumber, lumbermen and all pertainingthereunto. They tolerated the drive because, in the first place they hadto; and in the second place there was some slight profit to be made. Butthe rough rivermen antagonized them, and they were never averse toseeing these buccane
ers of the streams in difficulties. Then, too, bychance the country lawyers Larsen consulted happened to be attorneys forthe little sawmill men. Larsen tried in his blundering way to expresshis feeling that "nobody had a right to hang our drive." Hisexplanations were so involved and futile that, without thinking, Bobstruck in.
"Surely these men have no right to obstruct as they do. Isn't there somelaw against interfering with navigation?"
"The stream is not navigable," returned the lawyer curtly.
Bob's memory vouchsafed a confused recollection of something readsometime, somewhere.
"Hasn't a stream been declared navigable when logs can be driven init?" he asked.
"Are you in charge of this drive?" the lawyer asked, turning on himsharply.
"Why--no," confessed Bob.
"Have you anything to do with this question?"
"I don't believe I have."
"Then I fail to see why I should answer your questions," said thelawyer, with finality. "As to your question," he went on to Larsen withequal coldness, "if you have any doubts as to Mr. Murdock's rights inthe stream, you have the recourse of a suit at law to settle that point,and to determine the damages, if any."
Bob found himself in the street with Larsen.
"But they haven't got no right to stop our drive _dead_ that way,"expostulated the old man.
Bob's temper was somewhat ruffled by his treatment at the hands of thelawyer.
"Well, they've done it, whether they have the right to or not," he saidshortly; "what next?"
"I guess I'll telegraph Mr. Welton," said Larsen.
He did so. The two returned to camp. The rivermen were loafing in campawaiting Larsen's reappearance. The jam was as before. Larsen walked outon the logs. The boy, seated on the clump of piles, gave a shrillwhistle. Immediately from the little mill appeared the brown-bearded manand his two companions. They picked their way across the jam to thepiles, where they roosted, their weapons across their knees, untilLarsen had returned to the other bank.
"Well, Mr. Welton ought to be up in a couple of days, if he ain't up themain river somewheres," said Larsen.
"Aren't you going to do anything in the meantime?" asked Bob.
"What can I do?" countered Larsen.'
The crew had nothing to say one way or the other, but watched with acynical amusement the progress of affairs. They smoked, and spat, andsquatted on their heels in the Indian taciturnity of their kind when forsome reason they withhold their approval. That evening, however, Bobhappened to be lying at the campfire next two of the older men. Asusual, he smoked in unobtrusive silence, content to be ignored if onlythe men would act in their accustomed way, and not as before a stranger.
"Wait; hell!" said one of the men to the other. "Times is certainly gonewrong! If they had anything like an oldtime river boss in charge, they'dcome the Jack Orde on this lay-out."
Bob pricked up his ears at this mention of his father's name.
"What's that?" he asked.
The riverman rolled over and examined him dispassionately for a fewmoments.
"Jack Orde," he deigned to explain at last, "was a riverman. He was agood one. He used to run the drive in the Redding country. When hestarted to take out logs, he took 'em out, by God! I've heard him often:'Get your logs out first, and pay the damage afterward,' says he. He wasa holy terror. They got the state troops out after him once. It came tobe a sort of by-word. When you generally gouge, kick and sandbag a maninto bein' real _good_, why we say you come the Jack Orde on him."
"I see," said Bob, vastly amused at this sidelight on the familyreputation. "What would you do here?"
"I don't know," replied the riverman, "but I wouldn't lay around andwait."
"Why don't some of you fellows go out there and storm the fort, if youfeel that way?" asked Bob.
"Why?" demanded the riverman, "I won't let any boss stump me; but why inhell should I go out and get my hide full of birdshot? If this outfitdon'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 eminentlycharacteristic attitude.
"Well," he remarked comfortably, "somebody'll be down from the millsoon."
The riverman turned on him almost savagely.
"Down soon!" he snorted. "So'll the water be 'down soon.' It's droppingevery minute. That telegraft of yours won't even start out beforeto-morrow morning. Don't you fool yourself. That Twin Falls outfit isjust too tickled to do us up. It'll be two days before anybody shows up,and then where are you at? Hell!" and the old riverman relapsed into adisgusted silence.
Considerably perturbed, Bob hunted up Larsen.
"Look here, Larsen," said he, "they tell me a delay here is likely tohang 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 Larsen.
"Well, I'd get some weapons up town and drive that gang off," said Bobheatedly.
"They'd have a posse down and jug the lot of us," Larsen pointed out,"before we could clear the river." He suddenly flared up. "I ain't noriver boss, and I ain't paid as a river boss, and I never claimed to beone. Why in hell don't they keep their men in charge?"
"You're working for the company, and you ought to do your best forthem," said Bob.
But Larsen had abruptly fallen into Scandinavian sulks. He mutteredsomething under his breath, and quite deliberately arose and walkedaround to the other side of the fire.
Twice during the night Bob arose from his blankets and walked down tothe riverside. In the clear moonlight he could see one or the other ofthe millmen always on watch, his shotgun across his knees. Evidentlythey did not intend to be surprised by any night work. The young fellowreturned very thoughtful to his blankets, where he lay staring upagainst the canvas of the tent.
Next morning he was up early, and in close consultation with Billy theteamster. The latter listened attentively to what Bob had to say,nodding his head from time to time. Then the two disappeared in thedirection of the wagon, where for a long interval they busied themselvesat some mysterious operation.
When they finally emerged from the bushes, Bob was carrying over hisshoulder a ten-foot poplar sapling around the end of which was fasteneda cylindrical bundle of considerable size. Bob paid no attention to themen about the fire, but bent his steps toward the river. Billy, however,said a few delighted words to the sprawling group. It arose withalacrity 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 thatthe bundle around the end of the sapling consisted of a dozen rolls ofgiant powder from which dangled a short fuse. Bob touched his match tothe split outer end of the fuse. It spluttered viciously. He arose withgreat deliberation, picked up his strange weapon, and advanced out overthe logs.
In the meantime the opposing army had gathered about the disputed clumpof piles, to the full strength of its three shotguns and the singlerifle. Bob paid absolutely no attention to them. When within a shortdistance he stopped and, quite oblivious to warnings and threats fromthe army, set himself to watching painstakingly the sputtering progressof the fire up the fuse, exactly as a small boy watches his giantcracker which he hopes to explode in mid-air. At what he considered theproper moment he straightened his powerful young body, and cast thesapling from him, javelin-wise.
"Scat!" he shouted, and scrambled madly for cover.
The army decamped in haste. Of its armament it lost near fifty percent., 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 scamperedfor safety without looking to see where it had fallen. As a matter offact, by one of those very lucky accidents, that often attend a star inthe ascendent, th
e sapling dove head on into a cavern in the jam abovethe clump of piles. The detonation of the twelve full sticks of giantpowder was terrific. Half the river leaped into the air in a beautifulcolumn of water and spray that seemed to hang motionless for appreciablemoments. Dark fragments of timbers were hurled in all directions. Whenthe row had died the clump of piles was seen to have disappeared. Bob'schance 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 sonof you. Get that drive going and keep it going. I've cleared the riverfor you; and if you'd any one of you had the nerve of my poor old fatsub-centre, you'd have done it for yourselves. Get busy! Hop!"
The men jumped for their peavies. Bob raged up and down the bank. Forthe moment he had forgotten the husk of the situation, and saw it onlyin essential. Here was a squad to lick into shape, to fashion into ateam. It mattered little that they wore spikes in their boots instead ofcleats; that they sported little felt hats instead of head guards. Theprinciple was the same. The team had gone to pieces in the face of acrisis; discipline was relaxed; grumblers were getting noisy. Bobplunged joyously head over ears in his task. By now he knew every man byname, and he addressed each personally. He had no idea of what was to bedone to start this riverful of logs smoothly and surely on its way; hedid not need to. Afloat on the river was technical knowledge enough, andto spare. Bob threw his men at the logs as he used to throw his backs atthe opposing line. And they went. Even in the whole-souled, franticabsorption of the good coach he found time to wonder at the likeness ofall men. These rivermen differed in no essential from the members of thesquad. They responded to the same authority; they could be hurled as aunit against opposing obstacles.
Bob felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and whirled to stare straight intothe bloodshot eyes of Roaring Dick. The man was still drunk, but onlywith the lees of the debauch. He knew perfectly what he was about, butthe bad whiskey still hummed through his head. Bob met the baleful glarefrom under his square brows, as the man teetered back and forth on hisheels.
"You got a hell of a nerve!" said Roaring Dick, thickly. "You talk likeyou was boss of this river."
Bob looked back at him steadily for a full half-minute.
"I am," said he at last.