Connie Morgan in the Lumber Camps

  CHAPTER IX

  SAGINAW ED IN THE TOILS

  Connie hoped that during the ride to Camp Two Slue Foot would furtherenlighten him concerning his various schemes for defrauding hisemployers, but the man sat silent, eyeing the tall pines that flankedthe roadway on either side.

  "Pretty good timber, isn't it?" ventured the boy, after a time.

  The boss nodded: "They hain't much of them kind left. If I owned thistrac' an' could afford to pay taxes I'd never lay down a stick of it ferten year--mebbe twenty."

  "Why not?"

  "Why not! 'Cause it'll be worth ten dollars where it's worth a dollarnow--that's why. Pine's a-goin' up every year, an' they've cut the bestof it everywheres except here an' there a strip that fer one reason an'another they couldn't git holt of."

  "The Syndicate's cutting theirs now, and surely they can afford to paytaxes."

  Slue Foot grinned: "They wouldn't be cuttin' their white pine alongDogfish if this trac' wasn't bein' cut."

  "What's that got to do with it?"

  "Mebbe if you kind of stick around, like I told you, you'll see. I'm oneof these here hairpins that never tells no one nawthin' about anythin''til the time comes--see?"

  "You're all right, Slue Foot," laughed the boy. "I guess I'll stickaround."

  "It's a good thing fer you you got sense enough to know who to tie to.No one never made nawthin' workin' fer wages--an' no one ever will."

  As they drew into Camp Two's clearing Slue Foot cocked a weatherwise eyeskyward. "Shouldn't wonder an' the snow'll be comin' tonight ortomorrow--them clouds looks like it. Come on, le's git at them supplies.They's two wagons in a'ready an' two more comin' an' we want to git 'emonloaded by night."

  Slue Foot called a dozen men to help with the unloading and stowing,and for the rest of the afternoon Connie had his hands full checking offthe goods as they were carried past him at the door. At last the taskwas completed and after supper the boy struck out for Camp One. As heplodded through the jet blackness of the tote road his mind was busywith the problem that confronted him. What should he do? Manifestly theeasiest course would be to go straight to Hurley and tell him just whatSlue Foot had told him, and let the boss deal with him as he saw fit.But, in that case Hurley would, in all probability, fly off the handleand either discharge Slue Foot or "beat him up" or both. In which eventthe man would go unpunished for last winter's work, whatever that hadbeen, and worst of all, there would be absolutely no evidence againstthe Syndicate. And he had no intention of pocketing last year's losswithout at least an attempt to recover it and bring its perpetrators tojustice.

  From what he had seen of Hurley, and what Saginaw and Slue Foot had toldhim, the boy was confident that the big boss was square and honest asthe day is long--but there was Mike Gillum, himself an honest man and afriend of Waseche, who had reported that Hurley was in the pay of theSyndicate; and Connie knew that men like Mike Gillum did not lie aboutother men, nor would they make an open accusation unless reasonably sureof their ground. Therefore there was a bare possibility that, despiteall evidence to the contrary, Hurley, unknown to either Slue Foot orSaginaw, was playing into the hand of the Syndicate.

  "I wonder what's the matter with Saginaw," muttered the boy as hestumbled on through the darkness. "He looked at me kind of funny when weleft the office. As if he knows Slue Foot is crooked, and thinks I havethrown in with him." His fists clenched and his lips drew into a hard,straight line. "I'll get to the bottom of it if it takes all winter!" hegritted. "And when I do, someone is going to squirm." Something prickledsharply against his cheek and he glanced upward. He could see nothing inthe inky blackness, but the prickling sensation was repeated and he knewthat it was snowing. The wind rose and the snow fell faster. By the timehe reached the clearing it whitened the ground. The little office wasdark as he let himself in. The sound of heavy breathing told him thatSaginaw was already in bed, and, without lighting the lamp, he undressedand crawled between his blankets.

  When Connie awoke the following morning the fire was burning brightly inthe stove and Saginaw stood staring out through the little window thatshowed a translucent grey square against the dark log wall. He turned atthe sound of the boy's feet upon the floor. "Snow's held off fer a longtime this year, but when she come she come a-plenty," he observed.

  "Still snowing?" asked the boy, as he wriggled into his clothing. "Itstarted last night while I was coming down from Camp Two."

  "Yeh, it's still snowin.' Foot deep a'ready an' comin' down in fineflakes an' slantin' like she's a-goin' to keep on snowin'!"

  "Are you going to begin laying 'em down today?"

  Saginaw shook his head: "No. I'm a-goin' to set 'em overhaulin' thesleds, an' the sprinkler, an' the drays, an' gittin' the skidways inshape, an' breakin' out the road. It's cold enough fer to make a goodbottom an' things ort to go a-whoopin' when this snow lets up."

  Connie snickered. "I bet Slue Foot's growling this morning, with no roofon his office and blacksmith shop, and his stable and oat house onlyabout half chinked."

  "He'd growl if his camp was 'lectric lit an' steam het. I'm ready ferbreakfast, if the cook's saved us some. You go on over an' I'll be 'longwhen I git the men strung out." Saginaw filled the stove with chunks andtogether they left the office, the older man heading for the men's camp,while Connie made directly for the cook's camp. As the boy lowered hishead to the sting of the sweeping snow and plodded across the clearing,a feeling of great loneliness came over him, for he knew that therelurked in the man's mind a feeling of distrust--a feeling that he hadstudiously attempted to conceal. Nothing in the spoken words revealedthis distrust, but the boy was quick to note that the voice lackedsomething of the hearty comradery that had grown up between them.

  "This is almost like Alaska," Connie muttered, as he breathed deeply ofthe clean, cold air. "I wish I was in Ten Bow right now--with WasecheBill, and MacDougall, and Dutch Henry and the rest of 'em--or else overon the Yukon with Big Dan McKeever, and Rickey." The boy's fistsclenched within his mittens, as was their habit when he faced adifficult situation. "If it wasn't that Waseche is depending on me tostraighten out this mess, I'd strike out for Ten Bow today. But I'vejust naturally got to see it through--and I've got to go it alone, too.If I should let Saginaw in, and it should turn out that Hurley iscrooked, my chance of nailing him would be shot, because Saginaw andHurley are one, two, three.

  "The first thing I better do," he decided, as he stamped the snow fromhis boots before the door of the cook's camp, "is to slip up and seeMike Gillum and find out how he knows Hurley is in the pay of theSyndicate."

  During the breakfast the boy was unusually silent and when the meal wasfinished he returned directly to the office, and stood for a long timestaring out into the whirling white smother. As he turned to his deskhis eye encountered Hurley's snow-shoes hanging from their peg on theopposite wall. "It's only ten miles to Willow River," he muttered, "andI've just got to see Mike Gillum."

  A moment later he stepped through the door, fastened on the snow-shoesand, hastening across the clearing, plunged into the timber.

  It was nearly noon when Saginaw Ed returned to the office and found itempty. Almost instantly he noticed that the boss's snow-shoes weremissing and he grinned: "Kid's out practising on the rackets, I guess."Then he stepped to the door. The snow had continued to fallsteadily--fine, wind-driven flakes that pile up slowly. The trail wasvery faint, and as the man's eye followed it across the clearing hisbrows drew into a puzzled frown. "That don't look like no practicetrail," he muttered. "No, sir! They ain't no greener ever yet startedoff like that." He pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger andscowled at the trail. "One of two things: Either the kid ain't thegreener he lets on to be, or else someone else has hiked off on theboss's snow-shoes. An' either which way, it's up to me to find out."Crossing swiftly to the cook shack he returned a few minutes later, thepockets of his mackinaw bulging with lunch, and drawing his ownsnow-shoes from beneath his bunk, struck out upon the fast dimmingtrail.

&
nbsp; "I mistrust Slue Foot, an' I didn't like the way he started to bawl outthe kid yeste'day. It seemed kind of like it wasn't straight goods. He'sa beefer an' a growler, all right, but somehow, this time it seemed asif it was kind of piled on fer my special benefit."

  In the timber, sheltered from the sweep of the wind, the track had notdrifted full, but threaded the woods in a broad, trough-like depressionthat the woodsman easily followed. Mile after mile it held to the north,dipping into deep ravines, skirting thick windfalls, and crossing steepridges. As the trail lengthened the man's face hardened. "Whoever'sa-hikin' ahead of me ain't no greener an' he ain't walkin' fer fun,neither. He's travellin' as fast as I be, an' he knows where he'sa-goin', too." He paused at the top of a high ridge and smote a heavilymittened palm with a mittened fist. "So that's the way of it, eh? Iheard how the Syndicate was runnin' a big camp on Willow River--an' thishere's the Willow River divide. They ain't only one answer, the kid, orwhoever it is I'm a-follerin', has be'n put in here by the Syndicate tokeep cases on Hurley's camps--either that, or Slue Foot's in with 'em,an' is usin' the kid fer a go-between. They're pretty smart, all right,headin' way up to this here Willow River camp. They figgered that no onewouldn't pay no 'tention to a trail headin' north, while if it led overto the Syndicate camp on Dogfish someone would spot it in a minute. An'with it snowin' like this, they figgered the trail would drift full, orelse look so old no one would bother about it. They ain't only one thingto do, an' that's to go ahead an' find out. What a man knows is worth aheap more'n what he can guess. They's a-goin' to be some big surpriseson Dogfish 'fore this winter's over, an' some folks is a-goin' to wishthey'd of be'n smarter--or stayed honester."

  Saginaw descended the slope and, still following the trail, walkedsteadily for an hour. Suddenly he paused to listen. Distinctly to hisears came the measured thud of pounded iron, punctuated at regularintervals by the metallic ring of a hammer upon an anvil. "It's theSyndicate's Willow River camp," he muttered, and advanced cautiously.Presently he gained the clearing and, skirting it, halted at the edge ofa log road that reached back into the timber. The man noted that whoevermade the trail had made no attempt to conceal his visit from theSyndicate crew, for the tracks struck into the road which led directlyinto the clearing. Not a soul was in sight and, hurriedly crossing theroad, Saginaw continued to skirt the clearing until he arrived at apoint directly opposite a small building that stood by itself midwaybetween the men's camp and the stable. "That had ort to be the office,"he said as he studied the lay of the camp and the conformation of theground. Several large piles of tops lay between the edge of the clearingand the small building, against the back of which had been placed a hugepile of firewood. Across the clearing upon the bank of the river a crewof men were engaged in levelling off the rollways, and other men werebusy about the open door of the blacksmith shop, where the forge fireburned brightly. The storm had thinned to a scarcely perceptibledownfall and the rising wind whipped the smoke from the stovepipe of thebuilding. "I've got to find out who's in that office," he decided and,suiting the action to the word, moved swiftly from one pile of tops toanother, until he gained the shelter of the woodpile.

  It is a very risky thing to peer into the window of a small roomoccupied by at least two people in broad daylight, and it was with theutmost caution that Saginaw removed his cap and applied his eye to theextreme corner of the pane. Seated facing each other, close beside thestove, were Connie and Mike Gillum. The boss's hand was upon the boy'sknee and he was talking earnestly. At the sight Saginaw could scarcerefrain from venting his anger in words. He had seen enough and, dodgingquickly back, retraced his steps, and once more gained the shelter ofthe timber.

  "So that's yer game, is it, you sneakin' little spy? Takin' advantage ofHurley the minute his back's turned! You've got him fooled, all right.An' you had me fooled, too. You're a smart kid, but you ain't quitesmart enough. You can't do no harm now we're onto yer game, an' 'forethem logs hits the water in the spring yer goin' to find out you ain'tthe only smart one in the timber--you an' Slue Foot, too."

  It was well past the middle of the afternoon when Saginaw took the backtrail and struck out at a long swinging walk for the camp on Dogfish.The flash of anger, engendered by the sight of the boy in friendlyconference with the boss of the Syndicate camp, gave way to keendisappointment as he tramped on and on through the timber. He had likedConnie from the first, and as the days went by his regard for the boy,whose brains and nerve had won the respect and admiration of the wholecamp, grew. "I've a good mind to git him off to one side an' give him agood straight talk. He ain't like that Steve. Why, doggone it! Icouldn't feel no worse about findin' out he's headed wrong, if he was myown boy. An' if he was my own boy, it would be my job to talk thingsover with him an' try to steer him straight, instead of layin' for tocatch him in some crooked work an' send him over the road for it. Bygum, I'll do it, too! An' I'll give it to him right straight, without nofancy trimmin's neither. Tonight'll be a good time when him an' I'll bealone."

  His cogitations had carried him to within a mile of Camp Two, which thetrail carefully avoided, when suddenly, at the bottom of a deep ravine,a man stepped in front of him:

  "Hands up!" It was some seconds before Saginaw realized that he wasstaring straight into the muzzle of a rifle that the man held within sixinches of his nose. Two other men stepped from behind trees and joinedthe leader.

  "Makes a difference which end of the gun yer at when ye hear them words,don't it?" sneered the man, and in the deep twilight of the thick woodsSaginaw recognized the men as the three I. W. W.'s that he and Conniehad arrested in their attempt to burn the stable. Also he recognized theboss's rifle.

  "Where's Hurley?" he cried, as full realization of the situation forceditself upon him.

  "I said _'hands up'!_" reminded the man with the gun, "an' I meant it.An' if I wus you I'd put 'em up. I guess when we git through with yeye'll think twict before ye lock folks up in a oat house to freeze todeath all night--you an' that smart alec kid."

  "Where's Hurley?" repeated Saginaw, with arms upraised.

  The man laughed, coarsely: "Hurley, we fixed his clock fer him. An'we'll fix yourn, too. We'll learn ye to fool with the I. W. W. when it'sa-goin' about its business. An' we'll learn everyone else, too. We'restronger 'n the law, an' stronger 'n the Government, an' when we gitready we'll show the bosses an' the capitalists where to git off at!"

  "You're a bunch of dirty crooks, an' thieves, an' murderers--an' youain't got the brains to show nobody nawthin'."

  "Search him!" commanded the leader, his face livid with rage. "We'llshow you somethin', 'fore we git through with you--jest like we showedHurley. Come on, now, git a move on. We got to see a party an' git holtof some grub. 'Fore we git started, though, ye kin jest take off themsnow-shoes, I kin use 'em myself, an' you kin see how it feels to wallerthrough the snow like we be'n doin'." The transfer was soonaccomplished, and marching Saginaw before them, the three headed off ata right angle from the trail.