Chapter XVII. SPRING IN THE BIG WOODS
That visit to the lumber camp was memorable for Nan Sherwood in moreways than one. Her adventure with the lynx she kept secret from herrelatives, because of the reason given in the previous chapter. Butthere was another incident that marked the occasion to the girl's mind,and that was the threat of Gedney Raffer, reported to her Uncle Henry.
Nan thought that such a bad man as Raffer appeared to be wouldundoubtedly carry out his threat. He had offered money to have Mr.Sherwood beaten up, and the ruffians he had bribed would doubtless beonly too eager to earn the reward.
To tell the truth, for weeks thereafter, Nan never saw a rough-lookingman approach the house on the outskirts of Pine Camp, without fearingthat here was coming a ruffian bent on her uncle's injury.
That Uncle Henry seemed quite to have forgotten the threat only made Nanmore keenly alive to his danger. She dared not discuss the matterwith Aunt Kate, for Nan feared to worry that good woman unnecessarily.Besides, having been used to hiding from her own mother all unpleasantthings, the girl naturally displayed the same thoughtfulness for AuntKate.
For, despite Mrs. Henry Sherwood's bruskness and masculine appearance,Nan learned that there were certain matters over which her aunt showedextreme nervousness.
For instance, she was very careful of the lamps used in the house--sheinsisted upon cleaning and caring for them herself; she would not allowa candle to be used, because it might be overturned; and she saw to itherself that every fire, even the one in Nan's bedroom, was properlybanked before the family retired at night.
Nan had always in mind what Uncle Henry said about mentioning fireto Aunt Kate; so the curious young girl kept her lips closed upon thesubject. But she certainly was desirous of knowing about that fire, solong ago, at Pale Lick, how it came about; if Aunt Kate had really gother great scar there; and if it was really true that two members of heruncle's family had met their death in the conflagration.
She tried not to think at all of Injun Pete. That was too terrible!
With all her heart, Nan wished she might do something that would reallyhelp Uncle Henry solve his problem regarding the timber rights on thePerkins Tract. The very judge who had granted the injunction forbiddingMr. Sherwood to cut timber on the tract was related to the presentowners of the piece of timberland; and the tract had been the basis of afeud in the Perkins family for two generations.
Many people were more or less interested in the case and they came tothe Sherwood home and talked excitedly about it in the big kitchen. Someadvised an utter disregard of the law. Others were evidently mindedto increase the trouble between Raffer and Uncle Henry by malicioustale-bearing.
Often Nan thought of what Uncle Henry had said to old Toby Vanderwiller.She learned that Toby was one of the oldest settlers in this part of theMichigan Peninsula, and in his youth had been a timber runner, that is,a man who by following the surveyors' lines on a piece of timber, andweaving back and forth across it, can judge its market value so nearlyright that his employer, the prospective timber merchant, is able to bidintelligently for the so-called "stumpage" on the tract.
Toby was still a vigorous man save when that bane of the woodsman,rheumatism, laid him by the heels. He had a bit of a farm in thetamarack swamp. Once, being laid up by his arch enemy, with his jointsstiffened and muscles throbbing with pain, Toby had seen the gauntwolf of starvation, more terrible than any timber wolf, waiting at hisdoorstone. His old wife and a crippled grandson were dependent on Toby,too.
Thus in desperate straits Toby Vanderwiller had accepted help fromGedney Raffer. It was a pitifully small sum Raffer would advance uponthe little farm; but it was sufficient to put Toby in the usurer'spower. This was the story Nan learned regarding Toby. And Uncle Henrybelieved that Toby, with his old-time knowledge of land-boundaries,could tell, if he would, which was right in the present contentionbetween Mr. Sherwood and Gedney Raffer.
These, and many other subjects of thought, kept the mind of Nan Sherwoodoccupied during the first few weeks of her sojourn at Pine Camp. Shehad, too, to keep up her diary that she had begun for Bess Harley'sparticular benefit. Every week she sent off to Tillbury a bulky sectionof this report of her life in the Big woods. It was quite wonderful howmuch there proved to be to write about. Bess wrote back, enviously, thatnever did anything interesting, by any possibility, happen, now thatNan was away from Tillbury. The town was "as dull as ditch water." She,Bess, lived only in hopes of meeting her chum at Lakeview Hall the nextSeptember.
This hope Nan shared. But it all lay with the result of Momsey's andPapa Sherwood's visit to Scotland and Emberon Castle. And, Nan thought,it seemed as though her parents never would even reach that far distantgoal.
They had taken a slow ship for Momsey's benefit and the expectedre-telegraphed cablegram was looked for at the Forks for a week beforeit possibly could come.
It was a gala day marked on Nan's calendar when Uncle Henry, coming homefrom the railroad station behind the roan ponies, called to her tocome out and get the message. Momsey and Papa Sherwood had sent it fromGlasgow, and were on their way to Edinburgh before Nan received theword. Momsey had been very ill a part of the way across the ocean, butwent ashore in improved health.
Nan was indeed happy at this juncture. Her parents were safely overtheir voyage on the wintry ocean, so a part of her worry of mind waslifted.
Meanwhile spring was stealing upon Pine Camp without Nan's being reallyaware of the fact. Uncle Henry had said, back in Chicago, that "the backof winter was broken"; but the extreme cold weather and the deep snowshe had found in the Big Woods made Nan forget that March was passingand timid April was treading on his heels.
A rain lasting two days and a night washed the roads of snow and turnedthe fast disappearing drifts to a dirty yellow hue. In sheltered fencecorners and nooks in the wood, the grass lifted new, green blades, andqueer little Margaret Llewellen showed Nan where the first anemones andviolets hid under last year's drifted leaves.
The river ice went out with a rush after it had rained a few hours;after that the "drives" of logs were soon started. Nan went down to thelong, high bridge which spanned the river and watched the flood carrythe logs through.
At first they came scatteringly, riding the foaming waves end-on, andsometimes colliding with the stone piers of the bridge with sufficientforce to split the unhewn timbers from end to end, some being laid openas neatly as though done with axe and wedge.
When the main body of the drive arrived, however, the logs were likeherded cattle, milling in the eddies, stampeded by a cross-current,bunching under the bridge arches like frightened steers in a chute. Andthe drivers herded the logs with all the skill of cowboys on the range.
Each drive was attended by its own crew, who guarded the logs on eitherbank, launching those that shoaled on the numerous sandbars or in theshallows, keeping them from piling up in coves and in the mouths ofestuaries, or creeks, some going ahead at the bends to fend off andbreak up any formation of the drifting timbers that promised to become ajam.
Behind the drive floated the square bowed and square sterned chuck-boat,which carried cook and provisions for the men. A "boom", logs chainedtogether, end to end, was thrown out from one shore of the wide streamat night, and anchored at its outer end. Behind this the logs weregathered in an orderly, compact mass and the men could generally gettheir sleep, save for the watchman; unless there came a sudden rise ofwater in the night.
It was a sight long to be remembered, Nan thought, when the boom wasbroken in the morning. Sometimes an increasing current piled the logs upa good bit. It was a fear-compelling view the girl had of the riveron one day when she went with Uncle Henry to see the first drive fromBlackton's camp. Tom was coming home with his team and was not engagedin the drive. But reckless Rafe was considered, for his age, a verysmart hand on a log drive.
The river had risen two feet at the Pine Camp bridge overnight. It was aboiling brown flood, covered with drifting foam and debris. The roarof the fresh
et awoke Nan in her bed before daybreak. So she wasnot surprised to see the river in such a turmoil when, after a hastybreakfast, she and Uncle Henry walked beside the flood.
"They started their drive last night," Uncle Henry said, "and boomed herjust below the campsite. We'll go up to Dead Man's Bend and watch hercome down. There is no other drive betwixt us and Blackton's."
"Why is it called by such a horrid name, Uncle?" asked Nan.
"What, honey?" he responded.
"That bend in the river."
"Why, I don't know rightly, honey-bird. She's just called that. Many aman's lost his life there since I came into this part of the country,that's a fact. It's a dangerous place," and Nan knew by the look on heruncle's face that he was worried.