King Spruce, A Novel

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE MESSAGE OF "PROPHET ELI"

  "And the good, kind skipper and all his crew Got a purse and some medals, tew, And a lot o' praise for a-savin' me From an awful death in the ragin' sea. And I got jawed 'cause I left that way, And the boss he docked me tew weeks' pay."

  --Hired Man's Sea-song.

  Lane's quick ear was the first to catch a new sound. He stopped andlooked down into the Pogey trail. Barrett ceased his wails, and lookedand listened, too.

  Men of the woods who knew Prophet Eli of Tumbledick were never surprisedto see him appear anywhere in the Umcolcus region. And it was usually atime of trouble that he chose for his appearance. In his twenty years'search of the forest he had found trails and avenues that were hidden toothers. In places where veteran guides wandered and blundered, ProphetEli knew a short-cut or detour, and moved with wraithlike swiftness,enjoying his reputation for surprises with the keen relish of theshatter-pate.

  Those who did not call him "Prophet Eli," his own choice of title,dubbed him "Old Trouble," for he scented disaster with an elfish sense,and followed it north, east, and west.

  He came down the Pogey Notch on a ding-swingle. It was drawn by hislittle white stallion. A ding-swingle is the triangle of a trimmedtree-crotch, dragged apex forward, its limbs sprawling behind. With peakmounted on a sapling runner it is the woods vehicle that best conquerstote roads.

  From under the prophet's knitted woollen cap, with its red knob, hiswhite hair trailed upon his shoulders. His white beard brushed the oddlycheckered jacket, flamboyant with its bizarre colors.

  "The Skeets and the Bushees are still running south," he cried at thetwo men, in shrill tones. "But I'm around to the front of the trouble,as usual."

  He appeared to have no eyes for the plight of the trussed-up Barrett,who began to shout desperate appeals to him. He cocked shrewd eyes at"Ladder" Lane, who, with a muttered oath, started to scramble down theslope towards him. Perhaps he saw a threat in the madman's face.

  He glanced once more at Barrett, as though interested a bit in thatmiserable man's frantic urgings, and piped this amazing query, "Don'tyou think a stuttering man is an infernal fool to have a name likeMcKechnie Connick?"

  Then he lashed his long reins against the side of his stallion and spedaway down the valley.

  Lane followed him, running.

  They left an existent millionaire and a prospective governor helplesslygrinding the skin from his shoulders against a birch-tree, and bellowinganathema on "lunatics."

  * * * * *

  The Honorable Pulaski D. Britt, sweat pouring down his purple face as heraged from crew to crew on the fire-line, was not surprised to beholdProphet Eli emerge from the smoke, riding his ding-swingle. In twentyyears Mr. Britt had often beheld the prophet at troublous junctures. Inhis present state of vehement anxiety the king of the Umcolcus felt histemper flare at sight of this herald of ill-omen.

  "Met the Skeets and the Bushees, and they're still running south. Don'tyou think a man with pumple-feet is an infernal fool to try to learn toskate?"

  Britt, thrusting past through the underbrush of the tote road, whirledand poised his foot to kick the inoffensive stallion, as mute expressionof his rage and contempt. But he withheld the kick at the apparition of"Ladder" Lane. The warden came running. He fairly burst out of thesmoke.

  That he was pursuing Prophet Eli for no good to the latter occurred tothe Honorable Pulaski in one startled flash, as he looked at thewarden's savage face. He stepped between the men. But it was not toprotect the prophet, whom he dismissed from his mind as utterly asthough the forest sage were a fugitive rabbit. Mr. Britt had a pregnantquestion to ask of Lane on his own account, and he bellowed it at him,clutching at his arm.

  "Where did you leave John Barrett?"

  Lane halted at his touch, and glowered on him without reply.

  "What's the matter with you, Lane? You look like a crazy man. What didyou want of Mr. Barrett, anyway? What did you drag him out of BarnumWithee's camp for? Don't try to bluff me. I know about it. Barnum gothere with his crew at daylight to fight fire, and his men have beentalking about it. What right have you got to be bothering John Barrett?I haven't had time to get facts. I've got something else on my mindthan other folk's troubles. But I know you've picked trouble withBarrett. Why, great Judas, you long-shanked fool, that man is goin'to be the next governor of this State! You must have heard of JohnBarrett! Trying to arrest John Barrett! What did you take him for--agame-poacher? Or have you gone clean out of your wits? What have youdone with him?"

  During the timber baron's harangue Lane kept his eyes on the prophet,meeting the latter's blinking regard with sullen threat in his eyes.

  "Blast ye! Answer me!" roared the Honorable Pulaski. "Where is Mr.Barrett? I want to discuss this fire situation with him."

  "Then go find him," growled the fire warden.

  "Where is he?"

  Lane raised his gaunt arm and swung it the circle of the horizon.

  "There!" he snarled. He still kept his gaze on the prophet, as though tonote the least intention to betray him. But it appeared that the sage ofTumbledick was in no mood for dangerous revelations. He thrust up onegrimy finger.

  "May be there!" he remarked. He pointed the finger straight down. "Maybe there!" He jumped his stallion ahead with a crack of his reins anddisappeared in the smoke. Lane cast after him a look baleful, butrelieved, and whirled and made away in the direction of Jerusalem.

  "Me standing here wasting my time on a couple of whiffle-heads with thatfire waltzing into my black growth!" Britt muttered, turning his wrathon himself, since there was no one else in sight. "It must be only somefool scare about Barrett. A man like him can take care of himself."

  He stumped on, turning to climb a spur of ledge from which, ascommander-in-chief, he might take an observation. Less than a mile tothe south, he spied the thing that he had been dreading.

  The ground fire, lashed by the rising wind of the morning, had leapedoff the earth and become a crown fire. It had entered the edge of theblack growth.

  One after the other the green tops of the hemlocks and spruces burstinto the horrid bloom of conflagration. They flowered. They seeded. Andthe seeds were fire-brands that scaled down the wind, dropping, rootinginstantly, and blossoming into new destruction.

  "She can't be stopped! She can't be stopped!" moaned Britt. "She'sheaded for the Notch, and then tophet's let loose!"

  But with the persistence of his nature he set off to rally the crew to aflank movement.

  With the inadequate force it was rather a skirmish than a battle forthose who fought in the face of the great fire.

  Through the night, with shovels and green boughs they had attacked theconflagration's outposts. The red army of destruction took thispunishment sullenly. The main fire seemed to crouch and doze in thenight, dulled by the condensation of dews and lacking the spur of thewinds.

  At daylight Barnum Withee had arrived with his men and set them totrenching along the tote road parallel with the advance of the fire. Hehad not reconsidered his bitterness against his tyrant John Barrett. Butthe unconquerable instinct of the veteran woodsman, anxious to save hisforest, had driven him to the scene.

  To Barnum Withee's crew Dwight Wade and Christopher Straight attachedthemselves by entirely natural selection, having excellent personalreasons for avoiding the direct commands of the Honorable Pulaski Britt.

  And to Wade, struggling with blistered hands to drive his mattockthrough roots and vegetable mould to the mineral earth, appearedProphet Eli on his ding-swingle. The prophet surveyed him with almostarch look, and piped, in his shrill tones:

  "Oh, the little brown bull came down from the mountain, Shang-roango, whey?"

  Wade stared at him with a vivid recollection of the first time he hadseen that strange figure and had heard that song.

  "So you didn't think I knew how to mend bones, eh, youn
g man? Neverheard of Prophet Eli, the charmer-man, the mediator between the higherand lower forces, natural healer and regulator of the weather? Don't youthink a man an infernal fool to dig a hole out of the dirt when it is somuch easier to dig a hole out of the air and put dirt around it?"

  Wade, not feeling inclined towards a discussion of this sort, fell tohis labor again.

  "If John Barrett's daughter set this fire, why ain't John Barrett hereto help put it out?" shrilled the prophet, and Barnum Withee hearing theamazing query, came hurrying out of the smoke. He found Wade staring atthe man with astonished inquiry in his face.

  "You heard him say that, did you, Mr. Wade?" demanded Withee, with anemotion the young man could not understand.

  It was the bare mention of John Barrett's daughter that had stirredDwight Wade; for in his soul's eye but one picture rose when she wasmentioned--Elva Barrett of the glorious eyes and the loving heart--theone woman in the world for him--denied to him by the father who ruledher.

  "I heard him--yes," said Wade; "but what kind of lunatic's raving isit?"

  "It may not be a lunatic's raving, Mr. Wade," returned Withee,enigmatically, his face grave.

  The prophet cast a look about, striving to peer into the smoke, asthough apprehensive that some one whom he didn't want in his confidencemight be listening. In a lower tone he went on:

  "If a man has got a daughter and is tied to a tree, how much will'Ladder' Lane scale to be cut up into bean poles?"

  There was alarm on Withee's features now. He took Wade by the arm andled him aside a few steps.

  "That old fellow has got something on his mind, Mr. Wade," he said,earnestly, "and it may be bad business. My men have been talking hereto-day, as men will talk, though I advised them to keep their mouthsshut. It may bring the 'Lazy Tom' crowd into the thing. If there's badbusiness on, I want you to be able to say outside that I haven't messedinto affairs that wa'n't mine. It may have to be proved in court, andthe word of a gentleman like you is worth that of fifty rattle-brainedchoppers."

  "I don't understand, Mr. Withee. I can't appear as witness in matters Ihaven't seen."

  "You can say I was here on the fire-line attendin' to my own businesswhen it happened--if it has happened," cried Withee. "You can say that Ihad no hand in it. It's this way, Mr. Wade, if you haven't heard. Didany of my men tell you that John Barrett--you've heard of 'StumpageJohn' Barrett--was at my camp last night?"

  "I heard nothing of it," said Wade. He leaned forward with excitement inhis face, for the tone and the air of the lumberman were ominous.

  "He was at my camp, and Lane, the Jerusalem warden, after having wordswith him over an old matter between them, made Mr. Barrett go away intothe woods with him--and I think Lane was about half crazy at the time."

  "And you let an insane man force Mr. Barrett into the woods?" demandedWade, indignantly.

  Withee straightened, and his face took on a sort of sullen pride. "It'son that point that I want to explain to you, for my own sake. I don'tknow whether you're a friend of John Barrett's or whether you ain't. Butwhen I hear him confess right before me that he has stolen away anotherman's wife and broken up that man's home forever, and has never doneanything to square himself, then I let that matter alone, for it's amatter between man and man. And my men and I let John Barrett and LinusLane settle their own business."

  "How?" cried Wade, his face pale. "My God, man, it can't be that JohnBarrett did a thing like--"

  "I heard him own to it," persisted Withee. "And what's more, it's JohnBarrett's daughter that lived with the Skeets and the Bushees, abandonedby him. And when I know a thing like that about a man, Mr. Wade, hecan't look to Barn Withee to stand behind him."

  Dwight Wade staggered back against the tree and put his arms around itto steady himself. Had he not seen the girl he might have scorned tobelieve such a story. But all his first emotions at sight of her therein her squalid surroundings rushed back upon him now. He had seen inthis forest waif too many suggestions of Elva Barrett, and had beenashamed to own to himself that his heart confessed as much, as though itwere an insult to the girl who reigned in his heart.

  "So, I say," repeated Withee, as if to reassure himself, "I let themsettle their own business."

  "But how?" gasped the young man.

  "You can prove nothing by me," said the lumberman, with a toss ofhis hand and wag of his head, pregnant gestures of disclaimedresponsibility. "But that old fellow sitting on that ding-swingle neverput those hints together without havin' something about it on his mind.I never knew trouble to happen in these woods unless he was there to seesome part of it."

  "What have you seen, old man?" demanded Wade, impetuously.

  "Saw the crow catch the hen-hawk. Isn't a man with a harelip an infernalfool to learn to play a fife?"

  But Wade, coming close to the sage, noted a strange twinkle in the blueeyes under the knots of gray brow. It was a glance so sane, sosignificant, so calculating, that the young man had no voice to utterthe angry retort on his lips. It suddenly occurred to him that perhapsProphet Eli of Tumbledick had not always been understood by those whojeered him. The keen glance noted Wade's changing expression andunderstood it.

  "It was Rodburd Ide said it to me," the prophet stated, lowering histone. "He said it was between you and John Barrett's pretty girl untilold John drove you into the woods. Hey?" The young man's face flushedredly and he was about to reply, but the prophet put up a protestinghand. "It was Rodburd Ide said to me that John Barrett didn't think youwere good enough for his daughter. Now you follow me! I want to hearJohn Barrett whine. I want to see John Barrett squirm. Coals of fire!Coals of fire, young man! What is Prophet Eli's mission? Coals of fire!I cure those who have mocked me, don't I? I like to hear 'em whine. Iwant to see them squirm. You follow me. Coals of fire!"

  "WRITHING AT HIS BONDS, HIS CONTORTED FACE TOWARDS THERED FLAMES GALLOPING UP THE VALLEY"]

  And singing this over and over to himself, he whirled his stallion andhurried away. Wade ran behind him without question, for he guessed whilehe feared. Withee started, but turned back to his men with a sullenoath.

  It was a long and a bitter chase through the smother of the smoke, andin the very forefront of the racing conflagration. At last Pogey Notchhad begun to suck at the raging fires with its granite lips. It was thechimney-flue of the amphitheatre of Misery. The flames roared from treeto tree. Wade ran, stooping forward, clutching at the cross-bar of theding-swingle. Without that help he never would have been able to reachthe spot where at last he found John Barrett, writhing at his bonds,squealing like an animal--his contorted face towards the red flamesgalloping up the valley.

  The prophet had left his vehicle to guide the rescuer up the slope. Hestood by, grinning with enjoyment, when the two men faced each other. Hechuckled when Wade cut the bonds. He laughed boisterously when Barrett,weeping like a child, threw his arms around the young man's neck.

  "Coals of fire!" he shrilled. "Heap 'em on! They're hotter than theother kind that are dropping on you!"

  Then he ran from them a few steps and rapped his skinny knuckles on ascar breast high on a tree.

  "Your trail!" he cried. "It's here! It's blazed clear to the bald headof old Jerusalem. Get up there on the granite. Then sit down and talk itover! Coals of fire!"

  They heard him shrieking it back at them as he fled up the Notch. Andthe two men took the trail, strangling, gasping, feeling their directionfrom blaze to blaze on the trees, fighting their way up from the Gehennaof Pogey.