CHAPTER XXVII
THE "CANNED THUNDER" OF CASTONIA
"A woodsman hates a coward as he hates diluted rye, Stiff upper-lip for livin', stiff backbone when you die!"
When April came, and with caressing fingers began to stroke thesoftening snow from the mountain flanks, she found full half a millionof the Enchanted cut still on the yards.
"If it's to be a gamble, let's make it a good one," Rodburd Ide hadcounselled his partner. "Pile on every stick that winter's back willcarry. Pile till it breaks!"
Dwight Wade had a trustworthy "kitchen cabinet" of advisers in oldChristopher Straight, Tommy Eye, and the chopping-boss; and with them ascounsellors he ventured further than his own narrow experience wouldhave prompted.
On nights when April slept and the trickling slopes were stiffened bythe cold, the crew of the Enchanted stole a march on spring. They awokeat sundown with the owls. They ate breakfast in the gloom of earlyevening. And, with the moon holding her lantern for them in the sereneskies, they rushed their logs into the waiting arms of Blunder valley.That those arms would surrender the timber when the time was ripe seemedmore certain as the days went by. The word of their zealous young man oflaw was encouraging. There had been pleas, representations, diggingover of old charters, hunt through dusty records, citation ofprecedents, and some very direct talk regarding a thorough legislativeinvestigation of conditions in the north country to regulate the rightsof independent operators.
It was admittedly too big a question to be hurried. Litigation fattensby what it feeds on. Grown ponderous, it marches, slow and dignified, inshort stages between terms, and sits and rests and puffs at everycross-road of argument, exception, appeal, and writ of error. Even thatexigency of five millions of timber waiting in Blunder valley could nothasten the settlement of the young reformer's main contention or the bigquestion. But there are in this life some deeper sentiments thanenthusiasm in reform. The old college friendship between Dwight Wade,famous centre of Burton's eleven, and the little quarter-back whom hehad shielded was one of those deeper sentiments. And now the lawyer, forthe sake of that friendship, was willing to buy Dwight Wade's success inBlunder valley by honorable compromise on certain points wherecompromise was honorable.
With a man open to sane reason and moral decency a compromise might havebeen effected. But after Pulaski D. Britt had craftily drawn out profferof a truce and proposition of a trade in one phase of the great questionof water-rights, he burst into a bellow of "blackmail" that echoed fromend to end of the State. The words bristled in the newspapers controlledby the land barons and was rolled on the tongues of gossip. And ashumanity in general, selfish in its easy-going way and jealous ofresolute activity, likes to believe ill of reformers, men were readierto believe Britt than to give a motive of honest friendship its due. Thejeers of the mob make what some people like to call "public opinion."And sometimes when public opinion is loudly gabbling and can bepolitely referred to in case of doubt, there can be found judges whowill listen with one ear to the voices of the street and with the otherto the specious representations of the man in power.
So it came about that the judge presiding at the _nisi prius_ term inthe great county dominated by Pulaski D. Britt hearkened in chambers tosome very distressing details set before him by that gentleman andcertain other "employers of labor" and "developers of the great timberinterests." The judge pursed his lips and with his tongue cluckedhorrified astonishment at stories of brutal assaults made "on members ofPulaski Britt's crew" (this being Dwight Wade's desperate defence ofhimself, as pictured by Britt), and other tales of lunatics provoked todeeds of violence towards aforesaid "developers"; of incendiariesspirited away from officers; of men stolen out of Britt's crew (poorTommy Eye's rescue from torture, as revamped for evidence by theHonorable Pulaski D. Britt); and, lastly, of that desperate andmalignant attempt on the life of Honorable Pulaski D. Britt when a loadof timber was sluiced at him from the shoulder of Enchanted Mountain.
Dwight Wade had not put into the hands of his lawyer the details ofthose pitiful secrets of the woods; for not only his honor as a man seta seal on his lips, but the sacredness of his love imposed higherobligation still. So his lawyer listened, amazed, incredulous, butincapable of refuting these tales in the categorical way that the lawdemands.
So much, then, for what "the gang" had done for Pulaski D. Britt and hisinterests. Britt lacked neither words nor will to make the story a blackone.
As to what they intended to do, the Honorable Pulaski declaimed, withquivering finger rapping tattoo on the map of the Blunder valley, hisvoice hoarse with emotion and the perspiration of apprehensivenessstreaking his puffy cheeks.
And with past enormities standing undefended, what might not a judgebelieve as to future atrocities when the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt hadmade the prediction, his chief exhibit of intended outlawry being fivemillions of timber stranded in Blunder valley, and requiring "stolenwater" to move it? His last argument was an uncontradicted allegation ofattempted compromise, his last word "Blackmail!" shot at the face of theopposing lawyer while his stubby finger vibrated under the lawyer'snose.
Therefore, at the end of it all, the clerk of courts wrote, the judgesigned, and five minutes after the ink was dry High Sheriff BennettRodliff buttoned his coat over the folded paper and set his face towardsEnchanted.
Forty-eight hours later, having travelled by train, by stage, by sledge,and on foot, he stood before Dwight Wade in the midst of his crew at thelandings in Blunder valley, gave the paper to him, and watched his facewhile he read it. Being a man who enjoyed his own authority and exultedin the power of the law when it dealt crushing blows, the high sheriffnoted with satisfaction that the young man's face grew pale under itstan.
"Get the sense, do you?" inquired the sheriff, allowing himself therelaxation of a chew of tobacco after his headlong rush into the north;"it's an injunction. You can't meddle with Blunder Lake dam; can't h'istgates; can't take water!" He gazed about him at the heaped logs piled inthe bed of the stream. "Kind o' seems to me," he observed, with smugrebuke, "that I'd have been slow in landin' logs down here till I knowedwhat the law court was goin' to do about these water-rights. Law stepsslow and careful, and this whole thing has got to wait till it gets wayup to the full bench. Lettin' you have water here might be an admissionby the big crowd that they was all wrong on the chief proposition. Thebig crowd ain't that kind!"
Wade had read the injunction through to its bitter end. Every stiltedphrase, every estopping, restraining word of its redundancy, was like abar between him and his hopes. It was a temporary injunction. But thedate set for a hearing on the question of permanency was a date thatmade those log-piles in Blunder valley loom in his dizzy gaze likemonuments to buried expectations.
"Where was our lawyer when this damnable document was issued?" he cried,shaking the paper under the sheriff's nose. His heart was aflame againstthe thing called Law. The sheriff stood there as Law's representative,expressing in his blank face such unfeeling acceptance of the situationas hopeless, that Wade wanted to jam the paper between those jawswagging blandly on their tobacco.
"Oh, he was there!" remarked Rodliff, dryly. "Perhaps if he hadn't beenthere your case would have come off better. Judges ain't got much usefor lawyers when the shyster kind get shown up in a graft game. Thefellow who named this Blunder valley years ago," he observed, runninghis eyes over the log-piles once more, "must have had a gift ofsecond-sight. Rod Ide's always been cal'lated to be level-headed. It's awonder to me he let you fool him into this. I've heard considerableabout it outside. But it's worse than I'd reckoned on."
For a sickening instant the thing showed to Wade in its blackest light.To be sure, it was the Law that struck down his hands. But it was plainthat the Law was, after all, only a part of the game--and his enemieshad invoked it and had won.
"Look here, men!" shouted the high sheriff, turning from his survey ofthis defeated wretchedness, "I want you to take note of what I've donehere. I've served an injunctio
n on your boss. It means that he's got toleave Blunder Lake dam alone. Him and all his crew! Understand?"
The men had been slowly gathering near on the log-piles, in order to getdrift of what this visit meant. Some of them had private reasons forwondering what business a high sheriff was on; all of them were curious.And the sheriff saw Tommy Eye in the forefront.
"By-the-way, Eye," he called, "the wardens want you! You'd better comealong out with me and save trouble."
"I'm an outlaw," cried Tommy, defiantly, "and I won't come with nobody!"
The sheriff blinked at the man who had been his uncomplaining prisonerfor so many summers, and seemed to be trying to digest this defiance.
"I'm an outlaw!" repeated the man. "I ain't to work for nobody. I'vejacked my job here. I'm just plain outlaw. I ain't responsible tonobody. Nobody ain't responsible for me. You tell that to everybodyconcerned. I'm an outlaw!"
Rodliff, still with wondering eyes on Tommy, slowly worked a revolverout of his hip-pocket.
"Come down off'n that pile!" he shouted. "I want you!"
But once the revolver was out the target was not visible. Three leaps,his calk boots biting the logs, put Tommy out of sight behind the pile.Two minutes later they heard him among the trees far up the slope ofBlunder valley. He was still shouting his declaration of outlawry, andthe diminuendo of tone indicated that he was running like a deer.
The high sheriff shoved back his revolver, scowling up at the grinningfaces on the log-piles. But he found no hint of similar amiability inWade's expression when he turned to face the young man; and aftersurveying him up and down with much disfavor, he shook his fist in agesture that embraced them all, and started away, flinging over hisshoulder the contemptuous remark that he seemed to have "lighted in apretty tough gang." The significance of that expressed conviction wasnot lost on the young man. It revealed what machination was doing.Britt, bulwarked by the courts and public sentiment, was not to befought by the outlawry he had invoked as the code of combat.
An hour later Dwight Wade was urging his horse towards Castonia. IfRodburd Ide or a message from Rodburd Ide were on the way north he wouldmeet the situation so much the sooner. The sting of his bitter thoughtsand the goad of his impatience would not allow him to stay at Enchanted.He wanted to know the exact facts "outside." He did not dare tojeopardize his partner by the rashness his bitter anger oncecontemplated.
A half-mile down the tote road Tommy Eye dashed at him from the covertof the spruces.
"I reckoned you'd be goin', Mr. Wade!" he panted. "I ain't intendin' tobother you--but what did Ben Rodliff say that was--that paper that heclubbed you with?"
The pitiful intensity of his loyal anxiety struck Wade to the heart. "Itwas an injunction, Tommy," he explained, patiently. "It's an order fromthe court. Oh, it's horribly unjust! It may be law, but it isn'tjustice; for justice would take into account a man's common rights, andwouldn't tie them up by pettifogging delays." He was talking as much tohimself as to the poor fellow who clung to the thill. The words surgedinto his mouth out of his full soul. "I have been square with men,Tommy, square and decent. I believe in law, and I want to respect it.But when law obeys Pulaski Britt's bidding, and takes you by the throatand kneels on you and chokes you, and lets such a man as Britt walk paston his own business, free and clear, it's law that's devil-made."
But the incantation of that law was having its effect on a nature thatwas more docile than it realized. In his hot anger he had said he wouldfight Britt with the tyrant's own lawless choice of weapons. He lookedback and remembered that he had intended to do so. A sheriff with a goldbadge and a bit of paper had prevailed over his bitter resolution whenPulaski Britt and his army at his back would have failed to cow him.
The dull roll of a distant detonation came to them in the little silencethat followed on Wade's outburst. It came from the west, where men ofthe Enchanted crew were at work widening the granite jaws of Blundergorge to give clear egress to the Enchanted drive. In that moment of hisutter despair the roar of the rend-rock was a mocking voice.
"And that's all there is to an injunction?" demanded Tommy. "Ben Rodliffhands you a paper, and spits tobacker-juice on the snow, and calls you afool, and goes down past here, like he did a little while ago, swingin'his reins and singin' a pennyr'yal hymn? Only has to do that to tie upthe whole Enchanted drive that we hundred men have sweat and froze andworked to get onto the landings?"
"Only that, Tommy," replied Wade, bitterly. "The law is sitting there onBlunder dam. You can't see it, but it's there, and it says, 'Handsoff!'"
"There's something you can see, though," Tommy declared. "You can seetwo men in a shack that's been built over the gates of Blunder Lake dam.One sleeps daytimes, the other sleeps nights, and they've both gotWinchesters. I've been there private and personal, and looked 'emover."
"I don't want any of my men lurking about that dam," commanded Wade.
Tommy Eye cinched his worn belt one notch tighter over his thin haunchesand buttoned his checkered wool jacket. "I ain't one of your men," hegrowled, with such sudden and sullen change in demeanor that Wade staredat him in amazement. "I've gone into the outlaw business, and I've toldyou so, and I've told Ben Rodliff so."
They heard the thudding boom of dynamite once more, and the absolutelyfiendish look that came into Tommy's face as he turned his gaze towardsBlunder valley enlightened his employer.
"That sounds good to me!" shrieked the teamster. It was as though one ofthe docile Dobbins of the hovel had suddenly perked up ears and tail andbegun to play the part of a beast of prey.
When Tommy ran back into the spruces Wade shouted after him, insistentlyand angrily. But he did not reply, and after a time Wade drove on,cursing soulfully the whole innate devilishness of the woods. Thatanother weak nature had run amuck after the fashion to which he hadbecome accustomed in his woods experience seemed probable; but he hadneither time nor inclination to chase Tommy Eye. As to Blunder Lake dam,he reflected that the eternal vigilance of the Winchesters guaranteedPulaski Britt's interests in that direction, and, soul-sick of the wholewicked situation, he was glad that the Winchesters were there. He hadfailed. He could at least own that much man-fashion to Rodburd Ide.
It was a messenger that he met--not the partner himself. And as he hadanticipated, the messenger summoned him to Castonia. The last few milesof his journey took him along the bank of the Umcolcus. The big riverhad already thrown off its winter sheathing and was running full andfree. It was waiting for the northern lakes, still ice-bound, tosurrender their waters and sweep the logs down to it.
Rodburd Ide's stout soul uttered no complaints when the two had lockedthemselves in the little back office of the store. But his mute distressand bewilderment in the face of calamity sanctioned by the law touchedhis young partner more than complaints would have done. The fightingspirit was gone out of the little man.
"I didn't reckon it could go against us that bad, not after what thelawyer said. He seemed to know his business, Wade. But maybe he was toohonest to fight a crowd like that. It's a crusher to come after hopeswas up like mine was. I even went to work the minute the ice sliddown-river, and set our sheer-booms above the logan and got thesortin'-gap ready. I was that sure our logs were comin' down. But itain't your fault, Wade, and it ain't mine. It's just as I told you oncebefore. It's what we're up against!"
And then, striving for a pretext to end the doleful session, he invitedWade to walk up the river-bank. He wanted to show him the site for thenew great mills. "They can't steal that much away from me, my boy," hesaid, trying to be cheerful. "The mills will have to buy out of thecorporation drive this year, seeing that we're coopered on our contract.That means so much more good profit for Britt and his crowd. They've gottheir smell of what's comin', too, and that's probably why they foughtso hard to get the injunction. They're in for a big make and their ownprices this year. But the more I know about that charter of the GreatIndependent the more trouble I can see for the old crowd when the nextlegislature gets to tearin' t
his thing to pieces. The G. I.'s know whatthey're doin'. They'll have their rights. And when the big wagon startslittle fellers like you and me can climb aboard and ride, too. But thebig wagon won't start till next year," he added, sadly.
Out-of-doors they did not talk. The roar of the Hulling Machinedominated everything, and the spume-clouds swaying above it spat intheir faces. On the platform of Ide's store the pathetic brotherhood ofthe "It-'ll-git-ye Club" sat in silent conclave, stunned into a queerstupor by the bellow of the Hulling Machine, even as habitualopium-eaters succumb to the blissful influence of the drug.
Above the falls an island divided the river. On the channel side thewaters raced turbulently. The island sentinelled the mouth of thelogan that deeply indented the shore on the quiet side of the river.Ide had installed a system of sheer-booms. They spanned the currentdiagonally, and were to be the silent herders that would edge thelog-flocks away from the banks, crowd them to centre at the sorting-gap,and keep them running free. Below the sorting-gap there were twosheer-booms--divergent. One ushered the down-river logs back into thecurrent that dashed towards the Hulling Machine. The other would swingthe logs of the Enchanted drive into the quiet holding-ground of thelogan.
"'WHAT I SAY ON THIS RIVER GOES!'"]
The thought of the heaped logs in Blunder valley, the memory of thedynamite bellowing its farewell to him over the tree-tops, and now thespectacle of these empty booms, had the eloquence of despair and thepathos of failure for Dwight Wade. And as the two of them--he and hispartner--stood there and gazed silently, they were forced to face bitteraccentuation of their stricken fortunes. Pulaski D. Britt, master of theUmcolcus drive, came on his way north at the head of his men. It was anarmy marching with all its impedimenta. There were many huge bateauxswung upon trucks that had hauled them around the white-water. Menlaunched them into the eddy above the Hulling Machine, and began to loadthem with tents, cordage, and the wangan stores.
Rodburd Ide and his young partner stood at one side, and surveyed thisscene of activity without speaking. And Britt marched up to them,raucous and domineering with the masterfulness of the river tyrant. Ithad long been the saying along the Umcolcus that Pulaski Britt got mad aweek before the driving season opened, and stayed mad a week after itended.
"Ide," he cried, "you and I seem to be always in trouble with each otherlately! But it's of your own makin', not mine! These sheer-booms thatyou've stuck in here obstruct navigation. I want to get my boats up.You've got to cut these booms loose."
"Mr. Britt," returned Ide, his tones quivering with passion, "two men ineach bateau crew can shove those booms down with pick-poles and let abateau over without wasting a minute's time. You've brought thosebateaux over all your own sheer-booms below here--you've got your ownbooms above. You've been riding over 'em for thirty years. Now bereasonable."
"You run back down there to your store and get onto your job of sellin'kerosene and crackers," advised the Honorable Pulaski, sarcastically."Don't you undertake to tell me my business. As river-master, I saythose logs obstruct navigation, and what I say on this river goes!"
"You talk, Britt, as though a title that you've grabbed onto, the sameas you have everything else along this river, amounted to anything inlaw," objected the magnate of Castonia. "I own the land that those boomsare hitched to, and you're not goin' to bluff me by any of yourobstruction-to-navigation talk. You've managed to get most things alongthis river this spring your own way, but I reckon I know when you'vegone about far enough. Don't try to rub it in!"
Mr. Britt, serene in his autocracy as drive-master, was in no mood tobandy arguments nor waste time on such as Rodburd Ide.
He whirled away, lifted a wooden box from one of the wagons, and set itdown gingerly.
"MacLeod!" he called. The boss came away from the river-bank, where hewas superintending stowing of supplies. "Unpack this dynamite, and blowdamnation out of those booms--the sortin'-gap first!"
The man twisted his face in a queer grimace.
"I don't think I'll do it, Mr. Britt," he said, curtly.
He looked away from Britt when the tyrant began to storm at him, andfixed his eyes on Wade's face with an expression there was no reading.
"No, I ain't no coward, either," he said, at last, interrupting hisemployer's flow of invective. "But dynamitin' other folks' booms withthe folks lookin' at you ain't laid down in a river-driver's job; and Iain't got any relish for nailin' boot-heels all next summer in a jailworkshop."
"I'll take the responsibility of this!" shouted Britt.
"Then you'd better do the job, sir," suggested MacLeod, firmly. "Law hasqueer quirks, and I don't propose to get mixed into it."
There was no gainsaying the logic of the boss's position. The HonorablePulaski noted that the men had overheard. He noted also that there wereno signs of any volunteers coming from the ranks. And so, with theimpetuosity of his temper, when the eyes of men were upon him, he sethis own hand to the job. With a cant-dog peak he began to pry at thebox-cover.
And Colin MacLeod, hesitating a moment, walked straight up to DwightWade--to that young man's discomposure, it must be confessed. Wade sethis muscles to meet attack. But MacLeod halted opposite him, folded hisarms, and gazed at him with something of appeal in his frank, gray eyes.There was candor in his look. In their other meetings Wade had only seenblind hate and unreasoning passion.
"Maybe you've got an idea that I'm a pretty cheap skate, Mr. Wade," heblurted. "Maybe I am, but it ain't been so between me and men unlessthere was women mixed in. My head ain't strong where women is mixed in.You hold on and let me talk!" he cried, putting up his big hand. "I'vegot eleven hundred dollars in the bank that I've saved, my two hands,and a reputation of bein' square between men. That's all I've got, and Iwant to keep all three. I had you sized up wrong at the start. I mixedwomen in without any right to. I misjudged the cards as they laid. Iused you dirty, and I got what was comin' to me. Now I've found out. Iknow how things stand with you all along the line, from there"--hepointed south towards the outside world that held Elva Barrett--"tothere on Enchanted. And I'm sorry! I'm sorry I ever got mistaken, andmade things harder for a square man. You heard what I just said to Mr.Britt. I wanted you to hear it. All is, I'd like to shake hands with youand start fresh. It may have to be man to man between us yet on thisriver, but, by ----, for myself I want it man-fashion."
He cast a glance behind him. Britt had the box open, and had dug out ofthe sawdust some cylinders in brown-paper wrappings. When MacLeodwhirled again to face Wade the latter put out his hand withoutreservation in face or gesture. Months before, such amazing repentanceand conversion might have astonished him, but now he understood the realingenuousness of the woods. Pulaski Britt, hardened by avarice andoutside associations, was not of the true life of the woods. Thisimpulsive boy, with his mighty muscles and his tender heart, was of thewoods, and only the woods.
MacLeod came one step nearer to Rodburd Ide, and pulled off his hat.
"If it ain't too much trouble, Mr. Ide, I wish you'd tell Miss Nina thatI've done it square and righted it fair. And don't scowl at me that way,Mr. Ide! It was a dream--and I've woke up! It was a pretty wilddream--and a man does queer things in his sleep. Your girl ain't for meor my kind, and I know it, now that I've woke up. I'd like to tell herso, and explain, but I don't know how to do it, Mr. Ide. You do it forme. I ask you man-fashion!"
He started away from them hastily, strode back to the bateaux, and beganto swear at the men who had stopped work to gaze on the HonorablePulaski. The latter had already embarked in a bateau, carrying severalof those ominous sticks wrapped in their brown-paper cases.
"Britt," shrieked Ide, "we've been to law with you to find out ourrights! Ain't you willin' to take your own medicine?"
"Hell on your law!" blazed the drive-master, contemptuously.
"Give us time to get an injunction before you destroy our goodproperty," demanded the little man, choking with his ire.
For answer Britt shook one of the dynamite sticks above h
is head withouteven turning to look back. His men crowded the boat over the boom at thesorting-gap, and Britt lighted the fuse and tossed the explosive uponthe anchored log platform.
"Oh, if our men were only here instead of at Enchanted!" mourned Ide.
"They're just where we ought to have them, Mr. Ide," the young mangrowled.
Britt was safely away up-river when the dynamite did its work; his menhad rowed like fiends. It was a beautiful job, viewed from thestand-point of destruction. The downward thrust of the mighty forcesplintered the platform into toothpicks and let the booms adrift.
The partners of Enchanted did not exchange comments. They gazed afterthe destroyer. Taking his time, as though to prolong their distress,Britt dynamited the booms above, and then stood up and jerked his arm asa signal for his crew to follow. They went splashing up the river, sixoars to a bateau, and disappeared, one boat after the other, bound forthe mouth of Jerusalem Stream. Already the jaws of the Hulling Machinewere gulping down the gobbets of splintered logs.
"How soon can you replace those booms, Mr. Ide?" Wade edged the wordsthrough his teeth, as a man stricken with lockjaw might have spoken. Andwithout waiting for reply, he hurried on. "Put 'em in, Mr. Ide, becauseyou're going to need 'em. And put along this shore all the men inCastonia who can handle guns. Winchesters and dynamite, with 'Hell onlaw' for a battle-cry! That's what he's given us. It's good enough forme. Will you put those booms in, Mr. Ide?"
"I'll put 'em in, and I'll protect 'em after they're put in," declaredthe little man, stoutly. The fighting spirit was in him again.
They looked at each other a moment, and turned and hurried back towardsthe settlement. Neither man seemed to feel that words could help thatsituation nor emphasize determination.
Prophet Eli was in front of Ide's store with his little white stallionwhen the two arrived there. The old man surveyed Wade shrewdly when hehastened to Nina Ide, who was waiting for a word with him.
"Boy! boy!" whispered the girl, clasping his tanned hand in both ofhers, "I don't like to see your eyes shine so! They're hard. But I knowhow to soften them. I have a letter for you from the one woman of allthe world. Come with me and get it."
"Keep it for me," he muttered--"keep it until I come for it. I'm not fitto touch it now. It might make a decent man of me, and--and--I don'twant to be--not just yet, Miss Nina." He whirled away, climbed upon hisjumper, and lashed his horse back along the trail towards Enchanted. Thewords of that half-jeering ditty of Prophet Eli's followed him, as theyhad on that memorable first day at Castonia, and grotesque as the liltwas, it seemed to express the young man's flaming resolution:
"Oh, the little brown bull came down from the mountains, Shang, ro-ango, whango-whey! And as he was feelin' salutatious, Chased old Pratt a mile, by gracious, Licked old Shep and two dog Towsers, Then marched back home with old Pratt's trousers."