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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rainy Day Railroad War, by Holman Day
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Rainy Day Railroad War
+
+Author: Holman Day
+
+Last Updated: January 3, 2009
+Release Date: September 18, 2007 [EBook #22666]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR
+
+By Holman Day
+
+1906
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+[Illustration: Frontispiece]
+
+
+
+
+THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE--THE TRYING-OUT OF ONE RODNEY PARKER, ASSISTANT ENGINEER
+
+All at once the stump-dotted, rocky hillside became clamorous and
+animated. From the little shacks sheathed with tarred paper, from the
+sodded huts, from burrows sunk into the hillside men suddenly came
+popping out with shrill cries.
+
+Three men, shouldering surveying instruments, stopped in their tracks
+on the freshly-heaped soil of a new railroad embankment, and gazed up at
+the hillside. The railroad skirted its foot and the sudden activity on
+the slope was in full view. "Your lambs seem to be blatting around the
+fodder-rack once more, Parker," observed the man who lugged the transit.
+He was a thin, elderly man and his tone was somewhat satirical.
+
+The men were running toward a common center, uttering cries in shrill
+staccato and sounding like yelping dogs.
+
+Parker drove the spurs of his tripod into the soft soil and stared up at
+the hillside, his tanned brow puckering with apprehension.
+
+"I don't think there's much of the lamb to that rush," observed the
+third man; "they sound to me more like hyenas after raw meat."
+
+"It will be Dominick they'll eat, then," said the elderly man.
+
+"I'm afraid you put the Old Harry into 'em last week when you took their
+part and straightened out Dominick's bill of fare," he went on. "They
+probably think they can get quail on toast now if they yap for it."
+
+"I believe in letting dagoes fight it out among themselves," announced
+the third man with much derision. "Helping one of 'em is like picking a
+hornet out of a puddle. You'll get stung while doing it."
+
+The men on the hillside had knotted themselves into a jostling group
+before the door of a long, low structure sheathed with tarred paper
+like the shacks. In the sunshine an occasional glint flashed above their
+heads.
+
+"Yes, their stingers are out," remarked the elderly man drily. "If
+they've got Dominick cornered in that eating camp I'm thinking this will
+be the day that he'll get his----whatever it is, they've laid up for
+him."
+
+"He promised me there should be no more weevils and no more spoiled
+meat," cried the one who had been addressed as Parker, a young man whose
+earnest face now expressed deep trouble. "As matters were going, those
+Italians were half starved and doing hardly half a day's work in nine
+hours. Their padrone was putting the food rake-off into his own pocket."
+
+"I'm not backing up Dominick," said the other. "But when you took the
+men's part and laid down the law to him on the grub question you gave
+them their cue for general rebellion. Ten chances to one the padrone has
+done as he agreed. I reckon you scared him enough for that. Now they're
+probably around with knives looking for napkins and sparkling red wine.
+I tell you, Parker, you're inviting trouble when you go to boosting up
+what you call the oppressed multitude."
+
+"That's a pretty hard view to take of the world and the people in it,
+Mr. Searles," replied the youth. "There ought to be a bit of merit and
+encouragement in a man's going out of his way to right a wrong."
+
+"Well, Parker, I'm hired as construction engineer on the P. K. & R.
+railroad system and I've worked for the road a good many years and found
+that I get along best when I am attending strictly to my own business
+in my own line. I told you at the time you butted into that dago row you
+were laying up trouble either for yourself or for some one else--and I
+guess it's some one else."
+
+A series of pistol shots popped smartly on the hillside, the reports
+partly muffled by the thin walls of the shack. The cries of the men
+outside became shrieks. The next instant the side wall bellied outward
+and then burst asunder. A man came hustling through the opening,
+evidently self-propelled, for he struck lightly on his feet and began to
+run down the steep hill. A soiled canvas apron fluttered at his waist.
+Stones rained after him. The knot of men at the door scattered like
+quicksilver and howling runners pursued him.
+
+Probably fear helped him as much as agility, for he kept well ahead of
+the rout, leaped a low fence at the bottom of the hill, scurried across
+a little valley and came floundering up the soft soil of the railroad
+embankment, scrambling toward the little group of engineers.
+
+"It's Dominick," said Searles. "There seems to be a little more work cut
+out for you in your side line of philanthropist."
+
+"I do it whatta you say," screamed the man as his head came over the
+edge of the embankment. "Nice! Good! All good to eat. But they want
+mucha more--too mucha!"
+
+He struck himself repeated blows on the breast with one fist and pointed
+with the other hand at the men who came swarming up the side of the
+graded road bed.
+
+"You coma look--look to the nice br-read, meat all good, beer--plenty
+much to eat, dr-rink!" the padrone gasped in appeal, as he circled about
+Parker to put him between the rioters and himself.
+
+The men who came after, screaming and cursing, jerking their arms above
+their heads, rolling back their lips from their yellow teeth, were
+apparently so many lunatics whose frenzy was not to be stayed. But
+undisciplined natures whose excesses spring from lack of self control
+are all the more ready to respond to the masterful control of others.
+
+First of all the men recognized in Parker the champion who had won their
+first rights from the padrone.
+
+They stopped their shrill vituperation and, crowding about him, began to
+bleat their explanations and appeals. But he threw out his arms, pushed
+them back a safe distance from the panting Dominick and roared them into
+silence, brandishing his fists, as he would have quelled a noisy school.
+
+When they understood that he wished them to be quiet they were silent,
+all leaning forward, their eyes shining, their lips apart, their fists
+clinched as tho they were holding their tongues in leash by that
+means, their dark, brown faces alight with wistful, almost palpitating
+eagerness. The regard they fixed on his face was baleful in its
+intentness.
+
+"Looka what they do," yelled Dominick rushing to his side. He had
+stripped his sleeve back from his arm. Blood was trickling from a knife
+gash.
+
+Then the tumult broke out again from the crowd. Two men leaped forward
+shaking their hats in their hands and screaming assertions and pointing
+quivering fingers at bullet holes in the crowns.
+
+"Shut up!" barked the young man. The presence of the satiric and
+unsympathetic old engineer nerved him to settle the dispute, if he
+might. The hint from the other that he had been meddling in what was
+outside his business gave him an uncomfortable sense of responsibility.
+
+"About face and back to the camp," he shouted. "I will look at your
+dinner and we shall see!"
+
+They hesitated a moment, but he went among them, pushing them down the
+bank.
+
+He followed with the padrone behind the jabbering throng, and the two
+engineers came along at his earnest request.
+
+"Mr. Searles," said Parker after a little while, as they walked side by
+side, "being an older and wiser man than I am you are probably right in
+suggesting that I did wrong in interfering in this affair at the outset.
+But," he half-chuckled, "I am going to lay the blame on my professor in
+sociology. He set me to thinking pretty hard in college and I guess I
+haven't been out from under his influence long enough to get hardened
+into the selfish views of my fellowman."
+
+There was earnestness under his smile.
+
+"My boy," said the elder, "I am not blaming you for what you have
+done for the poor devils. But I have been all for business in my life.
+Business hasn't seemed to mix well with philanthropy. I haven't dared to
+think of what I ought to do. I have thought only of what I had to do, to
+earn a living for my family."
+
+"Well," said Parker, "if the P. K. & R. folks decide that I've been
+meddling in matters that are none of my business I have no family to
+suffer for my indiscretion--but I have prospects and I know that a
+discharged man is worse off than a man who has started."
+
+The elder man patted Parker's arm.
+
+"As it stands now--and I'm speaking as a friend, young man, and not as a
+captious critic--you have set this Italian camp all askew by giving them
+countenance in the first place. They haven't any regulators in their
+heads, you see! When you're feeding charity to that kind of ruck you've
+got to be careful Parker, that they don't trample you down when they
+rush for the trough."
+
+The young man walked along up the hillside in silence. But just as
+they arrived in front of the long camp the scowl of puzzled hesitation
+disappeared from his forehead.
+
+"As old Uncle Flanders used to say," he muttered, "'When a man sticks
+his finger into a tight knot-hole he'd better pull it out mighty quick,
+before it swells, even if he does leave some skin on the edges.'"
+
+The men halted and grouped themselves about the door. Their eager looks
+and nudgings of each other showed plainly that they expected their
+champion to take up their cause against the padrone once more.
+
+Dominick prudently halted at a little distance.
+
+"You go look for yourself, Sir Engineer," he shouted; "on the kettle, in
+the table all about and you see whatta I feed to those beasts when I try
+to satisfy."
+
+The men retorted in shrill chorus leaping about and gesticulating till
+their joints snapped.
+
+Parker resolutely pushed through the throng without trying to understand
+what they were saying to him and slammed the door in the faces of the
+few who attempted to crowd in with him. Those who anxiously peered
+through the windows saw him examine the food set out on the table for
+the noon meal, lift the covers from the stew pans on the rusty stove and
+then pass into the little building behind the main camp. The great stone
+ovens for the bread-baking were located there.
+
+When at last he came out he faced them with grim visage, squared the
+shoulders that had borne many a football assault and called to Dominick.
+
+"Go inside," he said, "and coax those two helpers of yours out of those
+ovens. They couldn't understand my Italian. Tell them that they are
+safe. Let the padrone through, men! Do you hear?"
+
+The crowd sullenly parted and Dominick trotted up the lane they left,
+hastening with apprehensive shruggings of his shoulders.
+
+"Go about your work," said Parker, clutching his arm a moment as the
+padrone hastened past. "I can see it isn't your fault this time."
+
+"Now, men," he cried, turning to the throng, "few words and short so
+that you may all understand. Dominick's dinner is good. Good as any
+in the line boarding camps. I'm going to eat here. You come in and eat
+too."
+
+A mumbling began among them and immediately it swelled into a jabbering
+chorus as the few who understood translated his words to the others.
+
+He leaped down off the muddy stoop and strode among them, cuffing this
+one and that of those malcontents who were noisiest.
+
+"That young man certainly understands dago nature," muttered Searles to
+the other engineer. "A club, good grit and a hard fist will drive them
+when a machine gun wouldn't."
+
+"I stood up for you when you were not used right," shouted the young
+man. "He has given you what I told him to give you--what you asked for.
+Go in there and get it."
+
+He knew who the ring-leaders in the mutiny were and he drove those into
+the camp first. The others followed. In five minutes they were all at
+their places at table munching quietly. Another man, even with equal
+determination, might have not succeeded. But the greediest grumbler
+among them understood that this young man had first been as valiant to
+secure their rights as he was now ready to curb their rebellion.
+
+In his own heart he was loathing this role of arbiter and mentor. His
+first interference had come out of his natural sense of justice. He had
+pitied this herd of men who had been so helplessly appealing against
+their wrongs.
+
+As he stood at one end of the room now and gazed at them, he realized
+with a little pang of self-reproach that his latest exploit had been
+prompted by as much of a desire to set himself right with the company as
+to square the padrone's critical case.
+
+Later, when they were trudging down the hill together Searles said with
+a little touch of malice,
+
+"For a philanthropist, Parker, you seem to relish rough-house about as
+well as any one I ever saw, I've heard for a long time that football
+makes prizefighters out of college boys--so much so that they go looking
+for trouble. Is that so?"
+
+"I wish you'd let the matter drop, Mr. Searles," said the young man.
+"I'm thoroughly ashamed of the whole thing."
+
+"Well, I was going to say," went on the elderly man, "that civil
+engineers in these days get just as good wages without being
+shoulder-hitters. You'll get along faster on the peace basis."
+
+That was Parker's reflection two days later when he was in the room of
+the chief engineer of the P. K. & R. system, at the company's general
+offices.
+
+"By the way," said the chief, after his subordinate had finished his
+regular report, "Mr. Jerrard wishes to see you."
+
+Jerrard was general traffic manager and chief executive.
+
+The young engineer went slowly down the long corridor, apprehension
+gnawing at his heart. He huskily muttered his name to the clerk at the
+grilled door and was admitted. He fairly dragged his feet along the
+strip of matting that led to the general manager's private office. It
+was like the Bridge of Sighs to him.
+
+"Parker, eh?" repeated the general manager, whirling in his chair and
+letting his eyeglasses drop against his plump "front elevation," as
+Parker whimsically termed it in his thoughts, even in this moment of his
+distress.
+
+Jerrard gazed at him for a little while, a rather curious expression in
+his eyes under their shaggy gray brows, then whirled back to his desk
+and scrabbled among his papers. He drew forth a sheet of memoranda, gave
+Parker another shrewd glance and inquired:
+
+"Is it true, sir, that you have been interfering in the padrone system
+of the construction department?"
+
+"I suppose what I did might be termed that, tho I wasn't intending to be
+meddlesome, Mr. Jerrard."
+
+"Nothing in general instructions, was there, to lead a cub assistant in
+the engineering corps to revise a boarding house bill of fare?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"I find it further mentioned that you were back next day and herded
+about seventy-five Italians into a victualling camp as you would drive
+steers to a fodder rack. Don't you know that we reserve that sort of
+business for a squad of police?"
+
+"Mr. Jerrard," said the young man, recovering some of his
+self-possession tho his tone was apologetic, "since I have been on the
+road I saw what happened once when the police came with their clubs and
+revolvers. There was a free fight and two men were killed. I thought
+I saw a chance for one man to arbitrate a little difficulty--and
+arbitration is pretty highly recommended in these days by good
+authorities. When I found that arbitration didn't make things stay put
+I meddled once more in order to undo my first mistake--if we may call
+it that. It probably was a mistake, looked at officially. But you see--"
+his voice faltered a little, for the manager was surveying him with
+rather a hard look in his eyes, "I hoped that putting the padrone into
+line on his food question would prevent a strike; when I drove the men
+to table I had only the interests of the road at heart, for the strike
+was then fairly on."
+
+"Well," said the manager, a bit of a smile at the corners of his mouth,
+"you certainly were not thinking very hard of your own interests when
+you went into that rabid gang."
+
+"I can see that I made a botch of it generally, Mr. Jerrard. I will save
+you the trouble of requesting my resignation."
+
+But as he bowed and turned Jerrard spoke sharply.
+
+"Not so fast, young man," he said. "As the executive of the P. K. & R,
+system it wouldn't be exactly official and proper in me to approve your
+judgment in that matter of the Italians; but as a man--plain man, now,
+you understand,--I know grit when I see it and--" he dropped his bluff
+stiffness got out of his chair and came along and squeezed Parker's
+muscular arm, "you've got a brand of it that I admire. Yes, I do. No
+mistake! But that is just between you and me. That is simply my own
+personal opinion. I don't believe the directors relish the idea of
+gladiators in the engineering corps. Just respect this little private
+hint of mine hereafter please."
+
+He surveyed the young man with twinkling and appreciative eyes.
+
+"Parker," he said, "once in a while there comes up in the railroad
+business a demand for a man who has brains and spunk and muscle all
+rolled up in one bundle. I haven't tested you out yet on the first named
+but the chief engineer speaks in your behalf. The last two you certainly
+have. There's the story of a man who was going home late at night and
+picked up what he thought was a kitten and found it to be a pole-cat. It
+was good judgment to set it down again mighty sudden. But the skin was
+worth something and he resolved to have the skin to pay for the damage.
+Now President Whittaker and myself have been up in the north woods this
+season--among the big game, you understand. We picked up what we thought
+was a kitten. It has turned out to be something else. But we are not
+going to drop it."
+
+The young engineer was looking at him with puzzled gaze.
+
+"You don't understand a bit of it, do you?" laughed the traffic manager.
+"Well, I can't explain the thing just yet. I'll simply leave it this way
+today: Do you want to take a pole-cat and skin it for us? I don't
+mean by that that it's a job that any enterprising young man should be
+ashamed or afraid of. It's a job in your line. It's something of close
+personal interest to the president of this system and myself. It is
+going to take you away into the big woods. Do you want it--yes or no?"
+
+The engineer hesitated only a moment.
+
+"I'll take it," he said simply.
+
+"That's the boy!" cried Jerrard. His tone was so enthusiastic that
+Parker's instinct told him that this bluff offer was another test of his
+readiness in an emergency and had succeeded.
+
+The manager put his hand against his shoulder and gently pushed him out
+of the office.
+
+"Get ready for a cold winter out of doors and practice your tongue on
+the names To-quette Carry' and 'Colonel Gideon Ward' until you are not
+afraid of the sound of them."
+
+With a chuckle he shut the door on the astonished young man, but opened
+it again before Parker had moved from the mat outside.
+
+"Don't be worried, my boy, because I cannot explain the whole situation
+today." There was kindly reassurance in his tones. "You'll make out all
+right, I'm sure of that." A queer little smile puckered the corners of
+his eyes and his voice again became teasing. "The idea is, you've taken
+a contract to do up the Gideonites of the Wilderness in a lone-handed
+job. But I think you're good for the trick." He shut the door again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO--THE WHIM THAT PROJECTED THE FAMOUS "POQUETTE CARRY
+RAILROAD"
+
+Weeks passed before Rodney Parker got any more light on the matter in
+which he had blindly given his word.
+
+He understood this silence better when the situation was set before him
+at last. There are some projects that captains of industry dilate upon
+with pride. But big men are cautious about letting the world know
+their whims. And whims that lead to exasperating complications that
+no business judgment has provided for, do not form pleasant topics for
+conversation or publicity.
+
+Many railroad projects have been launched, some of them unique, but
+never before was enterprise conceived in just the spirit that gave the
+Poquette Carry Railway to the transportation world. There have been
+railroads that "began somewhere and ended in a sheep pasture." The
+Poquette Carry Road, known to the legislature of its state as "The
+Rainy-Day Railroad," is even more indifferently located, for it twists
+for six miles, from water to water, through as tangled and lonely a
+wilderness as ever owl hooted in.
+
+Yet it has two of the country's railroad kings behind it and at its
+inception some very wrathful lumber kings were ahead of it, and the
+final and decisive battle that was fought was between the champions of
+the respective sides--an old man and a young one.
+
+The old man had all the opinionated conservatism of one who despises new
+methods and modern progress as "hifalutin and new-fangled notions."
+The young man, fresh from a school of technology and just completing an
+apprenticeship under the engineers of a big railroad system, had not an
+old-fashioned idea.
+
+The old man came roaring from the deep woods, choleric, impatient of
+opposition, and flaming with the rage of a tyrant who is bearded in his
+own stronghold for the first time. The young man advanced from the city
+to meet him with the coolness of one who has been taught to restrain his
+emotions, and armed with determination to win the battle that would make
+or break him, so far as his employers were concerned.
+
+Jerrard was the avant-courier of this novel railroad. Jerrard had been
+traffic-manager of the great P. K. & R. system for many years, and when
+he grew bilious and "blue" and very disagreeable, the doctor told him
+to go back into the woods so far that he would not think about tariff or
+rebates or competition for two months.
+
+Jerrard chose Kennegamon Lake. A New England general passenger-agent
+whom he had met at a convention told him about that wilderness gem,
+and lauded it with a certain attractiveness of detail that made
+Jerrard anxious to test the veracity of New England railroad men,
+whose "fishin'-story" folders he had always doubted with professional
+scepticism.
+
+The journey by rail was a long one, and it afforded leisure for so much
+cogitation that when Jerrard napped he dreamed that the ends of his
+nerves were nailed to his desk back in the P. K. & R. general offices,
+and that as he proceeded he was unreeling them as a spider spins its
+thread.
+
+When he left the train at Sunkhaze station he was still worrying as to
+whether the assistant traffic-manager would be able to beat the O. & O.
+road on the grain contract. In thinking it over about a month later it
+occurred to him that he had dropped all outside affairs right there on
+that station platform.
+
+In the first place the mosquitoes and black flies were waiting. He had
+never seen or felt black flies before. He would have scouted the idea
+that there were insects no bigger than pinheads that in five minutes
+would have his face streaming with blood.
+
+"They do just love the taste of city sports," said the guide. "We old
+sanups ain't much of a delicacy 'long side of such as you. Here, let
+me put this on." He daubed the white face of the city man with an
+evil-smelling compound of tar and oil.
+
+Jerrard's mind was rapidly freeing itself from transportation worries.
+Then came the long paddle across Spinnaker Lake, with only the
+unfamiliar insecurity of a canoe beneath him, and after that the
+six-mile Poquette carry.
+
+By this time Jerrard had forgotten the P. K. & R. entirely.
+
+The canoe and duffel went across the carry slung upon a set of wheels.
+Jerrard rode in the low-backed middle seat of a muddy buck-board.
+
+The wheels ran against boulders, grated off with indignant "chuckering"
+of axle-boxes, hobbled over stumps and plowed through "honey-pots" of
+mud.
+
+"For goodness' sake," gasped Jerrard, holding desperately to the seat,
+"why don't you get into the road?"
+
+The driver, a French-Canadian turned and displayed an appreciative grin.
+
+"Eet ban de ro'd vat you saw de re," he explained, pointing his whip to
+the thoroughfare they were pursuing.
+
+"This a road?" demanded Jerrard, with indignation.
+
+"Oui, eet ban a tote-road."
+
+"I never heard of this kind before," ejaculated Jerrard, between bumps,
+"but the name 'road' ought not to be disgraced in any such fashion. How
+much of it is there?"
+
+"Sax mal'."
+
+"Six miles! All like this?"
+
+"Aw-w-w some pretty well, some as much bad."
+
+"Well, I don't know just what you mean," muttered Jerrard, "but I fear
+I can imagine." After what seemed a long interval, and when Jerrard,
+dizzied by the bumps and the curves, believed that the end must
+be near,--for six miles are but an inconsiderable item to the
+traffic-manager of a thousand-mile system,--he asked how far they had
+come. The driver looked at the trees. "Wan mal', mabbee, an' some leetle
+more." The railroad man opened his mouth to make a discourteous retort
+reflecting on the driver's judgment of distances, but just then one of
+the rear wheels slipped off a rock. It came down kerchunk. Jerrard bit
+his cheek and his tongue. After that he sat and held to his seat with a
+hopeless idea that the end of the road was running away from them.
+
+Half-way through the woods he bought two fat doughnuts and a piece
+of apple pie at a wayside log house. He munched his humble fare with a
+gusto he had not known for years. The jolting, the shaking, the tossing
+had started his sluggish blood and cleared his business-befogged brain.
+His food was spiced with the aroma of the hemlocks, and when they took
+to the road again he began to hum tunes.
+
+[Illustration: Then he fell to chuckling 049-050]
+
+Then he fell to chuckling. And when a smooth stretch suffered him to
+unclasp his cramped hold, he slapped his leg mirthfully. He was thinking
+what President Whittaker of the P. K. & R. would be saying in two weeks.
+
+President Whittaker was a rotund, flabby man, whom long indulgence in
+rubber-tired broughams and double-springed private cars had softened
+until he reminded one of a fat down pillow.
+
+"Jerrard," he had said, at parting, "if you find good fishing I'll
+follow you in two weeks. I need a little outdoor relaxation myself."
+
+Jerrard sent an enthusiastic letter right back by the tote-road driver.
+He took the word of his guide about the fishing in prospect. In his new
+and ebullient spirits he felt that he could hardly wait two weeks for
+the spectacle--Whittaker in the middle seat of a buck-board, on that
+six-mile carry road. And when the day came, Jerrard, now bronzed, alert
+and agile walked out over the Poquette Carry, paddled down to Sunkhaze,
+and received his superior with open arms.
+
+The unconsciousness of the corpulent Whittaker as he left the train,
+spick and span in tweed and polished shoes appealed to Jerrard's sense of
+the ludicrous so acutely that the president, following the baggage-laden
+guide down to the shore of the lake, stopped and looked at his friend
+with puzzled gaze.
+
+"I say, Jerrard, you seem to be in a good humor."
+
+"Nothing like the ozone of the forest to make you sparkle," chuckled the
+traffic-manager.
+
+It is unnecessary to describe the incidents of the trip across the
+lake, the apprehensive flinching of the fat president whenever the canoe
+lurched, and his fear of breaking through the bottom of the frail shell.
+
+But when they were well out on the carry road in the buckboard, Jerrard,
+gazing on the indescribable mixture of reproach, horror, pain and
+astonishment that the president's face presented laughed until Whittaker
+forgot dignity, cares and fears, and laughed, too.
+
+Two days later, as they were eating their lunch beside the famous spring
+in the north cove of Kennemagon Whittaker stretched himself luxuriously
+on the gray moss, and said;
+
+"Jerrard, it's an earthly paradise! I never had such fishing, never saw
+such scenery. I want to come here every summer. I'd like to buy a tract
+here. But that six-mile drive--O dear me! It makes me shiver when I
+think I've got to bump back over it in two weeks."
+
+That evening one Rowe, a timber-land exploring prospector, whose
+employment was locating tracts for the cutting of pulp stuff, stopped at
+the camp and accepted hospitality for the night. After supper the three
+lay in their bunks and chatted, while the guide pottered about the
+household tasks.
+
+"Much travel over the Poquette Carry?" asked Whittaker.
+
+"Good deal," said Rowe. "It's the thoroughfare between the West Branch
+and Spinnaker, you know. All the men for the woods leave the train at
+Sunkhaze, boat it across Spinnaker, and walk the carry at Poquette. All
+the supplies for the camp come that way, too. They bateau goods up the
+river from the West Branch end of the carry."
+
+"Why doesn't some one fix that road?" asked the president. "Looks to me
+as if they had brought rocks and thrown them into the trail just to make
+it worse."
+
+"It's all wild lands hereabouts," explained the prospector. "The county
+commissioners lay out the roads and the landowners are supposed to build
+them, but they don't. Timber-land owners don't like roads through their
+woods, anyway."
+
+"I see they don't," replied Whittaker dryly. "What did you pay, Jerrard,
+for having your canoe and truck carried across?"
+
+"Fifteen dollars for the duffel, and four dollars each for the guide,
+myself and you."
+
+"How's that for a tariff?" laughed the president. Then he took out his
+pencil and book and put a series of interrogations to Rowe. At the close
+he pondered a while, and said to Jerrard:
+
+"According to our friend here, at least five thousand men cross
+that carry each year, making ten thousand through fares one way.
+Supplies--pressed hay, grain, foodstuffs and all that sort of
+freight--from ten to fifteen thousand tons. Then there's the sportsman
+traffic, which could be built up indefinitely if there were suitable
+transportation conveniences here. Say, Jerrard, do you know there's a
+fine place for a six-mile narrow-gage railroad right there on
+Poquette Carry? You and I didn't come down here looking up railroad
+possibilities, but really this thing strikes me favorably. Slow time and
+not very expensive equipment, but think what a convenience! It will
+also give you and me an excuse to come down here summers, eh?" he added,
+humorously.
+
+"We'll establish a colony here on Kennemagon," suggested Jerrard, half
+in jest, "and start a land boom."
+
+"Seriously," went on Whittaker "the more I talk about that little road
+the more I am convinced it would pay a very good dividend. You and I
+can swing it. We can use some P. K. & R. rails, fix up one of those
+narrow-gage shifters they used on the grain spur, and have a railroad
+while you wait. If we only clear enough to pay our own passage twice a
+year we'll be doing fairly well. And I'll be willing to pass dividends
+for the sake of riding from Spinnaker to the West Branch on a car-seat
+instead of a buckboard. Say, Rowe," he went on, jocosely, "I suppose
+they'll have a mass-meeting and pass votes of thanks to Jerrard and
+myself if we put that project through, won't they?"
+
+Rowe squinted his eye along the sliver he was whittling. "I don't know
+of any one specially that's hankering for railroad-lines round here,"
+said he.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me that abomination of stones and muck-holes
+suits the public, do you?"
+
+"I know the folks I work for don't want to have it a mite smoother than
+it is. They're the public that's running this part of the world."
+
+"Here's a brand-new thing in transportation ideas, Jerrard!" cried the
+president of the P. K. &R.
+
+"Nothing strange about our side of it," said the prospector. "The people
+I work for own more than a million acres of timber land for feeding
+their pulp-mills, and the more city sports there are hanging round on
+the tracts and building fires, the more danger of a big blaze catching
+somewhere. And railroads bring sports. You don't hear of any lumbermen
+grumbling about the Poquette carry."
+
+"I should say, then, this section should have a little enterprise shaken
+into it," said Whittaker, tartly. This promised opposition promptly
+fired his modern spirit of progress.
+
+After he and his manager had returned to their duties in the city, the
+surprising word began to go about the district that next year there
+would be a railroad across Poquette carry. When the rumor was traced to
+Rowe, he found himself in for a good deal of rough badinage for allowing
+two city sportsmen to "guy" him.
+
+The postmaster at Sunkhaze was a subscriber to a daily paper, every
+word of which he read. One day, among the inconspicuous notices of "New
+Corporations," he found this paragraph:
+
+"Poquette Carry Railway Company, organized for the purpose of
+constructing and operating a line of railroad between Spinnaker Lake and
+West Branch River. President, G. Howard Whittaker; vice-president and
+general manager, George P. Jerrard; secretary and treasurer, A. L.
+Bevan. Capital stock $100,000; $5,000 paid in."
+
+After the postmaster had read that twice, he strode out of his little
+pen. Men in larrigans and leggings were huddled round the stove, for
+the autumn crispness comes early in the mountains. The postmaster's eye
+singled out Seth Bowers, the guide.
+
+"Say, Seth," he inquired, "wa'n't your sports last summer named
+Whittaker and Jerrard--the men ye had in on the Kennemagon waters?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, you boys listen to this," and the postmaster read the item with
+unction.
+
+"Looks 's if they were going ahead, and as if there wasn't so much wind
+to it, after all," observed one of the party.
+
+"That Poquette Carry road hasn't been touched by shovel or pick for more
+than three years, and I don't believe that Col. Gid Ward and his crowd
+ever intend to hire another day's work on it. Colonel Gid says every
+operator and sport from Clew to Erie goes across there, and if there's
+any ro'd-repairin' all hands ought to turn to an' help on the expense."
+
+"This new railroad idea ought to hit him all right, then," remarked
+Seth, the guide.
+
+"Well," remarked the postmaster, "I'd just like to be round--far enough
+off so's the chips and splinters wouldn't hit me--when some one steps
+up and tells Col. Gid Ward that a concern of city men is going to put a
+railroad in across his land--that's all!"
+
+"Gid Ward has always backed everybody off the trail into the bushes
+round here" said Seth. "But he's up against a different crowd now."
+
+"Do ye think, in the first place, that Colonel Gid is going to sell 'em
+any right o' way across Poquette?" asked the postmaster. "He owns the
+whole tract there."
+
+"Oh, there's ways of getting it," replied Seth. "Let lawyers alone for
+that when they're paid. If Gid don't sell, they can condemn and take."
+
+In a week a portion of Seth's prediction concerning lawyers was
+verified.
+
+Mr. Bevan, tall and thin and sallow, stepped off the train at Sunkhaze.
+He was a prominent attorney in one of the principal cities of the state,
+and served as clerk of this new corporation.
+
+When he heard that Col. Gideon Ward was fifty miles up the West Branch,
+looking after a timber operation on Number 8, Range 23, he borrowed
+leggings, shoe-pacs and an overcoat and hastened on by means of a
+tote-team.
+
+A week later, silent and grim and pinched with cold, he unrolled himself
+from buffalo-robes and took the train at Sunkhaze. The postmaster and
+station-agent gave him several opportunities to relate the outcome of
+his negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn.
+
+The first news came down two week later by Miles McCormick, a swamper
+on Ward's Number 8 operation. The man had a gash on his cheek and a big
+purple swelling under one eye. When a man of Ward's crew came down from
+the woods marked in that manner, it was not necessary for him to say
+that he had been discharged by the choleric tyrant who ruled the forest
+forces from Chamberlain to Seguntiway. The only inquiry was as to method
+and provocation.
+
+"He comes along to me as I was choppin'," related Miles to the Sunkhaze
+postmaster, "and he yowls, 'Git to goin' there, man, git to goin'!'
+'An',' says I, 'sure, an' I'll not yank the ax back till it's done
+cuttin'.' An' then he" Miles put his finger carefully against the
+puffiness under his eye, "he hit me."
+
+"Was there a tall stranger come up on the tote-team two weeks or so
+ago?" asked the postmaster.
+
+"There were," Miles replied, listlessly, and intent on his own troubles.
+
+"Hear anything special about his business?"
+
+"No. The old man took the stranger into the wangun camp, where it was
+private, and they talked. None of us heard 'em."
+
+"And then the stranger went away, hey?" "Oh, well, at last we heard
+the old man howlin' and yowlin' in the wangun camp and then he comes
+a-pushing the tall stranger out with such awful language as you know he
+can. An' he says to the stranger, 'Talk about charters and condemning
+land till ye're black in the face, I say ye can't do it; and every rail
+ye lay I'll tie it into a bow-knot. An' I'll eat your charter, seals and
+all. An' I'll throw your engine into the lake. An' how do ye like the
+smell of those?' When he said it he cracked his old fists under the
+stranger's nose. An' the stranger gets into the team and goes away. So
+that's all of it, and none of us knowed what it meant at all."
+
+The postmaster darted significant glances round the circle of faces at
+the stove, and the loungers returned the stare with interest.
+
+"What did I tell ye?" he demanded.
+
+"Just as any one might ha' told that lawyer," said a man, clicking his
+knife-blade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE--ENGINEER PARKER GETS FINAL ORDERS FOR "THE LAND OF THE
+GIDEONITES."
+
+The long autumn passed and winter set in. Snow fell on the carry and the
+big sleds jangled across. Men went up past Sunkhaze settlement into the
+great region of snow and silence, and men came down--bearded men, with
+hands calloused by the ax and the cross-cut saw.
+
+But Col. Gideon Ward's well known figure was not among the passengers
+on the tote-road. The upgoing men were bound for his camps, and were
+inquiring as to his whereabouts; the downgoing men stated that he was
+roaring from one log-landing to another, driving men and horses to make
+a record-breaking season, and so busy that he would not stop long enough
+to eat.
+
+Hearing the discussion of the traits and deeds of this woods ogre,
+the stranger might readily believe him as terrifying as the celebrated
+"Injun devil"--and as much a creature of fiction.
+
+But each of the messengers that Ward sent down to the outer world
+bore unmistakable sign that this ruler of the wilderness was in
+full possession of his autocracy. This talisman was one of the most
+picturesque features of Ward's reign over the "Gideonites," as his men
+were called all through the great north country.
+
+He never intrusted money to woodsmen, for he deemed them irresponsible;
+he found that writings and orders were too easily mislaid. Therefore,
+whenever he sent a messenger to town or a man down the line with a
+tote-team for goods, he scrawled on his back with a piece of chalk the
+peculiar hieroglyph of crosses and circles that made up the Gideon Ward
+"log-mark." This mark was good for lodging and meals at any tavern, was
+authority for the transfer of goods, and procured transportation for the
+man whose back was thus inscribed.
+
+When Colonel Ward sent a crew of men into the woods he marked the back
+of each one in this fashion, as if the employees were freight parcels.
+The exhibition of that chalk-mark and the words "Charge to Ward" were
+enough. And such was the fear of all men that the chalk-mark was never
+abused.
+
+Furthermore, on each grand spring settling day most of the dollars that
+circulated in the region came through the hands of Col. Ward. This fact
+naturally increased the deference paid him.
+
+"A railroad?" sneered one man, just down from Number 4 camp. "A railroad
+across Poquette? Across Gid Ward's land, spouting sparks and settin'
+fires and hustlin' in sports? Well, you don't see any railroad-buildin'
+goin' on, do you?"
+
+There was certainly but one reply to this.
+
+"And ye won't see any, either. Gid Ward just bellowed once at that
+lawyer, and he ran away, ki-yi! ki-yi! You'll never hear any more
+railroad talk."
+
+He expressed the public opinion, for even Seth, the guide, regretfully
+came to the conclusion that the tyrant of the West Branch had "backed
+down" the city men by his belligerent reception of their emissary.
+
+But soon after the first of January the postmaster's daily paper brought
+some further news. The state legislature had assembled in biennial
+session that winter. In the course of its reports the newspaper stated
+that the "Po-quette Carry Railway Company," a corporation organized
+under the general law, had brought before the railroad commissioners a
+petition for their approval of the project, and that a day was appointed
+for a hearing.
+
+"The city men had the sand, after all," was his admiring comment. "They
+don't propose to start firing till they get all their legal ammunition
+ready, and that's why they've been waitin'. We're goin' to see warm
+times on the Spinnaker waters."
+
+For that matter the daily newspaper brought to snow-heaped Sunkhaze
+intelligence of "warm times" at the hearing. The legal counsel and
+lobbyists who represented the puissant timber interests of the state
+protested against allowing this railroad corporation to acquire any
+rights across the wild lands.
+
+It was pointed out that a dangerous precedent would be established; that
+forest fires would be sure to originate from the locomotive's sparks,
+and that the Poquette woods were the center of the great West Branch
+timber growth.
+
+The counsel for the incorporators said that his clients realized this
+danger, and anticipated that this objection, a potent one, would
+be made. They were willing to show their liberal intent by binding
+themselves to run their trains only in rainy or "lowery" weather, or
+when the ground was damp. In times of dangerous drought they would
+suspend operations.
+
+"The Rainy-Day Railroad," as it was nicknamed immediately, excited
+considerable hilarity at the state-house and in the newspapers.
+
+The matter was fought out with much animation. The counsel for the
+railway made much of the fact that these timber owners had fought
+the very reasonable state tax that had been imposed on their vast and
+valuable holdings. He drew attention to the needs of the sportsman
+class, that was spending much money in the state each year, and declared
+that unless they were treated with some courtesy and generosity, they
+would go into New Brunswick.
+
+But those deepest in the secrets of the very vigorous legislative fray
+knew that the timber-land owners feared more results than they advanced
+in their arguments against the charter.
+
+For some years there had been rumors that extensive capital was ready
+to tap a certain big railway and afford a shorter cut to the sea. Such
+a cut-off would mean opening great tracts of woodland to the steam
+horse--and where the steam horse goes there go settlers. The timberland
+owners had found that settlers do not wait for clear titles, but squat
+and burn and plant until evicted, and eviction by course of law means
+expense and damage.
+
+To be sure, the Poquette Carry line appeared on the surface to be so
+innocent that to allege against it the great whispered scheme seemed
+ridiculous. Therefore the counsel of the timber barons did not bring out
+in the committee-room hearings all they suspected, for fear that they
+would be laughed at.
+
+So the Poquette Carry Road got what it asked for at last, the opposition
+daring to put forward only its slight pretexts. But the timber interests
+retired growling bitterly, and angrily apprehensive. They could not
+understand that big men are sometimes actuated by whims. Here they saw
+the controllers of the great P. K. & R. system behind this insignificant
+project in the north woods. They gave these shrewd railroad men no
+credit for ingenuousness. And the resolve that was thereupon made at
+secret conclave of the timber men to fight that first encroachment on
+their old-time domains and rights was a stern and a bitter resolve.
+The knowledge of it would have mightily astonished--might have daunted
+effectually a certain young engineer who was just then learning from
+Manager Jerrard the details of his new commission.
+
+In the end, late in March, Whittaker and Jerrard found themselves with
+a charter and a location approved by the state railroad commissioners,
+permitting them to build a six-mile railroad across Poquette Carry; to
+carry passengers, baggage, express and freight, but with the limitation
+that when the state land-agent should think the condition of drought
+dangerous and should so notify the company, the road should cease to run
+any trains until rain wet down the woods.
+
+The location was taken by right of eminent domain, and all the
+provisions of the law were complied with. No settlement for the damage
+caused to Colonel Ward through the loss of his land was possible, altho
+the railroad company made liberal offers, and he was finally left to
+pursue his remedy in the courts.
+
+Up to this time Jerrard had kept his negotiations with young Parker a
+private matter between the two of them, even as he had kept some of the
+annoying legislative details away from his superior.
+
+"What engineer can you send down there and handle the thing for us?"
+asked President Whittaker, when Jerrard informed him that all the legal
+details had been settled. "I want some one who knows enough to get the
+line going in season for our August trip--and above all to keep still. I
+don't want to hear a word about it till I get out of a canoe at Poquette
+Carry next summer. Here we want to build a wheelbarrow road, and I
+have been having hard work to convince some of our bankers that I'm not
+planning a coup against the Canadian Pacific. Bosh!"
+
+"These timber-land owners started most of that foolishness," said
+Jerrard. "But speaking of a man, there's Rodney Parker."
+
+"Never heard of him."
+
+"He's been with the engineers two years on the Falls cut-off's new work.
+I can't think of any one else who will suit us as well."
+
+"'Tisn't going to take any very wonderful man to build this road," the
+president snapped, rather impatiently.
+
+A smile crept into the wrinkles about Jerrard's shrewd eyes.
+
+"Whittaker," said he, "there's a side to our railroad enterprise that
+neither you nor I appreciated at first. I've been getting some points
+from our counsel, who had a talk with Bevan. When we were up at the
+lake, you remember something that Rotre said about the timber-land
+owners not especially hankering for a railroad at the carry. Well, Bevan
+says the land there is owned by a man named Ward--Col, Gideon Ward, one
+of the big lumber operators of that section. From Bevan's account, Ward
+must be something like a cross between a bull moose and a Bengal tiger,
+Bevan went up to see him. He thought he could make a deal for the
+right of way, and thus would not be obliged to bother with condemnation
+proceedings and stir up talk and all that. Devan declares that getting a
+charter is one thing but the building of that road will be another."
+
+"We've got the law--"
+
+"Law gets very thin when you step over the line into an unorganized
+timber township. They tell me that old Ward comes pretty near making his
+own laws, and makes them with his fists or a club or else through his
+gang that they call 'The Gideonites' in that country."
+
+"Your Parker, is he--"
+
+"I've got him out in my room. I've been talking with him. Better have
+him step in here."
+
+The president pushed his desk button, and the messenger hastened on his
+errand.
+
+"Parker," explained the traffic manager, "doesn't look any more savage
+than a house cat. But he's the man who went down into the camp of
+those Italians at the Fall's cut-off when they were having their bread
+squabble, and he backed the whole gang into the camp and made them sit
+down at the table. Of course, we hope we shall need only an engineer and
+not a warrior at Poquette, and we trust that Ward will be tractable and
+all that; but, Whittaker, if we're going to build that road, and are not
+to be backed down in such a way that we'll never dare to show our faces
+before the grinning natives at Sunkhaze then we need to send along a
+chap like--"
+
+"Mr. Parker!" opportunely announced the boy, at the door.
+
+Parker seemed tall and angular and rather awkward. The brown of
+out-of-doors was upon his skin. His eyelids dropped at the corners in
+rather a listless way, but the eyes beneath were gray and steady. He was
+young, not more than twenty-five, so Whittaker judged at his first sharp
+glance.
+
+"Do you think you can build that road that Jerrard has been telling you
+about?" asked the president, briskly.
+
+"I think so, sir." Parker spoke with a drawl.
+
+"You understand what the plan is?"
+
+"Mr. Jerrard has explained quite fully."
+
+"Are you afraid of bears and owls?" The president spoke jocosely, but
+there was a significant tone in his voice.
+
+"I don't think I should spend much time climbing trees," replied Parker,
+smiling.
+
+"Do you understand that the man we send must take the whole undertaking
+on his own shoulders? Neither Mr. Jerrard nor myself cares to think
+about the matter, even." "I'll be glad to be instructed, sir." "You'll
+have instructions as to limit of construction cost per mile, authority
+to draw on us as you need money, and the road must be in operation by
+the middle of July. Now Jerrard speaks well of your qualifications. What
+do you think?" "I am ready to accept the commission, sir." "You'll have
+to get away at once, Parker," said Jerrard. "You must get construction
+material and supplies across Spinnaker before the ice breaks up. You can
+depend on the most of April for ice."
+
+"I can start when you say the word." "We shall rush material. Suppose
+you start to-morrow morning?" "I'll start sir."
+
+He left the room when he was informed that his instructions would await
+him that evening.
+
+"Jerrard," said the president, gazing after the young man, "your friend
+isn't an especially _pretty_ frog but I'll bet he can jump more than
+once his length."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR--IN WHICH THE DOUGHTY "SWAMP SWOGON" ASTONISHES SUNKHAZE
+SETTLEMENT
+
+Two days afterward Parker ate his supper at the Sunkhaze tavern and
+spent the evening going over the schedule of material that was following
+him by freight, its progress over connecting lines hastened by all the
+"pull" inspired by the P. K. & R.'s bills of lading.
+
+The next morning, even while the frosty sun was red behind the spruces,
+he had arranged with the station agent for side-track privileges, and
+then questioned that functionary regarding local conditions.
+
+"I need twenty or more four-horse teams," said Parker. "What's the best
+way to advertise here?" "I reckon you can advertise and advertise,"
+replied the station agent, "but that's all the good it'll do you.
+Colonel Gid Ward has about every spare team in this county yardin' logs
+for him this winter."
+
+"What does he pay?"
+
+"Thirty-five a month for a span o' hosses, and hosses and man kept."
+
+"I'll pay forty-five and feed."
+
+"I shouldn't want to be the man that went up on Gid Ward's operations
+and tried to hire his teams away!" growled the agent. "You can't hire
+any one round here for an errand of that kind."
+
+"I'd go myself if I thought I could get the horses," said Parker.
+
+"I'd advise you to save yourself a fifty-mile ride up the tote-road,"
+the agent counseled. "Even if Ward didn't catch you, you'd find that no
+man would da'st to leave there. Furthermore, you've only got a little,
+short job here, scarcely worth while."
+
+The logic of the reply impressed Parker.
+
+He could not spare the time anyway, to travel far up into the woods in
+quest of horses. His material must be conveyed across Spinnaker Lake in
+some other way.
+
+"How far is it up the lake to Poquette?" he asked the agent.
+
+"Sixteen miles."
+
+An hour later Parker, after a tour of inspection, had settled his
+problem of transportation in his own mind. His plan was ingenious.
+
+There were half a dozen men available in Sunkhaze, and more were
+arriving daily, straggling down from the woods or roaring in fresh from
+the city, hurrying on the way up.
+
+The postmaster owned a hardwood tract, and Parker set his little crew
+at work chopping birch saplings and fashioning from them huge sleds,
+strongly bolted. As for himself, he entered into a contract with
+the local blacksmith, threw his coat off and went to work on some
+contrivances, round which the settlement's loungers congregated from
+dawn till dark the next day, watching the progress and wondering audibly
+"what such a blamed contraption was goin' to turn out to be."
+
+Parker kept his own counsel. At the end of two days, with the assistance
+of the blacksmith, he had remodeled four ox-cart tires. Each tire was
+spurred with bristling steel spikes, bolted firmly. In reply to his
+telegram, "Rush loco, all equipments and coal," the little narrow-gage
+engine arrived, at the tail of the procession of flat cars, loaded with
+materials of construction.
+
+By this time Parker's crew had been increased to a score of laborers,
+and he had picked up three yokes of oxen and four horses from the few
+pioneer farmers who lived near Sunkhaze. With tackle and derrick the
+locomotive was swung upon a specially constructed sled, and the spurred
+tires were set upon its drivers. Then the great idea locked in Parker's
+head became apparent to the population of Sunkhaze.
+
+[Illustration: Then the great idea Frontispiece]
+
+"Gorry!" said the postmaster. "If that young feller hain't got a horse
+there that'll beat anything that even Colonel Gid Ward himself ever sent
+across Spinnaker Lake!"
+
+Amid the utmost excitement of the spectators, the "engine on runners"
+was "snubbed" down the steep hill and eased out upon the road leading
+to the lake. Two hours' work with levers and wedges had adjusted the
+machine until the spurred wheels had the requisite "bite" upon the ice.
+
+At dark on the day of the "launching" Parker gazed off across the level
+of the lake, and said to his men:
+
+"To-morrow, boys, the Spinnaker Lake Air-Line Railroad will run its
+first train to Po-quette Carry. No freight this time. I want to lay
+out my landing up there. So all aboard at nine o'clock. Three cars," he
+said, pointing to the new sleds, "and a free ride for all of you, with
+my compliments."
+
+An honest cheer greeted his jocular announcement, and that evening
+all the Sunk-haze male population assembled round the stove in the
+post-office to discuss the matter. When the evening was yet young, a
+red-faced, red-whiskered man, snow-shoes on his back and fresh from the
+up-country trail, came and warmed himself, listening with interest to
+the lively discussion.
+
+"So that's what that thing is down on the lake?" he said, at last.
+"'Twas dark when I came by, and I swan if it didn't scare me. Want to
+know if that's the engine we've been hearin' about up our way?"
+
+His tone was significant.
+
+"Where ye from, stranger?" asked one of the loungers.
+
+"Number 7 cuttin'."
+
+"Oh, one of Gid Ward's men?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Say, has Ward heard about the railroad preparations?" inquired the
+postmaster. This query had been propounded with eagerness to every new
+arrival from the woods for the past three days.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The interest of the men quickened, and they crowded round the newcomer.
+
+"What does he say?"
+
+"He hain't said anything special yet, so I heard," replied the man.
+"Hain't done anything but swear so far, so they tell me."
+
+"Has he--has he started to come down?"
+
+"Feller from up the line telephoned across the carry that a streak of
+fur, bells and brimstone went past his place, and so I should judge that
+Colonel Gid is on the way down," drawled the man.
+
+"An' he'll come across that lake in the morning," said the postmaster,
+jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, "scorchin' the snow and leavin' a
+hot hole in the air behind him."
+
+The door opened and Parker came in to post his letters. The crowd
+gazed on him with new interest and with a certain significance in their
+glances that caught his eyes. The postmaster noticed his mute inquiry,
+and remarked:
+
+"News from the interior, Mr. Parker, is that you prob'ly won't have any
+ice in Spinnaker to-morrow to run your engine on."
+
+"Why?" demanded the young man, with some surprise. The postmaster's
+sober face hid his jest. Parker surveyed wonderingly the grins curling
+under the listeners' beards.
+
+"Oh, Colonel Gid Ward is comin' across in the mornin' and it's reckoned
+he'll burn up the ice."
+
+A cackle of laughter came from the assemblage.
+
+"There's plenty of room on Spinnaker for both of us, I think," Parker
+replied, quietly.
+
+"Better hitch your engine," suggested one of the group. "She's li'ble to
+take to the woods and climb a tree when she hears old Gid. And you can
+hear him a good way off, now I can tell you."
+
+The postmaster knuckled his chin humorously.
+
+"Wal, you'll hear him 'bout the same time you see him. Five years ago
+he was arrested down to the village for drivin' through the streets
+lickety-whelt without bells. Run over two or three people, first and
+last. Gid said he'd give 'em bells enough, if that's what they wanted.
+He began collecting bells all the way from a cow-bell down. At last
+accounts he had about two hundred on his hoss and sleigh, and was still
+addin'. Now he makes every hoss on the street run away. The men wish
+they'd let him alone in the first place. He'll prob'ly want your
+engine-bell when he sees it to-morrow."
+
+Another cackle from the crowd.
+
+Parker left without answering, and went to his dingy little room in the
+tavern. He did not doubt that the timber-land owners, beaten in their
+earlier and formal opposition, were inciting the irascible old colonel
+to pit might against right. The young man went over his papers once
+more, carefully and methodically posted himself as to his rights and
+powers, and then slept with the calmness of one who knows his course and
+is prepared to follow it.
+
+The next morning all the male population of Sunkhaze settlement surveyed
+with rapt interest the preliminaries of getting up steam under the
+"Swamp Swogon," as one of the guides had humorously nicknamed the little
+locomotive.
+
+Suddenly a bystander leveled his mittened hand above his eyes and gazed
+up the long trail across the lake. The road was "brushed out" by little
+bushes set along at regular intervals.
+
+Away off on the distant perspective a dot was advancing. It resolved
+itself into horse and sleigh. Puffs of vapor from the steaming animal
+indicated the urgent precipitancy of its speed.
+
+"I reckon that'll be Colonel Gideon Ward!" called the man who had just
+observed the team.
+
+Parker, busy with his gages and oil-can, gave one look up the road and
+went on with his labors. In a few moments the jangling beat of many
+bells throbbed on the frosty air. As if answering a challenge, the
+locomotive's escape valve shot up its hissing volume of steam.
+
+"We are very nearly ready, gentlemen!" called Parker. He gave an order
+to his volunteer fireman, and suggested that intending passengers get
+aboard the sleds.
+
+"I'll sound the whistle," said he. "There may be some still waiting up
+at the store."
+
+The whistle shrieks were many and prolonged. The horse, speeding down
+the lake, was only a few rods away. He stopped, crouched, and dodged
+sidewise in terror. An old man stood up and began to belabor the
+frightened animal.
+
+He was a queer figure, that old man, in the high-backed, high-fender
+sleigh. On his head was a tall peaked fur cap, with a barred coon tail
+flopping at its apex. A big fur coat, also covered with coon tails, made
+the man's figure almost Brobdingnagian in circumference. It was Colonel
+Gideon Ward.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE--HOW COLONEL GIDEON WAS BACKED DOWN FOR THE FIRST TIME IN
+HIS LIFE
+
+Above the purple knobs on his cheekbones Colonel Gideon Ward's little
+gray eyes snapped malevolently. He roared as he lashed at his trembling
+horse. The animal dodged and backed and stubbornly refused to advance
+on the strange thing that was pouring white clouds into the air and
+uttering fearful cries.
+
+At last the horse reared, stood upright and fell upon its side,
+splintering the thills. Several of the men ran forward, but before the
+animal could scramble to its feet Ward leaped out, tied its forelegs
+together with the reins, and left it floundering in the snow. Then
+he came forward with his great whip in his hand. The crowd drew aside
+apprehensively, and he tramped straight up to the locomotive.
+
+"What do ye mean," he roared, "by having engines out here to scare
+hosses into conniptions? Take that thing off this lake and put it back
+on the railroad tracks up there where it belongs!" He shook his fists
+over his shoulder in the direction of the distant embankment.
+
+"You will observe," said Parker, blandly, "that there is some twenty
+inches difference between the gage of the wheels and the gage--"
+
+"I don't care that"--and Colonel Ward snapped the great whip--"for your
+gages and your gouges! Take that engine off this ro'd."
+
+"I don't care to discuss the matter," returned Parker, quietly. "I am
+busy about my own affairs--too busy to quarrel."
+
+"There's no use of me and you backin' and fillin'!" shouted the old
+man. "You know me and I know you. You think you're goin' to tote your
+material up over this lake and build that railroad across my carry at
+Poquette?"
+
+"Yes, that's what I am going to do."
+
+Ward shot out his two great fists.
+
+"Naw, ye ain't!" he howled.
+
+Parker turned and consulted his steam-gage and water indicator. Then he
+rang the bell.
+
+"All aboard!" he shouted. "First train for Poquette."
+
+A nervous little laugh went round at his quiet jest, and twoscore men
+boarded the sleds. For the first time in his roaring, reckless and
+quarrelsome life Colonel Gideon Ward found himself in the presence of
+a man who defied him scornfully and facing an obstacle that promised
+ridiculous defeat.
+
+The titter of the crowd spurred his rage into fury. He took his whip
+between his teeth, and grasping the hand-rods, was about to lift himself
+into the cab. Parker put his gloved hand against the old man's breast.
+
+"Not without an invitation, Colonel Ward," he said. "Our party is made
+up."
+
+"Don't want to ride in your infernal engine!" bellowed Ward, "I'm goin'
+to hoss-whip you, you--"
+
+"Colonel Ward, you know the legal status of the Poquette Carry Railroad,
+don't you?"
+
+"I don't care--"
+
+"If you don't know it, then consult your counsel. You are on the
+property of the Poquette Railroad Company. I order you off. There's
+nothing for you to do but to go."
+
+Eyes as fiery as Ward's own met the colonel. The pressure on his breast
+straightened to a push. He fell back upon the snow.
+
+The next moment Parker pulled the throttle. The spike-spurred
+driving-wheels whirred and slashed the ice and snow until the "bite"
+started the train, and then it moved away up the long road, leaving Ward
+screaming maledictions after it.
+
+"Well," panted the fireman, "that'll be the first time Colonel Gid Ward
+was ever stood round in his whole life!"
+
+"I'm sorry to have words with an old man," said Parker, "but he must
+accept the new conditions here."
+
+"This is new, all right!" gasped the fireman, with an expressive sweep
+of his hand about the little cab.
+
+Parker was watching his new contrivance with interest. His steering-gear
+was rude, being a single runner under the tender with tiller attachment,
+but it served the purpose. The road was so nearly a straight line that
+little steering was necessary.
+
+The snow on the lake road was solid, and the spikes, with the weight of
+the engine settling them, drove the sleds along at a moderate rate of
+speed. The problem of the lake transportation was settled. When Parker
+quickened the pace to something like twelve miles an hour, the men
+cheered him hoarsely.
+
+The trip to Poquette was exhilarating and uneventful. Parker left his
+fireman to look after the "train," and accompanied by an interested
+retinue of citizens, tramped across the six miles of carry road on a
+preliminary tour of inspection.
+
+He returned well satisfied.
+
+The route was fairly level; a few détours would save all cuts, and the
+plan of trestles would do away with fills. With the eye of the practised
+engineer, Parker saw that neither survey nor construction involved any
+special problems. Therefore he selected his landing on the Spinnaker
+shore, and resolved to make all haste in hauling his material across the
+lake.
+
+When the expedition arrived at Sunkhaze at dusk, the postmaster brought
+the information that Colonel Ward had stormed away on the down-train
+with certain hints about getting some law on his own account. He had
+sworn over and over in most ferocious fashion that the Poquette Carry
+road should not be built so long as law and dynamite could be bought.
+
+For two days Parker peacefully transported material, twenty tons a
+trip and two trips a day. On the evening of the third day Colonel Ward
+arrived from the city, accompanied by a sharp-looking lawyer. The two
+immediately hastened away across the lake toward Poquette.
+
+Parker had twenty men garrisoned in a log camp at the carry, and had
+little fear that his supplies would be molested. It was hardly credible,
+either, that a man with as extensive property interests as Colonel Ward
+possessed would dare to destroy wantonly the goods of a railroad company
+in the strong position of the Poquette road. However, Parker resolved
+to make a survey at once, in order to put the swampers at work chopping
+trees and clearing the right of way.
+
+When he left the cab of his engine the next forenoon at Poquette, he saw
+the furred figure of Colonel Ward in front of his carry camp a sort of
+half-way station for the timber operator's itinerant crews. The lawyer
+was at his elbow.
+
+Parker ignored their presence.
+
+A half-hour later the young engineer had established his Spinnaker
+terminal point, and was running his lines. Still no word from the
+colonel, who was tramping up and down in front of the camp. Parker's
+whimsical fancy pictured those furs and coon tails as bristling and
+fluffing like the hair of an angry cat.
+
+[Illustration: Appearance of an enraged Polar bear 078-100]
+
+The young man wondered what card his antagonists were preparing to play.
+He found out promptly when he ordered his swampers to advance with their
+axes and begin chopping down the trees on the right of way. At the first
+"chock" ringing out on the crisp silence of the woods Ward came running
+down the snowy stretch of tote-road, presenting much the same appearance
+as would an up reared and enraged polar bear. The lawyer hurried after
+him, and several woodsmen followed more leisurely.
+
+"Not another chip from those trees! Not another chip!" bawled the
+colonel. The men stopped chopping and looked at each other doubtfully.
+
+"We've been told to go ahead here," said the "boss."
+
+"I don't care what yeh've been told. You all know me, don't you?" Ward
+slapped his breast. "You know me? Well, I say stop that chopping on
+my--understand?--on _my_ land."
+
+Parker, who was in advance of the choppers with his instruments, heard,
+and came plowing through the snow. He found Colonel Ward roaring oaths
+and abuse, brandishing his fists, and backing the crew of a dozen men
+fairly off the right of way. Ward's own band of "Gideonites" stood at a
+little distance, grinning admiringly.
+
+Parker set himself squarely in front of the old man, elbowing aside
+a woodsman to whom the colonel was addressing himself. The young
+engineer's gaze was level and determined.
+
+"Colonel Ward," he said, "you are interfering with my men."
+
+The answer was a wordless snarl of ire and contempt.
+
+"There's no mistaking your disposition," continued Parker. "You have set
+yourself to balk this enterprise. But I haven't any time to spend in a
+quarrel with you."
+
+"Then get off my land."
+
+"Now, see here, Colonel Ward, you know as well as I that my principals
+have complied with all the provisions of law in taking this location.
+This road is going through. I am going to put it through."
+
+"Talk back to me, will you? Talk to me! ni--I'll--" Ward's rage choked
+his utterance.
+
+"Certainly I'll talk to you, sir, and I am perfectly qualified to boss
+my men. Go ahead there, boys!" he called.
+
+"A moment, Mr. Parker," broke in the suave voice of the lawyer. "I see
+you don't understand the entire situation. Briefly, then, Mr. Ward has
+a telephone-line across this carry. You may see the wires from where
+you stand. I find that your right of way trespasses on Colonel Ward's
+telephone location. In this confusion of locations, you will see the
+advisability of suspending operations until the matter can be referred
+to the courts."
+
+"There is room for Colonel Ward's telephone and for our railroad, too,"
+he retorted. "If we are compelled to remove any poles, we'll replace
+them."
+
+Of course Parker did not know that the telephone-line was, in fact, only
+Colonel Ward's private line, and after the taking by the railroad was
+on the location wholly without right. But that was a matter for his
+superiors, and not for him.
+
+"Another point that I fear you have not noted. Colonel Ward's telephone
+wires are affixed to trees, and your men are preparing to cut down these
+same trees in clearing your right of way. You see it can't be done, Mr.
+Parker."
+
+There was an unmistakable sneer in the lawyer's tones. Parker's anger
+mounted to his cheeks.
+
+"I'm no lawyer," he cried, "but I have been assured by our counsel that
+I have the right to build a railroad here, and I reckon he knows! I've
+been told to build this railroad and, Mr. Attorney, I'm going to build
+it. I've been told to have it completed by a certain time, and I haven't
+days and weeks to spend splitting hairs in court."
+
+"No, I see you're not much of a lawyer!" jeered the other. "Mr. Parker,
+you may as well take your plaything," pointing to the engine, "and
+trundle it along home."
+
+"We'll see about that!" Parker snatched an ax from the nearest man. "Mr.
+Lawyer, you may _go_ back to the city and fight your legal points with
+the man my principals hire for that purpose, and enjoy yourself as much
+as you can. In the meantime I'll be building a railroad. Men, those
+trees are to come down at once." He began to hack at a tree with great
+vigor.
+
+The choppers, encouraged by his firm attitude, promptly moved forward
+and began to use their axes.
+
+"The club you must use, Colonel, is an injunction," advised the
+crestfallen lawyer after he had watched operations a few moments. Ward
+was swearing violently. "I'll have one here in twenty-four hours."
+
+The irate lumberman whirled on his counsel.
+
+"Get out of here!" he snarled. "Your injunction would prob'ly be like
+the law you've handed out here to-day. You said you'd stop him, but you
+haven't."
+
+"There's no law for a fool!" snapped the attorney.
+
+"Get along with your law!" roared Ward. "I was an idiot ever to fuss
+with it or depend on it. 'Tain't any good up here. 'Tain't the way for
+real men to fight. I've got somethin' better'n law."
+
+He shook his fists at Parker. "Better'n law!" he repeated, in a shrill
+howl. "Better'n law!" he cried again. "And you'll get it, too."
+
+At first the engineer believed that Ward was about to rally his little
+band at the carry camp, but the old man turned and stumped away. His
+lawyer tried to interpose and address him, but the colonel angrily
+shoved him to one side with such force that the attorney tumbled
+backward into the snow.
+
+"Get out my horse!" the colonel screamed, as he advanced toward the
+camp.
+
+A helper precipitately backed the turnout from the hovel. Ward leaped
+into the sleigh, pulled his peaked fur cap down over his ears, and took
+up the reins and big whip. He brandished his great fist at the little
+group he had just left.
+
+"Better'n law!" he shouted again. "That for your law!" and he struck his
+rangy horse with a crack as loud as a pistol-shot.
+
+The animal leaped like a deer, fairly lifting the narrow sleigh, and
+with tails fluttering from his fur robes, his cap's coon tail streaming
+behind, away up the tote-road went Gideon Ward on his return to the
+deep woods, the mighty din of his myriad bells clashing down the forest
+aisles. At the distant turn of the road he hooted with the vigor of a
+screech owl, "Better'n law!" and disappeared.
+
+"Your client doesn't seem to be in an especially amiable and lamb-like
+mood this morning," said Parker.
+
+The lawyer dusted the snow from his garments.
+
+"Beautiful disposition, old Gid Ward has!" he snarled. "Left me here to
+walk sixteen miles to a railroad-station, and never offered to settle
+with me."
+
+"You forget the 'Poquette and Sunkhaze Air-Line," Parker smiled. "You
+are free to ride back with us when we go."
+
+"No hard feelings, then?" asked the lawyer.
+
+"I'm not small-minded, I trust," returned Parker. The lawyer looked
+at the self-possessed young man with pleased interest. This generous
+attitude appealed to him.
+
+"Do you realize, young man," he inquired, "that old Gideon Ward never
+had a man really back him down before?"
+
+"I don't know much about Colonel Ward personally, except that he has a
+very disagreeable disposition."
+
+"You've made him just as near a maniac as a man can be and still go
+about his business. There'll be a lot of trouble come from this. Hadn't
+you better advise your folks to call it off? They haven't the least
+idea, I imagine, what a proposition you are up against."
+
+"I shall keep on attending to my business," Parker replied. "If any one
+interferes with that business, he'll do so at his own risk."
+
+"I am afraid you are depending too much on your legal rights and on the
+protection of the law. Now Gideon Ward has always made might right in
+this section. He is rough and ignorant, but the old scamp has a heap of
+money and a rich gang to back him. I tell you, there are a lot of things
+he can do to you, and then escape by using his money and his pull."
+
+"From what I have seen of the old man's temper, I am prepared to put
+a pretty high estimate on his capacity for mischief; but on the other
+hand, Mr. Attorney, suppose I should go back to my people and say I
+allowed an old native up here in the woods to back me off our property?
+I fear my chances for promotion on the P. K, and R. system would get a
+blacker eye than I shall give him if he ever shakes his fist under
+my nose again. Have all the people up here allowed that old wretch to
+browbeat and tyrannize over them without a word of protest?"
+
+"Oh, he has been whaled once or twice, but it never did him any good.
+For instance, a favorite trick of his is to make every one flounder out
+of a tote-road into the deep snow. He won't turn out an inch. Most of
+the men he meets are working for him or selling him goods, and they
+don't dare to complain. However, one teamster he crowded off in that
+way broke two ox-goads on the old man. But that whipping only set him
+against other travellers more than ever.
+
+"Another time Ward got what he deserved down at Sunkhaze. A man opened a
+store there and put in a plate-glass window, being anxious to show a bit
+of progress. There's nothing old Ward hates so much as he does what he
+calls 'slingin' on airs,' When he drove down from the woods and saw
+that new window he growled, 'Wal, it seems to me we're gettin' blamed
+high-toned all of a sudden!' He got out, rooted up a big rock and hove
+it right through the middle of that new pane of glass the only pane of
+plate glass Sunkhaze ever saw. Well, the storeman tore out and licked
+Ward till he cried. Storeman didn't know who the old man was till after
+it was all over. Neither did old Gid know how big that storeman was till
+he saw him coming out through that broken glass. Otherwise both might
+have thought twice.
+
+"Ward boycotted and persecuted him till he had to sell out and leave
+town. He has persecuted everybody. His wife has been in the insane
+asylum going on ten years; his only girl ran away and got married to
+a cheap fellow, and his son is in state prison. The boy ran away from
+home, got into bad company, and shot a policeman who was trying to
+arrest him. If you are not crazy or dead before he gets done with you,
+then you'll come out luckier than I think you will."
+
+With this consoling remark the lawyer plodded up to the camp, to wait
+until it should be time to start down the lake.
+
+As Parker toiled through the woods that day he reflected seriously on
+his situation. He fully appreciated the fact that Ward's malice intended
+some ugly retaliation. The danger viewed here in the woods and away from
+the usual protections of society seemed imminent and to be dreaded.
+
+But the young man realized how skeptically Whittaker and Jerrard would
+view any such apprehensions as he might convey to them, reading his
+letter in the comfortable and matter-of-fact serenity of the city. He
+knew how impatient it made President Whittaker to be troubled with any
+subordinate's worry over details. His rule was to select the right
+man, say, "Let it be done," and then, after the manner of the modern
+financial wizard inspect the finished result and bestow blame or praise.
+
+Parker regretfully concluded that he must keep his own counsel until
+some act more overt and ominous forced him to share his responsibility.
+
+That evening, as he sat in his room at the tavern, busy with his first
+figures of the survey, some one knocked and entered at his call, "Come
+in!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX--IN WHICH "THE CAT-HERMIT OF MOXIE" CASTS HIS SHADOW LONG
+BEFORE HIM
+
+It was the postmaster who appeared at Parker's invitation to enter. That
+official stroked down his beard, tipped his chair back, surveyed the
+young man with the solemnity of the midnight raven and observed:
+
+"I hear you and Colonel Gid had it hot and tight up to Poquette to-day."
+
+"There was an argument," returned Parker, quietly.
+
+"I don't want to be considered as meddlin' with your affairs, Mr.
+Parker, but I've known Gid Ward for a good many years, and I want to
+advise you to look sharp that he doesn't do you some pesky mean kind of
+harm."
+
+"I have been warned already, Mr. Dodge."
+
+"Yes, but you don't seem to take it to heart enough. Or if you do, you
+don't show it. That was the reason I was afraid you didn't realize what
+a man you have to deal with."
+
+"He seems to me like a blustering coward. Your really brave and
+determined men don't make so much talk."
+
+"Oh, Gid Ward has tried his usual game of scare with his mouth, and it
+didn't work. He won't come again at you that way in the open right way.
+But"--the postmaster brought his chair down on its four legs and leaned
+forward to whisper--"he'll come again at you in the dark, and it's then
+that he's dangerous."
+
+"Of course I needn't tell you, Mr. Dodge, that I do not propose to be
+backed down and driven out of this section by a man like that. I dare
+say he is planning mischief, but I have my work to do here, and I shall
+keep on as best I can."
+
+"I admire your spunk, young man," said the postmaster, heartily, "and I
+hope you'll come through this all right. But I have felt it my duty to
+see that you were warned good and solid. I know how Gid Ward got his
+start in life--and by as mean a trick as ever a man put up.
+
+"His brother Joshua Ward, enlisted for the war in the sixties. Bachelor,
+Joshua was. He was going with one of the Marshall girls in Carmel,
+and the thing was settled final. Hows'ever, Josh went away to the war
+without getting married, because he allowed that if he got killed, an
+unmarried girl wouldn't have to take last pickings of the men, like a
+widow would. Mighty kind, square, good-hearted chap that Josh Ward now
+I can tell ye! Thought of others first all the time. He owned a mighty
+nice place that his aunt had willed to him. She liked Josh, but hated
+the sight of Gid, same's every one else did.
+
+"Before Josh went away he deeded his farm and everything to that
+Marshall girl. Told her that if he came back they would get married, and
+it would be all right. If he didn't come back, he wanted her to marry a
+good man, and told her that the farm would make a home for them and help
+her to get the best kind of a husband. As I told you, that Joshua Ward
+was as good as wheat.
+
+"For a year that Marshall girl heard from Josh regularly, and then the
+papers reported that he was killed in a big battle, and from then to the
+end of the war--two years or more--there wasn't a word from him or of
+him. Meanwhile Gid laid his plan. The Marshall girl had an idea that if
+she married Gid--though he wasn't her style--it would please Josh, for
+then the place would stay in the family. She mourned for Josh terribly,
+but Gid was right after her all the time, and there she was with a farm
+on her hands, and so she finally up and married him.
+
+"In Joshua Ward's case it happened, as it did in hundreds of other
+cases, where the poor chaps weren't important enough to be heard about
+or from. He was just captured instead of killed, and went from Libby to
+Andersonville, from Andersonville to Macon, and when Lee surrendered he
+came home, thin's a shadow, shaking with ague and with eyes bigger
+than burnt holes in a blanket. Pitiful figure he was, I tell you. I was
+running a livery business in Carmel village then, and Josh hired me to
+take him out to the farm.
+
+"I broke the thing to him on the way. Made my throat ache, now I tell
+you, Mr. Parker. Made my eyes smart and the fields and sky look blurry
+to see that poor wreck, with everything gone, and know that the hog that
+had stayed to home was enjoying it all.
+
+"And what made me, as a man, despise Gid Ward more was the fact that he
+had been colonel of a state regiment in old militia days, boosted there
+by a gang that trained with him, and as soon as war broke out and the
+regiment was mustered in he resigned like a sneak, and couldn't be
+touched by a draft.
+
+"Josh always was a quiet chap. He humped over a little more when I told
+him, and looked thinner, and I had to help him more when he got out at
+the farm than I did when he got aboard at the stable. He allowed he'd go
+to the farm just the same. Said he didn't have any money, or any other
+place to go, and he guessed 'twas his home, anyway.
+
+"Mr. Parker, I haven't got the language to tell ye how that woman looked
+when she came to the door and saw me helping Josh out to the ground.
+No sir, I don't want to think of it--how she sank right down in that
+doorway, and her head went over sidewise and her eyes shut and--and her
+heart stopped, I guess."
+
+The postmaster blew his nose and snapped his eyes and cleared his throat
+with difficulty. Parker had forgotten his figures.
+
+"Gid came round the corner of the house, seeing the team drive up, and
+what do you suppose he said when he saw his brother back from the grave,
+as you might say? He looked him over, not offering to shake his hand,
+and then he says, 'Well, living skelington, it's goin' to cost something
+to plump you out again, ain't it?'
+
+"When I saw the look on Josh's face at that, I'd have hauled off and
+cuffed Gid's head up to a pick, swan if I wouldn't, but the Marshall
+girl--excuse me, Mis' Ward--came tearin' down the path, and threw her
+arms round Josh's neck and cried, 'O my poor brother!' And I came away.
+
+"It was too much for me. My eyes were so full that I run against a tree,
+and pretty near took a wheel off.
+
+"Wal, Josh stayed, and as soon as he was able he took a-hold of
+farm-work, and things went along for a time all quiet. One evening
+Josh was sitting out at the corner of the house, smoking as usual, and
+meditatin' in the way he had, when Gid came along and sat down on the
+door-stone.
+
+"''Bout time to have a business understanding, ain't it, Josh?' Gid
+asked.
+
+"'Yes, perhaps it is,' said Joshua.
+
+"'Well then, ye'll answer a fair question. If ye continue to stay here,
+where's the money for your board comin' from?'
+
+"'Board?' says Josh.
+
+"'Yes, board! You don't reckon to run a visit over three months, do ye?'
+
+"'Why, I didn't think there'd be any question of this sort between us,
+Gid.'
+
+"'Business is business. If you'd had more business to you, you wouldn't
+be a pauper now.'
+
+"'A pauper!'
+
+"'That's what I said. You deeded this place to Cynthy Marshall, didn't
+ye? Well, she has deeded it to me. 'Tain't much of a husband that don't
+have his property in his own name.'
+
+"'But see here, Gideon, you know why I deeded this property. You know
+how matters have come out. Between brothers in such a case there should
+be no such thing as stickin' to the letter of deeds.'
+
+"'Nearer the relatives be to ye, closer you ought to follow the law,'
+snapped Gid, 'or else ye'll get cheated worse than by a stranger!'
+
+"'He didn't seem to be takin' any of that to himself.'
+
+"'I've been thinkin' I'd give half the place to Cynthy as a weddin'
+present, and we could--'
+
+"'Why, you've given it all to her, hain't ye?'
+
+"Josh had to say yes, of course. Never was any hand to argue his own
+rights."
+
+"'Well, she has given it to me and it was hers to give. Now, I say, can
+ye pay board?'
+
+"'I haven't any money, Gid.'
+
+"'Well, then, ye'll have to get a job somewhere. I don't need a hired
+man just now. Ye won't starve, Josh. The gov'ment will take care of
+soldiers,' he sneered. Then he got up and went into the house.
+
+"That's the way it was told to me by Joshua Ward himself, Mr. Parker,"
+concluded the postmaster. "He had to get out. He didn't have any money
+to fight in law. He didn't want to stir up the thing on poor Cynthy's
+account. And he was ashamed to have the whole world know how mean a man
+he had for a brother."
+
+"What has become of this Joshua?" asked the young man, his heart hot
+with new and fresh bitterness against this unspeakable tyrant of the
+timber country.
+
+"Josh did what so many other heart-broken men have done. He went into
+the woods, on an island in Little Moxie, built a cabin, has his pension
+to live on, and has become one of those queer old chaps such as you
+will find scattered all the way from Holeb to New Brunswick. There's old
+Young at Gulf Hagas, and the Mediator at Boarstone, and a lot like them.
+They call Joshua the 'cat hermit of Moxie.'
+
+"They say he's got cats round his place by the hundred. Spends all his
+time in hunting meat and catching fish for 'em. Well, most everybody is
+cranky about some notion or others, whether it's in the city or in the
+woods, and I reckon that Josh has a right to keep cats if he wants to.
+No one ever sees him out in civilization now. Cynthy's in the asylum.
+Most people think it's just the trouble of the thing preying on her
+mind. And then again, I guess that Gid wasn't ever any too good to her.
+Hard case, ain't it, Mr. Parker?" The postmaster's voice trembled.
+
+"It's as sad a story--as anger-stirring a story as I ever listened to,
+Mr. Dodge," replied the young man, passionately. "I cannot understand
+how a scoundrel of that style should have been allowed to stamp
+roughshod over people without a champion arising in some quarter. It is
+small wonder that he has come to think that he can run the universe. He
+needs a lesson."
+
+"There's no doubt about his needin' the lesson," replied the postmaster.
+"But for years half the wages that are paid out in this section have
+come through the hands of Gideon Ward. Laboring men with families to
+support and the traders have to stand in with him or be side-tracked. I
+don't know as Gid ever did a real up-and-down crime, any more than what
+I've been telling you--and some men in the world would be mean enough to
+gloss all that over, saying that it's only right to look out for number
+one first of all. But I tell ye honestly, Mr. Parker, Gid would have to
+do something pretty desperate and open to have the prosecuting officers
+of this county take it up against him. Now you can understand the width
+of the swath he cuts in these parts. Where would the witnesses come
+from? He owns his men, body and soul."
+
+Parker's forehead wrinkled doubtfully.
+
+"What do you think will be his next move in regard to me?"
+
+"I can't make a guess, but you need smellers as long as a bobcat's and
+as many eyes as a spider." With this cheering opinion expressed, the
+postmaster went away.
+
+There was no more work for Parker on his plans that night.
+
+The grim pathos of the story that he had heard haunted him. This
+pitiful tragedy in real life stirred his youthful and impressionable
+sensibilities to their depths.
+
+Despite his brave outward demeanor during his tilt with the ferocious
+old man he had feared within himself. He possessed no gladiatorial
+spirit and did not relish fray for the sake of it. But he did have
+accurate notions of right and wrong, of the justice of a cause and of
+manliness in standing for it. He had exhibited that trait many times to
+the astonishment of those who had been deceived by his quiet exterior.
+In this instance his employers had put a trust into his hands. He had
+resolved to go through with his task. But now there was added another
+incentive--a very distinct determination to give Gideon Ward at least
+one check and lesson in his career of wholesale domination.
+
+A queer grief worked in his heart and a wistful tenderness moistened
+his eyes as he thought upon that injured brother, living out his wrecked
+life somewhere in the heart of those great woods about him. Perhaps
+there was a bit of prescience in the warmth with which he dwelt on the
+subject, for Fate had written that Joshua Ward was to play an important
+part in the life of Rodney Parker.
+
+He went to sleep with the sorrow of it all weighing his mind, and his
+teeth gritting with determination as he reflected on Gideon Ward and his
+ugly threats.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN--HOW "THE FRESH-WATER CORSAIRS" CAME TO SUNKHAZE
+
+In the morning Parker's foreman was waiting for him in the men's room
+of the tavern. It was so early that the smoky kerosine lamp was still
+struggling with the red glow of the dawn.
+
+"Mr. Parker," said the foreman earnestly, "have you go it figured what
+the old chap is goin' to do to us?"
+
+"That is hardly a fair question to put to me Mank," said the engineer,
+pulling on his mittens. "You knew him up this way better than I. Now you
+tell me what you expect him to do."
+
+But the foreman shook his head dubiously.
+
+"It'll never come at a man twice alike," he said.
+
+"Sometimes he just snorts and folks just run. Sometimes he kicks,
+sometimes he bites, sometimes he rears and smashes things all to pieces.
+But the idea is, you can depend on him to do something and do it quick
+and do it mighty hard. We've known Gideon Ward a good many years up this
+way and we've never seen him so mad before nor have better reason for
+being mad. The men are worrying. I thought it right to tell you that
+much."
+
+"Well, I'm worrying, too," said Parker. He tried to speak jestingly,
+but the heaviness of the night's foreboding was still upon him and the
+foreman detected the nervousness in his voice. The man now showed his
+own depression plainly.
+
+"I was in hopes I could tell the men that you could see your way all
+free and clear" he said.
+
+"Then the men are worrying?"
+
+"That they are, sir. A good many of us own houses here in Sunkhaze and
+there's more than one way for Colonel Gideon Ward to get back at
+us. Several of the boys came to me last night and wanted to quit. I
+understand that the postmaster has been talking to you and he must
+have told you some of the things that the old man done and hasn't been
+troubled about, either by his conscience or the law. You see what kind
+of a position that puts us in."
+
+"You don't mean that the crew is going to strike, or rather slip out
+from under, do you, Mank?" asked Parker, struck by the man's demeanor.
+
+"Well, I'd hardly like to say that. I ain't commissioned to put it that
+strong. But we've got to remember the fact that we'll probably want
+to live here a number of years yet, and railroad building won't last
+forever. Still, it's hardly about future jobs that we're thinking now.
+It's what is liable to happen to us in the next few days. It will be
+tough times for Sunkhaze settlement if the Gideonites swoop down on us,
+Mr. Parker."
+
+The engineer threw out his arms impetuously.
+
+"But I'm in no position, Mank, to guarantee safety to the men who
+are working for the company," he cried. "It looks to me as tho I were
+standing here pretty nigh single-handed. If I understand your meaning,
+I can't depend on my crew to back me up if it comes to a clinch with the
+old bear?"
+
+"The boys here are not cowards," replied the foreman with some spirit.
+"They're good, rugged chaps with grit in 'em. Turn 'em loose in a woods
+clearing a hundred miles from home and I'd match 'em man for man with
+any crowd that Gid Ward could herd together. I don't say they wouldn't
+fight here in their own door yards, Mr. Parker. They'd fight before
+they'd see their houses pulled down or their families troubled. But as
+to fighting for the property of this railroad company and then taking
+chances with the Gideonites afterward--well, I don't know about that!
+It's too near home!" Again the foreman shook his head dubiously. "As
+long as you can reckon safely that the old one is goin' to do something,
+the boys thought perhaps you'd notify the sheriff."
+
+But Parker remembered his instructions. Reporting his predicament to the
+sheriff would mean sowing news of the Sunkhaze situation broadcast in
+the papers.
+
+"It isn't a matter for the sheriffs," he replied shortly. "We'll
+consider that the men are hired to transport material and not to fight.
+We can only wait and see what will happen. But, Mank, I think that when
+the pinch comes you will find that my men can be as loyal to me, even
+if I am a stranger, as Ward's men are to the infernal old tyrant who has
+abused them all these years. I'm going to believe so at any rate."
+
+He turned away and started out of doors into the crisp morning. "I'm
+going to believe that last as long as I can," he muttered.
+
+"It'll help to keep me from running away."
+
+He found his crew gathered in the railroad yard near the heaps of
+unloaded material for construction. The men eyed him a bit curiously and
+rather sheepishly.
+
+"I know how you stand, men," he said cheerily. "I don't ask you to
+undertake any impossibilities. I simply want help in getting this stuff
+across Spinnaker Lake. Let's at it!"
+
+His tone inspired them momentarily.
+
+They were at least dauntless toilers, even if they professed to be
+indifferent soldiers.
+
+The sleds or skids were drawn up into the railroad yard by hand and
+loaded there. Then they were snubbed down to the lake over the steep
+bank. On the ice the "train" was made up.
+
+Even Parker himself was surprised to find what a load the little
+locomotive could manage. He made four trips the first day and at dusk
+had the satisfaction of beholding many tons of rails, fish-plates and
+spikes unloaded and neatly piled in the yarding place at the Spinnaker
+end of the carry.
+
+Between trips, while the men were unloading, he had opportunity to
+extend his right-of-way lines for his swampers and attend to other
+details of his engineering problem.
+
+'Twas a swift pace he set!
+
+He dared to trust no one else in the cab of the panting "Swamp Swogon"
+as engineer, and rushed back from his lines when the fireman signalled
+with the whistle that they were ready for a return trip. It may readily
+be imagined that with duties pressing on him in that fashion Parker had
+little time in which to worry about the next move of Colonel Ward. And
+the men worked as zealously as tho they too had forgotten the menace
+that threatened in the north.
+
+In three days fully half the weight of material had been safely landed
+across the lake.
+
+But on the evening of the third day Parker was more seriously alarmed
+by the weather-frowns than he had been by the threats of Gideon Ward
+himself.
+
+The postmaster presaged it, sniffing into the dusk with upturned nose
+and wagging his head ominously.
+
+"I reckon old Gid has got one more privilege of these north woods into
+his clutch and is now handlin' the weather for the section," he said.
+"For if we ain't goin' to have a spell of the soft and moist that will
+put you out of business for a while, then I miss my guess."
+
+It began with a fog and ended in a driving rainstorm that converted the
+surface of the lake into an expanse of slush that there was no dealing
+with.
+
+Parker's experience had been with climatic conditions in lower latitudes
+and in his alarm he believed that spring had come swooping in on him and
+that the storm meant the breaking up of the ice or at least would weaken
+it so that it would not bear his engine.
+
+But the postmaster, who could be a comforter as well as a prophet of
+ill, took him into the little enclosure of his inner office and showed
+him a long list of records pencilled on the slide of his wicket.
+
+"Ice was never known to break up in Spinnaker earlier than the first
+week in May," said Dodge, "and this rain-spitting won't open so much as
+a riffle. You just keep cool and wait."
+
+At the end of the rain-storm the weather helped Parker to keep cool. He
+heard the wind roaring from the northwest in the night. The frame of the
+little tavern shuddered. Ice fragments, torn from eaves and gables, went
+spinning away into the darkness over the frozen crust with the sound of
+the bells of fairy sleighs.
+
+When Parker, fully awakening in the early dawn, looked out upon the
+frosty air, his breath was as visibly voluminous as the puff from an
+escape-valve of the "Swogon." With his finger-nail he scratched the
+winter enameling from his window-pane, and through that peep-hole gazed
+out upon the lake. The frozen expanse stretched steel-white, glary and
+glistening, a solid sheet of ice.
+
+"There's a surface," cried Parker, in joyous soliloquy, "that will
+enable the Swogon to haul as much as a P. K. & R. mogul! Jack Frost is
+certainly a great engineer."
+
+He at once put a crew at work getting out more saplings for sleds. In
+two more trips, with his extra "cars" and with that glassy surface, he
+believed that every ounce of railroad material could be "yarded" at the
+Po-quette Carry. When the sun went down redly, spreading its broad bands
+of radiance across ice-sheeted Spinnaker, the Swogon stood bravely at
+the head of twenty heavily loaded sleds. The start for the Carry was
+scheduled to occur at daybreak.
+
+The moon was round and full that evening, and Parker before turning in
+went out and remained at the edge of the lake a moment, looking across
+Spinnaker's vast expanse of silvery glory.
+
+"You could take that train acrost the lake to-night, Mr. Parker,"
+suggested the foreman, who had followed him from the post-office. "It's
+as light as day."
+
+"Do you know," admitted the young man, "I just came out with the uneasy
+feeling, somehow, that I ought to fire up and start out. I suppose the
+old women would call it a presentiment. But the men have worked too
+hard to-day to be called out for a night job. With a freeze like that we
+haven't got to hurry on account of the weather."
+
+The foreman patted his ears briskly, for the night wind was sweeping
+down the lake and squalling shrewishly about the corners of buildings in
+the little settlement. Suddenly the man shot out a mittened hand, and
+pointed up the lake.
+
+"What's that?" he ejaculated.
+
+Parker gazed. Far up Spinnaker a dim white bulk seemed to hover above
+the ice. It was almost wraith-like in the moonlight. It flitted on like
+a huge bird, and seemed to be rapidly advancing toward Sunkhaze.
+
+[Illustration: A dim white hulk seemed to hover 117-140]
+
+"If it were summer-time and this were Sandy Hook," said Parker, with a
+smile, "I should think that perhaps the cup-race might be on."
+
+"I should say, rather, it is the ghost of Gid Ward's boom gunlow,"
+returned the man, not to be outdone in jest. "He's got an old scow with
+a sail like that."
+
+Both men surveyed the dim whiteness with increasing interest.
+
+"Are there any ice-boats on the lake?" inquired the engineer.
+
+"I never heard of any such thing hereabouts."
+
+"Well, I have made that out to be an iceboat of some description. And
+with that spread of sail it is making great progress." Parker rolled
+up his coat collar and pulled down his fur cap. A feeling of disquiet
+pricked him. "I think I'll stay here a little while and watch that
+fellow," he said.
+
+"So will I," agreed his employé.
+
+The approaching sail grew rapidly. Soon the craft was to be descried
+more in detail. Under the sail was a flat, black mass. And now on the
+breeze came swelling a chorus of rude songs, the melody of which was
+shot through with howls and bellows of uproarious men.
+
+"Trouble's coming there, Mr. Parker!" gasped the foreman,
+apprehensively. "The wind behind 'em an' rum inside 'em."
+
+"Ward's men, eh?" suggested the engineer.
+
+"That they are! The Gideonites! They can't be anything else."
+
+"Get our men together!" Parker cried, clapping his gloved hands. "Rout
+out every man in the settlement."
+
+The foreman started away on the run, banging on house doors and bawling
+the cry:
+
+"Whoo-ee! All up! Parker's crew turn out! All hands wanted at the lake!"
+
+In the excitement of the moment Mank did not question the command nor
+pause to reflect that he might be calling his neighbors into trouble
+that they would not relish.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT--THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT WENT SWIMMING AND THE ENGINEER WHO
+WAS STOLEN
+
+In a few moments the bell of the little chapel was sending its jangling
+alarm out over the village. Doors banged, men burst out of the houses
+and poured down to the lake shore, buttoning their jackets as they ran.
+
+They required no explanation. Ever since the incident at Poquette some
+such irruption of Ward's reckless woods hordes had been anticipated. But
+this tempestuous night arrival under sail, this sudden and terrifying
+descent appalled the newly awakened men.
+
+The craft was now close to shore, and was making for the stolid Swogon
+and its waiting sleds. The stranger's method of construction could
+now be distinguished, A good half-score of tote-sleds had been lashed
+together into a sort of runnered raft The sail was the huge canvas used
+in summer on Ward's lake scow.
+
+As the great boat swung into the wind, a jostling crowd of men poured
+out on the ice from under the flapping sail. Each man bore a tool of
+some sort, either ax, cant-dog, iron-shod peavey-stick, or cross-cut
+saw; and the moonshine flashed on the steel surfaces. It was plain
+that the party viewed its expedition as an opportunity for reckless
+roistering, and spirits had added a spur to the natural boisterous
+belligerency of the woodsmen.
+
+Most of Parker's crew had brought axes, and now as he advanced across
+the ice toward the locomotive, his men followed with considerable
+display of valor.
+
+'A giant whiskered woodsman led the onrush of the attacking force;
+and the gang interposed itself between the railroad property and its
+defenders.
+
+"Hold up there, right where ye are, all of ye!" the giant shouted.
+
+"What is your business here?" demanded the young man.
+
+"Are you that little railro'd chap that thinks he's runnin' this end of
+the country on the kid-glove basis?" roared the big man. He swung his ax
+menacingly.
+
+"My name is Parker," replied the engineer. "That is my property yonder.
+You will have to let my men pass to it."
+
+The giant looked squarely over the engineer's head into the crowd of
+Sunkhaze men.
+
+"You all know me," he cried, "an' if ye don't know me ye've heard of me!
+I reckon Dan Connick is pretty well known hereabouts. Wal, that's me.
+Never was licked, never was talked back to. These men behind me are all
+a good deal like me. I know the most o' you men. I should hate to hurt
+ye. Your wives are up there waitin' for ye to come home. Ye'd better
+go."
+
+But the crowd made no movement to retreat. Parker still stood at their
+head.
+
+"Ye'd better go!" bellowed Connick. "Understand? I said ye'd better go.
+Go an' mind your business, an' if ye do that, not a man in my crew will
+step a foot on the Sunk-haze shore. But if ye stay here and meddle, then
+down come your houses and out go your cook-stoves. You know me! Get back
+on shore."
+
+A tremendous roar from his men emphasized his demand.
+
+"If ye want these hearties loose up there, ye can have 'em in about two
+minutes!" he cried, threateningly.
+
+The Sunkhaze contingent rubbed elbows significantly, mumbled in
+conference, and scuffled slowly toward the shore.
+
+"Are you going to back down, men?" Parker shouted.
+
+"We've got wives an' children an' houses up there, mister," said a voice
+from the crowd, "an' it's a cold night to be turned out-o'-doors. We
+know these fellers better'n what you do."
+
+"But, men," persisted Parker, "they won't dare to sack your village.
+Such things are not done in these days. The law--"
+
+"Law!" burst from Connick, jeeringly. "Law! Law!" echoed his men, with
+mocking laughter.
+
+"Why," yelled Connick, "there ain't deputy sheriffs enough in this
+county to round us up once we get acrost the Poquette divide! There
+ain't a deputy sheriff that will dare to poke his nose within ten miles
+of our camps."
+
+"That's right, Mr. Parker," agreed one of the Sunkhaze crowd. "Once a
+crew burnt a smokin'-car when they were comin' up from--"
+
+"No yarns now, no yarns now!" Connick thrust himself against the
+Sunkhaze men and roughly elbowed them back. "Get on shore an' stay
+there."
+
+Parker was left standing alone on the ice. His supporters scuffled away,
+muttering angry complaints, but offering no resistance. When the giant
+woodsman returned after hastening their departure, he was faced by the
+young man, still defiant. Connick cocked his head humorously and looked
+down on the engineer. Under all the big man's apparent fierceness there
+had been a flash of rough jocoseness in his tones at times. Parker saw
+plainly that he and his followers viewed the whole thing as a "lark,"
+and entertained little respect for their adversaries.
+
+"Connick, I warn you--" Parker began; but the giant chuckled, and said,
+tauntingly:
+
+"'Cluck, cluck!' said the bear.
+
+"I want to say to you, sir, that you are dealing with a large
+proposition if you propose to interfere with this railroad property. My
+backers--"
+
+"'Bow-wow!' said the fish." The woodsman cried the taunt more
+insolently, and yet with a jeering joviality that irritated Parker more
+than downright abuse would have done.
+
+He started toward his engine, but Connick put out his big arm to
+interpose.
+
+"Poodle," he said, "I've got a place for you. I'm the champion
+dog-catcher of the West Branch region." He reached for Parker's collar,
+but Parker ducked under his arm, and as he came up struck out with
+a force that sent the astonished giant reeling backward. Fury and
+desperation were behind the blow.
+
+"Wal, of all the--" gasped Connick, pushing back his cap and staring in
+astonishment. His men laughed.
+
+"I'll wring your neck, you bantam!" he bawled; and he came down on
+Parker with a rush.
+
+On that slippery surface the odds were with the defensive. Moreover,
+Parker, having an athlete's confidence in his fists, suddenly responded
+to the instincts of primordial man. He leaped lightly to one side,
+caught the rushing giant's foot across his instep, and as Connick's
+moccasined feet went out from under him, the young engineer struck him
+behind the ear. He fell with a dismal thump of his head on the ice, and
+lay without motion.
+
+But Parker's panting triumph was shortlived. As he stood over the giant,
+gallantly waiting for him to rise, he discovered that the rules of
+scientific combat were not observed in the woods. A half-dozen brawny
+woodsmen leaped upon him, seized him, threw him down, tied his arms and
+legs with as little ceremony as if he were a calf, and tossed him upon
+the ice-boat.
+
+Connick had risen to a sitting posture, and viewed the struggle with
+mutterings of wrath while he rubbed his bumped head.
+
+He scrambled up as if to interfere, but as his antagonist had by this
+time been disposed of, he roared a few sharp orders, and his willing
+crew set at work. Men with axes chopped holes a few feet apart in a
+circle about the engine. There were many choppers, and although the ice
+was three feet thick, the water soon came bubbling through. As soon as
+a hole was cut, other men stuck down their huge cross-cuts and began to
+saw the ice.
+
+All too soon Parker, craning his neck where he lay on the ice-boat,
+heard an ominous buckling and crackling of ice, and saw his faithful
+Swogon disappear below the surface of the lake, her mighty splash
+sending the water gushing like a silvery geyser into the moonlight. The
+attached sleds, loaded with the rails and spikes and other material,
+followed like a line of huge, frightened beavers seeking their hole.
+
+"There," ejaculated Connick, wiping the sweat from his brow, "when that
+hole freezes up the Poquette Carry Railro'd will be canned for a time,
+anyway. Now three cheers for Colonel Gid Ward!"
+
+The cheers were howled vociferously.
+
+He pointed to the men of the settlement, who were now joined by their
+wives and children, and were watching operations from the bank.
+
+"Three cheers for the brave men and the sweet ladies o' Sunkhaze!"
+
+Loud laughter followed these cheers. The people on the shore remained
+discreetly silent.
+
+"Three groans for the Poquette Railro'd!"
+
+The hoarse cries rang out on the crisp night wind, and at the close one
+of those queer, splitting, wide-reaching, booming crackles, heard in the
+winter on big waters, spread across the lake from shore to shore.
+
+"Even the old lake's with us!" a woodsman shouted.
+
+Connick and his men had finished what they had come to Sunkhaze to do.
+They climbed aboard the huge ice-craft. The sheet was paid off, and with
+dragging peavey-sticks instead of centerboard to hold the contrivance
+into the wind, the boat moved away on its tack across the lake.
+
+"Say good-by to your friend here!" Connick bellowed. "He says he thinks
+he'll go with us, strange country for to see."
+
+"Tell inquirin' admirers that his address in futur' will be north pole,
+shady side," another rough humorist added.
+
+The men on the shore did not reply. They understood perfectly the
+uncertain temper of "larking" woodsmen. There had been cases in times
+past when a taunting word had turned rude jollity into sour hankering
+for revenge.
+
+The bottle began to go about on the sleds, and the refrain of a
+lumberman's chorus, with its riotous, "Whoop fa la larry, lo day!" came
+floating back to Sunkhaze long after the great sail had merged itself
+with the silvery radiance of the brilliant surface of the lake.
+
+"Apparently there's other folks as have new schemes of travellin' acrost
+Spinnaker Lake," observed the postmaster, breaking a long silence in
+the group of spectators. "Wal, I did all I could to post him on what he
+might expect when Gid Ward got his temper good an' started. It's too bad
+to see that property dumped that way, tho."
+
+"Ain't Gid Ward ever goin' to suffer for any of his actions?" demanded
+Parker's foreman, disgustedly.
+
+"What are we goin' to do?" bleated another man.
+
+"I'll write a letter to the high sheriff," said the postmaster, and then
+he added, bitterly, "an' he'll prob'ly wait till it's settled goin' in
+the spring, same's he did when we sent down that complaint about Ward's
+men wreckin' Johnson's store. An' by that time he'll forget all about
+comin'. Talk about kings and emperors! If we hain't got one on West
+Branch waters, then you can brand me for a liar with one of my own date
+stamps."
+
+Parker maintained grim silence as he lay on the sled. No one spoke to
+him. The men were too busy with songs and rough jests over the business
+of the evening. The engineer would not confess to himself that he was
+frightened, but the wantonness and alacrity with which the irresponsible
+men had destroyed valuable property impressed him with ominous
+apprehension of what they might do to him. He wondered what revenge
+Connick was meditating.
+
+It was a strange and tedious ride for the young man. The woodsmen sat
+jammed so closely about him that he could see only the frosty stars
+glimmering wanly in the moonlight. When the songs and the roaring
+conversations were stilled for a moment, he could hear the lisp of the
+runners on the smooth surface and the slashing grind of the iron-clad
+peavey-sticks.
+
+Although the bodies of his neighbors had kept the cold blast from him,
+he staggered on his numb feet when they untied his bonds at Poquette
+and ordered him to get off the sled. Connick came along and gazed on the
+young man grimly while they were freeing him.
+
+"Aha, my bantam!" he growled.
+
+Parker braced himself to meet a blow. He felt that the giant would now
+take satisfactory vengeance for the discomfiture he had suffered before
+his men at Sunkhaze. Connick raised his hand, that in its big mitten
+seemed like a cloud against the moon, and brought it down. The young man
+gathered himself apprehensively, but the expected assault was merely
+a slap on his shoulder--a slap with such an unmistakable air of
+friendliness about it that Parker gazed up into the man's face with
+astonishment. Now he was to experience his first taste of the rude
+chivalry of the woods, a chivalry often based on sudden whim, but none
+the less sincere and manly--a chivalry of which he was to have further
+queer experience.
+
+"My bantam," said the big man, admiringly, "faith, but that was a tidy
+bito' footwork ye done down at Sunkhaze." Good-humored grins and rueful
+scowls chased one another over his face, according as he patted Parker's
+back or rubbed the bump on his own head. "Sure, there's a big knob
+there, my boy. There's only one thing that's harder than your fist, an'
+that's Spinnaker ice."
+
+Parker attempted some embarrassed reply in way of apology, for this
+magnanimity of his foe touched him. The giant put up a protesting hand.
+
+"Ye sartin done it good, my little man, an' I'm glad to know ye better.
+But Colonel Gid Ward, sure he lied about ye, or I'd never called ye
+names at Sunkhaze."
+
+"You didn't expect that man to tell the truth about me, did you?" Parker
+demanded.
+
+"Why, he said ye was a little white-livered sneak that wouldn't dare to
+put up your hands to a Sunkhaze mosquito of the June breed, an' that ye
+were tryin' to come in here an' do business amongst real men. I couldn't
+stand that, I couldn't!"
+
+"But my business--my reasons for being here--my responsibilities!" cried
+Parker. "I see he must have lied about that part of it."
+
+"Ah, I don't know anything about your business, nor care!" Connick
+growled. "I only know there's something about a Poquette railro'd in
+it. But all that's between you and Gid Ward. You can talk that over with
+him."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that you and your men have destroyed that
+railroad property without having any special grudge against the
+project?"
+
+"Why, railro'ds ain't any of our business," the giant replied, with his
+eyes wide open and frank.
+
+"What are you--slaves?" Parker cried, angrily. In addition to his
+lesson in woods' thivalry he was getting education regarding the
+irresponsibility of these unconventional children of the wild lands.
+
+The taunt did not seem to anger the men.
+
+"This railro'd is Gid Ward's business," said Connick. "We work for Gid
+Ward, He owns the Poquette land, don't he? He said he didn't want any
+railro'd there. He told us to come down an' dump the thing. We come
+down, of course it's been dumped. You can fix that with him. But you're
+a good little fighter, my man. He didn't tell the truth about you."
+
+The young man groaned. The ethics of the woods were growing more opaque
+to his understanding.
+
+"I'll introduce myself more formal," said the woodsman, apparently with
+affable intent to be better acquainted with this young man who had shown
+that he possessed the qualities admired in the forest. "My name is Dan
+Connick, and these here are my hearties from Number 7 cuttin'." He waved
+his hand, and the nearest men growled good-humored greetings.
+
+"Well, Mr. Connick," said Parker, dryly, "I thank you for the evening's
+entertainment, and now that you have done your duty to Colonel Ward I
+suppose I may return to Sunkhaze." His heart sank as he thought of the
+poor Swogon weltering in the depths of the lake.
+
+"Oh, ye've got to come along with us!" beamed Connick. "Colonel Ward has
+sent for ye!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE--UP THE WINDING WAY TO THE "OGRE OF THE BIG WOODS."
+
+"I have no further business with Colonel Ward at this time," protested
+Parker, amazed at Connick's refusal to release him. "Wal, he says you
+have, an' them's our orders. The men that work for Gid Ward have to obey
+orders."
+
+"Your Colonel Ward has already injured me enough," exclaimed Parker,
+bitterly, "without dragging me away into the woods fifty or a hundred
+miles from my duty! I'll not see any more of him."
+
+"Oh, but ye will, tho!" Connick was grinning, but under his amiability
+his tones were decisive. "I don't know what he wants to talk with you
+about, but I reckon it's railroad. We here can't do that with ye. So
+ye'll have to come along. But we all think you're a smart little man.
+Ain't that so, hearties?"
+
+The men growled gruff assent.
+
+"Ye see, ye're pop'lar with us," Connick went on. "Ye can be as friendly
+with us as tho we was your brothers, but ye don't want to try any
+shenanigan trick like dodgin' away. We've been told to take you to
+Number 7 camp, and to that camp ye're goin'. So understandin' that we'll
+move. There's a snack waitin' here for us at the carry camp, and then
+for the uptrail." The men moved along, taking Parker with them in the
+center of the group.
+
+"How far is it to Number 7?" the young man inquired, despondently.
+
+"They call it fifty miles from the other end of the carry. Ye needn't
+walk a step if ye don't want to. There's a moose sled an' plenty of men
+to haul ye."
+
+After a breakfast of hot beans, biscuits and steaming tea at the camp,
+the procession moved. Parker was wrapped in tattered bunk blankets and
+installed in state on a long, narrow sledge. He was given the option of
+getting off and walking whenever he needed the exercise to warm himself.
+
+The march was brisk all that day, for the brawny woodsmen followed the
+snowy trail unflaggingly. After the six miles of the carry tote-road,
+their way led up the crooked West Branch on the ice. There were detours
+where the open waters roared down rough gorges fast enough to dodge
+the chilling hand of Jack Frost; there were broad dead waters where
+the river widened into small lakes. Parker was oppressed by the nervous
+dread of one who enters a strange new country and faces a danger toward
+which a fate stronger than he is pressing him.
+
+At noon they ate a lunch beside a crackling fire which warmed the cooked
+provisions they had brought from the carry camp.
+
+Parker walked during the afternoon to ease his cold-stiffened limbs.
+Toward dusk the party left the river and turned into a tote-road that
+writhed away under snow-laden spruces and hemlocks, coiled its way about
+rocky hummocks, and curved in "whip-lashes" up precipitous hillsides.
+There was not a break in the forest that stretched away on either hand.
+
+Late in the evening they saw in a valley below them a group of log huts,
+their snowy roofs silvered by the moonlight. Yellow gleams from the low
+windows showed that the camp was occupied.
+
+"That's the Sourdanheunk baitin'-place," Connick explained, in answer
+to a question from his captive. "One o' Ward's tote-team hang-ups an'
+feedin'-places."
+
+The cook, a sallow, tall man encased in a dirty canvas shroud of an
+apron, was apparently expecting the party. More beans, more biscuits,
+more steaming tea--and then a bunk was spread for Parker. His previous
+night of vigil and his day spent in the wind had benumbed his faculties,
+and he speedily forgot his fears and his bitter resentment in profound
+slumber.
+
+The next morning the cook's "Whoo-ee!" called the men before the dawn,
+and they were away while the first flushes presaged the sunrise. It
+seemed that day that the tortuous tote-road would never end. Valley
+succeeded to "horseback" and "horseback" to valley. Woods miles are long
+miles.
+
+Parker's railroad eye and engineer's discernment bitterly condemned the
+divagations of the wight who wandered first along that trail and imposed
+his lazy dodgings on all who might come after him. The young man amused
+himself by reflecting that the tote-road was an excellent example of
+the persistence of human error, and in these and other philosophical
+ponderings he was able to draw his mind partially from its uncomfortable
+dwellings on the probabilities awaiting him at the hands of Gideon Ward.
+
+The sun was far down in the west and the road under the spruces was
+dusky, when a singular obstacle halted the march. A tremendous thrashing
+and crashing at one side of the road signaled the approach of some large
+animal. A network of undergrowth hid the identity of this unknown, and
+the men instinctively huddled together and displayed some uncertainty
+as to whether they should remain or run. But the suspense was soon
+over, for the nearer bushes parted suddenly and out upon the tote-road
+floundered an immense moose, his bulbous nose wagging, his bristly mane
+twitching, his stilted fore legs straddled defiantly.
+
+The next moment a great bellow of laughter went up from the crowd.
+
+"The joke's on us!" cried a woodsman, who had been among the first to
+retreat.
+
+"Hullo, Ben Bouncer!" Connick shouted.
+
+"What do you mean by playin' peek-a-boo with your friends in that
+manner?"
+
+The moose uttered a hoarse _whuffle_.
+
+"This is Ben Bouncer, the mascot of Number 7 camp," the foreman
+announced. He pushed Parker to the front rank of the group. "He won't
+hurt ye," he added. "He has got used enough to men to be a little sassy,
+an' he's got colty on Gid Ward's grain, but he's mostly bluff."
+
+The engineer gazed on the moose with considerable interest, for the
+spectacle was entirely new.
+
+"Ben went to loafin' round 7 camp early this winter. He yarded down here
+two miles or so. You understand, of course, that a moose picks out a
+good feedin'-place in winter, when the deep snows come, a place where he
+can reach a lot of twigs and yards there, as they call it in the woods."
+
+"When the snow got crusty and scraped his legs, Ben seemed to have a
+tired fit come over him, and began to come closer an' closer to the
+horse hovels to steal what loose hay he could. No one round the camp
+wanted to hurt him. After a time we all became sort of interested in
+him, and toled him up to the camp by leavin' hay an' grain round where
+he could get at it. You can see what a big fat fellow we've made of him.
+Our feedin' him makes the colonel mad, for hay is worth something by
+the time ye get it in here to camp. I bet if ye put it all together the
+colonel has chased him more'n forty miles with a bow whip.
+
+"He was goin' to shoot Ben, but the boys got up on their ear and made it
+known that if he killed the camp mascot they'd throw up their jobs.
+An' if you know anything about a woods crew you'd know it's the little
+things that they get the maddest about. An' now whenever the colonel
+comes round he takes it out in chasin' Ben with a whip. Ben just lopes
+round in a circle of a mile or two, and comes back lookin' reproachful,
+but still perfectly satisfied with Number 7 as a winter residence. The
+boys think a lot of Ben. Ben thinks a lot of the boys. But the colonel
+is sp'ilin' his temper some with that bow whip. I reckon why Ben jest
+come out there lookin' so savage was because he thought old Ward was
+comin' up to camp."
+
+The moose finished his critical survey of the group, snorted, and then
+thrust himself out of sight in the bushes.
+
+"If we ever have any serious fallin' out with Colonel Gid it's like to
+be over that moose," drawled a man.
+
+"To judge by the moose, we must be near Number 7 camp," Parker
+suggested.
+
+"Just over the hossback," was the laconic answer.
+
+Parker was soon looking down on it from the hilltop. There were two
+long, low main camps--one for the sleeping quarters of the men, the
+other crowded with long, roughly made tables, at which they ate, The
+space that separated the camps was roofed and had one side open to the
+weather. This shelter was called the "dingle," and contained the camp
+grindstone and spare sled equipment.
+
+At a little distance was a small camp containing the stores, such as
+moccasins, larigans, leggings, flannel shirts and mittens, all for sale
+at double the prices ruling in the city and for Colonel Ward's profit.
+The woods name for this store is the "wangan camp."
+
+The hour was still too early for the few men left at Number 7 to be in
+from the cutting. Only the cook and his helper, "the cookee," were at
+the camp.
+
+The cook came out and advanced to meet the new arrivals, having been
+attracted from his kettles and pans by the view-halloo they sent down
+from the hilltop.
+
+"Colonel left word to lock him in the wangan," reported the cook,
+rolling his bare arms more tightly in his dingy apron.
+
+"Where is the colonel?" asked Connick.
+
+"He's out at the log landin'. Be in at supper-time, so he said." The
+cook eyed the captive with curiosity not unmixed with commiseration.
+"Has he been takin' on much?" he inquired of one of the men.
+
+"Nope. Stiff upper lip--an' he licked Dan," the man added, behind his
+palm.
+
+"Sho!" the cook ejaculated, looking on Parker with new interest. "Ain't
+he worried by thinkin' of the colonel?"
+
+"Naw-w! Says he'll eat him raw!" fabricated the men, enjoying the cook's
+amazement. "Says he's glad to come up here. Been hankerin' to get at
+Ward, he says."
+
+"Wal, you don't say!" The cook surveyed Parker from head to foot with
+critical inspection. This scrutiny annoyed the young man at last.
+
+"Do I owe you anything?" He snapped.
+
+"Heh--wal--blorh-h--wal, I hope ye don't!" spluttered the cook,
+retreating. "Land, ain't he a savage one?" he gasped, as he hastened
+back into his realm of pots. He transferred his news to the amazed
+cookee.
+
+"They tell me," he magnified, so as not to be outdone in sensationalism,
+"that this feller has licked every man that they've turned him loose on
+between here and Sunkhaze, an' now is just grittin' his teeth a-waitin'
+for the colonel."
+
+"Wal," said the cookee, solemnly, "if the r'yal Asiatic tiger--meanin'
+Colonel Gid--and the great human Bengal--meanin' him as is in the
+wangan--get together in this clearin', I think I'd rather see it from up
+a tree." And the two were only diverted from their breathless discussion
+of possibilities by the noisy arrival of Gideon Ward, clamoring for his
+supper.
+
+[Illustration: Colonel Ward stamped in 149-174]
+
+Parker had hardly finished in solitude his humble supper brought by the
+cookee, when there was a rattling of the padlock outside. Open flew the
+door of bolted planks, and Colonel Ward stamped in, kicking the snow
+from his feet with wholly unnecessary racket of boots. A hatchet-faced
+man, whose chin was framed between the ends of a drooping yellow
+mustache, followed meekly and closed the door. Parker rose with a
+confident air he was far from feeling.
+
+Ward gazed on his prisoner a moment, his gray hair bristling from under
+his fur cap, his little eyes glittering maliciously. His cheek knobs
+were more irately purple than ever. He took up his cry where he had left
+it at Poquette Carry, and began to shout:
+
+"Better'n law, hey? Better'n law! Ye remember what I said, don't yeh?
+Better'n law!"
+
+The young man faced him.
+
+"Colonel Ward, there's a law against trespass, a law against conspiracy,
+a law against riots and destruction of property, and a law against
+abduction. I promise you here and now that you'll learn something about
+those laws later."
+
+"Still threat'nin' me right on my own land, are yeh, hey?"
+
+"I am not threatening. I am simply standing up for my rights as a
+citizen under the law."
+
+"Wal, I ain't here to argue law nor nothin' else with yeh. I've had you
+brought up here so's I can talk straight business with you. You've had
+a pretty tart lesson, but I hope you've learned somethin' by it. I've
+showed ye that a railro'd can't be built over Gideon Ward's property
+till he says the word. An' he'll never say the word. Ye're licked. Own
+up to it, now ain't ye?" Ward's voice was mighty with a conqueror's
+confidence.
+
+"Not by any means. You have simply incurred the penalty of being sent to
+state prison. And while you're there I'll be building that railroad."
+
+Fury fairly streamed from Ward's eyes. He choked, grasped at his throat,
+writhed as if he were strangling, and stamped his foot until the camp
+shook. At last he recovered his voice.
+
+"I'll pay ye for that! Now see here!" He jammed a paper into Parker's
+hands. "Sign that docyment, there an' now. Sign it an' swear ye'll stick
+by your agreement; 'cause if ye go back on it, may the Lord have mercy
+on your soul, for Gid Ward never will!"
+
+Parker glanced at the crudely drawn agreement. It bound him as agent for
+his principals to withdraw all material from the Po-quette Carry, and
+abandon his railroad undertaking. It furthermore promised that he
+would make no complaint on account of damages to property or
+himself--admitting that he had been guilty of trespass.
+
+Parker indignantly held the paper toward the colonel. The latter refused
+to take it.
+
+"Sign it!" he roared. "Sign it, or you'll take your medicine!"
+
+"Do you think I am a fool, Colonel Ward? Or are you one? I cannot bind
+my principals in any such manner. Furthermore, a signature obtained
+under duress is of no value in court. I claim that I am under duress."
+
+"You refuse to sign, then?"
+
+"Absolutely. It would be easy enough to sign that paper and then go away
+and do as I like. But I am not going to lie to you even for a moment.
+The paper would be worthless in court."
+
+"It ain't a paper that's goin' into court," Ward retorted. "It's a paper
+by which you agree to get out of here. It's you an' me. It just means
+that ro'd shan't be built."
+
+"Put into other words, I am to be scared out, and run back home and
+report that the road is impracticable?"
+
+"There's no one else in the world but you that would be fool enough to
+start in here an' buck me!" Ward shouted.
+
+"And therefore you think if I agree to leave, no one else will dare
+to undertake the thing? You do me too much honor, Colonel Ward. But I
+repeat, I shall not run away."
+
+"Don't you realize I have gone too far into this thing to pull back now?
+I warn you that I may have to do things I don't like to do in order to
+protect myself. I can't back out now--no, sir!"
+
+"You shouldn't have started in, then!" Parker sat down and looked away
+as if the incident were closed. He slowly tore up the agreement and
+tossed the pieces on the floor.
+
+This bravado made Ward choke.
+
+"Stand right up, do you, an' threaten to put me into state prison?"
+
+"You went into this with your eyes open. You must take the consequences.
+You are a business man, and are supposed to have arrived at years
+of understanding. This matter isn't like kicking over a mud house at
+school."
+
+"Look here, I've got every lumber operator in this section behind me in
+this matter. You hain't realized yet what you're up against."
+
+"If that is the case," Parker replied, his eyes kindling, "I can see
+that this state is in for one of the big scandals of its history."
+
+Ward, who had been carried away by his passion and desire to intimidate,
+understood now how this admission would compromise men who would be
+ruined politically if any hint of such an illegal combination should be
+noised abroad.
+
+When he had offered to defeat the actual construction of the road, he
+had been warned that he must take all the responsibility upon himself.
+He had willingly assumed it, for he was as proud of his reputation
+for savage obstinacy as other men are of popular credit for more noble
+attributes. Col. Gideon Ward had confidently boasted to his associates
+that he would prevent the building of the Poquette railroad. He would
+rather lose half his fortune than confess to them that he had been
+beaten by a youth.
+
+Now his hardy nature shivered at the thought that not only might the
+youth win, but that he had the power to make the agent of the timber
+barons doubly execrated and an outcast among his own people. Ward was
+faced by the most serious problem of his life, and the uncomfortable
+reflection pricked him that he had allowed his anger to steal his
+brains.
+
+"Young man," said he, "I've been on earth a good while longer'n you
+have. I expect to stay some time yet. And I expect to live right here in
+this section. _You_ hain't got to live here. Now do you think Gid Ward
+can afford to be put on his back just yet? I know just who'd tromp on
+me, an' I know it better'n you. Now I tell you fair an' square you've
+got to give in." He bellowed the word "got" and thunked his fist on his
+knee.
+
+"There is no answer to that required from me, Colonel Ward."
+
+"All right, then. Come along, Hackett!" Ward commanded. "We'll give this
+critter a little time to figure this thing over, an' think whether he's
+got any friends that he'd like to get back to." They went out and locked
+the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN--THE WANGAN DUEL
+
+AFTER the fashion of any prisoner, Parker's initial impulse was to
+examine the place in which he was confined. At first, escape was in his
+mind. The more he pondered on the lawless performance of the old timber
+baron and on the wilful destruction of the company's property, the more
+eager he was to get to a telegraph instrument.
+
+Nothing had been taken from his person. He had his huge, sharp,
+jack-knife. The door was strong and thick but he believed that if he
+attacked the wood vigorously he might be able to whittle out the lock.
+
+There were wooden bars on the windows outside and within, rude
+protection against thieves who might want to ransack the stock of the
+wangan store. His stout knife would take care of them, too.
+
+But after whittling vigorously at a bar for a few moments he stopped
+suddenly, shut his knife and rammed it into his pocket with an
+exclamation of sudden resolve.
+
+He reflected that even if he got out of the camp that night, he was more
+than fifty miles from Poquette, the only point in that wilderness whose
+location was known to him. He was without food for a journey and had his
+weary way to make through Gideon Ward's own country.
+
+"He has brought me here to bluster at me and frighten me into running
+away out of the section," he reflected. "I'll stay and disappoint him."
+
+His own respect for law and order was still so strong within him that he
+feared no extreme measures. His honest belief was that the colonel, like
+most men who find they have picked up a brick too hot for them, would
+drop him in good time and allow him to return to his work.
+
+In order to force the old man to this issue he determined to put on a
+bold front, defy his captor still more doggedly and in the end accept
+release under conditions of his own making. He felt that Ward was
+compromised and now to a certain extent in his power.
+
+It was a decidedly comforting reflection, that, for a prisoner, and he
+tucked himself into the blankets of his bunk and went to sleep with his
+mind eased.
+
+The cook's shrill morning call woke him and without rising he listened
+to the bustle of men preparing for the day's work. He heard the
+continuous rattle of tin dishes, the mellow rasp of axes on turning
+grindstones, the squeak of footsteps departing over the crisp snow and
+the squealing of the runners of sleds. And when all were gone, there was
+as yet only the faintest glimmering of the dawn against the window of
+the wangan camp.
+
+The engineer was up and dressed when the key rattled in the door.
+Colonel Ward came first, "sipping" his tongue against his teeth in a
+manner that showed he had just finished breakfast. The morning light
+showed redly on his face as he came ill, and in that glow he seemed to
+be in more gracious spirit than on the evening before.
+
+The man who had previously accompanied him, the man of the hatchet
+visage, followed at his heels bearing several tin dishes that contained
+breakfast.
+
+"There ain't no intention here to starve ye nor use ye in any ways
+contrary to gen'ral regulations--that is, so fur as we can help,"
+began the colonel. "Of course, if you were a little more reasonable and
+bus'ness-like we could use you better. Hackett, set down the breakfast!
+Fall to, young man, and eat hearty jest as tho ye relished your
+vittles."
+
+It was evident that Colonel Ward was making desperate attempts to appear
+cordial.
+
+He even endeavored to force a smile but it was hardly more than a
+ridging of his cheek muscles under his bristly beard. Parker imagined
+that he could hear the skin crackling at this unaccustomed facial twist.
+The struggle to appear cheerful was so grim that the engineer dreaded
+his antagonist in this new guise more than he did when he was brutally
+open in his warfare.
+
+"Sit down, Hackett," commanded the colonel. "Hackett's a friend o'
+mine--that is, in so far as I have friends, and he might as well be here
+to listen to what I have to say to you and what you have to say to me.
+There's northin' like a witness of transactions, Mr. Parker. Now you and
+me ain't got together right up to now. I'm allus pretty much fussed up
+by my bus'ness and kept cross-grained all the time by havin' to handle
+so many blasted fool woodsmen, and the man that meets me for the
+first time might natch-rally think I was uglier'n a Injun devil in
+fly-time--which I ain't, Parker, No, I ain't I want you and me should be
+good friends and bus'ness men together, which we ain't been so far, all
+on account of a misunderstandin'. Now, you're goin' to find me square
+and honest and open."
+
+Ward looked at the young man eagerly and waited as tho for some
+encouraging word.
+
+"Even under the circumstances in which you have placed me, not only
+on my personal account but with my employers, by destroying their
+property," said Parker, after pondering a moment, "I am ready to talk
+business with you if you are now ready to talk it."
+
+"Well, let's say that we can talk it all nice and friendly. Won't you
+say that you'll talk it all nice and friendly?" He had Hackett in the
+corner of his eye, as tho soliciting that individual to take careful
+note of the conversation.
+
+"The fact is, Colonel Ward," replied the engineer, "human nature isn't
+to be driven to and fro quite like an ox team. What I mean by that is,
+I might say, 'Go to, now! Be friends!'--say that to myself. But that
+wouldn't make me feel friendly--not in present circumstances. But I'm
+going to say to you that I'd like to be friends, and if you will start
+in now and show me some reason why we should be friends I'll give you my
+word to come more than half way."
+
+"Wal, that sounds reasonable and as much as any one can expect on short
+notice," broke in Hackett, who sat straining his attention.
+
+"You shut up, Hackett," roared the colonel, who realized Parker's mental
+reservation better than his man Friday. "I'll show ye all in good time
+why we should be friends, Parker," he went on, addressing the engineer.
+"But first of all I'll show ye how much it is goin' to hurt me to have
+that railroad built acrost Poquette. And when I show you that, then
+you'll understand what the trouble was that you and me didn't start
+in on the basis of good friends. I tell ye, Parker, it's a serious
+proposition for me and my associates. I can tell ye just why that road
+can't and mustn't be built."
+
+The old man straddled his legs, leaned forward and set his right
+forefinger into his left palm with the confident air of one who is
+prepared to prove his contentions.
+
+"I say," he went on, "that the road must not be built, and as a business
+man--"
+
+"Colonel Ward," broke in Parker, mildly yet firmly, "if that line of
+talk is what you are proposing to me I think I'd better tell you at the
+start that you'll have to take the question of whether the road must
+or must not be built to my employers. I have no right to enter upon any
+such discussion. Nothing will be gained. They have sent me to Poquette
+to build the road. I shall keep on with the work until my first
+orders are countermanded from our headquarters. And if you want them
+countermanded you'll be obliged to go to headquarters. It seems to me
+that ought to be pretty plain to you."
+
+The old man, his finger still boring his palm, sat for some moments and
+stared at the engineer. He tried to keep from scowling but his brows
+twisted into knots in spite of himself.
+
+"You _will_ keep on till orders are countermanded, hey?" he inquired
+grimly. "Ain't you got no commonsense nor reason to you?"
+
+"It isn't a question of that, Colonel. It's a question of obeying my
+employers."
+
+The old man gave him another thorough looking-over and then whirled on
+Hackett.
+
+"You go 'tend to something else," he ordered bluffly. And after Hackett
+had closed the door on himself he again turned to his scrutiny of the
+young engineer.
+
+"I ain't no great hand to beat about the bush, young feller," he
+declared. "Now look at the position you're in. You might say, you're
+more than half queered already with your company. Your engine and all
+that collateral has been dumped into the lake--sayin' nothin' about how
+it happened. The main point is, it's there! And you're here! I ain't
+makin' any threats--not as yet--but you're here, and you can't gainsay
+that much. Now the idea is, with your stuff under water and you here,
+how long do you think it's goin' to be before you git to work ag'in?"
+
+Parker made no reply.
+
+"Needn't answer any question that you can't answer," continued Ward.
+"And that's one that you can't answer. You tell me you've got to build
+that road. You're goin' to tell me that if you don't build it some one
+else will. Mebbe they will! Mebbe they will!" His eyes grew shrewd.
+"Mebbe I'll build it myself! I can say this much, that I'd rather build
+it than have outsiders come in here and git a foothold. There's too big
+interests in this region and owned by them that's allus lived here, my
+son, to have outsiders come in now and meddle. It's the very first run
+of potater bugs that you want to keep out of the garden. And the first
+run can be handled easier than the settlers after they have set up
+housekeeping. Now you see the point, I reckon! So the whole thing
+simmers down to this: I want to discourage them city fellers. It's a
+long arm they're reachin' down this way, and I won't have to tread on
+their fingers many times till they'll be mighty glad to pull back. It's
+only a side issue with them, and they won't let a side issue keep 'em
+awake too many nights when there's a way to get rid of the bother. When
+they are discouraged enough to be willin' to sell the charter and the
+stuff they've got on the spot--and under water," he added with a wicked
+grin, "then I'll step in with the cash in my hand. I reckon we can
+handle our own railroad build-in' down this way. If I ain't got you
+discouraged already, young man, then I don't understand human natur'
+as well as I think I do. So now I want to hire you in the discouragin'
+business--you understand it fairly well. I need an assistant
+discourager. And here's my proposition! I'll give ye five thousand
+dollars bonus smack down in your fist and promise you in the name of
+the Lumbermen's Association a steady job. We're goin' to build three big
+dams along the West Branch and a four-mile canal cut-off at headwaters.
+You'll find work enough, if that's what you're lookin' for."
+
+"And you'll be looking for me to sell out your interests at my first
+opportunity," said Parker.
+
+"Ours is a different proposition--a different proposition," blurted Ward
+earnestly. "Your men ain't got any right to be here on our own stamping
+ground--not as bus'ness men. We ain't goin' down where they are to
+bother them. They hadn't ought to be up here. If you leave 'em and come
+with us we'll consider that it's showin' that you understand what a
+square deal in bus'ness matters means. And furthermore," he said with a
+certain air as tho he had reserved his trump card, "we'll make our trade
+in black and white for a ten years' contract at a third more wages than
+your railroad people are paying and tip you off regular on timber deals
+where you can make an extry dollar. I don't mind tellin' ye, Parker,
+that I've had ye looked up and I know that we ain't buyin' any gold
+brick." This with a certain cordiality.
+
+"I must say, Colonel Ward, that you have taken a rather peculiar method
+of getting me interested in your enterprises." Parker's tone was a bit
+resentful, but the old man believed he could understand that resentment,
+and grew more cheerful and confident.
+
+"You had to be discouraged," chuckled the colonel. "Didn't I tell you
+that you had to be discouraged? Why, if you hadn't been shown what kind
+of a proposition you were up against you might have kept on thinkin'
+that the P. K. &. R. railroad company was the biggest thing in the
+world. All young men want to work for the biggest folks. But I reckon
+by this time you have found out that Gideon Ward and the Lumbermen's
+Association come pretty near bein' lord of all they survey in this
+country. There, young man! The cards are down. Look at 'em! I'm pretty
+rough and I'm pretty tough and I play the game for all that's in me. But
+when it's over you won't find any cards up my sleeve nor down the back
+of my neck--and you can't always say that of your smooth city chaps."
+
+Parker sat with his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor, his
+forehead wrinkled. He was a pretty sturdy young American in principles
+and conduct, but at the same time he had all of young America's
+appreciation of the main chance. And the main chance in these days lies
+along the road where the dollars are sprinkled thickest. He reflected
+that the building of the little bob-tail railroad had been tossed at him
+as a rather silly and secret escapade of two big men who were already
+half ashamed of the whole business. He realized that in their present
+frame of mind they would be inclined to close out the whole thing
+in disgust as soon as they received news of the destruction of the
+property.
+
+When he got back to town he would simply remind them of a mutual failure
+to accomplish, and the history of such reminders is that they have been
+side-tracked in some places where their presence could not remind.
+
+"You know there isn't goin' to be any hurry about your givin' up your
+present job--not till spring has got well opened and the ice is out
+of Spinnaker," said Colonel Ward slyly, breaking in on the young man's
+meditations. "There's always a right time for re-signin' and we'll
+discover that time. But your five thousand will be put to your credit in
+Kenduskeag Bank the next day after you sign our papers, and your salary
+with us will begin the minute the ink is dry. You'll have double pay for
+a while, but I reckon you'll be earnin' it." He chuckled once more.
+
+Parker, surveying his red cheek knobs, his cruel gray eyes narrowed now
+in evil mirth, recollected with a photographic flash of memory of the
+details of that story the postmaster at Sunkhaze had told him. This
+was the same man who had coolly stolen wife and property from his own
+brother and then had jeered at him, probably with that same expression
+puckering about his evil, gray eyes. In the sudden revulsion of his
+feelings Parker wondered if he really had been tempted by the bait held
+out to him. At least, he had been weighing the chances. He remembered
+cases where other men who had stopped to weigh advantages had ended in
+becoming disloyal. He promptly forgot with a mental wrench the bribe
+that had been offered. It was a coaxing bait and he bravely owned that
+it had tempted for a moment. He was honest enough to own to himself
+that, offered by another, it might have won him--and he felt a little
+quiver of fear at the thought.
+
+But when he pictured himself as the associate of this old harpy who sat
+leering at him, hands on his knees, and already swelling with a sense of
+proprietorship, he almost forgot his personal wrongs in the hot flush of
+his indignation on behalf of the cheated brother.
+
+"That's a proposition that sort of catches ye, hey?" inquired Ward,
+misunderstanding the nature of the flush that sprung to Parker's cheeks.
+
+"I'm going to be honest enough to say that it did catch me for a
+moment," replied the young man.
+
+"Oh, I know all about what temptation is to any men--especially a young
+man," said the colonel blandly.
+
+"But I'll bet you a hundred dollars to a toothpick you never knew what
+it was to resist temptation," shouted Parker. "And I'm going to tell you
+now and here that I'd no more accept your offer and take a job with you
+than I'd poison myself with paris green." He flung himself back in his
+chair and glared at his tempter with honest indignation.
+
+For a little while Ward stared at him, open-mouthed. His surprise was
+greater, for he believed that he had landed his fish.
+
+"And don't you make me any more offers. I've no use for them or for you,
+either," cried the young man, his voice trembling.
+
+"I've read about such critters as you be," said the colonel slowly, "but
+it was in a dime novel and it was a good many years ago and I didn't
+believe it. I believe it said in the novel that the young man died young
+and went to heaven--the only one of his kind. P'raps I'm wrong and he
+didn't die--went to heaven jest as he stood in his shoes and co't and
+pants."
+
+Parker merely scowled back at the biting irony of this rejoinder.
+
+"There's no dime novel or any other kind of a novel to this affair,
+Colonel Ward. I'm not especially fitted to be the hero of a book. Nor to
+be one of your hired men, either."
+
+"Then ye've made up your mind to straddle out your legs and play
+Branscome's mule, hey?"
+
+"What was his special characteristic?"
+
+The question was drawled coolly.
+
+"He kicked when ye tried to drive him with a whip and he bit and
+squealed when ye tried to coax him along with sweet apples. So if ye
+won't neither lead nor drive, then out with it man fashion."
+
+"I simply demand my liberty."
+
+"And what be ye goin' to do with it?"
+
+"That is my own affair."
+
+The two men sat and looked at each other a long time, the old man's
+choler rising the higher from the fact that it had been so long
+repressed. The young man's glance did not fall before this furious
+regard.
+
+At last Ward quivered his fists above his head, stamped around the
+little room and went to the door.
+
+"You've got a few hours to do a little more thinkin' in, and then you
+look out for yourself, for it's up to you, you--," he slammed and locked
+the door and went away, cursing horribly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN--THE BEAR THAT WALKED LIKE A MAN
+
+That in this age of law and order Gideon Ward meditated any actual
+violence to his person Parker found it hard to believe as he sat there
+in the "wangan" and pondered on his situation. He could not avoid
+the conclusion that at heart Colonel Ward was a coward. But sometimes
+circumstances that a brave man will not suffer to rule him will drive a
+coward into crime.
+
+It was a long and dreary day for him.
+
+From the window he saw Colonel Ward go scurrying away on a jumper,
+evidently bound for the choppings.
+
+The cook and cookee surveyed his prison at a distance. They seemed to
+have no desire to come into close contact with a man of whom they had
+heard such sinister reports.
+
+Hackett, who hung about camp, apparently to serve as general "striker"
+and man of all work, brought food at noon and left it without engaging
+in conversation.
+
+Parker made a dull day of it.
+
+After the chill dusk had fallen and he had stuffed his rusty little
+stove with all the wood it would hold, he heard the men returning.
+
+A colloquy that occurred after supper interested him.
+
+He heard Colonel Ward bellow at some one who was evidently advancing
+toward the wangan.
+
+"Here you, Connick, where are you goin'?"
+
+"Just to pass a word with the lad," the man replied.
+
+"Have you got your knittin'?" squalled Ward sarcastically. "There's no
+call for you to go passin' talk around that wangan camp, Connick. You
+come away from it."
+
+But when Connick spoke again it was evident he had not retired.
+
+"It's only right to let him come into the men's camp for a bit this
+evening, Colonel Ward. There'll be a snatch or so of fiddlin' that he'll
+like, to cheer him up, and a jig and a song or so. I don't see the harm
+in mentionin' it to him, to find if he'd like to come. I'll answer for
+it that he's put back in his nest ag'in all right."
+
+"Who's runnin' this camp, me or you?"
+
+"You're the man, sir."
+
+"Well, then, there'll be no invitin' out nor passin' talk. You men have
+nothin' to do with that chap in that wangan and you'll keep away from
+him or get your heads broken open. Do you hear what I say? Why don't you
+come away when I speak?"
+
+"I'm not the man to disobey orders," growled Connick. "But I'm a man as
+likes man's style. I've always done your biddin', Colonel Ward, and I
+done your biddin' when I brought him here. Now I've found him a lively
+young chap that I'm proud to know and tho I speak for myself alone
+I speak as a man that likes fair play, and I say it's dirty bus'ness
+keepin' him like a chicken in a coop, after you've had your bus'ness
+talk with him."
+
+"You infernal bundle of hair and rags, do you dare to stand there and
+tell me how to run my own affairs?" roared Ward, thoroughly incensed.
+
+"Keep your bus'ness your own bus'ness for all I care," Connick answered
+angrily. "But when it gits to be bus'ness that can't be backed up
+man-fashion then ye may find that day's wages don't buy the whole earth
+for ye."
+
+The reply was a bit enigmatical but Ward understood that it signified
+mutiny. He gasped a few times and then Parker heard Connick exclaim:
+
+"Don't ye strike me with that sled-stake, Colonel Gideon, or it might be
+the worse for ye. I'll not bother your man in the wangan till I find
+out more about what you're doin' to him--but don't you hit me with that
+stick."
+
+Both men went back into the big camp, Ward furiously chewing the
+reflection that for the first time he had been bearded in his own camp.
+
+Gideon Ward sat until midnight in his little pen off the main camp,
+poking his fire and meditating. He had reckoned that he was justified in
+proceeding to extremes with this young man, confident that in the end
+he would break his spirit and frighten him out of the woods. But he
+realized now with sinking heart that his violence had endangered all the
+political influence of the gigantic timber interests. The youth had a
+powerful weapon, and he, Gideon Ward, would be accused of furnishing it.
+
+Perspiration dripped from under the old man's cap. He rasped his rough
+palms together nervously. At last he rose and tip-toed into the main
+camp. All the men were asleep, snoring with the lusty heartiness of a
+tired lumber crew. The colonel advanced cautiously to Hackett's
+bunk, and stirred that worthy with his finger until the man awoke. He
+beckoned, and Hackett followed him into the pen.
+
+"Hackett," said he, "yeh have worked for me a good many years."
+
+"Yes, colonel."
+
+"I've let yeh have money on a mortgage for one or two little favors
+yeh've done me."
+
+"Yes."
+
+Hackett began to grow pale.
+
+"Now I'll lift that whole mortgage for another favor--an' don't get
+scared. I sha'n't ask yeh to do any more'n I propose to do myself."
+Ward had noted the look of alarm on the man's face. "If we're both in it
+neither can say anything. I took yeh along with me last night and to-day
+so's yeh could hear how that young fool insults me on my own land."
+
+"I heard what he said, colonel, an' no man can blame ye for feelin' put
+out."
+
+Ward looked at him steadily for a moment.
+
+"Listen to me. Few words when there's work to do: that's my motto. I've
+done the thinkin' part of this thing. What I want you for is to help on
+the work."
+
+The man stared with stupid inquiry.
+
+"Hackett, here's my plan. You and I don't want to hurt that man. We
+can't afford to hurt him. But he's on my hands, an' he won't back down,
+an' it puts me in a hard place--a mighty hard place, Hackett. You heard
+what passed between us? Now he's got to be put out of this camp an'
+shoved where he can't blab this thing round about. Why, he's half got
+that fool of a Connick on his side already.
+
+"The only thing, Hackett, is for you to take him across into that
+Tumble-dick camp an' keep him there--keep him there! Tie him to a beam
+and feed him like yeh would a pup. Keep him there till he weakens an'
+quits, or till I can think up some plan further. It'll give me time,
+Hackett."
+
+"'Tain't any extra sort of job for me, Colonel Ward!" grumbled Hackett
+"I've got to watch that critter day in an' day out, an' Tumble-dick
+camp is all o' twenty miles from here, or from any other camp, for that
+matter."
+
+"That's why I want him there, Hackett. We'll tie him on a moose sled,
+an' you start in an hour, whilst the men are still asleep. I'll break a
+window out of the wangan, an' on this crust there'll be no foot-tracks.
+It'll be thought he broke out and ran away--an' that'll be his own
+lookout."
+
+His voice became low and husky. "Yeh needn't hitch him too tight in
+Tumble-dick camp, Hackett, providin' you hide the most of his clothes
+an' it looks like a storm comin' on. If he wants to duck out away from
+a good home into the woods, with grub an' fire twenty-five miles away,
+why, that's his own lookout."
+
+The man licked his lips nervously.
+
+"That ain't our liability, yeh knew."
+
+The man pondered.
+
+"It's eight hundred for you, Hackett, an' always a good job with me as
+long as I hire men," persisted Colonel Ward.
+
+At last Hackett got up and struck his elbows against his sides.
+
+"I'll do it!" he grunted.
+
+Parker's first alarmed awakening was with a cloth about his neck,
+choking him so that his cry of fright rattled in his throat. He fought
+bravely, but two strong men are better than one who has struggled and
+gasped until he has only a trickle of air in his lungs. He was bound,
+his head muffled in a strip of torn blanket, and he was carried out into
+the night. He could not see his captors, but he knew that Ward was one
+of the assailants, because a hoarse command to Hackett had betrayed him.
+
+After he had been dragged a distance Parker realized by a penetrating
+odor that he was near the horse hovels. There was a mumbled discussion
+between his captors as to whether he should be tied to the moose sled.
+It was decided that his arms should be left pinioned as they were, and
+Hackett growled:
+
+"I won't tie him to the sled! I'll be needin' him on the steep pitches."
+
+As his arms were tied behind his back, when they put an old fur coat
+on him they pulled the sleeves of it on his legs and buttoned the coat
+behind. In spite of the bandage over his eyes, he easily recognized
+these operations, and then felt himself lifted upon the familiar moose
+sled. Several bags full of something were thrown on. With his ears
+strained for every sound that would give him any information, he heard
+some one approaching even before the two men, busy between camp and
+sled, were warned.
+
+"Hark!" grunted the voice of Colonel Ward, at last. "Who's that movin'
+round back of the hoss hovel? Look out, Hackett! Throw something acrost
+the sled. He's comin' this way." A moment after, his tones full of
+disgust, he snorted, "It's that infernal old moose! Here, hand me that
+ax!"
+
+A hurry of feet, and then Parker heard the impact of a crushing blow
+and the muffled groan of a stricken animal. The ax blows continued,
+apparently dealt with fury, and in a few moments the old man creaked
+across the crust, dragging some heavy object.
+
+"Here's your fresh meat, Hackett--two hind-quarters," he panted. "Load
+it on."
+
+"The boys will be r'iled to find Ben here in the mornin'!" whined the
+other man.
+
+"He won't eat any more grain f'r me!" the colonel boomed, wrathfully.
+"Then again, it will show that after Mister Railroad Man broke out of
+the wangan camp he killed the moose to get grub to last him for his
+trip, bein' afraid to tackle Gid Ward's camps. The boys will be ready
+to massacree him if they can lay hands on him, but," his tones became
+ominously significant, "remember your lines now, man! Get away and I'll
+look after this end."
+
+Parker felt the loaded sled glide over the crust. He could hardly
+believe that these men meditated anything except a change in his
+place of imprisonment; but as the sled moved on and on, and in his
+helplessness he weighed the situation, he began to feel a vague fear of
+possibilities. He began to plan means of escape. When at last the sled
+went scaling down a long slope, he rolled off on the crust.
+
+As he lay there, he expected every moment to hear the man shout an oath
+and return. When the hasty creaking of the footsteps died away, he knew
+that the lightened sled, following of its own momentum, had not betrayed
+him.
+
+Hoodwinked and pinioned, it was no easy task to travel among the trees
+and across the slippery crust. As Parker scrambled along, he was tempted
+to cry out and appeal to the man to return. Now that his sudden panic
+of the flitting sled was over, the dull, cold fear of a helpless and
+abandoned man came upon him. But he clinched his teeth to keep back the
+cry that struggled to follow the man of the sled, and kept pushing on
+into the undergrowth.
+
+At last he stopped and began to scrub his forehead against the rough
+bark of a tree, endeavoring to remove the bandage. After a time he
+worked it above his eyes, although it still bound his head like a
+turban.
+
+He could see the crisp stars through the interlocking branches. He found
+the pole star. But as he had been unable to guess the direction his
+captor had taken in leaving the camp, the points of the compass mattered
+little in this wilderness, where all was strange.
+
+Parker went on, reflecting uneasily that every step might be taking him
+directly back to Colonel Ward's camp. His grotesque garb hampered his
+movements. He lumbered along as awkwardly as a bear. After a time he
+came through some little spruces that whipped his face, and discovered
+a tote-road that had been long abandoned, for the bushes grew in it and
+the crust was unmarked.
+
+He pondered a while. Then he shut his eyes, whirled until he dropped,
+scrambled up, and started away in the direction in which chance had
+faced him. He smiled as he thought upon this childish resource, but in
+that bewildering region he had at least been enabled to make up his mind
+quickly by the device.
+
+The rosy light of the dawn touched him as he plodded along. His advance
+was slow, for the sleeves of the fur coat impeded free use of his legs.
+The day was clear and cold, with a stinging wind that tossed the roaring
+branches of the spruce-trees. The crust held firm. Parker's constrained
+arms were aching and his hands were numb. He jerked and twisted at the
+thongs until his wrists were raw, but the knots were too strong for him.
+
+He had passed so many crossings and fork-ings of the bush-grown road
+that he gave up trying to keep the ramifications in mind for his use
+should he find it necessary to turn back. He now went on doggedly,
+choosing this way or that, as it chanced, hoping to hear a ringing ax or
+a hunter's gun or a teamster's shout somewhere in those solitudes.
+
+In the late afternoon the road led him to an ice-sheathed stream. Here
+the way divided.
+
+He took the road that led down-stream. It undoubtedly ended at a lake,
+thought he. Log-landings are on lakes. There would be men to release
+him from the torture of aching muscles and gnawing stomach. Parker would
+have welcomed the sight of Colonel Gideon Ward himself when that second
+night came through the trees.
+
+It was beyond human endurance to walk farther, but Parker realized that
+if he lay down in that state of cold, weariness and hunger he would
+never rise again. He marshaled in his mind all the people, all the
+interests he had to live for; the parents who depended on him, a certain
+young girl who was waiting so anxiously for his return, his prospects in
+life. He did this methodically, as if he were piling fagots for a fire
+at which to warm himself. Then he mentally kindled the heap with the
+blaze of a mighty determination to live, and standing under a great
+spruce, he began to stamp about it and count aloud. Half a dozen times
+during that long night he staggered and fell, as if an invisible hand
+had struck him down. But the next moment, with a cry of "I'll stay
+awake!" he was up again and at his self-set task, mind, muscles and
+nerves centering in his one desperate resolve.
+
+Then the dawn came peeping over the big spruces, and found him still
+at his grim gambols. He set forth once more down the road, slipping
+and stumbling, his body doubled forward. A few miles and a few hours
+more--it was the most he could hope for.
+
+All at once his dull ears heard the zin-n-ng of a rifle-bullet close to
+his head; and almost immediately, as he ducked and rolled upon his back,
+the sinister shriek of another ball made it plain that he was the game
+aimed at. Two smart cracks at some distance indicated the location of
+the marksman.
+
+Animal instinct is alike in brute and man. Parker leaped at the sound
+of the first bullet, fell, and rolled behind a snow-covered boulder.
+Had Ward or his minion tracked him? Were they now carrying out their
+desperate plan? The double report was proof that the man or men were
+determined on slaughter.
+
+After a long time he dared to peer cautiously. At some distance down the
+tote-road an old man was crouching beside a moose sled. On the sled
+was the carcass of a deer. Parker realized that this old man must be a
+poacher.
+
+An assassin sent after a man would not be wasting his ammunition on deer
+in close time.
+
+The old man remained motionless, with the stolidity of the veteran
+hunter waiting to make sure. Torpor rapidly seized on Parker's mind.
+He shouted as best he could, but his voice was hoarse from hours of
+shouting into the vastness of the deserted woods. His faculties were
+growing befogged. He dared not exert himself enough to keep awake, for
+his rock was but a narrow bulwark. It seemed to be a choice of deaths,
+only.
+
+At last he desperately leaped up and danced behind his protecting
+boulder, uttering such cries as he could. But he saw the old man
+throw his rifle up and take aim. Down he dropped, and the bullet sang
+overhead.
+
+He realized then that his garb made him resemble some strange beast--a
+bear, perhaps--and he gritted his teeth as he pondered that this might
+be part of Gideon Ward's vindictive scheme. If he attempted to show
+himself long enough to convince the old man that he was human he would
+only be inviting the bullet.
+
+Until his blurring senses left him he occasionally shouted or thrust up
+his head; but the old still-hunter was relentless, and evidently had not
+the clear vision of a youth. He was always ready with a shot.
+
+At last, with tears freezing on his cheeks, Parker gave himself up to
+the fatuous comfort of the man succumbing to cold and hunger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE--THE STRANGE "CAT-HERMIT OF MOXIE"
+
+Afterward it seemed that he began to dream. Somber individuals were
+crushing his limbs between great rollers. Frisky little ghouls were
+sticking needles into him, and there were so many needles that it seemed
+that every inch of his skin was being tortured at the same instant.
+
+[Illustration: Every inch of his skin was being tortured 197-224]
+
+The agony grew intense. He was trying to cry out, and a giant hand was
+over his mouth. And when the pain became so excruciating that it did not
+seem as if nature could longer endure it, he opened his eyes.
+
+A sludge-dish hooked to a beam shed its yellow glimmer of light upon a
+strange interior.
+
+There was no more strange figure in the place than Parker himself. He
+was stripped and seated in a half-hogshead filled with water, from which
+vapors were rising. His first wild thought was that the water was hot
+and was blistering him. He screamed in the agony of alarm and strove to
+rise.
+
+But hands on his shoulders forced him down again. These hands were
+rubbing snow upon him. Then the young man realized that his sensations
+were produced by icy cold water. Parker felt that cloths bound snow and
+ice to his ears and face.
+
+A glance showed him that he was in a rude log camp. The chinked walls
+were bare and solid. The interior was spacious, and a big fireplace
+promised warmth.
+
+The most astonishing of all in the place were its visible tenants--a
+multitude of cats. Some were huddled on benches, their assorted colors
+and markings composing a strange medley. Others stalked about the cabin.
+Many sat before the embers in the fireplace. A half-score were grouped
+about the hogshead and its occupant, with their tails wound round their
+feet, and were solemnly observing the work of reanimating the stranger.
+Here and there among taciturn felines of larger growth little spike-tail
+kits were rolling, cuffing, frolicking and miauing. For a moment the
+scene seemed a part of his delirium.
+
+Parker turned round to survey his benefactor. He found him to be an old
+man, shaggy of beard and hair. A pointed cap of fur covered his head.
+
+He was dressed in rough garb--belted woolen jacket, trousers awkwardly
+patched, leggings rolled above the knee, and yellow moccasins. Although
+he was the ordinary type of the woods recluse, there was kindliness in
+his expression, as well as a benignant gleam in his eye that was not
+usual.
+
+"How d'ye feel?" he asked, solicitously.
+
+"As if I were being pounded with mallets and torn by pincers."
+
+"All over?"
+
+"Yes, all over!" snapped Parker, rather ungraciously.
+
+"That's good," drawled the old man, rubbing more snow briskly on the
+aching flesh. "I guess I'm goin' to save ye, down to the last toe."
+
+"If aches will do it I'm saved!" groaned the young man.
+
+"I wouldn't 'a' gi' a copper cent for ye when I got ye here to camp,"
+the old man proceeded, "but I've done the very best I could, mister, to
+fetch ye round. I hope ye ain't a-goin' to complain on me," he added,
+wistfully.
+
+"Complain on you?" Parker demanded. "Do you think I owe myself a grudge
+for coming back to life?"
+
+"I should like to ask ye a fair question," said the old man.
+
+"I'll answer any questions."
+
+"Be ye a game-warden?"
+
+"No, sir, I am not."
+
+The honest ring of that negative was unmistakable. The old man sighed
+with relief.
+
+"When I found ye done up in that co't I thought ye was a game-warden,
+sure."
+
+"Look here," Parker demanded, with asperity, "did you sit there and
+blaze away at me with any suspicion that I was a human being?"
+
+"Land bless ye, no!" cried the old man, with a shocked sincerity there
+was no doubting. "I never harmed any one in all my life. But I was
+feelin' so good over savin' ye that I had to have my little joke. I was
+out this mornin' as us'al, after meat for my cats. I have to work hard
+to keep 'em in meat, mister. I can't stand round and see my kitties
+starve--no, s'r! Wal, I was out after meat, an' was takin' home a deer
+when I see what any man, even with better eyesight than mine, would have
+called a brown bear trodgin' round a tree an' sharp'nin' his claws. What
+he was up to out of his den in such weather I didn't know, but of course
+I fired, an' I kept firin'. An' when at last I fired an' he didn't bob
+out any more, I crept up an' took a look. I thought I'd faint when I
+see what I see--a man in a buffl'ler co't wrong side to an' his head all
+tied up an' his arms fastened behind him. Land, if it didn't give me a
+start! Wal, I left my deer right there an' h'isted ye on my sled, and
+struck across Little Moxie for my camp here on the double-quick, now I
+can tell ye. Ye was froze harder'n a doorknob, but I guess I'm goin' to
+have ye out all complete. Lemme see your ears."
+
+He carefully undid the cloths, to an accompaniment of groans from
+Parker.
+
+"They're red's pinys. No need to worry one mite, mister. Come out o'
+your water whilst I rub ye down. Then to bed with a cup o' hot tea, and
+hooray for Doctor Joshua Ward!"
+
+"I might have known you were Joshua Ward when I noticed all those cats,"
+said Parker. So this was Colonel Gideon's brother! He was too weak and
+ill to feel or display much surprise at the meeting.
+
+"Most every one hereabouts has heard o' me," the old man admitted,
+mildly. "Some men have fast hosses, some men have big liberies, some men
+like to spend their money on paintin's an' statues. But for me, I like
+cats, even if they do keep me running my legs off after meat. Hey,
+pussy?" and he stooped and stroked the head of a huge cat that arched
+its back and leaned against his leg.
+
+"Mr. Joshua Ward," said Parker, grimly, "you'd probably like to know how
+I happened to be prowling round through the forest dressed up so as to
+play bear?"
+
+"I was meditatin' that ye'd tell me by n' by, if it wa'n't any secret,"
+the old man replied, humbly.
+
+"Well, I think you have a right to know. You possess a personal interest
+in the matter, Mr. Ward. I was tied up and sent away to be killed or to
+be turned out to die by a man named Colonel Gideon Ward."
+
+To Parker's surprise the old man did not stop in his rubbing, but said,
+plaintively, "I was almost afeard it might be some o' Gid's works,
+or, to say the least his puttin' up. He don't improve any as he grows
+older."
+
+"You have pretty good reason to know how much chance there is for
+improvement in Gideon Ward," suggested Parker, bitterly.
+
+"Fam'ly matters, fam'ly matters, young man," murmured Joshua,
+reprovingly. "But I ain't tryin' to excuse Brother Gideon, ye
+understand. I'm afeard that when the time of trial does come to him, he
+will find that the hand of the Lord is heavy in punishment. I've had a
+good part of a lifetime, young man, to think all these things over in
+this place up here. A man gets near to God in these woods. A man can
+put away the little thoughts. The warm sun thaws his hate; the big winds
+blow out the flame of anger; the great trees sing only one song, and
+high or low, it's 'Hush--hush-h-h--hush-h-h-h!'" The voice of the man
+softly imitated the soughing of the pines.
+
+Parker stumbled to his bunk, his feet still uncertain, drank his tea,
+and slept.
+
+The next morning, after the breakfast of bread and venison, the host
+said: "Young man, now that you have slept on your anger, I wish you'd
+tell me the story of your trouble with my brother Gideon. I know that he
+has been rough and hard with men, but many have been rough and hard with
+him. This is a country where all the men are rough and hard. But I fear
+that had it not been for the good God and these old hands of mine, my
+brother would be now little else than a murderer. Tell me the story."
+His voice trembled with apology and apprehension.
+
+Parker stated all the circumstances faithfully and impartially. At the
+conclusion Joshua's eyes glowed with fires that had not been seen in
+them for years. He struck his brown fist down on his rude table.
+
+"Defying God's law and man's law to the disgrace of himself and all his
+name! And you had not been rough and hard to him," he cried. "Bitter,
+bitter news you bring to me, Mr. Parker."
+
+There was a long pause, and at last Joshua Ward went on:
+
+"Mr. Parker, that man is my own--my only brother, no matter how other
+people look at him. I have saved your life. Will you give me one chance
+to straighten this matter out?"
+
+"You mean?"
+
+"I mean that if Gideon Ward will pay for the damage he has done your
+property, ask your forgiveness as a man, and promise to keep away and
+let you alone, will you be charitable enough to let the matter rest?"
+
+Parker pondered a while with set lips. It cost a struggle to forego
+vengeance on that wretch, but many issues were involved, principally
+the early completion of the railroad and his consequent favor with his
+employers.
+
+"Mr. Ward," he declared, at last, "I came down here to build a railroad,
+not to get entangled in the courts. For your sake and the sake of my
+project I will give your brother an opportunity to make atonement on the
+conditions you name. I owe my life to you, and I will discharge part of
+my obligation in the way you ask."
+
+"Are you afraid to accompany me back to Number 7 camp?"
+
+"No, sir!" In his turn Parker struck the table. "I am ready to go
+back there alone and charge that man with his crime, and depend on the
+manhood of his crew to stand neutral while I take him and deliver him
+over to the law. And that I will do if you fail in your endeavors."
+
+The old man was silent. He made no attempt to soften the young man's
+indignation or resolution. Parker noted that his lips tightened as tho
+with solemn, inward resolve.
+
+During the remainder of his convalescing stay in the camp the subject of
+Gideon Ward was not broached again.
+
+The hermit beguiled the hours with simple narratives of the woods, his
+cats on knees and shoulders. He had no complaints for the past or the
+present and no misgivings as to the future, so it appeared from his
+talk.
+
+Parker came to realize that under his peculiar and, to the casual
+observer, erratic mode of life there was a calm and sound philosophy
+that he had cultivated in his retirement. He had the strange notions of
+those who have lived much alone and in the wilderness. An unkind critic
+would have dismissed him brusquely with the belief that his troubles had
+unbalanced his mind. But Parker saw beneath all his eccentricity, and
+as the hermit wistfully discoursed of the peace that the woods had given
+him the young man conceived both respect and affection for this strange
+character. His knowledge of Joshua's life tragedy pre-disposed him to
+pity. He was grateful for the tender solicitude the old man had shown
+toward him. At the end of his stay he sincerely loved the brother of his
+enemy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN--THE BEAR OF THE BIG WOODS "BAITED" AFTER HIS OWN
+FASHION
+
+On the third morning Parker was able to travel. Joshua Ward had brought
+the carcass of the slain deer across the lake on his sled, and the cats
+of Little Moxie were left to rule the island and feast at will until the
+return of the master.
+
+On the day they set forth it was shortly after dark,--for they had
+proceeded slowly on account of the young man's feet, when Parker again
+looked down from the ridge upon Number 7 camp. If Colonel Gideon Ward
+was not there, they proposed to follow along his line of camps until
+they found him. Parker carried a shotgun with two barrels. The old man
+bore his rifle. They advanced without hesitation over the creaking
+snow, straight to the door of the main camp, and entered after the
+unceremonious fashion of the woods.
+
+A hundred men were ranged on the long benches called "deacons' seats,"
+or lounged on the springy browse in their bunks. A man, with one leg
+crossed over his knee, and flapping it to beat his time, was squawking a
+lively tune on a fiddle, and a perspiring youth danced a jig on a square
+of planking before the roaring fire. The air was dim with the smoke of
+many pipes and with the steam from drying garments hung on long poles.
+
+Connick removed his pipe when the door opened, and gazed under his hand,
+held edgewise to his forehead.
+
+"Why, hello, my bantam boy!" he bawled, in greeting. "What did you break
+out o' the wangan and run away for?"
+
+The fiddle stopped. The men crowded up from the bunks and deacons'
+seats. All were as curious as magpies. They gazed with interest on
+Parker's companion. But no one threatened them by look or gesture.
+
+"Is Gideon Ward here?" inquired Joshua, blandly.
+
+"Yes, I'm here!" came the answer, shouted from the pen at the farther
+end. "What's wanted?"
+
+"It's Joshua!" called the brother. "I'll come in."
+
+"Stay where you are!" cried Gideon; and the next moment he came
+shouldering through the men, who fell back to let him pass.
+
+The instant his keen gaze fell on the person who bore his brother
+company he seemed to understand the situation perfectly. There was just
+the suspicion of fear when he faced the blazing eyes of Parker, but he
+snorted contemptuously and turned to his brother.
+
+"Wal, Josh," he cried, "out with it! What can I do for you?"
+
+"The matter isn't one to be talked over in public, brother," suggested
+Joshua.
+
+"I hain't any secrets in my life!" shouted Gideon, defiantly, as if he
+proposed to anticipate and discount any allegations that his visitors
+might produce.
+
+"Ye don't refuse to let me talk a matter of business over with ye in
+private, do ye, Gideon?"
+
+"Colonel Ward," said Parker, stepping forward, "your brother is ashamed
+to show you up before these men."
+
+"Here, Connick, Hackett, any of you! Seize that runaway, and throw him
+into the wangan till I get ready to attend to him!" commanded Ward.
+
+The men did not move.
+
+"Do as I tell ye!" bawled the colonel. "Twenty dollars to the men--fifty
+dollars to the men who ketch an' tie him for me!"
+
+Several rough-looking fellows came elbowing forward, tempted by the
+reward. Parker raised his gun, but Connick was even quicker. The giant
+seized an ax, and shouted:
+
+"Keep back, all of ye! There's goin' to be fair play here to-night, an'
+it's Dan Connick says so!"
+
+"Connick," Gideon's command was almost a scream, "don't you interfere in
+what's none o' your business!"
+
+"It's my business when a square man don't get his rights," Connick
+cried, with fully as much energy as the colonel, "and that chap is a
+man, for he licked me clean and honest!"
+
+A murmur almost like applause went through the crowd.
+
+"Men," broke in Parker, "I cannot expect to have friends here, and you
+may all be enemies, but I have come back, knowing that woodsmen are on
+the side of grit and fair dealing. Listen to me!"
+
+In college Parker had been class orator and a debater of power. Now he
+stood on a block of wood, and gazed upon a hundred bearded faces, on
+which the flickering firelight played eerily. In the hush he could hear
+the big winds wailing through the trees outside.
+
+Ward stood in advance of the rest, his mighty fists clinched, his face
+quivering and puckering in his passion. As the young man began to speak,
+he attempted to bellow him into silence. But Connick strode forward,
+put his massive hands on Gideon's shoulders, and thrust him down upon
+a near-by seat. The big woodsman, his rebellion once started, seemed to
+exult in it.
+
+"One of the by-laws of this ly-cee-um is that the meetin' sha'n't be
+disturbed!" he growled. "Colonel Gid Ward, ye will kindly listen to this
+speech for the good of the order or I'll gag ye! You've had a good many
+years to talk to us in and you've done it. Go ahead, young man! You've
+got the floor an' Dan Connick's in the chair." He rolled his sleeves
+above his elbows and gazed truculently on the assemblage.
+
+"For your brother's sake," cried the young engineer, "I offer you one
+more chance to listen to reason, Colonel Gideon Ward! Do you take it?"
+
+"No!" was the infuriated shout.
+
+"Then listen to the story of a scoundrel!"
+
+[Illustration: Listen to the story of a scoundrel 216-246]
+
+The men did listen, for Parker spoke with all the eloquence that
+indignation and honest sentiment could inspire. He first told the story
+of the wrecked life of the brother, and pointed to the bent figure
+of the hermit of Little Moxie, standing in the shadows. Once or twice
+Joshua lifted his quavering voice in feeble protest, but the ringing
+tones of the young man overbore his halting speech. Several times
+Connick was obliged to force the colonel back on the deacons' seat, each
+time with more ferocity of mien.
+
+Then Parker came to his own ambitions to carry out the orders of his
+employers. He explained the legal status of the affair, and passed
+quickly on to the exciting events of the night on which he had been
+bound and sent upon his ride into the forest, to meet some fate, he
+knew not what. He described the brutal slaughter of the moose, and the
+immediate dismemberment of the animal. He noticed with interest that
+many men who had displayed no emotion as he described poor old Joshua's
+sufferings now grunted angrily at hearing the revelation concerning
+the fate of Ben, the camp mascot. This dramatic explanation of Ward's
+furious cruelty to the poor beast proved, curiously enough, the turning
+point in Parker's favor, even with the roughest of the crew. Then Parker
+described how he had been rescued and brought back to life by the old
+man whom Gideon Ward had so abused.
+
+"And now, my men," he concluded, "I am come back among you; and I ask
+you all to stand back, so that it may now be man to man--so that I may
+take this brutal tyrant who has abused us all, and deliver him over to
+the law that is waiting to punish him as he deserves."
+
+He leaped down, seized a halter, and advanced with the apparent
+intention of seizing and binding the colonel.
+
+"Are ye goin' to stand here, ye hunderd cowards, an' see the man that
+gives ye your livin' lugged away to jail?" Gideon shouted, retreating.
+He glared on their faces. The men turned their backs and moved away.
+
+He crouched almost to the floor, brandishing his fists above his head.
+"I've got ten camps in this section," he shrieked, "an' any one of them
+will back me aginst the whole United States army if I ask 'em to! They
+ain't the cowards that I've got here. I'll come back here an' pay ye off
+for this!"
+
+Before any one could stop him, for the men had left him standing alone,
+he precipitated his body through the panes of glass of the nearest
+window, and almost before the crash had ceased he was making away into
+the night Connick led the rush of men to the narrow door, but the mob
+was held them for a few precious moments, fighting with one another for
+egress.
+
+"If we don't catch him," the foreman roared, "he'll be back on us with
+an army of cut-throats!"
+
+But when the crew went streaming forth at last, Colonel Ward was out of
+sight in the forest. Lanterns were brought, and the search prosecuted
+earnestly, but his moccasined feet were not to be traced on the frozen
+crust.
+
+The chase was abandoned after an hour, for the clouds that had hung
+heavy all day long began to sift down snow; and soon a blizzard howled
+through the threshing spruces and hemlocks.
+
+"It's six miles to the nearest camp," said Connick, when the crew was
+again assembled at Number 7, "an' in order to dodge us he prob'ly kept
+out of the tote-road. I should say that the chances of Gid Ward's ever
+get-tin' out o' the woods alive in this storm wa'n't worth that!" He
+snapped his fingers.
+
+"It is not right for us to come back here an' leave him out there!"
+cried the brother.
+
+"He took his chances," the foreman replied, "when he went through that
+window. There's a good many reasons why I'd like to see him back here,
+Mr. Ward, but I'm sorry to have to tell ye, ye bein' a brother of his,
+that love ain't one o' them."
+
+"I shall go alone, then," said the old man, firmly.
+
+"Brotherly love is worth respect, Mr. Ward," Connick declared, "but I
+ain't the kind of man that stands idle an' sees suicide committed. Ye've
+done your full duty by your brother. Now I'm goin' to do my duty by you.
+You don't go through that door till this storm is over!"
+
+The next day the wind raged on and the snow piled its drifts. Joshua
+Ward sat silent by the fire, his head in his hands, or stood in the
+"dingle," gazing mournfully out into the smother of snowflakes. It would
+be a mad undertaking to venture abroad. He realized it and needed no
+further restraint.
+
+But the dawn of the third day was crisp and bright. Soon after sunrise a
+panting woodsman, traveling at his top speed on snow-shoes, halted for a
+hasty bite at Number 7. He was a messenger from the camp above.
+
+"Colonel Gid Ward was picked up yesterday froze pretty nigh solid!" he
+gulped out, between his mouthfuls. "I'm goin' down for a doctor," and
+then he went striding away, even as Joshua Ward took the up-trail.
+
+Parker spent all that day in sober thought, and then, forming his
+resolution, took passage on the first tote-team that went floundering
+through toward Sunkhaze. His departure was neither hindered nor
+encouraged.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN--HOW RODNEY PARKER PAID AN HONEST DEBT
+
+The engineer found his little garrison holding the fort at the Poquette
+Carry camp--and confining their attentions wholly to holding the fort.
+Not an ax blow had been struck since his hurried departure.
+
+"We didn't work no more," explained one of the men, "because we'd give
+up all idea of seein you ag'in. Of course we reckoned that a new boss
+would prob'ly be comin' along pretty quick and we thought we'd wait and
+find out just what he wanted us to do."
+
+"Well, it will be the same old boss and the same old plan," replied
+Parker curtly. The idea that the men had considered him such easy prey
+made him indignant. "You'll consider after this that I'm the Colonel
+Gideon Ward of this six-mile stretch here."
+
+"I reckon there won't be any real Gid Ward any more," said the man.
+"Feller went through here last night, hi-larrup for 'lection, to git a
+doc for Gid. Seems he got caught out and froze up somehow--tho I never
+s'picioned that weather would have any effect on the old sanup. P'rhaps
+you've been hearin' all about how it happened? Feller wouldn't stop long
+enough to explain to us." The man's gaze was full of inquisitiveness and
+the others crowded around to listen.
+
+But with self-repression truly admirable Parker told them that he had no
+news to give out concerning Colonel Ward, of any nature whatsoever.
+He ordered the driver of the tote-team to whip up and rode away toward
+Sunkhaze, leaving the men gaping after him.
+
+He observed the same reticence at the settlement, tho he was received
+with a demonstration that was something like an ovation.
+
+Although his better sense told him that the men were justified in
+preserving neutrality at the time of the raid, yet he could not rid
+himself of the very human feeling of resentment because they had
+surrendered him so readily into the hands of his adversaries. But the
+chief influence that prompted silence was the fear lest details of his
+mishap and the reasons therefor would get into the newspapers to the
+annoyance of his employers.
+
+"I am back and the work is going on just as tho nothing had happened,"
+he said to the men who crowded into the office of the tavern to
+congratulate him. "Matters have been straightened out and the less talk
+that's made the better."
+
+But the postmaster, presuming on more intimate acquaintance, followed
+him up to his room, where his effects had been carefully preserved for
+him.
+
+"I reckoned you'd get back some time," said Dodge. "I've predicted that
+much. But, I swanny, I didn't look for you to come back with your tail
+over the dasher, as you've done. That is, I didn't look for you to come
+that way not until that feller blew in here to telegraft for a doctor
+for old Gid. Then I see that it was him that was got done up instead of
+you. But speakin' of telegraftin', there ain't no word gone out from
+here as yit about the hoorah--not a word."
+
+"Do you mean that Sunkhaze has kept the Swamp Swogon affair and my
+kidnapping quiet?" demanded Parker, his face lighting up. He had been
+fearing what might have gone out to the world about the affair.
+
+"A good many was all of a to-do to telegraft it to the sheriff and to
+your bosses," said the postmaster calmly. "But it seemed better to me to
+wait a while. I says, 'Look here, neighbors, it's goin' to be some time
+before the sheriff can git his crowd together and git at Ward--and even
+then there'll be politics to consider. The sheriff won't move anyway
+till he gits the word of the Lumbermen's Association. And it'll probably
+happen by that time that the young man will show up here again. All
+we'll git out of it hereabouts is a black eye in the newspapers--it
+bein' held up that Sunkhaze ain't a safe place to settle in. And all
+that truck--you know! Furthermore, from things you've dropped to me,
+Mr. Parker, I knew you were playin' kind of a lone hand and a quiet game
+here. My old father used to say, 'Run hard when you run, but don't start
+so sudden that you stub your toe and tumble down.' So in your case I
+just took the responsibility and held the thing back."
+
+The postmaster's eyes were searching Parker's face for signal of
+approbation.
+
+The engineer went to him and shook his hand with hearty emphasis.
+
+"You've got a level head, Mr. Postmaster," he said, delightedly. "We'll
+start exactly where we left off and so far as I am concerned the place
+will never get a bad name from me. In return for your frankness and your
+service to me, I'll give you a hint as to what happened to Colonel Ward.
+I know you won't abuse my confidence."
+
+When he had finished, the postmaster said earnestly, "Mr. Parker,
+however much old Gid Ward owes you, you owe Josh Ward a good deal more.
+He ain't a man to dun for his pay. But if he ever does ask you to square
+the account you won't be the man I take you for if you don't settle. If
+you feel that you owe me anything for the little service I've done you
+and your bus'ness, just take and add it to the Josh Ward account. Of all
+the men on earth I pity that man the most."
+
+There were tears in Dodge's eyes when he stumbled down the tavern
+stairs.
+
+One cheerful moment for Parker had been when the postmaster informed
+him of Sunkhaze's equilibrium in the matter of news-monging But a more
+cheerful moment was when Mank, his foreman, standing with him on the
+ice above the submerged Swogon told him that a sandbar made out into the
+lake at that point and that the locomotive was probably lodged on the
+bar, only a little way below the surface.
+
+When they had sawed the ice and sounded they found this to be true. As
+soon as a broad square of ice had been removed they saw her, all her
+outlines clear against the white sand. The sunken sleds were equally in
+evidence. It was not a diver's job, then, as Parker, in his worryings,
+had feared. On the thick ice surrounding the whole there was solid
+foothold for the raising apparatus and Parker's crew set at work with
+good cheer.
+
+It was a cold, wet and tedious job, the grappling and the raising, but
+his derricks were strong and his rigging plentiful. Moreover, the water
+was not deep.
+
+All the material that could not be recovered by the grapples was
+duplicated by means of quick replies to wired orders, and the work of
+transportation across the lake was successfully completed.
+
+It was well into a warm May, and his men for the last week had been
+moving soil and building culverts before the case of Col. Gideon Ward
+was brought to Parker's attention in a manner requiring action. One
+evening just after dusk his foreman scratched on the flap of the
+engineer's tent, in which he was now living at Poquette.
+
+"Come in!" he called.
+
+The canvas was lifted and a man entered. Parker turned the reflector of
+his lantern on the visitor.
+
+"Joshua Ward!" he exclaimed, as he started up and seized the old man's
+outstretched hand.
+
+He led him to a camp-stool. They looked at each other for a time in
+silence. Tears trembled on Joshua's eyelashes, and he passed his knotted
+hand over his face before he spoke.
+
+"Mr. Parker," he said, tremulously, "I've come to bring ye money to
+pay for every cent's worth o' damage to property 'an loss o' time an'
+everything." He laid a package in the young man's hand. "Help yourself,"
+he quavered. "I'm goin' to trust to your honesty, for I'm certain I can.
+Take what's right. Gid and I don't know anythin' about railroads an'
+what such things as you lost are worth. All we can do is to show that we
+mean to square things the best we can now. Gid's sorry now, Mr. Parker,
+he's sorry--sorry--sorry--poor Gid!" The old man sobbed outright.
+
+"Did he--" The young man paused, half-fearing to ask the question.
+
+Joshua again ran his rough palm across his eyes. Then, in dumb grief, he
+set the edge of his right hand against his left wrist, the left hand to
+the right wrist, and then marked a place on each leg above the ankle.
+
+"All off there, Mr. Parker." The old man bent his head into his hollowed
+palms. Tears trickled through his fingers. There was a long silence. The
+young man did not know how to interrupt that pause.
+
+"I'm feedin' an' tendin' him like I used to when he was a baby an' I a
+six-year-old. He's at my camp, Mr. Parker. He don't ever want to be seen
+agin in the world, he says--only an old, trimmed, dead tree, he says.
+Poor old Gid! No matter what he's been, no matter what he's done, you'd
+pity him now, Mr. Parker, for the hand o' punishment has fell heavy on
+my poor brother."
+
+The engineer, truly shocked, stood beside Joshua, and placed his hand on
+the bowed shoulders.
+
+"Mr. Ward," he said, with a quiver in his voice, "never will I do
+anything to add one drop to the bitterness in the cup that has come to
+you and yours."
+
+"I told Gid, I told Gid," cried the old man, "that you'd say somethin'
+like that! I had to comfort him, you know, Mr. Parker; but I felt that
+you, bein' a young man, couldn't make it too hard for us old men. He
+ain't the same Gid now. See here, sir!"
+
+With tremulous hands he drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to
+Parker. It was a writing giving sole power of attorney to Joshua Ward.
+The old man pointed to a witnessed scrawl--a shapeless hieroglyph at the
+bottom of the sheet.
+
+"Gid's mark!" he sobbed. "No hands--no hands any more! I feed him, I
+tend him like I would a baby, an' the only words he says to me now are
+pleasant an' brotherly words.
+
+"An' more'n that, Mr. Parker, I'm on my way down to town. I've got some
+errands that are sweet to do--sweet an' bitter, too. There's new fires
+been lit in the dark corners of my poor brother's heart. I've got here
+a list of the men that Gideon Ward hain't done right by in this
+life,--that he's cheated,--an' a list of the widows of the men he hain't
+done right by, an' by that power of attorney he's given me the means,
+an' he says to me to make it square with them people if it takes every
+cent he's worth. It won't cost much for me an' Gid to live at Little
+Moxie, Mr. Parker--an' poor Cynthy--"
+
+He looked into vacancy a while and was silent. Then he went on:
+
+"We'll have our last days together, me an' Gid. All these years that
+I've lived alone up there the trees an' the winds an' the skies an' the
+waves of the lake have been sayin' good things to me. I told Gid about
+them voices. He has been too busy all his life to listen before now. But
+sittin' there in these days--sit-tin' there, always a-sittin' there, Mr.
+Parker! Nothing to do but bend his ear to catch the whispers that come
+up out o' the great, deep lungs o' the universe! He has been listenin',
+an'"--the old man rose and shook the papers above the head of the
+engineer--"God an' the woods have been talkin' the truth to my poor
+brother Gideon."
+
+The old man slept that night in Parker's tent and went on his way at
+morning light, and tho the engineer pressed back again into his hands,
+unopened, the packet that was proffered, and assured him that no harm
+should befall Gideon Ward through complaint or report for which he was
+responsible, Parker still felt that somehow there was a balance due old
+Joshua Ward on their books of tacit partnership in well-doing;--such was
+the honest faith, and patient self-abnegation of the good old man, who
+had endured so much for others' sake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN--THE DAY WHEN POQUETTE BURST WIDE OPEN
+
+Through the spring and the early summer Poquette Carry was an animated
+theater of action. Woodsmen, went up and woodsmen came down, and mingled
+with the busy railroad crews. All examined the progress of construction
+with curiosity, and passed on, uttering picturesque comment. Strange
+old men came paddling down West Branch from unknown wildernesses, and
+trudged their moccasined way from end to end of the line, as if to
+convince themselves that Colonel Gideon Ward really had been conquered
+on his own ground. Newspaper reporters came from the nearest city, and
+pressed Engineer Parker to make a statement "Gentlemen," he said, with
+a laugh, "not a word for print from me. I was sent here to build this
+bit of a railroad quietly and unobtrusively. Circumstances have paraded
+our affairs before the public in some measure. Now if you quote me, or
+twist anything I may say into an interview, my employers will have good
+reason to be disgusted with me, as well as with the situation here.
+Furthermore, there are personal reasons why I do not wish to talk."
+
+Whether Parker's eager appeal had effect upon the reporters, or whether
+the timber barons influenced the editors, the whole affair of the sunken
+engine was lightly passed over as the prank of roistering woodsmen,
+and Colonel Ward was left wholly undisturbed in his retreat. Even the
+calamity that had befallen him was not mentioned except by word of mouth
+among the woodsmen of the region.
+
+With self-restraint that is rare in young men, Parker still refused to
+talk about the matter even in Sunkhaze. When he first returned, a
+sense of chagrin at his discomfiture along with reasons that have been
+mentioned kept him silent, it is true, but now, with complete victory
+in his hands, he was sincerely affected by the misfortune that had
+overtaken his enemy.
+
+The "Swamp Swogon," now that it was running on its own rails and was
+hauling building materials along the crooked railroad, was renicknamed
+"The Stump Dodger." Parker's chief pride in the road was necessarily
+based on the fact that it had been constructed without exceeding the
+appropriation, a fact that excused many curves.
+
+Late in June the last rails were laid and the ballasting, such as it
+was, was well under way.
+
+The "terminal stations," as the engineer jocosely called them, were neat
+little structures of logs, and there was a log roundhouse, where the
+Stump Dodger retired in smutty and smoky seclusion when its day's toil
+was finished.
+
+So the engineer prepared for the day of opening, and requested the state
+railroad commissioners to make their final inspection of the road. The
+three officials gravely travelled from end to end of the line in the
+secondhand P. K. & R. coach, the only passenger-car of the road, and
+after some jocular remarks, issued a certificate empowering the Poquette
+Carry Road to convey passengers and collect fares. Then, after a
+telegraphic conference with his employers, Parker announced the day for
+the formal opening of the road.
+
+At first he had not intended to make any event of this. His idea had
+been that, after the commissioners authorized traffic, he would
+merely arrange a time-table instead of the irregular service of the
+construction days, and would start his trains, observing the care that
+had been promised in seasons of drought.
+
+But his foreman of construction--none other than Big Dan Connick, who
+had chosen railroad work under Parker instead of the usual summer labor
+on the drive--came to him at the head of a group of men.
+
+"Mr. Parker," he said, "we represent the men who have been building this
+road. We represent also our old friends of the West Branch drivin' crew
+of a hundred men, who are twenty miles up-river and are hankerin' for
+a celebration. We represent all the guides between Sunkhaze and
+Chamberlain, and every man of 'em is glad that this carry has been
+opened up. The whole crowd respectfully insists that seein' as how this
+is our first woods railroad up here, it's proper to have a celebration.
+If ye don't have the official opening we shall take it as meanin' we
+ain't worth noticin'."
+
+There was no denying such earnestness as that nor gainsaying the
+propriety of the demand. Parker made his principals understand the
+situation. And the result was that they themselves set the opening date,
+and promised to be on hand with a party of friends.
+
+The rolling-stock of the Poquette Railroad consisted of the Stump
+Dodger, four flat cars designed especially for the transportation
+of canoes and bateaux, three box cars for camp supplies and general
+freight, and the coach transplanted from the P. K. & R. narrow-gage.
+
+Parker announced that on the opening day no fares would be collected,
+that the train would make hourly trips, and that all might ride who
+could get aboard.
+
+Not to be outdone in generosity, the crew through big Dan Connick,
+declaring that they proposed to make all the preparations for the
+celebration free of charge--that is, they would accept no wages for
+their work.
+
+They built benches on the platform cars and fitted up the box cars in
+similar fashion. They trimmed the Stump Dodger with spruce fronds till
+the locomotive looked like a moving wood-lot. Every flag in Sunkhaze was
+borrowed for the decoration of the coach, and then, in a final burst of
+enthusiasm, the men subscribed a sum sufficient to hire the best brass
+band in that part of the state.
+
+"It took us some little time to wake up enough to know how much we
+needed a railroad acrost here," said Dan, "but now that we're awake
+we propose to let folks know it. Them whose hearin' is sensitive had
+better take to the tall timber that day."
+
+Parker met his party at Sunkhaze station on the morning of the great
+occasion. They came in the P. K. & R. president's private car, that was
+run upon a siding to remain during the week the railroad men entertained
+their friends at their new Kennemagon Lake camp.
+
+"I expect," said Parker, as the little steamer puffed across sunlit
+Spinnaker toward Poquette, "that the men have arranged a rather rugged
+celebration for to-day; but I know them well, gentlemen, and I want to
+assure you that all they do is meant in the best spirit."
+
+As the steamer approached the wharf, tooting its whistle, there was an
+explosion ashore that made the little craft appear to hop out of the
+water. All the anvils of the construction crew had been stuffed with
+powder, and all were fired simultaneously with a battery current!
+
+With a yell the shore crowd rushed to the side of the steamer. Dan was
+leading, his broad face glowing with good humor. Groups of cheering men
+clutched the squirming, protesting railroad owners and their friends,
+and bore them on sturdy shoulders to the waiting train. The band from
+its station on a platform car boomed "Hail to the Chief," the engine
+whistle screaming an obligato.
+
+Then the men swarmed upon the cars, crowding every corner, occupying
+every foothold--but with the thoughtful deference of the woods not
+venturing to encroach upon the privacy of the coach after they had
+deposited their guests there.
+
+On the "half-way horseback," so-called, Parker ordered the train halted,
+for he wished to show Mr. Jerrard an experiment in culvert construction,
+in which he took an originator's pride. The band kept on playing and the
+men roared choruses.
+
+After the young engineer had bellowed his explanation in Jerrard's ear,
+and Jerrard had howled back some warm compliments, striving to make
+himself heard above the uproar, the two climbed the embankment and
+approached the coach. The band was quiet now.
+
+"Speech!" cried some one, as Jerrard mounted the steps. He smiled and
+shook his head.
+
+"Speech! Speech!" The manager turned to enter his car, still smiling,
+tolerant but disregarding. At a sudden command from Connick, men
+reached out on both sides of the train and clutched the branches of
+sturdy undergrowth that the haste of the construction work had not
+permitted the crews to clear entirely away.
+
+"Hang on, my hearties!" shouted Dan.
+
+Parker, when he mounted the steps, had given the signal to start, but
+when the engineer opened his throttle, the wheels of the little engine
+whirled in a vain attempt at progress. With a grade, a heavy load, and
+the determined grip of all these brawny hands to contend against, the
+panting Stump Dodger was beaten. Sparks streamed and the smokestack
+quivered, but the train did not start.
+
+"Speech! Speech!" the men howled. "We won't let go till we hear a
+speech."
+
+Entreaties had no effect. First Jerrard, then Whittaker, then Parker,
+and after them all the guests were compelled to come out on the car
+platform and satisfy the truly American passion for a speech. And not
+until the last man had responded did the woodsmen release their hold on
+the trees.
+
+"Who ever heard of a railroad being formally opened and dedicated
+without speeches?" cried Connick, as he gave the word to let go. "We
+know the style, an' we want everything."
+
+The guides served a lunch at the West Branch end of the line that
+afternoon, and while the railroad party was lounging in happy
+restfulness awaiting the repast, a big bateau came sweeping down the
+river, driven by a half dozen oarsmen. Several passengers disembarked
+at the end of the carry road, and were received respectfully yet
+uproariously by the woodsmen who had just arrived in a fresh train-load
+from the Spinnaker end.
+
+Connick came elbowing through the press that surrounded them.
+
+"Mr. Shayne," he cried, "she's come, after all, hasn't she? Are you and
+your friends goin' to ride back on her across the carry? I tell you she
+beats a buckboard!"
+
+The man whom he addressed smiled with some constraint, and exchanged
+glances with his companions.
+
+"I guess we'll stick to our own tote-team as usual, Connick," said
+another in the party, jerking his thumb at the muddy buckboard that was
+waiting.
+
+"Oh say, now, ye've got to meet these here railroad fellers. They're
+your style--all business!" bawled Connick. "We ain't fit to entertain
+'em up here, but you rich fellers are. Just come along. They'll be glad
+to see you. Bring 'em along, boys."
+
+The crowd obediently hustled the new arrivals toward Whittaker and his
+friends, disregarding the surly protests.
+
+"Here's some of the kings of the spruce country, gentlemen!" big Dan
+cried, by way of introduction. "Here's Mr. Shayne, the great timber
+operator on the Seboois waters. Here's Mr. Barber of the Upper
+Chamberlain, an'--"
+
+Several of the new arrivals began to deprecate this unceremonious manner
+of introduction, but the railroad men, recognizing their peers in the
+business world in these sturdy land barons, came forward with a hearty
+welcome.
+
+Ten minutes later the timber kings were eating lunch, although with some
+embarrassment. Occasionally they eyed the railroad men, wondering if
+the memory of the stubborn legislative battle still lingered. But the
+railroad men constantly grew more affable.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Whittaker, at last, "we are not affected in this case
+by any interstate commerce regulations. Therefore, on behalf of myself
+and my associates, I should like to tender you annual passes over our
+new road. Of course the courtesy is a trifling one, but it will indicate
+that we shall appreciate your cooperation in turning your freight
+business our way. We'll save you at least two-thirds of the expense on
+the haul across Poquette."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN--THE PACT THAT OPENED RODNEY PARKER'S PROFESSIONAL
+FUTURE
+
+When one understood all that had gone before, the moment was an electric
+one for the future of the Poquette region.
+
+In this apparently trivial offer the railroad king had formally offered
+the olive branch. He gazed at the lumber barons eagerly yet shrewdly.
+
+It was evident that they had silently fixed on Shayne to reply.
+
+After a moment Shayne began his answer, and as he had glanced from one
+to another of his companions, he evidently understood from their eyes
+that he had permission to speak for all. "Mr. Whittaker," he said, with
+hearty frankness, "on behalf of myself and my associates I am going to
+make an earnest apology to you for the obstacles we threw in your way
+at the outset of this enterprise. But you must take into account the
+isolation of our lumbering interests and the jealousy we felt at the
+intrusion of outside men and capital. We feared what it might lead
+to. We have been doing business as our fathers did it, and we probably
+needed this awakening that the new railroad has given us. For now that
+it is built, we, as business men, see that the advantages it will afford
+us are desirable in every way. I speak for my friends here when I say
+that we are heartily glad you have beaten us."
+
+His tone was jocose yet sincere.
+
+The men of business--railroad officials and lumber kings--broke out into
+a hearty laugh, the laugh of amity and comradeship. Shayne went on, more
+at his ease after that:
+
+"Now we are going to afford you a proof that we mean what we say.
+We--this party right here--control fifty miles or more of timber
+country, reaching from here up to the West Branch on both sides, and
+extending as far inland. The river is broken by rapids and falls along
+this stretch. Our drives from up-country are sometimes held up a whole
+season when a bad jam forms in dry times. Every year in dynamiting these
+jams thousands of feet of logs are shattered. More are split on the
+ledges. We have agreed that we need a railroad. Considering our losses,
+we can afford to pay well for having our logs hauled to the smooth
+water. If you and your friends will finance and build such a road, we'll
+give you free right of way, turn over to you annually twenty million
+feet of timber for your log trains, and give you the haul of all our
+crews and camp supplies. Further than that, with spur tracks to lots now
+inaccessible by water, you can quadruple the value of our holdings and
+your own business at the same time. And this will be only the first link
+of a railroad system that we need all through the region. The thing
+has come to us in its right light at last, and we're ready to meet
+you half-way in everything." He smiled. "We want the right sort of men
+behind the scheme, and you have plainly showed us that you _are_ the
+right sort of men."
+
+President Whittaker thought a little.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, at last, "I cannot give you a conclusive answer
+to-day, of course, but I can guarantee that no such offer as that is
+going to be refused by my associates and myself. Bring forward your
+proposition in writing. We'll come half-way, too, and be glad of the
+chance. If men and money can accomplish it, a standard gage road will be
+ready for your season's haul next year."
+
+He turned and touched Parker's shoulder.
+
+"This young man," he said, "will be our representative, with full powers
+to treat with you. Parker, are you ready for two years more in the
+wilderness? It's a big project, and your financial encouragement will be
+correspondingly big. I haven't said yet how thoroughly I appreciate
+your energy and loyalty and self-reliance in the matter of this little
+plaything of the past winter. I do not need to say anything, do I,
+except to urge you to take this new responsibility, and to add that your
+acceptance will encourage me to go ahead at once?"
+
+Parker reached out his brown hand to meet the one extended to him.
+
+"We also want to say to Mr. Parker," went on Shayne, "that on our part
+we'll do more to assist him than we'd do for any other man you could
+place here. We have a little explanation to make to him and--"
+
+"No explanations for me--if it's along the lines I apprehend, Mr.
+Shayne!" cried the young man, jokingly yet meaningly. He bent a
+significant look on the lumber king as he went forward to take his hand.
+
+"Hush!" he murmured. "I keep my own counsels in business matters when I
+can do so without betraying the interests of my employers, and when they
+don't want to be bothered by my personal affairs."
+
+Shayne gave the engineer a long stare of honest admiration.
+
+"Parker," he gasped, "you never said a word? You're a---- Here, give me
+you hand again!"
+
+[Illustration: Parker give me your hand again 254-286]
+
+A half hour later the lumbermen went across the Poquette Carry in a
+train made up of the engine and the coach--"the first real special train
+over the road," Parker said.
+
+Before the young engineer left for his summer vacation, he made a
+long canoe journey up into the Moxie section, ostensibly on a fishing
+expedition. He was gone ten days, a longer period than he had predicted
+to his assistant manager.
+
+When he came down the West Branch one afternoon he helped Joshua Ward
+to lift a crippled man out of their canoe, and he carefully directed the
+helpers who carried the unfortunate person to the coach.
+
+"I'm afraid the trip across the carry in a buckboard after the old
+manner would have been too rough for you, Colonel Ward," remarked
+Parker, as the train clanked along under the big trees. "I think I was
+never more glad to offer modern conveniences to any traveller across
+this carry. You understand how deep my sincerity is in this, I am
+positive."
+
+"I understand everything better than I did, Parker," returned Colonel
+Ward, feelingly, turning away wet eyes.
+
+The astonishment in Sunkhaze settlement when the doughty ex-tyrant was
+borne through to the "down-country" train, accompanied by Parker and
+Joshua, was so intense that only the postmaster recovered himself in
+season to put a few leading questions. After the train had gone he
+announced the results of his findings to the crowd that clustered about
+him on the station platform.
+
+"Near's I can find out," he said, "that young Parker has been way up
+into the Moxie region an' found old Gid, and spent a week gettin' round
+him and coaxin' him to go 'long with him and Josh to the city, and be
+fitted to new hands and feet, that, so they tell me, is so ingenious a
+fellow can walk round and cut his own victuals and all that. Well, that
+will help old Gid a little. If the blamed old sanup could only be fitted
+out with a new disposition at the same time, we folks round here would
+be more pleased to see him, come back."
+
+"Postmaster," cried Dan Connick, who had been one of those who bore
+the colonel from the landing in a chair, "don't you ever worry any more
+about a new disposition for Gid Ward. Those things come from the hand of
+God, and Colonel Gid has already been fitted out with the heart and soul
+of a man!"
+
+"Then," declared Dodge, gazing to where the smoke wreaths from the
+departing locomotive hung above the distant treetops, "I reckon we've
+just seen in bodily shape the passin' of the old in this section as well
+as the comin' of the new."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Rainy Day Railroad War, by Holman Day
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