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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Timber Treasure, by Frank Lillie Pollock
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world 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.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-Title: The Timber Treasure
-
-Author: Frank Lillie Pollock
-
-Release Date: August 16, 2020 [EBook #62950]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TIMBER TREASURE ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
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-
-
-                          THE TIMBER TREASURE
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration: Tom arose and shouted to them]
-
-
-
-
-                                THE
-                          TIMBER TREASURE
-
-                                 BY
-
-                        FRANK LILLIE POLLOCK
-
-                 Author of “Wilderness Honey,” “The
-                         Woods Rider,” etc.
-
-                            ILLUSTRATED
-
-                          THE CENTURY CO.
-                        New York and London
-                                1923
-
-
-
-
-                        Copyright, 1923, by
-                          The Century Co.
-
-                     Copyright, 1913, 1921, by
-                        Perry Mason Company
-
-                        PRINTED IN U. S. A.
-
-
-
-
-            This story has appeared serially in “The
-            Youth’s Companion,” and my thanks are due
-            the publishers for permission to reprint it.
-
-                                   Frank Lillie Pollock.
-
-
-
-
-                                CONTENTS
-
-                          I The End of a Trail
-                         II Indian Charlie
-                        III The Fish Sharp
-                         IV Burned Out
-                          V Across the Wilderness
-                         VI Defeat
-                        VII Not Too Late
-                       VIII The Treasure
-                         IX Victory
-                          X A Fight in the Dark
-                         XI Fire and Water
-
-
-
-
-                           ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-    Tom arose and shouted to them
-
-    Tom rushed in and dragged him out
-
-    The game was up
-
-    Tom caught the half-directed blow
-
-
-
-
-                        THE TIMBER TREASURE
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER I
-
-                         THE END OF A TRAIL
-
-
-The heavy spruce forest broke away into scattered clearings; the
-road began to show more sign of use. The shriek of a sawmill began
-to be audible through the trees, and then the stage rolled into
-Oakley, splashed with mud from wheels to top, and the tired horses
-stopped. Tom Jackson crawled out, cramped and chilled with the rough
-twenty-mile drive, and looked about anxiously for a familiar face.
-
-The stage was standing opposite an unpainted frame hotel, where a
-group of men had collected to meet it. There were rough woodsmen,
-forest farmers, dark-faced French habitants, an Indian or two,
-slouching and silent; the driver as he got down from his seat was
-exchanging jocularities with some of these, but no one spoke to Tom,
-and he saw no one whom he recognized. He had a twinge of anxiety. He
-had written to Uncle Phil to meet him that day. There had been
-plenty of time, and he had felt certain of seeing either Uncle Phil
-or one of his sons. Could the letter possibly have gone astray?
-
-Tom’s canvas dunnage sack was handed out to him, and his rifle in
-its case. He deposited these on the hotel steps, and again searched
-the group with his eyes. Becoming certain that he knew no one there,
-he applied to the nearest man, a raw-boned, bearded person in the
-rough dress of a backwoods settler. He had been talking freely, and
-seemed to know everybody.
-
-“Have you seen anything of Mr. Phil Jackson around here to-day—or
-either of his boys?”
-
-“Don’t believe as I know ’em,” returned the pioneer, looking Tom
-over with acute curiosity. “Was you expectin’ to see ’em?”
-
-“Yes, I wrote them to meet me here, but I don’t see any of them.”
-
-“Well, the town ain’t very big. You can’t miss ’em if they’re here,”
-the other said, encouragingly.
-
-This had already struck Tom’s mind. The straggling, muddy street of
-log houses, frame shacks, three or four stores was barely a hundred
-yards long, and then the vast northern Canadian forest closed in
-again. Away at the end of the village he had a glimpse of a
-good-sized river, yellow and swollen with melting snow. There were
-stray drifts of snow and patches of ice still lingering in sheltered
-places everywhere, rather to Tom’s surprise, for spring had seemed
-well advanced when he left Toronto; and despite the sunshine the air
-was full of a raw harshness, charged with a smell of pine and snow.
-
-He carried his baggage into the hotel and left it there, glancing
-into the bar and sitting-room. Emerging again, he found the knot of
-idlers had scattered, and the horses were being unharnessed from the
-stage. He walked down the board sidewalk as far as it went,
-scrutinizing every face, looking into the stores, with anxiety
-growing upon him. Oakley was his uncle’s post-office, but his
-homestead was some thirty miles back in the woods, and Tom had no
-idea in which direction nor how to get there.
-
-All at once it occurred to him that they must know at the
-post-office. That was the place for information. He had passed it
-already; he had seen the sign, and he turned more hopefully back.
-The post-office was a general store as well. It was full of a mixed
-smell of leather and molasses and tobacco, and there was a group of
-fur-capped settlers smoking and talking beside the big stove. Among
-them Tom recognized the man he had already spoken with, and they all
-stopped talking and looked at the boy with great interest. Tom felt
-that they instantly recognized him as from the city, though he had
-taken pains to wear his roughest and heaviest clothes, a flannel
-shirt and high shoepacks which he had used in the woods before; but
-his hands and face were suspiciously untanned.
-
-The postmaster, a spectacled elderly man, was behind a wire
-compartment at the rear of the store, and had just finished sorting
-the mail brought in by the stage when Tom approached him.
-
-“Why, no,” he answered. “I ain’t see Phil Jackson to-day. Fact is, I
-don’t believe I’ve set eyes on him all winter. Seems to me I heard
-he’d gone away—him and the boys.”
-
-It was indeed six or eight months since Tom had heard from any of
-his uncle’s family, but he had never dreamed that they could have
-left the north Canadian ranch where they had been for five years,
-and where they were doing prosperously.
-
-“No, Jackson ain’t gone away,” put in one of the men by the stove.
-“Mebbe he don’t come in to Oakley no more, but he’s still on his
-homestead.”
-
-“He ain’t been gettin’ his mail here lately, anyways,” said the
-postmaster. “There’s a letter here for him now—been here a week.”
-
-He reached up to the pigeonholes, and took out a letter, peering at
-it through his glasses. With a shock Tom recognized the handwriting
-of the address.
-
-“Why, that’s my own letter!” he cried. “That’s the letter I wrote
-him. He never got it.”
-
-There was a silence in the store. Tom endeavored to collect himself.
-
-“I fully expected him to meet me here,” he said at last. “Now I’ve
-got to get out to his ranch some way. Do you know where it is?”
-
-There was a difference of opinion. Nobody seemed to be quite sure.
-
-“I believe he lives over north somewheres,” said the postmaster. “I
-dunno.”
-
-“Down the river, ain’t it?” said another.
-
-“No, it ain’t,” said a third, decisively. “I know where the Jackson
-place is. It’s up on Little Coboconk, just below the narrers. I seen
-Dave Jackson there one day last fall. He was gettin’ out
-beaver-medder hay.”
-
-“How far is it? How can I get there?” cried Tom.
-
-“Must be ’bout thirty mile. I dunno how to get there—’less you had a
-canoe. You go right up the river to the Coboconk lakes,” said the
-postmaster.
-
-“Me and my pardner’s plannin’ to go up past there,” said the man who
-knew the place. “Guess we could fix it to go to-morrow. We could
-take you up, if you know how to ride in a canoe without fallin’
-out.”
-
-“I’ve paddled a canoe a good many hundred miles,” said Tom
-indignantly. “I’d be glad to go if you can take me. How much’ll you
-charge me for the trip?”
-
-The frontiersman glanced sidewise at the boy, and spat against the
-hot stove.
-
-“Run you up for ten dollars.”
-
-Tom knew well that this was outrageous. If he had been a dweller in
-that neighborhood he would have been welcome to go for nothing, for
-the sake of an extra hand at the paddles. And about twenty dollars
-was all he owned.
-
-“Can’t afford to pay more than five,” he said firmly.
-
-“Oh, well; make it five,” said the other, a little shamefacedly.
-“We’ll start early—six o’clock, say. You stoppin’ at the hotel?”
-
-Tom had no other place to stop, though he could ill spare the
-additional dollar or two. He went back and engaged a room, and tried
-to amuse himself for the rest of the afternoon by looking over the
-straggling little backwoods village and its environs. He had seen
-others exactly like it, but he had never before been so close as
-this to Uncle Phil’s homestead, though he had been many times
-invited to visit it.
-
-Tom’s home was in Toronto, where his father was in the wholesale
-lumber business. But there had been a frequent inter-change of
-letters between the city and the north woods; Uncle Phil always sent
-down a deer in November, and twice the boys, Dave and Ed, had paid a
-visit to Toronto. They were three and five years older than Tom, but
-the cousins had become great friends, and the tales Tom heard of
-backwoods adventure made him regard it as a sort of ideal life.
-
-Tom had spent his whole life in Toronto, but he did not care for the
-city. He had unusual physical strength for his seventeen years; he
-had made several summer camping and canoeing trips into the north
-woods; he could use a rifle, an ax, and a paddle; and he would
-immensely have liked to be old enough to go into the woods, secure a
-hundred acres of free government land, trap, hunt, prospect for
-minerals. There was iron in those wildernesses, graphite, mica,
-asbestos, silver, maybe gold too. There were pulp-wood and pine and
-fine hard woods. Dave had found a clump of “bird’s-eye” maple and
-obtained three hundred dollars for half a dozen logs. All this
-appealed much more strongly to Tom than his present university
-studies and the prospect of a subsequent desk in his father’s
-office. He came by these tastes honestly enough, for his father in
-his younger days had been a trapper, a timber-cruiser, a prospector
-in these same woods, until, growing older and making money, he had
-settled into a conservative city business.
-
-Mr. Jackson looked with no favor on his son’s disinclination for
-business. There was time enough, however. Tom had finished his
-second year at Toronto University, where he had distinguished
-himself mainly in other ways than scholastically. He was a brilliant
-Rugby halfback, and had come close to breaking an intercollegiate
-record for the half-mile. Tom had enjoyed these two college years
-hugely, and had, in fact, taken little thought of anything but
-enjoyment. His father was not a millionaire, but Tom had usually
-only to ask for money in order to get it, and he had spent it with a
-tolerably free hand. Thinking now of the sums he had squandered, he
-squirmed with remorse.
-
-The lumber business in Ontario is no longer what it was. Mr. Jackson
-was a dour and silent trader, who would no more have brought
-business troubles home with him than he would have discussed
-household matters with his office staff. He rarely mentioned the
-business to his son. Perhaps he hoped that Tom would volunteer an
-interest in the business, but it never occurred to the boy to do
-this. In fact, as Tom thought of it now, his father had become
-almost a stranger to him since he had entered the university and had
-taken up a multiplicity of new personal interests, social and
-sporting. He met his father only by chance at home, it seemed: at
-dinner, rarely at luncheon, on Sundays, sometimes of an evening. Tom
-almost never entered the big lumber-yards and office at the foot of
-Bathurst Street, and he had spent most of the last two vacations
-canoeing and camping near the Georgian Bay with a party of young
-friends.
-
-He had planned to do the same this last summer. A party of college
-friends was going north to a club-house that some of them possessed
-near the Lake of Bays. It was to be rather an expensive outing; they
-were to take three motor-boats, several guides, a cook, and a
-princely outfit of supplies. Tom’s share of the expenses came to
-upward of a hundred dollars. He applied to his father for a check,
-and received a rather curt refusal, accompanied by no explanation.
-
-It was the first time that he could remember having been denied
-money, and he felt bitterly aggrieved. He canceled his plans,
-however, and the motor-boats went without him.
-
-About three weeks later his father summoned him to the office.
-
-“I guess I can let you have that money after all, Tom,” he said;
-and, as he took out his checkbook, he added almost apologetically:
-
-“I really couldn’t do it when you asked me before. Money was like
-blood to me just then. In fact, I don’t know whether the bank would
-have cashed the check.”
-
-“Why, has business been as bad as that, Father?” Tom exclaimed,
-appalled. “I had no idea, or I’d never—”
-
-“The lumber business is pretty well played out in this part of the
-country,” replied Mr. Jackson. “It’s only far in the north that
-there’s any white pine left, and I’ve always been a white pine man.
-I’ll have to go in for pulp-wood, or move west, or shut up shop
-within a few years. This spring things were worse than I ever knew
-them to be. For a while it really looked as if I’d have to shut up
-shop.”
-
-Jackson had never before said so much upon business affairs to his
-son. The revelation came upon Tom like a thunderbolt. Looking at his
-father with awakened eyes, he saw for the first time the deep-drawn
-lines of age and worry upon the face of the veteran lumberman.
-
-“Things are much better now, though,” Jackson hastened to say. “I
-have a deal or two in hand that should make everything smooth. I
-think the worst is over.”
-
-“I don’t want this money, Father!” Tom cried. “Look here, can’t I do
-something? Let me come into the office—or into the yards.”
-
-“Afraid you wouldn’t be much use there, Tommy. We’re too busy to
-break in new hands. No, take your good time while you can. Your
-business just now is to get an education. That’s all I want to say
-to you, Tommy. Don’t neglect it. Foot-ball is all right, but don’t
-neglect the important thing.”
-
-Tom went away from this interview ashamed, humiliated, and full of
-good resolutions. He put the check into his bank, resolved to draw
-no more money for personal expenses that whole year, and instead of
-going on a holiday trip he, like many other students, secured a job
-as government fire ranger in the new country north of Lake
-Temiscaming.
-
-He spent three months thus, mostly in a canoe, and came back brown
-and hard-trained in the early autumn, for the collegiate term. His
-good condition made him more than ever in demand for athletics, and
-his ardor for reform had lost a little of its fine edge during the
-summer. Nobody ever studied during the autumn term anyhow, he
-reflected, and he played foot-ball assiduously until the season
-closed. With the coming of the winter he took a lively interest in
-hockey; and not until the end of February did he begin to realize
-that he had made an even worse hash than usual of his scholastic
-year, and that he would almost infallibly fail to pass the June
-examinations.
-
-With characteristic impulsiveness he dropped all sports, took no
-exercise, and plunged heavily into study to make up for lost time.
-He burned the midnight oil until daylight came; he grew pale and his
-health fell off, and, as a natural result, in March he was attacked
-by a serious inflammation of the eyes. He spent a week or so in a
-darkened room, and came out under orders not to look at a printed
-page for a month, and not to think of study for the rest of the
-spring and summer.
-
-He was thrown into compulsory idleness, and he had the pleasure of
-knowing that it was by his own fault and foolishness. He thought
-again of suggesting that he take some minor part in the lumber
-business; but Mr. Jackson was evidently undergoing troubles of his
-own just then. Business was bad again; he was in ill health besides;
-he was short-tempered and sarcastic, and Tom’s conscience made him
-afraid. His eyes, besides, negatived office work; and at last he
-went down and spoke privately to Williams, the yard foreman, for a
-job on the lumber piles.
-
-Williams smiled at first, but when he found that Tom really meant it
-he grew serious, and spoke plainly:
-
-“We couldn’t have the boss’s son in the yard, Mr. Tom; you know we
-couldn’t. I couldn’t let you loaf on the job, and I couldn’t drive
-you like the rest of the hands. Oh, I know you wouldn’t loaf, but
-there’s nothing to learn here anyway. It’s all manual work—lifting
-and loading and handling. Stay around with me for a day and you can
-learn it all—if that’s what you’re after.”
-
-Checked again, Tom’s thoughts turned back to the north, where his
-heart had always been. It was too early for fire ranging; that work
-is not undertaken until midsummer; but he began to think of Uncle
-Phil’s homestead in the backwoods, and, little by little, in his
-hours of enforced inaction, he formed a plan.
-
-His eyes were good enough for all outdoor purposes, and his health
-needed strong exercise. He would go up and stay with Uncle Phil and
-the boys, and help them at the spring cultivation, the logging, all
-the forest and farm work. There would be no doubt about his welcome;
-another strong arm is always useful in the woods. He would look over
-the surrounding country. Within a few months he would be eighteen,
-and capable of homesteading a hundred acres himself. Why should he
-not do it? There would be pulp-wood on the land, perhaps minerals.
-If necessary, he could still return to the city rather late next
-autumn, and continue his studies.
-
-“But I’ll never be any good as a student or at business,” he thought
-mournfully. “I’m no good at anything but foot-ball, and paddling a
-canoe and shooting and chopping timber. I’d better go in for what I
-can do.”
-
-He ventured to confide part of this project to his mother, who
-endeavored to dissuade him, but finally admitted that a summer in
-the woods might do him good. He casually introduced the subject to
-Mr. Jackson, and got an ironical remark that he would “probably be
-no more useless there than anywhere else,” which put an end to the
-conversation. It left Tom with some feeling of bitterness. He was
-not going to ask for any money; on the contrary, he was going to be
-self-supporting. He had enough money in his bank-account for the
-articles of outfit he needed, and for his railway fare and for the
-stage across to Oakley; and while at his uncle’s farm he would have
-no need of money. He left with the casual manner of going on a
-pleasure-trip, but he was inwardly determined that it should be
-winter before the city should see him again, and that he would have
-something definite to show for the time between.
-
-It had been a great disappointment to find no one at Oakley to meet
-him. He had counted on a jubilant welcome from his cousins; but he
-ought to have remembered that pioneers do not go thirty miles to the
-post-office every week. He would have a little more trouble and
-expense; that was all; and he went to bed in the bare, cold hotel
-room in the sure expectation of sleeping the next night at Uncle
-Phil’s farm.
-
-He was up at daylight, breakfasting early; and when the canoemen
-called for him punctually at six o’clock he was ready to shoulder
-his dunnage sack and rifle and go down to the river at the far end
-of the street.
-
-They put Tom in the middle, and entrusted him with a paddle when he
-assured them that he was used to this sort of navigation. The
-Coboconk River was running full and strong with the April freshets
-and the melting snows, and the three of them found it stiff work to
-propel the loaded Peterboro up against the current. The roofs of the
-village passed out of sight, and after the first mile there was no
-trace of settlement along the wooded shores. It was a rough,
-picturesque country, densely timbered with small pine and spruce and
-hemlock, and streaks of snow still lay in the shaded woods. Half a
-dozen times they started a flock of wild ducks splashing and
-squawking from the water. There was plenty of game in these woods.
-Tom had eaten venison steak for supper at the hotel, he felt sure,
-though it was called beef out of deference to the game-laws. There
-were bears in this spruce wilderness, and deer and lynxes and
-sometimes wolves; and muskrats and minks and ermines swarmed along
-the streams and in the swamps.
-
-Toward noon they reached the end of the river, where it flowed out
-of the Coboconk lakes, and here they stopped to eat a cold lunch.
-There were two of the Coboconk lakes: Little Coboconk and Big
-Coboconk, connected by a narrow strait. The little lake, which they
-now entered, was perhaps three miles long, and Tom’s destination was
-just at the upper end. They skirted up close along the shores, and
-the canoemen scanned the shores narrowly. There was no clearing, nor
-smoke, nor any trace of a farm. They passed the mouth of a small
-river and went on almost to the connecting straits, and then the men
-ran the canoe up to a stranded log.
-
-“Here you are,” said his guide. “See this here trail? That takes you
-on to Dave Jackson’s barn, where he put his hay. I dunno just where
-the house is, but you keep a-follerin’ the trail and you can’t miss
-it.”
-
-They heaved Tom’s dunnage ashore after him, and paddled quickly on
-toward the upper lake. Tom felt indignant and cheated. He had
-expected to be landed at his uncle’s door for his five dollars, and
-he found himself put ashore with a hundred pounds of dunnage and his
-destination indefinitely distant. But the canoe was already out of
-sight in the spruce-bordered channel, and there was no help for it.
-
-It was impossible to think of carrying the heavy canvas sack for any
-distance, and so he hoisted it into the low fork of a tree,
-intending to get Dave to come down and help him bring it home. He
-had brought a few delicacies as presents for the younger children—a
-box of candy, a box of dates and figs—and he crammed these into his
-pockets, put his rifle under his arm, and started inland.
-
-There was a sort of trail, as the canoeman had said—a faint
-indication of wheelmarks certainly made no later than last autumn.
-It was possible to follow them, however, and here and there trees
-had been cut to open the way; after perhaps a mile of tramping Tom
-came in sight of the barn he expected.
-
-It was a rough, unchinked log structure, with the door yawning wide,
-standing close by a wide flat of long grass and reeds, through which
-a tiny stream slowly wandered—evidently the beaver meadow where Dave
-had cut his hay. But there was no house in sight, and the woods came
-up densely around the beaver meadow, with no trace of either road or
-clearing.
-
-Tom’s heart sank with discouragement. Nevertheless, the barn
-indicated that he was on the right track, and the house could not be
-very remote. Experimentally he uncased his rifle and fired it—three
-shots, the wilderness signal of distress. No woodsman would neglect
-to answer that call, and he listened long for an answering signal,
-but none came. The whiskey-jacks squalled from the spruces, excited
-by the shots, but there was nothing else.
-
-He struck off, however, beyond the beaver meadow, still in the same
-direction he had been going. Within half a mile he came upon a
-rushing, swollen little river, doubtless the same which he had seen
-flowing into the lake. He followed its shores for some distance, and
-then struck away into the woods, on the watch for a blazed trail or
-any sign of clearing. But he had been walking in irregular
-directions for nearly an hour when he suddenly stumbled into a
-half-cleared road and saw the opening of a large clearing ahead.
-Full of hope, he rushed forward and then stopped short with a cry of
-despair.
-
-Before him lay a stumpy clearing of perhaps a dozen acres, showing
-something green at one end but overgrown with dead weeds at the
-other. There was no house, but a great heap of charred timber and
-ashes showed where a house had once stood and had been burned down.
-
-“This must be the wrong place; it must be further on,” Tom muttered,
-struggling against a horrible conviction. But he went up and
-examined the wreck left from the fire.
-
-Amid the pell-mell confusion of half-burned logs, joists, and planks
-was a litter of tin cans, broken kitchenware, scraps of paper and
-cloth. He could not make out any relics of any sort of furniture;
-most of the household effects must have been salvaged. There was a
-broken iron pot, half full of water and deep red with rust—an old ax
-with the handle burned out. Everything showed signs of having been
-exposed to the wet a long time. Plainly the fire had not taken place
-this spring. It must have been during the winter, or, more likely,
-last autumn.
-
-But surely this wretched place, this tiny clearing, could not be the
-prosperous homestead that he had imagined Uncle Phil to possess. He
-groped over the rubbish in search of some evidence. He turned up a
-scrap of planed board which might have been part of a door-casing.
-Letters were cut on it with a jack-knife. They were partly charred
-away, but what was left was plain enough, and he spelled the
-confirmatory letters “ave Jackso.” It was Dave’s work, he could
-hardly doubt; and a few moments later he unearthed a tattered book,
-a copy of Scott’s “Ivanhoe,” water-soaked and scorched, but with his
-cousin Ed’s name scribbled a dozen times on the fly-leaves.
-
-Tom groaned. There could be no further doubt, nor hope. It was the
-place, right enough; but the house had been burned and the family
-had gone, abandoning the claim. Where they had gone he could not
-even guess; probably it was far, since none of them had been seen at
-Oakley all winter.
-
-Tom sat down on a blackened log, and tears started into his eyes.
-Bitterly now he regretted his rashness in coming on without an
-answer to his letter. There was nothing for it now but to go back to
-Oakley. He would have to walk. It was thirty miles; and how could he
-carry his dunnage? And, once there, he would have to make the still
-more humiliating retreat to Toronto.
-
-He sat there for some time, too confused to be able to think
-clearly. It was growing late in the afternoon. He could not possibly
-start on the long tramp back that night. But he shrank from the
-notion of staying in the neighborhood of that ruined dwelling, where
-there was no shelter whatever; and he determined to go back to the
-log barn, which would at any rate afford him cover.
-
-Having a definite notion of his directions, he struck a bee-line
-across the woods and succeeded in coming out within a hundred yards
-of the old beaver marsh. It was not more than a mile in a direct
-line from the burned house, and he investigated the barn with a view
-to its possibilities for a camp.
-
-It was rather better than he had expected. There were great chinks
-in the walls, and the roof did not seem tight; but part of the place
-had been floored with planks and was partitioned off with stalls for
-two horses. The rest of the flooring was earth, damp and muddy, but
-at the farthest end was a remnant of the old hay.
-
-Pulling out scraps of boards from the building, he lighted a fire
-just outside the door. Dusk was beginning to fall, and the snap and
-glow of the flames lightened the dreariness a little. He went into
-the woods and gathered up what dead and fallen timber he could drag
-in. It is hard to collect fuel without an ax, but worse yet to have
-the camp-fire fail in the night, and he labored until he thought he
-had enough to last through the dark hours. He had blankets in his
-dunnage pack, but he did not feel equal to the task of carrying it
-up from the lake; and he dragged out a heap of hay to the barn-door
-and threw himself down upon it. By good luck he had saved a portion
-of his noonday lunch; there had been more than he wanted then, and
-if it was not much now it was better than nothing, and he ate it
-hungrily. What he would eat on the tramp back to Oakley he could not
-imagine. He would have to trust to his rifle; but he did not have
-the heart to grapple with any more difficulties just then.
-
-Darkness fell. Through the woods, in the intense stillness, he could
-hear the faint rush of the little river pouring over its rocks. Owls
-hooted occasionally from the woods. Once he heard the discordant
-squall of a hunting lynx; but he was tired out and heart-sick, and
-he felt reckless of any wild animal.
-
-The air grew frosty, and the stars glittered white in the
-steely-blue sky. He piled on more wood, brought out all the rest of
-the hay he could find, and burrowed under it, with his rifle beside
-him; and despite his misery, he fell soundly asleep at last.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER II
-
-                           INDIAN CHARLIE
-
-
-Tom awoke with a vague sense of impending disaster, and looked
-about, unable for a moment to realize where he was. It was just
-dawn. A gray light hung over the woods. The remains of his fire
-barely smoked, and frost lay white as snow over everything. Then he
-remembered—the journey, the wreck of the burned house, the ruin of
-all his plans; and he got up from his nest of hay, unable to remain
-quiet.
-
-He built up the fire again, feeling empty and miserable. His supper
-had been a poor one, and there was nothing for breakfast. Perhaps he
-might shoot a partridge, he thought, but he felt too inert and
-lifeless to go on the hunt. At this point he recollected the boxes
-of dates and candy he had with him, and he got them out and devoured
-them. It was a queer breakfast, but it comforted his stomach
-considerably. The heat of the fire began to take the chill out of
-his blood. Over the trees in the east the sun began to come up
-gloriously, and with some renewed courage Tom began to think of the
-journey back to Oakley.
-
-He hated intensely to do it, yet there seemed no other course. It
-would be a hard, long tramp besides, lasting more than one day, and
-he would have to depend on what he could shoot. The best thing would
-be to acquire some provisions before starting; and he filled the
-magazine of his rifle from the box of cartridges in his pocket, and
-started into the woods.
-
-He was eager, besides, to explore a little farther before leaving
-the place. It was just possible that Uncle Phil’s house was still in
-the vicinity. The burned building might have been some unused
-structure; the real place might be farther on. He skirted the old
-beaver meadow and plunged into the woods—a jungle of small spruces
-and jack-pine, much of it dead as if attacked by some disease. A
-hare bobbed out from the thickets, incautiously sat up to look at
-the intruder, and rolled over the next moment. Tom picked it up and
-hung it at his belt, reflecting that here was meat for at least one
-meal.
-
-He listened intently for a possible answer to the echo of his shot,
-but there was no human sound. Pushing on, he reached the deserted
-clearing, glanced over the fire ruin again, and went on to examine
-the roughly cut road he had stumbled into the evening before.
-
-This trail led him out to the bank of the little river, and ended.
-He followed the stream up some rods. Here and there a tree had been
-cut at least a year ago, but there were no further signs of
-settlement, not even a blazed trail. He made a wide circle with a
-radius of a mile and came back to the clearing, unable to cherish
-any more hope. This clearing was all the settlement there was.
-
-He looked at it disconsolately. It was untidy and studded with
-stumps. All around its edges great heaps of logs and brush had been
-piled up. South of the former house these had burned, and the fire
-had penetrated for some distance into the woods, probably catching
-from the dwelling. At the farthest end of the clearing there were
-about three acres of struggling green, the green of some
-autumn-planted grain. Other green sprouts showed near the
-ruin—perhaps the relics of a garden. It was not in the least the
-sort of homestead he had pictured from his cousins’ descriptions,
-and he thought rather indignantly of the exaggerated accounts they
-had given him.
-
-He poked over the rubbish again. The ashes were full of nails and
-screws, bits of glass, and bits of iron. He picked up the old
-ax-head, and thought of taking it with him. It would be better than
-nothing, perhaps, in collecting firewood; but he decided that it was
-too heavy to carry. He put the torn and stained copy of “Ivanhoe” in
-his pocket; it would be something to read. Nothing else seemed to be
-of the slightest value to him.
-
-There was no use in lingering about the place any longer. He turned
-back irresolutely through the woods, and headed toward the river.
-Ricks of dead driftwood were piled along its rocky banks. A couple
-of swimming muskrats dived in a circle of ripples as he came up. Tom
-paused, and as he stood there a lithe black form popped up between
-two logs within twenty yards.
-
-It was a mink, and a large one. Almost instinctively he put up his
-rifle and drew a bead on the little fur-bearer’s head. It was
-broadside to him, but it was a small mark to hit at that distance,
-and a bullet anywhere but in the head would ruin the pelt. He aimed
-long, expecting it to dodge away, but it vanished only at the
-report.
-
-He hardly hoped to have hit, but he found it on the other side of
-the log, almost decapitated. It was a nearly black pelt and in prime
-condition. If it had been trapped it might have been worth twenty
-dollars, but the mangled head would reduce its value. He carefully
-wiped the fur, however, and skinned the animal, reflecting that this
-would help pay the expenses of his ill-starred venture.
-
-He rolled up the skin temporarily and put it in his pocket, till he
-should have time to stretch it, and continued his way down the
-stream. There were plenty of traces of fur everywhere. He saw
-several more muskrats though no more of the shy minks. But the signs
-showed that there were minks there in abundance, and there were
-probably martins in the woods, foxes, skunks, and perhaps sables and
-fishers. Dave had said that there was plenty of fur in the district,
-and he had been right in this, at any rate.
-
-It would be a splendid place for a winter’s trapping, Tom thought,
-and he almost regretted that it was not November instead of April.
-The trapping season was almost over now. It crossed his mind that he
-might stop here for the remainder of it and make what he could. But
-he had no traps, no grub, none of the necessary camping outfit.
-
-He followed the stream down to the lake, and turned up the shore to
-the spot where he had landed the day before. His dunnage sack was
-still safe in the tree fork. He opened it and got out the camp
-cooking outfit of nested aluminum that he had packed in Toronto.
-There were salt and pepper boxes, both luckily full, and he put
-these in his pocket, hesitated, and then walked back over the shore
-to the old barn again.
-
-Here he relighted the fire, skinned the rabbit, and set the quarters
-to roast on forked sticks. He was voraciously hungry after the long
-walk and his insufficient breakfast. While the meat was browning he
-carefully cleaned the fat from the mink skin and stretched it on a
-bent twig, and then devoured half the hare, gnawing the bones,
-sitting back on his pile of hay.
-
-Despite salt and pepper, it was rather dry and flavorless, but the
-meat heartened him wonderfully. He felt equal now to starting on the
-tramp to Oakley. He could make fully half the distance to-day, and
-finish it to-morrow. He would, however, have to abandon his dunnage.
-He might be able to send for it, but it was a poor chance.
-
-He hesitated, reluctant to go. He crumbled the hay in his hands. It
-was good hay—wild rich grass from the flats where the beavers of old
-time had their pond. Dave must have made a good profit out of this
-hay, he reflected, glancing over the brown meadow beyond him. There
-were perhaps eight or ten acres of it, a long oval, with the remains
-of the old beaver dam still visible at the lower end. Evidently it
-had been mowed last summer, and this wild hay always brings a good
-price at the winter lumber camps.
-
-“This meadow would make ten tons easily,” he said to himself;
-“likely more. It’ll bear over a hundred dollars’ worth of hay this
-summer, and nobody to cut it. If I want some easy farming, here’s my
-chance.”
-
-The idea came to him carelessly, but it suddenly assumed weight. He
-could make something more by trapping in the next few weeks—at least
-another hundred dollars.
-
-“It’ll be hard luck if I can’t get rabbits and birds enough to live
-on,” he muttered. “There’ll be trout soon, too. It’s getting warm.
-This old barn would be a good enough place to live in.”
-
-The hay would have to be mowed in July. He would have to cut it,
-turn it over, and stack it entirely by hand, but he knew he could
-sell it in the stack as it stood. Living here would cost hardly
-anything. At the end of the summer he could go back to Toronto with
-a hundred dollars or so to show for his time.
-
-Or why should he not stay up here till Christmas for the early
-winter trapping? It would be more profitable than playing foot-ball;
-and he could spare the time, for he was going to have to take his
-last year’s collegiate work over again anyhow. For that matter, why
-should he not keep control of this homestead? It was assuredly
-abandoned. It had a clearing, at least one building, some grain
-planted, a field of hay. He had wished for such a forest farm. Here
-was one at least partly made to his hand. He would be eighteen years
-old that summer, and eligible to take a government homestead grant.
-If Uncle Phil had made no sign by that time he could apply to have
-the rights transferred to himself, and he was perfectly certain that
-his relatives had no intention of ever resuming possession.
-
-He laughed to himself, but with a new thrill of hope. All sorts of
-possibilities seemed suddenly to be opening out, just when things
-had looked blackest. He got up and walked back toward the river,
-thinking hard, more and more fascinated by his scheme. It was wild
-enough, but almost anything was better than creeping back in
-humiliation to Toronto. There was pulp-wood on the place too, which
-he could cut in his spare time. As for the land itself, it did not
-promise extraordinary fertility. Much of it was rocky, and the
-stunted growth of the trees indicated poor soil. Just south of the
-barn ran an immense ridge of gravel lightly overgrown with white
-birches. But Tom did not at that moment dwell much on the actual
-details of agriculture.
-
-He went down to the lake shore and brought his dunnage sack up to
-the old barn. It was a heavy load to carry on his shoulder, and he
-had no tump-line; but he dropped it at the barn-door at last, aching
-and played out, so that he had to drop on the hay and rest. He was
-getting out of training, he told himself.
-
-When he had recovered breath, he began to unpack his belongings.
-Without having definitely pronounced a decision to stay here, he
-went on acting as if the decision had been made. To stop a day or
-two would do no harm anyway, he thought, if he could pick up food
-enough; and he went into the log barn to see what could be done with
-it.
-
-It could be turned into a shack that would at least be good enough
-for the summer, he thought. The chinks between the logs would not
-matter much, and he could stop the worst of them with moss. Clearing
-away all the loose hay at the farther end disclosed a pile of loose
-boards, which would be useful for patching. He might build a
-partition across one portion of the building. Under the hay were
-also a long piece of very good rope, a bit of chain and a broken
-pitchfork, and a number of loose nails. There were plenty of other
-nails in the fire wreck.
-
-Growing interested, Tom made a huge broom of spruce branches and
-swept out the litter from the floored portion of the barn and
-brushed down the walls. There was a hole in the roof just above. He
-climbed up with a board or two and contrived to cover it in a
-temporary fashion. In one corner of the old stalls he fitted a rude
-bunk and filled it with hay. Unpacking his dunnage, he spread the
-blankets he had used on camping trips before, and hung up his
-clothing, his aluminum cooking utensils, the few odds and ends he
-had brought with him.
-
-After this, he tramped over to the burned cabin to look for nails.
-There were plenty; he quickly filled his pocket, but they were
-fire-killed and brittle. They would be of some use, however, and he
-secured the old ax-head also. The broken iron pot struck him as
-still having possibilities; the lower half at any rate could be
-used. He came upon an old tin plate that had not been burned. It
-might have been the dog’s dish, kept outdoors; but he was not too
-proud to take it; and, laden with this junk, he returned to the barn
-again.
-
-The glow of the fire and the blowing smoke as he came up, and the
-litter of his activities gave him a queer thrill of home. In a
-couple of days more, he promised himself, it would look still more
-homelike.
-
-He scoured out the rusty pot with sand and water, and cleaned the
-tin plate in the same way. The ax-head was in bad condition, but
-with two of the hardest stones he could find he ground laboriously
-at the edge until some sharpness was restored. The temper was
-entirely out of the metal, and so he heated it dull-red in the fire
-and then dropped it into cold water. After this hardening he again
-ground the edge and reheated it, this time to a brighter red, and
-again cooled it suddenly. This treatment produced a rough sort of
-temper. The edge held at any rate, and Tom shaped a crude, straight
-handle from an ironwood sapling.
-
-Rough as it was, this ax was an immense and immediate help. He
-chopped up a supply of firewood with very little difficulty and was
-delighted to find that the edge did not blunt. If anything, he had
-made the steel too hard; it had chipped a little.
-
-His foraging about the ruin had been so successful that he
-determined to go back on the morrow and turn over the ashes
-thoroughly. There might be many more things that would be useful.
-The most worthless rubbish took on astonishing value in his complete
-destitution, and he found an extraordinary pleasure in thus
-salvaging broken junk and making use of it.
-
-His mind recurred to the fur trade. By lying in wait along the creek
-he might shoot an odd mink, but this was a most uncertain and
-wasteful method. He thought of figure-four traps, of deadfalls.
-
-These are seldom very successful where fur animals are shy and much
-trapped, but in this unfrequented spot he thought they might work.
-He split up one of the pine boards and whittled out half a dozen
-sets of figure-fours, which would fall to pieces at a touch of the
-baited spindle.
-
-Half a dozen whiskey-jacks had been squalling about the roof of the
-barn for hours, and he shot one of them for bait. He set two of his
-deadfalls beside the tiny creek in the beaver meadow, where there
-were muskrat signs, building a little inclosure of stakes and logs
-with a heavy timber supported over the entrance on the figure-four
-spring. Going through the woods to the river, he set four more traps
-along the shore, close to the driftwood where the minks were sure to
-pass.
-
-It was growing late in the afternoon, and he was hungry again.
-Remembering that he had nothing eatable but half a rabbit, for which
-he felt no appetite, he made a circuit through the woods in the hope
-of picking up a grouse. He did start up several; three of them
-perched on a tree and sat in full view, craning their necks stupidly
-to look at him, but he managed to make a clean miss, and they went
-off with a scared roar of wings. With a shot-gun he might have
-bagged half a dozen; but no more sitting shots presented themselves,
-and he came back to the barn empty-handed.
-
-The sky had clouded over, and a raw April wind blew. Twilight fell
-drearily over the bare woods and the black spruces. Tom cooked his
-rabbit and ate it without any great relish. He was very tired, and
-felt once more filled with indecision and distress. More than ever
-it seemed madness to attempt to remain in this place indefinitely.
-To make the discomfort worse, the wind changed so that it drove the
-fire toward the barn. He had to put it out, lest the building should
-catch fire. Vainly he longed for an interior hearth so that he could
-heat the place, but he got into his bunk, piled all his blankets and
-spare clothing over himself, and shivered for some time, but
-eventually went to sleep.
-
-He awoke about sunrise, feeling stiff and cold. Once more he felt
-that he had been a fool to stay here even as long as this. Already
-he might have been back in Oakley, headed for Toronto.
-
-He built up the fire and warmed himself. There were some scraps of
-rabbit left from last night, and he ate them morosely, feeling that
-he had carried a diet of rabbit about as far as it would go. This
-morning he would have to pick up something better; afterward he
-would plan his retreat to Oakley, and when he had finished the
-scanty meal he took up his rifle and started toward the river, where
-he had set the deadfalls.
-
-He had a stroke of luck at once. Coming quietly out by the stream he
-espied four ducks on the water close to the shore. It was not more
-than twenty yards, and he knocked over one, and missed with a second
-bullet; then the birds went splashing and squawking away through the
-air.
-
-He retrieved the duck with a long stick, hung it on his belt and
-walked up the shore. The first of his traps was untouched. The
-second was sprung and the bait taken, but the animal had eluded the
-falling log. Tom reset it, rebaiting it with the head of the duck.
-He had not much faith in his deadfalls, but the next one was down
-and had a muskrat in it—a dark, sleek pelt, quite flattened with the
-weight of the heavy timber.
-
-Tom was unreasonably elated over his prize. It showed that his traps
-were good for something after all, and it ran through his mind that
-he might set a whole string of them up and down the river. He
-skinned the musquash and put the pelt in his pocket; then he walked
-slowly up the shore, on the lookout for more ducks.
-
-He saw no more, but, turning into the woods, he managed to pick a
-partridge out of a tree. He followed his former trail toward the
-burned cabin, for he wanted to look over the ruins again for
-something useful. He laid down his rifle and game, and pulled the
-burned timbers apart pretty thoroughly. He took out a number of good
-boards that might some time be of service, and found a broken cup,
-an unbroken saucer, and a useless table knife, but nothing else that
-was worth taking away.
-
-Walking about the clearing, however, he made a much more important
-find. He observed a slight mound of earth, some scattered boards and
-straw almost filling a depression in the ground, and he guessed that
-it was a last year’s potato pit. It had been emptied, of course, but
-Tom burrowed about among the earth and straw at the bottom and was
-rewarded by finding, one by one, nearly a peck of rather small
-scattered potatoes.
-
-He yelled with delight. He had grown terribly nauseated with a meat
-diet. His mouth watered at the sight of these grubby little spuds.
-Taking off his coat, he wrapped them up sack wise in it, and started
-back immediately for his barn, which already had come to be home.
-
-He had a real dinner that day—wild duck roasted in fragments, and
-potatoes baked in the ashes and eaten with salt and grease from the
-duck. Nothing had ever seemed so delicious. There might be still
-more potatoes in the pit—possibly some other vegetables. Stimulated
-by the food, his courage revived again, and he definitely resolved
-to stay here at least until the end of the spring trapping season.
-If necessary he could tramp down to Oakley and exchange a pelt or
-two for flour, pork, and sugar. As for a longer stay, there would be
-time to decide upon that later.
-
-He went back that afternoon to the burned cabin to look for more
-potatoes, but, after turning the pit thoroughly out, he found only
-three. He shot a rabbit, however, that had come out of the woods to
-nibble at the sprouting grain in the clearing, and with the potatoes
-in his pocket and the rabbit at his belt he walked across to the
-river and down the shore.
-
-A half a mile down, the stream broke into a series of rapids,
-swirling among black boulders. The rocks and piled drift logs at the
-foot of the rapids looked like a good place for mink, and he stopped
-to examine the “sign.” Minks and musquashes dwelt there, surely;
-their traces were abundant. He sat down on a log, looking the place
-over, considering where he might construct a few deadfalls, when he
-was startled by the sudden appearance of a canoe at the head of the
-rapid above him.
-
-It shot into sight like an arrow, steered by a single paddler, a
-dark-faced young fellow, with a big pack piled amidships. The
-canoeman had not seen him; his whole attention was fixed on running
-the rapid; he was half-way down it, going like a flash, when Tom
-foolishly sprang up and shouted from the shore.
-
-The paddler cast a quick, startled glance aside, and it was his
-undoing. The canoe swerved, and capsized with the suddenness of
-winking. Tom caught a glimpse of the overturned keel darting past
-him. The man had gone out of sight in the smother of spray and foam;
-then Tom saw him come up in the swirl of the tail of the rapid,
-struggling feebly.
-
-The water was not waist-deep, and Tom rushed in and dragged him out.
-It was a young Indian, half choked and perhaps partly stunned, but
-not drowned by any means. He coughed and kicked when Tom deposited
-him on the shore; and, seeing, that he was safe, Tom made another
-plunge and rescued the big bale of goods that was drifting fast
-down-stream. The capsized canoe had lodged against a big
-half-submerged log lower down, and was secure for the time being.
-
-[Illustration: Tom rushed in and dragged him out]
-
-Returning to his Indian, he found him sitting up, looking dazed and
-angry, and spitting out water. It was a young fellow of about Tom’s
-own age, wearing a Mackinaw coat and trousers, and a battered felt
-hat which had stuck to his head, and he looked at Tom with intensely
-black and angry eyes.
-
-“Hello! Feeling better?” Tom cried.
-
-The Indian boy spluttered a rapid mixture of unintelligible French
-and Ojibway.
-
-“What you do that for?” he swerved into English. “You make me
-upset—mos’ drown. I lose canoe—pelts—gun—everyt’ing.”
-
-“Oh no. I got your stuff ashore, and there’s your canoe yonder,”
-said Tom. “Sorry I scared you. I shouldn’t have called out, but
-there’s nothing lost, anyway.”
-
-The Indian got to his feet, went dripping to the rescued pack, and
-turned it over carefully.
-
-“All right, eh? Merci,” he said, his anger dying out. “All my winter
-trapping here. Thought heem sure lost. Say, you live here? What your
-name?”
-
-“Tom Jackson. Yes, I guess I live here.”
-
-“You good fellow, Tom. Me, I’m Charlie. Say, must make a fire,
-quick.”
-
-Both of them were drenched and shivering, and the breeze was cold.
-
-“Come along over to my camp. Fire there,” said Tom. “We’ll put your
-canoe safe first.”
-
-They pulled the canoe high and dry, rescuing a shot-gun that was
-tied in it, and then the two boys took up the heavy pack and started
-across the ridge to the old barn.
-
-The fire was still smoldering, and Tom built it up to a roaring
-flame. He hastened to change his wet clothes for dry ones; but
-Charlie, who had no other clothes, merely stood in the heat until he
-steamed like a kettle, finally becoming passably dry. He said there
-was tea in his pack, however, and Tom hastened to get it out. There
-was a little sugar, too; and they hastened to boil the tea, and
-drank great mugs of the hot, strong, sweet beverage, the first hot
-drink Tom had had for several days.
-
-As Charlie thawed out he explained that he belonged to an Ojibway
-village north of Oakley, but he had been trapping far in the
-northwest with two friends all winter. They had taken another route
-home; he was returning this way alone with his fur pack, and after
-selling the plunder he was going to spend the summer at his village.
-The boy had been partly educated at a mission station. He spoke both
-English and French in some fashion, frequently mixing them, and when
-excited he combined them with his native tongue in a manner that
-would have shattered the nerves of a philologist.
-
-He presently opened up his pack of furs, and Tom was astonished at
-the showing. There were nearly fifty minks, scores of muskrats,
-besides skunks, sables, foxes, fishers, and weasels. Altogether
-there must have been upward of a thousand dollars’ worth of peltry,
-and all the skins were taken off, cured, and stretched with a
-neatness that showed the boy an expert at his craft. There were
-several deer hides also, and one bearskin. Charlie told a great tale
-of how they had smoked the bear out of his winter nest.
-
-“You trap, too,” he said, his eye lighting on Tom’s single mink
-skin. “Good pelt, if it ain’t shot. Too bad. Ain’t stretched right
-neither. You git mebbe seven dollar.”
-
-“More than that,” said Tom. “Look here, you want to trade? I’ll swap
-you that pelt for some of your traps and grub and—what else you
-got?”
-
-“Dunno,” said Charlie cunningly. “What you want?”
-
-The boys plunged into a war of bargaining, in which the Indian
-patience wore out the white nerve. In the end Tom secured four good
-steel traps, a little tea and sugar and flour from the remains of
-Charlie’s provisions, and a box of matches, in exchange for the mink
-and the muskrat skin, an old pair of trousers, and a brilliant red
-and green necktie which irresistibly took Charlie’s fancy.
-
-When it was over Charlie thawed out still more, and his black eyes
-twinkled as he looked over his acquisitions.
-
-“Tom, you good fellow. Say, I show you how to trap. You git heap
-mink here.”
-
-Charlie kept his promise. He stayed three days, looked the field
-over, and gave Tom quantities of concise expert advice where to set
-his traps and what bait to use. He expounded deadfalls to him—how to
-lay blood trails along a trap line, how to stretch and cure the
-pelts properly. Altogether his instructions were worth almost as
-much as his traps, and during his stay Tom caught another mink and
-two muskrats. The boys grew to be great friends in those days, and
-then Charlie collected his property again and launched his canoe.
-
-“_Bo’ jour_, Tom!” he said. “You good fellow. I see you again some
-time, mebbe.”
-
-He went off down the stream, the red and green tie fluttering over
-his shoulder. Tom hated to see him go. The old barn by the lake
-seemed doubly lonesome now, but the visit had given him the dose of
-fresh courage he needed to carry out his enterprise.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER III
-
-                           THE FISH SHARP
-
-
-It rained all the next day—a cold, dismal rain that was enough to
-depress anybody’s spirits. The fire sizzled and smoked, sending
-choking clouds into the old barn, where Tom had to keep under cover.
-He employed himself in putting a better edge on the broken ax, and
-in trying to reharden some of the old nails he had gathered. Before
-another rain could come, he decided, he would construct some sort of
-shed over his fireplace, so that it would be water-tight.
-
-Getting out the old boards from the rear of the barn, he put up a
-partial, rough partition so as to make a room about fifteen feet
-square near the door. Almost destitute of tools, he made a poor job
-of it, but it helped to pass a dreary day. When the rain slackened
-once or twice he made brief excursions into the wet woods with his
-rifle, returning once with a partridge and once with a rabbit. In
-the bad weather the game lay close and was not shy.
-
-But the next morning the weather had turned mild and sunny and
-seemed likely to stay so. Visiting his traps late in the afternoon,
-he found two minks in the steel traps, and a muskrat under one of
-the deadfalls. He was greatly encouraged and prepared the pelts with
-the utmost pains, according to Indian Charlie’s directions.
-
-Cold as the rain had seemed, yet it brought the spring. The birches
-on the ridge began to be shrouded in a mist of pale green, the
-maples showed crimson buds, and the patch of struggling grain in the
-old clearing began to come on vigorously. Apparently it was autumn
-rye, and Tom began to look at it with more interest. It would be yet
-another small source of profit, if he stayed to harvest it.
-
-Spring came on with the magical swiftness of the North. Leaves
-sprang from the trees. The snow water left the river, trout began to
-rise, and Tom got out his fishing-tackle and secured a welcome
-variation of diet. He needed it, for the last of Charlie’s flour and
-sugar went quickly, and at last he was absolutely driven to make the
-long-projected trip to Oakley. It was a wearisome tramp and worse
-still on the return; for he came back on the fourth day, carrying
-thirty pounds on his shoulders—bacon, tea, salt, flour, sugar, a saw
-and hammer. After his solitude, Oakley had seemed almost
-metropolitan, and the village was indeed unusually astir, for a big
-dam was to be built there for a paper-pulp factory, and the place
-was full of imported laborers.
-
-The old clearing looked almost like home when he got back. He found
-four trapped muskrats and a mink. Nothing had disturbed his
-possessions. The grass was beginning to sprout in the old beaver
-meadow, and the determination grew in him that he would never give
-the place up. He felt sure that nobody would claim it now, and in a
-few months he could file homestead papers for it himself. In the
-autumn he could return to Toronto and continue his collegiate work
-during the winter. He would plant more grain and clear more land. If
-Oakley should happen to boom into an industrial town, the claim
-might become very valuable.
-
-He continued his improvements upon the old barn till it had some
-suggestion of real comfort. He tended his traps assiduously, making
-the most of the short remainder of the season. He lived roughly and
-worked hard, living on flour cakes, meat, and fish, and drinking
-water. He was a poor cook; he grew very sick of this monotonous
-diet, and there were times when he would have traded the best of his
-mink pelts for an apple-pie. There were dreary days of cold spring
-rain—once of flurrying snow—days that held him idle indoors, when he
-grew half mad with loneliness and discouragement.
-
-The trapping season came to an end. For some time he had noticed
-that the fur was deteriorating. He had not done quite so well as he
-had hoped, but he had seven minks, sixteen muskrats, two raccoons,
-and a fox pelt. With a little luck he might have had a bearskin, for
-he caught sight of the animal in plain view within fifty yards, but
-his rifle happened to be back at the cabin.
-
-He had grown thin, wiry, brown, and bright-eyed. He had never been
-in such training before, and when he started to Oakley with his fur
-he had no difficulty in making the journey in a little more than a
-day. The local storekeeper took advantage of the fact that Tom’s
-furs were all not thoroughly dried to drive a hard bargain; but the
-boy finally secured $180, most of which he was expected to take in
-trade. Goods were what he needed, however, and he laid in a stock of
-food, ammunition, a new ax, a spade, and a number of miscellanies,
-together with what few books he could pick up. It was far too much
-to pack back to his farm, and he invested another twelve dollars in
-a second-hand canoe—a very dilapidated and much-patched Peterboro,
-which looked sound enough for all practical purposes.
-
-In this craft he made the trip back a great deal more quickly and
-comfortably than he had come down. It was late in the afternoon when
-he turned up into the little river, now much shrunken, paddled up to
-his trapping ground, put the canoe ashore, and struggled over the
-ridges with his load of supplies. The old barn stood as he had left
-it, but when he approached the door he received a shock.
-
-Some one had been there—indeed, more than one person. The door,
-which he had left closed, was half open, and there were fresh
-footmarks all about the place. Tom hastily glanced over his
-possessions. They showed traces of having been disturbed, but so far
-as he could see nothing was missing. The tracks, going and coming,
-pointed toward the lake, and at least two persons had made them. He
-could detect one moccasin track, and one showing the print of
-leather heels.
-
-It was growing dusk by that time, and Tom was too tired to follow up
-the trail. After satisfying himself that nothing had been stolen, he
-unpacked his fresh supplies and reëstablished himself, cooked his
-supper, and went to his blankets early.
-
-Being tired, he slept later than usual, and on arising his mind at
-once recurred to his late visitors. He got through breakfast
-hurriedly and, taking his rifle, started to follow up the trail
-toward the lake.
-
-It was hard to follow, for the weather had been dry and the ground
-was hard. The carpet of pine and spruce leaves under the trees left
-little sign, but Tom got the general direction of the trail, picked
-it up at intervals, and finally came out on the shore. Some distance
-down the beach he caught a faint curl of smoke. Hastening that way,
-he came upon the camp.
-
-There was a small gray canvas tent, a half-dead fire, cooking
-apparatus scattered about, a pair of wet trousers hung up to dry,
-but no one in sight. Tom called but got no answer. It was, he
-judged, the camp of a trout-fishing party, and they were probably
-somewhere out on the water. Then he caught sight of a boat drawn
-half ashore and went down to look at it.
-
-It was a flat-bottomed punt, a most unusual craft for the north
-woods, but it had a more unusual feature still. A square foot of the
-bottom had been cut out and a glass-bottomed box inserted. Tom
-perceived its purpose at once. He had seen the like before. It is a
-device adopted by nature students for looking into the depths of
-clear water; but he had not expected to find a naturalist on the
-Coboconk lakes.
-
-Considerably puzzled, he looked up and down the water and thought he
-made out the shape of a floating canoe far up at the end of Big
-Coboconk, but he was not sure. Again he shouted two or three times,
-and at last he went back to his own place again. Crossing the
-gravelly ridge below the barn, he saw the footprints clearly, and
-saw too that some one had dug into the gravel and had driven deep
-holes as if with an iron bar. Prospecting, perhaps. There was
-mineral in the district, Tom knew. He wondered if there might be a
-mine on his property. But, if there had been one, Cousin Dave would
-surely have discovered it; for Dave had done a good deal of
-prospecting, though without any great success.
-
-Tom half expected another visit from the strange campers that day
-and kept within sight of his dwelling, but no one appeared. On the
-following morning he went over to the river, got his canoe, and
-paddled down to the lake. He went slowly up through the narrows into
-the bigger lake, and saw, as he had rather expected, two boats lying
-a quarter of a mile ahead and not far from the shore.
-
-One was a canoe, with a single man in it, doing nothing. The other
-boat, the punt, looked empty at that distance, but as he watched it
-a man’s head and shoulders rose out of it and then sank again. The
-canoeman, leaning over, shoved the punt ahead a little.
-
-Tom paddled quickly up, highly interested. The canoeman turned and
-looked, and then the occupant of the punt rose out of his crouching
-position in the bottom. He was a tall man of middle age, with a
-black mustache and a square jaw. He was roughly dressed as any
-woodsman, yet somehow he did not seem quite to belong to the
-wilderness. His assistant was a much less pleasing individual, an
-unmistakable frontiersman, rough and slovenly, with a shock of
-grizzled reddish hair, and a surly and suspicious face.
-
-“Hello!” called the punter, in answer to Tom’s hail. “Where’d you
-come from? Camping? Fishing?”
-
-“No, I live back yonder,” said Tom, indicating the direction. “I
-think you paid a call there the other day. I was away at Oakley.
-
-“Oh!” exclaimed the other. “I thought that was Jackson’s homestead.”
-
-“Yes. I’m Tom Jackson,” returned Tom, quietly.
-
-Both men looked at the boy curiously.
-
-“Well, my name’s Harrison,” said the man in the punt. “This is Dan
-McLeod, my guide. Is there anybody at your ranch?”
-
-“I’m there,” Tom assured him, growing somehow uneasy.
-
-“Yes, but your father? Or any of the rest?”
-
-“Why, they’re all away for a while,” Tom explained cautiously. “The
-house got burned, you see.”
-
-“And in the meantime you’re holding down their homestead for them?”
-
-“I surely am,” said Tom firmly. “Sorry I missed you the other day.
-Are you on a fishing trip yourself, or—what?” with a curious glance
-at the glass-bottomed boat.
-
-Harrison laughed.
-
-“Want to see? Take a look, then.”
-
-Tom leaned over and tried to look, finally getting into the punt and
-putting his face close to the glass plate. The water, though deep,
-was extremely clear, and the stones and sunken logs could be seen
-distinctly on the floor of the lake.
-
-“Naturalist?” he inquired.
-
-“Ichthyologist—fish sharp,” said Harrison, nodding. “I’m writing a
-series of articles for a sporting paper on fly-fishing, and I’m
-experimenting to see how different flies actually look when seen
-through water. See here.”
-
-And he hauled up from the water a long gut cast, decorated with a
-number of trout and bass flies placed at short intervals.
-
-“Studying baits from the point of view of the fish,” he went on. “At
-the same time I observe the movements of the fish while feeding.”
-
-Tom looked at this apparatus with considerable respect.
-
-“Are you writing for one of the Toronto papers?” he asked. “I know
-most of them.”
-
-“Are you from Toronto?” said Harrison quickly. “You’re not by chance
-related to Jackson the lumber merchant there, are you?”
-
-“Why—er—yes, I am some relation of his,” returned Tom, embarrassed.
-He bent to look through the glass again, and a memory of a legend of
-the Coboconk lakes came into his mind.
-
-“Haven’t seen anything of the lost raft down there, have you?” he
-inquired, laughingly.
-
-“Never heard of it. What is it?”
-
-“Your guide ought to know, if he belongs to this district. Why, a
-raft of valuable timber—black walnut—was sunk and lost on this lake
-twenty-five or thirty years ago. Everybody has taken a look for it
-but it’s never been located.”
-
-“Sunk? Why, timber floats, doesn’t it?” said Harrison puzzled.
-
-“Not walnut, unless it’s buoyed with some lighter wood. This raft,
-they say, was cut by the Wilson Lumber Company. It was floated with
-pine logs, but it got caught in a storm, broke up, and the walnut
-went to the bottom—nobody knows where.”
-
-The “fish sharp” looked rather quizzically at him, as if he
-suspected a joke.
-
-“Some catch in that, isn’t there?” he said. “Never heard of dry wood
-sinking before. I’d as soon expect to see an ax float.”
-
-As a matter of fact, however, the thing had happened exactly as Tom
-had said. The “lost raft” had become a tradition of the Coboconk
-lakes. It was Dave Jackson who had told Tom the story, and Dave had
-searched for traces of the walnut himself. Tom also had thought of
-having a look for it when he had nothing else to do. But the
-lumbering off of the heavy timber had, as usual, affected the
-watercourses, and the lake had shrunk somewhat and changed its
-configuration considerably in the last twenty years, so that nobody
-now knew exactly where the raft had started from shore. The lake had
-a sandy and soft bottom, and it was probable that the scattered logs
-had long since sunk deep in the ooze. Experts said, however, that
-the timber would not be injured by its long immersion.
-
-“Well, if you happen to see a pile of walnut logs on the bottom, I
-advise you to hook your line on them,” said Tom, laughing. “It was a
-big raft, and they say that at present prices it would be worth a
-hundred thousand dollars.”
-
-The ichthyologist gave a cheerfully incredulous laugh, and the
-sullen-faced guide grinned. Tom paddled away.
-
-“Come up and see me again when I’m home,” he shouted over his
-shoulder, and Harrison called an acceptance, diving immediately
-afterward into the bottom of his boat to peer through the glass
-window.
-
-Tom expected to see his visit returned, but day after day passed in
-solitude. Twice he went down to the lake but could see nothing of
-the sporting writer and his guide, though the camp was still there
-and showed that it was occupied. The weather turned unseasonably
-warm, almost hot. Birches and maples were in full leaf, and
-mosquitoes began to be troublesome. Once Tom thought he saw human
-figures moving about the thickets down toward the lake shore, but no
-one came near his shack for a week. Then one afternoon Harrison and
-McLeod tramped in from the woods.
-
-“Hello,” Harrison greeted him. “Sorry we couldn’t get up to see you
-sooner. But we’re going away to-morrow, and I thought we’d just say
-good-by.”
-
-“Finished your fish experiments?” Tom asked.
-
-“Yes—got some good fresh material. I think I’ll make a hit with my
-articles.”
-
-They sat down in front of the old barn in the sunshine. Harrison and
-his guide lighted pipes, and for some time they chatted casually.
-
-“By the way,” said Harrison at last, “how far does this claim of
-yours extend? What’s its boundary?”
-
-“Why, down to the lake,” Tom responded, though he was by no means
-sure of it.
-
-“I see. I suppose you wouldn’t care to sell the place?”
-
-“I couldn’t. It’s my uncle’s.”
-
-“Yes, but he seems to have abandoned it. You’ve taken it over. Isn’t
-that how it stands? I don’t think your cultivation and improvements
-would satisfy the government land agents, though. I don’t know
-exactly what your legal position is, but I might pay you something
-for them, whatever they are, on condition that you turn the ranch
-over to me at once.”
-
-“What in the world do you want of it?” Tom demanded.
-
-“It would make a good fishing camp,” Harrison returned.
-
-There were a dozen places along the lake that were as good, Tom knew
-well. He had a strong revival of the queer suspicion that had
-associated itself with these strangers. He thought again of the
-drill-holes he had found in the sand and gravel. There was something
-behind Harrison’s offer.
-
-“I certainly couldn’t do anything till I’ve seen Uncle Phil or the
-boys,” he said firmly. “They might turn up any day; I can’t tell. I
-can let you know if they do.”
-
-“All right,” returned the other, with an air of indifference. “It’s
-not an important matter. But your uncle’ll never be back. I heard at
-Oakley that he’d left the county. I’d pay a few hundred dollars to
-have the place turned over to me, so I could start building a camp.
-Fact is, I think I could sell it to a city fishing club for a good
-price. Well, do as you like. I’ll be at Oakley for a while. Come and
-see me if you’re there.”
-
-Tom bade them good-by with an appearance of cordiality and
-confidence, but inwardly he was in a turmoil of excitement. Harrison
-had discovered something valuable on this claim; he felt sure of it.
-Perhaps his scientific investigations into the water had been only a
-blind. For a moment Tom thought of the lost raft of walnut. But this
-would be in the lake, if anywhere, and Harrison’s interest was in
-the land. It must be mineral. Tom thought of gold and silver,
-graphite and mica, iron and nickel—all of them found now and again
-in that district. He hardly dared to go out prospecting just then
-himself; he gave the other party plenty of time to get away, and
-passed that evening in perplexed planning. But the next morning at
-sunrise he hurried down to the gravel ridges where he had seen the
-traces of Harrison’s digging.
-
-First of all he assured himself that the camp was broken and the
-intruders really gone. All along the sand of the shore he saw places
-where they had been probing deep, as if with an iron bar. But most
-of these traces lay farther back. A gravelly ridge, overgrown with
-small birches, showed marks of having been prospected from end to
-end.
-
-Tom knew little of prospecting, but he did know that gold was the
-only sort of valuable mineral that could possibly be found in that
-bank of sand and gravel. He went back to camp for a cooking pan, and
-with excited hopes he began to examine and wash out the possibly
-precious sand.
-
-A tiny rivulet cutting across the ridge supplied him with water. He
-swirled the stuff in his pan, throwing out the gravel by degrees,
-peering eagerly into the bottom for the faintest yellow glitter. But
-there seemed to be nothing but mere sand and gravel. He went from
-place to place, washing out samples here and there with such
-scrupulous care that he felt sure he could have detected the tiniest
-flake of metal. He worked from one end of the ridge to the other but
-could find no trace of anything but ordinary gravel.
-
-He stopped, deeply disappointed. Still, he had by no means looked
-over his whole claim. Some of the rocks, some of the hills might
-show the outcrop of something valuable. He would have to prospect
-the whole place; and then a fact came to him that threw out all his
-calculations.
-
-If a discovery of mineral can be made and proved, a claim may be
-staked out anywhere, even on homesteaded land. If Harrison had found
-mineral he had nothing to do but stake his claim. The rights of none
-of the Jacksons could have interfered with him at all, and he could
-have had no object in wishing to oust Tom from the property.
-
-It could not be mineral that Harrison had found. Again Tom thought
-of the sunken raft, and dismissed the notion. He sat on the ground,
-idly stirring up the gravel with his foot. It reminded him of the
-enormous heaps of gravel he had seen piled at Oakley for the
-concrete work on the new dams. Wagons were hauling it ten miles, he
-had heard; there were no good gravel deposits nearer. And then it
-flashed upon him that this gravel itself was perhaps the mineral
-that Harrison wanted.
-
-What was more likely? This great bank of thousands of cubic feet lay
-near the lake and could be floated down the river on flatboats and
-unloaded right at the required spot, almost without expense for
-transportation. Tom felt certain that he had hit on the truth. A
-gravel quarry cannot be staked like a mining claim; it goes with the
-homestead rights.
-
-And then Tom remembered that he had no rights in the place at all;
-and what the rights of his uncle or of Dave were in the deserted
-farm he did not know. But he firmly determined to hold on to that
-valuable ground with all his might. What it might be worth he could
-not guess, but several thousand dollars’ worth of gravel and sand
-ought to come out of that quarry, and the cement workers at Oakley
-could use it all.
-
-Tom spent the next two days in great perturbation and anxiety. He
-was tempted to paddle down to Oakley and to make inquiry of every
-man in the place for information regarding Uncle Phil; but he
-disliked leaving the claim. Harrison might somehow steal a march
-upon him. Those days passed slowly and anxiously. A hot wave swept
-over the wilderness, as often happens in early spring. The woods
-grew dry and smoky through the spring green. Tom slept outside his
-cabin for greater coolness. And then on the third day he saw a man
-coming up from the lake, and recognized Harrison’s guide, McLeod.
-
-McLeod, carrying a rifle under his arm, came up and greeted the boy
-with a curt nod. Tom felt that some crisis was approaching, and
-gathered his wits.
-
-“I thought you and Harrison had gone back to Oakley,” he said.
-
-“Left Harrison there,” said McLeod. “I come back. I wanter talk to
-you. Now look here! What’s all this? You ain’t young Jackson. This
-here ain’t your ranch.”
-
-“Yes, I’m Tom Jackson, sure enough,” Tom affirmed.
-
-“No, I knowed all the Jacksons, and there wasn’t no Tom. You ain’t
-got no rights—”
-
-“Look here,” Tom interrupted. He took out a small snap-shot
-photograph, taken in Toronto of himself and his two cousins, which
-he had carried for a long time pasted in his pocket-book. The
-woodsman looked at it scrutinizingly.
-
-“Looks like you,” he admitted. “And that’s Dave, sure enough. But
-that thar pictur don’t give you no rights here. Dave took this
-place—bought it off me, he did. He never told me nothin’ about you.
-I homesteaded the place first. I built this here barn myself. I sold
-it to Dave, and now he’s deserted it I’m goin’ to have it back.
-Who’s goin’ to stop me?”
-
-“There’s plenty more land just as good and better, all around here,”
-said Tom. “What do you and Harrison want this for?”
-
-“Dunno what Harrison wants,” McLeod muttered, with a crafty glance.
-“I want it ’cause it’s mine by rights.”
-
-“Quarry rights?” said Tom. “Gravel rights, eh? Is that the idea?
-They’re using lots of gravel at Oakley now, and you could bring it
-down from here cheaper than hauling it.”
-
-McLeod looked a little dazed for an instant. Then he cast a swift,
-cunning glance at Tom’s face.
-
-“Say,” he said, “can’t we split on this? Mebbe I can steer Harrison
-off, and—”
-
-“No, I won’t split anything,” returned Tom curtly.
-
-“Well, if you won’t, then you’ve got to clear out of here. If you
-don’t, we’ll run you off.”
-
-“See here!” Tom exclaimed. “You just run off yourself. If it comes
-to that, I’ve got a rifle, too. I’ve got a right here as the
-Jacksons’ representative, and I’m going to stay; and if there’s any
-gravel or anything else sold off this place I’ll sell it myself. Now
-you get out and tell Harrison what I said.”
-
-McLeod glowered at him for a moment, shifting his rifle under his
-arm. Tom’s own weapon was ten feet away. Then the woodsman shrugged
-his shoulders slightly, turned on his heel, and departed without
-another word.
-
-When he was out of sight Tom took his rifle and crept after him.
-Arriving at the lake, he espied McLeod’s canoe far over by the other
-shore. It was moving slowly downward, and passed out of sight.
-Presumably the man was really bound back to Oakley.
-
-Tom remained on the shore for an hour or two to make sure that the
-man did not come back. He felt desperately lonely now and
-unsupported. He was uncertain of his rights, with no one to advise
-him, with war almost openly declared against him, and with, perhaps,
-a small fortune at stake.
-
-He turned back at last slowly toward his old barn again, turning
-plans of defense over in his mind. To his surprise he saw from a
-distance that the fire had been freshly built up. A brisk smoke was
-rising; the kettle was on, and a humped figure sat with its back
-toward him. Tom hurried up in alarm and suspicion, and saw a dark,
-familiar face.
-
-“Fur all sold,” said Indian Charlie. “I come stay with you, Tom.”
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER IV
-
-                             BURNED OUT
-
-
-Tom gave a loud hurrah, and whacked Charlie on the shoulder. Nothing
-could have delighted him more than this reinforcement, just when the
-air was full of trouble.
-
-“You’ve come at the right time, Charlie!” he exclaimed. “I needed
-you. But say!” he added anxiously, “have you got any grub?”
-
-“Got flour, pork, tea,” answered the wild boy. “Beans, sugar too.
-Sure, we eat heap. Ketch plenty fish, shoot plenty deer, rabbit.”
-
-“Shoot maybe more than rabbit,” said Tom, sitting down on the other
-side of the fire. “There’s trouble, Charlie. I’m on the warpath.”
-
-Charlie fixed bright black eyes on him with an interested grunt, and
-Tom endeavored to explain briefly that enemies were trying to
-dislodge him from his position, which he intended to hold, by force
-if needful.
-
-“Sure, I help you, Tom,” he agreed. “We fight him if he come. You
-watch for him—I hunt grub—then we fight. We do firs’ rate.”
-
-To Charlie’s aboriginal mind it perhaps seemed a reduction of life
-to the natural and simple elements of fighting the enemy and getting
-something to eat; but Tom was not able to take it so easily. He was
-greatly cheered by Charlie’s companionship, however, and he knew
-that the Indian boy’s woodcraft would make him most useful as a
-provider of game. It would be needed. Tom had none too much
-provision, and the two youthful appetites made deadly inroads on the
-supplies.
-
-In fact, Charlie went out before dawn the very next morning and
-killed a deer—a feat which Tom had not yet performed. It was out of
-season, of course; but Charlie, being an Indian, was exempt from the
-game-laws, and they would need the meat.
-
-It secured their food supply for a long time, and the Ojibway busied
-himself in cutting the venison in strips and drying it over a slow,
-smoky fire. It made a curiously tasteless mess when boiled, but
-Tom’s stomach was grown hardened to unsavory fare, and Charlie could
-eat and digest anything, and was anxious only that there should be
-enough of it.
-
-From that time Charlie took charge of the provisioning, and spent
-most of the time prowling in the woods, almost always coming back
-with a hare, a duck, or some other game. He caught trout; he found
-an early nest of wild duck’s eggs, which he robbed without scruple.
-He hunted with an old, inferior, muzzle-loading shot-gun, and was a
-far worse shot than Tom; but he made up for it by craft, and he
-could have lived well in a country where the white boy would have
-starved.
-
-Meanwhile Tom did little hunting. He had lost interest in the
-growing grass of the beaver meadow and in the planted rye of the
-last year’s field. His thought was concentrated on the quarry claim,
-for he felt not the slightest doubt that this was the valuable
-point—worth more than all the grain and hay the farm could grow for
-years. If he could put through a contract for that gravel and go
-back to Toronto with a profit of a few thousand dollars to show his
-father he would feel that he had redeemed all his dignity and laid
-the basis for a new life. But for the moment he could do nothing
-whatever, and it was maddening to feel his inability. He was afraid
-to leave the claim. He expected an attack from some direction, but
-he did not know where to look for it. Every day he went down to the
-lake and looked over the water, but he never saw any sign of a canoe
-or camp.
-
-A week later Charlie had started to the spring for water before
-breakfast, when he stopped, stooped, scrutinized the ground, and
-came back hurriedly.
-
-“Somebody been here las’ night!” he announced.
-
-Tom went to look. He was unable to make out anything where the
-Indian boy pointed, nothing but a shapeless indentation in the dry
-earth.
-
-“Yes—you look hard!” Charlie insisted, pointing to one spot after
-another; and at last with a cry of triumph he indicated the clear
-imprint of a moccasined foot in soft earth just below the spring.
-
-“An Indian?” said Tom, bending over it.
-
-“White man,” corrected the trailer. “Indian walk straight; white man
-turn out toes like bird.”
-
-He pointed to his own feet and to Tom’s for confirmation, and
-proceeded to follow up the trail with what seemed to Tom a
-super-natural acuteness.
-
-“Him stop here—see—set down gun,” Charlie went on with his eyes on
-the ground. “Go on again, close up to cabin. Stop here—long
-time—look—listen. Mebbe think steal something. Then him turn
-round—go back. Let’s see where him go.”
-
-But the earth was hard and dry with the long, hot spell, and even
-Charlie’s eyes failed to keep the trail more than a hundred yards
-from the barn. After breakfast they cast about in a wide circle.
-They did not pick up the trail again, but on the shore of the little
-river they found a place where a canoe had recently been beached.
-Moccasined tracks led away from it and returned.
-
-There was no way to tell whether the canoe had gone up-stream or
-down. Getting into Tom’s canoe, the boys paddled down to the lake,
-reconnoitered, and then went up the river for a couple of miles,
-without being able to discover any trace of a landing.
-
-The thought of that mysterious prowler in the dark preyed on Tom’s
-mind. He felt sure it must have been McLeod, scouting for a chance
-to “run him off.” He decided that a guard ought to be kept, and for
-the next two nights he did lie awake till long after midnight, when
-sleep overcame him. But there was no further sign of any visitor.
-
-It might have been, after all, only some stray _voyageur_ or Indian,
-attracted by the camp-fire; though in that case he would almost
-surely have come in openly. But the effect of the incident wore off,
-and the boys settled again to their steady watchfulness, hunting and
-scouting.
-
-The hot, dry weather showed signs of breaking up. The sky clouded; a
-strong wind rose a few days later from the northwest.
-
-“No good hunt to-day,” said Charlie, looking at the sky; but he went
-out nevertheless immediately after breakfast, leaving Tom at the
-camp.
-
-He had been gone no more than half an hour when Tom’s nose caught
-the smell of cedar smoke. It was coming down the wind, a sharp,
-aromatic odor, growing stronger momentarily. He could not see any
-smoke, however, and did not pay much attention until in another
-half-hour he perceived a dark cloud rising over the woods in the
-west and driving across the tree-tops.
-
-The wind would carry it straight toward the old barn, but even now
-he did not feel much uneasiness, for a spring fire in the woods
-seldom burns long or does much damage. But the smoke continued to
-increase in volume, and the smell of burning to grow more
-pronounced. Tom wondered that Charlie did not come back. At last he
-went over to the river, carried his canoe up past the rapid, and
-paddled up the stream to look at the fire.
-
-In half a mile the smoke made him stop. It was chokingly dense,
-seeming to fill all the woods in front of him. He saw not a flash of
-flame, though ashes and live sparks were falling thick, and he could
-see them driving in swirls overhead on the gale.
-
-At this rate it might go clear over the barn and burn him out. It
-dawned upon Tom that perhaps McLeod had fired the woods. At that
-time of year a casual spark could hardly have started so wide a
-blaze. He let the canoe drop down-stream for a few hundred yards and
-then rushed into the woods to see if there was any chance of the
-fire being checked.
-
-The smoke of green wood and cedar leaves was still choking and
-blinding. He was well in front of the fire now, but a great wisp of
-flaming bark dropped from the air almost at his side into a tangle
-of half-dead spruces. It flashed up with a roar. Flames drove out
-streaming into the green shrubbery, and the resinous leaves of the
-evergreens sizzled and burned like paper. He had to draw back again.
-A fresh center of conflagration was started; and he realized that
-under this roaring gale the fire was bound to sweep unchecked
-through the woods, burning whatever would burn, jumping spots too
-green or too damp; and nothing was likely to stop it until it
-reached the lake.
-
-He tore back to the river—just in time to save his canoe, for a
-cedar bush had caught fire close beside it. Jumping in, he shot
-down-stream. He would have to try to save the barn—save his
-supplies, at any rate. But he had hopes that the beaver meadow would
-act as a fire-break.
-
-Down the stream he shot, through smoke so dense that he could
-scarcely see to avoid the rocks and turns of the channel. He lost
-time by having to portage around the rapid where Charlie had come to
-grief. Arriving at the usual landing, he observed that Charlie’s
-canoe was gone. The Indian had evidently returned, secured his
-canoe, and fled.
-
-Tom rushed across to the barn. Even here the smoke was growing
-thick, and hot ashes and sparks were flying far overhead. Back in
-the woods fire and wind roared together. A hasty glance into the
-barn showed that the blankets were gone, most of the food, the
-kettles, his own dunnage sack. Charlie had salvaged the place
-already.
-
-Tom crammed a few small loose articles into his pockets and
-hesitated. If he had water, if he could keep the roof wet, it might
-be possible to save the barn. But the nearest water was fifty yards
-away, and he had nothing to carry it in. Sparks were falling every
-moment more thickly. The barn would have to take its chance; he
-would better try to rejoin Charlie; and he ran back to the river and
-paddled down toward the lake.
-
-Waves were running high and white-capped over Little Coboconk in the
-strong wind, and so dense a haze lay over the water that it was
-impossible to see the other shore. Tom lay close to the river mouth
-for some time, disliking to venture out upon the rough water. Smoke
-began to roll heavily over the trees along the shore, and at last he
-paddled out, up through the shelter of the narrow water neck joining
-the lakes, and into Big Coboconk.
-
-Here the smoke was heavier still, and the wind seemed even more
-dangerous. He could see nothing at any distance. The gale was
-driving him offshore and toward the center of the lake, when he
-thought he heard a shout. He paddled toward the sound. A long object
-appeared floating on the choppy waves in the smoke. It was a
-capsized canoe, with a man astride its keel, clinging with arms and
-legs. Tom thought it was Charlie; he drove up to it, but the face
-that looked up to him was white. It was Harrison, the “fish sharp.”
-
-“What, you—?” Tom exclaimed; and then shut his mouth and, frowning,
-steered his canoe alongside for a rescue. It is a ticklish business
-to transfer a man from one canoe to another. Tom threw his weight
-far over the stern, and Harrison managed to climb into the bow
-without another upset, though shipping several bucketfuls of water
-in the process.
-
-Tom immediately turned his canoe before the wind and paddled toward
-the other shore. The capsized craft vanished in the haze. The boy’s
-heart was savage within him. He laid the responsibility of the
-forest fire on Harrison and his guide, who had no doubt been hanging
-about the lake for days, awaiting their opportunity.
-
-There was no chance to talk then. It took all his attention to keep
-the canoe straight and to prevent it from being swamped by the wind
-and water. The other shore loomed up dimly through the smoke. He
-could not pick a landing; he had to drive straight ahead. The canoe
-grounded heavily. He heard a smash of the delicate wood; then they
-both jumped overboard in the shallows and dragged the craft safely
-up above the wash of the waves.
-
-“Made it!” said Harrison breathlessly. “Good thing you came up when
-you did. I upset when I was fifty yards from land. I’m not much of a
-canoeman.”
-
-“Where’s your partner?” Tom demanded. “Where’s McLeod? Starting
-fires back in the woods, isn’t he? You nearly got caught in your own
-trap.”
-
-“I don’t know what you mean,” retorted Harrison. “We didn’t start
-any fires. I thought this started from your own camp. I don’t know
-where McLeod is. He went up the river this morning.”
-
-“Don’t bluff any longer, Harrison,” said Tom. “I know what you are
-after. You’re not up here to study fish. You want to run me off this
-place. I know all about the gravel quarry. You’ve got a contract for
-the concrete work at Oakley, I expect, and you can get the gravel
-down from here cheaper than any other way.”
-
-Harrison stared, and then suddenly began to laugh.
-
-“Gravel?” he exclaimed. “Why, the Oakley contracts were all let
-months ago. I haven’t got any of them. They’re hauling the gravel
-from a pit only three miles out of the town. Float it down from
-here? And keep a steamboat to haul the barges back empty? You’d
-better learn a little about construction work.”
-
-Tom was taken aback by this convincing denial.
-
-“What did you want this land for, then?” he muttered.
-
-“I told you. For a fishing camp. I don’t know that I do want it now,
-anyway. It’ll be nothing but ashes and burnt logs after this. I
-guess nobody will try to take it from you.”
-
-Tom was silenced but not convinced. He dropped the subject, and
-examined his canoe, which had a good-sized hole punched in the
-bottom from collision with a rock as they came ashore. It was beyond
-repair.
-
-“We’ve got nothing to eat,” he remarked, “and no way of getting
-anywhere—unless your partner comes back, or unless I can locate
-mine.”
-
-“I saw somebody that looked like that Indian youngster of yours,”
-said Harrison, “just before I started out. He was paddling pretty
-fast up the lake in a loaded canoe. If he’s got away with all your
-outfit you’ll never see him back again.”
-
-Tom had more confidence in Charlie, but the surface of Big Coboconk
-was shrouded in whirling vapor, and it would be impossible for
-anybody to find anything, except by chance. The fire had burned down
-close to the other shore now and seemed to be working down toward
-the narrows. Ashes and sparks sifted down even where they stood, but
-there was not much danger of the fire jumping the lake. In the hope
-of sighting either Charlie or McLeod, they established themselves on
-the point of a rocky promontory and stared through the bluish smoke
-drift, but without sighting any canoe. Harrison seemed to hold no
-grudge for Tom’s suspicions and talked easily, but Tom could not rid
-himself of a sense of hostility. He felt beaten. His barn was
-certainly burned; the beaver-meadow hay would be scorched and
-probably ruined; the whole homestead was uninhabitable now. He would
-have to find another or go home. As for the gravel quarry,
-Harrison’s words had sounded only too genuine. Probably the gravel
-was really of no value, after all.
-
-They both grew very hungry, with nothing to eat. So far as they
-could judge, the fire seemed to be burning down along Little
-Coboconk, over a wide area, but the wind was perceptibly falling.
-Toward the middle of the afternoon Tom was startled by a prolonged,
-sullen reverberation that seemed to come from overhead.
-
-“Thunder!” exclaimed Harrison. “Can it be going to rain? It’s too
-good to be true.”
-
-Above the smoke clouds the sky was invisible, but within fifteen
-minutes the rain did begin to sprinkle and then came in torrents. It
-lasted three quarters of an hour, and then the thunderstorm seemed
-to move away westward, though the rain continued to fall in a steady
-soaking drizzle.
-
-The two castaways sheltered themselves under a great thick spruce,
-which the rain scarcely penetrated. The rain made the smoke hang
-lower, and it seemed to be mixed with steam—an impenetrable, reeking
-gray smother over the whole lake and the forest. But it was certain
-that the fire would go no further, with the wind falling and the
-woods wet.
-
-For an hour or so they stood wretchedly under the big spruce. The
-fine drizzle penetrated the leaves at last, but it did not make much
-difference, as both of them were wet already to the skin. Harrison’s
-spirits flagged at last, and they said little, gazing out into the
-ghostly white drift of smoke and steam and rain.
-
-“This won’t do,” Harrison exclaimed at last. “We’ve got to have
-something to eat—got to have a canoe. My canoe must have drifted
-ashore somewhere, and there was a package of grub tied in it. It’ll
-be soaked, but we can make something out of it. Let’s look for it.”
-
-Tom agreed. Anything was better than standing there any longer
-hungry and shivering. They separated, Harrison going down toward the
-narrows, and Tom toward the upper end of the lake, and whoever
-discovered the canoe was to paddle in search of the other.
-
-Tom discovered the lost canoe within a hundred yards, lying stranded
-upside down on the shore gravel. If they had only known it they
-might have left the place at any time that day. The food was gone,
-though. Only a string loop and the soaked relic of a paper package
-was left, greatly to Tom’s disappointment. But with the canoe he
-felt sure of being able to locate Charlie, who must have plenty of
-supplies with him.
-
-Tom righted and launched the canoe, and shouted for Harrison, but
-the man was out of hearing. A spare paddle was lashed in the canoe,
-and Tom got aboard and struck out. It occurred to him that he might
-as well scout about for Charlie before rejoining Harrison, and he
-paddled out into the wet reek that overhung the lake.
-
-He followed up the shore a little way and then struck straight
-across. At intervals he shouted, but got no answer. The other shore
-of the lake presently loomed up mistily, a desolation of wet ashes,
-tangles of half-burned thickets and steaming, smoking spruces. He
-half expected to find Charlie searching for him along this shore,
-and he paddled downward, looking out sharply for a canoe.
-
-Nothing like a canoe showed, either on the water or ashore. Growing
-more anxious, for he was desperately hungry, Tom followed the shore
-down till he came to the narrows connecting the two lakes. At one
-time, not so long ago, these two lakes had been one, and the land
-about the narrows was low and sandy, cut with swampy hollows and
-densely overgrown with small evergreens. But the fire had swept over
-it, and the spruces and jack-pines were only stubs and skeletons
-with all their twigs and leafage burned away, leaving only the damp
-trunks standing amid sand, ashes, and ancient logs half buried in
-the earth.
-
-As he came up Tom thought he dimly spied a canoe drawn ashore, and
-paddled up to it. But it was only a great log, laid bare by the
-burning off of the thickets. He drew up alongside it and stared
-about. Harrison was nowhere within his restricted area of vision,
-nor Charlie either, and it was hardly likely that the Indian boy
-would have gone down into the lower lake.
-
-Tom sat there for a minute, discouraged, absently contemplating the
-scattered logs. Half consciously he realized that there were a great
-many of them, mostly showing above ground, that the ends of all of
-them were sawed square across, as if they had been cut by lumbermen.
-On the end of the log nearest him he noticed that the letters “D W”
-had been roughly cut with a tool.
-
-What could “D W” stand for? The name of Daniel Wilson floated into
-his mind, but for a moment the name conveyed nothing to him, and he
-did not know where he had heard it. And then he remembered.
-
-It was the Daniel Wilson Lumber Company that had cut the black
-walnut raft that had been lost on the lake, as the story said.
-
-It struck Tom like an electric flash. He jumped out of the canoe,
-almost trembling, weariness and hunger forgotten. There were perhaps
-a hundred logs in sight, on the surface or almost covered by sand
-and mud, and “D W” was cut on the ends of all of them.
-
-They were blackened by the fire and smoke, but not charred. Between
-black of fire and the wearing of age it was impossible to make out
-the kind of wood, but Tom whipped out his knife. Chipping off the
-outer skin, he saw the unmistakable rich, dark, hard grain. It was
-walnut. He had discovered the lost raft—or part of it, at all
-events.
-
-Here it must have sunk in the shallow water near the shore where it
-had been driven that stormy night twenty-eight years ago. This point
-had formed part of the lake bottom then. Later the water had
-receded; the narrows had been formed. A crop of evergreens springing
-up quickly had concealed the visible part of the scattered raft from
-the few men who ever passed that way. It might have lain there
-forever if the fire had not laid it bare.
-
-Tom tried to remember all he had heard of the loss of the raft.
-Walnut had never been a plentiful timber in that part of the
-country; but the Wilson Lumber Company, of which Wilson himself was
-sole owner, had discovered and cut a small tract of it—five or six
-hundred thousand feet, report said. At that time nobody regarded
-black walnut as extremely valuable. A market was lacking, and the
-rich timber was used for firewood and fence-rails, but Wilson had
-got a government contract for wood for gun-stocks for the army.
-
-The timber was brought out to the head of Coboconk Lake and the raft
-built there, to be floated down to Oakley, where at that time there
-was a sawmill and nothing else. But the start of the raft was, for
-some unknown reason, delayed till too late in the autumn. It was
-November when it was finally put together, with plenty of pine logs
-to keep it afloat, and launched down the lake. There is a gentle
-drift from north to south, and the lumbermen helped with huge
-sweeps.
-
-When they were half-way down the lake a strong northwest wind sprang
-up; it turned cold and began to snow. It was then late in the
-afternoon. The wind continued to rise, and toward midnight the huge
-raft began to go to pieces. The men aboard had to take to their
-_bateaux_ and row ashore in a howling storm of wind and snow.
-
-A blinding blizzard blew all the next day, and when it cleared there
-was nothing to be seen of the raft. A search of the shore revealed a
-good deal of the pine framework, but all the walnut timber was
-finally judged to have broken loose and gone to the bottom.
-
-That storm marked the opening of a very early winter. In another day
-the lake was freezing over. Nothing more could be done, and in the
-spring no trace could be found of the lost raft. But the story
-became a local tradition, and for years spasmodic efforts were made
-to locate it, but never with any success. The lumbermen were by no
-means sure just where the raft had been when it broke up in that
-dark night; the lake is large, and it had generally come to be
-believed that the timber must be sunk too deep in the mud to be
-recovered.
-
-But the change in the level of the lake had brought some of the
-former shallows above water. Some of the timber, at any rate, was
-there in sight, and it was impossible that it was anything else than
-the wreckage of the old-time raft. Glancing over the scattered logs,
-Tom thought that there must be thirty or forty thousand feet along
-that shore, and there was more, perhaps, buried at a little depth.
-Walnut was then worth, in logs, about three hundred dollars a
-thousand feet; but if the wood were cut up and dressed in his
-father’s Toronto yards it would fetch three or four times that
-price. It was a fortune, and not a small one, that was in sight.
-
-Then suddenly the question of the ownership of the raft struck him.
-He was the finder, but, after all, not necessarily the owner. Daniel
-Wilson was dead, and his company long since dissolved. The timber
-lay on land belonging to his uncle, or his cousin; all the timber on
-that land belonged to them, whether standing or lying, and this
-would surely cover driftwood. But was this, after all, Uncle Phil’s
-homestead; or had he abandoned it; or might it be filed on by the
-first comer?
-
-Tom did not know. It was the problem of the gravel quarry again,
-with tenfold intensity. He turned the question over in his mind. In
-any event he was determined to cling to this treasure-trove if it
-took the last drop of his blood. And at that moment, glancing up, he
-perceived Harrison on the other side of the narrows, looking
-silently at him across the channel.
-
-Tom jumped up almost guiltily. Harrison instantly shouted and waved
-at him.
-
-“Have you got the canoe? Come over.”
-
-Tom got into the canoe. He felt perfectly certain that Harrison had
-been watching him for some time—that he knew very well what Tom had
-discovered—that he had previously discovered it himself. For a
-moment the boy half hesitated to cross over to the enemy; but after
-all he had his rifle, and Harrison was unarmed, and moreover he did
-not think Harrison was a man to resort to open violence.
-
-“What were you doing over there, digging up the ground? Find any
-grub?” said Harrison with a sharp glance as Tom paddled up beside
-him.
-
-“I thought I’d seen another canoe there, and I went to look. No, the
-grub’s all washed away, I’m afraid,” returned Tom.
-
-“Too bad. Well, we’ll just have to put in a hungry night, I guess,
-but we can get out of here in the morning anyhow.”
-
-He made no further reference to Tom’s prospecting, and they went up
-the lake to the place where they had spent most of the day, where
-Tom’s own canoe had been wrecked. It was growing dusk already, and
-the rain had ceased. The wind had stilled, and the air was thick and
-fogged with smoke and damp.
-
-With difficulty they collected a little dry kindling from the
-interior of hollow logs, and managed to start a fire. Fortunately it
-was a warm night for the season, since they had no blankets, and the
-only possible camping preparations were to pull off armfuls of damp
-spruce twigs for a softer couch than the bare ground.
-
-Harrison was silent, busying himself in drying out a piece of plug
-tobacco which he had found in his pocket, and trying to smoke it.
-Finally he settled himself back on his _sapin_ and appeared to
-sleep. But Tom was determined not to close an eye that night.
-
-He was afraid of some treachery; he did not know what. He settled
-back on his spruce boughs, with his rifle close beside him, and
-tried to think out a course of action. Harrison was after the same
-thing as himself, and he must know now that Tom knew it. Which of
-them had the better legal right, or whether either of them had any
-legal right at all, Tom had no idea. He would have given anything
-for his father’s advice. He thought of making a bolt for Oakley and
-sending out a telegram to Mr. Jackson to come immediately. But he
-dared not leave the place, and besides his father would very likely
-disregard the wire as a piece of boy’s foolishness.
-
-Time passed. It had grown very dark. Harrison snored from his couch.
-Tom himself was growing very weary, but he was resolved not to let
-himself sleep.
-
-He was desperately hungry besides, faint and miserable. He got up
-quietly and built up the fire, feeling chilled. At moments a nervous
-panic swept over him. Fifty thousand derelict dollars lay by that
-lake, and the gain or loss of them hung on his single wit and skill.
-Thinking it over he felt that Uncle Phil or Dave held the key of the
-problem. They must be the owners of this land—hence the owners of
-the timber. If that was the case, Tom knew well that he would get
-his rightful share. But this could not be settled without locating
-them. Greatly he regretted now that he had not made more searching
-inquiries at Oakley.
-
-Harrison turned over uneasily and appeared to sleep again. Tom
-envied him his rest. His own eyes were desperately heavy, and he
-felt worn out with physical and mental fatigue. He must have dozed
-then, for presently he roused with a start and saw that the fire had
-burned low. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was after midnight.
-
-Harrison did not appear to have stirred. Tom got up and replenished
-the fire again. Lying down, he tried to keep his eyes open, once
-more turning over the heavy problem in his mind. An owl was calling
-dismally from a tree-top not far away. The soft wailing note mingled
-with his confused thoughts, growing more and more confused till they
-melted into something dreamlike.
-
-He awoke next with daylight in his eyes. With a rush of panic he sat
-up. The fire was burning brightly. A figure was squatting beside
-it—not Harrison. Harrison was nowhere to be seen, but Tom looked
-into the dark face of Ojibway Charlie.
-
-“Charlie!” he stammered, jumping up. “Where did you come from?
-Where’s that man? Where’s Harrison?”
-
-“No see um,” returned Charlie, stolidly. “I see your smoke—come
-here. You sleep—nobody else here.”
-
-With an exclamation, Tom rushed down to the lake. Charlie’s canoe
-was there, piled with salvaged outfit from the old barn; but
-Harrison’s canoe was gone, and Tom’s own canoe with the hole in the
-bottom now lay capsized with almost the whole bottom smashed out of
-her. The “fish sharp” had vanished.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER V
-
-                       ACROSS THE WILDERNESS
-
-
-Harrison had crept away in the latter part of the night taking the
-only serviceable canoe with him, leaving Tom, as he imagined,
-without food or means of transport. It might have been a serious
-matter for the boy, worn out with hunger, but for Charlie’s
-opportune appearance.
-
-Tom was, in fact, so empty and exhausted that he turned sick and
-dizzy, as much with wrath as with weakness, when he realized the
-treacherous trick Harrison had played. But after all no great harm
-was done, except that Harrison was away now with a long start on his
-plan—whatever that was—to get possession of the walnut timber.
-
-Charlie meanwhile had at once begun to put bacon to toast and the
-pot to boil, which he had previously refrained from doing so as not
-to waken Tom. Tom was so hungry that he could have eaten the food
-raw. In fact he did chew a scrap of raw pork while he waited for the
-rest to cook; but after he had consumed an enormous breakfast of
-bacon, hard bread, and tea he felt much better, and his spirits
-rose.
-
-Getting into the canoe, they paddled down to the narrows. There was
-no sign of Harrison about the place, but Tom thought he saw tracks
-that had not been made by himself. He pointed out the half-buried
-logs to the Indian boy, and explained that they were valuable stuff.
-
-“Worth thousands of dollars—more than ten times all your fur catch,”
-he said. “Those other men want to get it—want to run us off. We
-mustn’t let them have it.”
-
-The wild boy nodded, and looked at Tom with a sudden spark in his
-black eyes.
-
-“Sure—they try to burn us off,” he said. “I see him—that red-hair
-man. He light fire. I see him—too late. I think mebbe I shoot him;
-then I think better not. I come an’ git stuff from our camp—look for
-you everywhere almost.”
-
-“Well, I thought all along that McLeod had started that fire,” said
-Tom. “But I’m glad you didn’t shoot him. But how we’re going to hold
-the fort here I don’t know. It’ll take a lot of men, money, teams,
-to get this timber out. Maybe I’d better send you down to Oakley to
-get a telegram off to my father.”
-
-Charlie had no idea what a telegram was. He shook his head.
-
-“I stay here. I fight um,” he said.
-
-“You see, this land doesn’t belong to me,” Tom went on, half
-absently going over the argument he had mentally rehearsed so often.
-“I haven’t any real rights here, I suppose. But no more has
-Harrison. This place belongs to Uncle Phil, or maybe one of the
-boys. Here they are, Charlie.”
-
-And Tom took from his pocket the photograph of the group of himself
-and his cousins which he had shown to McLeod.
-
-Charlie looked at it with great interest and grinned as he
-recognized the central figure.
-
-“That-um you, Tom,” he said, pointing. Then, indicating one of the
-others, “Who that man?”
-
-“That’s my cousin Dave.”
-
-“I know him,” Charlie announced, gazing hard.
-
-“No, I guess not,” Tom replied.
-
-“Sure!” Charlie insisted. “I see him this spring. He work in mine
-camp, ’way up Wawista, what you call Blackfish River.”
-
-“You don’t mean to say you saw Cousin Dave there? When?” burst out
-Tom.
-
-“Sure I see him. I stop there for grub. I talk to him. He ask me if
-any prospectors up where I trap. Just ’fore I come out—two, three
-days ’fore I see you, mebbe.”
-
-Tom gave an almost hysterical yell of laughter.
-
-“Good gracious! To think you had the clue to the puzzle all the
-while. Charlie, I’ve got to go and bring him quick. Is it far?”
-
-“I go git him,” Charlie offered.
-
-Tom thought for a moment. He would prefer to stay himself, but
-Charlie could hardly explain the situation; he feared to commit it
-to writing. Besides, when he came to think of it, he had no writing
-materials. No, he would have to go himself, and he sought directions
-from the Indian.
-
-With intense deliberation, Charlie explained that he had seen Dave
-at a small settlement where there was a mine. Its name was something
-like Roswick, and it was only two, three days by canoe. It was an
-easy road to find, with only one long portage. He could not say
-whether Dave was still there, of course; but the camp must have been
-just opening for the spring, and it was hardly likely that he would
-have left so soon.
-
-“You go up this leetle river,” Charlie explained, “mebbe half-day,
-mebbe day, up to big carry place by long rapid. Make long portage
-then. Bad trail over portage—hard to find. But then you hit Wawista
-River, and you go up him, and then up Fish River, and come to
-Roswick, mebbe two, three days. I go quicker’n you.”
-
-“I dare say you would,” said Tom, digesting this knowledge. “But if
-you help me to hit the long portage I’ll go alone. You stay here,
-and keep Harrison from getting away with this timber.”
-
-“Yes, I lay for him,” said the Ojibway. “Hope he come back. He git
-good dose buck-shot next time.”
-
-“No, don’t kill anybody!” Tom cried; but the Indian looked at him
-reproachfully.
-
-“How I keep um off if I no shoot um?”
-
-“Well, I don’t know,” Tom admitted. “But if Dave’s where you left
-him I ought to be back before those other fellows turn up again.”
-
-Tom made his preparations to start without delay. He was to take
-Charlie’s canoe, and he laid out a due proportion of food—pork, tea,
-sugar, flour—enough to last him two or three days. Charlie stirred
-up a large pan of flapjack and baked it—enough for one day at any
-rate. Long before noon they were ready to start, and Charlie
-accompanied him as far as the “long portage” to make sure that he
-should not miss the spot.
-
-The smoke had dissipated; the sky was clearing, and the sun showed a
-tendency to come out. The first half-mile of the route up the little
-river lay between burned and charred thickets, and then the fire
-limit ceased. The stream was low, and several times they had to get
-out or make a short carry, and it was afternoon when they reached
-the point where Charlie said he should strike across country to the
-Wawista. They stopped here to make tea; then Charlie indicated the
-direction once more and without a word of farewell faded away into
-the thickets, starting back to the treasure he was to guard.
-
-Two miles due north was the direction, and Charlie said there was an
-old blazed trail, “hard to find.” He would have to make two trips,
-once with his pack and once with the canoe. The pack was not very
-heavy, not more than fifty pounds, and Tom shouldered it and set off
-with a light heart.
-
-The blazed trail was indeed hard to find, and Tom lost it almost
-immediately. He did not concern himself much, however, for he knew
-that if he kept due north he could not fail to hit the river
-eventually. But fifty pounds on the shoulders means much, over rough
-ground, and he did not have a regular tump-line. Hard trained as he
-was, he had to sit down several times and rest. He gasped, in fact,
-and the sweat burst out in streams; but he kept on and finally broke
-through a dense belt of willows and saw the Wawista, a broad, slow
-stream winding away toward the west.
-
-He cached his pack in the low fork of a tree, and went back
-leisurely for his canoe. This was an even more awkward load to
-transport. Its length concealed the ground ahead; it tangled itself
-with the underbrush; two or three times he tripped and fell with the
-canoe on top of him. He lost his own back trail, and had to drive
-straight ahead, so that at last he came out on the river a quarter
-of a mile from the spot where he had left his dunnage.
-
-He secured it, however, and sat down for a final rest before
-beginning the canoe voyage. It was growing late in the afternoon.
-The sun shone clearly and warmly now. Not a breath stirred the
-leaves, fresh and green from the recent rain, and the river flowed
-with a peaceful murmur. But a feeling of uneasiness came suddenly
-upon the boy, as if he was under the eyes of some enemy.
-
-It was so strong that he stood up and peered about, rifle in hand.
-But nothing stirred in the forest, except two noisy whiskey-jacks
-that discovered him at that moment. It was an attack of nerves, he
-told himself; but he could not resist a strong inclination to be off
-immediately.
-
-He piled his dunnage into the canoe and started down the river. A
-last glance over his shoulder showed the shore deserted; yet the
-vaguely uneasy feeling pursued him down the stream. He found himself
-continually glancing back without intending it. The sudden splash of
-a rising duck made him start violently; but he saw no larger living
-thing, and as he rounded every curve there was nothing behind nor
-ahead but the empty stretch of water between the wooded shores.
-
-The voyage down the river was easy. The current ran smooth and
-strong. There were no portages, and he made good speed even without
-much hard paddling; yet he had not yet reached the junction with the
-Fish River when sunset came on. Charlie had said that he should make
-it that night, but he had lost time on the long portage.
-
-Selecting an open bit of shore, he landed and drew the canoe out of
-the water. It was a fine, warm night and he did not think it
-necessary to build a shelter; he merely built fire enough to boil
-tea, and he ate his lunch of hard bread and cold fried bacon which
-he had brought with him. For some time he sat by the blaze,
-reluctant to lie down. Once more he felt uneasily suspicious; but at
-last he rolled the blanket around his body and stretched out to
-sleep.
-
-Several times he dozed lightly, awaking with a nervous start. Clear
-starlight was overhead. The dense spruces looked inky black against
-the dark-blue sky, and in the light stillness the ripple of the
-river sounded loud.
-
-He lay awake for some time at last, and finally got up and put fresh
-wood on the fire. It blazed up suddenly, and he thought he heard a
-startled stamp and rush through the dark thickets—probably a hare.
-
-He was tired and wanted to sleep, but sleep would not come to him.
-He thought of the treasure in timber that was to be gained or lost.
-Harrison would stick at nothing to gain it, he felt sure. In his
-anxiety, Tom felt half inclined to break camp and go through the
-night; but he knew that he would gain nothing by wearing himself
-out. He got up again and went down to the river, bathed his face,
-and drank, looking up and down the long, dark current in the
-starlight. Then he came back, feeling less restless, and in time he
-succumbed to sleep.
-
-When he did sleep he slept long, and awoke to find the early sun on
-his face. He jumped up uneasily. Everything about the camp was just
-as he had left it, and in the clear daylight his nocturnal alarms
-seemed the height of folly. Nevertheless, while the breakfast kettle
-was heating, he went into the woods where he had heard the sound,
-and discovered a certainly fresh, shapeless track. It might have
-been a bear track; it might have been made by a sitting rabbit; or
-it might have been the tread of a moccasined foot.
-
-He could not determine nor could he trace it for any distance.
-Vainly he wished for Charlie’s skill as a trailer. He decided that
-it must have been a bear, and, angry at himself for his nervousness,
-he went back to the fire, drank his tea, fried pork, and then
-launched the canoe again.
-
-But the uncanny sense followed him of something’s being on his
-trail. It seemed as if a pursuer must be just around the last bend
-of the river. A dozen times he looked quickly back, but the water
-shone empty in the sun.
-
-Shortly before noon he arrived at the mouth of the Fish River,
-recognizing it at once from Charlie’s description. Roswick lay a
-day’s travel or two up this stream, and there he would find Dave
-Jackson; at least, he hoped so. He felt as if the end of the journey
-was almost in sight, and he headed the canoe joyfully against the
-current of the swifter tributary—and glanced quickly and
-involuntarily back.
-
-Nothing was in sight. There could be nothing, he told himself.
-
-“But I’m going to settle this,” he reflected, after a moment.
-“Either something’s after me, or there isn’t. I’ll just wait here a
-bit, and end this foolishness.”
-
-Half ashamed of himself, he dragged the canoe ashore and hid it.
-Then he took his rifle, and ambushed himself just at the peninsula
-where the two rivers met, well out of sight under a thicket of
-willows, and waited. It would be a relief to settle this suspense at
-the cost of an hour’s time.
-
-Silence settled down, except for the rush of the meeting currents. A
-mink ran down the shore and into a log heap, popping out again and
-into the water, busy about its hunting. A pair of wild ducks came
-swimming down the Wawista, dipping their heads deep, and halted
-close opposite his ambush. He could have shot the head off one of
-them, and he contemplated doing it, to secure a bit of fresh meat.
-His suspicions of pursuit were vanishing. He had been there a long
-time—an hour, surely. It was scarcely worth while to wait longer, he
-thought, when the ducks suddenly splashed into flight, and went off
-quacking over the tree-tops.
-
-Tom’s heart bounded. He caught a glimpse of a canoe coming slowly
-down the Wawista. The next moment it was in full view.
-
-A single man was in it, handling the paddle with the skill of a
-practised _voyageur_; and even at fifty yards Tom recognized the
-glint of the fox-colored hair under the cap. The paddler paused at
-the forks of the river, held the canoe balanced while he looked this
-way and that, and then, as if by some intuition, turned up the Fish
-River as Tom had done.
-
-The canoe, hugging the shore, came within twenty feet of the willow
-clump, when Tom stood up suddenly, with the repeater at his
-shoulder.
-
-“Halt!” he hailed.
-
-McLeod cast a sudden glance at him and then dropped his paddle and
-reached back like lightning for the gun that stood behind him.
-
-“None of that! Hands up, now—quick! I’ll shoot!” Tom yelled at him;
-and the woodsman slowly put up his hands, with a grin like a trapped
-weasel. The canoe drifted backward.
-
-“Paddle in this way—slow,” Tom ordered. “Don’t make a move toward
-that gun.”
-
-McLeod looked into the rifle muzzle and seemed to hesitate. Then he
-suddenly took the paddle and forced the canoe up close to the shore,
-where it hung almost motionless in the slack water.
-
-“Now what are you up to?” Tom demanded. “You tried to burn me out.
-Now you’ve been trailing me since yesterday; I know it. What are you
-and Harrison planning to do?”
-
-“Why, I told you I was goin’ to run you off’n that there homestead,”
-McLeod growled. “You ain’t got no more right there than that Injun
-boy of yourn. I was there first. If there’s anything in it, I’m the
-one that gits it.”
-
-“I know what’s in it,” Tom returned, “and so do you. But you haven’t
-got the ghost of a show, McLeod. I know where Dave Jackson is now.
-It isn’t over twenty miles from here, and I’ll be back on Coboconk
-with him in three days. He’s still got the rights to the place, I
-guess. You’d better drop this and go back home, before you do
-something that gets you into trouble.”
-
-“These here woods is free, I guess,” said the man. “And you’ll never
-find Dave Jackson where you’re going.”
-
-But he looked considerably dashed by Tom’s announcement.
-
-“We’ll see about that,” retorted Tom. “And I can’t have you
-following me. I’m going to stop you. I ought to take your canoe, as
-Harrison did to me; but you might starve. I don’t want to shoot
-you.”
-
-He reflected. It is a terrible thing to deprive a man of his canoe
-in that wilderness, where he may very likely perish before reaching
-any point where he can obtain supplies. And it is not easy for even
-a good hunter to live on the country.
-
-“Throw me your paddle,” Tom ordered at last. “It’ll take you some
-time to make another, I guess, and you’ll never catch up with me
-when I have that start.”
-
-Under the threat of the rifle McLeod tossed the paddle ashore. With
-a long pole Tom gave the canoe a strong shove out into the current.
-It went drifting out into the Wawista, turning helplessly end for
-end, down the current till it was a hundred yards away. Then McLeod
-snatched up his gun and fired both barrels.
-
-Tom heard the buck-shot rattle on the leaves around him, and
-impulsively he fired back, almost without aim. It was a perfectly
-bloodless duel, and in another minute the canoe went out of sight
-behind the trees of a bend in the stream.
-
-With a sense of triumph and of infinite relief, Tom launched his
-canoe again, and proceeded up the river. He no longer felt uneasy;
-that strange instinct of danger was quiet now. He knew that McLeod
-could never catch up with him. The rest of the journey should be
-easy and safe, and he was impatient to reach the end of it.
-
-Travel up the Fish River was not so easy, however. It was a smaller,
-swifter stream than the Wawista, and more broken by rapids. For an
-hour at a time he had to discard the paddle for a pole in going up
-swift water, and portages were so frequent that he thought he walked
-almost as much as he floated. He did not expect to reach Roswick
-that day, but he began to look out for signs of mining-camp work or
-prospecting. It was a district of rock and stunted woods, a mineral
-country by its look, but he detected no trace of man, and all that
-day he pushed on, “bucking the river,” paddling, poling, and
-carrying. It was almost sunset when the appearance of a formidable
-rapid just ahead brought him to a stop.
-
-He had gone far enough for that day. He landed, looking about for a
-good camp ground; then he determined to carry the canoe and outfit
-up to the head of the rapid and camp there, so as to be ready for
-the start next morning. After a short rest he made the portage,
-unpacked his supplies, and lighted a fire; and the idea came to him
-of trying to pick up some small game for supper. He was growing very
-tired of fried salt pork.
-
-Leaving the kettle on the fire, he turned into the woods from the
-river. Usually it was easy to find rabbits or partridges almost
-anywhere, but he wandered about for a full half-hour, and then,
-seeing a rabbit sitting up in the twilight, he missed it cleanly.
-
-Disgusted at his clumsiness, he turned down parallel with the river,
-but the bad luck lasted. He found no game, and dusk was deepening.
-Veering out to strike the shore, he found himself a long way below
-the big rapid, and he began to walk rapidly up the stream.
-
-He heard the rapid roaring ahead, and he had almost come to it when
-he stopped with a shock. There was a canoe lying at the shore, a
-battered Peterboro that he recognized well.
-
-He sprang back into the shadow of the trees, but another glance
-showed him that nobody was by the boat. Rage boiled up in him at
-this persistent trailing. There was a paddle in the canoe; he should
-have remembered that McLeod was sure to have a spare paddle lashed
-in the canoe. But this time he would cripple him effectually. With a
-strong shove he sent the canoe whirling down the stream. It would
-take a day to overtake it on foot, unless it were smashed against a
-rock, and Tom stood with cocked rifle, grimly waiting for its owner
-to appear.
-
-Looking up and down the shore he could see nothing of McLeod. He
-grew uneasy. He was about to scout up toward his camp when a
-canoe—his own canoe—appeared shooting down the rapid.
-
-McLeod was in her, steering with magnificent skill through the
-dangerous, broken water; and he did not risk a single glance aside,
-even when Tom whipped up his rifle and fired desperately. The boy
-fired to hit; it was a matter of life and death; but it was like
-shooting at a flying duck. The canoe was past in a twinkling, was
-down in the tail of the rapid, was almost out of sight, while Tom
-pumped the lever of the repeater till his magazine was empty. Then
-McLeod swung his paddle high with a far-away, triumphant whoop.
-
-Tom began to run wildly after him, checked himself, and hurried up
-to his camp. But he knew too well what he would find.
-
-The fire had burned almost out. The kettle was gone. So were his
-blankets, his little ax, everything. Nothing was left except what he
-carried on him. He was afoot in the wilderness in earnest.
-
-As he took in this catastrophe, Tom’s heart seemed to sink into his
-boots. The river roared savagely over the rapid. He looked round at
-the darkening wilderness, and it seemed suddenly to have turned
-sinister, murderous. Without canoe or food, he knew that his life
-hung by a hair. Plenty of men have died in such a predicament, in
-that tangled country, where streams are the only highways.
-
-McLeod had intended that this should be his fate. Tom sat down
-weakly on a log, beside the dying fire. He was likely to leave his
-bones there, he thought. McLeod was racing back to Coboconk to
-rejoin Harrison. Between them, they would get out the timber without
-danger of interruption. Charlie was there, to be sure; but Charlie’s
-only idea of resistance was, by weapons, which would probably only
-make matters worse.
-
-But by degrees Tom recovered from the shock.
-
-“I won’t be beaten!” he vowed to himself. “It can’t be more than
-thirty miles to Roswick now. I can do that on foot, following up the
-river. I’ve got a rifle and a beltful of cartridges, and it’ll be
-queer if I can’t pick up enough to keep from starving.”
-
-For a moment he thought of trying to trail McLeod in his turn, to
-recover one of the two canoes, but he decided that this would be
-hopeless. McLeod might be miles away already, and he would surely
-push on with the greatest possible speed.
-
-As he sat there in silence, collecting his nerve, a shadow came out
-of the thickets by the shore and hopped dimly about in the twilight.
-It was a rabbit. The light was all but gone; Tom could not see his
-gun-sights, but he fired. It was almost sheer good luck, but when he
-went to look he found the rabbit shot through the body, considerably
-mangled by the bullet but eatable. It had come at the very moment to
-encourage his resolution, and it would make rations for one day, at
-any rate.
-
-He built up the fire, dressed the game, and set it to roast on
-pointed sticks. But he had no salt, and he remembered that unsalted
-rabbit is perhaps the most flavorless food on earth. It reminded him
-of those first dreary days after his coming to Coboconk Lake. But
-the meat had nutriment in it at any rate, and he ate of it
-sparingly, reserving the greater portion for the next day.
-
-Pulling a heap of dead leaves between two logs, he tried to rest, to
-sleep; but he was far too uneasy. Without a blanket, the night
-seemed cold, despite the fire. His little ax was gone, and he had no
-means of cutting logs large enough to make an efficient heat. He
-tried to huddle under the leaves, dozed intermittently with horrible
-dreams of danger, and at last got up in the gray dawn, feeling
-aching and empty.
-
-The fire had burned entirely out while he slept. There was not even
-a spark left in the ashes, and to his horror he found that he had no
-matches. He had used the last in his pockets, and the water-tight
-box in reserve was gone with the stolen supplies.
-
-This blow almost took away his remaining courage. Fortunately he had
-roasted the whole hare last night, and most of it was still left. It
-would last one day.
-
-“After that, I’ll have to eat raw meat, like a wolf,” he thought.
-
-But it was as easy to go on toward Roswick as in any other
-direction, and he was still determined not to let Harrison win. It
-occurred to him that the prospecting season was well advanced; he
-was in the mining country, and he might fall in with a party of
-mineral hunters at any time. If not—well, he was tough and muscular,
-and he could surely endure hardships for a day or two.
-
-So he put the rest of the cooked meat carefully in his pockets, his
-rifle under his arm, and started briskly up the river. There was no
-trail, and it was rough going. The margin of the stream was grown
-thickly with willow and spruce and cedar, frequently marshy,
-sometimes rocky, always hard to get through. From time to time he
-had to wade a tributary creek. Worse still, the river went in huge
-curves, so that he felt sure he was traveling two miles for every
-mile he made westward.
-
-But he was afraid to leave the guidance of the river, and he
-struggled along. He grew very hungry; hare meat was not filling, but
-he controlled his desire to eat until noon. Then, after swallowing
-far less than he wanted, he clambered into a tall tree on the crest
-of a hill and looked anxiously off into the west.
-
-He could see a long way. It was an infinity of sweeping hill and
-hollow, all blue-green with the spruces in the sunshine, smoky,
-unlimited, with here and there a gray gleam of rock. Far away to the
-right he detected the glitter of a long strip of water—no doubt his
-river, sweeping in one of its long curves.
-
-He stayed there for some time surveying the desolate landscape.
-There was nowhere any sign of fire or indication of human life. It
-occurred to him that he would do well to make straight across
-country to the water, instead of wasting muscle by following the
-river around its many bends. He fixed the direction well in his
-mind, slid down to the ground, and struck out across the woods.
-
-For a time he found the traveling easier. The forest was light and
-scattered, and the ground firm. Twice he was encouraged by coming
-upon what seemed to be an old trail, and once he found prospect
-holes dug the season before.
-
-Feeling sure that he was nearing the end of his journey, he hurried
-on gaily till he arrived at the edge of the water he had seen from
-afar off. But it was not the river. It was a little, long lake, with
-a creek flowing out lazily from near the point where he had struck
-it.
-
-Now he bitterly repented his folly in leaving the river, his only
-guide. He had no idea which way it had curved since he left it. It
-might be close ahead; it might be a dozen miles away to the left.
-But the only chance of safety was to try to find it again, and he
-steered off diagonally into the woods to the southwest. The woods
-became difficult to get through. He struggled for more than two
-miles through dense tamarac swamps, and at last did come upon a
-medium-sized river.
-
-Was it the Fish River? He could not tell. He thought it must be; yet
-it seemed too small, and moreover did not appear to be flowing in
-the right direction. The sun was sinking low, and all at once it,
-too, seemed to be in the wrong quarter of the sky. The woods turned
-dizzily around him; all directions seemed to be reversed.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER VI
-
-                               DEFEAT
-
-
-He had just sense enough to control his panic. Tom had never before
-been thoroughly “turned around,” but he remembered the hunter’s
-maxim for those in such a predicament: sit down, shut your eyes for
-half an hour, and let things right themselves.
-
-He sat down and shut his eyes, but things did not right themselves.
-The sun dipped below the trees. He was afraid to start in any
-direction, and he thought he might as well spend the night where he
-was. Indeed, he felt too weak and empty to go farther without
-eating.
-
-He gnawed the bones of his rabbit without satisfying his appetite.
-The idea of eating raw meat did not seem so repulsive to him now,
-and he stole hungrily into the darkening woods. A pair of feeding
-grouse whirred up and alighted together in a tree. It was an easy
-shot, but his hands trembled. He missed, and almost wept with
-disappointment. Ten minutes later, however, he had better luck, and
-he bagged a hare, tearing the body badly with the bullet.
-
-He skinned and dressed it hastily, and chewed strips of the raw
-flesh. It tasted almost delicious, but half an hour afterward he
-grew deathly sick and vomited. The fit passed, leaving him weak and
-worn out, and too miserable to care whether he was lost or not.
-
-He had not energy enough to look for a better place for the night,
-nor to pull twigs for a bed. He lay down and drew himself together
-as well as he could under his heavy jacket, slept a little, awoke
-shivering a dozen times, and at last wearily saw the dawn breaking.
-There was white frost on the earth.
-
-The night, however, had restored his normal sense of direction. It
-seemed right that the sun should rise where it did, and the light
-and warmth brought a little comfort. He ventured to chew a little
-more of the raw meat and this time felt no evil effects. Thinking
-over the situation, he came to the conclusion that this could not be
-the Fish River. He would not follow it but would strike due west in
-the hope of running into some settlement or camp.
-
-So he started again across the woods. The ground grew more broken
-and rocky. Creeks flowed down rocky gullies; almost impassable
-swamps alternated with boulder-strewn hillsides. Once he came upon
-the “discovery-post” of an ancient mining claim. What mineral had
-been sought he did not know, but a great pit had been dug, the grave
-of somebody’s hopes, long since deserted, and showing no trace of
-recent life.
-
-Half a dozen times during that forenoon he dropped to rest, quite
-worn out. Noon did not mean dinner-time. His sickness had not
-recurred, but he was afraid to eat much of his uncooked hare, and
-only chewed morsels as he stumbled along. So far as shooting any
-more game was concerned, luck seemed still against him, and he did
-not greatly care.
-
-The sun wheeled from his shoulder to straight ahead, and began to
-sink. He almost lost expectation of getting anywhere at all. Roswick
-and the mining-camp seemed a myth. There seemed to be nothing in the
-whole world but the endless miles of spruce and jack-pine, swamp and
-rock, which he kept doggedly struggling through.
-
-He was too wearied even to keep up his anger against McLeod, or to
-think with any interest of the timber treasure. It was all a dulled
-memory. It was only the force of a past determination that kept
-driving him ahead.
-
-The sun went down almost without his noticing it, until the woods
-began to grow dark. He threw himself recklessly on the ground where
-he happened to be. Probably he could survive that night, but he felt
-sure that another one would be his last. But he was so bone-weary
-that he slept with merciful soundness, hardly even disturbed by the
-cold, till he awoke to find the earth once more powdered with the
-frost.
-
-He arose stiffly, feeling rheumatic twinges, and plodded forward
-once more. The weight of the light rifle was growing intolerable. He
-was mortally afraid lest he should begin to walk in the deadly
-circle of lost men, and he kept one eye on the sun. His mind was so
-confused that its changing position disconcerted him sadly.
-
-Then all at once a sound electrified him—a crashing through the
-undergrowth not many rods ahead. It sounded as if several men were
-going through at a run. Tom made a staggering rush forward, shouting
-loudly. In five minutes he heard running water, and then broke out
-upon the shore of a small river. On the shore opposite him he saw
-the marks of many heavy boots, but no one was in sight.
-
-Again and again he shouted, but no one answered. He could only guess
-that a party of hunters had gone past after a deer or a bear.
-Shaking with exhaustion and excitement, he sat down on a rock to
-listen and wait.
-
-After he had waited half an hour a boat shot up the stream, poled
-rapidly by four roughly dressed white men. They ran the boat ashore
-close to him, pitched out a collection of picks, shovels, and
-dunnage, and were about to rush away when Tom arose and shouted to
-them.
-
-They turned and stared, spoke together hastily, and seemed about to
-go on. But Tom’s forlorn appearance must have struck them, for one
-of the men came forward hurriedly.
-
-“We’re in a hurry. Are you in on the rush? Why, what’s the matter?”
-
-“The rush?” said Tom dizzily. “I—I don’t know. I’ve been on the
-trail—lost. Can you give me something to eat?”
-
-The man stared, darted back to his outfit, and returned in a moment
-with a large lump of bread and a slice of meat.
-
-“Here,” he said. “Eat this. We can’t stop. There’s a big gold
-discovery in the next township, and everybody’s on the dead run for
-it. Stop here, and you’ll see lots of fellows pass. You’re all right
-now. Want anything else? Well, so long!”
-
-And the prospecting party rushed into the woods, leaving Tom
-ravenously devouring the food. It gave him new life. When he had
-eaten it he lay back and rested luxuriously, feeling sleepy. He was
-near the mining-camps at last, and hope flowed back into him.
-
-Within ten minutes another _bateau_ came up and landed a little
-below him, and its crew vanished in the woods without noticing him.
-Close behind that boat came another, its occupants singing and
-shouting in French, as if on a lark.
-
-Tom got up and went down the shore, where the boats seemed to land.
-But it was nearly an hour before he saw another party. Then two men
-came by in a canoe, paddling fast, scarcely giving a glance to the
-boy on the shore. They were almost past when Tom saw clearly the
-face of the man in the stern, and he gasped as if he had been hit by
-a bullet.
-
-“Dave!” he exclaimed.
-
-He was not heard. He shouted again, and fired his rifle in the air.
-
-“Dave Jackson! Cousin Dave!” he yelled.
-
-The men glanced curiously back, but the canoe did not stop, and it
-disappeared around a bend in the stream. But Tom, electrified with
-surprise and anxiety, rushed after it. Rounding the bend, he saw it
-far up the river, driving hard ahead with all the force of two
-strong paddlers, who were evidently determined not to stop for
-anything.
-
-The ground along the shore was rough and tangled, and he could not
-pause to pick his way. He tripped and fell, blundering into thickets
-and morasses, struggling on, almost weeping at the thought of
-failure at the last inch.
-
-He would certainly have failed; he could have never have overtaken
-the paddlers, but the canoe ran suddenly inshore. The men hastily
-unloaded her, shouldered the packs and the canoe itself, and started
-into the woods. Evidently they planned to portage to some other
-waterway.
-
-Tom reached the spot of debarkation a few minutes after they had
-left it. He struck off on their well-marked trail, and, as they were
-bent double under their loads, he had no difficulty now in
-overtaking them. Dave Jackson was carrying the canoe, and he stared
-from under the inverted gunwale in utter astonishment when Tom
-breathlessly hailed him.
-
-“Tom!” he exclaimed. “It isn’t possible. What in the world are you
-doing up here? Surely that wasn’t you who yelled at us from the
-shore?”
-
-“Thank goodness, I’ve come up with you, Dave!” Tom gasped, almost
-dropping where he stood. “Hold on! Put down that canoe. I’ve been on
-the trail for days—got robbed—almost starved—trying to find you.”
-
-Then he did drop, dizzily collapsing on a log. Dave set down the
-canoe, but his partner, a big, bearded prospector, growled
-impatiently.
-
-“Got no time to stop, Jackson. All them fellows’ll get in ahead of
-us. If that young chap wants to talk to you, let him come along
-too.”
-
-“I can’t go another inch,” Tom protested. “And you’ve got to come
-back with me, Dave. It’s awfully important. I’ve come from Coboconk
-Lake—your old homestead.”
-
-Dave uttered an exclamation of surprise.
-
-“My old hay farm? You don’t say! Then you’ve been at father’s farm.
-Bet they were glad to see you. Did they tell you I was up this way?”
-
-Tom stared bewildered.
-
-“No, there wasn’t anybody there. The place was burned out. I thought
-you’d all abandoned it. But never mind that. Dave, I’ve found the
-lost walnut raft.”
-
-“You’re joking!” his cousin ejaculated.
-
-“Not a bit of it. I saw the timber. It’s ashore now—part of it
-anyway. It’s on your land, and you’ve got to come back to claim it.”
-
-And Tom briefly summarized the story of his adventures.
-
-“Gracious, what luck!” Dave exclaimed. “I’d looked, off and on, all
-around that lake for signs of the old raft, but I never thought of
-poking into that swamp at the narrows. But you’re all wrong, Tom.
-That isn’t my land. I didn’t even have the land where I put up the
-old barn. It was just a hay-making place. I homesteaded a hundred
-acres back where you saw the burned shack, but when the shack burned
-I let it go.”
-
-“But wasn’t that Uncle Phil’s place?” stammered Tom.
-
-“I should say not!” Dave laughed. “Was that what you thought? You
-must have thought we were a pretty shiftless lot. I guess your
-guides didn’t know where we really lived. Our ranch is west of the
-river. You leave it before you come to the lake. There’s a trail
-cut, that you ought to have seen. We’ve got a good farm there, sixty
-acres planted, house, barns, live stock, and all the rest. It’s
-about twelve miles from my old shack.”
-
-“You don’t mean to say Uncle Phil was living only twelve miles from
-me all the time?” cried Tom. “Why, at Oakley they said they hadn’t
-seen any of you all winter.”
-
-“Likely not. I’ve been up here in the camps, and we don’t get our
-mail and things at Oakley any more. There’s a new post-office and
-store eight miles nearer, started last summer.”
-
-“But what about the walnut? Haven’t we any rights in it at all?”
-asked Tom, in despair.
-
-“I’m afraid not,” said his cousin, after some thought. “But then,
-neither has your man down there who’s trying to get it. He evidently
-thinks I own that land. McLeod squatted there for a while before my
-time. But he never homesteaded any of it. He wasn’t a farmer. No,
-the only person who can claim that raft, it seems to me, is the
-Daniel Wilson Lumber Company, that cut it—or its heirs or assigns,
-if it has any. If it hasn’t, I expect the government’ll claim it.”
-
-Tom groaned. He had never anticipated such a flatly crushing
-conclusion to the expedition that had almost cost him his life.
-
-“I’d go to the land agent in Oakley and make a claim,” Dave went on.
-“Maybe you can homestead that land where the raft lies. You’re not
-old enough? Put it in my name. Go and see father and see what he
-says.”
-
-“But you’ll come back with me, Dave?” said Tom. “It’s a matter of
-maybe fifty thousand dollars.”
-
-“If we get it. But I don’t honestly think there’s a chance. I’ve got
-a better thing up here. With a little luck, I’ll make my everlasting
-fortune. The samples of free-milling ore out of this new field are
-something wonderful. It’s better shot than any timber—that doesn’t
-belong to us anyway. Better come along with me, and we’ll make a big
-strike together.”
-
-Tom shook his head. He did not have the gold-fever, and he could not
-relinquish hopes of the walnut timber that he had suffered so much
-to secure. There was a loud crashing of brush in the distance.
-Another party of gold hunters was on the trail.
-
-“Say, Jackson, we’ve got to be moving!” cried the bearded man,
-fuming with impatience.
-
-“All right—in a second. Look here, Tom, we can’t stop. Your best
-plan is to go back there and try to stand Harrison and McLeod off
-till you find out definitely what’s right. They can’t claim the raft
-any more than you can—unless,” he added, “they’ve gone and
-homesteaded the land where the timber lies. That would give them
-possession, anyway, and that’s nine points of the law. But they’d
-likely have done that the first thing if they had thought it was
-open for filing. You go and see father. And look here, I’ll come
-down myself as soon as I get our claims staked—in a week, maybe.”
-
-“All right,” said Tom, gloomily. “But where am I now? How do I get
-out of here?”
-
-“You’re about six miles from the Roswick camp. You made a pretty
-good shot at it, after all. Follow this river straight down to
-Roswick; then you have to take the stage out to the railway, and
-that’ll take you round to Waverley, and you come in to Oakley the
-same way as you did the first time. Got any money?”
-
-“Not a cent.”
-
-Dave plunged his hand into his pockets. “How much do you want? the
-railway fare’ll be about six dollars. Here’s fifteen. Will that do?”
-
-“Plenty,” said Tom gratefully. “I sha’n’t forget this, Dave, and
-I’ll repay you when—”
-
-“You’ll never need to. I’m going to be a rich man by fall. Now we
-really must rush on, or my partner’ll have a fit. Tell father and
-mother I’m all right. Sure you won’t come with us yet? You’d
-better.”
-
-“No,” said Tom. “I’m going to see my own game played out.”
-
-“Good luck with it, then. Good-by!”
-
-Dave and his partner picked up their loads and vanished crashing
-through the underbrush. Tom turned back toward the river, rather
-despondently. Physically he felt better; the rest and the food and
-the talk with Dave had done him good, but he was deeply depressed by
-his cousin’s pessimistic outlook. Still, he was determined not to
-let go while there was the slightest chance left. Harrison had no
-more right to the raft than he himself, at any rate, it appeared. He
-would see that Harrison did not get it, then, until the real
-ownership of the walnut could be ascertained.
-
-He made his way down the river shore, meeting three or four parties
-of prospectors, in _bateaux_ and canoes, and one on foot. It took
-him a good three hours to reach the mining-camp, where he found
-merely a collection of sheds and shanties, a store and a towering
-derrick or two. The place was almost depopulated, for all its
-inhabitants were on the gold-rush.
-
-He was able to get dinner at the mine boarding-house, and then hung
-about until the stage left late in the afternoon. An hour’s ride
-placed him at the railway station, and he boarded a mixed train,
-which carried him about fifty miles. He changed to a connecting
-line, waited half the night, and once more took the long stage drive
-to Oakley.
-
-It was late in the afternoon, but he was desperately anxious to find
-what was going on at Coboconk Lake. By this time Tom was somewhat
-known at Oakley, and he was able to borrow a canoe, by paying four
-dollars for the accommodation; and, after snatching a hurried meal,
-he started up the river.
-
-Daylight lasted late at that season, and Tom pushed ahead as fast as
-possible. The recent plentiful food and rest had restored his
-youthful physique to its full strength, and he was expert at the
-paddle now. Night found him on the river, however, but an almost
-full moon rose immediately after sunset, making it possible to go
-on. He was on the lookout for the trail of which Dave had spoken as
-leading to his uncle’s homestead, but in the dim light on the shore
-he could not pick it out. The house was several miles back, anyhow,
-and he had no idea of trying to reach it that night. He wanted to
-visit the timber treasure first.
-
-Little Coboconk spread dark and silvery under the moon as he came
-into it from the river. He paddled ahead, straight up to the
-narrows, and then paused, checking the paddle. There was a fire on
-the shore, apparently a large fire that had burned low, and close to
-it in the shadow two or three large white blurs that looked
-strangely like tents.
-
-He went on cautiously, in desperate anxiety. They were tents, sure
-enough, two very large ones, and a smaller one. But no one was in
-sight about the encampment. It was little after midnight, and
-doubtless everybody was asleep.
-
-Tom could hardly doubt who had set up this camp. All his hopes sank
-to nothing; nevertheless, determined to find out the truth, he
-paddled up to the shore, landed, and stood looking about for a
-moment. He saw that several of the half-buried logs had been dug out
-and rolled together, but before he could investigate any further a
-tent flap was pulled open, there was a sudden exclamation, and a man
-bounded out, half dressed, presenting a revolver.
-
-“We’ve got you this time! Throw up your hands!” he cried,
-triumphantly.
-
-Tom instantly put his hands up. The man approached. The boy had
-never seen him before. He looked like a woodsman or lumber-jack. He
-peered into Tom’s face, and uttered an exclamation of surprise.
-
-“I thought it was that murdering young Injun. Who are you? What do
-you want here?”
-
-“Who are you yourself?” returned Tom angrily. “This is my place. I
-was here before you. What are you camping here for?”
-
-And he took down his hands. Two other men came out of the big
-tent—rough lumbermen both of them.
-
-“Better wake up the boss and tell him we’ve caught some spy prowlin’
-round here, that says he owns the camp,” said Tom’s captor.
-
-One of the men went over to the smaller tent. There was a sound of
-voices; a few minutes elapsed. Then a man came hastily out, carrying
-a flashlight, and Tom recognized Harrison, as he had expected.
-
-But Harrison was far from expecting the meeting. He turned the light
-on Tom as he came up, and started. For several seconds there was
-silence, while the flashlight wavered.
-
-“I didn’t expect to see you back here, Jackson,” said Harrison at
-last, in his usual easy tone. “I thought you’d gone for good. I only
-wished you’d taken that young Ojibway with you. He’s been—”
-
-“I guess you didn’t expect to see me,” retorted Tom hotly. “You
-thought I was dead up in the woods, didn’t you? McLeod did his best.
-You tried to burn me out, and you tried to murder me, and now you
-come in and steal—”
-
-“Hold on! That’s a pretty rough way to talk,” Harrison interrupted
-him. “You must be crazy. Here, if you’ve got anything to say to me,
-come along to my tent.”
-
-Tom, boiling with indignation, was conducted to Harrison’s
-sleeping-tent, where the man turned on an electric lantern, and sat
-down on the cot-bed from which he had lately arisen.
-
-“You’ve got no kick coming at all,” Harrison resumed. “I made you a
-proposition to get out, right at the start, even though you had no
-particular rights here. I discovered this walnut before you thought
-of looking for it—”
-
-“And then you tried to burn me out, and you sent McLeod to kill me
-in the woods.”
-
-“As for the fire, it was an accident. McLeod? Well, McLeod tells me
-that you ambushed him and held him up and threatened to kill him. By
-way of a joke, after that, he ran off with your canoe and hid it a
-couple of miles down the river. Didn’t you find it again?”
-
-Tom listened in absolute disbelief.
-
-“Anyhow, you’ve got no sort of right to take out this timber,” he
-said. “It belongs—if it belongs to anybody—to the man who cut it.”
-
-“And he’s dead. Exactly,” said Harrison. “You see, I took the
-precaution of going into all that matter long ago. Daniel Wilson
-died ten years ago, but his son is living in Montreal. This son is
-Wilson’s only heir. I went to see him, and came to an arrangement.
-I’ll show you.”
-
-Harrison opened a small box, and after rummaging through it, he
-produced a large folded document, glanced at it, and handed it to
-Tom.
-
-It was worded in legal phraseology, hard to comprehend; but the boy
-made out that Henry Wilson, whose name was undersigned, transferred
-to A. C. Harrison all his rights in a certain quantity of walnut
-timber supposed to be in or about Coboconk Lake, formerly the
-property of the father of the said Henry Wilson.
-
-“I get it out on a basis of paying him a royalty of ten dollars a
-thousand feet, as you see,” said Harrison. “I paid him a hundred
-dollars down. It was a gamble, for I wasn’t sure; but I’d been up
-here before, and I had an idea of where that old raft might have
-drifted. But you see it’s all straight and aboveboard—”
-
-Tom was hardly listening. The paper appeared to be correctly drawn
-up, properly signed, and witnessed. He could not doubt its validity.
-There was nothing to do, then. Harrison had out-manœvered him at
-every point. The game was up.
-
-He turned almost sick with chagrin and defeat. He threw down the
-paper and stood up, turning away without a word.
-
-“Hold on. Where are you going?” cried Harrison.
-
-“None of your business! I’m not likely to trouble you any more;
-that’s all,” Tom returned through clenched teeth.
-
-[Illustration: The game was up]
-
-“Well, all right. Only I wish you’d call off that confounded Ojibway
-boy you left here,” said Harrison, agreeably. “He seems to think
-we’re trespassers. He’s shot up the camp twice. One of my men got a
-buck-shot in the leg. It isn’t safe to go into the woods. Tell him
-that if he doesn’t clear out we’ll hunt him down, and kill him or
-take him out for the penitentiary.”
-
-Tom had a moment’s pleasure at the thought of Charlie’s “shooting
-up” Harrison’s camp; but he did not return a word. He strode down to
-his canoe, and went shooting out into the moonlight of the lake. On
-the shore he could see the little group of men looking after him.
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER VII
-
-                            NOT TOO LATE
-
-
-Tom felt singularly inclined to shoot up the camp himself, but he
-restrained himself and paddled down the lake, almost without knowing
-where he was going. He had, in fact, no plan in his mind. All his
-plans had fallen into ruin together. He thought of getting away from
-these woods; he thought of going back to the city. It seemed the
-only thing left to do. But first it occurred to him, he must see
-Charlie.
-
-Not merely to give him Harrison’s warning, though the boy would
-certainly have to be checked in his now unnecessary warfare. But he
-had no food nor supplies, not even enough for the trip back to
-Oakley, nothing but his rifle and a few cartridges. Moreover he had,
-after some hesitation, left all his money with Charlie rather than
-risk taking it over the trail. There must be about seventy dollars,
-and he would need it badly.
-
-He had very little idea where the Indian boy was to be found, but he
-paddled down the lower lake to the mouth of the little river that
-led up to his old camping ground. In the moonlight and shadow he
-made his way up this almost to the point where he had shot the mink
-on that far-away spring morning. Here he disembarked and started
-into the woods by the way he used to take.
-
-It was rather dark in the shade, but the way was familiar to him,
-and he went ahead easily. But he had gone no more than two hundred
-yards when he heard something like a queer, metallic click not far
-ahead. An instinct made him stop short; and the next moment there
-was a blaze and a bang, and a load of heavy shot crashed into the
-tree trunk right at his side.
-
-By good luck, he was not touched. He sprang behind the tree,
-guessing at once who had fired that shot.
-
-“Don’t shoot, Charlie!” he yelled. “It’s me. It’s Tom.”
-
-Dead silence followed. Nothing seemed to stir in the undergrowth.
-Tom began to imagine that perhaps it was not Charlie who had fired.
-It might have been McLeod, come up from the lake to ambush him
-again. He listened and looked more keenly, but heard nothing, till a
-voice spoke quietly, almost at his elbow.
-
-“You get back, Tom? You fin’ your cousin?”
-
-Tom was so startled that he jumped. The Ojibway had crawled like a
-serpent through the brush to get a close look at the intruder before
-he spoke.
-
-“Gracious, Charlie!” he exclaimed. “Is that you?”
-
-The young Indian came out into the moonlight and surveyed Tom
-carefully.
-
-“You come—camp this way,” he announced, and, turning, he started off
-through the woods.
-
-Within a hundred yards or so Tom perceived the glimmer of a very
-small fire, almost hidden between two rocks. Charlie put on a few
-fresh sticks, and placed the kettle, and produced a lump of bacon.
-
-“You eat,” he observed. “I wait for you long time. Other man
-come—git timber, like you say. I lay for ’em—shoot their camp—no
-good. I hope you come back. I hear noise down by lake to-night—then
-I hear you come. T’ink you somebody else—shoot you, pretty near.”
-
-“Rather,” said Tom. “I’m glad you’re such a bad shot. You’ve done
-your best, Charlie, but it’s all up. I can’t have that timber. I’m
-going away.”
-
-Charlie looked up quickly, with a somber flash in his black eyes.
-
-“You come back, Tom?” he inquired.
-
-“I don’t know. Maybe not.”
-
-Charlie pondered, gazing into the fire. The tea-kettle boiled.
-Charlie poured out the hot strong stuff into tin cups and handed one
-to his friend.
-
-“You stay here, Tom,” he proposed. “We git that timber. We lay for
-them fellows. We can kill them all—easy.”
-
-“No, Charlie. That wouldn’t do,” said Tom, smiling at this too
-simple solution. “Those fellows have got a right to the timber, and
-I haven’t, and that settles it. You must stop your shooting at them.
-You’d better go away too.”
-
-Charlie looked depressed. Probably he had been thoroughly enjoying
-the guerrilla warfare of the last few days. From his sparing remarks
-Tom gathered that he had been continually changing his camp,
-prowling, scouting, feeling himself thoroughly on the warpath. He
-had fired on Harrison’s party several times; Tom felt devoutly
-thankful that nobody had been killed. Charlie had most of his
-smaller possessions cunningly cached in hollow logs and trees, and,
-on Tom’s inquiry, he went off into the darkness and presently
-returned with the money—a roll of bills carefully wound in birch
-bark. Tom would have liked to share it with this faithful comrade,
-but he would sorely need it all himself. He presented to Charlie,
-however, all the rest of his outfit: the aluminum cooking utensils,
-the ax, the odds and ends that had been rescued from the burning
-barn, and a few worn articles of clothing.
-
-“I stay round ’bout here, Tom,” said Charlie. “You come back.”
-
-“You’d better go and get some work,” Tom suggested. “Go down to
-Oakley.”
-
-Charles looked disdainful.
-
-“Work hard all winter,” he said. “Trap—hunt—walk snow-shoes. Rest in
-summer. Say, Tom, you come with me next winter. We trap—hunt—ketch
-heap fur.”
-
-“I don’t know, Charlie,” Tom answered, regretfully. He wondered
-where he would be next winter. He had little notion of what he ought
-to do. He might go to Uncle Phil’s farm, as he had at first
-intended; but this seemed now to promise nothing. Almost he
-regretted not having joined Dave in the gold hunt. On the whole it
-seemed better to go back to Toronto for the time. His clothes were
-torn; his shoes were almost worn out. He had a little money,
-however—more than he had started with. He could buy clothes, and
-then, perhaps, secure a job as before as a summer fire ranger. This
-might enable him to pay his way at the university, for he was
-determined to have no more of his former parasitic existence. He
-felt five years older, ten times as self-reliant as when he had left
-Toronto only a few months ago; and the thought of his college years
-of casual study, much foot-ball and hockey, and thoughtless
-scattering of money filled him with disgust.
-
-“I’ve acted like a kid,” he reflected. “Time I was getting grown up
-a little. No wonder father wouldn’t have me around the business.”
-
-Anyhow, he had to return the canoe to Oakley, and at dawn he bade
-Charlie farewell and started down the river again.
-
-“You come back, Tom,” the Ojibway called after him. “I wait for
-you.”
-
-He went straight down Little Coboconk without looking again at the
-lost treasure, and entered the river. A mile down he noticed the
-opening of a well-cut trail,—doubtless the road to Uncle Phil’s
-place,—and he wondered that he had never observed it before. He felt
-rather languid from the recent wearing days, and from short sleep
-for two nights; the river ran smoothly, and he drifted along without
-any great efforts at paddling, so that it was well into the
-afternoon when he came into Oakley.
-
-He was late for the stage to the railway, which left only in the
-forenoon; and he had to spend the rest of the afternoon and the
-night at the hotel. But the rest was welcome. He managed to improve
-his wild and wilderness-worn appearance a little, and took the train
-next morning.
-
-The city seemed strangely noisy, crowded, hot, and dirty when he
-came out from the station and boarded a street-car to go home. His
-own tattered and weather-beaten appearance seemed even stranger to
-the passengers on the car. He was carrying his rifle still, and he
-must have looked like a trapper from the utmost frontiers. The
-attention he attracted was so embarrassing that Tom was in haste to
-get home. He walked hurriedly for a block up Avenue Road after
-leaving the car and saw his house in the distance; but even then he
-perceived that the curtains were down everywhere and that the place
-had a vacant, deserted look.
-
-The front door was locked. He rang the electric bell repeatedly, but
-in vain, and then tried the side door and the back door, with no
-more success. Not even a servant was at home. He peeped into the
-garage through a crack in the door. The car was gone. Evidently the
-whole family had gone away, though it was the first time he could
-remember that his father had taken a summer vacation.
-
-Tom was much too familiar with the house to allow locks to keep him
-out. He knew a basement window that could be opened with a piece of
-wire, and without much trouble he got himself inside. From the
-interior of the house he judged that the family had been gone for
-several days, at least. He went to his own room, hunted out an
-outfit of fresh clothing more suited to the city, took a bath, and
-dressed himself. The feel of the stiff collar was strange and
-irritating. Investigating the kitchen, he could find nothing but
-some crackers, part of a pot of jam, and a tin of sardines; but
-these simple foods seemed delicious, and he greedily ate everything
-in sight.
-
-He looked through the house to see if he could find any indication
-of where his family had gone. He could discover nothing, but the
-appearance of the rooms and of the covered furniture seemed to
-indicate that a long absence was intended. Tom began to grow a
-trifle uneasy. But they would know all about it at his father’s
-office, and he left the house and took a downtown car.
-
-To his alarm he found no signs of life about the big lumber-yard at
-the foot of Bathurst Street. No teams were moving; no one was at
-work; the great gates were closed and padlocked, with a “No
-Admission” sign. But the office building was open, and Tom went in.
-
-None of the usual clerks were in the outer office. But he thought he
-heard a sound from his father’s private room beyond, and he opened
-the door, and looked in.
-
-Mr. Jackson was not there. But in his usual place at the desk sat a
-stout man with iron-gray hair, surrounded by an enormous mass of
-papers and ledgers. His back was to the door, but he wheeled
-sharply, with a look of annoyance, at hearing the door open.
-
-Tom recognized Mr. Armstrong, his father’s lawyer. For many years
-Mr. Armstrong had been not only Mr. Jackson’s legal adviser, but his
-closest personal friend. He did not often come to the house,
-however, and Tom really knew him very slightly. He had always been
-somewhat repelled by the lawyer’s dry, ironical manner, and had
-always had a feeling that Mr. Armstrong did not approve of him.
-
-“Mr. Tom Jackson. Really! The last person I expected to see,” said
-the lawyer with a chilly smile. Adjusting his eye-glasses, he
-examined Tom from head to foot. “You look as if you’d been roughing
-it. Your family has been very anxious about you, you know.”
-
-“Where are they? I’ve just come down from the north woods, and the
-house is empty,” Tom cried. “What’s happened? Surely father hasn’t
-left town?”
-
-“Your father has gone to Muskoka with his family, for a little
-rest—to the Royal Victoria Hotel, Muskoka Beaches,” replied the
-lawyer. “They were anxious to get in communication with you, but
-didn’t know how to reach you. I have the key of the house.”
-
-And he produced it from a pigeonhole in the desk.
-
-“But why did they go? Father isn’t ill?”
-
-“Your father is an extremely sick man. To get him out of town, away
-from business, was his only chance for life, the doctors thought.”
-
-“But what—what is the matter?” cried Tom, paralyzed by this news.
-
-“Why, nothing; that is, nothing very physically serious, I think.
-And that’s the worse of it. The doctors don’t know what to get hold
-of. Has your father told you anything about his business affairs?”
-
-“Not much—only that they were a little involved, some time ago. But
-I thought he had them straightened out all right.”
-
-“So he might have done, with a little bit of luck. He had several
-large contracts pending. He had bought options of some pulp-wood
-tracts; he expected to close a deal with the railroad for a big lot
-of ties. Nothing went right, though. He even failed to get the tie
-contract. Everything seemed to go back on him at once. He couldn’t
-take up his options, and he’s been obliged to close out nearly all
-his holdings at a big loss. At last he broke down. He gave up, and
-when a man like your father gives up, at his age, it means something
-serious.”
-
-Tom uttered a horrified exclamation. Armstrong looked at him coldly,
-but it was easy to see that the lawyer, under his frigid exterior,
-was deeply affected by the misfortunes of his old friend.
-
-“So you didn’t know anything about it?” he resumed. “Well, the
-doctors forbade him to think of business for months, and they sent
-him up north. He put all his affairs into my hands—gave me power to
-go through the business, and act as I see fit—either to go into
-bankruptcy, or to try to fight it out.”
-
-“Bankruptcy!” Tom exclaimed. The idea seemed preposterous to him,
-who had always regarded his father’s business as a source of wealth,
-varying, indeed, but inexhaustible. “Surely that’s impossible! What
-have you found?”
-
-“I haven’t finished going through the books. But it looks about as
-bad as it can be. The lumber business has been slumping for the last
-year. Three months ago I advised your father to make an assignment
-and have the thing over. But he said that every dollar of his paper
-had always been worth a hundred cents, and always would be while he
-lived. I think he was speaking truth. For if the business goes under
-I don’t believe he will survive it long. Business was his whole
-life.”
-
-Tom tried to collect his shocked mind.
-
-“How long will it take you to come to a conclusion?” he asked.
-
-“I don’t know. A considerable time. The accounts are very
-complicated.”
-
-“How much money would it take to clear everything?”
-
-“It’s hard to say, at this point. Perhaps thirty thousand. I think
-that twenty thousand might pull it through, in hard cash, at this
-minute. Are you thinking of furnishing it?” he added, with a return
-to his ironical manner.
-
-Tom had really come nearer to being able to furnish it than the
-lawyer imagined; and if Mr. Armstrong had shown himself a little
-more sympathetic the boy might have told his story and sought
-advice. But, as it was, he turned away in silence, full of grief and
-distress.
-
-“I suppose you’ll be going up to join your family in Muskoka,” the
-lawyer said. “Don’t let your father talk about business when you see
-him. Get him out in the open air, canoeing, fishing, if you can.
-Will you dine with me to-night?”
-
-Tom would rather have gone hungry than spend the evening with what
-seemed to him Armstrong’s sneering and cynical personality. He
-muttered an excuse, took the key, and went home again. He dined by
-himself at a lunch-counter, spent the night in the empty house, and
-next morning took the early train for Muskoka Beaches. He felt that
-he could make no plans for the summer now until he knew how his
-father was, and whether his help could be of any avail.
-
-The season was opening well at the summer resort, and the lake in
-front of the Royal Victoria Hotel was alive with canoes,
-motor-boats, and skiffs. The lawns were gay with tennis; automobiles
-roared and thudded, and the wide verandas of the big hotel were
-crowded with rocking-chairs. It struck Tom that this was anything
-but a quiet retreat for a man with nervous breakdown. He mounted the
-steps to the first veranda, looked about uncertainly, and was lucky
-enough to espy his youngest sister in a far corner, reclining in a
-camp-chair with a novel.
-
-“Oh, Edith!” he exclaimed, hastening toward her. “How’s father?
-Where is he?”
-
-The girl jumped up with a cry of astonishment.
-
-“Why, Tom! When did you get here? We wanted to write to you, but we
-didn’t know where you were. Where _have_ you been? You look like an
-Indian—all brown and thin.”
-
-“Up in the woods. I’ve just been in town—saw Armstrong, and he told
-me about father. Do you think he’s dangerously sick?”
-
-“I don’t know, Tom. He’s up all the time, but he can’t sleep and
-doesn’t eat. We can’t get him to do anything. I think he’s worrying
-about business, but he never says anything, not even to mamma. You’d
-better come and see him. He’s up-stairs.”
-
-Tom followed his sister through the hallways of the great hotel, up
-a flight of stairs, and into the suite of rooms that his father had
-taken. No one was in them just then; for Mrs. Jackson had gone
-down-stairs, and her husband was on the private balcony outside,
-where he spent the sunny part of the days.
-
-Here Tom found him, lying back in a long chair, wrapped closely in a
-steamer rug, looking pitifully old and broken. Tom could not
-remember having ever seen his father ill before; and a lump rose in
-his throat, and he could barely mutter something as he grasped the
-sick man’s hand. Mr. Jackson greeted him with some pleasure, but his
-manner was absent and almost indifferent. Tom had a heartbreaking
-sense that he had meant nothing to his father’s life; he had a
-conviction also that Armstrong was right, and Mr. Jackson would not
-long outlast the business he had created.
-
-“This is a good place to come to, Father,” he said, with an effort
-to be cheerful. “It ought to set you up in no time.”
-
-“The place is well enough,” said the lumberman slowly. “It’s too
-fashionable to suit me, but your mother likes it, and you can smell
-the pine woods here. That smell does me good; but I’m getting to be
-an old man, and there’s no medicine for that.”
-
-“Nonsense! You’re just overworked. You’ll be a young man again after
-a month’s rest,” Tom remonstrated. “I’m going to take you out in a
-canoe, trolling for salmon trout.”
-
-Mr. Jackson did not appear to welcome this suggestion.
-
-“Where have you been all this time? What have you been doing with
-yourself?” he inquired, with no great interest.
-
-“I’ve been up in the woods—on the Coboconk lakes—near Uncle Phil’s
-place,” Tom answered with some hesitation. “Looking for—for
-government land to take up. I saw Cousin Dave, just starting on a
-gold-rush.”
-
-And to entertain his father he gave a humorous description of the
-hurrying prospectors.
-
-“You’ve been in town. Did you see Armstrong there? What did he tell
-you?” Mr. Jackson inquired, after listening indifferently to Tom’s
-story.
-
-“He told me—that you were on no account to talk about business,” Tom
-evaded, laughing.
-
-“He’s an old fool. But it’ll not bear much talking about, maybe. He
-told you the shape it’s in, I’ve no doubt. I left it all in his
-hands. I was at the end of my rope. If the business goes down, Tom,
-you’ll have to start life a poor man, the same as your father did;
-and I’m afraid you haven’t got the training or the mind for it,” he
-added, ruthlessly. “It’s partly my own fault.”
-
-“It wasn’t your fault a bit, Father!” Tom groaned. “It was all my
-own foolishness. It’s going to be different after this. I’ve learned
-a lot up there in the woods. I had a rough time and nearly starved.
-I thought things all over.” He hesitated, and then went on. “I did
-think once, too, that I was going to make a big strike.”
-
-Mr. Jackson was looking at his son with a little more interest.
-
-“Well, if you can get a bit more practical, Tom, it’ll be a good
-thing. In fact, it looks as if you’d have to do it. What kind of a
-strike were you trying to make? Gold? There’s no mineral around the
-Coboconk lakes. I’ve lumbered all through that district, years ago.”
-
-“You have?” cried Tom. “I never knew that. Then very likely you’ve
-heard of the big raft of walnut logs that was lost on Coboconk a
-good many years ago?”
-
-“Everybody’s heard of it up there. What about it?”
-
-“Well—I found it.”
-
-The old lumberman opened his eyes, and sat up briskly.
-
-“You found it? Where? Why, it was sunk in the lake.”
-
-“Don’t get stirred up, Father. There’s nothing in it, I’m afraid.
-But I did find it. It had been sunk, but close to the shore, near
-the place where the two lakes connect. The water has gone back a
-good deal: and, besides, the lake was very low this spring, so that
-the place where the raft had sunk is clean out of the water now.
-Some of the timber was sticking out of the sand, and most of it
-seemed to be only a foot or so down, so I had great hopes of getting
-it out. It seemed to be in first-rate condition.”
-
-“Well, what did you do?” demanded Mr. Jackson, impatiently.
-
-“Why, you see, the timber didn’t belong to me. I thought it was on
-Uncle Phil’s land, and that’s why I hunted up Dave. But it isn’t.”
-
-“You ought to have sent word to me at once!” exclaimed Mr. Jackson.
-His eyes were alive now with interest, and he looked ten years
-younger all at once.
-
-“Just what I was thinking of doing. But it wouldn’t have made any
-difference, I’m afraid. There was another man prospecting for it—a
-fellow named Harrison, who had been up there last summer too. He
-played me a nasty trick, but he had the rights to the raft.”
-
-“The rights? How did he make that out?” cried Mr. Jackson.
-
-“He had the papers. It seems old Daniel Wilson, who cut the raft,
-has a son living in Montreal, and Harrison had made some deal with
-him to get out the timber, if he could find it. He’s paying young
-Wilson a royalty, I believe.”
-
-“No such thing! The fellow must be an impostor. You should have let
-me know of this at once, Tom. I can’t imagine what you were thinking
-of. Do you know the value of walnut now? Never mind! I guess it
-isn’t too late, if we act quick.”
-
-And, to Tom’s astonishment and alarm, his father threw off the rug
-and stood up, his eyes bright, looking revitalized. Tom regretted
-that he had told the story, which he had meant merely to entertain
-his father.
-
-“Sit down, Father,” he urged, taking his arm gently. “It’s no good.
-Harrison may be a villain; he certainly tried some rough work on me.
-But then he made me a cash offer first to leave the place. But, so
-far as the timber goes, he seems to have his title good. I saw the
-papers made out by Wilson’s son, all signed and witnessed in proper
-shape. I don’t see how we can do anything.”
-
-“Papers? A pack of lies! Forgeries!” snorted Mr. Jackson. “Why, I
-knew old Dan Wilson well. He’s got no son living. Even if he had it
-would make no difference; for the Daniel Wilson Lumber Company
-failed five years before Dan’s death, and I bought out all the
-concern, all the assets, every stick and scrap of them. Paid fifteen
-hundred dollars, and lost about a thousand on it; but I only meant
-it to help Dan out. The raft was included in the assets; I’ll show
-you the papers. They’re in the safe. I never expected to see any of
-that walnut, but it’s mine—all of it. Why, I’m the Wilson Lumber
-Company myself, now!”
-
-
-
-
-                            CHAPTER VIII
-
-                            THE TREASURE
-
-
-“You mean to say you really own the timber yourself, Father?” Tom
-cried, almost stupefied. For just a moment he had the idea that his
-father’s mind had become slightly deranged; but Mr. Jackson’s
-practical and competent manner, growing more vigorous every minute,
-put that idea to flight.
-
-“Of course I do. Armstrong knows all about it. What a pity you
-didn’t tell him when you were in town! But it can’t be helped. We’re
-not too late—I hope. What has that Harrison done toward lifting the
-walnut?”
-
-“Not very much, when I left, three days ago. I think he’d just got
-to work. They had dug out quite a number of the logs.”
-
-“How many men did he have? How many teams? You don’t know? You
-should have found out, Tom. Anyhow, it’ll be a matter of weeks to
-get all that lumber up and raft or haul it away. But we don’t want
-him to have any claim for salvage against us. We must get on the
-spot the first minute we can. We’ll start for Coboconk at once, my
-boy.”
-
-“Let me go alone, Father. Give me authority to act for you. You’re
-not strong enough to go into the woods.”
-
-“I guess I’m plenty strong enough when there’s something really to
-be done,” laughed the old lumberman. “It was doing nothing that was
-killing me—sitting still and seeing nothing but ruin. No, this is
-just the medicine I want.”
-
-Tom still felt dubious, but Mr. Jackson insisted on action.
-
-“I don’t see why we can’t start to-morrow,” he said. “We can get our
-outfit and men at Ormond. I guess that’s the nearest railway point
-to the lake.”
-
-“I thought Oakley was the nearest.”
-
-“Oakley’s down the river—thirty-five miles or so, isn’t it? And we
-couldn’t take teams up the river in canoes. Ormond is straight west
-from the Coboconk lakes, only twenty miles, and there’s a logging
-road, or used to be. That’s the way you go to Phil’s ranch. You
-can’t teach me much about that district, Tom. Just wait till we get
-out there.”
-
-Tom’s mother was astounded, half an hour later, to find Mr. Jackson
-walking briskly up and down the balcony arm in arm with his son,
-talking with enthusiasm about business matters. Mr. Jackson laughed
-at her alarm; he declared he felt a hundred per cent. better
-already, and, in fact, he presently ate a better lunch than he had
-eaten for a long time. Afterward, however, he consented to take his
-prescribed nap, and while he was sleeping Tom detailed the new
-enterprise to his mother. On her suggestion Tom went to consult the
-doctor who was attending his father. For a dangerously sick man to
-start suddenly upon the trail did seem a risky experiment.
-
-“This may be just the thing he needs,” said the physician, after
-listening to Tom’s tale. “Inaction and worry were the hardest things
-on him. He hasn’t any real disease at all. Make him travel as
-comfortably as possible, and try to keep him from overexerting
-himself, and you may bring him back cured.”
-
-Tom did not tell his father about this visit to the doctor, but he
-was able to throw himself into the preparations with a much better
-conscience. They did not, however, leave for a day or two. It was
-not so very far to the Coboconk district, but it was a very
-circuitous journey by rail. They had to go half-way to Toronto and
-then back upon a branch line to reach Ormond, and it was late in the
-afternoon when they at last got off at that backwoods village. The
-timber treasure lay only twenty-two miles to the east, but it was
-twenty-two miles of dense second-growth forest penetrated only by
-the almost disused logging roads.
-
-Ormond was a village of two-score houses and a store or two, larger
-than Oakley but not now so flourishing. Once this district had been
-the seat of a thriving lumber industry; Mr. Jackson had worked over
-it before setting up in Toronto; but most of the pine had been long
-ago cut, and dull times had come upon Ormond. But Tom was astonished
-to find his father well known and remembered there still. The
-proprietor of the hotel, elderly, bearded, and rough, stared at his
-guests for a moment, and then uttered a shout of recognition.
-
-“Jumping crickets! If it ain’t Matt Jackson!”
-
-Mr. Jackson shook the hotel man’s hand heartily.
-
-“I didn’t know you were up here yet, Andrews,” he said. “I used to
-know Mr. Andrews well, years ago, when I was lumbering around
-Coboconk,” he said to Tom. “I expect there may be some of my old
-lumber-jacks here still. If there are they’re just what we need now.
-I’ve got a little timber proposition on,” he added to the
-proprietor.
-
-“Sure, I’ll find ye some of the boys,” exclaimed Andrews. “They’ll
-be powerful glad to work for ye again, too—the more as jobs is
-scarce around Ormond these days.”
-
-Tom went up to his room to wash, pleased immensely at the reception
-they had received. Coming down again, he found his father in
-animated conversation with a group of old residents, and looking
-more alive and interested than he had seen him for years. Mr.
-Jackson was tired, indeed, and went early to bed that night; but he
-was far from exhausted by the journey, and was up the next morning
-before his son.
-
-Tom found his father down-stairs, consulting with a big, roughly
-dressed fellow, bull-necked and huge-chested. His hair was grizzling
-a little, but his strength appeared noway abated with years, and he
-treated the lumber merchant with marked deference.
-
-“This is Joe Lynch—Big Joe, they used to call him, and likely do
-yet,” said Mr. Jackson. “He’s one of the best bushmen in the north,
-and it isn’t the first time he’s worked for me. He’ll be our foreman
-now, and he thinks he can pick up six or eight men for us right
-away. We want to get started at once. Teams and supplies can come on
-later. Remember, Joe,” he added, “I want men who wouldn’t be afraid
-of a little trouble. Not roughs, you know, but fellows who can fight
-if they need to. Maybe there’ll be a row where we’re going.”
-
-“Trust me for thot, sorr,” responded Lynch, with a wink. “They’ll
-like nothing better. I’ll get ye a bunch that’ll fight their weight
-in wildcats, any day.”
-
-At that moment breakfast was called, and Tom and his father went
-into the dining-room.
-
-“I’ve heard news of your man Harrison,” said Mr. Jackson. “He was
-here ten days ago, hiring men and getting supplies. Nobody knew what
-he wanted them for. He’s got five men and one team of horses, and he
-can’t have made any great progress at getting out the walnut yet.
-But I think we’d better hurry ahead as soon as we can. It’ll take
-some time to get our outfit together here, but I suppose I can leave
-that to Lynch—though I’d rather see after it myself. Something’s
-sure to be overlooked.”
-
-“Better let me scout ahead, Father!” Tom urged. “We can’t tell what
-Harrison may be doing. He might raft down the timber in small
-quantities as fast as he got it out, and sell it at Oakley.”
-
-“That’s a fact,” said Mr. Jackson, struck by this danger. “I suppose
-you could stop anything like that, if you took a man or two with
-you. I’d give you written authority.”
-
-“But Uncle Phil’s ranch must be on the way,” cried Tom, struck with
-a fresh idea. “He’d go over with me, or Cousin Ed—maybe somebody
-else.”
-
-This proposition was so evidently sound that Tom set out soon after
-breakfast. Plenty of people knew where Phil Jackson’s farm lay, and
-Tom regretted that he had not originally come to Ormond instead of
-Oakley. But then he would probably never have reached Coboconk and
-the lost raft.
-
-He carried only his rifle and a package of cold lunch, expecting to
-reach the farm some time that afternoon. It was supposed to be only
-fifteen miles, and there was a road,—not much used, indeed, but
-still a road,—which it would be easy to follow. Mr. Jackson was to
-collect his men and their outfit and come on the next day, to rejoin
-Tom where the trail struck the river, below Little Coboconk.
-
-The old road proved rough traveling. Apparently it had not been used
-at all for a long time, and it was grown up thickly with small
-spruces and raspberry thickets—so jungly, in fact, that Tom often
-found it easier to take to the woods.
-
-It was not going to be easy traveling for the wagons, he thought;
-and wondered if Harrison’s men had come in this way. Still, he
-plodded on and ate his lunch about noon, and within the next few
-miles he began to look for traces of settlement. Nothing appeared,
-however, and he began to travel slowly, looking about him more
-carefully for trails. An uneasy qualm began to assail him, but he
-kept on until, as the sun came down close to the tree-tops, he
-became assured that he had somehow missed the way.
-
-He turned back at once on his own trail. Once he came to what seemed
-a cow track crossing the path, but it presently became untraceable.
-The sun was going down, and he stopped. By this time he was grown
-hardened to being lost in the woods; but he was hungry, and the
-prospect of a supperless night was not attractive.
-
-It was warm, however, and he built a fire and made himself as
-comfortable as possible. Despite an empty stomach, he managed to
-sleep; and in the earliest morning, rested but famished, he started
-back on the road over which he had come. But it was only after an
-hour or so that he came upon an obscure-looking cross trail that he
-had previously overlooked. He might have passed it again, had not
-his attention been caught by something like the far-away bellow of a
-cow.
-
-He followed up the trail toward the sound, and within a quarter of a
-mile he struck a wide, stumpy, pasture clearing. Beyond another belt
-of trees he emerged upon a plowed field, with a view of a large log
-house and barns, which he knew must be the elusive homestead of
-Uncle Phil.
-
-So it proved. Tom hurried up to the house and got an astonished but
-enthusiastic welcome. He had come at an unfortunate moment, however.
-Uncle Phil and Cousin Ed had started within the last hour for the
-store and post-office, nine miles away on a bush road that Tom had
-not suspected, and were not likely to be back before evening.
-
-No one was at home but his aunt and the younger children. Tom ate a
-huge breakfast, told his story, and gave news of Dave on the gold
-trail, and rested for an hour or so. But he was uneasily impatient
-to reach the lakes. He was afraid to wait for his uncle’s return,
-and he got an early dinner, took a packet of lunch, and set out
-again shortly after midday.
-
-He had his directions more accurately laid now; but it was rough
-travel through the woods, and he went more slowly than he had hoped.
-The sun was almost setting when he emerged at last on the shore of
-the river. He was still a mile or two below Little Coboconk, but he
-hastened up the stream and saw the long, placid expanse of the lake.
-
-Nothing moved on its waters. From away up by the narrows he thought
-he saw a curl of smoke in the evening air. The emptiness relieved
-him; somehow he had almost expected to see the raft afloat and
-steering down the lake. But he knew that it was almost impossible
-for Harrison to have salvaged any great quantity of the timber so
-soon.
-
-Peering ahead, he walked up the stony margin of the lake in the
-twilight. He had a strange, uneasy feeling that eyes were upon him,
-as he had had during the journey to Roswick; but this time he was
-certain that no one could have followed him through the woods. More
-than once, all the same, he turned quickly to look, but nothing
-stirred on the surface of the lake or the darkening shores.
-
-Smoke was certainly rising from Harrison’s encampment, but he was
-afraid to go within sight of the place while the light lasted. He
-sat down in the thickets just back from the shore and ate his
-lunch—wise enough this time to reserve a portion for breakfast.
-Darkness fell on the water. A half-moon grew visible over the trees,
-and up by the narrows a red glow began to shine.
-
-Tom resumed his course up the shore, careful to make no noise. The
-glare over the trees looked as if Harrison had set fire to the
-forest again. But it was not until he reached the head of Little
-Coboconk that he could see what was going on.
-
-Harrison’s camp lay across the narrows from him, and there were
-great fires burning on the shore that cast a flood of red light
-across the water. Dark figures moved through the lurid illumination;
-he heard the rattle of chains, the thud of axes, and the cries of
-men hauling and heaving at the timbers. Evidently Harrison, in his
-desperate haste to get the walnut out, was working day and night.
-
-Tom crept up closer to the narrow channel, feeling secure in the
-outlying darkness. From the opposite shore he made out a huge, dark
-shape stretching like a pier. The raft was being rebuilt. And then
-Tom distinguished Harrison himself, standing in the full light of
-one of the fires, talking earnestly to another man, a stranger, an
-elderly man, who did not look in the least like a lumber-jack.
-
-For a long time Tom crouched in the shadows, watching the scene of
-activity. Logs were being dug out and piled in place. They were not
-working on the raft just then. Probably daylight was needed for
-that. But it looked rather certain that no timber was likely to be
-floated away for some time, and Tom felt vastly relieved. By the
-next night his father would be here.
-
-He wondered if they were going to work all night. He was tired of
-waiting on the shore, and he had a great desire to examine the
-partly constructed raft more closely. Toward nine o’clock, however,
-he observed the activity slackening. The fires began to die down.
-Work was knocked off. He perceived that a kettle was being boiled at
-a smaller and more distant fire. The men gathered around and were
-served with food. They smoked for a little while after this, while
-Tom watched impatiently, and then one by one they disappeared into
-the tents. There were evidently not men enough for the day and night
-shifts, and so Harrison had simply extended the day as long as
-possible.
-
-Tom still waited and listened. Silence fell on the camp. The red
-shine of the fires grew dim, and the pale moonlight began to take
-its place. But for the fifty yards of channel, Tom would have
-ventured to reconnoiter the raft more closely; and he was in fact
-thinking of taking off his clothes and wading and swimming over when
-a faint, unmistakable splash close at hand caught his attention.
-
-He shrank back into the bushes, cocking his rifle. For full five
-minutes he stood motionless, every sense alert, but without hearing
-a twig rustle. Then a shadow moved out of a thicket.
-
-“Tom!” said a subdued voice.
-
-Tom started violently, half raising his rifle.
-
-“You no shoot me, Tom. I watch you long time,” said the shadow.
-
-“Charlie!” exclaimed the boy, recovering himself. “That isn’t you?
-Why, I thought you were gone long ago. How did you see me?”
-
-“I see you when you come out on river, ’fore dark. Think it’s you,
-not sure. I follow you—watch long time. I think mebbe you come back
-some time, Tom. I look for you every day.”
-
-“Charlie, you’re a good scout!” said Tom, his heart warming. “Yes,
-I’ve found out that timber really is mine after all, so I came
-back.”
-
-“We fight um, then?” asked Charlie, hopefully.
-
-“Not to-night, anyhow,” Tom responded, smiling. “My father is coming
-to-morrow. May be a fight then. But how did you get here? Got a
-canoe? Where’d you get it?”
-
-“My canoe. That red-hair man steal him from you—I steal him back
-again.”
-
-“Good!” Tom looked across at the dying firelight and the dim tents.
-“Put me across there, Charlie. I want to see how much of that timber
-they’ve got out.”
-
-The Ojibway seemed to vanish without a word into the gloom. Within a
-few minutes the canoe glided up, a darker shadow in the shadow of
-the lake-side spruces. Tom stepped in cautiously, and Charlie,
-dipping the paddle without a sound, guided the canoe across the
-channel and touched the extremity of the half-built raft.
-
-It was not all of walnut, of course. It had to be buoyed with
-lighter wood, and even in the faint light Tom could see the
-fresh-cut spruce and pine logs. It was impossible to estimate how
-much of the old timber there was. He climbed out of the canoe and
-stood upon the raft itself, which felt as solid under him as a ship.
-
-He raked the silent camp with another cautious glance and walked
-toward the shore. Reaching the land he could see the earth torn up
-in wild hollows and mounds, where the walnut had been disinterred.
-Piles of logs lay in every direction. It looked as if surely the
-greater part of the lost raft was there, ready for rebuilding again,
-and Tom was filled with renewed anxiety. They were running it fine.
-If anything should delay his father and the men from Ormond,
-Harrison might still get away with his plunder.
-
-He stepped off the raft upon the earth and looked keenly about
-again. Through his mind passed the idea of doing something to wreck
-operations—to halt them, at any rate; but he dismissed it. The gain
-would not be worth the danger. Next day he would have reinforcements
-on the spot. The best thing would be to retreat into the darkness
-again and wait.
-
-He had taken half a dozen steps, and he turned to go back. Some dim
-obstacle lay at his feet. Trying to avoid it, he tripped on
-something, with a clashing of chains. He stumbled forward and
-blundered into a hole where a log had been dug up, knocking down a
-pile of cant-hooks and spades, mingled with chains, which made a
-deafening crash and clatter. The rifle flew out of his hand.
-
-Almost instantly he heard a voice asking what was the matter. A man
-dived out of the nearest tent, stared about, and then started toward
-him. Tom lay flat where he had fallen, invisible, as he hoped, in
-the darkness. The man came within two yards of him, gazed about
-again, while Tom lay holding his breath, and then, with a muttered
-exclamation, struck a match. In the quick, brilliant flare Tom
-caught a glimpse of the man’s fox-colored hair. He jerked his legs
-under him and made a plunge to get away, but the fellow was even
-more agile. He was upon him before Tom touched the raft, and the boy
-was pulled back by rough hand on his collar.
-
-McLeod turned Tom’s face to the moonlight.
-
-“I declare, ef it ain’t that youngster again!” he exclaimed. “Can’t
-keep away, hey? All right—I got him!” he called over his shoulder.
-“It’s that same—”
-
-Tom was aware that Harrison and the stranger were hurrying toward
-him. Other men were appearing from the tents. He glanced toward the
-end of the raft. Charlie and his canoe had vanished. He was ashamed
-at being caught so ignominiously, but he was not particularly
-afraid. He felt in possession of authority now. He had the
-whip-hand.
-
-“What’s this?” Harrison cried, turning on the white beam of a
-flashlight. “Oh, it’s you, is it? Didn’t I warn you to clear out?”
-
-“I’ve come back to stay this time,” Tom retorted. “I know all—”
-
-“Who is it? Do you know him?” interrupted the strange man, who had
-an honest and good-humored face. He wore a soft collar and a tie,
-and had slightly the air of a sportsman from town.
-
-“He’s been hanging about all spring,” said Harrison, impatiently. “I
-don’t know his name. Trying to steal something, I guess.”
-
-“That won’t do,” said Tom. “I know a good deal more than I did when
-I was here last. I’ve heard all about Daniel Wilson. My father’ll be
-here in the morning. Just now, I’m in his place.”
-
-“You must be crazy!” Harrison exclaimed. “Look here, you get out of
-this camp at once.” He took Tom by the shoulder, and propelled him
-toward the woods. “Got anything to say to me? Well, say it quick!”
-
-The rest of the party remained where they were, laughing. Harrison
-shoved Tom into the shadows of the trees, gripped his arm hard, and
-led him on, stumbling over fallen timber.
-
-“You want to talk to me?” he repeated. “Well, go ahead.”
-
-He had dropped the bluff tone of intimidation, and his voice was
-subtle, conciliating. They were out of ear-shot of the camp now.
-
-“I haven’t much to say,” returned Tom. “I saw my father—Matthew
-Jackson, of Toronto—and told him all about the raft. You can guess
-the rest. He took over Dan Wilson’s business, you know. You haven’t
-any rights here at all. We might pay you something for the work
-you’ve done already on it, but that’ll be all we’ll do. You’ll have
-to get ready to quit.”
-
-Harrison steered Tom a little way farther into the woods, saying
-nothing. Then he stopped, and spoke in a low tone of intense
-passion.
-
-“Do you think I’d quit now? It’s a year that I’ve been working for
-this. Part of the timber’s sold already. I’m going to float out a
-raft to-morrow or the next day. Do you want to have one fight now
-and another in the courts? Look here, I’ll make a reasonable deal.
-I’ve got maybe a third of this stuff ready to move. Let me get away
-with that and I’ll leave the rest of it for you.”
-
-“Can’t do it,” returned Tom promptly. “I couldn’t make such a deal
-myself, and I know father wouldn’t. He’ll be here to-morrow, and—”
-
-“Your father won’t be here to-morrow. He’s going to be turned back
-before he gets to the lake,” said Harrison.
-
-“Turned back? What do you mean?” Tom exclaimed, with a sudden,
-horrified vision of his father being ambushed, perhaps shot on the
-trail. “Are you going to try another trick? You can’t work it,
-Harrison!”
-
-They were standing close together and face to face, and at that
-moment Tom felt something hard against his body. Glancing down, he
-saw a revolver that glittered dimly, its muzzle digging into his
-stomach.
-
-“I gave you a chance!” Harrison muttered between clenched teeth.
-“What do you take—life or death? You young fool, I’m a desperate
-man. I’m going to have that timber now, and I don’t care what stands
-in my way—not even murder.”
-
-Tom shrank back involuntarily from the revolver barrel, which sent a
-cold thrill to his very backbone. He had lost his rifle; he was
-entirely unarmed. But reason told him that Harrison would not really
-shoot. He would not go the length of murder, with a dozen men within
-fifty yards. It was a bluff! Charlie was surely lurking somewhere in
-the shadows offshore. Tom filled his lungs, and suddenly opened his
-mouth to yell.
-
-“Char—!”
-
-Before the sound could leave his lips Harrison had him by the throat
-like a tiger, forcing him back against a tree. Tom hit out savagely
-into the man’s face, but that iron grip seemed to choke the life out
-of his body. His head swam; everything turned black before him. For
-an instant the throttling grasp relaxed, and then he received a
-fearful blow on the head, that sent him plunging down, it seemed
-into darkness. As he fell he was scarcely aware of another
-shattering blow, and he knew nothing whatever afterward.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER IX
-
-                              VICTORY
-
-
-The next hours were blank for Tom, or almost blank. He seemed at
-last to hear a roaring sound like water. He seemed to be rushing at
-dizzying speed through worlds of darkness. Then he thought he saw
-the malicious face of McLeod peering into his own, and again
-blackness and silence covered everything.
-
-Something aroused him; something was pulling at him. Opening his
-eyes, he saw strangely an outline of tree-tops sharp against a
-starry sky. He was being dragged violently by the shoulder.
-
-“Git up, Tom—quick!” a voice penetrated his ears. “They come back
-soon.”
-
-Tom’s head ached so dizzily that it fell back when he tried to lift
-it. He could not remember where he was. He did not know who was
-beside him. He tried feebly to raise his arms, and found that they
-were roped together; and his legs, too, were tightly bound at the
-ankles.
-
-“Wait—I see now. I cut you loose,” muttered the hurried voice, which
-Tom now dimly recognized. A knife-blade flashed, and sawed at the
-rope. His arms were free, then his legs. He made a feeble effort to
-get up, and collapsed again.
-
-“No use! Can’t do it!” he murmured thickly.
-
-Charlie seemed to hesitate.
-
-“I carry you,” he said with determination, and, getting his arms
-around Tom’s body, he sought to heave him on his shoulders. He
-really might have carried him, for Charlie was used to carrying
-tremendous loads over canoe portages, but Tom’s faintly reviving
-spirit rebelled. He slipped down, clung to a tree for several
-seconds, and tried to steady his whirling head.
-
-“You come,” said Charlie anxiously. “That red-hair man, he be back
-quick, mebbe. I wait long time.”
-
-Tom had only a vague notion of what the Ojibway meant. He could not
-remember what had happened; he knew only that some danger hung over
-him like a nightmare. He let the tree go and attempted to walk. He
-reeled, and would have fallen but for Charlie’s quick grasp. Then
-Charlie got an arm around his body, and, half carrying, half leading
-him, managed to steer him through the woods.
-
-It seemed an endless way to Tom, but it could have been only a few
-rods, when the Indian uttered a wearied grunt of satisfaction, and
-Tom saw the shimmer of moonlight on water. Charlie let him go, to
-sink on the ground, and vanished. In a minute or two he was back,
-and helped Tom down to the shore. Tom saw a canoe without surprise.
-He managed to get into it somehow without upsetting it, and settled
-down into a crumpled heap amidships. Charlie got into the stern, and
-without a sound the craft glided down the shore, keeping in the
-shadows of the trees.
-
-By slow degrees the boy’s wits returned, helped by the fresh lake
-air. Leaning over, he splashed water on his head, which hurt
-severely. The douche cooled and refreshed him. Memory struggled
-back.
-
-Painfully he remembered the knock-out he had received—Harrison’s
-proposal—his scouting at the raft—groping his way back step by step.
-Of what had taken place after he had been struck senseless he had no
-idea, nor how much time had passed. From the feeling of the air, it
-seemed to him that it must now be late in the night.
-
-“Where are we going, Charlie?” he said thickly, over his shoulder.
-
-“By gar, I think you mebbe dead, Tom!” exclaimed the Indian, in
-excited, though subdued tones. “We go good place. I fix you up all
-right. Mos’ there now.”
-
-They were going down Little Coboconk now, taking less care to keep
-out of the moonlight. Just at the lower end of the lake Charlie ran
-the canoe ashore beside a great log, got out, and helped Tom to
-disembark. He lifted the canoe out of the water and stowed it
-somewhere in the dark undergrowth; and then, with an air of being
-familiar with the place, he grasped Tom’s arm and conducted him
-among the spruces by several mazy turnings, and at last indicated by
-a pressure on his shoulder that he was to sit down.
-
-Tom dropped gratefully, finding himself on a thick pile of spruce
-twigs. Above him he found a rough shelter of bark and boughs.
-
-“I camp here,” said Charlie, “ever since you go ’way. I look down
-river for you, mos’ every day—think maybe you come back. I see you
-yesterday when you come.”
-
-“You’re the best friend I ever had, Charlie!” said Tom gratefully.
-“Maybe you saved my life to-night. How did you find me? Where was
-I?”
-
-Charlie burst into an explanation, compounded of English and French,
-which he was apt to use when excited. It made Tom’s head ache, but
-he gathered that Charlie had slipped out of sight on seeing his
-friend’s capture, but had stayed close inshore in the canoe. He
-heard the sound of Tom’s choked-off cry and fall, but had not dared
-to interfere as Harrison was almost immediately joined by the
-red-haired man. Between them, they had tied Tom up and carried him
-several hundred yards farther down the shore, depositing him in a
-little valley full of evergreens. McLeod remained on guard, while
-Harrison returned to the camp. Charlie had scouted close up, and
-thought of shooting the red-haired man, but restrained himself.
-Finally, McLeod went back to the camp also, to get matches for his
-pipe, Charlie thought; and the Indian boy seized the opportunity for
-a rescue.
-
-“We safe here,” he concluded. “Good place—can look up, down—they
-never find us. Besides, you say your father come.”
-
-“I declare, so he is!” Tom exclaimed with a start. In his confusion
-and pain he had totally forgotten that fact. Mr. Jackson was coming,
-was doubtless on the way; and then Tom remembered also Harrison’s
-statement that his father would be “turned back.”
-
-“We must meet him, Charlie!” he cried. “Those fellows may catch him,
-murder him perhaps.”
-
-“Plenty time. He not come till daylight,” said Charlie, glancing up
-at the sky. “Three hours, mebbe. Sleep now.”
-
-And the young Indian stolidly stretched himself on the spruce twigs
-also, and appeared to fall instantly asleep.
-
-Tom could not rest so easily. It was true, no doubt, that his father
-would not come in the darkness. Morning would be time enough to look
-for him. But he felt nervously uneasy, impatient, and alarmed. His
-head still ached and spun at the slightest movement. Feeling it
-cautiously, he found it badly swollen on the left side, and blood
-had dried and caked in his hair. Harrison must have struck him with
-the revolver butt, he thought.
-
-He tried to compose himself, lay awake for a long time grew drowsy
-at last and drifted through a series of nightmares, awaking with a
-painful start. But at last he did sleep, and was disturbed only by
-hearing Charlie making a fire.
-
-It was daylight, but not yet sunrise. The sleep had done him good.
-His head ached less, and he felt more in command of his nerve. The
-Indian boy produced tea, some fragments of pork, and some very hard
-bread; and the food still further restored Tom’s strength. He was
-eager to intercept his father, however, and they had no sooner eaten
-than they took to the canoe again, and dropped down the river to a
-point where Mr. Jackson would surely pass in coming over the trail
-from Ormond.
-
-Here, for hour after hour, they waited, watchful alike for friends
-and for enemies, for Tom more than half expected to espy McLeod
-scouting down the river shore to prepare some ambush. Tom’s head
-still ached, but the effects of the blow were fast passing, and
-under frequent applications of cold water the swelling was going
-down. They ate a cold lunch, not venturing to light a fire, but it
-was not until well into the afternoon that Charlie suddenly sat up
-alertly from the ground where he was lounging.
-
-“Somebody come!” he said in a low voice, staring into the woods.
-
-Tom had heard nothing, and in fact it was nearly ten minutes before
-he heard trampling and crashing in the undergrowth. The sound
-instantly reassured him. Harrison’s scouts would not have made so
-much noise and in fact within a few minutes a party emerged upon the
-shore a few yards below. In the first two figures Tom recognized his
-father and “Big Joe” Lynch.
-
-There were four other men with them. Tom burst out from the woods
-and rushed down to meet the new-comers, followed by Charlie. He was
-recognized from a distance; there was a waving and a calling of
-greetings. Tom grasped his father’s hand; then he found himself,
-being hailed by two others of the party, whom he finally recognized
-to be Uncle Phil and Cousin Ed.
-
-“Is it all right? We couldn’t—” Mr. Jackson began.
-
-“We missed you yesterday,” put in Ed, a wiry young fellow a year
-younger than Tom. “But we started out to catch Uncle Matt on the
-trail this morning.”
-
-“Found him broken down,” said Phil Jackson.
-
-“Yes,” said Tom’s father. “The wagon couldn’t get on very fast. Had
-to stop and chop the trail. We left three of the men to bring it up,
-and the rest of us came along on foot. I was getting uneasy about
-you. How did you find things? Why, what’s the matter with your
-head?”
-
-“A collision with Mr. Harrison,” said Tom; and he rapidly described
-his misadventures of the night. Mr. Jackson’s face turned grim as he
-listened.
-
-“The scoundrel! He was planning to keep you out of the way, I
-suppose, till he could dispose of some of his loot. He must have
-planned something to head me off, too. Never mind! his finish is
-close now. I struck another piece of luck in Ormond. This
-gentleman,” indicating one of the party whom Tom did not recognize,
-“is Joe Gillespie, the postmaster there. I used to know him, and he
-was concerned in the liquidation of the Wilson Lumber Company, so he
-can testify that I really bought the raft. He’s a magistrate too, so
-we have the law with us.”
-
-“Good. That’ll fix Harrison!” said Tom, rejoicing. “Let’s hurry
-ahead.”
-
-“Better not go up lake. Mebbe him lay for us. Go through woods,” put
-in Charlie.
-
-“I’d take Charlie’s advice on anything now,” said Tom. “He’s right.
-Better not let Harrison see us coming, though I don’t think he’d
-make any resistance to so large a party as this.”
-
-First of all it was necessary to cross the river, and Charlie
-brought up the canoe and ferried them all over. Thence they filed up
-the shore for half a mile, and then, under the Indian’s guidance,
-turned into the woods, and made a detour to come around to the
-narrows at the head of Little Coboconk.
-
-Part of these woods had been swept by the fire, and the walking was
-bad, choked with fallen timber and half-burned logs. Tom was
-astonished at his father’s strength. Even after the long tramp he
-had had that day he pushed through the woods almost as actively as
-any of them. The familiar atmosphere of the woods and the prospect
-of action had restored the invalid to health almost magically.
-
-Remembering the doctor’s caution not to overdo the exercise,
-however, Tom insisted on their stopping for occasional rests. With
-this slow progress it was almost two hours before Charlie veered to
-the left. They caught a glimpse of the waters of the lake beyond the
-scraggly and scorched spruces, and thenceforth they had to move more
-cautiously.
-
-The shore was a quarter of a mile farther, and by glimpses they saw
-the white tents, the dark bulk of the raft, and the men’s figures
-moving about it. Work seemed to be going slowly, however; as they
-halted at last about a hundred yards from the camp, crouching behind
-a half-burned clump of willow, Tom thought that operations were
-entirely suspended.
-
-“Harrison’s found out that I’ve vanished and doesn’t know what to do
-next,” he chuckled to his father. “Look, that’s Harrison—the man in
-the brown shirt and soft hat. I don’t know the man with him—some
-stranger.”
-
-Mr. Jackson took out a field-glass and scrutinized the camp for a
-few minutes.
-
-“No, not much doing,” he said at last. “But that stranger with your
-Harrison—I think I know him. Unless I’m much mistaken, he’s a
-certain lumber dealer of Montreal whom I know very well. Looks as if
-Harrison was trying to make his sale on the spot.”
-
-And Mr. Jackson put away the glasses, rose to his feet, looked about
-for a moment, and then walked coolly toward the camp.
-
-Tom gave a cry of protest and then jumped up and followed, and the
-whole party came after. It happened that nobody noticed them until
-they were almost at the shore. Harrison was talking earnestly to his
-companion, looking the other way, until he chanced to turn and
-beheld the eight advancing figures.
-
-He started forward, uttering an exclamation; and then his eye fell
-on Tom, and he stopped short again. His face was almost livid.
-
-“What—?” he began, blusteringly; but Mr. Jackson paid not the
-slightest heed to him. He walked up to the strange man, who was
-looking surprised, and held out his hand cordially.
-
-“How are you, Archer?” he said. “What are you up here in the woods
-for—business or pleasure?”
-
-“Why, Jackson, man!” exclaimed the other, after an amazed stare.
-“You’re the last person I thought of seeing here. I heard you were
-sick. Pleasure, eh? I guess we’re both here for the same thing. But
-you’re too late for once, Matt. I’ve made the deal.”
-
-“Not so you can’t break it, I hope,” returned Mr. Jackson, smiling.
-“For this fellow has no right whatever to any of this walnut
-timber.”
-
-At this Harrison recovered himself.
-
-“No right to it?” he snarled. “We’ll see about that! Who are you,
-anyway? Why, this boy here admitted that I had the right of it, and
-he saw all the papers.”
-
-“You were able to bluff a boy, perhaps, but you can’t bluff Matt
-Jackson,” returned the lumberman. “You know who I am now. I bought
-out Dan Wilson. Here’s Mr. Gillespie from Ormond, who’s a magistrate
-and knows all about it.”
-
-By this time Harrison’s men had come crowding up, curious and
-hostile. But several of them recognized Mr. Jackson, and all of them
-knew Gillespie, who greeted two or three of them by name.
-
-“Yes, that’s right,” said the postmaster. “Mr. Jackson bought out
-Dan Wilson when he failed, and so far as I know this timber was in
-the deal.”
-
-“Then you don’t know much!” persisted Harrison, furiously. “I’ll
-fight to the last court for it.”
-
-“Take it to the courts if you want to,” said Mr. Jackson. “You’ll
-face a warrant for murderous assault on my son, and another for
-forgery—”
-
-Harrison sprang savagely forward, raising his clenched fist. Tom
-jumped to protect his father, caught the half-directed blow on his
-elbow, and drove his fist into Harrison’s face. The next instant he
-went down himself from a savage uppercut, and heard the rush of a
-sudden scrimmage. Joe Lynch had grappled with Harrison, and while
-the two wrestled frantically there was a rush of men from both sides
-to the spot.
-
-“Stop it! Let him go, Lynch. Here, you young savage, drop that gun!”
-Mr. Jackson shouted; and Tom struggled to his feet to see the
-postmaster wrenching the shot-gun out of Charlie’s hands. Harrison
-went down, with Big Joe on top of him; but Archer and Gillespie
-dragged the men apart.
-
-[Illustration: Tom caught the half-directed blow]
-
-Lynch arose laughing. A moment later Harrison gathered himself up
-sullenly.
-
-“I’ll settle with you! This ain’t the last—” he began, his voice
-thick with rage.
-
-“Whenever you like. But now—you get out of this camp!” Mr. Jackson
-ordered.
-
-“This is my camp. These tents—that team—” Harrison snarled.
-
-“Hold on! That team’s mine,” put in one of his men.
-
-“And you ain’t paid us our last week’s wages,” said another.
-
-“I’ll settle your wages,” Mr. Jackson promised. “Take away your
-tents and your outfit, Harrison, if you want to.”
-
-Harrison looked about him.
-
-“Take down those tents. Pack up the outfit,” he commanded his men.
-
-Not a lumber-jack stirred. Plainly they had not found Harrison’s
-service congenial. Harrison glared, snapped a savage curse, and then
-went into his own tent, coming out in a minute with a dunnage sack.
-He dragged this down to the shore, dark-faced with rage, but without
-a glance at anybody, flung it into a canoe, and darted away with
-fierce strokes of the paddle.
-
-“Seen the last of him, I guess,” said Mr. Jackson. “And he’s left us
-his outfit. If he doesn’t come back for it we’ll leave it for him at
-Ormond.”
-
-“Him go to meet red-haired man,” remarked Charlie, who was watching
-the vanishing canoe. “I seen him, that man, ’way down lake.”
-
-“You did?” exclaimed Mr. Jackson. “Scouting for us, I suppose.
-You’re a valuable youngster to have around. Want to work for me?
-I’ll give you a job.”
-
-Charlie shook his head stolidly.
-
-“No work in summer-time. Work hard in winter—hunt—trap. Rest in
-summer—hunt little, fight mebbe.”
-
-“Well, we won’t have any more fighting, I hope,” said the lumberman.
-“But there’s a heap of work. You men, Harrison’s gang, I’ll take you
-all on, if you want to stay with me, and pay you the same as my own
-men. What do you say?”
-
-All the men agreed, with evident pleasure.
-
-“Always did think there was somethin’ crooked about that feller,”
-remarked that one of them who owned the team. “Never could git no
-money out of him.”
-
-“And now,” said the Montreal lumber dealer, “I certainly wish,
-Jackson, that you’d tell me what all this is about. I spend
-considerable money to come up here, and find myself landed in a
-fight.”
-
-“Think yourself lucky that you didn’t get landed for something
-worse,” Mr. Jackson laughed. “You haven’t paid any money out yet?
-No? Good. I’ll tell you how the thing stands.”
-
-And he proceeded to detail the circumstances, which were
-corroborated by the Ormond postmaster.
-
-“I see,” said Archer. “Harrison offered me the stuff at a great
-bargain, but I didn’t see how there could be anything fishy about
-it. Well, I’m glad I’m only out my expenses. I suppose you wouldn’t
-think of selling any of it yourself? I thought not. You’ll make a
-good thing out of it. Walnut’s almost off the market now, and
-bringing any sort of fancy price. But I don’t need to tell you
-anything about that. All I’ve got to do is to look for a way to get
-home.”
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER X
-
-                        A FIGHT IN THE DARK
-
-
-“I do believe we’ve got possession of the thing at last, Father,”
-said Tom, surveying the raft with joy, despite his aching head,
-which Harrison’s blow had jarred afresh.
-
-“Yes, I don’t see what’s to stop us now,” returned Mr. Jackson.
-
-It was near sunset, and peace had fallen on the camp again. The men
-of the two parties had fraternized and were sitting about on the
-logs and smoking. In the background the cook was preparing supper at
-an open-air fire. Mr. Archer had discreetly withdrawn into a tent,
-leaving Tom and his father to examine the property they had at last
-secured.
-
-Harrison must have worked his men skilfully and hard while he had
-them. The partly built raft already stretched far out from the
-shore. It was by no means all of walnut, of course. Harrison had cut
-down all the spruce, jack-pine, and hemlock in sight for the
-floating foundation. They were put together in “cribs,” connected by
-strong traverses, pinned down with huge hardwood bolts. The walnut
-was piled on top of this foundation, and each log was “withed” down
-to its support with ironwood saplings as thick as a man’s wrist,
-twisted like rope around the timbers. There were already more than
-seventy cribs put together, each of them containing fully a thousand
-feet of walnut.
-
-“His men knew how to handle logs,” Mr. Jackson remarked, looking
-with an expert eye at the way the timber was withed and pinned
-together. “Never saw a better built raft. If Dan Wilson had built it
-as well as this, it mightn’t have broken up so easily. That’s fine
-walnut, too. It’ll take some drying out and seasoning again, of
-course, but it’s practically as good as the day it was cut. I don’t
-believe there’s as much walnut timber as this anywhere else in one
-spot in all Canada.”
-
-“And nobody knows how much that isn’t dug out yet,” Tom returned.
-“We ought to be thankful to Harrison, maybe, for all the work he’s
-done for us. We’ll have the use of his tents and tools too, until he
-comes to take them away. Not to forget that if he hadn’t tried to
-drive me out by burning the woods I’d probably never have found the
-walnut at all.”
-
-“Yes, he seems to have cheated himself all around,” said his father.
-“If he presents a reasonable bill for labor, I’ll pay it. But I
-don’t think he ever will. As for what walnut is left,” he added,
-looking over the scarred surface of the shore, “I suspect that there
-isn’t much more of it.”
-
-There was some, however, and the combined gangs went to work
-vigorously on the morrow. About noon the delayed wagon came in from
-Ormond, with two more men and the supplies, and Mr. Archer and the
-postmaster rode back in it when it returned. They promised to send
-out more provisions, for, with Harrison’s gang, Mr. Jackson had more
-men than he had counted on.
-
-With this strong force the work of getting out the timber went
-forward rapidly. Tom went over the shore inch by inch, sounding deep
-into the sand with a long, sharp steel rod. When he struck wood,
-they dug down to it. Sometimes it was walnut, sometimes merely an
-old spruce stump, but little by little the precious stuff
-accumulated, and more cribs were built out upon the raft. By the end
-of the week they seemed to have got everything that lay in the sand
-of the shore, and they began to dig at the bottom of the shallow
-water nearest land.
-
-But evidently they were nearing the end. Mr. Jackson’s shrewd guess
-had been right. With great exertions and inconvenience they
-recovered three or four hundred logs from the shoal water, but the
-labor almost outweighed the gain. These logs, too, were heavily
-water-soaked. They would dry out in time, but meanwhile they
-required much light timber to buoy them up, and were spongy and
-easily damaged. But from Mr. Jackson’s measurements, and he was an
-experienced “scaler,” the raft then contained about 125,000 feet of
-walnut. Besides, there was the soft-wood foundation, which was not
-without value.
-
-“This ought pretty well to clean up all business troubles, my boy,”
-said Mr. Jackson to Tom, as they viewed the majestic outlines of the
-raft, which surged and heaved at its moorings in a strong southwest
-gale. “It’ll net us three hundred dollars a thousand feet; more than
-that, in fact, for we’ll cut it up ourselves, with thin saws. The
-ordinary mill wastes ten per cent. in sawdust, and you’ve no idea
-how valuable even the scraps of such wood are. They make veneer,
-brush backs, knobs, all sorts of small things. We don’t waste a chip
-of the stuff.”
-
-For some time, Tom noticed, Mr. Jackson had been saying “we,” and
-the implied partnership was very pleasant to him. Working day by day
-with him, Tom had come to realize and respect his father’s science
-and energy as he never had done before. Up here in the woods, “Matt”
-Jackson’s reputation was an established one. The rough lumber-jacks
-jumped at his orders and took his advice unhesitatingly about all
-sorts of timber craft. The veteran lumberman was in his element and
-seemed to have almost entirely recovered his health and spirits.
-
-The future no longer looked black to him. He had arrived at the
-point of talking to his son freely about his business affairs, a
-compliment which Tom appreciated deeply. On leaving Toronto Mr.
-Jackson had seen nothing ahead but a voluntary assignment. He had no
-faith in Mr. Armstrong’s being able to straighten things out. Thirty
-or forty thousand dollars would be needed, and he could not see any
-source from which they were to come.
-
-“That’s what it would have come to if you hadn’t dug up this old
-timber, Tom,” he said. “I wasn’t very genial when you came north, I
-guess, but I give you the credit, my boy.”
-
-“I don’t deserve it,” said Tom earnestly. “I came up here like a
-fool. I didn’t have any reasonable idea what I was going to do. It
-was blind luck that made me stumble on this old raft. But I do think
-it ought to make enough to clear the business, and something over.
-Shouldn’t you let Mr. Armstrong hear of it? He’ll be astonished,
-when we produce a new asset like this.”
-
-“Yes, I suppose so,” agreed his father. “Things have been so busy
-that I’ve neglected it, and there’s no hurry anyway. He’d write or
-wire me before he did anything important, and a message would be
-forwarded at once from the Royal Victoria. I suppose he thinks I’m
-still lying on my back there. But I’ll send a letter out to him
-to-morrow.”
-
-Charlie could have taken a letter out to Ormond or down to Oakley.
-The Ojibway boy was still hanging about the camp, watching the work
-impassively, seeking out Tom whenever Tom had any leisure. He
-brought in trout almost daily, and occasionally ducks and partridge,
-and Mr. Jackson remarked on the advantage of having an Indian about
-the camp who was exempt from the game-laws. But Charlie was
-obviously not so happy in the midst of all this activity as he had
-been at the original camp in the old barn.
-
-Mr. Jackson, however, did not write his letter the next day. It was
-windy and rainy. One of the last cribs of lumber showed signs of
-breaking loose under the strain of the weather and had to be
-refastened. Then they unexpectedly found a “pocket” of eight or ten
-more walnut logs at a spot where they had not previously looked, and
-these were dug out and loaded. Altogether it was a busy day and a
-stormy one. The rain ceased at sunset, but the wind grew even
-stronger, driving white-capped waves racing across Big Coboconk.
-
-The wind kept Tom awake that night. It roared over the forest and
-thrummed on the stiff canvas flaps. On the cot opposite him his
-father slept profoundly rolled in his blankets, but Tom could not
-settle himself to rest. His mind dwelt on the raft. They had thought
-of launching it the next day, but this would be out of the question
-unless the wind went down. It would be impossible to float it down
-the lake in the face of that gale.
-
-He wondered if there could be any danger of damage as it lay at its
-mooring. At last, unable to rest, he got up and looked from the
-tent. It was after eleven o’clock. The night was warm and not very
-dark. Not a man was in sight. The fires, which had burned low, threw
-off gusts of fizzing sparks in the wind. A high sea was crashing on
-the shore, but he could make out the dark expanse of the raft,
-rising and falling, but apparently secure.
-
-Somewhat reassured, he went back to his cot and lay down again,
-leaving the lantern burning. He did not undress and lay awake for
-some time longer, but at last he grew hardened to the roaring of the
-wind and dozed off. Finally he must have slept soundly, for he
-wakened with a shock to feel a hand gently gripping his shoulder.
-Blinking up, he saw Charlie’s battered black hat leaning over him in
-the dim light.
-
-“You come, Tom. Raft gone,” the Indian said softly.
-
-Tom leaped up with an exclamation. He gave a single glance at his
-father, who was still sleeping, and bolted from the tent. Outside
-the water and the wind still roared and crashed; but at the first
-glance Tom saw in the pale starlight that the raft was no longer
-there, nor anywhere in sight.
-
-“I wake up—think I hear something,” said Charlie at his elbow. “I
-go—look. Raft gone.”
-
-Tom rushed down to the landing where it had been moored. Then to his
-relief he sighted it, a hundred yards from land, a huge expanse like
-an island, heaving and plunging and drifting out diagonally over the
-lake.
-
-Tom raised a tremendous shout to alarm the camp, and thought he
-heard an answer from the tents. The raft must have broken loose in
-the gale; yet he could hardly understand how that had happened, for
-six strong ropes had bound it to trees ashore. But Charlie picked up
-the slack of one of the ropes that was trailing in the wash of the
-waves and held it silently under his eyes. Tom gasped. The end was
-not frayed; it was cut squarely off.
-
-“Cut!” he exclaimed.
-
-“I think mebbe so,” said Charlie. “That man come back, I guess. We
-git him this time, mebbe.”
-
-Tom gave another alarm shout, and jumped into a boat on the shore,
-followed by the Ojibway. It was a _bateau_ that had been left there
-by Harrison, heavy to row, but the wind drove them fast in the wake
-of the raft. Laboring at the oars, Tom saw the outline of the
-floating timber growing clearer. His blood boiled with wrath; he
-knew that Harrison must have done this as a last act of revenge.
-They had not set eyes on the fellow for a week; they thought he had
-gone for good, but he had come back to retaliate for his loss. Well
-timed, too, his return had been. The raft was hardly built for rough
-seas. Under the full force of the gale in the center of the lake it
-might go to pieces, or be driven against the opposite shore and
-broken up, repeating the ancient history of the original raft of Dan
-Wilson.
-
-Fortunately Charlie’s alertness had detected it in time. Tom was
-disconcerted at seeing that no stir was visible yet in the camp
-behind. His yells could not have been heard. It was useless now to
-try to shout in the teeth of the gale, but he strained his muscles
-to reach the raft.
-
-It was too big to drift very fast, and Tom’s oars overtook it before
-it had gone another two hundred yards. It looked alarming as he came
-close, and it was going to be risky to get aboard, for the great
-mass of logs heaved on the waves, and crashed down on the water. A
-touch would have crushed the _bateau_-like bark, but Tom, watching
-his chance, jumped, landed on his knees, clutched the logs, and
-staggered to his feet. The boat with Charlie in it recoiled away,
-thrust backward by his leap.
-
-He was scarcely up when he saw a dark figure shoot across the raft
-just behind him. Startled, Tom rushed after it. It flashed upon him
-that this must be Harrison. But the man jumped,—apparently over the
-side,—and a canoe went spinning away into the gloom, dipping and
-reeling in the heavy sea.
-
-It had not looked like Harrison’s build. It had more resembled the
-woodsman McLeod. Tom had no weapon or he would have fired and by the
-time Charlie had joined him, carrying his shot-gun as always, the
-canoe was lost in the windy obscurity.
-
-“Got away again!” Tom exclaimed in disgust. “But we’ve got the raft
-again, anyhow.”
-
-Then he wondered what he was going to do with it. The huge mass of
-timber was beyond any control. He could only let it drive.
-Continually he had expected to see the men from ashore following
-him, but no one seemed to have become aware of what was going on.
-The sparks whirled up from the low fires, and that was all. Every
-minute the raft was getting farther from shore, and it would be
-impossible to tow it back against the wind. It was well out in the
-open lake now, and it heaved and swung up and down with a motion
-that strained all the fastenings of the cribs and made Tom’s stomach
-turn with a qualm like seasickness.
-
-“Fire your gun, Charlie!” he said anxiously. “Maybe they’ll hear it.
-Hold on! What’s that?”
-
-A report like a pistol-shot had sounded from the far forward end of
-the raft. Tom rushed forward over the heaving logs. In the center
-was a great heap of material used in building: withes, cross
-timbers, pike-poles, axes, ropes, spikes. As he passed around this
-obstruction he saw, to his horror, one of the cribs swing loose and
-drift clear, spilling its load of walnut as it went.
-
-Was the raft breaking up already? Tom caught up a pike-pole and
-rushed forward. Buffeted by the wind and almost deafened by the
-noise of it and by the creaking and threshing of the timbers, he
-slipped and staggered in his unspiked boots over the wet logs. As he
-crossed the fourth crib he stopped with a thrill. He saw the dim
-figure of a second man close to the forward edge of the raft, with
-an ax poised over his shoulder.
-
-The miscreant was actually cutting the raft apart. When Tom realized
-it, he charged forward with a shout. Apparently the man had been
-quite unaware that the boys had come aboard. He glanced about
-quickly. The ax blow never fell. He waited till Tom was within ten
-feet, charging with the steel-shod pole, and then he swung the ax
-round his head and flung it with all his force.
-
-Tom ducked just in time to dodge the whirling missile as it went
-over his head with a “whish.” It came so close that the boy lost his
-balance and stumbled down on one knee, and before he could recover
-himself the man had pounced on him, forcing him down.
-
-Tom was able to let out a single yell. He recognized Harrison; he
-had felt that grip before. Again Harrison tried to seize him by the
-throat, but this time Tom was less off guard. He was lighter than
-his enemy, but more active. He was a good wrestler, his muscles were
-hardened now with labor, and he fought like a wildcat.
-
-He squirmed free from the fierce grip and got to his feet. Loosing
-his arm an instant, he drove a heavy blow into Harrison’s face and
-heard him grunt. But the next moment Harrison surged upon him with
-all his weight, and Tom despite his utmost effort, was gripped
-almost helplessly. He put forth every ounce of strength he had.
-Defeat meant the loss of the raft. But he could not hold Harrison.
-He was forced down; he went heavily against the slippery logs, and
-the next instant he felt Harrison’s knee on his chest.
-
-He caught a glimpse of Charlie’s form flitting distractedly around
-them with gun half raised, and he was afraid of getting an
-accidental charge of shot himself. Then Charlie seemed to swing the
-butt. Tom scarcely heard the thud of the blow, for at that instant
-the logs seemed to give way under him. A great rift opened, and he
-went down into the black water, with Harrison still clutching him.
-
-For a second he was dazed and went deep down. His enemy’s grip
-relaxed and fell away. Then, with a half-involuntary stroke, he came
-toward the surface. His head knocked against something hard. He was
-under the raft itself.
-
-In terror he struck out blindly. He knew no directions. He might be
-swimming toward the center of the raft, where he would surely drown.
-His breath grew short; then, all at once, his head came out into the
-fresh air, and he filled his lungs with a great gasp. The raft
-plunged almost over his shoulders. Tom dodged and ducked to escape
-having his skull crushed, and caught sight of the Indian peering
-wildly out into the darkness. He shouted hoarsely, and Charlie
-helped him aboard with an extended pike-pole.
-
-There was no sign of Harrison, neither swimming on the water nor
-aboard the raft. He might also have gone under the logs, and be
-drowning there.
-
-“See anything of him—that other man?” Tom gasped; but Charlie shook
-his head.
-
-“Think him drown, mebbe. Good job, too!”
-
-Tom cast another anxious glance over the water, ready to rescue his
-late enemy if he sighted him. But just then the front of the raft
-swung up and down with a tremendous plunge. Several withes gave way
-with snapping reports, and another crib disengaged itself from the
-main body. In his confusion and fright, Tom imagined the whole raft
-was going to pieces under him. The loose crib still hung by one end,
-however, and he rushed to the pile of material amidships, seized a
-bundle of rope, and looped one end over the head of one of the great
-hardwood pins in the loosened crib. Taking a hitch around another
-bolt-head on the main raft, he tried to bring the two sections
-together again. Assisted by the pull of the waves, he brought them
-together inch by inch, closed the gap to a foot’s width, tied the
-rope firmly, and repeated the lashing in two other places.
-
-He glanced ashore, where there was still no sign of life. Bitterly
-now he repented his rashness in going in chase of the raft instead
-of immediately arousing the camp. But the _bateau_ was still there.
-
-“Get into the boat and make for shore as fast as you can, Charlie,”
-he commanded. “Rouse them up. Tell them the raft is going to
-pieces.”
-
-“All right!” said the Ojibway, without emotion. “Can’t paddle much
-’gainst wind,” he added. “Mebbe have to cross lake—go round.”
-
-“Any way you like—only do it quick!” cried Tom; and just then
-another crib, whose transverse bar had split, began to break away.
-
-Tom brought more rope and lashed this also, straining at it as
-Charlie got into the boat and cast off. He saw the Indian struggling
-hard against the wind and waves, and then lost sight of him in the
-darkness. Charlie would do the best he could, Tom knew well; it was
-only a question of whether he could bring help in time.
-
-Another ironwood withe snapped. Fearing that all the cribs would
-break apart, Tom set to work to strengthen their fastenings. He
-dragged up the flattened pieces of timber that had been prepared for
-transverse and cap-pieces, laid them across the logs wherever there
-was any sign of weakening, and spiked them down with eight-inch
-spikes, which he drove home with an ax. Not content with that, he
-lashed the cribs together with rope as long as the rope lasted; then
-with odd pieces of chain, and then tried to use the withes. But the
-ironwood saplings were too stiff for one pair of hands to twist.
-
-He ran to and fro, staggering and slipping on the reeling raft, and
-he looked almost hopelessly at intervals toward the shore. Nothing
-could be seen of Charlie’s boat. The Indian might have been driven
-far up the lake, and obliged to make a long detour by land. The
-camp-fire was nearly a mile away now. It was a mere red point, and
-there was no sign of any help coming.
-
-The raft was now well into the middle of the lake, and it plunged
-and tossed fearfully. It had not been built for any such strains; it
-was threatening to go as the first raft had gone years ago. To keep
-it together was work for more than one man; and Tom was, after all,
-an inexperienced raftsman. Over the wet, swaying surface he hastened
-up and down, spiking down cross-bars and reinforcing the cap-pieces,
-but, despite his efforts, the timbers continually worked loose. In
-the darkness it was impossible to see a part giving way till it was
-almost beyond mending.
-
-All at once, as he crouched over his work, he was aware of a faint
-glow on the sky. He looked up. One of the camp-fires ashore had
-sprung suddenly to a tremendous blaze—a vast, glaring flame blown
-into long streamers by the wind, whose light spread far out over the
-water, almost, indeed, to the raft itself.
-
-“Charlie’s stirred them up! Hurrah! Who-oo-p! This way!” Tom
-shrieked. His voice could not have carried half the distance, but
-almost immediately a second fire flared up. The men ashore could
-hardly have been able to see the raft, and Tom had no means of
-making a light, but they would surely know that it would drift down
-wind. Tom saw the distant scurrying of figures about the shore, and
-presently a boat pushed off, and then another.
-
-He lost sight of them, but they must have come fast and rowed hard,
-with the wind behind them. In ten minutes he heard shouts, and he
-shouted back to give his direction. There was a rattle of oars, and
-the excited murmur of men’s voices. He saw the boats now, heaving
-high and low on the waves, and the leading one steered up alongside.
-Tom hooked it with a pike-pole; the men caught hold, and Mr. Jackson
-scrambled actively aboard the raft, followed by Joe Lynch and two
-more men.
-
-“That you, Tom?” cried Mr. Jackson. “Are you all right? How’s the
-raft?”
-
-“Pretty near breaking up,” Tom shouted back. “I’m all right—a little
-wet. Tell you about it later. Must get the raft fastened together.”
-
-Mr. Jackson gave Tom’s arm a rough, affectionate squeeze. “Good for
-you, old boy! We’ll save the timber—don’t fear. Lynch, get the men—”
-
-Big Joe had not needed any orders. With his two men he was already
-at work on the raft timbers. The other boat came up at this moment,
-with four more men in her. Lynch ordered two of them to row back to
-camp at once and bring out all the rope, chain, spikes, and pieces
-of heavy plank they could lay hands on, for Tom had already used up
-nearly all the loose material aboard.
-
-That left a crew of five men. They had a doubtful fight before them,
-for the raft was laboring under the full force of the wind, out in
-the open lake, and it was already weakened at every joint. But the
-lumbermen set vigorously to work. In their spiked boots they raced
-over the shifting logs, retwisting withes, and lashing and spiking
-cross-bars with a skill that produced more effect than Tom’s
-inexpert efforts.
-
-Tom still took his share of the work, and so did Mr. Jackson. The
-lumber dealer ran over the raft as fearlessly and almost as actively
-as any of the men, encouraging them, taking in the needs of each
-spot with a quick glance, using ax and pike-pole himself whenever he
-could. The break-up of the raft seemed checked; the fight seemed a
-winning one. No more cribs had escaped, and, though the whole
-framework was badly strained, it seemed capable of holding together
-at least until the boat came off with more men and material.
-
-But there was no relaxation of effort. Unexpectedly half a dozen of
-the withed walnut logs broke loose, rolled off the raft, and, being
-already saturated, went to the bottom almost like stones. All the
-rope and chain was used up, but the lumbermen brought up more withes
-and proceeded to make the rest more secure. Tom and his father were
-bending over among a group of men who bent a thick ironwood sapling.
-The butt of it was pegged into a huge auger-hole in the lower
-framework, and it was to be twisted over the walnut and down into
-the loading timbers beneath. The men put all their brawny arms into
-it, when the walnut log rolled suddenly with a heave of the raft.
-The butt of the withe slipped and flew up with the force of a
-catapult. It touched one man on the shoulder and sent him sprawling,
-and the full force of it seemed to catch Mr. Jackson on the side of
-the head. He reeled over, and went off backward into the water.
-
-There was a shout of alarm. Tom poised himself at the edge of the
-raft, ready to plunge if he should see his father’s head come up.
-The rest stood ready with pike-poles, but moment and moment passed,
-and they saw nothing.
-
-“He’s gone under the raft!” exclaimed Tom.
-
-“Cut her apart!” Big Joe yelled. “Never mind them timbers now. The
-boss is under ’em!”
-
-Recklessly the men chopped the fastenings they had so labored to
-secure. A crib swung aside and left a strip of black water—empty.
-Another gap opened, and this time something was floating on it. In
-another moment a pike hooked the floating clothing, and they drew
-the lumberman out upon the logs. He was quite unconscious.
-
-“He’s dead!” Tom gasped.
-
-“You bet he ain’t,” said Lynch, who had put his head over the
-dripping figure. “He’s breathin’, and his heart’s a-beatin’ strong.
-He ain’t drowned—just knocked out. He’ll come to!”
-
-The men carried him carefully to the center of the raft, the safest
-place, and Tom sat down beside him in unspeakable anxiety. The men
-were working afresh to secure the cribs they had cut apart, but for
-the moment Tom had lost his concern for the raft. Mr. Jackson did
-not “come to,” as they had hoped. He breathed, but seemed in a heavy
-stupor, from which he could not rouse. Tom feared his skull might be
-fractured, and there was no doctor nearer than Ormond.
-
-The other boat came back with three men and more supplies, and the
-whole crew worked more furiously than ever. Whenever any of them
-passed the center of the raft they paused to ask after the “boss”
-and hurried on again. The raft still held together, but Tom gave it
-only scant thought; and as he sat by his father’s side he saw at
-last the grayness of dawn begin to spread over the lake.
-
-
-
-
-                             CHAPTER XI
-
-                           FIRE AND WATER
-
-
-The raft was now nearing the northwestern shore of the lake, and
-luckily its course seemed to carry it into a wide bay, where it
-would be somewhat sheltered from the weather. The wind was lessening
-a little, it seemed. It had done deadly work, however. The raft
-seemed to have lost a third of its area, and all around could be
-seen floating masses of the soft-wood cribs, which had mostly
-spilled their walnut loose. But Tom looked at it almost
-indifferently. His whole thought was concentrated on his father, who
-still lay unconscious, with a deathlike face.
-
-Big Joe came up and looked down sorrowfully at the boss.
-
-“I guess the raft’s all right now,” he remarked. “She’s going to
-float right behind that headland, and I’ll have the boys build a
-boom around her as soon as she gets there. It’ll break the waves. I
-don’t believe we’ve lost such a lot, after all.
-
-“Don’t you worry, boy,” he added. “Your father’ll be all right. I’ve
-seen men knocked out a heap worse’n that; you don’t know the rough
-knocks that lumber-jacks get. We’ll get him ashore just as soon as
-we get into quieter water.”
-
-It would indeed have been risky to try to get the wounded man into a
-boat while they were still on those plunging waves, and it was still
-more than an hour before the raft slowly headed its way behind the
-long rocky peninsula. Here the water was less broken. They brought
-one of the boats around to the forward end, carried Mr. Jackson into
-it with infinite care, and ferried him across the hundred feet of
-water to the land. Here they constructed a rough stretcher with
-saplings and boughs, and Tom, Lynch, and two other men set out with
-it toward camp. The rest of the men remained to make the raft fast
-and gather up what scattered drift timber they could salvage.
-
-A quarter of a mile down the shore they came upon a crib that had
-grounded without entirely breaking up. The track of a man’s heavy
-boots led from it into the woods, and Tom guessed that Harrison had
-come ashore on those logs. It relieved his mind somewhat, for he did
-not want to consider himself responsible for the man’s death, but he
-had not much thought just then to spare on Harrison. Still further
-down, they sighted a canoe, Charlie’s canoe, which McLeod must have
-stolen, and in which he had fled from the raft. It had been run
-ashore roughly, and was badly split down the bow. But, like
-Harrison, McLeod had left nothing but tracks behind him, and Tom
-sincerely hoped that he would never see anything more of him.
-
-Arriving at the camp, they put Mr. Jackson to bed in his tent. He
-seemed partly to revive; his eyes half opened; he muttered something
-and then sank into unconsciousness again. But even this symptom of
-returning life was encouraging.
-
-“The nearest doctor’s at Ormond,” said Tom. “I’m going after him at
-once.”
-
-“Send Charlie down to Oakley,” Lynch suggested. “There’s a doctor
-there. You might go out to Ormond too, if you like. Maybe one of ’em
-will be away, and if they both come, no harm done. But say, you’ve
-got to eat and rest a bit, boy. You look done up.”
-
-Tom indeed felt the strain of the hard night, and his head once more
-ached splittingly. He summoned Charlie and sent him up the lake to
-get his canoe. It would have to be calked or patched where it was
-cracked, and meanwhile Tom swallowed a little breakfast and lay down
-with the intention of resting half an hour.
-
-He fell into a dead sleep, and was awakened at last by Joe Lynch.
-
-“A fellow’s just come in from Ormond with a telegram for the boss.”
-
-Tom took the yellow envelope and sat up in a daze. Gathering his
-wits, he opened the message:
-
-    Assigned to Erie Bank. Creditors’ meeting Wednesday
-    night. Letter follows. Wire further instructions.
-
-                                                Armstrong.
-
-Wednesday night! It flashed upon Tom that to-day was Wednesday. He
-jumped out, bolted from the tent, and confronted the messenger. The
-telegram had been sent on Saturday, and was directed to the Royal
-Victoria Hotel.
-
-“Why didn’t this get here sooner?” he demanded angrily.
-
-“We didn’t get it till yesterday. I started out with it as soon as I
-could, but I tried to take a short cut and got turned around. Had to
-stay in the bush all night.”
-
-Tom stifled an exclamation of impatience and despair. Armstrong had
-given up hope and made an assignment after all, unaware of all the
-wealth they had been accumulating in the north. Tom did some hard
-thinking in that moment. If the bankruptcy went through they might
-pay a hundred cents on the dollar, but it would leave nothing else.
-If it could be averted, the walnut would float the business with
-ease, with a prospect of better fortune.
-
-“How long was I asleep? How’s father?” he demanded.
-
-“You slept more’n an hour. Didn’t like to rouse you,” said Joe. “The
-boss kinder roused up once and said something, but then went off
-again. But I reckon he’s better.”
-
-Tom went to look at Mr. Jackson, who looked slightly less deadlike,
-he thought. He would have given almost anything to be able to
-consult with him for just five minutes. But at this crisis of the
-whole affair Tom was forced to shoulder the entire responsibility.
-
-If it was humanly possible he would have to get to Toronto in time
-to stop that creditors’ meeting that night. The assignment could be
-withdrawn. As yet probably nothing irrevocable had been done, but by
-to-morrow the arrangements for liquidation would have been made, and
-it might be too late.
-
-He could, indeed, send a telegram to Mr. Armstrong if he could reach
-the wire in time; but he doubted whether that would be enough. The
-situation needed a personal explanation.
-
-He knew that a stage left Oakley, connecting with the morning train
-going down.
-
-“What’s the shortest way to the railroad?” he demanded. “I’ve got to
-get to the city by evening.”
-
-“Well, there’s the morning train down from Ormond,” said the
-messenger. “But you can’t make it. It’ll take you ’most all day to
-get to Ormond.”
-
-“That’s mebbe the shortest way, but it ain’t nohow the quickest,”
-remarked Lynch. “Leastways, if you’ve got a canoe. I reckon
-Charlie’s got his pretty near patched up by this time.”
-
-“How do you mean?” Tom demanded.
-
-“Why, paddle down to the foot of Little Coboconk, and then right
-down the river, for mebbe fifteen or sixteen miles. You’ve been that
-way. You remember where a little creek runs out through a big swamp
-and into the river? Well, you land on the side opposite the creek,
-and the railway ain’t much more’n five miles straight west, right
-across the bush. It’ll be rough traveling, maybe, but you ought to
-make it in three or four hours.”
-
-Tom glanced at his watch. It was just after seven o’clock. The train
-left Ormond at ten-thirty. He could surely make it. A moment later
-Charlie came up for instructions, having finished the repairs to his
-canoe.
-
-“Hold on, Charlie! I’m going with you,” Tom exclaimed. “I’ll try it,
-Lynch. Are you sure the raft’s safe?”
-
-“Safe as if she was in the sawmill. You can trust her to me. Trust
-the boss to us, too. Charlie can go on to Oakley and bring back the
-doctor.”
-
-“And mind you telegraph me what he says,” Tom insisted. “Here’s my
-Toronto address. But I’ll be back here in three or four days, I
-hope.”
-
-It did not occur to Tom to change into his city clothes. He hastened
-to get into the canoe, taking the bow paddle while Charlie sat at
-the stern; and they started down the lake, almost in the face of the
-wind, which still blew strongly.
-
-It was rough, breathless paddling, though they hugged the shelter of
-the shore as much as possible. They made slow time on that stage of
-the journey, but when they reached the river things went more
-easily. The river ran swiftly and was rather shallow now, but there
-was always plenty of water for the canoe, and the faster the current
-the better. Down the stream they shot, past the old trail to Uncle
-Phil’s ranch, around the wide curves bordered by the incessant green
-of the spruces, silently and swiftly, with a speed that filled Tom
-with renewed hope. He was in fine physical condition; the hour’s
-rest had restored him, and the rough and sleepless night behind him
-had left only a nervous tension that for the time being actually
-stimulated his sinews.
-
-At half-past eight by his watch he felt sure that they must have
-come nearly ten miles. He suddenly smelled smoke, and was alarmed.
-
-“What’s that, Charlie? Fire?” he called over his shoulder.
-
-The Ojibway sniffed.
-
-“Fire—sure. Long piece from here, though,” he answered.
-
-Smoke certainly smelled strong in the air, coming up on the wind,
-but no fire was anywhere in sight. The river grew wider and deeper,
-running with a strength that almost outstripped the paddles. The
-miles reeled off swiftly. Tom was keeping a close watch on the
-shore, and it was not much after nine o’clock when he shouted to
-Charlie and pointed ashore.
-
-On the left bank a great tamarac swamp came down to the water, and
-just opposite them a small creek flowed sluggishly into the river,
-oozing through a jungle of evergreen and fern.
-
-“Hold on!” he cried, and the steersman guided the canoe ashore. He
-looked at the landmarks more carefully. It must be the place Lynch
-had meant. Somewhere about five miles to the west lay the railway.
-
-“I stop here, Charlie,” he said hurriedly. “You go on to Oakley as
-fast as you can paddle, and get the doctor. I’ll be back soon.”
-
-Charlie had already been provided with a note for the doctor, tucked
-safely inside his felt hat. He nodded impassively.
-
-“Sure, I go quick, Tom,” he said. “I watch for you come back.”
-
-He put Tom ashore, and went on down the stream with quick
-paddle-strokes, not once glancing back. Tom did not stay to watch
-him, either. He glanced at the compass on his watch-chain and struck
-straight in from the river.
-
-The train was due at half-past ten. He had an hour, and
-long-distance running had been his speciality in track athletics. It
-was only five miles, and, however rough the country might be, he
-felt quite confident of being able to cover the distance in time.
-
-For a little way he had to go slowly, pushing his path through a
-dense tangle of spruce and tamarac, but, once well away from the
-river, the woods opened out. He went up and down one rolling ridge
-after another, splashed through a rock-strewn brook or two, crossed
-a strip of level forest, and then had to slow down for a last year’s
-burned slash, where the ground was terribly encumbered with dead,
-charred logs and jagged spikes of branches and roots.
-
-A smell of smoke seemed to hang about the place still, he fancied,
-and then a veering gust brought him a whiff of smoke that was
-certainly fresh. He was afraid to swerve from the compass bee-line,
-but he felt extremely uneasy. He passed the old “burn” and entered a
-region of jack-pine, and presently there was no mistaking the bluish
-haze and the odor of ashes and smoke that filled the air. Then the
-woods ceased all at once, and he found himself on the edge of a
-great ruined slash that fire had made within two or three days, at
-the most.
-
-He halted, despairingly. There seemed no end to the burned strip,
-north or south, and he could get no clear notion of its width, for
-the air was full of smoke and clouds of fine ashes that drove in
-whirls before the wind. It might not be very wide, but it looked too
-dangerous to cross. Yet he felt sure that he must be near the
-railroad; he had surely come three or four miles, and as he stood
-irresolute he heard the long blast of a locomotive far away through
-the trees.
-
-He thought it was miles up toward Ormond. The railway must be only a
-short distance ahead, and he plunged desperately into the smoky
-belt.
-
-The fire was really entirely burned out, as he discovered
-immediately, but at the first steps he went ankle-deep in ashes, and
-felt the heat strike through his boot-soles. The ground was still
-hot, and beds of embers smoldered here and there beneath the ashes.
-
-His heart almost failed him again. He might step into a mass of hot
-coals that would scorch and cripple him. But there was no way
-around; he had to cross this barrier or give up, and he went on
-again, moving in long leaps to touch the ground as little as
-possible. Wherever he could, he paused on a log to gain breath and
-lay his course.
-
-The ground was cumbered with masses of fallen trees, charred, spiky,
-a continual _chevaux-de-frise_ of tangled stubs and roots. They lay
-at every possible angle, and Tom had to edge his way round them,
-climb over, or squeeze through. It was like the “burn” he had
-already crossed, but this one was fresh and hot. By sheer good luck
-he escaped stepping into any spots of fire, but the ground burned
-under his feet, and the ashes rose in smothering clouds as he plowed
-through them.
-
-The ground was treacherous under its thick gray covering. It was
-mined with holes and strewn with hidden entanglements. Two or three
-times Tom tripped and went headlong, almost choked in the ashes. His
-eyes grew filled with the fine powder; he could not see clearly nor
-make sure of his directions, and he had a terrible feeling that his
-strength was failing.
-
-He heard the locomotive whistle again, and much nearer. It spoke
-failure, he thought. He could never reach the station now in time
-for the train. To his blurred eyes his watch seemed to mark
-half-past ten already. He was desperately tired, and burning with
-thirst. He thought that he might as well rest a little; he longed
-more than anything to sink down in the ashes, anywhere, and sleep.
-
-Still he kept doggedly moving, driven by he hardly knew what force.
-The rest of the journey was a kind of nightmare, whose details he
-could never quite remember. Hours seemed to pass in the torment of
-that suffocating atmosphere—hours of intense heat, of stumbling, of
-terrible thirst, and of overwhelming exhaustion. Then he seemed to
-see trees ahead. They were charred evergreens, but the carpet of hot
-ash ceased, and a little beyond he saw the cool, blessed green of
-living spruces.
-
-Stimulated now by the consciousness that he had come through, he
-made a last spurt, and in a few minutes he emerged suddenly upon the
-railway. He stopped, confusedly; and then perceived, a hundred yards
-down the track, a red-painted wooden station and the smoke of a
-locomotive.
-
-He rushed toward it. The place was no more than a flag-station with
-a log house or two in the background; and this was not a
-passenger-train that stood there. It was not even a mixed train; it
-was a long freight-train, engaged just then in coupling up a few
-flat-cars loaded with fresh-cut ties.
-
-The conductor was standing on the platform, talking leisurely with
-the station agent, and they both stared in amazement as Tom dashed
-up, blackened, ash-smeared, and wild-eyed.
-
-“Give me a ticket to Toronto!” he exclaimed. “Am I in time? Has the
-train—”
-
-“The morning train went down half an hour ago,” said the agent.
-“There’s no other till six-fifteen to-night. What’s the
-matter—anything happened?”
-
-“What time does that night train reach Toronto?”
-
-“At ten, when she’s on time.”
-
-That would be hours too late. Tom’s heart went down like lead. He
-had lost the race after all. He felt discouraged and utterly played
-out, but a last resource occurred to him.
-
-“Can’t you fix me up to go down on this freight?” he pleaded.
-
-“It’s against the rules to carry any passengers on freight-trains,”
-said the agent. “Can’t be done, I’m afraid. Besides, this freight
-only goes to Bala Junction, forty miles down.”
-
-Tom turned away, tears rising irrepressibly in his eyes. This time
-he seemed to have reached a barrier which there was no passing. He
-saw the agent and the conductor looking curiously after him, as he
-walked down to the end of the platform. It occurred to him that he
-ought to telegraph at any rate; and he went into the station and
-wrote a rather long message for Mr. Armstrong and another to the
-manager of the Erie Bank.
-
-The agent came in to take the messages. Tom had money in his pocket;
-he paid for them, and went out to the platform again, where the
-freight conductor watched the manipulation of his train. It was
-going to Bala Junction, and Bala Junction, Tom remembered, was on
-the main line north from Toronto. Many trains passed that point
-daily. If he could get there, he could surely make a connection for
-the city that afternoon. The conductor looked good-natured, and Tom
-ventured to approach him.
-
-“Look here, can’t you let me ride as far as Bala Junction?” he
-entreated. “It’s an important matter—almost life and death. I’ll pay
-fare,—double fare, if you like,—but I’ve got to get to the city by
-seven o’clock.”
-
-“My boy,” returned the conductor, not unkindly. “You heard what the
-agent said. I’m not allowed to carry any passengers at all—might get
-into trouble if I did. But,” he added, “there’s an empty box-car
-half-way up the train, and I’d never know whether there was anybody
-in it or not. We get to the Junction half an hour before the
-south-bound express arrives.”
-
-Tom burst out with a grateful ejaculation, but the conductor winked
-at him, and then turned and looked rigidly in the other direction.
-The boy rushed down the track alongside the train, found the open
-door of the box-car, and swung himself into it. He sat down on the
-floor in a corner, and almost instantly lapsed into a sort of stupor
-of weariness, from which he was roused by the violent shock and
-crash of the train’s getting under way. He saw the station slide
-past the open door; the endless line of spruce trunks succeeded it.
-The train gathered speed; he was really started for the city at
-last.
-
-It was not a comfortable ride. The freight-cars jolted and pitched,
-crashing together with shattering jolts as the train slackened or
-increased speed. Despite this, however, Tom dozed during a good deal
-of the forty miles to Bala, arousing fully only at the occasional
-halts. No one came near him, and nobody appeared to see him when he
-slipped out of his box-car at the Junction, and made haste to buy
-his ticket for Toronto on the express.
-
-The express was late, and he filled in the time by endeavoring to
-brush and clean himself a little, with imperfect success. He
-obtained something to eat at the lunch-counter, and paced up and
-down the platform counting the minutes. The express arrived at last,
-and he was the only passenger to get aboard. He longed to take a
-sleeper berth, but he was so disreputable-looking that he dared not
-attempt it. He feared even to enter the first-class coaches, and
-dropped into a seat in the smoker.
-
-The hard part of the journey was over. Everything depended now on
-the train, and he resigned himself to chance, with a dull fatalism.
-He had done all he could, and he was too deadly weary to speculate
-any more upon his chances of winning. He slept through most of the
-journey, and came out, dazed and confused, upon the platform of the
-Union Station, to see the big illuminated face of the clock
-indicating eight.
-
-It stung him again to desperate anxiety. He hastened to a telephone
-booth in the waiting-room and called Mr. Armstrong’s office. Central
-was unable to get any answer. The office must be closed. He then
-rang up the lawyer’s house. A woman’s voice answered.
-
-“Mr. Armstrong is downtown, attending a business meeting at the King
-Edward Hotel. Is there any message?”
-
-Tom dropped the receiver into the hook. He knew well what that
-business meeting was. They were holding it at the King Edward, then.
-Luckily, the hotel was not far from the depot, and a direct
-street-car line carried him there in five minutes.
-
-The throng of well-dressed people about the door of the big hotel
-stared at the grimed, smoky, ragged young man who burst in, and the
-outraged door-porter made an ineffectual grab to stop him. Few such
-disreputable figures had ever passed that portal. Tom cast a rapid
-glance around the leather chairs of the marble lobby, failed to spy
-the face he sought, and hurried up to the desk.
-
-“Mr. Henry Armstrong—the lawyer—is he here?”
-
-“Haven’t seen him,” returned the clerk, eyeing Tom with indignation,
-and he beckoned privately to a porter, indicating that the young man
-should be removed.
-
-Tom glanced over the lobby again. He would have to wait. He dropped
-into one of the big easy-chairs, but the porter laid a hard hand on
-his shoulder.
-
-“Come now, you can’t sit here. You’ve got to get out.”
-
-Tom rose, confused and humiliated. He was aware of scores of curious
-and amused faces looking at him. The porter was edging him toward
-the exit, when somebody touched his arm.
-
-“Bless my soul, Tom Jackson! I saw you come in, but didn’t know you.
-What in the world have you been doing to yourself?”
-
-Tom almost gasped with deep relief. It was Mr. Armstrong himself,
-who had been in conversation with a small, alert-looking man with a
-gray mustache.
-
-“Where’s your father? I got your telegram, but couldn’t make out
-what you were driving at,” pursued the lawyer.
-
-“Father’s badly hurt. The meeting—is it over yet?” Tom exclaimed,
-choking with excitement.
-
-“The meeting? No, it hasn’t started yet. We’re waiting for one of
-the important men. This is Mr. Laforce, of the Erie Bank. He says he
-had a telegram from you, too.”
-
-“Of course I wired him!” cried Tom. “You must call the meeting off.
-We’re not bankrupt. We’re all right now. We’ve got upward of fifty
-thousand feet of good black walnut, worth three hundred dollars a
-thousand—as good as cash—”
-
-Mr. Laforce gave Tom a keen glance.
-
-“You have, eh? Your wire sounded mysterious. Something in this,
-Armstrong?”
-
-“I think it’s worth looking into,” said Mr. Armstrong, laughing.
-
-“If you’ve got all that, I guess the bank can carry you,” continued
-the financier. “Of course we don’t want to push Matt Jackson into
-bankruptcy. I guess anyway we’d better call the meeting postponed.”
-
-That meeting was never held. Tom held a long conference with the
-lawyer and the banker that evening, going home at last to his
-deserted house, to tumble into bed and sleep like one dead till the
-middle of the next forenoon. Late that day a telegram arrived from
-the north:
-
-    Boss waked up and doing good. Doctor says no danger.
-    Raft safe.
-
-                                                    Lynch.
-
-Tom had another long talk over a dinner-table with Armstrong that
-evening, finding the lawyer more human than he had ever considered
-him before. The next morning he left for the Coboconk lakes again,
-accompanied by a representative of the Erie Bank.
-
-They found Mr. Jackson conscious and much recovered, weak indeed,
-but eager to be out again. The skull had not been fractured; he had
-suffered merely a concussion, and had been half drowned into the
-bargain, and when Tom and his companion arrived he insisted on
-sitting up and talking business.
-
-The big raft still lay behind its boom in the northern bay, and was
-an imposing sight, even after all the damage it had suffered. Nearly
-a third of it had broken away in the storm. Some of the cribs had
-remained afloat; some had gone ashore; and Lynch had been
-energetically picking up everything that could be salvaged. Much of
-the walnut had been spilled off the loose cribs, but altogether
-Lynch estimated that they still had a good hundred and twenty
-thousand feet.
-
-At any rate the sight of the timber so impressed the bank
-representative that he willingly agreed to “carry” the business a
-little longer. All that remained was to get the timber out. Mr.
-Jackson had originally thought of sawing it up at Oakley, but
-finally decided to team the logs out from that place and ship it to
-Toronto, where the precious wood could be more carefully handled.
-
-They had to wait several days for a north wind to enable the raft to
-go down the lake, and during this time, to Tom’s immense surprise,
-appeared his cousin Dave. With some embarrassment Dave explained
-that the “gold boom” had turned out a disappointment. He had staked
-some claims, but there was nothing in them. He looked over the raft
-with amazement and some chagrin.
-
-“To think that I spent two years within a mile of all that and never
-knew it!” he commented.
-
-“We’ll give you a job as Lynch’s lieutenant—four dollars a day and
-board,” Tom suggested, laughing.
-
-Dave declined. He was needed on the farm, but he gladly accepted the
-return of the fifteen dollars that Tom had borrowed at that critical
-moment in the woods.
-
-The raft went down to Oakley without mishap, a timely rainfall
-having swollen the river to a good depth, and it aroused great
-excitement at that town. Here they broke it up, and for a long time
-the heavy logging teams were busy, slowly hauling the timber out to
-the railway.
-
-Two dozen logs or so vanished mysteriously between Oakley and
-Toronto, but the rest of the timber was stored safely in Mr.
-Jackson’s yards to dry out thoroughly. It was then carefully sawed
-up. It sold somewhat slowly but at a high price, and not a scrap of
-it was wasted. Altogether, the walnut brought a gross sum of
-$44,000, besides several hundred dollars obtained from the rough
-spruce and jack-pine of the floats, which was left at Oakley.
-
-Charlie followed the raft down to Oakley and hung about till the
-last load was teamed out. Tom looked forward with genuine regret to
-saying good-by to this companion who had stood by him through so
-many adventures. By way of deadening the farewell, he sent to
-Toronto for a magnificent repeating-rifle with a stock of
-ammunition, a new canoe, a miscellaneous camp outfit, and a set of
-traps, and presented this unexpected wealth to Charlie just before
-he left.
-
-“If you ever need anything, Charlie,” he said, “if the trapping
-turns out bad or you have any trouble, you go to my uncle Phil
-Jackson. You know where he lives. He’ll give you anything you want.”
-
-The Ojibway looked over the new outfit, which would make him the
-envy of all his tribe, and raised his eyes to Tom’s, full of a deep
-glow.
-
-“You good fellow, Tom,” he said. “You come back some time, mebbe. I
-watch for you.”
-
-“Sure I’ll come back, Charlie,” Tom promised. “We’ll go trapping
-together yet.”
-
-Thus far, however, Tom has not gone back. He reëntered the
-university that autumn, with renewed ambition to finish his studies;
-and, without altogether neglecting collegiate athletics, he spent
-most of his spare time in his father’s office and yards.
-
-The forty-odd thousand dollars was not a fortune, but it carried the
-business over a bad time, and was enough to set Mr. Jackson on his
-feet again. Though, as he says, the lumber trade is no longer what
-it used to be, the Jackson establishment seems to be prospering.
-After Tom’s graduation, however, the office stationery bore the new
-heading:
-
-                       MATTHEW JACKSON & SON.
-
-Perhaps the change brought luck.
-
-                              THE END
-
-
-
-
-
-End of Project Gutenberg's The Timber Treasure, by Frank Lillie Pollock
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