THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR

By Holman Day

1906

[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: Frontispiece]

THE RAINY DAY RAILROAD WAR

CHAPTER ONE--THE TRYING-OUT OF ONE RODNEY PARKER, ASSISTANT ENGINEER

All at once the stump-dotted, rocky hillside became clamorous andanimated. From the little shacks sheathed with tarred paper, from thesodded huts, from burrows sunk into the hillside men suddenly camepopping out with shrill cries. 

Three men, shouldering surveying instruments, stopped in their trackson the freshly-heaped soil of a new railroad embankment, and gazed up atthe hillside. The railroad skirted its foot and the sudden activity onthe slope was in full view. "Your lambs seem to be blatting around thefodder-rack once more, Parker, " observed the man who lugged the transit. He was a thin, elderly man and his tone was somewhat satirical. 

The men were running toward a common center, uttering cries in shrillstaccato and sounding like yelping dogs. 

Parker drove the spurs of his tripod into the soft soil and stared up atthe hillside, his tanned brow puckering with apprehension. 

"I don't think there's much of the lamb to that rush, " observed thethird man; "they sound to me more like hyenas after raw meat. "

"It will be Dominick they'll eat, then, " said the elderly man. 

"I'm afraid you put the Old Harry into 'em last week when you took theirpart and straightened out Dominick's bill of fare, " he went on. "Theyprobably think they can get quail on toast now if they yap for it. "

"I believe in letting dagoes fight it out among themselves, " announcedthe third man with much derision. "Helping one of 'em is like picking ahornet out of a puddle. You'll get stung while doing it. "

The men on the hillside had knotted themselves into a jostling groupbefore the door of a long, low structure sheathed with tarred paperlike the shacks. In the sunshine an occasional glint flashed above theirheads. 

"Yes, their stingers are out, " remarked the elderly man drily. "Ifthey've got Dominick cornered in that eating camp I'm thinking this willbe the day that he'll get his----whatever it is, they've laid up forhim. "

"He promised me there should be no more weevils and no more spoiledmeat, " cried the one who had been addressed as Parker, a young man whoseearnest face now expressed deep trouble. "As matters were going, thoseItalians were half starved and doing hardly half a day's work in ninehours. Their padrone was putting the food rake-off into his own pocket. "

"I'm not backing up Dominick, " said the other. "But when you took themen's part and laid down the law to him on the grub question you gavethem their cue for general rebellion. Ten chances to one the padrone hasdone as he agreed. I reckon you scared him enough for that. Now they'reprobably around with knives looking for napkins and sparkling red wine. I tell you, Parker, you're inviting trouble when you go to boosting upwhat you call the oppressed multitude. "

"That's a pretty hard view to take of the world and the people in it, Mr. Searles, " replied the youth. "There ought to be a bit of merit andencouragement in a man's going out of his way to right a wrong. "

"Well, Parker, I'm hired as construction engineer on the P. K. & R. Railroad system and I've worked for the road a good many years and foundthat I get along best when I am attending strictly to my own businessin my own line. I told you at the time you butted into that dago row youwere laying up trouble either for yourself or for some one else--and Iguess it's some one else. "

A series of pistol shots popped smartly on the hillside, the reportspartly muffled by the thin walls of the shack. The cries of the menoutside became shrieks. The next instant the side wall bellied outwardand then burst asunder. A man came hustling through the opening, evidently self-propelled, for he struck lightly on his feet and began torun down the steep hill. A soiled canvas apron fluttered at his waist. Stones rained after him. The knot of men at the door scattered likequicksilver and howling runners pursued him. 

Probably fear helped him as much as agility, for he kept well ahead ofthe rout, leaped a low fence at the bottom of the hill, scurried acrossa little valley and came floundering up the soft soil of the railroadembankment, scrambling toward the little group of engineers. 

"It's Dominick, " said Searles. "There seems to be a little more work cutout for you in your side line of philanthropist. "

"I do it whatta you say, " screamed the man as his head came over theedge of the embankment. "Nice! Good! All good to eat. But they wantmucha more--too mucha!"

He struck himself repeated blows on the breast with one fist and pointedwith the other hand at the men who came swarming up the side of thegraded road bed. 

"You coma look--look to the nice br-read, meat all good, beer--plentymuch to eat, dr-rink!" the padrone gasped in appeal, as he circled aboutParker to put him between the rioters and himself. 

The men who came after, screaming and cursing, jerking their arms abovetheir heads, rolling back their lips from their yellow teeth, wereapparently so many lunatics whose frenzy was not to be stayed. Butundisciplined natures whose excesses spring from lack of self controlare all the more ready to respond to the masterful control of others. 

First of all the men recognized in Parker the champion who had won theirfirst rights from the padrone. 

They stopped their shrill vituperation and, crowding about him, began tobleat their explanations and appeals. But he threw out his arms, pushedthem back a safe distance from the panting Dominick and roared them intosilence, brandishing his fists, as he would have quelled a noisy school. 

When they understood that he wished them to be quiet they were silent, all leaning forward, their eyes shining, their lips apart, their fistsclinched as tho they were holding their tongues in leash by thatmeans, their dark, brown faces alight with wistful, almost palpitatingeagerness. The regard they fixed on his face was baleful in itsintentness. 

"Looka what they do, " yelled Dominick rushing to his side. He hadstripped his sleeve back from his arm. Blood was trickling from a knifegash. 

Then the tumult broke out again from the crowd. Two men leaped forwardshaking their hats in their hands and screaming assertions and pointingquivering fingers at bullet holes in the crowns. 

"Shut up!" barked the young man. The presence of the satiric andunsympathetic old engineer nerved him to settle the dispute, if hemight. The hint from the other that he had been meddling in what wasoutside his business gave him an uncomfortable sense of responsibility. 

"About face and back to the camp, " he shouted. "I will look at yourdinner and we shall see!"

They hesitated a moment, but he went among them, pushing them down thebank. 

He followed with the padrone behind the jabbering throng, and the twoengineers came along at his earnest request. 

"Mr. Searles, " said Parker after a little while, as they walked side byside, "being an older and wiser man than I am you are probably right insuggesting that I did wrong in interfering in this affair at the outset. But, " he half-chuckled, "I am going to lay the blame on my professor insociology. He set me to thinking pretty hard in college and I guess Ihaven't been out from under his influence long enough to get hardenedinto the selfish views of my fellowman. "

There was earnestness under his smile. 

"My boy, " said the elder, "I am not blaming you for what you havedone for the poor devils. But I have been all for business in my life. Business hasn't seemed to mix well with philanthropy. I haven't dared tothink of what I ought to do. I have thought only of what I had to do, toearn a living for my family. "

"Well, " said Parker, "if the P. K. & R. Folks decide that I've beenmeddling in matters that are none of my business I have no family tosuffer for my indiscretion--but I have prospects and I know that adischarged man is worse off than a man who has started. "

The elder man patted Parker's arm. 

"As it stands now--and I'm speaking as a friend, young man, and not as acaptious critic--you have set this Italian camp all askew by giving themcountenance in the first place. They haven't any regulators in theirheads, you see! When you're feeding charity to that kind of ruck you'vegot to be careful Parker, that they don't trample you down when theyrush for the trough. "

The young man walked along up the hillside in silence. But just asthey arrived in front of the long camp the scowl of puzzled hesitationdisappeared from his forehead. 

"As old Uncle Flanders used to say, " he muttered, "'When a man stickshis finger into a tight knot-hole he'd better pull it out mighty quick, before it swells, even if he does leave some skin on the edges. '"

The men halted and grouped themselves about the door. Their eager looksand nudgings of each other showed plainly that they expected theirchampion to take up their cause against the padrone once more. 

Dominick prudently halted at a little distance. 

"You go look for yourself, Sir Engineer, " he shouted; "on the kettle, inthe table all about and you see whatta I feed to those beasts when I tryto satisfy. "

The men retorted in shrill chorus leaping about and gesticulating tilltheir joints snapped. 

Parker resolutely pushed through the throng without trying to understandwhat they were saying to him and slammed the door in the faces of thefew who attempted to crowd in with him. Those who anxiously peeredthrough the windows saw him examine the food set out on the table forthe noon meal, lift the covers from the stew pans on the rusty stove andthen pass into the little building behind the main camp. The great stoneovens for the bread-baking were located there. 

When at last he came out he faced them with grim visage, squared theshoulders that had borne many a football assault and called to Dominick. 

"Go inside, " he said, "and coax those two helpers of yours out of thoseovens. They couldn't understand my Italian. Tell them that they aresafe. Let the padrone through, men! Do you hear?"

The crowd sullenly parted and Dominick trotted up the lane they left, hastening with apprehensive shruggings of his shoulders. 

"Go about your work, " said Parker, clutching his arm a moment as thepadrone hastened past. "I can see it isn't your fault this time. "

"Now, men, " he cried, turning to the throng, "few words and short sothat you may all understand. Dominick's dinner is good. Good as anyin the line boarding camps. I'm going to eat here. You come in and eattoo. "

A mumbling began among them and immediately it swelled into a jabberingchorus as the few who understood translated his words to the others. 

He leaped down off the muddy stoop and strode among them, cuffing thisone and that of those malcontents who were noisiest. 

"That young man certainly understands dago nature, " muttered Searles tothe other engineer. "A club, good grit and a hard fist will drive themwhen a machine gun wouldn't. "

"I stood up for you when you were not used right, " shouted the youngman. "He has given you what I told him to give you--what you asked for. Go in there and get it. "

He knew who the ring-leaders in the mutiny were and he drove those intothe camp first. The others followed. In five minutes they were all attheir places at table munching quietly. Another man, even with equaldetermination, might have not succeeded. But the greediest grumbleramong them understood that this young man had first been as valiant tosecure their rights as he was now ready to curb their rebellion. 

In his own heart he was loathing this role of arbiter and mentor. Hisfirst interference had come out of his natural sense of justice. He hadpitied this herd of men who had been so helplessly appealing againsttheir wrongs. 

As he stood at one end of the room now and gazed at them, he realizedwith a little pang of self-reproach that his latest exploit had beenprompted by as much of a desire to set himself right with the company asto square the padrone's critical case. 

Later, when they were trudging down the hill together Searles said witha little touch of malice, "For a philanthropist, Parker, you seem to relish rough-house about aswell as any one I ever saw, I've heard for a long time that footballmakes prizefighters out of college boys--so much so that they go lookingfor trouble. Is that so?"

"I wish you'd let the matter drop, Mr. Searles, " said the young man. "I'm thoroughly ashamed of the whole thing. "

"Well, I was going to say, " went on the elderly man, "that civilengineers in these days get just as good wages without beingshoulder-hitters. You'll get along faster on the peace basis. "

That was Parker's reflection two days later when he was in the room ofthe chief engineer of the P. K. & R. System, at the company's generaloffices. 

"By the way, " said the chief, after his subordinate had finished hisregular report, "Mr. Jerrard wishes to see you. "

Jerrard was general traffic manager and chief executive. 

The young engineer went slowly down the long corridor, apprehensiongnawing at his heart. He huskily muttered his name to the clerk at thegrilled door and was admitted. He fairly dragged his feet along thestrip of matting that led to the general manager's private office. Itwas like the Bridge of Sighs to him. 

"Parker, eh?" repeated the general manager, whirling in his chair andletting his eyeglasses drop against his plump "front elevation, " asParker whimsically termed it in his thoughts, even in this moment of hisdistress. 

Jerrard gazed at him for a little while, a rather curious expression inhis eyes under their shaggy gray brows, then whirled back to his deskand scrabbled among his papers. He drew forth a sheet of memoranda, gaveParker another shrewd glance and inquired:

"Is it true, sir, that you have been interfering in the padrone systemof the construction department?"

"I suppose what I did might be termed that, tho I wasn't intending to bemeddlesome, Mr. Jerrard. "

"Nothing in general instructions, was there, to lead a cub assistant inthe engineering corps to revise a boarding house bill of fare?"

"No, sir. "

"I find it further mentioned that you were back next day and herdedabout seventy-five Italians into a victualling camp as you would drivesteers to a fodder rack. Don't you know that we reserve that sort ofbusiness for a squad of police?"

"Mr. Jerrard, " said the young man, recovering some of hisself-possession tho his tone was apologetic, "since I have been on theroad I saw what happened once when the police came with their clubs andrevolvers. There was a free fight and two men were killed. I thoughtI saw a chance for one man to arbitrate a little difficulty--andarbitration is pretty highly recommended in these days by goodauthorities. When I found that arbitration didn't make things stay putI meddled once more in order to undo my first mistake--if we may callit that. It probably was a mistake, looked at officially. But you see--"his voice faltered a little, for the manager was surveying him withrather a hard look in his eyes, "I hoped that putting the padrone intoline on his food question would prevent a strike; when I drove the mento table I had only the interests of the road at heart, for the strikewas then fairly on. "

"Well, " said the manager, a bit of a smile at the corners of his mouth, "you certainly were not thinking very hard of your own interests whenyou went into that rabid gang. "

"I can see that I made a botch of it generally, Mr. Jerrard. I will saveyou the trouble of requesting my resignation. "

But as he bowed and turned Jerrard spoke sharply. 

"Not so fast, young man, " he said. "As the executive of the P. K. & R, system it wouldn't be exactly official and proper in me to approve yourjudgment in that matter of the Italians; but as a man--plain man, now, you understand, --I know grit when I see it and--" he dropped his bluffstiffness got out of his chair and came along and squeezed Parker'smuscular arm, "you've got a brand of it that I admire. Yes, I do. Nomistake! But that is just between you and me. That is simply my ownpersonal opinion. I don't believe the directors relish the idea ofgladiators in the engineering corps. Just respect this little privatehint of mine hereafter please. "

He surveyed the young man with twinkling and appreciative eyes. 

"Parker, " he said, "once in a while there comes up in the railroadbusiness a demand for a man who has brains and spunk and muscle allrolled up in one bundle. I haven't tested you out yet on the first namedbut the chief engineer speaks in your behalf. The last two you certainlyhave. There's the story of a man who was going home late at night andpicked up what he thought was a kitten and found it to be a pole-cat. Itwas good judgment to set it down again mighty sudden. But the skin wasworth something and he resolved to have the skin to pay for the damage. Now President Whittaker and myself have been up in the north woods thisseason--among the big game, you understand. We picked up what we thoughtwas a kitten. It has turned out to be something else. But we are notgoing to drop it. "

The young engineer was looking at him with puzzled gaze. 

"You don't understand a bit of it, do you?" laughed the traffic manager. "Well, I can't explain the thing just yet. I'll simply leave it this waytoday: Do you want to take a pole-cat and skin it for us? I don'tmean by that that it's a job that any enterprising young man should beashamed or afraid of. It's a job in your line. It's something of closepersonal interest to the president of this system and myself. It isgoing to take you away into the big woods. Do you want it--yes or no?"

The engineer hesitated only a moment. 

"I'll take it, " he said simply. 

"That's the boy!" cried Jerrard. His tone was so enthusiastic thatParker's instinct told him that this bluff offer was another test of hisreadiness in an emergency and had succeeded. 

The manager put his hand against his shoulder and gently pushed him outof the office. 

"Get ready for a cold winter out of doors and practice your tongue onthe names To-quette Carry' and 'Colonel Gideon Ward' until you are notafraid of the sound of them. "

With a chuckle he shut the door on the astonished young man, but openedit again before Parker had moved from the mat outside. 

"Don't be worried, my boy, because I cannot explain the whole situationtoday. " There was kindly reassurance in his tones. "You'll make out allright, I'm sure of that. " A queer little smile puckered the corners ofhis eyes and his voice again became teasing. "The idea is, you've takena contract to do up the Gideonites of the Wilderness in a lone-handedjob. But I think you're good for the trick. " He shut the door again. 

CHAPTER TWO--THE WHIM THAT PROJECTED THE FAMOUS "POQUETTE CARRYRAILROAD"

Weeks passed before Rodney Parker got any more light on the matter inwhich he had blindly given his word. 

He understood this silence better when the situation was set before himat last. There are some projects that captains of industry dilate uponwith pride. But big men are cautious about letting the world knowtheir whims. And whims that lead to exasperating complications thatno business judgment has provided for, do not form pleasant topics forconversation or publicity. 

Many railroad projects have been launched, some of them unique, butnever before was enterprise conceived in just the spirit that gave thePoquette Carry Railway to the transportation world. There have beenrailroads that "began somewhere and ended in a sheep pasture. " ThePoquette Carry Road, known to the legislature of its state as "TheRainy-Day Railroad, " is even more indifferently located, for it twistsfor six miles, from water to water, through as tangled and lonely awilderness as ever owl hooted in. 

Yet it has two of the country's railroad kings behind it and at itsinception some very wrathful lumber kings were ahead of it, and thefinal and decisive battle that was fought was between the champions ofthe respective sides--an old man and a young one. 

The old man had all the opinionated conservatism of one who despises newmethods and modern progress as "hifalutin and new-fangled notions. "The young man, fresh from a school of technology and just completing anapprenticeship under the engineers of a big railroad system, had not anold-fashioned idea. 

The old man came roaring from the deep woods, choleric, impatient ofopposition, and flaming with the rage of a tyrant who is bearded in hisown stronghold for the first time. The young man advanced from the cityto meet him with the coolness of one who has been taught to restrain hisemotions, and armed with determination to win the battle that would makeor break him, so far as his employers were concerned. 

Jerrard was the avant-courier of this novel railroad. Jerrard had beentraffic-manager of the great P. K. & R. System for many years, and whenhe grew bilious and "blue" and very disagreeable, the doctor told himto go back into the woods so far that he would not think about tariff orrebates or competition for two months. 

Jerrard chose Kennegamon Lake. A New England general passenger-agentwhom he had met at a convention told him about that wilderness gem, and lauded it with a certain attractiveness of detail that madeJerrard anxious to test the veracity of New England railroad men, whose "fishin'-story" folders he had always doubted with professionalscepticism. 

The journey by rail was a long one, and it afforded leisure for so muchcogitation that when Jerrard napped he dreamed that the ends of hisnerves were nailed to his desk back in the P. K. & R. General offices, and that as he proceeded he was unreeling them as a spider spins itsthread. 

When he left the train at Sunkhaze station he was still worrying as towhether the assistant traffic-manager would be able to beat the O. & O. Road on the grain contract. In thinking it over about a month later itoccurred to him that he had dropped all outside affairs right there onthat station platform. 

In the first place the mosquitoes and black flies were waiting. He hadnever seen or felt black flies before. He would have scouted the ideathat there were insects no bigger than pinheads that in five minuteswould have his face streaming with blood. 

"They do just love the taste of city sports, " said the guide. "We oldsanups ain't much of a delicacy 'long side of such as you. Here, letme put this on. " He daubed the white face of the city man with anevil-smelling compound of tar and oil. 

Jerrard's mind was rapidly freeing itself from transportation worries. Then came the long paddle across Spinnaker Lake, with only theunfamiliar insecurity of a canoe beneath him, and after that thesix-mile Poquette carry. 

By this time Jerrard had forgotten the P. K. & R. Entirely. 

The canoe and duffel went across the carry slung upon a set of wheels. Jerrard rode in the low-backed middle seat of a muddy buck-board. 

The wheels ran against boulders, grated off with indignant "chuckering"of axle-boxes, hobbled over stumps and plowed through "honey-pots" ofmud. 

"For goodness' sake, " gasped Jerrard, holding desperately to the seat, "why don't you get into the road?"

The driver, a French-Canadian turned and displayed an appreciative grin. 

"Eet ban de ro'd vat you saw de re, " he explained, pointing his whip tothe thoroughfare they were pursuing. 

"This a road?" demanded Jerrard, with indignation. 

"Oui, eet ban a tote-road. "

"I never heard of this kind before, " ejaculated Jerrard, between bumps, "but the name 'road' ought not to be disgraced in any such fashion. Howmuch of it is there?"

"Sax mal'. "

"Six miles! All like this?"

"Aw-w-w some pretty well, some as much bad. "

"Well, I don't know just what you mean, " muttered Jerrard, "but I fearI can imagine. " After what seemed a long interval, and when Jerrard, dizzied by the bumps and the curves, believed that the end mustbe near, --for six miles are but an inconsiderable item to thetraffic-manager of a thousand-mile system, --he asked how far they hadcome. The driver looked at the trees. "Wan mal', mabbee, an' some leetlemore. " The railroad man opened his mouth to make a discourteous retortreflecting on the driver's judgment of distances, but just then one ofthe rear wheels slipped off a rock. It came down kerchunk. Jerrard bithis cheek and his tongue. After that he sat and held to his seat with ahopeless idea that the end of the road was running away from them. 

Half-way through the woods he bought two fat doughnuts and a pieceof apple pie at a wayside log house. He munched his humble fare with agusto he had not known for years. The jolting, the shaking, the tossinghad started his sluggish blood and cleared his business-befogged brain. His food was spiced with the aroma of the hemlocks, and when they tookto the road again he began to hum tunes. 

[Illustration: Then he fell to chuckling 049-050]

Then he fell to chuckling. And when a smooth stretch suffered him tounclasp his cramped hold, he slapped his leg mirthfully. He was thinkingwhat President Whittaker of the P. K. & R. Would be saying in two weeks. 

President Whittaker was a rotund, flabby man, whom long indulgence inrubber-tired broughams and double-springed private cars had softeneduntil he reminded one of a fat down pillow. 

"Jerrard, " he had said, at parting, "if you find good fishing I'llfollow you in two weeks. I need a little outdoor relaxation myself. "

Jerrard sent an enthusiastic letter right back by the tote-road driver. He took the word of his guide about the fishing in prospect. In his newand ebullient spirits he felt that he could hardly wait two weeks forthe spectacle--Whittaker in the middle seat of a buck-board, on thatsix-mile carry road. And when the day came, Jerrard, now bronzed, alertand agile walked out over the Poquette Carry, paddled down to Sunkhaze, and received his superior with open arms. 

The unconsciousness of the corpulent Whittaker as he left the train, spick and span in tweed and polished shoes appealed to Jerrard's sense ofthe ludicrous so acutely that the president, following the baggage-ladenguide down to the shore of the lake, stopped and looked at his friendwith puzzled gaze. 

"I say, Jerrard, you seem to be in a good humor. "

"Nothing like the ozone of the forest to make you sparkle, " chuckled thetraffic-manager. 

It is unnecessary to describe the incidents of the trip across thelake, the apprehensive flinching of the fat president whenever the canoelurched, and his fear of breaking through the bottom of the frail shell. 

But when they were well out on the carry road in the buckboard, Jerrard, gazing on the indescribable mixture of reproach, horror, pain andastonishment that the president's face presented laughed until Whittakerforgot dignity, cares and fears, and laughed, too. 

Two days later, as they were eating their lunch beside the famous springin the north cove of Kennemagon Whittaker stretched himself luxuriouslyon the gray moss, and said;

"Jerrard, it's an earthly paradise! I never had such fishing, never sawsuch scenery. I want to come here every summer. I'd like to buy a tracthere. But that six-mile drive--O dear me! It makes me shiver when Ithink I've got to bump back over it in two weeks. "

That evening one Rowe, a timber-land exploring prospector, whoseemployment was locating tracts for the cutting of pulp stuff, stopped atthe camp and accepted hospitality for the night. After supper the threelay in their bunks and chatted, while the guide pottered about thehousehold tasks. 

"Much travel over the Poquette Carry?" asked Whittaker. 

"Good deal, " said Rowe. "It's the thoroughfare between the West Branchand Spinnaker, you know. All the men for the woods leave the train atSunkhaze, boat it across Spinnaker, and walk the carry at Poquette. Allthe supplies for the camp come that way, too. They bateau goods up theriver from the West Branch end of the carry. "

"Why doesn't some one fix that road?" asked the president. "Looks to meas if they had brought rocks and thrown them into the trail just to makeit worse. "

"It's all wild lands hereabouts, " explained the prospector. "The countycommissioners lay out the roads and the landowners are supposed to buildthem, but they don't. Timber-land owners don't like roads through theirwoods, anyway. "

"I see they don't, " replied Whittaker dryly. "What did you pay, Jerrard, for having your canoe and truck carried across?"

"Fifteen dollars for the duffel, and four dollars each for the guide, myself and you. "

"How's that for a tariff?" laughed the president. Then he took out hispencil and book and put a series of interrogations to Rowe. At the closehe pondered a while, and said to Jerrard:

"According to our friend here, at least five thousand men crossthat carry each year, making ten thousand through fares one way. Supplies--pressed hay, grain, foodstuffs and all that sort offreight--from ten to fifteen thousand tons. Then there's the sportsmantraffic, which could be built up indefinitely if there were suitabletransportation conveniences here. Say, Jerrard, do you know there's afine place for a six-mile narrow-gage railroad right there onPoquette Carry? You and I didn't come down here looking up railroadpossibilities, but really this thing strikes me favorably. Slow time andnot very expensive equipment, but think what a convenience! It willalso give you and me an excuse to come down here summers, eh?" he added, humorously. 

"We'll establish a colony here on Kennemagon, " suggested Jerrard, halfin jest, "and start a land boom. "

"Seriously, " went on Whittaker "the more I talk about that little roadthe more I am convinced it would pay a very good dividend. You and Ican swing it. We can use some P. K. & R. Rails, fix up one of thosenarrow-gage shifters they used on the grain spur, and have a railroadwhile you wait. If we only clear enough to pay our own passage twice ayear we'll be doing fairly well. And I'll be willing to pass dividendsfor the sake of riding from Spinnaker to the West Branch on a car-seatinstead of a buckboard. Say, Rowe, " he went on, jocosely, "I supposethey'll have a mass-meeting and pass votes of thanks to Jerrard andmyself if we put that project through, won't they?"

Rowe squinted his eye along the sliver he was whittling. "I don't knowof any one specially that's hankering for railroad-lines round here, "said he. 

"You don't mean to tell me that abomination of stones and muck-holessuits the public, do you?"

"I know the folks I work for don't want to have it a mite smoother thanit is. They're the public that's running this part of the world. "

"Here's a brand-new thing in transportation ideas, Jerrard!" cried thepresident of the P. K. &R. 

"Nothing strange about our side of it, " said the prospector. "The peopleI work for own more than a million acres of timber land for feedingtheir pulp-mills, and the more city sports there are hanging round onthe tracts and building fires, the more danger of a big blaze catchingsomewhere. And railroads bring sports. You don't hear of any lumbermengrumbling about the Poquette carry. "

"I should say, then, this section should have a little enterprise shakeninto it, " said Whittaker, tartly. This promised opposition promptlyfired his modern spirit of progress. 

After he and his manager had returned to their duties in the city, thesurprising word began to go about the district that next year therewould be a railroad across Poquette carry. When the rumor was traced toRowe, he found himself in for a good deal of rough badinage for allowingtwo city sportsmen to "guy" him. 

The postmaster at Sunkhaze was a subscriber to a daily paper, everyword of which he read. One day, among the inconspicuous notices of "NewCorporations, " he found this paragraph:

"Poquette Carry Railway Company, organized for the purpose ofconstructing and operating a line of railroad between Spinnaker Lake andWest Branch River. President, G. Howard Whittaker; vice-president andgeneral manager, George P. Jerrard; secretary and treasurer, A. L. Bevan. Capital stock $100, 000; $5, 000 paid in. "

After the postmaster had read that twice, he strode out of his littlepen. Men in larrigans and leggings were huddled round the stove, forthe autumn crispness comes early in the mountains. The postmaster's eyesingled out Seth Bowers, the guide. 

"Say, Seth, " he inquired, "wa'n't your sports last summer namedWhittaker and Jerrard--the men ye had in on the Kennemagon waters?"

"Yes. "

"Well, you boys listen to this, " and the postmaster read the item withunction. 

"Looks 's if they were going ahead, and as if there wasn't so much windto it, after all, " observed one of the party. 

"That Poquette Carry road hasn't been touched by shovel or pick for morethan three years, and I don't believe that Col. Gid Ward and his crowdever intend to hire another day's work on it. Colonel Gid says everyoperator and sport from Clew to Erie goes across there, and if there'sany ro'd-repairin' all hands ought to turn to an' help on the expense. "

"This new railroad idea ought to hit him all right, then, " remarkedSeth, the guide. 

"Well, " remarked the postmaster, "I'd just like to be round--far enoughoff so's the chips and splinters wouldn't hit me--when some one stepsup and tells Col. Gid Ward that a concern of city men is going to put arailroad in across his land--that's all!"

"Gid Ward has always backed everybody off the trail into the bushesround here" said Seth. "But he's up against a different crowd now. "

"Do ye think, in the first place, that Colonel Gid is going to sell 'emany right o' way across Poquette?" asked the postmaster. "He owns thewhole tract there. "

"Oh, there's ways of getting it, " replied Seth. "Let lawyers alone forthat when they're paid. If Gid don't sell, they can condemn and take. "

In a week a portion of Seth's prediction concerning lawyers wasverified. 

Mr. Bevan, tall and thin and sallow, stepped off the train at Sunkhaze. He was a prominent attorney in one of the principal cities of the state, and served as clerk of this new corporation. 

When he heard that Col. Gideon Ward was fifty miles up the West Branch, looking after a timber operation on Number 8, Range 23, he borrowedleggings, shoe-pacs and an overcoat and hastened on by means of atote-team. 

A week later, silent and grim and pinched with cold, he unrolled himselffrom buffalo-robes and took the train at Sunkhaze. The postmaster andstation-agent gave him several opportunities to relate the outcome ofhis negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn. 

The first news came down two week later by Miles McCormick, a swamperon Ward's Number 8 operation. The man had a gash on his cheek and a bigpurple swelling under one eye. When a man of Ward's crew came down fromthe woods marked in that manner, it was not necessary for him to saythat he had been discharged by the choleric tyrant who ruled the forestforces from Chamberlain to Seguntiway. The only inquiry was as to methodand provocation. 

"He comes along to me as I was choppin', " related Miles to the Sunkhazepostmaster, "and he yowls, 'Git to goin' there, man, git to goin'!''An', ' says I, 'sure, an' I'll not yank the ax back till it's donecuttin'. ' An' then he" Miles put his finger carefully against thepuffiness under his eye, "he hit me. "

"Was there a tall stranger come up on the tote-team two weeks or soago?" asked the postmaster. 

"There were, " Miles replied, listlessly, and intent on his own troubles. 

"Hear anything special about his business?"

"No. The old man took the stranger into the wangun camp, where it wasprivate, and they talked. None of us heard 'em. "

"And then the stranger went away, hey?" "Oh, well, at last we heardthe old man howlin' and yowlin' in the wangun camp and then he comesa-pushing the tall stranger out with such awful language as you know hecan. An' he says to the stranger, 'Talk about charters and condemningland till ye're black in the face, I say ye can't do it; and every railye lay I'll tie it into a bow-knot. An' I'll eat your charter, seals andall. An' I'll throw your engine into the lake. An' how do ye like thesmell of those?' When he said it he cracked his old fists under thestranger's nose. An' the stranger gets into the team and goes away. Sothat's all of it, and none of us knowed what it meant at all. "

The postmaster darted significant glances round the circle of faces atthe stove, and the loungers returned the stare with interest. 

"What did I tell ye?" he demanded. 

"Just as any one might ha' told that lawyer, " said a man, clicking hisknife-blade. 

CHAPTER THREE--ENGINEER PARKER GETS FINAL ORDERS FOR "THE LAND OF THEGIDEONITES. "

The long autumn passed and winter set in. Snow fell on the carry and thebig sleds jangled across. Men went up past Sunkhaze settlement into thegreat region of snow and silence, and men came down--bearded men, withhands calloused by the ax and the cross-cut saw. 

But Col. Gideon Ward's well known figure was not among the passengerson the tote-road. The upgoing men were bound for his camps, and wereinquiring as to his whereabouts; the downgoing men stated that he wasroaring from one log-landing to another, driving men and horses to makea record-breaking season, and so busy that he would not stop long enoughto eat. 

Hearing the discussion of the traits and deeds of this woods ogre, the stranger might readily believe him as terrifying as the celebrated"Injun devil"--and as much a creature of fiction. 

But each of the messengers that Ward sent down to the outer worldbore unmistakable sign that this ruler of the wilderness was infull possession of his autocracy. This talisman was one of the mostpicturesque features of Ward's reign over the "Gideonites, " as his menwere called all through the great north country. 

He never intrusted money to woodsmen, for he deemed them irresponsible;he found that writings and orders were too easily mislaid. Therefore, whenever he sent a messenger to town or a man down the line with atote-team for goods, he scrawled on his back with a piece of chalk thepeculiar hieroglyph of crosses and circles that made up the Gideon Ward"log-mark. " This mark was good for lodging and meals at any tavern, wasauthority for the transfer of goods, and procured transportation for theman whose back was thus inscribed. 

When Colonel Ward sent a crew of men into the woods he marked the backof each one in this fashion, as if the employees were freight parcels. The exhibition of that chalk-mark and the words "Charge to Ward" wereenough. And such was the fear of all men that the chalk-mark was neverabused. 

Furthermore, on each grand spring settling day most of the dollars thatcirculated in the region came through the hands of Col. Ward. This factnaturally increased the deference paid him. 

"A railroad?" sneered one man, just down from Number 4 camp. "A railroadacross Poquette? Across Gid Ward's land, spouting sparks and settin'fires and hustlin' in sports? Well, you don't see any railroad-buildin'goin' on, do you?"

There was certainly but one reply to this. 

"And ye won't see any, either. Gid Ward just bellowed once at thatlawyer, and he ran away, ki-yi! ki-yi! You'll never hear any morerailroad talk. "

He expressed the public opinion, for even Seth, the guide, regretfullycame to the conclusion that the tyrant of the West Branch had "backeddown" the city men by his belligerent reception of their emissary. 

But soon after the first of January the postmaster's daily paper broughtsome further news. The state legislature had assembled in biennialsession that winter. In the course of its reports the newspaper statedthat the "Po-quette Carry Railway Company, " a corporation organizedunder the general law, had brought before the railroad commissioners apetition for their approval of the project, and that a day was appointedfor a hearing. 

"The city men had the sand, after all, " was his admiring comment. "Theydon't propose to start firing till they get all their legal ammunitionready, and that's why they've been waitin'. We're goin' to see warmtimes on the Spinnaker waters. "

For that matter the daily newspaper brought to snow-heaped Sunkhazeintelligence of "warm times" at the hearing. The legal counsel andlobbyists who represented the puissant timber interests of the stateprotested against allowing this railroad corporation to acquire anyrights across the wild lands. 

It was pointed out that a dangerous precedent would be established; thatforest fires would be sure to originate from the locomotive's sparks, and that the Poquette woods were the center of the great West Branchtimber growth. 

The counsel for the incorporators said that his clients realized thisdanger, and anticipated that this objection, a potent one, wouldbe made. They were willing to show their liberal intent by bindingthemselves to run their trains only in rainy or "lowery" weather, orwhen the ground was damp. In times of dangerous drought they wouldsuspend operations. 

"The Rainy-Day Railroad, " as it was nicknamed immediately, excitedconsiderable hilarity at the state-house and in the newspapers. 

The matter was fought out with much animation. The counsel for therailway made much of the fact that these timber owners had foughtthe very reasonable state tax that had been imposed on their vast andvaluable holdings. He drew attention to the needs of the sportsmanclass, that was spending much money in the state each year, and declaredthat unless they were treated with some courtesy and generosity, theywould go into New Brunswick. 

But those deepest in the secrets of the very vigorous legislative frayknew that the timber-land owners feared more results than they advancedin their arguments against the charter. 

For some years there had been rumors that extensive capital was readyto tap a certain big railway and afford a shorter cut to the sea. Sucha cut-off would mean opening great tracts of woodland to the steamhorse--and where the steam horse goes there go settlers. The timberlandowners had found that settlers do not wait for clear titles, but squatand burn and plant until evicted, and eviction by course of law meansexpense and damage. 

To be sure, the Poquette Carry line appeared on the surface to be soinnocent that to allege against it the great whispered scheme seemedridiculous. Therefore the counsel of the timber barons did not bring outin the committee-room hearings all they suspected, for fear that theywould be laughed at. 

So the Poquette Carry Road got what it asked for at last, the oppositiondaring to put forward only its slight pretexts. But the timber interestsretired growling bitterly, and angrily apprehensive. They could notunderstand that big men are sometimes actuated by whims. Here they sawthe controllers of the great P. K. & R. System behind this insignificantproject in the north woods. They gave these shrewd railroad men nocredit for ingenuousness. And the resolve that was thereupon made atsecret conclave of the timber men to fight that first encroachment ontheir old-time domains and rights was a stern and a bitter resolve. The knowledge of it would have mightily astonished--might have dauntedeffectually a certain young engineer who was just then learning fromManager Jerrard the details of his new commission. 

In the end, late in March, Whittaker and Jerrard found themselves witha charter and a location approved by the state railroad commissioners, permitting them to build a six-mile railroad across Poquette Carry; tocarry passengers, baggage, express and freight, but with the limitationthat when the state land-agent should think the condition of droughtdangerous and should so notify the company, the road should cease to runany trains until rain wet down the woods. 

The location was taken by right of eminent domain, and all theprovisions of the law were complied with. No settlement for the damagecaused to Colonel Ward through the loss of his land was possible, althothe railroad company made liberal offers, and he was finally left topursue his remedy in the courts. 

Up to this time Jerrard had kept his negotiations with young Parker aprivate matter between the two of them, even as he had kept some of theannoying legislative details away from his superior. 

"What engineer can you send down there and handle the thing for us?"asked President Whittaker, when Jerrard informed him that all the legaldetails had been settled. "I want some one who knows enough to get theline going in season for our August trip--and above all to keep still. Idon't want to hear a word about it till I get out of a canoe at PoquetteCarry next summer. Here we want to build a wheelbarrow road, and Ihave been having hard work to convince some of our bankers that I'm notplanning a coup against the Canadian Pacific. Bosh!"

"These timber-land owners started most of that foolishness, " saidJerrard. "But speaking of a man, there's Rodney Parker. "

"Never heard of him. "

"He's been with the engineers two years on the Falls cut-off's new work. I can't think of any one else who will suit us as well. "

"'Tisn't going to take any very wonderful man to build this road, " thepresident snapped, rather impatiently. 

A smile crept into the wrinkles about Jerrard's shrewd eyes. 

"Whittaker, " said he, "there's a side to our railroad enterprise thatneither you nor I appreciated at first. I've been getting some pointsfrom our counsel, who had a talk with Bevan. When we were up at thelake, you remember something that Rotre said about the timber-landowners not especially hankering for a railroad at the carry. Well, Bevansays the land there is owned by a man named Ward--Col, Gideon Ward, oneof the big lumber operators of that section. From Bevan's account, Wardmust be something like a cross between a bull moose and a Bengal tiger, Bevan went up to see him. He thought he could make a deal for theright of way, and thus would not be obliged to bother with condemnationproceedings and stir up talk and all that. Devan declares that getting acharter is one thing but the building of that road will be another. "

"We've got the law--"

"Law gets very thin when you step over the line into an unorganizedtimber township. They tell me that old Ward comes pretty near making hisown laws, and makes them with his fists or a club or else through hisgang that they call 'The Gideonites' in that country. "

"Your Parker, is he--"

"I've got him out in my room. I've been talking with him. Better havehim step in here. "

The president pushed his desk button, and the messenger hastened on hiserrand. 

"Parker, " explained the traffic manager, "doesn't look any more savagethan a house cat. But he's the man who went down into the camp ofthose Italians at the Fall's cut-off when they were having their breadsquabble, and he backed the whole gang into the camp and made them sitdown at the table. Of course, we hope we shall need only an engineer andnot a warrior at Poquette, and we trust that Ward will be tractable andall that; but, Whittaker, if we're going to build that road, and are notto be backed down in such a way that we'll never dare to show our facesbefore the grinning natives at Sunkhaze then we need to send along achap like--"

"Mr. Parker!" opportunely announced the boy, at the door. 

Parker seemed tall and angular and rather awkward. The brown ofout-of-doors was upon his skin. His eyelids dropped at the corners inrather a listless way, but the eyes beneath were gray and steady. He wasyoung, not more than twenty-five, so Whittaker judged at his first sharpglance. 

"Do you think you can build that road that Jerrard has been telling youabout?" asked the president, briskly. 

"I think so, sir. " Parker spoke with a drawl. 

"You understand what the plan is?"

"Mr. Jerrard has explained quite fully. "

"Are you afraid of bears and owls?" The president spoke jocosely, butthere was a significant tone in his voice. 

"I don't think I should spend much time climbing trees, " replied Parker, smiling. 

"Do you understand that the man we send must take the whole undertakingon his own shoulders? Neither Mr. Jerrard nor myself cares to thinkabout the matter, even. " "I'll be glad to be instructed, sir. " "You'llhave instructions as to limit of construction cost per mile, authorityto draw on us as you need money, and the road must be in operation bythe middle of July. Now Jerrard speaks well of your qualifications. Whatdo you think?" "I am ready to accept the commission, sir. " "You'll haveto get away at once, Parker, " said Jerrard. "You must get constructionmaterial and supplies across Spinnaker before the ice breaks up. You candepend on the most of April for ice. "

"I can start when you say the word. " "We shall rush material. Supposeyou start to-morrow morning?" "I'll start sir. "

He left the room when he was informed that his instructions would awaithim that evening. 

"Jerrard, " said the president, gazing after the young man, "your friendisn't an especially _pretty_ frog but I'll bet he can jump more thanonce his length. "

CHAPTER FOUR--IN WHICH THE DOUGHTY "SWAMP SWOGON" ASTONISHES SUNKHAZESETTLEMENT

Two days afterward Parker ate his supper at the Sunkhaze tavern andspent the evening going over the schedule of material that was followinghim by freight, its progress over connecting lines hastened by all the"pull" inspired by the P. K. & R. 's bills of lading. 

The next morning, even while the frosty sun was red behind the spruces, he had arranged with the station agent for side-track privileges, andthen questioned that functionary regarding local conditions. 

"I need twenty or more four-horse teams, " said Parker. "What's the bestway to advertise here?" "I reckon you can advertise and advertise, "replied the station agent, "but that's all the good it'll do you. Colonel Gid Ward has about every spare team in this county yardin' logsfor him this winter. "

"What does he pay?"

"Thirty-five a month for a span o' hosses, and hosses and man kept. "

"I'll pay forty-five and feed. "

"I shouldn't want to be the man that went up on Gid Ward's operationsand tried to hire his teams away!" growled the agent. "You can't hireany one round here for an errand of that kind. "

"I'd go myself if I thought I could get the horses, " said Parker. 

"I'd advise you to save yourself a fifty-mile ride up the tote-road, "the agent counseled. "Even if Ward didn't catch you, you'd find that noman would da'st to leave there. Furthermore, you've only got a little, short job here, scarcely worth while. "

The logic of the reply impressed Parker. 

He could not spare the time anyway, to travel far up into the woods inquest of horses. His material must be conveyed across Spinnaker Lake insome other way. 

"How far is it up the lake to Poquette?" he asked the agent. 

"Sixteen miles. "

An hour later Parker, after a tour of inspection, had settled hisproblem of transportation in his own mind. His plan was ingenious. 

There were half a dozen men available in Sunkhaze, and more werearriving daily, straggling down from the woods or roaring in fresh fromthe city, hurrying on the way up. 

The postmaster owned a hardwood tract, and Parker set his little crewat work chopping birch saplings and fashioning from them huge sleds, strongly bolted. As for himself, he entered into a contract withthe local blacksmith, threw his coat off and went to work on somecontrivances, round which the settlement's loungers congregated fromdawn till dark the next day, watching the progress and wondering audibly"what such a blamed contraption was goin' to turn out to be. "

Parker kept his own counsel. At the end of two days, with the assistanceof the blacksmith, he had remodeled four ox-cart tires. Each tire wasspurred with bristling steel spikes, bolted firmly. In reply to histelegram, "Rush loco, all equipments and coal, " the little narrow-gageengine arrived, at the tail of the procession of flat cars, loaded withmaterials of construction. 

By this time Parker's crew had been increased to a score of laborers, and he had picked up three yokes of oxen and four horses from the fewpioneer farmers who lived near Sunkhaze. With tackle and derrick thelocomotive was swung upon a specially constructed sled, and the spurredtires were set upon its drivers. Then the great idea locked in Parker'shead became apparent to the population of Sunkhaze. 

[Illustration: Then the great idea Frontispiece]

"Gorry!" said the postmaster. "If that young feller hain't got a horsethere that'll beat anything that even Colonel Gid Ward himself ever sentacross Spinnaker Lake!"

Amid the utmost excitement of the spectators, the "engine on runners"was "snubbed" down the steep hill and eased out upon the road leadingto the lake. Two hours' work with levers and wedges had adjusted themachine until the spurred wheels had the requisite "bite" upon the ice. 

At dark on the day of the "launching" Parker gazed off across the levelof the lake, and said to his men:

"To-morrow, boys, the Spinnaker Lake Air-Line Railroad will run itsfirst train to Po-quette Carry. No freight this time. I want to layout my landing up there. So all aboard at nine o'clock. Three cars, " hesaid, pointing to the new sleds, "and a free ride for all of you, withmy compliments. "

An honest cheer greeted his jocular announcement, and that eveningall the Sunk-haze male population assembled round the stove in thepost-office to discuss the matter. When the evening was yet young, ared-faced, red-whiskered man, snow-shoes on his back and fresh from theup-country trail, came and warmed himself, listening with interest tothe lively discussion. 

"So that's what that thing is down on the lake?" he said, at last. "'Twas dark when I came by, and I swan if it didn't scare me. Want toknow if that's the engine we've been hearin' about up our way?"

His tone was significant. 

"Where ye from, stranger?" asked one of the loungers. 

"Number 7 cuttin'. "

"Oh, one of Gid Ward's men?"

"Yes. "

"Say, has Ward heard about the railroad preparations?" inquired thepostmaster. This query had been propounded with eagerness to every newarrival from the woods for the past three days. 

"Yes. "

The interest of the men quickened, and they crowded round the newcomer. 

"What does he say?"

"He hain't said anything special yet, so I heard, " replied the man. "Hain't done anything but swear so far, so they tell me. "

"Has he--has he started to come down?"

"Feller from up the line telephoned across the carry that a streak offur, bells and brimstone went past his place, and so I should judge thatColonel Gid is on the way down, " drawled the man. 

"An' he'll come across that lake in the morning, " said the postmaster, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, "scorchin' the snow and leavin' ahot hole in the air behind him. "

The door opened and Parker came in to post his letters. The crowdgazed on him with new interest and with a certain significance in theirglances that caught his eyes. The postmaster noticed his mute inquiry, and remarked:

"News from the interior, Mr. Parker, is that you prob'ly won't have anyice in Spinnaker to-morrow to run your engine on. "

"Why?" demanded the young man, with some surprise. The postmaster'ssober face hid his jest. Parker surveyed wonderingly the grins curlingunder the listeners' beards. 

"Oh, Colonel Gid Ward is comin' across in the mornin' and it's reckonedhe'll burn up the ice. "

A cackle of laughter came from the assemblage. 

"There's plenty of room on Spinnaker for both of us, I think, " Parkerreplied, quietly. 

"Better hitch your engine, " suggested one of the group. "She's li'ble totake to the woods and climb a tree when she hears old Gid. And you canhear him a good way off, now I can tell you. "

The postmaster knuckled his chin humorously. 

"Wal, you'll hear him 'bout the same time you see him. Five years agohe was arrested down to the village for drivin' through the streetslickety-whelt without bells. Run over two or three people, first andlast. Gid said he'd give 'em bells enough, if that's what they wanted. He began collecting bells all the way from a cow-bell down. At lastaccounts he had about two hundred on his hoss and sleigh, and was stilladdin'. Now he makes every hoss on the street run away. The men wishthey'd let him alone in the first place. He'll prob'ly want yourengine-bell when he sees it to-morrow. "

Another cackle from the crowd. 

Parker left without answering, and went to his dingy little room in thetavern. He did not doubt that the timber-land owners, beaten in theirearlier and formal opposition, were inciting the irascible old colonelto pit might against right. The young man went over his papers oncemore, carefully and methodically posted himself as to his rights andpowers, and then slept with the calmness of one who knows his course andis prepared to follow it. 

The next morning all the male population of Sunkhaze settlement surveyedwith rapt interest the preliminaries of getting up steam under the"Swamp Swogon, " as one of the guides had humorously nicknamed the littlelocomotive. 

Suddenly a bystander leveled his mittened hand above his eyes and gazedup the long trail across the lake. The road was "brushed out" by littlebushes set along at regular intervals. 

Away off on the distant perspective a dot was advancing. It resolveditself into horse and sleigh. Puffs of vapor from the steaming animalindicated the urgent precipitancy of its speed. 

"I reckon that'll be Colonel Gideon Ward!" called the man who had justobserved the team. 

Parker, busy with his gages and oil-can, gave one look up the road andwent on with his labors. In a few moments the jangling beat of manybells throbbed on the frosty air. As if answering a challenge, thelocomotive's escape valve shot up its hissing volume of steam. 

"We are very nearly ready, gentlemen!" called Parker. He gave an orderto his volunteer fireman, and suggested that intending passengers getaboard the sleds. 

"I'll sound the whistle, " said he. "There may be some still waiting upat the store. "

The whistle shrieks were many and prolonged. The horse, speeding downthe lake, was only a few rods away. He stopped, crouched, and dodgedsidewise in terror. An old man stood up and began to belabor thefrightened animal. 

He was a queer figure, that old man, in the high-backed, high-fendersleigh. On his head was a tall peaked fur cap, with a barred coon tailflopping at its apex. A big fur coat, also covered with coon tails, madethe man's figure almost Brobdingnagian in circumference. It was ColonelGideon Ward. 

CHAPTER FIVE--HOW COLONEL GIDEON WAS BACKED DOWN FOR THE FIRST TIME INHIS LIFE

Above the purple knobs on his cheekbones Colonel Gideon Ward's littlegray eyes snapped malevolently. He roared as he lashed at his tremblinghorse. The animal dodged and backed and stubbornly refused to advanceon the strange thing that was pouring white clouds into the air anduttering fearful cries. 

At last the horse reared, stood upright and fell upon its side, splintering the thills. Several of the men ran forward, but before theanimal could scramble to its feet Ward leaped out, tied its forelegstogether with the reins, and left it floundering in the snow. Thenhe came forward with his great whip in his hand. The crowd drew asideapprehensively, and he tramped straight up to the locomotive. 

"What do ye mean, " he roared, "by having engines out here to scarehosses into conniptions? Take that thing off this lake and put it backon the railroad tracks up there where it belongs!" He shook his fistsover his shoulder in the direction of the distant embankment. 

"You will observe, " said Parker, blandly, "that there is some twentyinches difference between the gage of the wheels and the gage--"

"I don't care that"--and Colonel Ward snapped the great whip--"for yourgages and your gouges! Take that engine off this ro'd. "

"I don't care to discuss the matter, " returned Parker, quietly. "I ambusy about my own affairs--too busy to quarrel. "

"There's no use of me and you backin' and fillin'!" shouted the oldman. "You know me and I know you. You think you're goin' to tote yourmaterial up over this lake and build that railroad across my carry atPoquette?"

"Yes, that's what I am going to do. "

Ward shot out his two great fists. 

"Naw, ye ain't!" he howled. 

Parker turned and consulted his steam-gage and water indicator. Then herang the bell. 

"All aboard!" he shouted. "First train for Poquette. "

A nervous little laugh went round at his quiet jest, and twoscore menboarded the sleds. For the first time in his roaring, reckless andquarrelsome life Colonel Gideon Ward found himself in the presence ofa man who defied him scornfully and facing an obstacle that promisedridiculous defeat. 

The titter of the crowd spurred his rage into fury. He took his whipbetween his teeth, and grasping the hand-rods, was about to lift himselfinto the cab. Parker put his gloved hand against the old man's breast. 

"Not without an invitation, Colonel Ward, " he said. "Our party is madeup. "

"Don't want to ride in your infernal engine!" bellowed Ward, "I'm goin'to hoss-whip you, you--"

"Colonel Ward, you know the legal status of the Poquette Carry Railroad, don't you?"

"I don't care--"

"If you don't know it, then consult your counsel. You are on theproperty of the Poquette Railroad Company. I order you off. There'snothing for you to do but to go. "

Eyes as fiery as Ward's own met the colonel. The pressure on his breaststraightened to a push. He fell back upon the snow. 

The next moment Parker pulled the throttle. The spike-spurreddriving-wheels whirred and slashed the ice and snow until the "bite"started the train, and then it moved away up the long road, leaving Wardscreaming maledictions after it. 

"Well, " panted the fireman, "that'll be the first time Colonel Gid Wardwas ever stood round in his whole life!"

"I'm sorry to have words with an old man, " said Parker, "but he mustaccept the new conditions here. "

"This is new, all right!" gasped the fireman, with an expressive sweepof his hand about the little cab. 

Parker was watching his new contrivance with interest. His steering-gearwas rude, being a single runner under the tender with tiller attachment, but it served the purpose. The road was so nearly a straight line thatlittle steering was necessary. 

The snow on the lake road was solid, and the spikes, with the weight ofthe engine settling them, drove the sleds along at a moderate rate ofspeed. The problem of the lake transportation was settled. When Parkerquickened the pace to something like twelve miles an hour, the mencheered him hoarsely. 

The trip to Poquette was exhilarating and uneventful. Parker left hisfireman to look after the "train, " and accompanied by an interestedretinue of citizens, tramped across the six miles of carry road on apreliminary tour of inspection. 

He returned well satisfied. 

The route was fairly level; a few détours would save all cuts, and theplan of trestles would do away with fills. With the eye of the practisedengineer, Parker saw that neither survey nor construction involved anyspecial problems. Therefore he selected his landing on the Spinnakershore, and resolved to make all haste in hauling his material across thelake. 

When the expedition arrived at Sunkhaze at dusk, the postmaster broughtthe information that Colonel Ward had stormed away on the down-trainwith certain hints about getting some law on his own account. He hadsworn over and over in most ferocious fashion that the Poquette Carryroad should not be built so long as law and dynamite could be bought. 

For two days Parker peacefully transported material, twenty tons atrip and two trips a day. On the evening of the third day Colonel Wardarrived from the city, accompanied by a sharp-looking lawyer. The twoimmediately hastened away across the lake toward Poquette. 

Parker had twenty men garrisoned in a log camp at the carry, and hadlittle fear that his supplies would be molested. It was hardly credible, either, that a man with as extensive property interests as Colonel Wardpossessed would dare to destroy wantonly the goods of a railroad companyin the strong position of the Poquette road. However, Parker resolvedto make a survey at once, in order to put the swampers at work choppingtrees and clearing the right of way. 

When he left the cab of his engine the next forenoon at Poquette, he sawthe furred figure of Colonel Ward in front of his carry camp a sort ofhalf-way station for the timber operator's itinerant crews. The lawyerwas at his elbow. 

Parker ignored their presence. 

A half-hour later the young engineer had established his Spinnakerterminal point, and was running his lines. Still no word from thecolonel, who was tramping up and down in front of the camp. Parker'swhimsical fancy pictured those furs and coon tails as bristling andfluffing like the hair of an angry cat. 

[Illustration: Appearance of an enraged Polar bear 078-100]

The young man wondered what card his antagonists were preparing to play. He found out promptly when he ordered his swampers to advance with theiraxes and begin chopping down the trees on the right of way. At the first"chock" ringing out on the crisp silence of the woods Ward came runningdown the snowy stretch of tote-road, presenting much the same appearanceas would an up reared and enraged polar bear. The lawyer hurried afterhim, and several woodsmen followed more leisurely. 

"Not another chip from those trees! Not another chip!" bawled thecolonel. The men stopped chopping and looked at each other doubtfully. 

"We've been told to go ahead here, " said the "boss. "

"I don't care what yeh've been told. You all know me, don't you?" Wardslapped his breast. "You know me? Well, I say stop that chopping onmy--understand?--on _my_ land. "

Parker, who was in advance of the choppers with his instruments, heard, and came plowing through the snow. He found Colonel Ward roaring oathsand abuse, brandishing his fists, and backing the crew of a dozen menfairly off the right of way. Ward's own band of "Gideonites" stood at alittle distance, grinning admiringly. 

Parker set himself squarely in front of the old man, elbowing asidea woodsman to whom the colonel was addressing himself. The youngengineer's gaze was level and determined. 

"Colonel Ward, " he said, "you are interfering with my men. "

The answer was a wordless snarl of ire and contempt. 

"There's no mistaking your disposition, " continued Parker. "You have setyourself to balk this enterprise. But I haven't any time to spend in aquarrel with you. "

"Then get off my land. "

"Now, see here, Colonel Ward, you know as well as I that my principalshave complied with all the provisions of law in taking this location. This road is going through. I am going to put it through. "

"Talk back to me, will you? Talk to me! ni--I'll--" Ward's rage chokedhis utterance. 

"Certainly I'll talk to you, sir, and I am perfectly qualified to bossmy men. Go ahead there, boys!" he called. 

"A moment, Mr. Parker, " broke in the suave voice of the lawyer. "I seeyou don't understand the entire situation. Briefly, then, Mr. Ward hasa telephone-line across this carry. You may see the wires from whereyou stand. I find that your right of way trespasses on Colonel Ward'stelephone location. In this confusion of locations, you will see theadvisability of suspending operations until the matter can be referredto the courts. "

"There is room for Colonel Ward's telephone and for our railroad, too, "he retorted. "If we are compelled to remove any poles, we'll replacethem. "

Of course Parker did not know that the telephone-line was, in fact, onlyColonel Ward's private line, and after the taking by the railroad wason the location wholly without right. But that was a matter for hissuperiors, and not for him. 

"Another point that I fear you have not noted. Colonel Ward's telephonewires are affixed to trees, and your men are preparing to cut down thesesame trees in clearing your right of way. You see it can't be done, Mr. Parker. "

There was an unmistakable sneer in the lawyer's tones. Parker's angermounted to his cheeks. 

"I'm no lawyer, " he cried, "but I have been assured by our counsel thatI have the right to build a railroad here, and I reckon he knows! I'vebeen told to build this railroad and, Mr. Attorney, I'm going to buildit. I've been told to have it completed by a certain time, and I haven'tdays and weeks to spend splitting hairs in court. "

"No, I see you're not much of a lawyer!" jeered the other. "Mr. Parker, you may as well take your plaything, " pointing to the engine, "andtrundle it along home. "

"We'll see about that!" Parker snatched an ax from the nearest man. "Mr. Lawyer, you may _go_ back to the city and fight your legal points withthe man my principals hire for that purpose, and enjoy yourself as muchas you can. In the meantime I'll be building a railroad. Men, thosetrees are to come down at once. " He began to hack at a tree with greatvigor. 

The choppers, encouraged by his firm attitude, promptly moved forwardand began to use their axes. 

"The club you must use, Colonel, is an injunction, " advised thecrestfallen lawyer after he had watched operations a few moments. Wardwas swearing violently. "I'll have one here in twenty-four hours. "

The irate lumberman whirled on his counsel. 

"Get out of here!" he snarled. "Your injunction would prob'ly be likethe law you've handed out here to-day. You said you'd stop him, but youhaven't. "

"There's no law for a fool!" snapped the attorney. 

"Get along with your law!" roared Ward. "I was an idiot ever to fusswith it or depend on it. 'Tain't any good up here. 'Tain't the way forreal men to fight. I've got somethin' better'n law. "

He shook his fists at Parker. "Better'n law!" he repeated, in a shrillhowl. "Better'n law!" he cried again. "And you'll get it, too. "

At first the engineer believed that Ward was about to rally his littleband at the carry camp, but the old man turned and stumped away. Hislawyer tried to interpose and address him, but the colonel angrilyshoved him to one side with such force that the attorney tumbledbackward into the snow. 

"Get out my horse!" the colonel screamed, as he advanced toward thecamp. 

A helper precipitately backed the turnout from the hovel. Ward leapedinto the sleigh, pulled his peaked fur cap down over his ears, and tookup the reins and big whip. He brandished his great fist at the littlegroup he had just left. 

"Better'n law!" he shouted again. "That for your law!" and he struck hisrangy horse with a crack as loud as a pistol-shot. 

The animal leaped like a deer, fairly lifting the narrow sleigh, andwith tails fluttering from his fur robes, his cap's coon tail streamingbehind, away up the tote-road went Gideon Ward on his return to thedeep woods, the mighty din of his myriad bells clashing down the forestaisles. At the distant turn of the road he hooted with the vigor of ascreech owl, "Better'n law!" and disappeared. 

"Your client doesn't seem to be in an especially amiable and lamb-likemood this morning, " said Parker. 

The lawyer dusted the snow from his garments. 

"Beautiful disposition, old Gid Ward has!" he snarled. "Left me here towalk sixteen miles to a railroad-station, and never offered to settlewith me. "

"You forget the 'Poquette and Sunkhaze Air-Line, " Parker smiled. "Youare free to ride back with us when we go. "

"No hard feelings, then?" asked the lawyer. 

"I'm not small-minded, I trust, " returned Parker. The lawyer lookedat the self-possessed young man with pleased interest. This generousattitude appealed to him. 

"Do you realize, young man, " he inquired, "that old Gideon Ward neverhad a man really back him down before?"

"I don't know much about Colonel Ward personally, except that he has avery disagreeable disposition. "

"You've made him just as near a maniac as a man can be and still goabout his business. There'll be a lot of trouble come from this. Hadn'tyou better advise your folks to call it off? They haven't the leastidea, I imagine, what a proposition you are up against. "

"I shall keep on attending to my business, " Parker replied. "If any oneinterferes with that business, he'll do so at his own risk. "

"I am afraid you are depending too much on your legal rights and on theprotection of the law. Now Gideon Ward has always made might right inthis section. He is rough and ignorant, but the old scamp has a heap ofmoney and a rich gang to back him. I tell you, there are a lot of thingshe can do to you, and then escape by using his money and his pull. "

"From what I have seen of the old man's temper, I am prepared to puta pretty high estimate on his capacity for mischief; but on the otherhand, Mr. Attorney, suppose I should go back to my people and say Iallowed an old native up here in the woods to back me off our property?I fear my chances for promotion on the P. K, and R. System would get ablacker eye than I shall give him if he ever shakes his fist undermy nose again. Have all the people up here allowed that old wretch tobrowbeat and tyrannize over them without a word of protest?"

"Oh, he has been whaled once or twice, but it never did him any good. For instance, a favorite trick of his is to make every one flounder outof a tote-road into the deep snow. He won't turn out an inch. Most ofthe men he meets are working for him or selling him goods, and theydon't dare to complain. However, one teamster he crowded off in thatway broke two ox-goads on the old man. But that whipping only set himagainst other travellers more than ever. 

"Another time Ward got what he deserved down at Sunkhaze. A man opened astore there and put in a plate-glass window, being anxious to show a bitof progress. There's nothing old Ward hates so much as he does what hecalls 'slingin' on airs, ' When he drove down from the woods and sawthat new window he growled, 'Wal, it seems to me we're gettin' blamedhigh-toned all of a sudden!' He got out, rooted up a big rock and hoveit right through the middle of that new pane of glass the only pane ofplate glass Sunkhaze ever saw. Well, the storeman tore out and lickedWard till he cried. Storeman didn't know who the old man was till afterit was all over. Neither did old Gid know how big that storeman was tillhe saw him coming out through that broken glass. Otherwise both mighthave thought twice. 

"Ward boycotted and persecuted him till he had to sell out and leavetown. He has persecuted everybody. His wife has been in the insaneasylum going on ten years; his only girl ran away and got married toa cheap fellow, and his son is in state prison. The boy ran away fromhome, got into bad company, and shot a policeman who was trying toarrest him. If you are not crazy or dead before he gets done with you, then you'll come out luckier than I think you will. "

With this consoling remark the lawyer plodded up to the camp, to waituntil it should be time to start down the lake. 

As Parker toiled through the woods that day he reflected seriously onhis situation. He fully appreciated the fact that Ward's malice intendedsome ugly retaliation. The danger viewed here in the woods and away fromthe usual protections of society seemed imminent and to be dreaded. 

But the young man realized how skeptically Whittaker and Jerrard wouldview any such apprehensions as he might convey to them, reading hisletter in the comfortable and matter-of-fact serenity of the city. Heknew how impatient it made President Whittaker to be troubled with anysubordinate's worry over details. His rule was to select the rightman, say, "Let it be done, " and then, after the manner of the modernfinancial wizard inspect the finished result and bestow blame or praise. 

Parker regretfully concluded that he must keep his own counsel untilsome act more overt and ominous forced him to share his responsibility. 

That evening, as he sat in his room at the tavern, busy with his firstfigures of the survey, some one knocked and entered at his call, "Comein!"

CHAPTER SIX--IN WHICH "THE CAT-HERMIT OF MOXIE" CASTS HIS SHADOW LONGBEFORE HIM

It was the postmaster who appeared at Parker's invitation to enter. Thatofficial stroked down his beard, tipped his chair back, surveyed theyoung man with the solemnity of the midnight raven and observed:

"I hear you and Colonel Gid had it hot and tight up to Poquette to-day. "

"There was an argument, " returned Parker, quietly. 

"I don't want to be considered as meddlin' with your affairs, Mr. Parker, but I've known Gid Ward for a good many years, and I want toadvise you to look sharp that he doesn't do you some pesky mean kind ofharm. "

"I have been warned already, Mr. Dodge. "

"Yes, but you don't seem to take it to heart enough. Or if you do, youdon't show it. That was the reason I was afraid you didn't realize whata man you have to deal with. "

"He seems to me like a blustering coward. Your really brave anddetermined men don't make so much talk. "

"Oh, Gid Ward has tried his usual game of scare with his mouth, and itdidn't work. He won't come again at you that way in the open right way. But"--the postmaster brought his chair down on its four legs and leanedforward to whisper--"he'll come again at you in the dark, and it's thenthat he's dangerous. "

"Of course I needn't tell you, Mr. Dodge, that I do not propose to bebacked down and driven out of this section by a man like that. I daresay he is planning mischief, but I have my work to do here, and I shallkeep on as best I can. "

"I admire your spunk, young man, " said the postmaster, heartily, "and Ihope you'll come through this all right. But I have felt it my duty tosee that you were warned good and solid. I know how Gid Ward got hisstart in life--and by as mean a trick as ever a man put up. 

"His brother Joshua Ward, enlisted for the war in the sixties. Bachelor, Joshua was. He was going with one of the Marshall girls in Carmel, and the thing was settled final. Hows'ever, Josh went away to the warwithout getting married, because he allowed that if he got killed, anunmarried girl wouldn't have to take last pickings of the men, like awidow would. Mighty kind, square, good-hearted chap that Josh Ward nowI can tell ye! Thought of others first all the time. He owned a mightynice place that his aunt had willed to him. She liked Josh, but hatedthe sight of Gid, same's every one else did. 

"Before Josh went away he deeded his farm and everything to thatMarshall girl. Told her that if he came back they would get married, andit would be all right. If he didn't come back, he wanted her to marry agood man, and told her that the farm would make a home for them and helpher to get the best kind of a husband. As I told you, that Joshua Wardwas as good as wheat. 

"For a year that Marshall girl heard from Josh regularly, and then thepapers reported that he was killed in a big battle, and from then to theend of the war--two years or more--there wasn't a word from him or ofhim. Meanwhile Gid laid his plan. The Marshall girl had an idea that ifshe married Gid--though he wasn't her style--it would please Josh, forthen the place would stay in the family. She mourned for Josh terribly, but Gid was right after her all the time, and there she was with a farmon her hands, and so she finally up and married him. 

"In Joshua Ward's case it happened, as it did in hundreds of othercases, where the poor chaps weren't important enough to be heard aboutor from. He was just captured instead of killed, and went from Libby toAndersonville, from Andersonville to Macon, and when Lee surrendered hecame home, thin's a shadow, shaking with ague and with eyes biggerthan burnt holes in a blanket. Pitiful figure he was, I tell you. I wasrunning a livery business in Carmel village then, and Josh hired me totake him out to the farm. 

"I broke the thing to him on the way. Made my throat ache, now I tellyou, Mr. Parker. Made my eyes smart and the fields and sky look blurryto see that poor wreck, with everything gone, and know that the hog thathad stayed to home was enjoying it all. 

"And what made me, as a man, despise Gid Ward more was the fact that hehad been colonel of a state regiment in old militia days, boosted thereby a gang that trained with him, and as soon as war broke out and theregiment was mustered in he resigned like a sneak, and couldn't betouched by a draft. 

"Josh always was a quiet chap. He humped over a little more when I toldhim, and looked thinner, and I had to help him more when he got out atthe farm than I did when he got aboard at the stable. He allowed he'd goto the farm just the same. Said he didn't have any money, or any otherplace to go, and he guessed 'twas his home, anyway. 

"Mr. Parker, I haven't got the language to tell ye how that woman lookedwhen she came to the door and saw me helping Josh out to the ground. No sir, I don't want to think of it--how she sank right down in thatdoorway, and her head went over sidewise and her eyes shut and--and herheart stopped, I guess. "

The postmaster blew his nose and snapped his eyes and cleared his throatwith difficulty. Parker had forgotten his figures. 

"Gid came round the corner of the house, seeing the team drive up, andwhat do you suppose he said when he saw his brother back from the grave, as you might say? He looked him over, not offering to shake his hand, and then he says, 'Well, living skelington, it's goin' to cost somethingto plump you out again, ain't it?'

"When I saw the look on Josh's face at that, I'd have hauled off andcuffed Gid's head up to a pick, swan if I wouldn't, but the Marshallgirl--excuse me, Mis' Ward--came tearin' down the path, and threw herarms round Josh's neck and cried, 'O my poor brother!' And I came away. 

"It was too much for me. My eyes were so full that I run against a tree, and pretty near took a wheel off. 

"Wal, Josh stayed, and as soon as he was able he took a-hold offarm-work, and things went along for a time all quiet. One eveningJosh was sitting out at the corner of the house, smoking as usual, andmeditatin' in the way he had, when Gid came along and sat down on thedoor-stone. 

"''Bout time to have a business understanding, ain't it, Josh?' Gidasked. 

"'Yes, perhaps it is, ' said Joshua. 

"'Well then, ye'll answer a fair question. If ye continue to stay here, where's the money for your board comin' from?'

"'Board?' says Josh. 

"'Yes, board! You don't reckon to run a visit over three months, do ye?'

"'Why, I didn't think there'd be any question of this sort between us, Gid. '

"'Business is business. If you'd had more business to you, you wouldn'tbe a pauper now. '

"'A pauper!'

"'That's what I said. You deeded this place to Cynthy Marshall, didn'tye? Well, she has deeded it to me. 'Tain't much of a husband that don'thave his property in his own name. '

"'But see here, Gideon, you know why I deeded this property. You knowhow matters have come out. Between brothers in such a case there shouldbe no such thing as stickin' to the letter of deeds. '

"'Nearer the relatives be to ye, closer you ought to follow the law, 'snapped Gid, 'or else ye'll get cheated worse than by a stranger!'

"'He didn't seem to be takin' any of that to himself. '

"'I've been thinkin' I'd give half the place to Cynthy as a weddin'present, and we could--'

"'Why, you've given it all to her, hain't ye?'

"Josh had to say yes, of course. Never was any hand to argue his ownrights. "

"'Well, she has given it to me and it was hers to give. Now, I say, canye pay board?'

"'I haven't any money, Gid. '

"'Well, then, ye'll have to get a job somewhere. I don't need a hiredman just now. Ye won't starve, Josh. The gov'ment will take care ofsoldiers, ' he sneered. Then he got up and went into the house. 

"That's the way it was told to me by Joshua Ward himself, Mr. Parker, "concluded the postmaster. "He had to get out. He didn't have any moneyto fight in law. He didn't want to stir up the thing on poor Cynthy'saccount. And he was ashamed to have the whole world know how mean a manhe had for a brother. "

"What has become of this Joshua?" asked the young man, his heart hotwith new and fresh bitterness against this unspeakable tyrant of thetimber country. 

"Josh did what so many other heart-broken men have done. He went intothe woods, on an island in Little Moxie, built a cabin, has his pensionto live on, and has become one of those queer old chaps such as youwill find scattered all the way from Holeb to New Brunswick. There's oldYoung at Gulf Hagas, and the Mediator at Boarstone, and a lot like them. They call Joshua the 'cat hermit of Moxie. '

"They say he's got cats round his place by the hundred. Spends all histime in hunting meat and catching fish for 'em. Well, most everybody iscranky about some notion or others, whether it's in the city or in thewoods, and I reckon that Josh has a right to keep cats if he wants to. No one ever sees him out in civilization now. Cynthy's in the asylum. Most people think it's just the trouble of the thing preying on hermind. And then again, I guess that Gid wasn't ever any too good to her. Hard case, ain't it, Mr. Parker?" The postmaster's voice trembled. 

"It's as sad a story--as anger-stirring a story as I ever listened to, Mr. Dodge, " replied the young man, passionately. "I cannot understandhow a scoundrel of that style should have been allowed to stamproughshod over people without a champion arising in some quarter. It issmall wonder that he has come to think that he can run the universe. Heneeds a lesson. "

"There's no doubt about his needin' the lesson, " replied the postmaster. "But for years half the wages that are paid out in this section havecome through the hands of Gideon Ward. Laboring men with families tosupport and the traders have to stand in with him or be side-tracked. Idon't know as Gid ever did a real up-and-down crime, any more than whatI've been telling you--and some men in the world would be mean enough togloss all that over, saying that it's only right to look out for numberone first of all. But I tell ye honestly, Mr. Parker, Gid would have todo something pretty desperate and open to have the prosecuting officersof this county take it up against him. Now you can understand the widthof the swath he cuts in these parts. Where would the witnesses comefrom? He owns his men, body and soul. "

Parker's forehead wrinkled doubtfully. 

"What do you think will be his next move in regard to me?"

"I can't make a guess, but you need smellers as long as a bobcat's andas many eyes as a spider. " With this cheering opinion expressed, thepostmaster went away. 

There was no more work for Parker on his plans that night. 

The grim pathos of the story that he had heard haunted him. Thispitiful tragedy in real life stirred his youthful and impressionablesensibilities to their depths. 

Despite his brave outward demeanor during his tilt with the ferociousold man he had feared within himself. He possessed no gladiatorialspirit and did not relish fray for the sake of it. But he did haveaccurate notions of right and wrong, of the justice of a cause and ofmanliness in standing for it. He had exhibited that trait many times tothe astonishment of those who had been deceived by his quiet exterior. In this instance his employers had put a trust into his hands. He hadresolved to go through with his task. But now there was added anotherincentive--a very distinct determination to give Gideon Ward at leastone check and lesson in his career of wholesale domination. 

A queer grief worked in his heart and a wistful tenderness moistenedhis eyes as he thought upon that injured brother, living out his wreckedlife somewhere in the heart of those great woods about him. Perhapsthere was a bit of prescience in the warmth with which he dwelt on thesubject, for Fate had written that Joshua Ward was to play an importantpart in the life of Rodney Parker. 

He went to sleep with the sorrow of it all weighing his mind, and histeeth gritting with determination as he reflected on Gideon Ward and hisugly threats. 

CHAPTER SEVEN--HOW "THE FRESH-WATER CORSAIRS" CAME TO SUNKHAZE

In the morning Parker's foreman was waiting for him in the men's roomof the tavern. It was so early that the smoky kerosine lamp was stillstruggling with the red glow of the dawn. 

"Mr. Parker, " said the foreman earnestly, "have you go it figured whatthe old chap is goin' to do to us?"

"That is hardly a fair question to put to me Mank, " said the engineer, pulling on his mittens. "You knew him up this way better than I. Now youtell me what you expect him to do. "

But the foreman shook his head dubiously. 

"It'll never come at a man twice alike, " he said. 

"Sometimes he just snorts and folks just run. Sometimes he kicks, sometimes he bites, sometimes he rears and smashes things all to pieces. But the idea is, you can depend on him to do something and do it quickand do it mighty hard. We've known Gideon Ward a good many years up thisway and we've never seen him so mad before nor have better reason forbeing mad. The men are worrying. I thought it right to tell you thatmuch. "

"Well, I'm worrying, too, " said Parker. He tried to speak jestingly, but the heaviness of the night's foreboding was still upon him and theforeman detected the nervousness in his voice. The man now showed hisown depression plainly. 

"I was in hopes I could tell the men that you could see your way allfree and clear" he said. 

"Then the men are worrying?"

"That they are, sir. A good many of us own houses here in Sunkhaze andthere's more than one way for Colonel Gideon Ward to get back atus. Several of the boys came to me last night and wanted to quit. Iunderstand that the postmaster has been talking to you and he musthave told you some of the things that the old man done and hasn't beentroubled about, either by his conscience or the law. You see what kindof a position that puts us in. "

"You don't mean that the crew is going to strike, or rather slip outfrom under, do you, Mank?" asked Parker, struck by the man's demeanor. 

"Well, I'd hardly like to say that. I ain't commissioned to put it thatstrong. But we've got to remember the fact that we'll probably wantto live here a number of years yet, and railroad building won't lastforever. Still, it's hardly about future jobs that we're thinking now. It's what is liable to happen to us in the next few days. It will betough times for Sunkhaze settlement if the Gideonites swoop down on us, Mr. Parker. "

The engineer threw out his arms impetuously. 

"But I'm in no position, Mank, to guarantee safety to the men whoare working for the company, " he cried. "It looks to me as tho I werestanding here pretty nigh single-handed. If I understand your meaning, I can't depend on my crew to back me up if it comes to a clinch with theold bear?"

"The boys here are not cowards, " replied the foreman with some spirit. "They're good, rugged chaps with grit in 'em. Turn 'em loose in a woodsclearing a hundred miles from home and I'd match 'em man for man withany crowd that Gid Ward could herd together. I don't say they wouldn'tfight here in their own door yards, Mr. Parker. They'd fight beforethey'd see their houses pulled down or their families troubled. But asto fighting for the property of this railroad company and then takingchances with the Gideonites afterward--well, I don't know about that!It's too near home!" Again the foreman shook his head dubiously. "Aslong as you can reckon safely that the old one is goin' to do something, the boys thought perhaps you'd notify the sheriff. "

But Parker remembered his instructions. Reporting his predicament to thesheriff would mean sowing news of the Sunkhaze situation broadcast inthe papers. 

"It isn't a matter for the sheriffs, " he replied shortly. "We'llconsider that the men are hired to transport material and not to fight. We can only wait and see what will happen. But, Mank, I think that whenthe pinch comes you will find that my men can be as loyal to me, evenif I am a stranger, as Ward's men are to the infernal old tyrant who hasabused them all these years. I'm going to believe so at any rate. "

He turned away and started out of doors into the crisp morning. "I'mgoing to believe that last as long as I can, " he muttered. 

"It'll help to keep me from running away. "

He found his crew gathered in the railroad yard near the heaps ofunloaded material for construction. The men eyed him a bit curiously andrather sheepishly. 

"I know how you stand, men, " he said cheerily. "I don't ask you toundertake any impossibilities. I simply want help in getting this stuffacross Spinnaker Lake. Let's at it!"

His tone inspired them momentarily. 

They were at least dauntless toilers, even if they professed to beindifferent soldiers. 

The sleds or skids were drawn up into the railroad yard by hand andloaded there. Then they were snubbed down to the lake over the steepbank. On the ice the "train" was made up. 

Even Parker himself was surprised to find what a load the littlelocomotive could manage. He made four trips the first day and at duskhad the satisfaction of beholding many tons of rails, fish-plates andspikes unloaded and neatly piled in the yarding place at the Spinnakerend of the carry. 

Between trips, while the men were unloading, he had opportunity toextend his right-of-way lines for his swampers and attend to otherdetails of his engineering problem. 

'Twas a swift pace he set!

He dared to trust no one else in the cab of the panting "Swamp Swogon"as engineer, and rushed back from his lines when the fireman signalledwith the whistle that they were ready for a return trip. It may readilybe imagined that with duties pressing on him in that fashion Parker hadlittle time in which to worry about the next move of Colonel Ward. Andthe men worked as zealously as tho they too had forgotten the menacethat threatened in the north. 

In three days fully half the weight of material had been safely landedacross the lake. 

But on the evening of the third day Parker was more seriously alarmedby the weather-frowns than he had been by the threats of Gideon Wardhimself. 

The postmaster presaged it, sniffing into the dusk with upturned noseand wagging his head ominously. 

"I reckon old Gid has got one more privilege of these north woods intohis clutch and is now handlin' the weather for the section, " he said. "For if we ain't goin' to have a spell of the soft and moist that willput you out of business for a while, then I miss my guess. "

It began with a fog and ended in a driving rainstorm that converted thesurface of the lake into an expanse of slush that there was no dealingwith. 

Parker's experience had been with climatic conditions in lower latitudesand in his alarm he believed that spring had come swooping in on him andthat the storm meant the breaking up of the ice or at least would weakenit so that it would not bear his engine. 

But the postmaster, who could be a comforter as well as a prophet ofill, took him into the little enclosure of his inner office and showedhim a long list of records pencilled on the slide of his wicket. 

"Ice was never known to break up in Spinnaker earlier than the firstweek in May, " said Dodge, "and this rain-spitting won't open so much asa riffle. You just keep cool and wait. "

At the end of the rain-storm the weather helped Parker to keep cool. Heheard the wind roaring from the northwest in the night. The frame of thelittle tavern shuddered. Ice fragments, torn from eaves and gables, wentspinning away into the darkness over the frozen crust with the sound ofthe bells of fairy sleighs. 

When Parker, fully awakening in the early dawn, looked out upon thefrosty air, his breath was as visibly voluminous as the puff from anescape-valve of the "Swogon. " With his finger-nail he scratched thewinter enameling from his window-pane, and through that peep-hole gazedout upon the lake. The frozen expanse stretched steel-white, glary andglistening, a solid sheet of ice. 

"There's a surface, " cried Parker, in joyous soliloquy, "that willenable the Swogon to haul as much as a P. K. & R. Mogul! Jack Frost iscertainly a great engineer. "

He at once put a crew at work getting out more saplings for sleds. Intwo more trips, with his extra "cars" and with that glassy surface, hebelieved that every ounce of railroad material could be "yarded" at thePo-quette Carry. When the sun went down redly, spreading its broad bandsof radiance across ice-sheeted Spinnaker, the Swogon stood bravely atthe head of twenty heavily loaded sleds. The start for the Carry wasscheduled to occur at daybreak. 

The moon was round and full that evening, and Parker before turning inwent out and remained at the edge of the lake a moment, looking acrossSpinnaker's vast expanse of silvery glory. 

"You could take that train acrost the lake to-night, Mr. Parker, "suggested the foreman, who had followed him from the post-office. "It'sas light as day. "

"Do you know, " admitted the young man, "I just came out with the uneasyfeeling, somehow, that I ought to fire up and start out. I suppose theold women would call it a presentiment. But the men have worked toohard to-day to be called out for a night job. With a freeze like that wehaven't got to hurry on account of the weather. "

The foreman patted his ears briskly, for the night wind was sweepingdown the lake and squalling shrewishly about the corners of buildings inthe little settlement. Suddenly the man shot out a mittened hand, andpointed up the lake. 

"What's that?" he ejaculated. 

Parker gazed. Far up Spinnaker a dim white bulk seemed to hover abovethe ice. It was almost wraith-like in the moonlight. It flitted on likea huge bird, and seemed to be rapidly advancing toward Sunkhaze. 

[Illustration: A dim white hulk seemed to hover 117-140]

"If it were summer-time and this were Sandy Hook, " said Parker, with asmile, "I should think that perhaps the cup-race might be on. "

"I should say, rather, it is the ghost of Gid Ward's boom gunlow, "returned the man, not to be outdone in jest. "He's got an old scow witha sail like that. "

Both men surveyed the dim whiteness with increasing interest. 

"Are there any ice-boats on the lake?" inquired the engineer. 

"I never heard of any such thing hereabouts. "

"Well, I have made that out to be an iceboat of some description. Andwith that spread of sail it is making great progress. " Parker rolledup his coat collar and pulled down his fur cap. A feeling of disquietpricked him. "I think I'll stay here a little while and watch thatfellow, " he said. 

"So will I, " agreed his employé. 

The approaching sail grew rapidly. Soon the craft was to be descriedmore in detail. Under the sail was a flat, black mass. And now on thebreeze came swelling a chorus of rude songs, the melody of which wasshot through with howls and bellows of uproarious men. 

"Trouble's coming there, Mr. Parker!" gasped the foreman, apprehensively. "The wind behind 'em an' rum inside 'em. "

"Ward's men, eh?" suggested the engineer. 

"That they are! The Gideonites! They can't be anything else. "

"Get our men together!" Parker cried, clapping his gloved hands. "Routout every man in the settlement. "

The foreman started away on the run, banging on house doors and bawlingthe cry:

"Whoo-ee! All up! Parker's crew turn out! All hands wanted at the lake!"

In the excitement of the moment Mank did not question the command norpause to reflect that he might be calling his neighbors into troublethat they would not relish. 

CHAPTER EIGHT--THE LOCOMOTIVE THAT WENT SWIMMING AND THE ENGINEER WHOWAS STOLEN

In a few moments the bell of the little chapel was sending its janglingalarm out over the village. Doors banged, men burst out of the housesand poured down to the lake shore, buttoning their jackets as they ran. 

They required no explanation. Ever since the incident at Poquette somesuch irruption of Ward's reckless woods hordes had been anticipated. Butthis tempestuous night arrival under sail, this sudden and terrifyingdescent appalled the newly awakened men. 

The craft was now close to shore, and was making for the stolid Swogonand its waiting sleds. The stranger's method of construction couldnow be distinguished, A good half-score of tote-sleds had been lashedtogether into a sort of runnered raft The sail was the huge canvas usedin summer on Ward's lake scow. 

As the great boat swung into the wind, a jostling crowd of men pouredout on the ice from under the flapping sail. Each man bore a tool ofsome sort, either ax, cant-dog, iron-shod peavey-stick, or cross-cutsaw; and the moonshine flashed on the steel surfaces. It was plainthat the party viewed its expedition as an opportunity for recklessroistering, and spirits had added a spur to the natural boisterousbelligerency of the woodsmen. 

Most of Parker's crew had brought axes, and now as he advanced acrossthe ice toward the locomotive, his men followed with considerabledisplay of valor. 

'A giant whiskered woodsman led the onrush of the attacking force;and the gang interposed itself between the railroad property and itsdefenders. 

"Hold up there, right where ye are, all of ye!" the giant shouted. 

"What is your business here?" demanded the young man. 

"Are you that little railro'd chap that thinks he's runnin' this end ofthe country on the kid-glove basis?" roared the big man. He swung his axmenacingly. 

"My name is Parker, " replied the engineer. "That is my property yonder. You will have to let my men pass to it. "

The giant looked squarely over the engineer's head into the crowd ofSunkhaze men. 

"You all know me, " he cried, "an' if ye don't know me ye've heard of me!I reckon Dan Connick is pretty well known hereabouts. Wal, that's me. Never was licked, never was talked back to. These men behind me are alla good deal like me. I know the most o' you men. I should hate to hurtye. Your wives are up there waitin' for ye to come home. Ye'd bettergo. "

But the crowd made no movement to retreat. Parker still stood at theirhead. 

"Ye'd better go!" bellowed Connick. "Understand? I said ye'd better go. Go an' mind your business, an' if ye do that, not a man in my crew willstep a foot on the Sunk-haze shore. But if ye stay here and meddle, thendown come your houses and out go your cook-stoves. You know me! Get backon shore. "

A tremendous roar from his men emphasized his demand. 

"If ye want these hearties loose up there, ye can have 'em in about twominutes!" he cried, threateningly. 

The Sunkhaze contingent rubbed elbows significantly, mumbled inconference, and scuffled slowly toward the shore. 

"Are you going to back down, men?" Parker shouted. 

"We've got wives an' children an' houses up there, mister, " said a voicefrom the crowd, "an' it's a cold night to be turned out-o'-doors. Weknow these fellers better'n what you do. "

"But, men, " persisted Parker, "they won't dare to sack your village. Such things are not done in these days. The law--"

"Law!" burst from Connick, jeeringly. "Law! Law!" echoed his men, withmocking laughter. 

"Why, " yelled Connick, "there ain't deputy sheriffs enough in thiscounty to round us up once we get acrost the Poquette divide! Thereain't a deputy sheriff that will dare to poke his nose within ten milesof our camps. "

"That's right, Mr. Parker, " agreed one of the Sunkhaze crowd. "Once acrew burnt a smokin'-car when they were comin' up from--"

"No yarns now, no yarns now!" Connick thrust himself against theSunkhaze men and roughly elbowed them back. "Get on shore an' staythere. "

Parker was left standing alone on the ice. His supporters scuffled away, muttering angry complaints, but offering no resistance. When the giantwoodsman returned after hastening their departure, he was faced by theyoung man, still defiant. Connick cocked his head humorously and lookeddown on the engineer. Under all the big man's apparent fierceness therehad been a flash of rough jocoseness in his tones at times. Parker sawplainly that he and his followers viewed the whole thing as a "lark, "and entertained little respect for their adversaries. 

"Connick, I warn you--" Parker began; but the giant chuckled, and said, tauntingly:

"'Cluck, cluck!' said the bear. 

"I want to say to you, sir, that you are dealing with a largeproposition if you propose to interfere with this railroad property. Mybackers--"

"'Bow-wow!' said the fish. " The woodsman cried the taunt moreinsolently, and yet with a jeering joviality that irritated Parker morethan downright abuse would have done. 

He started toward his engine, but Connick put out his big arm tointerpose. 

"Poodle, " he said, "I've got a place for you. I'm the championdog-catcher of the West Branch region. " He reached for Parker's collar, but Parker ducked under his arm, and as he came up struck out witha force that sent the astonished giant reeling backward. Fury anddesperation were behind the blow. 

"Wal, of all the--" gasped Connick, pushing back his cap and staring inastonishment. His men laughed. 

"I'll wring your neck, you bantam!" he bawled; and he came down onParker with a rush. 

On that slippery surface the odds were with the defensive. Moreover, Parker, having an athlete's confidence in his fists, suddenly respondedto the instincts of primordial man. He leaped lightly to one side, caught the rushing giant's foot across his instep, and as Connick'smoccasined feet went out from under him, the young engineer struck himbehind the ear. He fell with a dismal thump of his head on the ice, andlay without motion. 

But Parker's panting triumph was shortlived. As he stood over the giant, gallantly waiting for him to rise, he discovered that the rules ofscientific combat were not observed in the woods. A half-dozen brawnywoodsmen leaped upon him, seized him, threw him down, tied his arms andlegs with as little ceremony as if he were a calf, and tossed him uponthe ice-boat. 

Connick had risen to a sitting posture, and viewed the struggle withmutterings of wrath while he rubbed his bumped head. 

He scrambled up as if to interfere, but as his antagonist had by thistime been disposed of, he roared a few sharp orders, and his willingcrew set at work. Men with axes chopped holes a few feet apart in acircle about the engine. There were many choppers, and although the icewas three feet thick, the water soon came bubbling through. As soon asa hole was cut, other men stuck down their huge cross-cuts and began tosaw the ice. 

All too soon Parker, craning his neck where he lay on the ice-boat, heard an ominous buckling and crackling of ice, and saw his faithfulSwogon disappear below the surface of the lake, her mighty splashsending the water gushing like a silvery geyser into the moonlight. Theattached sleds, loaded with the rails and spikes and other material, followed like a line of huge, frightened beavers seeking their hole. 

"There, " ejaculated Connick, wiping the sweat from his brow, "when thathole freezes up the Poquette Carry Railro'd will be canned for a time, anyway. Now three cheers for Colonel Gid Ward!"

The cheers were howled vociferously. 

He pointed to the men of the settlement, who were now joined by theirwives and children, and were watching operations from the bank. 

"Three cheers for the brave men and the sweet ladies o' Sunkhaze!"

Loud laughter followed these cheers. The people on the shore remaineddiscreetly silent. 

"Three groans for the Poquette Railro'd!"

The hoarse cries rang out on the crisp night wind, and at the close oneof those queer, splitting, wide-reaching, booming crackles, heard in thewinter on big waters, spread across the lake from shore to shore. 

"Even the old lake's with us!" a woodsman shouted. 

Connick and his men had finished what they had come to Sunkhaze to do. They climbed aboard the huge ice-craft. The sheet was paid off, and withdragging peavey-sticks instead of centerboard to hold the contrivanceinto the wind, the boat moved away on its tack across the lake. 

"Say good-by to your friend here!" Connick bellowed. "He says he thinkshe'll go with us, strange country for to see. "

"Tell inquirin' admirers that his address in futur' will be north pole, shady side, " another rough humorist added. 

The men on the shore did not reply. They understood perfectly theuncertain temper of "larking" woodsmen. There had been cases in timespast when a taunting word had turned rude jollity into sour hankeringfor revenge. 

The bottle began to go about on the sleds, and the refrain of alumberman's chorus, with its riotous, "Whoop fa la larry, lo day!" camefloating back to Sunkhaze long after the great sail had merged itselfwith the silvery radiance of the brilliant surface of the lake. 

"Apparently there's other folks as have new schemes of travellin' acrostSpinnaker Lake, " observed the postmaster, breaking a long silence inthe group of spectators. "Wal, I did all I could to post him on what hemight expect when Gid Ward got his temper good an' started. It's too badto see that property dumped that way, tho. "

"Ain't Gid Ward ever goin' to suffer for any of his actions?" demandedParker's foreman, disgustedly. 

"What are we goin' to do?" bleated another man. 

"I'll write a letter to the high sheriff, " said the postmaster, and thenhe added, bitterly, "an' he'll prob'ly wait till it's settled goin' inthe spring, same's he did when we sent down that complaint about Ward'smen wreckin' Johnson's store. An' by that time he'll forget all aboutcomin'. Talk about kings and emperors! If we hain't got one on WestBranch waters, then you can brand me for a liar with one of my own datestamps. "

Parker maintained grim silence as he lay on the sled. No one spoke tohim. The men were too busy with songs and rough jests over the businessof the evening. The engineer would not confess to himself that he wasfrightened, but the wantonness and alacrity with which the irresponsiblemen had destroyed valuable property impressed him with ominousapprehension of what they might do to him. He wondered what revengeConnick was meditating. 

It was a strange and tedious ride for the young man. The woodsmen satjammed so closely about him that he could see only the frosty starsglimmering wanly in the moonlight. When the songs and the roaringconversations were stilled for a moment, he could hear the lisp of therunners on the smooth surface and the slashing grind of the iron-cladpeavey-sticks. 

Although the bodies of his neighbors had kept the cold blast from him, he staggered on his numb feet when they untied his bonds at Poquetteand ordered him to get off the sled. Connick came along and gazed on theyoung man grimly while they were freeing him. 

"Aha, my bantam!" he growled. 

Parker braced himself to meet a blow. He felt that the giant would nowtake satisfactory vengeance for the discomfiture he had suffered beforehis men at Sunkhaze. Connick raised his hand, that in its big mittenseemed like a cloud against the moon, and brought it down. The young mangathered himself apprehensively, but the expected assault was merelya slap on his shoulder--a slap with such an unmistakable air offriendliness about it that Parker gazed up into the man's face withastonishment. Now he was to experience his first taste of the rudechivalry of the woods, a chivalry often based on sudden whim, but nonethe less sincere and manly--a chivalry of which he was to have furtherqueer experience. 

"My bantam, " said the big man, admiringly, "faith, but that was a tidybito' footwork ye done down at Sunkhaze. " Good-humored grins and ruefulscowls chased one another over his face, according as he patted Parker'sback or rubbed the bump on his own head. "Sure, there's a big knobthere, my boy. There's only one thing that's harder than your fist, an'that's Spinnaker ice. "

Parker attempted some embarrassed reply in way of apology, for thismagnanimity of his foe touched him. The giant put up a protesting hand. 

"Ye sartin done it good, my little man, an' I'm glad to know ye better. But Colonel Gid Ward, sure he lied about ye, or I'd never called yenames at Sunkhaze. "

"You didn't expect that man to tell the truth about me, did you?" Parkerdemanded. 

"Why, he said ye was a little white-livered sneak that wouldn't dare toput up your hands to a Sunkhaze mosquito of the June breed, an' that yewere tryin' to come in here an' do business amongst real men. I couldn'tstand that, I couldn't!"

"But my business--my reasons for being here--my responsibilities!" criedParker. "I see he must have lied about that part of it. "

"Ah, I don't know anything about your business, nor care!" Connickgrowled. "I only know there's something about a Poquette railro'd init. But all that's between you and Gid Ward. You can talk that over withhim. "

"Do you mean to tell me that you and your men have destroyed thatrailroad property without having any special grudge against theproject?"

"Why, railro'ds ain't any of our business, " the giant replied, with hiseyes wide open and frank. 

"What are you--slaves?" Parker cried, angrily. In addition to hislesson in woods' thivalry he was getting education regarding theirresponsibility of these unconventional children of the wild lands. 

The taunt did not seem to anger the men. 

"This railro'd is Gid Ward's business, " said Connick. "We work for GidWard, He owns the Poquette land, don't he? He said he didn't want anyrailro'd there. He told us to come down an' dump the thing. We comedown, of course it's been dumped. You can fix that with him. But you'rea good little fighter, my man. He didn't tell the truth about you. "

The young man groaned. The ethics of the woods were growing more opaqueto his understanding. 

"I'll introduce myself more formal, " said the woodsman, apparently withaffable intent to be better acquainted with this young man who had shownthat he possessed the qualities admired in the forest. "My name is DanConnick, and these here are my hearties from Number 7 cuttin'. " He wavedhis hand, and the nearest men growled good-humored greetings. 

"Well, Mr. Connick, " said Parker, dryly, "I thank you for the evening'sentertainment, and now that you have done your duty to Colonel Ward Isuppose I may return to Sunkhaze. " His heart sank as he thought of thepoor Swogon weltering in the depths of the lake. 

"Oh, ye've got to come along with us!" beamed Connick. "Colonel Ward hassent for ye!"

CHAPTER NINE--UP THE WINDING WAY TO THE "OGRE OF THE BIG WOODS. "

"I have no further business with Colonel Ward at this time, " protestedParker, amazed at Connick's refusal to release him. "Wal, he says youhave, an' them's our orders. The men that work for Gid Ward have to obeyorders. "

"Your Colonel Ward has already injured me enough, " exclaimed Parker, bitterly, "without dragging me away into the woods fifty or a hundredmiles from my duty! I'll not see any more of him. "

"Oh, but ye will, tho!" Connick was grinning, but under his amiabilityhis tones were decisive. "I don't know what he wants to talk with youabout, but I reckon it's railroad. We here can't do that with ye. Soye'll have to come along. But we all think you're a smart little man. Ain't that so, hearties?"

The men growled gruff assent. 

"Ye see, ye're pop'lar with us, " Connick went on. "Ye can be as friendlywith us as tho we was your brothers, but ye don't want to try anyshenanigan trick like dodgin' away. We've been told to take you toNumber 7 camp, and to that camp ye're goin'. So understandin' that we'llmove. There's a snack waitin' here for us at the carry camp, and thenfor the uptrail. " The men moved along, taking Parker with them in thecenter of the group. 

"How far is it to Number 7?" the young man inquired, despondently. 

"They call it fifty miles from the other end of the carry. Ye needn'twalk a step if ye don't want to. There's a moose sled an' plenty of mento haul ye. "

After a breakfast of hot beans, biscuits and steaming tea at the camp, the procession moved. Parker was wrapped in tattered bunk blankets andinstalled in state on a long, narrow sledge. He was given the option ofgetting off and walking whenever he needed the exercise to warm himself. 

The march was brisk all that day, for the brawny woodsmen followed thesnowy trail unflaggingly. After the six miles of the carry tote-road, their way led up the crooked West Branch on the ice. There were detourswhere the open waters roared down rough gorges fast enough to dodgethe chilling hand of Jack Frost; there were broad dead waters wherethe river widened into small lakes. Parker was oppressed by the nervousdread of one who enters a strange new country and faces a danger towardwhich a fate stronger than he is pressing him. 

At noon they ate a lunch beside a crackling fire which warmed the cookedprovisions they had brought from the carry camp. 

Parker walked during the afternoon to ease his cold-stiffened limbs. Toward dusk the party left the river and turned into a tote-road thatwrithed away under snow-laden spruces and hemlocks, coiled its way aboutrocky hummocks, and curved in "whip-lashes" up precipitous hillsides. There was not a break in the forest that stretched away on either hand. 

Late in the evening they saw in a valley below them a group of log huts, their snowy roofs silvered by the moonlight. Yellow gleams from the lowwindows showed that the camp was occupied. 

"That's the Sourdanheunk baitin'-place, " Connick explained, in answerto a question from his captive. "One o' Ward's tote-team hang-ups an'feedin'-places. "

The cook, a sallow, tall man encased in a dirty canvas shroud of anapron, was apparently expecting the party. More beans, more biscuits, more steaming tea--and then a bunk was spread for Parker. His previousnight of vigil and his day spent in the wind had benumbed his faculties, and he speedily forgot his fears and his bitter resentment in profoundslumber. 

The next morning the cook's "Whoo-ee!" called the men before the dawn, and they were away while the first flushes presaged the sunrise. Itseemed that day that the tortuous tote-road would never end. Valleysucceeded to "horseback" and "horseback" to valley. Woods miles are longmiles. 

Parker's railroad eye and engineer's discernment bitterly condemned thedivagations of the wight who wandered first along that trail and imposedhis lazy dodgings on all who might come after him. The young man amusedhimself by reflecting that the tote-road was an excellent example ofthe persistence of human error, and in these and other philosophicalponderings he was able to draw his mind partially from its uncomfortabledwellings on the probabilities awaiting him at the hands of Gideon Ward. 

The sun was far down in the west and the road under the spruces wasdusky, when a singular obstacle halted the march. A tremendous thrashingand crashing at one side of the road signaled the approach of some largeanimal. A network of undergrowth hid the identity of this unknown, andthe men instinctively huddled together and displayed some uncertaintyas to whether they should remain or run. But the suspense was soonover, for the nearer bushes parted suddenly and out upon the tote-roadfloundered an immense moose, his bulbous nose wagging, his bristly manetwitching, his stilted fore legs straddled defiantly. 

The next moment a great bellow of laughter went up from the crowd. 

"The joke's on us!" cried a woodsman, who had been among the first toretreat. 

"Hullo, Ben Bouncer!" Connick shouted. 

"What do you mean by playin' peek-a-boo with your friends in thatmanner?"

The moose uttered a hoarse _whuffle_. 

"This is Ben Bouncer, the mascot of Number 7 camp, " the foremanannounced. He pushed Parker to the front rank of the group. "He won'thurt ye, " he added. "He has got used enough to men to be a little sassy, an' he's got colty on Gid Ward's grain, but he's mostly bluff. "

The engineer gazed on the moose with considerable interest, for thespectacle was entirely new. 

"Ben went to loafin' round 7 camp early this winter. He yarded down heretwo miles or so. You understand, of course, that a moose picks out agood feedin'-place in winter, when the deep snows come, a place where hecan reach a lot of twigs and yards there, as they call it in the woods. "

"When the snow got crusty and scraped his legs, Ben seemed to have atired fit come over him, and began to come closer an' closer to thehorse hovels to steal what loose hay he could. No one round the campwanted to hurt him. After a time we all became sort of interested inhim, and toled him up to the camp by leavin' hay an' grain round wherehe could get at it. You can see what a big fat fellow we've made of him. Our feedin' him makes the colonel mad, for hay is worth something bythe time ye get it in here to camp. I bet if ye put it all together thecolonel has chased him more'n forty miles with a bow whip. 

"He was goin' to shoot Ben, but the boys got up on their ear and made itknown that if he killed the camp mascot they'd throw up their jobs. An' if you know anything about a woods crew you'd know it's the littlethings that they get the maddest about. An' now whenever the colonelcomes round he takes it out in chasin' Ben with a whip. Ben just lopesround in a circle of a mile or two, and comes back lookin' reproachful, but still perfectly satisfied with Number 7 as a winter residence. Theboys think a lot of Ben. Ben thinks a lot of the boys. But the colonelis sp'ilin' his temper some with that bow whip. I reckon why Ben jestcome out there lookin' so savage was because he thought old Ward wascomin' up to camp. "

The moose finished his critical survey of the group, snorted, and thenthrust himself out of sight in the bushes. 

"If we ever have any serious fallin' out with Colonel Gid it's like tobe over that moose, " drawled a man. 

"To judge by the moose, we must be near Number 7 camp, " Parkersuggested. 

"Just over the hossback, " was the laconic answer. 

Parker was soon looking down on it from the hilltop. There were twolong, low main camps--one for the sleeping quarters of the men, theother crowded with long, roughly made tables, at which they ate, Thespace that separated the camps was roofed and had one side open to theweather. This shelter was called the "dingle, " and contained the campgrindstone and spare sled equipment. 

At a little distance was a small camp containing the stores, such asmoccasins, larigans, leggings, flannel shirts and mittens, all for saleat double the prices ruling in the city and for Colonel Ward's profit. The woods name for this store is the "wangan camp. "

The hour was still too early for the few men left at Number 7 to be infrom the cutting. Only the cook and his helper, "the cookee, " were atthe camp. 

The cook came out and advanced to meet the new arrivals, having beenattracted from his kettles and pans by the view-halloo they sent downfrom the hilltop. 

"Colonel left word to lock him in the wangan, " reported the cook, rolling his bare arms more tightly in his dingy apron. 

"Where is the colonel?" asked Connick. 

"He's out at the log landin'. Be in at supper-time, so he said. " Thecook eyed the captive with curiosity not unmixed with commiseration. "Has he been takin' on much?" he inquired of one of the men. 

"Nope. Stiff upper lip--an' he licked Dan, " the man added, behind hispalm. 

"Sho!" the cook ejaculated, looking on Parker with new interest. "Ain'the worried by thinkin' of the colonel?"

"Naw-w! Says he'll eat him raw!" fabricated the men, enjoying the cook'samazement. "Says he's glad to come up here. Been hankerin' to get atWard, he says. "

"Wal, you don't say!" The cook surveyed Parker from head to foot withcritical inspection. This scrutiny annoyed the young man at last. 

"Do I owe you anything?" He snapped. 

"Heh--wal--blorh-h--wal, I hope ye don't!" spluttered the cook, retreating. "Land, ain't he a savage one?" he gasped, as he hastenedback into his realm of pots. He transferred his news to the amazedcookee. 

"They tell me, " he magnified, so as not to be outdone in sensationalism, "that this feller has licked every man that they've turned him loose onbetween here and Sunkhaze, an' now is just grittin' his teeth a-waitin'for the colonel. "

"Wal, " said the cookee, solemnly, "if the r'yal Asiatic tiger--meanin'Colonel Gid--and the great human Bengal--meanin' him as is in thewangan--get together in this clearin', I think I'd rather see it from upa tree. " And the two were only diverted from their breathless discussionof possibilities by the noisy arrival of Gideon Ward, clamoring for hissupper. 

[Illustration: Colonel Ward stamped in 149-174]

Parker had hardly finished in solitude his humble supper brought by thecookee, when there was a rattling of the padlock outside. Open flew thedoor of bolted planks, and Colonel Ward stamped in, kicking the snowfrom his feet with wholly unnecessary racket of boots. A hatchet-facedman, whose chin was framed between the ends of a drooping yellowmustache, followed meekly and closed the door. Parker rose with aconfident air he was far from feeling. 

Ward gazed on his prisoner a moment, his gray hair bristling from underhis fur cap, his little eyes glittering maliciously. His cheek knobswere more irately purple than ever. He took up his cry where he had leftit at Poquette Carry, and began to shout:

"Better'n law, hey? Better'n law! Ye remember what I said, don't yeh?Better'n law!"

The young man faced him. 

"Colonel Ward, there's a law against trespass, a law against conspiracy, a law against riots and destruction of property, and a law againstabduction. I promise you here and now that you'll learn something aboutthose laws later. "

"Still threat'nin' me right on my own land, are yeh, hey?"

"I am not threatening. I am simply standing up for my rights as acitizen under the law. "

"Wal, I ain't here to argue law nor nothin' else with yeh. I've had youbrought up here so's I can talk straight business with you. You've hada pretty tart lesson, but I hope you've learned somethin' by it. I'veshowed ye that a railro'd can't be built over Gideon Ward's propertytill he says the word. An' he'll never say the word. Ye're licked. Ownup to it, now ain't ye?" Ward's voice was mighty with a conqueror'sconfidence. 

"Not by any means. You have simply incurred the penalty of being sent tostate prison. And while you're there I'll be building that railroad. "

Fury fairly streamed from Ward's eyes. He choked, grasped at his throat, writhed as if he were strangling, and stamped his foot until the campshook. At last he recovered his voice. 

"I'll pay ye for that! Now see here!" He jammed a paper into Parker'shands. "Sign that docyment, there an' now. Sign it an' swear ye'll stickby your agreement; 'cause if ye go back on it, may the Lord have mercyon your soul, for Gid Ward never will!"

Parker glanced at the crudely drawn agreement. It bound him as agent forhis principals to withdraw all material from the Po-quette Carry, andabandon his railroad undertaking. It furthermore promised that hewould make no complaint on account of damages to property orhimself--admitting that he had been guilty of trespass. 

Parker indignantly held the paper toward the colonel. The latter refusedto take it. 

"Sign it!" he roared. "Sign it, or you'll take your medicine!"

"Do you think I am a fool, Colonel Ward? Or are you one? I cannot bindmy principals in any such manner. Furthermore, a signature obtainedunder duress is of no value in court. I claim that I am under duress. "

"You refuse to sign, then?"

"Absolutely. It would be easy enough to sign that paper and then go awayand do as I like. But I am not going to lie to you even for a moment. The paper would be worthless in court. "

"It ain't a paper that's goin' into court, " Ward retorted. "It's a paperby which you agree to get out of here. It's you an' me. It just meansthat ro'd shan't be built. "

"Put into other words, I am to be scared out, and run back home andreport that the road is impracticable?"

"There's no one else in the world but you that would be fool enough tostart in here an' buck me!" Ward shouted. 

"And therefore you think if I agree to leave, no one else will dareto undertake the thing? You do me too much honor, Colonel Ward. But Irepeat, I shall not run away. "

"Don't you realize I have gone too far into this thing to pull back now?I warn you that I may have to do things I don't like to do in order toprotect myself. I can't back out now--no, sir!"

"You shouldn't have started in, then!" Parker sat down and looked awayas if the incident were closed. He slowly tore up the agreement andtossed the pieces on the floor. 

This bravado made Ward choke. 

"Stand right up, do you, an' threaten to put me into state prison?"

"You went into this with your eyes open. You must take the consequences. You are a business man, and are supposed to have arrived at yearsof understanding. This matter isn't like kicking over a mud house atschool. "

"Look here, I've got every lumber operator in this section behind me inthis matter. You hain't realized yet what you're up against. "

"If that is the case, " Parker replied, his eyes kindling, "I can seethat this state is in for one of the big scandals of its history. "

Ward, who had been carried away by his passion and desire to intimidate, understood now how this admission would compromise men who would beruined politically if any hint of such an illegal combination should benoised abroad. 

When he had offered to defeat the actual construction of the road, hehad been warned that he must take all the responsibility upon himself. He had willingly assumed it, for he was as proud of his reputationfor savage obstinacy as other men are of popular credit for more nobleattributes. Col. Gideon Ward had confidently boasted to his associatesthat he would prevent the building of the Poquette railroad. He wouldrather lose half his fortune than confess to them that he had beenbeaten by a youth. 

Now his hardy nature shivered at the thought that not only might theyouth win, but that he had the power to make the agent of the timberbarons doubly execrated and an outcast among his own people. Ward wasfaced by the most serious problem of his life, and the uncomfortablereflection pricked him that he had allowed his anger to steal hisbrains. 

"Young man, " said he, "I've been on earth a good while longer'n youhave. I expect to stay some time yet. And I expect to live right here inthis section. _You_ hain't got to live here. Now do you think Gid Wardcan afford to be put on his back just yet? I know just who'd tromp onme, an' I know it better'n you. Now I tell you fair an' square you'vegot to give in. " He bellowed the word "got" and thunked his fist on hisknee. 

"There is no answer to that required from me, Colonel Ward. "

"All right, then. Come along, Hackett!" Ward commanded. "We'll give thiscritter a little time to figure this thing over, an' think whether he'sgot any friends that he'd like to get back to. " They went out and lockedthe door. 

CHAPTER TEN--THE WANGAN DUEL

AFTER the fashion of any prisoner, Parker's initial impulse was toexamine the place in which he was confined. At first, escape was in hismind. The more he pondered on the lawless performance of the old timberbaron and on the wilful destruction of the company's property, the moreeager he was to get to a telegraph instrument. 

Nothing had been taken from his person. He had his huge, sharp, jack-knife. The door was strong and thick but he believed that if heattacked the wood vigorously he might be able to whittle out the lock. 

There were wooden bars on the windows outside and within, rudeprotection against thieves who might want to ransack the stock of thewangan store. His stout knife would take care of them, too. 

But after whittling vigorously at a bar for a few moments he stoppedsuddenly, shut his knife and rammed it into his pocket with anexclamation of sudden resolve. 

He reflected that even if he got out of the camp that night, he was morethan fifty miles from Poquette, the only point in that wilderness whoselocation was known to him. He was without food for a journey and had hisweary way to make through Gideon Ward's own country. 

"He has brought me here to bluster at me and frighten me into runningaway out of the section, " he reflected. "I'll stay and disappoint him. "

His own respect for law and order was still so strong within him that hefeared no extreme measures. His honest belief was that the colonel, likemost men who find they have picked up a brick too hot for them, woulddrop him in good time and allow him to return to his work. 

In order to force the old man to this issue he determined to put on abold front, defy his captor still more doggedly and in the end acceptrelease under conditions of his own making. He felt that Ward wascompromised and now to a certain extent in his power. 

It was a decidedly comforting reflection, that, for a prisoner, and hetucked himself into the blankets of his bunk and went to sleep with hismind eased. 

The cook's shrill morning call woke him and without rising he listenedto the bustle of men preparing for the day's work. He heard thecontinuous rattle of tin dishes, the mellow rasp of axes on turninggrindstones, the squeak of footsteps departing over the crisp snow andthe squealing of the runners of sleds. And when all were gone, there wasas yet only the faintest glimmering of the dawn against the window ofthe wangan camp. 

The engineer was up and dressed when the key rattled in the door. Colonel Ward came first, "sipping" his tongue against his teeth in amanner that showed he had just finished breakfast. The morning lightshowed redly on his face as he came ill, and in that glow he seemed tobe in more gracious spirit than on the evening before. 

The man who had previously accompanied him, the man of the hatchetvisage, followed at his heels bearing several tin dishes that containedbreakfast. 

"There ain't no intention here to starve ye nor use ye in any wayscontrary to gen'ral regulations--that is, so fur as we can help, "began the colonel. "Of course, if you were a little more reasonable andbus'ness-like we could use you better. Hackett, set down the breakfast!Fall to, young man, and eat hearty jest as tho ye relished yourvittles. "

It was evident that Colonel Ward was making desperate attempts to appearcordial. 

He even endeavored to force a smile but it was hardly more than aridging of his cheek muscles under his bristly beard. Parker imaginedthat he could hear the skin crackling at this unaccustomed facial twist. The struggle to appear cheerful was so grim that the engineer dreadedhis antagonist in this new guise more than he did when he was brutallyopen in his warfare. 

"Sit down, Hackett, " commanded the colonel. "Hackett's a friend o'mine--that is, in so far as I have friends, and he might as well be hereto listen to what I have to say to you and what you have to say to me. There's northin' like a witness of transactions, Mr. Parker. Now you andme ain't got together right up to now. I'm allus pretty much fussed upby my bus'ness and kept cross-grained all the time by havin' to handleso many blasted fool woodsmen, and the man that meets me for thefirst time might natch-rally think I was uglier'n a Injun devil infly-time--which I ain't, Parker, No, I ain't I want you and me should begood friends and bus'ness men together, which we ain't been so far, allon account of a misunderstandin'. Now, you're goin' to find me squareand honest and open. "

Ward looked at the young man eagerly and waited as tho for someencouraging word. 

"Even under the circumstances in which you have placed me, not onlyon my personal account but with my employers, by destroying theirproperty, " said Parker, after pondering a moment, "I am ready to talkbusiness with you if you are now ready to talk it. "

"Well, let's say that we can talk it all nice and friendly. Won't yousay that you'll talk it all nice and friendly?" He had Hackett in thecorner of his eye, as tho soliciting that individual to take carefulnote of the conversation. 

"The fact is, Colonel Ward, " replied the engineer, "human nature isn'tto be driven to and fro quite like an ox team. What I mean by that is, I might say, 'Go to, now! Be friends!'--say that to myself. But thatwouldn't make me feel friendly--not in present circumstances. But I'mgoing to say to you that I'd like to be friends, and if you will startin now and show me some reason why we should be friends I'll give you myword to come more than half way. "

"Wal, that sounds reasonable and as much as any one can expect on shortnotice, " broke in Hackett, who sat straining his attention. 

"You shut up, Hackett, " roared the colonel, who realized Parker's mentalreservation better than his man Friday. "I'll show ye all in good timewhy we should be friends, Parker, " he went on, addressing the engineer. "But first of all I'll show ye how much it is goin' to hurt me to havethat railroad built acrost Poquette. And when I show you that, thenyou'll understand what the trouble was that you and me didn't startin on the basis of good friends. I tell ye, Parker, it's a seriousproposition for me and my associates. I can tell ye just why that roadcan't and mustn't be built. "

The old man straddled his legs, leaned forward and set his rightforefinger into his left palm with the confident air of one who isprepared to prove his contentions. 

"I say, " he went on, "that the road must not be built, and as a businessman--"

"Colonel Ward, " broke in Parker, mildly yet firmly, "if that line oftalk is what you are proposing to me I think I'd better tell you at thestart that you'll have to take the question of whether the road mustor must not be built to my employers. I have no right to enter upon anysuch discussion. Nothing will be gained. They have sent me to Poquetteto build the road. I shall keep on with the work until my firstorders are countermanded from our headquarters. And if you want themcountermanded you'll be obliged to go to headquarters. It seems to methat ought to be pretty plain to you. "

The old man, his finger still boring his palm, sat for some moments andstared at the engineer. He tried to keep from scowling but his browstwisted into knots in spite of himself. 

"You _will_ keep on till orders are countermanded, hey?" he inquiredgrimly. "Ain't you got no commonsense nor reason to you?"

"It isn't a question of that, Colonel. It's a question of obeying myemployers. "

The old man gave him another thorough looking-over and then whirled onHackett. 

"You go 'tend to something else, " he ordered bluffly. And after Hacketthad closed the door on himself he again turned to his scrutiny of theyoung engineer. 

"I ain't no great hand to beat about the bush, young feller, " hedeclared. "Now look at the position you're in. You might say, you'remore than half queered already with your company. Your engine and allthat collateral has been dumped into the lake--sayin' nothin' about howit happened. The main point is, it's there! And you're here! I ain'tmakin' any threats--not as yet--but you're here, and you can't gainsaythat much. Now the idea is, with your stuff under water and you here, how long do you think it's goin' to be before you git to work ag'in?"

Parker made no reply. 

"Needn't answer any question that you can't answer, " continued Ward. "And that's one that you can't answer. You tell me you've got to buildthat road. You're goin' to tell me that if you don't build it some oneelse will. Mebbe they will! Mebbe they will!" His eyes grew shrewd. "Mebbe I'll build it myself! I can say this much, that I'd rather buildit than have outsiders come in here and git a foothold. There's too biginterests in this region and owned by them that's allus lived here, myson, to have outsiders come in now and meddle. It's the very first runof potater bugs that you want to keep out of the garden. And the firstrun can be handled easier than the settlers after they have set uphousekeeping. Now you see the point, I reckon! So the whole thingsimmers down to this: I want to discourage them city fellers. It's along arm they're reachin' down this way, and I won't have to tread ontheir fingers many times till they'll be mighty glad to pull back. It'sonly a side issue with them, and they won't let a side issue keep 'emawake too many nights when there's a way to get rid of the bother. Whenthey are discouraged enough to be willin' to sell the charter and thestuff they've got on the spot--and under water, " he added with a wickedgrin, "then I'll step in with the cash in my hand. I reckon we canhandle our own railroad build-in' down this way. If I ain't got youdiscouraged already, young man, then I don't understand human natur'as well as I think I do. So now I want to hire you in the discouragin'business--you understand it fairly well. I need an assistantdiscourager. And here's my proposition! I'll give ye five thousanddollars bonus smack down in your fist and promise you in the name ofthe Lumbermen's Association a steady job. We're goin' to build three bigdams along the West Branch and a four-mile canal cut-off at headwaters. You'll find work enough, if that's what you're lookin' for. "

"And you'll be looking for me to sell out your interests at my firstopportunity, " said Parker. 

"Ours is a different proposition--a different proposition, " blurted Wardearnestly. "Your men ain't got any right to be here on our own stampingground--not as bus'ness men. We ain't goin' down where they are tobother them. They hadn't ought to be up here. If you leave 'em and comewith us we'll consider that it's showin' that you understand what asquare deal in bus'ness matters means. And furthermore, " he said with acertain air as tho he had reserved his trump card, "we'll make our tradein black and white for a ten years' contract at a third more wages thanyour railroad people are paying and tip you off regular on timber dealswhere you can make an extry dollar. I don't mind tellin' ye, Parker, that I've had ye looked up and I know that we ain't buyin' any goldbrick. " This with a certain cordiality. 

"I must say, Colonel Ward, that you have taken a rather peculiar methodof getting me interested in your enterprises. " Parker's tone was a bitresentful, but the old man believed he could understand that resentment, and grew more cheerful and confident. 

"You had to be discouraged, " chuckled the colonel. "Didn't I tell youthat you had to be discouraged? Why, if you hadn't been shown what kindof a proposition you were up against you might have kept on thinkin'that the P. K. &. R. Railroad company was the biggest thing in theworld. All young men want to work for the biggest folks. But I reckonby this time you have found out that Gideon Ward and the Lumbermen'sAssociation come pretty near bein' lord of all they survey in thiscountry. There, young man! The cards are down. Look at 'em! I'm prettyrough and I'm pretty tough and I play the game for all that's in me. Butwhen it's over you won't find any cards up my sleeve nor down the backof my neck--and you can't always say that of your smooth city chaps. "

Parker sat with his elbows on his knees, looking down at the floor, hisforehead wrinkled. He was a pretty sturdy young American in principlesand conduct, but at the same time he had all of young America'sappreciation of the main chance. And the main chance in these days liesalong the road where the dollars are sprinkled thickest. He reflectedthat the building of the little bob-tail railroad had been tossed at himas a rather silly and secret escapade of two big men who were alreadyhalf ashamed of the whole business. He realized that in their presentframe of mind they would be inclined to close out the whole thingin disgust as soon as they received news of the destruction of theproperty. 

When he got back to town he would simply remind them of a mutual failureto accomplish, and the history of such reminders is that they have beenside-tracked in some places where their presence could not remind. 

"You know there isn't goin' to be any hurry about your givin' up yourpresent job--not till spring has got well opened and the ice is outof Spinnaker, " said Colonel Ward slyly, breaking in on the young man'smeditations. "There's always a right time for re-signin' and we'lldiscover that time. But your five thousand will be put to your credit inKenduskeag Bank the next day after you sign our papers, and your salarywith us will begin the minute the ink is dry. You'll have double pay fora while, but I reckon you'll be earnin' it. " He chuckled once more. 

Parker, surveying his red cheek knobs, his cruel gray eyes narrowed nowin evil mirth, recollected with a photographic flash of memory of thedetails of that story the postmaster at Sunkhaze had told him. Thiswas the same man who had coolly stolen wife and property from his ownbrother and then had jeered at him, probably with that same expressionpuckering about his evil, gray eyes. In the sudden revulsion of hisfeelings Parker wondered if he really had been tempted by the bait heldout to him. At least, he had been weighing the chances. He rememberedcases where other men who had stopped to weigh advantages had ended inbecoming disloyal. He promptly forgot with a mental wrench the bribethat had been offered. It was a coaxing bait and he bravely owned thatit had tempted for a moment. He was honest enough to own to himselfthat, offered by another, it might have won him--and he felt a littlequiver of fear at the thought. 

But when he pictured himself as the associate of this old harpy who satleering at him, hands on his knees, and already swelling with a sense ofproprietorship, he almost forgot his personal wrongs in the hot flush ofhis indignation on behalf of the cheated brother. 

"That's a proposition that sort of catches ye, hey?" inquired Ward, misunderstanding the nature of the flush that sprung to Parker's cheeks. 

"I'm going to be honest enough to say that it did catch me for amoment, " replied the young man. 

"Oh, I know all about what temptation is to any men--especially a youngman, " said the colonel blandly. 

"But I'll bet you a hundred dollars to a toothpick you never knew whatit was to resist temptation, " shouted Parker. "And I'm going to tell younow and here that I'd no more accept your offer and take a job with youthan I'd poison myself with paris green. " He flung himself back in hischair and glared at his tempter with honest indignation. 

For a little while Ward stared at him, open-mouthed. His surprise wasgreater, for he believed that he had landed his fish. 

"And don't you make me any more offers. I've no use for them or for you, either, " cried the young man, his voice trembling. 

"I've read about such critters as you be, " said the colonel slowly, "butit was in a dime novel and it was a good many years ago and I didn'tbelieve it. I believe it said in the novel that the young man died youngand went to heaven--the only one of his kind. P'raps I'm wrong and hedidn't die--went to heaven jest as he stood in his shoes and co't andpants. "

Parker merely scowled back at the biting irony of this rejoinder. 

"There's no dime novel or any other kind of a novel to this affair, Colonel Ward. I'm not especially fitted to be the hero of a book. Nor tobe one of your hired men, either. "

"Then ye've made up your mind to straddle out your legs and playBranscome's mule, hey?"

"What was his special characteristic?"

The question was drawled coolly. 

"He kicked when ye tried to drive him with a whip and he bit andsquealed when ye tried to coax him along with sweet apples. So if yewon't neither lead nor drive, then out with it man fashion. "

"I simply demand my liberty. "

"And what be ye goin' to do with it?"

"That is my own affair. "

The two men sat and looked at each other a long time, the old man'scholer rising the higher from the fact that it had been so longrepressed. The young man's glance did not fall before this furiousregard. 

At last Ward quivered his fists above his head, stamped around thelittle room and went to the door. 

"You've got a few hours to do a little more thinkin' in, and then youlook out for yourself, for it's up to you, you--, " he slammed and lockedthe door and went away, cursing horribly. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN--THE BEAR THAT WALKED LIKE A MAN

That in this age of law and order Gideon Ward meditated any actualviolence to his person Parker found it hard to believe as he sat therein the "wangan" and pondered on his situation. He could not avoidthe conclusion that at heart Colonel Ward was a coward. But sometimescircumstances that a brave man will not suffer to rule him will drive acoward into crime. 

It was a long and dreary day for him. 

From the window he saw Colonel Ward go scurrying away on a jumper, evidently bound for the choppings. 

The cook and cookee surveyed his prison at a distance. They seemed tohave no desire to come into close contact with a man of whom they hadheard such sinister reports. 

Hackett, who hung about camp, apparently to serve as general "striker"and man of all work, brought food at noon and left it without engagingin conversation. 

Parker made a dull day of it. 

After the chill dusk had fallen and he had stuffed his rusty littlestove with all the wood it would hold, he heard the men returning. 

A colloquy that occurred after supper interested him. 

He heard Colonel Ward bellow at some one who was evidently advancingtoward the wangan. 

"Here you, Connick, where are you goin'?"

"Just to pass a word with the lad, " the man replied. 

"Have you got your knittin'?" squalled Ward sarcastically. "There's nocall for you to go passin' talk around that wangan camp, Connick. Youcome away from it. "

But when Connick spoke again it was evident he had not retired. 

"It's only right to let him come into the men's camp for a bit thisevening, Colonel Ward. There'll be a snatch or so of fiddlin' that he'lllike, to cheer him up, and a jig and a song or so. I don't see the harmin mentionin' it to him, to find if he'd like to come. I'll answer forit that he's put back in his nest ag'in all right. "

"Who's runnin' this camp, me or you?"

"You're the man, sir. "

"Well, then, there'll be no invitin' out nor passin' talk. You men havenothin' to do with that chap in that wangan and you'll keep away fromhim or get your heads broken open. Do you hear what I say? Why don't youcome away when I speak?"

"I'm not the man to disobey orders, " growled Connick. "But I'm a man aslikes man's style. I've always done your biddin', Colonel Ward, and Idone your biddin' when I brought him here. Now I've found him a livelyyoung chap that I'm proud to know and tho I speak for myself aloneI speak as a man that likes fair play, and I say it's dirty bus'nesskeepin' him like a chicken in a coop, after you've had your bus'nesstalk with him. "

"You infernal bundle of hair and rags, do you dare to stand there andtell me how to run my own affairs?" roared Ward, thoroughly incensed. 

"Keep your bus'ness your own bus'ness for all I care, " Connick answeredangrily. "But when it gits to be bus'ness that can't be backed upman-fashion then ye may find that day's wages don't buy the whole earthfor ye. "

The reply was a bit enigmatical but Ward understood that it signifiedmutiny. He gasped a few times and then Parker heard Connick exclaim:

"Don't ye strike me with that sled-stake, Colonel Gideon, or it might bethe worse for ye. I'll not bother your man in the wangan till I findout more about what you're doin' to him--but don't you hit me with thatstick. "

Both men went back into the big camp, Ward furiously chewing thereflection that for the first time he had been bearded in his own camp. 

Gideon Ward sat until midnight in his little pen off the main camp, poking his fire and meditating. He had reckoned that he was justified inproceeding to extremes with this young man, confident that in the endhe would break his spirit and frighten him out of the woods. But herealized now with sinking heart that his violence had endangered all thepolitical influence of the gigantic timber interests. The youth had apowerful weapon, and he, Gideon Ward, would be accused of furnishing it. 

Perspiration dripped from under the old man's cap. He rasped his roughpalms together nervously. At last he rose and tip-toed into the maincamp. All the men were asleep, snoring with the lusty heartiness of atired lumber crew. The colonel advanced cautiously to Hackett'sbunk, and stirred that worthy with his finger until the man awoke. Hebeckoned, and Hackett followed him into the pen. 

"Hackett, " said he, "yeh have worked for me a good many years. "

"Yes, colonel. "

"I've let yeh have money on a mortgage for one or two little favorsyeh've done me. "

"Yes. "

Hackett began to grow pale. 

"Now I'll lift that whole mortgage for another favor--an' don't getscared. I sha'n't ask yeh to do any more'n I propose to do myself. "Ward had noted the look of alarm on the man's face. "If we're both in itneither can say anything. I took yeh along with me last night and to-dayso's yeh could hear how that young fool insults me on my own land. "

"I heard what he said, colonel, an' no man can blame ye for feelin' putout. "

Ward looked at him steadily for a moment. 

"Listen to me. Few words when there's work to do: that's my motto. I'vedone the thinkin' part of this thing. What I want you for is to help onthe work. "

The man stared with stupid inquiry. 

"Hackett, here's my plan. You and I don't want to hurt that man. Wecan't afford to hurt him. But he's on my hands, an' he won't back down, an' it puts me in a hard place--a mighty hard place, Hackett. You heardwhat passed between us? Now he's got to be put out of this camp an'shoved where he can't blab this thing round about. Why, he's half gotthat fool of a Connick on his side already. 

"The only thing, Hackett, is for you to take him across into thatTumble-dick camp an' keep him there--keep him there! Tie him to a beamand feed him like yeh would a pup. Keep him there till he weakens an'quits, or till I can think up some plan further. It'll give me time, Hackett. "

"'Tain't any extra sort of job for me, Colonel Ward!" grumbled Hackett"I've got to watch that critter day in an' day out, an' Tumble-dickcamp is all o' twenty miles from here, or from any other camp, for thatmatter. "

"That's why I want him there, Hackett. We'll tie him on a moose sled, an' you start in an hour, whilst the men are still asleep. I'll break awindow out of the wangan, an' on this crust there'll be no foot-tracks. It'll be thought he broke out and ran away--an' that'll be his ownlookout. "

His voice became low and husky. "Yeh needn't hitch him too tight inTumble-dick camp, Hackett, providin' you hide the most of his clothesan' it looks like a storm comin' on. If he wants to duck out away froma good home into the woods, with grub an' fire twenty-five miles away, why, that's his own lookout. "

The man licked his lips nervously. 

"That ain't our liability, yeh knew. "

The man pondered. 

"It's eight hundred for you, Hackett, an' always a good job with me aslong as I hire men, " persisted Colonel Ward. 

At last Hackett got up and struck his elbows against his sides. 

"I'll do it!" he grunted. 

Parker's first alarmed awakening was with a cloth about his neck, choking him so that his cry of fright rattled in his throat. He foughtbravely, but two strong men are better than one who has struggled andgasped until he has only a trickle of air in his lungs. He was bound, his head muffled in a strip of torn blanket, and he was carried out intothe night. He could not see his captors, but he knew that Ward was oneof the assailants, because a hoarse command to Hackett had betrayed him. 

After he had been dragged a distance Parker realized by a penetratingodor that he was near the horse hovels. There was a mumbled discussionbetween his captors as to whether he should be tied to the moose sled. It was decided that his arms should be left pinioned as they were, andHackett growled:

"I won't tie him to the sled! I'll be needin' him on the steep pitches. "

As his arms were tied behind his back, when they put an old fur coaton him they pulled the sleeves of it on his legs and buttoned the coatbehind. In spite of the bandage over his eyes, he easily recognizedthese operations, and then felt himself lifted upon the familiar moosesled. Several bags full of something were thrown on. With his earsstrained for every sound that would give him any information, he heardsome one approaching even before the two men, busy between camp andsled, were warned. 

"Hark!" grunted the voice of Colonel Ward, at last. "Who's that movin'round back of the hoss hovel? Look out, Hackett! Throw something acrostthe sled. He's comin' this way. " A moment after, his tones full ofdisgust, he snorted, "It's that infernal old moose! Here, hand me thatax!"

A hurry of feet, and then Parker heard the impact of a crushing blowand the muffled groan of a stricken animal. The ax blows continued, apparently dealt with fury, and in a few moments the old man creakedacross the crust, dragging some heavy object. 

"Here's your fresh meat, Hackett--two hind-quarters, " he panted. "Loadit on. "

"The boys will be r'iled to find Ben here in the mornin'!" whined theother man. 

"He won't eat any more grain f'r me!" the colonel boomed, wrathfully. "Then again, it will show that after Mister Railroad Man broke out ofthe wangan camp he killed the moose to get grub to last him for histrip, bein' afraid to tackle Gid Ward's camps. The boys will be readyto massacree him if they can lay hands on him, but, " his tones becameominously significant, "remember your lines now, man! Get away and I'lllook after this end. "

Parker felt the loaded sled glide over the crust. He could hardlybelieve that these men meditated anything except a change in hisplace of imprisonment; but as the sled moved on and on, and in hishelplessness he weighed the situation, he began to feel a vague fear ofpossibilities. He began to plan means of escape. When at last the sledwent scaling down a long slope, he rolled off on the crust. 

As he lay there, he expected every moment to hear the man shout an oathand return. When the hasty creaking of the footsteps died away, he knewthat the lightened sled, following of its own momentum, had not betrayedhim. 

Hoodwinked and pinioned, it was no easy task to travel among the treesand across the slippery crust. As Parker scrambled along, he was temptedto cry out and appeal to the man to return. Now that his sudden panicof the flitting sled was over, the dull, cold fear of a helpless andabandoned man came upon him. But he clinched his teeth to keep back thecry that struggled to follow the man of the sled, and kept pushing oninto the undergrowth. 

At last he stopped and began to scrub his forehead against the roughbark of a tree, endeavoring to remove the bandage. After a time heworked it above his eyes, although it still bound his head like aturban. 

He could see the crisp stars through the interlocking branches. He foundthe pole star. But as he had been unable to guess the direction hiscaptor had taken in leaving the camp, the points of the compass matteredlittle in this wilderness, where all was strange. 

Parker went on, reflecting uneasily that every step might be taking himdirectly back to Colonel Ward's camp. His grotesque garb hampered hismovements. He lumbered along as awkwardly as a bear. After a time hecame through some little spruces that whipped his face, and discovereda tote-road that had been long abandoned, for the bushes grew in it andthe crust was unmarked. 

He pondered a while. Then he shut his eyes, whirled until he dropped, scrambled up, and started away in the direction in which chance hadfaced him. He smiled as he thought upon this childish resource, but inthat bewildering region he had at least been enabled to make up his mindquickly by the device. 

The rosy light of the dawn touched him as he plodded along. His advancewas slow, for the sleeves of the fur coat impeded free use of his legs. The day was clear and cold, with a stinging wind that tossed the roaringbranches of the spruce-trees. The crust held firm. Parker's constrainedarms were aching and his hands were numb. He jerked and twisted at thethongs until his wrists were raw, but the knots were too strong for him. 

He had passed so many crossings and fork-ings of the bush-grown roadthat he gave up trying to keep the ramifications in mind for his useshould he find it necessary to turn back. He now went on doggedly, choosing this way or that, as it chanced, hoping to hear a ringing ax ora hunter's gun or a teamster's shout somewhere in those solitudes. 

In the late afternoon the road led him to an ice-sheathed stream. Herethe way divided. 

He took the road that led down-stream. It undoubtedly ended at a lake, thought he. Log-landings are on lakes. There would be men to releasehim from the torture of aching muscles and gnawing stomach. Parker wouldhave welcomed the sight of Colonel Gideon Ward himself when that secondnight came through the trees. 

It was beyond human endurance to walk farther, but Parker realized thatif he lay down in that state of cold, weariness and hunger he wouldnever rise again. He marshaled in his mind all the people, all theinterests he had to live for; the parents who depended on him, a certainyoung girl who was waiting so anxiously for his return, his prospects inlife. He did this methodically, as if he were piling fagots for a fireat which to warm himself. Then he mentally kindled the heap with theblaze of a mighty determination to live, and standing under a greatspruce, he began to stamp about it and count aloud. Half a dozen timesduring that long night he staggered and fell, as if an invisible handhad struck him down. But the next moment, with a cry of "I'll stayawake!" he was up again and at his self-set task, mind, muscles andnerves centering in his one desperate resolve. 

Then the dawn came peeping over the big spruces, and found him stillat his grim gambols. He set forth once more down the road, slippingand stumbling, his body doubled forward. A few miles and a few hoursmore--it was the most he could hope for. 

All at once his dull ears heard the zin-n-ng of a rifle-bullet close tohis head; and almost immediately, as he ducked and rolled upon his back, the sinister shriek of another ball made it plain that he was the gameaimed at. Two smart cracks at some distance indicated the location ofthe marksman. 

Animal instinct is alike in brute and man. Parker leaped at the soundof the first bullet, fell, and rolled behind a snow-covered boulder. Had Ward or his minion tracked him? Were they now carrying out theirdesperate plan? The double report was proof that the man or men weredetermined on slaughter. 

After a long time he dared to peer cautiously. At some distance down thetote-road an old man was crouching beside a moose sled. On the sledwas the carcass of a deer. Parker realized that this old man must be apoacher. 

An assassin sent after a man would not be wasting his ammunition on deerin close time. 

The old man remained motionless, with the stolidity of the veteranhunter waiting to make sure. Torpor rapidly seized on Parker's mind. He shouted as best he could, but his voice was hoarse from hours ofshouting into the vastness of the deserted woods. His faculties weregrowing befogged. He dared not exert himself enough to keep awake, forhis rock was but a narrow bulwark. It seemed to be a choice of deaths, only. 

At last he desperately leaped up and danced behind his protectingboulder, uttering such cries as he could. But he saw the old manthrow his rifle up and take aim. Down he dropped, and the bullet sangoverhead. 

He realized then that his garb made him resemble some strange beast--abear, perhaps--and he gritted his teeth as he pondered that this mightbe part of Gideon Ward's vindictive scheme. If he attempted to showhimself long enough to convince the old man that he was human he wouldonly be inviting the bullet. 

Until his blurring senses left him he occasionally shouted or thrust uphis head; but the old still-hunter was relentless, and evidently had notthe clear vision of a youth. He was always ready with a shot. 

At last, with tears freezing on his cheeks, Parker gave himself up tothe fatuous comfort of the man succumbing to cold and hunger. 

CHAPTER TWELVE--THE STRANGE "CAT-HERMIT OF MOXIE"

Afterward it seemed that he began to dream. Somber individuals werecrushing his limbs between great rollers. Frisky little ghouls weresticking needles into him, and there were so many needles that it seemedthat every inch of his skin was being tortured at the same instant. 

[Illustration: Every inch of his skin was being tortured 197-224]

The agony grew intense. He was trying to cry out, and a giant hand wasover his mouth. And when the pain became so excruciating that it did notseem as if nature could longer endure it, he opened his eyes. 

A sludge-dish hooked to a beam shed its yellow glimmer of light upon astrange interior. 

There was no more strange figure in the place than Parker himself. Hewas stripped and seated in a half-hogshead filled with water, from whichvapors were rising. His first wild thought was that the water was hotand was blistering him. He screamed in the agony of alarm and strove torise. 

But hands on his shoulders forced him down again. These hands wererubbing snow upon him. Then the young man realized that his sensationswere produced by icy cold water. Parker felt that cloths bound snow andice to his ears and face. 

A glance showed him that he was in a rude log camp. The chinked wallswere bare and solid. The interior was spacious, and a big fireplacepromised warmth. 

The most astonishing of all in the place were its visible tenants--amultitude of cats. Some were huddled on benches, their assorted colorsand markings composing a strange medley. Others stalked about the cabin. Many sat before the embers in the fireplace. A half-score were groupedabout the hogshead and its occupant, with their tails wound round theirfeet, and were solemnly observing the work of reanimating the stranger. Here and there among taciturn felines of larger growth little spike-tailkits were rolling, cuffing, frolicking and miauing. For a moment thescene seemed a part of his delirium. 

Parker turned round to survey his benefactor. He found him to be an oldman, shaggy of beard and hair. A pointed cap of fur covered his head. 

He was dressed in rough garb--belted woolen jacket, trousers awkwardlypatched, leggings rolled above the knee, and yellow moccasins. Althoughhe was the ordinary type of the woods recluse, there was kindliness inhis expression, as well as a benignant gleam in his eye that was notusual. 

"How d'ye feel?" he asked, solicitously. 

"As if I were being pounded with mallets and torn by pincers. "

"All over?"

"Yes, all over!" snapped Parker, rather ungraciously. 

"That's good, " drawled the old man, rubbing more snow briskly on theaching flesh. "I guess I'm goin' to save ye, down to the last toe. "

"If aches will do it I'm saved!" groaned the young man. 

"I wouldn't 'a' gi' a copper cent for ye when I got ye here to camp, "the old man proceeded, "but I've done the very best I could, mister, tofetch ye round. I hope ye ain't a-goin' to complain on me, " he added, wistfully. 

"Complain on you?" Parker demanded. "Do you think I owe myself a grudgefor coming back to life?"

"I should like to ask ye a fair question, " said the old man. 

"I'll answer any questions. "

"Be ye a game-warden?"

"No, sir, I am not. "

The honest ring of that negative was unmistakable. The old man sighedwith relief. 

"When I found ye done up in that co't I thought ye was a game-warden, sure. "

"Look here, " Parker demanded, with asperity, "did you sit there andblaze away at me with any suspicion that I was a human being?"

"Land bless ye, no!" cried the old man, with a shocked sincerity therewas no doubting. "I never harmed any one in all my life. But I wasfeelin' so good over savin' ye that I had to have my little joke. I wasout this mornin' as us'al, after meat for my cats. I have to work hardto keep 'em in meat, mister. I can't stand round and see my kittiesstarve--no, s'r! Wal, I was out after meat, an' was takin' home a deerwhen I see what any man, even with better eyesight than mine, would havecalled a brown bear trodgin' round a tree an' sharp'nin' his claws. Whathe was up to out of his den in such weather I didn't know, but of courseI fired, an' I kept firin'. An' when at last I fired an' he didn't bobout any more, I crept up an' took a look. I thought I'd faint when Isee what I see--a man in a buffl'ler co't wrong side to an' his head alltied up an' his arms fastened behind him. Land, if it didn't give me astart! Wal, I left my deer right there an' h'isted ye on my sled, andstruck across Little Moxie for my camp here on the double-quick, now Ican tell ye. Ye was froze harder'n a doorknob, but I guess I'm goin' tohave ye out all complete. Lemme see your ears. "

He carefully undid the cloths, to an accompaniment of groans fromParker. 

"They're red's pinys. No need to worry one mite, mister. Come out o'your water whilst I rub ye down. Then to bed with a cup o' hot tea, andhooray for Doctor Joshua Ward!"

"I might have known you were Joshua Ward when I noticed all those cats, "said Parker. So this was Colonel Gideon's brother! He was too weak andill to feel or display much surprise at the meeting. 

"Most every one hereabouts has heard o' me, " the old man admitted, mildly. "Some men have fast hosses, some men have big liberies, some menlike to spend their money on paintin's an' statues. But for me, I likecats, even if they do keep me running my legs off after meat. Hey, pussy?" and he stooped and stroked the head of a huge cat that archedits back and leaned against his leg. 

"Mr. Joshua Ward, " said Parker, grimly, "you'd probably like to know howI happened to be prowling round through the forest dressed up so as toplay bear?"

"I was meditatin' that ye'd tell me by n' by, if it wa'n't any secret, "the old man replied, humbly. 

"Well, I think you have a right to know. You possess a personal interestin the matter, Mr. Ward. I was tied up and sent away to be killed or tobe turned out to die by a man named Colonel Gideon Ward. "

To Parker's surprise the old man did not stop in his rubbing, but said, plaintively, "I was almost afeard it might be some o' Gid's works, or, to say the least his puttin' up. He don't improve any as he growsolder. "

"You have pretty good reason to know how much chance there is forimprovement in Gideon Ward, " suggested Parker, bitterly. 

"Fam'ly matters, fam'ly matters, young man, " murmured Joshua, reprovingly. "But I ain't tryin' to excuse Brother Gideon, yeunderstand. I'm afeard that when the time of trial does come to him, hewill find that the hand of the Lord is heavy in punishment. I've had agood part of a lifetime, young man, to think all these things over inthis place up here. A man gets near to God in these woods. A man canput away the little thoughts. The warm sun thaws his hate; the big windsblow out the flame of anger; the great trees sing only one song, andhigh or low, it's 'Hush--hush-h-h--hush-h-h-h!'" The voice of the mansoftly imitated the soughing of the pines. 

Parker stumbled to his bunk, his feet still uncertain, drank his tea, and slept. 

The next morning, after the breakfast of bread and venison, the hostsaid: "Young man, now that you have slept on your anger, I wish you'dtell me the story of your trouble with my brother Gideon. I know that hehas been rough and hard with men, but many have been rough and hard withhim. This is a country where all the men are rough and hard. But I fearthat had it not been for the good God and these old hands of mine, mybrother would be now little else than a murderer. Tell me the story. "His voice trembled with apology and apprehension. 

Parker stated all the circumstances faithfully and impartially. At theconclusion Joshua's eyes glowed with fires that had not been seen inthem for years. He struck his brown fist down on his rude table. 

"Defying God's law and man's law to the disgrace of himself and all hisname! And you had not been rough and hard to him, " he cried. "Bitter, bitter news you bring to me, Mr. Parker. "

There was a long pause, and at last Joshua Ward went on:

"Mr. Parker, that man is my own--my only brother, no matter how otherpeople look at him. I have saved your life. Will you give me one chanceto straighten this matter out?"

"You mean?"

"I mean that if Gideon Ward will pay for the damage he has done yourproperty, ask your forgiveness as a man, and promise to keep away andlet you alone, will you be charitable enough to let the matter rest?"

Parker pondered a while with set lips. It cost a struggle to foregovengeance on that wretch, but many issues were involved, principallythe early completion of the railroad and his consequent favor with hisemployers. 

"Mr. Ward, " he declared, at last, "I came down here to build a railroad, not to get entangled in the courts. For your sake and the sake of myproject I will give your brother an opportunity to make atonement on theconditions you name. I owe my life to you, and I will discharge part ofmy obligation in the way you ask. "

"Are you afraid to accompany me back to Number 7 camp?"

"No, sir!" In his turn Parker struck the table. "I am ready to goback there alone and charge that man with his crime, and depend on themanhood of his crew to stand neutral while I take him and deliver himover to the law. And that I will do if you fail in your endeavors. "

The old man was silent. He made no attempt to soften the young man'sindignation or resolution. Parker noted that his lips tightened as thowith solemn, inward resolve. 

During the remainder of his convalescing stay in the camp the subject ofGideon Ward was not broached again. 

The hermit beguiled the hours with simple narratives of the woods, hiscats on knees and shoulders. He had no complaints for the past or thepresent and no misgivings as to the future, so it appeared from histalk. 

Parker came to realize that under his peculiar and, to the casualobserver, erratic mode of life there was a calm and sound philosophythat he had cultivated in his retirement. He had the strange notions ofthose who have lived much alone and in the wilderness. An unkind criticwould have dismissed him brusquely with the belief that his troubles hadunbalanced his mind. But Parker saw beneath all his eccentricity, andas the hermit wistfully discoursed of the peace that the woods had givenhim the young man conceived both respect and affection for this strangecharacter. His knowledge of Joshua's life tragedy pre-disposed him topity. He was grateful for the tender solicitude the old man had showntoward him. At the end of his stay he sincerely loved the brother of hisenemy. 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN--THE BEAR OF THE BIG WOODS "BAITED" AFTER HIS OWNFASHION

On the third morning Parker was able to travel. Joshua Ward had broughtthe carcass of the slain deer across the lake on his sled, and the catsof Little Moxie were left to rule the island and feast at will until thereturn of the master. 

On the day they set forth it was shortly after dark, --for they hadproceeded slowly on account of the young man's feet, when Parker againlooked down from the ridge upon Number 7 camp. If Colonel Gideon Wardwas not there, they proposed to follow along his line of camps untilthey found him. Parker carried a shotgun with two barrels. The old manbore his rifle. They advanced without hesitation over the creakingsnow, straight to the door of the main camp, and entered after theunceremonious fashion of the woods. 

A hundred men were ranged on the long benches called "deacons' seats, "or lounged on the springy browse in their bunks. A man, with one legcrossed over his knee, and flapping it to beat his time, was squawking alively tune on a fiddle, and a perspiring youth danced a jig on a squareof planking before the roaring fire. The air was dim with the smoke ofmany pipes and with the steam from drying garments hung on long poles. 

Connick removed his pipe when the door opened, and gazed under his hand, held edgewise to his forehead. 

"Why, hello, my bantam boy!" he bawled, in greeting. "What did you breakout o' the wangan and run away for?"

The fiddle stopped. The men crowded up from the bunks and deacons'seats. All were as curious as magpies. They gazed with interest onParker's companion. But no one threatened them by look or gesture. 

"Is Gideon Ward here?" inquired Joshua, blandly. 

"Yes, I'm here!" came the answer, shouted from the pen at the fartherend. "What's wanted?"

"It's Joshua!" called the brother. "I'll come in. "

"Stay where you are!" cried Gideon; and the next moment he cameshouldering through the men, who fell back to let him pass. 

The instant his keen gaze fell on the person who bore his brothercompany he seemed to understand the situation perfectly. There was justthe suspicion of fear when he faced the blazing eyes of Parker, but hesnorted contemptuously and turned to his brother. 

"Wal, Josh, " he cried, "out with it! What can I do for you?"

"The matter isn't one to be talked over in public, brother, " suggestedJoshua. 

"I hain't any secrets in my life!" shouted Gideon, defiantly, as if heproposed to anticipate and discount any allegations that his visitorsmight produce. 

"Ye don't refuse to let me talk a matter of business over with ye inprivate, do ye, Gideon?"

"Colonel Ward, " said Parker, stepping forward, "your brother is ashamedto show you up before these men. "

"Here, Connick, Hackett, any of you! Seize that runaway, and throw himinto the wangan till I get ready to attend to him!" commanded Ward. 

The men did not move. 

"Do as I tell ye!" bawled the colonel. "Twenty dollars to the men--fiftydollars to the men who ketch an' tie him for me!"

Several rough-looking fellows came elbowing forward, tempted by thereward. Parker raised his gun, but Connick was even quicker. The giantseized an ax, and shouted:

"Keep back, all of ye! There's goin' to be fair play here to-night, an'it's Dan Connick says so!"

"Connick, " Gideon's command was almost a scream, "don't you interfere inwhat's none o' your business!"

"It's my business when a square man don't get his rights, " Connickcried, with fully as much energy as the colonel, "and that chap is aman, for he licked me clean and honest!"

A murmur almost like applause went through the crowd. 

"Men, " broke in Parker, "I cannot expect to have friends here, and youmay all be enemies, but I have come back, knowing that woodsmen are onthe side of grit and fair dealing. Listen to me!"

In college Parker had been class orator and a debater of power. Now hestood on a block of wood, and gazed upon a hundred bearded faces, onwhich the flickering firelight played eerily. In the hush he could hearthe big winds wailing through the trees outside. 

Ward stood in advance of the rest, his mighty fists clinched, his facequivering and puckering in his passion. As the young man began to speak, he attempted to bellow him into silence. But Connick strode forward, put his massive hands on Gideon's shoulders, and thrust him down upona near-by seat. The big woodsman, his rebellion once started, seemed toexult in it. 

"One of the by-laws of this ly-cee-um is that the meetin' sha'n't bedisturbed!" he growled. "Colonel Gid Ward, ye will kindly listen to thisspeech for the good of the order or I'll gag ye! You've had a good manyyears to talk to us in and you've done it. Go ahead, young man! You'vegot the floor an' Dan Connick's in the chair. " He rolled his sleevesabove his elbows and gazed truculently on the assemblage. 

"For your brother's sake, " cried the young engineer, "I offer you onemore chance to listen to reason, Colonel Gideon Ward! Do you take it?"

"No!" was the infuriated shout. 

"Then listen to the story of a scoundrel!"

[Illustration: Listen to the story of a scoundrel 216-246]

The men did listen, for Parker spoke with all the eloquence thatindignation and honest sentiment could inspire. He first told the storyof the wrecked life of the brother, and pointed to the bent figureof the hermit of Little Moxie, standing in the shadows. Once or twiceJoshua lifted his quavering voice in feeble protest, but the ringingtones of the young man overbore his halting speech. Several timesConnick was obliged to force the colonel back on the deacons' seat, eachtime with more ferocity of mien. 

Then Parker came to his own ambitions to carry out the orders of hisemployers. He explained the legal status of the affair, and passedquickly on to the exciting events of the night on which he had beenbound and sent upon his ride into the forest, to meet some fate, heknew not what. He described the brutal slaughter of the moose, and theimmediate dismemberment of the animal. He noticed with interest thatmany men who had displayed no emotion as he described poor old Joshua'ssufferings now grunted angrily at hearing the revelation concerningthe fate of Ben, the camp mascot. This dramatic explanation of Ward'sfurious cruelty to the poor beast proved, curiously enough, the turningpoint in Parker's favor, even with the roughest of the crew. Then Parkerdescribed how he had been rescued and brought back to life by the oldman whom Gideon Ward had so abused. 

"And now, my men, " he concluded, "I am come back among you; and I askyou all to stand back, so that it may now be man to man--so that I maytake this brutal tyrant who has abused us all, and deliver him over tothe law that is waiting to punish him as he deserves. "

He leaped down, seized a halter, and advanced with the apparentintention of seizing and binding the colonel. 

"Are ye goin' to stand here, ye hunderd cowards, an' see the man thatgives ye your livin' lugged away to jail?" Gideon shouted, retreating. He glared on their faces. The men turned their backs and moved away. 

He crouched almost to the floor, brandishing his fists above his head. "I've got ten camps in this section, " he shrieked, "an' any one of themwill back me aginst the whole United States army if I ask 'em to! Theyain't the cowards that I've got here. I'll come back here an' pay ye offfor this!"

Before any one could stop him, for the men had left him standing alone, he precipitated his body through the panes of glass of the nearestwindow, and almost before the crash had ceased he was making away intothe night Connick led the rush of men to the narrow door, but the mobwas held them for a few precious moments, fighting with one another foregress. 

"If we don't catch him, " the foreman roared, "he'll be back on us withan army of cut-throats!"

But when the crew went streaming forth at last, Colonel Ward was out ofsight in the forest. Lanterns were brought, and the search prosecutedearnestly, but his moccasined feet were not to be traced on the frozencrust. 

The chase was abandoned after an hour, for the clouds that had hungheavy all day long began to sift down snow; and soon a blizzard howledthrough the threshing spruces and hemlocks. 

"It's six miles to the nearest camp, " said Connick, when the crew wasagain assembled at Number 7, "an' in order to dodge us he prob'ly keptout of the tote-road. I should say that the chances of Gid Ward's everget-tin' out o' the woods alive in this storm wa'n't worth that!" Hesnapped his fingers. 

"It is not right for us to come back here an' leave him out there!"cried the brother. 

"He took his chances, " the foreman replied, "when he went through thatwindow. There's a good many reasons why I'd like to see him back here, Mr. Ward, but I'm sorry to have to tell ye, ye bein' a brother of his, that love ain't one o' them. "

"I shall go alone, then, " said the old man, firmly. 

"Brotherly love is worth respect, Mr. Ward, " Connick declared, "but Iain't the kind of man that stands idle an' sees suicide committed. Ye'vedone your full duty by your brother. Now I'm goin' to do my duty by you. You don't go through that door till this storm is over!"

The next day the wind raged on and the snow piled its drifts. JoshuaWard sat silent by the fire, his head in his hands, or stood in the"dingle, " gazing mournfully out into the smother of snowflakes. It wouldbe a mad undertaking to venture abroad. He realized it and needed nofurther restraint. 

But the dawn of the third day was crisp and bright. Soon after sunrise apanting woodsman, traveling at his top speed on snow-shoes, halted for ahasty bite at Number 7. He was a messenger from the camp above. 

"Colonel Gid Ward was picked up yesterday froze pretty nigh solid!" hegulped out, between his mouthfuls. "I'm goin' down for a doctor, " andthen he went striding away, even as Joshua Ward took the up-trail. 

Parker spent all that day in sober thought, and then, forming hisresolution, took passage on the first tote-team that went flounderingthrough toward Sunkhaze. His departure was neither hindered norencouraged. 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN--HOW RODNEY PARKER PAID AN HONEST DEBT

The engineer found his little garrison holding the fort at the PoquetteCarry camp--and confining their attentions wholly to holding the fort. Not an ax blow had been struck since his hurried departure. 

"We didn't work no more, " explained one of the men, "because we'd giveup all idea of seein you ag'in. Of course we reckoned that a new bosswould prob'ly be comin' along pretty quick and we thought we'd wait andfind out just what he wanted us to do. "

"Well, it will be the same old boss and the same old plan, " repliedParker curtly. The idea that the men had considered him such easy preymade him indignant. "You'll consider after this that I'm the ColonelGideon Ward of this six-mile stretch here. "

"I reckon there won't be any real Gid Ward any more, " said the man. "Feller went through here last night, hi-larrup for 'lection, to git adoc for Gid. Seems he got caught out and froze up somehow--tho I nevers'picioned that weather would have any effect on the old sanup. P'rhapsyou've been hearin' all about how it happened? Feller wouldn't stop longenough to explain to us. " The man's gaze was full of inquisitiveness andthe others crowded around to listen. 

But with self-repression truly admirable Parker told them that he had nonews to give out concerning Colonel Ward, of any nature whatsoever. He ordered the driver of the tote-team to whip up and rode away towardSunkhaze, leaving the men gaping after him. 

He observed the same reticence at the settlement, tho he was receivedwith a demonstration that was something like an ovation. 

Although his better sense told him that the men were justified inpreserving neutrality at the time of the raid, yet he could not ridhimself of the very human feeling of resentment because they hadsurrendered him so readily into the hands of his adversaries. But thechief influence that prompted silence was the fear lest details of hismishap and the reasons therefor would get into the newspapers to theannoyance of his employers. 

"I am back and the work is going on just as tho nothing had happened, "he said to the men who crowded into the office of the tavern tocongratulate him. "Matters have been straightened out and the less talkthat's made the better. "

But the postmaster, presuming on more intimate acquaintance, followedhim up to his room, where his effects had been carefully preserved forhim. 

"I reckoned you'd get back some time, " said Dodge. "I've predicted thatmuch. But, I swanny, I didn't look for you to come back with your tailover the dasher, as you've done. That is, I didn't look for you to comethat way not until that feller blew in here to telegraft for a doctorfor old Gid. Then I see that it was him that was got done up instead ofyou. But speakin' of telegraftin', there ain't no word gone out fromhere as yit about the hoorah--not a word. "

"Do you mean that Sunkhaze has kept the Swamp Swogon affair and mykidnapping quiet?" demanded Parker, his face lighting up. He had beenfearing what might have gone out to the world about the affair. 

"A good many was all of a to-do to telegraft it to the sheriff and toyour bosses, " said the postmaster calmly. "But it seemed better to me towait a while. I says, 'Look here, neighbors, it's goin' to be some timebefore the sheriff can git his crowd together and git at Ward--and eventhen there'll be politics to consider. The sheriff won't move anywaytill he gits the word of the Lumbermen's Association. And it'll probablyhappen by that time that the young man will show up here again. Allwe'll git out of it hereabouts is a black eye in the newspapers--itbein' held up that Sunkhaze ain't a safe place to settle in. And allthat truck--you know! Furthermore, from things you've dropped to me, Mr. Parker, I knew you were playin' kind of a lone hand and a quiet gamehere. My old father used to say, 'Run hard when you run, but don't startso sudden that you stub your toe and tumble down. ' So in your case Ijust took the responsibility and held the thing back. "

The postmaster's eyes were searching Parker's face for signal ofapprobation. 

The engineer went to him and shook his hand with hearty emphasis. 

"You've got a level head, Mr. Postmaster, " he said, delightedly. "We'llstart exactly where we left off and so far as I am concerned the placewill never get a bad name from me. In return for your frankness and yourservice to me, I'll give you a hint as to what happened to Colonel Ward. I know you won't abuse my confidence. "

When he had finished, the postmaster said earnestly, "Mr. Parker, however much old Gid Ward owes you, you owe Josh Ward a good deal more. He ain't a man to dun for his pay. But if he ever does ask you to squarethe account you won't be the man I take you for if you don't settle. Ifyou feel that you owe me anything for the little service I've done youand your bus'ness, just take and add it to the Josh Ward account. Of allthe men on earth I pity that man the most. "

There were tears in Dodge's eyes when he stumbled down the tavernstairs. 

One cheerful moment for Parker had been when the postmaster informedhim of Sunkhaze's equilibrium in the matter of news-monging But a morecheerful moment was when Mank, his foreman, standing with him on theice above the submerged Swogon told him that a sandbar made out into thelake at that point and that the locomotive was probably lodged on thebar, only a little way below the surface. 

When they had sawed the ice and sounded they found this to be true. Assoon as a broad square of ice had been removed they saw her, all heroutlines clear against the white sand. The sunken sleds were equally inevidence. It was not a diver's job, then, as Parker, in his worryings, had feared. On the thick ice surrounding the whole there was solidfoothold for the raising apparatus and Parker's crew set at work withgood cheer. 

It was a cold, wet and tedious job, the grappling and the raising, buthis derricks were strong and his rigging plentiful. Moreover, the waterwas not deep. 

All the material that could not be recovered by the grapples wasduplicated by means of quick replies to wired orders, and the work oftransportation across the lake was successfully completed. 

It was well into a warm May, and his men for the last week had beenmoving soil and building culverts before the case of Col. Gideon Wardwas brought to Parker's attention in a manner requiring action. Oneevening just after dusk his foreman scratched on the flap of theengineer's tent, in which he was now living at Poquette. 

"Come in!" he called. 

The canvas was lifted and a man entered. Parker turned the reflector ofhis lantern on the visitor. 

"Joshua Ward!" he exclaimed, as he started up and seized the old man'soutstretched hand. 

He led him to a camp-stool. They looked at each other for a time insilence. Tears trembled on Joshua's eyelashes, and he passed his knottedhand over his face before he spoke. 

"Mr. Parker, " he said, tremulously, "I've come to bring ye money topay for every cent's worth o' damage to property 'an loss o' time an'everything. " He laid a package in the young man's hand. "Help yourself, "he quavered. "I'm goin' to trust to your honesty, for I'm certain I can. Take what's right. Gid and I don't know anythin' about railroads an'what such things as you lost are worth. All we can do is to show that wemean to square things the best we can now. Gid's sorry now, Mr. Parker, he's sorry--sorry--sorry--poor Gid!" The old man sobbed outright. 

"Did he--" The young man paused, half-fearing to ask the question. 

Joshua again ran his rough palm across his eyes. Then, in dumb grief, heset the edge of his right hand against his left wrist, the left hand tothe right wrist, and then marked a place on each leg above the ankle. 

"All off there, Mr. Parker. " The old man bent his head into his hollowedpalms. Tears trickled through his fingers. There was a long silence. Theyoung man did not know how to interrupt that pause. 

"I'm feedin' an' tendin' him like I used to when he was a baby an' I asix-year-old. He's at my camp, Mr. Parker. He don't ever want to be seenagin in the world, he says--only an old, trimmed, dead tree, he says. Poor old Gid! No matter what he's been, no matter what he's done, you'dpity him now, Mr. Parker, for the hand o' punishment has fell heavy onmy poor brother. "

The engineer, truly shocked, stood beside Joshua, and placed his hand onthe bowed shoulders. 

"Mr. Ward, " he said, with a quiver in his voice, "never will I doanything to add one drop to the bitterness in the cup that has come toyou and yours. "

"I told Gid, I told Gid, " cried the old man, "that you'd say somethin'like that! I had to comfort him, you know, Mr. Parker; but I felt thatyou, bein' a young man, couldn't make it too hard for us old men. Heain't the same Gid now. See here, sir!"

With tremulous hands he drew a paper from his pocket and handed it toParker. It was a writing giving sole power of attorney to Joshua Ward. The old man pointed to a witnessed scrawl--a shapeless hieroglyph at thebottom of the sheet. 

"Gid's mark!" he sobbed. "No hands--no hands any more! I feed him, Itend him like I would a baby, an' the only words he says to me now arepleasant an' brotherly words. 

"An' more'n that, Mr. Parker, I'm on my way down to town. I've got someerrands that are sweet to do--sweet an' bitter, too. There's new firesbeen lit in the dark corners of my poor brother's heart. I've got herea list of the men that Gideon Ward hain't done right by in thislife, --that he's cheated, --an' a list of the widows of the men he hain'tdone right by, an' by that power of attorney he's given me the means, an' he says to me to make it square with them people if it takes everycent he's worth. It won't cost much for me an' Gid to live at LittleMoxie, Mr. Parker--an' poor Cynthy--"

He looked into vacancy a while and was silent. Then he went on:

"We'll have our last days together, me an' Gid. All these years thatI've lived alone up there the trees an' the winds an' the skies an' thewaves of the lake have been sayin' good things to me. I told Gid aboutthem voices. He has been too busy all his life to listen before now. Butsittin' there in these days--sit-tin' there, always a-sittin' there, Mr. Parker! Nothing to do but bend his ear to catch the whispers that comeup out o' the great, deep lungs o' the universe! He has been listenin', an'"--the old man rose and shook the papers above the head of theengineer--"God an' the woods have been talkin' the truth to my poorbrother Gideon. "

The old man slept that night in Parker's tent and went on his way atmorning light, and tho the engineer pressed back again into his hands, unopened, the packet that was proffered, and assured him that no harmshould befall Gideon Ward through complaint or report for which he wasresponsible, Parker still felt that somehow there was a balance due oldJoshua Ward on their books of tacit partnership in well-doing;--such wasthe honest faith, and patient self-abnegation of the good old man, whohad endured so much for others' sake. 

CHAPTER FIFTEEN--THE DAY WHEN POQUETTE BURST WIDE OPEN

Through the spring and the early summer Poquette Carry was an animatedtheater of action. Woodsmen, went up and woodsmen came down, and mingledwith the busy railroad crews. All examined the progress of constructionwith curiosity, and passed on, uttering picturesque comment. Strangeold men came paddling down West Branch from unknown wildernesses, andtrudged their moccasined way from end to end of the line, as if toconvince themselves that Colonel Gideon Ward really had been conqueredon his own ground. Newspaper reporters came from the nearest city, andpressed Engineer Parker to make a statement "Gentlemen, " he said, witha laugh, "not a word for print from me. I was sent here to build thisbit of a railroad quietly and unobtrusively. Circumstances have paradedour affairs before the public in some measure. Now if you quote me, ortwist anything I may say into an interview, my employers will have goodreason to be disgusted with me, as well as with the situation here. Furthermore, there are personal reasons why I do not wish to talk. "

Whether Parker's eager appeal had effect upon the reporters, or whetherthe timber barons influenced the editors, the whole affair of the sunkenengine was lightly passed over as the prank of roistering woodsmen, and Colonel Ward was left wholly undisturbed in his retreat. Even thecalamity that had befallen him was not mentioned except by word of mouthamong the woodsmen of the region. 

With self-restraint that is rare in young men, Parker still refused totalk about the matter even in Sunkhaze. When he first returned, asense of chagrin at his discomfiture along with reasons that have beenmentioned kept him silent, it is true, but now, with complete victoryin his hands, he was sincerely affected by the misfortune that hadovertaken his enemy. 

The "Swamp Swogon, " now that it was running on its own rails and washauling building materials along the crooked railroad, was renicknamed"The Stump Dodger. " Parker's chief pride in the road was necessarilybased on the fact that it had been constructed without exceeding theappropriation, a fact that excused many curves. 

Late in June the last rails were laid and the ballasting, such as itwas, was well under way. 

The "terminal stations, " as the engineer jocosely called them, were neatlittle structures of logs, and there was a log roundhouse, where theStump Dodger retired in smutty and smoky seclusion when its day's toilwas finished. 

So the engineer prepared for the day of opening, and requested the staterailroad commissioners to make their final inspection of the road. Thethree officials gravely travelled from end to end of the line in thesecondhand P. K. & R. Coach, the only passenger-car of the road, andafter some jocular remarks, issued a certificate empowering the PoquetteCarry Road to convey passengers and collect fares. Then, after atelegraphic conference with his employers, Parker announced the day forthe formal opening of the road. 

At first he had not intended to make any event of this. His idea hadbeen that, after the commissioners authorized traffic, he wouldmerely arrange a time-table instead of the irregular service of theconstruction days, and would start his trains, observing the care thathad been promised in seasons of drought. 

But his foreman of construction--none other than Big Dan Connick, whohad chosen railroad work under Parker instead of the usual summer laboron the drive--came to him at the head of a group of men. 

"Mr. Parker, " he said, "we represent the men who have been building thisroad. We represent also our old friends of the West Branch drivin' crewof a hundred men, who are twenty miles up-river and are hankerin' fora celebration. We represent all the guides between Sunkhaze andChamberlain, and every man of 'em is glad that this carry has beenopened up. The whole crowd respectfully insists that seein' as how thisis our first woods railroad up here, it's proper to have a celebration. If ye don't have the official opening we shall take it as meanin' weain't worth noticin'. "

There was no denying such earnestness as that nor gainsaying thepropriety of the demand. Parker made his principals understand thesituation. And the result was that they themselves set the opening date, and promised to be on hand with a party of friends. 

The rolling-stock of the Poquette Railroad consisted of the StumpDodger, four flat cars designed especially for the transportationof canoes and bateaux, three box cars for camp supplies and generalfreight, and the coach transplanted from the P. K. & R. Narrow-gage. 

Parker announced that on the opening day no fares would be collected, that the train would make hourly trips, and that all might ride whocould get aboard. 

Not to be outdone in generosity, the crew through big Dan Connick, declaring that they proposed to make all the preparations for thecelebration free of charge--that is, they would accept no wages fortheir work. 

They built benches on the platform cars and fitted up the box cars insimilar fashion. They trimmed the Stump Dodger with spruce fronds tillthe locomotive looked like a moving wood-lot. Every flag in Sunkhaze wasborrowed for the decoration of the coach, and then, in a final burst ofenthusiasm, the men subscribed a sum sufficient to hire the best brassband in that part of the state. 

"It took us some little time to wake up enough to know how much weneeded a railroad acrost here, " said Dan, "but now that we're awakewe propose to let folks know it. Them whose hearin' is sensitive hadbetter take to the tall timber that day. "

Parker met his party at Sunkhaze station on the morning of the greatoccasion. They came in the P. K. & R. President's private car, that wasrun upon a siding to remain during the week the railroad men entertainedtheir friends at their new Kennemagon Lake camp. 

"I expect, " said Parker, as the little steamer puffed across sunlitSpinnaker toward Poquette, "that the men have arranged a rather ruggedcelebration for to-day; but I know them well, gentlemen, and I want toassure you that all they do is meant in the best spirit. "

As the steamer approached the wharf, tooting its whistle, there was anexplosion ashore that made the little craft appear to hop out of thewater. All the anvils of the construction crew had been stuffed withpowder, and all were fired simultaneously with a battery current!

With a yell the shore crowd rushed to the side of the steamer. Dan wasleading, his broad face glowing with good humor. Groups of cheering menclutched the squirming, protesting railroad owners and their friends, and bore them on sturdy shoulders to the waiting train. The band fromits station on a platform car boomed "Hail to the Chief, " the enginewhistle screaming an obligato. 

Then the men swarmed upon the cars, crowding every corner, occupyingevery foothold--but with the thoughtful deference of the woods notventuring to encroach upon the privacy of the coach after they haddeposited their guests there. 

On the "half-way horseback, " so-called, Parker ordered the train halted, for he wished to show Mr. Jerrard an experiment in culvert construction, in which he took an originator's pride. The band kept on playing and themen roared choruses. 

After the young engineer had bellowed his explanation in Jerrard's ear, and Jerrard had howled back some warm compliments, striving to makehimself heard above the uproar, the two climbed the embankment andapproached the coach. The band was quiet now. 

"Speech!" cried some one, as Jerrard mounted the steps. He smiled andshook his head. 

"Speech! Speech!" The manager turned to enter his car, still smiling, tolerant but disregarding. At a sudden command from Connick, menreached out on both sides of the train and clutched the branches ofsturdy undergrowth that the haste of the construction work had notpermitted the crews to clear entirely away. 

"Hang on, my hearties!" shouted Dan. 

Parker, when he mounted the steps, had given the signal to start, butwhen the engineer opened his throttle, the wheels of the little enginewhirled in a vain attempt at progress. With a grade, a heavy load, andthe determined grip of all these brawny hands to contend against, thepanting Stump Dodger was beaten. Sparks streamed and the smokestackquivered, but the train did not start. 

"Speech! Speech!" the men howled. "We won't let go till we hear aspeech. "

Entreaties had no effect. First Jerrard, then Whittaker, then Parker, and after them all the guests were compelled to come out on the carplatform and satisfy the truly American passion for a speech. And notuntil the last man had responded did the woodsmen release their hold onthe trees. 

"Who ever heard of a railroad being formally opened and dedicatedwithout speeches?" cried Connick, as he gave the word to let go. "Weknow the style, an' we want everything. "

The guides served a lunch at the West Branch end of the line thatafternoon, and while the railroad party was lounging in happyrestfulness awaiting the repast, a big bateau came sweeping down theriver, driven by a half dozen oarsmen. Several passengers disembarkedat the end of the carry road, and were received respectfully yetuproariously by the woodsmen who had just arrived in a fresh train-loadfrom the Spinnaker end. 

Connick came elbowing through the press that surrounded them. 

"Mr. Shayne, " he cried, "she's come, after all, hasn't she? Are you andyour friends goin' to ride back on her across the carry? I tell you shebeats a buckboard!"

The man whom he addressed smiled with some constraint, and exchangedglances with his companions. 

"I guess we'll stick to our own tote-team as usual, Connick, " saidanother in the party, jerking his thumb at the muddy buckboard that waswaiting. 

"Oh say, now, ye've got to meet these here railroad fellers. They'reyour style--all business!" bawled Connick. "We ain't fit to entertain'em up here, but you rich fellers are. Just come along. They'll be gladto see you. Bring 'em along, boys. "

The crowd obediently hustled the new arrivals toward Whittaker and hisfriends, disregarding the surly protests. 

"Here's some of the kings of the spruce country, gentlemen!" big Dancried, by way of introduction. "Here's Mr. Shayne, the great timberoperator on the Seboois waters. Here's Mr. Barber of the UpperChamberlain, an'--"

Several of the new arrivals began to deprecate this unceremonious mannerof introduction, but the railroad men, recognizing their peers in thebusiness world in these sturdy land barons, came forward with a heartywelcome. 

Ten minutes later the timber kings were eating lunch, although with someembarrassment. Occasionally they eyed the railroad men, wondering ifthe memory of the stubborn legislative battle still lingered. But therailroad men constantly grew more affable. 

"Gentlemen, " said Whittaker, at last, "we are not affected in this caseby any interstate commerce regulations. Therefore, on behalf of myselfand my associates, I should like to tender you annual passes over ournew road. Of course the courtesy is a trifling one, but it will indicatethat we shall appreciate your cooperation in turning your freightbusiness our way. We'll save you at least two-thirds of the expense onthe haul across Poquette. "

CHAPTER SIXTEEN--THE PACT THAT OPENED RODNEY PARKER'S PROFESSIONALFUTURE

When one understood all that had gone before, the moment was an electricone for the future of the Poquette region. 

In this apparently trivial offer the railroad king had formally offeredthe olive branch. He gazed at the lumber barons eagerly yet shrewdly. 

It was evident that they had silently fixed on Shayne to reply. 

After a moment Shayne began his answer, and as he had glanced from oneto another of his companions, he evidently understood from their eyesthat he had permission to speak for all. "Mr. Whittaker, " he said, withhearty frankness, "on behalf of myself and my associates I am going tomake an earnest apology to you for the obstacles we threw in your wayat the outset of this enterprise. But you must take into account theisolation of our lumbering interests and the jealousy we felt at theintrusion of outside men and capital. We feared what it might leadto. We have been doing business as our fathers did it, and we probablyneeded this awakening that the new railroad has given us. For now thatit is built, we, as business men, see that the advantages it will affordus are desirable in every way. I speak for my friends here when I saythat we are heartily glad you have beaten us. "

His tone was jocose yet sincere. 

The men of business--railroad officials and lumber kings--broke out intoa hearty laugh, the laugh of amity and comradeship. Shayne went on, moreat his ease after that:

"Now we are going to afford you a proof that we mean what we say. We--this party right here--control fifty miles or more of timbercountry, reaching from here up to the West Branch on both sides, andextending as far inland. The river is broken by rapids and falls alongthis stretch. Our drives from up-country are sometimes held up a wholeseason when a bad jam forms in dry times. Every year in dynamiting thesejams thousands of feet of logs are shattered. More are split on theledges. We have agreed that we need a railroad. Considering our losses, we can afford to pay well for having our logs hauled to the smoothwater. If you and your friends will finance and build such a road, we'llgive you free right of way, turn over to you annually twenty millionfeet of timber for your log trains, and give you the haul of all ourcrews and camp supplies. Further than that, with spur tracks to lots nowinaccessible by water, you can quadruple the value of our holdings andyour own business at the same time. And this will be only the first linkof a railroad system that we need all through the region. The thinghas come to us in its right light at last, and we're ready to meetyou half-way in everything. " He smiled. "We want the right sort of menbehind the scheme, and you have plainly showed us that you _are_ theright sort of men. "

President Whittaker thought a little. 

"Gentlemen, " he said, at last, "I cannot give you a conclusive answerto-day, of course, but I can guarantee that no such offer as that isgoing to be refused by my associates and myself. Bring forward yourproposition in writing. We'll come half-way, too, and be glad of thechance. If men and money can accomplish it, a standard gage road will beready for your season's haul next year. "

He turned and touched Parker's shoulder. 

"This young man, " he said, "will be our representative, with full powersto treat with you. Parker, are you ready for two years more in thewilderness? It's a big project, and your financial encouragement will becorrespondingly big. I haven't said yet how thoroughly I appreciateyour energy and loyalty and self-reliance in the matter of this littleplaything of the past winter. I do not need to say anything, do I, except to urge you to take this new responsibility, and to add that youracceptance will encourage me to go ahead at once?"

Parker reached out his brown hand to meet the one extended to him. 

"We also want to say to Mr. Parker, " went on Shayne, "that on our partwe'll do more to assist him than we'd do for any other man you couldplace here. We have a little explanation to make to him and--"

"No explanations for me--if it's along the lines I apprehend, Mr. Shayne!" cried the young man, jokingly yet meaningly. He bent asignificant look on the lumber king as he went forward to take his hand. 

"Hush!" he murmured. "I keep my own counsels in business matters when Ican do so without betraying the interests of my employers, and when theydon't want to be bothered by my personal affairs. "

Shayne gave the engineer a long stare of honest admiration. 

"Parker, " he gasped, "you never said a word? You're a---- Here, give meyou hand again!"

[Illustration: Parker give me your hand again 254-286]

A half hour later the lumbermen went across the Poquette Carry in atrain made up of the engine and the coach--"the first real special trainover the road, " Parker said. 

Before the young engineer left for his summer vacation, he made along canoe journey up into the Moxie section, ostensibly on a fishingexpedition. He was gone ten days, a longer period than he had predictedto his assistant manager. 

When he came down the West Branch one afternoon he helped Joshua Wardto lift a crippled man out of their canoe, and he carefully directed thehelpers who carried the unfortunate person to the coach. 

"I'm afraid the trip across the carry in a buckboard after the oldmanner would have been too rough for you, Colonel Ward, " remarkedParker, as the train clanked along under the big trees. "I think I wasnever more glad to offer modern conveniences to any traveller acrossthis carry. You understand how deep my sincerity is in this, I ampositive. "

"I understand everything better than I did, Parker, " returned ColonelWard, feelingly, turning away wet eyes. 

The astonishment in Sunkhaze settlement when the doughty ex-tyrant wasborne through to the "down-country" train, accompanied by Parker andJoshua, was so intense that only the postmaster recovered himself inseason to put a few leading questions. After the train had gone heannounced the results of his findings to the crowd that clustered abouthim on the station platform. 

"Near's I can find out, " he said, "that young Parker has been way upinto the Moxie region an' found old Gid, and spent a week gettin' roundhim and coaxin' him to go 'long with him and Josh to the city, and befitted to new hands and feet, that, so they tell me, is so ingenious afellow can walk round and cut his own victuals and all that. Well, thatwill help old Gid a little. If the blamed old sanup could only be fittedout with a new disposition at the same time, we folks round here wouldbe more pleased to see him, come back. "

"Postmaster, " cried Dan Connick, who had been one of those who borethe colonel from the landing in a chair, "don't you ever worry any moreabout a new disposition for Gid Ward. Those things come from the hand ofGod, and Colonel Gid has already been fitted out with the heart and soulof a man!"

"Then, " declared Dodge, gazing to where the smoke wreaths from thedeparting locomotive hung above the distant treetops, "I reckon we'vejust seen in bodily shape the passin' of the old in this section as wellas the comin' of the new. "

THE END