King Spruce, A Novel Page 10

  CHAPTER IX

  BY ORDER OF PULASKI D. BRITT

  "Twinkle, twinkle, 'Ladder' Lane, With your wavin' winder-pane, Up above the world so high, Like a flash-bug in the sky."

  The fire-lookout at the Attean station winked this ditty humorously withplayful heliograph to "Ladder" Lane, lookout on the high, bald poll ofold Jerusalem Knob. The Attean lookout got it by telephone fromCastonia. Lyrist unreported.

  Jerusalem station is more serene in its isolation than the other fivelookouts on the mountains of the north country. It has no telephone.Lane allowed to his lonely self that he got more news than he reallywanted, anyhow. And most of the news was of the sort that the humorousAttean lookout, or the equally humorous Squaw Mountain man, consideredlikely to tease the cranky solitary on the highest and farthest outpostof the chain of lookouts. They whiled away their solitude by gossipychattings over the wire. Lane confined himself to terse winkings thatwould have been gruff were it possible for a heliograph to be gruff. Heseemed to take a certain grim pride in the fact that he was a thousandfeet higher than any of them and commanded three hundred thousand acres.

  Sitting now in the glare of the September sunshine on the flat roof ofhis cabin, he gravely and stolidly scrawled down the words of the verseas the Attean heliograph, blinking and glaring, spoke to him in theMorse code.

  "Huh!" he grunted, and went on writing with stubby pencil hisinterrupted day's entry in his official diary. For the twenty-fifth timehe wrote:

  "Clear, bright, and still dry."

  He screwed his eyelids close to peer into the heavens bending over him,hard as the bottom of a brass kettle. He took off his hat and held itedgewise at his forehead while his gaze swept the mighty range of hisvision. An imaginative person might have smiled at the likeness betweenhis brown and bald poll, thrust above the straggle of hair, and the bareand bald poll of old Jerusalem, rounding above the straggle of growth onits lower slopes.

  Some one bawled at him from the ground below. Lane did not start, thoughthat was the first human voice he had heard in two months.

  The young man who stood there, and who had come across the gray ledgesfrom the edge of the timber growth, carried an arm in a sling.

  "Do you ever look at anybody if they're nearer than ten miles away?"inquired the visitor, with the teasing irony that it seemed popular inthe Umcolcus region to employ with "Ladder" Lane.

  When the old man stood up the fitness of his sobriquet was apparent. Heunfolded himself, joint by joint, like a carpenter's rule, and stoodgaunt as a bean pole and well towards seven feet in height.

  The name painted on the door of the photograph "saloon" that even nowlies rotting on the banks of Ragmuff in Castonia settlement is: "LinusLane. Tintypes and Views." No one in Castonia ever knew whither he hadcome. Oxen or horses and a teamster hired for each trip had dragged therumbling van from settlement to settlement at the edge of the woods, andfinally to Castonia, where it arrived hobbling on three wheels, onecorner supported by a dragging sapling. Lane strode ahead, swearing overhis shoulder at the driver, and his ill-temper did not seem to leave himeven when he had opened his door for business. It is remembered that hisfirst customer was old Bailey, who was corresponding with an unknownwoman down-country, and who came for a tintype with hair and whiskerscolored to the hue of the raven's wing, evidently desiring to make animpression on his correspondent. And when old Bailey, shocked anddisappointed at the painful verity of the tintype, had muttered that itdidn't seem to be a very pretty picture, Lane, who was doubled like ajack-knife under the saloon's low roof, had yelled at him:

  "Pretty picture! You come to me with a face like a scrambled egg droppedinto a bucket of soot and complain because you don't get a prettypicture! Get out of here!"

  And he stopped slicing up the sheet of tintypes, slammed it on thefloor, drove out old Bailey, nailed up the door of the saloon, andstarted for the big woods with his few possessions on his back.

  To those who remonstrated on behalf of the offended old Bailey, Lanesaid he had been feeling like that for some time, and was taking to thewoods before he expressed his disgust by killing some one.

  Therefore, the job on the top of Jerusalem that fell to him quitenaturally, after his many years' sojourn as a recluse at its foot, was ajob that fitted admirably with his scheme of life.

  "And it looks up there like it must have looked when Noah said, 'Allashore that's goin' ashore,' on Mount Ariat, or wherever 'twas hethrowed anchor," announced Tommy Eye, of Britt's crew, returning oncefrom a Sunday trip to the fire station.

  For, painfully acquired, with gouges, clawings, and scratches to showfor it all, "Ladder" Lane had accumulated companions of his loneliness,to wit:

  One bull moose, captured in calfhood in deep snow; two bear cubs; araccoon; a three-legged bobcat, victim of an excited hunter; two hornedowls; and a fisher cat.

  On this menagerie, variously tethered or crated in sapling cages, thevisitor with the disabled arm bestowed a contemptuous side glance whilehe blinked at the tall figure on the cabin's flat roof.

  Without haste Lane worked himself through the roof-scuttle like anangle-worm drawing into his hole; without cordiality he appeared at thecabin door, lounging out into the sunshine.

  "I suppose you are still doing the second-hand swearing for Britt,MacLeod," he suggested.

  The young man grunted.

  "How did ye hurt your arm? Britt chaw it?"

  "Peavy-stick flipped on me," growled the young man, willing to hide hishumiliation from at least one person in the world--and the hermit of theJerusalem station seemed to be the only one sufficiently isolated.

  "Huh! I thought his name was Wade." There was no spirit of jest in thetone. The old man surveyed him sourly. "That's what the Attean heliosaid."

  "Is that what you use them things for--to pass gossip like an old maid'squiltin'-bee?"

  "There's a good deal in this world in letting a man place his own selfwhere he belongs," remarked Lane, with calm conviction. "I've let youprove yourself a liar."

  He turned and went into the cabin and back up the stairs to the roof,picking up a huge telescope as he went. Something in the valley seemedto have attracted his attention. MacLeod followed, his face red, oathsclucking in his throat.

  In the nearer middle ground of the great plat of country below Patch Damheath was set into the green of the forest like a medallion of rustytin. To the west of it smoke began to puff above the tree-tops.

  "On Misery," mumbled Lane, his long arms steadying his instrument. Then,with the caution of a man of method, he went into the scuttle-hole andsecured his range-finder.

  "What's the good of tinker-fuddlin' with that thing?" demanded MacLeod;"it's on Misery, as you said."

  "Two hundred and fifty-nine degrees," muttered the fire-scout, bookingthe figures in his dog's-eared diary.

  "Say, about that fire, Mr. Lane," blurted MacLeod, nervously. "I'm uphere to-day by Mr. Britt's orders to tell you not to report it. It's onMisery Gore, and he's there looking after it, and it ain't goin' to beworth while to report. I know all about it, and that's the truth."

  Lane, without bestowing a glance on the speaker, was setting up hisheliograph tripod. At the young man's last words he grunted over hisshoulder:

  "So it was a peavy-stick! But they told me his name was Wade."

  "Now you look here," stormed the timber baron's boss, "you can slur allyou want to about my lyin', but I tell you, Lane, this is straightgoods. You report that fire, after the orders you've got from Britt, andyou'll lose your job. I know what I'm talkin' about."

  Lane kneeled, his thin trousers hanging over his slender shanks likecloth over broomsticks. MacLeod stifled an inclination to take him inone hand and snap him like a whip-lash. The old man was peering throughthe centre hole in the sun-mirror, bringing his disks into alignment.

  "Britt has got orders from the court, and he's there to put the Skeetsand Bushees out and torch off their shacks. That's all there is to thatfire, Lane, and Britt don't w
ant a stir and hoorah made about it. Hetold me to tell you that. He says the cussed newspapers get a word hereand a word there, and they're always ready to string out a lot of liesabout King Spruce and wild-landers, and how they abuse settlers, and allthat rot--and it hurts prominent men, like Mr. Britt and his associates,because folks get wrong ideas from the papers. Now you know that! Don'treport that fire, Lane."

  It was fulsome appeal and eager appeal, and MacLeod was apparentlyobeying some very emphatic orders from his superior, who had suppliedlanguage as well as directions of procedure.

  But the old fire-warden kept on with his preparations, exact, careful,without haste.

  "He said you understood--Britt did," clamored MacLeod, hastening aroundin front of the heliograph. "You know it ain't right to have thosepeople there in this dry time, with all that slash about 'em. Mr. Brittwill make it all right with them--the same as the land-owners always do.It will be the papers that will lie and call the land-owners names forthe sake of stirrin' up a sensation about leadin' men--makin' politicsout of it, and gettin' the people prejudiced so as to put more taxesonto wild lands." More of Britt's ammunition! "Mr. Britt said you'dunderstand--and you do understand--and you can't report that fire."

  Lane set his gaunt grasp about the handle of the screen, ready to tiltit for the first flash.

  "I understand just this, MacLeod--that I'm a fire-warden of the State,sworn to do my duty as my duty is spread before me." He swept his leftarm in impressive gesture. "Look behind you! Do you see that?"

  Smoke was ballooning from the notch of the woods below them. Round puffsseemed to be dancing in fantastic ballet from tree-top to tree-top.

  "That's a fire, MacLeod. I take no man's say-so as to what and why. Thatmay be Pulaski Britt smoking a cigar. It may be Jule Skeet's new springbonnet on fire. I don't care what it is. It's a fire, and it's going tobe reported. Stand out of range."

  His code-card was in the top of his hat. He waved the headgearimpatiently at MacLeod, his right hand still on the handle of thescreen.

  MacLeod knew what the orders of Pulaski D. Britt meant. Britt had nothesitated to rely upon the loyalty of "Ladder" Lane, for Britt, whenState senator, had caused Lane to be appointed to the post on Jerusalem.MacLeod reflected, with fury rising like flame from the steady glow ofhis contemptuous resentment at this old recalcitrant, that Pulaski Brittwould never make allowance for failure under these circumstances. To besure, that fire yonder didn't look like a carefully conductedincineration of the dwellings of Misery Gore, and it was a little aheadof time--that time being set for the calm of early evening. But ordersfrom Britt were--to his men--orders from the supreme tribunal.

  "Britt put you here!" stuttered MacLeod.

  "I'm working for the State, not Pulaski D. Britt," replied the old man.

  "And I'm working for Britt, and, by ---- he runs the State in theseparts! Him and you and the State can settle it between you later, butjust now"--he swung to one side, leaned back, and drove his foot withall the venom of his repressed rage against the apparatus--"that firereport don't go!"

  "Ladder" Lane, serene in his proud conjuration, "The State," hadexpected no such enormity. The heliograph skated on its spider legs,went over the edge of the roof, and, after a hushed moment of drop,crashed upon the ledge with shiver and tinkle of flying glass.

  The boss of "Britt's Busters" turned and darted through the scuttle anddown the stairs, excusing this flight to himself on the ground of hisout-of-commission arm.

  He leaped out into the sunshine and clattered away over the ledges, thespikes in his shoes striking sparks.

  He had made half a dozen rods when he heard the old man scream "Halt!"MacLeod kept on, with a taunting wave of his well hand above his head.The next moment a rifle barked, and the bullet chipped the ledge infront of him.

  "The next one bores you in the back, MacLeod!"

  He stopped then, and whirled in his tracks.

  Lane stood at the edge of his roof, his rifle-butt at his cheek.

  "Come back here!"

  "You ain't got the right to hold me up, Lane. I'll have the law on ye!"

  "Come back here!"

  There was a grate in the tone, a menace not to be braved.

  The young man shuffled slowly towards the cabin, roaring oaths andinsults to which Lane deigned no reply.

  MacLeod did not try to run when the warden disappeared for his trip tothe door. He waited sullenly.

  Near the door was a good-sized, empty cage of strong saplings, built in"Ladder" Lane's abundant leisure, for the reception of any new candidatefor the menagerie. The old man jerked his head sideways at it. There wasa gap of three saplings in the side, and the poles stood there ready tobe set in.

  "I won't be penned that way!" yelled MacLeod. "I ain't no raccoon!"

  But the bitter visage of the warden, the merciless flash of his grayeyes, and the glint of the rifle-barrel, swinging into line with hisface, combined with the sudden remembrance that it was hinted that"Ladder" Lane was not always right in his head, drove the stubborncourage out of MacLeod. He slunk rather than walked into the cage withthe mien of a whipped beast. The old man set the saplings one by oneinto place, and nailed them with vigorous hammer-blows.

  "How long have I got to stay here, Lane?" he pleaded.

  "Till I can turn you over to them who will put you where you belong fordestroying State's property and interfering with a State officer."

  The old man turned away and gazed out over the forest stretches betweenJerusalem and Misery. MacLeod, clutching the bars of his cage with hisleft hand, looked, too.

  It was no puny torching of the Misery huts that he was looking on, andhe realized it with growing apprehensiveness as to his zeal insuppressing news.

  Vast volumes of yellow smoke volleyed up over the crowns of the greengrowth. It was a racing fire--even those on Jerusalem could see thatmuch across the six miles between. Spirals waved ahead like banners of acharging army. Its front broadened as the fire troops deployed to theflanks. Ahead and ever ahead fresh smoke-puffings marked the advance ofthe skirmish-line. Now here, now there, drove the cavalry charges of theconflagration, following slash-strewn roads and cuttings, while the dunsmoke ripped the green of the maples and beeches.

  "It's liable to interest Pulaski D. Britt somewhat when he finds out whyJerusalem lookout ain't callin' for a fire-posse," Lane remarked,bitterly.

  The situation seemed to overwhelm the boss. He looked with straininggaze at the rush of the conflagration, and had no word for reply.

  "But it may not all be loss for you," the old man proceeded, grimly."Perhaps the girl will be burned up--perhaps that was in your trade withBritt."

  "I don't know what you mean about any girl," mumbled MacLeod, lookingaway from the old man's boring eyes.

  "You're a liar again as well as a dirty whelp of a sneak."

  Lane spat the words over his shoulder, stumping away, the bristle of hisgray beard standing out like an angry porcupine's quills.

  "I don't allow anybody to put them words on me!" roared MacLeod.

  "You don't, heh?" Lane whirled and stumped back. He bent down and sethis face close to the saplings, his eyes narrowing like a cat's, hisnose wrinkling in mighty anger. "You can steal time paid for by PulaskiD. Britt, and hang around Misery Gore, and coax on an ignorant girl intoa worse hell than she's living in now"--he pointed a quivering finger atthe smoke-wreathed valley--"when you know and I know, and everyone onthese mountain-tops of the Umcolcus knows and gossips it with thesettlements, that you've picked her up only to throw her farther intothe wallow where you found her. It's the Ide girl you're courtin'. It'spoor little Kate of Misery that you're killin'. There isn't another manin the north woods mean enough to steal from a girl as poor as sheis--steal love and hope and faith. It's all she's got, MacLeod, andyou've taken all."

  The young man grunted a sullen oath.

  "There's a lot I could say to you," raged Lane, "but I ain't going towaste time doing it. I'll simply express my opinion of you by
--"

  He spat squarely into the convulsed face of MacLeod, and went away intohis cabin.