King Spruce, A Novel Read online

  CHAPTER V

  DURING THE PUGWASH HANG-UP

  "With eddies and rapids it's middlin' tough, To worry a log-drive through. But to manage a woman is more than enough For a West Branch driving crew."

  --Leeboomook Song.

  Just how Tommy Eye escaped so nimbly from the ruck of the fight at thefoot of Pugwash Hill he never knew nor understood, his wits not being ofthe clearest that day--and the others being too busy to notice.

  But he did escape. One open-handed buffet sent him reeling into andthrough some wayside bushes. He sat on his haunches on the other side amoment like a jack-rabbit and surveyed the stirring scene, and then madefor higher ground. At the end of an enervating sixty-days' sentence inthe county jail--his seventeenth summer "on the bricks" for the same oldbibulous cause; second offence, and no money left to pay the fine--Tommydid not feel fit for the fray.

  He sat on a bowlder at the top of the rise for a little while and gazeddown on them--the hundred men of "Britt's Busters," bound in for thewinter cutting on Umcolcus waters. They were fighting aimlessly, "mixingit up" without any special vindictiveness, and Tommy, an expert ininebriety, sagely concluded that they were too drunk to furnishamusement. So he rolled over the bowlder and nestled down to ease hisheadache, knowing, as a teamster should know, that Britt's tote wagonswere to hold up at the Pugwash for a half-hour's rest and bait.

  For that matter, a fight at the Pugwash was no novel incident--not forTommy Eye, at least, veteran of many a woods campaign.

  The hang-up at the hill is a teamster's rule as ancient as the toteroad.

  And the fight of the ingoing crew is as regular as the halt. All the wayfrom the end of the railroad the men have been crowded on the wagons,with nothing to do but express personal differences of opinion. Everyother man is a stranger to his neighbor, for employment offices do notmake a specialty of introductions. As the principal matter of argumenton the tote wagons is which is the best man, the Pugwash Hill wait,where there is soft ground and elbow-room, makes a most invitingopportunity to settle disputes and establish an _entente cordiale_ thatwill last through all the winter.

  Two other men--two men who had been on the outskirts of the fray fromits beginning--came leisurely up the hill, and sat down on the bowlderbehind which was couched Tommy Eye.

  One was the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt; the other was Colin MacLeod.

  The Honorable Pulaski tucked the end of a big cigar into the opening inhis bristly gray beard where his mouth was hidden, and lighted it. As anafter-thought he offered one to MacLeod. The young man, his elbows onhis knees, his flushed face turned aside, shook his head sullenly.

  "Well, you're having a run of cuss-foolishness that even our championfool, Tommy Eye himself, couldn't match," snorted the old man, rollinghis tongue around his cigar.

  Tommy, behind the rock, tipped one ear up out of the moss.

  "Here you go pouncing into that car to-day, where my new time-keeperwas, and go to picking a fuss with him, and--"

  "He was the one that started it, Mr. Britt," said the boss, in the dullmonotone of one who has said the same thing many times before.

  "Don't bluff me!" snapped the Honorable Pulaski. "You were gossipingover a lot of his private business with that Ide girl--and bringing meinto it, too. You can't fool me! Old Jeff back in the car heard it all.The young feller had a right to put in an oar to stop you, and he didit, and I'll back him in it."

  "Yes, and you went and introduced him to Miss Ide--that's some more ofyour backin'," said MacLeod, bitterly.

  "Just common politeness--just common politeness!" cried Britt, wavinghis cigar impatiently. "That girl hasn't said she'd marry you, has she?No! I knew she hadn't. Well, she's got a right to talk with nice youngmen that I introduce to her, and there's nothing to it to make a fussover, MacLeod--only common politeness. You're making a fool of yourself,and setting the girl herself against you by acting jealous like thatbefore the face and eyes of every one. That's enough time and talkwasted on girls. Now, quit it, and get your mind on your work. Youunderstand that I won't have any more of this scrapping in my crew."

  With a blissful disregard of consistency, he gazed through smoke-cloudsdown at the men below, who were listlessly exchanging blows or rollingon the ground, locked in close embrace.

  MacLeod stood up, and tugged the collar of his wool jacket away from histhroat.

  "I ain't much of a man to talk my business over with any one, Mr.Britt," he said. "But you are putting this thing on a business basis,and you don't have the right to do it. I ain't engaged to Nina Ide, andI 'ain't asked her to be engaged to me, for the time 'ain't come rightyet. But there ain't nobody else in God's world goin' to have her butme. She ain't too good for me, even if her father is old Rod Ide. I'llhave money some day myself. I've got some now. I can buy the clotheswhen I need 'em, if that's all that a girl likes. But it ain't all theylike--not the kind of a girl like Nina Ide is. She knows a man when shesees him. She knows that I'm a man, square and straight, and one thatloves her well enough to let her walk on him, and that's the kind of aman for a girl born and bred on the edge of the woods."

  He drew up his lithe, tall body, and snapped his head to one side withalmost a click of the rigid neck.

  "Along comes that college dude," he snarled, "just thrown over by a citygirl and lookin' for some one else to make love to, and he cuts in"--hisvoice broke--"you see what he done, Mr. Britt! He helped her off thetrain before I could get there. He put her on the stage, and rode awaywith her while you were makin' me handle the men. And he's ridin' withher now, damn him, and he's a-talkin' with her and laughin' at me behindmy back!" He shook both fists at the road to Castonia settlement,winding over the hill, and there were tears on his cheeks.

  "He probably isn't laughing very much," replied Britt, dryly. "Not sinceyou plugged that spike boot of yours down on his foot there on the depotplatform. A nasty trick, MacLeod, that was."

  "I wish I'd 'a' ground it off," muttered the boss. He struck his spikesagainst the bowlder with such force that a stream of fire followed thekick.

  "He can't do it--he can't do it, Mr. Britt! He can't steal her! I'veloved her too long, and I'll have her. You just gave off your orders tome about fighting. You don't say anything to those cattle down therefighting about nothin'. You let them settle their troubles. Here I am!"He struck his breast. "For five years, first up in the dark of themornin', last to bed in the dark of the night. I've sweat and swore andfrozen in the slush and snow and sleet, driving your crew to make moneyfor you. And I've waded from April till September, I've broken jams andtaken the first chance in the white water, so that I could get yourdrive down ahead of the rest. And now, when it comes to a matter of helland heaven for me, you tell me I can't stand like a man for my own. Youcall it wastin' time!"

  He bent over the Honorable Pulaski, his face purple, his eyes red. Britttook out his cigar and held it aside to blink up at this disconcertingyoung madman.

  "I tell you, you are taking chances, Mr. Britt. You have bradded me on,and told me that a man of the woods always gets what he wants if he goesafter it right. Twice to-day you have stood between me and what I want.You've let a college dude take the sluice ahead of me. I know you pay memy money, but don't you do that again. I'm going to have that girl, Isay! The man that steps in ahead of me, he's goin' to die, Mr. Britt,and the man that steps between me and that man, when I'm after him, hedies, too. And if that sounds like a bluff, then you haven't got ColinMacLeod sized up right, that's all!"

  The Honorable Pulaski winked rapidly under the other's savage regard. Heknew when to bluster and he knew when to palter.

  "MacLeod," he said, at last, getting up off the rack with a grunt, "whata man that works for me does in the girl line is none of my business.But after that kind of brash talk I might suggest to you that a cell instate-prison isn't going to be like God's out-doors that you're roamingaround in now."

  The boss sneered contemptuously.

  "Furthermore, this
college dude, that you are talking about as though hewere a water-logged jill-poke, was something in the football line whenhe was in college--I don't know what, for I don't know anything aboutsuch foolishness--but, anyway, from what I hear, it was up to him tobreak the most arms and legs, and he did it, I understand. This is onlyin advice, MacLeod--only in advice," he cried, flapping a big hand tocheck impatient interruption. "You saw when Tommy Eye, the drunken fool,fell under the train at the junction to-day, as he is always doing, thatfeller Wade picked him up with one hand and lugged him like a pound ofsausage-meat--saved the fool's life, and didn't turn a hair over it. So,talk a little softer about killing, my boy, and, best of all, wait tillyou find out that he wants the girl or the girl wants _you_!"

  He walked down the hill.

  "Go to blazes with your advice, you old fool!" growled MacLeod, underhis breath. "He's lookin' for it; he's achin' for it! He gave me a lookto-day that no man has given me in ten years and had eyes left open tolook a second time. He'll get it!"

  As he turned to follow his employer he saw the recumbent Tommy, and wentout of his way far enough to give him a vicious kick.

  "Get onto the wagons, you rum-keg, or you'll walk to Castonia!"

  "Be jigged if I won't walk!" groaned Tommy, surveying the retreatingback of the boss with sudden weak hatred. "So there was a man who savedmy life to-day when I didn't know it! And there was another man whokicked me when I did know it! It's the chaney man he's after, and thechaney man was good to me! I'll make a fair fight of it if my legs holdout, and that's all any man could do."

  The horses were still munching fodder, and the gladiators, thankful foran excuse to stop the fray, were stupidly listening to a harangue by theHonorable Pulaski, who was explaining what would be allowed and whatwould not be allowed in his camps.

  Tommy Eye ducked around the bushes and took the road with a woodsman'slope, his wobbly knees getting stronger as the exercise cleared hisbrain.

  A woodman's lope is not impressive, viewed with a sprinter's eye. Nor isa camel's stride. But either is a great devourer of distance. So ithappened that Tommy Eye, sweat-streaked and breathing hard, caught upwith the sluggish Castonia stage while it was negotiating the lastrock-strewn hill a half-mile outside the settlement.

  Dwight Wade, time-keeper of the Busters, heard the stertorous puffing,and looked around to see Tommy Eye clinging to the muddy axle and towingbehind. Tommy divided an amiable and apologetic grin between Wade andthe girl beside him.

  "I'm only--workin' out--the--the budge!" Tommy explained, between thejerks of the wagon. "Don't mind me!"

  Down the half-mile of dusty declivity into Castonia, the only smoothroad between the railroad and the settlement, the stage made its usualgallant dash with chuckling axle-boxes and the spanking of splay hoofs.

  And Tommy Eye came limply slamming on behind.