King Spruce, A Novel Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  AS FOUGHT BEFORE THE "IT-'LL-GIT-YE CLUB"

  "We dug him out of his blankets, and hauled him out to the light-- His eyes were red with the tears he had shed, but now he wanted to fight. And screaming a string of curses, he struck as he raved and swore-- Floored Joe Lacrosse and the swamping boss and announced he was ready for more."

  --The Fight at Damphy's.

  Civilization sets her last outpost at Castonia in the plate-glasswindows of Rodburd Ide's store. Civilization had some aggravatingexperiences in doing this. Four times hairy iconoclasts from the deepwoods came down, gazed disdainfully at these windows as an effort to puton airs, and smashed them with rocks dug out of the dusty road. Fourtimes Rodburd Ide collected damages and renewed the windows--and in theend civilization won out.

  Those experienced in such things can tell a Castonia man anywhere by thepitch of his voice. Everlastingly, Umcolcus pours its window-jarringwhite waters through the Hulling Machine's dripping ledges. Here entersRagmuff stream, bellowing down the side of Tumbledick, a mountain thatcrowds Castonia close to the river. Most of the men of the settlement dotheir talking on the platform of Ide's store, with the spray spittinginto their faces and the waters roaring at them. And go where he will, aCastonia man carries that sound in his ears and talks like a fog-horn.

  The satirists of the section call Ide's store platform "The Blowdown."In the woods a blowdown is a wreck of trees. On Ide's platform theloafers are the wrecks of men. Here at the edge of the woods, at thejumping-off place, the forest sets out its grim exhibits and mutelycalls, "Beware!" There are men with one leg, men with one arm, men withno arms at all; there are men with hands maimed by every vagary ofmischievous axe or saw. There are men with shanks like broomsticks--menwho survived the agonies of freezing. There is always a freshsubscription-paper hung on the centre post in Ide's store, meeklycalling for "sums set against our names" to aid the latest victim.

  Wade, looking at this pathetic array of cripples as he slowly swunghimself over the wheel of the stage, felt that he was in congenialcompany; for the foot that MacLeod had so brutally jabbed with hisspikes had stiffened in its shoe. It ached with a dull, rancor-stirringpain. When he limped across the platform into the store, carrying thegirl's valise, he hobbled ungracefully. The loungers looked after himwith fraternal sympathy.

  "The boss spiked him down to the deepo," advised Tommy, slatting sweatfrom his forehead with muddy forefinger. "He's the new time-keeper."

  "Never heard of the boss calkin' the chaney man before," remarked MartinMcCrackin, rapping his pipe against his peg-leg to dislodge the dottle.

  Tommy twisted his face into a prodigious wink, jabbed a thumb over hisshoulder towards the store door, and gazed archly around at the circleof faces.

  "He cut the boss out with the Ide girl!" He whispered this hoarsely.

  The listeners looked at the door where Wade and the girl haddisappeared, and then stared at one another. They had viewed the arrivalof the stage with the dull lethargy of the hopelessly stranded. Now theydisplayed a reviving interest in life.

  "And that was all he done to him--step on his foot?" demanded a thinman, impatiently twitching the stubs of two arms, off at the elbows.

  "Old P'laski got in!" said Tommy, with meaning. "Used his old elbows forpick-holes and fended Colin off."

  "It will git him, though!" said another. He had shapeless stumps of legsencased in boots like exaggerated whip-sockets.

  "You bet it will git him!" agreed McCrackin.

  Rodburd Ide, busy, chatty, accommodating little man, trotted out of thestore at this instant with a handful of mail to distribute among hiscrippled patrons.

  "That's what the river boys call this crowd here," he said, over hisshoulder, to Wade, who followed him. "The 'It-'ll-git-ye Club.' I guessIt _will_ get ye some time up in this section! Here's the last one, Mr.Wade. Aholiah Belmore--that's the man with the hand done up. Shingle-sawtook half his fin. Well, 'Liah, don't mind! No one ever saw a wholeshingle-sawyer. It's lucky it wasn't a snub-line that got ye. There'swhat a snub-line can do, Mr. Wade."

  He pointed to the armless man and to the man with the shapeless legs.

  "All done at the same time--bight took 'em and wound 'em round thesnub-post."

  "And it's a pity it wa'n't our necks instead of our legs and arms,"growled one of the men--"trimmed like a saw-log and no good to nobody!"

  "Never say die--never say die!" chirruped the jovial "Mayor ofCastonia." He threw back his head in his favorite attitude, thrust outhis gray chin beard and tapped his pencil cheerily against the obtrusivefalse teeth showing under his smoothly shaven upper lip. "Yoursubscription-papers are growing right along, boys. The first thing youknow you'll have enough to buy artificial arms and legs, such as we werelooking at in the advertisements the other day. It beats all what theycan make nowadays--teeth, arms, legs, and everything."

  "They can't make new heads, can they?" inquired Tommy Eye, whose mienwas that of a man who had something important to impart and was castingabout for a way to do it gracefully.

  "Who needs a new head around here?" smilingly inquired the "mayor."

  "Him," jerked out Tommy, pointing to Wade. "Leastwise, he will in aboutten minutes after the boss gits here." And having thus delicately openedthe subject, Tommy's tongue rushed on. "He was good to me when I didn'tknow it!" His finger again indicated the time-keeper. "I ain't goin' tosee him done up any ways but in a fair fight. But _he's_ comin'. There'sblood in his eyes and hair on his teeth. I heard him a-talkin' it overto himself--and he's goin' to kill the 'chaney man' for a-gittin' hisgirl away from him. Now," concluded Tommy, with a hysterical catch inhis throat, "if it can be made a fair fight, knuckles up and man to man,then, says I, here's your fair notice it's comin'. But there's a girl init, and girls don't belong in a fair fight--and I'm afeard--I'm afeard!You'd better run, 'chaney man.'"

  Nina Ide was in the door behind her father. Her face was crimson, andshe winked hard to keep the tears of vexed shame back--for the faces ofthe loungers told her that Tommy had been imparting other confidences.She did not dare to steal even a glance at Wade. She was suffering toomuch herself from the brutal situation.

  "'A girl!' 'His girl!'" repeated Ide, seeing there was something he didnot understand. "Whose--"

  "Father!" cried his daughter. And when he would have continued toquestion, snapping his sharp eyes from face to face, she stamped herfoot in passion and cried, "Father!" in a manner that checked him. Hestood surveying her with open mouth and staring eyes.

  Dwight Wade had fully understood the quizzical glances that werelevelled at him. It was not a time--in this queer assemblage--for theobservance of the rigid social conventions. Taking the father asidewould be misconstrued--and slander would still pursue the girl.

  "Mr. Ide," he cried, his eyes very bright and his cheeks flushing, "Iwant you and the others to understand this thing. It's all a mistake.Mr. Britt introduced me to your daughter, and I paid her a fewcivilities, such as any young lady might expect to receive. But I seemto have stirred up a pretty mess. It's a shameful insult to yourdaughter--this--this--oh, that man MacLeod must be a fool!"

  "He is!" said the girl, indignantly.

  "And he's a fighter," muttered Tommy Eye.

  Rodburd Ide clutched his beard and blinked his round eyes, muchperplexed.

  "It isn't a very nice thing, any way you look at it--this having twoyoung men scrapping through this region about my girl. It isn't that Idon't expect her to get some attention, but this is carrying attentiontoo far." He took her by the arm and led her to one side. "Nina, thereis nothing between you and Colin MacLeod?"

  "Nothing, father. We have danced together at the hall, and he has walkedhome with me--and that's the only excuse he has for making a fool ofhimself in this way."

  "And--and this new man, here?"

  "I never saw him till this very day! And he's in love with JohnBarrett's daughter. Oh, what an idiot MacLeo
d is! This stranger willthink we're all fools up here!" Tears of rage and shame filled her eyes.

  Ide's gaze, wandering from her face to Wade and then to the loafers, sawone of Britt's great wagons topping the distant rise, and he heard awild chorus of hailing yells.

  "You run up to the house, girl," he said.

  "I'll not," she replied. And when he began to frown at her she claspedhis arm with both her hands and murmured: "He's a stranger and agentleman, father, and they're abusing him. He is nothing to me. He's inlove with another girl. It was through being obliging and kind to methat this horrible mistake has been made. Now, I'll not run away andleave him to suffer any more."

  Rodburd Ide, an indulgent father, scratched his nose reflectively.

  "It isn't the style of the Ide family to leave friends on the chips,Nina," he said--"not even when they're brand new friends. We know whatan ingoing lumber crew is, and he probably doesn't, and it's the greenman that always gets the worst of it. So I'll tell you what to do:Invite him up to the house, and you entertain him until P'laski and Ican get this thing smoothed over."

  Tommy Eye, hovering near in piteous trepidation lest his kindly officesshould miscarry, overheard the invitation that father and daughterextended to the young man, who was gloomily eying the approach of thewagon.

  "Yess'r, they've got the right of it," stammered Tommy, unluckily."You'll git it if ye don't--and the 'It-'ll-git-ye Club' will see ye gitit. Ye'd best run!"

  Wade looked into the flushed face of the girl, at the officious fatherof commiserating countenance, and at the loungers who had heard Tommy'scondescending counsel and were looking at him with a sort of scornfulpity.

  Again that strange, sullen, gnawing rage at the general attitude of theworld seized upon him. He felt a bristling at the back of his neck andin his hair--the primordial bristling of the beast's mane.

  "It is kind of you to invite a stranger," he said, "but I fear thatamong these peculiar people even that kindness would be misconstrued. Ibelong with Britt's crew. I'll stay here."

  There was that in his voice which checked further appeal. The girl stoodback against the wall of the store.

  The Honorable Pulaski was the first off the wagon, and he greeted Idewith rough cordiality. When the latter began to whisper rapidly in hisear, he shook his head.

  "I've wasted a good deal of valuable time and some temper holding thosetwo young fools apart to-day," he snapped. "The last thing MacLeodwanted to do was to lick me. Now, I'm too old to be mixed up in lovescrapes. I'm going over to measure that spool stock, and the one that'salive when I get back, I'll load him onto the wagon and we'll keep on upthe river." He strode away, leaving the "mayor" champing his false teethin resentful disappointment.

  But the autocrat of Castonia had a courage of his own. He set back hishead and marched up to MacLeod, who was standing in the middle of theroad, his jacket thrown back, his thumbs in his belt.

  "Colin," he demanded, indifferent as to listeners, "what's all thisabout my girl? Can't she come along home, minding her own business likethe good girl that she is, without a fuss that has set all the sectionwagging tongues? I thought you were a different chap from this!"

  "He had his lie made up when he got here, did he?" growled MacLeod.

  "I believe what my own girl says," the father retorted.

  "So he's got as far as that, has he? I tell ye, Rod Ide, if you don'tknow enough--don't care enough about your own daughter to keep her outof the clutches of a cheap masher like that--the kind I've seen many atime before--then--it's where I grab in. Ye'll live to thank me for it.I say, ye will! You don't know what you're talking about now. But you'llknow your friends in the end."

  He put up one arm, stiffened it against Ide's breast, and slowly butrelentlessly pushed him aside.

  Viewed in the code of larrigan-land, the situation was one that didn'tadmit of temporizing or mediation. The set faces of the men who lookedon showed that the trouble between these two, brooding through the hoursof that long day, was now to be settled. As for his men, Colin MacLeodhad his prestige to keep--and a man who had suffered a stranger to carryoff the girl he loved without fitting rebuke could have no prestige in alumber camp. And it was prestige that made him worth while, made him aboss who could get work out of men.

  The uncertain quantity in the situation was the stranger.

  With one movement of heads, all eyes turned to him.

  He was not a woodsman, and they expected from him something differentfrom the usual duello of the woods.

  They got it!

  For instead of waiting for the champion of the Umcolcus to take theinitiative, this city man calmly walked off the store platform at thisjuncture and bearded the champion.

  "And there ye have it--two bucks and one doe!" grunted old Martin. "Thesame old woods wrassle."

  The boss dropped his hands at his side as the time-keeper approached. Hegrinned evilly when he noted the limp. Wade came close and spoke withoutanger.

  "I see you are still determined to be a fool, MacLeod. I want no troublewith you. Aren't you willing to settle all this fuss like a man?"

  "That's what I'm here for," replied the boss, with grim significance.

  "Then go and offer an apology to that young lady. Do it, and I'll cancelthe one you owe to me."

  If Wade had been seeking to provoke, he could have chosen no moreunfortunate words.

  "Apology!" howled MacLeod. "Do ye hear it, boys? Talkin' to me like Iwas a Micmac and didn't know manners! Here's an Umcolcus apology for ye,ye putty-faced dude!"

  His lunge was vicious, but in his contempt for his adversary it waswholly unguarded. A woodsman's rules of battle are simple. They can bereduced to the single precept: Do your man! Knuckles, butting head, akick like a game-cock with the spiked boots, grappling and choking--notone is called unfair. MacLeod simply threw himself at his foe. It wasblood-lust panting for the clutch of him.

  Those who told it afterwards always regretfully said it was not afight--not a fight as the woods looks at such diversions. No one who sawit knew just how it happened. They simply saw that it had happened.

  "WADE STOOD ABOVE THE FALLEN FOE"]

  To the former football centre of Burton it was an opening simple as "thefool's gambit" in chess. His tense arms shot forward, his hands claspedthe wrists of the flying giant with snaps like a steel trap's clutch,his head hunched between his shoulders, he went down and forward,tugging at the wrists, and by his own momentum MacLeod made his helplesssomersault over the college man's broad back.

  And as he whirled, up lunged the shoulders in a mighty heave, and thewoodsman fell ten feet away--fell with the soggy, inert, bone-crackingthud that brings a groan involuntarily from spectators. He lay where hefell, quivered after a moment, rolled, and his right arm twisted underhis body in sickening fashion.

  The girl gave a sharp cry, gathered her skirts about her, and ran awayup the street.

  "He's got it!" said 'Liah Belmore, with the professional decisiveness ofthe "It-'ll-git-ye Club."

  "I've read about them things bein' done by the Dagoes in furrin' parts,"remarked Martin McCrackin, gazing pensively on the prostrate boss, "butI never expected to see it done in a woods fight."

  There was silence then for a moment--a silence so profound that thebreathing of the spectators could be heard above the summer-quietedmurmur of the Hulling Machine. Wade walked over and stood above thefallen foe. He was not gainsaid. Woods decorum forbids interference in afair fight.

  As he stood there a rather tempestuous arrival broke the tenseness ofthe situation. From the mouth of a woods road leading into the tangledmat of forest at the foot of Tumbledick came a little white stalliondrawing a muddy gig.

  Under the seat swung a battered tin pail in which smouldered dry fungi,giving off a trail of smoke behind--the smudge pail designed to rout theblack-flies of summer and the "minges" of the later season.

  An old man drove--an old man, whose long white hair fluttered from undera tall, pointed, visorless wool cap with a knit
ted knob on its apex.Whiskers, parted by his onrush, streamed past his ears.

  He pulled up so suddenly in front of Ide's store that his littlestallion skated along in the dust.

  "Hullo," he chirped, cocking his head to peer, "Cole MacLeod down!"

  He whirled, leaped off the back of the seat, and ran nimbly to theprostrate figure.

  "Broken!" he jerked, fumbling the arm. "No--no! Out of joint!"

  "Let the man alone," commanded Wade. "He'll need proper attendance."

  "Proper attendance!" shrilled the little old man, with snapping eyes."Proper attendance! And I guess that you haven't travelled much that youdon't know me. Here, two of you, come and sit on this man! I'll have himright in a jiffy. Don't know me, eh?" He again turned a scornful gaze onthe time-keeper. "Prophet Eli, the natural bone-setter, mediator betweenthe higher forces and man, disease eradicator, the 'charming man'--Iguess this is your first time out-doors! Here, two of you come and holdCole MacLeod!"

  When Wade, knitting his brows, manifested further symptoms ofinterference, Rodburd Ide took him by the arm and led him aside.

  "Let the old man alone," he said. "He'll know what to do. A littlecracked, but he knows medicine better than half the doctors that evergot up as far as this."

  They heard behind them a dull snap and a howl of pain from MacLeod.

  "There she goes back," said Ide. "He's lived alone on Tumbledick fortwenty years, and I suppose there's a story back of him, but we neverfound it out this way. We just call him Prophet Eli and listen to hispredictions and drink his herb tea and let him set broken bones andcharm away disease--and there's no kick coming, for he will never take acent from any one."

  Four men had carried MacLeod to the wagon. His forehead was bleeding buthe was conscious, for the sudden wrench and bitter pain of thedislocated shoulder had stirred his faculties.

  "Well, you've had it out, have you?" demanded the Honorable Pulaski,coming around the corner of the store and taking in the scene. "What didI tell you, MacLeod? Listen to me next time!"

  "And you listen to me, too!" squalled MacLeod, his voice breaking like achild's. "This thing ain't over! It's me or him, Mr. Britt. If he goesin with your crew, I stay out. If you want him, you can have him, butyou can't have me. And you know what I've done with your crews!"

  "You don't mean that, Colin," blustered Britt.

  "God strike me dead for a liar if I don't."

  "It's easier to get time-keepers than it is bosses," said the HonorablePulaski, with the brisk decision natural to him. He whirled on Wade."You'd better go home, young man. You're too much of a royal Bengaltiger to fit a crew of mine." He turned his back and began to order hismen aboard the tote teams.

  Wade stood looking after them as the wagons "rucked" away, his faceworking with an emotion he could not suppress.

  "Well, that's Pulaski all over!" remarked Ide at his elbow. "He'll fella saw-log across a brook any time so as to get across without wettinghis feet, and then go off and leave the log there."

  He stood back and looked the young man over from head to feet, with theshrewd eye of one appraising goods.

  "Mr. Wade," he said, at last, "will you step into my back office with mea moment?"

  When they were there, the store-keeper perched himself on a high stool,hooked his toes under a round, thrust his face forward, and said:

  "Here's my business, straight and to the point. I'm a little somethingin the lumbering line up this way, myself. What with land, stumpagerights, and tax titles I've got two townships, but they're off the mainriver, and I haven't done much with 'em. I'm going to be honest, andadmit I can't do much with 'em so long as Britt and his gang controlroll-dams, flowage, and the water for the driving-pitch the way they do.They haven't got the law with 'em, but that makes no difference to thatcrowd, the way they run things. Now, you don't know the loggingbusiness, but a bright chap like you can learn it mighty quick. Andyou've shown to-day that there are some things you don't have to learn,and that's how to handle men--and that's the big thing in this countryas things are now. What I want to ask you, fair and plain, is, do youwant a job?"

  "What, as a prize-fighter?" asked the young man, surlily.

  "No, s'r, but as a boss that can boss, and has got the courage to holdup his end on this river! I know this all sounds as though I weretemporarily out of my head in a business way, but you've made areputation in the last half hour here that's worth ten thousand to theman that hires you. There's money in the lumbering business, Mr. Wade.The men that are in it right are getting rich. But you've got to getinto it picked end to. Here's the way you and I are fixed: you mightwait for ten years and not find the opportunity I'm offering you. Imight wait ten years and not find just the man I could afford to take inwith me. I've sized you. I know what sort your references will be when Iask for 'em. You seem right. Are you interested enough to listen tofigures?"

  And then Ide, accepting amazed silence as assent, rattled off into hisdetails. At the end of half an hour Wade was listening with a new gleamof resolution in his eyes. At the end of an hour he was blotting hissignature at the bottom of a preliminary article of agreement that wasto serve until a lawyer could draw one more ample.

  "And now," said Ide, slamming his safe door and whirling the knob,"it's past supper-time and my folks are waitin'. And it's settledthat you stay. I say, it's settled! Where else would you stop in thisGod-forsaken bunch of shacks? I've got a big house and something to eat.Come along, Mr. Wade! I'm hungry, and we'll do the rest of our talkin'on the road."

  The young man followed him without a word. And thus entered Dwight Wadeinto the life of Castonia, and into the battle of strong men in thenorth woods.

  In front of the store, as they issued, the "It-'ll-git-ye Club" wasstill in session, as though waiting for something. They got what theywere waiting for.

  "Boys," announced their satisfied "mayor," "I want to introduce to youmy new partner, Mr. Dwight Wade--though he don't really need anyintroduction in this region after to-day. Bub!" he called to ayoungster, "get a wheelbarrow and carry Mr. Wade's duffle up to myhouse." He pointed to the young man's meagre baggage that had beenthrown off the tote wagon.

  As Wade turned away he caught the keen eye of Prophet Eli fixed on him.The eye was a bit wild, but there was humor there, too. And the crackedfalsetto of the old man's voice followed him as he walked away besidehis new sponsor:

  "Oh, the little brown bull came down from the mountain, Shang, ro-ango, whango-wey! And as he was feelin' salutatious, Chased old Pratt a mile, by gracious, Licked old Shep and two dog Towsers, Then marched back home with old Pratt's trousers. Whango-whey!"

  "Yes, as I was tellin' you a spell ago--just a little cracked!"apologized Ide. "There's my house, there! The one with the tower. Itwould look better to me, Mr. Wade, if only my wife had lived to enjoy itwith me." But his eyes lighted at sight of his daughter. She wasstanding at the gate waiting for them. "Her own mother over again, andthe best girl in the whole north country, sir! It was man's work you didthere to-day for the sake of my girl and her good name--I only wish herfather had the muscle to do as much for her." He stretched out his punyarms and shook his head wistfully. "But there's one thing I can do, Mr.Wade. It can't be said that Rod Ide stood by and saw you get thrown outof a job for his daughter's sake, and didn't make it square with you!"

  "Is that the reason you are offering this partnership to me?" inquiredthe young man, his pride taking alarm.

  "No, sir!" replied the little man, with emphasis. But he added, out ofhis honesty: "It's straight business between us, sir, but it wouldn't behuman nature if your best recommendation to me wasn't the fact thatyou've done for my girl the service that her father ought to have done,and I'm not goin' to try to separate that from our business. But beforeI get done talking with you, I'll show you that by the time you'vehelped me to win out against Pulaski Britt and old King Spruce you'llhave earned your share in this partnership."

  And then, with an ai
r that was distinctly triumphant, he pushed Wadeahead of him through the gate, chatting voluble explanation to a girlwho listened with a welcoming light in her gray eyes. It was a lightthat cheered a roving young man who had acquired friends by such adizzying train of circumstances.

  They talked until far into the night, he and Rodburd Ide.

  The next day Christopher Straight was called into the conference.

  "There ain't any part of the north country that Christopher don't know,"eulogized Ide, caressing the woodsman's arm. "Forty years trapper,guide, and explorer--that's his record."

  Wade gazed into the quiet eyes of the veteran as he grasped his hand,and needed no further recommendation than the look old Christopherreturned. There are few men in the world with such appealing qualitiesas those who have passed their lives in the woods and know what thewoods mean. Wade realized now, after his talk with Ide, the nature ofthe task that he faced. Knowing that Christopher Straight was to be hiscompanion and guide, he was heartened, having seen the man.

  And with intense eagerness to be away, he completed his modestpreparations for the exploring trip, and set forth towards the greatunknown of the north. He had Rodburd Ide's parting hand-clasp forreassurance, his daughter's sincere godspeed for his comfort, and thechance to do battle for his love. And he walked with ChristopherStraight with head erect and a heart full of new hope.