Fourteen of the fifteen men, who arrived at Avery's camp that afternoon,
came into the woods because they had to. The fifteenth, David Ross, came
because he wanted to. Ever since he could read he had dreamed of going
into the woods and living with the lumbermen and trappers. His aunt and
only living relative, Elizabeth Ross, had discouraged him from leaving
the many opportunities made possible by her generosity. She had adopted
the boy when his father died, and she had provided for him liberally.
When he came of age the modest income which his father's estate provided
was transferred from her care, as a trustee, to him. Then she had
offered him his choice of professions, with the understanding that her
considerable fortune was to be his at her death. She had hoped to have
him with her indefinitely, but his determination to see more of the
woods than his summer vacations allowed finally resolved itself into
action. He told her one evening that he had "signed up" with the Great
Western Lumber Company.
Protests, supplications, arguments were of no avail. He had listened
quietly and even smilingly as his aunt pointed out what seemed to her to
be the absurdities of the plan. Even a suggested tour of the Continent
failed to move him. Finally she made a last appeal.
"If your income isn't sufficient, Davy, I'll--"
He interrupted her with a gesture. "I've always had enough money," he
replied. "It isn't that."
"You're just like your father, David," she said. "I suppose I shall have
to let you go, but remember there is some one else who will miss you."
"Miss Bascomb has assured me that we can never agree, on--on certain
things, so there is really nothing to keep me here,--except you," he
added in a gentler tone, as he saw the pained look on her kindly old
face. "And you just said you would let me go."
"Would have to let you go, Davy."
"Well, it's all the same, isn't it, Aunt Bess?"
She smiled tearfully at his boyishness. "It seems to be," she replied.
"I am sorry about Bessie--"
The following morning he had appeared at an employment office where
"Fisty" Harrigan of the Great Western had "taken him on" as a likely
hand, influenced by his level gaze and direct manner. "Fisty" and David
Ross promised to become good friends until, during their stay at the
last hotel en route to the lumber camp, Harrigan had suggested "a little
game wid th' b'ys," wherein the "b'ys" were to be relieved of their
surplus change.
"They jest t'row it away anyhow," he continued, as David's friendly chat
changed to a frigid silence. "T'ought you was a sport," said Harrigan,
with an attempt at jocularity.
"That's just why I don't play poker with that kind," replied David,
gesturing contemptuously toward the mellow fourteen strung in
loose-jointed attitudes along the hotel bar. "I like sport, but I like
it straight from the shoulder."
"You do, hey?" snarled Harrigan, drawing back a clenched fist. Ross
looked him full in the eye, calm and unafraid. Fisty's arm dropped to
his side. He tried a new tack. "I was only tryin' you out, kid, and
you're all right, all right," he said with oily familiarity.
"Sorry I can't say the same for you, Harrigan," replied David. "But I'm
going through to the camps. That's what I came in for. If I don't go
with this crew, I'll go with another."
"Forget it and come and have a drink," said Fisty, trying to hide his
anger beneath an assumption of hospitality. He determined to be even
with Ross when he had him in camp and practically at his mercy. David
declined both propositions and Harrigan moved away muttering.
So it happened that when they arrived at Lost Farm Camp, the last
stopping-place until they reached the winter operations of the Company
at Nine-Fifteen, Fisty and David were on anything but friendly terms.
David's taciturn aloofness irritated Harrigan, who was not used to
having men he hired cross his suggestions or disdain his companionship.
When they arose in the morning to Avery's "Whoo--Halloo" for breakfast,
Harrigan was in an unusually sour mood and David's cheerful
"good-morning" aggravated him.
The men felt that there was something wrong between the "boss" and the
"green guy," as they termed David, and breakfast progressed silently. A
straw precipitated the impending quarrel.
The kitten Beelzebub, prowling round the table and rubbing against the
men's legs, jumped playfully to Harrigan's shoulder. Harrigan reached
back for him, but the kitten clung to his perch, digging in manfully to
hang on. The men laughed uproariously. Fisty, enraged, grabbed the
astonished kitten and flung it against the wall. "What'n hell kind of a
dump is this--" he began; but Swickey's rush for her pet and the wail
she gave as Beelzebub, limp and silent, refused to move, interrupted
him.
Avery turned from the stove and strode toward Harrigan, undoing his long
white cook's apron as he came, but Ross was on his feet and in front of
the Irishman in a bound.
"You whelp!" he said, shaking his fist under Harrigan's nose.
The men arose, dropping knives and forks in their amazement.
Fisty sat dazed for a moment; then his face grew purple.
"You little skunk, I'll kill you fur this!"
Avery interfered. "If thar's goin' to be any killin' did,
promisc'us-like, I reckon it'll be did out thar," he said quietly,
pointing toward the doorway. "I ain't calc'latin' to have things mussed
up in here, fur I tend to my own house-cleanin', understand?"
Ross, who anticipated a "free-for-all," stood with a chair swung halfway
to his shoulder. At Avery's word, however, he dropped it.
"Sorry, Avery, but I'm not used to that kind of thing," he said,
pointing to Harrigan.
"Like 'nough, like 'nough--I hain't nuther," replied Avery
conciliatingly. "But don't you git your dander up any wuss than it be,
fur I reckon you got your work cut out keepin' yourself persentable fur
a spell." He drew Ross to one side. "Fisty ain't called 'Fisty' fur
nothin', but I'll see to the rest of 'em."
Harrigan, cursing volubly, went outside, followed by the men. Avery
paused to offer a word of advice to Ross.
"He's a drinkin' man, and you ain't, I take it. Wal, lay fur his wind,"
he whispered. "Never mind his face. Let him think he's got you all bruk
up 'n' then let him have it in the stummick, but watch out he don't use
his boots on you."
Harrigan, blazing with rage, flung his coat from him as Ross came up.
The men drew back, whispering as Ross took off his coat, folded it and
handed it to Avery. The young man's cool deliberation impressed them.
Harrigan rushed at Ross, who dropped quickly to one knee as the
Irishman's flail-like swing whistled over his head. Before Harrigan
could recover his poise, Ross shot up and drove a clean, straight blow
to Harrigan's stomach. The Irishman grunted and one of the men laughed.
He drew back and came on again, both arms going. Ross circled his
opponent, avoiding the slow, heavy blows easily.
"Damn you!" panted Harrigan, "stand up and take your dose--"
Ross lashed a quick stinging fist to the other's face, and jumped back
as Harrigan, head down, swung a blow that would have annihilated an ox,
had it landed, but David leaped back, and as Harrigan staggered from the
force of his own blow, he leaped in again. There was a flash and a thud.
The Irishman wiped the blood from his lips, and shaking his head,
charged at Ross as though he would bear him down by sheer weight.
Contrary to the expectations of the excited woodsmen, Ross, stooping a
little, ran at Harrigan and they met with a sickening crash of blows
that made the onlookers groan. Ross staggered away from his opponent,
his left arm hanging nervelessly at his side. As Harrigan recovered
breath and lunged at him again, Ross circled away rubbing his shoulder.
Harrigan's swollen lips grinned hideously. "Now, you pup--"
He swung his right arm, and as he did so Avery shouted, "Watch out fur
his boots!"
David's apparently useless left arm shot down as Harrigan drew up his
knee and drove his boot at the other's abdomen. Ross caught Harrigan's
ankle and jerked it toward him. The Irishman crashed to the ground and
lay still.
With a deliberation that held the men breathless, Ross strode to the
fallen man and stood over him. Harrigan got to his knees.
"Come on, get up!" said Ross.
Harrigan, looking at the white face and gleaming eyes above him,
realized that his prestige as a "scrapper" was gone. He thrust out his
hand and pushed Ross from him, staggering to his feet. As the trout
leaps, so David's fist shot up and smashed to Harrigan's chin. The
Irishman staggered, his arms groping aimlessly.
"Get him! Get him!" shouted Avery.
Ross took one step forward and swung a blow to Harrigan's stomach. With
the groan of a wounded bull, the Irishman wilted to a gasping bulk of
twitching arms and legs.
For a moment the men stood spellbound. Fisty Harrigan, the bulldog of
the Great Western, had been whipped by a "green guy"--a city man. They
moved toward the prostrate Fisty, looking at him curiously. Ross walked
to the chopping-log in the dooryard, and sat down.
"Thought he bruk your arm," said Avery, coming toward him.
"Never touched it," replied Ross. "Much obliged for the pointer. He
nearly had me, though, that time when we mixed it up."
One of the men brought water and threw it on Harrigan, who finally got
to his feet. Ross jumped from the log and ran to him.
"All right, Harrigan," he said. "I'm ready to finish the job."
Harrigan raised a shaking arm and motioned him away.
Ross stepped back and drew his sleeve across his sweating face.
"He's got his'n," said Avery. "Didn't reckon you could do the job, but
good men's like good hosses, you can't tell 'em until you try 'em out.
Wal, you saved me a piece of work, and I thank ye."
A bully always knows when he is whipped. Fisty was no exception to the
rule. He refused Ross's hand when he had recovered enough breath to
refuse anything. Ross laughed easily, and Harrigan turned on him with a
curse. "The Great Western's t'rough wid you, but I ain't--yet."
"Well, you want to train for it," said Ross, pleasantly.
One by one the men shouldered their packs and jogged down the trail,
bound for Nine-Fifteen, followed by Harrigan, his usually red face
mottled with white blotches and murder in his agate-blue eyes.
David stood watching them.
"So-long, boys," he called.
"So-long, kid," they answered.
Harrigan's quarrel was none of theirs and his reputation as a bruiser
had suffered immeasurably. In a moment they were lost to sight in the
shadow of the pines bordering the trail.
"Now for the kitten," said David. "I think he's only stunned." He went
into the cabin, and much to Avery's amusement, washed his hands. "A
dirty job," he said, catching the twinkle in the lumberman's eye.
"A dum' good job, I take it. Whar you from?"
"Boston."
"Wal, I seen some mighty queer folks as hailed from Boston, but I don't
recollec' any jest like you."
David laughed as he went to the corner and stooped over Swickey, who sat
tearfully rocking the limp Beelzebub in her dress.
"What's his name?" he asked gently.
"Be--el--zebub," she sobbed.
"Will you let me look at him--just a minute?"
Swickey unrolled her skirt, the kitten tumbled from her knees, turned
over, arched his back, and with tail perpendicular shot across the cabin
floor and through the doorway as though nothing had happened.
David laughed boyishly.
"He's got eight of them left, even now."
"Eight whats left?" queried Swickey, fixing two tearfully wondering eyes
on his face.
"Eight lives, you know. Every cat has nine lives."
Swickey took his word for it without question, possibly because "eight"
and "nine" suggested the intricacies of arithmetic. Although little more
than a healthy young animal herself, she had instinctively disliked and
mistrusted most of the men who came to Lost Farm Camp. But this man was
different. He seemed more like her father, in the way he looked at her,
and yet he was quite unlike him too.
"That's a big name for such a little cat," said David. "Where did he get
his name?"
Swickey pondered. "Pop says it's his name, and I guess Pop knows. The
ole cat she run wild in the woods and took Beelzebub 'long with her
'fore he growed up, and Pop ketched him, and he bit Pop's thumb, and
then Pop said thet was his name. He ketched him fur me."
Just then Avery came in with a pail of water and Swickey set about
clearing the table. David, a bit shaken despite his apparently easy
manner, strolled out into the sunshine and down the hill to the river.
"My chance with the Great Western is gone," he muttered, "and all on
account of a confounded little cat, and called 'Beelzebub' at that!
Harrigan would fix me now if I went in, that's certain. Accidents happen
in the camps and the victims come out, feet first, or don't come out at
all and no questions asked. No, I'll have to look for something else.
Hang it!" he exclaimed, rubbing his arm, "this being squire of dames and
kittens don't pay."
Unconsciously he followed the trail down to the dam, across the gorge,
and on up the opposite slope. The second-growth maple, birch, and poplar
gave place to heavy beech, spruce, and pine as he went on. Presently he
was in the thick of a regiment of great spruce trees that stood rigidly
at "attention." The shadows deepened and the small noises of the
riverside died away. A turn in the trail and a startled doe faced him,
slender-legged, tense with surprise, wide ears pointed forward and
nostrils working.
He stopped. The deer, instead of snorting and bounding away, moved
deliberately across the trail and into a screen of undergrowth opposite
him. David stood motionless. Then from the bushes came a little fawn,
timidly, lifting its front feet with quick, jerky motions, but placing
them with the instinctive caution of the wild kindred. Scarcely had the
fawn appeared when another, smaller and dappled beautifully, followed.
Their motions were mechanical, muscles set, as if ready to leap to a
wild run in a second.
What unheard, unseen signal the doe gave to her offspring, David never
knew, but, as though they had received a terse command, the two fawns
wheeled suddenly and bounded up the trail, at the top of which the doe
was standing. Three white flags bobbed over the crest and they were
gone.
"How on earth did that doe circle to the hillside without my seeing
her?" he thought. Then he laughed as he remembered the stiff-legged
antics of the fawns as they bounded away, stirring a noisy squirrel to
rebuke. On he went, over the crest and down a gentle slope, past giant
beeches and yellow birch whose python-like roots crept over the moss and
disappeared as though slowly writhing from the sunlight to subterranean
fastnesses. Dwarfed and distorted cedars sprung up along the way and he
knew he was near water. In a few minutes he stood on the shore of
No-Man's Lake, whose unruffled surface reflected the broad shadow of
Timberland Mountain on the opposite shore.
"Well!" he exclaimed, "I suppose it's time to corral a legion of
guide-book adjectives and launch 'em at yonder mass of silver and green
glories, but it's all too big. It calls for silence. A fellow doesn't
gush in a cathedral, unless he doesn't belong there." He sat looking
over the water for perhaps an hour, contented in the restful vista
around him. "I wish Aunt Elizabeth could see this," he muttered finally.
"Then she might understand why I like it. Wonder who owns that strip of
land opposite? I'd like to. Great Scott! but my arm's sore where he
poked me."
A soft tread startled him. He swung round to find Hoss Avery, shod with
silent moosehide, a Winchester across his arm, standing a few feet away.