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SCOTT BURTON AND THE TIMBER THIEVES
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[Illustration: “WE’VE GOT TO GET ’EM, I TELL YOU.”]
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SCOTT BURTON AND THE TIMBER THIEVES
BY
E. G. CHEYNEY
AUTHOR OF “SCOTT BURTON, FORESTER,”
“SCOTT BURTON ON THE RANGE,” ETC.
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK :: 1922 :: LONDON
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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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SCOTT BURTON AND THE TIMBER THIEVES
CHAPTER I
Scott Burton sat on the porch of the little cabin on the edge of the
forest and looked absently out across the wide beach at the restless
waters of the Gulf of Mexico. No one ever would have guessed from his
expression now how crazy he had been to see that gulf only the day
before. He apparently did not see the water at all. The big waves boomed
on the beach unheard and even the little oyster schooner, which glided
across the picture on its way to port, failed to catch his attention. He
had sat motionless for so long that a great big fox-squirrel, afraid but
drawn on irresistibly by his curiosity, had crept nervously up within a
few feet of him.
Suddenly Scott shook his head to rid himself of a bothersome fly and the
frightened chatter of the squirrel as it whisked behind the nearest tree
broke the spell. He gave the intruder a quick glance and turned his
attention once more to the open letter which he held in his hand. He had
read that letter dozens of times, in fact he knew every word on the
typewritten page by heart, but he read it again now in the hope of
finding some additional meaning between the lines.
“Washington, D. C.
“September 3, 1913.
“Mr. Scott Burton,
“Okalatchee, Fla.
“Dear Mr. Burton:
“Your remarkable work in cleaning up the trouble with the
sheepmen on the Cormorant Forest last summer has led us to
select you for some special work of a rather delicate character
on the Okalatchee. There have been some timber thieves at work
on that forest for some time, and so far our officers have been
unable to catch them or effectually put a stop to their work. It
will be your particular duty to see that these thefts are
stopped and the trespassers brought to justice.
“In order that you may have ample authority, you have been
appointed deputy supervisor under Mr. Graham and will be given
every possible assistance.
“You will report directly to this office.
“Very truly yours,
“Martin Spear,
“Chief of Personnel.”
No, he could not see any more in it, and yet it seemed mighty little to
tell a man who had been looking forward to that letter for a week and
had traveled two thousand miles to get it. He turned the paper over
thoughtfully as though he hoped to find some further instructions on the
back of it, and then proceeded to review once more the whole situation.
He had been fortunate enough to earn considerable distinction in
Arizona, where he had been working as a patrolman, by clearing out a
gang of grafters who had been running sheep on the Forest without a
permit. This achievement had won for him the chance of an appointment as
a ranger, but he had asked for the opportunity to obtain a little more
experience as a patrolman before taking up a more responsible position.
His request had been granted and he had spent the summer very profitably
on the district he had cleaned up so creditably in the spring.
Suddenly, without the slightest warning, he had received a telegram from
the Washington office.
“Report Okalatchee, Fla., at once. You will find instructions
there.”
He had become attached to the Southwest and had looked forward
contentedly to a permanent location there, but he was possessed of even
more than the usual young man’s love of travel, and Florida had always
been a country of his dreams, a country of fairy tales that he had
hardly even dared hope to see. The sudden realization that he was
actually going there had driven everything else from his mind, and an
hour after he had received the message he was in the saddle on his way
to town.
It was only when he was on the train speeding across the vast expanse of
Texas, with plenty of opportunity to think, that he had begun to burn
with a consuming curiosity to know what his instructions would be. The
longer he had traveled the higher his air castles had grown and the more
anxious he had become to see those instructions. By the time he had
reached New Orleans he was in such a hurry that he could hardly enjoy
his ten-hour wait there, though it was the first southern city he had
ever been in and a place which he had always longed to see.
The sight of the tall palmetto palms and the moss-covered live oaks
drove his imagination to even more fantastic efforts, and finally
arrived in Okalatchee he had almost run directly from the train to the
postoffice to get those precious instructions. And this letter was all
that he had found. He had found that the supervisor’s headquarters were
five miles away through the pine woods and the telephone gave him no
answer. He had hired an old negro to drive him over. There was no one
there, but the door was not locked and he had decided to stay there till
some one came. He was not much better off than before he had obtained
the letter.
“Well,” Scott thought, “there is nothing to do but wait till the
supervisor turns up,” and he proceeded to investigate his new
surroundings.
The little three-room cabin, built of rough lumber with battens over the
cracks, was exactly like numbers of other ranger cabins he had seen, but
its location had been selected with more than the usual attention to
beauty and comfort. It nestled just within the edge of a very dense
stand of tall, longleaf pines and the little front yard ran out to meet
the broad sand beach. Flowerbeds of hibiscus and groups of oleanders
lined the walk of crushed oyster shells, and plants with which Scott was
entirely unfamiliar were scattered around in great profusion on either
side of the cabin. It seemed to Scott as though a woman must have
planned it all, for he could not imagine a man taking so much pains with
the decoration of his home. He found himself thinking that it was no
wonder this fellow had not caught the timber thieves.
Just to the west of the cabin a little creek bordered with titi and
sweet jasmine wandered slowly out to meet the blue waters of the Gulf.
It could not always have flowed as slowly as it did now, for some time
in the past it had built quite a little delta which extended out in the
form of a miniature cape, and was covered with a grove of tall, stately
palmettos. Far out from the shore a long line of low-lying sand islands
broke the horizon. It was certainly an ideal spot.
The interior of the cabin was quite as tastily equipped as the exterior,
and the cupboard seemed to be stocked for a long siege. There was
nothing lacking even to the luxuries. Scott smiled as he thought of his
own bare little shack high up in the southern Rockies with the round
bullet hole in the windowpane.
“I don’t care if that sissy supervisor does not show up for a week,”
Scott grunted contentedly as he settled down in a comfortable steamer
chair on the porch. No one could have asked for a better place to wait.
But Scott was not much given to idle comfort, especially when his
curiosity was aroused, and it usually was aroused about something. Just
now he was almost wild to know something more of this new problem which
he had been given to solve. He watched a little flock of sandpipers run
along the smooth beach a way, following the very edge of a wave, but
long before they had turned the point of the little palmetto cape he
jumped restlessly from the chair and went into the cabin to study a map
which he had noticed hanging on the wall.
It was a detailed map, showing the irregular boundary of Okalatchee
forest and the different types of timber. It was a great sprawling tract
of a million acres extending along the gulf to the river on the west, to
the farm lands on the east, and north to the big swamp. It was covered
with unfamiliar terms he had seen in books, but which had never seemed
real to him before. He had always read them before as he would read the
names in a fairy tale, and here he was in the very midst of them: pine
ridge and cypress swamp, hardwood bottom and gum slough, low hammock and
baygall, high hammock and cane break, turpentine orchards and stills.
He marveled at the great number of ridges shown in that flat country,
and the many long, stringlike swamps which paralleled the river and the
coast. And he wondered where in all that maze of unknown country the
timber thieves whom he was supposed to catch were working. He noted
several ranger stations shown on the map and wondered whether any of
them were connected with the mystery as had been the case in the sheep
business in the West, or whether there were really any thieves at all.
He remembered reading a story in which men had been convicted on
circumstantial evidence of stealing a raft of logs, and it was not till
they had served a month in jail that the raft had been found in the
bottom of the pond where it had been tied.
If only the supervisor, or any one else who could tell him anything
about it, would come. He had not liked the “gum-shoe” game as he had
called it when he had been obliged to try his hand at it in the West,
but he found himself eager to get at it here because other men had tried
it and failed. It seemed to him like a challenge and he was eager to
accept it.
He pored over the map, studying the lay of the land and letting his
imagination run wild. He had caught those thieves in forty different
ways in at least a dozen different parts of the map when the failing
light warned him that it was time to get supper and prepare for the
night.
He had no instructions or invitation to make use of that cabin or the
supplies in it, but there is a certain freemasonry among the men of the
woods which was invitation enough for him. He had no hesitation in
spreading his blankets on one of the beds and ransacking the cupboard
for his supper. There was plenty to choose from and the wood was laid in
the stove ready for the match. In half an hour he was sitting down to
his lonely meal.
But it was not destined to be a lonely meal. Scott had hardly finished
what he probably would have called his “first course,” when he heard a
light step on the shell walk, a thud or two on the porch, and a man
loomed big in the doorway.