THE GREAT JAM AT STONE PINE RAPIDS
Every one who saw it declared that it was the pluckiest thing that
Sergeant Silk had ever done. He himself did not consider it an
extraordinary thing to do. But, then, a man is seldom the best judge of
his own bravery.
The incident occurred at the logging camp at Stone Pine Rapids, where
some hundreds of men--lumber-jacks, hook-tenders, buckers, and
snipers--were engaged in the work of driving an immense procession of
forest logs down the stream.
The camp was at a sharp bend of the river, and the rafts had become
hopelessly jammed. They had been jammed for the best part of a week, and
crowds of river men had gathered from far and near to give help in the
difficult task of dislodging the obstinate barrier of floating timber
that filled and choked the narrow throat of the waterway.
There was a lot of drinking, gambling, and quarrelling going on, and
Sergeant Silk had come along in the interests of law and order.
The mere presence of a member of the North-West Mounted Police, with his
conspicuous red tunic and his bandolier of brightly-polished cartridges,
had almost a magical effect in preserving peace. His duties were light,
and he went about the thronged encampment as a friendly and welcome
visitor rather than as a stern and dreaded representative of the law.
So little had he expected to be called upon to exercise his authority
that he had brought young Percy Rapson as his companion--Percy Rapson,
the aristocratic English boy, who had been sent out to Canada to learn
farming on Rattlesnake Ranch, and who had now sought variety from his
tuition in agriculture by accompanying his friend on an easy patrol to
witness the wonders of a great logging camp at work.
On the second morning of their arrival at Stone Pine they had left their
mounts in stable and strolled down to the waterside to see if the
workers had yet located the key logs, which held the vast mass of
floating timber locked in the bend of the river.
To Percy Rapson the sight had all the interest of novelty, and he
lingered, watching, in the hope of seeing the jam break loose. The
breast of the barrier of logs rose to a height of some thirty feet above
the water's level, in a confused pile. The giant tree trunks, flung into
a hopeless tangle, were becoming with every hour more tightly crushed by
the mighty pressure of the crowded logs in the rear.
As far back as the eye could see the surface of the river was hidden
under its brown pavement of drifting timber.
On the great jam itself men were at work with their peavies
industriously picking at the huge logs, heaving and rolling them
downward into the rapids beyond, where they might be caught and swept
away by the current.
But the key logs, which held the main pile plugged in its position, had
not yet been found, and even an occasional charge of dynamite had so far
failed to stir the barrier.
Percy had been so absorbed in watching the preparation of a new charge
of dynamite that he had not noticed that Sergeant Silk had left his
side. He went in search of him, and found him seated astride one of the
logs that were stranded on the river bank in front of the camp.
The boy went up to him, and, looking over his shoulder, saw, to his
surprise, that the soldier policeman was engaged in making a crude
pencil sketch of a Canadian canoe poised perilously on the brink of a
cataract.
"My hat, Sergeant!" Percy exclaimed. "I never suspected you of havin'
any pretensions to bein' an artist!"
Silk held the slip of paper at arm's length in front of him,
contemplating his handiwork.
"I don't pretend to be anything of the sort," he denied. He closed one
eye and regarded the drawing critically. "There's something plumb wrong
about that boat," he objected. "'Tisn't natural, somehow. Looks heaps
more like a general's cocked hat than a canoe!"
He turned half round to a man who stood near him against the log, busily
trimming an oil lamp.
"Say, Sharrow," he said, "you're a river man. You know a thing or two
about river craft. Tell us what's wrong with this Indian canoe that I've
been trying to draw."
Eben Sharrow took the drawing that was handed to him and held it in his
very dirty fingers. He shook his head.
"I don't just know," he answered. "Seems ter me as it's all of it
wrong--wrong from start to finish. Thar' ain't anythin' right about it.
I've seen kids in school doin' better pictures than that on their
slates."
"Ah!" Sergeant Silk took the paper back. "I guessed you'd say something
like that. I was always a lame hand at fancy work. Every man to his
trade, eh? We can none of us do everything."
He folded the paper very slowly and precisely, as if it were of value.
His boy companion noticed that as he did so he was paying curious regard
to the greasy black finger marks which Eben Sharrow had left upon the
clean, white surface.
Sharrow presently took up his lamp and strode away in the direction of
one of the camp fires, around which a group of lumber-men stood or sat
drying their wet clothes.
Percy Rapson watched the man walking awkwardly up the slope in his
spiked boots.
"Sergeant?" he said.
"Well?"
"Why did you show your sketch to that lumber-jack? I'm sure you don't
care a brass farthing for his opinion. And why are you so precious
careful of the drawing, folding it so neatly and stowing it away in your
pocket-book, as if it were a bank-note? It isn't worth preservin'."
Sergeant Silk slipped down from his perch on the log.
"That's so," he said. "It isn't worth preserving. But you may have
noticed that I never throw bits of paper away. They make any place look
so untidy."
Percy was thoughtfully silent for a while, but at length, when Silk
turned to stroll up towards the camp, he said abruptly--
"I think I can guess what you did it for. It was a jolly 'cute trick of
yours."
"A trick?"
"Yes," pursued Percy. "You made that drawing and invited Sharrow's
criticism of it simply and solely to get him to take hold of a piece of
white paper and leave his dirty finger marks on it. I believe you want
to identify him with some chap who left finger-prints somewhere else.
I've heard of that method of identification. It's said to be a dead sure
way of telling one man from another."
"Yet I should say it is rather an uncertain method for any but experts
to follow," the sergeant observed. "I shouldn't care to trust to it
myself. Certainly I shouldn't venture to accuse any man of a serious
crime on such flimsy evidence as a finger mark."
Rapson glanced at him curiously.
"That chap Ebenezer Sharrow doesn't look as if he could be guilty of
committin' a serious crime," he ventured. "And yet I suppose you are
here on his track."
"I did not say so," Silk returned sharply, reprovingly. "You appear to
think that because I'm a policeman I must always be on some poor
fellow's trail, hunting him down. Sharrow was personally a stranger to
me until last night, when I met him for the first time in the
bunkhouse."
"Then why did you go out of your way to get hold of his finger-print?"
Percy insisted. "You never do anything without a reason."
Sergeant Silk did not answer him. Perhaps they were too near to the men
about the drying fire for him to enter into explanations without risk of
being overheard. Perhaps he had reasons for not wishing to explain.
He led the way into the circle and stood there, quietly rolling a
cigarette while he casually glanced round at the men. They were all of
the ordinary type of lumber-jack--grim-featured, keen-eyed,
weather-beaten.
All wore thick woollen trousers stuffed into the tops of their knee
boots, and their boots were furnished with formidable spikes to enable
them to get secure foothold on the floating logs upon which they worked.
In their perilous climbing about the jammed tree trunks many of them had
got wet through, and as they sat within the warmth of the fire the steam
from their drying clothes mingled with the smoke from their tobacco
pipes.
"Say, we was just talkin' 'bout you, Sergeant," said one of them as Silk
bent over and took up a flaming twig.
"Indeed?" nodded the officer, puffing thoughtfully at his cigarette.
"Yep," went on the spokesman. "Andy O'Reilly thar' was kinder relievin'
hisself of the opinion as you boys of the Mounted P'lice have got a
whole lot too much power in your hands."
Sergeant Silk looked across at the man indicated.
"Y'see," said Andy O'Reilly, "you kin do pretty nigh anythin', an' you
kin do it without waitin' for orders. Nobody durst hinder you. You kin
enter any house you like, an' search it through an' through. You kin
apprehend a man without a warrant. You've even got authority to kill.
You've got all the power of the Russian secret police."
"Exactly," Silk acknowledged, seating himself on one of the logs and
making room beside him for Percy Rapson. "I don't deny we have a very
considerable amount of power, one way and another. But I guess, after
all, it's for the ultimate good of the community. It's all in the
interests of public security. What?"
"Just my argyment," declared the first speaker, rescuing a flagon of
tea from the edge of the fire. "An' them as complains, they dunno what
they're talkin' about. They'd have cause ter grumble supposin' that
power was abused--if ever the wrong man was arrested or if the guilty
one was ever allowed ter escape."
"As to that," rejoined Silk, "we are all liable to make mistakes. I have
known a case or two of wrongful arrest, and I won't say that we have
invariably succeeded in bringing criminals to justice. Some of them have
escaped."
"Yes," resumed O'Reilly, "thar's no denyin' as some of 'em escape. With
all your power and cleverness, you've let a-many of 'em slip through
your fingers. Thar's was the business of Lost Horse Meadow was never
cleared up. Thar's was the post-office robbery at Coyote Landing, which
is still a mystery. And, say, wasn't it yourself that had that same job
in hand? I kinder recollect hearin' your name mentioned."
"That is so," Sergeant Silk signified. "It happened two winters ago,
and, as you say, it is still a mystery, and likely to remain one."
"Don't know as I ever heard tell of that story," said the man who had
spoken first, pouring some hot tea into a gallipot. His name was Bob
Wilson. He was foreman of a gang of lumber-jacks.
Percy Rapson noticed that Sergeant Silk again glanced slowly round the
circle of fire-lit faces, and that his gaze lingered with curious,
furtive scrutiny upon the face of Eben Sharrow.