"LADDER" LANE'S SOIREE
"And down from off the mountains in the shooting sheets of flame
The devils of Katahdin come to play their reg'lar game.
So 'tis: men hold tight! Pray for mornin' light!
Katahdin's caves are empty and hell's broke loose to-night!"
--Ha'nt of Pamola.
As the hours of the day went on, Colin MacLeod, caged, helpless, set
high on the bald brow of old Jerusalem, where every phase of the great
fire was spread before his eyes, found abundant opportunity to curse
himself for a fool. In time, of course, Attean or some other point would
realize the extent of the conflagration and call for help. But now,
hidden under Jerusalem and confined to the slash under the green trees,
it was a racing ground-fire that crouched and ran. It came rapidly, but
in a measure secretly. It showed a subtility of selection. It did not
waste time on the green forest of beeches and maples. It was hurrying
north towards its traditional prey. That prey was waiting for it, rooted
on the slopes of Jerusalem and the Umcolcus, on the Attean and the
Enchanted--the towering black growth of hemlock, pine, and spruce--the
apple of Pulaski Britt's commercial eye--the hope of his associates.
Once there, it would spring from its crouching race on the ground. It
would climb the resinous trunks and torch and flare and rage and roar
in the tinder-tops--a dreaded "crown-fire" that only the exhaustion of
fuel or the rains of God would stop.
Attean would see that fire leaping past Jerusalem, and would swear and
wonder and report too late.
Just now hours were as precious as days.
Men could do nothing at mid-day with the wind lashing behind. MacLeod
knew well how that fire should be fought. But with men on the way ready
to flank it at nightfall and work ahead of it with pick and shovel and
beating branches of green--the winds stilled and the dews condensing--it
could be conquered--it must be conquered then, if at all.
Woods fires sleep at night. The men who fight them may as well sleep at
mid-day.
With the dropping of the sun and the sinking of the winds the fires
drowse and flicker and smoulder. Then must one attack the monster; for
at daybreak he is up, ravening and roaring and hungry.
And now--not even Britt's own crew of loggers at the foot of Jerusalem
had word and warning. MacLeod bellowed appeals to be let out. He
besought Lane to hurry down the mountain to camp. He howled frightful
oaths and threats and abject promises.
At dusk the old man came out of his cabin, and brought bread and water
and bacon to his captive without a word. He fed him with as much
unconcern as he brought browse to the tethered bull moose and
distributed provender suited to the various tastes of his menagerie.
The darkness settled in the valleys first, and one by one fire-dottings
pricked out--blazing junipers and the stunted new growth of evergreen.
From Jerusalem the great expanse seemed like a mighty city, its windows
alight, its streets and avenues illuminated gloriously.
MacLeod, silenced except for an occasional hoarse quack of appeal, paced
his little cage, despairing.
"Ladder" Lane sat on the flat roof silent as a spectre. So the hours
dragged past.
"I thought so!" grunted the old man at last. "That's what I've been
sitting up for."
From his eyry he saw a light flickering in the stunted growth far down
Jerusalem, zigzagging nearer. At last it emerged and came across the
ledges--a flare of hissing birch bark stuck into a cleft stick. There
were several men hastening along in the circle of its radiance. Lane
could hear from afar their gruntings of exhaustion.
"If I ain't mistook, it's your friend Britt," remarked the old man,
maliciously, as he passed MacLeod's cage on his way to meet the
visitors.
And it was Britt--Britt with his hat in his hand, perspiration streaming
into his beard, his stertorous breath rumbling in his throat. Lane knew
the man who bore the torch as Bennett Rodliff, high sheriff of the
county.
"It's been--God!--awful work--but we've--come round the east--edge of
it, Lane," panted Britt. Commanding general in the grim conflict, he had
been willing to burst his heart in order to establish headquarters in
the one spot from which he could mobilize his forces and direct their
tactics. "How many men have you ordered in, Lane?"
"Not a man!"
"Not a--not a--you stand there and tell me you haven't reported and
called for every man that Attean and Squaw can reach!" He began to curse
shrilly.
"You'd better save your wire edge, Mr. Britt," counselled Lane. "You're
going to need it. Come here till I show you something."
One of the sheriff's men lighted a fresh sheet of bark at the dying
flare of the other, and Lane led the way to the cage, where MacLeod
peered desperately between the saplings.
"Just a moment, Mr. Britt!" broke in the warden, again checking the
lumber baron's fury. "This man came up here to-day with what he said
were your orders not to report that fire, and--"
"That fire!" roared Britt, fairly beside himself. "Why, you devilish,
infernal--"
"A moment, I say! When I set up my heliograph he kicked it off the roof.
There it lies just as it fell. You and he can settle your part of it! As
for my part of it, I have arrested him by my authority as a fire warden.
The sheriff, here, can take him whenever he gives me a receipt and makes
note of my complaint."
"I did what you told me to, Mr. Britt," protested MacLeod, his voice
breaking. "He was reportin' the first puff of smoke, and said that you
and your orders could go to thunder. He didn't pay any attention--and I
just did what you told me to. I--"
"Shut up!" The Honorable Pulaski, crimson with anger, fearful of his own
part in this conspiracy, and shamed by the exposure of his methods,
bellowed his order. "We'll settle this later. Knock away those saplings,
some one. MacLeod, get down this mountain, even if you break your neck
doing it, and get your crew to the front of that fire! I--I--haven't got
breath to talk to you the way you need to be talked to. As you stand,
you're only half a man on account of a girl." He darted a quivering
finger at the disabled arm.
"And it's your other little d--n fool of a girl at Misery that torched
that fire when she heard that you'd jilted her. Now, is it women or
woods after this?"
"Woods, Mr. Britt!" stammered the boss, eager to conciliate this raging
bull.
"Then get to the front of that fire and stop it, even if you have to lie
down and roll over on it. It's a fire your pauper sweetheart started,
and you've arranged, by your infernal bull-headedness, to let it burn.
Stop it or keep going! It won't be healthy in my neighborhood."
"I'll stop it or die tryin', Mr. Britt."
Lane leaned his back against the cage and faced the group, his gaunt
arms reaching from side to side.
"You can't free a prisoner that way, Mr. Britt," he said, firmly. "You
take this man away from me--or if the high sheriff, here, lets him
go--I'll report the thing under oath to the governor and the people of
this State; and I reckon you can't afford to have that done. I propose
to have it known why Linus Lane didn't do his duty in reporting that
fire."
"Take that old fool away from there and let that man out," commanded
Britt, his passion blind to consequences. He could see no way out of his
muddle. He seemed to be in for wicked notoriety, anyway. Just now his
one thought was to get "Roaring Cole MacLeod," master of men, at the
head of that fire, to hold it in leash until more assistance came. He
knew his man. He understood that MacLeod, bitter in the consciousness of
his blunder, was now worth six men. "Rodliff, I'll take the
consequences!" he shouted. "Let my boss out."
But the high sheriff seemed to be doubtful as to the consequences that
he also would have to accept. Just then he had clearer notions of
official responsibility than did the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt.
"This man is under arrest all regular," protested Rodliff, "and I've
just the same as heard him own up that he interfered with Warden Lane in
his duty. The governor himself wouldn't have the right to order me to
let a prisoner go before a hearing on the case. That's law, Mr. Britt,
and--"
"Talk that south of Castonia," broke in the Honorable Pulaski. "Just now
law won't put that fire out and save a fifty-thousand-acre stand of
black growth. Lane, you've got to be reasonable. There've been
mistakes, but they'll be made good. You can't afford to be bull-headed
in this thing."
But the old man did not move from the cage. The flaring of the torch
lighted his solemn and unrelenting face. The worried face of MacLeod
peered out over one of the extended arms.
"What--what was it happened to 'em on Misery, Mr. Britt?" he asked,
humbly.
"I told you!" snapped Britt, glad of a momentary excuse to cover
embarrassment of this general defiance of his dignity. "Your black-eyed
beauty there, that you've been fooling with when my back's been
turned, is jealous of Rod Ide's girl, and took to the bush with a
blueberry-torch dragging at her heels to show her feelings. I'd have
shot her like I would a rabbit if it hadn't been for your particular
friend Wade." The wrathful sneer of the Honorable Pulaski was a snarl
that would have done credit to "Ladder" Lane's bobcat. "When you come to
settle accounts with that critter, MacLeod, break his leg, and charge it
on my side of the ledger."
"So he was there, hey?" asked the boss, eagerly.
"He was there long enough to hit me like a prize-fighter when I was
protecting my property."
"Why didn't you kill him?" demanded the boss, with venom.
"By the time I got a gun he was out of sight at the tail of the fire,
chasing the girl--he and old Chris Straight. I believe they were
proposing to rescue the girl," concluded Britt, with a mirthless
chuckle. "The only consolation I'm getting out of that fire down there
is that maybe it's burning that Wade and the girl, whatever they call
her, and will chase the Skeets and Bushees south and catch them, too. If
it does I'll be willing to let a thousand more acres burn."
But it appeared that the choicest section of the Honorable Pulaski's
charitable hopes was doomed to disappointment.
A torch, tossing from the edge of the stunted growth, marked the
approach of some one.
"The top of Jerusalem seems liable to be a popular roosting-place for
all them that ain't wearing asbestos pants," remarked the high sheriff,
dryly. "A rush of excursionists during the heated spell, as the
summer-boarder ads say! Lane, can you give the crowd anything to eat at
your tavern except broiled moose and fricasseed bobcat?"
The pleasantry evoked no smile. For the little group at the cabin,
Pulaski Britt first of all, with his keener eyes of hate, recognized
those who were approaching.
Old Christopher Straight came ahead with the torch. The girl of Misery
Gore, moving more slowly now that she saw the group at the top of
Jerusalem, her face sullen, her head cocked defiantly, was at his back,
and Dwight Wade was at her side. Far behind, at the edge of the torch's
radiance, slouched a huge figure of a man. It was foolish Abe, the
hirsute giant of the Skeets.
"And now, speaking of arresting in the name of the law," snarled the
lumber baron, "and your duty that you seem so fond of, Rodliff, get out
your handcuffs for something that's worth while. It's three years in
state-prison for maliciously setting fires on timber lands. It's a long
vacation in the county jail for assaulting a man without provocation.
There's the girl who set that fire; there's the man that struck me. So
you see, Lane, your prisoner is going to have company."
Lane came suddenly away from the cage. The torch showed his face working
with strange emotion.
"Mr. Britt," he said, appealingly, to the astonishment of the senator,
who understood this sour woods cynic's nature, "there are crimes that
ain't crimes in this world--not even when they're judged by God's own
scale. There's your fire yonder! Some one is responsible for it--but not
that poor girl!"
"I saw her set it myself, you devilish idiot!"
"Not that poor girl, I say. Those that threw her--her, with the pride of
good blood that she felt but didn't understand--her, with her hopes and
brains that her blood gave her--"
"Blood!" roared the Honorable Pulaski. "What do you know about her
pedigree?"
"Those that threw her into that pen of swine are responsible," went on
the warden. "Men like you, that have persecuted her and wonder why she
doesn't squeal like the rest of those idiots; men like the whelp in that
cage, trying to wrong her and throw her back into hell--all of you are
responsible for that fire. You bent the limb. It has snapped back and
struck you in your faces. It's the way of the woods."
"Well, of all the infernal nonsense I ever listened to, this sermon on
Mount Jerusalem clears the skidway," blurted Britt. "You stand up at the
trial and repeat that, Lane, and you'll get your picture into the
newspapers."
"And I guess a lot of the rest of us will before this scrape gets
straightened out," muttered the high sheriff, bodingly.
"Mr. Britt, you're going to be sorry for it if you drag that poor abused
girl to prison," said Lane, with such fire of conviction that the timber
baron, cautious in his methods, and always fearing the notoriety that
would embroil the great secrets of the timber interests with public
opinion, blinked at the oracular old warden and then at the still
defiant face of the girl. Like most untrained natures in whom passion
has unleashed natural high spirit, she seemed incapable of calm
reconsideration. She had made such protest against the enormity of her
persecution as opportunity had put into her heart as right and into her
hands as feasible.
"We were fools to bring her here and toss her into the old hyena's
claws," muttered Wade in Christopher's ear. "We might have known that he
and his crowd would make for Jerusalem."
"I did know it," returned the old guide, quietly. "And I knew just as
well what would happen to us in the runway of that fire to-morrow."
"Lane," broke in the Honorable Pulaski, with decision, "two trials won't
stir this thing any worse than one. You've arranged for one. Go ahead
with MacLeod. I'll have the girl."
Those who looked on Lane's face only knew that mighty passions were
shaking him. His voice broke and quavered.
"Mr. Britt, things have been mixed for me in this world till I don't
hardly know what is right. I've tried to do my duty as it's been laid
out for me. But in climbing up to it there's some things I haven't got
the heart to step on. Perhaps in this thing we're mixed in now we've all
been more or less wrong. I don't know. I haven't got the head to-night
to figure it out. Perhaps it's best that what has happened on Jerusalem
to-day don't get out. I don't know as that's right. But I'll say this:
give me the girl; you can take MacLeod."
The Honorable Pulaski hesitated, "hemmed" hoarsely in his throat,
clutched at his beard, looked significantly at the high sheriff, and
then called him apart by a nod of his head.
When he returned to the group he said, crisply: "It's a trade! Under the
circumstances, I don't suppose even such a little tin god as you will
have anything to say about it outside," he sneered, running his red eye
over Dwight Wade. The young man did not reply, but his face gave
assent.
Lane pried away the saplings, and MacLeod stepped out.
"Give him a camp lantern," commanded Britt. "Get your men into that fire
at daylight."
"Tell me that they've all been lying about you, Colin," cried the girl,
her cheeks crimson, her heart going out to him at sight of his face,
"and I'll go with you! I'll work with you! I'm sorry for it if it's made
you mad with me." All her sullen anger was gone. She leaned towards him
as though she yearned to abase herself.
With Britt's flaming eyes on him, MacLeod only moved his lips without
words.
"Ladder" Lane came out of the cabin with two lanterns. A set of
lineman's climbers jangled dully at his belt.
"No, you'll not go, girl!" he cried, brusquely.
With hands on her hips, she threw back her head, her nostrils dilating.
"I've paid a big price for you this night," he went on, more gently,
"and it isn't to a cur of that kind that I'll be giving you. MacLeod,
here's your lantern! Away, now!"
"And I'll go, I say, if you'll tell me they've lied. Colin, darling,
tell me!" But he started away, spurred by a ripping oath from the
Honorable Pulaski. She tore herself from the restraining grasp of Wade
and ran after her lover.
At her movement, Abe, cowering in the gloom away from the torch-lighted
area of ledge, started behind her with canine loyalty. He had followed
her into the fire zone when his mother had screamed command into his
ear. His mother and this girl, her protegee, were the only ones who ever
looked at him without disgust.
"Abe!" shouted "Ladder" Lane. He spoke in a peculiar tone--a tone in
which the fool evidently recognized something of an old-time authority;
for he uttered a little bleat, in curious contrast with his giant bulk,
and halted. "Fire, Abe!" cried Lane, brandishing his arm in the
direction of the distant flamings. "Mother want her saved from fire.
Fetch, Abe!"
It was a tone of authority that the witling recognized, and it commanded
his weak will and giant strength. He sped after the girl, seized her in
spite of her furious protest, and bore her back to the cabin, her
struggles exciting only his amiable grins.
Lane rushed him and his burden into his hut.
"Now, Abe, mother say watch her. No go into the fire! Watch till I
come!" He came out with placid confidence that his order would be
obeyed, and the mien of the giant gave excellent confirmation.
"Men," he said, grimly, looking round on their faces, "I'd rather trust
that girl to the fool than to all of the rest of humankind; but I've had
reasons in my life to distrust men, and the higher the men the more I
distrust them. Don't any of you interfere in that duet in there. There's
only one thing that I ask you to do here till I come back--whoever stays
here--feed the animals. You can't corrupt them." He was "Ladder" Lane
once more, sour in his satire.
"Where are you going, Lane?" demanded Britt.
The old man shook a telephone cut-in sender at him.
"I'm going through the woods ahead of that fire to tap the Attean line
and send my report and call for men," he said, calmly. "I'm still the
fire warden of Jerusalem region."
He set away, striding over the ledges, his lantern winking between his
thin legs.
"Looks like a cross between a lightning-bug and a grampy-long-shanks,"
observed the sheriff, his cheerfulness increased by the happy disposal
of his troublesome prisoners. "Travelling on underpinning like that,
he'll have his word in before daybreak."
But Pulaski Britt had not yet satisfied the curiosity that stirred as
soon as greater matters had been settled. He ran after the warden,
shouting an order to wait.
The little group heard the colloquy, for Lane did not stop, and the
Honorable Pulaski had to bellow his question.
"Say, Lane, in case anything should happen to you! Ain't you going to
let me do the square thing? If this girl is yours, say the word. I'll
look after her. Is she yours?"
"No!" yelled the old man, with a fury in his tones like the rasp of a
file on their flesh as they listened. And the next words seemed to be a
cry wrung from him without his will: "If she were, I'd have killed you
and Colin MacLeod before this!"
He went flitting down the slope of Jerusalem like a will-o'-the-wisp,
and they stood in silence and watched him out of sight.
That night the tenantry of Jerusalem Knob divided itself silently and
sullenly into groups which ignored each other.
Britt and his people took blankets from the fire station, and
established makeshift camps down in the fringe of the trees.
Wade and Christopher Straight went apart, and composed themselves as
best they could on some gray moss that tufted the ledge. Their duty was
plain. That fire threatened Enchanted, once it should sweep through the
chimney draught of Pogey Notch. They must stay there and fight it at the
pass through which it was marching to invade their territory. Rodburd
Ide promised to have the Enchanted crew following them within a week. It
might be that their men were already on the way. Their route lay
through Pogey, and Wade would be there ready to captain them.
The camp was left to the girl and her unkempt guardian. She sat silent
and full of bitter rage; but she understood the vagaries of the fool's
character well enough to realize that after Lane's orders to Abe even
her persuasions could have no effect; the valley fires that lighted the
windows of the camp gave effective point to Lane's commands. The giant
crouched by the open door and gazed upon the sullen glowings in the vast
pit below, muttering his fears to himself.