THE AFFAIR AT DURFY'S CAMP
"The boss was a-thinkin' to swat him, but allowed he had
better not,
For 'twas trouble bad that Dumphy had, whatever it was
he'd got."
When the timber barons came in sight of the camp at noon, Tommy Eye,
returned emissary, was seated on the edge of the wangan platform with
attitude and countenance of alarmed expectancy. By his side was old
Christopher Straight, the guide who had accompanied Dwight Wade from
Castonia settlement.
"I done it--I said as you said for me to say," Tommy began, eagerly,
"and Mr. Straight here will tell you the same. I said it first to old
Noah up there, and he was startin' off with his animiles like as they
done with the ark stranded, and he swore me up hill and down, and--"
"Shut up!" barked the Honorable Pulaski, in a perfectly fiendish temper
after the sights of that forenoon. "Did you bring that girl? And if you
didn't, why not?"
"I can tell you better, perhaps, Mr. Britt," broke in old Christopher,
calmly. "She has been left on Mr. Wade's hands, and Mr. Wade feels that
he ought to be careful. Warden Lane, who had charge of her, seems to
have lost his wits. All last night--it was an awful night, gentlemen,
on Jerusalem--he was out on the ledges raving and howling. I think that
a matter that Mr. Barrett will understand was troubling up his
conscience, if that's the word for it. This mornin' he seemed to be
clean out of his head. He knocked the saplin's off his cages and let out
the animals, and they followed him off down into the woods--"
"Moose, bobcat, fisher-cat--" But Tommy ceased his enumeration to dodge
a vicious sweep of Britt's palm.
"I guess he left the place for good, seeing he took his rifle and his
pack," continued the guide. "I thought the timber owners might like to
know that their fire station is abandoned. As for the girl," he hastened
to add, "Mr. Wade told me to say that for reasons that Mr. Britt would
understand he didn't think she ought to come here."
"Because she's lost her head over my boss, MacLeod, eh?" demanded Britt.
"You saw yourself that the girl wasn't to be controlled easily when the
young man was present," said Christopher, mildly. "So he believes if
there is business to be talked to her and about her it will be better to
meet somewhere else."
"The blasted coward is afraid to come with her or let her come," sneered
the Honorable Pulaski. "Well, we'll go up there; and we'll take a few
men along and find out who's runnin' this thing--a college dude or the
men who own these timber lands." Mr. Barrett would have advised more
pacificatory talk. But Mr. Britt was in a mood too generally unamiable
that day to heed prudence and wise counsel.
"You'll have only your own trouble for your trip," remarked Straight.
"This man here said that Mr. Barrett was all ready to leave the woods.
Mr. Wade has left the top of the mountain with the girl, and will meet
Mr. Barrett to the south of Pogey Notch. You'll not have to go out of
your way, sir," he explained.
"Well, where?" snapped Britt.
"I'm here prepared to lead Mr. Barrett to the place, and I suggest that
if he's ready we'll be on our way. You'll probably want to fetch the
Half-way House at nightfall, sir."
This patent distrust of Pulaski Britt and his designs angered that
gentleman quite beyond the power of even his profanity. But he knew
Christopher Straight too well to attempt to bulldoze that hard-eyed old
woodsman.
"Is this select assembly too good to have me come along?" he inquired,
his thick lips curling under his beard.
"I think Mr. Wade will be glad to have you there," said Christopher,
mildly. "He didn't say anything to the contrary. He expects Mr. Barrett
to have some one to keep him company as far as the stage road, though he
thought it probably would be a woodsman. But Mr. Wade gave particular
instructions about any crowd comin' along, and he'll not meet any one if
your boss MacLeod is in the party. That's straight talk. He's had all
the trouble with your boss that he cares for."
After a withering survey of Straight, which the old guide endured with
much composure, Britt beckoned Barrett away with a jerk of his head, and
the two strolled behind the horse-hovel.
"There you have it, John," he snarled, more ireful as a champion than
the unhappy principal. "It's a put-up job. He's goin' to plaster the
girl onto you. It's his play. He's goin' to use it for all it's worth."
"It will be better for me to take her out than to have him chase along
after me with the girl and the story--if that's the way he feels; and
it's plain that he means to make trouble," said Barrett, moodily. "I can
put her away somewhere in a boarding-school, and--"
The Honorable Pulaski broke upon this doleful capitulation with
contemptuous brusqueness.
"You talk like a fool, John! Take that girl outside these woods and give
her an education? File her teeth so that she can set 'em into your
throat? You teach her to read and to write and to know things, and
that's what it will amount to in the end. The girl has got to stay
here!" He embraced the big woods in a vigorous gesture. "She belongs
here! And the only way to keep her here is to put her in the hands of a
man that--"
Colin MacLeod had followed them to their retreat behind the hovel, and
was standing at a little distance, looking at them.
"Come here, Colin!" And Britt advanced to meet him and clutched his arm,
the arm that Dwight Wade had dislocated in that memorable battle in
Castonia. "Boy, if you are a coward, now is your time to own it. Old
Straight has come down here to tell us that Wade has that girl in his
hands. He knows what she's worth. He wants to meet Barrett and myself.
You can guess why. He proposes to get hold of that money. He knows we
control it. We can't help ourselves if she chooses to stay with him."
The able old liar of the Umcolcus knew his man as the harper knows his
instrument. He felt the muscles ridge under his clutch.
"He has sent word that he won't have you at the meeting. Ask Straight!
He'll give you the message. The dude knows he wouldn't stand the show of
a snowball in tophet with you there where the girl could see you. If
you're a coward, say so, and we'll look further."
"By ----, I'm no coward, and you know it!" growled the boss.
"He's licked you once and cut you out with one girl," persisted Britt.
"The whole Umcolcus knows that! When they find out that he's got away
with a girl that has been in love with you, and with ten thousand
dollars in the bargain, why, boy, even Tommy Eye will dare to put up his
fists to you!"
In MacLeod's tumultuous mind it was no longer love's choice between Nina
Ide and Kate Arden; it was the hard, bitter passion of the primitive
man--the instinct to grasp what a foe is coveting for the sake of
humiliating that foe. Again MacLeod felt himself thrust forth by
circumstances to be the champion of his kind. That man from the city was
of the other sort.
"Mr. Britt," he choked, "let me at him once more!"
"Oh, that will be all right!" said the baron; "but we're not pulling off
a prize-fight, MacLeod. Scraps are interestin' enough when there isn't
more important business on hand. There happens to be business just now.
The whole idea is, are you ready to marry the girl?"
MacLeod had approached them grimly resolved to be defiant on that point.
The flicker in his eyes now was the shadow of that resolution departing.
"If it's him against me again," he snarled, "I'll marry a quill-pig and
ask no questions."
"Not exactly cheerful talk to hear from a prospective bridegroom
marryin' money and good looks," commented the Honorable Pulaski, dryly;
"but a promise is a promise, MacLeod, and I never knew you to break one
you made me. Shake!"
By the way in which both Barrett and MacLeod turned inquiring gaze on
him, the Umcolcus baron understood that he was tacitly elected autocrat
of the situation, and he proceeded about his task with the briskness
characteristic of his habit of command.
"John, you get your dinner, bid us an affectionate farewell, and go
along with old Straight. Go alone. Tell him you left all your duffel at
Withee's camp and don't need any guide. I'll look after the rest of it.
Chris Straight can hide his dude and the girl, but he can't pull up the
ground behind him."
They started off promptly after the noon snack, the taciturn Christopher
offering no comment on Mr. Barrett's amiable compliance, and apparently
blandly unsuspicious that the Honorable Pulaski concealed guile under a
demeanor which had suddenly become pacific.
Men who had made their warfare more by craft and less by brute strength
would have been more wily. John Barrett and Pulaski Britt had always
been too confident of their own power to think subterfuge necessary.
Barrett, especially, as he strode along at the heels of old Christopher,
was so well content with his own first essay in duplicity that his
taking-down was correspondingly humiliating. They were resting, he and
the old guide, after a tough scramble around a blowdown that they had
encountered a mile or so from Britt's camps.
With a jerk of his chin Christopher indicated a far-off sound on the
back trail.
"Pretty busy, that woodpecker is, Mr. Barrett!"
"Stumpage John" assented, wondering at the same time how such an old
woodsman could misinterpret that chip-chop. "The fool Indian ought to
make allowance for a blowdown," he reflected, angrily. "He's following
too close."
"In this world you expect cheap men to lie and cheat," remarked
Christopher, serenely. "But you don't hardly expect State senators and
candidates for governor to be that sort."
"What the devil do you mean?" demanded Barrett, with heat.
"I mean that Britt's Indian, Newell Sockbeson, is following us and
makin' a double-blaze for--well, I suppose it's so that Pulaski Britt
and his men can chase us up. As to why, you probably know better than I
do, Mr. Barrett."
The timber baron stared at this disconcerting old plain-speaker without
finding fit words for reply.
"It can hardly be that he's goin' to all that trouble simply to get the
girl. Mr. Wade is ready to turn the girl over to you, Mr. Barrett. Why
is it that men ain't willin' to play fair in this world? What does
Pulaski Britt want to meddle in this thing for?"
"I think you're wrong about the Indian following us," paltered the
millionaire. "You're only guessin' about that, Straight."
"When I see Pulaski Britt talk to an Indian, when I see that Indian pack
a lunch, take a camp-axe, and hide at the mouth of the trail, I don't
have to guess, Mr. Barrett. Some of us old fellows of the woods see a
whole lot of things without seemin' to take much notice." He got up off
the tree-trunk where he had been sitting and made ready to take the
trail again, swinging his pack to his shoulders.
"There wouldn't have been any misunderstanding if Wade had sent the girl
back by the messenger," protested Barrett. "And if he didn't have
something up his sleeve he would have done so. The girl is nothing to
him, and he's meddling in affairs that are none of his business."
"You'd better save that talk and tell it to him," said the old guide,
grimly. "I'm going to take you to where we arranged to meet if every man
that Britt can rake and scrape on his ten townships comes followin' at
my back. I've thought it over, and the more witnesses there are to some
things the better it is for all concerned--or the worse!"
And reflecting on what these words might mean, and now a little dubious
as to the sagacity of Pulaski Britt in handling delicate negotiations,
"Stumpage John" plodded on with less content in his heart.
Two miles farther down the trail, at a place that Barrett recognized as
the old Durfy camps, Straight signalled by discharging his rifle, and
Dwight Wade came into sight with the girl. Foolish Abe of the Skeets
followed far behind like a sheepish dog, uncertain whether to expect
kick or caress.
"You may as well know first as last that the whole pack is followin' a
little way behind," snorted old Christopher, in disgust. "Britt sent an
Indian to snuff the trail and blaze the way. I did your errand, that's
all. You've got time to get away. You may want to keep on tryin' to do
business with a crowd that ain't square. I don't!" He turned and walked
away, sat down, and filled his pipe.
"I had Straight explain to you why it was better to meet privately
here," declared Wade, with honest resentment glowing in his eyes. "But
I'm not going to run. I've had hard work to get this young woman to
consider your proposition to educate her, Mr. Barrett." He held her by
the hand, and spoke out with a candor that convinced the lumberman that
here there was neither reservation nor complicity. The girl eyed him
sulkily, without interest, as she looked at all outsiders. "I have told
this young woman that you, as a timber-land owner, are sorry for all the
troubles that the Skeets and Bushees have had in years past, and want to
make up in some way. I've told her you're ready to send her to some good
boarding-school. As she can't read or write, she doesn't know what this
means, and she can't express her thanks. But I'm sure that later she'll
understand your kindness and generosity. The girl is untrained, and she
knows it. I hope you'll overlook any lack of gratitude, Mr. Barrett.
She'll know how to express it some day."
John Barrett, looking into a face which recalled the face of the
daughter whom he loved and cherished in his city home, felt one throb of
strange emotion, and then realized in all his selfish nature that
affection is more a matter of habit and cultivation than an affair of
instinct. After one thrill his soul shrank from her. He had not expected
the girl to be so like. He caught himself wishing that he had not made
the compact with the inexorable Britt, and listened for the noise of the
men-pack with shame and some regret. On the other hand, this girl,
unkempt for all her beauty, insolent with the insolence of ignorance,
staring at him from under her knitted brows, was impossible, he
reflected, as an asset of a man with a reputation to preserve and an
ambition to fulfil. Instead of feeling the instinct of tenderness, he
looked at this wild young thing of the woods with uneasy fear in his
shifting eyes.
With honest resentment, Wade noted the baron's reluctance to make his
word good.
"You think I'm a meddler, Mr. Barrett," he said, coming close to the
other, "but don't think that I'm satisfying any personal grudge when I
ask that you care for this poor girl! Perhaps you would have done so
anyway, without my suggestion. I hope so."
"I think I could arrange my own business without any outside help," said
Barrett, dryly. He began to feel that he could get out of the situation
better if he aroused his own resentment.
"Mr. Barrett, it was chance that put the girl in my way and taught me
her story. I've been Don Quixote enough to see her through this thing.
I'm sorry it happens to be you on the other side. I'm afraid you don't
give me credit for unselfishness."
"I'll allow you all the credit you deserve," said "Stumpage John,"
sullenly. "I understand, without your telling me, that you are gentleman
enough to keep this matter behind your teeth on account of my family. I
thank you, Wade. I'll take charge of the girl from now on."
He looked back up the trail anxiously, and the young man's gaze
followed. A man loafed into sight from among stubs blackened by fire.
"There's Newell Sockbeson," remarked old Christopher. "I heard him
making his last blaze a few minutes ago."
"I don't know just what your plan is, Mr. Barrett," said Wade, the red
in his cheeks. "I've been hoping that you trusted me to act the
gentleman, even if I couldn't act the friend. Mr. Straight and I stand
here as witnesses that you have taken charge of this girl." He now spoke
low. "But you haven't told me that you indorse the little plan I adopted
to relieve you from any explanations and to make the thing seem natural
to her."
Wade's face showed that he expected a frank promise.
"Mr. Straight will go to the stage road with you," added the young man.
At this hint of watchfulness the face of Barrett darkened. "As a
school-teacher, I know something of the boarding-schools of the State,
and I'll--" The timber baron's temper flamed at this plain intent to
advise.
"I've taken charge of the girl, I say! Your responsibility ends. You
were apologizing a moment ago for meddling. Now, don't go to--"
"I didn't apologize," replied Wade, with decision. "And I don't intend
to. And my responsibility ends only when I know that this unfortunate
creature is placed in a good school to get the advantages that she has
been robbed of all these years."
The hot retort from Barrett ended in his throat with a cluck. "The
devil!" he blurted, staring down the trail.
Dwight Wade, whirling to look to the south, could not indorse that
sentiment. Close at hand was Nina Ide, riding a horse with the grace of
a boy, whose attire she had adopted with a woods girl's scorn of
conventions. Wade hurried to meet her, cap in hand and eager questions
on his lips. The color mounted to her face, and she shook out the folds
of a poncho, looped across the saddle, and draped it over her knees.
"No, it's not strange, either," she broke in to say. "Your partner--and
that's father--had to come up here on business, and I've come along with
him, just as I always do when he comes here in the partridge season."
She patted a gun-butt. "But I didn't expect to find fire and smoke and
lightning and rain and tornadoes up here, any more than I looked for you
at Pogey Notch when you were supposed to be exploring for a winter's
operation on Enchanted. Now you will have to explain to your partner
here!" And he turned from her smiling face to shake hands with Rodburd
Ide.
"Every man who can handle brush and mattock is expected to be at the
head of a fire in time of trouble!" chirped the "Mayor of Castonia." He
tipped back his head to beam amiably on his partner. "Did it get through
onto us, Wade?"
"The rain stopped it half-way up Pogey."
"Then God was good to us! Isn't that so, Mr. Barrett?" And the cheerful
little man trotted along to grip the hand of "Stumpage John." That
gentleman glowered sullenly, and tried to explain his gloom by muttering
about "blowdowns" being worse than fires. He looked ill. As he came down
the trail a fever had been rising in his blood. He went away by himself,
and sat down feeling faint and weak.
"Old Enchanted is all right," said Ide. "There's a thousand acres of
black growth there, every tree standin' with its arm about its brother.
You mustn't let 'em devil you, Mr. Barrett!" he called.
Mr. Barrett, his lowering gaze on Wade, agreed mentally.
"Well, this is certainly a convention of the timber interests!" cried
the brisk little autocrat of Castonia. He pointed up the trail, where
the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt was advancing alone.
Wade withdrew unobstrusively, and stood beside Nina Ide. Perhaps he
hoped that her talk might bring some word of Elva Barrett.
But at last even Rodburd Ide's cheery consciousness became impressed by
the fact that neither Britt nor Barrett seemed to relish any chat on
timber topics. And he broke upon a constrained silence to suggest to
Wade that they proceed--taking it for granted that now his partner's way
lay to the north, along with his own.
"There's--there's--" Wade stammered, and now for the first time Ide and
his daughter marked the girl of the Skeet settlement leaning moodily
against the side of the Durfy hovel, the unkempt Abe hovering
apprehensively in the background.
"Ah ha!" piped Ide. "There are the remnants, eh? We met the rest of the
colony hiperin' out of the woods. They've gone to Little Lobster, girl,
and the old woman is worryin' about you."
Wade stared straight at Barrett. The timber baron understood the
challenge of his eyes. He was commanded to declare his intentions. In
spite of himself, he scowled. It was a scowl of recalcitrancy. And the
young man, angered by the presence of Britt and the evident appearance
of treachery, shot his bolt.
"There is a piece of good-fortune for this poor girl, Mr. Ide. Mr.
Barrett proposes to educate her, and he's going to take her with him out
of the woods."
"She has been gettin' a lot of attention lately," blurted the Honorable
Pulaski, with malice and derision. "For the past three or four days,
Rodburd, your young partner here has been her steady company. They have
just come strollin' alone together down the Lovers' Lane from Jerusalem
Knob." He fixed his keen eyes on the astonished face of Nina Ide. His
narrow nature believed that, like other girls, she could be stirred to
quick jealousy. And knowing her influence over her father, he foresaw
trouble ahead for the partnership between Ide and Wade. "Seems to be in
the air up this way now for the young men to gallivant through the woods
with the Skeet girl. Wade here seems to have cut out Colin MacLeod."
Then the coarse old jester sneered into the indignant face Wade turned
to him.
"It will be a good thing for her to go to school," said Ide, a little
puzzled by the evident antagonism of these men. "It will be kind of you,
Mr. Barrett."
"Say, look here, Ide," cried Britt, in his irritation suddenly deciding
to play the strong hand with this young interloper, "your friend Wade
here, being a school-teacher, seems to have school on the brain. He also
seems to be full of ready-made plans for men older and better than he
is. From things that come to me, he has picked up a lot of foolishness
about these Skeets and Bushees and this girl since he's been cruisin'
round these woods. Mr. Barrett and myself have made arrangements to take
care of the rest of that pauper settlement, and the Skeets probably told
you so when you met them."
Ide nodded acknowledgment.
"We'll look after the girl, too." He walked up to Wade and snapped his
fingers, unable to resist his desire to bully. "Now, young fellow,
you've been stickin' your nose pretty deep into other men's business.
Take it out, or I'll twist it off your face. Any one would think that
this girl matter was runnin' the world in these parts. There's been too
much talk about what's of no consequence. Go along with your partner.
You're on my land. Keep movin'."
But all of Dwight Wade's stubborn obstinacy rose in his breast; all his
youthful chivalry flamed in his face.
"I've no more business with you, Britt!" he said, significantly; and
Britt's face flamed with the remembrance of a certain knock-down blow.
"My business is with you, Mr. Barrett, and you know what it is. You keep
the word that you've given me about this girl, or I'll set you before
the people of this State in your right colors--and you needn't croak
blackmail to me, for you can't frighten me."
"I--I--don't see that it's any business of yours--of yours, Wade,"
stammered the pacificatory Ide, catching the courage of protest from the
rather indignant face his daughter turned on the young man.
"And I don't see that it is the business of any of you!" stormed Kate
Arden. She came close to the group of men and stood with brown hands
propped on her hips, her head thrown back, and the insolent stare of her
black eyes seeking face after face. "I'll be passed about from hand to
hand no longer. I don't want any old purple-faced fool to send me to
school." Barrett winced. "And as for you," she sneered, turning on Wade,
"you attend to your own business until I ask you to help me in mine."
The Honorable Pulaski saw his opportunity.
"Colin MacLeod!" he bawled.
And with a rush that betrayed his impatience, the boss of the Busters
came out of his hiding-place up the trail.
The girl gave a sharp cry of joy at sight of him.
But MacLeod, half-way to them, saw the girl on the horse and stopped as
suddenly as he had started. Even at that distance they noted that his
face worked with piteous embarrassment.
"You've given in your promise, MacLeod! Don't forget that!" roared
Britt. "There's the boy for you, my girl! He wants to marry you. Go with
him!"
"And you'll be a fool of a gir-rl if ye do!" squalled a voice. It was
Tommy Eye, yelling from the top of the Durfy hovel, to which he had
clambered unobserved. "I know I'm a drunk. I know I ain't worth anything
to anybody!" he gabbled. "But ye saved my life once, Mr. Wade, when I
didn't know it!" He flapped entreating hands at Wade, and that young man
stepped in front of the furious Britt with such determination on his
face that the woods tyrant halted. "But ye'll be a fool gir-rl, I say! I
was under the bunk last night when they planned it. He don't love ye! I
heard him say so. He called you names! Colin MacLeod, ye ain't the liar
enough to stand out here and say ye didn't."
MacLeod, his adoring eyes on Nina Ide, had no word to say. The features
of Kate Arden, who stared at him with her heart in her eyes, twisted
with a promise of bitter tears. This, then, was the girl of Castonia,
with whom they had taunted her!
"It's only for grudge and money he's goin' to marry you!" persisted
Tommy. "May I rest forever in purgatory with no masses for my soul if
that ain't the truth!"
With the instinct of the animal repulsed, the girl read more in the face
of MacLeod than she understood from the declaration of Tommy Eye.
She looked from face to face again, but the flame was gone from her
eyes. There they stood, the silent, hostile, bitter phalanx from
outside--oppressors and scorners. There she stood--alone!
And she fell face down upon the ground--the only mother she had ever
known--a heart-broken, weary, lonely, sobbing child.
Nina Ide reached her before the others moved. Twice the girl fought her
way out of her arms. Twice the sympathetic little mother-heart of the
Castonia beauty conquered the rebel and retook her, whispering to her
eagerly. And she held her tear-streaked face close to her shoulder, and
patted the grimy little fingers between which tears were trickling.
There was something inexpressibly pathetic even in the unkemptness of
the stricken girl, in her torn dress and the brown skin of face and
hands, touched here and there by the stain of exposure to the blackened
forest. And in her loneliness, feeling for the first time in her life
real sympathy from one of her sex, gathering with grateful nostrils the
faint perfume that whispered of the refinement and comfort that her
heart had sought almost unconsciously and had never found, at last the
girl ceased her struggles and clung to her new friend. The waif's true
instinct was proving this friend's sincerity more surely than the
whispered assurances proved it. And Nina Ide bent to her ear, and
murmured:
"We will hate him together, poor little girl! He is not a good man to
have a girl's love."
"When the hysterics are all over," remarked the Honorable Pulaski,
sarcastically, "we'll take the young woman off your hands."
"You'll not take her off _my_ hands!" retorted Nina, with spirit. "She's
going back home with me."
"You haven't got any rights over her!" barked Britt.
"Perhaps, then, Mr. Barrett is ready to stand up and say what his rights
are," suggested Wade, with bitter hint of retaliation in his tones.
Barrett, pale with the illness that was seizing him, grew paler yet with
anger and terror, for he feared exposure.
The Honorable Pulaski picked up the gage of battle with all the alacrity
of his irascible nature.
"For a dog-fight, that girl will be as good a bone as anything else!" he
growled, under his breath. And then he whirled on his heel and bellowed:
"Wake up there, MacLeod! If you can't make love to the girl you are
goin' to marry, I reckon you can at least fight a little to get her!
Call in the crew!"
He walked up to Ide. "Better call off your girl, Rod," he advised,
bluffly. "This isn't any of her business, or yours either."
"I figure that a Skeet girl belongs as much to us as to you," snapped
the doughty little man from Castonia. "If my girl takes interest enough
in her to invite her home, I think you'd better let her go."
"Well, I've got a crew of a hundred men posted back here a few rods in
the woods to back me up when I say she stays right where she belongs."
His tone was offensive, and Rodburd Ide's anger flared.
"My business just now in here, Britt, is to bring a hundred men for our
Enchanted operation. They're down there by the brook eating lunch. I
don't want any trouble over this, but there's some nasty reason back of
this girl matter, and I won't stand for any persecution of a helpless
creature. My men back me when I say she goes home with my girl. Hello,
men for the Enchanted! Up this way in a hurry!"
The look that Nina flashed at her father was inspiration for him!
As his men came into sight over the bank the crew of Britt tramped
towards them down the trail.
"Nina," said Ide, "you'll have to go back now. Chris Straight will go
with you. Take the girl on the horse with you, and let Chris lead by the
headstall. You'll go all safe. Hurry away from here! But after you get
started, take your time to the Half-way House. There's no one going to
get past down this trail to chase you and bother you."
There was determination in the voice of the little man, and his daughter
kissed him at the same time that Dwight Wade was patting his shoulder.
Wade ran along by the side of the horse for a little way, and, when he
turned, eagerly kissed Nina Ide's gloved hand.
"God bless you for a little saint!" he gasped. "You'll understand this
some day, perhaps."
"I understand that she is alone and needs a friend," she
responded--"just as you needed a friend when you were only Britt's
'chaney man.'" She smiled archly at him and passed out of sight, old
Christopher tugging at the bits of the horse.
Wade went back in the forefront of the thronging crew of the men for
Enchanted.
"As I said, Britt, I don't want trouble," repeated Rodburd Ide, "but
you'll please remember that the lower corner of your township is here at
Durfy's camp. I reckon the men for the Enchanted will camp right here on
the trail for a few hours. The man that tries to push past to trouble my
daughter or her friend will get hurt."
"They are goin' past just the same!" shouted Britt, fiercely.
"My God, Pulaski, think of consequences!" pleaded "Stumpage John," in
low tones. He arose with difficulty and staggered to Britt's side. His
tones quavered with weakness. "I'd be ruined by the story of what it was
all about. I'm sick. I only want to get home. I don't want to see
trouble here."
Britt glared at his associate, at Wade, Ide, and at last at Colin
MacLeod, who was staring in the direction of Nina Ide.
The tyrant snorted his disgust.
"Take the combination of a candidate for governor, some fool women,
crazy men, love-sick idiots, and"--his eyes swept the scene in vain
search for Tommy Eye--"a pooch-mouthed blabber, and it's enough to trig
any decent, honest, sensible woods fight ever yarded down. Barrett,
you're right! You'd better get home and get on your long-tailed coat and
plug hat as soon as you can. You and your private"--he sneered the
word--"business don't seem to fit in up here."
He folded his arms and, with his men behind him, stood looking over the
crew for the Enchanted, who, cheerfully and without question, stood
blocking the way.
"It may not happen just now," he grunted, "but it's on my mind to say
that some day these two gangs will get together when there isn't a
governor's boom to step on, nor women to get mussed up."
And the gaze of fury that he bent on Dwight Wade was returned with
interest.
An imaginative man might have seen the new spirit of the woods facing
the old.
But there was no imaginative man there--there were only men who chewed
tobacco and wondered what it all meant.