SHADING THE CUT
It was nine o'clock the following morning when Connie was awakened by
someone bending over him. It was Saginaw, and the boy noticed that his
cap and mackinaw were powdered with snow.
"Still snowing, eh? Why didn't you wake me up before?"
"It's 'bout quit, an' as fer wakin' you up," he grinned, "I didn't
hardly dast to. If I was the owner of an outfit an' any doggone
lumberjack woke me up 'fore I was good an' ready I'd fire him."
"Oh, you want to see my papers, do you?" grinned Connie.
"Well, I might take a squint at 'em. But that ain't what I come fer. The
boss is a whole lot better, an' the doctor's a-goin' back. What I want
to know is, why can't he swear out them warrants ag'in them three I. W.
W.'s an' have it over with? I didn't say nothin' to Hurley 'bout them
bein' located, er he'd of riz up an' be'n half ways to Willer River by
now."
"Sure, he can swear out the warrants! I'll slip over to the office and
get their names out of the time book, and while I'm gone you might look
over these." The boy selected several papers from a waterproof wallet
which he drew from an inner pocket and passed them over to Saginaw, then
he finished dressing and hurried over to the office. Hurley was asleep,
and, copying the names from the book, Connie returned to the men's camp.
"You're the goods all right," said Saginaw, admiringly, as he handed
back the papers. "From now on I'm with you 'til the last gap, as the
feller says. You've got more right down nerve than I ever know'd a kid
could have, an' you've got the head on you to back it. Yer good enough
fer me--you say the word, an' I go the limit." He stuck out his hand,
which Connie gripped strongly.
"You didn't have to tell me that, Saginaw," answered the boy, gravely,
"if you had, you would never have had the chance."
Saginaw Ed removed his hat and scratched his head thoughtfully. "That
there'll strike through 'bout dinner time, I guess. But I suspicion what
you mean, an'--I'm obliged."
"Here are the names for the doctor--better tell him to swear out
warrants both for arson and for attempted murder."
"Yes, sir," answered Saginaw, respectfully.
"Yes, _what!_"
The man grinned sheepishly. "Why--I guess--bein' I was talkin' to the
owner----"
"Look here, Saginaw," interrupted the boy, wrathfully, "you just forget
this 'owner' business, and don't you start 'siring' me! What do you want
to do--give this whole thing away? Up where I live they don't call a man
'sir' just because he happens to have a little more dust than somebody
else. It ain't the 'Misters' and the 'Sirs' that are the big men up
there; it's the 'Bills' and the 'Jacks' and the 'Scotties' and the
'Petes'--men that would get out and mush a hundred miles to carry grub
to a scurvy camp instead of sitting around the stove and hiring someone
else to do it--men that have gouged gravel and stayed with the game,
bucking the hardest winters in the world, sometimes with only half
enough to eat--men with millions, and men that don't own the tools they
work with! My own father was one of 'em. 'The unluckiest man in Alaska,'
they called him! He never made a strike, but you bet he was a man! There
isn't a man that knew him, from Skagway to Candle, and from Candle to
Dawson and beyond, that isn't proud to call him friend. Sam Morgan they
call him--and they don't put any 'Mister' in front of it, either!"
Saginaw Ed nodded slowly, and once more he seized the boy's hand in a
mighty grip. "I git you, kid. I know they's a lot of good men up in your
country--but, somehow, I've got a hunch they kind of overlooked a bet
when they're callin' your pa onlucky." He took the slip of paper upon
which Connie had written the names. At the door he turned. "We begin
layin' 'em down today," he said. "Shouldn't wonder an' what Slue Foot'll
be down 'fore very long fer to give you yer first lesson."
"Hurley will think I'm a dandy, showing up at ten o'clock in the
morning."
"Never you mind that," said Saginaw; "I fixed that part up all
right--told him you was up 'til after one o'clock helpin' me git things
strung out fer to begin work today."
Connie bolted a hasty breakfast, and, as he made his way from the cook's
camp to the office, sounds came from the woods beyond the clearing--the
voices of men calling loudly to each other as they worked, the ring of
axes, and the long crash of falling trees. The winter's real work had
begun, and Connie smiled grimly as he thought of the cauldron of plot
and counter-plot that was seething behind the scenes in the peaceful
logging camp.
The boy found Hurley much improved, although still weak from the effects
of the terrible beating he had received at the hands of the escaped
prisoners. The big boss fumed and fretted at his enforced inactivity,
and bewailed the fact that he had given the doctor his word that he
would stay in his bunk for at least two days longer. "An' ut's partly
yer fault, wid yer talk av th' law--an' partly mine fer listenin' to
yez," he complained fiercely, in rich brogue, as Connie sat at his desk.
The boy's shoulders drooped slightly under the rebuke, but he answered
nothing. Suddenly Hurley propped himself up on his elbow. "Phy don't
yez tell me Oi'm a big liar?" he roared. "Ye was right, an' Oi know ut.
Don't pay no heed to me, kid. Oi've got a grouch fer lettin' them
shpalpeens git away. Furst Oi was thryin' to lay ut on Frinchy, an' him
the bist teamster in th' woods! Ut's loike a sp'ilt b'y Oi am, thryin'
to blame somewan f'r what c'udn't be helped at all. Ut was an accident
all togither, an' a piece av bad luck--an' there's an end to ut. Bring
me over yer book, now, an' Oi'll show ye about kaypin' thim logs."
[Illustration: "PHY DON'T YEZ TELL ME OI'M A BIG LIAR?" HE ROARED.]
Connie soon learned the simple process of bookkeeping, and hardly had he
finished when the door opened and Slue Foot Magee entered.
"Well, well! They sure beat ye up bad, boss. I heerd about it on my way
down. I'd like to lay hands on them crooks, an' I bet they'd think twict
before they beat another man up! But yer a fightin' man, Hurley; they
must of got ye foul."
"Foul is the word. When the wagon tipped over my head hit a tree an'
that's the last I remember 'til I come to an' the boy, Steve, was
bathin' my head with snow an' tyin' up my cuts with strips of his
shirt."
"Too bad," condoled Slue Foot, shaking his head sympathetically; "an'
they got plumb away?"
"Sure they did. It wasn't so far to the railroad, an' the snow fallin'
to cover their tracks. But, Oi'll lay holt av 'em sometime!" he cried,
relapsing into his brogue. "An' whin Oi do, law er no law, Oi'll bust
'em woide open clane to their dirty gizzards!"
"Sure ye will!" soothed Slue Foot. "But, it's better ye don't go
worryin' about it now. They're miles away, chances is, mixed up with a
hundred like 'em in some town er nother. I started the cuttin' this
mornin'. I'm workin' to the north boundary, an' then swing back from the
river."
Hurley nodded: "That's right. We want to make as good a showin' as we
kin this year, Slue Foot. Keep 'em on the jump, but don't crowd 'em too
hard."
Slue Foot turned to Connie: "An' now, if ye hain't got nawthin' better
to do than set there an' beaver that pencil, ye kin come on up to Camp
Two an' I'll give ye the names of the men."
"If you didn't have anything better to do than hike down here, why
didn't you stick a list of the names in your pocket?" flashed the boy,
who had found it hard to sit and listen to the words of the
double-dealing boss of Camp Two.
"Kind of sassy, hain't ye?" sneered Slue Foot. "We'll take that out of
ye, 'fore yer hair turns grey. D'ye ever walk on rackets?"
"Some," answered Connie. "I guess I can manage to make it."
Slue Foot went out, and Hurley motioned the boy to his side. "Don't pay
no heed to his growlin' an' grumblin', it was born in him," he
whispered.
"I'll show him one of these days I ain't afraid of him," answered the
boy, so quickly that Hurley laughed.
"Hurry along, then," he said. "An' if ye git back in time I've a notion
to send ye out after a pa'tridge. Saginaw says yer quite some sport with
a rifle."
"That's the way to work it, kid," commended Slue Foot, as Connie bent
over the fastenings of his snow-shoes. "I'll growl an' you sass every
time we're ketched together. 'Twasn't that I'd of made ye hike way up to
my camp jest fer to copy them names, but the time's came fer to begin to
git lined up on shadin' the cut, an' we jest nachelly had to git away
from the office. Anyways it won't hurt none to git a good trail broke
between the camps."
"There ain't any chance of getting caught at this graft, is there?"
asked the boy.
"Naw; that is, 'tain't one chanct in a thousan'. Course, it stan's to
reason if a man's playin' fer big stakes he's got to take a chanct. Say,
where'd you learn to walk on rackets? You said you hadn't never be'n in
the woods before."
"I said I'd never worked in the woods--I've hunted some."
The talk drifted to other things as the two plodded along the tote road,
but once within the little office at Camp Two, Slue Foot plunged
immediately into his scheme. "It's like this: The sawyers gits paid by
the piece--the more they cut, the more pay they git. The logs is scaled
after they're on the skidways. Each pair of sawyers has their mark they
put on the logs they cut, an' the scaler puts down every day what each
pair lays down. Then every night he turns in the report to you, an' you
copy it in the log book. The total cut has got to come out right--the
scaler knows all the time how many feet is banked on the rollways. I've
got three pair of sawyers that's new to the game, an' they hain't
a-goin' to cut as much as the rest. The scaler won't never look at your
books, 'cause it hain't none of his funeral if the men don't git what's
a-comin' to 'em. He keeps his own tally of the total cut. Same with the
walkin' boss--that's Hurley. All he cares is to make a big showin'.
He'll have an eye on the total cut, an' he'll leave it to Saginaw an' me
to see that the men gits what's comin' to 'em in our own camps. Now,
what you got to do is to shade a little off each pair of sawyers' cut
an' add it onto what's turned in fer them three pair I told you about.
Then, in the spring, when these birds cashes their vouchers in town,
I'm right there to collect the overage."
"But," objected Connie, "won't the others set up a howl? Surely, they
will know that these men are not cutting as much as they are."
"How they goin' to find out what vouchers them six turns in? They hain't
a-goin' to show no one their vouchers."
"But, won't the others know they're being credited with a short cut?"
"That's where you come in. You got to take off so little that they won't
notice it. Sawyers only knows _about_ how much they got comin'. They
only guess at the cut. A little offen each one comes to quite a bit by
spring."
"But, what if these men that get the overage credited to 'em refuse to
come across?"
Slue Foot grinned evilly: "I'll give 'em a little bonus fer the use of
their names," he said. "But, they hain't a-goin' to refuse to kick in.
I've got their number. They hain't a one of the hull six of 'em that I
hain't got somethin' on, an' they know it."
"All right," said Connie, as he arose to go. "I'm on. And don't forget
that you promised to let me in on something bigger, later on."
"I won't fergit. It looks from here like me an' you had a good thing."
An hour later Connie once more entered the office at Camp One. Steve sat
beside Hurley, and Saginaw Ed stood warming himself with his back to the
stove.
"Back ag'in," greeted the big boss. "How about it, ye too tired to swing
out into the brush with the rifle? Seems like they wouldn't nothin' in
the world taste so good as a nice fat pa'tridge. An' you tell the cook
if he dries it up when he roasts it, he better have his turkey packed
an' handy to grab."
"I'm not tired at all," smiled Connie, as he took Saginaw's rifle from
the wall. "It's too bad those fellows swiped your gun, but I guess I can
manage to pop off a couple of heads with this."
"You'd better run along with him, Steve," said Hurley, as he noted that
the other boy eyed Connie wistfully. "The walk'll do ye good. Ye hain't
hardly stretched a leg sense I got hurt. The kid don't mind, do ye,
kid?"
"You bet I don't!" exclaimed Connie heartily. "Come on, Steve, we'll
tree a bunch of 'em and then take turns popping their heads off."
As the two boys made their way across the clearing, Hurley raised
himself on his elbow, and stared after them through the window: "Say,
Saginaw," he said, "d'ye know there's a doggone smart kid."
"Who?" asked the other, as he spat indifferently into the wood box.
"Why, this here Connie. Fer a greener, I never see his beat."
"Yeh," answered Saginaw, drily, his eyes also upon the retreating backs,
"he's middlin' smart, all right. Quite some of a kid--fer a greener."