IT was near sunset of the second day after the arrival of Sinth and
Silas. They sat together in front of the cook-tent. Silas leaned forward
smoking a pipe. His great, brawny arms, bare to the elbow, rested on his
knees. His faded felt hat was tilted back. He was looking down at the
long stretch of still water, fringed with lily-pads, and reflecting the
colors of either shore.
"You'ain't got a cent to yer name," said Sinth, who was knitting. She
gave the yam a pull, and, as she did so, glanced up at her brother.
"B-better times!" said he, rubbing his hands.
"Better times!" she sneered. "I'd like to know how you can make money
an' charge a dollar a day for board."
Sportsmen visiting there paid for their board, and they with whom Silas
went gave him three dollars a day for his labor.
The truth was that prosperity and Miss Strong were things
irreconcilable. The representatives of prosperity who came to Lost River
camp were often routed by the eye of resentment and the unruly tongue.
Strong knew all this, but she was not the less sacred on that account.
This year he had planned to bring a cow to camp and raise the price of
board.
"You s-see," Strong insisted.
"Huh!" Sinth went on; "we'll mos' kill ourselves, an' nex' spring we
won't have nothin' but a lot o' mink-skins."
Miss Strong, as if this reflection had quite overcome her, gathered up
her knitting and hastened into the cook-tent, where for a moment she
seemed to be venting her spite on the flat-irons and the tea-kettle.
Strong sat alone, smoking thoughtfully. Soon he heard footsteps on the
trail. A stranger, approaching, bade him good-evening.
"From the Migley Lumber Company," the stranger began, as he gave a card
to Strong. "We have bought the Smith & Gordon tract. I have come to
bring this letter and have a talk with you."
Strong read the letter carefully. Then he rose and put his hands in his
pockets, and, with a sly wink at the stranger, walked slowly down the
trail. He wished to go where Sinth would not be able to hear them. Some
twenty rods away both sat down upon a log. The letter was, in effect, an
order of eviction.
"I got t' g-go?" the Emperor inquired.
"That's about the size of it," said the stranger.
"Can't," Strong answered.
"Well, there's no hurry," said the other. "We shall be cutting here in
the fall. I won't disturb you this year."
Silas rose and stood erect before the lumberman.
"Cut everyth-thing?" he inquired, his hand sweeping outward in a gesture
of peculiar eloquence.
"Everything from Round Ridge to Carter's Plain," said the other.
Strong deliberately took off his jacket and laid it on a stump. He
flung his hat upon the ground. Evidently something unusual was about to
happen. Then, forthwith, he broke the silence of more than forty years
and opened his heart to the stranger. He could not control himself; his
tongue almost forgot its infirmity; his words came faster and easier as
he went on.
"N-no, no," he said, "it can't be. Ye 'ain't no r-right t' do it, fer
ye can't never put the w-woods back agin. My God, sir, I've w-wan-dered
over these hills an' flats ever since I was a little b-boy. There
ain't a critter on 'em that d-don't know me. Seems so they was all my
b-brothers. I've seen men come in here nigh dead an' go back w-well.
They's m-med'cine here t' cure all the sickness in a hunderd cities;
they's f-fur 'nough here t' c-cover their naked--they's f-food'nough
t' feed their hungry--an' they's w-wood 'nough t' keep 'em w-warm. God
planted these w-woods an' stocked 'em, an' nobody's ever d-done a day's
work here 'cept me. Now you come along an' say you've bought 'em an' are
g-goin 't' shove us out. I c-can't understand it. God m-made the sky an'
l-lifted up the trees t' sweep the dust out of it an' pump water into
the clouds an' g-give out the breath o' the g-ground. Y-you 'ain't no
right t' git together down there in Albany an' make laws ag'in' the will
o' God. Ye r-rob the world when ye take the tree-tops out o' the sky. Ye
might as well take the clouds out of it. God has gi'n us g-good air
an' the woods an' the w-wild cattle, an' it's free--an' you--you're
g-goin 't' turn ev'rybody out o' here an' seize the g-gift an' trade it
fer d-dollars--you d---little bullcook!"
A "bullcook," it should be explained, was the chore-boy in a
lumber-camp.
Strong sat down and took out an old red handkerchief and wiped his eyes.
He was thinking of the springs and brooks and rivers, of the cool shade,
of the odors of the woodland, of the life-giving air, of the desolation
that was to come.
"It's business," said the stranger, as if that word must put an end to
all argument.
A sound broke the silence like that of distant thunder.
"Hear th-that," Strong went on. "It's the logs g-goin' over Rainbow
Falls. They've been stole off the state l-lands. Th-that's business,
too. Business is king o' this c-country. He t-takes everything he can
l-lay his hands on. He'd t-try t' 'grab heaven if he could g-git over
the f-fence an' b-back agin."
"I am not here to discuss that," said the stranger, rising to go.
"Had s-supper?" Silas asked.
"I've a lunch in the canoe, thank you. The moon is up, an' I'm going to
push on to Copper Falls. Migley will be waiting for me. We shall camp
there for a day or two at Cedar Spring. Good-night."
"Good-night."
It was growing dark. Strong's outbreak had wearied him. He groaned and
shook his head and stood a moment thinking. In the distance he could
hear the hoot of an owl and the bull bass of frogs booming over the
still water.
"G-gone!" he exclaimed, presently. Soon he added, in a mournful tone,
"W-wouldn't d-dast tell Mis' Strong."
He started slowly towards the camp.
"I'll l-lie to her," he whispered, as he went along.
Before going to bed he made this note in his memorandum-book:
_"June the 26 More snags Strong says trubel is like small-pox thing to
do is kepe it from spreadin."_