[Illustration: Cover art]
[Frontispiece: (Homer Steeves, Flora, Jim (on sled), with dogs)]
THE LURE OF PIPER'S GLEN
BY
THEODORE GOODRIDGE ROBERTS
_A Pocket Copyright_
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
1925
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
CONTENTS
I. The Cock of the River
II. Young Todhunter
III. Piper's Glen
IV. The Road to Piper's Glen
V. The Cock of the Road
VI. Games--Aboveboard and Otherwise
VII. New Business Connections
VIII. The Queer Old Woman
IX. An Awkward Situation
X. The Widow's Mite
XI. The Westward Trail
XII. Unforgivable
XIII. The Wind on the Barren
XIV. The Man-Hunter
XV. Tricky Plays
The Lure of Piper's Glen
CHAPTER I
THE COCK OF THE RIVER
When the bottoms drop out of the logging-roads, the crews leave the
camps about the headwaters of Racket River and return to their
scattered homes, leaving the winter's cut on the "brows." A few
weeks later, when all the melted snow of the hills is rushing along
the watercourses, lifting and bursting the rotted ice, and the piles
of brown logs on the steep banks go rolling and thundering down into
roaring waters, the more active and daring of the workers return to
duty with the harassed timber. Now they wear well-greased boots
instead of oily shoepacks and larrigans--boots with high tops
strapped securely around the leg, and strong heels and thick soles.
In the sole and heel of each boot are fixed fifty caulks or short
steel spikes--a hundred teeth for every "stream-driver" to bite a
foothold with into running logs.
The task of keeping the "drive" moving down the swirling and tortuous
channel of the upper reaches of Racket River calls for skill and
agility and strength and hardihood, and frequently for a high degree
of stark physical courage. The water is as cold as the sodden ice
which still drifts upon it, crushed and churned by the grinding logs.
It sloshes high along the wooded banks, tearing tangles of alders out
by the roots and undermining old cedars until they totter and fall
and swirl away on the flood. To plunge hip-deep into that torrent to
clear some log caught broadside to the rush by snag or tree or rock,
calls for hardihood of spirit and an iron constitution. Where one
log catches and is permitted to remain stationary, others catch, pile
up, plunge and rear and dive, filling the channel to its rocky bed
and blocking it from bank to bank with criss-crossed timber. The mad
river, crowned with more logs and ice, strikes and recoils and backs
up behind the jamb: spray flies over it; clear water spouts from it;
the twisted timbers heave and groan and splinter. To go out on to
such a barrier as this, and find and free the key-logs with a peavy,
calls for all the qualities of a seasoned riverman and the courage of
a veteran soldier into the bargain.
On Racket River, Mark Ducat, of Piper's Glen, was the most daring and
successful negotiator of troublesome logs jambed or jambing or
running free. He was cock of the upper river, as his father, Peter,
had been before him, and his grandfather, Hercules Ducat, had been
before Peter. For five years, on five successive drives, he had
shown his superiority to his fellow wielders of peavy and pikepole as
a "cuffer" of running logs and a breaker of jambs. And not only
that. He was as nimble with his feet and hands, and as fearless in
diversion as in toil. There were stronger men than Mark on the
river, but there was no man possessed of Mark's combination of
strength and speed and nerve. The stronger fellows were too heavy to
be speedy. He stood five feet and eleven inches in his spiked boots
and weighed one hundred and seventy-eight pounds.
New men joined the drive each spring for the brief and well-paid job,
and likely lads arrived at their full growth and an appreciation of
their own powers; and so it happened that Mark Ducat's title never
went a year unchallenged. But still he was Cock of the River.
After the first rush of the drive one spring, the boss left Mark and
a gang of nine "white-water boys" to keep the logs clear at
Frenchman's Elbow, the worst point for jambs in ten miles of bad
water. Mark was foreman and Joe Bender was cook. All the others
were Racket River men, with the exception of a big stranger with a
black beard who said that he was from Quebec.
Charlie Lavois was the stranger's name. Underdone beef was his
favorite diet and overproof whisky was his favorite drink. He had
chopped throughout the previous winter in a big camp on the Gateneau
and, to avoid making himself conspicuous, to keep his daily cut down
to normal, he had swung his ax only with one hand; and because six
men had once attacked him with knives and sticks of stove-wood after
a game of forty-fives in which his skill had emptied all their
pockets, and he had killed two of them and disabled the others in
self defence, he had thought it advisable to leave his native
Province for a little while--all this by his own telling.
"Ye may be that good in Quebec, Charlie Lavois, but any six yearlin'
babies on the Racket River country in this here old Province of New
Brunswick could knock the stuffin' out o' ye with nothin' in their
hands but their rattles an' little rubber suckin'-nipples," said Joe
Bender, the cook.
This sally of rustic wit was well received by the lads of Racket
River, but Mr. Lavois took exception to it.
"Maybe ye could do it yerself," retorted Lavois.
"Maybe I could, but it ain't my job," returned Bender. "My job's
keepin' the blankets dry an' the beans an' biscuits hot for champeens
like yerself. I ain't Cock o' the River."
"Cock of the river?" queried Lavois, spitting into the fire. "Where
I come from, this here dribble o' dirty water'd be named a brook an'
the cock o' it would be called a cockerel."
"That's me," said Mark Ducat. "Fetch a lantern an' a deck of cards,
Joe. Kick up the fire, Jerry Brown. We'll spread a blanket an'
commence with a little game of forty-fives, Mister; an' ye'll find
this cockerel right with ye all the way from flippin' a card to
manslaughter."
They played for three hours, at the end of which period of stress the
man from Quebec threw the cards into the fire and sent a volley of
blasting oaths after them. He was a poor loser.
By morning the logs were running thin, for the weight of the drive
had passed, and so it was an easy matter to keep the crooked channel
clear at Frenchman's Elbow.
Charlie Lavois leapt onto a big stick of spruce, with a pikepole held
horizontally across his chest, and turned it slowly over and over
under his spiked feet as it wallowed heavily along with the brown
current. Mark Ducat took a short run and a flying jump and landed on
the other end of the same log, facing Lavois. He also carried a
pikepole horizontally in his two hands. The log sank lower; and now
it turned with increasing speed to the tread of four spiked feet
biting into its tough bark; and still it continued on its way through
sloshing ripple and spinning eddy. The rest of the gang followed
down both shores, shouting in derision and encouragement. Even Joe
Bender deserted his post to see the Cock of the River and the
champion from Quebec twirl a log together.
"Grand day," said Mark, grinning.
"Not so bad," agreed Charlie Lavois.
"Two's one too many for this log," said Mark. "I'm gettin' my feet
wet."
"Yer dead right. But ye'll be wet clear over yer ears in ten
seconds," retorted the other.
Then Mark began to jump with both feet, slowing the spinning of the
big log jerk by jerk and finally reversing the spin. Again he trod
the log, but now from left to right; and Lavois was forced to conform
his movements to the reversed motion. The men ashore yelled their
approval. Their man had "jerked the spin" away from the big
Quebecker. Then Lavois commenced jumping in a furious effort to
check and reverse against Mark. Mark trod against him with what
appeared to be all his strength and skill for thirty seconds or more;
and then, without so much as the flicker of an eye to signal his
intention, he jumped swiftly around and reversed the stamp and thrust
of his flying feet. The tortured log spun with sudden incredible
speed--a speed entirely unexpected by Charles Lavois. Charlie's
feet, stamping mightily against stubborn resistance, and suddenly
relieved of their resistance, went around with the log; and Charlie
followed his feet. The log reared high, but Ducat skipped along its
lifting back and brought it to a level keel. A yell of joy went up
from the husky fellows ashore. The man who had gained his title by
sousing them in the river had maintained it by sousing the man from
Quebec.
Lavois swam ashore and hastened upstream to the fire without a word.
There he pulled off his boots and coat, took a swig from a flask on
his hip and sat so close to the bank of red embers that steam arose
from him. Mark Ducat rode the big log ashore, using the pike-pole
for a paddle. He, too, made his way to Joe Bender's fire,
accompanied by such members of the gang as were on that side of the
river. He, too, removed his coat and boots and sat close to the glow.
"Is there anything ye can do, Lavois, 'cept shoot off yer mouth about
what ye done on the Gateneau?" asked Mark.
"Did ye hear me speak o' playin' monkey-tricks on logs?" returned
Lavois. "No, ye didn't. Ye heard me tell how I knocked the
everlastin' lights out o' six full-growed men, an' Quebec men, at
that--real white-water boys."
"Do tell? What d'ye fight with when ye get real riled?"
"Everything God give me an' most anything I kin lay me hands on."
"That suits me fine."
Both reached for their spiked boots.
"Boots is barred," said Joe Bender, who held a long-handled iron
stew-pan in his hairy right fist. "Ye fight in yer socks, boys.
Axes, grindstones, peavy, rocks an' clubs an' knives is all barred
along with boots; an' the first one to reach for any sich article
gits soaked good an' plenty with this here stew-pan. I ain't
Champeen Buster o' the Gateneau nor Cock o' Racket River, but I be a
ring-tailed roarin' Hell-an'-all with a stew-pan."
"That suits me, Joe," said Mark Ducat.
"I guess I kin do the job with me hands an' feet," said Lavois.
Both men stood up. They faced each other, six feet apart. Lavois
was older than Ducat by eight or ten years and heavier by close upon
twenty pounds. But as Ducat was only twenty-six, both were young
men. Ducat had a merry eye; he smiled, and his little black mustache
went up at the tips. Lavois had sullen eyes and a wolfish grin.
Lavois jumped and kicked, quick as winking. Mark got his chin out of
the way of destruction, but lost the skin of his right ear. Lavois
gripped with both arms. They writhed and staggered. Mark had the
worst of that hold, but he knew what he was about. He knew all the
old tricks of this dangerous game and possessed a lively imagination
for new ones. He clung close and tight and let Lavois do the heavy
work. Twice he was crushed to his knees, and twice he came up again,
each time as if for the last time. And then, with a quick wrench and
a mighty effort, he backed Lavois into the fire.
Lavois wore four pairs of heavy socks, and unfortunately all were of
wool. No pair was of asbestos. He yelled and loosed his hold and
tried to jump aside, only to receive a bang on the nose. He snatched
up his blistered feet and landed on his back across the red crown of
the fire. Mark jumped the fire, pulled Lavois out, dragged him to
the river by his black beard and chucked him in. He sizzled and
steamed as he struck the water.
Lavois finished out the drive with his feet in bandages. He didn't
do another stroke of work; and whenever the gang moved, following the
tail of the drive down the crooked river, he went comfortably in the
boat along with the cook and the tin ovens and the gang's dunnage.
He was well treated and well fed; and when Ducat's gang overhauled
the boss at the mouth of the river, Mark gave Lavois his full time
and no one questioned it. Lavois grinned.
"I wish ye'd hove me into the fire afore ye did," he said.