FIRE AND WATER
The raft was now nearing the northwestern shore of the lake, and
luckily its course seemed to carry it into a wide bay, where it
would be somewhat sheltered from the weather. The wind was lessening
a little, it seemed. It had done deadly work, however. The raft
seemed to have lost a third of its area, and all around could be
seen floating masses of the soft-wood cribs, which had mostly
spilled their walnut loose. But Tom looked at it almost
indifferently. His whole thought was concentrated on his father, who
still lay unconscious, with a deathlike face.
Big Joe came up and looked down sorrowfully at the boss.
“I guess the raft’s all right now,” he remarked. “She’s going to
float right behind that headland, and I’ll have the boys build a
boom around her as soon as she gets there. It’ll break the waves. I
don’t believe we’ve lost such a lot, after all.
“Don’t you worry, boy,” he added. “Your father’ll be all right. I’ve
seen men knocked out a heap worse’n that; you don’t know the rough
knocks that lumber-jacks get. We’ll get him ashore just as soon as
we get into quieter water.”
It would indeed have been risky to try to get the wounded man into a
boat while they were still on those plunging waves, and it was still
more than an hour before the raft slowly headed its way behind the
long rocky peninsula. Here the water was less broken. They brought
one of the boats around to the forward end, carried Mr. Jackson into
it with infinite care, and ferried him across the hundred feet of
water to the land. Here they constructed a rough stretcher with
saplings and boughs, and Tom, Lynch, and two other men set out with
it toward camp. The rest of the men remained to make the raft fast
and gather up what scattered drift timber they could salvage.
A quarter of a mile down the shore they came upon a crib that had
grounded without entirely breaking up. The track of a man’s heavy
boots led from it into the woods, and Tom guessed that Harrison had
come ashore on those logs. It relieved his mind somewhat, for he did
not want to consider himself responsible for the man’s death, but he
had not much thought just then to spare on Harrison. Still further
down, they sighted a canoe, Charlie’s canoe, which McLeod must have
stolen, and in which he had fled from the raft. It had been run
ashore roughly, and was badly split down the bow. But, like
Harrison, McLeod had left nothing but tracks behind him, and Tom
sincerely hoped that he would never see anything more of him.
Arriving at the camp, they put Mr. Jackson to bed in his tent. He
seemed partly to revive; his eyes half opened; he muttered something
and then sank into unconsciousness again. But even this symptom of
returning life was encouraging.
“The nearest doctor’s at Ormond,” said Tom. “I’m going after him at
once.”
“Send Charlie down to Oakley,” Lynch suggested. “There’s a doctor
there. You might go out to Ormond too, if you like. Maybe one of ’em
will be away, and if they both come, no harm done. But say, you’ve
got to eat and rest a bit, boy. You look done up.”
Tom indeed felt the strain of the hard night, and his head once more
ached splittingly. He summoned Charlie and sent him up the lake to
get his canoe. It would have to be calked or patched where it was
cracked, and meanwhile Tom swallowed a little breakfast and lay down
with the intention of resting half an hour.
He fell into a dead sleep, and was awakened at last by Joe Lynch.
“A fellow’s just come in from Ormond with a telegram for the boss.”
Tom took the yellow envelope and sat up in a daze. Gathering his
wits, he opened the message:
Assigned to Erie Bank. Creditors’ meeting Wednesday
night. Letter follows. Wire further instructions.
Armstrong.
Wednesday night! It flashed upon Tom that to-day was Wednesday. He
jumped out, bolted from the tent, and confronted the messenger. The
telegram had been sent on Saturday, and was directed to the Royal
Victoria Hotel.
“Why didn’t this get here sooner?” he demanded angrily.
“We didn’t get it till yesterday. I started out with it as soon as I
could, but I tried to take a short cut and got turned around. Had to
stay in the bush all night.”
Tom stifled an exclamation of impatience and despair. Armstrong had
given up hope and made an assignment after all, unaware of all the
wealth they had been accumulating in the north. Tom did some hard
thinking in that moment. If the bankruptcy went through they might
pay a hundred cents on the dollar, but it would leave nothing else.
If it could be averted, the walnut would float the business with
ease, with a prospect of better fortune.
“How long was I asleep? How’s father?” he demanded.
“You slept more’n an hour. Didn’t like to rouse you,” said Joe. “The
boss kinder roused up once and said something, but then went off
again. But I reckon he’s better.”
Tom went to look at Mr. Jackson, who looked slightly less deadlike,
he thought. He would have given almost anything to be able to
consult with him for just five minutes. But at this crisis of the
whole affair Tom was forced to shoulder the entire responsibility.
If it was humanly possible he would have to get to Toronto in time
to stop that creditors’ meeting that night. The assignment could be
withdrawn. As yet probably nothing irrevocable had been done, but by
to-morrow the arrangements for liquidation would have been made, and
it might be too late.
He could, indeed, send a telegram to Mr. Armstrong if he could reach
the wire in time; but he doubted whether that would be enough. The
situation needed a personal explanation.
He knew that a stage left Oakley, connecting with the morning train
going down.
“What’s the shortest way to the railroad?” he demanded. “I’ve got to
get to the city by evening.”
“Well, there’s the morning train down from Ormond,” said the
messenger. “But you can’t make it. It’ll take you ’most all day to
get to Ormond.”
“That’s mebbe the shortest way, but it ain’t nohow the quickest,”
remarked Lynch. “Leastways, if you’ve got a canoe. I reckon
Charlie’s got his pretty near patched up by this time.”
“How do you mean?” Tom demanded.
“Why, paddle down to the foot of Little Coboconk, and then right
down the river, for mebbe fifteen or sixteen miles. You’ve been that
way. You remember where a little creek runs out through a big swamp
and into the river? Well, you land on the side opposite the creek,
and the railway ain’t much more’n five miles straight west, right
across the bush. It’ll be rough traveling, maybe, but you ought to
make it in three or four hours.”
Tom glanced at his watch. It was just after seven o’clock. The train
left Ormond at ten-thirty. He could surely make it. A moment later
Charlie came up for instructions, having finished the repairs to his
canoe.
“Hold on, Charlie! I’m going with you,” Tom exclaimed. “I’ll try it,
Lynch. Are you sure the raft’s safe?”
“Safe as if she was in the sawmill. You can trust her to me. Trust
the boss to us, too. Charlie can go on to Oakley and bring back the
doctor.”
“And mind you telegraph me what he says,” Tom insisted. “Here’s my
Toronto address. But I’ll be back here in three or four days, I
hope.”
It did not occur to Tom to change into his city clothes. He hastened
to get into the canoe, taking the bow paddle while Charlie sat at
the stern; and they started down the lake, almost in the face of the
wind, which still blew strongly.
It was rough, breathless paddling, though they hugged the shelter of
the shore as much as possible. They made slow time on that stage of
the journey, but when they reached the river things went more
easily. The river ran swiftly and was rather shallow now, but there
was always plenty of water for the canoe, and the faster the current
the better. Down the stream they shot, past the old trail to Uncle
Phil’s ranch, around the wide curves bordered by the incessant green
of the spruces, silently and swiftly, with a speed that filled Tom
with renewed hope. He was in fine physical condition; the hour’s
rest had restored him, and the rough and sleepless night behind him
had left only a nervous tension that for the time being actually
stimulated his sinews.
At half-past eight by his watch he felt sure that they must have
come nearly ten miles. He suddenly smelled smoke, and was alarmed.
“What’s that, Charlie? Fire?” he called over his shoulder.
The Ojibway sniffed.
“Fire—sure. Long piece from here, though,” he answered.
Smoke certainly smelled strong in the air, coming up on the wind,
but no fire was anywhere in sight. The river grew wider and deeper,
running with a strength that almost outstripped the paddles. The
miles reeled off swiftly. Tom was keeping a close watch on the
shore, and it was not much after nine o’clock when he shouted to
Charlie and pointed ashore.
On the left bank a great tamarac swamp came down to the water, and
just opposite them a small creek flowed sluggishly into the river,
oozing through a jungle of evergreen and fern.
“Hold on!” he cried, and the steersman guided the canoe ashore. He
looked at the landmarks more carefully. It must be the place Lynch
had meant. Somewhere about five miles to the west lay the railway.
“I stop here, Charlie,” he said hurriedly. “You go on to Oakley as
fast as you can paddle, and get the doctor. I’ll be back soon.”
Charlie had already been provided with a note for the doctor, tucked
safely inside his felt hat. He nodded impassively.
“Sure, I go quick, Tom,” he said. “I watch for you come back.”
He put Tom ashore, and went on down the stream with quick
paddle-strokes, not once glancing back. Tom did not stay to watch
him, either. He glanced at the compass on his watch-chain and struck
straight in from the river.
The train was due at half-past ten. He had an hour, and
long-distance running had been his speciality in track athletics. It
was only five miles, and, however rough the country might be, he
felt quite confident of being able to cover the distance in time.
For a little way he had to go slowly, pushing his path through a
dense tangle of spruce and tamarac, but, once well away from the
river, the woods opened out. He went up and down one rolling ridge
after another, splashed through a rock-strewn brook or two, crossed
a strip of level forest, and then had to slow down for a last year’s
burned slash, where the ground was terribly encumbered with dead,
charred logs and jagged spikes of branches and roots.
A smell of smoke seemed to hang about the place still, he fancied,
and then a veering gust brought him a whiff of smoke that was
certainly fresh. He was afraid to swerve from the compass bee-line,
but he felt extremely uneasy. He passed the old “burn” and entered a
region of jack-pine, and presently there was no mistaking the bluish
haze and the odor of ashes and smoke that filled the air. Then the
woods ceased all at once, and he found himself on the edge of a
great ruined slash that fire had made within two or three days, at
the most.
He halted, despairingly. There seemed no end to the burned strip,
north or south, and he could get no clear notion of its width, for
the air was full of smoke and clouds of fine ashes that drove in
whirls before the wind. It might not be very wide, but it looked too
dangerous to cross. Yet he felt sure that he must be near the
railroad; he had surely come three or four miles, and as he stood
irresolute he heard the long blast of a locomotive far away through
the trees.
He thought it was miles up toward Ormond. The railway must be only a
short distance ahead, and he plunged desperately into the smoky
belt.
The fire was really entirely burned out, as he discovered
immediately, but at the first steps he went ankle-deep in ashes, and
felt the heat strike through his boot-soles. The ground was still
hot, and beds of embers smoldered here and there beneath the ashes.
His heart almost failed him again. He might step into a mass of hot
coals that would scorch and cripple him. But there was no way
around; he had to cross this barrier or give up, and he went on
again, moving in long leaps to touch the ground as little as
possible. Wherever he could, he paused on a log to gain breath and
lay his course.
The ground was cumbered with masses of fallen trees, charred, spiky,
a continual _chevaux-de-frise_ of tangled stubs and roots. They lay
at every possible angle, and Tom had to edge his way round them,
climb over, or squeeze through. It was like the “burn” he had
already crossed, but this one was fresh and hot. By sheer good luck
he escaped stepping into any spots of fire, but the ground burned
under his feet, and the ashes rose in smothering clouds as he plowed
through them.
The ground was treacherous under its thick gray covering. It was
mined with holes and strewn with hidden entanglements. Two or three
times Tom tripped and went headlong, almost choked in the ashes. His
eyes grew filled with the fine powder; he could not see clearly nor
make sure of his directions, and he had a terrible feeling that his
strength was failing.
He heard the locomotive whistle again, and much nearer. It spoke
failure, he thought. He could never reach the station now in time
for the train. To his blurred eyes his watch seemed to mark
half-past ten already. He was desperately tired, and burning with
thirst. He thought that he might as well rest a little; he longed
more than anything to sink down in the ashes, anywhere, and sleep.
Still he kept doggedly moving, driven by he hardly knew what force.
The rest of the journey was a kind of nightmare, whose details he
could never quite remember. Hours seemed to pass in the torment of
that suffocating atmosphere—hours of intense heat, of stumbling, of
terrible thirst, and of overwhelming exhaustion. Then he seemed to
see trees ahead. They were charred evergreens, but the carpet of hot
ash ceased, and a little beyond he saw the cool, blessed green of
living spruces.
Stimulated now by the consciousness that he had come through, he
made a last spurt, and in a few minutes he emerged suddenly upon the
railway. He stopped, confusedly; and then perceived, a hundred yards
down the track, a red-painted wooden station and the smoke of a
locomotive.
He rushed toward it. The place was no more than a flag-station with
a log house or two in the background; and this was not a
passenger-train that stood there. It was not even a mixed train; it
was a long freight-train, engaged just then in coupling up a few
flat-cars loaded with fresh-cut ties.
The conductor was standing on the platform, talking leisurely with
the station agent, and they both stared in amazement as Tom dashed
up, blackened, ash-smeared, and wild-eyed.
“Give me a ticket to Toronto!” he exclaimed. “Am I in time? Has the
train—”
“The morning train went down half an hour ago,” said the agent.
“There’s no other till six-fifteen to-night. What’s the
matter—anything happened?”
“What time does that night train reach Toronto?”
“At ten, when she’s on time.”
That would be hours too late. Tom’s heart went down like lead. He
had lost the race after all. He felt discouraged and utterly played
out, but a last resource occurred to him.
“Can’t you fix me up to go down on this freight?” he pleaded.
“It’s against the rules to carry any passengers on freight-trains,”
said the agent. “Can’t be done, I’m afraid. Besides, this freight
only goes to Bala Junction, forty miles down.”
Tom turned away, tears rising irrepressibly in his eyes. This time
he seemed to have reached a barrier which there was no passing. He
saw the agent and the conductor looking curiously after him, as he
walked down to the end of the platform. It occurred to him that he
ought to telegraph at any rate; and he went into the station and
wrote a rather long message for Mr. Armstrong and another to the
manager of the Erie Bank.
The agent came in to take the messages. Tom had money in his pocket;
he paid for them, and went out to the platform again, where the
freight conductor watched the manipulation of his train. It was
going to Bala Junction, and Bala Junction, Tom remembered, was on
the main line north from Toronto. Many trains passed that point
daily. If he could get there, he could surely make a connection for
the city that afternoon. The conductor looked good-natured, and Tom
ventured to approach him.
“Look here, can’t you let me ride as far as Bala Junction?” he
entreated. “It’s an important matter—almost life and death. I’ll pay
fare,—double fare, if you like,—but I’ve got to get to the city by
seven o’clock.”
“My boy,” returned the conductor, not unkindly. “You heard what the
agent said. I’m not allowed to carry any passengers at all—might get
into trouble if I did. But,” he added, “there’s an empty box-car
half-way up the train, and I’d never know whether there was anybody
in it or not. We get to the Junction half an hour before the
south-bound express arrives.”
Tom burst out with a grateful ejaculation, but the conductor winked
at him, and then turned and looked rigidly in the other direction.
The boy rushed down the track alongside the train, found the open
door of the box-car, and swung himself into it. He sat down on the
floor in a corner, and almost instantly lapsed into a sort of stupor
of weariness, from which he was roused by the violent shock and
crash of the train’s getting under way. He saw the station slide
past the open door; the endless line of spruce trunks succeeded it.
The train gathered speed; he was really started for the city at
last.
It was not a comfortable ride. The freight-cars jolted and pitched,
crashing together with shattering jolts as the train slackened or
increased speed. Despite this, however, Tom dozed during a good deal
of the forty miles to Bala, arousing fully only at the occasional
halts. No one came near him, and nobody appeared to see him when he
slipped out of his box-car at the Junction, and made haste to buy
his ticket for Toronto on the express.
The express was late, and he filled in the time by endeavoring to
brush and clean himself a little, with imperfect success. He
obtained something to eat at the lunch-counter, and paced up and
down the platform counting the minutes. The express arrived at last,
and he was the only passenger to get aboard. He longed to take a
sleeper berth, but he was so disreputable-looking that he dared not
attempt it. He feared even to enter the first-class coaches, and
dropped into a seat in the smoker.
The hard part of the journey was over. Everything depended now on
the train, and he resigned himself to chance, with a dull fatalism.
He had done all he could, and he was too deadly weary to speculate
any more upon his chances of winning. He slept through most of the
journey, and came out, dazed and confused, upon the platform of the
Union Station, to see the big illuminated face of the clock
indicating eight.
It stung him again to desperate anxiety. He hastened to a telephone
booth in the waiting-room and called Mr. Armstrong’s office. Central
was unable to get any answer. The office must be closed. He then
rang up the lawyer’s house. A woman’s voice answered.
“Mr. Armstrong is downtown, attending a business meeting at the King
Edward Hotel. Is there any message?”
Tom dropped the receiver into the hook. He knew well what that
business meeting was. They were holding it at the King Edward, then.
Luckily, the hotel was not far from the depot, and a direct
street-car line carried him there in five minutes.
The throng of well-dressed people about the door of the big hotel
stared at the grimed, smoky, ragged young man who burst in, and the
outraged door-porter made an ineffectual grab to stop him. Few such
disreputable figures had ever passed that portal. Tom cast a rapid
glance around the leather chairs of the marble lobby, failed to spy
the face he sought, and hurried up to the desk.
“Mr. Henry Armstrong—the lawyer—is he here?”
“Haven’t seen him,” returned the clerk, eyeing Tom with indignation,
and he beckoned privately to a porter, indicating that the young man
should be removed.
Tom glanced over the lobby again. He would have to wait. He dropped
into one of the big easy-chairs, but the porter laid a hard hand on
his shoulder.
“Come now, you can’t sit here. You’ve got to get out.”
Tom rose, confused and humiliated. He was aware of scores of curious
and amused faces looking at him. The porter was edging him toward
the exit, when somebody touched his arm.
“Bless my soul, Tom Jackson! I saw you come in, but didn’t know you.
What in the world have you been doing to yourself?”
Tom almost gasped with deep relief. It was Mr. Armstrong himself,
who had been in conversation with a small, alert-looking man with a
gray mustache.
“Where’s your father? I got your telegram, but couldn’t make out
what you were driving at,” pursued the lawyer.
“Father’s badly hurt. The meeting—is it over yet?” Tom exclaimed,
choking with excitement.
“The meeting? No, it hasn’t started yet. We’re waiting for one of
the important men. This is Mr. Laforce, of the Erie Bank. He says he
had a telegram from you, too.”
“Of course I wired him!” cried Tom. “You must call the meeting off.
We’re not bankrupt. We’re all right now. We’ve got upward of fifty
thousand feet of good black walnut, worth three hundred dollars a
thousand—as good as cash—”
Mr. Laforce gave Tom a keen glance.
“You have, eh? Your wire sounded mysterious. Something in this,
Armstrong?”
“I think it’s worth looking into,” said Mr. Armstrong, laughing.
“If you’ve got all that, I guess the bank can carry you,” continued
the financier. “Of course we don’t want to push Matt Jackson into
bankruptcy. I guess anyway we’d better call the meeting postponed.”
That meeting was never held. Tom held a long conference with the
lawyer and the banker that evening, going home at last to his
deserted house, to tumble into bed and sleep like one dead till the
middle of the next forenoon. Late that day a telegram arrived from
the north:
Boss waked up and doing good. Doctor says no danger.
Raft safe.
Lynch.
Tom had another long talk over a dinner-table with Armstrong that
evening, finding the lawyer more human than he had ever considered
him before. The next morning he left for the Coboconk lakes again,
accompanied by a representative of the Erie Bank.
They found Mr. Jackson conscious and much recovered, weak indeed,
but eager to be out again. The skull had not been fractured; he had
suffered merely a concussion, and had been half drowned into the
bargain, and when Tom and his companion arrived he insisted on
sitting up and talking business.
The big raft still lay behind its boom in the northern bay, and was
an imposing sight, even after all the damage it had suffered. Nearly
a third of it had broken away in the storm. Some of the cribs had
remained afloat; some had gone ashore; and Lynch had been
energetically picking up everything that could be salvaged. Much of
the walnut had been spilled off the loose cribs, but altogether
Lynch estimated that they still had a good hundred and twenty
thousand feet.
At any rate the sight of the timber so impressed the bank
representative that he willingly agreed to “carry” the business a
little longer. All that remained was to get the timber out. Mr.
Jackson had originally thought of sawing it up at Oakley, but
finally decided to team the logs out from that place and ship it to
Toronto, where the precious wood could be more carefully handled.
They had to wait several days for a north wind to enable the raft to
go down the lake, and during this time, to Tom’s immense surprise,
appeared his cousin Dave. With some embarrassment Dave explained
that the “gold boom” had turned out a disappointment. He had staked
some claims, but there was nothing in them. He looked over the raft
with amazement and some chagrin.
“To think that I spent two years within a mile of all that and never
knew it!” he commented.
“We’ll give you a job as Lynch’s lieutenant—four dollars a day and
board,” Tom suggested, laughing.
Dave declined. He was needed on the farm, but he gladly accepted the
return of the fifteen dollars that Tom had borrowed at that critical
moment in the woods.
The raft went down to Oakley without mishap, a timely rainfall
having swollen the river to a good depth, and it aroused great
excitement at that town. Here they broke it up, and for a long time
the heavy logging teams were busy, slowly hauling the timber out to
the railway.
Two dozen logs or so vanished mysteriously between Oakley and
Toronto, but the rest of the timber was stored safely in Mr.
Jackson’s yards to dry out thoroughly. It was then carefully sawed
up. It sold somewhat slowly but at a high price, and not a scrap of
it was wasted. Altogether, the walnut brought a gross sum of
$44,000, besides several hundred dollars obtained from the rough
spruce and jack-pine of the floats, which was left at Oakley.
Charlie followed the raft down to Oakley and hung about till the
last load was teamed out. Tom looked forward with genuine regret to
saying good-by to this companion who had stood by him through so
many adventures. By way of deadening the farewell, he sent to
Toronto for a magnificent repeating-rifle with a stock of
ammunition, a new canoe, a miscellaneous camp outfit, and a set of
traps, and presented this unexpected wealth to Charlie just before
he left.
“If you ever need anything, Charlie,” he said, “if the trapping
turns out bad or you have any trouble, you go to my uncle Phil
Jackson. You know where he lives. He’ll give you anything you want.”
The Ojibway looked over the new outfit, which would make him the
envy of all his tribe, and raised his eyes to Tom’s, full of a deep
glow.
“You good fellow, Tom,” he said. “You come back some time, mebbe. I
watch for you.”
“Sure I’ll come back, Charlie,” Tom promised. “We’ll go trapping
together yet.”
Thus far, however, Tom has not gone back. He reëntered the
university that autumn, with renewed ambition to finish his studies;
and, without altogether neglecting collegiate athletics, he spent
most of his spare time in his father’s office and yards.
The forty-odd thousand dollars was not a fortune, but it carried the
business over a bad time, and was enough to set Mr. Jackson on his
feet again. Though, as he says, the lumber trade is no longer what
it used to be, the Jackson establishment seems to be prospering.
After Tom’s graduation, however, the office stationery bore the new
heading:
MATTHEW JACKSON & SON.
Perhaps the change brought luck.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Timber Treasure, by Frank Lillie Pollock