"Ah, _oui_!" Evidently Ba'tiste liked the expression. "Eet shall not
be until--what-you-say--the last dog, eet is dead. Come! We will go
into the forest. Ba'tiste will show you things you should know."
And to the old wagon again they went, to trail their way up the narrow
road along the bubbling, wooden flume which led from the lake, to
swerve off at the dam and turn into the hills again. Below them, the
great expanse of water ruffled and shimmered in the May sun; away off
at the far end, a log slid down a skidway, and with a booming splash
struck the water, to bury itself for a hundred feet, only to rise at
last, and bobbing, go to join others of its kind, drifting toward the
dam with the current of the stream which formed the lake. In the
smoother spaces, trout splashed; the reflections of the hills showed in
the great expanse as the light wind lessened, allowing the surface to
become glass-like, revealing also the twisted roots and dead branches
of trees long inundated in forming the big basin of water.
Evidently only a few men were working in the hills; the descent of the
logs was a thing spaced by many minutes, and the booming of the splash
struck forth into the hills to be echoed and re-echoed. Houston stared
gloomily at the skid, at the lake and the small parcel of logs drifting
there.
"All for nothing," came at last. "It takes about three logs to make
one--the way they're working."
"_Oui_! But M'sieu Houston shall learn."
Barry did not answer. He had learned a great deal already. He knew
enough to realize that his new effort must be a clean sweep,--from the
manager down. Distrust had enveloped him completely; even to the last
lumberjack must the camp be cleaned, and the start made anew with a
crew upon whom he could depend for honesty, at least. How the rest of
the system was to work out, he did not know. How he was to sell the
lumber which he intended milling, how he was to look after both the
manufacturing and the disposing of his product was something beyond
him, just at this moment. But there would be a way; there must be.
Besides, there was Ba'tiste, heavy-shouldered, giant Ba'tiste, leaning
over the side of the wagon, whistling and chiding the faithful old
Golemar, and some way Houston felt that he would be an ally always.
The wagon had turned into the deeper forest now redolent with the heavy
odor of the coniferous woods, and Ba'tiste straightened. Soon he was
talking and pointing,--now to describe the spruce and its short,
stubby, upturned needles; the lodgepole pines with their straighter,
longer leaves and more brownish, scaly bark; the Englemann spruce; the
red fir and limber pine; each had its characteristic, to be pointed out
in the simple words of the big Canadian, and to be catalogued by the
man at his side. A moment before, they had been only pines, only so
many trees. Now each was different, each had its place in the mind of
the man who studied them with a new interest and a new enthusiasm, even
though they might fall, one after another, into the maw of the saw for
the same purpose.
"They are like people, _oui_!" Old Ba'tiste was gesticulating. "They
have their, what-you-say, make-ups. The lodgepole, he is like the man
who runs up and looks on when the crowd, eet gathers about some one who
has been hurt. He waits until there had been a fire, and then he comes
in and grows first, along with the aspens, so he can get all the room
he wants. The spruce, he is like a woman, yes, _oui_. He looks better
than the rest--but he is not. Sometime, he is not so good. Whoa!"
The road had narrowed to a mere trail; Ba'tiste tugged on the reins,
and motioning to Barry, left the wagon, pulling forth an axe and heavy,
cross-cut saw as he did so. A half-hour later, Golemar preceding them,
they were deep in the forest. Ba'tiste stopped and motioned toward a
tall spruce.
"See?" he ordered, as he nicked it with his axe, "you cut heem as far
above the ground as he is thick through. Now, first, the undercut."
"Looks like an overcut to me."
"Oh, ho! Ah, _oui_, so eet is! But eet is called the undercut. Eet
makes the tree fall the way you want heem!"
The axe gleamed in blow after blow. A deep incision appeared in the
trunk of the tree, and at the base of it Ba'tiste started the saw,
Barry working on the other end with his good arm. Ten minutes of work
and they switched to the other side. Here no "undercut" was made; the
saw bit into the bark and deep toward the heart of the tree in a
smooth, sharp line that progressed farther, farther--
"_Look out_!"
A crackling sound had come from above. Ba'tiste abandoned the saw, and
with one great leap caught Houston and pulled him far to one side, as
with a roar, the spruce seemed to veritably disintegrate, its trunk
spreading in great, splintered slabs, and the tree proper crashing to
the ground in the opposite direction to which it should have fallen,
breaking as it came. A moment Ba'tiste stood, with his arm still about
the younger man, waiting for the dead branches, severed from other
trees, to cease falling, and the disturbed needles and dust of the
forest to settle. Then, pulling his funny little knit cap far down
over his straggly hair, he came forth, to stand in meditation upon the
largest portion of the shattered tree.
"Eet break up like an ice jam!" came at last. "That tree, he is not
made of wood. Peuff! He is of glass!"
Barry joined him, studying the splintered fragments of the spruce,
suddenly to bend forward in wonderment.
"That's queer. Here's a railroad spike driven clear into the heart."
"Huh? What's that?" Ba'tiste bent beside him to examine the rusty
spike, then hurried to a minute examination of the rest of the tree.
"And another," came at last. "And more!"
Four heavy spikes had revealed themselves now, each jutting forth at a
place where the tree had split. Ba'tiste straightened.
"Ah, _oui_! Eet is no wonder! See? The spike, they have been in the
tree for mebbe one, two, t'ree year. And the tree, he is not strong.
When the winter come, last year, he split inside, from the frost, where
the spike, he spread the grain. But the split, he does not show. When
we try to cut heem down and the strain come, blooey, he, what-you-say,
bust!"
"But why the spikes?"
"Wait!" Ba'tiste, suddenly serious, turned away into the woods, to go
slowly from tree to tree, to dig at them with his knife, to squint and
stare, to shin a few feet up a trunk now and then, examining every
protuberance, every round, bulbous scar. At last he shouted, and
Houston hurried to him, to find the giant digging excitedly at a
lodgepole. "I have foun' another!"
The knife, deep in the tree, had scratched on metal. Five minutes more
and they had discovered a third one, farther away. Then a fourth, a
fifth; soon the number had run to a score, all within a small radius.
Ba'tiste, more excited than ever, ranged off into the woods, leaving
Barry to dig at the trees about him and to discover even more metal
buried in the hearts of the standing lumber. For an hour he was gone,
to return at last and stand staring about him.
"The spike, they are all in this little section," he said finally. "I
have cruise' all about here--there are no more."
"But why should trees grow spikes?"
"Ah, why? So that saws will break at the right time! Eet is easy for
the iron hunter at the mill to look the other way--eef he knows what
the boss want. Eet is easy for the sawyer to step out of the way while
the blade, he hit a spike!"
A long whistle traveled over Houston's lips. This was the explanation
of broken saws, just at the crucial moment!
"Simple, isn't it?" he asked caustically. "Whenever it's necessary for
an 'accident' to happen, merely send out into the woods for a load of
timber from a certain place."
"Then the iron hunter--the man who look for metal in the wood--he look
some other place. Beside," and Ba'tiste looked almost admiringly at a
spike-filled tree. "Eet is a good job. The spike, they are driven
deep in the wood, they are punched away in, so the bark, eet will close
over them. If the iron hunter is not, what-you-say, full of pepper,
and if he is lazy, then he not find heem, whether he want to or not.
M'sieu Thayer, he have a head on him."
"Then Thayer--"
"Why not?"
"But why? He was the only man on the job out here. He didn't have to
fill a whole section of a forest full of spikes when he wanted to break
a saw or cause me trouble."
"Ah, no. But M'sieu--that is, whoever did eet--maybe he figure on the
time when you yourself try to run the mill. Eh?"
"Well, if he did," came sharply, "he's figured on this exact moment.
I've seen enough, Ba'tiste. I'm going to Denver and contract myself an
entirely new crew. Then I'm coming back to drop this masquerade I've
been carrying on--and if you'll help me--run this place myself.
Thayer's out--from the minute I can get a new outfit. I'm not going to
take any chances. When he goes, the whole bunch here goes with him!"
"Ah, _oui_!" Ba'tiste grinned with enthusiasm. "You said a
what-you-say--large bite! Now," he walked toward the saw, "we shall
fell a tree that shall not split."
"If you don't mind, I'd rather go back and look around the place. I
want to get lined up on everything before I start to Denver."
"Ah, _oui_." Together, led by the wolf-dog, they made their way to the
wagon again, once more to skirt the lake and to start down the narrow
roadway leading beside the flume. A half-hour more and there came the
sound of hammers and of saws. They stopped, and staring through the
scraggly trees, made out the figures of half a dozen men busily at work
upon the erection of a low, rambling building. All about them were
vast piles of lumber, two-by-fours, scantlings, boardings,
shingles,--everything that possibly could be needed in the building of
not one, but many structures. Ba'tiste nodded.
"The new mill."
"Yes. Probably being built out of my lumber. It's a cinch they didn't
transport it all the way from Tabernacle."
"Nor pay M'sieu Houston. Many things can happen when one is the
manager."
Barry made no answer. For another mile they drove in silence, at last
to come into the clearing of Barry's mill, with its bunk house, its
cook house, its diminutive commissary, its mill and kilns and sheds.
Houston leaped from the wagon to start a census and to begin his
preparations for a cleaning-out of the whole establishment. But at the
door of the commissary he whirled, staring. A buggy was just coming
over the brow of the little hill which led to the mill property. Some
one had called to him,---a woman whose voice had caused him to start,
then, a second later, to go running forward.
She was beside Thayer in the buggy, leaning forth, one hand extended as
Barry hurried toward her, her black eyes flashing eagerness, her full,
yet cold lips parted, her olive-skinned cheeks enlivened by a flush of
excitement as Houston came to her, forgetful of the sneer of the man at
her side, forgetful of the staring Ba'tiste in the background,
forgetful of his masquerade, of everything.
"Agnes!" he gasped. "Why did you--"
"I thought--" and the drawling voice of Fred Thayer had a suddenly
sobering effect on Houston, "that you weren't hurt very bad. Your
memory came back awful quick, didn't it? I thought she'd bring you to
your senses!"