XI

The east line of Kent's limit butted on the west line of Clancys', and

in due course MacNutt began to cut along the line. The snow he had been

longing for fell in plenty and the road already bottomed and made became

good. A constant stream of logs flowed down it on the big-bunked

sleighs, draining the skidways, which were continually replenished by

more logs travoyed out of the woods. At the banking grounds the big

piles grew. The work was going merrily.

About the time MacNutt began to cut to his line McCane did the same. The

crews fraternized to some extent, but the bosses had nothing to say to

each other, each keeping to his own side. Hence Kent's foreman was

surprised when one morning, after a fresh fall of snow, Rough Shan

accompanied by two other men came to him. He noted, also, with an eye

experienced in reading signs of trouble, that most of McCane's crew were

working, or making a pretence of working, just across the line.

"These men is sawyers, MacNutt," said Rough Shan. "Yesterday, late on,

they dropped a tree an' cut her into two lengths. This morning the logs

is gone."

"What have I got to do with that?" asked MacNutt.

"That's what I've come to find out," retorted McCane. "Our teamsters

never touched them. Logs don't get away by themselves."

MacNutt frowned at him. "If you think we took your logs there's our

skidways, and the road is open to the river. Take a look for yourself."

McCane and his men went to the nearest skidway and examined the logs.

They passed on to another, and MacNutt thought it advisable to follow.

At the second skidway one of the sawyers slapped a stick of timber.

"This is her," he announced. "I know her by this here knot. Yes, an'

here's the other length."

Jackson, Ward, and Haggarty, cant-hook men and old employees of the

Kents, had been regarding McCane and his followers with scowling

disfavour, and Haggarty, from his post on top of the pile where he had

been "decking" the logs as they were sent up to him, asked:

"What's wrong wid them sticks?"

"We cut them yesterday on our limit," the man told him.

"Ye lie!" cried Haggarty fiercely, dropping his cant-hook and leaping to

the ground. Jackson and Ward sprang forward as one man.

"You keep out o' this," said Rough Shan. "This is log stealin', and a

matter for your boss, if he's man enough to talk to me face."

"Man enough? Come over here an' say we stole yer logs, ye dirty----"

Haggarty's language became lurid. He was an iron-fisted old-timer and

hated McCane.

MacNutt, when he saw Haggarty drop his cant-hook and jump, ran across to

the skids. So did other men at hand. A ring of fierce, bearded faces and

level, inquiring eyes gathered about the intruders.

"Here is the logs, MacNutt," said Rough Shan. "Now, I want to know how

they come here."

MacNutt examined the logs. They had not yet been branded by the

marking-iron with the big K which proclaimed Kent ownership. They were

in no material particular different from the rest. It was possible that

his teamsters had made a mistake. His sawyers could not identify the

logs positively; they thought they had cut them, but were not sure. On

the other hand, the two teamsters, Laviolette and old Ben Watkins, were

very sure they had never drawn those particular sticks to the pile.

"One o' yeez must 'a done it," asserted McCane.

"Not on your say-so," retorted Watkins, whose fighting blood had not

cooled with age. "Don't you get gay with the old man, Shan McCane.

I'll----"

"Shut up, Ben!" MacNutt ordered. He turned to McCane. "I'll give you the

logs because your men are sure and mine ain't. Break them out o' that,

Haggarty; and you, Laviolette, hitch on and pull them across the line to

wherever they say they laid. All the same I want to tell ye it wasn't my

teamsters snaked them here."

"An' do ye think mine did?--a likely t'ing" said Rough Shan. "Mind this,

now, MacNutt, you be more careful about whose logs ye take."

MacNutt lit his pipe deliberately before replying.

"The next one ye pull onto our skidways we'll keep," said he.

McCane glowered at him. "Ye've got a gall. Steal our logs, an' tell me I

done it meself! I want to tell ye, MacNutt, I won't take that from you

nor anny man."

"Go back and boss your gang," said MacNutt coldly, refusing the evident

challenge.

He had made up his mind to give no provocation; but he had also

determined to push the fight to a finish when it came, as he saw it

inevitably must. The occurrence of the morning' confirmed his suspicion

that McCane was following out a deliberate plan. He perceived, too, that

the matter of the logs was a tactical mistake of the latter's. For, if

Rough Shan had confined his activities to supplying the men with whiskey

and fomenting discontent, MacNutt would have been forced to discharge

half of them, and good hands were scarce. Thus the camp would have been

practically crippled. But an accusation of log stealing would weld the

men solidly together for the honour of their employer.

Haggarty, the iron-fisted cant-hook man, who had drawn Kent pay for

years, took up the matter in the bunk-house that night.

"Nobody knows better nor Rough Shan hisself who put them logs on our

skidway," he declared with a tremendous oath. "An' for why did he do it?

To pick a row, no less. He thought ould Mac would keep the sticks an'

tell him to go to the divil. Mac was too foxy for him that time."

"If he wants a row he can have it," said Regan; "him or anny of his

gang. It's the dirty bunch they are. An' I want to say right here," he

continued, glaring at the row of men on the "deacon seat," "that the man

that fills himself up on rotgut whiskey from McCane's camp after this is

a low-lived son of a dog, an' I will beat the head off of him once when

he's drunk an' again when he's sober."

A growl of approval ran along the bench.

"That's right."

"That's the talk, Larry!"

"To hell wid McCane an' his whiskey, both!"

"Mo' Gee! we pass ourself on hees camp an' clean heem out."

The temperance wave was so strong that the minority maintained a

discreet silence. Indeed, even those who relished the contraband whiskey

most would have relished no less an encounter with McCane's crew, for

whom they had little use, individually or collectively. Save for the

first few bottles to whet their appetites, the whiskey had not been

supplied free. They had paid high for it, and the mystery of the fatal

keg had never been cleared up. The sufferers were inclined to blame one

or more of McCane's men, and, not being able to fasten the

responsibility for the outrage on any individual, saddled it on the

entire crew.

At this juncture Joe Kent arrived in camp, following out a laudable

determination to become acquainted with the woods end of his business.

He came at night, and took up his quarters with MacNutt.

Although he had visited camps before with his father, it was still fresh

and new to Joe--the roomy box stove, the log walls hung with mackinaw

garments, moccasins, and snowshoes, the water pail on the shelf beside

the door, the bunks with their heavy gray blankets and bearskins--all

the raffle that accumulates in a foreman's winter quarters. And because

his imagination was young and active and unspoiled he saw in these

things the elements of romance where an older hand would have seen

utility only. He felt that they typified a life which he had come to

learn, that they were part of a game which he had studied theoretically

from a distance, but was now come to play himself.

MacNutt was silent from habit. A foreman cannot mingle socially with his

men to any extent and preserve his authority. Hence his life is lonely

and loneliness begets silence. He answered questions with clear brevity,

but did not make conversation. He was not at all embarrassed by the

presence of his employer; nor would he have been if the latter had been

old and experienced instead of young and green. He knew very well that

Kent had come to learn the practical side of the woods business. That

was all right and he approved of it. He would tell him whatever he

wanted to know; but as a basis he must know enough to ask intelligent

questions. Outside of that he must learn by experience. That was how

MacNutt had learned himself, and if Joe had asked him the best way to

obtain practical knowledge he would have been advised to go into the

woods with another man's crew and use an axe.

"And now about McCane's gang," said Joe when he had learned what he

could absorb as to the progress of the work. "Are they giving you any

trouble."

"Not more than I can handle," said MacNutt, and for the first time told

of the doctored whiskey.

Joe roared at the recital, and MacNutt smiled grimly. He was not a

humourist, and his narrative was not at all embellished. He went on to

relate the incident of the logs and his deductions.

Kent thought of Finn Clancy and frowned. He told the foreman of the

contract with the Clancy firm and of the narrowly averted row with Finn.

"Then they are behind McCane," said MacNutt conclusively. "That means he

will make it bad for us yet--unless we stop him."

"I don't understand," said Joe.

"It's this way," MacNutt explained. "McCane has his instructions, but

you can't prove them. Suppose he claims a log and doesn't get it and a

fight starts between the crews--why, he's jobbing the limit himself and

the Clancys ain't responsible."

"A bit of a scrap won't matter," said Joe cheerfully.

"It will matter if the woods ain't big enough to hold but one crew--ours

or theirs," returned MacNutt. "I've seen it happen before."

"Tell me about it," said Joe. He listened eagerly to the concise

narrative that followed, which was the little-known history of a logging

war in which the casualties were large.

"The dead men were reported killed by falling timber," the foreman

concluded. "Five of them there was--five lives, and all for one pine

tree that turned out punk when it was cut." He tapped his pipe out

against the stove. "You'll be tired. I get up before light, but I'll try

not to wake you, Mr. Kent."

"I'll get up when you do," said Joe. "I'm going out on the job with the

crew."

"All right; I'll wake you," said the foreman without comment, but

likewise without conviction.

In the morning--or as it seemed to Joe about midnight--he awoke with a

light in his eyes and the foreman's hand on his shoulder. The light came

from the lamp. Outside it was pitch dark, and the wind was shouting

through the forest and whining around the cabin. Now and then a volley

of snow pattered against the window.

By way of contrast never had a bed seemed so absolutely comfortable. For

a moment he was tempted to exercise his right to sleep. The ghost of a

smile on MacNutt's face decided for him. He tumbled out, soused his head

in water, pulled on his heavy clothes, high German socks, and moccasins,

and in five minutes stood, a very solid, good-looking young lumber jack

with a very healthy appetite for breakfast.

The darkness was lifting when the crew left camp for the woods. Joe and

the foreman tramped behind. There was little speech. However excellent

early rising may be theoretically it does not sweeten the temper,

especially in mid-winter. There was a notable absence of laughter, of

jest, even of ordinarily civil conversation. Almost every man bent his

energies to the consumption of tobacco. They had not shaken off the

lethargy of the night, and their mental processes were not yet astir.

They plodded mechanically, backs humped, eyes upon the ground, dully

resentful of the weather, the work, of existence itself.

Arrived at the scene of operations, the lethargy vanished. Men sighed as

they lifted axes for the first blow--such a sigh as one gives when

stooping to resume a burden. With the fall of the blow, and the shock of

it running up the helve through arms and shoulders, they were completely

awake. What remained of the dull, aimless resentment was directed at the

timber that ringed them around--the timber that represented at once a

livelihood and an unending toil.

Joe followed MacNutt, keenly observant. He knew little about the

work--how it should be done, how much each man and team should do, where

odd moments might be saved, and the way in which a desired object might

be accomplished with the least expenditure of effort. But he was by no

means absolutely ignorant, for, like the average young American, he had

spent considerable time in the woods, which involves a more or less

intimate acquaintance with the axe, and he had also the average

American's aptitude for tools and constructive work of any kind. Then,

too, he had absorbed unconsciously much theory from his father and from

the conversation of his father's friends, added to which was the study

and thought of the past few months. Thus he possessed a groundwork.

Remained analysis of the actual individual operations as they were

performed before his eyes, and synthesis into a whole.

With the foreman he went over most of the job, from the first slashings

to the river rollways, and thus gained a comprehensive idea of what had

been done, what remained to do, and what time there was to do it in. He

drank scalding tea and ate pork, bread, and doughnuts with the men at

noon, and smoked a pipe, sheltered from the biting north wind by a thick

clump of firs. In the afternoon, to keep himself warm, he took an axe

and trimmed tree tops with the swampers, showing a fair degree of

efficiency with the implement. Also he took a turn at the end of the

long, flexible cross-cut saw, an exercise which made a new set of

muscles ache; but he learned the rudiments of it--to pull with a long,

smooth, level swing, not to push, but to let the other man pull on the

return motion, to tap in a wedge when the settling trunk began to bind

the thin, rending ribbon of steel, and to use kerosene on the blade when

it gummed and pulled heavily and stickily. When the work ceased with the

falling darkness he tramped back to camp with the men, ate a huge

supper, spent an hour in the bunk-house with them, and sang them a couple

of songs which were received with wild applause, and then rolled into

his bunk, dog-tired, and was asleep as his head settled in the pillow.

Behind him, in the sleeping-camp, he left a favourable impression.

"He's good stuff, that lad," said Haggarty. "He minds me of some one--a

good man, too."

"Would it be Alec Macnamara, now?" asked Regan. Macnamara, a famous

"white-water birler," had met his fate in the breaking of a log-jam some

years before.

"That's who it is, God rest his soul," said Haggarty. "He's younger, but

he's the dead spit of Alec in the eyes an' mouth. It's my belief he

laughs when he fights, like him, an' he'd die game as Alec died."

Whether Haggarty's belief was right or wrong did not appear. Nothing

arose to put the young boss's courage to a test. All went merry as a

marriage bell, and the quantity of logs pouring down to the banking

grounds attested the quality of the work done. Then came trouble out of

a comparatively clear sky.

One day Joe was bossing the job, MacNutt being in camp. His bossing,

truth to tell, lay more in the moral effect of his presence than in

issuing orders or giving instruction. Having the good sense to recognize

his present limitations, he let the men alone. The air was soft with a

promise of snow, and he lit his pipe and sauntered up the logging road.

Before a skidway stood four men in hot argument. Two of these were

Haggarty and Jackson. One was unknown to Kent. The fourth he recognized

as Rough Shan McCane.

"Here's Mr. Kent now," said Haggarty, catching sight of him.

Rough Shan favored Joe with a contemptuous stare. "Where's MacNutt?" he

demanded. "I told him this log stealin' had got to stop."

"MacNutt is in camp," said Joe. "You can talk to me if you like. What's

the matter?"

Rough Shan cursed the absent foreman. "Log stealin's the matter," he

announced. "A load of our logs has gone slick an' clean."

"Gone where?" asked Joe coldly.

"MacNutt knows where!" asserted Rough Shan with an oath. "This is the

second time. I'm goin' to find them, an' when I do----"

"What'll ye do?" demanded Haggarty truculently. "It is the likes of you

can come over here an' say----"

"Dry up, Haggarty!" Joe commanded shortly. "Now, look here, Mr. McCane,

we haven't got your logs."

"But ye have," Rough Shan proclaimed loudly. "I know the dirty tricks of

ye. That's stealin'--stealin', d'ye mind, young felly? I want them logs

an' I want 'em quick, drawed over an' decked on our skidways an' no

words about it. As it is, I'm a good mind to run ye out o' the woods."

Joe's temper began to boil. Here was an elemental condition confronting

him. Rough Shan was big and hard and tough, but he was not much awed. To

him the big lumber jack was not more formidable than any one of a score

of husky young giants who had done their several and collective bests to

break his neck on the football field, and he was not inclined to take

any further gratuitous abuse.

"What makes you think we took your logs?" he asked.

"Who else could 'a' done it?" demanded Rough Shan with elemental logic.

"You might have done it yourself," Joe told him. "Now, you listen to me

for a minute and keep a civil tongue in your head. You're trying to make

trouble for us, and I know it, and I know who is behind you. If you want

a row you can have it, now or any old time. You won't run anybody out of

the woods. As for the logs, you know what MacNutt told you. Still, if

you can prove ownership of any, satisfactorily to me, you may haul them

back with the team you hauled them in with. But, mind you, this is the

last time. The trick is stale, and you mustn't play it again."

"I'll find them an' then I'll talk to you," said Rough Shan with

contempt. "Come on, Mike." He made for the nearest skidway.

"You two men go along and tell the boys to let him look till he's

tired," said Joe to Haggarty and Jackson. "Don't scrap with him,

remember."

"Well, we'll try not," said Haggarty. "That's Mike Callahan wid him--a

divil!"

"You do what I tell you!" Joe snapped, and Haggarty and Jackson uttered

a suddenly respectful "Yes, sir."

In half an hour Jackson came for Joe. He found Rough Shan at the banking

grounds. Before him lay a little pile of thin, round circles of wood;

also sawdust. McCane picked one circle up and handed it to him.

It was a slice cut from the end of a saw log. One side was blank. On the

other the letters "CB" proclaiming the ownership of Clancy Brothers were

deeply indented.

"Well, what about it?" asked Joe.

"What about it!" Rough Shan repeated. "Here's the ends sawed from our

marked logs. Then ye mark them fresh for yerself. A nice trick! That's

jail for some wan."

"Pretty smooth," said Joe. "Saves you the trouble of hauling the logs in

here, doesn't it? One man could carry these ends in a sack."

Rough Shan glared at him. "I want them logs, an' I want them now," he

cried with an oath.

"All right; take them," Joe retorted. "Of course you'll have to match

these ends on the logs they belong to. Possibly you overlooked that

little detail. Haggarty, you see that he makes a good fit."

Haggarty grinned. "Then I'm thinkin' I'll be goin' over onto Clancys'

limit wid him," he commented.

Rough Shan took a fierce step forward. Joe stood his ground and the

other paused.

"Our logs is here," he exclaimed. "These ends proves it. I'll not match

them, nor try to. I give ye an hour to deliver a full load of logs,

average twelve-inch tops, at our skidways."

"Not a log, unless you prove ownership of it, and then you do your own

delivering," said Joe. "Pshaw! McCane, what's the use? You can't bluff

me. Let your employers go to law if they want to."

"Law!" cried Rough Shan. "We run our own law in these woods, young

felly. I give ye fair warnin'!"

"You make me tired," Joe retorted. "Why don't you _do_ something?"

Joe was quick on his feet, but he was quite unprepared for the sudden

blow which Rough Shan delivered. It caught him on the jaw and staggered

him. Instantly Haggarty hurled himself at McCane, while Jackson tackled

Callahan. The men at the rollways ran to the scrap. Callahan floored

Jackson and went for Joe, who met him with straight, stiff punches which

surprised the redoubtable Mike. As reinforcements came up, McCane and

his henchman backed against a pile of timber.

"Come on, ye measly log stealers!" roared the foreman, thoroughly in his

element. The odds against him had no effect save to stimulate his

language. He poured forth a torrent of the vilest abuse that ever

defiled a pinery. Beside him Callahan, heavy-set and gorilla-armed,

supplemented his remarks. There was no doubt of the thorough gameness of

the pair.

In went Haggarty, Reese, Ward, and Chartrand. Others followed. The rush

simply overwhelmed the two. They went down, using fists, knees, and feet

impartially. A dozen men strove to get at them.

[Illustration: Haggarty and Rough Shan, locked in a deadly grip, fought

like bulldogs]

Joe's sense of fair play was outraged. He caught the nearest man by the

collar and slung him back twenty feet.

"Quit it!" he shouted. "Haggarty! Chartrand! White! Let them alone, do

you hear me?" In his anger he rose to heights of unsuspected eloquence

and his words cut like whips. The men disentangled before his voice and

hands. At the bottom Haggarty and Rough Shan, locked in a deadly grip,

fought like bulldogs, each trying for room to apply the knee to the

other's stomach.

"Pull 'em apart!" Joe ordered sharply, and unwilling hands did so. They

cursed each other with deep hatred. Their vocabularies were much on a

par and highly unedifying.

"That'll do, Haggarty!" Joe rasped. "McCane, you shut your dirty mouth

and get out of here."

"You--" McCane began venomously.

"Don't say it," Joe warned him. "Clear out!"

"A dozen of ye to two!" cried McCane. "If I had ye alone, Kent, I'd put

ye acrost me knee!"

"Come to my camp any night this week and I'll take you with the gloves,"

said Joe. "If you want a scrap for all hands bring your crew with you.

Now, boys, get back on the job. We've wasted enough time. These men are

going."

He turned away, and the men scattered unwillingly to their several

employments. Rough Shan and Callahan, left alone, hesitated, shouted a

few perfunctory curses, and finally tramped off. But every one who knew

them knew also that this was only the beginning.