SCOTT FINDS THE STILL
Dick went cheerfully to work with the other men in the morning and
seemed to have forgotten all his troubles. Mac put on a guard to watch
the buildings at night and he kept a sharp lookout for Foster in the
daytime, but that gentleman seemed to have realized his danger and kept
out of sight.
Scott had begun to think that Foster must have left the country when he
spied him one day sneaking through the woods a short distance from the
camp. But Foster evidently saw him and immediately disappeared in the
brush.
Everything at the camp was in good working order now. The four felling
crews were hard at it, each one working up a narrow strip from the
valley to the ridge. Their progress was marked by the steady booming of
the falling trees. The skid teams followed each other in an almost
continuous procession with their train of logs, and the big steam jammer
loaded them on to the cars on the siding as fast as they came down.
Over in the main draw other felling crews were cutting logs for the
chute and they were popping down so steadily that the old bear trap was
playing a regular tune.
Scott used to stand on the railroad track or the hotel porch and look up
at the slope with pride. For he had marked that timber for cutting when
he was still supervisor and he had done it well. Instead of the barren,
blackened hillside which the logger usually leaves behind him there was
enough small timber left standing to make it look almost like a virgin
forest. Some one could log there again before so very many years.
It looked as though the feud were practically dead. Sewall could report
no new developments. Hopwood had not shown up with any news for a long
time, not since Scott had visited him in his cabin, but he had sent him
word occasionally by Sewall. Scott thought that he was avoiding the
camps.
One day Scott’s peace was rudely shattered. He had stayed at home that
morning to finish up some correspondence. Just before noon MacAndrews
came bursting into the room. He was so mad that there were tears in his
eyes and he was almost inarticulate. He strode up and down the full
length of the room twice, waving his arms wildly, before he could get a
word out of himself.
Scott was pale with apprehension. “What under the sun is the matter,
Mac?” he asked anxiously.
“Drunk,” Mac shouted savagely. “The whole blame crew’s drunk.”
“Drunk?” Scott echoed in his astonishment, while Mac continued to walk
the floor.
“Dead drunk,” Mac repeated in disgust. “In the middle of the morning,
and not a lick of work to be got out of any of them.”
“Where did they get it?” Scott asked, for both he and Mac had exerted
every possible effort to keep whisky out of the camp.
“Yes,” Mac roared, “that is the question. Where did they get it? I’ve
asked them all and beaten up half of them and not a word have I got out
of any one. Show me the man who brought it in, that’s all I ask.”
Suddenly a new thought occurred to Scott. “Where are they, Mac?”
“Lying all over the woods.”
“I thought so. Round them up into the bunk house, Mac. This is something
that I think I can solve.”
“You mean to say that you are not going to fire them?” Mac shouted in
amazement.
“Certainly not,” Scott answered with decision. “Do you think I want the
whole crew added to Foster Wait’s gang? If I am not mistaken, that was
the purpose in getting them drunk. Round them up in the bunk house where
they can’t get any more, and I’ll see what I can do. Isn’t there any one
sober enough to help you?”
“Ben and the bull cook seem to have been overlooked,” Mac growled.
“They were in camp, that’s the reason. Get them to help you,” Scott
ordered, as he took his hat and started for the door.
Mac, growling like a polar bear, went back to camp to carry out Scott’s
orders. He wanted to fire the whole crew and it went against his grain
to have to act as nursemaid to such a bunch, but orders were orders with
him, and he would carry them out to the letter.
Scott started straight for the opposite mountain growling almost as
savagely as Mac at his own stupidity. Why hadn’t he guessed where Dick
had obtained his whisky? And why hadn’t he guessed why Foster had been
hanging around the camp? And why hadn’t it occurred to him what was at
the end of that well-beaten trail up there on the mountains? He had
certainly been a bonehead, but now he was determined to get to the
bottom of it, and the first thing to do was to follow out that trail.
He was walking rapidly up the road, still grumbling at his stupidity,
when he saw a stranger sitting on a stump beside the road. He had almost
passed him when he realized with a start that it was Hopwood. His iron
hat was replaced with a soft felt such as all the mountaineers wore and
it changed his appearance completely. He laughed when he saw Scott’s
amazement.
“I thought you must be coming this way,” he said in his usual quiet and
rather mysterious manner.
“But what does this mean, Hopwood?” Scott asked in bewilderment. “I
heard that you had taken an oath to wear your iron hat till this feud
was settled.”
Hopwood was serious at once. “I don’t need that old hunk of iron any
more. I’ll explain it to you soon, but I haven’t time now. Where are you
going?”
“I suppose you know what has happened. I am going up there to find that
still. I ought to have done it long ago. I found the trail one day and I
don’t know why it never dawned on me what it was. I had heard there was
a big one somewhere, too. Of course, Foster gave those fellows that
whisky, didn’t he?”
Hopwood nodded. “Yes, and I was just coming down to warn you to keep out
of his way. He has been celebrating his success and he’s crazy. He would
shoot you on sight.”
“Where is he?” Scott asked sullenly. He did not like this business of
running away from a man, and yet he knew it was the only wise thing to
do.
“He was up at the house a little while ago. Keep your eyes open and take
to the woods if you see him. I’ll come down to see you to-morrow if I
don’t have to go away for a day or two.”
“I may have to go away for a day or two myself,” Scott replied. “By the
way, where have you been? I have not seen you for a long time.”
“I’ve been too busy,” Hopwood replied lightly and disappeared in the
woods with a backward smile.
Scott did not understand Hopwood. Some mysterious change seemed to have
come over him. But he did not have time to figure it out now. He was too
anxious to see that still. He had Hopwood’s assurance that it was there,
but he wanted to see it for himself.
He did not know where the trail started so there was nothing for him to
do but to go up on the ridge to the place where the old pig had scared
him so badly. He found the place without any difficulty and looked
around a little nervously to make sure that the old sow was not still on
guard. She was nowhere in sight and he dropped down the slope unmolested
in search of the trail. He was surprised to see how far down it was.
When he came to the tunnel into the laurel he found some fresh tracks
and listened anxiously. He was determined to see the still, but he did
not want any one to see him, partly because he knew that these men would
not hesitate to shoot any one they found spying around their still, and
partly because he did not want any one to know that he had found it.
He could see nothing. He looked down the trail and made a careful survey
of the woods behind him. There was no one there who might cut off his
retreat. Everything seemed safe enough and he cautiously entered the
narrow tunnel. It was longer than he had imagined and the turns in it
gave him an uncomfortable feeling of being shut in. He stopped every two
feet to listen and then crawled slowly forward again. It seemed as
though he would never get to the end of it.
When he did get to the end he saw something that astonished him even
more than the length of the tunnel. He found himself in a small opening
about four rods across, and in the middle of it was a tiny log cabin. He
had covered over half the distance to the cabin when a noise inside made
his heart stand still.
Some one was fumbling with the latch on the inside. After the first
instant of paralysis Scott took in the situation at a glance. If he
tried to return to the tunnel he would be in direct line with the door
and would be in sight for some distance even after he had entered the
tunnel. This all passed through his mind like a flash. His only chance
was to hide around the corner of the cabin. He did not know how many
people there were in there or whether there were windows in the end, or
possibly another door, but it was his best chance. In two jumps he was
around the corner.
The latch clicked up almost the instant he started, and long before he
reached the corner he heard the door swinging open on its rusty hinges.
A glance showed him that there were no windows in that end of the cabin.
He was hidden for the moment unless he had been discovered before he
reached there.
He turned and peeped anxiously through a crack between the ends of the
logs. For what seemed to Scott like an age no one appeared. He looked
nervously behind him and half expected to see a rifle pointing at him
from the other corner of the cabin. But there was no one there.
He was beginning to wonder whether he had really heard anything at all,
or just imagined it, when there was a knock against the log wall that
made him jump almost out of his skin, and Foster Wait staggered out of
the door with a big earthenware jug in one hand and his long rifle in
the other. He swayed uncertainly and took a step or two in Scott’s
direction. Scott shrank back against the wall and prepared to sneak
around the cabin, but Foster changed his course back toward the cabin
door.
He stood there mumbling for an instant and seemed to be talking to some
one inside, but there was no answer. He laboriously turned again and
started for the tunnel. He had considerable trouble in getting the jug
and the rifle both into the opening, but finally succeeded. “They’ll
never do it, they’ll never do it,” he called back angrily over his
shoulder.
Scott was sure then that there was some one else in the cabin. He had
visions of hiding there behind that corner till dark, for the door had
been left open and he would not dare try to sneak out in front of it. He
could still hear Foster fumbling and mumbling his way through the
tunnel, but he had not caught any sound from within.
He placed his ear against the log wall and listened. The gnawing of a
mouse on the other side sounded to him like some one tearing off the
roof, and would have drowned out any other noises there might have been.
The mouse stopped and he held his breath to hear better. There was not a
sound. Minute after minute passed and still no sound. The mouse began
again.
“Better be shot than have that mouse scare me to death,” Scott muttered
to himself, and he determined to have a look in the door. First he went
back to make sure that there was no door in the rear. There was only a
little square window on that side. Slowly he came back to his corner and
listened once more. All was still.
With a glance at the tunnel he crawled cautiously toward the door. Inch
by inch he made his slow advance with his eyes glued on the opening and
his mind made up to jump on any one who might come out—for there was no
chance to escape now.
At the very edge of the door he stopped to listen and peeped cautiously
around the doorframe. Just then a noise behind him brought him to his
feet with a bound, and he saw a man step out of the tunnel.