Ben Kyle made "his bigness" when he went into Flagg's crew on his
mission for Craig. He was not admitting to himself or anybody else that
he was traitor. He blustered and bullyragged; he had been their boss and
he had been fired without cause, he insisted. Even the loyal men did not
presume to answer back; he had been too recently their master and the
aura of authority still persisted. He came with a white-hot grudge and
with rumors which he embroidered to suit his needs. Kyle had been far on
the edge of affairs, and only the ripples of the Adonia events reached
him. But his statement that Latisan had run away with a girl seemed to
be certified by the drive master's continued absence. And there were
those stories of Latisan's former weakness in the city; they had been
sleeping; they were not dead.
Kyle was hiring for the Comas company--unabashed, blatantly. He strode
from man to man, banging heavy palm on shoulders. "Come with the real
folks. What's old Eck Flagg to-day? You might as well be hired by a
bottle-sucking brat in a baby carriage. Where's Latisan? You tell me his
men went downriver to meet him; they've kept on going. He has hid away,
dancing his doxy on his knee. Where's your pay coming from when Eck
Flagg goes broke?"
Kyle waded in the shallows where men were rolling logs, shouting to be
heard above the roar of the waters.
"We hired for a fight," said the men who hated the Comas. "But it
doesn't look like one is going to be made."
"We've always stood behind Eck Flagg," said the old stand-bys of the
crew. "But we ain't getting a square chance for honest work."
It was plain that the spirit was being beaten out of them under the
hammer of Kyle's harangue--whether it was the adventurous spirit which
craved fight or the honest spirit which had sent them north to the job.
When the night came down, after they had cleaned their pannikins of
food, steaming hot, from the cook's kettles, while they smoked around
the fire which drove away the evening chill, Kyle paced to and fro among
the groups, declaiming, detracting, and urging. He knew that he was
prevailing, though slowly. Woodsmen in shifting their allegiance are not
swayed by sudden impulse. His voice rang among the trees in the silence
of the evening.
"Latisan is a sneak--Latisan is a runaway! Eck Flagg is next to a dead
man!" Over and over he made those declarations, battering discouragement
into their slow comprehension in order to win them to the Comas company.
"And Latisan has thrown down real men for the sake of a girl! Do you
want to get the Big Laugh when you show yourselves downriver?"
Voyagers who came from the southward, leaving their canoes below the
falls, moved silently, after the fashion of the Tarratines. They halted
on a shadowed slope within the range of Kyle's raucous voice, and Lida
stepped forward to listen. The red flames lighted a circle among the
trees, and she beheld the seated groups and saw the swaggering
malcontent who paced to and fro.
"I'm with the Three C's now, first, last, and all the time! Their money
is waiting for you, men. Come, with the real folks, I tell you!"
And again, with even more fantastic trimmings, he set forth the story of
Latisan's flight with a girl who had seduced him from his duty in the
north.
Lida snatched the Flagg cant dog from the hands of Felix; he had been
the bearer of her scepter. He blinked when he looked at her. The
far-flung light of the camp fire, reflected in her eyes, had set
veritable torches there. Her lips were apart and her white teeth were
clenched and her face was ridged with resolution.
There was no mistaking the intention which righteous anger had stirred
in her, but when she started down the slope Felix leaped and ventured to
restrain her with a touch on her arm. "Is it well to let the Comas know
that you are here or what you are going to do? Pardon, mam'selle, but
think!"
"The lies! The lies!"
"Yes, mam'selle, but you can tell them the truth when he is not there to
hear."
"But now he is there, and I cannot go to the men."
"In a little while you may go; he will not be there. And if he does not
know what is going on up here, after his back is turned, maybe we shall
have day after day to push our logs in ahead of all the others,"
explained the riverman. "They will be days worth much." Then with the
imagery of his race he added, "Those days will be gold beads on our
rosary, mam'selle!" He smiled into her eyes, from which the fires were
departing. "Please wait here with the the others."
He whispered to several of the Indians; when he sauntered down the slope
the four summoned Tarratines stole to right and left, masking themselves
in the shadows, flanking the champion who was going alone.
Most of the men of the crew recognized Felix Lapierre when he walked
into the circle of light. They leaped up, surrounded him, their mouths
full of hilarious congratulation, of excuses why they had not attended
the wedding, of awkward jokes and questions. They could not understand
why he had come north so soon. He shook his head, mildly refusing to
satisfy their curiosity.
Kyle stood for a time; then he resumed his pacing. He no longer had
listeners. Like children, the rivermen were wholly absorbed in a new
toy--a bridegroom who had so suddenly deserted the handsomest girl
between Adonia and The Forks.
"Oh, let him alone," advised Kyle, whetting his new grouch. "If they
ain't running away _with_ girls in this region, they're running away
_from_ 'em!"
Felix swung around and faced the speaker. "Do you speak of me?" he
asked, quietly.
"Take it that way if you want to."
"Your tongue seems to be very busy, I have that to say to you. From up
there on the hill I heard what you have to say about M'sieu Latisan,
that he has run away with a girl."
"And he has."
"You lie!"
That retort snapped the trigger on Kyle's inflamed temper. "You
damnation squaw man!" he yelped, and drove a blow at the French
Canadian; and Felix, following the fighting custom of his clan of the
Laurentian Valley, ducked low, leaped high, and kicked Kyle under the
hook of the jaw. It was the _coup a pied_. Kyle staggered and went down.
When he struggled up and weakly attacked again, the antagonist met him
face to face and smashed a stunning blow between Kyle's eyes; he fell
and remained on his back.
"One for me, and one for my wife he has insult'," cried Felix. He spun
around, searching their faces. "Do any of you like to back him up?"
"Not on your life," said a spokesman. "He doesn't belong in this crew."
"I'm much oblige'," said Felix, politely. He whistled, and the four
Indians rushed out from the shadows. "If he is not of the crew, then if
he goes away it does not matter."
He commanded the Indians, and they lifted Kyle and started off with him.
"He'll not be hurt," Felix assured the men of the crew. "He'll go down
the river where it's better for him."
Nobody offered protest. They were glad to be rid of that bellowing,
insistent voice of the trouble-maker.
Their attention was wholly engaged with the involuntary departure of
Kyle, and they did not observe Lapierre when he walked away; they turned
to ask more questions, to be informed what this abduction signified, but
Felix was nowhere to be seen. Men called but he did not reply.
Babble of comment and argument! It was a picked fight--anybody could see
that. Why should Lapierre come north in the Flagg interests? Lapierre
had never worked in a Flagg crew. It was begun so suddenly and was ended
so soon! A minute's flash of drama against the background of the night,
into which they stared with searching eyes while they made clamor like
quacking ducks that had been startled from sleep by a prowler! Curiosity
was lashing them. They were wonted to their reckless adventure in the
white water; it had become dull toil. This affair was something real in
the way of excitement, with a mystery which tantalized them. Again they
called into the night, seeking an explanation.
The prologue by which the Comas agent had been removed as tempter and
tale-bearer had not been staged by Felix for calculated effect; he had
thought only of getting Kyle out of the way. But never was an audience
in more keenly receptive mood for a sequel than were those men who
crowded closely in the patch of camp-fire radiance and asked questions
of one another.
To them when they were in that mood came one who made the drama more
poignant. They were hushed, they blinked uncertainly, they found it
unreal, unbelievable.
For here was a girl, far north at the head of the drive in the season
of the roaring waters. She came slowly from the night and stood at the
edge of the circle of light. She was wearing Latisan's jacket and
cap--there was no mistaking the colors, the checkings and the stripes; a
drive master needs to signal his whereabouts to a crew just as a fire
captain must make himself conspicuous by what he wears.
They glanced at her garb, amazed by it. Then her face claimed all their
attention, for she said to them, her voice steady, her eyes meeting
theirs frankly, "I have overheard the talk a man has just made about a
girl who coaxed Ward Latisan away from his work here. I am the girl."
It seemed as if men had been holding their breath since her appearance;
in the profound silence the exhalations of that breath could be heard.
"But Ward Latisan did not run away with me from his duty. My being here
answers that lie. And I have even a better answer--a reason why I would
be the last one in the world to interfere willingly with his work this
spring." She stepped close to them, nearer the fire, so that they could
see what she held forth, tightly clutched in both hands. "This is
Echford Flagg's cant dog--he told me it would be known by all his men.
He gave it into my keeping for a sign that he has sent me north. And I
have a right to carry it. I am Lida Kennard. I am Echford Flagg's
granddaughter."
Behind her came crowding the Tarratines.
"Men have deserted from your crew. Here are others to take their
places," she announced with pride.
She was dealing with men who were bashed by utter stupefaction; she
noted it and her self-reliance grew steadier. She drove the point of the
cant dog into the soft duff with a manner after the heart of Flagg
himself. She spread her freed hands to them in appeal. "I have come here
to tell you the truth."