They had taken up her cause; they had enrolled themselves with a perfect
abandon of all considerations of self; for them, getting down that
timber was merely a means to a much-desired end.
They were recklessly determined to help the girl make good! That was the
urgeful sentiment which their thoughts inscribed on the invisible
oriflamme of the warfare that was waged for the new Joan along the
waters of the Noda.
It was not especially because she was the granddaughter of Echford
Flagg. His wages had never bought more than perfunctory service from
crews. She was herself--and she had confessed her debts.
When she told them why she was wearing Latisan's cap and jacket, when
she owned to her error and laid the blame on herself, when she pleaded
with them to help her in undoing the bitter mischief, she won a devotion
that questioned nothing.
"Men, he will come back. He will understand it all when he is himself
again. And if you and I are able to show him that we have done his work
well he will hold up his head once more as he has a right to do."
"God bless ye, girl, ye can't keep yourself apart from Latisan in this
thing," declared an old man. "It's for the two o' ye that we do our work
from now on! And it's for all of us, as well! For we'll ne'er draw happy
breaths till we can stand by and see you meet him on the level--eye to
eye--like one who has squared all accounts between you two! And the old
grands'r, as well. What say, boys?"
But cheers could not serve their emotions then. They pulled off their
caps and scrubbed their rough hands across their jackets and walked to
her in single file and shook her hand in pregnant silence.
And then the timber went through; the drive was beating all the past
records.
When they needed water they took it. They blew their own dams and were
very careless with dynamite when they came upon other dams of whose
ownership they were not so sure.
"You see, miss, rights are well mixed up all through this region," said
old Vittum, who had been spokesman for his fellows on her first meeting
with them. He gave her a demure wink. "The main idea is, God is making
this water run downhill just now, and it doesn't seem right for mortal
man to stop it from running."
They "manned the river," as the drivers say. That meant overlapping
crews, day and night.
No squad was out of sight of another; a yell above the roar of the flood
or a cap brandished on the end of a pike pole summoned help to break a
forming jam or to card logs off ledges or to dislodge "jillpokes" which
had stabbed their ends into the soggy banks of the river. Men ate as
they ran and they slept as they could. Some of them, snatching time to
eat, sitting on the shore, went sound asleep after a few mouthfuls and
slumbered with their faces in their plates till a companion kicked them
back into wakefulness. They grinned and were up again!
As for Lida Kennard, she was treated with as much tender care as if she
were a reigning princess on tour. She protested indignantly because
they would not allow her to rough it along with them. They made soft
beds of spruce tips at their camping sites and they gave her the post of
honor in a big bateau.
In the rush of affairs she did not pause to wonder whether she was
offending any of the proprieties by staying on with the drive; she had
become the Flagg spirit incarnate and was not troubling herself with
petty matters.
Old Vittum and Felix were her advisers, and they prized her presence as
an asset of inestimable value; she allowed them to think for her in that
crisis.
"It's a tough life, miss, the best we can make it for you," admitted
Vittum. "But if you can stick and hang till Skulltree is passed it means
that the boys will keep the glory of doing in 'em!"
From rendering service according to her ability they could not prevent
her, though the men protested. She helped the cooks. Hurrying here and
there, following the scattered men of the crews, she tugged great cans
of hot coffee. When the toilers saw her coming and heard her voice they
took desperate chances on the white water, jousting with their pike
poles like knights in a tourney.
She put into the hearts of the crew the passion of derring do!
The drive that spring was not a sordid task--it was high emprise, it was
a joyous adventure!
Then the logs which had raced in the rapids came to the upper reaches of
the slow deadwater of the flowage of the Skulltree dam; the flowage
reached far back that year.
At Skulltree was the crux of the situation, as Flagg had insisted,
ragefully.
From the early days there had been a dam at that point; it was common
property and conserved the water to be loosed to drive logs over the
shallow rapids below.
The Three C's had spent more money on that dam, claiming that bigger
drives needed extra water. The dam had been raised. The flowage vastly
increased the extent of the deadwater, slowing the logs of the
independents, whose towage methods were crude. The changes which had
been made needed the sanction of impending legislation, required the
authority of a charter for which application had been made. In the
meantime the Three C's were holding the water and would be impounding
logs; these logs were to be diverted through the new, artificial canal.
In asserting their rights the corporation folks were endangering the
independent drives which were destined for the sawmills of the Noda.
Day by day, as the drive went on, the girl listened to the talk among
her men until she understood, in some measure, the situation. All the
reckless haste was made of no account unless their logs were to be
permitted to pass the Skulltree dam.
Vittum explained to her that the law was still considering the question
of "natural flowage." The dam had been changed from time to time in past
years until the matter was in doubt.
"But the way the thing stands now there ain't much of that nat'ral
flowage," he told her. "I claim that we have the right to go through,
law or no law. Word was served early on Latisan that he must hold up at
Skulltree this year and wait for the law."
"Did he say what he proposed to do?" she asked.
"Yes, miss! I'll have to be excused from repeating what he said, in the
way he said it, but the gist of it was that he was going through. He
said he would use some kind of flowage, and hoped that when the lawyers
got done talking in court it would be decided that the aforesaid nat'ral
flowage was the kind that had been used by him."
She pulled off Ward's cap and turned it about in her hand, surveying it
judiciously. "I can seem to see just how he looked when he said it."
"He said it loud, miss, because the man he was talking to was a good
ways off. He was a sheriff. He couldn't get very nigh to Latisan. We was
holding the man off with our pick poles because he was trying to serve a
paper."
"An injunction?"
"I don't know," confessed the relator mildly. "Somehow, none of us
seemed to be at all curious that day to find out what it was. Sheriff
nailed it to a tree and then somebody touched a match to it. Latisan
said he reckoned it must have been an invitation to Felix's wedding, but
it was just as well that nobody ever read it, because the crew was too
busy to go, anyway!"
"Are Comas men guarding Skulltree dam?"
"They sure are, miss!"
She and the old man were seated on the shore of the deadwater. The
evening dusk was deepening.
Near them the cook's fires were leaping against the sides of the
blackened pots; in the pungent fragrance of the wood smoke which drifted
past there were savory odors which were sent forth when the cook lifted
off a cover to stir the stew. The peacefulness of the scene was
profound; that peace, contrasted with the prospect of what confronted
her men if Flagg's logs were to go through, stirred acute distress in
the girl. Coming down through the riot of waters she had not had time to
think. Their logs were ahead; the laggards of the corporation drive were
following. She had wondered because even the cowards, as they had shown
themselves to be, had not put more obstructions in the way. There had
been abortive interference, but it was evident that the Three C's had
been making the first skirmishes perfunctory affairs, depending on
dealing the big blow at Skulltree.
In the Flagg crew it was a subject for frequent comment that Rufus Craig
had not appeared in the north country to take command of his forces in
those parlous times when the Three C's interests were threatened. In
council Lida and her advisers began to wonder how much information
regarding the Flagg operations had filtered to the outside or whether
the defeated Comas bosses were not apprehensively withholding word to
headquarters that they had been beaten in the race on the upper waters.
"Craig would be here before this if he knew what was going on," averred
Vittum. "They're either ashamed or scared to send him word, and they
think it can all be squared for 'em at Skulltree." He sighed and turned
his eyes from her anxious stare.
Near her were rivermen who were waiting for their suppers. She was aware
of a very tender feeling toward those men who had been risking their
lives in the rapids in order to indulge her in a hope which she had made
known to them. She reflected on what the sarcastic Crowley had said when
he told her that in that region she was among he-men. "If you're not
careful, you'll start something you can't stop," he had threatened.
Could she stop these men from going on to violent battle? Would she be
honest with her grandfather and Latisan if she did try to prevent them
from winning their fight? All past efforts would be thrown away if
Skulltree dam were not won.
Out on the deadwater were several floating platforms; the men called
them "headworks." On the platforms were capstans. The headworks were
anchored far in advance of the drifting logs, around which were thrown
pocket booms; men trod in weary procession, circling the capstans,
pushing against long ashen bars, and the dripping tow warp hastened the
drift of the logs.
As the men of the sea have a chantey when they heave at a capstan, so
these men of the river had their chorus; it floated to her over the
quiet flood.
Come, all, and riffle the ledges! Come, all, and bust the jam!
And for aught o' the bluff of the Comas gang we don't give one
good--
Hoot, toot and a hoorah!
We don't give a tinker's dam!
"That's exactly how they feel, miss," said the old man. "They're on
their way. They can't be stopped."
But the declaration depressed rather than cheered her. Those men had
taken up her cause valiantly and with single-hearted purpose, and she
was obliged to assume responsibility for what they had done and what
they would do to force the situation at Skulltree. In the rush of the
drive, with the logs running free, the river was open to all and
Latisan's task was in the course of fulfillment and the Flagg fortunes
were having fair opportunity in the competition. But now competition
must become warfare, so it seemed. She shrank from that responsibility,
but she could not evade it--could not command those devoted men to stop
with the job half finished.
The priest's promise to find Latisan had been living with her, consoling
the hours of her waiting. Her load had become so heavy that her yearning
for Latisan's return had become desperate and anguished.
The slow drag of the logs in the deadwater gave her time for pondering
and she was afraid of her thoughts.
She was not accusing Latisan of being an inexcusable recreant where duty
was concerned; she was understanding in better fashion the men and the
manners of the north country and she realized the full force of the
reasons for his flight and why the situation had overwhelmed him. Her
pity and remorse had been feeding her love.
But the priest had promised. Latisan must know. Why did he not come to
her and lift the dreadful burden in her extremity?
Old Vittum, sitting on a bleached trunk among the dry kye stranded on
the shore, plucked slowly the spills of a pine tassel, staring down
between his knees. "You've seen how they have worked, miss, for every
ounce that's in 'em. But I don't know how they'll fight if they don't
have a real captain--a single head to plan--the right man to lead off.
Latisan's that! Half of 'em came north because they figured on him. I've
been hoping. But I'm sort of giving up."
"I don't like to hear you say that," she cried. "As soon as he knows the
truth he will come to us. Father Leroque promised to carry that truth to
him."
"Providing the priest can find him in the Tomah country--yes, you have
said that to me and I've been cal'lating to see Latisan come tearing
around a bend in the river most any minute ever since you told me. But
Miah Sprague, the fire warden, went through to-day. I've been hating to
report to you, miss, for I'm knowing to it how you feel these days; your
looks tell me, and I'm sorry. But Sprague has come from the Tomah and he
tells me that Ward Latisan hasn't been home--hasn't been heard from.
Nobody knows where he is. That is straight from Garry Latisan, because
Garry is starting a hue and a cry and asked Miah to comb the north
country for news."
She did not reply. She was not sure that there was a touch of rebuke in
the old man's mournful tones, but she felt that any sort of reproach
would be justified. She had never made a calm analysis of the affair
between herself and Latisan, to determine what onus of the blame rested
on her and how much was due to the plots and the falsehoods of Crowley.
She clung to her sense of fault in order to spur herself to make good;
that same sense, a heritage from a father, had served vicariously in
rousing her spirit to battle for her grandfather.
"I hope you're going to keep up your grit, miss," urged Vittum. "We'll
do our best for you--but I ain't lotting much on Latisan's showing up
again. It's too bad! It'll break his heart when he finds out at last
what he has been left out of and what a chance he has missed."
Like many another, she had, at times, dreamed vividly of falling from
great heights. That was her sensation then, awake, when she heard that
Ward Latisan was not to be found. Despair left her numb and quivering.
Till then she had not realized how greatly her hope and confidence in
his final coming had counted with her. She had not dared to think that
his anger would persist; it had seemed to be too violent to last.
However, it was plain that rage had overmastered the love he had
proclaimed. Lida was very much woman and felt the feminine conviction
that a lover would be able to find her if his heart were set on the
quest. There was only a flicker of a thought along that line; it was
mere irritation that was immediately swept away by her pity for him. She
was able to comprehend man's talk then--she knew what Vittum meant when
he spoke of the chance that was missed--and she understood how Ward
Latisan would mourn if he heard too late what the struggle that year on
the Noda waters signified in the case of the girl for whom he had
professed love.
She could not talk with the old man; she stumbled across the dry kye,
threw herself on her couch of boughs, and pressed her palms over her
ears to keep out the threat in the song of the men who toiled around and
around the capstan post, drawing the Flagg logs in their slow,
relentless passage to the scene of the promised conflict at Skulltree.