Latisan was on that one o'clock train when it left Grand Central
station.
From the gallery of the concourse he had seen Craig march to the gate
and give a packet into the hands of one of a group of men waiting there.
Then Craig had gone on quickly with the air of a cautious performer who
did not care to be identified with the persons for whom he had provided
transportation.
The drive master rode in a coach and felt safe from detection; he
guessed that Craig would hide his battered face in the privacy of a
drawing room. Latisan had trailed the operatives and saw them enter the
smoking car.
In the late afternoon, at a stage in the journey, he crossed a city on
the heels of the party and again was an unobtrusive passenger in a
coach, avoiding the sleeping cars. He slept a bit, as best he could, but
mostly he pondered, fiercely awake, bitterly resolute. He fought away
his memory of the betrayal of a trust; he indulged in no fond hopes in
regard to one whom he now knew as Lida Kennard. He was concentrating on
his determination to go back to the drive, not as master, but as a
volunteer who would carry his cant dog with the rest of them, as humble
as the plainest toiler. He did not try at that time to plan a course of
action to be followed after he was back on the Flagg drive. He was
going, that was all!
It was a hideous threat, the menace that Craig was conveying into the
north country in the persons of those gunmen from the city! There had
been plenty of fights over rights on the river, but they had always been
clean fights, where muscles and fists counted for the victory.
Craig had claimed that the bluff of the guns would be sufficient.
Latisan was not agreeing, and on that account he was finding the outlook
a dark one.
The train on which he was riding was an express headed for Canada, and
was due to pass the junction with the Adonia narrow-gauge at about two
o'clock in the morning. There was no scheduled stop at the junction; the
afternoon train connected and served the passengers from downcountry.
Latisan had bought a ticket to the nearest regular stopping place of the
express. He began to wonder whether Craig, with the influence of the
Comas to aid him and his fifteen fellow passengers in an argument, had
been able to secure special favors.
To the conductor, plucking out the hat check before the regular stop the
hither side of the junction, he said, "By any chance, does this train
ever stop at the Adonia narrow-gauge station?"
"It happens that it stops to-night by special orders."
Latisan paid a cash fare and rode on.
The coach in which he sat was the last car on the train; the smoker and
sleeping cars were ahead.
When the train made its unscheduled stop, Latisan stepped down and was
immediately hidden in the darkness. He saw Craig and his crew on the
station platform; the headlight of a narrow-gauge locomotive threw a
radiance which revealed them. Therefore, it was plain, Craig had wired
for a special on the Adonia line.
Only one car was attached to the narrow-gauge engine; Latisan went as
close as he dared. There was no room for concealment on that miniature
train. It puffed away promptly, its big neighbor on the standard-gauge
roared off into the night, and Latisan was left alone in the blackness
before the dawn. And he felt peculiarly and helplessly alone! In spite
of his best efforts to keep up his courage, the single-handed crusader
was depressed by Craig's command of resources; there was a sort of
insolent swagger in the Comas man's ability to have what he wanted.
Latisan knew fairly well the lay of the land at the junction, but he was
obliged to light matches, one after the other, in order to find the lane
which led to the stables of the mill company whose men had been drafted
by him on one occasion to load his dynamite. The night was stiflingly
black, there were no stars and not a light glimmered anywhere in the
settlement.
He stumbled over the rough ground that had been rutted by the wheels of
the jigger wagons. The muffled thud of the hoofs of dozing horses guided
him in his search for the stables, and he found the door of the
hostlers' quarters and pounded.
"You'll have to go see the super; I don't dare to let a hoss out of here
without orders," said the man who listened to his request.
"Tell me where his house is, and lend me a lantern."
The hostler yawned and mumbled and complained because he had been
disturbed, but he fumbled for the lantern, lighted it, and gave it to
Latisan, along with directions how to find the super's home.
That minor magnate was hard to wake, but he appeared at an open upper
window after a time and listened.
"We can't spare a horse in mud time, with the hauling as heavy as it is.
Who are you, anyway?"
"I'm Ward Latisan."
"Hold that lantern up side of your face and let me see!"
The young man obeyed meekly.
"Excuse me for doubting your word of mouth," said the super, after he
had assured himself, "but we hardly expected to see you back in this
region." It was drawled with dry sarcasm.
"I haven't the time to argue on that, sir. I have business north of
here. I'll hire a horse or I'll buy a horse."
"And you heard what I said, that I can't spare one. By the way, Latisan,
you may as well understand that I won't do business with you, anyway.
You got me in wrong with my folks and with the Three C's, too, when you
bribed my men to load that dynamite."
"I can't see why the Comas company----"
"I can. My folks can. If we get saw logs this year we've got to buy 'em
through Rufus Craig. When you ran away and let Ech Flagg get dished----"
"His drive is coming through," insisted Latisan, desperately, breaking
in on speech in his turn.
"Where are you from, right now?" inquired the super.
"New York."
"And a devil of a lot you must have found out about the prospect of logs
from the independents, Flagg or anybody else. Don't come up here and try
to tell me my business; I've been here all the time. Good night!" He
banged down the window.
And once more Ward was alone in the night, distracted and desolate. This
testing of the estimation in which he was held in the north country
after the debacle in Adonia made his despondency as black as the
darkness which surrounded him.
He wanted to call to the super and ask if at least he could buy the
lantern. He decided it would be better to borrow it.
He set away afoot by the road which led to Adonia. Farms were scattered
along the highway and he stopped at the first house and banged on the
door and entreated. At two houses he was turned away relentlessly. The
third farmer was a wrinkled old chap who came down to the door, thumbing
his suspenders over his shoulders.
"Ward Latisan, be ye?" He peered at the countenance lighted by the
lantern. "Yes, I can see enough of old John in ye to prove what ye
claim. I worked for old John when I was young and spry. And one time he
speared his pick pole into the back of my coat and saved me from being
carried down in the white water. And that's why ye can have a hoss to go
where ye want to go, and ye can bring him back when you're done with
him."
Therefore, not by any merit of his own, Ward secured a mount and
journeyed dismally toward the north. The farm horse was fat and stolid
and plodded with slow pace; for saddle there was a folded blanket. With
only the lantern to light the way, he did not dare to hurry the beast.
It was not until wan, depressing light filtered from the east through
the mists that he ventured to make a detour which would take him outside
of Adonia. He realized that Craig would have arranged for tote teams to
be waiting at Adonia, as he had had a special waiting at the junction,
and was by that time far on his way toward Skulltree dam.
Latisan beat the flanks of the old horse with the extinguished lantern
and made what speed he could along the blazed trail that would take him
to the tote road of the Noda basin.