That in this age of law and order Gideon Ward meditated any actual
violence to his person Parker found it hard to believe as he sat there
in the “wangan” and pondered on his situation. He could not avoid
the conclusion that at heart Colonel Ward was a coward. But sometimes
circumstances that a brave man will not suffer to rule him will drive a
coward into crime.
It was a long and dreary day for him.
From the window he saw Colonel Ward go scurrying away on a jumper,
evidently bound for the choppings.
The cook and cookee surveyed his prison at a distance. They seemed to
have no desire to come into close contact with a man of whom they had
heard such sinister reports.
Hackett, who hung about camp, apparently to serve as general “striker”
and man of all work, brought food at noon and left it without engaging
in conversation.
Parker made a dull day of it.
After the chill dusk had fallen and he had stuffed his rusty little
stove with all the wood it would hold, he heard the men returning.
A colloquy that occurred after supper interested him.
He heard Colonel Ward bellow at some one who was evidently advancing
toward the wangan.
“Here you, Connick, where are you goin'?”
“Just to pass a word with the lad,” the man replied.
“Have you got your knittin'?” squalled Ward sarcastically. “There's no
call for you to go passin' talk around that wangan camp, Connick. You
come away from it.”
But when Connick spoke again it was evident he had not retired.
“It's only right to let him come into the men's camp for a bit this
evening, Colonel Ward. There'll be a snatch or so of fiddlin' that he'll
like, to cheer him up, and a jig and a song or so. I don't see the harm
in mentionin' it to him, to find if he'd like to come. I'll answer for
it that he's put back in his nest ag'in all right.”
“Who's runnin' this camp, me or you?”
“You're the man, sir.”
“Well, then, there'll be no invitin' out nor passin' talk. You men have
nothin' to do with that chap in that wangan and you'll keep away from
him or get your heads broken open. Do you hear what I say? Why don't you
come away when I speak?”
“I'm not the man to disobey orders,” growled Connick. “But I'm a man as
likes man's style. I've always done your biddin', Colonel Ward, and I
done your biddin' when I brought him here. Now I've found him a lively
young chap that I'm proud to know and tho I speak for myself alone
I speak as a man that likes fair play, and I say it's dirty bus'ness
keepin' him like a chicken in a coop, after you've had your bus'ness
talk with him.”
“You infernal bundle of hair and rags, do you dare to stand there and
tell me how to run my own affairs?” roared Ward, thoroughly incensed.
“Keep your bus'ness your own bus'ness for all I care,” Connick answered
angrily. “But when it gits to be bus'ness that can't be backed up
man-fashion then ye may find that day's wages don't buy the whole earth
for ye.”
The reply was a bit enigmatical but Ward understood that it signified
mutiny. He gasped a few times and then Parker heard Connick exclaim:
“Don't ye strike me with that sled-stake, Colonel Gideon, or it might be
the worse for ye. I'll not bother your man in the wangan till I find
out more about what you're doin' to him--but don't you hit me with that
stick.”
Both men went back into the big camp, Ward furiously chewing the
reflection that for the first time he had been bearded in his own camp.
Gideon Ward sat until midnight in his little pen off the main camp,
poking his fire and meditating. He had reckoned that he was justified in
proceeding to extremes with this young man, confident that in the end
he would break his spirit and frighten him out of the woods. But he
realized now with sinking heart that his violence had endangered all the
political influence of the gigantic timber interests. The youth had a
powerful weapon, and he, Gideon Ward, would be accused of furnishing it.
Perspiration dripped from under the old man's cap. He rasped his rough
palms together nervously. At last he rose and tip-toed into the main
camp. All the men were asleep, snoring with the lusty heartiness of a
tired lumber crew. The colonel advanced cautiously to Hackett's
bunk, and stirred that worthy with his finger until the man awoke. He
beckoned, and Hackett followed him into the pen.
“Hackett,” said he, “yeh have worked for me a good many years.”
“Yes, colonel.”
“I've let yeh have money on a mortgage for one or two little favors
yeh've done me.”
“Yes.”
Hackett began to grow pale.
“Now I'll lift that whole mortgage for another favor--an' don't get
scared. I sha'n't ask yeh to do any more'n I propose to do myself.”
Ward had noted the look of alarm on the man's face. “If we're both in it
neither can say anything. I took yeh along with me last night and to-day
so's yeh could hear how that young fool insults me on my own land.”
“I heard what he said, colonel, an' no man can blame ye for feelin' put
out.”
Ward looked at him steadily for a moment.
“Listen to me. Few words when there's work to do: that's my motto. I've
done the thinkin' part of this thing. What I want you for is to help on
the work.”
The man stared with stupid inquiry.
“Hackett, here's my plan. You and I don't want to hurt that man. We
can't afford to hurt him. But he's on my hands, an' he won't back down,
an' it puts me in a hard place--a mighty hard place, Hackett. You heard
what passed between us? Now he's got to be put out of this camp an'
shoved where he can't blab this thing round about. Why, he's half got
that fool of a Connick on his side already.
“The only thing, Hackett, is for you to take him across into that
Tumble-dick camp an' keep him there--keep him there! Tie him to a beam
and feed him like yeh would a pup. Keep him there till he weakens an'
quits, or till I can think up some plan further. It'll give me time,
Hackett.”
“'Tain't any extra sort of job for me, Colonel Ward!” grumbled Hackett
“I've got to watch that critter day in an' day out, an' Tumble-dick
camp is all o' twenty miles from here, or from any other camp, for that
matter.”
“That's why I want him there, Hackett. We'll tie him on a moose sled,
an' you start in an hour, whilst the men are still asleep. I'll break a
window out of the wangan, an' on this crust there'll be no foot-tracks.
It'll be thought he broke out and ran away--an' that'll be his own
lookout.”
His voice became low and husky. “Yeh needn't hitch him too tight in
Tumble-dick camp, Hackett, providin' you hide the most of his clothes
an' it looks like a storm comin' on. If he wants to duck out away from
a good home into the woods, with grub an' fire twenty-five miles away,
why, that's his own lookout.”
The man licked his lips nervously.
“That ain't our liability, yeh knew.”
The man pondered.
“It's eight hundred for you, Hackett, an' always a good job with me as
long as I hire men,” persisted Colonel Ward.
At last Hackett got up and struck his elbows against his sides.
“I'll do it!” he grunted.
Parker's first alarmed awakening was with a cloth about his neck,
choking him so that his cry of fright rattled in his throat. He fought
bravely, but two strong men are better than one who has struggled and
gasped until he has only a trickle of air in his lungs. He was bound,
his head muffled in a strip of torn blanket, and he was carried out into
the night. He could not see his captors, but he knew that Ward was one
of the assailants, because a hoarse command to Hackett had betrayed him.
After he had been dragged a distance Parker realized by a penetrating
odor that he was near the horse hovels. There was a mumbled discussion
between his captors as to whether he should be tied to the moose sled.
It was decided that his arms should be left pinioned as they were, and
Hackett growled:
“I won't tie him to the sled! I'll be needin' him on the steep pitches.”
As his arms were tied behind his back, when they put an old fur coat
on him they pulled the sleeves of it on his legs and buttoned the coat
behind. In spite of the bandage over his eyes, he easily recognized
these operations, and then felt himself lifted upon the familiar moose
sled. Several bags full of something were thrown on. With his ears
strained for every sound that would give him any information, he heard
some one approaching even before the two men, busy between camp and
sled, were warned.
“Hark!” grunted the voice of Colonel Ward, at last. “Who's that movin'
round back of the hoss hovel? Look out, Hackett! Throw something acrost
the sled. He's comin' this way.” A moment after, his tones full of
disgust, he snorted, “It's that infernal old moose! Here, hand me that
ax!”
A hurry of feet, and then Parker heard the impact of a crushing blow
and the muffled groan of a stricken animal. The ax blows continued,
apparently dealt with fury, and in a few moments the old man creaked
across the crust, dragging some heavy object.
“Here's your fresh meat, Hackett--two hind-quarters,” he panted. “Load
it on.”
“The boys will be r'iled to find Ben here in the mornin'!” whined the
other man.
“He won't eat any more grain f'r me!” the colonel boomed, wrathfully.
“Then again, it will show that after Mister Railroad Man broke out of
the wangan camp he killed the moose to get grub to last him for his
trip, bein' afraid to tackle Gid Ward's camps. The boys will be ready
to massacree him if they can lay hands on him, but,” his tones became
ominously significant, “remember your lines now, man! Get away and I'll
look after this end.”
Parker felt the loaded sled glide over the crust. He could hardly
believe that these men meditated anything except a change in his
place of imprisonment; but as the sled moved on and on, and in his
helplessness he weighed the situation, he began to feel a vague fear of
possibilities. He began to plan means of escape. When at last the sled
went scaling down a long slope, he rolled off on the crust.
As he lay there, he expected every moment to hear the man shout an oath
and return. When the hasty creaking of the footsteps died away, he knew
that the lightened sled, following of its own momentum, had not betrayed
him.
Hoodwinked and pinioned, it was no easy task to travel among the trees
and across the slippery crust. As Parker scrambled along, he was tempted
to cry out and appeal to the man to return. Now that his sudden panic
of the flitting sled was over, the dull, cold fear of a helpless and
abandoned man came upon him. But he clinched his teeth to keep back the
cry that struggled to follow the man of the sled, and kept pushing on
into the undergrowth.
At last he stopped and began to scrub his forehead against the rough
bark of a tree, endeavoring to remove the bandage. After a time he
worked it above his eyes, although it still bound his head like a
turban.
He could see the crisp stars through the interlocking branches. He found
the pole star. But as he had been unable to guess the direction his
captor had taken in leaving the camp, the points of the compass mattered
little in this wilderness, where all was strange.
Parker went on, reflecting uneasily that every step might be taking him
directly back to Colonel Ward's camp. His grotesque garb hampered his
movements. He lumbered along as awkwardly as a bear. After a time he
came through some little spruces that whipped his face, and discovered
a tote-road that had been long abandoned, for the bushes grew in it and
the crust was unmarked.
He pondered a while. Then he shut his eyes, whirled until he dropped,
scrambled up, and started away in the direction in which chance had
faced him. He smiled as he thought upon this childish resource, but in
that bewildering region he had at least been enabled to make up his mind
quickly by the device.
The rosy light of the dawn touched him as he plodded along. His advance
was slow, for the sleeves of the fur coat impeded free use of his legs.
The day was clear and cold, with a stinging wind that tossed the roaring
branches of the spruce-trees. The crust held firm. Parker's constrained
arms were aching and his hands were numb. He jerked and twisted at the
thongs until his wrists were raw, but the knots were too strong for him.
He had passed so many crossings and fork-ings of the bush-grown road
that he gave up trying to keep the ramifications in mind for his use
should he find it necessary to turn back. He now went on doggedly,
choosing this way or that, as it chanced, hoping to hear a ringing ax or
a hunter's gun or a teamster's shout somewhere in those solitudes.
In the late afternoon the road led him to an ice-sheathed stream. Here
the way divided.
He took the road that led down-stream. It undoubtedly ended at a lake,
thought he. Log-landings are on lakes. There would be men to release
him from the torture of aching muscles and gnawing stomach. Parker would
have welcomed the sight of Colonel Gideon Ward himself when that second
night came through the trees.
It was beyond human endurance to walk farther, but Parker realized that
if he lay down in that state of cold, weariness and hunger he would
never rise again. He marshaled in his mind all the people, all the
interests he had to live for; the parents who depended on him, a certain
young girl who was waiting so anxiously for his return, his prospects in
life. He did this methodically, as if he were piling fagots for a fire
at which to warm himself. Then he mentally kindled the heap with the
blaze of a mighty determination to live, and standing under a great
spruce, he began to stamp about it and count aloud. Half a dozen times
during that long night he staggered and fell, as if an invisible hand
had struck him down. But the next moment, with a cry of “I'll stay
awake!” he was up again and at his self-set task, mind, muscles and
nerves centering in his one desperate resolve.
Then the dawn came peeping over the big spruces, and found him still
at his grim gambols. He set forth once more down the road, slipping
and stumbling, his body doubled forward. A few miles and a few hours
more--it was the most he could hope for.
All at once his dull ears heard the zin-n-ng of a rifle-bullet close to
his head; and almost immediately, as he ducked and rolled upon his back,
the sinister shriek of another ball made it plain that he was the game
aimed at. Two smart cracks at some distance indicated the location of
the marksman.
Animal instinct is alike in brute and man. Parker leaped at the sound
of the first bullet, fell, and rolled behind a snow-covered boulder.
Had Ward or his minion tracked him? Were they now carrying out their
desperate plan? The double report was proof that the man or men were
determined on slaughter.
After a long time he dared to peer cautiously. At some distance down the
tote-road an old man was crouching beside a moose sled. On the sled
was the carcass of a deer. Parker realized that this old man must be a
poacher.
An assassin sent after a man would not be wasting his ammunition on deer
in close time.
The old man remained motionless, with the stolidity of the veteran
hunter waiting to make sure. Torpor rapidly seized on Parker's mind.
He shouted as best he could, but his voice was hoarse from hours of
shouting into the vastness of the deserted woods. His faculties were
growing befogged. He dared not exert himself enough to keep awake, for
his rock was but a narrow bulwark. It seemed to be a choice of deaths,
only.
At last he desperately leaped up and danced behind his protecting
boulder, uttering such cries as he could. But he saw the old man
throw his rifle up and take aim. Down he dropped, and the bullet sang
overhead.
He realized then that his garb made him resemble some strange beast--a
bear, perhaps--and he gritted his teeth as he pondered that this might
be part of Gideon Ward's vindictive scheme. If he attempted to show
himself long enough to convince the old man that he was human he would
only be inviting the bullet.
Until his blurring senses left him he occasionally shouted or thrust up
his head; but the old still-hunter was relentless, and evidently had not
the clear vision of a youth. He was always ready with a shot.
At last, with tears freezing on his cheeks, Parker gave himself up to
the fatuous comfort of the man succumbing to cold and hunger.