The Rainy Day Railroad War Part 12

"Aha, my bantam!" he growled.

Parker braced himself to meet a blow. He felt that the giant would now take satisfactory vengeance for the discomfiture he had suffered before his men at Sunkhaze. Connick raised his hand, that in its big mitten seemed like a cloud against the moon, and brought it down. The young man gathered himself apprehensively, but the expected a.s.sault was merely a slap on his shoulder--a slap with such an unmistakable air of friendliness about it that Parker gazed up into the man's face with astonishment. Now he was to experience his first taste of the rude chivalry of the woods, a chivalry often based on sudden whim, but none the less sincere and manly--a chivalry of which he was to have further queer experience.

"My bantam," said the big man, admiringly, "faith, but that was a tidy bito' footwork ye done down at Sunkhaze." Good-humored grins and rueful scowls chased one another over his face, according as he patted Parker's back or rubbed the b.u.mp on his own head. "Sure, there's a big k.n.o.b there, my boy. There's only one thing that's harder than your fist, an'

that's Spinnaker ice."

Parker attempted some embarra.s.sed reply in way of apology, for this magnanimity of his foe touched him. The giant put up a protesting hand.

"Ye sartin done it good, my little man, an' I'm glad to know ye better.

But Colonel Gid Ward, sure he lied about ye, or I'd never called ye names at Sunkhaze."

"You didn't expect that man to tell the truth about me, did you?" Parker demanded.

"Why, he said ye was a little white-livered sneak that wouldn't dare to put up your hands to a Sunkhaze mosquito of the June breed, an' that ye were tryin' to come in here an' do business amongst real men. I couldn't stand that, I couldn't!"

"But my business--my reasons for being here--my responsibilities!" cried Parker. "I see he must have lied about that part of it."

"Ah, I don't know anything about your business, nor care!" Connick growled. "I only know there's something about a Poquette railro'd in it. But all that's between you and Gid Ward. You can talk that over with him."

"Do you mean to tell me that you and your men have destroyed that railroad property without having any special grudge against the project?"

"Why, railro'ds ain't any of our business," the giant replied, with his eyes wide open and frank.

"What are you--slaves?" Parker cried, angrily. In addition to his lesson in woods' thivalry he was getting education regarding the irresponsibility of these unconventional children of the wild lands.

The taunt did not seem to anger the men.

"This railro'd is Gid Ward's business," said Connick. "We work for Gid Ward, He owns the Poquette land, don't he? He said he didn't want any railro'd there. He told us to come down an' dump the thing. We come down, of course it's been dumped. You can fix that with him. But you're a good little fighter, my man. He didn't tell the truth about you."

The young man groaned. The ethics of the woods were growing more opaque to his understanding.

"I'll introduce myself more formal," said the woodsman, apparently with affable intent to be better acquainted with this young man who had shown that he possessed the qualities admired in the forest. "My name is Dan Connick, and these here are my hearties from Number 7 cuttin'." He waved his hand, and the nearest men growled good-humored greetings.

"Well, Mr. Connick," said Parker, dryly, "I thank you for the evening's entertainment, and now that you have done your duty to Colonel Ward I suppose I may return to Sunkhaze." His heart sank as he thought of the poor Swogon weltering in the depths of the lake.

"Oh, ye've got to come along with us!" beamed Connick. "Colonel Ward has sent for ye!"

CHAPTER NINE--UP THE WINDING WAY TO THE "OGRE OF THE BIG WOODS."

"I have no further business with Colonel Ward at this time," protested Parker, amazed at Connick's refusal to release him. "Wal, he says you have, an' them's our orders. The men that work for Gid Ward have to obey orders."

"Your Colonel Ward has already injured me enough," exclaimed Parker, bitterly, "without dragging me away into the woods fifty or a hundred miles from my duty! I'll not see any more of him."

"Oh, but ye will, tho!" Connick was grinning, but under his amiability his tones were decisive. "I don't know what he wants to talk with you about, but I reckon it's railroad. We here can't do that with ye. So ye'll have to come along. But we all think you're a smart little man.

Ain't that so, hearties?"

The men growled gruff a.s.sent.

"Ye see, ye're pop'lar with us," Connick went on. "Ye can be as friendly with us as tho we was your brothers, but ye don't want to try any shenanigan trick like dodgin' away. We've been told to take you to Number 7 camp, and to that camp ye're goin'. So understandin' that we'll move. There's a snack waitin' here for us at the carry camp, and then for the uptrail." The men moved along, taking Parker with them in the center of the group.

"How far is it to Number 7?" the young man inquired, despondently.

"They call it fifty miles from the other end of the carry. Ye needn't walk a step if ye don't want to. There's a moose sled an' plenty of men to haul ye."

After a breakfast of hot beans, biscuits and steaming tea at the camp, the procession moved. Parker was wrapped in tattered bunk blankets and installed in state on a long, narrow sledge. He was given the option of getting off and walking whenever he needed the exercise to warm himself.

The march was brisk all that day, for the brawny woodsmen followed the snowy trail unflaggingly. After the six miles of the carry tote-road, their way led up the crooked West Branch on the ice. There were detours where the open waters roared down rough gorges fast enough to dodge the chilling hand of Jack Frost; there were broad dead waters where the river widened into small lakes. Parker was oppressed by the nervous dread of one who enters a strange new country and faces a danger toward which a fate stronger than he is pressing him.

At noon they ate a lunch beside a crackling fire which warmed the cooked provisions they had brought from the carry camp.

Parker walked during the afternoon to ease his cold-stiffened limbs.

Toward dusk the party left the river and turned into a tote-road that writhed away under snow-laden spruces and hemlocks, coiled its way about rocky hummocks, and curved in "whip-lashes" up precipitous hillsides.

There was not a break in the forest that stretched away on either hand.

Late in the evening they saw in a valley below them a group of log huts, their snowy roofs silvered by the moonlight. Yellow gleams from the low windows showed that the camp was occupied.

"That's the Sourdanheunk baitin'-place," Connick explained, in answer to a question from his captive. "One o' Ward's tote-team hang-ups an'

feedin'-places."

The cook, a sallow, tall man encased in a dirty canvas shroud of an ap.r.o.n, was apparently expecting the party. More beans, more biscuits, more steaming tea--and then a bunk was spread for Parker. His previous night of vigil and his day spent in the wind had benumbed his faculties, and he speedily forgot his fears and his bitter resentment in profound slumber.

The next morning the cook's "Whoo-ee!" called the men before the dawn, and they were away while the first flushes presaged the sunrise. It seemed that day that the tortuous tote-road would never end. Valley succeeded to "horseback" and "horseback" to valley. Woods miles are long miles.

Parker's railroad eye and engineer's discernment bitterly condemned the divagations of the wight who wandered first along that trail and imposed his lazy dodgings on all who might come after him. The young man amused himself by reflecting that the tote-road was an excellent example of the persistence of human error, and in these and other philosophical ponderings he was able to draw his mind partially from its uncomfortable dwellings on the probabilities awaiting him at the hands of Gideon Ward.

The sun was far down in the west and the road under the spruces was dusky, when a singular obstacle halted the march. A tremendous thras.h.i.+ng and cras.h.i.+ng at one side of the road signaled the approach of some large animal. A network of undergrowth hid the ident.i.ty of this unknown, and the men instinctively huddled together and displayed some uncertainty as to whether they should remain or run. But the suspense was soon over, for the nearer bushes parted suddenly and out upon the tote-road floundered an immense moose, his bulbous nose wagging, his bristly mane twitching, his stilted fore legs straddled defiantly.

The next moment a great bellow of laughter went up from the crowd.

"The joke's on us!" cried a woodsman, who had been among the first to retreat.

"Hullo, Ben Bouncer!" Connick shouted.

"What do you mean by playin' peek-a-boo with your friends in that manner?"

The moose uttered a hoa.r.s.e _whuffle_.

"This is Ben Bouncer, the mascot of Number 7 camp," the foreman announced. He pushed Parker to the front rank of the group. "He won't hurt ye," he added. "He has got used enough to men to be a little sa.s.sy, an' he's got colty on Gid Ward's grain, but he's mostly bluff."

The engineer gazed on the moose with considerable interest, for the spectacle was entirely new.

"Ben went to loafin' round 7 camp early this winter. He yarded down here two miles or so. You understand, of course, that a moose picks out a good feedin'-place in winter, when the deep snows come, a place where he can reach a lot of twigs and yards there, as they call it in the woods."

"When the snow got crusty and sc.r.a.ped his legs, Ben seemed to have a tired fit come over him, and began to come closer an' closer to the horse hovels to steal what loose hay he could. No one round the camp wanted to hurt him. After a time we all became sort of interested in him, and toled him up to the camp by leavin' hay an' grain round where he could get at it. You can see what a big fat fellow we've made of him.

Our feedin' him makes the colonel mad, for hay is worth something by the time ye get it in here to camp. I bet if ye put it all together the colonel has chased him more'n forty miles with a bow whip.