The Rainy Day Railroad War Part 16

"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-fas.h.i.+on 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 w.a.n.gan 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 furnis.h.i.+ng 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 l.u.s.ty 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 pa.s.sed 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-d.i.c.k 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-d.i.c.k 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 w.a.n.gan, 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-d.i.c.k 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 m.u.f.fled 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 a.s.sailants, because a hoa.r.s.e 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 b.u.t.toned 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 crus.h.i.+ng blow and the m.u.f.fled 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 w.a.n.gan 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 ma.s.sacree 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 compa.s.s 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.