Lost Farm Camp Part 36

Never a word said the young riverman as he turned and clattered down the trail, his calked boots rasping on the pebbles. He paused as he came opposite the w.a.n.gan tents. He could hear some of the men laughing and talking about Joe Smeaton.

"h.e.l.l!" he muttered; "he wins-I lose. No accountin' for a girl's likes.

But she kissed me and that's mine to keep-and it's all I get."

He felt a half-guilty pleasure in the knowledge that she had kissed him, "without even askin'," he added, as he thought of it. Unfortunately he missed the serene joy that might have a.s.suaged his disappointment to some extent had he been capable of understanding the quality of the love that prompted Swickey's action.

As it was, he swung blindly past a group of men who spoke to him, and entered the woods bordering the Tramworth road. "Huh!" exclaimed one of the men; "Andy's gettin' swelled up on his new job."

"From where he's headed for, I reckon he's goin' to Jules-fur some nerve."

"Jules sellin' booze ag'in?" asked the first speaker.

"Ag'in?" replied the other. "When did he quit? Huh, Pug, he's allus got it-when you're heeled."

CHAPTER XXIV-RIVALS

About six o'clock in the evening of the next day, when the boys at "Fifteen-Two" were finding room for their legs under the long pine tables spread with an imposing array of cookies, doughnuts, hot biscuit, fried ham, potatoes, jam, and pies, Sloc.u.m, stumbling through the doorway, paused in the shadow cast by the lamps.

The log-jam down the river was being discussed in rich and glowing numbers. The talk was colored with fragmentary experiences of former days on the drive. Statistics were handled carelessly, to say the least, and disputed in pointed language, which, if not always logical, seemed convincing, especially to the speakers. The men rasped each other with barbed and p.r.i.c.kly oaths that pa.s.sed with them as slang. Every one was happy in a boisterous fas.h.i.+on, when Sloc.u.m, hitherto unnoticed, exclaimed,-

"They ain't a bug-chasin' son-of-a-duck what can find the tender spot in a jam quicker 'n ole Hoss Avery. He ain't a lady's man"-with a leer at Smeaton-"and he ain't scared of nothin' what walks, creeps, or flies."

He raised an outstretched arm grandiloquently, to command the attention he thought due, and continued with drunken solemnity,-

"'Cept me."

"Are you walkin', creepin', or flyin' now, Andy?"

Sloc.u.m swayed a little and scowled. Then he drew himself up with questionable dignity.

"'Cept me," he repeated.

The men laughed. "It's a good thing Hoss ain't here," said the blacksmith, "'cause he'd be so scared he couldn't eat nothin'."

Sloc.u.m, vaguely realizing that he was being made sport of, with the illogical turn of a drunken mind, cursed the absent Hoss Avery rabidly.

"Thet'll do, Andy," said Joe Smeaton kindly. "You jest keep a few of them fancy trimmin's against the next time you meet Hoss. Mebby he'll like to hear 'em and mebby he won't."

"What's it to you, you sneakin', red-headed sliver-" He hesitated, then pursued his former line of argumentation. "I kin make him eat 'em raw,"

he whispered melodramatically.

"Like to be thar when you're feeding him," said Smeaton good-naturedly.

The men laughed again. There was a bantering note in the laughter, especially from Harrigan's end of the table.

"And you, too, you red-headed-!" said Sloc.u.m, shaking his fist at Smeaton.

The laughter died away. The men were unnaturally quiet.

Smeaton mastered himself with an effort. "You'll be gettin' pussonel next."

He was apparently unruffled, although a red tinge, creeping slowly up the back of his neck, showed what the effort had cost him.

Sloc.u.m, dully conscious that he had a.s.sumed a false position, hunted more trouble to cover his irritation. As the cookee, a lad of sixteen, pa.s.sed him, he snickered. Sloc.u.m turned, and, much quicker than his condition seemed to warrant, struck the lad with the flat of his hand.

The cookee, taken by surprise, jumped backward, caught his heel on one of the benches and crashed to the floor, striking his head on the bench as he fell.

Joe Smeaton jumped and struck in one motion. Sloc.u.m took the floor like a sack of potatoes.

"Guess that settles it," said Smeaton, as he stood over the quiet form, waiting for the next move.

The men shuffled to their feet, and gathered round, silent but sharp-eyed. If there was to be any more of it they were ready. Finally, one of them took a drinking-pail from one of the tables and poured a generous stream on the cookee.

Some one offered a like service to Sloc.u.m, but Harrigan interfered, shouldering his way through the group. "Leave him be! I'll take care of him. They ain't no one goin' to raise h.e.l.l in this here shanty long as I'm boss. Here you, Sweedie, give us a lift."

They carried the limp, unconscious Andy to the stable and laid him in a clean stall. Harrigan paused to throw a blanket over him. When he returned to the shanty the cookee was seated on a bench crying.

"Here, you! Shut up and git back on th' job, quick!"

The strain eased a bit when the boy resumed his occupation. Andy Sloc.u.m's friends evidently thought their man deserved his "medicine."

"Joe took more lip than I would 'a'," remarked a disgruntled belligerent.

"That so?" asked another. "Well, they's some here as would of used boots followin' the punch, and been glad to git the chanct at Andy-not namin'

any names."

Next morning Harrigan sent the cookee out to call Sloc.u.m to breakfast, but the young riverman had departed. "Prob'ly back on the job," remarked one.

"Yes, and it's where we'll all be afore night. Things is tied up bad in the gorge. Then the w.a.n.gan fur us-tentin' on the ole camp-ground fer fair, but, oh, Lizzie, when we hit Tramworth-lights out, ladies."

"Lucky if some of your lights ain't out afore you hit there," came from a distant corner of the shanty.

"Aw, say, deacon blue-belly, come off the roost. Say, fellus, let's eat."

CHAPTER XXV-ON THE DRIVE

Joe Smeaton's regard for Swickey had been increased rather than diminished by her kindly but decisive answer to his suit. "If they ever was angels what wore blue dresses, she's one of 'em," he confided to himself, as he beckoned mysteriously to the cookee. The rest of the men had already filed out of the camp and down toward the river.

"Here, Sliver, want to make a quarter?" The lad ambled toward him. "Sure ting, Joe,-it's up to you."

"When you git through here I want you to skin over to Hoss Avery's place and tell his gal Swickey-now quit grinnin' and git this straight-thet they's goin' to be some doin's down the gorge to-day. Harrigan's got his back up and says he'll bust thet jam or every log-roller on the drive-which means, speakin' easy-like, thet he's goin' to _try_. Tell Swickey Avery to bring her picture-takin' machine, with the compliments of Joe Smeaton. Savvy? Here's the two-bits."