King Spruce Part 34

"Well, I've got a crew of a hundred men posted back here a few rods in the woods to back me up when I say she stays right where she belongs."

His tone was offensive, and Rodburd Ide's anger flared.

"My business just now in here, Britt, is to bring a hundred men for our Enchanted operation. They're down there by the brook eating lunch. I don't want any trouble over this, but there's some nasty reason back of this girl matter, and I won't stand for any persecution of a helpless creature. My men back me when I say she goes home with my girl. h.e.l.lo, men for the Enchanted! Up this way in a hurry!"

The look that Nina flashed at her father was inspiration for him!

As his men came into sight over the bank the crew of Britt tramped towards them down the trail.

"Nina," said Ide, "you'll have to go back now. Chris Straight will go with you. Take the girl on the horse with you, and let Chris lead by the headstall. You'll go all safe. Hurry away from here! But after you get started, take your time to the Half-way House. There's no one going to get past down this trail to chase you and bother you."

There was determination in the voice of the little man, and his daughter kissed him at the same time that Dwight Wade was patting his shoulder.

Wade ran along by the side of the horse for a little way, and, when he turned, eagerly kissed Nina Ide's gloved hand.

"G.o.d bless you for a little saint!" he gasped. "You'll understand this some day, perhaps."

"I understand that she is alone and needs a friend," she responded--"just as you needed a friend when you were only Britt's 'chaney man.'" She smiled archly at him and pa.s.sed out of sight, old Christopher tugging at the bits of the horse.

Wade went back in the forefront of the thronging crew of the men for Enchanted.

"As I said, Britt, I don't want trouble," repeated Rodburd Ide, "but you'll please remember that the lower corner of your towns.h.i.+p is here at Durfy's camp. I reckon the men for the Enchanted will camp right here on the trail for a few hours. The man that tries to push past to trouble my daughter or her friend will get hurt."

"They are goin' past just the same!" shouted Britt, fiercely.

"My G.o.d, Pulaski, think of consequences!" pleaded "Stumpage John," in low tones. He arose with difficulty and staggered to Britt's side. His tones quavered with weakness. "I'd be ruined by the story of what it was all about. I'm sick. I only want to get home. I don't want to see trouble here."

Britt glared at his a.s.sociate, at Wade, Ide, and at last at Colin MacLeod, who was staring in the direction of Nina Ide.

The tyrant snorted his disgust.

"Take the combination of a candidate for governor, some fool women, crazy men, love-sick idiots, and"--his eyes swept the scene in vain search for Tommy Eye--"a pooch-mouthed blabber, and it's enough to trig any decent, honest, sensible woods fight ever yarded down. Barrett, you're right! You'd better get home and get on your long-tailed coat and plug hat as soon as you can. You and your private"--he sneered the word--"business don't seem to fit in up here."

He folded his arms and, with his men behind him, stood looking over the crew for the Enchanted, who, cheerfully and without question, stood blocking the way.

"It may not happen just now," he grunted, "but it's on my mind to say that some day these two gangs will get together when there isn't a governor's boom to step on, nor women to get mussed up."

And the gaze of fury that he bent on Dwight Wade was returned with interest.

An imaginative man might have seen the new spirit of the woods facing the old.

But there was no imaginative man there--there were only men who chewed tobacco and wondered what it all meant.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE OLD SOUBUNGO TRAIL

"And never a knight in a tournament Rode lists with a jauntier mien, Than he of the drive who came alive Thro' the h.e.l.l of the Hulling Machine."

--The Spike-sole Knight.

Larry Gorman, "the woodsman's poet," whose songs are known and sung in the camps from Holeb to Madawaska, was with Rodburd Ide's incoming crew.

His three most notable lyrics are these: "I feed P.I.'s on tarts and pies," "Bushmen all, your ear I call until I shall relate," and "The Old Soubungo Trail."

When Rodburd Ide's hundred men "met up" with the Honorable Pulaski D.

Britt's hundred men at the foot of Pogey Notch, Larry Gorman displayed a true poet's obliviousness to the details of the wrangle between princ.i.p.als. He didn't understand why Pulaski Britt, blue with anger above his grizzled beard, and "Stumpage John" Barrett, mottled with rage, should object so furiously when Rodburd Ide's girl took away the tatterdemalion maid of the Skeets, nor did Larry ask any questions. If this be the att.i.tude of a true poet, there was evidently considerable true poetry in both crews, for no one appeared to be especially curious as to the why of the quarrel. However, the imminence of a quarrel was a matter demanding woodsmen's attention. It might have been noted that Poet Gorman cut the biggest s.h.i.+llalah of any of them. And while he rounded its end and waited for more formal declaration of hostilities, he l.u.s.tily sang the solo part of "The Old Soubungo Trail," with a hundred hearty voices to help him on the chorus:

"I left my Lize behind me, Oh, she won't know what to do, I left my Lize for the Old Town guys, And I left my watch there, too.

I left my clothes at a boardin'-house, I reckon they're for sale, And here I go, at a heel-an'-toe, On the old Soubungo trail.

Sou-bung-o! Bungo!

'Way up the Bungo trail!"

Spirit rather than melody characterized the efforts of these wildwood songsters. The Honorable Pulaski Britt, who didn't like music anyway, and was trying to talk in an undertone to timber baron Barrett, swore a deep ba.s.s obligato.

He did not take his baleful gaze from Dwight Wade, who had gone apart, and was leaning against the mouldering walls of the Durfy hovel.

"You had your chance to block their game, and you didn't do it, John.

You make me sick!" muttered the belligerent Britt. "You've let that college dude scare you with threats, and old Ide champ his false teeth at you and back you down. You don't get any of my sympathy from now on.

I had a good plan framed. You knocked it galley-west by poking yourself into the way. They've got the girl. They'll use her against you. You can fight it yourself after this."

Barrett stared uneasily from one crew to the other.

"It would have been too tough a story to go out of these woods," he faltered. "Two crews ste'boyed together by us to capture a State pauper."

"A story of a woods rough-and-tumble, that's all!" snorted Britt. "And these dogs wouldn't have known what they were fightin' about--and would have cared less. And while they were at it I could have taken the girl out of sight! You spoiled it! Now, don't talk to me! You go ahead and see if you can do any better." He tossed his big hand into the air and whirled away, snuffling his disgust.

Larry Gorman, having peeled a hand-hold on his bludgeon, was moved to sing another verse:

"I ain't got pipe nor 'backer, Nor I ain't got 'backer-box; I ain't got a s.h.i.+rt, and my brad-boots hurt, For I ain't a-wearin' socks.

But a w.a.n.gan's on Enchanted, Where they've got them things for sale, And I don't give a dam what the price it am On the old Soubungo trail.

Sou-bung-o! Bungo!

'Way up the Bungo trail!"

St.u.r.dy little Rodburd Ide, magnate of Castonia, bestrode in the middle of the trail to the south. His head was thrown back, and his mat of whiskers jutted forward with an air of challenge. To be sure, he did not exactly understand as yet the full animus of the quarrel. He had heard his partner, Dwight Wade, announce on behalf of Honorable John Barrett that the latter proposed to educate the girl protegee of the Skeets'

tribe. He had noted that the timber baron did not warm to the announcement in a way that might be expected of the true philanthropist.

Tommy Eye's astonis.h.i.+ng declaration from the house-top that the timber magnates of Jerusalem towns.h.i.+ps were proposing to marry the girl off to Colin MacLeod, boss of "Britt's Busters," and that, too, in spite of MacLeod's lack of affection, had some effect in enlisting Ide's sympathies and interference. But his daughter's spirited champions.h.i.+p of the poor girl was really the influence that clinched matters with the puzzled Mr. Ide.

"Rodburd," declared the Honorable Pulaski, approaching him on the contemptuous retreat from Barrett, "you've gone to work and stuck your nose into matters that don't concern you. Your man Wade there, instead of attending to your operation on Enchanted, has been spending his time beauing that girl around these woods and stirring up a blackmail scheme.

I'm telling you as a friend that you'd better s.h.i.+p him. He's going to make more trouble for you than he has yet. He isn't fit for the woods. I found it out and fired him. Do the same yourself, or you'll never get your logs down and through the Hulling Machine."

"Do you mean that you're going to fight him on the drive on account of your grudge?" demanded Ide.

"I don't mean that," bl.u.s.tered Britt. "It's the man himself who'll queer you."

"I don't believe it," replied Ide, stoutly. "There are some things goin'