Holman Day

“ Parker maintained grim silence as he lay on the sled. No one spoke to him. The men were too busy with songs and rough jests over the business of the evening. The engineer would not confess to himself that he was frightened, but the wantonness and alacrity with which the irresponsible men had destroyed valuable property impressed him with ominous apprehension of what they might do to him. He wondered what revenge Connick was meditating. ”

“ Through the spring and the early summer Poquette Carry was an animated theater of action. Woodsmen, went up and woodsmen came down, and mingled with the busy railroad crews. All examined the progress of construction with curiosity, and passed on, uttering picturesque comment. Strange old men came paddling down West Branch from unknown wildernesses, and trudged their moccasined way from end to end of the line, as if to convince themselves that Colonel Gideon Ward really had been conquered on his own ground. ”

“ The crowd drew aside apprehensively, and he tramped straight up to the locomotive.
“What do ye mean,” he roared, “by having engines out here to scare hosses into conniptions? Take that thing off this lake and put it back on the railroad tracks up there where it belongs!” He shook his fists over his shoulder in the direction of the distant embankment.
“You will observe,” said Parker, blandly, “that there is some twenty inches difference between the gage of the wheels and the gage—”
“I don't care that”—and Colonel Ward snapped the great whip—“for your gages and your gouges! ”

“ 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. ”

“ CHAPTER ONE—THE TRYING-OUT OF ONE RODNEY PARKER, ASSISTANT ENGINEER
All at once the stump-dotted, rocky hillside became clamorous and animated. From the little shacks sheathed with tarred paper, from the sodded huts, from burrows sunk into the hillside men suddenly came popping out with shrill cries.
Three men, shouldering surveying instruments, stopped in their tracks on the freshly-heaped soil of a new railroad embankment, and gazed up at the hillside. The railroad skirted its foot and the sudden activity on the slope was in full view. ”

“ Moreover, Parker, having an athlete's confidence in his fists, suddenly responded to the instincts of primordial man. He leaped lightly to one side, caught the rushing giant's foot across his instep, and as Connick's moccasined feet went out from under him, the young engineer struck him behind the ear. He fell with a dismal thump of his head on the ice, and lay without motion. ”

“ 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 frozen expanse stretched steel-white, glary and glistening, a solid sheet of ice.
“There's a surface,” cried Parker, in joyous soliloquy, “that will enable the Swogon to haul as much as a P. K. & R. mogul! Jack Frost is certainly a great engineer.”
He at once put a crew at work getting out more saplings for sleds. In two more trips, with his extra “cars” and with that glassy surface, he believed that every ounce of railroad material could be “yarded” at the Po-quette Carry. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There are some projects that captains of industry dilate upon with pride. But big men are cautious about letting the world know their whims. And whims that lead to exasperating complications that no business judgment has provided for, do not form pleasant topics for conversation or publicity.
Many railroad projects have been launched, some of them unique, but never before was enterprise conceived in just the spirit that gave the Poquette Carry Railway to the transportation world. ”

“ A man gets near to God in these woods. A man can put away the little thoughts. The warm sun thaws his hate; the big winds blow out the flame of anger; the great trees sing only one song, and high or low, it's 'Hush—hush-h-h—hush-h-h-h!'” The voice of the man softly imitated the soughing of the pines.
Parker stumbled to his bunk, his feet still uncertain, drank his tea, and slept. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The old man straddled his legs, leaned forward and set his right forefinger into his left palm with the confident air of one who is prepared to prove his contentions.
“I say,” he went on, “that the road must not be built, and as a business man—”
“Colonel Ward,” broke in Parker, mildly yet firmly, “if that line of talk is what you are proposing to me I think I'd better tell you at the start that you'll have to take the question of whether the road must or must not be built to my employers. I have no right to enter upon any such discussion. Nothing will be gained. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the foreman shook his head dubiously.
“It'll never come at a man twice alike,” he said.
“Sometimes he just snorts and folks just run. Sometimes he kicks, sometimes he bites, sometimes he rears and smashes things all to pieces. But the idea is, you can depend on him to do something and do it quick and do it mighty hard. We've known Gideon Ward a good many years up this way and we've never seen him so mad before nor have better reason for being mad. The men are worrying. I thought it right to tell you that much.”
“Well, I'm worrying, too,” said Parker. ”

“ But undisciplined natures whose excesses spring from lack of self control are all the more ready to respond to the masterful control of others.
First of all the men recognized in Parker the champion who had won their first rights from the padrone.
They stopped their shrill vituperation and, crowding about him, began to bleat their explanations and appeals. But he threw out his arms, pushed them back a safe distance from the panting Dominick and roared them into silence, brandishing his fists, as he would have quelled a noisy school. ”

“ So the Poquette Carry Road got what it asked for at last, the opposition daring to put forward only its slight pretexts. But the timber interests retired growling bitterly, and angrily apprehensive. They could not understand that big men are sometimes actuated by whims. Here they saw the controllers of the great P. K. & R. system behind this insignificant project in the north woods. They gave these shrewd railroad men no credit for ingenuousness. ”

“ Parker?” The postmaster's voice trembled.
“It's as sad a story—as anger-stirring a story as I ever listened to, Mr. Dodge,” replied the young man, passionately. “I cannot understand how a scoundrel of that style should have been allowed to stamp roughshod over people without a champion arising in some quarter. It is small wonder that he has come to think that he can run the universe. He needs a lesson.”
“There's no doubt about his needin' the lesson,” replied the postmaster. “But for years half the wages that are paid out in this section have come through the hands of Gideon Ward. ”

“ One cheerful moment for Parker had been when the postmaster informed him of Sunkhaze's equilibrium in the matter of news-monging But a more cheerful moment was when Mank, his foreman, standing with him on the ice above the submerged Swogon told him that a sandbar made out into the lake at that point and that the locomotive was probably lodged on the bar, only a little way below the surface. ”

“ He never intrusted money to woodsmen, for he deemed them irresponsible; he found that writings and orders were too easily mislaid. Therefore, whenever he sent a messenger to town or a man down the line with a tote-team for goods, he scrawled on his back with a piece of chalk the peculiar hieroglyph of crosses and circles that made up the Gideon Ward “log-mark.” This mark was good for lodging and meals at any tavern, was authority for the transfer of goods, and procured transportation for the man whose back was thus inscribed. ”

“ He had Hackett in the corner of his eye, as tho soliciting that individual to take careful note of the conversation.
“The fact is, Colonel Ward,” replied the engineer, “human nature isn't to be driven to and fro quite like an ox team. What I mean by that is, I might say, 'Go to, now! Be friends!'—say that to myself. But that wouldn't make me feel friendly—not in present circumstances. But I'm going to say to you that I'd like to be friends, and if you will start in now and show me some reason why we should be friends I'll give you my word to come more than half way.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ Most of Parker's crew had brought axes, and now as he advanced across the ice toward the locomotive, his men followed with considerable display of valor.
'A giant whiskered woodsman led the onrush of the attacking force; and the gang interposed itself between the railroad property and its defenders.
“Hold up there, right where ye are, all of ye!” the giant shouted.
“What is your business here?” demanded the young man.
“Are you that little railro'd chap that thinks he's runnin' this end of the country on the kid-glove basis?” roared the big man. ”

“ Our drives from up-country are sometimes held up a whole season when a bad jam forms in dry times. Every year in dynamiting these jams thousands of feet of logs are shattered. More are split on the ledges. We have agreed that we need a railroad. Considering our losses, we can afford to pay well for having our logs hauled to the smooth water. If you and your friends will finance and build such a road, we'll give you free right of way, turn over to you annually twenty million feet of timber for your log trains, and give you the haul of all our crews and camp supplies. ”

“ But the postmaster, who could be a comforter as well as a prophet of ill, took him into the little enclosure of his inner office and showed him a long list of records pencilled on the slide of his wicket.
“Ice was never known to break up in Spinnaker earlier than the first week in May,” said Dodge, “and this rain-spitting won't open so much as a riffle. You just keep cool and wait.”
At the end of the rain-storm the weather helped Parker to keep cool. He heard the wind roaring from the northwest in the night. The frame of the little tavern shuddered. ”

“ The horse, speeding down the lake, was only a few rods away. He stopped, crouched, and dodged sidewise in terror. An old man stood up and began to belabor the frightened animal.
He was a queer figure, that old man, in the high-backed, high-fender sleigh. On his head was a tall peaked fur cap, with a barred coon tail flopping at its apex. A big fur coat, also covered with coon tails, made the man's figure almost Brobdingnagian in circumference. It was Colonel Gideon Ward. ”