James B. Hendryx

“ Late that evening, clad once more in his woodsman's garb, Connie Morgan sat upon the plush cushion of a railway coach, with his new leather suitcase at his feet, and smiled at the friendly twinkling lights of the farm-houses, as his train rushed northward into the night. ”

“ As Connie ate his lunch he puzzled mightily over Hurley. He had journeyed from far off Alaska for the purpose of bringing to justice a man who had swindled him and his partner out of thousands of dollars worth of timber. His experience with the Mounted had taught him that, with the possible exception of Notorious Bishop whose consummate nerve had commanded the respect even of the officers whose business it was to hunt him down, law-breakers were men who possessed few if any admirable qualities. Yet here was a man who, Connie was forced to admit, possessed many such qualities. ”

“ Every few miles, to the accompaniment of shrieking brake shoes, the train would slow to a stop, and rumble onto a siding at some little flat town, to allow a faster train to hurl past in a rush of smoke, and dust, and deafening roar, and whistle screams. Then the wheezy engine would nose out onto the main track, back into another siding, pick up a box car or two, spot an empty at the grain spout of a sagging red-brown elevator, and couple onto the train again with a jolt that threatened to bounce the cars from the rails, and caused the imprisoned horses to stamp and snort nervously. ”

“ Into the very heart of their country we reach, and they do not know it. Lumber here, iron there, cotton, wool, railroads, banks—in their own country, and under protection of their own laws we have reached out our hands and have taken; until today Germany holds the death-grip upon American commerce, as some day she will hold the death-grip upon America's very existence. ”

“ A prim, white painted farmhouse, with its big red barn and its setting of conical grain stacks would flash past, and again the train would plunge between the walls of vivid foliage, or roar across a trestle, or whiz along the shore of a beautiful land-locked lake whose clear, cold waters sparkled dazzlingly in the sunlight as the light breeze rippled its surface. ”

“ His daily associates had been good [133] men—and bad. He had known good men with deplorable weaknesses, and bad men with admirable virtues. In his association with these men of the lean, lone land the boy had unconsciously learned to take keen measure of men. And, having taken his measure, he accepted a man at his worth. The boy knew that Mike Gillum had not lied to him—that under no circumstances would he lie to injure another. But, despite the man's positive statement, Connie's confidence in Hurley remained unshaken. ”

“ Upon a siding stood several flat cars onto which a dozen or more roughly dressed men were busily loading gear and equipment under the eye of a massive-framed giant of a man in a shirt of brilliant red flannel, who sat dangling his legs from the brake wheel of the end car. A stubble of red beard covered the man's undershot jaw. The visor of a greasy plush cap, pushed well back upon his head, disclosed a shock of red hair that nearly met the shaggy eyebrows beneath which a pair of beady eyes kept tab on the movements of his crew. ”

“ If he don't own his own timber he has to take what he can get in stumpage contracks, an' whether he owns it or not they git him on water-tolls, an' when he hits the river there's boom-tolls an' sortin'-tolls, an' by the time he's got his logs to the mills an' sold accordin' to the boom scale he ain't got nawthin' left, but his britches—an' lucky to have them. All business is crooked. If everyone was honest they wouldn't be no millionaires. If a man's got a million, he's a crook. It ain't no worse fer us little ones to steal agin' the law, than it is fer the big ones to steal accordin' to law. ”

“ Don't start no fire in the big range tonight. Here, you, Saginaw, you play cook. You can boil a batch of tea and fry some ham on the office stove—an' don't send no more sparks up the stovepipe than what you need to. If fire got started in these weeds we'd have two camps to build instead of one; Swede, you help Frenchy with the horses, an' yous other fellows fill them lanterns an' git what you need unloaded an' cover the wagon with a tarp."
"What can I do?" asked Connie. Hurley eyed him with a laugh. "Gosh sakes! Ain't you petered out yet? ”

“ They figgered that no one wouldn't pay no 'tention to a trail headin' north, while if it led over to the Syndicate camp on Dogfish someone would spot it in a minute. An' with it snowin' like this, they figgered the trail would drift full, or else look so old no one would bother about it. They ain't only one thing to do, an' that's to go ahead an' find out. What a man knows is worth a heap more'n what he can guess. They's a-goin' to be some big surprises on Dogfish 'fore this winter's over, an' some folks is a-goin' to wish they'd of be'n smarter—or stayed honester. ”

“ The spot located, Hurley would blaze a tree and they would strike out for the next ravine.
"It ain't like we had to build a log road," [59] explained the boss, as he blazed a point that, to Connie, looked like an impossible crossing. "Each camp will have its own rollways an' all we need is a tote road between 'em. Frenchy Lamar can put a team anywhere a cat will go. He's the best hand with horses on the job, if he is a jumper."
"What's a jumper?" asked Connie.
"You'll find that out fast enough. Jumpin' a man generally means a fight in the woods—an' I don't blame 'em none, neither. ”

“ When he returned the crew was crowding into the men's camp to wash up for supper. The wind had risen, and as Connie's gaze centred upon the lashing pine tops, he smiled grimly,—it was blowing stiffly from the west.
After supper Saginaw Ed listened with bulging eyes to what the boy had to say. When he was through the man eyed him critically:
"Listen to me, kid. Nonsense is nonsense, an' [82] business is business. I don't want no truck with a man that ain't got some nonsense about him somewheres—an' I don't want no truck with one that mixes up nonsense an' serious business. ”

“ They ain't no one kin do it. It ain't on."
"What's the matter with it?" asked the boy.
"Matter with it! I can't find nothin' the matter with it—That's why it won't work!"
Connie laughed: "We'll make it work! All you've got to remember is that if any stranger comes into the camp asking for Hurley, you steer him up against Slue Foot. This von Kuhlmann himself will probably come, and if he does it will be all right—he knows Slue Foot by sight. The only thing that's bothering me is how am I going to ask Hurley for a week or ten days off? Frenchy's going in tomorrow, and I've got to go with him." ”

“ When the men woke up an' found the boss, an' the clerk, an' three hands, an' the cookee missin', an' the lock pried offen the stable door, work would stop right there. There ain't nothin' like a myst'ry of some kind to bust up a crew of men. We couldn't wake no one else up to take 'em without we woke up the whole men's camp, an' they'd want to know what was the rookus. If we sent fer a constable it'd be two or three days 'fore he'd git here an' then it would be too late. ”

“ The boy made his way over the uneven floor, stained with dark splotches of tobacco juice, toward the farther end of the room, where Saginaw Ed was helping Frenchy mend a piece of harness.
As he passed a bunk midway of the room, Steve rose to his feet and confronted him. "Ha! Here's the greener kid—the boss's pet that's too good to bunk in the men's camp! Whatchu doin' in here? Did Hurley send you after some strap oil?" As the two boys stood facing each other in the middle of the big room the men saw that the cookee was the taller and the heavier of the two. ”

“ I'm a Government all my own! All Governments is birds of prey, an' beasts of prey. What do you see on their money, an' their seals, an' their flags—doves, an' rabbits, an' little fawns? No, it's eagles, an' bears, an' lions—beasts that rips, an' tears, an' crushes, an' kills!
"You're lucky to git to throw in with a man like me—to git started out right when yer young. If you wasn't smart, I wouldn't fool with ye, but I'll git mine, an' you'll git yourn—an' some day, von Kuhlmann's kind of let it slip, they's somethin' big comin' off. ”

“ From what he had seen of Hurley, and what Saginaw and Slue Foot had told him, the boy was confident that the big boss was square and honest as the day is long—but there was Mike Gillum, himself an honest man and a friend of Waseche, [117] who had reported that Hurley was in the pay of the Syndicate; and Connie knew that men like Mike Gillum did not lie about other men, nor would they make an open accusation unless reasonably sure of their ground. ”

“ It ain't the 'Misters' and the 'Sirs' that are the big men up there; it's the 'Bills' and the 'Jacks' and the 'Scotties' and the 'Petes'—men that would get out and mush a hundred miles to carry grub to a scurvy camp instead of sitting around the stove and hiring someone else to do it—men that have gouged gravel and stayed with the game, bucking the hardest winters in the world, [165] sometimes with only half enough to eat—men with millions, and men that don't own the tools they work with! My own father was one of 'em. 'The unluckiest man in Alaska,' they called him! ”

“ Any one kin draw down wages workin' in the woods—but if you want to make a real stake out of the game you've got to learn how to play both ends ag'in' the middle. An' that's where the brains comes in."
"That's why I thought——"
"—you could soak it to 'em on the wanagan an' shove the rake-off in your pocket," finished the man. "Well, you'd better fergit it! Some bosses would stand fer it, but not Hurley. He'd tumble to yer game in a minute, an' you'd be hikin' down the tote road with yer turkey on yer back a-huntin' a new job." ”

“ An hour later Connie once more entered the office at Camp One. Steve sat beside Hurley, and Saginaw Ed stood warming himself with his back to the stove.
"Back ag'in," greeted the big boss. "How about it, ye too tired to swing out into the brush with the rifle? Seems like they wouldn't nothin' in the world taste so good as a nice fat pa'tridge. An' you tell the cook if he dries it up when he roasts it, he better have his turkey packed an' handy to grab." ”

“ In the timber, sheltered from the sweep of the wind, the track had not drifted full, but threaded the woods in a broad, trough-like depression that the woodsman easily followed. Mile after mile it held to the north, dipping into deep ravines, skirting thick windfalls, and crossing steep ridges. As the trail lengthened the man's face hardened. "Whoever's a-hikin' ahead of me ain't no greener an' he ain't walkin' fer fun, neither. He's travellin' as fast as I be, an' he knows where he's a-goin', too." He paused at the top of a high ridge and smote a heavily mittened palm with a mittened fist. ”

“ What ye got there? Well, dog my cats, if you didn't up an' git you a deer! Slip over to the cook's camp an' wade into some grub. I told him to shove yer supper onto the back of the range, again' you got back. While yer gone I'll jest run a couple rags through yer rifle."
When Connie returned from the cook's camp Saginaw was squinting down the barrel of the gun. "Shines like a streak of silver," he announced; "Hurley's mighty pernickety about his rifle, an' believe me, it ain't everyone he'd borrow it to. Tell me 'bout yer hunt," urged the man, and Connie saw a gleam of laughter in his eye. ”

“ Kin you blame 'em when you stop to think of them horses locked in a blazin' stable, an' the deliberate waitin' 'til the wind was right to carry the fire to the men's camp? The men works hard, an' by eleven o'clock they're poundin' their [83] ear mighty solid. S'pose they didn't wake up till too late—what then?"
Connie shuddered. In his heart he felt, with Saginaw Ed, that any summary punishment the men chose to deal out to the plotters would be richly deserved. "I know," he replied: "But, mob punishment is never right, when a case can be reached by the law. ”

“ Presently the boss of Camp Two departed, threatening to have Connie fired for incompetence, as soon as he could get in a word with Hurley.
SLUE FOOT TURNED. "THINK Y'RE AWFUL SMART, DON'T YE?"
On the tote road at the edge of the clearing, Slue Foot turned and gazed at the little office. And as he gazed an evil smile twisted his lips: "Think yer awful smart, don't ye? Well, yer in on the scheme—'cause I need ye in. An' I'll use ye fer all there is in ye—but when cashin'-in time comes, yer goin' to be left whistlin' fer yourn—er my name ain't Slue Foot Magee!" ”

“ But, what I ain't never be'n able to git onto is, what in thunder does the Syndicate want to be slippin' the I. W. W. money fer?"
"Are you an I. W. W.?" Connie shot the question directly.
Slue Foot hesitated a moment and then answered [231] evasively. "Git me right, kid, I'm anything that's agin' capital—an' I'm anything that's agin' the Government. First and foremostly, I'm fer Magee. No man kin make money by workin'. I've got money, an' I'm a-goin' to git more—an' I don't care how it's come by. I'm a wolf, an' I'll howl while the rabbit squeals! I'm a bird of prey! ”

“ Slue Foot sneered. "Ye're pretty smart—some ways. But ye ain't smart enough to change a red block-an'-ball to a green tripple X. An' as fer paintin' over 'em, why if a log hit the big river with a brand painted out they'd be a howl go up that would rock the big yaller ball on top of the capital. No sir, it takes brains to make money loggin'. The big ones has stole and grabbed up into the millions—an' they do it accordin' to law—because they've got the money to make the law an' twist it to suit theirselves. ”

“ A man that's double-crossed folks like he has ain't got no right to expect to git away with it. If they don't no one else git him, the law will."
"Yes," answered the boy, "and we've got enough on him so that when the law gets through [236] with him he's not going to have much time left for any more crookedness."
"How d'you figger on workin' it?" asked Saginaw.
Connie laughed: "I haven't had time to dope it out yet, but there's no use starting anything 'til just before the drive. ”

“ They try to bust up everything, an' wreck, an' smash, an' tear down—that's all right, fer as it goes—but, what's it goin' to git 'em? Where do they git off at? They ain't figgered themselves into no profit by what they do. What's it goin' to git me if I burn down a saw-mill? I don't git the mill, do I? No—an' neither don't they. What I'm after is gittin' it off them that's got it, an' lettin' it stick to me. I ain't worryin' about no one else. It's every man fer hisself— [225] an' I'm fer me!" The boss prodded himself in the chest, as he emphasized the last word. ”

“ Slue Foot's crowding 'em up there in Camp Two, putting every last log he can get onto the landings—he said he'd have close to three million feet branded with his own paint."
"Expects Hurley's goin' to let Long Leaf boss the drive agin, I s'pose an' the Syndicate crew do the sortin'!"
"I guess that's what's he's counting on," answered the boy. "Hurley will tend to that part. And now we know his scheme, the logs are safe—what we want is evidence. When we get him we want to get him right."
Saginaw Ed rose to go. "It's up to you, son, to figger out the best way. Whatever you say goes. ”