Raymond S. Spears

“ Corte knew many things about Treefall. His most valuable information was the fact that Treefall enjoyed long walks alone over the trails of his preserve. The trail that led toward the highest knob in the Silver Lake range was a favorite, but Corte knew that the man had not as yet climbed the peak. He knew, moreover, that two of the preserve's guides had built a little lean-to camp beside the highest spring of water on the mountain, and that it was too small a camp to be meant for more than one man. The only man likely to use it was Treefall. ”

“ Treefall said, "We want you!"
"No, you don't!" Corte answered. "It's somebody else you want!"
Something in the tone, the gesture, and the look of the woodsman made the preserve-maker pause; and a minute later Corte was swinging with rapid steps through the woods out of his enemies' sight. ”

“ He wouldn't starve to death; on the other hand, he wouldn't be likely to overeat. A Wall Street bull was never more securely corralled than William A. Treefall.
Joe Corte, pausing to glance back at the little shack, which he had used to trap from, felt sure that it was a safe place. Satisfied, he tucked his mask under a log, where it would be handy when he returned. He climbed the mountainside, swung around its steep shoulders, and finally came down into the open hardwood farthest from the Silver Lake preserve. ”

“ Corte said to himself, after a while. "A man can't stop everybody hunting like that! Deer b'longs to everybody, and that's where I gets my living—trapping and guiding. The law don't allow a man to take my living away that way!"
Corte was sure that he was right. At the opening of the lake fishing, as soon as the ice was out, he went to Silver Oak Lake to occupy his little camp there and catch a good lake trout or two. He noticed a new tin trespass sign nailed to a tree beside the trail; and at the lake he found his little camp burned to the ground. ”

“ You know how men do when they're lost and scared in the woods. Golly, though, but he must have had a dream! Said a masked man done it."
Corte laughed.
When he went down to settle up with Croupes the next day, the broker shut two doors behind them.
"Gad," he said, "if Treefall ever gets on to this!"
"This" was a memorandum representing Corte's account with Croupes's firm. The woodsman's savings had been multiplied five times on the market slump and several times more on the rise. In a few days, the broker said, he would receive stock certificates that would mean a comfortable annual income. ”

“ The woodsman shoved his hand in under Treefall's air pillow and drew out the automatic revolver which the bound arms of his prisoner could not reach. Then Corte took his deer-pack straps, and fastened them to the human bundle. Many a hundred-and-seventy-pound buck had been carried in those straps, and a hundred-and-thirty-pound man was no impossible load for the broad back and stout limbs of a mountain guide. ”

“ He took parties into the woods, but he avoided the Silver Lake country. Sometimes, however, he went alone into the woods, taking fish-rod and rifle. An attempt was made to get evidence proving that he shot at one of the Silver Lake preserve-watchers, but nothing came of this, not even an arrest.
Corte's view-point changed during the summer months. If the Wall Street man had at first seemed an intruder, he had deftly compelled the woodsman to feel that he himself was the intruder. Fight as he might against this thought, Corte was unable to overcome it. ”

“ For more than twenty years he had taken hunting-parties and fishing-parties to those woods, drawing pay as guide and provider; and when the hunting season closed, he would continue to follow the trails and blazed lines, tending traps. ”

“ He is, ain't he?"
"Yes, he's loaded up to the muzzle with stocks, but the market's going up for him, all right."
The woodsman, turning his toes in a bit, softly strode away, and the next time Mr. Dougal Croupes heard from him, something was doing.
IV Corte returned home, and a day later he went to the Silver Lakes, arriving in the Treefall preserve soon after dusk. When he emerged, three days later, he was ready for Mr. Treefall's week-end on the Silver Lake preserve. ”