Latisan

“ And the trouble with any other drive master than Latisan is that the opposition crowd can hire away what Latisan wouldn’t sell—I’ll say that for the boy! It’s a matter of principle with him—this fight for the independents.”
“But your men will keep on working, won’t they, sir?”
“They’ll work—yes! But they won’t fight without Latisan to lead ’em. That’s why the Three C’s folks are so hot on the trail of one man. They’re going to trig my drive at the Skulltree dam unless we are through ahead of ’em. ”

“ Latisan had come off well in his interview with Echford Flagg. The old man seemed to be in a chastened mood. When he had been informed of the part the girl was playing, the master had admitted that the right kind of a woman can influence a man to his own good.
Therefore, when the drive master strode down the hill, the radiance of his expansive joy had cleared out all the shadows. He was willing to meet a penitent halfway. He put out his hand frankly. Crowley held to the hand for a moment and put his other palm upon Latisan’s shoulder. ”

“ Flagg,” declared Latisan, at last, pricked by the repeatedly iterated plaint. “You can depend on me just as far as I can stretch my ability.”
“But you told me you didn’t like me for myself. You said you were joining drives with me because I was proposing to fight. Now I can’t fight. No man will do my fighting for me unless he likes me for myself.”
[64] “I’ll do it for you, sir,” insisted Ward, determinedly. “It’s right in line with my plans. I’ll take your orders. I’ll come to you regularly at Adonia. You shall know every move. I’ll be merely your right hand to do what you want done.” ”

“ Woodsmen in shifting their allegiance are not swayed by sudden impulse. His voice rang among the trees in the silence of the evening.
“Latisan is a sneak—Latisan is a runaway! Eck Flagg is next to a dead man!” Over and over he made those declarations, battering discouragement into their slow comprehension in order to win them to the Comas company. “And Latisan has thrown down real men for the sake of a girl! Do you want to get the Big Laugh when you show yourselves downriver?” ”

“ But she did not understand how absolutely hopeless was the wreck of this man’s fortunes, as Latisan viewed the situation. Ridicule, the taunt that he had been fooled by a girl from the city, was waiting for him all along the river. Echford Flagg would be the first to deny the worth of a man who had received the Big Laugh. No man on the Noda had ever incurred mock to such a degree. ”

“ I’m sure it won’t be a prayer to the God of the Old Testament, such as Eck Flagg was reading about. I’ll whisper up to Mother Mary. She understands women. I don’t.”
He bowed in silence when she gave him a hasty “good night!”
Latisan whirled suddenly after the girl closed the door behind her—came about on his heels so quickly that he nearly bumped into the assiduous operative Crowley, who had been taking desperate chances that evening.
But Latisan’s gaze was directed downward in deep thought as he walked slowly away, and he did not perceive the eavesdropper. ”

“ Latisan wanted to urge him to be careful. Flagg was exhibiting the dread symptoms of apoplexy. “Safe! I’ll be locked into this dam by you, with sluiceway refused to me—that’s what it will come to—you offering me a cut price for the logs I can’t get down to the Adonia sawmills. If you can’t kill one way, as you killed off the Latisans, you’ll kill in another way. You’re a devilish thief, Craig. I wonder if the men who hire you know what you are. Special acts, hey? That legislature has given a robber a loaded gun without knowing it. ”

“ I’ll hire a horse or I’ll buy a horse.”
“And you heard what I said, that I can’t spare one. By the way, Latisan, you may as well understand that I won’t do business with you, anyway. You got me in wrong with my folks and with the Three C’s, too, when you bribed my men to load that dynamite.”
“I can’t see why the Comas company——”
“I can. My folks can. If we get saw logs this year we’ve got to buy ’em through Rufus Craig. When you ran away and let Ech Flagg get dished——”
[300] “His drive is coming through,” insisted Latisan, desperately, breaking in on speech in his turn. ”

“ I’d like to be friends with you, young Latisan, and if you feel that way about it, put it there!”
Brophy held out a fat hand and Latisan grasped it cordially.
“In my position I hear all the news,” stated the landlord. “I’ll sift the wheat out of the chaff and hand you what’s for your own good. And now you’ll have to excuse me whilst I go and pound steak and dish up dinner and wait on the table. That’s the trouble with running a tavern up here in the woods. I can’t keep help of the girl kind. They either get homesick or get married.” ”

“ Latisan called to Brophy’s nephew in the door of the tavern stable.
She was human; she was a girl; Latisan’s manner assured her that she had won her battle with Crowley, whatever might have been the methods by which he had tried to prevail over the drive master. She could not resist the impulse to give the Vose-Mern operative a challenging look of triumph that was lighted by the joy of her victory. ”

“ Latisan was plainly in no state of mind to read; he crumpled the letter in his hand and stuffed the paper into his trousers pocket.
“Here’s a telegram,” continued the operative. “It’s for her to go back to New York. It hasn’t been enough for her to double-cross you; she’s doing the same thing to the folks who have hired her. Nice kind of dame, eh? I don’t know just what her game is, friend! But I’m coming across to you and tell you that the big idea is to keep you off the drive this season. Good money has been put up to turn the trick.” ”

“ Kyle had been far on the edge of affairs, and only the ripples of the Adonia events reached him. But his statement that Latisan had run away with a girl seemed to be certified by the drive master’s continued absence. And there were those stories of Latisan’s former weakness in the city; they had been sleeping; they were not dead.
Kyle was hiring for the Comas company—unabashed, blatantly. He strode from man to man, banging heavy palm on shoulders. “Come with the real folks. What’s old Eck Flagg to-day? You might as well be hired by a bottle-sucking brat in a baby carriage. Where’s Latisan? ”

“ You mustn’t do it; it isn’t square.”
The priest found it easy to locate the recreants among the other rivermen; they shifted their eyes under his rebuking gaze. “Go back to your work. Another will come in young Latisan’s place.”
[230] “All respect to you, Father! But we can’t do it,” said the spokesman. “We’re Latisan’s men. ”

“ She was showing incertitude, uneasiness—as if she were slipping back into a former mood after the prick of her surprise. “There’s a hotel here, I suppose.”
He took her traveling case from her hand, muttering a proffer to assist her. They walked away together. For the second time the loafers at Adonia saw Latisan escorting a strange woman along the street, and this one, also, was patently from the city, in spite of her modest attire.
“Seems to be doing quite a wholesale business, importing dynamite and wimmen,” observed a cynic. ”

“ In the Tomah I will find young Latisan; I am on my way across the mountains, mam’selle. He must be awake and himself by now; he must have gone home. When I tell him the truth he will lift all the trouble from your shoulders. But till he comes you must be brave. And who knows? You may be able to smooth the path! If you plead your grandfather’s cause up here, I believe even the great Comas company will listen and be kind. There are many outside this door who have come down from the drives to have a bit of fun at the wedding. There must be Flagg men. ”

“ Latisan was conscious of a queer unwillingness to have her leave him. He wondered what excuse he could offer to prolong the companionship of the evening. He wanted to link up her affairs with his in some way, if he could—that there might be something in common between them. To solicit her aid—her counsel; it is the first hankering of a man in his striving toward a woman’s favor.
In this case, the drive master, desperately casting about for an excuse, was guilty of something like an enormity in venturesomeness. His own business was calling him to the big house on the ledges ”

“ She stood in front of him and put Latisan’s cap on her head; she pulled on the belted jacket. “They’ll know this jacket and cap! I’ll tell the story! Do you think it is folly? No! I can see in your face that you know what those men will do!”
“Yes, I do know! I have been a woodsman in my time, too! After they have listened to you they’ll hammer hell out of anything that gets in front of ’em.”
His face lighted up. He beamed on her. “I told you that old age has its whims. A minute ago a whim made me want to keep you away from trouble. ”

“ In the city we use our brains. Latisan, I have tried to show you in the past that the Comas means business. If you’ll go back to the Toban, where you belong, I’ll do something for you on that Walpole matter, now that I’ve taught you a lesson. ”

“ You think it will be very easy for me to find somebody else as a guide—and you’re quite sure that you can’t give up your responsibility for a woman’s whim.”
The drive master owned to himself that she had called the turn.
“I’ll continue with my frankness, Mr. Latisan. It’s rather more than a guide I’m looking for on that man-to-man plane I have mentioned. You can readily understand. I need good advice about land. Therefore, mine is not exactly a whim, any more than your present determination to go on with your job is a whim. This matter has come to us very suddenly. ”

“ He had led his willing men in more or less desperate adventures in his own region; his clan had been busy passing the word among the strangers that old John Latisan’s grandson was a chief who had the real and the right stuff in him. It was plain that all the men of the crew were receiving the information with enthusiasm. Some of them ventured to pat him on the shoulder and volunteered profane promises to go with him to the limit. They did not voice any loyalty to Flagg. Flagg was not a man to inspire anything except perfunctory willingness to earn wages. ”

“ He also referred Latisan back to Craig. “We don’t interfere with his management of details in the north.”
Evidently Mr. Craig had been attending to his defenses in the home office.
Ward’s temper was touched by the listener’s slighting apathy. “I’ve come here to protest against unfair methods. Our men are tampered with—told that the Latisans are on their last legs. We are losing from our crews right along. We have been able to hire more men to take the places of those who have been taken away from us. ”

“ And what makes you think I want that kind of a quitter in my crew?”
Ward met the disparaging stare with a return display of undaunted challenge. “Because I belong in the crew of a man who is proposing to fight the Three C’s.”
Flagg grunted.
Latisan kept on. “You have been hiring men because they have been parading a lot of little grouches against the Comas folks. You need a man who has a real reason for going up against that outfit. And I’m the man.” ”

“ A new boss ought to know a few things about the man who hires him. It’s my disposition to set a good chap on the right road with a tip. Whatever you may say to Flagg in the way of chat, don’t you ever try to bring up the subject of his family affairs.”
“I’m not at all likely to,” snapped Latisan, with asperity.
“Oh, such a subject is easy out when folks get to going confidential,” pursued the persistent Brophy. The suggestion that he would ever be on confidential terms with Flagg provoked an ill-tempered rebuke from Ward, but Brophy paid no attention. ”

“ When they halted he passed them slowly, staring wide-eyed at the girl, asking her amazed questions with his gaze. She flung the Vose-Mern operative a look of real fury; she had come north in a fighting mood.
“I have left the city to escape just such men as that—men who aren’t willing to let a girl have a square chance. I lost my last position because I slapped a cheap insulter’s face in a hotel dining hall.” She looked over Latisan’s head when she twisted the truth. “I came north, to the woods, just as far as that railroad would take me. I hate a city!” ”

“ The drive master was just as ugly as he had been when he went to sleep. He was keeping his temper on a wire edge for the purposes of the job of that day, as he had planned the affair. He did not go up to the impertinent drummer and cuff his ears, but the stranger did not know how narrowly he escaped that visitation of resentment.
The fellow remained on the platform when the train pulled out; it occurred to Latisan that the fresh individual maybe wished to make sure of a clear field in order to pursue his crude tactics with the lady of the parlor. ”

“ She tossed away her cigarette and gave him earnest attention.
[107] “I’m just beginning my work with Flagg.”
“Then of course you’re not vital. Let the man who used to be master——”
“That was Flagg, himself. He’s laid up with paralysis.”
“Oh!” she drawled, provokingly. “A matter of conscientiousness—loyal devotion—champion of the weak—or a young man’s opportunity to be lord of all for the future!”
“He’s an old devil to work for, and the job promises no future,” blurted Latisan, his manner leaving no doubt as to his feelings. ”

“ There had been plenty of fights over rights on the river, but they had always been clean fights, where muscles and fists counted for the victory.
Craig had claimed that the bluff of the guns would be sufficient. Latisan was not agreeing, and on that account he was finding the outlook a dark one.
The train on which he was riding was an express headed for Canada, and was due to pass the junction with the Adonia narrow-gauge at about two o’clock in the morning. There was no scheduled stop at the junction; the afternoon train connected and served the passengers from downcountry. ”