The long autumn passed and winter set in. Snow fell on the carry and the big sleds jangled across. Men went up past Sunkhaze settlement into the great region of snow and silence, and men came down—bearded men, with hands calloused by the ax and the cross-cut saw.
But Col. Gideon Ward's well known figure was not among the passengers on the tote-road. The upgoing men were bound for his camps, and were inquiring as to his whereabouts; the downgoing men stated that he was roaring from one log-landing to another, driving men and horses to make a record-breaking season, and so busy that he would not stop long enough to eat.
Hearing the discussion of the traits and deeds of this woods ogre, the stranger might readily believe him as terrifying as the celebrated “Injun devil”—and as much a creature of fiction.
But each of the messengers that Ward sent down to the outer world bore unmistakable sign that this ruler of the wilderness was in full possession of his autocracy. This talisman was one of the most picturesque features of Ward's reign over the “Gideonites,” as his men were called all through the great north country.
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.
When Colonel Ward sent a crew of men into the woods he marked the back of each one in this fashion, as if the employees were freight parcels. The exhibition of that chalk-mark and the words “Charge to Ward” were enough. And such was the fear of all men that the chalk-mark was never abused.
Furthermore, on each grand spring settling day most of the dollars that circulated in the region came through the hands of Col. Ward. This fact naturally increased the deference paid him.
“A railroad?” sneered one man, just down from Number 4 camp. “A railroad across Poquette? Across Gid Ward's land, spouting sparks and settin' fires and hustlin' in sports? Well, you don't see any railroad-buildin' goin' on, do you?”
There was certainly but one reply to this.
“And ye won't see any, either. Gid Ward just bellowed once at that lawyer, and he ran away, ki-yi! ki-yi! You'll never hear any more railroad talk.”
He expressed the public opinion, for even Seth, the guide, regretfully came to the conclusion that the tyrant of the West Branch had “backed down” the city men by his belligerent reception of their emissary.
But soon after the first of January the postmaster's daily paper brought some further news. The state legislature had assembled in biennial session that winter. In the course of its reports the newspaper stated that the “Po-quette Carry Railway Company,” a corporation organized under the general law, had brought before the railroad commissioners a petition for their approval of the project, and that a day was appointed for a hearing.
“The city men had the sand, after all,” was his admiring comment. “They don't propose to start firing till they get all their legal ammunition ready, and that's why they've been waitin'. We're goin' to see warm times on the Spinnaker waters.”
For that matter the daily newspaper brought to snow-heaped Sunkhaze intelligence of “warm times” at the hearing. The legal counsel and lobbyists who represented the puissant timber interests of the state protested against allowing this railroad corporation to acquire any rights across the wild lands.
It was pointed out that a dangerous precedent would be established; that forest fires would be sure to originate from the locomotive's sparks, and that the Poquette woods were the center of the great West Branch timber growth.
The counsel for the incorporators said that his clients realized this danger, and anticipated that this objection, a potent one, would be made. They were willing to show their liberal intent by binding themselves to run their trains only in rainy or “lowery” weather, or when the ground was damp. In times of dangerous drought they would suspend operations.
“The Rainy-Day Railroad,” as it was nicknamed immediately, excited considerable hilarity at the state-house and in the newspapers.
The matter was fought out with much animation. The counsel for the railway made much of the fact that these timber owners had fought the very reasonable state tax that had been imposed on their vast and valuable holdings. He drew attention to the needs of the sportsman class, that was spending much money in the state each year, and declared that unless they were treated with some courtesy and generosity, they would go into New Brunswick.
But those deepest in the secrets of the very vigorous legislative fray knew that the timber-land owners feared more results than they advanced in their arguments against the charter.
For some years there had been rumors that extensive capital was ready to tap a certain big railway and afford a shorter cut to the sea. Such a cut-off would mean opening great tracts of woodland to the steam horse—and where the steam horse goes there go settlers. The timberland owners had found that settlers do not wait for clear titles, but squat and burn and plant until evicted, and eviction by course of law means expense and damage.
To be sure, the Poquette Carry line appeared on the surface to be so innocent that to allege against it the great whispered scheme seemed ridiculous. Therefore the counsel of the timber barons did not bring out in the committee-room hearings all they suspected, for fear that they would be laughed at.
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. And the resolve that was thereupon made at secret conclave of the timber men to fight that first encroachment on their old-time domains and rights was a stern and a bitter resolve. The knowledge of it would have mightily astonished—might have daunted effectually a certain young engineer who was just then learning from Manager Jerrard the details of his new commission.
In the end, late in March, Whittaker and Jerrard found themselves with a charter and a location approved by the state railroad commissioners, permitting them to build a six-mile railroad across Poquette Carry; to carry passengers, baggage, express and freight, but with the limitation that when the state land-agent should think the condition of drought dangerous and should so notify the company, the road should cease to run any trains until rain wet down the woods.
The location was taken by right of eminent domain, and all the provisions of the law were complied with. No settlement for the damage caused to Colonel Ward through the loss of his land was possible, altho the railroad company made liberal offers, and he was finally left to pursue his remedy in the courts.
Up to this time Jerrard had kept his negotiations with young Parker a private matter between the two of them, even as he had kept some of the annoying legislative details away from his superior.
“What engineer can you send down there and handle the thing for us?” asked President Whittaker, when Jerrard informed him that all the legal details had been settled. “I want some one who knows enough to get the line going in season for our August trip—and above all to keep still. I don't want to hear a word about it till I get out of a canoe at Poquette Carry next summer. Here we want to build a wheelbarrow road, and I have been having hard work to convince some of our bankers that I'm not planning a coup against the Canadian Pacific. Bosh!”
“These timber-land owners started most of that foolishness,” said Jerrard. “But speaking of a man, there's Rodney Parker.”
“Never heard of him.”
“He's been with the engineers two years on the Falls cut-off's new work. I can't think of any one else who will suit us as well.”
“'Tisn't going to take any very wonderful man to build this road,” the president snapped, rather impatiently.
A smile crept into the wrinkles about Jerrard's shrewd eyes.
“Whittaker,” said he, “there's a side to our railroad enterprise that neither you nor I appreciated at first. I've been getting some points from our counsel, who had a talk with Bevan. When we were up at the lake, you remember something that Rotre said about the timber-land owners not especially hankering for a railroad at the carry. Well, Bevan says the land there is owned by a man named Ward—Col, Gideon Ward, one of the big lumber operators of that section. From Bevan's account, Ward must be something like a cross between a bull moose and a Bengal tiger, Bevan went up to see him. He thought he could make a deal for the right of way, and thus would not be obliged to bother with condemnation proceedings and stir up talk and all that. Devan declares that getting a charter is one thing but the building of that road will be another.”
“We've got the law—”
“Law gets very thin when you step over the line into an unorganized timber township. They tell me that old Ward comes pretty near making his own laws, and makes them with his fists or a club or else through his gang that they call 'The Gideonites' in that country.”
“Your Parker, is he—”
“I've got him out in my room. I've been talking with him. Better have him step in here.”
The president pushed his desk button, and the messenger hastened on his errand.
“Parker,” explained the traffic manager, “doesn't look any more savage than a house cat. But he's the man who went down into the camp of those Italians at the Fall's cut-off when they were having their bread squabble, and he backed the whole gang into the camp and made them sit down at the table. Of course, we hope we shall need only an engineer and not a warrior at Poquette, and we trust that Ward will be tractable and all that; but, Whittaker, if we're going to build that road, and are not to be backed down in such a way that we'll never dare to show our faces before the grinning natives at Sunkhaze then we need to send along a chap like—”
“Mr. Parker!” opportunely announced the boy, at the door.
Parker seemed tall and angular and rather awkward. The brown of out-of-doors was upon his skin. His eyelids dropped at the corners in rather a listless way, but the eyes beneath were gray and steady. He was young, not more than twenty-five, so Whittaker judged at his first sharp glance.
“Do you think you can build that road that Jerrard has been telling you about?” asked the president, briskly.
“I think so, sir.” Parker spoke with a drawl.
“You understand what the plan is?”
“Mr. Jerrard has explained quite fully.”
“Are you afraid of bears and owls?” The president spoke jocosely, but there was a significant tone in his voice.
“I don't think I should spend much time climbing trees,” replied Parker, smiling.
“Do you understand that the man we send must take the whole undertaking on his own shoulders? Neither Mr. Jerrard nor myself cares to think about the matter, even.” “I'll be glad to be instructed, sir.” “You'll have instructions as to limit of construction cost per mile, authority to draw on us as you need money, and the road must be in operation by the middle of July. Now Jerrard speaks well of your qualifications. What do you think?” “I am ready to accept the commission, sir.” “You'll have to get away at once, Parker,” said Jerrard. “You must get construction material and supplies across Spinnaker before the ice breaks up. You can depend on the most of April for ice.”
“I can start when you say the word.” “We shall rush material. Suppose you start to-morrow morning?” “I'll start sir.”
He left the room when he was informed that his instructions would await him that evening.
“Jerrard,” said the president, gazing after the young man, “your friend isn't an especially pretty frog but I'll bet he can jump more than once his length.”
Two days afterward Parker ate his supper at the Sunkhaze tavern and spent the evening going over the schedule of material that was following him by freight, its progress over connecting lines hastened by all the “pull” inspired by the P. K. & R.'s bills of lading.
The next morning, even while the frosty sun was red behind the spruces, he had arranged with the station agent for side-track privileges, and then questioned that functionary regarding local conditions.
“I need twenty or more four-horse teams,” said Parker. “What's the best way to advertise here?” “I reckon you can advertise and advertise,” replied the station agent, “but that's all the good it'll do you. Colonel Gid Ward has about every spare team in this county yardin' logs for him this winter.”
“What does he pay?”
“Thirty-five a month for a span o' hosses, and hosses and man kept.”
“I'll pay forty-five and feed.”
“I shouldn't want to be the man that went up on Gid Ward's operations and tried to hire his teams away!” growled the agent. “You can't hire any one round here for an errand of that kind.”
“I'd go myself if I thought I could get the horses,” said Parker.
“I'd advise you to save yourself a fifty-mile ride up the tote-road,” the agent counseled. “Even if Ward didn't catch you, you'd find that no man would da'st to leave there. Furthermore, you've only got a little, short job here, scarcely worth while.”
The logic of the reply impressed Parker.
He could not spare the time anyway, to travel far up into the woods in quest of horses. His material must be conveyed across Spinnaker Lake in some other way.
“How far is it up the lake to Poquette?” he asked the agent.
“Sixteen miles.”
An hour later Parker, after a tour of inspection, had settled his problem of transportation in his own mind. His plan was ingenious.
There were half a dozen men available in Sunkhaze, and more were arriving daily, straggling down from the woods or roaring in fresh from the city, hurrying on the way up.
The postmaster owned a hardwood tract, and Parker set his little crew at work chopping birch saplings and fashioning from them huge sleds, strongly bolted. As for himself, he entered into a contract with the local blacksmith, threw his coat off and went to work on some contrivances, round which the settlement's loungers congregated from dawn till dark the next day, watching the progress and wondering audibly “what such a blamed contraption was goin' to turn out to be.”
Parker kept his own counsel. At the end of two days, with the assistance of the blacksmith, he had remodeled four ox-cart tires. Each tire was spurred with bristling steel spikes, bolted firmly. In reply to his telegram, “Rush loco, all equipments and coal,” the little narrow-gage engine arrived, at the tail of the procession of flat cars, loaded with materials of construction.
By this time Parker's crew had been increased to a score of laborers, and he had picked up three yokes of oxen and four horses from the few pioneer farmers who lived near Sunkhaze. With tackle and derrick the locomotive was swung upon a specially constructed sled, and the spurred tires were set upon its drivers. Then the great idea locked in Parker's head became apparent to the population of Sunkhaze.
“Gorry!” said the postmaster. “If that young feller hain't got a horse there that'll beat anything that even Colonel Gid Ward himself ever sent across Spinnaker Lake!”
Amid the utmost excitement of the spectators, the “engine on runners” was “snubbed” down the steep hill and eased out upon the road leading to the lake. Two hours' work with levers and wedges had adjusted the machine until the spurred wheels had the requisite “bite” upon the ice.
At dark on the day of the “launching” Parker gazed off across the level of the lake, and said to his men:
“To-morrow, boys, the Spinnaker Lake Air-Line Railroad will run its first train to Po-quette Carry. No freight this time. I want to lay out my landing up there. So all aboard at nine o'clock. Three cars,” he said, pointing to the new sleds, “and a free ride for all of you, with my compliments.”
An honest cheer greeted his jocular announcement, and that evening all the Sunk-haze male population assembled round the stove in the post-office to discuss the matter. When the evening was yet young, a red-faced, red-whiskered man, snow-shoes on his back and fresh from the up-country trail, came and warmed himself, listening with interest to the lively discussion.
“So that's what that thing is down on the lake?” he said, at last. “'Twas dark when I came by, and I swan if it didn't scare me. Want to know if that's the engine we've been hearin' about up our way?”
His tone was significant.
“Where ye from, stranger?” asked one of the loungers.
“Number 7 cuttin'.”
“Oh, one of Gid Ward's men?”
“Yes.”
“Say, has Ward heard about the railroad preparations?” inquired the postmaster. This query had been propounded with eagerness to every new arrival from the woods for the past three days.
“Yes.”
The interest of the men quickened, and they crowded round the newcomer.
“What does he say?”
“He hain't said anything special yet, so I heard,” replied the man. “Hain't done anything but swear so far, so they tell me.”
“Has he—has he started to come down?”
“Feller from up the line telephoned across the carry that a streak of fur, bells and brimstone went past his place, and so I should judge that Colonel Gid is on the way down,” drawled the man.
“An' he'll come across that lake in the morning,” said the postmaster, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, “scorchin' the snow and leavin' a hot hole in the air behind him.”
The door opened and Parker came in to post his letters. The crowd gazed on him with new interest and with a certain significance in their glances that caught his eyes. The postmaster noticed his mute inquiry, and remarked:
“News from the interior, Mr. Parker, is that you prob'ly won't have any ice in Spinnaker to-morrow to run your engine on.”
“Why?” demanded the young man, with some surprise. The postmaster's sober face hid his jest. Parker surveyed wonderingly the grins curling under the listeners' beards.
“Oh, Colonel Gid Ward is comin' across in the mornin' and it's reckoned he'll burn up the ice.”
A cackle of laughter came from the assemblage.
“There's plenty of room on Spinnaker for both of us, I think,” Parker replied, quietly.
“Better hitch your engine,” suggested one of the group. “She's li'ble to take to the woods and climb a tree when she hears old Gid. And you can hear him a good way off, now I can tell you.”
The postmaster knuckled his chin humorously.
“Wal, you'll hear him 'bout the same time you see him. Five years ago he was arrested down to the village for drivin' through the streets lickety-whelt without bells. Run over two or three people, first and last. Gid said he'd give 'em bells enough, if that's what they wanted. He began collecting bells all the way from a cow-bell down. At last accounts he had about two hundred on his hoss and sleigh, and was still addin'. Now he makes every hoss on the street run away. The men wish they'd let him alone in the first place. He'll prob'ly want your engine-bell when he sees it to-morrow.”
Another cackle from the crowd.
Parker left without answering, and went to his dingy little room in the tavern. He did not doubt that the timber-land owners, beaten in their earlier and formal opposition, were inciting the irascible old colonel to pit might against right. The young man went over his papers once more, carefully and methodically posted himself as to his rights and powers, and then slept with the calmness of one who knows his course and is prepared to follow it.
The next morning all the male population of Sunkhaze settlement surveyed with rapt interest the preliminaries of getting up steam under the “Swamp Swogon,” as one of the guides had humorously nicknamed the little locomotive.
Suddenly a bystander leveled his mittened hand above his eyes and gazed up the long trail across the lake. The road was “brushed out” by little bushes set along at regular intervals.
Away off on the distant perspective a dot was advancing. It resolved itself into horse and sleigh. Puffs of vapor from the steaming animal indicated the urgent precipitancy of its speed.
“I reckon that'll be Colonel Gideon Ward!” called the man who had just observed the team.
Parker, busy with his gages and oil-can, gave one look up the road and went on with his labors. In a few moments the jangling beat of many bells throbbed on the frosty air. As if answering a challenge, the locomotive's escape valve shot up its hissing volume of steam.
“We are very nearly ready, gentlemen!” called Parker. He gave an order to his volunteer fireman, and suggested that intending passengers get aboard the sleds.
“I'll sound the whistle,” said he. “There may be some still waiting up at the store.”
The whistle shrieks were many and prolonged. 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.
Above the purple knobs on his cheekbones Colonel Gideon Ward's little gray eyes snapped malevolently. He roared as he lashed at his trembling horse. The animal dodged and backed and stubbornly refused to advance on the strange thing that was pouring white clouds into the air and uttering fearful cries.
At last the horse reared, stood upright and fell upon its side, splintering the thills. Several of the men ran forward, but before the animal could scramble to its feet Ward leaped out, tied its forelegs together with the reins, and left it floundering in the snow. Then he came forward with his great whip in his hand. 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! Take that engine off this ro'd.”
“I don't care to discuss the matter,” returned Parker, quietly. “I am busy about my own affairs—too busy to quarrel.”
“There's no use of me and you backin' and fillin'!” shouted the old man. “You know me and I know you. You think you're goin' to tote your material up over this lake and build that railroad across my carry at Poquette?”
“Yes, that's what I am going to do.”
Ward shot out his two great fists.
“Naw, ye ain't!” he howled.
Parker turned and consulted his steam-gage and water indicator. Then he rang the bell.
“All aboard!” he shouted. “First train for Poquette.”
A nervous little laugh went round at his quiet jest, and twoscore men boarded the sleds. For the first time in his roaring, reckless and quarrelsome life Colonel Gideon Ward found himself in the presence of a man who defied him scornfully and facing an obstacle that promised ridiculous defeat.
The titter of the crowd spurred his rage into fury. He took his whip between his teeth, and grasping the hand-rods, was about to lift himself into the cab. Parker put his gloved hand against the old man's breast.
“Not without an invitation, Colonel Ward,” he said. “Our party is made up.”
“Don't want to ride in your infernal engine!” bellowed Ward, “I'm goin' to hoss-whip you, you—”
“Colonel Ward, you know the legal status of the Poquette Carry Railroad, don't you?”
“I don't care—”
“If you don't know it, then consult your counsel. You are on the property of the Poquette Railroad Company. I order you off. There's nothing for you to do but to go.”
Eyes as fiery as Ward's own met the colonel. The pressure on his breast straightened to a push. He fell back upon the snow.
The next moment Parker pulled the throttle. The spike-spurred driving-wheels whirred and slashed the ice and snow until the “bite” started the train, and then it moved away up the long road, leaving Ward screaming maledictions after it.
“Well,” panted the fireman, “that'll be the first time Colonel Gid Ward was ever stood round in his whole life!”
“I'm sorry to have words with an old man,” said Parker, “but he must accept the new conditions here.”
“This is new, all right!” gasped the fireman, with an expressive sweep of his hand about the little cab.
Parker was watching his new contrivance with interest. His steering-gear was rude, being a single runner under the tender with tiller attachment, but it served the purpose. The road was so nearly a straight line that little steering was necessary.
The snow on the lake road was solid, and the spikes, with the weight of the engine settling them, drove the sleds along at a moderate rate of speed. The problem of the lake transportation was settled. When Parker quickened the pace to something like twelve miles an hour, the men cheered him hoarsely.
The trip to Poquette was exhilarating and uneventful. Parker left his fireman to look after the “train,” and accompanied by an interested retinue of citizens, tramped across the six miles of carry road on a preliminary tour of inspection.
He returned well satisfied.
The route was fairly level; a few détours would save all cuts, and the plan of trestles would do away with fills. With the eye of the practised engineer, Parker saw that neither survey nor construction involved any special problems. Therefore he selected his landing on the Spinnaker shore, and resolved to make all haste in hauling his material across the lake.
When the expedition arrived at Sunkhaze at dusk, the postmaster brought the information that Colonel Ward had stormed away on the down-train with certain hints about getting some law on his own account. He had sworn over and over in most ferocious fashion that the Poquette Carry road should not be built so long as law and dynamite could be bought.
For two days Parker peacefully transported material, twenty tons a trip and two trips a day. On the evening of the third day Colonel Ward arrived from the city, accompanied by a sharp-looking lawyer. The two immediately hastened away across the lake toward Poquette.
Parker had twenty men garrisoned in a log camp at the carry, and had little fear that his supplies would be molested. It was hardly credible, either, that a man with as extensive property interests as Colonel Ward possessed would dare to destroy wantonly the goods of a railroad company in the strong position of the Poquette road. However, Parker resolved to make a survey at once, in order to put the swampers at work chopping trees and clearing the right of way.
When he left the cab of his engine the next forenoon at Poquette, he saw the furred figure of Colonel Ward in front of his carry camp a sort of half-way station for the timber operator's itinerant crews. The lawyer was at his elbow.
Parker ignored their presence.
A half-hour later the young engineer had established his Spinnaker terminal point, and was running his lines. Still no word from the colonel, who was tramping up and down in front of the camp. Parker's whimsical fancy pictured those furs and coon tails as bristling and fluffing like the hair of an angry cat.
The young man wondered what card his antagonists were preparing to play. He found out promptly when he ordered his swampers to advance with their axes and begin chopping down the trees on the right of way. At the first “chock” ringing out on the crisp silence of the woods Ward came running down the snowy stretch of tote-road, presenting much the same appearance as would an up reared and enraged polar bear. The lawyer hurried after him, and several woodsmen followed more leisurely.
“Not another chip from those trees! Not another chip!” bawled the colonel. The men stopped chopping and looked at each other doubtfully.
“We've been told to go ahead here,” said the “boss.”
“I don't care what yeh've been told. You all know me, don't you?” Ward slapped his breast. “You know me? Well, I say stop that chopping on my—understand?—on my land.”
Parker, who was in advance of the choppers with his instruments, heard, and came plowing through the snow. He found Colonel Ward roaring oaths and abuse, brandishing his fists, and backing the crew of a dozen men fairly off the right of way. Ward's own band of “Gideonites” stood at a little distance, grinning admiringly.
Parker set himself squarely in front of the old man, elbowing aside a woodsman to whom the colonel was addressing himself. The young engineer's gaze was level and determined.
“Colonel Ward,” he said, “you are interfering with my men.”
The answer was a wordless snarl of ire and contempt.
“There's no mistaking your disposition,” continued Parker. “You have set yourself to balk this enterprise. But I haven't any time to spend in a quarrel with you.”
“Then get off my land.”
“Now, see here, Colonel Ward, you know as well as I that my principals have complied with all the provisions of law in taking this location. This road is going through. I am going to put it through.”
“Talk back to me, will you? Talk to me! ni—I'll—” Ward's rage choked his utterance.
“Certainly I'll talk to you, sir, and I am perfectly qualified to boss my men. Go ahead there, boys!” he called.
“A moment, Mr. Parker,” broke in the suave voice of the lawyer. “I see you don't understand the entire situation. Briefly, then, Mr. Ward has a telephone-line across this carry. You may see the wires from where you stand. I find that your right of way trespasses on Colonel Ward's telephone location. In this confusion of locations, you will see the advisability of suspending operations until the matter can be referred to the courts.”
“There is room for Colonel Ward's telephone and for our railroad, too,” he retorted. “If we are compelled to remove any poles, we'll replace them.”
Of course Parker did not know that the telephone-line was, in fact, only Colonel Ward's private line, and after the taking by the railroad was on the location wholly without right. But that was a matter for his superiors, and not for him.
“Another point that I fear you have not noted. Colonel Ward's telephone wires are affixed to trees, and your men are preparing to cut down these same trees in clearing your right of way. You see it can't be done, Mr. Parker.”
There was an unmistakable sneer in the lawyer's tones. Parker's anger mounted to his cheeks.
“I'm no lawyer,” he cried, “but I have been assured by our counsel that I have the right to build a railroad here, and I reckon he knows! I've been told to build this railroad and, Mr. Attorney, I'm going to build it. I've been told to have it completed by a certain time, and I haven't days and weeks to spend splitting hairs in court.”
“No, I see you're not much of a lawyer!” jeered the other. “Mr. Parker, you may as well take your plaything,” pointing to the engine, “and trundle it along home.”
“We'll see about that!” Parker snatched an ax from the nearest man. “Mr. Lawyer, you may go back to the city and fight your legal points with the man my principals hire for that purpose, and enjoy yourself as much as you can. In the meantime I'll be building a railroad. Men, those trees are to come down at once.” He began to hack at a tree with great vigor.
The choppers, encouraged by his firm attitude, promptly moved forward and began to use their axes.
“The club you must use, Colonel, is an injunction,” advised the crestfallen lawyer after he had watched operations a few moments. Ward was swearing violently. “I'll have one here in twenty-four hours.”
The irate lumberman whirled on his counsel.
“Get out of here!” he snarled. “Your injunction would prob'ly be like the law you've handed out here to-day. You said you'd stop him, but you haven't.”
“There's no law for a fool!” snapped the attorney.
“Get along with your law!” roared Ward. “I was an idiot ever to fuss with it or depend on it. 'Tain't any good up here. 'Tain't the way for real men to fight. I've got somethin' better'n law.”
He shook his fists at Parker. “Better'n law!” he repeated, in a shrill howl. “Better'n law!” he cried again. “And you'll get it, too.”
At first the engineer believed that Ward was about to rally his little band at the carry camp, but the old man turned and stumped away. His lawyer tried to interpose and address him, but the colonel angrily shoved him to one side with such force that the attorney tumbled backward into the snow.
“Get out my horse!” the colonel screamed, as he advanced toward the camp.
A helper precipitately backed the turnout from the hovel. Ward leaped into the sleigh, pulled his peaked fur cap down over his ears, and took up the reins and big whip. He brandished his great fist at the little group he had just left.
“Better'n law!” he shouted again. “That for your law!” and he struck his rangy horse with a crack as loud as a pistol-shot.
The animal leaped like a deer, fairly lifting the narrow sleigh, and with tails fluttering from his fur robes, his cap's coon tail streaming behind, away up the tote-road went Gideon Ward on his return to the deep woods, the mighty din of his myriad bells clashing down the forest aisles. At the distant turn of the road he hooted with the vigor of a screech owl, “Better'n law!” and disappeared.
“Your client doesn't seem to be in an especially amiable and lamb-like mood this morning,” said Parker.
The lawyer dusted the snow from his garments.
“Beautiful disposition, old Gid Ward has!” he snarled. “Left me here to walk sixteen miles to a railroad-station, and never offered to settle with me.”
“You forget the 'Poquette and Sunkhaze Air-Line,” Parker smiled. “You are free to ride back with us when we go.”
“No hard feelings, then?” asked the lawyer.
“I'm not small-minded, I trust,” returned Parker. The lawyer looked at the self-possessed young man with pleased interest. This generous attitude appealed to him.
“Do you realize, young man,” he inquired, “that old Gideon Ward never had a man really back him down before?”
“I don't know much about Colonel Ward personally, except that he has a very disagreeable disposition.”
“You've made him just as near a maniac as a man can be and still go about his business. There'll be a lot of trouble come from this. Hadn't you better advise your folks to call it off? They haven't the least idea, I imagine, what a proposition you are up against.”
“I shall keep on attending to my business,” Parker replied. “If any one interferes with that business, he'll do so at his own risk.”
“I am afraid you are depending too much on your legal rights and on the protection of the law. Now Gideon Ward has always made might right in this section. He is rough and ignorant, but the old scamp has a heap of money and a rich gang to back him. I tell you, there are a lot of things he can do to you, and then escape by using his money and his pull.”
“From what I have seen of the old man's temper, I am prepared to put a pretty high estimate on his capacity for mischief; but on the other hand, Mr. Attorney, suppose I should go back to my people and say I allowed an old native up here in the woods to back me off our property? I fear my chances for promotion on the P. K, and R. system would get a blacker eye than I shall give him if he ever shakes his fist under my nose again. Have all the people up here allowed that old wretch to browbeat and tyrannize over them without a word of protest?”
“Oh, he has been whaled once or twice, but it never did him any good. For instance, a favorite trick of his is to make every one flounder out of a tote-road into the deep snow. He won't turn out an inch. Most of the men he meets are working for him or selling him goods, and they don't dare to complain. However, one teamster he crowded off in that way broke two ox-goads on the old man. But that whipping only set him against other travellers more than ever.
“Another time Ward got what he deserved down at Sunkhaze. A man opened a store there and put in a plate-glass window, being anxious to show a bit of progress. There's nothing old Ward hates so much as he does what he calls 'slingin' on airs,' When he drove down from the woods and saw that new window he growled, 'Wal, it seems to me we're gettin' blamed high-toned all of a sudden!' He got out, rooted up a big rock and hove it right through the middle of that new pane of glass the only pane of plate glass Sunkhaze ever saw. Well, the storeman tore out and licked Ward till he cried. Storeman didn't know who the old man was till after it was all over. Neither did old Gid know how big that storeman was till he saw him coming out through that broken glass. Otherwise both might have thought twice.
“Ward boycotted and persecuted him till he had to sell out and leave town. He has persecuted everybody. His wife has been in the insane asylum going on ten years; his only girl ran away and got married to a cheap fellow, and his son is in state prison. The boy ran away from home, got into bad company, and shot a policeman who was trying to arrest him. If you are not crazy or dead before he gets done with you, then you'll come out luckier than I think you will.”
With this consoling remark the lawyer plodded up to the camp, to wait until it should be time to start down the lake.
As Parker toiled through the woods that day he reflected seriously on his situation. He fully appreciated the fact that Ward's malice intended some ugly retaliation. The danger viewed here in the woods and away from the usual protections of society seemed imminent and to be dreaded.
But the young man realized how skeptically Whittaker and Jerrard would view any such apprehensions as he might convey to them, reading his letter in the comfortable and matter-of-fact serenity of the city. He knew how impatient it made President Whittaker to be troubled with any subordinate's worry over details. His rule was to select the right man, say, “Let it be done,” and then, after the manner of the modern financial wizard inspect the finished result and bestow blame or praise.
Parker regretfully concluded that he must keep his own counsel until some act more overt and ominous forced him to share his responsibility.
That evening, as he sat in his room at the tavern, busy with his first figures of the survey, some one knocked and entered at his call, “Come in!”