Afterward it seemed that he began to dream. Somber individuals were crushing his limbs between great rollers. Frisky little ghouls were sticking needles into him, and there were so many needles that it seemed that every inch of his skin was being tortured at the same instant.
The agony grew intense. He was trying to cry out, and a giant hand was over his mouth. And when the pain became so excruciating that it did not seem as if nature could longer endure it, he opened his eyes.
A sludge-dish hooked to a beam shed its yellow glimmer of light upon a strange interior.
There was no more strange figure in the place than Parker himself. He was stripped and seated in a half-hogshead filled with water, from which vapors were rising. His first wild thought was that the water was hot and was blistering him. He screamed in the agony of alarm and strove to rise.
But hands on his shoulders forced him down again. These hands were rubbing snow upon him. Then the young man realized that his sensations were produced by icy cold water. Parker felt that cloths bound snow and ice to his ears and face.
A glance showed him that he was in a rude log camp. The chinked walls were bare and solid. The interior was spacious, and a big fireplace promised warmth.
The most astonishing of all in the place were its visible tenants—a multitude of cats. Some were huddled on benches, their assorted colors and markings composing a strange medley. Others stalked about the cabin. Many sat before the embers in the fireplace. A half-score were grouped about the hogshead and its occupant, with their tails wound round their feet, and were solemnly observing the work of reanimating the stranger. Here and there among taciturn felines of larger growth little spike-tail kits were rolling, cuffing, frolicking and miauing. For a moment the scene seemed a part of his delirium.
Parker turned round to survey his benefactor. He found him to be an old man, shaggy of beard and hair. A pointed cap of fur covered his head.
He was dressed in rough garb—belted woolen jacket, trousers awkwardly patched, leggings rolled above the knee, and yellow moccasins. Although he was the ordinary type of the woods recluse, there was kindliness in his expression, as well as a benignant gleam in his eye that was not usual.
“How d'ye feel?” he asked, solicitously.
“As if I were being pounded with mallets and torn by pincers.”
“All over?”
“Yes, all over!” snapped Parker, rather ungraciously.
“That's good,” drawled the old man, rubbing more snow briskly on the aching flesh. “I guess I'm goin' to save ye, down to the last toe.”
“If aches will do it I'm saved!” groaned the young man.
“I wouldn't 'a' gi' a copper cent for ye when I got ye here to camp,” the old man proceeded, “but I've done the very best I could, mister, to fetch ye round. I hope ye ain't a-goin' to complain on me,” he added, wistfully.
“Complain on you?” Parker demanded. “Do you think I owe myself a grudge for coming back to life?”
“I should like to ask ye a fair question,” said the old man.
“I'll answer any questions.”
“Be ye a game-warden?”
“No, sir, I am not.”
The honest ring of that negative was unmistakable. The old man sighed with relief.
“When I found ye done up in that co't I thought ye was a game-warden, sure.”
“Look here,” Parker demanded, with asperity, “did you sit there and blaze away at me with any suspicion that I was a human being?”
“Land bless ye, no!” cried the old man, with a shocked sincerity there was no doubting. “I never harmed any one in all my life. But I was feelin' so good over savin' ye that I had to have my little joke. I was out this mornin' as us'al, after meat for my cats. I have to work hard to keep 'em in meat, mister. I can't stand round and see my kitties starve—no, s'r! Wal, I was out after meat, an' was takin' home a deer when I see what any man, even with better eyesight than mine, would have called a brown bear trodgin' round a tree an' sharp'nin' his claws. What he was up to out of his den in such weather I didn't know, but of course I fired, an' I kept firin'. An' when at last I fired an' he didn't bob out any more, I crept up an' took a look. I thought I'd faint when I see what I see—a man in a buffl'ler co't wrong side to an' his head all tied up an' his arms fastened behind him. Land, if it didn't give me a start! Wal, I left my deer right there an' h'isted ye on my sled, and struck across Little Moxie for my camp here on the double-quick, now I can tell ye. Ye was froze harder'n a doorknob, but I guess I'm goin' to have ye out all complete. Lemme see your ears.”
He carefully undid the cloths, to an accompaniment of groans from Parker.
“They're red's pinys. No need to worry one mite, mister. Come out o' your water whilst I rub ye down. Then to bed with a cup o' hot tea, and hooray for Doctor Joshua Ward!”
“I might have known you were Joshua Ward when I noticed all those cats,” said Parker. So this was Colonel Gideon's brother! He was too weak and ill to feel or display much surprise at the meeting.
“Most every one hereabouts has heard o' me,” the old man admitted, mildly. “Some men have fast hosses, some men have big liberies, some men like to spend their money on paintin's an' statues. But for me, I like cats, even if they do keep me running my legs off after meat. Hey, pussy?” and he stooped and stroked the head of a huge cat that arched its back and leaned against his leg.
“Mr. Joshua Ward,” said Parker, grimly, “you'd probably like to know how I happened to be prowling round through the forest dressed up so as to play bear?”
“I was meditatin' that ye'd tell me by n' by, if it wa'n't any secret,” the old man replied, humbly.
“Well, I think you have a right to know. You possess a personal interest in the matter, Mr. Ward. I was tied up and sent away to be killed or to be turned out to die by a man named Colonel Gideon Ward.”
To Parker's surprise the old man did not stop in his rubbing, but said, plaintively, “I was almost afeard it might be some o' Gid's works, or, to say the least his puttin' up. He don't improve any as he grows older.”
“You have pretty good reason to know how much chance there is for improvement in Gideon Ward,” suggested Parker, bitterly.
“Fam'ly matters, fam'ly matters, young man,” murmured Joshua, reprovingly. “But I ain't tryin' to excuse Brother Gideon, ye understand. I'm afeard that when the time of trial does come to him, he will find that the hand of the Lord is heavy in punishment. I've had a good part of a lifetime, young man, to think all these things over in this place up here. 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.
The next morning, after the breakfast of bread and venison, the host said: “Young man, now that you have slept on your anger, I wish you'd tell me the story of your trouble with my brother Gideon. I know that he has been rough and hard with men, but many have been rough and hard with him. This is a country where all the men are rough and hard. But I fear that had it not been for the good God and these old hands of mine, my brother would be now little else than a murderer. Tell me the story.” His voice trembled with apology and apprehension.
Parker stated all the circumstances faithfully and impartially. At the conclusion Joshua's eyes glowed with fires that had not been seen in them for years. He struck his brown fist down on his rude table.
“Defying God's law and man's law to the disgrace of himself and all his name! And you had not been rough and hard to him,” he cried. “Bitter, bitter news you bring to me, Mr. Parker.”
There was a long pause, and at last Joshua Ward went on:
“Mr. Parker, that man is my own—my only brother, no matter how other people look at him. I have saved your life. Will you give me one chance to straighten this matter out?”
“You mean?”
“I mean that if Gideon Ward will pay for the damage he has done your property, ask your forgiveness as a man, and promise to keep away and let you alone, will you be charitable enough to let the matter rest?”
Parker pondered a while with set lips. It cost a struggle to forego vengeance on that wretch, but many issues were involved, principally the early completion of the railroad and his consequent favor with his employers.
“Mr. Ward,” he declared, at last, “I came down here to build a railroad, not to get entangled in the courts. For your sake and the sake of my project I will give your brother an opportunity to make atonement on the conditions you name. I owe my life to you, and I will discharge part of my obligation in the way you ask.”
“Are you afraid to accompany me back to Number 7 camp?”
“No, sir!” In his turn Parker struck the table. “I am ready to go back there alone and charge that man with his crime, and depend on the manhood of his crew to stand neutral while I take him and deliver him over to the law. And that I will do if you fail in your endeavors.”
The old man was silent. He made no attempt to soften the young man's indignation or resolution. Parker noted that his lips tightened as tho with solemn, inward resolve.
During the remainder of his convalescing stay in the camp the subject of Gideon Ward was not broached again.
The hermit beguiled the hours with simple narratives of the woods, his cats on knees and shoulders. He had no complaints for the past or the present and no misgivings as to the future, so it appeared from his talk.
Parker came to realize that under his peculiar and, to the casual observer, erratic mode of life there was a calm and sound philosophy that he had cultivated in his retirement. He had the strange notions of those who have lived much alone and in the wilderness. An unkind critic would have dismissed him brusquely with the belief that his troubles had unbalanced his mind. But Parker saw beneath all his eccentricity, and as the hermit wistfully discoursed of the peace that the woods had given him the young man conceived both respect and affection for this strange character. His knowledge of Joshua's life tragedy pre-disposed him to pity. He was grateful for the tender solicitude the old man had shown toward him. At the end of his stay he sincerely loved the brother of his enemy.
On the third morning Parker was able to travel. Joshua Ward had brought the carcass of the slain deer across the lake on his sled, and the cats of Little Moxie were left to rule the island and feast at will until the return of the master.
On the day they set forth it was shortly after dark,—for they had proceeded slowly on account of the young man's feet, when Parker again looked down from the ridge upon Number 7 camp. If Colonel Gideon Ward was not there, they proposed to follow along his line of camps until they found him. Parker carried a shotgun with two barrels. The old man bore his rifle. They advanced without hesitation over the creaking snow, straight to the door of the main camp, and entered after the unceremonious fashion of the woods.
A hundred men were ranged on the long benches called “deacons' seats,” or lounged on the springy browse in their bunks. A man, with one leg crossed over his knee, and flapping it to beat his time, was squawking a lively tune on a fiddle, and a perspiring youth danced a jig on a square of planking before the roaring fire. The air was dim with the smoke of many pipes and with the steam from drying garments hung on long poles.
Connick removed his pipe when the door opened, and gazed under his hand, held edgewise to his forehead.
“Why, hello, my bantam boy!” he bawled, in greeting. “What did you break out o' the wangan and run away for?”
The fiddle stopped. The men crowded up from the bunks and deacons' seats. All were as curious as magpies. They gazed with interest on Parker's companion. But no one threatened them by look or gesture.
“Is Gideon Ward here?” inquired Joshua, blandly.
“Yes, I'm here!” came the answer, shouted from the pen at the farther end. “What's wanted?”
“It's Joshua!” called the brother. “I'll come in.”
“Stay where you are!” cried Gideon; and the next moment he came shouldering through the men, who fell back to let him pass.
The instant his keen gaze fell on the person who bore his brother company he seemed to understand the situation perfectly. There was just the suspicion of fear when he faced the blazing eyes of Parker, but he snorted contemptuously and turned to his brother.
“Wal, Josh,” he cried, “out with it! What can I do for you?”
“The matter isn't one to be talked over in public, brother,” suggested Joshua.
“I hain't any secrets in my life!” shouted Gideon, defiantly, as if he proposed to anticipate and discount any allegations that his visitors might produce.
“Ye don't refuse to let me talk a matter of business over with ye in private, do ye, Gideon?”
“Colonel Ward,” said Parker, stepping forward, “your brother is ashamed to show you up before these men.”
“Here, Connick, Hackett, any of you! Seize that runaway, and throw him into the wangan till I get ready to attend to him!” commanded Ward.
The men did not move.
“Do as I tell ye!” bawled the colonel. “Twenty dollars to the men—fifty dollars to the men who ketch an' tie him for me!”
Several rough-looking fellows came elbowing forward, tempted by the reward. Parker raised his gun, but Connick was even quicker. The giant seized an ax, and shouted:
“Keep back, all of ye! There's goin' to be fair play here to-night, an' it's Dan Connick says so!”
“Connick,” Gideon's command was almost a scream, “don't you interfere in what's none o' your business!”
“It's my business when a square man don't get his rights,” Connick cried, with fully as much energy as the colonel, “and that chap is a man, for he licked me clean and honest!”
A murmur almost like applause went through the crowd.
“Men,” broke in Parker, “I cannot expect to have friends here, and you may all be enemies, but I have come back, knowing that woodsmen are on the side of grit and fair dealing. Listen to me!”
In college Parker had been class orator and a debater of power. Now he stood on a block of wood, and gazed upon a hundred bearded faces, on which the flickering firelight played eerily. In the hush he could hear the big winds wailing through the trees outside.
Ward stood in advance of the rest, his mighty fists clinched, his face quivering and puckering in his passion. As the young man began to speak, he attempted to bellow him into silence. But Connick strode forward, put his massive hands on Gideon's shoulders, and thrust him down upon a near-by seat. The big woodsman, his rebellion once started, seemed to exult in it.
“One of the by-laws of this ly-cee-um is that the meetin' sha'n't be disturbed!” he growled. “Colonel Gid Ward, ye will kindly listen to this speech for the good of the order or I'll gag ye! You've had a good many years to talk to us in and you've done it. Go ahead, young man! You've got the floor an' Dan Connick's in the chair.” He rolled his sleeves above his elbows and gazed truculently on the assemblage.
“For your brother's sake,” cried the young engineer, “I offer you one more chance to listen to reason, Colonel Gideon Ward! Do you take it?”
“No!” was the infuriated shout.
“Then listen to the story of a scoundrel!”
The men did listen, for Parker spoke with all the eloquence that indignation and honest sentiment could inspire. He first told the story of the wrecked life of the brother, and pointed to the bent figure of the hermit of Little Moxie, standing in the shadows. Once or twice Joshua lifted his quavering voice in feeble protest, but the ringing tones of the young man overbore his halting speech. Several times Connick was obliged to force the colonel back on the deacons' seat, each time with more ferocity of mien.
Then Parker came to his own ambitions to carry out the orders of his employers. He explained the legal status of the affair, and passed quickly on to the exciting events of the night on which he had been bound and sent upon his ride into the forest, to meet some fate, he knew not what. He described the brutal slaughter of the moose, and the immediate dismemberment of the animal. He noticed with interest that many men who had displayed no emotion as he described poor old Joshua's sufferings now grunted angrily at hearing the revelation concerning the fate of Ben, the camp mascot. This dramatic explanation of Ward's furious cruelty to the poor beast proved, curiously enough, the turning point in Parker's favor, even with the roughest of the crew. Then Parker described how he had been rescued and brought back to life by the old man whom Gideon Ward had so abused.
“And now, my men,” he concluded, “I am come back among you; and I ask you all to stand back, so that it may now be man to man—so that I may take this brutal tyrant who has abused us all, and deliver him over to the law that is waiting to punish him as he deserves.”
He leaped down, seized a halter, and advanced with the apparent intention of seizing and binding the colonel.
“Are ye goin' to stand here, ye hunderd cowards, an' see the man that gives ye your livin' lugged away to jail?” Gideon shouted, retreating. He glared on their faces. The men turned their backs and moved away.
He crouched almost to the floor, brandishing his fists above his head. “I've got ten camps in this section,” he shrieked, “an' any one of them will back me aginst the whole United States army if I ask 'em to! They ain't the cowards that I've got here. I'll come back here an' pay ye off for this!”
Before any one could stop him, for the men had left him standing alone, he precipitated his body through the panes of glass of the nearest window, and almost before the crash had ceased he was making away into the night Connick led the rush of men to the narrow door, but the mob was held them for a few precious moments, fighting with one another for egress.
“If we don't catch him,” the foreman roared, “he'll be back on us with an army of cut-throats!”
But when the crew went streaming forth at last, Colonel Ward was out of sight in the forest. Lanterns were brought, and the search prosecuted earnestly, but his moccasined feet were not to be traced on the frozen crust.
The chase was abandoned after an hour, for the clouds that had hung heavy all day long began to sift down snow; and soon a blizzard howled through the threshing spruces and hemlocks.
“It's six miles to the nearest camp,” said Connick, when the crew was again assembled at Number 7, “an' in order to dodge us he prob'ly kept out of the tote-road. I should say that the chances of Gid Ward's ever get-tin' out o' the woods alive in this storm wa'n't worth that!” He snapped his fingers.
“It is not right for us to come back here an' leave him out there!” cried the brother.
“He took his chances,” the foreman replied, “when he went through that window. There's a good many reasons why I'd like to see him back here, Mr. Ward, but I'm sorry to have to tell ye, ye bein' a brother of his, that love ain't one o' them.”
“I shall go alone, then,” said the old man, firmly.
“Brotherly love is worth respect, Mr. Ward,” Connick declared, “but I ain't the kind of man that stands idle an' sees suicide committed. Ye've done your full duty by your brother. Now I'm goin' to do my duty by you. You don't go through that door till this storm is over!”
The next day the wind raged on and the snow piled its drifts. Joshua Ward sat silent by the fire, his head in his hands, or stood in the “dingle,” gazing mournfully out into the smother of snowflakes. It would be a mad undertaking to venture abroad. He realized it and needed no further restraint.
But the dawn of the third day was crisp and bright. Soon after sunrise a panting woodsman, traveling at his top speed on snow-shoes, halted for a hasty bite at Number 7. He was a messenger from the camp above.
“Colonel Gid Ward was picked up yesterday froze pretty nigh solid!” he gulped out, between his mouthfuls. “I'm goin' down for a doctor,” and then he went striding away, even as Joshua Ward took the up-trail.
Parker spent all that day in sober thought, and then, forming his resolution, took passage on the first tote-team that went floundering through toward Sunkhaze. His departure was neither hindered nor encouraged.
The engineer found his little garrison holding the fort at the Poquette Carry camp—and confining their attentions wholly to holding the fort. Not an ax blow had been struck since his hurried departure.
“We didn't work no more,” explained one of the men, “because we'd give up all idea of seein you ag'in. Of course we reckoned that a new boss would prob'ly be comin' along pretty quick and we thought we'd wait and find out just what he wanted us to do.”
“Well, it will be the same old boss and the same old plan,” replied Parker curtly. The idea that the men had considered him such easy prey made him indignant. “You'll consider after this that I'm the Colonel Gideon Ward of this six-mile stretch here.”
“I reckon there won't be any real Gid Ward any more,” said the man. “Feller went through here last night, hi-larrup for 'lection, to git a doc for Gid. Seems he got caught out and froze up somehow—tho I never s'picioned that weather would have any effect on the old sanup. P'rhaps you've been hearin' all about how it happened? Feller wouldn't stop long enough to explain to us.” The man's gaze was full of inquisitiveness and the others crowded around to listen.
But with self-repression truly admirable Parker told them that he had no news to give out concerning Colonel Ward, of any nature whatsoever. He ordered the driver of the tote-team to whip up and rode away toward Sunkhaze, leaving the men gaping after him.
He observed the same reticence at the settlement, tho he was received with a demonstration that was something like an ovation.
Although his better sense told him that the men were justified in preserving neutrality at the time of the raid, yet he could not rid himself of the very human feeling of resentment because they had surrendered him so readily into the hands of his adversaries. But the chief influence that prompted silence was the fear lest details of his mishap and the reasons therefor would get into the newspapers to the annoyance of his employers.
“I am back and the work is going on just as tho nothing had happened,” he said to the men who crowded into the office of the tavern to congratulate him. “Matters have been straightened out and the less talk that's made the better.”
But the postmaster, presuming on more intimate acquaintance, followed him up to his room, where his effects had been carefully preserved for him.
“I reckoned you'd get back some time,” said Dodge. “I've predicted that much. But, I swanny, I didn't look for you to come back with your tail over the dasher, as you've done. That is, I didn't look for you to come that way not until that feller blew in here to telegraft for a doctor for old Gid. Then I see that it was him that was got done up instead of you. But speakin' of telegraftin', there ain't no word gone out from here as yit about the hoorah—not a word.”
“Do you mean that Sunkhaze has kept the Swamp Swogon affair and my kidnapping quiet?” demanded Parker, his face lighting up. He had been fearing what might have gone out to the world about the affair.
“A good many was all of a to-do to telegraft it to the sheriff and to your bosses,” said the postmaster calmly. “But it seemed better to me to wait a while. I says, 'Look here, neighbors, it's goin' to be some time before the sheriff can git his crowd together and git at Ward—and even then there'll be politics to consider. The sheriff won't move anyway till he gits the word of the Lumbermen's Association. And it'll probably happen by that time that the young man will show up here again. All we'll git out of it hereabouts is a black eye in the newspapers—it bein' held up that Sunkhaze ain't a safe place to settle in. And all that truck—you know! Furthermore, from things you've dropped to me, Mr. Parker, I knew you were playin' kind of a lone hand and a quiet game here. My old father used to say, 'Run hard when you run, but don't start so sudden that you stub your toe and tumble down.' So in your case I just took the responsibility and held the thing back.”
The postmaster's eyes were searching Parker's face for signal of approbation.
The engineer went to him and shook his hand with hearty emphasis.
“You've got a level head, Mr. Postmaster,” he said, delightedly. “We'll start exactly where we left off and so far as I am concerned the place will never get a bad name from me. In return for your frankness and your service to me, I'll give you a hint as to what happened to Colonel Ward. I know you won't abuse my confidence.”
When he had finished, the postmaster said earnestly, “Mr. Parker, however much old Gid Ward owes you, you owe Josh Ward a good deal more. He ain't a man to dun for his pay. But if he ever does ask you to square the account you won't be the man I take you for if you don't settle. If you feel that you owe me anything for the little service I've done you and your bus'ness, just take and add it to the Josh Ward account. Of all the men on earth I pity that man the most.”
There were tears in Dodge's eyes when he stumbled down the tavern stairs.
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.
When they had sawed the ice and sounded they found this to be true. As soon as a broad square of ice had been removed they saw her, all her outlines clear against the white sand. The sunken sleds were equally in evidence. It was not a diver's job, then, as Parker, in his worryings, had feared. On the thick ice surrounding the whole there was solid foothold for the raising apparatus and Parker's crew set at work with good cheer.
It was a cold, wet and tedious job, the grappling and the raising, but his derricks were strong and his rigging plentiful. Moreover, the water was not deep.
All the material that could not be recovered by the grapples was duplicated by means of quick replies to wired orders, and the work of transportation across the lake was successfully completed.
It was well into a warm May, and his men for the last week had been moving soil and building culverts before the case of Col. Gideon Ward was brought to Parker's attention in a manner requiring action. One evening just after dusk his foreman scratched on the flap of the engineer's tent, in which he was now living at Poquette.
“Come in!” he called.
The canvas was lifted and a man entered. Parker turned the reflector of his lantern on the visitor.
“Joshua Ward!” he exclaimed, as he started up and seized the old man's outstretched hand.
He led him to a camp-stool. They looked at each other for a time in silence. Tears trembled on Joshua's eyelashes, and he passed his knotted hand over his face before he spoke.
“Mr. Parker,” he said, tremulously, “I've come to bring ye money to pay for every cent's worth o' damage to property 'an loss o' time an' everything.” He laid a package in the young man's hand. “Help yourself,” he quavered. “I'm goin' to trust to your honesty, for I'm certain I can. Take what's right. Gid and I don't know anythin' about railroads an' what such things as you lost are worth. All we can do is to show that we mean to square things the best we can now. Gid's sorry now, Mr. Parker, he's sorry—sorry—sorry—poor Gid!” The old man sobbed outright.
“Did he—” The young man paused, half-fearing to ask the question.
Joshua again ran his rough palm across his eyes. Then, in dumb grief, he set the edge of his right hand against his left wrist, the left hand to the right wrist, and then marked a place on each leg above the ankle.
“All off there, Mr. Parker.” The old man bent his head into his hollowed palms. Tears trickled through his fingers. There was a long silence. The young man did not know how to interrupt that pause.
“I'm feedin' an' tendin' him like I used to when he was a baby an' I a six-year-old. He's at my camp, Mr. Parker. He don't ever want to be seen agin in the world, he says—only an old, trimmed, dead tree, he says. Poor old Gid! No matter what he's been, no matter what he's done, you'd pity him now, Mr. Parker, for the hand o' punishment has fell heavy on my poor brother.”
The engineer, truly shocked, stood beside Joshua, and placed his hand on the bowed shoulders.
“Mr. Ward,” he said, with a quiver in his voice, “never will I do anything to add one drop to the bitterness in the cup that has come to you and yours.”
“I told Gid, I told Gid,” cried the old man, “that you'd say somethin' like that! I had to comfort him, you know, Mr. Parker; but I felt that you, bein' a young man, couldn't make it too hard for us old men. He ain't the same Gid now. See here, sir!”
With tremulous hands he drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to Parker. It was a writing giving sole power of attorney to Joshua Ward. The old man pointed to a witnessed scrawl—a shapeless hieroglyph at the bottom of the sheet.
“Gid's mark!” he sobbed. “No hands—no hands any more! I feed him, I tend him like I would a baby, an' the only words he says to me now are pleasant an' brotherly words.
“An' more'n that, Mr. Parker, I'm on my way down to town. I've got some errands that are sweet to do—sweet an' bitter, too. There's new fires been lit in the dark corners of my poor brother's heart. I've got here a list of the men that Gideon Ward hain't done right by in this life,—that he's cheated,—an' a list of the widows of the men he hain't done right by, an' by that power of attorney he's given me the means, an' he says to me to make it square with them people if it takes every cent he's worth. It won't cost much for me an' Gid to live at Little Moxie, Mr. Parker—an' poor Cynthy—”
He looked into vacancy a while and was silent. Then he went on:
“We'll have our last days together, me an' Gid. All these years that I've lived alone up there the trees an' the winds an' the skies an' the waves of the lake have been sayin' good things to me. I told Gid about them voices. He has been too busy all his life to listen before now. But sittin' there in these days—sit-tin' there, always a-sittin' there, Mr. Parker! Nothing to do but bend his ear to catch the whispers that come up out o' the great, deep lungs o' the universe! He has been listenin', an'”—the old man rose and shook the papers above the head of the engineer—“God an' the woods have been talkin' the truth to my poor brother Gideon.”
The old man slept that night in Parker's tent and went on his way at morning light, and tho the engineer pressed back again into his hands, unopened, the packet that was proffered, and assured him that no harm should befall Gideon Ward through complaint or report for which he was responsible, Parker still felt that somehow there was a balance due old Joshua Ward on their books of tacit partnership in well-doing;—such was the honest faith, and patient self-abnegation of the good old man, who had endured so much for others' sake.
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. Newspaper reporters came from the nearest city, and pressed Engineer Parker to make a statement “Gentlemen,” he said, with a laugh, “not a word for print from me. I was sent here to build this bit of a railroad quietly and unobtrusively. Circumstances have paraded our affairs before the public in some measure. Now if you quote me, or twist anything I may say into an interview, my employers will have good reason to be disgusted with me, as well as with the situation here. Furthermore, there are personal reasons why I do not wish to talk.”
Whether Parker's eager appeal had effect upon the reporters, or whether the timber barons influenced the editors, the whole affair of the sunken engine was lightly passed over as the prank of roistering woodsmen, and Colonel Ward was left wholly undisturbed in his retreat. Even the calamity that had befallen him was not mentioned except by word of mouth among the woodsmen of the region.
With self-restraint that is rare in young men, Parker still refused to talk about the matter even in Sunkhaze. When he first returned, a sense of chagrin at his discomfiture along with reasons that have been mentioned kept him silent, it is true, but now, with complete victory in his hands, he was sincerely affected by the misfortune that had overtaken his enemy.
The “Swamp Swogon,” now that it was running on its own rails and was hauling building materials along the crooked railroad, was renicknamed “The Stump Dodger.” Parker's chief pride in the road was necessarily based on the fact that it had been constructed without exceeding the appropriation, a fact that excused many curves.
Late in June the last rails were laid and the ballasting, such as it was, was well under way.
The “terminal stations,” as the engineer jocosely called them, were neat little structures of logs, and there was a log roundhouse, where the Stump Dodger retired in smutty and smoky seclusion when its day's toil was finished.
So the engineer prepared for the day of opening, and requested the state railroad commissioners to make their final inspection of the road. The three officials gravely travelled from end to end of the line in the secondhand P. K. & R. coach, the only passenger-car of the road, and after some jocular remarks, issued a certificate empowering the Poquette Carry Road to convey passengers and collect fares. Then, after a telegraphic conference with his employers, Parker announced the day for the formal opening of the road.
At first he had not intended to make any event of this. His idea had been that, after the commissioners authorized traffic, he would merely arrange a time-table instead of the irregular service of the construction days, and would start his trains, observing the care that had been promised in seasons of drought.
But his foreman of construction—none other than Big Dan Connick, who had chosen railroad work under Parker instead of the usual summer labor on the drive—came to him at the head of a group of men.
“Mr. Parker,” he said, “we represent the men who have been building this road. We represent also our old friends of the West Branch drivin' crew of a hundred men, who are twenty miles up-river and are hankerin' for a celebration. We represent all the guides between Sunkhaze and Chamberlain, and every man of 'em is glad that this carry has been opened up. The whole crowd respectfully insists that seein' as how this is our first woods railroad up here, it's proper to have a celebration. If ye don't have the official opening we shall take it as meanin' we ain't worth noticin'.”
There was no denying such earnestness as that nor gainsaying the propriety of the demand. Parker made his principals understand the situation. And the result was that they themselves set the opening date, and promised to be on hand with a party of friends.
The rolling-stock of the Poquette Railroad consisted of the Stump Dodger, four flat cars designed especially for the transportation of canoes and bateaux, three box cars for camp supplies and general freight, and the coach transplanted from the P. K. & R. narrow-gage.
Parker announced that on the opening day no fares would be collected, that the train would make hourly trips, and that all might ride who could get aboard.
Not to be outdone in generosity, the crew through big Dan Connick, declaring that they proposed to make all the preparations for the celebration free of charge—that is, they would accept no wages for their work.
They built benches on the platform cars and fitted up the box cars in similar fashion. They trimmed the Stump Dodger with spruce fronds till the locomotive looked like a moving wood-lot. Every flag in Sunkhaze was borrowed for the decoration of the coach, and then, in a final burst of enthusiasm, the men subscribed a sum sufficient to hire the best brass band in that part of the state.
“It took us some little time to wake up enough to know how much we needed a railroad acrost here,” said Dan, “but now that we're awake we propose to let folks know it. Them whose hearin' is sensitive had better take to the tall timber that day.”
Parker met his party at Sunkhaze station on the morning of the great occasion. They came in the P. K. & R. president's private car, that was run upon a siding to remain during the week the railroad men entertained their friends at their new Kennemagon Lake camp.
“I expect,” said Parker, as the little steamer puffed across sunlit Spinnaker toward Poquette, “that the men have arranged a rather rugged celebration for to-day; but I know them well, gentlemen, and I want to assure you that all they do is meant in the best spirit.”
As the steamer approached the wharf, tooting its whistle, there was an explosion ashore that made the little craft appear to hop out of the water. All the anvils of the construction crew had been stuffed with powder, and all were fired simultaneously with a battery current!
With a yell the shore crowd rushed to the side of the steamer. Dan was leading, his broad face glowing with good humor. Groups of cheering men clutched the squirming, protesting railroad owners and their friends, and bore them on sturdy shoulders to the waiting train. The band from its station on a platform car boomed “Hail to the Chief,” the engine whistle screaming an obligato.
Then the men swarmed upon the cars, crowding every corner, occupying every foothold—but with the thoughtful deference of the woods not venturing to encroach upon the privacy of the coach after they had deposited their guests there.
On the “half-way horseback,” so-called, Parker ordered the train halted, for he wished to show Mr. Jerrard an experiment in culvert construction, in which he took an originator's pride. The band kept on playing and the men roared choruses.
After the young engineer had bellowed his explanation in Jerrard's ear, and Jerrard had howled back some warm compliments, striving to make himself heard above the uproar, the two climbed the embankment and approached the coach. The band was quiet now.
“Speech!” cried some one, as Jerrard mounted the steps. He smiled and shook his head.
“Speech! Speech!” The manager turned to enter his car, still smiling, tolerant but disregarding. At a sudden command from Connick, men reached out on both sides of the train and clutched the branches of sturdy undergrowth that the haste of the construction work had not permitted the crews to clear entirely away.
“Hang on, my hearties!” shouted Dan.
Parker, when he mounted the steps, had given the signal to start, but when the engineer opened his throttle, the wheels of the little engine whirled in a vain attempt at progress. With a grade, a heavy load, and the determined grip of all these brawny hands to contend against, the panting Stump Dodger was beaten. Sparks streamed and the smokestack quivered, but the train did not start.
“Speech! Speech!” the men howled. “We won't let go till we hear a speech.”
Entreaties had no effect. First Jerrard, then Whittaker, then Parker, and after them all the guests were compelled to come out on the car platform and satisfy the truly American passion for a speech. And not until the last man had responded did the woodsmen release their hold on the trees.
“Who ever heard of a railroad being formally opened and dedicated without speeches?” cried Connick, as he gave the word to let go. “We know the style, an' we want everything.”
The guides served a lunch at the West Branch end of the line that afternoon, and while the railroad party was lounging in happy restfulness awaiting the repast, a big bateau came sweeping down the river, driven by a half dozen oarsmen. Several passengers disembarked at the end of the carry road, and were received respectfully yet uproariously by the woodsmen who had just arrived in a fresh train-load from the Spinnaker end.
Connick came elbowing through the press that surrounded them.
“Mr. Shayne,” he cried, “she's come, after all, hasn't she? Are you and your friends goin' to ride back on her across the carry? I tell you she beats a buckboard!”
The man whom he addressed smiled with some constraint, and exchanged glances with his companions.
“I guess we'll stick to our own tote-team as usual, Connick,” said another in the party, jerking his thumb at the muddy buckboard that was waiting.
“Oh say, now, ye've got to meet these here railroad fellers. They're your style—all business!” bawled Connick. “We ain't fit to entertain 'em up here, but you rich fellers are. Just come along. They'll be glad to see you. Bring 'em along, boys.”
The crowd obediently hustled the new arrivals toward Whittaker and his friends, disregarding the surly protests.
“Here's some of the kings of the spruce country, gentlemen!” big Dan cried, by way of introduction. “Here's Mr. Shayne, the great timber operator on the Seboois waters. Here's Mr. Barber of the Upper Chamberlain, an'—”
Several of the new arrivals began to deprecate this unceremonious manner of introduction, but the railroad men, recognizing their peers in the business world in these sturdy land barons, came forward with a hearty welcome.
Ten minutes later the timber kings were eating lunch, although with some embarrassment. Occasionally they eyed the railroad men, wondering if the memory of the stubborn legislative battle still lingered. But the railroad men constantly grew more affable.
“Gentlemen,” said Whittaker, at last, “we are not affected in this case by any interstate commerce regulations. Therefore, on behalf of myself and my associates, I should like to tender you annual passes over our new road. Of course the courtesy is a trifling one, but it will indicate that we shall appreciate your cooperation in turning your freight business our way. We'll save you at least two-thirds of the expense on the haul across Poquette.”