Connie laughed: "Sure, I did. Honestly, it was so easy it is a shame to take the money. Heinie Metzger ain't shrewd—he just thinks he is—and people have taken him at his own valuation. I told Saginaw the whole thing, before I went down. Didn't I, Saginaw?"

"You sure did. But I didn't think they was any such thing as puttin' it acrost. An' they's a whole lot more yet the kid's did, boss. Fer one thing, he's got them three I. W. W. 's locked in jail. An'——"

Hurley waved his arm weakly: "Thot's enough—an' more thin enough fer wan avenin'. Th' rist Oi'll take in small doses." He struggled into his mackinaw and reached fer the peavy that lay where it had fallen beside the stove.

"Where ye headin', boss?" asked Saginaw.

"Camp Two. Oi've a little conference to howld with the boss up there."

Lon Camden removed his pipe and spat accurately and judiciously into the woodbox. "The kid's right, Hurley," he said. "Let John Grey handle Slue Foot. All reason says so. If anything should happen to you just before the drive, where'd the kid's contract be? He's done his part, givin' the Syndicate the first good wallop it ever got—now it's up to you to do yourn. If you lay Slue Foot out, when John Grey comes he wouldn't have no choist but to take you along—so either way, we'd lose out."

"But," roared Hurley, "s'pose John Grey don't show up befoor the drive? Thin Slue Fut'll be free to plot an' kape us from deliverin' thim logs."

"Slue Foot's done!" cried Connie. "He can't hurt us now. You see, the Syndicate people furnished him with a paint that looks just like the regular branding paint. When the logs have been in the water a short time the paint all comes off—And, last year, with you bossing the rear drive, by the time they got to the mills all the logs they dared to steal were wearing the green triple X."

"An' ye mane he's got thot wash-off stuff on them logs now?"

"On about three million feet of 'em," answered the boy. "All we've got to do is to sit tight until John Grey comes for Slue Foot, and then put a crew to work and brand the logs with regular paint and get 'em into the water." The boy laughed aloud, "And you bet I want to be right at the sorting gap, when old Heinie Metzger sees the sixth, and seventh, and eighth, and ninth million come floating along—with the red block-and-ball bobbing all shiny and wet in the sun! Oh, man! Old Heinie, with his eyeglasses, and his store clothes!"

Hurley banged the peavy down upon the wooden floor. "An' ut's proud Oi'll be to be sthandin' be yer soide whin them logs rolls in. Ut's as ye say, best to let th' law deal with Slue Foot. Yez nade have no fear—from now on 'til John Grey sets fut in th' clearin'—fer all an-ny wan w'd know, me an' Slue Foot could be brother-in-laws."

CHAPTER XX
CONNIE DELIVERS HIS LOGS

THE following days were busy ones in the two camps in Dogfish. Connie worked day and night to catch up on his books, and while Saginaw superintended the building of the huge bateau, and the smoothing out of the rollways, Hurley and Slue Foot kept the rest of the crew at work hauling logs to the landings. Spring came on with a rush, and the fast softening snow made it necessary for the hauling to be done at night. The thud of axes, the whine of saws, and the long crash of falling trees, was heard no more in the camps, while all night long the woods resounded to the calls of teamsters and swampers, as huge loads of logs were added to the millions of feet already on the rollways.

Then came a night when the thermometer failed to drop to the freezing point. The sky hung heavy with a thick grey blanket of clouds, a steady drenching rain set in, and the loggers knew that so far as the woods were concerned, their work was done. Only a few logs remained to be hauled, and Hurley ordered these peeled and snaked to the skidways to await the next season.

The men sang and danced in the bunkhouse that night to the wheeze of an accordion and the screech of an old fiddle. They crowded the few belongings which they would take out of the woods with them into ridiculously small compass, and talked joyfully and boisterously of the drive—for, of all the work of the woods it is the drive men most love. And of all work men find to do, the log drive on a swollen, quick-water river is the most dangerous, the most gruelling, and the most torturing, when for days and nights on end, following along rough shores, fighting underbrush, rocks, and backwater, clothing half torn from their bodies, and the remnants that remain wet to their skin, sleeping in cat-naps upon the wet ground, eating out of their hands as they follow the logs, cheating death by a hair as they leap from log to log, or swarm out to break a jam—of all work, the most gruelling, yet of all work the most loved by the white-water birlers of the north.

Next morning water was flowing on top of the ice on Dogfish, and the big bateau was man-hauled to the bank and loaded with supplies and a portable stove. Strong lines were loaded into her, and extra axes, pickpoles, and peavys, and then, holding themselves ready to man the river at a moment's notice, the crew waited.

And that morning, also appeared John Grey, worn out and wet to the middle by his all night's battle with the deep, saturated slush of the tote road. He had started from Dogfish with a horse and a side-bar buggy, but after a few miles, he had given up the attempt to drive through, and had unharnessed the horse and turned it loose to find its way back, while he pushed on on foot. After a prodigious meal, the sheriff turned in and slept until noon. When he awoke, his eyes rested for a moment on Connie, and he turned to Hurley: "Quite some of a clerk you got holt of, this season, Jake," he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Yeh," replied Hurley, drily. "He's done fairly good—for a greener. I mistrusted, after he'd be'n in here a spell, that he wasn't just a pick-up of a kid—but, I didn't hardly think he'd turn out to be the owner."

"Owner?"

"Yup. Him an' his pardner owns this timber, an' the kid come down to find out what the trouble was——"

"Y'ain't tellin' me a kid like him——"

"Yup—they come that way—up in Alasky. He's put in a year with the Canady Mounted, too. I ain't a-braggin' him up none, but I'm right here to tell you that what that there kid don't know ain't in the books—an' he kin put over things that makes the smartest men me an' you ever heer'd of look like pikers."

John Grey smiled, and the boss continued: "Oh, you needn't laff! Old Heinie Metzger busted you, didn't he? An' he busted a-many another good man. But this here kid slipped down an' put a contrack over on him that'll cost him between three an' four hundred thousand dollars of his heart's blood. The contrack is all signed and delivered, an' when Dogfish lets go tonight or tomorrow, the logs'll start."

"Where is Slue Foot?" asked the sheriff, after listening to Hurley's explanation.

"Up to Camp Two, we'll be goin' up there now. Me an' you an' the kid an' Lon'll go long. An' a crew of men with paint buckets and brushes. Saginaw, he'll have to stay here to boss the breakin' out of the rollways, in case she let's go before we git back."

At the edge of Camp Two's clearing Hurley called a halt: "We'll wait here 'til the kid gits Slue Foot's signature to them vouchers. When ye git 'em kid, open the door an' spit out into the snow—then we'll come."

"I'll just keep out these," grinned Slue Foot, as he selected the false vouchers from the sheaf of good ones, "so them birds don't git no chanct to double-cross me. You've done yer part first rate, kid. There's a little better than three million feet on the rollways that'll be wearin' the green triple X again they hit the sortin' gap. Von Kuhlmann was up here hisself to make sure, an' they's goin' to be a bunch of coin in it fer us—because he says how the owner is down to Minneapolis an' contracted fer the whole cut, an' old Heinie Metzger made a contrack that'll bust this here Alasky gent. He'll be so sick of the timber game, he'll run every time he hears the word log spoke. An' Hurley—he's broke fer good an' all. I be'n layin' to git him good—an' I done it, an' at the same time, I made a stake fer myself."

Connie nodded, and opening the door, spat into the snow. A moment later there was a scraping of feet. The door opened, and John Grey, closely followed by Hurley and Lon Camden, entered the office.

"Hullo, John," greeted Slue Foot. "Huntin' someone, er be ye up here tryin' to git some pointers on how to make money loggin'?"

The sheriff flushed angrily at the taunt: "A little of both, I guess," he answered evenly.

"Who you huntin'?"

"You."

"Me! What d'you want of me? What I be'n doin'?"

"Oh, nothin' to speak of. Countin' the four warrants the kid, here, swore out, I only got nine agin ye—the other five is on information swore to by yer three friends down in jail."

With a roar of hate, Slue Foot sprang straight at Connie, but Hurley who had been expecting just such a move, met him half way—met his face with a huge fist that had behind it all the venom of the big boss's pent-up wrath. Slue Foot crashed into a corner, and when he regained his feet two steel bracelets coupled with a chain encircled his wrists. The man glared in sullen defiance while the sheriff read the warrants arising out of the information of the three I. W. W.'s. But when he came to the warrants Connie had sworn out, the man flew into a fury of impotent rage—a fury that gradually subsided as the enormity of the offences dawned on him and he sank cowering into a chair, wincing visibly as he listened to the fateful words. "So you see," concluded the sheriff, "the State of Minnesota is mighty interested in you, Slue Foot, so much interested that I shouldn't wonder if it would decide to pay yer board and lodgin' fer the rest of yer natural life."

"If I go over the road there'll be others that goes too. There's them in Minneapolis that holds their nose pretty high that's into this as deep as me. An' if I kin knock a few years offen my own time, by turnin' State's evidence, yer kin bet yer life I'll spill a mouthful." Suddenly he turned on Connie: "An' you," he screamed, "you dirty little double-crosser! What be you gittin' out of this?"

"Well," answered the boy, "as soon as the crew out there on the rollways get the red block-and-ball in good honest paint on the ends of those logs, I'll get quite a lot out of it. You see I own the timber."

Just at daylight the following morning the Dogfish River burst its prison of ice and "let go" with a rush and a grind of broken cakes; breakfast was bolted, and the men of the drive swarmed to the bank where they stood by to break-out the rollways as soon as the logs from the upper Camp began to thin out. Connie stood beside the big bateau with the cook and John Grey and watched Camp Two's drive rush past—a floating floor of logs that spanned the river from bank to bank. Hurley had remained at the upper Camp and as the drive at last began to thin out, he came floating down, standing erect upon a huge log. When opposite the camp the big boss leaped nimbly from log to log until he reached the bank, where Saginaw stood ready to order out the breaking out of the first rollway. Many of the men of the upper drive had passed, riding as Hurley had done upon logs—others straggled along the shore, watching to see that no trouble started at the bends, and still others formed the rear drive whose business it was to keep the stranded logs and the jill-pokes moving.

So busy were all hands watching the logs that nobody noticed the manacled Slue Foot crawl stealthily from the bateau and slip to the river's brink. A big log nosed into shore and the former boss of Camp Two leaped onto it, his weight sending it out into the current. The plan might have worked, for the next bend would have thrown Slue Foot's log to the opposite bank of the river before any one could possibly have interfered, but luck willed otherwise, for the moment the unfortunate Slue Foot chose as the moment of his escape was the same moment Saginaw Ed gave the word for the breaking-out of the first rollway. There was a sharp order, a few well-directed blows of axes, a loud snapping of toggle-pins, and with a mighty roar the towering pile of logs shot down the steep bank and took the river with a splash that sent a wave of water before it.

Then it was that the horrified spectators saw Slue Foot, his log caught in the wave, frantically endeavouring to control, with his calked boots, its roll and pitch. For a moment it seemed as if he might succeed, but the second rollway let go and hurtled after the first, and then the third, and the fourth—rolling over each other, forcing the tumbling, heaving, forefront farther and farther into the stream, and nearer and nearer to Slue Foot's wildly pitching log. By this time word had passed to the men at the rollways and the fifth was held, but too late to save Slue Foot, for a moment later the great brown mass of rolling tumbling logs reached him, and before the eyes of the whole crew, the boss of Camp Two disappeared for ever, and the great brown mass rolled on.

"Mebbe ut's best," said Hurley, as with a shudder he turned away, "'tis a man's way to die—in the river—an' if they's an-ny wan waitin' fer him um back there, they'll think he died loike a man." In the next breath he bellowed an order and the work of the rollways went on.

It was at the first of his cleverly planned obstructions that Hurley overtook the head of the drive, and it was there that he encountered Long Leaf Olson and the men of the Syndicate crew.

Long Leaf was ranting and roaring up and down the bank, vainly ordering his men to break the jam, and calling malediction upon the logs, the crew, river, and every foot of land its water lapped. Hurley had ordered Saginaw to the rear drive, promising to hold the waters back with his jams, and now he approached the irate Long Leaf, a sack of dynamite over his shoulder and a hundred picked men of his two crews at his back.

"Call yer men off thim logs!" he bellowed, "Thim's my logs on the head end, an' I want 'em where they're at."

"Go on back to the rear end where you belong!" screeched Long Leaf; "I'll learn you to git fresh with a Syndicate drive! Who d'you think you be, anyhow?"

"Oi'll show ye who I be, ye Skanjehoovyan Swade! An' Oi'll show ye who's runnin' this drive! Oi'm bossin' th' head ind mesilf an' Saginaw Ed's bossin' the rear, an' av ye've fouled our drive, ye'll play the game our way! What do Oi care fer yer Syndicate? Ye ain't boss of nawthin' on this river this year—ye' ain't aven boss of the bend-watchers!"

Long Leaf, who's river supremacy had heretofore been undisputed, for the simple reason that no outfit had dared to incur the wrath of the Syndicate, stared at the huge Irishman in astonishment. Then placing his fingers to his lips he gave a peculiar whistle, and instantly men swarmed from the jam, and others appeared as if by magic from the woods. In a close-packed mob, they centred about their boss. "Go git 'em!" roared Long Leaf, beside himself with rage. "Chase the tooth-pickers off the river!"

"Aye, come on!" cried Hurley. "Come on yez spalpeens! Come on, chase us off th' river—an' whoilst yer chasin' ye bether sind wan av ye down to Owld Heinie fer to ship up a big bunch av long black boxes wid shiney handles, er they'll be a whole lot of lumberjacks that won't go out av the woods at all, this spring!"

As the men listened to the challenge they gazed uneasily toward the crew at Hurley's back. One hundred strong they stood and each man that did not carry an axe or a peavy, had thoughtfully provided himself with a serviceable peeled club of about the thickness of his wrist.

"Git at 'em!" roared Long Leaf, jumping up and down in his tracks. But the men hesitated, moved forward a few steps, and stopped.

"They hain't nawthin' in my contrack calls fer gittin' a cracked bean," said one, loud enough to be heard by the others. "Ner mine," "ner mine," "ner mine." "Let old Metzger fight his own battles, he ain't never done nawthin' to me but skinned me on the wanagan." "What would we git if we did risk our head?" "Probably git docked fer the time we put in fightin'." Rapidly the mutiny spread, each man taking his cue from the utterance of his neighbour, and a few minutes later they all retired, threw themselves upon the wet ground, and left Long Leaf to face Hurley alone.

"Git out av me road," cried the big Irishman, "befoor Oi put a shtick av giant in under ye an' blow ye out!" Long Leaf backed away and, proceeding to a point opposite the jam, Hurley seated himself upon a log, and calmly filled his pipe.

"If you think you're bossin' this drive, why in tarnation ain't you busted this jam," growled Long Leaf, as he came up a few minutes later.

"They ain't no hurry, me b'y, not a bit of a hurry. They'll be another wan just a moile above th' mouth. Ut's a way good river-min has got to let the rear drive ketch up."

"You wait 'til Metzger hears of this!" fumed Long Leaf.

Hurley laughed: "Oi'll be there at th' tellin'. An' you wait 'til Metzger sees eight er noine million feet av my logs slidin' t'rough his sortin' gap—an' him havin' to pay fifty dollars a thousand fer um. D'ye think he'll doie av a stroke, er will he blow up?"

"What do you mean—eight million—fifty dollars——"

Hurley laughed tantalizingly: "Wait an' see. 'Twill be worth th' proice av admission." And not another word could Long Leaf get out of him.

During the previous summer Hurley had studied his ground well. For several miles above the jam the river flowed between high banks, and it was that fact that made his scheme practicable, for had the land extended back from the river in wide flats or meadows, the backwater from the jam would have scattered his drive far and wide over the country. It was mid-afternoon when the rear-drive crew came up and then it was that Hurley, bearing a bundle of yellow cylinders, crept out along the face of the jam. A quarter of an hour later he came crawling back and joined the men who watched from the edge of the timber. Five minutes passed and the silence of the woods was shattered by a dull boom. The whole mass of logs that had lain, heaped like jack-straws in the bed of the river, seemed to lift bodily. A few logs in the forefront were hurled into the air to fall with a noisy splash into the river, or with a crash upon the trembling mass that settled slowly into the stream again. For an instant the bristling wall quivered uncertainly, moved slowly forward, hesitated, and then with a roar, the centre shot forward, the sides tumbled in upon the logs that rushed through from behind, and the great drive moved.

The breaking of the second jam was a repetition of the first, and when the drive hit the big river there were left on the bars and rock-ledges of the Dogfish only a few stragglers that later could be dry-rolled by a small crew into the stream and rafted down.

The crew worked indefatigably. Lumbermen said it was as pretty a drive as ever took water. In the cook's bateau Connie and Steve worked like Trojans to serve the men with hot coffee and handouts that were kept on tap every minute of the day and night.

At the various dams along the great river the boy never tired of standing beside Hurley and watching the logs sluiced through, and at last, with Anoka behind them, it was with a wildly beating heart that he stepped into a skiff and took his place in the stern beside Hurley, while the brawny men of the sorting crew worked their way to the front of the drive.

As the black smudge that hovered over the city of mills deepened, the boy gazed behind him at the river of logs—his logs, for the most part; a mighty pride of achievement welled up within him—the just pride of a winter's work well done.

News of the drive had evidently preceded them, for when the skiff reached the landing of the Syndicate's sorting gap, the first persons the boy saw, standing at the end of the platform, apart from the men of the sorting crew, were Metzger and von Kuhlmann.

The former greeting Connie with his oily smile. "Ah, here we have the youthful financier, himself," he purred. "He has accompanied his logs all the way down the river, counting them and putting them to bed each night, like the good mother looks after the children. I am prepared to believe that he has even named each log."

"That's right," answered the boy evenly. "The first log to come through is named Heinie, and the last log is named Connie—and between the two of them there are four hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of assorted ones—you're going to pay for them—so I left the naming to you."

Metzger shot him a keen glance: "How many logs have you brought down?"

"About nine million feet of mine, and about three million and a half of yours—from your Dogfish Camp—at least that's what we estimated when we sluiced through at Anoka."

Von Kuhlmann had turned white as paper: "Where's Hurley?" he asked in a shaky voice.

Connie placed his hand affectionately upon the arm of the big boss who stood at his side grinning broadly: "This is Jake Hurley—my foreman," he announced, and then to the boss: "The old one is Heinie Metzger, and the shaky one's von Kuhlmann."

"But," faltered von Kuhlmann—"there iss some mistake! Hurley I haff seen—I know him. I say he iss not Hurley! There iss a mistake!"

"Yes, there's a mistake all right—and you made it," laughed the boy. "And it's a mistake that cost your boss, there, dearly. The man you have been dealing with was not Hurley at all. He passed himself off for Hurley, and last year he got away with it. Your game is up—you crooks! The three million feet that Slue Foot Magee, alias Hurley, branded with your disappearing paint, have all been repainted with good, honest, waterproof paint—and, here they come!" As the boy spoke, a log scraped along the sheer-boom, and for a moment all eyes rested upon the red block-and-ball, then instantly lifted to the thousands of logs that followed it.

Several days later when the boom scale had been verified, Connie again presented himself at the office of the Syndicate and was shown immediately to Metzger's private room. The magnate received him with deference, even placing a chair for him with his own hands. "I hardly know how to begin, Herr Morgan——"

"Connie Morgan," snapped the boy. "And as far as I can see you can begin by dating a check for four hundred and forty-eight thousand, three hundred and twenty dollars—and then you can finish by signing it, and handing it over."

"But, my dear young man, the price is exorbitant—my stockholders in Germany—they will not understand. It will be my ruin."

"Why did you agree to it then? Why did you sign the contract?"

"Ah, you do not understand! Allow me——"

"I understand this much," said Connie, his eyes flickering with wrath, "that you'd have held me to my bargain and taken my logs for ten dollars a thousand, and ruined me, if I hadn't been wise to your dirty game."

"Ah, no! We should have adjusted—should have compromised. I would have been unwilling to see you lose! And yet, you would see me lose—everything—my position—my friends in Germany—surely your heart is not so hard. There should be fellowship among lumbermen——"

"Is that the reason you ruined John Grey, and Lige Britton, and Lafe Weston, and poor old Jim Buck? Every one of them as square a man as ever lived—and every one of them an independent logger, 'til you ruined them! What did you answer when they sat right in this office and begged for a little more time—a little more credit—a little waiver of toll here and there? Answer me that! You bloodsucking weasel!" The cowardly whine of the beaten German made the boy furious. He was upon his feet, now, pounding the desk with his fist.

A crafty gleam shot from Metzger's eyes, and abruptly he changed his tactics: "Let us not abuse each other. It is probable we can come to an agreement. You are smart. Come in with us. I can use you—in von Kuhlmann's place. I paid von Kuhlmann eighteen-hundred a year. Make a concession to me on the contract and I will employ you with a ten year contract, at ten thousand a year. We are a big corporation; we will crush out the little ones! I can even offer you stock. We will tighten our grip on the timber. We will show these Americans——"

"Yes," answered the boy, his voice trembling with fury, "we'll show these Americans—we'll show 'em what fools they are to allow a lot of wolves from across the water to come over here and grab off the best we've got. I'm an American! And I'm proud of it! And what's more, I'll give you just five minutes to write that check, Metzger, and if it isn't in my hands when the time's up, I'll get out an attachment that'll tie up every dollar's worth of property you own in the State, from the mills to your farthest camp. I'll tie up your logs on the rollways—and by the time you get the thing untangled you won't have water enough to get them to the river. You've got three minutes and a half left."

Slowly, with shaking fingers, Metzger drew the check, and without a word, passed it over to Connie, who studied it minutely, and then thrust it into his pocket. At the door he turned and looked back at Metzger who had sloughed low in his chair.

"If you'd listened to those other men—John Grey and the others you've busted, when they were asking for favours that meant nothing to you, but meant ruin to them if you withheld them—if you'd played the game square and decent—you wouldn't be busted now. And, when you get back to Germany, you might tell your friends over there that unless they change their tactics, someday, something is going to happen that will wake America up! And if you're a fair specimen of your kind, when America does wake up, it will be good-bye Germany!" And as the door slammed upon the boy's heels, Metzger for a reason unaccountable to himself shuddered.

THE END