Part 16 (1/2)
”I'm not the man to disobey orders,” growled Connick. ”But I'm a man as likes man's style. I've always done your biddin', Colonel Ward, and I done your biddin' when I brought him here. Now I've found him a lively young chap that I'm proud to know and tho I speak for myself alone I speak as a man that likes fair play, and I say it's dirty bus'ness keepin' him like a chicken in a coop, after you've had your bus'ness talk with him.”
”You infernal bundle of hair and rags, do you dare to stand there and tell me how to run my own affairs?” roared Ward, thoroughly incensed.
”Keep your bus'ness your own bus'ness for all I care,” Connick answered angrily. ”But when it gits to be bus'ness that can't be backed up man-fas.h.i.+on then ye may find that day's wages don't buy the whole earth for ye.”
The reply was a bit enigmatical but Ward understood that it signified mutiny. He gasped a few times and then Parker heard Connick exclaim:
”Don't ye strike me with that sled-stake, Colonel Gideon, or it might be the worse for ye. I'll not bother your man in the w.a.n.gan till I find out more about what you're doin' to him--but don't you hit me with that stick.”
Both men went back into the big camp, Ward furiously chewing the reflection that for the first time he had been bearded in his own camp.
Gideon Ward sat until midnight in his little pen off the main camp, poking his fire and meditating. He had reckoned that he was justified in proceeding to extremes with this young man, confident that in the end he would break his spirit and frighten him out of the woods. But he realized now with sinking heart that his violence had endangered all the political influence of the gigantic timber interests. The youth had a powerful weapon, and he, Gideon Ward, would be accused of furnis.h.i.+ng it.
Perspiration dripped from under the old man's cap. He rasped his rough palms together nervously. At last he rose and tip-toed into the main camp. All the men were asleep, snoring with the l.u.s.ty heartiness of a tired lumber crew. The colonel advanced cautiously to Hackett's bunk, and stirred that worthy with his finger until the man awoke. He beckoned, and Hackett followed him into the pen.
”Hackett,” said he, ”yeh have worked for me a good many years.”
”Yes, colonel.”
”I've let yeh have money on a mortgage for one or two little favors yeh've done me.”
”Yes.”
Hackett began to grow pale.
”Now I'll lift that whole mortgage for another favor--an' don't get scared. I sha'n't ask yeh to do any more'n I propose to do myself.”
Ward had noted the look of alarm on the man's face. ”If we're both in it neither can say anything. I took yeh along with me last night and to-day so's yeh could hear how that young fool insults me on my own land.”
”I heard what he said, colonel, an' no man can blame ye for feelin' put out.”
Ward looked at him steadily for a moment.
”Listen to me. Few words when there's work to do: that's my motto. I've done the thinkin' part of this thing. What I want you for is to help on the work.”
The man stared with stupid inquiry.
”Hackett, here's my plan. You and I don't want to hurt that man. We can't afford to hurt him. But he's on my hands, an' he won't back down, an' it puts me in a hard place--a mighty hard place, Hackett. You heard what pa.s.sed between us? Now he's got to be put out of this camp an'
shoved where he can't blab this thing round about. Why, he's half got that fool of a Connick on his side already.
”The only thing, Hackett, is for you to take him across into that Tumble-d.i.c.k camp an' keep him there--keep him there! Tie him to a beam and feed him like yeh would a pup. Keep him there till he weakens an'
quits, or till I can think up some plan further. It'll give me time, Hackett.”
”'Tain't any extra sort of job for me, Colonel Ward!” grumbled Hackett ”I've got to watch that critter day in an' day out, an' Tumble-d.i.c.k camp is all o' twenty miles from here, or from any other camp, for that matter.”
”That's why I want him there, Hackett. We'll tie him on a moose sled, an' you start in an hour, whilst the men are still asleep. I'll break a window out of the w.a.n.gan, an' on this crust there'll be no foot-tracks.
It'll be thought he broke out and ran away--an' that'll be his own lookout.”
His voice became low and husky. ”Yeh needn't hitch him too tight in Tumble-d.i.c.k camp, Hackett, providin' you hide the most of his clothes an' it looks like a storm comin' on. If he wants to duck out away from a good home into the woods, with grub an' fire twenty-five miles away, why, that's his own lookout.”
The man licked his lips nervously.