Part 19 (1/2)
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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sion. As the young man began to speak, he attempted to bellow him into silence. But Connick strode forward, put his ma.s.sive 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 a.s.semblage.
”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!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Listen to the story of a scoundrel 216-246]
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 pa.s.sed 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, brandis.h.i.+ng 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 gla.s.s 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 thres.h.i.+ng spruces and hemlocks.
”It's six miles to the nearest camp,” said Connick, when the crew was again a.s.sembled 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.