The Riverman Part 2

Orde nodded briefly to the stranger, and came at once to business.

"I want to talk this matter over with you," he began. "We aren't making much progress. We can't afford to hang up the drive, and the water is going down every day. We've got to have more water. I'll tell you what we'll do: If you'll let us cut down the new sill, we'll replace it in good shape when we get all our logs through."

"No, sir!" promptly vetoed the old man.

"Well, we'll give you something for the privilege. What do you think is fair?"

"I tell ye I'll give you your legal rights, and not a cent more,"

replied the old man, still quietly, but with quivering nostrils.

"What is your name?" asked Orde.

"My name is Reed, sir."

"Well, Mr. Reed, stop and think what this means. It's a more serious matter than you think. In a little while the water will be so low in the river that it will be impossible to take out the logs this year. That means a large loss, of course, as you know."

"I don't know nothin' about the pesky business, and I don't wan to,"

snorted Reed.

"Well, there's borers, for one thing, to spoil a good many of the logs.

And think what it will mean to the mills. No logs means no lumber. That is bankruptcy for a good many who have contracts to fulfil. And no logs means the mills must close. Thousands of men will be thrown out of their jobs, and a good many of them will go hungry. And with the stream full of the old cutting, that means less to do next winter in the woods--more men thrown out. Getting out a season's cut with the flood-water is a pretty serious matter to a great many people, and if you insist on holding us up here in this slack water the situation will soon become alarming."

"Ye finished?" demanded Reed grimly.

"Yes," replied Orde.

The old man cast from him his half-whittled piece of pine. He closed his jack-knife with a snap and thrust it in his pocket. He brought to earth the front legs of his chair with a thump, and jammed his ruffled plug hat to its proper place.

"And if the whole kit and kaboodle of ye starved out-right," said he, "it would but be the fulfillin' of the word of the prophet who says, 'So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee, and pestilence and blood shall pa.s.s through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it!'"

"That's your last word?" inquired Orde.

"That's my last word, and my first. Ye that make of G.o.d's smilin' land waste places and a wilderness, by your own folly shall ye perish."

"Good-day," said Orde, whirling on his heel without further argument.

The young man, who had during this colloquy sat an interested and silent spectator, arose and joined him. Orde looked at his new companion a little curiously. He was a very slender young man, taut-muscled, taut-nerved, but impa.s.sive in demeanour. He possessed a shrewd, thin face, steel-gray, inscrutable eyes behind gla.s.ses. His costume was quite simply an old gray suit of business clothes and a gray felt hat. At the moment he held in his mouth an unlighted and badly chewed cigar.

"Nice, amiable old party," volunteered Orde with a chuckle.

"Seems to be," agreed the young man drily.

"Well, I reckon we'll just have to worry along without him," remarked Orde, striking his steel caulks into the first log and preparing to cross out into the river where the work was going on.

"Wait a minute," said the young fellow. "Have you any objections to my hanging around a little to watch the work? My name is Newmark--Joseph Newmark. I'm out in this country a good deal for my health. This thing interests me."

"Sure," replied Orde, puzzled. "Look all you want to. The scenery's free."

"Yes. But can you put me up? Can I get a chance to stay with you a little while?"

"Oh, as far as I'm concerned," agreed Orde heartily. "But," he supplemented with one of his contagious chuckles, "I'm only river-boss.

You'll have to fix it up with the doctor--the cook, I mean," he explained, as Newmark look puzzled. "You'll find him at camp up behind that brush. He's a slim, handsome fellow, with a jolly expression of countenance."

He leaped lightly out over the bobbing timbers, leaving Newmark to find his way.

In the centre of the stream the work had been gradually slowing down to a standstill with the subsidence of the first rush of water after the sluice-gate was opened. Tom North, leaning gracefully against the shaft of a peavy, looked up eagerly as his princ.i.p.al approached.

"Well, Jack," he inquired, "is it to be peace or war?"

"War," replied Orde briefly.

III

At this moment the cook stepped into view, and, making a trumpet of his two hands, sent across the water a long, weird, and not unmusical cry.

The men at once began slowly to drift in the direction of the camp.

There, when the tin plates had all been filled, and each had found a place to his liking, Orde addressed them. His manner was casual and conversational.

"Boys," said he, "the old mossback who owns that dam has come up here loaded to scatter. He's built up the sill of that gate until we can't get a draw on the water, and he refuses to give, lend, or sell us the right to cut her out. I've made him every reasonable proposition, but all I get back is quotations from the prophets. Now, we've got to get those logs out--that's what we're here for. A fine bunch of whitewater birlers we'd look if we got hung up by an old mossback in a plug hat.

Johnny Sims, what's the answer?"

"Cut her out," grinned Johnny Sims briefly.

"Correct!" replied Orde with a chuckle. "Cut her out. But, my son, it's against the law to interfere with another man's property."

This was so obviously humourous in intent that its only reception consisted of more grins from everybody.

"But," went on Orde more seriously, "it's quite a job. We can't work more than six or eight men at it at a time. We got to work as fast as we can before the old man can interfere."

"The nearest sheriff's at Spruce Rapids," commented some one philosophically.

"We have sixty men, all told," said Orde. "We ought to be able to carry it through."

He filled his plate and walked across to a vacant place. Here he found himself next to Newmark.

"h.e.l.lo!" he greeted that young man, "fixed it with the doctor all right?"

"Yes," replied Newmark, in his brief, dry manner, "thanks! I think I ought to tell you that the sheriff is not at Spruce Rapids, but at the village--expecting trouble."

Orde whistled, then broke into a roar of delight.

"Boys," he called, "old Plug Hat's got the sheriff right handy. I guess he sort of expected we'd be thinking of cutting through that dam. How'd you like to go to jail?"

"I'd like to see any sheriff take us to jail, unless he had an army with him," growled one of the river-jacks.

"Has he a posse?" inquired Orde of Newmark.