Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods Part 29

"I didn't do it at all. w.i.l.l.y Horse did it, and he is going to have the best job that can be dug up for him, provided my influence has weight with the firm of Wingate & Gray. Tom, it's up to you, now. You are the brains of this establishment. Go to it. I've done my share so far as it has gone."

"You have, indeed. How is the equipment being brought in?"

"By mule teams. I reckon, too, that they will have a fine tune getting in here on the trail that leads to the Dusenbery Company's works above our section and--"

"I say, Mister Lieutenant, do I understand ye to say that a pa'cel of lumberjacks is comin' here?" interrupted Joe Shafto.

"Yes."

"Then I quits right now. Don't want no truck with them critters."

"That's all right, old dear. You just keep right on with the outfit, and if a lumberjack so much as looks at you, set the bear on him. I know what Henry can do in that direction, having had a run-in with him myself."

"Don't ye 'old-dear' me!" growled Joe. "Started that agin, have ye? Miss Wingate, if ye don't tame that husband of yers with a club, I will." Joe winked at Nora as she said it.

"Leave him to me, Mrs. Shafto. Hippy, go wash your face. You are a perfect sight. I'm positively ashamed of you."

"That's all right, Nora. That relieves me of the necessity of being ashamed of myself. Joe, you merely imagine that you dislike lumberjacks.

There are some good fellows among them. They aren't all so bad as you paint them," said Hippy soothingly.

The forest woman flared up.

"I hate the whole pack and pa'cel of 'em! I-hate 'em wuss'n a scalded pup hates vinegar on his back. I'll stay, of course, but I'll sick Henry on 'em if they bothers me; then I'll turn my back and fergit that Henry's chawin' up a human bein'. So there!"

The Overland girls laughed merrily, and Grace linking an arm into the guide's led her down to the river where the two sat down, Grace to give Joe Shafto friendly advice, and Joe to accept it as she would from no other member of the Overland Riders.

In the meantime Tom and Hippy were discussing their plans. They spent a good part of the day doing so. After dinner Grace and Elfreda paddled up the river in the bark canoe, returning just before suppertime, faces flushed from their exercise, and eyes sparkling.

Early next morning w.i.l.l.y Horse and the advance guard of the timber outfit arrived on the scene, as was evidenced by sundry shouts up-river.

Tom and Hippy hurried upstream to meet the party, and later in the day the Overland girls came up to watch the work already in progress. A knock-down bunk-house was rapidly going up, and the cook with pots and kettles over a brisk fire in the open was preparing supper for the lumberjacks.

The jacks were a hardy two-fisted lot of men, Swedes, Norwegians, French Canadians, half-breeds and a few st.u.r.dy Americans, though the latter were greatly outnumbered. Tom was bossing the gang and doing it like a man who had handled lumberjacks before.

"Why so rough with them?" remonstrated Grace.

"Because I know the breed. Be easy with jacks and they think you are afraid of them, and will promptly take advantage of you. One must, not for a moment, let them feel that he is not master of the situation and of them. You will discover that sooner or later."

By night the bunk-house was ready for occupancy, though the bunks were not yet in place and the men would be obliged to sleep on the floor for one night at least. After a hearty supper, well cooked under the observant eyes of Tom Gray, the lumberjacks retired to their shack, and the sound of the fiddle and the shuffle of dancing feet, accompanied by shouts and yells, rose from the bunk-house, which was located near enough to the Overland Riders' camp to enable them to hear, and to see, if they wished, what was going on.

w.i.l.l.y Horse was the guest of the Overlanders, though he refused to eat with them, and sat all the evening by the fire saying never a word, which is the Indian's idea of friendly conversation.

On the following day, under Tom Gray's supervision, the construction of the dam for the new owners was begun across a narrow part of the river, a little upstream from the Overland camp. In order to lower the water in the river while they were driving the spiles, Tom had the men put the gates in place in the dam built further up the stream by the timber-pirates. This, in the low condition of the river, would keep the water back for several days and give Tom's men a better opportunity to build his dam.

Henry had made several cautious visits to the scene of operations, which he viewed from the high branches of a tall pine, and, upon descending, soundly boxed the ears of a lumberjack who attempted to make friends with him.

"Tom," said Grace one evening after a few hours spent by her watching the work, "who is the short, thick-set lumberjack with the red hair?"

"The one with the peculiar squint in his eye?"

"Yes. That is the man."

"The men call him Spike. I don't know what the rest of the name is.

Why?"

"I don't like his looks. Then again there is something about him that reminds me of someone that I have seen--I mean in unpleasant circ.u.mstances."

"I fear our guide has prejudiced you against lumberjacks, and I know that she has taught Henry to hate the whole tribe. One shouldn't look for drawing-room manners in a lumberjack. We have a loyal gang of men, men who will fight for us, if necessary, and who certainly can work.

That, it appears to me, is the answer."

"Very well. I shall keep my eye on him, just the same. Hark! I thought I heard someone coming."

Tom and Grace were sitting by the campfire. The others of their party, with the exception of Mrs. Shafto and the bear, were listening to the fiddle and the thudding of the hob-nail boots of the lumberjacks as they danced away the early hours of the evening.

"Never mind. The pup will take notice."

"The only thing the pup takes notice of is, as Emma Dean says, food!"

laughed Grace. "Someone _is_ coming, Tom."

"Hindenburg!" commanded Tom Gray sharply.

The bull pup, sleeping by the fire, roused himself, wiggled his stubbed tail, and, rolling over on his side, yawned and promptly went to sleep again. Tom Gray glanced quickly towards the shadows that lay to the rear of them, and, as he did so, a figure appeared.

"w.i.l.l.y, is that you?" he demanded, as a familiar movement revealed the ident.i.ty of the figure.

"Yes."

Grace asked the Indian where he had been. He mumbled an unintelligible reply, then turned to Tom.

"Two men come. They watch shack. Me want to shoot, but not do."

"Certainly not," rebuked Tom. "What do you think they want?"

"Come spy on camp. I spy on them. Fix guns and creep up. Look in windows and whisper. Bah! No good. What do?"

"Have they rifles? Perhaps they are hunters," suggested Tom.

"No hunt. Me watch." w.i.l.l.y Horse melted into the shadows.

"Who can it be?" wondered Grace.

"Hunters, of course. w.i.l.l.y Horse's zeal has run away with his judgment.

I think--" Tom paused. Protesting voices were heard back in the forest, voices raised in angry resentment. Two men suddenly burst out into the light of the campfire, followed by w.i.l.l.y Horse close at their heels, his rifle pressed against the back of a panting man.

CHAPTER XX

PEACE OR WAR?