Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp Part 21

Margaret did not wish to go into the swamp with Nan, however, on her first visit to Toby Vanderwiller's little farm. This was some weeks after the log drives, and lumbering was over for the season. Uncle Henry and the boys, rather than be idle, were working every acre they owned, and Nan was more alone than she had ever been since coming to Pine Camp.

She had learned the way to Toby's place, the main trail through the swamp going right by the hummock on which the old man's farm was situated. She knew there was a corduroy road most of the way--that is, a road built of logs laid side by side directly over the miry ground. Save in very wet weather this road was pa.s.sable for most vehicles.

The distance was but three miles, however, and Nan liked walking.

Besides, n.o.body who has not seen a tamarack swamp in late spring or early summer, can ever imagine how beautiful it is. Nan never missed human companions.h.i.+p when she was on the long walks she so often took in the woods.

She had learned now that, despite her adventure with the lynx in the snow-drifted hollow, there was scarcely any animal to fear about Pine Camp. Bears had not been seen for years; bobcats were very infrequently met with and usually ran like scared rabbits; foxes were of course shy, and the nearest approach to a wolf in all that section was Toby Vanderwiller's wolfhound that had once frightened Nan so greatly.

Hares, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, and many, many birds, peopled the forest and swamp. In sunken places where the green water stood and steamed in the sun, turtles and frogs were plentiful; and occasionally a snake, as harmless as it was wicked looking, slid off a water-soaked log at Nan's approach and slipped under the oily surface of the pool.

On the day Nan walked to Toby's place the first time, she saw many wonders of plant life along the way, exotics clinging to rotten logs and stumps; fronds of delicate vines that she had never before heard of; ferns of exquisite beauty. And flas.h.i.+ng over them, and sucking honey from every cuplike flower, were s.h.i.+mmering humming-birds and marvelously marked b.u.t.terflies.

The birds screamed or sang or chattered over the girl's head as she tripped along. Squirrels peeped at her, barked, and then whisked their tails in rapid flight. Through the cool, dark depths where the forest monarchs had been untouched by the woodsmen, great moths winged their lazy flight. Nan knew not half of the creatures or the wonderful plants she saw.

There were sounds in the deeps of the swamplands that she did not recognize, either. Some she supposed must be the voices of huge frogs; other notes were bird-calls that she had never heard before. But suddenly, as she approached a turn in the corduroy road, her ear was smitten by a sound that she knew very well indeed.

It was a man's voice, and it was not a pleasant one. It caused Nan to halt and look about for some place to hide until the owner of the voice went by. She feared him because of his harsh tones, though she did not, at the moment, suspect who it was.

Then suddenly she heard plainly a single phrase: "I'd give money, I tell ye, to see Hen Sherwood git his!"

Chapter XXI. IN THE TAMARACK SWAMP

The harsh tone of the unseen man terrified Nan Sherwood; but the words he spoke about her Uncle Henry inspired her to creep nearer that she might see who it was, and hear more. The fact that she was eavesdropping did not deter the girl.

She believed her uncle's life to be in peril!

The dampness between the logs of the roadway oozed up in little pools and steamed in the hot blaze of the afternoon sun. Insects buzzed and hummed, so innumerable that the chorus of their voices was like the rumble of a great church-organ.

Nan stepped from the road and pushed aside the thick underbrush to find a dry spot to place her foot. The gnats danced before her and buzzed in her ears. She brushed them aside and so pushed on until she could see the road again. A lean, yellow horse, tackled to the shafts of a broken top-buggy with bits of rope as well as worn straps, stood in the roadway. The man on the seat, talking to another on the ground, was Mr.

Gedney Raffer, the timberman who was contending at law with Uncle Henry.

It was he who had said: "I'd give money, I tell ye, to see Hen Sherwood git his."

There had fallen a silence, but just as Nan recognized the mean looking old man on the carriage seat, she heard the second man speak from the other side of the buggy.

"I tell you like I done Hen himself, Ged; I don't wanter be mixed up in no land squabble. I ain't for neither side."

It was Toby. Nan knew his voice, and she remembered how he had answered Uncle Henry at the lumber camp, the first day she had seen the old lumberman. Nan could not doubt that the two men were discussing the argument over the boundary of the Perkins Tract.

Gedney Raffer snarled out an imprecation when old Toby had replied as above. "Ef you know which side of your bread the b.u.t.ter's on, you'll side with me," he said.

"We don't often have b.u.t.ter on our bread, an' I ain't goin' ter side with n.o.body," grumbled Toby Vanderwiller.

"S-s!" hissed Raffer. "Come here!"

Toby stepped closer to the rattletrap carriage. "You see your way to goin' inter court an' talkin' right, and you won't lose nothin' by it, Tobe."

"Huh? Only my self-respect, I s'pose," grunted the old lumberman, and Nan approved very much of him just then.

"Bah!" exclaimed Raffer.

"Bah, yourself!" Toby Vanderwiller returned with some heat. "I got some decency left, I hope. I ain't goin' to lie for you, nor no other man, Ged Raffer!"

"Say! Would it be lyin' ef you witnessed on my side?" demanded the eager Raffer.

"That's my secret," snapped the old lumberman. "If I don't witness for you, be glad I don't harm you."

"You dare!" cried Raffer, shaking his fist at the other as he leaned from the buggy seat.

"You hearn me say I wouldn't go inter court one way or 'tother,"

repeated Toby, gloomily.

"Wal," snarled Raffer, "see't ye don't see't ye don't. 'Specially for any man but me. Ye 'member what I told ye, Tobe. Money's tight and I oughter call in that loan."

Toby was silent for half a minute. Then Nan heard him sigh.

"Well, Ged," he observed, "it's up to you. If you take the place it'll be the poorhouse for that unforchunit boy of mine and mebbe for the ol'

woman, 'specially if I can't strike a job for next winter. These here lumber bosses begin to think I'm too stiff in the j'ints."

"Wal, wal!" snarled Raffer. "I can't help it. How d'ye expec' I kin help you ef you won't help me?"

He clucked to the old horse, which awoke out of its drowse with a start, and moved on sluggishly. Toby stood in the road and watched him depart.

Nan thought the old lumberman's to be the most sorrowful figure she had ever seen.

Her young heart beat hotly against the meanness and injustice of Gedney Raffer. He had practically threatened Toby with foreclosure on his little farm if the old lumberman would not help him in his contention with Mr. Sherwood. On the other hand, Uncle Henry desired his help; but Uncle Henry, Nan knew, would not try to bribe the old lumberman. Under these distressing circ.u.mstances, which antagonist's interests was Toby Vanderwiller likely to serve?

This query vastly disturbed Nan Sherwood. All along she had desired much to help Uncle Henry solve his big problem. The courts would not allow him to cut a stick of timber on the Perkins Tract until a resurvey of the line was made by government-appointed surveyors, and that would be, when?

Uncle Henry's money was tied up in the stumpage lease, or first payment to the owners of the land. It was a big contract and he had expected to pay his help and further royalties on the lease, from the sale of the timber he cut on the tract. Besides, many valuable trees had been felled before the injunction was served, and lay rotting on the ground. Every month they lay there decreased their value.

And now, it appeared, Gedney Raffer was doing all in his power to influence old Toby to serve as a witness in his, Raffer's, interests.

Had toby been willing to go into court and swear that the line of the Perkins Tract was as Mr. Sherwood claimed, the court would have to vacate the injunction and Uncle Henry could risk going ahead and cutting and hauling timber from the tract. Uncle Henry believed Toby knew exactly where the line lay, for he had been a landloper, or timber-runner in this vicinity when the original survey was made, forty-odd years before.

It was plain to Nan, hiding in the bushes and watching the old man's face, that he was dreadfully tempted. Working as hard as he might, summer and winter alike, Toby Vanderwiller had scarcely been able to support his wife and grandson. His occasional attacks of rheumatism so frequently put him back. If Raffer took away the farm and the shelter they had, what would become of them?

Uncle Henry was so short of ready money himself that he could not a.s.sume the mortgage if Raffer undertook to foreclose.

"Oh, dear me! If Momsey would only write to me that she is really rich,"

thought Nan, "I'd beg her for the money. I'll tell her all about poor Toby in my very next letter and maybe, if she gets all that money from the courts in Scotland, she will let me give Toby enough to pay off the mortgage."

She never for a moment doubted that Uncle Henry's contention about the timber tract line was right. He must be correct, and old Toby must know it! That is the way Nan Sherwood looked at the matter.

But now, seeing Toby turning back along the corduroy road, and slowly shuffling toward home, she stepped out of the hovering bushes and walked hastily after him. She overtook him not many yards beyond the spot where he had stood talking with Raffer. He looked startled when she spoke his name.

"Well! You air a sight for sore eyes, Sissy," he said; but added, nervously, "How in Joe Tunket did you git in the swamp? Along the road?"