Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 4

He was a sullen and noncommunicative person and intimated that he had suited his own convenience in coming on from the West.

The Latisans, when the heir appeared, were crippled for ready cash, after settling with the cousin heirs for stumpage and paying the winter's costs of operating. Those cousins were needy folks and had spent the money paid to them; there was no hope of recovering any considerable portion of the amounts.

The true heir attached the logs as they lay, and a court injunction prevented the Latisans from moving a stick. The heir showed a somewhat singular disinclination to have any dealings with the Latisans. He refused their offer to share profits with him; he persistently returned an exasperating reply: he did not care to do business with men who had tried to steal his property. He said he had already traded with responsible parties. Comas surveyors came and scaled the logs and nested C's were painted on the ends of the timber.

The Latisans had "gone b.u.mp"; the word went up and down the Tomah.

"Well, go ahead and say it!" suggested Rufus Craig when he had set himself in the path of Ward Latisan, who was coming away from a last, and profitless, interview with the obstinate heir.

"I have nothing to say, sir."

Craig calculatingly chose the moment for this meeting, desiring to carry on with the policy which he had adopted. By his system the Comas had maneuvered after the python method--it crushed, it smeared, it swallowed.

The Latisans had been crushed--Craig quieted his conscience with the arguments of business necessity; he had a big salary to safeguard; he had promised boldly to deliver the goods in the north country. Though his conscience was dormant, his fears were awake. He was not relis.h.i.+ng Latisan's manner. The repression worried him. The grandson had plenty of old John in his nature, and Craig knew it!

Craig tried to smear!

"Latisan, I'll give you a position with the Comas, and a good one."

"And the conditions are?"

"That you'll turn over your operating equipment to us at a fair price and sign a ten-year contract."

"I knew you'd name those conditions. I refuse."

"You're making a fool of yourself--and what for?"

"For a principle! I've explained it to you."

"And I've explained how our consolidated plan b.u.t.ts against your old-fas.h.i.+oned principle. Do you think for one minute you can stop the Comas development?"

"I'm still with the independents. We'll see what can be done."

"You're licked in the Toban."

"There's still good fighting ground over in the Noda Valley--and some fighters are left there."

Craig squinted irefully at the presumptuous rebel.

Latisan hid much behind a smile. "You see, Mr. Craig, I'm just as frank as I was when I said I was going to New York. You may find me in the Noda when you get there with your consolidation plans."

"Another case of David and Goliath, eh?"

"Perhaps! I'll hunt around and see what I can find in the way of a sling and pebble."

CHAPTER FIVE

A summons sent forth by Echford Flagg, the last of the giants among the independent operators on the Noda waters, had made that day in early April a sort of gala affair in the village of Adonia.

Men by the hundred were crowded into the one street, which stretched along the river bank in front of the tavern and the stores. The narrow-gauge train from downcountry had brought many. Others had come from the woods in sledges; there was still plenty of snow in the woods; but in the village the runner irons squalled over the bare spots. Men came trudging from the mouths of trails and tote roads, their duffel in meal bags slung from their shoulders.

An observer, looking on, listening, would have discovered that a suppressed spirit of jest kept flas.h.i.+ng across the earnestness of the occasion--grins lighting up sharp retort--just as the radiant suns.h.i.+ne of the day shuttled through the intermittent snow squalls which dusted the shoulders of the thronging men.

There was a dominant monotone above all the talk and the cackle of laughter; ears were dinned everlastingly by the thunder of the cataract near the village. The Noda waters break their winter fetters first of all at Adonia, where the river leaps from the cliffs into the whirlpool.

The roar of the falls is a trumpet call for the starting of the drive, though the upper waters may be ice-bound; but when the falls shout their call the rivermen must be started north toward the landings where logs are piled on the rotting ice.

On that day Echford Flagg proposed to pick his crew.

To be sure, he had picked a crew every year in early April, but the hiring had been done in a more or less matter-of-fact manner.

This year the summons had a suggestion of portent. It went by word o'

mouth from man to man all through the north country. It hinted at an opportunity for adventure outside of wading in shallows, carding ledges of jillpoked logs, and the bone-breaking toil of rolling timber and riffling jams.

"Eck Flagg wants roosters this year," had gone the word. Spurred roosters! Fighting gamec.o.c.ks! One spur for a log and one for any h.e.l.lion who should get in the way of an honest drive!

The talk among the men who shouldered one another in the street and swapped grins and gab revealed that not all of them were ready to volunteer as spurred roosters, ready for hazard. It was evident that there were as many mere spectators as there were actual candidates for jobs. Above all, ardent curiosity prevailed; in that region where events marshaled themselves slowly and spa.r.s.ely men did not balk at riding or hoofing it a dozen miles or more in order to get first-hand information in regard to anything novel or worth while.

Finally, Echford Flagg stalked down the hill from his big, square house--its weather-beaten grayness matching the ledges on which it was propped. His beard and hair were the color of the ledges, too, and the seams in his hard face were like ledgerifts. His belted jacket was stone gray and it was b.u.t.toned over the torso of a man who was six feet tall--yes, a bit over that height. He was straight and vigorous in spite of the age revealed in his features. He carried a cant dog over his shoulder; the swinging iron tongue of it clanked as he strode along.

The handle of the tool was curiously striped with colors. There was no other cant dog like it all up and down the Noda waters. Carved into the wood was an emblem--it was the totem mark of the Tarratines--the sign manual by Sachem Nicola of Flagg's honorary members.h.i.+p in the tribe.

He was no popular hero in that section--it was easy to gather that much from the expressions of the men who looked at him when he marched through the crowd. There was no acclaim, only a grunt or a sniff. Too many of them had worked for him in days past and had felt the weight of his broad palm and the slash of his sharp tongue. Ward Latisan had truthfully expressed the Noda's opinion of Flagg in the talk with the girl in the cafeteria.

The unroofed porch of the tavern served Flagg for a rostrum that day. He mounted the porch, faced the throng, and drove down the steel-shod point of his cant dog into the splintering wood, swinging the staff out to arm's length.

"I'm hiring a driving crew to-day," he shouted. "As for men----"

"Here's one," broke in a volunteer, thrusting himself forward with scant respect for the orator's exordium.

Flagg bent forward and peered down into the face uplifted hopefully.

"I said men," he roared. "You're La.r.s.en. You went to sleep on the Lotan ledges----"

"I had been there alone for forty-eight hours, carding 'em, and the logs----"

"You went to sleep on the Lotan ledges, I say, and let a jam get tangled, and it took twenty of my men two days to pull the snarl loose."

The man was close to the edge of the porch. Flagg set his boot suddenly against La.r.s.en's breast and drove him away so viciously that the victim fell on his back among the legs of the crowd, ten feet from the porch.

"I never forget and I never forgive--and that's the word that's out about me, and I'm proud of the reputation," declared Flagg. "I don't propose to smirch it at this late day. And now I look into your faces and realize that what I have just said and done adds to the bunch that has come here to-day to listen and look on instead of hiring out. I'm glad I'm sorting out the sheep from the goats at the outset. It happens that I want goats--goats with horns and sharp hoofs and----"

"The word was you wanted roosters," cried somebody from the outskirts of the crowd.

There was laughter, seeking even that small excuse for vent; the hilarity was as expressive as a _viva voce_ vote, and its volume suggested that there were more against Flagg than there were for him.