The Riverman Part 5

"Don't you know any better than to get into that kind of a row down here?" Daly had been saying. "Do you want to bring us up for good here?

Don't you realise that this isn't the northern peninsula? What are you trying to do, any way?"

"Sure I do," replied Orde placidly. "Come along here till I show you the situation."

Ten minutes later, Daly, relieved in his mind, was standing by the fire drinking hot coffee and laughing at Orde's description of Reed's plug hat.

To Orde's satisfaction, the sheriff did not reappear. Reed evidently now pinned his faith to the State troops.

All night the work went on, the men spelling each other at intervals of every few hours. By three o'clock the main abutments had been removed.

The gate was then blocked to prevent its fall when its nether support should be withdrawn, and two men, leaning over cautiously, began at arm's-length to deliver their axe-strokes against the middle of the sill-timbers of the sluice itself, notching each heavy beam deeply that the force of the current might finally break it in two. The night was very dark, and very still. Even the night creatures had fallen into the quietude that precedes the first morning hours. The m.u.f.fled, s.p.a.ced blows of the axes, the low-voiced comments or directions of the workers, the crackle of the fire ash.o.r.e were thrown by contrast into an undue importance. Men in blankets, awaiting their turn, slept close to the blaze.

Suddenly the vast silence of before dawn was broken by a loud and exultant yell from one of the axemen. At once the two scrambled to the top of the dam. The blanketed figures about the fire sprang to life.

A brief instant later the snapping of wood fibres began like the rapid explosions of infantry fire; a crash and bang of timbers smote the air; and then the river, exultant, roaring with joy, rushed from its pent quietude into the new pa.s.sage opened for it. At the same moment, as though at the signal, a single bird, premonitor of the yet distant day, lifted up his voice, clearly audible above the tumult.

Orde stormed into the camp up stream, his eyes bright, his big voice booming exultantly.

"Roll out, you river-hogs!" he shouted to those who had worked out their s.h.i.+fts earlier in the night. "Roll out, you web-footed sons of guns, and hear the little birds sing praise!"

Newmark, who had sat up the night through, and now s.h.i.+vered sleepily by the fire, began to hunt around for the bed-roll he had, earlier in the evening, dumped down somewhere in camp.

"I suppose that's all," said he. "Just a case of run logs now. I'll turn in for a little."

But Orde, a thick slice of bread half-way to his lips, had frozen in an att.i.tude of attentive listening.

"Hark!" said he.

Faint, still in the depths of the forest, the wandering morning breeze bore to their ears a sound whose difference from the louder noises nearer at hand alone rendered it audible.

"The troops!" exclaimed Orde.

He seized a lantern and returned down the trail, followed eagerly by Newmark and every man in camp.

"Troops coming!" said Orde to Daly.

The men drew a little to one side, watching the dim line of the forest, dark against the paling sky. Shadows seemed to stir in its blackness.

They heard quite distinctly the clink of metal against metal. A man rode out of the shadow and reined up by the fire. "Halt!" commanded a harsh voice. The rivermen could make out the troops--three or four score of them--standing rigid at attention. Reed, afoot now in favour of the commanding officer, pushed forward.

"Who is in charge here?" inquired the officer crisply.

"I am," replied Orde, stepping forward.

"I wish to inquire, sir, if you have gone mad to counsel your men to resist civil authority?"

"I have not resisted civil authority," replied Orde respectfully.

"It has been otherwise reported."

"The reports have been false. The sheriff of this county has arrested about twenty of my men single-handed and without the slightest trouble."

"Mr. Morris," cried the officer sharply.

"Yes?" replied the sheriff.

"Is what this man says true?"

"It sure is. Never had so little fuss arrestin' rivermen before in my life."

The officer's face turned a slow brick-red. For a moment he said nothing, then exploded with the utmost violence.

"Then why the devil am I dragged up here with my men in the night?" he cried. "Who's responsible for this insanity, anyway? Don't you know," he roared at Reed, who that moment swung within his range of vision, "that I have no standing in the presence of civil law? What do you mean getting me up here to your miserable little backwoods squabbles?"

Reed started to say something, but was immediately cut short by the irate captain.

"I've nothing to do with that; settle it in court. And what's more, you'll have something yourself to settle with the State! About, face!

Forward, march!"

The men faded into the gray light as though dissolved by it.

A deep and respectful silence fell upon the men, which was broken by Orde's solemn and dramatic declamation.

"The King of France and twice ten thousand men Marched up the hill, and then marched down again,"

he recited; then burst into his deep roar of laughter.

"Now you see, boys," he said, digging his fists into his eyes, "if you'd put up a row, what we'd have got into. No blue-coats in mine, thank you.

Well, push the grub pile, and then get at those logs. It's a case of flood-water now."

But Reed, having recovered from his astonishment, had still his say.

"I tell ye, I'm not done with ye yet," he threatened, shaking his bony forefinger in Orde's face. "I'll sue ye for damages, and I'll GIT 'em, too."

"See here, you old mossback," said Orde, thrusting his bulky form to the fore, "you sue just as soon as you want to. You can't get at it any too quick to suit us. But just now you get out of this camp, and you stay out. You're an old man, and we don't want to be rough with you, but you're biting off more than you can chew. Skedaddle!"

Reed hesitated, waving his long arms about, flail-like, as though to begin a new oration.

"Now, do hop along," urged Orde. "We'll pay you any legitimate damages, of course, but you can't expect to hang up a riverful of logs just on a notion. And we're sick of you. Oh, h.e.l.l, then! See here, you two; just see that this man leaves camp."

Orde turned square on his heel. Reed, after a glance at the two huge rivermen approaching, beat a retreat to his mill, muttering and wrathful still.

"Well, good-bye, boys," said Daly, pulling on his overcoat; "I'll just get along and bail the boys out of that village calaboose. I reckon they've had a good night's rest. Be good!"

The fringe of trees to eastward showed clearly against the whitening sky. Hundreds of birds of all kinds sang in an ecstasy. Another day had begun. Already men with pike-poles were guiding the sullen timbers toward the sluice-way.

IV