King Spruce Part 19

The sheriff, here, can take him whenever he gives me a receipt and makes note of my complaint."

"I did what you told me to, Mr. Britt," protested MacLeod, his voice breaking. "He was reportin' the first puff of smoke, and said that you and your orders could go to thunder. He didn't pay any attention--and I just did what you told me to. I--"

"Shut up!" The Honorable Pulaski, crimson with anger, fearful of his own part in this conspiracy, and shamed by the exposure of his methods, bellowed his order. "We'll settle this later. Knock away those saplings, some one. MacLeod, get down this mountain, even if you break your neck doing it, and get your crew to the front of that fire! I--I--haven't got breath to talk to you the way you need to be talked to. As you stand, you're only half a man on account of a girl." He darted a quivering finger at the disabled arm.

"And it's your other little d--n fool of a girl at Misery that torched that fire when she heard that you'd jilted her. Now, is it women or woods after this?"

"Woods, Mr. Britt!" stammered the boss, eager to conciliate this raging bull.

"Then get to the front of that fire and stop it, even if you have to lie down and roll over on it. It's a fire your pauper sweetheart started, and you've arranged, by your infernal bull-headedness, to let it burn.

Stop it or keep going! It won't be healthy in my neighborhood."

"I'll stop it or die tryin', Mr. Britt."

Lane leaned his back against the cage and faced the group, his gaunt arms reaching from side to side.

"You can't free a prisoner that way, Mr. Britt," he said, firmly. "You take this man away from me--or if the high sheriff, here, lets him go--I'll report the thing under oath to the governor and the people of this State; and I reckon you can't afford to have that done. I propose to have it known why Linus Lane didn't do his duty in reporting that fire."

"Take that old fool away from there and let that man out," commanded Britt, his pa.s.sion blind to consequences. He could see no way out of his muddle. He seemed to be in for wicked notoriety, anyway. Just now his one thought was to get "Roaring Cole MacLeod," master of men, at the head of that fire, to hold it in leash until more a.s.sistance came. He knew his man. He understood that MacLeod, bitter in the consciousness of his blunder, was now worth six men. "Rodliff, I'll take the consequences!" he shouted. "Let my boss out."

But the high sheriff seemed to be doubtful as to the consequences that he also would have to accept. Just then he had clearer notions of official responsibility than did the Honorable Pulaski D. Britt.

"This man is under arrest all regular," protested Rodliff, "and I've just the same as heard him own up that he interfered with Warden Lane in his duty. The governor himself wouldn't have the right to order me to let a prisoner go before a hearing on the case. That's law, Mr. Britt, and--"

"Talk that south of Castonia," broke in the Honorable Pulaski. "Just now law won't put that fire out and save a fifty-thousand-acre stand of black growth. Lane, you've got to be reasonable. There've been mistakes, but they'll be made good. You can't afford to be bull-headed in this thing."

But the old man did not move from the cage. The flaring of the torch lighted his solemn and unrelenting face. The worried face of MacLeod peered out over one of the extended arms.

"What--what was it happened to 'em on Misery, Mr. Britt?" he asked, humbly.

"I told you!" snapped Britt, glad of a momentary excuse to cover embarra.s.sment of this general defiance of his dignity. "Your black-eyed beauty there, that you've been fooling with when my back's been turned, is jealous of Rod Ide's girl, and took to the bush with a blueberry-torch dragging at her heels to show her feelings. I'd have shot her like I would a rabbit if it hadn't been for your particular friend Wade." The wrathful sneer of the Honorable Pulaski was a snarl that would have done credit to "Ladder" Lane's bobcat. "When you come to settle accounts with that critter, MacLeod, break his leg, and charge it on my side of the ledger."

"So he was there, hey?" asked the boss, eagerly.

"He was there long enough to hit me like a prize-fighter when I was protecting my property."

"Why didn't you kill him?" demanded the boss, with venom.

"By the time I got a gun he was out of sight at the tail of the fire, chasing the girl--he and old Chris Straight. I believe they were proposing to rescue the girl," concluded Britt, with a mirthless chuckle. "The only consolation I'm getting out of that fire down there is that maybe it's burning that Wade and the girl, whatever they call her, and will chase the Skeets and Bushees south and catch them, too. If it does I'll be willing to let a thousand more acres burn."

But it appeared that the choicest section of the Honorable Pulaski's charitable hopes was doomed to disappointment.

A torch, tossing from the edge of the stunted growth, marked the approach of some one.

"The top of Jerusalem seems liable to be a popular roosting-place for all them that ain't wearing asbestos pants," remarked the high sheriff, dryly. "A rush of excursionists during the heated spell, as the summer-boarder ads say! Lane, can you give the crowd anything to eat at your tavern except broiled moose and frica.s.seed bobcat?"

The pleasantry evoked no smile. For the little group at the cabin, Pulaski Britt first of all, with his keener eyes of hate, recognized those who were approaching.

Old Christopher Straight came ahead with the torch. The girl of Misery Gore, moving more slowly now that she saw the group at the top of Jerusalem, her face sullen, her head c.o.c.ked defiantly, was at his back, and Dwight Wade was at her side. Far behind, at the edge of the torch's radiance, slouched a huge figure of a man. It was foolish Abe, the hirsute giant of the Skeets.

"And now, speaking of arresting in the name of the law," snarled the lumber baron, "and your duty that you seem so fond of, Rodliff, get out your handcuffs for something that's worth while. It's three years in state-prison for maliciously setting fires on timber lands. It's a long vacation in the county jail for a.s.saulting a man without provocation.

There's the girl who set that fire; there's the man that struck me. So you see, Lane, your prisoner is going to have company."

Lane came suddenly away from the cage. The torch showed his face working with strange emotion.

"Mr. Britt," he said, appealingly, to the astonishment of the senator, who understood this sour woods cynic's nature, "there are crimes that ain't crimes in this world--not even when they're judged by G.o.d's own scale. There's your fire yonder! Some one is responsible for it--but not that poor girl!"

"I saw her set it myself, you devilish idiot!"

"Not that poor girl, I say. Those that threw her--her, with the pride of good blood that she felt but didn't understand--her, with her hopes and brains that her blood gave her--"

"Blood!" roared the Honorable Pulaski. "What do you know about her pedigree?"

"Those that threw her into that pen of swine are responsible," went on the warden. "Men like you, that have persecuted her and wonder why she doesn't squeal like the rest of those idiots; men like the whelp in that cage, trying to wrong her and throw her back into h.e.l.l--all of you are responsible for that fire. You bent the limb. It has snapped back and struck you in your faces. It's the way of the woods."

"Well, of all the infernal nonsense I ever listened to, this sermon on Mount Jerusalem clears the skidway," blurted Britt. "You stand up at the trial and repeat that, Lane, and you'll get your picture into the newspapers."

"And I guess a lot of the rest of us will before this sc.r.a.pe gets straightened out," muttered the high sheriff, bodingly.

"Mr. Britt, you're going to be sorry for it if you drag that poor abused girl to prison," said Lane, with such fire of conviction that the timber baron, cautious in his methods, and always fearing the notoriety that would embroil the great secrets of the timber interests with public opinion, blinked at the oracular old warden and then at the still defiant face of the girl. Like most untrained natures in whom pa.s.sion has unleashed natural high spirit, she seemed incapable of calm reconsideration. She had made such protest against the enormity of her persecution as opportunity had put into her heart as right and into her hands as feasible.

"We were fools to bring her here and toss her into the old hyena's claws," muttered Wade in Christopher's ear. "We might have known that he and his crowd would make for Jerusalem."

"I did know it," returned the old guide, quietly. "And I knew just as well what would happen to us in the runway of that fire to-morrow."

"Lane," broke in the Honorable Pulaski, with decision, "two trials won't stir this thing any worse than one. You've arranged for one. Go ahead with MacLeod. I'll have the girl."

Those who looked on Lane's face only knew that mighty pa.s.sions were shaking him. His voice broke and quavered.

"Mr. Britt, things have been mixed for me in this world till I don't hardly know what is right. I've tried to do my duty as it's been laid out for me. But in climbing up to it there's some things I haven't got the heart to step on. Perhaps in this thing we're mixed in now we've all been more or less wrong. I don't know. I haven't got the head to-night to figure it out. Perhaps it's best that what has happened on Jerusalem to-day don't get out. I don't know as that's right. But I'll say this: give me the girl; you can take MacLeod."

The Honorable Pulaski hesitated, "hemmed" hoa.r.s.ely in his throat, clutched at his beard, looked significantly at the high sheriff, and then called him apart by a nod of his head.

When he returned to the group he said, crisply: "It's a trade! Under the circ.u.mstances, I don't suppose even such a little tin G.o.d as you will have anything to say about it outside," he sneered, running his red eye over Dwight Wade. The young man did not reply, but his face gave a.s.sent.

Lane pried away the saplings, and MacLeod stepped out.

"Give him a camp lantern," commanded Britt. "Get your men into that fire at daylight."

"Tell me that they've all been lying about you, Colin," cried the girl, her cheeks crimson, her heart going out to him at sight of his face, "and I'll go with you! I'll work with you! I'm sorry for it if it's made you mad with me." All her sullen anger was gone. She leaned towards him as though she yearned to abase herself.

With Britt's flaming eyes on him, MacLeod only moved his lips without words.

"Ladder" Lane came out of the cabin with two lanterns. A set of lineman's climbers jangled dully at his belt.

"No, you'll not go, girl!" he cried, brusquely.

With hands on her hips, she threw back her head, her nostrils dilating.