Blazed Trail Stories | Page 7

came upon Richard Darrell. The latter was enjoying himself noisily by throwing wine-glasses at a beer advertisement. As he always paid liberally for the glasses, no one thought of objecting.
"Who's th' bucko?" inquired Silver Jack of a man near the stove.
"That's Roaring Dick Darrell, walkin' boss for M. & D.," replied the other.
Silver Jack drew his flax-white eyebrows together.
"Roaring Dick, eh? Roaring Dick? Fine name fer a bad man. I s'pose he thinks he's perticular all hell, don't he?"
"I do'no. Guess he is. He's got th' name fer it."
"Well," said Silver Jack, drawing his powerful back into a bow, "I ain't much; but I don't like noise--'specially roaring."
With the words he walked directly across the saloon to the foreman.
"My name is Silver Jack," said he, "I come from Muskegon way. I don't like noise. Quit it."
"All right," replied Dick.
The other was astonished. Then he recovered his swagger and went on:
"They tell me you're the old he-coon of this neck of th' woods. P'r'aps you were. But I'm here now. Ketch on? I'm th' boss of this shebang now."
Dick smiled amiably. "All right," he repeated.
This second acquiescence nonplussed the newcomer. But he insisted on his fight.
"You're a bluff!" said he, insultingly.
"Ah! go to hell!" replied Dick with disgust.
"What's that?" shouted the stranger, towering with threatening bulk over the smaller man.
And then to his surprise Dick Darrell began to beg.
"Don't you hit me!" he cried, "I ain't done nothing to you. You let me alone! Don't you let him touch me!" he called beseechingly to the barkeeper. "I don't want to get hurt. Stop it! Let me be!"
Silver Jack took Richard Darrell by the collar and propelled him rapidly to the door. The foreman hung back like a small boy in the grasp of a schoolmaster, whining, beseeching, squirming, appealing for help to the barkeeper and the bystanders. When finally he was energetically kicked into the gutter, he wept a little with nervous rage.
"Roaring Dick! Rats!" said Silver Jack. "Anybody can do him proper. If that's your 'knocker,' you're a gang of high bankers."
The other men merely smiled in the manner of those who know. Incidentally Silver Jack was desperately pounded by Big Dan, later in the evening, on account of that "high-banker" remark.
Richard Darrell, soon after, went into the woods with his crew, and began the tremendous struggle against the wilderness. Silver Jack and Big Dan took up the saloon business at Beeson Lake, and set themselves to gathering a client��le which should do them credit.
The winter was a bad one for everybody. Deep snows put the job behind; frequent storms undid the work of an infinitely slow patience. When the logging roads were cut through, the ground failed to freeze because of the thick white covering that overlaid it. Darrell in his mysterious compelling fashion managed somehow. Everywhere his thin eager triangle of a face with the brown chipmunk eyes was seen, bullying the men into titanic exertions by the mere shock of his nervous force. Over the thin crust of ice cautious loads of a few thousand feet were drawn to the banks of the river. The road-bed held. Gradually it hardened and thickened. The size of the loads increased. Finally Billy O'Brien drew up triumphantly at the rollway.
"There's a rim-racker!" he exclaimed. "Give her all she'll stand, Jimmy."
Jimmy Hall, the sealer, laid his flexible rule over the face of each log. The men gathered, interested in this record load.
"Thirteen thousand two hundred and forty," announced the scaler at last.
"Whoopee!" crowed Billy O'Brien, "that'll lay out Rollway Charley by two thousand feet!"
The men congratulated him on his victory over the other teamster, Rollway Charley. Suddenly Darrell was among them, eager, menacing, thrusting his nervous face and heavy shoulders here and there in the crowd, bullying them back to the work which they were neglecting. When his back was turned they grumbled at him savagely, threatening to disobey, resolving to quit. Some of them did quit: but none of them disobeyed.
Now the big loads were coming in regularly, and the railways became choked with the logs dumped down on them from the sleighs. There were not enough men to roll them down to the river, nor to "deck" them there in piles. Work accumulated. The cant-hook men became discouraged. What was the use of trying? They might as well take it easy. They did take it easy. As a consequence the teamsters had often to wait two, three hours to be unloaded. They were out until long after dark, feeling their way homeward through hunger and cold.
Dick Darrell, walking boss of all the camps, did the best he could. He sent message after message to Beeson Lake demanding more men. If the rollways could be definitely cleared once, the work would lighten all along the line. Then the men would