Joan of Arc of the North Woods | Page 3

damnable lie!"
Latisan delivered the accusation hotly; there was unmistakable
challenge in his demeanor. "You yourself have handed around some of
that slander, Mr. Craig. I get it straight from men whose word is good!"
"I only said what others were saying."
"I don't know, of course, who started those stories, but I do know that
they have been used against me. They have helped you, it seems! I
wanted to keep my plans under cover--but I've got to protect myself
with the truth, even if the truth gives you a tip. I went away to take a
special course in hydraulic engineering, so as to know more about
protecting the common rights in the flowage of this river." He swung
his hand to indicate the thundering falls of Hagas. "You have used your
tongue to hurt my standing with some of the independents--they
distrust my reliability and good faith--you have pulled in a few of them.
The others will stand by me. Frankly, Mr. Craig, I don't like your style!
It'll be a good thing for both of us if we have no more talk after this."
He walked rapidly down the tote road, not turning his head when Craig
called furiously after him.
"Pretty uppish, ain't he?" ventured the driver, touching the horses with
the whip.

Craig, bouncing alone on the middle seat of the buckboard, grunted.
"Excuse me, Mr. Craig, but that's some news--what he said about
getting aholt of the old Walpole tract."
The Comas boss did not comment.
The driver said nothing more for some time; he was a slouchy
woodsman of numb wits; he chewed tobacco constantly with the slow
jaw motion of a ruminating steer, and he looked straight ahead between
the ears of the nigh horse, going through mental processes of a certain
sort. "Now 't I think of it, I wish I'd grabbed in with a question to young
Latisan. But he doesn't give anybody much of a chance to grab in when
he's talking. Still, I'd have liked to ask him something." He maundered
on in that strain for several minutes.
"Ask him what?" snapped Craig, tired of the monologue.
"Whuther he's talked with my old aunt Dorcas about the heir who went
off into the West somewheres. Grandson of the old sir who was the first
Walpole of the Toban--real heir, if he's still alive! My aunt Dorcas had
letters about him, or from him, or something like that, only a few years
ago."
"Look here!" stormed Craig. "Why haven't you said something about
such letters or such an heir?"
"Nobody has ever asked me. And he's prob'ly dead, anyway. Them
lawyers know everything. And he's a roving character, as I remember
what my aunt said. No use o' telling anybody about him--it would cost
too much to find him."
"Cost too much!" snarled the Comas director. "Oh, you----" But he
choked back what he wanted to say about the man's intellect. Craig
pulled out notebook and pencil and began to fire questions.
Latisan was headed for home, the old family mansion in the village of
Toban Deadwater where Ward and his widowed father kept bachelor's

hall, with a veteran woods cook to tend and do for them. The male cook
was Ward's idea. The young man had lived much in the woods, and the
ways of women about the house annoyed him; a bit of clutter was more
comfortable.
It was a long tramp to the Deadwater, but he knew the blazed-trail short
cuts and took advantage of the light of the full moon for the last stage
of the journey. He was eager to report progress and prospects to his
father.
Ward was not anticipating much in the way of practical counsel from
Garry Latisan.
Old John had been a Tartar, a blustering baron of the timberlands.
Garry, his son, had taken to books and study. He was slow and mild,
deprecatory and forgiving. Ward Latisan had those saving qualities in a
measure, but he was conscious in himself of the avatar of old John's
righteous belligerency when occasion prompted.
Ward, as he was trudging home, was trying to keep anger from
clouding his judgment. When he felt old John stirring in him, young
Latisan sought the mild counsel of Garry, and then went ahead on a line
of action of his own; he was steering a safe course, he felt, by keeping
about halfway between John's violence in performance and Garry's
toleration.
Ward was the executive of the Latisan business and liked the job; his
youth and vigor found zest in the adventures of the open. Old John's
timber man's spirit had been handed along to the grandson. Ward
finished his education at a seminary--and called it enough. His father
urged him to go to college, but he