Joan of Arc of the North Woods | Page 9

sounded its first murmur under the blackening ice of Tomah, the Latisan logs were ready to be rolled into the river.
And then something happened!
That contract with the Walpole second cousins--pronounced an air-tight contract by the lawyer--was pricked, popped, and became nothing.
An heir appeared and proved his rights. He was the only grandson of old Isaac. The cousins did not count in the face of the grandson's claims.
In the past, in the Tomah region, there had been fictitious heirs who had worked blackmail on operators who took a chance with putative heirs and tax titles. But the Latisans were faced with proofs that this heir was real and right.
Why had he waited until the cut was landed?
The Latisans pressed him with desperate questions, trying to find a way out of their trouble.
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 bump"; 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 relishing 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 butts against your old-fashioned 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 flashing across the earnestness of the occasion--grins lighting up sharp retort--just as the radiant sunshine 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