The Rainy Day Railroad War | Page 8

for own more than a million acres of timber land for feeding
their pulp-mills, and the more city sports there are hanging round on
the tracts and building fires, the more danger of a big blaze catching
somewhere. And railroads bring sports. You don't hear of any
lumbermen grumbling about the Poquette carry."
"I should say, then, this section should have a little enterprise shaken
into it," said Whit-taker, tartly. This promised opposition promptly
fired his modern spirit of progress.
After he and his manager had returned to their duties in the city, the
surprising word began to go about the district that next year there
would be a railroad across Poquette carry. When the rumor was traced
to Rowe, he found himself in for a good deal of rough badinage for
allowing two city sportsmen to "guy" him.
The postmaster at Sunkhaze was a subscriber to a daily paper, every
word of which he read. One day, among the inconspicuous notices of
"New Corporations," he found this paragraph:
"Poquette Carry Railway Company, organized for the purpose of
constructing and operating a line of railroad between Spinnaker Lake
and West Branch River. President, G. Howard Whittaker;
vice-president and general manager, George P. Jerrard; secretary and
treasurer, A. L. Bevan. Capital stock $100,000; $5,000 paid in."

After the postmaster had read that twice, he strode out of his little pen.
Men in larrigans and leggings were huddled round the stove, for the
autumn crispness comes early in the mountains. The postmaster's eye
singled out Seth Bowers, the guide.
"Say, Seth," he inquired, "wa'n't your sports last summer named
Whittaker and Jerrard--the men ye had in on the Kennemagon waters?"
"Yes."
"Well, you boys listen to this," and the postmaster read the item with
unction.
"Looks 's if they were going ahead, and as if there wasn't so much wind
to it, after all," observed one of the party.
"That Poquette Carry road hasn't been touched by shovel or pick for
more than three years, and I don't believe that Col. Gid Ward and his
crowd ever intend to hire another day's work on it. Colonel Gid says
every operator and sport from Clew to Erie goes across there, and if
there's any ro'd-repairin' all hands ought to turn to an' help on the
expense."
"This new railroad idea ought to hit him all right, then," remarked Seth,
the guide.
"Well," remarked the postmaster, "I'd just like to be round--far enough
off so's the chips and splinters wouldn't hit me--when some one steps
up and tells Col. Gid Ward that a concern of city men is going to put a
railroad in across his land--that's all!"
"Gid Ward has always backed everybody off the trail into the bushes
round here" said Seth. "But he's up against a different crowd now."
"Do ye think, in the first place, that Colonel Gid is going to sell 'em any
right o' way across Poquette?" asked the postmaster. "He owns the
whole tract there."

"Oh, there's ways of getting it," replied Seth. "Let lawyers alone for
that when they're paid. If Gid don't sell, they can condemn and take."
In a week a portion of Seth's prediction concerning lawyers was
verified.
Mr. Bevan, tall and thin and sallow, stepped off the train at Sunkhaze.
He was a prominent attorney in one of the principal cities of the state,
and served as clerk of this new corporation.
When he heard that Col. Gideon Ward was fifty miles up the West
Branch, looking after a timber operation on Number 8, Range 23, he
borrowed leggings, shoe-pacs and an overcoat and hastened on by
means of a tote-team.
A week later, silent and grim and pinched with cold, he unrolled
himself from buffalo-robes and took the train at Sunkhaze. The
postmaster and station-agent gave him several opportunities to relate
the outcome of his negotiations, but the attorney was taciturn.
The first news came down two week later by Miles McCormick, a
swamper on Ward's Number 8 operation. The man had a gash on his
cheek and a big purple swelling under one eye. When a man of Ward's
crew came down from the woods marked in that manner, it was not
necessary for him to say that he had been discharged by the choleric
tyrant who ruled the forest forces from Chamberlain to Seguntiway.
The only inquiry was as to method and provocation.
"He comes along to me as I was choppin'," related Miles to the
Sunkhaze postmaster, "and he yowls, 'Git to goin' there, man, git to
goin'!' 'An',' says I, 'sure, an' I'll not yank the ax back till it's done
cuttin'.' An' then he" Miles put his finger carefully against the puffiness
under his eye, "he hit me."
"Was there a tall stranger come up on the tote-team