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Tous les autres exemplaires originaux sont filmds en commenpant par la premiere page qui comporte une empreinte d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par la dernidre page qui comporte une telle empreinte. Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la dernidre image de chaque microfiche, selon le cas: le symbole — •- signifie "A SUIVRE ", le symbole V signifie "FIN". Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Stre filmds d des taux de reduction diff^rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour etre reproduit en un seul cliche, il est filmd d partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche d droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images n6cessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m6thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 'f wa; /J/^ 1 WALTER GIBBS, THE YOUNG BOSS. ( : %l ;,<* \\:mi (ill!' HK \()r\() Boss i TTt ^'*Tri ()\ r-i' ^ Wa Wcsr^ii- ^\ w. cc ^ / h\' ALTER (IU5BS, THE YurXG BoSS AND OTllEU NTOIUES A BOOK FOE BOYS BY EDWARD WILLIAM TIIOMSOX AuTHuK OF " Olu Man Savauin" W TORONTO : WILLIAM BRIGGS, WESLEY BUILDINGS. S. F. HUESTIS, Halifax. N.S. f C. W. COATES, Montreal, Que. i ^^ZAVi 2 0195i Entkrku according to Act of the Parliamer.t of Canada, in the year one I thousand eight •lundreU and ninety-six, by William BKiiiiis, at the Dt^purtment ' of Agriculture. *t*ffe CONTENTS. • • Walteh Gihhs, tiik YoiNfi Boss Tom's Fe.viui i. Adventure lyvx . . . Smoky Days Drifted Away , • • • • The Ten-Dollar Bill • • • King Tom . • • • • . V PAOK 1 . 136 . 149 . 173 . 281 . 321 . 343 These stories all first appeared in the Yoiu'Ji's Compan- ion, Boston, to whose publishers the author is indebted for liberty to is&ue the tales in the present form. WALTER GTBl^^S, THE YOUNG BOSS. I WAJ Mr the SI amaze him a of tht aftern finish^ Walte mattei a Scot You, a of two "W would WALTER GIBBS, THE YOUNG BOSS. CHAPTER I. A BANKER AND A BOY. Mr. Douglas Gkmmill, private banker in the small Canadian town of Garroch, scared in amazement at the sunburned youth who faced him across a low, table desk in the back office of the bank. It was after four o'clock tf an afternoon in late September. Mr. Gemraill had finished his daily business with the public when Walter Gibbs had asked to be admitted on a matter of urgency. "I3ut, man alive," said Mr. GemmiU, who was a Scot by birth, " 1 never heard tell o' the like ! You, a boy, come here and ask me for a credit of two thousand dollars I It's just amazing ! " "Well, sir," said W^alter, "I expected it would surpiise you. But I mustn't leave any- 8 i-\ ■ \ 4 WALTER GlIiBSy thing untried. My mother authorized me to come. Mr. I5ar)-y, the hiwyer, says she can act legally for my father Avhile lie's unconscious. You'd let my ^tlier have the money, wouldn't you, sir ? " "Aye, your father, lad. That's a horse of another color. But he's in brain fever, or the like — and there's no telling if — " The banker stopped short ; he shrank from telling the boy his father might soon die. " It's really my father you'd be lending to," said Wi.lter, "and the contract is good. I went over the ground with my father, and I think he told me all he meant to do. It's a very simple job — draining that lake." " Aye, is it ? Perhaps you'll just explain it, Wally." The youth took from his breast pocket a large note-book such as surveyors use, and pencilled a sketch while he talked : — " Here's the lake — they call it Loon Lake. It's ten miles from Elbow Carry, and that's forty miles up the Ottawa from here. The lake is more than a mile long, hah a mile wide, and about twelve feet deep. It is in the middle of 3 4 THE YOUNG BOSS. 6 a flat of ten or twelve thousand acres of rich land. That's the land that Mr. Ilebden wants to drain." "What for?" '* So that he can crop it. Nothing but wild hay grows there now. It is flooded in spring and early summer. He thinks he can plough and sow it, or sell it off in farm lots if it's made dry." " Well, how is that to be done ? " "Easy enough, sir. This creek runs out of the lake to the Ottawa River, two miles away. There's a fall of twenty-five feet in the creek. Its bed is white limestone, easy to blast out. Above the fall there is scarcely any water in summer, for the lake sinks very low and stops discharging. My father's contract is to blast out a channel four feet deep from the fall to the lake." " I see. That will lower the Ifike four feet, eh?" " Yes, sir, from its summer level. But my father has the option of going deeper, and for that he would get nearly twice as much per cubic yard." "Aye, we'll no mind that," said the banker, ^fr^ w ««■■ 6 WALTEU a Tims, cautiously pursing liis lips. "It's best just to reason on the plain contract, and no chance work. How much excavation in the four-feet channel ? " "About six thousand yards, sir." " What's the price per yard ? " When the banker, whose business was to know something about all sorts of business, heard the price, he whistled. " Man, there should be profit in yon, lad ! " "Yes, sir, and there may be more if we go deeper. But I was going to explain that the rock is harder under the top layer of four feet — at least it is wliere it crops out at the fall." "Ah, well, I've said we'll just not reckon on the deep work. You seem to know what you're talking about, Wally." " It would be queer if I didn't, sir — I helped my father to figure on the whole thing. He talks to me a good deal while we're working." " You're learning the surveying, eh ? " " Yes, sir, and civil engineering. I'm appren- tice to my father." " Aye, I've seen you with yon whig-maleerie — what-you-call-it ? " ^ THE YOUNG JiOSN. 7 " Theodolite, I guess you mean, sir." " Aye, tlieodolite I Just that. I don't remem- her your father taking a contract before." '' Not just around here, sir. But when lie sees a orood small one, he goes in for it sometimes. He's been building the Buckstone Kiver bridge and dam." " Aye, has he ? And it's there lie fell off the pier, eh, and got his hurt ? " " Yes, sir." "What does Doctor Mostyn say of his case?" " He says father will come round all right, but his head will be affected for a good many weeks, maybe. And he should go south soon — as soon as he's strong enough to be moved, for his lungs are delicate, and he'll be weak to face the winter." Mr. (lemmill was a ruddy-faced, stout, comba- tive-looking man of over fifty. He could frown very terrificall}'- at delinquent borrowers, but he now beamed quite genially at Walter. The banker lay back in his chair and gazed steadily at the youth, who looked him straight in the eye with perfect ingenuousness. " Your father put up tifteen hundred dollars' forfeit, eh?" 8 WALTER a I BUS, "Yes, sir; it's in the liands of Mr. lieniis, the manager of the Merchants' Bank branch at El how Carry." " Tell me about that." " Well, sir, Mr. Hebden is very hot to have the job of draining finished this fall. He insisted on my father starting with at least thirty men on the first of October — tliat's two days after to-morrow. And he insisted on my father put- ting up fifteen hundred, to be forfeited, in case he doesn't get started on time, liesides that, the | job must be finished by the first of next January, or else my father forfeits a hundred dollars a day till it's done." " Hebden is cranky, it's well known. But I wonder at your father." " My father had a purpose, sir. He considered it no risk to put up the forfeit. And by doing so he could better insist that Mr. Hebden should put up forfeit money, too. You know he hates to pay out his money. They say he makes all kinds of delays. But in this case he is bound to forfeit three thousand dollars if he fails to pay any monthly estimate three days after it is certified by Surveyor Leclerc." THE YOUNG BOSS. 9 Mr. Genimill laughed loiully. "Good!" siiid lie. "Your father was wide- awake this time. But of all the green gowks of English cockneys that ever came out to Canada, liebden is the worst. Ah, weel, i.. dealings with a daft body one must fall in with whimsies. But it's a pity, Wally, — your fallier mortgaged his house tc raise yon lifteen hundred, and now the forfeit's gone." '' It will be if I can't save it. That's what I'm trying to do, Mr. Gemmill. I do hope you will allow me a credit ! " "• For two thousand dollars ! Good sakes, lad, what for do you want so much money?" " I don't want it all now, sir. l>ut I'll have to put at least thirty men on the job on the first of October. I'll want money to pay their wages the first month before I get an estimate from .Mr. llebden, and they're sure to be asking for advances, too." "Say seven hundred dollars, Wally," Mr. Gemmill threw in. " Then I've got to take them up to Elbow Carry by steamer ; take them ten miles back in |tlie woods or marshes : get a big shant} built ; 10 WALTER a in US, feed Jill hands for a month ; l)uy powder, fuse, charcoal — " -Charcoal? What for?" " For the hlacksmiths to sharpen drills with. There's no other blacksmiths' coal within lifty miles, and charcoal's best, anyhow." " Go ahead, lad," said the banker, looking pleased. " I'll need to buy steel and iron for jumpers, ball drills, and striking hammers ; a blacksmith's outfit, some axes, a cooking kit — " " Oh I " interrupted the banker, laughing, " I see you know what plant you'll need. But why risk the money? Why not go to Ifebden and get him to let your father out of the contract, seeing he's been unexpectedly hurt?" " I did go to see him, sir, and I'm almost ashamed to say it. But my mother thought I ought to. I came from there this morning. I told him all about my father's being badly hurt. I asked him to extend the contract till next year. But nothing would do. He's an ugly- tempered little man." " He said he would seize the fifteen hundred forfeit, eh?" TTiK rovYG noss. 11 "Yes, sir." "Dill you tell hlni that your father Ind no expeiieiiced friend or partner or employed to act for liiiu? " "No, sir. But I think I left him under the impression that we couldn't go on Avith the job. For 1 didn't then see how we could. It was only wlien I got home that I thought of coming to you. I wisli you could think it right to help my mother and father in this trouble, sir." " At what rate, Wally ? " " At any rate you like to ask, sir." "Twenty per cent a month, Wally?" "You wouldn't like to ask that, Mr. Gem- mill," smiled the youth. " No, ch ? " Mr. Gemmill looked merry, and then grave. "Man alive, just consider! It's me that's to take the risk. Here's a lad of eighteen wants two thousand dollars. He can't igive a penny of security. His father is down [sick with his head caved in. Suppose he gets [on his legs in two or three months, will he pay [a debt like this, incurred without his authorit}'? Besides, his house is already mortgaged. Don't [you see, lad, that you're asking me to lend you 12 IVALTKR ailfliS, two thousand dollars, no less, on your personal word?" Walter stood in deep thought for a full min- ute. Tliere was depression in liis voice wlicii he next s[)oke, hut he looked the l)anker in tlie eye witli fraidc good nature. "I see that, sir. I'm sure I'd pay you all right, but I can understand it wouldn't he busi- ness to deal so w4th a fellow of my age." "Aye — you see that, eh?" "Yes, sir, and I'll bid you good-day, and I'm obliged to you for listening so kindly to my story." Walter turned to go. "Wait a wee, Wally. Never be precipitate, lad," said Mr. Gemmill with an oracular air. "Business is business — no doubt of that. But is it always just exactly good business to be so bound up in red tape that a man can't see the length of his nose? Tell me that, now?" Walter sat down with joy thumping at his heart and beaming from his eyes on the banker. "Lad, but I like you," said Mr. Gemmill, who was really an impulsive old gentleman. " I like you, too, sir," said Walter quite simply, and the banker laughed outright at the reply. THE YnuNG noss. 18 " It's an unco' strange world wo'ro living in," said Mr. ricniniill, " if a business man is to make no account of personal character and ability by way of security, but be all for en- dorsements and ])onds and the like. In my opeenion it's tlie wise lender that looks to the (piality of his customer first, eh, WallyV" But Walter said nothing, lie had too much tact to speak as if taking to himself tlie im- plied praise, but he blushed under the sense of approval. "Who's your foreman?" Mr. Gemmill said, suddeidy recovering caution. ''My fatlier hired Pat Lyncb last week, be- fore he was hurt." "Aye — did he? Well, I'll no say but what Pat's a very honest man. And he can get work out of men, moreover. But your fatlier would be reckoning to oversee Pat himself." "Yes, sir, I know that. I'll have to be on the job all the time." " You think you can boss it ? " "Yes, sir. I've seen a good deal of rock excavation." "What about your men?" ( ! ff ( 14 WALTER GIBBS, " My father spoke to thirty. They were expecting to start to-morrow. A cook and bhicksiviith, too. The blacksmith is under pay already." " You'll be ten miles from any village ? " "Yes, sir. Elbow Carry is the nearest place." "And if your men struck work you'd be stuck?" " Yes, sir ; for there's none too much time to do the job in. But they're to engage by the month. When I knew any of them were going I could look out for m.ore." " That's right. Engage them all in writing, mind you." " Yes, sir." Walter spoke with some excite- ment at the significance of the banker's advice. " Well, Wally, I don't know but you can have the money. If you don't do well with it, I'm deceived. I'd believe you've got a grand notion of business, but for one thing." "What's that, Mr. Gemmill?" "You're not asking what I'll charge for the accommodation." " I know you'll do what's right, sir." " So I will, Wally, so I will," said the banker, 1£ i THE YOUNG BOSS. 15 warmly. "And that was good business sense iii you, too. It's in knowing wluit-likc man you're dealing with that the sense comes in. I'll charge you what I'd charge your father. And now, don't you feel the responsibility weighing heavy on you, lad?'' Walter ^bought a while before he replied. '^Well, sir, I guess 1 feel more glad than any- thmg." "Go along, lad. You're all right. If you'd said you were burdened with a great sense oi' responsibility I'd have thought you were a wee bit hypocritical. You'll feel it on your young shoulders, though, before you get through this job. Here's my hand to you for a straightfor- ward, honest lad, and no humbug about you. I'll see you a man when you come back to Garroch." When Walter had gone the old gentleman sat twiddling his pen and looking out of the window absently, and smiling at the course he had taken, for his heart said it was creditable. But the questioning habit of his business gradu- ally came back to his head. Why was it that He' Icn, the cranky Englishman, was giving so nnu uaily high a piice for that rock excavation? 16 WALTER GIBBS, Was there some risk in the job of which Walter did not know ? " Well, it's too late now," said Mr. Gemmill, going through the village streets to his tea. "My promise is given. And if there is some unseen tlilliculty before him, I'll just have to trust his young brains to get round it." Meantime Walter had gone home on flying feet, though already his elation at securing the money was giving way to the sense of responsi- bility which he had disavowed. So much to buy; so many men to hire and command; so urgent a need to save the forfeit by getting his men to work within three days I In the cares of the venture he almost forgot that steady, dull pain at his heart, which meant anxiety for the life of his father. As the blue-eyed boy of business went up the front steps of his father's mortgaged home, a younger boy, keen-looking and brown-eyed, came down to meet him. "Well, Sam, how's father now?" said Walter to his brother, " Hsh ! Walter," warned Sam. " He's in the delirium again." TrrK YOUNG BOSS. 17 " Talking about the contract ? " "Yes; it's always the contract, and the mort- [^age, and the forfeit. Now he's got some- tliiiig new. He's talking about a dam a good deal." "Tliat'll be the dam at the Buckstone Bridge, of course. There's no dam on the new contract. It's on the old contract the dam is." "Well, then, he's got the two tldngs mixed up in the delirium," said Sam. " I guess that's it. I suppose Mr. Gemmill won't let you have the money, eh?" "But he's going to." ^'Walter! Going to give you enough to go on witii the job? " "Two thousand dollars." "Oh, bully! Hooray!" "H — sli, Sam. Father may hear." " Well, you are a bu ler, Walter ! And youll be boss! What job are you going to give me?" " Job of going to school five days a week, Sam," smiled W.'dter. "Oh, come now, Walter. You'll want a clerk and timekeeper." "(jiiess not, Sam. I calculate to do all that 18 WALTKU GIBBS, myself. But we'll see. Come, let us go up to mother with the news." As they tiptoed upstairs they coul ' hear the voice of their father in his delirium: — *' Of course, Hebden," cried the injured engi- neer. "Forfeit — that's all right. But oli, the water ! See it rising ! See ! I'm all right, though ; but if the dam goes — that's the trouble. Time is the essence of the contract. Yes, yes. yes. I'll push it. Fifteen hundred dollars' forfeit — all gone, all gone ! The dam, the dam, the dam ! " he wailed, and stopped short, so that complete silence fell on the house. Then, after a con- siderable pause, his incoherent ravings began again. Meantime Walter's mother had come fort!- into the upper hall to meet her boys. "I wonder what dam it is that's troubling father's mind," said she. "Oh, that's the dam he built above Buck- stone Bridge, where he was hurt," said Walter, confidently. " It was a hard job. Father has got all his business all mixed up together, I think. Poor father I IJow long will he be this way, does the doctor say?" THE YOUNG BOSS. 19 "Perhaps three or four days, Wi*xter. The doctor says there's some pressure on his brain, but it will be all right soon. Only father must go south and mustn't bo troubled by business at all for a long time. It will be ^r^+ty liard to keep it from him, though — he will be so anx- ious when he knows the forfeit money is lost." "But it isn't, mother," said Sam. "Oh Walter! Has Mr. Gemmill helped us?" "Yes, mother. I'm to have two thousand dollars' credit, and I must get right to work tliis evening hiring men." "God bless Mr. Gemmill forever!" said Mrs. (libbs fervently. " He trusts my dear son. Oh Walter, if you can supply your father's place ! Wliy, we shall be saved from ruin ! " "I'll do my best, mother. I believe I can run the job. Won't you tell Mary to give" me my tea at once? I must start right out and hunt up Pat Lynch and the men." ■■M CHAPTER 11. SAVING THE FORFEIT. At eleven o'clock in the forenoon of the first of October, Walter Gibbs, with thirty-five men, a blacksmith, and a cook, landed from the Ottawa River steamer Prince George at the lumbermen's villap-e of Elbow Carry. There bad news con- fronted him in the person of James Jaffray, the landlord of the " Royal Arms," a large, white, frame hotel tliat faced the wharf from across a wide space of rock and sand. Behind this hotel the village rambled up the side of a considerable hill. Jaffray, better known as "Windy Jim" to the lumbermen of the Ottawa Valley, was a tall, spare, exceedingly active man of nearly sixty, who had gained a* considerable fortune, mainly from teaming. When gangs of raftsmen had run cribs down the long, crooked, furious Elbow Rapids, J affray's spring wagons took them 30 WALTER filBIiS, THE YOUNG BOSS. 21 quickly over the Carry, seven miles of good road, to the Head, that they might run another lot of cribs the same day. He was the victim of some nervous disease of the eyelids which caused him to wink inces- santly with both eyes while speaking. This gave him a most undignilied and comical appear- ance, quite inconsistent with his shrewd, forci- ble character. It was seldom suspected that Jaffray lived in much mortification because the ludicrous winking still made him a laughing-stock after he had become so wealthy and important that his soul longed for the title of " Squire," com- monly bestowed on a rival tavern-keeper of tri- fling consequence, but come of a " good family." None but a few thirsty bummers about the bar called Jaffray " Squire." To nearly all other men he was known by his youthful nickname of Windy Jim. In business a man never can tell precisely what he gains by good manners and loses by bad. Walter, during his two previous visits to Elbow Carry, had invariably spoken to his host as Mr. Jaffray. Moreover, a sentiment of pity i)0 SALTER GIBBS, for the gray, shrewd man, so unfortunately conipelled to look always ludicrous, had moved the youth to address him with particular polite- ness. Thus he had unwittingly gained a valu- able friend. But it was with no cheering visage that Jaf- fray confronted Walter as he stepped from the gangway to the wharf. " Well, you're here at last ! " said the tavern- keeper. " Yes, sir. I telegraphed you it was impos- sible for me to get away yesterday, as I had hoped. Have you got five teams ready for me?" "Five? Fifty, if you want 'em! But I guess you don't." " No, five will do, Mr. Jaffray," said Walter. " I don't believe you'll need any," retorted Jaffray, ominously. "How's that, sir?" " Hebden says your father has thrown up the contract. Says he'd ought to have had thirty men on the job yesterday. He's gone down there himself with a gang — started at day- light. »» THE YOUNG BOSS. 23 "He hits, has he?" said Walter, reticent, ilioii^'h surprised. " Says your father's forfeited fifteen hundred and the joh." '' Oh, I i^uess not," said Walter, coolly, con- (•(iiiHug his dismay. " How does he make that (>Ut f " Well, this is the first of October. You'd otiglit to have started yesterday." " The contract calls for a start on or before iiie first." ••'It's nearly noon. You can't get started at work ten miles from here to-day, can you ? " " Can't I ? I leave that to you, Mr. Jaffray." " You will, eh ? Level head, my son." The tavern-keeper loved to have things left to his management. He was instantly in action. I lo had a score to settle with Mr. Hebden, for the small Englishman had struck a blow at Jaf- fray's interests by employing the rival tavern- keeper's teams. Mr. Hebden had inherited a lumbering busi- ness from his uncle, who had built it up from headquarters at Elbow Carry. To this the new owner iiad recentl}' come from his oliice as a Si ii I 24 WALTER GlliliS, 8IIU1II solicitor in Eii<;laml. Such wiis tlie man's self-coiilidcncc that he iiuagiiicd liimsclf coinpi:- teiit to manage the very huge and complicattMl "concern," though he "could not tell a cant- hook from a broadaxe," so his foremt^n said. "Bill," shouted Jaffray, to one of his lios- tlers, "get seven teams in right away! Have 'em round in a jiffy. John, run and tell my girls to hustle up grub for forty men — ham 'n' eggs, iried pork, cold beef, tea, anything that's handy — biff, mind! Mr. Gibbs, let your men hurry your truck ashore. Make 'em work like sixty. Then let 'em come straight to the house for grub. You haven't got a minute to spare, but eat men must." The men, who were nearly all IrishniLMi, had already jum])ed to obey Jaffray. Tliey were delighted with tlie prospect of a dinner at the hotel table, quite famous on the river, for they had expected to boil tea on a fire in the open, and feed on cold pork and bread. Moreover, they had heard enough to suspect that their job was threatened, and a fight for possession of thf> ground likely to occur that afternoon. \ THE vol rye jioss. 25 "Come witli inc. Mr. (libbs," said Jaffray, taking VValtui's arm and walking rapidly toward his hotel. " You understand there's no time to lose. That's why I took the liberty (if ordering dinner for your whole gang — not but what it will pay nie, too. And seven teams will hustle us down there faster than live. rU show llebden who he calls Windy Jim!" and his eyes winked with extraordinary (piickness. "Wliydid Mr. llebden take a gang of men down there? That beats me to understand," .said Walter. '' Why, don't you see ? He's bound to claim that forfeit. He's not going to give you pos- session. I'm told he is barricading the road, in case you should come to-day. He won't say it's a l)arricade, but that's what it will amount to. He'll make out lie didn't expect you, and that he's going to work there with a gang of his own, and he'll try to keep you from striking a stroke to-day. To-morrow he'll claim tlie for- feit. Say, where is that money?" "It's in Mr. Bemis's hands, Merchants' Bank branch up the hill." x \ s $ i 26 WALTEii (J inns. " Well, you run right along up there now, my son, and tell Bemis you've got men here — tell him you'll get to work to-day. lie sun; you notify him in writing. Hurry, or he may go out to dinner, and he's got no clerk. You can't afford to wait till he comes back ; wu nnist be out of here in half an hour. I'll show Ilebden who's who at Elbow Carry ! " " All right. But I say, Mr. Jaffray, please tell my foreman that we'll not bother taking the blacksmith's kit along to-day, nor any of the rest of the heavy truck. It'll be enou^^li if we just take drills for all hands, and the big tent and a day's provisions. You can send the rest down to-morrow." " You bet I can ! And you've got a head on you, my son. Leave me to fix things. You scoot for Bemis. Now, don't forget. Notify him in writing, .\ind." So Waiter lan up the hill just in time to find the bank agent locking his door and about to leave for the dinner-hour. " Mr. Bemis, I believe," said Walter. " Yes." " I want to open an account with you," rilK YOUNC It OSS. 27 "Can't you comu in after dinner? " "No, sir, I am liurricd for time." " Well come in," and Mr. Bcmis opened liis door. "(jrarroch local bank, eh?" he said, on takitig iiiul examining the check wliicli Walter tendered. " Mr. (iemmill's check's all right, I supi)ose. Hut how is this? It's not drawn to you." "Yes, it is, sir. My name is Walter Gi])bs." " Pooh ! I know Mr. Walter Gibbs, of Gar- roch, well. He's old enough to be your father." " He is ray father." " Oh, I see ! You're his son, then ? " "That's it, sir. I've come up to start work [it Loon Lake." " Aren't you a day late ? " " The first of October's not gone, sir." "Precisely what I told Mr. Hebden last night." " Did he claim the forfeit ? " "He did. But I told him you might come along to-day." " What did he say to that? " " Well, I don't know but what he was right. Yuu can't get started to-day on the job," f^- ■ ' ' ( 1 ; •■ 1 ( ! li 28 WALTER (unns. « But 1 shall." " How, if you lind a lot of trees sort of acci- dentally felled across the road? " " Surely Mr. Hebden wouldn't do that! " " I didn't say he would. J3ut don't you go making any calculations on Mr. Hebden ; he's a man by himself." " Did he say he'd refuse me possession ? " "I've said too much already. Anyhow, it's none of my affair. Only if he claims forfeit to-morrow and you're not started, what can 1 do?" " You'd hand him the money ? " " Shouldn't I have to? The bond is clear." "All right. Will you kindly let me have pen and paper, Mr. Bemis ? " " Certainly, certainly." Walter went over to the counter and wrote rapidly : — 1st October, 189;}. John Bemi8, Esq., Agent Merchants' Branch Bank, Elbow Carry. Dkau Sir, — I lierel)y give you notice that T will this day begin work with thirty-seven men on my fatlif^r's account ou the Loon Lake drainage contract. And 1 THE YOU NO nOSS. 29 iiotiiy you to hold i\w forfeit moneys depoKited with you in connection with the contract between my father, Wiil- U'l (jihbs, and Howard llebden, Esquire, and to disre- gard any chiim from ]\Ir. llebden tliat the contract has not been Ijegun according to agreement. Yours truly, Walteu Gibbs, Jr. '' Good enougli ! " said Mr. Bemis, reading tliu i)aper. " I dare say you'll be sharp enough for llebden. Down him if you can; nobody will be sorry." It was wonderful how quickly tlio little Englishman iiad arrayed against him all the " Colonials," as he contemptuously called them, of the lumbering country. Walter's men were already feeding hugely when he returned to the hotel. The wagons were waiting for them outside. Fifteen min- utes later Jaffray, witli Walter on one side of him and Pat Lynch on the other, was lashing his horses up-hill at the head of the wagon pro- cessiv^n. " The b'hya is well plazed this day, Misther Walther," said Pat. " Troth and a bit of a ruc- tion would be their delight entirely." " Uh, pshaw, Pat, there won't be any trouble," 30 WALTER GIBBS, " Throuble ! Not the laste in tlie wurrld. Mistlier Hebden has only ten i)ay-soui)s wnX him. Tliiouble, is it? Us agin ten Frinch!" "■ But it wouhl never do to fight them, Pat." "Bedad, I don't know thin. It's paycible men we are. A child might play wid us aftlier the feed Squire Jaffray give us. But it would play puck Avid us if we was kep' out of the job, and as engaged for the fall. Who'd pay us thin, I'd like to know ? " " We'll claim possession, and get it, too, Pat. But surely you're too intelligent to want to start the jol) with a light." " Faix, an' that's thrue," said Pat, plainly flattered, " But if they do be blockin' the road wid trees ? " " How did you hear anything about that? " "Wid my two ears, Misther Walther. Wiui of the min ori the wharf tould me." " Hebden is such a blab," interposed Jaffray, "that he brags of everything he's going to do. But I'll fix him and his barricade." " Phwat way, squire ? " Pat's Irish wits had instantly marked the blandness of Jaffray wlien the title was given him by the men in his bar. THE YOUNG JiOSS. 31 <' We'll circumvent liim." ''jjcgor! That's the schame!" said Pat, ically Duzzled. " Oh, by this aiic^ by that, if I'd a head on me like yourself, sor ! " *' Here's my idea," said Jaffray, turning his face to Walter. " There are two roads around the inarsli. Both lead to the place where your ork lies. Oii'j is ten miles long ; it crosses the jjoutli side of the hay-lands when they're dry, as now. The other is twelve miles ; and it keeps jiigh land to the north of the meadows. Heb- dcii reckons you'll come by the short road ; the other is not used at this season." "Oh, I see. You'll take the long road," said Walter. " Precisely. We'll get to the creek about a quarter of a mile behind him. Bill Hodgins came \r.> r"'ni that way about ten o'clock. He said Ilei. '. .C men were felling trees across the short roaa, m a pinery, just a little on from wliere the road leaves the hay-land. They say the trees are for a new shanty. And that's where you've got to build your shanty if you want it handy to the job." " I bee. We'll circumvent him and get to 32 WALTER am US, work ripfht away," said Walter. " I'm ever so much obliged to you, Mr. J affray, for planning this." " Hold on ! We haven't got there yet," said Jaffray. " There's a danger. He may see us across the marsh on the bare highlands. Some- body lias got tc get him back into the pinery. If he sees us coming he may smell a rat and scoot across with his men and barricade the long road." "And delay us till dark, eh?" " Precisely. Then I don't know but your goose would be cooked." " I'd claim possession," said Walter. " He couldn't refuse it according to the agreement." " Oh, but you want to avoid law-play. He's one of these kind of one-horse lawyers — delay and a suit would just please him. You don't know the kind of a crank he is. You want tn get into possession and at work to-day — then you've got him tight, I guess." " I'll follow your advice, Mr. Jaffray." "And well you might, Misther Walter. Tie jabers ! The squire's got a head on his shoul- ders," put in Pal. (j(i}t- ■' Hi, there! don't you know this isn't a jml)lic roap markt't-L oil the but the potatoes, milk eno None ( at the ( board an t'oiiiiiry For t! making tixed in 1 liverer, f( not he i camp, favored 1 money. Late ir accounts, for next driving t Tliis n must lia- course. THE YOUNG BOSS. 47 ill suitplied. There were few fanners, and no inaiket-garduners nor butchers in that re<^iou on the verge of the great lumbering country; but the men must have fresh meat, butter, eggs, potatoes, onions, cabbage, turnips, and at least milk enough to color their tea and coffee. None of these things could be surely obtained at the Carry, and Walter, after buying a buck- board and horse from Jaffray, had to scour the country far and wide to obtain such supplies. For the fact that his success depended on making his men comfortable became (juickly fixed in his mind. He must be buyer and de- liverer, for the few and scattered farmers could not be induced to bring their things to the camp. Indeed, they seemed to think they favored him in killing a sheep or cow for his money. Late into the night the youth worked at his accounts, his time-book, his cash-book, his plans for next day. Sometimes he fell asleep while driving to and fro. Tins mortified and alarmed him. He saw ho must have an assistant. But who? Sam, of course. So he brought up his younger brother 48 WAi/ri'jii a runs. from Gairocli, and brouglii liim just in time, for two days later the lirst blow of Ilebduii foil licavily. It was lour days after the men liad moved into the new shanty. Their satisi'aetiou in its shelter had begun to make Walter feel that things were going very well. Mists that might be malarial had covered the lowlands above thu tent every morning and evening ; the fog had seemed to penetrate or leak into the canvas, and much the navvies had grumbled of discom- fort and " sick-like " feelings, not wholly imag- inary. Now, with a cheerful open fire in th(3 middle of the roofed shanty, they seemed merry and content. " ]>oss," said Meigs, the blacksmith, to Wal- ter, " Fm pretty nigh out of charcoal." " All right, Meigs. I'll see and get a load down from the Carry to-d.ay." " Oh, to-morrow will do." " All right, Meigs." Charcoal wfis, in a sense, the life of the work. It was necessary to Meigs' sharpening of the jumpers and drills, without which all hands must soon be idle. Now the contract required TITE YOUNd BOSS. 49 llu; work to go on continuously, except in IkuI wt'ather, else daily forfeits would be incurred. Walter had brought a small supply of char- coal from Garroch. He would earlier have onlered more from there had lie not found that the wharfinger at Elbow Carry kept a supply on hand. For this the few blacksmiths of the forest region came many miles, and to this source Walter looked confidently. So he drove in at once to order a load in by one of Jatfray's wagons. " Charcoal ? " said the wharfinger. " I haven't got a bushel." " Why, what's that ? " said Walter, staring at the fresh supply in store. " That's Mr. Hebden's. He bought the whole lot yesterday." '' Well, I dare say he'll sell me a load," for Walter had seen no more of tlie little English- man, and could not credit anybody with per- sistent animosity. '* I guess he won't," said the wharfinger. "Why, what's he need it all for?" " I don't know — maybe he heard you were near out. It's true he needs some for his depot 'way back." 9 60 WALTER aililiS, "I'll sec liim, anyhow," said the youn^ boss, and walked toward the onico of the llebdeu estate. But on second thought he turned l);ick for a moment. " I want you to get in a couple of liundred bushels of charcoal for me right away," he suid to the wharfinger. "All right. It'll bo here in a week." So Walter had settled promptly for at least a future supply. On he went to Hebden's ofTice. " I'm told you've bought all the charcoal in town, sir," said Walter, smiling pleasantly, "and as I'm wanting some, perhaps you'll kindly sell me a load or two." " Perhaps," snapped Mr. Ilebden. " I must have charcoal, you know, sir." "That's what I thought." "What? Did you buy it to cut me out?" " Put it any way yon please. It's mine, and I'll keep it." Walter checked his anger, turned on his heel, and walked over to Jaff ray's hotel in real dis- may. He could think of no other store of char- coal within twenty -five miles, and there was no riiK YOUNG lioaa. 51 niinunvl coal nearer tlian (iarroeli. At this diro point the counsel of Personitied Experience might he valuable. l)Ut Jaffray was not in Elbow CaMy. lie had gone to Pembroke, seventy miles away, and would he absent for three days more. Hy that time, unless Meigs should be supplied with charcoal, all the men on Walter's job would bo idle under pay, for they were liired by the month. Hiring a spring box-wagon witli a speedy team from Jaffray 's stables, Walter appeared at the shanty with an undisturbed countenance at two o'clock that afternoon. Mis one chance was tliat the wharfinger at lilack's Landing, twenty-five miles distant, might have a stock of the necessary charcoal. Thither he meant to drive at once ; but he found at the shanty that "trouldes never come singly." As lie drove through the small pinery and to the shanty door he heard the clink of drills and jumpers sounding merrily, together with the lighter tinkle of Meigs' hammer on anvil and on tools. Walter was resolved to keep those sounds going the next day at the price of driv- 52 WALTER aiuns. I iiig (luring most of tliu uoining night. But n:iv- vies without cooked food will not work, and Sam, on hearing Walter's wagon, came out of the shanty with (juite appalling news. " Duffy's sick I " he said. '' He was taken with some kind of queer pains after you went away. Nothing would do him but his bunk. So there he is, and I guess he's in for a bud illness." " Great Cocsar ! " said Walter. " Who cooked the dinner?" " I did," said Sam, " in a kind of way. There's not another man on the gang that can cook at all." "Bally for you, Sam! " said Walter, heartily. " I don't know what I'd do without you. Do you suppose you can cook a couple of meals more r " I s'pose I could. I can stand it if the men can." " Did they grumble ? " " No — they said I did first-rate. But I know they will grumble. Why, I can't make bread, and what I don't know about soup and baked beans would make a book." THE you NO noss. 58 '' Look here, Sam, you must try to feed them till I ^'et back in the morning. I've got to go to lUack's Landing for charcoaL Don't say a word about it. Is Duffy in pain ? " '' Y(!.s, he is. We've got to fetch in a doctor." 'Sliminy, Sam! But that's so. Now I'll tell you. I must go to Black's and tliat means I can't let you liave my horse. After you get sup- per you scoot over to Ilodgins' farm — it's only four miles — and get him to drive you up to the Carry. Fetch down bread for a couple of days. Try to fetch back a cook. If you can't, you ask Mrs. JafTray to let you have all the cakes and pies shccan. They'll keep the men con- Usnted till to-morrow with your cooking, then ril be back and straighten things out." ''And the doctor?" said Sam. '' Fetch the doctor for Duffy, of course. Thai's Inimanity, and it will please the men, too." '' All right, boss," said Sam, "you can depend on nie. >> While travelling over the long, bad road to Black's Landing Walter reflected with some- thing like fear upon the degree to which the 64 IV ALTER GIBBS, work was dependent on the cook. From that lie pursued a train of thought which convinced him that the blacksmith was still more essential to his success in fulfilling the contract. Cooks might be found without great difficulty in the lumberiiig country, but blacksmiths were few and far between. What if Meigs should fall sick, or suddenly leave at the end of the month,' Sam could take the cook's place for a day or two, but who could take Meigs' ? He had new alarm in thinking of what miglit occur if either of these necessary functionaries should fall sick and strike during his own ab- sence. Walter must go to Garroch for a few- days to hire thirty or forty more navvies, and the cares of office were heavy on him as he re- flected on the possibilities which his absence might leave Sam to encounter alone. His immediate anxieties fell from him, how- ever, when he reached Black's Landing after dark, and found that the wharfinger had charcoal in stock. Giving his horses and himself rest till two o'clock in the morning he took the road back with a full wagon, and reached the shanty just as the men were going to work. " Bedii to-day,'' i and the 1 self is till himself c ,i<:aiii. 1 tiiiin otlu get the e "How' well enoi aftornoor - Well lliravel t( you — an for two y — for a I "Then tired yoi Cany in iiiere hurried tl none waj men were far-away beaten, \^ ^"-H, THE YOUNG liOSS. 55 " Bediid, aiul I was tliiiikin' the job 'ud shtop to-(liiy,'' said Pat Lynch, looking at the charcoal and the blackened young boss. " But it's your* self is tlie manager! Faix, Meigs was consatin' liimself on a holiday. But now we're all light .ijrain. And I'm thinkin' ye'd betther hurry up thim other thirty or forty min if ye want us to get the eight-foot channel done this sayson.'* ''How's Duffy?" asked Walter. "If he's well enough to work I'll start for Garroch this afternoon." '' Well? Bedad, it's worse he is. But he can thiavel to his wife. You'll need to take him wid you — and the docther says he'll be no use here for two weeks. Master Sam does well, though - for a bhy ! " "Then I must get a cook to-day," and the tired young boss was on his way to Elbow Carry in an hour. Tiiere he found no Jaffray. To and fro he hurried tlu'ough the village seeking a cook, but none was to be hired. Already the lumber- men were forwarding gangs and cooks to the far-away shanties for winter's work. Wliolly beaten, Walter returned to the slianty at night, 56 WALTER (UimS, resolving to start for Garroch early next morn- ing, leaving Sam to cook for two days more. From Garroch he would send another cook im- mediately after arriving there. Ikit a great piece of luck seemed to havo befallen him. On entering the shanty while Sam was serving supper, Walter saw a singular- looking, almost luunpbacked little man assisting to pass the dishes. "Here's a cook for you, Walt," said Sam. " You ? " cried Walter, gazing with delight on the stranger. " Yes, sir, I'm lookin' for a jawb. I'm a pystry byker by tryde. My name is Jorrocks, Bob Jorrocks." " You're a Londoner, I see, Jorrocks. Did you ever cook in a shanty ? " " Ho, bless you, I 'ad a jawb at cookin' ven I vas hup for 'Ebden's." "Did he take hold at cooking supper well Sam?" asked Walter." " I vas too much done bout vith valkin' to pret supper, sir, but I'll show you in the mornin'." " I'm going away before dayliglit," said Wal- ter, " but if you were up for Hebden's last win- ter >) THE YOUNG BOSS. 57 "I vas, sir. Mr. 'Ebdeii told mo he'd 'card you vaiited a cook." He pronounced all liis (l()iil)le o\s like "oo" in boot. " Well, that was pretty decent of Mr. Ilebden, ;it'lur all," said Walter, surprised. '' Vot vages, sir?" put in the cockney. "Tliirty dollai"S a month if you can cook well." "Hall right, sir. I hengages for a month. You'll see — I'm a pystry byker by tryde." It was soon obvious that the little man under- stood dishwashing at any rate, for he helped Sam with alacrity. Walter, worn out, went to bed early and slept heavily till Sam woke him at earliest dawn. The new cook was raking the fire together skilfully. "Oh, I guess you'll do, Jorrocks," said Wal- ter, gladly. " Me, sir ? Vy, I'm a pystry byker by tryde ! " So Walter drove away 'ith Duffy and a light heart, breakfasted at Jaffra 's, and as the steamer took him down the broad, biown stream, rejoiced exceedingly that Sam was delivered from hid troubles. But alas, poor Sam ! CHAPTER IV. A SUBSTITUTE FOR MEIGS. At Garroch Walter was busy for three days — hiring navvies, buying supplies, and explain- ing the situation of the contract to Mr. Gemmill, who was much pleased with his prot^igd's energy and clearheadedness. " Man, but you're developing, WiiUy ! " said the banker. " It's only three weeks since you started, and you're a man .already. I'm think- ing the responsibilities will be heavy enough oii ye now." " I feel them, sir," said Walter, soberly. " 1 >ut I think I can carry them. If only I could have seen my father — and mother, too ! " " Aye, I was thinking ye'd be a bit homesick, lad. House all shut up, eh ? Looks lonely like. Well, if your father was there, ye couldn't talk business with him. Doctor Mostyn wouldn't let ye. He says your father must just have his 68 WALTER GIBBS, THE YOUNG BOSS. .GO brain resting for many a week to come. Have you heard from your mother since tliey went south ? " '•'■ Yes, sir, there was a letter here for Sam, and I opened it. They'd got as far as Washington. Fiitlier was improving." *'I make no doubt hell be all right, lad. And I'm deceived if you don't make a pretty penny while he's gone." This was the hope that sustained the young boss in his labors. But sometimes a dreadful thought assailed him. What if he were neg- lecting some part essential to the completion of the job ? What if his father had foreseen some pjreat dillficulty of which Walter was unaware ? Wliat if that were the reason he had demanded prices so high, and especially high for the deeper excavation which Walter had undertaken, and on account of which he was doubling the force of his gang? But the youth could imagine iiotliing for which lie had not provided, and he was always soon able to shake off these fears. On the fourth day after leaving Sam, Walter arrived at Elbow Carry with thirty-seven men, including a new cook, for two cooks would be 60 WALTER a Hi US, needed for the doubled foree. He did not bring a seeond bliieksmith. Meigs eould do all the work, for the steel points lasted well in drilling the soft limestone, and Walter meant to give Meigs an inerease of pay. lie had mueh confidence that this essential man wouhl not leave him without long notice. The young boss, honest himself, reckoned on finding all men "square." Jafliay met Walter with effusion and inces- sant two-eyed winking. "By golly," he cried, "you have })rought a big gang ! " Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. " That's right ; Ilebden will have to pay the shot, anyhow." " Wliy shouldn't he ? " asked Walter. "What? You ain't twigged that point yet? Didn't I tell you he's got no real use for that channel you're making?" "Yes; but why did lie make the contract?" " Because he's a pig-1 ^aded English green- horn, that consults no man of sense. Because his head is full of old-country notions a])out tlio advantage of draining fens. Don't you see it yet?" THE YOUNG BOSS. 61 " No, I don't. The land will be well drained, won't it ? " " You bet it will. But never mind. Don't say a word, I tell you. I'll explain it to you ill time. Mum, mind you. And I guess you're needed at the job right away." Leaving his men and supplies to be for- warded by wagons, Walter hurried rapidly with a liglit buggy to the shanty and Sam. On entering the door he found his young brother greasy, tired-looking, busy about the fire, while Jurrocks was washing the dinner dishes. " Why, what on earth, Sam ? You cooking ? " cried Walter. Jorrocks turned his head away, ai :1 seemed to shriidt deep into his boots. " I've been cooking right along," said Sam. "Jorrocks may be a pystry byker, but in beans- byking and potato-biling and pork-cooking — Great Scott ! " "Can't he cook?" " Cook ! No more than a baby ! " " What do you mean by such a trick ? " cried Walter, angrily, to Jorrocks, who turned to face him with hands extended in oxplanatioji. "Let him be, Walt. He's a good cook's ml 62 WALTKH GTBnS, mate, anyliovv. I don't know what I'd have (h)m3 without him," said Sam. " But you tokl me you could cook ! " sliouted Walter to Jorrocks. "No sir, please. Hi told you Ili'd 'ad a jawb of coo-kin'. I vas coo-ook's mate ven 1 vay Imp for 'Ebden's, and I thowt lli'd learned enough. Hut now Hi know Hi didn't learn nothing to speak of." " Well, you are a queer rascal ! " " No, sir, please. Honly too 'opeful." " And you're not a pastry-baker by trade?" "H'im sorry Hi lied about that, sir. But Hi wanted a jawb so bad ! I vas so hungry, sir ! " The little man looked so repentant and comi- cally impudent at once that Walter both pitied and laughed at him. Tlien the face of Jorrocks clcrired, and he came forward with a confidential air. " The trewth is, sir," he said, striking a proud attitude, " Hi'm an 'oss-jawckey by tryde." " A horse-jockey ? " " Yes, sir. Hi've rode at Hawscot and Noo- market, and the Curragh of Kildare wunct, and rrrE young noss. en I tliowt liif Hi ciould do that, I could do liaiiy- tliiiig-" "Cook, eh?" "Coo-ook? Yes, sir, good enough for a h)t of Ilirish." '' Well, you're the most impudent specimen ve met. '^ That's wot Mr. 'Ehden told me, sir. Ho W(-o-nldn't give me me py. ' Go down to the Loon Lake jawh.' says 'e. ' Hi'm told tliey want a coo-ook like you there.' " *'0h, that was how he came to send you, eh? And he wouldn't pay you ? " "No, sir, and Hi vas dead broke. So vot could a poor man do ? Lord, sir, if honly you'd let me sty on ! " " Bob Jorrocks is a good cook's mate," said Sam again. " I like Bob Jorrocks though he's siicli a shocking humbug." " Tliank you, sir," said Jorrocks. " He can help the new cook ; you're fetching one up, aren't you, Walt?" said Sam, laughing. "If you'll 'ire me hover again, you'll iind Hi'U do more than my dooty, sir." Bob touched hit; forelock to Wg-lter. 64 WALT Eli Glints, " You can stay at twelve dollars a month, that rate of wages to begin when you started, Jor- rocks," said Walter. Jorrocks had probably won this concession by his very deferential manners, for all boys like to be treated as important men. "Hall right, sir!" cried Jorrocks, much re- lieved. ''Hand Ili'U get lieven with "Ebdeii yet, too. Hi've got something to tell you, sir. It's my dooty, now Ili'm 'ired." " What do you mean, Jorrocks?" Jorrocks drew Walter to one side and whis- pered, "Wot if your blac smith was going to leave?" Walter stared at Jorrocks with something like horror. Meigs had been engaged and under pay nearly a week before the job began. His month would be out on the morrow. He could tlien legally go. If he should do so, seventy men would be thrown idle till Walter could bring on another blacksmith. Black- smiths were scarce. And forfeits would be in- curred by stopping the job for anything but bad weather. "What makes you think he's going?" asked Walter. THE YOUNG BOSS. 66 "Mr. 'Kbduii, sir," whispered Jorroeks. **'E viis down 'ere at noon yesterday. Hi see 'im liikiir IMeigs into the woods, so I foUered 'em very (juiet, and 'eard 'ini hoffer Meigs ])ig py to go to liis depot shanty and hlaeksniith there," ami Jorroeks went on detailing all he had over- luianl. Thus Walter, by his leniency to the "'oss- jawi'key," had received a valuable Avarniug. lie muditiited over the information carefully. It seemed to him that he might at once triumph over and hold Meigs by good management. Accordingly, in the shanty tliat evening — the shanty noisy with the loud talk between two largo gangs of Garroch navvies who had not seen eaeli other for nearly a month — ho waited, with good-natured looks, for the blacksmith to spring the surprise which he thought he had in store. Walter had spent a good many odd hours of boyhood in watching Garroch blacksmiths at work, and he had also carefully observed Meigs's manipulation of the drilling tools. He won- dered if another blacksmith would be so very hard to find. It was not till most of the men had turned 66 WALTER (;HUIS, into tlitiir bunks tliiit tluj hliicksmitli shUlmI urouiid t,'ia{liiiilly till ho sat by Walter. Mui^'s was a broad-faced, blaek-haired, olive-tinted niiiu of tliii'ty-five, who had worked in many sliops, and felt himself so vastly experienced that ho could easily " euchre " a mere boy; He spoke in a woolly, wheedling voice, with a most defer- ential air: — " There'll be a sight of work for a man tluifs a blacksmith here after this, Mr. Walter. Sev- enty men and more now ! " " Yes ; no more loafnig for you, Meigs," said Walter, sharply. " Well, sir, I don't know as I've been doin' im loafin' as I knows on," said Meigs, in the toiiu of an injured, patient man. " I'm not complaining of you, Meigs. There'll be about twice as many points to sharpen now, that's all." " A man might say that it'd ought to be a bit more pay for a man as is a good man at his trade, sir." " Yes, a man might. And a man might he far wrong if he did say so." Meigs looked suspiciously at Walter's impas- ^ij\ sivc fact ;is his carry . "Oil, more \)i\ hut yitu' my moil ''So i .hist sit^i tin^ hy and the Thou<] alacrity ( ^'action r that it 1 the cash " I don't not I stai " Wen '' Well my such seems to wants a I'ight alo "Certa TirE YOUNG nos8. 67 \' sivf face. It l)utokened no such bantering'' spirit ;us liis sliglitly mocking tones had sucnied to (.'iirry. "Oh, well, Mr. Walter, I ain't lieard of no iiioro pay for me yet, sir. Not as Tni douhtin' Imt you'll do tlie right thing, Mr. Walter. And my month's pay is due to-night." ''So it is. And here's your money, Meigs. Just sign the pay-sheet." Walter had been sit- uut sixt break fa Walt( iuty til., sure of s failed, tl Meii^'s (1 laun'h at ar.tliority Hut ii could no llu; hlacls men to I it was, li were nar: tioii that more lio]: so give tl coming w completet Pat Ly it down \ THE YOlJNii nous. 71 riirs when he rose in the morning. What could tlio young boss be up to ? ''Anyhow," said Moigs to liimself, "I ran wt sixty from llebden, and I'll start after breakfast." Walter ate that meal with mueh more anx- iety th.m he showed. He coidd not be quite sure of success in what he meant to try. If he failed, the job would stop for da}s — in case Meigs departed. If he failed, his men would laugh at him more or less secretly, and his authority would be hopelessly impaired. r>ut he knew he must tak(i the risk. lie could not afford to be bullied by Meigs, for the blacksmith's success might set all the other men to l)ullying for an advance of wages. As it was, he felt that the quick-witted Irishmen were narrowly watching him, in some expecta- tion that he would "squeeze" Meigs, but with more hope that Meigs would s([ueeze him, and so give them a line of policy for the end of the coming week, when many of them would have completed their first month's engagement. Pat Lynch put a coal on his pipe, crammed it down with a stick, and threw his blouse over 72 WALTKli (liniiS, liis sliouldurs. It was the signal for goin^ t , work. Sovtiiity men followed him. WalkT went, too. Meigs, packing liis clothes-bag, felt at once very mean and angry. lie knew that tlu'ic were not tools sharpened lor lialf a day's work. He seemed to feel the eyes of Sam, Jorrocks, and the new cook sticking into liis back. They only were left in the shanty with the blacksmith. No words were exchanged. Sam, relieved from cooking, was shrewdly watchincr Meigs. " Clank-clank-clonk — tripp"ty't rip-trip — clanh, trip^ clank.,^'' came the sound of drills and strik- ing hammers. Soon the chorus of steel on rock was at its merriest. Meigs listened with d(3ii- sion. Every stroke would dull steel points. No blacksmith to make them good ! IMcisTfs sat down — the clanking deeply impressed liim with a sense that Walter must come back mid offer him his own terms. But wliat was that small beatino". nuicktr tlian any other, tliat suddenly came into tlu' jno;tailic din? Meigs started up in amazement. sSjii' lift kne liiiiDMiei him; rlatiki'tii luuiinier ;il work Sam pickud 1 road for stinging TIku'i' tiling the leiice con now," the little, the the pinei'} They se like a for hmy youi mean, me Voii were llo-ho-ho. Whore c blacksmith new men \ ■At.'sJW-, »>^^\ '-.'.m'^'-k THE YOUNd JiOSS. 73 lit; know well the note of his own anvil and liainnitT No, liis ears must liave detiuived liiiii I There was now no anvil sound. Then danketjj -clink eanie a<:^ain the clear ringing- of lianuiier on steel. Yes, there was a blacksmith at work ! Saiu grinned to see Meigs wonder. Meigs picked up liis bundle, and took the straight road for Ilebden with the boy's crackling laugh stinging his ears. There was silence at the anvil now. " He's tiling the red point," thought Meigs. The si- K'lice continued. " He'll be tempeiing the steel now," thought the blacksmith. Then, after a little, the merry anvil notes came again tlirough the pinery to the walking man. They seemed to taunt him with having acted like a fool. They clinked, " You're going to hiiry yourself far in the woods. You've been moan, mean, mean. You don't want to go. Yon were blufBng. And a boy called you down, lio-ho-ho, Jim Meigs — mean, mean, mean!" Wliere could Walter have concealed the new blacksniitli ? Who was he? Was he one of tlie new nii'ii who had passed as a navvy? Meigs' 74 WALTER uinns, curiosity uvuruiuue liiiii. llo laid liis huiuUo down by the roadside, and cautiously stole iluougli the pinery to reconnoitre the forge. Could he trust his eyes ? From tlie edge of the wood lie could clearly see the new black- smith, who was plying the hammer rather awk- wardly but still effectively. How on eartli could he have picked up so mucli knack? Then it flaslied on jNIeigs that the sliarpen- ing of drill and jumper points was so sim[»l(! an operation that it could be safely left — all ])ut the tempering — to young apprenr<;cs. Meigs remend)ered how quickly he himself had, at eighteen, learned the trick of heatini]!'. Iiamraering, and filing the points. " The youiiK boss was always miglity liandy," reflected I Ik blacksmith ; for it was Walter Jiimsclf who stood at the anvil ! " So this is what the young boss h/W |fjrke(l up whiJu watching mc,''<'lf nful other lAm ' smiths at work!" tliought Meigs. lie IduI liimself often unconsciously been giving Wal- ter lessons at odd times in that very ioivy,. But was it possible the lad could have eaiiLjlit the secret of tempering the points? Meiu'^ could lie the cove the forgi Tlie bi the coini upon til thrust a lie gave Meigs, d it, yet se eye. A strav orange, wi '!)•' thickc ' 'i]ge i't.>L vesti^ he (hill d '.'hilo hti H 'rew fortli of inquiry I'he jou stared at '^^u^^h job, J<'iew that THE YOUNU BOSS. 75 could no longer restrain his curiosity. He left tlic cover of the pines, and wjilked straight for the forge. Tliu hack of Walter's flannel shirt was toward thu coming hlacksmith. Just as Meigs came u[)()n tlic cinders round the anvil Walter ihmst a point into the half-barrel of water. He gave it a flourish in the very manner of Meigs, drew it forth and gazed intently at it, yet seeing Meigs out of the corner of his eye. A straw ^ojor, ))lont with tints of blue and orange, was ({Hl^^HMi^ nn the hot point. From '))'■ tliickest part the blue stole slowly to the iflge. Just as it was chasini: away the last vestiges of straw color Walter plunged the drill deep into the water ;.uij«l id it there, vliik ho sfuiled amiably Jit Meig^. Then he i\\^yf forth the tool and flun^j it witli a look of inquiry at the blacksmith's feet. The journeyman picked up the drill, luid stared at it with new surpriH(!. It wiih a HMij^h job, but the temper was perf»}<;t. Meigs knew that the jumper would (h). Ih was fairly beaten ut jdl points, and he 76 WALTER ainiis, was Olio of the men who are not bad fellows wlieu eompletely overcome. " Mr. Walter, you're a mighty smart younji; chap," said Meigs. "I don't want to go any- how. I'll own up I was partly blullin'." *' You used me meanly, Meigs." " I did, and I'm sorry for it." "Say no more," said Walter. "I'm glad you'll stay. I guess I could do the trick for three or four days, Meigs, but I don't want to. Will you take right hold? I'll give you lifty dollars a month and you'll sign for the job." " Done," said Meigs, heartily. And so that trouble passed })y the young boss. But it had not passed for Meigs yet. That night tlie Irishmen chaffed him unmercifully. They requested him to " put his head to sofik." Tliey admonished him to "kape it safe in a bag." Tliey assured him " the young boss does be thinkin' wid his liead whilst ye'n' shnorin', and that's the way lie's too shmart fm schamers." i5ut Meigs ])ore all philosophically. He even requested Walter to abstain from trying to check the dialling men. tet "It [A villains,' •• lUathur only a h somo day yourselve know, tin tfetiiur wi ilivilmuiit THE YOUNG BOSS. 77 ) "It pleiiscs you mid it don't hurt nic, you villains," ho hiughud, for lio did not hick spirit. "l)hitliur away and bo hanged to you. You'ro only a lot of wild bog-trotters anyhow. And somo (lay you'll get a taste of the young boss yourselves, or I dunno. There's one thing I know, thougli — I never saw so many Irish to- 1,'otlier without them going in for some kind of (liviluicnt a<;ainst the contractor." CHM'TER V. NO END OF TllOUBLES. With liis blacksmith and cook engaged up to the end of tlie job, with plenty of eliarcoal arranged for, with seventy men chinging away and regarding him as a young miracle of man- agement, Walter felt the ground to be solid under his feet. He completed his sense of security by inducing Jaffray to buy and seiul down the fresh supplies the shanty neeiU-d daily, and then, freed from minor cares, lie turned his attention seriously to an important question. The end of October had come. An estimate of the amount of rock excavated was to be made. According to the contract, this calcula- tion should be prepared by Mr. Leclerc, a sur- veyor whose headquarters were at Elbow Cany. He was to act for Mr. Hebden in the matter. But Hebden had not sent Leclerc to make 78 WALT Kit a I mis, TIIK YOUNG BOSS. 79 tilt! nieasuroments. From this WalUi' icjirud that the cninky little Eii^lislinuin meant to (Ichiy paymont of the estimate, which would bo (liiu oil tile fifth of November. Wiilter would soon need money. The credit 1,'iveii him by Mr. Gemmill was nearly ex- liiULstud, for the demands on it had been greJiter than were foreseen. And the young boss felt luuch puzzled to know how he might best com- pel Mr. liebden, whose disposition was intensely litiL,'ious, to pay over the cash needed for the oDining month. At this crisis he bethought him nf the winking wisdom of Jaffray, and went to the Curry to obtain the hotel-keeper's advice. ''You've done well to come to me," said Jaf- fray, closing both eyes for a full minute and pon- dering the problem. " See now, — can you make the estimate yourself? Of course you can." "Yes, I'v*' made it already. No trouble in that. It was an easy job of cross-sectioning." "I reckoned it would be," said Jaffray, ignor- ing that he himself did not know what cross- sectioning meant. " Well, then, why not go straight ahead? Why not present your esti- mate to Hebden?" Ai «!^^^ ^^ ^^-^ c\ ^ -^ %^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-S) ^ L<>/ 1.0 I.I Mmi^^J (SO "^" 1.4 22 2.0 ^ 18 1.6 e m.> m a; w 4\fJ w ^'% *^a m ^ Hiotographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STItEET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 m3 k.y ^^\ •c^■ % V ^^<> '^ %' '%'■ «■« r " 15ut it's got to bu certified by Mr. Leclcrc." "Certiliod by him, uh? Is Leclerc at Iioukj?" "Yes. But lie won't go down without irel> den's orders, liebden was to i)ay him for milk- ing the estimate. That's r»ot much of a job." " How h)ng would it take him to do it, my son f " Five hours, maybe — surely less than a da3%" " Did you offer to pay him for doing it? " " No, I never tliought of that. You see he was to act for Hebden. Periiups he'll act for me." " You'll find he'll act for a ten-dollar bill. If lie don't, he'll hear from me. He's owing me fifty-seven doUara for teaming these two ye.ar back. Say, you're just as free to hire Leclerc as you are to hire anybody else. Go and hire him, then." Walter found this very easy. The ten-dollar bill and the mention of Jaffray's name were enough for the impecunious surveyor. " Certainly," said he, slowly. " I s'pose Im free to take pay to work for you or anybody else. But you don't expect Hebden will honor the estimate I make as your agent ? " THE YOUNG BOSS. 81 "We'll see about that," said Walter, guided by Jaffray's instructions. So Leclerc went down to the shanty, checked Winter's cross-sectioning, prepared three copies of the estimate for October, made affidavit to its correctness, and departed with his ten-dollar bill. Then Walter, by Jaffray's counsel, sent one copy to Mr. Bemis, the bank agent at the Carry, with a notification that he would claim three thousand dollars' forfeit, as well as the amount of the estimate, in case it was not pnid by the fifth of November. He sent .1 similar notification, with another copy of Leclerc's esti- mate, to Mr. Hebden, and anxiously awaited results. " You'll see he'll come down all right," said Jaffray. " He'll see you've got ready for a law- suit, and he'll know you've jot him tight." 'But if he don't come down? " " Then you'll shove the work right along, and he'll have to pay the cost, besides the forfeit." "Yes, if I had money, but I'm nearly out. And if I don't get the job done by the first of January, then we forfeit all due, and fifteen hundred dollars besides." 82 WALTEK aiUDSy ii^ .1 i;!!l«)l|«H "Geewliittiiker, son! It looks likc's if I'd liave to wake llubdcii uj) about that hay soon- er'n I calcuhited.'' "I don't understand what you mean, Mr. JalTray." "That's kind of queer, too, son. I?ut you will when tlie time eonies. Ain't 1 ever told you that the old llebden that's dead contraciud to give me the cutting of live hundred acres of wild hay off that marsh for three years to come?" "I didn't know that. But what's that got to do with it, sir?" "Beats all how little young folks do see!" said Jaffray. " Get your thinker to work on it. I ain't going to tell you. All I say is, keej) mum. I don't want Hebden to get out too fttsy. What scares me is that your cash is run- ning out. But just wait till the fifth — then we'll know." During the three days which elapsed before the money for the estimate was due Walter did put his 'thinker" to work, as Jaffray had ad- vised. But as he knew nothing of agriculture or the habits of wild hay on the particular land involved, or its value in a lumbering country, Tllh' YOUNd noSS. 83 he still failed to uiidorsUind the bearing of t}io hotel-keeper's remarks. On the afternoon of the fifth Waltei drove up to the branch bank at Elbow Carry. He was deeply anxious. Some of his men had demanded advances which he could not pay unless Il'ebden sliould have paid the estimate. He owed Jaf- fray over two hundred dollars for su[)plies and teaming. He feared that his men would quit work if they found him in financial dilliculties. Again he was absorbed in the opinion that ho must finish the job to get a profit from it. He longed, too, for the satisfaction of completing it. What man of action but dislikes to abandon work partly done, even if paid for the part? To compel Mr. Hebden, by slow process, to pay the whole outlay, and damages besides, would be, Walter felt, poor consolation for stopping the job. Besides, where could his father find money for a lawsuit ? So it was with a compli- cation of fears at his heart that the young boss entered the branch ])ank. " Mr. Remis, has Mr. Hebden paid that esti- mate?" asked Walter. " Yes, this morning." ¥ m i i 84 WALTER GIBBS, Walter's heart jumped so big with joy that it seemed to Hoat him off the office floor. "I'm glad of that," he said as calmly as pos- sible. " I was needing money. I'll just draw out five hundred dollars." " I'm afraid you can't, young man." " No — why not ? " Walter almost shouted. " It's not paid to your order. It's paid to Walter Gibbs, senior, your father." " I'm acting for him — ■ it's all right." " Have you power of attorney ? " "No— but — " " You can't draw a cent of the estimate with- out it." " But my father is two thousand miles away, and he can't do any business." " I'm afraid that was Hebden's calculation," said Mr. Bemis. " I'm sorry, but so it stands. I've no authority in the world to pay out any of that money to your father's son." The young boss walked out into the crisp No- vember weather feeling as if his brain were para- lyzed. He could see that he had no resource against Hebden. Hebden had complied with the contract. Walter had but seventy-two dol- w. TUE YOUNG liOSS. 85 lars to his credit. More than that was needed tliat very afternoon. It he failed to make the small advances that his men had asked, they would suspect him of heing bankrupt. And if they should strike work, his father would be ruined. Ilebdcn could claim forfeit, and prob- a])ly largo damage^ also, for delay. Experienced people may think it strange that Walter's mind did not instantly turn to Mr. Geraniill ; but he had grown into a habit of til inking that ho would repay part of Mr. Gem- iniU's advance out of this very estimate. The idea of appealing to the kind banker for more aid had been wholly outside of his calculations. Now he was so disturbed, and felt so much need for a period of reflection, that he desired to con- ceal himself even from Jaffray, who liad sud- denly become to his eyes a creditor whom ho could not pay. Jaffray, however, was not so easily avoided, lie came out to the shed when Walter went there for his horse, and insisted on learning the particulars. "Ho, son! "cried the tavern-keeper, "Hebden's acted right enough. What are you troubled 86 WALTER GIBBS, i about? Why, you're all right; no bones broken that 1 can see. Telegraph to Mr. Genimill." "But I can't ask liim for more money." " Oh, go 'way ! He deals in money. It's no favor. He'll make you pay for the accommoda- tion." "But I can't give him a cent of security." " Well, son, you're pretty green at business. Don't you see that the money Hebden has puid to your father's credit is Mr. Gemmill's good- enough security for advances to you? It lies to your father's order. Gemmill will get a check from your father by mail on Bemis. Pooh ! I'm surprised at you feeling beat. Why, I'll let you have five hundred dollars myself as quick as wink," and then Jaffray colored fiery red at his own apparent allusion to his own infirmity. "Thank you, Mr. Jaffray; you're awfully kind to me," said Walter. " I don't know what I'd have done without you." "Oh, I guess you'd wriggle through," said Jaffray. "You're polite and you're modest, and you know enough to take advice from Experience. That's why I like you. Then you THE YOUNG BOSS. 8Y ain't always leaning on somebody else, either. You can do for yourself lots of ways — uncom- mon well, too. ril bet you'll make a first-class man. And besides, I've got a sharp stick for Hcbden, and you're the chap that's going to drive it in," for the tavern-keeper's vindictive- ness to an enemy was as constant as his hel[)ful- ness to a friend. He never forgot that Hebden had called him Windy Jim to his face, besides interfering with his teaming business. So the young boss returned to the shanty with money in his pocket and hope high in his heart. It seemed to him, though, that the men were surprised at his readiness to make the usual advances. Had Mr. Hebden already spread a rumor that he wl^ in financial distress? If so, he quieted the fears of the navvies for the moment. But it was with anxiety that Walter noted the signs that trouble was ready for him if Mr. Gem- mill should fail to supply his need. A strike ? A strike would be ruinous, for there was little enough time remaining to complete the work, enlarged as it had been by his undertaking the deep cut. Walter had even thought of putting up another shanty and employing fifty more men. 88 WALTER GllinS, On tlie morning of the sixtli of November he started again for (iarroeli, feeling it would Ik; better to see bis banker faee to face. And the last tiling be said to 3*at Lyneb, bis foreman, was tins : — " Pat, take on any good men tliat come to bire. I'll spread it at tbe Carry tbat you want quarrymen. We could bunk ten more. I want tbe job rusbed from tbis out," for now the tbougbt tbat tbe rainy season was nigb at band worried tbe young boss, tbougb be bad no ade- quate notion of tbe immense trouble it would give bim. Mr. Geromill made no difficulties about renew- ing Walter's credit. " I'm pleased witb you, lad, for coming to face me. You'll find it always good policy to see the man you're dealing witb in tbis world. Yon man Jaffray is a sensible creature — if he is a tavern-keeper — but it's a trade I despise. " I'll just drop a line to your motber, and to you, too, on this business," he went on. " It's likely your father will be able enough to send me a check, and if he's not, your mother can act for him. Tell her all you've been doing on the THE YOUNG TiOSS. 89 job, in Ctose your fiithur may be able to take an interest. And mind I'm trusting you to tell mo every time as promi)Uy as this time, of any dilU- ciilty that occurs." Walter wrote tlio suggested letter to his mother without an idea of the degree in which it would alTect liis future operations, and hurried back to Elbow Carry and his shanty at all speed. It was two o'clock in the atiernoon of Novem- kr the eighth when he again lieard the clank- injT of his drills and the tinkling of Meigs' hammor on anvil and steel. liut somohow the din sounded slow and dull. "Is it," thought Walter, " that the haze of the warm November day, the blaze of autumn on the hilU, the brown grasses of the marsh, the seeming sleepiness of tlie air, affect my senses ? Or are the men really dawdling at their work ? " Jorrock and the cook were certainly not dawd- ling in the shanty, but were actively cleaning up after dinner and preparing a baking of bread. Sam was not there. Walter but looked into the shanty when he asked, "Where's my brother?" '"'E's down at the jawb, sir," said Jorrocks, and came to the door as Walter went out. " Mr. 90 WALTER GIB as, Walter," wliispured the little man, " tliere's troul)le a-brevvin'." " What do you mean, Jorrocks ? " " It's got about that you're 'ard up for cash." " Pooh — that's not so. Are you afraid of your pay, Jorrocks ? " " Not me, — no, sir, Hi'd stand by you if I vas, — you treated me so decent. But that there llirish foreman has took on noo men. One of 'em's a reg'lar mutinous duffer. It's him is spreadin' the stories. 'E used to work for 'Eb- den and 'e lives in vun of 'Ebden's 'ouses and Hi'm thinkin' it's 'Ebden that's sent him 'ere to make all the jolly trouble 'e can. Mr. Sam is watching 'im — 'is name's Schlitzer — 'e's a big Prooshun." "And the men have got it into their heads that I can't pay?" " That's it, sir. They been a-talkin' strike." " I'll soon settle that," cried Walter, angrily, and walked straight through the pinery to the work. He was somewhat fatigued by his journey and two nights of bad sleep. At the thought of the men discrediting him his heart was hot. He Tin: YOUNG BOSS. 91 knew lie had done moni than ais duty by tlieiii ; tukon much trouble to give thorn more than usuiil comfort; made unusual advances to them, [111(1 altogether deserved kindness at their hands. So his temper was hot when he came to the edge of the excavation, and saw the gang strung along the creek bed, making a mere pretence of work. Sam hurried across the excavation to meet Walter. "I don't know what's got into the men," said Sam. " Pat's half afraid to drive tliem. Sec that big fellow across there? That's a Prussian named Schlitzer. Pat says he's been telling the men that Hebden says you're dead broke, and they won't get their pay." Walter left Sam and walked straight across the channel to the big Prussian, a tall, very powerful, fair-haired, sullen-looking man, who was distinctly loafing instead of plying the ball drill against which he leaned. "Get a move on you there, my man," said the young boss, sharply. Then he called to the foreman, " Lynch, what's this man doing here ? Is he paid for standing idle ? " Instantly at his word of sharp command, the 92 WALTER GIBBS, drills and jumpers rang witli activity. All but that of the Prussian. He sneered insolently in Walter's very face and said, loudly : — " Pay — vot pay ? You don't got no money for pay, dot so — ya, dot so." '' I've got money for you right now," said Walter. "Sam, what's this fellow's time'' I^ynch, I wonder you didn't sack him long ago." Now Walter had made a great mistake "n speaking thus, in interfering with his foreman in the presence of the men. Pat hung back sulkily, the sound of the drills fell away to a little clinking, a strike seemed imminent, and Schlitzer, feeling enraged, threw himself into a defiant attitude. The next moment he had called Walter a foul name, and the moment afterwards Walter's indignant list smashed full into the Prussian's face. The young boss had lost his head en- tirely with rage at the vile insult, and in an instant the navvies were crowding round the fight. Walter was a very powerful and active yonth, but Schlitzer was a giant. He wa,s not, how- ''%''aiit ;|„vu ^cWv..^ Ilic giant threw his arm Imck to luiigi', and drovi' the broadened {>oint straight at Waller's head. TUE YOUNG BOSS. 93 ever, a boxer. Long trained in Prussian mili- tary service, he looked to weapons. As Walter drew back, suddenly quite cool and ashamed in clearly seeing himself wrong, and yet by his coolness all the more efficient for fighting, the Prussian stooped for a tamping iron about three feet long. One blow of it would have dashed out any man's brains. He was Hfting it madly, when Walter, closing in at a bound, seized it in his left hand. For an instant they stood, faces close to- gether. Schlitzer tugged twice at the iron. It seemed as if his wrath had driven him out of his senses. His eye fell on the ball drill standing in its hole close by. Accustomed to l)ayonet exercise, his hands left the tamping iron to Writer and snatched up the drill. It was about seven feet long, a heavy, sharp- pointed, terrible weapon. The giant threw his arm back to lunge, and drove the broadened point straight at Walter's head. There was a clash of steel — with the tamp- ing iron Walter weakly warded the murderous thrust. Rut the ward was enough — that and Walter's quick dodging of his head aside. The 94 WALTER GIBBS, m point of the drill barely grazed and cut his left ear. Had it struck liis face it would hnve passed through, and a foot beyond his head. As Walter threw out his left hand and grasped the drJl he heard clear above the shouts of the men the voices of Sam, of Meigs, of Pat Lynch and of Jorrocks, all trying to reach the scene of combat. " Knock the murdherous vilyan down, wiiu of ye ! " yelled Pat. " Let me through," shouted Sam, trying to scramble over the very shoulders of the crowd to Walter's aid. " Give it to him, boss," roared Meigs. " Hi'll show the bloomin' Prooshiau ! " screamed Jorrocks, and strangely, it wiis from his path only that the crowding men fell back, some with howls of agony. Schlitzer had wrenched the drill from Walter's weaker grasp, and thrown himself almost into position for another lunge. In that instant Walter felt that his life was to pay for his moment of wild anger. A terrible meaning was in the Prussian's fierce blue eyes. It went from them suddenly, and he screamed THE YOUNG BOSS. 9/5 m with pain. His mighty arm, which had been full/ drawn back, fell down. The drill clanked from liis hands to the rock, and with another howl of woe he ran from the red-hot jumper. Jorrocks had earnestly laid it against his leg and now threatened him with a second branding. The " 'oss-jockey," following Walter to the work, had seized the jumper from the coals of the forge as he ran to the rescue. With its red-hot point he had forced a passage easily. Now he stood waving it defiantly, dancing like a misshapen goblin, lunging toward Schlitzer, and shouting " come on.'' But the Prussian was running for the cooling water of Loon Lake as fast as his legs could carry him, while an innnense roar of laughter from the navvies pui-sued him to the edge. "Bedad, it's a fighter yez are, Jorrocks," said Tat. " And are you hurted, Mr. Walter ? " ''No— not a bit." "He was for murcMierin' you, the vilyan of tlie world ! I could bate the life out of him. Shall we go at him?" " Leave him alone, Pat. I was wrong to f^trike him. I lost my temper." ^mmm 96 WALTER GIBBS, THE YOUNG BOSS. " You wasn't wrong, then. Sure I admire the shpunk ay ye. And him as big as a house! Begor, the lies he's been telli.n' the bhys. Ye're not out of money, thin, at all ? " "No, Fm not," said Walter. "But we've had enough of this now. The work's waiting." " Come, min," shouted Pat, with a new sense of authority. " This job's to be dhruv. What are ye standin' round for? There's plenty of money — it's the big bounce any wan of ye'll get that does be dhriftin' round this day. Rattle down thim holes. Whoop, there I " Walter had triumphed, but he felt some- what dismayed at having lost his head for a few moments. That was " not good business." Yet he blamed himself little for the blow he had struck. He saw nothing v/rong in reply- ing forcibly to a brutal insult; what shocked him was that he had been as one bereft of his senses. And he was sick at heart with recol- lection that he had clearly heard in the din cries of " Give him wan, Schlitzer," and " Bate the loife out of him, Schlitzer," from men that he had believed to be heartily his friends. CHAPTER VI. ■■^ RISING WATER. Rough navvies, whoU} uneducated, much given to horse-play and brawling, yield quickly to courage and audacity a loyalty that kindness can with difficulty win from them. Though Wiilter had been ashamed of losing his self- control in dealing with Schlitzer, he soon felt tliat his combative nature had inspired him wisely, for his readiness to strike a man far bigger than himself had fixed him more firml3'' than ever in the admiration and confidence of his men. They were, for one thing, quite sure that no boss in need of money would have ven- tured to carry things with so high a hand. If Walter had been older and more phiio- sopliical, he might have been in no wise pained by the evidence that he had won by the wild ^vratIl of a moment what his indulgence of the men had not wholly secured. But their H 97 98 WALT Eli Gin US, i ingratitude rankled in his young heurt. lit" began to doubt whether any of the gang bin JoiTocks and Meigs were sincerely attached to him. And thi>* gave him a new air, stern, peremptory, hard. Under the coldness that had come into his blue eyes the men, like so many childien, winced. But they obeyed. His mere demeiiiiui' drove the work up to the 15th of November tis it had never been driven before. Moreover, the men, feeling the approach of winter, when work for them would be scarce, keenly feared dis- charge, now that obey knew their pay was secure if they worked on. Rain began to fall on the fifteenth of the month. Up to this time the weather had been unusually dry and fine. Loon Lake, low as it had been in October, had continued to dwindle. Imagine a vast and very shallow saucer, with an uncommonly deep depression in its middle. This depression may stand for Loon Lake, and the shallow sides of the saucer for the two- miles-wide low hay land that lay on three isides of the water. Into this great meadow of wild hay the rain THE YOUNG It OSS. 99 poured, not from thu sky only, but in little streams from the wet surrounding forest and more or less distant hills. Walter, sitting in tlio shanty, with all his men idle and under wages, moodily listened, to the downpour on lliu roof of scoops. A hundred dollars would not pay for the direct loss by each day's rain, to say nothing of lliu loss of profits unearned, and the danger that tlio job might not be finished as contracted fur. Yet the fears that soaked into the young boss with three days of steady downpour were trilling to the dismay with which he read a letter that came on the morning when fine weather had returned. His mother wrote from St. Augustine, Florida. His father, she said, had so far recovered that she had read to him that letter in which Walter asked for a check and authority to use the moneys Mr. Hebden had paid, or should there- after pay, on the contract — the letter in which Walter had given some account of his work on the job. ''Your father was greatly pleased en the whole," Mrs. Gibbs wrote, "and I send you the m '^Sr^f KJO WALTER aunts, check for the monuy in Mr. Beniis's hands and the papers your father signed. But he seemed a good deal puzzled because you did not say anything about the dam. He said of course you must have built the dam when you con- cluded to take out the deep rock, and hv wondered you had not said anything about it. He worried over this all niglit, and next day the doctor positively forbade him to do any kind of business, or even let his mind run on business. "Indeed," the letter went on, "the v/holu matter fatigued your father so much that he had a sort of relapse, and has again sunk into that curious, listless, sleepy, indifferent state he was in before. You had better write and tell us all about the dam, so as to ease his mind when he recovers interest again. " We expect to be home before Christmas, for, physically, your father has picked up wonder- fully. It is only that his brain is still suffer- ing from some sort of pressure due to the blow on his head. But the doctor says he will cer- tainly be quite well before Christmas." As the young boss read the letter, his brain fairly reeled with sudden perception of what he THE YOUNG liOSS. 101 had neglected, lie had not pondered enough on tlic engineering of the contraeL. He had been too much absorbed in the actual excava- tion, the difliculties of supply and the troubles with Hcbden and about money. He had never reckoned tliat Loon Lake would probaljly rise ill November, but had thought of the hay-land as flooded in spring only. He now experienced that dreadful daze of the mind which comes when one suddenly understands that he has overh)()ked a fatal danger that was " riglit uii(U;r his eyes," as it were. A rise of nine feet in Loon Lake would, he knew, send a thin stream of water down the bed of tlie creek in which liis men were excavating. A rise of one foot would bring the surface of tlie water as high as the bottom of his excava- tion, though it would be then held far back by the very rock he meant to to.ke out. It was now clear that he would need a dam across the creek up near the lake, in case it rose more tlian one foot. He would need this dam to keep water off the shoaling upper end of the (k'ep rock he meant to excavate. The men could not drill and blast in water. And if they 102 WALTETi nrnrts, should not get out all the rock upon tlio first nf Jjinuary, his fatlier and mother would be uttt'ily ruined, and deeply in debt. The outhit creek, in which he was excavating, ran like a deep p^ash through the clay of tlic liay-land for half a mile. Its head connected with the lake by a sort of bay two huiidriHl yards long. The upper end of the eight-feet- deep excavation would stop about half-way up tliis bay, which was a hundred and forty yards wid^ at that point. Therefore he must build a dam one hundred and forty yards long, and high enough to hold back any probable rise of the lake in November and December. Now Walter saw very clearly that the enor- mous price his father was getting for the deeper excavation had been intended to cover tlie cost of the dam and the risk that it might be carried away. With bitter regret he reflected that he miolit have erected the dam on dry land or rock if he liad foreseen the need. Could he do so now, after three days' rain ? Taking Sam with him, he went up the creek, and found that the water had already risen three feet in the deep depres- I* ' V 1 rilE yOL'NG liOSS. WS sion of the lake and outlet hay. The liay-land was still unllooded, but lie must Imild liis dam in two feet of water. How liigli ii nuist be bo could not tell, for lie bad never questioned any one as to the rise of the lake in autumn. Walter, though feeling almost at bis wits' end, explained the situation to Sam. " It will take a good many men to nm Uf) the diun," said Walter. " I can't take a man olT the jol). These navvies don't know how to build a (lam, anyhow. It's mighty little I know myself. I f:fuess the best plan will l)e to rig uj) a lot of stout three-legged trestles, give 'em a slope to llie front as lumbermen do and phmk them." " lint plank won't hold back water," said Sam. "It would leak through the cracks." " Yes, plank alone wouldn't do. But we can fill clay in front. Or, say, we can fill in the fioiit with hay, and throw mud in front of that. Hay? Why, I guess that's what Jaffray was thinking of ! " But straightw.ay lie reflected to himself, "Surely Jaffray would have warned me if he'd seen I needed a dam." The truth was that Jaffray had never really «■ 104 Walter ainn^, given }\is mind to tlie engineering effect of the deepening of tlie excavation. Tliere were some things, lie admitted later, which even his experi- ence had not tanglit liim. The use to whicli lie designed to put the fact that the marsh grew vast qnaiitities of wild hay wjis quite uiicoii- necte(] with dams. " Well, Walt, I guess it will be all right," said Sam, soothingly. "You can build the iliini. I can see myself that your i)lan will work. All I've got to say is, go at it. There's no time lo be lost." "I'm afraid time enough has been lort already to knock the profits off tlie job," said Walter. *'But I'll go straight to the Carry, and try to get men together. The worst of it is that the river-men are mostly gone to the woods already, or on their way. Oh Sam, I've bean w'oikiiipf under a terrible blunder." "Well, who could have thought it? It's queer father never mentioned the dam to you." "Only when he was delirious. Don't you remember, Sam? I thought it was the Buek- stono Bridge dam he was crying out about when he was so ill. I guess he never really expected TTIE YOUNG liOSS. 105 he would go deeper than four feet, and so he didn't talk about the dam to me. My, I've Iweii an awful fool ! " "Never mind, Walt. Pile in; it will come all right. We've got to finish the job somehow. Let's get :*. big gang together i'ight away." liiit Waller did not reply. A long silxnice fell on him. He sat down on the still dry bed of the creek and looked more than ever desper- ate. Wlien he spoke it was to say : — " Sam — more men — fifty, perhaps ! Perhaps for a week or more. And more rain may come any day. The expenses may be heavy. The dam may be very hard to build if the water rises fast, and all the money spent on it may be wasted. And at whose risk? Who's advanc- ing our money ? " •'Mr. Gemmill, of course," said Sam. "What then? Don't be bothering him ! " ''Why, I must tell liim about this, lie may not a])prove. I dare not put him in deeper witliout explaining." To confess that, after all, he had misrepre- sented affairs to the banker ! To confess that lij had been ignorant, unforeseeing, rash, ueg- 106 WALTER GIBBS, .S;^i lectf ul ! To confess that this great trouble arose from his blind undertaking of the deep exciiva- tion ! Surely it would destioy Mr. Gemniill's confidence in him. Could it be believed that the banker would risk more money in his hands? And if he did not — if he required an immedi- ate abandonment of the work — what then? The sick father and the dear, hopeful motlier would be utterly ruined and heavily in debt! " But why should you be in a hurry to tell Mr. Gemmill?" asked Sam, unconsciously ex- pressing the very temptation that was tearing at Walter's sense of honor. " The lake mayn't rise more. Get a big gang together and pile in." Walter reflected again in silence. Why cfivc U[), why G»)nfess before trying what he could do'^ Was it wise to alarm the banker ? Mr. Gem- mill might take a more gloomy view than the risks warranted. He might stop the work, whereas boldness might pull it through. Yet the still small voice kept up the struggle. It whispered very clearly, " Mr. Gemmill trusted you. You are in duty bound to tell him of this at once. He should have the choice of with- drav.'ing or going on." THE YOUNG JiOSS. 107 " That's all nonsense, " said Sam, angrily, when Walter again spoke his mind. "What's the use of scaring Mr. Gemraill out? You haven't tried anything yet. Who knows but you can get men right away ? Don't funk this way, Walter." " I don't think I'm funking, Sam. I'm try- ing to see what's right, and sensible too. It's a new case. I'm in a great difficulty. I've got Mr. Gemmill in with me ; he thinks it's all plain sailing; what would he have a right to think if I should bring the contract to a greater loss than can be incurred by stopping now, and had never told him I was in this fix ? " " But you don't know you are really in a bad fix. It may bo easy to put up all tlie dam that's needed. Inquire. And above all, don't waste tinio. Why, you might put Mr. Gemmill be- yond all risks by piling in on the dam to-mor- row. This was the consideration that battled most strongly against Walter's prompting to inforni his backer. By energy he might still save the contract and make a profit. He might thus be acting in Mr. Gemmill's best interest. But i)y 108 WALT Eli GllUiS, telling him the danger ho miglit frighten the banker into choosing to bear the losses that im- mcidiate stoppage would involve, rather than boklly taking a new risk that might bring hiia out with a profit. The humiliation of telling the case to his backer seemed harder the more he thouglit of it. Could he not avoid that ? He took out his note-book and tried to esti- mate the losses to come of stopping now. He estimated, too, the far greater losses to come of going on, building the dam, and after all failiiiir to complete the job in the contract tiuic. And the greater the danger of loss, the greater Ins obligation t.^ inform the banker! It was a hard quandary for a youth whose dis- position, like Sam's, was all for action, all for grappling wdth the difficulty and tlie risks. At last Walter thought of a middle course. He miglit go to the Carry at once and see if men were to be had. He would consult any of them who understood the building of dams, as nearly all river-men do. Then he would be able to decide whether the magnitude of the enter- prise retjuired the disclosure to Mr. Geniniill. THE YOUNG BOSS. 109 As Walter almost resolved on this course he felt pricked in conscience. It did not seem perfectly frank to Mr. Gemmill. But he told Sum what he intended. '^ That's right," said Sam. " What's the use of bothering Mr. Gemmill? Keep dark and do the best you can." Keep dark ! At the words Walter's soul rose in revolt. Keep dark ! Conceal the truth from his benefactor ! Play the sneak to liim! Sam had hit the bull's-eye of Walter's honor. But he did not rebuke Sam. He wanted no more talk, no more temptation. ''Sam, I won't keep it dark. I will at once write the precise truth to Mr. Gemmill. If lie can't trust me any longer so much the worse for me. Anyhow, I'll do all I can to deserve to be trusted." "And you won't be. And the job will be stopped. And father will be ruined. You're ii fool, Walt," said Sam. "Don't let us quarrel, Sam," said Walter, liolding out his hand. " I've got enougli to \'orry through without that. You wouldn't liave me go against my conscience." 110 WALT Eli GIBBS, ■ffliie-:;. I'm i': " Only I wish you hiidu't that kind uf giily- girly conscience — that's all," said Sam, looking still vexed, though he was secretly glad of the strong grasp of Walter's hand. Walter drove at once to Elbow Carry, that lie might catch the afternoon mail, lie felt dis- inclined to tell Jaffray at once about the need for a dam. It was a matter so much for ]\Ir. Gemmill's decision that the young boss re- solved to disclose nothing of his difficulty to the tavern-keeper until he should have received the banker's reply. It was not till he had written and posted his plain statement that lie went to the landlord of the " Royal Arms." "I've been thinking of increasing my foiee again," said Walter. " Do you suppose I can get a gang of river-men together quickly if I want them for a few days?" " No, sir, you can't," said Jaffray, holding his eyes firmly together. " Peter Black has hired every man in sight. He's coming up to- morrow himself, and he's had two agents hero these three days. They've got a hundred men together, and he's expecting to bring another hundred from Garroch and thereabout. You'll THE YOUNG nOSS. Ill have to pay big money to get men for any short job. Peter Black's liiring 'em for all winter." The Carry seemed overrun with sliantymen, but on going among them Walter found Jaf- fray's report true. They were mostly "going up " for Peter Black, a very enterprising young lumberman. Walter felt dismay creeping more and more deeply into his heart. Even if Mr. Gemniill should consent to the building of the dam it was doubtful if men enough could be assem- I)led to do it speedily. Nothing but very higli pay would hold them even one week from going to the backwoods for the winter. Walter felt that Mr. Gemmill ought to know this, too. So, about the middle of the after- inon, he telegraphed these words to the banker : ''In reference to my letter posted this fore- noon, I fmd river-men will be hard to get and must be paid about double wages for a short job." The young boss now felt that he had done all he could to inform his backer fully. On that point his conscience became easy. The effect was to set him thinking calmly about 112 WALTER GIBUS, what he should do in case the banker should tell him to go on with the dam. He soon saw that he should need no manu- factured material for the work if it were built on the plan he had sketched in talk with Sam, except about three thousand superficial feet of three-inch plank, and some kegs of heavy spikes for the three-legged trestles. Hay, mud, and light timber for the trestles he could ob- tain close by the dam site. Walter quickly found that he could buy the plank at a saw- mill, and the spikes at one of the stores. The next question was as to getting tliesc materials quickly to the dam site in case of Mr. Gemmill's consent. Had Jaffray plenty of wagons and teams likely to be disengaged for the morrow? With this question he went to the tavern-keeper. "No," said Jaffray. "You know I haven't got a great bunch of horses on hand at this season. When the time for teaming men that drive the river has passed I sell off some horses and send more to the woods. And every team I've got is engaged for to-morrow and three days after, to take Peter Black's men and sup l^uiit get scared, son. A man can't think when he'.s scaled," said JattVay. 1 M 1 I THE YOUNG I10S8. 118 plies over the Carry to the steamboat landing on the upper reach." ''That's bad," said Walter, gloomily, for in- surmountable diiliculties seemed to arise on every hand. "Wiiat were you wanting teams for anyhow, young man?" "It's possible I may have to build a dam, sir," said Walter, thinking it best to explain to some extent. Now a hint was as good as a long story to the shrewd tavern-keeper. Before his mind's eye the map of Loon Lake, its hay-lands and its outlet creek suddenly spread. ''Thunder and lightning!" he cried, as if agliiist. " I tee-totally forgot you'd need a dam. But of course you will — on account of going so deep with the excavation ! Jerusha, here's a pickle ! There'll be six feet of water to fight. Why didn't you get at this before?" " I never thought of it at all, Mr. Jaffray," said Walter, wofuUy. "Seems as if I had been stone-blind." "Don't get scared, son. A man can't think when he's scared," said Jaffray, kindly, laying 1 w 114 WALT Eli a inns, his luiiid on Walter's Hhouldcr. "Come into my back room and tell mu just how things stand." While the young boss explained the situa tion and all his proceedings, JalTray sat wink- ing furiously. He closed his eyes at the conclusion of the story for fully live nuniiti's, and was deeply buried in thought. Finally lie remarked decisively : — " I'm going to try if I can pull your cliust- nuts out of the fire, or water rather. Certainly they're in it pretty deep. No men to be had — water rising — why, if there's more rain soon there may be a stream over your work before you can say Jack Kobinson. I guess you'll have to drop this job right away." "That's ruin," said Walter. " Oh, I guess not," smiled Jaffray, with much winking. " But I ought to have had more time to wrvk on Hebden's mind. I was reckon- ing iyj stop you about the middle of December." "What do you mean, Mr. Jaffray? You've hinted at this before, but I never could under- stand your meaning." " I mean that Hebden went into that contract Tin: iOUNG iioss. 116 liku Ji bliiul man. IIu's a kind of crank, and i^'it'eii as graas anyhow. He hadn't been hero ii month, he liadn't examined the contracts that li'S (lead uncle made, he didn't know what ob- ligations he inherited with his est.'ite. He got ii into his head that he'd do wonders by drain- ing tliat hay-Lind, and before I'd heard anything ;il)out it lie made the contract with your father. Now I'm going to remind Mr. Hebden of the existence of Windy Jim." i CHAPTER VII. PETER BLACK S PLAN. During the recent weeks of Walter's work at Loon Lake Mr. llebdcn had been concealing with diiliculty his delight in a prospect he fore- saw. He knew, for Walter's father had fully explained to him, the necessity for a dam in case the deep work were undertaken. As Walter let week after week pass without setting about the dam the litigious, ill-tempered little pettifogger reckoned with glee that the young boss must come to disaster. His malicious dis- position was particularly pleased by the three days' rain. " The next estimate will be due on the fifth of December," his secret thouofhts ran. 15v that time the need for a dam will be plain. I will not pay the estimate. I will object that the dam has not been built, and that the work 116 WALTER a inns, tiik young noss. 117 cannot be Ihiished in contract time. He will, of coui-se, stop the job. I shall claim forfeit and bring suit for damages. Even if old man Gibbs is bankrupt, I shall have all hit. son's work dur- ing November to the good, and I can finish the job cheap next year with that start to the good " ()i late llebden had been keeping himself closely informed of Walter's movements. When he learned tliat the young boss had been inquir- ing for lumber and spikes he pondered the sit- uation carefully. Plainly Walter was about to try to build the dam. But could he obtain a big gang of river-men speedily enough to deal successfully with the rising water? Putting this question to himself, Hclxlon ordered liis foreman to compete with i'eler Black, ard employ at once all the shanty- men seeking work for the winter. On the following morning the little man was ii; a state of high satisfaction. The weather looked cloudy. More rain was in prospect. The dam must be built immediately or not at 'ill, and his foreman told him that no men were to he had at Elbow Cr.iry for any wages. ''Now we'll see," said llebden, turning to 118 WALTER GIBIiS, his morning mail. That son of Gibbs' sliall learn a lesson that will last him the rest of his life." At that moment Mr. Hebden opened a letter directed in the large round hand of Jaffray, tlie hotel-keeper. Never did a face grow more red and wrathy than his became as he perused the notification. At a second reading he slapped it down on hi desk, struck it with his clenched fist, and sat btar- ing at it as if he expected it might vanish into nothingness under his dreadful gaze. As it did nothing of the kind, he collected his wits, rose, unlocked the door of his dead uncle's bricked-in safe, and after much rummaging brought forth a form of agreement, which he proceeded to read with positive fury. It was the document to which Mr. Jaffray referred in this letter : — IIowAiT) IIeiiden, Esq., *' Dear Siu, — You are, I understand, about to lower Loon Lake and drain the hay-lands there. I hereby notify you that your uncle, the late John Ilebden, lor value received, bound himself, his heirs, and assigns to give me the cutting of five hundred acres of wild hay per year on those lands. The contract lias still two years to TtlE YOUNG BOSS. 119 run, and I mean to hold you to its f ullfinient. You per- haps don't know that the hind if drained will cease to jirodiice wild hay. " I may also take the liberty of telling you that it will produce no other crop for a go-d many years, as the land will be too hOur. '♦ Yours truly, "James Jaffray, 'Royal Arras' Hotel. " Sometimes called ' Windy Jim.' " " I couldn't help getting that in," said Jaffray to Walter at a later day. " Of course it was bad business — but the old Nick got into me. I wanted to give him the reminder of how he'd insulted me." Mr. Ilebden sat clenching his hands with fiuy. He was not chastened, but only mad- dened the more as his own reflections taunted him. Tliis little man was the proverbial beggar put aiuUlenly on horseback. His inheritance of the ^ tibden estate had been quite unexpected by him. Coming from his pettifogging practice into a large fortune in Canada, his head, as the Inmhcrman said, had " swelled." He had felt and acted for four months like an autocrat. He had discharged some of his uncle's MM 120 WALTER GIBBS, ■■I confidential men ; others had rebelled against his bullying manner and left him ; those who had remained had soon abstained from counsel- ling an employer who took every bit of advice as an imputation against liis wisdom. He now saw tliat many men about him must have understood that his phiii of drainage would destroy a valuable tract of liay-land, for he did not doubt Jaffray's word. 'J'he wild hay was always worth at least ten dollars a ton. His own lumber shanties needed vast quantities. And he had been imagining that the laud would continue to yield the crop till he could put it in timothy or sell it for farms ! He reflected, angrily, that J affray must have been laughing at him for weeks, and meditaliuoj this notification. lie reflected with still more anger that the old confidential manager who had quickly left him wit!i disgust must have known of this agreement, and would have warned him of its provisions had his services been retained. Still Hebden did not abandon his hope to punish Walter Gibbs. lie verting to that matter he saw more clearly than ever that the young TUE YOUNG llOSS. 121 boss could not drain the land according to con- tract unless he could at once assemble a large force of men capable of building a dam. "If that ])oy fails," thought TTebden, "the meadows will stfiy as they are, and tliis contract witli Jaffray will not be infringed in the least." He therefore sent no reply to the tavern- keeper. Time enough to reckon with him in case thei'e should be a prospect of the com[)le- tioii of the drainage job that fall. Meantime Walter, who had stayed ;dl night at the " Royal Arms" in order to receive as early as possible in tin; forenoon the despatch which lie expected from Mr. Genunill, was quite luiaware of Jaf- fray 's interference in the business. The young boss had slept wretchedly ; night- marcs cari'ying liis father and mother to destruc- tion galloped through his short dreams. He rose iniscral)le, breakfasted without aj)petite, and walked out in the dull weather among the crowds of men all waiting for the arrival of Peter Black. It seemed cruel to the j^oimg boss that all these hands, able at dam-building, sliould be going far out of his reach just when he might most need their aid. 122 WALTER ainns. Nine o'clock cjimc. " Now," thought Walter, "Mr. Gemmill will be reading my letter. By ten I shall get a despatch from him. But what if he does say, 'Go ahead with the dam'? Where shall I get men ? " At quarter to ten he went to the little tele- graph office. No despatch ! At eleven the tale was the same. So at half-past eleven. Walter was in a woe of anxiety. Was Mr. Gonniiill so staggered that he could not make up his niiiid in any sense? Eighty men clanking away on the Loon Lake work ! If they were to be stopped it would be as well to stop them quickly, for every day on the work would in that case mean heavier loss to his father. As Walter came out of the telegraph office at half-past eleven he heard the whistle of the steamboat coming up the river. It was barely possible that Mr. Gemmill might have sent up a letter by the boat. "He might," thought Walter, "have won- dered at my telegram of yesterday afternoon, and gone to the post-office late in the oveniiig to get my letter, which would not otherwise reach him till this morning." THE YOUNG JIOSS. 123 Walter walked rapidly toward the wharf. In c'line the steamboat fairly black with men. Tliey were roaring tlie French-Canadian chorus of '* roulant ma houle.'" The crowd waiting for them caught up and sang the inspiriting refrain. "All river-men, nearly," though^ Walter. "Good gracious, if I could have them for a few days! Wouldn't two hundred of them just rattle up that dam ! " On the hurricane-deck beside the captain stood a tall young man, who had become a very familiar figure on the river. When the men asliore saw his keen, shaven face clearly they stopped singing, and soon the chorus ceased from tlie steamboat also. One of the men on the wharf shouted, " Who yer goin' up for ? " " Peter Black ! " roared a hundred voices together. It was the favorite "gag" of the river when Peter Black first became the pre- eminent adventurer in the hazardous lumber trade. Peter Black, standing beside the captain, laughed heartily. When something like silence / I' iiaii 124 WALTEli GIBBS, fell just as the boat touched the wharf, he caino to the side aud held up his hand for atteiitioii. "Is Walter Gibbs of Garroeh there?" he then cried. " Yes, sir, I'm here," cried the young boss. "Come aboard, will you? I've got a word for you. Make way there, men — let Mr. (Jibbs aboard." Walter ran up the gangway, climbed to the hurricane-deck, and clasped hands with the great lumberman. " What is it, sir ? " he said, " have you a let- ter for me from Mr. Gemmill?" " No. But I've seen him. I had business with him last night, and was stopping at liis house. He says go ahead with your dam." Walter stood dumb. lie scarcely knew whether to be glad or sorry. For the thouj^^lit of the lack of men struck liim with new force, now that lie must look for hands. " Mro Gemmill told me your fix," said Black. " He was greatly pleased with 3'our straight- forward letter. So was I — he read it to me. Now I've been in such scrapes myself, and I know it's tough to own up to one's backer. .A Walter ran up the gangway, and <^ claspcil hands witli the gicat lumberman. m Well, nil the mine {1 to liea: u\v "Y( for yoi liiy tin thank Mr. G men f( up riv< sceino' wliarf, down thuir d ''Of he sto lit! wa notifyi might It w noon b THE YOUNG liOSS. 125 Well, the long and short of it is, you can have ;ill tlio men you want. Here's two hundred of mine at your disposal. It was lucky I chanced to hear of your lix." " What ! You'll lend me a gang ? " " Yes, and I'll go down and run u[) that dam for you myself. I've built a dozen big dams in my time." '' Well — Mr. Black — I don't know how to thank you ! " " Don't thank me — thank your honest letter, Mr. Gibbs. I'll lose nothing. You'll i)ay the men for their time. I don't really want 'em up river yet for a week. Jaifray I " he shouted, seeing the tavern-keeper coming across the wharf, " I want you to move a hundred men down to Mr. Gibbs' contract after they've got their dinner — can you do it?" " Of course I can," cried Jaffray, " but — " he stopped and stood winking as if puzzled. He was thinking that he had been too hasty in notifying Hebden, for now he saw that Walter might finish the contract after all. It was hfilf-past two o'clock the same after- noon before all preparations had been completed 126 WALTKu a inn 8, for taking one liundiod rivcr-nicii to Loon Lake. Tents, pork, biscuit, toa, axes, every foresuuii ref^uisite for their dani-buikling had ht'uii brought from Peter lUack's storehouse near tlio wharf. Nine wagons, each containing eleven men and one of Jaffray's drivers, stood ranged before the " Royal Arms " Hotel. Four other wagons were piled higli with supplies. P^verything liiid been made ready for Peter lilack's order to start, but neither Peter, nor Jaffray, nor Walter was to be seen. The cause of this delay was I lUack himself. Scarcely had he landed from tlie steamboat before he had learned from Jaffray the true situation of the Loon Lake job. Up to that time the young lumberman liad been unaware that Hebden's scheme of drainage applied to a great tract of wild hay. "And you tell me, Jaffray, that you want Hebden to go on paying for worse than worth- less work," said Peter, sternly. "'Pon my word, it's too bad. Somebody should have told Mr. Hebden plainly that liis plan will destroy those valuable meadows." THE YOUNG liOSS. 127 "Oh, he's one of the kind that knows it .all," siiiil Jiilniy. "He's j^ot the ' bi^ head,' don't you see. I want liini to learn a lesson. Ho cuntnieted tor this drainapje job on his own cranky notions ; he gets mad when anybody ^'ivcs him a word of advice, and he's acted as uicaii as dirt to young (Jibbs. I'd be glad to see it cost him any amount." "You're too vindictive, friend Jaffray," said Peter. " It's true liebden is a greenhorn and an arrogant, offensive greenhorn at that, liut it's a shame to let him throw a .ay his money for want of a word of warning. If he won't take warning — why, then, there's no helping him. For me, I hate to see men's work wasted no iiialtei- who's to pay for it. I'm going over to SCO liebden about this." '' Why, what do you expect you can do with him?" asked Jaffray, sulkily. **What he should do is clear," said Peter. "lie should pay for the work already done, and pay (Jibbs for abandoning the profits he could jirobably make by completing the job. Surely lie will have sense enough to see that after get- ting your letter.'' 128 WALTER GIBBS, |•:^ |i:i Rut Peter Black found Air. Ilebden in no humor for conipromise. The little man, quite unaware that Peter would put up the dam for Walter, jumped to the idea that the young lumberman had come to him on Walter's behalf. " You tell me, Mr. Black," said Ilebden, *' that the hay-land will be ruined by drainage. I am obliged to you for tlie information. It may be correct. If so, all I ha\ e to do is to dam up this outlet and flood the land again. Tiien 1 shall have to pay no damages to Jaffray oa his hay contract with my uncle." " All right, if you will have it so," said Black, patiently. " You will then pay the useless removal of about twelve or thirteen thousaml cubic yards of rock. If you could induce ('!hbs to stop now you'd have to pay for only four or live thousand yards, and the allowance for profits on the rest." "Induce Gibbs to i^top!" snorted Ilebden. "I fancy the rising lake will do that. Pooh- pooh, sir, I shaU deal as I i)lease with (iibhs!" "That's your calculation, eh?" said Bhick, " Then I rnay tell you that the water won't stop the young fellow at all." THE YOUNG BOSS. 129 *'Pooh — he can't find men to build his dam," cried Hebden. "Pooh yourself, sir, he's found them already! I'm j^'oing to lend him a hundred, or two hun- Jitjtl if they can be used. I'm going to build the (lam for him myself. My men are in wagons now, waiting to go down there." "The '.vay you infernal colonials hang to- [fctlier!" cried Hebden, angrily. "Well, now, Mr. Hebden, I don't think your tone is quite justified," said the wise young lumberman, soothingly. " It's in your own interest that I took the lilxjrty of suggesting a co'iU'se. It doesn't seem to me judicious to throw good money after bad. It is very easy for me to understand that a gentleman recently from England should not see the value of wild hay, for *at home' it would be useless, I pre- sume. There you'd naturally want to drain such a marsh and get a crop from it. But wild hay represents good money in a rough, lumber- ing country. No newcomer could know that." " I wish some one had liad the decency to tell me of this in time," said Hebden, somewhat mollified. 130 WALTER GIBBS, tlL "Well, sir, 1 thought it was iny duty to coirK' as soon as I understood the situation. I hupc I've given you no offence." The considenite and respectful tone of tlio well-known and wealthy young luniherman was like balm to the wounded and angry httlo man. "Won't you sit down again, Mr. Black?" liu Siaid. "I'm really very much obliged to you. What do you propose? If young Gibbs lias your men at his command I presume there's no doubt he can put up the dam and finish the contract." " Very little," said Black. " Of course the dam might give him some trouble. But he's a bright, active young fellow, and could proba- bly keep it in repair. I presume you don't really wish him to come to grief — it would be a sad thing for his father to lose his all on this contract, ileally, I think it would be a Chris- tian thing for you to relieve him from the risk, and save a good many thousands of your own money in the bargain." "Well, well — putting it on that ground," said Ilebden, feeling somewhat puffed up at THE YOUNG BOSS. 131 the assuniptioii that he was in a position to iniike generous concessions. " What does he propose ? " " I haven't consulted liim in the matter yet," said Black. " But 1 dare say he will hear reason. Suppose we send for him." So Walter, to his amazement, was confronted with a proposal that he should stop work at once. At first he rebelled decidedly. '' T don't see why I should," said he, for he liad heen very ambitious to finish the jol) cleaidy, and greatly lifted up by the prospect which Black's men gave him. *'I think you should," said Black. "Mr. Ilelxlen agrees, I understand, to pay the wliole outlay and allow for a reasonable profit. Let us iigure on the thing," and once he got Walter involved in calculations the bargain was in a fair way toward conclusion. Jaffray, being called in to give his opinion as to the cost of supplying Walter's men for six weeks longer, soon became engaged in the gen- eral discussion, and cleverly addressed himself to increasing the allowance that Waller should receive for prospective profits. 132 WALTER GIBBS, Still the youii^ boss was discontented with the idea of giving up the woik. "I might make half as much again as you advise me to take," lie said, drawing Mr. Black aside. " You might and you mightn't. The dam might break away, and more than once. Deep snow may come early. Rain may rob you uf half the working days from this ouc. Take a good profit when you can get it. And anotlier point is this — consider how greatly relieved from anxiety your mother and father will be if you close out the job now with Ji good profit on hand." " That's so, you're giving me good advice," said Walter, gratefully. "But I'll have to get Mr. Gemmill's opinion on the matter.'' At four o'clock that afternoon Peter Black's men were told that they could proceed with their supplies, not to Loon Lake, but to the head of the Carry. At half-past four Walter liad begun to exchange telegrams with Ur. Gemmill. At six o'clock the banker had sent liis final word. " Take Peter Black's advice. Let him see that the settlement is secure. THE YOUNG BOSS. 133 Four thousand dollars' profit over all is a good transaction, and 1 congratulate you and myself oil being out of the job." Thus it liappened that Walter Gibbs, Senior, wlien his interest in business revived, was clieered by the news that four thousand dollars stood to his credit in Mr. Gemmill's bank. It lifted up his heart so greatly that he recovered speedily, and was back in (jarroch before ('liristnias. The looks and words of gratitude and love that the young boss then received from liis parents he can never forget. " My dear boy, you did wonders," said his father, "wonders. In less than two months, four tliousand dollars ! Why, it was a grand business." "Aye, Wally'U make a good business man yet, I'm thinkin'," said Mr. Gemmill, patting Ills prot(3g(3 affectionately on the arm. "He just did line, and I give ye notice I'll back him again if he's needing it." " Well, sir," said Walter, blushing, " it seems to me that I don't deserve one bit of credit. You started me. Mr. Jaffray saved the forfeit for me. Sam kept llie gang together by cook- 131 wALTEii am lis, the young noss. ing at a pinch, and Mr. Black got niu out of the final scrape with a profit. It seems to me 1 didn't come in anywhere — I didn't evuii finish the job.'" "Well, I'm no saying but you had somi! good turns done ye," said Mr. Gemmill. "■ But mind you this — it's the man with a head on him, and sense and manners, that gets good turns done him in this world — aye, is it ! And you'll not forget that you downed Meigs all by your lone, and skelpit yon Prussian, besides all the work of administrating the job. Oli, I'll back ye again to ony reasonable extent. Fni aye for backin' business lads that has streaks of luck coming quick after others. That means ability — luck's but a foolish name for the good turns that's aye liappenin' to them tliat help theirsels." TOM'S FEARFUL ADVENTURE. T( Lear mac your '1 ■J as I kiss ] "I "( Voil -A "A TOM'S FEARFUL ADVENTURE. ** Tm |]foinpr witli Dou^ to play tennis, mother." "Where is Donghis, Tommy?" " Down-stairs in the drawing-room. lie's wait- iiitj^ for me." "Well, dear, I suppose you can go," said Mrs. Leamington, turning around from her sewing- machine. "' r>ut don't you think you should wash your face first? " " Is it very dirty, mother ? " " Fearfully — for a fellow of fourteen." "All right, ril just go into the bath-room as I pass. Well, good-bye! What? you won't kiss me, mother ? " " I can't kiss a big l)oy with a dirty face." " Oh, I forgot. I beg your pardon, mother. You 7vill kiss me good-bye, though ? " '' After you come from the bath-room." ^'All right, mother dear." 137 las TOM 8 FEAliFUL ADVEyTVHE. Awiiy wuiil Tom into the bath-room, lluwas his mother's only child, unci she was a widow. Tom was taller than the little woman in black, and was accustomed to pet her as elaborately as she petted him. Mrs. Leamington had reluctantly given in to Tom's opinion that his coats and trou'^ers should be made by a tailor, but could not deny herself the satisfaction of making his shirts. She wiis now sewing on one in her bedroom, next door to the bath-room. Whirr-r-r-r went the sewing-machine ; wldr-r-r — it was a long seam ; iv1ur-r-r — it stopped. Mrs. Leamington lifted the needle-bar, pnlk'd the edge loose, snipped off the thread, adjusted another seam, and was about to start sewing again, when several small objects in the hjilli- room fell to the floor. " What have you knocked down. Tommy ? " No answer. The water was still pouring from the tap, not steadily. It sounded as though partly stopped at times. Whirr-r. Mrs. Leamington began another seam. At that moment she thought slie hoard TOMS FEARFUL ADVENTUiiE. lao other siiKiU things clatter in the Uitli-rooiu ; but till) seam was well started, and she rattled on. 'J'oiii was stamping and kicking. The whir was not so loud but that she could hear his feet. He seemed to be kicking the base-board and stam[)ing on the floor, not with all his force. '' Such a noisy fellow ! " cried tlie widow, l)iinging her seam to a finish. No answer came from Tom. "What on earth are you at. Tommy?" said Ahs. Leamington with some vexation. No answer from Tom. His mother, someu'hat puzzled, was about to rise and go to him when slii> lieard him rapping. R(ip — rap — rap — rap — a pause — rap — rap — rap. " Tommy ! You noisy fellow." Tom did not reply, but rapped once more ; four r S. S. S., mother." " Yes, and this, then, is the signal that a member is in danger of losing his life?" As she spoke she rapped — four raps— a pause — three raps. Douglas flew up-stairs. "What! Who is in danger now?" cried Douglas. " Mother was just rapping as I did," said Tom, with alarm in his countenance. Mi-s. Leamington laughed. " You'll have to make me a member, Douglas, now that 1 know your secrets." " Thomas JLeamington," said Douglas, in a sepulchral voice, " have you revealed aught? "Naught, Brother Douglas Maclean," re- sponded Tom in the same deep tones. TOM'S FEARFUL ADVENTUHK. 147 "'Tis well," said Dougliis. " Wliat are you two absurd boys at ? " said Mrs. Leamington. Tom and Douglas, with eyes rolled up till the whites showed, laid each his forellnger on liis lips seven times. ''Iii([uire not into the sacred secrets of the Seven Silent Shadows, mother," said Tom, in the sepulchral voice. Then in his natural tones, "Mother, now I'm gohig to play tennis. I may, mayn't I?" "Yes, your face is quite clean. Take care of one another, boys. I'm afraid you are both a little cracked." Tlie two members of the Seven Silent Shad- ows Society rolled their eyes at her impres- sively, broke into laughter and ran, half-tum- bling, down-stair». DUX. Nf Mayi tion betwi the g scholi Dux, liiglie Form title i the a and a at th( kindb his be lished thresh DUX. Never did the pupils of the Academy of Mayfield, a Canadian school, watch a competi- tion with ixiore interest than they gave to that between George Digby and Etienne Seguin, for the gold medal, the hundred-dollars four-years' scholarship, and the proud title of "School Dux," all of which go each year to the boy of highest standing in the Seventh and highest Korm. Even more than medal, scholarship, and title is earned by the winner. He carries from tlie academy such a reputation for character and ability as secures for him a warm welcome at the university, should he enter there, or a kindly reception in mercantile circles, should his be a business career. Having fairly estab- lished his title to consideration on the very threshold of practical life, the "School Dux'* 161 152 DUX. -lit i ' ■ starts with advantages far beyond those of in- herited fortune. George Digby, entering the academy as a small boy, had been head of each Form to the Seventh. A fair Second each year had been Ferdinand Vane, the only son of Mayfiekl's wealthiest merchant. By virtue of hard work and the steady good sense which always se- cured him the highest marks and conduct, George, with abilities less brilliant than Ferdi- nand's, surpassed him as far as Ferdinand did all others of the class. The two boys entered the Seventh convinced that they would still maintai'i their relative positions to one another and the Form. But there they found a new competitor in Etienne Seguin. At first the French boy was regarded witli con- temptuous curiosity by his classmates. There were many reasons for their attitude. He was a complete stranger to them, who had nearly all been together in the academy for six years. The admission of a new boy to the Seventh liad not occurred before in their time. In such circumstances an English-Canadian boy would DUX. 153 have been treated as an intruder, and Etienne was French-Canadian. Now the academy is essentially an English- Canadian institution. Seldom does a French name appear on its class-lists. It is also Protes- tant, though not exclusively so, and Etienrje was Catholic. His long hair, his dark eyes, his olive skin, his rapid utterance and impulsive gestures, proclaimed his race. Again, Etienne was evidently very poor, and nearly al) the boys of the academy came from well-to-do families of professional or mercantile men. Before the end of the first month the feeling against him in the academy had become i)ositive and bitter. Questioned as to his reasons for joining, lie had confidently mentioned his inten- tion to become Dux ! " It's the hundred-dollar scholarship you have come for, of course ! " cried Ferdinand, taunt- ingly- ''Yes, it is; I do want it very badly," said Etienne, simply, pointing to his seedy coat. Tlie admission was fatal to his standing ; it seemed wholly mercenary to the prosperous boys. 154 DUX. Etienne's work showed hard study at once. He soon arose in scholarship to within two marks of George, and had beaten Ferdinand by nine. " Take the second place, Seguin," said the Principal, cordially. "You have done very well indeed. Digby, you are to have a close race for Dux, after all." " Shake hands over it, Seguin," said George, as the French boy came to his side. " I'm go- ing to keep you down if I can." Etienne took the hand eagerly, looking grate- fully into George's eyes. It was the first appar- ent kindness from a classmate. "Thank you! thank j^ou!" said he, with a thrill in his voice. " What for? " was the roughly spoken answer. " Because I want to beat you ? " George hated a scene. He had offered his hand on somewhat the principle of the prize- ring — not that he liked his opponent, but that he wished to assure himseK, and other people, that he entertained no feelii\g more malicious than a desire to beat him very thoroughly in accordance with the rules of DUX. 155 fair combat. Etienne dropped George's ^ and and turned to F'erdinand. " Give him a shake, Ferd," advised George, in a soberly impartial tone ; *' he's got here fairly, you know." But Ferdinand only scowled at his victor. The "Pea-Soup" — as he nad nicknamed Eti- enne — to have taken his jflace ! Hate flamed fierce in Ferdinand's heart. Next month Etienne, more familiar with academy methods, took the first place. George, though sore-hearted, shook hands with him again in manly fashion and in real respect. The fol- lowing month a cheer that could not be re- strained broke out when George got his old place back. Etienne cheered, too, his voice high and clear above all, but somehow the boys could not give him the credit for good feeling which they would have given to such action in a lad of their own race. " He cheered and sneered," said Ferdinand, at noon, and the rhyming epigram swept justice l)efore it. Ferdinand was still third; he had distinctly lost rank, while George's was only threatened. And so the position remained till 156 DXTX. the last month of the school-year, when little was talked of in the academy but the struggle for Dux. Having passed and repassed each other fre- quently, George and Etienne stood equal in marks when June closed, and thereafter changed places from day to day as Head and Second. "Come and have half an hour's Lacrosse, Seguin ; I'm half dead for want of exercise," said George, witl. determined friendliness, after school that day. " No, I'm not quite — what you say ? — up to it," answered Etienne. *' ■ or three or four days I have not been very well. I will go home, I think." "He daren't lose half an hour; he wants that hundred dollars a year too badly,'' sneered Fer- dinand. But when the gan^e had begun Etienne came out as if to watch. The afternoon was intensely warm. Under a blazing sur th3 sandy play- ground glittered and burned. The players had thrown off their coats and waistcoats, near the north goal-posts, where ail lay strewn together. Going to these, Etienne lay down at full length. DUX. 157 Ferdinaiul observing him, came hastily forward and, pulling out his garments with angry gest- ures, hung them on one goal-jjost. "You can never tell what the Pea-Soup might be up to," he said, joining the game again. " Gammon ! " said George Digby. " What harm could he do your clothes ? Your hatred for Seguin is making a regular crank of you, Ferdy." *' Never you mind," answered Ferdinand, with meaning which the other boys felt to be too profound for clear statement. They looked often suspiciously toward Etienne, when not taken up with the ball. In a short time he was observed to rise, move languidly towards the building and disappear. Soon afterwards he came out and leaving the enclosure walked rapidly down the street. " Off to his hole to study," said Ferdinand. " Well, he's right enough. That's the way to hole us," answered George. " We'd better get to work — our half-hour must be up, anyway. Let us see," and going up to the pile of clothes, he took up his waistcoat to consult his watch. 168 DUX, "Why," cried he, in surprise, "my watch is gone ! " He examined all the waistcoat's pockets, those of his coat, too, slapped his trouser-pockets, stood as if dazed, gazed at Ferdinand in mute inquiry. In Vane's face was a strange, wicked, triumphant expression. " What do you mean ? " asked George. Vane, without speaking, stooped, lifted the garments one by one and threw them succei^- sively aside. The watch did not appear; liis look of malign satisfaction became more re- markable. " Here, you fellows ! " cried he, " come and see how many of your watches have l)uen taken." It can't be possible ! " whispered George, realizing fully the Third boy's meaning. " Can't it ? We'll see. Now you may guess why I took my coat from under him," exulted Vane. The boys who owned watches gazed at liini. " Mine's here ! " " Mine's here ! " " Mine, too ! " cried they, one after the other. All cheap ones — nickel mostly," answered Ferdinand, coolly. " George's and mine were DUX. 159 the only ones worth taking. Lucky for me 1 hung mine up on the post. There he goes ! " he exchiimed. The boys turned with his gesture. Etienne liiul not yet passed beyond the fence of the (Tiounds. He was still walking rapidly. In one instant every boy present caught the sus- picion, shouted " Seguin ! " and rushed towards him in a body. (Jeorge had tried to struggle against the conviction, but with the unanin)ous shout of his comrades the struggle ended, lie joined the rush. Etienne had stopped. The boys, nearing him, saw that he was deathly pale. They formed a ring about him. Ferdinand spoke lirst. '' We've caught you ! " he sneered. ''Well, what then?" asked Etienne, angrily. "Oil, isn't he surprised? Of course he wouldn't take a watch ! " cried Vane. " What ! " " Oh, the impudence of him ! Why don't you take your watch from him, George?" continued Vane. Etienne turned to George. * What does this mean, George Digby?" he asked, sternly. 160 DUX. " My watch has been taken from my waist- coat since I took it off," George answered. "And i/oii were lying on it," put in Ferdi- nand. " Come, none of your nonsense ! Shell out!" " Do you dare to pretend tliat I would take a watch ? " cried the French boy, furiously. " Yes, that's just what I do mean ! " answered Ferdinand. " Stand back ! " Etienne raised his heavy satchel threatenin^dy. " Ha ! I see ! it's a con- spiracy ! " he wont on, wildly. " You have laid a plot. Stand back ! You would ruin me, then? Is it that you want a pretence to at- tack me ? If a ! the examination is so near, I'm to be laid up, eh? I see ! " "Let us search him!" cried Ferdinand, a moved forward. In an instant Etienne, with a burst of in- difrnation and tears, brou||ht his bo(>]<~ .vitii gj ..... force dowfi on V/ine's Uutui, and knocked him sprawling into I/he gutter. Leaping over his j)rostrate antagonist, ho ran down the side street swiftly. A few boys started in pursuit. DUX. 161 "Let him go!" cried Ferdinand, rising. " /A''.s done for. We'll have him up before 'Prof to-morrow, and that's the end of Dux rt'ii-Soup ! " The boys Avended their separate ways home- ward, convineed of Seguin's guilt. It was just what they had expected, they remarked, after lit! fashion of their elders in such cases. Georsje had no more doubt than the others ; SeLmin's conduct seemed to him full confirma- tioM. lie did not make a seai'ch of the ijround, or the building, or his desk, for why should f*V/';/eJi l)oy liave fled had he not liad the Next day tlujre was not a doobt of Etienne's guilt in the academy, ioi he did not return. Wednesday, Thur>«iay, Friday, went by, and the French boy irass saail absent. Even the Principal no looiger pretended to doubt the guilt of a lad who dared not face his accusers, though the coveted position of Dux was to be gained only through the exaniiniitions begin- ning the following Monday. Thougli freed so strangely froni his formid- abio competitor, George was not the boy to 162 DUX, relax his efforts. Working till late each night, spending Saturday in a steady grind, he rose on Sunday, after a sleepless niglit, in such a state of nervous excitement that his father insisted on taking him for a long walk, instead of to church. Having rambled far away into the country, and dined at a distant inn, George reached home fagged out, and after eating, went straight to bed and heavy slumber. When he awoke, the sun was bright and high. Eiglit o'clock was striking. "Exami- nations! I'll be late!" and out he jumped. All aglow after his cold bath, he hastily 1)egan to dress. ""Oral to-day. Parents and friends present. Sunday suit proper, I suppose," re- flected he. On went the trousers. Now fur the waistcoat. Reaching it from tht; closet hook, he threw it on, and in a twinkling but- toned it, standing before liis tall mirror. And then into the mirror tlie boy stood staring, as if petrilied with horror. The mirror reflected his watcli-guard, and putting up his hand, he drew forth the miss- ing timepiece. The truth that he had forgotten to change the watch from his Sunday to lii>' DUX. 163 school suit on the previous Monday flashed on him, together with the dreadful thought that he liad falsely accused Etienne Seguin of theft. George Digby was honest to the heart's core. He did not hesitate a moment. Etienne must be cleared at once, before the examination could begin. It was now twenty minutes after eight. George threw on his coat, seized his books, called to his mother that he could not wait for breakfast, and rushed out of the house. In five minutes he was inside the academy. There sat the Principal, preparing for the day's work. "" Where does Seguin live ? " cried the breath- less boy. While " Prof " turned up the address- book, George explained himself. "• But you have no time to find him," said the Principal. '' It is nearly two miles away. You will miss the opening, and lose your place." " I can't help it, sir. He must be found. I itiuld not sit in class till the wrong is cleared uway." ''Good boy! good fellow!" said "Prof." " Hut mind this," and he looked searchingly at George ; " if you do bring him with you he will run you close for Dux," 164 DUX. "Then it would be infamous not to bring him ! " said George. George took a cab and soon found him.sulf in a quarter where lie had never been before. Instead of the spacious stone residences, shade- trees and ilower gardens of the West End, hero were long rows of decaying brick and wooden houses, little groceries, obscure saloons. Drag- gled women stood at the doors or gazed from the windows, ragged children watched him from the gutters, heavy and foul odors possessed the air. He sickened to think of poor Etienno coming from such a quarter to compete gallantly for tlie great academy prize, and go down before a false charge. It did not occur to him that there must be other reason for Seguin's absence than the ac- cusation, until a large yellow and black placard caught his attention. Another — another — how many ! Printed on each, in huge black letters, were but two words : " Picotte — Small-pox." He had forgotten the dread disease, which liad recently begun to ravage the city. And now he was in the midst of it. This was the poor French quarter, its home ! But he did not for DUX, 165 an instant think of turning back ; his errand was of lifo and death inij-ortance to his own soul; only he wished he had not put off re- vaccination from day to day. The cab stopped. George sprang out. There was the number. He ran up the -teps and knocked loudly. As the sound ceased, a wild cry came ivom witliin, and the cabman sliouted in alarm, — " Look out, sir ! Come back I There's small- pox there ! " George stepped backward, and there, high be- side the door, were the fragments of a yellow placard. At the same moment the door opened, and a calm-faced Sister of Mercy appeared before the boy. " Etienne Seguin ! " he exclaimed. '* Yes," said she, in French. " It is he lias the disease." "- Etienne ! Etienne ! " cried George. " Eti- enne ! " and staggering, turned so pale that the kind nun instinctively moved forward to sup- port liim. "But, no, T must not touch you," she said, halting. " What is it ? " "I am George Digby," said he, faintly. "This HB ^ ^^I ^% %. IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) t^o 1.0 IS "a I.I 1.25 2.5 ^ m 20 1.8 U IIIIII.6 P^^ ^^ '<^. ^ Photographic Sciences Corporation 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 (716) 872-4501 ^"^ 166 DUX. is the watch. I did not find it till this morning — at home — in my Sunday coat. I came for Etienne." " Poor boy ! poor boy ! " said the nun, com- prehending all. "1 am very sorry for you. Oh, if Etienne could have known this ! " " Is he going to die ? " "It may be. His case is a bad one. He is becoming delirious, raving always then of you and the watch. But it is as God wills," she concluded, resignedly. Just then there came the sound of the sick boy's voice. '•''George Dighy — you have not conspired — you would not ruin mcf'' " Etienne ! No ! no ! Oh, for mercy's sake, I didn't know! I have come to tell you!" cried George, in his agony There was a hush within. A small crowd of miserable people had already gathered about George. " It is the English boy who made up the lie against Etienae," they said to one an- other, composedly. " No," said the nun. " The English boy is a noble boy," and she explained to them. " The English boy, George Digby ! " cried a DUX, 167 woman from behind the Sister. "Ah, mur- derer ! you have killed my Etienne ! Monster ! " The nun hiid her hand on the mother's arm. "No. Calm yourself," said she. "He is a good youth," and again she explained. " You had hoped to bring Etienne back, is it not so, my child?" concluded the Sister of Mercy, turning to George. "Yes. And oh, what shall I do now?" groaned George. "Can he not understand? Could I not make him understand? Oh, what is to become of me if he dies without forgiving me V" The nun looked thoughtfully at him. " My noble hoy," she said, " it may be that you have been sent to save Etienne's life this day. His delirium is but begun ; sometimes he is calm ; it is always of the watch and you he raves. Could he comprehend, it might be well that his mind would rest from its fever. But our voices he knows ; he would think we were deceiving him for a purpose. If you have tlie courage to enter, to let him see you, to speak to him, he may understand. But there is danger for you, great danger." 168 ^ux. High above her gent ^ tones now rose the voice of Etienne, shrih, accusing, terrible: " George Dighij^ you have ruined me ! " " Etienne I Etienne ! Don't say it ! " Georcre was swept by an impulse beyond control. " Etienne ! " he cried, and went swiftly into the miserable liouse. " Etienne ! " he said, with- held at the door of the room by the nun's grasp. "What? You?" said the sufferer, (juite sanely, and turned toward the door. "It isnt Etienne!" groaned George, as he saw the changed face. "Ah yes, I understand I Etienne, I have found the watch. The whole school knows. I beg you to forgive me ! " While the explanation went on, Etienne lay quite still. " Give me a drink," said he then, faintly, and having received it, spoke clearly. " Yes, I for- give you, George. You have made me happy. I knew what would be believed in my absence; it was maddening. I forgive yon, and pity and bl'^ss you, George. Did you know I always liked you? That's what made it harder. And now go, go ! I pray you may escape this. I will see you again ; i will get well." the iorjre iitrol. ,0 the with- he lay and I for- appy. >ence ; and ^hvays And us. pe sti hii gel "F the it. I)u: said lion that too. whe no J scho title. miLsl asso( DUX. 1G9 When George returned to the street, the people shrank aside from liini. He stepped straight toward the cab. The driver motioned him back. " No, no," said he ; " I dassent drive you. You woukl infect my carriage." " Nonsense ! " said the boy. " Why, I must get back instantly to the academy." " What ! Would you infect the school, sir?" Then George understood what he had lost. "Ferdinand will be Dux," he said, staring. at the man. " Etienne lying there, and I out of it. Take me home, then. Ferdinand will be Dux, after all. Poor Etienne ! " "i don't know anything about ducks, sir," said cabby, " but I know as you oughtn't to go home. You'd ought to get disinfected, sir ; that's what you'd ought to do. Right away, too. I dassent drive you, but I'll show you where," and George quietly followed him. Well, tlien, Ferdinand was Dux, but he felt no pride in his hollow victory. Nor did the school admit that he had gained honor with title, medal, and money. In justice, however, it must be told that he saved his credit with his associates. 170 DUX, " Ferdinand Vane, Dux of the year," said the Principal, a fortnight afterward, on Prize-dis- tribution day, "wishes me to speak on his behalf. He admits that George Digby should have been Dux, for poor young Seguin could not liave gained the honor, as it is quite ccitiiin that the disease was witli him on his last appear- ance here, and would have prostrated him dur- ing the examinations. Both George and Etienne deserved the first place. Now, with his father's consent. Vane wishes me to state that the whole sum of the four years' scholarship, four hundred dollars in all, will lie paid to Etienne Seguin during his university course. 1 am glad to say that he is in a fair way to recover." There was great cheering from the boys. "As for George Digby, the Academy will ])re- sent him with a special gold medal and a diploma, testifying that in the special examina- tion granted to him, he has gained a greater number of marks than were ever reached by any Dux of the school." There was great cheering again, Ferdinand leading. " And I am ver^^ happy to tell you that this DUX. 171 honor to Digby originated with Vane's proposal to yield him the Dux medal, and don't you think, l)oys, that Vane, too, deserves honor, after all?" There were tremendous cheers for Vane. SMOKY DAYS. IIu sho Ilea: pioi A that duyt vigo the 1 disti it IK littk SMOKY DAYS. CHAPTER I. THE FIRE-FIGHT EIIS. "Hush, there's mother's good little girl! Hush, Ann Susan! I thought I heard Teter shouting." '^Shut yer head, Ann Susan! Don't you hear yer maw?" said David Armstrong, the j)i()nuer. Ann Susan, weary of tlie smoky and still air tluit had covered her backwoods world for thrcj days, rubbed her sore eyes and screamed more vigorously. By night the smoke shrouded away the moon and stars. By day the sun was never distinctly visible, except when in mid-sky, where it now hung, red and solid looking, apparently little farther above the Armstrongs' clearing 176 «Hi 176 SMOKY DAVfi. than the pines on top of the small mountam they called the Hump. "Hush, Ann Susan! Hush, baby!" said Mary, the eldest daughter, rattling two iron spoons together. "Look what Mary's doing. See what a good little girl Eliza Jane is. bea- ten if brother Peter's calling." Ann Cusan did not condescend to obey. Eliza Jane, the five-year-old, gazed across the table at the screaming "baby" with an air of superior goodness. "Hush, there! WhatN Peter say in', maw?" said the pioneer, with alarm. " Is he shouting fire? Can you make it out?" His wife listened intently. " Oh dear, oh dear, it's too bad ! " she cried, suddenly, in such anguish that Ann Susan was startled to silence. For a moment nothing was heard in the log- cabin except the rhythmical roar of the rapids of the Big Brazeau. Then a boy's voice came clearly over tlie monotone of the river. " Father ! Hurry ! There's fire falling near the barn ! " " The barn'll go, sure ! " shouted Armstrong, and sprang up so quickly as to upset the table, SMOKY DAYS. Ill whose pannikins, black-handied forks and knives, coffee-pot, tin plates, fried pork, potatoes, and bread clattered to the floor. As Ann Susan stared at the chasm which had suddenly come between her and Eliza Jane, Armstrong nd Mary ran out. The mother, as slie tottered after her husband and daughter, wailed, " The barn is going, sure ' Oh dear, if only He could 'a' spared the hay ! " Tlie children, left sitting in their high chairs, startd si^untly at one another, hearing only the hoarse pouring of the river and the buzzing of Hies resettling on the scattered food. " De barn is doin', sure ! " echoed Eliza Jane, descending from her elevation. " Baby tui.i and see de barn is doin'." Ann Susan gave her hand to Eliza Jane, and the two toddled through the wrecked dinner things to the outside, where the sun, yellowed by the motionless smoke-pall, hung like a great orjinge over the clearing. As David Armstrong ran toward his son Peter he saw brands dropping straight down as from an invisible balloon. The lighter pieces swayed like blazing shingles ; the heavier, de- scending more quickly, gave off trails of sparks M 178 S^fOKV DAY'S. which mostly turned to ashes before toucliiiirr the grass. Wlien the pioneer reached the 2>l^ce of diiii- ger, the shower had ceased ; but g.-ass fires had already started in twenty places. Peter had picked up a big broom of cedr.r branches tied together, and begun to thrash at the blaze. His father and sister joined without a word in the fight against fire that they had waged at intervals for three days, during wliich the whole forest across the Big 15razeau had seemed burning, excei)t a strip of low-lying woods adja- cent to the stream. Night and day one of the four grown Armstrongs had watched for "lire falling," but none of the previous showers of coals, whirled high on the up-draught fiom the burning woods, and carried afar by current;? moving above the still smoke-pall, had come down near the barn. Now the precious forty tons of stored hay seemed doomed, as scattered locks, strowii on the ground outside the barn, caught from the blazing brands. The arid, long and trodden grass caught. Every chip and twig, dry as tinder in that late August weather, blazed SMOKY DAYS. 179 when touched by llame. Sparks, wavering U[) from the grass to drift a little on no peree^jtible wind, were enough to start fresh conflagration. Peter thrashed till ail was black around liini, but a dozen patches flickered near by when he looked around. Beating, stamping, sometimes slfipping out sparks with their bare liands, the father, son, and daughter all strove in vain, wliile the mother, scarcely strong enough to lift her broom, looked distractedl}^ at the grow- ing area of danger. *'Lord, O Lord, if you could on'y have mercy on the barn! We could make out without the house, but if the hay goes we're done ! " she kept nuittering. Eliza Jane, hand-in-hand with Ann Susan, watched the conflict, and stolidly le-'jchoed her niother's words, till both were startled to silence by suddenly catching sight of a strange bo} who had ascended from the Big Brazeau's rocky bed to the Armstrong clearing. None of the other Armstrongs had yet seen the stranger boy, who neither announced him- self by a shout, nor stood on the bank more than long enough to comprehend the danger to the i Hi 180 SMOKY DAYS. burn. Quickly grasping the meaning of the desperate efforts of the pioneer family, per- ceiving clearly that the barn was in daiifrer, the stranger remarked, " By Jove ! " threw a light paciv from his back, unstrapped it, laii down to the river witli his large gray blanket, dipped this into the water, and trailing it, flew swiftly to aid in the fight against lire. "Here, you boy," cried the newcomer to Peter, "come and take the other side of this blanket ! " He had already drawn it over the flame-edge nearest the barn and was trailing its wet folds over the quickening blaze. "Ilinry; help me to spread the blanket — this is the way ! " he cried with decision. Peter understood and obeyed instantly, though he resented the tone of command. " Take both corners ! " cried the newcomer. " Now then ! Do as I do." He and Peter walked rapidly over the wet blanket. When they lifted it the space was black. " Again ! " The stranger spoke in a calm imperative voice. They drew the blanket over another space of light flames, spread it, stamped on it, repeated the entire operation. SMOKY DATS. 181 " Never mind the fire over there ! " cried this commanding youth to David Armstrong. " Come liere — gatlier between the barn and the blanket! Slap out any sparks that fly between ! " The stranger had brought into the struggle a clear plan and orderly action. Now all strove together — brooms and blanket as organs of one fire-fighting machine. In fifteen minutes there was not a spark in the clearing, and the smoke- blackened Armstrongs stood panting about their young deliverer, who was apparently quite cool. " You give us mighty good help, young fel- ler. Jest in the nick of time, too," said the pioneer, gratefully. " Aw — very glad, I'm sure," drawled the lad, almost dropping his rs while he flicked his fore-and-aft cap with a gray silk handkerchief. " I rather thought your barn was going, don't you know." "So.it was, if you hadn't jumped in so spry,** said Mrs. Ar'-nstrong. "Aw — well — perhaps not exactly, madam. It wasn't to be burned, don't you know." Tlie mystified family stared at this fatalist \vLile he calmly snapped the handkerchief about 182 SMOKV DATS. his heltud blouse, his tight trousers, and even his thick-soled w.alking boots. When he had fairly cleared his garments of little cinders and dust, he looked pleasantly at the pioneer, and said with a bow : " Mr. David Armstrong, I believe ?" " Dave," said tlie backwoodsman, curtly. I'eter laughed. He had conceived for the ceremonious youtli that slight aversion which the forest-bred boy often feels for the "city feller." Mrs. Armstrong and Mar}'- did not sliare Peter's sentiment, but looked with some admi- ration on the neat little fellow who had shown himself so quick to plan and ready to act. Peter had rashly jumped to the opinion that the stranger was a "dude" — one of a class much reprehended in the columns of the KcUifn Crossing Star and North Ottawa Valley Inde- pendent^ in whose joke department Peter de- lighted. There he had learned all tliat he knew about " dudes." The stranger in dusting himself, had dis- played what even Mary thought an effeminate care for liis personal appearance. Not only so, SMOKY DAY^S. 18;{ I)iii Ik; soniehovv contrivoil to look smartly (lii'sscd tlioiigli costumed suitiihly for the woods ill ;i brownish suit of hard " halifax " tweed, llaimcl shirt, aiul gray silk lie. Indeed, this small city youth was no handsome, so grace- fully l)uilt, and so well set up by drill and gym- nastics that he could have worn overalls and looked nicely attired. To crown all, he was superlatively at ease. "Who be you?" inquired the pioneer. " Aw — my name is Vincent Algernon Bracy." " A (lood, for sure ! " thought Peter, trying to suppress his laughter. "Them's the kind o' names they always liave. Now if he'd on'y fetch out that eyeglass and them cigarettes ! " At Peter's polite hut most unsuccessful attempt to keep his laughter down, his mother and Mary frowned, and into Peter's eyes young Bracy looked indifferently for a few seconds, during which the lads began to have a certain respect for each other. "He'd be an ugly little chap to run up against," thought the 3'^oung pioneer, who could not have fashioned what he thought a higher compliment to any boy. But a faint flicker of 184 SMOKY DA Yd. amusement in Vincent Biacy's face so annoyed Peter that he wished circumstances were favor- able for a tussle — "Just to show him who's the best man." Vincent Algernon Bracy's thoughts during the same time were, " I wish I could hire this chap for the survey. He looks like the rit^lit sort to work. I wonder liow I have offended him." " Where ye from ? " asked David Armstrong. " My place of residence ? " "No. I seen ye're a city feller. Where'd you come from to-day ? " " About ten miles down river." " Yas. What you doin' there ? " " Camped there last night." "Alone?" " Except for sand-flies." " Yas, they'd give you a welcome. What you travellin' for in this back country all alone ? " " I'm not travelling all alone." " You said you ivas.^^ "No, i said I camped alone last night. My chief is camped fifteen miles lower." SMOKV DAYS. 185 "Chief! There don't look to be no Indian in your "Chief engineer." " Oho — now I size y' up. You're one of the surveyors explorin' for the nvi' oad?" "Not exactly. But I'm on the engineering party." "Same thing, I guess. When d'ye expeck to get the line to here?" " Next week." " Why ! yer a-goin' it ! " " Yes — the work is to be pushed quickly." " No — say ? It's really goin' to be built this time?" "Certainly. The company have plenty of money at last. Trains will be running here next spring." "Hurray! Hear that, maw ? The railroad's com in' straight on. They'll want every straw of hay we've got for their gradin' horses." "Certainly," said Bracy. "It's lucky you saved your hay. How much have you? Ten tons?" " Forty and more, I guess." "lleally ! I congratulate you, '>y Jove." ^>s,'"af 186 SMOKY DAYS. " What you say ? " " I'm glad you saved your hay." "01\ — now I understand. So'm I. It'll fetch niebby eighty dollars a ton." " Probably. I've seen hay at a hundred a ton on the Coulonge." In that district of the great Nortli Ottawa Valley hay frequently sold at such enormous prices before the railway came in. A tract of superior pine had been discovered far from the settlements and where wild hay was not to he found. Transportation over hills, rocks, and ravines was exceedingly costly. Horses wore partly fed on bread, on wheat, on " browse " from trees, as well as on oats, but nothing to supply the place of hay adequately could be foiiiid. Lumbermen " had to have it," and Armstrong had " moved way back " on purpose to profit by their demand. Unprecedented prices nuist result from the competition between lumbermen and the advance construction-gangs of the in- coming railway. "Where you off to now all alone?" asked Armstrong. "I'm going to Kelly's Crossing." SMOKY DA VS. 187 ''What for?" " Well, I suppose 1 may tell you. My chief could not spare a Ijoat and men f'^r a trip down to Kelly's. We heard of a path from here over the mountain. I am sent this way to hire all the men I can collect at Kelly's." '' I <,niess you must be a purty smart young feller to be trusted that way." "You're very kind, I'm sure," and Vincent waved his hand with a deprecatory gesture that (lid not detract from his confident bearing. " At any rate," he went on, " I do my best to ohey orders. Now, perhaps you will be so good as to show me the path over the mountain." " The Hump, you mean ? " " Yes, I've heard it called the Hump. How far to Kelly's Crossing ? " " Thirty mile." "So much? I might almost as well have gone down river." " No, it's a good, flat path on top there." "Well, I'm glad of that. Good-day, Mr. Armstrong, Thank you very much. Good- day, madam. Good-bye, Miss Armstrong." He raised his cap with a bow to each, and 188 53/0/1 r DAYS. concluding with Peter, remarked, " Good-day, my boy," in an intentionally patronizing tone. This was Vincent's retort for Peter's grins at the Bracy name, but ho had scarcely spoken before he regretted the words ; not because they vexed Peter, but because Vincent felt that he had descended below that altitude of manly composure at which ho had aimed ever since leaving Upper Canada College a year before. Even pioneer boys are but mortal, and Peter now lost his temper. " Ain't you afeard to be out in them woods all alone without your maw ? " said he. "Not at all, than!: you. I'm sure it's very kind of you to inquire," replied Vincent, sweetly. Mary laughed outright. " He's too smart for you, Peter," said David Armstrong, laughing too. Quite at a loss to meet so affable an answer, Peter wiathfully watched the city boy striding away. "But say," cried Mrs. Armstrong, "you've forgotten your blanket." " No, madam," said Vincent, turning round. SMOKY DAYS. 189 »'It'.s not worth my wliilc caiTying it. Too lit'iivv, don't yon know." ''It h(fH <^<)t wut and dirty — and such a liandsonK; blanket it was!" said Mrs. Arm- stroiij^. " Hut say, younjr ^ontlenian, 'tain't fair you sliould lose your l)lanket litdpin^^ us " '* Don't mention it, madam, I l)eg of you. Very glad to l)e of service, I assure you." " Well, anyhow, take a dry blanket. We've got lots — ain't we, paw?" " We have. Nights is often cold now. You can't sleep out without one — not to say in comfort." '' Well, I will take a dry blanket," said Vin- cent, after reflection. " I mean to camp at a creek that is about fifteen miles from here, I'm told." "Yas — Lost Creek." " Aw — why so called ? " " It gets lost after it runs a good ways, some say. I guess there ain't nobody ever follered it through to the Brazeau." "Here's a blanket, Mr. Bracy," said Mar3% running from the cabin. " It's not such a good big one as yours was.'' 190 SMOKY DAYS. She was a pretty girl, though now begrimed with smoke and cinders, and Vincent, h)oiviug at her with fun twinkling in his eyes, lifted his cap once more off his yellow, curly, close- cropped liair, with an air at which Peter se- cretly said, " Yah-ah ! " in disgust. " Very good of you, I'm sure. Miss Arm- strong," concluded Vincent, as he strapped tlie blanket. Having placed it back of his slioul- ders, he niade one more grand nnd inclusive bow, and then rapidly p.scended the Hump. " Well, I'm teetotally blomed if we didn't let him go witl.'out a bite to eat," said Peter three minutes later. The pioneer boy, bred i'^ a land where hospitality is given and taken almost as a matter of course, was aghast at the family failure to offer the stranger food. "Dear, dear! I'm ashamed of myself, so I am," cried Mrs. Armstrong. " After all ho done for us ! And him that eas^/ about it." " 111 say this for him," remarked the pioneer, " he's cur'us and queer in his talk, but if it wasn't for the spry way he worked tliat blan- ket of hisn, the barn was gone sure. He saved me more'n three thousand dollars." !ll!;ffi!iji t SMOKT DATS. 191 "He can fly round and no mistake, I allow that. 'Tain't the fii-st fire-fightin' he's did," said Peter, forgetting his resentment at the vanished Vincent's overpowering air::. '' We was near a spat, but I liked him first-rate, all the same." "Such a name!" said Mary, wishing to jus- tify Peter, now that he had spoken magnani- mously. '' Well, he comes of respectable enough folks aiiyliow — I'll make no doubt of that," said the mother, " but laws ! there ain't no denyin' — for if ever there was an outlandish name I " " Next time I see Vincent Awlgehnon Bracy, him and Peter Armstrong's going to try which is the best man," said Peter, who conceived, as all the men of the Brazeau do. that "best man " could signify nothing but the man most efficient in rough-and-tumble fighting. "•B'^tter look out you don't go rastiin' with no thrashin' machines, Peter," said his father. " Them city chaps has got all the trips they is, you bet. And up to boxin' too — why, they're scienced ! But say, maw, you wasn't never madamed and bowed dowu to like that in all 102 SMOKY DAYS. your bom clays before." And the pioneer, chuckling, strode off to watch the fire from a favorable [)lace by the river. " It's on'y the way he's got o' talkin'. I des- say that's the way he was fetched up," said llie mother, indulgently, as she slowly walked with her children to the cabin. The woman moved weakly and was still gasping from the excite- ments she had undergone. She was incessantly ailing, working, and over- worked, — it is the fate of the pioneer woman, and because she does not chop, nor mow, nor share in the heavier labors that are easy to the great strength of pioneer men she commonly laufrhs at the notion that overwork is her bane. "I'm just kind o' wore out fussin' round the house '■ was Mrs. Armstrong's formula. Striding beside her Peter carried Eliza Jane and Ann Susan on his shoulders, for his good temper had returned, and the little girls w^ere in high delight with their "horse." But sud- denly Eliza Jane screamed, the younger child stared dumb with wonder, and Peter set both down hastily in his dismay. His mother had stumbled and fallen heavily forward. KM SMOKY DAYS. 193 As Peter lifted lier he shouted, "Father — come — quick! Oh Mary, is mother dead!" and Mary, looking into the weary face and catching it to her heart doubted her own words as she said " No. Oh Peter, for the love of the Lord, no I I guess she's fainted." David Armstrong running desperately to the group seized his wife in his arms. "Stand back!" he cried as he laid her limp form on the arid ground. "Peter — hurry — git water — mother's tuckered out — it's the fear of the barn goin' that ails her. She ain't dead — it couldn't be — oh God it couldn't be ! " Meantime, Vincent Bracy had reached the flat summit of the Hump, and stood on its edge tjazing far and wide. Near the horizon, in every (hreetion except toward Kelly's Crossing, the snioke-i)all was lurid from lire below. Beyond the mile-wid' low-lying, green forest north of the curving Big Brazeau extended heights which now looked like an interminable >^;r.bank- ment of dull red marked by wide patches of a fiercer, wliiter glow. No wind relieved the gloomy, evenly diffused 194 SMOKV JJAYS. heat around Vincent on the top of the great hill. No sound reached him but the softened murmur of the rapids, the stridulous shrilling of locusts and tree-toads unseen, and tiuj occa- sional barking of the Armstrongs' dog away down in the solitary clearing. "It's almost hot enough up here to begin burning on its own hook," said Vincent, wip- ing streams of sweat off his forehead and neck. "Shouldn't I be in a pretty scrape if the Hump caught ! " But the thought gave him no pause, nor in- deed, any alarm. He had been sent to Kelly's Crossing, and to get there speedily was the dom- inant point in his mind ; so he plunged into the woods, and soon was beyond every visible evi- dence of the great forest fire, except only the smoke that lay dindy in the aisles of the pinery, and gave its odor and taste to the air. CHAPTER II. MOTHER S CUP OF TEA. "Don't you stay in, Davy. I won't faint no more. 1 ain't sick now — not to say real sick. It's on'y I'm a kind of done out. I'd feel easier if I knowed you was out watching the bam." "Peter's watchin' all right, maw," answered David Armstrong, gazing from the cabin door at the forest fire across the Big Brazeau. " It looks kind o' squenched some, Hannah." " Yes. It's always like that about noontime. The sky's lightsomer when the sun's high, so's you can't see the red of the fire. But there it is — threatenin' — threatenin' — it's almost worse than in the night when you can see how big it's grew. 0/<, if it'd go out; Lord, I feel s'if I couldn't hear it to be burnin', burnin', always burnin' and threatenin'. But I wisht you'd gt), Davy. You can't do nothin' for me." 196 in « 196 SMOKV DAYS. "S'posin' you was to faint again, and me not nigh — and you didn't come out of it, Hannah?" " But I ain't a goin' to, Davy dear," she said, fondly, moved by solicitude so unusual in the work-worn man. "It'd be hard lines if it did come that way — and you and me so long goin' on together." " But I ain't goin' to faint no more, Davy dear. It was on'y I got so excited when I thought the barn was goin'. Don't you be feard about me." " I wisht I knowed what to do for you, Hannah." "So you do, Davy, speakin' that soft — like it was old times come again. If you'd put your head down onct — just onct." The grizzled pioneer looked sheepishly at Mary, who stepped out of the cabin, as he put his smoke-blackened face down to his wife's on the bed. She placed her hard hands behind his head and kissed him. Her eyes were tearful, though her smile was joyful, when he rose. "Well, I s'pose I had better go," said the pioneer. "Yes, Davy. Nov; I'm all right. You've SMOKY DAYS, 197 (lone me a heap of good. If I'd oii'y a. cup of tea!" " Couldn't you choose a cup of coffee, Han- nah? If Mary'd make it good and strong, now r ''No. Someways I can't seem to relish it when I know it's on'y roasted peas. Don't you trouble, Davy. Go out and let Peter come nearer the house. When you're both watchin', maybe I can sleep. Oh, I wisht I could help more ! " "Why now, Hannah — you do help — cordin' to your stren'th — all you can. Say, maybe you could sup some of the labrador." He took up a handful of leaves that Canadian voyageurs often infuse for warm drink when they lack tea — true coffee is an unknown beverage in that district. " No, the lal)rador kind o' goes agen my in- side, Davy — it's the tea I'm hankerin' after." ''If I dast leave I'd go out for you, Hannah." " Out to Kelly's Crossing ! Thirty mile and back for a cup of tea for me ! This weather ! " "I wisht I dast go. But if the barn'd catch? And hay the price it is ! " he said, leaving the M Ti^r 198 SMOKY DAYS. sick woman, who, lying back on the rustling straw bed, drew her thin pillow of hen-feathers about her thin cheeks. " If the tlies'd let me be ! " she exclaimed. "I'll keep 'em off, maw, and you try to sleep," said Mary, waving her straw hat. " But that's a comfort, Mary ! " She lay still for a while, then said, "I'm that weak! Oh my!" "If I'd 'a' thought, I'd 'a' saved up the tea, mother." Mary stooped and kissed her. " Is Peter a-watchin', Mary ? " " Yes, maw, clost outside. The fire's low- like." "I can't seem to get no rest for the fear of it. Oh, if the Lord ud send rain ! Lord, Lord, Lord ! " she wailed, " do hear ray prayer for rain ! It's been so long a-burnin' and a-burnin' yonder! " She closed her eyes and listened to the per- vasive tone of the rapids. Then, after a few minutes, when Mary had begun to hope she slept, the poor woman, as if dreaming of un- attainable bliss, sighed : " 0/i, how I wisht I had a cup of tea I " SMOKV DATS. I9d Peter, who had been softly approaching the cabin door, overheard the words, and now the boy and girl looked fearfully at each other, as the misery vibrated in the tones of their usually uncomplaining mother. The son had no words to fashion his yearning for her, but it did not include fear that she was near death. Except that the wisps of straight gray hair b jside her ears seemed wider and grayer, she did not look changed from the toil-worn mother he had always seen. When they were sure she slept, Peter and Mary went outside. Both seemed to hear, over and over again, on the hot, still and smcVy air their mother's voice : " Oh^ how I wisht I had a cup of tea ! " "If we'd on'y thought to ask that young gentleman to fetch in a pound ! " said Mary. "Him? That Bracy? You'd 'a' seen his young gentleman nose turnin' up ! " " No, you wouldn't ! He was that friendly." « Friendly ! G'way ! " Mary prudently dropped the matter. After a while, looking at their father's figure outlined against the woods beyond the river, she said, 200 SMOKY DAYS. *' If pawM 'a' fetched in eiH)Ugli tea last time, or gone again." " Father's gettin' too ohl for to waliv thirty mile aii'l back more'n onct a month. lUit mother'd ought to have her cup of tea. She's hankerin' bad." " Ilankerin' ! Peter, I'm going to tell you right straight. I'm scared about mother. Motli- er's like to die as sure as you're settin' tliere, I*eter, and then what's to 'come of Ann Susan and Eliza Jane ? " sobbed Mary, "Like to die ! Say now, Mary?" " If she ain't got her tea reg'lar, I mean." " By cracky, mother's got to have her tea ! " cried Peter. " What's to hinder me going out?" " You're not able this weather." " G'way ! Abler nor father any day. Ain't that 'ere dood off for Kelly's Crossin' all alone? Nat'r'lly I ain't able like Vincent Awlgelinon Bwacy is, but I'm as able as most common folks." "Don't mock him, Peter. He didn't say his name like that. Not exactly. But you could go better'n that little feller, Peter. Only you can't go no more'n father — not now, for there's the fire and the barn." SAtOKV DAYS. 201' " Whiit's the barn alongside of mother's life ? And if brands does come, ain't we keeping wet |)liini We're done, 1 guess. But it would l)e mean to give up. We'll push on's long's we can. Say — when I drop, you push on. Never mind me. No use us both dyui'." " We shall stick together, Peter," Vincent replied stoutly. " We shall pull through. See, the banks are getting higher. Tlie water is running faster. We shall reach a gully soon and get rest." Peter laughed hysterically at the prediction, and screamed derision at it ; but tlie words roused some liope in his heart, lie bent his gaze to watch the contours of the banks, 'i'hey were certainly rising higher above the water. Gradually the creek descended. When they had passed down a long, shallow, brawHng rapid, the fire-forest was twenty feet higher than their heads. They no longer needed to m SMOKY DAYS. 219 dip often. In tlie hot night their clothing rapidly dried. '' Hello ! Where is the procession ? " cried Vincent. The boys stared far along the water. Not a snake, chipmunk, squirrel, mink, nor any oilier wild refugee was to be seen. " They've gone in under the banks. We can stop, too," said Peter. "No. Too many branches falling, Peter. Let us push on to a lower place." "I won't! Pm going to sit down right here." " Well, but look out for the branches. They are falling — whopping big ones too, in every direction. No chance to sleep yet. Trees may be crashing down here before morning. We must go lower." ''The hunger is sore on me. If we'd on'y catched some of them squirrels ! " " I've got a coui)le of hard-tack in my pocket. They are soaked, but all tlie better for that." He brought several handfuls of pulp from the breast pocket of his belted blouse. Wliile Peter devoured his share, Vincent ate a few morsels and put the rest back in his pocket. 220 tiMOKY DAYS. " You're not eating," said Peter. " I shall need it more before morning." " There won't be no morning for you and nie. Is it all gone ? " " No. We'll share the rest when we stoj) for the night. Come on, Peter ; you'll die here." "I won't! I'll sleep right here, die or no die." Peter stretched himself, steaming slowly, on the pebbles. The ruddy fire shone on his up- turned face and closed eyes. Vincent looked down on liim meditatively. He was casting about for words that would rouse the young pioneer. " What do you suppose your mother is doing now ? " cried Vincent, sharply. But Peter had instantly fallen asleep. Vin- cent stooped, shook him powerfully by the shoulder, and repeated the question at the top of his voice : — "What do you think your mother is doing now?" Peter sat up. " Burnt ! Burnt out, as sure as we're here ! " he cried. "The barn'U be gone. We're ruined! SMOKY DAYS. 221 And mother's out in the night. My soul, how could I forget her ! I was dazed by the lire. They'll think I'm burned. Fm afeard it will kill mother. She'll be lying in the root house. They'd run there when the house catched." His distress was such that Vincent almost regretted the artiiice he had employed. ''It's likely everything at your home is all riirht, Peter," he said. " I've seen a hill fire like this flaming for days, and nothing burned below in the valleys. The wind seemed to blow up to the high fire from all sides below." " Yes — iiobody can tell what a bush fire'll do," said Peter. " Mebby mother is all right. Mebby the hay ain't gone. But they'll all be worn out with fear for me. Come on. If the creek goes on like this, we may reach the Brazeau to-morrow." " It's eleven o'clock now," said Vincent, look- ing at his watch. " I'm nearly tired out, myself. We shall go on all the faster for sleeping. Hello — what's that ? — a fall ? " The sound of brawling water came faintly. Descending quickly, they soon reached a place 222 SMOKY DAYS. where the creek appeared to pour, by a succes- sion of cascades, into a deep chasm. Below, they couid see nothing, except the gleam of dis- tant water, as flaming brands swayed down and down from tlie plateau now fifty feet over their heads. Here the coping of the banks overhung a little. All about the boys lay brushwood that had been left by spring floods. Peter, seizing a piece of dry cedar, flung off long splinters with his big hunting-knife. When enough for two torches had been accumulated, the boys searched for a route down. In Ave minutes they were a hundred feet below the top of the Humj). " Why, here's a good path," cried Vincent. " Great place for bears," said Peter, closely examining it. " If we're goin' to stop, we'd bet- ter stop right here. The gully below may be full of bears and wolves. They'd be drove out of the woods and down the gully before the fire." " Let's make a fire to keep them away from us," said Vincent. " No need. No beasts will come nigh." "But some may be coming down after us as we did, for safety." s^f()Ky DA vs. 223 mm » No ! They'd burrow under the bank back there. No fear of them, anyliow. They'd be too scared to bother us. But a fire won't do no harm.'''' Finding no brands handy, they lit shavings from the matches in their little water-tight, tin boxes, piled on the heaviest driftwood they could liiul, and lay down on a flat rock partly under the bank. In a few minutes both fell asleep to the clashing of the cascades. Brands fell and died out near them ; their bivouac fire became gray ; dawn struggled with the gloom overhead till the smoke ceased to look red from below, and became murky in the sunless morning. Still the tired boys slept well. But by eight o'clock they had descended the rocky hill down which the cascades jumped, and were gazing at hundreds of trout congregated in the clear long pool below. '' There's plenty of breakfast if we could only catch it, Peter," said Vincent. ''Catchin' them trout ain't no trouble," said Peter, taking command. "• You go down yonder and whale on the water with a stick. I'll whale my'' 224 SMOKY DAYS. up here. We'll drive a lot of 'em into the shaller." '' But how can you catch them without hook or line ? " " Leave me alone for that. I've got a hook and line in my pocket, but that'd be slow." As they thrashed the water while approacliinjiT one another, many of the crowded and frantic trout ran almost ashore. Hushing among tliem, Peter kicked vigorously at each step forward. Two fish flew far up the bank. Tliree more were thus thrown out. Several ran ashore. Vincent flung himself on these before they could wriggle back. They split the fish open, skewered them flat on sticks, and broiled them " Indian fashion " in the smoke and blaze from a fire oi' dry wood. Having thus breakfasted, they considered what to do. Going back was out of the question. Fire was raging two hundred feet above them, and for unknown leagues in every direction. Their only course was down the deep gully of the creek. By eleven o'clock, having walked steadily SMOKY DAYS. 225 along the Lost Creek's now easy descent, tliey found the crags overhead so closely approaching that the gorge, now little iiliiiniuated from the burning forest, became ever more gloomy. At last the sides of the ravine, when more than three hundred feet above them, came together as a roof. The boys stood at the entrance to a narrow cavern. Into this high tunnel, roughly shaped like a greatly elongated V turned upside down, the creek, now fed to a considerable volume by rivulets that had danced down the precii)ices, clattered with loud reverberation. "What we goin' to do now? Seems we're stuck at last," said l*eter. "Let's see. This is where the creek is lost. The question is. Where does it come out ? " "We're in a bad fix. There's no goin' back till the bush-fire's done." "Well — we can live here for a few days. Plenty of trout in that last pool." "But there ain't no Armstrongs in it! I'm wild to get home. Lord, Lord, what's happened to mother? I tell you I'm just crazy to get back home and see." Q 226 SMOKY DAYS. " You must be, Peter. So we must push on if possible. No use trying to get up to the toj) of this ruvine. It's all fire up there on both sides. Well, let us explore the cave. We can always find our way back. We will take torches." " Did you see a creek coming out of a place like this when you came up the river to our clearing ? " "No, but there's one coming out of a cave away down ';elow Kelly's Crossing." " Yes, I know. But this ain't that one." "No, of course not. It is likely this creek runs out some distance before reaching the Bra- zeau. Perliaps the cave is not a long one. We're safe to explore, at any rate." " Do you mind the bears' path up back there? There's room for all the bears on the Brazeau in there ahead of us," said Peter. "Our torches will scare tliem worse than they'll scare us. And I've got my revolver still." " Say ! I forgot to ask you ; did you fire two shots just before the fire started in the ?" " Yes — at a partridge. Missed him." woods SMOKY DAYS. 227 " Then you started the fire ! " ''No I It came roaring along a minute after that, though." "Started itself — that's gen'lly the way," said Peter. " Well, s'pose'n we have dinner, and go in after." They cooked more trout, supplied them- selves with bunches of split cedar, and stood peering into the entrance of the cavern, both a little daunted by the absolute darkness into which the stream brawled. B}' anticipation, they had the eerie sensation of moving tlirough the bowels of a mountain. So high and dark and awful was the narrow tunnel ! So insignifi- cant felt the boys beneath its toppling walls ! " Here goes," said Vincent, and marched ahead. For some minutes the creek's bed was such as it had been since they left the cascades — gravel bottom alternating with rocks, and little pools that they walked easily around. What was high above could not be seen, for the torches found no reflections up there on the cavern's roof. Instead of the reverberation increasing, it les- 228 SMOKY DAYS. sened as they went on. The brook bahhled to them to adviincc, and now there was a siiij^ular trembling of tlie air in which a swasliing ;ind pouring sound eouUl be lieard. "Got plenty of room over there?" eried Peter, from the left or north bank. " Yes, there's ten feet of shore here. Cross if you're crowded." " I will. There's no room on this side." As Peter lowered his torch to peer at the water, in which he was about to step that he mig.lit cross it, he saw that the stream broke into a chute a little further on. Now Vincent had stopped to await his comrade. The pioneer boy entered the water at tlie rapid's head, where he expected to iind the usual s; allow. But at the first step the cur- rents rushed about his knees. Peter half stag- gered, found what he thought would serve for forward footing, threw his weight on it, slipped as from a boulder, and went down. His torcli " sizzed " and disappeared. Vincent darted for- ward with a cry. As Peter, struggling to reach his feet, drifted a little, he felt himself suddenly caught as by a SMOKY DAYS. 220 strong mill race, and was liurried away into the blackness of darkness. Vincent liracy, swing- ing his torch, ran on almost blindly and at fnll s[)eed, till he collided with a wall of rock and fell backward. His fallen torch went out just as Peter, now lifty feet down stream, righting liiniself, struck out to swim across the current. With a few strokes he touched the rock and strove to grasp it, but his hand slipped and slipped against a straight and slimy rise. The pioneer boy, now wholly unable to see the space in wliich he was struggling, put down his feet, but touched no bottom. Swimming to the other side, he found the channel but a few yards wide. There, too, he grasped vainly for a hold. The water quite filled the space between the rock walls. Tie turned on his back and floated. The amazing, calm rapid swept him swiftly on. And so, through what seemed a long and smooth stone slide, but once interrupted by broken water, Peter, while Vincent lay sense- less in the cave, was carried away feet first as corpses go from the world to the grave. CHAPTER IV. RAIN ON THE BRAZEAU. All night and all forenoon rain had poured, while the pious folk of the back country of the Big Brazeau blessed God that He had saved them from the fires of the forest. Rivulets clattered down the rocky sides of the Hump; the Brazeau waved in increasing volume ; and a hundred wild tributaries tinged the great Ottawa with turbidity that slowly mingled in its brown central volume. Dumb creatures rejoiced with men in the moist coolness after so long a period of drought, smoke, and flame. Ducks squawked satisfaction with new-filled farm ponds ; cattle, horses, even hens forsook shelter as if they could not have too much assurance of the rain's actuality; draggled rats, flooded from their holes, scurried away as girls with petticoats over their heads went to the milking. By noon on the second 230 C^-^^: SMCKY DAYS. 281 (lay after Peter Armstrong and Vincent Bracy liad started for Kelly's Crossing, the rain had diminished to a drizzle that promised to con- tinue long. Still Lost Creek brawled enlarged into the cavern, and still the forest on the Hump smouldered and poured up blue smoke to the sky. David Armstrong's cabin and barn stood intact ; all in the clearing were still alive, for the high fire had blown far across the river without dropping many coals into the opening of tillage by the Hump's side. But the strain of watching for Peter had brought his mother close to the grave. "I'm not to say exactly dying. But I'm tired, Davy, tired to be alive. It's, oh, for Peter, poor, poor Pete," she wailed without tears, lying motionless on her rustling bed. Mary was frying a pan of pork on the out- door stove. Ann Susan and Eliza Jane, brisk with the fresh air after rain, played on the cabin floor, and watched the cooking with inter- est. When Mary brought in the frizzling food, David Armstrong did not rise from beside his wife's bed. '"'T^^'?^rsr?«^*^-w 232 S2I0KY DAYS. " Give the young ones their bite and their sup, Mary. Mebby I'll feel to set in after a bit," she said. " Take your dinner, Davy," said Mrs. Arm- strong, trying to release her thin, hard hand. " Eat a bite, do. It's not the sorrow that will strengthen you to get out them rails for build- ing up the burned fences." "No, Hannah, but I misdoubt I can't eat. Them molasses and bread I eat at breakfast has stayed by me good." " But you've got to keep alive, Davy." "Yes, a man's got to live till his time comes — the hunger will come back on me, so it will, and it's druv to eat he is. But God help us — it's to think we'll see Peter no more ! " The woman lying on the bed pressed her fore- head down on his hand, and so they remained, close together, while Mary fed the children. Tears were running down the pioneer's cheeks, thus furrowed often that day and the day be- fore. But the mother could not weep. " I yant Pete," whined Ann Susan. At that the lump of agony rose in Arm- strong's throat ; he could not trust himself to SMOKY DAYS. 23^ speak, though he wished to order the child to be silent. Mary struggled with her sobs as she listened. " I yant Pete," said Ann Susan again. ''Peter is dead! I wisht he'd come back quick," said Eliza Jane. Mary had vainly tried to make the children understand what had become of the big brother. " I yant Pete," persisted the younger. " Peter's gone away dead. He's burned up. I wisht he'd come and ride me on his foot," returned Eliza Jane. " ril ride you," said Mary. " No, I want Peter ! " " Hush, dear — poor brother Peter won't come back no more." " Let 'em talk, Mar}'," said the wof ul mother. " Poor little things - they help me. Oh, I want Peter, too." She spr. ig up, sitting, and broke into wild lamentation. " Oh Peter, if you'd come back and kiss me good-bye ! Why couldn't you wake me when he was going away? Pd 'a' stopped him. Thirty mile! Thirty mile and back — and the bush . r" *«■-' ihvnu^ VI r> mmui lini i JHiiLMia S34 SMO^Y bAYS. afire I — only to fetch a cup of tea for his mother ! I — 1 — my son's blood cries out of the woods against me ! " " No, Hannah, no, don't talk on that way again. It was me that let him go. Who'd 'u' thought fire would 'a' started up the Hump?" "Oh, no, Davy, I — me — crying like mad for tea ! Oh, my God ! — how you can icant me to go on livin' ! And Peter up there — burned black in the smoke under the rain I Such a good boy — always — strong and good. There ain't no mother got a helpfuller boy nor my Peter. Davy, what you s'pose I was thinkin' all them days sinst the hay was got in — and the big prices there is? I was hiyin' out how we could give Peter a winter's schoolin' in to the settlements. Yes — he'll learn quick. Oh, if I wasn't always so tired, what'd I do for my Pete." She lay still a long time before speaking again. " You'll miss me sore, Davy," she whispered. " It won't be long now." " No, Hannah, don't say it. You'll not leave me, Hannah." Ay — sore you'll miss me, Davy dear — I n SMOKY DAYS. 235 know how I'd 'a' missed you. Old and gray we've got, and once we was young together. Davy, don't you understand ? Don't talk on. 1 want to be with my boy." The man clutched, sobbed, and choked for breath. Mary went to the bed, and clasped her arms about her parents' necks. " Yes — you're good at lovin' your mother," the poor woman went on. " All of them is. God bless them for it ! They give me what l wanted more than all. Sore you'll miss me, too, Mary, and you fendin' for them all alone. I wisht I could stay. You'll tell Peter — no, I was forgetting — but there is a chance, ain't there? There's a chance f^^ "Yes, Hannah. S'posin' he was at the creek. Or the fire might 'a' jumped over a wide place?" '■' Many's the day and many's the night and many's the year Peter's heart'U be glad tliinkin' how he went thirty mile and out for tea for his mother," she said, as if dreaming. They thought she was fainting. But the vision of her son in the burning forest returned to her mind. 236 SMOKY DAY^. Then, with changed voice, rising on her elbow : — " Davy, if on'y we could find his bones ! " " I'll start first thing to-morrow, liunnah." " All night again I'll be thinking of the rain fallin' on him lyin' there in the smoke. Kaiii and rain and rain and rain — it come too late to save my boy ! " " Think of the chances, Hannah. Maybe he ain't dead at all." " He is — I seen him lyin' there too plain. Peter won't never come no more ! " " Peter won't never turn no more," repeated Eliza Jane. " I yant Pete," said Ann Susan, firmly " Give them to me," said the mother. Tak- ing the little girls in her arms, she lay still, thinking how soon Mary roust mother them. The children, awed by the silent passion with which she strained them to her breaking heart. lay still, breathing uneasily, with their faces close to her bosom. After a time, the sense that they were suffer- ing came to the poor mother, and she held them more loosely. Then her brain began to work on SMOKY DAYS. 237 the possibilities of Peter's escape. The worn"!! had to hope or die, and her vitality was still active. Absorbed, she had again clutched close the wondering infants, when strange voices out- side the door recalled her fully to her senses. '' Hey ! Who's these men ? Why, here's that surveyin' boy I No, it's another one." A man, and a youth clad as Vincent Bracy had been, but taller, came up the steps into the cabin. The youth was Vincent's rodman. " I have a letter for you, Mr. Armstrong," he said. " It's about your son." The mother rose, and stood staggering. "Where's Peter?" she cried. " I don't know, Mrs. Armstrong. The letter — it's from Mr. Bracy. He and Peter went through the fire together." '' The fire didn't get them ? " ''No, ma'am." "Oh, thank God, thank God! I can stand it if he's not dead that way. But where is he ? Alive ? " " Bracy hopes so." "Peter's lost, then?" " He is — in a way. But let me read you 'T;Ts«fti?tT^r«2fiA3 vm\iii w T'^sSw^BW? 238 SMOKY DAYS. Mr. Bracy's story. He was up nearly all night writing it. He thought it wouk^ ease your heart to know all about it. The chief engineer sent me up on purpose that you should know what is being done." "He didn't desert Peter, then? No — I'm sure." *' Not much ! They were separated by a strange accident. Listen." He began reaaing the lettei. Vincent had written out pretty fully the story of his march with Peter down Lost Creek, through the fire and to the cavern's mouth. The letter went on : — "When I picked myself up, my torch was almost out. I whirled it till it blazed, and then saw that I had run across the old channel of the creek and against a solid wall of rock that ran up to the roof of the cave, I suppose. Peter was gone down the water that was running within two yards of me. All I heard was its rushing into the passage that turned to the left. " At that place, the cave forks like a Y. The water runs down the left arm of the Y, and fills the whole space between the high walls there. SMOKY DAYS, 239 That stream looks as if it had broken down .slanting through the bed of its course and run into the left arm of the Y, after it had been niniiiiig into the right arm for ages. "I was lying at the fork of the Y, in the right-hand passage, while Peter liad l)een swept away down the other passage into darkness." " He's gone, gone forever ! " moaned Mrs. Armstrong. The young rodman read on in Vincent's let- ter: — '' Wlien I got up and tried to look down the passage after Peter, I heard a pouring sound away aliead as well as the rushing of the water. That was while I was stooping over. The pas- sage I was in was wider than the other, and I thought it must lead me into any place that Peter could be carried to. The other cave, down river below Kelly's Crossing, has passages that branch and come together again." "" That's so," said the pioneer. "So I thought it best to follow the right- hand passage instead of going in after Peter. I hope you will see that I did not wish to desert him. My idea was that I might reach him soon, 240 SMOKY DAYS. and if he was in any distress, I might be all the better able to help him if I went by the dry passage." " He did right," said the pioneer. ''Vincent would l)e glad to hear you say that," said the rodman. " He was greatly dis- tressed by his miscalculation." "Then he didn't find Peter again?" cried the mother. " He will find him. We know he must be still in thr ive. Ten men went up before day- light to reach him. There's reason for hope. Listen again to Vincent's letter: I lit another bundle of cedars, and went on. Pretty soon the cavern began to rattle with the thunder outside. The air vibrated so much that one might almost fear the cave wall would fall in. I could not see a flash of lightning at all. How long I went on I don't know, but it seemed half a mile or more. My last torch had just been lighted when I had a great scare, and saw the strangest sight ! "For some time there had been a strong smell as of wild animals. Suddenly the pas- sage in front of me seemed alive with creatures SMOKV DAYS. 241 all the bhe dry you say ally dis- cried the must he ifoie day- [or hope, t another soon the r outside. |ht almost ;ould not iig 1 went I mile or ted when strangest a strong the pas- creatures that snarled, growled, yel[)ed, and ran. Now you'll understand that those beasts couldn't trouble Peter. He went with the stream — they had been foi-ced into the dry passage by tlie fire. And they were much afraid of my torch. I could not see one of them at first — there was nothing but blackness and the yell- ing and snarling. It grew fainter as they ran away, without looking around, for 1 never saw a glint of their eyes. "At last, as the course of the old channel turned, I saw daylight ahead of me, and a crowd of beasts going out of the cave's mouth. I made out some bears, that shuffled along at the tail of the procession, but I could not clearly see the others. But I'm pretty sure there were wolves, skunks, and wild-cats in the herd. I was anxious to reach daylight, for I supposed I should see Peter out there. But when I reached the mouth of the cave, I saw nothing of him or the creek." "Peteis lost! We shall never see him I" said his mother. "Yes, you will. Listen to the letter," said the rodman. "Vincent has something impor- 242 SMOKY DA VS. tant to tell of that he heard coming through. He says : " I think we shall find I*eter to-morrow morning. There must be a hole from the j)as- sage I came through to the passage he went down. The reason I think so is this: Just wliere I stood when 1 saw the animals go out of the cave's mouth, I thought I heard a sound of falling water — that must liave been tliu creek. The sound seemed to come from ubovu my head. Perhaps I had passed the entrance to another corridor without noticing it, for I was a good deal taken up with fear of tlie beasts ahead of me. " We are going as soon as the men liave liad a sleep, to look up the place where the sound of falling water came from. I think we shall find Peter there, for if he had come through before me, or soon afterward, I should have heard him answering to my shouts." Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong looked hopelessly at each other. "Vincent," said the rodman, "was so tired that he seems to have forgotten to write out here some things he told us in camp. For in- SMOKY DAYS. 243 stance, one of liis reasons for supposing there must be a passage to Peter is this : the lloor of tlu) passage Vincent fame through began to ascend while he was k)()king at and foUowing the animals. He did not remember wliere ho hud passed off the gravel and sand of the old bed of the creek, but he found he had [)asscd off it a good while before he reached the open air. After he began to think of som thing besides the beasts, he noticed that he was going uj) a slowly rising floor of rock, where no water had ever run. So you see the ancient channel of the creek turned olT somewhere. It never flowed where Vincent came out, but took a turn to where Peter is. You can understand that?" "Yes — the water had been kind of sto[)ped by the rise of the rock, and turned off," said Armstrong; "and the idea is that the old chan- nel the water used to follow will lead yous to where Peter went by the channel that the water f oilers now." " Exactly, that's what Vincent thinks. Now he is going, or rather he did go before daylight with ten men, to look up that passage through which the sound of water came. He'll find 244 SMOKY DAYS. Peter," said the rodmaii, confidently. "But listen — you may as well hear the rest of his letter : — "I looked for the place where the creek came out of the mountain, but the air was dark with the storm, and the thunder was rattling. So I could hear no water running except the rapids of the Brazeau not far ahead. I thought I had better go to camp for men. So I climbed down the hill to the river, found I remembered the banks below, and went about four mile.N down stream to camp, where I am now. To- morrow morning, long before you get this letter, I will lind Peter if I have to follow him down the chute." " He will do it, too," said the rodman, admir- ingly. " The little beggar has any amount of pluck. He'll risk his life to find your son." "Peter is dead for sure," said his hopeless mother. " Well, I don't Vleeve it, maw," said Mary. " Mr. Bracy's going to fetch him back — that's what I think." " ^ : might be so, Hannah," said the pioneer. "Where }'0U two going?" he asked of the rod- f^MOKY DAYS. ^4i man and axeman who had come with Vincent's letter. " Straight back to camp." '' I'll join you," said Divid Armstrong. " There's no use. Peter's gone — he'd be di'ownded anyway," said the poor mother, with the first burst of tears since her son left. ''He's a good swimmer, isn't he?" asked the rodman. ''First-rate," said Mary. " Then why should he not escape ? Ile'd go through a big rapid safely. What was the chute but a smooth rapid in the dark? Vin- cent will find him." "Dead I" said the mother. " No — safe and sound." " But he'd be eat up by the bears." The rodman looked uneasy, but spoke con- fidently : — "Bears won't come to a lire, and your son had his watertight match-box, and could make a fue if he landed down below." "With what?" " With driftwood. Vincent says there was driftwood along the banks inside the cave '24:0 SMOKY DAYS, just the same as on the banks outside and above." " It might be," said the mother, striving for hope. "Oh, mebby my son will come back! Davy," she whispered, as her husband re- appeared in readiness for the journey down the .Iver, "if you don't find him, Tli die. I can't keep up without seeing Peter ag'\in. Carry him easy if he's dead — but no, I daren't believe but he's alive." CHAPTER V. IMPRISONED IN TEIE CAVE. When Peter Armstrong, with all his senses about him, floated on his back, on and on through the cavern's unmitigated darkness, down the steep slide of almost unbroken water, he was not without fear of the unknown before him. But the fear was not in the nature of despair — r»ther of wonder. A stolid conviction that tlie worst which could befall him would be less dreadful chan the flre-death which he had es- caped helped to console the young pioneer. Wonder predominated in his mind — wonder at the smoothness, swiftness, and length of the chute. This wonder had almost become horror at being so borne on and on through darkness, when the current seemed to go from under him, and down he tumbled, head over heels, into a great depth of bubbling and whirling water. Its currents pulled him this way and that, . 247 ^48 SMOKY DATS. rolling him helplessly. The forces pressed him deeper and deeper until, all in an instant, tliey thrust him aside. An up current caught him and brought him, gasping and spluttering, to the air. He perceived with joy that impene- trable darkness no longer filled the cavern. It was dimly lighted from the outer world. Peter soon cleared himself from the indraw of the cascade which, jumping straight down thirty feet, scarcely disturbed at a hundrud feet distance the long pond into which it fell. The boy trod water, gazed, and listened amazed to the crashing of thunder that rolled over and reverberated in the high vault. He Vnew a rain and thunder storm had begun. The cavern, during intervals between the lightning flashes that revealed something of its extent, w.'is dimly lighted from a narrow crack or fissure, which Avas about three hundred yards distant from and directly opposite to the cascade down which Peter had dropped. This crack, starting from tlie floor of rock, went up nearly straight two hundred feet to a hole in the roof. Peter, swimming now in smooth water, thought that this hole, so irreg- SMOKY DAYS. 249 ular in shape, looked like one that would be seen from the inside of his father's barn if some one had battered in its gable end. Above this hole he could see a patch of sky and storm-clouds liurrying. They were dis- tinctly visible — he saw the sky through the hole as one might see it from a place two hun- dred feet down a slanting tunnel. And the tall, narrow strip of sky which he saw through the narrow fissure that extended from the cav- ern's floor to the roof-hole was as if seen from one end of a cathedral aisle through a straight, narrow crack in its wall of masonry. Peter swam to the right or south bank of the creek, landed, and stared all around the cavern. The ravine, though roofed, was, so far as he could distinguish by the lightning's gleams, much such a ravine as he and Vincent had fol- lowed before the creek became subterranean. The main differences he noted were a con- siderable increase of the cavern's width, and its intersection by another ravine, also covered. The floor of this intersecting cavern was some sixty feet higher than wheve Peter stood. Its roof was as high as the roof of rock directly 250 SMOKY DAYS. over his head. He saw the intersecting cave as an enormous black hole high up in the side of the wall. Evidently the creek had in former ages jumped down through that black, high hule out of the intersecting ravine into that from which the young pioneer looked up. He could see the discoloration left by flowing water on the now dry wall of rock. He could Sv.e how the ancient creek, coming out as from a roofed aisle, had descended in two steps, the lower about twen<', the upper about forty feet in height. Even when the lightnin^.'^ flashed he could see nothing beyon(? the upper step. There absolute darkness was back of th6 outline of the high hole in the wall. Peter turned to look at the pond's left or north bank. There the precipice which forn)*) the cave's wall rose appamntly straight up out of the waiiit' The boy stood on the right or south side of the pond on the edge of a bank about one hun- dred and twenty feet wide, which sloped gently to the foot of the wall out of which the creek had formerly jumped down. SMOKV DAYS. 251 After staring round till he had seen all this, Peter ran, as if alarmed by the solemnity of the cave, straight to the tall fissure, which {rave a dim light to his path. He hoped to get through the crack. He reached it, hesitated because of its narrow- ness, then endeavored to force his bod}^ through the fissure. Fancy trying to squeeze tLnmgh bet'veen two towering walls of rough-fact'd stone less than a foot apart ! Peter crowded in his head and light shoulder. There he stuck — *'■'■ f rack was too narrow ! The length of the |;,t, -,fi//' to the open air seemed about ten feet. '' Vd need to be rolled out like one of motlier's lard cakes,"" said Peter as he drew bat'k. faced the fissur^r and stood gazing at the open outside, so> near and so unattainable. The light from the free, outer world nemned and encouraged him. He was so miudi a boy of action that the dangers he had pjuwaed were scarcely present tf his reeollection. Wor did he yet wholly comprehend the danger m which he stood. His main thought was tuat his people weae- homeless ; that hi> or motlier was m t^ roat- 252 SMOKY DAYS. house, perhaps dying ; that he must get to lier ; that freedom was within ten feet of him, and that he would somehow find or force a way out. "If I had that surveyor chap to help," said Peter aloud, and looked back to the cascade. Would Vincent Bracy come through? Peter looked back at the dim cascade falling as from a narrow, high gothic window. The stream down which he had come lilled the whole width of the aperture. It fell as unbroken as from the end of a Hume. Peter could, when tlie lightning flashed, see a little of the sloping sui- face of the swift, smooth chute that had borne him away from his comrade of the night of fire. While wondering whether Vincent would tumble over the cascade, Peter resumed his study of the interior. A few yards nortli of him, and to the left side of the fissure, the pond narrowed to the ordinary width of the creek. There the stream turned, like dn obtuse-angled elbow-joint, Ui tlie left, and flowed gently on into complete darkness. Out of this darkness as if from far away SMOKY DATS. 253 came a stmnge gurgling and wasliing of water, intermingled with a sound like rloop — chop — chop — such as water often makes when flowing a-wiiirl out of the bottom of a basin beneath a tap. At first the boy was almost terrified by the sound, — it so much resembled the gulpings of some enormous animal. But soon his fears de- parted and hope rose high, for he bethought him that the noise must be that of escaping water. Not even by the lightning flashes could Peter see down the corridor into which the creek thus turned, and ran, and clooped. All that he could make out was that this corridor or ravine was nearly on a line with the higher-floored ravine out of which the creek had jumped in ancient days. The three corridors, that in which the pond lay, that down which the dry, high old channel came from the south, and that into which the creek ran on a northerly course, difl not con- nect exactly at right angles. They were all roofed at, apparently, pretty much the same height as the chute which terminated in the cascade down which Peter had tumbled. The stream which had poured for ages into 254 SMOKV DAYS. the cave, by either the old or tlie new channel, could never have had a sufficient exit in Hood time. From the hue of the walls up to a line some fifteen feet above wliere Peter stood, the water seemed to have accumvdated often in the cave, swept round and round, and at the same time discharged part of its volume through the narrow fissure. Peter's curiosity to know the cause of that strange doop — cloop was strong, but not strong enough to lead him along the wall in tlie dark to what might prove another voyage down a slide and a cascade. Hut ho determined tu make the exploration by torchlight. The sloping floor of the covered ravine's right bank, on which Peter stood, was littered with driftwood. As he searched among it for cedar, the easiest of woods to split with the huntin< '-knife he still carried, he noticed some entire but small trunks of trees. Then it came into his mind that he might escape by the old dry channel, if only he could find a pole long enough to help him up the forty-feet-high Avail he could see behind the lower step of twenty feet. syroKv DAYS. 255 It is necessary to i/iderstand clearly the aspect which the old channel presented to the hoy. Conceive, then, a church door forty feet wide and two hundred feet high. Conceive tlic door to be as wide as the '•orridor into which it offered an opening. Conceive two steps, the lower of twenty, the upper of forty feet in height, barring you from entering tlie corridor. Thus did the old channel, its mouth shining high and black above Peter, step up from the cave where he stood. He determined to reach that high up old channel if possible, for he believed it would give him a passage to tlie open air. Ilis search for a long pole was rewarded, after ln3 had built a bright lire of cedar. Its snu ke drifted in various directions for awhile, some going up the old channel, some down towards the passage whence the chop — cloop came. But the greater cloud, which soon drew all the smoke with it, went out of the hole in the roof at the top of the narrow fissure. The young pioneer found a tall cedar, perfectly dry, for the cavern was not damp. With little difficulty he ascended the lower or twenty-feet- % <9 /a ^l "♦V^ ¥ w ^/W IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 ! I.I 1.25 ^^ m ii£ IIM mil 2 2 ? "- IIIIIM 1.4 1.8 1.6 Photographic Sciences Corporation 33 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, N.Y. MS80 (716) 872-4503 ^^ %^/ «^^ / W? '^ r/ ^ ^ .^^"^ %s^ \\ ^ %^./#' <- c

?» SMOKY DAYS. 269 " He maks me help him for cut off a big chunk off one hollow cedar. He put his hax in cle hol- low, an' he put in a piece of rope, and some pork and biscuit, and he put in his pistol, and 'is lantern. Den he plug up de two end. An' i;e say to me, ' Grosbois, you tell 'em to keep climbing up de ole channel back dere. Good- bye, Grosbois,' — and dat's all." "But where did he go?" "M'sieu, in two seconds he's away down de black chute ! " "In the water?" "Yesseh, in de water — stradd)e on de log." "Vincent must have gone crazy." " He hain't look crazy," said Grosbois. " He's look like he's see something bad what hain't scare him one bit. He's say, ' Good-bye, Gros- bois,' an' he's make me a bow same as he's always polite, and lies smile, easy, easy. Den's he's roll his log in before 1 b'leeve he's goiii' to be so wild, and I don't see him no more." "Up with you — up for the tree!" cried the chief. "Not you, Grosbois — all the rest. Grosbois, you go down to the outlet and watch 270 SMOKY DAYS. for the body. Little Vincent Bracy I My life and soul — what will his father say ! " The party were climbing the hill by various paths to get the long tree when one of them stopped, held up his hand, and looked round fearfully at th'^se nearest him." "I hear Mr. Bracy's ghost," he said. The startled men stood still, listening. All now heard the faint call. As from the bowels of the earth the cry floated up : — " Ecllo ! Hello ! Hello ! " " He's alive, wherever he is,'* cried the chief, arriving. "He's shouting in the hope he'll be heard. Hello ! Bracy ! Vincent I Hello I " Still Vincent's voice ascanded monotonously. '•''Hello! Hello! Hello!'''' at intervals of some seconds. " Yell all together ! " cried the chief to the men, who were coming from all directions. They shouted and listened again. And again the far voice cried, '-'• Hello ! Hello!'' with the same tones and intervals as before. "It's from over there. And there's smoke coming up," said one. They approached the edge of the plateau and SMOKY DAYS. 271 My life various of tliem d round d. ng. All looked down — down the hole that Peter had seen high up — the hole in which the tall fis- sure ended. "Why, here is smoke. And here's a hole," cried the chief, getting down on his hands and knees. " He must be down here. Yes ! Vin- cent ! Hello ! " " Hello yourself, chief ! " "You're alive then?" "Yes, sir. All alive." "Hurt?" "No — as sound as a nut." " Had a rough passage '^ " " Pretty rough, sir. But I'm not hurt." Down by a bright fire they saw Vincent Bracy standing alone. He looked up at the faces crowding round the hole in which the fis- sure terminated. " Have you tlie ropes there ? " he shouted. "Go down foi' th^ ropes," cried the chief engineer, and away went four men. " Rope is coming, Vincent Keep your heart up." " Oh, I'm all right, sir." *' Where's the Armstrong boy ? " 272 SMOKY DAYS. " Gone. He was here this morning." " How do you know ? " "Tlie rock under his dead fire was quite "warm." '* Where's he gone? Have the bears got him?" "No sign of it." " What's become of him, then ? " " I fancy he went down the creek before the water rose in here." "But you saw no sign of him down there?" "Better send Grosbois to look for his trail, sir. Perhaps he got out alive." " Grosbois is down there now." " Hey, Grosbois ! Grosbois ! " shouted the chief. But no answer came. Grosbois had gone out of hearing. "Is the water rising, Vincent?" "Yes. It's risen three inches since I got here." The pond within the cave now presented tlie aspect of a stream incessantly returning on itself by an eddy up one bank and a current down the other. Vincent could not reach the fissure without SMOKY DAYS. 273 wading. From that crack flowed a rivulet a foot deep. No sound except the surging of a wliirlpool came from the corridor wliere Peter had heard the doop — clooping sound. ''Young Armstrong must have been starv- ing I "' shouted the chief. " No, sir. lie seems to have lived on the fat of the water." "Fat of the water?" "Yes; trout. Look here!" Vincent held up two tish. " How could he catch them ? " "Fm sure I don't know. But he certainly did. The place is all heads and tails. I shouldn't have supposed any fellow could eat so many trout in the time. He was here only a day altogether." "Can you get straight under this hole, Vincent?" " Yes. I waded down to the crack a while ago." " Well, the ropes are coming." Vincent waded down the fissure and stood. In the course of half an hour the rope had descended, Vincent had placed the loop under 274 SMOKY DATS. IM his shoulders, and the exulting men had drawn him safely up. Then the whole party walked down to the wliirling outlet. "It's impossible young Armstrong could have come throngh here alive," said the chief, look- ing into vUe tunnel out of which the rising water rushed. " There wjisn't so big a volume this morning early when we were here before," said Vincent. " And Peter must have come down before that." " You seem very sure he did come down." "Well, sir, so I am. It's what I should have done myself in the circumstances. I was begin- ning to think of it when you answered my call." " Lucky you didn't. Perhaps you are right. But it's surprising that he took the risk when he had plenty to eat." "You forget how alarmed he was about his mother. Besides, he probably thought 1 had been lost, and he had no hope of a rescue." " But what can have become of him if he got out here ? " " He would make for home up the river." " Well, I hope your theory is sound," said the m SMOKY DAYS. 275 chief. "What's become of Grosbois, I wonder? Grosbois I (xrosbois ! " he shouted. But Grosbois was far aw.ay, following what he thought a trail through the woods. It took him up the river. Meantime another voyageur had j)icked up the trail of Grosbois and brought the news back to the chief. "He must have found Peter or his track," said Vincent. " I'll follow, too, sir, if you'll allow me. I have to go to Kelly's Crossing, anyway, and I may as well try to get to the Armstrongs' to-night." About three o'clock that afternoon Mary Armstrong was giving Eliza Jane and Ann Susan a " piece." She stood with her back to the cabin door, when Ann vSusan suddenly cried, •' Peter ! Peter I " and held out her hands. " Peter's here I " cried Eliza Jane, coolly. Mary turned. Peter, indeed, staggered up the path. His face was covered with dry blood from many scratches, his shirt and trousers were in strips, his feet bare and bleeding. " Mother ! It is Peter I Peter's come back ! He's not dead at all," cried Mary, running out into her brother's arms. 276 SMOKY DAYS. Mrs. Armstrong tottered to lier feet. " Is mother dead ? Where is she ? " cried Peter, as he caught sight of Mary. " VVliy, mother I Ain't you ghid to see me?" he said, liolding her in his arms a minute later. She was weeping as she clung to him. "Oh Peter, Peter, Peter, I thought you was burned to death I " was all she could say. " There, mother ! there, motlier ! Pm all right. Only tore up a little, running throu^^rh the woods. Pve been travellin' since daylight, and I lost my boots out of my hand coming down a whirlpool out of a cave, and I couldn't find them amongst the driftwood below. I was in too big a hurry. I was most scared to death for fear you wouldn't be here. My ! it was good to see the barn and house standiii'. I come up along the river till about two hours ago. Then I worked up top of the Hump for easier walkin'. Where's father ? " •'A boy came for him. He went down river two hours ago to look for you." "I'd have met him, then, if Pd kept straight on. Maybe he'd miss my track up the Hump. " But the father had not missed it, for he had w SMOKY DAYS. 277 b down river met Grosbois, who held to Peter's trail like a hound to the slot of a deer. Scarcely had the boy entered tlie (;a])in wlien David Armstrong and the voyage ur came down the Hump's side. The father, swept by his emotion beyond self- control, caught Peter in his arms. "(lod — (lod — oh God," cried Dave Arm- strong, ''you've give me back my boy. Oh (lod, just see if I ain't a better man from this out." Eliza Jane and Ann Susan roared, weeping at the top of their lungs because mother and Mary were crying, and father talking so loudly. Ann Susan, stopping suddenly, said decidedly, "lyantPete!" " Peter's dead, and he's come back," said Eliza Jane. " Take them, Peter," said the mother ; " take them. They've been hankering after you most as bad as me." He lifted the little ones in his arms. They drew back from his dirty and bloody face. Peter laughed. " Mother," said he, " I didn't fetch you your tea." 278 SMOKY DATS. " That yonnpf Mr. Bracy sent some up by the messenger, Peter." " Mr. Bracy ? oh, Vincent," said Peter. " He got out of the cave, then? I was phmning to start back and find him I " " Guess what tliis man says he did this morn- ing, Peter," said the pioneer, turning to Groshois. " He went down that chute in the cave after you." " Yesseli, I see him myse'f," said Grosbois. " Well, ain't he a good one ! " said Peter. " Why, I wouldn't have gone down there this morning for the price of the hay. The creek was beginning to rise before I went out. But say I Is Vincent lost like I was?" " No. Just as I started on your trail I heard them yellin' they found him safe," said (irosbois. Peter had hardly eaten his supper that even- ing when Vincent arrived. "Peter!" " Vincent ! " The boys shook hands. " You went into the chute after me," said Peter, choking. " If it hadn't been for you keepin' me goin', I'd 'a' died in the fire by the creek — sol would, and — " " Oh, please don't," interrupted Vincent. SMOKY DAYS. 279 " And I'd been abnsin' you," said Peter. " I'd said you wa a dood I " '•Deuce you did I AVell, I dare say I am. lint what matter? It's not really a crime, don't you know. 'J'here's just one thing I want you to tell me, Peter. How did you catch those trout in the cave ? " Peter pulled a lish-line with a liook on it from his pocket. " Forgot I had it for a long time in there," he siiid. " Don't you mind I said 1 had a hook and line that time we was kickin' the trout out of tlie creek ? " " But what bait did vou use ? " "•Bait? They didn't want no better than a bare hook." You may be glad to learn that David Arm- strong's hay sold for ninety dollars a ton that winter. The comfortable situation into which this put the pioneer family gave Mrs. Armstrong a new lease of life, and Peter three winters' schooling in the settlements. There he learned so much that he is able to transact the business of the large lumbering interest which he has long since acquired. 280 SMOKY DAYS. Peter Armstrong,' is worth ten thousand dol- lars to Vincent Hnicy's one. l)nt they are fast friends, and agree tliat Mr. Hraey's comparative lack of fortune is due to his having practised a profession instead of going into business. nsand dol- }y are fast jinparative [)i'actised a ess. DRIFTED AWAY. DRIFTED AWAY. CHAPTER I. LOST. About five o'clock in the afternoon of a raw March day the report ran about I'oronto that two boys in a skiff, without oars, paddles, or sail, were being blown out in the open lake. This alarm originated with a butcher who had driven into town along tln^ shore of Ontario from the mouth of the li umber River, some four miles westward of Toronto Bay. A keen though not a great wind j^revailed tliat afternoon. Navigation had scarcely begun, hence it was almost certain that no incoming vessel would pick the boys u[). The probability that they could be found before nightfall by a tug seemed small. Only one To3'onto tug had steam up, and that little vessel would not 283 284 DRIFTED A WAT, m return till nightfall from its work at a long dis- tance from the wharves. Scarcely had the report begun to travel by word of mouth before an evening paper dis- tributed it broadcast. Home-going business men, leaving their oflices to shoulder througli the evening throng, heard newsloys calling, " All about tlie boys adrift ! " The gas-lamps just then being lighted seemed to accentuate Kings Street's cheerful bustle, and so impress people more distinctly with a sense of the quick spread of night over the face of the waters on which the two lads were help- lessly floating away. Toronto people are so familiar with the lake that thousands had in- stantly grasped the full significance of the rumor. In a few minutes it roused something like a panic. Groups formed round men who talked loudly of the chances of rescue ; v/omen hysteri- cally inquired the names of the boys ; cries of sympathy went up from persons who, on com- ing out of stores, suddenly learned of the case. The imminence of darkness forbade confidence that the boys could be found alive, and the DRIFTED AWAY. 285 meagreness of information left a multitude of parents to fea:; for sons they had not seen dur- ing the day. By six o'clock a great crowd had formed on and about Brown's wharf, where the tug A. G. Nixon was almost ready to start. As she whistled, a cheer went up, which was under- stood by the people farther back, caught, passed on, and echoed to and fro and sidelong and far away up many an avenue. At that, factory operatives pouring into the streets and home- stayers who had not yet lieard of the thing stopped, or rushed out to question what was the matter. Just as the Nixon was about to leave, a man running down the middle of Yoiige Street into the crowd cried : — " Stand aside and let me past ! One of them my liitle boy ! " So quickly did the people push sidewise to give Mr. Lancely room thr.t three men were thrust off the slip into the water. At this the scared crowd struggled to get back off the wharf to firm land, and the general attention was distracted from the boat till tlie three men were 286 DRIFTED AWAY. pulled out. By this time the Nixon, with Mr. Lancely aboard, had started. Before she left the slip he had explained from her deck that his son, nine years old, and his servant-boy, perhaps seventeen, were cer- tainly those adrift. " He's the only child we have left," said tlie gentleman. " I want somebody to go out to my house. Take a cab and hurry. Tell my wife that I've started with the tug, and we're sure to catch the skiff soon. Say sure to, mind that, sure to, or she'll die of anxiety." "All right, Lancely. I'll go myself !" cried an acquaintance. " Keep your heart up. You'll find Charley all right, poor little chap! " At that there was a cheer from the people, and the throng began to break up ; but many persons remained on the wharf to see the Niron make her way out through the floating ice-cakes that still swung to and fro in the harbor. As the tug passed beyond the western gap a, cloud of snow drove forth from the land, blotting her out at a breath. "God help the poor boys! God help i,hem!" said some man in -^n earnest tone, and the DRIFTED AWAY. 287 prayer and the emotion went np, repeated from many lips. Meantime the captain of the tug was questioning the anxious father. '' Will they have plenty of elothes on, Mr. Lancely ? " asked the Nixon 8 skipper. " I don't know. All I know is in this tele- gram tliat a trict telegraph boy handed to me just as 1 was prepaiing to go home : — "'Charley and Isidore are adrift in tlie skiff witiiout oars. I can see lliein floating out about half-way between the island and the 1 1 umber. Act quickly. No one liere can suggest anything except to send out a tug.' "That's from my wife," said Mr. Lancely. "1 instci.ntly ran down and found your boat starting. No, I can't imagine how tliey got adrift, though this morning 1 told Isidore — he's my servant-boy — to loosen a strip of carpet that runs the length of the skiff. It got frozen down at the stern last fall because I forgot to bale lier out. Isidore is very fond of my little boy, so I suppose they went together to the boat-house and somehow got afloat and were blown out. How long before we shall catch up to them, captain ? " The skipper looked gravely at him, glanced "W 288 DRIFTED AWAY. at the northern sky, and replied, " Well, sir, we will likely make out to reach them if the wind don't change or something worse happen." " Surely the wind won't change ! " " No, 1 don't say it will. I'll do my best, you may lay to that, sir. What I'm most afeard of is that the little follow will be done out with cold. Would he likely have his overcoat on?" " I'm afraid not. He's fond of going round without it, no matter v/hat we tell him." " Boys is all like that, sir." " Still he may have had it with him, for Isi- dore is very careful of Charley. If not, he'll be half-frozen, and have a frightful cold." "What about the servant-boy? Would he likely be well covered ? " "No, poor fellow. He has a big, warm old overcoat of mine, but he's almost too proud of it to wear it. He never had a whole coat he- fore, and it's altogether likely he went to the boat-house without it on." " Pretty bad, pretty bad, sir. I'll see and have some blankets put over the boiler to heat, and they'll be ready in case we find 'em." DniFTED A]VAY. 289 " In case ! Surely, you don't doubt that, captain ? '* " Oh, we're bound to ihid them, bound to tind them. But when? There's no telling how the curre'tjts will act round this part of the lake. Hey! No finding 'em if we can't see the sur- face of the water ! Consarn it all, here's what I was afraid of ! " At the word a coming cloud of snow hid the land and the lights ashore. When the snow had cleared away, the tug, steaming slowly with the wind, was far from land. Soon afterward the straggling clouds blew away, leaving over the sullen expanse of Ontario a moonless, starlit vault. Low on the north horizon a light-house dwindled. Nothing but the sighing wind, not gale enough to rouse a tumbling sea, could be heard responding to the long shrieks of steam with which the Nixon strove to let the boys know she was seeking them. " That will hearten them up, anyhow," said the captain. As the tug "teetered" up and down the scarcely broken swell, Mr. Lan^^ely in the bovy rr 290 DRIFTED AWAY. gazocl steadily forward, around and down. Often he thought he saw the skiff rising upon some sliouldering billow, but ever the lapse of the roller renewed his increasing fear. Once the bow struck some heavy thing. His heart fell at the sudden contact. He sprang to look over, expecting to see the skiff ; but before he had fairly peered down, the grinding sound betokened a cake of ice. Ouce, after abandoning the idea that he had darkl}- seen the skiff on a wave, a thought that It I'crhaps had been there grew to an overpower- ing fear that they were leaving Charley astern. The pitying captain backed up then, and ran to and fro over the adjacent water. Then the wretched father groaned with self-reproach for having caused the loss of time. "Could the skiff swamp in this sea?" he asked. " No, that's not likely. There's scarcely a break of water anywhere, and she'd drift easy. Do you suppose that servant-boy of yours would know enough to rig up any kind of a .sail? But I forgot ; they'd nothing to rig one with. So I reckon we're all right." DRIFTED AWAY. 291 " What do you mean ? " " I mean that we'll be more likely to find her than we would if she was sailing instead of just drifting. She can only go straight ahead and we'd ought to find her." After the tug b-^d run out to about where the captain thought the boat should be, he headed due east, kept that course for some two miles, and then went back and forth, east and west, steaming south or with the wind f* few minutes upon each turn. Thus the little steamer de- scribed many long, narrow parallelograms on the surface of the lake, but the skiff of tlie lost boys was not seen. So the evening passed, and the depths of darkness drew on. It was after midnight when the skipper, pointing to the north, shouted with joy. " Where ? Show me ! " cried Mr. Lancely. " I can't see them ! Where ? Do you see the skiff ? " "No, sir, I didn't mean that. But see! Yonder ! There's more help coming ! " Away off toward Toronto a light gleamed; then another and another, five in all. 292 DlilFTEJ) AWAY. " Five more tugs I Good boys ! " cried the captain. "Ilurrali, now we can do something!" Across tlie intervening league a dull buss note came with the wind. "It's the commodore's steam yacht," said the skipper. Soon the little vessels were all within hail. " Lancely I " shouted tlie bluff old connnodore of the Yacht Club. " When we left, there was word from your house that your wife was bear- ing up well." " Thank Heaven for that ! " " I thought you'd be anxious, old man, and so I telegraphed for news of her while steam was getting up. Now we're going to iind Charley pretty soon, I hope," and he rapidly explained his plan to the Nixon s skipper. Soon the little steamers were systematically ranging to and fro, passing and repassing, over a tract some live miles wide, whistling in unison every fifth minute by the watch, that the hoped- for replies of the boys might be heard in still intervals. But the night seemed to thicken till far toward morning, when a thin moon came up DTIIFTED AWAY. 293 over the waste. The constenation of the Great Bear wlieeled lii» " Bad cess to the man that'll say the young boss is in airnest," said the humorist. "Sure I'd bate him blue myself that ud say that." So it continued till the journey on foot was THE TEN-DOLLAR BILL. 32" more than half over. During the whole time James Stewart, the big foreman, had said noth- ing. It happened then that a most unlucky thought came into Ilan-y's young head. Tired by the importunities of the half-laughing men he cried, " See here now, you thirsty villains ! If James wants you to l.'ave a little money at the Portage, I'll pay a trifle all round." He had not noticed that Stewart had taken liquor the night before, and he fully expected the foreman to be with him in refusing the men any cash. It was a bad misjudgment of Stew- art's character. Slow, sure, ponderous, faithful ; the kind of man who will carry out orders at all costs, he was yet totally unfit for such re- sponsibility as was now forced on him, and quite unable to resist the importunities that began. The navvies all dropped behind, and turned their solicitations on old James, while Harry walked swiftly ahead to procure tickets for their trip home. Before the gang had reached Portage du Fort, the quick-witted Irishmen had completely cornered Stewart and coaxed his consent. Harry was sitting in the inn-parlor 328 THE TEN-nOLLAIi HILL. near the steamboat landing, wlien the foreman entered with the men at his heels. Stewart took off his cap and stood silent, looking shame-facedly at the feet of "the young boss." " He wants us to get paid a couple of dollars aich," explained the humorist, Pat, with the air of a meritorious interpreter. " Mind what you promised, Mister Harry, darlin'," said another. " Do you, James ? " asked Harry, in surprise. "Yes — what's the use?" growled Stewart, sulkily. " They'll get drunk as sure as a gun," objected Harry. " Ah now, boss, sure you wouldn't go back on your word ! " pleaded Pat. The foreman said nothing for a few moments, then muttered, " I'd like a few dollars myself." " Oh, well," said Harry, in considerable sur- prise. " H you will be foolish I suppose I must keep my promise." Then he gave each man two dollars, debiting him in his note-book at the same time. One by one, when paid, they went out to the bar-room. At last only Stewart remained. THE TEN-hOLLAli BILL. 329 ir-rooni. "Do you want any more?" asked Harry, see- ing that the foreman fingered his two-dollar bill irresolutely. " Maybe I might," answered Stewart. Harry at once handed him a ten-dollar bill, which Stewart put in his right-hand wa'stcoat pocket instantly, without looking at it. The amount was not mentioned by Harry at all. As the man clutched the bill, Harry caught a strong smell of whiskey from his breath, and, looking more closely, saw that the big foreman's usually dull eye was glittering, and that liis face was much flushed ; ])ut he was perfectly steady on his legs and, without saying another word, stalked heavily out of the room with the two- dollar bill in his left hand. Harry at once placed twelve dollars against Stewart's name in his note-book. Within quarter of an hour the young fellow had reason to regret his folly. His men were howling, laughing, swearing at the top of their voices. Before the boat started, all except the foreman, who retained his taciturnity, seemed half drunk. They insisted on carrying " the young boss '* 330 THE TEN-BOLLAll BILL. down to the steamboat on their yhoulders, Stewart gravely superintending the operation. Harry already bitterly re^'eiited the yielding whieh had given him so much popularity, and a drunken gang. Before the boat stopped, some thirty miles down the river, the navvies were uncontrollable. With their quarrelling and fighting the lower deck was a pandemonium. Each man had bought a bottle of liquor before starting. Stewart had now become as voluble as any. At Sand Point they had to take the railway for Rosadale, and there all managed to get aboard the train. At Arnprior, a few miles further on, most of those who could still walk insisted on getting off to procure more liquor. All were left behind, and Stewart was one of the missing. Harry went on alone to Rosadale. Next morning he had a telegram from Arnprior stating that the foreman and half of his com- panions were in the lockup. Big James had knocked a bar-room counter to pieces, and had smashed the stove with one blow of his huge fist. He had been taken into custody with the othere. All had been brought tHE TKX-nOLLAR BILL. 381 up before a magistrate next morning and lined. They wanted money to pay tlieir penalty. Harry's cousin wired to a lawyer to settle the whole business, and that night the men got home to Ilosadale. Their wives, Harry's employer, and every one else interested, had been pointing out to the young fellow all day, how inexcu- sably he had acted in advancing money to the gang. It seemed to be considered quite a mat- ter of course that laboring men should get drunk, if they could, when away from home ; hence there was a curiously perverted public sympathy for the fined men, and all the re- sponsibility for their blackguardism and money losses was thrown on Harry. Next day all except Stewart went to George Andrews' office for their wages. There sat Harry with his accounts and money. Each man acknowledged the two dollars given him at the Portage, but seemed inclined to hold Harry very guilty in the matter. " Sure now, boss," said Pat, who had a broken head and one eye badly swelled. " Sure now, it wasn't the dacent thing to be puttin' timp- tations forninst us that a-way. And us wid 83^ TirJS TEN-DOLLAU JiTLL. a taste the night before — an' three months widout a dlirop till thin — och, it wasn't the clane thing to be givin' us money at all, at all." " Get out of this, you impudent old rascal I " cried Harry to this moralist, and Pat departed hastily, stopping just long enough in the door- way to cast a look of intensely tickled slyness out of his one undamaged eye at " the young boss." James Stewart stayed at home, ashamed to sli. Y himself for three days. Then just at dusk of evening he came for his pay. *' Seventy-two dollars," said Harry, looking at his book. " Eighty-two, sir," said James. " No, you're wrong, Stewart. Look here, sev- enty-two you see." "What's the twelve dollars for?" asked the foreman, looking at the account. " That's what I gave you at the Portage.' The big man looked with angry surprise into the young fellow's eyes. " You only gave me two dollars at the Port- age," he said. *!^*ri;7?f«Si TUE TEN-DOLLAR BILL. 333 t( Why, James ! Twelve." " Two." " Pshaw. Don't you remember me giving you a ten, after the two? Don't you remember me asking you if you wanted any more, and then handing you a ten ? " " No, 1 don't. It's not true." There was no doubt the man thought he was riglit. Harry saw that clearly, and tried hard to recall the ten to his recollection, but quite in vain. Stewart was one of those dogged-dull men who, when they feel right, simply will not or cannot admit a contrary possibilit3^ " I'd a paid my fine," said he, " if I'd a' had ten dollars on me." "But you had spent the ten dollars before that." " No, I didn't have no money after I left the Portage ; I bought whiskey with the whole two dollars there." It was hopeless to argue with him. He would not touch the seventy-two dol- lars, and evidently believed Harry was trying to cheat him. " Maybe you'll think again before morning," he said, as he went slowly out, 334 THE TEN-DOLLAIl HILL. Next clay Stewart came into the office early, and appealed to George Andrews, Harry's em- ployer and cousin. " He hadn't said a word about it to nobody," he declared, and evidently wished to let Harry off without public exposure. Tlie lad went over the whole tiling again, but Stewart remained unshaken. His evident sin- cerity had great weight with Harry's cousin, who respected Stewart very highly, and under- stood how much the man was respected in the village. " Are you sure you haven't made a mistake," he asked Harry. " Quite certain. I distinctly remember the whole thing — the ten-dollar bill was of the Bank of Montreal — he put it into his vest pocket." " Of course, if you gave him the ten it was of the Bank of Montreal," said Mr. Andrews, dryly; "the bills I sent you were all of that Bank." "Do you mean to say you imagine I have tried to cheat Stewart," asked Harry, angrily. " No — no — oh, no — of course not ; but James is so well known in Uosadale — his word rUK TKS-DOLLAR HILL. 335 goes a long way licro. I wouldn't like him to tell liis story abont thu [)lace." "He was half drunk when he got the money," said Harry, hotly. " It's not true," put in Stewart, nettled to ho reminded so nakedly before Mr. Andrews of his spree. " 1 had a couple of glasses, maybe, no more. What's that amount to of a cold mornin'? I mind the two-dollar bill well enough ; if you'd 'a give me a ten, would' I't I mind it, too?" "Now look here, James," said JIarry, "I know you think you're telling the truth ; but you're not. I gave you that ten-dollar bill, and you spent it in whiskey. Or, if you didn't, you lost it. I say, that's the very waistcoat you had on that day. Maybe you had matches in the pocket, and jmlled out the bill with some of them without noticing." Stewart had instinctively put his hand up to his right vest pocket, and was fumbling in it. " No," said he, " I don't carry matches in that pocket. You're too cunning, my lad. Keep the money," he cried, with a sudden ac- cess of anger. " You're young, though, to be robbing the poor. Keep it till the judge says 336 THE TEN-DOLLAR HILL. who's right. We'll have law-play on this yet," and he stalked out of the offic^. "This is a bad business, Harry," said Mr. Andrews. "Everybody will believe him. You're not known here." " I can't help that," answered the young fel- low. " 1 will not be browbeaten out of the truth. I paid him the ten dollars like a fool, but I will not let it be said that I only charged it to him like a rogue." "You're right enough," said Andrews, "if you're sure. But his word does go such a long way in this village, and you are a stranger." This tone, in which his cousin continued to treat the affair, made Harry very angry and miserable, but he remained silent, and awaited events. Next day a writ was served on Mr. Andrews at Stewart's instance, for he had brought suit in ihe Division Court to recover eighty-two dollars and costs. Andrews, of course^ stood by his young relative, paid sev- enty-two dollars to the Clerk of the Court, and there the matter rested for about a month — a most miserable month for Harry Clarke ! The story was the favorite talk of Rosadalq. THE TEN-DOLLAR BILL. 337 this yet M said Mr. [H. You're young fel- ut of the ike a fool, ly charged drews, "if uch a long inger." ntinued to angry and id awaited on ^Ir. DY he had to recover idrews, of paid sev- Court, and month — a ke! Rosadale. Stewart's life-long reputation for truth and hon- esty carried opinion entirely with him. Harry lay under that curious suspicion which attaches, in many country hamlets, to all young strangers who dress well and carry their heads up proudly. Many people would not speak to him. Several well-intentioii'xl persons came with advice to give up the ten dollars — "such a small sum," they said, as though quite convinced that he was a cheat. All the navvies sided wath their foreman, telling how they had each received two dollars, and how Stewart had come straight from iTarry to them in the bar-room, with a two-dollar bill between his fingers, which he had at once spent in a " treat all round " and a bottle for himself. Harry went up to the Portage and to Arn- prior, seeking evidence that the foreman had somewhere been seen with a ten-dollar bill. The search was vain, and the effort was put down to his credit as an outrageous piece of hypocritical impudence. Public opinion affected his cousin and his cousin's family so strongly that poor Harry often found them looking strangely at him. One day George Andrews 338 THE TEN-DOLLAIi BILL. told his young relative of another Civil Engi- neer who would take him and his articles if he did not wish to stay in Rosadale. Harry was mor- tified almost to tears, and answered angrily : — " You suspect me, George, — I know it. I've known you believed Stewart's story all along. Well, you can break my articles if you please, I think you'd better, or I will. But right here in this village I'm going to stay till Cv^erybody knows me better than to believe that I would lie or cheat." lie often observed that workmen cast scorn- ful glances at him. The thought that people said lie had " tried to ciieat a poor man " galled him dreadfully. Once a laborer's wife came to tell him that " there was talk " of ducking him in the river ! " They may drown me, Mrs. Lynch," said Harry, stoutly ; '' but they can't make mc run away, and they (^an't make me guilty." "Sure, thin, it's hard not to believe poor James," raid the woman. "That's so," said Harry. '^ He tliinks he is telling the truth ; but lie got the money." Harry Clarke was a haggard, weak, miserable- THE TEN-DOLLAR BILL. 339 'il Engi- les if he was mor- grily : — it. I've 11 along, please, I it here in /erybody I would Lst scorn- it people " galled came to iing him ch," said mc run ve j)Oor ks he is y- liserable- looking boy wlien the case came on in Court, having had no good sleep for weeks. He was excessively fretted l)y the impossibility of con- vincing people that his word was entitled to more weight than the foreman's. The court-room was densely crowded. Stew- art was the first witness ; he told his story in his slow, impressive way, the judge letting him bring in anything germane to the matter. In these Canadian Courts the procedure is very lax, and the object of the judge usually is to get at the probabilities in any way. So big James told liow the men had received two dol- lars each, how he was last, how he got two dol- lars just like the others, how he had gone into the bar-room with the bill in his liand, how he had " borried " at Arnprior, and all the rest of it. The judge was evidently much impressed by tlie straightforward story. He looked at Harry very severely now and again. It was haril for the lad to endure all the contemptuous eyes that were directed to him. He was himself greatly affected by the strength of Stewart's story, and sometimes almost doubted whether 340 THE TEN-DOLLAR BILL. he had not dreamed that he had paid over the ten-dollar hill. Then he thought of his note-book. With that evidence the lawyer had said that Stewart would certainly be buaten in tlie case, but what did Harry care about winning the case uidess he could clear his character? What was the use of saving ten dollars if he were not believed ? His heart was very low ; though he did not falter in his determination to stay in Rosadale, he did believe that years would go over before he could live down the reputation of a cheat. The lad was not religious, but in his agony he closed his eyes and sent up a silent prayer for help. "Do you wish to ask any questions, young man," said the judge, sternly. Harry opened his eyes. " I ? " he asked. Yes, you." Harry stood up trembling. Then suddenly he recovered his faculties. *' James," he asked entreatingly, " don't you remember that ten-dol- lar bill ? " "No, I don't, nor you iieither. You never gave it to me, ou never " I say," lit! cfitnl, " is the lining of that pockt't all right ?"' fr THE TEN-DOLL An HILL. 341 '*Yes, I did, .lames. You put it into the right-hand pocket of that very waistcoat." James instinctively raised liis hand. His thumb and fore linger were deep in the pocket. A sudden inspiration came to Harry. " 1 say," he cried, "' is tiie liiang of that pocket all right?" Stewart looked at liim with a very frightened face, and turned deadly jMile. Then lie drew forth a crumpltMl piece nf ]»aper and slowly unfolded it, with his big hajids and fingers all trembling. Tlu* man lookt-d unutterably shocked, " What is it? " cried Harry. ^^ Oh, my God. Mister Harry, I humbly beg your 2)iirdon. " groaned big fFaiues. '^ What is it?" asked the ju«ige. "• Yoar honor, it's the ten-ditillar bill. It warn ^WTi through the lining." What a cheering wem up : Everriiody was trying to shake hands widi Harry at oitce : but he went straight over to tHewart. "Silence — siience in Court — HioBoe^ — roare. 14580 f 716) 872-4503 % 'O % ^^ ^^ w .^r 346 KING roM. '' What am I to do, father? " " Take this letter to the bank and give it to the cashier. It contains a lot of money that must be deposited to-day. So take care you don't lose it." " Oh, I'll be careful, father." "Well, don't forget — careful of Tom, too. It's not every boy of fourteen that I'd trust with a three-hundred-dollar horse. Give him water at Thorold, going and coming. Not at the canal — at the tavern on the hill ; there's only one safe watering-place on the canal there, and you might miss it. Put him up at the Stephenson House in St. Kitt's, and get your dinner there. Here's some change for you." "All right, father. Thank you. I'll drive home and tell mother I'm going." " Never mind ; I'll tell mother all about ^'t. Oh, I had quite forgotten her dress and Bella's. After leaving the bank, go to Mrs. Hendrick's store and get the two silk dresses they were to have ready to-day. You'll catch it if you lose those dresses, Willie." " Oh, I guess there's not much danger of me losing Mey/i," said Willie, laughing. KING TOM. U1 *' Well, away you go ! Good-bye ! I expect you back by six or seven." In all America there was perhai^s no happier boy than Willie, us lie drove King Tom along the hard road to Drummojidville, with the mist of Niagara Falls towering before him and to his right. The June day was clear and odorous. Ke was going to St. Kitt's, which seemed to him a large city. King Tom was so big and handsome as to catch admiration anywhere, and Willie loved the kind, brave horse with a perfect and familiar affection. Above all, his father had trusted liim alone. Careful? No word could express how careful Willie meant to be. Indeed, his resolve to be careful was so poig- nant that he drew rein before the Drummond- ville stables, three miles from his father's of- fice, and inquired the way to Thorold, though he had been twice over the whole road to St. Kitt's in daylight. The man of whom Willie asked the way was standing on the sidewalk, with a straw in his mouth and his thin bow-legK so far apart that a small and solemn brindled bull-dog stood g48 Kmo TOU. between them as if to caricature them by tha more astonishing ciookedness of his own. Otherwise dog and man had many points alike. Both were wide and compact of body, weather- beaten, and long of the under jaw. They seemed equally indifferent to Willie and inter- ested in King Tom. The man put both hands to Tom's mouth, pressed his lips apart, and looked at his teeth. Then, as if he had found an answer there, he looked at Willie with shrev/d, merry, blue eyes, and said : — " I'm just starting for St. Kitt's, young man. Peter," he shouted, " fetch round the mare ! " Befoi'e he spoke Willie had guessed rightly that this was no less notable a personage than Ott Eddis, the horse-trainer, vastly admired just then by the horsemen of Welland Count}'- because his trotting mare, Maggie Meacham, had done wonders at the Buffalo spring meet- ing. You're Lawyer Blackadder's son, I know," man, vour father. I'd bet too, before / want 4( any law-play tiptop lawy »> KING TOM. :49 Willie flushed with delight to hear his father praised and himself treated as a man— almost. He reached the pinnacle of pride when Ott stepped back, took the straw from his mouth as if it might impede his judgment, walked around King Tom in profound meditation on his legs, and ended by remarking : — " There ain't a finer make of a family horse in all Canada! And sense! Just you give him the word you're going to Thorold ! " " I'm going all the way to St. Kitt's alone," said Willie, proudly. Ott threw back his head and gazed at the delighted boy with an air of intense surprise. He seemed to find no sufficient words, but appreciatively touched his cap to Willie as " the mare " came from the yard with the fast, engine-like walk of a trained trotter. She was bright bay with one white stocking, and so Willie knew that his enrapturxl eyes at last rested on Maggie Meacham. "Roger," said Ott, facetiously, to his bull- dog, " you'll stop home to-day and keep Pete respectable." Then he took Maggie's reins from Pete, 350 KING TOM. the grinning stableman, swung himself lightly into his sulky, and was off in a moment, with King Tom close behind. Willie drove behind Ott with an exhilarating sense that everybody seeing the trainer driv- ing Maggie Meacham and frequently turning to look at King Tom's action would tai:e Tom for a great trotter, and his driver for an emi- nent sportsman. The fly in this ointmerit was a doubt whether his father would appro"v o of his being in com- pany with the horse-trainer ; but the boy could not see how he might forsake this fascinating society without offending Ott'^ susceptibilities, for Willie, having a high notion of the social importance of his father's son, believed Ott shared it. When they reached Thorold, which lay on both sides of the eld Welland canal, Ott drove to the water's edge, jumped from his sulky, and loosening Maggie's check-rein, said, " Whoa, Maggie ! " and turned to King Tom. " But my father told me to water Tom at the tavern," said Willie. Right enough," said Ott. "But he didn't n KIXG TOM. 351 expect I'd be with you to show you the place. This is the only spot where it's safe to put a horse in. You don't need to go up the hill to Pud Gorman's tavern this time." Ott loosened King Tom's check-rein, swung himself into his sulky, drove Maggie into the shallow and let her drink. Willie, following, found his wlieels on gravel, and Tom drank between those of Ott's sulky, so little was the water roiled. When Tom lifted his head, Ott drove through the water for a few yards par- allel with the bank, and left the canal by a gravelly slope. Then he got out again and replaced the check-reins. " You'll know that place again, I guess I " he called back as he started. "Oh, yes. Thank you!" cried Wille ; but he liad not taken any particular notice of the ground, and he was quite unaware that his "bump of locality" needed reiinforcement by careful observation. Still ecstatic with the weather, the drive, the general admiration for King Torn, and his sports- manlike company, Willie reached St. Kitt's and duly obeyed all his father's directions. He 352 KING TOM. had arranged to meet Ott in front of the Ste- phenson House at three; but when the hostler brought King Tom around from the stables the trainer had not appeared. Nobody about the hotel knew anything more of Ott than that he had passed the place with Maggie Meacham half an hour earlier. Willie sat in the dog-cart with the package of silk dresses, for five minutes. Then, his soul being satiated with the obvious envy of the St. Kitt's boys, it seemed advisable to start. Ott must have forgotten the appointment. Willie's father expected him back by six or so. He must bring Tom home dry, and the after- noon was very warm. Moreover, his father would be just as well pleased if he did not travel unnecessarily in Ott's company. Willie chirruped to Tom, and rolled away for Thorold in high pleasure. His sense of independence was the greater for being alone. After this he would be trusted to take Tom anywhere. His manhood had begun. Over the canal at Thorold there were several bridges, and Willie could not remember which he had crossed behind Ott. Tom had crossed KING TOM, 353 the Ste- hostler i])les the bout the lan that Jeacham package , liis soul f the St. irt. lintment. 3ix or so. he after- s father did not ed a way- sense of ig alone.