Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1904 — The Blazed Trail [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Blazed Trail

By STEWART EDWARD WHITE

SYNOPSIS TO PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

Chapthb I—Morrison A Daly, lumbermen on th«Ss(>naw waters of Michigan, drive a bard bargain with Radway, a contractor. CHAPTER ll—Continued. The Interested spectators of the little drama included two men near the water cooler who were perfectly sober. One of them was perhaps past the best of life, but still straight and vigorous. His lean face was leather brown In contrast to n long mustache and heavy eyebrows bleached uearly white, his eyes were a clear, steady blue and his frame was slender, but wiry. He wore the regulation mackinaw blanket coat, a peaked cap witb an extraordinary high crown and buckskin moccasins over long stockings. The other was younger, not more than twenty-six perhaps, with the clean «ut, regular features we have come to consider typically American. Eye. brows that curved far down along the temples and eyelashes of a darkness in contrast to the prevailing note of his complexion combined to lend him a rather brooding, soft and melancholy air which a very cursory second examination showed to be fictitious. His eyes, like the woodman’s, wjre steady, but Inquiring. His Jaw was square and settled, bis mouth straight. Unlike the other inmates of the car he wore an ordinary business suit, somewhat worn, but of good cut and a style that showed even over the soft flannel shirt. The trousers were, however, bound inside the usual socks and rubbers. The two scat mates bad occupied their time each in his own fashion. The eider stared straight before him and with a certain periodicity into the center of the aisle. The younger stretched back lazily in an attltdue of ease. Sometimes be smoked a pipe. Thrice he read over a letter. It was from his sister and announced her arrival at the little rural village in which he had made arrangements for her to stay. “It is interesting now,” she wrote, “though the resources do not look as though they would wear well. I am learning under Mrs. Rcnwlqk to ■weep and dust and bake and stew and do a multitude of other things which I always vaguely supposed came ready made. I like It, but after I have learned it all I do not believe the practice will appeal to me much. However, I can stand It well enough for a year or two or three, for I am young, aud then you will have made your everlasting fortune, of course.”

“She's a trump.’’ said Thorpe to himself. “und she shall have her everlasting fortune if there's such a thing in the country.” He jingled the $3.00 in his pocket and smiled. That was the extent of his everlasting fortune at present. The letter had been answered from Detroit. "I am glad you are settled.” he wrote.' “At least I know you have enough to eat and a roof over you. I hope sincerely that you will do your best to fit yourself to your new conditions. I know it is hard, but with my lack of experience and my ignorance as to where to take hold it may be a good many years before we can do any better.” When Helen Thorpe read this she cried. Things had gone wrong that morning, and nu encouraging word would have helped her. The somber tone of her brother's communication threw her into a tit of the blues from which for the first time she saw her surroundings in a depressing and distasteful light. And yet he had written as he did with the kindest possible motives. Thorpe had the misfortune to be one of those individuals who. though careless of what people in general may think of them, are in a corresponding degree sensitive to the opinion of the few they love. This feeling was further exaggerated by a constitutional shrinking from any outward manifestation of the emotions. Perhaps for this reason he was never entirely Sincere with those he loved. After the disgrace of his father Harry Thorpe had done a great deal of thinking and planning which he kept

carefully to lilmself. He considered in torn the different occupations to which he could turn his band and negatived them one by one. Few business firms would care to employ the son of as shrewd an embezzler as Henry Thorpe. Finally he came to a decision. He communicated this decision to his sister. It would have commended itself more logically to her had she been able to follow step by step the consideration that had led her brother to it. As the event turned, she was forced to accept it blindly. She knew that her brother intended going west, but as to his hopes and plans she was in ignorance. A little sympathy, a little mutual understanding, would have meant a great deal to her, for a girl whose mother she but dimly remembers turns naturally to her next of kin. Helen Thorpe bad always admired her brother, but had never before needed him. She had looked upon him as strong, self contained, a little moody. s At the beginning of the row in the smoking car Thorpe laid aside his letter and watched with keen appreciation the direct practicality of the train-

men's method. When the bearded man fell before the conduces blow, he turned to the individual at bis side. “He knows how to hit, doesn’t he?” he observed. “That fellow was knocked well off his feet.” “He does,” agreed the other dryly. They fell into a desultory conversation of fits and starts. Woodsmen of the genuine sort are never talkative, and Thorpe, as has been explained, was constitutionally reticent. In the course of thAr disjointed remarks Thorpe explained that he was looking for work in the Woods and intended first of all to try the Morrison & Daly camps at Beeson lake. “Know anything about logging?” inquired the stranger. “Nothing,” Thorpe confessed. “Ain’t much show for anything but lumber Jacks. What did you think of doing?” “I don't know,” said Tborpe doubtfully. “I have driven horses a good deal. I thought I might drive team.” The woodsman turned slowly and looked Thorpe over with a quizzical eye. Then he faced to the front again and spat. “Quite like,” he replied, still more dryly. Tbe boy’s remark had amused him, and he had showed it, as much as he ever showed anything. Excepting always the river men, the driver of a team edmmands the highest wages among out of door workers. It is easier to drive a fire engine than a logging team. But in spite of the naivete of the remark the woodsman bad seen something in Thorpe he liked. Such men become rather expert in the reading of character. He revised his first intention to let the conversation drop. “I think M. & D. is rather full op Just now,” he remarked, “I’m walkin' boss over there. The roads is about ail made, and roadmaking is what a greenhorn tackles first They’s more chance earlier in the year. But’ if the old fellow”—he strongly accented the first word—“hain’t nothin’ for you, just ask for Tim Shearer, an’ I’ll try to put you on the trail for some jobber’s camp.” The three who ha 4 come into collision with Jimmy and were getting noisier. They had produced a stone Jug and had collected the remainder of the passengers, with the exception of Shearer and Thorpe, and now were passing the jug rapidly from band to hand. Soon they became musical, striking up one of the wierd, long drawn out chants so popular with the shanty boy. Thorpe shrewdly guessed his companion to be a man of some weight and did not hesitate to ascribe his immunity from annoyance to the other’s presence. “It's a bad tiling,” said the walking boss. “I used to be at it myself, and I know.”

"Bees'n Lake!” cried Jimmy fiercely through the aperture of the door. “You’ll find the boardin’ house just across over the track,” said the woodsman, holding out his hand. “So long. See you again if you don’t find a job with the old fellow. My name’s Shearer.” “Mine is Thorpe,” replied the other. “Thank you.” Thorpe followed and found himself on the frozen platform of a little dark railway statlqn. Directly across the track from the railway station a single building was pricked from the dark by a solitary lamp in a lower story room. The four who had descended before Thorpe made over toward this light, stumbling and laughing uncertainly, so he knew it was probably thq boarding house and prepared to follow them.

The five were met at the steps by the proprietor of the boarding bouse. This man was short and stout, with a harelip and cleft palate, which at once gave him the well known slurring speech of persons so afflicted and imparted also to the timbre of bis voice a peculiarly hollow, resonant, trumpetlike note. He stumped about energetically on a wooden leg of borne manufactures It was a cumbersome Instrument, heavy, with deep pine socket for tbe stump and a projecting brace which passed under a leather belt around the man's waist. This instrument be used with the dexterity of a third band. As Thorpe w atched hinThe drove in a projecting nail, kicked two “turkeys” inside the open door and stuck tbe armed ■>nd of his peg leg through the top and bottom of the whisky jug that one of the new arrivals had set down near the door. The whisky promptly ran out. At this the cripple flirted the im* paled Jug from the wooden leg far out over the rail of the veranda into the snow. A growl went up. “What ’n thunder’s that for?” snarled one of the owners of the whisky threateningly. “Don’t allow no whisky here," snuffed tbe harelip. The men were vpry angry. They advanced toward the cripple, who retreated with astonishing agility to the lighted room. There he bent the wooden leg behind him, slipped tbe end of tbe brace from beneath tbe leather belt, seised the other peg end In bis right hand and so became possessed of

■ murderous bludgeon. This he brandished. hopping at the same time back and forth in such perfect poise and yet with so ludicrous an effect of popping cord that the men were surprised Into laughing. "Bully for you, pegleg!” they ertod. “Itules an’ regerlatlons, boys,”/ replied the latter, without, however, a shade of compromising in bis tones. /‘Had supper?" CHAPTER 111. EHORPE was awakened a tong time before daylight by the ringing of a noisy bell. He dressed, shivering, and stumbled downstairs to the round stove, big as a boiler, into which the cripple dumped huge logs of wood from time to time. After breakfast Thorpe returned to this stove and sat half dozing for what seemed to him untold ages. The cold of the northern country was initiating him Men came in, smoked a brief pipe and went oat. After a time be himself put on his overcoat and ventured out into the town. It seemed to Thorpe a meager affair, built of lumber, mostly unpainted, with always the dark, menacing fringe of the forest behind. The great sawmill, with its tail stacks and its rows of water barrels—protection against fire—on top, was the dominant note. Near the mill coughed a little red painted structure from whose stovepipe a column of white smoke arose, attesting the cold, a clear hundred feet straight upward, and to whose door a number of men were directing their steps through the snow. Oyer the door Thorpe could distinguish the word “Office.” He followed and entered. In a narrow aisle railed off from the main part of the room waited Thorpe’s companions of the night before. The remainder of the oifice gave accommodation to three clerks. One of these glanced up inquiringly as Thorpe came in. “I am looking for work,” said Thorpe. “Wait there,” briefly commanded the clerk. In a few moments the door of the inner room opened and Shearer came out. A man’s head peered from within. “Come on, boys,” said be. The five applicants shuffled through. Thorpe found himself in the presence of a man whom he felt to be the natural leader of these wild, independent spirits. He was already a little past middle life, and bis form had lost the elastic vigor of youth. But bis eye was keen, clear and wrinkled to a certain dry *facetiousnesa, and his figure was of that bulk which gives an Impression of a subtler weight and power than the merely physical. Yon felt his superiority even when he was most comradely with you. This man Thorpe was to meet under other conditions, wherein the steel band would more plainly clink the metal. He was now seated in a worn office chair before a littered desk. In the close air hung the smell of stale cigars and the clear fragrance of pine. "What is it, Dennis?” he asked the first of the men. “I’ve been out,” replied the lumberman. “Have you got anything for me, Mr. Daly?’” The mill owner laughed. “I guess so. Report to Shearer. Did you vote for the right man, Denny?” The lumberman grinned sheepishly. “I don’t know, sir. I didn’t get that far.” “Better let it alone. I suppose you and Bill want to come back too?” he added, turning to the next two in line. “All right; report to Tim. Do you

“fFe are a very busy firm, here," he said. want work?” he inquired of the last of the quartet, a big, bashful man. with the shoulders of a Hercules. “Yes, sir,” answered the latter, uncomfortable. “What do you want?” "I’m a cant hook man, sir.” “Where have you worked?” “I had a Job with Morgan & Stebbins on the Clear river iast winter.” “AH right; we need cant book men. Report at ‘seven,’ and if they don’t want you there go to ‘thirteen.’ ” The man went out. Daly turned to Thorpe with the last flickers of amusement in his eyes. "What can I do for you?” he Inquired. “1 am looking for work,” Thorpe replied. 1 ‘ "What kind of work?” "Any kind, so long as I can learn something about the lumber business." The older man studied him keenly for a few momenta “Have yon had any other business experience?” "None." "What have yon been doing?” “Nothing."

The lumberman’s .eyes hardened. ' “We are a very busy 'firm here," be ■aid, witb a certain deliberation. "We do not carry a big force of men in any one department, and each of those men 'has to fit? his piece and atop some over the sides. We do not pretend or attempt to tcacb here. If you want to be a lumberman you most learn the lumbcfc- business more directly than through the windows of a bookkeeper’s office. Go into tbe woods. Learn a few first principles. Find out tbe difference between Norway and white pine anyway.” After bis speech the business man whirled back to his desk. “Have you anything for me to do in the woods, then?" the other asked quietly. i “No,” said Daly over his shoulder. Thorpe went out He had made the elementary discovery that even in chopping wood skilled labor counts. He did not know where to turn next and he would not have hqd the money to go far in any case; so, although Shearer's brusque greeting that morning bad argued a lack of cordiality, be resolved to remind the river man of bis promised assistance. * That noon he carried out his resolve. “Go up and tackle Radway,” said Shearer. "He’s jobbing for us on tbe Cass branch. He needs men for reading, I know, because he’ft behind. You’ll get a job there.” “Where is it?” asked Tborpe. “Ten miles from here. She’s blazed, but you better wait for tbe supply team Friday. If you try to make her yourself you’ll get lost on some of the old logging roads.” Thorpe, considered. ‘Tin busted,” be said at last frankly. “Oh, that’s ail right,” replied the walking boss. “Marshall, come here.” The peglegged boarding boose keeper stumped in. “What is it?” he trumpeted snuffingly. “This boy wants a job till Friday. Then he’s going up to Radway’s with the supply team. Now, quit your hollering for a chore boy for a few days.” “All right,” snorted Marshall. “Take that ax and split some dry wood that you’ll find behind the*house.” “I’m very much obliged to you,” began Tborpe to tbe walking boss, “and”— “That’s all right,” interrupted tbe latter. “Some day you can give me a job.”

CHAPTER IV. rjTIOR five days Thorpe cut wood, I |t I made fires, drew water, swept I floors and ran errands. At the J end of the week he received $4 from his employer, dumped his valise into a low bobsleigh driven by a man muffled in a fur coat, assisted in loading the sleigh with a variety of things, from Spearhead plug to raisins, and turned his face at last toward the land of bis hopes and desires. The long drive to camp was at once a delight and a misery to him. First his feet became numb, then his bands, then his nose was nipped! and finally his warm clothes were lifted from him by invisible hands, and he was left naked to shivers and tremblings. He found it torture to sit still on the top of the bale of hay, and yet he could not bear to contemplate the cold shock of jumping from the sleigh to the ground. The driver pulled up to breathe his horses at the top of a hill. “You’re dressed pretty light,” he advised. “Better hoof it a ways and get warm.” The words tipped the balance of Thorpe’s decision. He descended stiffly, conscious of a disagreeable shock from a six inch jump. In ten minutes the wallowing, slipping and leaping after the tail of the sled had sent his blood tingling to the last of his protesting members. Cold withdrew.

After a little while they arrived by way of a hill, over which they plunged Into the middle of the camp. Thorpe saw three large buildings, backed end to end, and two smaller ones, all built of heavy logs, roofed with plank and lighted sparsely through one or two windows apiece. The driver pulled up opposite the space between two larger buildings and began to unload his provisions. Thorpe set about aiding him and so found himself for the first time In a “cook camp.” It was a commodious, building. One end furnished space for two cooking ranges and two bunks placed one over the other. Along one side ran a broad table shelf, with other shelves over it and numerous barrels underneath, all filled with cans, loaves of bread, cookies and pies. The center was occupied by four long bench flanked tables, down whose middle straggled utensils containing sugar, apple butter, condiments and sauces and whose edges were set with tin dishes for about forty men. The cook, a rather thin faced man with a mustache, directed where the provisions were to be stowed, and the “oookee,” a hulking youth, assisted Thorpe and the driver to carry them in. In a few moments the task was finished, with the exception of a half dozen other cases, which the driver designated as for the “van.” The horses were unhitched and stabled in the third of the big log buildings. The driver indicated the second. “Better go into the men’s camp and sit down till th’ boss gets in,” he advised.

Thorpe entered a dim, overheated structure lined on two sides by a double tier of large bunks partitioned from one another like cabins of a boat and; centered by a • huge stove over which hung slender poles. The latter ejere to dry clothes on. Just outside the bunks ran a straight, bard bench. Thorpe stood at the entrance trying to accustom bis eyes to tbe dimnesa "Set down," said a voice, “on th’ floor If yon wont to, bot I’d prefer tb’ deacon seat.” Thorpe obediently took position on tbe bench, or “deacon seat" His eyes.

more used to the light, could make ofit a thin, tall, bent old man. with bare cranium, two vtsibla teeth and a* three days’ stnbble of white beard over hla meager, twisted face. He caught, perhaps, Thorpe’s surprised expression. “You think th’ old man's no good, do you?" be cackled without tbe-slightest malice. “Looks is deceivin’.” He sprang up swiftly, seized tbe toe of his right foot in his left hand and jumped bis left foot through the loop thus formed. Then be sat down again and laughed at Thorpe’s astonishment "Old Jackson’s still purty smart” ■aid he. “I’m barn boss. They ain't a man in th’ country knows as much about bosses as I do. We ain’t had but two sick this fall, an’ between yon an’ me they’s a skate lot You’re a greenhorn, ain’t you?” “Yes,” confessed Thorpe. “Well," said Jackson reflectively, but rapidly, “Le Fabian, he’s quiet but ban; and O’Grady, he talks load, bat you can bluff him; and Perry, he’s only bad when he gets full of red likker; and Norton, he’s bad when he gets mad like, and will use axes.” Thorpe did not know be was getting valuable points on tbe camp bullies. At dark the old mau lit two lamps, which served dimly to-gloze the shadows, and thrust logs of wood into the cast iron stove. Soon after, tbe men came in. They were a queer, mixed lot. There were active, clear built, precise Frenchmen, With small bands and feet and a peculiarly trim way of wearing their rough garments; typical native born American lumber jacks, powerful in frame, rakish in air, reckless in manner; big blond Scandinavians and Swedes, strong men at the sawing; an Indian or so, strangely in contrast to the rest, and a variety of Irishmen, Englishmen and Canadians. These men tramped in without a word and set busily to work at various tasks. Some sat. on tbe “deacon seat” and began to take off their socks and -rubbers. Still others selected and lit lanterns from a pendant row near the window and followed old Jackson out of doors. They were the teamsters. “You’ll find the old man in the office,” said Jackson.

Thorpe made his way across to the email log cabin indicated as tbe office, and pushed open the door. A man sat at a desk placing figures on a sheet of paper. He obtained tba figures from statistics penciled on three thin leaves of beechwood riveted together. In a chair by the stove lounged a bulkier figure, which Thorpe concluded to be that of tbe “old man.”

“I was sent here by Shearer,” said Thorpe directly. “He said you might give me some work.” So long a silence fell that the applicant began to wonder if bis question had been beard: “I might,” replied the man dryly at last “Well, will you?” Thorpe inquired, the humor of the situation overcoming him. “Have you ever worked in thewoods?” “No.” The man smoked Silently. “I’ll put you on the road in the morning,” he concluded, as though this were the deciding qualification. One of the m?n entered abruptly and approached the counter. The writer at the desk laid aside his tablets. “What is it Albert?” he asked. “Jot of chewin’,” was the reply.. The scaler took from the shelf a long plug of tobacco and cut off two inches.

“Ain’t bittin’ the van much, are you, Albert?” he commented, putting the man’s name and the amount in a little book. Thorpe went out after leaving his name for the time book, enlightened as to the method of obtaining supplies. He promised himself some warm clothing from the van when he should have worked out the necessary credit At supper be learned something else —that he must not talk at table. For one thing, supper was a much briefer affair than it would have been had every man felt privileged to take his will In conversation, not to speak of the absence of noise and the presence of peace. Each man asked for wbat he wanted.

“Please pass the beans,” he said, with the deliberate intonation of a man who does not expect that his request will be granted. Besides the beans were fried salt pork, boiled potatoes, canned corn, mince pie, a variety of cookies and doughnuts, and strong green tea. Thorpe found himself eating ravenously of the crude fare. That evening he underwent a catechism, a few practical jokes, which he took good naturedly, and a vast deal of chaffing. At. 9 o’clock the lights were all out. By daylight he and a dozen other men were at work hewing a road that had to be as smooth and level as a New York boulevard. Thorpe and four others were set to work on this road, which was to be cut through a creek bottom leading, he was told, to “seventeen.” He learned to use a double bitted ax.

From shortly after daylight he worked. Four other men bore him company, and twice Radway himself came by, watched their operations for a moment and moved on without comment. After Thorpe had caught his second wind he enjoyed his task, finding a certain pleasure in the ease with which he handled hts tool. At the end of an interminable period a faint, mußical nnllo swelled, echoed and died through the forest, beautiful qs a spirit. It was taken up by another voice and repeated. Then by another. Now near at hand, now tat away, it rang as hollow as a bell. Tbe sawyers, tbe swampers, tbe skkiders and tbe team men tamed and put on their heavy blanket coats. Down on the road *Tborpe beard it, too, and wondered what it might be. “Come on, bub. She means chew," explained old man Heath kindly. Thorpe resumed Ida coat and fell in behind tbe little procession. After a short time be came upon s bone and

sledge. Beyond It the cookee had built a litti* camp fire, around «Od> over Which he bad grouped big fifty pound lard tins half full of hot things to eat Each man is be approached picked up a tin plate and cup from a pile near at hand. The cookee was plainly master of the situation. He Issued peremptory order*. When Erickson, tbe blond Swede r attempted surreptitiously to appropriate a doughnut tbe youth turned on him savagely and shouted: “Get out of that, you big towhead I” The men ate, perched to various attitudes and places. Tborpe found it difficult to keep warm. The violent ex-

ercise had heated him through, ami now tbe north country cold penetrated to his bones. He huddled close to the fire and drank hot tea, but it did not do him very much good. In his secret mind he resolved to buy one of the blanket mackinaws that very evening. ““The newcomer’s first day of hard work had tired him completely. He was ready for nothing so much as his bunk. Bat be had forgotten that it was Saturday night. His status was still to assure.

They began with a few mild tricks. Shuffle the brogan followed hot back. Thorpe took all of it good natttredly. Finally a tall individual with a thin, white face, a reptilian forehead, reddish hair and long, babboon arms suggested tossing in a blanket Thorpe looked at the low celling and declined. “I’m with the game as long as you can say, boys,” said he, “and I’ll have as much fun as anybody, but that's going too far for a tired man.” The reptilian gentleman let out astring of oaths whose meaning might be translated, “We’ll see about thatl” Thorpe was a good boxer, but he knew by now the lumber jacks’ method of fighting anything to hurt the other fellow. And in a genuine, old fashioned, knock-down-and-drag-out rough and tumble your woodsman is about the toughest customer to handle you will be likely to meet. He is brought up on fighting. Nothing pleases him better than to get drunk and, with a few companions, to embark in an earnest effort to “clean out” a rival town. And he will accept cheerfully punishment enough to kill three ordinary men.

Thorpe at the first hostile movement sprang back to the door, seized one of the three-foot billets of hard wood intended for the stove and faced his opponents. “I don’t know which of you boys is coming first,” said he quietly, “but he Is going to get it good and plenty.” If the affair had been serious these men would never have recoiled before the mere danger of a stick of hard wood. But this was a good natured bit of foolery, a test of nerve, and there was no object in getting a broken head for that. The reptilian gentleman alone grumbled something profane. “If you hanker for trouble so much.” drawled the unexpected voice of old Jackson from the corner, “mebbe you could put on the gloves.” The rest was farce. Thorpe was built on true athletic lines-broad, straight shoulders, narrow flanks, long, clean, smooth muscles. He possessed, besides, that hereditary toughness and bulk which no gymnasium will ever quite supply. The other man, while powerful and ugly in his rushes, was clumsy and did not use his head. Thorpe planted his hard, straight blows at will. Finally he saw his opening and let out with a swinging pivot blow. The other picked himself out of a corner and drew off the gloves. Thorpe’s status was asstored. “The young feller’s all right,” observed Heath. “He cuffed Ben up to a peak all right.” “Went down like a peck of wet fish nets,” replied Jackson tranquilly.

(TO BK CONTIKUBD)

"I don’t know which of you boys is coming first," said he quietly.