Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1904 — The Blazed Trail [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Blazed Trail

SYNOPSIS TO PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Chapter I—Morrison A Daly, lumbermen on the Saganaw waters of Michigan, drive a hard bargain with Radway, a contractor. II and lll—Harry Thorpe, having left his dependent sitter Helen, at service, tries for work at Morrison A Daly’s, fails and takes a job at chorinar until he can go to Radway’s camp. IV—Thorpe at Radway’s making lumber road. The men attempt haaing. Thorpe puts on the gloves and knocks out the champion.

CHAPTER V. mN the office shanty one evening about a week later Radway and bis scaler happened to be talking over the situation. The scaler, whose name was Dyer, slouched back in the Bliadow watching his great honest superior as a crafty, dainty cat might watch the blunderings of a St Bernard. Dyer had a precise little black mustache, whose ends he was constantly twisting into points; black eyebrows, and long, effeminate, black lashes. The two men conversed in short, elliptical sentences, using many technical terms. “That ‘seventeen’ white pine is going to underrun,” said Dyer. “It won’t skid over 3,000.”

“It’s small stuff,” agreed Radway, “and 60 much the worse for us. But the company ’ll stand in on it, because small stuff like that always overruns on the mill cut.” The scaler nodded comprehension. “When are you going to dry haul that Norway across Pike lake?” “Tomorrow. She springs, but the book says five inches of Ice will hold a team, and there’s more than that. How much are we putting in a day now?” “About 40,000.”

Radway fell silent. “That’s mighty little for such a crew,” he observed at last doubtfully. “I always said you were too easy with them. You got to drive them more.”

“Well, it’s a rough country,” apologized Radway, trying, as was his custom, to find excuses for the other party as soon as he was agreed with in his blame. “There’s any amount of pot holes, and then we’ve had so much snow the ground ain’t really froze underneath. It gets pretty soft in some of them swamps. Can’t figure on putting up as much in this country as we used to down on the Muskegon.”

The scaler smiled a thin smile all to himself behind the stove. Dyer knew perfectly well that the work was behind. and he knew the reason. For some time the men had been relaxing their efforts. They had worked honestly enough, but a certain snap and vim had lacked. This was because Radway had been too easy with them. Your true lumber jack adores of all things iu creation a man whom be feels to be stronger than himself. If his employer is big enough to drive him, then he is willing to be driven to the last ounce of his strength. But once he gets the notion that his “boss” is afraid of or for him or his feelings or his health, be loses interest in his working for that man. As you value your authority, the love of your men and the completion of your work, keep a bluff brow and an unbending singleness of purpose.

Thorpe had already commented on the feeling among the men, though, owing to-his inexperience, he was not able to estimate its full value. The men were inclined to a semiapologetic air when they spoke of their connection with the camp. Instead of being honored as ofie of a series of jobs this seemed to be considered as merely a temporary halting place In which they took no pride and “from which they looked forward in anticipation or back in memory to better things. “Old Shearer, he’s the bully boy,” said Bob Stratton. “I remember when he was foreman of M. & D. at Camp O. Saw—we did hustle them saw logs in! I should rise to remark! Out in the woods by first streak of day. I recall one morn in’ she was pretty cold, and the boys grumbled some about turnin’. out *Cold,’ says Tim, ‘you sons of guns! You got your ch’ice. It may be too cold for you in the woods, but it’s a blame sight too hot for you in hades, and you’re gpin’ to one or the other’.’ And he meant it too. Them was great days! Forty million a year and not a hitch!”

The next morning Radway transferred Molly and Jenny, with little Fabian Laveqne and two of the younger men, to Pike lake. There earlier In the season a number of pines had been felled out on the ice, cat in logs and left in expectation of ice thick enough to bear the travoy “dray.” Owing to the fact that the shores of Pine lake were extremely precipitous it bad been impossible to travoy the logs up over tbe hill.

Radway bad sounded carefully tbe thickness of tbe ice with an ax. Although the weather had been sufficiently cold for tbe time of year, the snow, as often happens, had fallen before the temperature. Under the warm white blanket the actual freezing bad been slight. However, there seemed to be at least eight inches of clear Ice, Which would suffice.

Four logs had been safely hauled. The fifth was on its journey across the lake. Suddenly without warniug and with scarcely a sound both horses sank through _the ice t which, bubbled up

By STEWART EDWARD WHITE

around them, and oyer their backs in •Irregular rotted- pieces. Little Fabian Laveque shouted aud jumped down from his log. Pat McGuire and young Henrys came running. The horses had broken through an air hole about which the ice was strong. Fabian had already seized Molly by the bit and was holding her bead easily above water. “Kltch Jenny by dat he’t!” he cried to Pat Thus the two men without exertion sustained the noses of the team above the surface. The position demanded absolutely no haste, for it could have been maintained for a good half hour. Molly and Jenny, their soft eyes full of the intelligence of the situation, rested easily in full confidence. But Pat and Henrys, new to this sort of emergency, were badly frightened and* excited. “Oh, Lord,” cried Pat, clinging desperately to Jenny’s headpiece, “what will wez be doin’? We can’t niver haul them two horses on the ice.” “Tak’ de log chain,” said Fabian to Henrys, “an’ tie him around de neck of Jenny." Henrys after much difficulty and nervous fumbling managed to loosen the swamp hook and after much more difficulty succeeded in making It fast about the gray mare’s neck. Fabian Intended with this to choke the animal to that peculiar state when she would

float like a balloon on the water and two men could with ease draw her over the edge of the ice. Then the unexpected happened. The instant Henrys had passed the end of the chain through the knot Pat, possessed by some Hibernian notion that now all was fast, let go of the bit. Jenny’s head at once went under, and the end of the logging chain glided over and fell plump in the bole.

Immediately all was confusion. Jenny kicked and struggled, churned the water, throwing it about, kicking out in every direction. Once a horse's head dips strongly the game is over. No animal drowus more quickly. The two young boys scrambled away, and French oaths could not induce them to approach. Molly, still upheld by Fabian, looked at him piteously with her strange, intelligent eyes, holding herself motionless and rigid with complete confidence in this master who had never failed her before. Fabian dug bis heels into the ice, but could not hang on. The drowning horse was more than a dead weight. Presently it became a question of letting go or being dragged into the lake on top of the animals. With a sob the little Frenchman relinquished his hold. The water seemed slowly to rise and overfilm the troubled look of pleading in Molly’s eyes. *

“Assassins!” hissed Laveque at the two unfortunate youths; that was all. “I suppose it was a good deal my fault,” commented Radway, doubtfully shaking his head after Laveque had left the office. “I ought to have been surer about the Ice.”

Radway was so confirmed in his belief as to his own culpability that he quite overlooked Fabian’s just contention that tbe mere thinness of the ice was in reality no excuse for the losing of the horses. 80 Pat and Henrys were not discharged; were not instructed to “get their time.” Fabian Laveque promptly demanded his. “I no work wid dat fool dat no t’lnk wit* bees bald!” This deprived the camp at once of a teamster and a team. When you reflect that one pair of horses takes care of the exertions of a crew of sawyers, several swamper*, and three or four cant book men yon will readily see what a serious derangement their lost wonld cause. Radway did his best. He took three days to search out a big team of farm bones. Then it became necessary to find a driver. After some deliberation be decided to advance Bob. Stratton to

the poet, that “decker” having had more or less experience the year before. Erickson, the Swede, while not a star cant hook man, was nevertheless sure and reliable. Radway placed him In Btratton’» place. He remembered Thorpe. So the young man received his first promotion toward the ranks of skilled labor. He gained at last a field of application for the accuracy he bad so intelligently acquired while roadmaking, for now a false stroke marred a saw log; and besides, what was more to bis taste, he found himself near the actual scene of operation—at the front, as it were. Here he learned why and when the sawyers threw a tree up or down hill, and how small standing timber they tried to fell It through, what consideration held for the cutting of different lengths of log, how the timber was skillfully decked on the skids in such a manner that the pile should not bnlge or fall and so that the scaler could easily determine the opposite ends of the same log—in short, a thousand and one little details which ordinarily a man learns only as the exigencies arise to call In experience. Here, too, he first realized he was In the firing line. Thorpe had assigned him as a bunk mate the young fellow who assisted Tom Broadhead in the felling. Henry Paul was a fresh complexioned, clear eyed, quick mannered young fellow, with an air of steady responsibility about him. He came from the southern part of the state, where during the summer he worked on a little homestead farm of his own. After a few days he told Thorpe that he was married, and after a few days more he showed his bunk mate the photograph of a sweet faced young woman who looked trustingly out of the picture.

“She’s waiting down there for me. and it ain’t so very long till spring,” said Paul wistfully. “She’s the best little woman a man ever bad, and there ain’t nothing too good for her, chummy.” Thorpe, soul sick after his recent experiences with the ity of the world. discovered a real pleasure in this fresh, clear passion. Three days after the newcomer bad started in at the swamping Paul, during their early morning walk from camp to the scene of their operations, confided in him further.

“Got another letter, chummy,” said he. “Come in yesterday. She tells me,” he hesitated, with a blush, and then a happy laugh, “that they ain’t going to be only two of us at the farm next year.” - “You mean?” queried Thorpe. “Yes,” laughed Paul, “and if it’s a girl she gets named after her mother, you bet.” Tbe men separated. In a moment Thorpe found himself waist deep in the pitchy aromatic top of an old bull sap, clipping away at the projecting branches. After a time he heard Paul’s gay halloo. “Timber!” came the cry, and then the swish-sh-sh—crash of tbe tree's fall.

Thorpe knew that now either Hank or Tom must be climbing with the long measuring pole along the prostrate trunk, marking by means of shallow ax clips where the saw was to divide the logs. Then Tom shouted something unintelligible. The other men aeemed to understand, however, for they dropped their work and ran hastily in the direction of the voice. Thorpe after a moment’s indecision did the same. He arrived to find a group about a prostrate man. The man was Paul.

Two of the older woodsmen, kneeling, were conducting coolly a hasty examination. At the front every man Is more or less of a surgeon. “Is he hurt badly?” asked Thorpe. “What is It?” “He’s dead,” answered one of the other men soberly. With the skill of ghastly practice some of them wove a litter, on which the body was placed. The pathetic little procession moved in the solemn, inscrutable forest. When the tree had fallen it had crashed through the top of another, leaving suspended in the branches of the latter a long, heavy limb. A slight breeze dislodged it. Henry Paul was impaled as by a javelin. This is the chief of the many perils of the woods. That evening the camp was unusually quiet. Tallier let his fiddle hang. After supper Thorpe was approached by Purdy, the reptilian redhead with whom he had had the row some evenings before. “You chummy?” he asked iu a quiet voice. “It’s a five apiece for Hank’s woman.” “Yes,” said Thorpe.

The men were earning from S2O to S3O a month. They had most of them never seen Hank Paul before this autumn. He had not, mainly because of his modest disposition, enjoyed any extraordinary degree of popularity, yet these strangers cheerfully, as a matter of course, gave up the proceeds of a week’s hard work, and that without expecting the slightest personal credit. The money was sent “from the Jmys.” Thorpe later read a heartbroken letter to the unknown benefactors. It touched Mm deeply, and he suspected the other men of the same emotions, but by that time they had regained the independent, self contained poise of the frontiersman. They read it with unmoved faces and tossed It aside with a more than ordinarily rough Joke or oath. Thorpe understood their reticence. It was a part of his own nature. He felt more than ever akin to these men.

As swamper he had more or less to do with a cant hook in helping the teamsters roll the end of the log on the little “dray.” He soon caught the knack. Toward Christmas be had become a fairly efficient cant book man and was helping roll the great sticks of timber up the slanting skids. Thus always intelligence counts, especially that rare Intelligence jwhich resolves

into the analytical and the minutely observing. He was getting just the experience and the knowledge be needed, but that was about all. His wages were $25 a month, which his van bill would reduce to the double eagle. At the end of the winter he would have but a little over SIOO to show for his season’s work, and this could mean at most only SSO for Helen. But the future was his. He saw now more plainly what he had dimly perceived before, that for the man who buys timber, and logs it well, a sure future is waiting. And in this camp he was beginning to learn from failure the conditions of success.

CHAPTER YI. mHEY finished cutting on section 17 during Thorpe’s second week. It became necessary to begin on section 14, which lay two miles to the east. In that direction the character of the country changed somewhat.

The pine there grew thick on isolated "islands” of not more than an acre or so In extent—little knolls rising from the level,of a marsh. In ordinary conditions nothing would have been easier than to have plowed roads across the frozen surface of this marsh. The peculiar state of the weather interposed tremendous difficulties.

The early part of autumn had been characterized by a heavy snowfall immediately after a series of mild days. A warm blanket of some thickness thus overlaid the earth, effectually preventing the freezing which subsequent cold weather would have caused. All the season Radway had contended with this condition. Even in the woods, muddy swamp and spring holes caused endless difficulty and necessitated a great deal of “corduroying,” or the laying of poles side by side to form an artificial bottom. Here in the open some six inches of water and unlimited mud awaited the first horse that should break through the layer of snow and thin ice. Between each pair of Islands a road had to be “tramped.” Thorpe and the rest were put at this disagreeable job. All day long they had to walk 'mechanically back and forth on diagonals between the marks set by Radway with .his snowshoes. Early in the morning their feet were wet by icy water, for even the light weight of a man sometimes broke the frozen skin of the marsh. By night a road of trampled snow of greater or less strength was marked out across the expanse. Thus the blanket was thrown back from the warm earth, and thus the cold was given a chance at the water beneath. In a day or so the road would bear a horse. A bridge of ice had been artificially constructed, on either side of which lay unsounded depths. This road was indicated by a row of firs stuck in the snow on either side.

It was very cold. All day long the restless wind swept across the shivering surface of the plains and tore around the corners of the islands. The big woods are as good as an overcoat. The overcoat had been taken away. When the lunch sleigh arrived the men huddled shivering in the lee of one of the knolls and tried to eat with benumbed fingers before a fire that was but a mockery. Often it was nearly dark before their work warmed them again. All of the skidways had to be placed on the edges of the islands themselves, and the logs had to be travoyed over the steep little knolls. A single misstep out on to the plain meant a mired horse. Three times heavy knows obliterated the roads, so that they had to be plowed out before the men could go to work again. It was a struggle.

Radway was evidently worried. He often paused before a gang to inquire how they were “making it” He seemed afraid they might wish to quit which was indeed the case, but he should never have taken before them any attitude but that of absolute confidence in their intentions. His anxiety was natural, however. He realised the absolute necessity of skidding and hauling this job before the heavy choking snows of the latter part of January should make it impossible to keep the roads open. So insistent waa this necessity that be had seised the first respite in the phenomenal snowfall of the early autumn to begin work. The cutting in the woods could wait. Left to themselves, probably the men would never have dreamed of objecting to whatever privations the task carried with it. Radway’s anxiety for their comfort, however, caused them finally to imagine that perhaps they might have some just pounds for complaint after aIL That is a great trait of the lumber Jack. (to aa coicriypsD.)

Molly, still upheld by Fabian, looked at him piteously.