Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1904 — BLACK – DRAUGHT STOCK and POULTRY MEDICINE The Blazed Trail [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BLACK - DRAUGHT STOCK and POULTRY MEDICINE

The Blazed Trail

By STEWART EDWARD

WHITE

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. Chapter I—Morrison A Daly, lumbermen on the Saganaw waters of Michigan, drive a hard banrain with Radway, a contractor. II and lll—Harry Thorpe, having left his dependent sister Helen, at service, tries for work at Morrison A Daly’s, fails and takes a job at chorine until he can go to Radway’s camp. IV—Thorpe at Radway's making lumber road. The men attempt hazing. Thorpe puts on the gloves and knocks out theohamplon. V and Vl—Radway running behind owing to slack management. Thorpe a “swamper.'’ Death of his enum, Paul. The men “chip in for the widow.” Radway goes home for Christmas, leaving Dyer, the scaler, in charge. VII and Vlll—Long delay waiting for roads to freeze. Thorpe hurt and sent to Sisters’ hospital. Radway fails. Thorpe out of work. IX—Thorpe demands pay of M. A D. for work done by Radway. The contract was illegal, and the firm have profited by the work done. M. AD. settle the account. X—Thorpe provides for Helen’s education and goes into the north woods to locate valuable tract. Makes a friend of Injun Charley and a Chicago boy tourist, Wallace Carpenter. CHAPTER X-Continued. One evening just at sunset Thorpe was helping the Indian shape his craft The two men bent there at their task, the dull glow of evening falling upon them. Behind them the knoll stood out In picturesque relief against the darker pines. The river rushed by with a never ending roar and turmoil. Through Its shouting one perceived, as through a mist the still lofty peace of evening. A young fellow, hardly more than a boy, exclaimed with keen dejight of the picturesque as his canoe shot around the bend into sight of it. The canoe was large and powerful, but well filled. An Indian knelt In the stern. Amidships was well laden with duffle of all descriptions. The young fellow sat in the bow. He was a bright faced, eager eyed, curly haired young fellow, all enthusiasm and fire. His figure was trim and clean, but rather slender, and his movements were quick, but nervous. When he stepped carefully out on the flat rock to which his guide brought the canoe with a swirl of the paddle one initiated would have seen that his clothes, while strong and serviceable, had been bought from a sporting catalogue. “This is a good place,” he said to the guide. “We’ll camp here.” Then he turned up the steep bank without looking back. “Hello!” he called in a cheerful, unembarrassed fashion to Thorpe and Charley. “How are you? Care If I camp here? What you making? By Jove! I never saw a canoe made before. I’m going to watch you. Keep right at It.” He sat on one of the outcropping bowlders and took off bis hat. “Say, you’ve got a great place here! You here all summer? Hello! You’ve got a deer hanging up. Are there many of ’em around here? I’d like to kill h deer first rate. I never have. It’s sort of out of season now, isn’t it?” “We only kill the bucks,” replied Thorpe. “I like fishing too.” went on the boy. “Are there any here? In the pool? John,” he called to his guide, “bring me my fishing tackle.” In a few moments he was whipping the pool with long, graceful drops of the fly. He proved to be adept At first the Indian’s stolid countenance seemed a trifle doubtful. After a time It cleared.

“Good!” he granted. The other Indian had now finished the erection of a tent and had begun to cook supper over a little sheet iron camp stove. Thorpe and Charley could smell ham. “You’ve got quite a pantry,” remarked Thorpe. “Won’t you eat with me?” proffered the boy hospitably. But Thorpe declined. In the course of the evening the boy approached the older men’s camp and, with charming diffidence, asked permission to sit awhile at their fire. “It most be good to live in the woods,” he said with a sigh, “to do all things for yourself. It’s so free.” “1 Just do love this!” he cried again and again. “Oh, it’s great, after all that fuss down there!” And he cried it so fervently that the other men present smiled, but so genuinely that the smile had in it nothing but kindliness. “I came out for a month,” said he suddenly, “and I guess I’ll stay the rest of it right here. You’ll let me go with you sometimes hunting, won’t you? I’d like first rate to kill a deer.” “Sure,” said Thorpe. “Glad to have you.” “My name is Wallace Carpenter,” said the boy, with a sudden unmistakable air of good breeding. “Well,” laughed Thorpe, “two old woods loafers like us haven’t got much use for names. Charley here is called Geezigut, and mine’s nearly as bad, but I guess plain Charley and Harry wiU do."

CHAPTER XI. mHE young fellow stayed three weeks and was a constant Joy to Thorpe. Thorpe liked the boy because he was open hearted, free from affectation, assumptive of no superiority—in short, because be was direct and sincere. Wallace, on his part, adored in Thorpe the free, open air life, the adventurous quality, the quiet, hidden power, the resourcefulness and the aelf sufficiency of the pioneer. He did anything at all. He accepted Thorpe for what he thought him to be rather than for what he might think him tq.be.

Little by little the eager questions of the youth extracted a full statement of the situation. He learned of the timber thieves up the river, of their present operations and their probable planß, of the valuable pine lying still unclaimed, of Thorpe’s stealthy raid into the enemy’s country. “Why, it’s great! It’s better than any book I ever read!” He wanted to know what be could do to help. j “Nothing except keep quiet,” replied Thorpe. “You mustn’t try to act any different If the men from up river come by, be just as cordial to them as you can and don't act mysterious and Important.” “All right.” agreed Wallace, bubbling with excitement. “And then what do you do—after you get the timber estimated?” 1/ *TII go south and try, quietly, to raise some money. That will be difficult because, you see, people don’t know me, and I am not in a position to let them look over the timber. Of course It will be merely a question of my judgment. They can go themselves to the land office and pay their money. There won’t be any chance of my making way with that. The investors will become possessed of certain ‘descriptions’ lying in this country, all right enough. The rub is, Will they have enough confidence in me and my judgment to believe the timber to be what I represent it?” “I see,” commented Wallace, suddenly grave. “Harry,” said he that evening, with a crisp decision new to his voice, “will you take a little walk with me down by the dam? I want to talk with you.” They strolled to the edge of the bank and stood for a moment looking at the swirling waters. “1 want you to tell me all about logging,” began Wallace. “Start from the beginning. Suppose, for instance—wbat would be your first move?” They sat side by side on a log, and Thorpe explained. The excitement of war was in it. When he had finished. Wallace drew a deep breath. “When I am home,” said he simply, “I live in a big house on the Lake Shore drive. It is heated by steam and lighted by electricity. I touch a button or turn a screw and at once I am lighted and warmed. At certain hours

meals are served me. I don’t know how they are cooked or where the materials come from. Since leaving college I have spent a little time downtown every day, and then I’ve played golf or tennis or ridden a horse in the park. We do little imitations of the real thing with blue ribbons tied to them and think we are camping or roughing it This life of yours is glorious, is vital; it means something in the march of the world.” The young fellow spoke with unexpected swiftness and earnestness. Thorpe looked at him In surprise. “I know what you are thinking,” said the boy, flashing. "You are surprised that I can be in earnest about anything.” Thorpe watched him with sympathetic eyes, but with lips that obstinately refused to say one word. “I left college at nineteen because my father died,” Wallace went on. “I am now Just twenty-one. A large estate descended to me, and 1 have bad to care for Its investment all alone. I have one sister; that Is aiL” “So have I!” cried Thorpe and stopped. “The estates have not suffered,” went on the boy simply. “I have done well with them. But,” he cried fiercely, “I hate it! It 1b petty and mean and worrying and nagging. Now, Harry, I have a proposal to make you. It is this: Yon need $30,000 to bay your land. Let me supply it and come in as half partner.” An expression of doubt crossed the land looker's face. “Oh, please!” cried the boy. “I do want to get In something real. It will be the making of me." “Now, see here,” interposed Thorpe

suddenly. “You don't even know my name.” “I know yon,” replied the boy. “My name Is Harry Tftorpe,” pursued the other. “My father was Henry Thorpe, an embezzler.” “Harry,” replied Wallace soberly, “I am sorry I made you say that I do not care for your name, except, perhaps, to put It In the articles of partnership, and I have no concern with your ancestry. I tell you, U Is a favor to let me In on this deal. I don’t know anything about lumbering, but I’ve got eyes. I can see that big timber standing up thick and tall, and I know people make profits in the business.” Thorpe considered a few moments in silence. “Wallace,” he said gravely at last, “1 honestly do think that whoever goes Into this deal with me will make money. Of course there’s always chances against it, but I am going to do my best.” The man’s accustomed aloofness had gone. His eyes flashed, his brow frowned, the muscles of his cheeki contracted under his beard. Wallace gazed at him with fascinated admiration. “Then you will?” he asked tremulously. “Wallace,” he replied again, “they’ll say that yon have been the victim of an adventurer, but the result will prove them wrong. If I weren’t perfectly sure of this I wouldn’t think of it, for I like you, and I know you want to go into this more out of friendship for me and because your imagination Is touched than from any business sense. But I’ll accept gladly, and I’ll do my best!” “Hooray!” cried the boy, throwing his cap up in the air. “We’ll do ’em up in the first round.” CHAPTER XII. OFTER Wallace left them the two men settled again into tlwir customary ways of life. Up to the present Thorpe had enjoyed a clear field. Now two men came down from above and established a temporary camp in the woods half a j mile below the dam. Thorpe soon satisfied himself that they were picking out a route for the logging road. The two men, of course, did not bother themselves with the timber to be travoyed, but gave their entire attention to that lying farther back. Thorpe was enabled thus to avoid them entirely. He simply transferred his estimating to the forest by the stream. Once he met one of the men, but was fortunately in a country that lent itself to his pose of hunter. The other he did not see at all.

But one day he heard him. The two up river men were following carefully but noisily the bed of a little creek. Thorpe happened to be on the side hill, so he seated himself quietly until they should have moved on down. One of them shouted to the other, who. crashing through a thicket, did not hear. “110-o-o, Dyer!” the first repeated. “Here’s that infernal comer over here!” “Yop.” assented the other, “coming.” Thorpe recognized the voice instantly as that of Radway’s scaler. His hand crisped in a gesture of disgust. The man had always been obnoxious to him. Two days later he stumbled on their camp. He paused in wonder at what he saw. The packs lay open, their contents scattered in every direction. The fire had been hastily extinguished with a bucket of water, and a frying pan lay where it had been overturned. If the thing had been possible, Thorpe would have guessed at a hasty and unpremeditated flight. He was about to withdraw carefully lest he be discovered when he was startled by a touch on his elbow. It was Injun Charley. “Dey go up river,” he said. “I come see what de row.” The Indian examined rapidly the condition of the little camp. “Dey look for somethin’,” said he, making his hand revolve as though rummaging and indicating the packs. “I fink dey see you in de woods,” he concluded. “Dey go camp get ’urn boss. Boss he gone on river trail two Tree hour." “You’re right Charley,” replied Thorpe, who had been drawing his own conclusions. “One of them knows me. They’ve been looking in their packs for their notebooks with the descriptions of these sections in them. Then they piled out for the boss. If I know anything at all, the boss ’ll make tracks for Detroit.” “Wotyou dor* asked Injun Charley curiously. "I got to get to Detroit before they do; that’s all.” Instantly the Indian became all action. “You come,” he ordered and set out at a rapid pace for camp. There, with incredible deftness, he packed together about twelve pounds of the jerked venison and a pair of blankets, thrust Thorpe’s waterproof match safe in his pocket and turned eagerly to the young man. “You come,” he repeated. Thorpe hastily unearthed his “descriptions” and wrapped them up. The Indian in silence rearranged the misplaced articles in such a manner as to relieve the camp of its abandoned air. It was nearly sundown. Without a word the two men struck off Into the forest, the Indian In the lead. Their course was southeast, but Thorpe asked no questions. He followed blindly. Soon he found that if he did even that adequately he would have little attention left for anything else. The Indian walked with long, swift strides, his knees always slightly bent, even at the finish of the step, his back hollowed, his shonlders and head thrust forward. His gait had a queer sag in it, up and down in a long curve from one rise to the other. After a time Thorpe became fascinated in watching before him this easy, untiring lope, hour after hour, without the variation of a second’s fraction in speed or an

Inch in length. At first Thorpe followed him with comparative ease, bat at the end of three hours he was compelled to put forth decided efforts to keep pace. His walking was no longer mechanical, but conscious. When It becomes so a man soon tires. Thorpe resented the inequalities, the stones, the roots, the patches of soft ground which lay in his way. He felt dully that they were not fair. He could negotiate the distance, but anything else was a gratuitous insult. Then suddenly he gained his second wind. He felt better and stronger and moved freer. At midnight Injun Charley called a halt. He spread his blanket, leaned on one elbow long enough to eat a strip of dried meat and fell asleep. Thorpe Imitated his example. Three hours later the Indian roused his companion, and the two set out again. From 3 o’clock until 8 they walked continually without a pause, without an instant’s breathing spell. Then they rested half an hour, ate a little venison and smoked a pipe. An hour after noon they repeated the rest. Thorpe rose with a certain physical reluctance. The Indian seemed as fresh as when he started. At sunset they took an hour, then forward again by the dim intermittent light of the moon and stars through the ghostly haunts of forest until Thorpe thought he would drop with weariness and was mentally incapable of contemplating more than a hundred steps in advance. “When I get to that square patch of light I’ll quit,” he would say to himself and struggle painfully the required twenty yards. “No, I won’t quit here,” he would continue. “I’ll make It that Dircn. Then I’ll lie down and die.” And so on. To the actual physical exhaustion of Thorpe's muscles was added that immense mental weariness which uncertainty of time and distance inflicts on a man. The journey might last a week for nil he knew. In the presence of an emergency these men of action had actually not exchanged a dozen words. The Indian led; Thorpe followed.

When the halt was called Thorpe fell into his blanket too weary even to eat. Next morning sharp, shooting pains, like the stabs of swords, ran through his groin. “You come,” repeated the Indian, stolid as ever. Then the sun was an hour high. The travelers suddenly ran into a trail, which as suddenly dived into a spruce thieket. On the other side of it Thorpe unexpectedly found himself in an extensive clearing dotted with the blackened stumps of pines. Athwart the distance he could perceive the wide blue horizon of Lake Michigan. He had crossed the upper peninsula on foot. “Boat come by today,” said Injun Charley, indicating the tall stacks of a mill. “Him no stop. You mak’ him stop take you with him. You get train Mackinaw City tonight. Dose men, dey on dat train.” Thorpe calculated rapidly. The enemy would require even with their teams a day to cover the thirty miles to the fishing village of Munising, whence the stage ran each morning to Seney, the present terminal of the South Shore railroad. He, Thorpe, on foot and three hours behind, could never have caught the stage. But from Seney only one train a day was dispatched to connect at Mackinaw City with the Michigan Central, and on that one train, due to leave this very morning, the up river man was just about pulling out. He would arrive at Mackinaw City at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, where he would be forced to wait until 8 in the evening. By catching a boat at the mill to which Injun Charley had led him Thorpe could still make the same train. Thus the start in the race for Detroit’sland office would be fair. “All right,” he cried, all his energy returning to him. "Here goes! We’ll beat him out yet!” “You come back?” inquired the Indian, peering with a certain anxiety into his companion’s eyes. “Come back!” cried Thorpe. “You bet your hat!” “I wait,” replied the Indian, and was gone. Thorpe saw over the headland to the east a dense trail of black smoke. He set off on a stumbling run toward the mill. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“Oh, please !" cried the boy.