CHAPTER V
Owen was as amazed as Dale to think that the man who had leaped on the disappearing freight train was the French-Canadian who had caused the latter so much trouble.
"Well, he's gone," said he, after a moment's pause. "It's a pity you didn't spot him before the train started."
"He didn't show himself, Owen." Dale drew a long breath. "Do you know what I think? I think he was hanging around this town, when he saw us and made up his mind that he had better get out."
They made a number of inquiries and soon learned that Ducrot had been in Lakeport two days. He had applied to Joel Winthrop and several other lumbermen for a position, but had smelt so strongly of liquor that nobody had cared to engage him. From general indications all the lumbermen doubted if the fellow had much money in his possession.
"I'll wager he sold the horse and drank up the best part of the proceeds," said Dale. "It's a rank shame, too! I'll have to save a long time to square up with Mr. Larson. I'd give a week's wages if I could have Ducrot arrested."
"You might telegraph to the next station, Dale."
"So I might!" Dale's face brightened a little, then fell again. "But I guess I won't. It will cost extra money, and I'll have to go and identify him, and stay around when he is tried, and all that. No, I'll watch my chance to catch him some time when it is more convenient."
Promptly at the time appointed by old Joel Winthrop the journey up the lake was begun. Counting Dale and Owen there were five lumbermen on theLily, which was a craft ten feet wide by about twenty feet long. TheLilywas to be towed along by a small tug which did all sorts of odd jobs around the lake. The bateau was piled high with the provisions and with the boxes and valises belonging to the lumbermen, not forgetting the case that contained Owen's precious violin and the green bag with the banjo.
"I see you're a player," said Joel Winthrop. "I used to scratch a fiddle myself years ago. You'll have to give us some music goin' up." And Owen did, much to the satisfaction of all on board.
The distance to the Paxton lumber camp was over a hundred and fifteen miles, and it took five days to cover the journey. At the end of the lake the goods had to be portaged up to the river, and then had to be portaged around the falls beyond. On the West Branch and the side stream on which the camp was located the bateau had to be poled along, and owing to the low water often caught on the mud or the rocks. But nobody minded the work, and as the weather was cool and dry the journey passed off pleasantly enough.
The two strange lumbermen were from Bangor and were named Gilroy and Andrews. They were experienced hands, and Gilroy was an under boss at the camp, having charge of the North-Section Gang, as it was called. All the older men loved to talk about lumbering in general and old times in Maine in particular, and Dale and Owen listened to the conversation with interest.
"Got to go putty far back for lumber now," said Joel Winthrop. "All the good stuff nigh to the river has been cut away."
"I've heard my grandfather tell of the times when they cut good logs less than ten miles from Bangor," put in Gilroy. "I reckon they didn't think what an industry lumbering would become in these days."
"I suppose they cut nothing but pine in those days," said Dale.
"Nothing but pine, lad; spruce wasn't looked at."
"Yes, and pine was the great thing even up to the Civil War," said Joel Winthrop. "But that was the last of it, and a couple of years after the war ended spruce came to the front, and now, as you perhaps know, we cut five times as much spruce as we do anything else."
"I've often wondered how many men worked in Maine at lumbering," said Owen. "There must be a small army of us, all told."
"I heard that last year more than fourteen thousand men were in the woods," came from Andrews. "The total number of feet of all kinds of lumber cut was over half a billion."
"What a stack of logs!" cried Dale.
"No wonder we have a pine tree on the coat of arms of the State," added Owen. "But it ought to be a spruce tree now instead of a pine," he continued.
"I can remember the day when the lumber camps claimed the very best of our people," said Joel Winthrop. "Folks wasn't stuck up in them days, and many of the richest men in Bangor and Portland earned their first dollar choppin' down pine trees. But now we've got all sorts in the camps, an' have to take 'em or git nobody. Not but what we've got good men at our camp," he added hastily.
"I wouldn't mind a job as a lumber surveyor," said Dale. "They get good wages, don't they?"
"A deputy surveyor gets ten cents a thousand on all the lumber he checks off," answered Gilroy. "I've known a man to make six to ten dollars a day at it. The fellows who overhaul the lumber for him get seven and a half cents a thousand each. The surveyor-general of the county gets a cent a thousand on all lumber passed on in the county."
"Some day I reckon I'll be a surveyor-general," observed Owen dryly.
"I'd rather own a rich lumber tract," returned Dale. "I'd work it systematically, cutting nothing but big trees and planting a new tree for every old one cut. By that means I'd make the tract bring me in a regular income."
"That's the way to talk," came from Joel Winthrop. "And unless the owners do something like that putty soon Maine won't be in the lumber business no more."
"They tell me that the big pulp mill near here can use up 50,000,000 feet of lumber in a year," went on Dale.
"It's true," said Gilroy. "They'll chew up logs almost as fast as you can raft 'em along. What we are coming to if the pulp mills and paper makers keep on crowding us for logs, I don't know."
It was night when they reached the landing place nearest to the Paxton camp, which was located up the hillside, half a mile away. At this point the stream opened up into something of a pond, with a cove in which several small boats were moored.
The shores of the pond were rocky and covered in spots with a stunted undergrowth, while further back was the forest of spruce, pine, fir, and a few other trees, sending forth a delicious fragrance that was as invigorating as it was delightful. As the bateau grounded, Dale leaped ashore, stretched himself and took a long, deep breath, filling his lungs to their utmost capacity.
"This is what I like!" he cried. "It's better than a tonic or any other medicine."
"And what an appetite it will give a fellow," added Owen. "I can always eat like a horse when I'm in the woods working."
As it was a clear night, the bateau was hauled up on the shore and the provisions carefully covered with a thick tarpaulin. Then the party struck out up the hillside for the camp, Joel Winthrop leading the way.
The trail was a rough one, for this camp was new, being located nearly a mile from the one of the season before, the loggers moving from place to place according to the cutting to be done. More than once they had to climb over the rough rocks with care, and once Owen slipped into a hollow and gave his leg a twist that was far from agreeable. The ground lay thick with needles, cones, and dead leaves, and here and there a fallen tree brought down by storm or old age.
The young lumbermen had already been informed that the camp was a new one, so they were not surprised when they learned that so far only a cook's shanty had been erected and that the men assembled were sleeping in little shacks and tents or in the open. When they arrived they found but two men awake, the others having retired almost immediately after supper.
Joel Winthrop had his own shack, a primitive affair, made by leaning a number of poles against a rocky cliff eight or ten feet high. Over the poles were placed a number of pine boughs, and boughs were also placed on the floor of the structure, for bedding purposes.
"Come right in and make yourselves at home," he said cheerily, after lighting a camp lantern and hanging it on a notch of one of the poles. "Nothing more to do to-night, so we might as well go to sleep."
"The boys can sleep with you; I'll stay outside where I can get the fresh air," said Gilroy, and wrapping himself in a blanket he went to rest at the foot of a neighboring tree, with Andrews beside him.
A youth not used to roughing it might have found the flooring of the shack rather a hard bed. But Dale and Owen thought nothing of this. The last day on the river had been a busy one, and soon each was in the land of dreams, neither of them being disturbed in the slightest by the loud snoring around them—for lumbermen in camp do snore, and that most outrageously—why, nobody can tell, excepting it may be as a warning to wild beasts to keep away!
The next morning the sun came up as brightly as ever. Long before that time the camp was astir, and from the cook's shanty floated the aroma of broiled mackerel, fried potatoes, and coffee.
"That smells like home!" exclaimed Owen and started for a spring near by, where there was a small tub, in which the men washed, one after another.
A table of rough deal boards had been erected under the trees, with a long bench on either side. There was no tablecloth, but the table was as clean as water and soap could make it. Each man was provided with a tin cup, a tin plate, a knife, a fork, and a spoon, and each was served his portion by the cook or the cook's assistant. If the man wanted more he usually rapped on his empty cup or plate until he was supplied.
The cook was a burly negro named Jeff, his full name being Jefferson Jackson. Jeff was usually good-natured, but when the men hurried him too much for their victuals he would often growl back at them.
"Fo' de lan' sake!" he would bellow. "Say, can't you gib dis chile no chance 'tall? Yo' lobsters dun got no bottom to yo' stummicks. T'ink I'se heah to fill up de hull ob de 'Nobscot Ribber? Yo' dun eat like yo' been starvin' all summah."
"Jeff wants to turn us into skeletons," cried one of the young lumbermen, winking at the others. "He's got a contract to furnish a Boston museum with 'em."
"Skellertons, am it?" exploded Jeff. "Wot yo' is gwine to do is to hire out to 'em fer a fat man—if yo' kin git filled up yere. But Mastah Paxton aint raisin' no fat men fo' no museums 'round dis camp, so yo' jest dun hole yo' hosses till I gits 'round dar a fo'th time."
And then the men would have to wait, until each had had his fill, when he would scramble from his seat with scant ceremony and prepare for the day's work.