Love stories; Lumber trade -- Fiction; Maine -- Fiction
"And that's all there is to an injunction?" demanded Tommy. "Ben Rodliff
hands you a paper, and spits tobacker-juice on the snow, and calls you a
fool, and goes down past here, like he did a little while ago, swingin'
his reins and singin' a pennyr'yal hymn? Only has to do that to tie up
the whole Enchanted drive that we hundred men have sweat and froze and
worked to get onto the landings?"
"Only that, Tommy," replied Wade, bitterly. "The law is sitting there on
Blunder dam. You can't see it, but it's there, and it says, 'Hands
off!'"
"There's something you can see, though," Tommy declared. "You can see
two men in a shack that's been built over the gates of Blunder Lake dam.
One sleeps daytimes, the other sleeps nights, and they've both got
Winchesters. I've been there private and personal, and looked 'em
over."
"I don't want any of my men lurking about that dam," commanded Wade.
Tommy Eye cinched his worn belt one notch tighter over his thin haunches
and buttoned his checkered wool jacket. "I ain't one of your men," he
growled, with such sudden and sullen change in demeanor that Wade stared
at him in amazement. "I've gone into the outlaw business, and I've told
you so, and I've told Ben Rodliff so."
They heard the thudding boom of dynamite once more, and the absolutely
fiendish look that came into Tommy's face as he turned his gaze towards
Blunder valley enlightened his employer.
"That sounds good to me!" shrieked the teamster. It was as though one of
the docile Dobbins of the hovel had suddenly perked up ears and tail and
begun to play the part of a beast of prey.
When Tommy ran back into the spruces Wade shouted after him, insistently
and angrily. But he did not reply, and after a time Wade drove on,
cursing soulfully the whole innate devilishness of the woods. That
another weak nature had run amuck after the fashion to which he had
become accustomed in his woods experience seemed probable; but he had
neither time nor inclination to chase Tommy Eye. As to Blunder Lake dam,
he reflected that the eternal vigilance of the Winchesters guaranteed
Pulaski Britt's interests in that direction, and, soul-sick of the whole
wicked situation, he was glad that the Winchesters were there. He had
failed. He could at least own that much man-fashion to Rodburd Ide.
It was a messenger that he met--not the partner himself. And as he had
anticipated, the messenger summoned him to Castonia. The last few miles
of his journey took him along the bank of the Umcolcus. The big river
had already thrown off its winter sheathing and was running full and
free. It was waiting for the northern lakes, still ice-bound, to
surrender their waters and sweep the logs down to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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