Presently the various driving crews appeared, wet to the skin from the
waist down, and ravenously hungry. The drying racks were swiftly
steaming with the soggy garments, and the men fell to upon their supper
without a second’s delay. There was little conversation--they were too
busy for that; but Bainbridge noticed with satisfaction that a certain
element of good-tempered raillery seemed to prevail. Evidently the crowd
as a whole bore no grudge against the man who had given them such a
tongue-lashing that morning. In fact, if one could judge from their
manner toward their boss, they thought a lot more of him for having done
so.
Next day all hands did even better, and nightfall found them at the
inlet of Loon Lake, with the drive before them. Bob could not understand
it. All day he had been expecting some disagreeable happening of a
nature to retard their progress which could be laid at the door of the
trust. When it did not come he was almost disappointed. It was
impossible to believe that Crane had given up so easily; he was not that
sort. He would explode a bombshell of some sort soon, and the longer he
delayed the more deadly was likely to be the nature of his attack.
However, there was nothing to be gained in discounting the future, nor
time to spare for fretting over the unknown. Bob was far too busy during
the daylight hours even to think of Crane or his satellites. It was a
ticklish job to get the drive across even so small a body of water as
the so-called lake, and it took one entire day and the better part of
another. It was done without mishap, however, and Bainbridge was just
congratulating himself on having got safely over one of the most
disagreeable bits of the entire distance when Jerry Calker approached
him as he stood watching the last few logs bob slowly out of the lake
into the swifter current of the stream.
“Jack wants to know can you spare him a few minutes, sir,” he explained.
“There’s a bit of trouble down below.”
“What kind of trouble?” Bob asked swiftly, turning downstream without an
instant’s delay; and walking by the side of the dynamite man.
Calker scratched his head slowly. “I ain’t quite certain sure, Mr.
Bainbridge,” he drawled, “but I got a idea there’s a fellow with a mill
who’s run out a sortin’ boom that’s goin’ to hang up our drive if we
ain’t mighty keerful.”
“A mill!” exclaimed Bob incredulously. “Why, there isn’t such a thing
within twenty miles--at least, there wasn’t three months ago.”
Calker grinned. “Thought it looked kinda new. I couldn’t rightly say
that it’s finished, but there ain’t no manner of a doubt about the boom.
The jam had started before I come away, an’ I left Jack havin’ it hot
an’ heavy with a red-headed son of a gun who sure looked as if scrap was
his middle name.”
Bainbridge frowned, but asked no further questions. He scarcely spoke,
in fact, during all of the four miles, but it was evident to his
observing companion that he was doing a lot of thinking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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