Phelan and his men and teams had not been idle: all night long they had worked, and fully two hundred of the five hundred or more stray logs were already piled in the river, bearing the changed marks, ready to go down to the Necedah boom with the next rise.
Old man Fitts charged the swamping outfit like an enraged bull. “So yer at yer old tricks, are ye, Larry? I’ve been wantin’ to ketch ye for a long time. An’ now I’ve got the witnesses on ye.”
Phelan started in to bluster and curse, but evidently the presence of Fitts was something he had not calculated upon, nor the fact that Henry and Sam Thompson, who now arose from where they had been in hiding, were witnesses to the felonious changing of the log marks.
Larry changed his mood. “Perhaps the men may have made a mistake in the dark, Misther Fitts. If they’re yer logs ye can pay us what is raysonable fer bankin’ av thim, and we’ll jist call it square.”
“No, we won’t, ye thief!” roared the old man. “Those logs in the river are your logs now, do ye understand? They’ve got yer mark on ’em, every one, an’ they’ll be put into your chute at the boom. An’ they’ve cost ye just fifteen dollars the thousand, board measure. Do ye understand? We’ll lump ’em at twelve hundred dollars, an’ ye’ll write the check fer that just now. I can trust ye not to stop payment on that check.”
Counter threat and curses; calling the old man a robber (for Fitts had made a gilt edge price on his logs), were of no avail. Larry Phelan, at the end of many evil deeds, faced an open prison door, and he knew it. After all, the twelve hundred dollars would not be all loss—and the check was written.
“Well, now, boys,” said Mr. Fitts, when the men and teams had departed, “what about the balance of these logs?—three hundred, I should say. How would a dollar apiece do? Yes, that’s fair. Ye can worry them all in by fall. An’ young man,” said he, turning to Rob with a queer smile, “You can count the hauling of the two hundred already in the river, as your share, for that college nonsense. I tacked that much onto that thief, Larry Phelan. I reckon college won’t utterly ruin a lad who can run twelve miles an’ swim an icy river.”