The Girl From Tim's Place

by Charles Clark Munn

The journey from here on was slower, as no current aided, and yet in three days and nights of paddling, Martin and Levi covered that hundred-mile journey and reached the settlement.

A stage and rail journey, consuming one day and night more, enabled Martin to reach the man he wanted–a well-informed and fearless officer named Hersey, and then, securing an assistant and a warrant for one Pete Bolduc, on the charge of theft, the three returned to the settlement where Levi had waited.

“I’m glad to get track of this half-breed,” Hersey said on the way. “He has been the pal of the notorious McGuire for many years, and besides has been smuggling whiskey into lumber camps and slaughtering game out of season all the time. Like McGuire, he is hard to locate. No guide or lumberman dare betray him, and so it’s a fruitless task to try to catch either. We have been after this McGuire for years. He killed one deputy and wounded another, as you may have heard. This Bolduc is a cat of the same color, but less courageous, I fancy, and yet as hard to catch. I think, for the sake of your guide,” he added, “we’d better not enter the woods together. You two go on, saying nothing. My mate and I will say we are on a pleasure trip, and follow and overtake you in a few hours. This will protect your man, and evade suspicion. Even these people at the settlement are half-hearted in aiding an officer. Most of them are fearful of house or barn burning if they give any information to us, a few are in secret league with these outlaws; and so you see our position.”

Martin saw, and marvelled that any of the simple, honest dwellers at this small settlement, law-abiding as they seemed, would either aid or warn so red-handed a criminal as McGuire.

That fear of consequences might influence them, was possible, and yet all the more reason for assisting the law in ridding the forest of two such criminals.

But Martin, thorough sportsman that he was, and keen to all the world’s affairs, understood but little of the conditions existent in the wilderness, or about the lives and morals of those who find a living thus.

He knew, as all do, that a few thousand lumbermen entered each autumn, and, much to his regret, made steady inroads toward its despoilment. He knew, also, that these men included many of excellent habits–sober, industrious workers with families which they cheerfully supported, and that there were also many among them whose sole ambition was to earn a few hundred dollars in a season of hard work, that they might spend it in a few weeks, or even days, of drunken debauchery.

He was well aware that a few wandering hunters and trappers plied their calling here, and many of a mixed occupation, guiding sportsmen like himself in season, were engaged in lumbering or farming between times. This mixed and transient population, he knew, were neither better nor worse than the average of such pioneers–good-natured and good-hearted, though somewhat lax in speech and morals.

What he did not know, however, was that a few unscrupulous and disreputable men, half gamblers, half dive-keepers, followed these lumbermen into camp as ostensible hunters and trappers, but really gamblers, ready to turn a trick at cards, convoy a keg of whiskey in, or follow a moose on snow-shoes, kill and sell him, as occasion offered. Or that, when spring opened the streams, these same itinerant purveyors of vice spotted their possible victims, as a bunco man does a rural “good thing” visiting the metropolis, and when they reached town or city, steered them where harpies waited to share the spoil. A brief explanation of these facts were furnished to Martin by Warden Hersey, when, after overhauling him, the parties joined about one camp-fire.

“We have,” Hersey said, “in the case of this McGuire, a fair sample of the outcome liable to follow or attach to a man who makes a business of preying upon the vices and follies of the lumbering class. It is a sort of evolution in law-evasion and opportunity, encouraged and aided by the animosity which is sure to arise between the lumberman and us, whose duty it is to enforce the fish and game laws. These lumbermen, or a majority of them, feel and believe that the forest and all it contains is theirs by natural right; that no law forbidding them to obtain all the fish and game they can, is just; that such laws are enacted and accrue for the sole benefit of city sportsmen who, like yourself, come here for rest and recreation. It is all a wrong conclusion, as we know, and yet it exists. Now come these leeches like McGuire, who prey upon this hard-working class. Such as McGuire foster the prejudice and antagonism of the lumbermen in all ways possible, arguing that moose and deer are the natural perquisites of those who go into the woods for a livelihood, and belong to them as much as the trees which they have paid stumpage to cut. Also that we who come in to execute the laws are interlopers, who draw pay for the sole purpose of robbing them of their rights. Of course, we receive no welcome at a lumbering camp, and not one iota of information as to what is going on or where a law-breaker may be found. More than that, they will protect the leeches who fatten on them in every way possible, even after, as in McGuire’s case, they become murderers and outlaws, with a price set upon their capture. And here comes in the factor of terrorism. A few of these lumbermen might give information from a desire to aid the law, or to obtain a reward, did they not know that to do so would expose them to the inevitable fate of all betrayers.