The Ranger Boys Outwit the Timber Thieves

by Claude A. LaBelle

The squatter evidently decided that it could do no harm, and so Garry inspected the swollen finger and liberally painted it.

“That will help take the swelling out, and it will be all right in a couple of days,” said Garry, as he put the cork back in the bottle and laid it on the table.

Then he noticed that a ragged youngster about three years old had been watching the process with wide open eyes. Inquiry developed that it was the squatter’s child, and it was evident that the youngster was the one thing that the squatter king was really fond of. He told Garry and Phil that the mother had died a year before, when they had been driven off a timber tract by the lumbermen. Here the squatter launched into a tirade against the lumber owners.

The squatter idea is a peculiar one. They claim that the woods were made for man to take as he found them and could not understand the right of anyone to drive them out; yet they are responsible for great damage to the woods. As, for instance, at this place, a couple of acres of fine timber had been ruthlessly cut to make cabins for the nesters or squatters, and to provide a place for the scanty crop of potatoes and corn. Then too, many of the great forest fires are started by the squatters. There is one case on record in Maine where the squatters set fire to a whole mountain side, because they said that the blueberries would grow better on the burned-over ground.

Also the depredations against deer are numerous. Many a fine moose or stag has been brought down to provide food for the nomads.

The talk went back to the medicine again, and the squatter asked what the skull meant on the bottle.

“That’s put on to warn you that it’s poison,” Garry informed him.

The work of painting his finger seemed to mollify the old man somewhat, and he drew a little out of his shell, and Garry, seeing the opportunity, asked him why they had been brought there.

The squatter then told them that LeBlanc had appeared on the scene a day or two before and told them that unless they agreed to keep some boys who would be brought there prisoners, they would be driven from the clearing by the lumberjacks. The squatters knew what this meant, since they had planted their corn for the summer, and moving meant that the lumberjacks would burn down the cabins and start them away. They knew from experience that it was useless to fight, for the enemy, so they considered the lumberjacks, would outnumber them ten to one.

Garry saw through the whole scheme and guessed that Barrows had known of their presence at the clearing and had kept them in mind for some time when he might require them to help in some of his schemes.