The Woods-Rider

by Frank Lillie Pollock

“They’re fighting it out in the office,” he observed. “A fellow from the bank came over in that car this morning, and he’s been in there ever since, arguing with Burnam, I reckon. I don’t know whether he brought over the cash for the pay-roll or not. We’ll soon see now if the bank’s going to carry us any longer.”

It must have been a hard battle, for the office remained closed for nearly an hour more. Burnam came out, looking worried, and called for Wilson, who entered the conference. Finally the bank man came out, got into his car, and drove away. All the waiting camp was tense with expectation, but Burnam had won this time. Within five minutes the cashier opened his wicket and began to pay the men.

As soon as he could see Burnam, Joe made his detailed report on the river tract and got his instructions. Work was to be started as quickly as it possibly could, with all the negroes that could be spared from the other orchards; and early next morning Joe went down with three wagon-loads of men to clean up the woods.

As he had foreseen, it was a heavy job. The negroes cut down the dense blackberry-thickets, raked away the pine-needles and chips from the trees that were to be tapped, piled up the brushwood, and cut trails for the wagons. Fire is the most terrible of perils in a turpentine forest, and the first duty is always to clear up all inflammable rubbish.

There were occasional bits of excitement as the work went on. Rabbits bobbed out from under the brush-heaps; the negroes killed two or three with clubs. Once they disturbed a nesting wild turkey on an oak ridge. Snakes of all sorts were plentiful; one of the men killed a large kingsnake in a blackberry-thicket. A little later Joe was attracted by a great uproar of whoops and shouting. The negroes had driven an enormous diamond-back rattlesnake out of its lair, and were gathered round it at a respectful distance, laughing and daring one another to approach it. The serpent lay coiled, with the tip of its buzzing tail lifted, and its flat, sinister head turned grimly toward its enemies. It would not run, it was ready to fight, but no one cared to encounter it, till Joe drew the little rifle from its sheath at his saddle. He missed the first shot, but the second bullet went through the snake’s head. The men shouted and cheered, and when the serpent ceased to struggle one of them cut off its rattles and brought them to Joe. There were eight and a button; and he put them in his pocket, thinking of a curiosity for his cousins.

One day’s work cleared up a good many acres. While the cleaning gang moved on to a fresh area the next day, a second gang came down from the camp to chip and “stick tin” on the prepared ground. The new men worked in pairs, one carrying the hack and the other the cups and the tin gutters. While the first ripped a broad, V-shaped gash in the pine-bark with his keen tool, the second fixed the two gutters in place, and hung the cup under them on a nail. These men were expert “turpentine niggers”; they worked fast, and by night several thousand trees were beginning to drip gum.

Meanwhile more of the woods had been cleared up and was ready to be tapped. Joe drove the men to their utmost efforts; and they worked valiantly. In three days the whole orchard was cleaned up and cut with trails, and most of the chipping was done. Burnam came over and rode rapidly through, going away without saying anything, but Joe knew that he was pleased. The river tract gang had made the biggest week’s wages of their lives, and Joe thought with some apprehension of the Saturday pay bill; but the cashier opened his wicket punctually this time, and the commissary did a roaring trade for the rest of the day. Evidently the bank had not yet shut down on Burnam.

By the first of the next week all the tin was stuck and the cups hung in the new tract. The weather had been unusually hot and there had been a wonderful run of gum for so early in the season, but now a sudden cold wave came over. The nights were chilly; fires blazed in all the negro cabins, and the gum ceased to trickle.

It was another piece of hard luck. There would be no more flow until the weather turned hot again, and the cold wave was overspreading the whole country, with no prospect of immediate change. There was not much to do in the woods. Joe rode mechanically, thinking that it was a great opportunity for his promised holiday, but he disliked reminding Burnam of his promise.

The pine woods lay well back from the river, and Joe seldom went down to the water, but to-day Snowball broke loose during the noon-hour and wandered toward the bottom lands, probably in search of better grazing than he could find among the pines. Joe did not discover it for half an hour, and it took him some time to find and catch the horse. He was riding along the shore when he was startled to notice the marks on the bank where a large boat had been tied up. There were the ashes of a camp-fire ashore, too, scattered pork bones, a broken bottle, and several scraps of cloth. Evidently some of the river nomads had camped there, and Joe at once remembered the black houseboat that he had seen floating down past the landing. It could not have been that one, however, for it was gone never to return. Such houseboats have no means of propulsion, and cannot return against the stream without being towed.