“Britt,” shrieked Ide, “we’ve been to law with you to find out our rights! Ain’t you willin’ to take your own medicine?”
“Hell on your law!” blazed the drive-master, contemptuously.
“Give us time to get an injunction before you destroy our good property,” demanded the little man, choking with his ire.
For answer Britt shook one of the dynamite sticks above his head without even turning to look back. His men crowded the boat over the boom at the sorting-gap, and Britt lighted the fuse and tossed the explosive upon the anchored log platform.
“Oh, if our men were only here instead of at Enchanted!” mourned Ide.
“They’re just where we ought to have them, Mr. Ide,” the young man growled.
Britt was safely away up-river when the dynamite did its work; his men had rowed like fiends. It was a beautiful job, viewed from the stand-point of destruction. The downward thrust of the mighty force splintered the platform into toothpicks and let the booms adrift.
The partners of Enchanted did not exchange comments. They gazed after the destroyer. Taking his time, as though to prolong their distress, Britt dynamited the booms above, and then stood up and jerked his arm as a signal for his crew to follow. They went splashing up the river, six oars to a bateau, and disappeared, one boat after the other, bound for the mouth of Jerusalem Stream. Already the jaws of the Hulling Machine were gulping down the gobbets of splintered logs.
“How soon can you replace those booms, Mr. Ide?” Wade edged the words through his teeth, as a man stricken with lockjaw might have spoken. And without waiting for reply, he hurried on. “Put ’em in, Mr. Ide, because you’re going to need ’em. And put along this shore all the men in Castonia who can handle guns. Winchesters and dynamite, with ‘Hell on law’ for a battle-cry! That’s what he’s given us. It’s good enough for me. Will you put those booms in, Mr. Ide?”