He saw no very clear horizon for his own love, but his comrade’s smile heartened him, and the flutter of her handkerchief carried its message of good courage when the stage pitched down the slope that hid Castonia settlement.
The road to “Castle Cut ’Em” lay before him. At that moment the Honorable John Barrett loomed so largely as a foe that Dwight Wade’s thoughts were of his fight. Of his love he hardly dared to think at all.
The “It-’ll-git-ye Club” watched the departure of the stage that day with more than usual interest, also with somewhat deeper gloom.
The knowledge that Dwight Wade and his partner had assumed all blame for the destruction of Blunder Lake dam was current in all the north country.
King Spruce’s delay in visiting punishment only made the situation graver in the estimation of the prophets of evil. King Spruce had many weapons, and in the past had promptly seized the one nearest at hand and dealt a crushing blow when provocation was given. The fact that the new drive-master had passed on without even as much as a threat of retribution was taken as an ominous presage. It was agreed that when King Spruce remained grimly silent so long, in order to revolve a project of retaliation, he must be whittling an especially mighty bludgeon.
The members of the “It-’ll-git-ye Club” very frankly expressed thoughts of this tenor to the half-dozen men who arrived at Castonia in the early morning to take the stage down-river with Wade. The men gloomily agreed. Two of them showed signs of funk at the last moment, and had to be coaxed on board the stage by the young man.
These were the sort of men that Wade had seen a year before in the general rooms of “Castle Cut ’Em.” They were independent operators and stumpage-buyers, who had responded to the messengers and letters that Wade had been sending out.
There were more of them who joined the party at the railroad; others came into the train as it stopped here and there on the way to the junction. All of them seemed impressed by that sense of gloom and apprehension; there was not a sanguine face.
But in their unanimity of dolorousness they displayed a further interesting characteristic. They seemed entirely ready to accept this young man as their leader and their champion; in fact, as he went among them, they confessed that they had come along only because he had assured them that he would bear the brunt of the approaching conflict. The experience of years had shown them that they had no one man or combination of men among themselves who could go up against King Spruce. They even distrusted each other’s honesty, for every man realized all the iniquity of the game of graft and grab that had characterized their dealings with each other and with the main power in the past.
That they should let this new-comer lead them was because he had already proved his mettle and his fearlessness, and the whole north country knew it. He had beaten Pulaski Britt at his own game, he had defied King Spruce, and now he was willing to beard the tyrant in his own castle, and only asked their presence at his back in order that the sight of them might prove his assertions and aid to win some grace for all of them.