“I'm not the man to disobey orders,” growled Connick. “But I'm a man as likes man's style. I've always done your biddin', Colonel Ward, and I done your biddin' when I brought him here. Now I've found him a lively young chap that I'm proud to know and tho I speak for myself alone I speak as a man that likes fair play, and I say it's dirty bus'ness keepin' him like a chicken in a coop, after you've had your bus'ness talk with him.”
“You infernal bundle of hair and rags, do you dare to stand there and tell me how to run my own affairs?” roared Ward, thoroughly incensed.
“Keep your bus'ness your own bus'ness for all I care,” Connick answered angrily. “But when it gits to be bus'ness that can't be backed up man-fashion then ye may find that day's wages don't buy the whole earth for ye.”
The reply was a bit enigmatical but Ward understood that it signified mutiny. He gasped a few times and then Parker heard Connick exclaim:
“Don't ye strike me with that sled-stake, Colonel Gideon, or it might be the worse for ye. I'll not bother your man in the wangan till I find out more about what you're doin' to him—but don't you hit me with that stick.”
Both men went back into the big camp, Ward furiously chewing the reflection that for the first time he had been bearded in his own camp.
Gideon Ward sat until midnight in his little pen off the main camp, poking his fire and meditating. He had reckoned that he was justified in proceeding to extremes with this young man, confident that in the end he would break his spirit and frighten him out of the woods. But he realized now with sinking heart that his violence had endangered all the political influence of the gigantic timber interests. The youth had a powerful weapon, and he, Gideon Ward, would be accused of furnishing it.
Perspiration dripped from under the old man's cap. He rasped his rough palms together nervously. At last he rose and tip-toed into the main camp. All the men were asleep, snoring with the lusty heartiness of a tired lumber crew. The colonel advanced cautiously to Hackett's bunk, and stirred that worthy with his finger until the man awoke. He beckoned, and Hackett followed him into the pen.
“Hackett,” said he, “yeh have worked for me a good many years.”
“Yes, colonel.”