The men did listen, for Parker spoke with all the eloquence that indignation and honest sentiment could inspire. He first told the story of the wrecked life of the brother, and pointed to the bent figure of the hermit of Little Moxie, standing in the shadows. Once or twice Joshua lifted his quavering voice in feeble protest, but the ringing tones of the young man overbore his halting speech. Several times Connick was obliged to force the colonel back on the deacons' seat, each time with more ferocity of mien.
Then Parker came to his own ambitions to carry out the orders of his employers. He explained the legal status of the affair, and passed quickly on to the exciting events of the night on which he had been bound and sent upon his ride into the forest, to meet some fate, he knew not what. He described the brutal slaughter of the moose, and the immediate dismemberment of the animal. He noticed with interest that many men who had displayed no emotion as he described poor old Joshua's sufferings now grunted angrily at hearing the revelation concerning the fate of Ben, the camp mascot. This dramatic explanation of Ward's furious cruelty to the poor beast proved, curiously enough, the turning point in Parker's favor, even with the roughest of the crew. Then Parker described how he had been rescued and brought back to life by the old man whom Gideon Ward had so abused.
“And now, my men,” he concluded, “I am come back among you; and I ask you all to stand back, so that it may now be man to man—so that I may take this brutal tyrant who has abused us all, and deliver him over to the law that is waiting to punish him as he deserves.”
He leaped down, seized a halter, and advanced with the apparent intention of seizing and binding the colonel.
“Are ye goin' to stand here, ye hunderd cowards, an' see the man that gives ye your livin' lugged away to jail?” Gideon shouted, retreating. He glared on their faces. The men turned their backs and moved away.
He crouched almost to the floor, brandishing his fists above his head. “I've got ten camps in this section,” he shrieked, “an' any one of them will back me aginst the whole United States army if I ask 'em to! They ain't the cowards that I've got here. I'll come back here an' pay ye off for this!”
Before any one could stop him, for the men had left him standing alone, he precipitated his body through the panes of glass of the nearest window, and almost before the crash had ceased he was making away into the night Connick led the rush of men to the narrow door, but the mob was held them for a few precious moments, fighting with one another for egress.
“If we don't catch him,” the foreman roared, “he'll be back on us with an army of cut-throats!”
But when the crew went streaming forth at last, Colonel Ward was out of sight in the forest. Lanterns were brought, and the search prosecuted earnestly, but his moccasined feet were not to be traced on the frozen crust.
The chase was abandoned after an hour, for the clouds that had hung heavy all day long began to sift down snow; and soon a blizzard howled through the threshing spruces and hemlocks.