Connie Morgan in the Lumber Camps

by James B. Hendryx

"How did you kill him then?" asked Connie, and the instant the words were spoken he realized he had swallowed the bait—hook and all.

With vast solemnity, Saginaw stared straight before him: "Well, you see, it was the last shell in my rifle an' I didn't have none in my pocket, so I throw'd the gun down an' snuck up an' bit him on the lip. If ever you run onto a deer an' ain't got no gun, jest you sneak up in front of him an' bite him on the lip, an' he's yourn. I don't know no other place you kin bite a deer an' kill him. They're like old Acolyte, or whatever his name was, in the Bible, which they couldn't kill him 'til they shot him in the heel—jest one heel, mind you, that his ma held him up by when she dipped him into the kettle of bullet-proof. If he'd of be'n me, you bet I'd of beat it for the Doc an' had that leg cut off below the knee, an' a wooden one made, an' he'd of be'n goin' yet! I know a feller's got two wooden ones, with shoes on 'em jest like other folks, and when you see him walk the worst you'd think: he's got a couple of corns."

"Much obliged, Saginaw," said Connie, with the utmost gravity, as he arose and made ready for bed, "I'll sure remember that. Anyhow you don't need to worry about any solitary confinement in the place where the deer hunters go." And long after he was supposed to be asleep, the boy grinned to himself at the sounds of suppressed chuckling that came from Saginaw's bunk.

Next morning Connie helped Frenchy pack in the deer, and when the teamster had returned to his work, the boy took a stroll about camp. "Let's see," he mused, "they're going to soak the straw inside the stable with oil and set fire to it on the inside, and they'll do it with Frenchy's lantern so everyone will think he forgot it and it got tipped over by accident. Then, before the fire is discovered they'll lock the stable and jam the lock so the men can't get in to fight it." The boy's teeth gritted savagely. "And there are sixteen horses in that stable!" he cried. "The dirty hounds! A west wind would sweep the flames against the oat house, then the men's camp, and the cook's camp and storehouse. They sure do figure on a clean sweep of this camp. But, what I can't see is how that is going to put any one in terror of the I. W. W., if they think Frenchy caused the fire accidentally. Dan McKeever says all crooks are fools—and he's right." He went to the office and sat for a long time at his pine desk. From his turkey he extracted the Service revolver that he had been allowed to keep in memory of his year with the Mounted. "I can take this," he muttered, as he affectionately twirled the smoothly running cylinder with his thumb, "and Saginaw can take the rifle, and we can nail 'em as they come out of the woods with the coal-oil can. The trouble is, we wouldn't have anything on them except maybe the theft of a little coal-oil. I know what they intend to do, but I can't prove it—there's four of them and only one of me and no evidence to back me up. On the other hand, if we let them start the fire, it might be too late to put it out." His eyes rested on the can that contained the supply of oil for the office. It was an exact duplicate of the one beneath the windfall. He jumped to his feet and crossing to the window carefully scanned the clearing. No one was in sight, and the boy passed out the door and slipped silently into the thick woods. When he returned the crew was crowding into the men's camp to wash up for supper. The wind had risen, and as Connie's gaze centred upon the lashing pine tops, he smiled grimly,—it was blowing stiffly from the west.

After supper Saginaw Ed listened with bulging eyes to what the boy had to say. When he was through the man eyed him critically:

"Listen to me, kid. Nonsense is nonsense, an' business is business. I don't want no truck with a man that ain't got some nonsense about him somewheres—an' I don't want no truck with one that mixes up nonsense an' serious business. Yer only a kid, an' mebbe you ain't grabbed that yet. But I want to tell you right here an' now, fer yer own good: If this here yarn is some gag you've rigged up to git even with me fer last night, it's a mighty bad one. A joke is a joke only so long as it don't harm no one——"

"Every word I've told you is the truth," broke in the boy, hotly.

"There, now, don't git excited, kid. I allowed it was, but they ain't no harm ever comes of makin' sure. It's eight o'clock now, s'pose we jest loaf over to the men's camp an' lay this here case before 'em."

"No! No!" cried the boy: "Why, they—they might kill them!"

"Well, I 'spect they would do somethin' of the kind. Kin you blame 'em when you stop to think of them horses locked in a blazin' stable, an' the deliberate waitin' 'til the wind was right to carry the fire to the men's camp? The men works hard, an' by eleven o'clock they're poundin' their ear mighty solid. S'pose they didn't wake up till too late—what then?"