Connie Morgan in the Lumber Camps

by James B. Hendryx

"How do I know you won't double-cross me on the big deal?" asked the man.

"Matter of figures," answered Connie. "You don't suppose Hurley and his boss would pay me as much as we can get out of the logs do you? Of course they won't—but they might agree to pay me as much as I'll get out of the cut-shading—especially if I tell them that you've got a bigger game up your sleeve. You might as well be reasonable. It'll be better all around if you and I understand each other. They're beginning to talk in here about the drive. If I don't know what your scheme is, how am I to know what to remember? I can't remember everything they say, and if I'm onto the game I can pick out what'll do us good, and not bother with the rest."

Once more Slue Foot took up his place by the window, and for some minutes the only sound in the little office was the ticking of the alarm clock. Finally the man spoke: "I figgered you was smart all right—smarter'n the run of kids. But I didn't figger you could out-figger me—or believe me, I'd of laid off of ye." The boss of Camp Two sat and scowled at the boy for several minutes. Then he spoke, sullenly at first, but as he warmed to his topic, the sullenness gave place to a sort of crafty enthusiasm—a fatuous pride in his cleverly planned scheme of fraud. "I was goin' to let ye in anyhow, so I s'pose it might's well be now as later. But, git this, right on the start: ye ain't bluffed me into takin' ye in, an' ye ain't scared me into it. You've augered me into it by common sense ... what ye said about they might come a sudden thaw, an' we'd be too busy to git together—an' about you knowin' what to remember of the talk that goes on here.

"It's like this: The logs is paint-branded, an' the mark of this outfit is the block-an'-ball in red on the butt end. They're branded on the landin's, an' I done the markin' myself. Last year Hurley inspected 'em an' so did Lon, an' they know the brands showed up big an' bright an' sassy. But when them logs reached the booms an' was sorted they wasn't near as many of them wearin' the red block-an'-ball as when they started—an' the difference is what I split up with the Syndicate—boom-toll free!"

"You mean," asked the boy, "that the Syndicate men changed the brands, or painted them out and painted their own over them?"

Slue Foot sneered. "Ye're pretty smart—some ways. But ye ain't smart enough to change a red block-an'-ball to a green tripple X. An' as fer paintin' over 'em, why if a log hit the big river with a brand painted out they'd be a howl go up that would rock the big yaller ball on top of the capital. No sir, it takes brains to make money loggin'. The big ones has stole and grabbed up into the millions—an' they do it accordin' to law—because they've got the money to make the law an' twist it to suit theirselves. They put up thousands fer lobbys an' legislaters, an' fer judges an' juries, an' they drag down millions. The whole timber game's a graft. The big operators grab water rights, an' timber rights, an' they even grab the rivers. An' they do it legal because they own the dummies that makes the laws. The little operator ain't got no show. If he don't own his own timber he has to take what he can get in stumpage contracks, an' whether he owns it or not they git him on water-tolls, an' when he hits the river there's boom-tolls an' sortin'-tolls, an' by the time he's got his logs to the mills an' sold accordin' to the boom scale he ain't got nawthin' left, but his britches—an' lucky to have them. All business is crooked. If everyone was honest they wouldn't be no millionaires. If a man's got a million, he's a crook. It ain't no worse fer us little ones to steal agin' the law, than it is fer the big ones to steal accordin' to law." Fairly started upon his favourite theme, Slue Foot worked himself into a perfect rage as he ranted on. "This here outfit's a little outfit," he continued. "It ain't got no show, nohow. I seen the chanct to git in on the graft an' I grabbed it—if I hadn't, the Syndicate would have had it all. An' besides I got a chance to git square with Hurley. They's two kinds of folks in the world—them that has, an' them that hain't. Them that has, has because they've retch out an' grabbed, an' them that hain't, hain't because they wasn't smart enough to hang onto what they did have." Connie listened with growing disgust to the wolfish diatribe. Slue Foot's eyes blazed as he drove his yellow fangs deep into his tobacco plug. "But people's wakin' up to their rights," he continued. "There's the Socialists an' the I. W. W.'s, they're partly right, an' partly wrong. The Socialists wants, as near as I kin make out, a equal distribution o' wealth—that ain't so bad, except that there's only a few of 'em, an' they'd be doin' all the work to let a lot of others that don't do nawthin', in on their share of the dividin'. What's the use of me a-workin' so someone else that don't help none gits a equal share? An' the I. W. W.'s is about as bad. They try to bust up everything, an' wreck, an' smash, an' tear down—that's all right, fer as it goes—but, what's it goin' to git 'em? Where do they git off at? They ain't figgered themselves into no profit by what they do. What's it goin' to git me if I burn down a saw-mill? I don't git the mill, do I? No—an' neither don't they. What I'm after is gittin' it off them that's got it, an' lettin' it stick to me. I ain't worryin' about no one else. It's every man fer hisself—an' I'm fer me!" The boss prodded himself in the chest, as he emphasized the last word. "An' if you want yourn, you'd better stick with me—we'll gather."

It was with difficulty that Connie masked the loathing he felt for this man whose creed was more despicable even than the creed of the organized enemies of society, for Slue Foot unhesitatingly indorsed all their viciousness, but discarded even their lean virtues.

For three years the boy's lot had been cast among men—rough men of the great outland. He had known good men and bad men, but never had he known a man whom he so utterly despised as this Slue Foot Magee. The bad men he had know were defiant in their badness, they flaunted the law to its face—all except Mr. Squigg, who was a sneak with the heart of a weasel, and didn't count. But this man, as bad as the worst of them, sought to justify his badness. Connie knew what Waseche Bill, or big MacDougall would have done if this human wolf had sought to persuade them to throw in with him on his dirty scheme, and he knew what Hurley or Saginaw Ed would do—and unconsciously, the boy's fists doubled. Then came the memory of McKeever and Ricky, the men of the Mounted with whom he had worked in the bringing of bad men to justice. What would McKeever do? The boy's fists relaxed. "He'd get him," he muttered under his breath. "He'd throw in with him, and find out all he could find out, and then he'd—get him!"

"Whut's that?" Slue Foot asked the question abruptly, and Connie faced him with a grin:

"Your dope sounds good to me," he said, "but come across with the scheme. Hurley or Saginaw may drop in here any time. If the Syndicate didn't change the brands, or paint over them, how did they work it?"