CHAPTER IX
LUMBER-JACKS SEEK REVENGE
"Same old game," grumbled Hippy.
"What makes you think that the skidway was tampered with?" questioned Anne, after the exclamations following Tom's startling assertion had subsided.
"Because the evidence is there. Even a novice could read the signs left there. In spots, I found the imprints of rubber boots. I also found four canthooks, used for rolling logs."
Hippy suggested that these might have been left when the lumbermen stopped work in the early spring, but Tom shook his head.
"No. They were new, which indicates that they were brought to this place within a few days—probably within the last few hours, for the hooks did not have a single point of rust on them."
"But, Tom! I cannot understand how moving that tremendous weight in bulk was possible for a handful of men," wondered Grace.
"Jacks can do anything they wish with logs," answered Tom Gray. "In this instance they called on nature for assistance, and fickle nature lent them a hand by sending them rain. The ground too, I discovered, had been dug out under the lower side of the skidway and the supports knocked out."
"The varmints!" growled Joe Shafto, who had been an attentive listener to Tom's story.