"Not me, Mista Smith," said Pete. "She no good, by-by he velly solly he have her."
He got an old dug-out and paddled down to the City, and past it in the dark, when the town was nothing but a gleam of lights in the heavy rain. In the dugout Pete had a few things borrowed from Smith's store that Smith did not know he had borrowed.
"I fix heem," said Pete savagely, as he touched a bag which, held many pounds weight of ten-inch spikes. "I fix heem and his logs!"
He went past the City with the ebb, and taking the South Arm was soon abreast of Lulu Island. There he knew that a big boom of logs for the Mill was anchored to the shore, ready to tow up when the Mill boom was cut out. Besides his spikes he had a heavy sledge-hammer.
"Dat fix heem," said Pete. He knew what he was about.
"I hope it cut Shinger's beas'ly head off."
He knew that Ginger had thrown a spanner at him that last day in the Mill, and, indeed, he believed that it was Ginger, and not old Wong, who had keeled him over and chucked him down the chute.
Now the rain let up and some stars shone out. He got close inshore and felt his way in the shadow of the trees. He let the canoe float, for he came near where the boom should be. A big patch of sky cleared and a wedge of the new moon glimmered under rack. His eyes were keen, and presently he saw the darker mass of the assembled boom of logs anchored in a little bay. He grinned and went alongside and made the canoe fast. Then he filled his pockets with spikes and, taking the sledge, scrambled on the boom.
Outer log was chained to outer log with chains and heavy clamps. Inside, an acre of water was covered with round logs, all loose, logs of fir and pine and spruce. Some were six feet and more in diameter: some less than a foot. As he trod on one it rolled a little and then rolled more: he stepped upon it lightly, balancing himself beautifully, as if he had been a driver on the Eastern Rivers of wooded Wisconsin or Michigan. The motion he gave to one log as he sprang communicated itself to others. The logs seemed uneasy: it was as if he had waked them. He looked for the best, the biggest, with a pleasure akin to that of the hunter, or some trapper sorting peltry. He found a splendid spruce and stood on it in triumph.
"I make heem bad," grinned Pete. He took a spike and set it into the log with a light tap of the sledge held close to the heft. Then he stood up and swung the sledge double-handed. He had driven spikes on a railroad once, though he hated railroading, being by nature a millman or a ranche hand. The sledge fell on the spike clean and plumb. The dim forests echoed and he stood up as if the sound startled him. But after all no one could be near and the City was far off. He drove the deadly spike home into the beautiful log and smiled.