As he drew nearer the camp the smoke got into his lungs. The fire must be a big one. A sudden thought came to him, and with it his fears receded. He wondered why it had not occurred to him before. Of course. His eyes brightened almost to a smile. If what he suspected had happened, perhaps it was the hand of Providence working in Dave's interest. Working in Dave's, and—— Perhaps it was the cleansing fires of the Almighty sent to wipe out the evil inspired by the erring mind of man.
He reached the fringe of woods which surrounded the clearing of the camp, and in another few seconds he stood in the open.
"Thank God," he exclaimed. Then, in a moment, the horror of a pitying Christian mind shone in his eyes. His lips were tight shut, and his hands clenched at his sides. Every muscle strung tense with the force of his emotions.
In the centre of the clearing the sutler's store was a blazing pile. But it was literally in the centre, with such a distance between it and the surrounding woods as to reduce the danger of setting fire to them to a minimum. It was this, and the fact that it was the store where the spirits were kept, that had inspired his heartfelt exclamation. But his horror was for that which he saw besides.
The running figures of the strikers about the fire were the figures of men mad with drink. Their shoutings, their laughter, their antics told him this. But they were not so drunk but what they had sacked the store before setting it ablaze. Ah, he understood now, and he wondered what had happened to the Jew trader.
He drew nearer. He felt safe in doing so. These demented savages were so fully occupied that they were scarcely likely to observe him. And if they did, he doubted if he were running much personal risk. They had no particular animosity for him.
And as he came near, the sights he beheld sickened him. There were several fights in progress. Not individual battles, but drunken brawls in groups; mauling, savaging masses of men whose instinct, when roused, it is to hurt, hurt anyhow, and if possible to kill. These men fought as beasts fight, tearing each other with teeth and hands, gouging, hacking, clawing. It was a merciless display of brute savagery inspired by a bestial instinct, stirred to fever pitch by the filthy spirit served in a lumber camp.
At another point, well away from the burning building, the merchandise was piled, tossed together in the reckless fashion only to be expected in men so inspired. Around this were the more sober, helping themselves greedily, snatching at clothing, at blankets, at the tools of their craft. Some were loaded with tin boxes of fancy biscuits and canned meats, others had possessed themselves of the cheap jewelry such as traders love to dazzle the eyes of their simple customers with. Each took as his stomach guided him, but with a gluttony for things which can be had for nothing always to be found in people of unbridled passions. It was a sight little less revolting than the other, for it spoke of another form of unchecked savagery.
Not far from this, shown in strong relief by the lurid fires, was gathered a shouting, turbulent crowd round a pile of barrels and cases. Three barrels were standing on end, apart from the rest, and their heads had been removed, and round these struggled a maddened crew with tin pannikins. They were dipping the fiery spirit out of the casks, and draining each draught as hurriedly as the scorching stuff could pass down their throats, so as to secure as much as possible before it was all gone. The watching man shuddered. Truly a more terrible display was inconceivable. The men were not human in their orgy. They were wild beasts. What, he asked himself, what would be the result when the liquor had saturated the brains of every one of them? It was too terrible to contemplate.
The roar of the blazing building, the babel of shouting, the darkly lurid light shining amidst the shadows of surrounding woods, the starlit heavens above, the stillness of mountain gloom and solitude; these things created a picture so awful of contemplation as to be unforgettable. Every detail drove into the watching man's heart as though graven there with chisel and hammer. It was a hellish picture, lit with hellish light, and set in the midst of gloom profound. The men might have been demons silhouetted against the ruddy fire; their doings, their antics, had in them so little that was human. It was awful, and at last, in despair, the man on the outskirts of the clearing turned and fled. Anything rather than this degrading sight; he could bear it no longer. He sickened, yet his heart yearned for them. There was nothing he could do to help them or check them. He could only pray for their demented souls, and—see to the safeguarding of Betty.