*****
The camp was in a ruinous condition. The destructive demon in men temporarily demented was abroad and his ruthless hand had fallen heavily. The whole atmosphere suggested the red tide of anarchy. The charred remains of the sutler's store was the centre of a net of ruin spread out in every direction, and from this radiated the wreckage of at least a dozen shanties, which had, like the store, been burned to the ground.
In the circumstances it would be impossible to guess at the reasons for such destruction: maybe it was the result of carelessness, maybe a mischievous delight in sweeping away that which reminded these men of their obligations to their employer, maybe it was merely a consequence of the settlement of their own drunken feuds. Whatever the cause, the hideous effect of the strike was apparent in every direction.
In the centre of the clearing was a great gathering of the lumbermen. Their seared faces expressed every variety of mental attitude, from fierce jocularity down to the blackest hatred of interference from those whose authority had become anathema to them.
They were gathered at the call of those who had fled from the dugout, spurred to a defense of what they believed to be their rights by a hurried, garbled account of the summary treatment just meted out to them. They were ready for more than the mere assertion of their demands. They were ready to enforce them, they were ready for any mischief which the circumstances prompted.
It was a deadly array. Many were sober, many were sobering, many were still drunk. The latter were those whose cunning had prompted them, at the outset of the strike, to secrete a sufficient supply of liquor from their fellows. And the majority of these were not the real lumber-jacks, those great simple children of the forest, but the riffraff that had drifted into the camp, or had been sent thither by those who promoted the strike. The real lumber-jacks were more or less incapable of such foresight and cunning. They were slow-thinking creatures of vast muscle, only swift and keen as the axes they used when engaged in the work which was theirs.
Through the rank animal growth of their bodies their minds had remained too stunted to display the low cunning of the scallywags whose unscrupulous wits alone must supply their idle bodies with a livelihood. But simple as babes, simple and silly as sheep, and as dependent upon their shepherd, as these men were, they were at all times dangerous, the more dangerous for their very simplicity. Just now, with their unthinking brains sick with the poison of labor's impossible argument, and the execrable liquor of the camp, they were a hundred times more deadly.
Men had come in for the orgy from all the outlying camps. They had been carefully shepherded by those whose business it was to make the strike successful. Discontent had been preached into every ear, and the seed had fallen upon fruitful, virgin soil. Thus it was that a great concourse had foregathered now.
There was an atmosphere of restrained excitement abroad among them. For them the news of Dave's arrival had tremendous possibilities. A babel of harsh voices debated the situation in loud tones, each man forcing home his argument with a mighty power of lung, a never-failing method of supporting doubtful argument. The general attitude was threatening, yet it hardly seemed to be unanimous. There was too much argument. There seemed to be an undercurrent of uncertainty with no single, capable voice to check or guide it.
As the moments sped the crowd became more and more threatening, but whether against the master of the mills, or whether the result of hot blood and hot words, it would have been difficult to say. Then, just as the climax seemed to be approaching, a magical change swept over the throng. It was wrought by the sudden appearance of Dave's buckboard, which seemed to leap upon the scene from the depth of the forest. And as it came into view a hoarse, fierce shout went up. Then, in a moment, an expectant hush fell.