“Now tell us about Gabe, and how he came to be run out of the Woodstock camp?” asked Teddy.
“Why, it was this way,” began Amos, without the slightest hesitation; “he’d been known as the bully for years and years. Many’s the man he knocked down, and beat up terrible like, just for crossing him. They were that afraid of Gabe, that when he told a silly story everybody just roared. And I take it there ain’t anything to beat that, to show how one man lords it over twenty. But his time came,” and Amos snickered, as though even the recollection of what he had witnessed gave him the greatest pleasure.
“I suppose a bigger man than Gabe came to camp; and when set on, just up and took him unawares?” suggested Dolph.
“Took him unawares goes,” replied the other, “but as for the rest, just listen. You saw how Gabe, he looked at me lots of times uneasy like. Guess he knew I’d be telling you all about his fall, after he went away. Mebbe that helped to hurry him off, too, because I guess he ain’t never gotten over being touchy on that sore spot. Notice that he’d had his nose broke, didn’t you?”
“Why, yes, now that you mention it, there was a crook to it. Did the new bully do that when he hit Gabe?” asked Teddy.
“It was like this,” continued Amos, soberly. “We had a little Swede named Larz, the quietest and most peaceful man you ever saw. Nobody had ever seen him lift a hand to hit anything. He used to do whatever he was told by the rest, and since they took him to be just a good-natured fellow, why I guess they imposed on him a heap.”
“Well, one night Gabe, who had been drinking, and was just wild for a row with somebody, after trying all he could to get some of the men to fight, picks on Larz. I think he struck him, and said something that the Swede didn’t like one little bit. Just how he did it, nobody ever knew. They heard the sound, and saw Big Gabe measure his length on the floor, his head striking so hard that it must have made him see stars. He started to get up, and was knocked flat again. And before Larz was done, he’d made the big coward, who turned out to be only a bag of wind, apologize to him before the whole shouting crowd.”
“And after that, of course, Gabe never dared stay in camp a day. And he quit the company too. They called Larz the Terrible Swede after that; but the man became just as quiet as ever, and refused to take the place vacated by the bully. That was about two years ago; and I haven’t set eyes on Gabe till tonight. But I did hear he was doing all sorts of things, from shooting game out of season, to netting bass when the game and fish warden was far away and selling ’em in the towns. And now you know all about him, as far as I can tell you.”
Of course, both the other boys laughed heartily at the idea of that husky logger being whipped by a mild-mannered, inoffensive man half his size.
“These Swedes can go the limit when they get their mad up,” Teddy remarked. “We have a number working for us; and such dare-devil fellows you never saw. Why, they think nothing of risking their lives in a log jam; and hardly a year passes but what a number of serious accidents do occur to them at one time or another. Sometimes it’s a tree falls on a man; then again a slip of the ax cuts his foot terribly; and in spring, when the freshet comes, and the logs start down, you just ought to see what goes on. They’re a hard lot, it’s true, but a braver batch of men it’d be impossible to find.”