"Toler sent me for a crowbar."
"He did, did he? Then I'll send you to hell!" and with that he seized an axe which lay near, and swinging it above his head, he rushed at me. It was a menacing figure that he made, with the axe held aloft by his giant arms, his eyes flashing, and his nostrils dilating with the childish passion which mastered him; but he was as harmless as a child at any show of fearlessness, and there was the oddest anticlimax in his mild command to "get that damn crowbar and hurry back to Toler," which I was glad enough to do; for my part was a mere pretence of courage; in reality I felt scared out of a year's growth, and my legs were trembling violently.
Through the following days there was little variation for Toler and me in the programme of work. We loaded bark until the teamsters were off, and then cut ways to the piles.
There is, however, an incident of Tuesday morning which will linger in my memory. It was the fulfilment of Dick the Kid's prophecy. I heard a man swear.
The boss anticipated the usual time of the morning cursing, and gave me an initial one that day in the dark in front of the stables, while the teamsters stood by with their lanterns in hand, and listened critically with sober faces, as though they were determining, with a nice sense of the possible, whether Fitz-Adams was doing himself justice. At the last he turned to them:
"Will I kill him now, or let him live one day more?"
"Let the damn dog live," came from Black Bob.
"Then you'll take him," said the boss, "and dray out that bar." So Black Bob and I set off in company.
I was not a little perplexed by the puerility of Fitz-Adams's rage. It seemed singularly out of keeping with the sturdy manliness of the fellow. If he wished to get rid of me, why did he not discharge me? I began to suspect that the cause lay in tenderness of heart, of which he was secretly ashamed. To him I was avis rara in a lumber-camp. No doubt he thought me some hitherto unknown species of immigrant; and being too tender-hearted to assume the responsibility of turning me adrift, he hoped to frighten me away. Black Bob soon puzzled me almost as much. He was driving the dray, which is a rude, low sledge, used to draw out bark from points that are inaccessible to the wagons. We were walking together at the side of the road, and neither of us spoke. Presently Bob stopped his horses to give them breath, and then he turned to me. His speech was halting, and there was an uncomfortable, apologetic quality in his voice, but the feeling was evidently sincere. To my surprise he was bidding me, with utmost kindness, not to mind Fitz-Adams's curses, and he added that the boss meant nothing by them, that he really knew no better. It seemed to me an act of truest friendliness on Black Bob's part, involving charity and moral courage of high order, and I was far more grateful than my acknowledgment implied. It produced a comfortable elation, which lasted while we got on a towering load of bark in silence in the earliest dawn, and started for the road. We had almost reached it, and the horses were pulling hard, when, with the suddenness of a pistol-shot, the dray came sharply against the stump of a stubborn sapling that rose unseen in the way, and in an instant the horses were plunging forward in broken harness, and half the load was sliding gently to the ground.
Black Bob brought the horses to a stand, and then stood still himself. I was filled with admiration for his self-control, for I dreamt that he was making a successful effort to restrain himself. In reality he was summoning all his powers; and in another moment, with face uplifted to the pale stars, he broke forth in blasphemies so hellish, that for the next full minute I might have been listening to the outcries of a tormented fiend, held tight in the grip of remorseless agony.