Chapter XI: Connie Finds an Ally

"Wher's Pierce?" asked Slue Foot Magee, as he glanced down upon the two figures that crouched close about the little fire.

"He went on ahead to hunt a place to camp. We waited to pack the stuff," lied the man, nodding toward the pack sack that the boss of Camp Two had deposited in the snow.

"I sure was surprised when Sam, here, popped out of the woods an' told me ye'd got away an' needed blankets an' grub. Wha'd ye do to Hurley? An' how come ye didn't hit fer the railroad an' make yer git-away?"

"We beat Hurley up a-plenty so'st he won't be in no hurry to take no I. W. W.'s nowheres ag'in. An' as fer hittin' fer the railroad, it's too cold fer to ride the rods or the bumpers, an' we hain't got a dollar between us. You'll have to stake us fer the git-away."

Slue Foot frowned: "I hain't got a cent, neither. Come into the woods on credick--an' hain't draw'd none."

"That's a fine mess we're in!" exclaimed the leader angrily. "How fer d' ye figger we're a-goin' to git on what little grub ye fetched in that pack? An' wher' we goin' to--bein' as we're broke? We hit back fer you 'cause we know'd ye stood strong in the organization an' we had a right to think ye'd see us through."

"I'll see ye through!" growled Slue Foot, impatiently. "But I can't give ye nawthin' I hain't got, kin I?" He stood for a few moments staring into the fire, apparently in deep thought. "I've got it!" he exclaimed. "The Syndicate's got a camp 'bout ten mile north of here on Willer River. They're short handed an' the boss'll hire anything he kin git. Seen him in town 'fore I come out, an' he wanted to hire me, but I was already hired to Hurley--got a boss's job, too, an' that's better'n what I'd got out of him. If youse fellers hadn't of be'n in such a hurry to pull somethin' an' had of waited 'til I come, ye wouldn't of botched the job an' got caught."

"Is that so!" flared the leader. "I s'pose we'd ort to know'd ye was goin' to be hired on this job! An' I s'pose our instructions is not to pull no rough stuff onless you're along to see it's done right!"

"They hain't nawthin' in standin' 'round argerin'," interrupted Slue Foot. "What I was a-goin' on to say is that youse better hike on up to Willer River an' git ye a job. There's grub enough in the pack to last ye twict that fer."

"Wher'll we tell the boss we come from? 'Taint in reason we'd hit that fer into the woods huntin' a job."

"Tell him ye got sore on me an' quit. If they's any questions asked I'll back ye up."

The leader of the I. W. W.'s looked at Sam, and Sam looked at the leader. They were in a quandary. For reasons of their own they had not told Slue Foot that they had picked up Saginaw--and with Saginaw on their hands, how were they going to follow out the boss's suggestion?

Behind his big tree, Connie Morgan had been an interested listener. He knew why the men stared blankly at each other, and chuckled to himself at their predicament.

"What's to hinder someone from Camp One a-trailin' us up there?" suggested Sam.

"Trailin' ye! How they goin' to trail ye? It was a-snowin' clean up to the time ye got to Camp Two, an' if any one sees yer tracks around there I'll say I sent some men up that way fer somethin'. An' besides," he continued, glancing upward where the clouds that had thinned into flying scuds had thickened again, obliterating the stars, "this storm hain't over yet. It'll be snowin' ag'in 'fore long an' ye won't leave no more trail'n a canoe. Anyways, that's the best way I kin think of. If you've got a better one go to it--I've done all I kin fer ye." There was finality in Slue Foot's voice as he drew on his mittens, and turned from the fire. "So long, an' good luck to ye."

"So long," was the rather surly rejoinder. "If that's the best we kin do, I s'pose we gotta do it. Mebbe if it starts snowin' we're all right, an' if we make it, we'll be safer up there than what we would down along the railroad, anyways. They won't be no one a-huntin' us in the woods."

"Sure they won't," agreed Slue Foot, as he passed from sight into the timber.

The two beside the fire sat in silence until the sound of Slue Foot's footsteps was swallowed up in the distance. Then Sam spoke: "What we goin' to do with this here Saginaw?" he asked.

The leader glanced skyward. "It's startin' to snow--" he leered and, stopping abruptly, rose to his feet. "Wait till we git Pierce in here." Producing some pieces of rope from his pocket, he grinned. "Lucky I fetched these along when I cut 'em off my hands. We'll give him a chanct to see how it feels to be tied up onct." The man stepped into the timber and a few minutes later returned accompanied by Pierce, to whom they immediately began to relate what had passed between them and the boss of Camp Two.

The moment they seated themselves about the fire, Connie slipped from his hiding place behind the tree and stole noiselessly toward the spot where the men had left Saginaw. Snow was falling furiously now, adding the bewildering effect of its whirling flakes to the intense blackness of the woods. Removing his snow-shoes to avoid leaving a wide, flat trail, the boy stepped into the tracks of the two who had returned to the fire and, a few moments later, was bending over a dark form that sat motionless with its back against the trunk of a tree.

"It's me, Saginaw," he whispered, as the keen edge of his knife blade severed the ropes that bound the man's hands and feet.

The man thrust his face close to Connie's in the darkness. "What in the name of time be you doin' here?" he exclaimed.

"Sh-sh-sh," whispered the boy. "Come on, we've got to get away in a hurry. There's no tellin' how soon those fellows will finish their powwow."

"What do you mean--git away? When we git away from here we take them birds along, er my name ain't Saginaw Ed! On top of tryin' to burn up the camp they've up an' murdered Hurley, an' they'd of done the like by me, if they'd be'n give time to!"

"We'll get them, later. I know where they're going. What we've got to do is to beat it. Step in my tracks so they won't know there were two of us. They'll think you cut yourself loose and they won't try to follow in the dark, especially if the storm holds."

"But them hounds has got my rackets."

"I've got mine, and when we get away from here I'll put 'em on and break trail for you."

"Look a here, you give me yer gun an' I'll go in an' clean up on them desperadoes. I'll show 'em if the I. W. W.'s is goin' to run the woods! I'll----"

"Come on! I tell you we can get 'em whenever we want 'em----"

"I'll never want 'em no worse'n I do right now."

"Hurley's all right, I saw him a little while ago."

"They said they----"

"I don't care what they said. Hurley's down in the office, right now. Come on, and when we put a few miles behind us, I'll tell you all you want to know."

"You'll tell a-plenty, then," growled Saginaw, only half convinced. "An' here's another thing--if you're double crossin' me, you're a-goin' to wish you never seen the woods."

The boy's only answer was a laugh, and he led, swiftly as the intense darkness would permit, into the woods. They had gone but a short distance when he stopped and put on his rackets. After that progress was faster, and Saginaw Ed, mushing along behind, wondered at the accuracy with which the boy held his course in the blackness and the whirling snow. A couple of hours later, Connie halted in the shelter of a thick windfall. "We can rest up for a while, now," he said, "and I'll tell you some of things you want to know."

"Where do you figger we're at?" asked Saginaw, regarding the boy shrewdly.

"We're just off the tote road between the two camps," answered the boy without hesitation.

A moment of silence followed the words and when he spoke the voice of Saginaw sounded hard: "I've be'n in the woods all my life, an' it would of bothered me to hit straight fer camp on a night like this. They's somethin' wrong here somewheres, kid--an' the time's come fer a showdown. I don't git you, at all! You be'n passin' yerself off fer a greener. Ever sence you went out an' got that deer I've know'd you wasn't--but I figgered it worn't none of my business. Then when you out-figgered them hounds--that worn't no greener's job, an' I know'd that--but, I figgered you was all to the good. But things has happened sence, that ain't all to the good--by a long shot. You've got some explainin' to do, an' seein' we're so clost to camp, we better go on to the office an' do it around the stove."

"We wouldn't get much chance to powwow in the office tonight. Hurley's there, and the doctor, and Steve, and Lon Camden."

"The doctor?"

"Yes, those fellows beat Hurley up pretty bad, but he's coming along all right. Steve stayed by him, and the doctor said it saved his life."

"You don't mean that sneakin' cookee that throw'd in with the I. W. W.?"

"Yup."

"Well, I'll be doggoned! But, them bein' in the office don't alter the case none. We might's well have things open an' above board."

Connie leaned forward and placed his hand on the man's arm. "What I've got to say, I want to say to you, and to no one else. I wanted to play the game alone, but while I was trailing you down from Willow River, I decided I'd have to let you in on it."

"You know'd I follered you up there?"

"Of course I knew it. Didn't I help you string that racket?"

Saginaw shook his head in resignation. "We might's well have it out right here," he said. "I don't git you. First off, you figger how to catch them jaspers with the goods an' lock 'em up. Then you throw in with Slue Foot. Then you hike up to the Syndicate camp an' is thicker'n thieves with the boss. Then you pop up in a blizzard in the middle of the night an' cut me loose. Then you turn 'round an' let them hounds go when we could of nailed 'em where they set--seems like you've bit off quite a contract to make all them things jibe. Go ahead an' spit 'er out--an' believe me, it'll be an earful! First, though, you tell me where them I. W. W.'s is goin' an' how you know. If I ain't satisfied, I'm a-goin' to hit right back an' git 'em while the gittin's good."

"They're going up to work for the Syndicate in the Willow River Camp."

"Know'd they was loose an' slipped up to git 'em a job, did you?" asked Saginaw sarcastically.

Connie grinned. "No. But there's a big job ahead of you and me this winter--to save the timber and clear Hurley's name."

"What do you know about Hurley an' the timber?"

"Not as much as I will by spring. But I do know that we lost $14,000 on this job last winter. You see, I'm one of the owners."

"One of the owners!" Saginaw exclaimed incredulously.

"Yes. I've got the papers here to prove it. You couldn't read 'em in the dark, so you'll have to take my word for it 'til we get where you can read 'em. Waseche Bill is my partner and we live in Ten Bow, Alaska. Soon after Hurley's report reached us, showing the loss, a letter came from Mike Gillum, saying that Hurley was in the pay of the Syndicate----"

"He's a liar!" cried Saginaw wrathfully shaking his mittened fist in Connie's face. "I've know'd Hurley, man an' boy, an' they never was a squarer feller ever swung an axe. Who is this here Mike Gillum? Lead me to him! I'll tell him to his face he's a liar, an' then I'll prove it by givin' him the doggonest lickin' he ever got--an' I don't care if he's big as a meetin' house door, neither!"

"Wait a minute, Saginaw, and listen. I know Hurley's square. But I didn't know it until I got acquainted with him. I came clear down from Alaska to catch him with the goods, and that's why I hired out to him. But, Mike Gillum is square, too. He's boss of the Syndicate camp on Willow River. A clerk in the Syndicate office told him that the Syndicate was paying Hurley, and Mike wrote to Waseche Bill. He's a friend of Waseche's--used to prospect in Alaska----"

"I don't care if he used to prospeck in heaven! He's a liar if he says Hurley ever double crossed any one!"

"Hold on, I think I've got an idea of what's going on here and it will be up to us to prove it. The man that's doing the double crossing is Slue Foot Magee. I didn't like his looks from the minute I first saw him. Then he began to hint that there were ways a forty-dollar-a-month clerk could double his wages, and when I pretended to fall in with his scheme he said that when they begin laying 'em down he'll show me how to shade the cut. And more than that, he said he had something big he'd let me in on later, provided I kept my eyes and ears open to what went on in the office."

"An' you say you an' yer pardner owns this here timber?"

"That's just what I said."

"Then Slue Foot's ondertook to show you a couple of schemes where you kin steal consider'ble money off yerself?"

Connie laughed. "That's it, exactly."

Saginaw Ed remained silent for several moments. "Pervidin' you kin show them papers, an' from what I've saw of you, I ain't none surprised if you kin, how come it that yer pardner sent a kid like you way down here on what any one ort to know would turn out to be a rough job anyways you look at it?"

"He didn't send me--I came. He wanted to come himself, but at that time we thought it was Hurley we were after, and Hurley knows Waseche so he could never have found out anything, even if he had come down. And besides, I've had quite a lot of experience in jobs like this. I served a year with the Mounted."

"The Mounted! You don't mean the Canady Mounted Police!"

"Yes, I do."

There was another long silence, then the voice of Saginaw rumbled almost plaintively through the dark, "Say, kid, you ain't never be'n _President_, have you?"

Connie snickered. "No, I've never been President. And if there's nothing else you want to know right now, let's hit the hay. We've both done some man's size mushing today."

"You spoke a word, kid," answered Saginaw, rising to his feet; "I wouldn't put no crookedness whatever past Slue Foot. But that didn't give this here Gillum no license to blackguard Hurley in no letter."

"Has Hurley ever worked for the Syndicate?" asked Connie.

"No, he ain't. I know every job he's had in Minnesoty an' Westconsin. Then he went out West to Idyho, or Montany, or somewheres, an' this here's the first job he's had sence he come back."

"What I've been thinking is that Slue Foot has passed himself off to the Syndicate as Hurley. They know that Hurley is boss of this camp, but they don't know him by sight. It's a risky thing to do, but I believe Slue Foot has done it."

"Well, jumpin' Jerushelam! D'you s'pose he'd of dared?"

"That's what we've got to find out--and we've got to do it alone. You know Hurley better than I do, and you know that he's hot-headed, and you know that if he suspected Slue Foot of doing that, he couldn't wait to get the evidence so we could get him with the goods. He'd just naturally sail into him and beat him to a pulp."

Saginaw chuckled. "Yes, an' then he'd squeeze the juice out of the pulp to finish off with. I guess yer right, kid. It's up to me an' you. But how'd you know them I. W. W.'s is headin' fer Willer River?"

"Because I heard Slue Foot tell them to."

"Slue Foot!"

"Yes, I forgot to tell you that Slue Foot is an I. W. W., too. I didn't know it myself 'til tonight. You see, when I got back to camp and found that Hurley's prisoners had made a get-away, I knew right then why you had turned off the back trail from Willow River. I knew they'd treat you like they did Hurley, or worse, so I hit the trail."

"Wasn't they no one else handy you could of brung along?" asked Saginaw, drily.

"The whole camp would have jumped at the chance--and you know it! And you know what they'd have done when they caught 'em. I knew I could travel faster and make less noise than a big gang, and I knew I could handle the job when I got there. I had slipped up and was watching when Pierce took you into the timber. He did that because they heard someone coming. It was Slue Foot, and he brought 'em a grub stake and some blankets. They knew he was an I. W. W., and they'd managed to slip him the word that they were loose. They wanted him to stake them to some money, too, but Slue Foot said he didn't have any, and told them to get a job up on Willow River. He told them they'd be safer there than they would anywhere down along the railroad."

"Yes, but how'd you know they'll go there?"

"They can't go any place else," laughed the boy. "They're broke, and they've only got a little bit of grub."

"When we goin' up an' git 'em?" persisted Saginaw.

"We'll let the sheriff do that for us, then the whole thing will be according to law."

"I guess that's right," assented the man, as the two swung down the tote road.

"We'd better roll in in the men's camp," suggested Connie, as they reached the clearing. A little square of light from the office window showed dimly through the whirling snow, and, approaching noiselessly, the two peeked in. Mounded blankets covered the sleeping forms of the doctor and Lon Camden; Hurley's bandaged head was visible upon his coarse pillow, and beside him sat Steve, wide awake, with the bottles of medicine within easy reach.

"Half past one!" exclaimed Saginaw, glancing at the little clock. "By jiminetty, kid, it's time we was to bed!"