Chapter IV: Connie Tames a Bear-Cat

As the cars came to rest upon the spur, plank runways were placed in position and the horses led to the ground and tied to trees. All hands pitched into the work of unloading. Wagons appeared and were set up as if by magic as, under the boss's direction, supplies and equipment were hustled from the cars.

"You come along with us," said Hurley, indicating a tote wagon into which men were loading supplies. "I'm takin' half a dozen of the boys out tonight to kind of git the camp in shape. It'll take four or five days to haul this stuff an' you can help along till the teams start comin', an' then you've got to check the stuff in. Here's your lists--supplies on that one, and equipment on this. Don't O. K. nothin' till it's in the storehouse or the cook's camp or wherever it goes to."

Connie took the papers and, throwing his turkey onto the load, climbed up and took his place beside the men. The teamster cracked his whip and the four rangy horses started away at a brisk trot.

For five miles or so, as it followed the higher ground of a hardwood ridge, the road was fairly good, then it plunged directly into the pines and after that there was no trotting. Mile after mile the horses plodded on, the wheels sinking half-way to the hubs in the soft dry sand, or, in the lower places, dropping to the axles into chuck holes and plowing through sticky mud that fell from the spokes and felloes in great chunks. Creeks were forded, and swamps crossed on long stretches of corduroy that threatened momentarily to loosen every bolt in the wagon. As the team swung from the hardwood ridge, the men leaped to the ground and followed on foot. They were a cheerful lot, always ready to lend a hand in helping the horses up the hill, or in lifting a wheel from the clutch of some particularly bad chuck hole. Connie came in for a share of good-natured banter, that took the form, for the most part, of speculation upon how long he would last "hoofing it on shank's mares," and advice as to how to stick on the wagon when he should get tired out. The boy answered all the chafing with a smiling good humour that won the regard of the rough lumberjacks as his tramping mile after mile through the sand and mud without any apparent fatigue won their secret admiration.

"He's a game un," whispered Saginaw Ed, as he tramped beside Swede Larson, whose pale blue eyes rested upon the back of the sturdy little figure that plodded ahead of them.

"Yah, ay tank hay ban' valk befoor. Hay ain' drag hees foot lak he gon' for git tire out queek. Ay bat ju a tollar he mak de camp wit'out ride."

"You're on," grinned Saginaw, "an', at that, you got an even break. I can't see he's wobblin' none yet, an' it's only nine or ten miles to go. I wished we had that wapple-jawed, cigarette-smokin' cookee along--I'd like to see this un show him up."

"Hay show ham up a'rat--ju yoost vait."

Twilight deepened and the forest road became dim with black shadows.

"The moon'll be up directly," observed Hurley, who was walking beside Connie. "But it don't give none too much light, nohow, here in the woods. I've got to go on ahead and pilot."

"I'll go with you," said the boy, and Hurley eyed him closely.

"Say, kid, don't let these here jay-hawkers talk ye inter walkin' yerself to death. They don't like nawthin' better'n to make a greener live hard. Let 'em yelp theirself hoarse an' when you git tuckered jest you climb up beside Frenchy there an' take it easy. You got to git broke in kind of slow to start off with an' take good care of yer feet."

"Oh, I'm not tired. I like to walk," answered the boy, and grinned to himself. "Wonder what he'd think if he knew about some of the trails I've hit. I guess it would make his little old twenty-mile hike shrink some."

As they advanced into the timber the road became worse, and Connie, who had never handled horses, wondered at the dexterity with which Frenchy guided the four-horse tote-team among stumps and chuck holes, and steep pitches. Every little way it was necessary for Hurley to call a halt, while the men chopped a log, or a thick mat of tops from the road. It was nearly midnight when the team swung into a wide clearing so overgrown that hardly more than the roofs of the low log buildings showed above the tops of the brambles and tall horseweed stalks.

"All right, boys!" called the boss. "We won't bother to unload only what we need for supper. Don't start no fire in the big range tonight. Here, you, Saginaw, you play cook. You can boil a batch of tea and fry some ham on the office stove--an' don't send no more sparks up the stovepipe than what you need to. If fire got started in these weeds we'd have two camps to build instead of one; Swede, you help Frenchy with the horses, an' yous other fellows fill them lanterns an' git what you need unloaded an' cover the wagon with a tarp."

"What can I do?" asked Connie. Hurley eyed him with a laugh. "Gosh sakes! Ain't you petered out yet? Well, go ahead and help Saginaw with the supper--the can stuff and dishes is on the hind end of the load."

The following days were busy ones for Connie. Men and teams laboured over the road, hauling supplies and equipment from the railway, while other men attacked the weed-choked clearing with brush-scythes and mattocks, and made necessary repairs about the camp. It was the boy's duty to check all incoming material whether of supplies or equipment, and between the arrival of teams he found time to make himself useful in the chinking of camp buildings and in numerous other ways.

"I'll show you about the books, now," said Hurley one evening as they sat in the office, or boss's camp, as the small building that stood off by itself was called. This room was provided with two rude pine desks with split log stools. A large air-tight stove occupied the centre of the floor, and two double-tier bunks were built against the wall. The wanagan chests were also ranged along the log wall into which pins had been inserted for the hanging of snow-shoes, rifles, and clothing.

The boss took from his desk several books. "This one," he began, "is the wanagan book. If a wanagan book is kep' right ye never have no trouble--if it ain't ye never have nawthin' else. Some outfits gouge the men on the wanagan--I don't. I don't even add haulin' cost to the price--they can git tobacker an' whatever they need jest as cheap here as what they could in town. But they've be'n cheated so much with wanagans that they expect to be. The best way to keep 'em from growlin' is to name over the thing an' the price to 'em after they've bought it, even if it's only a dime's worth of tobacker. Then jest name off the total that's ag'in' 'em--ye can do that by settin' it down to one side with a pencil each time. That don't never give them a chanct to kick, an' they soon find it out. I don't run no 'dollar you got, dollar you didn't get, an' dollar you ort to got' outfit. They earn what's comin' to 'em. Some augers they might as well gouge 'em 'cause they go an' blow it all in anyhow, soon as they get to town--but what's that any of my business? It's theirn.

"This here book is the time book. Git yer pen, now, an' I'll call ye off the names an' the wages an' you can set 'em down." When the task was completed the boss continued: "Ye know about the supply book, an' here's the log book--but ye won't need that fer a while yit. I've got to cruise around tomorrow an' find a location fer the new camp. I want to git it laid out as quick as I can so the men can git to cuttin' the road through. Then they can git to work on the buildin's while I go back an' fill me out a crew.

"Wish't you'd slip over to the men's camp an' tell Saginaw I want to see him. I'll make him straw boss while I am gone--the men like him, an' at the same time they know he won't stand for no monkey business."

"What's a straw boss?" asked the boy.

"He's the boss that's boss when the boss ain't around," explained Hurley, as Connie put on his cap and proceeded to the men's camp, a long log building from whose windows yellow lamplight shone. The moment he opened the door he was thankful indeed, that Hurley had invited him to share the boss's camp. Although the night was not cold, a fire roared in the huge box stove that occupied the centre of the long room. A fine drizzle had set in early in the afternoon, and the drying racks about the stove were ladened with the rain-dampened garments of the men. Steam from these, mingled with the smoke from thirty-odd pipes and the reek of drying rubbers and socks, rendered the air of the bunk house thick with an odorous fog that nearly stifled Connie as he stepped into the superheated interior.

Seated upon an upper bunk with his feet dangling over the edge, one of the men was playing vociferously upon a cheap harmonica, while others sat about upon rude benches or the edges of bunks listening or talking. The boy made his way over the uneven floor, stained with dark splotches of tobacco juice, toward the farther end of the room, where Saginaw Ed was helping Frenchy mend a piece of harness.

As he passed a bunk midway of the room, Steve rose to his feet and confronted him. "Ha! Here's the greener kid--the boss's pet that's too good to bunk in the men's camp! Whatchu doin' in here? Did Hurley send you after some strap oil?" As the two boys stood facing each other in the middle of the big room the men saw that the cookee was the taller and the heavier of the two. The harmonica stopped and the men glanced in grinning expectation at the two figures. Steve's sneering laugh sounded startingly loud in the sudden silence. "He made his brag he used to tame bear-cats over in Canady!" he said. "Well, I'm a bear-cat--come on an' tame me! I'm wild!" Reaching swiftly the boy jerked the cap from Connie's head and hurled it across the room where it lodged in an upper bunk. Some of the men laughed, but there were others who did not laugh--those who noted the slight paling of the smaller boy's face and the stiffening of his muscles. With hardly a glance at Steve, Connie stepped around him and walked to where Saginaw Ed sat, an interested spectator of the scene.

"The boss wants to see you in the office," he said, and turning on his heel, retraced his steps. Steve stood in the middle of the floor where he had left him, the sneering smile still upon his lips.

"I believe he's goin' to cry," he taunted, and again some men laughed.

"What is it you say you are? I don't believe they all heard you." Again Connie was facing him, and his voice was steady and very low.

"I'm a bear-cat!"

Connie stretched out his arm: "Give me my cap, please, I'm in a hurry." The boy seized the hand roughly, which was just what Connie expected, and the next instant his other hand closed about Steve's wrist and quick as a flash he whirled and bent sharply forward. There was a shrill yelp of pain as the older boy shot over Connie's lowered shoulder and struck with a thud upon the uneven floor. The next instant Connie was astride the prostrate form and with a hand at his elbow and another at his wrist, slowly forced the boy's arm upward between his shoulder blades.

"O-o-o, O-w-w!" howled Steve. "Take him off! He's killin' me!" Roars of laughter filled the room as the lumberjacks looked on with shouts of encouragement and approval. The cookee continued to howl and beg.

"Once more, now," said Connie, easing up a bit on the arm. "Tell them what you are."

"Le' me up! Yer broke my arm!"

"Oh, no I didn't." Connie increased the pressure. "Come on, tell them what you told them a minute ago. Some of them look as if they don't believe it."

"O-w-w, I'm a-a bear-cat--O-w-w!" whimpered the boy, with such a shame-faced expression that the men roared with delight.

Connie rose to his feet. "Climb up there and get my cap, and bring it down and hand it to me," he ordered tersely. "And the next time you feel wild, just let me know."

For only an instant the boy looked into the blue-grey eyes that regarded him steadily and then sullenly, without a word, he stepped onto the lower bunk, groped for a moment in the upper one and handed Connie his cap. A moment later the boy, accompanied by Saginaw Ed, stepped out into the night, but Saginaw saw what Connie did not--the look of crafty malevolence that flashed into Steve's eyes as they followed the departing pair.

"By jiminetty, kid, y're all right!" approved the man, as they walked toward the office. "That was as handy a piece of work as I ever seen, an' they ain't a man in camp'll fergit it. You're there! But keep yer eye on that cookee--he's a bad egg. Them kind can't take a lickin' like a man. He'll lay fer to git even, if it takes him all winter--not so much fer what you done to him as where you done it--with the men all lookin' on. They never will quit raggin' him with his bear-cat stuff--an' he knows it."