Chapter IX: Saginaw Ed in the Toils

Connie hoped that during the ride to Camp Two Slue Foot would further enlighten him concerning his various schemes for defrauding his employers, but the man sat silent, eyeing the tall pines that flanked the roadway on either side.

"Pretty good timber, isn't it?" ventured the boy, after a time.

The boss nodded: "They hain't much of them kind left. If I owned this trac' an' could afford to pay taxes I'd never lay down a stick of it fer ten year--mebbe twenty."

"Why not?"

"Why not! 'Cause it'll be worth ten dollars where it's worth a dollar now--that's why. Pine's a-goin' up every year, an' they've cut the best of it everywheres except here an' there a strip that fer one reason an' another they couldn't git holt of."

"The Syndicate's cutting theirs now, and surely they can afford to pay taxes."

Slue Foot grinned: "They wouldn't be cuttin' their white pine along Dogfish if this trac' wasn't bein' cut."

"What's that got to do with it?"

"Mebbe if you kind of stick around, like I told you, you'll see. I'm one of these here hairpins that never tells no one nawthin' about anythin' 'til the time comes--see?"

"You're all right, Slue Foot," laughed the boy. "I guess I'll stick around."

"It's a good thing fer you you got sense enough to know who to tie to. No one never made nawthin' workin' fer wages--an' no one ever will."

As they drew into Camp Two's clearing Slue Foot cocked a weatherwise eye skyward. "Shouldn't wonder an' the snow'll be comin' tonight or tomorrow--them clouds looks like it. Come on, le's git at them supplies. They's two wagons in a'ready an' two more comin' an' we want to git 'em onloaded by night."

Slue Foot called a dozen men to help with the unloading and stowing, and for the rest of the afternoon Connie had his hands full checking off the goods as they were carried past him at the door. At last the task was completed and after supper the boy struck out for Camp One. As he plodded through the jet blackness of the tote road his mind was busy with the problem that confronted him. What should he do? Manifestly the easiest course would be to go straight to Hurley and tell him just what Slue Foot had told him, and let the boss deal with him as he saw fit. But, in that case Hurley would, in all probability, fly off the handle and either discharge Slue Foot or "beat him up" or both. In which event the man would go unpunished for last winter's work, whatever that had been, and worst of all, there would be absolutely no evidence against the Syndicate. And he had no intention of pocketing last year's loss without at least an attempt to recover it and bring its perpetrators to justice.

From what he had seen of Hurley, and what Saginaw and Slue Foot had told him, the boy was confident that the big boss was square and honest as the day is long--but there was Mike Gillum, himself an honest man and a friend of Waseche, who had reported that Hurley was in the pay of the Syndicate; and Connie knew that men like Mike Gillum did not lie about other men, nor would they make an open accusation unless reasonably sure of their ground. Therefore there was a bare possibility that, despite all evidence to the contrary, Hurley, unknown to either Slue Foot or Saginaw, was playing into the hand of the Syndicate.

"I wonder what's the matter with Saginaw," muttered the boy as he stumbled on through the darkness. "He looked at me kind of funny when we left the office. As if he knows Slue Foot is crooked, and thinks I have thrown in with him." His fists clenched and his lips drew into a hard, straight line. "I'll get to the bottom of it if it takes all winter!" he gritted. "And when I do, someone is going to squirm." Something prickled sharply against his cheek and he glanced upward. He could see nothing in the inky blackness, but the prickling sensation was repeated and he knew that it was snowing. The wind rose and the snow fell faster. By the time he reached the clearing it whitened the ground. The little office was dark as he let himself in. The sound of heavy breathing told him that Saginaw was already in bed, and, without lighting the lamp, he undressed and crawled between his blankets.

When Connie awoke the following morning the fire was burning brightly in the stove and Saginaw stood staring out through the little window that showed a translucent grey square against the dark log wall. He turned at the sound of the boy's feet upon the floor. "Snow's held off fer a long time this year, but when she come she come a-plenty," he observed.

"Still snowing?" asked the boy, as he wriggled into his clothing. "It started last night while I was coming down from Camp Two."

"Yeh, it's still snowin.' Foot deep a'ready an' comin' down in fine flakes an' slantin' like she's a-goin' to keep on snowin'!"

"Are you going to begin laying 'em down today?"

Saginaw shook his head: "No. I'm a-goin' to set 'em overhaulin' the sleds, an' the sprinkler, an' the drays, an' gittin' the skidways in shape, an' breakin' out the road. It's cold enough fer to make a good bottom an' things ort to go a-whoopin' when this snow lets up."

Connie snickered. "I bet Slue Foot's growling this morning, with no roof on his office and blacksmith shop, and his stable and oat house only about half chinked."

"He'd growl if his camp was 'lectric lit an' steam het. I'm ready fer breakfast, if the cook's saved us some. You go on over an' I'll be 'long when I git the men strung out." Saginaw filled the stove with chunks and together they left the office, the older man heading for the men's camp, while Connie made directly for the cook's camp. As the boy lowered his head to the sting of the sweeping snow and plodded across the clearing, a feeling of great loneliness came over him, for he knew that there lurked in the man's mind a feeling of distrust--a feeling that he had studiously attempted to conceal. Nothing in the spoken words revealed this distrust, but the boy was quick to note that the voice lacked something of the hearty comradery that had grown up between them.

"This is almost like Alaska," Connie muttered, as he breathed deeply of the clean, cold air. "I wish I was in Ten Bow right now--with Waseche Bill, and MacDougall, and Dutch Henry and the rest of 'em--or else over on the Yukon with Big Dan McKeever, and Rickey." The boy's fists clenched within his mittens, as was their habit when he faced a difficult situation. "If it wasn't that Waseche is depending on me to straighten out this mess, I'd strike out for Ten Bow today. But I've just naturally got to see it through--and I've got to go it alone, too. If I should let Saginaw in, and it should turn out that Hurley is crooked, my chance of nailing him would be shot, because Saginaw and Hurley are one, two, three.

"The first thing I better do," he decided, as he stamped the snow from his boots before the door of the cook's camp, "is to slip up and see Mike Gillum and find out how he knows Hurley is in the pay of the Syndicate."

During the breakfast the boy was unusually silent and when the meal was finished he returned directly to the office, and stood for a long time staring out into the whirling white smother. As he turned to his desk his eye encountered Hurley's snow-shoes hanging from their peg on the opposite wall. "It's only ten miles to Willow River," he muttered, "and I've just got to see Mike Gillum."

A moment later he stepped through the door, fastened on the snow-shoes and, hastening across the clearing, plunged into the timber.

It was nearly noon when Saginaw Ed returned to the office and found it empty. Almost instantly he noticed that the boss's snow-shoes were missing and he grinned: "Kid's out practising on the rackets, I guess." Then he stepped to the door. The snow had continued to fall steadily--fine, wind-driven flakes that pile up slowly. The trail was very faint, and as the man's eye followed it across the clearing his brows drew into a puzzled frown. "That don't look like no practice trail," he muttered. "No, sir! They ain't no greener ever yet started off like that." He pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger and scowled at the trail. "One of two things: Either the kid ain't the greener he lets on to be, or else someone else has hiked off on the boss's snow-shoes. An' either which way, it's up to me to find out." Crossing swiftly to the cook shack he returned a few minutes later, the pockets of his mackinaw bulging with lunch, and drawing his own snow-shoes from beneath his bunk, struck out upon the fast dimming trail.

"I mistrust Slue Foot, an' I didn't like the way he started to bawl out the kid yeste'day. It seemed kind of like it wasn't straight goods. He's a beefer an' a growler, all right, but somehow, this time it seemed as if it was kind of piled on fer my special benefit."

In the timber, sheltered from the sweep of the wind, the track had not drifted full, but threaded the woods in a broad, trough-like depression that the woodsman easily followed. Mile after mile it held to the north, dipping into deep ravines, skirting thick windfalls, and crossing steep ridges. As the trail lengthened the man's face hardened. "Whoever's a-hikin' ahead of me ain't no greener an' he ain't walkin' fer fun, neither. He's travellin' as fast as I be, an' he knows where he's a-goin', too." He paused at the top of a high ridge and smote a heavily mittened palm with a mittened fist. "So that's the way of it, eh? I heard how the Syndicate was runnin' a big camp on Willow River--an' this here's the Willow River divide. They ain't only one answer, the kid, or whoever it is I'm a-follerin', has be'n put in here by the Syndicate to keep cases on Hurley's camps--either that, or Slue Foot's in with 'em, an' is usin' the kid fer a go-between. They're pretty smart, all right, headin' way up to this here Willow River camp. They figgered that no one wouldn't pay no 'tention to a trail headin' north, while if it led over to the Syndicate camp on Dogfish someone would spot it in a minute. An' with it snowin' like this, they figgered the trail would drift full, or else look so old no one would bother about it. They ain't only one thing to do, an' that's to go ahead an' find out. What a man knows is worth a heap more'n what he can guess. They's a-goin' to be some big surprises on Dogfish 'fore this winter's over, an' some folks is a-goin' to wish they'd of be'n smarter--or stayed honester."

Saginaw descended the slope and, still following the trail, walked steadily for an hour. Suddenly he paused to listen. Distinctly to his ears came the measured thud of pounded iron, punctuated at regular intervals by the metallic ring of a hammer upon an anvil. "It's the Syndicate's Willow River camp," he muttered, and advanced cautiously. Presently he gained the clearing and, skirting it, halted at the edge of a log road that reached back into the timber. The man noted that whoever made the trail had made no attempt to conceal his visit from the Syndicate crew, for the tracks struck into the road which led directly into the clearing. Not a soul was in sight and, hurriedly crossing the road, Saginaw continued to skirt the clearing until he arrived at a point directly opposite a small building that stood by itself midway between the men's camp and the stable. "That had ort to be the office," he said as he studied the lay of the camp and the conformation of the ground. Several large piles of tops lay between the edge of the clearing and the small building, against the back of which had been placed a huge pile of firewood. Across the clearing upon the bank of the river a crew of men were engaged in levelling off the rollways, and other men were busy about the open door of the blacksmith shop, where the forge fire burned brightly. The storm had thinned to a scarcely perceptible downfall and the rising wind whipped the smoke from the stovepipe of the building. "I've got to find out who's in that office," he decided and, suiting the action to the word, moved swiftly from one pile of tops to another, until he gained the shelter of the woodpile.

It is a very risky thing to peer into the window of a small room occupied by at least two people in broad daylight, and it was with the utmost caution that Saginaw removed his cap and applied his eye to the extreme corner of the pane. Seated facing each other, close beside the stove, were Connie and Mike Gillum. The boss's hand was upon the boy's knee and he was talking earnestly. At the sight Saginaw could scarce refrain from venting his anger in words. He had seen enough and, dodging quickly back, retraced his steps, and once more gained the shelter of the timber.

"So that's yer game, is it, you sneakin' little spy? Takin' advantage of Hurley the minute his back's turned! You've got him fooled, all right. An' you had me fooled, too. You're a smart kid, but you ain't quite smart enough. You can't do no harm now we're onto yer game, an' 'fore them logs hits the water in the spring yer goin' to find out you ain't the only smart one in the timber--you an' Slue Foot, too."

It was well past the middle of the afternoon when Saginaw took the back trail and struck out at a long swinging walk for the camp on Dogfish. The flash of anger, engendered by the sight of the boy in friendly conference with the boss of the Syndicate camp, gave way to keen disappointment as he tramped on and on through the timber. He had liked Connie from the first, and as the days went by his regard for the boy, whose brains and nerve had won the respect and admiration of the whole camp, grew. "I've a good mind to git him off to one side an' give him a good straight talk. He ain't like that Steve. Why, doggone it! I couldn't feel no worse about findin' out he's headed wrong, if he was my own boy. An' if he was my own boy, it would be my job to talk things over with him an' try to steer him straight, instead of layin' for to catch him in some crooked work an' send him over the road for it. By gum, I'll do it, too! An' I'll give it to him right straight, without no fancy trimmin's neither. Tonight'll be a good time when him an' I'll be alone."

His cogitations had carried him to within a mile of Camp Two, which the trail carefully avoided, when suddenly, at the bottom of a deep ravine, a man stepped in front of him:

"Hands up!" It was some seconds before Saginaw realized that he was staring straight into the muzzle of a rifle that the man held within six inches of his nose. Two other men stepped from behind trees and joined the leader.

"Makes a difference which end of the gun yer at when ye hear them words, don't it?" sneered the man, and in the deep twilight of the thick woods Saginaw recognized the men as the three I. W. W.'s that he and Connie had arrested in their attempt to burn the stable. Also he recognized the boss's rifle.

"Where's Hurley?" he cried, as full realization of the situation forced itself upon him.

"I said _'hands up'!_" reminded the man with the gun, "an' I meant it. An' if I wus you I'd put 'em up. I guess when we git through with ye ye'll think twict before ye lock folks up in a oat house to freeze to death all night--you an' that smart alec kid."

"Where's Hurley?" repeated Saginaw, with arms upraised.

The man laughed, coarsely: "Hurley, we fixed his clock fer him. An' we'll fix yourn, too. We'll learn ye to fool with the I. W. W. when it's a-goin' about its business. An' we'll learn everyone else, too. We're stronger 'n the law, an' stronger 'n the Government, an' when we git ready we'll show the bosses an' the capitalists where to git off at!"

"You're a bunch of dirty crooks, an' thieves, an' murderers--an' you ain't got the brains to show nobody nawthin'."

"Search him!" commanded the leader, his face livid with rage. "We'll show you somethin', 'fore we git through with you--jest like we showed Hurley. Come on, now, git a move on. We got to see a party an' git holt of some grub. 'Fore we git started, though, ye kin jest take off them snow-shoes, I kin use 'em myself, an' you kin see how it feels to waller through the snow like we be'n doin'." The transfer was soon accomplished, and marching Saginaw before them, the three headed off at a right angle from the trail.