Chapter XVI: Slue Foot "comes Across"

As Connie pushed open the door he was greeted with a growl: "It's a doggone wonder ye wouldn't stay 'round an' tend to business onct in a while! Here I be'n waitin' half an' hour fer to git a plug of terbacker, an' you off kihootin' 'round the woods----"

"Save your growling, 'til someone's round to hear it," grinned the boy, as he produced the key to the chest. "Here's your tobacco, twenty cents' worth--makes thirty-two dollars and sixty cents, all told."

"Thirty-two sixty!" Slue Foot glared: "Thought Hurley's outfits never gouged the men on the wanagan?" he sneered. "My tab ain't over twenty-five dollars at the outside."

"Get it out of your system," retorted the boy. "You can't bluff me. Thirty-two sixty's down here. Thirty-two sixty's right--and you know it's right! What's on your mind? You didn't walk clear down from Camp Two for a twenty-cent plug of tobacco, when you've got the biggest part of a carton in your turkey."

With his back to the stove, the boss scowled at the boy! "Smart kid, ain't you?" The scowl faded from his face, an' he repeated: "Smart kid--an' that's why I tuk a notion to ye, an'--'" he paused abruptly and crossing to the window, took a position that commanded the clearing. "--an' let ye in on some extry money."

Connie nodded: "Yes, and it's about time you were loosening up on the proposition--you haven't let me in yet."

"Ain't let ye in!" exclaimed Slue Foot. "What ye mean, 'ain't let ye in'? How about shadin' the cut?"

"Shading the cut," exclaimed the boy, with contempt. "What's a couple of hundred dollars? That's a piker's job--Injun stealing! You promised to let me in on something big--now, come across."

Slue Foot stared at him: "Say, who's runnin' this, you? Yer all-fired cocky fer a kid. When I was your age a couple hundred dollars looked big as a township o' timber to me."

"Well, it don't to me," snapped the boy. "And you might as well come across."

Slue Foot advanced one threatening step: "Who d'ye think ye're talkin' to?" he roared. "I'll break ye in two!"

"And when I break, you break," smiled the boy. "Let me tell you this, Slue Foot Magee, I've got these books fixed so that if anything happens to me, your nose goes under, and all that's left is a string of bubbles--see? I've been doing some figuring lately, and I've decided the time's about right for me to get in on the other. According to the talk, it will be twenty or thirty days yet before the break-up. But, suppose the break-up should come early this year--early and sudden? You'd have your hands full and couldn't waste time on me. And besides you'd never let me in then, anyway. You're only letting me in because I'm supposed to furnish the dope on what's going on here. I'm playing safe--see the point?"

Slue Foot glowered: "An' what if I've changed my mind about lettin' ye in?" he asked truculently.

"Oh, then I'll just naturally sell your cut-shading scheme out to Hurley and his boss for what I can get--and let you stand the gaff."

Slue Foot's fists clenched, a big vein stood out upon his reddened forehead, and he seemed to swell visibly: "You--you'd double-cross me, would you?"

"Sure, I would," said the boy, "if you don't come through. Look here, Slue Foot, business is business. I wouldn't trust you as far as I can throw a saw log, and you may as well get that right now."

"How do I know you won't double-cross me on the big deal?" asked the man.

"Matter of figures," answered Connie. "You don't suppose Hurley and his boss would pay me as much as we can get out of the logs do you? Of course they won't--but they might agree to pay me as much as I'll get out of the cut-shading--especially if I tell them that you've got a bigger game up your sleeve. You might as well be reasonable. It'll be better all around if you and I understand each other. They're beginning to talk in here about the drive. If I don't know what your scheme is, how am I to know what to remember? I can't remember everything they say, and if I'm onto the game I can pick out what'll do us good, and not bother with the rest."

Once more Slue Foot took up his place by the window, and for some minutes the only sound in the little office was the ticking of the alarm clock. Finally the man spoke: "I figgered you was smart all right--smarter'n the run of kids. But I didn't figger you could out-figger me--or believe me, I'd of laid off of ye." The boss of Camp Two sat and scowled at the boy for several minutes. Then he spoke, sullenly at first, but as he warmed to his topic, the sullenness gave place to a sort of crafty enthusiasm--a fatuous pride in his cleverly planned scheme of fraud. "I was goin' to let ye in anyhow, so I s'pose it might's well be now as later. But, git this, right on the start: ye ain't bluffed me into takin' ye in, an' ye ain't scared me into it. You've augered me into it by common sense ... what ye said about they might come a sudden thaw, an' we'd be too busy to git together--an' about you knowin' what to remember of the talk that goes on here.

"It's like this: The logs is paint-branded, an' the mark of this outfit is the block-an'-ball in red on the butt end. They're branded on the landin's, an' I done the markin' myself. Last year Hurley inspected 'em an' so did Lon, an' they know the brands showed up big an' bright an' sassy. But when them logs reached the booms an' was sorted they wasn't near as many of them wearin' the red block-an'-ball as when they started--an' the difference is what I split up with the Syndicate--boom-toll free!"

"You mean," asked the boy, "that the Syndicate men changed the brands, or painted them out and painted their own over them?"

Slue Foot sneered. "Ye're pretty smart--some ways. But ye ain't smart enough to change a red block-an'-ball to a green tripple X. An' as fer paintin' over 'em, why if a log hit the big river with a brand painted out they'd be a howl go up that would rock the big yaller ball on top of the capital. No sir, it takes brains to make money loggin'. The big ones has stole and grabbed up into the millions--an' they do it accordin' to law--because they've got the money to make the law an' twist it to suit theirselves. They put up thousands fer lobbys an' legislaters, an' fer judges an' juries, an' they drag down millions. The whole timber game's a graft. The big operators grab water rights, an' timber rights, an' they even grab the rivers. An' they do it legal because they own the dummies that makes the laws. The little operator ain't got no show. If he don't own his own timber he has to take what he can get in stumpage contracks, an' whether he owns it or not they git him on water-tolls, an' when he hits the river there's boom-tolls an' sortin'-tolls, an' by the time he's got his logs to the mills an' sold accordin' to the boom scale he ain't got nawthin' left, but his britches--an' lucky to have them. All business is crooked. If everyone was honest they wouldn't be no millionaires. If a man's got a million, he's a crook. It ain't no worse fer us little ones to steal agin' the law, than it is fer the big ones to steal accordin' to law." Fairly started upon his favourite theme, Slue Foot worked himself into a perfect rage as he ranted on. "This here outfit's a little outfit," he continued. "It ain't got no show, nohow. I seen the chanct to git in on the graft an' I grabbed it--if I hadn't, the Syndicate would have had it all. An' besides I got a chance to git square with Hurley. They's two kinds of folks in the world--them that has, an' them that hain't. Them that has, has because they've retch out an' grabbed, an' them that hain't, hain't because they wasn't smart enough to hang onto what they did have." Connie listened with growing disgust to the wolfish diatribe. Slue Foot's eyes blazed as he drove his yellow fangs deep into his tobacco plug. "But people's wakin' up to their rights," he continued. "There's the Socialists an' the I. W. W.'s, they're partly right, an' partly wrong. The Socialists wants, as near as I kin make out, a equal distribution o' wealth--that ain't so bad, except that there's only a few of 'em, an' they'd be doin' all the work to let a lot of others that don't do nawthin', in on their share of the dividin'. What's the use of me a-workin' so someone else that don't help none gits a equal share? An' the I. W. W.'s is about as bad. They try to bust up everything, an' wreck, an' smash, an' tear down--that's all right, fer as it goes--but, what's it goin' to git 'em? Where do they git off at? They ain't figgered themselves into no profit by what they do. What's it goin' to git me if I burn down a saw-mill? I don't git the mill, do I? No--an' neither don't they. What I'm after is gittin' it off them that's got it, an' lettin' it stick to me. I ain't worryin' about no one else. It's every man fer hisself--an' I'm fer _me!_" The boss prodded himself in the chest, as he emphasized the last word. "An' if you want yourn, you'd better stick with me--we'll gather."

It was with difficulty that Connie masked the loathing he felt for this man whose creed was more despicable even than the creed of the organized enemies of society, for Slue Foot unhesitatingly indorsed all their viciousness, but discarded even their lean virtues.

For three years the boy's lot had been cast among men--rough men of the great outland. He had known good men and bad men, but never had he known a man whom he so utterly despised as this Slue Foot Magee. The bad men he had know were defiant in their badness, they flaunted the law to its face--all except Mr. Squigg, who was a sneak with the heart of a weasel, and didn't count. But this man, as bad as the worst of them, sought to justify his badness. Connie knew what Waseche Bill, or big MacDougall would have done if this human wolf had sought to persuade them to throw in with him on his dirty scheme, and he knew what Hurley or Saginaw Ed would do--and unconsciously, the boy's fists doubled. Then came the memory of McKeever and Ricky, the men of the Mounted with whom he had worked in the bringing of bad men to justice. What would McKeever do? The boy's fists relaxed. "He'd get him," he muttered under his breath. "He'd throw in with him, and find out all he could find out, and then he'd--_get him!_"

"Whut's that?" Slue Foot asked the question abruptly, and Connie faced him with a grin:

"Your dope sounds good to me," he said, "but come across with the scheme. Hurley or Saginaw may drop in here any time. If the Syndicate didn't change the brands, or paint over them, how did they work it?"

"They didn't work it--it was me that worked it. All they done was to furnish me the paint an' put their own marks on the logs after I'd got 'em into the big river, brand free. It's this way: Brandin' paint will stand water. You kin paint-brand a log here an' the brand will still be on it if it floats clean to New Orleans. That's the kind of paint Hurley furnished. An' that's the kind of paint that went on some of the logs. But another kind went on the rest of the logs. It was just as red an' just as purty lookin' as the other--while the logs stayed on the rollways. After they'd b'en in the water a while they wasn't no paint on 'em. German chemists mixed that paint--an' water'll take it off, like it'll take dirt offen a floor--easier 'cause you don't have to use no soap, an' you don't have to do no scrubbin'--it jest na'chelly melts an' floats off. Hurley bossed the rear end drive, an' when our crews got to the mills, the Syndicate had saw to it that all unbranded logs was took care of an' wore the green tripple X."

Connie nodded and Slue Foot continued: "Pretty slick, eh? But they's more to it than that. It's got to be worked right. I had to slip Long Leaf Olson the word when the rollways would be busted out so he could foul our drive an' git his logs in on the head end. Then, there was the dickerin' with the Syndicate. It took some rammin' around before I got next to old Heinie Metzger--he's the big boss of the Syndicate. I worked it through passin' myself off fer Hurley to a stuck-up young whipper-snapper name of von Kuhlmann, that's old Heinie's side-kick--confidential secretary, he calls him. Them Germans is slick, but at last we got together an' made the deal, an' they paid me all right, boom scale, when the logs was in. This here von Kuhlmann hisself slipped me the money--he's a funny galoot, always swelled up an' blowin' like he owned the world, an' always noddin' an' winkin', like they was somethin' he was holdin' out on ye, as if he know'd somethin' that no one else know'd--an' brag! You'd ort to hear him brag about Germany, like they wasn't no other reg'lar country, the rest of the world just bein' a kind of place that wasn't hardly worth mentionin'. They say the Syndicate stock is all owned in Germany, an' some of the cruisers that's worked fer 'em say it's a sight the amount of stuff they make 'em put in their reports. Accordin' to his job a cruiser or a land-looker is supposed to estimate timber. But the cruisers that works fer the Syndicate is supposed to report on everything from the number of box cars an' engines on the railroads, to the size of the towns, an' the number of folks in 'em that's Socialists an' I. W. W.'s. an' their name. They don't care nawthin about wastin' postage stamps, neither, 'cause all that stuff is sent over to Germany. What do they care over in the old country how many box cars is on some little old branch loggin' road in the timber country, or how many I. W. W.'s. lives in Thief River Falls?

"An speakin' of I. W. W.'s--them Germans is slick some ways, an' blamed fools in another. With the I. W. W.'s. threatenin' the timber interests, these here Germans, that owns more mills an' standin' timber than any one else, is eggin' 'em on an' slippin' 'em money to keep 'em goin'. The I. W. W.'s., don't know that--an' I wouldn't neither except fer a lucky accident, an' I cashed in on it, too." The man paused and grinned knowingly. "In Duluth, it was, we pulled off a meetin' right under the nose of the police, an' not one of 'em in the hall. Called it a Socialist meetin', an' word was passed that they was a feller name of Mueller, from Germany, a student that was wised up to every wrinkle from blowin' up dams to wipin' out the Government. He come with greetin's from the 'brothers acrost the sea,' he said, an' what was more to the point, he brung along a nice fat package of cash money which he claimed had be'n raised by subscription fer to help the cause over here. I listened an' kep' a studyin' about where I'd saw this here Mueller before, but it didn't stand to reason I had, an' him just over from Germany. But they was somethin' about him made me sure I know'd him. He was dressed cheap an' wore glasses half an inch thick, an' they hadn't no barber be'n into his hair fer quite a spell; he'd needed a shave fer about three weeks, too, an' he looked like a reg'lar b'ilin' out wouldn't of hurt him none. Anyways, before the meetin' was over, I'd spotted him, so 'long about midnight, after the meetin' had be'n over about an hour I loafs down to the hotel. It was a cheap dump, a hang-out fer lumberjacks an' lake sailors, an' I know'd the clerk an' didn't have no trouble gittin' to his room.

"'Hello, von Kuhlmann,' I says, when he opens the door, an' with a wild look up an' down the hall to see if any one had heard, he reaches out an' yanks me in. Tried to bluff it out first, but it wasn't no use." Slue Foot grinned: "I come out in about a half an hour with five hundred dollars in my jeans. These here 'brothers from acrost the sea' is sure some donaters when you git 'em where you want 'em--'course this here student business was all bunk. But, what I ain't never be'n able to git onto is, what in thunder does the Syndicate want to be slippin' the I. W. W. money fer?"

"Are you an I. W. W.?" Connie shot the question directly.

Slue Foot hesitated a moment and then answered evasively. "Git me right, kid, I'm anything that's agin' capital--an' I'm anything that's agin' the Government. First and foremostly, I'm fer Magee. No man kin make money by workin'. I've got money, an' I'm a-goin' to git more--an' I don't care how it's come by. I'm a wolf, an' I'll howl while the rabbit squeals! I'm a bird of prey! I'm a Government all my own! All Governments is birds of prey, an' beasts of prey. What do you see on their money, an' their seals, an' their flags--doves, an' rabbits, an' little fawns? No, it's eagles, an' bears, an' lions--beasts that rips, an' tears, an' crushes, an' kills!

"You're lucky to git to throw in with a man like me--to git started out right when yer young. If you wasn't smart, I wouldn't fool with ye, but I'll git mine, an' you'll git yourn--an' some day, von Kuhlmann's kind of let it slip, they's somethin' big comin' off. I don't know what he's drivin' at, but it's somethin' he's all-fired sure is a-goin' to happen--an' he's kind of hinted that when it comes he kin use a few like me to good advantage."

"What kind of a thing's coming off?"

"I jest told ye I don't know--mebbe the Syndicate's goin' to grab off all the timber they is, or mebbe it's figgerin' on grabbin' the hull Government, or the State--but whatever it is, he kin count on me bein' in on it--if he pays enough--an' by the time he pays it, I'd ort to know enough about the game so's I kin flop over to the other side an' sell him out. It's the ones that plays both ends from the middle that gits theirn--brains makes the money--not hands."

Slue Foot glanced out the window and turned to the boy. "Here comes Saginaw. When he gits here I'll growl an' you sass. Remember to keep your ears open an' find out when Hurley's goin' to break out the rollways, an' where he's goin' to deliver the logs. I've tended to the brandin'--if they's anything more I'll let ye know." Slue Foot paused and scowled darkly: "An' don't try to double-cross me! They ain't nothin' I've told ye that ye could prove anyhow. An' even if ye could, it's just as you said, this outfit won't pay ye as much as what you'll git out of the deal by playin' square with me."

The door opened and Saginaw Ed entered, to interrupt a perfect torrent of abuse from Slue Foot, and a rapid fire of recrimination from the boy. Presently the boss of Camp Two departed, threatening to have Connie fired for incompetence, as soon as he could get in a word with Hurley.

On the tote road at the edge of the clearing, Slue Foot turned and gazed at the little office. And as he gazed an evil smile twisted his lips: "Think yer awful smart, don't ye? Well, yer in on the scheme--'cause I need ye in. An' I'll use ye fer all there is in ye--but when cashin'-in time comes, yer goin' to be left whistlin' fer yourn--er my name ain't Slue Foot Magee!" Then the smile slowly faded from his face, and removing his cap, he thoughtfully scratched his head. "Only trouble is, he _is_ smart--an' where'll I git off at, if it turns out he's too _doggone_ smart?"