Chapter VI: The I. W. W. Shows Its Hand

"Changed yer job?" inquired Saginaw Ed, sleepily a few mornings later when Connie slipped quietly from his bunk and lighted the oil lamp.

"Not yet," smiled the boy. "Why?"

"No one but teamsters gits up at this time of night--you got an hour to sleep yet."

"This is the first day of the season, and I'm going out and get a deer."

Saginaw laughed: "Oh, yer goin' out an' git a deer--jest like rollin' off a log! You might's well crawl back in bed an' wait fer a snow. Deer huntin' without snow is like fishin' without bait--you might snag onto one, but the chances is all again' it."

"Bet I'll kill a deer before I get back," laughed the boy.

"Better pack up yer turkey an' fix to stay a long time then," twitted Saginaw. "But, I won't bet--it would be like stealin'--an' besides, I lost one bet on you a'ready."

The teamsters, their lanterns swinging, were straggling toward the stable as the boy crossed the clearing.

"Hey, w'at you gon keel, de bear-cat?" called Frenchy.

"Deer," answered Connie with a grin.

"Ho! She ain' no good for hont de deer! She too mooch no snow. De groun' she too mooch dry. De deer, she hear you comin' wan mile too queek, den she ron way ver' fas', an' you no kin track heem."

"Never mind about that," parried the boy, "I'll be in tonight, and in the morning you can go out and help me pack in the meat."

"A'm help you breeng in de meat, a'ri. Ba Goss! A'm lak A'm git to bite me on chonk dat _venaison_."

Connie proceeded as rapidly as the darkness would permit to the shore of a marshy lake some three or four miles from camp, and secreted himself behind a windfall, thirty yards from the trail made by the deer in going down to drink. Just at daybreak a slight sound attracted his attention, and peering through the screen of tangled branches, the boy saw a large doe picking her way cautiously down the trail. He watched in silence as she advanced, halted, sniffed the air suspiciously, and passed on to the water's edge. Lowering her head, she rubbed an inquisitive nose upon the surface of the thin ice that sealed the shallow bay of the little lake. A red tongue darted out and licked at the ice and she pawed daintily at it with a small front foot. Then, raising the foot, she brought it sharply down, and the knifelike hoof cut through the ice as though it were paper. Pleased with the performance she pawed again and again, throwing the cold water in every direction and seeming to find great delight in crushing the ice into the tiniest fragments. Tiring of this, she paused and sniffed the air, turning her big ears backward and forward to catch the slightest sound that might mean danger. Then, she drank her fill, made her way back up the trail, and disappeared into the timber. A short time later another, smaller doe followed by a spring fawn, went down, and allowing them to pass unharmed, Connie settled himself to wait for worthier game. An hour passed during which the boy ate part of the liberal lunch with which the cook had provided him. Just as he had about given up hope of seeing any further game, a sharp crackling of twigs sounded directly before him, and a beautiful five-prong buck broke into the trail and stood with uplifted head and nostrils a-quiver. Without taking his eyes from the buck, Connie reached for his rifle, but just as he raised it from the ground its barrel came in contact with a dry branch which snapped with a sound that rang in the boy's ears like the report of a cannon. With a peculiar whistling snort of fear, the buck turned and bounded crashing away through the undergrowth. Connie lowered the rifle whose sights had been trained upon the white "flag" that bobbed up and down until it was lost in the thick timber.

"No use taking a chance shot," he muttered, disgustedly. "If I should hit him I would only wound him, and I couldn't track him down without snow. I sure am glad nobody was along to see that, or they never would have quit joshing me about it." Shouldering his rifle he proceeded leisurely toward another lake where he had spotted a water-trail, and throwing himself down behind a fallen log, slept for several hours. When he awoke the sun was well into the west and he finished his lunch and made ready to wait for his deer, taking good care this time that no twig or branch should interfere with the free use of his gun.

At sunset a four-prong buck made his way cautiously down the trail and, waiting 'til the animal came into full view, Connie rested his rifle across the log and fired at a point just behind the shoulder. It was a clean shot, straight through the heart, and it was but the work of a few moments to bleed, and draw him. Although not a large buck, Connie found that it was more than he could do to hang him clear of the wolves, so he resorted to the simple expedient of peeling a few saplings and laying them across the carcass. This method is always safe where game or meat must be left exposed for a night or two, as the prowlers fear a trap. However, familiarity breeds contempt, and if left too long, some animal is almost sure to discover the ruse.

Packing the heart, liver, and tongue, Connie struck out swiftly for camp, but darkness overtook him with a mile still to go.

As he approached the clearing a low sound caused him to stop short. He listened and again he heard it distinctly--the sound of something heavy moving through the woods. The sounds grew momentarily more distinct--whatever it was was approaching the spot where he stood. A small, thick windfall lay near him, and beside it a large spruce spread its low branches invitingly near the ground. With hardly a sound Connie, pack, gun, and all, scrambled up among those thick branches and seated himself close to the trunk. The sounds drew nearer, and the boy could hear fragments of low-voiced conversation. The night prowlers were men, not animals! Connie's interest increased. There seemed to be several of them, but how many the boy could not make out in the darkness. Presently the leader crashed heavily into the windfall where he floundered for a moment in the darkness.

"This is fer enough. Stick it in under here!" he growled, as the others came up with him. Connie heard sounds as of a heavy object being pushed beneath the interlaced branches of the windfall but try as he would he could not catch a glimpse of it. Suddenly the faces of the men showed vividly as one of their number held a match to the bowl of his pipe. They were the three I. W. W.'s and with them was Steve! "Put out that match you eediot! D'ye want the hull camp a pokin' their nose in our business?"

"'Tain't no one kin see way out here," growled the other, whom Connie recognized as Pierce.

"It's allus fellers like you that knows more'n any one else, that don't know nawthin'," retorted the first speaker, "come on, now, we got to git back. Remember--'leven o'clock on the furst night the wind blows stiff from the west. You, Steve, you tend to swipin' Frenchy's lantern. Pierce here, he'll soak the straw, an' Sam, you stand ready to drive a plug in the lock when I come out. Then when the excitement's runnin' high, I'll holler that Frenchy's lantern's missin' an' they'll think he left it lit in the stable. I tell ye, we'll terrorize every business in these here United States. We'll have 'em all down on their knees to the I. W. W.! Then we'll see who's the bosses an' the rich! We'll hinder the work, an' make it cost 'em money, an' Pierce here'll git even with Frenchy, all in one clatter. We'll be gittin' back, now. An' don't all pile into the men's camp to onct, neither."

Connie sat motionless upon his branch until the sounds of the retreating men were lost in the darkness. What did it all mean? "Swipe Frenchy's lantern." "Plug the lock." "Soak the straw." "Terrorize business." The words of the man repeated themselves over and over in Connie's brain. What was this thing these men were planning to do "at eleven o'clock the first night the wind blows stiff from the west?" He wriggled to the ground and crept toward the thing the men had _cached_ in the windfall. It was a five-gallon can of coal-oil! "That's Steve's part of the scheme, whatever it is," he muttered. "He's got a key to the storehouse." Leaving the can undisturbed, he struck out for camp, splashing through the waters of a small creek without noticing it, so busy was his brain trying to fathom the plan of the gang. "I've got all day tomorrow, at least," he said, "and that'll give me time to think. I won't tell even Saginaw 'til I've got it doped out. I bet when they try to start something they'll find out who's going to be terrorized!" A few minutes later he entered the office and was greeted vociferously by Saginaw Ed:

"Hello there, son, by jiminetty, I thought you'd took me serious when I told you you'd better make a long stay of it. What ye got there? Well, dog my cats, if you didn't up an' git you a deer! Slip over to the cook's camp an' wade into some grub. I told him to shove yer supper onto the back of the range, again' you got back. While yer gone I'll jest run a couple rags through yer rifle."

When Connie returned from the cook's camp Saginaw was squinting down the barrel of the gun. "Shines like a streak of silver," he announced; "Hurley's mighty pernickety about his rifle, an' believe me, it ain't everyone he'd borrow it to. Tell me 'bout yer hunt," urged the man, and Connie saw a gleam of laughter in his eye. "Killed yer deer dead centre at seven hundred yards, runnin' like greased lightnin', an' the underbrush so thick you couldn't hardly see yer sights, I 'pose."

The boy laughed: "I got him dead centre, all right, but it was a standing shot at about twenty yards, and I had a rest. He's only a four-prong--I let a five-prong get away because I was clumsy."

Saginaw Ed eyed the boy quizzically: "Say, kid," he drawled. "Do you know where folks goes that tells the truth about huntin'?"

"No," grinned Connie.

"Well, I don't neither," replied Saginaw, solemnly. "I guess there ain't no place be'n pervided, but if they has, I bet it's gosh-awful lonesome there."

Despite the volubility of his companion, Connie was unusually silent during the short interval that elapsed before they turned in. Over and over in his mind ran the words of the four men out there in the dark, as he tried to figure out their scheme from the fragmentary bits of conversation that had reached his ears.

"Don't mope 'cause you let one buck git away, kid. Gosh sakes, the last buck I kilt, I got so plumb rattled when I come onto him, I missed him eight foot!"

"How did you kill him then?" asked Connie, and the instant the words were spoken he realized he had swallowed the bait--hook and all.

With vast solemnity, Saginaw stared straight before him: "Well, you see, it was the last shell in my rifle an' I didn't have none in my pocket, so I throw'd the gun down an' snuck up an' bit him on the lip. If ever you run onto a deer an' ain't got no gun, jest you sneak up in front of him an' bite him on the lip, an' he's yourn. I don't know no other place you kin bite a deer an' kill him. They're like old Acolyte, or whatever his name was, in the Bible, which they couldn't kill him 'til they shot him in the heel--jest one heel, mind you, that his ma held him up by when she dipped him into the kettle of bullet-proof. If he'd of be'n me, you bet I'd of beat it for the Doc an' had that leg cut off below the knee, an' a wooden one made, an' he'd of be'n goin' yet! I know a feller's got two wooden ones, with shoes on 'em jest like other folks, and when you see him walk the worst you'd think: he's got a couple of corns."

"Much obliged, Saginaw," said Connie, with the utmost gravity, as he arose and made ready for bed, "I'll sure remember that. Anyhow you don't need to worry about any solitary confinement in the place where the deer hunters go." And long after he was supposed to be asleep, the boy grinned to himself at the sounds of suppressed chuckling that came from Saginaw's bunk.

Next morning Connie helped Frenchy pack in the deer, and when the teamster had returned to his work, the boy took a stroll about camp. "Let's see," he mused, "they're going to soak the straw inside the stable with oil and set fire to it on the inside, and they'll do it with Frenchy's lantern so everyone will think he forgot it and it got tipped over by accident. Then, before the fire is discovered they'll lock the stable and jam the lock so the men can't get in to fight it." The boy's teeth gritted savagely. "And there are sixteen horses in that stable!" he cried. "The dirty hounds! A west wind would sweep the flames against the oat house, then the men's camp, and the cook's camp and storehouse. They sure do figure on a clean sweep of this camp. But, what I can't see is how that is going to put any one in terror of the I. W. W., if they think Frenchy caused the fire accidentally. Dan McKeever says all crooks are fools--and he's right." He went to the office and sat for a long time at his pine desk. From his turkey he extracted the Service revolver that he had been allowed to keep in memory of his year with the Mounted. "I can take this," he muttered, as he affectionately twirled the smoothly running cylinder with his thumb, "and Saginaw can take the rifle, and we can nail 'em as they come out of the woods with the coal-oil can. The trouble is, we wouldn't have anything on them except maybe the theft of a little coal-oil. I know what they intend to do, but I can't prove it--there's four of them and only one of me and no evidence to back me up. On the other hand, if we let them start the fire, it might be too late to put it out." His eyes rested on the can that contained the supply of oil for the office. It was an exact duplicate of the one beneath the windfall. He jumped to his feet and crossing to the window carefully scanned the clearing. No one was in sight, and the boy passed out the door and slipped silently into the thick woods. When he returned the crew was crowding into the men's camp to wash up for supper. The wind had risen, and as Connie's gaze centred upon the lashing pine tops, he smiled grimly,--it was blowing stiffly from the west.

After supper Saginaw Ed listened with bulging eyes to what the boy had to say. When he was through the man eyed him critically:

"Listen to me, kid. Nonsense is nonsense, an' business is business. I don't want no truck with a man that ain't got some nonsense about him somewheres--an' I don't want no truck with one that mixes up nonsense an' serious business. Yer only a kid, an' mebbe you ain't grabbed that yet. But I want to tell you right here an' now, fer yer own good: If this here yarn is some gag you've rigged up to git even with me fer last night, it's a mighty bad one. A joke is a joke only so long as it don't harm no one----"

"Every word I've told you is the truth," broke in the boy, hotly.

"There, now, don't git excited, kid. I allowed it was, but they ain't no harm ever comes of makin' sure. It's eight o'clock now, s'pose we jest loaf over to the men's camp an' lay this here case before 'em."

"No! No!" cried the boy: "Why, they--they might kill them!"

"Well, I 'spect they would do somethin' of the kind. Kin you blame 'em when you stop to think of them horses locked in a blazin' stable, an' the deliberate waitin' 'til the wind was right to carry the fire to the men's camp? The men works hard, an' by eleven o'clock they're poundin' their ear mighty solid. S'pose they didn't wake up till too late--what then?"

Connie shuddered. In his heart he felt, with Saginaw Ed, that any summary punishment the men chose to deal out to the plotters would be richly deserved. "I know," he replied: "But, mob punishment is never _right_, when a case can be reached by the law. It may look right, and lots of times it does hand out a sort of rough justice. But, here we are not out of reach of the law, and it will go lots farther in showing up the I. W. W. if we let the law take its course."

Saginaw Ed seemed impressed: "That's right, kid, in the main. But there ain't no law that will fit this here special case. S'pose we go over an' arrest them hounds--what have we got on 'em! They swiped five gallons of coal-oil! That would git 'em mebbe thirty days in the county jail. The law can't reach a man fer what he's _goin'_ to do--an' I ain't a goin' over to the men's camp an' advise the boys to lay abed an' git roasted so's mebbe we kin git them I. W. W.'s hung. The play wouldn't be pop'lar."

Connie grinned: "Well, not exactly," he agreed. "But, why not just sit here and let them go ahead with their scheme. I've got a good revolver, and you can take the rifle, and we can wait for 'em in the tote wagon that's just opposite the stable door. Then when they've soaked the straw, and tipped over Frenchy's lantern, and locked the door behind 'em, and plugged the lock, we can cover 'em and gather 'em in."

"Yeh, an' meanwhile the fire'll be workin' on that oil-soaked straw inside, an' where'll the horses be? With this here wind a blowin' they ain't men enough in the woods to put out a fire, an' the hull camp would go."

Connie laughed, and leaning forward, spoke rapidly for several moments. When he had finished, Saginaw eyed him with undisguised approval: "Well, by jiminetty! Say, kid, you've got a head on you! That's jest the ticket! The courts of this State has jest begun to wake up to the fact that the I. W. W. is a real danger. A few cases, with the evidence as clean again' 'em as this, an' the stinkin' varmints 'll be huntin' their holes--you bet!"

At nine-thirty Saginaw and Connie put out the office light, and with some clothing arranged dummies in their bunks, so that if any of the conspirators should seek to spy upon them through the window they would find nothing to arouse their suspicion. Then, fully armed, they crept out and concealed themselves in the tote wagon. An hour passed, and through the slits cut in the tarpaulin that covered them, they saw four shadowy forms steal silently toward them from the direction of the men's camp. Avoiding even the feeble light of the stars, they paused in the shadow of the oat house, at a point not thirty feet from the tote wagon. A whispered conversation ensued and two of the men hastily crossed the open and disappeared into the timber.

"Stand still, can't ye!" hissed one of those who remained, and his companion ceased to pace nervously up and down in the shadow.

"I'm scairt," faltered the other, whom the watchers identified as Steve. "I wisht I wasn't in on this."

"Quit yer shiverin'! Yer makin' that lantern rattle. What they do to us, if they ketch us, hain't a patchin' to what we'll do to you if you back out." The man called Sam spat out his words in an angry whisper, and the two relapsed into silence.

At the end of a half-hour the two men who had entered the timber appeared before the door of the stable, bearing the oil can between them. The others quickly joined them, there was a fumbling at the lock, the door swung open, and three of the men entered. The fourth stood ready with the heavy padlock in his hand. A few moments of silence followed, and then the sound of the empty can thrown to the floor. A feeble flicker of flame dimly lighted the interior, and the three men who had entered rushed out into the night. The heavy door closed, the padlock snapped shut and a wooden plug was driven into the key hole.

"_Hands up!_" The words roared from the lips of Saginaw Ed, as he and Connie leaped to the ground and confronted the four at a distance of ten yards. For one terrified instant the men stared at the guns in their captors hands, and then four pairs of hands flew skyward.

"Face the wall, an' keep a reachin'," commanded Saginaw, "an' if any one of you goes to start somethin' they'll be wolf-bait in camp in about one second."

A horse snorted nervously inside the stable and there was a stamping of iron shod feet.

"Jest slip in an' fetch out Frenchy's lantern, kid, an' we'll git these birds locked up in the oat house, 'fore the men gits onto the racket."

With a light crow-bar which the boy had brought for the purpose, he pryed the hasp and staple from the door, leaving the plugged lock for evidence. Entering the stable whose interior was feebly illumined by the sickly flare of the overturned lantern, he returned in time to hear the petty bickering of the prisoners.

"It's your fault," whined Pierce, addressing the leader of the gang. "You figgered out this play--an' it hain't worked!"

"It hain't neither my fault!" flashed the man. "Some one of you's blabbed, an' we're in a pretty fix, now."

"'Twasn't me!" came in a chorus from the others.

"But at that," sneered Sam, "if you'd a lit that oil, we'd a burnt up the camp anyhow."

"I did light it!" screamed the leader, his face livid with rage. "I tipped over the lantern an' shoved it right under the straw."

"That's right," grinned Connie, from the doorway, as he flashed the lantern upon the faces of the men. "And if you hadn't taken the trouble to soak the straw with water it would have burned, too."

"Water! Whad' ye mean--water?"

"I mean just this," answered the boy, eyeing the men with a glance of supreme contempt, "I sat out there beside that windfall last night when you hid your can of oil. I listened to all you had to say, and today I slipped over there and poured out the oil and filled the can with water. You I. W. W.'s are a fine outfit," he sneered: "If you had some brains, and nerve, and consciences, you might almost pass for _men!_"