The Blazed Trail

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"Why, it's great! It's better than any book I ever read!"

He wanted to know what he could do to help.

"Nothing except keep quiet," replied Thorpe, already uneasy, not
lest the boy should prove unreliable, but lest his very eagerness
to seem unconcerned should arouse suspicion. "You mustn't try to
act any different. If the men from up-river come by, be just as
cordial to them as you can, and don't act mysterious and important."

"All right," agreed Wallace, bubbling with excitement. "And then
what do you do--after you get the timber estimated?"

"I'll go South and try, quietly, to raise some money. That will be
difficult, because, you see, people don't know me; and I am not in
a position to let them look over the timber. Of course it will be
merely a question of my judgment. They can go themselves to the
Land Office and pay their money. There won't be any chance of my
making way with that. The investors will become possessed of certain
'descriptions' lying in this country, all right enough. The rub is,
will they have enough confidence in me and my judgment to believe the
timber to be what I represent it?"

"I see," commented Wallace, suddenly grave.

That evening Injin Charley went on with his canoe building. He
melted together in a pot, resin and pitch. The proportion he
determined by experiment, for the mixture had to be neither hard
enough to crack nor soft enough to melt in the sun. Then he daubed
the mess over all the seams. Wallace superintended the operation
for a time in silence.

"Harry," he said suddenly with a crisp decision new to his voice,
"will you take a little walk with me down by the dam. I want to
talk with you."

They strolled to the edge of the bank and stood for a moment
looking at the swirling waters.

"I want you to tell me all about logging," began Wallace. "Start
from the beginning. Suppose, for instance, you had bought this pine
here we were talking about,--what would be your first move?"

They sat side by side on a log, and Thorpe explained. He told of
the building of the camps, the making of the roads; the cutting,
swamping, travoying, skidding; the banking and driving. Unconsciously
a little of the battle clang crept into his narrative. It became a
struggle, a gasping tug and heave for supremacy between the man and
the wilderness. The excitement of war was in it. When he had
finished, Wallace drew a deep breath.

"When I am home," said he simply, "I live in a big house on the
Lake Shore Drive. It is heated by steam and lighted by electricity.
I touch a button or turn a screw, and at once I am lighted and warmed.
At certain hours meals are served me. I don't know how they are
cooked, or where the materials come from. Since leaving college I
have spent a little time down town every day; and then I've played
golf or tennis or ridden a horse in the park. The only real thing
left is the sailing. The wind blows just as hard and the waves mount
just as high to-day as they did when Drake sailed. All the rest is
tame. We do little imitations of the real thing with blue ribbons
tied to them, and think we are camping or roughing it. This life
of yours is glorious, is vital, it means something in the march of
the world;--and I doubt whether ours does. You are subduing the
wilderness, extending the frontier. After you will come the backwoods
farmer to pull up the stumps, and after him the big farmer and the
cities."

The young follow spoke with unexpected swiftness and earnestness.
Thorpe looked at him in surprise.

"I know what you are thinking," said the boy, flushing. "You are
surprised that I can be in earnest about anything. I'm out of school
up here. Let me shout and play with the rest of the children."

Thorpe watched him with sympathetic eyes, but with lips that
obstinately refused to say one word. A woman would have felt
rebuffed. The boy's admiration, however, rested on the foundation
of the more manly qualities he had already seen in his friend.
Perhaps this very aloofness, this very silent, steady-eyed power
appealed to him.

"I left college at nineteen because my father died," said he. "I
am now just twenty-one. A large estate descended to me, and I have
had to care for its investments all alone. I have one sister,that
is all."

"So have I," cried Thorpe, and stopped.

"The estates have not suffered," went on the boy simply. "I have
done well with them. But," he cried fiercely, "I HATE it! It is
petty and mean and worrying and nagging! That's why I was so glad
to get out in the woods."

He paused.

"Have some tobacco," said Thorpe.

Wallace accepted with a nod.

"Now, Harry, I have a proposal to make to you. It is this; you
need thirty thousand dollars to buy your land. Let me supply it,
and come in as half partner."

An expression of doubt crossed the landlooker's face.

"Oh PLEASE!" cried the boy, "I do want to get in something real!
It will be the making of me!"

"Now see here," interposed Thorpe suddenly, "you don't even know
my name."

"I know YOU," replied the boy.

"My name is Harry Thorpe," pursued the other. "My father was
Henry Thorpe, an embezzler."

"Harry," replied Wallace soberly, "I am sorry I made you say that.
I do not care for your name--except perhaps to put it in the articles
of partnership,--and I have no concern with your ancestry. I tell
you it is a favor to let me in on this deal. I don't know anything
about lumbering, but I've got eyes. I can see that big timber
standing up thick and tall, and I know people make profits in the
business. It isn't a question of the raw material surely, and you
have experience."

"Not so much as you think," interposed Thorpe.

"There remains," went on Wallace without attention to Thorpe's
remark, "only the question of---"

"My honesty," interjected Thorpe grimly.

"No!" cried the boy hotly, "of your letting me in on a good thing!"

Thorpe considered a few moments in silence.

"Wallace," he said gravely at last, "I honestly do think that
whoever goes into this deal with me will make money. Of course
there's always chances against it. But I am going to do my best.
I've seen other men fail at it, and the reason they've failed is
because they did not demand success of others and of themselves.
That's it; success! When a general commanding troops receives a
report on something he's ordered done, he does not trouble himself
with excuses;--he merely asks whether or not the thing was
accomplished. Difficulties don't count. It is a soldier's duty
to perform the impossible. Well, that's the way it ought to be with
us. A man has no right to come to me and say, 'I failed because
such and such things happened.' Either he should succeed in spite
of it all; or he should step up and take his medicine without
whining. Well, I'm going to succeed!"

The man's accustomed aloofness had gone. His eye flashed, his brow
frowned, the muscles of his cheeks contracted under his beard. In
the bronze light of evening he looked like a fire-breathing statue
to that great ruthless god he had himself invoked,--Success.

Wallace gazed at him with fascinated admiration.

"Then you will?" he asked tremulously.

"Wallace," he replied again, "they'll say you have been the victim
of an adventurer, but the result will prove them wrong. If I weren't
perfectly sure of this, I wouldn't think of it, for I like you, and
I know you want to go into this more out of friendship for me and
because your imagination is touched, than from any business sense.
But I'll accept, gladly. And I'll do my best!"

"Hooray!" cried the boy, throwing his cap up in the air. "We'll do
'em up in the first round!"

At last when Wallace Carpenter reluctantly quitted his friends on
the Ossawinamakee, he insisted on leaving with them a variety of
the things he had brought.

"I'm through with them," said he. "Next time I come up here we'll
have a camp of our own, won't we, Harry? And I do feel that I am
awfully in you fellows' debt. You've given me the best time I have
ever had in my life, and you've refused payment for the moccasins
and things you've made for me. I'd feel much better if you'd accept
them,--just as keepsakes."

"All right, Wallace," replied Thorpe, "and much obliged."

"Don't forget to come straight to me when you get through estimating,
now, will you? Come to the house and stay. Our compact holds now,
honest Injin; doesn't it?" asked the boy anxiously.

"Honest Injin," laughed Thorpe. "Good-by."

The little canoe shot away down the current. The last Injin Charley
and Thorpe saw of the boy was as he turned the curve. His hat was
off and waving in his hand, his curls were blowing in the breeze,
his eyes sparkled with bright good-will, and his lips parted in a
cheery halloo of farewell.

"Him nice boy," repeated Injin CharIey, turning to his canoe.

Chapter XX

Thus Thorpe and the Indian unexpectedly found themselves in the
possession of luxury. The outfit had not meant much to Wallace
Carpenter, for he had bought it in the city, where such things are
abundant and excite no remark; but to the woodsman each article
possessed a separate and particular value. The tent, an iron
kettle, a side of bacon, oatmeal, tea, matches, sugar, some canned
goods, a box of hard-tack,--these, in the woods, represented wealth.
Wallace's rifle chambered the .38 Winchester cartridge, which was
unfortunate, for Thorpe's .44 had barely a magazineful left.

The two men settled again into their customary ways of life. Things
went much as before, except that the flies and mosquitoes became
thick. To men as hardened as Thorpe and the Indian, these pests
were not as formidable as they would have been to anyone directly
from the city, but they were sufficiently annoying. Thorpe's old
tin pail was pressed into service as a smudge-kettle. Every evening
about dusk, when the insects first began to emerge from the dark
swamps, Charley would build a tiny smoky fire in the bottom of
the pail, feeding it with peat, damp moss, punk maple, and other
inflammable smoky fuel. This censer swung twice or thrice about the
tent, effectually cleared it. Besides, both men early established on
their cheeks an invulnerable glaze of a decoction of pine tar, oil,
and a pungent herb. Towards the close of July, however, the insects
began sensibly to diminish, both in numbers and persistency.

Up to the present Thorpe had enjoyed a clear field. Now two men
came down from above and established a temporary camp in the woods
half a mile below the dam. Thorpe soon satisfied himself that they
were picking out a route for the logging road. Plenty which could
be cut and travoyed directly to the banking ground lay exactly
along the bank of the stream; but every logger possessed of a tract
of timber tries each year to get in some that is easy to handle and
some that is difficult. Thus the average of expense is maintained.

The two men, of course, did not bother themselves with the timber
to be travoyed, but gave their entire attention to that lying
further back. Thorpe was enabled thus to avoid them entirely. He
simply transferred his estimating to the forest by the stream. Once
he met one of the men; but was fortunately in a country that lent
itself to his pose of hunter. The other he did not see at all.

But one day he heard him. The two up-river men were following
carefully but noisily the bed of a little creek. Thorpe happened to
be on the side-hill, so he seated himself quietly until they should
have moved on down. One of the men shouted to the other, who,
crashing through a thicket, did not hear. "Ho-o-o! DYER!" the
first repeated. "Here's that infernal comer; over here!"

"Yop!" assented the other. "Coming!"

Thorpe recognized the voice instantly as that of Radway's scaler.
His hand crisped in a gesture of disgust. The man had always been
obnoxious to him.

Two days later he stumbled on their camp. He paused in wonder at
what he saw.

The packs lay open, their contents scattered in every direction.
The fire had been hastily extinguished with a bucket of water,
and a frying pan lay where it had been overturned. If the thing
had been possible, Thorpe would have guessed at a hasty and
unpremeditated flight.

He was about to withdraw carefully lest he be discovered, when
he was startled by a touch on his elbow. It was Injin Charley.

"Dey go up river," he said. "I come see what de row."

The Indian examined rapidly the condition of the little camp.

"Dey look for somethin'," said he, making his hand revolve as
though rummaging, and indicating the packs.

"I t'ink dey see you in de woods," he concluded. "Dey go camp
gettum boss. Boss he gone on river trail two t'ree hour."

"You're right, Charley," replied Thorpe, who had been drawing his
own conclusions. "One of them knows me. They've been looking in
their packs for their note-books with the descriptions of these
sections in them. Then they piled out for the boss. If I know
anything at all, the boss'll make tracks for Detroit."

"W'ot you do?" asked Injin Charley curiously.

"I got to get to Detroit before they do; that's all."

Instantly the Indian became all action.

"You come," he ordered, and set out at a rapid pace for camp.

There, with incredible deftness, he packed together about twelve
pounds of the jerked venison and a pair of blankets, thrust Thorpe's
waterproof match safe in his pocket, and turned eagerly to the
young man.

"You come," he repeated.

Thorpe hastily unearthed his "descriptions" and wrapped them up.
The Indian, in silence, rearranged the displaced articles in such a
manner as to relieve the camp of its abandoned air.

It was nearly sundown. Without a word the two men struck off into
the forest, the Indian in the lead. Their course was southeast, but
Thorpe asked no questions. He followed blindly. Soon he found that
if he did even that adequately, he would have little attention left
for anything else. The Indian walked with long, swift strides, his
knees always slightly bent, even at the finish of the step, his back
hollowed, his shoulders and head thrust forward. His gait had a
queer sag in it, up and down in a long curve from one rise to the
other. After a time Thorpe became fascinated in watching before him
this easy, untiring lope, hour after hour, without the variation of
a second's fraction in speed nor an inch in length. It was as though
the Indian were made of steel springs. He never appeared to hurry;
but neither did he ever rest.

At first Thorpe followed him with comparative ease, but at the end
of three hours he was compelled to put forth decided efforts to
keep pace. His walking was no longer mechanical, but conscious.
When it becomes so, a man soon tires. Thorpe resented the
inequalities, the stones, the roots, the patches of soft ground
which lay in his way. He felt dully that they were not fair. He
could negotiate the distance; but anything else was a gratuitous
insult.

Then suddenly he gained his second wind. He felt better and stronger
and moved freer. For second wind is only to a very small degree a
question of the breathing power. It is rather the response of the
vital forces to a will that refuses to heed their first grumbling
protests. Like dogs by the fire they do their utmost to convince
their master that the limit of freshness is reached; but at last,
under the whip, spring to their work.

At midnight Injin Charley called a halt. He spread his blanket;
leaned on one elbow long enough to eat strip of dried meat, and fell
asleep. Thorpe imitated his example. Three hours later the Indian
roused his companion, and the two set out again.

Thorpe had walked a leisurely ten days through the woods far to
the north. In that journey he had encountered many difficulties.
Sometimes he had been tangled for hours at a time in a dense and
almost impenetrable thicket. Again he had spent a half day in
crossing a treacherous swamp. Or there had interposed in his trail
abattises of down timber a quarter of a mile wide over which it had
been necessary to pick a precarious way eight or ten feet from the
ground.

This journey was in comparison easy. Most of the time the travellers
walked along high beech ridges or through the hardwood forests.
Occasionally they were forced to pass into the lowlands, but always
little saving spits of highland reaching out towards each other
abridged the necessary wallowing. Twice they swam rivers.

At first Thorpe thought this was because the country was more open;
but as he gave better attention to their route, he learned to
ascribe it entirely to the skill of his companion. The Indian
seemed by a species of instinct to select the most practicable
routes. He seemed to know how the land ought to lie, so that he was
never deceived by appearances into entering a cul de sac. His beech
ridges always led to other beech ridges; his hardwood never petered
out into the terrible black swamps. Sometimes Thorpe became sensible
that they had commenced a long detour; but it was never an abrupt
detour, unforeseen and blind.

From three o'clock until eight they walked continually without a
pause, without an instant's breathing spell. Then they rested a
half hour, ate a little venison, and smoked a pipe.

An hour after noon they repeated the rest. Thorpe rose with a
certain physical reluctance. The Indian seemed as fresh--or as
tired--as when he started. At sunset they took an hour. Then
forward again by the dim intermittent light of the moon and stars
through the ghostly haunted forest, until Thorpe thought he would
drop with weariness, and was mentally incapable of contemplating
more than a hundred steps in advance.

"When I get to that square patch of light, I'll quit," he would
say to himself, and struggle painfully the required twenty rods.

"No, I won't quit here," he would continue, "I'll make it that
birch. Then I'll lie down and die."

And so on. To the actual physical exhaustion of Thorpe's muscles
was added that immense mental weariness which uncertainty of the
time and distance inflicts on a man. The journey might last a week,
for all he knew. In the presence of an emergency these men of action
had actually not exchanged a dozen words. The Indian led; Thorpe
followed.

When the halt was called, Thorpe fell into his blanket too weary
even to eat. Next morning sharp, shooting pains, like the stabs
of swords, ran through his groin.

"You come," repeated the Indian, stolid as ever.

When the sun was an hour high the travellers suddenly ran into a
trail, which as suddenly dived into a spruce thicket. On the other
side of it Thorpe unexpectedly found himself in an extensive
clearing, dotted with the blackened stumps of pines. Athwart the
distance he could perceive the wide blue horizon of Lake Michigan.
He had crossed the Upper Peninsula on foot!

"Boat come by to-day," said Injin Charley, indicating the tall stacks
of a mill. "Him no stop. You mak' him stop take you with him.
You get train Mackinaw City tonight. Dose men, dey on dat train."

Thorpe calculated rapidly. The enemy would require, even with their
teams, a day to cover the thirty miles to the fishing village of
Munising, whence the stage ran each morning to Seney, the present
terminal of the South Shore Railroad. He, Thorpe, on foot and three
hours behind, could never have caught the stage. But from Seney
only one train a day was despatched to connect at Mackinaw City with
the Michigan Central, and on that one train, due to leave this very
morning, the up-river man was just about pulling out. He would arrive
at Mackinaw City at four o'clock of the afternoon, where he would be
forced to wait until eight in the evening. By catching a boat at the
mill to which Injin Charley had led him, Thorpe could still make the
same train. Thus the start in the race for Detroit's Land Office
would be fair.

"All right," he cried, all his energy returning to him. "Here
goes! We'll beat him out yet!"

"You come back?" inquired the Indian, peering with a certain anxiety
into his companion's eyes.

"Come back!" cried Thorpe. "You bet your hat!"

"I wait," replied the Indian, and was gone.

"Oh, Charley!" shouted Thorpe in surprise. "Come on and get a square
meal, anyway."

But the Indian was already on his way back to the distant
Ossawinamakee.

Thorpe hesitated in two minds whether to follow and attempt further
persuasion, for he felt keenly the interest the other had displayed.
Then he saw, over the headland to the east, a dense trail of black
smoke. He set off on a stumbling run towards the mill.

Chapter XXI

He arrived out of breath in a typical little mill town consisting
of the usual unpainted houses, the saloons, mill, office, and
general store. To the latter he addressed himself for information.

The proprietor, still sleepy, was mopping out the place.

"Does that boat stop here?" shouted Thorpe across the suds.

"Sometimes," replied the man somnolently.

"Not always?"

"Only when there's freight for her."

"Doesn't she stop for passengers?"

"Nope."

"How does she know when there's freight?"

"Oh, they signal her from the mill--" but Thorpe was gone.

At the mill Thorpe dove for the engine room. He knew that elsewhere
the clang of machinery and the hurry of business would leave scant
attention for him. And besides, from the engine room the signals
would be given. He found, as is often the case in north-country
sawmills, a Scotchman in charge.

"Does the boat stop here this morning?" he inquired.

"Weel," replied the engineer with fearful deliberation, "I canna
say. But I hae received na orders to that effect."

"Can't you whistle her in for me?" asked Thorpe.

"I canna," answered the engineer, promptly enough this time.

"Why not?"

"Ye're na what a body might call freight."

"No other way out of it?"

"Na."

Thorpe was seized with an idea.

"Here!" he cried. See that boulder over there? I want to ship that
to Mackinaw City by freight on this boat."

The Scotchman's eyes twinkled appreciatively.

"I'm dootin' ye hae th' freight-bill from the office," he objected
simply.

"See here," replied Thorpe, "I've just got to get that boat. It's
worth twenty dollars to me, and I'll square it with the captain.
There's your twenty."

The Scotchman deliberated, looking aslant at the ground and
thoughtfully oiling a cylinder with a greasy rag.

"It'll na be a matter of life and death?" he asked hopefully. "She
aye stops for life and death."

"No," replied Thorpe reluctantly. Then with an explosion, "Yes, by
God, it is! If I don't make that boat, I'll kill YOU."

The Scotchman chuckled and pocketed the money. "I'm dootin' that's
in order," he replied. "I'll no be party to any such proceedin's.
I'm goin' noo for a fresh pail of watter," he remarked, pausing at
the door, "but as a wee item of information: yander's th' wheestle
rope; and a mon wheestles one short and one long for th' boat."

He disappeared. Thorpe seized the cord and gave the signal. Then
he ran hastily to the end of the long lumber docks, and peered with
great eagerness in the direction of the black smoke.

The steamer was as yet concealed behind a low spit of land which
ran out from the west to form one side of the harbor. In a moment,
however, her bows appeared, headed directly down towards the Straits
of Mackinaw. When opposite the little bay Thorpe confidently looked
to see her turn in, but to his consternation she held her course.
He began to doubt whether his signal had been heard. Fresh black
smoke poured from the funnel; the craft seemed to gather speed as
she approached the eastern point. Thorpe saw his hopes sailing away.
He wanted to stand up absurdly and wave his arms to attract attention
at that impossible distance. He wanted to sink to the planks in
apathy. Finally he sat down, and with dull eyes watched the distance
widen between himself and his aims.

And then with a grand free sweep she turned and headed directly for
him.

Other men might have wept or shouted. Thorpe merely became himself,
imperturbable, commanding, apparently cold. He negotiated briefly
with the captain, paid twenty dollars more for speed and the
privilege of landing at Mackinaw City. Then he slept for eight
hours on end and was awakened in time to drop into a small boat
which deposited him on the broad sand beach of the lower peninsula.

Chapter XXII

The train was just leisurely making up for departure. Thorpe,
dressed as he was in old "pepper and salt" garments patched with
buckskin, his hat a flopping travesty on headgear, his moccasins,
worn and dirty, his face bearded and bronzed, tried as much as
possible to avoid attention. He sent an instant telegram to
Wallace Carpenter conceived as follows:

"Wire thirty thousand my order care Land Office, Detroit, before
nine o'clock to-morrow morning. Do it if you have to rustle all
night. Important."

Then he took a seat in the baggage car on a pile of boxes and
philosophically waited for the train to start. He knew that sooner
or later the man, provided he were on the train, would stroll through
the car, and he wanted to be out of the way. The baggage man proved
friendly, so Thorpe chatted with him until after bedtime. Then he
entered the smoking car and waited patiently for morning.

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