The Blazed Trail

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Blazed Trail

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The lawyer's eyes glimmered behind the lenses of his pince-nez;
but, with the caution of the professional man he made no other
sign of satisfaction.

"It would do very well indeed," he replied, "but you'd have to
prove they did the cutting, and you'll have to pay experts to
estimate the probable amount of the timber. Have you the
description of the section?"

"No," responded Thorpe, "but I can get it; and I can pick up
witnesses from the woodsmen as to the cutting."

"The more the better. It is rather easy to discredit the testimony
of one or two. How much, on a broad guess, would you estimate the
timber to come to?"

"There ought to be about eight or ten million," guessed Thorpe
after an instant's silence, "worth in the stump anywhere from
sixteen to twenty thousand dollars. It would cost me only eight
hundred to buy it."

"Do so, by all means. Get your documents and evidence all in shape,
and let me have them. I'll see that the suit is discontinued then.
Will you sue them?"

"No, I think not," replied Thorpe. "I'll just hold it back as a
sort of club to keep them in line."

The next day, he took the train north. He had something definite
and urgent to do, and, as always with practical affairs demanding
attention and resource, he threw himself whole-souled into the
accomplishment of it. By the time he had bought the sixteen forties
constituting the section, searched out a dozen witnesses to the
theft, and spent a week with the Marquette expert in looking over
the ground, he had fallen into the swing of work again. His
experience still ached; but dully.

Only now he possessed no interests outside of those in the new
country; no affections save the half-protecting, good-natured
comradeship with Wallace, the mutual self-reliant respect that
subsisted between Tim Shearer and himself, and the dumb,
unreasoning dog-liking he shared with Injin Charley. His eye
became clearer and steadier; his methods more simple and direct.
The taciturnity of his mood redoubled in thickness. He was less
charitable to failure on the part of subordinates. And the new
firm on the Ossawinamakee prospered.

Chapter XXXV

Five years passed.

In that time Thorpe had succeeded in cutting a hundred million feet
of pine. The money received for this had all been turned back into
the Company's funds. From a single camp of twenty-five men with
ten horses and a short haul of half a mile, the concern had
increased to six large, well-equipped communities of eighty to a
hundred men apiece, using nearly two hundred horses, and hauling
as far as eight or nine miles.

Near the port stood a mammoth sawmill capable of taking care of
twenty-two million feet a year, about which a lumber town had
sprung up. Lake schooners lay in a long row during the summer
months, while busy loaders passed the planks from one to the other
into the deep holds. Besides its original holding, the company had
acquired about a hundred and fifty million more, back near the
headwaters of tributaries to the Ossawinamakee. In the spring and
early summer months, the drive was a wonderful affair.

During the four years in which the Morrison & Daly Company shared
the stream with Thorpe, the two firms lived in complete amity and
understanding. Northrop had played his cards skillfully. The older
capitalists had withdrawn suit. Afterwards they kept scrupulously
within their rights, and saw to it that no more careless openings
were left for Thorpe's shrewdness. They were keen enough business
men, but had made the mistake, common enough to established power,
of underrating the strength of an apparently insignificant opponent.
Once they understood Thorpe's capacity, that young man had no more
chance to catch them napping.

And as the younger man, on his side, never attempted to overstep
his own rights, the interests of the rival firms rarely clashed. As
to the few disputes that did arise, Thorpe found Mr. Daly singularly
anxious to please. In the desire was no friendliness, however.
Thorpe was watchful for treachery, and could hardly believe the
affair finished when at the end of the fourth year the M. & D.
sold out the remainder of its pine to a firm from Manistee, and
transferred its operations to another stream a few miles east,
where it had acquired more considerable holdings.

"They're altogether too confounded anxious to help us on that
freight, Wallace," said Thorpe wrinkling his brow uneasily. "I
don't like it. It isn't natural."

"No," laughed Wallace, "neither is it natural for a dog to draw a
sledge. But he does it--when he has to. They're afraid of you,
Harry: that's all."

Thorpe shook his head, but had to acknowledge that he could
evidence no grounds for his mistrust.

The conversation took place at Camp One, which was celebrated in
three states. Thorpe had set out to gather around him a band of
good woodsmen. Except on a pinch he would employ no others.

"I don't care if I get in only two thousand feet this winter, and
if a boy does that," he answered Shearer's expostulations, "it's
got to be a good boy."

The result of his policy began to show even in the second year.
Men were a little proud to say that they had put in a winter at
"Thorpe's One." Those who had worked there during the first year
were loyally enthusiastic over their boss's grit and resourcefulness,
their camp's order, their cook's good "grub." As they were
authorities, others perforce had to accept the dictum. There grew
a desire among the better class to see what Thorpe's "One" might be
like. In the autumn Harry had more applicants than he knew what to
do with. Eighteen of the old men returned. He took them all, but
when it came to distribution, three found themselves assigned to
one or the other of the new camps. And quietly the rumor gained
that these three had shown the least willing spirit during the
previous winter. The other fifteen were sobered to the industry
which their importance as veterans might have impaired.

Tim Shearer was foreman of Camp One; Scotty Parsons was drafted
from the veterans to take charge of Two; Thorpe engaged two men
known to Tim to boss Three and Four. But in selecting the "push"
for Five he displayed most strikingly his keen appreciation of a
man's relation to his environment. He sought out John Radway and
induced him to accept the commission.

"You can do it, John," said he, "and I know it. I want you to
try; and if you don't make her go, I'll call it nobody's fault
but my own."

"I don't see how you dare risk it, after that Cass Branch deal,
Mr. Thorpe," replied Radway, almost brokenly. "But I would like
to tackle it, I'm dead sick of loafing. Sometimes it seems like
I'd die, if I don't get out in the woods again."

"We'll call it a deal, then," answered Thorpe.

The result proved his sagacity. Radway was one of the best foremen
in the outfit. He got more out of his men, he rose better to
emergencies, and he accomplished more with the same resources than
any of the others, excepting Tim Shearer. As long as the work was
done for someone else, he was capable and efficient. Only when he
was called upon to demand on his own account, did the paralyzing
shyness affect him.

But the one feature that did more to attract the very best element
among woodsmen, and so make possible the practice of Thorpe's theory
of success, was Camp One. The men's accommodations at the other
five were no different and but little better than those in a
thousand other typical lumber camps of both peninsulas. They slept
in box-like bunks filled with hay or straw over which blankets were
spread; they sat on a narrow hard bench or on the floor; they read
by the dim light of a lamp fastened against the big cross beam;
they warmed themselves at a huge iron stove in the center of the
room around which suspended wires and poles offered space for the
drying of socks; they washed their clothes when the mood struck them.
It was warm and comparatively clean. But it was dark, without
ornament, cheerless.

The lumber-jack never expects anything different. In fact, if he
were pampered to the extent of ordinary comforts, he would be apt
at once to conclude himself indispensable; whereupon he would
become worthless.

Thorpe, however, spent a little money--not much--and transformed
Camp One. Every bunk was provided with a tick, which the men could
fill with hay, balsam, or hemlock, as suited them. Cheap but
attractive curtains on wires at once brightened the room and shut
each man's "bedroom" from the main hall. The deacon seat remained
but was supplemented by a half-dozen simple and comfortable chairs.
In the center of the room stood a big round table over which glowed
two hanging lamps. The table was littered with papers and magazines.
Home life was still further suggested by a canary bird in a gilt cage,
a sleepy cat, and two pots of red geraniums. Thorpe had further
imported a washerwoman who dwelt in a separate little cabin under
the hill. She washed the men's belongings at twenty-five cents a
week, which amount Thorpe deducted from each man's wages, whether he
had the washing done or not. This encouraged cleanliness. Phil
scrubbed out every day, while the men were in the woods.

Such was Thorpe's famous Camp One in the days of its splendor. Old
woodsmen will still tell you about it, with a longing reminiscent
glimmer in the corners of their eyes as they recall its glories and
the men who worked in it. To have "put in" a winter in Camp One
was the mark of a master; and the ambition of every raw recruit to
the forest. Probably Thorpe's name is remembered to-day more on
account of the intrepid, skillful, loyal men his strange genius
gathered about it, than for the herculean feat of having carved a
great fortune from the wilderness in but five years' time.

But Camp One was a privilege. A man entered it only after having
proved himself; he remained in it only as long as his efficiency
deserved the honor. Its members were invariably recruited from one
of the other four camps; never from applicants who had not been in
Thorpe's employ. A raw man was sent to Scotty, or Jack Hyland, or
Radway, or Kerlie. There he was given a job, if he happened to
suit, and men were needed. By and by, perhaps, when a member of
Camp One fell sick or was given his time, Tim Shearer would send
word to one of the other five that he needed an axman or a sawyer,
or a loader, or teamster, as the case might be. The best man in
the other camps was sent up.

So Shearer was foreman of a picked crew. Probably no finer body of
men was ever gathered at one camp. In them one could study at his
best the American pioneer. It was said at that time that you had
never seen logging done as it should be until you had visited
Thorpe's Camp One on the Ossawinamakee.

Of these men Thorpe demanded one thing--success. He tried never to
ask of them anything he did not believe to be thoroughly possible;
but he expected always that in some manner, by hook or crook, they
would carry the affair through. No matter how good the excuse, it
was never accepted. Accidents would happen, there as elsewhere; a
way to arrive in spite of them always exists, if only a man is
willing to use his wits, unflagging energy, and time. Bad luck is
a reality; but much of what is called bad luck is nothing but a want
of careful foresight, and Thorpe could better afford to be harsh
occasionally to the genuine for the sake of eliminating the false.
If a man failed, he left Camp One.

The procedure was very simple. Thorpe never explained his reasons
even to Shearer.

"Ask Tom to step in a moment," he requested of the latter.

"Tom," he said to that individual, "I think I can use you better
at Four. Report to Kerlie there."

And strangely enough, few even of these proud and independent men
ever asked for their time, or preferred to quit rather than to work
up again to the glories of their prize camp.

For while new recruits were never accepted at Camp One, neither was
a man ever discharged there. He was merely transferred to one of
the other foremen.

It is necessary to be thus minute in order that the reader may
understand exactly the class of men Thorpe had about his immediate
person. Some of them had the reputation of being the hardest
citizens in three States, others were mild as turtle doves. They
were all pioneers. They had the independence, the unabashed eye,
the insubordination even, of the man who has drawn his intellectual
and moral nourishment at the breast of a wild nature. They were
afraid of nothing alive. From no one, were he chore-boy or
president, would they take a single word--with the exception always
of Tim Shearer and Thorpe.

The former they respected because in their picturesque guild he
was a master craftsman. The latter they adored and quoted and
fought for in distant saloons, because he represented to them their
own ideal, what they would be if freed from the heavy gyves of vice
and executive incapacity that weighed them down.

And they were loyal. It was a point of honor with them to stay
"until the last dog was hung." He who deserted in the hour of
need was not only a renegade, but a fool. For he thus earned a
magnificent licking if ever he ran up against a member of the
"Fighting Forty." A band of soldiers they were, ready to attempt
anything their commander ordered, devoted, enthusiastically admiring.
And, it must be confessed, they were also somewhat on the order of
a band of pirates. Marquette thought so each spring after the
drive, when, hat-tilted, they surged swearing and shouting down
to Denny Hogan's saloon. Denny had to buy new fixtures when they
went away; but it was worth it.

Proud! it was no name for it. Boast! the fame of Camp One spread
abroad over the land, and was believed in to about twenty per cent
of the anecdotes detailed of it--which was near enough the actual
truth. Anecdotes disbelieved, the class of men from it would have
given it a reputation. The latter was varied enough, in truth.
Some people thought Camp One must be a sort of hell-hole of roaring,
fighting devils. Others sighed and made rapid calculations of the
number of logs they could put in, if only they could get hold of
help like that.

Thorpe himself, of course, made his headquarters at Camp One.
Thence he visited at least once a week all the other camps,
inspecting the minutest details, not only of the work, but of
the everyday life. For this purpose he maintained a light box
sleigh and pair of bays, though often, when the snow became deep,
he was forced to snowshoes.

During the five years he had never crossed the Straits of Mackinaw.
The rupture with his sister had made repugnant to him all the
southern country. He preferred to remain in the woods. All winter
long he was more than busy at his logging. Summers he spent at the
mill. Occasionally he visited Marquette, but always on business.
He became used to seeing only the rough faces of men. The vision of
softer graces and beauties lost its distinctness before this strong,
hardy northland, whose gentler moods were like velvet over iron, or
like its own summer leaves veiling the eternal darkness of the pines.

He was happy because he was too busy to be anything else. The
insistent need of success which he had created for himself, absorbed
all other sentiments. He demanded it of others rigorously. He
could do no less than demand it of himself. It had practically
become one of his tenets of belief. The chief end of any man, as
he saw it, was to do well and successfully what his life found ready.
Anything to further this fore-ordained activity was good; anything
else was bad. These thoughts, aided by a disposition naturally
fervent and single in purpose, hereditarily ascetic and conscientious
--for his mother was of old New England stock--gave to him in the
course of six years' striving a sort of daily and familiar religion
to which he conformed his life.

Success, success, success. Nothing could be of more importance.
Its attainment argued a man's efficiency in the Scheme of Things,
his worthy fulfillment of the end for which a divine Providence had
placed him on earth. Anything that interfered with it--personal
comfort, inclination, affection, desire, love of ease, individual
liking,--was bad.

Luckily for Thorpe's peace of mind, his habit of looking on men as
things helped him keep to this attitude of mind. His lumbermen were
tools,--good, sharp, efficient tools, to be sure, but only because he
had made them so. Their loyalty aroused in his breast no pride nor
gratitude. He expected loyalty. He would have discharged at once
a man who did not show it. The same with zeal, intelligence, effort
--they were the things he took for granted. As for the admiration
and affection which the Fighting Forty displayed for him personally,
he gave not a thought to it. And the men knew it, and loved him the
more from the fact.

Thorpe cared for just three people, and none of them happened to
clash with his machine. They were Wallace Carpenter, little Phil,
and Injin Charley.

Wallace, for reasons already explained at length, was always
personally agreeable to Thorpe. Latterly, since the erection of
the mill, he had developed unexpected acumen in the disposal of the
season's cut to wholesale dealers in Chicago. Nothing could have
been better for the firm. Thereafter he was often in the woods,
both for pleasure and to get his partner's ideas on what the firm
would have to offer. The entire responsibility at the city end of
the business was in his hands.

Injin Charley continued to hunt and trap in the country round about.
Between him and Thorpe had grown a friendship the more solid in that
its increase had been mysteriously without outward cause. Once or
twice a month the lumberman would snowshoe down to the little cabin
at the forks. Entering, he would nod briefly and seat himself on a
cracker-box.

"How do, Charley," said he.

"How do," replied Charley.

They filled pipes and smoked. At rare intervals one of them made a
remark, tersely,

"Catch um three beaver las' week," remarked Charley.

"Good haul," commented Thorpe.

Or:

"I saw a mink track by the big boulder," offered Thorpe.

"H'm!" responded Charley in a long-drawn falsetto whine.

Yet somehow the men came to know each other better and better; and
each felt that in an emergency he could depend on the other to the
uttermost in spite of the difference in race.

As for Phil, he was like some strange, shy animal, retaining all
its wild instincts, but led by affection to become domestic. He
drew the water, cut the wood, none better. In the evening he
played atrociously his violin,--none worse--,bending his great white
brow forward with the wolf-glare in his eyes, swaying his shoulders
with a fierce delight in the subtle dissonances, the swaggering
exactitude of time, the vulgar rendition of the horrible tunes he
played. And often he went into the forest and gazed wondering
through his liquid poet's eyes at occult things. Above all, he
worshipped Thorpe. And in turn the lumberman accorded him a
good-natured affection. He was as indispensable to Camp One as
the beagles.

And the beagles were most indispensable. No one could have got
along without them. In the course of events and natural selection
they had increased to eleven. At night they slept in the men's camp
underneath or very near the stove. By daylight in the morning they
were clamoring at the door. Never had they caught a hare. Never
for a moment did their hopes sink. The men used sometimes to amuse
themselves by refusing the requested exit. The little dogs agonized.
They leaped and yelped, falling over each other like a tangle of
angleworms. Then finally, when the door at last flung wide, they
precipitated themselves eagerly and silently through the opening.
A few moments later a single yelp rose in the direction of the
swamp; the band took up the cry. From then until dark the glade
was musical with baying. At supper time they returned straggling,
their expression pleased, six inches of red tongue hanging from the
corners of their mouths, ravenously ready for supper.

Strangely enough the big white hares never left the swamp. Perhaps
the same one was never chased two days in succession. Or it is
possible that the quarry enjoyed the harmless game as much as did
the little dogs.

Once only while the snow lasted was the hunt abandoned for a few
days. Wallace Carpenter announced his intention of joining forces
with the diminutive hounds.

"It's a shame, so it is, doggies!" he laughed at the tried pack.
"We'll get one to-morrow."

So he took his shotgun to the swamp, and after a half hour's wait,
succeeded in killing the hare. From that moment he was the hero of
those ecstacized canines. They tangled about him everywhere. He
hardly dared take a step for fear of crushing one of the open faces
and expectant, pleading eyes looking up at him. It grew to be
a nuisance. Wallace always claimed his trip was considerably
shortened because he could not get away from his admirers.

Chapter XXXVI

Financially the Company was rated high, and yet was heavily in
debt. This condition of affairs by no means constitutes an anomaly
in the lumbering business.

The profits of the first five years had been immediately reinvested
in the business. Thorpe, with the foresight that had originally led
him into this new country, saw farther than the instant's gain. He
intended to establish in a few years more a big plant which would
be returning benefices in proportion not only to the capital
originally invested, but also in ratio to the energy, time, and
genius he had himself expended. It was not the affair of a moment.
It was not the affair of half-measures, of timidity.

Thorpe knew that he could play safely, cutting a few millions a
year, expanding cautiously. By this method he would arrive, but
only after a long period.

Or he could do as many other firms have done; start on borrowed
money.

In the latter case he had only one thing to fear, and that was
fire. Every cent, and many times over, of his obligations would
be represented in the state of raw material. All he had to do
was to cut it out by the very means which the yearly profits of
his business would enable him to purchase. For the moment, he
owed a great deal; without the shadow of a doubt mere industry
would clear his debt, and leave him with substantial acquisitions
created, practically, from nothing but his own abilities. The
money obtained from his mortgages was a tool which he picked up
an instant, used to fashion one of his own, and laid aside.

Every autumn the Company found itself suddenly in easy circumstances.
At any moment that Thorpe had chosen to be content with the progress
made, he could have, so to speak, declared dividends with his partner.
Instead of undertaking more improvements, for part of which he
borrowed some money, he could have divided the profits of the
season's cut. But this he was not yet ready to do.

He had established five more camps, he had acquired over a hundred
and fifty million more of timber lying contiguous to his own, he
had built and equipped a modern high-efficiency mill, he had
constructed a harbor break-water and the necessary booms, he had
bought a tug, built a boarding-house. All this costs money. He
wished now to construct a logging railroad. Then he promised
himself and Wallace that they would be ready to commence paying
operations.

The logging railroad was just then beginning to gain recognition.
A few miles of track, a locomotive, and a number of cars consisting
uniquely of wheels and "bunks," or cross beams on which to chain
the logs, and a fairly well-graded right-of-way comprised the
outfit. Its use obviated the necessity of driving the river--always
an expensive operation. Often, too, the decking at the skidways
could be dispensed with; and the sleigh hauls, if not entirely
superseded for the remote districts, were entirely so in the
country for a half mile on either side of the track, and in any
case were greatly shortened. There obtained, too, the additional
advantage of being able to cut summer and winter alike. Thus, the
plant once established, logging by railroad was not only easier but
cheaper. Of late years it has come into almost universal use in
big jobs and wherever the nature of the country will permit. The
old-fashioned, picturesque ice-road sleigh-haul will last as long
as north-woods lumbering,--even in the railroad districts,--but the
locomotive now does the heavy work.

With the capital to be obtained from the following winter's product,
Thorpe hoped to be able to establish a branch which should run from
a point some two miles behind Camp One, to a "dump" a short distance
above the mill. For this he had made all the estimates, and even the
preliminary survey. He was therefore the more grievously
disappointed,
when Wallace Carpenter made it impossible for him to do so.

He was sitting in the mill-office one day about the middle of July.
Herrick, the engineer, had just been in. He could not keep the
engine in order, although Thorpe knew that it could be done.

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