The Blazed Trail

S >> Stewart Edward White >> The Blazed Trail

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Three days later Thorpe left for the north. He was reluctant to go.
When the time came, he attempted to kiss Helen good-by. She caught
sight of the rifle in its new leather and canvas case, and on a
sudden impulse which she could not explain to herself, she turned
away her face and ran into the house. Thorpe, vaguely hurt, a
little resentful, as the genuinely misunderstood are apt to be,
hesitated a moment, then trudged down the street. Helen too paused
at the door, choking back her grief.

"Harry! Harry!" she cried wildly; but it was too late.

Both felt themselves to be in the right. Each realized this fact
in the other. Each recognized the impossibility of imposing his
own point of view over the other's.

PART II

THE LANDLOOKER

Chapter XVI

In every direction the woods. Not an opening of any kind offered
the mind a breathing place under the free sky. Sometimes the pine
groves,--vast, solemn, grand, with the patrician aloofness of the
truly great; sometimes the hardwood,--bright, mysterious, full of
life; sometimes the swamps,--dark, dank, speaking with the voices
of the shyer creatures; sometimes the spruce and balsam thickets,--
aromatic, enticing. But never the clear, open sky.

And always the woods creatures, in startling abundance and tameness.
The solitary man with the packstraps across his forehead and
shoulders had never seen so many of them. They withdrew silently
before him as he advanced. They accompanied him on either side,
watching him with intelligent, bright eyes. They followed him
stealthily for a little distance, as though escorting him out of
their own particular territory. Dozens of times a day the traveller
glimpsed the flaunting white flags of deer. Often the creatures
would take but a few hasty jumps, and then would wheel, the
beautiful embodiments of the picture deer, to snort and paw the
leaves. Hundreds of birds, of which he did not know the name,
stooped to his inspection, whirred away at his approach, or went
about their business with hardy indifference under his very eyes.
Blase porcupines trundled superbly from his path. Once a mother-
partridge simulated a broken wing, fluttering painfully. Early one
morning the traveller ran plump on a fat lolling bear, taking his
ease from the new sun, and his meal from a panic stricken army of
ants. As beseemed two innocent wayfarers they honored each other
with a salute of surprise, and went their way. And all about and
through, weaving, watching, moving like spirits, were the forest
multitudes which the young man never saw, but which he divined, and
of whose movements he sometimes caught for a single instant the
faintest patter or rustle. It constituted the mystery of the forest,
that great fascinating, lovable mystery which, once it steals into
the heart of a man, has always a hearing and a longing when it makes
its voice heard.

The young man's equipment was simple in the extreme. Attached to a
heavy leather belt of cartridges hung a two-pound ax and a sheath
knife. In his pocket reposed a compass, an air-tight tin of
matches, and a map drawn on oiled paper of a district divided into
sections. Some few of the sections were colored, which indicated
that they belonged to private parties. All the rest was State or
Government land. He carried in his hand a repeating rifle. The
pack, if opened, would have been found to contain a woolen and a
rubber blanket, fishing tackle, twenty pounds or so of flour, a
package of tea, sugar, a slab of bacon carefully wrapped in oiled
cloth, salt, a suit of underwear, and several extra pairs of thick
stockings. To the outside of the pack had been strapped a frying
pan, a tin pail, and a cup.

For more than a week Thorpe had journeyed through the forest without
meeting a human being, or seeing any indications of man, excepting
always the old blaze of the government survey. Many years before,
officials had run careless lines through the country along the
section-boundaries. At this time the blazes were so weather-beaten
that Thorpe often found difficulty in deciphering the indications
marked on them. These latter stated always the section, the township,
and the range east or west by number. All Thorpe had to do was to
find the same figures on his map. He knew just where he was. By
means of his compass he could lay his course to any point that suited
his convenience.

The map he had procured at the United States Land Office in Detroit.
He had set out with the scanty equipment just described for the
purpose of "looking" a suitable bunch of pine in the northern
peninsula, which, at that time, was practically untouched. Access
to its interior could be obtained only on foot or by river. The
South Shore Railroad was already engaged in pushing a way through
the virgin forest, but it had as yet penetrated only as far as Seney;
and after all, had been projected more with the idea of establishing
a direct route to Duluth and the copper districts than to aid the
lumber industry. Marquette, Menominee, and a few smaller places
along the coast were lumbering near at home; but they shipped entirely
by water. Although the rest of the peninsula also was finely wooded,
a general impression obtained among the craft that it would prove
too inaccessible for successful operation.

Furthermore, at that period, a great deal of talk was believed as
to the inexhaustibility of Michigan pine. Men in a position to know
what they were talking about stated dogmatically that the forests of
the southern peninsula would be adequate for a great many years to
come. Furthermore, the magnificent timber of the Saginaw, Muskegon,
and Grand River valleys in the southern peninsula occupied entire
attention. No one cared to bother about property at so great a
distance from home. As a consequence, few as yet knew even the
extent of the resources so far north.

Thorpe, however, with the far-sightedness of the born pioneer, had
perceived that the exploitation of the upper country was an affair
of a few years only.

The forests of southern Michigan were vast, but not limitless, and
they had all passed into private ownership. The north, on the other
hand, would not prove as inaccessible as it now seemed, for the
carrying trade would some day realize that the entire waterway of
the Great Lakes offered an unrivalled outlet. With that elementary
discovery would begin a rush to the new country. Tiring of a
profitless employment further south he resolved to anticipate it,
and by acquiring his holdings before general attention should be
turned that way, to obtain of the best.

He was without money, and practically without friends; while
Government and State lands cost respectively two dollars and a half
and a dollar and a quarter an acre, cash down. But he relied on the
good sense of capitalists to perceive, from the statistics which
his explorations would furnish, the wonderful advantage of logging
a new country with the chain of Great Lakes as shipping outlet at
its very door. In return for his information, he would expect a
half interest in the enterprise. This is the usual method of
procedure adopted by landlookers everywhere.

We have said that the country was quite new to logging, but the
statement is not strictly accurate. Thorpe was by no means the
first to see the money in northern pine. Outside the big mill
districts already named, cuttings of considerable size were already
under way, the logs from which were usually sold to the mills of
Marquette or Menominee. Here and there along the best streams,
men had already begun operations.

But they worked on a small scale and with an eye to the immediate
present only; bending their efforts to as large a cut as possible
each season rather than to the acquisition of holdings for future
operations. This they accomplished naively by purchasing one forty
and cutting a dozen. Thorpe's map showed often near the forks of
an important stream a section whose coloring indicated private
possession. Legally the owners had the right only to the pine
included in the marked sections; but if anyone had taken the trouble
to visit the district, he would have found operations going on for
miles up and down stream. The colored squares would prove to be
nothing but so many excuses for being on the ground. The bulk of
the pine of any season's cut he would discover had been stolen from
unbought State or Government land.

This in the old days was a common enough trick. One man, at present
a wealthy and respected citizen, cut for six years, and owned just
one forty-acres! Another logged nearly fifty million feet from an
eighty! In the State to-day live prominent business men, looked
upon as models in every way, good fellows, good citizens, with sons
and daughters proud of their social position, who, nevertheless,
made the bulk of their fortunes by stealing Government pine.

"What you want to-day, old man?" inquired a wholesale lumber dealer
of an individual whose name now stands for domestic and civic virtue.

"I'll have five or six million saw logs to sell you in the spring,
and I want to know what you'll give for them."

"Go on!" expostulated the dealer with a laugh, "ain't you got that
forty all cut yet?"

"She holds out pretty well," replied the other with a grin.

An official, called the Inspector, is supposed to report such
stealings, after which another official is to prosecute. Aside
from the fact that the danger of discovery is practically zero in
so wild and distant a country, it is fairly well established that
the old-time logger found these two individuals susceptible to the
gentle art of "sugaring." The officials, as well as the lumberman,
became rich. If worst came to worst, and investigation seemed
imminent, the operator could still purchase the land at legal rates,
and so escape trouble. But the intention to appropriate was there,
and, to confess the truth, the whitewashing by purchase needed but
rarely to be employed. I have time and again heard landlookers
assert that the old Land Offices were rarely "on the square," but
as to that I cannot, of course, venture an opinion.

Thorpe was perfectly conversant with this state of affairs. He
knew, also, that in all probability many of the colored districts
on his map represented firms engaged in steals of greater or less
magnitude. He was further aware that most of the concerns stole
the timber because it was cheaper to steal than to buy; but that
they would buy readily enough if forced to do so in order to
prevent its acquisition by another. This other might be himself.
In his exploration, therefore, he decided to employ the utmost
circumspection. As much as possible he purposed to avoid other
men; but if meetings became inevitable, he hoped to mask his real
intentions. He would pose as a hunter and fisherman.

During the course of his week in the woods, he discovered that
he would be forced eventually to resort to this expedient. He
encountered quantities of fine timber in the country through which
he travelled, and some day it would be logged, but at present the
difficulties were too great. The streams were shallow, or they did
not empty into a good shipping port. Investors would naturally
look first for holdings along the more practicable routes.

A cursory glance sufficed to show that on such waters the little red
squares had already blocked a foothold for other owners. Thorpe
surmised that he would undoubtedly discover fine unbought timber
along their banks, but that the men already engaged in stealing it
would hardly be likely to allow him peaceful acquisition.

For a week, then, he journeyed through magnificent timber without
finding what he sought, working always more and more to the north,
until finally he stood on the shores of Superior. Up to now the
streams had not suited him. He resolved to follow the shore west
to the mouth of a fairly large river called the Ossawinamakee.*
It showed, in common with most streams of its size, land already
taken, but Thorpe hoped to find good timber nearer the mouth. After
several days' hard walking with this object in view, he found himself
directly north of a bend in the river; so, without troubling to hunt
for its outlet into Superior, he turned through the woods due south,
with the intention of striking in on the stream. This he succeeded
in accomplishing some twenty miles inland, where also he discovered
a well-defined and recently used trail leading up the river. Thorpe
camped one night at the bend, and then set out to follow the trail.

*Accent the last syllable.

It led him for upwards of ten miles nearly due south, sometimes
approaching, sometimes leaving the river, but keeping always in its
direction. The country in general was rolling. Low parallel ridges
of gentle declivity glided constantly across his way, their valleys
sloping to the river. Thorpe had never seen a grander forest of
pine than that which clothed them.

For almost three miles, after the young man had passed through a
preliminary jungle of birch, cedar, spruce, and hemlock, it ran
without a break, clear, clean, of cloud-sweeping altitude, without
underbrush. Most of it was good bull-sap, which is known by the
fineness of the bark, though often in the hollows it shaded gradually
into the rough-skinned cork pine. In those days few people paid
any attention to the Norway, and hemlock was not even thought of.
With every foot of the way Thorpe became more and more impressed.

At first the grandeur, the remoteness, the solemnity of the virgin
forest fell on his spirit with a kind of awe. The tall, straight
trunks lifted directly upwards to the vaulted screen through which
the sky seemed as remote as the ceiling of a Roman church. Ravens
wheeled and croaked in the blue, but infinitely far away. Some
lesser noises wove into the stillness without breaking the web of
its splendor, for the pine silence laid soft, hushing fingers on
the lips of those who might waken the sleeping sunlight.

Then the spirit of the pioneer stirred within his soul. The
wilderness sent forth its old-time challenge to the hardy. In
him awoke that instinct which, without itself perceiving the end on
which it is bent, clears the way for the civilization that has been
ripening in old-world hot-houses during a thousand years. Men must
eat; and so the soil must be made productive. We regret, each after
his manner, the passing of the Indian, the buffalo, the great pine
forests, for they are of the picturesque; but we live gladly on the
product of the farms that have taken their places. Southern Michigan
was once a pine forest: now the twisted stump-fences about the most
fertile farms of the north alone break the expanse of prairie and
of trim "wood-lots."

Thorpe knew little of this, and cared less. These feathered trees,
standing close-ranked and yet each isolate in the dignity and
gravity of a sphinx of stone set to dancing his blood of the
frontiersman. He spread out his map to make sure that so valuable
a clump of timber remained still unclaimed. A few sections lying
near the headwaters were all he found marked as sold. He resumed
his tramp light-heartedly.

At the ten-mile point he came upon a dam. It was a crude dam,--built
of logs,--whose face consisted of strong buttresses slanted up-
stream, and whose sheer was made of unbarked timbers laid smoothly
side by side at the required angle. At present its gate was open.
Thorpe could see that it was an unusually large gate, with a powerful
apparatus for the raising and the lowering of it.

The purpose of the dam in this new country did not puzzle him in
the least, but its presence bewildered him. Such constructions are
often thrown across logging streams at proper intervals in order
that the operator may be independent of the spring freshets. When
he wishes to "drive" his logs to the mouth of the stream, he
first accumulates a head of water behind his dams, and then, by
lifting the gates, creates an artificial freshet sufficient to
float his timber to the pool formed by the next dam below. The
device is common enough; but it is expensive. People do not build
dams except in the certainty of some years of logging, and quite
extensive logging at that. If the stream happens to be navigable,
the promoter must first get an Improvement Charter from a board of
control appointed by the State. So Thorpe knew that he had to deal,
not with a hand-to-mouth-timber-thief, but with a great company
preparing to log the country on a big scale.

He continued his journey. At noon he came to another and similar
structure. The pine forest had yielded to knolls of hardwood
separated by swamp-holes of blackthorn. Here he left his pack and
pushed ahead in light marching order. About eight miles above the
first dam, and eighteen from the bend of the river, he ran into a
"slashing" of the year before. The decapitated stumps were already
beginning to turn brown with weather, the tangle of tops and limbs
was partially concealed by poplar growths and wild raspberry vines.
Parenthetically, it may be remarked that the promptitude with which
these growths succeed the cutting of the pine is an inexplicable
marvel. Clear forty acres at random in the very center of a pine
forest, without a tract of poplar within an hundred miles; the next
season will bring up the fresh shoots. Some claim that blue jays
bring the seeds in their crops. Others incline to the theory that
the creative elements lie dormant in the soil, needing only the sun
to start them to life. Final speculation is impossible, but the
fact stands.

To Thorpe this particular clearing became at once of the greatest
interest. He scrambled over and through the ugly debris which for a
year or two after logging operations cumbers the ground. By a rather
prolonged search he found what he sought,--the "section corners" of
the tract, on which the government surveyor had long ago marked the
"descriptions." A glance at the map confirmed his suspicions. The
slashing lay some two miles north of the sections designated as
belonging to private parties. It was Government land.

Thorpe sat down, lit a pipe, and did a little thinking.

As an axiom it may be premised that the shorter the distance logs
have to be transported, the less it costs to get them in. Now
Thorpe had that very morning passed through beautiful timber lying
much nearer the mouth of the river than either this, or the sections
further south. Why had these men deliberately ascended the stream?
Why had they stolen timber eighteen miles from the bend, when they
could equally well have stolen just as good fourteen miles nearer
the terminus of their drive?

Thorpe ruminated for some time without hitting upon a solution.
Then suddenly he remembered the two dams, and his idea that the men
in charge of the river must be wealthy and must intend operating on
a large scale. He thought he glimpsed it. After another pipe, he
felt sure.

The Unknowns were indeed going in on a large scale. They intended
eventually to log the whole of the Ossawinamakee basin. For this
reason they had made their first purchase, planted their first
foot-hold, near the headwaters. Furthermore, located as they were
far from a present or an immediately future civilization, they had
felt safe in leaving for the moment their holdings represented by
the three sections already described. Some day they would buy all
the standing Government pine in the basin; but in the meantime they
would steal all they could at a sufficient distance from the lake to
minimize the danger of discovery. They had not dared to appropriate
the three mile tract Thorpe had passed through, because in that
locality the theft would probably be remarked, so they intended
eventually to buy it. Until that should become necessary, however,
every stick cut meant so much less to purchase.

"They're going to cut, and keep on cutting, working down river as
fast as they can," argued Thorpe. "If anything happens so they
have to, they'll buy in the pine that is left; but if things go
well with them, they'll take what they can for nothing. They're
getting this stuff out up-river first, because they can steal safer
while the country is still unsettled; and even when it does fill up,
there will not be much likelihood of an investigation so far in-
country,--at least until after they have folded their tents."

It seems to us who are accustomed to the accurate policing of our
twentieth century, almost incredible that such wholesale robberies
should have gone on with so little danger of detection. Certainly
detection was a matter of sufficient simplicity. Someone happens
along, like Thorpe, carrying a Government map in his pocket. He
runs across a parcel of unclaimed land already cut over. It would
seem easy to lodge a complaint, institute a prosecution against the
men known to have put in the timber. BUT IT IS ALMOST NEVER DONE.

Thorpe knew that men occupied in so precarious a business would be
keenly on the watch. At the first hint of rivalry, they would buy
in the timber they had selected. But the situation had set his
fighting blood to racing. The very fact that these men were thieves
on so big a scale made him the more obstinately determined to thwart
them. They undoubtedly wanted the tract down river. Well, so did he!

He purposed to look it over carefully, to ascertain its exact
boundaries and what sections it would be necessary to buy in order
to include it, and perhaps even to estimate it in a rough way. In
the accomplishment of this he would have to spend the summer, and
perhaps part of the fall, in that district. He could hardly expect
to escape notice. By the indications on the river, he judged that a
crew of men had shortly before taken out a drive of logs. After the
timber had been rafted and towed to Marquette, they would return.
He might be able to hide in the forest, but sooner or later, he was
sure, one of the company's landlookers or hunters would stumble on
his camp. Then his very concealment would tell them what he was
after. The risk was too great. For above all things Thorpe needed
time. He had, as has been said, to ascertain what he could offer.
Then he had to offer it. He would be forced to interest capital,
and that is a matter of persuasion and leisure.

Finally his shrewd, intuitive good-sense flashed the solution on him.
He returned rapidly to his pack, assumed the straps, and arrived at
the first dam about dark of the long summer day.

There he looked carefully about him. Some fifty feet from the
water's edge a birch knoll supported, besides the birches, a single
big hemlock. With his belt ax, Thorpe cleared away the little white
trees. He stuck the sharpened end of one of them in the bark of the
shaggy hemlock, fastened the other end in a crotch eight or ten feet
distant, slanted the rest of the saplings along one side of this
ridge pole, and turned in, after a hasty supper, leaving the
completion of his permanent camp to the morrow.

Chapter XVII

In the morning he thatched smooth the roof of the shelter, using
for the purpose the thick branches of hemlocks; placed two green
spruce logs side by side as cooking range; slung his pot on a rod
across two forked sticks; cut and split a quantity of wood; spread
his blankets; and called himself established. His beard was already
well grown, and his clothes had become worn by the brush and faded
by the sun and rain. In the course of the morning he lay in wait
very patiently near a spot overflowed by the river, where, the day
before, he had noticed lily-pads growing. After a time a doe and a
spotted fawn came and stood ankle-deep in the water, and ate of the
lily-pads. Thorpe lurked motionless behind his screen of leaves;
and as he had taken the precaution so to station himself that his
hiding-place lay downwind, the beautiful animals were unaware of
his presence.

By and by a prong-buck joined them. He was a two-year-old, young,
tender, with the velvet just off his antlers. Thorpe aimed at his
shoulder, six inches above the belly-line, and pressed the trigger.
As though by enchantment the three woods creatures disappeared. But
the hunter had noticed that, whereas the doe and fawn flourished
bravely the broad white flags of their tails, the buck had seemed
but a streak of brown. By this he knew he had hit.

Sure enough, after two hundred yards of following the prints of
sharp hoofs and occasional gobbets of blood on the leaves, he came
upon his prey dead. It became necessary to transport the animal to
camp. Thorpe stuck his hunting knife deep into the front of the
deer's chest, where the neck joins, which allowed most of the blood
to drain away. Then he fastened wild grape vines about the antlers,
and, with a little exertion drew the body after him as though it had
been a toboggan.

It slid more easily than one would imagine, along the grain; but not
as easily as by some other methods with which Thorpe was unfamiliar.

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