Silas Strong 7

Silas Strong 7

"Strong's g-gainin'!" he exclaimed, cheerfully, meaning thereby to

indicate that he hoped soon to overtake his enemy.

 

The table of bark, fastened to spruce poles, each end lying in a crotch,

had been covered with a mat of ferns and with clean, white dishes. Silas

began to convey the food from fire to table. To his delight he observed

that "Mis' Strong" had gone into retirement. The face of his sister now

wore its better look of sickliness and resignation.

 

"Opeydildock?" he inquired, tenderly, pouring from a flask into a cup.

 

"No, sir," she answered, curtly, her tone adding a rebuke to her

negative answer.

 

"Le's s-set," said he, soberly.

 

They sat and ate their dinner, after which Silas went back on the trail

to cut and bring wood for the camp-fire. When his job was finished, the

rooms were put to rights, the stove was hot and clean, and an excellent

supper waiting.

 

Strong's camp consisted of three little log cabins and a large

cook-tent. The end of each cabin was a rude fireplace built of flat

rocks enclosed by upright logs which, lined with sheet-iron, towered

above the roof for a chimney. Each floor an odd mosaic of wooden blocks,

each wall sheathed with redolent strips of cedar, each rude divan

bottomed with deer-skin and covered with balsam pillows, each bedstead

of peeled spruce neatly cut and joined--the whole represented years of

labor. Every winter Silas had come through the woods on a big sled with

"new improvements" for camp. Now there were spring-beds and ticks filled

with husks in the cabins, a stove and all needed accessories in the

cook-tent.

 

Ever since he could carry a gun Silas had set his traps and hunted

along the valley of Lost River, ranging over the wild country miles from

either shore. Twenty thousand acres of the wilderness, round about, had

belonged to Smith & Gordon, who gave him permission to build his camp.

When he built, timber and land had little value. Under the great,

green roof from Bear Mountain to Four Ponds, from the Raquette to the

Oswegatchie, one might have enjoyed the free hospitality of God.

 

From a time he could not remember, this great domain had been the home

of Silas Strong. He loved it, and a sense of proprietorship had grown

within him. Therein he had need only of matches, a blanket, and a rifle.

One might have led him blindfolded, in the darkest night, to any part

of it and soon he would have got his bearings. In many places the very

soles of his feet would have told him where he stood.

 

Long ago its owners had given him charge of this great tract. He had

forbidden the hounding of deer and all kinds of greedy slaughter, and

had made campers careful with fire. Soon he came to be called "The

Emperor of the Woods," and every hunter respected his laws.

 

Slowly steam-power broke through the hills and approached the ramparts

of the Emperor. This power was like one of the many hands of the

republic gathering for its need. It started wheels and shafts and bore

day and night upon them. Now the song of doom sounded in far corridors

of the great sylvan home of Silas Strong.

 

It was only a short walk to where the dead hills lay sprinkled over with

ashes, their rock bones bleaching in the sun beneath columns of charred

timber. The spruce and pine had gone with the ever-flowing stream, and

their dead tops had been left to dry and burn with unquenchable fury at

the touch of fire, and to destroy everything, root and branch, and the

earth out of which it grew.

 

It concerned him much to note, everywhere, signs of a change in

proprietorship. In Strong's youth one felt, from end to end of the

forest, this invitation of its ancient owner, "Come all ye that are

weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Now one saw much of

this legend in the forest ways, "All persons are forbidden trespassing

on this property under penalty of the law." Proprietorship had,

seemingly, passed from God to man. The land was worth now thirty

dollars an acre. Silas had established his camp when the boundaries were

indefinite and the old banners of welcome on every trail, and he felt

the change.

 

 

 

 

VI

 

IT was near sunset of the second day after the arrival of Sinth and

Silas. They sat together in front of the cook-tent. Silas leaned forward

smoking a pipe. His great, brawny arms, bare to the elbow, rested on his

knees. His faded felt hat was tilted back. He was looking down at the

long stretch of still water, fringed with lily-pads, and reflecting the

colors of either shore.

 

"You'ain't got a cent to yer name," said Sinth, who was knitting. She

gave the yam a pull, and, as she did so, glanced up at her brother.

 

"B-better times!" said he, rubbing his hands.

 

"Better times!" she sneered. "I'd like to know how you can make money

an' charge a dollar a day for board."

 

Sportsmen visiting there paid for their board, and they with whom Silas

went gave him three dollars a day for his labor.

 

The truth was that prosperity and Miss Strong were things

irreconcilable. The representatives of prosperity who came to Lost River

camp were often routed by the eye of resentment and the unruly tongue.

Strong knew all this, but she was not the less sacred on that account.

This year he had planned to bring a cow to camp and raise the price of

board.

 

"You s-see," Strong insisted.

 

"Huh!" Sinth went on; "we'll mos' kill ourselves, an' nex' spring we

won't have nothin' but a lot o' mink-skins."

 

Miss Strong, as if this reflection had quite overcome her, gathered up

her knitting and hastened into the cook-tent, where for a moment she

seemed to be venting her spite on the flat-irons and the tea-kettle.

Strong sat alone, smoking thoughtfully. Soon he heard footsteps on the

trail. A stranger, approaching, bade him good-evening.

 

"From the Migley Lumber Company," the stranger began, as he gave a card

to Strong. "We have bought the Smith & Gordon tract. I have come to

bring this letter and have a talk with you."

 

Strong read the letter carefully. Then he rose and put his hands in his

pockets, and, with a sly wink at the stranger, walked slowly down the

trail. He wished to go where Sinth would not be able to hear them. Some

twenty rods away both sat down upon a log. The letter was, in effect, an

order of eviction.

 

"I got t' g-go?" the Emperor inquired.

 

"That's about the size of it," said the stranger.

 

"Can't," Strong answered.

 

"Well, there's no hurry," said the other. "We shall be cutting here in

the fall. I won't disturb you this year."

 

Silas rose and stood erect before the lumberman.

 

"Cut everyth-thing?" he inquired, his hand sweeping outward in a gesture

of peculiar eloquence.

 

"Everything from Round Ridge to Carter's Plain," said the other.

 

Strong deliberately took off his jacket and laid it on a stump. He

flung his hat upon the ground. Evidently something unusual was about to

happen. Then, forthwith, he broke the silence of more than forty years

and opened his heart to the stranger. He could not control himself; his

tongue almost forgot its infirmity; his words came faster and easier as

he went on.

 

"N-no, no," he said, "it can't be. Ye 'ain't no r-right t' do it, fer

ye can't never put the w-woods back agin. My God, sir, I've w-wan-dered

over these hills an' flats ever since I was a little b-boy. There

ain't a critter on 'em that d-don't know me. Seems so they was all my

b-brothers. I've seen men come in here nigh dead an' go back w-well.

They's m-med'cine here t' cure all the sickness in a hunderd cities;

they's f-fur 'nough here t' c-cover their naked--they's f-food'nough

t' feed their hungry--an' they's w-wood 'nough t' keep 'em w-warm. God

planted these w-woods an' stocked 'em, an' nobody's ever d-done a day's

work here 'cept me. Now you come along an' say you've bought 'em an' are

g-goin 't' shove us out. I c-can't understand it. God m-made the sky an'

l-lifted up the trees t' sweep the dust out of it an' pump water into

the clouds an' g-give out the breath o' the g-ground. Y-you 'ain't no

right t' git together down there in Albany an' make laws ag'in' the will

o' God. Ye r-rob the world when ye take the tree-tops out o' the sky. Ye

might as well take the clouds out of it. God has gi'n us g-good air

an' the woods an' the w-wild cattle, an' it's free--an' you--you're

g-goin 't' turn ev'rybody out o' here an' seize the g-gift an' trade it

fer d-dollars--you d---little bullcook!"

 

A "bullcook," it should be explained, was the chore-boy in a

lumber-camp.

 

Strong sat down and took out an old red handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

 

He was thinking of the springs and brooks and rivers, of the cool shade,

of the odors of the woodland, of the life-giving air, of the desolation

that was to come.

 

"It's business," said the stranger, as if that word must put an end to

all argument.

 

A sound broke the silence like that of distant thunder.

 

"Hear th-that," Strong went on. "It's the logs g-goin' over Rainbow

Falls. They've been stole off the state l-lands. Th-that's business,

too. Business is king o' this c-country. He t-takes everything he can

l-lay his hands on. He'd t-try t' 'grab heaven if he could g-git over

the f-fence an' b-back agin."

 

"I am not here to discuss that," said the stranger, rising to go.

 

"Had s-supper?" Silas asked.

 

"I've a lunch in the canoe, thank you. The moon is up, an' I'm going to

push on to Copper Falls. Migley will be waiting for me. We shall camp there for a day or two at Cedar Spring. Good-night."