Part 22 (1/2)
The next day was a very busy one. He collected his freight and we moved the _Fearsome_ to dock near the unclaimed freight house. I arranged with Superintendent Kitch.e.l.l by telephone to take the sawmill, and by night it was bolted to the deck, with power from the motor applied. A derrick with outrigging, so that a log could be grappled and brought to the deck by power, and laid on the saw carriage to be solidly locked down for its terrible s.h.i.+ning fangs that become invisible in full career, moving through a dirty, slimy log.
”Yes,” Superintendent Kitch.e.l.l had said to me when I asked him about my clerk, ”I have taken Miss Bascom into my private office and found work for her there--perfectly safe any time you want her,” he a.s.sured me, after getting a brief account of our progress.
At the first sign of daylight the next morning we left the dock with our queer looking craft and started up the river. Through an employment agency Hiram had secured three additional men, a sawyer and two laborers.
Hiram's interest amounted to intense excitement when the first log was cut. He had waited until he saw an unusually promising one go through.
One of the laborers rowed to it, fastened the grapples and it seemed to want to come aboard, as though tired of life in the river, and there it lay quietly, without one flinch before the saw that pa.s.sed through it.
The sawyer understood his business, four slab cuts were made skillfully, the log squared and finally reduced to wide, clean, inch boards and stored below in less than ten minutes. Hiram found it hard to contain himself. His intense joy and elation threatened his dignity. He had made something useful, valuable, beautiful, with the delicate odor of the spring woods, from hitherto waste material. I knew what would have happened had we been alone. He would have tried to throw on me his now brawny person and pummel me from sheer exuberance.
”Ben,” he said, in a tense undertone, ”over five hundred feet of lumber in that log that they will mob us to get at five cents a foot.” I knew he wanted to cut a big caper and cavort. ”Twenty-five dollars, Ben, in less than ten minutes. Say, if Becker don't fall for cheap lumber--well, we'll get him sure with such bait, and the bayou back of his place is full of logs--we won't be there an hour before he comes for it--just you watch. We can be there by to-morrow morning,” he went on, his eyes roaming the river on both sides for another good log that had eluded the lumber men in the long reaches of the Mississippi as far back as the Great Lakes.
That night we tied up at a bank across the river and a little below Becker & Co.'s plant. It had been a busy day and every one except Hiram was tired and glad to stop for supper. I was sitting aft smoking when I noticed him come up from below, looking for me.
”I've been down taking stock and checking up the day,” he began, squatting down before me on his heels, keeping his pipe in his mouth.
”We captured just thirty-nine logs, you know a few of them had rotten centers, but we've got over twenty thousand feet of clear lumber besides nearly three thousand feet of culls. Figure it out at fifty dollars--it's worth more delivered--eleven hundred dollars--first day--all amateurs--we've got the big idea working.”
”Why do you say we, Hiram? I claim no credit or interest or wages; I'm paid--it is your plan--don't be so modest.”
”Yes, I did get the idea of capturing this waste, but how far would I have got alone--a hundred and twenty-five dollars per from the railroad and a certainty of being accused of stealing. In a thousand years I never will be charged with ingrat.i.tude--if we win, you've got----”
”The weak spot, Hiram, is that you will soon clean the river of logs, and then what? Sit still and wait for the once-a-year highwater to bring them down?” I asked, interrupting him purposely.
”Wait till we get Becker over there,” he said, suddenly sobering and looking across the river, but making no other sign--something as a wolf looks at his prey within easy reach. ”It's a hundred and fifty miles from here to the Gulf and lots of logs all the way. But with our big job done, once get actually free, and we run out of logs, something will turn up; in fact I've got another idea hatching. Do you see the foundation he has started over there? That's why he must have lumber.
Doesn't his plant remind you of a quarantine station--or a pest house?”
He asked this question as though he did not expect an answer.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE next morning it occurred to me that, while our plans were made with great care, the weak point was, that if Becker himself was at the plant he might recognize either of us. I mentioned this to Hiram, and for once since I had met him he laughed loud and long.
”I don't believe your mother would recognize you in that greasy, dirt-soaked, bifurcated night dress you wear,” he yelled at me, ”and the work you owe the barber, too; but look at me--I am worse yet, covered with mud and slime. Besides, I don't believe Becker ever had a good look at me, and if he did he couldn't pick me out as different from any other deckhand now,” he said, grinning. Then he looked himself over, at his muddy shoes, browned hands, long hair and unshaved face, and it did seem to him as though, without effort, during the past few days, he had prepared a genuine disguise. Nevertheless we decided it would be safe to allow Captain Marianna to be the spokesman, although the captain should be kept in the dark concerning our real designs. Marianna should sell Becker lumber, cheap for cash, if he bit at our bait.
We sawed one or two logs, then crossed the river and began working up the stream toward the bayou back of Becker's plant, apparently with no more interest in it than if it had been a cemetery. The bayou was, just as Hiram said, full of logs--enough to keep us there for a day at least.
By the noon hour we had worked pretty well into the bayou and in back of the big fertilizer factory, with no apparent attention from it other than a terrible offense to our nostrils. If Becker was there he did not show himself and it began to look as if we would have to make overtures.
But when we had suspended operations for noon-time, a negro with a boat made out from the Becker place and came alongside. He clambered on our deck, but no one paid any attention to him.
”I wants to see de boss,” said he to one of our blacks resting well aft.
”You wants to see de Captain? He's up dere somewhares aroun' de wheel-house.” We overheard this inquiry and the answer with great interest. This was likely to be the first nibble at our bait.
When the captain was pointed out he acted well the part of a trader who had desirable goods with a liberal demand, but evidenced little interest in the emissary who approached him hat in hand.
”Is you de cap'm?”