Part 17 (1/2)

Some of the choppers had already gone on ahead to the part of the tract where the marked trees were being felled. Now the pluck, pluck, pluck of the axe blows laid against the forest monarchs, reached the girl's ears.

She thought the flat stuttering sound of the axes said ”pluck” very plainly, and that that was just the word they should say.

”For it does take lots of pluck to do work of this kind,” Nan confided to her uncle, who walked up and down on the porch smoking an after-breakfast pipe.

”Yes. No softies allowed on the job,” said he, cheerfully. ”Some of the boys may be rough and hard nuts to crack; but it is necessary to have just such boys or we couldn't get out the timber.”

”But they want to fight so much!” gasped Nan.

”Sho!” said her uncle, slowly. ”It's mostly talk. They feel the itch for hard work and hard play, that's all. You take lively, full-muscled animals, and they are always bucking and quarreling--trying to see which one is the best. Take two young, fat steers they'll lock horns at the drop of a hat. It's animal spirits, Nan. They feel that they've got to let off steam. Where muscle and pluck count for what they do in the lumber camps, there's bound to be more or less ructions.”

Perhaps this might be; but Nan was dreadfully sorry, nevertheless, that Uncle Henry had this trouble with Mr. Gedney Raffer. The girl feared that there had been something besides ”letting off steam” in the challenge her uncle had thrown down to his enemy, or to the men that enemy could hire to attack him.

The timber sledges soon began to drift back, for some of the logs had been cut before the big storm, and had only to be broken out of the drifts and rolled upon the sleds with the aid of the men's canthooks. It was a mystery at first to Nan how they could get three huge logs, some of them three feet in diameter at the b.u.t.t, on to the sled; two at the bottom and one rolled upon them, all being fastened securely with the timber-chain and hook.

How the horses strained in their collars to start the mighty load! But once started, the runners slipped along easily enough, even through the deep snow, packing the compressible stuff in one pa.s.sage as hard as ice.

Nan followed in this narrow track to the very bank of the river where the logs were heaped in long windrows, ready to be launched into the stream when the waters should rise at the time of the spring freshet.

Tom managed his team alone, and unloaded alone, too. It was marvelous (so Nan thought) that her cousin could start the top log with the great canthook, and guide it as it rolled off the sled so that it should lie true with timbers that had been piled before. The strain of his work made him perspire as though it were midsummer. He thrust the calks on his bootsoles into the log and the shreds of bark and small chips flew as he stamped to get a secure footing for his work. Then he heaved like a giant, his shoulders humping under the blue jersey he wore, and finally the log turned. Once started, it was soon rolled into place.

Nan ran into the cook shed often to get warm. Her uncle was busy with the boss of the camp, so she had n.o.body but the cook and his helper to speak to for a time. Therefore it was loneliness that made her start over the half-beaten trail for the spot where the men were at work, without saying a word to anybody.

None of the teams had come by for some time; but she could hear faintly the sound of the axes and the calling of the workmen to each other and their sharp commands to the horses.

She went away from the camp a few hundred yards and then found that the trail forked. One path went down a little hill, and as that seemed easy to descend, Nan followed it into a little hollow. It seemed only one sled had come this way and none of the men were here. The voices and axes sounded from higher up the ridge.

Suddenly she heard something entirely different from the noise of the woodsmen. It was the snarling voice of a huge cat and almost instantly Nan sighted the creature which stood upon a snow-covered rock beside the path. It had ta.s.seled ears, a wide, wicked ”smile,” bristling whiskers, and fangs that really made Nan tremble, although she was some yards from the bobcat.

As she believed, from what her cousins had told her, bobcats are not usually dangerous. They never seek trouble with man, save under certain conditions; and that is when a mother cat has kittens to defend.

This was a big female cat, and, although the season was early, she had littered and her kittens, three of them, were bedded in a heap of leaves blown by the wind into a hollow tree trunk.

The timberman driving through the hollow had not seen the bobcat and her three blind babies; but he had roused the mother cat and she was now all ready to spring at intruders.

That Nan was not the person guilty of disturbing her repose made no difference to the big cat. She saw the girl standing, affrighted and trembling, in the path and with a ferocious yowl and leap she crossed the intervening s.p.a.ce and landed in the snow within almost arm's reach of the fear-paralyzed girl.

Chapter XVI. ”INJUN PETE”

Nan Sherwood could not cry out, though she tried. She opened her lips only to find her throat so constricted by fear that she could not utter a sound. Perhaps her sudden and utter paralysis was of benefit at the moment, after all; for she could not possibly have escaped the infuriated lynx by running.

The creature's own movements were hampered by the deep drift in which she had landed. The soft snow impeded the cat and, snarling still, she whirled around and around like a pinwheel to beat a firmer foundation from which to make her final spring at her victim.

Nan, crouching, put her mittened hands before her face. She saw no chance for escape and could not bear to see the vicious beast leap at her again. ”Momsey! Papa Sherwood!” she thought, rather than breathed aloud.

Then, down the hill toward her, plunged a swift body. She rather felt the new presence than saw it. The cat yowled again, and spit. There was the impact of a clubbed gun upon the creature's head.

”Sacre bleu! Take zat! And zat!” cried a sharp voice, between the blows that fell so swiftly. The animal's cries changed instantly from rage to pain. Nan opened her eyes in time to see the maddened cat flee swiftly.

She bounded to the big tree and scrambled up the trunk and out upon the first limb. There she crouched, over the place where her kittens were hidden, yowling and licking her wounds. There was blood upon her head and she licked again and again a broken forefoot between her yowls of rage and pain.

But Nan was more interested just then in the person who had flown to her rescue so opportunely. He was not one of the men from the camp, or anybody whom she had ever seen before.