In his zigzag progression over the jam he so blended with the morning shadows as to seem one of them, and he would have escaped quite unnoticed had not a sudden shifting of the logs under his feet compelled him to rise for a moment to his full height.So Wallace Carpenter, passing from his bedroom, along the porch, to the dining room, became aware of the man on the logs.
His first thought was that something demanding instant attention had happened to the boom.He therefore ran at once to the man's assistance, ready to help him personally or to call other aid as the exigency demanded.Owing to the precarious nature of the passage, he could not see beyond his feet until very close to the workman.Then he looked up to find the man, squatted on the boom, contemplating him sardonically.
"Dyer!" he exclaimed "Right, my son," said the other coolly.
"What are you doing?"
"If you want to know, I am filing this chain."Wallace made one step forward and so became aware that at last firearms were taking a part in this desperate game.
"You stand still," commanded Dyer from behind the revolver."It's unfortunate for you that you happened along, because now you'll have to come with me till this little row is over.You won't have to stay long; your logs'll go out in an hour.I'll just trouble you to go into the brush with me for a while."The scaler picked his file from beside the weakened link.
"What have you against us, anyway, Dyer?" asked Wallace.His quick mind had conceived a plan.At the moment, he was standing near the outermost edge of the jam, but now as he spoke he stepped quietly to the boom log.
Dyer's black eyes gleamed at him suspiciously, but the movement appeared wholly natural in view of the return to shore.
"Nothing," he replied."I didn't like your gang particularly, but that's nothing.""Why do you take such nervy chances to injure us?" queried Carpenter.
"Because there's something in it," snapped the scaler."Now about face; mosey!"Like a flash Wallace wheeled and dropped into the river, swimming as fast as possible below water before his breath should give out.
The swift current hurried him away.When at last he rose for air, the spit of Dyer's pistol caused him no uneasiness.A moment later he struck out boldly for shore.
What Dyer's ultimate plan might be, he could not guess.He had stated confidently that the jam would break "in an hour." He might intend to start it with dynamite.Wallace dragged himself from the water and commenced breathlessly to run toward the boarding-house.
Dyer had already reached the shore.Wallace raised what was left of his voice in a despairing shout.The scaler mockingly waved his hat, then turned and ran swiftly and easily toward the shelter of the woods.At their border he paused again to bow in derision.
Carpenter's cry brought men to the boarding-house door.From the shadows of the forest two vivid flashes cut the dusk.Dyer staggered, turned completely about, seemed partially to recover, and disappeared.An instant later, across the open space where the scaler had stood, with rifle a-trail, the Indian leaped in pursuit.
Chapter LV
"What is it?" "What's the matter?" "What's happened?" burst on Wallace in a volley.
"It's Dyer," gasped the young man."I found him on the boom! He held me up with a gun while he filed the boom chains between the center piers.They're just ready to go.I got away by diving.
Hurry and put in a new chain; you haven't much time!""He's a gone-er now," interjected Solly grimly.--"Charley is on his trail--and he is hit."Thorpe's intelligence leaped promptly to the practical question.
"Injin Charley, where'd he come from? I sent him up Sadler &Smith's.It's twenty miles, even through the woods."As though by way of colossal answer the whole surface of the jam moved inward and upward, thrusting the logs bristling against the horizon.
"She's going to break!" shouted Thorpe, starting on a run towards the river."A chain, quick!"The men followed, strung high with excitement.Hamilton, the journalist, paused long enough to glance up-stream.Then he, too, ran after them, screaming that the river above was full of logs.By that they all knew that Injin Charley's mission had failed, and that something under ten million feet of logs were racing down the river like so many battering rams.
At the boom the great jam was already a-tremble with eagerness to spring.Indeed a miracle alone seemed to hold the timbers in their place.
"It's death, certain death, to go out on that boom," muttered Billy Mason.
Tim Shearer stepped forward coolly, ready as always to assume the perilous duty.He was thrust back by Thorpe, who seized the chain, cold-shut and hammer which Scotty Parsons brought, and ran lightly out over the booms, shouting, "Back! back! Don't follow me, on your lives! Keep 'em back, Tim!"The swift water boiled from under the booms.BANG! SMASH! BANG!
crashed the logs, a mile upstream, but plainly audible above the waters and the wind.Thorpe knelt, dropped the cold-shut through on either side of the weakened link, and prepared to close it with his hammer.He intended further to strengthen the connection with the other chain.
"Lem' me hold her for you.You can't close her alone," said an unexpected voice next his elbow.
Thorpe looked up in surprise and anger.Over him leaned Big Junko.
The men had been unable to prevent his following.Animated by the blind devotion of the animal for its master, and further stung to action by that master's doubt of his fidelity, the giant had followed to assist as he might.
"You damned fool," cried Thorpe exasperated, then held the hammer to him, "strike while I keep the chain underneath," he commanded.
