Read Ebook: The Sport of the Gods by Dunbar Paul Laurence

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Ebook has 1017 lines and 43750 words, and 21 pages

The Lure of Piper's Glen

THE COCK OF THE RIVER

When the bottoms drop out of the logging-roads, the crews leave the camps about the headwaters of Racket River and return to their scattered homes, leaving the winter's cut on the "brows." A few weeks later, when all the melted snow of the hills is rushing along the watercourses, lifting and bursting the rotted ice, and the piles of brown logs on the steep banks go rolling and thundering down into roaring waters, the more active and daring of the workers return to duty with the harassed timber. Now they wear well-greased boots instead of oily shoepacks and larrigans--boots with high tops strapped securely around the leg, and strong heels and thick soles. In the sole and heel of each boot are fixed fifty caulks or short steel spikes--a hundred teeth for every "stream-driver" to bite a foothold with into running logs.

The task of keeping the "drive" moving down the swirling and tortuous channel of the upper reaches of Racket River calls for skill and agility and strength and hardihood, and frequently for a high degree of stark physical courage. The water is as cold as the sodden ice which still drifts upon it, crushed and churned by the grinding logs. It sloshes high along the wooded banks, tearing tangles of alders out by the roots and undermining old cedars until they totter and fall and swirl away on the flood. To plunge hip-deep into that torrent to clear some log caught broadside to the rush by snag or tree or rock, calls for hardihood of spirit and an iron constitution. Where one log catches and is permitted to remain stationary, others catch, pile up, plunge and rear and dive, filling the channel to its rocky bed and blocking it from bank to bank with criss-crossed timber. The mad river, crowned with more logs and ice, strikes and recoils and backs up behind the jamb: spray flies over it; clear water spouts from it; the twisted timbers heave and groan and splinter. To go out on to such a barrier as this, and find and free the key-logs with a peavy, calls for all the qualities of a seasoned riverman and the courage of a veteran soldier into the bargain.

On Racket River, Mark Ducat, of Piper's Glen, was the most daring and successful negotiator of troublesome logs jambed or jambing or running free. He was cock of the upper river, as his father, Peter, had been before him, and his grandfather, Hercules Ducat, had been before Peter. For five years, on five successive drives, he had shown his superiority to his fellow wielders of peavy and pikepole as a "cuffer" of running logs and a breaker of jambs. And not only that. He was as nimble with his feet and hands, and as fearless in diversion as in toil. There were stronger men than Mark on the river, but there was no man possessed of Mark's combination of strength and speed and nerve. The stronger fellows were too heavy to be speedy. He stood five feet and eleven inches in his spiked boots and weighed one hundred and seventy-eight pounds.

New men joined the drive each spring for the brief and well-paid job, and likely lads arrived at their full growth and an appreciation of their own powers; and so it happened that Mark Ducat's title never went a year unchallenged. But still he was Cock of the River.

After the first rush of the drive one spring, the boss left Mark and a gang of nine "white-water boys" to keep the logs clear at Frenchman's Elbow, the worst point for jambs in ten miles of bad water. Mark was foreman and Joe Bender was cook. All the others were Racket River men, with the exception of a big stranger with a black beard who said that he was from Quebec.

Charlie Lavois was the stranger's name. Underdone beef was his favorite diet and overproof whisky was his favorite drink. He had chopped throughout the previous winter in a big camp on the Gateneau and, to avoid making himself conspicuous, to keep his daily cut down to normal, he had swung his ax only with one hand; and because six men had once attacked him with knives and sticks of stove-wood after a game of forty-fives in which his skill had emptied all their pockets, and he had killed two of them and disabled the others in self defence, he had thought it advisable to leave his native Province for a little while--all this by his own telling.

"Ye may be that good in Quebec, Charlie Lavois, but any six yearlin' babies on the Racket River country in this here old Province of New Brunswick could knock the stuffin' out o' ye with nothin' in their hands but their rattles an' little rubber suckin'-nipples," said Joe Bender, the cook.

This sally of rustic wit was well received by the lads of Racket River, but Mr. Lavois took exception to it.

"Maybe ye could do it yerself," retorted Lavois.

"Maybe I could, but it ain't my job," returned Bender. "My job's keepin' the blankets dry an' the beans an' biscuits hot for champeens like yerself. I ain't Cock o' the River."

"Cock of the river?" queried Lavois, spitting into the fire. "Where I come from, this here dribble o' dirty water'd be named a brook an' the cock o' it would be called a cockerel."

"That's me," said Mark Ducat. "Fetch a lantern an' a deck of cards, Joe. Kick up the fire, Jerry Brown. We'll spread a blanket an' commence with a little game of forty-fives, Mister; an' ye'll find this cockerel right with ye all the way from flippin' a card to manslaughter."

They played for three hours, at the end of which period of stress the man from Quebec threw the cards into the fire and sent a volley of blasting oaths after them. He was a poor loser.

Charlie Lavois leapt onto a big stick of spruce, with a pikepole held horizontally across his chest, and turned it slowly over and over under his spiked feet as it wallowed heavily along with the brown current. Mark Ducat took a short run and a flying jump and landed on the other end of the same log, facing Lavois. He also carried a pikepole horizontally in his two hands. The log sank lower; and now it turned with increasing speed to the tread of four spiked feet biting into its tough bark; and still it continued on its way through sloshing ripple and spinning eddy. The rest of the gang followed down both shores, shouting in derision and encouragement. Even Joe Bender deserted his post to see the Cock of the River and the champion from Quebec twirl a log together.

"Grand day," said Mark, grinning.

"Not so bad," agreed Charlie Lavois.

"Two's one too many for this log," said Mark. "I'm gettin' my feet wet."

"Yer dead right. But ye'll be wet clear over yer ears in ten seconds," retorted the other.

Then Mark began to jump with both feet, slowing the spinning of the big log jerk by jerk and finally reversing the spin. Again he trod the log, but now from left to right; and Lavois was forced to conform his movements to the reversed motion. The men ashore yelled their approval. Their man had "jerked the spin" away from the big Quebecker. Then Lavois commenced jumping in a furious effort to check and reverse against Mark. Mark trod against him with what appeared to be all his strength and skill for thirty seconds or more; and then, without so much as the flicker of an eye to signal his intention, he jumped swiftly around and reversed the stamp and thrust of his flying feet. The tortured log spun with sudden incredible speed--a speed entirely unexpected by Charles Lavois. Charlie's feet, stamping mightily against stubborn resistance, and suddenly relieved of their resistance, went around with the log; and Charlie followed his feet. The log reared high, but Ducat skipped along its lifting back and brought it to a level keel. A yell of joy went up from the husky fellows ashore. The man who had gained his title by sousing them in the river had maintained it by sousing the man from Quebec.

Lavois swam ashore and hastened upstream to the fire without a word. There he pulled off his boots and coat, took a swig from a flask on his hip and sat so close to the bank of red embers that steam arose from him. Mark Ducat rode the big log ashore, using the pike-pole for a paddle. He, too, made his way to Joe Bender's fire, accompanied by such members of the gang as were on that side of the river. He, too, removed his coat and boots and sat close to the glow.

"Is there anything ye can do, Lavois, 'cept shoot off yer mouth about what ye done on the Gateneau?" asked Mark.

"Did ye hear me speak o' playin' monkey-tricks on logs?" returned Lavois. "No, ye didn't. Ye heard me tell how I knocked the everlastin' lights out o' six full-growed men, an' Quebec men, at that--real white-water boys."

"Do tell? What d'ye fight with when ye get real riled?"

"Everything God give me an' most anything I kin lay me hands on."

"That suits me fine."

Both reached for their spiked boots.

"Boots is barred," said Joe Bender, who held a long-handled iron stew-pan in his hairy right fist. "Ye fight in yer socks, boys. Axes, grindstones, peavy, rocks an' clubs an' knives is all barred along with boots; an' the first one to reach for any sich article gits soaked good an' plenty with this here stew-pan. I ain't Champeen Buster o' the Gateneau nor Cock o' Racket River, but I be a ring-tailed roarin' Hell-an'-all with a stew-pan."

"That suits me, Joe," said Mark Ducat.

"I guess I kin do the job with me hands an' feet," said Lavois.

Both men stood up. They faced each other, six feet apart. Lavois was older than Ducat by eight or ten years and heavier by close upon twenty pounds. But as Ducat was only twenty-six, both were young men. Ducat had a merry eye; he smiled, and his little black mustache went up at the tips. Lavois had sullen eyes and a wolfish grin.

Lavois jumped and kicked, quick as winking. Mark got his chin out of the way of destruction, but lost the skin of his right ear. Lavois gripped with both arms. They writhed and staggered. Mark had the worst of that hold, but he knew what he was about. He knew all the old tricks of this dangerous game and possessed a lively imagination for new ones. He clung close and tight and let Lavois do the heavy work. Twice he was crushed to his knees, and twice he came up again, each time as if for the last time. And then, with a quick wrench and a mighty effort, he backed Lavois into the fire.

Lavois wore four pairs of heavy socks, and unfortunately all were of wool. No pair was of asbestos. He yelled and loosed his hold and tried to jump aside, only to receive a bang on the nose. He snatched up his blistered feet and landed on his back across the red crown of the fire. Mark jumped the fire, pulled Lavois out, dragged him to the river by his black beard and chucked him in. He sizzled and steamed as he struck the water.

Lavois finished out the drive with his feet in bandages. He didn't do another stroke of work; and whenever the gang moved, following the tail of the drive down the crooked river, he went comfortably in the boat along with the cook and the tin ovens and the gang's dunnage. He was well treated and well fed; and when Ducat's gang overhauled the boss at the mouth of the river, Mark gave Lavois his full time and no one questioned it. Lavois grinned.

"I wish ye'd hove me into the fire afore ye did," he said.

YOUNG TODHUNTER

Some hundred miles south of Piper's Glen, and across an international boundary into the bargain, young James Todhunter had just heard the news that college was out of the question; that his father's health had broken down, and that it was most decidedly up to him to do something in the way of earning a living.

"I can give you a small stake, Jim," his father said, "but it won't be very much. It is going to take a lot to take mother and me West and I'll be out of things a long while, I am afraid. How about it?"

James Todhunter came of a family of sportsmen--his father and his faClaire noted the flush and wondered at it. Had she indeed hit upon the real point? Was that the reason that he was so anxious to get back to Paris? The thought struck a chill through her gaiety. She did not want to be suspicious, but what was the cause of that tell-tale flush? He was not a man easily disconcerted; then why so to-night? But her companion talked on with such innocent composure that she believed herself mistaken as to the reason for his momentary confusion.

Someone cried gayly across the table to her: "Oh, Miss Claire, you will not dare to talk with such little awe to our friend when he comes back with his ribbons and his medals. Why, we shall all have to bow to you, Frank!"

"You 're wronging me, Esterton," said Francis. "No foreign decoration could ever be to me as much as the flower of approval from the fair women of my own State."

"Hear!" cried the ladies.

"Trust artists and poets to pay pretty compliments, and this wily friend of mine pays his at my expense."

"A good bit of generalship, that, Frank," an old military man broke in. "Esterton opened the breach and you at once galloped in. That 's the highest art of war."

Claire was looking at her companion. Had he meant the approval of the women, or was it one woman that he cared for? Had the speech had a hidden meaning for her? She could never tell. She could not understand this man who had been so much to her for so long, and yet did not seem to know it; who was full of romance and fire and passion, and yet looked at her beauty with the eyes of a mere comrade. She sighed as she rose with the rest of the women to leave the table.

The men lingered over their cigars. The wine was old and the stories new. What more could they ask? There was a strong glow in Francis Oakley's face, and his laugh was frequent and ringing. Some discussion came up which sent him running up to his room for a bit of evidence. When he came down it was not to come directly to the dining-room. He paused in the hall and despatched a servant to bring his brother to him.

Maurice found him standing weakly against the railing of the stairs. Something in his air impressed his brother strangely.

"What is it, Francis?" he questioned, hurrying to him.

"I have just discovered a considerable loss," was the reply in a grieved voice.

"If it is no worse than loss, I am glad; but what is it?"

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