Chapter XXI. IN THE TAMARACK SWAMP
The harsh tone of the unseen man terrified Nan Sherwood; but the wordshe spoke about her Uncle Henry inspired her to creep nearer that shemight see who it was, and hear more. The fact that she was eavesdroppingdid not deter the girl.
She believed her uncle's life to be in peril!
The dampness between the logs of the roadway oozed up in little poolsand steamed in the hot blaze of the afternoon sun. Insects buzzed andhummed, so innumerable that the chorus of their voices was like therumble of a great church-organ.
Nan stepped from the road and pushed aside the thick underbrush to finda dry spot to place her foot. The gnats danced before her and buzzed inher ears. She brushed them aside and so pushed on until she could seethe road again. A lean, yellow horse, tackled to the shafts of abroken top-buggy with bits of rope as well as worn straps, stood in theroadway. The man on the seat, talking to another on the ground, was Mr.Gedney Raffer, the timberman who was contending at law with Uncle Henry.
It was he who had said: "I'd give money, I tell ye, to see Hen Sherwoodgit his."
There had fallen a silence, but just as Nan recognized the mean lookingold man on the carriage seat, she heard the second man speak from theother side of the buggy.
"I tell you like I done Hen himself, Ged; I don't wanter be mixed up inno land squabble. I ain't for neither side."
It was Toby. Nan knew his voice, and she remembered how he had answeredUncle Henry at the lumber camp, the first day she had seen the oldlumberman. Nan could not doubt that the two men were discussing theargument over the boundary of the Perkins Tract.
Gedney Raffer snarled out an imprecation when old Toby had replied asabove. "Ef you know which side of your bread the butter's on, you'llside with me," he said.
"We don't often have butter on our bread, an' I ain't goin' ter sidewith nobody," grumbled Toby Vanderwiller.
"S-s!" hissed Raffer. "Come here!"
Toby stepped closer to the rattletrap carriage. "You see your way togoin' inter court an' talkin' right, and you won't lose nothin' by it,Tobe."
"Huh? Only my self-respect, I s'pose," grunted the old lumberman, andNan approved very much of him just then.
"Bah!" exclaimed Raffer.
"Bah, yourself!" Toby Vanderwiller returned with some heat. "I got somedecency left, I hope. I ain't goin' to lie for you, nor no other man,Ged Raffer!"
"Say! Would it be lyin' ef you witnessed on my side?" demanded the eagerRaffer.
"That's my secret," snapped the old lumberman. "If I don't witness foryou, be glad I don't harm you."
"You dare!" cried Raffer, shaking his fist at the other as he leanedfrom the buggy seat.
"You hearn me say I wouldn't go inter court one way or 'tother,"repeated Toby, gloomily.
"Wal," snarled Raffer, "see't ye don't see't ye don't. 'Specially forany man but me. Ye 'member what I told ye, Tobe. Money's tight and Ioughter call in that loan."
Toby was silent for half a minute. Then Nan heard him sigh.
"Well, Ged," he observed, "it's up to you. If you take the place it'llbe the poorhouse for that unforchunit boy of mine and mebbe for the ol'woman, 'specially if I can't strike a job for next winter. These herelumber bosses begin to think I'm too stiff in the j'ints."
"Wal, wal!" snarled Raffer. "I can't help it. How d'ye expec' I kin helpyou ef you won't help me?"
He clucked to the old horse, which awoke out of its drowse with a start,and moved on sluggishly. Toby stood in the road and watched him depart.Nan thought the old lumberman's to be the most sorrowful figure she hadever seen.
Her young heart beat hotly against the meanness and injustice of GedneyRaffer. He had practically threatened Toby with foreclosure on hislittle farm if the old lumberman would not help him in his contentionwith Mr. Sherwood. On the other hand, Uncle Henry desired his help; butUncle Henry, Nan knew, would not try to bribe the old lumberman. Underthese distressing circumstances, which antagonist's interests was TobyVanderwiller likely to serve?
This query vastly disturbed Nan Sherwood. All along she had desired muchto help Uncle Henry solve his big problem. The courts would not allowhim to cut a stick of timber on the Perkins Tract until a resurvey ofthe line was made by government-appointed surveyors, and that would be,when?
Uncle Henry's money was tied up in the stumpage lease, or first paymentto the owners of the land. It was a big contract and he had expected topay his help and further royalties on the lease, from the sale of thetimber he cut on the tract. Besides, many valuable trees had been felledbefore the injunction was served, and lay rotting on the ground. Everymonth they lay there decreased their value.
And now, it appeared, Gedney Raffer was doing all in his power toinfluence old Toby to serve as a witness in his, Raffer's, interests.
Had toby been willing to go into court and swear that the line of thePerkins Tract was as Mr. Sherwood claimed, the court would have tovacate the injunction and Uncle Henry could risk going ahead and cuttingand hauling timber from the tract. Uncle Henry believed Tobyknew exactly where the line lay, for he had been a landloper, ortimber-runner in this vicinity when the original survey was made,forty-odd years before.
It was plain to Nan, hiding in the bushes and watching the old man'sface, that he was dreadfully tempted. Working as hard as he might,summer and winter alike, Toby Vanderwiller had scarcely been able tosupport his wife and grandson. His occasional attacks of rheumatism sofrequently put him back. If Raffer took away the farm and the shelterthey had, what would become of them?
Uncle Henry was so short of ready money himself that he could not assumethe mortgage if Raffer undertook to foreclose.
"Oh, dear me! If Momsey would only write to me that she is really rich,"thought Nan, "I'd beg her for the money. I'll tell her all about poorToby in my very next letter and maybe, if she gets all that money fromthe courts in Scotland, she will let me give Toby enough to pay off themortgage."
She never for a moment doubted that Uncle Henry's contention about thetimber tract line was right. He must be correct, and old Toby must knowit! That is the way Nan Sherwood looked at the matter.
But now, seeing Toby turning back along the corduroy road, and slowlyshuffling toward home, she stepped out of the hovering bushes and walkedhastily after him. She overtook him not many yards beyond the spot wherehe had stood talking with Raffer. He looked startled when she spoke hisname.
"Well! You air a sight for sore eyes, Sissy," he said; but added,nervously, "How in Joe Tunket did you git in the swamp? Along the road?"
"Yes, sir," said Nan.
"Come right erlong this way?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did ye meet anybody?" demanded old Toby, eyeing her sharply.
"Mr. Raffer, driving his old buckskin horse. That's all."
"Didn't say nothin' to ye, did he?" asked Toby, curiously.
"Not a word," replied Nan, honestly. "I'm afraid of him and I hid in thebushes till he had gone by."
"Huh!" sighed Toby, as though relieved. "Jest as well. Though Gedwouldn't ha' dared touch ye, Sissy."
"Never mind. I'm here now," said Nan, brightly. "And I want you to showme your house and introduce me to Mrs. Vanderwiller."
"Sure. My ol' woman will be glad to see ye," said the man, briskly."'Tain't more'n a mile furder on."
But first they came to a deserted place, a strip more than half a milewide, where the trees had been cut in a broad belt through the swamp.All Nan could see was sawdust and the stumps of felled trees stickingout of it. The sawdust, Toby said, was anywhere from two to twenty feetdeep, and there were acres of it.
"They had their mill here, ye kin see the brick work yonder. They hauledout the lumber by teams past my place. The stea'mill was here more'ntwo years. They hauled the sawdust out of the way and dumped it in ev'ryholler, jest as it come handy."
"What a lot there is of it!" murmured Nan, sniffing doubtfully at therather unpleasant odor of the sawdust.
"I wish't 'twas somewhere else," grun
ted Toby.
"Why-so?"
"Fire git in it and it'd burn till doomsday. Fire in sawdust is a mightybad thing. Ye see, even the road here is made of sawdust, four foot ormore deep and packed as solid as a brick walk. That's the way Pale Lickwent, sawdust afire. Ha'f the town was built on sawdust foundation an'she smouldered for weeks before they knowed of it. Then come erlong abig wind and started the blaze to the surface."
"Oh!" murmured Nan, much interested. "Didn't my Uncle Henry live therethen?"
"I sh'd say he did," returned Toby, emphatically. "Didn't he never tellye about it?"
"No, sir. They never speak of Pale Lick."
"Well, I won't, nuther," grunted old Toby. "'Taint pretty for a younggal like you to hear about. Whush! Thar goes a loon!"
A big bird had suddenly come into sight, evidently from some nearbywater-hole. It did not fly high and seemed very clumsy, like a duck orgoose.
"Oh! Are they good to eat, Mr. Vanderwiller?" cried Nan. "Rafe broughtin a brace of summer ducks the other day, and they were awfully good,the way Aunt Kate cooked them."
"Well!" drawled Toby, slyly, "I've hearn tell ye c'd eat a loon, ef'twas cooked right. But I never tried it."
"How do you cook a loon, Mr. Vanderwiller?" asked Nan, interested in allculinary pursuits.
"Well, they tell me thet it's some slow process," said the old man,his eyes twinkling. "Ye git yer loon, pluck an' draw it, let it soakovernight in vinegar an' water, vitriol vinegar they say is the best.Then ye put it in the pot an' let it simmer all day."
"Yes?" queried the perfectly innocent Nan.
"Then ye throw off that water," Toby said, soberly, "and ye put on freshwater an' let it cook all the next day."
"Oh!"
"An' then ye throw in a piece of grin'stone with the loon, and set itto bilin' again. When ye kin stick a fork in the grin'stone, the loon'sdone!"
Nan joined in Toby's loud laugh at this old joke, and pretty soonthereafter they came to the hummock on which the Vanderwillers lived.