“I do believe we’ve got possession of the thing at last, Father,” said Tom, surveying the raft with joy, despite his aching head, which Harrison’s blow had jarred afresh.
“Yes, I don’t see what’s to stop us now,” returned Mr. Jackson.
It was near sunset, and peace had fallen on the camp again. The men of the two parties had fraternized and were sitting about on the logs and smoking. In the background the cook was preparing supper at an open-air fire. Mr. Archer had discreetly withdrawn into a tent, leaving Tom and his father to examine the property they had at last secured.
Harrison must have worked his men skilfully and hard while he had them. The partly built raft already stretched far out from the shore. It was by no means all of walnut, of course. Harrison had cut down all the spruce, jack-pine, and hemlock in sight for the floating foundation. They were put together in “cribs,” connected by strong traverses, pinned down with huge hardwood bolts. The walnut was piled on top of this foundation, and each log was “withed” down to its support with ironwood saplings as thick as a man’s wrist, twisted like rope around the timbers. There were already more than seventy cribs put together, each of them containing fully a thousand feet of walnut.
“His men knew how to handle logs,” Mr. Jackson remarked, looking with an expert eye at the way the timber was withed and pinned together. “Never saw a better built raft. If Dan Wilson had built it as well as this, it mightn’t have broken up so easily. That’s fine walnut, too. It’ll take some drying out and seasoning again, of course, but it’s practically as good as the day it was cut. I don’t believe there’s as much walnut timber as this anywhere else in one spot in all Canada.”
“And nobody knows how much that isn’t dug out yet,” Tom returned. “We ought to be thankful to Harrison, maybe, for all the work he’s done for us. We’ll have the use of his tents and tools too, until he comes to take them away. Not to forget that if he hadn’t tried to drive me out by burning the woods I’d probably never have found the walnut at all.”
“Yes, he seems to have cheated himself all around,” said his father. “If he presents a reasonable bill for labor, I’ll pay it. But I don’t think he ever will. As for what walnut is left,” he added, looking over the scarred surface of the shore, “I suspect that there isn’t much more of it.”
There was some, however, and the combined gangs went to work vigorously on the morrow. About noon the delayed wagon came in from Ormond, with two more men and the supplies, and Mr. Archer and the postmaster rode back in it when it returned. They promised to send out more provisions, for, with Harrison’s gang, Mr. Jackson had more men than he had counted on.
With this strong force the work of getting out the timber went forward rapidly. Tom went over the shore inch by inch, sounding deep into the sand with a long, sharp steel rod. When he struck wood, they dug down to it. Sometimes it was walnut, sometimes merely an old spruce stump, but little by little the precious stuff accumulated, and more cribs were built out upon the raft. By the end of the week they seemed to have got everything that lay in the sand of the shore, and they began to dig at the bottom of the shallow water nearest land.
But evidently they were nearing the end. Mr. Jackson’s shrewd guess had been right. With great exertions and inconvenience they recovered three or four hundred logs from the shoal water, but the labor almost outweighed the gain. These logs, too, were heavily water-soaked. They would dry out in time, but meanwhile they required much light timber to buoy them up, and were spongy and easily damaged. But from Mr. Jackson’s measurements, and he was an experienced “scaler,” the raft then contained about 125,000 feet of walnut. Besides, there was the soft-wood foundation, which was not without value.
“This ought pretty well to clean up all business troubles, my boy,” said Mr. Jackson to Tom, as they viewed the majestic outlines of the raft, which surged and heaved at its moorings in a strong southwest gale. “It’ll net us three hundred dollars a thousand feet; more than that, in fact, for we’ll cut it up ourselves, with thin saws. The ordinary mill wastes ten per cent. in sawdust, and you’ve no idea how valuable even the scraps of such wood are. They make veneer, brush backs, knobs, all sorts of small things. We don’t waste a chip of the stuff.”
For some time, Tom noticed, Mr. Jackson had been saying “we,” and the implied partnership was very pleasant to him. Working day by day with him, Tom had come to realize and respect his father’s science and energy as he never had done before. Up here in the woods, “Matt” Jackson’s reputation was an established one. The rough lumber-jacks jumped at his orders and took his advice unhesitatingly about all sorts of timber craft. The veteran lumberman was in his element and seemed to have almost entirely recovered his health and spirits.
The future no longer looked black to him. He had arrived at the point of talking to his son freely about his business affairs, a compliment which Tom appreciated deeply. On leaving Toronto Mr. Jackson had seen nothing ahead but a voluntary assignment. He had no faith in Mr. Armstrong’s being able to straighten things out. Thirty or forty thousand dollars would be needed, and he could not see any source from which they were to come.
“That’s what it would have come to if you hadn’t dug up this old timber, Tom,” he said. “I wasn’t very genial when you came north, I guess, but I give you the credit, my boy.”
“I don’t deserve it,” said Tom earnestly. “I came up here like a fool. I didn’t have any reasonable idea what I was going to do. It was blind luck that made me stumble on this old raft. But I do think it ought to make enough to clear the business, and something over. Shouldn’t you let Mr. Armstrong hear of it? He’ll be astonished, when we produce a new asset like this.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” agreed his father. “Things have been so busy that I’ve neglected it, and there’s no hurry anyway. He’d write or wire me before he did anything important, and a message would be forwarded at once from the Royal Victoria. I suppose he thinks I’m still lying on my back there. But I’ll send a letter out to him to-morrow.”
Charlie could have taken a letter out to Ormond or down to Oakley. The Ojibway boy was still hanging about the camp, watching the work impassively, seeking out Tom whenever Tom had any leisure. He brought in trout almost daily, and occasionally ducks and partridge, and Mr. Jackson remarked on the advantage of having an Indian about the camp who was exempt from the game-laws. But Charlie was obviously not so happy in the midst of all this activity as he had been at the original camp in the old barn.
Mr. Jackson, however, did not write his letter the next day. It was windy and rainy. One of the last cribs of lumber showed signs of breaking loose under the strain of the weather and had to be refastened. Then they unexpectedly found a “pocket” of eight or ten more walnut logs at a spot where they had not previously looked, and these were dug out and loaded. Altogether it was a busy day and a stormy one. The rain ceased at sunset, but the wind grew even stronger, driving white-capped waves racing across Big Coboconk.
The wind kept Tom awake that night. It roared over the forest and thrummed on the stiff canvas flaps. On the cot opposite him his father slept profoundly rolled in his blankets, but Tom could not settle himself to rest. His mind dwelt on the raft. They had thought of launching it the next day, but this would be out of the question unless the wind went down. It would be impossible to float it down the lake in the face of that gale.
He wondered if there could be any danger of damage as it lay at its mooring. At last, unable to rest, he got up and looked from the tent. It was after eleven o’clock. The night was warm and not very dark. Not a man was in sight. The fires, which had burned low, threw off gusts of fizzing sparks in the wind. A high sea was crashing on the shore, but he could make out the dark expanse of the raft, rising and falling, but apparently secure.
Somewhat reassured, he went back to his cot and lay down again, leaving the lantern burning. He did not undress and lay awake for some time longer, but at last he grew hardened to the roaring of the wind and dozed off. Finally he must have slept soundly, for he wakened with a shock to feel a hand gently gripping his shoulder. Blinking up, he saw Charlie’s battered black hat leaning over him in the dim light.
“You come, Tom. Raft gone,” the Indian said softly.
Tom leaped up with an exclamation. He gave a single glance at his father, who was still sleeping, and bolted from the tent. Outside the water and the wind still roared and crashed; but at the first glance Tom saw in the pale starlight that the raft was no longer there, nor anywhere in sight.
“I wake up—think I hear something,” said Charlie at his elbow. “I go—look. Raft gone.”
Tom rushed down to the landing where it had been moored. Then to his relief he sighted it, a hundred yards from land, a huge expanse like an island, heaving and plunging and drifting out diagonally over the lake.
Tom raised a tremendous shout to alarm the camp, and thought he heard an answer from the tents. The raft must have broken loose in the gale; yet he could hardly understand how that had happened, for six strong ropes had bound it to trees ashore. But Charlie picked up the slack of one of the ropes that was trailing in the wash of the waves and held it silently under his eyes. Tom gasped. The end was not frayed; it was cut squarely off.
“Cut!” he exclaimed.
“I think mebbe so,” said Charlie. “That man come back, I guess. We git him this time, mebbe.”
Tom gave another alarm shout, and jumped into a boat on the shore, followed by the Ojibway. It was a bateau that had been left there by Harrison, heavy to row, but the wind drove them fast in the wake of the raft. Laboring at the oars, Tom saw the outline of the floating timber growing clearer. His blood boiled with wrath; he knew that Harrison must have done this as a last act of revenge. They had not set eyes on the fellow for a week; they thought he had gone for good, but he had come back to retaliate for his loss. Well timed, too, his return had been. The raft was hardly built for rough seas. Under the full force of the gale in the center of the lake it might go to pieces, or be driven against the opposite shore and broken up, repeating the ancient history of the original raft of Dan Wilson.
Fortunately Charlie’s alertness had detected it in time. Tom was disconcerted at seeing that no stir was visible yet in the camp behind. His yells could not have been heard. It was useless now to try to shout in the teeth of the gale, but he strained his muscles to reach the raft.
It was too big to drift very fast, and Tom’s oars overtook it before it had gone another two hundred yards. It looked alarming as he came close, and it was going to be risky to get aboard, for the great mass of logs heaved on the waves, and crashed down on the water. A touch would have crushed the bateau-like bark, but Tom, watching his chance, jumped, landed on his knees, clutched the logs, and staggered to his feet. The boat with Charlie in it recoiled away, thrust backward by his leap.
He was scarcely up when he saw a dark figure shoot across the raft just behind him. Startled, Tom rushed after it. It flashed upon him that this must be Harrison. But the man jumped,—apparently over the side,—and a canoe went spinning away into the gloom, dipping and reeling in the heavy sea.
It had not looked like Harrison’s build. It had more resembled the woodsman McLeod. Tom had no weapon or he would have fired and by the time Charlie had joined him, carrying his shot-gun as always, the canoe was lost in the windy obscurity.
“Got away again!” Tom exclaimed in disgust. “But we’ve got the raft again, anyhow.”
Then he wondered what he was going to do with it. The huge mass of timber was beyond any control. He could only let it drive. Continually he had expected to see the men from ashore following him, but no one seemed to have become aware of what was going on. The sparks whirled up from the low fires, and that was all. Every minute the raft was getting farther from shore, and it would be impossible to tow it back against the wind. It was well out in the open lake now, and it heaved and swung up and down with a motion that strained all the fastenings of the cribs and made Tom’s stomach turn with a qualm like seasicknes............