river. I’ve got a rifle and a beltful of cartridges, and it’ll be
queer if I can’t pick up enough to keep from starving.”

For a moment he thought of trying to trail McLeod in his turn, to
recover one of the two canoes, but he decided that this would be
hopeless. McLeod might be miles away already, and he would surely
push on with the greatest possible speed.

As he sat there in silence, collecting his nerve, a shadow came out
of the thickets by the shore and hopped dimly about in the twilight.
It was a rabbit. The light was all but gone; Tom could not see his
gun-sights, but he fired. It was almost sheer good luck, but when he
went to look he found the rabbit shot through the body, considerably
mangled by the bullet but eatable. It had come at the very moment to
encourage his resolution, and it would make rations for one day, at
any rate.

He built up the fire, dressed the game, and set it to roast on
pointed sticks. But he had no salt, and he remembered that unsalted
rabbit is perhaps the most flavorless food on earth. It reminded him
of those first dreary days after his coming to Coboconk Lake. But
the meat had nutriment in it at any rate, and he ate of it
sparingly, reserving the greater portion for the next day.

Pulling a heap of dead leaves between two logs, he tried to rest, to
sleep; but he was far too uneasy. Without a blanket, the night
seemed cold, despite the fire. His little ax was gone, and he had no
means of cutting logs large enough to make an efficient heat. He
tried to huddle under the leaves, dozed intermittently with horrible
dreams of danger, and at last got up in the gray dawn, feeling
aching and empty.

The fire had burned entirely out while he slept. There was not even
a spark left in the ashes, and to his horror he found that he had no
matches. He had used the last in his pockets, and the water-tight
box in reserve was gone with the stolen supplies.

This blow almost took away his remaining courage. Fortunately he had
roasted the whole hare last night, and most of it was still left. It
would last one day.

“After that, I’ll have to eat raw meat, like a wolf,” he thought.

But it was as easy to go on toward Roswick as in any other
direction, and he was still determined not to let Harrison win. It
occurred to him that the prospecting season was well advanced; he
was in the mining country, and he might fall in with a party of
mineral hunters at any time. If not—well, he was tough and muscular,
and he could surely endure hardships for a day or two.

So he put the rest of the cooked meat carefully in his pockets, his
rifle under his arm, and started briskly up the river. There was no
trail, and it was rough going. The margin of the stream was grown
thickly with willow and spruce and cedar, frequently marshy,
sometimes rocky, always hard to get through. From time to time he
had to wade a tributary creek. Worse still, the river went in huge
curves, so that he felt sure he was traveling two miles for every
mile he made westward.

But he was afraid to leave the guidance of the river, and he
struggled along. He grew very hungry; hare meat was not filling, but
he controlled his desire to eat until noon. Then, after swallowing
far less than he wanted, he clambered into a tall tree on the crest
of a hill and looked anxiously off into the west.

He could see a long way. It was an infinity of sweeping hill and
hollow, all blue-green with the spruces in the sunshine, smoky,
unlimited, with here and there a gray gleam of rock. Far away to the
right he detected the glitter of a long strip of water—no doubt his
river, sweeping in one of its long curves.

He stayed there for some time surveying the desolate landscape.
There was nowhere any sign of fire or indication of human life. It
occurred to him that he would do well to make straight across
country to the water, instead of wasting muscle by following the
river around its many bends. He fixed the direction well in his
mind, slid down to the ground, and struck out across the woods.

For a time he found the traveling easier. The forest was light and
scattered, and the ground firm. Twice he was encouraged by coming
upon what seemed to be an old trail, and once he found prospect
holes dug the season before.

Feeling sure that he was nearing the end of his journey, he hurried
on gaily till he arrived at the edge of the water he had seen from
afar off. But it was not the river. It was a little, long lake, with
a creek flowing out lazily from near the point where he had struck
it.

Now he bitterly repented his folly in leaving the river, his only
guide. He had no idea which way it had curved since he left it. It
might be close ahead; it might be a dozen miles away to the left.
But the only chance of safety was to try to find it again, and he
steered off diagonally into the woods to the southwest. The woods
became difficult to get through. He struggled for more than two
miles through dense tamarac swamps, and at last did come upon a
medium-sized river.

Was it the Fish River? He could not tell. He thought it must be; yet
it seemed too small, and moreover did not appear to be flowing in
the right direction. The sun was sinking low, and all at once it,
too, seemed to be in the wrong quarter of the sky. The woods turned
dizzily around him; all directions seemed to be reversed.

                             CHAPTER VI

                               DEFEAT

He had just sense enough to control his panic. Tom had never before
been thoroughly “turned around,” but he remembered the hunter’s
maxim for those in such a predicament: sit down, shut your eyes for
half an hour, and let things right themselves.

He sat down and shut his eyes, but things did not right themselves.
The sun dipped below the trees. He was afraid to start in any
direction, and he thought he might as well spend the night where he
was. Indeed, he felt too weak and empty to go farther without
eating.

He gnawed the bones of his rabbit without satisfying his appetite.
The idea of eating raw meat did not seem so repulsive to him now,
and he stole hungrily into the darkening woods. A pair of feeding
grouse whirred up and alighted together in a tree. It was an easy
shot, but his hands trembled. He missed, and almost wept with
disappointment. Ten minutes later, however, he had better luck, and
he bagged a hare, tearing the body badly with the bullet.

He skinned and dressed it hastily, and chewed strips of the raw
flesh. It tasted almost delicious, but half an hour afterward he
grew deathly sick and vomited. The fit passed, leaving him weak and
worn out, and too miserable to care whether he was lost or not.

He had not energy enough to look for a better place for the night,
nor to pull twigs for a bed. He lay down and drew himself together
as well as he could under his heavy jacket, slept a little, awoke
shivering a dozen times, and at last wearily saw the dawn breaking.
There was white frost on the earth.

The night, however, had restored his normal sense of direction. It
seemed right that the sun should rise where it did, and the light
and warmth brought a little comfort. He ventured to chew a little
more of the raw meat and this time felt no evil effects. Thinking
over the situation, he came to the conclusion that this could not be
the Fish River. He would not follow it but would strike due west in
the hope of running into some settlement or camp.

So he started again across the woods. The ground grew more broken
and rocky. Creeks flowed down rocky gullies; almost impassable
swamps alternated with boulder-strewn hillsides. Once he came upon
the “discovery-post” of an ancient mining claim. What mineral had
been sought he did not know, but a great pit had been dug, the grave
of somebody’s hopes, long since deserted, and showing no trace of
recent life.

Half a dozen times during that forenoon he dropped to rest, quite
worn out. Noon did not mean dinner-time. His sickness had not
recurred, but he was afraid to eat much of his uncooked hare, and
only chewed morsels as he stumbled along. So far as shooting any
more game was concerned, luck seemed still against him, and he did
not greatly care.

The sun wheeled from his shoulder to straight ahead, and began to
sink. He almost lost expectation of getting anywhere at all. Roswick
and the mining-camp seemed a myth. There seemed to be nothing in the
whole world but the endless miles of spruce and jack-pine, swamp and
rock, which he kept doggedly struggling through.

He was too wearied even to keep up his anger against McLeod, or to
think with any interest of the timber treasure. It was all a dulled
memory. It was only the force of a past determination that kept
driving him ahead.

The sun went down almost without his noticing it, until the woods
began to grow dark. He threw himself recklessly on the ground where
he happened to be. Probably he could survive that night, but he felt
sure that another one would be his last. But he was so bone-weary
that he slept with merciful soundness, hardly even disturbed by the
cold, till he awoke to find the earth once more powdered with the
frost.

He arose stiffly, feeling rheumatic twinges, and plodded forward
once more. The weight of the light rifle was growing intolerable. He
was mortally afraid lest he should begin to walk in the deadly
circle of lost men, and he kept one eye on the sun. His mind was so
confused that its changing position disconcerted him sadly.

Then all at once a sound electrified him—a crashing through the
undergrowth not many rods ahead. It sounded as if several men were
going through at a run. Tom made a staggering rush forward, shouting
loudly. In five minutes he heard running water, and then broke out
upon the shore of a small river. On the shore opposite him he saw
the marks of many heavy boots, but no one was in sight.

Again and again he shouted, but no one answered. He could only guess
that a party of hunters had gone past after a deer or a bear.
Shaking with exhaustion and excitement, he sat down on a rock to
listen and wait.

After he had waited half an hour a boat shot up the stream, poled
rapidly by four roughly dressed white men. They ran the boat ashore
close to him, pitched out a collection of picks, shovels, and
dunnage, and were about to rush away when Tom arose and shouted to
them.

They turned and stared, spoke together hastily, and seemed about to
go on. But Tom’s forlorn appearance must have struck them, for one
of the men came forward hurriedly.

“We’re in a hurry. Are you in on the rush? Why, what’s the matter?”

“The rush?” said Tom dizzily. “I—I don’t know. I’ve been on the
trail—lost. Can you give me something to eat?”

The man stared, darted back to his outfit, and returned in a moment
with a large lump of bread and a slice of meat.

“Here,” he said. “Eat this. We can’t stop. There’s a big gold
discovery in the next township, and everybody’s on the dead run for
it. Stop here, and you’ll see lots of fellows pass. You’re all right
now. Want anything else? Well, so long!”

And the prospecting party rushed into the woods, leaving Tom
ravenously devouring the food. It gave him new life. When he had
eaten it he lay back and rested luxuriously, feeling sleepy. He was
near the mining-camps at last, and hope flowed back into him.

Within ten minutes another _bateau_ came up and landed a little
below him, and its crew vanished in the woods without noticing him.
Close behind that boat came another, its occupants singing and
shouting in French, as if on a lark.

Tom got up and went down the shore, where the boats seemed to land.
But it was nearly an hour before he saw another party. Then two men
came by in a canoe, paddling fast, scarcely giving a glance to the
boy on the shore. They were almost past when Tom saw clearly the
face of the man in the stern, and he gasped as if he had been hit by
a bullet.

“Dave!” he exclaimed.

He was not heard. He shouted again, and fired his rifle in the air.

“Dave Jackson! Cousin Dave!” he yelled.

The men glanced curiously back, but the canoe did not stop, and it
disappeared around a bend in the stream. But Tom, electrified with
surprise and anxiety, rushed after it. Rounding the bend, he saw it
far up the river, driving hard ahead with all the force of two
strong paddlers, who were evidently determined not to stop for
anything.

The ground along the shore was rough and tangled, and he could not
pause to pick his way. He tripped and fell, blundering into thickets
and morasses, struggling on, almost weeping at the thought of
failure at the last inch.

He would certainly have failed; he could have never have overtaken
the paddlers, but the canoe ran suddenly inshore. The men hastily
unloaded her, shouldered the packs and the canoe itself, and started
into the woods. Evidently they planned to portage to some other
waterway.

Tom reached the spot of debarkation a few minutes after they had
left it. He struck off on their well-marked trail, and, as they were
bent double under their loads, he had no difficulty now in
overtaking them. Dave Jackson was carrying the canoe, and he stared
from under the inverted gunwale in utter astonishment when Tom
breathlessly hailed him.

“Tom!” he exclaimed. “It isn’t possible. What in the world are you
doing up here? Surely that wasn’t you who yelled at us from the
shore?”

“Thank goodness, I’ve come up with you, Dave!” Tom gasped, almost
dropping where he stood. “Hold on! Put down that canoe. I’ve been on
the trail for days—got robbed—almost starved—trying to find you.”

Then he did drop, dizzily collapsing on a log. Dave set down the
canoe, but his partner, a big, bearded prospector, growled
impatiently.

“Got no time to stop, Jackson. All them fellows’ll get in ahead of
us. If that young chap wants to talk to you, let him come along
too.”

“I can’t go another inch,” Tom protested. “And you’ve got to come
back with me, Dave. It’s awfully important. I’ve come from Coboconk
Lake—your old homestead.”

Dave uttered an exclamation of surprise.

“My old hay farm? You don’t say! Then you’ve been at father’s farm.
Bet they were glad to see you. Did they tell you I was up this way?”

Tom stared bewildered.

“No, there wasn’t anybody there. The place was burned out. I thought
you’d all abandoned it. But never mind that. Dave, I’ve found the
lost walnut raft.”

“You’re joking!” his cousin ejaculated.

“Not a bit of it. I saw the timber. It’s ashore now—part of it
anyway. It’s on your land, and you’ve got to come back to claim it.”

And Tom briefly summarized the story of his adventures.

“Gracious, what luck!” Dave exclaimed. “I’d looked, off and on, all
around that lake for signs of the old raft, but I never thought of
poking into that swamp at the narrows. But you’re all wrong, Tom.
That isn’t my land. I didn’t even have the land where I put up the
old barn. It was just a hay-making place. I homesteaded a hundred
acres back where you saw the burned shack, but when the shack burned
I let it go.”

“But wasn’t that Uncle Phil’s place?” stammered Tom.

“I should say not!” Dave laughed. “Was that what you thought? You
must have thought we were a pretty shiftless lot. I guess your
guides didn’t know where we really lived. Our ranch is west of the
river. You leave it before you come to the lake. There’s a trail
cut, that you ought to have seen. We’ve got a good farm there, sixty
acres planted, house, barns, live stock, and all the rest. It’s
about twelve miles from my old shack.”

“You don’t mean to say Uncle Phil was living only twelve miles from
me all the time?” cried Tom. “Why, at Oakley they said they hadn’t
seen any of you all winter.”

“Likely not. I’ve been up here in the camps, and we don’t get our
mail and things at Oakley any more. There’s a new post-office and
store eight miles nearer, started last summer.”

“But what about the walnut? Haven’t we any rights in it at all?”
asked Tom, in despair.

“I’m afraid not,” said his cousin, after some thought. “But then,
neither has your man down there who’s trying to get it. He evidently
thinks I own that land. McLeod squatted there for a while before my
time. But he never homesteaded any of it. He wasn’t a farmer. No,
the only person who can claim that raft, it seems to me, is the
Daniel Wilson Lumber Company, that cut it—or its heirs or assigns,
if it has any. If it hasn’t, I expect the government’ll claim it.”

Tom groaned. He had never anticipated such a flatly crushing
conclusion to the expedition that had almost cost him his life.

“I’d go to the land agent in Oakley and make a claim,” Dave went on.
“Maybe you can homestead that land where the raft lies. You’re not
old enough? Put it in my name. Go and see father and see what he
says.”

“But you’ll come back with me, Dave?” said Tom. “It’s a matter of
maybe fifty thousand dollars.”

“If we get it. But I don’t honestly think there’s a chance. I’ve got
a better thing up here. With a little luck, I’ll make my everlasting
fortune. The samples of free-milling ore out of this new field are
something wonderful. It’s better shot than any timber—that doesn’t
belong to us anyway. Better come along with me, and we’ll make a big
strike together.”

Tom shook his head. He did not have the gold-fever, and he could not
relinquish hopes of the walnut timber that he had suffered so much
to secure. There was a loud crashing of brush in the distance.
Another party of gold hunters was on the trail.

“Say, Jackson, we’ve got to be moving!” cried the bearded man,
fuming with impatience.

“All right—in a second. Look here, Tom, we can’t stop. Your best
plan is to go back there and try to stand Harrison and McLeod off
till you find out definitely what’s right. They can’t claim the raft
any more than you can—unless,” he added, “they’ve gone and
homesteaded the land where the timber lies. That would give them
possession, anyway, and that’s nine points of the law. But they’d
likely have done that the first thing if they had thought it was
open for filing. You go and see father. And look here, I’ll come
down myself as soon as I get our claims staked—in a week, maybe.”

“All right,” said Tom, gloomily. “But where am I now? How do I get
out of here?”

“You’re about six miles from the Roswick camp. You made a pretty
good shot at it, after all. Follow this river straight down to
Roswick; then you have to take the stage out to the railway, and
that’ll take you round to Waverley, and you come in to Oakley the
same way as you did the first time. Got any money?”

“Not a cent.”

Dave plunged his hand into his pockets. “How much do you want? the
railway fare’ll be about six dollars. Here’s fifteen. Will that do?”

“Plenty,” said Tom gratefully. “I sha’n’t forget this, Dave, and
I’ll repay you when—”

“You’ll never need to. I’m going to be a rich man by fall. Now we
really must rush on, or my partner’ll have a fit. Tell father and
mother I’m all right. Sure you won’t come with us yet? You’d
better.”

“No,” said Tom. “I’m going to see my own game played out.”

“Good luck with it, then. Good-by!”

Dave and his partner picked up their loads and vanished crashing
through the underbrush. Tom turned back toward the river, rather
despondently. Physically he felt better; the rest and the food and
the talk with Dave had done him good, but he was deeply depressed by
his cousin’s pessimistic outlook. Still, he was determined not to
let go while there was the slightest chance left. Harrison had no
more right to the raft than he himself, at any rate, it appeared. He
would see that Harrison did not get it, then, until the real
ownership of the walnut could be ascertained.

He made his way down the river shore, meeting three or four parties
of prospectors, in _bateaux_ and canoes, and one on foot. It took
him a good three hours to reach the mining-camp, where he found
merely a collection of sheds and shanties, a store and a towering
derrick or two. The place was almost depopulated, for all its
inhabitants were on the gold-rush.

He was able to get dinner at the mine boarding-house, and then hung
about until the stage left late in the afternoon. An hour’s ride
placed him at the railway station, and he boarded a mixed train,
which carried him about fifty miles. He changed to a connecting
line, waited half the night, and once more took the long stage drive
to Oakley.

It was late in the afternoon, but he was desperately anxious to find
what was going on at Coboconk Lake. By this time Tom was somewhat
known at Oakley, and he was able to borrow a canoe, by paying four
dollars for the accommodation; and, after snatching a hurried meal,
he started up the river.

Daylight lasted late at that season, and Tom pushed ahead as fast as
possible. The recent plentiful food and rest had restored his
youthful physique to its full strength, and he was expert at the
paddle now. Night found him on the river, however, but an almost
full moon rose immediately after sunset, making it possible to go
on. He was on the lookout for the trail of which Dave had spoken as
leading to his uncle’s homestead, but in the dim light on the shore
he could not pick it out. The house was several miles back, anyhow,
and he had no idea of trying to reach it that night. He wanted to
visit the timber treasure first.

Little Coboconk spread dark and silvery under the moon as he came
into it from the river. He paddled ahead, straight up to the
narrows, and then paused, checking the paddle. There was a fire on
the shore, apparently a large fire that had burned low, and close to
it in the shadow two or three large white blurs that looked
strangely like tents.

He went on cautiously, in desperate anxiety. They were tents, sure
enough, two very large ones, and a smaller one. But no one was in
sight about the encampment. It was little after midnight, and
doubtless everybody was asleep.

Tom could hardly doubt who had set up this camp. All his hopes sank
to nothing; nevertheless, determined to find out the truth, he
paddled up to the shore, landed, and stood looking about for a
moment. He saw that several of the half-buried logs had been dug out
and rolled together, but before he could investigate any further a
tent flap was pulled open, there was a sudden exclamation, and a man
bounded out, half dressed, presenting a revolver.

“We’ve got you this time! Throw up your hands!” he cried,
triumphantly.

Tom instantly put his hands up. The man approached. The boy had
never seen him before. He looked like a woodsman or lumber-jack. He
peered into Tom’s face, and uttered an exclamation of surprise.

“I thought it was that murdering young Injun. Who are you? What do
you want here?”

“Who are you yourself?” returned Tom angrily. “This is my place. I
was here before you. What are you camping here for?”

And he took down his hands. Two other men came out of the big
tent—rough lumbermen both of them.

“Better wake up the boss and tell him we’ve caught some spy prowlin’
round here, that says he owns the camp,” said Tom’s captor.

One of the men went over to the smaller tent. There was a sound of
voices; a few minutes elapsed. Then a man came hastily out, carrying
a flashlight, and Tom recognized Harrison, as he had expected.

But Harrison was far from expecting the meeting. He turned the light
on Tom as he came up, and started. For several seconds there was
silence, while the flashlight wavered.

“I didn’t expect to see you back here, Jackson,” said Harrison at
last, in his usual easy tone. “I thought you’d gone for good. I only
wished you’d taken that young Ojibway with you. He’s been—”

“I guess you didn’t expect to see me,” retorted Tom hotly. “You
thought I was dead up in the woods, didn’t you? McLeod did his best.
You tried to burn me out, and you tried to murder me, and now you
come in and steal—”

“Hold on! That’s a pretty rough way to talk,” Harrison interrupted
him. “You must be crazy. Here, if you’ve got anything to say to me,
come along to my tent.”

Tom, boiling with indignation, was conducted to Harrison’s
sleeping-tent, where the man turned on an electric lantern, and sat
down on the cot-bed from which he had lately arisen.

“You’ve got no kick coming at all,” Harrison resumed. “I made you a
proposition to get out, right at the start, even though you had no
particular rights here. I discovered this walnut before you thought
of looking for it—”

“And then you tried to burn me out, and you sent McLeod to kill me
in the woods.”

“As for the fire, it was an accident. McLeod? Well, McLeod tells me
that you ambushed him and held him up and threatened to kill him. By
way of a joke, after that, he ran off with your canoe and hid it a
couple of miles down the river. Didn’t you find it again?”

Tom listened in absolute disbelief.

“Anyhow, you’ve got no sort of right to take out this timber,” he
said. “It belongs—if it belongs to anybody—to the man who cut it.”

“And he’s dead. Exactly,” said Harrison. “You see, I took the
precaution of going into all that matter long ago. Daniel Wilson
died ten years ago, but his son is living in Montreal. This son is
Wilson’s only heir. I went to see him, and came to an arrangement.
I’ll show you.”

Harrison opened a small box, and after rummaging through it, he
produced a large folded document, glanced at it, and handed it to
Tom.

It was worded in legal phraseology, hard to comprehend; but the boy
made out that Henry Wilson, whose name was undersigned, transferred
to A. C. Harrison all his rights in a certain quantity of walnut
timber supposed to be in or about Coboconk Lake, formerly the
property of the father of the said Henry Wilson.

“I get it out on a basis of paying him a royalty of ten dollars a
thousand feet, as you see,” said Harrison. “I paid him a hundred
dollars down. It was a gamble, for I wasn’t sure; but I’d been up
here before, and I had an idea of where that old raft might have
drifted. But you see it’s all straight and aboveboard—”

Tom was hardly listening. The paper appeared to be correctly drawn
up, properly signed, and witnessed. He could not doubt its validity.
There was nothing to do, then. Harrison had out-manœvered him at
every point. The game was up.

He turned almost sick with chagrin and defeat. He threw down the
paper and stood up, turning away without a word.

“Hold on. Where are you going?” cried Harrison.

“None of your business! I’m not likely to trouble you any more;
that’s all,” Tom returned through clenched teeth.

[Illustration: The game was up]

“Well, all right. Only I wish you’d call off that confounded Ojibway
boy you left here,” said Harrison, agreeably. “He seems to think
we’re trespassers. He’s shot up the camp twice. One of my men got a
buck-shot in the leg. It isn’t safe to go into the woods. Tell him
that if he doesn’t clear out we’ll hunt him down, and kill him or
take him out for the penitentiary.”

Tom had a moment’s pleasure at the thought of Charlie’s “shooting
up” Harrison’s camp; but he did not return a word. He strode down to
his canoe, and went shooting out into the moonlight of the lake. On
the shore he could see the little group of men looking after him.

                            CHAPTER VII

                            NOT TOO LATE

Tom felt singularly inclined to shoot up the camp himself, but he
restrained himself and paddled down the lake, almost without knowing
where he was going. He had, in fact, no plan in his mind. All his
plans had fallen into ruin together. He thought of getting away from
these woods; he thought of going back to the city. It seemed the
only thing left to do. But first it occurred to him, he must see
Charlie.

Not merely to give him Harrison’s warning, though the boy would
certainly have to be checked in his now unnecessary warfare. But he
had no food nor supplies, not even enough for the trip back to
Oakley, nothing but his rifle and a few cartridges. Moreover he had,
after some hesitation, left all his money with Charlie rather than
risk taking it over the trail. There must be about seventy dollars,
and he would need it badly.

He had very little idea where the Indian boy was to be found, but he
paddled down the lower lake to the mouth of the little river that
led up to his old camping ground. In the moonlight and shadow he
made his way up this almost to the point where he had shot the mink
on that far-away spring morning. Here he disembarked and started
into the woods by the way he used to take.

It was rather dark in the shade, but the way was familiar to him,
and he went ahead easily. But he had gone no more than two hundred
yards when he heard something like a queer, metallic click not far
ahead. An instinct made him stop short; and the next moment there
was a blaze and a bang, and a load of heavy shot crashed into the
tree trunk right at his side.

By good luck, he was not touched. He sprang behind the tree,
guessing at once who had fired that shot.

“Don’t shoot, Charlie!” he yelled. “It’s me. It’s Tom.”

Dead silence followed. Nothing seemed to stir in the undergrowth.
Tom began to imagine that perhaps it was not Charlie who had fired.
It might have been McLeod, come up from the lake to ambush him
again. He listened and looked more keenly, but heard nothing, till a
voice spoke quietly, almost at his elbow.

“You get back, Tom? You fin’ your cousin?”

Tom was so startled that he jumped. The Ojibway had crawled like a
serpent through the brush to get a close look at the intruder before
he spoke.

“Gracious, Charlie!” he exclaimed. “Is that you?”

The young Indian came out into the moonlight and surveyed Tom
carefully.

“You come—camp this way,” he announced, and, turning, he started off
through the woods.

Within a hundred yards or so Tom perceived the glimmer of a very
small fire, almost hidden between two rocks. Charlie put on a few
fresh sticks, and placed the kettle, and produced a lump of bacon.

“You eat,” he observed. “I wait for you long time. Other man
come—git timber, like you say. I lay for ’em—shoot their camp—no
good. I hope you come back. I hear noise down by lake to-night—then
I hear you come. T’ink you somebody else—shoot you, pretty near.”

“Rather,” said Tom. “I’m glad you’re such a bad shot. You’ve done
your best, Charlie, but it’s all up. I can’t have that timber. I’m
going away.”

Charlie looked up quickly, with a somber flash in his black eyes.

“You come back, Tom?” he inquired.

“I don’t know. Maybe not.”

Charlie pondered, gazing into the fire. The tea-kettle boiled.
Charlie poured out the hot strong stuff into tin cups and handed one
to his friend.

“You stay here, Tom,” he proposed. “We git that timber. We lay for
them fellows. We can kill them all—easy.”

“No, Charlie. That wouldn’t do,” said Tom, smiling at this too
simple solution. “Those fellows have got a right to the timber, and
I haven’t, and that settles it. You must stop your shooting at them.
You’d better go away too.”

Charlie looked depressed. Probably he had been thoroughly enjoying
the guerrilla warfare of the last few days. From his sparing remarks
Tom gathered that he had been continually changing his camp,
prowling, scouting, feeling himself thoroughly on the warpath. He
had fired on Harrison’s party several times; Tom felt devoutly
thankful that nobody had been killed. Charlie had most of his
smaller possessions cunningly cached in hollow logs and trees, and,
on Tom’s inquiry, he went off into the darkness and presently
returned with the money—a roll of bills carefully wound in birch
bark. Tom would have liked to share it with this faithful comrade,
but he would sorely need it all himself. He presented to Charlie,
however, all the rest of his outfit: the aluminum cooking utensils,
the ax, the odds and ends that had been rescued from the burning
barn, and a few worn articles of clothing.

“I stay round ’bout here, Tom,” said Charlie. “You come back.”

“You’d better go and get some work,” Tom suggested. “Go down to
Oakley.”

Charles looked disdainful.

“Work hard all winter,” he said. “Trap—hunt—walk snow-shoes. Rest in
summer. Say, Tom, you come with me next winter. We trap—hunt—ketch
heap fur.”

“I don’t know, Charlie,” Tom answered, regretfully. He wondered
where he would be next winter. He had little notion of what he ought
to do. He might go to Uncle Phil’s farm, as he had at first
intended; but this seemed now to promise nothing. Almost he
regretted not having joined Dave in the gold hunt. On the whole it
seemed better to go back to Toronto for the time. His clothes were
torn; his shoes were almost worn out. He had a little money,
however—more than he had started with. He could buy clothes, and
then, perhaps, secure a job as before as a summer fire ranger. This
might enable him to pay his way at the university, for he was
determined to have no more of his former parasitic existence. He
felt five years older, ten times as self-reliant as when he had left
Toronto only a few months ago; and the thought of his college years
of casual study, much foot-ball and hockey, and thoughtless
scattering of money filled him with disgust.

“I’ve acted like a kid,” he reflected. “Time I was getting grown up
a little. No wonder father wouldn’t have me around the business.”

Anyhow, he had to return the canoe to Oakley, and at dawn he bade
Charlie farewell and started down the river again.

“You come back, Tom,” the Ojibway called after him. “I wait for
you.”

He went straight down Little Coboconk without looking again at the
lost treasure, and entered the river. A mile down he noticed the
opening of a well-cut trail,—doubtless the road to Uncle Phil’s
place,—and he wondered that he had never observed it before. He felt
rather languid from the recent wearing days, and from short sleep
for two nights; the river ran smoothly, and he drifted along without
any great efforts at paddling, so that it was well into the
afternoon when he came into Oakley.

He was late for the stage to the railway, which left only in the
forenoon; and he had to spend the rest of the afternoon and the
night at the hotel. But the rest was welcome. He managed to improve
his wild and wilderness-worn appearance a little, and took the train
next morning.

The city seemed strangely noisy, crowded, hot, and dirty when he
came out from the station and boarded a street-car to go home. His
own tattered and weather-beaten appearance seemed even stranger to
the passengers on the car. He was carrying his rifle still, and he
must have looked like a trapper from the utmost frontiers. The
attention he attracted was so embarrassing that Tom was in haste to
get home. He walked hurriedly for a block up Avenue Road after
leaving the car and saw his house in the distance; but even then he
perceived that the curtains were down everywhere and that the place
had a vacant, deserted look.

The front door was locked. He rang the electric bell repeatedly, but
in vain, and then tried the side door and the back door, with no
more success. Not even a servant was at home. He peeped into the
garage through a crack in the door. The car was gone. Evidently the
whole family had gone away, though it was the first time he could
remember that his father had taken a summer vacation.

Tom was much too familiar with the house to allow locks to keep him
out. He knew a basement window that could be opened with a piece of
wire, and without much trouble he got himself inside. From the
interior of the house he judged that the family had been gone for
several days, at least. He went to his own room, hunted out an
outfit of fresh clothing more suited to the city, took a bath, and
dressed himself. The feel of the stiff collar was strange and
irritating. Investigating the kitchen, he could find nothing but
some crackers, part of a pot of jam, and a tin of sardines; but
these simple foods seemed delicious, and he greedily ate everything
in sight.

He looked through the house to see if he could find any indication
of where his family had gone. He could discover nothing, but the
appearance of the rooms and of the covered furniture seemed to
indicate that a long absence was intended. Tom began to grow a
trifle uneasy. But they would know all about it at his father’s
office, and he left the house and took a downtown car.

To his alarm he found no signs of life about the big lumber-yard at
the foot of Bathurst Street. No teams were moving; no one was at
work; the great gates were closed and padlocked, with a “No
Admission” sign. But the office building was open, and Tom went in.

None of the usual clerks were in the outer office. But he thought he
heard a sound from his father’s private room beyond, and he opened
the door, and looked in.

Mr. Jackson was not there. But in his usual place at the desk sat a
stout man with iron-gray hair, surrounded by an enormous mass of
papers and ledgers. His back was to the door, but he wheeled
sharply, with a look of annoyance, at hearing the door open.

Tom recognized Mr. Armstrong, his father’s lawyer. For many years
Mr. Armstrong had been not only Mr. Jackson’s legal adviser, but his
closest personal friend. He did not often come to the house,
however, and Tom really knew him very slightly. He had always been
somewhat repelled by the lawyer’s dry, ironical manner, and had
always had a feeling that Mr. Armstrong did not approve of him.

“Mr. Tom Jackson. Really! The last person I expected to see,” said
the lawyer with a chilly smile. Adjusting his eye-glasses, he
examined Tom from head to foot. “You look as if you’d been roughing
it. Your family has been very anxious about you, you know.”

“Where are they? I’ve just come down from the north woods, and the
house is empty,” Tom cried. “What’s happened? Surely father hasn’t
left town?”

“Your father has gone to Muskoka with his family, for a little
rest—to the Royal Victoria Hotel, Muskoka Beaches,” replied the
lawyer. “They were anxious to get in communication with you, but
didn’t know how to reach you. I have the key of the house.”

And he produced it from a pigeonhole in the desk.

“But why did they go? Father isn’t ill?”

“Your father is an extremely sick man. To get him out of town, away
from business, was his only chance for life, the doctors thought.”

“But what—what is the matter?” cried Tom, paralyzed by this news.

“Why, nothing; that is, nothing very physically serious, I think.
And that’s the worse of it. The doctors don’t know what to get hold
of. Has your father told you anything about his business affairs?”

“Not much—only that they were a little involved, some time ago. But
I thought he had them straightened out all right.”

“So he might have done, with a little bit of luck. He had several
large contracts pending. He had bought options of some pulp-wood
tracts; he expected to close a deal with the railroad for a big lot
of ties. Nothing went right, though. He even failed to get the tie
contract. Everything seemed to go back on him at once. He couldn’t
take up his options, and he’s been obliged to close out nearly all
his holdings at a big loss. At last he broke down. He gave up, and
when a man like your father gives up, at his age, it means something
serious.”

Tom uttered a horrified exclamation. Armstrong looked at him coldly,
but it was easy to see that the lawyer, under his frigid exterior,
was deeply affected by the misfortunes of his old friend.

“So you didn’t know anything about it?” he resumed. “Well, the
doctors forbade him to think of business for months, and they sent
him up north. He put all his affairs into my hands—gave me power to
go through the business, and act as I see fit—either to go into
bankruptcy, or to try to fight it out.”

“Bankruptcy!” Tom exclaimed. The idea seemed preposterous to him,
who had always regarded his father’s business as a source of wealth,
varying, indeed, but inexhaustible. “Surely that’s impossible! What
have you found?”

“I haven’t finished going through the books. But it looks about as
bad as it can be. The lumber business has been slumping for the last
year. Three months ago I advised your father to make an assignment
and have the thing over. But he said that every dollar of his paper
had always been worth a hundred cents, and always would be while he
lived. I think he was speaking truth. For if the business goes under
I don’t believe he will survive it long. Business was his whole
life.”

Tom tried to collect his shocked mind.

“How long will it take you to come to a conclusion?” he asked.

“I don’t know. A considerable time. The accounts are very
complicated.”

“How much money would it take to clear everything?”

“It’s hard to say, at this point. Perhaps thirty thousand. I think
that twenty thousand might pull it through, in hard cash, at this
minute. Are you thinking of furnishing it?” he added, with a return
to his ironical manner.

Tom had really come nearer to being able to furnish it than the
lawyer imagined; and if Mr. Armstrong had shown himself a little
more sympathetic the boy might have told his story and sought
advice. But, as it was, he turned away in silence, full of grief and
distress.

“I suppose you’ll be going up to join your family in Muskoka,” the
lawyer said. “Don’t let your father talk about business when you see
him. Get him out in the open air, canoeing, fishing, if you can.
Will you dine with me to-night?”

Tom would rather have gone hungry than spend the evening with what
seemed to him Armstrong’s sneering and cynical personality. He
muttered an excuse, took the key, and went home again. He dined by
himself at a lunch-counter, spent the night in the empty house, and
next morning took the early train for Muskoka Beaches. He felt that
he could make no plans for the summer now until he knew how his
father was, and whether his help could be of any avail.

The season was opening well at the summer resort, and the lake in
front of the Royal Victoria Hotel was alive with canoes,
motor-boats, and skiffs. The lawns were gay with tennis; automobiles
roared and thudded, and the wide verandas of the big hotel were
crowded with rocking-chairs. It struck Tom that this was anything
but a quiet retreat for a man with nervous breakdown. He mounted the
steps to the first veranda, looked about uncertainly, and was lucky
enough to espy his youngest sister in a far corner, reclining in a
camp-chair with a novel.

“Oh, Edith!” he exclaimed, hastening toward her. “How’s father?
Where is he?”

The girl jumped up with a cry of astonishment.

“Why, Tom! When did you get here? We wanted to write to you, but we
didn’t know where you were. Where _have_ you been? You look like an
Indian—all brown and thin.”

“Up in the woods. I’ve just been in town—saw Armstrong, and he told
me about father. Do you think he’s dangerously sick?”

“I don’t know, Tom. He’s up all the time, but he can’t sleep and
doesn’t eat. We can’t get him to do anything. I think he’s worrying
about business, but he never says anything, not even to mamma. You’d
better come and see him. He’s up-stairs.”

Tom followed his sister through the hallways of the great hotel, up
a flight of stairs, and into the suite of rooms that his father had
taken. No one was in them just then; for Mrs. Jackson had gone
down-stairs, and her husband was on the private balcony outside,
where he spent the sunny part of the days.

Here Tom found him, lying back in a long chair, wrapped closely in a
steamer rug, looking pitifully old and broken. Tom could not
remember having ever seen his father ill before; and a lump rose in
his throat, and he could barely mutter something as he grasped the
sick man’s hand. Mr. Jackson greeted him with some pleasure, but his
manner was absent and almost indifferent. Tom had a heartbreaking
sense that he had meant nothing to his father’s life; he had a
conviction also that Armstrong was right, and Mr. Jackson would not
long outlast the business he had created.

“This is a good place to come to, Father,” he said, with an effort
to be cheerful. “It ought to set you up in no time.”

“The place is well enough,” said the lumberman slowly. “It’s too
fashionable to suit me, but your mother likes it, and you can smell
the pine woods here. That smell does me good; but I’m getting to be
an old man, and there’s no medicine for that.”

“Nonsense! You’re just overworked. You’ll be a young man again after
a month’s rest,” Tom remonstrated. “I’m going to take you out in a
canoe, trolling for salmon trout.”

Mr. Jackson did not appear to welcome this suggestion.

“Where have you been all this time? What have you been doing with
yourself?” he inquired, with no great interest.

“I’ve been up in the woods—on the Coboconk lakes—near Uncle Phil’s
place,” Tom answered with some hesitation. “Looking for—for
government land to take up. I saw Cousin Dave, just starting on a
gold-rush.”

And to entertain his father he gave a humorous description of the
hurrying prospectors.

“You’ve been in town. Did you see Armstrong there? What did he tell
you?” Mr. Jackson inquired, after listening indifferently to Tom’s
story.

“He told me—that you were on no account to talk about business,” Tom
evaded, laughing.

“He’s an old fool. But it’ll not bear much talking about, maybe. He
told you the shape it’s in, I’ve no doubt. I left it all in his
hands. I was at the end of my rope. If the business goes down, Tom,
you’ll have to start life a poor man, the same as your father did;
and I’m afraid you haven’t got the training or the mind for it,” he
added, ruthlessly. “It’s partly my own fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault a bit, Father!” Tom groaned. “It was all my
own foolishness. It’s going to be different after this. I’ve learned
a lot up there in the woods. I had a rough time and nearly starved.
I thought things all over.” He hesitated, and then went on. “I did
think once, too, that I was going to make a big strike.”

Mr. Jackson was looking at his son with a little more interest.

“Well, if you can get a bit more practical, Tom, it’ll be a good
thing. In fact, it looks as if you’d have to do it. What kind of a
strike were you trying to make? Gold? There’s no mineral around the
Coboconk lakes. I’ve lumbered all through that district, years ago.”

“You have?” cried Tom. “I never knew that. Then very likely you’ve
heard of the big raft of walnut logs that was lost on Coboconk a
good many years ago?”

“Everybody’s heard of it up there. What about it?”

“Well—I found it.”

The old lumberman opened his eyes, and sat up briskly.

“You found it? Where? Why, it was sunk in the lake.”

“Don’t get stirred up, Father. There’s nothing in it, I’m afraid.
But I did find it. It had been sunk, but close to the shore, near
the place where the two lakes connect. The water has gone back a
good deal: and, besides, the lake was very low this spring, so that
the place where the raft had sunk is clean out of the water now.
Some of the timber was sticking out of the sand, and most of it
seemed to be only a foot or so down, so I had great hopes of getting
it out. It seemed to be in first-rate condition.”

“Well, what did you do?” demanded Mr. Jackson, impatiently.

“Why, you see, the timber didn’t belong to me. I thought it was on
Uncle Phil’s land, and that’s why I hunted up Dave. But it isn’t.”

“You ought to have sent word to me at once!” exclaimed Mr. Jackson.
His eyes were alive now with interest, and he looked ten years
younger all at once.

“Just what I was thinking of doing. But it wouldn’t have made any
difference, I’m afraid. There was another man prospecting for it—a
fellow named Harrison, who had been up there last summer too. He
played me a nasty trick, but he had the rights to the raft.”

“The rights? How did he make that out?” cried Mr. Jackson.

“He had the papers. It seems old Daniel Wilson, who cut the raft,
has a son living in Montreal, and Harrison had made some deal with
him to get out the timber, if he could find it. He’s paying young
Wilson a royalty, I believe.”

“No such thing! The fellow must be an impostor. You should have let
me know of this at once, Tom. I can’t imagine what you were thinking
of. Do you know the value of walnut now? Never mind! I guess it
isn’t too late, if we act quick.”

And, to Tom’s astonishment and alarm, his father threw off the rug
and stood up, his eyes bright, looking revitalized. Tom regretted
that he had told the story, which he had meant merely to entertain
his father.

“Sit down, Father,” he urged, taking his arm gently. “It’s no good.
Harrison may be a villain; he certainly tried some rough work on me.
But then he made me a cash offer first to leave the place. But, so
far as the timber goes, he seems to have his title good. I saw the
papers made out by Wilson’s son, all signed and witnessed in proper
shape. I don’t see how we can do anything.”

“Papers? A pack of lies! Forgeries!” snorted Mr. Jackson. “Why, I
knew old Dan Wilson well. He’s got no son living. Even if he had it
would make no difference; for the Daniel Wilson Lumber Company
failed five years before Dan’s death, and I bought out all the
concern, all the assets, every stick and scrap of them. Paid fifteen
hundred dollars, and lost about a thousand on it; but I only meant
it to help Dan out. The raft was included in the assets; I’ll show
you the papers. They’re in the safe. I never expected to see any of
that walnut, but it’s mine—all of it. Why, I’m the Wilson Lumber
Company myself, now!”

                            CHAPTER VIII

                            THE TREASURE

“You mean to say you really own the timber yourself, Father?” Tom
cried, almost stupefied. For just a moment he had the idea that his
father’s mind had become slightly deranged; but Mr. Jackson’s
practical and competent manner, growing more vigorous every minute,
put that idea to flight.

“Of course I do. Armstrong knows all about it. What a pity you
didn’t tell him when you were in town! But it can’t be helped. We’re
not too late—I hope. What has that Harrison done toward lifting the
walnut?”

“Not very much, when I left, three days ago. I think he’d just got
to work. They had dug out quite a number of the logs.”

“How many men did he have? How many teams? You don’t know? You
should have found out, Tom. Anyhow, it’ll be a matter of weeks to
get all that lumber up and raft or haul it away. But we don’t want
him to have any claim for salvage against us. We must get on the
spot the first minute we can. We’ll start for Coboconk at once, my
boy.”

“Let me go alone, Father. Give me authority to act for you. You’re
not strong enough to go into the woods.”

“I guess I’m plenty strong enough when there’s something really to
be done,” laughed the old lumberman. “It was doing nothing that was
killing me—sitting still and seeing nothing but ruin. No, this is
just the medicine I want.”

Tom still felt dubious, but Mr. Jackson insisted on action.

“I don’t see why we can’t start to-morrow,” he said. “We can get our
outfit and men at Ormond. I guess that’s the nearest railway point
to the lake.”

“I thought Oakley was the nearest.”

“Oakley’s down the river—thirty-five miles or so, isn’t it? And we
couldn’t take teams up the river in canoes. Ormond is straight west
from the Coboconk lakes, only twenty miles, and there’s a logging
road, or used to be. That’s the way you go to Phil’s ranch. You
can’t teach me much about that district, Tom. Just wait till we get
out there.”

Tom’s mother was astounded, half an hour later, to find Mr. Jackson
walking briskly up and down the balcony arm in arm with his son,
talking with enthusiasm about business matters. Mr. Jackson laughed
at her alarm; he declared he felt a hundred per cent. better
already, and, in fact, he presently ate a better lunch than he had
eaten for a long time. Afterward, however, he consented to take his
prescribed nap, and while he was sleeping Tom detailed the new
enterprise to his mother. On her suggestion Tom went to consult the
doctor who was attending his father. For a dangerously sick man to
start suddenly upon the trail did seem a risky experiment.

“This may be just the thing he needs,” said the physician, after
listening to Tom’s tale. “Inaction and worry were the hardest things
on him. He hasn’t any real disease at all. Make him travel as
comfortably as possible, and try to keep him from overexerting
himself, and you may bring him back cured.”

Tom did not tell his father about this visit to the doctor, but he
was able to throw himself into the preparations with a much better
conscience. They did not, however, leave for a day or two. It was
not so very far to the Coboconk district, but it was a very
circuitous journey by rail. They had to go half-way to Toronto and
then back upon a branch line to reach Ormond, and it was late in the
afternoon when they at last got off at that backwoods village. The
timber treasure lay only twenty-two miles to the east, but it was
twenty-two miles of dense second-growth forest penetrated only by
the almost disused logging roads.

Ormond was a village of two-score houses and a store or two, larger
than Oakley but not now so flourishing. Once this district had been
the seat of a thriving lumber industry; Mr. Jackson had worked over
it before setting up in Toronto; but most of the pine had been long
ago cut, and dull times had come upon Ormond. But Tom was astonished
to find his father well known and remembered there still. The
proprietor of the hotel, elderly, bearded, and rough, stared at his
guests for a moment, and then uttered a shout of recognition.

“Jumping crickets! If it ain’t Matt Jackson!”

Mr. Jackson shook the hotel man’s hand heartily.

“I didn’t know you were up here yet, Andrews,” he said. “I used to
know Mr. Andrews well, years ago, when I was lumbering around
Coboconk,” he said to Tom. “I expect there may be some of my old
lumber-jacks here still. If there are they’re just what we need now.
I’ve got a little timber proposition on,” he added to the
proprietor.

“Sure, I’ll find ye some of the boys,” exclaimed Andrews. “They’ll
be powerful glad to work for ye again, too—the more as jobs is
scarce around Ormond these days.”

Tom went up to his room to wash, pleased immensely at the reception
they had received. Coming down again, he found his father in
animated conversation with a group of old residents, and looking
more alive and interested than he had seen him for years. Mr.
Jackson was tired, indeed, and went early to bed that night; but he
was far from exhausted by the journey, and was up the next morning
before his son.

Tom found his father down-stairs, consulting with a big, roughly
dressed fellow, bull-necked and huge-chested. His hair was grizzling
a little, but his strength appeared noway abated with years, and he
treated the lumber merchant with marked deference.

“This is Joe Lynch—Big Joe, they used to call him, and likely do
yet,” said Mr. Jackson. “He’s one of the best bushmen in the north,
and it isn’t the first time he’s worked for me. He’ll be our foreman
now, and he thinks he can pick up six or eight men for us right
away. We want to get started at once. Teams and supplies can come on
later. Remember, Joe,” he added, “I want men who wouldn’t be afraid
of a little trouble. Not roughs, you know, but fellows who can fight
if they need to. Maybe there’ll be a row where we’re going.”

“Trust me for thot, sorr,” responded Lynch, with a wink. “They’ll
like nothing better. I’ll get ye a bunch that’ll fight their weight
in wildcats, any day.”

At that moment breakfast was called, and Tom and his father went
into the dining-room.

“I’ve heard news of your man Harrison,” said Mr. Jackson. “He was
here ten days ago, hiring men and getting supplies. Nobody knew what
he wanted them for. He’s got five men and one team of horses, and he
can’t have made any great progress at getting out the walnut yet.
But I think we’d better hurry ahead as soon as we can. It’ll take
some time to get our outfit together here, but I suppose I can leave
that to Lynch—though I’d rather see after it myself. Something’s
sure to be overlooked.”

“Better let me scout ahead, Father!” Tom urged. “We can’t tell what
Harrison may be doing. He might raft down the timber in small
quantities as fast as he got it out, and sell it at Oakley.”

“That’s a fact,” said Mr. Jackson, struck by this danger. “I suppose
you could stop anything like that, if you took a man or two with
you. I’d give you written authority.”

“But Uncle Phil’s ranch must be on the way,” cried Tom, struck with
a fresh idea. “He’d go over with me, or Cousin Ed—maybe somebody
else.”

This proposition was so evidently sound that Tom set out soon after
breakfast. Plenty of people knew where Phil Jackson’s farm lay, and
Tom regretted that he had not originally come to Ormond instead of
Oakley. But then he would probably never have reached Coboconk and
the lost raft.

He carried only his rifle and a package of cold lunch, expecting to
reach the farm some time that afternoon. It was supposed to be only
fifteen miles, and there was a road,—not much used, indeed, but
still a road,—which it would be easy to follow. Mr. Jackson was to
collect his men and their outfit and come on the next day, to rejoin
Tom where the trail struck the river, below Little Coboconk.

The old road proved rough traveling. Apparently it had not been used
at all for a long time, and it was grown up thickly with small
spruces and raspberry thickets—so jungly, in fact, that Tom often
found it easier to take to the woods.

It was not going to be easy traveling for the wagons, he thought;
and wondered if Harrison’s men had come in this way. Still, he
plodded on and ate his lunch about noon, and within the next few
miles he began to look for traces of settlement. Nothing appeared,
however, and he began to travel slowly, looking about him more
carefully for trails. An uneasy qualm began to assail him, but he
kept on until, as the sun came down close to the tree-tops, he
became assured that he had somehow missed the way.

He turned back at once on his own trail. Once he came to what seemed
a cow track crossing the path, but it presently became untraceable.
The sun was going down, and he stopped. By this time he was grown
hardened to being lost in the woods; but he was hungry, and the
prospect of a supperless night was not attractive.

It was warm, however, and he built a fire and made himself as
comfortable as possible. Despite an empty stomach, he managed to
sleep; and in the earliest morning, rested but famished, he started
back on the road over which he had come. But it was only after an
hour or so that he came upon an obscure-looking cross trail that he
had previously overlooked. He might have passed it again, had not
his attention been caught by something like the far-away bellow of a
cow.

He followed up the trail toward the sound, and within a quarter of a
mile he struck a wide, stumpy, pasture clearing. Beyond another belt
of trees he emerged upon a plowed field, with a view of a large log
house and barns, which he knew must be the elusive homestead of
Uncle Phil.

So it proved. Tom hurried up to the house and got an astonished but
enthusiastic welcome. He had come at an unfortunate moment, however.
Uncle Phil and Cousin Ed had started within the last hour for the
store and post-office, nine miles away on a bush road that Tom had
not suspected, and were not likely to be back before evening.

No one was at home but his aunt and the younger children. Tom ate a
huge breakfast, told his story, and gave news of Dave on the gold
trail, and rested for an hour or so. But he was uneasily impatient
to reach the lakes. He was afraid to wait for his uncle’s return,
and he got an early dinner, took a packet of lunch, and set out
again shortly after midday.

He had his directions more accurately laid now; but it was rough
travel through the woods, and he went more slowly than he had hoped.
The sun was almost setting when he emerged at last on the shore of
the river. He was still a mile or two below Little Coboconk, but he
hastened up the stream and saw the long, placid expanse of the lake.

Nothing moved on its waters. From away up by the narrows he thought
he saw a curl of smoke in the evening air. The emptiness relieved
him; somehow he had almost expected to see the raft afloat and
steering down the lake. But he knew that it was almost impossible
for Harrison to have salvaged any great quantity of the timber so
soon.

Peering ahead, he walked up the stony margin of the lake in the
twilight. He had a strange, uneasy feeling that eyes were upon him,
as he had had during the journey to Roswick; but this time he was
certain that no one could have followed him through the woods. More
than once, all the same, he turned quickly to look, but nothing
stirred on the surface of the lake or the darkening shores.

Smoke was certainly rising from Harrison’s encampment, but he was
afraid to go within sight of the place while the light lasted. He
sat down in the thickets just back from the shore and ate his
lunch—wise enough this time to reserve a portion for breakfast.
Darkness fell on the water. A half-moon grew visible over the trees,
and up by the narrows a red glow began to shine.

Tom resumed his course up the shore, careful to make no noise. The
glare over the trees looked as if Harrison had set fire to the
forest again. But it was not until he reached the head of Little
Coboconk that he could see what was going on.

Harrison’s camp lay across the narrows from him, and there were
great fires burning on the shore that cast a flood of red light
across the water. Dark figures moved through the lurid illumination;
he heard the rattle of chains, the thud of axes, and the cries of
men hauling and heaving at the timbers. Evidently Harrison, in his
desperate haste to get the walnut out, was working day and night.

Tom crept up closer to the narrow channel, feeling secure in the
outlying darkness. From the opposite shore he made out a huge, dark
shape stretching like a pier. The raft was being rebuilt. And then
Tom distinguished Harrison himself, standing in the full light of
one of the fires, talking earnestly to another man, a stranger, an
elderly man, who did not look in the least like a lumber-jack.

For a long time Tom crouched in the shadows, watching the scene of
activity. Logs were being dug out and piled in place. They were not
working on the raft just then. Probably daylight was needed for
that. But it looked rather certain that no timber was likely to be
floated away for some time, and Tom felt vastly relieved. By the
next night his father would be here.

He wondered if they were going to work all night. He was tired of
waiting on the shore, and he had a great desire to examine the
partly constructed raft more closely. Toward nine o’clock, however,
he observed the activity slackening. The fires began to die down.
Work was knocked off. He perceived that a kettle was being boiled at
a smaller and more distant fire. The men gathered around and were
served with food. They smoked for a little while after this, while
Tom watched impatiently, and then one by one they disappeared into
the tents. There were evidently not men enough for the day and night
shifts, and so Harrison had simply extended the day as long as
possible.

Tom still waited and listened. Silence fell on the camp. The red
shine of the fires grew dim, and the pale moonlight began to take
its place. But for the fifty yards of channel, Tom would have
ventured to reconnoiter the raft more closely; and he was in fact
thinking of taking off his clothes and wading and swimming over when
a faint, unmistakable splash close at hand caught his attention.

He shrank back into the bushes, cocking his rifle. For full five
minutes he stood motionless, every sense alert, but without hearing
a twig rustle. Then a shadow moved out of a thicket.

“Tom!” said a subdued voice.

Tom started violently, half raising his rifle.

“You no shoot me, Tom. I watch you long time,” said the shadow.

“Charlie!” exclaimed the boy, recovering himself. “That isn’t you?
Why, I thought you were gone long ago. How did you see me?”

“I see you when you come out on river, ’fore dark. Think it’s you,
not sure. I follow you—watch long time. I think mebbe you come back
some time, Tom. I look for you every day.”

“Charlie, you’re a good scout!” said Tom, his heart warming. “Yes,
I’ve found out that timber really is mine after all, so I came
back.”

“We fight um, then?” asked Charlie, hopefully.

“Not to-night, anyhow,” Tom responded, smiling. “My father is coming
to-morrow. May be a fight then. But how did you get here? Got a
canoe? Where’d you get it?”

“My canoe. That red-hair man steal him from you—I steal him back
again.”

“Good!” Tom looked across at the dying firelight and the dim tents.
“Put me across there, Charlie. I want to see how much of that timber
they’ve got out.”

The Ojibway seemed to vanish without a word into the gloom. Within a
few minutes the canoe glided up, a darker shadow in the shadow of
the lake-side spruces. Tom stepped in cautiously, and Charlie,
dipping the paddle without a sound, guided the canoe across the
channel and touched the extremity of the half-built raft.

It was not all of walnut, of course. It had to be buoyed with
lighter wood, and even in the faint light Tom could see the
fresh-cut spruce and pine logs. It was impossible to estimate how
much of the old timber there was. He climbed out of the canoe and
stood upon the raft itself, which felt as solid under him as a ship.

He raked the silent camp with another cautious glance and walked
toward the shore. Reaching the land he could see the earth torn up
in wild hollows and mounds, where the walnut had been disinterred.
Piles of logs lay in every direction. It looked as if surely the
greater part of the lost raft was there, ready for rebuilding again,
and Tom was filled with renewed anxiety. They were running it fine.
If anything should delay his father and the men from Ormond,
Harrison might still get away with his plunder.

He stepped off the raft upon the earth and looked keenly about
again. Through his mind passed the idea of doing something to wreck
operations—to halt them, at any rate; but he dismissed it. The gain
would not be worth the danger. Next day he would have reinforcements
on the spot. The best thing would be to retreat into the darkness
again and wait.

He had taken half a dozen steps, and he turned to go back. Some dim
obstacle lay at his feet. Trying to avoid it, he tripped on
something, with a clashing of chains. He stumbled forward and
blundered into a hole where a log had been dug up, knocking down a
pile of cant-hooks and spades, mingled with chains, which made a
deafening crash and clatter. The rifle flew out of his hand.

Almost instantly he heard a voice asking what was the matter. A man
dived out of the nearest tent, stared about, and then started toward
him. Tom lay flat where he had fallen, invisible, as he hoped, in
the darkness. The man came within two yards of him, gazed about
again, while Tom lay holding his breath, and then, with a muttered
exclamation, struck a match. In the quick, brilliant flare Tom
caught a glimpse of the man’s fox-colored hair. He jerked his legs
under him and made a plunge to get away, but the fellow was even
more agile. He was upon him before Tom touched the raft, and the boy
was pulled back by rough hand on his collar.

McLeod turned Tom’s face to the moonlight.

“I declare, ef it ain’t that youngster again!” he exclaimed. “Can’t
keep away, hey? All right—I got him!” he called over his shoulder.
“It’s that same—”

Tom was aware that Harrison and the stranger were hurrying toward
him. Other men were appearing from the tents. He glanced toward the
end of the raft. Charlie and his canoe had vanished. He was ashamed
at being caught so ignominiously, but he was not particularly
afraid. He felt in possession of authority now. He had the
whip-hand.

“What’s this?” Harrison cried, turning on the white beam of a
flashlight. “Oh, it’s you, is it? Didn’t I warn you to clear out?”

“I’ve come back to stay this time,” Tom retorted. “I know all—”

“Who is it? Do you know him?” interrupted the strange man, who had
an honest and good-humored face. He wore a soft collar and a tie,
and had slightly the air of a sportsman from town.

“He’s been hanging about all spring,” said Harrison, impatiently. “I
don’t know his name. Trying to steal something, I guess.”

“That won’t do,” said Tom. “I know a good deal more than I did when
I was here last. I’ve heard all about Daniel Wilson. My father’ll be
here in the morning. Just now, I’m in his place.”

“You must be crazy!” Harrison exclaimed. “Look here, you get out of
this camp at once.” He took Tom by the shoulder, and propelled him
toward the woods. “Got anything to say to me? Well, say it quick!”

The rest of the party remained where they were, laughing. Harrison
shoved Tom into the shadows of the trees, gripped his arm hard, and
led him on, stumbling over fallen timber.

“You want to talk to me?” he repeated. “Well, go ahead.”

He had dropped the bluff tone of intimidation, and his voice was
subtle, conciliating. They were out of ear-shot of the camp now.

“I haven’t much to say,” returned Tom. “I saw my father—Matthew
Jackson, of Toronto—and told him all about the raft. You can guess
the rest. He took over Dan Wilson’s business, you know. You haven’t
any rights here at all. We might pay you something for the work
you’ve done already on it, but that’ll be all we’ll do. You’ll have
to get ready to quit.”

Harrison steered Tom a little way farther into the woods, saying
nothing. Then he stopped, and spoke in a low tone of intense
passion.

“Do you think I’d quit now? It’s a year that I’ve been working for
this. Part of the timber’s sold already. I’m going to float out a
raft to-morrow or the next day. Do you want to have one fight now
and another in the courts? Look here, I’ll make a reasonable deal.
I’ve got maybe a third of this stuff ready to move. Let me get away
with that and I’ll leave the rest of it for you.”

“Can’t do it,” returned Tom promptly. “I couldn’t make such a deal
myself, and I know father wouldn’t. He’ll be here to-morrow, and—”

“Your father won’t be here to-morrow. He’s going to be turned back
before he gets to the lake,” said Harrison.

“Turned back? What do you mean?” Tom exclaimed, with a sudden,
horrified vision of his father being ambushed, perhaps shot on the
trail. “Are you going to try another trick? You can’t work it,
Harrison!”

They were standing close together and face to face, and at that
moment Tom felt something hard against his body. Glancing down, he
saw a revolver that glittered dimly, its muzzle digging into his
stomach.

“I gave you a chance!” Harrison muttered between clenched teeth.
“What do you take—life or death? You young fool, I’m a desperate
man. I’m going to have that timber now, and I don’t care what stands
in my way—not even murder.”

Tom shrank back involuntarily from the revolver barrel, which sent a
cold thrill to his very backbone. He had lost his rifle; he was
entirely unarmed. But reason told him that Harrison would not really
shoot. He would not go the length of murder, with a dozen men within
fifty yards. It was a bluff! Charlie was surely lurking somewhere in
the shadows offshore. Tom filled his lungs, and suddenly opened his
mouth to yell.

“Char—!”

Before the sound could leave his lips Harrison had him by the throat
like a tiger, forcing him back against a tree. Tom hit out savagely
into the man’s face, but that iron grip seemed to choke the life out
of his body. His head swam; everything turned black before him. For
an instant the throttling grasp relaxed, and then he received a
fearful blow on the head, that sent him plunging down, it seemed
into darkness. As he fell he was scarcely aware of another
shattering blow, and he knew nothing whatever afterward.

                             CHAPTER IX

                              VICTORY

The next hours were blank for Tom, or almost blank. He seemed at
last to hear a roaring sound like water. He seemed to be rushing at
dizzying speed through worlds of darkness. Then he thought he saw
the malicious face of McLeod peering into his own, and again
blackness and silence covered everything.

Something aroused him; something was pulling at him. Opening his
eyes, he saw strangely an outline of tree-tops sharp against a
starry sky. He was being dragged violently by the shoulder.

“Git up, Tom—quick!” a voice penetrated his ears. “They come back
soon.”

Tom’s head ached so dizzily that it fell back when he tried to lift
it. He could not remember where he was. He did not know who was
beside him. He tried feebly to raise his arms, and found that they
were roped together; and his legs, too, were tightly bound at the
ankles.

“Wait—I see now. I cut you loose,” muttered the hurried voice, which
Tom now dimly recognized. A knife-blade flashed, and sawed at the
rope. His arms were free, then his legs. He made a feeble effort to
get up, and collapsed again.

“No use! Can’t do it!” he murmured thickly.

Charlie seemed to hesitate.

“I carry you,” he said with determination, and, getting his arms
around Tom’s body, he sought to heave him on his shoulders. He
really might have carried him, for Charlie was used to carrying
tremendous loads over canoe portages, but Tom’s faintly reviving
spirit rebelled. He slipped down, clung to a tree for several
seconds, and tried to steady his whirling head.

“You come,” said Charlie anxiously. “That red-hair man, he be back
quick, mebbe. I wait long time.”

Tom had only a vague notion of what the Ojibway meant. He could not
remember what had happened; he knew only that some danger hung over
him like a nightmare. He let the tree go and attempted to walk. He
reeled, and would have fallen but for Charlie’s quick grasp. Then
Charlie got an arm around his body, and, half carrying, half leading
him, managed to steer him through the woods.

It seemed an endless way to Tom, but it could have been only a few
rods, when the Indian uttered a wearied grunt of satisfaction, and
Tom saw the shimmer of moonlight on water. Charlie let him go, to
sink on the ground, and vanished. In a minute or two he was back,
and helped Tom down to the shore. Tom saw a canoe without surprise.
He managed to get into it somehow without upsetting it, and settled
down into a crumpled heap amidships. Charlie got into the stern, and
without a sound the craft glided down the shore, keeping in the
shadows of the trees.

By slow degrees the boy’s wits returned, helped by the fresh lake
air. Leaning over, he splashed water on his head, which hurt
severely. The douche cooled and refreshed him. Memory struggled
back.

Painfully he remembered the knock-out he had received—Harrison’s
proposal—his scouting at the raft—groping his way back step by step.
Of what had taken place after he had been struck senseless he had no
idea, nor how much time had passed. From the feeling of the air, it
seemed to him that it must now be late in the night.

“Where are we going, Charlie?” he said thickly, over his shoulder.

“By gar, I think you mebbe dead, Tom!” exclaimed the Indian, in
excited, though subdued tones. “We go good place. I fix you up all
right. Mos’ there now.”

They were going down Little Coboconk now, taking less care to keep
out of the moonlight. Just at the lower end of the lake Charlie ran
the canoe ashore beside a great log, got out, and helped Tom to
disembark. He lifted the canoe out of the water and stowed it
somewhere in the dark undergrowth; and then, with an air of being
familiar with the place, he grasped Tom’s arm and conducted him
among the spruces by several mazy turnings, and at last indicated by
a pressure on his shoulder that he was to sit down.

Tom dropped gratefully, finding himself on a thick pile of spruce
twigs. Above him he found a rough shelter of bark and boughs.

“I camp here,” said Charlie, “ever since you go ’way. I look down
river for you, mos’ every day—think maybe you come back. I see you
yesterday when you come.”

“You’re the best friend I ever had, Charlie!” said Tom gratefully.
“Maybe you saved my life to-night. How did you find me? Where was
I?”

Charlie burst into an explanation, compounded of English and French,
which he was apt to use when excited. It made Tom’s head ache, but
he gathered that Charlie had slipped out of sight on seeing his
friend’s capture, but had stayed close inshore in the canoe. He
heard the sound of Tom’s choked-off cry and fall, but had not dared
to interfere as Harrison was almost immediately joined by the
red-haired man. Between them, they had tied Tom up and carried him
several hundred yards farther down the shore, depositing him in a
little valley full of evergreens. McLeod remained on guard, while
Harrison returned to the camp. Charlie had scouted close up, and
thought of shooting the red-haired man, but restrained himself.
Finally, McLeod went back to the camp also, to get matches for his
pipe, Charlie thought; and the Indian boy seized the opportunity for
a rescue.

“We safe here,” he concluded. “Good place—can look up, down—they
never find us. Besides, you say your father come.”

“I declare, so he is!” Tom exclaimed with a start. In his confusion
and pain he had totally forgotten that fact. Mr. Jackson was coming,
was doubtless on the way; and then Tom remembered also Harrison’s
statement that his father would be “turned back.”

“We must meet him, Charlie!” he cried. “Those fellows may catch him,
murder him perhaps.”

“Plenty time. He not come till daylight,” said Charlie, glancing up
at the sky. “Three hours, mebbe. Sleep now.”

And the young Indian stolidly stretched himself on the spruce twigs
also, and appeared to fall instantly asleep.

Tom could not rest so easily. It was true, no doubt, that his father
would not come in the darkness. Morning would be time enough to look
for him. But he felt nervously uneasy, impatient, and alarmed. His
head still ached and spun at the slightest movement. Feeling it
cautiously, he found it badly swollen on the left side, and blood
had dried and caked in his hair. Harrison must have struck him with
the revolver butt, he thought.

He tried to compose himself, lay awake for a long time grew drowsy
at last and drifted through a series of nightmares, awaking with a
painful start. But at last he did sleep, and was disturbed only by
hearing Charlie making a fire.

It was daylight, but not yet sunrise. The sleep had done him good.
His head ached less, and he felt more in command of his nerve. The
Indian boy produced tea, some fragments of pork, and some very hard
bread; and the food still further restored Tom’s strength. He was
eager to intercept his father, however, and they had no sooner eaten
than they took to the canoe again, and dropped down the river to a
point where Mr. Jackson would surely pass in coming over the trail
from Ormond.

Here, for hour after hour, they waited, watchful alike for friends
and for enemies, for Tom more than half expected to espy McLeod
scouting down the river shore to prepare some ambush. Tom’s head
still ached, but the effects of the blow were fast passing, and
under frequent applications of cold water the swelling was going
down. They ate a cold lunch, not venturing to light a fire, but it
was not until well into the afternoon that Charlie suddenly sat up
alertly from the ground where he was lounging.

“Somebody come!” he said in a low voice, staring into the woods.

Tom had heard nothing, and in fact it was nearly ten minutes before
he heard trampling and crashing in the undergrowth. The sound
instantly reassured him. Harrison’s scouts would not have made so
much noise and in fact within a few minutes a party emerged upon the
shore a few yards below. In the first two figures Tom recognized his
father and “Big Joe” Lynch.

There were four other men with them. Tom burst out from the woods
and rushed down to meet the new-comers, followed by Charlie. He was
recognized from a distance; there was a waving and a calling of
greetings. Tom grasped his father’s hand; then he found himself,
being hailed by two others of the party, whom he finally recognized
to be Uncle Phil and Cousin Ed.

“Is it all right? We couldn’t—” Mr. Jackson began.

“We missed you yesterday,” put in Ed, a wiry young fellow a year
younger than Tom. “But we started out to catch Uncle Matt on the
trail this morning.”

“Found him broken down,” said Phil Jackson.

“Yes,” said Tom’s father. “The wagon couldn’t get on very fast. Had
to stop and chop the trail. We left three of the men to bring it up,
and the rest of us came along on foot. I was getting uneasy about
you. How did you find things? Why, what’s the matter with your
head?”

“A collision with Mr. Harrison,” said Tom; and he rapidly described
his misadventures of the night. Mr. Jackson’s face turned grim as he
listened.

“The scoundrel! He was planning to keep you out of the way, I
suppose, till he could dispose of some of his loot. He must have
planned something to head me off, too. Never mind! his finish is
close now. I struck another piece of luck in Ormond. This
gentleman,” indicating one of the party whom Tom did not recognize,
“is Joe Gillespie, the postmaster there. I used to know him, and he
was concerned in the liquidation of the Wilson Lumber Company, so he
can testify that I really bought the raft. He’s a magistrate too, so
we have the law with us.”

“Good. That’ll fix Harrison!” said Tom, rejoicing. “Let’s hurry
ahead.”

“Better not go up lake. Mebbe him lay for us. Go through woods,” put
in Charlie.

“I’d take Charlie’s advice on anything now,” said Tom. “He’s right.
Better not let Harrison see us coming, though I don’t think he’d
make any resistance to so large a party as this.”

First of all it was necessary to cross the river, and Charlie
brought up the canoe and ferried them all over. Thence they filed up
the shore for half a mile, and then, under the Indian’s guidance,
turned into the woods, and made a detour to come around to the
narrows at the head of Little Coboconk.

Part of these woods had been swept by the fire, and the walking was
bad, choked with fallen timber and half-burned logs. Tom was
astonished at his father’s strength. Even after the long tramp he
had had that day he pushed through the woods almost as actively as
any of them. The familiar atmosphere of the woods and the prospect
of action had restored the invalid to health almost magically.

Remembering the doctor’s caution not to overdo the exercise,
however, Tom insisted on their stopping for occasional rests. With
this slow progress it was almost two hours before Charlie veered to
the left. They caught a glimpse of the waters of the lake beyond the
scraggly and scorched spruces, and thenceforth they had to move more
cautiously.

The shore was a quarter of a mile farther, and by glimpses they saw
the white tents, the dark bulk of the raft, and the men’s figures
moving about it. Work seemed to be going slowly, however; as they
halted at last about a hundred yards from the camp, crouching behind
a half-burned clump of willow, Tom thought that operations were
entirely suspended.

“Harrison’s found out that I’ve vanished and doesn’t know what to do
next,” he chuckled to his father. “Look, that’s Harrison—the man in
the brown shirt and soft hat. I don’t know the man with him—some
stranger.”

Mr. Jackson took out a field-glass and scrutinized the camp for a
few minutes.

“No, not much doing,” he said at last. “But that stranger with your
Harrison—I think I know him. Unless I’m much mistaken, he’s a
certain lumber dealer of Montreal whom I know very well. Looks as if
Harrison was trying to make his sale on the spot.”

And Mr. Jackson put away the glasses, rose to his feet, looked about
for a moment, and then walked coolly toward the camp.

Tom gave a cry of protest and then jumped up and followed, and the
whole party came after. It happened that nobody noticed them until
they were almost at the shore. Harrison was talking earnestly to his
companion, looking the other way, until he chanced to turn and
beheld the eight advancing figures.

He started forward, uttering an exclamation; and then his eye fell
on Tom, and he stopped short again. His face was almost livid.

“What—?” he began, blusteringly; but Mr. Jackson paid not the
slightest heed to him. He walked up to the strange man, who was
looking surprised, and held out his hand cordially.

“How are you, Archer?” he said. “What are you up here in the woods
for—business or pleasure?”

“Why, Jackson, man!” exclaimed the other, after an amazed stare.
“You’re the last person I thought of seeing here. I heard you were
sick. Pleasure, eh? I guess we’re both here for the same thing. But
you’re too late for once, Matt. I’ve made the deal.”

“Not so you can’t break it, I hope,” returned Mr. Jackson, smiling.
“For this fellow has no right whatever to any of this walnut
timber.”

At this Harrison recovered himself.

“No right to it?” he snarled. “We’ll see about that! Who are you,
anyway? Why, this boy here admitted that I had the right of it, and
he saw all the papers.”

“You were able to bluff a boy, perhaps, but you can’t bluff Matt
Jackson,” returned the lumberman. “You know who I am now. I bought
out Dan Wilson. Here’s Mr. Gillespie from Ormond, who’s a magistrate
and knows all about it.”

By this time Harrison’s men had come crowding up, curious and
hostile. But several of them recognized Mr. Jackson, and all of them
knew Gillespie, who greeted two or three of them by name.

“Yes, that’s right,” said the postmaster. “Mr. Jackson bought out
Dan Wilson when he failed, and so far as I know this timber was in
the deal.”

“Then you don’t know much!” persisted Harrison, furiously. “I’ll
fight to the last court for it.”

“Take it to the courts if you want to,” said Mr. Jackson. “You’ll
face a warrant for murderous assault on my son, and another for
forgery—”

Harrison sprang savagely forward, raising his clenched fist. Tom
jumped to protect his father, caught the half-directed blow on his
elbow, and drove his fist into Harrison’s face. The next instant he
went down himself from a savage uppercut, and heard the rush of a
sudden scrimmage. Joe Lynch had grappled with Harrison, and while
the two wrestled frantically there was a rush of men from both sides
to the spot.

“Stop it! Let him go, Lynch. Here, you young savage, drop that gun!”
Mr. Jackson shouted; and Tom struggled to his feet to see the
postmaster wrenching the shot-gun out of Charlie’s hands. Harrison
went down, with Big Joe on top of him; but Archer and Gillespie
dragged the men apart.

[Illustration: Tom caught the half-directed blow]

Lynch arose laughing. A moment later Harrison gathered himself up
sullenly.

“I’ll settle with you! This ain’t the last—” he began, his voice
thick with rage.

“Whenever you like. But now—you get out of this camp!” Mr. Jackson
ordered.

“This is my camp. These tents—that team—” Harrison snarled.

“Hold on! That team’s mine,” put in one of his men.

“And you ain’t paid us our last week’s wages,” said another.

“I’ll settle your wages,” Mr. Jackson promised. “Take away your
tents and your outfit, Harrison, if you want to.”

Harrison looked about him.

“Take down those tents. Pack up the outfit,” he commanded his men.

Not a lumber-jack stirred. Plainly they had not found Harrison’s
service congenial. Harrison glared, snapped a savage curse, and then
went into his own tent, coming out in a minute with a dunnage sack.
He dragged this down to the shore, dark-faced with rage, but without
a glance at anybody, flung it into a canoe, and darted away with
fierce strokes of the paddle.

“Seen the last of him, I guess,” said Mr. Jackson. “And he’s left us
his outfit. If he doesn’t come back for it we’ll leave it for him at
Ormond.”

“Him go to meet red-haired man,” remarked Charlie, who was watching
the vanishing canoe. “I seen him, that man, ’way down lake.”

“You did?” exclaimed Mr. Jackson. “Scouting for us, I suppose.
You’re a valuable youngster to have around. Want to work for me?
I’ll give you a job.”

Charlie shook his head stolidly.

“No work in summer-time. Work hard in winter—hunt—trap. Rest in
summer—hunt little, fight mebbe.”

“Well, we won’t have any more fighting, I hope,” said the lumberman.
“But there’s a heap of work. You men, Harrison’s gang, I’ll take you
all on, if you want to stay with me, and pay you the same as my own
men. What do you say?”

All the men agreed, with evident pleasure.

“Always did think there was somethin’ crooked about that feller,”
remarked that one of them who owned the team. “Never could git no
money out of him.”

“And now,” said the Montreal lumber dealer, “I certainly wish,
Jackson, that you’d tell me what all this is about. I spend
considerable money to come up here, and find myself landed in a
fight.”

“Think yourself lucky that you didn’t get landed for something
worse,” Mr. Jackson laughed. “You haven’t paid any money out yet?
No? Good. I’ll tell you how the thing stands.”

And he proceeded to detail the circumstances, which were
corroborated by the Ormond postmaster.

“I see,” said Archer. “Harrison offered me the stuff at a great
bargain, but I didn’t see how there could be anything fishy about
it. Well, I’m glad I’m only out my expenses. I suppose you wouldn’t
think of selling any of it yourself? I thought not. You’ll make a
good thing out of it. Walnut’s almost off the market now, and
bringing any sort of fancy price. But I don’t need to tell you
anything about that. All I’ve got to do is to look for a way to get
home.”

                             CHAPTER X

                        A FIGHT IN THE DARK

“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 seasickness.

“Fire your gun, Charlie!” he said anxiously. “Maybe they’ll hear it.
Hold on! What’s that?”

A report like a pistol-shot had sounded from the far forward end of
the raft. Tom rushed forward over the heaving logs. In the center
was a great heap of material used in building: withes, cross
timbers, pike-poles, axes, ropes, spikes. As he passed around this
obstruction he saw, to his horror, one of the cribs swing loose and
drift clear, spilling its load of walnut as it went.

Was the raft breaking up already? Tom caught up a pike-pole and
rushed forward. Buffeted by the wind and almost deafened by the
noise of it and by the creaking and threshing of the timbers, he
slipped and staggered in his unspiked boots over the wet logs. As he
crossed the fourth crib he stopped with a thrill. He saw the dim
figure of a second man close to the forward edge of the raft, with
an ax poised over his shoulder.

The miscreant was actually cutting the raft apart. When Tom realized
it, he charged forward with a shout. Apparently the man had been
quite unaware that the boys had come aboard. He glanced about
quickly. The ax blow never fell. He waited till Tom was within ten
feet, charging with the steel-shod pole, and then he swung the ax
round his head and flung it with all his force.

Tom ducked just in time to dodge the whirling missile as it went
over his head with a “whish.” It came so close that the boy lost his
balance and stumbled down on one knee, and before he could recover
himself the man had pounced on him, forcing him down.

Tom was able to let out a single yell. He recognized Harrison; he
had felt that grip before. Again Harrison tried to seize him by the
throat, but this time Tom was less off guard. He was lighter than
his enemy, but more active. He was a good wrestler, his muscles were
hardened now with labor, and he fought like a wildcat.

He squirmed free from the fierce grip and got to his feet. Loosing
his arm an instant, he drove a heavy blow into Harrison’s face and
heard him grunt. But the next moment Harrison surged upon him with
all his weight, and Tom despite his utmost effort, was gripped
almost helplessly. He put forth every ounce of strength he had.
Defeat meant the loss of the raft. But he could not hold Harrison.
He was forced down; he went heavily against the slippery logs, and
the next instant he felt Harrison’s knee on his chest.

He caught a glimpse of Charlie’s form flitting distractedly around
them with gun half raised, and he was afraid of getting an
accidental charge of shot himself. Then Charlie seemed to swing the
butt. Tom scarcely heard the thud of the blow, for at that instant
the logs seemed to give way under him. A great rift opened, and he
went down into the black water, with Harrison still clutching him.

For a second he was dazed and went deep down. His enemy’s grip
relaxed and fell away. Then, with a half-involuntary stroke, he came
toward the surface. His head knocked against something hard. He was
under the raft itself.

In terror he struck out blindly. He knew no directions. He might be
swimming toward the center of the raft, where he would surely drown.
His breath grew short; then, all at once, his head came out into the
fresh air, and he filled his lungs with a great gasp. The raft
plunged almost over his shoulders. Tom dodged and ducked to escape
having his skull crushed, and caught sight of the Indian peering
wildly out into the darkness. He shouted hoarsely, and Charlie
helped him aboard with an extended pike-pole.

There was no sign of Harrison, neither swimming on the water nor
aboard the raft. He might also have gone under the logs, and be
drowning there.

“See anything of him—that other man?” Tom gasped; but Charlie shook
his head.

“Think him drown, mebbe. Good job, too!”

Tom cast another anxious glance over the water, ready to rescue his
late enemy if he sighted him. But just then the front of the raft
swung up and down with a tremendous plunge. Several withes gave way
with snapping reports, and another crib disengaged itself from the
main body. In his confusion and fright, Tom imagined the whole raft
was going to pieces under him. The loose crib still hung by one end,
however, and he rushed to the pile of material amidships, seized a
bundle of rope, and looped one end over the head of one of the great
hardwood pins in the loosened crib. Taking a hitch around another
bolt-head on the main raft, he tried to bring the two sections
together again. Assisted by the pull of the waves, he brought them
together inch by inch, closed the gap to a foot’s width, tied the
rope firmly, and repeated the lashing in two other places.

He glanced ashore, where there was still no sign of life. Bitterly
now he repented his rashness in going in chase of the raft instead
of immediately arousing the camp. But the _bateau_ was still there.

“Get into the boat and make for shore as fast as you can, Charlie,”
he commanded. “Rouse them up. Tell them the raft is going to
pieces.”

“All right!” said the Ojibway, without emotion. “Can’t paddle much
’gainst wind,” he added. “Mebbe have to cross lake—go round.”

“Any way you like—only do it quick!” cried Tom; and just then
another crib, whose transverse bar had split, began to break away.

Tom brought more rope and lashed this also, straining at it as
Charlie got into the boat and cast off. He saw the Indian struggling
hard against the wind and waves, and then lost sight of him in the
darkness. Charlie would do the best he could, Tom knew well; it was
only a question of whether he could bring help in time.

Another ironwood withe snapped. Fearing that all the cribs would
break apart, Tom set to work to strengthen their fastenings. He
dragged up the flattened pieces of timber that had been prepared for
transverse and cap-pieces, laid them across the logs wherever there
was any sign of weakening, and spiked them down with eight-inch
spikes, which he drove home with an ax. Not content with that, he
lashed the cribs together with rope as long as the rope lasted; then
with odd pieces of chain, and then tried to use the withes. But the
ironwood saplings were too stiff for one pair of hands to twist.

He ran to and fro, staggering and slipping on the reeling raft, and
he looked almost hopelessly at intervals toward the shore. Nothing
could be seen of Charlie’s boat. The Indian might have been driven
far up the lake, and obliged to make a long detour by land. The
camp-fire was nearly a mile away now. It was a mere red point, and
there was no sign of any help coming.

The raft was now well into the middle of the lake, and it plunged
and tossed fearfully. It had not been built for any such strains; it
was threatening to go as the first raft had gone years ago. To keep
it together was work for more than one man; and Tom was, after all,
an inexperienced raftsman. Over the wet, swaying surface he hastened
up and down, spiking down cross-bars and reinforcing the cap-pieces,
but, despite his efforts, the timbers continually worked loose. In
the darkness it was impossible to see a part giving way till it was
almost beyond mending.

All at once, as he crouched over his work, he was aware of a faint
glow on the sky. He looked up. One of the camp-fires ashore had
sprung suddenly to a tremendous blaze—a vast, glaring flame blown
into long streamers by the wind, whose light spread far out over the
water, almost, indeed, to the raft itself.

“Charlie’s stirred them up! Hurrah! Who-oo-p! This way!” Tom
shrieked. His voice could not have carried half the distance, but
almost immediately a second fire flared up. The men ashore could
hardly have been able to see the raft, and Tom had no means of
making a light, but they would surely know that it would drift down
wind. Tom saw the distant scurrying of figures about the shore, and
presently a boat pushed off, and then another.

He lost sight of them, but they must have come fast and rowed hard,
with the wind behind them. In ten minutes he heard shouts, and he
shouted back to give his direction. There was a rattle of oars, and
the excited murmur of men’s voices. He saw the boats now, heaving
high and low on the waves, and the leading one steered up alongside.
Tom hooked it with a pike-pole; the men caught hold, and Mr. Jackson
scrambled actively aboard the raft, followed by Joe Lynch and two
more men.

“That you, Tom?” cried Mr. Jackson. “Are you all right? How’s the
raft?”

“Pretty near breaking up,” Tom shouted back. “I’m all right—a little
wet. Tell you about it later. Must get the raft fastened together.”

Mr. Jackson gave Tom’s arm a rough, affectionate squeeze. “Good for
you, old boy! We’ll save the timber—don’t fear. Lynch, get the men—”

Big Joe had not needed any orders. With his two men he was already
at work on the raft timbers. The other boat came up at this moment,
with four more men in her. Lynch ordered two of them to row back to
camp at once and bring out all the rope, chain, spikes, and pieces
of heavy plank they could lay hands on, for Tom had already used up
nearly all the loose material aboard.

That left a crew of five men. They had a doubtful fight before them,
for the raft was laboring under the full force of the wind, out in
the open lake, and it was already weakened at every joint. But the
lumbermen set vigorously to work. In their spiked boots they raced
over the shifting logs, retwisting withes, and lashing and spiking
cross-bars with a skill that produced more effect than Tom’s
inexpert efforts.

Tom still took his share of the work, and so did Mr. Jackson. The
lumber dealer ran over the raft as fearlessly and almost as actively
as any of the men, encouraging them, taking in the needs of each
spot with a quick glance, using ax and pike-pole himself whenever he
could. The break-up of the raft seemed checked; the fight seemed a
winning one. No more cribs had escaped, and, though the whole
framework was badly strained, it seemed capable of holding together
at least until the boat came off with more men and material.

But there was no relaxation of effort. Unexpectedly half a dozen of
the withed walnut logs broke loose, rolled off the raft, and, being
already saturated, went to the bottom almost like stones. All the
rope and chain was used up, but the lumbermen brought up more withes
and proceeded to make the rest more secure. Tom and his father were
bending over among a group of men who bent a thick ironwood sapling.
The butt of it was pegged into a huge auger-hole in the lower
framework, and it was to be twisted over the walnut and down into
the loading timbers beneath. The men put all their brawny arms into
it, when the walnut log rolled suddenly with a heave of the raft.
The butt of the withe slipped and flew up with the force of a
catapult. It touched one man on the shoulder and sent him sprawling,
and the full force of it seemed to catch Mr. Jackson on the side of
the head. He reeled over, and went off backward into the water.

There was a shout of alarm. Tom poised himself at the edge of the
raft, ready to plunge if he should see his father’s head come up.
The rest stood ready with pike-poles, but moment and moment passed,
and they saw nothing.

“He’s gone under the raft!” exclaimed Tom.

“Cut her apart!” Big Joe yelled. “Never mind them timbers now. The
boss is under ’em!”

Recklessly the men chopped the fastenings they had so labored to
secure. A crib swung aside and left a strip of black water—empty.
Another gap opened, and this time something was floating on it. In
another moment a pike hooked the floating clothing, and they drew
the lumberman out upon the logs. He was quite unconscious.

“He’s dead!” Tom gasped.

“You bet he ain’t,” said Lynch, who had put his head over the
dripping figure. “He’s breathin’, and his heart’s a-beatin’ strong.
He ain’t drowned—just knocked out. He’ll come to!”

The men carried him carefully to the center of the raft, the safest
place, and Tom sat down beside him in unspeakable anxiety. The men
were working afresh to secure the cribs they had cut apart, but for
the moment Tom had lost his concern for the raft. Mr. Jackson did
not “come to,” as they had hoped. He breathed, but seemed in a heavy
stupor, from which he could not rouse. Tom feared his skull might be
fractured, and there was no doctor nearer than Ormond.

The other boat came back with three men and more supplies, and the
whole crew worked more furiously than ever. Whenever any of them
passed the center of the raft they paused to ask after the “boss”
and hurried on again. The raft still held together, but Tom gave it
only scant thought; and as he sat by his father’s side he saw at
last the grayness of dawn begin to spread over the lake.

                             CHAPTER XI

                           FIRE AND WATER

The raft was now nearing the northwestern shore of the lake, and
luckily its course seemed to carry it into a wide bay, where it
would be somewhat sheltered from the weather. The wind was lessening
a little, it seemed. It had done deadly work, however. The raft
seemed to have lost a third of its area, and all around could be
seen floating masses of the soft-wood cribs, which had mostly
spilled their walnut loose. But Tom looked at it almost
indifferently. His whole thought was concentrated on his father, who
still lay unconscious, with a deathlike face.

Big Joe came up and looked down sorrowfully at the boss.

“I guess the raft’s all right now,” he remarked. “She’s going to
float right behind that headland, and I’ll have the boys build a
boom around her as soon as she gets there. It’ll break the waves. I
don’t believe we’ve lost such a lot, after all.

“Don’t you worry, boy,” he added. “Your father’ll be all right. I’ve
seen men knocked out a heap worse’n that; you don’t know the rough
knocks that lumber-jacks get. We’ll get him ashore just as soon as
we get into quieter water.”

It would indeed have been risky to try to get the wounded man into a
boat while they were still on those plunging waves, and it was still
more than an hour before the raft slowly headed its way behind the
long rocky peninsula. Here the water was less broken. They brought
one of the boats around to the forward end, carried Mr. Jackson into
it with infinite care, and ferried him across the hundred feet of
water to the land. Here they constructed a rough stretcher with
saplings and boughs, and Tom, Lynch, and two other men set out with
it toward camp. The rest of the men remained to make the raft fast
and gather up what scattered drift timber they could salvage.

A quarter of a mile down the shore they came upon a crib that had
grounded without entirely breaking up. The track of a man’s heavy
boots led from it into the woods, and Tom guessed that Harrison had
come ashore on those logs. It relieved his mind somewhat, for he did
not want to consider himself responsible for the man’s death, but he
had not much thought just then to spare on Harrison. Still further
down, they sighted a canoe, Charlie’s canoe, which McLeod must have
stolen, and in which he had fled from the raft. It had been run
ashore roughly, and was badly split down the bow. But, like
Harrison, McLeod had left nothing but tracks behind him, and Tom
sincerely hoped that he would never see anything more of him.

Arriving at the camp, they put Mr. Jackson to bed in his tent. He
seemed partly to revive; his eyes half opened; he muttered something
and then sank into unconsciousness again. But even this symptom of
returning life was encouraging.

“The nearest doctor’s at Ormond,” said Tom. “I’m going after him at
once.”

“Send Charlie down to Oakley,” Lynch suggested. “There’s a doctor
there. You might go out to Ormond too, if you like. Maybe one of ’em
will be away, and if they both come, no harm done. But say, you’ve
got to eat and rest a bit, boy. You look done up.”

Tom indeed felt the strain of the hard night, and his head once more
ached splittingly. He summoned Charlie and sent him up the lake to
get his canoe. It would have to be calked or patched where it was
cracked, and meanwhile Tom swallowed a little breakfast and lay down
with the intention of resting half an hour.

He fell into a dead sleep, and was awakened at last by Joe Lynch.

“A fellow’s just come in from Ormond with a telegram for the boss.”

Tom took the yellow envelope and sat up in a daze. Gathering his
wits, he opened the message:

    Assigned to Erie Bank. Creditors’ meeting Wednesday
    night. Letter follows. Wire further instructions.

                                                Armstrong.

Wednesday night! It flashed upon Tom that to-day was Wednesday. He
jumped out, bolted from the tent, and confronted the messenger. The
telegram had been sent on Saturday, and was directed to the Royal
Victoria Hotel.

“Why didn’t this get here sooner?” he demanded angrily.

“We didn’t get it till yesterday. I started out with it as soon as I
could, but I tried to take a short cut and got turned around. Had to
stay in the bush all night.”

Tom stifled an exclamation of impatience and despair. Armstrong had
given up hope and made an assignment after all, unaware of all the
wealth they had been accumulating in the north. Tom did some hard
thinking in that moment. If the bankruptcy went through they might
pay a hundred cents on the dollar, but it would leave nothing else.
If it could be averted, the walnut would float the business with
ease, with a prospect of better fortune.

“How long was I asleep? How’s father?” he demanded.

“You slept more’n an hour. Didn’t like to rouse you,” said Joe. “The
boss kinder roused up once and said something, but then went off
again. But I reckon he’s better.”

Tom went to look at Mr. Jackson, who looked slightly less deadlike,
he thought. He would have given almost anything to be able to
consult with him for just five minutes. But at this crisis of the
whole affair Tom was forced to shoulder the entire responsibility.

If it was humanly possible he would have to get to Toronto in time
to stop that creditors’ meeting that night. The assignment could be
withdrawn. As yet probably nothing irrevocable had been done, but by
to-morrow the arrangements for liquidation would have been made, and
it might be too late.

He could, indeed, send a telegram to Mr. Armstrong if he could reach
the wire in time; but he doubted whether that would be enough. The
situation needed a personal explanation.

He knew that a stage left Oakley, connecting with the morning train
going down.

“What’s the shortest way to the railroad?” he demanded. “I’ve got to
get to the city by evening.”

“Well, there’s the morning train down from Ormond,” said the
messenger. “But you can’t make it. It’ll take you ’most all day to
get to Ormond.”

“That’s mebbe the shortest way, but it ain’t nohow the quickest,”
remarked Lynch. “Leastways, if you’ve got a canoe. I reckon
Charlie’s got his pretty near patched up by this time.”

“How do you mean?” Tom demanded.

“Why, paddle down to the foot of Little Coboconk, and then right
down the river, for mebbe fifteen or sixteen miles. You’ve been that
way. You remember where a little creek runs out through a big swamp
and into the river? Well, you land on the side opposite the creek,
and the railway ain’t much more’n five miles straight west, right
across the bush. It’ll be rough traveling, maybe, but you ought to
make it in three or four hours.”

Tom glanced at his watch. It was just after seven o’clock. The train
left Ormond at ten-thirty. He could surely make it. A moment later
Charlie came up for instructions, having finished the repairs to his
canoe.

“Hold on, Charlie! I’m going with you,” Tom exclaimed. “I’ll try it,
Lynch. Are you sure the raft’s safe?”

“Safe as if she was in the sawmill. You can trust her to me. Trust
the boss to us, too. Charlie can go on to Oakley and bring back the
doctor.”

“And mind you telegraph me what he says,” Tom insisted. “Here’s my
Toronto address. But I’ll be back here in three or four days, I
hope.”

It did not occur to Tom to change into his city clothes. He hastened
to get into the canoe, taking the bow paddle while Charlie sat at
the stern; and they started down the lake, almost in the face of the
wind, which still blew strongly.

It was rough, breathless paddling, though they hugged the shelter of
the shore as much as possible. They made slow time on that stage of
the journey, but when they reached the river things went more
easily. The river ran swiftly and was rather shallow now, but there
was always plenty of water for the canoe, and the faster the current
the better. Down the stream they shot, past the old trail to Uncle
Phil’s ranch, around the wide curves bordered by the incessant green
of the spruces, silently and swiftly, with a speed that filled Tom
with renewed hope. He was in fine physical condition; the hour’s
rest had restored him, and the rough and sleepless night behind him
had left only a nervous tension that for the time being actually
stimulated his sinews.

At half-past eight by his watch he felt sure that they must have
come nearly ten miles. He suddenly smelled smoke, and was alarmed.

“What’s that, Charlie? Fire?” he called over his shoulder.

The Ojibway sniffed.

“Fire—sure. Long piece from here, though,” he answered.

Smoke certainly smelled strong in the air, coming up on the wind,
but no fire was anywhere in sight. The river grew wider and deeper,
running with a strength that almost outstripped the paddles. The
miles reeled off swiftly. Tom was keeping a close watch on the
shore, and it was not much after nine o’clock when he shouted to
Charlie and pointed ashore.

On the left bank a great tamarac swamp came down to the water, and
just opposite them a small creek flowed sluggishly into the river,
oozing through a jungle of evergreen and fern.

“Hold on!” he cried, and the steersman guided the canoe ashore. He
looked at the landmarks more carefully. It must be the place Lynch
had meant. Somewhere about five miles to the west lay the railway.

“I stop here, Charlie,” he said hurriedly. “You go on to Oakley as
fast as you can paddle, and get the doctor. I’ll be back soon.”

Charlie had already been provided with a note for the doctor, tucked
safely inside his felt hat. He nodded impassively.

“Sure, I go quick, Tom,” he said. “I watch for you come back.”

He put Tom ashore, and went on down the stream with quick
paddle-strokes, not once glancing back. Tom did not stay to watch
him, either. He glanced at the compass on his watch-chain and struck
straight in from the river.

The train was due at half-past ten. He had an hour, and
long-distance running had been his speciality in track athletics. It
was only five miles, and, however rough the country might be, he
felt quite confident of being able to cover the distance in time.

For a little way he had to go slowly, pushing his path through a
dense tangle of spruce and tamarac, but, once well away from the
river, the woods opened out. He went up and down one rolling ridge
after another, splashed through a rock-strewn brook or two, crossed
a strip of level forest, and then had to slow down for a last year’s
burned slash, where the ground was terribly encumbered with dead,
charred logs and jagged spikes of branches and roots.

A smell of smoke seemed to hang about the place still, he fancied,
and then a veering gust brought him a whiff of smoke that was
certainly fresh. He was afraid to swerve from the compass bee-line,
but he felt extremely uneasy. He passed the old “burn” and entered a
region of jack-pine, and presently there was no mistaking the bluish
haze and the odor of ashes and smoke that filled the air. Then the
woods ceased all at once, and he found himself on the edge of a
great ruined slash that fire had made within two or three days, at
the most.

He halted, despairingly. There seemed no end to the burned strip,
north or south, and he could get no clear notion of its width, for
the air was full of smoke and clouds of fine ashes that drove in
whirls before the wind. It might not be very wide, but it looked too
dangerous to cross. Yet he felt sure that he must be near the
railroad; he had surely come three or four miles, and as he stood
irresolute he heard the long blast of a locomotive far away through
the trees.

He thought it was miles up toward Ormond. The railway must be only a
short distance ahead, and he plunged desperately into the smoky
belt.

The fire was really entirely burned out, as he discovered
immediately, but at the first steps he went ankle-deep in ashes, and
felt the heat strike through his boot-soles. The ground was still
hot, and beds of embers smoldered here and there beneath the ashes.

His heart almost failed him again. He might step into a mass of hot
coals that would scorch and cripple him. But there was no way
around; he had to cross this barrier or give up, and he went on
again, moving in long leaps to touch the ground as little as
possible. Wherever he could, he paused on a log to gain breath and
lay his course.

The ground was cumbered with masses of fallen trees, charred, spiky,
a continual _chevaux-de-frise_ of tangled stubs and roots. They lay
at every possible angle, and Tom had to edge his way round them,
climb over, or squeeze through. It was like the “burn” he had
already crossed, but this one was fresh and hot. By sheer good luck
he escaped stepping into any spots of fire, but the ground burned
under his feet, and the ashes rose in smothering clouds as he plowed
through them.

The ground was treacherous under its thick gray covering. It was
mined with holes and strewn with hidden entanglements. Two or three
times Tom tripped and went headlong, almost choked in the ashes. His
eyes grew filled with the fine powder; he could not see clearly nor