When Titans Drive/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EMPTY BOX.
AS soon as the drive was actually started on its way downstream, Bob made haste to bring some sort of order out of the chaos he had found. Having watched the men at work, he was able to get some slight idea of their capabilities, which was vitally necessary in dividing them into the “rear” and the “jam” crew.
The latter, in charge of a hastily appointed foreman, went forward to take charge of the head of the drive. The work of the rear comprised setting stranded logs afloat, breaking up incipient jams, and other duties too numerous to mention.
The men composing the squad were always the most skillful and experienced in the gang. They had to be continually on the alert, working usually at high tension, and more than half the time in icy water to their waists. They had to be able to ride anything in the shape of a log in any sort of water, and work day after day for twelve and fourteen hours at a stretch. They must be swift as lightning in their movements, and possessed of judgment, ability, and nerve.
It was impossible, of course, for Bob to pick out an ideal rear crew from merely having seen the men in action for a scant few minutes. He did not try. He simply used his very excellent judgment, reserving mentally the right to change his mind whenever he felt like it, and juggle the men around as he chose.
The principal necessity was to start things moving. When he had done so, Bainbridge returned to camp with the twofold object of giving the cook his orders, and having a final settlement with Schaeffer. The latter was not particularly pleasant, but it was important. The man must quit the crew at once. Bob had made up his mind not to let the fellow spend even the night where he would have a chance to talk with and perhaps influence the others. With this determination uppermost, he passed by the mess tent to the other where the men slept, pulled aside the flap, and stepped inside.
The place was a mess of blankets and half-dried clothes, but to Bob’s surprise it was vacant of anything in the nature of a man. Evidently Schaeffer had recovered and vamoosed. Thoughtfully he sought the cook, and put the question.
“Came in here an’ got some grub a full hour ago,” that servitor explained briefly. “When he’d eat it he went off ag’in.”
“Didn’t he say where he was going?” Bainbridge asked.
The cook shook his head. “Nary word.”
“And you didn’t happen to see what direction he took?”
“Nary a sight,” was the reply. “I was busy inside.”
Bob frowned for a second, and then shrugged his shoulders. After all, what did it matter where the fellow had gone, so long as he had taken himself away? It was very natural for him to avoid the man who had so humiliated him, though it was rather puzzling to have him slip away without apparently encountering any one.
Bob proceeded to give his orders to the cook, explaining that he would have to pull up stakes at once and start down the river.
“The boys will be a long way from here by nightfall,” he said, “so you’ll have to hustle. I’ve saved out a couple of men to help you and the cookee, who’ll be under your orders till you pitch camp to-night.”
Outside the mess tent he hesitated an instant. Then he entered the other tent. This time he did not pause by the door, but crossed hastily to the farther corner, where there was a small space crudely partitioned off from the main portion. This would be Schaeffer’s sanctum, of course, and Bob entered it curiously—only to stop with an exclamation of mingled surprise, anger, and chagrin.
The place was in the utmost disorder. Blankets were rolled up in a ball and flung into the corner. Articles of wearing apparel were scattered about, while over everything were sifted scraps of white paper in seemingly endless quantity. It was these torn scraps that roused Bob’s indignation. He seemed to know intuitively, without the evidence of the limp, empty book covers here and there, that the foreman had taken time to tear into shreds every record and paper connected with the drive which he possessed. Time books, scalers’ measurements—everything—had been destroyed practically beyond the possibility of reconstruction. There would be no accurate way now by which the firm could figure their profits or costs or labor charges. The very paying of the drive crew would be a matter of guesswork.
“Jove!” exclaimed Bainbridge through his clenched teeth. “I didn’t know a man could be so rotten!”
He stared at the wreck for a minute longer, and then turned over with his foot the square, wooden box which lay upset in the middle of the mess. Apparently it had served Schaeffer as a receptacle for these same records. It was quite empty, but underneath lay something which brought a thoughtful, questioning expression into the searcher’s face, and made him stoop to pick it up.
“Thirty-eight caliber,” he murmured, staring at the freshly opened pasteboard box which had contained fifty cartridges. “Hum!”
Presently he let it drop again. He did not move for a space, but stood staring at the ground with that same odd, thoughtful pucker in his forehead.
There was nothing surprising in the fact of Schaeffer’s being armed, Neither was it strange for a man in the riverman’s position to carry off his ammunition loose instead of in the box. That was not the point. It was simply the train of thought aroused which struck Bainbridge unpleasantly. He felt Schaeffer to be capable of almost any villainy provided it could be accomplished with safety to himself. The humiliation of that fight, too, had added a powerful incentive to the one already offered by Crane and the Lumber Trust for the eclipse of Bob Bainbridge. And a total eclipse would be so easy! Just a single shot fired from the bushes at a moment when there was no one else about to see or hear. In this wild country the chances of escaping were infinite. The man might not even be suspected.
Bob suddenly moved his shoulders impatiently, frowned, and turned away. A moment later his eyes twinkled mirthfully.
“Another minute and I’d have the undertaker picked out,” he chuckled. “The scoundrel hasn’t the common courage to do murder. All the same,” he added, with a decisive squaring of the shoulders, “I’ll put a crimp in his little game about those records. I’ll have cookee scrape ’em all up, and ship the whole bunch down to John. That clerk, Wiggins, can put ’em together, I’ll bet! Patience is his middle name—patience and picture puzzles. We’ll have the laugh on Pete, after all—hanged if we won’t!”