"Do you know what's going to happen to you?" said a voice from the group.The speaker was Radway, but the contractor kept himself well in the background."We're going to burn your mill; we're going to burn your yards; we're going to burn your whole shooting match, you low-lived whelp!""Yes, and we're going to string you to your own trestle!" growled another voice harshly.
"Dyer!" said Injin Charley, simply, shaking the wet scalp arm's length towards the lumbermen.
At this grim interruption a silence fell.The owner paled slightly;his foreman chewed a nonchalant straw.Down the still and deserted street crossed and recrossed the subtle occult influences of a half-hundred concealed watchers.Daly and his subordinate were very much alone, and very much in danger.Their last hour had come; and they knew it.
With the recognition of the fact, they immediately raised their weapons in the resolve to do as much damage as possible before being overpowered.
Then suddenly, full in the back, a heavy stream of water knocked them completely off their feet, rolled them over and over on the wet sawdust, and finally jammed them both against the trestle, where it held them, kicking and gasping for breath, in a choking cataract of water.The pistols flew harmlessly into the air.For an instant the Fighting Forty stared in paralyzed astonishment.
Then a tremendous roar of laughter saluted this easy vanquishment of a formidable enemy.
Daly and Baker were pounced upon and captured.There was no resistance.They were too nearly strangled for that.Little Solly and old Vanderhoof turned off the water in the fire hydrant and disconnected the hose they had so effectively employed.
"There, damn you!" said Rollway Charley, jerking the millman to his feet."How do YOU like too much water? hey?"The unexpected comedy changed the party's mood.
It was no longer a question of killing.A number broke into the store, and shortly emerged, bearing pails of kerosene with which they deluged the slabs on the windward side of the mill.The flames caught the structure instantly.A thousand sparks, borne by the off-shore breeze, fastened like so many stinging insects on the lumber in the yard.
It burned as dried balsam thrown on a camp fire.The heat of it drove the onlookers far back in the village, where in silence they watched the destruction.From behind locked doors the inhabitants watched with them.
The billow of white smoke filled the northern sky.A whirl of gray wood ashes, light as air, floated on and ever on over Superior.The site of the mill, the squares where the piles of lumber had stood, glowed incandescence over which already a white film was forming.
Daly and his man were slapped and cuffed hither and thither at the men's will.Their faces bled, their bodies ached as one bruise.
"That squares us," said the men."If we can't cut this year, neither kin you.It's up to you now!"Then, like a destroying horde of locusts, they gutted the office and the store, smashing what they could not carry to the fire.The dwellings and saloons they did not disturb.Finally, about noon, they kicked their two prisoners into the river, and took their way stragglingly back along the right-of-way.
"I surmise we took that town apart SOME!" remarked Shorty with satisfaction.
"I should rise to remark," replied Kerlie.Big Junko said nothing, but his cavernous little animal eyes glowed with satisfaction.He had been the first to lay hands on Daly; he had helped to carry the petroleum; he had struck the first match; he had even administered the final kick.
At the boarding-house they found Wallace Carpenter and Hamilton seated on the veranda.It was now afternoon.The wind had abated somewhat, and the sun was struggling with the still flying scuds.
"Hello, boys," said Wallace, "been for a little walk in the woods?""Yes, sir," replied Jack Hyland, "we---"
"I'd rather not hear," interrupted Wallace."There's quite a fire over east.I suppose you haven't noticed it."Hyland looked gravely eastward.
"Sure 'nough!" said he.
"Better get some grub," suggested Wallace.
After the men had gone in, he turned to the journalist.
"Hamilton," he began, "write all you know about the drive, and the break, and the rescue, but as to the burning of the mill---"The other held out his hand.
"Good," said Wallace offering his own.
And that was as far as the famous Shingleville raid ever got.Daly did his best to collect even circumstantial evidence against the participants, but in vain.He could not even get anyone to say that a single member of the village of Carpenter had absented himself from town that morning.This might have been from loyalty, or it might have been from fear of the vengeance the Fighting Forty would surely visit on a traitor.Probably it was a combination of both.
The fact remains, however, that Daly never knew surely of but one man implicated in the destruction of his plant.That man was Injin Charley, but Injin Charley promptly disappeared.
After an interval, Tim Shearer, Radway and Kerlie came out again.
"Where's the boss?" asked Shearer.
"I don't know, Tim," replied Wallace seriously.
"I've looked everywhere.He's gone.He must have been all cut up.
I think he went out in the woods to get over it.I am not worrying.
Harry has lots of sense.He'll come in about dark.""Sure!" said Tim.
"How about the boy's stakes?" queried Radway."I hear this is a bad smash for the firm.""We'll see that the men get their wages all right," replied Carpenter, a little disappointed that such a question should be asked at such a time.
"All right," rejoined the contractor."We're all going to need our money this summer."Chapter LVII
Thorpe walked through the silent group of men without seeing them.He had no thought for what he had done, but for the triumphant discovery he had made in spite of himself.This he saw at once as something to glory in and as a duty to be fulfilled.
