Joan of Arc of the North Woods, Holman Day [accelerated reader books txt] 📗

what all the region recognized as the ruination of a man's authority in the north country; it was the Big Laugh.
Flagg, when he could make himself heard by his boss, holding Kyle in his mighty grip, made mention of the Big Laugh, too. "Kyle, you've got it at last by your damn folly. You're licked forever in these parts. I warned you. You went ahead against my word to you. You're no good to me after this." He yanked the list of names from Kyle's jacket pocket.
"Let me loose! I'm going to kill that----"
"You're going to walk out--and away! You're done. You're fired. You can't boss men after this. A boss, are you?" he demanded, with bitter irony. "All up and down this river, if you tried to boss men, they'd give you the grin and call you 'Co Boss'. They'd moo after you. Look at 'em now. Listen to 'em. Get out of my sight. I don't forgive any man who goes against my word to him and then gets into trouble." He thrust Kyle away with a force that sent the man staggering. He turned to the bashful chap, who had resumed his former demeanor of deprecation. "You're hired. You've showed that you can drive oxen and I reckon you can drive logs."
The teamster was too thoroughly bulwarked by admirers to allow the rampant Kyle an opportunity to get at him. And there was Flagg to reckon with if violence should be attempted. The deposed first mate slunk away.
"That, my men," proclaimed the master, "is what the Big Laugh can do to a boss. No man can be a boss for me after he gets that laugh. I reckon I've hired my crew," he went on, looking them over critically. "Stand by to follow me north in the morning."


CHAPTER SIX
When the autocrat of the Noda strode away, a stalwart young man instantly obeyed Flagg's command--seizing the occasion to follow then and there. He had been standing on the outskirts of the throng, surveying the happenings with great interest. The men who were in his immediate vicinity, lumberjacks who were strangers in the Noda region, were plainly of his appanage and had obeyed his advice to keep out of the melee that had been provoked by Flagg's methods of selection.
When the big fellow hurried in pursuit of Flagg a bystander put a question to one of the strangers.
"You ought to know who he is," returned the questioned. "That's Ward Latisan."
And just then, apart from the crowd, having overtaken the autocrat, the young man was informing Flagg to that same effect.
Flagg halted, swung around, and rammed his cant dog into the ground. "You've changed from a sapling into fair-sized timber since I saw you last. You look like old John, and that's compliment enough, I reckon. How do you happen to be over in the Noda country?"
"I don't happen! I heard of the word you sent out. I came here on purpose, sir."
"What for?"
"To hire with you."
Flagg looked Latisan up and down and showed no enthusiasm. "Yes, I heard that you and your father had let the Three C's slam you flat. And what makes you think I want that kind of a quitter in my crew?"
Ward met the disparaging stare with a return display of undaunted challenge. "Because I belong in the crew of a man who is proposing to fight the Three C's."
Flagg grunted.
Latisan kept on. "You have been hiring men because they have been parading a lot of little grouches against the Comas folks. You need a man who has a real reason for going up against that outfit. And I'm the man."
"What you think about yourself and what I may think about you are two different things," retorted Flagg, with insolence. "Looks to me like you had got the Big Laugh over in your section. You have probably noticed what I just did in a case of that sort."
"I took it all in, sir."
"Well, what then?"
"They are not laughing with us or against us over in the Tomah, Mr. Flagg. They all know what happened, and that we fought the Comas fair and square as long as we could keep on our feet. It was a trick that licked us. Craig held out the Walpole heir on us."
"I know about it; I manage to get most of the news." Flagg started to go on his way, but Ward put his clutch on the autocrat's arm.
"Pardon me, Mr. Flagg, but you're going to hear what I have to ask of you."
Mere apologetic suit would not have served with Flagg. He found this bold young man patterning after the Flagg methods in dealings with men. The boldness of the grip on his arm gained more effectively than pleading.
"Ask it. I'm in a hurry."
"You have fired Kyle. I want his place."
"Well, I'll be----"
"You needn't be, sir. I'm a Latisan and I have bossed our drives. I have brought along a bunch of my own men who have bucked white water with me and are with me now in standing up for the principle of the independents. Allow me to say that luck is with you. Here's your chance to get hold of a man who can put heart and soul into this fight you're going to make."
"And now go on and tell me how much you admire me," suggested Flagg, sarcastically.
"I can't do that, sir. I'm going to tell you frankly I don't relish what I have heard about you. It's for no love of you that I'm asking for a chance to go up against the Comas people. It's because you're hard--hard enough to suit me--hard enough to let me go to it and show the Three C's they can't get away with what they're trying to do up here through Rufus Craig."
"All right. You're hired. You've got Ben Kyle's job," stated Flagg.
Latisan was not astonished by this precipitate come-about. He was prepared for Flagg's tactics by what he had set himself to learn about the autocrat's nature--quick to adjudge, tenacious in his grudges, inflexible in his opinion, bitterly ruthless when he had set himself in the way his prejudices selected.
"You have seen what happened to Kyle. Can you govern yourself accordingly?" Flagg in his turn had set his grip on Ward's arm.
"Yes, sir!"
"I'll kick you out just as sudden as I kicked him if anything happens to make men give you the grin. Can you start north with me in the morning?"
"Now or in the morning; it makes no difference to me, sir."
Flagg shifted his hand from Ward's arm to the young man's shoulder and propelled him back a few paces toward the crowd in front of the tavern. "Listen, one and all! Here's my drive boss. He's old John Latisan's grandson. If that isn't introduction enough, ask questions about old John from those who remember him; this chap is like his grandfather."
Latisan went into the tavern after Flagg had marched away to the big house on the ledges. The crowd made way for the new drive boss; those in his path stared at him with interest; mumble of comment followed as the men closed in behind him. When he sat down in a corner of the tavern office and lighted his pipe his subalterns showed him deference by leaving him to himself. That isolation gave Landlord Brophy his opportunity to indulge his bent in gossip unheard by interlopers.
Brophy plucked a cigar from a box in the little case on the desk and sat down beside Ward. "I sympathize with you," he said by way of backhanded congratulation.
"Thank you."
"I was born in this tavern; my father built it and run it before me," said Brophy, tucking his cigar through the shrubbery of his gray mustache. "And so I've had the chance to know Ech Flagg a good many years. He's a turk."
"I have heard so."
"He has always had a razor edge to his temper. Maybe you know what put the wire edge onto it?" It was query with the cock of an eyebrow accompanying.
"What I know about Mr. Flagg is only a general reputation of being a hard man. I can say that much to you because I told him the same thing. And that's as far as I care to gossip about an employer," stated Ward, stiffly.
"That's a safe stand," said Brophy, unperturbed. "Keep to it and they can't be running to him with stories about what you have said. But he don't pay me wages and I can say what I feel like saying. A new boss ought to know a few things about the man who hires him. It's my disposition to set a good chap on the right road with a tip. Whatever you may say to Flagg in the way of chat, don't you ever try to bring up the subject of his family affairs."
"I'm not at all likely to," snapped Latisan, with asperity.
"Oh, such a subject is easy out when folks get to going confidential," pursued the persistent Brophy. The suggestion that he would ever be on confidential terms with Flagg provoked an ill-tempered rebuke from Ward, but Brophy paid no attention.
"If you lose your job with him, as you probably will, Latisan, let it be in the straight way of business, as he conducts it, instead of being by some fool slip of your tongue about family matters." He puffed at his cigar complacently and still was giving no heed to Ward's manifest repugnance at being made the repository of gossip.
"Eck's wife died when the daughter Sylvia was small, and he sent the girl off to school somewheres when she was big enough to be sent. And she fell in with a dude kind of a fellow and came back home married to him. She was so much in love that she dared to do a thing like that with Eck Flagg--and that's being in love a whole lot, I'll say. Well, none of us knew what was said back and forth in the family circle, but we figured that the new husband's cheeks didn't tingle with any kisses that Eck gave him. At any rate, Eck set Kennard to work--that was the name, Alfred Kennard. Eck was never much good at ciphering. Office had been in his hip pocket, where he carried his timebook and his scale sheet. Kennard had an education and it came about that Eck let Alf do the ciphering; then he let him keep the books; then he let him handle contracts and the money; then he gave him power of attorney so that Alf wouldn't be hampered whilst Eck was away in the woods. Just handed everything over for the first and the only time in his life, figuring that it was all in the family. I guess that Alf went to figuring the same way, seeing that he was good at figures; felt that what was Eck's was his, or would be later--and Alf proceeded to cash in. Stole right and left, that was the amount of it. Prob'ly reckoned he'd rather have a sore conscience than have his feelings all ripped to pieces when he asked Eck for money.
"We all knew when Eck found out that he had been properly trimmed by the only man he had ever trusted.
"It happened in the dooryard of the big house up there, when Eck came home, wised up, and tackled Alf. Eck felt that the inside of the house might get mussed up by his language, so he stood in the yard and hollered for Alf to come out. We all went up and stood around; it seemed to be a free show, all welcome. We got the full facts in