The chinook
Date: 2026-08-22T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Love stories; Forests and forestry -- Fiction; Mystery fiction; Canada. Forest Service -- Fiction; Lumbermen -- Fiction

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Title: The chinook

Author: Frank Richardson Pierce

Illustrator: Robert A. Graef

Release date: August 22, 2026 [eBook #79432]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: The Frank A. Munsey Company, 1928

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79432

Credits: Prepared by volunteers at BookCove (bookcove.net)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHINOOK ***

On the limb, the cougar suddenly felt the blood-lust

The Chinook

By Frank Richardson Pierce

All’s fair in love and timber war, thought the powerful and unscrupulous Ludwig—but he badly underestimated young Dan Todd, of the Forest Service

CHAPTER I.
THE GOLDEN SLIPPER

The rain was falling in torrents. The moss and rot of the forest floor was like a sponge, into which the hoofs of the horse disappeared silently, but from which they emerged with a sucking sound. The rider sat humped up while water cascaded down the back of his yellow slicker and dripped from the stiff brim of his Forest Service hat. “Stay with it, Chinook, old hoss,” the rider said cheerfully; “we’ll soon be at Black Lake cabin!”

Chinook had already quickened his pace after the manner of horses knowing the day’s labor was nearly done. This day’s labor had extended far into the night. It was dark in the great fir and cedar forest even at midday, but now, at midnight, even Dan Todd’s accustomed eyes saw little. He left progress entirely to his horse.

Once Chinook trembled and snorted, Todd knew they had just passed the draw through which cougars frequently descended from mountain to valley. This part of the trail ran along a timbered bench approximately halfway between the mountain tops and the blue waters of Puget Sound. Cougars dearly love horse flesh and horses know it.

This was but one of many thoughts running through Todd’s mind. Other thoughts dwelled on the past with bitterness and on the future with hope.

They had warned him no Forest Service man could buck Sim Ludwig and remain in the service. Ludwig’s influence was too far-reaching. The Service, proper, might be back of a man, but sooner or later he was removed. Todd had bucked Ludwig and now he was on his way to some other occupation. Just what, he did not know. One thing was certain, he would no longer wear the uniform of the Forest Service.

Come to think of it, he was on Ludwig property at the present moment. Or was it the Lowe holdings? It made little difference, one outfit was as bad as the other. “Get it while the getting’s good,” was Ludwig’s motto. “To hell with conservation,” was another. These were mottos to which the Lowes said “Amen!!”

The trail narrowed, and when the shod hoofs struck fire on sloping rocks Todd dismounted. The trail followed a ledge for several rods, and a slip meant death. Dan led the way and Chinook followed. The man’s feet, sensitive to the contour of the ground, could “feel” a trail in the dark, but here he used a flashlight as a matter of precaution. As the light picked up objects ahead, a flash of gold struck his eyes and vanished.

“Now what!!” he exclaimed. “I saw gold as sure as—” The finger of light moved nervously back and forth, then came to a stop.

Todd reached down and picked up the last thing he expected to find on Flaming Falls Trail—a girl’s golden slipper. It was a beautifully fashioned bit of footwear, and a pair might have cost anywhere from twenty-five to one hundred dollars. “Wonder who it belongs to?” he mused.

There was a streak of romance in Dan Todd that responded to the situation. Forester finds golden slipper; seeks girl who can wear the slipper; falls in love, marries and lives happily ever after. The old Cinderella story with a different setting. He dismissed the thought with a growl.

“Any girl that’d wear a slipper like that couldn’t mean a thing in the life of a scrub timber cruiser out of a job!” But he tucked the slipper away in his pocket, nevertheless. Ludwig’s hunting lodge was located on Black Lake, a few rods from the Forest Service cabin, and it was known among the rangers that wild parties occasionally took place there. In fact more than one tired ranger had had a good night’s sleep ruined.

He was recalling various stories when the sound of hurrying water burst upon him. Todd had covered the distance between the ledge and the bridge in less time than he realized.

“No need of climbing aboard again, Chinook; might as well walk the rest of the way. Hello, here’s a track in the mud, several of ’em. That girl was along here a few minutes ago, the water hasn’t seeped into the heel holes yet. Now that’s queer. She had one slipper on and the other off. Oh, well—probably they’re all lit at the lodge and some girl lost a bet and had to run to the ledge and back; probably scared stiff, too, of cougars and bobcats.”

Forty or fifty years previous a mighty cedar had fallen across the stream. Converting this into a bridge had been a mere matter of building an approach and hewing off the top of the trunk. The bridge was from three to four feet in width. A quarter of a mile beyond, the timber ended as abruptly as though cut with a scythe, as indeed it had—the scythe of the modern logger; electric logging engines, high leads and standard gauge railways.

Half expecting to see the lodge ablaze with lights, Todd was surprised to find the entire clearing in utter darkness. Not so much as a flickering candle broke the gloom. Chinook sniffed at something off to the left, and the man, who was still afoot, pulled him back. “You’re always getting curious over something; come on, it’s raining harder than ever.”

Obeying the woodsman’s instinct to glance at all cabins he might pass during the day, Todd flashed the light on the lodge. The door stood open, the rain beating in. “Now that’s queer. Ludwig’s usually sober enough to close up the place when he leaves. I’ll have to take a look at that.” He did not stop, but continued on to the Forest Service cabin, snug, dry, fueled and well stocked with grub.

He pulled the pack off his horse, dropped it on the cabin floor, slapped the horse on the neck, signaling he could go to the shed, and then entered and built a fire. A click of hoof against stone was Dan’s first warning Chinook had not gone to the shed, but was back-trailing.

He hurried out and whistled. The horse stopped, then continued.

“Best horse that ever leaped a log,” the man growled, “but stubborn as they make ’em. Once he makes up his mind to investigate something you might as well let him do it. Now I’ve got to drag him out of the rain.”

Flashing the light, Dan Todd trailed the horse to a point on the edge of the clearing. Chinook was sniffing—sniffing at something pink, lovely, and seemingly lifeless. In the half light it appeared to be the partly dressed body of a beautiful girl, but closer inspection disclosed the fact she was dressed in an evening frock of a delicate pink shade, and that her feet were bare and cut, her stockings in shreds. Dan remembered the golden slipper, then picked her up. She was cold, but it was not the chill of death.

She was not heavy for a man of his strength, even as a dead weight. Dan guessed she weighed a hundred and ten pounds, clothes and all. “And they wear so little clothes,” he added, “you can hardly count them as weight.”

Dan turned up the gasoline pressure lamp, hung a blanket over the stove, which by this time was red hot, then proceeded to remove the torn, sodden frock. It dropped to the floor, a crumpled, pitiful heap, that somehow reminded the man of the girl.

She seemed crushed and broken. Her face was beautiful, the rain had added to the curl of her light brown hair, her face held plenty of character of the sort that can be directed for either good or bad purpose, depending on the mode of life the owner wishes to follow. The ears were small, and of sufficient beauty to expose—so many are not.

He wrapped the blanket about her and put the girl to bed. Then he piled on more blankets, filled up all of the empty bottles in the place with hot water, which he wrapped in towels and placed about her body and legs. Then, as an afterthought, he wondered if there might not be a little whisky in the lodge. Stern measures were necessary if he were to ward off pneumonia.

She stirred uneasily and he delayed a moment. His hand dropping to his coat pocket, touched the slipper. He drew it out, examined it a moment, then reaching beneath the blankets, tried it on. If one made allowance for dampness, the slipper went on easily enough.

“Hers,” he muttered; “guess I’d better find something before she gets in a bad way. Wonder what it’s all about?”

In the excitement he had forgotten that it had been nearly twenty-four hours since he had rested. With flashlight picking up the trail he legged it down to the lodge only to stop, as though transfixed. “Good God!” he exclaimed, and it was a prayer.

The body of a man in evening dress lay sprawled on the floor; a bullet hole in almost the exact center of his forehead. It needed but the briefest examination to determine that he was dead.

This was a case for the authorities and Dan did not step beyond the body. The flashlight picked up many objects of interest, however. The table had been set, a meal prepared for several people and partly eaten. The heavy odor of moonshine lingered; the room was still warm and there were footprints on the floor—small, incomplete footprints, somewhat damp, showing only the heel and the ball of the foot.

Again Dan took the golden slipper from his pocket and did a little comparing. “Made with this very slipper,” was his verdict. “Now isn’t that the deuce?”

Working his way along the wall so as not to disturb possible evidence, he picked up the telephone. A private wire ran from the lodge to town. The instrument was dead.

He closed the door and returned to the Forest Service cabin. The usual service wire connected the cabin with the outer world. It, likewise, was dead.

He glanced at the girl. Color had returned to her cheeks, but she was still unconscious. He caught up a portable instrument and flashlight and started down the trail. Twice he connected up only to find a dead wire, but the third attempt, some half mile from the cabin was successful.

“Hello,” he cried, “this is Dan Todd at the Black Lake cabin. Connect me with the sheriff’s office, please. Thanks!” Another delay, then a sleepy voice, very faint, inquired what was wanted.

“There has been a murder committed at Black Lake lodge,” he shouted, “I’ve left everything exactly as I found it and I’ll stay here until some one shows up!”

“We can make it by sun-up with luck.” The deputy was wide awake now!

Having performed this necessary duty Dan Todd trotted back up the trail again. By this time his patient should have recovered, he reasoned. And she had.

She was gone!

Suspecting kidnapping, or almost anything, in fact, he looked down on the floor for the wet footprints that everyone entering from without must leave. There were none but his own.

He looked about for a note or some clew as to her reason for leaving almost as soon as she regained consciousness. There was none. Todd’s next move was to return to the lodge. He was prepared for anything now—the body missing, evidence destroyed. But nothing had been disturbed. The girl at least was intent on escape rather than destruction of evidence.

Somewhat belatedly he remembered Chinook had not been seen. He hurried down to the shed that served as a stable. The stable was empty. “She’s taken my horse!” he cried. “I wonder what else she got away with.”

Checking up on the contents of his pack he noted the following articles missing. One pair of waterproof pants; a flannel shirt; socks, boots, slicker and hat. A pack he had noticed hanging on the wall was also gone, and with it a quantity of grub. He checked over the blankets and found two missing.

For several minutes he stood there, debating on his next course, then a slow grin spread over his face. “She’ll be a sight for the gods. She’s about five feet five, and I’m six feet three and she’s wearing my clothes. Well, they’re good clothes and will keep her dry, but she’ll have a tough time walking in my boots.”

CHAPTER II.
FLAMING FALLS.

Dawn was long in coming; the hours dragged and though Dan Todd nodded he did not sleep with the responsibility of guarding the lodge on his mind. He thought of the girl, too. Beautiful and determined. She might be one who enjoyed Sim Ludwig’s wild lodge parties, but she did not look the type.

The romantic in his make-up again asserted itself and he found himself not only excusing her connection with the case, but actually defending her.

“There must be some way to explain it,” he reasoned. “Still, the job was done with a small weapon—the sort a girl might carry. Oh, well, I’m not a law enforcement officer, so why should I worry. I’ve promised myself a long vacation in town with a trip to California and I’m going to take it. Then I’ll come back and find something to do. I’d prefer some kind of a job that would worry Ludwig!”

It had stopped raining almost as suddenly as it started. The higher ridges, slopes and peaks were covered with a fresh fall of snow, but the lower levels were pouring cold, clear streams of water into the river that was now almost at the flood stage. The air held that wet freshness that only a rain-drenched forest can give. Dan breathed deeply and stepped outside.

The sun had just touched the topmost peak, changing it from white to pink. Dawn came leisurely in the lower levels and Dan’s inspection was as leisurely. The empty shed reminded him of Chinook. The big black was certainly working overtime. He hoped the girl would go easy with him.

Again came the thought, “Who is she?”

His ponderings were broken in on suddenly. Half covered with mud lay a small automatic pistol. He picked the weapon up, washed off the mud which covered the butt and examined the clip. One cartridge had been discharged. There was the same imprint of the golden slipper in the mud near by, as if here she had paused to hurl the weapon away.

He experienced a strong desire to step on the imprint and destroy it. Almost in disgust he growled, “And why should I help some girl who probably went into the mess with her eyes open?”

The sheriff and his deputies arrived several minutes later after a hard ride during which both horses and a logging road-speeder had figured. The official was brief and to the point. Questions asked and answered, he opened the lodge door and looked around. “Any of you boys know him?”

“No,” they answered.

He searched the dead man’s pockets. “Robbery wasn’t the motive. Plenty of money, watch and rings, too. Here’s a card case. John Day Burke. I’ve heard of him, but can’t place him.”

“Connected with Ludwig, wasn’t he?” a deputy suggested. “One of Ludwig’s right-hand men. He usually has several around that’ll take orders. Seems to me—”

But the sheriff was too busy studying the evidence. He did not voice his conclusions, but turning the matter over to the deputy coroner who had accompanied the posse, he directed his attention now at Dan Todd. “What did you find, if anything?”

“This!” He handed the automatic pistol to the official.

“Anything more?” Then, noticing just the slightest hesitation on Todd’s part, he added, “Out with it. Don’t keep anything back, Todd!”

“I’m not! I also found this!” He handed over the gold slipper.

“Where?”

“This side of the ledge in the mud!”

“That’s the way she went, then,” the sheriff announced.

“Don’t be too sure of it, sheriff, Todd suggested. “I later found her unconscious in the rain; packed her to the cabin and put her to bed; went down the trail to telephone you and when I came back, a half hour later, she was gone. She took my horse, Chinook, with her, too!”

“Anything else?”

“Grub and clothes, blankets and pack!”

“All yours?”

“All except the grub and pack.”

“Stick up your hand an I’ll swear you in as a deputy—”

“But I don’t want to be a deputy. I’m on my way to town, sheriff. This case—”

“Makes no difference what you want,” the sheriff retorted. “As a member of the Forest Service you’ve probably sworn in many an unwilling man to fight fire; and properly so. Don’t kick now, Todd!”

“I’m not kicking. I merely tried to avoid it. Now that I can’t I’ll go ahead and see the thing through. What do you want me to do?”

“You know the short cuts and trails better than any man in the posse. Clear out and head the girl off if you can. In the meantime we’ll do what we can! Not wishing to speak ill of the dead, but from what I’ve heard of John Day Burke a pretty girl might well honestly plead self-defense.”

The short cuts Dan Todd knew were no place for a horse. Many of them were game trails, easy enough to follow, but cleared out to the size of a deer. He did not even take grub, except for a pocket filled with hardtack and cheese. “Taking a gun with you, aren’t you?” the sheriff inquired.

“No. I wouldn’t shoot a girl if I never brought her in,” Dan answered.

Twice during the day he cut down to the main trail to see whether Chinook and his fair horse-thief had passed. They had! She was making good time despite the exhausted condition of the animal.

Dan slept in a shelter cabin that night and at dawn headed for Flaming Falls. At this point the trails forked and she might have taken any one of several. If she tackled the mountain pass, Dan could only wish her luck at this season of the year.

He worked down a ridge with the sun. Presently he stopped. Girl hunt or no girl hunt, here was a sight he never missed when in the vicinity. It was the sun striking Flaming Falls. The stream spilled over a ledge nearly a hundred feet high. The last mad rush of water was over a series of cascades so that when it leaped over the brink it was already lashed white. As the sun at certain angles changes a mountain peak to pink, gold and flame, so did the sun for a brief time each morning change the water to pink, deep red that suggested a flaming pillar.

He watched it, entranced as usual, and suddenly above the roar of water came the welcoming whinny of a horse. “Chinook!” he cried, and began to close in.

A new instinct the girl had developed since she was hunted warned her. She gave the surrounding brush and timber a quick, searching look, then, seeing nothing, grew somewhat calmer. But her muscles remained tense. Somehow Dan was reminded of a doe poised for flight.

He stepped into the open, undetermined how to quiet her alarm, when she again looked up. She saw him and without an instant’s hesitation leaped onto a log floating in the pool beyond the falls. A vigorous kick sent it into the current and beyond his reach.

Dan Todd’s face grew deathly pale. He knew what she did not or, if she did, did not appreciate—the series of rapids four miles down. He prayed she wouldn’t remain afloat that long, but would either go ashore or be spilled in safe water.

He ran to the bank and cupped his hands. “Don’t do it!” he shouted. “The rapids! You’ll be drowned! The rapids! Go ashore!”

She was crouching low, and if she heard him, which was doubtful, gave no sign. The jaw he had noticed as she lay unconscious on the bunk was set. She would see it through—regardless. He whistled sharply, and Chinook galloped to him. “You’ve done more than your share, old hoss, but you’ve got to do some more!”

Following a game trail, Dan galloped downstream at top speed. The horse could keep pace with the current in spite of frequent stops where the brush was thick, but it needed more than that to win. A short cut across a bend gave the necessary margin.

Dan glanced upstream. The girl was coming swiftly. He managed to get a log into the water and, with the aid of a long pole, shot out to intercept her. As she bounced by he drove his own pole to the bottom, vaulted and landed on the end of her log. With deft movements of his calked boots Dan steadied the log, then looked at the girl.

She was defiant. “If you come near me I’ll jump,” she threatened. “And—and—I don’t care if I drown!” She presented an interesting picture in his oversized clothing.

“No,” he said firmly, “you’re not going to drown. I won’t let you! If you jump overboard you’ll merely be wet, cold, miserable, and—alive! There are rapids downstream that will tax the skill of the best white water man. I’m a poor one, incidentally. We go ashore here!” Narrowly watching the girl, he sent the log to within a few yards of shore. The remainder of the way was over a series of boulders.

With a tired sigh she dropped to the sand, which at this point was dry, thanks to a brief period of sunshine. “What are you going to do with me, Mr. ——” She looked up at him questioningly.

“Mr. Daniel Todd!”

“Dan Todd? Huh! I’ve heard of you.”

“Evidently nothing to my credit, Miss ——” It was his turn to question.

“Miss Dorothy Lowe!”

“That explains everything,” he grimly observed. “I’ve battled with you by proxy.”

“Yes, and in the end you were whipped. I am familiar with the details of the case. By just what authority did you board my log and set me ashore?”

“By the authority of common sense,” he answered. “But that probably isn’t sufficient grounds for any Lowe, so I’ll add, by the authority of a deputy sheriff arresting a fugitive from justice.”

If he expected her to pale, he was disappointed. “I seem to be fated to have you interfere with my affairs. First, as a member of the Forest Service, you just about ruined an already wabbly logging and lumber business. Then, when I was in a fair way to die of exposure, you had to rescue me; almost undressed me in fact, and the next thing I knew I was wrapped in blankets, warm and alive. Good thing you left me a chance to escape.”

“My error,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t have given you the chance. You are wrong in one respect. My actions did not interfere with your logging operations in the least. I merely enforced regulations for the common good during the fire season. On the side, it is true I worked toward conservation, but that is no crime. If your business is wabbly it is because of poor management and—crookedness.”

She straightened up at that. “Wherein is the crookedness?”

“It is really none of my business,” he answered, “and you won’t thank me for telling you!”

“I insist. Of course if you are running true to form, as you doubtless are, and are merely talking because you love to hear your voice and the pearls of wisdom falling from your lips, then you have nothing of importance.”

“If your brother would spend less time sporting around and more checking up on that guardian of yours, you’d know that poor timber is being cut and number one stuff left standing; that only about fifty per cent of your cedar logs ever reach market in your name; that—oh, what’s the use of my talking?

“You’ve got too much chin and are too stubborn to listen to any one you dislike. Let’s forget it. Why did you kill John Day Burke? You don’t have to answer that question unless you wish. Anything you say may be used against you. I believe, substantially, that’s the usual statement the arresting officer makes.”

“Then you are not accustomed to making arrests?”

“No! I was forced into service because of my knowledge of the region. I’m on my way to California for a vacation I’ve been trying to take for five years.”

“You’ve plenty of time for it now,” she pointedly observed. “Well, what next?”

“You don’t choose to answer my question about the murder.”

“Don’t use that word, it makes me shudder. Why did I kill him? There are times when it is necessary.”

That was the Lowe of it, he decided. It had been necessary and that was sufficient. No regrets whatever. What a cool little customer she was. Nothing to admire, and yet— He softly cursed himself. “I was hoping you would deny it,” he said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. God knows we have nothing in common. In environment, training and desires you are an ornament. I’m what some term an impractical fool with an ideal. That’s beside the point, however, I’ve wanted to help you ever since I picked up a sodden, crushed figure and wrapped it in warm blankets.” A trace of humor flashed into his eyes. “It’s the mother instinct, I guess.”

“Thank Heaven,” she cried, “you’ve a sense of humor. Really I don’t believe you are entirely hopeless.” Immediately she grew serious. “I wonder just how strong you would go for me. I need help. Of course you are dumb, at times, Mr. Todd, but you are honest. Every one admits it. In a word, you are a man who means well!”

“No greater indictment can be returned,” he retorted.

“I won’t hang for the killing of Mr. Burke, but I am afraid I’ll have to serve a prison term, if I’m not acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. Suppose I turn over my timber affairs to you. It can’t lose much more than it is now losing; my brother is not practical, but I won’t permit any one else to say it. At least,” and her voice grew a trifle contemptuous, “you’ll conserve my holdings. Will you accept?”

“But your guardian—”

“My guardian was John Day Burke. I became of age two days ago. I can, legally, appoint a manager if I see fit.”

“I’ll accept, providing I have a free hand for one year. If I fail to show a profit it won’t cost you a cent.”

“I’m not asking for a profit. I’m asking to break even.” She extended her hand. “If my offer is accepted, shake on it!”

They shook hands, then, by way of warning, she added: “Understand I am not in sympathy with your ideals, and as a type of manhood you make me sick, but it’s a tough old world for those not watching their own affairs, and I am going to be where I can’t.” Half to herself she added, as though deriving strength and courage from the thought: “It’s a sacrifice, but it’s worth it.”

A soft light came into her eyes, lingered and was gone, replaced by the businesslike harshness of a few moments before. “And so,” she concluded as if she had not stopped, “I am picking the one honest man I know—impractical as he may be.”

He stood up. “We may as well start back. You ride Chinook; I’ll walk along behind.”

“Why did you call him Chinook?”

“He’s warm and friendly; a friend brought him to me from the South on a cold night. You know the legend of the Chinook Wind, it always comes at night, is warm and friendly—even though it does melt the snow and floods the lower country.”

“Chinook,” she mused, “warm, friendly, and it comes in the night when it is cold.” By a quick intake of breath she hinted at the emotion aroused within her breast. “And Dan Todd, warm and friendly, came in the night. And how cold I was.”

CHAPTER III.
DAN TODD TESTIFIES.

A small, wooden courthouse, a traveling judge elected by the district, a jury of grim citizens and a packed court room marked Dorothy Lowe’s trial. The air was heavy with the odor of clothing in which men worked hard and perspired; the steam radiator clanked frequently and without cause; the prosecuting attorney did not relish his task, but stuck to it.

At no time had Dorothy Lowe been in jail. The charge, manslaughter, permitted bail. This had been immediately supplied by Sim Ludwig, whose timber holdings adjoined the Lowes. The best attorney in the State had been employed by the defense. He insisted on a plea of not guilty, and this in spite of the fact the girl had admitted to Dan Todd and others that she had shot in self-defense.

While the Lowes and Ludwigs were cordially disliked because of unfairness toward their employees, the dead man’s standing was such that sympathy swung toward the girl. John Day Burke’s various deals had made him wealthy in money, poor in friends.

The girl had told her story briefly.

“Mr. Burke, the guardian of my brother and myself, invited us to a dinner at Mr. Ludwig’s lodge. It was to be more or less formal and we were to receive a report of his administration of our affairs. There were angry words between all of us over certain items. He resented our doubts, and one thing led to another.

“My brother and I decided to leave. It was raining and we hurried to our car, which was parked on the skid road. He forgot something and started back. I was afraid the quarrel might be renewed and followed. In some manner I became lost and Mr. Todd found me. That is all.”

“Miss Lowe, did you or did you not return to the cabin at any time after you left it?”

“I did not return at any time after we left,” she answered.

“I will call Mr. Todd,” the prosecuting attorney announced.

A few moments later Dan Todd was seated in the witness chair wishing he were dead. He had not heard the testimony, but realized the importance of his evidence. “Tell the jury what you’ve found.”

Dan told of the golden slipper and the automatic pistol, of his horse finding the girl, and what followed. The prosecuting attorney grew tense. “Were there footprints near the body?”

“Yes.”

“Small or large?”

Dan growled inwardly. Damn his persistence. “Small,” he snapped.

“The footprints of a woman with a very small foot?”

“Yes.”

“Damp footprints, as though she had just entered the building?”

“Yes.”

“That is all, Mr. Todd, unless the counsel for the defense wishes to cross-examine you.”

The defense was given an opportunity just then. From a seat behind the girl leaped a young man of twenty-one or two. His face was deathly white, his eyes were blazing like twin coals of fire. His voice was tense with emotion.

“Lies!” he snarled. “Todd lied! My sister lied! I killed Burke—self-defense. When Dorothy said she got lost she spoke the truth. I thought she was safe in the car. I shot him with the automatic pistol and tossed it into the brush. After that I don’t remember what happened!”

The court room was silent. The court reporter’s pencil, which had been flying over the pad, came to an expectant pause. He looked up, tense, ready to take down anything else.

It was not long in coming. The girl’s emotion came to a violent outburst. “Bob! Bob!” she cried. “How I love you for that! But you’re not going to take the blame on your shoulders for my crime!”

She whirled on the jury, silenced her attorney’s protest with a gesture, and in a voice that was close to a sob said:

“It was Bob who missed the lodge; I found it. Burke had been thinking over some of our charges. He was afraid—mad at the thought of exposure. He did not realize what he was doing, but as he came toward me there was murder in his eyes.

“I shouted for Bob and the answer was the moaning of the wind in the timber, the patter of rain on the roof. I struck out with my fists; then as he caught my wrists and pinned my hands to my sides, I felt my little automatic pistol in my coat pocket. I jerked away and—then—” She sobbed. “Oh—I can’t tell it, but—I’m guilty! I’m guilty!”

Bob Lowe roughly shoved his sister aside. He leveled a slim, well-kept finger at the jury. “Are you going to believe that? She’s the finest sister in the world. I know you hate me because I’ve wasted my time, drank and been worthless, but—I’m man enough to take the blame for what I’ve done. I’m here, before you, pleading guilty!” He turned to the court. “Guilty, your honor; sentence me!”

The court looked down on Bob Lowe. “Be seated, young man. Your spirit is commendable, but it is your sister who is on trial. The trial will proceed.”

The prosecuting attorney, quick to see his advantage, said: “The State rests!”

“The defense rests,” the girl’s attorney announced. The harm had been done and could not be undone. He was relying on the present emotional state of the jury for an acquittal.

The jury retired with the court’s instructions ringing in its several ears.

Dan Todd approached Dorothy Lowe. “Get out of here!” Bob snarled, clenching his fists, “you testified against my sister.”

“I told what I was asked to tell and no more,” he retorted, looking at the girl. “I’ve come to offer my resignation in fairness to both of us.”

“Why?” she inquired. A strange girl indeed, always doing the unexpected.

“I testified against you,” he answered.

“You were under oath; you are honest. What else could you do? Go ahead and keep the camp and mill running. I’m satisfied.”

“I’m not,” Bob cut in. “We don’t need him. Sim Ludwig will help us.”

Ludwig nodded. “Always at your service, Dorothy. What you are paying him for I can do in fifteen minutes each day. I’ll do it gratis, too, so that the timber country may be rid of such an obstructionist.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ludwig. I’m bound by a year’s agreement. Besides, you are taking it for granted I am acquitted.”

“You will be in a short time,” Dan said quietly.

Every one present looked sharply at the big forester. There was something in his tone to arouse interest. “Why?” the girl demanded frankly.

“Because neither the jury nor any one else believes you killed Burke. I don’t. Never have!”

“But I did!” she cried, on the verge of a panic. “But I did!”

“No, you didn’t,” he insisted.

Bob Lowe stood up, threateningly. “You’re saying what we all believe,” he growled, “but you’re annoying my sister, now get out!”

Dan bowed and withdrew. Denied his chance to resign, which was offered not through fear, but because he believed the girl would desire his resignation, Dan was now ready to fight it through to a finish.

And what a fight it would be! Bob Lowe was against him; so was Sim Ludwig who was always against anything and everybody interfering with his affairs. And Dorothy Lowe? In a way she was against him, but she desired an honest man in charge of her interests and to that extent she was for him. A month had passed since he had taken hold and the books were showing a profit. What was more, a hundred per cent of the cedar cut reached the Lowe booms in the bay. And that was something that had not happened for several years.

He wondered why he was doing it. It wasn’t his fight, he was out of the service. Yet at heart he knew he would never be out of the Forest Service. His name might not be on the records, but in spirit he would always be fighting for green timber.

The situation was a challenge to any red-blooded man. A girl who was out of sympathy with his ideals, yet who employed him because he was honest and could show a profit; a powerful lumberman who knew how to crush opposition; a girl’s brother who was openly hostile.

He had given her a way out, she had refused it, he was glad. His thoughts were broken by an abrupt rapping on the jury room door.

A bailiff answered. Several minutes elapsed and court was called to order. How the time drags, each minute an hour. There is so much senseless red tape. Why can’t the jury foreman look down and tell the defendant to go home? But no! The foreman must hand the verdict to the clerk, who hands it to the judge, who reads it to himself and returns it to the clerk to read. Dorothy Lowe’s soul was in her face as she waited. The clerk in a singsong voice read:

“We the undersigned jury find Dorothy Lowe not guilty.”

A gasp of relief from the girl; a smile of sympathy from those in the court room, then the drawn look returned. “And that means,” she whispered, “they’ll look around for some one else to—try?”

“It means the case is closed,” Ludwig assured her.

“Closed,” added Dan Todd, “until evidence is produced as to the real criminal.” With this, spoken almost defiantly, he walked from the room. There was much to be done and he was for doing it while he had the chance.

CHAPTER IV.
“GET DAN TODD!”

The finest thing that the wives of the loggers, sawmill men, and shingle-weavers ever said about Dorothy Lowe was her devotion to her brother. It, in their eyes, amounted to something beautiful. The girl’s confidence that within Bob Lowe’s shell dwelled a man was supreme. Privately they knew him to be an arrogant rotter with too much money and too much education. As for her, she was cold-blooded and a snob, but they loved each other. That made up for a lot.

There is always an inside story and it was whispered among the women that “there had been a wild party, Burke had become rough as was his custom; Bob had killed Burke and Dorothy had taken the blame, knowing public opinion was so strong against her brother that a jury would undoubtedly convict him.”

They also discussed Dan Todd. He was popular among them; of them, in fact. “Only this morning my Bill says to me, says he: ‘Helen, Dan Todd aims to keep the mill and camp going steady. But to do that he’ll have to cut in on Sim Ludwig’s business and that means war, so we may have work and we may not a month from now.’ That was my Bill’s very words.” She sighed. “Oh, well, if we only get some of the back bills paid up I’ll not complain!”

Helen’s “Bill” had undoubtedly called the turn. Dan Todd had gone into the market and bid low on several big jobs before Ludwig realized what it was all about. His office manager was the first to present figures.

“And, sir, it came at a bad time. Todd’s profit will be low, but he’ll keep his crew together and that’s what he wants. It means we’ll have to shut down. The situation is just the reverse of what it was when Mr. Burke was managing things. Then it was their mill and camp that ran short time.”

Ludwig glanced at the figures and frowned. An empire of timber was almost in his grasp three months previous, then the Lowe children had to celebrate their twenty-first birthday. Burke would listen to reason and thus enable Ludwig to dominate the market. What with his spruce and fir and the Lowe’s cedar he could talk business with any of them—few such stands of timber left so close to tidewater.

He jammed on his hat and stalking down to the railroad track ordered out a speeder. A few minutes later he was chugging into the timber at a brisk rate. Slowing down and finally coming to a stop Ludwig hurried down a narrow path and stopped at a cabin almost hidden among the trees. A half mile away ran the Forest Service trail, following the line between the Ludwig and Lowe holdings. The occupant of the cabin was in a position to watch the trail and river.

Ludwig did not enter the cabin, but stood a safe distance away and yelled. On the porch, enjoying the sun, lay a full-grown cougar. The cat seemed harmless enough, but Ludwig was taking no chances. Presently the door opened. A man bulking large and dark filled the doorway. Recognizing his visitor his attitude changed from sneering contempt to an almost fawning manner. He grinned, caught the cougar by a collar and dragged it to a cage. “Hello, Mr. Ludwig!”

“Hello, Yates! They’re opening bids in Seattle next week for nearly five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cedar lumber. It’s going to Japan. Have we got that much floating around Black Lake?”

“No.” He grinned. “Give me time and I can get it.”

“Don’t be so sure. Have you considered Todd?”

“Sure!”

“Figure out some way of getting him, Yates. He’s popular among the rabble so it’ll have to be done in a natural way. A fall over a cliff or—”

Yates shook his head. “They might find the tracks of the man that pushed him over. That’s no way to get rid of a popular man. How much time have I got?”

“I don’t want that cedar bid to go in,” Ludwig answered, “you’ve got until next Tuesday night!”

Yates looked at the cougar. “Did you ever hear tell of a man walking along a trail and a hungry cougar dropped on him? No? Well, it’s liable to happen any day if a cougar is hungry enough.”

“I thought cougars were afraid of men?”

“I know of one that ain’t.”

The whine of a saw eating its way into a log to the accompaniment of the “Pouf! Pouf! Pouf!” of the steam engine is sweet music to a lumberman. Steam was pluming up from the exhaust; the air being crisp it lingered. The dread expression in the men’s eyes had gone, Dan Todd noticed. He rubbed his hands. “Lord, I wish it were mine!” he exclaimed.

“And if it were?”

The voice came directly behind him. He flushed and turned. “Good morning, Miss Lowe!”

“And if all this were yours?” she repeated. “What would you do with it?”

“Just as I am doing,” he answered.

“And that is what I want you to do. The men seem contented.”

“They are, but don’t forget the women who have a heck of a time trying to make ends meet when work is not steady. I’ve told them if we can get the business we’ll keep things going.”

“And you a conservationist?” she suggested.

“Timber was made to cut,” he replied. “My quarrel is with those who will do nothing toward reseeding the cut-over areas.”

They watched a log move slowly down the pond as the boom man’s pike pole forced it from the others. A steel conveyor moving under water, caught the end and started it upward. After that the timber knew no idle moment.

A man moved levers and a nigger with hands of steel picked it up and slammed it about as though it were a toothpick. He was the head sawyer, who can make or break a lumberman when the margin of profits is narrow.

The log rushed forward and a whining band saw ate off a slab. Back it came again and the next slice was a board. Again and again it was repeated. Conveyors hurried the log, now lumber, away. Thus in six minutes’ time a log that had taken six hundred years to grow was cut up.

The girl and man watched the process in silence. They had learned what many learn—that many are not as bad as they are painted. She had regarded him as an impractical dreamer, but honest. She needed honesty. In turn he had regarded her as a spoiled little snob, beautiful but dumb.

Time had proved each wrong. She turned impulsively to him. “Mr. Todd, I’m sorry for some of the things I said when we first met.”

“All is forgiven,” he said, smiling. “In turn I’m sorry for some of the things I thought, but did not express.”

“Others are not so considerate,” she said seriously.

“Meaning?”

“People in town! They sneer behind my back and I know what they are saying. ‘Little killer!’”

“But you didn’t kill him.”

“I said I did. Do you doubt my word, Mr. Todd?”

“Yes, I do, but only in that matter. I’ve my own conclusions and I am working on the case. When I find the guilty party—”

“Please don’t!” she pleaded.

“I can’t do otherwise,” he insisted. “In any event it will be self-defense and not difficult to prove.”

Abruptly she changed the subject. “I was warned to-day not to bid on that Japanese contract. I was told it will be difficult to collect!”

“The terms are cash, f. o. b. ship’s tackle. That means when the stuff is on the dock ready for the steamer we’ll be paid. We can’t lose. If we don’t bid, this will have to stop.”

With a wave of his hand he indicated the activity. In the distance a woman was hanging out a row of kiddies’ clothing. They could not hear her, but she was singing. “And when this stops she’ll be too busy worrying to sing.”

“That is all I wanted to know. This is the first time in years this mill has showed a good profit and I can’t understand it. Everything is running so nicely—”

“Which is warning for me to watch out. This smooth sailing is resented in certain quarters. That resentment will take form sooner or later. It has started already.”

“Yes?”

“That warning against bidding. But I’m going ahead. My bid will be in by Tuesday night.”

Bob Lowe sauntered into view. He had never forgiven Todd’s testimony against his sister. “Came down to drive you home, sis,” he announced. “Ready?” He glanced briefly at the superintendent. “Hello, Todd!”

“Hello,” Dan returned, as brief. He knew an enemy when he saw one.

Brother and sister walked down to the car together. “Ludwig wants to talk to you, Dorothy. Listen, as a combination our holdings would become a power in the West. Overhead would be less, profit more. I’m for listening to him.”

“We’re making a profit now, every one seems contented, and the hate, yes, Bob, that’s the word, hate, that so many held for us has died down somewhat. We are regarded as people. I rather like it.” She regarded him seriously. “I wish you’d go to work in the mill!”

“What, under Todd? Not in a thousand years. Kick Todd out, combine with Ludwig and I’ll put on overalls and work my head off.”

She turned to him quickly. “Will you?” she asked. “I’d do most anything if you would!”

“You’ve done a lot for me already.”

“Yes,” she said softly, her face paling, “I’ve done a lot.”

“And I’d do as much for you. Will you consider a combine?”

“Yes, Bob, I will.”

Later, when Ludwig helped the girl into his car, Bob Lowe smiled softly. “They look great!” he cried. “There’s a real combination. Damn that fellow Todd.” He spoke now between set teeth. “He’s influencing sis in some way. Damn him! She was never influenced before. Still, maybe after all she’s stringing him along. Yes, that’s it, she’s stringing him along. When he’s working for her he’s not raising the deuce.”

A gravel road, trees on either side, whose tops met; glimpses of blue water and snow-capped peaks—Puget Sound after a winter’s rain. The car moved leisurely. Ludwig finally spoke: “Bidding on the big job? If it’s not a fair question, don’t answer it. I try to be fair.”

“I know you do, Sim! Yes, we are bidding. Is it wise?”

“Unless you go too low, then it’s disaster. They’re requiring a hundred thousand dollar bond to insure performance. Why not a combine? We could get a good price. Now it will be competition.”

He eyed her narrowly, guessed her thoughts and continued. “It would be great for Bob. He’s for it. The lad has the stuff if it’s developed. I can do it. He’s reached the turning point in his career. And, he’s not happy with Todd running things. Combine? Can’t we make it more than a combine, Dorothy? I’ve loved you for two years now; ever since you returned from school—grown up.”

He slipped his arm about her. “I love you, Dorothy,” he repeated.

“I’ve always admired you,” she answered, “but as to love—I’m afraid not, Sim.”

“You are going to love me,” he insisted, “together we’re going to work for Bob’s betterment. And then—you’ll give me that chance.”

“Yes, to help Bob. As to a combination, that requires thought. You must prove to me and to Dan Todd that it will be worth while.”

He snorted in disgust. “That damn fool! I couldn’t prove white was white to him. But if you want business statistics, I’ll give them to you. If I can’t show a larger margin of profit than he can I’ll quit the lumber business and make him president of my company. Read this when you have time. Every cent made right here at the home mill.”

He drove on to where the road turned off and a sign warned:

BEWARE—LOGGING TRUCKS!

Trucks bearing great logs were moving over a timber roadway, consisting of a sort of planked track, each a little wider than the wheel. It was cheaper than steel rails and a truck could go up steeper grades. “One way of lessening the overhead,” he pointed out. There were others, too. No doubt of it, Sim Ludwig knew the lumber business. She was impressed, and he was satisfied with the day’s drive when he dropped her off at home.

Dan Todd was waiting for her with a weekly report. She glanced at the figures, then, somewhat timidly, he thought, suggested the combination. He listened attentively. “Combinations are good or bad, depending on the parties. Did he give facts and figures?”

“Yes!” she handed him the report. He studied it with interest. “Better showing than I can make,” he admitted. Presently he whistled. “Where’d he get all the cedar?”

“Off his land, I suppose. He has a nice stand of cedar on that flat!”

Todd changed the subject somewhat. “Before you combine there are some things you should know. In some respects Ludwig’s cedar output reminds me of the widow’s cruse of oil. Some day in the near future we’ll look at the cruse. Understand, you are to do whatever you think best. I am always willing to step out, though you employed me for a year.”

Again she left him with the impression he knew more than he was disclosing. Beyond doubt Ludwig and Todd were bitter enemies. Which should she believe, Ludwig the practical, whom she had known for years, or Todd the dreamer, commanding, handsome, as straight as a fir tree, whom she had known unfavorably by reputation for two years and personally for two months?

It was a question she alone must decide. And always in the background was the desire of her brother. They would do anything for each other and take the consequences. She decided to do nothing that day, but wait until she had had a good night’s rest.

Dorothy did not fall asleep immediately. Various phases of the situation returned again and again to demand solution. What was the secret of Dan Todd’s influence over her? Was she in love? Impossible. She had loved no man except her brother. Was it the instinctive sense of womankind that so often points the right course? Or what? Toward midnight she dropped off to sleep.

Down at the mill office Dan Todd was laboring over a bid blank. Over an item he paused. “Maybe I’d better have another look at the Lowe cedar before I go quite that close on logging costs! Can’t afford to go into the hole. Still I should know what it will cost without looking.”

CHAPTER V.
COUGARS TALK.

The “getting” of Dan Todd had been delayed too long to suit Ludwig. The first thing necessary to his submitting a bid was the knowledge his enemy would not bid. He spoke briefly to Bull Yates who dominated everybody in Ludwig’s employ but Ludwig.

“You haven’t landed that bird yet, Yates!”

“How can I land him when he’s at the mill all the time? He’s afraid to stick his nose in the timber.”

“We’ll see,” Ludwig promised. “You be ready to-night to act!”

Five o’clock that evening Ludwig called Dan on the telephone. “This is Robertson at Camp Five. The line’s down and I had to come down the trail a mile to telephone. You’d better come out and decide whether to build that skidroad up the draw, which is pretty soft, or go to the expense of building a bridge across. Can you come up to-night?”

“No, I’m afraid not, Robertson.”

“Then I’d better lay off the crew. There’s nothing for them to do.”

That brought Todd to time. He dreaded the breaking up of any crew that worked well together. “I’ll make it some way,” he promised, “don’t know what time I’ll get there, but to-night, sure.”

Then just to be sure Todd did not phone back and check up, Ludwig cut the line he had tapped.

It started to drizzle late that afternoon. Night found the wind roaring from the northeast, the shore line lashed white with surf, and a snowstorm raging in the mountains. Loggers were praying it would not extend down to the camps and cause a suspension of operations.

The storm increased and creatures of claw and fang that preyed at night slunk from cover to cover and found the pickings poor indeed. Here and there they scented out huddled creatures of the day and made their kill.

Bull Yates moved through the timber almost as silently as the cougar at his side. Presently he stopped above a deer run, found the wind to his advantage and with a quick, upward flirt of a whip ordered the cat to the overhanging limb of a tree. A chain was fastened to a spiked collar about the cougar’s neck. The spikes turned inward and made it possible for the man to control the cat, which, being no fool, soon learned that absolute stillness was the way to avoid pain.

An hour passed and then, without sound, a two-point buck bounded into the run. Coming with the wind he did not scent the cat. His main thought was a protected thicket just ahead in which he could avoid the force of the storm. The cougar grew tense with excitement. Murder without warning; escape without leaving a clew was the code of this pair. The man’s instincts were as deeply aroused as the cat’s.

With the silence of ashes falling from a cigar, the great cat dropped. Its timing was perfect. The impact snapped the buck’s spine and crushed him to the wet trail. A single bawl of fright, then silence, save for the moaning of the storm in the tree tops; the snarls of the cat and the laughter of the man.

Yates slowly pulled the chain and drew the cat from its kill. “No venison steaks to-night,” he said softly; “that buck’s for me. It was just to get you worked up. You’ll eat horse meat if you’re lucky.”

He dragged the snarling cat a half mile down to the main trail, then, walking in water to conceal his own footprints, Yates forced the cat to follow along a bobcat trail paralleling the stream.

At length he stopped; tossed a line over a limb and climbed up hand over hand. Spilling several drops of catnip oil on the limb, so that it would work into the cracks of the bark, he slid down the rope, removed it, unsnapped the collar and with a crack of the whip ordered the cat up the tree.

Training told. Never did he send the cat up without rewarding it with catnip. The cougar knew. He scrambled up the tree and the man, his timing as perfect as the cat’s had been a moment before, listened and heard the click of a horse’s hoof against stone. Yates worked his way upstream, wading at times waist deep, heedless of the icy water. But frequently he stopped to listen intently.

On the limb, licking the catnip, the cougar suddenly froze. The blood-lust was running its course unchecked. Aroused by the buck episode, denied its kill, it was in a dangerous mood when the catnip quieted it somewhat. But within the cat’s veins the blood ran hot.

The oncoming scent the cougar instantly identified. Man and horse! It was afraid of the man and might have retreated, but caution gave way to blood-lust. It waited, tense, a creature of claws, knotted muscles and blazing eyes. It gathered itself and sprang. The man, not the horse, saw the danger almost as the cougar jumped. He screamed in the horse’s ear, drove his spurs into his flanks and at the same moment swung him around.

The cat’s paw scraped Chinook’s fore leg, slightly drawing blood. The horse reared so far backwards, Todd slid from the saddle. The next instant, with a scream that chilled the man’s blood, the horse was fighting off the cat.

Failure had stripped the cougar of much of its confidence. The man-fear returned in a measure. It slunk into the brush, while in a panic the horse galloped down the trail.

“Close shave!” muttered Todd. “Now I wonder—” He played his flashlight about. “I’ve heard Bull Yates trained his cat to bring him down deer out of season. Why not a man—” But his experienced eye saw not the slightest sign of human tracks.

Afoot! Todd swore. Robertson and his crew would have to wait a day. No need of going ahead. It was quicker to go back and there was always the chance he might catch Chinook. This he did not rely on too much. The horse was in a panic. It might run until it killed itself. Unpleasant thought, for man and animal had gone through a lot together.

Every foot of the trail was familiar to Dan Todd, and it made little difference whether it was dark or light. He walked instinctively around, over, or under obstacles and reflected on the future.

A glow stole through him as he thought of Dorothy Lowe. It was not her beauty that impressed him so much as her amazing loyalty. What was hers she fought for. A girl after his own heart, and he had never expected to find her in that stratum of life.

And how she was fighting for her brother. No sacrifice too great. “In turn, that’s the only decent thing in Bob,” he mused, then he began thinking of the business. If they did submit the low bid the future was anything but clear. It spelled defeat for Ludwig, and the fight would really begin.

Failure to complete the job would mean ruin for the Lowes. Ludwig would see that the job was never completed, if possible. All this would happen under cover. In the open he would be the fair-square rival in love with Dorothy. That was the way he worked.

The same warning instinct, so highly developed in those who spend their lives in the wilderness, that caused him to “feel” the cougar’s presence, again spoke. The drip of rain, the rush of air through the top sounded like water; the roar of the real water of the stream blended and drowned ordinary sounds, but instinct cannot be silenced by noise. He grew tense instantly and looked from right to left without turning his head.

Even the best generals agree the best defense is an offense. A crouching figure behind a trunk took form and on the theory no well-wisher of his would crouch in the darkness, Dan Todd’s fist lashed out suddenly. A man grunted and dropped, completely surprised.

Todd whirled about and backed up to a tree. Three figures magically appeared. Their plan of action was similar to Todd’s—a fierce offensive.

Dan picked the slighter of the three and knocked him down, thanks to a long reach. It was a clean knockout, the knuckles of the forester’s big fist catching the other squarely on the point of the chin. He folded up like a tent and dropped, face downward.

“I’ve used up all my luck in those two punches,” Dan growled under his breath, “now for the real fight!”

He left his tree, for the footing was none too good, and began slowly backing up, blocking what blows he could and dodging the others. As long as he kept one of his opponents before him, his chances were good. A flank movement meant instant defeat, for either of these fighters was a good match for any man.

Twice he caught one of them with all of his strength, and the only result was a sagging of the knees and an immediate recovery. When the trail broadened out he sidestepped and began retracing his steps once more, holding to the narrow part.

Something struck his heel. Then hands gripped his leg. Too late he realized the second man he had knocked down had regained consciousness and was intent on tripping him. He shook his boot furiously while keeping the others back. The man stuck to the leg.

Lunging forward, Dan staggered his nearest opponent with a blow, then turned and drove his boot into the man beneath him.

“Let go,” he shouted, “or I’ll drive these calks into your chest.”

The answer was the sudden sinking of teeth in the calf of his leg. He drove his boot downward, the other grunted and let go. The steel calks had gone through the heavy clothing and left a brand for all time on the man’s chest. Whenever he stood before a mirror, he would remember this night’s battle.

Branded though he might be, he was, in a sense, victor. His interference had given his companions time to close in. Before Dan could turn, a strong arm closed about his throat. “Get him!” a voice panted in Dan’s ear. “In the stomach!”

The other closed in, measured the distance and drove his fist into the pit of the forester’s stomach. Dan Todd dropped as though dead. Two of them followed him to the ground and began the process of putting him out of business for some time to come. A third with calk marks on his chest lay on the ground and wondered; the fourth was still out.

CHAPTER VI.
MISSING.

The mill foreman knocked gently on Dorothy Lowe’s door. “I’m worried, miss,” he said when the girl answered. “Dan Todd’s missing.”

“Missing? And in the midst of preparing his bid for the big contract? We were to visit our cedar holdings to-day. Are you sure?”

“His bed wasn’t slept in last night. His horse, scratched up from bucking the brush, came in with the saddle under him. That horse was in bad shape, he’d covered a lot of country.”

The girl entered the house and called to her brother: “Get up, Bob; something has happened to Dan.”

He growled sleepily. “Since when have you been calling him Dan?”

“This is the first time,” she replied, “but I’ve been thinking of him as Dan for a long time. I’m worried.”

“He’s not worth worrying over. He’ll show up. I’ll be down as quick as I can dress. Probably he’s off on a bust. You know how these he-men of the woods are.”

“Nonsense!” she retorted. “Too much important business ahead for to leave now. I think he may have had an accident!”

He joined her presently and together they made further inquiry at the mill. The saws were humming, and the “nigger” was dumping huge logs about as usual, but the men were asking questions.

Uptown they encountered Ludwig. He was carrying a heavy envelope and just entering the post office. He smiled and tipped his hat, then, pointing to the envelope: “Wouldn’t you like to know my figures, Dorothy?”

“No!” she replied, “I am worried about Dan Todd. We haven’t our bid ready and he hasn’t showed up!”

Ludwig said something conventional, but his mind was obviously on something else. He eyed the envelope in his hand and then mailed it.

“So the big boy didn’t show up last night, eh?” he observed as they parted. “Well, don’t worry. He’ll be around in a couple of days. He doesn’t look on the wine when it is red, but he sure does love to look on the moon when it’s white—if you get what I mean.”

Perhaps, after all, some such thing had happened. Ludwig was not taking it seriously. She waited until noon, and then telephoned the logging camps. The broken wire had been repaired and communication was open. “I want a thorough search made of every trail,” she directed, “and I plan to look about myself.”

“I’ll help you, sis,” Bob offered. “You’re worried, and that’s the reason I’m lending a hand.”

Men worked back and forth through the woods without result. Ludwig telephoned over that he was sending some of his men to aid. “You’d do as much for me, Dorothy. I think we’ll find him holed up in some cabin, lit!”

“Thanks, Sim!”

It was dusk when the girl started back from her second quest that day. Strange, how important a man can become to an organization! She had thought some of a combine and with Todd gone it seemed the only open course. “And yet—” she said aloud.

“And yet?” answered a voice. She started nervously, then laughed. The voice had come from a cliff—the echo of her own. The trail thickened and she grew somewhat worried. Perhaps she was lost.

A few yards beyond, a snag had been cleanly cut off with an ax. She recalled it now. Dan had cut that so she could crawl under without tearing her clothing. She was on the short cut. Abruptly she looked down and a strange chill swept through her. There were bloodstains under the log. Some one, bleeding, had crawled under it recently. In a panic she hurried down the trail.

There he lay in a clump of brush, a sodden giant in torn clothing and battered face. “Dan!” she cried. “Oh, Dan!”

He did not answer. She whipped out an automatic pistol and fired the agreed signal. Three shots, to be answered by two.

The reports seemed to have penetrated his senses. Slowly he opened his eyes. “Dorothy,” he whispered.

“Yes, Dan!”

“God! Don’t touch me. I hurt all over!” A chill ran through his frame. “Fire!” he muttered, “find dry stump. Wood inside!”

She searched and presently returned with an armful of dry cedar. Again she fired the automatic and listened. There was no answer save the echo following along the mountain range. The fire blazed up presently and she added more fuel. “What happened, Dan?”

“Four men jumped me and I came out second best. Near as I can figure they knocked me out, beat me up, then heaved the remains into the river. Cold water revived me. I have been conscious and unconscious ever since. Trying to get to the Maple Creek cabin. It’s a ways down the trail.”

He lay close to the fire, enjoying its warmth. She was furious. “Who were they?”

“They were masked. I left a private mark on some of them. Will settle later.”

“Masked, eh? The cowards! Four against one. Why did they do it?”

“I’m in the way,” he answered quietly. “Let’s see, what day is this? Oh, yes, bids are opened to-morrow.” He closed his eyes and rested. So close was he to the borderline of utter exhaustion the effort of a few words left him flat.

“Once,” she presently observed, “I used your dry clothes, but you can’t use mine! If I only dare leave you long enough to get help.”

“Don’t! I’ll be all to the good in a day or so. Now I want—rest!” He dropped off to sleep instantly. She let the fire die down somewhat, shifting it along so his clothes would dry out. Moving him was impossible. Except for the eyes, he was in fair condition about the face. Most of the beating had been around the body, where injuries are likely to be permanent. Not murder, but total disablement had been the motive of the attack.

Nor was he free from his enemies even in sleep. Frequently Dan muttered threats, and once he leaped to his knees and began to strike out with his fists. She gently forced him back, and her touch seemed to quiet him.

She reloaded the weapon and made ready to fire when he awakened. In the meantime there was nothing she could do but keep the fire going—and think. The hints she had heard that any warfare in the timber country would be nasty were borne out. Masked men, brutal beatings, four against one. But there was no thought of quitting in Dan’s mind. It would be cruel to tell him it was too late to submit their bid. She would not have to tell him—he would remember.

There in the darkness, with strange shadows dancing against the dark trunks of the trees she hovered over him, as, no doubt, some ancestor hovered over her beaten champion in a darker age when men fought with clubs. Just then the finishing school and silk clothing seemed far removed from Dorothy Lowe.

“Sis! Oh, sis!” Dorothy awakened with a start. The bruised giant still slept; the fire had burned low. She listened, then heaped on fuel. The fire blazed.

“Sis! Thank God!”

“Where are you, Bob?”

“Down here. I’ve been about crazy. Thought I saw a light up there, but couldn’t tell until you put on more wood.” Bob Lowe came from the shadows of the bank below. “Oh! So you’ve found him!”

“Yes! Cowards! They masked themselves, then tried to break him. I mean just that, Bob. Whoever they were, they did not want to beat him, they wanted to break him up. He may never be the same again. And you thought he might be drunk.” Her voice, indignant, rose high.

Dan Todd stirred. “Oh, Dorothy! H-mm!” He blinked his eyes, then groaned. “Hello, Bob. I’m stiff!” The flames made his eyes deep with mystery and at times they seemed to burn with a sort of flame as he looked up at brother and sister. “Bob, more wood! Get some heavy stuff that’ll burn slow!”

As the youth moved away Todd called the girl. “Little stream down the trail. Will you get me a drink? Knock in the top of my hat and bring it in that. Take the flashlight. Thanks!”

Bob Lowe returned first and dropped his burden on the fire. “Anything else?”

Todd hesitated. “Yes, unbutton the top button of my shirt. It’s choking me.”

As Lowe kneeled to comply, Todd’s eyes blazed. His hand shot up, and, though it cost him great agony, he did not falter. Fingers, swollen and bruised, caught the younger man’s collar. There was a rip of fabric, and Bob Lowe’s chest was exposed. In a half dozen places the tanned flesh was punctured by calk marks. Neither man spoke. A few yards down the trail came Dorothy Lowe with water.

CHAPTER VII.
LOW BID.

In the office of a Seattle lawyer three well-dressed and quiet Japanese gentlemen watched the clock. At last one of them spoke. “The time has expired. We will open the bids?”

Ludwig, showing the effects of a hard all night ride, shifted his feet nervously. “How many bids, gentlemen?”

“Two!”

Ludwig was puzzled. He had good reason to believe his was the only bid. As luck would have it, his was read first.

“At the estimated quantities and grades,” the lawyer droned, “the Ludwig people bid four hundred and ninety thousand dollars.

“The second bid,” the lawyer continued, “is that of the Lowe Lumber Company.”

Ludwig gasped and looked sharply at his companion, Buck Yates, who for the occasion had left his cougar home, but wore a gun in a shoulder holster. “Wonder how that got in?”

The lawyer was speaking. “At the estimated quantities and grades, the Lowe people bid four hundred and forty-nine thousand dollars even.”

Ludwig stood up. “Is there a certified check with that bid, as required?”

“There is! Is any representative of the Lowe Company present? No! Peculiar. Oh, well, we will notify them by telephone.”

“In case the Lowe people are unable to carry out the contract at any time,” he informed the Japanese, “we stand ready to fill any portion of the order at our bid price.”

The Japanese thanked him, and one of them, in perfect English, added: “We will take advantage of your generous offer, sir, should occasion arise!” They bowed, indicating that Ludwig might withdraw.

Outside of the building Ludwig turned to Yates: “When do you suppose that bid went in? I know for a fact he was figuring on it two days ago. He was working on it the night we sent in that fake call from Robertson. I can’t figure it, unless—say! I get it now. He put in the lowest bid he dared, then figured to check up again and, if possible, put in a supplementary and lower bid. You heard what the Jap said?”

“Yes, they’d fall back on us if Lowes failed to make good,” Yates answered.

An interruption came in the form of one of Ludwig’s friends. “Why so glum? Been accused of murder? Or is it a toothache?”

“Came out second best on a five hundred thousand dollar deal,” Ludwig retorted.

“Too bad. Say, speaking of murder. That was a pretty girl that bumped off Burke. Know her?”

“Very well!”

“And she really did it?”

“Undoubtedly,” Ludwig agreed. “Why?”

“Then she’s a cold little devil. Her conscience isn’t bothering her, from what I hear. Somehow I figured it different.”

“In what way?” Ludwig was deeply interested.

“I’m probably barking up a tree, but I figure the brother turned the trick and she’s protecting him. That pair’d do anything for each other, they say.”

“That is one way of looking at it,” Ludwig answered. He waved a farewell, climbed behind the wheel of his car and started for home. He thought he had moved fast, but in each instance Dan Todd had moved faster. “I wonder,” he presently mused, “if Todd’s been found yet?”

“Yes,” mumbled Yates, “I wonder! Say, my cat didn’t miss him far. There’s a claw furrow on that horse’s leg.”

Ludwig learned a number of things when he had reached home. Dan Todd was not expected to live. Where was he? Some said he was in the Lowe home, others claimed he was in a cabin in the woods, in too bad a shape to move!

Ludwig reached for the telephone, called the Lowe home, but there was no answer. He changed his clothing and, with Yates, boarded a speeder and headed for the upper country, where cedars stood as thick as grain.

There was much for him to congratulate himself over. His logging roads extended within a half mile of the Lowe timber. To reach the big stand of cedar they must either rent his roads, which he would not do; use Black Lake and the river, which he could stop because it was not navigable water and a portion of it ran entirely through his place, or, and this was the only course—build a road to the timber, which would eat up the profits.

Try as he would, he could see no outlet for his rival—except the combine. And this he was now in a position to enforce. With a rush it came over him Todd had played into his hands without realizing it. But, in the end, if the forester did have something up his sleeve, it was still in Ludwig’s power to break the Lowe Timber Company.

Ludwig returned to Black Lake. Its surface was dotted with fine cedar logs—hundreds of them. On a moment’s notice he could start those logs to his mill and have a steady stream of lumber pouring into the hold of some vessel flying the flag of the rising sun.

In a pleasant frame of mind he returned home. Again he called Dorothy Lowe’s residence; again there was no answer. It was queer, he thought.

For several moments after Dan Todd had torn Bob Lowe’s shirt open and disclosed the marks of his calks, neither man spoke. Dan was too exhausted from the effort, Bob too dumbfounded at the unexpected exposure. Finally he spoke. “Don’t tell her, Todd. I know what she thinks.”

“Why shouldn’t I tell her?”

“For her sake you shouldn’t!”

“Something in that. Well, for the first time in my life my silence can be bought. It’ll cost you plenty. Will you pay it?”

“To the limit. Shh! Here she comes!”

Dorothy made a brim in the top of the hat and Todd drank after a fashion. The water was cold and pure, fresh from the snowfields above. It gave him new life. Yet when he stirred it was agony. A doctor would have tugged away at his jaw and said, “Internal injuries. The outcome will be in doubt for several days.”

“What shall we do, Dan?” The girl regarded him with a worried look. She had seen the gray come to his face when he moved unexpectedly.

“Get me down to the Maple Creek cabin,” he said. “Cut a couple of poles, make a stretcher, let one end drag and pull the other—Indian fashion. I can stand it!”

Bob Lowe, frantic to please now that Todd had identified him as one of his assailants, worked with a will. The completed job was somewhat crude, but it served the purpose. Dorothy led the way with the flashlight, Bob dragged the stretcher. There was no pain after the first jolt, for Dan Todd had fainted.

When he regained consciousness the girl was hovering over him and there was a soft bunk beneath his battered body. But there was a strange sensation, or perhaps lack of it, that worried him. His legs seemed half dead, half alive.

While Lowe built a fire his sister started for the creek for water. Again they were alone. “Where’s Dorothy?” Dan inquired.

“Gone for water!”

“Then we’re alone!”

“Yes!” Bob Lowe acted like a man before a judge for sentence. “What do you want to keep still?” He shifted uneasily. “I’ll pay anything within reason to keep her from knowing I had a hand in this.”

“Who was with you?”

“I won’t tell!”

“That’s something in your favor. I hate a squealer. You don’t need to tell. I left a mark on most of ’em. How strong will you go, Lowe?”

“Five thousand dollars! That’s my limit. Take it or leave it!”

“I’ll leave it,” Dan answered. “You’ve got a lot to learn, Bob, about men and life. Here’s my price. Put on a pair of overalls and go to work. Learn the logging and lumber game from the ground up. Then you won’t have to rely on me, or combine with Ludwig. You can stand on your own hind legs.”

“I think the merger with Ludwig is the thing,” Bob growled. “To get that cedar we’ll have to build roads. Working with Ludwig will make that unnecessary.

“She’ll be here in a minute. I’ll pay your price; but remember, I have never liked you and never will. Any time I can get rid of you I’ll do so. I’m ashamed of the beating up, hiding behind a mask. I didn’t know they were going as strong. Anyway, I didn’t have a chance to do much; you put me out early in the fight. Now we understand each other. Enemies—open enemies.”

“Yes. You’re my open enemy, Bob. I’m your friend as long as you’ll hit the ball.”

And then Dorothy entered. “I’m going to town,” she informed them.

“Not at this time of night,” Todd protested.

“With the flashlight I can find my way. You need a doctor. Bob can take care of you. You’ll have to be moved around some and he’s stronger. I think you should have a warm bath, any way.”

As was usual when she took a stand, Dorothy Lowe had her way. A half hour later Bob was bathing the bruised body he had had a part in creating. Here were toe marks caused by the impact of heavy boots, there the marks of naked fists. The primitive fights of the camps are not pleasant. On the spine was a blue, hard lump that gave him a start. It suggested a fracture. He wondered how long before the doctor could get there. What would he say; what action would the sheriff take?

While Bob worked and worried, his sister hurried through the timbered valley that was hers. She was afraid—afraid of the very silence and the soft rustlings of furred creatures slinking about their nocturnal affairs.

Well toward morning she left the timber behind and looked down on the little lumber settlement. In the distance a lighted house twinkled. The whine of saws came from her own mill. Dan Todd had created enough business to run a part-time night shift.

He was talking of planting trees in cut-over land. He said she would take another profit in her lifetime from the land. This would come from second-growth timber cut from the land for ship and yacht masts, telephone poles, piling and bridge timbers.

She called the doctor on the nearest telephone, sent him on his way, then returned home for a brief rest. In the morning she planned to return and care for Dan Todd. He had been hurt in her fight. Investigations would be in order too.

As she was just reaching for the light switch the telephone rang. She answered it; it was Ludwig. “Sorry to call you this time of the night, Dorothy, but I’ve been worried. I saw a light in your window.”

“Mr. Todd’s been found, beaten nearly to death by a gang of cowards.” She breathed rapidly at the thought. “I’ve sent the doctor out and Bob is caring for him.”

“Not serious?”

“Very serious. He doesn’t realize it, but I think he is paralyzed from the waist down.”

“Too bad! Too bad! Of course, I’ve always held he was an impractical obstructionist, but I don’t like this rough stuff. Now for something more cheerful to you, Dorothy. My congratulations on winning the big contract.”

“What! We didn’t have our bid in, did we?”

“Very much so. You are low, with a fair chance of breaking even if you build a road to your timber, and a nice profit if you care to merge with us. But more of that later. Think it over. Good night, dear!”

“Good night, Sim!”

CHAPTER VIII.
UNDER CONTRACT.

During the next two weeks several amazing things happened. Bob Lowe went to work! He did not make a pretense of it, but shed his fine clothes, donned overalls, and got slivers in his fingers.

“I can’t get over it,” Dorothy exclaimed. She was in the rôle of nurse; Dan Todd was the patient. “Some influence for good must be working on Bob. I didn’t expect him to begin right down at bedrock, but I am very happy over it.”

“Maybe he’s in love,” Todd suggested, enjoying an inward laugh.

“He might be,” the girl admitted. Dan Todd knew that the youth was in love—with his sister.

The contracts came, the bond insuring performance was signed, and still Dan lay helpless in the Maple Creek cabin.

The girl was worried, partly because of his condition, and partly because it was time cedar logs were pouring into the mill. In the offing Ludwig waited, reminding her of the advantages of a merger. Another week, then: “Feeling any better, Dan?”

“About the same. Why? Worried?”

“Yes, about you and about the business.”

“Quit worrying about me,” he replied; “I’ve a hunch I’m going to feel better when the weather changes.” His face became somewhat mysterious. “It’s been pretty cold. I think if we had warmer weather—say, a chinook—it’d make a great change in me. A chinook is due.”

“It is late!”

“Dan, I’ve decided on a merger—on my own terms. It includes a permanent position for you and—”

“Forget me,” he said. “I wouldn’t care to join the new layout. I wouldn’t be needed in Ludwig’s scheme of things. And, besides, I would be fighting you, through him.”

“You’ve fought me in the past!”

“No, merely your representative, who was Burke. You—are different. I’m glad I found it out. So, Dorothy, I don’t want to fight you. But I will if conservation is involved. One thing, before you agree to combine with Ludwig, give me a chance to explain some things—give me twenty-four hours.”

Again came the impression he was keeping something from her.

She saw Ludwig that afternoon and agreed to consider his proposition seriously. He returned home well pleased. “She’s got to come to me,” he cried when he saw Yates. “They need a pond full of cedar logs, and the only stuff that’s coming down is what floats down the river. They’ll have a hell of a time this summer when the water is low. Bull, I’ve as good as won that girl.”

“If she comes in she’ll bring Todd with her. He’s got a contract.”

“Of course. But Todd’s got self-respect and pride. No man with those elements will stay with me when I don’t want him to—contract or no contract.”

That night he called the Japanese firm’s attorney on the telephone. “The Lowe people haven’t more than thirty cedar logs in their pond right now,” he informed them, “and no sign of increasing their output. Their superintendent is flat on his back—paralyzed. We are ready to help you out. We’ve got the logs. Black Lake is full of ’em.”

The attorney thanked him and the following morning called first Bob Lowe and finally Dorothy. He talked pleasantly, but at length and firmly. “It is not that we wish to be hard, but time is an important element, Miss Lowe, and delay will cost my clients considerable money. In turn they must charge that cost to you.”

“I understand,” she answered.

With his usual perfect timing Ludwig “happened” to be in sight when Dorothy came from the office. She was on her way to see Todd, but he headed that off. “Here’s my proposition, Dorothy, and you’ll notice I’ve made provision for Todd—if he ever recovers, which, frankly, his doctor doubts. But, dear, you realize I must know. I’ve got to drum up some business if you don’t go along with us. Once this is done I can’t offer you the same terms. Look them over; ask Todd if you wish, you’ll find them fair.”

“Give me twenty-four hours to decide,” she replied.

That morning she carried the proposition, which was in contract form to Dan Todd.

The girl could never look at his lifeless lower limbs without shuddering. Once so strong and capable, now they lay like twin pieces of dead wood, good only to cause ridges in the bed coverings. Once she had dropped the clock on his right leg and he did not know it happened.

He knew by the expression on her face a crisis was at hand. As she leaned over to hand him the contract, the bobcat skin serving as a rug slipped, throwing her forward. She fell across his legs and felt them wince from the impact.

“Dan!” she cried. “Oh, Dan! You felt that!” She looked at him searchingly, her face holding the mixed emotions of hope, doubt and fear. Tears came slowly from her eyes. “Oh, Dan, aren’t you happy?”

“I felt it!” he admitted. “Let me read the contract while you fill the water bucket—if you don’t mind.”

As she started for the creek, Dorothy suddenly realized the weather had changed. The wind, which had been from the north, was slowly swinging southward. “But it’s not the Chinook,” she mused, “the Chinook comes at night.”

She grew a bit thoughtful and smiled softly. Dan Todd had come into her life on a cold night and he had come from the south. She was just beginning to realize how great was her joy over his partial recovery.

She dipped the clear water from a deep pool and the act sent a trout scurrying upstream to cover. There was a song of peace in the creek that morning. On another occasion it had brawled heedlessly along, reminding one of the headstrong rush of an ungrateful child.

As she entered the cabin the water bucket slipped from her hand to the floor. “Dan Todd!” she exclaimed, “you are up!”

“Yes, I’m up,” he answered. During the brief time she had been at the creek he had dressed. “I’ve read the contract,” he added, “the time has come to finish the fight. Within forty-eight hours many things will happen.”

“But you should be in bed,” she protested.

“I am as good as ever. Perhaps I haven’t been entirely fair to you. During the fight I was kicked in the back and a vertebra shifted slightly, causing partial paralysis. It happened once before during my football days. The doctor slipped it into place and after a week’s rest I was as good as ever. I knew the moment I was on my feet the battle would start and I wanted conditions of my own choosing. I’ve stayed in bed when anyone was around, but I’ve done some prowling at night.”

“You speak of battle and we’ve a big order to fill. And you never did tell me how that bid happened to be there on time?”

“I was afraid we might be blocked at the last minute and so I sent it in a week ahead of time, intending to follow it with another bid if I could bid lower.”

“Two jumps ahead as usual. But, Dan, can’t we have peace in this land? Isn’t there enough business for both?”

“Yes, but Ludwig won’t let you have peace!” He blurted out the cold statement.

“You don’t know him, Dan!”

“That’s it, I do. You don’t!” He saw she resented the trend the conversation had taken. Warmth left her, she grew cold—icy.

“Now for the rest—” he began.

“I don’t care to hear more, Mr. Todd. A rival in business, yes, but he won’t carry war to me! I’m going to have peace if we have to combine for it. He was right. He said you always wanted trouble.”

“Granted! Where he’s concerned. Now, Dorothy Lowe, you are going to listen to me.” No one had ever spoken to her like that. It surprised her. “We win this fight in forty-eight hours or maybe lose it in the end. I’m not going to lose a bit of the advantage I’ve gained. You’re going to hear some things. You didn’t kill John Burke. I’ve said it before. I repeat it.” She started to protest, but he silenced her. “And neither did your brother!”

She gasped at that. “No one believes he did!” she cried nervously.

“Yes, many do. And you believe it! You also believe it was self-defense and you are positive that if tried he would be convicted merely because he’s a type these people don’t like. Isn’t that the truth?”

She refused to answer and he went on: “And so you accepted the blame to save him. In turn he believes you were forced to kill Burke in self-defense. But, even so, he was willing to go to the pen for it. You wouldn’t let him take the blame, nor would the court. Oh, I know the load you have each carried, and neither dare speak of it to the other. For that, Dorothy, for that fine trait of character I’d go a long way for either of you.”

“Then,” she asked in a strained tone of voice, “who did kill John Day Burke?”

“I know, but I can’t prove it. Until I do— Well, there’s something important we must attend to now.”

With a lunch in the pockets of his coat, Dan Todd led off with something of his old-time swing. It had served his purpose to remain in bed, but he had resented every hour of it.

For the most part he took seldom used trails and short cuts until presently they stood on a ridge overlooking Ludwig’s stand of cedar. A portion of it had been cut. “Stand here and count the stumps,” he suggested, “each stump represents a tree; each tree several logs. I’ll count, too!”

The girl was an hour completing the count, for she wanted to be accurate. “Three hundred and five,” she announced.

“Near enough, I got two hundred and ninety-nine. Now we’ll have a look at Black Lake.”

They walked down to the scene of the tragic night when Burke had been found dead in the lodge and Dorothy unconscious in the rain. The lake was dotted with logs, some of which had been there for months, others recently.

“There are logs representing, roughly, nearly four hundred trees. Remember only approximately three hundred have been cut from Ludwig’s place. Besides that, Dorothy, he sold a lot of cedar during the year. In other words, aside from his sales he still has more logs in reserve than he could possibly have cut from his own land.”

“Where did he get them?”

“That requires another walk—to your own holdings. We’ll work along the bank and—”

A strange voice broke in: “Just a minute, Todd, you’re supposed to be sick!”

“I was sick,” Dan answered, facing Ludwig who had suddenly come upon them. The man sensed his rival had made an unexpected move. His face was a study. Dan looked at him sharply. Did he catch a glint of fear in his eyes, as if Ludwig realized powerful forces were closing in on him? If so, such an expression was instantly gone.

Ludwig turned to the girl. “What cock and bull yarn has he been dishing up? Not that it makes any difference, for nothing he can say will hurt my standing, but—”

“You are naturally curious,” Todd said. “We have been discussing the merger of the Ludwig-Lowe interests. I have taken the negative—”

“As usual.”

“As usual where you are concerned,” Todd agreed. “We are wondering—or rather she is, for I know—how you happen to have more logs on Black Lake than you could possibly cut?”

“Are you suggesting—” Ludwig advanced with a snarl on his face.

The show-down had come at last. In rage, man and woman alike will say more than when cool-headed. Out of Ludwig’s own mouth Dan Todd prepared to convict him. “I’m saying,” he said, “that Burke was a tool of yours. I’m saying that half the cedar logs cut from the Lowe timber lands ‘accidentally’ dropped into the south fork of Flaming River and floated down into Black Lake. That you paid him to permit this. I’m saying that every log on Black Lake is, by rights, Dorothy Lowe’s.”

“Try and get ’em!” Ludwig shouted. Facts and figures were against him. “Try and get ’em! We’re ready for you in a court of law or a free-for-all fight.”

“You are usually ready for a free-for-all,” Dan retorted, “and the ratio is about four to one.”

Dorothy shot a quick glance at Dan. So he did know who it was that beat him up!

“Try and get ’em!” challenged Ludwig. “I’ll show you up for what you are. Make you the laughing stock of the Northwest. Dorothy, are you going to believe this rot?”

“We plan to get them, Ludwig! There’s a lot of business to be finished up in the next twenty-four hours. Getting Miss Lowe’s stolen logs back is one of them. Oh, sure, undoubtedly some of the logs came from your place, but you should have kept them apart—or branded them!”

He turned to the girl. It was best to leave an enemy on the defensive. The blow had been dealt so quickly and with such force Ludwig had not yet had time to think and cloud the issue. “Come on, Miss Lowe,” he said.

As though in a dream the girl followed him. How swift and telling were Dan Todd’s blows. At last she spoke: “Dan, do you think Mr. Ludwig killed John Burke?”

“Fearing exposure when it was time to make a report to you, Burke might have committed suicide, you know. But I don’t think he did.” And that was all he would say until they reached the upper waters of Flaming River.

Most streams fork and the stream is larger as a result, but Flaming River was the reverse. There were many forks higher up, but for several miles the main stream flowed along fed only by small creeks. Then it struck a rough area and split. A fourth of the water ran along an ancient channel and emptied into Black Lake, from which it eventually flowed on to the Sound. The larger northern fork ran directly to the Sound, emptying at a point half a mile from the south fork water. It was said that miners after placer gold, sixty years before, had diverted the water in order to work the gravel in the south fork, which was the natural course.

When they were on the ground Dan Todd pointed. “See, Dorothy, how simple it is?”

High above them stretched a network of cables. A donkey engine’s whistle gave a sharp blast and through the air, sixty feet above the south fork, swung a cedar log. It moved on, was picked up by another lead and carried to the north fork where it was dropped in the water. “Your logs,” he said. “Wait, there’ll be another before long!”

When the next log was over the south fork Todd shouted an order. The cable slacked away and presently the cedar floated. A man scrambled down the bank and removed the cable, the log floated leisurely down the stream, bumping from bank to bank, and presently vanished. “It’s on its way to Ludwig,” Dan said. “See how simple it is!”

“And you’ve known this for a year?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You must remember I believed Burke represented your ideas in logging matters. They were opposed to mine. I couldn’t see that it made any difference if Peter was robbed to pay Paul. Besides, I had no definite proof—merely rumor. Now you know everything. In case something happens you’ll know what to expect; how to proceed!”

“In case something happens,” she repeated, “to you? Oh, Dan, hasn’t enough happened already?”

“Nothing is going to happen,” he said quickly. But the way she looked at him thrilled Dan Todd. It is queer how love sneaks in when no one is looking and Cupid shuffles the cards. “Dorothy!” he said in a low tone filled with emotion. And then something did happen.

CHAPTER IX.
THE CHINOOK COMES.

Jim Ludwig was looking at a wall and seeing considerable handwriting. He realized that two months ago he had underestimated Todd’s abilities. The man’s injuries had lulled him to a sense of security, then in a twinkling that security had been kicked from under him.

“And I said too much,” he growled, “Dorothy sees through my game. But that brother is still under my thumb. I’ve got to get hold of him; but first I must protect these logs.”

He called a foreman. “Get a gang of men to branding those cedar logs. Another thing: be ready for a raid from Lowe’s loggers. Send a man down the line and if anything looking like a sheriff heads this way to take legal possession, telephone up and we’ll take care of him. I’m going to see Bob Lowe. After that I’m going up to Yates’s cabin.”

Then he took a speeder and headed for town. He found Bob on a boom working logs up to the conveyor. “Bob, come here a minute! Things look bad for me. That is, Todd’s twisted facts and your sister believes them. You’re sticking to me? You’d better!”

“I’m sticking to you as against Todd. You’d better clear out, it doesn’t look right to the men to see you around. It’ll put me in wrong.”

“I’ll let you know what I want you to do. And, Bob, in case Todd shows his teeth at you, remember my teeth are longer than his and I’ve got claws besides. I’m telling you now, for if you weaken I might not be around to tell you.” Ludwig hurried away.

Again the speeder was called into action. He noted men were working on the Black Lake logs as he passed, but he did not stop until he was opposite Bull Yates’s cabin. Bull had already been advised by telephone that “the boss is coming and he’s wild.”

The cougar was tied up; Yates was ready for anything. He had experienced such moods before. But this was the worst of the lot, as he saw at a glance! “I told you to get Todd,” he shouted, advancing in a threatening manner, “and you failed!”

“I thought he was got,” Yates answered. “Is he running around loose again?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll finish him this time!”

“You’d better. If you can’t do a fancy job, do a bum one: I’ve got money enough to clear you on a self-defense plea. But get that man or we’re ruined. Round up your men in the woods; bring ’em in. There may be a fight at Black Lake. If so, we’re on our own ground and that’s self-defense.”

He was gone, leaving Yates in a sullen mood. He never blamed Ludwig for anything that happened. Instead he blamed the man who riled his employer up. He walked over to the restless cougar. “Horse meat, sure!” he growled.

An hour after Ludwig had left Bob Lowe, Dan Todd burst in on him. “Come on to the office, Bob, I want to talk to you.”

Sullenly Bob followed. A packet of mail lay on Dan’s desk. The top letter, bearing a British Columbia stamp, caught his eye. “Excuse me a minute, Bob, there’s a letter I’ve been waiting six months for!” He read it quickly, smiled, then passed it over to the younger man.

“Read it, Bob, and you’ll understand I’m not alone in my conservation ideas. These men have seen the forests go in other countries and are planning to profit by it. In the letter was an offer that would attract any young man. A summer cruising timber in the shadow of snow-capped peaks. There would be camps by trout streams; bird shooting in season and, best of all, life in the open. After that would come the finest logging equipment and a mill to be built at tide water. You see, Bob, they want an estimate of the annual growth and they plan to cut just that amount, and no more.”

“Why don’t you take it and leave us alone,” the youth growled. “We can get along without you.”

“Listen, Bob. Give me a chance, won’t you? You’ve not got a thing on me. I’ve something on you. I’ve fought clean from start to finish. You haven’t! Now listen to this. Dorothy and I are going to be married. For your sister’s sake, make the best of it.”

Bob Lowe’s face went gray. He gasped, then shaking a fist under Todd’s nose, he cried. “Marry Sis, eh? You? Over my dead body. I mean that, damn you! Before I’ll see her tied up for life to trash like you, I’ll kill you if I have to stab you in the back or shoot from underbrush!”

“A truce, Bob, for forty-eight hours. After that I’ll get out. That’s all I want. I’m going to get it if I have to hog-tie you. But if you’re half as loyal to Dorothy as you say you are, then you’ll fight beside me. Keep an eye on the bay and if you see any logs floating there, bring ’em in to the boom. If you can’t do it alone, get some help.”

When alone, Dan shook his head sadly. “I may have to beat some sense into that young fool yet. It’s going to be tough on Dorothy if he’s at outs with me. I thought he had brains enough to see which was the right and which was the wrong side of a question.”

Dan ran up the steps of the Lowe home and rang the bell. “A letter, Dorothy,” he cried. “Read it over and tell me what you think. See you tomorrow sometime.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Up beyond the forks of Flaming River.” He looked at the sky. The wind was shifting toward the south; the air was warmer. “I’ve got to get a move on.”

“Going alone? I wish you wouldn’t!”

“The job I have in mind is a lone wolf’s job. The enemy won’t be expecting me to strike in just that way.”

“In what way?”

He leaned close. “The walls have ears,” he said, “so I’ll whisper!”

“Oh, Dan!” she exclaimed. “Who would have thought of it?”

“Anybody with a lick of sense,” he answered, “it is the only way.” Then he was gone.

Dan Todd had hardly left town before the telephones along the Ludwig logging line began to ring. Bull Yates fairly leaped to his instrument, for it was his call. Ludwig’s voice came crisp and commanding:

“Dan Todd just left on Chinook. He must be going far or he wouldn’t take the horse. Keep your eyes open. I’ll have the other stations check up as he goes along. It’s a fine night. Good-by!”

“Yes,” Yates muttered, “it’s a fine night for a murder!”

From time to time he received telephone calls. At last he got up, his manner grim, satisfied. “Todd’s passed the last station, he’s going up to their forks camp, sure!”

He fastened a chain to the cougar’s collar and set forth. The wind had died down; the moon was shining. How silently the cat moved, he noticed; just the brush of the fur against the thicket, a soft sound audible to only the keenest ear. His own footfalls were almost as silent.

He did not take to a stream this night. There wasn’t time, but he had discarded his boots for moccasins. Such footwear was not logical in this country, but they could be burned up. Besides, it would take an Indian to track him down.

The silence was broken by the snort of a horse. He gripped the whip and unsnapped the collar. “Up,” he ordered. “Up!” The cat hesitated, then ran up a tree and out on a limb. The eyes, gleaming in the moonlight, took on a sinister flame. He had forgotten that on a still night sound travels far. The horse was farther than he figured. The cat hadn’t caught the scent yet.

Yates grew nervous and drew the whip back. Why didn’t that horse hurry? Why did the cat look at him so steadily? Was it possible that the creature—? “God!”

Yates shuddered and for the first time experienced fear. The steady threat in those flaming eyes above had broken down his nerve. Fear! It is something invisible. We cannot put our finger on it, yet it bridges space and wild creatures sense it.

The great muscles grew tense. The cougar had not forgotten his cruelty, any more than it had forgotten that in the pen at the cabin was catnip. As a man runs risks for the things he desires, so did the cat return to the cage for the catnip—returned, knowing the cruel collar awaited.

Yates moved backward slowly. He must get beyond reach of that threatened leap. Where was the horse? Todd, confound him, had stopped for the black to drink! Something struck him behind the legs. Yates sensed it was a snag, but a movement of the cat stampeded him just when he should have gripped his nerve and stood still. He clutched at a branch, missed and fell.

The fall of something living is the signal for wild creatures to attack. Thus they prey! The cat sprang to the ground and at the same moment Yates got to his feet and ran. Through a brief stretch of moon-splashed forest he raced, screaming in terror. Each moment he could feel the crushing impact, the claws, the fangs at his throat! He knew the process, for he had watched the cougar bring down bucks.

Silence! He ran from it, knowing its menace. Gleaming eyes from a thicket, the silent rush to a log, the brief run along the timber’s length, another leap to an overhanging tree, and then—

Yates leaped a split second ahead of the cat. The paws struck the ground as he left it. He ran to a rocky point and turned, a creature at bay. Behind was a sheer drop of seventy feet to a deep pool in the river. In front, the cat.

Even then, had he really been a man of courage and rushed at the cat, the cougar would have retreated. But he was afraid, and the cat knew it. Of the two cowards the cat was the lesser, hence the braver. Confidently it advanced. Slowly. Surely. Its problem was to bring down the man without going over the brink. It gathered for the spring.

From Yates’s throat came a scream that matched the cat’s. He turned and leaped! The mist-drenched walls of the gorge echoed with another scream as he shot downward, hands above his head, fingers clutching again and again at the air.

Water leaped high from the point where he struck, then settled back, foaming. The cat peered down with gleaming eyes, but nothing came to the surface. The stream rushed on to the sea. The cat turned and vanished in the timber. For an hour or more its hunting was aimless, a criss-crossing quest that might bring a scent.

Presently it rushed across the trail, caught the horse scent and whirled like a flash. The odor was recent, maddeningly fresh. Almost heedlessly the cat followed.

Dan Todd pulled up his horse and looked about. “Chinook, I’ve got to leave you for a half hour or so, but we’ll play safe and be sure no cougar followed.” Dan doubled back afoot and examined the trail. There were no cat tracks. “Guess Bull Yates isn’t out to-night. Just as well for me—I’ve got troubles enough.”

Carrying a small pack on his back, Dan began climbing a timbered hogback. When he emerged, snow was under his boots and a scene beyond description stretched around him. Above, the snow lay deep on ridge and valley. Moonlight gave it a silvery aspect, more like something seen on the stage than something actual. A green carpet of timber rolled away toward the waters of the Sound.

Fifteen miles away a lighthouse gleamed. A narrow path of gold came from the light, across the waters to the timber. It almost met the silver thread breaking the blackish green of the forest—the thread that was Flaming River.

He looked below and an exclamation escaped his lips. Chinook was rearing violently. Even as Dan guessed the cause the cougar burst from the brush that ringed the clearing. The scream of the horse, always terrible to hear, floated upward. Throwing his full weight backward, the rope snapped and Chinook was free. His was the courage of a range stallion running wild. He whirled and faced his enemy, and the cat, surprised at the offer of battle, grew wary, and slunk into the brush. While the horse trembled, now on the verge of panic because of the uncertainty, the cat ran several hundred feet, rushed from a thicket and leaped. Its claws struck the saddle and held. A hind claw dug into Chinook’s flank.

Unable to aid, Dan could only watch from the ridge while the drama of the wild unfolded. The moon and the surroundings changed the fight to something shadowy, like the softening of a picture for the effect. Only the screams of the horse broke the illusion and told of the cruel conflict.

Chinook reared high, almost shook the cat free, then came to earth with a thud. He bucked frantically, keeping the cat so busy hanging on that it could not start its offensive. This was no frightened buck beneath its claws.

Suddenly the horse broke into a gallop. He vanished into the timber, and with loudly beating heart Dan Todd stood tense, waiting. The screams no longer came, only silence and the rush of a gentle breeze. It was warm, blowing from the south; the chinook that always comes at night, according to legend, warm in spite of the snow-fields over which it swept. A twisted scrub, burdened with snow, suddenly shook itself free and lifted a green top, as if to observe the coming of summer.

The scream of the horse again! It chilled Dan as the breeze had warmed him. As he looked Chinook hurled himself against a cedar snag and the cougar, hurt by the impact, dropped off.

“At him, boy!” yelled Dan; “get him while you’ve the chance. Quick! There he comes! Too late!”

But Dan was wrong. Chinook reared and his hoofs caught the cougar in midair. The cat squirmed backward, almost got free, then was pinned to the ground with both hoofs. It slashed out viciously and drove its teeth into the horse’s fore-leg. When Chinook reared again the cat was still clinging to the leg.

Again the horse screamed. This time there was more of anger, less of fear. The cat was ready to quit. It broke loose and skulked for the brush. On the very edge the horse caught it again.

Down came steel-shod hoofs and tawny fur was driven into forest muck. A shudder ran through the cat, it half stood up, then dropped. Again and again came the hoofs, until fur, sod and brush became a crimsoned, formless mixture. To Dan Todd’s ears came the shrill whinny of the victor.

“It’s been long in coming, old hoss,” he cried, “but luck’s breaking our way at last. You’ve won your fight and the chinook’s come.”

To the south great banks of black clouds were rolling across the sky. Light was wiped from the valley, silver was replaced with inky black; only the lighthouse with the path of gold across the water remained. A splatter of warm rain struck Dan’s face. He grinned, worked his way along the face of the mountain until the north fork waters rushed almost below him, then he stopped; dug deep into the rocks, snow and dirt; tamped a charge of powder in place, lit a long fuse and ran for the timber.

Minutes passed, then the earth trembled. Rocks and débris leaped from the mountain face and a mighty slide started downward. Dan Todd faded into the timber. The rain now was coming in torrents. And, curiously enough, the snow was melting from the mountain tops downward. For this is the way of the Chinook.

CHAPTER X.
CEDAR LOGS.

Ludwig was humped up on a speeder, while the rain beat against his face and ran in a steady stream down the gleaming slicker he was wearing. The speeder stopped at Black Lake and Ludwig ran for the shelter of the lodge. His mill foreman was already there. He had been marking certain logs that were to be cut later.

“South fork’s rising,” he shouted above the rattle of rain on the cedar roof. “Never saw it come up so fast. That snow’s sure going off fast!”

“Heard from Bull this morning?”

“No, guess the line’s down. Couldn’t get a rise out of him!” The foreman, a man named Secord, limped toward the telephone.

“How’s the foot?”

“Thought it might be blood poison, it was bad for a long time, but it’s better. Todd drove his calks right into my instep that night. Left his brand all right. I’ve got to get him for that. Seen the kid?”

“Yes,” Ludwig answered, “he’s with us!”

“Should think he would be, after what Todd did to him. If he’d of got blood poison in that chest—good night. Queer Bull don’t answer!”

As he hung up, the telephone rang. Secord answered. “The devil you say. I’ll tell the boss, he’s right here!” He hung up and turned to Ludwig.

“A big gang from Lowe’s mill left before daylight. They must be headed this way. The mill’s shut down!”

“We’re ready for them!” Ludwig indicated a shed on the opposite side of the lake, filled with rough men, smoking. “Let ’em come! That stream’s sure rising. Hear her roar?”

“Water’s got to go some place,” Secord returned, “there’s a pile of snow in those mountains; the sides are steep and water comes down fast.”

A current had already appeared in the lake, which was long and very narrow! The logs were moving slowly toward the other end. At this point there was something of a narrow neck and the water moved fast and disappeared in the outlet.

Abrupt activity among the men in the shed caused Ludwig to hurry across the bridge to the other side. A man met him half way. “Mr. Ludwig, Bull Yates’s body was found a half hour ago in the stream. Four of the boys are bringing it in.”

“The devil!” A shade of worry passed over Ludwig’s face. “Any marks on the body?”

“Only the calk marks he got that night in the fight with Todd. Todd’s calks got him in the flesh above the knee when he went down.”

“Yes, I remember. Todd branded all of us! Say, what’s wrong here?” A wave of water spilled over the footbridge and the structure began groaning from the force. The lake had risen a foot, he noticed. A moment later a small log demolished the bridge completely.

Another wave sent the men to higher ground. The logs had formed in a mighty jam. Ludwig was pale now. “If the water gets much higher, or if the jam breaks everything will go. Every log in the lake will be in the bay within an hour.”

“They’ll strand down on the bar,” some one suggested.

“Bar —— hell!” Ludwig exploded. “There’ll be six feet of water on that river bar inside an hour.”

A logger, his clothing torn from frequent and violent contact with the brush, ran into the clearing. Not being able to cross the stream he cupped his hands and roared above the storm: “No water going down north fork. Everything’s coming down here. Must be a slide—” His final words were lost.

Ludwig ran to the telephone.

“Get a locomotive up here as quick as you can,” he ordered, “bring powder, caps and fuse!” He bellowed for his foreman. “Secord, tell that gang to be ready to hop a flat car with picks, shovels and axes. Tell ’em they’re battling for their jobs. If those logs go we can never get that Jap contract; Todd and his men will have ’em in their mill pond in no time!”

No one realized more than Ludwig that the shoe would then be on the other foot. Whereas now he had them and it was up to Todd to prove title; yet if the Lowes got possession he would have a hard job proving his right to the logs. In fact, he had sense enough not to make the attempt. On those logs hung the future of both companies. One would ascend, the other descend.

The locomotive came puffing through the rain an hour later. It hooked onto a flatcar loaded with men, and started upstream. Once, where a bridge was smothered in water, men got out and tested it, then the locomotive moved slowly across. That bridge would not be there when they returned. Its hours were numbered.

With a grinding of brakes the train stopped. Men piled off, carrying equipment, and followed Ludwig’s lead down a pack trail. They broke across the Lowe clearing, then took the north fork bed, which was dry except for pools packed with excited trout.

Not a man in the group was prepared for the sight that greeted them. The slide blocked the stream and along its base, as well as on its crest, stood dozens of Lowe’s loggers. They were armed with pickhandles and clubs. There was doubtless a gun or two among them, but such weapons were not in evidence.

Ludwig ran up, his attitude threatening. “Todd, you’re drowning me out!” he shouted.

“You challenged us to try and get the logs you stole and we’re trying!” Todd retorted. He came down and met his enemy on even ground.

Ludwig was breathing hard. “You’re going to stand aside and let us clear away that slide or—or we’ll break heads until you’ll listen to reason.”

“Come ahead, we’re ready for you!”

Ludwig looked around. They seemed to be ready for him. If those at the base of the dam found the going too rough, they could retreat to more advantageous ground. There were rocks to roll down, to say nothing of the pickhandles. Presently Ludwig’s eyes saw a familiar figure. “One friend at least,” he muttered, “Bob Lowe’s in the mob! If he only has sense enough to crack Todd over the head!”

Ludwig turned to his men. “Stay where you are, boys, we’ll talk this over!” Then walking back he added in a low tone: “If you value your jobs, clean ’em up. Lay off the rosy-cheeked lad, he’s one of our crowd. That’s Bob Lowe. Most of you know him. He may pretend to break a few heads, but it’ll be for effect. Ready?” A roar of approval answered him. “Then at ’em!” he cried.

There were guns in both parties, but each, with an eye to future consequences from the law, waited for the other to produce them.

The first rush drove the defenders back, then those on top came down like a wave. In a brief time the slide was the scene of several dozen small fights. Here a defender won, there an attacker gained a brief foothold.

Ludwig worked his way toward Bob Lowe. “Knock Todd in the head!” he shouted. “I’ll keep him busy.” Thereupon he rushed toward Dan, to keep him occupied in front while some one got him from behind.

But Dan was taking no chances. Defensively at first, then with furious aggressiveness he met Ludwig’s attack. They stood toe to toe, slugging with naked fists. In the excitement Ludwig began a crafty retreat, drawing Todd out. A Ludwig man leaped in behind and lifted a club, but before he could bring it down a Todd man had laid him low.

Some one cracked Dan behind the ear and he went down. Because of the wet weather Ludwig had worn shoe-packs. As Ludwig stepped back the imprint was clear and distinct in the muck. Dan Todd eyed the track in a dazed manner, then he shook his head to clear the fog a blow always creates. Again he looked at the track. He got to his feet to find Ludwig advancing to finish him. He retreated. “Get Ludwig!” he cried. “Get him! He killed John Day Burke! Get him alive if you can!”

Above the uproar a few heard the cry. And yet, so evenly matched were they, that as one man started for Ludwig, usually another was there to block him.

The logger had heard the charge. He whipped out an automatic pistol only to have Dan Todd hurl a handful of mud into his eyes before he could aim the weapon. The next instant some one had knocked it from his hand.

He partly cleared his vision and turned to run. Dan made a flying tackle and brought him down. With a tug born of desperation Ludwig jerked away, leaving Dan sprawled in the mud. But Dan Todd was grinning. He held something priceless in his arms—one of Ludwig’s shoepacks. He tossed it to Bob Lowe. “Hang onto it, Bob, that’ll prove who killed Burke. I’ve got the rest of the evidence, now all I need is the man.”

But the man was retreating swiftly. While his men fought off pursuit, Ludwig forced another to remove his boots. “I’m going to need ’em,” the logger cried, “you can get along!”

Hastily lacing them, Ludwig made a run for the stream. “Fight it out, boys,” Dan yelled, “I’m after Ludwig. He’s on the run; they’ll follow. Tie into ’em!”

And down came the Lowe crowd, swinging right and left. For a moment the Ludwig men held, then the center of the line broke. The gang turned and fled, every man for himself, with Todd’s crowd in hot pursuit. Above, the skies sprayed the fighters; behind them the angry waters leaped on a dam that held.

Ludwig looked apprehensively behind. His gun was gone and with it his confidence. Escape was his sole thought. He ran to the river bank and with the help of two of his men launched a cedar log.

As the current caught it, he leaped aboard. Down to Black Lake; then a speeder to town and from there a fast launch to British Columbia. He had friends who would look after his affairs.

The log rolled at times, but he had served his day as a white water birler. The old art of balance remained. He crouched low as the log rushed between the piers of the railroad bridge. The bridge was gone; the iron rails snapped in two.

He looked back and swore. A dozen rods behind came Dan Todd, poised lightly on a smaller log. He had it in a smother of foam in the middle of the stream where the water ran swiftest. His balance was perfect; his jaw determined, his eyes flashing. His hat was gone and the rain had changed his thick hair to a mass of disordered curls. A romantic girl would have called him handsome. He was! But to Ludwig he was an avenging devil.

Ludwig forced his own log into the white water and the race was on. Again and again both men were forced to call on all their skill to remain on the logs. Walls towered high at times. Again the country leveled out somewhat, but it was all timbered. A buck, head held high, watched the race with amazement.

Dan noticed how he merged with the background as he stood there. Queer thought to have when a man might be engaged in a life and death struggle a minute hence. Dan always could find time for beauty—natural and feminine. Twenty feet separated them as they rushed into Black Lake. Black River would have been a better name. It was now a wild part of the river a little wider than the rest. Above the roar of stream and storm came the thunder of moving logs.

The jam had broken!

Cedars that were six feet through and made a powerful loader grunt to handle, were tossed about like toothpicks. Yellowish brown water spumed up between them. Here a log was sucked down; there another shot up, dripping from the depths. And into the center ran the streams bearing its débris and two humans. Ludwig stood poised like an athlete and when his log struck he leaped to the jam. From log to log he skipped, while hard on his heels came Dan Todd.

Suddenly he turned. He knew he was whipped and escape was impossible. His face changed with the inward reaction. With a sudden leap he gripped Dan Todd and his yellow teeth bared in a fiendish smile. “You win, Todd, and you lose. We’re both going to hell!”

Swaying they fought it out, and this time it was Dan Todd who wanted to be free. Once they slipped between the grinding mass of cedars they were done. Contact that would hardly squeeze water from the bark would kill a human being.

All of Dan’s strength went into a single punch. Ludwig’s jawbone snapped; the knuckles of Dan’s right hand broke through the flesh. He felt the sting of the dirty flood water as it struck the wound. Then he stooped and picked up Ludwig.

With the man thrown over his shoulder Dan worked his way to the edge of the jam, then leaped in. Waist deep he struggled the hundred feet separating him from shore. He pitched Ludwig downward, as he might have heaved a fence post from his shoulder, then slumped down on top, panting.

“Well, you boys settled it!” Dan looked up into the sheriff’s eyes as the latter went on. “Toughest fight I ever saw, and Ludwig quit. Always figured he had a streak of yellow if it could be brought to the surface. You was a fool, Dan, to drag him out after him trying to drown you.”

“I had to drag him out. That kind of a death wasn’t fated for him. He’s going to swing. He killed Burke. I had a motive from the first, but no proof. Now I’ve got the proof.

“Found shoepack tracks that night at the scene of the crime. There was a queer three-cornered cut, such as might have been made by stepping on a broken bottle, in the middle of the left sole. I found that pack to-day—on Ludwig.

“The accounting was due, sheriff, and Burke was in a jam. He was ready to throw himself on Dorothy Lowe’s mercy and make a clean breast. That had to be stopped. Ludwig knew he would go over the road for stealing logs and so he stopped it—with Dorothy’s little automatic. That’s how it happened, wasn’t it, Ludwig?”

Arrogant in victory, Ludwig was a mongrel in defeat. “Yes,” he growled, “that’s what happened. Why didn’t you let me drown myself?”

“It was too clean a death, Ludwig,” the sheriff answered. He scratched his head. “I was on my way up to the forks to settle a riot when I saw you two come down the river. I waited to see the finish. Now I suppose I’d better take this cuss back and let the riot take care of itself.”

“The riot’s all over, sheriff, it ended in our favor! I’ll go down with you, though. May as well send a doctor up to patch the battered heads. This hand of mine needs a little attention, too.”

“That hand’s got kick enough in it, Dan, to win a world’s championship.”

“Can’t take the time, sheriff, I’ve got a big job on hand in British Columbia and I’m due there to-morrow. I’m afraid I won’t make it!”

CHAPTER XI.
BOB LOWE’S REVENGE.

As Ludwig was taken to jail Dan looked out onto the bay. Here was a sign to gladden the heart of any logger. Scores of ponderous cedar logs were floating about and a fleet of tugs and gasboats were towing them to the Lowe booms. Even the tide was helping.

He stopped at the Lowe home. Dorothy was gone. He left a note:

DOROTHY:

I must leave for British Columbia tomorrow. Won’t be able to return for at least a month. Will you go with me?

As ever,

DAN

P.S. Am returning to the forks to start north fork in its proper channel. Your logs are all in the bay. Black Lake is empty.

An hour later Dorothy Lowe found it, and as she read it Bob came in, dripping from his ride to town. He looked over her shoulder and read the contents at a glance.

“Gosh, Sis, do you really love that long drink of water? Huh! He’s not good enough for you. Huh! Women are sure queer. And you used to have good sense!” He stalked from the room, but returned. “You know I’ve got something to say about this. I’m the only male member of the family. A bride has to be given away, and I’m going to do any giving that’s to be done in this case.”

“Bob, don’t be unpleasant,” she pleaded.

“I feel that way,” he answered and walked leisurely to his room, leaving a trail of water behind him. In the distance he saw Dan Todd, riding Chinook. “I wonder where I can find that bird when I want him. Some of the boys should know!”

And while he was pondering on this angle of the situation “that bird” was galloping to the forks. There was much to be done and little time in which to do it. In ones and twos, victors and vanquished were making their way back down the railroad tracks and trails.

Here and there he found a foreman or straw boss and to each he gave orders as to his course for the next several weeks. A few sticks of powder were sufficient to blow an opening in the slide—the stream did the rest.

He worked late, slept in one of the camps and fretted most of the following day because there was so much to be done and the line to town was down. A logger should be used to that, but there are times when little things prove annoying to a man in love.

Toward evening the break was repaired and a few minutes later an excited voice demanded Dan Todd. “Better get down here, Dorothy Lowe’s been kidnaped!”

Dan swore, then collected his wits. “Is Ludwig out of jail?”

“No!”

“I figured he might have escaped and got his revenge. I’ll be right down!”

He saddled Chinook and galloped down a trail intended only for a slow pace.

As he rode, his bitterness toward Bob increased. He remembered the threats Bob had made. But the threats had been against him, not the girl.

He smiled softly some time later. Here was the spot she had found him and here, Maple Creek cabin, where she had nursed him after the beating.

Chinook snorted and a man leaped for his bridle. Other men, at least a dozen of them, swarmed over Dan Todd. His struggles were futile and a voice shouted. “We’ve got him, Bob!” Then a light came on in the cabin.

The men released their victim and he looked around. All were masked except Bob Lowe. He stood alone, smiling in triumph. “I’m giving orders, Todd,” he said, “and you’re obeying them. You’re leaving the country to-night. Get off those clothes and put on these!”

To Dan Todd’s amazement he was given the full evening dress he had worn at college. “Not this stuff, boys,” he pleaded, “I can’t go wandering around to-morrow in this outfit.”

“Get ’em on and shut up!” Lowe ordered. “If you don’t, the boys will put ’em on for you, won’t you boys?”

Their growling response indicated they would enjoy carrying out Lowe’s suggestion.

He dressed slowly, taking considerable care while his active mind searched for a way of escape. “Tell me this, Bob, is Dorothy safe?” he asked. “They phoned me she had been kidnaped.”

“She’s in good hands, if that’s what you want to know. Later she’ll be turned over to a party I think can handle her. She’s headstrong, you know, and it will take a strong man to handle her. But remember this, what I do is for her own good.”

“You think it is,” Dan snapped.

“And my thinking it, is good enough—for me.”

Later Dan was blindfolded, placed on Chinook’s back, taken some distance and then transferred to a car. After a brief ride he stepped out to find the rough planks of a dock under his feet. “Step down,” Lowe ordered.

Dan obeyed. A great log, afloat, sagged beneath his feet. Murder? The thought came to his mind. They must have expected resistance, for they held him tightly. He decided to take somebody into the water with him when the rough stuff started.

The bandage was jerked from his eyes and he blinked at several lights. An orchestra struck up the wedding march. Dan gazed around. He was standing alone on a mighty cedar, except for a minister. The mill pond log boom was covered with friends. Coming towards him was Dorothy on the arm of Bob Lowe, who was likewise dressed in evening clothes.

Bob was very solemn and as he drew near, growled, “Not a word out of you, Todd. I’m running this wedding. I’m giving the bride away and I’m best man.” He almost grinned, but checked this sharply. “Another thing, don’t drop the ring into the bay.”

And Dan who had battled his way through to victory now obeyed with the utmost meekness. He seemed dazed at the unexpected turn in affairs. Only the minister’s words, “I now pronounce you man and wife,” convinced him he was married.

He seemed to wonder what to do next until the voice of a big undercutter shouted, “Well—go ahead and do it!”

Belatedly Dan kissed the bride. Then Bob Lowe thrust forth his hand. “Put her there, old boy, if you care to. I’m sorry I made such a fool of myself. I stick to my friends and it was hard to believe Ludwig wasn’t a friend.

“Then the other day, fighting side by side with you, changed me. After that I was as strong for you.”

“Bob, old scout, you did the job up brown. And—there’s nothing to forgive. You’re on the job—stay on it. With a few old heads to help you along you’ll make good. And—”

The undercutter’s voice broke in, “Say, my wife’s romantic. She claims you don’t know how to kiss a bride. Go ahead, Dan, and kiss her like they do in the movies. That’s it—take your time, lad, take your time.”

“Heck,” Dan growled, “I suppose I’ve got to do it.”

The girl smiled up. “And don’t you want to, Dan?” she whispered.

“Darned tootin’ I do,” he answered and did.

As they shifted their position slightly the log wallowed with unexpected violence. Quick work saved Dan and his bride from going into the bay, but there was a splash nevertheless, then the log steadied.

“What happened, Dan?”

“The best man just fell into the bay,” he answered, “and they’re fishing him out.”

High above, the Chinook lazed its northward course, its breath as gentle as the girl’s, its caress as tender as the man’s.

Transcriber’s Note

This story appeared in Argosy, All-Story Weekly magazine, September 22, 1928. It is believed to be in the public domain in the United States; copyright status may differ in other countries.

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Table of Contents

- The Chinook

- CHAPTER I. THE GOLDEN SLIPPER

- CHAPTER II. FLAMING FALLS.

- CHAPTER III. DAN TODD TESTIFIES.

- CHAPTER IV. “GET DAN TODD!”

- CHAPTER V. COUGARS TALK.

- CHAPTER VI. MISSING.

- CHAPTER VII. LOW BID.

- CHAPTER VIII. UNDER CONTRACT.

- CHAPTER IX. THE CHINOOK COMES.

- CHAPTER X. CEDAR LOGS.

- CHAPTER XI. BOB LOWE’S REVENGE.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE