"What does he pay?"

"Thirty-five a month for a span o' hosses, and hosses and man kept."

"I'll pay forty-five and feed."

"I shouldn't want to be the man that went up on Gid Ward's operations and tried to hire his teams away!" growled the agent. "You can't hire any one round here for an errand of that kind."

"I'd go myself if I thought I could get the horses," said Parker.

"I'd advise you to save yourself a fifty-mile ride up the tote-road,"

the agent counseled. "Even if Ward didn't catch you, you'd find that no man would da'st to leave there. Furthermore, you've only got a little, short job here, scarcely worth while."

The logic of the reply impressed Parker.

He could not spare the time anyway, to travel far up into the woods in quest of horses. His material must be conveyed across Spinnaker Lake in some other way.

"How far is it up the lake to Poquette?" he asked the agent.

"Sixteen miles."

An hour later Parker, after a tour of inspection, had settled his problem of transportation in his own mind. His plan was ingenious.

There were half a dozen men available in Sunkhaze, and more were arriving daily, straggling down from the woods or roaring in fresh from the city, hurrying on the way up.

The postmaster owned a hardwood tract, and Parker set his little crew at work chopping birch saplings and fashioning from them huge sleds, strongly bolted. As for himself, he entered into a contract with the local blacksmith, threw his coat off and went to work on some contrivances, round which the settlement's loungers congregated from dawn till dark the next day, watching the progress and wondering audibly "what such a blamed contraption was goin' to turn out to be."

Parker kept his own counsel. At the end of two days, with the a.s.sistance of the blacksmith, he had remodeled four ox-cart tires. Each tire was spurred with bristling steel spikes, bolted firmly. In reply to his telegram, "Rush loco, all equipments and coal," the little narrow-gage engine arrived, at the tail of the procession of flat cars, loaded with materials of construction.

By this time Parker's crew had been increased to a score of laborers, and he had picked up three yokes of oxen and four horses from the few pioneer farmers who lived near Sunkhaze. With tackle and derrick the locomotive was swung upon a specially constructed sled, and the spurred tires were set upon its drivers. Then the great idea locked in Parker's head became apparent to the population of Sunkhaze.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Then the great idea Frontispiece]

"Gorry!" said the postmaster. "If that young feller hain't got a horse there that'll beat anything that even Colonel Gid Ward himself ever sent across Spinnaker Lake!"

Amid the utmost excitement of the spectators, the "engine on runners"

was "snubbed" down the steep hill and eased out upon the road leading to the lake. Two hours' work with levers and wedges had adjusted the machine until the spurred wheels had the requisite "bite" upon the ice.

At dark on the day of the "launching" Parker gazed off across the level of the lake, and said to his men:

"To-morrow, boys, the Spinnaker Lake Air-Line Railroad will run its first train to Po-quette Carry. No freight this time. I want to lay out my landing up there. So all aboard at nine o'clock. Three cars," he said, pointing to the new sleds, "and a free ride for all of you, with my compliments."

An honest cheer greeted his jocular announcement, and that evening all the Sunk-haze male population a.s.sembled round the stove in the post-office to discuss the matter. When the evening was yet young, a red-faced, red-whiskered man, snow-shoes on his back and fresh from the up-country trail, came and warmed himself, listening with interest to the lively discussion.

"So that's what that thing is down on the lake?" he said, at last.

"'Twas dark when I came by, and I swan if it didn't scare me. Want to know if that's the engine we've been hearin' about up our way?"

His tone was significant.

"Where ye from, stranger?" asked one of the loungers.

"Number 7 cuttin'."

"Oh, one of Gid Ward's men?"

"Yes."

"Say, has Ward heard about the railroad preparations?" inquired the postmaster. This query had been propounded with eagerness to every new arrival from the woods for the past three days.

"Yes."

The interest of the men quickened, and they crowded round the newcomer.

"What does he say?"

"He hain't said anything special yet, so I heard," replied the man.

"Hain't done anything but swear so far, so they tell me."

"Has he--has he started to come down?"

"Feller from up the line telephoned across the carry that a streak of fur, bells and brimstone went past his place, and so I should judge that Colonel Gid is on the way down," drawled the man.

"An' he'll come across that lake in the morning," said the postmaster, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder, "scorchin' the snow and leavin' a hot hole in the air behind him."

The door opened and Parker came in to post his letters. The crowd gazed on him with new interest and with a certain significance in their glances that caught his eyes. The postmaster noticed his mute inquiry, and remarked:

"News from the interior, Mr. Parker, is that you prob'ly won't have any ice in Spinnaker to-morrow to run your engine on."

"Why?" demanded the young man, with some surprise. The postmaster's sober face hid his jest. Parker surveyed wonderingly the grins curling under the listeners' beards.

"Oh, Colonel Gid Ward is comin' across in the mornin' and it's reckoned he'll burn up the ice."

A cackle of laughter came from the a.s.semblage.

"There's plenty of room on Spinnaker for both of us, I think," Parker replied, quietly.

"Better hitch your engine," suggested one of the group. "She's li'ble to take to the woods and climb a tree when she hears old Gid. And you can hear him a good way off, now I can tell you."

The postmaster knuckled his chin humorously.

"Wal, you'll hear him 'bout the same time you see him. Five years ago he was arrested down to the village for drivin' through the streets lickety-whelt without bells. Run over two or three people, first and last. Gid said he'd give 'em bells enough, if that's what they wanted.

He began collecting bells all the way from a cow-bell down. At last accounts he had about two hundred on his hoss and sleigh, and was still addin'. Now he makes every hoss on the street run away. The men wish they'd let him alone in the first place. He'll prob'ly want your engine-bell when he sees it to-morrow."

Another cackle from the crowd.

Parker left without answering, and went to his dingy little room in the tavern. He did not doubt that the timber-land owners, beaten in their earlier and formal opposition, were inciting the irascible old colonel to pit might against right. The young man went over his papers once more, carefully and methodically posted himself as to his rights and powers, and then slept with the calmness of one who knows his course and is prepared to follow it.

The next morning all the male population of Sunkhaze settlement surveyed with rapt interest the preliminaries of getting up steam under the "Swamp Swogon," as one of the guides had humorously nicknamed the little locomotive.