Prophets Of Evil

: The Man From The Bitter Roots

The difference between success and failure is sometimes only a hair's

breadth, the turning of a hand, and although the man who loses is

frequently as deserving of commendation as the man who wins he seldom

receives it, and Bruce knew that this would be particularly true of his

attempt to shoot the dangerous rapids of the river with heavily loaded

boats. If he accomplished the feat he would be lauded as a marvel of

nerv
and skill and shrewdness, if he failed he would be known in the

terse language of Meadows as "One crazy damn fool."



While the more conservative citizens of the mountain towns refrained

from publicly expressing their thoughts, a coterie known as the "Old

Timers" left him in no doubt as to their own opinion of the attempt.

Each day they came to the river bank as regularly as though they had

office-hours and stationed themselves on a pile of lumber near where

Bruce caulked and tarred the seams of the three boats which were to make

the first trip through the rapids. They made Bruce think of so many

ancient ravens, as they roosted in a row croaking disaster. By the time

the machinery was due to arrive they spoke of the wreck of the boats as

something foreordained and settled. They differed only as to where it

would happen.



"I really doubts, Burt, if you so much as git through the Pine-Crick

rapids."



"No?"



"I mind the time Jake Hazlett and his crew was drowned at the 'Wild

Goose.' It seems the coroner was already there a settin' on a corp' that

had come up in the eddy. 'Go on through, boys!' he hollers to 'em, 'I'll

wait for you down below. It'll save me another trip from Medders'."



Bruce worked on, apparently unperturbed by these discouraging

reminiscences.



"They say they's a place down there where the river's so narrow it's bent

over," volunteered a third pessimist, as he cut an artistic initial in a

plank with the skill of long practice. "And you'll go through the Black

Canyon like a bat out o' hell. But I has no notion whatsoever that

you'll ever come up when you hits that waterfall on the other end. When

her nose dips under, heavy-loaded like that, she'll sink and fill right

thar. Why--"



"Do you rickolect," quavered a spry young cub of eighty-two who talked

of the Civil War and the Nez Perce uprising as though they were the

events of yesterday, "do you remember the time 'Death-on-the-Trail' lost

his hull outfit tryin' to git through the 'Devil's Teeth'? The idee of

an old feller like him startin' out alone! Why he was all of seventy."



"An' the time 'Starvation Bill' turned over at Proctors's Falls?"

chortled another. "Fritz Yandell said the river was full of

grub--cracker cans, prunes and the like o' that, for clost to a week. I

never grieved much to hear of an accident to him for we'd had a railroad

in here twenty years ago if it hadn't been for Bill. The survey outfit

took him along for helper and he et up all the grub, so the Injin guide

quit 'em cold and they couldn't go on. I allus hoped he'd starve to

death somm'eres, but after a spell of sickness from swallerin' a

ham-bone, he died tryin' to eat six dozen aigs on a bet."



"Talkin' of Fritz Yandell--he told me he fished him a compass and

transit out'n the river after them Governmint Yellow-Legs wrecked on

Butcher's Bar." The speaker added cheerfully: "Since the Whites come

into the country I reckon all told you could count the boats that's got

through without trouble on the fingers of one hand. If these boats was

goin' empty I'd say 'all right--you're liable to make it,' but sunk deep

in the water with six or eight thousand pounds--Burt, you orter have

your head examined."



But Bruce refused to let himself think of accident. He knew water, he

could handle a sweep; he meant to take every precaution and he could, he

must get through.



The river was rising rapidly now, not an inch at a time but inches, for

the days were warmer--warm enough to start rivulets running from

sheltered snowbanks in the mountains. Daily the distance increased from

shore to shore. Sprawling trees, driftwood, carcasses, the year's

rubbish from draws and gulches, swept by on the broad bosom of the

yellow flood. The half-submerged willows were bending in the current and

water-mark after water-mark disappeared on the bridge piles.



Bruce had not realized that the days of waiting had stretched his nerves

to such a tension until he learned that the freight had really come. He

felt for a moment as though the burdens of the world had been suddenly

rolled from his shoulders. His relief was short-lived. It changed to

consternation when he saw the last of the machinery piled upon the bank

for loading. It weighed not fifty thousand pounds but all of

ninety--nearer a hundred! Dumfounded for the moment, he did not see how

he could take it. The saving that he had made on the purchase price was

eaten up by the extra weight owing to the excessive freight rates from

the coast and on the branch line to Meadows. More than that, Jennings

had disobeyed his explicit orders to box the smaller parts of each

machine together. All had been thrown in the car helter-skelter.



Not since he had raged at "Slim" had Bruce been so furious, but there

was little time to indulge his temper for there was now an extra boat to

build upon which he must trust Smaltz as front sweepman.



They all worked early and late, building the extra barge, dividing the

weight and loading the unwieldy machinery, but the best they could do,

counting four boats to a trip instead of three, each barge drew from

eight to twelve inches of water.



Though he gave no outward sign and went on stubbornly, the undertaking

under such conditions--even to Bruce--looked foolhardy, while the

croakings of the "Old Timers" rose to a wail of lamentation.



The last nail was driven and the last piece loaded and Bruce and his

boatmen stood on the banks at dusk looking at the four barges, securely

tied with bow and stern lines riding on the rising flood. Thirty-seven

feet long they were, five feet high, eight feet wide while the sweeps

were of two young fir trees over six inches in diameter and twenty feet

in length. A twelve foot plank formed the blade which was bolted

obliquely to one end and the whole balanced on a pin. They were clumsy

looking enough, these flat-bottomed barges, but the only type of boat

that could ride the rough water and skim the rocks so menacingly close

to the surface.



"There's nothin' left to do now but say our prayers." Smaltz's

jocularity broke the silence.



"My wife hasn't quit snifflin' since she heard the weight I was goin' to

take," said Saunders, the boatman upon whom Bruce counted most. "If I

hadn't promised I don't know as I'd take the risk. I wouldn't, as it is,

for anybody else, but I know what it means to you."



"And I sure hate to ask it," said Bruce answered gravely. "If anything

happens I'll never forgive myself."



"Well--we can only do the best we can--and hope," said Saunders. "The

water's as near right as it ever will be; and I wouldn't worry if it

wasn't for the load."



"To-morrow at eight, boys, and be prompt. Every hour is counting from

now on, with two more trips to make."



Bruce walked slowly up the street and went to his room, too tired and

depressed for conversation down below. The weigh-bill from the

station-agent was even worse than he had expected; and the question

which he asked himself over and over was whether Jennings's

under-estimation of the weight was deliberate misrepresentation or bad

figuring? Whatever the cause the costly error had shaken his faith in

Jennings.



Bruce was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow. The last thing

he remembered was Smaltz's raucous voice in the bar-room below boasting

of the wicked rapids he had shot in the tumultuous "Colo-rady" and on

the Stikine in the far north.



The noise of the bar-room ceased at an early hour and the little

mountain town grew quiet but Bruce was not conscious of the change. It

was midnight--and long past--well toward morning when in the sleep which

had been so profound he heard his mother calling, calling in the same

dear, sweet way that she used to call him when, tired out with following

his father on long rides, he had overslept in the morning.



"Bruce! Bruce-boy! Up-adaisy!"



He stirred uneasily and imagined that he answered.



The voice came again and there was pleading in the shrill, staccato

notes:



"Bruce! Bruce! Bruce!"



The cry from dreamland roused his consciousness at last. He sat up

startled. There was no thought in his mind but the boats--the boats! In

seconds, not minutes, he was in his clothes and stumbling down the dark

stairway. There was something ghostly in the hollow echo of his

footsteps on the plank sidewalk as he ran through the main street of the

still village.



He saw that one boat was gone from its mooring before he reached the

bank! He could see plainly the space where it had been. The other boats

were safe--but the fourth--. He stopped short on the bank for one brief

second weak with relief. The fourth barge, which was holding it

temporarily. The water by some miracle it had jammed against the third

barge which was holding it temporarily. The water was slapping against

the side that was turned to the stream and the other was bumping,

bumping against the stern of the third boat but the loose barge was

working a little closer to the current with each bump. A matter of five

minutes more at the most and it would have been started on its journey

to destruction.



Bruce sprang to the stern of the third barge and dragged the loose

bow-line from the water. It was shorter by many feet--the stout, new

rope had been cut! It was not necessary to strike a match--the starlight

was sufficient to show him that. He stared at it, unable to credit his

own eyes. He scrambled over the machinery to the stern. The stern-line

was the same--cut square and clean. If further evidence was needed, it

was furnished by the severed portion, which was still tied around a

bush.



There was no more sleep for Bruce that night. Bewildered, dumfounded by

the discovery, he rolled himself in a "tarp" and laid down on the boat's

platform. So far as he knew he had not an enemy in the town. There

seemed absolutely no reasonable explanation for the act.



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