The Mountain Divide - Frank H. Spearman (english reading book .txt) 📗

“That,” returned the guide, “is Sellersville.”

“Sellersville,” echoed Stanley. “What is Sellersville?”

“Sellersville is where they bring most of the ties for the boats.”

“Have they started a town down there on the bottoms?”

“They have started enough saloons and gambling dens to get the money from the men that are chopping ties.”

Stanley contemplated for a moment the ill-looking settlement. A mile farther on they encountered 81 a number of men following the trail up the river.

A small dog barked furiously at the Stanley party as they came up, and acted as if he were ready to fight every trooper in the detail. He dashed back and forth, barking and threatening so fiercely that every one’s attention was drawn to him.

Stanley stopped the leader and found he was a tie-camp foreman from up-river taking men to camp. “Is that your dog?” demanded Stanley, indicating the belligerent animal who seemed set upon eating somebody alive.

“Why, yes,” admitted the foreman philosophically. “He sort o’ claims me, I guess.”

“What do you keep a cur like that around for?”

“Can’t get rid of him,” returned the foreman. “He is no good, but the boys like his impudence. Down, Scuffy!” he cried, looking for a stick to throw at his pet.

Bucks surveyed the company of men. They were a sorry-looking lot. The foreman explained that he had dragged them out of the dens at 82 Sellersville to go back to work. When remonstrated with for the poor showing the contractors were making, the foreman pointed to the plague-spot on the bottoms.

“There’s the reason you are not getting any ties,” said he lazily. “We’ve got five hundred men at work up here; that is, they are supposed to be at work. These whiskey dives and faro joints get them the minute they are paid, and for ten days after pay-day we can’t get a hundred men back to camp.”

The foreman as he spoke looked philosophically toward the canvas shanties below. “I spend half my time chasing back and forth, but I can’t do much. They hold my men until they have robbed them, and then if they show fight they chuck them into the river. It’s the same with the flatboat men.” He turned, as he continued, to indicate two particularly wretched specimens. “These fellows were drugged and robbed of every dollar they brought here before they got to work at all.”

Stanley likewise gazed thoughtfully upon the cluster of tents and shacks along the river landing. 83 He turned after a moment to Scott. “Bob,” said he, looking back again toward the river, “what gang do you suppose this is?”

Scott shook his head. “That I couldn’t say, Colonel Stanley.”

“Suppose,” continued Stanley, still regarding the offending settlement, “you and Dancing reconnoitre them a little and tell me who they are. We will wait for you.”

Scott and the lineman swung into their saddles and started down the trail that led to the landing. Stanley spoke again to the foreman. “Can those men use an axe?” he demanded, indicating the two men that the foreman asserted had been robbed.

“They are both old choppers––but this gang at Sellersville stole even their axes.”

“Leave these two men here with me,” directed Stanley as he watched Scott and Dancing ride down toward Sellersville. “I may have something for them to chop after a while.”

The foreman assented. “I don’t like the bunch,” he murmured; “but nobody at our camp wants to tackle them. What can we do?”

While the foreman continued to talk, Stanley again looked over the human wrecks that he had rounded up and brought out of Sellersville. “What can we do?” echoed Stanley, repeating the last question tartly. “Well, I’ll tell you one thing we can do. We can throw Sellersville into the river.”

Dancing and Scott were gone half an hour. The report, when they returned, was not encouraging. “It is a bunch of cutthroats from Medicine Bend, colonel,” said Bob Scott.

“All friends of yours, I presume, Bob,” returned Stanley.

The scout only smiled. “John Rebstock is there with his following. But the boss, I think, is big George Seagrue. He is mean, you know. George has got two or three men to his credit.”

“Are we enough to clean them out, Bob?” inquired Stanley impatiently.

Scott looked around and his eye rested for a moment on Dancing. He hitched his trousers. “There’s about thirty men down there. I expect,” he continued reflectively, “we can take care of them if we have to.”

Stanley turned to the sergeant of his troopers. “Pitch a permanent camp, sergeant. There will be nothing to take us any farther up the river.”

As Stanley gave the order Bucks noticed that Dancing winked at Scott. And without the meaning glances exchanged by the lineman and the scout, Bucks would have understood from Stanley’s manner that he meant strong measures. Stanley sent a further message to the contractor, and the foreman, followed by his convoy of humanity, started on. The soldiers, foreseeing a lively scene, stripped their pack-horses and set at work pitching their tents.

Leaving four men in camp, the engineer, accompanied by his escort, rode down the bluffs and, striking a lumber road, galloped rapidly through the poplar bottom-lands toward the gamblers’ camp. It was an early tour for human wolves to be stirring, and the invaders clattered into Sellersville before they attracted any attention.

A bugler, however, riding into the middle of the settlement, sounded a trumpet call, and at the unwonted notes frowsy, ill-shaped heads appeared 86 at various shanty doors and tent-flaps to see what was doing. Stanley sent one man from door to door to notify the inmates of each shelter to pack up their effects and make ready to move without delay.

Five troopers were detailed to guard three gambling tents that stood together in the middle of the camp, each of these being flanked by smaller dens. Word was then passed to the gamblers and saloon-keepers to line up on the river front.

Stanley regarded the gathering crowd with a cold eye. Scott, who stood near Bucks, pointed out a square-shouldered man with a deep scar splitting one cheek. “Do you know that fellow, Bucks?” he asked in an undertone.

“No; who is he?”

“That is a Medicine Bend confidence man, Perry. Do you remember the woman you helped out with a ticket to Iowa? Perry is her husband––the man that Dave Hawk made pay up.”

Perry was a type of the Sellersville crowd now being evicted. There was much talk as the soldiers 87 urged and drove the gang out of one haunt after another and a good deal of threatening as the leaders marched out in front of Stanley.

“Who is running this camp?” demanded the officer curtly. The men looked at one another. A fat, slow-moving man with small blue eyes and a wheezy voice answered: “Why, no one in particular, colonel. We’re just a-camping in a bunch. What’s a-matter? Seagrue here,” he nodded to a sharp-jawed companion, “and Perry,” he added, jerking his thumb toward the scarred-faced man, “and me own these two big tents in partners.”

“What’s your name?”

“My name’s Rebstock.”

“Produce the axes stolen here from these two men,” said Stanley, indicating the choppers behind him. There was a jangle of talk between Rebstock and his associates, and Perry, much against his inclination, was despatched to hunt up the axes. It was only a moment before he returned with them.

Rebstock, with a show of virtue, reprimanded Perry severely for harboring the men that had 88 stolen the axes. “Sorry it happened, colonel,” he grumbled, after he had abused the thieves roundly in a general way, “and I’ll see it doesn’t happen again. We can’t watch everybody in a place like this. Tell your men,” he continued, expanding his chest, “to leave their axes with me when they come to Sellersville––what?”

The assurances were lost on Stanley. “Rebstock,” said he, in a tone that Bucks had not heard before from him, “take your personal effects, all of you––and nothing else––and load them on a flatboat. I will give you one hour to get-out of here.”

Rebstock almost fell over backward. He wheezed in amazement. There was an outburst of indignant protests. A dozen men clamored at once. Perry rushed forward to threaten Stanley; others cursed and defied him.

“Who are you, and what do you mean giving orders like that?” demanded Seagrue, confronting him angrily.

“No matter who I am, you will obey the orders. And you can’t take any tents or gambling apparatus 89 or liquors. Pack up your clothes and camp stuff––nothing else––and get out.”

If a bombshell had dropped into Sellersville, consternation could not have been more complete. But it became quickly apparent that not all of the gang would surrender without a fight. The leaders retreated for a hurried consultation.

Rebstock walked back presently and confronted Stanley. “What’s your law for this?” he demanded, breathless with anger.

Stanley pointed to the ground under their feet.

“What’s your title to this land, Rebstock? It belongs to the railroad that those ties belong to. Where is your license from the United States Government to sell whiskey here? You are trespassers and outlaws, with no rights that any decent man ought to respect. You and your gang are human parasites, and you are going to be stripped and sent down the river as fast as these flatboats will carry you.”

Without waiting for any rejoinder, Stanley turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Rebstock speechless. The threats against the intruders 90 continued, but Stanley paid no attention to any of them. Scott and the five troopers faced the gamblers. Stanley called to the two wood-choppers, who stood near with their axes, and pointed to the gambling tents.

“Chop up every wheel and table in there you can find,” said he.

A cry went up from Perry when he heard the order, but the axemen, nothing loath, sprang inside to their work, and the crashing of the gambling furniture resounded through the alarmed camp. Stanley made no delay of his peremptory purpose. The tent attacked belonged to Seagrue, who, common report averred, feared nothing and nobody, while the gambling implements were Perry’s.

Seagrue rushed to his property, revolver in hand. Bill Dancing, who stood at Stanley’s side, stepped into his way.

“Hold on, Seagrue,” he said. The gambler, fully as large a man as Dancing, faced his opponent with his features fixed in rage. “Get away,” he shouted, “or I will knock your head off.”

All eyes centred on the two men. Every one realized that open war was on and that it needed only a spark to start the shooting. The gamblers, rallying to Seagrue, backed him with oaths and threats.

“Seagrue, put down that pistol or I’ll wring your neck,” returned the lineman, baring his right arm as he sauntered toward the outlaw. Bucks, beside Stanley, stood transfixed as he watched Dancing. The lineman’s revolver was slung in the holster at his side.

Seagrue hesitated. He saw Bob Scott standing in the doorway of the gambling tent with his rifle lying carelessly over his arm. He was actually covering Seagrue where he stood––and Seagrue knew that Bob Scott was deadly with a rifle. But Dancing was walking directly up to him and Seagrue dared not be shamed before his own associates. He jumped back to fire, but it was too late.

Dancing caught his wrist. Both were men of great strength, and their muscles knotted as they grappled. It was only after a moment 92 that the lineman could be seen to gain. Then, as he bent the gambler’s arm back, he suddenly released it and struck the revolver out of his hand. Seagrue, with a curse, sprang back, and drawing a knife rushed for the second time at the lineman. Dancing jumped to one side. As he did so he seized an axe from the hand of one of the choppers and turned again on Seagrue. The gambler made a lunge