The Ramrodders | Page 9

the heads of the smaller
men, and the next moment the Canadians swarmed on the fallen
gladiator like flies, lifted him and tossed him into the road. The rest of
the mob escaped. Niles's emblematic buck sheep, cropping the grass in
the fence corner, was tossed out behind the fugitives.
"I was hoping there'd be a little more cayenne in it," complained the big
boss, scrubbing his knuckles against his belted jacket.
"Come out in the road where it ain't private ground owned by the old

land-grabber," pleaded MacCracken. "I'll meet you somewhere, Ben
Kyle, where it'll have to be a fair stand-up." But Kyle gave him no
further attention.
"Take the boys into the ram pasture," directed his employer. He pointed
to a long, low addition in the rear of "The Barracks," the shelter that
served for the housing of the Thorntons' crews, migratory to or from
the big woods. "I'll bring out a present. I guess you've got a good, able
crew there, Ben."
Chairman Presson followed the old man back into the mansion. He was
angry, and made his sentiment known, but Thornton was stubborn.
"There may be another way of running this district just at this time,
Luke, but this is my way of running it, and I'm going to control that
caucus. So what are you growling about?" He was opening a closet in
the wall.
"But you're starting a scandal--and they'll get so stirred up that they'll
put an independent ticket into the field. You'll have to fight 'em all over
again at the polls. You're rasping them too hard."
"Luke, there are a lot of things you know about down-country politics,
and perhaps you know more than I do about politics in general. But
there's a rule in seafaring that holds good in politics. If you're trying to
ratch off a lee shore it's no time to be pulling down your canvas."
He took a jug out of the closet, and went to the low building. The
chairman followed along, not comforted.
The woodsmen had piled their duffel-bags in corners and were waiting.
There were long tables up and down the centre of the room. They were
flanked by benches. The tables were furnished with tin plates, tin
pannikins, knives, and two-tined forks. The big boss had already given
his orders. He and his crew had been expected. Men were hustling food
onto the tables. There were great pans heaped with steaming baked
beans, dark with molasses sweetening, gobbets of white pork flecking
the mounds. Truncated cones of brownbread smoked here and there on

platters. Cubes of gingerbread were heaped high in wooden bowls, and
men went along the tables filling the pannikins with hot tea. The
kitchen was in a leanto, and the cook was pulling tins of hot biscuits
from the oven. There was not a woman in sight about "The Barracks."
There had been none for years. Those men in the dirty canvas aprons
were maids, cooks, and housekeepers.
It was hospitality rude and lavish. That low, dark room with its tiers of
bunks along the four sides, its heaped tables, its air of uncalculated
plenty, housed the recrudescence of feudalism in Yankee surroundings.
And the lord of the manor set his jug at one end of the table and
ordered the big boss to pipe all hands to grog.
"A pretty good lot, Ben," he commented as they crowded around. "And
this here is something in the way of appreciation."
"Mr. Harlan coming out here to meet me, or am I going in and hunt him
up?" inquired Kyle. "I suppose he has located most of the operations
for next season."
"You'll take them in. Harlan won't be out for a while." He turned and
walked away, the chairman with him.
"Your grandson seems to be as much in love with the woods as ever,"
commented Presson. "But I shouldn't think you'd want him to associate
with this kind of cattle all his life, herding Canuck goats on a logging
operation. You've got money enough, the two of you. He ought to get
out into the world, find an up-to-date girl for a wife, and get married."
Thornton had led the way out into the sunshine, and was strolling about
the yard, hands behind his back.
"Luke," he confided after a few moments, "you've just tapped me
where I'm tender. Look here, if it was just me and me only that this
hoorah here to-day was hitting, I'd tell 'em to take their damnation
nomination and make it a cock-horse for any reformer that wants to
ride. I'd do it, party or no party! But the minute it leaked out that I was
putting Harlan up for the caucus they turned on me. And now I propose

to show 'em."
The chairman