"I"m hit! Kill "em!" he screamed. Grabbing up the stick with his left hand, the foreman again started for Grace, his eyes bloodshot, his lips purple.
Grace grabbed what was nearest to her hand, a pine knot, and hurled it at the ruffian. It hit him full in the face, and the sharp protuberances on the knot drew points of blood.
A blow from a lumberjack"s fist, at this juncture, knocked Joe Shafto flat on her back. She was up with a bound.
"Henerey! Henere-e-e-e-e!" There was a wild note in her voice, a note of alarm and command. "Henere-e-e-e-e-e!"
They heard Henry sliding down a tree--heard his paws raking the bark as he slid. Joe heard it too.
"Sick "em! Sick "em! Sick "em!" she screamed, giving Henry a violent prod with her club and driving the bear towards the lumberjacks. One of them struck the beast with a club, hitting Henry over the shoulders.
Henry made a pa.s.s at the man, bringing away a section of the fellow"s coat in his claws which dug into the jack"s flesh with their sharp points. The man howled and fled from the beast.
Alternately prodding the bear with her club, and cracking a lumberjack head wherever possible, the forest woman fought her way ahead, backed by Tom and Hippy.
Thus goaded, Henry rose on his hind legs and went through that party of rough-necks like one of his kind cuffing its way through a flock of grazing sheep. Henry bit where he could, but his greatest execution was done with his powerful paws.
The Overland Riders, though angry, weary and perspiring, unable to resist the humor of the ludicrous sight, broke into shouts of laughter.
"Henry has them on the run. Sail in!" bellowed Hippy. "Run, you ruffians, before I turn the rest of our menagerie on you!"
The lumberjacks were now giving ground rapidly, though Peg, wounded and, judging from his expression, suffering, was not further punished.
When he saw his men running away, the foreman of Section Forty-three hopped off as best he could, shouting angry threats. The victorious Overlanders with the a.s.sistance of Henry chased the lumber outfit to the river, into which the jacks plunged and waded across with all speed.
"Don"t you ever show your face in our camp again! Next time, if you do, it will be bullets, not clubs," Lieutenant Wingate shouted after the retreating attackers.
Henry was restrained from following the lumbermen across the river only by heroic measures. The forest woman headed him off and clubbed him back towards the camp, her clothing torn, her hair down her back, her face red and angry.
"Splendid!" cried Grace Harlowe, running to meet her. "You are wonderful."
"I say, Joseph, if that"s your name, may I address you as "Old Dear"
without imperilling my life?" teased Hippy.
"Ye kin call me anything ye like. After the talk of them varmints anything would sound as sweet as the harps of Heving in a thunder storm."
"All right--Old Dear," answered Hippy solemnly. "I was going to tell you that you are the apple of my eye, but, being a peach, you can"t very well be an apple, so we will let it go at "Old Dear.""
Joe glared through her spectacles. The sharp lines of the rugged face of the forest woman gradually melted into a smile, the first smile that any member of that party had ever seen there.
"Go on with ye!" she retorted laughing despite her attempt to be stern.
"I ought to sick the bear on ye, but I ain"t goin" to."
CHAPTER XIII
A BLAZED WARNING
"Well, we gave them a run, didn"t we?" crowed Hippy.
"I reckon ye"d better pack and git out of here right lively," advised the guide.
Tom Gray agreed that Peg Tatem would miss no opportunity to take revenge on the Overland Riders for what they had done to him, and it was decided to break camp and move at once, the forest woman being confident that she could keep in the right direction once she found a lumber road that lay to the right of them a couple of miles away.
Weary as they were, the Overlanders were quite willing to get away without loss of time from the scene of their troubles. Their equipment had suffered some, but none was left behind. While they were packing, Tom, in order to make them understand that they had gained the ill-will of desperate men, decided to tell them of the dynamiting of the tree, and declared that it was his belief that Peg Tatem"s lumberjacks had done the deed, intending that the tree should fall on the camp while they were asleep.
"There are fellows in Forty-three"s gang that were in the mob at Bisbee"s Corners," declared Tom with emphasis.
"Are they likely to follow us?" asked Elfreda.
"I don"t believe they will stray far from their own camp, but they may try to get us before we leave here. Therefore let"s go. They have work to do in their own camp, you see," reminded Tom.
Packing and breaking camp were accomplished quickly. Ponies were saddled, packs lashed on, after which the party started away, the guide leading, carrying a kerosene dash-lamp to a.s.sist her in reading blazes on trees and avoiding obstructions, for the lamp had a reflector that threw a fairly strong bar of light.
Daylight must see the Overland Riders some miles from the scene of their fight with the men from Forty-three, and there must be as little trail left as possible. For the latter reason, Joe Shafto kept to such ground as was covered with a mat of pine needles. These, being springy, gave way under the hoofs of the horses, leaving no hoof-prints, no trail.
Of the Overland Riders only two persons observed this--Tom and Grace, for, in her brief trips with him into the woods where he, as a forester, spent much time, Grace had learned a great deal about forestry work.
No halt was made until midnight, when the forest woman reined in and directed a ray of light against a huge pine tree.
"A fresh blaze," said Tom, as he trotted up to her to see what the blaze indicated.
"A blaze with a bent arrow cut in it, the arrow smeared with dirt to make it stand out. Clever, but what does it mean, Mrs. Shafto?" he asked.
"It"s a warnin", Cap"n."
"Of what?"
"That I don"t rightly know. The arrow, I reckon, points at the danger."
"Is the arrow not pointed in the direction of our old camp?" asked Elfreda.
"Ye guessed it, Miss Briggs. That means we"d better be moseying along right smart."
"How long has that blaze been there?" asked Hippy.
"An hour, mebby," replied Joe. "Come along, Henry."
A few strokes of her axe obliterated the arrow on the blaze, and the party pressed on.
"I wonder if that arrow-blaze was intended for us," murmured Tom, as they rode on in silence.
Soon, the guide"s lamp revealed another blaze, but this was purely a direction blaze, which she mutilated and changed to mean a different direction, then made a sharp turn to the right. Other blazes encountered, all freshly made, led them straight to the lumber road for which she had been searching and would have missed had it not been for the friendly blazes that pointed the way.
"What do ye "low for that?" demanded the forest woman when they had emerged on the road.
"I believe now that the blazes were intended for us," answered Tom, his brow wrinkling in perplexity. "It is very strange."