“Zen we shall knife heem—we shall keel heem!” came over the hedge in accents undeniably French.
“Naw!” was the reply, in a heavy brogue. “We won’t kill him—that would be too aisy fur him! He’ll sweat more if yer let him live. We’ll do fur him! We’ll fix him so that it’ll be many and many a long day before he’ll set foot to the ground, and thin, begorra, mayhap wan foot will be farther from the ground than the ither!”
The boys had no choice but to listen. Bob, who was nearest the hedge, could look through a small opening and plainly see the two ruffians seated on the ground with heads close together in deep and dark converse with each other.
They were an ill-assorted pair. Their different nationality made them totally unlike in outward appearance—one a great, ruddy, burly Irishman, the other a slight, dark, wiry Frenchman. Utterly opposed to each other by nature, their common desire for vengeance had drawn them together and, for the time being, made them pals.
At first, their one thought and desire was vengeance. They had room in their angry hearts for nothing else. Both were naturally cruel, and on the day of their discharge they had shaken angry fists at the camp, and through the days of idleness that had followed they had thought only of the punishment they would wreak on their enemy, the foreman.
To waylay him in the woods, to get their eager hands upon him, to beat him into pulp, and in the end perhaps to take his life—this had been their one object and aim.
But now a new element entered into their desire for vengeance. For days after their discharge they had roamed the woods. At first they had made a visit to the county town, and there with the reckless improvidence of their kind, had feasted and drunk and gambled away every dollar of their pay, drawn on that last day in camp, and then had taken to the woods.
Since then they had lived on berries and roots, and an occasional bird which they had managed to snare. With a bent pin and a line made of twisted fibers of long grass, and with worms for bait, they had caught some fish, but their living was scanty and poor.
Accustomed to the plain, but well cooked and abundant food of the camp, days of this meagre diet had told upon the two. Especially was it felt by O’Brien, for his great, muscular frame needed nourishing food, and food in plenty.
While their tobacco lasted, it had not been so bad, but as their hunger grew, their ferocity grew, and, added to their desire to punish the man they considered their enemy (it never occurred to them that they were their own worst enemies) came a determination to obtain money, no matter how.
Why should other people be sitting down three times a day to tables loaded with things good to eat and drink—the very thought made their mouths water!—and lie down every night on soft, comfortable beds, while they nearly starved and slept on the hard ground at night?
The thought of Flannigan having plenty of food and tobacco and all other needed comforts filled them with ferocious rage and hate.
Money they would have, and mighty quick, too! And a plan to obtain it had come to both men at almost the same moment—Flannigan and the payroll!
It was the custom of the foreman to take a trip to the Junction, a station on the railroad about ten miles from the logging camp, where the station agent always had ready an express package containing several thousand dollars, to be used to pay off the men, and to defray the expenses of the camp.
This trip was always taken on the last day of the month, and now that was only five days away!
What a thought! What fools they had been not to think of it before! To be able to get revenge and at the same time secure what was to them a fortune, to revel and drink and gamble to their heart’s desire!
“Be gobs!” said Larry, “that’s the finest scheme that iver came down the pike!”
“It sure ees!” said the little Frenchman; and then they fell to work in good earnest to arrange their wicked plot.
“There’s only wan road back to camp, as yez well know, Jacques, me mon,” said Larry, joyfully. “An’ do yez moind the sharp turn in the road about six miles this side o’ the Junction?”
“Oui, I know heem!” said Jacques.
“Well, that’s the spot to do the job,” said Larry. “If he wuz on foot, he might take the short cut back to camp, but with the buggy, he can’t hilp himself goin’ round by the road.”
“Dat ees goot; dat ees bien goot!” said the little Frenchman. “Before he can say one petit word, we will have heem by ze t’roat, and zen—” Here Jacques, in an excess of fiendish exultation at the thought of having his enemy at last in his power, rolled over and over in the grass, and then, springing to his feet, executed a series of clumsy steps and only stopped when, his limbs failing him, he dropped breathlessly to the ground, while Larry sat grinning at his pal, fully sympathizing with him in his delight at so soon realizing the success of their scheme.
Again Jacques’ greed for the money gave place to his hatred of Flannigan, and with darkening face and cruel eyes, he raged:
“Chien! Pig! Dat he should tink to fire me, me, Lavine, a son of ze great French republic, and nevaire hear notink again!”
Larry waited a minute for him to calm down a little, and then went on:
“Whin we have done fur him, we’ll divide the long green aiven, and thin make thracks fur Canada. Once in there, Jacques, me b’y, we’re outside the United States, and they’ll not be able to find us.
“Whin Flannigan comes around the turn of the road, you go fur the horse’s head, and I’ll tackle Flannigan. In wan minnit, before he knows what’s happenin’, I’ll——”
Just what more O’Brien might have said was never known, for just then Don—blundering old Don, seeing a jack-rabbit poke his head out from behind the roots of a great tree, found the temptation too strong to resist, gave chase and raced the rabbit across the grass in full sight of the plotters.
The Scouts, who all this time had been standing motionless, their hearts beating faster and faster as the details of the plot were made plain to them, and with faces on which horror was clearly written, were filled with consternation at this unexpected move of the dog. They now quickly skirted the bushes and, slipping among some thickly growing trees, found a little bypath and ran rapidly along it, on their way back to camp.
As the big dog bounded after the rabbit and into the bushes, within ten feet of them, the plotters sprang to their feet, filled with alarm.
“Someone ees list’ning to our talk,” said Jacques. “What ees eet that we shall do?”
“Look around and find them,” Larry replied. “You look in the trees on that side, and Oi’ll go over to that short cut thim Scout spalpeens take to their camp.”
The two searched all around on both sides of the hedge, but finding no trace of anything human, returned to the scene of their conspiracy.
“But certainly there ees somebody has been here, and he have hear what we have say,” said Jacques, uneasily.
“If it was anybody, it, was thim B’y Scouts, bad cess to thim!” grumbled Larry; and then, as if thinking aloud, he went on:
“If it was thim measly Scouts, they’ll blab from a ‘sinse of juty,’ as I heard wan of thim say oncet, just as soon as they reach camp, and the nixt thing they’ll do ‘from a sinse of juty’ will be to warn Flannigan. But let thim thry it! Jist let thim thry it!” he sputtered, full of rage at the thought that the Boy Scouts, whom he despised, might, by warning the logging camp, be the means of bringing to naught their carefully thought out plans.
“But zey shall not,” said Jacques. “We—you, Larry O’Brien, and I, Jacques Lavine—we will stop zem! Eet ees that we shall find a way.”
“We will that!” the Irishman said. “And Oi’ll tell yez how we’ll do it. From the first minnit the Scouts are out in the mornin’ till they are in camp agin at noight, we’ll lie along the road to the loggin’ camp and watch, and the first Scout spalpeen that shows his face anint it, we grab him. Oncet we git our hands upon him, Oi’ll bet yez any amount yez want that he’ll wish he’d niver been born! His own mither won’t know him when she sees him!”
“Varmint!” said the “son of the great French republic.” “Zat makes me ver’ glad—ver’ happy! Zat ees what we shall do!”
So they talked; and, having arranged all to their wicked satisfaction, went their way.
As soon as the Scouts reached camp, they made a full report to the Scout-Master of their adventures. When he heard the details of their encounter with the bear, his hearty words of praise for Jack’s heroic act found an echo in the heart of every Scout in camp.
Jack modestly insisted that it was no more than any Scout would have done if he had been given the same opportunity. While the boys tried to tell themselves that this was true, they admired Jack none the less. They might have done it, but Jack had done it, and that made all the difference in the world.
At the recital of the details of the plot against Mr. Flannigan, the Scout-Master looked very grave indeed. Knowing how unrestrained the passions of the class of men employed at the logging camp were, and how brutal and cruel they could be, he fully realized Mr. Flannigan’s danger.
Of course, there was only one thing to do. He must at once send a Scout to the logging camp with a letter to the foreman, giving him full particulars of the plot and warning him of his danger.
So, intending to send Jack Danby and Tom Binns immediately after breakfast the next morning, he went to his tent to write the letter.