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"Those logs were cut last winter, but the water in the river last spring was evidently too low to float them down, so they must stay where they are until next spring awaiting the freshets. The blocks will then be knocked from under the skidway and those hundreds of thousands of feet of timber will go thundering down into the river.
"It hit me and went on into the river," groaned Hippy. "Voice of nature," he added in a mutter, but no one laughed. "Our camp was pitched in the travoy way. The storm loosened the supports of the skidway and let the logs down. Several hundred thousand feet of them rolled over our camp and mashed it flat. A good part of the timber went on into the river.
Mist rolled among the pines and it was raining hard when Festing led his team down the hill. He wore big rubber boots and slickers, and a heavy log trailed behind the horses through the mud. Some distance above the river the slope was gradual, and it was necessary to haul the logs to the skidway he had built.
"My soul! how came you here, Martin Skidway?" "I am a fugitive," answered the young convict. "It wasn't through your good will that I got out of prison, I can tell you that. Had I known who it was on the track, I might not have put out my hand to save." The detective regarded the speaker in no little amazement.
Then the young man turned on his heel and abruptly left the room. Just as the shades of night were falling Watson Wilks peered into the saloon and restaurant where he had parted from Dyke Darrel earlier in the day. He saw nothing of the detective. "It is time he was here," muttered the young man. "Dyke Darrel is generally prompt in filling engagements." "Always prompt, MARTIN SKIDWAY!"
They changed their manner to one of acquiescence, but thought of her as a child just the same. After dinner they all went out to see the crew working. It was the biggest crew anywhere in the neighborhood. Ridgeley got out and hitched the team to a tree, and took Field up to the skidway. Mrs. Field remained in the sleigh.
This will make clear a good deal; you should remember it. Well, to work our adit we had to make an ore and dirt dump on adjacent land; and we'd hardly started it than two men began felling timber right across our skidway, until, speaking as if he commanded the universe, the Colonel ordered them off.
"Tell me how you made your escape," said Dyke Darrel, who sat with his back against a tree, and regarded the young counterfeiter in wonder. "There isn't much to tell," returned Skidway. "I had no assistance, but it seems that a pair of burglars had broken out by filing off the grating to one of the corridor windows, and the opening had not been repaired when I was taken to the jail.
"They don't bluff you a bit," he said, "unless you likes them, and then they can back you way off the skidway." Thorpe smiled at the old fellow's volubility. He did not know how near to the truth the woodsman's shrewdness had hit; for to himself, as to most strong characters, his peculiarities were the normal, and therefore the unnoticed.
This was the second time he had escaped from the Missouri prison, which argued well for the man's keenness and capability, or else ill for the official management of the prison. "It was from the St. Louis prison that I escaped," explained Martin Skidway a little later. "I never got inside the State institution a second time. I've had a sweet time of it thus far."
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