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Updated: May 26, 2025
Once or twice the latter parried, with seeming ease, his most destructive lunges, but more often he contented himself with moving aside like a flash of light. Presently Goodine cried out, "Why don't yer fight, like a man, stidder skippin' out o' the road like a flea?" "'Cause I don't want to hurt you," laughed Reddin. But that little boastful laugh delayed his movements, and Goodine was upon him.
The direct and primitive movements of the backwoodsman's mind may seem to the sophisticated intelligence peculiar; but they are easy to comprehend. Jim Reddin quite overlooked the opportunity now offered for a display of exalted sentiment. In a harsh, deliberate voice he said, "An' now, Bill Goodine, you've got to stand up to me, an' we'll see which is the better man, you or me.
Then he severed completely a huge timber far on the left front of the landing. There remained but two piles to withstand the main push of the logs. One of these was in the centre, the other a little to the right, on which side the chopper had to make his escape when the logs began to go. This latter pile Goodine now cut half-way through.
Smoothly and instantaneously as a shadow Reddin eluded the attack. And now his face lost its set look of injury and assumed a smile of cheerful interest. Bill Goodine, in spite of his huge bulk, had the elasticity and dash of a panther; but his quickness was nothing to that of Reddin.
His skilled eye had detected a danger which none of the rest perceived. He drew close to the brow, and moved a little way down the bank. "What can he be up to?" wondered Laurette; and then she sniffed angrily because she had thought about him at all. Goodine dealt a few cautious strokes upon the central pile, paused a moment or two to reconnoitre, and then renewed his attack.
Ever sence you growed up to be a man you've used me just as mean as you knowed how; an' now we'll fight it out right here." At this went up a chorus of disapproval: and Goodine said, "I'll be d d if I'm a-goin to strike the man what's jest saved my life!" "You needn't let that worry you, Bill," replied Reddin. "We're quits there.
"I never said he dast," she replied. "An' what's Jim Reddin to me, I'd like to know?" And then, being furious at Jim, at herself, and at Goodine, she was on the point of telling the latter that he shouldn't drive her home, anyway, when she reflected that this would excite comment, and restrained herself.
But I'm thinkin' you'd better have another one of the boys to fall back on. This 'ere's an onusual ticklish job; and the feller as does it'll be lucky if he comes off with a whole skin." At these words so plain an expression of relief went over Laurette's face that Bill Goodine could not contain himself. "Jim Reddin dasn't do it," he muttered to her, fiercely. The girl drew herself up.
"Hold on!" shouted McElvey; but Goodine paid no attention. "Come back, I tell you!" roared the boss. "The job's yours, so hold on!" Upon this Bill came swaggering back, and gazed about him triumphantly. "I guess I'm your teamster, eh, Laurette?" he murmured. But, to his astonishment, Laurette did not seem to hear him.
With a terrific surge he swung Goodine backward and outward into the raging current, but away from the face of the impending avalanche. Then, as the logs all went with a gathering roar, he himself sprang outward in a superb leap, splashed mightily into the stream, disappeared, and came up some yards below.
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