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Updated: June 19, 2025
At heart Creed was a craven, a bullying swashbuckler, who bragged and blustered among the rheumy-eyed down-and-outers who nightly foregathered about Burrage's stove, but who was servile and cringing as a starved puppy toward Moncrossen and Stromberg, who openly despised him.
Bill followed the Irishman closely, and knew that he spoke with a purpose. His eyes narrowed, and his lips bent into that cold smile which the men of the camp had come to know was no smile at all, but a battle alarm, the more ominous for its silence. "Do you mean that it is a frame-up? That Moncrossen " Fallon silenced him with a motion.
During the whole time Jeanne worked tirelessly by the side of the men, and when the last log rested safely upon the bottom of the river, and the scars were carefully removed from the bank, Bill surveyed the result with satisfaction. "I think that will keep Moncrossen guessing," he laughed. "He won't know whether Creed ate the logs or an air-ship made away with them."
Ye've th' luck av Captain Fronte's own silf! That come out av ivery shcrape wid his loife, save th' lasht wan, an' he w'd thin av a domned nayger shell hadn't bust ag'in' his ribs but that's toimes gone." "I wonder where Moncrossen is now?" "Right here in Hilarity; him an' his crew unloaded yisterday fer to shtar-rt fer th' camp in th' marnin'."
In the office, back in Minneapolis, if these things were known they were winked at. For Moncrossen was a boss who "got out the logs," and the details of his discipline were unquestioned. On the Appleton holdings along Blood River the pine stood tall and straight and uncut.
He did not resent the question of the sweet-faced nurse. "Yes," he answered, "there is a real Ethel but she would not care. Nobody cares." Buck Moncrossen was a big man with a shrunken, maggoty soul, and no conscience. He had learned logging as his horses learned it by repetition of unreasoning routine, and after fifteen years' experience in the woods Appleton had made him a camp boss.
Is it not that you would prevent Moncrossen from taking these logs? But you know not how to do it, for the logs must go down the river and Moncrossen must come up the river?" "You are a wonder!" he exclaimed in admiration. "That's exactly what's been bothering me." She blushed furiously under his gaze and, with lowering eyes, continued: "I do not know how it can be managed, but Jacques will know.
"Well, he did an' he didn't," replied the old man slowly. "Ut's loike this: Along in July, ut wuz, Moncrossen an' his gang av bur-rd's-eye pirates come roarin' out av th' woods huntin' fer Creed. They'd wint in be th' river, but come out be th' tote-road, an' mad clean t'rough to th' gizzard.
Irish shrugged. "Oi mane this," he answered. "Moncrossen is a har-rd man altogether. He hates a greener. He thinks no wan but an owld hand has any business in th' woods, an' 'tis his boast that in wan season he'll make a lumberjack or a corpse out av any greener. "An' comin' from Appleton hisself he'll hate ye worse'n ever, f'r he'll think ye'll be afther crimpin' his bird's-eye game.
Now, av ye shtroll into Burrage's loike nothin' out av th' oordinary has happened, he'll think ye're a ghost an' th' fear in his heart will shtay by um. "Oi'll loaf down there now, same as ivery noight. In about a half an hour ye'll come limpin' in an' ask fer Dunnigan, an' will he cook out th' sayson fer Moncrossen? 'Twill be fun to watch Creed.
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