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But Batard glared at him, and snarled threateningly, without loosing his jaws. Slackwater Charley got out his revolver, but his hand was shaking, as with a chill, and he fumbled. "Here you take it," he said, passing the weapon over. Webster Shaw laughed shortly, drew a sight between the gleaming eyes, and pressed the trigger.
At that date he removed to Milan, Erie county, then at the head of slackwater navigation on the Huron river. Here he engaged in trading in wheat, and in the general forwarding business, and also became interested in lake shipping, doing business under the firm name of Wilber & Ely.
To kick the box out from under would leave him dancing on the air. "Now for the dog," said Webster Shaw, sometime mining engineer. "You'll have to rope him, Slackwater." Leclere grinned. Slackwater took a chew of tobacco, rove a running noose, and proceeded leisurely to coil a few turns in his hand. He paused once or twice to brush particularly offensive mosquitoes from off his face.
Slackwater Charley put a hangman's knot in the end of a hauling- line, and the noose was slipped over Leclere's head and pulled tight around his neck. His hands were tied behind his back, and he was assisted to the top of a cracker box. Then the running end of the line was passed over an over-hanging branch, drawn taut, and made fast.
Logs up-ended here and there, rising from the bristling surface slowly, like so many arms from lower depths. Above, the water eddied back foaming; logs shot down from the rollways, paused at the slackwater, and finally hit with a hollow and resounding BOOM! against the tail of the jam. A moment later they too up-ended, so becoming an integral part of the "chevaux de frise."
Between this dam and the slackwater of another, four miles below, the bed of the stream, which is composed of pebbles interspersed in a few places with larger stones, is about sixty-five feet wide, though, at low water, the breadth of the current is considerably less.
Everybody was brushing mosquitoes, except Leclere, about whose head a small cloud was visible. Even Batard, lying full-stretched on the ground with his fore paws rubbed the pests away from eyes and mouth. But while Slackwater waited for Batard to lift his head, a faint call came from the quiet air, and a man was seen waving his arms and running across the flat from Sunrise.
Fifteen minutes later, Slackwater Charley and Webster Shaw returning, caught a glimpse of a ghostly pendulum swinging back and forth in the dim light. As they hurriedly drew in closer, they made out the man's inert body, and a live thing that clung to it, and shook and worried, and gave to it the swaying motion. "Hi, ya! Chook! you Spawn of Hell!" yelled Webster Shaw.
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