A queer grief worked in his heart and a wistful tenderness moistened his eyes as he thought upon that injured brother, living out his wrecked life somewhere in the heart of those great woods about him. Perhaps there was a bit of prescience in the warmth with which he dwelt on the subject, for Fate had written that Joshua Ward was to play an important part in the life of Rodney Parker.
He went to sleep with the sorrow of it all weighing his mind, and his teeth gritting with determination as he reflected on Gideon Ward and his ugly threats.
CHAPTER SEVEN--HOW "THE FRESH-WATER CORSAIRS" CAME TO SUNKHAZE
In the morning Parker's foreman was waiting for him in the men's room of the tavern. It was so early that the smoky kerosine lamp was still struggling with the red glow of the dawn.
"Mr. Parker," said the foreman earnestly, "have you go it figured what the old chap is goin' to do to us?"
"That is hardly a fair question to put to me Mank," said the engineer, pulling on his mittens. "You knew him up this way better than I. Now you tell me what you expect him to do."
But the foreman shook his head dubiously.
"It'll never come at a man twice alike," he said.
"Sometimes he just snorts and folks just run. Sometimes he kicks, sometimes he bites, sometimes he rears and smashes things all to pieces. But the idea is, you can depend on him to do something and do it quick and do it mighty hard. We've known Gideon Ward a good many years up this way and we've never seen him so mad before nor have better reason for being mad. The men are worrying. I thought it right to tell you that much."
"Well, I'm worrying, too," said Parker. He tried to speak jestingly, but the heaviness of the night's foreboding was still upon him and the foreman detected the nervousness in his voice. The man now showed his own depression plainly.
"I was in hopes I could tell the men that you could see your way all free and clear" he said.
"That they are, sir. A good many of us own houses here in Sunkhaze and there's more than one way for Colonel Gideon Ward to get back at us. Several of the boys came to me last night and wanted to quit. I understand that the postmaster has been talking to you and he must have told you some of the things that the old man done and hasn't been troubled about, either by his conscience or the law. You see what kind of a position that puts us in."