Page:Ralph Connor - The man from Glengarry.djvu/210

  were fighting out their fight, all pretense of deliberation on the part of the drivers having by this time been dropped. They no longer walked as they hitched their chains about the logs or stumps, but sprang with eager haste to their work. One by one the other teamsters abandoned their teams and moved across the field to join the crowd already gathered about the contestants. Among them came Macdonald Bhain, who had been working at the farthest corner of the brûle. As soon as he arrived upon the scene, and understood what was going on, he cried to Ranald: "That will do now, Ranald; it will be time to quit."

Ranald was about to stop, and indeed had checked his horses, when Aleck, whose blood was up, called out tauntingly, "Aye, it would be better for him and his horses to stop. They need it bad enough."

This was too much for even Farquhar's sluggish blood. "Let them go, Ranald!" he cried. 'Let them go, man! Never you fear for the horses, if you take down the spunk o' yon crowing cock."

It was just what Ranald needed to spur him on—a taunt from his foe and leave from Farquhar to push his team.

Before each lay a fallen tree cut into lengths and two or three half-burned stumps. Ranald's tree was much the bigger. A single length would have been an ordinary load for the blacks, but their driver felt that their strength and spirit were both equal to much more than this. He determined to clear away the whole tree at a single load. As soon as he heard