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diff --git a/old/13532-8.txt b/old/13532-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c830a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13532-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11854 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Kindred of the Dust, by Peter B. Kyne + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Kindred of the Dust + +Author: Peter B. Kyne + +Release Date: September 26, 2004 [eBook #13532] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINDRED OF THE DUST*** + + +E-text prepared by Stephen Schulze and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +KINDRED OF THE DUST + +by + +PETER B. KYNE + +Author of _Cappy Ricks_, _The Valley of the Giants_, _Webster--Man's +Man_, etc. + +Illustrated by Dean Cornwell + +1920 + + + + + + + +TO IRENE + +MY DEAR, TYRANNICAL, PRACTICAL LITTLE FOSTER-SISTER + +WITHOUT WHOSE AID AND COMFORT, HOOTS, CHEERS AND UNAUTHORIZED STRIKES, +THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF MY ALLEGED LITERARY OUTPUT WOULD BE +APPRECIABLY DIMINISHED, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY + +DEDICATED + + + + +THE ILLUSTRATIONS + +Hector McKaye was bred of an acquisitive race + +She stole to the old square piano and sang for him + +Donald bowed his head, "I can't give her up, father" + +"I'm a man without a home and you've just _got_ to take me in, Nan" + + + + + + +I + + +In the living-room of The Dreamerie, his home on Tyee Head, Hector +McKaye, owner of the Tyee Lumber Company and familiarly known as "The +Laird," was wont to sit in his hours of leisure, smoking and building +castles in Spain--for his son Donald. Here he planned the acquisition +of more timber and the installation of an electric-light plant to +furnish light, heat, and power to his own town of Port Agnew; ever and +anon he would gaze through the plate-glass windows out to sea and +watch for his ships to come home. Whenever The Laird put his dreams +behind him, he always looked seaward. In the course of time, his +home-bound skippers, sighting the white house on the headland and +knowing that The Laird was apt to be up there watching, formed the +habit of doing something that pleased their owner mightily. When the +northwest trades held steady and true, and while the tide was still at +the flood, they would scorn the services of the tug that went out to +meet them and come ramping into the bight, all their white sails set +and the glory of the sun upon them; as they swept past, far below The +Laird, they would dip his house-flag--a burgee, scarlet-edged, with a +fir tree embroidered in green on a field of white--the symbol to the +world that here was a McKaye ship. And when the house-flag fluttered +half-way to the deck and climbed again to the masthead, the soul of +Hector McKaye would thrill. + +"Guid lads! My bonny brave lads!" he would murmur aloud, with just a +touch of his parents' accent, and press a button which discharged an +ancient brass cannon mounted at the edge of the cliff. Whenever he saw +one of his ships in the offing--and he could identify his ships as far +as he could see them--he ordered the gardener to load this cannon. + +Presently the masters began to dip the house-flag when outward bound, +and discovered that, whether The Laird sat at his desk in the mill +office or watched from the cliff, they drew an answering salute. + +This was their hail and farewell. + +One morning, the barkentine Hathor, towing out for Delagoa Bay, dipped +her house-flag, and the watch at their stations bent their gaze upon +the house on the cliff. Long they waited but no answering salute +greeted the acknowledgment of their affectionate and willing service. + +The mate's glance met the master's. + +"The old laird must be unwell, sir," he opined. + +But the master shook his head. + +"He was to have had dinner aboard with us last night, but early in the +afternoon he sent over word that he'd like to be excused. He's sick at +heart, poor man! Daney tells me he's heard the town gossip about young +Donald." + +"The lad's a gentleman, sir," the mate defended. "He'll not disgrace +his people." + +"He's young--and youth must be served. Man, I was young myself +once--and Nan of the Sawdust Pile is not a woman a young man would +look at once and go his way." + + * * * * * + +In the southwestern corner of the state of Washington, nestled in the +Bight of Tyee and straddling the Skookum River, lies the little +sawmill town of Port Agnew. It is a community somewhat difficult to +locate, for the Bight of Tyee is not of sufficient importance as a +harbor to have won consideration by the cartographers of the Coast and +Geodetic Survey, and Port Agnew is not quite forty years old. +Consequently, it appears only on the very latest state maps and in the +smallest possible type. + +When Hector McKaye first gazed upon the bight, the transcontinental +lines had not yet begun to consider the thrusting of their tentacles +into southwestern Washington, and, with the exception of those regions +where good harbors had partially solved the problem of transportation, +timber in Washington was very cheap. Consequently, since Hector McKaye +was one of those hardy men who never hesitate to take that which no +man denies them, he reached forth and acquired timber. + +A strip of land a quarter of a mile wide and fronting the beach was +barren of commercial timber. As grazing-land, Hector McKaye was +enabled to file on a full section of this, and, with its acquisition, +he owned the key to the outlet. While "proving up" his claim, he +operated a general store for trading with the Indians and trappers, +and at this he prospered. From time to time he purchased timber-claims +from the trappers as fast as they "proved up," paying for these +stumpage-prices varying from twenty-five to fifty cents per thousand. + +On his frequent trips to the outer world, McKaye extolled the +opportunities for acquiring good timber-claims down on the Skookum; he +advertised them in letters and in discreet interviews with the editors +of little newspapers in the sawmill towns on Puget Sound and Grays +Harhor; he let it be known that an honest fellow could secure credit +for a winter's provisions from him, and pay for it with pelts in the +spring. + +The influx of homesteaders increased--single men, for the most part, +and poor--men who labored six months of the year elsewhere and lived +the remaining six months in rude log huts on their claims down on the +Skookum. And when the requirements of the homestead laws had been +complied with and a patent to their quarter-section obtained from the +Land Office in Washington, the homesteaders were ready to sell and +move on to other and greener pastures. So they sold to the only +possible purchaser, Hector McKaye, and departed, quite satisfied with +a profit which they flattered themselves had been the result of their +own prudence and foresight. + +Thus, in the course of ten years, Hector McKaye' acquired ten thousand +acres of splendid Douglas fir and white cedar. But he had not been +successful in acquiring claims along the south bank of the Skookum. +For some mysterious reason, he soon found claims on the north bank +cheaper and easier to secure, albeit the timber showed no variance in +quantity or quality. Discreet investigations brought to light the fact +that he had a competitor--one Martin Darrow, who dwelt in St. Paul, +Minnesota. To St. Paul, therefore, journeyed Hector McKaye, and +sought an audience with Martin Darrow. + +"I'm McKaye, from the Skookum River, Washington," he announced, +without preamble. + +"I've been expecting you, Mr. McKaye," Darrow replied. "Got a +proposition to submit?" + +"Naturally, or I wouldn't have come to St. Paul. I notice you have a +weakness for the timber on the south bank of the Skookum. You've +opposed me there half a dozen times and won. I have also observed that +I have a free hand with claims north of the river. That's fair--and +there's timber enough for two. Hereafter, I'll keep to my own side of +the river." + +"I see we're going to come to an understanding, Mr. McKaye. What will +you give me to stick to my side of the river?" + +"An outlet through the bight for your product when you commence +manufacturing. I control the lower half-mile of the river and the only +available mill-sites. I'll give you a mill-site if you'll pay half the +expense of digging a new channel for the Skookum, and changing its +course so it will emerge into the still, deep water under the lee of +Tyee Head." + +"We'll do business," said Martin Darrow--and they did, although it was +many years after Hector McKaye had incorporated the Tyee Lumber +Company and founded his town of Port Agnew before Darrow began +operations. + +True to his promise, McKaye deeded him a mill-and town-site, and he +founded a settlement on the eastern edge of Port Agnew, but quite +distinct from it, and called it Darrow, after himself. It was not a +community that Hector McKaye approved of, for it was squalid and +unsanitary, and its untidy, unpainted shacks of rough lumber harbored +southern European labor, of which Hector McKaye would have none. In +Darrow, also, there were three groggeries and a gambling-house, with +the usual concomitant of women whose profession is the oldest and the +saddest in the world. + +Following his discovery of the Bight of Tyee, a quarter of a century +passed. A man may prosper much in twenty-five years, and Hector +McKaye, albeit American born, was bred of an acquisitive race. When +his Gethsemane came upon him, he was rated the richest lumberman in +the state of Washington; his twenty-thousand board-feet capacity per +day sawmill had grown to five hundred thousand, his ten thousand acres +to a hundred thousand. Two thousand persons looked to him and his +enterprise for their bread and butter; he owned a fleet of half a +dozen steam-schooners and sixteen big wind-jammers; he owned a town +which he had called Port Agnew, and he had married and been blessed +with children. And because his ambition no longer demanded it, he was +no longer a miser. + +[Illustration: HECTOR MCKAYE WAS BRED OF AN ACQUISITIVE RACE.] + +In a word, he was a happy man, and in affectionate pride and as a +tribute to his might, his name and an occasional forget-me-not of +speech which clung to his tongue, heritage of his Scotch forebears, +his people called him "The Laird of Tyee." Singularly enough, his +character fitted this cognomen rather well. Reserved, proud, +independent, and sensitive, thinking straight and talking straight, a +man of brusque yet tender sentiment which was wont to manifest itself +unexpectedly, it had been said of him that in a company of a hundred +of his mental, physical, and financial peers, he would have stood +forth preeminently and distinctively, like a lone tree on a hill. + +Although The Laird loved his town of Port Agnew, because he had +created it, he had not, nevertheless, resided in it for some years +prior to the period at which this chronicle begins. At the very apex +of the headland that shelters the Bight of Tyee, in a cuplike +depression several acres in extent, on the northern side and ideally +situated two hundred feet below the crest, thus permitting the howling +southeasters to blow over it, Hector McKaye, in the fulness of time, +had built for himself a not very large two-story house of white stone +native to the locality. This house, in the center of beautiful and +well-kept grounds, was designed in the shape of a letter T, with the +combination living-room and library forming the entire leg of the T +and enclosed on all three sides by heavy plate-glass French windows. + +Thus, The Laird was enabled to command a view of the bight, with Port +Agnew nestled far below; of the silver strip that is the Skookum River +flowing down to the sea through the logged-over lands, now +checker-boarded into little green farms; of the rolling back country +with its dark-green mantle of fir and white cedar, fading in the +distance to dark blue and black; of the yellow sandstone bluffs of the +coast-line to the north, and the turquoise of the Pacific out to the +horizon. + +This room Hector McKaye enjoyed best of all things in life, with the +exception of his family; of his family, his son Donald was nearest and +dearest to him. This boy he loved with a fierce and hungry love, +intensified, doubtless, because to the young Laird of Tyee, McKaye +was still the greatest hero in the world. To his wife, The Laird was +no longer a hero, although in the old days of the upward climb, when +he had fiercely claimed her and supported her by the sweat of his +brow, he had been something akin to a god. As for Elizabeth and Jane, +his daughters, it must be recorded that both these young women had +long since ceased to regard their father as anything except an +unfailing source of revenue--an old dear who clung to Port Agnew, +homely speech, and homely ways, hooting good-naturedly at the +pretensions of their set, and, with characteristic Gaelic +stubbornness, insisting upon living and enjoying the kind of life that +appealed to him with peculiar force as the only kind worth living. + +Indeed, in more than one humble home in Port Agnew, it had been said +that the two McKaye girls were secretly ashamed of their father. This +because frequently, in a light and debonair manner, Elizabeth and Jane +apologized for their father and exhibited toward him an indulgent +attitude, as is frequently the case with overeducated and +supercultured young ladies who cannot recall a time when their +slightest wish has not been gratified and cannot forget that the good +fairy who gratified it once worked hard with his hands, spoke the +language and acquired the habits of his comrades in the battle for +existence. + +Of course, Elizabeth and Jane would have resented this analysis of +their mental attitude toward their father. Be that as it may, however, +the fact remained that both girls were perfunctory in their +expressions of affection for their father, but wildly extravagant in +them where their mother was concerned. Hector McKaye liked it so. He +was a man who never thought about himself, and he had discovered that +if he gave his wife and daughters everything they desired, he was not +apt to be nagged. + +Only on one occasion had Hector McKaye declared himself master in his +own house, and, at the risk of appearing paradoxical, this was before +the house had been built. One day, while they still occupied their +first home (in Port Agnew), a house with a mansard roof, two towers, +jig-saw and scroll-work galore, and the usual cast-iron mastiffs and +deer on the front lawn, The Laird had come gleefully home from a trip +to Seattle and proudly exhibited the plans for a new house. + +Ensued examination and discussion by his wife and the young ladies. +Alas! The Laird's dream of a home did not correspond with that of his +wife, although, as a matter of fact, the lady had no ideas on the +subject beyond an insistence that the house should be "worthy of their +station," and erected in a fashionable suburb of Seattle. Elizabeth +and Jane aided and abetted her in clamoring for a Seattle home, +although both were quick to note the advantages of a picturesque +country home on the cliffs above the bight. They urged their father to +build his house, but condemned his plans. They desired a house some +three times larger than the blue-prints called for. + +Hector McKaye said nothing. The women chattered and argued among +themselves until, Elizabeth and Jane having vanquished their mother, +all three moved briskly to the attack upon The Laird. When they had +talked themselves out and awaited a reply, he gave it with the simple +directness of his nature. It was evident that he had given his answer +thought. + +"I can never live in Seattle until I retire, and I cannot retire +until Donald takes my place in the business. That means that Donald +must live here. Consequently, I shall spend half of my time with you +and the girls in Seattle, mother, and the other half with Donald here. +When we built our first home, you had your way--and I've lived in this +architectural horror ever since. This time, I'm going to have my own +way--and you've lived with me long enough to know that when I declare +for a will of my own, I'll not be denied. Well I realize you and the +girls have outgrown Port Agnew. There's naught here to interest you, +and I would not have woman o' mine unhappy. So plan your house in +Seattle, and I'll build it and spare no expense. As for this house on +the headland, you have no interest in it. Donald's approved the plans, +and him only will I defer to. 'Twill be his house some day--his and +his wife's, when he gets one. And there will be no more talk of it, my +dears. I'll not take it kindly of ye to interfere." + + + + +II + + +At a period in his upward climb to fortune, when as yet Hector McKaye +had not fulfilled his dream of a factory for the manufacture of his +waste and short-length stock into sash, door, blinds, moldings, and so +forth, he had been wont to use about fifty per cent. of this material +for fuel to maintain steam in the mill boilers, while the remainder +passed out over the waste-conveyor to the slab pile, where it was +burned. + +The sawdust, however, remained to be disposed of, and since it was not +possible to burn this in the slab fire for the reason that the wet +sawdust blanketed the flames and resulted in a profusion of smoke that +blew back upon the mill to the annoyance of the employees, for many +years The Laird had caused this accumulated sawdust to be hauled to +the edge of the bight on the north side of the town, and there dumped +in a low, marshy spot which formerly had bred millions of mosquitoes. + +Subsequently, in the process of grading the streets of Port Agnew and +excavating cellars, waste dirt had been dumped with the sawdust, and, +occasionally, when high winter tides swept over the spot, sand, small +stones, sea-shells, and kelp were added to the mixture. And as if this +were not sufficient, the citizens of Port Agnew contributed from time +to time old barrels and bottles, yard-sweepings, tin cans, and +superannuated stoves and kitchen utensils. + +Slowly this dump crept out on the beach, and in order to prevent the +continuous attrition of the surf upon the outer edge of it from +befouling the white-sand bathing-beach farther up the Bight of Tyee, +The Laird had driven a double row of fir piling parallel with and +beyond the line of breakers. This piling, driven as close together as +possible and reenforced with two-inch planking between, formed a +bulkhead with the flanks curving in to the beach, thus insuring +practically a water-tight pen some two acres in extent; and, with the +passage of years, this became about two-thirds filled with the waste +from the town. Had The Laird ever decided to lay claim to the Sawdust +Pile, there would have been none in Port Agnew to contest his title; +since he did not claim it, the Sawdust Pile became a sort of No Man's +Land. + +After The Laird erected his factory and began to salvage his waste, +the slab fire went out forever for lack of fuel, and the modicum of +waste from the mill and factory, together with the sawdust, was +utilized for fuel in an electric-light plant that furnished light, +heat, and power to the town. Consequently, sawdust no longer +mercifully covered the trash on the Sawdust Pile as fast as this trash +arrived, and, one day, Hector McKaye, observing this, decided that it +was an unsightly spot and not quite worthy of his town of Port Agnew. +So he constructed a barge somewhat upon the principle of a patent +dump-wagon, moored it to the river-bank, created a garbage monopoly in +Port Agnew, and sold it for five thousand dollars to a pair of +ambitious Italians. With the proceeds of this garbage deal, The Laird +built a very pretty little public library. + +Having organized his new garbage system (the garbage was to be towed +twenty miles to sea and there dumped), The Laird forbade further +dumping on the Sawdust Pile. When the necessity for more dredger-work +developed, in order to keep the deep channel of the Skookum from +filling, he had the pipes from the dredger run out to the Sawdust Pile +and covered the unsightly spot with six feet of rich river-silt up to +the level of the piling. + +"And now," said Hector McKaye to Andrew Daney, his general manager, +"when that settles, we'll run a light track out here and use the +Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard." + +The silt settled and dried, and almost immediately thereafter a +squatter took possession of the Sawdust Pile. Across the neck of the +little promontory, and in line with extreme high-water mark on each +side, he erected a driftwood fence; he had a canvas, driftwood, and +corrugated-iron shanty well under way when Hector McKaye appeared on +the scene and bade him a pleasant good-morning. + +The squatter turned from his labor and bent upon his visitor an +appraising glance. His scrutiny appearing to satisfy him as to the +identity of the latter, he straightened suddenly and touched his +forelock in a queer little salute that left one in doubt whether he +was a former member of the United States navy or the British +mercantile marine. He was a threadbare little man, possibly sixty +years old, with a russet, kindly countenance and mild blue eyes; apart +from his salute, there was about him an intangible hint of the sea. He +was being assisted in his labors by a ragamuffin girl of perhaps +thirteen years. + +"Thinking of settling in Port Agnew?" The Laird inquired. + +"Why, yes, sir. I thought this might make a good safe anchorage for +Nan and me. My name is Caleb Brent. You're Mr. McKaye, aren't you?" + +The Laird nodded. + +"I had an idea, when I filled this spot in and built that bulkhead, +Mr. Brent, that some day this would make a safe anchorage for some of +my lumber. I planned a drying-yard here. What's that you're building, +Brent? A hen-house?" + +Caleb Brent flushed. + +"Why, no, sir. I'm making shift to build a home here for Nan and me." + +"Is this little one Nan?" + +The ragamuffin girl, her head slightly to one side, had been regarding +Hector McKaye with alert curiosity mingled with furtive apprehension. +As he glanced at her now, she remembered her manners and dropped him a +courtesy--an electric, half-defiant jerk that reminded The Laird of a +similar greeting customarily extended by squinch-owls. + +Nan was not particularly clean, and her one-piece dress, of heavy blue +navy-uniform cloth was old and worn and spotted. Over this dress she +wore a boy's coarse red-worsted sweater with white-pearl buttons. The +skin of her thin neck was fine and creamy; the calves, of her bare +brown legs were shapely, her feet small, her ankles dainty. + +With the quick eye of the student of character, this man, proud of his +own ancient lineage for all his humble beginning, noted that her +hands, though brown and uncared-for, were small and dimpled, with +long, delicate fingers. She had sea-blue eyes like Caleb Brent's, +and, like his, they were sad and wistful; a frowsy wilderness of +golden hair, very fine and held in confinement at the nape of her neck +by the simple expedient of a piece of twine, showed all too plainly +the lack of a mother's care. + +The Laird returned Nan's courtesy with a patronizing inclination of +his head. + +"Your granddaughter, I presume?" he addressed Caleb Brent. + +"No; my daughter, sir. I was forty when I married, and Nan came ten +years later. She's thirteen now, and her mother's been dead ten +years." + +Hector McKaye had an idea that the departed mother was probably just +as well, if not better, off, free of the battle for existence which +appeared to confront this futile old man and his elf of a daughter. He +glanced at the embryo shack under construction and, comparing it with +his own beautiful home on Tyee Head, he turned toward the bight. A +short distance off the bulkhead, he observed a staunch forty-foot +motor-cruiser at anchor. She would have been the better for a coat of +paint; undeniably she was of a piece with Caleb Brent and Nan, for, +like them, The Laird had never seen her before. + +"Yours?" he queried. + +"Yes, sir." + +"You arrived in her, then?" + +"I did, sir. Nan and I came down from Bremerton in her, sir." + +The Laird owned many ships, and he noted the slurring of the "sir" as +only an old sailor can slur it. And there was a naval base at +Bremerton. + +"You're an old sailor, aren't you, Brent?" he pursued. + +"Yes, sir. I was retired a chief petty officer, sir. Thirty years' +continuous service, sir--and I was in the mercantile marine at +sixteen. I've served my time as a shipwright. Am--am I intruding here, +sir?" + +The Laird smiled, and followed the smile with a brief chuckle. + +"Well--yes and no. I haven't any title to this land you've elected to +occupy, although I created it. You see, I'm sort of lord of creation +around here. My people call me 'The Laird of Tyee,' and nobody but a +stranger would have had the courage to squat on the Sawdust Pile +without consulting me. What's your idea about it, Brent?" + +"I'll go if you want me to, sir." + +"I mean what's your idea if you stay? What do you expect to do for a +living?" + +"You will observe, sir, that I have fenced off only that portion of +the dump beyond high-water mark. That takes in about half of it--about +an acre and a half. Well, I thought I'd keep some chickens and raise +some garden truck. This silt will grow anything. And I have my launch, +and can do some towing, maybe, or take fishing parties out. I might +supply the town with fish. I understand you import your fish from +Seattle--and with the sea right here at your door." + +"I see. And you have your three-quarters pay as a retired chief petty +officer?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Anything in bank? I do not ask these personal questions, Brent, out +of mere idle curiosity. This is my town, you know, and there is no +poverty in it. I'm rather proud of that, so I--" + +"I understand, sir. That's why I came to Port Agnew. I saw your son +yesterday, and he said I could stay." + +"Oh! Well, that's all right, then. If Donald told you to stay, stay +you shall. Did he give you the Sawdust Pile?" + +"Yes, sir; he did!" + +"Well, I had other plans for it, Brent; but since you're here, I'll +offer no objection." + +Nan now piped up. + +"We haven't any money in bank, Mr. Laird, but we have some saved up." + +"Indeed! That's encouraging. Where do you keep it?" + +"In the brown teapot in the galley. We've got a hundred and ten +dollars." + +"Well, my little lady, I think you might do well to take your hundred +and ten dollars out of the brown teapot in the galley and deposit it +in the Port Agnew bank. Suppose that motor-cruiser should spring a +leak and sink?" + +Nan smiled and shook her golden head in negation. They had beaten +round Cape Flattery in that boat, and she had confidence in it. + +"Would you know my boy if you should see him again, Nan?" The Laird +demanded suddenly. + +"Oh, yes, indeed, sir! He's such a nice boy." + +"I think, Nan, that if you asked him, he might help your father build +this house." + +"I'll see him this afternoon when he comes out of high school," Nan +declared. + +"You might call on Andrew Daney, my general manager," The Laird +continued, turning to Caleb Brent, "and make a dicker with him for +hauling our garbage-scow out to sea and dumping it. I observe that +your motor-boat is fitted with towing-bitts. We dump twice a week. And +you may have a monopoly on fresh fish if you desire it. We have no +fishermen here, because I do not care for Greeks and Sicilians in Port +Agnew. And they're about the only fishermen on this coast." + +"Thank you, Mr. McKaye." + +"Mind you don't abuse your monopoly. If you do, I'll take it away from +you." + +"You are very kind, sir. And I can have the Sawdust Pile, sir?" + +"Yes; since Donald gave it to you. However, I wish you'd tear down +that patchwork fence and replace it with a decent job the instant you +can afford it." + +"Ah, just wait," old Brent promised. "I know how to make things neat +and pretty and keep them shipshape. You just keep your eye on the +Sawdust Pile, sir." The old wind-bitten face flushed with pride; the +faded sea-blue eyes shone with joyous anticipation. "I've observed +your pride in your town, sir, and before I get through, I'll have a +prettier place than the best of them." + +A few days later, The Laird looked across the Bight of Tyee from his +home on Tyee Head, and through his marine glasses studied the Sawdust +Pile. He chuckled as he observed that the ramshackle shanty had +disappeared almost as soon as it had been started and in its place a +small cottage was being erected. There was a pile of lumber in the +yard--bright lumber, fresh from the saws--and old Caleb Brent and the +motherless Nan were being assisted by two carpenters on the Tyee +Lumber Company's pay-roll. + +When Donald came home from school that night, The Laird asked him +about the inhabitants of the Sawdust Pile with relation to the lumber +and the two carpenters. + +"Oh, I made a trade with Mr. Brent and Nan. I'm to furnish the lumber +and furniture for the house, and those two carpenters weren't very +busy, so Mr. Daney told me I could have them to help out. In return, +Mr. Brent is going to build me a sloop and teach me how to sail it." + +The Laird nodded. + +"When his little home is completed, Donald," he suggested presently, +"you might take old Brent and his girl over to our old house in town +and let them have what furniture they require. See if you cannot +manage to saw off some of your mother's antiques on them," added +whimsically. "By the way, what kind of shanty is old Brent going to +build?" + +"A square house with five rooms and a cupola fitted up like a +pilot-house. There's to be a flagpole on the cupola, and Nan says +they'll have colors every night and morning. That means that you hoist +the flag in the morning and salute it, and when you haul it down at +night, you salute it again. They do that up at the Bremerton +navy-yard." + +"That's rather a nice, sentimental idea," Hector McKaye replied. "I +rather like old Brent and his girl for that. We Americans are too +prone to take our flag and what it stands for rather lightly." + +"Nan wants me to have colors up here, too," Donald continued. "Then +she can see our flag, and we can see theirs across the bight." + +"All right," The Laird answered heartily, for he was always profoundly +interested in anything that interested his boy. "I'll have the woods +boss get out a nice young cedar with, say, a twelve-inch butt, and +we'll make it into a flagpole." + +"If we're going to do the job navy-fashion, we ought to fire a sunrise +and sunset gun," Donald suggested with all the enthusiasm of his +sixteen years. + +"Well, I think we can afford that, too, Donald." + +Thus it came about that the little brass cannon was installed on its +concrete base on the cliff. And when the flagpole had been erected, +old Caleb Brent came up one day, built a little mound of smooth, +sea-washed cobblestones round the base, and whitewashed them. +Evidently he was a prideful little man, and liked to see things done +in a seamanlike manner. And presently it became a habit with The Laird +to watch night and morning, for the little pin-prick of color to +flutter forth from the house on the Sawdust Pile, and if his own +colors did not break forth on the instant and the little cannon boom +from the cliff, he was annoyed and demanded an explanation. + + + + +III + + +Hector McKaye and his close-mouthed general manager, Andrew Daney, +were the only persons who knew the extent of The Laird's fortune. Even +their knowledge was approximate, however, for The Laird disliked to +delude himself, and carried on his books at their cost-price +properties which had appreciated tremendously in value since their +purchase. The knowledge of his wealth brought to McKaye a goodly +measure of happiness--not because he was of Scottish ancestry and had +inherited a love for his baubees, but because he was descended from a +fierce, proud Scottish clan and wealth spelled independence to him and +his. + +The Laird would have filled his cup of happiness to overflowing had he +married a less mediocre woman or had he raised his daughters as he had +his son. The girls' upbringing had been left entirely in their +mother's hands. Not so with young Donald, however--wherefore it was a +byword in Port Agnew that Donald was his father's son, a veritable +chip of the old block. + +By some uncanny alchemy, hard cash appears to soften the heads and +relax the muscles of rich men's sons--at least, such had been old +Hector's observation, and on the instant that he first gazed upon the +face of his son, there had been born in him a mighty resolve that, +come what might, he would not have it said of him that he had made a +fool of his boy. And throughout the glad years of his fatherhood, with +the stern piety of his race and his faith, he had knelt night and +morning beside his bed and prayed his God to help him not to make a +fool of Donald--to keep Donald from making a fool of himself. + +When Donald entered Princeton, his father decided upon an experiment. +He had raised his boy right, and trained him for the race of life, and +now The Laird felt that, like a thoroughbred horse, his son faced the +barrier. Would he make the run, or would he, in the parlance of the +sporting world, "dog it?" Would his four years at a great American +university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a +snob and a drone? + +With characteristic courage, The Laird decided to give him ample +opportunity to become either, for, as old Hector remarked to Andrew +Daney: "If the lad's the McKaye I think he is, nothing can harm him. +On the other hand, if I'm mistaken, I want to know it in time, for my +money and my Port Agnew Lumber Company is a trust, and if he can't +handle it, I'll leave it to the men who can--who've helped me create +it--and Donald shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Tools," +he added, "belong to the men that can use them." + +When Donald started East for college, old Hector accompanied him as +far as Seattle. On the way up, there was some man-talk between them. +In his youth, old Hector had not been an angel, which is to state that +he had been a lumberjack. He knew men and the passions that beset +them--particularly when they are young and lusty--and he was far from +being a prude. He expected his son to raise a certain amount of wild +oats; nay, he desired it, for full well he knew that when the fires +of youth are quenched, they are liable to flare disgracefully in +middle life or old age. + +"Never pig it, my son," was his final admonition. "Raise hell if you +must, but if you love your old father, be a gentleman about it. You've +sprung from a clan o' men, not mollycoddles." + +"Hence the expression: 'When Hector was a pup,'" Donald replied +laughingly. "Well, I'll do my best, father--only, if I stub my toe, +you mustn't be too hard on me. Remember, please, that I'm only half +Scotch." + +At parting, The Laird handed his son a check for twenty-five thousand +dollars. + +"This is the first year's allowance, Donald," he informed the boy +gravely. "It should not require more than a hundred thousand dollars +to educate a son of mine, and you must finish in four years. I would +not care to think you dull or lazy." + +"Do you wish an accounting, father?" + +The Laird shook his head. + +"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, my son. I'll read the +accounting in your eye when you come back to Port Agnew." + +"Oh!" said young Donald. + +At the end of four years, Donald graduated, an honor-man in all his +studies, and in the lobby of the gymnasium, where the athletic heroes +of Princeton leave their record to posterity, Hector McKaye read his +son's name, for, of course, he was there for commencement. Then they +spent a week together in New York, following which old Hector +announced that one week of New York was about all he could stand. The +tall timber was calling for him. + +"Hoot, mon!" Donald protested gaily. He was a perfect mimic of Sir +Harry Lauder at his broadest. "Y'eve nae had a bit holiday in all yer +life. Wha' spier ye, Hector McKaye, to a trip aroond the worl', wi' a +wee visit tae the auld clan in the Hielands?" + +"Will you come with me, son?" The Laird inquired eagerly. + +"Certainly not! You shall come with me. This is to be my party." + +"Can you stand the pressure? I'm liable to prove an expensive +traveling companion." + +"Well, there's something radically wrong with both of us if we can't +get by on two hundred thousand dollars, dad." + +The Laird started, and then his Scotch sense of humor--and, for all +the famed wit of the Irish, no humor on earth is so unctuous as that +of the Scotch--commenced to bubble up. He suspected a joke on himself +and was prepared to meet it. + +"Will you demand an accounting, my son?" + +Donald shook his head. + +"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, father, I'll read the +accounting in your eye when you get back to Port Agnew." + +"You braw big scoundrel! You've been up to something. Tell it me, man, +or I'll die wi' the suspense of it." + +"Well," Donald replied, "I lived on twenty-five hundred a year in +college and led a happy life. I had a heap of fun, and nothing went by +me so fast that I didn't at least get a tail-feather. My college +education, therefore, cost me ten thousand dollars, and I managed to +squeeze a roadster automobile into that, also. With the remaining +ninety thousand, I took a flier in thirty-nine hundred acres of red +cedar up the Wiskah River. I paid for it on the instalment plan +--yearly payments secured by first mortgage at six per cent., and----" + +"Who cruised it for you?" The Laird almost shouted. "I'll trust no +cruiser but my own David McGregor." + +"I realized that, so I engaged Dave for the job. You will recall that +he and I took a two months' camping-trip after my first year in +Princeton. It cruised eighty thousand feet to the acre, and I paid two +dollars and a half per thousand for it. Of course, we didn't succeed +in cruising half of it, but we rode through the remainder, and it all +averaged up very nicely. And I saw a former cruise of it made by a +disinterested cruiser----" + +The Laird had been doing mental arithmetic. + +"It cost you seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars--and you've +paid ninety thousand, principal and interest, on account. Why, you +didn't have the customary ten per cent, of the purchase-price as an +initial payment!" + +"The owner was anxious to sell. Besides, he knew I was your son, and I +suppose he concluded that, after getting ninety thousand dollars out +of me at the end of three years, you'd have to come to my rescue when +the balance fell due--in a lump. If you didn't, of course he could +foreclose." + +"I'll save you, my son. It was a good deal--a splendid deal!" + +"You do not have to, dad. I've sold it--at a profit of an even two +hundred thousand dollars!" + +"Lad, why did you do it? Why didn't you take me into your confidence? +That cedar is worth three and a half. In a few years, 'twill be worth +five." + +"I realized that, father, but--a bird in the hand is worth two in the +bush--and I'm a proud sort of devil. I didn't want to run to you for +help on my first deal, even though I knew you'd come to my rescue and +ask no questions. You've always told me to beware of asking favors, +you know. Moreover, I had a very friendly feeling toward the man I +sold my red cedar to; I hated to stick him too deeply." + +"You were entitled to your profit, Donald. 'Twas business. You should +have taken it. Ah, lad, if you only knew the terrible four years I've +paid for yon red-cedar!" + +"You mean the suspense of not knowing how I was spending my +allowance?" + +The Laird nodded. + +"Curiosity killed a cat, my son, and I'm not as young as I used to +be." + +"I had thought you'd have read the accounting in my eye. Take another +look, Hector McKaye." And Donald thrust his smiling countenance close +to his father's. + +"I see naught in your eye but deviltry and jokes." + +"None are so blind as they that will not see. If you see a joke, dad, +it's on you." + +Old Hector blinked, then suddenly he sprang at his son, grasped him by +the shoulders, and backed him against the wall. + +"Did you sell me that red cedar?" he demanded incredulously. + +"Aye, mon; through an agent," Donald burred Scottishly. "A' did nae +ha' the heart tae stick my faither sae deep for a bit skulin'. A'm a +prood man, Hector McKaye; a'll nae take a grrand eeducashun at sic a +price. 'Tis nae Christian." + +"Ah, my bonny bairn!" old Hector murmured happily, and drew his fine +son to his heart. "What a grand joke to play on your puir old father! +Och, mon, was there ever a lad like mine?" + +"I knew you'd buy that timber for an investment if I offered it cheap +enough," Donald explained. "Besides, I owed you a poke. You wanted to +be certain you hadn't reared a jackass instead of a man, so you gave +me a hundred thousand dollars and stood by to see what I'd do with +it--didn't you, old Scotty?" Hector nodded a trifle guiltily. "Andrew +Daney wrote me you swore by all your Highland clan that the man who +sold you that red cedar was ripe for the fool-killer." + +"Tush, tush!" The Laird protested. "You're getting personal now. I +dislike to appear inquisitive, but might I ask what you've done with +your two hundred thousand profit?" + +"Well, you see, dad, I would have felt a trifle guilty had I kept it, +so I blew it all in on good, conservative United States bonds, +registered them in your name, and sent them to Daney to hide in your +vault at Port Agnew." + +"Ah, well, red cedar or bonds, 'twill all come back to you some day, +sonny. The real profit's in the fun--" + +"And the knowledge that I'm not a fool--eh, father?" + +Father love supernal gleamed in The Laird's fine gray eyes. + +"Were you a fool, my son, and all that I have in the world would cure +you if thrown into the Bight of Tyee, I'd gladly throw it and take up +my life where I began it--with pike-pole and peavy, double-bitted ax, +and cross-cut saw. However, since you're not a fool, I intend to +continue to enjoy my son. We'll go around the world together." + +Thus did the experiment end. At least, Donald thought so. But when he +left the hotel a few minutes later to book two passages to Europe, The +Laird of Tyee suddenly remembered that thanks were due his +Presbyterian God. So he slid to his old knees beside his bed and +murmured: + +"Lord, I thank thee! For the sake of thine own martyred Son, set +angels to guard him and lead him in the path of manly honor that comes +at last to thy kingdom. Amen." + +Then he wired Andrew Daney a long telegram of instructions and a stiff +raise in salary. + +"The boy has a head like a tar-bucket," he concluded. "Everything I +ever put into it has stuck. We are going to frolic round the world +together, and we will be home when we get back." + + + + +IV + + +Donald was twenty-four and The Laird fifty-eight when the pair +returned from their frolic round the world--Donald to take up this +father's labors, The Laird to lay them aside and retire to The +Dreamerie and the books he had accumulated against this happy +afterglow of a busy and fruitful life. + +Donald's mother and sisters were at The Dreamerie the night the father +and son arrived. Of late years, they had spent less and less of their +time there. The Laird had never protested, for he could not blame them +for wearying of a little backwoods sawmill town like Port Agnew. + +With his ability to think calmly, clearly, and unselfishly, he had +long since realized that eventually his girls must marry; now +Elizabeth was twenty-six and Jane twenty-eight, and Mrs. McKaye was +beginning to be greatly concerned for their future. Since The Laird +had built The Dreamerie in opposition to their wishes, they had spent +less than six months in each year at Port Agnew. And these visits had +been scattered throughout the year. They had traveled much, and, when +not traveling, they lived in the Seattle house and were rather busy +socially. Despite his devotion to his business, however, The Laird +found time to spend at least one week in each month with them in +Seattle, in addition to the frequent business trips which took him +there. + +That night of his home-coming was the happiest The Laird had ever +known, for it marked the culmination of his lifetime of labor and +dreams. Long after his wife and the girls had retired, he and Donald +sat in the comfortable living-room, smoking and discussing plans for +the future, until presently, these matters having been discussed +fully, there fell a silence between them, to be broken presently by +The Laird. + +"I'm wondering, Donald, if you haven't met some bonny lass you'd like +to bring home to Port Agnew. You realize, of course, that there's room +on Tyee Head for another Dreamerie, although I built this one for +you--and her." + +"There'll be no other house on Tyee Head, father," Donald answered, +"unless you care to build one for mother and the girls. The wife that +I'll bring home to Port Agnew will not object to my father in my +house." He smiled and added, "You're not at all hard to get along +with, you know." + +The Laird's eyes glistened. + +"Have you found her yet, my son?" + +Donald shook his head in negation. + +"Then look for her," old Hector ordered. "I have no doubt that, when +you find her, she'll be worthy of you. I'm at an age now when a man +looks no longer into the future but dwells in the past, and it's hard +for me to think of you, big man that you are, as anything save a wee +laddie trotting at my side. Now, if I had a grandson--" + +When, presently, Donald bade him good-night, Hector McKaye turned off +the lights and sat in the dark, gazing down across the moonlit Bight +of Tyee to the sparks that flew upward from the stacks of his sawmill +in Port Agnew, for they were running a night shift. And, as he gazed, +he thrilled, with a fierce pride and a joy that was almost pain, in +the knowledge that he had reared a merchant prince for this, his +principality of Tyee. + + + + +V + + +Hector McKaye had always leaned toward the notion that he could run +Port Agnew better than a mayor and a town council, in addition to +deriving some fun out of it; consequently, Port Agnew had never been +incorporated. And this was an issue it was not deemed wise to press, +for The Tyee Lumber Company owned every house and lot in town, and +Hector McKaye owned every share of stock in the Tyee Lumber Company. + +If he was a sort of feudal baron, he was a gentle and kindly one; +large building-plots, pretty little bungalows, cheap rentals, and no +taxation constituted a social condition that few desired to change. As +these few developed and The Laird discovered them, their positions in +his employ, were forfeited, their rents raised, or their leases +canceled, and presently Port Agnew knew them no more. He paid fair +wages, worked his men nine hours, and employed none but naturalized +Americans, with a noticeable predilection for those of Scotch nativity +or ancestry. + +Strikes or lockouts were unknown in Port Agnew--likewise saloons. +Unlike most sawmill towns of that period, Port Agnew had no street in +which children were forbidden to play or which mothers taught their +daughters to avoid. Once an I.W.W. organizer came to town, and upon +being ordered out and refusing to go, The Laird, then past fifty, had +ducked him in the Skookum until he changed his mind. + +The Tyee Lumber Company owned and operated the local telephone company, +the butcher shop, the general store, the hotel, a motion-picture +theater, a town hall, the bank, and the electric-light-and-power plant, +and with the profits from these enterprises, Port Agnew had paved +streets, sidewalks lined with handsome electroliers, and a sewer +system. It was an admirable little sawmill town, and if the expenses +of maintaining it exceeded the income, The Laird met the deficit and +assumed all the worry, for he wanted his people to be happy and +prosperous beyond all others. + +It pleased Hector McKaye to make an occasion of his abdication and +Donald's accession to the presidency of the Tyee Lumber Company. The +Dreamerie was not sufficiently large for his purpose, however, for he +planned to entertain all of his subjects at a dinner and make formal +announcement of the change. So he gave a barbecue in a grove of maples +on the edge of the town. His people received in silence the little +speech he made them, for they were loath to lose The Laird. They knew +him, while Donald they had not known for five years, and there were +many who feared that the East might have changed him. Consequently, +when his father called him up to the little platform from which he +spoke, they received the young laird in silence also. + +"Folks--my own home folks," Donald began, "to-day I formally take up +the task that was ordained for me at birth. I am going to be very +happy doing for you and for myself. I shall never be the man my father +is; but if you will take me to your hearts and trust me as you have +trusted him, I'll never go back on you, for I expect to live and to +die in Port Agnew, and, while I live, I want to be happy with you. I +would have you say of me, when I am gone, that I was the worthy son +of a worthy sire." He paused and looked out over the eager, upturned +faces of the men, women, and children whose destinies he held in the +hollow of his hand. "My dear friends, there aren't going to be any +changes," he finished, and stepped down off the platform. + +From the heart of the crowd a lumberjack cried, "Ya-hoo-o-o-o-o!" as +only a lusty lumberjack can cry it. "He's a chip of the old block!" +cried another, and there were cheers and some tears and a general rush +forward to greet the new master, to shake his hand, and pledge +allegiance to him. + +When the reception was over, old Hector took charge of the homely +games and athletic contests, and the day's delights culminated in a +log-burling contest in the Skookum, in which the young laird +participated. When, eventually, he fell in the river and was counted +out, old Hector donned his son's calked boots and, with a whoop such +as he had not emitted in forty years, entered the lists against the +young fellows. In the old days in the Michigan woods, when burling was +considered a magnificent art of the lumberjack, he had been a +champion, and for five minutes he spun his log until the water foamed, +crossing and recrossing the river and winning the contest unanimously. +From the bank, Mrs. McKaye and his daughters watched him with +well-bred amusement and secret disapproval. They could never forget, +as he could, that he was The Laird of Tyee; they preferred more +dignity in the head of the house. + +The McKaye family drove home along the cliff road at sunset. Young +Donald paused on the terrace before entering the house, and, stirred +by some half-forgotten memory, he glanced across the bight to the +little white house far below on the Sawdust Pile. The flag was +floating from the cupola, but even as he looked, it came fluttering +down. + +Donald turned toward the McKaye flag. It was still floating. "The old +order changeth," he soliloquized, and hauled it down, at the same time +shouting to his father within the house: + +"Hey, dad; fire the sunset gun!" + +The Laird pressed the button and the cannon boomed. + +"We've neglected that little ceremony since you've been away," he +remarked, as Donald entered the room. "'Other times, other customs,' I +dare say." + +He hurried up-stairs to dress for dinner (a formality which he +disliked, but which appeared to please his wife and daughters), and +Donald took his father's binoculars and went out on the terrace. It +had occurred to him that he had not seen old Caleb Brent and Nan at +the barbecue, and he wondered why. Through the glasses, he could make +out the figure of a woman in the cupola window, and she was watching +him through a long marine telescope. + +"There's my old friend Nan, grown to womanhood," Donald soliloquized, +and waved his arm at her. Through the glasses, he saw her wave back at +him. + + + + +VI + + +The morning after the barbecue, Donald McKaye reported at eight +o'clock to his father's faithful old general manager, Andrew Daney. +Daney had grown gray in his father's service, and it was no part of +Donald's plans to assign him to a back seat. + +"Well, Mr. Daney," he inquired affably, "what are your plans for the +new hired man?" + +Old Daney looked up quizzically. + +"You do the planning here, Don," he replied. + +"You heard me say yesterday that there would be no changes, Mr. Daney. +Of course, I haven't grown up in Port Agnew without learning something +of my heritage, but, in view of the fact that I still have +considerable to learn, suppose you indicate just where I ought to +start." + +Daney was pleased at a deference he had not anticipated. + +"Start in the woods," he replied. "That's where your daddy started. +Felling timber and handling it is rather a fine art, Don. I'd wrestle +logs for a month and follow them down the Skookum to the log boom. +Then I'd put in six months in the mill and six more in the factory, +following it with three months on the dock, tallying, and three months +of a hand-shaking tour out among the trade. After that, you may sit in +at your father's desk, and I'll gradually break you in to his job." + +"That's a grand idea, and I'll act on it," Donald declared. + +"Well, it's too late to act on it to-day, Don. The up-river launch to +the logging-camp left at seven o'clock. However, I have a job for you. +We really need the Sawdust Pile for an extension of our drying-yard. +Our present yard lies right under the lee of that ridge of which Tyee +Head is an extension, and it's practically noon before the sun gets a +fair chance at it. The Sawdust Pile gets the sun all day long, and the +winds have an uninterrupted sweep across it. We can dry our cedar +decking there in half the time it requires now." + +"But the Sawdust Pile is--" + +"A rat's nest, Don. There are a number of other shacks there now--some +Greek fishermen, a negro, and a couple of women from the overflow of +Tyee. It ought to be cleaned out." + +"I noticed those shacks last night, Mr. Daney, and I agree with you +that they should go. But I haven't the heart to run old Caleb Brent +off the Sawdust Pile. I gave it to him, you know." + +"Well, let Brent stay there. He's too old and crippled with rheumatism +to attend to his truck-garden any more; so if you leave him the space +for his house and a chicken-yard, he'll be satisfied. In fact, I have +discussed the proposition with him, and he is agreeable." + +"Why did dad permit those other people to crowd him, Mr. Daney?" + +"While your father was in Europe with you, they horned in, claimed a +squatter's right, and stood pat. Old Brent was defenseless, and while +the boys from the mill would have cleaned them out if I had given the +word, the Greeks and the negro were defiant, and it meant bloodshed. +So I have permitted the matter to rest until your father's return." + +Donald reached for his hat. + +"Caleb Brent's squatter-right to that Sawdust Pile is going to be +upheld," he declared. "I'll clean that colony out before sunset, or +they'll clean me." + +"I'd proceed cautiously if I were you, Don. They have a host of +friends up in Darrow, and we mustn't precipitate a feud." + +"I'm going over now and serve notice on them to vacate immediately." +He grinned at old Daney. "A negro, a handful of Greeks, and those +unfortunate women can't bluff the boss of Port Agnew, Mr. Daney." + +"They tell me there's a blind pig down there, also." + +"It will not be there after to-day," Donald answered lightly, and +departed for the Sawdust Pile. + +As he came up to the gate in the neat fence Caleb Brent had built +across the Sawdust Pile nine years before, a baby boy, of perhaps +three years of age, rose out of the weeds in which he had been playing +and regarded the visitor expectantly. + +"Hello, bub!" the young laird of Tyee greeted the child. + +"Hello!" came the piping answer. "Are you my daddy?" + +"Why, no, Snickelfritz." He ran his fingers through the tot's golden +hair. "Don't you know your own daddy?" + +"I haven't any daddy," the child drawled. + +"No? Well, that's unfortunate." Donald stooped and lifted the tike to +his shoulder, marveling the while that such a cherub could be the +product of any of the denizens of the Sawdust Pile. At once, the boy's +arms went round his neck and a velvet cheek was laid close to his. +"You're an affectionate little snooks, aren't you?" Donald commented. +"Do you live here?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Somebody's been teaching you manners. Whose little boy are you?" + +"Muvver's." + +"And who might mother be?" + +"Nan Brent." + +"Yo-ho! So you're Nan Brent's boy! What's your name?" + +"Donald Brent." + +"No; that isn't it, son. Brent is your mother's name. Tell me your +father's name." + +"Ain't got no farver." + +"Well then, run along to your mother." + +He kissed the child and set him down just as a young woman came down +the sadly neglected shell walk from Caleb Brent's little white house. +Donald opened the gate and advanced to meet her. + +"I'm sure you must be Nan," he said, "although I can't be certain. I +haven't seen Nan in six years." + +She extended her hand + +"Yes; I'm Nan," she replied, "and you're Donald McKaye. You're a man +now, but somehow you haven't changed greatly." + +"It's fine to meet you again, Nan." He shook her hand +enthusiastically. + +She smiled a little sadly. + +"I saw you at colors last night, Donald. When your flag came down and +the gun was fired, I knew you'd remembered." + +"Were you glad?" he demanded, and immediately wondered why he had +asked such a childish question. + +"Yes, I was, Donald. It has been a long time since--since--the gun has +been fired--for me. So long since we were children, Donald." + +"You weren't at the barbecue yesterday. I missed you and Caleb. You +two are very old friends of mine, Nan. Was it quite loyal of you to +stay home?" + +"You're the only person that missed us, Donald," she answered, with +just the suspicion of a tremor in her sweet voice. "But, then, we are +accustomed to being left out of things." + +He made no effort to formulate an answer to this. Truth does not +require an answer. Yet he was sensible of a distinct feeling of +sympathy for her, and, manlike, he decided to change the topic of +conversation. + +"You have neighbors on the Sawdust Pile, Nan." + +"Yes. They came when The Laird was in Europe." + +"They would never have dared it had he been in Port Agnew. I'm +surprised that Andrew Daney permitted it. I had thought of him as a +man of courage, but, strange to say, these people outgamed him." + +"They didn't outgame him, Donald. He just didn't care. I--I--fancy he +concluded they would make agreeable neighbors--for me." + +"I'm sorry, Nan. However, I'm the new laird of Tyee, and I've come +down to stage an eviction. I didn't know of this state of affairs +until this morning." + +She smiled a little wistfully and bitterly. + +"I had flattered myself, Donald, you had called to visit your old +friends instead. When you waved at me last night, I--oh, you can't +realize how happy it made me to know that _you_ had noticed me--that +you really were big enough to be the big man of Port Agnew. And I +thought perhaps you would come because of that." + +He smiled tolerantly upon her. + +"Something has occurred to make you bitter, Nan. You're not like the +girl I used to know before I went away to school. If it will help to +restore me to your previous good opinion, however, please believe that +when I waved at you last night, simultaneously I made up my mind to +make an early visit to the Sawdust Pile. The discovery that these +cattle have intruded upon you and your old father, because you were +unable to defend yourselves and no one in Port Agnew would defend you, +merely hastened my visit. I couldn't in decency come any earlier; +could I, Nan? It's just half after eight. And if you're going to keep +me standing at the gate, as if I were a sewing-machine agent instead +of a very old friend, I _may_ conclude to take offense and regret that +I called." + +"Oh, I'm sorry! Please forgive me, Donald. I'm so much alone--so very +lonely--I suppose I grow suspicious of people and their motives." + +"Say no more about it, Nan. May I come in, then, to greet Caleb and +your husband?" + +"Father is in the house. I'll call him out, Donald. As for my +husband--" She hesitated, glanced out across the bight, and then +resolutely faced him. "You cannot have heard all of the town gossip, +then?" + +"I hadn't even heard of your marriage. The first I knew of it was when +his little nibs here hailed me, and asked me if I was his father. +Then he informed me he was your boy. He's a lovely child, Nan, and I +have been the recipient of some of his extremely moist kisses." + +She realized that he was too courteous to ask whether her husband was +dead or if there had been a divorce. + +"I'm rather glad you haven't heard, Donald," she replied evenly. "I +much prefer to tell you myself; then you will understand why I cannot +invite you into our house, and why you must not be seen talking to me +here at the gate. I am not married. I have never been married. My +baby's name is--Brent, and I call him Donald, after the only male +human being that has ever been truly kind to my father and me." + +"Ah," said Donald quietly, "so that's why he misses his father and +appears to want one so very much." + +She gazed forlornly out to sea and answered with a brief nod. +Seemingly she had long since ceased to be tragic over her pitiful +tragedy. + +"Well," he replied philosophically, "life is quite filled with a +number of things, and some of them make for great unhappiness." He +stooped and lifted the baby in his great arms. "You're named after me, +sonny; so I think I'll try to fill the gap and make you happy. Do you +mind, Nan, if I try my hand at foster-fathering? I like children. This +little man starts life under a handicap, but I'll see to it that he +gets his chance in life--far from Port Agnew, if you desire." She +closed her eyes in sudden pain and did not answer. "And whatever your +opinion on the matter may be, Nan," he went on, "even had I known +yesterday of your sorrow, I should have called to-day just the same." + +"You call it my 'sorrow!'" she burst forth passionately. "Others call +it my trouble--my sin--my disgrace." + +"And what does Caleb call it, Nan?" + +"He doesn't call it, Donald. It hasn't appeared to make any difference +with him. I'm still--his little girl." + +"Well, I cannot regard you as anything but a little girl--the same +little girl that used to help Caleb and me sail the sloop. I don't +wish to know anything about your sorrow, or your trouble, or your +disgrace, or your sin, or whatever folks may choose to call it. I just +want you to know that I know that you're a good woman, and when the +spirit moves me--which will be frequently, now that I have this young +man to look after--I shall converse with you at your front gate and +visit you and your decent old father in this little house, and be +damned to those that decry it. I am the young laird of Tyee. My father +raised me to be a gentleman, and, by the gods, I'll be one! Now, Nan, +take the boy and go in the house, because I see a rascally negro in +the doorway of that shack yonder, and I have a matter to discuss with +him. Is that white woman his consort?" + +Nan nodded again. She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart +was full to overflowing. + +"Come here--you!" Donald called to the negro. The fellow slouched +forth defiantly. He was a giant mulatto, and his freckled face wore an +evil and contemptuous grin. + +"I'm Donald McKaye," Donald informed him. "I'm the new laird of Tyee. +I want you and that woman to pack up and leave." + +"How soon, boss?" + +"Immediately." Anticipating a refusal, Donald stepped closer to the +mulatto and looked him sternly in the eye. + +"We-ll, is dat so?" the yellow rascal drawled. "So youh-all's de new +la'rd, eh? Well, ah'm de king o' de Sawdust Pile, an' mah house is mah +castle. Git dat, Mistah La'rd?" + +Donald turned toward Nan. + +"I'm going to have trouble here, Nan. Please go in the house." + +"Proceed," she replied simply. "I have a most unwomanly and unladylike +desire to see that beast manhandled." + +Donald turned, in time to go under a sizzling right-hand blow from the +mulatto and come up with a right uppercut to the ugly, freckled face +and a left rip to the mulatto's midriff. The fellow grunted, and a +spasm of pain crossed his countenance. "You yellow dog!" Donald +muttered, and flattened his nose far flatter than his mammy had ever +wiped it. The enemy promptly backed away and covered; a hearty thump +in the solar plexus made him uncover, and under a rain of blows on the +chin and jaw, he sprawled unconscious on the ground. + +Donald left him lying there and stepped to the door of the shack. The +frightened drab within spat curses at him. + +"Pack and go!" he ordered. "Within the hour, I'm going to purge the +Sawdust Pile with fire; if you stay in the house, you'll burn with +it." + +She was ready in ten minutes. Three more of her kind occupying an +adjacent shack begged to be allowed time in which to load their +personal possessions in an express-wagon. The four Greeks were just +about to set out for a day's fishing, but, having witnessed the defeat +of the mulatto bully, the fever of the hegira seized them also. They +loaded their effects in the fishing-launch, and chugged away up river +to Darrow, crying curses upon the young laird of Tyee and promising +reprisal. + +Donald waited until the last of the refugees had departed before +setting fire to the shacks. Then he stood by old Caleb Brent's house, +a circle of filled buckets around him, and watched in case the wind +should suddenly shift and shower sparks upon the roof. In half an hour +the Sawdust Pile had reverted to its old status and a throng of +curious townspeople who, attracted by the flames and smoke, had +clustered outside Caleb Brent's gate to watch Donald at work, finally +despaired of particulars and scattered when they saw Donald and Nan +Brent enter the house. + +Caleb Brent, looking twenty years older than when Donald had seen him +last, sat in an easy chair by the window, gazing with lack-luster eyes +out across the bight. He was hopelessly crippled with rheumatism, and +his sea-blue eyes still held the same lost-dog wistfulness. + +"Hello, Caleb!" Donald greeted him cordially. "I've just cleaned up +the Sawdust Pile for you. You're back in undisputed possession again." + +He shook hands with old Caleb and sat down in a chair which Nan drew +up for him. + +"It's good of you to call, Mr. Donald," the old man piped. "But isn't +that just like him, Nan?" he demanded. "Many's the day--aye, and the +night, too, for of late the nights have been bad here--we've thought +of you, sir, and wished you were back in Port Agnew. We knew what +would happen to those scoundrels when Mr. Donald got around to it." +And he laughed the asthmatic, contented chuckle of the aged as Nan +related briefly the story of Donald's recent activities. + +Their conversation which followed was mostly of a reminiscent +character--recollections of boat-races in the bight, fishing +excursions off the coast, clambakes, hew boats, a dog which Donald had +given Nan when he left for prep school and which had since died of old +age. And all the while Nan Brent's child stood by Donald's knee, +gazing up at him adoringly. + +During a lull in the conversation, he created some slight +embarrassment by reiterating his belief that this strange man must be +his father, and appealed to his mother for verification of his +suspicions. + +Poor child! His baby mind had but lately grasped the fact that for him +there was something missing in the scheme of life, and, to silence his +persistent questioning, Nan had told him that some day his father +would come to see them; whereupon, with the calm faith of innocence, +he had posted himself at the front gate, to be in position to receive +this beloved missing one when the latter should appear. Donald +skilfully diverted the child's mind from this all-consuming topic by +sliding the boy down to his foot and permitting him to swing gently +there. + +Presently Nan excused herself, for the purpose of looking after the +embers of Donald's recent raid. The instant the door closed behind +her, old Caleb Brent looked across at his visitor. + +"You've heard--of course, Mr. Donald?" he queried, with a slight +inclination of his head toward the door through which his daughter had +disappeared. + +"Yes, Caleb. Misfortune comes in various guises." + +"I would I could die," the pitiful old fellow whispered. "I will, +soon, but, oh, what will my poor darling do then, Mr. Donald? After we +first came here, I was that prosperous, sir, you wouldn't believe it. +I gave Nan a good schooling, piano lessons, and fine dresses. We lived +well, and yet we put by a thousand dollars in six years. But that's +gone now, what with the expenses when the baby came, and my sickness +that's prevented me from working. Thank God, sir, I have my +three-quarter pay. It isn't much, but we're rent-free, and fuel costs +us nothing, what with driftwood and the waste from Darrow that comes +down the river. Nan has a bit of a kitchen-garden and a few +chickens--so we make out. But when I die, my navy-pay stops." + +He paused, too profoundly moved by consideration of the destitution +that would face Nan and her nameless boy to voice the situation in +words. But he looked up at Donald McKaye, and the latter saw again +that wistful look in his sea-blue eyes--the dumb pleading of a kind +old lost dog. He thought of the thirty-eight-foot sloop old Caleb had +built him--a thing of beauty and wondrously seaworthy; or the sense of +obligation which had caused old Brent to make of the task a labor of +love; of the long, lazy, happy days when, with Caleb and Nan for his +crew, he had raced out of the bight twenty miles to sea and back +again, for the sheer delight of driving his lee rail under until Nan +cried out in apprehension. + +Poor, sweet, sad Nan Brent! Donald had known her through so many years +of gentleness and innocence--and she had come to this! He was consumed +with pity for her. She had fallen, but--there were depths to which +destitution and desperation might still drive her, just as there were +heights to which she might climb again if some half-man would but give +her a helping hand. + +"Do you know the man, Caleb?" he demanded suddenly. + +"No, I do not. I have never seen him. Nan wrote me when they were +married, and told me his name, of course." + +"Then there _was_ a marriage, Caleb?" + +"So Nan wrote me." + +"Ah! Has Nan a marriage certificate?" + +"I have never seen it. Seems their marriage wasn't legal. The name he +gave wasn't his own; he was a bigamist." + +"Then Nan knows his real name." + +"Yes; when she learned that, she came home." + +"But why didn't she prosecute him, Caleb? She owed that to herself and +the child--- to her good name and" + +"She had her reasons, lad." + +"But you should have prosecuted the scoundrel, Caleb." + +"I had no money for lawyers. I knew I was going to need it all for Nan +and her child. And I thought her reasons sufficient, Donald. She said +it would all come out right in the end. Maybe it will." + +"Do you mean she knowingly accepted the inevitable disgrace when she +might have--have--" He wanted to add, "proved herself virtuous," but, +somehow, the words would not come. They didn't appear to him to be +quite fair to Nan. + +The old man nodded. + +"Of course we haven't told this to anybody else," he hastened to add. +"'Twould have been useless. They'd have thought it a lie." + +"Yes, Caleb--a particularly clumsy and stupid lie." + +Caleb Brent looked up suddenly and searched, with an alert and wistful +glance, the face of the young laird of Tyee. + +"But you do not think so, do you?" he pleaded. + +"Certainly not, Caleb, If Nan told you that, then she told you the +truth." + +"Thank you, lad." + +"Poor old Caleb," Donald soliloquized, "you find it hard to believe it +yourself, don't you? And it does sound fishy!" + +"I don't believe it's Nan's fault," Donald found himself saying next. +"She was always a good girl, and I can't look at her now and conceive +her as anything but virtuous and womanly. I'll always be a good friend +of hers, Caleb. I'll stand back of her and see that she gets a square +deal--she and her son. When you're gone, she can leave Port Agnew for +some city where she isn't known, and as 'Mrs. Brent' she can engage in +some self-supporting business. It always struck me that Nan had a +voice." + +"She has, Mr. Donald. They had grand opera in Seattle, and I sent her +up there to hear it and having a singing teacher hear her sing 'Alice, +Where Art Thou.' He said she'd be earning a thousand dollars a night +in five years, Mr. Donald, if somebody in New York could train her. +That was the time," he concluded, "that she met _him!_ He was rich +and, I suppose, full of fine graces; he promised her a career if she'd +marry him, and so he dazzled the child--she was only eighteen--and +she went to San Francisco with him. She says there was some sort of +marriage, but he gave her no such gift as I gave her mother--a +marriage certificate. She wrote me she was happy, and asked me to +forgive her the lack of confidence in not advising with me--and of +course I forgave her, Mr. Donald. But in three months he left her, and +one night the door yonder opened and Nan come in and put her arms +round my neck and held me tight, with never a tear--so I knew she'd +cried her fill long since and was in trouble." He paused several +seconds, then added, "Her mother was an admiral's daughter--and she +married me!" He appeared to suggest this latter as a complete +explanation of woman's frailty. + +"The world is small, but it is sufficiently large to hide a girl from +the Sawdust Pile of Port Agnew. Of course, Nan cannot leave you now, +but when you leave her, Caleb, I'll finance her for her career. Please +do not worry about it." + +"I'm like Nan, sir," he murmured. "I'm beyond tears, or I'd weep, Mr. +Donald. God will reward you, sir. I can't begin to thank you." + +"I'm glad of that. By the way, who is towing the garbage-barge to sea +nowadays?" + +"I don't know, sir. Mr. Daney hired somebody else and his boat when I +had to quit because of my sciatica." + +"Hereafter, we'll use your boat, Caleb, and engage a man to operate +it. The rental will be ten dollars per trip, two trips a week, eighty +dollars a month. Cheap enough; so don't think it's charity. Here's the +first month's rental in advance. I'm going to run along now, Caleb, +but I'll look in from time to time, and if you should need me in the +interim, send for me." + +He kissed little Don Brent, who set up a prodigious shriek at the +prospect of desertion and brought his mother fluttering into the room. +He watched her soothe the youngster and then asked: + +"Nan, where do you keep the arnica now? I cut my knuckles on that +yellow rascal." + +She raised a sadly smiling face to his. + +"Where would the arnica be--if we had any, Donald?" she demanded. + +"Where it used to be, I suppose. Up on that shelf, inside the basement +of that funny old half-portion grandfather's clock and just out of +reach of the pendulum." + +"You do remember, don't you? But it's all gone so many years ago, +Donald. We haven't had a boy around to visit us since you left Port +Agnew, you know. I'll put some tincture of iodine on your knuckles, +however." + +"Do, please, Nan." + +A little later, he said: + +"Do you remember, Nan, the day I stuck my finger into the cage of old +Mrs. Biddle's South American parrot to coddle the brute and he all but +chewed it off?" + +She nodded. + +"And you came straight here to have it attended to, instead of going +to a doctor." + +"You wept when you saw my mangled digit. Remember, Nan? Strange how +that scene persists in my memory! You were so sweetly sympathetic I +was quite ashamed of myself." + +"That's because you always were the sweetest boy in the world and I +was only the garbage-man's daughter," she whispered. "There's a +ridiculous song about the garbage-man's daughter. I heard it once, in +vaudeville--in San Francisco." + +"If I come over some evening soon, will you sing for me, Nan?" + +"I never sing any more, Don." + +"Nobody but you can ever sing 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginy' for me." + +"Then I shall sing it, Don." + +"Thank you, Nan." + +She completed the anointing of his battle-scarred knuckles with +iodine, and, for a moment, she held his hand, examining critically an +old ragged white scar on the index-finger of his right hand. And quite +suddenly, to his profound amazement, she bent her head and swiftly +implanted upon that old scar a kiss so light, so humble, so benignant, +so pregnant of adoration and gratitude that he stood before her +confused and inquiring. + +"Such a strong, useful big hand!" she whispered. "It has been raised +in defense of the sanctity of my home--and until you came there was +'none so poor to do me reverence.'" + +He looked at her with sudden, new interest. Her action had almost +startled him. As their eyes held each other, he was aware, with a +force that was almost a shock, that Nan Brent was a most unusual +woman. She was beautiful; yet her physical beauty formed the least +part of her attractiveness, perfect as that beauty was. Instinctively, +Donald visualized her as a woman with brains, character, nobility of +soul; there was that in her eyes, in the honesty and understanding +with which they looked into his, that compelled him, in that instant, +to accept without reservation and for all time the lame and halting +explanation of her predicament he had recently heard from her father's +lips. He longed to tell her so. Instead, he flushed boyishly and said, +quite impersonally: + +"Yes; you're beautiful as women go, but that's not the right word to +express you. Physically, you might be very homely, but if you were +still Nan Brent you would be sweet and compelling. You remind me of a +Catholic chapel; there's always one little light within that never +goes out, you know. So that makes you more than beautiful. Shall I +say--glorious?" + +She smiled at him with her wistful, sea-blue eyes--a smile tender, +maternal, all-comprehending. She knew he was not seeking to flatter +her, that the wiles, the Artifices, the pretty speeches of the +polished man of the world were quite beyond him. + +"Still the same old primitive pal," she murmured softly; "still +thinking straight, talking straight, acting straight, and--dare I say +it, Donald?--seeing straight. I repeat, you always were the sweetest +boy in the world--and there is still so much of the little boy about +you." Her hand fluttered up and rested lightly on his arm. "I'll not +forget this day, my dear friend." + +It was characteristic of him that, having said that which was +uppermost in his mind, he should remember his manners and thank her +for dressing his knuckles. Then he extended his hand in farewell. + +"When you come again, Donald," she pleaded, as he took her hand, "will +you please bring me some books? They're all that can keep me sane--and +I do not go to the public library any more. I have to run the gantlet +of so many curious eyes." + +"How long is it since you have been away from the Sawdust Pile?" + +"Since before my baby came." + +He was silent a minute, pondering this. Since old Caleb had become +house-ridden, then, she had been, without books. He nodded assent to +her request. + +"If I do not say very much, you will understand, nevertheless, how +grateful I am," she continued. "To-day, the sun has shone. Whatever +your thoughts may have been, Donald, you controlled your face and you +were decent enough not to say, 'Poor Nan.'" + +He had no answer to that. He was conscious only of standing helpless +in the midst of a terrible tragedy. His heart ached with pity for her, +and just for old sake's sake, for a tender sentiment for lost youth +and lost happiness of the old comradely days when she had been +Cinderella and he the prince, he wished that he might take her in a +fraternal embrace and let her cry out on his breast the agony that +gnawed at her heart like a worm in an apple. But it was against his +code to indicate to her by word or action that she was less worthy +than other women and hence to be pitied, for it seemed to him that her +burden was already sufficient. + +"Let me know if those people return to annoy you, Nan," was all he +said. Then they shook hands very formally, and the young laird of Tyee +returned to the mill-office to report to Andrew Daney that the Sawdust +Pile had been cleaned out, but that, for the present at least, they +would get along with the old drying-yard. + +Somehow, the day came to an end, and he went home with tumult in his +soul. + + + + +VII + + +An unerring knowledge of men in general and of his own son in +particular indicated to Hector McKaye, upon the instant that the +latter appeared at the family dinner-table, that his son's first day +in command had had a sobering effect upon that young man. He had gone +forth that morning whistling, his eyes alert with interest and +anticipation; and a feeling of profound contentment had come to The +Laird as he watched Donald climb into his automobile and go briskly +down the cliff highway to Port Agnew. Here was no unwilling exile, +shackled by his father's dollars to a backwoods town and condemned to +labor for the term of his natural life. Gladly, eagerly, it seemed to +Hector McKaye, his son was assuming his heritage, casting aside, +without one longing backward glance, a brighter, busier, and more +delightful world. + +Although his son's new arena of action was beautiful and The Laird +loved it with a passionate love, he was sufficiently imaginative to +realize that, in Port Agnew, Donald might not be as happy as had been +his father. Old Hector was sufficiently unselfish to have harbored no +resentment had this been so. It had been his one anxiety that Donald +might take his place in the business as a matter of duty to himself +rather than as a duty to his father, and because he had found his +lifework and was approaching it with joy, for The Laird was +philosopher enough to know that labor without joy is as dead-sea +fruit. Indeed, before the first day of his retirement had passed, he +had begun to suspect that joy without labor was apt to be something +less than he had anticipated. + +The Laird observed in his son's eyes, as the latter took his place at +table, a look that had not been there when Donald left for the mill +that morning. His usually pleasant, "Evening, folks!" was perfunctory +to-night; he replied briefly to the remarks addressed to him by his +mother and sisters; the old man noted not less than thrice a slight +pause with the spoon half-way to his mouth, as if his son considered +some problem more important than soup. Mrs. McKaye and the girls +chattered on, oblivious of these slight evidences of mental +perturbation, but as The Laird carved the roast (he delighted in +carving and serving his family, and was old-fashioned enough to insist +upon his right, to the distress of the girls, who preferred to have +the roast carved in the kitchen and served by the Japanese butler), he +kept a contemplative eye upon his son, and presently saw Donald heave +a slight sigh. + +"Here's a titbit you always liked, son!" he cried cheerfully, and +deftly skewered from the leg of lamb the crisp and tender tail. +"Confound you, Donald; I used to eat these fat, juicy little lamb's +tails while you were at college, but I suppose, now, I'll have to +surrender that prerogative along with the others." In an effort to be +cheerful and distract his son's thoughts, he attempted this homely +badinage. + +"I'll give you another little tale in return, dad," Donald replied, +endeavoring to meet his father's cheerful manner. "While we were away, +a colony of riffraff from Darrow jumped old Caleb Brent's Sawdust +Pile, and Daney was weak enough to let them get away with it. I'm +somewhat surprised. Daney knew your wishes in the matter; if he had +forgotten them, he might have remembered mine, and if he had forgotten +both, it would have been the decent thing to have thrown them out on +his own responsibility." + +So that was what lay at the bottom of his son's perturbation! The +Laird was relieved. + +"Andrew's a good man, but he always needed a leader, Donald," he +replied. "If he didn't lack initiative, he would have been his own man +long ago. I hope you did not chide him for it, lad." + +"No; I did not. He's old enough to be my father, and, besides, he's +been in the Tyee Lumber Company longer than I. I did itch to give him +a rawhiding, though." + +"I saw smoke and excitement down at the Sawdust Pile this morning, +Donald. I dare say you rectified Andrew's negligence." + +"I did. The Sawdust Pile is as clean as a hound's tooth." + +Jane looked up from her plate. + +"I hope you sent that shameless Brent girl away, too," she announced, +with the calm attitude of one whose own virtue is above reproach. + +Donald glared at her. + +"Of course I did not!" he retorted. "How thoroughly unkind and +uncharitable of you, Jane, to hope I would be guilty of such a cruel +and unmanly action!" + +The Laird waved his carving-knife. + +"Hear, hear!" he chuckled. "Spoken like a man, my son. Jane, my dear, +if I were you, I wouldn't press this matter further. It's a delicate +subject." + +"I'm sure I do not see why Jane should not be free to express her +opinion, Hector." Mrs. McKaye felt impelled to fly to the defense of +her daughter. "You know as well as we do, Hector, that the Brent girl +is quite outside the pale of respectable society." + +"We shall never agree on what constitutes 'respectable society,' +Nellie," The Laird answered whimsically. "There are a few in that +Seattle set of yours I find it hard to include in that category." + +"Oh, they're quite respectable, father," Donald protested. + +"Indeed they are, Donald! Hector, you amaze me," Mrs. McKaye chided. + +"They have too much money to be anything else," Donald added, and +winked at his father. + +"Tush, tush, lad!" the old man murmured. "We shall get nowhere with +such arguments. The world has been at that line of conversation for +two thousand years, and the issue's still in doubt. Nellie, will you +have a piece of the well-done?" + +"You and your father are never done joining forces against me," Mrs. +McKaye protested, and in her voice was the well-known note that +presaged tears should she be opposed further. The Laird, all too +familiar with this truly feminine type of tyranny, indicated to his +son, by a lightning wink, that he desired the conversation diverted +into other channels, whereupon Donald favored his mother with a +disarming smile. + +"I'm going to make a real start to-morrow morning, mother," he +announced brightly. "I'm going up in the woods and be a lumberjack for +a month. Going to grow warts on my hands and chew tobacco and develop +into a brawny roughneck." + +"Is that quite necessary?" Elizabeth queried, with a slight elevation +of her eyebrows. "I understood you were going to manage the business." + +"I am--after I've learned it thoroughly, Lizzie." + +"Don't call me 'Lizzie,'" she warned him irritably. + +"Very well, Elizabeth." + +"In simple justice to those people from Darrow that you evicted from +the Sawdust Pile, Don, you should finish your work before you go. If +they were not fit to inhabit the Sawdust Pile, then neither is Nan +Brent. You've got to play fair." Jane had returned to the attack. + +"Look here, Jane," her brother answered seriously: "I wish you'd +forget Nan Brent. She's an old and very dear friend of mine, and I do +not like to hear my friends slandered." + +"Oh, indeed!" Jane considered this humorous, and indulged herself in a +cynical laugh. + +"Friend of his?" Elizabeth, who was regarded in her set as a wit, a +reputation acquired by reason of the fact that she possessed a certain +knack for adapting slang humorously (for there was no originality to +her alleged wit), now bent her head and looked at her brother +incredulously. "My word! That's a rich dish." + +"Why, Donald dear," his mother cried reproachfully, "surely you are +jesting!" + +"Not at all. Nan Brent isn't a bad girl, even if she is the mother of +a child born out of wedlock. She stays at home and minds her own +business, and lets others mind theirs." + +"Donald's going to be tragic. See if he isn't," Elizabeth declared. +"Come now, old dear; if Nan Brent isn't a bad woman, just what is your +idea of what constitutes badness in a woman? It would be interesting +to know your point of view." + +"Nan Brent was young, unsophisticated, poor, and trusting when she met +this fellow, whoever he may be. He wooed her, and she loved him--or +thought she did, which amounts to the same thing until one discovers +the difference between thinking and feeling. At first, she thought she +was married to him. Later, she discovered she was not--and then it was +too late." + +"It wouldn't have been too late with some--er--good people," The Laird +remarked meaningly. + +"In other words," Donald went on, "Nan Brent found herself out on +the end of a limb, and then the world proceeded to saw off the limb. +It is true that she is the mother of an illegitimate child, but +if that child was not--at least in so far as its mother _is_ +concerned--conceived in sin, I say it isn't illegitimate, and that +its mother is not a bad woman." + +"Granted--if it's true; but how do you know it to be true?" Jane +demanded. She had a feeling that she was about to get the better of +her brother in this argument. + +"I do not _know_ it to be true, Jane." + +"_Voilà!"_ + +"But--I believe it to be true, Jane." + +"Why?" + +"Because Nan told her father it was true, and old Caleb told me when I +was at his house this morning. So I believe it. And I knew Nan Brent +when she was a young girl, and she was sweet and lovely and virtuous. +I talked with her this morning, and found no reason to change my +previous estimate of her. I could only feel for her a profound pity." + +"'Pity is akin to love,'" Elizabeth quoted gaily. "Mother, keep an eye +on your little son. He'll be going in for settlement-work in Port +Agnew first thing we know." + +"Hush, Elizabeth!" her mother cried sharply. She was highly +scandalized at such levity. The Laird salted and peppered his food and +said nothing. "Your attitude is very manly and sweet, dear," Mrs. +McKaye continued, turning to her son, for her woman's intuition warned +her that, if the discussion waxed warmer, The Laird would take a hand +in it, and her side would go down to inglorious defeat, their +arguments flattened by the weight of Scriptural quotations. She had a +feeling that old Hector was preparing to remind them of Mary Magdalen +and the scene in the temple. "I would much rather hear you speak a +good word for that unfortunate girl than have you condemn her." + +"A moment ago," her son reminded her, with some asperity, for he was +sorely provoked, "you were demanding the right of free speech for +Jane, in order that she might condemn her. Mother, I fear me you're +not quite consistent." + +"We will not discuss it further, dearie. It is not a matter of such +importance that we should differ to the point of becoming acrimonious. +Besides, it's a queer topic for dinner-table conversation." + +"So say we all of us," Elizabeth struck in laconically. "Dad, will you +please help me to some of the well-done?" + +"Subjects," old Hector struck in, "which, twenty years ago, only the +family doctor was supposed to be familiar with or permitted to discuss +are now being agitated in women's clubs, books, newspapers, and the +public schools. You can't smother sin or the facts of life unless they +occur separately. In the case of Nan Brent they have developed +coincidently; so we find it hard to regard her as normal and human." + +"Do you condone her offense, Hector?" Mrs. McKaye demanded +incredulously. + +"I am a firm believer in the sacredness of marriage, I cannot conceive +of a civilization worth while without it," The Laird declared +earnestly. "Nevertheless, while I know naught of Nan Brent's case, +except that which is founded on hearsay evidence, I can condone her +offense because I can understand it. She might have developed into a +far worse girl than it appears from Donald's account she is. At least, +Nellie, she bore her child and cherishes it, and, under the rules of +society as we play it, that required a kind of courage in which a +great many girls are deficient. Give her credit for that." + +"Apparently she has been frank," Elizabeth answered him coolly. "On +the other hand, father McKaye, her so-called courage may have been +ignorance or apathy or cowardice or indifference. It all depends on +her point of view." + +"I disagree with mother that it is not a matter of importance," Donald +persisted. "It is a matter of supreme importance to me that my mother +and sisters should not feel more charity toward an unfortunate member +of their sex; and I happen to know that it is a matter of terrible +importance to Nan Brent that in Port Agnew people regard her as +unclean and look at her askance. And because that vacillating old +Daney didn't have the courage to fly in the face of Port Agnew's +rotten public opinion, he subjected Nan Brent and her helpless old +father to the daily and nightly association of depraved people. If +_he_ should dare to say one word against" + +"Oh, it wasn't because Andrew was afraid of public opinion, lad," +Hector McKaye interrupted him dryly. "Have you no power o'deduction? +Twas his guid wife that stayed his hand, and well I know it." + +"I dare say, dad," Donald laughed. "Yes; I suppose I'll have to +forgive him." + +"She'll be up to-morrow, my dear, to discuss the matter with you," The +Laird continued, turning to his wife. "I know her well. Beware of +expressing an opinion to her." And he bent upon all the women of his +household a smoldering glance. + +Apparently, by mutual consent, the subject was dropped forthwith. +Donald's silence throughout the remainder of the meal was portentous, +however, and Mrs. McKaye and her daughters were relieved when, the +meal finished at last, they could retire with good grace and leave +father and son to their cigars. + +"Doesn't it beat hell?" Donald burst forth suddenly, apropos of +nothing. + +"It does, laddie." + +"I wonder why?" + +The Laird was in a philosophical mood. He weighed his answer +carefully. + +"Because people prefer to have their thoughts manufactured for them; +because fanatics and hypocrites have twisted the heart out of the +Christian religion in the grand scramble for priority in the 'Who's +Holier than Who' handicap; because people who earnestly believe that +God knows their inmost thoughts cannot refrain from being human and +trying to put one over on Him." He smoked in silence for a minute, his +calm glance on the ceiling. "Now that you are what you are, my son," +he resumed reflectively, "you'll begin to know men and women. They who +never bothered to seek your favor before will fight for it now--they +do the same thing with God Almighty, seeking to win his favor by +outdoing him in the condemnation of sin. A woman's virtue, lad, is her +main barricade against the world; in the matter of that, women are a +close corporation. Man, how they do stand together! Their virtue's the +shell that protects them, and when one of them leaves her shell or +loses it, the others assess her out of the close corporation, for +she's a minority stockholder." + +"Mother and the girls are up to their eyebrows in the work of an +organization in Seattle designed to salvage female delinquents," +Donald complained. "I can't understand their attitude." + +Old Hector hooted. + +"They don't do the salvaging. Not a bit of it! That unpleasant work is +left to others, and the virtuous and respectable merely pay for it. +Ken ye not, boy, 'twas ever the habit of people of means to patronize +and coddle the lowly. If they couldn't do that, where would be the fun +of being rich? Look in the Seattle papers. Who gets the advertising +out of a charity ball if it isn't the rich? They organize it and they +put it over, with the public paying for a look at them, and they +attending the ball on complimentary tickets, although I will admit +that when the bills are paid and the last shred of social triumph has +been torn from the affair, the Bide-a-Wee Home for Unmarried Mothers +can have what's left--and be damned to them." + +Donald laughed quietly. + +"Scotty, you're developing into an iconoclast. If your fellow +plutocrats should hear you ranting in that vein, they'd call you a +socialist." + +"Oh, I'm not saying there aren't a heap of exceptions. Many's the +woman with a heart big enough to mother the world, although, when +all's said and done; 'tis the poor that are kind to the poor, the +unfortunate that can appreciate and forgive misfortune. I'm glad you +stood by old Brent and his girl," he added approvingly. + +"I intend to accord her the treatment which a gentleman always accords +the finest lady in the land, dad." + +"Or the lowest, my son. I've noticed that kind are not altogether +unpopular with our finest gentlemen. Donald, I used to pray to God +that I wouldn't raise a fool. I feel that he's answered my prayers, +but if you should ever turn hypocrite, I'll start praying again." + + + + +VIII + + +Donald left the following morning in the automobile for the +logging-camps up-river, and because of his unfamiliarity with their +present location, his father's chauffeur drove him up. He was to be +gone all week, but planned to return Saturday afternoon to spend +Sunday with his family. + +As the car wound up the narrow river road, Donald found himself +thinking of Nan Brent and her tragedy. Since his visit to the Sawdust +Pile the day before, two pictures of her had persisted in his memory, +every detail of both standing forth distinctly. + +In the first, she was a shabby, barelegged girl of thirteen, standing +in the cockpit of his sloop, holding the little vessel on its course +while he and old Caleb took a reef in the mainsail. The wilderness of +gold that was her uncared-for hair blew behind her like a sunny +burgee; her sea-blue eyes were fixed on the mainsail, out of which she +adroitly spilled the wind at the proper moment, in order that Donald +and her father might haul the reef-points home and make them fast. In +his mind's eye, he could see the pulse beating in her throat as they +prepared to come about, for on such occasions she always became +excited; he saw again the sweet curve of her lips and her uplifted +chin; he heard again her shrill voice crying, "Ready, about!" and saw +the spokes spin as she threw the helm over and crouched from the +swinging boom, although it cleared her pretty head by at least three +feet. He listened again to her elfin laugh as she let the sloop fall +off sufficiently to take the lip of a comber over the starboard +counter and force Donald and her father to seek shelter from the spray +in the lee of the mainsail, from which sanctuary, with more laughter, +she presently routed them by causing the spray to come in over the +port counter. + +The other picture was the pose in which he had seen her the morning +previous at the Sawdust Pile, when, to hide her emotion, she had half +turned from him and gazed so forlornly out across the Bight of Tyee. +It had struck him then, with peculiar force, that Nan Brent never +again would laugh that joyous elfin laugh of other days. He had seen +the pulse beating in her creamy neck again--a neck fuller, rounder, +glorious with the beauty of fully developed womanhood. And the riot of +golden hair was subdued, with the exception of little wayward wisps +that whipped her white temples. Her eyes, somewhat darker now, like +the sea near the horizon after the sun has set but while the glory of +the day still lingers, were bright with unshed tears. The sweet curves +of her mouth were drawn in pain. The northwest trade-wind blowing +across the bight had whipped her gingham dress round her, revealing +the soft curves of a body, the beauty of which motherhood had +intensified rather than diminished. Thus she had stood, the outcast of +Port Agnew, and beside her the little badge of her shame, demanding +the father he had never known and would never see. + +The young laird of Tyee wondered what sort of man could have done this +thing--this monumental wickedness. His great fists were clenched as +there welled within him a black rage at the scoundrel who had so +wantonly wrecked that little home on the Sawdust Pile. He wondered, +with the arrogance of his years, assuming unconsciously the right of +special privilege, if Nan would ever reveal to him the identity of the +villain. Perhaps, some day, in a burst of confidence, she might. Even +if she did tell him, what could he do? To induce the recreant lover to +marry her openly and legally would, he knew, be the world's way of +"righting the wrong" and giving the baby a name, but the mischief had +been done too long, and could never be undone unless, indeed, a +marriage certificate, with proper dating, could be flaunted in the +face of an iconoclastic and brutal world. Even then, there would +remain that astute and highly virtuous few who would never cease to +impart in whispers the information that, no matter what others might +think, _they_ had their doubts. He was roused from his bitter +cogitations by the chauffeur speaking. + +"This is Darrow, Mr. Donald. I don't believe you've seen it, have you? +Darrow put in his mill and town while you were away." + +Donald looked over the motley collection of shacks as the automobile +rolled down the single unpaved street. + +"Filthy hole," he muttered. "Hello! There's one of my late friends +from the Sawdust Pile." + +A woman, standing in the open door of a shanty on the outskirts of the +town had made a wry face and thrust out her tongue at him. He lifted +his hat gravely, whereat she screamed a curse upon him. An instant +later, an empty beer-bottle dropped with a crash in the tonneau, and +Donald, turning, beheld in the door of a Darrow groggery one of the +Greek fishermen He had dispossessed. + +"Stop the car!" Donald commanded. "I think that man wants to discuss a +matter with me." + +"Sorry, sir, but I don't think it's wise to obey you just now," his +father's chauffeur answered, and trod on the accelerator. "They call +that place the 'Bucket of Blood,' and you'll need something more than +your fists if you expect to enter there and come out under your own +power." + +"Very well. Some other time, perhaps." + +"You don't appear to be popular in Darrow, Mr. Donald." + +"Those people left the Sawdust Pile yesterday--in a hurry," Donald +explained. "Naturally, they're still resentful." + +"They were making quite a little money down there, I believe. Folks do +say business was good, and when you take money from that kind of +cattle you make a worth-while enemy. If I were you, sir, I'd watch my +step in dark alleys, and I'd carry a gun." + +"When I have to carry a gun to protect myself from vermin like that +mulatto and those shifty little Greeks, I'll be a few years older than +I am now, Henry. However, I suppose I'd be foolish to neglect your +warning to mind my step." + +He spent a busy week in the woods, and it was his humor to spend it +entirely felling trees. The tough, experienced old choppers welcomed +him with keen interest and played freeze-out each night in the +bunk-houses to see which one should draw him for a partner next day; +for the choppers worked in pairs, likewise the cross-cut men. Their +bucolic sense of humor impelled the choppers to speed up when they +found themselves paired with the new boss, for it would have been a +feather in the cap of the man who could make him quit or send him home +at nightfall "with his tail dragging," as the woods boss expressed it. + +Donald sported a wondrous set of blisters at the close of that first +day, but after supper he opened them, covered them with adhesive tape, +and went back to work next morning as if nothing had happened. During +those five days, he learned considerable of the art of dropping a tree +exactly where he desired it, and bringing it to earth without +breakage. He rode down to Port Agnew with the woods crew on the last +log-train Saturday night, walked into the mill office, and cashed in +his time-slip for five days' work as a chopper. He had earned two +dollars a day and his board and lodging. His father, who had driven +into town to meet him, came to the window and watched him humorously. + +"So that's the way you elect to work it, eh?" he queried. "I told +Daney to pay you my salary when I quit." + +"I like to feel that I'm earning my stipend," Donald replied, "so it +pleases me to draw the wages of the job I'm working at. When I'm +thoroughly acquainted with all the jobs in the Tyee Lumber Company, or +at least have a good working knowledge of them, I think I'll be a +better boss." + +The Laird took his son's big brown hands in his and looked at the +palms. + +"I rather think I like it so," he answered. "A man whose hands have +never bled or whose back has never ached is a poor man to judge a +labor dispute. 'Twould improve you if you were a married man and had +to live on that for a week, less twenty-five cents for your hospital +dues. The choppers pay a dollar a month toward the hospital, and that +covers medical attendance for them and their families." + +Donald laughed and flipped a quarter over to the cashier, then turned +and handed ten dollars to a wiry little chopper standing in line. + +"I was feeling so good this morning I bet Sandy my week's pay I could +fell a tree quicker than he and with less breakage. He won in a walk," +he explained to The Laird. + +"Come with me," his father ordered, and led him into the office. + +From the huge safe he selected a ledger, scanned the index, and opened +it at a certain account headed, "Sandy dough." To Sandy's credit each +month, extending over a period of fifteen years, appeared a credit of +thirty dollars. + +"That's what it's costing me to have discovered Sandy," his father +informed him; "but since I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, +the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I +watched him one day when he didn't know who I was--so I figured him +for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know +it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as +much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire +him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, +my son. Now come home to dinner." + +After dinner, Donald returned to town to buy himself some +working-clothes at the general store. His purchases completed, he +sought the juvenile department. + +"I want some kid's clothing," he announced. "To fit a child of three. +Rompers, socks, shoes--the complete outfit. Charge them to my account +and send them over to Nan Brent at the Sawdust Pile. I'll give you a +note to enclose with them." + +Notwithstanding the fact that she was an employe of the Tyee Lumber +Company, the girl who waited on him stared at him frankly. He noticed +this and bent upon her a calm glance that brought a guilty flush to +her cheek. Quickly she averted her eyes, but, nevertheless she had a +feeling that the young laird of Tyee was still appraising her, and, +unable to withstand the fascination peculiar to such a situation, she +looked at him again to verify her suspicions--and it was even so. In +great confusion she turned to her stock, and Donald, satisfied that he +had squelched her completely, went into the manager's office, wrote, +and sealed the following note to Nan Brent: + + Saturday night. FRIEND NAN: + + Here are some duds for the young fellow. You gave me the right to + look after him, you know; at least, you didn't decline it. At any + rate, I think you will not mind accepting them from me. + + I sent to Seattle for some books I thought you might like. They + have probably arrived by parcel-post. Sent you a box of candy, + also, although I have forgotten the kind you used to prefer. + + Been up in the logging-camp all week, chopping, and I ache all + over. Expect to be hard and not quite so weary by next week-end, + and will call over for Sunday dinner. + + + Sincerely, DONALD McKAYE + +He spent Sunday at The Dreamerie, and at four o'clock Sunday +afternoon boarded the up train and returned to the logging-camp. Mrs. +Andrew Daney, seated in Sunday-afternoon peace upon her front veranda, +looked up from the columns of the _Churchman_ as the long string of +logging-trucks wound round the base of the little knoll upon which the +general manager's home stood; but even at a distance of two blocks, +she recognized the young laird of Tyee in the cab with the engineer. + +"Dear, dear!" this good soul murmured. "And such a nice young man, +too! I should think he'd have more consideration for his family, if +not for himself." + +"Who's that?" Mr. Daney demanded, emerging from behind the Seattle +_Post-Intelligencer_. + +"Donald McKaye." + +"What about him?" Mr. Daney demanded, with slight emphasis on the +pronoun. + +"Oh, nothing; only--" + +"Only what?" + +"People say he's unduly interested in Nan Brent." + +"If he is, that's his business. Don't let what people say trouble you, +Mrs. Daney." + +"Well, can I help it if people will talk?" + +"Yes--when they talk to you." + +"How do you know they've been talking to me, Andrew?" she demanded +foolishly. + +"Because you know what they say." Andrew Daney rose from the wicker +deck-chair in which he had been lounging and leveled his index-finger +at the partner of his joys and sorrows. "You forget Donald McKaye and +that Brent girl," he ordered. "It's none of your business. All Don has +to say to me is, 'Mr. Daney, your job is vacant'--and, by Judas +Priest, it'll be vacant. Remember that, my dear." + +"Nonsense, dear. The Laird wouldn't permit it--after all these years." + +"If it comes to a test of strength, I'll lose, and don't you forget +it. Old sake's sake is all that saved me from a run-in with Donald +before he had been in command fifteen minutes. I refer to that Sawdust +Pile episode. You dissuaded me from doing my duty in that matter, +Mary, and my laxity was not pleasing to Donald. I don't blame him a +whit." + +"Did he say anything?" she demanded, a trifle alarmed. + +"No; but he looked it." + +"How did he look, Andrew?" + +"He looked," her husband replied, "like the Blue Bonnets coming over +the border--that's what he looked like. Then he went down to the +Sawdust Pile like a raging demon, cleaned it out in two twos, and put +it to the torch. You be careful what you say to people, Mary. Get that +boy started once, and he'll hark back to his paternal ancestors; and +if The Laird has ever told you the history of that old claymore that +hangs on the wall in The Dreamerie, you know that the favorite outdoor +sports of the McKaye tribe were fighting and foot-racing--with the +other fellow in front." + +"The Laird is mild enough," she defended. + +"Yes, he is. But when he was young, he could, and frequently did, whip +twice his weight in bear-cats. Old as he is to-day, he's as sound as a +man of forty; he wouldn't budge an inch for man or devil." + +Mrs. Daney carefully folded the _Churchman_, laid it aside, and placed +her spectacles with it. + +"Andrew, I know it's terrible of me to breathe such a thing, but--did +it ever occur to you that--perhaps--the father of Nan Brent's child +might be--" + +"Donald?" he exploded incredulously. + +She nodded, and about her nod there was something of that calm +self-confidence of an attorney who is winning his case and desires to +impress that fact upon the jury. + +"By God, woman," cried Daney, "you have the most infernal ideas--" + +"Andrew! Remember it's the Sabbath!" + +"It's a wonder my language doesn't shrivel this paper. Now then, where +in hades do you get this crazy notion?" Daney was thoroughly angry. +She gazed up at him in vague apprehension. Had she gone too far? +Suddenly he relaxed. "No; don't tell me," he growled. "I'll not be a +gossip. God forgive me, I was about to befoul the very salt I eat. +I'll not be disloyal." + +"But, Andrew dear, don't you know I wouldn't dare breathe it to anyone +but you?" + +"I don't know how much you'd dare. At any rate, I'll excuse you from +breathing it to me, for I'm not interested. I know it isn't true." + +"Then, Andrew, it is your duty to tell me why you know it isn't true, +in order that I may set at rest certain rumors--" + +"You--mind--your--own--business, Mary!" he cried furiously, +punctuating each word with a vigorous tap of his finger on the arm of +her chair. "The McKayes meet their responsibilities as eagerly as they +do their enemies. If that child were young Donald's, he'd have +married the Brent girl, and if he had demurred about it, The Laird +would have ordered him to." + +"Thank you for that vote of confidence in the McKaye family, Andrew," +said a quiet voice. "I think you have the situation sized up just +right." + +Andrew Daney whirled; his wife glanced up, startled, then half rose +and settled back in her chair again, for her legs absolutely refused +to support her. Standing at the foot of the three steps that led off +the veranda was Hector McKaye! + +"I drove Donald down from The Dreamerie to catch the up train, and +thought I'd drop over and visit with you a bit," he explained. "I +didn't intend to eavesdrop, and I didn't--very much; but since I +couldn't help overhearing such a pertinent bit of conversation, I'll +come up and we'll get to the bottom of it. Keep your seat, Mrs. +Daney." + +The advice was unnecessary. The poor soul could not have left it. The +Laird perched himself on the veranda railing, handed the dumfounded +Daney a cigar, and helped himself to one. + +"Well, proceed," The Laird commanded. His words apparently were +addressed to both, but his glance was fixed on Mrs. Daney--and now she +understood full well her husband's description of the McKaye look. + +"I had finished what I had to say, Mr. McKaye," Andrew Daney found +courage to say. + +"So I noted, Andrew, and right well and forcibly you said it. I'm +grateful to you. I make no mistake, I think, if your statement wasn't +in reply to some idle tale told your good wife and repeated by her to +you--in confidence, of course, as between man and wife." + +"If you'll excuse me, Mr. McKaye, I--I'd rather not--discuss it!" +Mary Daney cried breathlessly. + +"I would I did not deem it a duty to discuss it myself, Mary. But you +must realize that when the tongue of scandal touches my son, it +becomes a personal matter with me, and I must look well for a weapon +to combat it. You'll tell me now, Mary, what they've been saying about +Donald and Caleb Brent's daughter." + +"Andrew will tell you," she almost whispered, and made as if to go. +But The Laird's fierce eyes deterred her; she quailed and sat down +again. + +"Andrew cannot tell me, because Andrew doesn't know," The Laird +rebuked her kindly. "I heard him tell you not to tell him, that he +wasn't a gossip, and wouldn't befoul the salt he ate by being +disloyal, or words to that effect. Is it possible, Mary Daney, that +you prefer me to think you are not inspired by similar sentiments? +Don't cry, Mary--compose yourself." + +"Idleness is the mother of mischief, and since the children have grown +up and left home, Mary hasn't enough to keep her busy," Daney +explained. "So, womanlike and without giving sober thought to the +matter, she's been listening to the idle chattering of other idle +women. Now then, my dear," he continued, turning to his wife, "that +suspicion you just voiced didn't grow in your head. Somebody put it +there--and God knows it found fertile soil. Out with it now, wife! +Who've you been gossiping with?" + +"I'll name no names," the unhappy woman sobbed; "but somebody told me +that somebody else was down at the Sawdust Pile the day Donald burned +those shacks, and after be burned them he spent an hour in the Brent +cottage, and when he came out he had the baby in his arms. When he +left, the child made a great to-do and called him, 'daddy.'" + +The Laird smiled. + +"Well, Mary, what would you expect the boy to do? Beat the child? To +my knowledge, he's been robbing the candy department of my general +store for years, and the tots of Port Agnew have been the +beneficiaries of his vandalism. He was born with a love of children. +And would you convict him on the prattle of an innocent child in +arms?" + +"Certainly not, Mr. McKaye. I understand. Well then, on Saturday night +he sent over a complete outfit of clothing for the child, with a note +in the bundle--" + +"Hm-m-m." + +"And then somebody remembered that the child's name is Donald." + +"How old is that child, Mrs. Daney?" + +She considered. + +"As I recall it, he'll be three years old in October." + +"Since, you're a married woman, Mrs. Daney," The Laird began, with +old-fashioned deprecation for the blunt language he was about to +employ, "you'll admit that the child wasn't found behind one of old +Brent's cabbages. This is the year 1916." + +But Mrs. Daney anticipated him. + +"They've figured it out," she interrupted, "and Donald was home from +college for the holidays in 1912." + +"So he was," The Laird replied complacently. "I'd forgotten. So that +alibi goes by the board. What else now? Does the child resemble my +son?" + +"Nobody knows. Nan Brent doesn't receive visitors, and she hasn't been +up-town since the child was born." + +"Is that all, Mary?" + +"All I have heard so far." + +Old Hector was tempted to tell her that, in his opinion, she had heard +altogether too much, but his regard for her husband caused him to +refrain. + +"It's little enough, and yet it's a great deal," he answered. "You'll +be kind enough, Mary, not to carry word of this idle gossip to The +Dreamerie, I should regret that very much." + +She flushed with the knowledge that, although he forgave her, still he +distrusted her and considered a warning necessary. However, she nodded +vigorous acceptance of his desire, and immediately he changed the +topic. While, for him, the quiet pleasure he had anticipated in the +visit had not materialized and he longed to leave at once, for Daney's +sake he remained for tea. When he departed, Mrs. Daney ran to her room +and found surcease from her distress in tears, while her husband sat +out on the veranda smoking one of The Laird's fine cigars, his +embarrassment considerably alleviated by the knowledge that his +imprudent wife had received a lesson that should last for the +remainder of her life. + +About eight o'clock, his wife called him to the telephone. The Laird +was on the wire. + +"In the matter of the indiscreet young lady in the store, Andrew," he +ordered, "do not dismiss her or reprimand her. The least said in such +cases is soonest mended." + +"Very well, sir." + +"Good-night, Andrew." + +"Good-night, sir." + +"Poor man!" Daney sighed, as he hung up. "He's thought of nothing +else since he heard about it; it's a canker in his heart. I wish I +dared indicate to Donald the fact that he's being talked about--and +watched--by the idle and curious, in order that he may bear himself +accordingly. He'd probably misunderstand my motives however." + + + + +IX + +During the week, Mary Daney refrained from broaching the subject of +that uncomfortable Sunday afternoon, wherefore her husband realized +she was thinking considerably about it and, as a result, was not +altogether happy. Had he suspected, however, the trend her thoughts +were taking, he would have been greatly perturbed. Momentous thoughts +rarely racked Mrs. Daney's placid and somewhat bovine brain, but once +she became possessed with the notion that Nan Brent was the only human +being possessed of undoubted power to create or suppress a scandal +which some queer feminine intuition warned her impended, the more +firmly did she become convinced that it was her Christian duty to call +upon Nan Brent and strive to present the situation in a common-sense +light to that erring young Woman. + +Having at length attained to this resolution, a subtle peace settled +over Mrs. Daney, the result, doubtless, of a consciousness of virtue +regained, since she was about to right a wrong to which she had so +thoughtlessly been a party. Her decision had almost been reached when +her husband, coming home for luncheon at noon on Saturday, voiced the +apprehension which had harassed him during the week. + +"Donald will be home from the woods to-night," he announced, in +troubled tones. "I do hope he'll not permit that big heart of his to +lead him into further kindnesses that will be misunderstood by +certain people in case they hear of them. I have never known a man so +proud and fond of a son as The Laird is of Donald." + +"Nonsense!" his wife replied complacently. "The Laird has forgotten +all about it." + +"Perhaps. Nevertheless, he will watch his son, and if, by any chance, +the boy should visit the Sawdust Pile--" + +"Then it will be time enough to worry about him, Andrew. In the +meantime, it's none of our business, dear. Eat your luncheon and don't +think about it." + +He relapsed into moody silence. When he had departed for the mill +office, however, his wife's decision had been reached. Within the hour +she was on her way to the Sawdust Pile, but as she approached Caleb +Brent's garden gate, she observed, with a feeling of gratification, +that, after all, it was not going to be necessary for her to be seen +entering the house or leaving it. Far up the strand she saw a woman +and a little child sauntering. + +Nan Brent looked up at the sound of footsteps crunching the shingle, +identified Mrs. Daney at a glance, and turned her head instantly, at +the same time walking slowly away at right angles, in order to obviate +a meeting. To her surprise, Mrs. Daney also changed her course, and +Nan, observing this out of the corner of her eye, dropped her apronful +of driftwood and turned to face her visitor. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Brent. May I speak to you for a few minutes?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Daney." + +Mrs. Daney nodded condescendingly and sat down on the white sand. + +"Be seated, Miss Brent, if you please." + +"Well, perhaps if we sit down, we will be less readily recognized at a +distance." Nan replied smilingly, and was instantly convinced that she +had read her visitor's mind aright, for Mrs. Daney flushed slightly. +"Suppose," the girl suggested gently, "that you preface what you have +to say by calling me 'Nan.' You knew me well enough to call me that in +an earlier and happier day, Mrs. Daney." + +"Thank you, Nan. I shall accept your invitation and dispense with +formality." She hesitated for a beginning, and Nan, observing her +slight embarrassment, was gracious enough to aid her by saying: + +"I dare say your visit has something to do with the unenviable social +position in which I find myself in Port Agnew, Mrs. Daney, for I +cannot imagine any other possible interest in me to account for it. So +you may be quite frank. I'm sure nothing save a profound sense of duty +brought you here, and I am prepared to listen." This was a degree of +graciousness the lady had not anticipated, and it put her at her ease +immediately. + +"I've called to talk to you about Donald McKaye," she began abruptly. + +"At the solicitation of whom?" + +"Nobody." Mrs. Daney sighed. "It was just an idea of mine." + +"Ah--I think I prefer it that way. Proceed, Mrs. Daney." + +"Young Mr. McKaye is unduly interested in you, Nan--at least, that is +the impression of a number of people in Port Agnew." + +"I object to the use of the adverb 'unduly' in connection with Mr. +Donald's interest in my father and me. But no matter. Since Port Agnew +has no interest in me, pray why, Mrs. Daney, should I have the +slightest interest in the impressions of these people you refer to and +whose volunteer representative you appear to be?" + +"There! I knew you would be offended!" Mrs. Daney cried, with a +deprecatory shrug. "I'm sure I find this a most difficult matter to +discuss, and I assure you, I do not desire to appear offensive." + +"Well, you are; but I can stand it, and whether I resent it or not +cannot be a matter of much import to you or the others. And I'll try +not to be disagreeable. Just why did you come to see me, Mrs. Daney?" + +"I might as well speak plainly, Miss Brent. Donald McKaye's action in +ridding the Sawdust Pile of your neighbors has occasioned comment. It +appears that this was his first official act after assuming his +father's place in the business. Then he visited you and your father +for an hour, and your child, whom it appears you have named Donald, +called him 'daddy.' Then, last Saturday night, Mr. McKaye sent over +some clothing for the boy--" + +"Whereupon the amateur detectives took up the trail," Nan interrupted +bitterly. "And you heard of it immediately." + +"His father heard of it also," Mrs. Daney continued. "It worries him." + +"It should not. He should have more faith in his son, Mrs. Daney." + +"He is a father, my dear, very proud of his son, very devoted to him, +and fearfully ambitious for Donald's future." + +"And you fear that I may detract from the radiance of that future? Is +that it?" + +"In plain English," the worthy lady replied brutally, "it is." + +"I see your point of view very readily, Mrs. Daney. Your apprehensions +are ridiculous--almost pathetic, Don McKaye's great sympathy is alone +responsible for his hardihood in noticing me, and he is so much too +big for Port Agnew that it is no wonder his motives are misunderstood. +However, I am sorry his father is worried. We have a very great +respect for The Laird; indeed, we owe him a debt of gratitude, and +there is nothing my father or I would not do to preserve his peace of +mind." + +"The talk will die out, of course, unless something should occur to +revive it, Miss Brent--I mean, Nan. But it would be just like Donald +McKaye to start a revival of this gossip. He doesn't care a farthing +for what people think or say, and he is too young to realize that one +_must_ pay _some_ attention to public opinion. You realize that, of +course." + +"I ought to, Mrs. Daney. I think I have had some experience of public +opinion," Nan replied sadly. + +"Then, should Donald McKaye's impulsive sympathy lead him to--er--" + +"You mean that I am to discourage him in the event--" + +"Precisely, Miss Brent. For his father's sake." + +"Not to mention your husband's position. Precisely, Mrs. Daney." + +Mary Daney's heart fluttered. + +"I have trusted to your honor, Nan--although I didn't say so in the +beginning--not to mention my visit or this interview to a living +soul." + +"My 'honor!'" Nan's low, bitter laugh raked the Daney nerves like a +rasp. "I think, Mrs. Daney, that I may be depended upon to follow my +own inclinations in this matter. I suspect you have been doing some +talking yourself and may have gone too far, with the result that you +are hastening now, by every means in your power, to undo whatever +harm, real or fancied, has grown out of your lack of charity." + +"Nan, I beg of you--" + +"Don't! You have no right to beg anything of me. I am not +unintelligent and neither am I degraded. I think I possess a far +keener conception of my duty than do you or those whom you have +elected to represent; hence I regard this visit as an unwarranted +impertinence. One word from me to Donald McKaye--" + +Terror smote the Samaritan. She clasped her hands; her lips were pale +and trembling. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear," she pleaded, "you wouldn't breathe a word to +him, would you? Promise me you'll say nothing. How could I face my +husband if--if--" She began to weep. + +"I shall promise nothing," Nan replied sternly. + +"But I only came for his father's sake, you cruel girl!" + +"Perhaps his father's case is safer in my hands than in yours, Mrs. +Daney, and safest of all in those of his son." + +The outcast of Port Agnew rose, filled her apron with the driftwood +she had gathered, and called to her child. As the little fellow +approached, Mrs. Daney so far forgot her perturbation as to look at +him keenly and decide, eventually, that he bore not the faintest +resemblance to Donald McKaye. + +"I'm sure, Nan, you will not be heartless enough to tell Donald McKaye +of my visit to you," she pleaded, as the girl started down the beach. + +"You have all the assurance of respectability, dear Mrs. Daney," Nan +answered carelessly. + +"You shall not leave me until you promise to be silent!" Mary Daney +cried hysterically, and rose to follow her. + +"I think you had better go, Mrs. Daney. I am quite familiar with the +figure of The Laird since his retirement; he walks round the bight +with his dogs every afternoon for exercise, and, if I am not greatly +mistaken, that is he coming down the beach." + +Mrs. Daney cast a terrified glance in the direction indicated. A few +hundred yards up the beach she recognized The Laird, striding briskly +along, swinging his stick, and with his two English setters romping +beside him. With a final despairing "Please Nan; please do not be +cruel!" she fled, Nan Brent smiling mischievously after her stout +retreating form. + +"I have condemned you to the horrors of uncertainty," the girl +soliloquized. "How very, very stupid you are, Mrs. Daney, to warn me +to protect him! As if I wouldn't lay down my life to uphold his honor! +Nevertheless, you dear old bungling busybody, you are absolutely +right, although I suspect no altruistic reason carried you forth on +this uncomfortable errand." + +Nan had heretofore, out of the bitterness of her life, formed the +opinion that brickbats were for the lowly, such as she, and bouquets +solely for the great, such as Donald McKaye. Now, for the first time, +she realized that human society is organized in three strata--high, +mediocre, and low, and that when a mediocrity has climbed to the seats +of the mighty, his fellows strive to drag him back, down to their own +ignoble level--or lower. To Nan, child of poverty, sorrow, and +solitude, the world had always appeared more or less incomprehensible, +but this afternoon, as she retraced her slow steps to the Sawdust +Pile, the old dull pain of existence had become more complicated and +acute with the knowledge that the first ray of sunlight that had +entered her life in three years was about to be withdrawn; and at the +thought, tears, which seemed to well from her heart rather than from +her eyes, coursed down her cheeks and a sob broke through her clenched +lips. + +Her progress homeward, what with the heavy bundle of driftwood, in her +apron impeding her stride, coupled with the necessity for frequent +pauses to permit her child to catch up with her, was necessarily +slow--so slow, in fact, that presently she heard quick footsteps +behind her and, turning, beheld Hector McKaye. He smiled, lifted his +hat, and greeted her pleasantly. + +"Good-afternoon, Miss Nan. That is a heavy burden of driftwood you +carry, my dear. Here--let me relieve you of it. I've retired, you +know, and the necessity for finding something to do--Bless my soul, +the girl's crying!" He paused, hat in hand, and gazed at her with +frank concern. She met his look bravely. + +"Thank you, Mr. McKaye. Please do not bother about it." + +"Oh, but I shall bother," he answered. "Remove your apron, girl, and +I'll tie the wood up in it and carry it home for you." + +Despite her distress, she smiled. + +"You're such an old-fashioned gentleman," she replied. "So very much +like your son--I mean, your son is so very much like you." + +"That's better. I think I enjoy the compliment more when you put it +that way," he answered. "Do not stand there holding the wood, my girl. +Drop it." + +She obeyed and employed her right hand, thus freed, in wiping the +telltale tears from her sweet face. + +"I have been lax in neighborly solicitude," The Laird continued. "I +must send you over a supply of wood from the box factory. We have more +waste than we can use in the furnaces. Is this your little man, Nan? +Sturdy little chap, isn't he? Come here, bub, and let me heft you." + +He swung the child from the sands, and while pretending to consider +carefully the infant's weight, he searched the cherubic countenance +with a swift, appraising glance. + +"Healthy little rascal," he continued, and swung the child high in the +air two or three times, smiling paternally as the latter screamed with +delight. "How do you like that, eh?" he demanded, as he set the boy +down on the sand again. + +"Dood!" the child replied, and gazing up at The Laird yearningly. "Are +you my daddy?" + +But The Laird elected to disregard the pathetic query and busied +himself gathering up the bundle of driftwood, nor did he permit his +glance to rest upon Nan Brent's flushed and troubled face. Tucking the +bundle under one arm and taking Nan's child on the other, he whistled +to his dogs and set out for the Sawdust Pile, leaving the girl to +follow behind him. He preceded her through the gate, tossed the +driftwood on a small pile in the yard, and turned to hand her the +apron. + +"You are not altogether happy, poor girl!" he said kindly. "I'm very +sorry. I want the people in my town to be happy." + +"I shall grow accustomed to it, Mr. McKaye," Nan answered. "To-day, I +am merely a little more depressed than usual. Thank you so much for +carrying the wood. You are more than kind." + +His calm, inscrutable gray glance roved over her, noting her beauty +and her sweetness, and the soul of him was troubled. + +"Is it something you could confide in an old man?" he queried gently. +"You are much neglected, and I--I understand the thoughts that must +come to you sometimes. Perhaps you would be happier elsewhere than in +Port Agnew." + +"Perhaps," she replied dully. + +"If you could procure work--some profession to keep your mind off your +troubles--I have some property in Tacoma--suburban lots with cottages +on them." The Laird grew confused and embarrassed because of the +thought that was in the back of his mind, and was expressing himself +jerkily and in disconnected sentences. "I do not mean--I do not offer +charity, for I take it you have had enough insults--well, you and your +father could occupy one of those cottages at whatever you think you +could afford to pay, and I would be happy to advance you any funds you +might need until you--could--that is, of course, you must get on your +feet again, and you must have help--" He waved his hand. "All this +oppresses me." + +The remembrance of Mrs. Daney's interview with her prompted the girl +to flash back at him. + +"'Oppresses,' Mr. McKaye? Since when?" + +He gazed upon her in frank admiration for her audacity and +perspicacity. + +"Yes," he admitted slowly; "I dare say I deserve that. Yet, mingled +with that ulterior motive you have so unerringly discerned, there is a +genuine, if belated, desire to be decently human. I think you realize +that also." + +"I should be stupid and ungrateful did I not, Mr. McKaye. I am sorry I +spoke just now as I did, but I could not bear--" + +"To permit me to lay the flattering unction to my soul that I had +gotten away with something, eh?" he laughed, much more at his ease, +now that he realized how frank and yet how tactful she could be. + +"It wasn't quite worthy of you--not because I might resent it, for I +am nobody, but because you should have more faith in yourself and be +above the possibility of disturbance at the hands--or rather, the +tongues--of people who speak in whispers." She came close to him +suddenly and laid her hand lightly on his forearm, for she was +speaking with profound earnestness. "I am your debtor, Mr. McKaye, for +that speech you found it so hard to make just now, and for past +kindnesses from you and your son. I cannot accept your offer. I would +like to, did my pride permit, and were it not for the fact that such +happiness as is left to my father can only be found by the Bight of +Tyee. So, while he lives I shall not desert him. As for your +apprehensions"--she smiled tolerantly and whimsically--"though +flattering to me, they are quite unnecessary, and I beg you rid your +mind of them. I am--that which I am; yet I am more than I appear to be +to some and I shall not wantonly or wilfully hurt you--or yours." + +The Laird of Tyee took in both of his the slim hand that rested so +lightly on his sleeve--that dainty left hand with the long, delicate +fingers and no wedding ring. + +"My dear child," he murmured, "I feel more than I dare express. +Good-by and may God bless you and be good to you, for I fear the world +will not." He bowed with old-fashioned courtesy over her hand and +departed; yet such was his knowledge of life that now his soul was +more deeply troubled than it had been since his unintentional +eavesdropping on his manager's garrulous wife. + +"What a woman!" he reflected. "Brains, imagination, dignity, womanly +pride, courage, beauty and--yes; I agree with Donald. Neither maid, +wife nor widow is she--yet she is not, never has been, and never will +be a woman without virtue. Ah, Donald, my son, she's a bonny lass! For +all her fall, she's not a common woman and my son is not a common +man--I wonder--Oh, 'tis lies, lies, lies, and she's heard them and +knows they're lies. Ah, my son, my son, with the hot blood of youth in +you--you've a man's head and heart and a will of your own--Aye, she's +sweet--that she is--I wonder!" + + + + +X + + +At the front of Caleb Brent's little house there was a bench upon +which the old man was wont to sit on sunny days--usually in the +morning, before the brisk, cool nor'west trade-wind commenced to blow. +Following Hector McKaye's departure, Nan sought this bench until she +had sufficiently mastered her emotions to conceal from her father +evidence of a distress more pronounced than usual; as she sat there, +she revolved the situation in her mind, scanning every aspect of it, +weighing carefully every possibility. + +In common with the majority of human kind, Nan considered herself +entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and now, at a +period when, in the ordinary course of events, all three of these +necessary concomitants of successful existence (for, to her, life +meant something more than mere living) should have been hers in +bounteous measure, despite the handicap under which she had been born, +she faced a future so barren that sometimes the distant boom of the +breakers on Tyee Head called to her to desert her hopeless fight and +in the blue depths out yonder find haven from the tempests of her +soul. + +In an elder day, when the Sawdust Pile had been Port Agnew's +garbage-dump, folks who clipped their rose bushes and thinned out +their marigold plants had been accustomed to seeing these slips take +root again and bloom on the Sawdust Pile for a brief period after +their ash-cans had been emptied there; and, though she did not know +it, Nan Brent bore pitiful resemblance to these outcast flowers. Here, +on the reclaimed Sawdust Pile, she had bloomed from girlhood into +lovely womanhood--a sweet forget-me-not in the Garden of Life, she had +been transplanted into Eden until Fate, the grim gardener, had cast +her out, to take root again on the Sawdust Pile and ultimately to +wither and die. + +It is terrible for the great of soul, the ambitious, the imaginative, +when circumstances condemn them to life amid dull, uninteresting, +drab, and sometimes sordid surroundings. Born to love and be loved, +Nan Brent's soul beat against her environment even as a wild bird, +captured and loosed in a room, beats against the window-pane. From the +moment she had felt within her the vague stirrings of womanhood, she +had been wont to gaze upon the blue-back hills to the east, to the +horizon out west, wondering what mysteries lay beyond, and yearning to +encounter them. Perhaps it was the sea-faring instinct, the +_Wanderlust_ of her forebears; perhaps it was a keener appreciation of +the mediocrity of Port Agnew than others in the little town possessed, +a realization that she had more to give to life than life had to give +to her. Perhaps it had been merely the restlessness that is the twin +of a rare heritage--the music of the spheres--for with such had Nan +been born. It is hard to harken for the reedy music of Pan and hear +only the whine of a sawmill or the boom of the surf. + +Of her mother, Nan had seen but little. Her recollections of her +mother were few and vague; of her mother's people, she knew nothing +save the fact that they dwelt in a world quite free of Brents, and +that her mother had committed a distinctly social _faux pas_ in +marrying Caleb Brent she guessed long before Caleb Brent, in his brave +simplicity, had imparted that fact to her. An admiral's daughter, +descendant of an old and wealthy Revolutionary family, the males of +which had deemed any calling other than the honorable profession of +arms as beneath the blood and traditions of the family, Nan's mother +had been the pet of Portsmouth until, inexplicably, Caleb Brent, a +chief petty officer on her father's flag-ship, upon whom the hero's +medal had just been bestowed, had found favor in her eyes. The ways of +love, as all the philosophers of the ages are agreed, are beyond +definition or understanding; even in his own case, Caleb Brent was not +equal to the task of understanding how their love had grown, burgeoned +into an engagement, and ripened into marriage. He only knew that, from +a meek and well-disciplined petty officer, he had suddenly developed +the courage of a Sir Galahad, and, while under the influence of a +strange spell, had respectfully defied the admiral, who had foolishly +assumed that, even if his daughter would not obey him, his junior in +the service would. Then had come the baby girl, Nan, the +divorce--pressed by the mother's family--and the mother's death. + +If his wife had discerned in him the nobility that was so apparent to +his daughter--Poor old hero! But Nan always checked her meditations at +this point. They didn't seem quite fair to her mother. + +Seated on the bench this afternoon, Nan reviewed her life from her +sixth year, the year in which her father had claimed her. Until her +eighteenth year, she had not been unhappy, for, following their +arrival in Port Agnew, her father had prospered to a degree which +permitted his daughter the enjoyment of the ordinary opportunities of +ordinary people. If she had not known extravagance in the matter of +dress, neither had she known penury; when her feminine instinct +impelled her to brighten and beautify the little home on the Sawdust +Pile from time to time, she had found that possible. She had been +graduated with honors from the local high school, and, being a +book-lover of catholic taste and wide range, she was, perhaps, more +solidly educated than the majority of girls who have had opportunities +for so-called higher education. With the broad democracy of sawmill +towns, she had not, in the days gone by, been excluded from the social +life of the town, such as it was, and she had had her beaus, such as +they were. Sometimes she wondered how the choir in the Presbyterian +church had progressed since she, once the mezzo-soprano soloist, had +resigned to sing lullabys to a nameless child, if Andrew Daney still +walked on the tips of his shoes when he passed the collection-plate, +and if the mortgage on the church had ever been paid. + +She rose wearily and entered the little house. Old Caleb sat at the +dining-room table playing solitaire. He looked up as she entered, +swept the cards into a heap and extended his old arm to encircle her +waist as she sat on the broad arm of his chair. She drew his gray head +down on her breast. + +"Dadkins," she said presently, "Donald McKaye isn't coming to dinner +to-morrow after all." + +"Oh, that's too bad, Nan! Has he written you? What's happened?" + +"No; he hasn't written me, and nothing's happened. I have decided to +send him word not to come." + +[Illustration: SHE STOLE TO THE OLD SQUARE PIANO AND SANG FOR HIM.] + +"Aren't you feeling well, my dear?" + +"It isn't that, popsy-wops. He's the new laird of Tyee now, and he +must be careful of the company he keeps." + +Old Caleb growled in his throat. + +"Much he cares what people think." + +"I know it. And much I care what people think, for I've grown +accustomed to their thoughts. But I do care what his father thinks, +for, of course, he has plans for Donald's future, and if Donald, out +of the kindness of his heart, should become a frequent visitor here, +The Laird would hear of it sooner or later--sooner, perhaps, for it +would never occur to Donald to conceal it--and then the poor laird +would be worried. And we don't owe The Laird that, father Brent!" + +"No; we do not." The old face was troubled. + +"I met Mrs. Daney on the beach, and it was she who gave me the +intimation that The Laird had heard some cruel gossip that was +disturbing him." + +"I'm sorry. Well, use your own judgment, daughter." + +"I'm sure Donald will understand," she assured him. "And he will not +think the less of us for doing it." + +She got up and went to the peculiar and wholly impractical little desk +which Mrs. McKaye had picked up in Italy and which Donald, calm in the +knowledge that his mother would never use it or miss it, had given her +to help furnish the house when first they had come to the Sawdust +Pile. On a leaf torn from a tablet, she wrote: + + THE SAWDUST PILE, Saturday Afternoon. + + DEAR DONALD: + + I had planned to reserve my thanks for the books and the candy + until you called for dinner to-morrow. Now, I have decided that + it will be better for you not to come to dinner to-morrow, + although this decision has not been made without father and me + being sensible of a keen feeling of disappointment. We had + planned to sacrifice an old hen that has outlived her margin of + profit, hoping that, with the admixture of a pinch of saleratus, + she would prove tender enough to tempt the appetite of a + lumberjack, but, upon sober second thought, it seems the part of + wisdom to let her live. + + We honor and respect you, Donald. You are so very dear to us that + we wish to cherish always your good opinion of us; we want + everybody in Port Agnew to think of you as we do. People will + misunderstand and misconstrue your loyalty to the old friends of + your boyhood if you dare admit your friendship. Indeed, some have + already done so. I thank you for the books and the candy, but + with all my heart I am grateful to you for a gift infinitely more + precious but which is too valuable for me to accept. I shall have + to treasure it at a distance. Sometimes, at colors, you might + wave to + + + Your old friend, + + NAN BRENT. + +Her letter completed, she sealed it in a plain white envelop, after +which she changed into her best dress and shoes and departed up-town. + +Straight to the mill office of the Tyee Lumber Company she went, her +appearance outside the railing in the general office being the signal +for many a curious and speculative glance from the girls and young men +at work therein. One of the former, with whom Nan had attended high +school, came over to the railing and, without extending a greeting, +either of word or smile, asked, in businesslike tones, + +"Whom do you wish to see?" + +In direct contrast with this cool salutation, Nan inclined her head +graciously and smilingly said: + +"Why, how do you do, Hetty? I wonder if I might be permitted a minute +of Mr. Daney's time." + +"I'll see," Hetty replied, secretly furious in the knowledge that she +had been serenely rebuked, and immediately disappeared in the general +manager's office. A moment later, she emerged. "Mr. Daney will see +you, Miss Brent," she announced. "First door to your right. Go right +in." + +"Thank you very much, Hetty." + +Andrew Daney, seated at a desk, stood up as she entered. + +"How do you do, Nan?" he greeted her, with masculine cordiality, and +set out a chair. "Please be seated and tell me what I can do to oblige +you." + +A swift scrutiny of the private office convinced her that they were +alone; so she advanced to the desk and laid upon it the letter she had +addressed to Donald McKaye. + +"I would be grateful, Mr. Daney, if you would see that Mr. Donald +McKaye receives this letter when he comes in from the woods to-night," +she replied. Daney was frankly amazed. + +"Bless my soul," he blurted, "why do you entrust me with it? Would it +not have been far simpler to have mailed it?" + +"Not at all, Mr. Daney. In the first place, the necessity for writing +it only developed an hour ago, and in order to be quite certain Mr. +McKaye would receive it this evening, I would have had to place a +special-delivery stamp upon it. I did not have a special-delivery +stamp; so, in order to get one, I would have had to go to the +post-office and buy it. And the instant I did that, the girl on duty +at the stamp-window would have gone to the mail-chute to get the +letter and read the address. So I concluded it would be far more +simple and safe to entrust my letter to you. Moreover," she added, "I +save ten cents." + +"I am very greatly obliged to you, Nan," Daney answered soberly. "You +did exactly right," Had she conferred upon him a distinct personal +favor, his expression of obligation could not have been more sincere. +He took a large envelop of the Tyee Lumber Company, wrote Donald's +name upon it, enclosed Nan's letter in this large envelop, and sealed +it with a mighty blow of his fist. "Now then," he declared, "what +people do not know will not trouble them. After you go, I'll place +this envelop in Don's mail-box in the outer office. I think we +understand each other," he added shrewdly. + +"I think we do, Mr. Daney." + +"Splendid fellow, young Donald! Thundering fine boy!" + +"I agree with you, Mr. Daney. If Donald has a fault, it is his +excessive democracy and loyalty to his friends. Thank you so much, Mr. +Daney. Good-afternoon." + +"Not at all--not at all! All this is quite confidential, of course, +otherwise you would not be here." He bowed her to the door, opened it +for her, and bowed again as she passed him. When she had gone, he +summoned the young lady whom Nan had addressed as "Hetty." + +"Miss Fairchaild," he said, "'phone the local sales-office and tell +them to deliver a load of fire-wood to the Brent house at the Sawdust +Pile." + +Two minutes later, the entire office force knew that Nan Brent had +called to order a load of fire-wood, and once more the world sagged +into the doldrums. + + + + +XI + + +At six o'clock Donald came in from the logging-camp. Daney made it his +business to be in the entry of the outer office when his superior took +his mail from his box, and, watching narrowly, thought he observed a +frown on the young laird's face as he read Nan Brent's letter. +Immediately he took refuge in his private office, to which he was +followed almost immediately by Donald. + +"That's your handwriting, Mr. Daney," he said, thrusting the large +envelop under Daney's nose. "Another letter in a smaller envelop was +enclosed by you in this large one. You knew, of course, who wrote it." + +"Miss Brent brought it personally." + +Donald started slightly. He was amazed. + +"I take it," he continued, after a slight pause, "that it was entirely +your idea to conceal from the office force the fact that Miss Brent +had written me this letter." + +"It was, Don." + +"I am at a loss to know why you took such a precaution." Donald's eyes +met Daney's in frank suspicion; the latter thought that he detected +some slight anger in the younger man's bearing. + +"I can enlighten you, Don. Miss Brent was at some pains to conceal the +fact that she had written you a letter; she brought it to me to be +handed to you, rather than run the risk of discovery by dropping it in +the post-office for special delivery. Some of the girls in our office +went to school with Nan Brent and might recognize her handwriting if +they saw the envelop. I saw Hetty Fairchaild looking over your letters +rather interestedly the other day, when she was sorting the mail and +putting it in the boxes." + +"The entire procedure appears to me to be peculiar and wholly +unnecessary. However, I'm obliged to you, Mr. Daney, for acceding so +thoroughly to Nan's apparent wishes." He frowned as he tore the +envelop into shreds and dropped them in Dahey's waste-basket. "I'm +afraid some young women around this plant are going to lose their jobs +unless they learn to restrain their curiosity and their tongues," he +added. + +"I thought I was still general manager," Daney reminded him gently, +"Hiring and firing have always been my peculiar prerogatives." + +"Forgive me, Mr. Daney. They shall continue to be." The young Laird +grinned at the rebuke; Daney smiled back at him, and the somewhat +charged atmosphere cleared instantly. + +"By the way, Donald, your father is in town. He's going up to Seattle +to-night on the seven-ten train. Your mother and the girls left +earlier in the week. He's dining at the hotel and wishes you to join +him there. He figured that, by the time you could reach The Dreamerie, +shave, bathe, and dress, it would be too late to have dinner with him +there and still allow him time to catch his train." + +"How does idleness sit on my parent, Mr. Daney?" + +"Not very well, I fear. He shoots and fishes and takes long walks with +the dogs; he was out twice in your sloop this week. I think he and +your mother and the girls plan a trip to Honolulu shortly." + +"Good!" Donald yawned and stretched his big body, "I've lost eight +pounds on this chopping-job," he declared, "and I thought I hadn't an +ounce of fat on me. Zounds, I'm sore! But I'm to have an easy job next +week. I'm to patrol the skid-roads with a grease-can. That woods boss +is certainly running me ragged." + +"Well, your innings will come later," Daney smiled. + +At the mill office, Donald washed, and then strolled over to the hotel +to meet his father. Old Hector grinned as Donald, in woolen shirt, +mackinaw, corduroy trousers, and half-boots came into the little +lobby, for in his son he saw a replica of himself thirty years agone. + +"Hello, dad!" Donald greeted him. + +"Hello, yourself!" + +The father, in great good humor, joined his son, and they proceeded to +dine, chaffing each other good-naturedly the while, and occasionally +exchanging pleasantries with their neighbors at adjoining tables. The +Laird was in excellent spirits, a condition which his interview that +afternoon with Nan Brent had tended to bring about; during the period +that had elapsed between his subsequent doubts and his meeting with +his son, he had finally decided that the entire matter was a mare's +nest and had dismissed it from his mind. + +After dinner, they walked down to the railroad station together, +Donald carrying his father's bag. While The Laird was at the +ticket-window purchasing his transportation, his son walked over to a +baggage-truck to rest the bag upon it. As the bag landed with a thud, +a man who had been seated on the truck with his back toward Donald +glanced over his shoulder in a leisurely way, and, in that glance, the +latter recognized one of the Greeks he had evicted from the Sawdust +Pile--the same man who had thrown a beer-bottle at him the day he +motored through Darrow. + +"What are you doing in Port Agnew?" Donald demanded. + +To his query, the fellow replied profanely that this was none of his +interrogator's affair. + +"Well, it is some of my affair," the new boss of Tyee replied. "I have +a crow to pluck with you, anyhow, and I'm going to pluck it now." He +grasped the Greek by his collar and jerked him backward until the man +lay flat on his back across the baggage-truck; then, with his horny +left hand, Donald slapped the sullen face vigorously, jerked the +fellow to his feet, faced him in the direction of Darrow, and, with a +vigorous kick, started him on his way. "That's for throwing +beer-bottles!" he called after the man. "And hereafter you keep out of +Port Agnew. Your kind are not welcome here." + +The Greek departed into the night cursing, while The Laird, still at +the ticket-window, glanced interestedly from his son to the Greek and +then back to Donald. + +"What's the idea, son?" he demanded. + +"A recent dweller on the Sawdust Pile," his son replied easily. "He +declared war on me, so, naturally, he comes into my territory at his +own risk. That scum from Darrow must keep out of our town, dad, and +force is the only argument they can understand. Daney gave them a free +hand and spoiled them, but I'm going to teach them who's boss around +here now. Besides, I owe that fellow a poke. He insulted Nan Brent. +There would have been a bill for repairs on the scoundrel if I had +caught him the day I drove his gang off the Sawdust Pile." + +"Well, I approve of your sentiments, Donald, but, nevertheless, it's a +poor practise for a gentleman to fight with a mucker, although," he +added whimsically, "when I was your age I always enjoyed a go with +such fellows. That man you just roughed is George Chirakes, and he's a +bad one. Knifed three of his countrymen in a drunken riot in Darrow +last fall, but got out of it on a plea of self-defense. Keep your eye +on the brute. He may try to play even, although there's no real +courage in his kind. They're born bushwhackers," The Laird glanced at +his watch and saw that it still lacked eight minutes of train-time. +"Wait for me a minute," he told his son. "I want to telephone Daney on +a little matter I overlooked this afternoon." + +He entered the telephone-booth in the station and called up Andrew +Daney. + +"McKaye speaking," he announced. "I've just discovered Donald has an +enemy--that Greek, Chirakes, from Darrow. Did Dirty Dan come in from +the woods to-night?" + +"I believe he did. He usually comes in at week-ends." + +"Look him up immediately, and tell him to keep an eye on Donald, and +not to let him out of his sight until the boy boards the logging-train +to-morrow night to go back to the woods. Same thing next week-end, and +when Donald completes his tour of duty in the woods, transfer Dan from +the logging-camp and give him a job in the mill, so he can watch over +the boy when he's abroad nights. He is not, of course, to let my son +know he is under surveillance." + +"I will attend to the matter immediately," Daney promised, and The +Laird, much relieved, hung up and rejoined his son. + +"Take care of yourself--and watch that Greek, boy," he cautioned, as +he swung aboard the train. + +Donald stood looking after the train until the tail-lights had +disappeared round a curve. + + + + +XII + + +Daney readily discovered in a pool-hall the man he sought. "Dirty Dan" +O'Leary was a chopper in the McKaye employ, and had earned his +sobriquet, not because he was less cleanly than the average lumberjack +but because he was what his kind described as a "dirty" fighter. That +is to say, when his belligerent disposition led him into battle, which +it frequently did, Mr. O'Leary's instinct was to win, quickly and +decisively, and without consideration of the niceties of combat, for a +primitive person was Dirty Dan. Fast as a panther, he was as equally +proficient in the use of all his extremities, and, if hard pressed, +would use his teeth. He was a stringy, big-boned man of six feet, and +much too tall for his weight, wherefore belligerent strangers were +sometimes led to the erroneous conclusion that Mr. O'Leary would not +be hard to upset. In short, he was a wild, bad Irishman who had gotten +immovably fixed in his head an idea that old Hector McKaye was a +"gr-rand gintleman," and a gr-rand gintleman was one of the three +things that Dirty Dan would fight for, the other two being his +personal safety and the love of battle. + +Daney drew Dirty Dan out of the pool-hall and explained the situation +to him. The knowledge that The Laird had, in his extremity, placed +reliance on him moved Dirty Dan to the highest pitch of enthusiasm and +loyalty. He pursed his lips, winked one of his piggy eyes craftily, +and, without wasting time in words of assurance, set forth in search +of the man he was to follow and protect. Presently he saw Donald +entering the butcher shop; so he stationed himself across the street +and watched the young laird of Tyee purchase a fowl and walk out with +it under his arm. Keeping his man dimly in view through the gloom, +Dirty Dan, from the opposite side of the street, followed on velvet +feet to the outskirts of the town, where Donald turned and took a path +through some vacant lots, arriving at last at the Sawdust Pile. Dirty +Dan heard him open and close the gate to Caleb Brent's garden. + +"Oh, ho, the young divil!" Dirty Dan murmured, and immediately left +the path, padding softly out into the grass in order that, when the +door of Caleb Brent's house should be opened, the light from within +might not shine forth and betray him. After traversing a dozen steps, +he lay down in the grass and set himself patiently to await the +reappearance of his quarry. + +In response to several clearly audible knocks, the front door failed +to open, and Dirty Dan heard Don walk round the house to the back +door. + +"The young divil!" he reiterated to himself. "Faith, whin the cat's +away the mice'll play, an' divil a worrd o' lie in that! Begorra, I'm +thinkin' the ould gintleman'd be scandalized could he know where his +darlin' bhoy is this minute--here, wait a minute Daniel, ye gossoon. +Maybe, 'tis for this I've been sint to watch the lad an' not for to +protect him. If it is, faith 'tis a job I'm not wishful for, shpyin' +on me own boss." He pondered the matter. Then: "Well, sorra wan o' me +knows. What if the young fella do be in love wit' her an' his father +have wind of it! Eh? What thin, Daniel? A scandal, that's what, an', +be the toe-nails o' Moses, nayther The Laird nor his son can afford +that. I'll take note o' what happens, but, be the same token, 'tis not +to Misther Daney I'll make me report, but to the ould man himself. +Sh--what's that?" + +His ear being close to the ground, Dirty Dan had caught the sound of +slow, cautious footsteps advancing along the little path. He flattened +himself in the grass and listened, the while he hoped fervently that +those who walked the path (for he knew now there were more than one) +would not leave it as he had done and at the same point. Should they +inadvertently tread upon him, Dirty Dan felt that the honor of the +McKaye family and the maintenance of the secret of his present +employment would demand instant and furious battle--on suspicion. + +The unknown pedestrians paused in the path. + +"Ah done tol' you-all Ah'm right," Dirty Dan heard one of them say. + +"Ha!" thought Dirty Dan. "A dirrty black naygur! I can tell be the +v'ice of him." + +One of his companions grunted, and another said, in accents which the +astute Mr. O'Leary correctly judged to be those of a foreigner of some +sort: + +"All right. W'en he's come out, we jumpa right here. Wha's matter, +eh?" + +"Suits me," the negro replied. "Let's set down, an' fo' de Lawd's +sake, keep quite 'twell he come." + +Dirty Dan heard them move off to the other side of the path and sit +down in the grass. + +"So 'tis that big buck yeller naygur from Darrow an' two o' the +Greeks," he mused. "An' God knows I never did like fightin' in the +dark. They'll knife me as sure as pussy is a cat." + +Decidedly, the prospect did not appeal to Dirty Dan. However, he had +his orders to protect The Laird's son; he had his own peculiar notions +of honor, and in his wild Irish heart there was not one drop of craven +blood. So presently, with the stealth of an animal, he crawled +soundlessly away until he judged it would be safe for him to stand up +and walk, which he did with infinite caution. + +He reached the gate, passed like a wraith through it, and round to the +side of Caleb Brent's home, in momentary dread of discovery by a dog. +He breathed a sigh of relief when, the outcry failing to materialize, +he decided the Brents were too poor to maintain a dog; whereupon he +filled his pipe, lighted it, leaned up against the house, and, for the +space of an hour, stood entranced, for from Caleb Brent's poor shanty +there floated the voice of an angel, singing to the notes of a piano. + +"Glory be!" murmured the amazed Daniel. "Sure, if that's what the +young fella hears whin he calls, divil a bit do I blame him. Oh, the +shweet v'ice of her--an' singin' 'The Low-backed Car'!" + +Despite the wicked work ahead of him, Dirty Dan was glad of the ill +fortune which had sent him hither. He had in full measure the Gael's +love of music, and when, at length, the singing ceased and reluctantly +he made up his mind that the concert was over, he was thrilled to a +point of exaltation. + +"Begorra, I didn't expect to be piped into battle," he reflected +humorously--and sought the Brent wood-pile, in which he poked until +his hard hands closed over a hard, sound, round piece of wood about +three feet long. He tested it across his knee, swung it over his head, +and decided it would do. + +"Now thin, for the surprise party," he reflected grimly, and walked +boldly to the gate, which he opened and closed with sufficient vigor +to advertise his coming, even if his calked boots on the hard path had +not already heralded his advance. However, Dirty Dan desired to make +certain; so he pursed his lips and whistled softly the opening bars of +"The Low-backed Car" in the hope that the lilting notes would still +further serve to inculcate in the lurking enemy the impression that he +was a lover returning well content from his tryst. As he sauntered +along, he held his bludgeon in readiness while his keen eyes +searched--and presently he made out the cronching figures. + +"The naygur first--to hold me, whilst the Greeks slip a dirk in me," +he decided shrewdly. + +He heard the scuttering rush start, and, with the shock of combat, his +carefully prearranged plan of battle quite fled his mercurial mind. He +met the charge with a joyous screech, forgot that he had a club, and +kicked viciously out with his right foot. His heavy logger's boots +connected with something soft and yielding, which instinct told Mr. +O'Leary was an abdomen; instinct, coupled with experience, informed +him further that no man could assimilate that mighty kick in the +abdomen and yet remain perpendicular, whereupon. Dirty Dan leaped high +in the air and came down with both terrible calked boots on something +which gave slightly under him and moaned. On the instant, he received +a light blow in the breast and knew he had been stabbed. + +He remembered his club now; as he backed away swiftly, he swung it, +and, from the impact, concluded he had struck a neck or shoulder. That +was the luck of night-fighting; so, with a bitter curse, Dirty Dan +swung again, in the pious hope of connecting with a skull; he scored a +clean miss and was, by the tremendous force of his swing, turned +completely round. Before he could recover his balance, a hand grasped +his ankle and he came down heavily on his face; instantly, his +assailant's knees were pressed into his back. With a mighty heave he +sought to free himself, at the same time flinging both long legs +upward, after the fashion of one who strives to kick himself in the +small of the back; whereupon a knife drove deep into his instep, and +he realized he had not acted a split second too soon to save himself +from a murderous thrust in the kidneys--a Greek's favorite blow. + +In battle, Dirty Dan's advantage lay always in his amazing speed and +the terrible fury of his attack during the first five minutes. Even as +he threw up his feet, he drew back, an elbow and crashed it into his +enemy's ribs; like a flash, his arm straightened, and his sinewy hand +closed over the wrist of an arm that struggled in vain to strike +downward. Holding that wrist securely, Dirty Dan heaved upward, got +his left elbow under his body, and rested a few moments; another +mighty heave, and he tossed off the Greek, and, whirling with the +speed of a pin-wheel, was on top of his man. He had momentarily +released his hold on the Greek's wrist, however, and he had to fight +for another hold now--in the dark. Presently he captured it, twisted +the arm in the terrible hammer-lock, and broke it; then, while the +Greek lay writhing in agony, Mr. O'Leary leaped to his feet and +commenced to play with his awful boots a devil's tattoo on that +portion of his enemy's superstructure so frequently alluded to in +pugilistic circles as "the slats." After five or six kicks, however, +he paused, due to a difficulty in breathing; so he struck a match and +surveyed the stricken field. + +The big mulatto and two Greeks, lay unconscious before him; in the +nickering light of the match, two blood-stained dirks gleamed in the +grass, so, with a minute attention to detail, Dirty Dan possessed +himself of these weapons, picked up his club, and, reasoning shrewdly +that Donald McKaye's enemies had had enough combat for a few weeks at +least, the dauntless fellow dragged the fallen clear of the path, in +order that his youthful master might not stumble over them on his way +home, and then disappeared into the night. Half an hour later, smeared +with dust and blood, he crawled up the steps of the Tyee Lumber +Company's hospital on his hands and knees and rapped feebly on the +front door. The night nurse came out and looked him over. + +"I'm Dirty Dan O'Leary," he wheezed; "I've been fightin' agin." + +The nurse called the doctor and two orderlies, and they carried him +into the operating-room. + +"I'm not the man I used to be," Dirty Dan whispered, "but glory be, ye +should see the other fellers." He opened his hand, and two +blood-stained clasp-knives rolled out; he winked knowingly, and +indulged in humorous reminiscences of the combat while he was being +examined. + +"You're cut to strings and ribbons, Dan," the doctor informed him, +"and they've stuck you in the left lung. You've lost a lot of blood. +We may pull you through, but I doubt it." + +"Very well," the demon replied composedly. + +"Telephone Judge Alton to come and get his dying statement," the +doctor ordered the nurse, but Dirty Dan raised a deprecating hand. + +"'Twas a private, personal matther," he declared. "'Twas settled +satisfacthory. I'll not die, an' I'll talk to no man but Misther +Daney. Sew me up an' plug me lung, an' be quick about it, Docthor." + +When Andrew Daney came, summoned by telephone, Dirty Dan ordered all +others from the room, and Daney saw that the door was closed tightly +after them. Then he bent over Dirty Dan. + +"Where's Donald?" he demanded. + +"That's neither here nor there, sir," Mr. O'Leary replied evasively. +"He's safe, an' never knew they were afther him. T'ree o' thim, sir, +the naygur and two Greeks. I kidded thim into thinkin' I was Misther +McKaye; 'tis all over now, an' ye can find out what two Greeks it was +by those knives I took for evidence. I cannot identify thim, but go up +to Darrow in the mornin' an' look for a spreckled mulatter, wan Greek +wit' a broken right arm, an' another wit' a broken neck, but until I +die, do nothin'. If I get well, tell them to quit Darrow for good +agin' the day I come out o' the hospital. Good-night to you, sir, an' +thank ye for callin'." + +From the hospital, Andrew Daney, avoiding the lighted main street, +hastened to the Sawdust Pile. A light still burned in Caleb Brent's +cottage; so Daney stood aloof in the vacant lot and waited. About ten +o'clock, the front door opened, and, framed in the light of the +doorway, the general manager saw Donald McKaye, and beside him Nan +Brent. + +"Until to-morrow at five, Donald, since you will persist in being +obstinate," he heard Nan say, as they reached the gate and paused +there. "Good-night, dear." + +Andrew Daney waited no longer, but turned and fled into the darkness. + + + + +XIII + + +Having done that which her conscience dictated, Nan Brent returned to +her home a prey to many conflicting emotions, chief of which were a +quiet sense of exaltation in the belief that she had played fair by +both old Hector and his son, and a sense of depression in the +knowledge that she would not see Donald McKaye again. As a boy, she +had liked him tremendously; as a man, she knew she liked him even +better. + +She was quite certain she had never met a man who was quite fit to +breathe the same air with Donald McKaye; already she had magnified his +virtues until, to her, he was rapidly assuming the aspect of an +archangel--a feeling which bordered perilously on adoration. + +But deep down in her woman's heart she was afraid, fearing for her own +weakness. The past had brought her sufficient anguish--she dared not +risk a future filled with unsatisfied yearning that comes of a great +love suppressed or denied. + +She felt better about it as she walked homeward; it seemed that she +had regained, in a measure, some peace of mind, and as she prepared +dinner for her father and her child, she was almost cheerful. A warm +glow of self-complacency enveloped her. Later, when old Caleb and the +boy had retired and she sat before the little wood fire alone with her +thoughts, this feeling of self-conscious rectitude slowly left her, +and into its place crept a sense of desolation inspired by one +thought that obtruded upon her insistently, no matter how desperately +she drove her mind to consider other things. She was not to see him +again--no, never any more. Those fearless, fiery gray eyes that were +all abeam with tenderness and complete understanding that day he left +her at the gate; those features that no one would ever term handsome, +yet withal so rugged, so strong, so pregnant of character, so +peculiarly winning when lighted by the infrequent smile--she was never +to gaze upon them again. It did not seem quite fair that, for all that +the world had denied her, it should withhold from her this +inconsequent delight. This was carrying misfortune too far; it was +terrible--unbearable almost-- + +A wave of self-pity, the most acute misery of a tortured soul, surged +over her; she laid her fair head on her arms outspread upon the table, +and gave herself up to wild sobbing. In her desolation, she called +aloud, piteously, for that mother she had hardly known, as if she +would fain summon that understanding spirit and in her arms seek the +comfort that none other in this world could give her. So thoroughly +did she abandon herself to this first--and final--paroxysm of despair +that she failed to hear a tentative rap upon the front door and, +shortly, the tread of rough-shod feet on the board walk round the +house. Her first intimation that some one had arrived to comfort her +came in the shape of a hard hand that thrust itself gently under her +chin and lifted her face from her arms. + +Through the mist of her tears she saw only the vague outlines of a man +clad in heavy woolen shirt and mackinaw, such as her father frequently +wore. + +"Oh, father, father!" she cried softly, and laid her head on his +breast, while her arms went round his neck. "I'm so terribly unhappy! +I can't bear it--I can't! Just--because he chose to be--kind to +us--those gossips--as if anybody could help being fond of him--" + +She was held tight in his arms. + +"Not your father, Nan." Donald murmured in a low voice. + +She drew away from him with a sharp little cry of amazement and +chagrin, but his great arms closed round her and drew her close again. + +"Poor dear," he told her, "you were calling for your mother. You +wanted a breast to weep upon, didn't you? Well, mine is here for you." + +"Oh, sweetheart, you mustn't!" she cried passionately, her lips +unconsciously framing the unspoken cry of her heart as she strove to +escape from him. + +"Ah, but I shall!" he answered. "You've called me 'sweetheart,' and +that gives me the right." And he kissed her hot cheek and laughed the +light, contented little laugh of the conqueror, nor could all her +frantic pleadings and struggling prevail upon him to let her go. In +the end, she did the obvious, the human thing. She clasped him tightly +round the neck, and, forgetting everything in the consuming wonder of +the fact that this man loved her with a profound and holy love, she +weakly gave herself up to his caresses, satisfying her heart-hunger +for a few blessed, wonderful moments before hardening herself to the +terrible task of impressing upon him the hopelessness of it all and +sending him upon his way. By degrees, she cried herself dry-eyed and +leaned against him, striving to collect her dazed thoughts. And then +he spoke. + +"I know what you're going to say, dear. From a worldly point of view, +you are quite right. Seemingly, without volition on our part, we have +evolved a distressing, an impossible situation--" + +"Oh, I'm so glad that you understand!" she gasped. + +"And yet," he continued soberly, "love such as ours is not a light +thing to be passed lightly by. To me, Nan Brent, you are sacred; to +you, I yearn to be all things that--the--other man was not. I didn't +realize until I entered unannounced and found you so desolate that I +loved you. For two weeks you have been constantly in my thoughts, and +I know now that, after all, you were my boyhood sweetheart." + +"I know you were mine," she agreed brokenly. "But that's just a little +tender memory now, even if we said nothing about it then. We are +children no longer, Donald dear; we must be strong and not surrender +to our selfish love." + +"I do not regard it as selfish," he retorted soberly. "It seems most +perfectly natural and inevitable. Why, Nan, I didn't even pay you the +preliminary compliment of telling you I loved you or asking you if you +reciprocated my affection. It appeared to me I didn't have to; that it +was a sort of mutual understanding--for here we are. It seems it just +was to be--like the law of gravitation." + +She smiled up at him, despite her mental pain. + +"I'm not so certain, dear," she answered, "that I'm not wicked enough +to rejoice. It will make our renunciation all the easier--for me. I +have known great sorrow, but to-night, for a little while, I have +surrendered myself to great happiness, and nothing--nothing--can ever +rob me of the last shred of that. You are my man, Donald. The +knowledge that you love me is going to draw much of the sting out of +existence. I know I cannot possess you, but I can resign myself to +that and not be embittered." + +"Well," he answered dully, "I can give you up--because I have to; but +I shall never be resigned about it, and I fear I may be embittered. Is +there no hope, Nan?" + +"A faint one--some day, perhaps, if I outlive another." + +"I'll wait for that day, Nan. Meanwhile, I shall ask no questions. I +love you enough to accept your love on faith, for, by God, you're a +good woman!" + +Her eyes shown with a wonderful radiance as she drew his face down to +hers and kissed him on the lips. + +"It's sweet of you to say that; I could love you for that alone, were +there nothing else, Donald. But tell me, dear, did you receive my +letter?" + +"Yes--and ignored it. That's why I'm here." + +"That was a risk you should not have taken." + +He looked thoughtfully at the multicolored flame of the driftwood +fire. + +"Well, you see, Nan, it didn't occur to me that I was taking a risk; a +confession of love was the last thing I would have thought would +happen." + +"Then why did you disregard that letter that cost me such an effort to +write?" + +"Well," he replied slowly, "I guess it's because I'm the captain of my +soul--or try to be, at any rate. I didn't think it quite fair that you +should be shunned; it occurred to me that I wouldn't be playing a +manly part to permit the idle mewing of the Port Agnew tabbies to +frighten me away. I didn't intend to fall in love with you--Oh, drat +my reasons! I'm here because I'm here. And in the matter of that old +hen--" He paused and favored her with a quizzical smile. + +"Yes?" + +"I brought a substitute hen with me--all ready for the pot, and if I +can't come to dinner to-morrow, I'm going to face a very lonely +Sunday." + +"You ridiculous boy! Of course you may come, although it must be the +final visit. You realize that we owe it to ourselves not to make our +burden heavier than it's going to be." + +He nodded. + +"'Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we may be dead,'" he quoted. +"Let's sit down and talk it over. I haven't sat in front of a +driftwood fire since I was a boy. Queer how the salt in the wood +colors the flames, isn't it?" + +It occurred to her for a fleeting moment that they two were driftwood, +and that the salt of their tears would color their lives as the years +consumed them. But she banished from her mind all thought of +everything save the present. With a contented little sigh she seated +herself beside him; her hand stole into his and, soothed and sustained +by the comforting touch, each of the other, gradually the first terror +of their predicament faded; ere long, Donald reminded her of her +promise, and she stole to the old square piano and sang for him while, +without, Dirty Dan O'Leary crouched in the darkness and thrilled at +the rippling melody. + +At ten o'clock, when Donald left the Sawdust Pile, he and Nan had +arrived at a firm determination to follow separate paths, nor seek to +level the barrier that circumstance had raised between them. + +"Some day--perhaps," he whispered, as he held her to his heart in the +dark-it the garden gate. "While I live, I shall love you. Good-by, old +sweetheart!" + + + + +XIV + + +True to his promise, Daniel P. O'Leary declined to die that night. + +"Confound your belligerent soul!" the doctor growled at dawn. "I +believe you're too mean to die." + +"We'll make it a finish fight," whispered Daniel. + +"I'll go you," the doctor answered, and sent for digitalis and salt +solution. + +There was one other soul in Port Agnew who did not sleep that night, +either. Andrew Daney's soul, shaken by what was to him a cosmic +cataclysm, caused that good man to rise at five o'clock and go down to +the hospital for another look at Dirty Dan. To his anxious queries the +doctor shook a dubious head, but the indomitable O'Leary smiled wanly. + +"Go on wit' ye!" he wheezed faintly. "I'll win be a hair-line +decision." + +At seven o'clock, when the telegraph-station opened, Andrew Daney was +waiting at the door. He entered and sent a telegram to The Laird. + + Return immediately. + +In the late afternoon, Hector McKaye returned to Port Agnew and at +once sought Daney, who related to him exactly what had occurred. The +shadow of profound worry settled over The Laird's face. + +"Dan refuses to disclose anything regarding Donald's movements," +Daney continued, "where he followed the boy or where the fight took +place. I only know that Donald was not present; Dan, fortunately, +overheard the plot, inculcated, by some means, the idea in those +scoundrels' heads that he was Donald, and took the fight off the boy's +hands. He claimed he fought a winning fight, and he is right. The +mulatto died in Darrow this morning. One of the Greeks has a smashed +shoulder, and the other a broken arm and four broken ribs. How they +ever got home to Darrow is a mystery." + +"The third Greek must have waited near the river-mouth with a boat, +Andrew. Have you any idea where Donald spent the evening?" + +"Yes, sir; but he's free, white, and twenty-one, and he's my superior. +I prefer not to discuss his movements." + +"Andrew, I command you to." + +"I refuse to be commanded, sir." + +"That's all I wanted to know. He visited the Brents, and you know it." +He saw by the flush on Daney's old face that he had hit the mark. +"Well, I'm obliged to you, Andrew. You've done your full duty; so +we'll not discuss the matter further. The situation will develop in +time, and, meanwhile, I'll not spy on my boy. I wonder if that Darrow +gang will talk." + +"I imagine not, sir--that is, if Dirty Dan keeps his own counsel. They +will fear prosecution if Dan dies; so they will be silent awaiting the +outcome of his injuries. If he lives, they will still remain silent, +awaiting his next move. Dan will probably admit having been jumped in +the dark by three unknown men and that he defended himself vigorously; +he can fail to identify the Greeks, and the Greeks cannot do less +than fail to identify Dirty Dan, who can plead self-defense if the +coroner's jury delves too deeply into the mulatto's death. I imagine +they will not. At any rate, it's up to Dan whether Donald figures in +the case or not, and Dan will die before he'll betray the confidence." + +"That's comforting," The Laird replied. "Will you be good enough to +drive me home to The Dreamerie, Andrew?" + +At The Dreamerie, old Hector discovered that his son had left the +house early in the afternoon, saying he would not be home for dinner. +So The Laird sat him down and smoked and gazed out across the Bight of +Tyee until sunset, when, a vague curiosity possessing him, he looked +down to the Sawdust Pile and observed that the flag still flew from +the cupola. The night shadows gathered, but still the flag did not +come down; and presently round The Laird's grim mouth a little +prescient smile appeared, with something of pain in it. + +"Dining out at Brent's," he soliloquized, "and they're so taken up +with each other they've forgotten the flag. I do not remember that the +Brent girl ever forgot it before. She loves him." + + + + +XV + + +Following his parting with Nan Brent on Saturday night, Donald McKaye +went directly to the mill office, in front of which his car was +parked, entered the car, and drove home to The Dreamerie, quite +oblivious of the fact that he was not the only man in Port Agnew who +had spent an interesting and exciting evening. So thoroughly mixed +were his emotions that he was not quite certain whether he was +profoundly happy or incurably wretched. When he gave way to rejoicing +in his new-found love, straightway he was assailed by a realization of +the barriers to his happiness--a truly masculine recognition of the +terrible bar sinister to Nan's perfect wifehood induced a veritable +shriveling of his soul, a mental agony all the more intense because it +was the first unhappiness he had ever experienced. + +His distress was born of the knowledge that between the Sawdust Pile +and The Dreamerie there stretched a gulf as wide and deep as the Bight +of Tyee. He was bred of that puritanical stock which demands that the +mate for a male of its blood must be of original purity, regardless of +the attitude of leniency on the part of that male for lapses from +virtue in one of his own sex. This creed, Donald had accepted as +naturally, as inevitably as he had accepted belief in the communion of +saints and the resurrection of the dead. His father's daughter-in-law, +like Cæsar's wife, would have to be above suspicion; while Donald +believed Nan Brent to be virtuous, or, at least, an unconscious, +unwilling, and unpremeditating sinner, non-virtuous by circumstance +instead of by her own deliberate act, he was too hard-headed not to +realize that never, by the grace of God, would she be above suspicion. +Too well he realized that his parents and his sisters, for whom he +entertained all the affection of a good son and brother, would, +unhampered by sex-appeal and controlled wholly by tradition, fail +utterly to take the same charitable view, even though he was honest +enough with himself to realize that perhaps his own belief in the +matter was largely the result of the wish being father to the thought. + +Curiously enough, he dismissed, quite casually, consideration of the +opinions his mother and sisters, their friends and his, the men and +women of Port Agnew might entertain on the subject. His apprehensions +centered almost entirely upon his father. His affection for his father +he had always taken for granted. It was not an emotion to exclaim +over. Now that he realized, for the first time, his potential power to +hurt his father, to bow that gray head in grief and shame and +humiliation, he was vouchsafed a clearer, all-comprehending vision of +that father's love, of his goodness, his manliness, his honor, his +gentleness, and his fierce, high pride; to Donald simultaneously came +the knowledge of his own exalted love for the old man. He knew him as +no other human being knew him or ever would know him; whence he knew +old Hector's code--that a clean man may not mate with an unclean woman +without losing caste. + +He and Nan had discussed the situation but briefly; for they were +young, and the glory of that first perfect hour could not be marred by +a minute consideration of, misery in prospect. To-night, they had been +content to forget the world and be happy with each other, apparently +with the mutual understanding that they occupied an untenable +position, one that soon must be evacuated. + +Yes; he was the young laird of Tyee, the heir to a principality, and +it would be too great a strain on mere human beings to expect his +little world to approve of its highest mating with its lowest. Prate +as we may of democracy, we must admit, if we are to be honest with +ourselves, that this sad old world is a snobocracy. The very fact that +man is prone to regard himself as superior to his brother is the +leaven in the load of civilization; without that quality, whether we +elect to classify it as self-conceit or self-esteem, man would be +without ambition and our civilization barren of achievement. The +instinct for the upward climb--the desire to reach the heights--is too +insistent to be disregarded. If all men are born equal, as the framers +of our Constitution so solemnly declared, that is because the brains +of all infants, of whatsoever degree, are at birth incapable of +thought. The democracy of any people, therefore, must be predicated +upon their kindness and charity--human characteristics which blossom +or wither according to the intensity of the battle for existence. In +our day and generation, therefore, democracy is too high-priced for +promiscuous dissemination; wherefore, as in an elder day, we turn from +the teaching of the Man of Galilee and cling to tradition. + +Tradition was the stone in the road to Donald McKaye's happiness, and +his strength was not equal to the task of rolling it away. + +Despair enveloped him. Every fiber of his being, every tender, gallant +instinct drew him toward this wonder-girl that the world had thrust +aside as unworthy. His warm, sympathetic heart ached for her; he knew +she needed him as women like her must ever need the kind of man he +wanted to be, the kind he had always striven to be. Had he been +egotist enough to set a value upon himself, he would have told himself +she was worthy of him; yet a damnable set of damnable man-made +circumstances over which he had no control hedged them about and kept +them apart. It was terrible, so he reflected, to know that, even if +Nan should live the life of a saint from the hour of her child's birth +until the hour of her death, a half-century hence, yet would she fail +to atone for her single lapse while there still lived one who +knew--and remembered. He, Donald McKaye, might live down a natural +son, but Nan Brent could not. The contemplation of this social +phenomenon struck him with peculiar force, for he had not hitherto +considered the amazing inequalities of a double standard of morals. + +For the first time in his life, he could understand the abject +deference that must be shown to public opinion. He, who considered +himself, and not without reason, a gentleman, must defer to the +inchoate, unreasoning, unrelenting, and barbaric point of view of men +and women who hadn't sense enough to pound sand in a rat-hole or +breeding enough to display a reasonable amount of skill in the +manipulation of a knife and fork. Public opinion! Bah! Deference to a +fetish, a shibboleth, to the ancient, unwritten law that one must not +do that which hypocrites condemn and cowards fear to do, unless, +indeed, one can "get away with it." + +Ah, yes! The eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not be discovered." It +had smashed Nan Brent, who had violated it, desolated her, ruined +her--she who had but followed the instinct that God Almighty had given +her at birth--the instinct of sex, the natural yearning of a trustful, +loving heart for love, motherhood, and masculine protection from a +brutal world. More. Not satisfied with smashing her, public opinion +insisted that she should remain in a perennial state of smash. It was +abominable! + +Nan had told him she had never been married, and a sense of delicacy +had indicated to him that this was a subject upon which he must not +appear to be curious. To question her for the details would have been +repugnant to his nicely balanced sense of the fitness of things. +Nevertheless, he reflected, if her love had been illicit, was it more +illicit than that of the woman who enters into a loveless marriage, +induced to such action by a sordid consideration of worldly goods and +gear? Was her sin in bearing a child out of wedlock more terrible than +that of the married woman who shudders at the responsibilities of +motherhood, or evades the travail of love's fulfilment by snuffing out +little lives in embryo? He thought not. He recalled an evening in New +York when he had watched a policeman following a drab of the streets +who sought to evade him and ply her sorry trade in the vicinity of +Herald Square; he remembered how that same policeman had abandoned the +chase to touch his cap respectfully and open her limousine door for +the heroine (God save the mark!) of a scandalous divorce. + +"Damn it!" he murmured. "It's a rotten, cruel world, and I don't +understand it. I'm all mixed up." And he went to bed, where, his +bodily weariness overcoming his mental depression, he slept. + +He was man enough to scorn public opinion, but human enough to fear +it. + + + + +XVI + + +The heir of the Tyee mills and forests was not of a religious turn of +mind for all his strict training in Christian doctrine, although +perhaps it would be more to the point to state that he was inclined to +be unorthodox. Nevertheless, out of respect to the faith of his +fathers, he rose that Sunday morning and decided to go to church. Not +that he anticipated any spiritual benefit would accrue to him by +virtue of his pilgrimage down to Port Agnew; in his heart of hearts he +regarded the pastor as an old woman, a man afraid of the world, and +without any knowledge of it, so to speak. But old Hector was a pillar +of the church; his family had always accompanied him thither on +Sundays, and a sense of duty indicated to Donald that, as the future +head of the clan, he should not alter its customs. + +By a strange coincidence, the Reverend Mr. Tingley chose as the text +for his sermon the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John +from the first to the eleventh verses, inclusive. Donald, instantly +alert, straightened in the pew, and prepared to listen with interest +to the Reverend Mr. Tingley's opinion of the wisdom of Jesus Christ in +so casually disposing of the case of the woman taken in adultery. + +"Dearly beloved," the pastor began, carefully placing an index-finger +between the leaves of his Bible to mark the passage he had just read, +"the title of my sermon this Sunday shall be: 'The First Stone. Let +him who is without sin cast it.'" + +"Banal, hypocritical ass!" Donald soliloquized. "She was the +mezzo-soprano soloist in your choir four years, and you haven't tried +to help her since she came back to the Sawdust Pile." + +It was a good sermon, as sermons go. In fact, the Reverend Mr. +Tingley, warming to his theme, quite outdid himself on the subject of +charity as practised by his Redeemer, and, as a result, was the +recipient of numberless congratulatory handshakes later at the church +door. Donald agreed that it was an unusually good sermon--in theory; +but since he knew it would collapse in practise, he avoided Mr. +Tingley after service. + +On the steps of the church he was accosted by Andrew Daney and the +latter's wife, who greeted him effusively. Unfortunately for Mrs. +Daney, Nan, in one of those bursts of confidence that must ever exist +between lovers, had informed Donald the night previous of the motherly +soul's interest in his affairs; wherefore he returned Mrs. Daney's +warm greeting with such chilly courtesy that she was at no loss to +guess the reason for it and was instantly plunged into a slough of +terror and despair. She retained sufficient wit, however, to draw her +husband away, thus preventing him from walking with Donald. + +"I want to tell him about Dirty Dan," Daney protested, in a low voice. +"As the boss, he ought to be told promptly of any injury to an +employe." + +"Never mind Dirty Dan," she retorted. "He'll hear of it soon enough. +Let us congratulate Mr. Tingley on his sermon." + +Donald, having turned his back on them almost rudely, strode down the +street to his car and motored back to The Dreamerie. He spent the +remainder of the morning force-breaking a setter puppy to retrieve; at +one o'clock, he ate a cold luncheon, and immediately thereafter drove +down to Port Agnew and brazenly parked his car in front of Caleb +Brent's gate. + +He entered without the formality of knocking, and Nan met him in the +tiny entrance-hall. + +"I couldn't wait until dinner-time," he explained. "Nobody home at The +Dreamerie--" He took her face in his calloused hands, drew her to him. +"You're sweet in that calico gown," he informed her, waiving a +preliminary word of greeting. "I love you," he added softly, and +kissed her. She clung to him. + +"You should not have come here in broad daylight," she protested. "Oh, +you big, foolish, impulsive dear! Don't you realize I want to protect +you from the tongue of scandal? If you persist in forgetting who you +are, does it follow that I should pursue a similar course?" + +He ignored her argument. + +"I'll help you get dinner, old blue-eyes," he suggested. "Let me shuck +some corn or shell some peas or string some beans--any job where I can +sit and look at you and talk to you." + +"It will please me if you'll visit a little while with father Caleb," +she suggested. "He's out on the sun-porch. He's far from well this +morning. Do cheer him up, Donald dear." + +Old Caleb hailed him with a pleasure that was almost childish. During +the two weeks that had elapsed since Donald had seen him last, he had +failed markedly. + +"Well, how does the old sailor feel this morning?" Donald queried +casually, seating himself opposite the old man. + +"Poorly, Mr. Donald; poorly." He turned, satisfied himself that Nan +was busy in the kitchen, and then leaned toward his visitor. "I've got +my sailing-orders," he whispered confidentially. The man who had won a +Congressional medal of honor, without clearly knowing why or how, had +not changed with the years. He advanced this statement as a simple +exposition of fact. + +"Think so, Caleb?" Donald answered soberly. + +"I know it." + +"If you have no desire to live, Caleb, of course nature will yield to +your desires. Remember that and buck up. You may have your +sailing-orders, but you can keep the bar breaking indefinitely to +prevent you from crossing out." + +"I've done that for a year past. I do not wish to die and leave her, +for my three-quarter pay stops then. But I suffer from angina +pectoris. It's the worry, Mr. Donald," he added. + +"Worry as to the future of Nan and the child?" + +"Aye, lad." + +"Well, Caleb, your worries are unnecessary. I feel it my duty to tell +you that I love Nan; she loves me, and we have told each other so. She +shall not suffer when you are gone. She has indicated to me that, some +day, this--this mess may be cleared up; and when that happens, I shall +marry Nan." + +"So Nan told me this morning. I was wondering if you'd speak to me +about it, and I'm glad you have done so--promptly. You--you--honor us, +Mr. Donald; you do, indeed. You're the one man in the world I can +trust her with, whether as good friend or husband--only, her hushand +you'll never be." + +"I see breakers ahead," Donald admitted. He had no desire to dissemble +with this straightforward old father. + +"We're poor folk and plain, but--please God!--we're decent and we know +our place, Mr. Donald. If your big heart tells you to dishonor +yourself in the eyes of your world and your people--mark you, lad, I +do not admit that an alliance with my girl could ever dishonor you in +your own eyes--Nan will not be weak enough to permit it." + +"I have argued all that out with myself," Donald confessed miserably, +"without having arrived at a conclusion. I have made up my mind to +wait patiently and see what the future may bring forth." + +"It may be a long wait." + +"It will be worth while. And when you have sailed, I'll finance her to +leave Port Agnew and develop her glorious voice." + +"You haven't the right, Mr. Donald. My girl has some pride." + +"I'll gamble a sizable sum on her artistic future. The matter will be +arranged on a business basis. I shall lend her the money, and she +shall pay me back with interest." + +"Nan has a woman's pride. The obligation would remain always, even +though the money should be repaid." + +"I think we'll manage to adjust that," Donald countered confidently. + +"Ah, well," the old fellow answered; "we've always been your debtors. +And it's a debt that grows." + +He loaded his pipe and was silent, for, after the fashion of the aged, +he dared assume that his youthful auditor would understand just how +the Brents regarded him. + +"Well, my heart's lighter for our talk, lad," he declared presently. +"If you don't mind, I'll have a little nap." + +Donald, grateful for the dismissal, returned to the kitchen, where Nan +was preparing the vegetables. Her child at once clamored for +recognition, and, almost before he knew it, Donald had the tyke in his +lap and was saying, + +"Once upon a time there was a king and he had three sons----" + +"He isn't interested in kings and princes, dear," Nan interrupted. +"Tell him the story of the bad little rabbit." + +"But I don't know it, Nan." + +"Then you'll fail as a daddy to my boy. I'm surprised. If Don were +your own flesh and blood, you would know intuitively that there is +always a bad little rabbit and a good little rabbit. They dwell in a +hollow tree with mother Rabbit and father Rabbit." + +"Thanks for the hint. I shall not fail in this job of dadding. Well +then, bub, once upon a time there was a certain Mr. Johnny Rabbit who +married a very beautiful lady rabbit whose name was Miss Molly +Cottontail. After they were married and had gone to keep house under a +lumber-pile, Mr. Hezekiah Coon came along and offered to rent them +some beautifully furnished apartments in the burned-out stump of a +hemlock tree. The rent was to be one nice ear of sweet corn every +month--" + +The tale continued, with eager queries from the interested +listener--queries which merely stimulated the young laird of Tyee to +wilder and more whimsical flights of fancy, to the unfolding of +adventures more and more thrilling and unbelievable until, at last, +the recital began to take on the character of an Arabian Nights' tale +that threatened to involve the entire animal kingdom, and only ceased +when, with a wealth of mournful detail, Donald described the tragic +death and funeral of the gallant young Johnny Rabbit, his fatherless +audience suddenly burst into tears and howled lugubriously; whereupon +Donald was hard put to it to bring Johnny Rabbit back to life +mysteriously but satisfactorily, and send him scampering home to the +hollow hemlock tree, there to dwell happily ever after. + +His tale completed, Donald happened to glance toward Nan. She was +regarding him with shining eyes. + +"Donald," she declared, "it's a tremendous pity you haven't a boy of +your own. You're just naturally intended for fatherhood." + +He grinned. + +"My father has been hinting rather broadly that a grandson would be +the very last thing on earth to make him angry. He desires to see the +name and the breed and the business in a fair way of perpetuation +before he passes on." + +"That is the way of all flesh, Donald." + +"I wish it were not his way. My inability to comply with his desires +isn't going to render dad or me any happier." + +"Dear old boy, what a frightful predicament you're in!" she murmured +sympathetically. "I wish I could be quite certain you aren't really in +love with me, Donald." + +"Life would be far rosier for all concerned if I were quite certain I +was mistaking an old and exalted friendship for true love. But I'm +not. You're the one woman in the world for me, and if I cannot have +you, I'll have none other--Hello! Weeping has made this young fellow +heavy-lidded, or else my fiction has bored him, for he's nodding." + +"It's time for his afternoon nap, Donald." She removed the sleepy tot +from his arms and carried him away to his crib. When she returned, she +resumed her task of preparing dinner. + +"Nan," Donald queried suddenly, "have I the right to ask you the name +of the man who fathered that child?" + +"Yes," she answered soberly; "you have. I wish, however, that you +would not ask me. I should have to decline to answer you." + +"Well, then, I'll not ask. Nevertheless, it would interest me mightily +to know why you protect him." + +"I am not at all desirous of protecting him, Donald. I am merely +striving to protect his legal wife. His marriage to me was bigamous; +he undertook the task of leading a dual married life, and, when I +discovered it, I left him." + +"But are you certain he married you?" + +"We went through a marriage ceremony which, at the time, I regarded as +quite genuine. Of course, since it wasn't legal, it leaves me in the +status of an unmarried woman." + +"So I understood from your father. Where did this ceremony take +place?" + +"In San Francisco." She came over, sat down beside him, and took one +of his hard, big hands in both of hers. "I'm going to tell you as much +as I dare," she informed him soberly. "You have a right to know, and +you're too nice to ask questions. So I'll not leave you to the agonies +of doubt and curiosity. You see, honey dear, father Brent wanted me to +have vocal and piano lessons, and to do that I had to go to Seattle +once a week, and the railroad-fare, in addition to the cost of the +lessons, was prohibitive until your father was good enough to secure +me a position in the railroad-agent's office in Port Agnew. Of course, +after I became an employe of the railroad company, I could travel on a +pass, so I used to go up to Seattle every Saturday, leaving here on +the morning train. Your father arranged matters in some way so that I +worked but five days a week." + +"Naturally. Dad's a pretty heavy shipper over the line." + +"I would receive my lessons late Saturday afternoons, stay overnight +with a friend of mine, and return to Port Agnew on Sunday. _He_ used +to board the train at--well, the name of the station doesn't +matter--every Saturday, and one day we got acquainted, quite by +accident as it were. Our train ran through an open switch and collided +with the rear end of a freight; there was considerable excitement, and +everybody spoke to everybody else, and after that it didn't appear +that we were strangers. The next Saturday, when he boarded the train, +he sat down in the same seat with me and asked permission to introduce +himself. He was very nice, and his manners were beautiful; he didn't +act in the least like a man who desired to 'make a mash.' Finally, one +day, he asked me to have dinner with him in Seattle, and I accepted. I +think that was because I'd never been in a fashionable restaurant in +all my life. After dinner, he escorted me to the studio, and on Sunday +morning we took the same train home again. He was such good company +and such a jolly, worldly fellow--so thoughtful and deferential! Can't +you realize, Donald, how he must have appealed to a little country +goose like me? + +"Well, finally, daddy Brent learned that Signor Moretti, a tenor who +had retired from grand opera, had opened a studio in San Francisco. We +both wanted Moretti to pass on my voice, but we couldn't afford the +expense of a journey to San Francisco for two, so daddy sent me alone. +I wrote--that man about our plans, and told him the name of the +steamer I was sailing on. Your father gave me a passage on one of his +steam-schooners, and when we got to the dock in San Francisco--" + +"_He_ was there, eh? Came down by train and beat the steamer in." +Donald nodded his comprehension. "What did Moretti say about your +voice?" + +"The usual thing. My Seattle teacher had almost ruined my voice, he +declared, but, for all that, he was very enthusiastic and promised me +a career within five years if I would place myself unreservedly in his +hands. Of course, we couldn't afford such an expensive career, and the +realization that I had to forego even the special inducements Signor +Moretti was generous enough to make me quite broke my heart. When I +told _him_ about it--we were engaged by that time--he suggested that +we get married immediately, in order that I might reside with him in +San Francisco and study under Moretti. So we motored out into the +country one day and were married at San José. He asked me to keep our +marriage secret on account of some clause in his father's will, but I +insisted upon my right to tell daddy Brent. Poor old dear! My marriage +was such a shock to him; but he agreed with me that it was all for the +best--" + +"Well, I was quite happy for three months. My husband's business +interests necessitated very frequent trips North--" + +"What business was he in, Nan?" + +"That is immaterial," she evaded him. "Presently, Signer Moretti +contracted a severe cold and closed his studio for a month. My +husband--I suppose I must call him that to identify him when I refer +to him--had just gone North on one of his frequent trips, and since he +always kept me generously supplied with money, I decided suddenly to +take advantage of Moretti's absence to run up to Port Agnew and visit +my father. + +"In Seattle, as I alighted from the train, I saw my husband in the +station with another woman. I recognized her. She was a friend of +mine--a very dear, kind, thoughtful friend of several years' +standing--the only woman friend I had in the world. I loved her +dearly; you will understand when I tell you that she had frequently +gone out of her way to be kind to me. It struck me as strange that he +had never admitted knowing her, although frequently he had heard me +speak of her. While I stood pondering the situation, he took her in +his arms and kissed her good-by and boarded the train without seeing +me. I slipped out of the station without having been seen by either of +them; but while I was waiting for a taxicab, my friend came out of the +station, saw me, and rushed up to greet me. It developed, in the +course of our conversation following the usual commonplaces of +greeting, that she had been down to the station to see her husband off +on the train for San Francisco." + +Donald whistled softly. + +"How did you manage to get away with it, Nan?" he demanded +incredulously. + +"All my life I have been used to doing without things," she replied +simply. "I suppose that helped a little. The shock was not so abrupt +that I lost my presence of mind; you see, I had had a few minutes to +adjust myself after seeing him kiss her in the station--and just then +the taxicab came up and I escaped. Then I came home to the Sawdust +Pile. I wrote him, of course, and sent the letter by registered mail, +in order to make certain he would receive it. He did, but he did not +answer. There was no reason why he should, for he was quite safe. I +had assured him there was no necessity for worry on my account." + +"Of all the crazy, fool things for you to do!" Donald cried sharply. +"Why under the canopy did you deem it necessary to sacrifice yourself +for him? Surely you did not love him--" + +"I'm afraid I never loved him," she interrupted. "I--I thought I did, +although, if he hadn't been away so frequently after our marriage, I +would have learned to love him dearly, I think." + +"Just human nature," Donald suggested. "Something akin to what +trapshooters and golfers call a mental hazard." + +"Of course he married me under an assumed name, Donald." + +"Did you ever see a marriage certificate?" + +"Oh, yes; I had to sign it in the presence of the minister." + +Donald was relieved. + +"Then, you great goose of a girl, you can clear your record any time +you desire. The minister forwarded the marriage certificate to the +state capital, and it is registered there with the State Board of +Health. After registration, it was returned to the minister whose +signature appeared on the certificate as the officiating clergyman. +The minister undoubtedly returned the certificate to your husband." + +"I never saw it again." + +"What if you did not? You can procure a certified copy from the record +in the county-clerk's office or from the records of the State Board of +Health. Marriage records, old dear, are fairly well protected in our +day and generation." + +"I wrote to the State Board of Health at Sacramento. There is no +record of my marriage there." + +"That's strange. Why didn't you write the county clerk, of the county +in which the license was issued?" + +She smiled at him. + +"I did. I had to, you know. My honor was at stake. The license was +issued in Santa Clara County." + +"Well, it will be a simple matter to comb the list of ministers until +we find the one that tied the knot. A certified copy of the marriage +license, with a sworn affidavit by the officiating clergyman--" + +"The officiating clergyman is dead. A private detective agency in San +Francisco discovered that for us." + +"But couldn't you cover your tracks, Nan? Under the circumstances, a +lie--any kind of deceit to save your good name--would have been +pardonable." + +"I couldn't help being smirched. Remember, my father was the only +person in Port Agnew who knew I had been married; he heeded my request +and kept the secret. Suddenly I returned home with a tale of marriage +in anticipation of my ability to prove it. In that I failed. Presently +my baby was born. People wondered who my husband was, and where he +kept himself; some of the extremely curious had the hardihood to come +here and question me. Was my husband dead? Of course not. Had I fibbed +and told them he was, they would have asked when and where and the +nature of the disease that carried him off. Was I divorced? Again I +was confronted with the necessity for telling the truth, because a lie +could be proved. Then the minister, to quiet certain rumors that had +reached him--he wanted me to sing in the choir again, and there was an +uproar when he suggested it--wrote to the California State Board of +Health. When he received a reply to his letter, he visited me to talk +it over, but I wasn't confiding in Mr. Tingley that day. He said I +might hope for salvation if I confessed my wickedness and besought +forgiveness from God. He offered to pray for me and with me. He meant +well--poor, silly dear!--but he was so terribly incredulous that +presently I told him I didn't blame him a bit and suggested that I be +permitted to paddle my own canoe, as it were. Thanked him for calling, +but told him he needn't call again. He departed in great distress." + +"I hold no brief for the Reverend Tingley, Nan; but I'll be shot if +your story will hold water in a world that's fairly well acquainted +with the frailty of humankind. Of course I believe you--and, for some +fool reason, I'm not ashamed of my own intelligence in so believing. I +have accepted you on faith. What sets my reason tottering on its +throne is the fact that you insist upon protecting this scoundrel." + +"I insist upon protecting his wife. I love her. She has been kind to +me. She's the only friend of my own sex that I have ever known. She's +tubercular, and will not live many years. She has two children--and +she adores her scamp of a husband. If I cannot convict that man of +bigamy, would it not be foolish of me to try? And why should I inflict +upon her, who has shown me kindness and love, a brimming measure of +humiliation and sorrow and disgrace? I can bear my burden a year or +two longer, I think; then, when she is gone, I can consider my +vindication." She patted his hand to emphasize her unity of purpose. +"That's the way I've figured it all out--the whole, crazy-quilt +pattern, and if you have a better scheme, and one that isn't founded +on human selfishness, I'm here to listen to it." + +A long silence fell between them. + +"Well, dear heart?" she demanded finally. + +"I wasn't thinking of _that_," he replied slowly. "I was just trying +to estimate how much more I love you this minute than I did five +minutes ago." + +He drew her golden head down on his shoulder and held her to him a +long time without speaking. It was Nan who broke the spell by saying: + +"When the time comes for my vindication, I shall ask you to attend to +it for me, dear. You're my man--and I think it's a man's task." + +His great fingers opened and closed in a clutching movement. He +nodded. + + + + +XVII + + +When Donald returned to The Dreamerie about eleven o'clock, he was +agreeably surprised to find his father in the living-room. + +"Hello, dad!" he greeted The Laird cheerfully. "Glad to see you. When +did you get back?" + +"Came down on the morning train, Donald." + +They were shaking hands now. The Laird motioned him to a chair, and +asked abruptly. + +"Where have you been all day, son?" + +"Well, I represented the clan at church this morning, and, after +luncheon here, I went down to visit the Brents at the Sawdust Pile. +Stayed for dinner. Old Caleb's in rather bad shape mentally and +physically, and I tried to cheer him up. Nan sang for me--quite like +old times." + +"I saw Nan Brent on the beach the other day. Quite a remarkable young +woman. Attractive, I should say," the old man answered craftily. + +"It's a pity, dad. She's every inch a woman. Hard on a girl with +brains and character to find herself in such a sorry tangle." + +The Laird's heavy heart was somewhat lightened by the frankness and +lack of suspicion with which his son had met his blunt query as to +where he had been spending his time. For the space of a minute, he +appeared to be devoting his thoughts to a consideration of Donald's +last remark; presently he sighed, faced his son, and took the plunge. + +"Have you heard anything about a fight down near the Sawdust Pile +last night, my son?" he demanded. + +His son's eyes opened with interest and astonishment. + +"No; I did not, dad. And I was there until nearly ten o'clock." + +"Yes; I was aware of that, and of your visit there to-day and this +evening. Thank God, you're frank with me! That yellow scoundrel and +two Greeks followed you there to do for you. After you roughed the +Greek at the railroad station, it occurred to me that you had an enemy +and might hold him cheaply; so, just before I boarded the train, I +telephoned Daney to tell Dirty Dan to shadow you and guard you. So +well did he follow orders that he lies in the company hospital now at +the point of death. As near as I can make out the affair, Dirty Dan +inculcated in those bushwhackers the idea that he was the man they +were after; he went to meet them and took the fight off your hands." + +"Good old Dirty Dan! I'll wager a stiff sum he did a thorough job." +The young laird of Tyee rose and ruffled his father's gray head +affectionately. "Thoughtful, canny old fox!" he continued. "I swear +I'm all puffed up with conceit when I consider the kind of father I +selected for myself." + +"Those scoundrels would have killed you," old Hector reminded him, +with just a trace of emotion in his voice. "And if they'd done that, +sonny, your old father'd never held up his head again. There are two +things I could not stand up under--your death and"--he sighed, as if +what he was about to say hurt him cruelly--"the wrong kind of a +daughter-in-law." + +"We will not fence with each other," his son answered soberly. "There +has never been a lack of confidence between us, and I shall not +withhold anything from you. You are referring to Nan, are you not?'" + +"I am, my son." + +"Well?" + +"I am not a cat, and it hurts me to be an old dog, but--I saw Nan +Brent recently, and we had a bit of talk together. She's a bonny lass, +Donald, and I'm thinking 'twould be better for your peace of mind--and +the peace of mind of all of us--if you saw less of her." + +"You think, then, father, that I'm playing with fire." + +"You're sitting on an open barrel of gunpowder with a lighted torch in +your hand." + +Donald returned to his chair and faced his father. + +"Let us suppose," he suggested, "that the present unhappy situation in +which Nan finds herself did not exist. Would you still prefer that I +limit my visits to, say, Christmas and Easter?" + +The Laird scratched the back of his head in perplexity. + +"I'm inclined to think I wouldn't," he replied. "I'd consider your +best interests always. If you married a fine girl from Chicago or New +York, she might not be content to dwell with you in Port Agnew." + +"Then Nan's poverty--the lowliness of her social position, even in +Port Agnew, would not constitute a serious bar?" + +"I was as poor as Job's turkey once myself--and your mother's people +were poorer. But we came of good blood." + +"Well, Nan's mother was a gentlewoman; her grandfather was an +admiral; her great-grandfather a commodore, her great-great-granduncle +a Revolutionary colonel, and her grandmother an F.F.V. Old Caleb's +ancestors always followed the sea. His father and his grandfather were +sturdy old Yankee shipmasters. He holds the Congressional medal of +honor for conspicuous gallantry in action over and above the call of +duty. The Brent blood may not be good enough for some, but it's a kind +that's good enough for me!" + +"All that is quite beside the question, Donald. The fact remains that +Nan Brent loves you." + +"May I inquire on what grounds you base that statement, dad?" + +"On Saturday night, when you held her in your arms at parting, she +kissed you." Donald was startled, and his features gave indubitable +indication of the fact. His father's cool gray eyes were bent upon him +kindly but unflinchingly. "Of course," he continued, in even tones, +"you would not have accepted that caress were you not head over heels +in love with the girl. You are not low enough to seek her favor for +another reason." + +"Yes; I love her," Donald maintained manfully. "I have loved her for +years--since I was a boy of sixteen,--only, I didn't realize it until +my return to Port Agnew. I can't very well help loving Nan, can I, +dad?" + +To his amazement, his father smiled at him sympathetically. + +"No; I do not see how you could very well help yourself, son," he +replied. "She's an extraordinary young woman. After my brief and +accidental interview with her recently, I made up my mind that there +would be something radically wrong with you if you didn't fall in +love with her." + +His son grinned back at him. + +"Proceed, old lumberjack!" he begged. "Your candor is soothing to my +bruised spirit." + +"No; you cannot help loving her, I suppose. Since you admit being in +love with her, the fact admits of no argument. It has happened, and I +do not condemn you for it. Both of you have merely demonstrated in the +natural, human way that you are natural human beings. And I'm grateful +to Nan for loving you. I think I should have resented her not doing +so, for it would demonstrate her total lack of taste and appreciation +of my son. She informed me, in so many words, that she wouldn't marry +you." + +"Nan has the capacity, somewhat rare in a woman, of keeping her own +counsel. That is news to me, dad. However, if you had waited about two +minutes, I would have informed you that I do not intend to marry +Nan--" He paused for an infinitesimal space and added, "yet." + +The Laird elevated his eyebrows. + +"'Yet?'" he repeated. + +Donald flushed a little as he reiterated his statement with an +emphatic nod. + +"Why that reservation, my son?" + +"Because, some day, Nan may be in position to prove herself that which +I know her to be--a virtuous woman--and when that time comes, I'll +marry her in spite of hell and high water." + +Old Hector sighed. He was quite familiar with the fact that, while the +records of the county clerk of Santa Clara County, California, +indicated that a marriage license had been issued on a certain date +to a certain man and one Nan Brent, of Port Agnew, Washington, there +was no official record of a marriage between the two. The Reverend Mr. +Tingley's wife had sorrowfully imparted that information to Mrs. +McKaye, who had, in turn, informed old Hector, who had received the +news with casual interest, little dreaming that he would ever have +cause to remember it in later years. And The Laird was an old man, +worldly-wise and of mature judgment. His soul wore the scars of human +perfidy, and, because he could understand the weakness of the flesh, +he had little confidence in its strength. Consequently, he dismissed +now, with a wave of his hand, consideration of the possibility that +Nan Brent would ever make a fitting mate for his son. + +"It's nice of you to believe that, Donald. I would not destroy your +faith in human nature, for human nature will destroy your faith in +time, as it has destroyed mine. I'm afraid I'm a sort of doubting +Thomas. I must see in order to believe; I must thrust my finger into +the wound. I wonder if you realize that, even if this poor girl +should, at some future time, be enabled to demonstrate her innocence +of illicit love, she has been hopelessly smeared and will never, +never, be quite able to clean herself." + +"It matters not if _I_ know she's a good woman. That is all +sufficient. To hell with what the world thinks! I'm going to take my +happiness where I find it." + +"It may be a long wait, my son." + +"I will be patient, sir." + +"And, in the meantime, I shall be a doddering old man, without a +grandson to sweeten the afternoon of my life, without a hope for +seeing perpetuated all those things that I have considered worth +while because I created them. Ah, Donald, lad, I'm afraid you're going +to be cruel to your old father!" + +"I have suffered with the thought that I might appear to be, dad. I +have considered every phase of the situation; I was certain of the +attitude you would take, and I feel no resentment because you have +taken it. Neither Nan nor I had contemplated the condition which +confronts us. It happened--like that," and Donald snapped his fingers. +"Now the knowledge of what we mean to each other makes the obstacles +all the more heart-breaking. I have tried to wish, for your sake, that +I hadn't spoken--that I had controlled myself, but, for some +unfathomable reason, I cannot seem to work up a very healthy +contrition. And I think, dad, this is going to cause me more suffering +than it will you." + +A faint smile flitted across old Hector's stern face. Youth! Youth! It +always thinks it knows! + +"This affair is beyond consideration by the McKayes, Donald. It is +utterly impossible! You must cease calling on the girl." + +"Why, father?" + +"To give you my real reason would lead to endless argument in which +you would oppose me with more or less sophistry that would be +difficult to combat. In the end, we might lose our tempers. Let us +say, therefore, that you must cease calling on the lass because I +desire it." + +"I'll never admit that I'm ashamed of her, for I am not!" his son +burst forth passionately. + +"But people are watching you now--talking about you. Man, do ye not +ken you're your father's son?" A faint note of passion had crept into +The Laird's tones; under the stress of it, his faint Scotch brogue +increased perceptibly. He had tried gentle argument, and he knew he +had failed; in his desperation, he decided to invoke his authority as +the head of his clan. "I forbid you!" he cried firmly, and slapped the +huge leather arm of his chair. "I charge you, by the blood that's in +you, not to bring disgrace upon my house!" + +A slight mistiness which Donald, with swelling heart, had noted in his +father's eyes a few moments before was now gone. They flashed like +naked claymores in the glance that Andrew Daney once had so aptly +described to his wife. + +For the space of ten seconds, father and son looked into each other's +soul and therein each read the other's answer. There could be no +surrender. + +"You have bred a man, sir, not a mollycoddle," said the young laird +quietly. "I think we understand each other." He rose, drew the old man +out of his chair, and threw a great arm across the latter's shoulders. +"Good-night, sir," he murmured humbly, and squeezed the old shoulders +a little. + +The Laird bowed his head but did not answer. He dared not trust +himself to do so. Thus Donald left him, standing in the middle of the +room, with bowed head a trifle to one side, as if old Hector listened +for advice from some unseen presence. The Laird of Tyee had thought he +had long since plumbed the heights and depths of the joys and sorrows +of fatherhood. The tears came presently. + +A streak of moonlight filtered into the room as the moon sank in the +sea and augmented the silver in a head that rested on two clasped +hands, while Hector McKaye, kneeling beside his chair, prayed to his +stern Presbyterian God once more to save his son from the folly of his +love. + + + + +XVIII + + +It had been Donald McKaye's intention to go up to the logging-camp on +the first log-train leaving for the woods at seven o'clock on Monday +morning, but the news of Dirty Dan's plight caused him to change his +plans. Strangely enough, his interview with his father, instead of +causing him the keenest mental distress, had been productive of a +peculiar sense of peace. The frank, sympathetic, and temperate manner +in which the old laird had discussed his affair had conduced to +produce this feeling. He passed a restful night, as his father +observed when the pair met at the breakfast-table. + +"Well, how do you feel this morning, son?" the old man queried kindly. + +"Considerably better than I did before our talk last night, sir," +Donald answered. + +"I haven't, slept," old Hector continued calmly, "although I expect to +have a little nap during the day. Just about daylight a comforting +thought stole over me." + +"I'm glad to hear it, dad." + +"I've decided to repose faith in Nan, having none at all in you. If +she truly loves you, she'll die before she'll hurt you." + +"Perhaps it may be a comfort to you to know that she has so expressed +herself to me." + +"Bless her poor heart for that! However, she told me practically the +same thing." + +He scooped his eggs into the egg-cup and salted and peppered them +before he spoke again. Then: + +"We'll not discuss this matter further. All I ask is that you'll +confine your visits to the Sawdust Pile to the dark of the moon; I +trust to your natural desire to promote my peace of mind to see to it +that no word of your--affair reaches your mother and sisters. They'll +not handle you with the tact you've had from me." + +"I can well believe that, sir. Thank you. I shall exercise the utmost +deference to your desires consistent with an unfaltering adherence to +my own code." + +There it was again--more respectful defiance! Had he not, during the +long, distressing hours of the night, wisely decided to leave his +son's case in the hands of God and Nan Brent, The Laird would have +flown into a passion at that. He compromised by saying nothing, and +the meal was finished in silence. + +After breakfast, Donald went down to the hospital to visit Dirty Dan. +O'Leary was still alive, but very close to death; he had lost so much +blood that he was in a state of coma. + +"He's only alive because he's a fighter, Mr. McKaye," the doctor +informed Donald. "If I can induce some good healthy man to consent to +a transfusion of blood, I think it would buck Dan up considerably." + +"I'm your man," Donald informed him. It had occurred to him that Dirty +Dan had given his blood for the House of McKaye; therefore, the least +he could do was to make a partial payment on the debt. + +The doctor, knowing nothing of the reason for Dirty Dan's predicament, +was properly amazed. + +"You--the boss--desire to do this?" he replied. + +"We can get one of this wild rascal's comrades--" + +"That wild rascal is my comrade, doctor. I'm more or less fond of +Dan." He had removed his coat and was already rolling up his sleeve. +"I'm half Gael," he continued smilingly, "and, you know, we must not +adulterate Dirty Dan's blood any more than is absolutely necessary. +Consider the complications that might ensue if you gave Dan an +infusion of blood from a healthy Italian. The very first fight he +engaged in after leaving this hospital, he'd use a knife instead of +nature's weapons. Get busy!" + +But the doctor would take no liberties with the life-blood of the heir +of Tyee until he had telephoned to The Laird. + +"My son is the captain of his own soul," old Hector answered promptly. +"You just see that you do your job well; don't hurt the boy or weaken +him too greatly." + +An hour after the operation, father and son sat beside Dirty Dan's +bed. Presently, the ivory-tinted eyelids flickered slightly, whereat +old Hector winked sagely at his son. Then Dirty Dan's whiskered upper +lip twisted humorously, and he whispered audibly: + +"Ye young divil! Oh-ho, ye young vagabond! Faith, if The Laird knew +what ye're up to this night, he'd--break yer--back--in two halves!" + +Hector McKaye glanced apprehensively about, but the nurse had left the +room. He bent over Dirty Dan. + +"Shut up!" he commanded. "Don't tell everything you know!" + +O'Leary promptly opened his eyes and gazed upon The Laird in profound +puzzlement. + +[Illustration: DONALD BOWED HIS HEAD. "I CAN'T GIVE HER UP, FATHER."] + +"Wild horrses couldn't dhrag it out o' me," he protested. "Ask me no +questions an' I'll tell ye no lies." + +He subsided into unconsciousness again. The doctor entered and felt of +his pulse. + +"On the up-grade," he announced. "He'll do." + +"Dan will obey the voice of authority, even in his delirium," The +Laird whispered to his son, when they found themselves alone with the +patient once more. "I'll stay here until he wakes up rational, and +silence him if, in the mean time, he babbles. Run along home, lad." + +At noon, Dirty Dan awoke with the light of reason and belligerency in +his eyes, whereupon The Laird questioned him, and developed a stubborn +reticence which comforted the former to such a degree that he decided +to follow his son home to The Dreamerie. + + + + +XIX + + +A week elapsed before Hector McKaye would permit his son to return to +his duties. By that time, the slight wound in the latter's arm where +the vein had been opened had practically healed. Dirty Dan continued +to improve, passed the danger-mark, and began the upward climb to his +old vigor and pugnacity. Port Agnew, stirred to discussion over the +affray, forgot it within three days, and on the following Monday +morning Donald returned to the woods. The Laird of Tyee carried his +worries to the Lord in prayer, and Nan Brent frequently forgot her +plight and sang with something of the joy of other days. + +A month passed. During that month, Donald had visited the Sawdust Pile +once and had written Nan thrice. Also, Mrs. Andrew Daney, hard beset +because of her second experience with the "Blue Bonnet" glance of a +McKaye, had decided to remove herself from the occasions of gossip and +be in a position to claim an alibi in the event of developments. So +she abandoned Daney to the mercies of a Japanese cook and departed for +Whatcom to visit a married daughter. From Whatcom, she wrote her +husband that she was enjoying her visit so much she hadn't the +slightest idea when she would return, and, for good and sufficient +reasons, Daney did not urge her to change her mind. + +Presently, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters returned to Port Agnew. His +wife's letters to The Laird had failed to elicit any satisfactory +reason for his continued stay at home, and inasmuch as all three +ladies were deferring the trip to Honolulu on his account, they had +come to a mutual agreement to get to close quarters and force a +decision. + +Mrs. McKaye had been inside The Dreamerie somewhat less than five +minutes before her instinct as a woman, coupled with her knowledge as +a wife, informed her that her spouse was troubled in his soul. Always +tactless, she charged him with it, and when he denied it, she was +certain of it. So she pressed him further, and was informed that he +had a business deal on; when she interrogated him as to the nature of +it (something she had not done in years), he looked at her and smoked +contemplatively. Immediately she changed the subject of conversation, +but made a mental resolve to keep her eyes and her ears open. + +The Fates decreed that she should not have long to wait. Donald came +home from the logging-camp the following Saturday night, and the +family, having finished dinner, were seated in the living-room. The +Laird was smoking and staring moodily out to sea, Donald was reading, +Jane was at the piano softly playing ragtime, and Mrs. McKaye and +Elizabeth were knitting socks for suffering Armenians when the +telephone-bell rang. Jane immediately left the piano and went out into +the entrance-hall to answer it, the servants having gone down to Port +Agnew to a motion-picture show. A moment later, she returned to the +living-room, leaving the door to the entrance-hall open. + +"You're wanted on the telephone, Don!" she cried gaily. "Such a sweet +voice, too!" + +Mrs. McKaye and Elizabeth looked up from their knitting. They were +not accustomed to having Donald called to the telephone by young +ladies. Donald laid his magazine aside and strode to the telephone; +The Laird faced about in his chair, and a harried look crept into his +eyes. + +"Close the door to the entrance-hall, Jane," he commanded. + +"Oh, dear me, no!" his spoiled daughter protested. "It would be too +great a strain on our feminine curiosity not to eavesdrop on Don's +little romance." + +"Close it!" The Laird repeated. He was too late. Through the open +door, Donald's voice reached them: + +"Oh, you poor girl! I'm so sorry, Nan dear. I'll be over immediately." +His voice dropped several octaves, but the words came to the listeners +none the less distinctly. "Be brave, sweetheart." + +Mrs. McKaye glanced at her husband in time to see him avert his face; +she noted how he clutched the arm of his chair. + +To quote a homely phrase, the cat was out of the bag at last. Donald's +face wore a troubled expression as he reentered the living-room. His +mother spoke first. + +"Donald! _My_ son!" she murmured tragically. + +"Hum-m--!" The Laird grunted. The storm had broken at last, and, +following the trend of human nature, he was conscious of sudden +relief. + +Jane was the first to recover her customary aplomb. + +"Don dear," she cooed throatily, "are we mistaken in our assumption +that the person with whom you have just talked is Nan Brent?" + +"Your penetration does you credit, Jane. It was." + +"And did our ears deceive us or did we really hear you call her +'dear' and 'sweetheart'?" + +"It is quite possible," Donald answered. He crossed the room and +paused beside his father. "Caleb Brent blinked out a few minutes ago, +dad. It was quite sudden. Heart-trouble. Nan's all alone down there, +and of course she needs help. I'm going. I'll leave to you the job of +explaining the situation to mother and the girls. Good-night, pop; I +think you understand." + +Mrs. McKaye was too stunned, too horrified, to find refuge in tears. + +"How dare that woman ring you up?" she demanded haughtily. "The +hussy!" + +"Why, mother dear, she has to have help," her son suggested +reproachfully. + +"But why from you, of all men? I forbid you to go!" his mother +quavered. "You must have more respect for us. Why, what will people +say?" + +"To hell with what people say! They'll say it, anyhow," roared old +Hector. Away down in his proud old heart he felt a few cheers rising +for his son's manly action, albeit the necessity for that action was +wringing his soul. "'Tis no time for idle spierin'. Away with you, +lad! Comfort the puir lass. 'Tis no harm to play a man's part. Hear +me," he growled; "I'll nae have my soncy lad abused." + +"Dad's gone back to the Hielands. 'Nough said." Elizabeth had +recovered her customary jolly poise. Wise enough, through long +experience, to realize that when her father failed to throttle that +vocal heritage from his forebears, war impended, she gathered up her +knitting and fled to her room. + +Jane ran to her mother's side, drew the good lady's head down on her +shoulder, and faced her brother. + +"Shame! Shame!" she cried sharply. "You ungrateful boy! How could you +hurt dear mother so!" + +This being the cue for her mother to burst into violent weeping, +forthwith the poor soul followed up the cue. Donald, sore beset, +longed to take her in his arms and kiss away her tears, but something +warned him that such action would merely serve to accentuate the +domestic tempest, so, with a despairing glance at old Hector, he left +the room. + +"Pretty kettle o' fish you've left me to bring to a boil!" the old man +cried after him. "O Lord! O Lord! Grant me the wisdom of Solomon, the +patience of Job, and the cunning of Judas Iscariot! God help my +mildewed soul!" + + + + +XX + + +The instant the front door closed behind her son, Mrs. McKaye +recovered her composure. Had the reason been more trifling, she would +have wept longer, but, in view of its gravity, her common sense (she +possessed some, when it pleased her to use it) bade her be up and +doing. Also, she was smitten with remorse. She told herself she was +partly to blame for this scourge that had come upon the family; she +had neglected her son and his indulgent father. She, who knew so well +the peculiar twists of her husband's mental and moral make-up, should +not be surprised if he cast a tolerant eye upon his son's +philanderings; seemingly the boy had always been able to twist his +father round his finger, so to speak. She sat up, dabbed her eyes, +kissed Jane lovingly as who should say, "Well, thank God, here is one +child I can rely upon," and turned upon the culprit. Her opening +sentence was at once a summons and an invitation. + +"Well, Hector?" + +"It happened while you were away--while we were both away, Nellie. I +was gone less than forty-eight hours--and he had compromised himself." + +"You don't mean--really compromised himself!" Jane cried sharply, thus +bringing upon her The Laird's attention. He appeared to transfix her +with his index finger. + +"To bed with you, young lady!" he ordered. "Your mother and I will +discuss this matter without any of your pert suggestions or +exclamations. I'm far from pleased with you, Jane. I told you to shut +that door, and you disobeyed me. For that, you shall suffer due +penance. Six months in Port Agnew, my dear, to teach you obedience and +humility. Go!" + +Jane departed, sniffling, and this stern evidence of The Laird's +temper was not lost upon his wife. She decided to be tactful, which, +in her case, meant proceeding slowly, speaking carefully, and +listening well. Old Hector heaved himself out of his great chair, came +and sat down on the divan with his wife, and put his arm round her. + +"Dear old Nellie!" he whispered, and kissed her. + +For the moment, they were lovers of thirty-odd years agone; their +children forgotten, they were sufficient unto themselves. + +"I know just how you feel, Nellie. I have done my best to spare you--I +have not connived or condoned. And I'll say this for our son: He's +been open and above-board with her and with me. He's young, and in a +moment of that passion that comes to young men--aye, and young women, +too, for you and I have known it--he told her what was in his heart, +even while his head warned him to keep quiet. It seems to me sometimes +that 'tis something that was to be." + +"Oh, Hector, it mustn't be! It cannot be!" + +"I'm hoping it will not be, Nellie. I'll do my best to stop it." + +"But, Hector, why did you support him a moment ago?" + +He flapped a hand to indicate a knowledge of his own incomprehensible +conduct. + +"She'd called for him, Nellie. Poor bairn, her heart went out to the +one she knew would help her, and, by God, Nellie, I felt for her! +You're a woman, Nellie. Think--if one of your own daughters was +wishful for a kind word and a helping hand from an honorable gentleman +and some fool father forbade it. Nellie wife, my heart and my head are +sore tangled, sore tangled--" + +His voice broke. He was shaken with emotion. He had stood much and he +had stood it alone; while it had never occurred to him to think so, he +had been facing life pretty much alone for a decade. It would have +eased his surcharged spirit could he have shed a few manly tears, if +his wife had taken his leonine old head on her shoulder and lavished +upon him the caresses his hungry heart yearned for. Unfortunately, she +was that type of wife whose first and only thought is for her +children. She was aware only that he was in a softened mood, so she +said, + +"Don't you think you've been a little hard on poor Jane, Hector dear?" + +"No, I do not. She's cruel, selfish, and uncharitable." + +"But you'll forgive her this once, won't you, dear?" + +He considered. + +"Well, if she doesn't heckle Donald--" he began, but she stopped +further proviso with a grateful kiss, and immediately followed Jane +up-stairs to break the good news to her. She and Jane then joined +Elizabeth in the latter's room, and the trio immediately held what +their graceless relative would have termed "a lodge of sorrow." Upon +motion of Jane, seconded by Elizabeth, it was unanimously resolved +that the honor of the family must be upheld. At all cost. They laid +out a plan of campaign. + + + + +XXI + + +Upon his arrival in Port Agnew, Donald called upon one Sam Carew. In +his youth, Mr. Carew had served his time as an undertaker's assistant, +but in Port Agnew his shingle proclaimed him to his world as a +"mortician." Owing to the low death-rate in that salubrious section, +however, Mr. Carew added to his labors those of a carpenter, and when +outside jobs of carpentering were scarce, he manufactured a few plain +and fancy coffins. + +Donald routed Sam Carew out of bed with the news of Caleb Brent's +death and ordered him down to the Sawdust Pile in his capacity of +mortician; then he hastened there himself in advance of Mr. Carew. Nan +was in the tiny living-room, her head pillowed on the table, when +Donald entered, and when she had sobbed herself dry-eyed in his arms, +they went in to look at old Caleb. He had passed peacefully away an +hour after retiring for the night; Nan had straightened his limbs and +folded the gnarled hands over the still heart; in the great democracy +of death, his sad old face had settled into peaceful lines such as had +been present in the days when Nan was a child and she and her father +had been happy building a home on the Sawdust Pile. As Donald looked +at him and reflected on the tremendous epics of a career that the +world regarded as commonplace, when he recalled the sloop old Caleb +had built for him with so much pride and pleaure, the long-forgotten +fishing trips and races in the bight, the wondrous tales the old +sailor had poured into his boyish ears, together with the affection +and profound respect, as for a superior being, which the old man had +always held for him, the young laird of Tyee mingled a tear or two +with those of the orphaned Nan. + +"I've told Sam Carew to come for him," he informed Nan, when they had +returned to the living-room. "I shall attend to all of the funeral +arrangements. Funeral the day after to-morrow, say in the morning. Are +there any relatives to notify?" + +"None that would be interested, Donald." + +"Do you wish a religious service?" + +"Certainly not by the Reverend Tingley." + +"Then I'll get somebody else. Anything else? Money, clothes?" + +She glanced at him with all the sweetness and tenderness of her great +love lambent in her wistful sea-blue eyes. + +"What a poor thing is pride in the face of circumstances," she replied +drearily. "I haven't sufficient strength of character to send you +away. I ought to, for your own sake, but since you're the only one +that cares, I suppose you'll have to pay the price. You might lend me +a hundred dollars, dear. Perhaps some-day I'll repay it." + +He laid the money in her hand and retained the hand in his; thus they +sat gazing into the blue flames of the driftwood fire--she hopelessly, +he with masculine helplessness. Neither spoke, for each was busy with +personal problems. + +The arrival of Mr. Carew interrupted their sad thoughts. When he had +departed with the harvest of his grim profession, the thought that had +been uppermost in Donald's mind found expression. + +"It's going to be mighty hard on you living here alone." + +"It's going to be hard on me wherever I live--alone," she replied +resignedly. + +"Wish I could get some woman to come and live with you until we can +adjust your affairs, Nan. Tingley's wife's a good sort. Perhaps--" + +She shook her head. + +"I prefer my own company--when I cannot have yours." + +A wave of bitterness, of humiliation swept over him in the knowledge +that he could not ask one of his own sisters to help her. Truly he +dwelt in an unlovely world. + +He glanced at Nan again, and suddenly there came over him a great +yearning to share her lot, even at the price of sharing her shame. He +was not ashamed of her, and she knew it; yet both were fearful of +revealing that fact to their fellow mortals. The conviction stole over +Donald McKaye that he was not being true to himself, that he was not a +man of honor in the fullest sense or a gentleman in the broadest +meaning of the word. And that, to the heir of a principality, was a +dangerous thought. + +He then took tender leave of the girl and walked all the way home. His +father had not retired when he reached The Dreamerie, and the sight of +that stern yet kindly and wholly understandable person moved him to +sit down beside The Laird on the divan and take the old man's hand in +his childishly. + +"Dad, I'm in hell's own hole!" he blurted. "I'm so unhappy!" + +"Yes, son; I know you are. And it breaks me all up to think that, for +the first time in my life, I can't help you. All the money in the +world will not buy the medicine that'll cure you." + +"I have to go through that, too, I suppose," his son complained, and +jerked his head toward the stairs, where, as a matter of fact, his +sister Jane crouched at the time, striving to eavesdrop. "I had a +notion, as I walked home, that I'd refuse to permit them to discuss my +business with me." + +"This particular business of yours is, unfortunately, something which +they believe to be their business, also. God help me, I agree with +them!" + +"Well, they had better be mighty careful how they speak of Nan Brent," +Donald returned darkly. "This is something I have to fight out alone. +By the way, are you going to old Caleb's funeral, dad?" + +"Certainly. I have always attended the funerals of my neighbors, and I +liked and respected Caleb Brent. Always reminded me of a lost dog. But +he had a man's pride. I'll say that for him." + +"Thank you, father. Ten o'clock, the day after to-morrow, from the +little chapel. There isn't going to be a preacher present, so I'd be +obliged if you'd offer a prayer and read the burial service. That old +man and I were pals, and I want a real human being to preside at his +obsequies." + +The Laird whistled softly. He was on the point of asking to be +excused, but reflected that Donald was bound to attend the funeral and +that his father's presence would tend to detract from the personal +side of the unprecedented spectacle and render it more of a matter of +family condescension in so far as Port Agnew was concerned. + +"Very well, lad," he replied; "I'm forced to deny you so much 'twould +be small of me not to grant you a wee favor now and then. I'll do my +best. And you might send a nurse from the company hospital to stay +with Nan for a week or two." + +"Good old file!" his son murmured gratefully, and, bidding his father +good-night, climbed the stairs to his room. Hearing his footsteps +ascending, Jane emerged from the rear of the landing; simultaneously, +his mother and Elizabeth appeared at the door of the latter's room. He +had the feeling of a captured missionary running the gantlet of a +forest of spears _en route_ to a grill over a bed of coals. + +"Donald dear," Elizabeth called throatily, "come here." + +"Donald dear is going to bed," he retorted savagely. "'Sufficient unto +the day is the evil thereof.' Good-night!" + +"But you _must_ discuss this matter with us!" Jane clamored. "How can +you expect us to rest until we have your word of honor that you--" + +The Laird had appeared at the foot of the stairs, having followed his +son in anticipation of an interview which he had forbidden. + +"Six months, Janey," he called up; "and there'll be no appeal from +that decision. Nellie! Elizabeth! Poor Jane will be lonesome in Port +Agnew, and I'm not wishful to be too hard on her. You'll keep her +company." There was a sound of closing doors, and silence settled +over The Dreamerie, that little white home that The Laird of Tyee had +built and dedicated to peace and love. For he was the master here. + + + + +XXII + + +Caleb Brent's funeral was the apotheosis of simplicity. Perhaps a +score of the old sailor's friends and neighbors attended, and there +were, perhaps, half a dozen women--motherly old souls who had known +Nan intimately in the days when she associated with their daughters +and who felt in the presence of death a curious unbending of a curious +and indefinable hostility. Sam Carew, arrayed in the conventional +habiliments of his profession, stood against the wall and closed his +eyes piously when Hector McKaye, standing beside old Caleb, spoke +briefly and kindly of the departed and with a rough eloquence that +stirred none present--not even Nan, who, up to that moment, entirely +ignorant of The Laird's intention, could only gaze at him, amazed and +incredulous--more than it stirred The Laird himself. The sonorous and +beautiful lines of the burial service took on an added beauty and +dignity as he read them, for The Laird believed! And when he had +finished reading the service, he looked up, and his kind gaze lay +gently on Nan Brent as he said: + +"My friends, we will say a wee bit prayer for Caleb wi' all the +earnestness of our hearts. O Lorrd, now that yon sailor has towed out +on his last long cruise, we pray thee to gie him a guid pilot--aye, an +archangel, for he was ever an honest man and brave--to guide him to +thy mansion. Forgie him his trespasses and in thy great mercy grant +comfort to this poor bairn he leaves behind. And thine shall be the +honor and the glory, forever and ever. Amen!" + +None present, except Donald, realized the earnestness of that prayer, +for, as always under the stress of deep emotion, The Laird had grown +Scotchy. Mrs. Tingley, a kindly little soul who had felt it her +Christian duty to be present, moved over to the little organ, and Nan, +conspicuous in a four-year-old tailored suit and a black sailor-hat, +rose calmly from her seat and stood beside the minister's wife. For a +moment, her glance strayed over the little audience. Then she +sang--not a hymn, but just a little song her father had always +liked--the haunting, dignified melody that has been set to Stevenson's +"Requiem." + + Under the wide and starry sky, + Dig the grave and let me lie. + Glad did I live and gladly die, + And I laid me down with a will. + + This be the verse you grave for me: + _Here he lies where he longed to be. + Home is the sailor, home from sea, + And the hunter, home from the hill_. + +The Laird, watching her narrowly, realized the effort it was costing +her; yet her glorious voice did not break or quiver once. "You +wonderful, wonderful woman!" he thought, moved to a high pitch of +admiration for her independence and her flagrant flaunting of +tradition, "What a wife for my boy--what a mother for my grandson--if +you hadn't spoiled it all!" + +She rode to the cemetery in The Laird's car with The Laird, Donald, +and Mrs. Tingley. Leaning on Donald's arm, she watched them hide old +Caleb beneath the flowers from the gardens of The Dreamerie; then The +Laird read the service at the grave and they returned to the Sawdust +Pile, where Nan's child (he had been left at home in charge of a nurse +from the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital) experienced more or less +difficulty deciding whether Donald or The Laird was his father. + +The Laird now considered his duty to Caleb Brent accomplished. He +remained at the Sawdust Pile a period barely sufficient for Nan to +express her sense of obligation. + +"In a month, my dear girl," he whispered, as he took her hand, "you'll +have had time to adjust yourself and decide on the future. Then we'll +have a little talk." + +She smiled bravely up at him through misty eyes and shook her head. +She read his thoughts far better than he knew. + +Father and son repaired to the private office at the mill, and The +Laird seated himself in his old swivel chair. + +"Now then, lad," he demanded, "have I been a good sport?" + +"You have, indeed, father! I'm grateful to you." + +"You needn't be. I wouldn't have missed that funeral for considerable. +That girl can sing like an angel, and, man, the courage of her! 'Twas +sweet of her, singing to old Caleb like that, but I much mistake if +she won't be talked about for it. 'Twill be said she's heartless." He +handed his son a cigar and snipped the end off one for himself. "We'll +be needing the Sawdust Pile now for a drying-yard," he announced +complacently. + +"You mean----" + +"I mean, my son, that you're dreaming of the impossible, and that it's +time for you to wake up. I want no row about it. I can't bear to hear +your mother and sisters carrying on longer. I'll never get over +thinking what a pity it is that girl is damaged goods. She must not be +wife to son of mine." + +The young laird of Tyee bowed his head. + +"I can't give her up, father," he murmured. "By God, I can't!" + +"There can be no happiness without honor, and you'll not be the first +to make our name a jest in the mouths of Port Agnew. You will write +her and tell her of my decision; if you do not wish to, then I shall +do it for you. Trust her to understand and not hold it against you. +And it is my wish that you should not see her again. She must be cared +for, but when that time comes, I shall attend to it; you know me well +enough to realize I'll do that well." He laid his hand tenderly on the +young man's shoulder. "This is your first love, my son. Time and hard +work will help you forget--and I'll wait for my grandson." + +"And if I should not agree to this--what?" + +"Obey me for a month--and then ask me that question if you will. +I'm--I'm a bit unprepared for an answer on such short notice." + +Donald bowed his head. + +"Very well, sir. I'll think it over for a month--on one condition." + +"Thank you, my son," said The Laird of Tyee. "And what is the +condition?" + +"Let mother and the girls go to Seattle or Honolulu or Shanghai or +some other seaport--anywhere, provided they're not at The Dreamerie +when I return to Port Agnew. I'm going to spend that damnable month in +the woods, week-ends and all, and wrestle with this problem." + +Old Hector smiled a small smile. + +"I'm an old ass," he declared. "Have it your own way, only--by the +gods, I ought to teach them sense. I've spoiled them, and I ought to +unspoil them. They drive me crazy, much as I love them." + + * * * * * + +The Laird went home that afternoon lighter of heart than he had been +for a month. He told himself that his firm stand with Donald had +rather staggered that young man, and that a month of reflection, far +from the disturbing influence of Nan Brent's magnetic presence, would +induce Donald to adopt a sensible course. + + + + +XXIII + + +Since that night when Mr. Daney, standing aloof in the dark vacant lot +close to the Sawdust Pile, had seen Donald McKaye, in the light cast +through the open door of Caleb Brent's cottage, take Nan Brent in his +arms and kiss her, since he had heard Nan Brent's voice apply to the +young laird of Port Agnew a term so endearing as to constitute a +verbal caress, his practical and unromantic soul had been in a turmoil +of apprehension. + +It seemed to him that in old Hector he noted signs of deep mental +perturbation. Also, he told himself, he detected more shades than +lights in Donald's usually pleasant features; so, knowing full well +that which he knew and which neither The Laird nor Donald suspected +him of knowing, to wit: that a declaration of love had been made +between Nan Brent and the heir to the Tyee millions, Mr. Daney came to +the conclusion, one evening about a week after old Caleb's funeral, +that something had to be done--and done quickly--to avert the scandal +which impended. To his way of reasoning, however, it appeared that +nothing along this line was possible of accomplishment while Nan Brent +remained in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney brought to play all of his +considerable intelligence upon the problem of inducing her to leave. + +Now, to render Port Agnew untenable for Nan, thus forcing her to +retreat, was a task which Mr. Daney dismissed not only as unworthy of +him but also as impossible. As a director of the Bank of Port Agnew, +he had little difficulty in ascertaining that Caleb Brent's +savings-account had been exhausted; also, he realized that the +chartering of Caleb's motor-boat, Brutus, to tow the municipal +garbage-barge to sea and return, had merely been Donald's excuse to be +kind to the Brents without hurting their gentle pride. To cancel the +charter of the Brutus now would force Nan to leave Port Agnew in order +to support herself, for Daney could see to it that no one in Port +Agnew employed her, even had anyone in Port Agnew dared run such risk. +Also, the Tyee Lumber Company might bluff her out of possession of the +Sawdust Pile. However, Donald would have to be reckoned with in either +case, and Mr. Daney was not anxious to have the weight of his young +master's anger fall on his guilty head. He saw, therefore, that some +indirect means must be employed. + +Now, Mr. Daney wisely held, in contradiction to any number of people +not quite so hard-headed as he, that absence does _not_ tend to make +the heart grow fonder--particularly if sufficient hard work and worry +can be supplied to prevent either party to the separation thinking too +long or too intensely of the absentee. Within a decent period +following Nan's hoped-for departure from Port Agnew, Mr. Daney planned +to impress upon The Laird the desirability of a trip to the Orient, +while he, Daney, upon the orders of a nerve-specialist, took a long +sea voyage. Immediately the entire burden of seeing that the Tyee +Lumber Company functioned smoothly and profitably would fall upon +Donald's young and somewhat inexperienced shoulders. In the meantime, +what with The Laird's money and the employment of a third party or +parties, it would be no trick at all to induce Nan Brent to move so +far from Port Agnew that Donald could not, in justice to his business +interests, desert those interests in order to pay his court to her. + +"Dog my cats!" Mr. Daney murmured, at the end of a long period of +perplexity. "I have to force the girl out of Port Agnew, and I can +never do so while that motor-boat continues to pay her eighty dollars +a month. She cannot exist on eighty dollars a month elsewhere, but she +can manage very nicely on it here. And yet, even with that confounded +charter canceled, we're stuck with the girl. She cannot leave Port +Agnew without sufficient funds to carry her through for a while, and +she'd die before she'd accept the gift of a penny from anybody in Port +Agnew, particularly the McKayes. Even a loan from The Laird would be +construed as a roundabout way of buying her off." + +Mr. Daney pondered his problem until he was almost tempted to butt his +poor head against the office wall, goat-fashion, in an attempt to +stimulate some new ideas worth while. Nevertheless, one night he +wakened from a sound sleep and found himself sitting up in bed, the +possessor of a plan so flawless that, in sheer amazement, he announced +aloud that he would be--jiggered. Some cunning little emissary of the +devil must have crept in through his ear while he slept and planted +the brilliant idea in Mr. Daney's brain. + +Eventually, Mr. Daney lay down again. But he could not go to sleep; so +he turned on the electric bedside-lamp and looked at his watch. It was +midnight and at midnight no living creature, save possibly an +adventurous or amorous cat, moved in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney dressed, +crept down-stairs on velvet feet, in order not to disturb the hired +girl, and stepped forth into the night. Ten minutes later, he was down +at the municipal garbage-barge, moored to the bulkhead of piles along +the bank of the Skookum. + +He ventured to strike a match. The gunwale of the barge was slightly +below the level of the bulkhead; so Mr. Daney realized that the tide +had turned and was at the ebb--otherwise, the gunwale would have been +on a level with the bulkheads. He stepped down on the barge, made his +way aft to the Brutus, moored astern, and boarded the little vessel. +He struck another match and looked into the cabin to make certain that +no member of the barge-crew slept there. Finding no one, he went into +the engine-room and opened the sea-cock. Then he lifted up a +floor-board, looked into the bilge, saw that the water therein was +rising, and murmured, + +"Bully--by heck!" + +He clambered hastily back aboard the barge, cast off the mooring-lines +of the Brutus, and with a boat-book gave her a shove which carried her +out into the middle of the river. She went bobbing away gently on the +ebb-tide, bound for the deep water out in the Bight of Tyee where, +when she settled, she would be hidden forever and not be a menace to +navigation. Mr. Daney watched her until she disappeared in the dim +starlight before returning to his home and so, like Mr. Pepys, to bed, +where he had the first real sleep in weeks. He realized this in the +morning and marveled at it, for he had always regarded himself as a +man of tender conscience and absolutely incapable of committing a +maritime crime. Nevertheless, he whistled and wore a red carnation in +his lapel as he departed for the mill office. + + + + +XXIV + + +Following the interview with his father, subsequent to Caleb Brent's +funeral, Donald McKaye realized full well that his love-affair, +hitherto indefinite as to outcome, had crystallized into a definite +issue. For him, there could be no evasion or equivocation; he had to +choose, promptly and for all time, between his family and Nan +Brent--between respectability, honor, wealth, and approbation on one +hand, and pity, contempt, censure, and poverty on the other. +Confronting this _impasse_, he was too racked with torment to face his +people that night and run the gantlet of his mother's sad, reproachful +glances, his father's silence, so eloquent of mental distress, and the +studied scorn, amazement, and contempt in the very attitudes of his +selfish and convention-bound sisters. So he ate his dinner at the +hotel in Port Agnew, and after dinner his bruised heart took command +of his feet and marched him to the Sawdust Pile. + +The nurse he had sent down from the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital to +keep Nan company until after the funeral had returned to the hospital, +and Nan, with her boy asleep in her lap, was seated in a low rocker +before the driftwood fire when Donald entered, unannounced save for +his old-time triple tap at the door. At first glance, it was evident +to him that the brave reserve which Nan had maintained at the funeral +had given way to abundant tears when she found herself alone at home, +screened from the gaze of the curious. + +He knelt and took both outcasts in his great strong arms, and for a +long time held them in a silence more eloquent than words. + +"Well, my dear," she said presently, "aren't you going to tell me all +about it?" + +That was the woman of it. She knew. + +"I'm terribly unhappy," he replied. "Dad and I had a definite +show-down after the funeral. His order--not request--is that I shall +not call here again." + +"Your father is thinking with his head; so he thinks clearly. You, +poor dear, are thinking with your heart controlling your head. Of +course you'll obey your father. You cannot consider doing anything +else." + +"I'm not going to give you up," he asserted doggedly. + +"Yes; you are going to give me up, dear heart," she replied evenly. +"Because I'm going to give you up, and you're much too fine to make it +hard for me to do that." + +"I'll not risk your contempt for my weakness. It _would_ be a +weakness--a contemptible trick--if I should desert you now." + +"Your family has a greater claim on you, Donald. You were born to a +certain destiny--to be a leader of men, to develop your little world, +and make of it a happier place for men and women to dwell in. So, dear +love, you're just going to buck up and be spunky and take up your big +life-task and perform it like the gentleman you are." + +"But what is to become of you?" he demanded, in desperation. + +"I do not know. It is a problem I am not going to consider very +seriously for at least a month. Of course I shall leave Port Agnew, +but before I do, I shall have to make some clothes for baby and +myself." + +"I told my father I would give him a definite answer regarding you in +a month, Nan. I'm going up in the woods and battle this thing out by +myself." + +"Please go home and give him a definite answer to-night. You have not +the right to make him suffer so," she pleaded. + +"I'm not prepared to-night to abandon you, Nan. I must have some time +to get inured to the prospect." + +"Did you come over to-night to tell me good-by before going back to +the woods, Donald?" + +He nodded, and deliberately she kissed him with great tenderness. + +"Then--good-by, sweetheart," she whispered. "In our case, the least +said is soonest mended. And please do not write to me. Keep me out of +your thoughts for a month, and perhaps I'll stay out." + +"No hope," he answered, with a lugubrious smile. "However, I'll be as +good as I can. And I'll not write. But--when I return from that month +of exile, do not be surprised if I appear to claim you for good or for +evil, for better or for worse." + +She kissed him again--hurriedly--and pressed him gently from her, as +if his persistence gave her cause for apprehension. + +"Dear old booby!" she murmured. "Run along home now, won't you, +please?" + +So he went, wondering why he had come, and the following morning, +still wrapped in a mental fog, he departed for the logging-camp, but +not until his sister Jane had had her long-deferred inning. While he +was in the garage at The Dreamerie, warming up his car, Jane appeared +and begged him to have some respect for the family, even though, +apparently, he had none for himself. Concluding a long and bitter +tirade, she referred to Nan as "that abandoned girl." + +Poor Jane! Hardly had she uttered the words before her father appeared +in the door of the garage. + +"One year, Janey," he announced composedly. "And I'd be pleased to see +the photograph o' the human being that'll make me revoke that +sentence. I'm fair weary having my work spoiled by women's tongues." + +"I'll give you my photograph, old pepper-pot," Donald suggested. "I +have great influence with you have I not?" + +The Laird looked up at him with a fond grin. + +"Well?" he parried. + +"You will remit the sentence to one washing of the mouth with soap and +water to cleanse it of those horrid words you just listened to." + +"That's not a bad idea," the stern old man answered. "Janey, you may +have your choice, since Donald has interceded for you." + +But Jane maintained a freezing silence and swept out of the garage +with a mien that proclaimed her belief that her brother and father +were too vulgar and plebeian for her. + +"I'm having the deil's own time managing my family," old Hector +complained, "but I'll have obedience and kindness and justice in my +household, or know the reason why. Aye--and a bit of charity," he +added grimly. He stood beside the automobile and held up his hand up +for his son's. "And you'll be gone a month, lad?" he queried. + +Donald nodded. + +"Too painful--this coming home week-ends," he explained. "And Nan has +requested that I see no more of her. You have a stanch ally in her, +dad. She's for you all the way." + +Relief showed in his father's troubled face. + +"I'm glad to know that," he replied. "You're the one that's bringing +me worry and breaking down her good resolutions and common sense." He +leaned a little closer, first having satisfied himself, by a quick, +backward glance, that none of the women of the family was +eavesdropping, and whispered: "I'm trying to figure out a nice way to +be kind to her and give her a good start in life without insulting +her. If you should have a clear thought on the subject, I'd like your +advice, son. 'Twould hurt me to have her think I was trying to buy her +off." + +"As I view the situation, all three of us have to figure our own +angles for ourselves. However, if a happy thought should dawn on me, +I'll write you. Think it over a few weeks, and then do whatever seems +best." + +So they parted. + + + + +XXV + + +A few days subsequent to Andrew Daney's secret scuttling of the +motor-boat Brutus, Nan Brent was amazed to receive a visit from him. + +"Good-morning, Nan," he saluted her. "I have bad news for you." + +"What, pray?" she managed to articulate. She wondered if Donald had +been injured up in the woods. + +"Your motor-boat's gone." + +This was, indeed, bad news. Trouble showed in Nan's face. + +"Gone where?" she faltered. + +"Nobody knows. It disappeared from the garbage-barge, alongside of +which it was moored. I've had men searching for it two days, but we've +given it up as lost. Was the Brutus, by any chance, insured against +theft?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Well, the Tyee Lumber Company used reasonable care to conserve your +property, and while there's a question whether the company's +responsible for the loss of the boat if it's been stolen, even while +under charter to us, nevertheless, you will be reimbursed for the +value of the boat. Your father had it up for sale last year. Do you +recall the price he was asking?" + +"He was asking considerably less than he really believed the Brutus to +be worth," Nan replied honestly. "He would have sold for fifteen +hundred dollars, but the Brutus was worth at least twenty-five +hundred. Values shrink, you know, when one requires ready cash. And I +do not agree with you that no responsibility attaches to the Tyee +Lumber Company, although, under the circumstances, it appears there is +no necessity for argument." + +"We'll pay twenty-five hundred rather than descend to argument," Daney +replied crisply, "although personally I am of the opinion that two +thousand would be ample." He coughed a propitiatory cough and looked +round the Sawdust Pile appraisingly. "May I inquire, my girl," he +asked presently, "what are your plans for the future?" + +"Certainly, Mr. Daney. I have none." + +"It would be a favor to the Tyee Lumber Company if you had, and that +they contemplated removal to some other house. The Laird had planned +originally to use the Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard"--he smiled +faintly--"but abandoned the idea rather than interfere with your +father's comfort. Of course, The Laird hasn't any more title to the +Sawdust Pile than you have--not as much, in fact, for I do believe you +could make a squatter's right stick in any court. Just at present, +however, we have greater need of the Sawdust Pile than ever. We're +getting out quite a lot of airplane spruce for the British government, +and since there's no doubt we'll be into the war ourselves one of +these days, we'll have to furnish additional spruce for our own +government. Spruce has to be air-dried, you know, to obtain the best +results, and--well, we really need the Sawdust Pile. What will you +take to abandon, it and leave us in undisputed possession?" + +"Nothing, Mr. Daney." + +"Nothing?" + +"Precisely--nothing. We have always occupied it on The Laird's +sufferance, so I do not think, Mr. Daney," she explained, with a faint +smile, "that I shall turn pirate and ingrate now. If you will be good +enough to bring me over twenty-five hundred dollars in cash to-day, I +will give you a clearance for the loss of the Brutus and abandon the +Sawdust Pile to you within the next three or four days." + +His plan had worked so successfully that Daney was, for the moment, +rendered incapable of speech. + +"Will you be leaving Port Agnew?" he sputtered presently. "Or can I +arrange to let you have a small house at a modest rental--" + +She dissipated this verbal camouflage with a disdainful motion of her +upflung hand. + +"Thank you. I shall leave Port Agnew--forever. The loss of the Brutus +makes my escape possible," she added ironically. + +"May I suggest that you give no intimation of your intention to +surrender this property?" he suggested eagerly. "If word of your plan +to abandon got abroad, it might create an opportunity for some person +to jump the Sawdust Pile and defy us to dispossess him." + +Mr. Daney sought, by this subterfuge, to simulate an interest in the +physical possession of the Sawdust Pile which he was far from feeling. +He congratulated himself, however, that, all in all, he had carried +off his mission wonderfully well, and departed with a promise to bring +over the money himself that very afternoon. Indeed, so delighted was +he that it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from +unburdening to The Laird, when the latter dropped in at the mill +office that afternoon, the news that before the week should be out +Nan Brent would be but a memory in Port Agnew. Later, he wondered how +far from Port Agnew she would settle for a new start in life and +whether she would leave a forwarding address. He resolved to ask her, +and he did, when he reappeared at the Sawdust Pile that afternoon with +the money to reimburse Nan for the loss of the Brutus. + +"I haven't decided where I shall go, Mr. Daney," Nan informed him +truthfully, "except that I shall betake myself some distance from the +Pacific Coast--some place where the opportunities for meeting people +who know me are nebulous, to say the least. And I shall leave no +forwarding address. When I leave Port Agnew"--she looked Mr. Daney +squarely in the eyes as she said this--"I shall see to it that no man, +woman, or child in Port Agnew--not even Don McKaye or The Laird, who +have been most kind to me--shall know where I have gone." + +"I'm sorry matters have so shaped themselves in your life, poor girl, +that you're feeling bitter," Mr. Daney replied, with genuine sympathy, +notwithstanding the fact that he would have been distressed and +puzzled had her bitterness been less genuine. In the realization that +it _was_ genuine, he had a wild impulse to leap in the air and crack +his ankles together for very joy. "Will I be seeing you again, Nan, +before you leave?" + +"Not unless the spirit moves you, Mr. Daney," she answered dryly. She +had no dislike for Andrew Daney, but, since he was the husband of Mrs. +Daney and under that person's dominion, she distrusted him. + +"Well then, I'll bid you good-by now, Nan," he announced. "I hope your +lot will fall in pleasanter places than Port Agnew. Good-by, my dear +girl, and good luck to you--always." + +"Good-by, Mr. Daney," she replied. "Thank you for bringing the money +over." + + + + +XXVI + + +By an apparent inconsistency in the natural order of human affairs, it +seems that women are called upon far oftener than men to make the +hardest sacrifices; also, the call finds them far more willing, if the +sacrifice is demanded of them by love. Until Andrew Daney had appeared +at the Sawdust Pile with the suddenness of a genie (and a singularly +benevolent genie at that), Nan had spent many days wondering what fate +the future held in store for her. With all the ardor of a prisoner, +she had yearned to leave her jail, although she realized that freedom +for her meant economic ruin. On the Sawdust Pile, she could exist on +the income from the charter of the Brutus, for she had no rent to pay +and no fuel to buy; her proximity to the sea, her little garden and a +few chickens still further solved her economic problems. Away from the +Sawdust Pile, however, life meant parting with her baby. She would +have to place him in some sort of public institution if she would be +free to earn a living for them both, and she was not aware that she +possessed any adaptability for any particular labor which would enable +her to earn one hundred dollars a month, the minimum sum upon which +she could, by the strictest economy, manage to exist and support her +child. Too well she realized the difficulty which an inexperienced +woman has in securing employment in an office or store at a wage +which, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, may be termed +lucrative, and, lacking funds wherewith to tide her over until she +should acquire experience, or even until she should be fortunate +enough to secure any kind of work, inevitable starvation faced her. +Her sole asset was her voice; she had a vague hope that if she could +ever acquire sufficient money to go to New York and buy herself just +sufficient clothing to look well dressed and financially independent, +she might induce some vaudeville impresario to permit her to spend +fifteen minutes twice or four times daily, singing old-fashioned songs +to the proletariat at something better than a living wage. She had an +idea for a turn to be entitled, "Songs of the 'Sixties." + +The arrival of Andrew Daney with twenty-five hundred dollars might +have been likened to an eleventh-hour reprieve for a condemned +murderer. Twenty-five hundred dollars! Why, she and Don could live two +years on that! She was free--at last! The knowledge exalted her--in +the reaction from a week of contemplating a drab, barren future, she +gave no thought to the extreme unlikelihood of anyone's daring to +steal a forty-foot motor-boat on a coast where harbors are so few and +far between as they are on the Pacific. Had old Caleb been alive, he +would have informed her that such action was analogous to the theft of +a hot stove, and that no business man possessed of a grain of common +sense would have hastened to reimburse her for the loss after an +inconsequential search of only two days. Had she been more worldly +wise, she would have known that business men do not part with +twenty-five hundred dollars that readily--otherwise, they would not be +business men and would not be possessed of twenty-five hundred +dollars. Nan only realized that, in handing her a roll of bank-notes +with a rubber band round them, Andrew Daney had figuratively given her +the key to her prison, against the bars of which her soul had beaten +for three long years. + +Now, it is doubtful whether any woman ever loved a man without feeling +fully assured that she, more than any other person, was better +equipped to decide exactly what was best for that man. Her woman's +intuition told Nan that Donald McKaye was not to be depended upon to +conserve the honor of the McKaye family by refraining from considering +an alliance with her. Also, knowing full well the passionate yearnings +of her own heart and the weakness of her economic position, she shrank +from submitting herself to the task of repelling his advances. Where +he was concerned, she feared her own weakness--she, who had endured +the brutality of the world, could not endure that the world's +brutality should be visited upon him because of his love for her. +Strong of will, self-reliant, a born fighter, and as stiff-necked as +his father, his yearning to possess her, coupled with his instinct for +fair play, might and probably would lead him to tell the world to go +hang, that he would think for himself and take his happiness where he +found it. By all means, this must be prevented. Nan felt that she +could not permit him to risk making a sorry mess of a life of promise. + +Consumed with such thoughts as these, it was obvious that Nan should +pursue but one course--that is, leave Port Agnew unannounced and +endeavor to hide herself where Donald McKaye would never find her. In +this high resolve, once taken, she did not falter; she even declined +to risk rousing the suspicions of the townspeople by appearing at the +general store to purchase badly needed articles of clothing for +herself and her child. She resolved to leave Port Agnew in the best +clothes she had, merely pausing a few days in her flight--at +Vancouver, perhaps--to shop, and then continuing on to New York. + +On the morning of her departure, the butcher's boy, calling for an +order, agreed, for fifty cents, to transport her one small trunk on +his cart to the station. The little white house which she and her +father had built with so much pride and delight, she left furnished as +it was and in perfect order. As she stood at the front door and looked +back for the last time, the ticking of the clock in the tiny +dining-and-living room answered her mute, "Good-by, little house; +good-by," and, though her heart was full enough, she kept back the +tears until she saw the flag flying bravely at the cupola. + +"Oh, my love, my love!" she sobbed. "I mustn't leave it flying there, +flaunting my desertion in your dear eyes." + +Blinded by her tears, she groped her way back to the house, hauled +down the flag, furled it, and laid it away in a bureau drawer. And +this time, when she left the house, she did not look back. + + * * * * * + +At the station, she purchased a ticket for Seattle and checked her +trunk at the baggage-room counter. As she turned from the counter and +started for the waiting-room, she caught the interested eyes of old +Hector McKaye bent upon her. He lifted his hat and walked over to her. + +"I happened to be looking down at the Sawdust Pile when you hauled +your flag down this morning," he explained, in a low voice. "So I knew +you were going away. That's why I'm here." To this extraordinary +speech, the girl merely replied with an inquiring look. "I wonder if +you will permit me to be as kind to you as I can," he continued. "I +know it sounds a bit blunt and vulgar to offer you money, but when one +needs money--" + +"I have sufficient for my present needs," she replied. "Mr. Daney has +paid me for the loss of my motor-boat, you know. You are very kind; +but I think I shall have no need to impose further on your generosity. +I think the twenty-five hundred dollars will last me nicely until I +have made a new start in life." + +"Ah!" The Laird breathed softly, "Twenty-five hundred dollars. Yes, +yes! So he did; so he did! And are you leaving Port Agnew +indefinitely, Nan?" + +"Forever," she replied. "We have robbed you of the ground for a +drying-yard for nearly ten years, but this morning the Sawdust Pile is +yours." + +"Bless my soul!" The Laird ejaculated. "Why, we are not at all in +distress for more drying-space." + +"Mr. Daney intimated that you were. He asked me how much I would take +to abandon my squatter's right, but I declined to charge you a single +cent." She smiled up at him a ghost of her sweet, old-time whimsical +smile. "It was the first opportunity I had to be magnanimous to the +McKaye family, and I hastened to take advantage of it. I merely turned +the key in the lock and departed." + +"Daney has been a trifle too zealous for the Tyee interests, I fear," +he replied gently. "And where do you plan to live?" + +"That," she retorted, still smilingly, "is a secret. It may interest +you, Mr. McKaye, to know that I am not even leaving a forwarding +address for my mail. You see, I never receive any letters of an +important nature." + +He was silent a moment, digesting this. Then, + +"And does my son share a confidence which I am denied?" + +"He does not, Mr. McKaye. This is my second opportunity to do the +decent thing toward the McKaye family--so I am doing it. I plan to +make rather a thorough job of it, too. You--you'll be very kind and +patient with him, will you not? He's going to feel rather badly, you +know, but, then, I never encouraged him. It's all his fault, I +think--I tried to play fair--and it was so hard." Her voice sunk to a +mere whisper. "I've always loved Donald, Mr. McKaye. Most people do; +so I have not regarded it as sinful on my part." + +"You are abandoning him of your own free will--" + +"Certainly. I have to. Surely you must realize that?" + +"Yes, I do. I have felt that he would never abandon you." He opened +and closed his big hands nervously, and was plainly a trifle distrait. +"So--so this is your idea of playing the game, is it?" he demanded +presently. She nodded. "Well," he replied helplessly, "I would to God +I dared be as good a sport as you are, Nan Brent! Hear me, now, lass. +Think of the thing in life you want to do and the place where you want +to do it--" + +She interrupted him. + +"No, no, Mr. McKaye; there can be no talk of money between us. I +cannot and will not take your son--for his sake, and for my own sake I +cannot and will not accept of your kindness. Somehow, some place, I'm +going to paddle my own canoe." + +"Guid lass; guid lass," he whispered huskily. "Remember, then, if +your canoe upsets and spills you, a wire to me will right you, and no +questions asked. Good-by, my dear, and good luck to you!" + +He pressed her hand, lifted his hat, and walked briskly away in the +direction of The Tyee Lumber Company's office, quite oblivious of the +fact that his interview with Nan Brent had been observed by a person +to whom the gods had given at birth a more than average propensity of +intrigue, romance, and general cussedness--Mr. Daniel J. O'Leary, of +whom more anon. + +From the station, Hector McKaye hurried over to the mill office and +entered Andrew Daney's room. + +"Andrew," he began, "you've been doing things. What became of old +Caleb Brent's motor-boat?" + +"I opened the sea-cock, cast it off, and let it drift out into the +bight on the ebb-tide one night recently." + +"Why?" + +"In order that I might have a logical and reasonable excuse to furnish +Nan Brent with sufficient funds to leave this town and make a new +start elsewhere. I have charged the twenty-five hundred to your +personal account on the company books." + +"You also indulged in some extraordinary statements regarding our +pressing need for the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard." + +"We can use it, sir," Daney replied. "I felt justified in indicating +to the girl that her room was desired to her company. Your son," he +added deliberately, "was treading on soft ground, and I took the +license of an old friend and, I hope, a faithful servant, to rid him +of temptation." + +"I shall never be done with feeling grateful to you, Andrew. The girl +is leaving on the train that's just pulling out, and--the incident is +closed. My son is young. He will get over it. Thank you, Andrew, dear +friend, until you're better paid--as you will be some day soon." + +"I'll have need of your friendship if Donald ever discovers my part in +this deal. He'll fire me out o' hand." + +"If he does, I'll hire you back." + +"Hell will pop when he finds the bird has flown, sir." + +"Let it pop! That kind of popping is music in my ears. Hark, Andrew +lad! There's the train whistling for Darrow's Crossing. From there on +the trail is lost--lost--_lost_, I tell you! O Lord, God of Hosts, I +thank Thee for Thy great mercy!" + +And, quite suddenly, old Hector sat down and began to weep. + +XXVII + + +Nan Brent's departure from the Sawdust Pile was known to so few in +Port Agnew that it was fully ten days before the news became general; +even then it excited no more than momentary comment, and a week later +when Donald McKaye returned to town, somewhat sooner than he had +anticipated, Port Agnew had almost forgotten that Nan Brent had ever +lived and loved and sinned in its virtuous midst. Even the small +gossip about her and the young laird had subsided, condemned by all, +including the most thoughtless, as a gross injustice to their favorite +son, and consequently dismissed as the unworthy tattling of unworthy, +suspicious old women. Life in the busy little sawmill town had again +sagged into the doldrums. + +For several days, a feeling of lassitude had been stealing over +Donald. At first he thought it was mental depression, but when, later, +he developed nausea, lack of appetite, and pains in his head, back, +and extremities, it occurred to him that he wasn't feeling well +physically and that The Dreamerie was to be preferred to his rough +pine shanty in the woods, even though in the latter he had sanctuary +from the female members of his family. + +He came in unexpectedly on the last log-train on Saturday night; +tired, with throbbing head and trembling legs, he crawled off the +caboose at the log dump and made his way weakly up to the mill office. +It was deserted when he got there at half-past six, but in his +mail-box he found something which he had promised himself would be +there, despite certain well-remembered assurances to the contrary. It +was a letter from Nan. He tore the envelop eagerly and read: + + Donald dear, I love you. That is why I am leaving you. We shall + not meet again, I think. If we should, it will doubtless be years + hence, and by that time we shall both have resigned ourselves to + this present very necessary sacrifice. Good-by, poor dear. + + Always your sweetheart, + + NAN. + +He read and reread the letter several times. It was undated. +Presently, with an effort, he recovered the envelop from the +waste-basket and examined the postmark. The letter had been mailed +from Seattle, but the post-date was blurred. + +With the letter clutched in his hand, he bent forward and pillowed his +hot face in his arms, outspread upon his father's old desk. He wanted +to weep--to sob aloud in a childish effort to unburden his heart, +scourged now with the first real sorrow of his existence. His throat +contracted; something in his breast appeared to have congealed, yet +for upward of an hour he neither moved nor gave forth a sound. At +last, under the inspiration of a great hope that came apparently +without any mental effort or any desire for hope, so thoroughly +crushed was he, the black, touseled head came slowly up. His face, +usually ruddy beneath the dark, suntanned skin but now white and +haggard, showed a fleeting little smile, as if he grinned at his own +weakness and lack of faith; he rose unsteadily and clumped out of the +office-building. + +Gone! Nan gone--like that! No, no! He would not believe it. She might +have intended to go--she might have wanted to go--she might even have +started to go--but she had turned back! She loved him; she was his. +During those long days and nights up in the woods, he had fought the +issue with himself and made up his mind that Nan Brent was the one +woman in the world for him, that there could never, by God's grace, be +any other, and that he would have her, come what might and be the +price what it would. Rather than the fortune for which his father had +toiled and sacrificed, Donald preferred Nan's love; rather than a life +of ease and freedom from worry, he looked forward with a fierce joy to +laboring with his hands for a pittance, provided he might have the +privilege of sharing it with her. And The Dreamerie, the house his +father had built with such great, passionate human hopes and tender +yearnings, the young laird of Port Agnew could abandon without a pang +for that little white house on the Sawdust Pile. Round steak and +potatoes, fried by the woman destined to him for his perfect mate, +would taste better to him than the choicest viands served by light +stepping servitors in his father's house. + +What, after all, was there worth while in the world for him if he was +to be robbed of his youth and his love? For him, the bare husks of +life held no allurement; he was one of that virile, human type that +rejects the doctrine of sacrifice, denial, and self-repression in this +life for the greater glory of God and man's promise of a reward in +another life, of which we wot but little and that little not +scientifically authenticated. He wanted the great, all-compelling, +omnipotent Present, with its gifts that he could clutch in his fierce +hands or draw to his hungry heart. To hell with the future. He +reflected that misers permit their thoughts to dwell upon it and die +rich and despised, leaving to the apostles of the Present the +enjoyment of the fruits of a foolish sacrifice. + +"She came back. I know she did," he mumbled, as he groped his way +through the dark of the drying-yard. "I'm sick. I must see her and +tell her to wait until I'm well. The damned dirty world can do what it +jolly well pleases to me, but I'll protect her from it. I will--by +God!" + +He emerged into the open fields beyond which lay the Sawdust Pile, +snuggled down on the beach. The Brent cottage was visible in the dim +starlight, and he observed that there was no light in the window; +nevertheless, his high faith did not falter. He pressed on, although +each step was the product of an effort, mental and physical. His legs +were heavy and dragged, as if he wore upon, his logger's boots the +thick, leaden soles of a deep-sea diver. + +At the gate, he leaned and rested for a few minutes, then entered the +deserted yard and rapped at the front door; but his summons bringing +no response, he staggered round to the back door and repeated it. He +waited half a minute and then banged furiously with his fist upon the +door-panel. Still receiving no response, he seized the knob and shook +the door until the little house appeared to rattle from cellar to +cupola. + +"Nan! Nan! Where are you?" he called. "It is I--Donald. Answer me, +Nan. I know you haven't gone away. You wouldn't! Please answer me, +Nan!" + +But the only sound he heard was the labored pumping of his own heart +and the swish of the wavelets against the timbered buttress of the +Sawdust Pile. The conviction slowly came to his torpid brain that he +was seeking admittance to a deserted house, and he leaned against the +door and fought for control of himself. Presently, like a stricken +animal, he went slowly and uncertainly away in the direction whence he +had come. + + * * * * * + +Andrew Daney had put out the cat and wound the clock and was about to +ascend to his chamber (now, alas, reoccupied by Mrs. Daney, upon whom +the news of Nan's departure had descended like a gentle rainfall over +a hitherto arid district) when he heard slow footsteps on his front +veranda. Upon going to the door and peering out, he was amazed to see +Donald McKaye standing just outside. + +"Well, bless my soul!" Daney declared. "So it's you Donald. Come in, +lad; come in." + +Donald shook his head. + +"No, I've only come to stay a minute, Mr. Daney. Thank you, sir. I--I +notice you're running a light track from the drying-yard down to the +Sawdust Pile. Stumbled over it in the dark a few minutes ago, and I--" +He essayed a ghastly smile, for he desired to remove the sting from +the gentle rebuke he purposed giving the general manger--"couldn't +seem to remember having ordered that track--or--suggesting that it be +laid." + +"Quite so, Donald; quite so," Daney answered. "I did it on my own +initiative. Nan Brent has abandoned the Sawdust Pile--moved away from +Port Agnew, you know; so I decided to extend the drying-yard, and +squat on the Sawdust Pile before some undesirable took possession." + +"Hm-m-m! I see. Well, suppose Nan takes a notion to return to Port +Agnew, Mr. Daney. She'll find our drying-yard something of a nuisance, +will she not?" + +"Oh, but she's not coming back," Daney assured him, with all the +confidence of one free from the slightest doubt on the subject. + +"She might. I could see rather dimly into the kitchen and it appears +Miss Brent left her little home furnished." + +"Yes, she did, Donald. I believe she just turned the key in the lock +and went away." + +"Know where she went, Mr. Daney?" + +"No. She didn't even leave a forwarding address for her mail." + +The young laird of Tyee lurched up to Mr. Daney and laid a heavy hand +on the older man's shoulder. + +"How do you know that?" he demanded, and there was a growl in his +voice. "Has Mrs. Daney been asking the postmaster?" + +Mr. Daney saw that, for some inexplicable reason, he was in for a bad +five minutes or more. His youthful superior's face was white and +beaded with perspiration. Daney had a suspicion that Donald had had a +drink or two. + +"There has been no gossip, Donald," he answered crisply. "Get that +notion out of your head. I would protect you from gossip, for I think +I know my duty to the McKayes. I learned that lesson a long time ago," +he added, with spirit. + +"You haven't answered my question, Mr. Daney," Donald persisted. + +"I shall. I know, because she told me herself." Mr. Daney had not +intended that Donald should ever discover that he had had an interview +with Nan Brent, but his veracity had, for the moment, appeared to him +to be questioned by his superior, and he was too truthful, too +thoroughly honest to attempt now to protect his reputation for +truth-telling by uttering a small fib, albeit he squirmed inwardly at +the terrible necessity for such integrity. + +"Ah! Then Nan called upon you again?" + +Mr. Daney sighed. + +"No, I called upon her." + +"With reference to what?" + +"To settle with her for the loss of the Brutus." + +"When did you lose the Brutus." + +Mr. Daney pulled at his ear, gazed at the porch light, rubbed his +Adam's apple, and gave the exact date. + +"What happened to the Brutus?" + +"She just disappeared, Donald. She was tied up alongside the barge--" + +The heavy hand on Mr. Daney's shoulder tightened a little. Donald was +merely holding fast to the general manager in order to stay on his +feet, but Mr. Daney credited him with being the victim of rising +anger. + +"When did Nan leave Port Agnew, Mr. Daney?" + +"Let me see, Donald." Mr. Daney tugged at his beard. "Why, she left +two weeks ago yesterday. Yes; she left on the nineteenth." + +"When did you settle with her for the loss of the Brutus?" + +"On the sixteenth," Daney answered glibly. + +"How much?" + +"Twenty-five hundred dollars. It was more than the Brutus was worth, +but I disliked to appear niggardly in the matter, Donald. I knew you +and your father would approve whatever sum I settled for--and the loss +of the little boat provided a nice opportunity for generosity without +hurting the girl's pride." + +"Yes--thank you, Mr. Daney. That was kind and thoughtful of you." +Donald spoke the words slowly, as if he searched his brain carefully +for each word and then had to coax his tongue into speaking it. "You +settled, then, two days after the boat disappeared. Fast work. Nobody +up here would steal the boat. Too much distance between ports--run +short of gasoline, you know, on her limited tank capacity--and if +anybody had purchased cased gasoline around here to load on deck, +you'd know of it. Hard to conceal or disguise a forty-foot boat, too." +His fingers closed like steel nippers over Mr. Daney's shoulder. +"Where did you hide the boat, Mr. Daney? Answer me. I'll not be +trifled with." + +"I scuttled her--if you must have the truth." + +"I knew you wouldn't lie to me. On whose orders, Mr. Daney? My +father's?" + +"No, sir; it was my own idea." Daney's face was white with mental and +physical distress and red with confusion, by turns. His shoulder was +numb. + +"Why?" + +"I figured that if the girl had some money to make a new start +elsewhere, she'd leave Port Agnew, which would be best for all +concerned." + +"Why, Andrew Daney, you old hero! Cost you something to confess that, +didn't it? Well--I guessed you or my father had induced her to go, so +I concluded to start the investigation with you," He passed his hand +over his white dripping brow before resuming what he had to say. "The +Tyee Lumber Company isn't equipped to carry on its pay-roll Mr. Donald +McKaye and the man who interferes in his personal affair, even though +actuated by a kindly interest. You rip up that track you're laying and +leave Nan's home alone. Then you clean up your desk and hand me your +resignation. I'm sick--and your damned interference hurts. Sorry; but +you must go. Understand? Nan's coming back--understand? Coming +back--devilish hot night--for this time of year, isn't it? Man, I'm +burning up." + +It came to Mr. Daney that the young laird was acting in a most +peculiar manner. Also, he was talking that way. Consequently, and what +with the distress of being dismissed from the McKaye service in such +cavalier fashion, the general manager decided to twist out from under +that terrible grasp on his shoulder. + +Instantly, Donald released from this support, swayed and clutched +gropingly for Mr. Daney's person. + +"Dizzy," he panted. "Head's on strike. Mr. Daney, where the devil are +you? Don't run away from me. You damned old muddler, if I get my hands +on you I'll pick you apart--yes, I will--to see--what makes you go. +You did it, Yes, you did--even if you're too stupidly honest--to lie +about it. Glad of that, though, Mr. Daney. Hate liars and interfering +duffers. Ah--the cold-blooded calculation of it--took advantage of her +poverty. She's gone--nobody knows--May God damn your soul to the +deepest hell--Where are you? I'll kill you--no, no; forgive me, +sir--Yes, you've been faithful, and you're an old employe--I wish you +a very pleasant good-evening, sir." + +He stepped gingerly down the three wide stairs, pitched forward, and +measured his length in a bed of pansies. Mr. Daney came down, struck a +match, and looked at his white face. Donald was apparently +unconscious; so Mr. Daney knelt, placed his inquisitive nose close to +the partly open lips, and sniffed. Then he swore his chiefest oath. + +"Hell's hells and panther-tracks! He isn't drunk. He's sick." + +Fifteen minutes later, the young Laird of Port Agnew reposed in the +best room of his own hospital, and Andrew Daney was risking his life +motoring at top speed up the cliff road to The Dreamerie with bad news +for old Hector. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had retired but The Laird +was reading in the living-room when Daney entered unannounced. + +Old Hector looked up at his general manager from under his white, +shaggy brow. + +"Ye, Andrew," he saluted the latter gently, "I see by your face it's +not welcome news you bring. Out with it, man." + +So Andrew came "out with it," omitting no detail, and at the +conclusion of his recital, the old man wagged his head to emphasize +his comprehension. + +"My son is not a dull man by any means," he said presently. "He knows +what he knows--a man sure of himself always--and oh, Andrew man, +because of the brain of him and the sweet soul of him, it breaks my +heart to give pain to him. And what does the doctor say?" + +"From a cursory examination he suspects typhoid fever." + +"Ah, that's bad, bad, Andrew." + +"The boy has the strength of a Hercules, sir. He'll beat through, +never fear." + +"Well, he'll not die to-night, at any rate," old Hector answered, "and +I can do no good puttering round the hospital to-night. Neither would +I alarm his mother and the girls. Send for the best medical brains in +the country, Andrew, and don't quibble at the cost. Pay them what they +ask. 'Twill be cheap enough if they save him. Good-night, Andrew, and +thank you kindly." He stood up and laid his hand affectionately upon +the shoulder of his faithful servant and walked with him thus to the +door. "My good Andrew," he murmured, and propelled the general manager +gently outside, "there's no need to worry over the dismissal. When the +lad's well, he'll rescind his order, so, in the meantime, do not leave +us." + +"But--if he shouldn't rescind it?" Daney pleaded anxiously. Although +he was comfortably fixed with this world's goods and had long since +ceased to work for monetary reward, the Tyee Lumber Company was, +nevertheless, part of his life, and to be dismissed from its service +was akin to having some very necessary part of him amputated. + +"Tush, man; tush! Don't be building a mare's nest," old Hector +answered and closed the door upon him. For The Laird was losing +control of himself and he could not bear that any human eye should +gaze upon his weakness. + + + + +XXVIII + + +The morning following Donald's admittance to the hospital, the company +doctor confirmed his original diagnosis that the patient was suffering +from an attack of typhoid fever. The disease had evidently been two +weeks incubating, for the woods boss reported that his superior had +complained of being "under the weather" for ten days before yielding +to the former's repeated advice to go down to Port Agnew and have the +doctor look him over. As a result of Donald's stubborn refusal to +acknowledge his illness, the disease had reached a fair stage of +development by the time he received medical attention. + +He was not delirious when The Laird and Mrs. McKaye reached the +hospital that morning, however, they were permitted to see him for but +a few minutes only. + +"Has he a fighting chance?" old Hector demanded bluntly of the doctor. +It seemed to him that his son's face already wore the look of one +doomed to dissolution at an early date. + +"Yes, he has, Mr. McKaye," the doctor replied gravely; "provided he'll +fight. You will understand that in typhoid fever the mortality rate is +rather high--as high as thirty per cent. However, in the case of +Donald, who is a husky athlete, I should place the odds at about ten +to one that he'll survive an attack of even more than moderate +severity. That is," he added, "under the most favorable conditions." + +"Well, what's wrong with the conditions in this case?" The Laird +demanded crisply. "You can have anything you want--if you're shy on +material to work with, and I've sent for the best physician in the +state to come here and consult with you." + +"The hospital conditions are perfect, Mr. McKaye. What I mean is this: +It is a well recognized principle of medical practice that a patient +combating a disease of extreme severity and high mortality is +sustained quite as much by his courage and a passionate desire to get +well--in a word, by his morale--as he is by his capacity for physical +resistance. Your son is, I think, slightly depressed mentally. That is +the sole reason I see to warrant apprehension." + +"Oh--so that's all, eh?" The Laird was relieved. "Then don't worry +about him. He'll put up a battle--never fear. Why, he never quit in +all his life. However, in case he might need a bit of encouragement +from his old daddy from time to time, you'll have a room made ready +for me. I'll stay here till he's out of danger." + +That was a terrible week on old Hector. The nurse, discovering that +his presence appeared to excite her patient, forbade him the room; so +he spent his days and part of his nights prowling up and down the +corridor, with occasional visits to the mill office and The Dreamerie, +there to draw such comfort from Daney and his family as he might. +While his temperature remained below a hundred and four, Donald would +lie in a semi-comatose condition, but the instant the thermometer +crept beyond that point he would commence to mutter incoherently. +Suddenly, he would announce, so loudly The Laird could hear every +word, that he contemplated the complete and immediate destruction of +Andrew Daney and would demand that the culprit be brought before him. +Sometimes he assumed that Daney was present, and the not unusual +phenomenon attendant upon delirium occurred. When in good health +Donald never swore; neither would he tolerate rough language in his +presence from an employe; nevertheless, in his delirium he managed, at +least once daily, to heap upon the unfortunate Daney a generous +helping of invective of a quality that would have made a mule-skinner +blush. Sometimes Mr. Daney was unfortunate enough to drop in at the +hospital in time to hear this stream of anathema sounding through the +corridor; upon such occasions he would go into The Laird's room and he +and old Hector would eye each other grimly but say never a word. + +Having demolished Mr. Daney with a verbal broadside, Donald would +appear to consider his enemy dead and direct his remarks to Nan Brent. +He would reproach her tenderly for leaving Port Agnew without +informing him of her intention; he assured her he loved her, and that +unless she returned life would not be worth living. Sometimes he would +call upon old dead Caleb to reason with her in his behalf. About that +time he would be emerging from a Brand bath and, with the decline of +his temperature, his mutterings and complaints gradually grew +incoherent again and he would sleep. + +Thus two weeks passed. Donald showed no sign of the improvement which +should ordinarily be looked for in the third week, and it was apparent +to the doctors and nurses who attended him that the young Laird was +not making a fight to get well--that his tremendous physical +resistance was gradually being undermined. His day-nurse it was who +had the courage, womanlike, to bring the matter to an issue. + +"He's madly in love with that Nan girl he's always raving about," she +declared. "From all I can gather from his disconnected sentences, she +has left Port Agnew forever, and he doesn't know where she is. Now, +I've seen men--little, weak men--recover from a worse attack of +typhoid than this big fellow has, and he ought to be on the up-grade +now, if ever--yet he's headed down-hill. About next week he's going to +start to coast, unless Nan Brent shows up to take him by the hand and +lead him back up-hill. I believe she could do it--if she would." + +"I believe she could, also," the doctor agreed. "Perhaps you've +noticed that, although his family have listened to him rave about her, +they have never given the slightest indication that they know what he +is raving about. The girl's tabu, apparently." + +"The Laird appears to be a human being. Have you spoken to him about +this--Nan girl?" + +"I tried to--once. He looked at me--and I didn't try any more. The +fact is," the doctor added, lowering his voice, "I have a notion that +old Hector, through Daney, gave the girl money to leave the country." + +"If he knew what an important personage she is at this minute, he'd +give her more money to come back--if only just long enough to save his +son. Have you spoken to Mr. Daney?" + +"No; but I think I had better. He has a great deal of influence with +The Laird, and since I have no doubt they were in this conspiracy +together, Daney may venture to discuss with the old man the +advisability of bringing the girl back to Port Agnew." + +"If she doesn't appear on the scene within ten days--" + +"I agree with you. Guess I'll look up Mr. Daney." + +He did. Daney was at his desk in the mill office when the doctor +entered and, without the least circumlocution, apprised him of the +desperate state to which Donald was reduced. + +"I tell you, Mr. Daney," he declared, and pounded Daney's desk to +emphasize his statement, "everything that medical science can do for +that boy has been done, but he's slipping out from under us. Our last +hope lies in Nan Brent. If she can be induced to come to his bedside, +hold his hand, and call him pet names when he's rational, he'll buck +up and win out. There are no dangerous physical complications to +combat now. They are entirely mental." + +While the physician was speaking, Andrew Daney's face had gradually +been taking on the general color-tones of a ripe old Edam cheese. His +chin slowly sagged on his breast; his lips parted in horror and +amazement until, finally, his mouth hung open slackly, foolishly; +presently, two enormous tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and +cascaded slowly across his cheeks into his whiskers. He gripped the +arms of his chair. + +"O God, forgive me!" he moaned. "The Laird doesn't know where she is, +and neither do I. I induced her to go away, and she's lost somewhere +in the world. To find her now would be like searching a haystack for a +needle." + +"But you might telegraph a space-ad to every leading newspaper in the +country. The Laird can afford to spend a million to find her--if she +can be found in a hurry. Why, even a telegram from her would help to +buck him up." + +But Andrew Daney could only sway in his chair and quiver with his +profound distress. + +"The scandal!" he kept murmuring, "the damned scandal! I'll have to go +to Seattle to send the telegrams. The local office would leak. And +even if we found her and induced her to come back to save him, +she'd--she'd have to go away again--and if she wouldn't--if he +wouldn't permit her--why, don't you see how impossible a situation has +developed? Man, can Donald McKaye wed Nan Brent of the Sawdust Pile?" + +"My interest in the case is neither sentimental nor ethical. It is +entirely professional. It appears to me that in trying to save this +young fellow from the girl, you've signed his death warrant; now it is +up to you to save him from himself, and you're worrying because it may +be necessary later to save the girl from him or him from the girl. +Well, I've stated the facts to you, and I tried to state them to The +Laird. Do as you think best. If the boy dies, of course, I'll swear +that he was doomed, anyhow, due to perforation of the intestines." + +"Yes, yes!" Daney gasped. "Let The Laird off as lightly as you can." + +"Oh, I'll lie cheerfully. By the way, who is this girl? I haven't been +in Port Agnew long enough to have acquired all the gossip. Is she +impossible?" + +"She's had a child born out of wedlock." + +"Oh, then she's not a wanton?" + +"I'm quite sure she is not." + +"Well, I'll be damned! So that's all that's wrong with her, eh?" Like +the majority of his profession, this physician looked up such a +_contretemps_ with a kindly and indulgent eye. In all probability, +most of us would if we but knew as many of the secrets of men as do +our doctors and lawyers. + +Long after the doctor had left him alone with his terrible problem, +Mr. Daney continued to sit in his chair, legs and arms asprawl, chin +on breast. From time to time, he cried audibly: + +"O Lord! O my God! What have I done? What shall I do? How shall I do +it? O Lord!" + +He was quite too incoherent for organized prayer; nevertheless his +agonized cry to Omnipotence was, indeed, a supplication to which the +Lord must have inclined favorably, for, in the midst of his desolation +and bewilderment, the door opened and Dirty Dan O'Leary presented +himself. + + + + +XXIX + + +Thanks to the constitution of a Nubian lion, Dirty Dan's wounds and +contusions had healed very rapidly and after he got out of hospital, +he spent ten days in recuperating his sadly depleted strength. His +days he spent in the sunny lee of a lumber pile in the drying-yard, +where, in defiance of the published ordinance, he smoked plug tobacco +and perused the _Gaelic American_. + +Now, Mr. O'Leary, as has been stated earlier in this chronicle, was +bad black Irish. Since the advent of Oliver Cromwell into Ireland, the +males of every generation of the particular tribe of O'Leary to which +Dirty Dan belonged had actively or passively supported the battles of +Ould Ireland against the hereditary enemy across the Channel, and +Dirty Dan had suckled this holy hatred at his mother's breast; +wherefore he regarded it in the light of his Christian duty to keep +that hate alive by subscribing to the _Gaelic American_ and believing +all he read therein anent the woes of the Emerald Isle. Mr. O'Leary +was also a member of an Irish-American revolutionary society, and was +therefore aware that presently his kind of Irish were to rise, cast +off their shackles (and, with the help o' God and the German kaiser) +proclaim the Irish Republic. + +For several months past, Daniel's dreams had dwelt mostly with +bayonet-practice. Ordinary bayonets, however, were not for him. He +dreamed his trusty steel was as long as a cross-cut saw, and nightly +he skewered British soldiers on it after the fashion of kidneys and +bacon _en brochette_. For two months he had been saving his money +toward a passage home to Ireland and the purchase of a rifle and two +thousand rounds of ammunition--soft-nose bullets preferred--with the +pious intention of starting with "th' bhoys" at the very beginning and +going through with them to the bloody and triumphant finish. + +Unfortunately for Dirty Dan, his battle in defense of Donald McKaye +had delayed his sortie to the fields of martyrdom. On the morning that +Nan Brent left Port Agnew, however, fortune had again smiled upon The +O'Leary. Meeting Judge Moore, who occupied two local offices--justice +of the peace and coroner--upon the street, that functionary had +informed Dan that the public generally, and he and the town marshal in +particular, traced an analogy between the death of the mulatto in +Darrow and Mr. O'Leary's recent sojourn in the Tyee Lumber Company's +hospital, and thereupon, verbally subpoenaed him to appear before a +coroner's jury the following day at ten o'clock A.M., then and there +to tell what he knew about said homicide. + +Dirty Dan received this summons with outward nonchalance but +tremendous secret apprehensions, and immediately fled for advice to no +less a person than Andrew Daney. + +However, the Fates ordained that Andrew Daney should be spared the +trouble of advising Dirty Dan, for as the latter came shuffling down +the hall toward Daney's office door, The Laird emerged from his old +office and accosted his henchman. + +"Well, Dan!" he greeted the convalescent, "how do you find yourself +these days?" + +"Poorly, sir, poorly," Dirty Dan declared. "Twas only yisterd'y I had +to take the other side av the shtreet to av'id a swamper from Darrow, +sir." + +The Laird smiled. + +"Well, Dan, I think it's about time I did something to make you feel +better. I owe you considerable for that night's work, so here's a +thousand dollars for you, my boy. Go down to southern California or +Florida for a month or two, and when you're back in your old form, +report for duty. I have an idea Mr. Donald intends to make you foreman +of the loading-sheds and the drying-yard when you're ready for duty." + +"God bless ye, me lord, an' may the heavens be your bed!" murmured the +astounded lumberjack, as The Laird produced his wallet and counted +into Dan's grimy quivering paw ten crisp hundred-dollar bills. "Oh, +t'ank you, sor; t'ank you a t'ousand times, sor. An' ye'll promise me, +won't ye, to sind for me firrst-off if ye should be wan tin' some +blackguard kilt?" + +"I assure you, Dan, you are my sole official killer," laughed The +Laird, and shook the O'Leary's hand with great heartiness. "Better +take my advice about a good rest, Dan." + +"Sor, I'll be afther havin' the vacation o' me life." + +"Good-by, then, and good luck to you, Dan!" + +"Good-by, an' God bless ye, sor!" + +Five minutes later, Daniel J. O'Leary was in the general store fitting +on what he termed a "Sunday suit." Also, he bought himself two white +shirts of the "b'iled" variety, a red necktie, a brown Derby hat, and +a pair of shoes, all too narrow to accommodate comfortably his +care-free toes. Next, he repaired to the barber-shop, where he had a +hair-cut and a shave. His ragged red mustache, ordinarily of the +soup-strainer pattern, he had trimmed, waxed, and turned up at each +end; the barber put much pomade on his hair and combed it in a +Mazeppa, with the result that when! Daniel J. O'Leary appeared at the +railroad station the following morning, and purchased a ticket for New +York City, Hector McKaye, loitering in front of the station on the +lookout for Nan Brent, looked at and through Mr. O'Leary without +recognizing him from Adam's off ox. + +It is, perhaps, superfluous to remark that Dirty Dan was about to +embark upon an enterprise designed to make his dreams come true. He +was headed for Ireland and close grips with the hated redcoats as fast +as train and steamer could bear him. + +Now, Mr. O'Leary had never seen Nan Brent, although he had heard her +discussed in one or two bunk-houses about the time her child had been +born. Also, he was a lumberjack, and since lumberjacks never speak to +the "main push" unless first spoken to, he did not regard it as all +necessary to bring himself to Hector McKaye's notice when his alert +intelligence informed him that The Laird had failed to recognize him +in his going-away habiliments. Further, he could see with half an eye +that The Laird was waiting for somebody, and when that somebody +appeared on the scene, the imp of suspicion in Dirty Dan's character +whispered: "Begorra, is the father up to some shenanigans like the +son? Who's this girrl? I dunno. A young widder, belike, seem' she has +a youngster wit' her." + +He saw Nan and The Laird enter into earnest conversation, and his +curiosity mastering him, he ventured to inquire of a roustabout who +was loading baggage on a truck who the young lady might be. Upon +receiving the desired information, he, with difficulty repressed a +whistle of amazement and understanding; instantly his active +imagination was at work. + +The girl was leaving Port Agnew. That was evident. Also, The Laird +must have known of this, for he had reached the station before the +girl and waited for her. Therefore, he must have had something to do +with inducing her to depart. Mr. O'Leary concluded that it was quite +within the realm of possibility that The Laird had made it well worth +her while to refrain from wrecking the honor of his house, and he +watched narrowly to observe whether or not money passed between them. + +One thing puzzled Dirty Dan extremely. That was the perfectly frank, +friendly manner in which his employer and this outcast woman greeted +each other, the earnestness with which they conversed, and the effect +of the woman's low-spoken words upon the color of Hector McKaye's +face. When The Laird took his leave, the lumberjack noted the +increased respect--the emotion, even--with which he parted from her. +The lumberjack heard him say, "Good-by, my dear, and good luck to you +wherever you go"; so it was obvious Nan Brent was not coming back to +Port Agnew. Knowing what he knew, Mr. O'Leary decided that, upon the +whole, here was good riddance to the McKaye family of rubbish that +might prove embarrassing if permitted to remain dumped on the Sawdust +Pile. + +"Poor gurrl," he reflected as he followed Nan aboard the train. "She +have a sweet face, that she have, God forgive her! An be th' Rock av +Cashel, she have a v'ice like an angel from heaven." + +He sat down in a seat behind her and across the aisle, and all the way +to Seattle he stared at the back of her neck or the beautiful rounded +profile of her cheek. From time to time, he wondered how much Hector +McKaye had paid her to disappear out of his son's life, and how that +son would feel, and what he would say to his father when he discovered +his light o' love had flown the cage. + +The following morning Mr. O'Leary boarded a tourist-sleeper on the +Canadian Pacific, and, to his profound amazement, discovered that Nan +Brent and her child occupied a section in the same car. + +"Begorra, she couldn't have shtuck the ould man very deep at that, or +'tis in a standard shleeper an' not a tourist she'd be riding," he +reflected. "What the divil's up here at all, at all, I dunno." + +Dirty Dan saw her enter a taxicab at the Grand Central Station in New +York. + +"I wonder if the young Caddyheck himself'll meet her here," Mr. +O'Leary reflected, alive with sudden suspicion, and springing into the +taxicab that drew in at the stand the instant the taxi bearing Nan and +her child pulled out, he directed the driver to follow the car ahead, +and in due course found himself before the entrance to a hotel in +lower Broadway--one of that fast disappearing number of fifth-class +hotels which were first-class thirty years ago. + +Dirty Dan hovered in the offing until Nan had registered and gone up +to her room. Immediately he registered also, and, while doing so, +observed that Nan had signed her real name and given her address as +Port Agnew, Washington. With unexpected nicety, Dirty Dan decided not +to embarrass her by registering from Port Agnew also, so he gave his +address as Seattle. + +For two days, he forgot the woes of Ireland and sat round the stuffy +lobby, awaiting Nan Brent's next move. When he saw her at the +cashier's window paying out, he concealed himself behind a newspaper, +and watched her covertly as the clerk gave instructions to the head +porter regarding the disposition of her baggage. The instant she left +the hotel, accompanied by her child, Dirty Dan approached the porter +and said with an insinuating smile: + +"I'd give a dollar to know the address the young lady wit' the baby +bhoy give you f'r the delivery av her trunk." + +The porter reached for the dollar and handed Dirty Dan a shipping tag +containing the address. Mr. O'Leary laboriously wrote the address in a +filthy little memorandum-book, and that afternoon made a point of +looking up Nan's new habitation. He discovered it to be an old +brownstone front in lower Madison Avenue, and a blue-and-gold sign +over the area fence indicated to Mr. O'Leary that, from an abode of +ancient New York aristocracy, the place had degenerated into a +respectable boarding-house. + +"'Tis true," Dirty Dan murmured. "She's given the young fella the +go-by. Hurro! An' I'm bettin' I'm the only lad in the wide, wide +wurrld that knows where she's gone. Faith, but wouldn't Misther Donald +pay handsomely for the information in me little book." + +Having, as he judged, followed the mystery to its logical conclusion, +Mr. O'Leary was sensible of a sudden waning of his abnormal curiosity +in Nan Brent's affairs. He acknowledged to himself that he had spent +time and money on a matter that was absolutely none of his business, +but excused himself upon the ground that if he hadn't investigated the +matter thoroughly, his failure to do so might annoy him in the future. +If, for no other reason than the desirability of being on the inside +track of this little romance of a rich man's son, his action was to be +commended. People have no business disappearing without leaving a +trace or saying good-by to those that love them. Dirty Dan hadn't the +least idea of selling his information to Donald McKaye, but something +in his peculiar mental make-up caused him to cherish a secret for its +own sake; he had a true Irishman's passion for being "in the know," +and now that he was in it, he was tremendously satisfied with himself +and dismissed the entire matter from his mind. Old Ireland and her +woes were again paramount, so Mr. O'Leary presented himself before the +proper authorities and applied for a passport to visit Ireland. + +Now, while Daniel J. did not know it, one of the first questions the +applicant for a passport is required to answer is his reason for +desiring to make the journey, and during the Great War, as everybody +of mature years will recall, civilians were not permitted to subject +themselves to the dangers of a ruthless submarine war without good and +sufficient reason. Mr. O'Leary had a reason--to his way of thinking, +the noblest reason in all the world; consequently he was proud of it +and not at all inclined to conceal it. + +"I'm goin' over there," he declared, with profane emphasis, "to kill +all the damned English I can before they kill me." + +His interlocutor gravely wrote this reply down in Mr. O'Leary's exact +language and proceeded to the other questions. When the application +was completed, Dirty Dan certified to the correctness of it, and was +then smilingly informed that he had better go back where he came from, +because his application for a passport was denied. Consumed with fury, +the patriot thereupon aired his opinion of the Government of the +United States, with particular reference to its representative then +present, and in the pious hope of drowning his sorrows, went forth and +proceeded to get drunk. + +When drunk, Mr. O'Leary always insisted, in the early stages of his +delirium, on singing Hibernian ballads descriptive of the unflinching +courage, pure patriotism and heroic sacrifices of the late Owen Roe +O'Neill and O'Donnell Abu. Later in the evening he would howl like a +timber-wolf and throw glasses, and toward morning he always fought it +out on the floor with some enemy. Of course, in the sawmill towns of +the great Northwest, where folks knew Mr. O'Leary and others of his +ilk, it was the custom to dodge the glasses and continue to discuss +the price of logs. Toward Dirty Dan, however, New York turned a +singularly cold shoulder. The instant he threw a glass, the barkeeper +tapped him with a "billy"; then a policeman took him in tow, and the +following morning, Dirty Dan, sick, sore, and repentant was explaining +to a police judge that he was from Port Agnew, Washington, and really +hadn't meant any harm. He was, therefore, fined five dollars and +ordered to depart forthwith for Port Agnew, Washington, which he did, +arriving there absolutely penniless and as hungry as a cougar in +midwinter. He fled over to the mill kitchen, tossed about five +dollars worth of ham and eggs and hot biscuit into his empty being, +and began to take stock of life. Naturally, the first thing he +recalled in mind was The Laird's remark that Donald planned to make +him foreman of the loading-sheds and drying-yards; so he wasted no +time in presenting himself before Donald's office door. To his +repeated knocking there was no reply, so he sought Mr. Daney. + +"Hello, Dan! You back?" Daney greeted him. "Glad to see you. Looking +for Mr. Donald?" + +"Yes, sor; thank you, sor." + +"Mr. Donald is ill in the company's hospital. We're afraid, Dan, that +he isn't going to pull through." + +"Glory be!" Mr. O'Leary gasped, horrified on two counts. First, +because he revered his young boss, and, second, because the latter's +death might nullify his opportunity to become foreman of the +loading-sheds and drying-yard. "Sure, what's happened to the poor +bhoy?" + +Before Daney could answer, a terrible suspicion shot through the agile +and imaginative O'Leary brain. In common with several million of his +countrymen, he always voiced the first thought that popped into his +head; so he lowered that member, likewise his voice, peered cunningly +into Andrew Daney's haggard face, and whispered: + +"Don't tell me he tried to commit suicide, what wit' his poor broken +heart an' all!" + +It was Andrew Daney's turn to peer suspiciously at Dirty Dan. For a +few seconds, they faced each other like a pair of belligerent +game-cocks. Then said Daney: + +"How do you know his heart was broken?" + +Dirty Dan didn't know. The thought hadn't even occurred to him until +ten seconds before; yet, from the solemnity of Daney's face and +manner, he knew instantly that once more his feet were about to tread +the trails of romance, and the knowledge imbued him with a deep sense +of importance. + +He winked knowingly. + +"Beggin' yer pardon, Misther Daney an' not m'anin' the least offinse +in life, but--I know a lot about that young man--yis, an' the young +leddy, too--that divil a sowl on earth knows or is goin' to find out." +He tried a shot in the dark. "That was a clever bit o' wurrk gettin' +her out o' Port Agnew--" + +Andrew Daney's hands closed about Dirty Dan's collar, and he was +jerked violently into the latter's office, while Daney closed and +locked the door behind them. The general manager was white and +trembling. + +"You damned, cunning mick, you!" he cried, in a low voice. "I believe +you're right. You do know a lot about this affair--" + +"Well, if I do, I haven't talked about it," Dirty Dan reminded him +with asperity. + +"You knew the girl had left Port Agnew and why, do you not?" Daney +demanded. + +"Of course I do. She left to plaze The Laird an' get rid o' the young +fella. Whether Th' Laird paid her to go or not, I don't know, but I'll +say this: 'If he gave her anythin' at all, 'twas damned little.'" + +"He didn't give her a red cent," Daney protested. + +"I believe you, sor," Mr. O'Leary assured him, as solemn as a Supreme +Court justice. "I judged so be the way she traveled an' the hotel she +shtopped at." + +Daney made another dive at the returned prodigal, but Mr. O'Leary +evaded him. + +"Where did she travel, and what hotel did she put up at?" the general +manager demanded. + +"She traveled to the same places an' put up at the same hotels that I +did," Dirty Dan replied evasively, for his natural love for intrigue +bade him hoard his secret to the last. + +Daney sat down and said very quietly: "Dan, do you know where Nan +Brent may be found?" + +"Where she _may_ be found? Faith, I can tell you where she can be +found--but I'll not." + +"Why not?" + +"Because 'tis her secret, an' why should I share it wit' you, m'anin' +no disrespect, sor, at that?" + +"Your sentiments do you honor, Dan--a heap more honor than I ever +thought you possessed. If Mr. Donald's life should happen to be the +price of your silence, however, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?" + +"I would. The young gintlemin's blood runs in my veins, sor." + +"Thank you, Dan. Give me her address." + +"Number one eighty-five Madison Avenue, Noo Yorrk City," Dirty Dan +replied promptly. "More I do not know. Am I on the pay-roll agin?" + +"You bet! I'll pick out a good job for you as soon as I find time to +think about it." + +"Could I have a dollar or two in advance--" the wanderer began, as +Daney hastened toward the door. + +"Certainly." The door slammed, and Dirty Dan could hear the general +manager shouting in the general office. "Dirty Dan is back. Give him +some money." + +Mr. O'Leary sighed contentedly. + +"Oh-ho, 'tis the great life we live," he murmured, and hastened +outside to present himself at the cashier's window, while Andrew Daney +continued on to the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital, tiptoed down the +corridor to the room where the young Laird of Port Agnew lay dying, +and rapped lightly on the door. A nurse came out and closed the door +after her. + +"Well?" Daney demanded. + +"No change. His temperature fell two degrees during the night and he +slept a little, but the fever is up again this morning, and he's +raving again. Any news at your end?" + +"Yes. I have the girl's address. She's in New York. Is his father +inside?" + +"Yes." + +"Ask him to step into the reception room for a few minutes, please." + +The Laird appeared promptly in response to this message, and the two +men walked slowly down the hall to the reception-room. Daney closed +the door and resolutely faced The Laird. + +"The doctors and the nurses tell me things, sir, they're afraid to +tell you," he began. "Ordinarily, the boy should be able to fight this +thing through successfully, for he has a splendid body and a lot of +resistance, but the fact of the matter is, he isn't trying. He doesn't +want to get well." + +The Laird's face went white. + +"They believe this?" he cried sharply. + +"They do. His subconscious mind clings to the memory of his loss. He +keeps calling for her in his delirium, doesn't he? Now that he is +assured she has dropped out of his life forever, he doesn't give a +snap whether school keeps or not--and the doctors cannot cure him. If +the girl were here--well, she might. Her very presence would bring +about a strong mental and physical reaction--" He paused a moment. +Then, "I know where she can be found." + +The Laird raised his haggard face and though his stern gray eyes were +dull with agony, yet Daney saw in them the light of an unfaltering +resolution. + +"I have left my son's honor and his life in the hands of God Almighty. +I have made my bed and I'll lie in it," he panted. + +"But if the boy should die--" + +"Rather that than--than--" + +"But you're not going to take a chance on his pulling through, in the +face of the advice of the doctors that only the girl's presence can +stimulate him to a desire to live. I tell you, Hector McKaye, man, +he's dying because he is not interested in living." + +"God's will be done, Andrew. If I asked her to come back and save my +lad, I'd have to surrender him to her, and I would be derelict in my +duty as a father if I permitted that. Better that he should pass out +now than know the horror of a living death through all the years to +come. God knows best. It is up to Him. Let there be no talk of this +thing again, Andrew." Abruptly he quitted the room and returned to his +vigil by the side of the son who was at once the light and the shadow +of his existence. + +The nurse came stealthily to the reception-room entrance and looked in +inquiringly. Daney shook his head, so she came into the room and +pointed at him a singularly commanding index-finger. + +"If that old man is permitted to have his stubborn way, Donald McKaye +will die," she declared. + +"So will old Hector. He'll be dead of a broken heart within the year." + +"He's sacrificing his son to his Scotch pride. Now, his mother is far +more bitter against the girl than The Laird is; in her distress she +accuses the Brent girl of destroying her son. Nevertheless, Mrs. +McKaye's pride and resentment are not so intense that she will +sacrifice her son to them." + +"Then give her this address," Daney suggested weakly, and handed it +over. "I'm caught between the upper and nether millstone, and I don't +care what happens to me. Damn the women, say I. Damn them! Damn them! +They're the ones that do all the talking, set up a cruel moral code, +and make a broad-minded, generous man follow it." + +"Thanks for the compliment," the nurse retorted blithely. "If I had +time, I'd discuss the matter with you to your disadvantage, but, +fortunately, I have other fish to fry. My job is to keep Donald McKaye +alive for the next five or six days until Nan Brent can get here. +She'll come. I know she will. She'd lie down in the street and die for +him. I know it. I spent two days with her when her father was dead, +and let me tell you something, Mr. Daney: 'She's too good for them. +There! I feel better now.'" + +"What a remarkable woman!" Mr. Daney reflected, as he walked back to +the mill office. "What a truly remarkable woman!" Then he remembered +the complications that were about to ensue, and to the wonderment of +several citizens of Port Agnew, he paused in front of the +post-office, threw both arms aloft in an agitated flourish, and cried +audibly: + +"Hell's bells and panther-tracks! I'd give a ripe peach to be in hell +or some other seaport. O Lordy, Lordy, Lordy! And all the calves got +loose!" + + + + +XXX + + +As a wife, it is probable that Nellie McKaye had not been an +altogether unqualified success. She lacked tact, understanding and +sympathy where her husband was concerned; she was one of that numerous +type of wife who loses a great deal of interest in her husband after +their first child is born. The Laird's wife was normally intelligent, +peacefully inclined, extremely good-looking both as to face and +figure, despite her years, and always abnormally concerned over what +the most inconsequential people in the world might think of her and +hers. She had a passion for being socially "correct." Flights of +imagination were rarely hers; on the few occasions when they were, her +thoughts had to do with an advantageous marriage for Jane and +Elizabeth, who, it must be confessed, had not had very good luck +holding on to the few eligible young bachelors who had seemed, for a +brief period, to regard them with serious intent. The poor soul was +worried about the girls, as well she might be, since the strides of +time were rapidly bearing both into the sere-and-yellow-leaf period of +life. For her son, she had earnest, passionate mother love, but since, +like all mothers, she was obsessed with the delusion that every girl +in the world, eligible and ineligible, was busy angling for her +darling, she had left his matrimonial future largely to his father. +Frequently her conscience smote her for her neglect of old Hector, but +she smoothed it by promising herself to devote more time to him, more +study to his masculine needs for wifely devotion, as soon as Elizabeth +and Jane should be settled. + +Her son's acute illness and the possibility that he might not survive +it had brought her closer to The Laird than these twain had been in +twenty years; the blow that had all but crushed him had not even +staggered her, for she told herself that, during this crisis she must +keep her feet and her head. A wave of pity for her husband and a tinge +of shame for her years of neglect of him revived more than a modicum +of the old honeymoon tenderness, and, to her mild amazement, she +discovered that she was still, in old Hector's eyes, young and +beautiful; her breast, her lips, still had power to soothe and +comfort. + +In those trying days she was The Laird's greatest asset. With maternal +stubbornness, she resolutely refused to entertain the thought that her +son might die. She could understand the possibility of some other +woman's son dying, but not hers! she, who knew him so well (or thought +she did, which amounts to the same thing), met with gentle tolerance +and contempt the portentous nods and anxious glances of doctors and +trained nurses. 'Fraid-cats--every last one of them! She told old +Hector so and, to a considerable extent, succeeded in making him +believe it. + +After The Laird's interview with Andrew Daney he came home that night +to The Dreamerie, and, to please Nellie, he pretended to partake of +some dinner. Also, during the course of the meal he suddenly decided +to relate to his wife and daughters as much as he knew of the course +of the affair between Donald and Nan Brent; he repeated his +conversation with Nan on the two occasions he had spoken with her, +and gave them to understand that his efforts to induce Donald to "be +sensible" had not been successful. Finally, his distress making him +more communicative, he related the cunning stratagem by which Daney +had made it possible for Donald to be separated from the source of +temptation. + +Elizabeth was the first to comment on his extraordinary revelations +when he appeared to have finished his recital. + +"The girl has a great deal more character than I supposed," she opined +in her soft, throaty contralto. + +"She played the game in an absolutely ripping manner!" Jane declared +enthusiastically. "I had no idea she was possessed of so much force. +Really, I should love to be kind to her, if that were at all possible +now." + +The Laird smiled but without animus. + +"You had ample opportunity once, Janey," he reminded her. "But then, +of course, unlike Donald and myself, you had no opportunity for +realizing what a fine, wholesome lass she is." He lowered his gaze and +rolled a bread-crumb nervously between thumb and forefinger. "They +tell me at the hospital, Nellie," he began again presently, "that her +absence is killing our boy--that he'll die if she doesn't come back. +They've been whispering to Daney, and this afternoon he mentioned the +matter to me." Three pairs of eyes bent upon him; gazes of mingled +curiosity and distress. "Have you heard aught of such talk from the +doctors and nurses," he continued, addressing them collectively. + +"I have," said Mrs. McKaye meekly, and the two girls nodded. "I think +it's all poppycock," Jane added. + +"It isn't all poppycock, my dear," old Hector rebuked her. He rolled +another bread-crumb. "Andrew has her address," he resumed after a long +silence. "She's in New York. He asked me to wire her to come +immediately, or else permit him to wire her in my name. I refused. I +told Daney that our boy's case was in the hands of God Almighty." + +"Oh, Hector!" Mrs. McKaye had spoken. There was gentle reproach and +protest in her voice, but she camouflaged it immediately by adding: +"You poor dear, to be called upon to make such a decision." + +"His decision was absolutely right," Elizabeth declared. "I'd almost +prefer to see my brother decently dead than the laughing-stock of the +town, married to a woman that no respectable person would dare receive +in her home." + +Old Hector looked up in time to see Jane nod approval of her sister's +sentiments, and Mrs. McKaye, by her silence, appeared also to agree +with them. The Laird reached forth and laid his great hand over hers. + +"Poor Nellie!" he murmured affectionately. "'Tis hard to stand between +our love and duty, is it not, lass? By God, sweetheart, I had to do +it. I couldn't stand to see him wedded wie a lass that any man or +woman could throw mud at." His voice shook with the intensity of his +emotion; his flashing glance swept the board in pitiful defiance. "I +have a right to protect my honor and the honor of my house!" he cried +sharply. "Is not Jesus Christ the embodiment of honor? How can He +blame me if I trust in His power and discretion. I've prayed to +Him--ach, man, how I've prayed to Him--to keep my son from makin' a +fule o' himself--" + +"Now, there you go again, Hector, dear," his wife soothed. She rose +from her place at the table, came round to him, put her arms around +his great neck, and laid her cheek against his. "An open confession is +good for the soul, they say, Hector. I'm glad you've taken us into +your confidence, because it permits us to share with you an equal +burden of this heart-breaking decision. But you mustn't feel badly, +father. Haven't I told you our boy isn't going to die?" + +"Do you really think so, Nellie?" he pleaded childishly, and for the +hundredth time. + +"Silly old Hector! I know so." And this time there was in her voice +such a new note of confidence and in her eyes such a gleam of triumph +that she actually did succeed in comforting him. "Ah, well, God's will +be done," he said piously, and attacked his dinner again, while Mrs. +McKaye slipped out of the room and up-stairs on some pretext. Once in +her bedroom, she seized the extension telephone and called up Andrew +Daney. + +"Andrew," she said softly but distinctly, "this is Nellie McKaye +speaking. Hector and I have been discussing the advisability of +sending for the Brent girl." + +"I--I was goin' to take the matter up with you, Mrs. McKaye. I had a +talk with your husband this afternoon, but he was a bit wild--" + +"He isn't so wild now, Andrew. He's talked it over with the girls and +me. It's a terrible alternative, Andrew, but it simply means our boy's +life for the gratification of our own selfish family pride--" + +"Exactly! Exactly! And though I understand just how you feel, Mrs. +McKaye, after all, now, it's only a nine days' wonder, and you can't +keep people from talking anyhow, unless you gag the brutes. The boy +has been raving, and some of the hospital attendants have talked, and +the gossip is all over town again. So why not send for her? She +doesn't have to marry him just because her presence will revive his +sinking morale--" + +"Certainly not. My idea, exactly, Andrew. Well, Andrew, suppose you +telegraph her--" + +"No, no, no! I'll telephone her. Remember, we have a transcontinental +telephone service nowadays. She might not realize the vital necessity +for speed; she might question her right to come if I tried to cover +the situation in a telegram. But, catch her on the 'phone, Mrs. +McKaye, and you can talk to her and convince her." + +"Oh, that's perfectly splendid! Place the call for me immediately, +Andrew, please. And--Andrew, don't mention to Hector what I've done. +He wants to do it, poor man, but he simply cannot bring himself to the +point of action." + +"Don't I know it?" Daney's voice rose triumphant. "The blessed old +duffer!" he added. "I'll put in a call for New York immediately. We +ought to get it through in an hour or two." + + + + +XXXI + + +It was Mr. Daney's task to place the call for Nan Brent in New York +City and while he did not relish the assignment, nevertheless he was +far from shrinking from it. While the citizens of Port Agnew had been +aware for more than two years that transcontinental telephoning was +possible, they knew also that three minutes of conversation for +twenty-five dollars tended to render silence more or less golden. As +yet, therefore, no one in Port Agnew had essayed the great adventure; +wherefore, Mr. Daney knew that when he did his conversation would be +listened to eagerly by every telephone operator in the local office +and a more or less garbled report of same circulated through the town +before morning unless he took pains to prevent it. This he resolved to +do, for the Tyee Lumber Company owned the local telephone company and +it was quite generally understood in Port Agnew that Mr. Daney was +high, low, and jack and the game, to use a sporting expression. + +He stood by the telephone a moment after hanging up the receiver, and +tugged at his beard reflectively. + +"No," he murmured presently, "I haven't time to motor up-country forty +or fifty miles and place the call in some town where we are not known. +It just isn't going to be possible to smother this miserable affair; +sooner or later the lid is going to fly off, so I might as well be +game and let the tail go with the hide. Oh, damn it, damn it! If I +didn't feel fully responsible for this dreadful state of affairs, I +would most certainly stand from under!" + +He turned from the 'phone and beheld Mrs. Daney, alert of countenance +and fairly pop-eyed with excitement. She grasped her husband by the +arm. + +"You have a private line from the mill office to The Dreamerie," she +reminded him. "Have the call run in on your office telephone, then +call Mrs. McKaye, and switch her in. We can listen on the office +extensions." + +Upon his spouse Mr. Daney bent a look of profound contempt. + +"When I consider the loyalty, the love, the forebearance, and +Christian charity that have been necessary to restrain me from tearing +asunder that which God, in a careless moment, joined together, Mary, +I'm inclined to regard myself as four-fifths superman and the other +fifth pure angel," he declared coldly. "This is something you're not +in on, woman, and I hope the strain of your curiosity will make you +sick for a week." + +He seized his hat and fled, leaving his wife to shed bitter, scalding +tears at his cruel words. Poor thing! She prided herself upon being +the possessor of a superior brand of virtue and was always quick to +take refuge in tears when any one decried that virtue; indeed, she +never felt quite so virtuous as when she clothed herself, so to speak, +in an atmosphere of patient resignation to insult and misunderstanding. +People who delude themselves into the belief that they can camouflage +their own nastiness and weaknesses from discovery by intelligent +persons are the bane of existence, and in his better half poor Daney +had a heavy cross to bear. + +He left the house wishing he might dare to bawl aloud with anguish at +the knowledge that he was yoked for life to a woman of whom he was +secretly ashamed; he wished he might dare to get fearfully intoxicated +and remain in that condition for a long time. In his youth, he had +been shy and retiring, always envying the favor which the ladies +appeared to extend to the daring devils of his acquaintance; +consequently, his prenuptial existence had not been marked by any +memorable amourous experiences, for where other young men sowed wild +oats Mr. Daney planted a sweet forget-me-not. As a married man, he was +a model of respectability--sacrosanct, almost. His idea of worldly +happiness consisted in knowing that he was a solid, trustworthy +business man, of undoubted years and discretion, whom no human being +could blackmail. Now, as he fled from the odor of respectability he +yearned to wallow in deviltry, to permit his soul, so long cramped in +virtue, to expand in wickedness. + +On his way down-town he met young Bert Darrow, son of the man after +whom the adjacent lumber-town had been christened. Mr. Darrow had +recently been indicted under the Mann law for a jolly little +interstate romance. But yesterday, Mr. Daney had regarded Bert Darrow +as a wastrel and had gone a block out of his way to avoid the +scapegrace; to-night, however, Bert appealed to him as a man of +courage, a devil of a fellow with spirit, a lover of life in its +infinite moods and tenses, a lad with a fine contempt for public +opinion and established morals. Morals? Bah, what were they! In +France, Bert Darrow would have earned for himself a wink and a shrug, +as though to say: "Ah, these young fellows! One must watch out for the +rascals!" In the United States, he was a potential felon. + +"Evening, Bert," Mr. Daney saluted him pleasantly, and paused long +enough to shake the latter's hand. "I saw your ad in the Seattle +_P.I._ this morning. You young dog! Hope you crawl out of that mess +all right." + +"_C'est la guerre_," Bert murmured nonchalantly. "Thanks, awfully." + +Mr. Daney felt better after that brief interview. He had clasped hands +with sin and felt now like a human being. + +He went directly to the local telephone office and placed his New York +call with the chief operator, after which he sat in the manager's +office and smoked until ten o'clock, when New York reported "Ready!" + +"You young ladies," said Mr. Daney, addressing the two young women on +duty, "may take a walk around the block. Port Agnew will not require +any service for the next twenty minutes." + +They assimilated his hint, and when he was alone with the chief +operator Mr. Daney ordered her to switch the New York call on to Mrs. +McKaye at The Dreamerie. Followed ten minutes of "Ready, Chicago." +"All right, New York. Put your party on the line!"--a lot of +persistent buzzing and sudden silence. Then: "Hello, Port Agnew." + +Mr. Daney, listening on the extension in the office of the manager, +recognized the voice instantly as Nan Brent's. + +"Go on, Mrs. McKaye," he ordered. "That's the Brent girl calling Port +Agnew." + +"Hello, Miss Brent. This is Donald McKaye's mother speaking. Can you +hear me distinctly?" + +"Yes, Mrs. McKaye, quite distinctly." + +"Donald is ill with typhoid fever. We are afraid he is not going to +get well, Miss Brent. The doctors say that is because he does not want +to live. Do you understand why this should be?" + +"Yes; I think I understand perfectly." + +"Will you come back to Port Agnew and help save him? We all think you +can do it, Miss Brent. The doctors say you are the only one that can +save him." There was a moment of hesitation. "His family desires this, +then?" "Would I telephone across the continent if we did not?" + +"I'll come, Mrs. McKaye--for his sake and yours. I suppose you +understand why I left Port Agnew. If not, I will tell you. It was for +his sake and that of his family." + +"Thank you. I am aware of that, Miss Brent. Ah--of course you will be +amply reimbursed for your time and trouble, Miss Brent. When he is +well--when all danger of a relapse has passed--I think you realize, +Miss Brent, all of the impossible aspects of this unfortunate affair +which render it necessary to reduce matters strictly to a business +basis." + +"Quite, dear Mrs. McKaye. I shall return to Port Agnew--on +business--starting to-morrow morning. If I arrive in time, I shall do +my best to save your son, although to do so I shall probably have to +promise not to leave him again. Of course, I realize that you do not +expect me to keep that promise." + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, my dear girl, that I cannot say 'No' to that. But +then, since you realized, in the first place, how impossible" + +"Good-night. I must pack my trunk." + +"Just a minute, my girl," Andrew Daney interrupted. "Daney speaking. +When you get to Chicago, call up the C.M. St. P. station. I'll have a +special train waiting there for you." + +"Thank you, Mr. Daney. I'm sorry you cannot charter an airplane for me +from New York to Chicago. Good-night, and tell Donald for me whatever +you please." + +"Send him a telegram," Daney pleaded. "Good-by." He turned to the +chief operator and looked her squarely in the eyes. "The Laird likes +discreet young women," he announced meaningly, "and rewards +discretion. If you're not the highest paid chief operator in the state +of Washington from this on, I'm a mighty poor guesser." + +The girl smiled at him, and suddenly, for the first time in all his +humdrum existence, Romance gripped Mr. Daney. He was riotously +happy--and courageous! He thrust a finger under the girl's chin and +tilted it in a most familiar manner, at the same time pinching it with +his thumb. + +"Young woman," he cautioned her, "don't you ever be prim and smug! And +don't you ever marry any man until you're perfectly wild to do it; +then, were he the devil himself, follow your own natural impulses." He +let go her chin and shook his forefinger between her eyes. "I'd rather +be happy than virtuous," the amazing man continued. "The calm +placidity that comes of a love of virtue and the possession of it +makes me sick! Such people are dull and stupid. They play +hide-and-seek with themselves, I tell you. Suspicious little souls +peering out of windows and shocked to death at everything they see or +hear--condemn everything they do not understand. Damn it, girl, give +me the virtue that's had to fight like the devil to stay on its +feet--the kind that's been scratched and has had the corners knocked +off in contact with the world and still believes that God made man to +his own image and likeness. I tell you, the Lord knew what he was +about when he invented the devil. If he hadn't, we'd all be so +nasty-nice nobody could trust the other fellow further'n you can throw +a bear up-hill by the tail. I tell you, young woman, sin is a great +institution. Why, just think of all the fun we have in life--we good +people--forgiving our neighbor his trespasses as he does not forgive +us for trespassing against him." + +And with this remarkable statement, Mr. Daney betook himself to his +home. Mrs. Daney, a trifle red and watery about the eyes and nose, sat +up in bed and demanded to be informed what had kept him down-town so +late. + +"Would you sleep any better if you knew?" he demanded. + +She said she would not. + +"Then, woman, resign yourself to the soft embrace of Bacchus, the god +of sleep," he replied, mixed metaphorically. "As for me, my dear, I'm +all talked out!" + + + + +XXXII + +Donald, trembling on the brink of Beyond, not from his disease but +from the exhaustion incident to it, was conscious when his father +entered the room and sat down beside his bed. + +"Well, lad," he greeted the boy with an assumption of heartiness he +was far from feeling, "and have you no good news for your old father +this morning. Tell me you're feeling better, lad." + +"Read the telegram," Donald whispered, and old Hector, seeing a +telegram lying on the bed, picked it up. It was dated from New York +that morning, and the Laird read: + + Due Port Agnew Friday morning. Remember the last line in the + fairy-tale. Love and kisses from your + + SWEETHEART. + +"God bless my soul!" The Laird almost shouted. + +"Who the devil is 'Sweetheart'?" + +"Only--have one--Scotty. Sorry--for you--but do you--happen to +know--last line--fairy-tale? Tell you. 'And so--they--were +married--and lived--happy--ever--after.'" + +Fell a long silence. Then, from The Laird: + +"And you're going to wait for--her, my son?" + +"Certainly. Foolish die--now. I'll try--to wait. Try hard." + +He was still trying when Nan Brent stepped off the special train at +Port Agnew on Friday morning. She was heavily veiled, and because of +the distinctly metropolitan cut of her garments, none recognized her. +With her child trotting at her side, she walked swiftly to the company +hospital, and the nurse, who had been watching for her, met her at the +door. The girl raised a white, haggard face, and her sad blue eyes +asked the question. The nurse nodded, led her down the hall, pointed +to the door of Donald's room, and then picked up Nan's child and +carried him off to the hospital kitchen for a cookie. + +The outcast of Port Agnew entered. Hector McKaye sat by the bed, +gazing upon his son, who lay with closed eyes, so still and white and +emaciated that a sudden fear rose in Nan's mind. Had she arrived too +late? + +The Laird turned and gazed at her an instant with dull eyes, then +sprang to meet her. + +"Well, lass," he demanded, and there was a belligerent and resentful +note in his voice, "is this playing the game?" She nodded, her blurred +eyes fixed upon his son, and old Hector's face softened with a +tenderness almost paternal. "Then," he whispered, "you didn't mean +that--about the last line of the fairy-tale?" + +Her head moved in negation, but she did not look at him. She had eyes +only for the wreck of the man she loved. + +"I heard you needed me--to save him, Mr. McKaye. So I'm here--to save +him, if I can--for you--nothing more." + +He bowed to her, deeply, humbly, as if she were in truth the grandest +lady in the land, then left the room hurriedly. Nan approached the +bed and leaned over Donald, gazing at him for several minutes, for he +was not as yet aware of her presence. Suddenly she commenced to sing +softly the song he loved: "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," and her +hand stole into his. The little grin that crept over his bearded face +was ghastly; after the first bar, she bent and laid her cool cheek +against his. + +"Well, old shipmate," she murmured in his ear, "I'm back." + +"'God's in--his heaven,'" he whispered. "'All's right--with +the--world.'" + + + + +XXXIII + + +From the company hospital, The Laird went straight to his general +manager's office. Entering, he strode to Daney's desk and transfixed +that harassed individual with an accusing finger. + +"Andrew, this is your work, is it not?" + +Mr. Daney's heart skipped a beat, but he remembered this was Friday +morning. So he decided not to be foolish and spar for time by asking +The Laird what work he referred to. Also, having read somewhere that, +in battle, the offensive frequently wins--the defensive never--he +glared defiantly at The Laird and growled. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" His demeanor appeared to +say: "This is my work, and I'm proud of it." + +To Daney's profound amazement, The Laird smiled benignantly and thrust +out his hand, which Mr. Daney shook gingerly, as one might a can of +nitroglycerin. + +"I thank you more than you will ever realize, Andrew, for taking this +matter out of my hands. I left the decision up to the Almighty and +evidently he inspired you to disobey me and save the day--without +compromising me." + +"Pooh! That's the easiest thing I do." Mr. Daney's courage had +returned with a rush. "For heaven's sake, don't talk about it, sir. I +placed a call for the girl on the telephone--at your expense. Yes, +sir; I talked with her clear across the continent, and before she +even started from New York, it was understood that she is to jilt +Donald the minute the doctors pronounce him strong enough to stand +jilting." + +"She told me, practically, the same thing. Oh, Andrew, Andrew, my boy, +this is bully work! Bully! Bully!" + +Mr. Daney replied to this encomium with a deprecatory shrug and hoped +The Laird would never ask _him who had made the bargain_. Thus far, he +flattered himself, he had not strayed from the straight and narrow +path of strict veracity, and he hoped he would not have to. To obviate +this, he decided to get rid of The Laird immediately; so he affected +embarrassment; fussed with the pile of mail on his desk, and growled: + +"All right, boss. If you're satisfied, I am. I haven't been able to +sleep very well since I started mixing in your family affairs, and +without sleep a man cannot hold up his job. I've got a lot of work to +do, and I cannot have any idle, interfering fellows stampeding round +my office; so I suggest that you run up to The Dreamerie to break the +good news to your poor wife and the girls, and let me get something +done." + +"All right, Andrew; I'll go in a minute. Er--ah--you're certain, +Andrew, the girl understands quite thoroughly that I haven't had a +thing to do with bringing her back to Port Agnew?" The Laird smote the +desk resolutely; he desired to be absolutely certain of his ground. + +Mr. Daney looked up with a slight frown. + +"I'll answer your question with another. Have you seen and talked with +Nan Brent this morning?" + +"Yes. I did--the minute she entered Donald's room." + +"And you demanded a show-down then and there?" + +Parenthetically it may be stated that Mr. Daney's intimate knowledge +of The Laird's character prompted this question. He was certain of an +affirmative reply. + +"I did." + +"And her answer was satisfactory?" + +"Absolutely!" + +"So I judged from the fact that you shook hands with me upon entering +my office. I had expected nothing more nor less than instant +dismissal.... Well, since you desire the girl's testimony confirmed, I +repeat that she came out here on the distinct understanding that +Donald's family had not receded from its original position. This is a +business trip, pure and simple, in so far as the McKaye family is +concerned, although I grant you there is a heap of sentiment on Nan's +part--at least sufficient to persuade her to do anything for the boy's +sake. She places his welfare above her own." + +The Laird nodded. + +"The girl is capable of doing the most unexpected things, Andrew. I +really think she'll play the game. When she told me what her +intentions were, I believe she stated the absolute truth." + +"Well, let us hope she doesn't change them, sir. Remember, she has no +more intention of marrying him this morning than she had when she fled +from Port Agnew. I was certain of that when listening to her on the +telephone the other night. However, sir, I want to go on record, here +and now, as disclaiming responsibility for anything that may occur +hereafter. I am not the seventh son of a seventh son, and neither was +I born with a caul. Hence, I do not pretend to foretell future events +with any degree of exactitude. I simply guarantee you, sir, that the +girl realizes that you have had nothing whatsoever, directly or +indirectly, to do with the request for her return. Also, I give you my +word of honor that I have not made her a single promise--directly or +indirectly." + +"Well, I am relieved. I dreaded the thought that I might be +compromised--indirectly, for, as you well know, Andrew, I have a +repugnance to asking favors from anybody to whom I am not prepared to +grant them. My son is my chief happiness. Now, if I were to ask her to +save my happiness, while at the same time reserving the right to deny +the girl hers--well, thank God, I'm saved that embarrassment! Thanks +to you, you fox!" he added. + +"Bless my wicked heart! I'm glad you've gone and that I'm out of it so +easy," the general manager soliloquized, as the door closed behind The +Laird. + +He reached for the telephone and called Mrs. McKaye at The Dreamerie. + +"Your husband is on his way home, Mrs. McKaye," he advised her. "The +girl is here, The Laird has met her and talked with her and is quite +happy over the situation. However, I want to warn you that you will +avoid unpleasantness by keeping from him the fact that you asked the +Brent girl to come back to Port Agnew. He thinks I did that, and I +have not seen fit, for reasons of my own, to deny it." + +"Why, I asked you not to tell him, Andrew," she replied, surprised +that he should forget it. + +"I know. But you had planned to tell him yourself if, after the girl +had arrived, you discovered he was secretly pleased that she had +come." + +"Yes; that is true. However, since you say Hector is quite pleased +with the situation, why should I not tell him, Andrew?" + +"I have a suspicion the news will trouble him. He is quite willing to +accept of the girl's services, as it were, but not at the behest of +any member of his family. Better hear what he has to say on the +subject before you commit yourself, Mrs. McKaye." + +"Oh, I think I can be depended upon to manage Hector," she replied +confidently, and hung up, for already through the window she could see +The Laird's car taking the grade up Tyee Head. He arrived a few +minutes later and entered smilingly, rubbing his hands as indicative +of his entire satisfaction with the universe as constituted that +morning. + +"My dears, I have wonderful news for you!" he announced. + +Elizabeth, warned by her mother of the impending announcement, and +already in the latter's confidence regarding the long-distance +conversation with Nan Brent, interrupted him. She was a born actress. + +"Oh, do tell us quickly, daddy dear," she gushed, and flew to throw +her arms round his neck. Over his shoulder she winked at Jane and her +mother and grimaced knowingly. + +"Donald's going to pull through. The doctors feel certain he'll take +in the slack on his life-line, now that the Brent girl has suddenly +turned up. In fact, the lad has been holding his own since he received +a telegram from her some days back. I didn't tell you about that, my +dears, not being desirous of worrying you; and since it was no doings +of mine, I saw it could not be helped, and we'd have to make the best +of it." + +"Oh, daddy! How could you? That's perfectly dreadful news!" the +artful Elizabeth cried, while her mother raised her eyes resignedly +upward and clasped her hands so tightly that they trembled. The Laird +thought his wife sought comfort from above; had he known that she had +just delivered a sincere vote of thanks, he would not have hugged her +to his heart, as he forthwith proceeded to do. + +"Now, now, Nellie, my dear," he soothed her, "it's all for the best. +Don't cross your bridges before you come to them. Wait till I tell you +everything. That fox, Daney, had the common sense to call the girl on +the telephone and explain the situation; he induced her to come out +here and tease that soft-hearted moonstruck son of ours back to life. +And when Donald's strong enough to stand alone--by Jupiter, that's +exactly how he's going to stand!--We're not the slightest bit +compromised, my dears. The McKaye family is absolutely in the clear. +The girl has done this solely for Donald's sake." + +"Hector McKaye," Jane declared, "you've really got to do something +very handsome for Andrew Daney." + +"Yes, indeed," Elizabeth cooed. + +"Dear, capable, faithful Andrew!" Mrs. McKaye sighed. + +"Ah, he's a canny lad, is Andrew," old Hector declared happily. "He +took smart care not to compromise me, for well he knows my code. When +I rejected his suggestion that I send for the lass, Andrew knew why +without asking foolish questions. Well, he realized that if I should +ask her to come and save my son, I would not be unfair enough to tell +her later that she was not a fit wife for that son. As a matter o' +manly principle, I would have had to withdraw my opposition, and +Donald could wed her if he liked and with my blessing, for all the +bitter cost. I did not build The Dreamerie with the thought that +Donald would bring a wife like this Brent lass home to live in it, +but--God be thanked!--the puir bairn loves him too well to ruin him--" + +He broke off, wiping his eyes, moist now with the pressure of his +emotions, and while he was wiping them, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters +exchanged frightened glances. Elizabeth's penchant for ill-timed humor +disappeared; she stood, alert and awed, biting her lip. Jane's +eyebrows went up in quick warning to her mother, who paled and flushed +alternately. The latter understood now why Andrew Daney had taken the +precaution to warn her against the danger of conjugal confidences in +the matter of Nan Brent; devoutly she wished she had had the common +sense to have left those delicate negotiations entirely in the hands +of dear, capable, faithful Andrew, for, delicate as they had been, she +realized now, when it was too late, that in all probability Mr. Daney, +although a mere man, would have concluded them without compromising +the McKaye family. Surely he would have had the good taste to assure +Nan that he was acting entirely upon his own initiative. + +On the instant, Mrs. McKaye hated the unfortunate general manager. She +told herself that, had he been possessed of the brains of a chipmunk, +he would have pointed out to her the danger of her course; that he had +not done so was proof that the craven had feared to compromise +himself. He had made a cat's-paw of her, that's what he had done! He +had taken advantage of a momentary lack of caution--the result of her +impetuous mother love. Ah, what a blockhead the man was, not to have +warned her of the diplomatic dangers she was risking! At that moment, +placid Nellie McKaye could have shrieked with fury; it would have been +a relief to her if she could have stuck her hatpin in that monumental +chucklehead, Daney. Like so many of her sex, the good lady's code of +sportsmanship was a curious one, to say the least. It had not been +prudence but an instinctive desire to protect her son that had moved +her to be careful when begging Nan to return to Port Agnew, to +indicate that this request predicated no retirement from the resolute +stand which the family had taken against the latter's alliance with +Donald. In a hazy, indefinite way, she had realized the importance of +nullifying any tendency on her part to compromise herself or her +family by the mere act of telephoning to Nan, and with the +unintentional brutality of a not very intelligent, tactless woman she +had taken this means of protection. + +Curiously enough, it had not occurred to her until this moment that +she had done something shameful and cruel and stupid and unwomanly. +She shriveled mentally in the contemplation of it. Not until her +husband had so unexpectedly revealed to her a hitherto hidden facet of +his character--his masculine code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for +a tooth--did she realize how dreadfully she had blundered. She +realized now that, without having given the slightest thought to the +commission of an act unworthy of her womanhood, she had acted because, +to her, the end appeared to justify the means; never given to +self-analysis, she had merely followed the imperative call of her +mother love to the point where nothing mattered save results. + +She looked up tearfully at The Laird. For thirty-odd years she had +lived with this strange soul; yet she had not known until now how +fierce was his desire for independence, how dear to him was his +passion for self-respect. Even now, she found it difficult to +understand why, even if he had been able to subdue his pride to the +point of asking Nan Brent to preserve life in that which was dearer to +him than his own life, his passion for always giving value received +should preclude bargaining with the girl. It was plain to her, +therefore, that her husband could never love their son as his mother +loved him, else, in a matter of life or death, he would not have +paused to consider the effect on himself of any action that might +safeguard his son's existence. She knew what he had thought when Daney +first proposed the matter to him. That sort of thing wasn't "playing +the game." Poor, troubled soul! She did not know that he was capable +of playing any game to the finish, even though every point scored +against him should burn like a branding-iron. + +The Laird, noting her great distress, held her fondly in his arms and +soothed her; manlike, he assumed that she wept because her heart was +overflowing with joy. For half an hour he chatted with her; then, with +a light step and a cheerful "Good-by, Nellie, wife," he entered his +automobile and drove back to town. + +His departure was the signal for Jane and Elizabeth to rally to their +mother's side and inaugurate a plan of defense. + +"Well, mother dear," Elizabeth opined calmly, "it appears that you've +spilled the beans." + +"What a funny old popsy-wops it is, to be sure!" Jane chirped. "It's +fine to be such a grand old sport, but so dreadfully inconvenient! +Beth, can you imagine what father McKaye would say if he only knew?" + +"I wouldn't mind the things he'd say. The things he'd do would be apt +to linger longest in our memories." + +"Oh, my dears, what shall I do?" poor Mrs. McKaye quavered. + +"Stand pat, should necessity ever arise, and put the buck up to Mr. +Daney," the slangy Elizabeth suggested promptly. "He has warned you +not to confess to father, hasn't he? Now, why did he do this? Answer. +Because he realized that if dad should learn that you telephoned this +odious creature from the Sawdust Pile, the head of our clan would +consider himself compromised--bound by the action of a member of his +clan, as it were. Then we'll have a wedding and after the wedding +we'll all be thrown out of The Dreamerie to make room for Master Don +and his consort. So, it appears to me, since Mr. Daney has warned you +not to tell, mother dear, that he cannot afford to tell on you +himself--no, not even to save his own skin." + +"You do not understand, Elizabeth," Mrs. McKaye sobbed. "It isn't +because that stupid Andrew cares a snap of his finger for us; it's +because he's devoted to Hector and doesn't want him worried or made +unhappy." + +And in this observation, it is more than probable that the lady spoke +more truly than she realized. + +"Oh, well, if that's the case, it's all as clear as mud!" Jane cried +triumphantly. "If the worst should ever come to the worst, Mr. Daney +will lie like a gentleman and--why, he has already done so, silly! Of +course he has, and it's rather gallant of him to do it, I think." + +"He's an imbecile, and why Hector has employed him all these +years--why he trusts him so implicitly, I'm sure I am at a loss to +comprehend." Mrs. McKaye complained waspishly. + +"Dear, capable, faithful Andrew!" Elizabeth mimicked her mother's +speech earlier in the day. "Cheer up, ma! Cherries are ripe." She +snapped her fingers, swayed her lithe body, and undulated gracefully +to the piano, where she brought both hands down on the keys with a +crash, and played ragtime with feverish fury for five minutes. Then, +her impish nature asserting itself, she literally smashed out the +opening bars of the Wedding March from Lohengrin, and shouted with +glee when her mother, a finger in each ear, fled from the room. + + + + +XXXIV + + +Mr. Daney worked through a stack of mail with his stenographer, +dismissed her, and, in the privacy of his sanctum, lighted his pipe +and proceeded to mend his fences. In the discretion of the chief +operator at the telephone exchange, he had great confidence; in that +of Mrs. McKaye, none at all. He believed that the risk of having the +secret leak out through Nan herself was a negligible one, and, of +course (provided he did not talk in his sleep) the reason for Nan's +return was absolutely safe with him. Indeed, the very fact that The +Laird had demanded and received an explanation from the girl would +indicate to Nan that Mrs. McKaye had acted on her own initiative; +hence, Nan would, in all probability, refrain from disclosing this +fact to The Laird in any future conversations. + +Reasoning further, Daney concluded there would be no future +conversations. The Laird, following his usual custom of refraining +from discussing a subject already settled to his satisfaction, could +be depended upon to avoid a discussion of any kind with Nan Brent in +future, for such discussions would not be to his interest, and he was +singularly adept in guarding that interest. + +His cogitations were interrupted by a telephone-call from Mrs. McKaye. +The good soul's first gust of resentment having passed, she desired to +thank him for his timely warning and to assure him that, on the +subject of that transcontinental telephone-conversation she and her +daughters could be depended upon to remain as silent as the Sphinx. + +This information relieved Mr. Daney greatly. "After all," he confided +to the cuspidor, "it is up to the girl whether we fish or cut bait. +But then, what man in his senses can trust a woman to stay put. +Females are always making high dives into shoal water, and those +tactless McKaye women are going to smear everything up yet. You wait +and see." + +The longer Mr. Daney considered this situation, the more convinced did +he become that mischief was brewing. Did not periods of seraphic calm +always precede a tornado? In the impending social explosion, a few +hard missiles would most certainly come his way, and in a sudden agony +of apprehension and shame because he had told The Laird a half-truth, +he sprang to his feet, resolved to seek old Hector, inform him that +Mrs. McKaye had compromised the family, and thus enable him to meet +the issue like a gentleman. But this decision was succeeded by the +reflection that perhaps this action would merely serve to precipitate +a situation that might not be evolved in the ordinary course of +affairs. Furthermore, he could not afford to betray Mrs. McKaye on the +mere suspicion that, sooner or later, she would betray herself, for +this would savor of too much anxiety to save his own skin at her +expense. "I'm a singularly unhappy old duffer," he groaned and kicked +his inoffending waste-basket across the office. "The females! The +mischief-making, bungling, thoughtless, crazy females! There are +millions of wonderful, angelic women in this terrible world, but what +I want to know is: Where the Sam Hill do they hide themselves?" + + + + +XXXV + + +Nan did not remain at the hospital more than fifteen minutes. She was +ill at ease there; it was no comfort to her to gaze upon the pallid, +wasted face of the man she loved when she realized that, by her +presence here, she was constituting herself a party to a +heart-breaking swindle, and must deny herself the joy of gazing upon +that same beloved countenance when, later, it should be glowing with +health and youth and high hopes. He was too weak to speak more than a +few words to her. The faintest imaginable pressure of his hand +answered the pressure of hers. It appeared to be a tremendous effort +for him to open his eyes and look up at her. When, however, he had +satisfied his swimming senses that she was really there in the flesh, +he murmured: + +"You'll not--run away--again? Promise?" + +"I promise, dear. The next time I leave Port Agnew, I'll say good-by." + +"You must not--leave--again. Promise?" + +She knew his life might be the reward of a kindly lie; so she told it, +bravely and without hesitation. Was she not there for that purpose? + +"Good--news! If I get--well, will you--marry me, Nan?" She choked up +then; nevertheless, she nodded. + +"More good--news! Wait for me--Sawdust Pile--sweetheart." + +She interpreted this as a dismissal, and gratefully made her exit. +From the hospital office she telephoned orders to the butcher, the +baker, the grocer, and the milkman, forcibly separated little Don from +the nurse, and walked down through Port Agnew to the Sawdust Pile. + +The old-fashioned garden welcomed her with its fragrance; her cat, +which she had been unable to give away and had not the heart to +destroy at the time of her departure, came to the little white gate to +meet her and rubbed against her, purring contentedly--apparently none +the worse for a month of vagabondage and richer by a litter of kittens +that blinked at Nan from under the kitchen stoop. From across the +Bight of Tyee, the morning breeze brought her the grateful odor of the +sea, while the white sea-gulls, prinking themselves on the pile-butts +at the outer edge of the Sawdust Pile, raised raucous cries at her +approach and hopped toward her in anticipation of the scraps she had +been wont to toss them. She resurrected the key from its hiding-place +under the eaves, and her hot tears fell so fast that it was with +difficulty she could insert it in the door. Poor derelict on the sea +of life, she had gone out with the ebb and had been swept back on the +flood, to bob around for a little while in the cross-currents of human +destinies before going out again with the ebb. + +The air in the little house was hot and fetid; so she threw open the +doors and windows. Dust had accumulated everywhere and, with a certain +detachment, she noted, even in her distress, that she had gone away +without closing the great square piano. She ran her fingers over the +dusty keys and brought forth a few, sonorous chords; then she observed +that the little, ancient, half-portion grandfather's clock had died of +inanition; so she made a mental note to listen for the twelve-o'clock +whistle on the Tyee mill and set the clock by it. The spigot over the +kitchen sink was leaking a little, and it occurred to her, in the same +curious detached way, that it needed a new gasket. + +She sighed. Once more, in this silent little house so fraught with +happy memories, the old burden of existence was bearing upon her--the +feeling that she was in jail. For a month she had been free--free to +walk the streets, to look in shop windows, to seek a livelihood and +talk to other human beings without that terrible feeling that, no +matter how pleasant they might appear to be, their eyes were secretly +appraising her--that they were _thinking_. And now to be forced to +abandon that freedom-- + +"Oh, well! It can't last forever," she soliloquized, and, blinking +away her tears, she proceeded to change into a house dress and put her +little home in order. Presently, the local expressman arrived with her +baggage and was followed by sundry youths bearing sundry provisions; +at twelve-thirty, when she and young Don sat down to the luncheon she +had prepared, her flight to New York and return appeared singularly +unreal, like the memory of a dream. + +She visited the hospital next day, choosing an hour when Port Agnew +was at its evening meal and too preoccupied with that important detail +to note her coming and going. She returned to her home under cover of +darkness. + +At the hospital, she had received a favorable report of the patient's +progress. His physicians were distinctly encouraged. Nan looked in on +her lover for a minute, and then hurried away on the plea that her +baby was locked in at the Sawdust Pile, in the absence of some one to +care for him; she had the usual maternal presentiment that he was +playing with matches. + +As she was going out she met The Laird and Mrs. McKaye coming in. Old +Hector lifted his hat and said quite heartily: + +"How do you do, my dear girl. The news this evening is most +encouraging--thanks to you, I'm told--so we are permitted to see +Donald for five minutes. Nellie, my dear, you remember little Nan +Brent, do you not?" + +Mrs. McKaye's handsome mouth contracted in a small, automatic smile +that did not extend to her eyes. She acknowledged Nan's "Good-evening, +Mrs. McKaye," with a brief nod, and again favored the girl with +another property smile, between the coming and going of which her +teeth flashed with the swiftness of the opening and closing of a +camera shutter. + +"We are _so_ grateful to you, Miss Brent," she murmured. And then, +womanlike, her alert brown eyes, starting their appraisal at Nan's +shoes, roved swiftly and calmly upward, noting every item of her +dress, every soft seductive curve of her healthy young body. Her +glance came to a rest on the girl's face, and for the space of several +seconds they looked at each other frankly while old Hector was saying: + +"Aye, grateful indeed, Nan. We shall never be out of your debt. There +are times when a kindness and a sacrifice are all the more welcome +because unexpected, and we had no right to expect this of you. God +bless you, my dear, and remember--I am always your friend." + +"Yes, indeed," his wife murmured, in a voice that, lacking his +enthusiasm, conveyed to Nan the information that The Laird spoke for +himself. She tugged gently at her husband's arm; again the automatic +smile; with a cool: "Good-night, Miss Brent. Thank you again--_so_ +much," she propelled The Laird toward the hospital entrance. He obeyed +promptly, glad to escape a situation that was painful to him, for he +had realized that which his wife did not credit him with having +sufficiently acute perception to realize--to-wit, that his wife's +camouflage was somewhat frayed and poorly manufactured. _She had not +played the game with him_. It would have cost her nothing to have been +as kindly and sincere as he had been toward this unfortunate girl; +nevertheless, while he had sensed her deficiency, his wife had carried +the affair off so well that he could not advance a sound argument to +convince her of it. So he merely remarked dryly as the hospital door +closed behind them: + +"Nellie, I'm going to propound a conundrum for you. Why did your +greeting of the Brent girl remind me of that Louis Quinze tapestry for +which you paid sixty thousand francs the last time you were abroad?" + +"I loathe conundrums, Hector," she replied coldly. "I do not care to +guess the answer." + +"The answer is: Not quite genuine," he retorted mildly, and said no +more about it. + +After that visit, Nan went no more to the hospital. She had met +Donald's mother for the first time in four years and had been greeted +as "Miss Brent," although in an elder day when, as a child, Donald had +brought her to The Dreamerie to visit his mother and sisters, and +later when she had sung in the local Presbyterian choir, Mrs. McKaye +and her daughters had been wont to greet her as "Nan." The girl did +not relish the prospect of facing again that camera-shutter smile and +she shrank with the utmost distress from a chance meeting at the +hospital with Elizabeth or Jane McKaye. As for The Laird, while she +never felt ill at ease in his presence, still she preferred to meet +him as infrequently as possible. As a result of this decision, she +wrote Andrew Daney, and after explaining to him what she intended +doing and why, asked him if he would not send some trustworthy person +to her every evening with a report of Donald's progress. + +Accordingly, Dirty Dan O'Leary, hat in hand and greatly embarrassed, +presented himself at the Sawdust Pile the following evening under +cover of darkness, and handed her a note from Daney. Donald's +condition was continuing to improve. For his services, Mr. O'Leary was +duly thanked and given a bouquet from Nan's old-fashioned garden for +presentation to the invalid. Tucked away in the heart of it was a tiny +envelop that enclosed a message of love and cheer. + +Dirty Dan was thrilled to think that he had been selected as the +intermediary in this secret romance. Clasping the bouquet in his grimy +left hand, he bowed low and placed his equally grimy right in the +region of his umbilicus. + +"Me hearrt's wit' ye, agra," he declared. "Sure 'tis to the divil an' +back agin I'd be the proud man to go, if 'twould be a favor to ye, +Miss Brint." + +"I know you would, Dan," she agreed, tactfully setting the wild rascal +at his ease when addressing him by his Christian name. "I know what +you did for Mr. Donald that night. I think you're very, very +wonderful. I haven't had an opportunity heretofore to tell you how +grateful I am to you for saving him." + +Here was a mystery! Mr. O'Leary in his Sunday clothes bound for +Ireland resembled Dirty Dan O'Leary in the raiment of a lumberjack, +his wild hair no longer controlled by judicious applications of pomade +and his mustache now--alas--returned to its original state of neglect, +as a butterfly resembles a caterpillar. Without pausing to consider +this, Dirty Dan, taking the license of a more or less privileged +character, queried impudently: + +"An' are ye glad they sint for ye to come back?" + +She decided that Mr. O'Leary was inclined to be familiar; so she +merely looked at him and her cool glance chilled him. + +"Becuz if ye are," he continued, embarrassed, "ye have me to thank for +it. 'Tis meself that knows a thing or two wit'out bein' told. Have ye +not been surprised that they knew so well where to find ye whin they +wanted ye?" + +She stared at him in frank amazement. + +"Yes, I have been tremendously interested in learning the secret of +their marvelous perspicacity." + +"I supplied Misther Daney wit' your address, allanah." + +"How did you know it? Did The Laird--" + +"He did not. I did it all be mesel'. Ah, 'tis the romantic divil I am, +Miss Brint. Sure I got a notion ye were runnin' away an' says I to +meself, says I: 'I don't like this idjee at all, at all. These +mysterious disappearances are always leadin' to throuble.' Sure, what +if somebody should die an' lave ye a fortun'? What good would it be to +ye if nobody could find ye? An' in back o' that agin," he assured her +cunningly, "I realized what a popular laddy buck I'd be wit' Misther +Donald if I knew what he didn't know but was wishful o' knowin'?" + +"But how did you procure my address in New York?" she demanded. + +"Now, I'm a wise man, but if I towld ye that, ye'd be as wise as I am. +An' since 'twould break me heart to think anybody in Port Agnew could +be as wise as mesel', ye'll have to excuse me from blatherin' all I +know." + +"Oh, but you must tell me, Dan. There are reasons why I should know, +and you wouldn't refuse to set my mind at ease, would you?" + +Dirty Dan grinned and played his ace. + +"If ye'll sing 'The Low-backed Car' an' 'She Moved Through the Fair' +I'll tell ye," he promised. "Sure I listened to ye the night o' the +battle, an' so close to death was I, sure I fought 'twas an angel from +glory singing'. Troth, I did." + +She sat down, laughing, at the antiquated piano, and sang him the +songs he loved; then, because she owed him a great debt she sang for +him "Kathleen Mavourneen," "Pretty Molly Brannigan," "The Harp That +Once Thro' Tara's Halls," and "Killarney." Dan stood just outside the +kitchen door, not presuming to enter, and when the last song was +finished, he had tears in his piggy little eyes; so he fled with the +posies, nor tarried to thank her and wish her a pleasant good-night. +Neither did he keep his promise by telling her how he came to know her +New York address. + +"Let me hear anny blackguard mintion that one's name wit' a lack o' +respect," Mr. O'Leary breathed, as he crossed the vacant lots, "an' +I'll break the back o' him in two halves! Whirro-o-o! Sure I'd make a +mummy out o' him!" + + + + +XXXVI + + +A month passed, and to the Sawdust Pile one evening, instead of Dirty +Dan, there came another messenger. It was Mr. Daney. To Nan's +invitation to enter and be seated, he gave ready acceptance; once +seated, however, he showed indubitable evidence of uneasiness, and +that he was the bearer of news of more than ordinary interest was +apparent by the nervous manner in which he twirled his hat and +scattered over her clean floor a quantity of sawdust which had +accumulated under the rim during his peregrinations round the mill +that day. + +"Well, Nan, he went home to The Dreamerie this afternoon," the general +manager began presently. "Got up and dressed himself unaided, and +insisted on walking out to the car without assistance. He's back on a +solid diet now, and the way he's filling up the chinks in his +superstructure is a sight to marvel at. I expect he'll be back on the +job within a month." + +"That is wonderful news, Mr. Daney." + +"Of course," Daney continued, "his hair is falling out, and he'll soon +be as bald as a Chihuahua dog. But--it'll grow in again. Yes, indeed. +It'll grow in." + +"Oh dear! I do hope it will grow out," she bantered, in an effort to +put him at his ease. "What a pity if his illness should leave poor Don +with a head like a thistle--with all the fuzzy-wuzzy inside." + +He laughed. + +"I'm glad to find you in such good spirits, Nan, because I've called +to talk business. And, for some reason or other, I do not relish my +job." + +"Then, suppose I dismiss you from this particular job, Mr. Daney. +Suppose I decline to discuss business." + +"Oh, but business is something that has to be discussed sooner or +later," he asured her, on the authority of one whose life had been +dedicated to that exacting duty. "I suppose you've kept track of your +expenses since you left New York. That, of course, will include the +outlay for your living-expenses while here, and in order to make +doubly certain that we are on the safe side, I am instructed to double +this total to cover the additional expenses of your return to New +York. And if you will set a value upon your lost time from the day you +left New York until your return, both days inclusive, I will include +that in the check also." + +"Suppose I should charge you one thousand dollars a day for my lost +time," she suggested curiously. + +"I should pay it without the slightest quibble. The Laird would be +delighted to get off so cheaply. He feels himself obligated to you for +returning to Port Agnew--" + +"Did The Laird send you here to adjust these financial details with +me, Mr. Daney?" + +"He did not. The matter is entirely in my hands. Certainly, in all +justice, you should be reimbursed for the expenses of a journey +voluntarily incurred for the McKaye benefit." + +"Did he say so?" + +"No. But I know him so well that I have little difficulty in +anticipating his desires. I am acting under Mrs. McKaye's promise to +you over the telephone to reimburse you." + +"I am glad to know that, Mr. Daney. I have a very high regard for +Donald's father, and I should not care to convict him of an attempt to +settle with me on a cash basis for declining to marry his son. I wish +you would inform The Laird, Mr. Daney, that what I did was done +because it pleased me to do it for his sake and Donald's. They have +been at some pains, throughout the years, to be kind to the Brents, +but, unfortunately for the Brents, opportunities for reciprocity have +always been lacking until the night Mrs. McKaye telephoned me in New +York. I cannot afford the gratification of very many desires--even +very simple ones, Mr. Daney--but this happens to be one of the rare +occasions when I can. To quote Sir Anthony Gloster, 'Thank God I can +pay for my fancies!' The Laird doesn't owe me a dollar, and I beg you, +Mr. Daney, not to distress me by offering it." + +"But, my dear girl, it has cost you at least five hundred dollars--" + +"What a marvelous sunset we had this evening, Mr. Daney. Did you +observe it? My father always maintained that those curious clouds +predicated sou'west squalls." + +"I didn't come here, girl, to talk about sunsets. You're foolish if +you do not accept--" + +The outcast of Port Agnew turned upon Mr. Daney a pair of sea-blue +eyes that flashed dangerously. + +"I think I have paid my debt to the McKayes," she declared, and in her +calm voice there was a sibilant little note of passion. "Indeed, I +have a slight credit-balance due me, and though Mrs. McKaye and her +daughters cannot bring themselves to the point of acknowledging this +indebtedness, I must insist upon collecting it. In view of the justice +of my claim, however, I cannot stultify my womanhood by permitting the +McKaye women to think they can dismiss the obligation by writing a +check. I am not an abandoned woman, Mr. Daney. I have sensibilities +and, strange to relate, I, too, have pride--more than the McKayes I +think sometimes. It is possible to insult me, to hurt me, and cause me +to suffer cruelty, and I tell you, Mr. Daney, I would rather lie down +and die by the roadside than accept one penny of McKaye money." + +Mr. Daney stared at her, visibly distressed. + +"Why, what's happened?" he blurted. + +She ignored him. + +"I repeat that The Laird owes me nothing--not even his thanks. I met +him one night with Mrs. McKaye on the hospital steps, and he tendered +me his meed of gratitude like the splendid gentleman he is." + +"Oh, I see!" A great light had suddenly dawned on Mr. Daney. "The +Laird led trumps, but Nellie McKaye revoked and played a little +deuce?" + +"Well, Mr. Daney, it seemed to me she fumbled the ball, to employ a +sporting metaphor. She bowed to me--like this--and smiled at me--like +that!" Her cool, patronizing nod and the sudden contraction and +relaxation of Nan's facial muscles brought a wry smile to old Daney's +stolid countenance. "Even if I felt that I could afford to or was +forced to accept reimbursement for my expenses and lost time," Nan +resumed, "her action precluded it. Can't you realize that, Mr. Daney? +And Jane and Elizabeth went her one--no, two--better. I'm going to +tell you about it. I went up-town the other day to send a telegram, +and in the telegraph-office I met Donald's sisters. I knew they would +not care to have me speak to them in public, so, when the telegrapher +wasn't looking at me and intuition told me that Elizabeth and Jane +were, I glanced up and favored them with a very small but very polite +smile of recognition." + +"And then," quoted Mr. Daney, reaching into his ragbag of a mind and +bringing up a remnant of Shakespeare, "'there came a frost--a killing +frost!'" + +"Two hundred and forty-five degrees below zero, and not even a stick +of kindling in the wood-box," she assured him humorously. "They looked +at me, through me, over me, beyond me--" + +"And never batted an eye?" + +"Not even the flicker of an eyelash." + +His canine loyalty bade Mr. Daney defend The Laird's ewe lambs. + +"Well, maybe they didn't recognize you," he protested. "A good deal of +water has run under a number of bridges since the McKaye girls saw you +last." + +"In that event, Mr. Daney, I charge that their manners would have been +extremely bad. I know town dogs that smile at me when I smile at them. +However, much as I would like to assure you that they didn't know me, +I must insist, Mr. Daney, that they did." + +"Well, now, how do you know, Nan?" + +"A little devil took possession of me, Mr. Daney, and inspired me to +smoke them out. I walked up and held out my hand to Jane. 'How do you +do, Jane,' I said. 'I'm Nan Brent. Have you forgotten me?'" + +Mr. Daney raised both arms toward the ceiling. + +"'Oh, God! cried the woodcock,--and away he flew!' What did the chit +say?" + +"She said, 'Why, not at all,' and turned her back on me. I then +proffered Elizabeth a similar greeting and said, 'Surely, Elizabeth, +_you_ haven't forgotten me!' Elizabeth is really funny. She replied: +'So sorry! I've always been absent-minded!' She looked at me steadily +with such a cool mirth in her eyes--she has nice eyes, too--and I must +have had mirth in mine, also, because I remember that at precisely +that minute I thought up a perfectly wonderful joke on Elizabeth and +Jane and their mother. Of course, the poor Laird will not see the +point of the joke, but then he's the innocent bystander, and innocent +bystanders are always, getting hurt." + +"Ah, do not hurt him!" Daney pleaded anxiously. "He's a good, kind, +manly gentleman. Spare him! Spare him, my dear!" + +"Oh, I wouldn't hurt him, Mr. Daney, if I did not know I had the power +to heal his hurts." + +Suddenly she commenced to laugh, albeit there was in her laugh a +quality which almost caused Mr. Daney to imagine that he had hackles +on his back and that they were rising. He much preferred the note of +anger of a few minutes previous; with a rush all of his old +apprehensions returned, and he rasped out at her irritably: + +"Well, well! What's this joke, anyhow? Tell me and perhaps I may +laugh, too." + +"Oh, no, Mr. Daney, you'd never laugh at this one. You'd weep." + +"Try me." + +"Very well. You will recall, Mr. Daney, that when Mrs. McKaye rang me +up in New York, she was careful, even while asking me to return, to +let me know my place?" + +"Yes, yes. I was listening on the line. I heard her, and I thought +she was a bit raw. But no matter. Proceed." + +"Well, since she asked me to return to Port Agnew, I'm wondering who +is going to ask me to go away again?" + +"I'll be shot if I will! Ha! Ha! Ha!" And Mr. Daney threw back his +head and laughed the most enjoyable laugh he had known since the night +an itinerant hypnotist, entertaining the citizens of Port Agnew, had +requested any adventurous gentleman in the audience who thought he +couldn't be hypnotized, to walk up and prove it. Dirty Dan O'Leary had +volunteered, had been mesmerized after a struggle, and, upon being +told that he was Dick Whittington's cat, had proceeded to cut some +feline capers that would have tickled the sensibilities of a +totem-pole. Mr. Daney's honest cachinnations now were so infectious +that Nan commenced to laugh with him--heartily, but no longer with +that strident little note of resentment, and cumulatively, as Mr. +Daney's mirth mounted until the honest fellow's tears cascaded across +his ruddy cheeks. + +"Egad, Nan," he declared presently, "but you have a rare sense of +humor! Yes, do it. Do it! Make 'em all come down--right here to the +Sawdust Pile! Make 'em remember you--all three of 'em--make 'em say +please! Yes, sir! 'Please Nan, forgive me for forgetting. Please Nan, +forgive me for smiling like the head of an old fiddle. Please, Nan, +get out of Port Agnew, so we can sleep nights. Please, Nan, be careful +not to say "Good-by." Please, Nan, knock out a couple of your front +teeth and wear a black wig and a sunbonnet, so nobody'll recognize you +when you leave, follow you, and learn your address.'" He paused to +wipe his eyes. "Why, dog my cats, girl, you've got 'em where the hair +is short; so make 'em toe the scratch!" + +"Well, of course," Nan reminded him, "they are not likely to toe the +scratch unless they receive a hint that toeing scratches is going to +be fashionable in our best Port Agnew circles this winter." + +Mr. Daney arched his wild eyebrows, pursed his lips, popped his eyes, +and looked at Nan over the rims of his spectacles. + +"Very well, my dear girl, I'll be the goat. A lesson in humility will +not be wasted on certain parties. But suppose they object? Suppose +they buck and pitch and sidestep and bawl and carry on? What then?" + +"Why," Nan replied innocently, regarding him in friendly fashion with +those wistful blue eyes, "you might hint that I'm liable to go to The +Laird and tell him I regard him as a very poor sport, indeed, to +expect me to give up his son, in view of the fact that his son's +mother sent for me to save that son's life. Do you know, dear Mr. +Daney, I suspect that if The Laird knew his wife had compromised him +so, he would be a singularly wild Scot!" + +"Onward, Christian soldier, marching as to war!" cried Mr. Daney, and, +seizing his hat from the table, he fled into the night. + + + + +XXXVII + + +Upon reaching his home, Mr. Daney telephoned to Mrs. McKaye. + +"It is important," he informed her, "that you, Miss Jane and Miss +Elizabeth come down to my office to-morrow for a conference. I would +come up to The Dreamerie to see you, but Donald is home now, and his +father will be with him; so I would prefer to see you down-town. I +have some news of interest for you." + +The hint of news of interest was sufficient to secure from Mrs. McKaye +a promise to call at his office with the girls at ten o'clock the +following morning. + +"What is this interesting news, Andrew?" Mrs. Daney asked, with +well-simulated disinterestedness. She was knitting for the French +War-Relief Committee a pair of those prodigious socks with which +well-meaning souls all over these United States have inspired many a +poor little devil of a _poilu_ with the thought that the French must +be regarded by us as a Brobdingnagian race. + +"We're arranging a big blowout, unknown to The Laird and Donald, to +celebrate the boy's return to health. I'm planning to shut down the +mill and the logging-camps for three days," he replied glibly. Of late +he was finding it much easier to lie to her than to tell the truth, +and he had observed with satisfaction that Mrs. Daney's bovine brain +assimilated either with equal avidity. + +"How perfectly lovely!" she cooed, and dropped a stitch which later +would be heard from on the march, in the shape of a blister on a +Gallic heel. "You're so thoughtful and kind, Andrew! Sometimes I +wonder if the McKayes really appreciate your worth." + +"Well, we'll see," he answered enigmatically and went off to bed. + +It was with a feeling of alert interest that he awaited in his office, +the following morning, the arrival of the ladies from The Dreamerie. +They arrived half an hour late, very well content with themselves and +the world in general, and filling Mr. Daney's office with the perfume +of their presence. They appeared to be in such good fettle, indeed, +that Mr. Daney took a secret savage delight in dissipating their +nonchalance. + +"Well, ladies," he began, "I decided yesterday that it was getting +along toward the season of the year when my thoughts stray as usual +toward the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard. So I went down to see if Nan +Brent had abandoned it again--and sure enough, she hadn't." He paused +exasperatingly, after the fashion of an orator who realizes that he +has awakened in his audience an alert and respectful interest. "Fine +kettle of fish brewing down there," he resumed darkly, and paused +again, glanced at the ceiling critically as if searching for leaks, +smacked his lips and murmured confidentially a single word: "Snag!" + +"'Snag!'" In chorus. + +"Snag! In some unaccountable manner, it appears that you three ladies +have aroused in Nan Brent a spirit of antagonism--" + +"Nonsense!" + +"The idea!" + +"Fiddlesticks!" + +"I state the condition as I found it. I happen to know that the girl +possesses sufficient means to permit her to live at the Sawdust Pile +for a year at least." + +"But isn't she going away?" Mrs. McKaye's voice rose sharply. "Is she +going to break her bargain?" + +"Oh, I think not, Mrs. McKaye. She merely complained to me that +somebody begged her to come back to Port Agnew; so she's waiting for +somebody to come down to the Sawdust Pile and beg her to go away +again. She's inclined to be capricious about it, too. One person isn't +enough. She wants three people to call, and she insists that they +be--ah--ladies!" + +"Good gracious, Andrew, you don't mean it?" + +"I am delivering a message, Mrs. McKaye." + +"She must be spoofing you," Jane declared. + +"Well, she laughed a good deal about it, Miss Jane, and confided to me +that a bit of lurking devil in your sister's eyes the day you both met +her in the telegraph office gave her the inspiration for this joke. +She believes that she who laughs last laughs best." + +Mrs. McKaye was consumed with virtuous indignation. + +"The shameless hussy! Does she imagine for a moment that I will submit +to blackmail, that my daughters or myself could afford to be seen +calling upon her at the Sawdust Pile?" + +"She wants to force us to recognize her, mother." Jane, recalling that +day in the telegraph-office, sat staring at Daney with flashing eyes. +She was biting the finger of her glove. + +"Nothing doing," Elizabeth drawled smilingly. + +Mr. Daney nodded his comprehension. + +"In that event, ladies," he countered, with malignant joy in his +suppressed soul, "I am requested to remind you that The Laird will be +informed by Miss Brent that she considers him a very short sport, +indeed, if he insists upon regarding her as unworthy of his son, in +view of the fact that his son's mother considered her a person of such +importance that she used the transcontinental telephone in order to +induce--" + +"Yes, yes; I know what you're going to say. Do you really think she +would go as far as that, Andrew?" Mrs. McKaye was very pale. + +"Beware the anger of a woman scorned," he quoted. + +"In the event that she should, Mr. Daney, we should have no other +alternative but to deny it." Elizabeth was speaking. She still wore +her impish glacial smile. "As a usual thing, we are opposed to fibbing +on the high moral ground that it is not a lady's pastime, but in view +of the perfectly appalling results that would follow our failure to +fib in this particular case, I'm afraid we'll have to join hands, Mr. +Daney, and prove Nan Brent a liar. Naturally, we count on your help. +As a result of his conversation with you, father believes you did the +telephoning." + +"I told him half the truth, but no lie. I have never lied to him, Miss +Elizabeth, and I never shall. When Hector McKaye asks me for the +truth, he'll get it." In Mr. Daney's voice there was a growl that +spoke of slow, quiet fury at the realization that this cool young +woman should presume to dictate to him. + +"I think you'll change your mind, Mr. Daney. You'll not refuse the +hurdle when you come to it. As for this wanton Brent girl, tell her +that we will think her proposition over and that she may look for a +call from us. We do not care how long she looks, do we mother?" And +she laughed her gay, impish laugh. "In the meantime, Mr. Daney, we +will do our best to spare ourselves and you the ignominy of that fib. +The doctors will order Donald away for a complete rest for six months, +and dad will go with him. When they're gone that Brent house on the +Sawdust Pile is going to catch fire--accidently, mysteriously. The man +who scuttled the Brent's motor-boat surely will not scruple at such a +simple matter as burning the Brent shanty. Come, mother. Jane, for +goodness' sake, do buck up! Good-by, dear Mr. Daney." + +He stared at her admiringly. In Elizabeth, he discerned, for the first +time, more than a modicum of her father's resolute personality; he saw +clearly that she dominated her mother and Jane and, like The Laird, +would carry her objective, once she decided upon it, regardless of +consequences. + +"Good-morning, ladies. I shall repeat your message--verbatim, Miss +Elizabeth," he assured the departing trio. + +And that night he did so. + +"They neglected to inform you how much time they would require to +think it over, did they not?" Nan interrogated mildly. "And they +didn't tell you approximately when I should look for their visit?" + +"No," he admitted. + +"Oh, I knew they wouldn't submit," Nan flung back at him. "They +despise me--impersonally, at first and before it seemed that I might +dim the family pride; personally, when it was apparent that I could +dim it if I desired. Well, I'm tired of being looked at and sneered +at, and I haven't money enough left to face New York again. I had +dreamed of the kind of living I might earn, and when the opportunity +to earn it was already in my grasp, I abandoned it to come back to +Port Agnew. I had intended to play fair with them, although I had to +lie to Donald to do that, but--they hurt something inside of +me--something deep that hadn't been hurt before--and--and now--" + +[Illustration: "I'M A MAN WITHOUT A HOME AND YOU'VE _GOT_ TO TAKE ME +IN, NAN."] + +"Now _what_!" Mr. Daney cried in anguished tones. + +"If Donald McKaye comes down to the Sawdust Pile and asks me to marry +him, I'm going to do it. I have a right to happiness; I'm--I'm +tired--sacrificing--Nobody cares--no appreciation--Nan of the Sawdust +Pile will be--mistress of The Dreamerie--and when they--enter house of +mine--they shall be--humbler than I. They shall--" + +As Mr. Daney fled from the house, he looked back through the little +hall and saw Nan Brent seated at her tiny living-room table, her +golden head pillowed in her arms outspread upon the table, her body +shaken with great, passionate sobs. Mr. Daney's heart was constricted. +He hadn't felt like that since the Aurora Stock Company had played +"East Lynne" in the Port Agnew Opera House. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +At the Sawdust Pile the monotony of Nan Brent's life remained +unbroken; she was marking time, waiting for something to turn up. +Since the last visit of the McKaye ambassador she had not altered her +determination to exist independent of financial aid from the McKaye +women or their father,--for according to her code, the acceptance of +remuneration for what she had done would be debasing. Nan had made +this decision even while realizing that in waiving Mr. Daney's proffer +of reimbursement she was rendering impossible a return to New York +with her child. The expenses of their journey and the maintenance of +their brief residence there; the outlay for clothing for both and the +purchase of an additional wardrobe necessitated when, with +unbelievable good luck she had succeeded in securing twenty weeks time +over a high-class vaudeville circuit for her "Songs of the 'Sixties," +had, together with the cost of transportation back to Port Agnew, so +depleted her resources that, with the few hundred dollars remaining, +her courage was not equal to the problem which unemployment in New +York would present; for with the receipt of Mrs. McKaye's message, Nan +had written the booking agent explaining that she had been called West +on a matter which could not be evaded and expressed a hope that at a +later date the "time" might be open to her. Following her return to +the Sawdust Pile she had received a brief communication stating that +there would be no opening for her until the following year. The +abandonment of her contract and the subsequent loss of commissions to +the agent had seriously peeved that person. + +The receipt of this news, while a severe disappointment, had not +caused her to flinch, for she had, in a measure, anticipated it and +with the calmness of desperation already commenced giving thought to +the problem of her future existence. In the end she had comforted +herself with the thought that good cooks were exceedingly scarce--so +scarce, in fact, that even a cook with impedimenta in the shape of a +small son might be reasonably certain of prompt and well-paid +employment. Picturing herself as a kitchen mechanic brought a wry +smile to her sweet face, but--it was honorable employment and she +preferred it to being a waitress or an underfed and underpaid +saleswoman in a department store. For she could cook wonderfully well +and she knew it; she believed she could dignify a kitchen and she +preferred it to cadging from the McKayes the means to enable her to +withstand the economic siege incident to procuring a livelihood more +dignified and remunerative. + +Thus she had planned up to the day of her unexpected meeting with Jane +and Elizabeth McKaye in the Port Agnew telegraph office. On that day, +something had happened--something that had constituted a distinct +event in Nan Brent's existence and with which the well-bred insolence +of the McKaye girls had nothing to do. Indirectly old Caleb Brent had +been responsible, for by the mere act of dying, his three-guarter pay +as a retired sailor had automatically terminated, and Nan had written +the Navy Department notifying it accordingly. + +Now, the death of a retired member of the Army or Navy, no matter what +his grade may be, constitutes news for the service journals, and the +fact that old Caleb had been a medal of honor man appeared, to the +editor of one of these journals, to entitle the dead sailor to three +hundred words of posthumous publicity. Subsequently, these three +hundred words came under the eye of a retired admiral of the United +States Navy, who thereby became aware that he had an orphaned +grand-daughter residing in Port Agnew, Washington. + +As a man grows old he grows kindlier; those things which, at middle +age, appear so necessary to an unruffled existence, frequently undergo +such a metamorphosis, due to the corroding effects of time, that at +eighty one has either forgotten them or regards them as something to +be secretly ashamed of. Thus it was with Nan's grandfather. His pride +and dignity were as austere as ever, but his withered heart yearned +for the love and companionship of one of his own blood; now that Caleb +Brent was dead, the ancient martinet forgot the offense which this +simple sailor had committed against the pride of a long line of +distinguished gentlemen, members of the honorable profession of arms. +He thought it over for a month, and then wrote the only child of his +dead daughter, asking her to come to him, hinting broadly that his +days in the land were nearly numbered and that, in the matter of +worldly goods he was not exactly a pauper. + +Having posted this letter the old admiral waited patiently for an +answer, and when this answer was not forthcoming within the time he +had set, he had telegraphed the postmaster of Port Agnew, requesting +information as to her address. This telegram the postmaster had +promptly sent over to Nan and it was for the purpose of replying to it +that she had gone to the telegraph office on the day when Fate decreed +that Jane and Elizabeth McKaye should also be there. + +After her return to the Sawdust Pile that day Nan's thoughts +frequently adverted to the Biblical line: "The Lord giveth and the +Lord taketh away." Certainly, in her case, He appeared to be working +at cross purposes. At a time when she had resigned herself to domestic +labor in order to avoid starvation, her aristocratic, arrogant, +prideful grandfather had seen fit to forgive her dead father and offer +her shelter from the buffets of the world; yet, even while striving, +apparently to be kind, she knew that the reason underlying his +invitation was plain, old-fashioned heart-hunger, a tender conscience +and a generous admixture of human selfishness. She smiled bitterly at +his blunt hint of a monetary reward following his demise; it occurred +to her that the stubborn old admiral was striving to buy that which he +might have had for a different asking. + +She read the admiral's letter for the twentieth time--and from the +thick white page her glance went to her child. Would he be welcome in +that stern old sea dog's home? Would his great-grandfather forget the +bar sinister of little Don's birth and would her own misfortune be +viewed by him with the tenderness and perfect understanding accorded +her by old Caleb? She did not think so; and with the remembrance of +her dead father, the flames of revolt leaped in her heart. He had been +loyal to her and she would be loyal to him. No, no! She was not yet +prepared to come fawning to the feet of that fierce old man who had +robbed her father of his happiness. What right had he to expect +forgiveness, _sans_ the asking, _sans_ an acknowledgment of his +heartlessness? + +With a bitter smile she wrote him a long letter, relating in detail +the incident of her marriage, the birth of her child, her standing in +Port Agnew society and her belief that all of this rendered acceptance +of his invitation impossible, if she were to act with deference to his +point of view and still remain loyal to the memory of her dead father. +For these reasons she declined, thanked him for his kindness and +remained his very sincerely. When she had posted this letter she felt +better, and immediately took up the case of the McKayes. + +Until that moment she had not considered seriously the possibility of +a marriage with the young Laird of Port Agnew as a means of +humiliating these women who had humiliated her. The thought had +occurred to her in the telegraph office and at the moment had held for +her a certain delightful fascination; prior to that meeting her +resolution not to permit Donald McKaye to share her uncertain fortunes +had been as adamant. But long and bitter reflection upon the problem +thrust upon her by her grandfather had imbued her with a clearer, +deeper realization of the futility of striving to please everybody in +this curious world, of the cruelty of those who seek to adjust to +their point of view that of another fully capable of adjusting his +own; of the appalling lack of appreciation with which her piteous +sacrifice would meet from the very persons who shrank from the +ignominy incident to non-sacrifice oft the part of her whom they held +in open contempt! + +Donald McKaye was not unintelligent. He was a man, grown, with all a +man's passions, with all the caution to be expected in one of his +class. If he still loved her sufficiently, following a period of +mature deliberation and fierce opposition from his people, to offer +her honorable marriage, would she not be a fool to cast away such a +priceless gift? How few men know love so strong, so tender, so +unselfish, that they do not shrink from sharing with the object of +their love, the odium which society has always set upon the woman +taken in adultery. + +In rejecting his proffered sacrifice, she had told herself that she +acted thus in order to preserve his happiness, although at the expense +of her own. By so doing Nan realized that she had taken a lofty, a +noble stand; nevertheless, who was she that she should presume to +decide just wherein lay the preservation of his happiness? In her +grandfather's letter before her she had ample evidence of the +miscarriage of such pompous assumptions. + +There is a latent force in the weakest of women, an amazing capacity +for rebellion in the meekest and a regret for lost virtue even in the +most abandoned. Nan was neither weak, meek, nor abandoned; wherefore, +to be accorded toleration, polite contumely and resentment where +profound gratitude and admiration were her due, had aroused in her a +smouldering resentment which had burned like a handful of oil-soaked +waste tossed into a corner. At first a mild heat; then a dull red glow +of spontaneous combustion progresses--and presently flame and smoke. + +It is probable that mere man, who never has been able to comprehend +the intensity of feeling of which a woman is capable, is not equal to +the problem of realizing the effect of solitude, misunderstanding and +despair upon the mind of a woman of more than ordinary sensibilities +and imagination. The seed of doubt, planted in such soil, burgeons +rapidly, and when, upon the very day that Mr. Daney had made his last +call at the Sawdust Pile, Nan, spurred to her decision by developments +of which none but she was aware, had blazed forth in open rebellion +and given the Tyee Lumber Company's general manager the fright of his +prosaic existence. + + + + +XXXIX + + +After leaving the Sawdust Pile, Mr. Daney walked twice around the +Bight of Tyee before arriving at a definite decision as to his future +conduct in this intrigue, participation in which had been thrust upon +him by his own loyalty to his employer and the idiocy of three +hare-brained women. Time and again as lie paced the lonely strand, Mr. +Daney made audible reference to the bells of the nether regions and +the presence of panther tracks! This was his most terrible oath and +was never employed except under exceptional circumstances. + +At length Mr. Daney arrived at a decision. He would have nothing +further to do with this horrible love affair. In the role of Dan +Cupid's murderer he was apparently a Tumble Tom; for three months he +had felt as if he trod thin ice--and now he had fallen through! "I'll +carry no more of their messages," he declared aloud. "I'll tell them +so and wash my hands of the entire matter. If there is to be any +asking of favors from that girl the McKaye women can do it." + +It was after midnight when he returned to his home and his wife was +sitting up to receive an explanation of his nocturnal prowlings. +However, the look of desperation with which he met her accusing glance +frightened her into silence, albeit she had a quiet little crying +spell next morning when she discovered on the floor of Mr. Daney's +room quite a quantity of sand which had worked into his shoes during +his agitated spring around Tyee Beach. She was quite certain he had +indulged in a moonlight stroll on the seashore with a younger and +prettier woman, so she resolved to follow him when next he fared forth +and catch the traitor red-handed. + +To her surprise, Mr. Daney went out no more o' nights. He had kept his +word given to himself, and on the morning succeeding his extraordinary +interview with Nan he had again summoned the ladies of the McKaye +family to his office for a conference. However, the capable Elizabeth +was the only one of the trio to present herself, for this young +woman--and not without reason--regarded herself as Mr. Daney's mental +superior; she was confident of her ability to retain his loyalty +should he display a tendency to betray them. + +"Well, dear Mr. Daney," she murmured in her melted-butter voice, "what +new bugaboo have you developed for us?" + +"You do not have to bother calling upon the Brent girl, Miss +Elizabeth. She says now that if Donald asks her to marry him she'll +accept. She has an idea she'll be mistress of The Dreamerie." + +Elizabeth arched her eyebrows. "What else?" she queried amiably. + +"That's all--from Nan Brent. I have a small defi to make on my own +account, however, Miss Elizabeth. From this minute on I wash my hands +of the private affairs of the McKaye family. My job is managing your +father's financial affairs. Believe me, the next move in this +comedy-drama is a wedding--if Donald asks her in all seriousness to +marry him--that is, if he insists on it. He may insist and then again +he may not, but if he should, I shall not attempt to stop him. He's +free, white and twenty-one; he's my boss and I hope I know my place. +Personally, I'm willing to wager considerable that he'll marry her, +but whether he does or not--I'm through." + +Elizabeth McKaye sighed. "That means we must work fast, Mr. Daney. +Donald will be feeling strong: enough within two weeks to call on her; +he may even motor down to the Sawdust Pile within ten days. Mother has +already broached the subject of taking him away to southern California +or Florida for a long rest; Dad has seconded the motion with great +enthusiasm--and that stubborn Donald has told them frankly that he +isn't going away for a rest." + +"Gosh!" Mr. Daney gasped. "That makes it a little binding, eh?" + +She met his clear glance thoughtfully and said: "If her house should +burn down--accidentally--to-day or to-night, when she and her baby +aren't in it, she'll have to leave Port Agnew. There isn't a house in +town where she could find shelter, and you could see to it that all +the rooms in the hotel are taken." + +"You forget, my dear," he replied with a small smile. "I have no +further interest in this affair and moreover, I'm not turning +firebug--not this year." + +"You refuse to help us?" + +"Absolutely. What is to be will be, and I, for one, have decided not +to poke my finger into the cogs of destiny." + +"Well--thanks awfully for what you've already done, Mr. Daney." Again +she smiled her bright, impish smile. "Good-morning." + +"Good-morning, Miss Elizabeth." + +As she left the office, Mr. Daney noted her débutante slouch and +gritted his teeth. "Wonder if they'll call on Nan now, or make a +combined attack on the boy and try bluff and threats and tears," he +soliloquized. + +As a matter of fact they tried the latter. The storm broke after +luncheon one day when Donald declared he felt strong enough to go down +to Port Agnew, and, in the presence of the entire family, ordered the +butler to tell his father's chauffeur to bring the closed car around +to the door. Immediately, the astute Elizabeth precipitated matters by +asking her brother sharply if his projected visit to Port Agnew +predicated also a visit to the Sawdust Pile. + +"Why, yes, Elizabeth," he answered calmly. + +The Laird scowled at her, but she ignored the scowl; so old Hector +flashed a warning glance to Jane and her mother--a glance that said +quite plainly: "Let there be no upbraiding of my son." + +"Do you think it is quite--ah, delicate of you, Donald, to call upon +any young lady at her apartments in the absence of a proper chaperon, +even if the lady herself appears to have singularly free and easy +views on the propriety of receiving you thus?" + +He saw that she was bound to force the issue and was rather relieved +than otherwise. With a mental promise to himself to keep his temper at +all hazards he replied: "Well, Elizabeth, I'll admit the situation is +a trifle awkward, but what cannot be cured must be endured. You see, I +want to have a talk with Nan Brent and I cannot do so unless I call +upon her at the Sawdust Pile. It is impossible for us to meet on +neutral ground, I fear. However, if you will write her a nice +friendly little note and invite her up here to visit me, the question +of a chaperon will be solved and I will postpone my visit until she +gets here." + +"Don't be a fool," she retorted bitterly. + +"As for Nan's free and easy views on the subjects, who in Port Agnew, +may I ask, expects her to act differently? Why, therefore, since she +is fully convinced that I possess a few of the outward appearances of +a gentleman, should she fear to receive me in her home? To conform to +the social standards of those who decry her virtue? Elizabeth, you +expect too much, I fear." + +"Hear, hear," cried The Laird. He realized that Elizabeth was not to +be denied, so he thought best to assume a jocular attitude during the +discussion. + +"Father," his eldest daughter reminded him. "It is your duty to forbid +Donald doing anything which is certain to bring his family into +disrepute and make it the target for the tongue of scandal." + +"Oh, leave him alone, you pestiferous woman," old Hector cried +sharply. "Had it not been for the girl he would not be living this +minute, so the least he can do is to express his compliments to her. +Also, since this disagreeable topic has again been aired, let me +remind you that the lass isn't going to marry Donald. She came out +here, Donald," he continued, turning to his son, "with the distinct +understanding that her job was to humor you back to health, and for +that you owe her your thanks and I'm willing you should call on her +and express them. Don't flattter yourself that she'll marry you, my +boy. I've had a talk with her--since you must know it, sooner or +later--and she promised me she wouldn't." + +The young Laird's face paled a little but he maintained his +composure. "I greatly fear you misunderstood her, father," he replied +gently. "She promised me she'd marry me. You see," he added looking +the old man resolutely in the face, "I think she's virtuous, so I'm +going to marry her." + +His father smiled sadly. "Poor lad. God knows I'm sorry for you, +but--well, go see her and let's have the issue settled once for all. +For God's sake, lad, grant me peace of mind. End it to-day, one way or +the other." + +"Ah, yes, you're brave," Elizabeth flung at her father. "You're so +certain that girl will keep her promise, aren't you? Well, I happen to +have been informed, on very good authority, that she intends to betray +you. She had made the statement that she'll marry Donald if he asks +her--again." + +"The girl doesn't impress me as one who would lie, Elizabeth. Who told +you this?" + +"Andrew Daney." + +"Bear with me a moment, son, till I call Andrew on the telephone," the +Laird requested, and went into the telephone booth under the stairs in +the reception hall. When he emerged a few minutes later his face was +pale and haggard. + +"Well? What did I tell you?" Elizabeth's voice was triumphant. + +Her father ignored her. Placing himself squarely before his son, he +bent forward slightly and thrust his aggressive face close to +Donald's. "I command you to respect the honor of my house," he cried +furiously. "For the last time, Donald McKaye, ha' done wie this woman, +or--" and his great arm was outflung in a swooping gesture that +denoted all too forcibly the terrible sentence he shrank from +speaking. + +"Are you offering me an alternative?" Donald's voice was low and very +calm, but his brown eyes were blazing with suppressed rage. "The +Dreamerie or--" and he swung and pointed to the Brent cottage far +below them on the Sawdust Pile. + +"Aye," his father cried in a hard cracked voice. "Aye!" + +Donald looked over at his mother with the helplessness of a child who +has fallen and hurt himself. "And you, mother? What do you say to +this?" + +She thought she would faint. "You--you must obey your father," she +quavered. Until her son should marry Nan Brent she could not force +herself to the belief that he could possibly commit such an incredible +offense. + +"The opinions of you and Jane," Donald continued, turning to each +sister in turn, "do not interest me particularly, but while the polls +are open you might as well vote. If I marry Nan Brent are you each +prepared to forget that I am your brother?" + +Elizabeth nodded calmly. She had gone too far now to develop weakness +when an assumption of invincible strength might yet win the day. + +"I couldn't receive such a peculiar sister-in-law," Jane murmured, +evidently close to tears. "Surely, you would not expect us to take +such a woman to our hearts, Donald dear?" + +"I did not build The Dreamerie for yon lass," The Laird burst forth +passionately. + +His son stood with bowed head. "Have you, mother, or you, my sisters, +been down to the Sawdust Pile to thank Nan for inspiring me--no +matter how--with a desire to live? I think you realize that until she +came I was too unhappy--too disgusted with life--to care whether I got +well or not? Have you absolved yourselves of an obligation which must +be perfectly evident to perfect ladies?" + +"We have not." Elizabeth's calm voice answered him. "What the girl did +was entirely of her own volition. She did it for your sake, and since +it is apparent that she plans to collect the reward of her +disinterested effort we have considered that a formal expression of +thanks would be superfluous." + +"I see. I see. Well, perhaps you're right. I shall not quarrel with +your point of view. And you're all quite certain you will never recede +from your attitude of hostility toward Nan--under no circumstances, to +recognize her as my wife and extend to her the hospitality of The +Dreamerie?" + +He challenged his father with a look and the old man slowly nodded an +affirmative. His mother thought Donald was about to yield to their +opposition and nodded likewise. "I have already answered that +question," Jane murmured tragically, and Elizabeth again reminded him +that it was not necessary for him to make a fool of himself. + +"Well, I'm glad this affair has been ironed out--at last," Donald +assured them. "I had cherished the hope that when you knew Nan +better--" He choked up for a moment, then laid his hands on his +father's shoulders. "Well, sir," he gulped, "I'm going down to the +Sawdust Pile and thank Nan for saving my life. Not," he added +bitterly, "that I anticipate enjoying that life to the fullest for +some years to come. If I did not believe that time will solve the +problem--" + +The Laird's heart leaped. "Tush, tush, boy. Run along and don't do +anything foolish." He slapped Donald heartily across the back while +the decisive sweep of that same hand an instant later informed the +women of his household that it would be unnecessary to discuss this +painful matter further. + +"I understand just how you feel, dad. I hold no resentment," Donald +assured him, and dragged The Laird close to him in a filial embrace. +He crossed the room and kissed his mother, who clung to him a moment, +tearfully; seeing him so submissive, Jane and Elizabeth each came up +and claimed the right to embrace him with sisterly affection. + +The butler entered to announce that the car was waiting at the front +door. Old Hector helped his son into a great coat and Mrs. McKaye +wound a reefer around his neck and tucked the ends inside the coat. +Then The Laird helped him into the car; as it rolled slowly down the +cliff road, Old Hector snorted with relief. + +"By Judas," he declared, "I never dreamed the boy would accept such an +ultimatum." + +"Well, the way to find out is to try," Elizabeth suggested. "Sorry to +have been forced to disregard that optical S.O.S. of yours, Dad, but I +realized that we had to strike now or never." + +"Whew-w-w!" The Laird whistled again. + + + + +XL + + +With the license of long familiarity, Donald knocked at the front door +of the Brent cottage to announce his arrival; then, without awaiting +permission to enter, he opened the door and met Nan in the tiny hall +hurrying to admit him. + +"You--Donald!" she reproved him. "What are you doing here? You +shouldn't be out." + +"That's why I came in," he retorted drily and kissed her. "And I'm +here because I couldn't stand The Dreamerie another instant. I wanted +my mother and sisters to call on you and thank you for having been so +nice to me during my illness, but the idea wasn't received, very +enthusiastically. So, for the sheer sake of doing the decent thing +I've called myself. It might please you," he added, "to know that my +father thought I should." + +"He is always tactful and kind," she agreed. + +She led him to her father's old easy chair in the living room. + +"As Dirty Dan O'Leary once remarked in my presence," he began, "it is +a long lane that hasn't got a saloon at the end of it. I will first +light a cigarette, if I may, and make myself comfortable, before +putting you on the witness stand and subjecting you to a severe +cross-examination. Seat yourself on that little hassock before me and +in such a position that I can look squarely into your face and note +flush of guilt when you fib to me." + +She obeyed, with some slight inward trepidation, and sat looking up +at him demurely. + +"Nan," he began, "did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty +thing for you to do would be to run away and hide where I could never +find you?" + +She shook her head. + +"Did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty thing for you to do +would be to return to Port Agnew from your involuntary exile and +inspire me with some enthusiasm for life?" + +His keen perception did not fail to interpret the slight flush of +embarrassment that suffused Nan's face. "I object to that question, +your honor," she replied with cleverly simulated gaiety, "on the +ground that to do so would necessitate the violation of a confidence." + +"The objection is sustained by the court. Did my father or Andrew +Daney, acting for him, ever offer you any sum of money as a bribe for +disappearing out of my life?" + +"No. Your father offered to be very, very kind to me the morning I was +leaving. We met at the railroad station and his offer was made _after_ +I informed him that I was leaving Port Agnew forever--and why. So I +know he made the offer just because he wanted to be kind--because he +is kind." + +"Neither he nor Daney communicated with you in anyway following your +departure from Port Agnew?" + +"They did not." + +"Before leaving New York or immediately after your return to Port +Agnew, did you enter into verbal agreement with any member of my +family or their representative to nurse me back to health and then +jilt me?" + +"I did not. The morning I appeared at the hospital your father, +remembering my statement to him the morning I fled from Port Agnew, +suspected that I had had a change of heart. He said to me: 'So this is +your idea of playing the game, is it?' I assured him then that I had +not returned to Port Agnew with the intention of marrying you, but +merely to stiffen your morale, as it were. He seemed quite satisfied +with my explanation, which I gave him in absolute good faith." + +"Did he ever question you as to how you ascertained I was ill?" + +"No. While I cannot explain my impression, I gathered at the time that +he knew." + +"He credited Andrew Daney with that philanthropic job, Nan. He does +not know that my mother communicated with you." + +"Neither do you, Donald. I have not told you she did." + +"I am not such a stupid fellow as to believe you would ever tell me +anything that might hurt me, Nan. One does not relish the information +that one's mother has not exhibited the sort of delicacy one expects +of one's mother," he added bluntly. + +"It is not nice of you to say that, Donald. How do you know that Mr. +Daney did not send for me?" + +He smiled tolerantly. "Before Daney would dare do that he would +consult with my father, and if my father had consented to it he would +never have left to Daney the task of requesting such a tremendous +favor of you for his account. If Daney ever consulted my father as to +the advisability of such a course, my father refused to consider it." + +"What makes you think so, old smarty?" + +"Well, I know my father's code. He had no hesitancy in permitting you +to know that you were not welcome as a prospective daughter-in-law, +although he was not so rude as to tell you why. He left that to your +imagination. Now, for my father to ask a favor of anybody is very +unusual. He has a motto that a favor accepted is a debt incurred, and +he dislikes those perennial debts. My father is a trader, my dear. If +he had, directly or indirectly, been responsible for your return to +Port Agnew for the purpose of saving his son's life, he would not +be--well, he just wouldn't do it," he explained with some +embarrassment. "He couldn't do it. He would say to you, 'My son is +dying because he finds life uninteresting without you. If you return, +your presence will stimulate in him a renewed interest in life and he +will, in all probability, survive. If you are good enough to save my +son from death you are good enough to share his life, and although +this wedding is about going to kill me, nevertheless we will pull it +off and make believe we like it.'" + +"Nonsense," she retorted. + +"Knowing how my father would act under such circumstances, I was +dumfounded when he informed me this afternoon that you had agreed to +perform under false pretenses. He was quite certain you would proceed +to jilt me, now that I am strong enough to stand it. He said you had +promised him you would." + +"I did not promise him. I merely told him truthfully what my firm +intention was at the time he demanded to be informed as to the nature +of my intentions. I reserved my woman's right to change my mind." + +"Oh!" + +"Had I made your father a definite promise I would have kept it. If I +were a party to such a contract with your father, Donald dear, all of +your pleading to induce me to break it would be in vain." + +"A contract without a consideration is void in law," he reminded her. +"Dad just figured he could bank on your love for me. He did you the +honor to think it was so strong and wonderful that death would be a +delirious delight to you in preference to spoiling my career by +marrying me--well--Elizabeth disillusioned him!" + +Nan's eyebrows lifted perceptibly. + +"She informed my father in my presence," Donald continued, "that you +had had a change of heart; that you were now resolved to accept me +should I again ask you to marry me. It appears you had told Andrew +Daney this--in cold blood as it were. So Dad went to the telephone and +verified this report by Daney; then we had a grand show-down and I was +definitely given my choice of habitation--The Dreamerie or the Sawdust +Pile. Father, Mother, Elizabeth and Jane; jointly and severally +assured me that they would never receive you, so Nan, dear, it appears +that I will have to pay rather a heavy price for the privilege of +marrying you--" + +"I have never told you I would marry you," she cried sharply. + +"Yes, you did. That day in the hospital." + +"That was a very necessary fib and you should not hold it against me. +It was a promise absolutely not made in good faith." + +"But did you tell Daney that you would accept me if I should ask you +again to marry me?" + +She was visibly agitated but answered him truthfully. "Yes, I did." + +"You said it in anger?" + +"Yes." Very softly. + +"Daney had come to you with an offer of monetary reward for your +invaluable services to the McKaye family, had he not? And since what +you did was not done for profit, you were properly infuriated and +couldn't resist giving Daney the scare of his life? That was the way +of it, was it not?" + +Nan nodded and some tears that trembled on her long lashes were +flicked off by the vigor of the nod; some of them fell on the big +gaunt hands that held hers. + +"I suppose you haven't sufficient money with which to return to New +York?" he continued. + +Again she nodded an affirmative. + +"Just what are your plans, dear?" + +"I suppose I'll have to go somewhere and try to procure a position as +a cook lady." + +"An admirable decision," he declared enthusiastically. "I'll give you +a job cooking for me, provided you'll agree to marry me and permit me +to live in your house. I'm a man without a home and you've just _got_ +to take me in, Nan. I have no other place to lay my weary head." + +She looked at him and through the blur of her tears she saw him +smiling down at her, calmly, benignantly and with that little touch of +whimsicality that was always in evidence and which even his heavy +heart could not now subdue. + +"You've--you've--chosen the Sawdust Pile?" she cried incredulously. + +"How else would a man of spirit choose, old shipmate?" + +"But you're not marrying me to save me from poverty, Donald? You must +be certain you aren't mistaking for love the sympathy which rises so +naturally in that big heart of yours. If it's only a great pity--if +it's only the protective instinct--" + +"Hush! It's all of that and then some. I'm a man grown beyond the +puppy-love stage, my dear--and the McKayes are not an impulsive race. +We count the costs carefully and take careful note of the potential +profits. And while I could grant my people the right to make hash of +my happiness I must, for some inexplicable reason, deny them the +privilege of doing it with yours. I think I can make you happy, Nan; +not so happy, perhaps, that the shadow of your sorrow will not fall +across your life occasionally, but so much happier than you are at +present that the experiment seems worth trying, even at the expense of +sacrificing the worldly pride of my people." + +"Are you entertaining a strong hope that after you marry me, dear, +your people will forgive you, make the best of what they consider a +bad bargain and acknowledge me after a fashion? Do you think they will +let bygones be bygones and take me to their hearts--for your sake?" + +"I entertain no such silly illusion. Under no circumstances will they +ever acknowledge you after a fashion, for the very sufficient reason +that the opportunity to be martyrs will never be accorded my mother +and sisters by yours truly, Donald McKaye, late Laird apparent of Port +Agnew. Bless, your sweet soul, Nan, I have some pride, you know. I +wouldn't permit them to tolerate you. I prefer open warfare every +time." + +"Have you broken with your people, dear?" + +"Yes, but they do not know it yet. I didn't have the heart to raise a +scene, so I merely gave the old pater a hug, kissed mother and the +girls and came away. I'm not going back." + +"You will--if I refuse to marry you?" + +"I do not anticipate such a refusal. However, it Hoes not enter into +the matter at all in so far as my decision to quit The Dreamerie is +concerned. I'm through! Listen, Nan. I could win my father to you--win +him wholeheartedly and without reservation--if I should inform him +that my mother asked you to come back to Port Agnew. My mother and the +girls have not told him of this and I suspect they have encouraged his +assumption that Andrew Daney took matters in his own hands. Father has +not cared to inquire into the matter, anyhow, because he is secretly +grateful to Daney (as he thinks) for disobeying him. Mother and the +girls are forcing Daney to protect them; they are using his loyalty to +the family as a club to keep him in line. With that club they forced +him to come to you with a proposition that must have been repugnant to +him, if for no other reason than that he knew my father would not +countenance it. When you told him you would marry me if I should ask +you again, to whom did Daney report? To Elizabeth, of course--the +brains of the opposition. That proves to me that my father had nothing +to do with it--why the story is as easily understood from deduction as +if I had heard the details from their lips. But I cannot use my +mother's peace of mind as a club to beat dad into line; I cannot tell +him something that will almost make him hate mother and my sisters; I +would not force him to do that which he does not desire to do because +it is the kindly, sensible and humane course. So I shall sit tight and +say nothing--and by the way, I love you more than ever for keeping +this affair from me. So few women are true blue sports, I'm afraid." + +"You must be very, very angry and hurt, Donald?" + +"I am. So angry and hurt that I desire to be happy within the shortest +possible period of elapsed time. Now, old girl, look right into my +eyes, because I'm going to propose to you for the last time. My +worldly assets consist of about a hundred dollars in cash and a six +dollar wedding ring which I bought as I came through Port Agnew. With +these wordly goods and all the love and honor and respect a man can +possibly have for a woman, I desire to endow you. Answer me quickly. +Yes or no?" + +"Yes," she whispered. + +"You chatterbox! When?" + +"At your pleasure." + +"That's trading talk. We'll be married this afternoon." He stretched +out his long arms for her and as she slid off the low hassock and +knelt beside his chair, he gathered her hungrily to him and held her +there for a long time before he spoke again. When he did it was to +say, with an air of wonder that was almost childlike: + +"I never knew it was possible for a man to be so utterly wretched and +so tremendously happy and all within the same hour. I love you so much +it hurts." He released her and glanced at his watch. "It is now two +o'clock, Nan. If we leave here by three we can reach the county seat +by five o'clock, procure a license and be married by six. By half past +seven we will have finished our wedding supper and by about ten +o'clock we shall be back at the Sawdust Pile. Put a clean pair of +rompers on the young fellow and let's go! From this day forward we +live, like the Sinn Fein. 'For ourselves alone.'" + +While Nan was preparing for that hurried ceremony, Donald strolled +about the little yard, looking over the neglected garden and marking +for future attention various matters such as a broken hinge on the +gate, some palings off the fence and the crying necessity for paint on +the little white house, for he was striving mightily to shut out all +thought of his past life and concentrate on matters that had to do +with the future. Presently he wandered out on the bulkhead. The great +white gulls which spent their leisure hours gravely contemplating the +Bight of Tyee from the decaying piling, rose lazily at his approach +and with hoarse cries of resentment flapped out to sea; his dull +glance followed them and rested on a familiar sight. + +Through the Bight of Tyee his father's barkentine Kohala was coming +home from Honolulu, ramping in before a twenty mile breeze with every +shred of canvas drawing. She was heeled over to starboard a little and +there was a pretty little bone in her teeth; the colors streamed from +her mizzen rigging while from her foretruck the house-flag flew. Idly +Donald watched her until she was abreast and below The Dreamerie and +her house-flag dipped in salute to the master watching from the cliff; +instantly the young Laird of Tyee saw a woolly puff of smoke break +from the terrace below the house and several seconds later the dull +boom of the signal gun. His heart was constricted. "Ah, never for me!" +he murmured, "never for me--until he tells them to look toward the +Sawdust Pile for the master!" + +He strode out to the gate where his father's chauffeur waited with the +limousine. "Take the car home," he ordered, "and as you pass through +town stop in at the Central Garage and tell them to send a closed car +over to me here." + +The chauffeur looked at him with surprise but obeyed at once. By the +time the hired car had arrived Nan and her child were ready, and just +before locking the house Nan, realizing that they would not return to +the Sawdust Pile until long after nightfall, hauled in the flag that +floated over the little cupola; and for the second time, old Hector, +watching up on the cliff, viewed this infallible portent of an event +out of the ordinary. His hand trembled as he held his marine glasses +to his blurred eyes and focussed on The Sawdust Pile, in time to see +his son enter the limousine with Nan Brent and her child--and even at +that distance he could see that the car in which they were departing +from the Sawdust Pile was not the one in which Donald had left The +Dreamerie. From that fact alone The Laird deduced that his son had +made his choice; and because Donald was his father's son, imbued with +the same fierce high pride and love of independence, he declined to be +under obligation to his people even for the service of an automobile +upon his wedding day. + +The Laird stood watching the car until it was out of sight; then he +sighed very deeply, entered the house and rang for the butler. + +"Tell Mrs. McKaye and the young ladies that I would thank them to come +here at once," he ordered calmly. + +They came precipitately, vaguely apprehensive. "My dears," he said in +an unnaturally subdued voice, "Donald has just left the Sawdust Pile +with the Brent lass to be married. He has made his bed and it is my +wish that he shall lie in it." + +"Oh, Hector!" Mrs. McKaye had spoken quaveringly. "Oh, Hector, dear, +do not be hard on him!" + +He raised his great arm as if to silence further argument. "He has +brought disgrace upon my house. He is no longer son of mine and we are +discussing him for the last time. Hear me, now. There will be no +further mention of Donald in my presence and I forbid you, Nellie, +you, Elizabeth and you, Jane, to have aught to do wie him, directly or +indirectly." + +Mrs. McKaye sat down abruptly and commenced to weep and wail her woe +aloud, while Jane sought vainly to comfort her. Elizabeth bore the +news with extreme fortitude; with unexpected tact she took her father +by the arm and steered him outside and along the terrace walk where +the agonized sobs and moans of her mother could not be heard--for what +Elizabeth feared in that first great moment of remorse was a torrent +of self-accusation from her mother. If, as her father had stated, +Donald was en route to be married, then the mischief was done and no +good could come out of a confession to The Laird of the manner in +which the family honor had been compromised, not by Donald, but by his +mother, aided and abetted by his sisters! The Laird, now quite dumb +with distress, walked in silence with his eldest daughter, vaguely +conscious of the comfort of her company and sympathy in his hour of +trial. + +When Elizabeth could catch Jane's attention through the window she +cautiously placed her finger on her lip and frowned a warning. Jane +nodded her comprehension and promptly bore her mother off to bed where +she gave the poor soul some salutary advice and left her to the meager +comfort of solitude and smelling salts. + + * * * * * + +Just before he retired that night, The Laird saw a light shine +suddenly forth from the Sawdust Pile. So he knew his son had selected +a home for his bride, and rage and bitterness mingled with his grief +and mangled pride to such an extent that he called upon God to take +him out of a world that had crumbled about his hoary head. He shook +his fist at the little light that blinked so far below him and Mrs. +McKaye, who had crept down stairs with a half-formed notion of +confessing to The Laird in the hope of mitigating her son's +offense--of, mother-like, taking upon her shoulders an equal burden of +the blame--caught a glimpse of old Hector's face, and her courage +failed her. Thoroughly frightened she returned noiselessly to her room +and wept, dry-eyed, for the fountain of her tears had long since been +exhausted. + +Meanwhile, down at the Sawdust Pile, Nan was putting her drowsy son to +bed; in the little living-room her husband had lighted the driftwood +fire and had drawn the old divan up to the blue flames. He was sitting +with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, outlining +plans for their future, when Nan, having put her child to bed, came +and sat down beside him. He glanced at her with troubled eyes and +grinned a trifle foolishly. + +"Happy?" he queried. + +She nodded. "In a limited fashion only, dear heart. I'm thinking how +wonderfully courageous you have been to marry me and how tremendously +grateful I shall always be for your love and faith." She captured his +right hand and fondled it for a moment in both of hers, smiling a +little thoughtfully the while as if at some dear little secret. "Port +Agnew will think I married you for money," she resumed presently; +"your mother and sisters will think I married you to spite them and +your father will think I married you because you insisted and because +I was storm-tossed and had to find a haven from the world. But the +real reason is that I love you and know that some day I am going to +see more happiness in your eyes than I can see to-night." + +Again, in that impulsive way she had, she bent and kissed his hand. +"Dear King Cophetua," she murmured, "your beggar maid will never be +done with adoring you." She looked up at him with a sweet and lovely +wistfulness shining in her sea-blue eyes. "And the sweetest thing +about it, you angelic simpleton," she added, "is that you will never, +never, never know why." + + + + +XLI + + +The first hint of the tremendous events impending came to Mr. Daney +through the medium of no less an informant than his wife. Upon +returning from the mill office on the evening of Donald McKaye's +marriage, Mr. Daney was met at his front door by Mrs. Daney who cried +triumphantly: + +"Well, what did I tell you about Donald McKaye?" + +Mr. Daney twitched inwardly, but answered composedly. "Not one-tenth +of one per cent, of what I have discovered without your valuable +assistance my dear." + +She wrinkled the end of her nose disdainfully. "He's gone motoring +with Nan Brent in a hired car, and they took the baby with them. They +passed through town about half past two this afternoon and they +haven't returned yet." + +"How do you know all this?" he demanded coolly. + +"I saw them as they passed by on the road below; I recognized that +rent limousine of the Central Garage with Ben Nicholson driving it, +and a few moments ago I telephoned the Central Garage and asked for +Ben. He hasn't returned yet--and it's been dark for half an hour." + +"Hum-m-m! What do you suspect, my dear?" + +"The worst," she replied dramatically. + +"What a wonderful fall day this has been," he remarked blandly as he +hung up his hat. She turned upon him a glance of fury; he met it with +one so calm and impersonal that the good lady quite lost control of +herself. "Why do you withhold your confidence from me?" she cried +sharply. + +"Because you wouldn't respect it, my dear; also, because I'm paid to +keep the McKaye secrets and you're not." + +"Is he going to marry her, Andrew? Answer me," she demanded. + +"Unfortunately for you, Mrs. Daney, the young gentleman hasn't taken +me into his confidence. Neither has the young lady. Of course I +entertain an opinion, on the subject, but since I am not given to +discussing the intimate personal affairs of other people, you'll +excuse my reticence on this subject, I'm sure. I repeat that this has +been a wonderful fall day." + +She burst into tears of futile rage and went to her room. Mr. Daney +partook of his dinner in solitary state and immediately after dinner +strolled down town and loitered around the entrance to the Central +Garage until he saw Ben Nicholson drive in about ten o'clock. + +"Hello, Ben," he hailed the driver as Ben descended from his seat. "I +hear you've been pulling off a wedding." + +Ben Nicholson lowered his voice and spoke out the corner of his mouth. +"What do you know about the young Laird, eh, Mr. Daney? Say I could +'a' cried to see him throwin' himself away on that Jane." + +Mr. Daney shrugged. "Oh, well, boys will be boys," he declared. "The +bigger they are the harder they fall. Of course, Ben, you understand +I'm not in position to say anything, one way or the other," he added +parenthetically, and Ben Nicholson nodded comprehension. Thereupon +Mr. Daney sauntered over to the cigar stand in the hotel, loaded his +cigar case and went down to his office, where he sat until midnight, +smoking and thinking. The sole result of his cogitations, however, he +summed up in a remark he directed at the cuspidor just before he went +home: + +"Well, there's blood on the moon and hell will pop in the morning." + +For the small part he had played in bringing Nan Brent back to Port +Agnew, the general manager fully expected to be dismissed from the +McKaye service within thirty seconds after old Hector should reach the +mill office; hence with the heroism born of twelve hours of +preparation he was at his desk at eight o'clock next morning. At nine +o'clock The Laird came in and Mr. Daney saw by his face instantly that +old Hector knew. The general manager rose at his desk and bowed with +great dignity. + +"Moritori salutamus, sir," he announced gravely. + +"What the devil are you talking about, Daney?" The Laird demanded +irritably. + +"That's what the gladiators used to say to the Roman populace. It +means, I believe, 'We who are about to die, salute you.' Here is my +resignation, Mr. McKaye." + +"Don't be an ass, Andrew," The Laird commanded and threw the proffered +resignation into the waste basket. "Why should you resign?" + +"To spare the trouble of discharging me, sir." + +"What for?" + +"Bringing the Brent girl back to Port Agnew. If I hadn't gotten her +address from Dirty Dan I would never have suggested to--" + +"Enough. We will not discuss what might have been, Andrew. The boy +has married her, and since the blow has fallen nothing that preceded +it is of the slightest importance. What I have called to say to you is +this: Donald McKaye is no longer connected with the Tyee Lumber +Company." + +"Oh, come, come, sir," Daney pleaded. "The mischief is done. You'll +have to forgive the boy and make the best of a bad business. What +can't be cured must be endured, you know." + +"Not necessarily. And you might spare me your platitude, Andrew," The +Laird replied savagely. "I'm done with the lad forever, for son of +mine he is no longer. Andrew, do you remember the time he bought that +red cedar stumpage up on the Wiskah and unloaded it on me at a profit +of two hundred thousand dollars?" + +Mr. Daney nodded. "And you, in turn, sold it at a profit of fifty +thousand," he reminded the irate old man. + +"Donald did not retain that profit he made at my expense. 'Twas just a +joke with him. He put the money into bonds and sent them to you with +instructions to place them in my vault for my account." Mr. Daney +nodded and The Laird resumed. "Take those bonds to the Sawdust Pile, +together with a check for all the interest collected on the coupons +since they came into my possession, and tell him from me that I'll +take it kindly of him to leave Port Agnew and make a start for himself +elsewhere as quickly as he can. He owes it to his family not to +affront it by his presence in Port Agnew, giving ground for gossip and +scandal and piling needless sorrow upon us. And when the Sawdust Pile +is again vacant you will remove the Brent house and put in the drying +yard you've planned this many a year." + +"Very well, sir. It's not a task to my liking, but--" His pause was +eloquent. + +"Have my old desk put in order for me. I'm back in the harness and +back to stay, and at that I'm not so certain it isn't the best thing +for me, under the present circumstances. I dare say," he added, with a +sudden change of tone, "the news is all over Port Agnew this morning." + +Mr. Daney nodded. + +"You will procure Donald's resignation as President and have him +endorse the stock I gave him in order to qualify as a director of the +company. We'll hold a directors' meeting this afternoon and I'll step +back into the presidency." + +"Very well, sir." + +"You will cause a notice to be prepared for my signature, to be spread +on the bulletin board in each department, to the effect that Donald +McKaye is no longer connected in any way with the Tyee Lumber +Company." + +"Damn it, man," Daney roared wrathfully, "have you no pride? Why wash +your dirty linen in public?" + +"You are forgetting yourself, my good Andrew. If you do not wish to +obey my orders I shall have little difficulty inducing your assistant +to carry out my wishes, I'm thinking." The Laird's voice was calm +enough; apparently he had himself under perfect control, but--the +Blue-Bonnets-coming-over-the-Border look was in his fierce gray eyes; +under his bushy iron-gray brows they burned like campfires in twin +caverns at night. His arms, bowed belligerently, hung tense at his +side, his great hands opened and closed, a little to the fore; he +licked his lips and in the brief silence that followed ere Mr. Daney +got up and started fumbling with the combination to the great vault in +the corner, old Hector's breath came in short snorts. He turned and, +still in the same attitude, watched Daney while the latter twirled and +fumbled and twirled. Poor man! He knew The Laird's baleful glance was +boring into his back and for the life of him he could not remember the +combination he had used for thirty years. + +Suddenly he abandoned all pretense and turned savagely on The Laird. + +"Get out of my office," he yelled. "I work for you, Hector McKaye, but +I give you value received and in this office I'm king and be damned to +you." His voice rose to a shrill, childish treble that presaged tears +of rage. "You'll be sorry for this, you hard-hearted man. Please God +I'll live to see the day your dirty Scotch pride will be humbled and +you'll go to that wonderful boy and his wife and plead for +forgiveness. Why, you poor, pitiful, pusillanimous old pachyderm, if +the boy has dishonored you he has honored himself. He's a gallant +young gentleman, that's what he is. He has more guts than a bear. He's +_married_ the girl, damn you--and that's more than you would have done +at his age. Ah, don't talk to me! We were young together and I know +the game you played forty years ago with the girl at the Rat +Portage--yes, you--you with your youth and your hot passions--turning +your big proud back on your peculiar personal god to wallow in sin and +enjoy it." + +"But I--I was a single man then," The Laird sputtered, almost +inarticulate with fury and astonishment. + +"He was a single man yesterday but he's a married man to-day. And she +loves him. She adores him. You can see it in her eyes when his name is +mentioned. And she had no _reason_ to behave herself, had she? She has +behaved herself for three long years, but did she win anybody's +approbation for doing it? I'm telling you a masterful man like him +might have had her without the wedding ring, for love's sake, if he'd +cared to play a waiting game and stack the cards on her. After all, +she's human." + +Suddenly he commenced to weep with fury, the tears cascading into his +whiskers making him look singularly ridiculous in comparison with the +expression on his face, which was anything but grievous. "Marriage! +Marriage!" he croaked. "I know what it is. I married a fat-head--and +so did my wife. We've never known romance; never had anything but a +quiet, well-ordered existence. I've dwelt in repression; never got out +of life a single one of those thrills that comes of doing something +daring and original and nasty. Never had an adventure; never had a +woman look at me like I was a god; married at twenty and never knew +the Grand Passion." He threw up his arms. "Oh-h-h, God-d-d! If I could +only be young again I'd be a devil! Praise be, I know one man with +guts enough to tell 'em all to go to hell." + +With a peculiar little moving cry he started for the door. + +"Andrew," The Laird cried anxiously. "Where are you going?" + +"None of your infernal business," the rebel shrilled, "but if you must +know, I'm going down to the Sawdust Pile to kiss the bride and shake +a man's hand and wish him well. After I've done that I'll deliver your +message. Mark me, he'll never take those bonds." + +"Of course he will, you old fool. They belong to him." + +"But he refused to make a profit at the expense of his own father. He +gave them to you and he's not an Indian giver." + +"Andrew, I have never known you to act in such a peculiar manner. Are +you crazy? Of course he'll take them. He'll have to take them in order +to get out of Port Agnew. I doubt if he has a dollar in the world." + +Mr. Daney beat his chest gorilla fashion. "He doesn't need a dollar. +Boy and man, I've loved that--ahem! son of yours. Why, he always _did_ +have guts. Keep your filthy money. The boy's credit is good with me. +I'm no pauper, even I if do work for you. I work for fun. Understand. +Or do you, Hector McKaye?" + +"If you dare to loan my son as much as a thin dime I'll fire you out +of hand." + +Mr. Daney jeered. "How?" he demanded very distinctly, and yet with a +queer, unusual blending of the sentence with a single word, as if the +very force of his breath had telescoped every syllable, "would you +like to stand off in that corner there and take a long runnin' jump at +yourself, proud father?" + +"Out of this office! You're fired." + +Mr. Daney dashed the tears from his whiskers and blew his nose. Then +he pulled himself together with dignity and bowed so low he lost his +center of gravity and teetered a little on his toes before recovering +his balance. "Fired is GOOD," he declared. "Where do you get that +stuff, eh? My dear old Furiosity, ain't my resignation in the +waste-basket? Good-by, good luck and may the good Lord give you the +sense God gives geese. I'm a better man than you are, Gunga Din." + +The door banged open. Then it banged shut and The Laird was alone. The +incident was closed. The impossible had come to pass. For the strain +had been too great, and at nine o'clock on a working day morning, +steady, reliable, dependable, automatic Andrew Daney having imbibed +Dutch courage in lieu of Nature's own brand, was, for the first time +in his life, jingled to an extent comparable to that of a boiled owl. + +Mr. Daney's assistant thrust his head in the door, to disturb The +Laird's cogitations. "The knee-bolters went out at the shingle mill +this morning, sir," he announced. "They want a six and a half hour day +and a fifty per cent. increase in wages, with a whole holiday on +Saturday. There's a big Russian red down there exhorting them." + +"Send Dirty Dan to me. Quick!" + +A telephonic summons to the loading shed brought Daniel P. O'Leary on +the run. "Come with me, Dan," The Laird commanded, and started for the +shingle mill. On the way down he stopped at the warehouse and selected +a new double-bitted ax which he handed to Dirty Dan. Mr. O'Leary +received the weapon in silence and trotted along at The Laird's heels +like a faithful dog, until, upon arrival at the shingle mill the +astute Hibernian took in the situation at a glance. + +"Sure, 'tis no compliment you've paid me, sor, thinkin' I'll be afther +needin' an ax to take that fella's measure," he protested. + +"Your job is to keep those other animals off me while _I_ take his +measure," The Laird corrected him. + +Without an instant's hesitation Dirty Dan swung his ax and charged the +crowd. "Gower that, ye vagabones," he screeched. As he passed the +Russian he seized the latter by the collar, swung him and threw him +bodily toward old Hector, who received him greedily and drew him to +his heart. The terrible O'Leary then stood over the battling pair, his +ax poised, the while he hurled insult and anathema at the +knee-bolters. A very large percentage of knee-bolters and shingle +weavers are members of the I.W.W. and knowing this, Mr. O'Leary begged +in dulcet tones, to be informed why in this and that nobody seemed +willing to lift a hand to rescue the Little Comrade. He appeared to be +keenly disappointed because nobody tried, albeit other axes were quite +plentiful thereabouts. + +Presently The Laird got up and dusted the splinters and sawdust from +his clothing; the Red, battered terribly, lay weltering in his blood. +"I feel better now," said The Laird. "This is just what I needed this +morning to bring me out of myself. Help yourself, Dan," and he made a +dive at the nearest striker, who fled, followed by his fellow-strikers, +all hotly pursued by The Laird and the demon Daniel. + +The Laird returned, puffing slightly, to his office and once more sat +in at his own desk. As he remarked to Dirty Dan, he felt better now. +All his resentment against Daney had fled but his resolution to pursue +his contemplated course with reference to his son and the latter's +wife had become firmer than ever. In some ways The Laird was a +terrible old man. + + + + +XLII + + +Nan was not at all surprised when, upon responding to a peremptory +knock at her front door she discovered Andrew Daney standing without. +The general manager, after his stormy interview with The Laird had +spent two hours in the sunny lee of a lumber pile, waiting for the +alcoholic fogs to lift from his brain, for he had had sense enough +left to realize that all was not well with him; he desired to have his +tongue in order when he should meet the bride and groom. + +"Good morning, Mr. Daney," Nan greeted him. "Do come in." + +"Good morning, Mrs. McKaye. Thank you. I shall with pleasure." + +He followed her down the little hallway to the living room where +Donald sat with his great thin legs stretched out toward the fire. + +"Don't rise, boy, don't rise," Mr. Daney protested. "I merely called +to kiss the bride and shake your hand, my boy. The visit is entirely +friendly and unofficial." + +"Mr. Daney, you're a dear," Nan cried, and presented her fair cheek +for the tribute he claimed. + +"Shake hands with a rebel, boy," Mr. Daney cried heartily to Donald. +"God bless you and may you always be happier than you are this +minute." + +Donald wrung the Daney digits with a heartiness he would not have +thought possible a month before. + +"I've quarreled with your father, Donald," he announced, seating +himself. "Over you--and you," he added, nodding brightly at both young +people. "He thinks he's fired me." He paused, glanced around, coughed +a couple of times and came out with it. "Well, what are you going to +do now to put tobacco in your old tobacco box, Donald?" + +Donald smiled sadly. "Oh, Nan still has a few dollars left from that +motor-boat swindle you perpetrated, Mr. Daney. She'll take care of me +for a couple of weeks until I'm myself again; then, if my father still +proves recalcitrant and declines to have me connected with the Tyee +Lumber Company, I'll manage to make a living for Nan and the boy +somewhere else." + +Briefly Mr. Daney outlined The Laird's expressed course of action with +regard to his son. + +"He means it," Donald assured the general manager. "He never bluffs. +He gave me plenty of warning and his decision has not been arrived at +in a hurry. He's through with me." + +"I fear he is, my boy. Er-ah-ahem! Harumph-h-h! Do you remember those +bonds you sent me from New York once--the proceeds of your deal in +that Wiskah river cedar?" + +"Yes." + +"Your father desires that you accept the entire two hundred thousand +dollars worth and accrued interest." + +"Why?" + +"Well, I suppose he thinks they'll come in handy when you leave Port +Agnew." + +"Well, I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, Andrew." + +"Your father instructed me to say to you that he would take it kindly +of you to do so--for obvious reasons." + +"I appreciate his point of view, but since he has kicked me out he +has no claim on my sympathies--at least not to the extent of forcing +his point of view and causing me to abandon my own. Please say to my +father that since I cannot have his forgiveness I do not want his +bonds or his money. Tell him also, please, that I'm not going to leave +Port Agnew, because that would predicate a sense of guilt on my part +and lend some support to the popular assumption that my wife is not a +virtuous woman. I could not possibly oblige my father on this point +because to do so would be a violent discourtesy to my wife. I am not +ashamed of her, you know." + +Mr. Daney gnawed his thumb nail furiously. "'The wicked flee when no +man pursueth'," he quoted. "However, Mr. Donald, you know as well as I +do that if your father should forbid it, a dicky bird couldn't make a +living in this town." + +"There are no such restrictions in Darrow, Mr. Daney. The +superintendent up there will give me a job on the river." + +Mr. Daney could not forbear an expression of horror. "Hector McKaye's +son a river hog!" he cried incredulously. + +"Well, Donald McKaye's father was a river hog, wasn't he?" + +"Oh, but times have changed since Hector was a pup, my boy. Why, this +is dreadful." + +"No, Mr. Daney. Merely unusual." + +"Well, Donald, I think your father will raise the ante considerably in +order to avoid that added disgrace and force you to listen to reason." + +"If he does, sir, please spare yourself the trouble of bearing his +message. Neither Nan nor I is for sale, sir." + +"I told him you'd decline the bonds. However, Mr. Donald, there is no +reason in life why you shouldn't get money from me whenever you want +it. Thanks to your father I'm worth more than a hundred thousand +myself, although you'd never guess it. Your credit is A-1 with me." + +"I shall be your debtor for life because of that speech, Mr. Daney. +Any news from my mother and the girls?" + +"None." + +"Well, I'll stand by for results," Donald assured him gravely. + +"Do not expect any." + +"I don't." + +Mr. Daney fidgeted and finally said he guessed he'd better be trotting +along, and Donald and Nan, realizing it would be no kindness to him to +be polite and assure him there was no need of hurry, permitted him to +depart forthwith. + +"I think, sweetheart," Donald announced with a pained little smile, as +he returned from seeing Mr. Daney to the front gate, "that it wouldn't +be a half bad idea for you to sit in at that old piano and play and +sing for me. I think I'd like something light and lilting. What's that +Kipling thing that's been set to music?" + + So we went strolling, + Down by the rolling, down by the rolling sea. + You may keep your croak for other folk + But you can't frighten me! + +He lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out on the old divan. +She watched him blowing smoke rings at the ceiling--and there was no +music in her soul. + +In the afternoon the McKaye limousine drew up at the front gate and +Nan's heart fluttered violently in contemplation of a visit from her +husband's mother and sisters. She need not have worried, however. The +interior of the car was unoccupied save for Donald's clothing and +personal effects which some thoughtful person at The Dreamerie had +sent down to him. He hazarded a guess that the cool and practical +Elizabeth had realized his needs. + + + + +XLIII + + +Returning to the mill office, Mr. Daney sat at his desk and started to +look over the mail. The Laird heard his desk buzzer sounding +frequently and rightly conjecturing that his general manager was back +on the job, he came into the latter's office and glared at him. + +"I thought I fired you?" he growled. + +"I know. You thought you did," the rebel replied complacently. "I see +by your knuckles you've been fighting. Hope it did you good." + +"It did. Are you going to leave this office?" + +"No, sir." + +"I didn't think you would. Well, well! Out with it." + +Mr. Daney drew a deal of pleasure from that invitation. "The boy +directs me to inform you, sir, that he will not accept the bonds nor +any monies you may desire to give him. He says he doesn't need them +because he isn't going to leave Port Agnew." + +"Nonsense, Andrew. He cannot remain in this town. He hasn't the +courage to face his little world after marrying that girl. And he has +to make a living for her." + +"We shall see that which we shall see," Mr. Daney replied +enigmatically. + +"I wonder if it is possible he is trying to outgame me," old Hector +mused aloud. "Andrew, go back and tell him that if he will go to +California to live I will deed him that Lassen county sugar and white +pine and build him the finest mill in the state." + +"The terms are quite impossible," Daney retorted and explained why. + +"He shall get out of Port Agnew," The Laird threatened. "He shall get +out or starve." + +"You are forgetting something, sir." + +"Forgetting what?" + +"That I have more than a hundred thousand dollars in bonds right in +that vault and that I have not as yet developed paralysis of the right +hand. The boy shall not starve and neither shall he crawl, like a +beaten dog currying favor with the one that has struck him." + +"I am the one who has been struck--and he has wounded me sorely," The +Laird cried, his voice cracked with anger. + +"The mischief is done. What's the use of crying over spilled milk? +You're going to forgive the boy sooner or later, so do it now and be +graceful about it." + +"I'll never forgive him, Andrew." + +Mr. Daney walled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Thank God," he murmured +piously, "I'm pure. Hereafter, every time Reverend Mr. Tingley says +the Lord's prayer I'm going to cough out loud in church at the line: +'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against +us.' You'll hear that cough and remember, Hector McKaye." + +A deeper shadow of distress settled over The Laird's stern features. +"You're uncommon mean to me this bitter day, Andrew," he complained +wearily. "I take it as most unkind of you to thwart my wishes like +this." + +"I'm for true love!" Mr. Daney declared firmly. "Ah come, come now! +Don't be a stiff-necked old dodo. Forgive the boy." + +"In time I may forgive him, Andrew. I'm not sure of myself where he is +concerned, but we canna receive the girl. 'Tis not in reason that we +should." + +"I believe I'll cough twice," Daney murmured musingly. + +And the following day being Sunday, he did! He sat two rows behind the +McKaye family pew but across the aisle, and in a cold fury The Laird +turned to squelch him with a look. What he saw in the Daney pew, +however, chilled his fury and threw him into a veritable panic of +embarrassment. For to the right of the incomprehensible general +manager sat the young ex-laird of Port Agnew; at Daney's left the old +Laird beheld his new daughter-in-law, while further down the pew as +far as she could retreat, Mrs. Daney, with face aflame, sat rigid, her +bovine countenance upraised and her somewhat vacuous glance fixed +unblinkingly at a point some forty feet over Mr. Tingley's pious head. +Donald intercepted the old man's amazed and troubled glance, and +smiled at his father with his eyes--an affectionate overture that was +not lost on The Laird ere he jerked his head and eyes once more to the +front. + +Mrs. McKaye and her two daughters were as yet unaware of the horror +that impended. But not for long. When the congregation stood to sing +the final hymn, Nan's wondrous mezzo-soprano rose clear and sweet over +the indifferent-toned notes of every other woman present; to the most +dull it would have been obvious that there was a trained singer +present, and Mrs. McKaye and her daughters each cast a covert glance +in the direction of the voice. However, since every other woman in the +church was gazing at Nan, nobody observed the effect of her presence +upon the senior branch of the McKaye family, for which small blessing +the family in question was duly grateful. + +At the conclusion of the service old Hector remained in his pew until +the majority of the congregation had filed out; then, assuring himself +by a quick glance, that his son and the latter's wife had preceded +him, he followed with Mrs. McKaye and the girls. From the church steps +he observed Donald and Nan walking home, while Mr. Daney and his +outraged spouse followed some twenty feet behind them. Quickly The +Laird and his family entered the waiting limousine; it was the first +occasion that anybody could remember when he had not lingered to shake +hands with Mr. Tingley and, perchance, congratulate him on the +excellence of his sermon. + +They were half way up the cliff road before anybody spoke. Then, with +a long preliminary sigh, The Laird voiced the thought that obsessed +them all. + +"That damned mutton-head, Daney. I'd run him out of the Tyee employ if +it would do a bit of good. I cannot run him out of town or out of +church." + +"The imbecile!" Elizabeth raged. Jane was dumb with shame and rage and +Mrs. McKaye was sniffling a little. Presently she said: + +"How dare he bring her right into church with him," she cried +brokenly. "Right before everybody. Oh, dear, oh dear, is my son +totally lacking in a sense of decency? This is terrible, terrible." + +"I shall not risk such another awful Sunday morning," Elizabeth +announced. + +"Nor I," Jane cried with equal fervor. + +"We shall have to leave Port Agnew now," Mrs, McKaye sobbed. + +Old Hector patted her hand. "Yes, I think you'll have to, Nellie. +Unfortunately, I cannot go with you. Daney doesn't appear to be quite +sane of late and with Donald out of the business I'm chained to a desk +for the remainder of my life. I fear, however," he added savagely, "I +do not intend to let that woman run me out of my own church. Not by a +damned sight!" + +The instant they entered the house, rightly conjecturing that the +Daneys had also reached their home, Mrs. McKaye went to the telephone +and proceeded to inform Mr. Daney of the opinion which the McKaye +family, jointly and severally, entertained for his idea of comedy. +Daney listened respectfully to all she had to say touching his sanity, +his intelligence, his sense of decency, and his loyalty to Hector and +when, stung because he made no defense, she asked: "Have you no +explanation to make us for your extraordinary behavior?" he replied: + +"I am an usher of our church, Mrs. McKaye. When Donald and his wife +entered the church the only vacant seats in it were in my pew; the +only person in the church who would not have felt a sense of outrage +at having your daughter-in-law seated with his or her family, was my +self-sacrificing self. I could not be discourteous to Donald and I'm +quite certain his wife has as much right in our church as you have. So +I shooed them both up to my pew, to the great distress of Mrs. Daney." + +"You should be ashamed of yourself, Andrew. You should!" + +"I'm not ashamed of myself, Mrs. McKaye. I've been a pussy-foot all +my life. I had to do something I knew would detract from my +popularity, but since I had to do it I decided to do it promptly and +as if I enjoyed it. Surely you would not have commended me had I met +the young couple at the door and said to them: 'Get out of this +church. It is not for such as you. However, if you insist upon +staying, you'll have to stand up or else sit down on the floor. Nobody +here wants to sit with you. They're afraid, too, they'll offend the +Chief Pooh-bah of this town'." + +"You could have pretended you did not see them." + +"My dear Mrs. McKaye," Daney retorted in even tones, "do you wish me +to inform your husband of a certain long distance telephone +conversation? If so--" + +She hung up without waiting to say good-by, and the following day she +left for Seattle, accompanied by her daughters. + +Throughout the week The Laird forbore mentioning his son's name to Mr. +Daney; indeed, he refrained from addressing the latter at all unless +absolutely necessary to speak to him directly--wherefore Daney knew +himself to be blacklisted. On the following Sunday The Laird sat alone +in the family pew and Mr. Daney did not cough during the recital of +the Lord's prayer, so old Hector managed to conquer a tremendous +yearning to glance around for the reason. Also, as on the previous +Sunday, he was in no hurry to leave his pew at the conclusion of the +service, yet, to his profound irritation, when he did leave it and +start down the central aisle of the church, he looked squarely into +the faces of Donald and Nan as they emerged from the Daney pew. Mrs. +Daney was conspicuous by her absence. Nan's baby boy had fallen asleep +during the service and Donald was carrying the cherub. + +Old Hector's face went white; he gulped when his son spoke to him. + +"Hello, Dad. You looked lonely all by yourself in that big pew. +Suppose we come up and sit with you next Sunday?" + +Old Hector paused and bent upon his son and Nan a terrible look. +"Never speak to me again so long as you live," he replied in a low +voice, and passed out of the church. + +Donald gazed after his broad erect figure and shook his head +dolefully, as Mr. Daney fell into step beside him. "I told you so," he +whispered. + +"Isn't it awful to be Scotch?" Nan inquired. + +"It is awful--on the Scotch," her husband assured her. "The dear old +fraud gulped like a broken-hearted boy when I spoke to him. He'd +rather be wrong than president." + +As they were walking home to the Sawdust Pile, Nan captured one of her +husband's great fingers and swung it childishly. "I wish you didn't +insist upon our going to church, sweetheart," she complained. "We're +spoiling your father's Christianity." + +"Can't help it," he replied doggedly. "We're going to be thoroughbreds +about this, no matter how much it hurts." + +She sighed. "And you're only half Scotch, Donald." + + + + +XLIV + + +By noon of the following day, Port Agnew was astounded by news brought +by the crew of one of the light draft launches used to tow log rafts +down the river. Donald McKaye was working for Darrow. He was their +raftsman; he had been seen out on the log boom, pike pole in hand, +shoving logs in to the endless chain elevator that drew them up to the +seas. As might be imagined, Mrs. Daney was among the first to glean +this information, and to her husband she repeated it at luncheon with +every evidence of pleasure. + +"Tut, tut, woman," he replied carelessly, "this is no news to me. He +told me yesterday after service that he had the job." + +The familiar wrinkle appeared for an instant on the end of her nose +before she continued: "I wonder what The Laird thinks of that, +Andrew?" + +"So do I," he parried skilfully. + +"Does he know it?" + +"There isn't a soul in Port Agnew with sufficient courage to tell +him." + +"Why do you not tell him?" + +"None of my business. Besides, I do not hanker to see people squirm +with suffering." + +She wrinkled her nose once more and was silent. + +As Mr. Daney had declared, there was none in Port Agnew possessed of +sufficient hardihood to inform the Laird of his son's lowly status and +it was three weeks before he discovered it for himself. He had gone +up the river to one of his logging camps and the humor had seized him +to make the trip in a fast little motor-boat he had given Donald at +Christmas many years' before. He was busy adjusting the carburetor, +after months of disuse, as he passed the Darrow log boom in the +morning, so he failed to see his big son leaping across the logs, +balancing himself skilfully with the pike pole. + +It was rather late when he started home and in the knowledge that +darkness might find him well up the river he hurried. + +Now, from the Bight of Tyee to a point some five miles above Darrow, +the Skookum flows in almost a straight line; the few bends are wide +and gradual, and when The Laird came to this home-stretch he urged the +boat to its maximum speed of twenty-eight miles per hour. Many a time +in happier days he had raced down this long stretch with Donald at the +helm, and he knew the river thoroughly; as he sped along he steered +mechanically, his mind occupied in a consideration of the dishonor +that had come upon his clan. + +The sun had already set as he came roaring down a wide deep stretch +near Darrow's mill; in his preoccupation he forgot that his +competitor's log boom stretched across the river fully two-thirds of +its width; that he should throttle down, swerve well to starboard and +avoid the field of stored logs. The deep shadows cast by the sucker +growth and old snags along the bank blended with the dark surface of +the log boom and prevented him from observing that he was headed for +the heart of it; the first intimation he had of his danger came to +him in a warning shout from the left bank--a shout that rose above the +roar of the exhaust. + +"Jump! Overboard! Quickly! The log boom!" + +Old Hector awoke from his bitter reverie. He, who had once been a +river hog, had no need to be told of the danger incident to abrupt +precipitation into the heart of that log boom, particularly when it +would presently be gently agitated by the long high "bone" the racing +boat carried in her teeth. When logs weighing twenty tons come gently +together--even when they barely rub against each other, nothing living +caught between them may survive. + +The unknown who warned him was right. He must jump overboard and take +his chance in the river, for it was too late now to slow down and put +his motor in reverse. In the impending crash that was only a matter of +seconds, The Laird would undoubtedly catapult from the stern sheets +into the water--and if he should drift in under the logs, knew the +river would eventually give up his body somewhere out in the Bight of +Tyee. On the other hand, should he be thrown out on the boom he would +stand an equal chance of being seriously injured by the impact or +crushed to death when his helpless body should fall between the logs. +In any event the boat would be telescoped down to the cockpit and sink +at the edge of the log field. + +He was wearing a heavy overcoat, for it was late in the fall, and he +had no time to remove it; not even time to stand up and dive clear. So +he merely hurled his big body against the starboard gunwale and +toppled overboard--and thirty feet further on the boat struck with a +crash that echoed up and down the river, telescoped and drove under +the log boom. It was not in right when old Hector rose puffing to the +surface and bellowed for help before starting to swim for the log +boom. + +The voice answered him instantly: "Coming! Hold On!" + +Handicapped as he was with his overcoat, old Hector found it a +prodigious task to reach the boom; as he clung to the boom-stick he +could make out the figure of a man with a pike pole coming toward him +in long leaps across the logs. And then old Hector noticed something +else. + +He had swum to the outer edge of the log boom and grasped the light +boom-stick, dozens of which, chained end to end, formed the floating +enclosure in which the log supply was stored. The moment he rested his +weight on this boom-stick, however, one end of it submerged +suddenly--wherefore The Laird knew that the impact of the motor-boat +had broken a link of the boom and that this broken end was now +sweeping outward and downward, with the current releasing the millions +of feet of stored logs. Within a few minutes, provided he should keep +afloat, he would be in the midst of these tremendous Juggernauts, for, +clinging to the end of the broken boom he was gradually describing a +circle on the outside of the log field, swinging from beyond the +middle of the river in to the left-hand bank; presently, when the boom +should have drifted its maximum distance he would be hung up +stationary in deep water while the released logs bore down upon him +with the current and gently shoulder him into eternity. + +He clawed his way along the submerging boom-stick to its other end, +where it was linked with its neighbor, and the combined buoyancy of +both boom-sticks was sufficient to float him. + +"Careful," he called to the man leaping over the log-field toward +him. "The boom is broken! Careful, I tell you! The logs are moving +out--they're slipping apart. Be careful." + +Even as he spoke, The Laird realized that the approaching rescuer +would not heed him. He _had_ to make speed out to the edge of the +moving logs; if he was to rescue the man clinging to the boom-sticks +he must take a chance on those long leaps through the dusk; he _must_ +reach The Laird before too much open water developed between the +moving logs. + +Only a trained river man could have won to him in such a brief space +of time; only an athlete could have made the last flying leap across +six feet of dark water to a four-foot log that was bearing gently +down, butt first, on the figure clinging to the boom-stick. His caulks +bit far up the side of the log and the force of his impact started it +rolling; yet even as he clawed his way to the top of the log and got +it under control the iron head of his long pike pole drove into the +boom-stick and fended The Laird out of harm's way; before the log the +man rode could slip by, the iron had been released and the link of +chain between the two boom-sticks had been snagged with the pike hook, +and both men drifted side by side. + +"Safe--o," his rescuer warned Old Hector quietly. "Hang on. I'll keep +the logs away from you and when the field floats by I'll get you +ashore. We're drifting gradually in toward the bank below the mill." + +The Laird was too chilled, too exhausted and too lacking in breath to +do more than gasp a brief word of thanks. It seemed a long, long time +that he clung there, and it was quite dark when his rescuer spoke +again. "I think the last log has floated out of the booming ground. +I'll swim ashore with you now, as soon as I can shuck my boots and +mackinaw." A few minutes later he cried reassuringly, "All set, +old-timer," and slid into the water beside The Laird. "Relax yourself +and do not struggle." His hands came up around old Hector's jaws from +the rear. "Let go," he commanded, and the hard tow commenced. It was +all footwork and their progress was very slow, but eventually they won +through. As soon as he could stand erect in the mud the rescuer +unceremoniously seized The Laird by the nape and dragged him high and +dry up the bank. + +"Now, then," he gasped, "I guess you can take care of yourself. Better +go over to the mill and warm yourself in the furnace room. I've got to +hurry away to 'phone the Tyee people to swing a dozen spare links of +their log boom across the river and stop those runaways before they +escape into the Bight and go to sea on the ebb." + +He was gone on the instant, clambering up the bank through the bushes +that grew to the water's edge; old Hector could hear his breath coming +in great gasps as he ran. + +"Must know that chap, whoever he is," The Laird soliloquized. "Think +he's worked for me some time or other. His voice sounds mighty +familiar. Well--I'll look him up in the morning." + +He climbed after his rescuer and stumbled away through the murk toward +Darrow's mill. Arrived here he found the fireman banking the fires in +the furnace room and while he warmed himself one of them summoned +Bert Darrow from the mill office. + +"Bert," The Laird explained, "I'd be obliged if you'd run me home in +more or less of a hurry in your closed car. I've been in the drink," +and he related the tale of his recent adventures. "Your raftsman saved +my life," he concluded. "Who is he? It was so dark before he got to me +I couldn't see his face distinctly, but I think he's a young fellow +who used to work for me. I know because his voice sounds so very +familiar." + +"He's a new hand, I believe. Lives in Port Agnew. I believe your man +Daney can tell you his name," Darrow replied evasively. + +"I'll ask Daney. The man was gone before I could recover enough breath +to thank him for my life. Sorry to have messed up your boom, Bert, but +we'll stop the runaways at my boom and I'll have them towed back in +the morning. And I'll have a man put in a new boom-stick and connect +it up again." + +Bert Darrow set him down at the Tyee Lumber Company's office, and wet +and chilled as he was, The Laird went at once to Mr. Daney's office. +The latter was just leaving it for the day when The Laird appeared. + +"Andrew," the latter began briskly. "I drove that fast motor-boat at +full speed into Darrow's boom on my way down river this evening; I've +had a ducking and only for Darrow's raftsman you'd be closing down the +mill to-morrow out of respect to my memory. Bert Darrow says their +raftsman used to work for us; he's a new man with them and Bert says +you know who he is." + +"I think I know the man," Mr. Daney replied thoughtfully. "He's been +with them about three weeks; resigned our employ a couple of weeks +before that. I was sorry to lose him. He's a good man." + +"I grant it, Andrew. He's the fastest, coolest hand that ever balanced +a pike pole or rode a log. We cannot afford to let men like that +fellow get away from us for the sake of a little extra pay. Get him +back on the pay-roll, Andrew, and don't be small with him. I'll +remember him handsomely at Christmas, and see that I do not forget +this, Andrew. What is his name?" + +"Let me think." Mr. Daney bent his head, tipped back his hat and +massaged his brow before replying. "I think that when he worked for +the Tyee Lumber Company he was known as Donald McKaye." + +He looked up. The old Laird's face was ashen. "Thank you, Andrew," he +managed to murmur presently. "Perhaps you'd better let Darrow keep him +for a while. G--g--good-night!" + +Outside, his chauffeur waited with his car. "Home--and be quick about +it," he mumbled and crawled into the tonneau slowly and weakly. As the +car rolled briskly up the high cliff road to The Dreamerie, the old +man looked far below him to the little light that twinkled on the +Sawdust Pile. + +"She'll have his dinner cooked for him now and be waiting and watching +for him," he thought. + + + + +XLV + + +Hector McKaye suffered that winter. He dwelt in Gethsemane, for he had +incurred to his outcast son the greatest debt that one man can incur +to another, and he could not publicly acknowledge the debt or hope to +repay it in kind. By the time spring came his heart hunger was almost +beyond control; there were times when, even against his will, he +contemplated a reconciliation with Donald based on an acceptance of +the latter's wife but with certain reservations. The Laird never quite +got around to defining the reservation but in a vague way he felt that +they should exist and that eventually Donald would come to a +realization of the fact and help him define them. + +Each Sunday during that period of wretchedness he saw his boy and Nan +at church, although they no longer sat with Mr. Daney. From Reverend +Tingley The Laird learned that Donald now had a pew of his own, and he +wondered why. He knew his son had never been remotely religious and +eventually he decided that, in his son's place, though he were the +devil himself, he would do exactly as Donald had done. Damn a dog that +carried a low head and a dead tail! It was the sign of the mongrel +strain--curs always crept under the barn when beaten! + +One Sunday in the latter part of May he observed that Nan came to +church alone. He wondered if Donald was at home ill and a vague +apprehension stabbed him; he longed to drop into step beside Nan as +she left the church and ask her, but, of course, that was unthinkable. +Nevertheless he wished he knew and that afternoon he spent the entire +time on the terrace at The Dreamerie, searching the Sawdust Pile with +his marine glasses, in the hope of seeing Donald moving about the +little garden. But he did not see him, and that night his sleep was +more troubled than usual. + +On the following Sunday Nan was not accompanied by her husband either. +The Laird decided, therefore, that Donald could not be very ill, +otherwise Nan would not have left him home alone. This thought +comforted him somewhat. During the week he thought frequently of +telephoning up to Darrow and asking if they still had the same +raftsman on the pay-roll, but his pride forbade this. So he drove up +the river road one day and stopped his car among the trees on the bank +of the river from the Darrow log boom. A tall, lively young fellow was +leaping nimbly about on the logs, but so active was he that even at +two hundred yards The Laird could not be certain this man was his son. +He returned to Port Agnew more troubled and distressed than ever. + +Mrs. McKaye and the girls had made three flying visits down to Port +Agnew during the winter and The Laird had spent his week-ends in +Seattle twice; otherwise, save for the servants, he was quite alone at +The Dreamerie and this did not add to his happiness. Gradually the +continued and inexplicable absence of Donald at Sunday service became +an obsession with him; he could think of nothing else in his spare +moments and even at times when it was imperative he should give all of +his attention to important business matters, this eternal, damnable +query continued to confront him. It went to bed with him and got up +with him and under its steady relentless attrition he began to lose +the look of robust health that set him off so well among men of his +own age. His eyes took on a worried, restless gleam; he was irritable +and in the mornings he frequently wore to the office the haggard +appearance that speaks so accusingly of a sleepless night. He lost his +appetite and in consequence he lost weight. Andrew Daney was greatly +concerned about him, and one day, apropos of nothing, he demanded a +bill of particulars. + +"Oh, I daresay I'm getting old, Andrew," The Laird replied evasively. + +"Worrying about the boy?" + +It was a straight shot and old Hector was too inexpressibly weary to +attempt to dodge it. He nodded sadly. + +"Well, let us hope he'll come through all right, sir." + +"Is he ill? What's wrong with him, Andrew? Man, I've been eating my +heart out for months, wondering what it is, but you know the fix I'm +in. I don't like to ask and not a soul in Port Agnew will discuss him +with me." + +"Why, there's nothing wrong with him that I'm aware of, sir. I spoke +to Nan after services last Sunday and she read me a portion of his +last letter. He was quite well at that time." + +"W-wh-where is he, Andrew?" + +"Somewhere in France. He's not allowed to tell." + +"France? Good God, Andrew, not _France_!" + +"Why not, may I ask? Of course he's in France. He enlisted as a +private shortly after war was declared. Dirty Dan quit his job and +went with him. They went over with the Fifth Marines. Do you mean to +tell me this is news to you?" he added, frankly amazed. + +"I do," old Hector mumbled brokenly. "Oh, Andrew man, this is +terrible, terrible. I canna stand it, man." He sat down and covered +his face with his trembling old hands. + +"Why can't you? You wouldn't want him to sit at home and be a slacker, +would you? And you wouldn't have a son of yours wait until the draft +board took him by the ear and showed him his duty, would you?" + +"If he's killed I'll nae get over it." The Laird commenced to weep +childishly. + +"Well, better men or at least men as fine, are paying that price for +citizenship, Hector McKaye." + +"But his wife, man? He was married. 'Twas not expected of him--" + +"I believe his wife is more or less proud of him, sir. Her people have +always followed the flag in some capacity." + +"But how does she exist? Andrew Daney, if you're giving her the +money--" + +"If I am you have no right to ask impertinent questions about it. But +I'm not." + +"I never knew it, I never knew it," the old man complained bitterly. +"Nobody tells me anything about my own son. I'm alone; I sit in the +darkness, stifling with money--oh, Andrew, Andrew, I didn't say +good-by to him! I let him go in sorrow and in anger." + +"You may have time to cure all that. Go down to the Sawdust Pile, take +the girl to your heart like a good father should and then cable the +boy. That will square things beautifully." + +Even in his great distress the stubborn old head was shaken +emphatically. The Laird of Port Agnew was not yet ready to surrender. + +Spring lengthened into summer and summer into fall. Quail piped in the +logged-over lands and wild ducks whistled down through the timber and +rested on the muddy bosom of the Skookum, but for the first time in +forty years The Laird's setters remained in their kennels and his +fowling pieces in their leather cases. To him the wonderful red and +gold of the great Northern woods had lost the old allurement and he no +longer thrilled when a ship of his fleet, homeward bound, dipped her +house-flag far below him. He was slowly disintegrating. + +Of late he had observed that Nan no longer came to church, so he +assumed she had found the task of facing her world bravely one +somewhat beyond her strength. A few months before, this realization +would have proved a source of savage satisfaction to him, but time and +suffering were working queer changes in his point of view. Now, +although he told himself it served her right, he was sensible of a +small feeling of sympathy for her and a large feeling of resentment +against the conditions that had brought her into conflict with the +world. + +"I daresay," Andrew Daney remarked to him about Christmas time, "you +haven't forgotten your resolve to do something handsome for that +raftsman of Darrow's who saved your life last January. You told me to +remind you of him at Christmas." + +"I have not forgotten the incident," old Hector answered savagely. + +"I think it might be a nice thing to do if you would send word to Nan, +by me, that it will please you if she will consent to have your +grandchild born in the company hospital. Otherwise, I imagine she will +go to a Seattle hospital, and with doctors and nurses away to the war +there's a chance she may not get the best of care." + +"Do as you see fit," The Laird answered. He longed to evade the +issue--he realized that Daney was crowding him always, setting traps +for him, driving him relentlessly toward a reconciliation that was +abhorrent to him. "I have no objection. She cannot afford the expense +of a Seattle hospital, I daresay, and I do not desire to oppress her." + +The following day Mr. Daney reported that Nan had declined with thanks +his permission to enter the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital. As a +soldier's wife she would be cared for without expense in the Base +Hospital at Camp Lewis, less than a day's journey distant. + +The Laird actually quivered when Daney broke this news to him. He was +hurt--terribly hurt--but he dared not admit it. In January he learned +through Mr. Daney that he was a grandfather to a nine-pound boy and +that Nan planned to call the baby Caleb, after her father. For the +first time in his life then, The Laird felt a pang of jealousy. While +the child could never, by any possibility, be aught to him, +nevertheless he felt that in the case of a male child a certain polite +deference toward the infant's paternal ancestors was always +commendable. At any rate, Caleb was Yankee and hateful. + +"I am the twelfth of my line to be named Hector," he said +presently--and Andrew Daney with difficulty repressed a roar of +maniac laughter. Instead he said soberly. + +"The child's playing in hard luck as matters stand; it would be adding +insult to injury to call him Hector McKaye, Thirteenth. Isn't that why +you named your son Donald?" + +The Laird pretended not to hear this. Having been fired on from +ambush, as it were, he immediately started discussing an order for +some ship timbers for the Emergency Fleet Corporation. When he retired +to his own office, however, he locked the door and wept with sympathy +for his son, so far away and in the shadow of death upon the occasion +of the birth of his first son. + + + + +XLVI + + +Spring came. Overhead the wild geese flew in long wedges, honking, +into the North, and The Laird remembered how Donald, as a boy, used to +shoot at them with a rifle as they passed over The Dreamerie. Their +honking wakened echoes in his heart. With the winter's supply of logs +now gone, logging operations commenced in the woods with renewed +vigor, the river teemed with rafts, the shouts of the rivermen echoing +from bank to bank. Both Tyee and Darrow were getting out spruce for +the government and ship timbers for the wooden shipyards along San +Francisco Bay. + +Business had never been so brisk, and with the addition of the war +duties that came to every community leader, The Laird found some +surcease from his heart-hunger. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had returned +to The Dreamerie, now that Donald's marriage had ceased to interest +anybody but themselves, so old Hector was not so lonely. But--the flag +was flying again at the Sawdust Pile, each day of toil for The Laird +was never complete without an eager search of the casualty lists +published in the Seattle papers. + +Spring lengthened into summer. The Marine casualties at Belleau Wood +and Chateau-Thierry appalled The Laird; he read that twenty survivors +of a charge that started two hundred and fifty strong across the wheat +field at Bouresches had taken Bouresches and held it against three +hundred of the enemy--led by Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary, of Port +Agnew, Washington! Good old Dirty Dan! At last he was finding a +legitimate outlet for his talents! He would get the Distinguished +Service Cross for that! The Laird wondered what Donald would receive. +It would be terrible should Dirty Dan return with the Cross and Donald +McKaye without it. + +In September, Donald appeared in the Casualty List as slightly +wounded. Also, he was a first lieutenant now. The Laird breathed +easier, for his son would be out of it for a few months, no doubt. It +was a severe punishment, however, not to be able to discuss his +gallant son with anybody. At home his dignity and a firm adherence to +his previous announcement that his son's name should never be +mentioned in his presence, forbade a discussion with Mrs. McKaye and +the girls; and when he weakly sparred for an opportunity with Andrew +Daney, that stupid creature declined to rise to the bait, or even +admit that he knew of Donald's commission. When told of it, he +expressed neither surprise nor approval. + +In November, the great influenza epidemic came to Port Agnew and took +heavy toll. It brought to The Laird a newer, a more formidable +depression. What if Donald's son should catch it and die, and Donald +be deprived of the sight of his first-born? What if Nan should succumb +to an attack of it while her husband was in France? In that event +would Donald forgive and forget and come home to The Dreamerie? +Somehow, old Hector had his doubts. + +For a long time now, he had felt a great urge to see Donald's son. He +had a curiosity to discover whether the child favored the McKayes or +the Brents. If it favored the McKayes--well, perhaps he might make +some provision for its future in his will, and in order to prove +himself a good sport he would leave an equal sum to Nan's illegitimate +child, which Donald had formally adopted a few days after his marriage +to Nan. Why make fish of one and fowl of the other? he thought. They +were both McKayes now, in the sight of the law, and for aught he knew +to the contrary they were full brothers! + +The child became an obsession with him. He longed to weigh it and +compare its weight with that of Donald's at the same age--he had the +ancient record in an old memorandum book at the office. He speculated +on whether it had blue eyes or brown, whether it was a blond or a +brunette. He wondered if Daney had seen it and wondering, at length he +asked. Yes, Mr. Daney had seen the youngster several times, but beyond +that statement he would not go and The Laird's dignity forbade too +direct a probe. He longed to throttle Mr. Daney, who he now regarded +as the most unsympathetic, prosaic, dull-witted old ass imaginable. + +He wanted to see that child! The desire to do so never left him during +his waking hours and he dreamed of the child at night. So in the end +he yielded and went down to the Sawdust Pile, under cover of darkness, +his intention being to sneak up to the little house and endeavor to +catch a glimpse of the child through the window. He was enraged to +discover, however, that Nan maintained a belligerent Airedale that +refused, like all good Airedales, to waste his time and dignity in +useless barking. He growled--once, and The Laird knew he meant it, so +he got out of that yard in a hurry. + +He was in a fine rage as he walked back to the mill office and got +into his car. Curse the dog! Was he to be deprived of a glimpse of his +grandson by an insensate brute of a dog? He'd be damned if he was! +He'd shoot the animal first--no, that would never do. Nan would come +out and he would be discovered. Moreover, what right had he to shoot +anybody's dog until it attacked him? The thing to do would be to put +some strychnine on a piece of meat--no, no, that would never do. The +person who would poison a dog--any kind of a dog-- + +It was a good dog. The animal certainly was acting within its legal +rights. Yes, he knew now where Nan had gotten it. The dog had belonged +to First Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary of the Fifth Marines; he had +doubtless given it to Nan to keep for him when he went to the war; The +Laird knew Dan thought a great deal of that dog. His name was Jerry +and he had aided Dirty Dan in more than one bar-room battle. + +Jerry, like his master, like the master of the woman he protected, was +a Devil-dog, and one simply cannot kill a soldier's dog for doing a +soldier's duty. Should Jerry charge there would be no stopping him +until he was killed, so The Laird saw very clearly that there was but +one course open to him. If he marched through that gate and straight +to the door, as if he meant business, as if he had a moral and legal +right to be there on business, Jerry would understand and permit him +to pass. But if he snooped in, like a thief in the night, and peered +in at a window-- + +"I wish I had a suit of Fifteenth Century armour," he thought. "Then +Jerry, you could chew on my leg and be damned to you. You're a silent +dog and I could have a good look while you were wrecking your teeth." + +He went back to the Sawdust Pile at dusk the next evening, hoping +Jerry would be absent upon some unlawful private business, but when he +approached the gate slowly and noiselessly Jerry spoke up softly from +within and practically said: "Get out or take the consequences." + +The following night, however, The Laird was prepared for Jerry. He did +not halt at the dog's preliminary warning but advanced and rattled the +gate a little. Immediately Jerry came to the gate and stood just +inside growling in his throat, so The Laird thrust an atomizer through +the palings and deluged Jerry's hairy countenance with a fine cloud of +spirits of ammonia. He had once tried that trick on a savage bulldog +in which he desired to inculcate some respect for his person, and had +succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Therefore, since +desperate circumstances always require desperate measures, the memory +of that ancient victory had moved him to attempt a similar +embarrassment of the dog Jerry. + +But Jerry was a devil-dog. He had been raised and trained by Dirty Dan +O'Leary and in company with that interesting anthropoid he had been +through many stormy passages. Long before, he had learned that the +offensive frequently wins--the defensive never. It is probable that he +wept as he sniffed the awful stuff, but if he did they were tears of +rage. + +Jerry's first move was to stand on his head and cover his face with +his paws. Then he did several back flips and wailed aloud in his +misery and woe, his yelps of distress quite filling the empyrean. But +only for the space of a few seconds. Recovering his customary aplomb +he made a flying leap for the top of the gate, his yelps now succeeded +by ambitious growls--and in self-defense The Laird was forced to spray +him again as he clung momentarily on top of the palings. With a sob +Jerry dropped back and buried his nose in the dust, while The Laird +beat a hurried retreat into the darkness, for he had lost all +confidence in his efforts to inculcate in Jerry an humble and contrite +spirit. + +He could hear rapid footsteps inside the little house; then the door +opened and in the light that streamed from within he was indistinctly +visible to Nan as she stood in the doorway. + +"Jerry!" he heard her call. "Good dog! What's the matter? After him, +Jerry. Go get him, Jerry!" She ran to the gate and opened it for the +dog, who darted through, but paused again to run his afflicted nose in +the dust and roll a couple of times. Apparently he felt that there was +no great hurry; his quarry could not escape him. It is probable, also, +that he was more or less confused and not quite certain which +direction the enemy had taken, for Jerry's sense of smell was +temporarily suspended and his eyes blinded by tears; certain his +language was not at all what it should have been. + +The Laird ran blindly, apprehensively, but for a very short distance. +Suddenly he bumped into something quite solid, which closed around him +viciously. "Halt, damn you," a commanding voice cried. + +Despite his years, Hector McKaye was no weakling, and in the knowledge +that he could not afford to be captured and discovered, seemingly he +slipped forty years from his shoulders. Once more he was a lumberjack, +the top dog of his district--and he proceeded to fight like one. His +old arms rained punches on the midriff of the man who held him and he +knew they stung cruelly, for at every punch the man grunted and strove +to clinch him tighter and smother the next blow. "Let go me or I'll +kill you," The Laird panted. "Man dinna drive me to it." He ceased his +rain of blows, grasped his adversary and tried to wrestle him down. He +succeeded, but the man would not stay down. He wriggled out with +amazing ease and had old Hector with his shoulders touching before The +Laird's heaving chest and two terrible thumbs closed down on each of +The Laird's eyes, with four powerful fingers clasping his face like +talons. "Quit, or I'll squeeze your eyeballs out," a voice warned him. + +The Laird's hand beat the ground beside him. He had surrendered to a +master of his style of fighting. With something of the air of an +expert, his conqueror ran a quick hand over him, seeking for weapons, +and finding none, he grasped The Laird by the collar and jerked him to +his feet. "Now, then, my hearty, I'll have a look at you," he said. +"You'll explain why you're skulking around here and abusing that dog!" + +The Laird quivered as he found himself being dragged toward the stream +of light, in the center of which Nan Brent stood silhouetted. He could +not afford this and he was not yet defeated. + +"A thousand dollars if you let me go now," he panted. "I have the +money in my pocket. Ask yon lass if I've done aught wrong." + +His captor paused and seemed to consider this. "Make it ten thousand +and I'll consider it," he whispered. "Leave it on the mail box just +outside the Tyee Lumber Company's office at midnight to-morrow night." + +"I'll do it--so help me God," The Laird promised frantically. + +His son's voice spoke in his ear. "Dad! You low-down, worthless +lovable old fraud!" + +"My son! My son!" Old Hector's glad cry ended in a sob. "Oh, my sonny +boy, my bonny lad! I canna stand it. I canna! Forgie me, lad, forgie +me--and ask her to forgie me!" His old arms were around his son's neck +and he was crying on Donald's shoulder, unashamed. "I was trying for a +look at the bairn," he cried brokenly, "and 'twas a privilege God +would nae gie me seeing that I came like a sneak and not like an +honest man. The damned dog--he knew! Och, Donald, say ye forgie ye're +auld faither. Say it, lad. Ma heart's breakin'." + +"Why, bless your bare-shanked old Scotch soul, of course I forgive +you. I never held any grudge, you know. I simply stood pat until you +could see things through my eyes." + +"Is that you, Donald?" Nan called. + +"Aye, aye, sweetheart. Dad's here. He wants to know if you regard him +as a particularly terrible old man. I think he's afraid you will +refuse to let him look at Laird Hector, Thirteenth." + +"Man, man," the old man urged, quite shocked at this casual greeting +of a returned hero to his wife, "go to her, lad. She'll not relish +favoritism." + +"Oh, this isn't our first meeting, Dad. I got home yesterday. I have +thirty days leave. They sent me home as an instructor in small arms +practice and gave me a boost in rank. I was just up town for a +beefsteak and I've lost the beefsteak battling with you." + +The Laird wiped his eyes and got control of himself. Presently he +said: "Keep that blessed dog off me," and started resolutely for the +front gate. Without a moment's hesitation he folded Nan in his arms +and kissed her. "Poor bairn," he whispered. "I've been cruel to you. +Forgie me, daughter, if so be you can find it in your heart to be that +generous. God knows, lass, I'll try to be worthy of you." + +"Am I worthy of him?" she whispered, womanlike. + +"Far more than his father is," he admitted humbly. "Damn the world and +damn the people in it. You're a good girl, Nan. You always were a good +girl--" + +"But suppose she wasn't--always?" Donald queried gently. "Is that +going to make any difference--to you?" + +"I don't care what she was before you married her. I haven't thought +about that for a long time the way I used to think about it. I built +The Dreamerie for you and the girl you'd marry and I--I accept her +unconditionally, my son, and thank God she has the charity to accept +an old Pharisee like me for a father-in-law." + +Donald slipped his arm around Nan's waist, and started with her toward +the door. "Tag along, father," he suggested, "and Nan will show you a +prize grandson." + +At the door, Nan paused. "Do you think, father McKaye," she queried, +"that the remainder of the family will think as you do?" + +"I fear not," he replied sadly. "But then, you haven't married the +family. They'll accept you or keep out of Port Agnew; at any rate +they'll never bother you, my dear. I think," he added grimly, "that I +may find a way to make them treat you with civility at least." + +"He's a pretty good old sport after all, isn't he, Nan?" her husband +suggested. + +"I'll tell the world he is," she answered archly, employing the A.E.F. +slang she had already learned from Donald. She linked her arm in old +Hector's and steered him down the hall to the living-room. "Your +grandson is in there," she said, and opening the door she gently +propelled him into the room. + + + + +XLVII + + +Nan was right. His grandson was there, but strange to relate he was +seated, as naked as Venus (save for a diaper) on his grandmother's +lap. + +Hector McKaye paused and glared at his wife. + +"Damn it, Nellie," he roared, "what the devil do you mean by this?" + +"I'm tired of being an old fool, Hector," she replied meekly, and held +the baby up for his inspection. + +"It's time you were," he growled. "Come here, you young rascal till I +heft you. By the gods of war, he's a McKaye!" He hugged the squirming +youngster to his heart and continued to glare at his wife as if she +were a hardened criminal. "Why didn't you tell me you felt yourself +slipping?" he demanded. "Out with it, Nellie." + +"There will be no post-mortems," Nan interdicted. "Mother McKaye and +Elizabeth and Jane and I patched up our difficulties when Donald came +home yesterday. How we did it or what transpired before we did it, +doesn't matter, you dear old snooper." + +"What? Elizabeth and Jane? Unconditional surrender?" + +She nodded smilingly and The Laird admitted his entire willingness to +be--jiggered. Finally, having inspected his grandson, he turned for an +equally minute inspection of his soldier son under the lamplight. + +"Three service stripes and one wound stripe," he murmured. "And +you're not crippled, boy dear?" + +"Do I fight like one? Hector, man, those punches of yours would have +destroyed a battalion of cripples. Oh, you old false-alarm! Honestly, +Dad, you're the most awful dub imaginable. And trying to bribe me into +permitting you to escape--what the deuce have you been monkeying with? +You reek of ammonia--here, go away from my son. You're poison." + +The Laird ignored him. "What's that ribbon?" he demanded. + +"Distinguished Service Cross." + +"You must have bought it in a pawnshop. And that thing?" + +"Croix de Guerre." + +"And that red one?" + +"Legion d'Honneur." + +A pause. "What did Dirty Dan get, son?" + +"The one thing in the world he thought he despised. The Congressional +Medal of Honor for valor in saving the life of a British colonel, who, +by the way, happens to be an Orangeman. When he discovered it he +wanted to bayonet the colonel and I won the Croix de Guerre for +stopping him." + +"Oh, cease your nonsense, Donald," his wife urged, "and tell your +father and mother something. I think they are entitled to the news +now." + +"Yes, Nan, I think they are. Listen, folks. Now that you've all been +nice enough to be human beings and accept my wife at her face value, I +have a surprise for you. On the day when Nan married the father of my +adopted son, he waited until the officiating minister had signed the +marriage license and attested that he had performed the ceremony; then +while the minister's attention was on something else, he took +possession of the license and put it in his overcoat pocket. Later he +and Nan drove to a restaurant for luncheon and the overcoat with the +license in the pocket was stolen, from the automobile. The thief +pawned the coat later and the pawnbroker discovered the license in the +pocket after the thief had departed. The following day the fellow was +arrested in the act of stealing another overcoat; the pawnbroker read +of the arrest and remembered he had loaned five dollars on an overcoat +to a man who gave the same name this thief gave to the police. So the +pawnbroker--" + +"I am not interested, my son. I require no proofs." + +"Thank you for that, father. But you're entitled to them and you're +going to get them. The pawnbroker found on the inside lining of the +inner breast pocket of the overcoat the tag which all tailors sew +there when, they make the garment. This tag bore the name of the owner +of the overcoat, his address and the date of delivery of the +overcoat." + +"Now, the pawnbroker noticed that the man who owned the overcoat was +not the person named in the marriage license. Also he noticed that the +marriage license was attested by a minister but that it had not been +recorded by the state board of health, as required by law--and the +pawnbroker was aware that marriage licenses are not permitted, by law, +to come into the possession of the contracting parties until the fact +that they have been legally married has been duly recorded on the +evidence of the marriage--which is, of course, the marriage license." + +"Why didn't the idiot send the license back to the minister who had +performed the ceremony?" The Laird demanded. "Then this tangle would +never have occurred." + +"He says he thought of that, but he was suspicious. It was barely +possible that the officiating clergyman had connived at the theft of +the license from his desk, so the pawnbroker, who doubtless possesses +the instincts of an amateur detective, resolved to get the license +into the hands of Nan Brent direct. Before doing so, however, he wrote +to the man named in the license and sent his letter to the address +therein given. In the course of time that letter was returned by the +post-office department with the notation that the location of the +addressee was unknown. The pawnbroker then wrote to the man whose name +appeared on the tailor's tag in the overcoat, and promptly received a +reply. Yes, an overcoat had been stolen from his automobile on a +certain date. He described the overcoat and stated that the marriage +license of a friend of his might be found in the breast pocket, +provided the thief had not removed it. If the license was there he +would thank the pawnbroker to forward it to him. He enclosed a check +to redeem the overcoat and pay the cost of forwarding it to him by +parcel post, insured. The pawnbroker had that check photographed +before cashing it and he forwarded the overcoat but retained the +marriage license, for he was more than ever convinced that things were +not as they should have been. + +"His next move was to write Miss Nan Brent, at Port Agnew, Washington, +informing her of the circumstances and advising her that he had her +marriage certificate. This letter reached Port Agnew at the time Nan +was living in San Francisco, and her father received it. He merely +scratched out Port Agnew, Washington, and substituted for that +address: 'Care of---- using Nan's married name, Altamont Apartments, +San Francisco.' + +"By the time that letter reached San Francisco Nan had left that +address, but since she planned a brief absence only, she left no +forwarding address for her mail. That was the time she came north to +visit her father and in Seattle she discovered that her supposed +husband was already married. I have told you, father, and you have +doubtless told mother, Nan's reasons for refusing to disclose this +man's identity at that time. + +"Of course Nan did not return to San Francisco, but evidently her +husband did and at their apartment he found this letter addressed to +Nan. He opened it, and immediately set out for San José to call upon +the pawnbroker and gain possession of the marriage license. Unknown to +him, however, his lines were all tangled and the pawnbroker told him +frankly he was a fraud and declined to give him the license. Finally +the pawnbroker tried a bluff and declared that if the man did not get +out of his place of business he would have him arrested as a +bigamist--and the fellow fled. + +"A month or two later the pawnbroker was in San Francisco so he called +at the Altamont Apartments to deliver the license in person, only to +discover that the person he sought had departed and that her address +was unknown. So he wrote Nan again, using her married name and +addressed her at Port Agnew, Washington. You will remember, of course, +that at this time Nan's marriage was not known to Port Agnew, she had +kept it secret. Naturally the postmaster here did not know anybody by +that name, and in due course, when the letter remained unclaimed he +did not bother to advertise it but returned it to the sender." + +"It doesn't seem possible," Mrs. McKaye declared, quite pop-eyed with +excitement. + +"It was possible enough," her son continued drily. "Well, the +bewildered pawnbroker thrust the license away in his desk, and awaited +the next move of the man in the case. But he never moved, and after a +while the pawnbroker forgot he had the license. And the minister was +dead. One day, in cleaning out his desk he came across the accumulated +papers in the case and it occurred to him to write the state board of +health and explain the situation. Promptly he received a letter from +the board informing him that inquiries had been made at the board of +health office for a certified copy of the license, by Miss Nan Brent, +of Port Agnew, Washington, and that the board had been unable to +furnish such a certified copy. Immediately our obliging and +intelligent pawnbroker, whose name, by the way, is Abraham Goldman, +bundled up the marriage license, together with the carbon copy of the +pawn ticket he had given the thief; a press clipping from the San José +_Mercury_ recounting the story of the capture of the thief; carbon +copies of all his correspondence in the case, the original of all +letters received, the photograph of the check--everything, in fact, to +prove a most conclusive case through the medium of a well-ordered and +amazing chain of optical and circumstantial evidence. This evidence he +sent to Miss Brent, Port Agnew, Washington, and she received it about +a week before I married her. Consequently, she was in position to +prove to the most captious critic that she was a woman of undoubted +virtue, the innocent victim of a scoundrel who had inveigled her into +a bigamous marriage. Of course, in view of the fact that the man she +went through a legal marriage ceremony with already had a wife living, +Nan's marriage to him was illegal--how do you express it? Ipso facto +or per se? In the eyes of the law she had never been married; the man +in the case was legally debarred from contracting another marriage. +The worst that could possibly be said of Nan was that she played in +mighty hard luck." + +"In the name of heaven, why did you not tell me this the day you +married her?" The Laird demanded wrathfully. + +"I didn't know it the day I married her. She was curious enough to +want to see how game I was. She wanted to be certain I truly loved +her, I think--and in view of her former experience I do not blame her +for it. It pleased you a whole lot, didn't it, honey?" he added, +turning to Nan, "when I married you on faith?" + +"But why didn't you tell us after you had discovered it, Donald?" Mrs. +McKaye interrupted. "That was not kind of you, my son." + +"Well," he answered soberly, "in the case of you and the girls I +didn't think you deserved it. I kept hoping you and the girls would +confess to Dad that you telephoned Nan to come back to Port Agnew that +time I was sick with typhoid--" + +"Eh? What's that?" The Laird sat up bristling. + +Mrs. McKaye flushed scarlet and seemed on the verge of tears. Donald +went to her and took her in his arms. "Awfully sorry to have to peach +on you, old dear," he continued. "Do not think Nan told on you, +Mother. She didn't. I figured it all out by myself. However, as I +started to remark, I expected you would confess and that your +confession would start a family riot, in the midst of it I knew +father would rise up and declare himself. I give you my word, Dad, +that for two weeks before I went to work up at Darrow I watched and +waited all day long for you to come down here and tell Nan it was a +bet and that we'd play it as it lay." + +Old Hector gritted his teeth and waged his head sorrowfully. "Nellie," +he warned his trembling wife, "this is what comes of a lack of +confidence between man and wife." + +She flared up at that. "Hush, you hypocrite. At least I haven't +snooped around here trying to poison dogs and kill people when I was +discovered playing Peeping Tom. A pretty figure you've cut throughout +this entire affair. Didn't I beg you not to be hard on our poor boy?" + +"Yes, you had better lay low, Father," Donald warned him. "You've been +married long enough to know that if you start anything with a woman +she'll put it all over you. We will, therefore, forget Mother's error +and concentrate on you. Remember the night I dragged you ashore at +Darrow's log boom? Well, permit me to tell you that you're a pretty +heavy tow and long before my feet struck bottom I figured on two +Widows McKaye. If I'd had to swim twenty feet further I would have +lost out. Really, I thought you'd come through after that." + +"I would if you'd waited a bit," old Hector protested miserably. "You +ought to know I never do things in a hurry." + +"Well, I do, Dad, but all the same I grew weary waiting for you. Then +I made up my mind I'd never tell you about Nan until you and Mother +and the girls had completely reversed yourselves and taken Nan for +the woman she is and not the woman you once thought she was." + +"Well, you've won, haven't you?" The Laird's voice was very husky. + +"Yes, I have; and it's a sweet victory, I assure you." + +"Then shut up. Shut up, I tell you." + +"All right! I'm through--forever." + +The Laird bent his beetling brows upon Nan. "And you?" he demanded. +"Have you finished?" + +She came to him and laid her soft cheek against his. "You funny old +man," she whispered. "Did you ever hear that I had begun?" + +"Well, nae, I have not--now that you mention it. And, by the way, my +dear! Referring to my grandson's half-brother?" + +"Yes." + +"I understand he's a McKaye." + +"Yes, Donald has legally adopted him." + +"Well, then, I'll accept him as an adopted grandson, my dear. I think +there'll be money enough for everybody. But about this scalawag of a +man that fathered him. I'll have to know who he is. We have a suit of +zebra clothing waiting for him, my dear." + +"No, you haven't, Father McKaye. My boy's father is never going to be +a convict. That man has other children, too." + +"I'm going to have a glass frame made and in it I'm going to arrange +photographic reproductions of all the documents in Nan's case," Donald +stated. "The history of the case will all be there, then, with the +exception, of course, of the name of the man. In deference to Nan's +desires I will omit that. Then I'll have that case screwed into the +wall of the post-office lobby where all Port Agnew can see and +understand--" + +"Nellie," The Laird interrupted, "please stop fiddling with that baby +and dress him. Daughter, get my other grandson ready, and you, Donald, +run over to the mill office. My car is standing there. Bring it here +and we'll all go home to The Dreamerie--yes, and tell Daney to come up +and help me empty a bottle to--to--to my additional family. He'll +bring his wife, of course, but then we must endure the bitter with the +sweet. Good old file, Daney. None better." + +Donald put on his cap and departed. As the front gate closed behind +him Hector McKaye sprang up and hurried out of the house after him. +"Hey, there, son," he called into the darkness, "What was that you +said about a glass case?" + +Donald returned and repeated the statement of his plan. + +"And you're going to the trouble of explaining to this sorry world," +the old man cried sharply. "Man, the longest day she lives there'll be +brutes that will say 'twas old man McKaye's money that framed an alibi +for her.' Son, no man or woman was ever so pure that some hypocrite +didn't tread 'em under foot like dust and regard them as such. Lad, +your wife will always be dust to some folks, but--we're kindred to +her--so what do we care? We understand. Do not explain to the damned +Pharisees. They wouldn't understand. Hang that thing in the +post-office lobby and some superior person will quote Shakespeare, and +say: 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much.'" + +"Then you would advise me to tell the world to go to--" + +"Exactly, sonny, exactly." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINDRED OF THE DUST*** + + +******* This file should be named 13532-8.txt or 13532-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/5/3/13532 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Kyne</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; + text-indent: .75em; + } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + } + HR { width: 33%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + hr.full { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 9pt;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Kindred of the Dust, by Peter B. Kyne</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Kindred of the Dust</p> +<p>Author: Peter B. Kyne</p> +<p>Release Date: September 26, 2004 [eBook #13532]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINDRED OF THE DUST***</p> +<br><br><h3>E-text prepared by Stephen Schulze<br> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team</h3><br><br> +<hr class="full" noshade> +<br /><br /> +<br> +<h1>KINDRED OF THE DUST</h1> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>PETER B. KYNE</h2> + + +<p style='text-align: center;'>AUTHOR OF</p> + +<p style='text-align: center;'><i>CAPPY RICKS</i>, +<i>THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS</i>, +<i>WEBSTER—MAN'S MAN</i>, ETC.</p> + + +<p style='text-align: center;'>ILLUSTRATED BY</p> + +<p style='text-align: center;'>DEAN CORNWELL</p> + + + +<p style='text-align: center;'>1920</p> +<br> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='TO_IRENE'></a><h2>TO IRENE</h2> + +<p>MY DEAR, TYRANNICAL, PRACTICAL LITTLE FOSTER-SISTER</p> + +<p>WITHOUT WHOSE AID AND COMFORT, HOOTS, CHEERS AND UNAUTHORIZED STRIKES, +THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF MY ALLEGED LITERARY OUTPUT WOULD BE +APPRECIABLY DIMINISHED, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED</p> +<br> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<br> +<br> + + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div style='margin-left: 40%;'> +<a href='#I'><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> + <a href='#II'><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> + <a href='#III'><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> + <a href='#IV'><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#V'><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VI'><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VII'><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#VIII'><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#IX'><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> + <a href='#X'><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XI'><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XII'><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XIII'><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XIV'><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XV'><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XVI'><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XVII'><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XVIII'><b>CHAPTER XVIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XIX'><b>CHAPTER XIX</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XX'><b>CHAPTER XX</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXI'><b>CHAPTER XXI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXII'><b>CHAPTER XXII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXIII'><b>CHAPTER XXIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXIV'><b>CHAPTER XXIV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXV'><b>CHAPTER XXV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXVI'><b>CHAPTER XXVI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXVIII'><b>CHAPTER XXVIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXIX'><b>CHAPTER XXIX</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXX'><b>CHAPTER XXX</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXI'><b>CHAPTER XXXI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXII'><b>CHAPTER XXXII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXIII'><b>CHAPTER XXXIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXIV'><b>CHAPTER XXXIV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXV'><b>CHAPTER XXXV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXVI'><b>CHAPTER XXXVI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXVII'><b>CHAPTER XXXVII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXVIII'><b>CHAPTER XXXVIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXIX'><b>CHAPTER XXXIX</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXX'><b>CHAPTER XL</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXXI'><b>CHAPTER XLI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXXII'><b>CHAPTER XLII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXXIII'><b>CHAPTER XLIII</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXXIV'><b>CHAPTER XLIV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXXV'><b>CHAPTER XLV</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXXVI'><b>CHAPTER XLVI</b></a><br /> + <a href='#XXXXVII'><b>CHAPTER XLVII</b></a><br /> +</div> +<br> +<br> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='THE_ILLUSTRATIONS'></a><h2>THE ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> + +<div style='margin-left: 30%;'><p><a href='#HECTOR_MCKAYE_WAS_BRED_OF_AN_ACQUISITIVE_RACE'>Hector McKaye was bred of an acquisitive race</a></p> + +<p><a href='#SHE_STOLE_TO_THE_OLD_SQUARE_PIANO_AND_SANG_FOR_HIM'>She stole to the old square piano and sang for him</a></p> + +<p><a href='#DONALD_BOWED_HIS_HEAD'>Donald bowed his head, "I can't give her up, father"</a></p> + +<p><a href='#IM_A_MAN_WITHOUT_A_HOME'>"I'm a man without a home and you've just <i>got</i> to take me in, Nan"</a></p> +</div> +<br> +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<br /> +<br> +<br> +<a name='I'></a><h2>I</h2> +<br /> + +<p>In the living-room of The Dreamerie, his home on Tyee Head, Hector +McKaye, owner of the Tyee Lumber Company and familiarly known as "The +Laird," was wont to sit in his hours of leisure, smoking and building +castles in Spain—for his son Donald. Here he planned the acquisition +of more timber and the installation of an electric-light plant to +furnish light, heat, and power to his own town of Port Agnew; ever and +anon he would gaze through the plate-glass windows out to sea and +watch for his ships to come home. Whenever The Laird put his dreams +behind him, he always looked seaward. In the course of time, his +home-bound skippers, sighting the white house on the headland and +knowing that The Laird was apt to be up there watching, formed the +habit of doing something that pleased their owner mightily. When the +northwest trades held steady and true, and while the tide was still at +the flood, they would scorn the services of the tug that went out to +meet them and come ramping into the bight, all their white sails set +and the glory of the sun upon them; as they swept past, far below The +Laird, they would dip his house-flag—a burgee, scarlet-edged, with a +fir tree embroidered in green on a field of white—the symbol to the +world that here was a McKaye ship. And when the house-flag fluttered +half-way to the deck and climbed again to the masthead, the soul of +Hector McKaye would thrill.</p> + +<p>"Guid lads! My bonny brave lads!" he would murmur aloud, with just a +touch of his parents' accent, and press a button which discharged an +ancient brass cannon mounted at the edge of the cliff. Whenever he saw +one of his ships in the offing—and he could identify his ships as far +as he could see them—he ordered the gardener to load this cannon.</p> + +<p>Presently the masters began to dip the house-flag when outward bound, +and discovered that, whether The Laird sat at his desk in the mill +office or watched from the cliff, they drew an answering salute.</p> + +<p>This was their hail and farewell.</p> + +<p>One morning, the barkentine Hathor, towing out for Delagoa Bay, dipped +her house-flag, and the watch at their stations bent their gaze upon +the house on the cliff. Long they waited but no answering salute +greeted the acknowledgment of their affectionate and willing service.</p> + +<p>The mate's glance met the master's.</p> + +<p>"The old laird must be unwell, sir," he opined.</p> + +<p>But the master shook his head.</p> + +<p>"He was to have had dinner aboard with us last night, but early in the +afternoon he sent over word that he'd like to be excused. He's sick at +heart, poor man! Daney tells me he's heard the town gossip about young +Donald."</p> + +<p>"The lad's a gentleman, sir," the mate defended. "He'll not disgrace +his people."</p> + +<p>"He's young—and youth must be served. Man, I was young myself +once—and Nan of the Sawdust Pile is not a woman a young man would +look at once and go his way."</p> + +<hr style='width: 25%;' /> + +<p>In the southwestern corner of the state of Washington, nestled in the +Bight of Tyee and straddling the Skookum River, lies the little +sawmill town of Port Agnew. It is a community somewhat difficult to +locate, for the Bight of Tyee is not of sufficient importance as a +harbor to have won consideration by the cartographers of the Coast and +Geodetic Survey, and Port Agnew is not quite forty years old. +Consequently, it appears only on the very latest state maps and in the +smallest possible type.</p> + +<p>When Hector McKaye first gazed upon the bight, the transcontinental +lines had not yet begun to consider the thrusting of their tentacles +into southwestern Washington, and, with the exception of those regions +where good harbors had partially solved the problem of transportation, +timber in Washington was very cheap. Consequently, since Hector McKaye +was one of those hardy men who never hesitate to take that which no +man denies them, he reached forth and acquired timber.</p> + +<p>A strip of land a quarter of a mile wide and fronting the beach was +barren of commercial timber. As grazing-land, Hector McKaye was +enabled to file on a full section of this, and, with its acquisition, +he owned the key to the outlet. While "proving up" his claim, he +operated a general store for trading with the Indians and trappers, +and at this he prospered. From time to time he purchased timber-claims +from the trappers as fast as they "proved up," paying for these +stumpage-prices varying from twenty-five to fifty cents per thousand.</p> + +<p>On his frequent trips to the outer world, McKaye extolled the +opportunities for acquiring good timber-claims down on the Skookum; he +advertised them in letters and in discreet interviews with the editors +of little newspapers in the sawmill towns on Puget Sound and Grays +Harhor; he let it be known that an honest fellow could secure credit +for a winter's provisions from him, and pay for it with pelts in the +spring.</p> + +<p>The influx of homesteaders increased—single men, for the most part, +and poor—men who labored six months of the year elsewhere and lived +the remaining six months in rude log huts on their claims down on the +Skookum. And when the requirements of the homestead laws had been +complied with and a patent to their quarter-section obtained from the +Land Office in Washington, the homesteaders were ready to sell and +move on to other and greener pastures. So they sold to the only +possible purchaser, Hector McKaye, and departed, quite satisfied with +a profit which they flattered themselves had been the result of their +own prudence and foresight.</p> + +<p>Thus, in the course of ten years, Hector McKaye' acquired ten thousand +acres of splendid Douglas fir and white cedar. But he had not been +successful in acquiring claims along the south bank of the Skookum. +For some mysterious reason, he soon found claims on the north bank +cheaper and easier to secure, albeit the timber showed no variance in +quantity or quality. Discreet investigations brought to light the fact +that he had a competitor—one Martin Darrow, who dwelt in St. Paul, +Minnesota. To St. Paul, therefore, journeyed Hector McKaye, and +sought an audience with Martin Darrow.</p> + +<p>"I'm McKaye, from the Skookum River, Washington," he announced, +without preamble.</p> + +<p>"I've been expecting you, Mr. McKaye," Darrow replied. "Got a +proposition to submit?"</p> + +<p>"Naturally, or I wouldn't have come to St. Paul. I notice you have a +weakness for the timber on the south bank of the Skookum. You've +opposed me there half a dozen times and won. I have also observed that +I have a free hand with claims north of the river. That's fair—and +there's timber enough for two. Hereafter, I'll keep to my own side of +the river."</p> + +<p>"I see we're going to come to an understanding, Mr. McKaye. What will +you give me to stick to my side of the river?"</p> + +<p>"An outlet through the bight for your product when you commence +manufacturing. I control the lower half-mile of the river and the only +available mill-sites. I'll give you a mill-site if you'll pay half the +expense of digging a new channel for the Skookum, and changing its +course so it will emerge into the still, deep water under the lee of +Tyee Head."</p> + +<p>"We'll do business," said Martin Darrow—and they did, although it was +many years after Hector McKaye had incorporated the Tyee Lumber +Company and founded his town of Port Agnew before Darrow began +operations.</p> + +<p>True to his promise, McKaye deeded him a mill-and town-site, and he +founded a settlement on the eastern edge of Port Agnew, but quite +distinct from it, and called it Darrow, after himself. It was not a +community that Hector McKaye approved of, for it was squalid and +unsanitary, and its untidy, unpainted shacks of rough lumber harbored +southern European labor, of which Hector McKaye would have none. In +Darrow, also, there were three groggeries and a gambling-house, with +the usual concomitant of women whose profession is the oldest and the +saddest in the world.</p> + +<p>Following his discovery of the Bight of Tyee, a quarter of a century +passed. A man may prosper much in twenty-five years, and Hector +McKaye, albeit American born, was bred of an acquisitive race. When +his Gethsemane came upon him, he was rated the richest lumberman in +the state of Washington; his twenty-thousand board-feet capacity per +day sawmill had grown to five hundred thousand, his ten thousand acres +to a hundred thousand. Two thousand persons looked to him and his +enterprise for their bread and butter; he owned a fleet of half a +dozen steam-schooners and sixteen big wind-jammers; he owned a town +which he had called Port Agnew, and he had married and been blessed +with children. And because his ambition no longer demanded it, he was +no longer a miser.</p> + +<a name='HECTOR_MCKAYE_WAS_BRED_OF_AN_ACQUISITIVE_RACE'></a> +<center> +<img src='images/01.jpg' width='400' height='563' alt='HECTOR MCKAYE WAS BRED OF AN ACQUISITIVE RACE.' title='HECTOR MCKAYE WAS BRED OF AN ACQUISITIVE RACE.'> +</center> +<h3>HECTOR MCKAYE WAS BRED OF AN ACQUISITIVE RACE.</h3> + +<p>In a word, he was a happy man, and in affectionate pride and as a +tribute to his might, his name and an occasional forget-me-not of +speech which clung to his tongue, heritage of his Scotch forebears, +his people called him "The Laird of Tyee." Singularly enough, his +character fitted this cognomen rather well. Reserved, proud, +independent, and sensitive, thinking straight and talking straight, a +man of brusque yet tender sentiment which was wont to manifest itself +unexpectedly, it had been said of him that in a company of a hundred +of his mental, physical, and financial peers, he would have stood +forth preeminently and distinctively, like a lone tree on a hill.</p> + +<p>Although The Laird loved his town of Port Agnew, because he had +created it, he had not, nevertheless, resided in it for some years +prior to the period at which this chronicle begins. At the very apex +of the headland that shelters the Bight of Tyee, in a cuplike +depression several acres in extent, on the northern side and ideally +situated two hundred feet below the crest, thus permitting the howling +southeasters to blow over it, Hector McKaye, in the fulness of time, +had built for himself a not very large two-story house of white stone +native to the locality. This house, in the center of beautiful and +well-kept grounds, was designed in the shape of a letter T, with the +combination living-room and library forming the entire leg of the T +and enclosed on all three sides by heavy plate-glass French windows.</p> + +<p>Thus, The Laird was enabled to command a view of the bight, with Port +Agnew nestled far below; of the silver strip that is the Skookum River +flowing down to the sea through the logged-over lands, now +checker-boarded into little green farms; of the rolling back country +with its dark-green mantle of fir and white cedar, fading in the +distance to dark blue and black; of the yellow sandstone bluffs of the +coast-line to the north, and the turquoise of the Pacific out to the +horizon.</p> + +<p>This room Hector McKaye enjoyed best of all things in life, with the +exception of his family; of his family, his son Donald was nearest and +dearest to him. This boy he loved with a fierce and hungry love, +intensified, doubtless, because to the young Laird of Tyee, McKaye +was still the greatest hero in the world. To his wife, The Laird was +no longer a hero, although in the old days of the upward climb, when +he had fiercely claimed her and supported her by the sweat of his +brow, he had been something akin to a god. As for Elizabeth and Jane, +his daughters, it must be recorded that both these young women had +long since ceased to regard their father as anything except an +unfailing source of revenue—an old dear who clung to Port Agnew, +homely speech, and homely ways, hooting good-naturedly at the +pretensions of their set, and, with characteristic Gaelic +stubbornness, insisting upon living and enjoying the kind of life that +appealed to him with peculiar force as the only kind worth living.</p> + +<p>Indeed, in more than one humble home in Port Agnew, it had been said +that the two McKaye girls were secretly ashamed of their father. This +because frequently, in a light and debonair manner, Elizabeth and Jane +apologized for their father and exhibited toward him an indulgent +attitude, as is frequently the case with overeducated and +supercultured young ladies who cannot recall a time when their +slightest wish has not been gratified and cannot forget that the good +fairy who gratified it once worked hard with his hands, spoke the +language and acquired the habits of his comrades in the battle for +existence.</p> + +<p>Of course, Elizabeth and Jane would have resented this analysis of +their mental attitude toward their father. Be that as it may, however, +the fact remained that both girls were perfunctory in their +expressions of affection for their father, but wildly extravagant in +them where their mother was concerned. Hector McKaye liked it so. He +was a man who never thought about himself, and he had discovered that +if he gave his wife and daughters everything they desired, he was not +apt to be nagged.</p> + +<p>Only on one occasion had Hector McKaye declared himself master in his +own house, and, at the risk of appearing paradoxical, this was before +the house had been built. One day, while they still occupied their +first home (in Port Agnew), a house with a mansard roof, two towers, +jig-saw and scroll-work galore, and the usual cast-iron mastiffs and +deer on the front lawn, The Laird had come gleefully home from a trip +to Seattle and proudly exhibited the plans for a new house.</p> + +<p>Ensued examination and discussion by his wife and the young ladies. +Alas! The Laird's dream of a home did not correspond with that of his +wife, although, as a matter of fact, the lady had no ideas on the +subject beyond an insistence that the house should be "worthy of their +station," and erected in a fashionable suburb of Seattle. Elizabeth +and Jane aided and abetted her in clamoring for a Seattle home, +although both were quick to note the advantages of a picturesque +country home on the cliffs above the bight. They urged their father to +build his house, but condemned his plans. They desired a house some +three times larger than the blue-prints called for.</p> + +<p>Hector McKaye said nothing. The women chattered and argued among +themselves until, Elizabeth and Jane having vanquished their mother, +all three moved briskly to the attack upon The Laird. When they had +talked themselves out and awaited a reply, he gave it with the simple +directness of his nature. It was evident that he had given his answer +thought.</p> + +<p>"I can never live in Seattle until I retire, and I cannot retire +until Donald takes my place in the business. That means that Donald +must live here. Consequently, I shall spend half of my time with you +and the girls in Seattle, mother, and the other half with Donald here. +When we built our first home, you had your way—and I've lived in this +architectural horror ever since. This time, I'm going to have my own +way—and you've lived with me long enough to know that when I declare +for a will of my own, I'll not be denied. Well I realize you and the +girls have outgrown Port Agnew. There's naught here to interest you, +and I would not have woman o' mine unhappy. So plan your house in +Seattle, and I'll build it and spare no expense. As for this house on +the headland, you have no interest in it. Donald's approved the plans, +and him only will I defer to. 'Twill be his house some day—his and +his wife's, when he gets one. And there will be no more talk of it, my +dears. I'll not take it kindly of ye to interfere."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='II'></a><h2>II</h2> +<br /> + +<p>At a period in his upward climb to fortune, when as yet Hector McKaye +had not fulfilled his dream of a factory for the manufacture of his +waste and short-length stock into sash, door, blinds, moldings, and so +forth, he had been wont to use about fifty per cent. of this material +for fuel to maintain steam in the mill boilers, while the remainder +passed out over the waste-conveyor to the slab pile, where it was +burned.</p> + +<p>The sawdust, however, remained to be disposed of, and since it was not +possible to burn this in the slab fire for the reason that the wet +sawdust blanketed the flames and resulted in a profusion of smoke that +blew back upon the mill to the annoyance of the employees, for many +years The Laird had caused this accumulated sawdust to be hauled to +the edge of the bight on the north side of the town, and there dumped +in a low, marshy spot which formerly had bred millions of mosquitoes.</p> + +<p>Subsequently, in the process of grading the streets of Port Agnew and +excavating cellars, waste dirt had been dumped with the sawdust, and, +occasionally, when high winter tides swept over the spot, sand, small +stones, sea-shells, and kelp were added to the mixture. And as if this +were not sufficient, the citizens of Port Agnew contributed from time +to time old barrels and bottles, yard-sweepings, tin cans, and +superannuated stoves and kitchen utensils.</p> + +<p>Slowly this dump crept out on the beach, and in order to prevent the +continuous attrition of the surf upon the outer edge of it from +befouling the white-sand bathing-beach farther up the Bight of Tyee, +The Laird had driven a double row of fir piling parallel with and +beyond the line of breakers. This piling, driven as close together as +possible and reenforced with two-inch planking between, formed a +bulkhead with the flanks curving in to the beach, thus insuring +practically a water-tight pen some two acres in extent; and, with the +passage of years, this became about two-thirds filled with the waste +from the town. Had The Laird ever decided to lay claim to the Sawdust +Pile, there would have been none in Port Agnew to contest his title; +since he did not claim it, the Sawdust Pile became a sort of No Man's +Land.</p> + +<p>After The Laird erected his factory and began to salvage his waste, +the slab fire went out forever for lack of fuel, and the modicum of +waste from the mill and factory, together with the sawdust, was +utilized for fuel in an electric-light plant that furnished light, +heat, and power to the town. Consequently, sawdust no longer +mercifully covered the trash on the Sawdust Pile as fast as this trash +arrived, and, one day, Hector McKaye, observing this, decided that it +was an unsightly spot and not quite worthy of his town of Port Agnew. +So he constructed a barge somewhat upon the principle of a patent +dump-wagon, moored it to the river-bank, created a garbage monopoly in +Port Agnew, and sold it for five thousand dollars to a pair of +ambitious Italians. With the proceeds of this garbage deal, The Laird +built a very pretty little public library.</p> + +<p>Having organized his new garbage system (the garbage was to be towed +twenty miles to sea and there dumped), The Laird forbade further +dumping on the Sawdust Pile. When the necessity for more dredger-work +developed, in order to keep the deep channel of the Skookum from +filling, he had the pipes from the dredger run out to the Sawdust Pile +and covered the unsightly spot with six feet of rich river-silt up to +the level of the piling.</p> + +<p>"And now," said Hector McKaye to Andrew Daney, his general manager, +"when that settles, we'll run a light track out here and use the +Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard."</p> + +<p>The silt settled and dried, and almost immediately thereafter a +squatter took possession of the Sawdust Pile. Across the neck of the +little promontory, and in line with extreme high-water mark on each +side, he erected a driftwood fence; he had a canvas, driftwood, and +corrugated-iron shanty well under way when Hector McKaye appeared on +the scene and bade him a pleasant good-morning.</p> + +<p>The squatter turned from his labor and bent upon his visitor an +appraising glance. His scrutiny appearing to satisfy him as to the +identity of the latter, he straightened suddenly and touched his +forelock in a queer little salute that left one in doubt whether he +was a former member of the United States navy or the British +mercantile marine. He was a threadbare little man, possibly sixty +years old, with a russet, kindly countenance and mild blue eyes; apart +from his salute, there was about him an intangible hint of the sea. He +was being assisted in his labors by a ragamuffin girl of perhaps +thirteen years.</p> + +<p>"Thinking of settling in Port Agnew?" The Laird inquired.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, sir. I thought this might make a good safe anchorage for +Nan and me. My name is Caleb Brent. You're Mr. McKaye, aren't you?"</p> + +<p>The Laird nodded.</p> + +<p>"I had an idea, when I filled this spot in and built that bulkhead, +Mr. Brent, that some day this would make a safe anchorage for some of +my lumber. I planned a drying-yard here. What's that you're building, +Brent? A hen-house?"</p> + +<p>Caleb Brent flushed.</p> + +<p>"Why, no, sir. I'm making shift to build a home here for Nan and me."</p> + +<p>"Is this little one Nan?"</p> + +<p>The ragamuffin girl, her head slightly to one side, had been regarding +Hector McKaye with alert curiosity mingled with furtive apprehension. +As he glanced at her now, she remembered her manners and dropped him a +courtesy—an electric, half-defiant jerk that reminded The Laird of a +similar greeting customarily extended by squinch-owls.</p> + +<p>Nan was not particularly clean, and her one-piece dress, of heavy blue +navy-uniform cloth was old and worn and spotted. Over this dress she +wore a boy's coarse red-worsted sweater with white-pearl buttons. The +skin of her thin neck was fine and creamy; the calves, of her bare +brown legs were shapely, her feet small, her ankles dainty.</p> + +<p>With the quick eye of the student of character, this man, proud of his +own ancient lineage for all his humble beginning, noted that her +hands, though brown and uncared-for, were small and dimpled, with +long, delicate fingers. She had sea-blue eyes like Caleb Brent's, +and, like his, they were sad and wistful; a frowsy wilderness of +golden hair, very fine and held in confinement at the nape of her neck +by the simple expedient of a piece of twine, showed all too plainly +the lack of a mother's care.</p> + +<p>The Laird returned Nan's courtesy with a patronizing inclination of +his head.</p> + +<p>"Your granddaughter, I presume?" he addressed Caleb Brent.</p> + +<p>"No; my daughter, sir. I was forty when I married, and Nan came ten +years later. She's thirteen now, and her mother's been dead ten +years."</p> + +<p>Hector McKaye had an idea that the departed mother was probably just +as well, if not better, off, free of the battle for existence which +appeared to confront this futile old man and his elf of a daughter. He +glanced at the embryo shack under construction and, comparing it with +his own beautiful home on Tyee Head, he turned toward the bight. A +short distance off the bulkhead, he observed a staunch forty-foot +motor-cruiser at anchor. She would have been the better for a coat of +paint; undeniably she was of a piece with Caleb Brent and Nan, for, +like them, The Laird had never seen her before.</p> + +<p>"Yours?" he queried.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"You arrived in her, then?"</p> + +<p>"I did, sir. Nan and I came down from Bremerton in her, sir."</p> + +<p>The Laird owned many ships, and he noted the slurring of the "sir" as +only an old sailor can slur it. And there was a naval base at +Bremerton.</p> + +<p>"You're an old sailor, aren't you, Brent?" he pursued.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. I was retired a chief petty officer, sir. Thirty years' +continuous service, sir—and I was in the mercantile marine at +sixteen. I've served my time as a shipwright. Am—am I intruding here, +sir?"</p> + +<p>The Laird smiled, and followed the smile with a brief chuckle.</p> + +<p>"Well—yes and no. I haven't any title to this land you've elected to +occupy, although I created it. You see, I'm sort of lord of creation +around here. My people call me 'The Laird of Tyee,' and nobody but a +stranger would have had the courage to squat on the Sawdust Pile +without consulting me. What's your idea about it, Brent?"</p> + +<p>"I'll go if you want me to, sir."</p> + +<p>"I mean what's your idea if you stay? What do you expect to do for a +living?"</p> + +<p>"You will observe, sir, that I have fenced off only that portion of +the dump beyond high-water mark. That takes in about half of it—about +an acre and a half. Well, I thought I'd keep some chickens and raise +some garden truck. This silt will grow anything. And I have my launch, +and can do some towing, maybe, or take fishing parties out. I might +supply the town with fish. I understand you import your fish from +Seattle—and with the sea right here at your door."</p> + +<p>"I see. And you have your three-quarters pay as a retired chief petty +officer?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Anything in bank? I do not ask these personal questions, Brent, out +of mere idle curiosity. This is my town, you know, and there is no +poverty in it. I'm rather proud of that, so I—"</p> + +<p>"I understand, sir. That's why I came to Port Agnew. I saw your son +yesterday, and he said I could stay."</p> + +<p>"Oh! Well, that's all right, then. If Donald told you to stay, stay +you shall. Did he give you the Sawdust Pile?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; he did!"</p> + +<p>"Well, I had other plans for it, Brent; but since you're here, I'll +offer no objection."</p> + +<p>Nan now piped up.</p> + +<p>"We haven't any money in bank, Mr. Laird, but we have some saved up."</p> + +<p>"Indeed! That's encouraging. Where do you keep it?"</p> + +<p>"In the brown teapot in the galley. We've got a hundred and ten +dollars."</p> + +<p>"Well, my little lady, I think you might do well to take your hundred +and ten dollars out of the brown teapot in the galley and deposit it +in the Port Agnew bank. Suppose that motor-cruiser should spring a +leak and sink?"</p> + +<p>Nan smiled and shook her golden head in negation. They had beaten +round Cape Flattery in that boat, and she had confidence in it.</p> + +<p>"Would you know my boy if you should see him again, Nan?" The Laird +demanded suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, indeed, sir! He's such a nice boy."</p> + +<p>"I think, Nan, that if you asked him, he might help your father build +this house."</p> + +<p>"I'll see him this afternoon when he comes out of high school," Nan +declared.</p> + +<p>"You might call on Andrew Daney, my general manager," The Laird +continued, turning to Caleb Brent, "and make a dicker with him for +hauling our garbage-scow out to sea and dumping it. I observe that +your motor-boat is fitted with towing-bitts. We dump twice a week. And +you may have a monopoly on fresh fish if you desire it. We have no +fishermen here, because I do not care for Greeks and Sicilians in Port +Agnew. And they're about the only fishermen on this coast."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. McKaye."</p> + +<p>"Mind you don't abuse your monopoly. If you do, I'll take it away from +you."</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, sir. And I can have the Sawdust Pile, sir?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; since Donald gave it to you. However, I wish you'd tear down +that patchwork fence and replace it with a decent job the instant you +can afford it."</p> + +<p>"Ah, just wait," old Brent promised. "I know how to make things neat +and pretty and keep them shipshape. You just keep your eye on the +Sawdust Pile, sir." The old wind-bitten face flushed with pride; the +faded sea-blue eyes shone with joyous anticipation. "I've observed +your pride in your town, sir, and before I get through, I'll have a +prettier place than the best of them."</p> + +<p>A few days later, The Laird looked across the Bight of Tyee from his +home on Tyee Head, and through his marine glasses studied the Sawdust +Pile. He chuckled as he observed that the ramshackle shanty had +disappeared almost as soon as it had been started and in its place a +small cottage was being erected. There was a pile of lumber in the +yard—bright lumber, fresh from the saws—and old Caleb Brent and the +motherless Nan were being assisted by two carpenters on the Tyee +Lumber Company's pay-roll.</p> + +<p>When Donald came home from school that night, The Laird asked him +about the inhabitants of the Sawdust Pile with relation to the lumber +and the two carpenters.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I made a trade with Mr. Brent and Nan. I'm to furnish the lumber +and furniture for the house, and those two carpenters weren't very +busy, so Mr. Daney told me I could have them to help out. In return, +Mr. Brent is going to build me a sloop and teach me how to sail it."</p> + +<p>The Laird nodded.</p> + +<p>"When his little home is completed, Donald," he suggested presently, +"you might take old Brent and his girl over to our old house in town +and let them have what furniture they require. See if you cannot +manage to saw off some of your mother's antiques on them," added +whimsically. "By the way, what kind of shanty is old Brent going to +build?"</p> + +<p>"A square house with five rooms and a cupola fitted up like a +pilot-house. There's to be a flagpole on the cupola, and Nan says +they'll have colors every night and morning. That means that you hoist +the flag in the morning and salute it, and when you haul it down at +night, you salute it again. They do that up at the Bremerton +navy-yard."</p> + +<p>"That's rather a nice, sentimental idea," Hector McKaye replied. "I +rather like old Brent and his girl for that. We Americans are too +prone to take our flag and what it stands for rather lightly."</p> + +<p>"Nan wants me to have colors up here, too," Donald continued. "Then +she can see our flag, and we can see theirs across the bight."</p> + +<p>"All right," The Laird answered heartily, for he was always profoundly +interested in anything that interested his boy. "I'll have the woods +boss get out a nice young cedar with, say, a twelve-inch butt, and +we'll make it into a flagpole."</p> + +<p>"If we're going to do the job navy-fashion, we ought to fire a sunrise +and sunset gun," Donald suggested with all the enthusiasm of his +sixteen years.</p> + +<p>"Well, I think we can afford that, too, Donald."</p> + +<p>Thus it came about that the little brass cannon was installed on its +concrete base on the cliff. And when the flagpole had been erected, +old Caleb Brent came up one day, built a little mound of smooth, +sea-washed cobblestones round the base, and whitewashed them. +Evidently he was a prideful little man, and liked to see things done +in a seamanlike manner. And presently it became a habit with The Laird +to watch night and morning, for the little pin-prick of color to +flutter forth from the house on the Sawdust Pile, and if his own +colors did not break forth on the instant and the little cannon boom +from the cliff, he was annoyed and demanded an explanation.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='III'></a><h2>III</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Hector McKaye and his close-mouthed general manager, Andrew Daney, +were the only persons who knew the extent of The Laird's fortune. Even +their knowledge was approximate, however, for The Laird disliked to +delude himself, and carried on his books at their cost-price +properties which had appreciated tremendously in value since their +purchase. The knowledge of his wealth brought to McKaye a goodly +measure of happiness—not because he was of Scottish ancestry and had +inherited a love for his baubees, but because he was descended from a +fierce, proud Scottish clan and wealth spelled independence to him and +his.</p> + +<p>The Laird would have filled his cup of happiness to overflowing had he +married a less mediocre woman or had he raised his daughters as he had +his son. The girls' upbringing had been left entirely in their +mother's hands. Not so with young Donald, however—wherefore it was a +byword in Port Agnew that Donald was his father's son, a veritable +chip of the old block.</p> + +<p>By some uncanny alchemy, hard cash appears to soften the heads and +relax the muscles of rich men's sons—at least, such had been old +Hector's observation, and on the instant that he first gazed upon the +face of his son, there had been born in him a mighty resolve that, +come what might, he would not have it said of him that he had made a +fool of his boy. And throughout the glad years of his fatherhood, with +the stern piety of his race and his faith, he had knelt night and +morning beside his bed and prayed his God to help him not to make a +fool of Donald—to keep Donald from making a fool of himself.</p> + +<p>When Donald entered Princeton, his father decided upon an experiment. +He had raised his boy right, and trained him for the race of life, and +now The Laird felt that, like a thoroughbred horse, his son faced the +barrier. Would he make the run, or would he, in the parlance of the +sporting world, "dog it?" Would his four years at a great American +university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a +snob and a drone?</p> + +<p>With characteristic courage, The Laird decided to give him ample +opportunity to become either, for, as old Hector remarked to Andrew +Daney: "If the lad's the McKaye I think he is, nothing can harm him. +On the other hand, if I'm mistaken, I want to know it in time, for my +money and my Port Agnew Lumber Company is a trust, and if he can't +handle it, I'll leave it to the men who can—who've helped me create +it—and Donald shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Tools," +he added, "belong to the men that can use them."</p> + +<p>When Donald started East for college, old Hector accompanied him as +far as Seattle. On the way up, there was some man-talk between them. +In his youth, old Hector had not been an angel, which is to state that +he had been a lumberjack. He knew men and the passions that beset +them—particularly when they are young and lusty—and he was far from +being a prude. He expected his son to raise a certain amount of wild +oats; nay, he desired it, for full well he knew that when the fires +of youth are quenched, they are liable to flare disgracefully in +middle life or old age.</p> + +<p>"Never pig it, my son," was his final admonition. "Raise hell if you +must, but if you love your old father, be a gentleman about it. You've +sprung from a clan o' men, not mollycoddles."</p> + +<p>"Hence the expression: 'When Hector was a pup,'" Donald replied +laughingly. "Well, I'll do my best, father—only, if I stub my toe, +you mustn't be too hard on me. Remember, please, that I'm only half +Scotch."</p> + +<p>At parting, The Laird handed his son a check for twenty-five thousand +dollars.</p> + +<p>"This is the first year's allowance, Donald," he informed the boy +gravely. "It should not require more than a hundred thousand dollars +to educate a son of mine, and you must finish in four years. I would +not care to think you dull or lazy."</p> + +<p>"Do you wish an accounting, father?"</p> + +<p>The Laird shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, my son. I'll read the +accounting in your eye when you come back to Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said young Donald.</p> + +<p>At the end of four years, Donald graduated, an honor-man in all his +studies, and in the lobby of the gymnasium, where the athletic heroes +of Princeton leave their record to posterity, Hector McKaye read his +son's name, for, of course, he was there for commencement. Then they +spent a week together in New York, following which old Hector +announced that one week of New York was about all he could stand. The +tall timber was calling for him.</p> + +<p>"Hoot, mon!" Donald protested gaily. He was a perfect mimic of Sir +Harry Lauder at his broadest. "Y'eve nae had a bit holiday in all yer +life. Wha' spier ye, Hector McKaye, to a trip aroond the worl', wi' a +wee visit tae the auld clan in the Hielands?"</p> + +<p>"Will you come with me, son?" The Laird inquired eagerly.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not! You shall come with me. This is to be my party."</p> + +<p>"Can you stand the pressure? I'm liable to prove an expensive +traveling companion."</p> + +<p>"Well, there's something radically wrong with both of us if we can't +get by on two hundred thousand dollars, dad."</p> + +<p>The Laird started, and then his Scotch sense of humor—and, for all +the famed wit of the Irish, no humor on earth is so unctuous as that +of the Scotch—commenced to bubble up. He suspected a joke on himself +and was prepared to meet it.</p> + +<p>"Will you demand an accounting, my son?"</p> + +<p>Donald shook his head.</p> + +<p>"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, father, I'll read the +accounting in your eye when you get back to Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"You braw big scoundrel! You've been up to something. Tell it me, man, +or I'll die wi' the suspense of it."</p> + +<p>"Well," Donald replied, "I lived on twenty-five hundred a year in +college and led a happy life. I had a heap of fun, and nothing went by +me so fast that I didn't at least get a tail-feather. My college +education, therefore, cost me ten thousand dollars, and I managed to +squeeze a roadster automobile into that, also. With the remaining +ninety thousand, I took a flier in thirty-nine hundred acres of red +cedar up the Wiskah River. I paid for it on the instalment plan +—yearly payments secured by first mortgage at six per cent., and——"</p> + +<p>"Who cruised it for you?" The Laird almost shouted. "I'll trust no +cruiser but my own David McGregor."</p> + +<p>"I realized that, so I engaged Dave for the job. You will recall that +he and I took a two months' camping-trip after my first year in +Princeton. It cruised eighty thousand feet to the acre, and I paid two +dollars and a half per thousand for it. Of course, we didn't succeed +in cruising half of it, but we rode through the remainder, and it all +averaged up very nicely. And I saw a former cruise of it made by a +disinterested cruiser——"</p> + +<p>The Laird had been doing mental arithmetic.</p> + +<p>"It cost you seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars—and you've +paid ninety thousand, principal and interest, on account. Why, you +didn't have the customary ten per cent, of the purchase-price as an +initial payment!"</p> + +<p>"The owner was anxious to sell. Besides, he knew I was your son, and I +suppose he concluded that, after getting ninety thousand dollars out +of me at the end of three years, you'd have to come to my rescue when +the balance fell due—in a lump. If you didn't, of course he could +foreclose."</p> + +<p>"I'll save you, my son. It was a good deal—a splendid deal!"</p> + +<p>"You do not have to, dad. I've sold it—at a profit of an even two +hundred thousand dollars!"</p> + +<p>"Lad, why did you do it? Why didn't you take me into your confidence? +That cedar is worth three and a half. In a few years, 'twill be worth +five."</p> + +<p>"I realized that, father, but—a bird in the hand is worth two in the +bush—and I'm a proud sort of devil. I didn't want to run to you for +help on my first deal, even though I knew you'd come to my rescue and +ask no questions. You've always told me to beware of asking favors, +you know. Moreover, I had a very friendly feeling toward the man I +sold my red cedar to; I hated to stick him too deeply."</p> + +<p>"You were entitled to your profit, Donald. 'Twas business. You should +have taken it. Ah, lad, if you only knew the terrible four years I've +paid for yon red-cedar!"</p> + +<p>"You mean the suspense of not knowing how I was spending my +allowance?"</p> + +<p>The Laird nodded.</p> + +<p>"Curiosity killed a cat, my son, and I'm not as young as I used to +be."</p> + +<p>"I had thought you'd have read the accounting in my eye. Take another +look, Hector McKaye." And Donald thrust his smiling countenance close +to his father's.</p> + +<p>"I see naught in your eye but deviltry and jokes."</p> + +<p>"None are so blind as they that will not see. If you see a joke, dad, +it's on you."</p> + +<p>Old Hector blinked, then suddenly he sprang at his son, grasped him by +the shoulders, and backed him against the wall.</p> + +<p>"Did you sell me that red cedar?" he demanded incredulously.</p> + +<p>"Aye, mon; through an agent," Donald burred Scottishly. "A' did nae +ha' the heart tae stick my faither sae deep for a bit skulin'. A'm a +prood man, Hector McKaye; a'll nae take a grrand eeducashun at sic a +price. 'Tis nae Christian."</p> + +<p>"Ah, my bonny bairn!" old Hector murmured happily, and drew his fine +son to his heart. "What a grand joke to play on your puir old father! +Och, mon, was there ever a lad like mine?"</p> + +<p>"I knew you'd buy that timber for an investment if I offered it cheap +enough," Donald explained. "Besides, I owed you a poke. You wanted to +be certain you hadn't reared a jackass instead of a man, so you gave +me a hundred thousand dollars and stood by to see what I'd do with +it—didn't you, old Scotty?" Hector nodded a trifle guiltily. "Andrew +Daney wrote me you swore by all your Highland clan that the man who +sold you that red cedar was ripe for the fool-killer."</p> + +<p>"Tush, tush!" The Laird protested. "You're getting personal now. I +dislike to appear inquisitive, but might I ask what you've done with +your two hundred thousand profit?"</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, dad, I would have felt a trifle guilty had I kept it, +so I blew it all in on good, conservative United States bonds, +registered them in your name, and sent them to Daney to hide in your +vault at Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"Ah, well, red cedar or bonds, 'twill all come back to you some day, +sonny. The real profit's in the fun—"</p> + +<p>"And the knowledge that I'm not a fool—eh, father?"</p> + +<p>Father love supernal gleamed in The Laird's fine gray eyes.</p> + +<p>"Were you a fool, my son, and all that I have in the world would cure +you if thrown into the Bight of Tyee, I'd gladly throw it and take up +my life where I began it—with pike-pole and peavy, double-bitted ax, +and cross-cut saw. However, since you're not a fool, I intend to +continue to enjoy my son. We'll go around the world together."</p> + +<p>Thus did the experiment end. At least, Donald thought so. But when he +left the hotel a few minutes later to book two passages to Europe, The +Laird of Tyee suddenly remembered that thanks were due his +Presbyterian God. So he slid to his old knees beside his bed and +murmured:</p> + +<p>"Lord, I thank thee! For the sake of thine own martyred Son, set +angels to guard him and lead him in the path of manly honor that comes +at last to thy kingdom. Amen."</p> + +<p>Then he wired Andrew Daney a long telegram of instructions and a stiff +raise in salary.</p> + +<p>"The boy has a head like a tar-bucket," he concluded. "Everything I +ever put into it has stuck. We are going to frolic round the world +together, and we will be home when we get back."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='IV'></a><h2>IV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Donald was twenty-four and The Laird fifty-eight when the pair +returned from their frolic round the world—Donald to take up this +father's labors, The Laird to lay them aside and retire to The +Dreamerie and the books he had accumulated against this happy +afterglow of a busy and fruitful life.</p> + +<p>Donald's mother and sisters were at The Dreamerie the night the father +and son arrived. Of late years, they had spent less and less of their +time there. The Laird had never protested, for he could not blame them +for wearying of a little backwoods sawmill town like Port Agnew.</p> + +<p>With his ability to think calmly, clearly, and unselfishly, he had +long since realized that eventually his girls must marry; now +Elizabeth was twenty-six and Jane twenty-eight, and Mrs. McKaye was +beginning to be greatly concerned for their future. Since The Laird +had built The Dreamerie in opposition to their wishes, they had spent +less than six months in each year at Port Agnew. And these visits had +been scattered throughout the year. They had traveled much, and, when +not traveling, they lived in the Seattle house and were rather busy +socially. Despite his devotion to his business, however, The Laird +found time to spend at least one week in each month with them in +Seattle, in addition to the frequent business trips which took him +there.</p> + +<p>That night of his home-coming was the happiest The Laird had ever +known, for it marked the culmination of his lifetime of labor and +dreams. Long after his wife and the girls had retired, he and Donald +sat in the comfortable living-room, smoking and discussing plans for +the future, until presently, these matters having been discussed +fully, there fell a silence between them, to be broken presently by +The Laird.</p> + +<p>"I'm wondering, Donald, if you haven't met some bonny lass you'd like +to bring home to Port Agnew. You realize, of course, that there's room +on Tyee Head for another Dreamerie, although I built this one for +you—and her."</p> + +<p>"There'll be no other house on Tyee Head, father," Donald answered, +"unless you care to build one for mother and the girls. The wife that +I'll bring home to Port Agnew will not object to my father in my +house." He smiled and added, "You're not at all hard to get along +with, you know."</p> + +<p>The Laird's eyes glistened.</p> + +<p>"Have you found her yet, my son?"</p> + +<p>Donald shook his head in negation.</p> + +<p>"Then look for her," old Hector ordered. "I have no doubt that, when +you find her, she'll be worthy of you. I'm at an age now when a man +looks no longer into the future but dwells in the past, and it's hard +for me to think of you, big man that you are, as anything save a wee +laddie trotting at my side. Now, if I had a grandson—"</p> + +<p>When, presently, Donald bade him good-night, Hector McKaye turned off +the lights and sat in the dark, gazing down across the moonlit Bight +of Tyee to the sparks that flew upward from the stacks of his sawmill +in Port Agnew, for they were running a night shift. And, as he gazed, +he thrilled, with a fierce pride and a joy that was almost pain, in +the knowledge that he had reared a merchant prince for this, his +principality of Tyee.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='V'></a><h2>V</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Hector McKaye had always leaned toward the notion that he could run +Port Agnew better than a mayor and a town council, in addition to +deriving some fun out of it; consequently, Port Agnew had never been +incorporated. And this was an issue it was not deemed wise to press, +for The Tyee Lumber Company owned every house and lot in town, and +Hector McKaye owned every share of stock in the Tyee Lumber Company.</p> + +<p>If he was a sort of feudal baron, he was a gentle and kindly one; +large building-plots, pretty little bungalows, cheap rentals, and no +taxation constituted a social condition that few desired to change. As +these few developed and The Laird discovered them, their positions in +his employ, were forfeited, their rents raised, or their leases +canceled, and presently Port Agnew knew them no more. He paid fair +wages, worked his men nine hours, and employed none but naturalized +Americans, with a noticeable predilection for those of Scotch nativity +or ancestry.</p> + +<p>Strikes or lockouts were unknown in Port Agnew—likewise saloons. +Unlike most sawmill towns of that period, Port Agnew had no street in +which children were forbidden to play or which mothers taught their +daughters to avoid. Once an I.W.W. organizer came to town, and upon +being ordered out and refusing to go, The Laird, then past fifty, had +ducked him in the Skookum until he changed his mind.</p> + +<p>The Tyee Lumber Company owned and operated the local telephone +company, the butcher shop, the general store, the hotel, a +motion-picture theater, a town hall, the bank, and the +electric-light-and-power plant, and with the profits from these +enterprises, Port Agnew had paved streets, sidewalks lined with +handsome electroliers, and a sewer system. It was an admirable little +sawmill town, and if the expenses of maintaining it exceeded the +income, The Laird met the deficit and assumed all the worry, for he +wanted his people to be happy and prosperous beyond all others.</p> + +<p>It pleased Hector McKaye to make an occasion of his abdication and +Donald's accession to the presidency of the Tyee Lumber Company. The +Dreamerie was not sufficiently large for his purpose, however, for he +planned to entertain all of his subjects at a dinner and make formal +announcement of the change. So he gave a barbecue in a grove of maples +on the edge of the town. His people received in silence the little +speech he made them, for they were loath to lose The Laird. They knew +him, while Donald they had not known for five years, and there were +many who feared that the East might have changed him. Consequently, +when his father called him up to the little platform from which he +spoke, they received the young laird in silence also.</p> + +<p>"Folks—my own home folks," Donald began, "to-day I formally take up +the task that was ordained for me at birth. I am going to be very +happy doing for you and for myself. I shall never be the man my father +is; but if you will take me to your hearts and trust me as you have +trusted him, I'll never go back on you, for I expect to live and to +die in Port Agnew, and, while I live, I want to be happy with you. I +would have you say of me, when I am gone, that I was the worthy son +of a worthy sire." He paused and looked out over the eager, upturned +faces of the men, women, and children whose destinies he held in the +hollow of his hand. "My dear friends, there aren't going to be any +changes," he finished, and stepped down off the platform.</p> + +<p>From the heart of the crowd a lumberjack cried, "Ya-hoo-o-o-o-o!" as +only a lusty lumberjack can cry it. "He's a chip of the old block!" +cried another, and there were cheers and some tears and a general rush +forward to greet the new master, to shake his hand, and pledge +allegiance to him.</p> + +<p>When the reception was over, old Hector took charge of the homely +games and athletic contests, and the day's delights culminated in a +log-burling contest in the Skookum, in which the young laird +participated. When, eventually, he fell in the river and was counted +out, old Hector donned his son's calked boots and, with a whoop such +as he had not emitted in forty years, entered the lists against the +young fellows. In the old days in the Michigan woods, when burling was +considered a magnificent art of the lumberjack, he had been a +champion, and for five minutes he spun his log until the water foamed, +crossing and recrossing the river and winning the contest unanimously. +From the bank, Mrs. McKaye and his daughters watched him with +well-bred amusement and secret disapproval. They could never forget, +as he could, that he was The Laird of Tyee; they preferred more +dignity in the head of the house.</p> + +<p>The McKaye family drove home along the cliff road at sunset. Young +Donald paused on the terrace before entering the house, and, stirred +by some half-forgotten memory, he glanced across the bight to the +little white house far below on the Sawdust Pile. The flag was +floating from the cupola, but even as he looked, it came fluttering +down.</p> + +<p>Donald turned toward the McKaye flag. It was still floating. "The old +order changeth," he soliloquized, and hauled it down, at the same time +shouting to his father within the house:</p> + +<p>"Hey, dad; fire the sunset gun!"</p> + +<p>The Laird pressed the button and the cannon boomed.</p> + +<p>"We've neglected that little ceremony since you've been away," he +remarked, as Donald entered the room. "'Other times, other customs,' I +dare say."</p> + +<p>He hurried up-stairs to dress for dinner (a formality which he +disliked, but which appeared to please his wife and daughters), and +Donald took his father's binoculars and went out on the terrace. It +had occurred to him that he had not seen old Caleb Brent and Nan at +the barbecue, and he wondered why. Through the glasses, he could make +out the figure of a woman in the cupola window, and she was watching +him through a long marine telescope.</p> + +<p>"There's my old friend Nan, grown to womanhood," Donald soliloquized, +and waved his arm at her. Through the glasses, he saw her wave back at +him.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VI'></a><h2>VI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The morning after the barbecue, Donald McKaye reported at eight +o'clock to his father's faithful old general manager, Andrew Daney. +Daney had grown gray in his father's service, and it was no part of +Donald's plans to assign him to a back seat.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Daney," he inquired affably, "what are your plans for the +new hired man?"</p> + +<p>Old Daney looked up quizzically.</p> + +<p>"You do the planning here, Don," he replied.</p> + +<p>"You heard me say yesterday that there would be no changes, Mr. Daney. +Of course, I haven't grown up in Port Agnew without learning something +of my heritage, but, in view of the fact that I still have +considerable to learn, suppose you indicate just where I ought to +start."</p> + +<p>Daney was pleased at a deference he had not anticipated.</p> + +<p>"Start in the woods," he replied. "That's where your daddy started. +Felling timber and handling it is rather a fine art, Don. I'd wrestle +logs for a month and follow them down the Skookum to the log boom. +Then I'd put in six months in the mill and six more in the factory, +following it with three months on the dock, tallying, and three months +of a hand-shaking tour out among the trade. After that, you may sit in +at your father's desk, and I'll gradually break you in to his job."</p> + +<p>"That's a grand idea, and I'll act on it," Donald declared.</p> + +<p>"Well, it's too late to act on it to-day, Don. The up-river launch to +the logging-camp left at seven o'clock. However, I have a job for you. +We really need the Sawdust Pile for an extension of our drying-yard. +Our present yard lies right under the lee of that ridge of which Tyee +Head is an extension, and it's practically noon before the sun gets a +fair chance at it. The Sawdust Pile gets the sun all day long, and the +winds have an uninterrupted sweep across it. We can dry our cedar +decking there in half the time it requires now."</p> + +<p>"But the Sawdust Pile is—"</p> + +<p>"A rat's nest, Don. There are a number of other shacks there now—some +Greek fishermen, a negro, and a couple of women from the overflow of +Tyee. It ought to be cleaned out."</p> + +<p>"I noticed those shacks last night, Mr. Daney, and I agree with you +that they should go. But I haven't the heart to run old Caleb Brent +off the Sawdust Pile. I gave it to him, you know."</p> + +<p>"Well, let Brent stay there. He's too old and crippled with rheumatism +to attend to his truck-garden any more; so if you leave him the space +for his house and a chicken-yard, he'll be satisfied. In fact, I have +discussed the proposition with him, and he is agreeable."</p> + +<p>"Why did dad permit those other people to crowd him, Mr. Daney?"</p> + +<p>"While your father was in Europe with you, they horned in, claimed a +squatter's right, and stood pat. Old Brent was defenseless, and while +the boys from the mill would have cleaned them out if I had given the +word, the Greeks and the negro were defiant, and it meant bloodshed. +So I have permitted the matter to rest until your father's return."</p> + +<p>Donald reached for his hat.</p> + +<p>"Caleb Brent's squatter-right to that Sawdust Pile is going to be +upheld," he declared. "I'll clean that colony out before sunset, or +they'll clean me."</p> + +<p>"I'd proceed cautiously if I were you, Don. They have a host of +friends up in Darrow, and we mustn't precipitate a feud."</p> + +<p>"I'm going over now and serve notice on them to vacate immediately." +He grinned at old Daney. "A negro, a handful of Greeks, and those +unfortunate women can't bluff the boss of Port Agnew, Mr. Daney."</p> + +<p>"They tell me there's a blind pig down there, also."</p> + +<p>"It will not be there after to-day," Donald answered lightly, and +departed for the Sawdust Pile.</p> + +<p>As he came up to the gate in the neat fence Caleb Brent had built +across the Sawdust Pile nine years before, a baby boy, of perhaps +three years of age, rose out of the weeds in which he had been playing +and regarded the visitor expectantly.</p> + +<p>"Hello, bub!" the young laird of Tyee greeted the child.</p> + +<p>"Hello!" came the piping answer. "Are you my daddy?"</p> + +<p>"Why, no, Snickelfritz." He ran his fingers through the tot's golden +hair. "Don't you know your own daddy?"</p> + +<p>"I haven't any daddy," the child drawled.</p> + +<p>"No? Well, that's unfortunate." Donald stooped and lifted the tike to +his shoulder, marveling the while that such a cherub could be the +product of any of the denizens of the Sawdust Pile. At once, the boy's +arms went round his neck and a velvet cheek was laid close to his. +"You're an affectionate little snooks, aren't you?" Donald commented. +"Do you live here?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir."</p> + +<p>"Somebody's been teaching you manners. Whose little boy are you?"</p> + +<p>"Muvver's."</p> + +<p>"And who might mother be?"</p> + +<p>"Nan Brent."</p> + +<p>"Yo-ho! So you're Nan Brent's boy! What's your name?"</p> + +<p>"Donald Brent."</p> + +<p>"No; that isn't it, son. Brent is your mother's name. Tell me your +father's name."</p> + +<p>"Ain't got no farver."</p> + +<p>"Well then, run along to your mother."</p> + +<p>He kissed the child and set him down just as a young woman came down +the sadly neglected shell walk from Caleb Brent's little white house. +Donald opened the gate and advanced to meet her.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure you must be Nan," he said, "although I can't be certain. I +haven't seen Nan in six years."</p> + +<p>She extended her hand</p> + +<p>"Yes; I'm Nan," she replied, "and you're Donald McKaye. You're a man +now, but somehow you haven't changed greatly."</p> + +<p>"It's fine to meet you again, Nan." He shook her hand +enthusiastically.</p> + +<p>She smiled a little sadly.</p> + +<p>"I saw you at colors last night, Donald. When your flag came down and +the gun was fired, I knew you'd remembered."</p> + +<p>"Were you glad?" he demanded, and immediately wondered why he had +asked such a childish question.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was, Donald. It has been a long time since—since—the gun has +been fired—for me. So long since we were children, Donald."</p> + +<p>"You weren't at the barbecue yesterday. I missed you and Caleb. You +two are very old friends of mine, Nan. Was it quite loyal of you to +stay home?"</p> + +<p>"You're the only person that missed us, Donald," she answered, with +just the suspicion of a tremor in her sweet voice. "But, then, we are +accustomed to being left out of things."</p> + +<p>He made no effort to formulate an answer to this. Truth does not +require an answer. Yet he was sensible of a distinct feeling of +sympathy for her, and, manlike, he decided to change the topic of +conversation.</p> + +<p>"You have neighbors on the Sawdust Pile, Nan."</p> + +<p>"Yes. They came when The Laird was in Europe."</p> + +<p>"They would never have dared it had he been in Port Agnew. I'm +surprised that Andrew Daney permitted it. I had thought of him as a +man of courage, but, strange to say, these people outgamed him."</p> + +<p>"They didn't outgame him, Donald. He just didn't care. I—I—fancy he +concluded they would make agreeable neighbors—for me."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Nan. However, I'm the new laird of Tyee, and I've come +down to stage an eviction. I didn't know of this state of affairs +until this morning."</p> + +<p>She smiled a little wistfully and bitterly.</p> + +<p>"I had flattered myself, Donald, you had called to visit your old +friends instead. When you waved at me last night, I—oh, you can't +realize how happy it made me to know that <i>you</i> had noticed me—that +you really were big enough to be the big man of Port Agnew. And I +thought perhaps you would come because of that."</p> + +<p>He smiled tolerantly upon her.</p> + +<p>"Something has occurred to make you bitter, Nan. You're not like the +girl I used to know before I went away to school. If it will help to +restore me to your previous good opinion, however, please believe that +when I waved at you last night, simultaneously I made up my mind to +make an early visit to the Sawdust Pile. The discovery that these +cattle have intruded upon you and your old father, because you were +unable to defend yourselves and no one in Port Agnew would defend you, +merely hastened my visit. I couldn't in decency come any earlier; +could I, Nan? It's just half after eight. And if you're going to keep +me standing at the gate, as if I were a sewing-machine agent instead +of a very old friend, I <i>may</i> conclude to take offense and regret that +I called."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm sorry! Please forgive me, Donald. I'm so much alone—so very +lonely—I suppose I grow suspicious of people and their motives."</p> + +<p>"Say no more about it, Nan. May I come in, then, to greet Caleb and +your husband?"</p> + +<p>"Father is in the house. I'll call him out, Donald. As for my +husband—" She hesitated, glanced out across the bight, and then +resolutely faced him. "You cannot have heard all of the town gossip, +then?"</p> + +<p>"I hadn't even heard of your marriage. The first I knew of it was when +his little nibs here hailed me, and asked me if I was his father. +Then he informed me he was your boy. He's a lovely child, Nan, and I +have been the recipient of some of his extremely moist kisses."</p> + +<p>She realized that he was too courteous to ask whether her husband was +dead or if there had been a divorce.</p> + +<p>"I'm rather glad you haven't heard, Donald," she replied evenly. "I +much prefer to tell you myself; then you will understand why I cannot +invite you into our house, and why you must not be seen talking to me +here at the gate. I am not married. I have never been married. My +baby's name is—Brent, and I call him Donald, after the only male +human being that has ever been truly kind to my father and me."</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Donald quietly, "so that's why he misses his father and +appears to want one so very much."</p> + +<p>She gazed forlornly out to sea and answered with a brief nod. +Seemingly she had long since ceased to be tragic over her pitiful +tragedy.</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied philosophically, "life is quite filled with a +number of things, and some of them make for great unhappiness." He +stooped and lifted the baby in his great arms. "You're named after me, +sonny; so I think I'll try to fill the gap and make you happy. Do you +mind, Nan, if I try my hand at foster-fathering? I like children. This +little man starts life under a handicap, but I'll see to it that he +gets his chance in life—far from Port Agnew, if you desire." She +closed her eyes in sudden pain and did not answer. "And whatever your +opinion on the matter may be, Nan," he went on, "even had I known +yesterday of your sorrow, I should have called to-day just the same."</p> + +<p>"You call it my 'sorrow!'" she burst forth passionately. "Others call +it my trouble—my sin—my disgrace."</p> + +<p>"And what does Caleb call it, Nan?"</p> + +<p>"He doesn't call it, Donald. It hasn't appeared to make any difference +with him. I'm still—his little girl."</p> + +<p>"Well, I cannot regard you as anything but a little girl—the same +little girl that used to help Caleb and me sail the sloop. I don't +wish to know anything about your sorrow, or your trouble, or your +disgrace, or your sin, or whatever folks may choose to call it. I just +want you to know that I know that you're a good woman, and when the +spirit moves me—which will be frequently, now that I have this young +man to look after—I shall converse with you at your front gate and +visit you and your decent old father in this little house, and be +damned to those that decry it. I am the young laird of Tyee. My father +raised me to be a gentleman, and, by the gods, I'll be one! Now, Nan, +take the boy and go in the house, because I see a rascally negro in +the doorway of that shack yonder, and I have a matter to discuss with +him. Is that white woman his consort?"</p> + +<p>Nan nodded again. She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart +was full to overflowing.</p> + +<p>"Come here—you!" Donald called to the negro. The fellow slouched +forth defiantly. He was a giant mulatto, and his freckled face wore an +evil and contemptuous grin.</p> + +<p>"I'm Donald McKaye," Donald informed him. "I'm the new laird of Tyee. +I want you and that woman to pack up and leave."</p> + +<p>"How soon, boss?"</p> + +<p>"Immediately." Anticipating a refusal, Donald stepped closer to the +mulatto and looked him sternly in the eye.</p> + +<p>"We-ll, is dat so?" the yellow rascal drawled. "So youh-all's de new +la'rd, eh? Well, ah'm de king o' de Sawdust Pile, an' mah house is mah +castle. Git dat, Mistah La'rd?"</p> + +<p>Donald turned toward Nan.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to have trouble here, Nan. Please go in the house."</p> + +<p>"Proceed," she replied simply. "I have a most unwomanly and unladylike +desire to see that beast manhandled."</p> + +<p>Donald turned, in time to go under a sizzling right-hand blow from the +mulatto and come up with a right uppercut to the ugly, freckled face +and a left rip to the mulatto's midriff. The fellow grunted, and a +spasm of pain crossed his countenance. "You yellow dog!" Donald +muttered, and flattened his nose far flatter than his mammy had ever +wiped it. The enemy promptly backed away and covered; a hearty thump +in the solar plexus made him uncover, and under a rain of blows on the +chin and jaw, he sprawled unconscious on the ground.</p> + +<p>Donald left him lying there and stepped to the door of the shack. The +frightened drab within spat curses at him.</p> + +<p>"Pack and go!" he ordered. "Within the hour, I'm going to purge the +Sawdust Pile with fire; if you stay in the house, you'll burn with +it."</p> + +<p>She was ready in ten minutes. Three more of her kind occupying an +adjacent shack begged to be allowed time in which to load their +personal possessions in an express-wagon. The four Greeks were just +about to set out for a day's fishing, but, having witnessed the defeat +of the mulatto bully, the fever of the hegira seized them also. They +loaded their effects in the fishing-launch, and chugged away up river +to Darrow, crying curses upon the young laird of Tyee and promising +reprisal.</p> + +<p>Donald waited until the last of the refugees had departed before +setting fire to the shacks. Then he stood by old Caleb Brent's house, +a circle of filled buckets around him, and watched in case the wind +should suddenly shift and shower sparks upon the roof. In half an hour +the Sawdust Pile had reverted to its old status and a throng of +curious townspeople who, attracted by the flames and smoke, had +clustered outside Caleb Brent's gate to watch Donald at work, finally +despaired of particulars and scattered when they saw Donald and Nan +Brent enter the house.</p> + +<p>Caleb Brent, looking twenty years older than when Donald had seen him +last, sat in an easy chair by the window, gazing with lack-luster eyes +out across the bight. He was hopelessly crippled with rheumatism, and +his sea-blue eyes still held the same lost-dog wistfulness.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Caleb!" Donald greeted him cordially. "I've just cleaned up +the Sawdust Pile for you. You're back in undisputed possession again."</p> + +<p>He shook hands with old Caleb and sat down in a chair which Nan drew +up for him.</p> + +<p>"It's good of you to call, Mr. Donald," the old man piped. "But isn't +that just like him, Nan?" he demanded. "Many's the day—aye, and the +night, too, for of late the nights have been bad here—we've thought +of you, sir, and wished you were back in Port Agnew. We knew what +would happen to those scoundrels when Mr. Donald got around to it." +And he laughed the asthmatic, contented chuckle of the aged as Nan +related briefly the story of Donald's recent activities.</p> + +<p>Their conversation which followed was mostly of a reminiscent +character—recollections of boat-races in the bight, fishing +excursions off the coast, clambakes, hew boats, a dog which Donald had +given Nan when he left for prep school and which had since died of old +age. And all the while Nan Brent's child stood by Donald's knee, +gazing up at him adoringly.</p> + +<p>During a lull in the conversation, he created some slight +embarrassment by reiterating his belief that this strange man must be +his father, and appealed to his mother for verification of his +suspicions.</p> + +<p>Poor child! His baby mind had but lately grasped the fact that for him +there was something missing in the scheme of life, and, to silence his +persistent questioning, Nan had told him that some day his father +would come to see them; whereupon, with the calm faith of innocence, +he had posted himself at the front gate, to be in position to receive +this beloved missing one when the latter should appear. Donald +skilfully diverted the child's mind from this all-consuming topic by +sliding the boy down to his foot and permitting him to swing gently +there.</p> + +<p>Presently Nan excused herself, for the purpose of looking after the +embers of Donald's recent raid. The instant the door closed behind +her, old Caleb Brent looked across at his visitor.</p> + +<p>"You've heard—of course, Mr. Donald?" he queried, with a slight +inclination of his head toward the door through which his daughter had +disappeared.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Caleb. Misfortune comes in various guises."</p> + +<p>"I would I could die," the pitiful old fellow whispered. "I will, +soon, but, oh, what will my poor darling do then, Mr. Donald? After we +first came here, I was that prosperous, sir, you wouldn't believe it. +I gave Nan a good schooling, piano lessons, and fine dresses. We lived +well, and yet we put by a thousand dollars in six years. But that's +gone now, what with the expenses when the baby came, and my sickness +that's prevented me from working. Thank God, sir, I have my +three-quarter pay. It isn't much, but we're rent-free, and fuel costs +us nothing, what with driftwood and the waste from Darrow that comes +down the river. Nan has a bit of a kitchen-garden and a few +chickens—so we make out. But when I die, my navy-pay stops."</p> + +<p>He paused, too profoundly moved by consideration of the destitution +that would face Nan and her nameless boy to voice the situation in +words. But he looked up at Donald McKaye, and the latter saw again +that wistful look in his sea-blue eyes—the dumb pleading of a kind +old lost dog. He thought of the thirty-eight-foot sloop old Caleb had +built him—a thing of beauty and wondrously seaworthy; or the sense of +obligation which had caused old Brent to make of the task a labor of +love; of the long, lazy, happy days when, with Caleb and Nan for his +crew, he had raced out of the bight twenty miles to sea and back +again, for the sheer delight of driving his lee rail under until Nan +cried out in apprehension.</p> + +<p>Poor, sweet, sad Nan Brent! Donald had known her through so many years +of gentleness and innocence—and she had come to this! He was consumed +with pity for her. She had fallen, but—there were depths to which +destitution and desperation might still drive her, just as there were +heights to which she might climb again if some half-man would but give +her a helping hand.</p> + +<p>"Do you know the man, Caleb?" he demanded suddenly.</p> + +<p>"No, I do not. I have never seen him. Nan wrote me when they were +married, and told me his name, of course."</p> + +<p>"Then there <i>was</i> a marriage, Caleb?"</p> + +<p>"So Nan wrote me."</p> + +<p>"Ah! Has Nan a marriage certificate?"</p> + +<p>"I have never seen it. Seems their marriage wasn't legal. The name he +gave wasn't his own; he was a bigamist."</p> + +<p>"Then Nan knows his real name."</p> + +<p>"Yes; when she learned that, she came home."</p> + +<p>"But why didn't she prosecute him, Caleb? She owed that to herself and +the child—- to her good name and"</p> + +<p>"She had her reasons, lad."</p> + +<p>"But you should have prosecuted the scoundrel, Caleb."</p> + +<p>"I had no money for lawyers. I knew I was going to need it all for Nan +and her child. And I thought her reasons sufficient, Donald. She said +it would all come out right in the end. Maybe it will."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean she knowingly accepted the inevitable disgrace when she +might have—have—" He wanted to add, "proved herself virtuous," but, +somehow, the words would not come. They didn't appear to him to be +quite fair to Nan.</p> + +<p>The old man nodded.</p> + +<p>"Of course we haven't told this to anybody else," he hastened to add. +"'Twould have been useless. They'd have thought it a lie."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Caleb—a particularly clumsy and stupid lie."</p> + +<p>Caleb Brent looked up suddenly and searched, with an alert and wistful +glance, the face of the young laird of Tyee.</p> + +<p>"But you do not think so, do you?" he pleaded.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, Caleb, If Nan told you that, then she told you the +truth."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, lad."</p> + +<p>"Poor old Caleb," Donald soliloquized, "you find it hard to believe it +yourself, don't you? And it does sound fishy!"</p> + +<p>"I don't believe it's Nan's fault," Donald found himself saying next. +"She was always a good girl, and I can't look at her now and conceive +her as anything but virtuous and womanly. I'll always be a good friend +of hers, Caleb. I'll stand back of her and see that she gets a square +deal—she and her son. When you're gone, she can leave Port Agnew for +some city where she isn't known, and as 'Mrs. Brent' she can engage in +some self-supporting business. It always struck me that Nan had a +voice."</p> + +<p>"She has, Mr. Donald. They had grand opera in Seattle, and I sent her +up there to hear it and having a singing teacher hear her sing 'Alice, +Where Art Thou.' He said she'd be earning a thousand dollars a night +in five years, Mr. Donald, if somebody in New York could train her. +That was the time," he concluded, "that she met <i>him!</i> He was rich +and, I suppose, full of fine graces; he promised her a career if she'd +marry him, and so he dazzled the child—she was only eighteen—and +she went to San Francisco with him. She says there was some sort of +marriage, but he gave her no such gift as I gave her mother—a +marriage certificate. She wrote me she was happy, and asked me to +forgive her the lack of confidence in not advising with me—and of +course I forgave her, Mr. Donald. But in three months he left her, and +one night the door yonder opened and Nan come in and put her arms +round my neck and held me tight, with never a tear—so I knew she'd +cried her fill long since and was in trouble." He paused several +seconds, then added, "Her mother was an admiral's daughter—and she +married me!" He appeared to suggest this latter as a complete +explanation of woman's frailty.</p> + +<p>"The world is small, but it is sufficiently large to hide a girl from +the Sawdust Pile of Port Agnew. Of course, Nan cannot leave you now, +but when you leave her, Caleb, I'll finance her for her career. Please +do not worry about it."</p> + +<p>"I'm like Nan, sir," he murmured. "I'm beyond tears, or I'd weep, Mr. +Donald. God will reward you, sir. I can't begin to thank you."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad of that. By the way, who is towing the garbage-barge to sea +nowadays?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, sir. Mr. Daney hired somebody else and his boat when I +had to quit because of my sciatica."</p> + +<p>"Hereafter, we'll use your boat, Caleb, and engage a man to operate +it. The rental will be ten dollars per trip, two trips a week, eighty +dollars a month. Cheap enough; so don't think it's charity. Here's the +first month's rental in advance. I'm going to run along now, Caleb, +but I'll look in from time to time, and if you should need me in the +interim, send for me."</p> + +<p>He kissed little Don Brent, who set up a prodigious shriek at the +prospect of desertion and brought his mother fluttering into the room. +He watched her soothe the youngster and then asked:</p> + +<p>"Nan, where do you keep the arnica now? I cut my knuckles on that +yellow rascal."</p> + +<p>She raised a sadly smiling face to his.</p> + +<p>"Where would the arnica be—if we had any, Donald?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Where it used to be, I suppose. Up on that shelf, inside the basement +of that funny old half-portion grandfather's clock and just out of +reach of the pendulum."</p> + +<p>"You do remember, don't you? But it's all gone so many years ago, +Donald. We haven't had a boy around to visit us since you left Port +Agnew, you know. I'll put some tincture of iodine on your knuckles, +however."</p> + +<p>"Do, please, Nan."</p> + +<p>A little later, he said:</p> + +<p>"Do you remember, Nan, the day I stuck my finger into the cage of old +Mrs. Biddle's South American parrot to coddle the brute and he all but +chewed it off?"</p> + +<p>She nodded.</p> + +<p>"And you came straight here to have it attended to, instead of going +to a doctor."</p> + +<p>"You wept when you saw my mangled digit. Remember, Nan? Strange how +that scene persists in my memory! You were so sweetly sympathetic I +was quite ashamed of myself."</p> + +<p>"That's because you always were the sweetest boy in the world and I +was only the garbage-man's daughter," she whispered. "There's a +ridiculous song about the garbage-man's daughter. I heard it once, in +vaudeville—in San Francisco."</p> + +<p>"If I come over some evening soon, will you sing for me, Nan?"</p> + +<p>"I never sing any more, Don."</p> + +<p>"Nobody but you can ever sing 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginy' for me."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall sing it, Don."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Nan."</p> + +<p>She completed the anointing of his battle-scarred knuckles with +iodine, and, for a moment, she held his hand, examining critically an +old ragged white scar on the index-finger of his right hand. And quite +suddenly, to his profound amazement, she bent her head and swiftly +implanted upon that old scar a kiss so light, so humble, so benignant, +so pregnant of adoration and gratitude that he stood before her +confused and inquiring.</p> + +<p>"Such a strong, useful big hand!" she whispered. "It has been raised +in defense of the sanctity of my home—and until you came there was +'none so poor to do me reverence.'"</p> + +<p>He looked at her with sudden, new interest. Her action had almost +startled him. As their eyes held each other, he was aware, with a +force that was almost a shock, that Nan Brent was a most unusual +woman. She was beautiful; yet her physical beauty formed the least +part of her attractiveness, perfect as that beauty was. Instinctively, +Donald visualized her as a woman with brains, character, nobility of +soul; there was that in her eyes, in the honesty and understanding +with which they looked into his, that compelled him, in that instant, +to accept without reservation and for all time the lame and halting +explanation of her predicament he had recently heard from her father's +lips. He longed to tell her so. Instead, he flushed boyishly and said, +quite impersonally:</p> + +<p>"Yes; you're beautiful as women go, but that's not the right word to +express you. Physically, you might be very homely, but if you were +still Nan Brent you would be sweet and compelling. You remind me of a +Catholic chapel; there's always one little light within that never +goes out, you know. So that makes you more than beautiful. Shall I +say—glorious?"</p> + +<p>She smiled at him with her wistful, sea-blue eyes—a smile tender, +maternal, all-comprehending. She knew he was not seeking to flatter +her, that the wiles, the Artifices, the pretty speeches of the +polished man of the world were quite beyond him.</p> + +<p>"Still the same old primitive pal," she murmured softly; "still +thinking straight, talking straight, acting straight, and—dare I say +it, Donald?—seeing straight. I repeat, you always were the sweetest +boy in the world—and there is still so much of the little boy about +you." Her hand fluttered up and rested lightly on his arm. "I'll not +forget this day, my dear friend."</p> + +<p>It was characteristic of him that, having said that which was +uppermost in his mind, he should remember his manners and thank her +for dressing his knuckles. Then he extended his hand in farewell.</p> + +<p>"When you come again, Donald," she pleaded, as he took her hand, "will +you please bring me some books? They're all that can keep me sane—and +I do not go to the public library any more. I have to run the gantlet +of so many curious eyes."</p> + +<p>"How long is it since you have been away from the Sawdust Pile?"</p> + +<p>"Since before my baby came."</p> + +<p>He was silent a minute, pondering this. Since old Caleb had become +house-ridden, then, she had been, without books. He nodded assent to +her request.</p> + +<p>"If I do not say very much, you will understand, nevertheless, how +grateful I am," she continued. "To-day, the sun has shone. Whatever +your thoughts may have been, Donald, you controlled your face and you +were decent enough not to say, 'Poor Nan.'"</p> + +<p>He had no answer to that. He was conscious only of standing helpless +in the midst of a terrible tragedy. His heart ached with pity for her, +and just for old sake's sake, for a tender sentiment for lost youth +and lost happiness of the old comradely days when she had been +Cinderella and he the prince, he wished that he might take her in a +fraternal embrace and let her cry out on his breast the agony that +gnawed at her heart like a worm in an apple. But it was against his +code to indicate to her by word or action that she was less worthy +than other women and hence to be pitied, for it seemed to him that her +burden was already sufficient.</p> + +<p>"Let me know if those people return to annoy you, Nan," was all he +said. Then they shook hands very formally, and the young laird of Tyee +returned to the mill-office to report to Andrew Daney that the Sawdust +Pile had been cleaned out, but that, for the present at least, they +would get along with the old drying-yard.</p> + +<p>Somehow, the day came to an end, and he went home with tumult in his +soul.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VII'></a><h2>VII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>An unerring knowledge of men in general and of his own son in +particular indicated to Hector McKaye, upon the instant that the +latter appeared at the family dinner-table, that his son's first day +in command had had a sobering effect upon that young man. He had gone +forth that morning whistling, his eyes alert with interest and +anticipation; and a feeling of profound contentment had come to The +Laird as he watched Donald climb into his automobile and go briskly +down the cliff highway to Port Agnew. Here was no unwilling exile, +shackled by his father's dollars to a backwoods town and condemned to +labor for the term of his natural life. Gladly, eagerly, it seemed to +Hector McKaye, his son was assuming his heritage, casting aside, +without one longing backward glance, a brighter, busier, and more +delightful world.</p> + +<p>Although his son's new arena of action was beautiful and The Laird +loved it with a passionate love, he was sufficiently imaginative to +realize that, in Port Agnew, Donald might not be as happy as had been +his father. Old Hector was sufficiently unselfish to have harbored no +resentment had this been so. It had been his one anxiety that Donald +might take his place in the business as a matter of duty to himself +rather than as a duty to his father, and because he had found his +lifework and was approaching it with joy, for The Laird was +philosopher enough to know that labor without joy is as dead-sea +fruit. Indeed, before the first day of his retirement had passed, he +had begun to suspect that joy without labor was apt to be something +less than he had anticipated.</p> + +<p>The Laird observed in his son's eyes, as the latter took his place at +table, a look that had not been there when Donald left for the mill +that morning. His usually pleasant, "Evening, folks!" was perfunctory +to-night; he replied briefly to the remarks addressed to him by his +mother and sisters; the old man noted not less than thrice a slight +pause with the spoon half-way to his mouth, as if his son considered +some problem more important than soup. Mrs. McKaye and the girls +chattered on, oblivious of these slight evidences of mental +perturbation, but as The Laird carved the roast (he delighted in +carving and serving his family, and was old-fashioned enough to insist +upon his right, to the distress of the girls, who preferred to have +the roast carved in the kitchen and served by the Japanese butler), he +kept a contemplative eye upon his son, and presently saw Donald heave +a slight sigh.</p> + +<p>"Here's a titbit you always liked, son!" he cried cheerfully, and +deftly skewered from the leg of lamb the crisp and tender tail. +"Confound you, Donald; I used to eat these fat, juicy little lamb's +tails while you were at college, but I suppose, now, I'll have to +surrender that prerogative along with the others." In an effort to be +cheerful and distract his son's thoughts, he attempted this homely +badinage.</p> + +<p>"I'll give you another little tale in return, dad," Donald replied, +endeavoring to meet his father's cheerful manner. "While we were away, +a colony of riffraff from Darrow jumped old Caleb Brent's Sawdust +Pile, and Daney was weak enough to let them get away with it. I'm +somewhat surprised. Daney knew your wishes in the matter; if he had +forgotten them, he might have remembered mine, and if he had forgotten +both, it would have been the decent thing to have thrown them out on +his own responsibility."</p> + +<p>So that was what lay at the bottom of his son's perturbation! The +Laird was relieved.</p> + +<p>"Andrew's a good man, but he always needed a leader, Donald," he +replied. "If he didn't lack initiative, he would have been his own man +long ago. I hope you did not chide him for it, lad."</p> + +<p>"No; I did not. He's old enough to be my father, and, besides, he's +been in the Tyee Lumber Company longer than I. I did itch to give him +a rawhiding, though."</p> + +<p>"I saw smoke and excitement down at the Sawdust Pile this morning, +Donald. I dare say you rectified Andrew's negligence."</p> + +<p>"I did. The Sawdust Pile is as clean as a hound's tooth."</p> + +<p>Jane looked up from her plate.</p> + +<p>"I hope you sent that shameless Brent girl away, too," she announced, +with the calm attitude of one whose own virtue is above reproach.</p> + +<p>Donald glared at her.</p> + +<p>"Of course I did not!" he retorted. "How thoroughly unkind and +uncharitable of you, Jane, to hope I would be guilty of such a cruel +and unmanly action!"</p> + +<p>The Laird waved his carving-knife.</p> + +<p>"Hear, hear!" he chuckled. "Spoken like a man, my son. Jane, my dear, +if I were you, I wouldn't press this matter further. It's a delicate +subject."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure I do not see why Jane should not be free to express her +opinion, Hector." Mrs. McKaye felt impelled to fly to the defense of +her daughter. "You know as well as we do, Hector, that the Brent girl +is quite outside the pale of respectable society."</p> + +<p>"We shall never agree on what constitutes 'respectable society,' +Nellie," The Laird answered whimsically. "There are a few in that +Seattle set of yours I find it hard to include in that category."</p> + +<p>"Oh, they're quite respectable, father," Donald protested.</p> + +<p>"Indeed they are, Donald! Hector, you amaze me," Mrs. McKaye chided.</p> + +<p>"They have too much money to be anything else," Donald added, and +winked at his father.</p> + +<p>"Tush, tush, lad!" the old man murmured. "We shall get nowhere with +such arguments. The world has been at that line of conversation for +two thousand years, and the issue's still in doubt. Nellie, will you +have a piece of the well-done?"</p> + +<p>"You and your father are never done joining forces against me," Mrs. +McKaye protested, and in her voice was the well-known note that +presaged tears should she be opposed further. The Laird, all too +familiar with this truly feminine type of tyranny, indicated to his +son, by a lightning wink, that he desired the conversation diverted +into other channels, whereupon Donald favored his mother with a +disarming smile.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to make a real start to-morrow morning, mother," he +announced brightly. "I'm going up in the woods and be a lumberjack for +a month. Going to grow warts on my hands and chew tobacco and develop +into a brawny roughneck."</p> + +<p>"Is that quite necessary?" Elizabeth queried, with a slight elevation +of her eyebrows. "I understood you were going to manage the business."</p> + +<p>"I am—after I've learned it thoroughly, Lizzie."</p> + +<p>"Don't call me 'Lizzie,'" she warned him irritably.</p> + +<p>"Very well, Elizabeth."</p> + +<p>"In simple justice to those people from Darrow that you evicted from +the Sawdust Pile, Don, you should finish your work before you go. If +they were not fit to inhabit the Sawdust Pile, then neither is Nan +Brent. You've got to play fair." Jane had returned to the attack.</p> + +<p>"Look here, Jane," her brother answered seriously: "I wish you'd +forget Nan Brent. She's an old and very dear friend of mine, and I do +not like to hear my friends slandered."</p> + +<p>"Oh, indeed!" Jane considered this humorous, and indulged herself in a +cynical laugh.</p> + +<p>"Friend of his?" Elizabeth, who was regarded in her set as a wit, a +reputation acquired by reason of the fact that she possessed a certain +knack for adapting slang humorously (for there was no originality to +her alleged wit), now bent her head and looked at her brother +incredulously. "My word! That's a rich dish."</p> + +<p>"Why, Donald dear," his mother cried reproachfully, "surely you are +jesting!"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Nan Brent isn't a bad girl, even if she is the mother of +a child born out of wedlock. She stays at home and minds her own +business, and lets others mind theirs."</p> + +<p>"Donald's going to be tragic. See if he isn't," Elizabeth declared. +"Come now, old dear; if Nan Brent isn't a bad woman, just what is your +idea of what constitutes badness in a woman? It would be interesting +to know your point of view."</p> + +<p>"Nan Brent was young, unsophisticated, poor, and trusting when she met +this fellow, whoever he may be. He wooed her, and she loved him—or +thought she did, which amounts to the same thing until one discovers +the difference between thinking and feeling. At first, she thought she +was married to him. Later, she discovered she was not—and then it was +too late."</p> + +<p>"It wouldn't have been too late with some—er—good people," The Laird +remarked meaningly.</p> + +<p>"In other words," Donald went on, "Nan Brent found herself out on the +end of a limb, and then the world proceeded to saw off the limb. It is +true that she is the mother of an illegitimate child, but if that +child was not—at least in so far as its mother <i>is</i> +concerned—conceived in sin, I say it isn't illegitimate, and that its +mother is not a bad woman."</p> + +<p>"Granted—if it's true; but how do you know it to be true?" Jane +demanded. She had a feeling that she was about to get the better of +her brother in this argument.</p> + +<p>"I do not <i>know</i> it to be true, Jane."</p> + +<p>"<i>Voilà!"</i></p> + +<p>"But—I believe it to be true, Jane."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Because Nan told her father it was true, and old Caleb told me when I +was at his house this morning. So I believe it. And I knew Nan Brent +when she was a young girl, and she was sweet and lovely and virtuous. +I talked with her this morning, and found no reason to change my +previous estimate of her. I could only feel for her a profound pity."</p> + +<p>"'Pity is akin to love,'" Elizabeth quoted gaily. "Mother, keep an eye +on your little son. He'll be going in for settlement-work in Port +Agnew first thing we know."</p> + +<p>"Hush, Elizabeth!" her mother cried sharply. She was highly +scandalized at such levity. The Laird salted and peppered his food and +said nothing. "Your attitude is very manly and sweet, dear," Mrs. +McKaye continued, turning to her son, for her woman's intuition warned +her that, if the discussion waxed warmer, The Laird would take a hand +in it, and her side would go down to inglorious defeat, their +arguments flattened by the weight of Scriptural quotations. She had a +feeling that old Hector was preparing to remind them of Mary Magdalen +and the scene in the temple. "I would much rather hear you speak a +good word for that unfortunate girl than have you condemn her."</p> + +<p>"A moment ago," her son reminded her, with some asperity, for he was +sorely provoked, "you were demanding the right of free speech for +Jane, in order that she might condemn her. Mother, I fear me you're +not quite consistent."</p> + +<p>"We will not discuss it further, dearie. It is not a matter of such +importance that we should differ to the point of becoming acrimonious. +Besides, it's a queer topic for dinner-table conversation."</p> + +<p>"So say we all of us," Elizabeth struck in laconically. "Dad, will you +please help me to some of the well-done?"</p> + +<p>"Subjects," old Hector struck in, "which, twenty years ago, only the +family doctor was supposed to be familiar with or permitted to discuss +are now being agitated in women's clubs, books, newspapers, and the +public schools. You can't smother sin or the facts of life unless they +occur separately. In the case of Nan Brent they have developed +coincidently; so we find it hard to regard her as normal and human."</p> + +<p>"Do you condone her offense, Hector?" Mrs. McKaye demanded +incredulously.</p> + +<p>"I am a firm believer in the sacredness of marriage, I cannot conceive +of a civilization worth while without it," The Laird declared +earnestly. "Nevertheless, while I know naught of Nan Brent's case, +except that which is founded on hearsay evidence, I can condone her +offense because I can understand it. She might have developed into a +far worse girl than it appears from Donald's account she is. At least, +Nellie, she bore her child and cherishes it, and, under the rules of +society as we play it, that required a kind of courage in which a +great many girls are deficient. Give her credit for that."</p> + +<p>"Apparently she has been frank," Elizabeth answered him coolly. "On +the other hand, father McKaye, her so-called courage may have been +ignorance or apathy or cowardice or indifference. It all depends on +her point of view."</p> + +<p>"I disagree with mother that it is not a matter of importance," Donald +persisted. "It is a matter of supreme importance to me that my mother +and sisters should not feel more charity toward an unfortunate member +of their sex; and I happen to know that it is a matter of terrible +importance to Nan Brent that in Port Agnew people regard her as +unclean and look at her askance. And because that vacillating old +Daney didn't have the courage to fly in the face of Port Agnew's +rotten public opinion, he subjected Nan Brent and her helpless old +father to the daily and nightly association of depraved people. If +<i>he</i> should dare to say one word against"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it wasn't because Andrew was afraid of public opinion, lad," +Hector McKaye interrupted him dryly. "Have you no power o'deduction? +Twas his guid wife that stayed his hand, and well I know it."</p> + +<p>"I dare say, dad," Donald laughed. "Yes; I suppose I'll have to +forgive him."</p> + +<p>"She'll be up to-morrow, my dear, to discuss the matter with you," The +Laird continued, turning to his wife. "I know her well. Beware of +expressing an opinion to her." And he bent upon all the women of his +household a smoldering glance.</p> + +<p>Apparently, by mutual consent, the subject was dropped forthwith. +Donald's silence throughout the remainder of the meal was portentous, +however, and Mrs. McKaye and her daughters were relieved when, the +meal finished at last, they could retire with good grace and leave +father and son to their cigars.</p> + +<p>"Doesn't it beat hell?" Donald burst forth suddenly, apropos of +nothing.</p> + +<p>"It does, laddie."</p> + +<p>"I wonder why?"</p> + +<p>The Laird was in a philosophical mood. He weighed his answer +carefully.</p> + +<p>"Because people prefer to have their thoughts manufactured for them; +because fanatics and hypocrites have twisted the heart out of the +Christian religion in the grand scramble for priority in the 'Who's +Holier than Who' handicap; because people who earnestly believe that +God knows their inmost thoughts cannot refrain from being human and +trying to put one over on Him." He smoked in silence for a minute, his +calm glance on the ceiling. "Now that you are what you are, my son," +he resumed reflectively, "you'll begin to know men and women. They who +never bothered to seek your favor before will fight for it now—they +do the same thing with God Almighty, seeking to win his favor by +outdoing him in the condemnation of sin. A woman's virtue, lad, is her +main barricade against the world; in the matter of that, women are a +close corporation. Man, how they do stand together! Their virtue's the +shell that protects them, and when one of them leaves her shell or +loses it, the others assess her out of the close corporation, for +she's a minority stockholder."</p> + +<p>"Mother and the girls are up to their eyebrows in the work of an +organization in Seattle designed to salvage female delinquents," +Donald complained. "I can't understand their attitude."</p> + +<p>Old Hector hooted.</p> + +<p>"They don't do the salvaging. Not a bit of it! That unpleasant work is +left to others, and the virtuous and respectable merely pay for it. +Ken ye not, boy, 'twas ever the habit of people of means to patronize +and coddle the lowly. If they couldn't do that, where would be the fun +of being rich? Look in the Seattle papers. Who gets the advertising +out of a charity ball if it isn't the rich? They organize it and they +put it over, with the public paying for a look at them, and they +attending the ball on complimentary tickets, although I will admit +that when the bills are paid and the last shred of social triumph has +been torn from the affair, the Bide-a-Wee Home for Unmarried Mothers +can have what's left—and be damned to them."</p> + +<p>Donald laughed quietly.</p> + +<p>"Scotty, you're developing into an iconoclast. If your fellow +plutocrats should hear you ranting in that vein, they'd call you a +socialist."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm not saying there aren't a heap of exceptions. Many's the +woman with a heart big enough to mother the world, although, when +all's said and done; 'tis the poor that are kind to the poor, the +unfortunate that can appreciate and forgive misfortune. I'm glad you +stood by old Brent and his girl," he added approvingly.</p> + +<p>"I intend to accord her the treatment which a gentleman always accords +the finest lady in the land, dad."</p> + +<p>"Or the lowest, my son. I've noticed that kind are not altogether +unpopular with our finest gentlemen. Donald, I used to pray to God +that I wouldn't raise a fool. I feel that he's answered my prayers, +but if you should ever turn hypocrite, I'll start praying again."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='VIII'></a><h2>VIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Donald left the following morning in the automobile for the +logging-camps up-river, and because of his unfamiliarity with their +present location, his father's chauffeur drove him up. He was to be +gone all week, but planned to return Saturday afternoon to spend +Sunday with his family.</p> + +<p>As the car wound up the narrow river road, Donald found himself +thinking of Nan Brent and her tragedy. Since his visit to the Sawdust +Pile the day before, two pictures of her had persisted in his memory, +every detail of both standing forth distinctly.</p> + +<p>In the first, she was a shabby, barelegged girl of thirteen, standing +in the cockpit of his sloop, holding the little vessel on its course +while he and old Caleb took a reef in the mainsail. The wilderness of +gold that was her uncared-for hair blew behind her like a sunny +burgee; her sea-blue eyes were fixed on the mainsail, out of which she +adroitly spilled the wind at the proper moment, in order that Donald +and her father might haul the reef-points home and make them fast. In +his mind's eye, he could see the pulse beating in her throat as they +prepared to come about, for on such occasions she always became +excited; he saw again the sweet curve of her lips and her uplifted +chin; he heard again her shrill voice crying, "Ready, about!" and saw +the spokes spin as she threw the helm over and crouched from the +swinging boom, although it cleared her pretty head by at least three +feet. He listened again to her elfin laugh as she let the sloop fall +off sufficiently to take the lip of a comber over the starboard +counter and force Donald and her father to seek shelter from the spray +in the lee of the mainsail, from which sanctuary, with more laughter, +she presently routed them by causing the spray to come in over the +port counter.</p> + +<p>The other picture was the pose in which he had seen her the morning +previous at the Sawdust Pile, when, to hide her emotion, she had half +turned from him and gazed so forlornly out across the Bight of Tyee. +It had struck him then, with peculiar force, that Nan Brent never +again would laugh that joyous elfin laugh of other days. He had seen +the pulse beating in her creamy neck again—a neck fuller, rounder, +glorious with the beauty of fully developed womanhood. And the riot of +golden hair was subdued, with the exception of little wayward wisps +that whipped her white temples. Her eyes, somewhat darker now, like +the sea near the horizon after the sun has set but while the glory of +the day still lingers, were bright with unshed tears. The sweet curves +of her mouth were drawn in pain. The northwest trade-wind blowing +across the bight had whipped her gingham dress round her, revealing +the soft curves of a body, the beauty of which motherhood had +intensified rather than diminished. Thus she had stood, the outcast of +Port Agnew, and beside her the little badge of her shame, demanding +the father he had never known and would never see.</p> + +<p>The young laird of Tyee wondered what sort of man could have done this +thing—this monumental wickedness. His great fists were clenched as +there welled within him a black rage at the scoundrel who had so +wantonly wrecked that little home on the Sawdust Pile. He wondered, +with the arrogance of his years, assuming unconsciously the right of +special privilege, if Nan would ever reveal to him the identity of the +villain. Perhaps, some day, in a burst of confidence, she might. Even +if she did tell him, what could he do? To induce the recreant lover to +marry her openly and legally would, he knew, be the world's way of +"righting the wrong" and giving the baby a name, but the mischief had +been done too long, and could never be undone unless, indeed, a +marriage certificate, with proper dating, could be flaunted in the +face of an iconoclastic and brutal world. Even then, there would +remain that astute and highly virtuous few who would never cease to +impart in whispers the information that, no matter what others might +think, <i>they</i> had their doubts. He was roused from his bitter +cogitations by the chauffeur speaking.</p> + +<p>"This is Darrow, Mr. Donald. I don't believe you've seen it, have you? +Darrow put in his mill and town while you were away."</p> + +<p>Donald looked over the motley collection of shacks as the automobile +rolled down the single unpaved street.</p> + +<p>"Filthy hole," he muttered. "Hello! There's one of my late friends +from the Sawdust Pile."</p> + +<p>A woman, standing in the open door of a shanty on the outskirts of the +town had made a wry face and thrust out her tongue at him. He lifted +his hat gravely, whereat she screamed a curse upon him. An instant +later, an empty beer-bottle dropped with a crash in the tonneau, and +Donald, turning, beheld in the door of a Darrow groggery one of the +Greek fishermen He had dispossessed.</p> + +<p>"Stop the car!" Donald commanded. "I think that man wants to discuss a +matter with me."</p> + +<p>"Sorry, sir, but I don't think it's wise to obey you just now," his +father's chauffeur answered, and trod on the accelerator. "They call +that place the 'Bucket of Blood,' and you'll need something more than +your fists if you expect to enter there and come out under your own +power."</p> + +<p>"Very well. Some other time, perhaps."</p> + +<p>"You don't appear to be popular in Darrow, Mr. Donald."</p> + +<p>"Those people left the Sawdust Pile yesterday—in a hurry," Donald +explained. "Naturally, they're still resentful."</p> + +<p>"They were making quite a little money down there, I believe. Folks do +say business was good, and when you take money from that kind of +cattle you make a worth-while enemy. If I were you, sir, I'd watch my +step in dark alleys, and I'd carry a gun."</p> + +<p>"When I have to carry a gun to protect myself from vermin like that +mulatto and those shifty little Greeks, I'll be a few years older than +I am now, Henry. However, I suppose I'd be foolish to neglect your +warning to mind my step."</p> + +<p>He spent a busy week in the woods, and it was his humor to spend it +entirely felling trees. The tough, experienced old choppers welcomed +him with keen interest and played freeze-out each night in the +bunk-houses to see which one should draw him for a partner next day; +for the choppers worked in pairs, likewise the cross-cut men. Their +bucolic sense of humor impelled the choppers to speed up when they +found themselves paired with the new boss, for it would have been a +feather in the cap of the man who could make him quit or send him home +at nightfall "with his tail dragging," as the woods boss expressed it.</p> + +<p>Donald sported a wondrous set of blisters at the close of that first +day, but after supper he opened them, covered them with adhesive tape, +and went back to work next morning as if nothing had happened. During +those five days, he learned considerable of the art of dropping a tree +exactly where he desired it, and bringing it to earth without +breakage. He rode down to Port Agnew with the woods crew on the last +log-train Saturday night, walked into the mill office, and cashed in +his time-slip for five days' work as a chopper. He had earned two +dollars a day and his board and lodging. His father, who had driven +into town to meet him, came to the window and watched him humorously.</p> + +<p>"So that's the way you elect to work it, eh?" he queried. "I told +Daney to pay you my salary when I quit."</p> + +<p>"I like to feel that I'm earning my stipend," Donald replied, "so it +pleases me to draw the wages of the job I'm working at. When I'm +thoroughly acquainted with all the jobs in the Tyee Lumber Company, or +at least have a good working knowledge of them, I think I'll be a +better boss."</p> + +<p>The Laird took his son's big brown hands in his and looked at the +palms.</p> + +<p>"I rather think I like it so," he answered. "A man whose hands have +never bled or whose back has never ached is a poor man to judge a +labor dispute. 'Twould improve you if you were a married man and had +to live on that for a week, less twenty-five cents for your hospital +dues. The choppers pay a dollar a month toward the hospital, and that +covers medical attendance for them and their families."</p> + +<p>Donald laughed and flipped a quarter over to the cashier, then turned +and handed ten dollars to a wiry little chopper standing in line.</p> + +<p>"I was feeling so good this morning I bet Sandy my week's pay I could +fell a tree quicker than he and with less breakage. He won in a walk," +he explained to The Laird.</p> + +<p>"Come with me," his father ordered, and led him into the office.</p> + +<p>From the huge safe he selected a ledger, scanned the index, and opened +it at a certain account headed, "Sandy dough." To Sandy's credit each +month, extending over a period of fifteen years, appeared a credit of +thirty dollars.</p> + +<p>"That's what it's costing me to have discovered Sandy," his father +informed him; "but since I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, +the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I +watched him one day when he didn't know who I was—so I figured him +for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know +it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as +much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire +him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, +my son. Now come home to dinner."</p> + +<p>After dinner, Donald returned to town to buy himself some +working-clothes at the general store. His purchases completed, he +sought the juvenile department.</p> + +<p>"I want some kid's clothing," he announced. "To fit a child of three. +Rompers, socks, shoes—the complete outfit. Charge them to my account +and send them over to Nan Brent at the Sawdust Pile. I'll give you a +note to enclose with them."</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding the fact that she was an employe of the Tyee Lumber +Company, the girl who waited on him stared at him frankly. He noticed +this and bent upon her a calm glance that brought a guilty flush to +her cheek. Quickly she averted her eyes, but, nevertheless she had a +feeling that the young laird of Tyee was still appraising her, and, +unable to withstand the fascination peculiar to such a situation, she +looked at him again to verify her suspicions—and it was even so. In +great confusion she turned to her stock, and Donald, satisfied that he +had squelched her completely, went into the manager's office, wrote, +and sealed the following note to Nan Brent:</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>Saturday night. FRIEND NAN: + +<p> Here are some duds for the young fellow. You gave me the right to + look after him, you know; at least, you didn't decline it. At any + rate, I think you will not mind accepting them from me.</p> + +<p> I sent to Seattle for some books I thought you might like. They + have probably arrived by parcel-post. Sent you a box of candy, + also, although I have forgotten the kind you used to prefer.</p> + +<p> Been up in the logging-camp all week, chopping, and I ache all + over. Expect to be hard and not quite so weary by next week-end, + and will call over for Sunday dinner.</p> +<br /> + +<p> Sincerely, DONALD McKAYE</p></div> + +<p>He spent Sunday at The Dreamerie, and at four o'clock Sunday +afternoon boarded the up train and returned to the logging-camp. Mrs. +Andrew Daney, seated in Sunday-afternoon peace upon her front veranda, +looked up from the columns of the <i>Churchman</i> as the long string of +logging-trucks wound round the base of the little knoll upon which the +general manager's home stood; but even at a distance of two blocks, +she recognized the young laird of Tyee in the cab with the engineer.</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear!" this good soul murmured. "And such a nice young man, +too! I should think he'd have more consideration for his family, if +not for himself."</p> + +<p>"Who's that?" Mr. Daney demanded, emerging from behind the Seattle +<i>Post-Intelligencer</i>.</p> + +<p>"Donald McKaye."</p> + +<p>"What about him?" Mr. Daney demanded, with slight emphasis on the +pronoun.</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing; only—"</p> + +<p>"Only what?"</p> + +<p>"People say he's unduly interested in Nan Brent."</p> + +<p>"If he is, that's his business. Don't let what people say trouble you, +Mrs. Daney."</p> + +<p>"Well, can I help it if people will talk?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—when they talk to you."</p> + +<p>"How do you know they've been talking to me, Andrew?" she demanded +foolishly.</p> + +<p>"Because you know what they say." Andrew Daney rose from the wicker +deck-chair in which he had been lounging and leveled his index-finger +at the partner of his joys and sorrows. "You forget Donald McKaye and +that Brent girl," he ordered. "It's none of your business. All Don has +to say to me is, 'Mr. Daney, your job is vacant'—and, by Judas +Priest, it'll be vacant. Remember that, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, dear. The Laird wouldn't permit it—after all these years."</p> + +<p>"If it comes to a test of strength, I'll lose, and don't you forget +it. Old sake's sake is all that saved me from a run-in with Donald +before he had been in command fifteen minutes. I refer to that Sawdust +Pile episode. You dissuaded me from doing my duty in that matter, +Mary, and my laxity was not pleasing to Donald. I don't blame him a +whit."</p> + +<p>"Did he say anything?" she demanded, a trifle alarmed.</p> + +<p>"No; but he looked it."</p> + +<p>"How did he look, Andrew?"</p> + +<p>"He looked," her husband replied, "like the Blue Bonnets coming over +the border—that's what he looked like. Then he went down to the +Sawdust Pile like a raging demon, cleaned it out in two twos, and put +it to the torch. You be careful what you say to people, Mary. Get that +boy started once, and he'll hark back to his paternal ancestors; and +if The Laird has ever told you the history of that old claymore that +hangs on the wall in The Dreamerie, you know that the favorite outdoor +sports of the McKaye tribe were fighting and foot-racing—with the +other fellow in front."</p> + +<p>"The Laird is mild enough," she defended.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he is. But when he was young, he could, and frequently did, whip +twice his weight in bear-cats. Old as he is to-day, he's as sound as a +man of forty; he wouldn't budge an inch for man or devil."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Daney carefully folded the <i>Churchman</i>, laid it aside, and placed +her spectacles with it.</p> + +<p>"Andrew, I know it's terrible of me to breathe such a thing, but—did +it ever occur to you that—perhaps—the father of Nan Brent's child +might be—"</p> + +<p>"Donald?" he exploded incredulously.</p> + +<p>She nodded, and about her nod there was something of that calm +self-confidence of an attorney who is winning his case and desires to +impress that fact upon the jury.</p> + +<p>"By God, woman," cried Daney, "you have the most infernal ideas—"</p> + +<p>"Andrew! Remember it's the Sabbath!"</p> + +<p>"It's a wonder my language doesn't shrivel this paper. Now then, where +in hades do you get this crazy notion?" Daney was thoroughly angry. +She gazed up at him in vague apprehension. Had she gone too far? +Suddenly he relaxed. "No; don't tell me," he growled. "I'll not be a +gossip. God forgive me, I was about to befoul the very salt I eat. +I'll not be disloyal."</p> + +<p>"But, Andrew dear, don't you know I wouldn't dare breathe it to anyone +but you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know how much you'd dare. At any rate, I'll excuse you from +breathing it to me, for I'm not interested. I know it isn't true."</p> + +<p>"Then, Andrew, it is your duty to tell me why you know it isn't true, +in order that I may set at rest certain rumors—"</p> + +<p>"You—mind—your—own—business, Mary!" he cried furiously, +punctuating each word with a vigorous tap of his finger on the arm of +her chair. "The McKayes meet their responsibilities as eagerly as they +do their enemies. If that child were young Donald's, he'd have +married the Brent girl, and if he had demurred about it, The Laird +would have ordered him to."</p> + +<p>"Thank you for that vote of confidence in the McKaye family, Andrew," +said a quiet voice. "I think you have the situation sized up just +right."</p> + +<p>Andrew Daney whirled; his wife glanced up, startled, then half rose +and settled back in her chair again, for her legs absolutely refused +to support her. Standing at the foot of the three steps that led off +the veranda was Hector McKaye!</p> + +<p>"I drove Donald down from The Dreamerie to catch the up train, and +thought I'd drop over and visit with you a bit," he explained. "I +didn't intend to eavesdrop, and I didn't—very much; but since I +couldn't help overhearing such a pertinent bit of conversation, I'll +come up and we'll get to the bottom of it. Keep your seat, Mrs. +Daney."</p> + +<p>The advice was unnecessary. The poor soul could not have left it. The +Laird perched himself on the veranda railing, handed the dumfounded +Daney a cigar, and helped himself to one.</p> + +<p>"Well, proceed," The Laird commanded. His words apparently were +addressed to both, but his glance was fixed on Mrs. Daney—and now she +understood full well her husband's description of the McKaye look.</p> + +<p>"I had finished what I had to say, Mr. McKaye," Andrew Daney found +courage to say.</p> + +<p>"So I noted, Andrew, and right well and forcibly you said it. I'm +grateful to you. I make no mistake, I think, if your statement wasn't +in reply to some idle tale told your good wife and repeated by her to +you—in confidence, of course, as between man and wife."</p> + +<p>"If you'll excuse me, Mr. McKaye, I—I'd rather not—discuss it!" +Mary Daney cried breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"I would I did not deem it a duty to discuss it myself, Mary. But you +must realize that when the tongue of scandal touches my son, it +becomes a personal matter with me, and I must look well for a weapon +to combat it. You'll tell me now, Mary, what they've been saying about +Donald and Caleb Brent's daughter."</p> + +<p>"Andrew will tell you," she almost whispered, and made as if to go. +But The Laird's fierce eyes deterred her; she quailed and sat down +again.</p> + +<p>"Andrew cannot tell me, because Andrew doesn't know," The Laird +rebuked her kindly. "I heard him tell you not to tell him, that he +wasn't a gossip, and wouldn't befoul the salt he ate by being +disloyal, or words to that effect. Is it possible, Mary Daney, that +you prefer me to think you are not inspired by similar sentiments? +Don't cry, Mary—compose yourself."</p> + +<p>"Idleness is the mother of mischief, and since the children have grown +up and left home, Mary hasn't enough to keep her busy," Daney +explained. "So, womanlike and without giving sober thought to the +matter, she's been listening to the idle chattering of other idle +women. Now then, my dear," he continued, turning to his wife, "that +suspicion you just voiced didn't grow in your head. Somebody put it +there—and God knows it found fertile soil. Out with it now, wife! +Who've you been gossiping with?"</p> + +<p>"I'll name no names," the unhappy woman sobbed; "but somebody told me +that somebody else was down at the Sawdust Pile the day Donald burned +those shacks, and after be burned them he spent an hour in the Brent +cottage, and when he came out he had the baby in his arms. When he +left, the child made a great to-do and called him, 'daddy.'"</p> + +<p>The Laird smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mary, what would you expect the boy to do? Beat the child? To +my knowledge, he's been robbing the candy department of my general +store for years, and the tots of Port Agnew have been the +beneficiaries of his vandalism. He was born with a love of children. +And would you convict him on the prattle of an innocent child in +arms?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not, Mr. McKaye. I understand. Well then, on Saturday night +he sent over a complete outfit of clothing for the child, with a note +in the bundle—"</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m."</p> + +<p>"And then somebody remembered that the child's name is Donald."</p> + +<p>"How old is that child, Mrs. Daney?"</p> + +<p>She considered.</p> + +<p>"As I recall it, he'll be three years old in October."</p> + +<p>"Since, you're a married woman, Mrs. Daney," The Laird began, with +old-fashioned deprecation for the blunt language he was about to +employ, "you'll admit that the child wasn't found behind one of old +Brent's cabbages. This is the year 1916."</p> + +<p>But Mrs. Daney anticipated him.</p> + +<p>"They've figured it out," she interrupted, "and Donald was home from +college for the holidays in 1912."</p> + +<p>"So he was," The Laird replied complacently. "I'd forgotten. So that +alibi goes by the board. What else now? Does the child resemble my +son?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows. Nan Brent doesn't receive visitors, and she hasn't been +up-town since the child was born."</p> + +<p>"Is that all, Mary?"</p> + +<p>"All I have heard so far."</p> + +<p>Old Hector was tempted to tell her that, in his opinion, she had heard +altogether too much, but his regard for her husband caused him to +refrain.</p> + +<p>"It's little enough, and yet it's a great deal," he answered. "You'll +be kind enough, Mary, not to carry word of this idle gossip to The +Dreamerie, I should regret that very much."</p> + +<p>She flushed with the knowledge that, although he forgave her, still he +distrusted her and considered a warning necessary. However, she nodded +vigorous acceptance of his desire, and immediately he changed the +topic. While, for him, the quiet pleasure he had anticipated in the +visit had not materialized and he longed to leave at once, for Daney's +sake he remained for tea. When he departed, Mrs. Daney ran to her room +and found surcease from her distress in tears, while her husband sat +out on the veranda smoking one of The Laird's fine cigars, his +embarrassment considerably alleviated by the knowledge that his +imprudent wife had received a lesson that should last for the +remainder of her life.</p> + +<p>About eight o'clock, his wife called him to the telephone. The Laird +was on the wire.</p> + +<p>"In the matter of the indiscreet young lady in the store, Andrew," he +ordered, "do not dismiss her or reprimand her. The least said in such +cases is soonest mended."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Andrew."</p> + +<p>"Good-night, sir."</p> + +<p>"Poor man!" Daney sighed, as he hung up. "He's thought of nothing +else since he heard about it; it's a canker in his heart. I wish I +dared indicate to Donald the fact that he's being talked about—and +watched—by the idle and curious, in order that he may bear himself +accordingly. He'd probably misunderstand my motives however."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='IX'></a><h2>IX</h2> + +<p>During the week, Mary Daney refrained from broaching the subject of +that uncomfortable Sunday afternoon, wherefore her husband realized +she was thinking considerably about it and, as a result, was not +altogether happy. Had he suspected, however, the trend her thoughts +were taking, he would have been greatly perturbed. Momentous thoughts +rarely racked Mrs. Daney's placid and somewhat bovine brain, but once +she became possessed with the notion that Nan Brent was the only human +being possessed of undoubted power to create or suppress a scandal +which some queer feminine intuition warned her impended, the more +firmly did she become convinced that it was her Christian duty to call +upon Nan Brent and strive to present the situation in a common-sense +light to that erring young Woman.</p> + +<p>Having at length attained to this resolution, a subtle peace settled +over Mrs. Daney, the result, doubtless, of a consciousness of virtue +regained, since she was about to right a wrong to which she had so +thoughtlessly been a party. Her decision had almost been reached when +her husband, coming home for luncheon at noon on Saturday, voiced the +apprehension which had harassed him during the week.</p> + +<p>"Donald will be home from the woods to-night," he announced, in +troubled tones. "I do hope he'll not permit that big heart of his to +lead him into further kindnesses that will be misunderstood by +certain people in case they hear of them. I have never known a man so +proud and fond of a son as The Laird is of Donald."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!" his wife replied complacently. "The Laird has forgotten +all about it."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps. Nevertheless, he will watch his son, and if, by any chance, +the boy should visit the Sawdust Pile—"</p> + +<p>"Then it will be time enough to worry about him, Andrew. In the +meantime, it's none of our business, dear. Eat your luncheon and don't +think about it."</p> + +<p>He relapsed into moody silence. When he had departed for the mill +office, however, his wife's decision had been reached. Within the hour +she was on her way to the Sawdust Pile, but as she approached Caleb +Brent's garden gate, she observed, with a feeling of gratification, +that, after all, it was not going to be necessary for her to be seen +entering the house or leaving it. Far up the strand she saw a woman +and a little child sauntering.</p> + +<p>Nan Brent looked up at the sound of footsteps crunching the shingle, +identified Mrs. Daney at a glance, and turned her head instantly, at +the same time walking slowly away at right angles, in order to obviate +a meeting. To her surprise, Mrs. Daney also changed her course, and +Nan, observing this out of the corner of her eye, dropped her apronful +of driftwood and turned to face her visitor.</p> + +<p>"Good afternoon, Miss Brent. May I speak to you for a few minutes?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mrs. Daney."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Daney nodded condescendingly and sat down on the white sand.</p> + +<p>"Be seated, Miss Brent, if you please."</p> + +<p>"Well, perhaps if we sit down, we will be less readily recognized at a +distance." Nan replied smilingly, and was instantly convinced that she +had read her visitor's mind aright, for Mrs. Daney flushed slightly. +"Suppose," the girl suggested gently, "that you preface what you have +to say by calling me 'Nan.' You knew me well enough to call me that in +an earlier and happier day, Mrs. Daney."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Nan. I shall accept your invitation and dispense with +formality." She hesitated for a beginning, and Nan, observing her +slight embarrassment, was gracious enough to aid her by saying:</p> + +<p>"I dare say your visit has something to do with the unenviable social +position in which I find myself in Port Agnew, Mrs. Daney, for I +cannot imagine any other possible interest in me to account for it. So +you may be quite frank. I'm sure nothing save a profound sense of duty +brought you here, and I am prepared to listen." This was a degree of +graciousness the lady had not anticipated, and it put her at her ease +immediately.</p> + +<p>"I've called to talk to you about Donald McKaye," she began abruptly.</p> + +<p>"At the solicitation of whom?"</p> + +<p>"Nobody." Mrs. Daney sighed. "It was just an idea of mine."</p> + +<p>"Ah—I think I prefer it that way. Proceed, Mrs. Daney."</p> + +<p>"Young Mr. McKaye is unduly interested in you, Nan—at least, that is +the impression of a number of people in Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"I object to the use of the adverb 'unduly' in connection with Mr. +Donald's interest in my father and me. But no matter. Since Port Agnew +has no interest in me, pray why, Mrs. Daney, should I have the +slightest interest in the impressions of these people you refer to and +whose volunteer representative you appear to be?"</p> + +<p>"There! I knew you would be offended!" Mrs. Daney cried, with a +deprecatory shrug. "I'm sure I find this a most difficult matter to +discuss, and I assure you, I do not desire to appear offensive."</p> + +<p>"Well, you are; but I can stand it, and whether I resent it or not +cannot be a matter of much import to you or the others. And I'll try +not to be disagreeable. Just why did you come to see me, Mrs. Daney?"</p> + +<p>"I might as well speak plainly, Miss Brent. Donald McKaye's action in +ridding the Sawdust Pile of your neighbors has occasioned comment. It +appears that this was his first official act after assuming his +father's place in the business. Then he visited you and your father +for an hour, and your child, whom it appears you have named Donald, +called him 'daddy.' Then, last Saturday night, Mr. McKaye sent over +some clothing for the boy—"</p> + +<p>"Whereupon the amateur detectives took up the trail," Nan interrupted +bitterly. "And you heard of it immediately."</p> + +<p>"His father heard of it also," Mrs. Daney continued. "It worries him."</p> + +<p>"It should not. He should have more faith in his son, Mrs. Daney."</p> + +<p>"He is a father, my dear, very proud of his son, very devoted to him, +and fearfully ambitious for Donald's future."</p> + +<p>"And you fear that I may detract from the radiance of that future? Is +that it?"</p> + +<p>"In plain English," the worthy lady replied brutally, "it is."</p> + +<p>"I see your point of view very readily, Mrs. Daney. Your apprehensions +are ridiculous—almost pathetic, Don McKaye's great sympathy is alone +responsible for his hardihood in noticing me, and he is so much too +big for Port Agnew that it is no wonder his motives are misunderstood. +However, I am sorry his father is worried. We have a very great +respect for The Laird; indeed, we owe him a debt of gratitude, and +there is nothing my father or I would not do to preserve his peace of +mind."</p> + +<p>"The talk will die out, of course, unless something should occur to +revive it, Miss Brent—I mean, Nan. But it would be just like Donald +McKaye to start a revival of this gossip. He doesn't care a farthing +for what people think or say, and he is too young to realize that one +<i>must</i> pay <i>some</i> attention to public opinion. You realize that, of +course."</p> + +<p>"I ought to, Mrs. Daney. I think I have had some experience of public +opinion," Nan replied sadly.</p> + +<p>"Then, should Donald McKaye's impulsive sympathy lead him to—er—"</p> + +<p>"You mean that I am to discourage him in the event—"</p> + +<p>"Precisely, Miss Brent. For his father's sake."</p> + +<p>"Not to mention your husband's position. Precisely, Mrs. Daney."</p> + +<p>Mary Daney's heart fluttered.</p> + +<p>"I have trusted to your honor, Nan—although I didn't say so in the +beginning—not to mention my visit or this interview to a living +soul."</p> + +<p>"My 'honor!'" Nan's low, bitter laugh raked the Daney nerves like a +rasp. "I think, Mrs. Daney, that I may be depended upon to follow my +own inclinations in this matter. I suspect you have been doing some +talking yourself and may have gone too far, with the result that you +are hastening now, by every means in your power, to undo whatever +harm, real or fancied, has grown out of your lack of charity."</p> + +<p>"Nan, I beg of you—"</p> + +<p>"Don't! You have no right to beg anything of me. I am not +unintelligent and neither am I degraded. I think I possess a far +keener conception of my duty than do you or those whom you have +elected to represent; hence I regard this visit as an unwarranted +impertinence. One word from me to Donald McKaye—"</p> + +<p>Terror smote the Samaritan. She clasped her hands; her lips were pale +and trembling.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear, my dear," she pleaded, "you wouldn't breathe a word to +him, would you? Promise me you'll say nothing. How could I face my +husband if—if—" She began to weep.</p> + +<p>"I shall promise nothing," Nan replied sternly.</p> + +<p>"But I only came for his father's sake, you cruel girl!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps his father's case is safer in my hands than in yours, Mrs. +Daney, and safest of all in those of his son."</p> + +<p>The outcast of Port Agnew rose, filled her apron with the driftwood +she had gathered, and called to her child. As the little fellow +approached, Mrs. Daney so far forgot her perturbation as to look at +him keenly and decide, eventually, that he bore not the faintest +resemblance to Donald McKaye.</p> + +<p>"I'm sure, Nan, you will not be heartless enough to tell Donald McKaye +of my visit to you," she pleaded, as the girl started down the beach.</p> + +<p>"You have all the assurance of respectability, dear Mrs. Daney," Nan +answered carelessly.</p> + +<p>"You shall not leave me until you promise to be silent!" Mary Daney +cried hysterically, and rose to follow her.</p> + +<p>"I think you had better go, Mrs. Daney. I am quite familiar with the +figure of The Laird since his retirement; he walks round the bight +with his dogs every afternoon for exercise, and, if I am not greatly +mistaken, that is he coming down the beach."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Daney cast a terrified glance in the direction indicated. A few +hundred yards up the beach she recognized The Laird, striding briskly +along, swinging his stick, and with his two English setters romping +beside him. With a final despairing "Please Nan; please do not be +cruel!" she fled, Nan Brent smiling mischievously after her stout +retreating form.</p> + +<p>"I have condemned you to the horrors of uncertainty," the girl +soliloquized. "How very, very stupid you are, Mrs. Daney, to warn me +to protect him! As if I wouldn't lay down my life to uphold his honor! +Nevertheless, you dear old bungling busybody, you are absolutely +right, although I suspect no altruistic reason carried you forth on +this uncomfortable errand."</p> + +<p>Nan had heretofore, out of the bitterness of her life, formed the +opinion that brickbats were for the lowly, such as she, and bouquets +solely for the great, such as Donald McKaye. Now, for the first time, +she realized that human society is organized in three strata—high, +mediocre, and low, and that when a mediocrity has climbed to the seats +of the mighty, his fellows strive to drag him back, down to their own +ignoble level—or lower. To Nan, child of poverty, sorrow, and +solitude, the world had always appeared more or less incomprehensible, +but this afternoon, as she retraced her slow steps to the Sawdust +Pile, the old dull pain of existence had become more complicated and +acute with the knowledge that the first ray of sunlight that had +entered her life in three years was about to be withdrawn; and at the +thought, tears, which seemed to well from her heart rather than from +her eyes, coursed down her cheeks and a sob broke through her clenched +lips.</p> + +<p>Her progress homeward, what with the heavy bundle of driftwood, in her +apron impeding her stride, coupled with the necessity for frequent +pauses to permit her child to catch up with her, was necessarily +slow—so slow, in fact, that presently she heard quick footsteps +behind her and, turning, beheld Hector McKaye. He smiled, lifted his +hat, and greeted her pleasantly.</p> + +<p>"Good-afternoon, Miss Nan. That is a heavy burden of driftwood you +carry, my dear. Here—let me relieve you of it. I've retired, you +know, and the necessity for finding something to do—Bless my soul, +the girl's crying!" He paused, hat in hand, and gazed at her with +frank concern. She met his look bravely.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. McKaye. Please do not bother about it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I shall bother," he answered. "Remove your apron, girl, and +I'll tie the wood up in it and carry it home for you."</p> + +<p>Despite her distress, she smiled.</p> + +<p>"You're such an old-fashioned gentleman," she replied. "So very much +like your son—I mean, your son is so very much like you."</p> + +<p>"That's better. I think I enjoy the compliment more when you put it +that way," he answered. "Do not stand there holding the wood, my girl. +Drop it."</p> + +<p>She obeyed and employed her right hand, thus freed, in wiping the +telltale tears from her sweet face.</p> + +<p>"I have been lax in neighborly solicitude," The Laird continued. "I +must send you over a supply of wood from the box factory. We have more +waste than we can use in the furnaces. Is this your little man, Nan? +Sturdy little chap, isn't he? Come here, bub, and let me heft you."</p> + +<p>He swung the child from the sands, and while pretending to consider +carefully the infant's weight, he searched the cherubic countenance +with a swift, appraising glance.</p> + +<p>"Healthy little rascal," he continued, and swung the child high in the +air two or three times, smiling paternally as the latter screamed with +delight. "How do you like that, eh?" he demanded, as he set the boy +down on the sand again.</p> + +<p>"Dood!" the child replied, and gazing up at The Laird yearningly. "Are +you my daddy?"</p> + +<p>But The Laird elected to disregard the pathetic query and busied +himself gathering up the bundle of driftwood, nor did he permit his +glance to rest upon Nan Brent's flushed and troubled face. Tucking the +bundle under one arm and taking Nan's child on the other, he whistled +to his dogs and set out for the Sawdust Pile, leaving the girl to +follow behind him. He preceded her through the gate, tossed the +driftwood on a small pile in the yard, and turned to hand her the +apron.</p> + +<p>"You are not altogether happy, poor girl!" he said kindly. "I'm very +sorry. I want the people in my town to be happy."</p> + +<p>"I shall grow accustomed to it, Mr. McKaye," Nan answered. "To-day, I +am merely a little more depressed than usual. Thank you so much for +carrying the wood. You are more than kind."</p> + +<p>His calm, inscrutable gray glance roved over her, noting her beauty +and her sweetness, and the soul of him was troubled.</p> + +<p>"Is it something you could confide in an old man?" he queried gently. +"You are much neglected, and I—I understand the thoughts that must +come to you sometimes. Perhaps you would be happier elsewhere than in +Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps," she replied dully.</p> + +<p>"If you could procure work—some profession to keep your mind off your +troubles—I have some property in Tacoma—suburban lots with cottages +on them." The Laird grew confused and embarrassed because of the +thought that was in the back of his mind, and was expressing himself +jerkily and in disconnected sentences. "I do not mean—I do not offer +charity, for I take it you have had enough insults—well, you and your +father could occupy one of those cottages at whatever you think you +could afford to pay, and I would be happy to advance you any funds you +might need until you—could—that is, of course, you must get on your +feet again, and you must have help—" He waved his hand. "All this +oppresses me."</p> + +<p>The remembrance of Mrs. Daney's interview with her prompted the girl +to flash back at him.</p> + +<p>"'Oppresses,' Mr. McKaye? Since when?"</p> + +<p>He gazed upon her in frank admiration for her audacity and +perspicacity.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he admitted slowly; "I dare say I deserve that. Yet, mingled +with that ulterior motive you have so unerringly discerned, there is a +genuine, if belated, desire to be decently human. I think you realize +that also."</p> + +<p>"I should be stupid and ungrateful did I not, Mr. McKaye. I am sorry I +spoke just now as I did, but I could not bear—"</p> + +<p>"To permit me to lay the flattering unction to my soul that I had +gotten away with something, eh?" he laughed, much more at his ease, +now that he realized how frank and yet how tactful she could be.</p> + +<p>"It wasn't quite worthy of you—not because I might resent it, for I +am nobody, but because you should have more faith in yourself and be +above the possibility of disturbance at the hands—or rather, the +tongues—of people who speak in whispers." She came close to him +suddenly and laid her hand lightly on his forearm, for she was +speaking with profound earnestness. "I am your debtor, Mr. McKaye, for +that speech you found it so hard to make just now, and for past +kindnesses from you and your son. I cannot accept your offer. I would +like to, did my pride permit, and were it not for the fact that such +happiness as is left to my father can only be found by the Bight of +Tyee. So, while he lives I shall not desert him. As for your +apprehensions"—she smiled tolerantly and whimsically—"though +flattering to me, they are quite unnecessary, and I beg you rid your +mind of them. I am—that which I am; yet I am more than I appear to be +to some and I shall not wantonly or wilfully hurt you—or yours."</p> + +<p>The Laird of Tyee took in both of his the slim hand that rested so +lightly on his sleeve—that dainty left hand with the long, delicate +fingers and no wedding ring.</p> + +<p>"My dear child," he murmured, "I feel more than I dare express. +Good-by and may God bless you and be good to you, for I fear the world +will not." He bowed with old-fashioned courtesy over her hand and +departed; yet such was his knowledge of life that now his soul was +more deeply troubled than it had been since his unintentional +eavesdropping on his manager's garrulous wife.</p> + +<p>"What a woman!" he reflected. "Brains, imagination, dignity, womanly +pride, courage, beauty and—yes; I agree with Donald. Neither maid, +wife nor widow is she—yet she is not, never has been, and never will +be a woman without virtue. Ah, Donald, my son, she's a bonny lass! For +all her fall, she's not a common woman and my son is not a common +man—I wonder—Oh, 'tis lies, lies, lies, and she's heard them and +knows they're lies. Ah, my son, my son, with the hot blood of youth in +you—you've a man's head and heart and a will of your own—Aye, she's +sweet—that she is—I wonder!"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='X'></a><h2>X</h2> +<br /> + +<p>At the front of Caleb Brent's little house there was a bench upon +which the old man was wont to sit on sunny days—usually in the +morning, before the brisk, cool nor'west trade-wind commenced to blow. +Following Hector McKaye's departure, Nan sought this bench until she +had sufficiently mastered her emotions to conceal from her father +evidence of a distress more pronounced than usual; as she sat there, +she revolved the situation in her mind, scanning every aspect of it, +weighing carefully every possibility.</p> + +<p>In common with the majority of human kind, Nan considered herself +entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and now, at a +period when, in the ordinary course of events, all three of these +necessary concomitants of successful existence (for, to her, life +meant something more than mere living) should have been hers in +bounteous measure, despite the handicap under which she had been born, +she faced a future so barren that sometimes the distant boom of the +breakers on Tyee Head called to her to desert her hopeless fight and +in the blue depths out yonder find haven from the tempests of her +soul.</p> + +<p>In an elder day, when the Sawdust Pile had been Port Agnew's +garbage-dump, folks who clipped their rose bushes and thinned out +their marigold plants had been accustomed to seeing these slips take +root again and bloom on the Sawdust Pile for a brief period after +their ash-cans had been emptied there; and, though she did not know +it, Nan Brent bore pitiful resemblance to these outcast flowers. Here, +on the reclaimed Sawdust Pile, she had bloomed from girlhood into +lovely womanhood—a sweet forget-me-not in the Garden of Life, she had +been transplanted into Eden until Fate, the grim gardener, had cast +her out, to take root again on the Sawdust Pile and ultimately to +wither and die.</p> + +<p>It is terrible for the great of soul, the ambitious, the imaginative, +when circumstances condemn them to life amid dull, uninteresting, +drab, and sometimes sordid surroundings. Born to love and be loved, +Nan Brent's soul beat against her environment even as a wild bird, +captured and loosed in a room, beats against the window-pane. From the +moment she had felt within her the vague stirrings of womanhood, she +had been wont to gaze upon the blue-back hills to the east, to the +horizon out west, wondering what mysteries lay beyond, and yearning to +encounter them. Perhaps it was the sea-faring instinct, the +<i>Wanderlust</i> of her forebears; perhaps it was a keener appreciation of +the mediocrity of Port Agnew than others in the little town possessed, +a realization that she had more to give to life than life had to give +to her. Perhaps it had been merely the restlessness that is the twin +of a rare heritage—the music of the spheres—for with such had Nan +been born. It is hard to harken for the reedy music of Pan and hear +only the whine of a sawmill or the boom of the surf.</p> + +<p>Of her mother, Nan had seen but little. Her recollections of her +mother were few and vague; of her mother's people, she knew nothing +save the fact that they dwelt in a world quite free of Brents, and +that her mother had committed a distinctly social <i>faux pas</i> in +marrying Caleb Brent she guessed long before Caleb Brent, in his brave +simplicity, had imparted that fact to her. An admiral's daughter, +descendant of an old and wealthy Revolutionary family, the males of +which had deemed any calling other than the honorable profession of +arms as beneath the blood and traditions of the family, Nan's mother +had been the pet of Portsmouth until, inexplicably, Caleb Brent, a +chief petty officer on her father's flag-ship, upon whom the hero's +medal had just been bestowed, had found favor in her eyes. The ways of +love, as all the philosophers of the ages are agreed, are beyond +definition or understanding; even in his own case, Caleb Brent was not +equal to the task of understanding how their love had grown, burgeoned +into an engagement, and ripened into marriage. He only knew that, from +a meek and well-disciplined petty officer, he had suddenly developed +the courage of a Sir Galahad, and, while under the influence of a +strange spell, had respectfully defied the admiral, who had foolishly +assumed that, even if his daughter would not obey him, his junior in +the service would. Then had come the baby girl, Nan, the +divorce—pressed by the mother's family—and the mother's death.</p> + +<p>If his wife had discerned in him the nobility that was so apparent to +his daughter—Poor old hero! But Nan always checked her meditations at +this point. They didn't seem quite fair to her mother.</p> + +<p>Seated on the bench this afternoon, Nan reviewed her life from her +sixth year, the year in which her father had claimed her. Until her +eighteenth year, she had not been unhappy, for, following their +arrival in Port Agnew, her father had prospered to a degree which +permitted his daughter the enjoyment of the ordinary opportunities of +ordinary people. If she had not known extravagance in the matter of +dress, neither had she known penury; when her feminine instinct +impelled her to brighten and beautify the little home on the Sawdust +Pile from time to time, she had found that possible. She had been +graduated with honors from the local high school, and, being a +book-lover of catholic taste and wide range, she was, perhaps, more +solidly educated than the majority of girls who have had opportunities +for so-called higher education. With the broad democracy of sawmill +towns, she had not, in the days gone by, been excluded from the social +life of the town, such as it was, and she had had her beaus, such as +they were. Sometimes she wondered how the choir in the Presbyterian +church had progressed since she, once the mezzo-soprano soloist, had +resigned to sing lullabys to a nameless child, if Andrew Daney still +walked on the tips of his shoes when he passed the collection-plate, +and if the mortgage on the church had ever been paid.</p> + +<p>She rose wearily and entered the little house. Old Caleb sat at the +dining-room table playing solitaire. He looked up as she entered, +swept the cards into a heap and extended his old arm to encircle her +waist as she sat on the broad arm of his chair. She drew his gray head +down on her breast.</p> + +<p>"Dadkins," she said presently, "Donald McKaye isn't coming to dinner +to-morrow after all."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's too bad, Nan! Has he written you? What's happened?"</p> + +<p>"No; he hasn't written me, and nothing's happened. I have decided to +send him word not to come."</p> + +<a name='SHE_STOLE_TO_THE_OLD_SQUARE_PIANO_AND_SANG_FOR_HIM'></a> +<center> +<img src='images/02.jpg' width='560' height='400' alt='SHE STOLE TO THE OLD SQUARE PIANO AND SANG FOR HIM.' title='SHE STOLE TO THE OLD SQUARE PIANO AND SANG FOR HIM.'> +</center> +<h3>SHE STOLE TO THE OLD SQUARE PIANO AND SANG FOR HIM.</h3> + +<p>"Aren't you feeling well, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"It isn't that, popsy-wops. He's the new laird of Tyee now, and he +must be careful of the company he keeps."</p> + +<p>Old Caleb growled in his throat.</p> + +<p>"Much he cares what people think."</p> + +<p>"I know it. And much I care what people think, for I've grown +accustomed to their thoughts. But I do care what his father thinks, +for, of course, he has plans for Donald's future, and if Donald, out +of the kindness of his heart, should become a frequent visitor here, +The Laird would hear of it sooner or later—sooner, perhaps, for it +would never occur to Donald to conceal it—and then the poor laird +would be worried. And we don't owe The Laird that, father Brent!"</p> + +<p>"No; we do not." The old face was troubled.</p> + +<p>"I met Mrs. Daney on the beach, and it was she who gave me the +intimation that The Laird had heard some cruel gossip that was +disturbing him."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry. Well, use your own judgment, daughter."</p> + +<p>"I'm sure Donald will understand," she assured him. "And he will not +think the less of us for doing it."</p> + +<p>She got up and went to the peculiar and wholly impractical little desk +which Mrs. McKaye had picked up in Italy and which Donald, calm in the +knowledge that his mother would never use it or miss it, had given her +to help furnish the house when first they had come to the Sawdust +Pile. On a leaf torn from a tablet, she wrote:</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>THE SAWDUST PILE, Saturday Afternoon. + +<p> DEAR DONALD:</p> + +<p> I had planned to reserve my thanks for the books and the candy + until you called for dinner to-morrow. Now, I have decided that + it will be better for you not to come to dinner to-morrow, + although this decision has not been made without father and me + being sensible of a keen feeling of disappointment. We had + planned to sacrifice an old hen that has outlived her margin of + profit, hoping that, with the admixture of a pinch of saleratus, + she would prove tender enough to tempt the appetite of a + lumberjack, but, upon sober second thought, it seems the part of + wisdom to let her live.</p> + +<p> We honor and respect you, Donald. You are so very dear to us that + we wish to cherish always your good opinion of us; we want + everybody in Port Agnew to think of you as we do. People will + misunderstand and misconstrue your loyalty to the old friends of + your boyhood if you dare admit your friendship. Indeed, some have + already done so. I thank you for the books and the candy, but + with all my heart I am grateful to you for a gift infinitely more + precious but which is too valuable for me to accept. I shall have + to treasure it at a distance. Sometimes, at colors, you might + wave to</p> +<br /> + +<p> Your old friend,</p> + +<p> NAN BRENT.</p></div> + +<p>Her letter completed, she sealed it in a plain white envelop, after +which she changed into her best dress and shoes and departed up-town.</p> + +<p>Straight to the mill office of the Tyee Lumber Company she went, her +appearance outside the railing in the general office being the signal +for many a curious and speculative glance from the girls and young men +at work therein. One of the former, with whom Nan had attended high +school, came over to the railing and, without extending a greeting, +either of word or smile, asked, in businesslike tones,</p> + +<p>"Whom do you wish to see?"</p> + +<p>In direct contrast with this cool salutation, Nan inclined her head +graciously and smilingly said:</p> + +<p>"Why, how do you do, Hetty? I wonder if I might be permitted a minute +of Mr. Daney's time."</p> + +<p>"I'll see," Hetty replied, secretly furious in the knowledge that she +had been serenely rebuked, and immediately disappeared in the general +manager's office. A moment later, she emerged. "Mr. Daney will see +you, Miss Brent," she announced. "First door to your right. Go right +in."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much, Hetty."</p> + +<p>Andrew Daney, seated at a desk, stood up as she entered.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Nan?" he greeted her, with masculine cordiality, and +set out a chair. "Please be seated and tell me what I can do to oblige +you."</p> + +<p>A swift scrutiny of the private office convinced her that they were +alone; so she advanced to the desk and laid upon it the letter she had +addressed to Donald McKaye.</p> + +<p>"I would be grateful, Mr. Daney, if you would see that Mr. Donald +McKaye receives this letter when he comes in from the woods to-night," +she replied. Daney was frankly amazed.</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul," he blurted, "why do you entrust me with it? Would it +not have been far simpler to have mailed it?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all, Mr. Daney. In the first place, the necessity for writing +it only developed an hour ago, and in order to be quite certain Mr. +McKaye would receive it this evening, I would have had to place a +special-delivery stamp upon it. I did not have a special-delivery +stamp; so, in order to get one, I would have had to go to the +post-office and buy it. And the instant I did that, the girl on duty +at the stamp-window would have gone to the mail-chute to get the +letter and read the address. So I concluded it would be far more +simple and safe to entrust my letter to you. Moreover," she added, "I +save ten cents."</p> + +<p>"I am very greatly obliged to you, Nan," Daney answered soberly. "You +did exactly right," Had she conferred upon him a distinct personal +favor, his expression of obligation could not have been more sincere. +He took a large envelop of the Tyee Lumber Company, wrote Donald's +name upon it, enclosed Nan's letter in this large envelop, and sealed +it with a mighty blow of his fist. "Now then," he declared, "what +people do not know will not trouble them. After you go, I'll place +this envelop in Don's mail-box in the outer office. I think we +understand each other," he added shrewdly.</p> + +<p>"I think we do, Mr. Daney."</p> + +<p>"Splendid fellow, young Donald! Thundering fine boy!"</p> + +<p>"I agree with you, Mr. Daney. If Donald has a fault, it is his +excessive democracy and loyalty to his friends. Thank you so much, Mr. +Daney. Good-afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Not at all—not at all! All this is quite confidential, of course, +otherwise you would not be here." He bowed her to the door, opened it +for her, and bowed again as she passed him. When she had gone, he +summoned the young lady whom Nan had addressed as "Hetty."</p> + +<p>"Miss Fairchaild," he said, "'phone the local sales-office and tell +them to deliver a load of fire-wood to the Brent house at the Sawdust +Pile."</p> + +<p>Two minutes later, the entire office force knew that Nan Brent had +called to order a load of fire-wood, and once more the world sagged +into the doldrums.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XI'></a><h2>XI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>At six o'clock Donald came in from the logging-camp. Daney made it his +business to be in the entry of the outer office when his superior took +his mail from his box, and, watching narrowly, thought he observed a +frown on the young laird's face as he read Nan Brent's letter. +Immediately he took refuge in his private office, to which he was +followed almost immediately by Donald.</p> + +<p>"That's your handwriting, Mr. Daney," he said, thrusting the large +envelop under Daney's nose. "Another letter in a smaller envelop was +enclosed by you in this large one. You knew, of course, who wrote it."</p> + +<p>"Miss Brent brought it personally."</p> + +<p>Donald started slightly. He was amazed.</p> + +<p>"I take it," he continued, after a slight pause, "that it was entirely +your idea to conceal from the office force the fact that Miss Brent +had written me this letter."</p> + +<p>"It was, Don."</p> + +<p>"I am at a loss to know why you took such a precaution." Donald's eyes +met Daney's in frank suspicion; the latter thought that he detected +some slight anger in the younger man's bearing.</p> + +<p>"I can enlighten you, Don. Miss Brent was at some pains to conceal the +fact that she had written you a letter; she brought it to me to be +handed to you, rather than run the risk of discovery by dropping it in +the post-office for special delivery. Some of the girls in our office +went to school with Nan Brent and might recognize her handwriting if +they saw the envelop. I saw Hetty Fairchaild looking over your letters +rather interestedly the other day, when she was sorting the mail and +putting it in the boxes."</p> + +<p>"The entire procedure appears to me to be peculiar and wholly +unnecessary. However, I'm obliged to you, Mr. Daney, for acceding so +thoroughly to Nan's apparent wishes." He frowned as he tore the +envelop into shreds and dropped them in Dahey's waste-basket. "I'm +afraid some young women around this plant are going to lose their jobs +unless they learn to restrain their curiosity and their tongues," he +added.</p> + +<p>"I thought I was still general manager," Daney reminded him gently, +"Hiring and firing have always been my peculiar prerogatives."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, Mr. Daney. They shall continue to be." The young Laird +grinned at the rebuke; Daney smiled back at him, and the somewhat +charged atmosphere cleared instantly.</p> + +<p>"By the way, Donald, your father is in town. He's going up to Seattle +to-night on the seven-ten train. Your mother and the girls left +earlier in the week. He's dining at the hotel and wishes you to join +him there. He figured that, by the time you could reach The Dreamerie, +shave, bathe, and dress, it would be too late to have dinner with him +there and still allow him time to catch his train."</p> + +<p>"How does idleness sit on my parent, Mr. Daney?"</p> + +<p>"Not very well, I fear. He shoots and fishes and takes long walks with +the dogs; he was out twice in your sloop this week. I think he and +your mother and the girls plan a trip to Honolulu shortly."</p> + +<p>"Good!" Donald yawned and stretched his big body, "I've lost eight +pounds on this chopping-job," he declared, "and I thought I hadn't an +ounce of fat on me. Zounds, I'm sore! But I'm to have an easy job next +week. I'm to patrol the skid-roads with a grease-can. That woods boss +is certainly running me ragged."</p> + +<p>"Well, your innings will come later," Daney smiled.</p> + +<p>At the mill office, Donald washed, and then strolled over to the hotel +to meet his father. Old Hector grinned as Donald, in woolen shirt, +mackinaw, corduroy trousers, and half-boots came into the little +lobby, for in his son he saw a replica of himself thirty years agone.</p> + +<p>"Hello, dad!" Donald greeted him.</p> + +<p>"Hello, yourself!"</p> + +<p>The father, in great good humor, joined his son, and they proceeded to +dine, chaffing each other good-naturedly the while, and occasionally +exchanging pleasantries with their neighbors at adjoining tables. The +Laird was in excellent spirits, a condition which his interview that +afternoon with Nan Brent had tended to bring about; during the period +that had elapsed between his subsequent doubts and his meeting with +his son, he had finally decided that the entire matter was a mare's +nest and had dismissed it from his mind.</p> + +<p>After dinner, they walked down to the railroad station together, +Donald carrying his father's bag. While The Laird was at the +ticket-window purchasing his transportation, his son walked over to a +baggage-truck to rest the bag upon it. As the bag landed with a thud, +a man who had been seated on the truck with his back toward Donald +glanced over his shoulder in a leisurely way, and, in that glance, the +latter recognized one of the Greeks he had evicted from the Sawdust +Pile—the same man who had thrown a beer-bottle at him the day he +motored through Darrow.</p> + +<p>"What are you doing in Port Agnew?" Donald demanded.</p> + +<p>To his query, the fellow replied profanely that this was none of his +interrogator's affair.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is some of my affair," the new boss of Tyee replied. "I have +a crow to pluck with you, anyhow, and I'm going to pluck it now." He +grasped the Greek by his collar and jerked him backward until the man +lay flat on his back across the baggage-truck; then, with his horny +left hand, Donald slapped the sullen face vigorously, jerked the +fellow to his feet, faced him in the direction of Darrow, and, with a +vigorous kick, started him on his way. "That's for throwing +beer-bottles!" he called after the man. "And hereafter you keep out of +Port Agnew. Your kind are not welcome here."</p> + +<p>The Greek departed into the night cursing, while The Laird, still at +the ticket-window, glanced interestedly from his son to the Greek and +then back to Donald.</p> + +<p>"What's the idea, son?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"A recent dweller on the Sawdust Pile," his son replied easily. "He +declared war on me, so, naturally, he comes into my territory at his +own risk. That scum from Darrow must keep out of our town, dad, and +force is the only argument they can understand. Daney gave them a free +hand and spoiled them, but I'm going to teach them who's boss around +here now. Besides, I owe that fellow a poke. He insulted Nan Brent. +There would have been a bill for repairs on the scoundrel if I had +caught him the day I drove his gang off the Sawdust Pile."</p> + +<p>"Well, I approve of your sentiments, Donald, but, nevertheless, it's a +poor practise for a gentleman to fight with a mucker, although," he +added whimsically, "when I was your age I always enjoyed a go with +such fellows. That man you just roughed is George Chirakes, and he's a +bad one. Knifed three of his countrymen in a drunken riot in Darrow +last fall, but got out of it on a plea of self-defense. Keep your eye +on the brute. He may try to play even, although there's no real +courage in his kind. They're born bushwhackers," The Laird glanced at +his watch and saw that it still lacked eight minutes of train-time. +"Wait for me a minute," he told his son. "I want to telephone Daney on +a little matter I overlooked this afternoon."</p> + +<p>He entered the telephone-booth in the station and called up Andrew +Daney.</p> + +<p>"McKaye speaking," he announced. "I've just discovered Donald has an +enemy—that Greek, Chirakes, from Darrow. Did Dirty Dan come in from +the woods to-night?"</p> + +<p>"I believe he did. He usually comes in at week-ends."</p> + +<p>"Look him up immediately, and tell him to keep an eye on Donald, and +not to let him out of his sight until the boy boards the logging-train +to-morrow night to go back to the woods. Same thing next week-end, and +when Donald completes his tour of duty in the woods, transfer Dan from +the logging-camp and give him a job in the mill, so he can watch over +the boy when he's abroad nights. He is not, of course, to let my son +know he is under surveillance."</p> + +<p>"I will attend to the matter immediately," Daney promised, and The +Laird, much relieved, hung up and rejoined his son.</p> + +<p>"Take care of yourself—and watch that Greek, boy," he cautioned, as +he swung aboard the train.</p> + +<p>Donald stood looking after the train until the tail-lights had +disappeared round a curve.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XII'></a><h2>XII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Daney readily discovered in a pool-hall the man he sought. "Dirty Dan" +O'Leary was a chopper in the McKaye employ, and had earned his +sobriquet, not because he was less cleanly than the average lumberjack +but because he was what his kind described as a "dirty" fighter. That +is to say, when his belligerent disposition led him into battle, which +it frequently did, Mr. O'Leary's instinct was to win, quickly and +decisively, and without consideration of the niceties of combat, for a +primitive person was Dirty Dan. Fast as a panther, he was as equally +proficient in the use of all his extremities, and, if hard pressed, +would use his teeth. He was a stringy, big-boned man of six feet, and +much too tall for his weight, wherefore belligerent strangers were +sometimes led to the erroneous conclusion that Mr. O'Leary would not +be hard to upset. In short, he was a wild, bad Irishman who had gotten +immovably fixed in his head an idea that old Hector McKaye was a +"gr-rand gintleman," and a gr-rand gintleman was one of the three +things that Dirty Dan would fight for, the other two being his +personal safety and the love of battle.</p> + +<p>Daney drew Dirty Dan out of the pool-hall and explained the situation +to him. The knowledge that The Laird had, in his extremity, placed +reliance on him moved Dirty Dan to the highest pitch of enthusiasm and +loyalty. He pursed his lips, winked one of his piggy eyes craftily, +and, without wasting time in words of assurance, set forth in search +of the man he was to follow and protect. Presently he saw Donald +entering the butcher shop; so he stationed himself across the street +and watched the young laird of Tyee purchase a fowl and walk out with +it under his arm. Keeping his man dimly in view through the gloom, +Dirty Dan, from the opposite side of the street, followed on velvet +feet to the outskirts of the town, where Donald turned and took a path +through some vacant lots, arriving at last at the Sawdust Pile. Dirty +Dan heard him open and close the gate to Caleb Brent's garden.</p> + +<p>"Oh, ho, the young divil!" Dirty Dan murmured, and immediately left +the path, padding softly out into the grass in order that, when the +door of Caleb Brent's house should be opened, the light from within +might not shine forth and betray him. After traversing a dozen steps, +he lay down in the grass and set himself patiently to await the +reappearance of his quarry.</p> + +<p>In response to several clearly audible knocks, the front door failed +to open, and Dirty Dan heard Don walk round the house to the back +door.</p> + +<p>"The young divil!" he reiterated to himself. "Faith, whin the cat's +away the mice'll play, an' divil a worrd o' lie in that! Begorra, I'm +thinkin' the ould gintleman'd be scandalized could he know where his +darlin' bhoy is this minute—here, wait a minute Daniel, ye gossoon. +Maybe, 'tis for this I've been sint to watch the lad an' not for to +protect him. If it is, faith 'tis a job I'm not wishful for, shpyin' +on me own boss." He pondered the matter. Then: "Well, sorra wan o' me +knows. What if the young fella do be in love wit' her an' his father +have wind of it! Eh? What thin, Daniel? A scandal, that's what, an', +be the toe-nails o' Moses, nayther The Laird nor his son can afford +that. I'll take note o' what happens, but, be the same token, 'tis not +to Misther Daney I'll make me report, but to the ould man himself. +Sh—what's that?"</p> + +<p>His ear being close to the ground, Dirty Dan had caught the sound of +slow, cautious footsteps advancing along the little path. He flattened +himself in the grass and listened, the while he hoped fervently that +those who walked the path (for he knew now there were more than one) +would not leave it as he had done and at the same point. Should they +inadvertently tread upon him, Dirty Dan felt that the honor of the +McKaye family and the maintenance of the secret of his present +employment would demand instant and furious battle—on suspicion.</p> + +<p>The unknown pedestrians paused in the path.</p> + +<p>"Ah done tol' you-all Ah'm right," Dirty Dan heard one of them say.</p> + +<p>"Ha!" thought Dirty Dan. "A dirrty black naygur! I can tell be the +v'ice of him."</p> + +<p>One of his companions grunted, and another said, in accents which the +astute Mr. O'Leary correctly judged to be those of a foreigner of some +sort:</p> + +<p>"All right. W'en he's come out, we jumpa right here. Wha's matter, +eh?"</p> + +<p>"Suits me," the negro replied. "Let's set down, an' fo' de Lawd's +sake, keep quite 'twell he come."</p> + +<p>Dirty Dan heard them move off to the other side of the path and sit +down in the grass.</p> + +<p>"So 'tis that big buck yeller naygur from Darrow an' two o' the +Greeks," he mused. "An' God knows I never did like fightin' in the +dark. They'll knife me as sure as pussy is a cat."</p> + +<p>Decidedly, the prospect did not appeal to Dirty Dan. However, he had +his orders to protect The Laird's son; he had his own peculiar notions +of honor, and in his wild Irish heart there was not one drop of craven +blood. So presently, with the stealth of an animal, he crawled +soundlessly away until he judged it would be safe for him to stand up +and walk, which he did with infinite caution.</p> + +<p>He reached the gate, passed like a wraith through it, and round to the +side of Caleb Brent's home, in momentary dread of discovery by a dog. +He breathed a sigh of relief when, the outcry failing to materialize, +he decided the Brents were too poor to maintain a dog; whereupon he +filled his pipe, lighted it, leaned up against the house, and, for the +space of an hour, stood entranced, for from Caleb Brent's poor shanty +there floated the voice of an angel, singing to the notes of a piano.</p> + +<p>"Glory be!" murmured the amazed Daniel. "Sure, if that's what the +young fella hears whin he calls, divil a bit do I blame him. Oh, the +shweet v'ice of her—an' singin' 'The Low-backed Car'!"</p> + +<p>Despite the wicked work ahead of him, Dirty Dan was glad of the ill +fortune which had sent him hither. He had in full measure the Gael's +love of music, and when, at length, the singing ceased and reluctantly +he made up his mind that the concert was over, he was thrilled to a +point of exaltation.</p> + +<p>"Begorra, I didn't expect to be piped into battle," he reflected +humorously—and sought the Brent wood-pile, in which he poked until +his hard hands closed over a hard, sound, round piece of wood about +three feet long. He tested it across his knee, swung it over his head, +and decided it would do.</p> + +<p>"Now thin, for the surprise party," he reflected grimly, and walked +boldly to the gate, which he opened and closed with sufficient vigor +to advertise his coming, even if his calked boots on the hard path had +not already heralded his advance. However, Dirty Dan desired to make +certain; so he pursed his lips and whistled softly the opening bars of +"The Low-backed Car" in the hope that the lilting notes would still +further serve to inculcate in the lurking enemy the impression that he +was a lover returning well content from his tryst. As he sauntered +along, he held his bludgeon in readiness while his keen eyes +searched—and presently he made out the cronching figures.</p> + +<p>"The naygur first—to hold me, whilst the Greeks slip a dirk in me," +he decided shrewdly.</p> + +<p>He heard the scuttering rush start, and, with the shock of combat, his +carefully prearranged plan of battle quite fled his mercurial mind. He +met the charge with a joyous screech, forgot that he had a club, and +kicked viciously out with his right foot. His heavy logger's boots +connected with something soft and yielding, which instinct told Mr. +O'Leary was an abdomen; instinct, coupled with experience, informed +him further that no man could assimilate that mighty kick in the +abdomen and yet remain perpendicular, whereupon. Dirty Dan leaped high +in the air and came down with both terrible calked boots on something +which gave slightly under him and moaned. On the instant, he received +a light blow in the breast and knew he had been stabbed.</p> + +<p>He remembered his club now; as he backed away swiftly, he swung it, +and, from the impact, concluded he had struck a neck or shoulder. That +was the luck of night-fighting; so, with a bitter curse, Dirty Dan +swung again, in the pious hope of connecting with a skull; he scored a +clean miss and was, by the tremendous force of his swing, turned +completely round. Before he could recover his balance, a hand grasped +his ankle and he came down heavily on his face; instantly, his +assailant's knees were pressed into his back. With a mighty heave he +sought to free himself, at the same time flinging both long legs +upward, after the fashion of one who strives to kick himself in the +small of the back; whereupon a knife drove deep into his instep, and +he realized he had not acted a split second too soon to save himself +from a murderous thrust in the kidneys—a Greek's favorite blow.</p> + +<p>In battle, Dirty Dan's advantage lay always in his amazing speed and +the terrible fury of his attack during the first five minutes. Even as +he threw up his feet, he drew back, an elbow and crashed it into his +enemy's ribs; like a flash, his arm straightened, and his sinewy hand +closed over the wrist of an arm that struggled in vain to strike +downward. Holding that wrist securely, Dirty Dan heaved upward, got +his left elbow under his body, and rested a few moments; another +mighty heave, and he tossed off the Greek, and, whirling with the +speed of a pin-wheel, was on top of his man. He had momentarily +released his hold on the Greek's wrist, however, and he had to fight +for another hold now—in the dark. Presently he captured it, twisted +the arm in the terrible hammer-lock, and broke it; then, while the +Greek lay writhing in agony, Mr. O'Leary leaped to his feet and +commenced to play with his awful boots a devil's tattoo on that +portion of his enemy's superstructure so frequently alluded to in +pugilistic circles as "the slats." After five or six kicks, however, +he paused, due to a difficulty in breathing; so he struck a match and +surveyed the stricken field.</p> + +<p>The big mulatto and two Greeks, lay unconscious before him; in the +nickering light of the match, two blood-stained dirks gleamed in the +grass, so, with a minute attention to detail, Dirty Dan possessed +himself of these weapons, picked up his club, and, reasoning shrewdly +that Donald McKaye's enemies had had enough combat for a few weeks at +least, the dauntless fellow dragged the fallen clear of the path, in +order that his youthful master might not stumble over them on his way +home, and then disappeared into the night. Half an hour later, smeared +with dust and blood, he crawled up the steps of the Tyee Lumber +Company's hospital on his hands and knees and rapped feebly on the +front door. The night nurse came out and looked him over.</p> + +<p>"I'm Dirty Dan O'Leary," he wheezed; "I've been fightin' agin."</p> + +<p>The nurse called the doctor and two orderlies, and they carried him +into the operating-room.</p> + +<p>"I'm not the man I used to be," Dirty Dan whispered, "but glory be, ye +should see the other fellers." He opened his hand, and two +blood-stained clasp-knives rolled out; he winked knowingly, and +indulged in humorous reminiscences of the combat while he was being +examined.</p> + +<p>"You're cut to strings and ribbons, Dan," the doctor informed him, +"and they've stuck you in the left lung. You've lost a lot of blood. +We may pull you through, but I doubt it."</p> + +<p>"Very well," the demon replied composedly.</p> + +<p>"Telephone Judge Alton to come and get his dying statement," the +doctor ordered the nurse, but Dirty Dan raised a deprecating hand.</p> + +<p>"'Twas a private, personal matther," he declared. "'Twas settled +satisfacthory. I'll not die, an' I'll talk to no man but Misther +Daney. Sew me up an' plug me lung, an' be quick about it, Docthor."</p> + +<p>When Andrew Daney came, summoned by telephone, Dirty Dan ordered all +others from the room, and Daney saw that the door was closed tightly +after them. Then he bent over Dirty Dan.</p> + +<p>"Where's Donald?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"That's neither here nor there, sir," Mr. O'Leary replied evasively. +"He's safe, an' never knew they were afther him. T'ree o' thim, sir, +the naygur and two Greeks. I kidded thim into thinkin' I was Misther +McKaye; 'tis all over now, an' ye can find out what two Greeks it was +by those knives I took for evidence. I cannot identify thim, but go up +to Darrow in the mornin' an' look for a spreckled mulatter, wan Greek +wit' a broken right arm, an' another wit' a broken neck, but until I +die, do nothin'. If I get well, tell them to quit Darrow for good +agin' the day I come out o' the hospital. Good-night to you, sir, an' +thank ye for callin'."</p> + +<p>From the hospital, Andrew Daney, avoiding the lighted main street, +hastened to the Sawdust Pile. A light still burned in Caleb Brent's +cottage; so Daney stood aloof in the vacant lot and waited. About ten +o'clock, the front door opened, and, framed in the light of the +doorway, the general manager saw Donald McKaye, and beside him Nan +Brent.</p> + +<p>"Until to-morrow at five, Donald, since you will persist in being +obstinate," he heard Nan say, as they reached the gate and paused +there. "Good-night, dear."</p> + +<p>Andrew Daney waited no longer, but turned and fled into the darkness.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XIII'></a><h2>XIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Having done that which her conscience dictated, Nan Brent returned to +her home a prey to many conflicting emotions, chief of which were a +quiet sense of exaltation in the belief that she had played fair by +both old Hector and his son, and a sense of depression in the +knowledge that she would not see Donald McKaye again. As a boy, she +had liked him tremendously; as a man, she knew she liked him even +better.</p> + +<p>She was quite certain she had never met a man who was quite fit to +breathe the same air with Donald McKaye; already she had magnified his +virtues until, to her, he was rapidly assuming the aspect of an +archangel—a feeling which bordered perilously on adoration.</p> + +<p>But deep down in her woman's heart she was afraid, fearing for her own +weakness. The past had brought her sufficient anguish—she dared not +risk a future filled with unsatisfied yearning that comes of a great +love suppressed or denied.</p> + +<p>She felt better about it as she walked homeward; it seemed that she +had regained, in a measure, some peace of mind, and as she prepared +dinner for her father and her child, she was almost cheerful. A warm +glow of self-complacency enveloped her. Later, when old Caleb and the +boy had retired and she sat before the little wood fire alone with her +thoughts, this feeling of self-conscious rectitude slowly left her, +and into its place crept a sense of desolation inspired by one +thought that obtruded upon her insistently, no matter how desperately +she drove her mind to consider other things. She was not to see him +again—no, never any more. Those fearless, fiery gray eyes that were +all abeam with tenderness and complete understanding that day he left +her at the gate; those features that no one would ever term handsome, +yet withal so rugged, so strong, so pregnant of character, so +peculiarly winning when lighted by the infrequent smile—she was never +to gaze upon them again. It did not seem quite fair that, for all that +the world had denied her, it should withhold from her this +inconsequent delight. This was carrying misfortune too far; it was +terrible—unbearable almost—</p> + +<p>A wave of self-pity, the most acute misery of a tortured soul, surged +over her; she laid her fair head on her arms outspread upon the table, +and gave herself up to wild sobbing. In her desolation, she called +aloud, piteously, for that mother she had hardly known, as if she +would fain summon that understanding spirit and in her arms seek the +comfort that none other in this world could give her. So thoroughly +did she abandon herself to this first—and final—paroxysm of despair +that she failed to hear a tentative rap upon the front door and, +shortly, the tread of rough-shod feet on the board walk round the +house. Her first intimation that some one had arrived to comfort her +came in the shape of a hard hand that thrust itself gently under her +chin and lifted her face from her arms.</p> + +<p>Through the mist of her tears she saw only the vague outlines of a man +clad in heavy woolen shirt and mackinaw, such as her father frequently +wore.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, father!" she cried softly, and laid her head on his +breast, while her arms went round his neck. "I'm so terribly unhappy! +I can't bear it—I can't! Just—because he chose to be—kind to +us—those gossips—as if anybody could help being fond of him—"</p> + +<p>She was held tight in his arms.</p> + +<p>"Not your father, Nan." Donald murmured in a low voice.</p> + +<p>She drew away from him with a sharp little cry of amazement and +chagrin, but his great arms closed round her and drew her close again.</p> + +<p>"Poor dear," he told her, "you were calling for your mother. You +wanted a breast to weep upon, didn't you? Well, mine is here for you."</p> + +<p>"Oh, sweetheart, you mustn't!" she cried passionately, her lips +unconsciously framing the unspoken cry of her heart as she strove to +escape from him.</p> + +<p>"Ah, but I shall!" he answered. "You've called me 'sweetheart,' and +that gives me the right." And he kissed her hot cheek and laughed the +light, contented little laugh of the conqueror, nor could all her +frantic pleadings and struggling prevail upon him to let her go. In +the end, she did the obvious, the human thing. She clasped him tightly +round the neck, and, forgetting everything in the consuming wonder of +the fact that this man loved her with a profound and holy love, she +weakly gave herself up to his caresses, satisfying her heart-hunger +for a few blessed, wonderful moments before hardening herself to the +terrible task of impressing upon him the hopelessness of it all and +sending him upon his way. By degrees, she cried herself dry-eyed and +leaned against him, striving to collect her dazed thoughts. And then +he spoke.</p> + +<p>"I know what you're going to say, dear. From a worldly point of view, +you are quite right. Seemingly, without volition on our part, we have +evolved a distressing, an impossible situation—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so glad that you understand!" she gasped.</p> + +<p>"And yet," he continued soberly, "love such as ours is not a light +thing to be passed lightly by. To me, Nan Brent, you are sacred; to +you, I yearn to be all things that—the—other man was not. I didn't +realize until I entered unannounced and found you so desolate that I +loved you. For two weeks you have been constantly in my thoughts, and +I know now that, after all, you were my boyhood sweetheart."</p> + +<p>"I know you were mine," she agreed brokenly. "But that's just a little +tender memory now, even if we said nothing about it then. We are +children no longer, Donald dear; we must be strong and not surrender +to our selfish love."</p> + +<p>"I do not regard it as selfish," he retorted soberly. "It seems most +perfectly natural and inevitable. Why, Nan, I didn't even pay you the +preliminary compliment of telling you I loved you or asking you if you +reciprocated my affection. It appeared to me I didn't have to; that it +was a sort of mutual understanding—for here we are. It seems it just +was to be—like the law of gravitation."</p> + +<p>She smiled up at him, despite her mental pain.</p> + +<p>"I'm not so certain, dear," she answered, "that I'm not wicked enough +to rejoice. It will make our renunciation all the easier—for me. I +have known great sorrow, but to-night, for a little while, I have +surrendered myself to great happiness, and nothing—nothing—can ever +rob me of the last shred of that. You are my man, Donald. The +knowledge that you love me is going to draw much of the sting out of +existence. I know I cannot possess you, but I can resign myself to +that and not be embittered."</p> + +<p>"Well," he answered dully, "I can give you up—because I have to; but +I shall never be resigned about it, and I fear I may be embittered. Is +there no hope, Nan?"</p> + +<p>"A faint one—some day, perhaps, if I outlive another."</p> + +<p>"I'll wait for that day, Nan. Meanwhile, I shall ask no questions. I +love you enough to accept your love on faith, for, by God, you're a +good woman!"</p> + +<p>Her eyes shown with a wonderful radiance as she drew his face down to +hers and kissed him on the lips.</p> + +<p>"It's sweet of you to say that; I could love you for that alone, were +there nothing else, Donald. But tell me, dear, did you receive my +letter?"</p> + +<p>"Yes—and ignored it. That's why I'm here."</p> + +<p>"That was a risk you should not have taken."</p> + +<p>He looked thoughtfully at the multicolored flame of the driftwood +fire.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, Nan, it didn't occur to me that I was taking a risk; a +confession of love was the last thing I would have thought would +happen."</p> + +<p>"Then why did you disregard that letter that cost me such an effort to +write?"</p> + +<p>"Well," he replied slowly, "I guess it's because I'm the captain of my +soul—or try to be, at any rate. I didn't think it quite fair that you +should be shunned; it occurred to me that I wouldn't be playing a +manly part to permit the idle mewing of the Port Agnew tabbies to +frighten me away. I didn't intend to fall in love with you—Oh, drat +my reasons! I'm here because I'm here. And in the matter of that old +hen—" He paused and favored her with a quizzical smile.</p> + +<p>"Yes?"</p> + +<p>"I brought a substitute hen with me—all ready for the pot, and if I +can't come to dinner to-morrow, I'm going to face a very lonely +Sunday."</p> + +<p>"You ridiculous boy! Of course you may come, although it must be the +final visit. You realize that we owe it to ourselves not to make our +burden heavier than it's going to be."</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>"'Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we may be dead,'" he quoted. +"Let's sit down and talk it over. I haven't sat in front of a +driftwood fire since I was a boy. Queer how the salt in the wood +colors the flames, isn't it?"</p> + +<p>It occurred to her for a fleeting moment that they two were driftwood, +and that the salt of their tears would color their lives as the years +consumed them. But she banished from her mind all thought of +everything save the present. With a contented little sigh she seated +herself beside him; her hand stole into his and, soothed and sustained +by the comforting touch, each of the other, gradually the first terror +of their predicament faded; ere long, Donald reminded her of her +promise, and she stole to the old square piano and sang for him while, +without, Dirty Dan O'Leary crouched in the darkness and thrilled at +the rippling melody.</p> + +<p>At ten o'clock, when Donald left the Sawdust Pile, he and Nan had +arrived at a firm determination to follow separate paths, nor seek to +level the barrier that circumstance had raised between them.</p> + +<p>"Some day—perhaps," he whispered, as he held her to his heart in the +dark-it the garden gate. "While I live, I shall love you. Good-by, old +sweetheart!"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XIV'></a><h2>XIV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>True to his promise, Daniel P. O'Leary declined to die that night.</p> + +<p>"Confound your belligerent soul!" the doctor growled at dawn. "I +believe you're too mean to die."</p> + +<p>"We'll make it a finish fight," whispered Daniel.</p> + +<p>"I'll go you," the doctor answered, and sent for digitalis and salt +solution.</p> + +<p>There was one other soul in Port Agnew who did not sleep that night, +either. Andrew Daney's soul, shaken by what was to him a cosmic +cataclysm, caused that good man to rise at five o'clock and go down to +the hospital for another look at Dirty Dan. To his anxious queries the +doctor shook a dubious head, but the indomitable O'Leary smiled wanly.</p> + +<p>"Go on wit' ye!" he wheezed faintly. "I'll win be a hair-line +decision."</p> + +<p>At seven o'clock, when the telegraph-station opened, Andrew Daney was +waiting at the door. He entered and sent a telegram to The Laird.</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>Return immediately.</p></div> + +<p>In the late afternoon, Hector McKaye returned to Port Agnew and at +once sought Daney, who related to him exactly what had occurred. The +shadow of profound worry settled over The Laird's face.</p> + +<p>"Dan refuses to disclose anything regarding Donald's movements," +Daney continued, "where he followed the boy or where the fight took +place. I only know that Donald was not present; Dan, fortunately, +overheard the plot, inculcated, by some means, the idea in those +scoundrels' heads that he was Donald, and took the fight off the boy's +hands. He claimed he fought a winning fight, and he is right. The +mulatto died in Darrow this morning. One of the Greeks has a smashed +shoulder, and the other a broken arm and four broken ribs. How they +ever got home to Darrow is a mystery."</p> + +<p>"The third Greek must have waited near the river-mouth with a boat, +Andrew. Have you any idea where Donald spent the evening?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; but he's free, white, and twenty-one, and he's my superior. +I prefer not to discuss his movements."</p> + +<p>"Andrew, I command you to."</p> + +<p>"I refuse to be commanded, sir."</p> + +<p>"That's all I wanted to know. He visited the Brents, and you know it." +He saw by the flush on Daney's old face that he had hit the mark. +"Well, I'm obliged to you, Andrew. You've done your full duty; so +we'll not discuss the matter further. The situation will develop in +time, and, meanwhile, I'll not spy on my boy. I wonder if that Darrow +gang will talk."</p> + +<p>"I imagine not, sir—that is, if Dirty Dan keeps his own counsel. They +will fear prosecution if Dan dies; so they will be silent awaiting the +outcome of his injuries. If he lives, they will still remain silent, +awaiting his next move. Dan will probably admit having been jumped in +the dark by three unknown men and that he defended himself vigorously; +he can fail to identify the Greeks, and the Greeks cannot do less +than fail to identify Dirty Dan, who can plead self-defense if the +coroner's jury delves too deeply into the mulatto's death. I imagine +they will not. At any rate, it's up to Dan whether Donald figures in +the case or not, and Dan will die before he'll betray the confidence."</p> + +<p>"That's comforting," The Laird replied. "Will you be good enough to +drive me home to The Dreamerie, Andrew?"</p> + +<p>At The Dreamerie, old Hector discovered that his son had left the +house early in the afternoon, saying he would not be home for dinner. +So The Laird sat him down and smoked and gazed out across the Bight of +Tyee until sunset, when, a vague curiosity possessing him, he looked +down to the Sawdust Pile and observed that the flag still flew from +the cupola. The night shadows gathered, but still the flag did not +come down; and presently round The Laird's grim mouth a little +prescient smile appeared, with something of pain in it.</p> + +<p>"Dining out at Brent's," he soliloquized, "and they're so taken up +with each other they've forgotten the flag. I do not remember that the +Brent girl ever forgot it before. She loves him."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XV'></a><h2>XV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Following his parting with Nan Brent on Saturday night, Donald McKaye +went directly to the mill office, in front of which his car was +parked, entered the car, and drove home to The Dreamerie, quite +oblivious of the fact that he was not the only man in Port Agnew who +had spent an interesting and exciting evening. So thoroughly mixed +were his emotions that he was not quite certain whether he was +profoundly happy or incurably wretched. When he gave way to rejoicing +in his new-found love, straightway he was assailed by a realization of +the barriers to his happiness—a truly masculine recognition of the +terrible bar sinister to Nan's perfect wifehood induced a veritable +shriveling of his soul, a mental agony all the more intense because it +was the first unhappiness he had ever experienced.</p> + +<p>His distress was born of the knowledge that between the Sawdust Pile +and The Dreamerie there stretched a gulf as wide and deep as the Bight +of Tyee. He was bred of that puritanical stock which demands that the +mate for a male of its blood must be of original purity, regardless of +the attitude of leniency on the part of that male for lapses from +virtue in one of his own sex. This creed, Donald had accepted as +naturally, as inevitably as he had accepted belief in the communion of +saints and the resurrection of the dead. His father's daughter-in-law, +like Cæsar's wife, would have to be above suspicion; while Donald +believed Nan Brent to be virtuous, or, at least, an unconscious, +unwilling, and unpremeditating sinner, non-virtuous by circumstance +instead of by her own deliberate act, he was too hard-headed not to +realize that never, by the grace of God, would she be above suspicion. +Too well he realized that his parents and his sisters, for whom he +entertained all the affection of a good son and brother, would, +unhampered by sex-appeal and controlled wholly by tradition, fail +utterly to take the same charitable view, even though he was honest +enough with himself to realize that perhaps his own belief in the +matter was largely the result of the wish being father to the thought.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, he dismissed, quite casually, consideration of the +opinions his mother and sisters, their friends and his, the men and +women of Port Agnew might entertain on the subject. His apprehensions +centered almost entirely upon his father. His affection for his father +he had always taken for granted. It was not an emotion to exclaim +over. Now that he realized, for the first time, his potential power to +hurt his father, to bow that gray head in grief and shame and +humiliation, he was vouchsafed a clearer, all-comprehending vision of +that father's love, of his goodness, his manliness, his honor, his +gentleness, and his fierce, high pride; to Donald simultaneously came +the knowledge of his own exalted love for the old man. He knew him as +no other human being knew him or ever would know him; whence he knew +old Hector's code—that a clean man may not mate with an unclean woman +without losing caste.</p> + +<p>He and Nan had discussed the situation but briefly; for they were +young, and the glory of that first perfect hour could not be marred by +a minute consideration of, misery in prospect. To-night, they had been +content to forget the world and be happy with each other, apparently +with the mutual understanding that they occupied an untenable +position, one that soon must be evacuated.</p> + +<p>Yes; he was the young laird of Tyee, the heir to a principality, and +it would be too great a strain on mere human beings to expect his +little world to approve of its highest mating with its lowest. Prate +as we may of democracy, we must admit, if we are to be honest with +ourselves, that this sad old world is a snobocracy. The very fact that +man is prone to regard himself as superior to his brother is the +leaven in the load of civilization; without that quality, whether we +elect to classify it as self-conceit or self-esteem, man would be +without ambition and our civilization barren of achievement. The +instinct for the upward climb—the desire to reach the heights—is too +insistent to be disregarded. If all men are born equal, as the framers +of our Constitution so solemnly declared, that is because the brains +of all infants, of whatsoever degree, are at birth incapable of +thought. The democracy of any people, therefore, must be predicated +upon their kindness and charity—human characteristics which blossom +or wither according to the intensity of the battle for existence. In +our day and generation, therefore, democracy is too high-priced for +promiscuous dissemination; wherefore, as in an elder day, we turn from +the teaching of the Man of Galilee and cling to tradition.</p> + +<p>Tradition was the stone in the road to Donald McKaye's happiness, and +his strength was not equal to the task of rolling it away.</p> + +<p>Despair enveloped him. Every fiber of his being, every tender, gallant +instinct drew him toward this wonder-girl that the world had thrust +aside as unworthy. His warm, sympathetic heart ached for her; he knew +she needed him as women like her must ever need the kind of man he +wanted to be, the kind he had always striven to be. Had he been +egotist enough to set a value upon himself, he would have told himself +she was worthy of him; yet a damnable set of damnable man-made +circumstances over which he had no control hedged them about and kept +them apart. It was terrible, so he reflected, to know that, even if +Nan should live the life of a saint from the hour of her child's birth +until the hour of her death, a half-century hence, yet would she fail +to atone for her single lapse while there still lived one who +knew—and remembered. He, Donald McKaye, might live down a natural +son, but Nan Brent could not. The contemplation of this social +phenomenon struck him with peculiar force, for he had not hitherto +considered the amazing inequalities of a double standard of morals.</p> + +<p>For the first time in his life, he could understand the abject +deference that must be shown to public opinion. He, who considered +himself, and not without reason, a gentleman, must defer to the +inchoate, unreasoning, unrelenting, and barbaric point of view of men +and women who hadn't sense enough to pound sand in a rat-hole or +breeding enough to display a reasonable amount of skill in the +manipulation of a knife and fork. Public opinion! Bah! Deference to a +fetish, a shibboleth, to the ancient, unwritten law that one must not +do that which hypocrites condemn and cowards fear to do, unless, +indeed, one can "get away with it."</p> + +<p>Ah, yes! The eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not be discovered." It +had smashed Nan Brent, who had violated it, desolated her, ruined +her—she who had but followed the instinct that God Almighty had given +her at birth—the instinct of sex, the natural yearning of a trustful, +loving heart for love, motherhood, and masculine protection from a +brutal world. More. Not satisfied with smashing her, public opinion +insisted that she should remain in a perennial state of smash. It was +abominable!</p> + +<p>Nan had told him she had never been married, and a sense of delicacy +had indicated to him that this was a subject upon which he must not +appear to be curious. To question her for the details would have been +repugnant to his nicely balanced sense of the fitness of things. +Nevertheless, he reflected, if her love had been illicit, was it more +illicit than that of the woman who enters into a loveless marriage, +induced to such action by a sordid consideration of worldly goods and +gear? Was her sin in bearing a child out of wedlock more terrible than +that of the married woman who shudders at the responsibilities of +motherhood, or evades the travail of love's fulfilment by snuffing out +little lives in embryo? He thought not. He recalled an evening in New +York when he had watched a policeman following a drab of the streets +who sought to evade him and ply her sorry trade in the vicinity of +Herald Square; he remembered how that same policeman had abandoned the +chase to touch his cap respectfully and open her limousine door for +the heroine (God save the mark!) of a scandalous divorce.</p> + +<p>"Damn it!" he murmured. "It's a rotten, cruel world, and I don't +understand it. I'm all mixed up." And he went to bed, where, his +bodily weariness overcoming his mental depression, he slept.</p> + +<p>He was man enough to scorn public opinion, but human enough to fear +it.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XVI'></a><h2>XVI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The heir of the Tyee mills and forests was not of a religious turn of +mind for all his strict training in Christian doctrine, although +perhaps it would be more to the point to state that he was inclined to +be unorthodox. Nevertheless, out of respect to the faith of his +fathers, he rose that Sunday morning and decided to go to church. Not +that he anticipated any spiritual benefit would accrue to him by +virtue of his pilgrimage down to Port Agnew; in his heart of hearts he +regarded the pastor as an old woman, a man afraid of the world, and +without any knowledge of it, so to speak. But old Hector was a pillar +of the church; his family had always accompanied him thither on +Sundays, and a sense of duty indicated to Donald that, as the future +head of the clan, he should not alter its customs.</p> + +<p>By a strange coincidence, the Reverend Mr. Tingley chose as the text +for his sermon the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John +from the first to the eleventh verses, inclusive. Donald, instantly +alert, straightened in the pew, and prepared to listen with interest +to the Reverend Mr. Tingley's opinion of the wisdom of Jesus Christ in +so casually disposing of the case of the woman taken in adultery.</p> + +<p>"Dearly beloved," the pastor began, carefully placing an index-finger +between the leaves of his Bible to mark the passage he had just read, +"the title of my sermon this Sunday shall be: 'The First Stone. Let +him who is without sin cast it.'"</p> + +<p>"Banal, hypocritical ass!" Donald soliloquized. "She was the +mezzo-soprano soloist in your choir four years, and you haven't tried +to help her since she came back to the Sawdust Pile."</p> + +<p>It was a good sermon, as sermons go. In fact, the Reverend Mr. +Tingley, warming to his theme, quite outdid himself on the subject of +charity as practised by his Redeemer, and, as a result, was the +recipient of numberless congratulatory handshakes later at the church +door. Donald agreed that it was an unusually good sermon—in theory; +but since he knew it would collapse in practise, he avoided Mr. +Tingley after service.</p> + +<p>On the steps of the church he was accosted by Andrew Daney and the +latter's wife, who greeted him effusively. Unfortunately for Mrs. +Daney, Nan, in one of those bursts of confidence that must ever exist +between lovers, had informed Donald the night previous of the motherly +soul's interest in his affairs; wherefore he returned Mrs. Daney's +warm greeting with such chilly courtesy that she was at no loss to +guess the reason for it and was instantly plunged into a slough of +terror and despair. She retained sufficient wit, however, to draw her +husband away, thus preventing him from walking with Donald.</p> + +<p>"I want to tell him about Dirty Dan," Daney protested, in a low voice. +"As the boss, he ought to be told promptly of any injury to an +employe."</p> + +<p>"Never mind Dirty Dan," she retorted. "He'll hear of it soon enough. +Let us congratulate Mr. Tingley on his sermon."</p> + +<p>Donald, having turned his back on them almost rudely, strode down the +street to his car and motored back to The Dreamerie. He spent the +remainder of the morning force-breaking a setter puppy to retrieve; at +one o'clock, he ate a cold luncheon, and immediately thereafter drove +down to Port Agnew and brazenly parked his car in front of Caleb +Brent's gate.</p> + +<p>He entered without the formality of knocking, and Nan met him in the +tiny entrance-hall.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't wait until dinner-time," he explained. "Nobody home at The +Dreamerie—" He took her face in his calloused hands, drew her to him. +"You're sweet in that calico gown," he informed her, waiving a +preliminary word of greeting. "I love you," he added softly, and +kissed her. She clung to him.</p> + +<p>"You should not have come here in broad daylight," she protested. "Oh, +you big, foolish, impulsive dear! Don't you realize I want to protect +you from the tongue of scandal? If you persist in forgetting who you +are, does it follow that I should pursue a similar course?"</p> + +<p>He ignored her argument.</p> + +<p>"I'll help you get dinner, old blue-eyes," he suggested. "Let me shuck +some corn or shell some peas or string some beans—any job where I can +sit and look at you and talk to you."</p> + +<p>"It will please me if you'll visit a little while with father Caleb," +she suggested. "He's out on the sun-porch. He's far from well this +morning. Do cheer him up, Donald dear."</p> + +<p>Old Caleb hailed him with a pleasure that was almost childish. During +the two weeks that had elapsed since Donald had seen him last, he had +failed markedly.</p> + +<p>"Well, how does the old sailor feel this morning?" Donald queried +casually, seating himself opposite the old man.</p> + +<p>"Poorly, Mr. Donald; poorly." He turned, satisfied himself that Nan +was busy in the kitchen, and then leaned toward his visitor. "I've got +my sailing-orders," he whispered confidentially. The man who had won a +Congressional medal of honor, without clearly knowing why or how, had +not changed with the years. He advanced this statement as a simple +exposition of fact.</p> + +<p>"Think so, Caleb?" Donald answered soberly.</p> + +<p>"I know it."</p> + +<p>"If you have no desire to live, Caleb, of course nature will yield to +your desires. Remember that and buck up. You may have your +sailing-orders, but you can keep the bar breaking indefinitely to +prevent you from crossing out."</p> + +<p>"I've done that for a year past. I do not wish to die and leave her, +for my three-quarter pay stops then. But I suffer from angina +pectoris. It's the worry, Mr. Donald," he added.</p> + +<p>"Worry as to the future of Nan and the child?"</p> + +<p>"Aye, lad."</p> + +<p>"Well, Caleb, your worries are unnecessary. I feel it my duty to tell +you that I love Nan; she loves me, and we have told each other so. She +shall not suffer when you are gone. She has indicated to me that, some +day, this—this mess may be cleared up; and when that happens, I shall +marry Nan."</p> + +<p>"So Nan told me this morning. I was wondering if you'd speak to me +about it, and I'm glad you have done so—promptly. You—you—honor us, +Mr. Donald; you do, indeed. You're the one man in the world I can +trust her with, whether as good friend or husband—only, her hushand +you'll never be."</p> + +<p>"I see breakers ahead," Donald admitted. He had no desire to dissemble +with this straightforward old father.</p> + +<p>"We're poor folk and plain, but—please God!—we're decent and we know +our place, Mr. Donald. If your big heart tells you to dishonor +yourself in the eyes of your world and your people—mark you, lad, I +do not admit that an alliance with my girl could ever dishonor you in +your own eyes—Nan will not be weak enough to permit it."</p> + +<p>"I have argued all that out with myself," Donald confessed miserably, +"without having arrived at a conclusion. I have made up my mind to +wait patiently and see what the future may bring forth."</p> + +<p>"It may be a long wait."</p> + +<p>"It will be worth while. And when you have sailed, I'll finance her to +leave Port Agnew and develop her glorious voice."</p> + +<p>"You haven't the right, Mr. Donald. My girl has some pride."</p> + +<p>"I'll gamble a sizable sum on her artistic future. The matter will be +arranged on a business basis. I shall lend her the money, and she +shall pay me back with interest."</p> + +<p>"Nan has a woman's pride. The obligation would remain always, even +though the money should be repaid."</p> + +<p>"I think we'll manage to adjust that," Donald countered confidently.</p> + +<p>"Ah, well," the old fellow answered; "we've always been your debtors. +And it's a debt that grows."</p> + +<p>He loaded his pipe and was silent, for, after the fashion of the aged, +he dared assume that his youthful auditor would understand just how +the Brents regarded him.</p> + +<p>"Well, my heart's lighter for our talk, lad," he declared presently. +"If you don't mind, I'll have a little nap."</p> + +<p>Donald, grateful for the dismissal, returned to the kitchen, where Nan +was preparing the vegetables. Her child at once clamored for +recognition, and, almost before he knew it, Donald had the tyke in his +lap and was saying,</p> + +<p>"Once upon a time there was a king and he had three sons——"</p> + +<p>"He isn't interested in kings and princes, dear," Nan interrupted. +"Tell him the story of the bad little rabbit."</p> + +<p>"But I don't know it, Nan."</p> + +<p>"Then you'll fail as a daddy to my boy. I'm surprised. If Don were +your own flesh and blood, you would know intuitively that there is +always a bad little rabbit and a good little rabbit. They dwell in a +hollow tree with mother Rabbit and father Rabbit."</p> + +<p>"Thanks for the hint. I shall not fail in this job of dadding. Well +then, bub, once upon a time there was a certain Mr. Johnny Rabbit who +married a very beautiful lady rabbit whose name was Miss Molly +Cottontail. After they were married and had gone to keep house under a +lumber-pile, Mr. Hezekiah Coon came along and offered to rent them +some beautifully furnished apartments in the burned-out stump of a +hemlock tree. The rent was to be one nice ear of sweet corn every +month—"</p> + +<p>The tale continued, with eager queries from the interested +listener—queries which merely stimulated the young laird of Tyee to +wilder and more whimsical flights of fancy, to the unfolding of +adventures more and more thrilling and unbelievable until, at last, +the recital began to take on the character of an Arabian Nights' tale +that threatened to involve the entire animal kingdom, and only ceased +when, with a wealth of mournful detail, Donald described the tragic +death and funeral of the gallant young Johnny Rabbit, his fatherless +audience suddenly burst into tears and howled lugubriously; whereupon +Donald was hard put to it to bring Johnny Rabbit back to life +mysteriously but satisfactorily, and send him scampering home to the +hollow hemlock tree, there to dwell happily ever after.</p> + +<p>His tale completed, Donald happened to glance toward Nan. She was +regarding him with shining eyes.</p> + +<p>"Donald," she declared, "it's a tremendous pity you haven't a boy of +your own. You're just naturally intended for fatherhood."</p> + +<p>He grinned.</p> + +<p>"My father has been hinting rather broadly that a grandson would be +the very last thing on earth to make him angry. He desires to see the +name and the breed and the business in a fair way of perpetuation +before he passes on."</p> + +<p>"That is the way of all flesh, Donald."</p> + +<p>"I wish it were not his way. My inability to comply with his desires +isn't going to render dad or me any happier."</p> + +<p>"Dear old boy, what a frightful predicament you're in!" she murmured +sympathetically. "I wish I could be quite certain you aren't really in +love with me, Donald."</p> + +<p>"Life would be far rosier for all concerned if I were quite certain I +was mistaking an old and exalted friendship for true love. But I'm +not. You're the one woman in the world for me, and if I cannot have +you, I'll have none other—Hello! Weeping has made this young fellow +heavy-lidded, or else my fiction has bored him, for he's nodding."</p> + +<p>"It's time for his afternoon nap, Donald." She removed the sleepy tot +from his arms and carried him away to his crib. When she returned, she +resumed her task of preparing dinner.</p> + +<p>"Nan," Donald queried suddenly, "have I the right to ask you the name +of the man who fathered that child?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she answered soberly; "you have. I wish, however, that you +would not ask me. I should have to decline to answer you."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'll not ask. Nevertheless, it would interest me mightily +to know why you protect him."</p> + +<p>"I am not at all desirous of protecting him, Donald. I am merely +striving to protect his legal wife. His marriage to me was bigamous; +he undertook the task of leading a dual married life, and, when I +discovered it, I left him."</p> + +<p>"But are you certain he married you?"</p> + +<p>"We went through a marriage ceremony which, at the time, I regarded as +quite genuine. Of course, since it wasn't legal, it leaves me in the +status of an unmarried woman."</p> + +<p>"So I understood from your father. Where did this ceremony take +place?"</p> + +<p>"In San Francisco." She came over, sat down beside him, and took one +of his hard, big hands in both of hers. "I'm going to tell you as much +as I dare," she informed him soberly. "You have a right to know, and +you're too nice to ask questions. So I'll not leave you to the agonies +of doubt and curiosity. You see, honey dear, father Brent wanted me to +have vocal and piano lessons, and to do that I had to go to Seattle +once a week, and the railroad-fare, in addition to the cost of the +lessons, was prohibitive until your father was good enough to secure +me a position in the railroad-agent's office in Port Agnew. Of course, +after I became an employe of the railroad company, I could travel on a +pass, so I used to go up to Seattle every Saturday, leaving here on +the morning train. Your father arranged matters in some way so that I +worked but five days a week."</p> + +<p>"Naturally. Dad's a pretty heavy shipper over the line."</p> + +<p>"I would receive my lessons late Saturday afternoons, stay overnight +with a friend of mine, and return to Port Agnew on Sunday. <i>He</i> used +to board the train at—well, the name of the station doesn't +matter—every Saturday, and one day we got acquainted, quite by +accident as it were. Our train ran through an open switch and collided +with the rear end of a freight; there was considerable excitement, and +everybody spoke to everybody else, and after that it didn't appear +that we were strangers. The next Saturday, when he boarded the train, +he sat down in the same seat with me and asked permission to introduce +himself. He was very nice, and his manners were beautiful; he didn't +act in the least like a man who desired to 'make a mash.' Finally, one +day, he asked me to have dinner with him in Seattle, and I accepted. I +think that was because I'd never been in a fashionable restaurant in +all my life. After dinner, he escorted me to the studio, and on Sunday +morning we took the same train home again. He was such good company +and such a jolly, worldly fellow—so thoughtful and deferential! Can't +you realize, Donald, how he must have appealed to a little country +goose like me?</p> + +<p>"Well, finally, daddy Brent learned that Signor Moretti, a tenor who +had retired from grand opera, had opened a studio in San Francisco. We +both wanted Moretti to pass on my voice, but we couldn't afford the +expense of a journey to San Francisco for two, so daddy sent me alone. +I wrote—that man about our plans, and told him the name of the +steamer I was sailing on. Your father gave me a passage on one of his +steam-schooners, and when we got to the dock in San Francisco—"</p> + +<p>"<i>He</i> was there, eh? Came down by train and beat the steamer in." +Donald nodded his comprehension. "What did Moretti say about your +voice?"</p> + +<p>"The usual thing. My Seattle teacher had almost ruined my voice, he +declared, but, for all that, he was very enthusiastic and promised me +a career within five years if I would place myself unreservedly in his +hands. Of course, we couldn't afford such an expensive career, and the +realization that I had to forego even the special inducements Signor +Moretti was generous enough to make me quite broke my heart. When I +told <i>him</i> about it—we were engaged by that time—he suggested that +we get married immediately, in order that I might reside with him in +San Francisco and study under Moretti. So we motored out into the +country one day and were married at San José. He asked me to keep our +marriage secret on account of some clause in his father's will, but I +insisted upon my right to tell daddy Brent. Poor old dear! My marriage +was such a shock to him; but he agreed with me that it was all for the +best—"</p> + +<p>"Well, I was quite happy for three months. My husband's business +interests necessitated very frequent trips North—"</p> + +<p>"What business was he in, Nan?"</p> + +<p>"That is immaterial," she evaded him. "Presently, Signer Moretti +contracted a severe cold and closed his studio for a month. My +husband—I suppose I must call him that to identify him when I refer +to him—had just gone North on one of his frequent trips, and since he +always kept me generously supplied with money, I decided suddenly to +take advantage of Moretti's absence to run up to Port Agnew and visit +my father.</p> + +<p>"In Seattle, as I alighted from the train, I saw my husband in the +station with another woman. I recognized her. She was a friend of +mine—a very dear, kind, thoughtful friend of several years' +standing—the only woman friend I had in the world. I loved her +dearly; you will understand when I tell you that she had frequently +gone out of her way to be kind to me. It struck me as strange that he +had never admitted knowing her, although frequently he had heard me +speak of her. While I stood pondering the situation, he took her in +his arms and kissed her good-by and boarded the train without seeing +me. I slipped out of the station without having been seen by either of +them; but while I was waiting for a taxicab, my friend came out of the +station, saw me, and rushed up to greet me. It developed, in the +course of our conversation following the usual commonplaces of +greeting, that she had been down to the station to see her husband off +on the train for San Francisco."</p> + +<p>Donald whistled softly.</p> + +<p>"How did you manage to get away with it, Nan?" he demanded +incredulously.</p> + +<p>"All my life I have been used to doing without things," she replied +simply. "I suppose that helped a little. The shock was not so abrupt +that I lost my presence of mind; you see, I had had a few minutes to +adjust myself after seeing him kiss her in the station—and just then +the taxicab came up and I escaped. Then I came home to the Sawdust +Pile. I wrote him, of course, and sent the letter by registered mail, +in order to make certain he would receive it. He did, but he did not +answer. There was no reason why he should, for he was quite safe. I +had assured him there was no necessity for worry on my account."</p> + +<p>"Of all the crazy, fool things for you to do!" Donald cried sharply. +"Why under the canopy did you deem it necessary to sacrifice yourself +for him? Surely you did not love him—"</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I never loved him," she interrupted. "I—I thought I did, +although, if he hadn't been away so frequently after our marriage, I +would have learned to love him dearly, I think."</p> + +<p>"Just human nature," Donald suggested. "Something akin to what +trapshooters and golfers call a mental hazard."</p> + +<p>"Of course he married me under an assumed name, Donald."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see a marriage certificate?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; I had to sign it in the presence of the minister."</p> + +<p>Donald was relieved.</p> + +<p>"Then, you great goose of a girl, you can clear your record any time +you desire. The minister forwarded the marriage certificate to the +state capital, and it is registered there with the State Board of +Health. After registration, it was returned to the minister whose +signature appeared on the certificate as the officiating clergyman. +The minister undoubtedly returned the certificate to your husband."</p> + +<p>"I never saw it again."</p> + +<p>"What if you did not? You can procure a certified copy from the record +in the county-clerk's office or from the records of the State Board of +Health. Marriage records, old dear, are fairly well protected in our +day and generation."</p> + +<p>"I wrote to the State Board of Health at Sacramento. There is no +record of my marriage there."</p> + +<p>"That's strange. Why didn't you write the county clerk, of the county +in which the license was issued?"</p> + +<p>She smiled at him.</p> + +<p>"I did. I had to, you know. My honor was at stake. The license was +issued in Santa Clara County."</p> + +<p>"Well, it will be a simple matter to comb the list of ministers until +we find the one that tied the knot. A certified copy of the marriage +license, with a sworn affidavit by the officiating clergyman—"</p> + +<p>"The officiating clergyman is dead. A private detective agency in San +Francisco discovered that for us."</p> + +<p>"But couldn't you cover your tracks, Nan? Under the circumstances, a +lie—any kind of deceit to save your good name—would have been +pardonable."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't help being smirched. Remember, my father was the only +person in Port Agnew who knew I had been married; he heeded my request +and kept the secret. Suddenly I returned home with a tale of marriage +in anticipation of my ability to prove it. In that I failed. Presently +my baby was born. People wondered who my husband was, and where he +kept himself; some of the extremely curious had the hardihood to come +here and question me. Was my husband dead? Of course not. Had I fibbed +and told them he was, they would have asked when and where and the +nature of the disease that carried him off. Was I divorced? Again I +was confronted with the necessity for telling the truth, because a lie +could be proved. Then the minister, to quiet certain rumors that had +reached him—he wanted me to sing in the choir again, and there was an +uproar when he suggested it—wrote to the California State Board of +Health. When he received a reply to his letter, he visited me to talk +it over, but I wasn't confiding in Mr. Tingley that day. He said I +might hope for salvation if I confessed my wickedness and besought +forgiveness from God. He offered to pray for me and with me. He meant +well—poor, silly dear!—but he was so terribly incredulous that +presently I told him I didn't blame him a bit and suggested that I be +permitted to paddle my own canoe, as it were. Thanked him for calling, +but told him he needn't call again. He departed in great distress."</p> + +<p>"I hold no brief for the Reverend Tingley, Nan; but I'll be shot if +your story will hold water in a world that's fairly well acquainted +with the frailty of humankind. Of course I believe you—and, for some +fool reason, I'm not ashamed of my own intelligence in so believing. I +have accepted you on faith. What sets my reason tottering on its +throne is the fact that you insist upon protecting this scoundrel."</p> + +<p>"I insist upon protecting his wife. I love her. She has been kind to +me. She's the only friend of my own sex that I have ever known. She's +tubercular, and will not live many years. She has two children—and +she adores her scamp of a husband. If I cannot convict that man of +bigamy, would it not be foolish of me to try? And why should I inflict +upon her, who has shown me kindness and love, a brimming measure of +humiliation and sorrow and disgrace? I can bear my burden a year or +two longer, I think; then, when she is gone, I can consider my +vindication." She patted his hand to emphasize her unity of purpose. +"That's the way I've figured it all out—the whole, crazy-quilt +pattern, and if you have a better scheme, and one that isn't founded +on human selfishness, I'm here to listen to it."</p> + +<p>A long silence fell between them.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear heart?" she demanded finally.</p> + +<p>"I wasn't thinking of <i>that</i>," he replied slowly. "I was just trying +to estimate how much more I love you this minute than I did five +minutes ago."</p> + +<p>He drew her golden head down on his shoulder and held her to him a +long time without speaking. It was Nan who broke the spell by saying:</p> + +<p>"When the time comes for my vindication, I shall ask you to attend to +it for me, dear. You're my man—and I think it's a man's task."</p> + +<p>His great fingers opened and closed in a clutching movement. He +nodded.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XVII'></a><h2>XVII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>When Donald returned to The Dreamerie about eleven o'clock, he was +agreeably surprised to find his father in the living-room.</p> + +<p>"Hello, dad!" he greeted The Laird cheerfully. "Glad to see you. When +did you get back?"</p> + +<p>"Came down on the morning train, Donald."</p> + +<p>They were shaking hands now. The Laird motioned him to a chair, and +asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been all day, son?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I represented the clan at church this morning, and, after +luncheon here, I went down to visit the Brents at the Sawdust Pile. +Stayed for dinner. Old Caleb's in rather bad shape mentally and +physically, and I tried to cheer him up. Nan sang for me—quite like +old times."</p> + +<p>"I saw Nan Brent on the beach the other day. Quite a remarkable young +woman. Attractive, I should say," the old man answered craftily.</p> + +<p>"It's a pity, dad. She's every inch a woman. Hard on a girl with +brains and character to find herself in such a sorry tangle."</p> + +<p>The Laird's heavy heart was somewhat lightened by the frankness and +lack of suspicion with which his son had met his blunt query as to +where he had been spending his time. For the space of a minute, he +appeared to be devoting his thoughts to a consideration of Donald's +last remark; presently he sighed, faced his son, and took the plunge.</p> + +<p>"Have you heard anything about a fight down near the Sawdust Pile +last night, my son?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>His son's eyes opened with interest and astonishment.</p> + +<p>"No; I did not, dad. And I was there until nearly ten o'clock."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I was aware of that, and of your visit there to-day and this +evening. Thank God, you're frank with me! That yellow scoundrel and +two Greeks followed you there to do for you. After you roughed the +Greek at the railroad station, it occurred to me that you had an enemy +and might hold him cheaply; so, just before I boarded the train, I +telephoned Daney to tell Dirty Dan to shadow you and guard you. So +well did he follow orders that he lies in the company hospital now at +the point of death. As near as I can make out the affair, Dirty Dan +inculcated in those bushwhackers the idea that he was the man they +were after; he went to meet them and took the fight off your hands."</p> + +<p>"Good old Dirty Dan! I'll wager a stiff sum he did a thorough job." +The young laird of Tyee rose and ruffled his father's gray head +affectionately. "Thoughtful, canny old fox!" he continued. "I swear +I'm all puffed up with conceit when I consider the kind of father I +selected for myself."</p> + +<p>"Those scoundrels would have killed you," old Hector reminded him, +with just a trace of emotion in his voice. "And if they'd done that, +sonny, your old father'd never held up his head again. There are two +things I could not stand up under—your death and"—he sighed, as if +what he was about to say hurt him cruelly—"the wrong kind of a +daughter-in-law."</p> + +<p>"We will not fence with each other," his son answered soberly. "There +has never been a lack of confidence between us, and I shall not +withhold anything from you. You are referring to Nan, are you not?'"</p> + +<p>"I am, my son."</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>"I am not a cat, and it hurts me to be an old dog, but—I saw Nan +Brent recently, and we had a bit of talk together. She's a bonny lass, +Donald, and I'm thinking 'twould be better for your peace of mind—and +the peace of mind of all of us—if you saw less of her."</p> + +<p>"You think, then, father, that I'm playing with fire."</p> + +<p>"You're sitting on an open barrel of gunpowder with a lighted torch in +your hand."</p> + +<p>Donald returned to his chair and faced his father.</p> + +<p>"Let us suppose," he suggested, "that the present unhappy situation in +which Nan finds herself did not exist. Would you still prefer that I +limit my visits to, say, Christmas and Easter?"</p> + +<p>The Laird scratched the back of his head in perplexity.</p> + +<p>"I'm inclined to think I wouldn't," he replied. "I'd consider your +best interests always. If you married a fine girl from Chicago or New +York, she might not be content to dwell with you in Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"Then Nan's poverty—the lowliness of her social position, even in +Port Agnew, would not constitute a serious bar?"</p> + +<p>"I was as poor as Job's turkey once myself—and your mother's people +were poorer. But we came of good blood."</p> + +<p>"Well, Nan's mother was a gentlewoman; her grandfather was an +admiral; her great-grandfather a commodore, her great-great-granduncle +a Revolutionary colonel, and her grandmother an F.F.V. Old Caleb's +ancestors always followed the sea. His father and his grandfather were +sturdy old Yankee shipmasters. He holds the Congressional medal of +honor for conspicuous gallantry in action over and above the call of +duty. The Brent blood may not be good enough for some, but it's a kind +that's good enough for me!"</p> + +<p>"All that is quite beside the question, Donald. The fact remains that +Nan Brent loves you."</p> + +<p>"May I inquire on what grounds you base that statement, dad?"</p> + +<p>"On Saturday night, when you held her in your arms at parting, she +kissed you." Donald was startled, and his features gave indubitable +indication of the fact. His father's cool gray eyes were bent upon him +kindly but unflinchingly. "Of course," he continued, in even tones, +"you would not have accepted that caress were you not head over heels +in love with the girl. You are not low enough to seek her favor for +another reason."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I love her," Donald maintained manfully. "I have loved her for +years—since I was a boy of sixteen,—only, I didn't realize it until +my return to Port Agnew. I can't very well help loving Nan, can I, +dad?"</p> + +<p>To his amazement, his father smiled at him sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"No; I do not see how you could very well help yourself, son," he +replied. "She's an extraordinary young woman. After my brief and +accidental interview with her recently, I made up my mind that there +would be something radically wrong with you if you didn't fall in +love with her."</p> + +<p>His son grinned back at him.</p> + +<p>"Proceed, old lumberjack!" he begged. "Your candor is soothing to my +bruised spirit."</p> + +<p>"No; you cannot help loving her, I suppose. Since you admit being in +love with her, the fact admits of no argument. It has happened, and I +do not condemn you for it. Both of you have merely demonstrated in the +natural, human way that you are natural human beings. And I'm grateful +to Nan for loving you. I think I should have resented her not doing +so, for it would demonstrate her total lack of taste and appreciation +of my son. She informed me, in so many words, that she wouldn't marry +you."</p> + +<p>"Nan has the capacity, somewhat rare in a woman, of keeping her own +counsel. That is news to me, dad. However, if you had waited about two +minutes, I would have informed you that I do not intend to marry +Nan—" He paused for an infinitesimal space and added, "yet."</p> + +<p>The Laird elevated his eyebrows.</p> + +<p>"'Yet?'" he repeated.</p> + +<p>Donald flushed a little as he reiterated his statement with an +emphatic nod.</p> + +<p>"Why that reservation, my son?"</p> + +<p>"Because, some day, Nan may be in position to prove herself that which +I know her to be—a virtuous woman—and when that time comes, I'll +marry her in spite of hell and high water."</p> + +<p>Old Hector sighed. He was quite familiar with the fact that, while the +records of the county clerk of Santa Clara County, California, +indicated that a marriage license had been issued on a certain date +to a certain man and one Nan Brent, of Port Agnew, Washington, there +was no official record of a marriage between the two. The Reverend Mr. +Tingley's wife had sorrowfully imparted that information to Mrs. +McKaye, who had, in turn, informed old Hector, who had received the +news with casual interest, little dreaming that he would ever have +cause to remember it in later years. And The Laird was an old man, +worldly-wise and of mature judgment. His soul wore the scars of human +perfidy, and, because he could understand the weakness of the flesh, +he had little confidence in its strength. Consequently, he dismissed +now, with a wave of his hand, consideration of the possibility that +Nan Brent would ever make a fitting mate for his son.</p> + +<p>"It's nice of you to believe that, Donald. I would not destroy your +faith in human nature, for human nature will destroy your faith in +time, as it has destroyed mine. I'm afraid I'm a sort of doubting +Thomas. I must see in order to believe; I must thrust my finger into +the wound. I wonder if you realize that, even if this poor girl +should, at some future time, be enabled to demonstrate her innocence +of illicit love, she has been hopelessly smeared and will never, +never, be quite able to clean herself."</p> + +<p>"It matters not if <i>I</i> know she's a good woman. That is all +sufficient. To hell with what the world thinks! I'm going to take my +happiness where I find it."</p> + +<p>"It may be a long wait, my son."</p> + +<p>"I will be patient, sir."</p> + +<p>"And, in the meantime, I shall be a doddering old man, without a +grandson to sweeten the afternoon of my life, without a hope for +seeing perpetuated all those things that I have considered worth +while because I created them. Ah, Donald, lad, I'm afraid you're going +to be cruel to your old father!"</p> + +<p>"I have suffered with the thought that I might appear to be, dad. I +have considered every phase of the situation; I was certain of the +attitude you would take, and I feel no resentment because you have +taken it. Neither Nan nor I had contemplated the condition which +confronts us. It happened—like that," and Donald snapped his fingers. +"Now the knowledge of what we mean to each other makes the obstacles +all the more heart-breaking. I have tried to wish, for your sake, that +I hadn't spoken—that I had controlled myself, but, for some +unfathomable reason, I cannot seem to work up a very healthy +contrition. And I think, dad, this is going to cause me more suffering +than it will you."</p> + +<p>A faint smile flitted across old Hector's stern face. Youth! Youth! It +always thinks it knows!</p> + +<p>"This affair is beyond consideration by the McKayes, Donald. It is +utterly impossible! You must cease calling on the girl."</p> + +<p>"Why, father?"</p> + +<p>"To give you my real reason would lead to endless argument in which +you would oppose me with more or less sophistry that would be +difficult to combat. In the end, we might lose our tempers. Let us +say, therefore, that you must cease calling on the lass because I +desire it."</p> + +<p>"I'll never admit that I'm ashamed of her, for I am not!" his son +burst forth passionately.</p> + +<p>"But people are watching you now—talking about you. Man, do ye not +ken you're your father's son?" A faint note of passion had crept into +The Laird's tones; under the stress of it, his faint Scotch brogue +increased perceptibly. He had tried gentle argument, and he knew he +had failed; in his desperation, he decided to invoke his authority as +the head of his clan. "I forbid you!" he cried firmly, and slapped the +huge leather arm of his chair. "I charge you, by the blood that's in +you, not to bring disgrace upon my house!"</p> + +<p>A slight mistiness which Donald, with swelling heart, had noted in his +father's eyes a few moments before was now gone. They flashed like +naked claymores in the glance that Andrew Daney once had so aptly +described to his wife.</p> + +<p>For the space of ten seconds, father and son looked into each other's +soul and therein each read the other's answer. There could be no +surrender.</p> + +<p>"You have bred a man, sir, not a mollycoddle," said the young laird +quietly. "I think we understand each other." He rose, drew the old man +out of his chair, and threw a great arm across the latter's shoulders. +"Good-night, sir," he murmured humbly, and squeezed the old shoulders +a little.</p> + +<p>The Laird bowed his head but did not answer. He dared not trust +himself to do so. Thus Donald left him, standing in the middle of the +room, with bowed head a trifle to one side, as if old Hector listened +for advice from some unseen presence. The Laird of Tyee had thought he +had long since plumbed the heights and depths of the joys and sorrows +of fatherhood. The tears came presently.</p> + +<p>A streak of moonlight filtered into the room as the moon sank in the +sea and augmented the silver in a head that rested on two clasped +hands, while Hector McKaye, kneeling beside his chair, prayed to his +stern Presbyterian God once more to save his son from the folly of his +love.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XVIII'></a><h2>XVIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>It had been Donald McKaye's intention to go up to the logging-camp on +the first log-train leaving for the woods at seven o'clock on Monday +morning, but the news of Dirty Dan's plight caused him to change his +plans. Strangely enough, his interview with his father, instead of +causing him the keenest mental distress, had been productive of a +peculiar sense of peace. The frank, sympathetic, and temperate manner +in which the old laird had discussed his affair had conduced to +produce this feeling. He passed a restful night, as his father +observed when the pair met at the breakfast-table.</p> + +<p>"Well, how do you feel this morning, son?" the old man queried kindly.</p> + +<p>"Considerably better than I did before our talk last night, sir," +Donald answered.</p> + +<p>"I haven't, slept," old Hector continued calmly, "although I expect to +have a little nap during the day. Just about daylight a comforting +thought stole over me."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to hear it, dad."</p> + +<p>"I've decided to repose faith in Nan, having none at all in you. If +she truly loves you, she'll die before she'll hurt you."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it may be a comfort to you to know that she has so expressed +herself to me."</p> + +<p>"Bless her poor heart for that! However, she told me practically the +same thing."</p> + +<p>He scooped his eggs into the egg-cup and salted and peppered them +before he spoke again. Then:</p> + +<p>"We'll not discuss this matter further. All I ask is that you'll +confine your visits to the Sawdust Pile to the dark of the moon; I +trust to your natural desire to promote my peace of mind to see to it +that no word of your—affair reaches your mother and sisters. They'll +not handle you with the tact you've had from me."</p> + +<p>"I can well believe that, sir. Thank you. I shall exercise the utmost +deference to your desires consistent with an unfaltering adherence to +my own code."</p> + +<p>There it was again—more respectful defiance! Had he not, during the +long, distressing hours of the night, wisely decided to leave his +son's case in the hands of God and Nan Brent, The Laird would have +flown into a passion at that. He compromised by saying nothing, and +the meal was finished in silence.</p> + +<p>After breakfast, Donald went down to the hospital to visit Dirty Dan. +O'Leary was still alive, but very close to death; he had lost so much +blood that he was in a state of coma.</p> + +<p>"He's only alive because he's a fighter, Mr. McKaye," the doctor +informed Donald. "If I can induce some good healthy man to consent to +a transfusion of blood, I think it would buck Dan up considerably."</p> + +<p>"I'm your man," Donald informed him. It had occurred to him that Dirty +Dan had given his blood for the House of McKaye; therefore, the least +he could do was to make a partial payment on the debt.</p> + +<p>The doctor, knowing nothing of the reason for Dirty Dan's predicament, +was properly amazed.</p> + +<p>"You—the boss—desire to do this?" he replied.</p> + +<p>"We can get one of this wild rascal's comrades—"</p> + +<p>"That wild rascal is my comrade, doctor. I'm more or less fond of +Dan." He had removed his coat and was already rolling up his sleeve. +"I'm half Gael," he continued smilingly, "and, you know, we must not +adulterate Dirty Dan's blood any more than is absolutely necessary. +Consider the complications that might ensue if you gave Dan an +infusion of blood from a healthy Italian. The very first fight he +engaged in after leaving this hospital, he'd use a knife instead of +nature's weapons. Get busy!"</p> + +<p>But the doctor would take no liberties with the life-blood of the heir +of Tyee until he had telephoned to The Laird.</p> + +<p>"My son is the captain of his own soul," old Hector answered promptly. +"You just see that you do your job well; don't hurt the boy or weaken +him too greatly."</p> + +<p>An hour after the operation, father and son sat beside Dirty Dan's +bed. Presently, the ivory-tinted eyelids flickered slightly, whereat +old Hector winked sagely at his son. Then Dirty Dan's whiskered upper +lip twisted humorously, and he whispered audibly:</p> + +<p>"Ye young divil! Oh-ho, ye young vagabond! Faith, if The Laird knew +what ye're up to this night, he'd—break yer—back—in two halves!"</p> + +<p>Hector McKaye glanced apprehensively about, but the nurse had left the +room. He bent over Dirty Dan.</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" he commanded. "Don't tell everything you know!"</p> + +<p>O'Leary promptly opened his eyes and gazed upon The Laird in profound +puzzlement.</p> + +<a name='DONALD_BOWED_HIS_HEAD'></a> +<center> +<img src='images/03.jpg' width='600' height='384' alt='DONALD BOWED HIS HEAD. "I CAN'T GIVE HER UP, FATHER."' title='DONALD BOWED HIS HEAD. "I CAN'T GIVE HER UP, FATHER."'> +</center> +<h3>DONALD BOWED HIS HEAD. "I CAN'T GIVE HER UP, FATHER."</h3> + +<p>"Wild horrses couldn't dhrag it out o' me," he protested. "Ask me no +questions an' I'll tell ye no lies."</p> + +<p>He subsided into unconsciousness again. The doctor entered and felt of +his pulse.</p> + +<p>"On the up-grade," he announced. "He'll do."</p> + +<p>"Dan will obey the voice of authority, even in his delirium," The +Laird whispered to his son, when they found themselves alone with the +patient once more. "I'll stay here until he wakes up rational, and +silence him if, in the mean time, he babbles. Run along home, lad."</p> + +<p>At noon, Dirty Dan awoke with the light of reason and belligerency in +his eyes, whereupon The Laird questioned him, and developed a stubborn +reticence which comforted the former to such a degree that he decided +to follow his son home to The Dreamerie.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XIX'></a><h2>XIX</h2> +<br /> + +<p>A week elapsed before Hector McKaye would permit his son to return to +his duties. By that time, the slight wound in the latter's arm where +the vein had been opened had practically healed. Dirty Dan continued +to improve, passed the danger-mark, and began the upward climb to his +old vigor and pugnacity. Port Agnew, stirred to discussion over the +affray, forgot it within three days, and on the following Monday +morning Donald returned to the woods. The Laird of Tyee carried his +worries to the Lord in prayer, and Nan Brent frequently forgot her +plight and sang with something of the joy of other days.</p> + +<p>A month passed. During that month, Donald had visited the Sawdust Pile +once and had written Nan thrice. Also, Mrs. Andrew Daney, hard beset +because of her second experience with the "Blue Bonnet" glance of a +McKaye, had decided to remove herself from the occasions of gossip and +be in a position to claim an alibi in the event of developments. So +she abandoned Daney to the mercies of a Japanese cook and departed for +Whatcom to visit a married daughter. From Whatcom, she wrote her +husband that she was enjoying her visit so much she hadn't the +slightest idea when she would return, and, for good and sufficient +reasons, Daney did not urge her to change her mind.</p> + +<p>Presently, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters returned to Port Agnew. His +wife's letters to The Laird had failed to elicit any satisfactory +reason for his continued stay at home, and inasmuch as all three +ladies were deferring the trip to Honolulu on his account, they had +come to a mutual agreement to get to close quarters and force a +decision.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye had been inside The Dreamerie somewhat less than five +minutes before her instinct as a woman, coupled with her knowledge as +a wife, informed her that her spouse was troubled in his soul. Always +tactless, she charged him with it, and when he denied it, she was +certain of it. So she pressed him further, and was informed that he +had a business deal on; when she interrogated him as to the nature of +it (something she had not done in years), he looked at her and smoked +contemplatively. Immediately she changed the subject of conversation, +but made a mental resolve to keep her eyes and her ears open.</p> + +<p>The Fates decreed that she should not have long to wait. Donald came +home from the logging-camp the following Saturday night, and the +family, having finished dinner, were seated in the living-room. The +Laird was smoking and staring moodily out to sea, Donald was reading, +Jane was at the piano softly playing ragtime, and Mrs. McKaye and +Elizabeth were knitting socks for suffering Armenians when the +telephone-bell rang. Jane immediately left the piano and went out into +the entrance-hall to answer it, the servants having gone down to Port +Agnew to a motion-picture show. A moment later, she returned to the +living-room, leaving the door to the entrance-hall open.</p> + +<p>"You're wanted on the telephone, Don!" she cried gaily. "Such a sweet +voice, too!"</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye and Elizabeth looked up from their knitting. They were +not accustomed to having Donald called to the telephone by young +ladies. Donald laid his magazine aside and strode to the telephone; +The Laird faced about in his chair, and a harried look crept into his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Close the door to the entrance-hall, Jane," he commanded.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me, no!" his spoiled daughter protested. "It would be too +great a strain on our feminine curiosity not to eavesdrop on Don's +little romance."</p> + +<p>"Close it!" The Laird repeated. He was too late. Through the open +door, Donald's voice reached them:</p> + +<p>"Oh, you poor girl! I'm so sorry, Nan dear. I'll be over immediately." +His voice dropped several octaves, but the words came to the listeners +none the less distinctly. "Be brave, sweetheart."</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye glanced at her husband in time to see him avert his face; +she noted how he clutched the arm of his chair.</p> + +<p>To quote a homely phrase, the cat was out of the bag at last. Donald's +face wore a troubled expression as he reentered the living-room. His +mother spoke first.</p> + +<p>"Donald! <i>My</i> son!" she murmured tragically.</p> + +<p>"Hum-m—!" The Laird grunted. The storm had broken at last, and, +following the trend of human nature, he was conscious of sudden +relief.</p> + +<p>Jane was the first to recover her customary aplomb.</p> + +<p>"Don dear," she cooed throatily, "are we mistaken in our assumption +that the person with whom you have just talked is Nan Brent?"</p> + +<p>"Your penetration does you credit, Jane. It was."</p> + +<p>"And did our ears deceive us or did we really hear you call her +'dear' and 'sweetheart'?"</p> + +<p>"It is quite possible," Donald answered. He crossed the room and +paused beside his father. "Caleb Brent blinked out a few minutes ago, +dad. It was quite sudden. Heart-trouble. Nan's all alone down there, +and of course she needs help. I'm going. I'll leave to you the job of +explaining the situation to mother and the girls. Good-night, pop; I +think you understand."</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye was too stunned, too horrified, to find refuge in tears.</p> + +<p>"How dare that woman ring you up?" she demanded haughtily. "The +hussy!"</p> + +<p>"Why, mother dear, she has to have help," her son suggested +reproachfully.</p> + +<p>"But why from you, of all men? I forbid you to go!" his mother +quavered. "You must have more respect for us. Why, what will people +say?"</p> + +<p>"To hell with what people say! They'll say it, anyhow," roared old +Hector. Away down in his proud old heart he felt a few cheers rising +for his son's manly action, albeit the necessity for that action was +wringing his soul. "'Tis no time for idle spierin'. Away with you, +lad! Comfort the puir lass. 'Tis no harm to play a man's part. Hear +me," he growled; "I'll nae have my soncy lad abused."</p> + +<p>"Dad's gone back to the Hielands. 'Nough said." Elizabeth had +recovered her customary jolly poise. Wise enough, through long +experience, to realize that when her father failed to throttle that +vocal heritage from his forebears, war impended, she gathered up her +knitting and fled to her room.</p> + +<p>Jane ran to her mother's side, drew the good lady's head down on her +shoulder, and faced her brother.</p> + +<p>"Shame! Shame!" she cried sharply. "You ungrateful boy! How could you +hurt dear mother so!"</p> + +<p>This being the cue for her mother to burst into violent weeping, +forthwith the poor soul followed up the cue. Donald, sore beset, +longed to take her in his arms and kiss away her tears, but something +warned him that such action would merely serve to accentuate the +domestic tempest, so, with a despairing glance at old Hector, he left +the room.</p> + +<p>"Pretty kettle o' fish you've left me to bring to a boil!" the old man +cried after him. "O Lord! O Lord! Grant me the wisdom of Solomon, the +patience of Job, and the cunning of Judas Iscariot! God help my +mildewed soul!"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XX'></a><h2>XX</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The instant the front door closed behind her son, Mrs. McKaye +recovered her composure. Had the reason been more trifling, she would +have wept longer, but, in view of its gravity, her common sense (she +possessed some, when it pleased her to use it) bade her be up and +doing. Also, she was smitten with remorse. She told herself she was +partly to blame for this scourge that had come upon the family; she +had neglected her son and his indulgent father. She, who knew so well +the peculiar twists of her husband's mental and moral make-up, should +not be surprised if he cast a tolerant eye upon his son's +philanderings; seemingly the boy had always been able to twist his +father round his finger, so to speak. She sat up, dabbed her eyes, +kissed Jane lovingly as who should say, "Well, thank God, here is one +child I can rely upon," and turned upon the culprit. Her opening +sentence was at once a summons and an invitation.</p> + +<p>"Well, Hector?"</p> + +<p>"It happened while you were away—while we were both away, Nellie. I +was gone less than forty-eight hours—and he had compromised himself."</p> + +<p>"You don't mean—really compromised himself!" Jane cried sharply, thus +bringing upon her The Laird's attention. He appeared to transfix her +with his index finger.</p> + +<p>"To bed with you, young lady!" he ordered. "Your mother and I will +discuss this matter without any of your pert suggestions or +exclamations. I'm far from pleased with you, Jane. I told you to shut +that door, and you disobeyed me. For that, you shall suffer due +penance. Six months in Port Agnew, my dear, to teach you obedience and +humility. Go!"</p> + +<p>Jane departed, sniffling, and this stern evidence of The Laird's +temper was not lost upon his wife. She decided to be tactful, which, +in her case, meant proceeding slowly, speaking carefully, and +listening well. Old Hector heaved himself out of his great chair, came +and sat down on the divan with his wife, and put his arm round her.</p> + +<p>"Dear old Nellie!" he whispered, and kissed her.</p> + +<p>For the moment, they were lovers of thirty-odd years agone; their +children forgotten, they were sufficient unto themselves.</p> + +<p>"I know just how you feel, Nellie. I have done my best to spare you—I +have not connived or condoned. And I'll say this for our son: He's +been open and above-board with her and with me. He's young, and in a +moment of that passion that comes to young men—aye, and young women, +too, for you and I have known it—he told her what was in his heart, +even while his head warned him to keep quiet. It seems to me sometimes +that 'tis something that was to be."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hector, it mustn't be! It cannot be!"</p> + +<p>"I'm hoping it will not be, Nellie. I'll do my best to stop it."</p> + +<p>"But, Hector, why did you support him a moment ago?"</p> + +<p>He flapped a hand to indicate a knowledge of his own incomprehensible +conduct.</p> + +<p>"She'd called for him, Nellie. Poor bairn, her heart went out to the +one she knew would help her, and, by God, Nellie, I felt for her! +You're a woman, Nellie. Think—if one of your own daughters was +wishful for a kind word and a helping hand from an honorable gentleman +and some fool father forbade it. Nellie wife, my heart and my head are +sore tangled, sore tangled—"</p> + +<p>His voice broke. He was shaken with emotion. He had stood much and he +had stood it alone; while it had never occurred to him to think so, he +had been facing life pretty much alone for a decade. It would have +eased his surcharged spirit could he have shed a few manly tears, if +his wife had taken his leonine old head on her shoulder and lavished +upon him the caresses his hungry heart yearned for. Unfortunately, she +was that type of wife whose first and only thought is for her +children. She was aware only that he was in a softened mood, so she +said,</p> + +<p>"Don't you think you've been a little hard on poor Jane, Hector dear?"</p> + +<p>"No, I do not. She's cruel, selfish, and uncharitable."</p> + +<p>"But you'll forgive her this once, won't you, dear?"</p> + +<p>He considered.</p> + +<p>"Well, if she doesn't heckle Donald—" he began, but she stopped +further proviso with a grateful kiss, and immediately followed Jane +up-stairs to break the good news to her. She and Jane then joined +Elizabeth in the latter's room, and the trio immediately held what +their graceless relative would have termed "a lodge of sorrow." Upon +motion of Jane, seconded by Elizabeth, it was unanimously resolved +that the honor of the family must be upheld. At all cost. They laid +out a plan of campaign.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXI'></a><h2>XXI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Upon his arrival in Port Agnew, Donald called upon one Sam Carew. In +his youth, Mr. Carew had served his time as an undertaker's assistant, +but in Port Agnew his shingle proclaimed him to his world as a +"mortician." Owing to the low death-rate in that salubrious section, +however, Mr. Carew added to his labors those of a carpenter, and when +outside jobs of carpentering were scarce, he manufactured a few plain +and fancy coffins.</p> + +<p>Donald routed Sam Carew out of bed with the news of Caleb Brent's +death and ordered him down to the Sawdust Pile in his capacity of +mortician; then he hastened there himself in advance of Mr. Carew. Nan +was in the tiny living-room, her head pillowed on the table, when +Donald entered, and when she had sobbed herself dry-eyed in his arms, +they went in to look at old Caleb. He had passed peacefully away an +hour after retiring for the night; Nan had straightened his limbs and +folded the gnarled hands over the still heart; in the great democracy +of death, his sad old face had settled into peaceful lines such as had +been present in the days when Nan was a child and she and her father +had been happy building a home on the Sawdust Pile. As Donald looked +at him and reflected on the tremendous epics of a career that the +world regarded as commonplace, when he recalled the sloop old Caleb +had built for him with so much pride and pleaure, the long-forgotten +fishing trips and races in the bight, the wondrous tales the old +sailor had poured into his boyish ears, together with the affection +and profound respect, as for a superior being, which the old man had +always held for him, the young laird of Tyee mingled a tear or two +with those of the orphaned Nan.</p> + +<p>"I've told Sam Carew to come for him," he informed Nan, when they had +returned to the living-room. "I shall attend to all of the funeral +arrangements. Funeral the day after to-morrow, say in the morning. Are +there any relatives to notify?"</p> + +<p>"None that would be interested, Donald."</p> + +<p>"Do you wish a religious service?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not by the Reverend Tingley."</p> + +<p>"Then I'll get somebody else. Anything else? Money, clothes?"</p> + +<p>She glanced at him with all the sweetness and tenderness of her great +love lambent in her wistful sea-blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"What a poor thing is pride in the face of circumstances," she replied +drearily. "I haven't sufficient strength of character to send you +away. I ought to, for your own sake, but since you're the only one +that cares, I suppose you'll have to pay the price. You might lend me +a hundred dollars, dear. Perhaps some-day I'll repay it."</p> + +<p>He laid the money in her hand and retained the hand in his; thus they +sat gazing into the blue flames of the driftwood fire—she hopelessly, +he with masculine helplessness. Neither spoke, for each was busy with +personal problems.</p> + +<p>The arrival of Mr. Carew interrupted their sad thoughts. When he had +departed with the harvest of his grim profession, the thought that had +been uppermost in Donald's mind found expression.</p> + +<p>"It's going to be mighty hard on you living here alone."</p> + +<p>"It's going to be hard on me wherever I live—alone," she replied +resignedly.</p> + +<p>"Wish I could get some woman to come and live with you until we can +adjust your affairs, Nan. Tingley's wife's a good sort. Perhaps—"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"I prefer my own company—when I cannot have yours."</p> + +<p>A wave of bitterness, of humiliation swept over him in the knowledge +that he could not ask one of his own sisters to help her. Truly he +dwelt in an unlovely world.</p> + +<p>He glanced at Nan again, and suddenly there came over him a great +yearning to share her lot, even at the price of sharing her shame. He +was not ashamed of her, and she knew it; yet both were fearful of +revealing that fact to their fellow mortals. The conviction stole over +Donald McKaye that he was not being true to himself, that he was not a +man of honor in the fullest sense or a gentleman in the broadest +meaning of the word. And that, to the heir of a principality, was a +dangerous thought.</p> + +<p>He then took tender leave of the girl and walked all the way home. His +father had not retired when he reached The Dreamerie, and the sight of +that stern yet kindly and wholly understandable person moved him to +sit down beside The Laird on the divan and take the old man's hand in +his childishly.</p> + +<p>"Dad, I'm in hell's own hole!" he blurted. "I'm so unhappy!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, son; I know you are. And it breaks me all up to think that, for +the first time in my life, I can't help you. All the money in the +world will not buy the medicine that'll cure you."</p> + +<p>"I have to go through that, too, I suppose," his son complained, and +jerked his head toward the stairs, where, as a matter of fact, his +sister Jane crouched at the time, striving to eavesdrop. "I had a +notion, as I walked home, that I'd refuse to permit them to discuss my +business with me."</p> + +<p>"This particular business of yours is, unfortunately, something which +they believe to be their business, also. God help me, I agree with +them!"</p> + +<p>"Well, they had better be mighty careful how they speak of Nan Brent," +Donald returned darkly. "This is something I have to fight out alone. +By the way, are you going to old Caleb's funeral, dad?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. I have always attended the funerals of my neighbors, and I +liked and respected Caleb Brent. Always reminded me of a lost dog. But +he had a man's pride. I'll say that for him."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, father. Ten o'clock, the day after to-morrow, from the +little chapel. There isn't going to be a preacher present, so I'd be +obliged if you'd offer a prayer and read the burial service. That old +man and I were pals, and I want a real human being to preside at his +obsequies."</p> + +<p>The Laird whistled softly. He was on the point of asking to be +excused, but reflected that Donald was bound to attend the funeral and +that his father's presence would tend to detract from the personal +side of the unprecedented spectacle and render it more of a matter of +family condescension in so far as Port Agnew was concerned.</p> + +<p>"Very well, lad," he replied; "I'm forced to deny you so much 'twould +be small of me not to grant you a wee favor now and then. I'll do my +best. And you might send a nurse from the company hospital to stay +with Nan for a week or two."</p> + +<p>"Good old file!" his son murmured gratefully, and, bidding his father +good-night, climbed the stairs to his room. Hearing his footsteps +ascending, Jane emerged from the rear of the landing; simultaneously, +his mother and Elizabeth appeared at the door of the latter's room. He +had the feeling of a captured missionary running the gantlet of a +forest of spears <i>en route</i> to a grill over a bed of coals.</p> + +<p>"Donald dear," Elizabeth called throatily, "come here."</p> + +<p>"Donald dear is going to bed," he retorted savagely. "'Sufficient unto +the day is the evil thereof.' Good-night!"</p> + +<p>"But you <i>must</i> discuss this matter with us!" Jane clamored. "How can +you expect us to rest until we have your word of honor that you—"</p> + +<p>The Laird had appeared at the foot of the stairs, having followed his +son in anticipation of an interview which he had forbidden.</p> + +<p>"Six months, Janey," he called up; "and there'll be no appeal from +that decision. Nellie! Elizabeth! Poor Jane will be lonesome in Port +Agnew, and I'm not wishful to be too hard on her. You'll keep her +company." There was a sound of closing doors, and silence settled +over The Dreamerie, that little white home that The Laird of Tyee had +built and dedicated to peace and love. For he was the master here.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXII'></a><h2>XXII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Caleb Brent's funeral was the apotheosis of simplicity. Perhaps a +score of the old sailor's friends and neighbors attended, and there +were, perhaps, half a dozen women—motherly old souls who had known +Nan intimately in the days when she associated with their daughters +and who felt in the presence of death a curious unbending of a curious +and indefinable hostility. Sam Carew, arrayed in the conventional +habiliments of his profession, stood against the wall and closed his +eyes piously when Hector McKaye, standing beside old Caleb, spoke +briefly and kindly of the departed and with a rough eloquence that +stirred none present—not even Nan, who, up to that moment, entirely +ignorant of The Laird's intention, could only gaze at him, amazed and +incredulous—more than it stirred The Laird himself. The sonorous and +beautiful lines of the burial service took on an added beauty and +dignity as he read them, for The Laird believed! And when he had +finished reading the service, he looked up, and his kind gaze lay +gently on Nan Brent as he said:</p> + +<p>"My friends, we will say a wee bit prayer for Caleb wi' all the +earnestness of our hearts. O Lorrd, now that yon sailor has towed out +on his last long cruise, we pray thee to gie him a guid pilot—aye, an +archangel, for he was ever an honest man and brave—to guide him to +thy mansion. Forgie him his trespasses and in thy great mercy grant +comfort to this poor bairn he leaves behind. And thine shall be the +honor and the glory, forever and ever. Amen!"</p> + +<p>None present, except Donald, realized the earnestness of that prayer, +for, as always under the stress of deep emotion, The Laird had grown +Scotchy. Mrs. Tingley, a kindly little soul who had felt it her +Christian duty to be present, moved over to the little organ, and Nan, +conspicuous in a four-year-old tailored suit and a black sailor-hat, +rose calmly from her seat and stood beside the minister's wife. For a +moment, her glance strayed over the little audience. Then she +sang—not a hymn, but just a little song her father had always +liked—the haunting, dignified melody that has been set to Stevenson's +"Requiem."</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>Under the wide and starry sky,<br /></span> +<span>Dig the grave and let me lie.<br /></span> +<span>Glad did I live and gladly die,<br /></span> +<span class='i4'>And I laid me down with a will.<br /></span> +</div><div class='stanza'> +<span>This be the verse you grave for me:<br /></span> +<span><i>Here he lies where he longed to be.</i><br /></span> +<span><i>Home is the sailor, home from sea,</i><br /></span> +<span class='i4'><i>And the hunter, home from the hill</i>.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Laird, watching her narrowly, realized the effort it was costing +her; yet her glorious voice did not break or quiver once. "You +wonderful, wonderful woman!" he thought, moved to a high pitch of +admiration for her independence and her flagrant flaunting of +tradition, "What a wife for my boy—what a mother for my grandson—if +you hadn't spoiled it all!"</p> + +<p>She rode to the cemetery in The Laird's car with The Laird, Donald, +and Mrs. Tingley. Leaning on Donald's arm, she watched them hide old +Caleb beneath the flowers from the gardens of The Dreamerie; then The +Laird read the service at the grave and they returned to the Sawdust +Pile, where Nan's child (he had been left at home in charge of a nurse +from the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital) experienced more or less +difficulty deciding whether Donald or The Laird was his father.</p> + +<p>The Laird now considered his duty to Caleb Brent accomplished. He +remained at the Sawdust Pile a period barely sufficient for Nan to +express her sense of obligation.</p> + +<p>"In a month, my dear girl," he whispered, as he took her hand, "you'll +have had time to adjust yourself and decide on the future. Then we'll +have a little talk."</p> + +<p>She smiled bravely up at him through misty eyes and shook her head. +She read his thoughts far better than he knew.</p> + +<p>Father and son repaired to the private office at the mill, and The +Laird seated himself in his old swivel chair.</p> + +<p>"Now then, lad," he demanded, "have I been a good sport?"</p> + +<p>"You have, indeed, father! I'm grateful to you."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be. I wouldn't have missed that funeral for considerable. +That girl can sing like an angel, and, man, the courage of her! 'Twas +sweet of her, singing to old Caleb like that, but I much mistake if +she won't be talked about for it. 'Twill be said she's heartless." He +handed his son a cigar and snipped the end off one for himself. "We'll +be needing the Sawdust Pile now for a drying-yard," he announced +complacently.</p> + +<p>"You mean——"</p> + +<p>"I mean, my son, that you're dreaming of the impossible, and that it's +time for you to wake up. I want no row about it. I can't bear to hear +your mother and sisters carrying on longer. I'll never get over +thinking what a pity it is that girl is damaged goods. She must not be +wife to son of mine."</p> + +<p>The young laird of Tyee bowed his head.</p> + +<p>"I can't give her up, father," he murmured. "By God, I can't!"</p> + +<p>"There can be no happiness without honor, and you'll not be the first +to make our name a jest in the mouths of Port Agnew. You will write +her and tell her of my decision; if you do not wish to, then I shall +do it for you. Trust her to understand and not hold it against you. +And it is my wish that you should not see her again. She must be cared +for, but when that time comes, I shall attend to it; you know me well +enough to realize I'll do that well." He laid his hand tenderly on the +young man's shoulder. "This is your first love, my son. Time and hard +work will help you forget—and I'll wait for my grandson."</p> + +<p>"And if I should not agree to this—what?"</p> + +<p>"Obey me for a month—and then ask me that question if you will. +I'm—I'm a bit unprepared for an answer on such short notice."</p> + +<p>Donald bowed his head.</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir. I'll think it over for a month—on one condition."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, my son," said The Laird of Tyee. "And what is the +condition?"</p> + +<p>"Let mother and the girls go to Seattle or Honolulu or Shanghai or +some other seaport—anywhere, provided they're not at The Dreamerie +when I return to Port Agnew. I'm going to spend that damnable month in +the woods, week-ends and all, and wrestle with this problem."</p> + +<p>Old Hector smiled a small smile.</p> + +<p>"I'm an old ass," he declared. "Have it your own way, only—by the +gods, I ought to teach them sense. I've spoiled them, and I ought to +unspoil them. They drive me crazy, much as I love them."</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>The Laird went home that afternoon lighter of heart than he had been +for a month. He told himself that his firm stand with Donald had +rather staggered that young man, and that a month of reflection, far +from the disturbing influence of Nan Brent's magnetic presence, would +induce Donald to adopt a sensible course.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXIII'></a><h2>XXIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Since that night when Mr. Daney, standing aloof in the dark vacant lot +close to the Sawdust Pile, had seen Donald McKaye, in the light cast +through the open door of Caleb Brent's cottage, take Nan Brent in his +arms and kiss her, since he had heard Nan Brent's voice apply to the +young laird of Port Agnew a term so endearing as to constitute a +verbal caress, his practical and unromantic soul had been in a turmoil +of apprehension.</p> + +<p>It seemed to him that in old Hector he noted signs of deep mental +perturbation. Also, he told himself, he detected more shades than +lights in Donald's usually pleasant features; so, knowing full well +that which he knew and which neither The Laird nor Donald suspected +him of knowing, to wit: that a declaration of love had been made +between Nan Brent and the heir to the Tyee millions, Mr. Daney came to +the conclusion, one evening about a week after old Caleb's funeral, +that something had to be done—and done quickly—to avert the scandal +which impended. To his way of reasoning, however, it appeared that +nothing along this line was possible of accomplishment while Nan Brent +remained in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney brought to play all of his +considerable intelligence upon the problem of inducing her to leave.</p> + +<p>Now, to render Port Agnew untenable for Nan, thus forcing her to +retreat, was a task which Mr. Daney dismissed not only as unworthy of +him but also as impossible. As a director of the Bank of Port Agnew, +he had little difficulty in ascertaining that Caleb Brent's +savings-account had been exhausted; also, he realized that the +chartering of Caleb's motor-boat, Brutus, to tow the municipal +garbage-barge to sea and return, had merely been Donald's excuse to be +kind to the Brents without hurting their gentle pride. To cancel the +charter of the Brutus now would force Nan to leave Port Agnew in order +to support herself, for Daney could see to it that no one in Port +Agnew employed her, even had anyone in Port Agnew dared run such risk. +Also, the Tyee Lumber Company might bluff her out of possession of the +Sawdust Pile. However, Donald would have to be reckoned with in either +case, and Mr. Daney was not anxious to have the weight of his young +master's anger fall on his guilty head. He saw, therefore, that some +indirect means must be employed.</p> + +<p>Now, Mr. Daney wisely held, in contradiction to any number of people +not quite so hard-headed as he, that absence does <i>not</i> tend to make +the heart grow fonder—particularly if sufficient hard work and worry +can be supplied to prevent either party to the separation thinking too +long or too intensely of the absentee. Within a decent period +following Nan's hoped-for departure from Port Agnew, Mr. Daney planned +to impress upon The Laird the desirability of a trip to the Orient, +while he, Daney, upon the orders of a nerve-specialist, took a long +sea voyage. Immediately the entire burden of seeing that the Tyee +Lumber Company functioned smoothly and profitably would fall upon +Donald's young and somewhat inexperienced shoulders. In the meantime, +what with The Laird's money and the employment of a third party or +parties, it would be no trick at all to induce Nan Brent to move so +far from Port Agnew that Donald could not, in justice to his business +interests, desert those interests in order to pay his court to her.</p> + +<p>"Dog my cats!" Mr. Daney murmured, at the end of a long period of +perplexity. "I have to force the girl out of Port Agnew, and I can +never do so while that motor-boat continues to pay her eighty dollars +a month. She cannot exist on eighty dollars a month elsewhere, but she +can manage very nicely on it here. And yet, even with that confounded +charter canceled, we're stuck with the girl. She cannot leave Port +Agnew without sufficient funds to carry her through for a while, and +she'd die before she'd accept the gift of a penny from anybody in Port +Agnew, particularly the McKayes. Even a loan from The Laird would be +construed as a roundabout way of buying her off."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney pondered his problem until he was almost tempted to butt his +poor head against the office wall, goat-fashion, in an attempt to +stimulate some new ideas worth while. Nevertheless, one night he +wakened from a sound sleep and found himself sitting up in bed, the +possessor of a plan so flawless that, in sheer amazement, he announced +aloud that he would be—jiggered. Some cunning little emissary of the +devil must have crept in through his ear while he slept and planted +the brilliant idea in Mr. Daney's brain.</p> + +<p>Eventually, Mr. Daney lay down again. But he could not go to sleep; so +he turned on the electric bedside-lamp and looked at his watch. It was +midnight and at midnight no living creature, save possibly an +adventurous or amorous cat, moved in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney dressed, +crept down-stairs on velvet feet, in order not to disturb the hired +girl, and stepped forth into the night. Ten minutes later, he was down +at the municipal garbage-barge, moored to the bulkhead of piles along +the bank of the Skookum.</p> + +<p>He ventured to strike a match. The gunwale of the barge was slightly +below the level of the bulkhead; so Mr. Daney realized that the tide +had turned and was at the ebb—otherwise, the gunwale would have been +on a level with the bulkheads. He stepped down on the barge, made his +way aft to the Brutus, moored astern, and boarded the little vessel. +He struck another match and looked into the cabin to make certain that +no member of the barge-crew slept there. Finding no one, he went into +the engine-room and opened the sea-cock. Then he lifted up a +floor-board, looked into the bilge, saw that the water therein was +rising, and murmured,</p> + +<p>"Bully—by heck!"</p> + +<p>He clambered hastily back aboard the barge, cast off the mooring-lines +of the Brutus, and with a boat-book gave her a shove which carried her +out into the middle of the river. She went bobbing away gently on the +ebb-tide, bound for the deep water out in the Bight of Tyee where, +when she settled, she would be hidden forever and not be a menace to +navigation. Mr. Daney watched her until she disappeared in the dim +starlight before returning to his home and so, like Mr. Pepys, to bed, +where he had the first real sleep in weeks. He realized this in the +morning and marveled at it, for he had always regarded himself as a +man of tender conscience and absolutely incapable of committing a +maritime crime. Nevertheless, he whistled and wore a red carnation in +his lapel as he departed for the mill office.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXIV'></a><h2>XXIV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Following the interview with his father, subsequent to Caleb Brent's +funeral, Donald McKaye realized full well that his love-affair, +hitherto indefinite as to outcome, had crystallized into a definite +issue. For him, there could be no evasion or equivocation; he had to +choose, promptly and for all time, between his family and Nan +Brent—between respectability, honor, wealth, and approbation on one +hand, and pity, contempt, censure, and poverty on the other. +Confronting this <i>impasse</i>, he was too racked with torment to face his +people that night and run the gantlet of his mother's sad, reproachful +glances, his father's silence, so eloquent of mental distress, and the +studied scorn, amazement, and contempt in the very attitudes of his +selfish and convention-bound sisters. So he ate his dinner at the +hotel in Port Agnew, and after dinner his bruised heart took command +of his feet and marched him to the Sawdust Pile.</p> + +<p>The nurse he had sent down from the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital to +keep Nan company until after the funeral had returned to the hospital, +and Nan, with her boy asleep in her lap, was seated in a low rocker +before the driftwood fire when Donald entered, unannounced save for +his old-time triple tap at the door. At first glance, it was evident +to him that the brave reserve which Nan had maintained at the funeral +had given way to abundant tears when she found herself alone at home, +screened from the gaze of the curious.</p> + +<p>He knelt and took both outcasts in his great strong arms, and for a +long time held them in a silence more eloquent than words.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," she said presently, "aren't you going to tell me all +about it?"</p> + +<p>That was the woman of it. She knew.</p> + +<p>"I'm terribly unhappy," he replied. "Dad and I had a definite +show-down after the funeral. His order—not request—is that I shall +not call here again."</p> + +<p>"Your father is thinking with his head; so he thinks clearly. You, +poor dear, are thinking with your heart controlling your head. Of +course you'll obey your father. You cannot consider doing anything +else."</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to give you up," he asserted doggedly.</p> + +<p>"Yes; you are going to give me up, dear heart," she replied evenly. +"Because I'm going to give you up, and you're much too fine to make it +hard for me to do that."</p> + +<p>"I'll not risk your contempt for my weakness. It <i>would</i> be a +weakness—a contemptible trick—if I should desert you now."</p> + +<p>"Your family has a greater claim on you, Donald. You were born to a +certain destiny—to be a leader of men, to develop your little world, +and make of it a happier place for men and women to dwell in. So, dear +love, you're just going to buck up and be spunky and take up your big +life-task and perform it like the gentleman you are."</p> + +<p>"But what is to become of you?" he demanded, in desperation.</p> + +<p>"I do not know. It is a problem I am not going to consider very +seriously for at least a month. Of course I shall leave Port Agnew, +but before I do, I shall have to make some clothes for baby and +myself."</p> + +<p>"I told my father I would give him a definite answer regarding you in +a month, Nan. I'm going up in the woods and battle this thing out by +myself."</p> + +<p>"Please go home and give him a definite answer to-night. You have not +the right to make him suffer so," she pleaded.</p> + +<p>"I'm not prepared to-night to abandon you, Nan. I must have some time +to get inured to the prospect."</p> + +<p>"Did you come over to-night to tell me good-by before going back to +the woods, Donald?"</p> + +<p>He nodded, and deliberately she kissed him with great tenderness.</p> + +<p>"Then—good-by, sweetheart," she whispered. "In our case, the least +said is soonest mended. And please do not write to me. Keep me out of +your thoughts for a month, and perhaps I'll stay out."</p> + +<p>"No hope," he answered, with a lugubrious smile. "However, I'll be as +good as I can. And I'll not write. But—when I return from that month +of exile, do not be surprised if I appear to claim you for good or for +evil, for better or for worse."</p> + +<p>She kissed him again—hurriedly—and pressed him gently from her, as +if his persistence gave her cause for apprehension.</p> + +<p>"Dear old booby!" she murmured. "Run along home now, won't you, +please?"</p> + +<p>So he went, wondering why he had come, and the following morning, +still wrapped in a mental fog, he departed for the logging-camp, but +not until his sister Jane had had her long-deferred inning. While he +was in the garage at The Dreamerie, warming up his car, Jane appeared +and begged him to have some respect for the family, even though, +apparently, he had none for himself. Concluding a long and bitter +tirade, she referred to Nan as "that abandoned girl."</p> + +<p>Poor Jane! Hardly had she uttered the words before her father appeared +in the door of the garage.</p> + +<p>"One year, Janey," he announced composedly. "And I'd be pleased to see +the photograph o' the human being that'll make me revoke that +sentence. I'm fair weary having my work spoiled by women's tongues."</p> + +<p>"I'll give you my photograph, old pepper-pot," Donald suggested. "I +have great influence with you have I not?"</p> + +<p>The Laird looked up at him with a fond grin.</p> + +<p>"Well?" he parried.</p> + +<p>"You will remit the sentence to one washing of the mouth with soap and +water to cleanse it of those horrid words you just listened to."</p> + +<p>"That's not a bad idea," the stern old man answered. "Janey, you may +have your choice, since Donald has interceded for you."</p> + +<p>But Jane maintained a freezing silence and swept out of the garage +with a mien that proclaimed her belief that her brother and father +were too vulgar and plebeian for her.</p> + +<p>"I'm having the deil's own time managing my family," old Hector +complained, "but I'll have obedience and kindness and justice in my +household, or know the reason why. Aye—and a bit of charity," he +added grimly. He stood beside the automobile and held up his hand up +for his son's. "And you'll be gone a month, lad?" he queried.</p> + +<p>Donald nodded.</p> + +<p>"Too painful—this coming home week-ends," he explained. "And Nan has +requested that I see no more of her. You have a stanch ally in her, +dad. She's for you all the way."</p> + +<p>Relief showed in his father's troubled face.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to know that," he replied. "You're the one that's bringing +me worry and breaking down her good resolutions and common sense." He +leaned a little closer, first having satisfied himself, by a quick, +backward glance, that none of the women of the family was +eavesdropping, and whispered: "I'm trying to figure out a nice way to +be kind to her and give her a good start in life without insulting +her. If you should have a clear thought on the subject, I'd like your +advice, son. 'Twould hurt me to have her think I was trying to buy her +off."</p> + +<p>"As I view the situation, all three of us have to figure our own +angles for ourselves. However, if a happy thought should dawn on me, +I'll write you. Think it over a few weeks, and then do whatever seems +best."</p> + +<p>So they parted.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXV'></a><h2>XXV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>A few days subsequent to Andrew Daney's secret scuttling of the +motor-boat Brutus, Nan Brent was amazed to receive a visit from him.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Nan," he saluted her. "I have bad news for you."</p> + +<p>"What, pray?" she managed to articulate. She wondered if Donald had +been injured up in the woods.</p> + +<p>"Your motor-boat's gone."</p> + +<p>This was, indeed, bad news. Trouble showed in Nan's face.</p> + +<p>"Gone where?" she faltered.</p> + +<p>"Nobody knows. It disappeared from the garbage-barge, alongside of +which it was moored. I've had men searching for it two days, but we've +given it up as lost. Was the Brutus, by any chance, insured against +theft?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Well, the Tyee Lumber Company used reasonable care to conserve your +property, and while there's a question whether the company's +responsible for the loss of the boat if it's been stolen, even while +under charter to us, nevertheless, you will be reimbursed for the +value of the boat. Your father had it up for sale last year. Do you +recall the price he was asking?"</p> + +<p>"He was asking considerably less than he really believed the Brutus to +be worth," Nan replied honestly. "He would have sold for fifteen +hundred dollars, but the Brutus was worth at least twenty-five +hundred. Values shrink, you know, when one requires ready cash. And I +do not agree with you that no responsibility attaches to the Tyee +Lumber Company, although, under the circumstances, it appears there is +no necessity for argument."</p> + +<p>"We'll pay twenty-five hundred rather than descend to argument," Daney +replied crisply, "although personally I am of the opinion that two +thousand would be ample." He coughed a propitiatory cough and looked +round the Sawdust Pile appraisingly. "May I inquire, my girl," he +asked presently, "what are your plans for the future?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, Mr. Daney. I have none."</p> + +<p>"It would be a favor to the Tyee Lumber Company if you had, and that +they contemplated removal to some other house. The Laird had planned +originally to use the Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard"—he smiled +faintly—"but abandoned the idea rather than interfere with your +father's comfort. Of course, The Laird hasn't any more title to the +Sawdust Pile than you have—not as much, in fact, for I do believe you +could make a squatter's right stick in any court. Just at present, +however, we have greater need of the Sawdust Pile than ever. We're +getting out quite a lot of airplane spruce for the British government, +and since there's no doubt we'll be into the war ourselves one of +these days, we'll have to furnish additional spruce for our own +government. Spruce has to be air-dried, you know, to obtain the best +results, and—well, we really need the Sawdust Pile. What will you +take to abandon, it and leave us in undisputed possession?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Mr. Daney."</p> + +<p>"Nothing?"</p> + +<p>"Precisely—nothing. We have always occupied it on The Laird's +sufferance, so I do not think, Mr. Daney," she explained, with a faint +smile, "that I shall turn pirate and ingrate now. If you will be good +enough to bring me over twenty-five hundred dollars in cash to-day, I +will give you a clearance for the loss of the Brutus and abandon the +Sawdust Pile to you within the next three or four days."</p> + +<p>His plan had worked so successfully that Daney was, for the moment, +rendered incapable of speech.</p> + +<p>"Will you be leaving Port Agnew?" he sputtered presently. "Or can I +arrange to let you have a small house at a modest rental—"</p> + +<p>She dissipated this verbal camouflage with a disdainful motion of her +upflung hand.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I shall leave Port Agnew—forever. The loss of the Brutus +makes my escape possible," she added ironically.</p> + +<p>"May I suggest that you give no intimation of your intention to +surrender this property?" he suggested eagerly. "If word of your plan +to abandon got abroad, it might create an opportunity for some person +to jump the Sawdust Pile and defy us to dispossess him."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney sought, by this subterfuge, to simulate an interest in the +physical possession of the Sawdust Pile which he was far from feeling. +He congratulated himself, however, that, all in all, he had carried +off his mission wonderfully well, and departed with a promise to bring +over the money himself that very afternoon. Indeed, so delighted was +he that it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from +unburdening to The Laird, when the latter dropped in at the mill +office that afternoon, the news that before the week should be out +Nan Brent would be but a memory in Port Agnew. Later, he wondered how +far from Port Agnew she would settle for a new start in life and +whether she would leave a forwarding address. He resolved to ask her, +and he did, when he reappeared at the Sawdust Pile that afternoon with +the money to reimburse Nan for the loss of the Brutus.</p> + +<p>"I haven't decided where I shall go, Mr. Daney," Nan informed him +truthfully, "except that I shall betake myself some distance from the +Pacific Coast—some place where the opportunities for meeting people +who know me are nebulous, to say the least. And I shall leave no +forwarding address. When I leave Port Agnew"—she looked Mr. Daney +squarely in the eyes as she said this—"I shall see to it that no man, +woman, or child in Port Agnew—not even Don McKaye or The Laird, who +have been most kind to me—shall know where I have gone."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry matters have so shaped themselves in your life, poor girl, +that you're feeling bitter," Mr. Daney replied, with genuine sympathy, +notwithstanding the fact that he would have been distressed and +puzzled had her bitterness been less genuine. In the realization that +it <i>was</i> genuine, he had a wild impulse to leap in the air and crack +his ankles together for very joy. "Will I be seeing you again, Nan, +before you leave?"</p> + +<p>"Not unless the spirit moves you, Mr. Daney," she answered dryly. She +had no dislike for Andrew Daney, but, since he was the husband of Mrs. +Daney and under that person's dominion, she distrusted him.</p> + +<p>"Well then, I'll bid you good-by now, Nan," he announced. "I hope your +lot will fall in pleasanter places than Port Agnew. Good-by, my dear +girl, and good luck to you—always."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, Mr. Daney," she replied. "Thank you for bringing the money +over."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXVI'></a><h2>XXVI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>By an apparent inconsistency in the natural order of human affairs, it +seems that women are called upon far oftener than men to make the +hardest sacrifices; also, the call finds them far more willing, if the +sacrifice is demanded of them by love. Until Andrew Daney had appeared +at the Sawdust Pile with the suddenness of a genie (and a singularly +benevolent genie at that), Nan had spent many days wondering what fate +the future held in store for her. With all the ardor of a prisoner, +she had yearned to leave her jail, although she realized that freedom +for her meant economic ruin. On the Sawdust Pile, she could exist on +the income from the charter of the Brutus, for she had no rent to pay +and no fuel to buy; her proximity to the sea, her little garden and a +few chickens still further solved her economic problems. Away from the +Sawdust Pile, however, life meant parting with her baby. She would +have to place him in some sort of public institution if she would be +free to earn a living for them both, and she was not aware that she +possessed any adaptability for any particular labor which would enable +her to earn one hundred dollars a month, the minimum sum upon which +she could, by the strictest economy, manage to exist and support her +child. Too well she realized the difficulty which an inexperienced +woman has in securing employment in an office or store at a wage +which, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, may be termed +lucrative, and, lacking funds wherewith to tide her over until she +should acquire experience, or even until she should be fortunate +enough to secure any kind of work, inevitable starvation faced her. +Her sole asset was her voice; she had a vague hope that if she could +ever acquire sufficient money to go to New York and buy herself just +sufficient clothing to look well dressed and financially independent, +she might induce some vaudeville impresario to permit her to spend +fifteen minutes twice or four times daily, singing old-fashioned songs +to the proletariat at something better than a living wage. She had an +idea for a turn to be entitled, "Songs of the 'Sixties."</p> + +<p>The arrival of Andrew Daney with twenty-five hundred dollars might +have been likened to an eleventh-hour reprieve for a condemned +murderer. Twenty-five hundred dollars! Why, she and Don could live two +years on that! She was free—at last! The knowledge exalted her—in +the reaction from a week of contemplating a drab, barren future, she +gave no thought to the extreme unlikelihood of anyone's daring to +steal a forty-foot motor-boat on a coast where harbors are so few and +far between as they are on the Pacific. Had old Caleb been alive, he +would have informed her that such action was analogous to the theft of +a hot stove, and that no business man possessed of a grain of common +sense would have hastened to reimburse her for the loss after an +inconsequential search of only two days. Had she been more worldly +wise, she would have known that business men do not part with +twenty-five hundred dollars that readily—otherwise, they would not be +business men and would not be possessed of twenty-five hundred +dollars. Nan only realized that, in handing her a roll of bank-notes +with a rubber band round them, Andrew Daney had figuratively given her +the key to her prison, against the bars of which her soul had beaten +for three long years.</p> + +<p>Now, it is doubtful whether any woman ever loved a man without feeling +fully assured that she, more than any other person, was better +equipped to decide exactly what was best for that man. Her woman's +intuition told Nan that Donald McKaye was not to be depended upon to +conserve the honor of the McKaye family by refraining from considering +an alliance with her. Also, knowing full well the passionate yearnings +of her own heart and the weakness of her economic position, she shrank +from submitting herself to the task of repelling his advances. Where +he was concerned, she feared her own weakness—she, who had endured +the brutality of the world, could not endure that the world's +brutality should be visited upon him because of his love for her. +Strong of will, self-reliant, a born fighter, and as stiff-necked as +his father, his yearning to possess her, coupled with his instinct for +fair play, might and probably would lead him to tell the world to go +hang, that he would think for himself and take his happiness where he +found it. By all means, this must be prevented. Nan felt that she +could not permit him to risk making a sorry mess of a life of promise.</p> + +<p>Consumed with such thoughts as these, it was obvious that Nan should +pursue but one course—that is, leave Port Agnew unannounced and +endeavor to hide herself where Donald McKaye would never find her. In +this high resolve, once taken, she did not falter; she even declined +to risk rousing the suspicions of the townspeople by appearing at the +general store to purchase badly needed articles of clothing for +herself and her child. She resolved to leave Port Agnew in the best +clothes she had, merely pausing a few days in her flight—at +Vancouver, perhaps—to shop, and then continuing on to New York.</p> + +<p>On the morning of her departure, the butcher's boy, calling for an +order, agreed, for fifty cents, to transport her one small trunk on +his cart to the station. The little white house which she and her +father had built with so much pride and delight, she left furnished as +it was and in perfect order. As she stood at the front door and looked +back for the last time, the ticking of the clock in the tiny +dining-and-living room answered her mute, "Good-by, little house; +good-by," and, though her heart was full enough, she kept back the +tears until she saw the flag flying bravely at the cupola.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my love, my love!" she sobbed. "I mustn't leave it flying there, +flaunting my desertion in your dear eyes."</p> + +<p>Blinded by her tears, she groped her way back to the house, hauled +down the flag, furled it, and laid it away in a bureau drawer. And +this time, when she left the house, she did not look back.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>At the station, she purchased a ticket for Seattle and checked her +trunk at the baggage-room counter. As she turned from the counter and +started for the waiting-room, she caught the interested eyes of old +Hector McKaye bent upon her. He lifted his hat and walked over to her.</p> + +<p>"I happened to be looking down at the Sawdust Pile when you hauled +your flag down this morning," he explained, in a low voice. "So I knew +you were going away. That's why I'm here." To this extraordinary +speech, the girl merely replied with an inquiring look. "I wonder if +you will permit me to be as kind to you as I can," he continued. "I +know it sounds a bit blunt and vulgar to offer you money, but when one +needs money—"</p> + +<p>"I have sufficient for my present needs," she replied. "Mr. Daney has +paid me for the loss of my motor-boat, you know. You are very kind; +but I think I shall have no need to impose further on your generosity. +I think the twenty-five hundred dollars will last me nicely until I +have made a new start in life."</p> + +<p>"Ah!" The Laird breathed softly, "Twenty-five hundred dollars. Yes, +yes! So he did; so he did! And are you leaving Port Agnew +indefinitely, Nan?"</p> + +<p>"Forever," she replied. "We have robbed you of the ground for a +drying-yard for nearly ten years, but this morning the Sawdust Pile is +yours."</p> + +<p>"Bless my soul!" The Laird ejaculated. "Why, we are not at all in +distress for more drying-space."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Daney intimated that you were. He asked me how much I would take +to abandon my squatter's right, but I declined to charge you a single +cent." She smiled up at him a ghost of her sweet, old-time whimsical +smile. "It was the first opportunity I had to be magnanimous to the +McKaye family, and I hastened to take advantage of it. I merely turned +the key in the lock and departed."</p> + +<p>"Daney has been a trifle too zealous for the Tyee interests, I fear," +he replied gently. "And where do you plan to live?"</p> + +<p>"That," she retorted, still smilingly, "is a secret. It may interest +you, Mr. McKaye, to know that I am not even leaving a forwarding +address for my mail. You see, I never receive any letters of an +important nature."</p> + +<p>He was silent a moment, digesting this. Then,</p> + +<p>"And does my son share a confidence which I am denied?"</p> + +<p>"He does not, Mr. McKaye. This is my second opportunity to do the +decent thing toward the McKaye family—so I am doing it. I plan to +make rather a thorough job of it, too. You—you'll be very kind and +patient with him, will you not? He's going to feel rather badly, you +know, but, then, I never encouraged him. It's all his fault, I +think—I tried to play fair—and it was so hard." Her voice sunk to a +mere whisper. "I've always loved Donald, Mr. McKaye. Most people do; +so I have not regarded it as sinful on my part."</p> + +<p>"You are abandoning him of your own free will—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. I have to. Surely you must realize that?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I do. I have felt that he would never abandon you." He opened +and closed his big hands nervously, and was plainly a trifle distrait. +"So—so this is your idea of playing the game, is it?" he demanded +presently. She nodded. "Well," he replied helplessly, "I would to God +I dared be as good a sport as you are, Nan Brent! Hear me, now, lass. +Think of the thing in life you want to do and the place where you want +to do it—"</p> + +<p>She interrupted him.</p> + +<p>"No, no, Mr. McKaye; there can be no talk of money between us. I +cannot and will not take your son—for his sake, and for my own sake I +cannot and will not accept of your kindness. Somehow, some place, I'm +going to paddle my own canoe."</p> + +<p>"Guid lass; guid lass," he whispered huskily. "Remember, then, if +your canoe upsets and spills you, a wire to me will right you, and no +questions asked. Good-by, my dear, and good luck to you!"</p> + +<p>He pressed her hand, lifted his hat, and walked briskly away in the +direction of The Tyee Lumber Company's office, quite oblivious of the +fact that his interview with Nan Brent had been observed by a person +to whom the gods had given at birth a more than average propensity of +intrigue, romance, and general cussedness—Mr. Daniel J. O'Leary, of +whom more anon.</p> + +<p>From the station, Hector McKaye hurried over to the mill office and +entered Andrew Daney's room.</p> + +<p>"Andrew," he began, "you've been doing things. What became of old +Caleb Brent's motor-boat?"</p> + +<p>"I opened the sea-cock, cast it off, and let it drift out into the +bight on the ebb-tide one night recently."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"In order that I might have a logical and reasonable excuse to furnish +Nan Brent with sufficient funds to leave this town and make a new +start elsewhere. I have charged the twenty-five hundred to your +personal account on the company books."</p> + +<p>"You also indulged in some extraordinary statements regarding our +pressing need for the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard."</p> + +<p>"We can use it, sir," Daney replied. "I felt justified in indicating +to the girl that her room was desired to her company. Your son," he +added deliberately, "was treading on soft ground, and I took the +license of an old friend and, I hope, a faithful servant, to rid him +of temptation."</p> + +<p>"I shall never be done with feeling grateful to you, Andrew. The girl +is leaving on the train that's just pulling out, and—the incident is +closed. My son is young. He will get over it. Thank you, Andrew, dear +friend, until you're better paid—as you will be some day soon."</p> + +<p>"I'll have need of your friendship if Donald ever discovers my part in +this deal. He'll fire me out o' hand."</p> + +<p>"If he does, I'll hire you back."</p> + +<p>"Hell will pop when he finds the bird has flown, sir."</p> + +<p>"Let it pop! That kind of popping is music in my ears. Hark, Andrew +lad! There's the train whistling for Darrow's Crossing. From there on +the trail is lost—lost—<i>lost</i>, I tell you! O Lord, God of Hosts, I +thank Thee for Thy great mercy!"</p> + +<p>And, quite suddenly, old Hector sat down and began to weep.</p> + +<p>XXVII</p> +<br /> + +<p>Nan Brent's departure from the Sawdust Pile was known to so few in +Port Agnew that it was fully ten days before the news became general; +even then it excited no more than momentary comment, and a week later +when Donald McKaye returned to town, somewhat sooner than he had +anticipated, Port Agnew had almost forgotten that Nan Brent had ever +lived and loved and sinned in its virtuous midst. Even the small +gossip about her and the young laird had subsided, condemned by all, +including the most thoughtless, as a gross injustice to their favorite +son, and consequently dismissed as the unworthy tattling of unworthy, +suspicious old women. Life in the busy little sawmill town had again +sagged into the doldrums.</p> + +<p>For several days, a feeling of lassitude had been stealing over +Donald. At first he thought it was mental depression, but when, later, +he developed nausea, lack of appetite, and pains in his head, back, +and extremities, it occurred to him that he wasn't feeling well +physically and that The Dreamerie was to be preferred to his rough +pine shanty in the woods, even though in the latter he had sanctuary +from the female members of his family.</p> + +<p>He came in unexpectedly on the last log-train on Saturday night; +tired, with throbbing head and trembling legs, he crawled off the +caboose at the log dump and made his way weakly up to the mill office. +It was deserted when he got there at half-past six, but in his +mail-box he found something which he had promised himself would be +there, despite certain well-remembered assurances to the contrary. It +was a letter from Nan. He tore the envelop eagerly and read:</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>Donald dear, I love you. That is why I am leaving you. We shall + not meet again, I think. If we should, it will doubtless be years + hence, and by that time we shall both have resigned ourselves to + this present very necessary sacrifice. Good-by, poor dear.</p> + +<p> Always your sweetheart,</p> + +<p> NAN.</p></div> + +<p>He read and reread the letter several times. It was undated. +Presently, with an effort, he recovered the envelop from the +waste-basket and examined the postmark. The letter had been mailed +from Seattle, but the post-date was blurred.</p> + +<p>With the letter clutched in his hand, he bent forward and pillowed his +hot face in his arms, outspread upon his father's old desk. He wanted +to weep—to sob aloud in a childish effort to unburden his heart, +scourged now with the first real sorrow of his existence. His throat +contracted; something in his breast appeared to have congealed, yet +for upward of an hour he neither moved nor gave forth a sound. At +last, under the inspiration of a great hope that came apparently +without any mental effort or any desire for hope, so thoroughly +crushed was he, the black, touseled head came slowly up. His face, +usually ruddy beneath the dark, suntanned skin but now white and +haggard, showed a fleeting little smile, as if he grinned at his own +weakness and lack of faith; he rose unsteadily and clumped out of the +office-building.</p> + +<p>Gone! Nan gone—like that! No, no! He would not believe it. She might +have intended to go—she might have wanted to go—she might even have +started to go—but she had turned back! She loved him; she was his. +During those long days and nights up in the woods, he had fought the +issue with himself and made up his mind that Nan Brent was the one +woman in the world for him, that there could never, by God's grace, be +any other, and that he would have her, come what might and be the +price what it would. Rather than the fortune for which his father had +toiled and sacrificed, Donald preferred Nan's love; rather than a life +of ease and freedom from worry, he looked forward with a fierce joy to +laboring with his hands for a pittance, provided he might have the +privilege of sharing it with her. And The Dreamerie, the house his +father had built with such great, passionate human hopes and tender +yearnings, the young laird of Port Agnew could abandon without a pang +for that little white house on the Sawdust Pile. Round steak and +potatoes, fried by the woman destined to him for his perfect mate, +would taste better to him than the choicest viands served by light +stepping servitors in his father's house.</p> + +<p>What, after all, was there worth while in the world for him if he was +to be robbed of his youth and his love? For him, the bare husks of +life held no allurement; he was one of that virile, human type that +rejects the doctrine of sacrifice, denial, and self-repression in this +life for the greater glory of God and man's promise of a reward in +another life, of which we wot but little and that little not +scientifically authenticated. He wanted the great, all-compelling, +omnipotent Present, with its gifts that he could clutch in his fierce +hands or draw to his hungry heart. To hell with the future. He +reflected that misers permit their thoughts to dwell upon it and die +rich and despised, leaving to the apostles of the Present the +enjoyment of the fruits of a foolish sacrifice.</p> + +<p>"She came back. I know she did," he mumbled, as he groped his way +through the dark of the drying-yard. "I'm sick. I must see her and +tell her to wait until I'm well. The damned dirty world can do what it +jolly well pleases to me, but I'll protect her from it. I will—by +God!"</p> + +<p>He emerged into the open fields beyond which lay the Sawdust Pile, +snuggled down on the beach. The Brent cottage was visible in the dim +starlight, and he observed that there was no light in the window; +nevertheless, his high faith did not falter. He pressed on, although +each step was the product of an effort, mental and physical. His legs +were heavy and dragged, as if he wore upon, his logger's boots the +thick, leaden soles of a deep-sea diver.</p> + +<p>At the gate, he leaned and rested for a few minutes, then entered the +deserted yard and rapped at the front door; but his summons bringing +no response, he staggered round to the back door and repeated it. He +waited half a minute and then banged furiously with his fist upon the +door-panel. Still receiving no response, he seized the knob and shook +the door until the little house appeared to rattle from cellar to +cupola.</p> + +<p>"Nan! Nan! Where are you?" he called. "It is I—Donald. Answer me, +Nan. I know you haven't gone away. You wouldn't! Please answer me, +Nan!"</p> + +<p>But the only sound he heard was the labored pumping of his own heart +and the swish of the wavelets against the timbered buttress of the +Sawdust Pile. The conviction slowly came to his torpid brain that he +was seeking admittance to a deserted house, and he leaned against the +door and fought for control of himself. Presently, like a stricken +animal, he went slowly and uncertainly away in the direction whence he +had come.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Andrew Daney had put out the cat and wound the clock and was about to +ascend to his chamber (now, alas, reoccupied by Mrs. Daney, upon whom +the news of Nan's departure had descended like a gentle rainfall over +a hitherto arid district) when he heard slow footsteps on his front +veranda. Upon going to the door and peering out, he was amazed to see +Donald McKaye standing just outside.</p> + +<p>"Well, bless my soul!" Daney declared. "So it's you Donald. Come in, +lad; come in."</p> + +<p>Donald shook his head.</p> + +<p>"No, I've only come to stay a minute, Mr. Daney. Thank you, sir. I—I +notice you're running a light track from the drying-yard down to the +Sawdust Pile. Stumbled over it in the dark a few minutes ago, and I—" +He essayed a ghastly smile, for he desired to remove the sting from +the gentle rebuke he purposed giving the general manger—"couldn't +seem to remember having ordered that track—or—suggesting that it be +laid."</p> + +<p>"Quite so, Donald; quite so," Daney answered. "I did it on my own +initiative. Nan Brent has abandoned the Sawdust Pile—moved away from +Port Agnew, you know; so I decided to extend the drying-yard, and +squat on the Sawdust Pile before some undesirable took possession."</p> + +<p>"Hm-m-m! I see. Well, suppose Nan takes a notion to return to Port +Agnew, Mr. Daney. She'll find our drying-yard something of a nuisance, +will she not?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but she's not coming back," Daney assured him, with all the +confidence of one free from the slightest doubt on the subject.</p> + +<p>"She might. I could see rather dimly into the kitchen and it appears +Miss Brent left her little home furnished."</p> + +<p>"Yes, she did, Donald. I believe she just turned the key in the lock +and went away."</p> + +<p>"Know where she went, Mr. Daney?"</p> + +<p>"No. She didn't even leave a forwarding address for her mail."</p> + +<p>The young laird of Tyee lurched up to Mr. Daney and laid a heavy hand +on the older man's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"How do you know that?" he demanded, and there was a growl in his +voice. "Has Mrs. Daney been asking the postmaster?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney saw that, for some inexplicable reason, he was in for a bad +five minutes or more. His youthful superior's face was white and +beaded with perspiration. Daney had a suspicion that Donald had had a +drink or two.</p> + +<p>"There has been no gossip, Donald," he answered crisply. "Get that +notion out of your head. I would protect you from gossip, for I think +I know my duty to the McKayes. I learned that lesson a long time ago," +he added, with spirit.</p> + +<p>"You haven't answered my question, Mr. Daney," Donald persisted.</p> + +<p>"I shall. I know, because she told me herself." Mr. Daney had not +intended that Donald should ever discover that he had had an interview +with Nan Brent, but his veracity had, for the moment, appeared to him +to be questioned by his superior, and he was too truthful, too +thoroughly honest to attempt now to protect his reputation for +truth-telling by uttering a small fib, albeit he squirmed inwardly at +the terrible necessity for such integrity.</p> + +<p>"Ah! Then Nan called upon you again?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney sighed.</p> + +<p>"No, I called upon her."</p> + +<p>"With reference to what?"</p> + +<p>"To settle with her for the loss of the Brutus."</p> + +<p>"When did you lose the Brutus."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney pulled at his ear, gazed at the porch light, rubbed his +Adam's apple, and gave the exact date.</p> + +<p>"What happened to the Brutus?"</p> + +<p>"She just disappeared, Donald. She was tied up alongside the barge—"</p> + +<p>The heavy hand on Mr. Daney's shoulder tightened a little. Donald was +merely holding fast to the general manager in order to stay on his +feet, but Mr. Daney credited him with being the victim of rising +anger.</p> + +<p>"When did Nan leave Port Agnew, Mr. Daney?"</p> + +<p>"Let me see, Donald." Mr. Daney tugged at his beard. "Why, she left +two weeks ago yesterday. Yes; she left on the nineteenth."</p> + +<p>"When did you settle with her for the loss of the Brutus?"</p> + +<p>"On the sixteenth," Daney answered glibly.</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"Twenty-five hundred dollars. It was more than the Brutus was worth, +but I disliked to appear niggardly in the matter, Donald. I knew you +and your father would approve whatever sum I settled for—and the loss +of the little boat provided a nice opportunity for generosity without +hurting the girl's pride."</p> + +<p>"Yes—thank you, Mr. Daney. That was kind and thoughtful of you." +Donald spoke the words slowly, as if he searched his brain carefully +for each word and then had to coax his tongue into speaking it. "You +settled, then, two days after the boat disappeared. Fast work. Nobody +up here would steal the boat. Too much distance between ports—run +short of gasoline, you know, on her limited tank capacity—and if +anybody had purchased cased gasoline around here to load on deck, +you'd know of it. Hard to conceal or disguise a forty-foot boat, too." +His fingers closed like steel nippers over Mr. Daney's shoulder. +"Where did you hide the boat, Mr. Daney? Answer me. I'll not be +trifled with."</p> + +<p>"I scuttled her—if you must have the truth."</p> + +<p>"I knew you wouldn't lie to me. On whose orders, Mr. Daney? My +father's?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir; it was my own idea." Daney's face was white with mental and +physical distress and red with confusion, by turns. His shoulder was +numb.</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"I figured that if the girl had some money to make a new start +elsewhere, she'd leave Port Agnew, which would be best for all +concerned."</p> + +<p>"Why, Andrew Daney, you old hero! Cost you something to confess that, +didn't it? Well—I guessed you or my father had induced her to go, so +I concluded to start the investigation with you," He passed his hand +over his white dripping brow before resuming what he had to say. "The +Tyee Lumber Company isn't equipped to carry on its pay-roll Mr. Donald +McKaye and the man who interferes in his personal affair, even though +actuated by a kindly interest. You rip up that track you're laying and +leave Nan's home alone. Then you clean up your desk and hand me your +resignation. I'm sick—and your damned interference hurts. Sorry; but +you must go. Understand? Nan's coming back—understand? Coming +back—devilish hot night—for this time of year, isn't it? Man, I'm +burning up."</p> + +<p>It came to Mr. Daney that the young laird was acting in a most +peculiar manner. Also, he was talking that way. Consequently, and what +with the distress of being dismissed from the McKaye service in such +cavalier fashion, the general manager decided to twist out from under +that terrible grasp on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>Instantly, Donald released from this support, swayed and clutched +gropingly for Mr. Daney's person.</p> + +<p>"Dizzy," he panted. "Head's on strike. Mr. Daney, where the devil are +you? Don't run away from me. You damned old muddler, if I get my hands +on you I'll pick you apart—yes, I will—to see—what makes you go. +You did it, Yes, you did—even if you're too stupidly honest—to lie +about it. Glad of that, though, Mr. Daney. Hate liars and interfering +duffers. Ah—the cold-blooded calculation of it—took advantage of her +poverty. She's gone—nobody knows—May God damn your soul to the +deepest hell—Where are you? I'll kill you—no, no; forgive me, +sir—Yes, you've been faithful, and you're an old employe—I wish you +a very pleasant good-evening, sir."</p> + +<p>He stepped gingerly down the three wide stairs, pitched forward, and +measured his length in a bed of pansies. Mr. Daney came down, struck a +match, and looked at his white face. Donald was apparently +unconscious; so Mr. Daney knelt, placed his inquisitive nose close to +the partly open lips, and sniffed. Then he swore his chiefest oath.</p> + +<p>"Hell's hells and panther-tracks! He isn't drunk. He's sick."</p> + +<p>Fifteen minutes later, the young Laird of Port Agnew reposed in the +best room of his own hospital, and Andrew Daney was risking his life +motoring at top speed up the cliff road to The Dreamerie with bad news +for old Hector. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had retired but The Laird +was reading in the living-room when Daney entered unannounced.</p> + +<p>Old Hector looked up at his general manager from under his white, +shaggy brow.</p> + +<p>"Ye, Andrew," he saluted the latter gently, "I see by your face it's +not welcome news you bring. Out with it, man."</p> + +<p>So Andrew came "out with it," omitting no detail, and at the +conclusion of his recital, the old man wagged his head to emphasize +his comprehension.</p> + +<p>"My son is not a dull man by any means," he said presently. "He knows +what he knows—a man sure of himself always—and oh, Andrew man, +because of the brain of him and the sweet soul of him, it breaks my +heart to give pain to him. And what does the doctor say?"</p> + +<p>"From a cursory examination he suspects typhoid fever."</p> + +<p>"Ah, that's bad, bad, Andrew."</p> + +<p>"The boy has the strength of a Hercules, sir. He'll beat through, +never fear."</p> + +<p>"Well, he'll not die to-night, at any rate," old Hector answered, "and +I can do no good puttering round the hospital to-night. Neither would +I alarm his mother and the girls. Send for the best medical brains in +the country, Andrew, and don't quibble at the cost. Pay them what they +ask. 'Twill be cheap enough if they save him. Good-night, Andrew, and +thank you kindly." He stood up and laid his hand affectionately upon +the shoulder of his faithful servant and walked with him thus to the +door. "My good Andrew," he murmured, and propelled the general manager +gently outside, "there's no need to worry over the dismissal. When the +lad's well, he'll rescind his order, so, in the meantime, do not leave +us."</p> + +<p>"But—if he shouldn't rescind it?" Daney pleaded anxiously. Although +he was comfortably fixed with this world's goods and had long since +ceased to work for monetary reward, the Tyee Lumber Company was, +nevertheless, part of his life, and to be dismissed from its service +was akin to having some very necessary part of him amputated.</p> + +<p>"Tush, man; tush! Don't be building a mare's nest," old Hector +answered and closed the door upon him. For The Laird was losing +control of himself and he could not bear that any human eye should +gaze upon his weakness.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXVIII'></a><h2>XXVIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The morning following Donald's admittance to the hospital, the company +doctor confirmed his original diagnosis that the patient was suffering +from an attack of typhoid fever. The disease had evidently been two +weeks incubating, for the woods boss reported that his superior had +complained of being "under the weather" for ten days before yielding +to the former's repeated advice to go down to Port Agnew and have the +doctor look him over. As a result of Donald's stubborn refusal to +acknowledge his illness, the disease had reached a fair stage of +development by the time he received medical attention.</p> + +<p>He was not delirious when The Laird and Mrs. McKaye reached the +hospital that morning, however, they were permitted to see him for but +a few minutes only.</p> + +<p>"Has he a fighting chance?" old Hector demanded bluntly of the doctor. +It seemed to him that his son's face already wore the look of one +doomed to dissolution at an early date.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he has, Mr. McKaye," the doctor replied gravely; "provided he'll +fight. You will understand that in typhoid fever the mortality rate is +rather high—as high as thirty per cent. However, in the case of +Donald, who is a husky athlete, I should place the odds at about ten +to one that he'll survive an attack of even more than moderate +severity. That is," he added, "under the most favorable conditions."</p> + +<p>"Well, what's wrong with the conditions in this case?" The Laird +demanded crisply. "You can have anything you want—if you're shy on +material to work with, and I've sent for the best physician in the +state to come here and consult with you."</p> + +<p>"The hospital conditions are perfect, Mr. McKaye. What I mean is this: +It is a well recognized principle of medical practice that a patient +combating a disease of extreme severity and high mortality is +sustained quite as much by his courage and a passionate desire to get +well—in a word, by his morale—as he is by his capacity for physical +resistance. Your son is, I think, slightly depressed mentally. That is +the sole reason I see to warrant apprehension."</p> + +<p>"Oh—so that's all, eh?" The Laird was relieved. "Then don't worry +about him. He'll put up a battle—never fear. Why, he never quit in +all his life. However, in case he might need a bit of encouragement +from his old daddy from time to time, you'll have a room made ready +for me. I'll stay here till he's out of danger."</p> + +<p>That was a terrible week on old Hector. The nurse, discovering that +his presence appeared to excite her patient, forbade him the room; so +he spent his days and part of his nights prowling up and down the +corridor, with occasional visits to the mill office and The Dreamerie, +there to draw such comfort from Daney and his family as he might. +While his temperature remained below a hundred and four, Donald would +lie in a semi-comatose condition, but the instant the thermometer +crept beyond that point he would commence to mutter incoherently. +Suddenly, he would announce, so loudly The Laird could hear every +word, that he contemplated the complete and immediate destruction of +Andrew Daney and would demand that the culprit be brought before him. +Sometimes he assumed that Daney was present, and the not unusual +phenomenon attendant upon delirium occurred. When in good health +Donald never swore; neither would he tolerate rough language in his +presence from an employe; nevertheless, in his delirium he managed, at +least once daily, to heap upon the unfortunate Daney a generous +helping of invective of a quality that would have made a mule-skinner +blush. Sometimes Mr. Daney was unfortunate enough to drop in at the +hospital in time to hear this stream of anathema sounding through the +corridor; upon such occasions he would go into The Laird's room and he +and old Hector would eye each other grimly but say never a word.</p> + +<p>Having demolished Mr. Daney with a verbal broadside, Donald would +appear to consider his enemy dead and direct his remarks to Nan Brent. +He would reproach her tenderly for leaving Port Agnew without +informing him of her intention; he assured her he loved her, and that +unless she returned life would not be worth living. Sometimes he would +call upon old dead Caleb to reason with her in his behalf. About that +time he would be emerging from a Brand bath and, with the decline of +his temperature, his mutterings and complaints gradually grew +incoherent again and he would sleep.</p> + +<p>Thus two weeks passed. Donald showed no sign of the improvement which +should ordinarily be looked for in the third week, and it was apparent +to the doctors and nurses who attended him that the young Laird was +not making a fight to get well—that his tremendous physical +resistance was gradually being undermined. His day-nurse it was who +had the courage, womanlike, to bring the matter to an issue.</p> + +<p>"He's madly in love with that Nan girl he's always raving about," she +declared. "From all I can gather from his disconnected sentences, she +has left Port Agnew forever, and he doesn't know where she is. Now, +I've seen men—little, weak men—recover from a worse attack of +typhoid than this big fellow has, and he ought to be on the up-grade +now, if ever—yet he's headed down-hill. About next week he's going to +start to coast, unless Nan Brent shows up to take him by the hand and +lead him back up-hill. I believe she could do it—if she would."</p> + +<p>"I believe she could, also," the doctor agreed. "Perhaps you've +noticed that, although his family have listened to him rave about her, +they have never given the slightest indication that they know what he +is raving about. The girl's tabu, apparently."</p> + +<p>"The Laird appears to be a human being. Have you spoken to him about +this—Nan girl?"</p> + +<p>"I tried to—once. He looked at me—and I didn't try any more. The +fact is," the doctor added, lowering his voice, "I have a notion that +old Hector, through Daney, gave the girl money to leave the country."</p> + +<p>"If he knew what an important personage she is at this minute, he'd +give her more money to come back—if only just long enough to save his +son. Have you spoken to Mr. Daney?"</p> + +<p>"No; but I think I had better. He has a great deal of influence with +The Laird, and since I have no doubt they were in this conspiracy +together, Daney may venture to discuss with the old man the +advisability of bringing the girl back to Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"If she doesn't appear on the scene within ten days—"</p> + +<p>"I agree with you. Guess I'll look up Mr. Daney."</p> + +<p>He did. Daney was at his desk in the mill office when the doctor +entered and, without the least circumlocution, apprised him of the +desperate state to which Donald was reduced.</p> + +<p>"I tell you, Mr. Daney," he declared, and pounded Daney's desk to +emphasize his statement, "everything that medical science can do for +that boy has been done, but he's slipping out from under us. Our last +hope lies in Nan Brent. If she can be induced to come to his bedside, +hold his hand, and call him pet names when he's rational, he'll buck +up and win out. There are no dangerous physical complications to +combat now. They are entirely mental."</p> + +<p>While the physician was speaking, Andrew Daney's face had gradually +been taking on the general color-tones of a ripe old Edam cheese. His +chin slowly sagged on his breast; his lips parted in horror and +amazement until, finally, his mouth hung open slackly, foolishly; +presently, two enormous tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and +cascaded slowly across his cheeks into his whiskers. He gripped the +arms of his chair.</p> + +<p>"O God, forgive me!" he moaned. "The Laird doesn't know where she is, +and neither do I. I induced her to go away, and she's lost somewhere +in the world. To find her now would be like searching a haystack for a +needle."</p> + +<p>"But you might telegraph a space-ad to every leading newspaper in the +country. The Laird can afford to spend a million to find her—if she +can be found in a hurry. Why, even a telegram from her would help to +buck him up."</p> + +<p>But Andrew Daney could only sway in his chair and quiver with his +profound distress.</p> + +<p>"The scandal!" he kept murmuring, "the damned scandal! I'll have to go +to Seattle to send the telegrams. The local office would leak. And +even if we found her and induced her to come back to save him, +she'd—she'd have to go away again—and if she wouldn't—if he +wouldn't permit her—why, don't you see how impossible a situation has +developed? Man, can Donald McKaye wed Nan Brent of the Sawdust Pile?"</p> + +<p>"My interest in the case is neither sentimental nor ethical. It is +entirely professional. It appears to me that in trying to save this +young fellow from the girl, you've signed his death warrant; now it is +up to you to save him from himself, and you're worrying because it may +be necessary later to save the girl from him or him from the girl. +Well, I've stated the facts to you, and I tried to state them to The +Laird. Do as you think best. If the boy dies, of course, I'll swear +that he was doomed, anyhow, due to perforation of the intestines."</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes!" Daney gasped. "Let The Laird off as lightly as you can."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'll lie cheerfully. By the way, who is this girl? I haven't been +in Port Agnew long enough to have acquired all the gossip. Is she +impossible?"</p> + +<p>"She's had a child born out of wedlock."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then she's not a wanton?"</p> + +<p>"I'm quite sure she is not."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be damned! So that's all that's wrong with her, eh?" Like +the majority of his profession, this physician looked up such a +<i>contretemps</i> with a kindly and indulgent eye. In all probability, +most of us would if we but knew as many of the secrets of men as do +our doctors and lawyers.</p> + +<p>Long after the doctor had left him alone with his terrible problem, +Mr. Daney continued to sit in his chair, legs and arms asprawl, chin +on breast. From time to time, he cried audibly:</p> + +<p>"O Lord! O my God! What have I done? What shall I do? How shall I do +it? O Lord!"</p> + +<p>He was quite too incoherent for organized prayer; nevertheless his +agonized cry to Omnipotence was, indeed, a supplication to which the +Lord must have inclined favorably, for, in the midst of his desolation +and bewilderment, the door opened and Dirty Dan O'Leary presented +himself.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXIX'></a><h2>XXIX</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Thanks to the constitution of a Nubian lion, Dirty Dan's wounds and +contusions had healed very rapidly and after he got out of hospital, +he spent ten days in recuperating his sadly depleted strength. His +days he spent in the sunny lee of a lumber pile in the drying-yard, +where, in defiance of the published ordinance, he smoked plug tobacco +and perused the <i>Gaelic American</i>.</p> + +<p>Now, Mr. O'Leary, as has been stated earlier in this chronicle, was +bad black Irish. Since the advent of Oliver Cromwell into Ireland, the +males of every generation of the particular tribe of O'Leary to which +Dirty Dan belonged had actively or passively supported the battles of +Ould Ireland against the hereditary enemy across the Channel, and +Dirty Dan had suckled this holy hatred at his mother's breast; +wherefore he regarded it in the light of his Christian duty to keep +that hate alive by subscribing to the <i>Gaelic American</i> and believing +all he read therein anent the woes of the Emerald Isle. Mr. O'Leary +was also a member of an Irish-American revolutionary society, and was +therefore aware that presently his kind of Irish were to rise, cast +off their shackles (and, with the help o' God and the German kaiser) +proclaim the Irish Republic.</p> + +<p>For several months past, Daniel's dreams had dwelt mostly with +bayonet-practice. Ordinary bayonets, however, were not for him. He +dreamed his trusty steel was as long as a cross-cut saw, and nightly +he skewered British soldiers on it after the fashion of kidneys and +bacon <i>en brochette</i>. For two months he had been saving his money +toward a passage home to Ireland and the purchase of a rifle and two +thousand rounds of ammunition—soft-nose bullets preferred—with the +pious intention of starting with "th' bhoys" at the very beginning and +going through with them to the bloody and triumphant finish.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately for Dirty Dan, his battle in defense of Donald McKaye +had delayed his sortie to the fields of martyrdom. On the morning that +Nan Brent left Port Agnew, however, fortune had again smiled upon The +O'Leary. Meeting Judge Moore, who occupied two local offices—justice +of the peace and coroner—upon the street, that functionary had +informed Dan that the public generally, and he and the town marshal in +particular, traced an analogy between the death of the mulatto in +Darrow and Mr. O'Leary's recent sojourn in the Tyee Lumber Company's +hospital, and thereupon, verbally subpoenaed him to appear before a +coroner's jury the following day at ten o'clock A.M., then and there +to tell what he knew about said homicide.</p> + +<p>Dirty Dan received this summons with outward nonchalance but +tremendous secret apprehensions, and immediately fled for advice to no +less a person than Andrew Daney.</p> + +<p>However, the Fates ordained that Andrew Daney should be spared the +trouble of advising Dirty Dan, for as the latter came shuffling down +the hall toward Daney's office door, The Laird emerged from his old +office and accosted his henchman.</p> + +<p>"Well, Dan!" he greeted the convalescent, "how do you find yourself +these days?"</p> + +<p>"Poorly, sir, poorly," Dirty Dan declared. "Twas only yisterd'y I had +to take the other side av the shtreet to av'id a swamper from Darrow, +sir."</p> + +<p>The Laird smiled.</p> + +<p>"Well, Dan, I think it's about time I did something to make you feel +better. I owe you considerable for that night's work, so here's a +thousand dollars for you, my boy. Go down to southern California or +Florida for a month or two, and when you're back in your old form, +report for duty. I have an idea Mr. Donald intends to make you foreman +of the loading-sheds and the drying-yard when you're ready for duty."</p> + +<p>"God bless ye, me lord, an' may the heavens be your bed!" murmured the +astounded lumberjack, as The Laird produced his wallet and counted +into Dan's grimy quivering paw ten crisp hundred-dollar bills. "Oh, +t'ank you, sor; t'ank you a t'ousand times, sor. An' ye'll promise me, +won't ye, to sind for me firrst-off if ye should be wan tin' some +blackguard kilt?"</p> + +<p>"I assure you, Dan, you are my sole official killer," laughed The +Laird, and shook the O'Leary's hand with great heartiness. "Better +take my advice about a good rest, Dan."</p> + +<p>"Sor, I'll be afther havin' the vacation o' me life."</p> + +<p>"Good-by, then, and good luck to you, Dan!"</p> + +<p>"Good-by, an' God bless ye, sor!"</p> + +<p>Five minutes later, Daniel J. O'Leary was in the general store fitting +on what he termed a "Sunday suit." Also, he bought himself two white +shirts of the "b'iled" variety, a red necktie, a brown Derby hat, and +a pair of shoes, all too narrow to accommodate comfortably his +care-free toes. Next, he repaired to the barber-shop, where he had a +hair-cut and a shave. His ragged red mustache, ordinarily of the +soup-strainer pattern, he had trimmed, waxed, and turned up at each +end; the barber put much pomade on his hair and combed it in a +Mazeppa, with the result that when! Daniel J. O'Leary appeared at the +railroad station the following morning, and purchased a ticket for New +York City, Hector McKaye, loitering in front of the station on the +lookout for Nan Brent, looked at and through Mr. O'Leary without +recognizing him from Adam's off ox.</p> + +<p>It is, perhaps, superfluous to remark that Dirty Dan was about to +embark upon an enterprise designed to make his dreams come true. He +was headed for Ireland and close grips with the hated redcoats as fast +as train and steamer could bear him.</p> + +<p>Now, Mr. O'Leary had never seen Nan Brent, although he had heard her +discussed in one or two bunk-houses about the time her child had been +born. Also, he was a lumberjack, and since lumberjacks never speak to +the "main push" unless first spoken to, he did not regard it as all +necessary to bring himself to Hector McKaye's notice when his alert +intelligence informed him that The Laird had failed to recognize him +in his going-away habiliments. Further, he could see with half an eye +that The Laird was waiting for somebody, and when that somebody +appeared on the scene, the imp of suspicion in Dirty Dan's character +whispered: "Begorra, is the father up to some shenanigans like the +son? Who's this girrl? I dunno. A young widder, belike, seem' she has +a youngster wit' her."</p> + +<p>He saw Nan and The Laird enter into earnest conversation, and his +curiosity mastering him, he ventured to inquire of a roustabout who +was loading baggage on a truck who the young lady might be. Upon +receiving the desired information, he, with difficulty repressed a +whistle of amazement and understanding; instantly his active +imagination was at work.</p> + +<p>The girl was leaving Port Agnew. That was evident. Also, The Laird +must have known of this, for he had reached the station before the +girl and waited for her. Therefore, he must have had something to do +with inducing her to depart. Mr. O'Leary concluded that it was quite +within the realm of possibility that The Laird had made it well worth +her while to refrain from wrecking the honor of his house, and he +watched narrowly to observe whether or not money passed between them.</p> + +<p>One thing puzzled Dirty Dan extremely. That was the perfectly frank, +friendly manner in which his employer and this outcast woman greeted +each other, the earnestness with which they conversed, and the effect +of the woman's low-spoken words upon the color of Hector McKaye's +face. When The Laird took his leave, the lumberjack noted the +increased respect—the emotion, even—with which he parted from her. +The lumberjack heard him say, "Good-by, my dear, and good luck to you +wherever you go"; so it was obvious Nan Brent was not coming back to +Port Agnew. Knowing what he knew, Mr. O'Leary decided that, upon the +whole, here was good riddance to the McKaye family of rubbish that +might prove embarrassing if permitted to remain dumped on the Sawdust +Pile.</p> + +<p>"Poor gurrl," he reflected as he followed Nan aboard the train. "She +have a sweet face, that she have, God forgive her! An be th' Rock av +Cashel, she have a v'ice like an angel from heaven."</p> + +<p>He sat down in a seat behind her and across the aisle, and all the way +to Seattle he stared at the back of her neck or the beautiful rounded +profile of her cheek. From time to time, he wondered how much Hector +McKaye had paid her to disappear out of his son's life, and how that +son would feel, and what he would say to his father when he discovered +his light o' love had flown the cage.</p> + +<p>The following morning Mr. O'Leary boarded a tourist-sleeper on the +Canadian Pacific, and, to his profound amazement, discovered that Nan +Brent and her child occupied a section in the same car.</p> + +<p>"Begorra, she couldn't have shtuck the ould man very deep at that, or +'tis in a standard shleeper an' not a tourist she'd be riding," he +reflected. "What the divil's up here at all, at all, I dunno."</p> + +<p>Dirty Dan saw her enter a taxicab at the Grand Central Station in New +York.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if the young Caddyheck himself'll meet her here," Mr. +O'Leary reflected, alive with sudden suspicion, and springing into the +taxicab that drew in at the stand the instant the taxi bearing Nan and +her child pulled out, he directed the driver to follow the car ahead, +and in due course found himself before the entrance to a hotel in +lower Broadway—one of that fast disappearing number of fifth-class +hotels which were first-class thirty years ago.</p> + +<p>Dirty Dan hovered in the offing until Nan had registered and gone up +to her room. Immediately he registered also, and, while doing so, +observed that Nan had signed her real name and given her address as +Port Agnew, Washington. With unexpected nicety, Dirty Dan decided not +to embarrass her by registering from Port Agnew also, so he gave his +address as Seattle.</p> + +<p>For two days, he forgot the woes of Ireland and sat round the stuffy +lobby, awaiting Nan Brent's next move. When he saw her at the +cashier's window paying out, he concealed himself behind a newspaper, +and watched her covertly as the clerk gave instructions to the head +porter regarding the disposition of her baggage. The instant she left +the hotel, accompanied by her child, Dirty Dan approached the porter +and said with an insinuating smile:</p> + +<p>"I'd give a dollar to know the address the young lady wit' the baby +bhoy give you f'r the delivery av her trunk."</p> + +<p>The porter reached for the dollar and handed Dirty Dan a shipping tag +containing the address. Mr. O'Leary laboriously wrote the address in a +filthy little memorandum-book, and that afternoon made a point of +looking up Nan's new habitation. He discovered it to be an old +brownstone front in lower Madison Avenue, and a blue-and-gold sign +over the area fence indicated to Mr. O'Leary that, from an abode of +ancient New York aristocracy, the place had degenerated into a +respectable boarding-house.</p> + +<p>"'Tis true," Dirty Dan murmured. "She's given the young fella the +go-by. Hurro! An' I'm bettin' I'm the only lad in the wide, wide +wurrld that knows where she's gone. Faith, but wouldn't Misther Donald +pay handsomely for the information in me little book."</p> + +<p>Having, as he judged, followed the mystery to its logical conclusion, +Mr. O'Leary was sensible of a sudden waning of his abnormal curiosity +in Nan Brent's affairs. He acknowledged to himself that he had spent +time and money on a matter that was absolutely none of his business, +but excused himself upon the ground that if he hadn't investigated the +matter thoroughly, his failure to do so might annoy him in the future. +If, for no other reason than the desirability of being on the inside +track of this little romance of a rich man's son, his action was to be +commended. People have no business disappearing without leaving a +trace or saying good-by to those that love them. Dirty Dan hadn't the +least idea of selling his information to Donald McKaye, but something +in his peculiar mental make-up caused him to cherish a secret for its +own sake; he had a true Irishman's passion for being "in the know," +and now that he was in it, he was tremendously satisfied with himself +and dismissed the entire matter from his mind. Old Ireland and her +woes were again paramount, so Mr. O'Leary presented himself before the +proper authorities and applied for a passport to visit Ireland.</p> + +<p>Now, while Daniel J. did not know it, one of the first questions the +applicant for a passport is required to answer is his reason for +desiring to make the journey, and during the Great War, as everybody +of mature years will recall, civilians were not permitted to subject +themselves to the dangers of a ruthless submarine war without good and +sufficient reason. Mr. O'Leary had a reason—to his way of thinking, +the noblest reason in all the world; consequently he was proud of it +and not at all inclined to conceal it.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' over there," he declared, with profane emphasis, "to kill +all the damned English I can before they kill me."</p> + +<p>His interlocutor gravely wrote this reply down in Mr. O'Leary's exact +language and proceeded to the other questions. When the application +was completed, Dirty Dan certified to the correctness of it, and was +then smilingly informed that he had better go back where he came from, +because his application for a passport was denied. Consumed with fury, +the patriot thereupon aired his opinion of the Government of the +United States, with particular reference to its representative then +present, and in the pious hope of drowning his sorrows, went forth and +proceeded to get drunk.</p> + +<p>When drunk, Mr. O'Leary always insisted, in the early stages of his +delirium, on singing Hibernian ballads descriptive of the unflinching +courage, pure patriotism and heroic sacrifices of the late Owen Roe +O'Neill and O'Donnell Abu. Later in the evening he would howl like a +timber-wolf and throw glasses, and toward morning he always fought it +out on the floor with some enemy. Of course, in the sawmill towns of +the great Northwest, where folks knew Mr. O'Leary and others of his +ilk, it was the custom to dodge the glasses and continue to discuss +the price of logs. Toward Dirty Dan, however, New York turned a +singularly cold shoulder. The instant he threw a glass, the barkeeper +tapped him with a "billy"; then a policeman took him in tow, and the +following morning, Dirty Dan, sick, sore, and repentant was explaining +to a police judge that he was from Port Agnew, Washington, and really +hadn't meant any harm. He was, therefore, fined five dollars and +ordered to depart forthwith for Port Agnew, Washington, which he did, +arriving there absolutely penniless and as hungry as a cougar in +midwinter. He fled over to the mill kitchen, tossed about five +dollars worth of ham and eggs and hot biscuit into his empty being, +and began to take stock of life. Naturally, the first thing he +recalled in mind was The Laird's remark that Donald planned to make +him foreman of the loading-sheds and drying-yards; so he wasted no +time in presenting himself before Donald's office door. To his +repeated knocking there was no reply, so he sought Mr. Daney.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Dan! You back?" Daney greeted him. "Glad to see you. Looking +for Mr. Donald?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sor; thank you, sor."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Donald is ill in the company's hospital. We're afraid, Dan, that +he isn't going to pull through."</p> + +<p>"Glory be!" Mr. O'Leary gasped, horrified on two counts. First, +because he revered his young boss, and, second, because the latter's +death might nullify his opportunity to become foreman of the +loading-sheds and drying-yard. "Sure, what's happened to the poor +bhoy?"</p> + +<p>Before Daney could answer, a terrible suspicion shot through the agile +and imaginative O'Leary brain. In common with several million of his +countrymen, he always voiced the first thought that popped into his +head; so he lowered that member, likewise his voice, peered cunningly +into Andrew Daney's haggard face, and whispered:</p> + +<p>"Don't tell me he tried to commit suicide, what wit' his poor broken +heart an' all!"</p> + +<p>It was Andrew Daney's turn to peer suspiciously at Dirty Dan. For a +few seconds, they faced each other like a pair of belligerent +game-cocks. Then said Daney:</p> + +<p>"How do you know his heart was broken?"</p> + +<p>Dirty Dan didn't know. The thought hadn't even occurred to him until +ten seconds before; yet, from the solemnity of Daney's face and +manner, he knew instantly that once more his feet were about to tread +the trails of romance, and the knowledge imbued him with a deep sense +of importance.</p> + +<p>He winked knowingly.</p> + +<p>"Beggin' yer pardon, Misther Daney an' not m'anin' the least offinse +in life, but—I know a lot about that young man—yis, an' the young +leddy, too—that divil a sowl on earth knows or is goin' to find out." +He tried a shot in the dark. "That was a clever bit o' wurrk gettin' +her out o' Port Agnew—"</p> + +<p>Andrew Daney's hands closed about Dirty Dan's collar, and he was +jerked violently into the latter's office, while Daney closed and +locked the door behind them. The general manager was white and +trembling.</p> + +<p>"You damned, cunning mick, you!" he cried, in a low voice. "I believe +you're right. You do know a lot about this affair—"</p> + +<p>"Well, if I do, I haven't talked about it," Dirty Dan reminded him +with asperity.</p> + +<p>"You knew the girl had left Port Agnew and why, do you not?" Daney +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Of course I do. She left to plaze The Laird an' get rid o' the young +fella. Whether Th' Laird paid her to go or not, I don't know, but I'll +say this: 'If he gave her anythin' at all, 'twas damned little.'"</p> + +<p>"He didn't give her a red cent," Daney protested.</p> + +<p>"I believe you, sor," Mr. O'Leary assured him, as solemn as a Supreme +Court justice. "I judged so be the way she traveled an' the hotel she +shtopped at."</p> + +<p>Daney made another dive at the returned prodigal, but Mr. O'Leary +evaded him.</p> + +<p>"Where did she travel, and what hotel did she put up at?" the general +manager demanded.</p> + +<p>"She traveled to the same places an' put up at the same hotels that I +did," Dirty Dan replied evasively, for his natural love for intrigue +bade him hoard his secret to the last.</p> + +<p>Daney sat down and said very quietly: "Dan, do you know where Nan +Brent may be found?"</p> + +<p>"Where she <i>may</i> be found? Faith, I can tell you where she can be +found—but I'll not."</p> + +<p>"Why not?"</p> + +<p>"Because 'tis her secret, an' why should I share it wit' you, m'anin' +no disrespect, sor, at that?"</p> + +<p>"Your sentiments do you honor, Dan—a heap more honor than I ever +thought you possessed. If Mr. Donald's life should happen to be the +price of your silence, however, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"I would. The young gintlemin's blood runs in my veins, sor."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Dan. Give me her address."</p> + +<p>"Number one eighty-five Madison Avenue, Noo Yorrk City," Dirty Dan +replied promptly. "More I do not know. Am I on the pay-roll agin?"</p> + +<p>"You bet! I'll pick out a good job for you as soon as I find time to +think about it."</p> + +<p>"Could I have a dollar or two in advance—" the wanderer began, as +Daney hastened toward the door.</p> + +<p>"Certainly." The door slammed, and Dirty Dan could hear the general +manager shouting in the general office. "Dirty Dan is back. Give him +some money."</p> + +<p>Mr. O'Leary sighed contentedly.</p> + +<p>"Oh-ho, 'tis the great life we live," he murmured, and hastened +outside to present himself at the cashier's window, while Andrew Daney +continued on to the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital, tiptoed down the +corridor to the room where the young Laird of Port Agnew lay dying, +and rapped lightly on the door. A nurse came out and closed the door +after her.</p> + +<p>"Well?" Daney demanded.</p> + +<p>"No change. His temperature fell two degrees during the night and he +slept a little, but the fever is up again this morning, and he's +raving again. Any news at your end?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have the girl's address. She's in New York. Is his father +inside?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Ask him to step into the reception room for a few minutes, please."</p> + +<p>The Laird appeared promptly in response to this message, and the two +men walked slowly down the hall to the reception-room. Daney closed +the door and resolutely faced The Laird.</p> + +<p>"The doctors and the nurses tell me things, sir, they're afraid to +tell you," he began. "Ordinarily, the boy should be able to fight this +thing through successfully, for he has a splendid body and a lot of +resistance, but the fact of the matter is, he isn't trying. He doesn't +want to get well."</p> + +<p>The Laird's face went white.</p> + +<p>"They believe this?" he cried sharply.</p> + +<p>"They do. His subconscious mind clings to the memory of his loss. He +keeps calling for her in his delirium, doesn't he? Now that he is +assured she has dropped out of his life forever, he doesn't give a +snap whether school keeps or not—and the doctors cannot cure him. If +the girl were here—well, she might. Her very presence would bring +about a strong mental and physical reaction—" He paused a moment. +Then, "I know where she can be found."</p> + +<p>The Laird raised his haggard face and though his stern gray eyes were +dull with agony, yet Daney saw in them the light of an unfaltering +resolution.</p> + +<p>"I have left my son's honor and his life in the hands of God Almighty. +I have made my bed and I'll lie in it," he panted.</p> + +<p>"But if the boy should die—"</p> + +<p>"Rather that than—than—"</p> + +<p>"But you're not going to take a chance on his pulling through, in the +face of the advice of the doctors that only the girl's presence can +stimulate him to a desire to live. I tell you, Hector McKaye, man, +he's dying because he is not interested in living."</p> + +<p>"God's will be done, Andrew. If I asked her to come back and save my +lad, I'd have to surrender him to her, and I would be derelict in my +duty as a father if I permitted that. Better that he should pass out +now than know the horror of a living death through all the years to +come. God knows best. It is up to Him. Let there be no talk of this +thing again, Andrew." Abruptly he quitted the room and returned to his +vigil by the side of the son who was at once the light and the shadow +of his existence.</p> + +<p>The nurse came stealthily to the reception-room entrance and looked in +inquiringly. Daney shook his head, so she came into the room and +pointed at him a singularly commanding index-finger.</p> + +<p>"If that old man is permitted to have his stubborn way, Donald McKaye +will die," she declared.</p> + +<p>"So will old Hector. He'll be dead of a broken heart within the year."</p> + +<p>"He's sacrificing his son to his Scotch pride. Now, his mother is far +more bitter against the girl than The Laird is; in her distress she +accuses the Brent girl of destroying her son. Nevertheless, Mrs. +McKaye's pride and resentment are not so intense that she will +sacrifice her son to them."</p> + +<p>"Then give her this address," Daney suggested weakly, and handed it +over. "I'm caught between the upper and nether millstone, and I don't +care what happens to me. Damn the women, say I. Damn them! Damn them! +They're the ones that do all the talking, set up a cruel moral code, +and make a broad-minded, generous man follow it."</p> + +<p>"Thanks for the compliment," the nurse retorted blithely. "If I had +time, I'd discuss the matter with you to your disadvantage, but, +fortunately, I have other fish to fry. My job is to keep Donald McKaye +alive for the next five or six days until Nan Brent can get here. +She'll come. I know she will. She'd lie down in the street and die for +him. I know it. I spent two days with her when her father was dead, +and let me tell you something, Mr. Daney: 'She's too good for them. +There! I feel better now.'"</p> + +<p>"What a remarkable woman!" Mr. Daney reflected, as he walked back to +the mill office. "What a truly remarkable woman!" Then he remembered +the complications that were about to ensue, and to the wonderment of +several citizens of Port Agnew, he paused in front of the +post-office, threw both arms aloft in an agitated flourish, and cried +audibly:</p> + +<p>"Hell's bells and panther-tracks! I'd give a ripe peach to be in hell +or some other seaport. O Lordy, Lordy, Lordy! And all the calves got +loose!"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXX'></a><h2>XXX</h2> +<br /> + +<p>As a wife, it is probable that Nellie McKaye had not been an +altogether unqualified success. She lacked tact, understanding and +sympathy where her husband was concerned; she was one of that numerous +type of wife who loses a great deal of interest in her husband after +their first child is born. The Laird's wife was normally intelligent, +peacefully inclined, extremely good-looking both as to face and +figure, despite her years, and always abnormally concerned over what +the most inconsequential people in the world might think of her and +hers. She had a passion for being socially "correct." Flights of +imagination were rarely hers; on the few occasions when they were, her +thoughts had to do with an advantageous marriage for Jane and +Elizabeth, who, it must be confessed, had not had very good luck +holding on to the few eligible young bachelors who had seemed, for a +brief period, to regard them with serious intent. The poor soul was +worried about the girls, as well she might be, since the strides of +time were rapidly bearing both into the sere-and-yellow-leaf period of +life. For her son, she had earnest, passionate mother love, but since, +like all mothers, she was obsessed with the delusion that every girl +in the world, eligible and ineligible, was busy angling for her +darling, she had left his matrimonial future largely to his father. +Frequently her conscience smote her for her neglect of old Hector, but +she smoothed it by promising herself to devote more time to him, more +study to his masculine needs for wifely devotion, as soon as Elizabeth +and Jane should be settled.</p> + +<p>Her son's acute illness and the possibility that he might not survive +it had brought her closer to The Laird than these twain had been in +twenty years; the blow that had all but crushed him had not even +staggered her, for she told herself that, during this crisis she must +keep her feet and her head. A wave of pity for her husband and a tinge +of shame for her years of neglect of him revived more than a modicum +of the old honeymoon tenderness, and, to her mild amazement, she +discovered that she was still, in old Hector's eyes, young and +beautiful; her breast, her lips, still had power to soothe and +comfort.</p> + +<p>In those trying days she was The Laird's greatest asset. With maternal +stubbornness, she resolutely refused to entertain the thought that her +son might die. She could understand the possibility of some other +woman's son dying, but not hers! she, who knew him so well (or thought +she did, which amounts to the same thing), met with gentle tolerance +and contempt the portentous nods and anxious glances of doctors and +trained nurses. 'Fraid-cats—every last one of them! She told old +Hector so and, to a considerable extent, succeeded in making him +believe it.</p> + +<p>After The Laird's interview with Andrew Daney he came home that night +to The Dreamerie, and, to please Nellie, he pretended to partake of +some dinner. Also, during the course of the meal he suddenly decided +to relate to his wife and daughters as much as he knew of the course +of the affair between Donald and Nan Brent; he repeated his +conversation with Nan on the two occasions he had spoken with her, +and gave them to understand that his efforts to induce Donald to "be +sensible" had not been successful. Finally, his distress making him +more communicative, he related the cunning stratagem by which Daney +had made it possible for Donald to be separated from the source of +temptation.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth was the first to comment on his extraordinary revelations +when he appeared to have finished his recital.</p> + +<p>"The girl has a great deal more character than I supposed," she opined +in her soft, throaty contralto.</p> + +<p>"She played the game in an absolutely ripping manner!" Jane declared +enthusiastically. "I had no idea she was possessed of so much force. +Really, I should love to be kind to her, if that were at all possible +now."</p> + +<p>The Laird smiled but without animus.</p> + +<p>"You had ample opportunity once, Janey," he reminded her. "But then, +of course, unlike Donald and myself, you had no opportunity for +realizing what a fine, wholesome lass she is." He lowered his gaze and +rolled a bread-crumb nervously between thumb and forefinger. "They +tell me at the hospital, Nellie," he began again presently, "that her +absence is killing our boy—that he'll die if she doesn't come back. +They've been whispering to Daney, and this afternoon he mentioned the +matter to me." Three pairs of eyes bent upon him; gazes of mingled +curiosity and distress. "Have you heard aught of such talk from the +doctors and nurses," he continued, addressing them collectively.</p> + +<p>"I have," said Mrs. McKaye meekly, and the two girls nodded. "I think +it's all poppycock," Jane added.</p> + +<p>"It isn't all poppycock, my dear," old Hector rebuked her. He rolled +another bread-crumb. "Andrew has her address," he resumed after a long +silence. "She's in New York. He asked me to wire her to come +immediately, or else permit him to wire her in my name. I refused. I +told Daney that our boy's case was in the hands of God Almighty."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hector!" Mrs. McKaye had spoken. There was gentle reproach and +protest in her voice, but she camouflaged it immediately by adding: +"You poor dear, to be called upon to make such a decision."</p> + +<p>"His decision was absolutely right," Elizabeth declared. "I'd almost +prefer to see my brother decently dead than the laughing-stock of the +town, married to a woman that no respectable person would dare receive +in her home."</p> + +<p>Old Hector looked up in time to see Jane nod approval of her sister's +sentiments, and Mrs. McKaye, by her silence, appeared also to agree +with them. The Laird reached forth and laid his great hand over hers.</p> + +<p>"Poor Nellie!" he murmured affectionately. "'Tis hard to stand between +our love and duty, is it not, lass? By God, sweetheart, I had to do +it. I couldn't stand to see him wedded wie a lass that any man or +woman could throw mud at." His voice shook with the intensity of his +emotion; his flashing glance swept the board in pitiful defiance. "I +have a right to protect my honor and the honor of my house!" he cried +sharply. "Is not Jesus Christ the embodiment of honor? How can He +blame me if I trust in His power and discretion. I've prayed to +Him—ach, man, how I've prayed to Him—to keep my son from makin' a +fule o' himself—"</p> + +<p>"Now, there you go again, Hector, dear," his wife soothed. She rose +from her place at the table, came round to him, put her arms around +his great neck, and laid her cheek against his. "An open confession is +good for the soul, they say, Hector. I'm glad you've taken us into +your confidence, because it permits us to share with you an equal +burden of this heart-breaking decision. But you mustn't feel badly, +father. Haven't I told you our boy isn't going to die?"</p> + +<p>"Do you really think so, Nellie?" he pleaded childishly, and for the +hundredth time.</p> + +<p>"Silly old Hector! I know so." And this time there was in her voice +such a new note of confidence and in her eyes such a gleam of triumph +that she actually did succeed in comforting him. "Ah, well, God's will +be done," he said piously, and attacked his dinner again, while Mrs. +McKaye slipped out of the room and up-stairs on some pretext. Once in +her bedroom, she seized the extension telephone and called up Andrew +Daney.</p> + +<p>"Andrew," she said softly but distinctly, "this is Nellie McKaye +speaking. Hector and I have been discussing the advisability of +sending for the Brent girl."</p> + +<p>"I—I was goin' to take the matter up with you, Mrs. McKaye. I had a +talk with your husband this afternoon, but he was a bit wild—"</p> + +<p>"He isn't so wild now, Andrew. He's talked it over with the girls and +me. It's a terrible alternative, Andrew, but it simply means our boy's +life for the gratification of our own selfish family pride—"</p> + +<p>"Exactly! Exactly! And though I understand just how you feel, Mrs. +McKaye, after all, now, it's only a nine days' wonder, and you can't +keep people from talking anyhow, unless you gag the brutes. The boy +has been raving, and some of the hospital attendants have talked, and +the gossip is all over town again. So why not send for her? She +doesn't have to marry him just because her presence will revive his +sinking morale—"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. My idea, exactly, Andrew. Well, Andrew, suppose you +telegraph her—"</p> + +<p>"No, no, no! I'll telephone her. Remember, we have a transcontinental +telephone service nowadays. She might not realize the vital necessity +for speed; she might question her right to come if I tried to cover +the situation in a telegram. But, catch her on the 'phone, Mrs. +McKaye, and you can talk to her and convince her."</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's perfectly splendid! Place the call for me immediately, +Andrew, please. And—Andrew, don't mention to Hector what I've done. +He wants to do it, poor man, but he simply cannot bring himself to the +point of action."</p> + +<p>"Don't I know it?" Daney's voice rose triumphant. "The blessed old +duffer!" he added. "I'll put in a call for New York immediately. We +ought to get it through in an hour or two."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXI'></a><h2>XXXI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>It was Mr. Daney's task to place the call for Nan Brent in New York +City and while he did not relish the assignment, nevertheless he was +far from shrinking from it. While the citizens of Port Agnew had been +aware for more than two years that transcontinental telephoning was +possible, they knew also that three minutes of conversation for +twenty-five dollars tended to render silence more or less golden. As +yet, therefore, no one in Port Agnew had essayed the great adventure; +wherefore, Mr. Daney knew that when he did his conversation would be +listened to eagerly by every telephone operator in the local office +and a more or less garbled report of same circulated through the town +before morning unless he took pains to prevent it. This he resolved to +do, for the Tyee Lumber Company owned the local telephone company and +it was quite generally understood in Port Agnew that Mr. Daney was +high, low, and jack and the game, to use a sporting expression.</p> + +<p>He stood by the telephone a moment after hanging up the receiver, and +tugged at his beard reflectively.</p> + +<p>"No," he murmured presently, "I haven't time to motor up-country forty +or fifty miles and place the call in some town where we are not known. +It just isn't going to be possible to smother this miserable affair; +sooner or later the lid is going to fly off, so I might as well be +game and let the tail go with the hide. Oh, damn it, damn it! If I +didn't feel fully responsible for this dreadful state of affairs, I +would most certainly stand from under!"</p> + +<p>He turned from the 'phone and beheld Mrs. Daney, alert of countenance +and fairly pop-eyed with excitement. She grasped her husband by the +arm.</p> + +<p>"You have a private line from the mill office to The Dreamerie," she +reminded him. "Have the call run in on your office telephone, then +call Mrs. McKaye, and switch her in. We can listen on the office +extensions."</p> + +<p>Upon his spouse Mr. Daney bent a look of profound contempt.</p> + +<p>"When I consider the loyalty, the love, the forebearance, and +Christian charity that have been necessary to restrain me from tearing +asunder that which God, in a careless moment, joined together, Mary, +I'm inclined to regard myself as four-fifths superman and the other +fifth pure angel," he declared coldly. "This is something you're not +in on, woman, and I hope the strain of your curiosity will make you +sick for a week."</p> + +<p>He seized his hat and fled, leaving his wife to shed bitter, scalding +tears at his cruel words. Poor thing! She prided herself upon being +the possessor of a superior brand of virtue and was always quick to +take refuge in tears when any one decried that virtue; indeed, she +never felt quite so virtuous as when she clothed herself, so to speak, +in an atmosphere of patient resignation to insult and +misunderstanding. People who delude themselves into the belief that +they can camouflage their own nastiness and weaknesses from discovery +by intelligent persons are the bane of existence, and in his better +half poor Daney had a heavy cross to bear.</p> + +<p>He left the house wishing he might dare to bawl aloud with anguish at +the knowledge that he was yoked for life to a woman of whom he was +secretly ashamed; he wished he might dare to get fearfully intoxicated +and remain in that condition for a long time. In his youth, he had +been shy and retiring, always envying the favor which the ladies +appeared to extend to the daring devils of his acquaintance; +consequently, his prenuptial existence had not been marked by any +memorable amourous experiences, for where other young men sowed wild +oats Mr. Daney planted a sweet forget-me-not. As a married man, he was +a model of respectability—sacrosanct, almost. His idea of worldly +happiness consisted in knowing that he was a solid, trustworthy +business man, of undoubted years and discretion, whom no human being +could blackmail. Now, as he fled from the odor of respectability he +yearned to wallow in deviltry, to permit his soul, so long cramped in +virtue, to expand in wickedness.</p> + +<p>On his way down-town he met young Bert Darrow, son of the man after +whom the adjacent lumber-town had been christened. Mr. Darrow had +recently been indicted under the Mann law for a jolly little +interstate romance. But yesterday, Mr. Daney had regarded Bert Darrow +as a wastrel and had gone a block out of his way to avoid the +scapegrace; to-night, however, Bert appealed to him as a man of +courage, a devil of a fellow with spirit, a lover of life in its +infinite moods and tenses, a lad with a fine contempt for public +opinion and established morals. Morals? Bah, what were they! In +France, Bert Darrow would have earned for himself a wink and a shrug, +as though to say: "Ah, these young fellows! One must watch out for the +rascals!" In the United States, he was a potential felon.</p> + +<p>"Evening, Bert," Mr. Daney saluted him pleasantly, and paused long +enough to shake the latter's hand. "I saw your ad in the Seattle +<i>P.I.</i> this morning. You young dog! Hope you crawl out of that mess +all right."</p> + +<p>"<i>C'est la guerre</i>," Bert murmured nonchalantly. "Thanks, awfully."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney felt better after that brief interview. He had clasped hands +with sin and felt now like a human being.</p> + +<p>He went directly to the local telephone office and placed his New York +call with the chief operator, after which he sat in the manager's +office and smoked until ten o'clock, when New York reported "Ready!"</p> + +<p>"You young ladies," said Mr. Daney, addressing the two young women on +duty, "may take a walk around the block. Port Agnew will not require +any service for the next twenty minutes."</p> + +<p>They assimilated his hint, and when he was alone with the chief +operator Mr. Daney ordered her to switch the New York call on to Mrs. +McKaye at The Dreamerie. Followed ten minutes of "Ready, Chicago." +"All right, New York. Put your party on the line!"—a lot of +persistent buzzing and sudden silence. Then: "Hello, Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney, listening on the extension in the office of the manager, +recognized the voice instantly as Nan Brent's.</p> + +<p>"Go on, Mrs. McKaye," he ordered. "That's the Brent girl calling Port +Agnew."</p> + +<p>"Hello, Miss Brent. This is Donald McKaye's mother speaking. Can you +hear me distinctly?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. McKaye, quite distinctly."</p> + +<p>"Donald is ill with typhoid fever. We are afraid he is not going to +get well, Miss Brent. The doctors say that is because he does not want +to live. Do you understand why this should be?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; I think I understand perfectly."</p> + +<p>"Will you come back to Port Agnew and help save him? We all think you +can do it, Miss Brent. The doctors say you are the only one that can +save him." There was a moment of hesitation. "His family desires this, +then?" "Would I telephone across the continent if we did not?"</p> + +<p>"I'll come, Mrs. McKaye—for his sake and yours. I suppose you +understand why I left Port Agnew. If not, I will tell you. It was for +his sake and that of his family."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I am aware of that, Miss Brent. Ah—of course you will be +amply reimbursed for your time and trouble, Miss Brent. When he is +well—when all danger of a relapse has passed—I think you realize, +Miss Brent, all of the impossible aspects of this unfortunate affair +which render it necessary to reduce matters strictly to a business +basis."</p> + +<p>"Quite, dear Mrs. McKaye. I shall return to Port Agnew—on +business—starting to-morrow morning. If I arrive in time, I shall do +my best to save your son, although to do so I shall probably have to +promise not to leave him again. Of course, I realize that you do not +expect me to keep that promise."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'm so sorry, my dear girl, that I cannot say 'No' to that. But +then, since you realized, in the first place, how impossible"</p> + +<p>"Good-night. I must pack my trunk."</p> + +<p>"Just a minute, my girl," Andrew Daney interrupted. "Daney speaking. +When you get to Chicago, call up the C.M. St. P. station. I'll have a +special train waiting there for you."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Mr. Daney. I'm sorry you cannot charter an airplane for me +from New York to Chicago. Good-night, and tell Donald for me whatever +you please."</p> + +<p>"Send him a telegram," Daney pleaded. "Good-by." He turned to the +chief operator and looked her squarely in the eyes. "The Laird likes +discreet young women," he announced meaningly, "and rewards +discretion. If you're not the highest paid chief operator in the state +of Washington from this on, I'm a mighty poor guesser."</p> + +<p>The girl smiled at him, and suddenly, for the first time in all his +humdrum existence, Romance gripped Mr. Daney. He was riotously +happy—and courageous! He thrust a finger under the girl's chin and +tilted it in a most familiar manner, at the same time pinching it with +his thumb.</p> + +<p>"Young woman," he cautioned her, "don't you ever be prim and smug! And +don't you ever marry any man until you're perfectly wild to do it; +then, were he the devil himself, follow your own natural impulses." He +let go her chin and shook his forefinger between her eyes. "I'd rather +be happy than virtuous," the amazing man continued. "The calm +placidity that comes of a love of virtue and the possession of it +makes me sick! Such people are dull and stupid. They play +hide-and-seek with themselves, I tell you. Suspicious little souls +peering out of windows and shocked to death at everything they see or +hear—condemn everything they do not understand. Damn it, girl, give +me the virtue that's had to fight like the devil to stay on its +feet—the kind that's been scratched and has had the corners knocked +off in contact with the world and still believes that God made man to +his own image and likeness. I tell you, the Lord knew what he was +about when he invented the devil. If he hadn't, we'd all be so +nasty-nice nobody could trust the other fellow further'n you can throw +a bear up-hill by the tail. I tell you, young woman, sin is a great +institution. Why, just think of all the fun we have in life—we good +people—forgiving our neighbor his trespasses as he does not forgive +us for trespassing against him."</p> + +<p>And with this remarkable statement, Mr. Daney betook himself to his +home. Mrs. Daney, a trifle red and watery about the eyes and nose, sat +up in bed and demanded to be informed what had kept him down-town so +late.</p> + +<p>"Would you sleep any better if you knew?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>She said she would not.</p> + +<p>"Then, woman, resign yourself to the soft embrace of Bacchus, the god +of sleep," he replied, mixed metaphorically. "As for me, my dear, I'm +all talked out!"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXII'></a><h2>XXXII</h2> + +<p>Donald, trembling on the brink of Beyond, not from his disease but +from the exhaustion incident to it, was conscious when his father +entered the room and sat down beside his bed.</p> + +<p>"Well, lad," he greeted the boy with an assumption of heartiness he +was far from feeling, "and have you no good news for your old father +this morning. Tell me you're feeling better, lad."</p> + +<p>"Read the telegram," Donald whispered, and old Hector, seeing a +telegram lying on the bed, picked it up. It was dated from New York +that morning, and the Laird read:</p> + +<div class='blkquot'><p>Due Port Agnew Friday morning. Remember the last line in the + fairy-tale. Love and kisses from your</p> + +<p> SWEETHEART.</p></div> + +<p>"God bless my soul!" The Laird almost shouted.</p> + +<p>"Who the devil is 'Sweetheart'?"</p> + +<p>"Only—have one—Scotty. Sorry—for you—but do you—happen to +know—last line—fairy-tale? Tell you. 'And so—they—were +married—and lived—happy—ever—after.'"</p> + +<p>Fell a long silence. Then, from The Laird:</p> + +<p>"And you're going to wait for—her, my son?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. Foolish die—now. I'll try—to wait. Try hard."</p> + +<p>He was still trying when Nan Brent stepped off the special train at +Port Agnew on Friday morning. She was heavily veiled, and because of +the distinctly metropolitan cut of her garments, none recognized her. +With her child trotting at her side, she walked swiftly to the company +hospital, and the nurse, who had been watching for her, met her at the +door. The girl raised a white, haggard face, and her sad blue eyes +asked the question. The nurse nodded, led her down the hall, pointed +to the door of Donald's room, and then picked up Nan's child and +carried him off to the hospital kitchen for a cookie.</p> + +<p>The outcast of Port Agnew entered. Hector McKaye sat by the bed, +gazing upon his son, who lay with closed eyes, so still and white and +emaciated that a sudden fear rose in Nan's mind. Had she arrived too +late?</p> + +<p>The Laird turned and gazed at her an instant with dull eyes, then +sprang to meet her.</p> + +<p>"Well, lass," he demanded, and there was a belligerent and resentful +note in his voice, "is this playing the game?" She nodded, her blurred +eyes fixed upon his son, and old Hector's face softened with a +tenderness almost paternal. "Then," he whispered, "you didn't mean +that—about the last line of the fairy-tale?"</p> + +<p>Her head moved in negation, but she did not look at him. She had eyes +only for the wreck of the man she loved.</p> + +<p>"I heard you needed me—to save him, Mr. McKaye. So I'm here—to save +him, if I can—for you—nothing more."</p> + +<p>He bowed to her, deeply, humbly, as if she were in truth the grandest +lady in the land, then left the room hurriedly. Nan approached the +bed and leaned over Donald, gazing at him for several minutes, for he +was not as yet aware of her presence. Suddenly she commenced to sing +softly the song he loved: "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," and her +hand stole into his. The little grin that crept over his bearded face +was ghastly; after the first bar, she bent and laid her cool cheek +against his.</p> + +<p>"Well, old shipmate," she murmured in his ear, "I'm back."</p> + +<p>"'God's in—his heaven,'" he whispered. "'All's right—with +the—world.'"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXIII'></a><h2>XXXIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>From the company hospital, The Laird went straight to his general +manager's office. Entering, he strode to Daney's desk and transfixed +that harassed individual with an accusing finger.</p> + +<p>"Andrew, this is your work, is it not?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney's heart skipped a beat, but he remembered this was Friday +morning. So he decided not to be foolish and spar for time by asking +The Laird what work he referred to. Also, having read somewhere that, +in battle, the offensive frequently wins—the defensive never—he +glared defiantly at The Laird and growled.</p> + +<p>"Well, what are you going to do about it?" His demeanor appeared to +say: "This is my work, and I'm proud of it."</p> + +<p>To Daney's profound amazement, The Laird smiled benignantly and thrust +out his hand, which Mr. Daney shook gingerly, as one might a can of +nitroglycerin.</p> + +<p>"I thank you more than you will ever realize, Andrew, for taking this +matter out of my hands. I left the decision up to the Almighty and +evidently he inspired you to disobey me and save the day—without +compromising me."</p> + +<p>"Pooh! That's the easiest thing I do." Mr. Daney's courage had +returned with a rush. "For heaven's sake, don't talk about it, sir. I +placed a call for the girl on the telephone—at your expense. Yes, +sir; I talked with her clear across the continent, and before she +even started from New York, it was understood that she is to jilt +Donald the minute the doctors pronounce him strong enough to stand +jilting."</p> + +<p>"She told me, practically, the same thing. Oh, Andrew, Andrew, my boy, +this is bully work! Bully! Bully!"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney replied to this encomium with a deprecatory shrug and hoped +The Laird would never ask <i>him who had made the bargain</i>. Thus far, he +flattered himself, he had not strayed from the straight and narrow +path of strict veracity, and he hoped he would not have to. To obviate +this, he decided to get rid of The Laird immediately; so he affected +embarrassment; fussed with the pile of mail on his desk, and growled:</p> + +<p>"All right, boss. If you're satisfied, I am. I haven't been able to +sleep very well since I started mixing in your family affairs, and +without sleep a man cannot hold up his job. I've got a lot of work to +do, and I cannot have any idle, interfering fellows stampeding round +my office; so I suggest that you run up to The Dreamerie to break the +good news to your poor wife and the girls, and let me get something +done."</p> + +<p>"All right, Andrew; I'll go in a minute. Er—ah—you're certain, +Andrew, the girl understands quite thoroughly that I haven't had a +thing to do with bringing her back to Port Agnew?" The Laird smote the +desk resolutely; he desired to be absolutely certain of his ground.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney looked up with a slight frown.</p> + +<p>"I'll answer your question with another. Have you seen and talked with +Nan Brent this morning?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I did—the minute she entered Donald's room."</p> + +<p>"And you demanded a show-down then and there?"</p> + +<p>Parenthetically it may be stated that Mr. Daney's intimate knowledge +of The Laird's character prompted this question. He was certain of an +affirmative reply.</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>"And her answer was satisfactory?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely!"</p> + +<p>"So I judged from the fact that you shook hands with me upon entering +my office. I had expected nothing more nor less than instant +dismissal.... Well, since you desire the girl's testimony confirmed, I +repeat that she came out here on the distinct understanding that +Donald's family had not receded from its original position. This is a +business trip, pure and simple, in so far as the McKaye family is +concerned, although I grant you there is a heap of sentiment on Nan's +part—at least sufficient to persuade her to do anything for the boy's +sake. She places his welfare above her own."</p> + +<p>The Laird nodded.</p> + +<p>"The girl is capable of doing the most unexpected things, Andrew. I +really think she'll play the game. When she told me what her +intentions were, I believe she stated the absolute truth."</p> + +<p>"Well, let us hope she doesn't change them, sir. Remember, she has no +more intention of marrying him this morning than she had when she fled +from Port Agnew. I was certain of that when listening to her on the +telephone the other night. However, sir, I want to go on record, here +and now, as disclaiming responsibility for anything that may occur +hereafter. I am not the seventh son of a seventh son, and neither was +I born with a caul. Hence, I do not pretend to foretell future events +with any degree of exactitude. I simply guarantee you, sir, that the +girl realizes that you have had nothing whatsoever, directly or +indirectly, to do with the request for her return. Also, I give you my +word of honor that I have not made her a single promise—directly or +indirectly."</p> + +<p>"Well, I am relieved. I dreaded the thought that I might be +compromised—indirectly, for, as you well know, Andrew, I have a +repugnance to asking favors from anybody to whom I am not prepared to +grant them. My son is my chief happiness. Now, if I were to ask her to +save my happiness, while at the same time reserving the right to deny +the girl hers—well, thank God, I'm saved that embarrassment! Thanks +to you, you fox!" he added.</p> + +<p>"Bless my wicked heart! I'm glad you've gone and that I'm out of it so +easy," the general manager soliloquized, as the door closed behind The +Laird.</p> + +<p>He reached for the telephone and called Mrs. McKaye at The Dreamerie.</p> + +<p>"Your husband is on his way home, Mrs. McKaye," he advised her. "The +girl is here, The Laird has met her and talked with her and is quite +happy over the situation. However, I want to warn you that you will +avoid unpleasantness by keeping from him the fact that you asked the +Brent girl to come back to Port Agnew. He thinks I did that, and I +have not seen fit, for reasons of my own, to deny it."</p> + +<p>"Why, I asked you not to tell him, Andrew," she replied, surprised +that he should forget it.</p> + +<p>"I know. But you had planned to tell him yourself if, after the girl +had arrived, you discovered he was secretly pleased that she had +come."</p> + +<p>"Yes; that is true. However, since you say Hector is quite pleased +with the situation, why should I not tell him, Andrew?"</p> + +<p>"I have a suspicion the news will trouble him. He is quite willing to +accept of the girl's services, as it were, but not at the behest of +any member of his family. Better hear what he has to say on the +subject before you commit yourself, Mrs. McKaye."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think I can be depended upon to manage Hector," she replied +confidently, and hung up, for already through the window she could see +The Laird's car taking the grade up Tyee Head. He arrived a few +minutes later and entered smilingly, rubbing his hands as indicative +of his entire satisfaction with the universe as constituted that +morning.</p> + +<p>"My dears, I have wonderful news for you!" he announced.</p> + +<p>Elizabeth, warned by her mother of the impending announcement, and +already in the latter's confidence regarding the long-distance +conversation with Nan Brent, interrupted him. She was a born actress.</p> + +<p>"Oh, do tell us quickly, daddy dear," she gushed, and flew to throw +her arms round his neck. Over his shoulder she winked at Jane and her +mother and grimaced knowingly.</p> + +<p>"Donald's going to pull through. The doctors feel certain he'll take +in the slack on his life-line, now that the Brent girl has suddenly +turned up. In fact, the lad has been holding his own since he received +a telegram from her some days back. I didn't tell you about that, my +dears, not being desirous of worrying you; and since it was no doings +of mine, I saw it could not be helped, and we'd have to make the best +of it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, daddy! How could you? That's perfectly dreadful news!" the +artful Elizabeth cried, while her mother raised her eyes resignedly +upward and clasped her hands so tightly that they trembled. The Laird +thought his wife sought comfort from above; had he known that she had +just delivered a sincere vote of thanks, he would not have hugged her +to his heart, as he forthwith proceeded to do.</p> + +<p>"Now, now, Nellie, my dear," he soothed her, "it's all for the best. +Don't cross your bridges before you come to them. Wait till I tell you +everything. That fox, Daney, had the common sense to call the girl on +the telephone and explain the situation; he induced her to come out +here and tease that soft-hearted moonstruck son of ours back to life. +And when Donald's strong enough to stand alone—by Jupiter, that's +exactly how he's going to stand!—We're not the slightest bit +compromised, my dears. The McKaye family is absolutely in the clear. +The girl has done this solely for Donald's sake."</p> + +<p>"Hector McKaye," Jane declared, "you've really got to do something +very handsome for Andrew Daney."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," Elizabeth cooed.</p> + +<p>"Dear, capable, faithful Andrew!" Mrs. McKaye sighed.</p> + +<p>"Ah, he's a canny lad, is Andrew," old Hector declared happily. "He +took smart care not to compromise me, for well he knows my code. When +I rejected his suggestion that I send for the lass, Andrew knew why +without asking foolish questions. Well, he realized that if I should +ask her to come and save my son, I would not be unfair enough to tell +her later that she was not a fit wife for that son. As a matter o' +manly principle, I would have had to withdraw my opposition, and +Donald could wed her if he liked and with my blessing, for all the +bitter cost. I did not build The Dreamerie with the thought that +Donald would bring a wife like this Brent lass home to live in it, +but—God be thanked!—the puir bairn loves him too well to ruin him—"</p> + +<p>He broke off, wiping his eyes, moist now with the pressure of his +emotions, and while he was wiping them, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters +exchanged frightened glances. Elizabeth's penchant for ill-timed humor +disappeared; she stood, alert and awed, biting her lip. Jane's +eyebrows went up in quick warning to her mother, who paled and flushed +alternately. The latter understood now why Andrew Daney had taken the +precaution to warn her against the danger of conjugal confidences in +the matter of Nan Brent; devoutly she wished she had had the common +sense to have left those delicate negotiations entirely in the hands +of dear, capable, faithful Andrew, for, delicate as they had been, she +realized now, when it was too late, that in all probability Mr. Daney, +although a mere man, would have concluded them without compromising +the McKaye family. Surely he would have had the good taste to assure +Nan that he was acting entirely upon his own initiative.</p> + +<p>On the instant, Mrs. McKaye hated the unfortunate general manager. She +told herself that, had he been possessed of the brains of a chipmunk, +he would have pointed out to her the danger of her course; that he had +not done so was proof that the craven had feared to compromise +himself. He had made a cat's-paw of her, that's what he had done! He +had taken advantage of a momentary lack of caution—the result of her +impetuous mother love. Ah, what a blockhead the man was, not to have +warned her of the diplomatic dangers she was risking! At that moment, +placid Nellie McKaye could have shrieked with fury; it would have been +a relief to her if she could have stuck her hatpin in that monumental +chucklehead, Daney. Like so many of her sex, the good lady's code of +sportsmanship was a curious one, to say the least. It had not been +prudence but an instinctive desire to protect her son that had moved +her to be careful when begging Nan to return to Port Agnew, to +indicate that this request predicated no retirement from the resolute +stand which the family had taken against the latter's alliance with +Donald. In a hazy, indefinite way, she had realized the importance of +nullifying any tendency on her part to compromise herself or her +family by the mere act of telephoning to Nan, and with the +unintentional brutality of a not very intelligent, tactless woman she +had taken this means of protection.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, it had not occurred to her until this moment that +she had done something shameful and cruel and stupid and unwomanly. +She shriveled mentally in the contemplation of it. Not until her +husband had so unexpectedly revealed to her a hitherto hidden facet of +his character—his masculine code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for +a tooth—did she realize how dreadfully she had blundered. She +realized now that, without having given the slightest thought to the +commission of an act unworthy of her womanhood, she had acted because, +to her, the end appeared to justify the means; never given to +self-analysis, she had merely followed the imperative call of her +mother love to the point where nothing mattered save results.</p> + +<p>She looked up tearfully at The Laird. For thirty-odd years she had +lived with this strange soul; yet she had not known until now how +fierce was his desire for independence, how dear to him was his +passion for self-respect. Even now, she found it difficult to +understand why, even if he had been able to subdue his pride to the +point of asking Nan Brent to preserve life in that which was dearer to +him than his own life, his passion for always giving value received +should preclude bargaining with the girl. It was plain to her, +therefore, that her husband could never love their son as his mother +loved him, else, in a matter of life or death, he would not have +paused to consider the effect on himself of any action that might +safeguard his son's existence. She knew what he had thought when Daney +first proposed the matter to him. That sort of thing wasn't "playing +the game." Poor, troubled soul! She did not know that he was capable +of playing any game to the finish, even though every point scored +against him should burn like a branding-iron.</p> + +<p>The Laird, noting her great distress, held her fondly in his arms and +soothed her; manlike, he assumed that she wept because her heart was +overflowing with joy. For half an hour he chatted with her; then, with +a light step and a cheerful "Good-by, Nellie, wife," he entered his +automobile and drove back to town.</p> + +<p>His departure was the signal for Jane and Elizabeth to rally to their +mother's side and inaugurate a plan of defense.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother dear," Elizabeth opined calmly, "it appears that you've +spilled the beans."</p> + +<p>"What a funny old popsy-wops it is, to be sure!" Jane chirped. "It's +fine to be such a grand old sport, but so dreadfully inconvenient! +Beth, can you imagine what father McKaye would say if he only knew?"</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't mind the things he'd say. The things he'd do would be apt +to linger longest in our memories."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dears, what shall I do?" poor Mrs. McKaye quavered.</p> + +<p>"Stand pat, should necessity ever arise, and put the buck up to Mr. +Daney," the slangy Elizabeth suggested promptly. "He has warned you +not to confess to father, hasn't he? Now, why did he do this? Answer. +Because he realized that if dad should learn that you telephoned this +odious creature from the Sawdust Pile, the head of our clan would +consider himself compromised—bound by the action of a member of his +clan, as it were. Then we'll have a wedding and after the wedding +we'll all be thrown out of The Dreamerie to make room for Master Don +and his consort. So, it appears to me, since Mr. Daney has warned you +not to tell, mother dear, that he cannot afford to tell on you +himself—no, not even to save his own skin."</p> + +<p>"You do not understand, Elizabeth," Mrs. McKaye sobbed. "It isn't +because that stupid Andrew cares a snap of his finger for us; it's +because he's devoted to Hector and doesn't want him worried or made +unhappy."</p> + +<p>And in this observation, it is more than probable that the lady spoke +more truly than she realized.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, if that's the case, it's all as clear as mud!" Jane cried +triumphantly. "If the worst should ever come to the worst, Mr. Daney +will lie like a gentleman and—why, he has already done so, silly! Of +course he has, and it's rather gallant of him to do it, I think."</p> + +<p>"He's an imbecile, and why Hector has employed him all these +years—why he trusts him so implicitly, I'm sure I am at a loss to +comprehend." Mrs. McKaye complained waspishly.</p> + +<p>"Dear, capable, faithful Andrew!" Elizabeth mimicked her mother's +speech earlier in the day. "Cheer up, ma! Cherries are ripe." She +snapped her fingers, swayed her lithe body, and undulated gracefully +to the piano, where she brought both hands down on the keys with a +crash, and played ragtime with feverish fury for five minutes. Then, +her impish nature asserting itself, she literally smashed out the +opening bars of the Wedding March from Lohengrin, and shouted with +glee when her mother, a finger in each ear, fled from the room.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXIV'></a><h2>XXXIV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Mr. Daney worked through a stack of mail with his stenographer, +dismissed her, and, in the privacy of his sanctum, lighted his pipe +and proceeded to mend his fences. In the discretion of the chief +operator at the telephone exchange, he had great confidence; in that +of Mrs. McKaye, none at all. He believed that the risk of having the +secret leak out through Nan herself was a negligible one, and, of +course (provided he did not talk in his sleep) the reason for Nan's +return was absolutely safe with him. Indeed, the very fact that The +Laird had demanded and received an explanation from the girl would +indicate to Nan that Mrs. McKaye had acted on her own initiative; +hence, Nan would, in all probability, refrain from disclosing this +fact to The Laird in any future conversations.</p> + +<p>Reasoning further, Daney concluded there would be no future +conversations. The Laird, following his usual custom of refraining +from discussing a subject already settled to his satisfaction, could +be depended upon to avoid a discussion of any kind with Nan Brent in +future, for such discussions would not be to his interest, and he was +singularly adept in guarding that interest.</p> + +<p>His cogitations were interrupted by a telephone-call from Mrs. McKaye. +The good soul's first gust of resentment having passed, she desired to +thank him for his timely warning and to assure him that, on the +subject of that transcontinental telephone-conversation she and her +daughters could be depended upon to remain as silent as the Sphinx.</p> + +<p>This information relieved Mr. Daney greatly. "After all," he confided +to the cuspidor, "it is up to the girl whether we fish or cut bait. +But then, what man in his senses can trust a woman to stay put. +Females are always making high dives into shoal water, and those +tactless McKaye women are going to smear everything up yet. You wait +and see."</p> + +<p>The longer Mr. Daney considered this situation, the more convinced did +he become that mischief was brewing. Did not periods of seraphic calm +always precede a tornado? In the impending social explosion, a few +hard missiles would most certainly come his way, and in a sudden agony +of apprehension and shame because he had told The Laird a half-truth, +he sprang to his feet, resolved to seek old Hector, inform him that +Mrs. McKaye had compromised the family, and thus enable him to meet +the issue like a gentleman. But this decision was succeeded by the +reflection that perhaps this action would merely serve to precipitate +a situation that might not be evolved in the ordinary course of +affairs. Furthermore, he could not afford to betray Mrs. McKaye on the +mere suspicion that, sooner or later, she would betray herself, for +this would savor of too much anxiety to save his own skin at her +expense. "I'm a singularly unhappy old duffer," he groaned and kicked +his inoffending waste-basket across the office. "The females! The +mischief-making, bungling, thoughtless, crazy females! There are +millions of wonderful, angelic women in this terrible world, but what +I want to know is: Where the Sam Hill do they hide themselves?"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXV'></a><h2>XXXV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Nan did not remain at the hospital more than fifteen minutes. She was +ill at ease there; it was no comfort to her to gaze upon the pallid, +wasted face of the man she loved when she realized that, by her +presence here, she was constituting herself a party to a +heart-breaking swindle, and must deny herself the joy of gazing upon +that same beloved countenance when, later, it should be glowing with +health and youth and high hopes. He was too weak to speak more than a +few words to her. The faintest imaginable pressure of his hand +answered the pressure of hers. It appeared to be a tremendous effort +for him to open his eyes and look up at her. When, however, he had +satisfied his swimming senses that she was really there in the flesh, +he murmured:</p> + +<p>"You'll not—run away—again? Promise?"</p> + +<p>"I promise, dear. The next time I leave Port Agnew, I'll say good-by."</p> + +<p>"You must not—leave—again. Promise?"</p> + +<p>She knew his life might be the reward of a kindly lie; so she told it, +bravely and without hesitation. Was she not there for that purpose?</p> + +<p>"Good—news! If I get—well, will you—marry me, Nan?" She choked up +then; nevertheless, she nodded.</p> + +<p>"More good—news! Wait for me—Sawdust Pile—sweetheart."</p> + +<p>She interpreted this as a dismissal, and gratefully made her exit. +From the hospital office she telephoned orders to the butcher, the +baker, the grocer, and the milkman, forcibly separated little Don from +the nurse, and walked down through Port Agnew to the Sawdust Pile.</p> + +<p>The old-fashioned garden welcomed her with its fragrance; her cat, +which she had been unable to give away and had not the heart to +destroy at the time of her departure, came to the little white gate to +meet her and rubbed against her, purring contentedly—apparently none +the worse for a month of vagabondage and richer by a litter of kittens +that blinked at Nan from under the kitchen stoop. From across the +Bight of Tyee, the morning breeze brought her the grateful odor of the +sea, while the white sea-gulls, prinking themselves on the pile-butts +at the outer edge of the Sawdust Pile, raised raucous cries at her +approach and hopped toward her in anticipation of the scraps she had +been wont to toss them. She resurrected the key from its hiding-place +under the eaves, and her hot tears fell so fast that it was with +difficulty she could insert it in the door. Poor derelict on the sea +of life, she had gone out with the ebb and had been swept back on the +flood, to bob around for a little while in the cross-currents of human +destinies before going out again with the ebb.</p> + +<p>The air in the little house was hot and fetid; so she threw open the +doors and windows. Dust had accumulated everywhere and, with a certain +detachment, she noted, even in her distress, that she had gone away +without closing the great square piano. She ran her fingers over the +dusty keys and brought forth a few, sonorous chords; then she observed +that the little, ancient, half-portion grandfather's clock had died of +inanition; so she made a mental note to listen for the twelve-o'clock +whistle on the Tyee mill and set the clock by it. The spigot over the +kitchen sink was leaking a little, and it occurred to her, in the same +curious detached way, that it needed a new gasket.</p> + +<p>She sighed. Once more, in this silent little house so fraught with +happy memories, the old burden of existence was bearing upon her—the +feeling that she was in jail. For a month she had been free—free to +walk the streets, to look in shop windows, to seek a livelihood and +talk to other human beings without that terrible feeling that, no +matter how pleasant they might appear to be, their eyes were secretly +appraising her—that they were <i>thinking</i>. And now to be forced to +abandon that freedom—</p> + +<p>"Oh, well! It can't last forever," she soliloquized, and, blinking +away her tears, she proceeded to change into a house dress and put her +little home in order. Presently, the local expressman arrived with her +baggage and was followed by sundry youths bearing sundry provisions; +at twelve-thirty, when she and young Don sat down to the luncheon she +had prepared, her flight to New York and return appeared singularly +unreal, like the memory of a dream.</p> + +<p>She visited the hospital next day, choosing an hour when Port Agnew +was at its evening meal and too preoccupied with that important detail +to note her coming and going. She returned to her home under cover of +darkness.</p> + +<p>At the hospital, she had received a favorable report of the patient's +progress. His physicians were distinctly encouraged. Nan looked in on +her lover for a minute, and then hurried away on the plea that her +baby was locked in at the Sawdust Pile, in the absence of some one to +care for him; she had the usual maternal presentiment that he was +playing with matches.</p> + +<p>As she was going out she met The Laird and Mrs. McKaye coming in. Old +Hector lifted his hat and said quite heartily:</p> + +<p>"How do you do, my dear girl. The news this evening is most +encouraging—thanks to you, I'm told—so we are permitted to see +Donald for five minutes. Nellie, my dear, you remember little Nan +Brent, do you not?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye's handsome mouth contracted in a small, automatic smile +that did not extend to her eyes. She acknowledged Nan's "Good-evening, +Mrs. McKaye," with a brief nod, and again favored the girl with +another property smile, between the coming and going of which her +teeth flashed with the swiftness of the opening and closing of a +camera shutter.</p> + +<p>"We are <i>so</i> grateful to you, Miss Brent," she murmured. And then, +womanlike, her alert brown eyes, starting their appraisal at Nan's +shoes, roved swiftly and calmly upward, noting every item of her +dress, every soft seductive curve of her healthy young body. Her +glance came to a rest on the girl's face, and for the space of several +seconds they looked at each other frankly while old Hector was saying:</p> + +<p>"Aye, grateful indeed, Nan. We shall never be out of your debt. There +are times when a kindness and a sacrifice are all the more welcome +because unexpected, and we had no right to expect this of you. God +bless you, my dear, and remember—I am always your friend."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," his wife murmured, in a voice that, lacking his +enthusiasm, conveyed to Nan the information that The Laird spoke for +himself. She tugged gently at her husband's arm; again the automatic +smile; with a cool: "Good-night, Miss Brent. Thank you again—<i>so</i> +much," she propelled The Laird toward the hospital entrance. He obeyed +promptly, glad to escape a situation that was painful to him, for he +had realized that which his wife did not credit him with having +sufficiently acute perception to realize—to-wit, that his wife's +camouflage was somewhat frayed and poorly manufactured. <i>She had not +played the game with him</i>. It would have cost her nothing to have been +as kindly and sincere as he had been toward this unfortunate girl; +nevertheless, while he had sensed her deficiency, his wife had carried +the affair off so well that he could not advance a sound argument to +convince her of it. So he merely remarked dryly as the hospital door +closed behind them:</p> + +<p>"Nellie, I'm going to propound a conundrum for you. Why did your +greeting of the Brent girl remind me of that Louis Quinze tapestry for +which you paid sixty thousand francs the last time you were abroad?"</p> + +<p>"I loathe conundrums, Hector," she replied coldly. "I do not care to +guess the answer."</p> + +<p>"The answer is: Not quite genuine," he retorted mildly, and said no +more about it.</p> + +<p>After that visit, Nan went no more to the hospital. She had met +Donald's mother for the first time in four years and had been greeted +as "Miss Brent," although in an elder day when, as a child, Donald had +brought her to The Dreamerie to visit his mother and sisters, and +later when she had sung in the local Presbyterian choir, Mrs. McKaye +and her daughters had been wont to greet her as "Nan." The girl did +not relish the prospect of facing again that camera-shutter smile and +she shrank with the utmost distress from a chance meeting at the +hospital with Elizabeth or Jane McKaye. As for The Laird, while she +never felt ill at ease in his presence, still she preferred to meet +him as infrequently as possible. As a result of this decision, she +wrote Andrew Daney, and after explaining to him what she intended +doing and why, asked him if he would not send some trustworthy person +to her every evening with a report of Donald's progress.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, Dirty Dan O'Leary, hat in hand and greatly embarrassed, +presented himself at the Sawdust Pile the following evening under +cover of darkness, and handed her a note from Daney. Donald's +condition was continuing to improve. For his services, Mr. O'Leary was +duly thanked and given a bouquet from Nan's old-fashioned garden for +presentation to the invalid. Tucked away in the heart of it was a tiny +envelop that enclosed a message of love and cheer.</p> + +<p>Dirty Dan was thrilled to think that he had been selected as the +intermediary in this secret romance. Clasping the bouquet in his grimy +left hand, he bowed low and placed his equally grimy right in the +region of his umbilicus.</p> + +<p>"Me hearrt's wit' ye, agra," he declared. "Sure 'tis to the divil an' +back agin I'd be the proud man to go, if 'twould be a favor to ye, +Miss Brint."</p> + +<p>"I know you would, Dan," she agreed, tactfully setting the wild rascal +at his ease when addressing him by his Christian name. "I know what +you did for Mr. Donald that night. I think you're very, very +wonderful. I haven't had an opportunity heretofore to tell you how +grateful I am to you for saving him."</p> + +<p>Here was a mystery! Mr. O'Leary in his Sunday clothes bound for +Ireland resembled Dirty Dan O'Leary in the raiment of a lumberjack, +his wild hair no longer controlled by judicious applications of pomade +and his mustache now—alas—returned to its original state of neglect, +as a butterfly resembles a caterpillar. Without pausing to consider +this, Dirty Dan, taking the license of a more or less privileged +character, queried impudently:</p> + +<p>"An' are ye glad they sint for ye to come back?"</p> + +<p>She decided that Mr. O'Leary was inclined to be familiar; so she +merely looked at him and her cool glance chilled him.</p> + +<p>"Becuz if ye are," he continued, embarrassed, "ye have me to thank for +it. 'Tis meself that knows a thing or two wit'out bein' told. Have ye +not been surprised that they knew so well where to find ye whin they +wanted ye?"</p> + +<p>She stared at him in frank amazement.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have been tremendously interested in learning the secret of +their marvelous perspicacity."</p> + +<p>"I supplied Misther Daney wit' your address, allanah."</p> + +<p>"How did you know it? Did The Laird—"</p> + +<p>"He did not. I did it all be mesel'. Ah, 'tis the romantic divil I am, +Miss Brint. Sure I got a notion ye were runnin' away an' says I to +meself, says I: 'I don't like this idjee at all, at all. These +mysterious disappearances are always leadin' to throuble.' Sure, what +if somebody should die an' lave ye a fortun'? What good would it be to +ye if nobody could find ye? An' in back o' that agin," he assured her +cunningly, "I realized what a popular laddy buck I'd be wit' Misther +Donald if I knew what he didn't know but was wishful o' knowin'?"</p> + +<p>"But how did you procure my address in New York?" she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Now, I'm a wise man, but if I towld ye that, ye'd be as wise as I am. +An' since 'twould break me heart to think anybody in Port Agnew could +be as wise as mesel', ye'll have to excuse me from blatherin' all I +know."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but you must tell me, Dan. There are reasons why I should know, +and you wouldn't refuse to set my mind at ease, would you?"</p> + +<p>Dirty Dan grinned and played his ace.</p> + +<p>"If ye'll sing 'The Low-backed Car' an' 'She Moved Through the Fair' +I'll tell ye," he promised. "Sure I listened to ye the night o' the +battle, an' so close to death was I, sure I fought 'twas an angel from +glory singing'. Troth, I did."</p> + +<p>She sat down, laughing, at the antiquated piano, and sang him the +songs he loved; then, because she owed him a great debt she sang for +him "Kathleen Mavourneen," "Pretty Molly Brannigan," "The Harp That +Once Thro' Tara's Halls," and "Killarney." Dan stood just outside the +kitchen door, not presuming to enter, and when the last song was +finished, he had tears in his piggy little eyes; so he fled with the +posies, nor tarried to thank her and wish her a pleasant good-night. +Neither did he keep his promise by telling her how he came to know her +New York address.</p> + +<p>"Let me hear anny blackguard mintion that one's name wit' a lack o' +respect," Mr. O'Leary breathed, as he crossed the vacant lots, "an' +I'll break the back o' him in two halves! Whirro-o-o! Sure I'd make a +mummy out o' him!"</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXVI'></a><h2>XXXVI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>A month passed, and to the Sawdust Pile one evening, instead of Dirty +Dan, there came another messenger. It was Mr. Daney. To Nan's +invitation to enter and be seated, he gave ready acceptance; once +seated, however, he showed indubitable evidence of uneasiness, and +that he was the bearer of news of more than ordinary interest was +apparent by the nervous manner in which he twirled his hat and +scattered over her clean floor a quantity of sawdust which had +accumulated under the rim during his peregrinations round the mill +that day.</p> + +<p>"Well, Nan, he went home to The Dreamerie this afternoon," the general +manager began presently. "Got up and dressed himself unaided, and +insisted on walking out to the car without assistance. He's back on a +solid diet now, and the way he's filling up the chinks in his +superstructure is a sight to marvel at. I expect he'll be back on the +job within a month."</p> + +<p>"That is wonderful news, Mr. Daney."</p> + +<p>"Of course," Daney continued, "his hair is falling out, and he'll soon +be as bald as a Chihuahua dog. But—it'll grow in again. Yes, indeed. +It'll grow in."</p> + +<p>"Oh dear! I do hope it will grow out," she bantered, in an effort to +put him at his ease. "What a pity if his illness should leave poor Don +with a head like a thistle—with all the fuzzy-wuzzy inside."</p> + +<p>He laughed.</p> + +<p>"I'm glad to find you in such good spirits, Nan, because I've called +to talk business. And, for some reason or other, I do not relish my +job."</p> + +<p>"Then, suppose I dismiss you from this particular job, Mr. Daney. +Suppose I decline to discuss business."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but business is something that has to be discussed sooner or +later," he asured her, on the authority of one whose life had been +dedicated to that exacting duty. "I suppose you've kept track of your +expenses since you left New York. That, of course, will include the +outlay for your living-expenses while here, and in order to make +doubly certain that we are on the safe side, I am instructed to double +this total to cover the additional expenses of your return to New +York. And if you will set a value upon your lost time from the day you +left New York until your return, both days inclusive, I will include +that in the check also."</p> + +<p>"Suppose I should charge you one thousand dollars a day for my lost +time," she suggested curiously.</p> + +<p>"I should pay it without the slightest quibble. The Laird would be +delighted to get off so cheaply. He feels himself obligated to you for +returning to Port Agnew—"</p> + +<p>"Did The Laird send you here to adjust these financial details with +me, Mr. Daney?"</p> + +<p>"He did not. The matter is entirely in my hands. Certainly, in all +justice, you should be reimbursed for the expenses of a journey +voluntarily incurred for the McKaye benefit."</p> + +<p>"Did he say so?"</p> + +<p>"No. But I know him so well that I have little difficulty in +anticipating his desires. I am acting under Mrs. McKaye's promise to +you over the telephone to reimburse you."</p> + +<p>"I am glad to know that, Mr. Daney. I have a very high regard for +Donald's father, and I should not care to convict him of an attempt to +settle with me on a cash basis for declining to marry his son. I wish +you would inform The Laird, Mr. Daney, that what I did was done +because it pleased me to do it for his sake and Donald's. They have +been at some pains, throughout the years, to be kind to the Brents, +but, unfortunately for the Brents, opportunities for reciprocity have +always been lacking until the night Mrs. McKaye telephoned me in New +York. I cannot afford the gratification of very many desires—even +very simple ones, Mr. Daney—but this happens to be one of the rare +occasions when I can. To quote Sir Anthony Gloster, 'Thank God I can +pay for my fancies!' The Laird doesn't owe me a dollar, and I beg you, +Mr. Daney, not to distress me by offering it."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear girl, it has cost you at least five hundred dollars—"</p> + +<p>"What a marvelous sunset we had this evening, Mr. Daney. Did you +observe it? My father always maintained that those curious clouds +predicated sou'west squalls."</p> + +<p>"I didn't come here, girl, to talk about sunsets. You're foolish if +you do not accept—"</p> + +<p>The outcast of Port Agnew turned upon Mr. Daney a pair of sea-blue +eyes that flashed dangerously.</p> + +<p>"I think I have paid my debt to the McKayes," she declared, and in her +calm voice there was a sibilant little note of passion. "Indeed, I +have a slight credit-balance due me, and though Mrs. McKaye and her +daughters cannot bring themselves to the point of acknowledging this +indebtedness, I must insist upon collecting it. In view of the justice +of my claim, however, I cannot stultify my womanhood by permitting the +McKaye women to think they can dismiss the obligation by writing a +check. I am not an abandoned woman, Mr. Daney. I have sensibilities +and, strange to relate, I, too, have pride—more than the McKayes I +think sometimes. It is possible to insult me, to hurt me, and cause me +to suffer cruelty, and I tell you, Mr. Daney, I would rather lie down +and die by the roadside than accept one penny of McKaye money."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney stared at her, visibly distressed.</p> + +<p>"Why, what's happened?" he blurted.</p> + +<p>She ignored him.</p> + +<p>"I repeat that The Laird owes me nothing—not even his thanks. I met +him one night with Mrs. McKaye on the hospital steps, and he tendered +me his meed of gratitude like the splendid gentleman he is."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see!" A great light had suddenly dawned on Mr. Daney. "The +Laird led trumps, but Nellie McKaye revoked and played a little +deuce?"</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Daney, it seemed to me she fumbled the ball, to employ a +sporting metaphor. She bowed to me—like this—and smiled at me—like +that!" Her cool, patronizing nod and the sudden contraction and +relaxation of Nan's facial muscles brought a wry smile to old Daney's +stolid countenance. "Even if I felt that I could afford to or was +forced to accept reimbursement for my expenses and lost time," Nan +resumed, "her action precluded it. Can't you realize that, Mr. Daney? +And Jane and Elizabeth went her one—no, two—better. I'm going to +tell you about it. I went up-town the other day to send a telegram, +and in the telegraph-office I met Donald's sisters. I knew they would +not care to have me speak to them in public, so, when the telegrapher +wasn't looking at me and intuition told me that Elizabeth and Jane +were, I glanced up and favored them with a very small but very polite +smile of recognition."</p> + +<p>"And then," quoted Mr. Daney, reaching into his ragbag of a mind and +bringing up a remnant of Shakespeare, "'there came a frost—a killing +frost!'"</p> + +<p>"Two hundred and forty-five degrees below zero, and not even a stick +of kindling in the wood-box," she assured him humorously. "They looked +at me, through me, over me, beyond me—"</p> + +<p>"And never batted an eye?"</p> + +<p>"Not even the flicker of an eyelash."</p> + +<p>His canine loyalty bade Mr. Daney defend The Laird's ewe lambs.</p> + +<p>"Well, maybe they didn't recognize you," he protested. "A good deal of +water has run under a number of bridges since the McKaye girls saw you +last."</p> + +<p>"In that event, Mr. Daney, I charge that their manners would have been +extremely bad. I know town dogs that smile at me when I smile at them. +However, much as I would like to assure you that they didn't know me, +I must insist, Mr. Daney, that they did."</p> + +<p>"Well, now, how do you know, Nan?"</p> + +<p>"A little devil took possession of me, Mr. Daney, and inspired me to +smoke them out. I walked up and held out my hand to Jane. 'How do you +do, Jane,' I said. 'I'm Nan Brent. Have you forgotten me?'"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney raised both arms toward the ceiling.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, God! cried the woodcock,—and away he flew!' What did the chit +say?"</p> + +<p>"She said, 'Why, not at all,' and turned her back on me. I then +proffered Elizabeth a similar greeting and said, 'Surely, Elizabeth, +<i>you</i> haven't forgotten me!' Elizabeth is really funny. She replied: +'So sorry! I've always been absent-minded!' She looked at me steadily +with such a cool mirth in her eyes—she has nice eyes, too—and I must +have had mirth in mine, also, because I remember that at precisely +that minute I thought up a perfectly wonderful joke on Elizabeth and +Jane and their mother. Of course, the poor Laird will not see the +point of the joke, but then he's the innocent bystander, and innocent +bystanders are always, getting hurt."</p> + +<p>"Ah, do not hurt him!" Daney pleaded anxiously. "He's a good, kind, +manly gentleman. Spare him! Spare him, my dear!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I wouldn't hurt him, Mr. Daney, if I did not know I had the power +to heal his hurts."</p> + +<p>Suddenly she commenced to laugh, albeit there was in her laugh a +quality which almost caused Mr. Daney to imagine that he had hackles +on his back and that they were rising. He much preferred the note of +anger of a few minutes previous; with a rush all of his old +apprehensions returned, and he rasped out at her irritably:</p> + +<p>"Well, well! What's this joke, anyhow? Tell me and perhaps I may +laugh, too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Mr. Daney, you'd never laugh at this one. You'd weep."</p> + +<p>"Try me."</p> + +<p>"Very well. You will recall, Mr. Daney, that when Mrs. McKaye rang me +up in New York, she was careful, even while asking me to return, to +let me know my place?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes. I was listening on the line. I heard her, and I thought +she was a bit raw. But no matter. Proceed."</p> + +<p>"Well, since she asked me to return to Port Agnew, I'm wondering who +is going to ask me to go away again?"</p> + +<p>"I'll be shot if I will! Ha! Ha! Ha!" And Mr. Daney threw back his +head and laughed the most enjoyable laugh he had known since the night +an itinerant hypnotist, entertaining the citizens of Port Agnew, had +requested any adventurous gentleman in the audience who thought he +couldn't be hypnotized, to walk up and prove it. Dirty Dan O'Leary had +volunteered, had been mesmerized after a struggle, and, upon being +told that he was Dick Whittington's cat, had proceeded to cut some +feline capers that would have tickled the sensibilities of a +totem-pole. Mr. Daney's honest cachinnations now were so infectious +that Nan commenced to laugh with him—heartily, but no longer with +that strident little note of resentment, and cumulatively, as Mr. +Daney's mirth mounted until the honest fellow's tears cascaded across +his ruddy cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Egad, Nan," he declared presently, "but you have a rare sense of +humor! Yes, do it. Do it! Make 'em all come down—right here to the +Sawdust Pile! Make 'em remember you—all three of 'em—make 'em say +please! Yes, sir! 'Please Nan, forgive me for forgetting. Please Nan, +forgive me for smiling like the head of an old fiddle. Please, Nan, +get out of Port Agnew, so we can sleep nights. Please, Nan, be careful +not to say "Good-by." Please, Nan, knock out a couple of your front +teeth and wear a black wig and a sunbonnet, so nobody'll recognize you +when you leave, follow you, and learn your address.'" He paused to +wipe his eyes. "Why, dog my cats, girl, you've got 'em where the hair +is short; so make 'em toe the scratch!"</p> + +<p>"Well, of course," Nan reminded him, "they are not likely to toe the +scratch unless they receive a hint that toeing scratches is going to +be fashionable in our best Port Agnew circles this winter."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney arched his wild eyebrows, pursed his lips, popped his eyes, +and looked at Nan over the rims of his spectacles.</p> + +<p>"Very well, my dear girl, I'll be the goat. A lesson in humility will +not be wasted on certain parties. But suppose they object? Suppose +they buck and pitch and sidestep and bawl and carry on? What then?"</p> + +<p>"Why," Nan replied innocently, regarding him in friendly fashion with +those wistful blue eyes, "you might hint that I'm liable to go to The +Laird and tell him I regard him as a very poor sport, indeed, to +expect me to give up his son, in view of the fact that his son's +mother sent for me to save that son's life. Do you know, dear Mr. +Daney, I suspect that if The Laird knew his wife had compromised him +so, he would be a singularly wild Scot!"</p> + +<p>"Onward, Christian soldier, marching as to war!" cried Mr. Daney, and, +seizing his hat from the table, he fled into the night.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXVII'></a><h2>XXXVII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Upon reaching his home, Mr. Daney telephoned to Mrs. McKaye.</p> + +<p>"It is important," he informed her, "that you, Miss Jane and Miss +Elizabeth come down to my office to-morrow for a conference. I would +come up to The Dreamerie to see you, but Donald is home now, and his +father will be with him; so I would prefer to see you down-town. I +have some news of interest for you."</p> + +<p>The hint of news of interest was sufficient to secure from Mrs. McKaye +a promise to call at his office with the girls at ten o'clock the +following morning.</p> + +<p>"What is this interesting news, Andrew?" Mrs. Daney asked, with +well-simulated disinterestedness. She was knitting for the French +War-Relief Committee a pair of those prodigious socks with which +well-meaning souls all over these United States have inspired many a +poor little devil of a <i>poilu</i> with the thought that the French must +be regarded by us as a Brobdingnagian race.</p> + +<p>"We're arranging a big blowout, unknown to The Laird and Donald, to +celebrate the boy's return to health. I'm planning to shut down the +mill and the logging-camps for three days," he replied glibly. Of late +he was finding it much easier to lie to her than to tell the truth, +and he had observed with satisfaction that Mrs. Daney's bovine brain +assimilated either with equal avidity.</p> + +<p>"How perfectly lovely!" she cooed, and dropped a stitch which later +would be heard from on the march, in the shape of a blister on a +Gallic heel. "You're so thoughtful and kind, Andrew! Sometimes I +wonder if the McKayes really appreciate your worth."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll see," he answered enigmatically and went off to bed.</p> + +<p>It was with a feeling of alert interest that he awaited in his office, +the following morning, the arrival of the ladies from The Dreamerie. +They arrived half an hour late, very well content with themselves and +the world in general, and filling Mr. Daney's office with the perfume +of their presence. They appeared to be in such good fettle, indeed, +that Mr. Daney took a secret savage delight in dissipating their +nonchalance.</p> + +<p>"Well, ladies," he began, "I decided yesterday that it was getting +along toward the season of the year when my thoughts stray as usual +toward the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard. So I went down to see if Nan +Brent had abandoned it again—and sure enough, she hadn't." He paused +exasperatingly, after the fashion of an orator who realizes that he +has awakened in his audience an alert and respectful interest. "Fine +kettle of fish brewing down there," he resumed darkly, and paused +again, glanced at the ceiling critically as if searching for leaks, +smacked his lips and murmured confidentially a single word: "Snag!"</p> + +<p>"'Snag!'" In chorus.</p> + +<p>"Snag! In some unaccountable manner, it appears that you three ladies +have aroused in Nan Brent a spirit of antagonism—"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense!"</p> + +<p>"The idea!"</p> + +<p>"Fiddlesticks!"</p> + +<p>"I state the condition as I found it. I happen to know that the girl +possesses sufficient means to permit her to live at the Sawdust Pile +for a year at least."</p> + +<p>"But isn't she going away?" Mrs. McKaye's voice rose sharply. "Is she +going to break her bargain?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think not, Mrs. McKaye. She merely complained to me that +somebody begged her to come back to Port Agnew; so she's waiting for +somebody to come down to the Sawdust Pile and beg her to go away +again. She's inclined to be capricious about it, too. One person isn't +enough. She wants three people to call, and she insists that they +be—ah—ladies!"</p> + +<p>"Good gracious, Andrew, you don't mean it?"</p> + +<p>"I am delivering a message, Mrs. McKaye."</p> + +<p>"She must be spoofing you," Jane declared.</p> + +<p>"Well, she laughed a good deal about it, Miss Jane, and confided to me +that a bit of lurking devil in your sister's eyes the day you both met +her in the telegraph office gave her the inspiration for this joke. +She believes that she who laughs last laughs best."</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye was consumed with virtuous indignation.</p> + +<p>"The shameless hussy! Does she imagine for a moment that I will submit +to blackmail, that my daughters or myself could afford to be seen +calling upon her at the Sawdust Pile?"</p> + +<p>"She wants to force us to recognize her, mother." Jane, recalling that +day in the telegraph-office, sat staring at Daney with flashing eyes. +She was biting the finger of her glove.</p> + +<p>"Nothing doing," Elizabeth drawled smilingly.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney nodded his comprehension.</p> + +<p>"In that event, ladies," he countered, with malignant joy in his +suppressed soul, "I am requested to remind you that The Laird will be +informed by Miss Brent that she considers him a very short sport, +indeed, if he insists upon regarding her as unworthy of his son, in +view of the fact that his son's mother considered her a person of such +importance that she used the transcontinental telephone in order to +induce—"</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes; I know what you're going to say. Do you really think she +would go as far as that, Andrew?" Mrs. McKaye was very pale.</p> + +<p>"Beware the anger of a woman scorned," he quoted.</p> + +<p>"In the event that she should, Mr. Daney, we should have no other +alternative but to deny it." Elizabeth was speaking. She still wore +her impish glacial smile. "As a usual thing, we are opposed to fibbing +on the high moral ground that it is not a lady's pastime, but in view +of the perfectly appalling results that would follow our failure to +fib in this particular case, I'm afraid we'll have to join hands, Mr. +Daney, and prove Nan Brent a liar. Naturally, we count on your help. +As a result of his conversation with you, father believes you did the +telephoning."</p> + +<p>"I told him half the truth, but no lie. I have never lied to him, Miss +Elizabeth, and I never shall. When Hector McKaye asks me for the +truth, he'll get it." In Mr. Daney's voice there was a growl that +spoke of slow, quiet fury at the realization that this cool young +woman should presume to dictate to him.</p> + +<p>"I think you'll change your mind, Mr. Daney. You'll not refuse the +hurdle when you come to it. As for this wanton Brent girl, tell her +that we will think her proposition over and that she may look for a +call from us. We do not care how long she looks, do we mother?" And +she laughed her gay, impish laugh. "In the meantime, Mr. Daney, we +will do our best to spare ourselves and you the ignominy of that fib. +The doctors will order Donald away for a complete rest for six months, +and dad will go with him. When they're gone that Brent house on the +Sawdust Pile is going to catch fire—accidently, mysteriously. The man +who scuttled the Brent's motor-boat surely will not scruple at such a +simple matter as burning the Brent shanty. Come, mother. Jane, for +goodness' sake, do buck up! Good-by, dear Mr. Daney."</p> + +<p>He stared at her admiringly. In Elizabeth, he discerned, for the first +time, more than a modicum of her father's resolute personality; he saw +clearly that she dominated her mother and Jane and, like The Laird, +would carry her objective, once she decided upon it, regardless of +consequences.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, ladies. I shall repeat your message—verbatim, Miss +Elizabeth," he assured the departing trio.</p> + +<p>And that night he did so.</p> + +<p>"They neglected to inform you how much time they would require to +think it over, did they not?" Nan interrogated mildly. "And they +didn't tell you approximately when I should look for their visit?"</p> + +<p>"No," he admitted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I knew they wouldn't submit," Nan flung back at him. "They +despise me—impersonally, at first and before it seemed that I might +dim the family pride; personally, when it was apparent that I could +dim it if I desired. Well, I'm tired of being looked at and sneered +at, and I haven't money enough left to face New York again. I had +dreamed of the kind of living I might earn, and when the opportunity +to earn it was already in my grasp, I abandoned it to come back to +Port Agnew. I had intended to play fair with them, although I had to +lie to Donald to do that, but—they hurt something inside of +me—something deep that hadn't been hurt before—and—and now—"</p> + +<a name='IM_A_MAN_WITHOUT_A_HOME'></a> +<center> +<img src='images/04.jpg' width='600' height='407' alt='"I'M A MAN WITHOUT A HOME AND YOU'VE GOT TO TAKE ME +IN, NAN."' title='"I'M A MAN WITHOUT A HOME AND YOU'VE GOT TO TAKE ME +IN, NAN."'> +</center> +<h3>"I'M A MAN WITHOUT A HOME AND YOU'VE GOT TO TAKE ME +IN, NAN."</h3> + +<p>"Now <i>what</i>!" Mr. Daney cried in anguished tones.</p> + +<p>"If Donald McKaye comes down to the Sawdust Pile and asks me to marry +him, I'm going to do it. I have a right to happiness; I'm—I'm +tired—sacrificing—Nobody cares—no appreciation—Nan of the Sawdust +Pile will be—mistress of The Dreamerie—and when they—enter house of +mine—they shall be—humbler than I. They shall—"</p> + +<p>As Mr. Daney fled from the house, he looked back through the little +hall and saw Nan Brent seated at her tiny living-room table, her +golden head pillowed in her arms outspread upon the table, her body +shaken with great, passionate sobs. Mr. Daney's heart was constricted. +He hadn't felt like that since the Aurora Stock Company had played +"East Lynne" in the Port Agnew Opera House.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXVIII'></a><h2>XXXVIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>At the Sawdust Pile the monotony of Nan Brent's life remained +unbroken; she was marking time, waiting for something to turn up. +Since the last visit of the McKaye ambassador she had not altered her +determination to exist independent of financial aid from the McKaye +women or their father,—for according to her code, the acceptance of +remuneration for what she had done would be debasing. Nan had made +this decision even while realizing that in waiving Mr. Daney's proffer +of reimbursement she was rendering impossible a return to New York +with her child. The expenses of their journey and the maintenance of +their brief residence there; the outlay for clothing for both and the +purchase of an additional wardrobe necessitated when, with +unbelievable good luck she had succeeded in securing twenty weeks time +over a high-class vaudeville circuit for her "Songs of the 'Sixties," +had, together with the cost of transportation back to Port Agnew, so +depleted her resources that, with the few hundred dollars remaining, +her courage was not equal to the problem which unemployment in New +York would present; for with the receipt of Mrs. McKaye's message, Nan +had written the booking agent explaining that she had been called West +on a matter which could not be evaded and expressed a hope that at a +later date the "time" might be open to her. Following her return to +the Sawdust Pile she had received a brief communication stating that +there would be no opening for her until the following year. The +abandonment of her contract and the subsequent loss of commissions to +the agent had seriously peeved that person.</p> + +<p>The receipt of this news, while a severe disappointment, had not +caused her to flinch, for she had, in a measure, anticipated it and +with the calmness of desperation already commenced giving thought to +the problem of her future existence. In the end she had comforted +herself with the thought that good cooks were exceedingly scarce—so +scarce, in fact, that even a cook with impedimenta in the shape of a +small son might be reasonably certain of prompt and well-paid +employment. Picturing herself as a kitchen mechanic brought a wry +smile to her sweet face, but—it was honorable employment and she +preferred it to being a waitress or an underfed and underpaid +saleswoman in a department store. For she could cook wonderfully well +and she knew it; she believed she could dignify a kitchen and she +preferred it to cadging from the McKayes the means to enable her to +withstand the economic siege incident to procuring a livelihood more +dignified and remunerative.</p> + +<p>Thus she had planned up to the day of her unexpected meeting with Jane +and Elizabeth McKaye in the Port Agnew telegraph office. On that day, +something had happened—something that had constituted a distinct +event in Nan Brent's existence and with which the well-bred insolence +of the McKaye girls had nothing to do. Indirectly old Caleb Brent had +been responsible, for by the mere act of dying, his three-guarter pay +as a retired sailor had automatically terminated, and Nan had written +the Navy Department notifying it accordingly.</p> + +<p>Now, the death of a retired member of the Army or Navy, no matter what +his grade may be, constitutes news for the service journals, and the +fact that old Caleb had been a medal of honor man appeared, to the +editor of one of these journals, to entitle the dead sailor to three +hundred words of posthumous publicity. Subsequently, these three +hundred words came under the eye of a retired admiral of the United +States Navy, who thereby became aware that he had an orphaned +grand-daughter residing in Port Agnew, Washington.</p> + +<p>As a man grows old he grows kindlier; those things which, at middle +age, appear so necessary to an unruffled existence, frequently undergo +such a metamorphosis, due to the corroding effects of time, that at +eighty one has either forgotten them or regards them as something to +be secretly ashamed of. Thus it was with Nan's grandfather. His pride +and dignity were as austere as ever, but his withered heart yearned +for the love and companionship of one of his own blood; now that Caleb +Brent was dead, the ancient martinet forgot the offense which this +simple sailor had committed against the pride of a long line of +distinguished gentlemen, members of the honorable profession of arms. +He thought it over for a month, and then wrote the only child of his +dead daughter, asking her to come to him, hinting broadly that his +days in the land were nearly numbered and that, in the matter of +worldly goods he was not exactly a pauper.</p> + +<p>Having posted this letter the old admiral waited patiently for an +answer, and when this answer was not forthcoming within the time he +had set, he had telegraphed the postmaster of Port Agnew, requesting +information as to her address. This telegram the postmaster had +promptly sent over to Nan and it was for the purpose of replying to it +that she had gone to the telegraph office on the day when Fate decreed +that Jane and Elizabeth McKaye should also be there.</p> + +<p>After her return to the Sawdust Pile that day Nan's thoughts +frequently adverted to the Biblical line: "The Lord giveth and the +Lord taketh away." Certainly, in her case, He appeared to be working +at cross purposes. At a time when she had resigned herself to domestic +labor in order to avoid starvation, her aristocratic, arrogant, +prideful grandfather had seen fit to forgive her dead father and offer +her shelter from the buffets of the world; yet, even while striving, +apparently to be kind, she knew that the reason underlying his +invitation was plain, old-fashioned heart-hunger, a tender conscience +and a generous admixture of human selfishness. She smiled bitterly at +his blunt hint of a monetary reward following his demise; it occurred +to her that the stubborn old admiral was striving to buy that which he +might have had for a different asking.</p> + +<p>She read the admiral's letter for the twentieth time—and from the +thick white page her glance went to her child. Would he be welcome in +that stern old sea dog's home? Would his great-grandfather forget the +bar sinister of little Don's birth and would her own misfortune be +viewed by him with the tenderness and perfect understanding accorded +her by old Caleb? She did not think so; and with the remembrance of +her dead father, the flames of revolt leaped in her heart. He had been +loyal to her and she would be loyal to him. No, no! She was not yet +prepared to come fawning to the feet of that fierce old man who had +robbed her father of his happiness. What right had he to expect +forgiveness, <i>sans</i> the asking, <i>sans</i> an acknowledgment of his +heartlessness?</p> + +<p>With a bitter smile she wrote him a long letter, relating in detail +the incident of her marriage, the birth of her child, her standing in +Port Agnew society and her belief that all of this rendered acceptance +of his invitation impossible, if she were to act with deference to his +point of view and still remain loyal to the memory of her dead father. +For these reasons she declined, thanked him for his kindness and +remained his very sincerely. When she had posted this letter she felt +better, and immediately took up the case of the McKayes.</p> + +<p>Until that moment she had not considered seriously the possibility of +a marriage with the young Laird of Port Agnew as a means of +humiliating these women who had humiliated her. The thought had +occurred to her in the telegraph office and at the moment had held for +her a certain delightful fascination; prior to that meeting her +resolution not to permit Donald McKaye to share her uncertain fortunes +had been as adamant. But long and bitter reflection upon the problem +thrust upon her by her grandfather had imbued her with a clearer, +deeper realization of the futility of striving to please everybody in +this curious world, of the cruelty of those who seek to adjust to +their point of view that of another fully capable of adjusting his +own; of the appalling lack of appreciation with which her piteous +sacrifice would meet from the very persons who shrank from the +ignominy incident to non-sacrifice oft the part of her whom they held +in open contempt!</p> + +<p>Donald McKaye was not unintelligent. He was a man, grown, with all a +man's passions, with all the caution to be expected in one of his +class. If he still loved her sufficiently, following a period of +mature deliberation and fierce opposition from his people, to offer +her honorable marriage, would she not be a fool to cast away such a +priceless gift? How few men know love so strong, so tender, so +unselfish, that they do not shrink from sharing with the object of +their love, the odium which society has always set upon the woman +taken in adultery.</p> + +<p>In rejecting his proffered sacrifice, she had told herself that she +acted thus in order to preserve his happiness, although at the expense +of her own. By so doing Nan realized that she had taken a lofty, a +noble stand; nevertheless, who was she that she should presume to +decide just wherein lay the preservation of his happiness? In her +grandfather's letter before her she had ample evidence of the +miscarriage of such pompous assumptions.</p> + +<p>There is a latent force in the weakest of women, an amazing capacity +for rebellion in the meekest and a regret for lost virtue even in the +most abandoned. Nan was neither weak, meek, nor abandoned; wherefore, +to be accorded toleration, polite contumely and resentment where +profound gratitude and admiration were her due, had aroused in her a +smouldering resentment which had burned like a handful of oil-soaked +waste tossed into a corner. At first a mild heat; then a dull red glow +of spontaneous combustion progresses—and presently flame and smoke.</p> + +<p>It is probable that mere man, who never has been able to comprehend +the intensity of feeling of which a woman is capable, is not equal to +the problem of realizing the effect of solitude, misunderstanding and +despair upon the mind of a woman of more than ordinary sensibilities +and imagination. The seed of doubt, planted in such soil, burgeons +rapidly, and when, upon the very day that Mr. Daney had made his last +call at the Sawdust Pile, Nan, spurred to her decision by developments +of which none but she was aware, had blazed forth in open rebellion +and given the Tyee Lumber Company's general manager the fright of his +prosaic existence.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXIX'></a><h2>XXXIX</h2> +<br /> + +<p>After leaving the Sawdust Pile, Mr. Daney walked twice around the +Bight of Tyee before arriving at a definite decision as to his future +conduct in this intrigue, participation in which had been thrust upon +him by his own loyalty to his employer and the idiocy of three +hare-brained women. Time and again as lie paced the lonely strand, Mr. +Daney made audible reference to the bells of the nether regions and +the presence of panther tracks! This was his most terrible oath and +was never employed except under exceptional circumstances.</p> + +<p>At length Mr. Daney arrived at a decision. He would have nothing +further to do with this horrible love affair. In the role of Dan +Cupid's murderer he was apparently a Tumble Tom; for three months he +had felt as if he trod thin ice—and now he had fallen through! "I'll +carry no more of their messages," he declared aloud. "I'll tell them +so and wash my hands of the entire matter. If there is to be any +asking of favors from that girl the McKaye women can do it."</p> + +<p>It was after midnight when he returned to his home and his wife was +sitting up to receive an explanation of his nocturnal prowlings. +However, the look of desperation with which he met her accusing glance +frightened her into silence, albeit she had a quiet little crying +spell next morning when she discovered on the floor of Mr. Daney's +room quite a quantity of sand which had worked into his shoes during +his agitated spring around Tyee Beach. She was quite certain he had +indulged in a moonlight stroll on the seashore with a younger and +prettier woman, so she resolved to follow him when next he fared forth +and catch the traitor red-handed.</p> + +<p>To her surprise, Mr. Daney went out no more o' nights. He had kept his +word given to himself, and on the morning succeeding his extraordinary +interview with Nan he had again summoned the ladies of the McKaye +family to his office for a conference. However, the capable Elizabeth +was the only one of the trio to present herself, for this young +woman—and not without reason—regarded herself as Mr. Daney's mental +superior; she was confident of her ability to retain his loyalty +should he display a tendency to betray them.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear Mr. Daney," she murmured in her melted-butter voice, "what +new bugaboo have you developed for us?"</p> + +<p>"You do not have to bother calling upon the Brent girl, Miss +Elizabeth. She says now that if Donald asks her to marry him she'll +accept. She has an idea she'll be mistress of The Dreamerie."</p> + +<p>Elizabeth arched her eyebrows. "What else?" she queried amiably.</p> + +<p>"That's all—from Nan Brent. I have a small defi to make on my own +account, however, Miss Elizabeth. From this minute on I wash my hands +of the private affairs of the McKaye family. My job is managing your +father's financial affairs. Believe me, the next move in this +comedy-drama is a wedding—if Donald asks her in all seriousness to +marry him—that is, if he insists on it. He may insist and then again +he may not, but if he should, I shall not attempt to stop him. He's +free, white and twenty-one; he's my boss and I hope I know my place. +Personally, I'm willing to wager considerable that he'll marry her, +but whether he does or not—I'm through."</p> + +<p>Elizabeth McKaye sighed. "That means we must work fast, Mr. Daney. +Donald will be feeling strong: enough within two weeks to call on her; +he may even motor down to the Sawdust Pile within ten days. Mother has +already broached the subject of taking him away to southern California +or Florida for a long rest; Dad has seconded the motion with great +enthusiasm—and that stubborn Donald has told them frankly that he +isn't going away for a rest."</p> + +<p>"Gosh!" Mr. Daney gasped. "That makes it a little binding, eh?"</p> + +<p>She met his clear glance thoughtfully and said: "If her house should +burn down—accidentally—to-day or to-night, when she and her baby +aren't in it, she'll have to leave Port Agnew. There isn't a house in +town where she could find shelter, and you could see to it that all +the rooms in the hotel are taken."</p> + +<p>"You forget, my dear," he replied with a small smile. "I have no +further interest in this affair and moreover, I'm not turning +firebug—not this year."</p> + +<p>"You refuse to help us?"</p> + +<p>"Absolutely. What is to be will be, and I, for one, have decided not +to poke my finger into the cogs of destiny."</p> + +<p>"Well—thanks awfully for what you've already done, Mr. Daney." Again +she smiled her bright, impish smile. "Good-morning."</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Miss Elizabeth."</p> + +<p>As she left the office, Mr. Daney noted her débutante slouch and +gritted his teeth. "Wonder if they'll call on Nan now, or make a +combined attack on the boy and try bluff and threats and tears," he +soliloquized.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact they tried the latter. The storm broke after +luncheon one day when Donald declared he felt strong enough to go down +to Port Agnew, and, in the presence of the entire family, ordered the +butler to tell his father's chauffeur to bring the closed car around +to the door. Immediately, the astute Elizabeth precipitated matters by +asking her brother sharply if his projected visit to Port Agnew +predicated also a visit to the Sawdust Pile.</p> + +<p>"Why, yes, Elizabeth," he answered calmly.</p> + +<p>The Laird scowled at her, but she ignored the scowl; so old Hector +flashed a warning glance to Jane and her mother—a glance that said +quite plainly: "Let there be no upbraiding of my son."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it is quite—ah, delicate of you, Donald, to call upon +any young lady at her apartments in the absence of a proper chaperon, +even if the lady herself appears to have singularly free and easy +views on the propriety of receiving you thus?"</p> + +<p>He saw that she was bound to force the issue and was rather relieved +than otherwise. With a mental promise to himself to keep his temper at +all hazards he replied: "Well, Elizabeth, I'll admit the situation is +a trifle awkward, but what cannot be cured must be endured. You see, I +want to have a talk with Nan Brent and I cannot do so unless I call +upon her at the Sawdust Pile. It is impossible for us to meet on +neutral ground, I fear. However, if you will write her a nice +friendly little note and invite her up here to visit me, the question +of a chaperon will be solved and I will postpone my visit until she +gets here."</p> + +<p>"Don't be a fool," she retorted bitterly.</p> + +<p>"As for Nan's free and easy views on the subjects, who in Port Agnew, +may I ask, expects her to act differently? Why, therefore, since she +is fully convinced that I possess a few of the outward appearances of +a gentleman, should she fear to receive me in her home? To conform to +the social standards of those who decry her virtue? Elizabeth, you +expect too much, I fear."</p> + +<p>"Hear, hear," cried The Laird. He realized that Elizabeth was not to +be denied, so he thought best to assume a jocular attitude during the +discussion.</p> + +<p>"Father," his eldest daughter reminded him. "It is your duty to forbid +Donald doing anything which is certain to bring his family into +disrepute and make it the target for the tongue of scandal."</p> + +<p>"Oh, leave him alone, you pestiferous woman," old Hector cried +sharply. "Had it not been for the girl he would not be living this +minute, so the least he can do is to express his compliments to her. +Also, since this disagreeable topic has again been aired, let me +remind you that the lass isn't going to marry Donald. She came out +here, Donald," he continued, turning to his son, "with the distinct +understanding that her job was to humor you back to health, and for +that you owe her your thanks and I'm willing you should call on her +and express them. Don't flattter yourself that she'll marry you, my +boy. I've had a talk with her—since you must know it, sooner or +later—and she promised me she wouldn't."</p> + +<p>The young Laird's face paled a little but he maintained his +composure. "I greatly fear you misunderstood her, father," he replied +gently. "She promised me she'd marry me. You see," he added looking +the old man resolutely in the face, "I think she's virtuous, so I'm +going to marry her."</p> + +<p>His father smiled sadly. "Poor lad. God knows I'm sorry for you, +but—well, go see her and let's have the issue settled once for all. +For God's sake, lad, grant me peace of mind. End it to-day, one way or +the other."</p> + +<p>"Ah, yes, you're brave," Elizabeth flung at her father. "You're so +certain that girl will keep her promise, aren't you? Well, I happen to +have been informed, on very good authority, that she intends to betray +you. She had made the statement that she'll marry Donald if he asks +her—again."</p> + +<p>"The girl doesn't impress me as one who would lie, Elizabeth. Who told +you this?"</p> + +<p>"Andrew Daney."</p> + +<p>"Bear with me a moment, son, till I call Andrew on the telephone," the +Laird requested, and went into the telephone booth under the stairs in +the reception hall. When he emerged a few minutes later his face was +pale and haggard.</p> + +<p>"Well? What did I tell you?" Elizabeth's voice was triumphant.</p> + +<p>Her father ignored her. Placing himself squarely before his son, he +bent forward slightly and thrust his aggressive face close to +Donald's. "I command you to respect the honor of my house," he cried +furiously. "For the last time, Donald McKaye, ha' done wie this woman, +or—" and his great arm was outflung in a swooping gesture that +denoted all too forcibly the terrible sentence he shrank from +speaking.</p> + +<p>"Are you offering me an alternative?" Donald's voice was low and very +calm, but his brown eyes were blazing with suppressed rage. "The +Dreamerie or—" and he swung and pointed to the Brent cottage far +below them on the Sawdust Pile.</p> + +<p>"Aye," his father cried in a hard cracked voice. "Aye!"</p> + +<p>Donald looked over at his mother with the helplessness of a child who +has fallen and hurt himself. "And you, mother? What do you say to +this?"</p> + +<p>She thought she would faint. "You—you must obey your father," she +quavered. Until her son should marry Nan Brent she could not force +herself to the belief that he could possibly commit such an incredible +offense.</p> + +<p>"The opinions of you and Jane," Donald continued, turning to each +sister in turn, "do not interest me particularly, but while the polls +are open you might as well vote. If I marry Nan Brent are you each +prepared to forget that I am your brother?"</p> + +<p>Elizabeth nodded calmly. She had gone too far now to develop weakness +when an assumption of invincible strength might yet win the day.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't receive such a peculiar sister-in-law," Jane murmured, +evidently close to tears. "Surely, you would not expect us to take +such a woman to our hearts, Donald dear?"</p> + +<p>"I did not build The Dreamerie for yon lass," The Laird burst forth +passionately.</p> + +<p>His son stood with bowed head. "Have you, mother, or you, my sisters, +been down to the Sawdust Pile to thank Nan for inspiring me—no +matter how—with a desire to live? I think you realize that until she +came I was too unhappy—too disgusted with life—to care whether I got +well or not? Have you absolved yourselves of an obligation which must +be perfectly evident to perfect ladies?"</p> + +<p>"We have not." Elizabeth's calm voice answered him. "What the girl did +was entirely of her own volition. She did it for your sake, and since +it is apparent that she plans to collect the reward of her +disinterested effort we have considered that a formal expression of +thanks would be superfluous."</p> + +<p>"I see. I see. Well, perhaps you're right. I shall not quarrel with +your point of view. And you're all quite certain you will never recede +from your attitude of hostility toward Nan—under no circumstances, to +recognize her as my wife and extend to her the hospitality of The +Dreamerie?"</p> + +<p>He challenged his father with a look and the old man slowly nodded an +affirmative. His mother thought Donald was about to yield to their +opposition and nodded likewise. "I have already answered that +question," Jane murmured tragically, and Elizabeth again reminded him +that it was not necessary for him to make a fool of himself.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm glad this affair has been ironed out—at last," Donald +assured them. "I had cherished the hope that when you knew Nan +better—" He choked up for a moment, then laid his hands on his +father's shoulders. "Well, sir," he gulped, "I'm going down to the +Sawdust Pile and thank Nan for saving my life. Not," he added +bitterly, "that I anticipate enjoying that life to the fullest for +some years to come. If I did not believe that time will solve the +problem—"</p> + +<p>The Laird's heart leaped. "Tush, tush, boy. Run along and don't do +anything foolish." He slapped Donald heartily across the back while +the decisive sweep of that same hand an instant later informed the +women of his household that it would be unnecessary to discuss this +painful matter further.</p> + +<p>"I understand just how you feel, dad. I hold no resentment," Donald +assured him, and dragged The Laird close to him in a filial embrace. +He crossed the room and kissed his mother, who clung to him a moment, +tearfully; seeing him so submissive, Jane and Elizabeth each came up +and claimed the right to embrace him with sisterly affection.</p> + +<p>The butler entered to announce that the car was waiting at the front +door. Old Hector helped his son into a great coat and Mrs. McKaye +wound a reefer around his neck and tucked the ends inside the coat. +Then The Laird helped him into the car; as it rolled slowly down the +cliff road, Old Hector snorted with relief.</p> + +<p>"By Judas," he declared, "I never dreamed the boy would accept such an +ultimatum."</p> + +<p>"Well, the way to find out is to try," Elizabeth suggested. "Sorry to +have been forced to disregard that optical S.O.S. of yours, Dad, but I +realized that we had to strike now or never."</p> + +<p>"Whew-w-w!" The Laird whistled again.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXX'></a><h2>XL</h2> +<br /> + +<p>With the license of long familiarity, Donald knocked at the front door +of the Brent cottage to announce his arrival; then, without awaiting +permission to enter, he opened the door and met Nan in the tiny hall +hurrying to admit him.</p> + +<p>"You—Donald!" she reproved him. "What are you doing here? You +shouldn't be out."</p> + +<p>"That's why I came in," he retorted drily and kissed her. "And I'm +here because I couldn't stand The Dreamerie another instant. I wanted +my mother and sisters to call on you and thank you for having been so +nice to me during my illness, but the idea wasn't received, very +enthusiastically. So, for the sheer sake of doing the decent thing +I've called myself. It might please you," he added, "to know that my +father thought I should."</p> + +<p>"He is always tactful and kind," she agreed.</p> + +<p>She led him to her father's old easy chair in the living room.</p> + +<p>"As Dirty Dan O'Leary once remarked in my presence," he began, "it is +a long lane that hasn't got a saloon at the end of it. I will first +light a cigarette, if I may, and make myself comfortable, before +putting you on the witness stand and subjecting you to a severe +cross-examination. Seat yourself on that little hassock before me and +in such a position that I can look squarely into your face and note +flush of guilt when you fib to me."</p> + +<p>She obeyed, with some slight inward trepidation, and sat looking up +at him demurely.</p> + +<p>"Nan," he began, "did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty +thing for you to do would be to run away and hide where I could never +find you?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty thing for you to do +would be to return to Port Agnew from your involuntary exile and +inspire me with some enthusiasm for life?"</p> + +<p>His keen perception did not fail to interpret the slight flush of +embarrassment that suffused Nan's face. "I object to that question, +your honor," she replied with cleverly simulated gaiety, "on the +ground that to do so would necessitate the violation of a confidence."</p> + +<p>"The objection is sustained by the court. Did my father or Andrew +Daney, acting for him, ever offer you any sum of money as a bribe for +disappearing out of my life?"</p> + +<p>"No. Your father offered to be very, very kind to me the morning I was +leaving. We met at the railroad station and his offer was made <i>after</i> +I informed him that I was leaving Port Agnew forever—and why. So I +know he made the offer just because he wanted to be kind—because he +is kind."</p> + +<p>"Neither he nor Daney communicated with you in anyway following your +departure from Port Agnew?"</p> + +<p>"They did not."</p> + +<p>"Before leaving New York or immediately after your return to Port +Agnew, did you enter into verbal agreement with any member of my +family or their representative to nurse me back to health and then +jilt me?"</p> + +<p>"I did not. The morning I appeared at the hospital your father, +remembering my statement to him the morning I fled from Port Agnew, +suspected that I had had a change of heart. He said to me: 'So this is +your idea of playing the game, is it?' I assured him then that I had +not returned to Port Agnew with the intention of marrying you, but +merely to stiffen your morale, as it were. He seemed quite satisfied +with my explanation, which I gave him in absolute good faith."</p> + +<p>"Did he ever question you as to how you ascertained I was ill?"</p> + +<p>"No. While I cannot explain my impression, I gathered at the time that +he knew."</p> + +<p>"He credited Andrew Daney with that philanthropic job, Nan. He does +not know that my mother communicated with you."</p> + +<p>"Neither do you, Donald. I have not told you she did."</p> + +<p>"I am not such a stupid fellow as to believe you would ever tell me +anything that might hurt me, Nan. One does not relish the information +that one's mother has not exhibited the sort of delicacy one expects +of one's mother," he added bluntly.</p> + +<p>"It is not nice of you to say that, Donald. How do you know that Mr. +Daney did not send for me?"</p> + +<p>He smiled tolerantly. "Before Daney would dare do that he would +consult with my father, and if my father had consented to it he would +never have left to Daney the task of requesting such a tremendous +favor of you for his account. If Daney ever consulted my father as to +the advisability of such a course, my father refused to consider it."</p> + +<p>"What makes you think so, old smarty?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I know my father's code. He had no hesitancy in permitting you +to know that you were not welcome as a prospective daughter-in-law, +although he was not so rude as to tell you why. He left that to your +imagination. Now, for my father to ask a favor of anybody is very +unusual. He has a motto that a favor accepted is a debt incurred, and +he dislikes those perennial debts. My father is a trader, my dear. If +he had, directly or indirectly, been responsible for your return to +Port Agnew for the purpose of saving his son's life, he would not +be—well, he just wouldn't do it," he explained with some +embarrassment. "He couldn't do it. He would say to you, 'My son is +dying because he finds life uninteresting without you. If you return, +your presence will stimulate in him a renewed interest in life and he +will, in all probability, survive. If you are good enough to save my +son from death you are good enough to share his life, and although +this wedding is about going to kill me, nevertheless we will pull it +off and make believe we like it.'"</p> + +<p>"Nonsense," she retorted.</p> + +<p>"Knowing how my father would act under such circumstances, I was +dumfounded when he informed me this afternoon that you had agreed to +perform under false pretenses. He was quite certain you would proceed +to jilt me, now that I am strong enough to stand it. He said you had +promised him you would."</p> + +<p>"I did not promise him. I merely told him truthfully what my firm +intention was at the time he demanded to be informed as to the nature +of my intentions. I reserved my woman's right to change my mind."</p> + +<p>"Oh!"</p> + +<p>"Had I made your father a definite promise I would have kept it. If I +were a party to such a contract with your father, Donald dear, all of +your pleading to induce me to break it would be in vain."</p> + +<p>"A contract without a consideration is void in law," he reminded her. +"Dad just figured he could bank on your love for me. He did you the +honor to think it was so strong and wonderful that death would be a +delirious delight to you in preference to spoiling my career by +marrying me—well—Elizabeth disillusioned him!"</p> + +<p>Nan's eyebrows lifted perceptibly.</p> + +<p>"She informed my father in my presence," Donald continued, "that you +had had a change of heart; that you were now resolved to accept me +should I again ask you to marry me. It appears you had told Andrew +Daney this—in cold blood as it were. So Dad went to the telephone and +verified this report by Daney; then we had a grand show-down and I was +definitely given my choice of habitation—The Dreamerie or the Sawdust +Pile. Father, Mother, Elizabeth and Jane; jointly and severally +assured me that they would never receive you, so Nan, dear, it appears +that I will have to pay rather a heavy price for the privilege of +marrying you—"</p> + +<p>"I have never told you I would marry you," she cried sharply.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you did. That day in the hospital."</p> + +<p>"That was a very necessary fib and you should not hold it against me. +It was a promise absolutely not made in good faith."</p> + +<p>"But did you tell Daney that you would accept me if I should ask you +again to marry me?"</p> + +<p>She was visibly agitated but answered him truthfully. "Yes, I did."</p> + +<p>"You said it in anger?"</p> + +<p>"Yes." Very softly.</p> + +<p>"Daney had come to you with an offer of monetary reward for your +invaluable services to the McKaye family, had he not? And since what +you did was not done for profit, you were properly infuriated and +couldn't resist giving Daney the scare of his life? That was the way +of it, was it not?"</p> + +<p>Nan nodded and some tears that trembled on her long lashes were +flicked off by the vigor of the nod; some of them fell on the big +gaunt hands that held hers.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you haven't sufficient money with which to return to New +York?" he continued.</p> + +<p>Again she nodded an affirmative.</p> + +<p>"Just what are your plans, dear?"</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'll have to go somewhere and try to procure a position as +a cook lady."</p> + +<p>"An admirable decision," he declared enthusiastically. "I'll give you +a job cooking for me, provided you'll agree to marry me and permit me +to live in your house. I'm a man without a home and you've just <i>got</i> +to take me in, Nan. I have no other place to lay my weary head."</p> + +<p>She looked at him and through the blur of her tears she saw him +smiling down at her, calmly, benignantly and with that little touch of +whimsicality that was always in evidence and which even his heavy +heart could not now subdue.</p> + +<p>"You've—you've—chosen the Sawdust Pile?" she cried incredulously.</p> + +<p>"How else would a man of spirit choose, old shipmate?"</p> + +<p>"But you're not marrying me to save me from poverty, Donald? You must +be certain you aren't mistaking for love the sympathy which rises so +naturally in that big heart of yours. If it's only a great pity—if +it's only the protective instinct—"</p> + +<p>"Hush! It's all of that and then some. I'm a man grown beyond the +puppy-love stage, my dear—and the McKayes are not an impulsive race. +We count the costs carefully and take careful note of the potential +profits. And while I could grant my people the right to make hash of +my happiness I must, for some inexplicable reason, deny them the +privilege of doing it with yours. I think I can make you happy, Nan; +not so happy, perhaps, that the shadow of your sorrow will not fall +across your life occasionally, but so much happier than you are at +present that the experiment seems worth trying, even at the expense of +sacrificing the worldly pride of my people."</p> + +<p>"Are you entertaining a strong hope that after you marry me, dear, +your people will forgive you, make the best of what they consider a +bad bargain and acknowledge me after a fashion? Do you think they will +let bygones be bygones and take me to their hearts—for your sake?"</p> + +<p>"I entertain no such silly illusion. Under no circumstances will they +ever acknowledge you after a fashion, for the very sufficient reason +that the opportunity to be martyrs will never be accorded my mother +and sisters by yours truly, Donald McKaye, late Laird apparent of Port +Agnew. Bless, your sweet soul, Nan, I have some pride, you know. I +wouldn't permit them to tolerate you. I prefer open warfare every +time."</p> + +<p>"Have you broken with your people, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but they do not know it yet. I didn't have the heart to raise a +scene, so I merely gave the old pater a hug, kissed mother and the +girls and came away. I'm not going back."</p> + +<p>"You will—if I refuse to marry you?"</p> + +<p>"I do not anticipate such a refusal. However, it Hoes not enter into +the matter at all in so far as my decision to quit The Dreamerie is +concerned. I'm through! Listen, Nan. I could win my father to you—win +him wholeheartedly and without reservation—if I should inform him +that my mother asked you to come back to Port Agnew. My mother and the +girls have not told him of this and I suspect they have encouraged his +assumption that Andrew Daney took matters in his own hands. Father has +not cared to inquire into the matter, anyhow, because he is secretly +grateful to Daney (as he thinks) for disobeying him. Mother and the +girls are forcing Daney to protect them; they are using his loyalty to +the family as a club to keep him in line. With that club they forced +him to come to you with a proposition that must have been repugnant to +him, if for no other reason than that he knew my father would not +countenance it. When you told him you would marry me if I should ask +you again, to whom did Daney report? To Elizabeth, of course—the +brains of the opposition. That proves to me that my father had nothing +to do with it—why the story is as easily understood from deduction as +if I had heard the details from their lips. But I cannot use my +mother's peace of mind as a club to beat dad into line; I cannot tell +him something that will almost make him hate mother and my sisters; I +would not force him to do that which he does not desire to do because +it is the kindly, sensible and humane course. So I shall sit tight and +say nothing—and by the way, I love you more than ever for keeping +this affair from me. So few women are true blue sports, I'm afraid."</p> + +<p>"You must be very, very angry and hurt, Donald?"</p> + +<p>"I am. So angry and hurt that I desire to be happy within the shortest +possible period of elapsed time. Now, old girl, look right into my +eyes, because I'm going to propose to you for the last time. My +worldly assets consist of about a hundred dollars in cash and a six +dollar wedding ring which I bought as I came through Port Agnew. With +these wordly goods and all the love and honor and respect a man can +possibly have for a woman, I desire to endow you. Answer me quickly. +Yes or no?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," she whispered.</p> + +<p>"You chatterbox! When?"</p> + +<p>"At your pleasure."</p> + +<p>"That's trading talk. We'll be married this afternoon." He stretched +out his long arms for her and as she slid off the low hassock and +knelt beside his chair, he gathered her hungrily to him and held her +there for a long time before he spoke again. When he did it was to +say, with an air of wonder that was almost childlike:</p> + +<p>"I never knew it was possible for a man to be so utterly wretched and +so tremendously happy and all within the same hour. I love you so much +it hurts." He released her and glanced at his watch. "It is now two +o'clock, Nan. If we leave here by three we can reach the county seat +by five o'clock, procure a license and be married by six. By half past +seven we will have finished our wedding supper and by about ten +o'clock we shall be back at the Sawdust Pile. Put a clean pair of +rompers on the young fellow and let's go! From this day forward we +live, like the Sinn Fein. 'For ourselves alone.'"</p> + +<p>While Nan was preparing for that hurried ceremony, Donald strolled +about the little yard, looking over the neglected garden and marking +for future attention various matters such as a broken hinge on the +gate, some palings off the fence and the crying necessity for paint on +the little white house, for he was striving mightily to shut out all +thought of his past life and concentrate on matters that had to do +with the future. Presently he wandered out on the bulkhead. The great +white gulls which spent their leisure hours gravely contemplating the +Bight of Tyee from the decaying piling, rose lazily at his approach +and with hoarse cries of resentment flapped out to sea; his dull +glance followed them and rested on a familiar sight.</p> + +<p>Through the Bight of Tyee his father's barkentine Kohala was coming +home from Honolulu, ramping in before a twenty mile breeze with every +shred of canvas drawing. She was heeled over to starboard a little and +there was a pretty little bone in her teeth; the colors streamed from +her mizzen rigging while from her foretruck the house-flag flew. Idly +Donald watched her until she was abreast and below The Dreamerie and +her house-flag dipped in salute to the master watching from the cliff; +instantly the young Laird of Tyee saw a woolly puff of smoke break +from the terrace below the house and several seconds later the dull +boom of the signal gun. His heart was constricted. "Ah, never for me!" +he murmured, "never for me—until he tells them to look toward the +Sawdust Pile for the master!"</p> + +<p>He strode out to the gate where his father's chauffeur waited with the +limousine. "Take the car home," he ordered, "and as you pass through +town stop in at the Central Garage and tell them to send a closed car +over to me here."</p> + +<p>The chauffeur looked at him with surprise but obeyed at once. By the +time the hired car had arrived Nan and her child were ready, and just +before locking the house Nan, realizing that they would not return to +the Sawdust Pile until long after nightfall, hauled in the flag that +floated over the little cupola; and for the second time, old Hector, +watching up on the cliff, viewed this infallible portent of an event +out of the ordinary. His hand trembled as he held his marine glasses +to his blurred eyes and focussed on The Sawdust Pile, in time to see +his son enter the limousine with Nan Brent and her child—and even at +that distance he could see that the car in which they were departing +from the Sawdust Pile was not the one in which Donald had left The +Dreamerie. From that fact alone The Laird deduced that his son had +made his choice; and because Donald was his father's son, imbued with +the same fierce high pride and love of independence, he declined to be +under obligation to his people even for the service of an automobile +upon his wedding day.</p> + +<p>The Laird stood watching the car until it was out of sight; then he +sighed very deeply, entered the house and rang for the butler.</p> + +<p>"Tell Mrs. McKaye and the young ladies that I would thank them to come +here at once," he ordered calmly.</p> + +<p>They came precipitately, vaguely apprehensive. "My dears," he said in +an unnaturally subdued voice, "Donald has just left the Sawdust Pile +with the Brent lass to be married. He has made his bed and it is my +wish that he shall lie in it."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Hector!" Mrs. McKaye had spoken quaveringly. "Oh, Hector, dear, +do not be hard on him!"</p> + +<p>He raised his great arm as if to silence further argument. "He has +brought disgrace upon my house. He is no longer son of mine and we are +discussing him for the last time. Hear me, now. There will be no +further mention of Donald in my presence and I forbid you, Nellie, +you, Elizabeth and you, Jane, to have aught to do wie him, directly or +indirectly."</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye sat down abruptly and commenced to weep and wail her woe +aloud, while Jane sought vainly to comfort her. Elizabeth bore the +news with extreme fortitude; with unexpected tact she took her father +by the arm and steered him outside and along the terrace walk where +the agonized sobs and moans of her mother could not be heard—for what +Elizabeth feared in that first great moment of remorse was a torrent +of self-accusation from her mother. If, as her father had stated, +Donald was en route to be married, then the mischief was done and no +good could come out of a confession to The Laird of the manner in +which the family honor had been compromised, not by Donald, but by his +mother, aided and abetted by his sisters! The Laird, now quite dumb +with distress, walked in silence with his eldest daughter, vaguely +conscious of the comfort of her company and sympathy in his hour of +trial.</p> + +<p>When Elizabeth could catch Jane's attention through the window she +cautiously placed her finger on her lip and frowned a warning. Jane +nodded her comprehension and promptly bore her mother off to bed where +she gave the poor soul some salutary advice and left her to the meager +comfort of solitude and smelling salts.</p> + +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> + +<p>Just before he retired that night, The Laird saw a light shine +suddenly forth from the Sawdust Pile. So he knew his son had selected +a home for his bride, and rage and bitterness mingled with his grief +and mangled pride to such an extent that he called upon God to take +him out of a world that had crumbled about his hoary head. He shook +his fist at the little light that blinked so far below him and Mrs. +McKaye, who had crept down stairs with a half-formed notion of +confessing to The Laird in the hope of mitigating her son's +offense—of, mother-like, taking upon her shoulders an equal burden of +the blame—caught a glimpse of old Hector's face, and her courage +failed her. Thoroughly frightened she returned noiselessly to her room +and wept, dry-eyed, for the fountain of her tears had long since been +exhausted.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, down at the Sawdust Pile, Nan was putting her drowsy son to +bed; in the little living-room her husband had lighted the driftwood +fire and had drawn the old divan up to the blue flames. He was sitting +with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, outlining +plans for their future, when Nan, having put her child to bed, came +and sat down beside him. He glanced at her with troubled eyes and +grinned a trifle foolishly.</p> + +<p>"Happy?" he queried.</p> + +<p>She nodded. "In a limited fashion only, dear heart. I'm thinking how +wonderfully courageous you have been to marry me and how tremendously +grateful I shall always be for your love and faith." She captured his +right hand and fondled it for a moment in both of hers, smiling a +little thoughtfully the while as if at some dear little secret. "Port +Agnew will think I married you for money," she resumed presently; +"your mother and sisters will think I married you to spite them and +your father will think I married you because you insisted and because +I was storm-tossed and had to find a haven from the world. But the +real reason is that I love you and know that some day I am going to +see more happiness in your eyes than I can see to-night."</p> + +<p>Again, in that impulsive way she had, she bent and kissed his hand. +"Dear King Cophetua," she murmured, "your beggar maid will never be +done with adoring you." She looked up at him with a sweet and lovely +wistfulness shining in her sea-blue eyes. "And the sweetest thing +about it, you angelic simpleton," she added, "is that you will never, +never, never know why."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXXI'></a><h2>XLI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>The first hint of the tremendous events impending came to Mr. Daney +through the medium of no less an informant than his wife. Upon +returning from the mill office on the evening of Donald McKaye's +marriage, Mr. Daney was met at his front door by Mrs. Daney who cried +triumphantly:</p> + +<p>"Well, what did I tell you about Donald McKaye?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney twitched inwardly, but answered composedly. "Not one-tenth +of one per cent, of what I have discovered without your valuable +assistance my dear."</p> + +<p>She wrinkled the end of her nose disdainfully. "He's gone motoring +with Nan Brent in a hired car, and they took the baby with them. They +passed through town about half past two this afternoon and they +haven't returned yet."</p> + +<p>"How do you know all this?" he demanded coolly.</p> + +<p>"I saw them as they passed by on the road below; I recognized that +rent limousine of the Central Garage with Ben Nicholson driving it, +and a few moments ago I telephoned the Central Garage and asked for +Ben. He hasn't returned yet—and it's been dark for half an hour."</p> + +<p>"Hum-m-m! What do you suspect, my dear?"</p> + +<p>"The worst," she replied dramatically.</p> + +<p>"What a wonderful fall day this has been," he remarked blandly as he +hung up his hat. She turned upon him a glance of fury; he met it with +one so calm and impersonal that the good lady quite lost control of +herself. "Why do you withhold your confidence from me?" she cried +sharply.</p> + +<p>"Because you wouldn't respect it, my dear; also, because I'm paid to +keep the McKaye secrets and you're not."</p> + +<p>"Is he going to marry her, Andrew? Answer me," she demanded.</p> + +<p>"Unfortunately for you, Mrs. Daney, the young gentleman hasn't taken +me into his confidence. Neither has the young lady. Of course I +entertain an opinion, on the subject, but since I am not given to +discussing the intimate personal affairs of other people, you'll +excuse my reticence on this subject, I'm sure. I repeat that this has +been a wonderful fall day."</p> + +<p>She burst into tears of futile rage and went to her room. Mr. Daney +partook of his dinner in solitary state and immediately after dinner +strolled down town and loitered around the entrance to the Central +Garage until he saw Ben Nicholson drive in about ten o'clock.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Ben," he hailed the driver as Ben descended from his seat. "I +hear you've been pulling off a wedding."</p> + +<p>Ben Nicholson lowered his voice and spoke out the corner of his mouth. +"What do you know about the young Laird, eh, Mr. Daney? Say I could +'a' cried to see him throwin' himself away on that Jane."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney shrugged. "Oh, well, boys will be boys," he declared. "The +bigger they are the harder they fall. Of course, Ben, you understand +I'm not in position to say anything, one way or the other," he added +parenthetically, and Ben Nicholson nodded comprehension. Thereupon +Mr. Daney sauntered over to the cigar stand in the hotel, loaded his +cigar case and went down to his office, where he sat until midnight, +smoking and thinking. The sole result of his cogitations, however, he +summed up in a remark he directed at the cuspidor just before he went +home:</p> + +<p>"Well, there's blood on the moon and hell will pop in the morning."</p> + +<p>For the small part he had played in bringing Nan Brent back to Port +Agnew, the general manager fully expected to be dismissed from the +McKaye service within thirty seconds after old Hector should reach the +mill office; hence with the heroism born of twelve hours of +preparation he was at his desk at eight o'clock next morning. At nine +o'clock The Laird came in and Mr. Daney saw by his face instantly that +old Hector knew. The general manager rose at his desk and bowed with +great dignity.</p> + +<p>"Moritori salutamus, sir," he announced gravely.</p> + +<p>"What the devil are you talking about, Daney?" The Laird demanded +irritably.</p> + +<p>"That's what the gladiators used to say to the Roman populace. It +means, I believe, 'We who are about to die, salute you.' Here is my +resignation, Mr. McKaye."</p> + +<p>"Don't be an ass, Andrew," The Laird commanded and threw the proffered +resignation into the waste basket. "Why should you resign?"</p> + +<p>"To spare the trouble of discharging me, sir."</p> + +<p>"What for?"</p> + +<p>"Bringing the Brent girl back to Port Agnew. If I hadn't gotten her +address from Dirty Dan I would never have suggested to—"</p> + +<p>"Enough. We will not discuss what might have been, Andrew. The boy +has married her, and since the blow has fallen nothing that preceded +it is of the slightest importance. What I have called to say to you is +this: Donald McKaye is no longer connected with the Tyee Lumber +Company."</p> + +<p>"Oh, come, come, sir," Daney pleaded. "The mischief is done. You'll +have to forgive the boy and make the best of a bad business. What +can't be cured must be endured, you know."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily. And you might spare me your platitude, Andrew," The +Laird replied savagely. "I'm done with the lad forever, for son of +mine he is no longer. Andrew, do you remember the time he bought that +red cedar stumpage up on the Wiskah and unloaded it on me at a profit +of two hundred thousand dollars?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney nodded. "And you, in turn, sold it at a profit of fifty +thousand," he reminded the irate old man.</p> + +<p>"Donald did not retain that profit he made at my expense. 'Twas just a +joke with him. He put the money into bonds and sent them to you with +instructions to place them in my vault for my account." Mr. Daney +nodded and The Laird resumed. "Take those bonds to the Sawdust Pile, +together with a check for all the interest collected on the coupons +since they came into my possession, and tell him from me that I'll +take it kindly of him to leave Port Agnew and make a start for himself +elsewhere as quickly as he can. He owes it to his family not to +affront it by his presence in Port Agnew, giving ground for gossip and +scandal and piling needless sorrow upon us. And when the Sawdust Pile +is again vacant you will remove the Brent house and put in the drying +yard you've planned this many a year."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir. It's not a task to my liking, but—" His pause was +eloquent.</p> + +<p>"Have my old desk put in order for me. I'm back in the harness and +back to stay, and at that I'm not so certain it isn't the best thing +for me, under the present circumstances. I dare say," he added, with a +sudden change of tone, "the news is all over Port Agnew this morning."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney nodded.</p> + +<p>"You will procure Donald's resignation as President and have him +endorse the stock I gave him in order to qualify as a director of the +company. We'll hold a directors' meeting this afternoon and I'll step +back into the presidency."</p> + +<p>"Very well, sir."</p> + +<p>"You will cause a notice to be prepared for my signature, to be spread +on the bulletin board in each department, to the effect that Donald +McKaye is no longer connected in any way with the Tyee Lumber +Company."</p> + +<p>"Damn it, man," Daney roared wrathfully, "have you no pride? Why wash +your dirty linen in public?"</p> + +<p>"You are forgetting yourself, my good Andrew. If you do not wish to +obey my orders I shall have little difficulty inducing your assistant +to carry out my wishes, I'm thinking." The Laird's voice was calm +enough; apparently he had himself under perfect control, but—the +Blue-Bonnets-coming-over-the-Border look was in his fierce gray eyes; +under his bushy iron-gray brows they burned like campfires in twin +caverns at night. His arms, bowed belligerently, hung tense at his +side, his great hands opened and closed, a little to the fore; he +licked his lips and in the brief silence that followed ere Mr. Daney +got up and started fumbling with the combination to the great vault in +the corner, old Hector's breath came in short snorts. He turned and, +still in the same attitude, watched Daney while the latter twirled and +fumbled and twirled. Poor man! He knew The Laird's baleful glance was +boring into his back and for the life of him he could not remember the +combination he had used for thirty years.</p> + +<p>Suddenly he abandoned all pretense and turned savagely on The Laird.</p> + +<p>"Get out of my office," he yelled. "I work for you, Hector McKaye, but +I give you value received and in this office I'm king and be damned to +you." His voice rose to a shrill, childish treble that presaged tears +of rage. "You'll be sorry for this, you hard-hearted man. Please God +I'll live to see the day your dirty Scotch pride will be humbled and +you'll go to that wonderful boy and his wife and plead for +forgiveness. Why, you poor, pitiful, pusillanimous old pachyderm, if +the boy has dishonored you he has honored himself. He's a gallant +young gentleman, that's what he is. He has more guts than a bear. He's +<i>married</i> the girl, damn you—and that's more than you would have done +at his age. Ah, don't talk to me! We were young together and I know +the game you played forty years ago with the girl at the Rat +Portage—yes, you—you with your youth and your hot passions—turning +your big proud back on your peculiar personal god to wallow in sin and +enjoy it."</p> + +<p>"But I—I was a single man then," The Laird sputtered, almost +inarticulate with fury and astonishment.</p> + +<p>"He was a single man yesterday but he's a married man to-day. And she +loves him. She adores him. You can see it in her eyes when his name is +mentioned. And she had no <i>reason</i> to behave herself, had she? She has +behaved herself for three long years, but did she win anybody's +approbation for doing it? I'm telling you a masterful man like him +might have had her without the wedding ring, for love's sake, if he'd +cared to play a waiting game and stack the cards on her. After all, +she's human."</p> + +<p>Suddenly he commenced to weep with fury, the tears cascading into his +whiskers making him look singularly ridiculous in comparison with the +expression on his face, which was anything but grievous. "Marriage! +Marriage!" he croaked. "I know what it is. I married a fat-head—and +so did my wife. We've never known romance; never had anything but a +quiet, well-ordered existence. I've dwelt in repression; never got out +of life a single one of those thrills that comes of doing something +daring and original and nasty. Never had an adventure; never had a +woman look at me like I was a god; married at twenty and never knew +the Grand Passion." He threw up his arms. "Oh-h-h, God-d-d! If I could +only be young again I'd be a devil! Praise be, I know one man with +guts enough to tell 'em all to go to hell."</p> + +<p>With a peculiar little moving cry he started for the door.</p> + +<p>"Andrew," The Laird cried anxiously. "Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"None of your infernal business," the rebel shrilled, "but if you must +know, I'm going down to the Sawdust Pile to kiss the bride and shake +a man's hand and wish him well. After I've done that I'll deliver your +message. Mark me, he'll never take those bonds."</p> + +<p>"Of course he will, you old fool. They belong to him."</p> + +<p>"But he refused to make a profit at the expense of his own father. He +gave them to you and he's not an Indian giver."</p> + +<p>"Andrew, I have never known you to act in such a peculiar manner. Are +you crazy? Of course he'll take them. He'll have to take them in order +to get out of Port Agnew. I doubt if he has a dollar in the world."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney beat his chest gorilla fashion. "He doesn't need a dollar. +Boy and man, I've loved that—ahem! son of yours. Why, he always <i>did</i> +have guts. Keep your filthy money. The boy's credit is good with me. +I'm no pauper, even I if do work for you. I work for fun. Understand. +Or do you, Hector McKaye?"</p> + +<p>"If you dare to loan my son as much as a thin dime I'll fire you out +of hand."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney jeered. "How?" he demanded very distinctly, and yet with a +queer, unusual blending of the sentence with a single word, as if the +very force of his breath had telescoped every syllable, "would you +like to stand off in that corner there and take a long runnin' jump at +yourself, proud father?"</p> + +<p>"Out of this office! You're fired."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney dashed the tears from his whiskers and blew his nose. Then +he pulled himself together with dignity and bowed so low he lost his +center of gravity and teetered a little on his toes before recovering +his balance. "Fired is GOOD," he declared. "Where do you get that +stuff, eh? My dear old Furiosity, ain't my resignation in the +waste-basket? Good-by, good luck and may the good Lord give you the +sense God gives geese. I'm a better man than you are, Gunga Din."</p> + +<p>The door banged open. Then it banged shut and The Laird was alone. The +incident was closed. The impossible had come to pass. For the strain +had been too great, and at nine o'clock on a working day morning, +steady, reliable, dependable, automatic Andrew Daney having imbibed +Dutch courage in lieu of Nature's own brand, was, for the first time +in his life, jingled to an extent comparable to that of a boiled owl.</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney's assistant thrust his head in the door, to disturb The +Laird's cogitations. "The knee-bolters went out at the shingle mill +this morning, sir," he announced. "They want a six and a half hour day +and a fifty per cent. increase in wages, with a whole holiday on +Saturday. There's a big Russian red down there exhorting them."</p> + +<p>"Send Dirty Dan to me. Quick!"</p> + +<p>A telephonic summons to the loading shed brought Daniel P. O'Leary on +the run. "Come with me, Dan," The Laird commanded, and started for the +shingle mill. On the way down he stopped at the warehouse and selected +a new double-bitted ax which he handed to Dirty Dan. Mr. O'Leary +received the weapon in silence and trotted along at The Laird's heels +like a faithful dog, until, upon arrival at the shingle mill the +astute Hibernian took in the situation at a glance.</p> + +<p>"Sure, 'tis no compliment you've paid me, sor, thinkin' I'll be afther +needin' an ax to take that fella's measure," he protested.</p> + +<p>"Your job is to keep those other animals off me while <i>I</i> take his +measure," The Laird corrected him.</p> + +<p>Without an instant's hesitation Dirty Dan swung his ax and charged the +crowd. "Gower that, ye vagabones," he screeched. As he passed the +Russian he seized the latter by the collar, swung him and threw him +bodily toward old Hector, who received him greedily and drew him to +his heart. The terrible O'Leary then stood over the battling pair, his +ax poised, the while he hurled insult and anathema at the +knee-bolters. A very large percentage of knee-bolters and shingle +weavers are members of the I.W.W. and knowing this, Mr. O'Leary begged +in dulcet tones, to be informed why in this and that nobody seemed +willing to lift a hand to rescue the Little Comrade. He appeared to be +keenly disappointed because nobody tried, albeit other axes were quite +plentiful thereabouts.</p> + +<p>Presently The Laird got up and dusted the splinters and sawdust from +his clothing; the Red, battered terribly, lay weltering in his blood. +"I feel better now," said The Laird. "This is just what I needed this +morning to bring me out of myself. Help yourself, Dan," and he made a +dive at the nearest striker, who fled, followed by his +fellow-strikers, all hotly pursued by The Laird and the demon Daniel.</p> + +<p>The Laird returned, puffing slightly, to his office and once more sat +in at his own desk. As he remarked to Dirty Dan, he felt better now. +All his resentment against Daney had fled but his resolution to pursue +his contemplated course with reference to his son and the latter's +wife had become firmer than ever. In some ways The Laird was a +terrible old man.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXXII'></a><h2>XLII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Nan was not at all surprised when, upon responding to a peremptory +knock at her front door she discovered Andrew Daney standing without. +The general manager, after his stormy interview with The Laird had +spent two hours in the sunny lee of a lumber pile, waiting for the +alcoholic fogs to lift from his brain, for he had had sense enough +left to realize that all was not well with him; he desired to have his +tongue in order when he should meet the bride and groom.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mr. Daney," Nan greeted him. "Do come in."</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Mrs. McKaye. Thank you. I shall with pleasure."</p> + +<p>He followed her down the little hallway to the living room where +Donald sat with his great thin legs stretched out toward the fire.</p> + +<p>"Don't rise, boy, don't rise," Mr. Daney protested. "I merely called +to kiss the bride and shake your hand, my boy. The visit is entirely +friendly and unofficial."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Daney, you're a dear," Nan cried, and presented her fair cheek +for the tribute he claimed.</p> + +<p>"Shake hands with a rebel, boy," Mr. Daney cried heartily to Donald. +"God bless you and may you always be happier than you are this +minute."</p> + +<p>Donald wrung the Daney digits with a heartiness he would not have +thought possible a month before.</p> + +<p>"I've quarreled with your father, Donald," he announced, seating +himself. "Over you—and you," he added, nodding brightly at both young +people. "He thinks he's fired me." He paused, glanced around, coughed +a couple of times and came out with it. "Well, what are you going to +do now to put tobacco in your old tobacco box, Donald?"</p> + +<p>Donald smiled sadly. "Oh, Nan still has a few dollars left from that +motor-boat swindle you perpetrated, Mr. Daney. She'll take care of me +for a couple of weeks until I'm myself again; then, if my father still +proves recalcitrant and declines to have me connected with the Tyee +Lumber Company, I'll manage to make a living for Nan and the boy +somewhere else."</p> + +<p>Briefly Mr. Daney outlined The Laird's expressed course of action with +regard to his son.</p> + +<p>"He means it," Donald assured the general manager. "He never bluffs. +He gave me plenty of warning and his decision has not been arrived at +in a hurry. He's through with me."</p> + +<p>"I fear he is, my boy. Er-ah-ahem! Harumph-h-h! Do you remember those +bonds you sent me from New York once—the proceeds of your deal in +that Wiskah river cedar?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Your father desires that you accept the entire two hundred thousand +dollars worth and accrued interest."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I suppose he thinks they'll come in handy when you leave Port +Agnew."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, Andrew."</p> + +<p>"Your father instructed me to say to you that he would take it kindly +of you to do so—for obvious reasons."</p> + +<p>"I appreciate his point of view, but since he has kicked me out he +has no claim on my sympathies—at least not to the extent of forcing +his point of view and causing me to abandon my own. Please say to my +father that since I cannot have his forgiveness I do not want his +bonds or his money. Tell him also, please, that I'm not going to leave +Port Agnew, because that would predicate a sense of guilt on my part +and lend some support to the popular assumption that my wife is not a +virtuous woman. I could not possibly oblige my father on this point +because to do so would be a violent discourtesy to my wife. I am not +ashamed of her, you know."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney gnawed his thumb nail furiously. "'The wicked flee when no +man pursueth'," he quoted. "However, Mr. Donald, you know as well as I +do that if your father should forbid it, a dicky bird couldn't make a +living in this town."</p> + +<p>"There are no such restrictions in Darrow, Mr. Daney. The +superintendent up there will give me a job on the river."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney could not forbear an expression of horror. "Hector McKaye's +son a river hog!" he cried incredulously.</p> + +<p>"Well, Donald McKaye's father was a river hog, wasn't he?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but times have changed since Hector was a pup, my boy. Why, this +is dreadful."</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Daney. Merely unusual."</p> + +<p>"Well, Donald, I think your father will raise the ante considerably in +order to avoid that added disgrace and force you to listen to reason."</p> + +<p>"If he does, sir, please spare yourself the trouble of bearing his +message. Neither Nan nor I is for sale, sir."</p> + +<p>"I told him you'd decline the bonds. However, Mr. Donald, there is no +reason in life why you shouldn't get money from me whenever you want +it. Thanks to your father I'm worth more than a hundred thousand +myself, although you'd never guess it. Your credit is A-1 with me."</p> + +<p>"I shall be your debtor for life because of that speech, Mr. Daney. +Any news from my mother and the girls?"</p> + +<p>"None."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll stand by for results," Donald assured him gravely.</p> + +<p>"Do not expect any."</p> + +<p>"I don't."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney fidgeted and finally said he guessed he'd better be trotting +along, and Donald and Nan, realizing it would be no kindness to him to +be polite and assure him there was no need of hurry, permitted him to +depart forthwith.</p> + +<p>"I think, sweetheart," Donald announced with a pained little smile, as +he returned from seeing Mr. Daney to the front gate, "that it wouldn't +be a half bad idea for you to sit in at that old piano and play and +sing for me. I think I'd like something light and lilting. What's that +Kipling thing that's been set to music?"</p> + +<div class='poem'><div class='stanza'> +<span>So we went strolling,<br /></span> +<span>Down by the rolling, down by the rolling sea.<br /></span> +<span>You may keep your croak for other folk<br /></span> +<span>But you can't frighten me!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out on the old divan. +She watched him blowing smoke rings at the ceiling—and there was no +music in her soul.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon the McKaye limousine drew up at the front gate and +Nan's heart fluttered violently in contemplation of a visit from her +husband's mother and sisters. She need not have worried, however. The +interior of the car was unoccupied save for Donald's clothing and +personal effects which some thoughtful person at The Dreamerie had +sent down to him. He hazarded a guess that the cool and practical +Elizabeth had realized his needs.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXXIII'></a><h2>XLIII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Returning to the mill office, Mr. Daney sat at his desk and started to +look over the mail. The Laird heard his desk buzzer sounding +frequently and rightly conjecturing that his general manager was back +on the job, he came into the latter's office and glared at him.</p> + +<p>"I thought I fired you?" he growled.</p> + +<p>"I know. You thought you did," the rebel replied complacently. "I see +by your knuckles you've been fighting. Hope it did you good."</p> + +<p>"It did. Are you going to leave this office?"</p> + +<p>"No, sir."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think you would. Well, well! Out with it."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney drew a deal of pleasure from that invitation. "The boy +directs me to inform you, sir, that he will not accept the bonds nor +any monies you may desire to give him. He says he doesn't need them +because he isn't going to leave Port Agnew."</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, Andrew. He cannot remain in this town. He hasn't the +courage to face his little world after marrying that girl. And he has +to make a living for her."</p> + +<p>"We shall see that which we shall see," Mr. Daney replied +enigmatically.</p> + +<p>"I wonder if it is possible he is trying to outgame me," old Hector +mused aloud. "Andrew, go back and tell him that if he will go to +California to live I will deed him that Lassen county sugar and white +pine and build him the finest mill in the state."</p> + +<p>"The terms are quite impossible," Daney retorted and explained why.</p> + +<p>"He shall get out of Port Agnew," The Laird threatened. "He shall get +out or starve."</p> + +<p>"You are forgetting something, sir."</p> + +<p>"Forgetting what?"</p> + +<p>"That I have more than a hundred thousand dollars in bonds right in +that vault and that I have not as yet developed paralysis of the right +hand. The boy shall not starve and neither shall he crawl, like a +beaten dog currying favor with the one that has struck him."</p> + +<p>"I am the one who has been struck—and he has wounded me sorely," The +Laird cried, his voice cracked with anger.</p> + +<p>"The mischief is done. What's the use of crying over spilled milk? +You're going to forgive the boy sooner or later, so do it now and be +graceful about it."</p> + +<p>"I'll never forgive him, Andrew."</p> + +<p>Mr. Daney walled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Thank God," he murmured +piously, "I'm pure. Hereafter, every time Reverend Mr. Tingley says +the Lord's prayer I'm going to cough out loud in church at the line: +'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against +us.' You'll hear that cough and remember, Hector McKaye."</p> + +<p>A deeper shadow of distress settled over The Laird's stern features. +"You're uncommon mean to me this bitter day, Andrew," he complained +wearily. "I take it as most unkind of you to thwart my wishes like +this."</p> + +<p>"I'm for true love!" Mr. Daney declared firmly. "Ah come, come now! +Don't be a stiff-necked old dodo. Forgive the boy."</p> + +<p>"In time I may forgive him, Andrew. I'm not sure of myself where he is +concerned, but we canna receive the girl. 'Tis not in reason that we +should."</p> + +<p>"I believe I'll cough twice," Daney murmured musingly.</p> + +<p>And the following day being Sunday, he did! He sat two rows behind the +McKaye family pew but across the aisle, and in a cold fury The Laird +turned to squelch him with a look. What he saw in the Daney pew, +however, chilled his fury and threw him into a veritable panic of +embarrassment. For to the right of the incomprehensible general +manager sat the young ex-laird of Port Agnew; at Daney's left the old +Laird beheld his new daughter-in-law, while further down the pew as +far as she could retreat, Mrs. Daney, with face aflame, sat rigid, her +bovine countenance upraised and her somewhat vacuous glance fixed +unblinkingly at a point some forty feet over Mr. Tingley's pious head. +Donald intercepted the old man's amazed and troubled glance, and +smiled at his father with his eyes—an affectionate overture that was +not lost on The Laird ere he jerked his head and eyes once more to the +front.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye and her two daughters were as yet unaware of the horror +that impended. But not for long. When the congregation stood to sing +the final hymn, Nan's wondrous mezzo-soprano rose clear and sweet over +the indifferent-toned notes of every other woman present; to the most +dull it would have been obvious that there was a trained singer +present, and Mrs. McKaye and her daughters each cast a covert glance +in the direction of the voice. However, since every other woman in the +church was gazing at Nan, nobody observed the effect of her presence +upon the senior branch of the McKaye family, for which small blessing +the family in question was duly grateful.</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of the service old Hector remained in his pew until +the majority of the congregation had filed out; then, assuring himself +by a quick glance, that his son and the latter's wife had preceded +him, he followed with Mrs. McKaye and the girls. From the church steps +he observed Donald and Nan walking home, while Mr. Daney and his +outraged spouse followed some twenty feet behind them. Quickly The +Laird and his family entered the waiting limousine; it was the first +occasion that anybody could remember when he had not lingered to shake +hands with Mr. Tingley and, perchance, congratulate him on the +excellence of his sermon.</p> + +<p>They were half way up the cliff road before anybody spoke. Then, with +a long preliminary sigh, The Laird voiced the thought that obsessed +them all.</p> + +<p>"That damned mutton-head, Daney. I'd run him out of the Tyee employ if +it would do a bit of good. I cannot run him out of town or out of +church."</p> + +<p>"The imbecile!" Elizabeth raged. Jane was dumb with shame and rage and +Mrs. McKaye was sniffling a little. Presently she said:</p> + +<p>"How dare he bring her right into church with him," she cried +brokenly. "Right before everybody. Oh, dear, oh dear, is my son +totally lacking in a sense of decency? This is terrible, terrible."</p> + +<p>"I shall not risk such another awful Sunday morning," Elizabeth +announced.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," Jane cried with equal fervor.</p> + +<p>"We shall have to leave Port Agnew now," Mrs, McKaye sobbed.</p> + +<p>Old Hector patted her hand. "Yes, I think you'll have to, Nellie. +Unfortunately, I cannot go with you. Daney doesn't appear to be quite +sane of late and with Donald out of the business I'm chained to a desk +for the remainder of my life. I fear, however," he added savagely, "I +do not intend to let that woman run me out of my own church. Not by a +damned sight!"</p> + +<p>The instant they entered the house, rightly conjecturing that the +Daneys had also reached their home, Mrs. McKaye went to the telephone +and proceeded to inform Mr. Daney of the opinion which the McKaye +family, jointly and severally, entertained for his idea of comedy. +Daney listened respectfully to all she had to say touching his sanity, +his intelligence, his sense of decency, and his loyalty to Hector and +when, stung because he made no defense, she asked: "Have you no +explanation to make us for your extraordinary behavior?" he replied:</p> + +<p>"I am an usher of our church, Mrs. McKaye. When Donald and his wife +entered the church the only vacant seats in it were in my pew; the +only person in the church who would not have felt a sense of outrage +at having your daughter-in-law seated with his or her family, was my +self-sacrificing self. I could not be discourteous to Donald and I'm +quite certain his wife has as much right in our church as you have. So +I shooed them both up to my pew, to the great distress of Mrs. Daney."</p> + +<p>"You should be ashamed of yourself, Andrew. You should!"</p> + +<p>"I'm not ashamed of myself, Mrs. McKaye. I've been a pussy-foot all +my life. I had to do something I knew would detract from my +popularity, but since I had to do it I decided to do it promptly and +as if I enjoyed it. Surely you would not have commended me had I met +the young couple at the door and said to them: 'Get out of this +church. It is not for such as you. However, if you insist upon +staying, you'll have to stand up or else sit down on the floor. Nobody +here wants to sit with you. They're afraid, too, they'll offend the +Chief Pooh-bah of this town'."</p> + +<p>"You could have pretended you did not see them."</p> + +<p>"My dear Mrs. McKaye," Daney retorted in even tones, "do you wish me +to inform your husband of a certain long distance telephone +conversation? If so—"</p> + +<p>She hung up without waiting to say good-by, and the following day she +left for Seattle, accompanied by her daughters.</p> + +<p>Throughout the week The Laird forbore mentioning his son's name to Mr. +Daney; indeed, he refrained from addressing the latter at all unless +absolutely necessary to speak to him directly—wherefore Daney knew +himself to be blacklisted. On the following Sunday The Laird sat alone +in the family pew and Mr. Daney did not cough during the recital of +the Lord's prayer, so old Hector managed to conquer a tremendous +yearning to glance around for the reason. Also, as on the previous +Sunday, he was in no hurry to leave his pew at the conclusion of the +service, yet, to his profound irritation, when he did leave it and +start down the central aisle of the church, he looked squarely into +the faces of Donald and Nan as they emerged from the Daney pew. Mrs. +Daney was conspicuous by her absence. Nan's baby boy had fallen asleep +during the service and Donald was carrying the cherub.</p> + +<p>Old Hector's face went white; he gulped when his son spoke to him.</p> + +<p>"Hello, Dad. You looked lonely all by yourself in that big pew. +Suppose we come up and sit with you next Sunday?"</p> + +<p>Old Hector paused and bent upon his son and Nan a terrible look. +"Never speak to me again so long as you live," he replied in a low +voice, and passed out of the church.</p> + +<p>Donald gazed after his broad erect figure and shook his head +dolefully, as Mr. Daney fell into step beside him. "I told you so," he +whispered.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it awful to be Scotch?" Nan inquired.</p> + +<p>"It is awful—on the Scotch," her husband assured her. "The dear old +fraud gulped like a broken-hearted boy when I spoke to him. He'd +rather be wrong than president."</p> + +<p>As they were walking home to the Sawdust Pile, Nan captured one of her +husband's great fingers and swung it childishly. "I wish you didn't +insist upon our going to church, sweetheart," she complained. "We're +spoiling your father's Christianity."</p> + +<p>"Can't help it," he replied doggedly. "We're going to be thoroughbreds +about this, no matter how much it hurts."</p> + +<p>She sighed. "And you're only half Scotch, Donald."</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXXIV'></a><h2>XLIV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>By noon of the following day, Port Agnew was astounded by news brought +by the crew of one of the light draft launches used to tow log rafts +down the river. Donald McKaye was working for Darrow. He was their +raftsman; he had been seen out on the log boom, pike pole in hand, +shoving logs in to the endless chain elevator that drew them up to the +seas. As might be imagined, Mrs. Daney was among the first to glean +this information, and to her husband she repeated it at luncheon with +every evidence of pleasure.</p> + +<p>"Tut, tut, woman," he replied carelessly, "this is no news to me. He +told me yesterday after service that he had the job."</p> + +<p>The familiar wrinkle appeared for an instant on the end of her nose +before she continued: "I wonder what The Laird thinks of that, +Andrew?"</p> + +<p>"So do I," he parried skilfully.</p> + +<p>"Does he know it?"</p> + +<p>"There isn't a soul in Port Agnew with sufficient courage to tell +him."</p> + +<p>"Why do you not tell him?"</p> + +<p>"None of my business. Besides, I do not hanker to see people squirm +with suffering."</p> + +<p>She wrinkled her nose once more and was silent.</p> + +<p>As Mr. Daney had declared, there was none in Port Agnew possessed of +sufficient hardihood to inform the Laird of his son's lowly status and +it was three weeks before he discovered it for himself. He had gone +up the river to one of his logging camps and the humor had seized him +to make the trip in a fast little motor-boat he had given Donald at +Christmas many years' before. He was busy adjusting the carburetor, +after months of disuse, as he passed the Darrow log boom in the +morning, so he failed to see his big son leaping across the logs, +balancing himself skilfully with the pike pole.</p> + +<p>It was rather late when he started home and in the knowledge that +darkness might find him well up the river he hurried.</p> + +<p>Now, from the Bight of Tyee to a point some five miles above Darrow, +the Skookum flows in almost a straight line; the few bends are wide +and gradual, and when The Laird came to this home-stretch he urged the +boat to its maximum speed of twenty-eight miles per hour. Many a time +in happier days he had raced down this long stretch with Donald at the +helm, and he knew the river thoroughly; as he sped along he steered +mechanically, his mind occupied in a consideration of the dishonor +that had come upon his clan.</p> + +<p>The sun had already set as he came roaring down a wide deep stretch +near Darrow's mill; in his preoccupation he forgot that his +competitor's log boom stretched across the river fully two-thirds of +its width; that he should throttle down, swerve well to starboard and +avoid the field of stored logs. The deep shadows cast by the sucker +growth and old snags along the bank blended with the dark surface of +the log boom and prevented him from observing that he was headed for +the heart of it; the first intimation he had of his danger came to +him in a warning shout from the left bank—a shout that rose above the +roar of the exhaust.</p> + +<p>"Jump! Overboard! Quickly! The log boom!"</p> + +<p>Old Hector awoke from his bitter reverie. He, who had once been a +river hog, had no need to be told of the danger incident to abrupt +precipitation into the heart of that log boom, particularly when it +would presently be gently agitated by the long high "bone" the racing +boat carried in her teeth. When logs weighing twenty tons come gently +together—even when they barely rub against each other, nothing living +caught between them may survive.</p> + +<p>The unknown who warned him was right. He must jump overboard and take +his chance in the river, for it was too late now to slow down and put +his motor in reverse. In the impending crash that was only a matter of +seconds, The Laird would undoubtedly catapult from the stern sheets +into the water—and if he should drift in under the logs, knew the +river would eventually give up his body somewhere out in the Bight of +Tyee. On the other hand, should he be thrown out on the boom he would +stand an equal chance of being seriously injured by the impact or +crushed to death when his helpless body should fall between the logs. +In any event the boat would be telescoped down to the cockpit and sink +at the edge of the log field.</p> + +<p>He was wearing a heavy overcoat, for it was late in the fall, and he +had no time to remove it; not even time to stand up and dive clear. So +he merely hurled his big body against the starboard gunwale and +toppled overboard—and thirty feet further on the boat struck with a +crash that echoed up and down the river, telescoped and drove under +the log boom. It was not in right when old Hector rose puffing to the +surface and bellowed for help before starting to swim for the log +boom.</p> + +<p>The voice answered him instantly: "Coming! Hold On!"</p> + +<p>Handicapped as he was with his overcoat, old Hector found it a +prodigious task to reach the boom; as he clung to the boom-stick he +could make out the figure of a man with a pike pole coming toward him +in long leaps across the logs. And then old Hector noticed something +else.</p> + +<p>He had swum to the outer edge of the log boom and grasped the light +boom-stick, dozens of which, chained end to end, formed the floating +enclosure in which the log supply was stored. The moment he rested his +weight on this boom-stick, however, one end of it submerged +suddenly—wherefore The Laird knew that the impact of the motor-boat +had broken a link of the boom and that this broken end was now +sweeping outward and downward, with the current releasing the millions +of feet of stored logs. Within a few minutes, provided he should keep +afloat, he would be in the midst of these tremendous Juggernauts, for, +clinging to the end of the broken boom he was gradually describing a +circle on the outside of the log field, swinging from beyond the +middle of the river in to the left-hand bank; presently, when the boom +should have drifted its maximum distance he would be hung up +stationary in deep water while the released logs bore down upon him +with the current and gently shoulder him into eternity.</p> + +<p>He clawed his way along the submerging boom-stick to its other end, +where it was linked with its neighbor, and the combined buoyancy of +both boom-sticks was sufficient to float him.</p> + +<p>"Careful," he called to the man leaping over the log-field toward +him. "The boom is broken! Careful, I tell you! The logs are moving +out—they're slipping apart. Be careful."</p> + +<p>Even as he spoke, The Laird realized that the approaching rescuer +would not heed him. He <i>had</i> to make speed out to the edge of the +moving logs; if he was to rescue the man clinging to the boom-sticks +he must take a chance on those long leaps through the dusk; he <i>must</i> +reach The Laird before too much open water developed between the +moving logs.</p> + +<p>Only a trained river man could have won to him in such a brief space +of time; only an athlete could have made the last flying leap across +six feet of dark water to a four-foot log that was bearing gently +down, butt first, on the figure clinging to the boom-stick. His caulks +bit far up the side of the log and the force of his impact started it +rolling; yet even as he clawed his way to the top of the log and got +it under control the iron head of his long pike pole drove into the +boom-stick and fended The Laird out of harm's way; before the log the +man rode could slip by, the iron had been released and the link of +chain between the two boom-sticks had been snagged with the pike hook, +and both men drifted side by side.</p> + +<p>"Safe—o," his rescuer warned Old Hector quietly. "Hang on. I'll keep +the logs away from you and when the field floats by I'll get you +ashore. We're drifting gradually in toward the bank below the mill."</p> + +<p>The Laird was too chilled, too exhausted and too lacking in breath to +do more than gasp a brief word of thanks. It seemed a long, long time +that he clung there, and it was quite dark when his rescuer spoke +again. "I think the last log has floated out of the booming ground. +I'll swim ashore with you now, as soon as I can shuck my boots and +mackinaw." A few minutes later he cried reassuringly, "All set, +old-timer," and slid into the water beside The Laird. "Relax yourself +and do not struggle." His hands came up around old Hector's jaws from +the rear. "Let go," he commanded, and the hard tow commenced. It was +all footwork and their progress was very slow, but eventually they won +through. As soon as he could stand erect in the mud the rescuer +unceremoniously seized The Laird by the nape and dragged him high and +dry up the bank.</p> + +<p>"Now, then," he gasped, "I guess you can take care of yourself. Better +go over to the mill and warm yourself in the furnace room. I've got to +hurry away to 'phone the Tyee people to swing a dozen spare links of +their log boom across the river and stop those runaways before they +escape into the Bight and go to sea on the ebb."</p> + +<p>He was gone on the instant, clambering up the bank through the bushes +that grew to the water's edge; old Hector could hear his breath coming +in great gasps as he ran.</p> + +<p>"Must know that chap, whoever he is," The Laird soliloquized. "Think +he's worked for me some time or other. His voice sounds mighty +familiar. Well—I'll look him up in the morning."</p> + +<p>He climbed after his rescuer and stumbled away through the murk toward +Darrow's mill. Arrived here he found the fireman banking the fires in +the furnace room and while he warmed himself one of them summoned +Bert Darrow from the mill office.</p> + +<p>"Bert," The Laird explained, "I'd be obliged if you'd run me home in +more or less of a hurry in your closed car. I've been in the drink," +and he related the tale of his recent adventures. "Your raftsman saved +my life," he concluded. "Who is he? It was so dark before he got to me +I couldn't see his face distinctly, but I think he's a young fellow +who used to work for me. I know because his voice sounds so very +familiar."</p> + +<p>"He's a new hand, I believe. Lives in Port Agnew. I believe your man +Daney can tell you his name," Darrow replied evasively.</p> + +<p>"I'll ask Daney. The man was gone before I could recover enough breath +to thank him for my life. Sorry to have messed up your boom, Bert, but +we'll stop the runaways at my boom and I'll have them towed back in +the morning. And I'll have a man put in a new boom-stick and connect +it up again."</p> + +<p>Bert Darrow set him down at the Tyee Lumber Company's office, and wet +and chilled as he was, The Laird went at once to Mr. Daney's office. +The latter was just leaving it for the day when The Laird appeared.</p> + +<p>"Andrew," the latter began briskly. "I drove that fast motor-boat at +full speed into Darrow's boom on my way down river this evening; I've +had a ducking and only for Darrow's raftsman you'd be closing down the +mill to-morrow out of respect to my memory. Bert Darrow says their +raftsman used to work for us; he's a new man with them and Bert says +you know who he is."</p> + +<p>"I think I know the man," Mr. Daney replied thoughtfully. "He's been +with them about three weeks; resigned our employ a couple of weeks +before that. I was sorry to lose him. He's a good man."</p> + +<p>"I grant it, Andrew. He's the fastest, coolest hand that ever balanced +a pike pole or rode a log. We cannot afford to let men like that +fellow get away from us for the sake of a little extra pay. Get him +back on the pay-roll, Andrew, and don't be small with him. I'll +remember him handsomely at Christmas, and see that I do not forget +this, Andrew. What is his name?"</p> + +<p>"Let me think." Mr. Daney bent his head, tipped back his hat and +massaged his brow before replying. "I think that when he worked for +the Tyee Lumber Company he was known as Donald McKaye."</p> + +<p>He looked up. The old Laird's face was ashen. "Thank you, Andrew," he +managed to murmur presently. "Perhaps you'd better let Darrow keep him +for a while. G—g—good-night!"</p> + +<p>Outside, his chauffeur waited with his car. "Home—and be quick about +it," he mumbled and crawled into the tonneau slowly and weakly. As the +car rolled briskly up the high cliff road to The Dreamerie, the old +man looked far below him to the little light that twinkled on the +Sawdust Pile.</p> + +<p>"She'll have his dinner cooked for him now and be waiting and watching +for him," he thought.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXXV'></a><h2>XLV</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Hector McKaye suffered that winter. He dwelt in Gethsemane, for he had +incurred to his outcast son the greatest debt that one man can incur +to another, and he could not publicly acknowledge the debt or hope to +repay it in kind. By the time spring came his heart hunger was almost +beyond control; there were times when, even against his will, he +contemplated a reconciliation with Donald based on an acceptance of +the latter's wife but with certain reservations. The Laird never quite +got around to defining the reservation but in a vague way he felt that +they should exist and that eventually Donald would come to a +realization of the fact and help him define them.</p> + +<p>Each Sunday during that period of wretchedness he saw his boy and Nan +at church, although they no longer sat with Mr. Daney. From Reverend +Tingley The Laird learned that Donald now had a pew of his own, and he +wondered why. He knew his son had never been remotely religious and +eventually he decided that, in his son's place, though he were the +devil himself, he would do exactly as Donald had done. Damn a dog that +carried a low head and a dead tail! It was the sign of the mongrel +strain—curs always crept under the barn when beaten!</p> + +<p>One Sunday in the latter part of May he observed that Nan came to +church alone. He wondered if Donald was at home ill and a vague +apprehension stabbed him; he longed to drop into step beside Nan as +she left the church and ask her, but, of course, that was unthinkable. +Nevertheless he wished he knew and that afternoon he spent the entire +time on the terrace at The Dreamerie, searching the Sawdust Pile with +his marine glasses, in the hope of seeing Donald moving about the +little garden. But he did not see him, and that night his sleep was +more troubled than usual.</p> + +<p>On the following Sunday Nan was not accompanied by her husband either. +The Laird decided, therefore, that Donald could not be very ill, +otherwise Nan would not have left him home alone. This thought +comforted him somewhat. During the week he thought frequently of +telephoning up to Darrow and asking if they still had the same +raftsman on the pay-roll, but his pride forbade this. So he drove up +the river road one day and stopped his car among the trees on the bank +of the river from the Darrow log boom. A tall, lively young fellow was +leaping nimbly about on the logs, but so active was he that even at +two hundred yards The Laird could not be certain this man was his son. +He returned to Port Agnew more troubled and distressed than ever.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye and the girls had made three flying visits down to Port +Agnew during the winter and The Laird had spent his week-ends in +Seattle twice; otherwise, save for the servants, he was quite alone at +The Dreamerie and this did not add to his happiness. Gradually the +continued and inexplicable absence of Donald at Sunday service became +an obsession with him; he could think of nothing else in his spare +moments and even at times when it was imperative he should give all of +his attention to important business matters, this eternal, damnable +query continued to confront him. It went to bed with him and got up +with him and under its steady relentless attrition he began to lose +the look of robust health that set him off so well among men of his +own age. His eyes took on a worried, restless gleam; he was irritable +and in the mornings he frequently wore to the office the haggard +appearance that speaks so accusingly of a sleepless night. He lost his +appetite and in consequence he lost weight. Andrew Daney was greatly +concerned about him, and one day, apropos of nothing, he demanded a +bill of particulars.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I daresay I'm getting old, Andrew," The Laird replied evasively.</p> + +<p>"Worrying about the boy?"</p> + +<p>It was a straight shot and old Hector was too inexpressibly weary to +attempt to dodge it. He nodded sadly.</p> + +<p>"Well, let us hope he'll come through all right, sir."</p> + +<p>"Is he ill? What's wrong with him, Andrew? Man, I've been eating my +heart out for months, wondering what it is, but you know the fix I'm +in. I don't like to ask and not a soul in Port Agnew will discuss him +with me."</p> + +<p>"Why, there's nothing wrong with him that I'm aware of, sir. I spoke +to Nan after services last Sunday and she read me a portion of his +last letter. He was quite well at that time."</p> + +<p>"W-wh-where is he, Andrew?"</p> + +<p>"Somewhere in France. He's not allowed to tell."</p> + +<p>"France? Good God, Andrew, not <i>France</i>!"</p> + +<p>"Why not, may I ask? Of course he's in France. He enlisted as a +private shortly after war was declared. Dirty Dan quit his job and +went with him. They went over with the Fifth Marines. Do you mean to +tell me this is news to you?" he added, frankly amazed.</p> + +<p>"I do," old Hector mumbled brokenly. "Oh, Andrew man, this is +terrible, terrible. I canna stand it, man." He sat down and covered +his face with his trembling old hands.</p> + +<p>"Why can't you? You wouldn't want him to sit at home and be a slacker, +would you? And you wouldn't have a son of yours wait until the draft +board took him by the ear and showed him his duty, would you?"</p> + +<p>"If he's killed I'll nae get over it." The Laird commenced to weep +childishly.</p> + +<p>"Well, better men or at least men as fine, are paying that price for +citizenship, Hector McKaye."</p> + +<p>"But his wife, man? He was married. 'Twas not expected of him—"</p> + +<p>"I believe his wife is more or less proud of him, sir. Her people have +always followed the flag in some capacity."</p> + +<p>"But how does she exist? Andrew Daney, if you're giving her the +money—"</p> + +<p>"If I am you have no right to ask impertinent questions about it. But +I'm not."</p> + +<p>"I never knew it, I never knew it," the old man complained bitterly. +"Nobody tells me anything about my own son. I'm alone; I sit in the +darkness, stifling with money—oh, Andrew, Andrew, I didn't say +good-by to him! I let him go in sorrow and in anger."</p> + +<p>"You may have time to cure all that. Go down to the Sawdust Pile, take +the girl to your heart like a good father should and then cable the +boy. That will square things beautifully."</p> + +<p>Even in his great distress the stubborn old head was shaken +emphatically. The Laird of Port Agnew was not yet ready to surrender.</p> + +<p>Spring lengthened into summer and summer into fall. Quail piped in the +logged-over lands and wild ducks whistled down through the timber and +rested on the muddy bosom of the Skookum, but for the first time in +forty years The Laird's setters remained in their kennels and his +fowling pieces in their leather cases. To him the wonderful red and +gold of the great Northern woods had lost the old allurement and he no +longer thrilled when a ship of his fleet, homeward bound, dipped her +house-flag far below him. He was slowly disintegrating.</p> + +<p>Of late he had observed that Nan no longer came to church, so he +assumed she had found the task of facing her world bravely one +somewhat beyond her strength. A few months before, this realization +would have proved a source of savage satisfaction to him, but time and +suffering were working queer changes in his point of view. Now, +although he told himself it served her right, he was sensible of a +small feeling of sympathy for her and a large feeling of resentment +against the conditions that had brought her into conflict with the +world.</p> + +<p>"I daresay," Andrew Daney remarked to him about Christmas time, "you +haven't forgotten your resolve to do something handsome for that +raftsman of Darrow's who saved your life last January. You told me to +remind you of him at Christmas."</p> + +<p>"I have not forgotten the incident," old Hector answered savagely.</p> + +<p>"I think it might be a nice thing to do if you would send word to Nan, +by me, that it will please you if she will consent to have your +grandchild born in the company hospital. Otherwise, I imagine she will +go to a Seattle hospital, and with doctors and nurses away to the war +there's a chance she may not get the best of care."</p> + +<p>"Do as you see fit," The Laird answered. He longed to evade the +issue—he realized that Daney was crowding him always, setting traps +for him, driving him relentlessly toward a reconciliation that was +abhorrent to him. "I have no objection. She cannot afford the expense +of a Seattle hospital, I daresay, and I do not desire to oppress her."</p> + +<p>The following day Mr. Daney reported that Nan had declined with thanks +his permission to enter the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital. As a +soldier's wife she would be cared for without expense in the Base +Hospital at Camp Lewis, less than a day's journey distant.</p> + +<p>The Laird actually quivered when Daney broke this news to him. He was +hurt—terribly hurt—but he dared not admit it. In January he learned +through Mr. Daney that he was a grandfather to a nine-pound boy and +that Nan planned to call the baby Caleb, after her father. For the +first time in his life then, The Laird felt a pang of jealousy. While +the child could never, by any possibility, be aught to him, +nevertheless he felt that in the case of a male child a certain polite +deference toward the infant's paternal ancestors was always +commendable. At any rate, Caleb was Yankee and hateful.</p> + +<p>"I am the twelfth of my line to be named Hector," he said +presently—and Andrew Daney with difficulty repressed a roar of +maniac laughter. Instead he said soberly.</p> + +<p>"The child's playing in hard luck as matters stand; it would be adding +insult to injury to call him Hector McKaye, Thirteenth. Isn't that why +you named your son Donald?"</p> + +<p>The Laird pretended not to hear this. Having been fired on from +ambush, as it were, he immediately started discussing an order for +some ship timbers for the Emergency Fleet Corporation. When he retired +to his own office, however, he locked the door and wept with sympathy +for his son, so far away and in the shadow of death upon the occasion +of the birth of his first son.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXXVI'></a><h2>XLVI</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Spring came. Overhead the wild geese flew in long wedges, honking, +into the North, and The Laird remembered how Donald, as a boy, used to +shoot at them with a rifle as they passed over The Dreamerie. Their +honking wakened echoes in his heart. With the winter's supply of logs +now gone, logging operations commenced in the woods with renewed +vigor, the river teemed with rafts, the shouts of the rivermen echoing +from bank to bank. Both Tyee and Darrow were getting out spruce for +the government and ship timbers for the wooden shipyards along San +Francisco Bay.</p> + +<p>Business had never been so brisk, and with the addition of the war +duties that came to every community leader, The Laird found some +surcease from his heart-hunger. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had returned +to The Dreamerie, now that Donald's marriage had ceased to interest +anybody but themselves, so old Hector was not so lonely. But—the flag +was flying again at the Sawdust Pile, each day of toil for The Laird +was never complete without an eager search of the casualty lists +published in the Seattle papers.</p> + +<p>Spring lengthened into summer. The Marine casualties at Belleau Wood +and Chateau-Thierry appalled The Laird; he read that twenty survivors +of a charge that started two hundred and fifty strong across the wheat +field at Bouresches had taken Bouresches and held it against three +hundred of the enemy—led by Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary, of Port +Agnew, Washington! Good old Dirty Dan! At last he was finding a +legitimate outlet for his talents! He would get the Distinguished +Service Cross for that! The Laird wondered what Donald would receive. +It would be terrible should Dirty Dan return with the Cross and Donald +McKaye without it.</p> + +<p>In September, Donald appeared in the Casualty List as slightly +wounded. Also, he was a first lieutenant now. The Laird breathed +easier, for his son would be out of it for a few months, no doubt. It +was a severe punishment, however, not to be able to discuss his +gallant son with anybody. At home his dignity and a firm adherence to +his previous announcement that his son's name should never be +mentioned in his presence, forbade a discussion with Mrs. McKaye and +the girls; and when he weakly sparred for an opportunity with Andrew +Daney, that stupid creature declined to rise to the bait, or even +admit that he knew of Donald's commission. When told of it, he +expressed neither surprise nor approval.</p> + +<p>In November, the great influenza epidemic came to Port Agnew and took +heavy toll. It brought to The Laird a newer, a more formidable +depression. What if Donald's son should catch it and die, and Donald +be deprived of the sight of his first-born? What if Nan should succumb +to an attack of it while her husband was in France? In that event +would Donald forgive and forget and come home to The Dreamerie? +Somehow, old Hector had his doubts.</p> + +<p>For a long time now, he had felt a great urge to see Donald's son. He +had a curiosity to discover whether the child favored the McKayes or +the Brents. If it favored the McKayes—well, perhaps he might make +some provision for its future in his will, and in order to prove +himself a good sport he would leave an equal sum to Nan's illegitimate +child, which Donald had formally adopted a few days after his marriage +to Nan. Why make fish of one and fowl of the other? he thought. They +were both McKayes now, in the sight of the law, and for aught he knew +to the contrary they were full brothers!</p> + +<p>The child became an obsession with him. He longed to weigh it and +compare its weight with that of Donald's at the same age—he had the +ancient record in an old memorandum book at the office. He speculated +on whether it had blue eyes or brown, whether it was a blond or a +brunette. He wondered if Daney had seen it and wondering, at length he +asked. Yes, Mr. Daney had seen the youngster several times, but beyond +that statement he would not go and The Laird's dignity forbade too +direct a probe. He longed to throttle Mr. Daney, who he now regarded +as the most unsympathetic, prosaic, dull-witted old ass imaginable.</p> + +<p>He wanted to see that child! The desire to do so never left him during +his waking hours and he dreamed of the child at night. So in the end +he yielded and went down to the Sawdust Pile, under cover of darkness, +his intention being to sneak up to the little house and endeavor to +catch a glimpse of the child through the window. He was enraged to +discover, however, that Nan maintained a belligerent Airedale that +refused, like all good Airedales, to waste his time and dignity in +useless barking. He growled—once, and The Laird knew he meant it, so +he got out of that yard in a hurry.</p> + +<p>He was in a fine rage as he walked back to the mill office and got +into his car. Curse the dog! Was he to be deprived of a glimpse of his +grandson by an insensate brute of a dog? He'd be damned if he was! +He'd shoot the animal first—no, that would never do. Nan would come +out and he would be discovered. Moreover, what right had he to shoot +anybody's dog until it attacked him? The thing to do would be to put +some strychnine on a piece of meat—no, no, that would never do. The +person who would poison a dog—any kind of a dog—</p> + +<p>It was a good dog. The animal certainly was acting within its legal +rights. Yes, he knew now where Nan had gotten it. The dog had belonged +to First Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary of the Fifth Marines; he had +doubtless given it to Nan to keep for him when he went to the war; The +Laird knew Dan thought a great deal of that dog. His name was Jerry +and he had aided Dirty Dan in more than one bar-room battle.</p> + +<p>Jerry, like his master, like the master of the woman he protected, was +a Devil-dog, and one simply cannot kill a soldier's dog for doing a +soldier's duty. Should Jerry charge there would be no stopping him +until he was killed, so The Laird saw very clearly that there was but +one course open to him. If he marched through that gate and straight +to the door, as if he meant business, as if he had a moral and legal +right to be there on business, Jerry would understand and permit him +to pass. But if he snooped in, like a thief in the night, and peered +in at a window—</p> + +<p>"I wish I had a suit of Fifteenth Century armour," he thought. "Then +Jerry, you could chew on my leg and be damned to you. You're a silent +dog and I could have a good look while you were wrecking your teeth."</p> + +<p>He went back to the Sawdust Pile at dusk the next evening, hoping +Jerry would be absent upon some unlawful private business, but when he +approached the gate slowly and noiselessly Jerry spoke up softly from +within and practically said: "Get out or take the consequences."</p> + +<p>The following night, however, The Laird was prepared for Jerry. He did +not halt at the dog's preliminary warning but advanced and rattled the +gate a little. Immediately Jerry came to the gate and stood just +inside growling in his throat, so The Laird thrust an atomizer through +the palings and deluged Jerry's hairy countenance with a fine cloud of +spirits of ammonia. He had once tried that trick on a savage bulldog +in which he desired to inculcate some respect for his person, and had +succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Therefore, since +desperate circumstances always require desperate measures, the memory +of that ancient victory had moved him to attempt a similar +embarrassment of the dog Jerry.</p> + +<p>But Jerry was a devil-dog. He had been raised and trained by Dirty Dan +O'Leary and in company with that interesting anthropoid he had been +through many stormy passages. Long before, he had learned that the +offensive frequently wins—the defensive never. It is probable that he +wept as he sniffed the awful stuff, but if he did they were tears of +rage.</p> + +<p>Jerry's first move was to stand on his head and cover his face with +his paws. Then he did several back flips and wailed aloud in his +misery and woe, his yelps of distress quite filling the empyrean. But +only for the space of a few seconds. Recovering his customary aplomb +he made a flying leap for the top of the gate, his yelps now succeeded +by ambitious growls—and in self-defense The Laird was forced to spray +him again as he clung momentarily on top of the palings. With a sob +Jerry dropped back and buried his nose in the dust, while The Laird +beat a hurried retreat into the darkness, for he had lost all +confidence in his efforts to inculcate in Jerry an humble and contrite +spirit.</p> + +<p>He could hear rapid footsteps inside the little house; then the door +opened and in the light that streamed from within he was indistinctly +visible to Nan as she stood in the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Jerry!" he heard her call. "Good dog! What's the matter? After him, +Jerry. Go get him, Jerry!" She ran to the gate and opened it for the +dog, who darted through, but paused again to run his afflicted nose in +the dust and roll a couple of times. Apparently he felt that there was +no great hurry; his quarry could not escape him. It is probable, also, +that he was more or less confused and not quite certain which +direction the enemy had taken, for Jerry's sense of smell was +temporarily suspended and his eyes blinded by tears; certain his +language was not at all what it should have been.</p> + +<p>The Laird ran blindly, apprehensively, but for a very short distance. +Suddenly he bumped into something quite solid, which closed around him +viciously. "Halt, damn you," a commanding voice cried.</p> + +<p>Despite his years, Hector McKaye was no weakling, and in the knowledge +that he could not afford to be captured and discovered, seemingly he +slipped forty years from his shoulders. Once more he was a lumberjack, +the top dog of his district—and he proceeded to fight like one. His +old arms rained punches on the midriff of the man who held him and he +knew they stung cruelly, for at every punch the man grunted and strove +to clinch him tighter and smother the next blow. "Let go me or I'll +kill you," The Laird panted. "Man dinna drive me to it." He ceased his +rain of blows, grasped his adversary and tried to wrestle him down. He +succeeded, but the man would not stay down. He wriggled out with +amazing ease and had old Hector with his shoulders touching before The +Laird's heaving chest and two terrible thumbs closed down on each of +The Laird's eyes, with four powerful fingers clasping his face like +talons. "Quit, or I'll squeeze your eyeballs out," a voice warned him.</p> + +<p>The Laird's hand beat the ground beside him. He had surrendered to a +master of his style of fighting. With something of the air of an +expert, his conqueror ran a quick hand over him, seeking for weapons, +and finding none, he grasped The Laird by the collar and jerked him to +his feet. "Now, then, my hearty, I'll have a look at you," he said. +"You'll explain why you're skulking around here and abusing that dog!"</p> + +<p>The Laird quivered as he found himself being dragged toward the stream +of light, in the center of which Nan Brent stood silhouetted. He could +not afford this and he was not yet defeated.</p> + +<p>"A thousand dollars if you let me go now," he panted. "I have the +money in my pocket. Ask yon lass if I've done aught wrong."</p> + +<p>His captor paused and seemed to consider this. "Make it ten thousand +and I'll consider it," he whispered. "Leave it on the mail box just +outside the Tyee Lumber Company's office at midnight to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>"I'll do it—so help me God," The Laird promised frantically.</p> + +<p>His son's voice spoke in his ear. "Dad! You low-down, worthless +lovable old fraud!"</p> + +<p>"My son! My son!" Old Hector's glad cry ended in a sob. "Oh, my sonny +boy, my bonny lad! I canna stand it. I canna! Forgie me, lad, forgie +me—and ask her to forgie me!" His old arms were around his son's neck +and he was crying on Donald's shoulder, unashamed. "I was trying for a +look at the bairn," he cried brokenly, "and 'twas a privilege God +would nae gie me seeing that I came like a sneak and not like an +honest man. The damned dog—he knew! Och, Donald, say ye forgie ye're +auld faither. Say it, lad. Ma heart's breakin'."</p> + +<p>"Why, bless your bare-shanked old Scotch soul, of course I forgive +you. I never held any grudge, you know. I simply stood pat until you +could see things through my eyes."</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Donald?" Nan called.</p> + +<p>"Aye, aye, sweetheart. Dad's here. He wants to know if you regard him +as a particularly terrible old man. I think he's afraid you will +refuse to let him look at Laird Hector, Thirteenth."</p> + +<p>"Man, man," the old man urged, quite shocked at this casual greeting +of a returned hero to his wife, "go to her, lad. She'll not relish +favoritism."</p> + +<p>"Oh, this isn't our first meeting, Dad. I got home yesterday. I have +thirty days leave. They sent me home as an instructor in small arms +practice and gave me a boost in rank. I was just up town for a +beefsteak and I've lost the beefsteak battling with you."</p> + +<p>The Laird wiped his eyes and got control of himself. Presently he +said: "Keep that blessed dog off me," and started resolutely for the +front gate. Without a moment's hesitation he folded Nan in his arms +and kissed her. "Poor bairn," he whispered. "I've been cruel to you. +Forgie me, daughter, if so be you can find it in your heart to be that +generous. God knows, lass, I'll try to be worthy of you."</p> + +<p>"Am I worthy of him?" she whispered, womanlike.</p> + +<p>"Far more than his father is," he admitted humbly. "Damn the world and +damn the people in it. You're a good girl, Nan. You always were a good +girl—"</p> + +<p>"But suppose she wasn't—always?" Donald queried gently. "Is that +going to make any difference—to you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't care what she was before you married her. I haven't thought +about that for a long time the way I used to think about it. I built +The Dreamerie for you and the girl you'd marry and I—I accept her +unconditionally, my son, and thank God she has the charity to accept +an old Pharisee like me for a father-in-law."</p> + +<p>Donald slipped his arm around Nan's waist, and started with her toward +the door. "Tag along, father," he suggested, "and Nan will show you a +prize grandson."</p> + +<p>At the door, Nan paused. "Do you think, father McKaye," she queried, +"that the remainder of the family will think as you do?"</p> + +<p>"I fear not," he replied sadly. "But then, you haven't married the +family. They'll accept you or keep out of Port Agnew; at any rate +they'll never bother you, my dear. I think," he added grimly, "that I +may find a way to make them treat you with civility at least."</p> + +<p>"He's a pretty good old sport after all, isn't he, Nan?" her husband +suggested.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell the world he is," she answered archly, employing the A.E.F. +slang she had already learned from Donald. She linked her arm in old +Hector's and steered him down the hall to the living-room. "Your +grandson is in there," she said, and opening the door she gently +propelled him into the room.</p> + + + +<hr style='width: 65%;' /> +<a name='XXXXVII'></a><h2>XLVII</h2> +<br /> + +<p>Nan was right. His grandson was there, but strange to relate he was +seated, as naked as Venus (save for a diaper) on his grandmother's +lap.</p> + +<p>Hector McKaye paused and glared at his wife.</p> + +<p>"Damn it, Nellie," he roared, "what the devil do you mean by this?"</p> + +<p>"I'm tired of being an old fool, Hector," she replied meekly, and held +the baby up for his inspection.</p> + +<p>"It's time you were," he growled. "Come here, you young rascal till I +heft you. By the gods of war, he's a McKaye!" He hugged the squirming +youngster to his heart and continued to glare at his wife as if she +were a hardened criminal. "Why didn't you tell me you felt yourself +slipping?" he demanded. "Out with it, Nellie."</p> + +<p>"There will be no post-mortems," Nan interdicted. "Mother McKaye and +Elizabeth and Jane and I patched up our difficulties when Donald came +home yesterday. How we did it or what transpired before we did it, +doesn't matter, you dear old snooper."</p> + +<p>"What? Elizabeth and Jane? Unconditional surrender?"</p> + +<p>She nodded smilingly and The Laird admitted his entire willingness to +be—jiggered. Finally, having inspected his grandson, he turned for an +equally minute inspection of his soldier son under the lamplight.</p> + +<p>"Three service stripes and one wound stripe," he murmured. "And +you're not crippled, boy dear?"</p> + +<p>"Do I fight like one? Hector, man, those punches of yours would have +destroyed a battalion of cripples. Oh, you old false-alarm! Honestly, +Dad, you're the most awful dub imaginable. And trying to bribe me into +permitting you to escape—what the deuce have you been monkeying with? +You reek of ammonia—here, go away from my son. You're poison."</p> + +<p>The Laird ignored him. "What's that ribbon?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"Distinguished Service Cross."</p> + +<p>"You must have bought it in a pawnshop. And that thing?"</p> + +<p>"Croix de Guerre."</p> + +<p>"And that red one?"</p> + +<p>"Legion d'Honneur."</p> + +<p>A pause. "What did Dirty Dan get, son?"</p> + +<p>"The one thing in the world he thought he despised. The Congressional +Medal of Honor for valor in saving the life of a British colonel, who, +by the way, happens to be an Orangeman. When he discovered it he +wanted to bayonet the colonel and I won the Croix de Guerre for +stopping him."</p> + +<p>"Oh, cease your nonsense, Donald," his wife urged, "and tell your +father and mother something. I think they are entitled to the news +now."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Nan, I think they are. Listen, folks. Now that you've all been +nice enough to be human beings and accept my wife at her face value, I +have a surprise for you. On the day when Nan married the father of my +adopted son, he waited until the officiating minister had signed the +marriage license and attested that he had performed the ceremony; then +while the minister's attention was on something else, he took +possession of the license and put it in his overcoat pocket. Later he +and Nan drove to a restaurant for luncheon and the overcoat with the +license in the pocket was stolen, from the automobile. The thief +pawned the coat later and the pawnbroker discovered the license in the +pocket after the thief had departed. The following day the fellow was +arrested in the act of stealing another overcoat; the pawnbroker read +of the arrest and remembered he had loaned five dollars on an overcoat +to a man who gave the same name this thief gave to the police. So the +pawnbroker—"</p> + +<p>"I am not interested, my son. I require no proofs."</p> + +<p>"Thank you for that, father. But you're entitled to them and you're +going to get them. The pawnbroker found on the inside lining of the +inner breast pocket of the overcoat the tag which all tailors sew +there when, they make the garment. This tag bore the name of the owner +of the overcoat, his address and the date of delivery of the +overcoat."</p> + +<p>"Now, the pawnbroker noticed that the man who owned the overcoat was +not the person named in the marriage license. Also he noticed that the +marriage license was attested by a minister but that it had not been +recorded by the state board of health, as required by law—and the +pawnbroker was aware that marriage licenses are not permitted, by law, +to come into the possession of the contracting parties until the fact +that they have been legally married has been duly recorded on the +evidence of the marriage—which is, of course, the marriage license."</p> + +<p>"Why didn't the idiot send the license back to the minister who had +performed the ceremony?" The Laird demanded. "Then this tangle would +never have occurred."</p> + +<p>"He says he thought of that, but he was suspicious. It was barely +possible that the officiating clergyman had connived at the theft of +the license from his desk, so the pawnbroker, who doubtless possesses +the instincts of an amateur detective, resolved to get the license +into the hands of Nan Brent direct. Before doing so, however, he wrote +to the man named in the license and sent his letter to the address +therein given. In the course of time that letter was returned by the +post-office department with the notation that the location of the +addressee was unknown. The pawnbroker then wrote to the man whose name +appeared on the tailor's tag in the overcoat, and promptly received a +reply. Yes, an overcoat had been stolen from his automobile on a +certain date. He described the overcoat and stated that the marriage +license of a friend of his might be found in the breast pocket, +provided the thief had not removed it. If the license was there he +would thank the pawnbroker to forward it to him. He enclosed a check +to redeem the overcoat and pay the cost of forwarding it to him by +parcel post, insured. The pawnbroker had that check photographed +before cashing it and he forwarded the overcoat but retained the +marriage license, for he was more than ever convinced that things were +not as they should have been.</p> + +<p>"His next move was to write Miss Nan Brent, at Port Agnew, Washington, +informing her of the circumstances and advising her that he had her +marriage certificate. This letter reached Port Agnew at the time Nan +was living in San Francisco, and her father received it. He merely +scratched out Port Agnew, Washington, and substituted for that +address: 'Care of—— using Nan's married name, Altamont Apartments, +San Francisco.'</p> + +<p>"By the time that letter reached San Francisco Nan had left that +address, but since she planned a brief absence only, she left no +forwarding address for her mail. That was the time she came north to +visit her father and in Seattle she discovered that her supposed +husband was already married. I have told you, father, and you have +doubtless told mother, Nan's reasons for refusing to disclose this +man's identity at that time.</p> + +<p>"Of course Nan did not return to San Francisco, but evidently her +husband did and at their apartment he found this letter addressed to +Nan. He opened it, and immediately set out for San José to call upon +the pawnbroker and gain possession of the marriage license. Unknown to +him, however, his lines were all tangled and the pawnbroker told him +frankly he was a fraud and declined to give him the license. Finally +the pawnbroker tried a bluff and declared that if the man did not get +out of his place of business he would have him arrested as a +bigamist—and the fellow fled.</p> + +<p>"A month or two later the pawnbroker was in San Francisco so he called +at the Altamont Apartments to deliver the license in person, only to +discover that the person he sought had departed and that her address +was unknown. So he wrote Nan again, using her married name and +addressed her at Port Agnew, Washington. You will remember, of course, +that at this time Nan's marriage was not known to Port Agnew, she had +kept it secret. Naturally the postmaster here did not know anybody by +that name, and in due course, when the letter remained unclaimed he +did not bother to advertise it but returned it to the sender."</p> + +<p>"It doesn't seem possible," Mrs. McKaye declared, quite pop-eyed with +excitement.</p> + +<p>"It was possible enough," her son continued drily. "Well, the +bewildered pawnbroker thrust the license away in his desk, and awaited +the next move of the man in the case. But he never moved, and after a +while the pawnbroker forgot he had the license. And the minister was +dead. One day, in cleaning out his desk he came across the accumulated +papers in the case and it occurred to him to write the state board of +health and explain the situation. Promptly he received a letter from +the board informing him that inquiries had been made at the board of +health office for a certified copy of the license, by Miss Nan Brent, +of Port Agnew, Washington, and that the board had been unable to +furnish such a certified copy. Immediately our obliging and +intelligent pawnbroker, whose name, by the way, is Abraham Goldman, +bundled up the marriage license, together with the carbon copy of the +pawn ticket he had given the thief; a press clipping from the San José +<i>Mercury</i> recounting the story of the capture of the thief; carbon +copies of all his correspondence in the case, the original of all +letters received, the photograph of the check—everything, in fact, to +prove a most conclusive case through the medium of a well-ordered and +amazing chain of optical and circumstantial evidence. This evidence he +sent to Miss Brent, Port Agnew, Washington, and she received it about +a week before I married her. Consequently, she was in position to +prove to the most captious critic that she was a woman of undoubted +virtue, the innocent victim of a scoundrel who had inveigled her into +a bigamous marriage. Of course, in view of the fact that the man she +went through a legal marriage ceremony with already had a wife living, +Nan's marriage to him was illegal—how do you express it? Ipso facto +or per se? In the eyes of the law she had never been married; the man +in the case was legally debarred from contracting another marriage. +The worst that could possibly be said of Nan was that she played in +mighty hard luck."</p> + +<p>"In the name of heaven, why did you not tell me this the day you +married her?" The Laird demanded wrathfully.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know it the day I married her. She was curious enough to +want to see how game I was. She wanted to be certain I truly loved +her, I think—and in view of her former experience I do not blame her +for it. It pleased you a whole lot, didn't it, honey?" he added, +turning to Nan, "when I married you on faith?"</p> + +<p>"But why didn't you tell us after you had discovered it, Donald?" Mrs. +McKaye interrupted. "That was not kind of you, my son."</p> + +<p>"Well," he answered soberly, "in the case of you and the girls I +didn't think you deserved it. I kept hoping you and the girls would +confess to Dad that you telephoned Nan to come back to Port Agnew that +time I was sick with typhoid—"</p> + +<p>"Eh? What's that?" The Laird sat up bristling.</p> + +<p>Mrs. McKaye flushed scarlet and seemed on the verge of tears. Donald +went to her and took her in his arms. "Awfully sorry to have to peach +on you, old dear," he continued. "Do not think Nan told on you, +Mother. She didn't. I figured it all out by myself. However, as I +started to remark, I expected you would confess and that your +confession would start a family riot, in the midst of it I knew +father would rise up and declare himself. I give you my word, Dad, +that for two weeks before I went to work up at Darrow I watched and +waited all day long for you to come down here and tell Nan it was a +bet and that we'd play it as it lay."</p> + +<p>Old Hector gritted his teeth and waged his head sorrowfully. "Nellie," +he warned his trembling wife, "this is what comes of a lack of +confidence between man and wife."</p> + +<p>She flared up at that. "Hush, you hypocrite. At least I haven't +snooped around here trying to poison dogs and kill people when I was +discovered playing Peeping Tom. A pretty figure you've cut throughout +this entire affair. Didn't I beg you not to be hard on our poor boy?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you had better lay low, Father," Donald warned him. "You've been +married long enough to know that if you start anything with a woman +she'll put it all over you. We will, therefore, forget Mother's error +and concentrate on you. Remember the night I dragged you ashore at +Darrow's log boom? Well, permit me to tell you that you're a pretty +heavy tow and long before my feet struck bottom I figured on two +Widows McKaye. If I'd had to swim twenty feet further I would have +lost out. Really, I thought you'd come through after that."</p> + +<p>"I would if you'd waited a bit," old Hector protested miserably. "You +ought to know I never do things in a hurry."</p> + +<p>"Well, I do, Dad, but all the same I grew weary waiting for you. Then +I made up my mind I'd never tell you about Nan until you and Mother +and the girls had completely reversed yourselves and taken Nan for +the woman she is and not the woman you once thought she was."</p> + +<p>"Well, you've won, haven't you?" The Laird's voice was very husky.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I have; and it's a sweet victory, I assure you."</p> + +<p>"Then shut up. Shut up, I tell you."</p> + +<p>"All right! I'm through—forever."</p> + +<p>The Laird bent his beetling brows upon Nan. "And you?" he demanded. +"Have you finished?"</p> + +<p>She came to him and laid her soft cheek against his. "You funny old +man," she whispered. "Did you ever hear that I had begun?"</p> + +<p>"Well, nae, I have not—now that you mention it. And, by the way, my +dear! Referring to my grandson's half-brother?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"I understand he's a McKaye."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Donald has legally adopted him."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, I'll accept him as an adopted grandson, my dear. I think +there'll be money enough for everybody. But about this scalawag of a +man that fathered him. I'll have to know who he is. We have a suit of +zebra clothing waiting for him, my dear."</p> + +<p>"No, you haven't, Father McKaye. My boy's father is never going to be +a convict. That man has other children, too."</p> + +<p>"I'm going to have a glass frame made and in it I'm going to arrange +photographic reproductions of all the documents in Nan's case," Donald +stated. "The history of the case will all be there, then, with the +exception, of course, of the name of the man. In deference to Nan's +desires I will omit that. Then I'll have that case screwed into the +wall of the post-office lobby where all Port Agnew can see and +understand—"</p> + +<p>"Nellie," The Laird interrupted, "please stop fiddling with that baby +and dress him. Daughter, get my other grandson ready, and you, Donald, +run over to the mill office. My car is standing there. Bring it here +and we'll all go home to The Dreamerie—yes, and tell Daney to come up +and help me empty a bottle to—to—to my additional family. He'll +bring his wife, of course, but then we must endure the bitter with the +sweet. Good old file, Daney. None better."</p> + +<p>Donald put on his cap and departed. As the front gate closed behind +him Hector McKaye sprang up and hurried out of the house after him. +"Hey, there, son," he called into the darkness, "What was that you +said about a glass case?"</p> + +<p>Donald returned and repeated the statement of his plan.</p> + +<p>"And you're going to the trouble of explaining to this sorry world," +the old man cried sharply. "Man, the longest day she lives there'll be +brutes that will say 'twas old man McKaye's money that framed an alibi +for her.' Son, no man or woman was ever so pure that some hypocrite +didn't tread 'em under foot like dust and regard them as such. Lad, +your wife will always be dust to some folks, but—we're kindred to +her—so what do we care? We understand. Do not explain to the damned +Pharisees. They wouldn't understand. Hang that thing in the +post-office lobby and some superior person will quote Shakespeare, and +say: 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much.'"</p> + +<p>"Then you would advise me to tell the world to go to—"</p> + +<p>"Exactly, sonny, exactly."</p><br /><br /> + +<hr class="full" noshade> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINDRED OF THE DUST***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 13532-h.txt or 13532-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/5/3/13532">https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/5/3/13532</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Kyne + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Kindred of the Dust + +Author: Peter B. Kyne + +Release Date: September 26, 2004 [eBook #13532] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINDRED OF THE DUST*** + + +E-text prepared by Stephen Schulze and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +KINDRED OF THE DUST + +by + +PETER B. KYNE + +Author of _Cappy Ricks_, _The Valley of the Giants_, _Webster--Man's +Man_, etc. + +Illustrated by Dean Cornwell + +1920 + + + + + + + +TO IRENE + +MY DEAR, TYRANNICAL, PRACTICAL LITTLE FOSTER-SISTER + +WITHOUT WHOSE AID AND COMFORT, HOOTS, CHEERS AND UNAUTHORIZED STRIKES, +THE QUANTITY AND QUALITY OF MY ALLEGED LITERARY OUTPUT WOULD BE +APPRECIABLY DIMINISHED, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY + +DEDICATED + + + + +THE ILLUSTRATIONS + +Hector McKaye was bred of an acquisitive race + +She stole to the old square piano and sang for him + +Donald bowed his head, "I can't give her up, father" + +"I'm a man without a home and you've just _got_ to take me in, Nan" + + + + + + +I + + +In the living-room of The Dreamerie, his home on Tyee Head, Hector +McKaye, owner of the Tyee Lumber Company and familiarly known as "The +Laird," was wont to sit in his hours of leisure, smoking and building +castles in Spain--for his son Donald. Here he planned the acquisition +of more timber and the installation of an electric-light plant to +furnish light, heat, and power to his own town of Port Agnew; ever and +anon he would gaze through the plate-glass windows out to sea and +watch for his ships to come home. Whenever The Laird put his dreams +behind him, he always looked seaward. In the course of time, his +home-bound skippers, sighting the white house on the headland and +knowing that The Laird was apt to be up there watching, formed the +habit of doing something that pleased their owner mightily. When the +northwest trades held steady and true, and while the tide was still at +the flood, they would scorn the services of the tug that went out to +meet them and come ramping into the bight, all their white sails set +and the glory of the sun upon them; as they swept past, far below The +Laird, they would dip his house-flag--a burgee, scarlet-edged, with a +fir tree embroidered in green on a field of white--the symbol to the +world that here was a McKaye ship. And when the house-flag fluttered +half-way to the deck and climbed again to the masthead, the soul of +Hector McKaye would thrill. + +"Guid lads! My bonny brave lads!" he would murmur aloud, with just a +touch of his parents' accent, and press a button which discharged an +ancient brass cannon mounted at the edge of the cliff. Whenever he saw +one of his ships in the offing--and he could identify his ships as far +as he could see them--he ordered the gardener to load this cannon. + +Presently the masters began to dip the house-flag when outward bound, +and discovered that, whether The Laird sat at his desk in the mill +office or watched from the cliff, they drew an answering salute. + +This was their hail and farewell. + +One morning, the barkentine Hathor, towing out for Delagoa Bay, dipped +her house-flag, and the watch at their stations bent their gaze upon +the house on the cliff. Long they waited but no answering salute +greeted the acknowledgment of their affectionate and willing service. + +The mate's glance met the master's. + +"The old laird must be unwell, sir," he opined. + +But the master shook his head. + +"He was to have had dinner aboard with us last night, but early in the +afternoon he sent over word that he'd like to be excused. He's sick at +heart, poor man! Daney tells me he's heard the town gossip about young +Donald." + +"The lad's a gentleman, sir," the mate defended. "He'll not disgrace +his people." + +"He's young--and youth must be served. Man, I was young myself +once--and Nan of the Sawdust Pile is not a woman a young man would +look at once and go his way." + + * * * * * + +In the southwestern corner of the state of Washington, nestled in the +Bight of Tyee and straddling the Skookum River, lies the little +sawmill town of Port Agnew. It is a community somewhat difficult to +locate, for the Bight of Tyee is not of sufficient importance as a +harbor to have won consideration by the cartographers of the Coast and +Geodetic Survey, and Port Agnew is not quite forty years old. +Consequently, it appears only on the very latest state maps and in the +smallest possible type. + +When Hector McKaye first gazed upon the bight, the transcontinental +lines had not yet begun to consider the thrusting of their tentacles +into southwestern Washington, and, with the exception of those regions +where good harbors had partially solved the problem of transportation, +timber in Washington was very cheap. Consequently, since Hector McKaye +was one of those hardy men who never hesitate to take that which no +man denies them, he reached forth and acquired timber. + +A strip of land a quarter of a mile wide and fronting the beach was +barren of commercial timber. As grazing-land, Hector McKaye was +enabled to file on a full section of this, and, with its acquisition, +he owned the key to the outlet. While "proving up" his claim, he +operated a general store for trading with the Indians and trappers, +and at this he prospered. From time to time he purchased timber-claims +from the trappers as fast as they "proved up," paying for these +stumpage-prices varying from twenty-five to fifty cents per thousand. + +On his frequent trips to the outer world, McKaye extolled the +opportunities for acquiring good timber-claims down on the Skookum; he +advertised them in letters and in discreet interviews with the editors +of little newspapers in the sawmill towns on Puget Sound and Grays +Harhor; he let it be known that an honest fellow could secure credit +for a winter's provisions from him, and pay for it with pelts in the +spring. + +The influx of homesteaders increased--single men, for the most part, +and poor--men who labored six months of the year elsewhere and lived +the remaining six months in rude log huts on their claims down on the +Skookum. And when the requirements of the homestead laws had been +complied with and a patent to their quarter-section obtained from the +Land Office in Washington, the homesteaders were ready to sell and +move on to other and greener pastures. So they sold to the only +possible purchaser, Hector McKaye, and departed, quite satisfied with +a profit which they flattered themselves had been the result of their +own prudence and foresight. + +Thus, in the course of ten years, Hector McKaye' acquired ten thousand +acres of splendid Douglas fir and white cedar. But he had not been +successful in acquiring claims along the south bank of the Skookum. +For some mysterious reason, he soon found claims on the north bank +cheaper and easier to secure, albeit the timber showed no variance in +quantity or quality. Discreet investigations brought to light the fact +that he had a competitor--one Martin Darrow, who dwelt in St. Paul, +Minnesota. To St. Paul, therefore, journeyed Hector McKaye, and +sought an audience with Martin Darrow. + +"I'm McKaye, from the Skookum River, Washington," he announced, +without preamble. + +"I've been expecting you, Mr. McKaye," Darrow replied. "Got a +proposition to submit?" + +"Naturally, or I wouldn't have come to St. Paul. I notice you have a +weakness for the timber on the south bank of the Skookum. You've +opposed me there half a dozen times and won. I have also observed that +I have a free hand with claims north of the river. That's fair--and +there's timber enough for two. Hereafter, I'll keep to my own side of +the river." + +"I see we're going to come to an understanding, Mr. McKaye. What will +you give me to stick to my side of the river?" + +"An outlet through the bight for your product when you commence +manufacturing. I control the lower half-mile of the river and the only +available mill-sites. I'll give you a mill-site if you'll pay half the +expense of digging a new channel for the Skookum, and changing its +course so it will emerge into the still, deep water under the lee of +Tyee Head." + +"We'll do business," said Martin Darrow--and they did, although it was +many years after Hector McKaye had incorporated the Tyee Lumber +Company and founded his town of Port Agnew before Darrow began +operations. + +True to his promise, McKaye deeded him a mill-and town-site, and he +founded a settlement on the eastern edge of Port Agnew, but quite +distinct from it, and called it Darrow, after himself. It was not a +community that Hector McKaye approved of, for it was squalid and +unsanitary, and its untidy, unpainted shacks of rough lumber harbored +southern European labor, of which Hector McKaye would have none. In +Darrow, also, there were three groggeries and a gambling-house, with +the usual concomitant of women whose profession is the oldest and the +saddest in the world. + +Following his discovery of the Bight of Tyee, a quarter of a century +passed. A man may prosper much in twenty-five years, and Hector +McKaye, albeit American born, was bred of an acquisitive race. When +his Gethsemane came upon him, he was rated the richest lumberman in +the state of Washington; his twenty-thousand board-feet capacity per +day sawmill had grown to five hundred thousand, his ten thousand acres +to a hundred thousand. Two thousand persons looked to him and his +enterprise for their bread and butter; he owned a fleet of half a +dozen steam-schooners and sixteen big wind-jammers; he owned a town +which he had called Port Agnew, and he had married and been blessed +with children. And because his ambition no longer demanded it, he was +no longer a miser. + +[Illustration: HECTOR MCKAYE WAS BRED OF AN ACQUISITIVE RACE.] + +In a word, he was a happy man, and in affectionate pride and as a +tribute to his might, his name and an occasional forget-me-not of +speech which clung to his tongue, heritage of his Scotch forebears, +his people called him "The Laird of Tyee." Singularly enough, his +character fitted this cognomen rather well. Reserved, proud, +independent, and sensitive, thinking straight and talking straight, a +man of brusque yet tender sentiment which was wont to manifest itself +unexpectedly, it had been said of him that in a company of a hundred +of his mental, physical, and financial peers, he would have stood +forth preeminently and distinctively, like a lone tree on a hill. + +Although The Laird loved his town of Port Agnew, because he had +created it, he had not, nevertheless, resided in it for some years +prior to the period at which this chronicle begins. At the very apex +of the headland that shelters the Bight of Tyee, in a cuplike +depression several acres in extent, on the northern side and ideally +situated two hundred feet below the crest, thus permitting the howling +southeasters to blow over it, Hector McKaye, in the fulness of time, +had built for himself a not very large two-story house of white stone +native to the locality. This house, in the center of beautiful and +well-kept grounds, was designed in the shape of a letter T, with the +combination living-room and library forming the entire leg of the T +and enclosed on all three sides by heavy plate-glass French windows. + +Thus, The Laird was enabled to command a view of the bight, with Port +Agnew nestled far below; of the silver strip that is the Skookum River +flowing down to the sea through the logged-over lands, now +checker-boarded into little green farms; of the rolling back country +with its dark-green mantle of fir and white cedar, fading in the +distance to dark blue and black; of the yellow sandstone bluffs of the +coast-line to the north, and the turquoise of the Pacific out to the +horizon. + +This room Hector McKaye enjoyed best of all things in life, with the +exception of his family; of his family, his son Donald was nearest and +dearest to him. This boy he loved with a fierce and hungry love, +intensified, doubtless, because to the young Laird of Tyee, McKaye +was still the greatest hero in the world. To his wife, The Laird was +no longer a hero, although in the old days of the upward climb, when +he had fiercely claimed her and supported her by the sweat of his +brow, he had been something akin to a god. As for Elizabeth and Jane, +his daughters, it must be recorded that both these young women had +long since ceased to regard their father as anything except an +unfailing source of revenue--an old dear who clung to Port Agnew, +homely speech, and homely ways, hooting good-naturedly at the +pretensions of their set, and, with characteristic Gaelic +stubbornness, insisting upon living and enjoying the kind of life that +appealed to him with peculiar force as the only kind worth living. + +Indeed, in more than one humble home in Port Agnew, it had been said +that the two McKaye girls were secretly ashamed of their father. This +because frequently, in a light and debonair manner, Elizabeth and Jane +apologized for their father and exhibited toward him an indulgent +attitude, as is frequently the case with overeducated and +supercultured young ladies who cannot recall a time when their +slightest wish has not been gratified and cannot forget that the good +fairy who gratified it once worked hard with his hands, spoke the +language and acquired the habits of his comrades in the battle for +existence. + +Of course, Elizabeth and Jane would have resented this analysis of +their mental attitude toward their father. Be that as it may, however, +the fact remained that both girls were perfunctory in their +expressions of affection for their father, but wildly extravagant in +them where their mother was concerned. Hector McKaye liked it so. He +was a man who never thought about himself, and he had discovered that +if he gave his wife and daughters everything they desired, he was not +apt to be nagged. + +Only on one occasion had Hector McKaye declared himself master in his +own house, and, at the risk of appearing paradoxical, this was before +the house had been built. One day, while they still occupied their +first home (in Port Agnew), a house with a mansard roof, two towers, +jig-saw and scroll-work galore, and the usual cast-iron mastiffs and +deer on the front lawn, The Laird had come gleefully home from a trip +to Seattle and proudly exhibited the plans for a new house. + +Ensued examination and discussion by his wife and the young ladies. +Alas! The Laird's dream of a home did not correspond with that of his +wife, although, as a matter of fact, the lady had no ideas on the +subject beyond an insistence that the house should be "worthy of their +station," and erected in a fashionable suburb of Seattle. Elizabeth +and Jane aided and abetted her in clamoring for a Seattle home, +although both were quick to note the advantages of a picturesque +country home on the cliffs above the bight. They urged their father to +build his house, but condemned his plans. They desired a house some +three times larger than the blue-prints called for. + +Hector McKaye said nothing. The women chattered and argued among +themselves until, Elizabeth and Jane having vanquished their mother, +all three moved briskly to the attack upon The Laird. When they had +talked themselves out and awaited a reply, he gave it with the simple +directness of his nature. It was evident that he had given his answer +thought. + +"I can never live in Seattle until I retire, and I cannot retire +until Donald takes my place in the business. That means that Donald +must live here. Consequently, I shall spend half of my time with you +and the girls in Seattle, mother, and the other half with Donald here. +When we built our first home, you had your way--and I've lived in this +architectural horror ever since. This time, I'm going to have my own +way--and you've lived with me long enough to know that when I declare +for a will of my own, I'll not be denied. Well I realize you and the +girls have outgrown Port Agnew. There's naught here to interest you, +and I would not have woman o' mine unhappy. So plan your house in +Seattle, and I'll build it and spare no expense. As for this house on +the headland, you have no interest in it. Donald's approved the plans, +and him only will I defer to. 'Twill be his house some day--his and +his wife's, when he gets one. And there will be no more talk of it, my +dears. I'll not take it kindly of ye to interfere." + + + + +II + + +At a period in his upward climb to fortune, when as yet Hector McKaye +had not fulfilled his dream of a factory for the manufacture of his +waste and short-length stock into sash, door, blinds, moldings, and so +forth, he had been wont to use about fifty per cent. of this material +for fuel to maintain steam in the mill boilers, while the remainder +passed out over the waste-conveyor to the slab pile, where it was +burned. + +The sawdust, however, remained to be disposed of, and since it was not +possible to burn this in the slab fire for the reason that the wet +sawdust blanketed the flames and resulted in a profusion of smoke that +blew back upon the mill to the annoyance of the employees, for many +years The Laird had caused this accumulated sawdust to be hauled to +the edge of the bight on the north side of the town, and there dumped +in a low, marshy spot which formerly had bred millions of mosquitoes. + +Subsequently, in the process of grading the streets of Port Agnew and +excavating cellars, waste dirt had been dumped with the sawdust, and, +occasionally, when high winter tides swept over the spot, sand, small +stones, sea-shells, and kelp were added to the mixture. And as if this +were not sufficient, the citizens of Port Agnew contributed from time +to time old barrels and bottles, yard-sweepings, tin cans, and +superannuated stoves and kitchen utensils. + +Slowly this dump crept out on the beach, and in order to prevent the +continuous attrition of the surf upon the outer edge of it from +befouling the white-sand bathing-beach farther up the Bight of Tyee, +The Laird had driven a double row of fir piling parallel with and +beyond the line of breakers. This piling, driven as close together as +possible and reenforced with two-inch planking between, formed a +bulkhead with the flanks curving in to the beach, thus insuring +practically a water-tight pen some two acres in extent; and, with the +passage of years, this became about two-thirds filled with the waste +from the town. Had The Laird ever decided to lay claim to the Sawdust +Pile, there would have been none in Port Agnew to contest his title; +since he did not claim it, the Sawdust Pile became a sort of No Man's +Land. + +After The Laird erected his factory and began to salvage his waste, +the slab fire went out forever for lack of fuel, and the modicum of +waste from the mill and factory, together with the sawdust, was +utilized for fuel in an electric-light plant that furnished light, +heat, and power to the town. Consequently, sawdust no longer +mercifully covered the trash on the Sawdust Pile as fast as this trash +arrived, and, one day, Hector McKaye, observing this, decided that it +was an unsightly spot and not quite worthy of his town of Port Agnew. +So he constructed a barge somewhat upon the principle of a patent +dump-wagon, moored it to the river-bank, created a garbage monopoly in +Port Agnew, and sold it for five thousand dollars to a pair of +ambitious Italians. With the proceeds of this garbage deal, The Laird +built a very pretty little public library. + +Having organized his new garbage system (the garbage was to be towed +twenty miles to sea and there dumped), The Laird forbade further +dumping on the Sawdust Pile. When the necessity for more dredger-work +developed, in order to keep the deep channel of the Skookum from +filling, he had the pipes from the dredger run out to the Sawdust Pile +and covered the unsightly spot with six feet of rich river-silt up to +the level of the piling. + +"And now," said Hector McKaye to Andrew Daney, his general manager, +"when that settles, we'll run a light track out here and use the +Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard." + +The silt settled and dried, and almost immediately thereafter a +squatter took possession of the Sawdust Pile. Across the neck of the +little promontory, and in line with extreme high-water mark on each +side, he erected a driftwood fence; he had a canvas, driftwood, and +corrugated-iron shanty well under way when Hector McKaye appeared on +the scene and bade him a pleasant good-morning. + +The squatter turned from his labor and bent upon his visitor an +appraising glance. His scrutiny appearing to satisfy him as to the +identity of the latter, he straightened suddenly and touched his +forelock in a queer little salute that left one in doubt whether he +was a former member of the United States navy or the British +mercantile marine. He was a threadbare little man, possibly sixty +years old, with a russet, kindly countenance and mild blue eyes; apart +from his salute, there was about him an intangible hint of the sea. He +was being assisted in his labors by a ragamuffin girl of perhaps +thirteen years. + +"Thinking of settling in Port Agnew?" The Laird inquired. + +"Why, yes, sir. I thought this might make a good safe anchorage for +Nan and me. My name is Caleb Brent. You're Mr. McKaye, aren't you?" + +The Laird nodded. + +"I had an idea, when I filled this spot in and built that bulkhead, +Mr. Brent, that some day this would make a safe anchorage for some of +my lumber. I planned a drying-yard here. What's that you're building, +Brent? A hen-house?" + +Caleb Brent flushed. + +"Why, no, sir. I'm making shift to build a home here for Nan and me." + +"Is this little one Nan?" + +The ragamuffin girl, her head slightly to one side, had been regarding +Hector McKaye with alert curiosity mingled with furtive apprehension. +As he glanced at her now, she remembered her manners and dropped him a +courtesy--an electric, half-defiant jerk that reminded The Laird of a +similar greeting customarily extended by squinch-owls. + +Nan was not particularly clean, and her one-piece dress, of heavy blue +navy-uniform cloth was old and worn and spotted. Over this dress she +wore a boy's coarse red-worsted sweater with white-pearl buttons. The +skin of her thin neck was fine and creamy; the calves, of her bare +brown legs were shapely, her feet small, her ankles dainty. + +With the quick eye of the student of character, this man, proud of his +own ancient lineage for all his humble beginning, noted that her +hands, though brown and uncared-for, were small and dimpled, with +long, delicate fingers. She had sea-blue eyes like Caleb Brent's, +and, like his, they were sad and wistful; a frowsy wilderness of +golden hair, very fine and held in confinement at the nape of her neck +by the simple expedient of a piece of twine, showed all too plainly +the lack of a mother's care. + +The Laird returned Nan's courtesy with a patronizing inclination of +his head. + +"Your granddaughter, I presume?" he addressed Caleb Brent. + +"No; my daughter, sir. I was forty when I married, and Nan came ten +years later. She's thirteen now, and her mother's been dead ten +years." + +Hector McKaye had an idea that the departed mother was probably just +as well, if not better, off, free of the battle for existence which +appeared to confront this futile old man and his elf of a daughter. He +glanced at the embryo shack under construction and, comparing it with +his own beautiful home on Tyee Head, he turned toward the bight. A +short distance off the bulkhead, he observed a staunch forty-foot +motor-cruiser at anchor. She would have been the better for a coat of +paint; undeniably she was of a piece with Caleb Brent and Nan, for, +like them, The Laird had never seen her before. + +"Yours?" he queried. + +"Yes, sir." + +"You arrived in her, then?" + +"I did, sir. Nan and I came down from Bremerton in her, sir." + +The Laird owned many ships, and he noted the slurring of the "sir" as +only an old sailor can slur it. And there was a naval base at +Bremerton. + +"You're an old sailor, aren't you, Brent?" he pursued. + +"Yes, sir. I was retired a chief petty officer, sir. Thirty years' +continuous service, sir--and I was in the mercantile marine at +sixteen. I've served my time as a shipwright. Am--am I intruding here, +sir?" + +The Laird smiled, and followed the smile with a brief chuckle. + +"Well--yes and no. I haven't any title to this land you've elected to +occupy, although I created it. You see, I'm sort of lord of creation +around here. My people call me 'The Laird of Tyee,' and nobody but a +stranger would have had the courage to squat on the Sawdust Pile +without consulting me. What's your idea about it, Brent?" + +"I'll go if you want me to, sir." + +"I mean what's your idea if you stay? What do you expect to do for a +living?" + +"You will observe, sir, that I have fenced off only that portion of +the dump beyond high-water mark. That takes in about half of it--about +an acre and a half. Well, I thought I'd keep some chickens and raise +some garden truck. This silt will grow anything. And I have my launch, +and can do some towing, maybe, or take fishing parties out. I might +supply the town with fish. I understand you import your fish from +Seattle--and with the sea right here at your door." + +"I see. And you have your three-quarters pay as a retired chief petty +officer?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Anything in bank? I do not ask these personal questions, Brent, out +of mere idle curiosity. This is my town, you know, and there is no +poverty in it. I'm rather proud of that, so I--" + +"I understand, sir. That's why I came to Port Agnew. I saw your son +yesterday, and he said I could stay." + +"Oh! Well, that's all right, then. If Donald told you to stay, stay +you shall. Did he give you the Sawdust Pile?" + +"Yes, sir; he did!" + +"Well, I had other plans for it, Brent; but since you're here, I'll +offer no objection." + +Nan now piped up. + +"We haven't any money in bank, Mr. Laird, but we have some saved up." + +"Indeed! That's encouraging. Where do you keep it?" + +"In the brown teapot in the galley. We've got a hundred and ten +dollars." + +"Well, my little lady, I think you might do well to take your hundred +and ten dollars out of the brown teapot in the galley and deposit it +in the Port Agnew bank. Suppose that motor-cruiser should spring a +leak and sink?" + +Nan smiled and shook her golden head in negation. They had beaten +round Cape Flattery in that boat, and she had confidence in it. + +"Would you know my boy if you should see him again, Nan?" The Laird +demanded suddenly. + +"Oh, yes, indeed, sir! He's such a nice boy." + +"I think, Nan, that if you asked him, he might help your father build +this house." + +"I'll see him this afternoon when he comes out of high school," Nan +declared. + +"You might call on Andrew Daney, my general manager," The Laird +continued, turning to Caleb Brent, "and make a dicker with him for +hauling our garbage-scow out to sea and dumping it. I observe that +your motor-boat is fitted with towing-bitts. We dump twice a week. And +you may have a monopoly on fresh fish if you desire it. We have no +fishermen here, because I do not care for Greeks and Sicilians in Port +Agnew. And they're about the only fishermen on this coast." + +"Thank you, Mr. McKaye." + +"Mind you don't abuse your monopoly. If you do, I'll take it away from +you." + +"You are very kind, sir. And I can have the Sawdust Pile, sir?" + +"Yes; since Donald gave it to you. However, I wish you'd tear down +that patchwork fence and replace it with a decent job the instant you +can afford it." + +"Ah, just wait," old Brent promised. "I know how to make things neat +and pretty and keep them shipshape. You just keep your eye on the +Sawdust Pile, sir." The old wind-bitten face flushed with pride; the +faded sea-blue eyes shone with joyous anticipation. "I've observed +your pride in your town, sir, and before I get through, I'll have a +prettier place than the best of them." + +A few days later, The Laird looked across the Bight of Tyee from his +home on Tyee Head, and through his marine glasses studied the Sawdust +Pile. He chuckled as he observed that the ramshackle shanty had +disappeared almost as soon as it had been started and in its place a +small cottage was being erected. There was a pile of lumber in the +yard--bright lumber, fresh from the saws--and old Caleb Brent and the +motherless Nan were being assisted by two carpenters on the Tyee +Lumber Company's pay-roll. + +When Donald came home from school that night, The Laird asked him +about the inhabitants of the Sawdust Pile with relation to the lumber +and the two carpenters. + +"Oh, I made a trade with Mr. Brent and Nan. I'm to furnish the lumber +and furniture for the house, and those two carpenters weren't very +busy, so Mr. Daney told me I could have them to help out. In return, +Mr. Brent is going to build me a sloop and teach me how to sail it." + +The Laird nodded. + +"When his little home is completed, Donald," he suggested presently, +"you might take old Brent and his girl over to our old house in town +and let them have what furniture they require. See if you cannot +manage to saw off some of your mother's antiques on them," added +whimsically. "By the way, what kind of shanty is old Brent going to +build?" + +"A square house with five rooms and a cupola fitted up like a +pilot-house. There's to be a flagpole on the cupola, and Nan says +they'll have colors every night and morning. That means that you hoist +the flag in the morning and salute it, and when you haul it down at +night, you salute it again. They do that up at the Bremerton +navy-yard." + +"That's rather a nice, sentimental idea," Hector McKaye replied. "I +rather like old Brent and his girl for that. We Americans are too +prone to take our flag and what it stands for rather lightly." + +"Nan wants me to have colors up here, too," Donald continued. "Then +she can see our flag, and we can see theirs across the bight." + +"All right," The Laird answered heartily, for he was always profoundly +interested in anything that interested his boy. "I'll have the woods +boss get out a nice young cedar with, say, a twelve-inch butt, and +we'll make it into a flagpole." + +"If we're going to do the job navy-fashion, we ought to fire a sunrise +and sunset gun," Donald suggested with all the enthusiasm of his +sixteen years. + +"Well, I think we can afford that, too, Donald." + +Thus it came about that the little brass cannon was installed on its +concrete base on the cliff. And when the flagpole had been erected, +old Caleb Brent came up one day, built a little mound of smooth, +sea-washed cobblestones round the base, and whitewashed them. +Evidently he was a prideful little man, and liked to see things done +in a seamanlike manner. And presently it became a habit with The Laird +to watch night and morning, for the little pin-prick of color to +flutter forth from the house on the Sawdust Pile, and if his own +colors did not break forth on the instant and the little cannon boom +from the cliff, he was annoyed and demanded an explanation. + + + + +III + + +Hector McKaye and his close-mouthed general manager, Andrew Daney, +were the only persons who knew the extent of The Laird's fortune. Even +their knowledge was approximate, however, for The Laird disliked to +delude himself, and carried on his books at their cost-price +properties which had appreciated tremendously in value since their +purchase. The knowledge of his wealth brought to McKaye a goodly +measure of happiness--not because he was of Scottish ancestry and had +inherited a love for his baubees, but because he was descended from a +fierce, proud Scottish clan and wealth spelled independence to him and +his. + +The Laird would have filled his cup of happiness to overflowing had he +married a less mediocre woman or had he raised his daughters as he had +his son. The girls' upbringing had been left entirely in their +mother's hands. Not so with young Donald, however--wherefore it was a +byword in Port Agnew that Donald was his father's son, a veritable +chip of the old block. + +By some uncanny alchemy, hard cash appears to soften the heads and +relax the muscles of rich men's sons--at least, such had been old +Hector's observation, and on the instant that he first gazed upon the +face of his son, there had been born in him a mighty resolve that, +come what might, he would not have it said of him that he had made a +fool of his boy. And throughout the glad years of his fatherhood, with +the stern piety of his race and his faith, he had knelt night and +morning beside his bed and prayed his God to help him not to make a +fool of Donald--to keep Donald from making a fool of himself. + +When Donald entered Princeton, his father decided upon an experiment. +He had raised his boy right, and trained him for the race of life, and +now The Laird felt that, like a thoroughbred horse, his son faced the +barrier. Would he make the run, or would he, in the parlance of the +sporting world, "dog it?" Would his four years at a great American +university make of him a better man, or would he degenerate into a +snob and a drone? + +With characteristic courage, The Laird decided to give him ample +opportunity to become either, for, as old Hector remarked to Andrew +Daney: "If the lad's the McKaye I think he is, nothing can harm him. +On the other hand, if I'm mistaken, I want to know it in time, for my +money and my Port Agnew Lumber Company is a trust, and if he can't +handle it, I'll leave it to the men who can--who've helped me create +it--and Donald shall earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. Tools," +he added, "belong to the men that can use them." + +When Donald started East for college, old Hector accompanied him as +far as Seattle. On the way up, there was some man-talk between them. +In his youth, old Hector had not been an angel, which is to state that +he had been a lumberjack. He knew men and the passions that beset +them--particularly when they are young and lusty--and he was far from +being a prude. He expected his son to raise a certain amount of wild +oats; nay, he desired it, for full well he knew that when the fires +of youth are quenched, they are liable to flare disgracefully in +middle life or old age. + +"Never pig it, my son," was his final admonition. "Raise hell if you +must, but if you love your old father, be a gentleman about it. You've +sprung from a clan o' men, not mollycoddles." + +"Hence the expression: 'When Hector was a pup,'" Donald replied +laughingly. "Well, I'll do my best, father--only, if I stub my toe, +you mustn't be too hard on me. Remember, please, that I'm only half +Scotch." + +At parting, The Laird handed his son a check for twenty-five thousand +dollars. + +"This is the first year's allowance, Donald," he informed the boy +gravely. "It should not require more than a hundred thousand dollars +to educate a son of mine, and you must finish in four years. I would +not care to think you dull or lazy." + +"Do you wish an accounting, father?" + +The Laird shook his head. + +"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, my son. I'll read the +accounting in your eye when you come back to Port Agnew." + +"Oh!" said young Donald. + +At the end of four years, Donald graduated, an honor-man in all his +studies, and in the lobby of the gymnasium, where the athletic heroes +of Princeton leave their record to posterity, Hector McKaye read his +son's name, for, of course, he was there for commencement. Then they +spent a week together in New York, following which old Hector +announced that one week of New York was about all he could stand. The +tall timber was calling for him. + +"Hoot, mon!" Donald protested gaily. He was a perfect mimic of Sir +Harry Lauder at his broadest. "Y'eve nae had a bit holiday in all yer +life. Wha' spier ye, Hector McKaye, to a trip aroond the worl', wi' a +wee visit tae the auld clan in the Hielands?" + +"Will you come with me, son?" The Laird inquired eagerly. + +"Certainly not! You shall come with me. This is to be my party." + +"Can you stand the pressure? I'm liable to prove an expensive +traveling companion." + +"Well, there's something radically wrong with both of us if we can't +get by on two hundred thousand dollars, dad." + +The Laird started, and then his Scotch sense of humor--and, for all +the famed wit of the Irish, no humor on earth is so unctuous as that +of the Scotch--commenced to bubble up. He suspected a joke on himself +and was prepared to meet it. + +"Will you demand an accounting, my son?" + +Donald shook his head. + +"Keeping books was ever a sorry trade, father, I'll read the +accounting in your eye when you get back to Port Agnew." + +"You braw big scoundrel! You've been up to something. Tell it me, man, +or I'll die wi' the suspense of it." + +"Well," Donald replied, "I lived on twenty-five hundred a year in +college and led a happy life. I had a heap of fun, and nothing went by +me so fast that I didn't at least get a tail-feather. My college +education, therefore, cost me ten thousand dollars, and I managed to +squeeze a roadster automobile into that, also. With the remaining +ninety thousand, I took a flier in thirty-nine hundred acres of red +cedar up the Wiskah River. I paid for it on the instalment plan +--yearly payments secured by first mortgage at six per cent., and----" + +"Who cruised it for you?" The Laird almost shouted. "I'll trust no +cruiser but my own David McGregor." + +"I realized that, so I engaged Dave for the job. You will recall that +he and I took a two months' camping-trip after my first year in +Princeton. It cruised eighty thousand feet to the acre, and I paid two +dollars and a half per thousand for it. Of course, we didn't succeed +in cruising half of it, but we rode through the remainder, and it all +averaged up very nicely. And I saw a former cruise of it made by a +disinterested cruiser----" + +The Laird had been doing mental arithmetic. + +"It cost you seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars--and you've +paid ninety thousand, principal and interest, on account. Why, you +didn't have the customary ten per cent, of the purchase-price as an +initial payment!" + +"The owner was anxious to sell. Besides, he knew I was your son, and I +suppose he concluded that, after getting ninety thousand dollars out +of me at the end of three years, you'd have to come to my rescue when +the balance fell due--in a lump. If you didn't, of course he could +foreclose." + +"I'll save you, my son. It was a good deal--a splendid deal!" + +"You do not have to, dad. I've sold it--at a profit of an even two +hundred thousand dollars!" + +"Lad, why did you do it? Why didn't you take me into your confidence? +That cedar is worth three and a half. In a few years, 'twill be worth +five." + +"I realized that, father, but--a bird in the hand is worth two in the +bush--and I'm a proud sort of devil. I didn't want to run to you for +help on my first deal, even though I knew you'd come to my rescue and +ask no questions. You've always told me to beware of asking favors, +you know. Moreover, I had a very friendly feeling toward the man I +sold my red cedar to; I hated to stick him too deeply." + +"You were entitled to your profit, Donald. 'Twas business. You should +have taken it. Ah, lad, if you only knew the terrible four years I've +paid for yon red-cedar!" + +"You mean the suspense of not knowing how I was spending my +allowance?" + +The Laird nodded. + +"Curiosity killed a cat, my son, and I'm not as young as I used to +be." + +"I had thought you'd have read the accounting in my eye. Take another +look, Hector McKaye." And Donald thrust his smiling countenance close +to his father's. + +"I see naught in your eye but deviltry and jokes." + +"None are so blind as they that will not see. If you see a joke, dad, +it's on you." + +Old Hector blinked, then suddenly he sprang at his son, grasped him by +the shoulders, and backed him against the wall. + +"Did you sell me that red cedar?" he demanded incredulously. + +"Aye, mon; through an agent," Donald burred Scottishly. "A' did nae +ha' the heart tae stick my faither sae deep for a bit skulin'. A'm a +prood man, Hector McKaye; a'll nae take a grrand eeducashun at sic a +price. 'Tis nae Christian." + +"Ah, my bonny bairn!" old Hector murmured happily, and drew his fine +son to his heart. "What a grand joke to play on your puir old father! +Och, mon, was there ever a lad like mine?" + +"I knew you'd buy that timber for an investment if I offered it cheap +enough," Donald explained. "Besides, I owed you a poke. You wanted to +be certain you hadn't reared a jackass instead of a man, so you gave +me a hundred thousand dollars and stood by to see what I'd do with +it--didn't you, old Scotty?" Hector nodded a trifle guiltily. "Andrew +Daney wrote me you swore by all your Highland clan that the man who +sold you that red cedar was ripe for the fool-killer." + +"Tush, tush!" The Laird protested. "You're getting personal now. I +dislike to appear inquisitive, but might I ask what you've done with +your two hundred thousand profit?" + +"Well, you see, dad, I would have felt a trifle guilty had I kept it, +so I blew it all in on good, conservative United States bonds, +registered them in your name, and sent them to Daney to hide in your +vault at Port Agnew." + +"Ah, well, red cedar or bonds, 'twill all come back to you some day, +sonny. The real profit's in the fun--" + +"And the knowledge that I'm not a fool--eh, father?" + +Father love supernal gleamed in The Laird's fine gray eyes. + +"Were you a fool, my son, and all that I have in the world would cure +you if thrown into the Bight of Tyee, I'd gladly throw it and take up +my life where I began it--with pike-pole and peavy, double-bitted ax, +and cross-cut saw. However, since you're not a fool, I intend to +continue to enjoy my son. We'll go around the world together." + +Thus did the experiment end. At least, Donald thought so. But when he +left the hotel a few minutes later to book two passages to Europe, The +Laird of Tyee suddenly remembered that thanks were due his +Presbyterian God. So he slid to his old knees beside his bed and +murmured: + +"Lord, I thank thee! For the sake of thine own martyred Son, set +angels to guard him and lead him in the path of manly honor that comes +at last to thy kingdom. Amen." + +Then he wired Andrew Daney a long telegram of instructions and a stiff +raise in salary. + +"The boy has a head like a tar-bucket," he concluded. "Everything I +ever put into it has stuck. We are going to frolic round the world +together, and we will be home when we get back." + + + + +IV + + +Donald was twenty-four and The Laird fifty-eight when the pair +returned from their frolic round the world--Donald to take up this +father's labors, The Laird to lay them aside and retire to The +Dreamerie and the books he had accumulated against this happy +afterglow of a busy and fruitful life. + +Donald's mother and sisters were at The Dreamerie the night the father +and son arrived. Of late years, they had spent less and less of their +time there. The Laird had never protested, for he could not blame them +for wearying of a little backwoods sawmill town like Port Agnew. + +With his ability to think calmly, clearly, and unselfishly, he had +long since realized that eventually his girls must marry; now +Elizabeth was twenty-six and Jane twenty-eight, and Mrs. McKaye was +beginning to be greatly concerned for their future. Since The Laird +had built The Dreamerie in opposition to their wishes, they had spent +less than six months in each year at Port Agnew. And these visits had +been scattered throughout the year. They had traveled much, and, when +not traveling, they lived in the Seattle house and were rather busy +socially. Despite his devotion to his business, however, The Laird +found time to spend at least one week in each month with them in +Seattle, in addition to the frequent business trips which took him +there. + +That night of his home-coming was the happiest The Laird had ever +known, for it marked the culmination of his lifetime of labor and +dreams. Long after his wife and the girls had retired, he and Donald +sat in the comfortable living-room, smoking and discussing plans for +the future, until presently, these matters having been discussed +fully, there fell a silence between them, to be broken presently by +The Laird. + +"I'm wondering, Donald, if you haven't met some bonny lass you'd like +to bring home to Port Agnew. You realize, of course, that there's room +on Tyee Head for another Dreamerie, although I built this one for +you--and her." + +"There'll be no other house on Tyee Head, father," Donald answered, +"unless you care to build one for mother and the girls. The wife that +I'll bring home to Port Agnew will not object to my father in my +house." He smiled and added, "You're not at all hard to get along +with, you know." + +The Laird's eyes glistened. + +"Have you found her yet, my son?" + +Donald shook his head in negation. + +"Then look for her," old Hector ordered. "I have no doubt that, when +you find her, she'll be worthy of you. I'm at an age now when a man +looks no longer into the future but dwells in the past, and it's hard +for me to think of you, big man that you are, as anything save a wee +laddie trotting at my side. Now, if I had a grandson--" + +When, presently, Donald bade him good-night, Hector McKaye turned off +the lights and sat in the dark, gazing down across the moonlit Bight +of Tyee to the sparks that flew upward from the stacks of his sawmill +in Port Agnew, for they were running a night shift. And, as he gazed, +he thrilled, with a fierce pride and a joy that was almost pain, in +the knowledge that he had reared a merchant prince for this, his +principality of Tyee. + + + + +V + + +Hector McKaye had always leaned toward the notion that he could run +Port Agnew better than a mayor and a town council, in addition to +deriving some fun out of it; consequently, Port Agnew had never been +incorporated. And this was an issue it was not deemed wise to press, +for The Tyee Lumber Company owned every house and lot in town, and +Hector McKaye owned every share of stock in the Tyee Lumber Company. + +If he was a sort of feudal baron, he was a gentle and kindly one; +large building-plots, pretty little bungalows, cheap rentals, and no +taxation constituted a social condition that few desired to change. As +these few developed and The Laird discovered them, their positions in +his employ, were forfeited, their rents raised, or their leases +canceled, and presently Port Agnew knew them no more. He paid fair +wages, worked his men nine hours, and employed none but naturalized +Americans, with a noticeable predilection for those of Scotch nativity +or ancestry. + +Strikes or lockouts were unknown in Port Agnew--likewise saloons. +Unlike most sawmill towns of that period, Port Agnew had no street in +which children were forbidden to play or which mothers taught their +daughters to avoid. Once an I.W.W. organizer came to town, and upon +being ordered out and refusing to go, The Laird, then past fifty, had +ducked him in the Skookum until he changed his mind. + +The Tyee Lumber Company owned and operated the local telephone company, +the butcher shop, the general store, the hotel, a motion-picture +theater, a town hall, the bank, and the electric-light-and-power plant, +and with the profits from these enterprises, Port Agnew had paved +streets, sidewalks lined with handsome electroliers, and a sewer +system. It was an admirable little sawmill town, and if the expenses +of maintaining it exceeded the income, The Laird met the deficit and +assumed all the worry, for he wanted his people to be happy and +prosperous beyond all others. + +It pleased Hector McKaye to make an occasion of his abdication and +Donald's accession to the presidency of the Tyee Lumber Company. The +Dreamerie was not sufficiently large for his purpose, however, for he +planned to entertain all of his subjects at a dinner and make formal +announcement of the change. So he gave a barbecue in a grove of maples +on the edge of the town. His people received in silence the little +speech he made them, for they were loath to lose The Laird. They knew +him, while Donald they had not known for five years, and there were +many who feared that the East might have changed him. Consequently, +when his father called him up to the little platform from which he +spoke, they received the young laird in silence also. + +"Folks--my own home folks," Donald began, "to-day I formally take up +the task that was ordained for me at birth. I am going to be very +happy doing for you and for myself. I shall never be the man my father +is; but if you will take me to your hearts and trust me as you have +trusted him, I'll never go back on you, for I expect to live and to +die in Port Agnew, and, while I live, I want to be happy with you. I +would have you say of me, when I am gone, that I was the worthy son +of a worthy sire." He paused and looked out over the eager, upturned +faces of the men, women, and children whose destinies he held in the +hollow of his hand. "My dear friends, there aren't going to be any +changes," he finished, and stepped down off the platform. + +From the heart of the crowd a lumberjack cried, "Ya-hoo-o-o-o-o!" as +only a lusty lumberjack can cry it. "He's a chip of the old block!" +cried another, and there were cheers and some tears and a general rush +forward to greet the new master, to shake his hand, and pledge +allegiance to him. + +When the reception was over, old Hector took charge of the homely +games and athletic contests, and the day's delights culminated in a +log-burling contest in the Skookum, in which the young laird +participated. When, eventually, he fell in the river and was counted +out, old Hector donned his son's calked boots and, with a whoop such +as he had not emitted in forty years, entered the lists against the +young fellows. In the old days in the Michigan woods, when burling was +considered a magnificent art of the lumberjack, he had been a +champion, and for five minutes he spun his log until the water foamed, +crossing and recrossing the river and winning the contest unanimously. +From the bank, Mrs. McKaye and his daughters watched him with +well-bred amusement and secret disapproval. They could never forget, +as he could, that he was The Laird of Tyee; they preferred more +dignity in the head of the house. + +The McKaye family drove home along the cliff road at sunset. Young +Donald paused on the terrace before entering the house, and, stirred +by some half-forgotten memory, he glanced across the bight to the +little white house far below on the Sawdust Pile. The flag was +floating from the cupola, but even as he looked, it came fluttering +down. + +Donald turned toward the McKaye flag. It was still floating. "The old +order changeth," he soliloquized, and hauled it down, at the same time +shouting to his father within the house: + +"Hey, dad; fire the sunset gun!" + +The Laird pressed the button and the cannon boomed. + +"We've neglected that little ceremony since you've been away," he +remarked, as Donald entered the room. "'Other times, other customs,' I +dare say." + +He hurried up-stairs to dress for dinner (a formality which he +disliked, but which appeared to please his wife and daughters), and +Donald took his father's binoculars and went out on the terrace. It +had occurred to him that he had not seen old Caleb Brent and Nan at +the barbecue, and he wondered why. Through the glasses, he could make +out the figure of a woman in the cupola window, and she was watching +him through a long marine telescope. + +"There's my old friend Nan, grown to womanhood," Donald soliloquized, +and waved his arm at her. Through the glasses, he saw her wave back at +him. + + + + +VI + + +The morning after the barbecue, Donald McKaye reported at eight +o'clock to his father's faithful old general manager, Andrew Daney. +Daney had grown gray in his father's service, and it was no part of +Donald's plans to assign him to a back seat. + +"Well, Mr. Daney," he inquired affably, "what are your plans for the +new hired man?" + +Old Daney looked up quizzically. + +"You do the planning here, Don," he replied. + +"You heard me say yesterday that there would be no changes, Mr. Daney. +Of course, I haven't grown up in Port Agnew without learning something +of my heritage, but, in view of the fact that I still have +considerable to learn, suppose you indicate just where I ought to +start." + +Daney was pleased at a deference he had not anticipated. + +"Start in the woods," he replied. "That's where your daddy started. +Felling timber and handling it is rather a fine art, Don. I'd wrestle +logs for a month and follow them down the Skookum to the log boom. +Then I'd put in six months in the mill and six more in the factory, +following it with three months on the dock, tallying, and three months +of a hand-shaking tour out among the trade. After that, you may sit in +at your father's desk, and I'll gradually break you in to his job." + +"That's a grand idea, and I'll act on it," Donald declared. + +"Well, it's too late to act on it to-day, Don. The up-river launch to +the logging-camp left at seven o'clock. However, I have a job for you. +We really need the Sawdust Pile for an extension of our drying-yard. +Our present yard lies right under the lee of that ridge of which Tyee +Head is an extension, and it's practically noon before the sun gets a +fair chance at it. The Sawdust Pile gets the sun all day long, and the +winds have an uninterrupted sweep across it. We can dry our cedar +decking there in half the time it requires now." + +"But the Sawdust Pile is--" + +"A rat's nest, Don. There are a number of other shacks there now--some +Greek fishermen, a negro, and a couple of women from the overflow of +Tyee. It ought to be cleaned out." + +"I noticed those shacks last night, Mr. Daney, and I agree with you +that they should go. But I haven't the heart to run old Caleb Brent +off the Sawdust Pile. I gave it to him, you know." + +"Well, let Brent stay there. He's too old and crippled with rheumatism +to attend to his truck-garden any more; so if you leave him the space +for his house and a chicken-yard, he'll be satisfied. In fact, I have +discussed the proposition with him, and he is agreeable." + +"Why did dad permit those other people to crowd him, Mr. Daney?" + +"While your father was in Europe with you, they horned in, claimed a +squatter's right, and stood pat. Old Brent was defenseless, and while +the boys from the mill would have cleaned them out if I had given the +word, the Greeks and the negro were defiant, and it meant bloodshed. +So I have permitted the matter to rest until your father's return." + +Donald reached for his hat. + +"Caleb Brent's squatter-right to that Sawdust Pile is going to be +upheld," he declared. "I'll clean that colony out before sunset, or +they'll clean me." + +"I'd proceed cautiously if I were you, Don. They have a host of +friends up in Darrow, and we mustn't precipitate a feud." + +"I'm going over now and serve notice on them to vacate immediately." +He grinned at old Daney. "A negro, a handful of Greeks, and those +unfortunate women can't bluff the boss of Port Agnew, Mr. Daney." + +"They tell me there's a blind pig down there, also." + +"It will not be there after to-day," Donald answered lightly, and +departed for the Sawdust Pile. + +As he came up to the gate in the neat fence Caleb Brent had built +across the Sawdust Pile nine years before, a baby boy, of perhaps +three years of age, rose out of the weeds in which he had been playing +and regarded the visitor expectantly. + +"Hello, bub!" the young laird of Tyee greeted the child. + +"Hello!" came the piping answer. "Are you my daddy?" + +"Why, no, Snickelfritz." He ran his fingers through the tot's golden +hair. "Don't you know your own daddy?" + +"I haven't any daddy," the child drawled. + +"No? Well, that's unfortunate." Donald stooped and lifted the tike to +his shoulder, marveling the while that such a cherub could be the +product of any of the denizens of the Sawdust Pile. At once, the boy's +arms went round his neck and a velvet cheek was laid close to his. +"You're an affectionate little snooks, aren't you?" Donald commented. +"Do you live here?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Somebody's been teaching you manners. Whose little boy are you?" + +"Muvver's." + +"And who might mother be?" + +"Nan Brent." + +"Yo-ho! So you're Nan Brent's boy! What's your name?" + +"Donald Brent." + +"No; that isn't it, son. Brent is your mother's name. Tell me your +father's name." + +"Ain't got no farver." + +"Well then, run along to your mother." + +He kissed the child and set him down just as a young woman came down +the sadly neglected shell walk from Caleb Brent's little white house. +Donald opened the gate and advanced to meet her. + +"I'm sure you must be Nan," he said, "although I can't be certain. I +haven't seen Nan in six years." + +She extended her hand + +"Yes; I'm Nan," she replied, "and you're Donald McKaye. You're a man +now, but somehow you haven't changed greatly." + +"It's fine to meet you again, Nan." He shook her hand +enthusiastically. + +She smiled a little sadly. + +"I saw you at colors last night, Donald. When your flag came down and +the gun was fired, I knew you'd remembered." + +"Were you glad?" he demanded, and immediately wondered why he had +asked such a childish question. + +"Yes, I was, Donald. It has been a long time since--since--the gun has +been fired--for me. So long since we were children, Donald." + +"You weren't at the barbecue yesterday. I missed you and Caleb. You +two are very old friends of mine, Nan. Was it quite loyal of you to +stay home?" + +"You're the only person that missed us, Donald," she answered, with +just the suspicion of a tremor in her sweet voice. "But, then, we are +accustomed to being left out of things." + +He made no effort to formulate an answer to this. Truth does not +require an answer. Yet he was sensible of a distinct feeling of +sympathy for her, and, manlike, he decided to change the topic of +conversation. + +"You have neighbors on the Sawdust Pile, Nan." + +"Yes. They came when The Laird was in Europe." + +"They would never have dared it had he been in Port Agnew. I'm +surprised that Andrew Daney permitted it. I had thought of him as a +man of courage, but, strange to say, these people outgamed him." + +"They didn't outgame him, Donald. He just didn't care. I--I--fancy he +concluded they would make agreeable neighbors--for me." + +"I'm sorry, Nan. However, I'm the new laird of Tyee, and I've come +down to stage an eviction. I didn't know of this state of affairs +until this morning." + +She smiled a little wistfully and bitterly. + +"I had flattered myself, Donald, you had called to visit your old +friends instead. When you waved at me last night, I--oh, you can't +realize how happy it made me to know that _you_ had noticed me--that +you really were big enough to be the big man of Port Agnew. And I +thought perhaps you would come because of that." + +He smiled tolerantly upon her. + +"Something has occurred to make you bitter, Nan. You're not like the +girl I used to know before I went away to school. If it will help to +restore me to your previous good opinion, however, please believe that +when I waved at you last night, simultaneously I made up my mind to +make an early visit to the Sawdust Pile. The discovery that these +cattle have intruded upon you and your old father, because you were +unable to defend yourselves and no one in Port Agnew would defend you, +merely hastened my visit. I couldn't in decency come any earlier; +could I, Nan? It's just half after eight. And if you're going to keep +me standing at the gate, as if I were a sewing-machine agent instead +of a very old friend, I _may_ conclude to take offense and regret that +I called." + +"Oh, I'm sorry! Please forgive me, Donald. I'm so much alone--so very +lonely--I suppose I grow suspicious of people and their motives." + +"Say no more about it, Nan. May I come in, then, to greet Caleb and +your husband?" + +"Father is in the house. I'll call him out, Donald. As for my +husband--" She hesitated, glanced out across the bight, and then +resolutely faced him. "You cannot have heard all of the town gossip, +then?" + +"I hadn't even heard of your marriage. The first I knew of it was when +his little nibs here hailed me, and asked me if I was his father. +Then he informed me he was your boy. He's a lovely child, Nan, and I +have been the recipient of some of his extremely moist kisses." + +She realized that he was too courteous to ask whether her husband was +dead or if there had been a divorce. + +"I'm rather glad you haven't heard, Donald," she replied evenly. "I +much prefer to tell you myself; then you will understand why I cannot +invite you into our house, and why you must not be seen talking to me +here at the gate. I am not married. I have never been married. My +baby's name is--Brent, and I call him Donald, after the only male +human being that has ever been truly kind to my father and me." + +"Ah," said Donald quietly, "so that's why he misses his father and +appears to want one so very much." + +She gazed forlornly out to sea and answered with a brief nod. +Seemingly she had long since ceased to be tragic over her pitiful +tragedy. + +"Well," he replied philosophically, "life is quite filled with a +number of things, and some of them make for great unhappiness." He +stooped and lifted the baby in his great arms. "You're named after me, +sonny; so I think I'll try to fill the gap and make you happy. Do you +mind, Nan, if I try my hand at foster-fathering? I like children. This +little man starts life under a handicap, but I'll see to it that he +gets his chance in life--far from Port Agnew, if you desire." She +closed her eyes in sudden pain and did not answer. "And whatever your +opinion on the matter may be, Nan," he went on, "even had I known +yesterday of your sorrow, I should have called to-day just the same." + +"You call it my 'sorrow!'" she burst forth passionately. "Others call +it my trouble--my sin--my disgrace." + +"And what does Caleb call it, Nan?" + +"He doesn't call it, Donald. It hasn't appeared to make any difference +with him. I'm still--his little girl." + +"Well, I cannot regard you as anything but a little girl--the same +little girl that used to help Caleb and me sail the sloop. I don't +wish to know anything about your sorrow, or your trouble, or your +disgrace, or your sin, or whatever folks may choose to call it. I just +want you to know that I know that you're a good woman, and when the +spirit moves me--which will be frequently, now that I have this young +man to look after--I shall converse with you at your front gate and +visit you and your decent old father in this little house, and be +damned to those that decry it. I am the young laird of Tyee. My father +raised me to be a gentleman, and, by the gods, I'll be one! Now, Nan, +take the boy and go in the house, because I see a rascally negro in +the doorway of that shack yonder, and I have a matter to discuss with +him. Is that white woman his consort?" + +Nan nodded again. She could not trust herself to speak, for her heart +was full to overflowing. + +"Come here--you!" Donald called to the negro. The fellow slouched +forth defiantly. He was a giant mulatto, and his freckled face wore an +evil and contemptuous grin. + +"I'm Donald McKaye," Donald informed him. "I'm the new laird of Tyee. +I want you and that woman to pack up and leave." + +"How soon, boss?" + +"Immediately." Anticipating a refusal, Donald stepped closer to the +mulatto and looked him sternly in the eye. + +"We-ll, is dat so?" the yellow rascal drawled. "So youh-all's de new +la'rd, eh? Well, ah'm de king o' de Sawdust Pile, an' mah house is mah +castle. Git dat, Mistah La'rd?" + +Donald turned toward Nan. + +"I'm going to have trouble here, Nan. Please go in the house." + +"Proceed," she replied simply. "I have a most unwomanly and unladylike +desire to see that beast manhandled." + +Donald turned, in time to go under a sizzling right-hand blow from the +mulatto and come up with a right uppercut to the ugly, freckled face +and a left rip to the mulatto's midriff. The fellow grunted, and a +spasm of pain crossed his countenance. "You yellow dog!" Donald +muttered, and flattened his nose far flatter than his mammy had ever +wiped it. The enemy promptly backed away and covered; a hearty thump +in the solar plexus made him uncover, and under a rain of blows on the +chin and jaw, he sprawled unconscious on the ground. + +Donald left him lying there and stepped to the door of the shack. The +frightened drab within spat curses at him. + +"Pack and go!" he ordered. "Within the hour, I'm going to purge the +Sawdust Pile with fire; if you stay in the house, you'll burn with +it." + +She was ready in ten minutes. Three more of her kind occupying an +adjacent shack begged to be allowed time in which to load their +personal possessions in an express-wagon. The four Greeks were just +about to set out for a day's fishing, but, having witnessed the defeat +of the mulatto bully, the fever of the hegira seized them also. They +loaded their effects in the fishing-launch, and chugged away up river +to Darrow, crying curses upon the young laird of Tyee and promising +reprisal. + +Donald waited until the last of the refugees had departed before +setting fire to the shacks. Then he stood by old Caleb Brent's house, +a circle of filled buckets around him, and watched in case the wind +should suddenly shift and shower sparks upon the roof. In half an hour +the Sawdust Pile had reverted to its old status and a throng of +curious townspeople who, attracted by the flames and smoke, had +clustered outside Caleb Brent's gate to watch Donald at work, finally +despaired of particulars and scattered when they saw Donald and Nan +Brent enter the house. + +Caleb Brent, looking twenty years older than when Donald had seen him +last, sat in an easy chair by the window, gazing with lack-luster eyes +out across the bight. He was hopelessly crippled with rheumatism, and +his sea-blue eyes still held the same lost-dog wistfulness. + +"Hello, Caleb!" Donald greeted him cordially. "I've just cleaned up +the Sawdust Pile for you. You're back in undisputed possession again." + +He shook hands with old Caleb and sat down in a chair which Nan drew +up for him. + +"It's good of you to call, Mr. Donald," the old man piped. "But isn't +that just like him, Nan?" he demanded. "Many's the day--aye, and the +night, too, for of late the nights have been bad here--we've thought +of you, sir, and wished you were back in Port Agnew. We knew what +would happen to those scoundrels when Mr. Donald got around to it." +And he laughed the asthmatic, contented chuckle of the aged as Nan +related briefly the story of Donald's recent activities. + +Their conversation which followed was mostly of a reminiscent +character--recollections of boat-races in the bight, fishing +excursions off the coast, clambakes, hew boats, a dog which Donald had +given Nan when he left for prep school and which had since died of old +age. And all the while Nan Brent's child stood by Donald's knee, +gazing up at him adoringly. + +During a lull in the conversation, he created some slight +embarrassment by reiterating his belief that this strange man must be +his father, and appealed to his mother for verification of his +suspicions. + +Poor child! His baby mind had but lately grasped the fact that for him +there was something missing in the scheme of life, and, to silence his +persistent questioning, Nan had told him that some day his father +would come to see them; whereupon, with the calm faith of innocence, +he had posted himself at the front gate, to be in position to receive +this beloved missing one when the latter should appear. Donald +skilfully diverted the child's mind from this all-consuming topic by +sliding the boy down to his foot and permitting him to swing gently +there. + +Presently Nan excused herself, for the purpose of looking after the +embers of Donald's recent raid. The instant the door closed behind +her, old Caleb Brent looked across at his visitor. + +"You've heard--of course, Mr. Donald?" he queried, with a slight +inclination of his head toward the door through which his daughter had +disappeared. + +"Yes, Caleb. Misfortune comes in various guises." + +"I would I could die," the pitiful old fellow whispered. "I will, +soon, but, oh, what will my poor darling do then, Mr. Donald? After we +first came here, I was that prosperous, sir, you wouldn't believe it. +I gave Nan a good schooling, piano lessons, and fine dresses. We lived +well, and yet we put by a thousand dollars in six years. But that's +gone now, what with the expenses when the baby came, and my sickness +that's prevented me from working. Thank God, sir, I have my +three-quarter pay. It isn't much, but we're rent-free, and fuel costs +us nothing, what with driftwood and the waste from Darrow that comes +down the river. Nan has a bit of a kitchen-garden and a few +chickens--so we make out. But when I die, my navy-pay stops." + +He paused, too profoundly moved by consideration of the destitution +that would face Nan and her nameless boy to voice the situation in +words. But he looked up at Donald McKaye, and the latter saw again +that wistful look in his sea-blue eyes--the dumb pleading of a kind +old lost dog. He thought of the thirty-eight-foot sloop old Caleb had +built him--a thing of beauty and wondrously seaworthy; or the sense of +obligation which had caused old Brent to make of the task a labor of +love; of the long, lazy, happy days when, with Caleb and Nan for his +crew, he had raced out of the bight twenty miles to sea and back +again, for the sheer delight of driving his lee rail under until Nan +cried out in apprehension. + +Poor, sweet, sad Nan Brent! Donald had known her through so many years +of gentleness and innocence--and she had come to this! He was consumed +with pity for her. She had fallen, but--there were depths to which +destitution and desperation might still drive her, just as there were +heights to which she might climb again if some half-man would but give +her a helping hand. + +"Do you know the man, Caleb?" he demanded suddenly. + +"No, I do not. I have never seen him. Nan wrote me when they were +married, and told me his name, of course." + +"Then there _was_ a marriage, Caleb?" + +"So Nan wrote me." + +"Ah! Has Nan a marriage certificate?" + +"I have never seen it. Seems their marriage wasn't legal. The name he +gave wasn't his own; he was a bigamist." + +"Then Nan knows his real name." + +"Yes; when she learned that, she came home." + +"But why didn't she prosecute him, Caleb? She owed that to herself and +the child--- to her good name and" + +"She had her reasons, lad." + +"But you should have prosecuted the scoundrel, Caleb." + +"I had no money for lawyers. I knew I was going to need it all for Nan +and her child. And I thought her reasons sufficient, Donald. She said +it would all come out right in the end. Maybe it will." + +"Do you mean she knowingly accepted the inevitable disgrace when she +might have--have--" He wanted to add, "proved herself virtuous," but, +somehow, the words would not come. They didn't appear to him to be +quite fair to Nan. + +The old man nodded. + +"Of course we haven't told this to anybody else," he hastened to add. +"'Twould have been useless. They'd have thought it a lie." + +"Yes, Caleb--a particularly clumsy and stupid lie." + +Caleb Brent looked up suddenly and searched, with an alert and wistful +glance, the face of the young laird of Tyee. + +"But you do not think so, do you?" he pleaded. + +"Certainly not, Caleb, If Nan told you that, then she told you the +truth." + +"Thank you, lad." + +"Poor old Caleb," Donald soliloquized, "you find it hard to believe it +yourself, don't you? And it does sound fishy!" + +"I don't believe it's Nan's fault," Donald found himself saying next. +"She was always a good girl, and I can't look at her now and conceive +her as anything but virtuous and womanly. I'll always be a good friend +of hers, Caleb. I'll stand back of her and see that she gets a square +deal--she and her son. When you're gone, she can leave Port Agnew for +some city where she isn't known, and as 'Mrs. Brent' she can engage in +some self-supporting business. It always struck me that Nan had a +voice." + +"She has, Mr. Donald. They had grand opera in Seattle, and I sent her +up there to hear it and having a singing teacher hear her sing 'Alice, +Where Art Thou.' He said she'd be earning a thousand dollars a night +in five years, Mr. Donald, if somebody in New York could train her. +That was the time," he concluded, "that she met _him!_ He was rich +and, I suppose, full of fine graces; he promised her a career if she'd +marry him, and so he dazzled the child--she was only eighteen--and +she went to San Francisco with him. She says there was some sort of +marriage, but he gave her no such gift as I gave her mother--a +marriage certificate. She wrote me she was happy, and asked me to +forgive her the lack of confidence in not advising with me--and of +course I forgave her, Mr. Donald. But in three months he left her, and +one night the door yonder opened and Nan come in and put her arms +round my neck and held me tight, with never a tear--so I knew she'd +cried her fill long since and was in trouble." He paused several +seconds, then added, "Her mother was an admiral's daughter--and she +married me!" He appeared to suggest this latter as a complete +explanation of woman's frailty. + +"The world is small, but it is sufficiently large to hide a girl from +the Sawdust Pile of Port Agnew. Of course, Nan cannot leave you now, +but when you leave her, Caleb, I'll finance her for her career. Please +do not worry about it." + +"I'm like Nan, sir," he murmured. "I'm beyond tears, or I'd weep, Mr. +Donald. God will reward you, sir. I can't begin to thank you." + +"I'm glad of that. By the way, who is towing the garbage-barge to sea +nowadays?" + +"I don't know, sir. Mr. Daney hired somebody else and his boat when I +had to quit because of my sciatica." + +"Hereafter, we'll use your boat, Caleb, and engage a man to operate +it. The rental will be ten dollars per trip, two trips a week, eighty +dollars a month. Cheap enough; so don't think it's charity. Here's the +first month's rental in advance. I'm going to run along now, Caleb, +but I'll look in from time to time, and if you should need me in the +interim, send for me." + +He kissed little Don Brent, who set up a prodigious shriek at the +prospect of desertion and brought his mother fluttering into the room. +He watched her soothe the youngster and then asked: + +"Nan, where do you keep the arnica now? I cut my knuckles on that +yellow rascal." + +She raised a sadly smiling face to his. + +"Where would the arnica be--if we had any, Donald?" she demanded. + +"Where it used to be, I suppose. Up on that shelf, inside the basement +of that funny old half-portion grandfather's clock and just out of +reach of the pendulum." + +"You do remember, don't you? But it's all gone so many years ago, +Donald. We haven't had a boy around to visit us since you left Port +Agnew, you know. I'll put some tincture of iodine on your knuckles, +however." + +"Do, please, Nan." + +A little later, he said: + +"Do you remember, Nan, the day I stuck my finger into the cage of old +Mrs. Biddle's South American parrot to coddle the brute and he all but +chewed it off?" + +She nodded. + +"And you came straight here to have it attended to, instead of going +to a doctor." + +"You wept when you saw my mangled digit. Remember, Nan? Strange how +that scene persists in my memory! You were so sweetly sympathetic I +was quite ashamed of myself." + +"That's because you always were the sweetest boy in the world and I +was only the garbage-man's daughter," she whispered. "There's a +ridiculous song about the garbage-man's daughter. I heard it once, in +vaudeville--in San Francisco." + +"If I come over some evening soon, will you sing for me, Nan?" + +"I never sing any more, Don." + +"Nobody but you can ever sing 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginy' for me." + +"Then I shall sing it, Don." + +"Thank you, Nan." + +She completed the anointing of his battle-scarred knuckles with +iodine, and, for a moment, she held his hand, examining critically an +old ragged white scar on the index-finger of his right hand. And quite +suddenly, to his profound amazement, she bent her head and swiftly +implanted upon that old scar a kiss so light, so humble, so benignant, +so pregnant of adoration and gratitude that he stood before her +confused and inquiring. + +"Such a strong, useful big hand!" she whispered. "It has been raised +in defense of the sanctity of my home--and until you came there was +'none so poor to do me reverence.'" + +He looked at her with sudden, new interest. Her action had almost +startled him. As their eyes held each other, he was aware, with a +force that was almost a shock, that Nan Brent was a most unusual +woman. She was beautiful; yet her physical beauty formed the least +part of her attractiveness, perfect as that beauty was. Instinctively, +Donald visualized her as a woman with brains, character, nobility of +soul; there was that in her eyes, in the honesty and understanding +with which they looked into his, that compelled him, in that instant, +to accept without reservation and for all time the lame and halting +explanation of her predicament he had recently heard from her father's +lips. He longed to tell her so. Instead, he flushed boyishly and said, +quite impersonally: + +"Yes; you're beautiful as women go, but that's not the right word to +express you. Physically, you might be very homely, but if you were +still Nan Brent you would be sweet and compelling. You remind me of a +Catholic chapel; there's always one little light within that never +goes out, you know. So that makes you more than beautiful. Shall I +say--glorious?" + +She smiled at him with her wistful, sea-blue eyes--a smile tender, +maternal, all-comprehending. She knew he was not seeking to flatter +her, that the wiles, the Artifices, the pretty speeches of the +polished man of the world were quite beyond him. + +"Still the same old primitive pal," she murmured softly; "still +thinking straight, talking straight, acting straight, and--dare I say +it, Donald?--seeing straight. I repeat, you always were the sweetest +boy in the world--and there is still so much of the little boy about +you." Her hand fluttered up and rested lightly on his arm. "I'll not +forget this day, my dear friend." + +It was characteristic of him that, having said that which was +uppermost in his mind, he should remember his manners and thank her +for dressing his knuckles. Then he extended his hand in farewell. + +"When you come again, Donald," she pleaded, as he took her hand, "will +you please bring me some books? They're all that can keep me sane--and +I do not go to the public library any more. I have to run the gantlet +of so many curious eyes." + +"How long is it since you have been away from the Sawdust Pile?" + +"Since before my baby came." + +He was silent a minute, pondering this. Since old Caleb had become +house-ridden, then, she had been, without books. He nodded assent to +her request. + +"If I do not say very much, you will understand, nevertheless, how +grateful I am," she continued. "To-day, the sun has shone. Whatever +your thoughts may have been, Donald, you controlled your face and you +were decent enough not to say, 'Poor Nan.'" + +He had no answer to that. He was conscious only of standing helpless +in the midst of a terrible tragedy. His heart ached with pity for her, +and just for old sake's sake, for a tender sentiment for lost youth +and lost happiness of the old comradely days when she had been +Cinderella and he the prince, he wished that he might take her in a +fraternal embrace and let her cry out on his breast the agony that +gnawed at her heart like a worm in an apple. But it was against his +code to indicate to her by word or action that she was less worthy +than other women and hence to be pitied, for it seemed to him that her +burden was already sufficient. + +"Let me know if those people return to annoy you, Nan," was all he +said. Then they shook hands very formally, and the young laird of Tyee +returned to the mill-office to report to Andrew Daney that the Sawdust +Pile had been cleaned out, but that, for the present at least, they +would get along with the old drying-yard. + +Somehow, the day came to an end, and he went home with tumult in his +soul. + + + + +VII + + +An unerring knowledge of men in general and of his own son in +particular indicated to Hector McKaye, upon the instant that the +latter appeared at the family dinner-table, that his son's first day +in command had had a sobering effect upon that young man. He had gone +forth that morning whistling, his eyes alert with interest and +anticipation; and a feeling of profound contentment had come to The +Laird as he watched Donald climb into his automobile and go briskly +down the cliff highway to Port Agnew. Here was no unwilling exile, +shackled by his father's dollars to a backwoods town and condemned to +labor for the term of his natural life. Gladly, eagerly, it seemed to +Hector McKaye, his son was assuming his heritage, casting aside, +without one longing backward glance, a brighter, busier, and more +delightful world. + +Although his son's new arena of action was beautiful and The Laird +loved it with a passionate love, he was sufficiently imaginative to +realize that, in Port Agnew, Donald might not be as happy as had been +his father. Old Hector was sufficiently unselfish to have harbored no +resentment had this been so. It had been his one anxiety that Donald +might take his place in the business as a matter of duty to himself +rather than as a duty to his father, and because he had found his +lifework and was approaching it with joy, for The Laird was +philosopher enough to know that labor without joy is as dead-sea +fruit. Indeed, before the first day of his retirement had passed, he +had begun to suspect that joy without labor was apt to be something +less than he had anticipated. + +The Laird observed in his son's eyes, as the latter took his place at +table, a look that had not been there when Donald left for the mill +that morning. His usually pleasant, "Evening, folks!" was perfunctory +to-night; he replied briefly to the remarks addressed to him by his +mother and sisters; the old man noted not less than thrice a slight +pause with the spoon half-way to his mouth, as if his son considered +some problem more important than soup. Mrs. McKaye and the girls +chattered on, oblivious of these slight evidences of mental +perturbation, but as The Laird carved the roast (he delighted in +carving and serving his family, and was old-fashioned enough to insist +upon his right, to the distress of the girls, who preferred to have +the roast carved in the kitchen and served by the Japanese butler), he +kept a contemplative eye upon his son, and presently saw Donald heave +a slight sigh. + +"Here's a titbit you always liked, son!" he cried cheerfully, and +deftly skewered from the leg of lamb the crisp and tender tail. +"Confound you, Donald; I used to eat these fat, juicy little lamb's +tails while you were at college, but I suppose, now, I'll have to +surrender that prerogative along with the others." In an effort to be +cheerful and distract his son's thoughts, he attempted this homely +badinage. + +"I'll give you another little tale in return, dad," Donald replied, +endeavoring to meet his father's cheerful manner. "While we were away, +a colony of riffraff from Darrow jumped old Caleb Brent's Sawdust +Pile, and Daney was weak enough to let them get away with it. I'm +somewhat surprised. Daney knew your wishes in the matter; if he had +forgotten them, he might have remembered mine, and if he had forgotten +both, it would have been the decent thing to have thrown them out on +his own responsibility." + +So that was what lay at the bottom of his son's perturbation! The +Laird was relieved. + +"Andrew's a good man, but he always needed a leader, Donald," he +replied. "If he didn't lack initiative, he would have been his own man +long ago. I hope you did not chide him for it, lad." + +"No; I did not. He's old enough to be my father, and, besides, he's +been in the Tyee Lumber Company longer than I. I did itch to give him +a rawhiding, though." + +"I saw smoke and excitement down at the Sawdust Pile this morning, +Donald. I dare say you rectified Andrew's negligence." + +"I did. The Sawdust Pile is as clean as a hound's tooth." + +Jane looked up from her plate. + +"I hope you sent that shameless Brent girl away, too," she announced, +with the calm attitude of one whose own virtue is above reproach. + +Donald glared at her. + +"Of course I did not!" he retorted. "How thoroughly unkind and +uncharitable of you, Jane, to hope I would be guilty of such a cruel +and unmanly action!" + +The Laird waved his carving-knife. + +"Hear, hear!" he chuckled. "Spoken like a man, my son. Jane, my dear, +if I were you, I wouldn't press this matter further. It's a delicate +subject." + +"I'm sure I do not see why Jane should not be free to express her +opinion, Hector." Mrs. McKaye felt impelled to fly to the defense of +her daughter. "You know as well as we do, Hector, that the Brent girl +is quite outside the pale of respectable society." + +"We shall never agree on what constitutes 'respectable society,' +Nellie," The Laird answered whimsically. "There are a few in that +Seattle set of yours I find it hard to include in that category." + +"Oh, they're quite respectable, father," Donald protested. + +"Indeed they are, Donald! Hector, you amaze me," Mrs. McKaye chided. + +"They have too much money to be anything else," Donald added, and +winked at his father. + +"Tush, tush, lad!" the old man murmured. "We shall get nowhere with +such arguments. The world has been at that line of conversation for +two thousand years, and the issue's still in doubt. Nellie, will you +have a piece of the well-done?" + +"You and your father are never done joining forces against me," Mrs. +McKaye protested, and in her voice was the well-known note that +presaged tears should she be opposed further. The Laird, all too +familiar with this truly feminine type of tyranny, indicated to his +son, by a lightning wink, that he desired the conversation diverted +into other channels, whereupon Donald favored his mother with a +disarming smile. + +"I'm going to make a real start to-morrow morning, mother," he +announced brightly. "I'm going up in the woods and be a lumberjack for +a month. Going to grow warts on my hands and chew tobacco and develop +into a brawny roughneck." + +"Is that quite necessary?" Elizabeth queried, with a slight elevation +of her eyebrows. "I understood you were going to manage the business." + +"I am--after I've learned it thoroughly, Lizzie." + +"Don't call me 'Lizzie,'" she warned him irritably. + +"Very well, Elizabeth." + +"In simple justice to those people from Darrow that you evicted from +the Sawdust Pile, Don, you should finish your work before you go. If +they were not fit to inhabit the Sawdust Pile, then neither is Nan +Brent. You've got to play fair." Jane had returned to the attack. + +"Look here, Jane," her brother answered seriously: "I wish you'd +forget Nan Brent. She's an old and very dear friend of mine, and I do +not like to hear my friends slandered." + +"Oh, indeed!" Jane considered this humorous, and indulged herself in a +cynical laugh. + +"Friend of his?" Elizabeth, who was regarded in her set as a wit, a +reputation acquired by reason of the fact that she possessed a certain +knack for adapting slang humorously (for there was no originality to +her alleged wit), now bent her head and looked at her brother +incredulously. "My word! That's a rich dish." + +"Why, Donald dear," his mother cried reproachfully, "surely you are +jesting!" + +"Not at all. Nan Brent isn't a bad girl, even if she is the mother of +a child born out of wedlock. She stays at home and minds her own +business, and lets others mind theirs." + +"Donald's going to be tragic. See if he isn't," Elizabeth declared. +"Come now, old dear; if Nan Brent isn't a bad woman, just what is your +idea of what constitutes badness in a woman? It would be interesting +to know your point of view." + +"Nan Brent was young, unsophisticated, poor, and trusting when she met +this fellow, whoever he may be. He wooed her, and she loved him--or +thought she did, which amounts to the same thing until one discovers +the difference between thinking and feeling. At first, she thought she +was married to him. Later, she discovered she was not--and then it was +too late." + +"It wouldn't have been too late with some--er--good people," The Laird +remarked meaningly. + +"In other words," Donald went on, "Nan Brent found herself out on +the end of a limb, and then the world proceeded to saw off the limb. +It is true that she is the mother of an illegitimate child, but +if that child was not--at least in so far as its mother _is_ +concerned--conceived in sin, I say it isn't illegitimate, and that +its mother is not a bad woman." + +"Granted--if it's true; but how do you know it to be true?" Jane +demanded. She had a feeling that she was about to get the better of +her brother in this argument. + +"I do not _know_ it to be true, Jane." + +"_Voila!"_ + +"But--I believe it to be true, Jane." + +"Why?" + +"Because Nan told her father it was true, and old Caleb told me when I +was at his house this morning. So I believe it. And I knew Nan Brent +when she was a young girl, and she was sweet and lovely and virtuous. +I talked with her this morning, and found no reason to change my +previous estimate of her. I could only feel for her a profound pity." + +"'Pity is akin to love,'" Elizabeth quoted gaily. "Mother, keep an eye +on your little son. He'll be going in for settlement-work in Port +Agnew first thing we know." + +"Hush, Elizabeth!" her mother cried sharply. She was highly +scandalized at such levity. The Laird salted and peppered his food and +said nothing. "Your attitude is very manly and sweet, dear," Mrs. +McKaye continued, turning to her son, for her woman's intuition warned +her that, if the discussion waxed warmer, The Laird would take a hand +in it, and her side would go down to inglorious defeat, their +arguments flattened by the weight of Scriptural quotations. She had a +feeling that old Hector was preparing to remind them of Mary Magdalen +and the scene in the temple. "I would much rather hear you speak a +good word for that unfortunate girl than have you condemn her." + +"A moment ago," her son reminded her, with some asperity, for he was +sorely provoked, "you were demanding the right of free speech for +Jane, in order that she might condemn her. Mother, I fear me you're +not quite consistent." + +"We will not discuss it further, dearie. It is not a matter of such +importance that we should differ to the point of becoming acrimonious. +Besides, it's a queer topic for dinner-table conversation." + +"So say we all of us," Elizabeth struck in laconically. "Dad, will you +please help me to some of the well-done?" + +"Subjects," old Hector struck in, "which, twenty years ago, only the +family doctor was supposed to be familiar with or permitted to discuss +are now being agitated in women's clubs, books, newspapers, and the +public schools. You can't smother sin or the facts of life unless they +occur separately. In the case of Nan Brent they have developed +coincidently; so we find it hard to regard her as normal and human." + +"Do you condone her offense, Hector?" Mrs. McKaye demanded +incredulously. + +"I am a firm believer in the sacredness of marriage, I cannot conceive +of a civilization worth while without it," The Laird declared +earnestly. "Nevertheless, while I know naught of Nan Brent's case, +except that which is founded on hearsay evidence, I can condone her +offense because I can understand it. She might have developed into a +far worse girl than it appears from Donald's account she is. At least, +Nellie, she bore her child and cherishes it, and, under the rules of +society as we play it, that required a kind of courage in which a +great many girls are deficient. Give her credit for that." + +"Apparently she has been frank," Elizabeth answered him coolly. "On +the other hand, father McKaye, her so-called courage may have been +ignorance or apathy or cowardice or indifference. It all depends on +her point of view." + +"I disagree with mother that it is not a matter of importance," Donald +persisted. "It is a matter of supreme importance to me that my mother +and sisters should not feel more charity toward an unfortunate member +of their sex; and I happen to know that it is a matter of terrible +importance to Nan Brent that in Port Agnew people regard her as +unclean and look at her askance. And because that vacillating old +Daney didn't have the courage to fly in the face of Port Agnew's +rotten public opinion, he subjected Nan Brent and her helpless old +father to the daily and nightly association of depraved people. If +_he_ should dare to say one word against" + +"Oh, it wasn't because Andrew was afraid of public opinion, lad," +Hector McKaye interrupted him dryly. "Have you no power o'deduction? +Twas his guid wife that stayed his hand, and well I know it." + +"I dare say, dad," Donald laughed. "Yes; I suppose I'll have to +forgive him." + +"She'll be up to-morrow, my dear, to discuss the matter with you," The +Laird continued, turning to his wife. "I know her well. Beware of +expressing an opinion to her." And he bent upon all the women of his +household a smoldering glance. + +Apparently, by mutual consent, the subject was dropped forthwith. +Donald's silence throughout the remainder of the meal was portentous, +however, and Mrs. McKaye and her daughters were relieved when, the +meal finished at last, they could retire with good grace and leave +father and son to their cigars. + +"Doesn't it beat hell?" Donald burst forth suddenly, apropos of +nothing. + +"It does, laddie." + +"I wonder why?" + +The Laird was in a philosophical mood. He weighed his answer +carefully. + +"Because people prefer to have their thoughts manufactured for them; +because fanatics and hypocrites have twisted the heart out of the +Christian religion in the grand scramble for priority in the 'Who's +Holier than Who' handicap; because people who earnestly believe that +God knows their inmost thoughts cannot refrain from being human and +trying to put one over on Him." He smoked in silence for a minute, his +calm glance on the ceiling. "Now that you are what you are, my son," +he resumed reflectively, "you'll begin to know men and women. They who +never bothered to seek your favor before will fight for it now--they +do the same thing with God Almighty, seeking to win his favor by +outdoing him in the condemnation of sin. A woman's virtue, lad, is her +main barricade against the world; in the matter of that, women are a +close corporation. Man, how they do stand together! Their virtue's the +shell that protects them, and when one of them leaves her shell or +loses it, the others assess her out of the close corporation, for +she's a minority stockholder." + +"Mother and the girls are up to their eyebrows in the work of an +organization in Seattle designed to salvage female delinquents," +Donald complained. "I can't understand their attitude." + +Old Hector hooted. + +"They don't do the salvaging. Not a bit of it! That unpleasant work is +left to others, and the virtuous and respectable merely pay for it. +Ken ye not, boy, 'twas ever the habit of people of means to patronize +and coddle the lowly. If they couldn't do that, where would be the fun +of being rich? Look in the Seattle papers. Who gets the advertising +out of a charity ball if it isn't the rich? They organize it and they +put it over, with the public paying for a look at them, and they +attending the ball on complimentary tickets, although I will admit +that when the bills are paid and the last shred of social triumph has +been torn from the affair, the Bide-a-Wee Home for Unmarried Mothers +can have what's left--and be damned to them." + +Donald laughed quietly. + +"Scotty, you're developing into an iconoclast. If your fellow +plutocrats should hear you ranting in that vein, they'd call you a +socialist." + +"Oh, I'm not saying there aren't a heap of exceptions. Many's the +woman with a heart big enough to mother the world, although, when +all's said and done; 'tis the poor that are kind to the poor, the +unfortunate that can appreciate and forgive misfortune. I'm glad you +stood by old Brent and his girl," he added approvingly. + +"I intend to accord her the treatment which a gentleman always accords +the finest lady in the land, dad." + +"Or the lowest, my son. I've noticed that kind are not altogether +unpopular with our finest gentlemen. Donald, I used to pray to God +that I wouldn't raise a fool. I feel that he's answered my prayers, +but if you should ever turn hypocrite, I'll start praying again." + + + + +VIII + + +Donald left the following morning in the automobile for the +logging-camps up-river, and because of his unfamiliarity with their +present location, his father's chauffeur drove him up. He was to be +gone all week, but planned to return Saturday afternoon to spend +Sunday with his family. + +As the car wound up the narrow river road, Donald found himself +thinking of Nan Brent and her tragedy. Since his visit to the Sawdust +Pile the day before, two pictures of her had persisted in his memory, +every detail of both standing forth distinctly. + +In the first, she was a shabby, barelegged girl of thirteen, standing +in the cockpit of his sloop, holding the little vessel on its course +while he and old Caleb took a reef in the mainsail. The wilderness of +gold that was her uncared-for hair blew behind her like a sunny +burgee; her sea-blue eyes were fixed on the mainsail, out of which she +adroitly spilled the wind at the proper moment, in order that Donald +and her father might haul the reef-points home and make them fast. In +his mind's eye, he could see the pulse beating in her throat as they +prepared to come about, for on such occasions she always became +excited; he saw again the sweet curve of her lips and her uplifted +chin; he heard again her shrill voice crying, "Ready, about!" and saw +the spokes spin as she threw the helm over and crouched from the +swinging boom, although it cleared her pretty head by at least three +feet. He listened again to her elfin laugh as she let the sloop fall +off sufficiently to take the lip of a comber over the starboard +counter and force Donald and her father to seek shelter from the spray +in the lee of the mainsail, from which sanctuary, with more laughter, +she presently routed them by causing the spray to come in over the +port counter. + +The other picture was the pose in which he had seen her the morning +previous at the Sawdust Pile, when, to hide her emotion, she had half +turned from him and gazed so forlornly out across the Bight of Tyee. +It had struck him then, with peculiar force, that Nan Brent never +again would laugh that joyous elfin laugh of other days. He had seen +the pulse beating in her creamy neck again--a neck fuller, rounder, +glorious with the beauty of fully developed womanhood. And the riot of +golden hair was subdued, with the exception of little wayward wisps +that whipped her white temples. Her eyes, somewhat darker now, like +the sea near the horizon after the sun has set but while the glory of +the day still lingers, were bright with unshed tears. The sweet curves +of her mouth were drawn in pain. The northwest trade-wind blowing +across the bight had whipped her gingham dress round her, revealing +the soft curves of a body, the beauty of which motherhood had +intensified rather than diminished. Thus she had stood, the outcast of +Port Agnew, and beside her the little badge of her shame, demanding +the father he had never known and would never see. + +The young laird of Tyee wondered what sort of man could have done this +thing--this monumental wickedness. His great fists were clenched as +there welled within him a black rage at the scoundrel who had so +wantonly wrecked that little home on the Sawdust Pile. He wondered, +with the arrogance of his years, assuming unconsciously the right of +special privilege, if Nan would ever reveal to him the identity of the +villain. Perhaps, some day, in a burst of confidence, she might. Even +if she did tell him, what could he do? To induce the recreant lover to +marry her openly and legally would, he knew, be the world's way of +"righting the wrong" and giving the baby a name, but the mischief had +been done too long, and could never be undone unless, indeed, a +marriage certificate, with proper dating, could be flaunted in the +face of an iconoclastic and brutal world. Even then, there would +remain that astute and highly virtuous few who would never cease to +impart in whispers the information that, no matter what others might +think, _they_ had their doubts. He was roused from his bitter +cogitations by the chauffeur speaking. + +"This is Darrow, Mr. Donald. I don't believe you've seen it, have you? +Darrow put in his mill and town while you were away." + +Donald looked over the motley collection of shacks as the automobile +rolled down the single unpaved street. + +"Filthy hole," he muttered. "Hello! There's one of my late friends +from the Sawdust Pile." + +A woman, standing in the open door of a shanty on the outskirts of the +town had made a wry face and thrust out her tongue at him. He lifted +his hat gravely, whereat she screamed a curse upon him. An instant +later, an empty beer-bottle dropped with a crash in the tonneau, and +Donald, turning, beheld in the door of a Darrow groggery one of the +Greek fishermen He had dispossessed. + +"Stop the car!" Donald commanded. "I think that man wants to discuss a +matter with me." + +"Sorry, sir, but I don't think it's wise to obey you just now," his +father's chauffeur answered, and trod on the accelerator. "They call +that place the 'Bucket of Blood,' and you'll need something more than +your fists if you expect to enter there and come out under your own +power." + +"Very well. Some other time, perhaps." + +"You don't appear to be popular in Darrow, Mr. Donald." + +"Those people left the Sawdust Pile yesterday--in a hurry," Donald +explained. "Naturally, they're still resentful." + +"They were making quite a little money down there, I believe. Folks do +say business was good, and when you take money from that kind of +cattle you make a worth-while enemy. If I were you, sir, I'd watch my +step in dark alleys, and I'd carry a gun." + +"When I have to carry a gun to protect myself from vermin like that +mulatto and those shifty little Greeks, I'll be a few years older than +I am now, Henry. However, I suppose I'd be foolish to neglect your +warning to mind my step." + +He spent a busy week in the woods, and it was his humor to spend it +entirely felling trees. The tough, experienced old choppers welcomed +him with keen interest and played freeze-out each night in the +bunk-houses to see which one should draw him for a partner next day; +for the choppers worked in pairs, likewise the cross-cut men. Their +bucolic sense of humor impelled the choppers to speed up when they +found themselves paired with the new boss, for it would have been a +feather in the cap of the man who could make him quit or send him home +at nightfall "with his tail dragging," as the woods boss expressed it. + +Donald sported a wondrous set of blisters at the close of that first +day, but after supper he opened them, covered them with adhesive tape, +and went back to work next morning as if nothing had happened. During +those five days, he learned considerable of the art of dropping a tree +exactly where he desired it, and bringing it to earth without +breakage. He rode down to Port Agnew with the woods crew on the last +log-train Saturday night, walked into the mill office, and cashed in +his time-slip for five days' work as a chopper. He had earned two +dollars a day and his board and lodging. His father, who had driven +into town to meet him, came to the window and watched him humorously. + +"So that's the way you elect to work it, eh?" he queried. "I told +Daney to pay you my salary when I quit." + +"I like to feel that I'm earning my stipend," Donald replied, "so it +pleases me to draw the wages of the job I'm working at. When I'm +thoroughly acquainted with all the jobs in the Tyee Lumber Company, or +at least have a good working knowledge of them, I think I'll be a +better boss." + +The Laird took his son's big brown hands in his and looked at the +palms. + +"I rather think I like it so," he answered. "A man whose hands have +never bled or whose back has never ached is a poor man to judge a +labor dispute. 'Twould improve you if you were a married man and had +to live on that for a week, less twenty-five cents for your hospital +dues. The choppers pay a dollar a month toward the hospital, and that +covers medical attendance for them and their families." + +Donald laughed and flipped a quarter over to the cashier, then turned +and handed ten dollars to a wiry little chopper standing in line. + +"I was feeling so good this morning I bet Sandy my week's pay I could +fell a tree quicker than he and with less breakage. He won in a walk," +he explained to The Laird. + +"Come with me," his father ordered, and led him into the office. + +From the huge safe he selected a ledger, scanned the index, and opened +it at a certain account headed, "Sandy dough." To Sandy's credit each +month, extending over a period of fifteen years, appeared a credit of +thirty dollars. + +"That's what it's costing me to have discovered Sandy," his father +informed him; "but since I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, +the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I +watched him one day when he didn't know who I was--so I figured him +for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know +it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as +much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire +him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, +my son. Now come home to dinner." + +After dinner, Donald returned to town to buy himself some +working-clothes at the general store. His purchases completed, he +sought the juvenile department. + +"I want some kid's clothing," he announced. "To fit a child of three. +Rompers, socks, shoes--the complete outfit. Charge them to my account +and send them over to Nan Brent at the Sawdust Pile. I'll give you a +note to enclose with them." + +Notwithstanding the fact that she was an employe of the Tyee Lumber +Company, the girl who waited on him stared at him frankly. He noticed +this and bent upon her a calm glance that brought a guilty flush to +her cheek. Quickly she averted her eyes, but, nevertheless she had a +feeling that the young laird of Tyee was still appraising her, and, +unable to withstand the fascination peculiar to such a situation, she +looked at him again to verify her suspicions--and it was even so. In +great confusion she turned to her stock, and Donald, satisfied that he +had squelched her completely, went into the manager's office, wrote, +and sealed the following note to Nan Brent: + + Saturday night. FRIEND NAN: + + Here are some duds for the young fellow. You gave me the right to + look after him, you know; at least, you didn't decline it. At any + rate, I think you will not mind accepting them from me. + + I sent to Seattle for some books I thought you might like. They + have probably arrived by parcel-post. Sent you a box of candy, + also, although I have forgotten the kind you used to prefer. + + Been up in the logging-camp all week, chopping, and I ache all + over. Expect to be hard and not quite so weary by next week-end, + and will call over for Sunday dinner. + + + Sincerely, DONALD McKAYE + +He spent Sunday at The Dreamerie, and at four o'clock Sunday +afternoon boarded the up train and returned to the logging-camp. Mrs. +Andrew Daney, seated in Sunday-afternoon peace upon her front veranda, +looked up from the columns of the _Churchman_ as the long string of +logging-trucks wound round the base of the little knoll upon which the +general manager's home stood; but even at a distance of two blocks, +she recognized the young laird of Tyee in the cab with the engineer. + +"Dear, dear!" this good soul murmured. "And such a nice young man, +too! I should think he'd have more consideration for his family, if +not for himself." + +"Who's that?" Mr. Daney demanded, emerging from behind the Seattle +_Post-Intelligencer_. + +"Donald McKaye." + +"What about him?" Mr. Daney demanded, with slight emphasis on the +pronoun. + +"Oh, nothing; only--" + +"Only what?" + +"People say he's unduly interested in Nan Brent." + +"If he is, that's his business. Don't let what people say trouble you, +Mrs. Daney." + +"Well, can I help it if people will talk?" + +"Yes--when they talk to you." + +"How do you know they've been talking to me, Andrew?" she demanded +foolishly. + +"Because you know what they say." Andrew Daney rose from the wicker +deck-chair in which he had been lounging and leveled his index-finger +at the partner of his joys and sorrows. "You forget Donald McKaye and +that Brent girl," he ordered. "It's none of your business. All Don has +to say to me is, 'Mr. Daney, your job is vacant'--and, by Judas +Priest, it'll be vacant. Remember that, my dear." + +"Nonsense, dear. The Laird wouldn't permit it--after all these years." + +"If it comes to a test of strength, I'll lose, and don't you forget +it. Old sake's sake is all that saved me from a run-in with Donald +before he had been in command fifteen minutes. I refer to that Sawdust +Pile episode. You dissuaded me from doing my duty in that matter, +Mary, and my laxity was not pleasing to Donald. I don't blame him a +whit." + +"Did he say anything?" she demanded, a trifle alarmed. + +"No; but he looked it." + +"How did he look, Andrew?" + +"He looked," her husband replied, "like the Blue Bonnets coming over +the border--that's what he looked like. Then he went down to the +Sawdust Pile like a raging demon, cleaned it out in two twos, and put +it to the torch. You be careful what you say to people, Mary. Get that +boy started once, and he'll hark back to his paternal ancestors; and +if The Laird has ever told you the history of that old claymore that +hangs on the wall in The Dreamerie, you know that the favorite outdoor +sports of the McKaye tribe were fighting and foot-racing--with the +other fellow in front." + +"The Laird is mild enough," she defended. + +"Yes, he is. But when he was young, he could, and frequently did, whip +twice his weight in bear-cats. Old as he is to-day, he's as sound as a +man of forty; he wouldn't budge an inch for man or devil." + +Mrs. Daney carefully folded the _Churchman_, laid it aside, and placed +her spectacles with it. + +"Andrew, I know it's terrible of me to breathe such a thing, but--did +it ever occur to you that--perhaps--the father of Nan Brent's child +might be--" + +"Donald?" he exploded incredulously. + +She nodded, and about her nod there was something of that calm +self-confidence of an attorney who is winning his case and desires to +impress that fact upon the jury. + +"By God, woman," cried Daney, "you have the most infernal ideas--" + +"Andrew! Remember it's the Sabbath!" + +"It's a wonder my language doesn't shrivel this paper. Now then, where +in hades do you get this crazy notion?" Daney was thoroughly angry. +She gazed up at him in vague apprehension. Had she gone too far? +Suddenly he relaxed. "No; don't tell me," he growled. "I'll not be a +gossip. God forgive me, I was about to befoul the very salt I eat. +I'll not be disloyal." + +"But, Andrew dear, don't you know I wouldn't dare breathe it to anyone +but you?" + +"I don't know how much you'd dare. At any rate, I'll excuse you from +breathing it to me, for I'm not interested. I know it isn't true." + +"Then, Andrew, it is your duty to tell me why you know it isn't true, +in order that I may set at rest certain rumors--" + +"You--mind--your--own--business, Mary!" he cried furiously, +punctuating each word with a vigorous tap of his finger on the arm of +her chair. "The McKayes meet their responsibilities as eagerly as they +do their enemies. If that child were young Donald's, he'd have +married the Brent girl, and if he had demurred about it, The Laird +would have ordered him to." + +"Thank you for that vote of confidence in the McKaye family, Andrew," +said a quiet voice. "I think you have the situation sized up just +right." + +Andrew Daney whirled; his wife glanced up, startled, then half rose +and settled back in her chair again, for her legs absolutely refused +to support her. Standing at the foot of the three steps that led off +the veranda was Hector McKaye! + +"I drove Donald down from The Dreamerie to catch the up train, and +thought I'd drop over and visit with you a bit," he explained. "I +didn't intend to eavesdrop, and I didn't--very much; but since I +couldn't help overhearing such a pertinent bit of conversation, I'll +come up and we'll get to the bottom of it. Keep your seat, Mrs. +Daney." + +The advice was unnecessary. The poor soul could not have left it. The +Laird perched himself on the veranda railing, handed the dumfounded +Daney a cigar, and helped himself to one. + +"Well, proceed," The Laird commanded. His words apparently were +addressed to both, but his glance was fixed on Mrs. Daney--and now she +understood full well her husband's description of the McKaye look. + +"I had finished what I had to say, Mr. McKaye," Andrew Daney found +courage to say. + +"So I noted, Andrew, and right well and forcibly you said it. I'm +grateful to you. I make no mistake, I think, if your statement wasn't +in reply to some idle tale told your good wife and repeated by her to +you--in confidence, of course, as between man and wife." + +"If you'll excuse me, Mr. McKaye, I--I'd rather not--discuss it!" +Mary Daney cried breathlessly. + +"I would I did not deem it a duty to discuss it myself, Mary. But you +must realize that when the tongue of scandal touches my son, it +becomes a personal matter with me, and I must look well for a weapon +to combat it. You'll tell me now, Mary, what they've been saying about +Donald and Caleb Brent's daughter." + +"Andrew will tell you," she almost whispered, and made as if to go. +But The Laird's fierce eyes deterred her; she quailed and sat down +again. + +"Andrew cannot tell me, because Andrew doesn't know," The Laird +rebuked her kindly. "I heard him tell you not to tell him, that he +wasn't a gossip, and wouldn't befoul the salt he ate by being +disloyal, or words to that effect. Is it possible, Mary Daney, that +you prefer me to think you are not inspired by similar sentiments? +Don't cry, Mary--compose yourself." + +"Idleness is the mother of mischief, and since the children have grown +up and left home, Mary hasn't enough to keep her busy," Daney +explained. "So, womanlike and without giving sober thought to the +matter, she's been listening to the idle chattering of other idle +women. Now then, my dear," he continued, turning to his wife, "that +suspicion you just voiced didn't grow in your head. Somebody put it +there--and God knows it found fertile soil. Out with it now, wife! +Who've you been gossiping with?" + +"I'll name no names," the unhappy woman sobbed; "but somebody told me +that somebody else was down at the Sawdust Pile the day Donald burned +those shacks, and after be burned them he spent an hour in the Brent +cottage, and when he came out he had the baby in his arms. When he +left, the child made a great to-do and called him, 'daddy.'" + +The Laird smiled. + +"Well, Mary, what would you expect the boy to do? Beat the child? To +my knowledge, he's been robbing the candy department of my general +store for years, and the tots of Port Agnew have been the +beneficiaries of his vandalism. He was born with a love of children. +And would you convict him on the prattle of an innocent child in +arms?" + +"Certainly not, Mr. McKaye. I understand. Well then, on Saturday night +he sent over a complete outfit of clothing for the child, with a note +in the bundle--" + +"Hm-m-m." + +"And then somebody remembered that the child's name is Donald." + +"How old is that child, Mrs. Daney?" + +She considered. + +"As I recall it, he'll be three years old in October." + +"Since, you're a married woman, Mrs. Daney," The Laird began, with +old-fashioned deprecation for the blunt language he was about to +employ, "you'll admit that the child wasn't found behind one of old +Brent's cabbages. This is the year 1916." + +But Mrs. Daney anticipated him. + +"They've figured it out," she interrupted, "and Donald was home from +college for the holidays in 1912." + +"So he was," The Laird replied complacently. "I'd forgotten. So that +alibi goes by the board. What else now? Does the child resemble my +son?" + +"Nobody knows. Nan Brent doesn't receive visitors, and she hasn't been +up-town since the child was born." + +"Is that all, Mary?" + +"All I have heard so far." + +Old Hector was tempted to tell her that, in his opinion, she had heard +altogether too much, but his regard for her husband caused him to +refrain. + +"It's little enough, and yet it's a great deal," he answered. "You'll +be kind enough, Mary, not to carry word of this idle gossip to The +Dreamerie, I should regret that very much." + +She flushed with the knowledge that, although he forgave her, still he +distrusted her and considered a warning necessary. However, she nodded +vigorous acceptance of his desire, and immediately he changed the +topic. While, for him, the quiet pleasure he had anticipated in the +visit had not materialized and he longed to leave at once, for Daney's +sake he remained for tea. When he departed, Mrs. Daney ran to her room +and found surcease from her distress in tears, while her husband sat +out on the veranda smoking one of The Laird's fine cigars, his +embarrassment considerably alleviated by the knowledge that his +imprudent wife had received a lesson that should last for the +remainder of her life. + +About eight o'clock, his wife called him to the telephone. The Laird +was on the wire. + +"In the matter of the indiscreet young lady in the store, Andrew," he +ordered, "do not dismiss her or reprimand her. The least said in such +cases is soonest mended." + +"Very well, sir." + +"Good-night, Andrew." + +"Good-night, sir." + +"Poor man!" Daney sighed, as he hung up. "He's thought of nothing +else since he heard about it; it's a canker in his heart. I wish I +dared indicate to Donald the fact that he's being talked about--and +watched--by the idle and curious, in order that he may bear himself +accordingly. He'd probably misunderstand my motives however." + + + + +IX + +During the week, Mary Daney refrained from broaching the subject of +that uncomfortable Sunday afternoon, wherefore her husband realized +she was thinking considerably about it and, as a result, was not +altogether happy. Had he suspected, however, the trend her thoughts +were taking, he would have been greatly perturbed. Momentous thoughts +rarely racked Mrs. Daney's placid and somewhat bovine brain, but once +she became possessed with the notion that Nan Brent was the only human +being possessed of undoubted power to create or suppress a scandal +which some queer feminine intuition warned her impended, the more +firmly did she become convinced that it was her Christian duty to call +upon Nan Brent and strive to present the situation in a common-sense +light to that erring young Woman. + +Having at length attained to this resolution, a subtle peace settled +over Mrs. Daney, the result, doubtless, of a consciousness of virtue +regained, since she was about to right a wrong to which she had so +thoughtlessly been a party. Her decision had almost been reached when +her husband, coming home for luncheon at noon on Saturday, voiced the +apprehension which had harassed him during the week. + +"Donald will be home from the woods to-night," he announced, in +troubled tones. "I do hope he'll not permit that big heart of his to +lead him into further kindnesses that will be misunderstood by +certain people in case they hear of them. I have never known a man so +proud and fond of a son as The Laird is of Donald." + +"Nonsense!" his wife replied complacently. "The Laird has forgotten +all about it." + +"Perhaps. Nevertheless, he will watch his son, and if, by any chance, +the boy should visit the Sawdust Pile--" + +"Then it will be time enough to worry about him, Andrew. In the +meantime, it's none of our business, dear. Eat your luncheon and don't +think about it." + +He relapsed into moody silence. When he had departed for the mill +office, however, his wife's decision had been reached. Within the hour +she was on her way to the Sawdust Pile, but as she approached Caleb +Brent's garden gate, she observed, with a feeling of gratification, +that, after all, it was not going to be necessary for her to be seen +entering the house or leaving it. Far up the strand she saw a woman +and a little child sauntering. + +Nan Brent looked up at the sound of footsteps crunching the shingle, +identified Mrs. Daney at a glance, and turned her head instantly, at +the same time walking slowly away at right angles, in order to obviate +a meeting. To her surprise, Mrs. Daney also changed her course, and +Nan, observing this out of the corner of her eye, dropped her apronful +of driftwood and turned to face her visitor. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Brent. May I speak to you for a few minutes?" + +"Certainly, Mrs. Daney." + +Mrs. Daney nodded condescendingly and sat down on the white sand. + +"Be seated, Miss Brent, if you please." + +"Well, perhaps if we sit down, we will be less readily recognized at a +distance." Nan replied smilingly, and was instantly convinced that she +had read her visitor's mind aright, for Mrs. Daney flushed slightly. +"Suppose," the girl suggested gently, "that you preface what you have +to say by calling me 'Nan.' You knew me well enough to call me that in +an earlier and happier day, Mrs. Daney." + +"Thank you, Nan. I shall accept your invitation and dispense with +formality." She hesitated for a beginning, and Nan, observing her +slight embarrassment, was gracious enough to aid her by saying: + +"I dare say your visit has something to do with the unenviable social +position in which I find myself in Port Agnew, Mrs. Daney, for I +cannot imagine any other possible interest in me to account for it. So +you may be quite frank. I'm sure nothing save a profound sense of duty +brought you here, and I am prepared to listen." This was a degree of +graciousness the lady had not anticipated, and it put her at her ease +immediately. + +"I've called to talk to you about Donald McKaye," she began abruptly. + +"At the solicitation of whom?" + +"Nobody." Mrs. Daney sighed. "It was just an idea of mine." + +"Ah--I think I prefer it that way. Proceed, Mrs. Daney." + +"Young Mr. McKaye is unduly interested in you, Nan--at least, that is +the impression of a number of people in Port Agnew." + +"I object to the use of the adverb 'unduly' in connection with Mr. +Donald's interest in my father and me. But no matter. Since Port Agnew +has no interest in me, pray why, Mrs. Daney, should I have the +slightest interest in the impressions of these people you refer to and +whose volunteer representative you appear to be?" + +"There! I knew you would be offended!" Mrs. Daney cried, with a +deprecatory shrug. "I'm sure I find this a most difficult matter to +discuss, and I assure you, I do not desire to appear offensive." + +"Well, you are; but I can stand it, and whether I resent it or not +cannot be a matter of much import to you or the others. And I'll try +not to be disagreeable. Just why did you come to see me, Mrs. Daney?" + +"I might as well speak plainly, Miss Brent. Donald McKaye's action in +ridding the Sawdust Pile of your neighbors has occasioned comment. It +appears that this was his first official act after assuming his +father's place in the business. Then he visited you and your father +for an hour, and your child, whom it appears you have named Donald, +called him 'daddy.' Then, last Saturday night, Mr. McKaye sent over +some clothing for the boy--" + +"Whereupon the amateur detectives took up the trail," Nan interrupted +bitterly. "And you heard of it immediately." + +"His father heard of it also," Mrs. Daney continued. "It worries him." + +"It should not. He should have more faith in his son, Mrs. Daney." + +"He is a father, my dear, very proud of his son, very devoted to him, +and fearfully ambitious for Donald's future." + +"And you fear that I may detract from the radiance of that future? Is +that it?" + +"In plain English," the worthy lady replied brutally, "it is." + +"I see your point of view very readily, Mrs. Daney. Your apprehensions +are ridiculous--almost pathetic, Don McKaye's great sympathy is alone +responsible for his hardihood in noticing me, and he is so much too +big for Port Agnew that it is no wonder his motives are misunderstood. +However, I am sorry his father is worried. We have a very great +respect for The Laird; indeed, we owe him a debt of gratitude, and +there is nothing my father or I would not do to preserve his peace of +mind." + +"The talk will die out, of course, unless something should occur to +revive it, Miss Brent--I mean, Nan. But it would be just like Donald +McKaye to start a revival of this gossip. He doesn't care a farthing +for what people think or say, and he is too young to realize that one +_must_ pay _some_ attention to public opinion. You realize that, of +course." + +"I ought to, Mrs. Daney. I think I have had some experience of public +opinion," Nan replied sadly. + +"Then, should Donald McKaye's impulsive sympathy lead him to--er--" + +"You mean that I am to discourage him in the event--" + +"Precisely, Miss Brent. For his father's sake." + +"Not to mention your husband's position. Precisely, Mrs. Daney." + +Mary Daney's heart fluttered. + +"I have trusted to your honor, Nan--although I didn't say so in the +beginning--not to mention my visit or this interview to a living +soul." + +"My 'honor!'" Nan's low, bitter laugh raked the Daney nerves like a +rasp. "I think, Mrs. Daney, that I may be depended upon to follow my +own inclinations in this matter. I suspect you have been doing some +talking yourself and may have gone too far, with the result that you +are hastening now, by every means in your power, to undo whatever +harm, real or fancied, has grown out of your lack of charity." + +"Nan, I beg of you--" + +"Don't! You have no right to beg anything of me. I am not +unintelligent and neither am I degraded. I think I possess a far +keener conception of my duty than do you or those whom you have +elected to represent; hence I regard this visit as an unwarranted +impertinence. One word from me to Donald McKaye--" + +Terror smote the Samaritan. She clasped her hands; her lips were pale +and trembling. + +"Oh, my dear, my dear," she pleaded, "you wouldn't breathe a word to +him, would you? Promise me you'll say nothing. How could I face my +husband if--if--" She began to weep. + +"I shall promise nothing," Nan replied sternly. + +"But I only came for his father's sake, you cruel girl!" + +"Perhaps his father's case is safer in my hands than in yours, Mrs. +Daney, and safest of all in those of his son." + +The outcast of Port Agnew rose, filled her apron with the driftwood +she had gathered, and called to her child. As the little fellow +approached, Mrs. Daney so far forgot her perturbation as to look at +him keenly and decide, eventually, that he bore not the faintest +resemblance to Donald McKaye. + +"I'm sure, Nan, you will not be heartless enough to tell Donald McKaye +of my visit to you," she pleaded, as the girl started down the beach. + +"You have all the assurance of respectability, dear Mrs. Daney," Nan +answered carelessly. + +"You shall not leave me until you promise to be silent!" Mary Daney +cried hysterically, and rose to follow her. + +"I think you had better go, Mrs. Daney. I am quite familiar with the +figure of The Laird since his retirement; he walks round the bight +with his dogs every afternoon for exercise, and, if I am not greatly +mistaken, that is he coming down the beach." + +Mrs. Daney cast a terrified glance in the direction indicated. A few +hundred yards up the beach she recognized The Laird, striding briskly +along, swinging his stick, and with his two English setters romping +beside him. With a final despairing "Please Nan; please do not be +cruel!" she fled, Nan Brent smiling mischievously after her stout +retreating form. + +"I have condemned you to the horrors of uncertainty," the girl +soliloquized. "How very, very stupid you are, Mrs. Daney, to warn me +to protect him! As if I wouldn't lay down my life to uphold his honor! +Nevertheless, you dear old bungling busybody, you are absolutely +right, although I suspect no altruistic reason carried you forth on +this uncomfortable errand." + +Nan had heretofore, out of the bitterness of her life, formed the +opinion that brickbats were for the lowly, such as she, and bouquets +solely for the great, such as Donald McKaye. Now, for the first time, +she realized that human society is organized in three strata--high, +mediocre, and low, and that when a mediocrity has climbed to the seats +of the mighty, his fellows strive to drag him back, down to their own +ignoble level--or lower. To Nan, child of poverty, sorrow, and +solitude, the world had always appeared more or less incomprehensible, +but this afternoon, as she retraced her slow steps to the Sawdust +Pile, the old dull pain of existence had become more complicated and +acute with the knowledge that the first ray of sunlight that had +entered her life in three years was about to be withdrawn; and at the +thought, tears, which seemed to well from her heart rather than from +her eyes, coursed down her cheeks and a sob broke through her clenched +lips. + +Her progress homeward, what with the heavy bundle of driftwood, in her +apron impeding her stride, coupled with the necessity for frequent +pauses to permit her child to catch up with her, was necessarily +slow--so slow, in fact, that presently she heard quick footsteps +behind her and, turning, beheld Hector McKaye. He smiled, lifted his +hat, and greeted her pleasantly. + +"Good-afternoon, Miss Nan. That is a heavy burden of driftwood you +carry, my dear. Here--let me relieve you of it. I've retired, you +know, and the necessity for finding something to do--Bless my soul, +the girl's crying!" He paused, hat in hand, and gazed at her with +frank concern. She met his look bravely. + +"Thank you, Mr. McKaye. Please do not bother about it." + +"Oh, but I shall bother," he answered. "Remove your apron, girl, and +I'll tie the wood up in it and carry it home for you." + +Despite her distress, she smiled. + +"You're such an old-fashioned gentleman," she replied. "So very much +like your son--I mean, your son is so very much like you." + +"That's better. I think I enjoy the compliment more when you put it +that way," he answered. "Do not stand there holding the wood, my girl. +Drop it." + +She obeyed and employed her right hand, thus freed, in wiping the +telltale tears from her sweet face. + +"I have been lax in neighborly solicitude," The Laird continued. "I +must send you over a supply of wood from the box factory. We have more +waste than we can use in the furnaces. Is this your little man, Nan? +Sturdy little chap, isn't he? Come here, bub, and let me heft you." + +He swung the child from the sands, and while pretending to consider +carefully the infant's weight, he searched the cherubic countenance +with a swift, appraising glance. + +"Healthy little rascal," he continued, and swung the child high in the +air two or three times, smiling paternally as the latter screamed with +delight. "How do you like that, eh?" he demanded, as he set the boy +down on the sand again. + +"Dood!" the child replied, and gazing up at The Laird yearningly. "Are +you my daddy?" + +But The Laird elected to disregard the pathetic query and busied +himself gathering up the bundle of driftwood, nor did he permit his +glance to rest upon Nan Brent's flushed and troubled face. Tucking the +bundle under one arm and taking Nan's child on the other, he whistled +to his dogs and set out for the Sawdust Pile, leaving the girl to +follow behind him. He preceded her through the gate, tossed the +driftwood on a small pile in the yard, and turned to hand her the +apron. + +"You are not altogether happy, poor girl!" he said kindly. "I'm very +sorry. I want the people in my town to be happy." + +"I shall grow accustomed to it, Mr. McKaye," Nan answered. "To-day, I +am merely a little more depressed than usual. Thank you so much for +carrying the wood. You are more than kind." + +His calm, inscrutable gray glance roved over her, noting her beauty +and her sweetness, and the soul of him was troubled. + +"Is it something you could confide in an old man?" he queried gently. +"You are much neglected, and I--I understand the thoughts that must +come to you sometimes. Perhaps you would be happier elsewhere than in +Port Agnew." + +"Perhaps," she replied dully. + +"If you could procure work--some profession to keep your mind off your +troubles--I have some property in Tacoma--suburban lots with cottages +on them." The Laird grew confused and embarrassed because of the +thought that was in the back of his mind, and was expressing himself +jerkily and in disconnected sentences. "I do not mean--I do not offer +charity, for I take it you have had enough insults--well, you and your +father could occupy one of those cottages at whatever you think you +could afford to pay, and I would be happy to advance you any funds you +might need until you--could--that is, of course, you must get on your +feet again, and you must have help--" He waved his hand. "All this +oppresses me." + +The remembrance of Mrs. Daney's interview with her prompted the girl +to flash back at him. + +"'Oppresses,' Mr. McKaye? Since when?" + +He gazed upon her in frank admiration for her audacity and +perspicacity. + +"Yes," he admitted slowly; "I dare say I deserve that. Yet, mingled +with that ulterior motive you have so unerringly discerned, there is a +genuine, if belated, desire to be decently human. I think you realize +that also." + +"I should be stupid and ungrateful did I not, Mr. McKaye. I am sorry I +spoke just now as I did, but I could not bear--" + +"To permit me to lay the flattering unction to my soul that I had +gotten away with something, eh?" he laughed, much more at his ease, +now that he realized how frank and yet how tactful she could be. + +"It wasn't quite worthy of you--not because I might resent it, for I +am nobody, but because you should have more faith in yourself and be +above the possibility of disturbance at the hands--or rather, the +tongues--of people who speak in whispers." She came close to him +suddenly and laid her hand lightly on his forearm, for she was +speaking with profound earnestness. "I am your debtor, Mr. McKaye, for +that speech you found it so hard to make just now, and for past +kindnesses from you and your son. I cannot accept your offer. I would +like to, did my pride permit, and were it not for the fact that such +happiness as is left to my father can only be found by the Bight of +Tyee. So, while he lives I shall not desert him. As for your +apprehensions"--she smiled tolerantly and whimsically--"though +flattering to me, they are quite unnecessary, and I beg you rid your +mind of them. I am--that which I am; yet I am more than I appear to be +to some and I shall not wantonly or wilfully hurt you--or yours." + +The Laird of Tyee took in both of his the slim hand that rested so +lightly on his sleeve--that dainty left hand with the long, delicate +fingers and no wedding ring. + +"My dear child," he murmured, "I feel more than I dare express. +Good-by and may God bless you and be good to you, for I fear the world +will not." He bowed with old-fashioned courtesy over her hand and +departed; yet such was his knowledge of life that now his soul was +more deeply troubled than it had been since his unintentional +eavesdropping on his manager's garrulous wife. + +"What a woman!" he reflected. "Brains, imagination, dignity, womanly +pride, courage, beauty and--yes; I agree with Donald. Neither maid, +wife nor widow is she--yet she is not, never has been, and never will +be a woman without virtue. Ah, Donald, my son, she's a bonny lass! For +all her fall, she's not a common woman and my son is not a common +man--I wonder--Oh, 'tis lies, lies, lies, and she's heard them and +knows they're lies. Ah, my son, my son, with the hot blood of youth in +you--you've a man's head and heart and a will of your own--Aye, she's +sweet--that she is--I wonder!" + + + + +X + + +At the front of Caleb Brent's little house there was a bench upon +which the old man was wont to sit on sunny days--usually in the +morning, before the brisk, cool nor'west trade-wind commenced to blow. +Following Hector McKaye's departure, Nan sought this bench until she +had sufficiently mastered her emotions to conceal from her father +evidence of a distress more pronounced than usual; as she sat there, +she revolved the situation in her mind, scanning every aspect of it, +weighing carefully every possibility. + +In common with the majority of human kind, Nan considered herself +entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and now, at a +period when, in the ordinary course of events, all three of these +necessary concomitants of successful existence (for, to her, life +meant something more than mere living) should have been hers in +bounteous measure, despite the handicap under which she had been born, +she faced a future so barren that sometimes the distant boom of the +breakers on Tyee Head called to her to desert her hopeless fight and +in the blue depths out yonder find haven from the tempests of her +soul. + +In an elder day, when the Sawdust Pile had been Port Agnew's +garbage-dump, folks who clipped their rose bushes and thinned out +their marigold plants had been accustomed to seeing these slips take +root again and bloom on the Sawdust Pile for a brief period after +their ash-cans had been emptied there; and, though she did not know +it, Nan Brent bore pitiful resemblance to these outcast flowers. Here, +on the reclaimed Sawdust Pile, she had bloomed from girlhood into +lovely womanhood--a sweet forget-me-not in the Garden of Life, she had +been transplanted into Eden until Fate, the grim gardener, had cast +her out, to take root again on the Sawdust Pile and ultimately to +wither and die. + +It is terrible for the great of soul, the ambitious, the imaginative, +when circumstances condemn them to life amid dull, uninteresting, +drab, and sometimes sordid surroundings. Born to love and be loved, +Nan Brent's soul beat against her environment even as a wild bird, +captured and loosed in a room, beats against the window-pane. From the +moment she had felt within her the vague stirrings of womanhood, she +had been wont to gaze upon the blue-back hills to the east, to the +horizon out west, wondering what mysteries lay beyond, and yearning to +encounter them. Perhaps it was the sea-faring instinct, the +_Wanderlust_ of her forebears; perhaps it was a keener appreciation of +the mediocrity of Port Agnew than others in the little town possessed, +a realization that she had more to give to life than life had to give +to her. Perhaps it had been merely the restlessness that is the twin +of a rare heritage--the music of the spheres--for with such had Nan +been born. It is hard to harken for the reedy music of Pan and hear +only the whine of a sawmill or the boom of the surf. + +Of her mother, Nan had seen but little. Her recollections of her +mother were few and vague; of her mother's people, she knew nothing +save the fact that they dwelt in a world quite free of Brents, and +that her mother had committed a distinctly social _faux pas_ in +marrying Caleb Brent she guessed long before Caleb Brent, in his brave +simplicity, had imparted that fact to her. An admiral's daughter, +descendant of an old and wealthy Revolutionary family, the males of +which had deemed any calling other than the honorable profession of +arms as beneath the blood and traditions of the family, Nan's mother +had been the pet of Portsmouth until, inexplicably, Caleb Brent, a +chief petty officer on her father's flag-ship, upon whom the hero's +medal had just been bestowed, had found favor in her eyes. The ways of +love, as all the philosophers of the ages are agreed, are beyond +definition or understanding; even in his own case, Caleb Brent was not +equal to the task of understanding how their love had grown, burgeoned +into an engagement, and ripened into marriage. He only knew that, from +a meek and well-disciplined petty officer, he had suddenly developed +the courage of a Sir Galahad, and, while under the influence of a +strange spell, had respectfully defied the admiral, who had foolishly +assumed that, even if his daughter would not obey him, his junior in +the service would. Then had come the baby girl, Nan, the +divorce--pressed by the mother's family--and the mother's death. + +If his wife had discerned in him the nobility that was so apparent to +his daughter--Poor old hero! But Nan always checked her meditations at +this point. They didn't seem quite fair to her mother. + +Seated on the bench this afternoon, Nan reviewed her life from her +sixth year, the year in which her father had claimed her. Until her +eighteenth year, she had not been unhappy, for, following their +arrival in Port Agnew, her father had prospered to a degree which +permitted his daughter the enjoyment of the ordinary opportunities of +ordinary people. If she had not known extravagance in the matter of +dress, neither had she known penury; when her feminine instinct +impelled her to brighten and beautify the little home on the Sawdust +Pile from time to time, she had found that possible. She had been +graduated with honors from the local high school, and, being a +book-lover of catholic taste and wide range, she was, perhaps, more +solidly educated than the majority of girls who have had opportunities +for so-called higher education. With the broad democracy of sawmill +towns, she had not, in the days gone by, been excluded from the social +life of the town, such as it was, and she had had her beaus, such as +they were. Sometimes she wondered how the choir in the Presbyterian +church had progressed since she, once the mezzo-soprano soloist, had +resigned to sing lullabys to a nameless child, if Andrew Daney still +walked on the tips of his shoes when he passed the collection-plate, +and if the mortgage on the church had ever been paid. + +She rose wearily and entered the little house. Old Caleb sat at the +dining-room table playing solitaire. He looked up as she entered, +swept the cards into a heap and extended his old arm to encircle her +waist as she sat on the broad arm of his chair. She drew his gray head +down on her breast. + +"Dadkins," she said presently, "Donald McKaye isn't coming to dinner +to-morrow after all." + +"Oh, that's too bad, Nan! Has he written you? What's happened?" + +"No; he hasn't written me, and nothing's happened. I have decided to +send him word not to come." + +[Illustration: SHE STOLE TO THE OLD SQUARE PIANO AND SANG FOR HIM.] + +"Aren't you feeling well, my dear?" + +"It isn't that, popsy-wops. He's the new laird of Tyee now, and he +must be careful of the company he keeps." + +Old Caleb growled in his throat. + +"Much he cares what people think." + +"I know it. And much I care what people think, for I've grown +accustomed to their thoughts. But I do care what his father thinks, +for, of course, he has plans for Donald's future, and if Donald, out +of the kindness of his heart, should become a frequent visitor here, +The Laird would hear of it sooner or later--sooner, perhaps, for it +would never occur to Donald to conceal it--and then the poor laird +would be worried. And we don't owe The Laird that, father Brent!" + +"No; we do not." The old face was troubled. + +"I met Mrs. Daney on the beach, and it was she who gave me the +intimation that The Laird had heard some cruel gossip that was +disturbing him." + +"I'm sorry. Well, use your own judgment, daughter." + +"I'm sure Donald will understand," she assured him. "And he will not +think the less of us for doing it." + +She got up and went to the peculiar and wholly impractical little desk +which Mrs. McKaye had picked up in Italy and which Donald, calm in the +knowledge that his mother would never use it or miss it, had given her +to help furnish the house when first they had come to the Sawdust +Pile. On a leaf torn from a tablet, she wrote: + + THE SAWDUST PILE, Saturday Afternoon. + + DEAR DONALD: + + I had planned to reserve my thanks for the books and the candy + until you called for dinner to-morrow. Now, I have decided that + it will be better for you not to come to dinner to-morrow, + although this decision has not been made without father and me + being sensible of a keen feeling of disappointment. We had + planned to sacrifice an old hen that has outlived her margin of + profit, hoping that, with the admixture of a pinch of saleratus, + she would prove tender enough to tempt the appetite of a + lumberjack, but, upon sober second thought, it seems the part of + wisdom to let her live. + + We honor and respect you, Donald. You are so very dear to us that + we wish to cherish always your good opinion of us; we want + everybody in Port Agnew to think of you as we do. People will + misunderstand and misconstrue your loyalty to the old friends of + your boyhood if you dare admit your friendship. Indeed, some have + already done so. I thank you for the books and the candy, but + with all my heart I am grateful to you for a gift infinitely more + precious but which is too valuable for me to accept. I shall have + to treasure it at a distance. Sometimes, at colors, you might + wave to + + + Your old friend, + + NAN BRENT. + +Her letter completed, she sealed it in a plain white envelop, after +which she changed into her best dress and shoes and departed up-town. + +Straight to the mill office of the Tyee Lumber Company she went, her +appearance outside the railing in the general office being the signal +for many a curious and speculative glance from the girls and young men +at work therein. One of the former, with whom Nan had attended high +school, came over to the railing and, without extending a greeting, +either of word or smile, asked, in businesslike tones, + +"Whom do you wish to see?" + +In direct contrast with this cool salutation, Nan inclined her head +graciously and smilingly said: + +"Why, how do you do, Hetty? I wonder if I might be permitted a minute +of Mr. Daney's time." + +"I'll see," Hetty replied, secretly furious in the knowledge that she +had been serenely rebuked, and immediately disappeared in the general +manager's office. A moment later, she emerged. "Mr. Daney will see +you, Miss Brent," she announced. "First door to your right. Go right +in." + +"Thank you very much, Hetty." + +Andrew Daney, seated at a desk, stood up as she entered. + +"How do you do, Nan?" he greeted her, with masculine cordiality, and +set out a chair. "Please be seated and tell me what I can do to oblige +you." + +A swift scrutiny of the private office convinced her that they were +alone; so she advanced to the desk and laid upon it the letter she had +addressed to Donald McKaye. + +"I would be grateful, Mr. Daney, if you would see that Mr. Donald +McKaye receives this letter when he comes in from the woods to-night," +she replied. Daney was frankly amazed. + +"Bless my soul," he blurted, "why do you entrust me with it? Would it +not have been far simpler to have mailed it?" + +"Not at all, Mr. Daney. In the first place, the necessity for writing +it only developed an hour ago, and in order to be quite certain Mr. +McKaye would receive it this evening, I would have had to place a +special-delivery stamp upon it. I did not have a special-delivery +stamp; so, in order to get one, I would have had to go to the +post-office and buy it. And the instant I did that, the girl on duty +at the stamp-window would have gone to the mail-chute to get the +letter and read the address. So I concluded it would be far more +simple and safe to entrust my letter to you. Moreover," she added, "I +save ten cents." + +"I am very greatly obliged to you, Nan," Daney answered soberly. "You +did exactly right," Had she conferred upon him a distinct personal +favor, his expression of obligation could not have been more sincere. +He took a large envelop of the Tyee Lumber Company, wrote Donald's +name upon it, enclosed Nan's letter in this large envelop, and sealed +it with a mighty blow of his fist. "Now then," he declared, "what +people do not know will not trouble them. After you go, I'll place +this envelop in Don's mail-box in the outer office. I think we +understand each other," he added shrewdly. + +"I think we do, Mr. Daney." + +"Splendid fellow, young Donald! Thundering fine boy!" + +"I agree with you, Mr. Daney. If Donald has a fault, it is his +excessive democracy and loyalty to his friends. Thank you so much, Mr. +Daney. Good-afternoon." + +"Not at all--not at all! All this is quite confidential, of course, +otherwise you would not be here." He bowed her to the door, opened it +for her, and bowed again as she passed him. When she had gone, he +summoned the young lady whom Nan had addressed as "Hetty." + +"Miss Fairchaild," he said, "'phone the local sales-office and tell +them to deliver a load of fire-wood to the Brent house at the Sawdust +Pile." + +Two minutes later, the entire office force knew that Nan Brent had +called to order a load of fire-wood, and once more the world sagged +into the doldrums. + + + + +XI + + +At six o'clock Donald came in from the logging-camp. Daney made it his +business to be in the entry of the outer office when his superior took +his mail from his box, and, watching narrowly, thought he observed a +frown on the young laird's face as he read Nan Brent's letter. +Immediately he took refuge in his private office, to which he was +followed almost immediately by Donald. + +"That's your handwriting, Mr. Daney," he said, thrusting the large +envelop under Daney's nose. "Another letter in a smaller envelop was +enclosed by you in this large one. You knew, of course, who wrote it." + +"Miss Brent brought it personally." + +Donald started slightly. He was amazed. + +"I take it," he continued, after a slight pause, "that it was entirely +your idea to conceal from the office force the fact that Miss Brent +had written me this letter." + +"It was, Don." + +"I am at a loss to know why you took such a precaution." Donald's eyes +met Daney's in frank suspicion; the latter thought that he detected +some slight anger in the younger man's bearing. + +"I can enlighten you, Don. Miss Brent was at some pains to conceal the +fact that she had written you a letter; she brought it to me to be +handed to you, rather than run the risk of discovery by dropping it in +the post-office for special delivery. Some of the girls in our office +went to school with Nan Brent and might recognize her handwriting if +they saw the envelop. I saw Hetty Fairchaild looking over your letters +rather interestedly the other day, when she was sorting the mail and +putting it in the boxes." + +"The entire procedure appears to me to be peculiar and wholly +unnecessary. However, I'm obliged to you, Mr. Daney, for acceding so +thoroughly to Nan's apparent wishes." He frowned as he tore the +envelop into shreds and dropped them in Dahey's waste-basket. "I'm +afraid some young women around this plant are going to lose their jobs +unless they learn to restrain their curiosity and their tongues," he +added. + +"I thought I was still general manager," Daney reminded him gently, +"Hiring and firing have always been my peculiar prerogatives." + +"Forgive me, Mr. Daney. They shall continue to be." The young Laird +grinned at the rebuke; Daney smiled back at him, and the somewhat +charged atmosphere cleared instantly. + +"By the way, Donald, your father is in town. He's going up to Seattle +to-night on the seven-ten train. Your mother and the girls left +earlier in the week. He's dining at the hotel and wishes you to join +him there. He figured that, by the time you could reach The Dreamerie, +shave, bathe, and dress, it would be too late to have dinner with him +there and still allow him time to catch his train." + +"How does idleness sit on my parent, Mr. Daney?" + +"Not very well, I fear. He shoots and fishes and takes long walks with +the dogs; he was out twice in your sloop this week. I think he and +your mother and the girls plan a trip to Honolulu shortly." + +"Good!" Donald yawned and stretched his big body, "I've lost eight +pounds on this chopping-job," he declared, "and I thought I hadn't an +ounce of fat on me. Zounds, I'm sore! But I'm to have an easy job next +week. I'm to patrol the skid-roads with a grease-can. That woods boss +is certainly running me ragged." + +"Well, your innings will come later," Daney smiled. + +At the mill office, Donald washed, and then strolled over to the hotel +to meet his father. Old Hector grinned as Donald, in woolen shirt, +mackinaw, corduroy trousers, and half-boots came into the little +lobby, for in his son he saw a replica of himself thirty years agone. + +"Hello, dad!" Donald greeted him. + +"Hello, yourself!" + +The father, in great good humor, joined his son, and they proceeded to +dine, chaffing each other good-naturedly the while, and occasionally +exchanging pleasantries with their neighbors at adjoining tables. The +Laird was in excellent spirits, a condition which his interview that +afternoon with Nan Brent had tended to bring about; during the period +that had elapsed between his subsequent doubts and his meeting with +his son, he had finally decided that the entire matter was a mare's +nest and had dismissed it from his mind. + +After dinner, they walked down to the railroad station together, +Donald carrying his father's bag. While The Laird was at the +ticket-window purchasing his transportation, his son walked over to a +baggage-truck to rest the bag upon it. As the bag landed with a thud, +a man who had been seated on the truck with his back toward Donald +glanced over his shoulder in a leisurely way, and, in that glance, the +latter recognized one of the Greeks he had evicted from the Sawdust +Pile--the same man who had thrown a beer-bottle at him the day he +motored through Darrow. + +"What are you doing in Port Agnew?" Donald demanded. + +To his query, the fellow replied profanely that this was none of his +interrogator's affair. + +"Well, it is some of my affair," the new boss of Tyee replied. "I have +a crow to pluck with you, anyhow, and I'm going to pluck it now." He +grasped the Greek by his collar and jerked him backward until the man +lay flat on his back across the baggage-truck; then, with his horny +left hand, Donald slapped the sullen face vigorously, jerked the +fellow to his feet, faced him in the direction of Darrow, and, with a +vigorous kick, started him on his way. "That's for throwing +beer-bottles!" he called after the man. "And hereafter you keep out of +Port Agnew. Your kind are not welcome here." + +The Greek departed into the night cursing, while The Laird, still at +the ticket-window, glanced interestedly from his son to the Greek and +then back to Donald. + +"What's the idea, son?" he demanded. + +"A recent dweller on the Sawdust Pile," his son replied easily. "He +declared war on me, so, naturally, he comes into my territory at his +own risk. That scum from Darrow must keep out of our town, dad, and +force is the only argument they can understand. Daney gave them a free +hand and spoiled them, but I'm going to teach them who's boss around +here now. Besides, I owe that fellow a poke. He insulted Nan Brent. +There would have been a bill for repairs on the scoundrel if I had +caught him the day I drove his gang off the Sawdust Pile." + +"Well, I approve of your sentiments, Donald, but, nevertheless, it's a +poor practise for a gentleman to fight with a mucker, although," he +added whimsically, "when I was your age I always enjoyed a go with +such fellows. That man you just roughed is George Chirakes, and he's a +bad one. Knifed three of his countrymen in a drunken riot in Darrow +last fall, but got out of it on a plea of self-defense. Keep your eye +on the brute. He may try to play even, although there's no real +courage in his kind. They're born bushwhackers," The Laird glanced at +his watch and saw that it still lacked eight minutes of train-time. +"Wait for me a minute," he told his son. "I want to telephone Daney on +a little matter I overlooked this afternoon." + +He entered the telephone-booth in the station and called up Andrew +Daney. + +"McKaye speaking," he announced. "I've just discovered Donald has an +enemy--that Greek, Chirakes, from Darrow. Did Dirty Dan come in from +the woods to-night?" + +"I believe he did. He usually comes in at week-ends." + +"Look him up immediately, and tell him to keep an eye on Donald, and +not to let him out of his sight until the boy boards the logging-train +to-morrow night to go back to the woods. Same thing next week-end, and +when Donald completes his tour of duty in the woods, transfer Dan from +the logging-camp and give him a job in the mill, so he can watch over +the boy when he's abroad nights. He is not, of course, to let my son +know he is under surveillance." + +"I will attend to the matter immediately," Daney promised, and The +Laird, much relieved, hung up and rejoined his son. + +"Take care of yourself--and watch that Greek, boy," he cautioned, as +he swung aboard the train. + +Donald stood looking after the train until the tail-lights had +disappeared round a curve. + + + + +XII + + +Daney readily discovered in a pool-hall the man he sought. "Dirty Dan" +O'Leary was a chopper in the McKaye employ, and had earned his +sobriquet, not because he was less cleanly than the average lumberjack +but because he was what his kind described as a "dirty" fighter. That +is to say, when his belligerent disposition led him into battle, which +it frequently did, Mr. O'Leary's instinct was to win, quickly and +decisively, and without consideration of the niceties of combat, for a +primitive person was Dirty Dan. Fast as a panther, he was as equally +proficient in the use of all his extremities, and, if hard pressed, +would use his teeth. He was a stringy, big-boned man of six feet, and +much too tall for his weight, wherefore belligerent strangers were +sometimes led to the erroneous conclusion that Mr. O'Leary would not +be hard to upset. In short, he was a wild, bad Irishman who had gotten +immovably fixed in his head an idea that old Hector McKaye was a +"gr-rand gintleman," and a gr-rand gintleman was one of the three +things that Dirty Dan would fight for, the other two being his +personal safety and the love of battle. + +Daney drew Dirty Dan out of the pool-hall and explained the situation +to him. The knowledge that The Laird had, in his extremity, placed +reliance on him moved Dirty Dan to the highest pitch of enthusiasm and +loyalty. He pursed his lips, winked one of his piggy eyes craftily, +and, without wasting time in words of assurance, set forth in search +of the man he was to follow and protect. Presently he saw Donald +entering the butcher shop; so he stationed himself across the street +and watched the young laird of Tyee purchase a fowl and walk out with +it under his arm. Keeping his man dimly in view through the gloom, +Dirty Dan, from the opposite side of the street, followed on velvet +feet to the outskirts of the town, where Donald turned and took a path +through some vacant lots, arriving at last at the Sawdust Pile. Dirty +Dan heard him open and close the gate to Caleb Brent's garden. + +"Oh, ho, the young divil!" Dirty Dan murmured, and immediately left +the path, padding softly out into the grass in order that, when the +door of Caleb Brent's house should be opened, the light from within +might not shine forth and betray him. After traversing a dozen steps, +he lay down in the grass and set himself patiently to await the +reappearance of his quarry. + +In response to several clearly audible knocks, the front door failed +to open, and Dirty Dan heard Don walk round the house to the back +door. + +"The young divil!" he reiterated to himself. "Faith, whin the cat's +away the mice'll play, an' divil a worrd o' lie in that! Begorra, I'm +thinkin' the ould gintleman'd be scandalized could he know where his +darlin' bhoy is this minute--here, wait a minute Daniel, ye gossoon. +Maybe, 'tis for this I've been sint to watch the lad an' not for to +protect him. If it is, faith 'tis a job I'm not wishful for, shpyin' +on me own boss." He pondered the matter. Then: "Well, sorra wan o' me +knows. What if the young fella do be in love wit' her an' his father +have wind of it! Eh? What thin, Daniel? A scandal, that's what, an', +be the toe-nails o' Moses, nayther The Laird nor his son can afford +that. I'll take note o' what happens, but, be the same token, 'tis not +to Misther Daney I'll make me report, but to the ould man himself. +Sh--what's that?" + +His ear being close to the ground, Dirty Dan had caught the sound of +slow, cautious footsteps advancing along the little path. He flattened +himself in the grass and listened, the while he hoped fervently that +those who walked the path (for he knew now there were more than one) +would not leave it as he had done and at the same point. Should they +inadvertently tread upon him, Dirty Dan felt that the honor of the +McKaye family and the maintenance of the secret of his present +employment would demand instant and furious battle--on suspicion. + +The unknown pedestrians paused in the path. + +"Ah done tol' you-all Ah'm right," Dirty Dan heard one of them say. + +"Ha!" thought Dirty Dan. "A dirrty black naygur! I can tell be the +v'ice of him." + +One of his companions grunted, and another said, in accents which the +astute Mr. O'Leary correctly judged to be those of a foreigner of some +sort: + +"All right. W'en he's come out, we jumpa right here. Wha's matter, +eh?" + +"Suits me," the negro replied. "Let's set down, an' fo' de Lawd's +sake, keep quite 'twell he come." + +Dirty Dan heard them move off to the other side of the path and sit +down in the grass. + +"So 'tis that big buck yeller naygur from Darrow an' two o' the +Greeks," he mused. "An' God knows I never did like fightin' in the +dark. They'll knife me as sure as pussy is a cat." + +Decidedly, the prospect did not appeal to Dirty Dan. However, he had +his orders to protect The Laird's son; he had his own peculiar notions +of honor, and in his wild Irish heart there was not one drop of craven +blood. So presently, with the stealth of an animal, he crawled +soundlessly away until he judged it would be safe for him to stand up +and walk, which he did with infinite caution. + +He reached the gate, passed like a wraith through it, and round to the +side of Caleb Brent's home, in momentary dread of discovery by a dog. +He breathed a sigh of relief when, the outcry failing to materialize, +he decided the Brents were too poor to maintain a dog; whereupon he +filled his pipe, lighted it, leaned up against the house, and, for the +space of an hour, stood entranced, for from Caleb Brent's poor shanty +there floated the voice of an angel, singing to the notes of a piano. + +"Glory be!" murmured the amazed Daniel. "Sure, if that's what the +young fella hears whin he calls, divil a bit do I blame him. Oh, the +shweet v'ice of her--an' singin' 'The Low-backed Car'!" + +Despite the wicked work ahead of him, Dirty Dan was glad of the ill +fortune which had sent him hither. He had in full measure the Gael's +love of music, and when, at length, the singing ceased and reluctantly +he made up his mind that the concert was over, he was thrilled to a +point of exaltation. + +"Begorra, I didn't expect to be piped into battle," he reflected +humorously--and sought the Brent wood-pile, in which he poked until +his hard hands closed over a hard, sound, round piece of wood about +three feet long. He tested it across his knee, swung it over his head, +and decided it would do. + +"Now thin, for the surprise party," he reflected grimly, and walked +boldly to the gate, which he opened and closed with sufficient vigor +to advertise his coming, even if his calked boots on the hard path had +not already heralded his advance. However, Dirty Dan desired to make +certain; so he pursed his lips and whistled softly the opening bars of +"The Low-backed Car" in the hope that the lilting notes would still +further serve to inculcate in the lurking enemy the impression that he +was a lover returning well content from his tryst. As he sauntered +along, he held his bludgeon in readiness while his keen eyes +searched--and presently he made out the cronching figures. + +"The naygur first--to hold me, whilst the Greeks slip a dirk in me," +he decided shrewdly. + +He heard the scuttering rush start, and, with the shock of combat, his +carefully prearranged plan of battle quite fled his mercurial mind. He +met the charge with a joyous screech, forgot that he had a club, and +kicked viciously out with his right foot. His heavy logger's boots +connected with something soft and yielding, which instinct told Mr. +O'Leary was an abdomen; instinct, coupled with experience, informed +him further that no man could assimilate that mighty kick in the +abdomen and yet remain perpendicular, whereupon. Dirty Dan leaped high +in the air and came down with both terrible calked boots on something +which gave slightly under him and moaned. On the instant, he received +a light blow in the breast and knew he had been stabbed. + +He remembered his club now; as he backed away swiftly, he swung it, +and, from the impact, concluded he had struck a neck or shoulder. That +was the luck of night-fighting; so, with a bitter curse, Dirty Dan +swung again, in the pious hope of connecting with a skull; he scored a +clean miss and was, by the tremendous force of his swing, turned +completely round. Before he could recover his balance, a hand grasped +his ankle and he came down heavily on his face; instantly, his +assailant's knees were pressed into his back. With a mighty heave he +sought to free himself, at the same time flinging both long legs +upward, after the fashion of one who strives to kick himself in the +small of the back; whereupon a knife drove deep into his instep, and +he realized he had not acted a split second too soon to save himself +from a murderous thrust in the kidneys--a Greek's favorite blow. + +In battle, Dirty Dan's advantage lay always in his amazing speed and +the terrible fury of his attack during the first five minutes. Even as +he threw up his feet, he drew back, an elbow and crashed it into his +enemy's ribs; like a flash, his arm straightened, and his sinewy hand +closed over the wrist of an arm that struggled in vain to strike +downward. Holding that wrist securely, Dirty Dan heaved upward, got +his left elbow under his body, and rested a few moments; another +mighty heave, and he tossed off the Greek, and, whirling with the +speed of a pin-wheel, was on top of his man. He had momentarily +released his hold on the Greek's wrist, however, and he had to fight +for another hold now--in the dark. Presently he captured it, twisted +the arm in the terrible hammer-lock, and broke it; then, while the +Greek lay writhing in agony, Mr. O'Leary leaped to his feet and +commenced to play with his awful boots a devil's tattoo on that +portion of his enemy's superstructure so frequently alluded to in +pugilistic circles as "the slats." After five or six kicks, however, +he paused, due to a difficulty in breathing; so he struck a match and +surveyed the stricken field. + +The big mulatto and two Greeks, lay unconscious before him; in the +nickering light of the match, two blood-stained dirks gleamed in the +grass, so, with a minute attention to detail, Dirty Dan possessed +himself of these weapons, picked up his club, and, reasoning shrewdly +that Donald McKaye's enemies had had enough combat for a few weeks at +least, the dauntless fellow dragged the fallen clear of the path, in +order that his youthful master might not stumble over them on his way +home, and then disappeared into the night. Half an hour later, smeared +with dust and blood, he crawled up the steps of the Tyee Lumber +Company's hospital on his hands and knees and rapped feebly on the +front door. The night nurse came out and looked him over. + +"I'm Dirty Dan O'Leary," he wheezed; "I've been fightin' agin." + +The nurse called the doctor and two orderlies, and they carried him +into the operating-room. + +"I'm not the man I used to be," Dirty Dan whispered, "but glory be, ye +should see the other fellers." He opened his hand, and two +blood-stained clasp-knives rolled out; he winked knowingly, and +indulged in humorous reminiscences of the combat while he was being +examined. + +"You're cut to strings and ribbons, Dan," the doctor informed him, +"and they've stuck you in the left lung. You've lost a lot of blood. +We may pull you through, but I doubt it." + +"Very well," the demon replied composedly. + +"Telephone Judge Alton to come and get his dying statement," the +doctor ordered the nurse, but Dirty Dan raised a deprecating hand. + +"'Twas a private, personal matther," he declared. "'Twas settled +satisfacthory. I'll not die, an' I'll talk to no man but Misther +Daney. Sew me up an' plug me lung, an' be quick about it, Docthor." + +When Andrew Daney came, summoned by telephone, Dirty Dan ordered all +others from the room, and Daney saw that the door was closed tightly +after them. Then he bent over Dirty Dan. + +"Where's Donald?" he demanded. + +"That's neither here nor there, sir," Mr. O'Leary replied evasively. +"He's safe, an' never knew they were afther him. T'ree o' thim, sir, +the naygur and two Greeks. I kidded thim into thinkin' I was Misther +McKaye; 'tis all over now, an' ye can find out what two Greeks it was +by those knives I took for evidence. I cannot identify thim, but go up +to Darrow in the mornin' an' look for a spreckled mulatter, wan Greek +wit' a broken right arm, an' another wit' a broken neck, but until I +die, do nothin'. If I get well, tell them to quit Darrow for good +agin' the day I come out o' the hospital. Good-night to you, sir, an' +thank ye for callin'." + +From the hospital, Andrew Daney, avoiding the lighted main street, +hastened to the Sawdust Pile. A light still burned in Caleb Brent's +cottage; so Daney stood aloof in the vacant lot and waited. About ten +o'clock, the front door opened, and, framed in the light of the +doorway, the general manager saw Donald McKaye, and beside him Nan +Brent. + +"Until to-morrow at five, Donald, since you will persist in being +obstinate," he heard Nan say, as they reached the gate and paused +there. "Good-night, dear." + +Andrew Daney waited no longer, but turned and fled into the darkness. + + + + +XIII + + +Having done that which her conscience dictated, Nan Brent returned to +her home a prey to many conflicting emotions, chief of which were a +quiet sense of exaltation in the belief that she had played fair by +both old Hector and his son, and a sense of depression in the +knowledge that she would not see Donald McKaye again. As a boy, she +had liked him tremendously; as a man, she knew she liked him even +better. + +She was quite certain she had never met a man who was quite fit to +breathe the same air with Donald McKaye; already she had magnified his +virtues until, to her, he was rapidly assuming the aspect of an +archangel--a feeling which bordered perilously on adoration. + +But deep down in her woman's heart she was afraid, fearing for her own +weakness. The past had brought her sufficient anguish--she dared not +risk a future filled with unsatisfied yearning that comes of a great +love suppressed or denied. + +She felt better about it as she walked homeward; it seemed that she +had regained, in a measure, some peace of mind, and as she prepared +dinner for her father and her child, she was almost cheerful. A warm +glow of self-complacency enveloped her. Later, when old Caleb and the +boy had retired and she sat before the little wood fire alone with her +thoughts, this feeling of self-conscious rectitude slowly left her, +and into its place crept a sense of desolation inspired by one +thought that obtruded upon her insistently, no matter how desperately +she drove her mind to consider other things. She was not to see him +again--no, never any more. Those fearless, fiery gray eyes that were +all abeam with tenderness and complete understanding that day he left +her at the gate; those features that no one would ever term handsome, +yet withal so rugged, so strong, so pregnant of character, so +peculiarly winning when lighted by the infrequent smile--she was never +to gaze upon them again. It did not seem quite fair that, for all that +the world had denied her, it should withhold from her this +inconsequent delight. This was carrying misfortune too far; it was +terrible--unbearable almost-- + +A wave of self-pity, the most acute misery of a tortured soul, surged +over her; she laid her fair head on her arms outspread upon the table, +and gave herself up to wild sobbing. In her desolation, she called +aloud, piteously, for that mother she had hardly known, as if she +would fain summon that understanding spirit and in her arms seek the +comfort that none other in this world could give her. So thoroughly +did she abandon herself to this first--and final--paroxysm of despair +that she failed to hear a tentative rap upon the front door and, +shortly, the tread of rough-shod feet on the board walk round the +house. Her first intimation that some one had arrived to comfort her +came in the shape of a hard hand that thrust itself gently under her +chin and lifted her face from her arms. + +Through the mist of her tears she saw only the vague outlines of a man +clad in heavy woolen shirt and mackinaw, such as her father frequently +wore. + +"Oh, father, father!" she cried softly, and laid her head on his +breast, while her arms went round his neck. "I'm so terribly unhappy! +I can't bear it--I can't! Just--because he chose to be--kind to +us--those gossips--as if anybody could help being fond of him--" + +She was held tight in his arms. + +"Not your father, Nan." Donald murmured in a low voice. + +She drew away from him with a sharp little cry of amazement and +chagrin, but his great arms closed round her and drew her close again. + +"Poor dear," he told her, "you were calling for your mother. You +wanted a breast to weep upon, didn't you? Well, mine is here for you." + +"Oh, sweetheart, you mustn't!" she cried passionately, her lips +unconsciously framing the unspoken cry of her heart as she strove to +escape from him. + +"Ah, but I shall!" he answered. "You've called me 'sweetheart,' and +that gives me the right." And he kissed her hot cheek and laughed the +light, contented little laugh of the conqueror, nor could all her +frantic pleadings and struggling prevail upon him to let her go. In +the end, she did the obvious, the human thing. She clasped him tightly +round the neck, and, forgetting everything in the consuming wonder of +the fact that this man loved her with a profound and holy love, she +weakly gave herself up to his caresses, satisfying her heart-hunger +for a few blessed, wonderful moments before hardening herself to the +terrible task of impressing upon him the hopelessness of it all and +sending him upon his way. By degrees, she cried herself dry-eyed and +leaned against him, striving to collect her dazed thoughts. And then +he spoke. + +"I know what you're going to say, dear. From a worldly point of view, +you are quite right. Seemingly, without volition on our part, we have +evolved a distressing, an impossible situation--" + +"Oh, I'm so glad that you understand!" she gasped. + +"And yet," he continued soberly, "love such as ours is not a light +thing to be passed lightly by. To me, Nan Brent, you are sacred; to +you, I yearn to be all things that--the--other man was not. I didn't +realize until I entered unannounced and found you so desolate that I +loved you. For two weeks you have been constantly in my thoughts, and +I know now that, after all, you were my boyhood sweetheart." + +"I know you were mine," she agreed brokenly. "But that's just a little +tender memory now, even if we said nothing about it then. We are +children no longer, Donald dear; we must be strong and not surrender +to our selfish love." + +"I do not regard it as selfish," he retorted soberly. "It seems most +perfectly natural and inevitable. Why, Nan, I didn't even pay you the +preliminary compliment of telling you I loved you or asking you if you +reciprocated my affection. It appeared to me I didn't have to; that it +was a sort of mutual understanding--for here we are. It seems it just +was to be--like the law of gravitation." + +She smiled up at him, despite her mental pain. + +"I'm not so certain, dear," she answered, "that I'm not wicked enough +to rejoice. It will make our renunciation all the easier--for me. I +have known great sorrow, but to-night, for a little while, I have +surrendered myself to great happiness, and nothing--nothing--can ever +rob me of the last shred of that. You are my man, Donald. The +knowledge that you love me is going to draw much of the sting out of +existence. I know I cannot possess you, but I can resign myself to +that and not be embittered." + +"Well," he answered dully, "I can give you up--because I have to; but +I shall never be resigned about it, and I fear I may be embittered. Is +there no hope, Nan?" + +"A faint one--some day, perhaps, if I outlive another." + +"I'll wait for that day, Nan. Meanwhile, I shall ask no questions. I +love you enough to accept your love on faith, for, by God, you're a +good woman!" + +Her eyes shown with a wonderful radiance as she drew his face down to +hers and kissed him on the lips. + +"It's sweet of you to say that; I could love you for that alone, were +there nothing else, Donald. But tell me, dear, did you receive my +letter?" + +"Yes--and ignored it. That's why I'm here." + +"That was a risk you should not have taken." + +He looked thoughtfully at the multicolored flame of the driftwood +fire. + +"Well, you see, Nan, it didn't occur to me that I was taking a risk; a +confession of love was the last thing I would have thought would +happen." + +"Then why did you disregard that letter that cost me such an effort to +write?" + +"Well," he replied slowly, "I guess it's because I'm the captain of my +soul--or try to be, at any rate. I didn't think it quite fair that you +should be shunned; it occurred to me that I wouldn't be playing a +manly part to permit the idle mewing of the Port Agnew tabbies to +frighten me away. I didn't intend to fall in love with you--Oh, drat +my reasons! I'm here because I'm here. And in the matter of that old +hen--" He paused and favored her with a quizzical smile. + +"Yes?" + +"I brought a substitute hen with me--all ready for the pot, and if I +can't come to dinner to-morrow, I'm going to face a very lonely +Sunday." + +"You ridiculous boy! Of course you may come, although it must be the +final visit. You realize that we owe it to ourselves not to make our +burden heavier than it's going to be." + +He nodded. + +"'Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we may be dead,'" he quoted. +"Let's sit down and talk it over. I haven't sat in front of a +driftwood fire since I was a boy. Queer how the salt in the wood +colors the flames, isn't it?" + +It occurred to her for a fleeting moment that they two were driftwood, +and that the salt of their tears would color their lives as the years +consumed them. But she banished from her mind all thought of +everything save the present. With a contented little sigh she seated +herself beside him; her hand stole into his and, soothed and sustained +by the comforting touch, each of the other, gradually the first terror +of their predicament faded; ere long, Donald reminded her of her +promise, and she stole to the old square piano and sang for him while, +without, Dirty Dan O'Leary crouched in the darkness and thrilled at +the rippling melody. + +At ten o'clock, when Donald left the Sawdust Pile, he and Nan had +arrived at a firm determination to follow separate paths, nor seek to +level the barrier that circumstance had raised between them. + +"Some day--perhaps," he whispered, as he held her to his heart in the +dark-it the garden gate. "While I live, I shall love you. Good-by, old +sweetheart!" + + + + +XIV + + +True to his promise, Daniel P. O'Leary declined to die that night. + +"Confound your belligerent soul!" the doctor growled at dawn. "I +believe you're too mean to die." + +"We'll make it a finish fight," whispered Daniel. + +"I'll go you," the doctor answered, and sent for digitalis and salt +solution. + +There was one other soul in Port Agnew who did not sleep that night, +either. Andrew Daney's soul, shaken by what was to him a cosmic +cataclysm, caused that good man to rise at five o'clock and go down to +the hospital for another look at Dirty Dan. To his anxious queries the +doctor shook a dubious head, but the indomitable O'Leary smiled wanly. + +"Go on wit' ye!" he wheezed faintly. "I'll win be a hair-line +decision." + +At seven o'clock, when the telegraph-station opened, Andrew Daney was +waiting at the door. He entered and sent a telegram to The Laird. + + Return immediately. + +In the late afternoon, Hector McKaye returned to Port Agnew and at +once sought Daney, who related to him exactly what had occurred. The +shadow of profound worry settled over The Laird's face. + +"Dan refuses to disclose anything regarding Donald's movements," +Daney continued, "where he followed the boy or where the fight took +place. I only know that Donald was not present; Dan, fortunately, +overheard the plot, inculcated, by some means, the idea in those +scoundrels' heads that he was Donald, and took the fight off the boy's +hands. He claimed he fought a winning fight, and he is right. The +mulatto died in Darrow this morning. One of the Greeks has a smashed +shoulder, and the other a broken arm and four broken ribs. How they +ever got home to Darrow is a mystery." + +"The third Greek must have waited near the river-mouth with a boat, +Andrew. Have you any idea where Donald spent the evening?" + +"Yes, sir; but he's free, white, and twenty-one, and he's my superior. +I prefer not to discuss his movements." + +"Andrew, I command you to." + +"I refuse to be commanded, sir." + +"That's all I wanted to know. He visited the Brents, and you know it." +He saw by the flush on Daney's old face that he had hit the mark. +"Well, I'm obliged to you, Andrew. You've done your full duty; so +we'll not discuss the matter further. The situation will develop in +time, and, meanwhile, I'll not spy on my boy. I wonder if that Darrow +gang will talk." + +"I imagine not, sir--that is, if Dirty Dan keeps his own counsel. They +will fear prosecution if Dan dies; so they will be silent awaiting the +outcome of his injuries. If he lives, they will still remain silent, +awaiting his next move. Dan will probably admit having been jumped in +the dark by three unknown men and that he defended himself vigorously; +he can fail to identify the Greeks, and the Greeks cannot do less +than fail to identify Dirty Dan, who can plead self-defense if the +coroner's jury delves too deeply into the mulatto's death. I imagine +they will not. At any rate, it's up to Dan whether Donald figures in +the case or not, and Dan will die before he'll betray the confidence." + +"That's comforting," The Laird replied. "Will you be good enough to +drive me home to The Dreamerie, Andrew?" + +At The Dreamerie, old Hector discovered that his son had left the +house early in the afternoon, saying he would not be home for dinner. +So The Laird sat him down and smoked and gazed out across the Bight of +Tyee until sunset, when, a vague curiosity possessing him, he looked +down to the Sawdust Pile and observed that the flag still flew from +the cupola. The night shadows gathered, but still the flag did not +come down; and presently round The Laird's grim mouth a little +prescient smile appeared, with something of pain in it. + +"Dining out at Brent's," he soliloquized, "and they're so taken up +with each other they've forgotten the flag. I do not remember that the +Brent girl ever forgot it before. She loves him." + + + + +XV + + +Following his parting with Nan Brent on Saturday night, Donald McKaye +went directly to the mill office, in front of which his car was +parked, entered the car, and drove home to The Dreamerie, quite +oblivious of the fact that he was not the only man in Port Agnew who +had spent an interesting and exciting evening. So thoroughly mixed +were his emotions that he was not quite certain whether he was +profoundly happy or incurably wretched. When he gave way to rejoicing +in his new-found love, straightway he was assailed by a realization of +the barriers to his happiness--a truly masculine recognition of the +terrible bar sinister to Nan's perfect wifehood induced a veritable +shriveling of his soul, a mental agony all the more intense because it +was the first unhappiness he had ever experienced. + +His distress was born of the knowledge that between the Sawdust Pile +and The Dreamerie there stretched a gulf as wide and deep as the Bight +of Tyee. He was bred of that puritanical stock which demands that the +mate for a male of its blood must be of original purity, regardless of +the attitude of leniency on the part of that male for lapses from +virtue in one of his own sex. This creed, Donald had accepted as +naturally, as inevitably as he had accepted belief in the communion of +saints and the resurrection of the dead. His father's daughter-in-law, +like Caesar's wife, would have to be above suspicion; while Donald +believed Nan Brent to be virtuous, or, at least, an unconscious, +unwilling, and unpremeditating sinner, non-virtuous by circumstance +instead of by her own deliberate act, he was too hard-headed not to +realize that never, by the grace of God, would she be above suspicion. +Too well he realized that his parents and his sisters, for whom he +entertained all the affection of a good son and brother, would, +unhampered by sex-appeal and controlled wholly by tradition, fail +utterly to take the same charitable view, even though he was honest +enough with himself to realize that perhaps his own belief in the +matter was largely the result of the wish being father to the thought. + +Curiously enough, he dismissed, quite casually, consideration of the +opinions his mother and sisters, their friends and his, the men and +women of Port Agnew might entertain on the subject. His apprehensions +centered almost entirely upon his father. His affection for his father +he had always taken for granted. It was not an emotion to exclaim +over. Now that he realized, for the first time, his potential power to +hurt his father, to bow that gray head in grief and shame and +humiliation, he was vouchsafed a clearer, all-comprehending vision of +that father's love, of his goodness, his manliness, his honor, his +gentleness, and his fierce, high pride; to Donald simultaneously came +the knowledge of his own exalted love for the old man. He knew him as +no other human being knew him or ever would know him; whence he knew +old Hector's code--that a clean man may not mate with an unclean woman +without losing caste. + +He and Nan had discussed the situation but briefly; for they were +young, and the glory of that first perfect hour could not be marred by +a minute consideration of, misery in prospect. To-night, they had been +content to forget the world and be happy with each other, apparently +with the mutual understanding that they occupied an untenable +position, one that soon must be evacuated. + +Yes; he was the young laird of Tyee, the heir to a principality, and +it would be too great a strain on mere human beings to expect his +little world to approve of its highest mating with its lowest. Prate +as we may of democracy, we must admit, if we are to be honest with +ourselves, that this sad old world is a snobocracy. The very fact that +man is prone to regard himself as superior to his brother is the +leaven in the load of civilization; without that quality, whether we +elect to classify it as self-conceit or self-esteem, man would be +without ambition and our civilization barren of achievement. The +instinct for the upward climb--the desire to reach the heights--is too +insistent to be disregarded. If all men are born equal, as the framers +of our Constitution so solemnly declared, that is because the brains +of all infants, of whatsoever degree, are at birth incapable of +thought. The democracy of any people, therefore, must be predicated +upon their kindness and charity--human characteristics which blossom +or wither according to the intensity of the battle for existence. In +our day and generation, therefore, democracy is too high-priced for +promiscuous dissemination; wherefore, as in an elder day, we turn from +the teaching of the Man of Galilee and cling to tradition. + +Tradition was the stone in the road to Donald McKaye's happiness, and +his strength was not equal to the task of rolling it away. + +Despair enveloped him. Every fiber of his being, every tender, gallant +instinct drew him toward this wonder-girl that the world had thrust +aside as unworthy. His warm, sympathetic heart ached for her; he knew +she needed him as women like her must ever need the kind of man he +wanted to be, the kind he had always striven to be. Had he been +egotist enough to set a value upon himself, he would have told himself +she was worthy of him; yet a damnable set of damnable man-made +circumstances over which he had no control hedged them about and kept +them apart. It was terrible, so he reflected, to know that, even if +Nan should live the life of a saint from the hour of her child's birth +until the hour of her death, a half-century hence, yet would she fail +to atone for her single lapse while there still lived one who +knew--and remembered. He, Donald McKaye, might live down a natural +son, but Nan Brent could not. The contemplation of this social +phenomenon struck him with peculiar force, for he had not hitherto +considered the amazing inequalities of a double standard of morals. + +For the first time in his life, he could understand the abject +deference that must be shown to public opinion. He, who considered +himself, and not without reason, a gentleman, must defer to the +inchoate, unreasoning, unrelenting, and barbaric point of view of men +and women who hadn't sense enough to pound sand in a rat-hole or +breeding enough to display a reasonable amount of skill in the +manipulation of a knife and fork. Public opinion! Bah! Deference to a +fetish, a shibboleth, to the ancient, unwritten law that one must not +do that which hypocrites condemn and cowards fear to do, unless, +indeed, one can "get away with it." + +Ah, yes! The eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not be discovered." It +had smashed Nan Brent, who had violated it, desolated her, ruined +her--she who had but followed the instinct that God Almighty had given +her at birth--the instinct of sex, the natural yearning of a trustful, +loving heart for love, motherhood, and masculine protection from a +brutal world. More. Not satisfied with smashing her, public opinion +insisted that she should remain in a perennial state of smash. It was +abominable! + +Nan had told him she had never been married, and a sense of delicacy +had indicated to him that this was a subject upon which he must not +appear to be curious. To question her for the details would have been +repugnant to his nicely balanced sense of the fitness of things. +Nevertheless, he reflected, if her love had been illicit, was it more +illicit than that of the woman who enters into a loveless marriage, +induced to such action by a sordid consideration of worldly goods and +gear? Was her sin in bearing a child out of wedlock more terrible than +that of the married woman who shudders at the responsibilities of +motherhood, or evades the travail of love's fulfilment by snuffing out +little lives in embryo? He thought not. He recalled an evening in New +York when he had watched a policeman following a drab of the streets +who sought to evade him and ply her sorry trade in the vicinity of +Herald Square; he remembered how that same policeman had abandoned the +chase to touch his cap respectfully and open her limousine door for +the heroine (God save the mark!) of a scandalous divorce. + +"Damn it!" he murmured. "It's a rotten, cruel world, and I don't +understand it. I'm all mixed up." And he went to bed, where, his +bodily weariness overcoming his mental depression, he slept. + +He was man enough to scorn public opinion, but human enough to fear +it. + + + + +XVI + + +The heir of the Tyee mills and forests was not of a religious turn of +mind for all his strict training in Christian doctrine, although +perhaps it would be more to the point to state that he was inclined to +be unorthodox. Nevertheless, out of respect to the faith of his +fathers, he rose that Sunday morning and decided to go to church. Not +that he anticipated any spiritual benefit would accrue to him by +virtue of his pilgrimage down to Port Agnew; in his heart of hearts he +regarded the pastor as an old woman, a man afraid of the world, and +without any knowledge of it, so to speak. But old Hector was a pillar +of the church; his family had always accompanied him thither on +Sundays, and a sense of duty indicated to Donald that, as the future +head of the clan, he should not alter its customs. + +By a strange coincidence, the Reverend Mr. Tingley chose as the text +for his sermon the eighth chapter of the Gospel according to St. John +from the first to the eleventh verses, inclusive. Donald, instantly +alert, straightened in the pew, and prepared to listen with interest +to the Reverend Mr. Tingley's opinion of the wisdom of Jesus Christ in +so casually disposing of the case of the woman taken in adultery. + +"Dearly beloved," the pastor began, carefully placing an index-finger +between the leaves of his Bible to mark the passage he had just read, +"the title of my sermon this Sunday shall be: 'The First Stone. Let +him who is without sin cast it.'" + +"Banal, hypocritical ass!" Donald soliloquized. "She was the +mezzo-soprano soloist in your choir four years, and you haven't tried +to help her since she came back to the Sawdust Pile." + +It was a good sermon, as sermons go. In fact, the Reverend Mr. +Tingley, warming to his theme, quite outdid himself on the subject of +charity as practised by his Redeemer, and, as a result, was the +recipient of numberless congratulatory handshakes later at the church +door. Donald agreed that it was an unusually good sermon--in theory; +but since he knew it would collapse in practise, he avoided Mr. +Tingley after service. + +On the steps of the church he was accosted by Andrew Daney and the +latter's wife, who greeted him effusively. Unfortunately for Mrs. +Daney, Nan, in one of those bursts of confidence that must ever exist +between lovers, had informed Donald the night previous of the motherly +soul's interest in his affairs; wherefore he returned Mrs. Daney's +warm greeting with such chilly courtesy that she was at no loss to +guess the reason for it and was instantly plunged into a slough of +terror and despair. She retained sufficient wit, however, to draw her +husband away, thus preventing him from walking with Donald. + +"I want to tell him about Dirty Dan," Daney protested, in a low voice. +"As the boss, he ought to be told promptly of any injury to an +employe." + +"Never mind Dirty Dan," she retorted. "He'll hear of it soon enough. +Let us congratulate Mr. Tingley on his sermon." + +Donald, having turned his back on them almost rudely, strode down the +street to his car and motored back to The Dreamerie. He spent the +remainder of the morning force-breaking a setter puppy to retrieve; at +one o'clock, he ate a cold luncheon, and immediately thereafter drove +down to Port Agnew and brazenly parked his car in front of Caleb +Brent's gate. + +He entered without the formality of knocking, and Nan met him in the +tiny entrance-hall. + +"I couldn't wait until dinner-time," he explained. "Nobody home at The +Dreamerie--" He took her face in his calloused hands, drew her to him. +"You're sweet in that calico gown," he informed her, waiving a +preliminary word of greeting. "I love you," he added softly, and +kissed her. She clung to him. + +"You should not have come here in broad daylight," she protested. "Oh, +you big, foolish, impulsive dear! Don't you realize I want to protect +you from the tongue of scandal? If you persist in forgetting who you +are, does it follow that I should pursue a similar course?" + +He ignored her argument. + +"I'll help you get dinner, old blue-eyes," he suggested. "Let me shuck +some corn or shell some peas or string some beans--any job where I can +sit and look at you and talk to you." + +"It will please me if you'll visit a little while with father Caleb," +she suggested. "He's out on the sun-porch. He's far from well this +morning. Do cheer him up, Donald dear." + +Old Caleb hailed him with a pleasure that was almost childish. During +the two weeks that had elapsed since Donald had seen him last, he had +failed markedly. + +"Well, how does the old sailor feel this morning?" Donald queried +casually, seating himself opposite the old man. + +"Poorly, Mr. Donald; poorly." He turned, satisfied himself that Nan +was busy in the kitchen, and then leaned toward his visitor. "I've got +my sailing-orders," he whispered confidentially. The man who had won a +Congressional medal of honor, without clearly knowing why or how, had +not changed with the years. He advanced this statement as a simple +exposition of fact. + +"Think so, Caleb?" Donald answered soberly. + +"I know it." + +"If you have no desire to live, Caleb, of course nature will yield to +your desires. Remember that and buck up. You may have your +sailing-orders, but you can keep the bar breaking indefinitely to +prevent you from crossing out." + +"I've done that for a year past. I do not wish to die and leave her, +for my three-quarter pay stops then. But I suffer from angina +pectoris. It's the worry, Mr. Donald," he added. + +"Worry as to the future of Nan and the child?" + +"Aye, lad." + +"Well, Caleb, your worries are unnecessary. I feel it my duty to tell +you that I love Nan; she loves me, and we have told each other so. She +shall not suffer when you are gone. She has indicated to me that, some +day, this--this mess may be cleared up; and when that happens, I shall +marry Nan." + +"So Nan told me this morning. I was wondering if you'd speak to me +about it, and I'm glad you have done so--promptly. You--you--honor us, +Mr. Donald; you do, indeed. You're the one man in the world I can +trust her with, whether as good friend or husband--only, her hushand +you'll never be." + +"I see breakers ahead," Donald admitted. He had no desire to dissemble +with this straightforward old father. + +"We're poor folk and plain, but--please God!--we're decent and we know +our place, Mr. Donald. If your big heart tells you to dishonor +yourself in the eyes of your world and your people--mark you, lad, I +do not admit that an alliance with my girl could ever dishonor you in +your own eyes--Nan will not be weak enough to permit it." + +"I have argued all that out with myself," Donald confessed miserably, +"without having arrived at a conclusion. I have made up my mind to +wait patiently and see what the future may bring forth." + +"It may be a long wait." + +"It will be worth while. And when you have sailed, I'll finance her to +leave Port Agnew and develop her glorious voice." + +"You haven't the right, Mr. Donald. My girl has some pride." + +"I'll gamble a sizable sum on her artistic future. The matter will be +arranged on a business basis. I shall lend her the money, and she +shall pay me back with interest." + +"Nan has a woman's pride. The obligation would remain always, even +though the money should be repaid." + +"I think we'll manage to adjust that," Donald countered confidently. + +"Ah, well," the old fellow answered; "we've always been your debtors. +And it's a debt that grows." + +He loaded his pipe and was silent, for, after the fashion of the aged, +he dared assume that his youthful auditor would understand just how +the Brents regarded him. + +"Well, my heart's lighter for our talk, lad," he declared presently. +"If you don't mind, I'll have a little nap." + +Donald, grateful for the dismissal, returned to the kitchen, where Nan +was preparing the vegetables. Her child at once clamored for +recognition, and, almost before he knew it, Donald had the tyke in his +lap and was saying, + +"Once upon a time there was a king and he had three sons----" + +"He isn't interested in kings and princes, dear," Nan interrupted. +"Tell him the story of the bad little rabbit." + +"But I don't know it, Nan." + +"Then you'll fail as a daddy to my boy. I'm surprised. If Don were +your own flesh and blood, you would know intuitively that there is +always a bad little rabbit and a good little rabbit. They dwell in a +hollow tree with mother Rabbit and father Rabbit." + +"Thanks for the hint. I shall not fail in this job of dadding. Well +then, bub, once upon a time there was a certain Mr. Johnny Rabbit who +married a very beautiful lady rabbit whose name was Miss Molly +Cottontail. After they were married and had gone to keep house under a +lumber-pile, Mr. Hezekiah Coon came along and offered to rent them +some beautifully furnished apartments in the burned-out stump of a +hemlock tree. The rent was to be one nice ear of sweet corn every +month--" + +The tale continued, with eager queries from the interested +listener--queries which merely stimulated the young laird of Tyee to +wilder and more whimsical flights of fancy, to the unfolding of +adventures more and more thrilling and unbelievable until, at last, +the recital began to take on the character of an Arabian Nights' tale +that threatened to involve the entire animal kingdom, and only ceased +when, with a wealth of mournful detail, Donald described the tragic +death and funeral of the gallant young Johnny Rabbit, his fatherless +audience suddenly burst into tears and howled lugubriously; whereupon +Donald was hard put to it to bring Johnny Rabbit back to life +mysteriously but satisfactorily, and send him scampering home to the +hollow hemlock tree, there to dwell happily ever after. + +His tale completed, Donald happened to glance toward Nan. She was +regarding him with shining eyes. + +"Donald," she declared, "it's a tremendous pity you haven't a boy of +your own. You're just naturally intended for fatherhood." + +He grinned. + +"My father has been hinting rather broadly that a grandson would be +the very last thing on earth to make him angry. He desires to see the +name and the breed and the business in a fair way of perpetuation +before he passes on." + +"That is the way of all flesh, Donald." + +"I wish it were not his way. My inability to comply with his desires +isn't going to render dad or me any happier." + +"Dear old boy, what a frightful predicament you're in!" she murmured +sympathetically. "I wish I could be quite certain you aren't really in +love with me, Donald." + +"Life would be far rosier for all concerned if I were quite certain I +was mistaking an old and exalted friendship for true love. But I'm +not. You're the one woman in the world for me, and if I cannot have +you, I'll have none other--Hello! Weeping has made this young fellow +heavy-lidded, or else my fiction has bored him, for he's nodding." + +"It's time for his afternoon nap, Donald." She removed the sleepy tot +from his arms and carried him away to his crib. When she returned, she +resumed her task of preparing dinner. + +"Nan," Donald queried suddenly, "have I the right to ask you the name +of the man who fathered that child?" + +"Yes," she answered soberly; "you have. I wish, however, that you +would not ask me. I should have to decline to answer you." + +"Well, then, I'll not ask. Nevertheless, it would interest me mightily +to know why you protect him." + +"I am not at all desirous of protecting him, Donald. I am merely +striving to protect his legal wife. His marriage to me was bigamous; +he undertook the task of leading a dual married life, and, when I +discovered it, I left him." + +"But are you certain he married you?" + +"We went through a marriage ceremony which, at the time, I regarded as +quite genuine. Of course, since it wasn't legal, it leaves me in the +status of an unmarried woman." + +"So I understood from your father. Where did this ceremony take +place?" + +"In San Francisco." She came over, sat down beside him, and took one +of his hard, big hands in both of hers. "I'm going to tell you as much +as I dare," she informed him soberly. "You have a right to know, and +you're too nice to ask questions. So I'll not leave you to the agonies +of doubt and curiosity. You see, honey dear, father Brent wanted me to +have vocal and piano lessons, and to do that I had to go to Seattle +once a week, and the railroad-fare, in addition to the cost of the +lessons, was prohibitive until your father was good enough to secure +me a position in the railroad-agent's office in Port Agnew. Of course, +after I became an employe of the railroad company, I could travel on a +pass, so I used to go up to Seattle every Saturday, leaving here on +the morning train. Your father arranged matters in some way so that I +worked but five days a week." + +"Naturally. Dad's a pretty heavy shipper over the line." + +"I would receive my lessons late Saturday afternoons, stay overnight +with a friend of mine, and return to Port Agnew on Sunday. _He_ used +to board the train at--well, the name of the station doesn't +matter--every Saturday, and one day we got acquainted, quite by +accident as it were. Our train ran through an open switch and collided +with the rear end of a freight; there was considerable excitement, and +everybody spoke to everybody else, and after that it didn't appear +that we were strangers. The next Saturday, when he boarded the train, +he sat down in the same seat with me and asked permission to introduce +himself. He was very nice, and his manners were beautiful; he didn't +act in the least like a man who desired to 'make a mash.' Finally, one +day, he asked me to have dinner with him in Seattle, and I accepted. I +think that was because I'd never been in a fashionable restaurant in +all my life. After dinner, he escorted me to the studio, and on Sunday +morning we took the same train home again. He was such good company +and such a jolly, worldly fellow--so thoughtful and deferential! Can't +you realize, Donald, how he must have appealed to a little country +goose like me? + +"Well, finally, daddy Brent learned that Signor Moretti, a tenor who +had retired from grand opera, had opened a studio in San Francisco. We +both wanted Moretti to pass on my voice, but we couldn't afford the +expense of a journey to San Francisco for two, so daddy sent me alone. +I wrote--that man about our plans, and told him the name of the +steamer I was sailing on. Your father gave me a passage on one of his +steam-schooners, and when we got to the dock in San Francisco--" + +"_He_ was there, eh? Came down by train and beat the steamer in." +Donald nodded his comprehension. "What did Moretti say about your +voice?" + +"The usual thing. My Seattle teacher had almost ruined my voice, he +declared, but, for all that, he was very enthusiastic and promised me +a career within five years if I would place myself unreservedly in his +hands. Of course, we couldn't afford such an expensive career, and the +realization that I had to forego even the special inducements Signor +Moretti was generous enough to make me quite broke my heart. When I +told _him_ about it--we were engaged by that time--he suggested that +we get married immediately, in order that I might reside with him in +San Francisco and study under Moretti. So we motored out into the +country one day and were married at San Jose. He asked me to keep our +marriage secret on account of some clause in his father's will, but I +insisted upon my right to tell daddy Brent. Poor old dear! My marriage +was such a shock to him; but he agreed with me that it was all for the +best--" + +"Well, I was quite happy for three months. My husband's business +interests necessitated very frequent trips North--" + +"What business was he in, Nan?" + +"That is immaterial," she evaded him. "Presently, Signer Moretti +contracted a severe cold and closed his studio for a month. My +husband--I suppose I must call him that to identify him when I refer +to him--had just gone North on one of his frequent trips, and since he +always kept me generously supplied with money, I decided suddenly to +take advantage of Moretti's absence to run up to Port Agnew and visit +my father. + +"In Seattle, as I alighted from the train, I saw my husband in the +station with another woman. I recognized her. She was a friend of +mine--a very dear, kind, thoughtful friend of several years' +standing--the only woman friend I had in the world. I loved her +dearly; you will understand when I tell you that she had frequently +gone out of her way to be kind to me. It struck me as strange that he +had never admitted knowing her, although frequently he had heard me +speak of her. While I stood pondering the situation, he took her in +his arms and kissed her good-by and boarded the train without seeing +me. I slipped out of the station without having been seen by either of +them; but while I was waiting for a taxicab, my friend came out of the +station, saw me, and rushed up to greet me. It developed, in the +course of our conversation following the usual commonplaces of +greeting, that she had been down to the station to see her husband off +on the train for San Francisco." + +Donald whistled softly. + +"How did you manage to get away with it, Nan?" he demanded +incredulously. + +"All my life I have been used to doing without things," she replied +simply. "I suppose that helped a little. The shock was not so abrupt +that I lost my presence of mind; you see, I had had a few minutes to +adjust myself after seeing him kiss her in the station--and just then +the taxicab came up and I escaped. Then I came home to the Sawdust +Pile. I wrote him, of course, and sent the letter by registered mail, +in order to make certain he would receive it. He did, but he did not +answer. There was no reason why he should, for he was quite safe. I +had assured him there was no necessity for worry on my account." + +"Of all the crazy, fool things for you to do!" Donald cried sharply. +"Why under the canopy did you deem it necessary to sacrifice yourself +for him? Surely you did not love him--" + +"I'm afraid I never loved him," she interrupted. "I--I thought I did, +although, if he hadn't been away so frequently after our marriage, I +would have learned to love him dearly, I think." + +"Just human nature," Donald suggested. "Something akin to what +trapshooters and golfers call a mental hazard." + +"Of course he married me under an assumed name, Donald." + +"Did you ever see a marriage certificate?" + +"Oh, yes; I had to sign it in the presence of the minister." + +Donald was relieved. + +"Then, you great goose of a girl, you can clear your record any time +you desire. The minister forwarded the marriage certificate to the +state capital, and it is registered there with the State Board of +Health. After registration, it was returned to the minister whose +signature appeared on the certificate as the officiating clergyman. +The minister undoubtedly returned the certificate to your husband." + +"I never saw it again." + +"What if you did not? You can procure a certified copy from the record +in the county-clerk's office or from the records of the State Board of +Health. Marriage records, old dear, are fairly well protected in our +day and generation." + +"I wrote to the State Board of Health at Sacramento. There is no +record of my marriage there." + +"That's strange. Why didn't you write the county clerk, of the county +in which the license was issued?" + +She smiled at him. + +"I did. I had to, you know. My honor was at stake. The license was +issued in Santa Clara County." + +"Well, it will be a simple matter to comb the list of ministers until +we find the one that tied the knot. A certified copy of the marriage +license, with a sworn affidavit by the officiating clergyman--" + +"The officiating clergyman is dead. A private detective agency in San +Francisco discovered that for us." + +"But couldn't you cover your tracks, Nan? Under the circumstances, a +lie--any kind of deceit to save your good name--would have been +pardonable." + +"I couldn't help being smirched. Remember, my father was the only +person in Port Agnew who knew I had been married; he heeded my request +and kept the secret. Suddenly I returned home with a tale of marriage +in anticipation of my ability to prove it. In that I failed. Presently +my baby was born. People wondered who my husband was, and where he +kept himself; some of the extremely curious had the hardihood to come +here and question me. Was my husband dead? Of course not. Had I fibbed +and told them he was, they would have asked when and where and the +nature of the disease that carried him off. Was I divorced? Again I +was confronted with the necessity for telling the truth, because a lie +could be proved. Then the minister, to quiet certain rumors that had +reached him--he wanted me to sing in the choir again, and there was an +uproar when he suggested it--wrote to the California State Board of +Health. When he received a reply to his letter, he visited me to talk +it over, but I wasn't confiding in Mr. Tingley that day. He said I +might hope for salvation if I confessed my wickedness and besought +forgiveness from God. He offered to pray for me and with me. He meant +well--poor, silly dear!--but he was so terribly incredulous that +presently I told him I didn't blame him a bit and suggested that I be +permitted to paddle my own canoe, as it were. Thanked him for calling, +but told him he needn't call again. He departed in great distress." + +"I hold no brief for the Reverend Tingley, Nan; but I'll be shot if +your story will hold water in a world that's fairly well acquainted +with the frailty of humankind. Of course I believe you--and, for some +fool reason, I'm not ashamed of my own intelligence in so believing. I +have accepted you on faith. What sets my reason tottering on its +throne is the fact that you insist upon protecting this scoundrel." + +"I insist upon protecting his wife. I love her. She has been kind to +me. She's the only friend of my own sex that I have ever known. She's +tubercular, and will not live many years. She has two children--and +she adores her scamp of a husband. If I cannot convict that man of +bigamy, would it not be foolish of me to try? And why should I inflict +upon her, who has shown me kindness and love, a brimming measure of +humiliation and sorrow and disgrace? I can bear my burden a year or +two longer, I think; then, when she is gone, I can consider my +vindication." She patted his hand to emphasize her unity of purpose. +"That's the way I've figured it all out--the whole, crazy-quilt +pattern, and if you have a better scheme, and one that isn't founded +on human selfishness, I'm here to listen to it." + +A long silence fell between them. + +"Well, dear heart?" she demanded finally. + +"I wasn't thinking of _that_," he replied slowly. "I was just trying +to estimate how much more I love you this minute than I did five +minutes ago." + +He drew her golden head down on his shoulder and held her to him a +long time without speaking. It was Nan who broke the spell by saying: + +"When the time comes for my vindication, I shall ask you to attend to +it for me, dear. You're my man--and I think it's a man's task." + +His great fingers opened and closed in a clutching movement. He +nodded. + + + + +XVII + + +When Donald returned to The Dreamerie about eleven o'clock, he was +agreeably surprised to find his father in the living-room. + +"Hello, dad!" he greeted The Laird cheerfully. "Glad to see you. When +did you get back?" + +"Came down on the morning train, Donald." + +They were shaking hands now. The Laird motioned him to a chair, and +asked abruptly. + +"Where have you been all day, son?" + +"Well, I represented the clan at church this morning, and, after +luncheon here, I went down to visit the Brents at the Sawdust Pile. +Stayed for dinner. Old Caleb's in rather bad shape mentally and +physically, and I tried to cheer him up. Nan sang for me--quite like +old times." + +"I saw Nan Brent on the beach the other day. Quite a remarkable young +woman. Attractive, I should say," the old man answered craftily. + +"It's a pity, dad. She's every inch a woman. Hard on a girl with +brains and character to find herself in such a sorry tangle." + +The Laird's heavy heart was somewhat lightened by the frankness and +lack of suspicion with which his son had met his blunt query as to +where he had been spending his time. For the space of a minute, he +appeared to be devoting his thoughts to a consideration of Donald's +last remark; presently he sighed, faced his son, and took the plunge. + +"Have you heard anything about a fight down near the Sawdust Pile +last night, my son?" he demanded. + +His son's eyes opened with interest and astonishment. + +"No; I did not, dad. And I was there until nearly ten o'clock." + +"Yes; I was aware of that, and of your visit there to-day and this +evening. Thank God, you're frank with me! That yellow scoundrel and +two Greeks followed you there to do for you. After you roughed the +Greek at the railroad station, it occurred to me that you had an enemy +and might hold him cheaply; so, just before I boarded the train, I +telephoned Daney to tell Dirty Dan to shadow you and guard you. So +well did he follow orders that he lies in the company hospital now at +the point of death. As near as I can make out the affair, Dirty Dan +inculcated in those bushwhackers the idea that he was the man they +were after; he went to meet them and took the fight off your hands." + +"Good old Dirty Dan! I'll wager a stiff sum he did a thorough job." +The young laird of Tyee rose and ruffled his father's gray head +affectionately. "Thoughtful, canny old fox!" he continued. "I swear +I'm all puffed up with conceit when I consider the kind of father I +selected for myself." + +"Those scoundrels would have killed you," old Hector reminded him, +with just a trace of emotion in his voice. "And if they'd done that, +sonny, your old father'd never held up his head again. There are two +things I could not stand up under--your death and"--he sighed, as if +what he was about to say hurt him cruelly--"the wrong kind of a +daughter-in-law." + +"We will not fence with each other," his son answered soberly. "There +has never been a lack of confidence between us, and I shall not +withhold anything from you. You are referring to Nan, are you not?'" + +"I am, my son." + +"Well?" + +"I am not a cat, and it hurts me to be an old dog, but--I saw Nan +Brent recently, and we had a bit of talk together. She's a bonny lass, +Donald, and I'm thinking 'twould be better for your peace of mind--and +the peace of mind of all of us--if you saw less of her." + +"You think, then, father, that I'm playing with fire." + +"You're sitting on an open barrel of gunpowder with a lighted torch in +your hand." + +Donald returned to his chair and faced his father. + +"Let us suppose," he suggested, "that the present unhappy situation in +which Nan finds herself did not exist. Would you still prefer that I +limit my visits to, say, Christmas and Easter?" + +The Laird scratched the back of his head in perplexity. + +"I'm inclined to think I wouldn't," he replied. "I'd consider your +best interests always. If you married a fine girl from Chicago or New +York, she might not be content to dwell with you in Port Agnew." + +"Then Nan's poverty--the lowliness of her social position, even in +Port Agnew, would not constitute a serious bar?" + +"I was as poor as Job's turkey once myself--and your mother's people +were poorer. But we came of good blood." + +"Well, Nan's mother was a gentlewoman; her grandfather was an +admiral; her great-grandfather a commodore, her great-great-granduncle +a Revolutionary colonel, and her grandmother an F.F.V. Old Caleb's +ancestors always followed the sea. His father and his grandfather were +sturdy old Yankee shipmasters. He holds the Congressional medal of +honor for conspicuous gallantry in action over and above the call of +duty. The Brent blood may not be good enough for some, but it's a kind +that's good enough for me!" + +"All that is quite beside the question, Donald. The fact remains that +Nan Brent loves you." + +"May I inquire on what grounds you base that statement, dad?" + +"On Saturday night, when you held her in your arms at parting, she +kissed you." Donald was startled, and his features gave indubitable +indication of the fact. His father's cool gray eyes were bent upon him +kindly but unflinchingly. "Of course," he continued, in even tones, +"you would not have accepted that caress were you not head over heels +in love with the girl. You are not low enough to seek her favor for +another reason." + +"Yes; I love her," Donald maintained manfully. "I have loved her for +years--since I was a boy of sixteen,--only, I didn't realize it until +my return to Port Agnew. I can't very well help loving Nan, can I, +dad?" + +To his amazement, his father smiled at him sympathetically. + +"No; I do not see how you could very well help yourself, son," he +replied. "She's an extraordinary young woman. After my brief and +accidental interview with her recently, I made up my mind that there +would be something radically wrong with you if you didn't fall in +love with her." + +His son grinned back at him. + +"Proceed, old lumberjack!" he begged. "Your candor is soothing to my +bruised spirit." + +"No; you cannot help loving her, I suppose. Since you admit being in +love with her, the fact admits of no argument. It has happened, and I +do not condemn you for it. Both of you have merely demonstrated in the +natural, human way that you are natural human beings. And I'm grateful +to Nan for loving you. I think I should have resented her not doing +so, for it would demonstrate her total lack of taste and appreciation +of my son. She informed me, in so many words, that she wouldn't marry +you." + +"Nan has the capacity, somewhat rare in a woman, of keeping her own +counsel. That is news to me, dad. However, if you had waited about two +minutes, I would have informed you that I do not intend to marry +Nan--" He paused for an infinitesimal space and added, "yet." + +The Laird elevated his eyebrows. + +"'Yet?'" he repeated. + +Donald flushed a little as he reiterated his statement with an +emphatic nod. + +"Why that reservation, my son?" + +"Because, some day, Nan may be in position to prove herself that which +I know her to be--a virtuous woman--and when that time comes, I'll +marry her in spite of hell and high water." + +Old Hector sighed. He was quite familiar with the fact that, while the +records of the county clerk of Santa Clara County, California, +indicated that a marriage license had been issued on a certain date +to a certain man and one Nan Brent, of Port Agnew, Washington, there +was no official record of a marriage between the two. The Reverend Mr. +Tingley's wife had sorrowfully imparted that information to Mrs. +McKaye, who had, in turn, informed old Hector, who had received the +news with casual interest, little dreaming that he would ever have +cause to remember it in later years. And The Laird was an old man, +worldly-wise and of mature judgment. His soul wore the scars of human +perfidy, and, because he could understand the weakness of the flesh, +he had little confidence in its strength. Consequently, he dismissed +now, with a wave of his hand, consideration of the possibility that +Nan Brent would ever make a fitting mate for his son. + +"It's nice of you to believe that, Donald. I would not destroy your +faith in human nature, for human nature will destroy your faith in +time, as it has destroyed mine. I'm afraid I'm a sort of doubting +Thomas. I must see in order to believe; I must thrust my finger into +the wound. I wonder if you realize that, even if this poor girl +should, at some future time, be enabled to demonstrate her innocence +of illicit love, she has been hopelessly smeared and will never, +never, be quite able to clean herself." + +"It matters not if _I_ know she's a good woman. That is all +sufficient. To hell with what the world thinks! I'm going to take my +happiness where I find it." + +"It may be a long wait, my son." + +"I will be patient, sir." + +"And, in the meantime, I shall be a doddering old man, without a +grandson to sweeten the afternoon of my life, without a hope for +seeing perpetuated all those things that I have considered worth +while because I created them. Ah, Donald, lad, I'm afraid you're going +to be cruel to your old father!" + +"I have suffered with the thought that I might appear to be, dad. I +have considered every phase of the situation; I was certain of the +attitude you would take, and I feel no resentment because you have +taken it. Neither Nan nor I had contemplated the condition which +confronts us. It happened--like that," and Donald snapped his fingers. +"Now the knowledge of what we mean to each other makes the obstacles +all the more heart-breaking. I have tried to wish, for your sake, that +I hadn't spoken--that I had controlled myself, but, for some +unfathomable reason, I cannot seem to work up a very healthy +contrition. And I think, dad, this is going to cause me more suffering +than it will you." + +A faint smile flitted across old Hector's stern face. Youth! Youth! It +always thinks it knows! + +"This affair is beyond consideration by the McKayes, Donald. It is +utterly impossible! You must cease calling on the girl." + +"Why, father?" + +"To give you my real reason would lead to endless argument in which +you would oppose me with more or less sophistry that would be +difficult to combat. In the end, we might lose our tempers. Let us +say, therefore, that you must cease calling on the lass because I +desire it." + +"I'll never admit that I'm ashamed of her, for I am not!" his son +burst forth passionately. + +"But people are watching you now--talking about you. Man, do ye not +ken you're your father's son?" A faint note of passion had crept into +The Laird's tones; under the stress of it, his faint Scotch brogue +increased perceptibly. He had tried gentle argument, and he knew he +had failed; in his desperation, he decided to invoke his authority as +the head of his clan. "I forbid you!" he cried firmly, and slapped the +huge leather arm of his chair. "I charge you, by the blood that's in +you, not to bring disgrace upon my house!" + +A slight mistiness which Donald, with swelling heart, had noted in his +father's eyes a few moments before was now gone. They flashed like +naked claymores in the glance that Andrew Daney once had so aptly +described to his wife. + +For the space of ten seconds, father and son looked into each other's +soul and therein each read the other's answer. There could be no +surrender. + +"You have bred a man, sir, not a mollycoddle," said the young laird +quietly. "I think we understand each other." He rose, drew the old man +out of his chair, and threw a great arm across the latter's shoulders. +"Good-night, sir," he murmured humbly, and squeezed the old shoulders +a little. + +The Laird bowed his head but did not answer. He dared not trust +himself to do so. Thus Donald left him, standing in the middle of the +room, with bowed head a trifle to one side, as if old Hector listened +for advice from some unseen presence. The Laird of Tyee had thought he +had long since plumbed the heights and depths of the joys and sorrows +of fatherhood. The tears came presently. + +A streak of moonlight filtered into the room as the moon sank in the +sea and augmented the silver in a head that rested on two clasped +hands, while Hector McKaye, kneeling beside his chair, prayed to his +stern Presbyterian God once more to save his son from the folly of his +love. + + + + +XVIII + + +It had been Donald McKaye's intention to go up to the logging-camp on +the first log-train leaving for the woods at seven o'clock on Monday +morning, but the news of Dirty Dan's plight caused him to change his +plans. Strangely enough, his interview with his father, instead of +causing him the keenest mental distress, had been productive of a +peculiar sense of peace. The frank, sympathetic, and temperate manner +in which the old laird had discussed his affair had conduced to +produce this feeling. He passed a restful night, as his father +observed when the pair met at the breakfast-table. + +"Well, how do you feel this morning, son?" the old man queried kindly. + +"Considerably better than I did before our talk last night, sir," +Donald answered. + +"I haven't, slept," old Hector continued calmly, "although I expect to +have a little nap during the day. Just about daylight a comforting +thought stole over me." + +"I'm glad to hear it, dad." + +"I've decided to repose faith in Nan, having none at all in you. If +she truly loves you, she'll die before she'll hurt you." + +"Perhaps it may be a comfort to you to know that she has so expressed +herself to me." + +"Bless her poor heart for that! However, she told me practically the +same thing." + +He scooped his eggs into the egg-cup and salted and peppered them +before he spoke again. Then: + +"We'll not discuss this matter further. All I ask is that you'll +confine your visits to the Sawdust Pile to the dark of the moon; I +trust to your natural desire to promote my peace of mind to see to it +that no word of your--affair reaches your mother and sisters. They'll +not handle you with the tact you've had from me." + +"I can well believe that, sir. Thank you. I shall exercise the utmost +deference to your desires consistent with an unfaltering adherence to +my own code." + +There it was again--more respectful defiance! Had he not, during the +long, distressing hours of the night, wisely decided to leave his +son's case in the hands of God and Nan Brent, The Laird would have +flown into a passion at that. He compromised by saying nothing, and +the meal was finished in silence. + +After breakfast, Donald went down to the hospital to visit Dirty Dan. +O'Leary was still alive, but very close to death; he had lost so much +blood that he was in a state of coma. + +"He's only alive because he's a fighter, Mr. McKaye," the doctor +informed Donald. "If I can induce some good healthy man to consent to +a transfusion of blood, I think it would buck Dan up considerably." + +"I'm your man," Donald informed him. It had occurred to him that Dirty +Dan had given his blood for the House of McKaye; therefore, the least +he could do was to make a partial payment on the debt. + +The doctor, knowing nothing of the reason for Dirty Dan's predicament, +was properly amazed. + +"You--the boss--desire to do this?" he replied. + +"We can get one of this wild rascal's comrades--" + +"That wild rascal is my comrade, doctor. I'm more or less fond of +Dan." He had removed his coat and was already rolling up his sleeve. +"I'm half Gael," he continued smilingly, "and, you know, we must not +adulterate Dirty Dan's blood any more than is absolutely necessary. +Consider the complications that might ensue if you gave Dan an +infusion of blood from a healthy Italian. The very first fight he +engaged in after leaving this hospital, he'd use a knife instead of +nature's weapons. Get busy!" + +But the doctor would take no liberties with the life-blood of the heir +of Tyee until he had telephoned to The Laird. + +"My son is the captain of his own soul," old Hector answered promptly. +"You just see that you do your job well; don't hurt the boy or weaken +him too greatly." + +An hour after the operation, father and son sat beside Dirty Dan's +bed. Presently, the ivory-tinted eyelids flickered slightly, whereat +old Hector winked sagely at his son. Then Dirty Dan's whiskered upper +lip twisted humorously, and he whispered audibly: + +"Ye young divil! Oh-ho, ye young vagabond! Faith, if The Laird knew +what ye're up to this night, he'd--break yer--back--in two halves!" + +Hector McKaye glanced apprehensively about, but the nurse had left the +room. He bent over Dirty Dan. + +"Shut up!" he commanded. "Don't tell everything you know!" + +O'Leary promptly opened his eyes and gazed upon The Laird in profound +puzzlement. + +[Illustration: DONALD BOWED HIS HEAD. "I CAN'T GIVE HER UP, FATHER."] + +"Wild horrses couldn't dhrag it out o' me," he protested. "Ask me no +questions an' I'll tell ye no lies." + +He subsided into unconsciousness again. The doctor entered and felt of +his pulse. + +"On the up-grade," he announced. "He'll do." + +"Dan will obey the voice of authority, even in his delirium," The +Laird whispered to his son, when they found themselves alone with the +patient once more. "I'll stay here until he wakes up rational, and +silence him if, in the mean time, he babbles. Run along home, lad." + +At noon, Dirty Dan awoke with the light of reason and belligerency in +his eyes, whereupon The Laird questioned him, and developed a stubborn +reticence which comforted the former to such a degree that he decided +to follow his son home to The Dreamerie. + + + + +XIX + + +A week elapsed before Hector McKaye would permit his son to return to +his duties. By that time, the slight wound in the latter's arm where +the vein had been opened had practically healed. Dirty Dan continued +to improve, passed the danger-mark, and began the upward climb to his +old vigor and pugnacity. Port Agnew, stirred to discussion over the +affray, forgot it within three days, and on the following Monday +morning Donald returned to the woods. The Laird of Tyee carried his +worries to the Lord in prayer, and Nan Brent frequently forgot her +plight and sang with something of the joy of other days. + +A month passed. During that month, Donald had visited the Sawdust Pile +once and had written Nan thrice. Also, Mrs. Andrew Daney, hard beset +because of her second experience with the "Blue Bonnet" glance of a +McKaye, had decided to remove herself from the occasions of gossip and +be in a position to claim an alibi in the event of developments. So +she abandoned Daney to the mercies of a Japanese cook and departed for +Whatcom to visit a married daughter. From Whatcom, she wrote her +husband that she was enjoying her visit so much she hadn't the +slightest idea when she would return, and, for good and sufficient +reasons, Daney did not urge her to change her mind. + +Presently, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters returned to Port Agnew. His +wife's letters to The Laird had failed to elicit any satisfactory +reason for his continued stay at home, and inasmuch as all three +ladies were deferring the trip to Honolulu on his account, they had +come to a mutual agreement to get to close quarters and force a +decision. + +Mrs. McKaye had been inside The Dreamerie somewhat less than five +minutes before her instinct as a woman, coupled with her knowledge as +a wife, informed her that her spouse was troubled in his soul. Always +tactless, she charged him with it, and when he denied it, she was +certain of it. So she pressed him further, and was informed that he +had a business deal on; when she interrogated him as to the nature of +it (something she had not done in years), he looked at her and smoked +contemplatively. Immediately she changed the subject of conversation, +but made a mental resolve to keep her eyes and her ears open. + +The Fates decreed that she should not have long to wait. Donald came +home from the logging-camp the following Saturday night, and the +family, having finished dinner, were seated in the living-room. The +Laird was smoking and staring moodily out to sea, Donald was reading, +Jane was at the piano softly playing ragtime, and Mrs. McKaye and +Elizabeth were knitting socks for suffering Armenians when the +telephone-bell rang. Jane immediately left the piano and went out into +the entrance-hall to answer it, the servants having gone down to Port +Agnew to a motion-picture show. A moment later, she returned to the +living-room, leaving the door to the entrance-hall open. + +"You're wanted on the telephone, Don!" she cried gaily. "Such a sweet +voice, too!" + +Mrs. McKaye and Elizabeth looked up from their knitting. They were +not accustomed to having Donald called to the telephone by young +ladies. Donald laid his magazine aside and strode to the telephone; +The Laird faced about in his chair, and a harried look crept into his +eyes. + +"Close the door to the entrance-hall, Jane," he commanded. + +"Oh, dear me, no!" his spoiled daughter protested. "It would be too +great a strain on our feminine curiosity not to eavesdrop on Don's +little romance." + +"Close it!" The Laird repeated. He was too late. Through the open +door, Donald's voice reached them: + +"Oh, you poor girl! I'm so sorry, Nan dear. I'll be over immediately." +His voice dropped several octaves, but the words came to the listeners +none the less distinctly. "Be brave, sweetheart." + +Mrs. McKaye glanced at her husband in time to see him avert his face; +she noted how he clutched the arm of his chair. + +To quote a homely phrase, the cat was out of the bag at last. Donald's +face wore a troubled expression as he reentered the living-room. His +mother spoke first. + +"Donald! _My_ son!" she murmured tragically. + +"Hum-m--!" The Laird grunted. The storm had broken at last, and, +following the trend of human nature, he was conscious of sudden +relief. + +Jane was the first to recover her customary aplomb. + +"Don dear," she cooed throatily, "are we mistaken in our assumption +that the person with whom you have just talked is Nan Brent?" + +"Your penetration does you credit, Jane. It was." + +"And did our ears deceive us or did we really hear you call her +'dear' and 'sweetheart'?" + +"It is quite possible," Donald answered. He crossed the room and +paused beside his father. "Caleb Brent blinked out a few minutes ago, +dad. It was quite sudden. Heart-trouble. Nan's all alone down there, +and of course she needs help. I'm going. I'll leave to you the job of +explaining the situation to mother and the girls. Good-night, pop; I +think you understand." + +Mrs. McKaye was too stunned, too horrified, to find refuge in tears. + +"How dare that woman ring you up?" she demanded haughtily. "The +hussy!" + +"Why, mother dear, she has to have help," her son suggested +reproachfully. + +"But why from you, of all men? I forbid you to go!" his mother +quavered. "You must have more respect for us. Why, what will people +say?" + +"To hell with what people say! They'll say it, anyhow," roared old +Hector. Away down in his proud old heart he felt a few cheers rising +for his son's manly action, albeit the necessity for that action was +wringing his soul. "'Tis no time for idle spierin'. Away with you, +lad! Comfort the puir lass. 'Tis no harm to play a man's part. Hear +me," he growled; "I'll nae have my soncy lad abused." + +"Dad's gone back to the Hielands. 'Nough said." Elizabeth had +recovered her customary jolly poise. Wise enough, through long +experience, to realize that when her father failed to throttle that +vocal heritage from his forebears, war impended, she gathered up her +knitting and fled to her room. + +Jane ran to her mother's side, drew the good lady's head down on her +shoulder, and faced her brother. + +"Shame! Shame!" she cried sharply. "You ungrateful boy! How could you +hurt dear mother so!" + +This being the cue for her mother to burst into violent weeping, +forthwith the poor soul followed up the cue. Donald, sore beset, +longed to take her in his arms and kiss away her tears, but something +warned him that such action would merely serve to accentuate the +domestic tempest, so, with a despairing glance at old Hector, he left +the room. + +"Pretty kettle o' fish you've left me to bring to a boil!" the old man +cried after him. "O Lord! O Lord! Grant me the wisdom of Solomon, the +patience of Job, and the cunning of Judas Iscariot! God help my +mildewed soul!" + + + + +XX + + +The instant the front door closed behind her son, Mrs. McKaye +recovered her composure. Had the reason been more trifling, she would +have wept longer, but, in view of its gravity, her common sense (she +possessed some, when it pleased her to use it) bade her be up and +doing. Also, she was smitten with remorse. She told herself she was +partly to blame for this scourge that had come upon the family; she +had neglected her son and his indulgent father. She, who knew so well +the peculiar twists of her husband's mental and moral make-up, should +not be surprised if he cast a tolerant eye upon his son's +philanderings; seemingly the boy had always been able to twist his +father round his finger, so to speak. She sat up, dabbed her eyes, +kissed Jane lovingly as who should say, "Well, thank God, here is one +child I can rely upon," and turned upon the culprit. Her opening +sentence was at once a summons and an invitation. + +"Well, Hector?" + +"It happened while you were away--while we were both away, Nellie. I +was gone less than forty-eight hours--and he had compromised himself." + +"You don't mean--really compromised himself!" Jane cried sharply, thus +bringing upon her The Laird's attention. He appeared to transfix her +with his index finger. + +"To bed with you, young lady!" he ordered. "Your mother and I will +discuss this matter without any of your pert suggestions or +exclamations. I'm far from pleased with you, Jane. I told you to shut +that door, and you disobeyed me. For that, you shall suffer due +penance. Six months in Port Agnew, my dear, to teach you obedience and +humility. Go!" + +Jane departed, sniffling, and this stern evidence of The Laird's +temper was not lost upon his wife. She decided to be tactful, which, +in her case, meant proceeding slowly, speaking carefully, and +listening well. Old Hector heaved himself out of his great chair, came +and sat down on the divan with his wife, and put his arm round her. + +"Dear old Nellie!" he whispered, and kissed her. + +For the moment, they were lovers of thirty-odd years agone; their +children forgotten, they were sufficient unto themselves. + +"I know just how you feel, Nellie. I have done my best to spare you--I +have not connived or condoned. And I'll say this for our son: He's +been open and above-board with her and with me. He's young, and in a +moment of that passion that comes to young men--aye, and young women, +too, for you and I have known it--he told her what was in his heart, +even while his head warned him to keep quiet. It seems to me sometimes +that 'tis something that was to be." + +"Oh, Hector, it mustn't be! It cannot be!" + +"I'm hoping it will not be, Nellie. I'll do my best to stop it." + +"But, Hector, why did you support him a moment ago?" + +He flapped a hand to indicate a knowledge of his own incomprehensible +conduct. + +"She'd called for him, Nellie. Poor bairn, her heart went out to the +one she knew would help her, and, by God, Nellie, I felt for her! +You're a woman, Nellie. Think--if one of your own daughters was +wishful for a kind word and a helping hand from an honorable gentleman +and some fool father forbade it. Nellie wife, my heart and my head are +sore tangled, sore tangled--" + +His voice broke. He was shaken with emotion. He had stood much and he +had stood it alone; while it had never occurred to him to think so, he +had been facing life pretty much alone for a decade. It would have +eased his surcharged spirit could he have shed a few manly tears, if +his wife had taken his leonine old head on her shoulder and lavished +upon him the caresses his hungry heart yearned for. Unfortunately, she +was that type of wife whose first and only thought is for her +children. She was aware only that he was in a softened mood, so she +said, + +"Don't you think you've been a little hard on poor Jane, Hector dear?" + +"No, I do not. She's cruel, selfish, and uncharitable." + +"But you'll forgive her this once, won't you, dear?" + +He considered. + +"Well, if she doesn't heckle Donald--" he began, but she stopped +further proviso with a grateful kiss, and immediately followed Jane +up-stairs to break the good news to her. She and Jane then joined +Elizabeth in the latter's room, and the trio immediately held what +their graceless relative would have termed "a lodge of sorrow." Upon +motion of Jane, seconded by Elizabeth, it was unanimously resolved +that the honor of the family must be upheld. At all cost. They laid +out a plan of campaign. + + + + +XXI + + +Upon his arrival in Port Agnew, Donald called upon one Sam Carew. In +his youth, Mr. Carew had served his time as an undertaker's assistant, +but in Port Agnew his shingle proclaimed him to his world as a +"mortician." Owing to the low death-rate in that salubrious section, +however, Mr. Carew added to his labors those of a carpenter, and when +outside jobs of carpentering were scarce, he manufactured a few plain +and fancy coffins. + +Donald routed Sam Carew out of bed with the news of Caleb Brent's +death and ordered him down to the Sawdust Pile in his capacity of +mortician; then he hastened there himself in advance of Mr. Carew. Nan +was in the tiny living-room, her head pillowed on the table, when +Donald entered, and when she had sobbed herself dry-eyed in his arms, +they went in to look at old Caleb. He had passed peacefully away an +hour after retiring for the night; Nan had straightened his limbs and +folded the gnarled hands over the still heart; in the great democracy +of death, his sad old face had settled into peaceful lines such as had +been present in the days when Nan was a child and she and her father +had been happy building a home on the Sawdust Pile. As Donald looked +at him and reflected on the tremendous epics of a career that the +world regarded as commonplace, when he recalled the sloop old Caleb +had built for him with so much pride and pleaure, the long-forgotten +fishing trips and races in the bight, the wondrous tales the old +sailor had poured into his boyish ears, together with the affection +and profound respect, as for a superior being, which the old man had +always held for him, the young laird of Tyee mingled a tear or two +with those of the orphaned Nan. + +"I've told Sam Carew to come for him," he informed Nan, when they had +returned to the living-room. "I shall attend to all of the funeral +arrangements. Funeral the day after to-morrow, say in the morning. Are +there any relatives to notify?" + +"None that would be interested, Donald." + +"Do you wish a religious service?" + +"Certainly not by the Reverend Tingley." + +"Then I'll get somebody else. Anything else? Money, clothes?" + +She glanced at him with all the sweetness and tenderness of her great +love lambent in her wistful sea-blue eyes. + +"What a poor thing is pride in the face of circumstances," she replied +drearily. "I haven't sufficient strength of character to send you +away. I ought to, for your own sake, but since you're the only one +that cares, I suppose you'll have to pay the price. You might lend me +a hundred dollars, dear. Perhaps some-day I'll repay it." + +He laid the money in her hand and retained the hand in his; thus they +sat gazing into the blue flames of the driftwood fire--she hopelessly, +he with masculine helplessness. Neither spoke, for each was busy with +personal problems. + +The arrival of Mr. Carew interrupted their sad thoughts. When he had +departed with the harvest of his grim profession, the thought that had +been uppermost in Donald's mind found expression. + +"It's going to be mighty hard on you living here alone." + +"It's going to be hard on me wherever I live--alone," she replied +resignedly. + +"Wish I could get some woman to come and live with you until we can +adjust your affairs, Nan. Tingley's wife's a good sort. Perhaps--" + +She shook her head. + +"I prefer my own company--when I cannot have yours." + +A wave of bitterness, of humiliation swept over him in the knowledge +that he could not ask one of his own sisters to help her. Truly he +dwelt in an unlovely world. + +He glanced at Nan again, and suddenly there came over him a great +yearning to share her lot, even at the price of sharing her shame. He +was not ashamed of her, and she knew it; yet both were fearful of +revealing that fact to their fellow mortals. The conviction stole over +Donald McKaye that he was not being true to himself, that he was not a +man of honor in the fullest sense or a gentleman in the broadest +meaning of the word. And that, to the heir of a principality, was a +dangerous thought. + +He then took tender leave of the girl and walked all the way home. His +father had not retired when he reached The Dreamerie, and the sight of +that stern yet kindly and wholly understandable person moved him to +sit down beside The Laird on the divan and take the old man's hand in +his childishly. + +"Dad, I'm in hell's own hole!" he blurted. "I'm so unhappy!" + +"Yes, son; I know you are. And it breaks me all up to think that, for +the first time in my life, I can't help you. All the money in the +world will not buy the medicine that'll cure you." + +"I have to go through that, too, I suppose," his son complained, and +jerked his head toward the stairs, where, as a matter of fact, his +sister Jane crouched at the time, striving to eavesdrop. "I had a +notion, as I walked home, that I'd refuse to permit them to discuss my +business with me." + +"This particular business of yours is, unfortunately, something which +they believe to be their business, also. God help me, I agree with +them!" + +"Well, they had better be mighty careful how they speak of Nan Brent," +Donald returned darkly. "This is something I have to fight out alone. +By the way, are you going to old Caleb's funeral, dad?" + +"Certainly. I have always attended the funerals of my neighbors, and I +liked and respected Caleb Brent. Always reminded me of a lost dog. But +he had a man's pride. I'll say that for him." + +"Thank you, father. Ten o'clock, the day after to-morrow, from the +little chapel. There isn't going to be a preacher present, so I'd be +obliged if you'd offer a prayer and read the burial service. That old +man and I were pals, and I want a real human being to preside at his +obsequies." + +The Laird whistled softly. He was on the point of asking to be +excused, but reflected that Donald was bound to attend the funeral and +that his father's presence would tend to detract from the personal +side of the unprecedented spectacle and render it more of a matter of +family condescension in so far as Port Agnew was concerned. + +"Very well, lad," he replied; "I'm forced to deny you so much 'twould +be small of me not to grant you a wee favor now and then. I'll do my +best. And you might send a nurse from the company hospital to stay +with Nan for a week or two." + +"Good old file!" his son murmured gratefully, and, bidding his father +good-night, climbed the stairs to his room. Hearing his footsteps +ascending, Jane emerged from the rear of the landing; simultaneously, +his mother and Elizabeth appeared at the door of the latter's room. He +had the feeling of a captured missionary running the gantlet of a +forest of spears _en route_ to a grill over a bed of coals. + +"Donald dear," Elizabeth called throatily, "come here." + +"Donald dear is going to bed," he retorted savagely. "'Sufficient unto +the day is the evil thereof.' Good-night!" + +"But you _must_ discuss this matter with us!" Jane clamored. "How can +you expect us to rest until we have your word of honor that you--" + +The Laird had appeared at the foot of the stairs, having followed his +son in anticipation of an interview which he had forbidden. + +"Six months, Janey," he called up; "and there'll be no appeal from +that decision. Nellie! Elizabeth! Poor Jane will be lonesome in Port +Agnew, and I'm not wishful to be too hard on her. You'll keep her +company." There was a sound of closing doors, and silence settled +over The Dreamerie, that little white home that The Laird of Tyee had +built and dedicated to peace and love. For he was the master here. + + + + +XXII + + +Caleb Brent's funeral was the apotheosis of simplicity. Perhaps a +score of the old sailor's friends and neighbors attended, and there +were, perhaps, half a dozen women--motherly old souls who had known +Nan intimately in the days when she associated with their daughters +and who felt in the presence of death a curious unbending of a curious +and indefinable hostility. Sam Carew, arrayed in the conventional +habiliments of his profession, stood against the wall and closed his +eyes piously when Hector McKaye, standing beside old Caleb, spoke +briefly and kindly of the departed and with a rough eloquence that +stirred none present--not even Nan, who, up to that moment, entirely +ignorant of The Laird's intention, could only gaze at him, amazed and +incredulous--more than it stirred The Laird himself. The sonorous and +beautiful lines of the burial service took on an added beauty and +dignity as he read them, for The Laird believed! And when he had +finished reading the service, he looked up, and his kind gaze lay +gently on Nan Brent as he said: + +"My friends, we will say a wee bit prayer for Caleb wi' all the +earnestness of our hearts. O Lorrd, now that yon sailor has towed out +on his last long cruise, we pray thee to gie him a guid pilot--aye, an +archangel, for he was ever an honest man and brave--to guide him to +thy mansion. Forgie him his trespasses and in thy great mercy grant +comfort to this poor bairn he leaves behind. And thine shall be the +honor and the glory, forever and ever. Amen!" + +None present, except Donald, realized the earnestness of that prayer, +for, as always under the stress of deep emotion, The Laird had grown +Scotchy. Mrs. Tingley, a kindly little soul who had felt it her +Christian duty to be present, moved over to the little organ, and Nan, +conspicuous in a four-year-old tailored suit and a black sailor-hat, +rose calmly from her seat and stood beside the minister's wife. For a +moment, her glance strayed over the little audience. Then she +sang--not a hymn, but just a little song her father had always +liked--the haunting, dignified melody that has been set to Stevenson's +"Requiem." + + Under the wide and starry sky, + Dig the grave and let me lie. + Glad did I live and gladly die, + And I laid me down with a will. + + This be the verse you grave for me: + _Here he lies where he longed to be. + Home is the sailor, home from sea, + And the hunter, home from the hill_. + +The Laird, watching her narrowly, realized the effort it was costing +her; yet her glorious voice did not break or quiver once. "You +wonderful, wonderful woman!" he thought, moved to a high pitch of +admiration for her independence and her flagrant flaunting of +tradition, "What a wife for my boy--what a mother for my grandson--if +you hadn't spoiled it all!" + +She rode to the cemetery in The Laird's car with The Laird, Donald, +and Mrs. Tingley. Leaning on Donald's arm, she watched them hide old +Caleb beneath the flowers from the gardens of The Dreamerie; then The +Laird read the service at the grave and they returned to the Sawdust +Pile, where Nan's child (he had been left at home in charge of a nurse +from the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital) experienced more or less +difficulty deciding whether Donald or The Laird was his father. + +The Laird now considered his duty to Caleb Brent accomplished. He +remained at the Sawdust Pile a period barely sufficient for Nan to +express her sense of obligation. + +"In a month, my dear girl," he whispered, as he took her hand, "you'll +have had time to adjust yourself and decide on the future. Then we'll +have a little talk." + +She smiled bravely up at him through misty eyes and shook her head. +She read his thoughts far better than he knew. + +Father and son repaired to the private office at the mill, and The +Laird seated himself in his old swivel chair. + +"Now then, lad," he demanded, "have I been a good sport?" + +"You have, indeed, father! I'm grateful to you." + +"You needn't be. I wouldn't have missed that funeral for considerable. +That girl can sing like an angel, and, man, the courage of her! 'Twas +sweet of her, singing to old Caleb like that, but I much mistake if +she won't be talked about for it. 'Twill be said she's heartless." He +handed his son a cigar and snipped the end off one for himself. "We'll +be needing the Sawdust Pile now for a drying-yard," he announced +complacently. + +"You mean----" + +"I mean, my son, that you're dreaming of the impossible, and that it's +time for you to wake up. I want no row about it. I can't bear to hear +your mother and sisters carrying on longer. I'll never get over +thinking what a pity it is that girl is damaged goods. She must not be +wife to son of mine." + +The young laird of Tyee bowed his head. + +"I can't give her up, father," he murmured. "By God, I can't!" + +"There can be no happiness without honor, and you'll not be the first +to make our name a jest in the mouths of Port Agnew. You will write +her and tell her of my decision; if you do not wish to, then I shall +do it for you. Trust her to understand and not hold it against you. +And it is my wish that you should not see her again. She must be cared +for, but when that time comes, I shall attend to it; you know me well +enough to realize I'll do that well." He laid his hand tenderly on the +young man's shoulder. "This is your first love, my son. Time and hard +work will help you forget--and I'll wait for my grandson." + +"And if I should not agree to this--what?" + +"Obey me for a month--and then ask me that question if you will. +I'm--I'm a bit unprepared for an answer on such short notice." + +Donald bowed his head. + +"Very well, sir. I'll think it over for a month--on one condition." + +"Thank you, my son," said The Laird of Tyee. "And what is the +condition?" + +"Let mother and the girls go to Seattle or Honolulu or Shanghai or +some other seaport--anywhere, provided they're not at The Dreamerie +when I return to Port Agnew. I'm going to spend that damnable month in +the woods, week-ends and all, and wrestle with this problem." + +Old Hector smiled a small smile. + +"I'm an old ass," he declared. "Have it your own way, only--by the +gods, I ought to teach them sense. I've spoiled them, and I ought to +unspoil them. They drive me crazy, much as I love them." + + * * * * * + +The Laird went home that afternoon lighter of heart than he had been +for a month. He told himself that his firm stand with Donald had +rather staggered that young man, and that a month of reflection, far +from the disturbing influence of Nan Brent's magnetic presence, would +induce Donald to adopt a sensible course. + + + + +XXIII + + +Since that night when Mr. Daney, standing aloof in the dark vacant lot +close to the Sawdust Pile, had seen Donald McKaye, in the light cast +through the open door of Caleb Brent's cottage, take Nan Brent in his +arms and kiss her, since he had heard Nan Brent's voice apply to the +young laird of Port Agnew a term so endearing as to constitute a +verbal caress, his practical and unromantic soul had been in a turmoil +of apprehension. + +It seemed to him that in old Hector he noted signs of deep mental +perturbation. Also, he told himself, he detected more shades than +lights in Donald's usually pleasant features; so, knowing full well +that which he knew and which neither The Laird nor Donald suspected +him of knowing, to wit: that a declaration of love had been made +between Nan Brent and the heir to the Tyee millions, Mr. Daney came to +the conclusion, one evening about a week after old Caleb's funeral, +that something had to be done--and done quickly--to avert the scandal +which impended. To his way of reasoning, however, it appeared that +nothing along this line was possible of accomplishment while Nan Brent +remained in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney brought to play all of his +considerable intelligence upon the problem of inducing her to leave. + +Now, to render Port Agnew untenable for Nan, thus forcing her to +retreat, was a task which Mr. Daney dismissed not only as unworthy of +him but also as impossible. As a director of the Bank of Port Agnew, +he had little difficulty in ascertaining that Caleb Brent's +savings-account had been exhausted; also, he realized that the +chartering of Caleb's motor-boat, Brutus, to tow the municipal +garbage-barge to sea and return, had merely been Donald's excuse to be +kind to the Brents without hurting their gentle pride. To cancel the +charter of the Brutus now would force Nan to leave Port Agnew in order +to support herself, for Daney could see to it that no one in Port +Agnew employed her, even had anyone in Port Agnew dared run such risk. +Also, the Tyee Lumber Company might bluff her out of possession of the +Sawdust Pile. However, Donald would have to be reckoned with in either +case, and Mr. Daney was not anxious to have the weight of his young +master's anger fall on his guilty head. He saw, therefore, that some +indirect means must be employed. + +Now, Mr. Daney wisely held, in contradiction to any number of people +not quite so hard-headed as he, that absence does _not_ tend to make +the heart grow fonder--particularly if sufficient hard work and worry +can be supplied to prevent either party to the separation thinking too +long or too intensely of the absentee. Within a decent period +following Nan's hoped-for departure from Port Agnew, Mr. Daney planned +to impress upon The Laird the desirability of a trip to the Orient, +while he, Daney, upon the orders of a nerve-specialist, took a long +sea voyage. Immediately the entire burden of seeing that the Tyee +Lumber Company functioned smoothly and profitably would fall upon +Donald's young and somewhat inexperienced shoulders. In the meantime, +what with The Laird's money and the employment of a third party or +parties, it would be no trick at all to induce Nan Brent to move so +far from Port Agnew that Donald could not, in justice to his business +interests, desert those interests in order to pay his court to her. + +"Dog my cats!" Mr. Daney murmured, at the end of a long period of +perplexity. "I have to force the girl out of Port Agnew, and I can +never do so while that motor-boat continues to pay her eighty dollars +a month. She cannot exist on eighty dollars a month elsewhere, but she +can manage very nicely on it here. And yet, even with that confounded +charter canceled, we're stuck with the girl. She cannot leave Port +Agnew without sufficient funds to carry her through for a while, and +she'd die before she'd accept the gift of a penny from anybody in Port +Agnew, particularly the McKayes. Even a loan from The Laird would be +construed as a roundabout way of buying her off." + +Mr. Daney pondered his problem until he was almost tempted to butt his +poor head against the office wall, goat-fashion, in an attempt to +stimulate some new ideas worth while. Nevertheless, one night he +wakened from a sound sleep and found himself sitting up in bed, the +possessor of a plan so flawless that, in sheer amazement, he announced +aloud that he would be--jiggered. Some cunning little emissary of the +devil must have crept in through his ear while he slept and planted +the brilliant idea in Mr. Daney's brain. + +Eventually, Mr. Daney lay down again. But he could not go to sleep; so +he turned on the electric bedside-lamp and looked at his watch. It was +midnight and at midnight no living creature, save possibly an +adventurous or amorous cat, moved in Port Agnew; so Mr. Daney dressed, +crept down-stairs on velvet feet, in order not to disturb the hired +girl, and stepped forth into the night. Ten minutes later, he was down +at the municipal garbage-barge, moored to the bulkhead of piles along +the bank of the Skookum. + +He ventured to strike a match. The gunwale of the barge was slightly +below the level of the bulkhead; so Mr. Daney realized that the tide +had turned and was at the ebb--otherwise, the gunwale would have been +on a level with the bulkheads. He stepped down on the barge, made his +way aft to the Brutus, moored astern, and boarded the little vessel. +He struck another match and looked into the cabin to make certain that +no member of the barge-crew slept there. Finding no one, he went into +the engine-room and opened the sea-cock. Then he lifted up a +floor-board, looked into the bilge, saw that the water therein was +rising, and murmured, + +"Bully--by heck!" + +He clambered hastily back aboard the barge, cast off the mooring-lines +of the Brutus, and with a boat-book gave her a shove which carried her +out into the middle of the river. She went bobbing away gently on the +ebb-tide, bound for the deep water out in the Bight of Tyee where, +when she settled, she would be hidden forever and not be a menace to +navigation. Mr. Daney watched her until she disappeared in the dim +starlight before returning to his home and so, like Mr. Pepys, to bed, +where he had the first real sleep in weeks. He realized this in the +morning and marveled at it, for he had always regarded himself as a +man of tender conscience and absolutely incapable of committing a +maritime crime. Nevertheless, he whistled and wore a red carnation in +his lapel as he departed for the mill office. + + + + +XXIV + + +Following the interview with his father, subsequent to Caleb Brent's +funeral, Donald McKaye realized full well that his love-affair, +hitherto indefinite as to outcome, had crystallized into a definite +issue. For him, there could be no evasion or equivocation; he had to +choose, promptly and for all time, between his family and Nan +Brent--between respectability, honor, wealth, and approbation on one +hand, and pity, contempt, censure, and poverty on the other. +Confronting this _impasse_, he was too racked with torment to face his +people that night and run the gantlet of his mother's sad, reproachful +glances, his father's silence, so eloquent of mental distress, and the +studied scorn, amazement, and contempt in the very attitudes of his +selfish and convention-bound sisters. So he ate his dinner at the +hotel in Port Agnew, and after dinner his bruised heart took command +of his feet and marched him to the Sawdust Pile. + +The nurse he had sent down from the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital to +keep Nan company until after the funeral had returned to the hospital, +and Nan, with her boy asleep in her lap, was seated in a low rocker +before the driftwood fire when Donald entered, unannounced save for +his old-time triple tap at the door. At first glance, it was evident +to him that the brave reserve which Nan had maintained at the funeral +had given way to abundant tears when she found herself alone at home, +screened from the gaze of the curious. + +He knelt and took both outcasts in his great strong arms, and for a +long time held them in a silence more eloquent than words. + +"Well, my dear," she said presently, "aren't you going to tell me all +about it?" + +That was the woman of it. She knew. + +"I'm terribly unhappy," he replied. "Dad and I had a definite +show-down after the funeral. His order--not request--is that I shall +not call here again." + +"Your father is thinking with his head; so he thinks clearly. You, +poor dear, are thinking with your heart controlling your head. Of +course you'll obey your father. You cannot consider doing anything +else." + +"I'm not going to give you up," he asserted doggedly. + +"Yes; you are going to give me up, dear heart," she replied evenly. +"Because I'm going to give you up, and you're much too fine to make it +hard for me to do that." + +"I'll not risk your contempt for my weakness. It _would_ be a +weakness--a contemptible trick--if I should desert you now." + +"Your family has a greater claim on you, Donald. You were born to a +certain destiny--to be a leader of men, to develop your little world, +and make of it a happier place for men and women to dwell in. So, dear +love, you're just going to buck up and be spunky and take up your big +life-task and perform it like the gentleman you are." + +"But what is to become of you?" he demanded, in desperation. + +"I do not know. It is a problem I am not going to consider very +seriously for at least a month. Of course I shall leave Port Agnew, +but before I do, I shall have to make some clothes for baby and +myself." + +"I told my father I would give him a definite answer regarding you in +a month, Nan. I'm going up in the woods and battle this thing out by +myself." + +"Please go home and give him a definite answer to-night. You have not +the right to make him suffer so," she pleaded. + +"I'm not prepared to-night to abandon you, Nan. I must have some time +to get inured to the prospect." + +"Did you come over to-night to tell me good-by before going back to +the woods, Donald?" + +He nodded, and deliberately she kissed him with great tenderness. + +"Then--good-by, sweetheart," she whispered. "In our case, the least +said is soonest mended. And please do not write to me. Keep me out of +your thoughts for a month, and perhaps I'll stay out." + +"No hope," he answered, with a lugubrious smile. "However, I'll be as +good as I can. And I'll not write. But--when I return from that month +of exile, do not be surprised if I appear to claim you for good or for +evil, for better or for worse." + +She kissed him again--hurriedly--and pressed him gently from her, as +if his persistence gave her cause for apprehension. + +"Dear old booby!" she murmured. "Run along home now, won't you, +please?" + +So he went, wondering why he had come, and the following morning, +still wrapped in a mental fog, he departed for the logging-camp, but +not until his sister Jane had had her long-deferred inning. While he +was in the garage at The Dreamerie, warming up his car, Jane appeared +and begged him to have some respect for the family, even though, +apparently, he had none for himself. Concluding a long and bitter +tirade, she referred to Nan as "that abandoned girl." + +Poor Jane! Hardly had she uttered the words before her father appeared +in the door of the garage. + +"One year, Janey," he announced composedly. "And I'd be pleased to see +the photograph o' the human being that'll make me revoke that +sentence. I'm fair weary having my work spoiled by women's tongues." + +"I'll give you my photograph, old pepper-pot," Donald suggested. "I +have great influence with you have I not?" + +The Laird looked up at him with a fond grin. + +"Well?" he parried. + +"You will remit the sentence to one washing of the mouth with soap and +water to cleanse it of those horrid words you just listened to." + +"That's not a bad idea," the stern old man answered. "Janey, you may +have your choice, since Donald has interceded for you." + +But Jane maintained a freezing silence and swept out of the garage +with a mien that proclaimed her belief that her brother and father +were too vulgar and plebeian for her. + +"I'm having the deil's own time managing my family," old Hector +complained, "but I'll have obedience and kindness and justice in my +household, or know the reason why. Aye--and a bit of charity," he +added grimly. He stood beside the automobile and held up his hand up +for his son's. "And you'll be gone a month, lad?" he queried. + +Donald nodded. + +"Too painful--this coming home week-ends," he explained. "And Nan has +requested that I see no more of her. You have a stanch ally in her, +dad. She's for you all the way." + +Relief showed in his father's troubled face. + +"I'm glad to know that," he replied. "You're the one that's bringing +me worry and breaking down her good resolutions and common sense." He +leaned a little closer, first having satisfied himself, by a quick, +backward glance, that none of the women of the family was +eavesdropping, and whispered: "I'm trying to figure out a nice way to +be kind to her and give her a good start in life without insulting +her. If you should have a clear thought on the subject, I'd like your +advice, son. 'Twould hurt me to have her think I was trying to buy her +off." + +"As I view the situation, all three of us have to figure our own +angles for ourselves. However, if a happy thought should dawn on me, +I'll write you. Think it over a few weeks, and then do whatever seems +best." + +So they parted. + + + + +XXV + + +A few days subsequent to Andrew Daney's secret scuttling of the +motor-boat Brutus, Nan Brent was amazed to receive a visit from him. + +"Good-morning, Nan," he saluted her. "I have bad news for you." + +"What, pray?" she managed to articulate. She wondered if Donald had +been injured up in the woods. + +"Your motor-boat's gone." + +This was, indeed, bad news. Trouble showed in Nan's face. + +"Gone where?" she faltered. + +"Nobody knows. It disappeared from the garbage-barge, alongside of +which it was moored. I've had men searching for it two days, but we've +given it up as lost. Was the Brutus, by any chance, insured against +theft?" + +"Certainly not." + +"Well, the Tyee Lumber Company used reasonable care to conserve your +property, and while there's a question whether the company's +responsible for the loss of the boat if it's been stolen, even while +under charter to us, nevertheless, you will be reimbursed for the +value of the boat. Your father had it up for sale last year. Do you +recall the price he was asking?" + +"He was asking considerably less than he really believed the Brutus to +be worth," Nan replied honestly. "He would have sold for fifteen +hundred dollars, but the Brutus was worth at least twenty-five +hundred. Values shrink, you know, when one requires ready cash. And I +do not agree with you that no responsibility attaches to the Tyee +Lumber Company, although, under the circumstances, it appears there is +no necessity for argument." + +"We'll pay twenty-five hundred rather than descend to argument," Daney +replied crisply, "although personally I am of the opinion that two +thousand would be ample." He coughed a propitiatory cough and looked +round the Sawdust Pile appraisingly. "May I inquire, my girl," he +asked presently, "what are your plans for the future?" + +"Certainly, Mr. Daney. I have none." + +"It would be a favor to the Tyee Lumber Company if you had, and that +they contemplated removal to some other house. The Laird had planned +originally to use the Sawdust Pile for a drying-yard"--he smiled +faintly--"but abandoned the idea rather than interfere with your +father's comfort. Of course, The Laird hasn't any more title to the +Sawdust Pile than you have--not as much, in fact, for I do believe you +could make a squatter's right stick in any court. Just at present, +however, we have greater need of the Sawdust Pile than ever. We're +getting out quite a lot of airplane spruce for the British government, +and since there's no doubt we'll be into the war ourselves one of +these days, we'll have to furnish additional spruce for our own +government. Spruce has to be air-dried, you know, to obtain the best +results, and--well, we really need the Sawdust Pile. What will you +take to abandon, it and leave us in undisputed possession?" + +"Nothing, Mr. Daney." + +"Nothing?" + +"Precisely--nothing. We have always occupied it on The Laird's +sufferance, so I do not think, Mr. Daney," she explained, with a faint +smile, "that I shall turn pirate and ingrate now. If you will be good +enough to bring me over twenty-five hundred dollars in cash to-day, I +will give you a clearance for the loss of the Brutus and abandon the +Sawdust Pile to you within the next three or four days." + +His plan had worked so successfully that Daney was, for the moment, +rendered incapable of speech. + +"Will you be leaving Port Agnew?" he sputtered presently. "Or can I +arrange to let you have a small house at a modest rental--" + +She dissipated this verbal camouflage with a disdainful motion of her +upflung hand. + +"Thank you. I shall leave Port Agnew--forever. The loss of the Brutus +makes my escape possible," she added ironically. + +"May I suggest that you give no intimation of your intention to +surrender this property?" he suggested eagerly. "If word of your plan +to abandon got abroad, it might create an opportunity for some person +to jump the Sawdust Pile and defy us to dispossess him." + +Mr. Daney sought, by this subterfuge, to simulate an interest in the +physical possession of the Sawdust Pile which he was far from feeling. +He congratulated himself, however, that, all in all, he had carried +off his mission wonderfully well, and departed with a promise to bring +over the money himself that very afternoon. Indeed, so delighted was +he that it was with difficulty that he restrained himself from +unburdening to The Laird, when the latter dropped in at the mill +office that afternoon, the news that before the week should be out +Nan Brent would be but a memory in Port Agnew. Later, he wondered how +far from Port Agnew she would settle for a new start in life and +whether she would leave a forwarding address. He resolved to ask her, +and he did, when he reappeared at the Sawdust Pile that afternoon with +the money to reimburse Nan for the loss of the Brutus. + +"I haven't decided where I shall go, Mr. Daney," Nan informed him +truthfully, "except that I shall betake myself some distance from the +Pacific Coast--some place where the opportunities for meeting people +who know me are nebulous, to say the least. And I shall leave no +forwarding address. When I leave Port Agnew"--she looked Mr. Daney +squarely in the eyes as she said this--"I shall see to it that no man, +woman, or child in Port Agnew--not even Don McKaye or The Laird, who +have been most kind to me--shall know where I have gone." + +"I'm sorry matters have so shaped themselves in your life, poor girl, +that you're feeling bitter," Mr. Daney replied, with genuine sympathy, +notwithstanding the fact that he would have been distressed and +puzzled had her bitterness been less genuine. In the realization that +it _was_ genuine, he had a wild impulse to leap in the air and crack +his ankles together for very joy. "Will I be seeing you again, Nan, +before you leave?" + +"Not unless the spirit moves you, Mr. Daney," she answered dryly. She +had no dislike for Andrew Daney, but, since he was the husband of Mrs. +Daney and under that person's dominion, she distrusted him. + +"Well then, I'll bid you good-by now, Nan," he announced. "I hope your +lot will fall in pleasanter places than Port Agnew. Good-by, my dear +girl, and good luck to you--always." + +"Good-by, Mr. Daney," she replied. "Thank you for bringing the money +over." + + + + +XXVI + + +By an apparent inconsistency in the natural order of human affairs, it +seems that women are called upon far oftener than men to make the +hardest sacrifices; also, the call finds them far more willing, if the +sacrifice is demanded of them by love. Until Andrew Daney had appeared +at the Sawdust Pile with the suddenness of a genie (and a singularly +benevolent genie at that), Nan had spent many days wondering what fate +the future held in store for her. With all the ardor of a prisoner, +she had yearned to leave her jail, although she realized that freedom +for her meant economic ruin. On the Sawdust Pile, she could exist on +the income from the charter of the Brutus, for she had no rent to pay +and no fuel to buy; her proximity to the sea, her little garden and a +few chickens still further solved her economic problems. Away from the +Sawdust Pile, however, life meant parting with her baby. She would +have to place him in some sort of public institution if she would be +free to earn a living for them both, and she was not aware that she +possessed any adaptability for any particular labor which would enable +her to earn one hundred dollars a month, the minimum sum upon which +she could, by the strictest economy, manage to exist and support her +child. Too well she realized the difficulty which an inexperienced +woman has in securing employment in an office or store at a wage +which, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, may be termed +lucrative, and, lacking funds wherewith to tide her over until she +should acquire experience, or even until she should be fortunate +enough to secure any kind of work, inevitable starvation faced her. +Her sole asset was her voice; she had a vague hope that if she could +ever acquire sufficient money to go to New York and buy herself just +sufficient clothing to look well dressed and financially independent, +she might induce some vaudeville impresario to permit her to spend +fifteen minutes twice or four times daily, singing old-fashioned songs +to the proletariat at something better than a living wage. She had an +idea for a turn to be entitled, "Songs of the 'Sixties." + +The arrival of Andrew Daney with twenty-five hundred dollars might +have been likened to an eleventh-hour reprieve for a condemned +murderer. Twenty-five hundred dollars! Why, she and Don could live two +years on that! She was free--at last! The knowledge exalted her--in +the reaction from a week of contemplating a drab, barren future, she +gave no thought to the extreme unlikelihood of anyone's daring to +steal a forty-foot motor-boat on a coast where harbors are so few and +far between as they are on the Pacific. Had old Caleb been alive, he +would have informed her that such action was analogous to the theft of +a hot stove, and that no business man possessed of a grain of common +sense would have hastened to reimburse her for the loss after an +inconsequential search of only two days. Had she been more worldly +wise, she would have known that business men do not part with +twenty-five hundred dollars that readily--otherwise, they would not be +business men and would not be possessed of twenty-five hundred +dollars. Nan only realized that, in handing her a roll of bank-notes +with a rubber band round them, Andrew Daney had figuratively given her +the key to her prison, against the bars of which her soul had beaten +for three long years. + +Now, it is doubtful whether any woman ever loved a man without feeling +fully assured that she, more than any other person, was better +equipped to decide exactly what was best for that man. Her woman's +intuition told Nan that Donald McKaye was not to be depended upon to +conserve the honor of the McKaye family by refraining from considering +an alliance with her. Also, knowing full well the passionate yearnings +of her own heart and the weakness of her economic position, she shrank +from submitting herself to the task of repelling his advances. Where +he was concerned, she feared her own weakness--she, who had endured +the brutality of the world, could not endure that the world's +brutality should be visited upon him because of his love for her. +Strong of will, self-reliant, a born fighter, and as stiff-necked as +his father, his yearning to possess her, coupled with his instinct for +fair play, might and probably would lead him to tell the world to go +hang, that he would think for himself and take his happiness where he +found it. By all means, this must be prevented. Nan felt that she +could not permit him to risk making a sorry mess of a life of promise. + +Consumed with such thoughts as these, it was obvious that Nan should +pursue but one course--that is, leave Port Agnew unannounced and +endeavor to hide herself where Donald McKaye would never find her. In +this high resolve, once taken, she did not falter; she even declined +to risk rousing the suspicions of the townspeople by appearing at the +general store to purchase badly needed articles of clothing for +herself and her child. She resolved to leave Port Agnew in the best +clothes she had, merely pausing a few days in her flight--at +Vancouver, perhaps--to shop, and then continuing on to New York. + +On the morning of her departure, the butcher's boy, calling for an +order, agreed, for fifty cents, to transport her one small trunk on +his cart to the station. The little white house which she and her +father had built with so much pride and delight, she left furnished as +it was and in perfect order. As she stood at the front door and looked +back for the last time, the ticking of the clock in the tiny +dining-and-living room answered her mute, "Good-by, little house; +good-by," and, though her heart was full enough, she kept back the +tears until she saw the flag flying bravely at the cupola. + +"Oh, my love, my love!" she sobbed. "I mustn't leave it flying there, +flaunting my desertion in your dear eyes." + +Blinded by her tears, she groped her way back to the house, hauled +down the flag, furled it, and laid it away in a bureau drawer. And +this time, when she left the house, she did not look back. + + * * * * * + +At the station, she purchased a ticket for Seattle and checked her +trunk at the baggage-room counter. As she turned from the counter and +started for the waiting-room, she caught the interested eyes of old +Hector McKaye bent upon her. He lifted his hat and walked over to her. + +"I happened to be looking down at the Sawdust Pile when you hauled +your flag down this morning," he explained, in a low voice. "So I knew +you were going away. That's why I'm here." To this extraordinary +speech, the girl merely replied with an inquiring look. "I wonder if +you will permit me to be as kind to you as I can," he continued. "I +know it sounds a bit blunt and vulgar to offer you money, but when one +needs money--" + +"I have sufficient for my present needs," she replied. "Mr. Daney has +paid me for the loss of my motor-boat, you know. You are very kind; +but I think I shall have no need to impose further on your generosity. +I think the twenty-five hundred dollars will last me nicely until I +have made a new start in life." + +"Ah!" The Laird breathed softly, "Twenty-five hundred dollars. Yes, +yes! So he did; so he did! And are you leaving Port Agnew +indefinitely, Nan?" + +"Forever," she replied. "We have robbed you of the ground for a +drying-yard for nearly ten years, but this morning the Sawdust Pile is +yours." + +"Bless my soul!" The Laird ejaculated. "Why, we are not at all in +distress for more drying-space." + +"Mr. Daney intimated that you were. He asked me how much I would take +to abandon my squatter's right, but I declined to charge you a single +cent." She smiled up at him a ghost of her sweet, old-time whimsical +smile. "It was the first opportunity I had to be magnanimous to the +McKaye family, and I hastened to take advantage of it. I merely turned +the key in the lock and departed." + +"Daney has been a trifle too zealous for the Tyee interests, I fear," +he replied gently. "And where do you plan to live?" + +"That," she retorted, still smilingly, "is a secret. It may interest +you, Mr. McKaye, to know that I am not even leaving a forwarding +address for my mail. You see, I never receive any letters of an +important nature." + +He was silent a moment, digesting this. Then, + +"And does my son share a confidence which I am denied?" + +"He does not, Mr. McKaye. This is my second opportunity to do the +decent thing toward the McKaye family--so I am doing it. I plan to +make rather a thorough job of it, too. You--you'll be very kind and +patient with him, will you not? He's going to feel rather badly, you +know, but, then, I never encouraged him. It's all his fault, I +think--I tried to play fair--and it was so hard." Her voice sunk to a +mere whisper. "I've always loved Donald, Mr. McKaye. Most people do; +so I have not regarded it as sinful on my part." + +"You are abandoning him of your own free will--" + +"Certainly. I have to. Surely you must realize that?" + +"Yes, I do. I have felt that he would never abandon you." He opened +and closed his big hands nervously, and was plainly a trifle distrait. +"So--so this is your idea of playing the game, is it?" he demanded +presently. She nodded. "Well," he replied helplessly, "I would to God +I dared be as good a sport as you are, Nan Brent! Hear me, now, lass. +Think of the thing in life you want to do and the place where you want +to do it--" + +She interrupted him. + +"No, no, Mr. McKaye; there can be no talk of money between us. I +cannot and will not take your son--for his sake, and for my own sake I +cannot and will not accept of your kindness. Somehow, some place, I'm +going to paddle my own canoe." + +"Guid lass; guid lass," he whispered huskily. "Remember, then, if +your canoe upsets and spills you, a wire to me will right you, and no +questions asked. Good-by, my dear, and good luck to you!" + +He pressed her hand, lifted his hat, and walked briskly away in the +direction of The Tyee Lumber Company's office, quite oblivious of the +fact that his interview with Nan Brent had been observed by a person +to whom the gods had given at birth a more than average propensity of +intrigue, romance, and general cussedness--Mr. Daniel J. O'Leary, of +whom more anon. + +From the station, Hector McKaye hurried over to the mill office and +entered Andrew Daney's room. + +"Andrew," he began, "you've been doing things. What became of old +Caleb Brent's motor-boat?" + +"I opened the sea-cock, cast it off, and let it drift out into the +bight on the ebb-tide one night recently." + +"Why?" + +"In order that I might have a logical and reasonable excuse to furnish +Nan Brent with sufficient funds to leave this town and make a new +start elsewhere. I have charged the twenty-five hundred to your +personal account on the company books." + +"You also indulged in some extraordinary statements regarding our +pressing need for the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard." + +"We can use it, sir," Daney replied. "I felt justified in indicating +to the girl that her room was desired to her company. Your son," he +added deliberately, "was treading on soft ground, and I took the +license of an old friend and, I hope, a faithful servant, to rid him +of temptation." + +"I shall never be done with feeling grateful to you, Andrew. The girl +is leaving on the train that's just pulling out, and--the incident is +closed. My son is young. He will get over it. Thank you, Andrew, dear +friend, until you're better paid--as you will be some day soon." + +"I'll have need of your friendship if Donald ever discovers my part in +this deal. He'll fire me out o' hand." + +"If he does, I'll hire you back." + +"Hell will pop when he finds the bird has flown, sir." + +"Let it pop! That kind of popping is music in my ears. Hark, Andrew +lad! There's the train whistling for Darrow's Crossing. From there on +the trail is lost--lost--_lost_, I tell you! O Lord, God of Hosts, I +thank Thee for Thy great mercy!" + +And, quite suddenly, old Hector sat down and began to weep. + +XXVII + + +Nan Brent's departure from the Sawdust Pile was known to so few in +Port Agnew that it was fully ten days before the news became general; +even then it excited no more than momentary comment, and a week later +when Donald McKaye returned to town, somewhat sooner than he had +anticipated, Port Agnew had almost forgotten that Nan Brent had ever +lived and loved and sinned in its virtuous midst. Even the small +gossip about her and the young laird had subsided, condemned by all, +including the most thoughtless, as a gross injustice to their favorite +son, and consequently dismissed as the unworthy tattling of unworthy, +suspicious old women. Life in the busy little sawmill town had again +sagged into the doldrums. + +For several days, a feeling of lassitude had been stealing over +Donald. At first he thought it was mental depression, but when, later, +he developed nausea, lack of appetite, and pains in his head, back, +and extremities, it occurred to him that he wasn't feeling well +physically and that The Dreamerie was to be preferred to his rough +pine shanty in the woods, even though in the latter he had sanctuary +from the female members of his family. + +He came in unexpectedly on the last log-train on Saturday night; +tired, with throbbing head and trembling legs, he crawled off the +caboose at the log dump and made his way weakly up to the mill office. +It was deserted when he got there at half-past six, but in his +mail-box he found something which he had promised himself would be +there, despite certain well-remembered assurances to the contrary. It +was a letter from Nan. He tore the envelop eagerly and read: + + Donald dear, I love you. That is why I am leaving you. We shall + not meet again, I think. If we should, it will doubtless be years + hence, and by that time we shall both have resigned ourselves to + this present very necessary sacrifice. Good-by, poor dear. + + Always your sweetheart, + + NAN. + +He read and reread the letter several times. It was undated. +Presently, with an effort, he recovered the envelop from the +waste-basket and examined the postmark. The letter had been mailed +from Seattle, but the post-date was blurred. + +With the letter clutched in his hand, he bent forward and pillowed his +hot face in his arms, outspread upon his father's old desk. He wanted +to weep--to sob aloud in a childish effort to unburden his heart, +scourged now with the first real sorrow of his existence. His throat +contracted; something in his breast appeared to have congealed, yet +for upward of an hour he neither moved nor gave forth a sound. At +last, under the inspiration of a great hope that came apparently +without any mental effort or any desire for hope, so thoroughly +crushed was he, the black, touseled head came slowly up. His face, +usually ruddy beneath the dark, suntanned skin but now white and +haggard, showed a fleeting little smile, as if he grinned at his own +weakness and lack of faith; he rose unsteadily and clumped out of the +office-building. + +Gone! Nan gone--like that! No, no! He would not believe it. She might +have intended to go--she might have wanted to go--she might even have +started to go--but she had turned back! She loved him; she was his. +During those long days and nights up in the woods, he had fought the +issue with himself and made up his mind that Nan Brent was the one +woman in the world for him, that there could never, by God's grace, be +any other, and that he would have her, come what might and be the +price what it would. Rather than the fortune for which his father had +toiled and sacrificed, Donald preferred Nan's love; rather than a life +of ease and freedom from worry, he looked forward with a fierce joy to +laboring with his hands for a pittance, provided he might have the +privilege of sharing it with her. And The Dreamerie, the house his +father had built with such great, passionate human hopes and tender +yearnings, the young laird of Port Agnew could abandon without a pang +for that little white house on the Sawdust Pile. Round steak and +potatoes, fried by the woman destined to him for his perfect mate, +would taste better to him than the choicest viands served by light +stepping servitors in his father's house. + +What, after all, was there worth while in the world for him if he was +to be robbed of his youth and his love? For him, the bare husks of +life held no allurement; he was one of that virile, human type that +rejects the doctrine of sacrifice, denial, and self-repression in this +life for the greater glory of God and man's promise of a reward in +another life, of which we wot but little and that little not +scientifically authenticated. He wanted the great, all-compelling, +omnipotent Present, with its gifts that he could clutch in his fierce +hands or draw to his hungry heart. To hell with the future. He +reflected that misers permit their thoughts to dwell upon it and die +rich and despised, leaving to the apostles of the Present the +enjoyment of the fruits of a foolish sacrifice. + +"She came back. I know she did," he mumbled, as he groped his way +through the dark of the drying-yard. "I'm sick. I must see her and +tell her to wait until I'm well. The damned dirty world can do what it +jolly well pleases to me, but I'll protect her from it. I will--by +God!" + +He emerged into the open fields beyond which lay the Sawdust Pile, +snuggled down on the beach. The Brent cottage was visible in the dim +starlight, and he observed that there was no light in the window; +nevertheless, his high faith did not falter. He pressed on, although +each step was the product of an effort, mental and physical. His legs +were heavy and dragged, as if he wore upon, his logger's boots the +thick, leaden soles of a deep-sea diver. + +At the gate, he leaned and rested for a few minutes, then entered the +deserted yard and rapped at the front door; but his summons bringing +no response, he staggered round to the back door and repeated it. He +waited half a minute and then banged furiously with his fist upon the +door-panel. Still receiving no response, he seized the knob and shook +the door until the little house appeared to rattle from cellar to +cupola. + +"Nan! Nan! Where are you?" he called. "It is I--Donald. Answer me, +Nan. I know you haven't gone away. You wouldn't! Please answer me, +Nan!" + +But the only sound he heard was the labored pumping of his own heart +and the swish of the wavelets against the timbered buttress of the +Sawdust Pile. The conviction slowly came to his torpid brain that he +was seeking admittance to a deserted house, and he leaned against the +door and fought for control of himself. Presently, like a stricken +animal, he went slowly and uncertainly away in the direction whence he +had come. + + * * * * * + +Andrew Daney had put out the cat and wound the clock and was about to +ascend to his chamber (now, alas, reoccupied by Mrs. Daney, upon whom +the news of Nan's departure had descended like a gentle rainfall over +a hitherto arid district) when he heard slow footsteps on his front +veranda. Upon going to the door and peering out, he was amazed to see +Donald McKaye standing just outside. + +"Well, bless my soul!" Daney declared. "So it's you Donald. Come in, +lad; come in." + +Donald shook his head. + +"No, I've only come to stay a minute, Mr. Daney. Thank you, sir. I--I +notice you're running a light track from the drying-yard down to the +Sawdust Pile. Stumbled over it in the dark a few minutes ago, and I--" +He essayed a ghastly smile, for he desired to remove the sting from +the gentle rebuke he purposed giving the general manger--"couldn't +seem to remember having ordered that track--or--suggesting that it be +laid." + +"Quite so, Donald; quite so," Daney answered. "I did it on my own +initiative. Nan Brent has abandoned the Sawdust Pile--moved away from +Port Agnew, you know; so I decided to extend the drying-yard, and +squat on the Sawdust Pile before some undesirable took possession." + +"Hm-m-m! I see. Well, suppose Nan takes a notion to return to Port +Agnew, Mr. Daney. She'll find our drying-yard something of a nuisance, +will she not?" + +"Oh, but she's not coming back," Daney assured him, with all the +confidence of one free from the slightest doubt on the subject. + +"She might. I could see rather dimly into the kitchen and it appears +Miss Brent left her little home furnished." + +"Yes, she did, Donald. I believe she just turned the key in the lock +and went away." + +"Know where she went, Mr. Daney?" + +"No. She didn't even leave a forwarding address for her mail." + +The young laird of Tyee lurched up to Mr. Daney and laid a heavy hand +on the older man's shoulder. + +"How do you know that?" he demanded, and there was a growl in his +voice. "Has Mrs. Daney been asking the postmaster?" + +Mr. Daney saw that, for some inexplicable reason, he was in for a bad +five minutes or more. His youthful superior's face was white and +beaded with perspiration. Daney had a suspicion that Donald had had a +drink or two. + +"There has been no gossip, Donald," he answered crisply. "Get that +notion out of your head. I would protect you from gossip, for I think +I know my duty to the McKayes. I learned that lesson a long time ago," +he added, with spirit. + +"You haven't answered my question, Mr. Daney," Donald persisted. + +"I shall. I know, because she told me herself." Mr. Daney had not +intended that Donald should ever discover that he had had an interview +with Nan Brent, but his veracity had, for the moment, appeared to him +to be questioned by his superior, and he was too truthful, too +thoroughly honest to attempt now to protect his reputation for +truth-telling by uttering a small fib, albeit he squirmed inwardly at +the terrible necessity for such integrity. + +"Ah! Then Nan called upon you again?" + +Mr. Daney sighed. + +"No, I called upon her." + +"With reference to what?" + +"To settle with her for the loss of the Brutus." + +"When did you lose the Brutus." + +Mr. Daney pulled at his ear, gazed at the porch light, rubbed his +Adam's apple, and gave the exact date. + +"What happened to the Brutus?" + +"She just disappeared, Donald. She was tied up alongside the barge--" + +The heavy hand on Mr. Daney's shoulder tightened a little. Donald was +merely holding fast to the general manager in order to stay on his +feet, but Mr. Daney credited him with being the victim of rising +anger. + +"When did Nan leave Port Agnew, Mr. Daney?" + +"Let me see, Donald." Mr. Daney tugged at his beard. "Why, she left +two weeks ago yesterday. Yes; she left on the nineteenth." + +"When did you settle with her for the loss of the Brutus?" + +"On the sixteenth," Daney answered glibly. + +"How much?" + +"Twenty-five hundred dollars. It was more than the Brutus was worth, +but I disliked to appear niggardly in the matter, Donald. I knew you +and your father would approve whatever sum I settled for--and the loss +of the little boat provided a nice opportunity for generosity without +hurting the girl's pride." + +"Yes--thank you, Mr. Daney. That was kind and thoughtful of you." +Donald spoke the words slowly, as if he searched his brain carefully +for each word and then had to coax his tongue into speaking it. "You +settled, then, two days after the boat disappeared. Fast work. Nobody +up here would steal the boat. Too much distance between ports--run +short of gasoline, you know, on her limited tank capacity--and if +anybody had purchased cased gasoline around here to load on deck, +you'd know of it. Hard to conceal or disguise a forty-foot boat, too." +His fingers closed like steel nippers over Mr. Daney's shoulder. +"Where did you hide the boat, Mr. Daney? Answer me. I'll not be +trifled with." + +"I scuttled her--if you must have the truth." + +"I knew you wouldn't lie to me. On whose orders, Mr. Daney? My +father's?" + +"No, sir; it was my own idea." Daney's face was white with mental and +physical distress and red with confusion, by turns. His shoulder was +numb. + +"Why?" + +"I figured that if the girl had some money to make a new start +elsewhere, she'd leave Port Agnew, which would be best for all +concerned." + +"Why, Andrew Daney, you old hero! Cost you something to confess that, +didn't it? Well--I guessed you or my father had induced her to go, so +I concluded to start the investigation with you," He passed his hand +over his white dripping brow before resuming what he had to say. "The +Tyee Lumber Company isn't equipped to carry on its pay-roll Mr. Donald +McKaye and the man who interferes in his personal affair, even though +actuated by a kindly interest. You rip up that track you're laying and +leave Nan's home alone. Then you clean up your desk and hand me your +resignation. I'm sick--and your damned interference hurts. Sorry; but +you must go. Understand? Nan's coming back--understand? Coming +back--devilish hot night--for this time of year, isn't it? Man, I'm +burning up." + +It came to Mr. Daney that the young laird was acting in a most +peculiar manner. Also, he was talking that way. Consequently, and what +with the distress of being dismissed from the McKaye service in such +cavalier fashion, the general manager decided to twist out from under +that terrible grasp on his shoulder. + +Instantly, Donald released from this support, swayed and clutched +gropingly for Mr. Daney's person. + +"Dizzy," he panted. "Head's on strike. Mr. Daney, where the devil are +you? Don't run away from me. You damned old muddler, if I get my hands +on you I'll pick you apart--yes, I will--to see--what makes you go. +You did it, Yes, you did--even if you're too stupidly honest--to lie +about it. Glad of that, though, Mr. Daney. Hate liars and interfering +duffers. Ah--the cold-blooded calculation of it--took advantage of her +poverty. She's gone--nobody knows--May God damn your soul to the +deepest hell--Where are you? I'll kill you--no, no; forgive me, +sir--Yes, you've been faithful, and you're an old employe--I wish you +a very pleasant good-evening, sir." + +He stepped gingerly down the three wide stairs, pitched forward, and +measured his length in a bed of pansies. Mr. Daney came down, struck a +match, and looked at his white face. Donald was apparently +unconscious; so Mr. Daney knelt, placed his inquisitive nose close to +the partly open lips, and sniffed. Then he swore his chiefest oath. + +"Hell's hells and panther-tracks! He isn't drunk. He's sick." + +Fifteen minutes later, the young Laird of Port Agnew reposed in the +best room of his own hospital, and Andrew Daney was risking his life +motoring at top speed up the cliff road to The Dreamerie with bad news +for old Hector. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had retired but The Laird +was reading in the living-room when Daney entered unannounced. + +Old Hector looked up at his general manager from under his white, +shaggy brow. + +"Ye, Andrew," he saluted the latter gently, "I see by your face it's +not welcome news you bring. Out with it, man." + +So Andrew came "out with it," omitting no detail, and at the +conclusion of his recital, the old man wagged his head to emphasize +his comprehension. + +"My son is not a dull man by any means," he said presently. "He knows +what he knows--a man sure of himself always--and oh, Andrew man, +because of the brain of him and the sweet soul of him, it breaks my +heart to give pain to him. And what does the doctor say?" + +"From a cursory examination he suspects typhoid fever." + +"Ah, that's bad, bad, Andrew." + +"The boy has the strength of a Hercules, sir. He'll beat through, +never fear." + +"Well, he'll not die to-night, at any rate," old Hector answered, "and +I can do no good puttering round the hospital to-night. Neither would +I alarm his mother and the girls. Send for the best medical brains in +the country, Andrew, and don't quibble at the cost. Pay them what they +ask. 'Twill be cheap enough if they save him. Good-night, Andrew, and +thank you kindly." He stood up and laid his hand affectionately upon +the shoulder of his faithful servant and walked with him thus to the +door. "My good Andrew," he murmured, and propelled the general manager +gently outside, "there's no need to worry over the dismissal. When the +lad's well, he'll rescind his order, so, in the meantime, do not leave +us." + +"But--if he shouldn't rescind it?" Daney pleaded anxiously. Although +he was comfortably fixed with this world's goods and had long since +ceased to work for monetary reward, the Tyee Lumber Company was, +nevertheless, part of his life, and to be dismissed from its service +was akin to having some very necessary part of him amputated. + +"Tush, man; tush! Don't be building a mare's nest," old Hector +answered and closed the door upon him. For The Laird was losing +control of himself and he could not bear that any human eye should +gaze upon his weakness. + + + + +XXVIII + + +The morning following Donald's admittance to the hospital, the company +doctor confirmed his original diagnosis that the patient was suffering +from an attack of typhoid fever. The disease had evidently been two +weeks incubating, for the woods boss reported that his superior had +complained of being "under the weather" for ten days before yielding +to the former's repeated advice to go down to Port Agnew and have the +doctor look him over. As a result of Donald's stubborn refusal to +acknowledge his illness, the disease had reached a fair stage of +development by the time he received medical attention. + +He was not delirious when The Laird and Mrs. McKaye reached the +hospital that morning, however, they were permitted to see him for but +a few minutes only. + +"Has he a fighting chance?" old Hector demanded bluntly of the doctor. +It seemed to him that his son's face already wore the look of one +doomed to dissolution at an early date. + +"Yes, he has, Mr. McKaye," the doctor replied gravely; "provided he'll +fight. You will understand that in typhoid fever the mortality rate is +rather high--as high as thirty per cent. However, in the case of +Donald, who is a husky athlete, I should place the odds at about ten +to one that he'll survive an attack of even more than moderate +severity. That is," he added, "under the most favorable conditions." + +"Well, what's wrong with the conditions in this case?" The Laird +demanded crisply. "You can have anything you want--if you're shy on +material to work with, and I've sent for the best physician in the +state to come here and consult with you." + +"The hospital conditions are perfect, Mr. McKaye. What I mean is this: +It is a well recognized principle of medical practice that a patient +combating a disease of extreme severity and high mortality is +sustained quite as much by his courage and a passionate desire to get +well--in a word, by his morale--as he is by his capacity for physical +resistance. Your son is, I think, slightly depressed mentally. That is +the sole reason I see to warrant apprehension." + +"Oh--so that's all, eh?" The Laird was relieved. "Then don't worry +about him. He'll put up a battle--never fear. Why, he never quit in +all his life. However, in case he might need a bit of encouragement +from his old daddy from time to time, you'll have a room made ready +for me. I'll stay here till he's out of danger." + +That was a terrible week on old Hector. The nurse, discovering that +his presence appeared to excite her patient, forbade him the room; so +he spent his days and part of his nights prowling up and down the +corridor, with occasional visits to the mill office and The Dreamerie, +there to draw such comfort from Daney and his family as he might. +While his temperature remained below a hundred and four, Donald would +lie in a semi-comatose condition, but the instant the thermometer +crept beyond that point he would commence to mutter incoherently. +Suddenly, he would announce, so loudly The Laird could hear every +word, that he contemplated the complete and immediate destruction of +Andrew Daney and would demand that the culprit be brought before him. +Sometimes he assumed that Daney was present, and the not unusual +phenomenon attendant upon delirium occurred. When in good health +Donald never swore; neither would he tolerate rough language in his +presence from an employe; nevertheless, in his delirium he managed, at +least once daily, to heap upon the unfortunate Daney a generous +helping of invective of a quality that would have made a mule-skinner +blush. Sometimes Mr. Daney was unfortunate enough to drop in at the +hospital in time to hear this stream of anathema sounding through the +corridor; upon such occasions he would go into The Laird's room and he +and old Hector would eye each other grimly but say never a word. + +Having demolished Mr. Daney with a verbal broadside, Donald would +appear to consider his enemy dead and direct his remarks to Nan Brent. +He would reproach her tenderly for leaving Port Agnew without +informing him of her intention; he assured her he loved her, and that +unless she returned life would not be worth living. Sometimes he would +call upon old dead Caleb to reason with her in his behalf. About that +time he would be emerging from a Brand bath and, with the decline of +his temperature, his mutterings and complaints gradually grew +incoherent again and he would sleep. + +Thus two weeks passed. Donald showed no sign of the improvement which +should ordinarily be looked for in the third week, and it was apparent +to the doctors and nurses who attended him that the young Laird was +not making a fight to get well--that his tremendous physical +resistance was gradually being undermined. His day-nurse it was who +had the courage, womanlike, to bring the matter to an issue. + +"He's madly in love with that Nan girl he's always raving about," she +declared. "From all I can gather from his disconnected sentences, she +has left Port Agnew forever, and he doesn't know where she is. Now, +I've seen men--little, weak men--recover from a worse attack of +typhoid than this big fellow has, and he ought to be on the up-grade +now, if ever--yet he's headed down-hill. About next week he's going to +start to coast, unless Nan Brent shows up to take him by the hand and +lead him back up-hill. I believe she could do it--if she would." + +"I believe she could, also," the doctor agreed. "Perhaps you've +noticed that, although his family have listened to him rave about her, +they have never given the slightest indication that they know what he +is raving about. The girl's tabu, apparently." + +"The Laird appears to be a human being. Have you spoken to him about +this--Nan girl?" + +"I tried to--once. He looked at me--and I didn't try any more. The +fact is," the doctor added, lowering his voice, "I have a notion that +old Hector, through Daney, gave the girl money to leave the country." + +"If he knew what an important personage she is at this minute, he'd +give her more money to come back--if only just long enough to save his +son. Have you spoken to Mr. Daney?" + +"No; but I think I had better. He has a great deal of influence with +The Laird, and since I have no doubt they were in this conspiracy +together, Daney may venture to discuss with the old man the +advisability of bringing the girl back to Port Agnew." + +"If she doesn't appear on the scene within ten days--" + +"I agree with you. Guess I'll look up Mr. Daney." + +He did. Daney was at his desk in the mill office when the doctor +entered and, without the least circumlocution, apprised him of the +desperate state to which Donald was reduced. + +"I tell you, Mr. Daney," he declared, and pounded Daney's desk to +emphasize his statement, "everything that medical science can do for +that boy has been done, but he's slipping out from under us. Our last +hope lies in Nan Brent. If she can be induced to come to his bedside, +hold his hand, and call him pet names when he's rational, he'll buck +up and win out. There are no dangerous physical complications to +combat now. They are entirely mental." + +While the physician was speaking, Andrew Daney's face had gradually +been taking on the general color-tones of a ripe old Edam cheese. His +chin slowly sagged on his breast; his lips parted in horror and +amazement until, finally, his mouth hung open slackly, foolishly; +presently, two enormous tears gathered in the corners of his eyes and +cascaded slowly across his cheeks into his whiskers. He gripped the +arms of his chair. + +"O God, forgive me!" he moaned. "The Laird doesn't know where she is, +and neither do I. I induced her to go away, and she's lost somewhere +in the world. To find her now would be like searching a haystack for a +needle." + +"But you might telegraph a space-ad to every leading newspaper in the +country. The Laird can afford to spend a million to find her--if she +can be found in a hurry. Why, even a telegram from her would help to +buck him up." + +But Andrew Daney could only sway in his chair and quiver with his +profound distress. + +"The scandal!" he kept murmuring, "the damned scandal! I'll have to go +to Seattle to send the telegrams. The local office would leak. And +even if we found her and induced her to come back to save him, +she'd--she'd have to go away again--and if she wouldn't--if he +wouldn't permit her--why, don't you see how impossible a situation has +developed? Man, can Donald McKaye wed Nan Brent of the Sawdust Pile?" + +"My interest in the case is neither sentimental nor ethical. It is +entirely professional. It appears to me that in trying to save this +young fellow from the girl, you've signed his death warrant; now it is +up to you to save him from himself, and you're worrying because it may +be necessary later to save the girl from him or him from the girl. +Well, I've stated the facts to you, and I tried to state them to The +Laird. Do as you think best. If the boy dies, of course, I'll swear +that he was doomed, anyhow, due to perforation of the intestines." + +"Yes, yes!" Daney gasped. "Let The Laird off as lightly as you can." + +"Oh, I'll lie cheerfully. By the way, who is this girl? I haven't been +in Port Agnew long enough to have acquired all the gossip. Is she +impossible?" + +"She's had a child born out of wedlock." + +"Oh, then she's not a wanton?" + +"I'm quite sure she is not." + +"Well, I'll be damned! So that's all that's wrong with her, eh?" Like +the majority of his profession, this physician looked up such a +_contretemps_ with a kindly and indulgent eye. In all probability, +most of us would if we but knew as many of the secrets of men as do +our doctors and lawyers. + +Long after the doctor had left him alone with his terrible problem, +Mr. Daney continued to sit in his chair, legs and arms asprawl, chin +on breast. From time to time, he cried audibly: + +"O Lord! O my God! What have I done? What shall I do? How shall I do +it? O Lord!" + +He was quite too incoherent for organized prayer; nevertheless his +agonized cry to Omnipotence was, indeed, a supplication to which the +Lord must have inclined favorably, for, in the midst of his desolation +and bewilderment, the door opened and Dirty Dan O'Leary presented +himself. + + + + +XXIX + + +Thanks to the constitution of a Nubian lion, Dirty Dan's wounds and +contusions had healed very rapidly and after he got out of hospital, +he spent ten days in recuperating his sadly depleted strength. His +days he spent in the sunny lee of a lumber pile in the drying-yard, +where, in defiance of the published ordinance, he smoked plug tobacco +and perused the _Gaelic American_. + +Now, Mr. O'Leary, as has been stated earlier in this chronicle, was +bad black Irish. Since the advent of Oliver Cromwell into Ireland, the +males of every generation of the particular tribe of O'Leary to which +Dirty Dan belonged had actively or passively supported the battles of +Ould Ireland against the hereditary enemy across the Channel, and +Dirty Dan had suckled this holy hatred at his mother's breast; +wherefore he regarded it in the light of his Christian duty to keep +that hate alive by subscribing to the _Gaelic American_ and believing +all he read therein anent the woes of the Emerald Isle. Mr. O'Leary +was also a member of an Irish-American revolutionary society, and was +therefore aware that presently his kind of Irish were to rise, cast +off their shackles (and, with the help o' God and the German kaiser) +proclaim the Irish Republic. + +For several months past, Daniel's dreams had dwelt mostly with +bayonet-practice. Ordinary bayonets, however, were not for him. He +dreamed his trusty steel was as long as a cross-cut saw, and nightly +he skewered British soldiers on it after the fashion of kidneys and +bacon _en brochette_. For two months he had been saving his money +toward a passage home to Ireland and the purchase of a rifle and two +thousand rounds of ammunition--soft-nose bullets preferred--with the +pious intention of starting with "th' bhoys" at the very beginning and +going through with them to the bloody and triumphant finish. + +Unfortunately for Dirty Dan, his battle in defense of Donald McKaye +had delayed his sortie to the fields of martyrdom. On the morning that +Nan Brent left Port Agnew, however, fortune had again smiled upon The +O'Leary. Meeting Judge Moore, who occupied two local offices--justice +of the peace and coroner--upon the street, that functionary had +informed Dan that the public generally, and he and the town marshal in +particular, traced an analogy between the death of the mulatto in +Darrow and Mr. O'Leary's recent sojourn in the Tyee Lumber Company's +hospital, and thereupon, verbally subpoenaed him to appear before a +coroner's jury the following day at ten o'clock A.M., then and there +to tell what he knew about said homicide. + +Dirty Dan received this summons with outward nonchalance but +tremendous secret apprehensions, and immediately fled for advice to no +less a person than Andrew Daney. + +However, the Fates ordained that Andrew Daney should be spared the +trouble of advising Dirty Dan, for as the latter came shuffling down +the hall toward Daney's office door, The Laird emerged from his old +office and accosted his henchman. + +"Well, Dan!" he greeted the convalescent, "how do you find yourself +these days?" + +"Poorly, sir, poorly," Dirty Dan declared. "Twas only yisterd'y I had +to take the other side av the shtreet to av'id a swamper from Darrow, +sir." + +The Laird smiled. + +"Well, Dan, I think it's about time I did something to make you feel +better. I owe you considerable for that night's work, so here's a +thousand dollars for you, my boy. Go down to southern California or +Florida for a month or two, and when you're back in your old form, +report for duty. I have an idea Mr. Donald intends to make you foreman +of the loading-sheds and the drying-yard when you're ready for duty." + +"God bless ye, me lord, an' may the heavens be your bed!" murmured the +astounded lumberjack, as The Laird produced his wallet and counted +into Dan's grimy quivering paw ten crisp hundred-dollar bills. "Oh, +t'ank you, sor; t'ank you a t'ousand times, sor. An' ye'll promise me, +won't ye, to sind for me firrst-off if ye should be wan tin' some +blackguard kilt?" + +"I assure you, Dan, you are my sole official killer," laughed The +Laird, and shook the O'Leary's hand with great heartiness. "Better +take my advice about a good rest, Dan." + +"Sor, I'll be afther havin' the vacation o' me life." + +"Good-by, then, and good luck to you, Dan!" + +"Good-by, an' God bless ye, sor!" + +Five minutes later, Daniel J. O'Leary was in the general store fitting +on what he termed a "Sunday suit." Also, he bought himself two white +shirts of the "b'iled" variety, a red necktie, a brown Derby hat, and +a pair of shoes, all too narrow to accommodate comfortably his +care-free toes. Next, he repaired to the barber-shop, where he had a +hair-cut and a shave. His ragged red mustache, ordinarily of the +soup-strainer pattern, he had trimmed, waxed, and turned up at each +end; the barber put much pomade on his hair and combed it in a +Mazeppa, with the result that when! Daniel J. O'Leary appeared at the +railroad station the following morning, and purchased a ticket for New +York City, Hector McKaye, loitering in front of the station on the +lookout for Nan Brent, looked at and through Mr. O'Leary without +recognizing him from Adam's off ox. + +It is, perhaps, superfluous to remark that Dirty Dan was about to +embark upon an enterprise designed to make his dreams come true. He +was headed for Ireland and close grips with the hated redcoats as fast +as train and steamer could bear him. + +Now, Mr. O'Leary had never seen Nan Brent, although he had heard her +discussed in one or two bunk-houses about the time her child had been +born. Also, he was a lumberjack, and since lumberjacks never speak to +the "main push" unless first spoken to, he did not regard it as all +necessary to bring himself to Hector McKaye's notice when his alert +intelligence informed him that The Laird had failed to recognize him +in his going-away habiliments. Further, he could see with half an eye +that The Laird was waiting for somebody, and when that somebody +appeared on the scene, the imp of suspicion in Dirty Dan's character +whispered: "Begorra, is the father up to some shenanigans like the +son? Who's this girrl? I dunno. A young widder, belike, seem' she has +a youngster wit' her." + +He saw Nan and The Laird enter into earnest conversation, and his +curiosity mastering him, he ventured to inquire of a roustabout who +was loading baggage on a truck who the young lady might be. Upon +receiving the desired information, he, with difficulty repressed a +whistle of amazement and understanding; instantly his active +imagination was at work. + +The girl was leaving Port Agnew. That was evident. Also, The Laird +must have known of this, for he had reached the station before the +girl and waited for her. Therefore, he must have had something to do +with inducing her to depart. Mr. O'Leary concluded that it was quite +within the realm of possibility that The Laird had made it well worth +her while to refrain from wrecking the honor of his house, and he +watched narrowly to observe whether or not money passed between them. + +One thing puzzled Dirty Dan extremely. That was the perfectly frank, +friendly manner in which his employer and this outcast woman greeted +each other, the earnestness with which they conversed, and the effect +of the woman's low-spoken words upon the color of Hector McKaye's +face. When The Laird took his leave, the lumberjack noted the +increased respect--the emotion, even--with which he parted from her. +The lumberjack heard him say, "Good-by, my dear, and good luck to you +wherever you go"; so it was obvious Nan Brent was not coming back to +Port Agnew. Knowing what he knew, Mr. O'Leary decided that, upon the +whole, here was good riddance to the McKaye family of rubbish that +might prove embarrassing if permitted to remain dumped on the Sawdust +Pile. + +"Poor gurrl," he reflected as he followed Nan aboard the train. "She +have a sweet face, that she have, God forgive her! An be th' Rock av +Cashel, she have a v'ice like an angel from heaven." + +He sat down in a seat behind her and across the aisle, and all the way +to Seattle he stared at the back of her neck or the beautiful rounded +profile of her cheek. From time to time, he wondered how much Hector +McKaye had paid her to disappear out of his son's life, and how that +son would feel, and what he would say to his father when he discovered +his light o' love had flown the cage. + +The following morning Mr. O'Leary boarded a tourist-sleeper on the +Canadian Pacific, and, to his profound amazement, discovered that Nan +Brent and her child occupied a section in the same car. + +"Begorra, she couldn't have shtuck the ould man very deep at that, or +'tis in a standard shleeper an' not a tourist she'd be riding," he +reflected. "What the divil's up here at all, at all, I dunno." + +Dirty Dan saw her enter a taxicab at the Grand Central Station in New +York. + +"I wonder if the young Caddyheck himself'll meet her here," Mr. +O'Leary reflected, alive with sudden suspicion, and springing into the +taxicab that drew in at the stand the instant the taxi bearing Nan and +her child pulled out, he directed the driver to follow the car ahead, +and in due course found himself before the entrance to a hotel in +lower Broadway--one of that fast disappearing number of fifth-class +hotels which were first-class thirty years ago. + +Dirty Dan hovered in the offing until Nan had registered and gone up +to her room. Immediately he registered also, and, while doing so, +observed that Nan had signed her real name and given her address as +Port Agnew, Washington. With unexpected nicety, Dirty Dan decided not +to embarrass her by registering from Port Agnew also, so he gave his +address as Seattle. + +For two days, he forgot the woes of Ireland and sat round the stuffy +lobby, awaiting Nan Brent's next move. When he saw her at the +cashier's window paying out, he concealed himself behind a newspaper, +and watched her covertly as the clerk gave instructions to the head +porter regarding the disposition of her baggage. The instant she left +the hotel, accompanied by her child, Dirty Dan approached the porter +and said with an insinuating smile: + +"I'd give a dollar to know the address the young lady wit' the baby +bhoy give you f'r the delivery av her trunk." + +The porter reached for the dollar and handed Dirty Dan a shipping tag +containing the address. Mr. O'Leary laboriously wrote the address in a +filthy little memorandum-book, and that afternoon made a point of +looking up Nan's new habitation. He discovered it to be an old +brownstone front in lower Madison Avenue, and a blue-and-gold sign +over the area fence indicated to Mr. O'Leary that, from an abode of +ancient New York aristocracy, the place had degenerated into a +respectable boarding-house. + +"'Tis true," Dirty Dan murmured. "She's given the young fella the +go-by. Hurro! An' I'm bettin' I'm the only lad in the wide, wide +wurrld that knows where she's gone. Faith, but wouldn't Misther Donald +pay handsomely for the information in me little book." + +Having, as he judged, followed the mystery to its logical conclusion, +Mr. O'Leary was sensible of a sudden waning of his abnormal curiosity +in Nan Brent's affairs. He acknowledged to himself that he had spent +time and money on a matter that was absolutely none of his business, +but excused himself upon the ground that if he hadn't investigated the +matter thoroughly, his failure to do so might annoy him in the future. +If, for no other reason than the desirability of being on the inside +track of this little romance of a rich man's son, his action was to be +commended. People have no business disappearing without leaving a +trace or saying good-by to those that love them. Dirty Dan hadn't the +least idea of selling his information to Donald McKaye, but something +in his peculiar mental make-up caused him to cherish a secret for its +own sake; he had a true Irishman's passion for being "in the know," +and now that he was in it, he was tremendously satisfied with himself +and dismissed the entire matter from his mind. Old Ireland and her +woes were again paramount, so Mr. O'Leary presented himself before the +proper authorities and applied for a passport to visit Ireland. + +Now, while Daniel J. did not know it, one of the first questions the +applicant for a passport is required to answer is his reason for +desiring to make the journey, and during the Great War, as everybody +of mature years will recall, civilians were not permitted to subject +themselves to the dangers of a ruthless submarine war without good and +sufficient reason. Mr. O'Leary had a reason--to his way of thinking, +the noblest reason in all the world; consequently he was proud of it +and not at all inclined to conceal it. + +"I'm goin' over there," he declared, with profane emphasis, "to kill +all the damned English I can before they kill me." + +His interlocutor gravely wrote this reply down in Mr. O'Leary's exact +language and proceeded to the other questions. When the application +was completed, Dirty Dan certified to the correctness of it, and was +then smilingly informed that he had better go back where he came from, +because his application for a passport was denied. Consumed with fury, +the patriot thereupon aired his opinion of the Government of the +United States, with particular reference to its representative then +present, and in the pious hope of drowning his sorrows, went forth and +proceeded to get drunk. + +When drunk, Mr. O'Leary always insisted, in the early stages of his +delirium, on singing Hibernian ballads descriptive of the unflinching +courage, pure patriotism and heroic sacrifices of the late Owen Roe +O'Neill and O'Donnell Abu. Later in the evening he would howl like a +timber-wolf and throw glasses, and toward morning he always fought it +out on the floor with some enemy. Of course, in the sawmill towns of +the great Northwest, where folks knew Mr. O'Leary and others of his +ilk, it was the custom to dodge the glasses and continue to discuss +the price of logs. Toward Dirty Dan, however, New York turned a +singularly cold shoulder. The instant he threw a glass, the barkeeper +tapped him with a "billy"; then a policeman took him in tow, and the +following morning, Dirty Dan, sick, sore, and repentant was explaining +to a police judge that he was from Port Agnew, Washington, and really +hadn't meant any harm. He was, therefore, fined five dollars and +ordered to depart forthwith for Port Agnew, Washington, which he did, +arriving there absolutely penniless and as hungry as a cougar in +midwinter. He fled over to the mill kitchen, tossed about five +dollars worth of ham and eggs and hot biscuit into his empty being, +and began to take stock of life. Naturally, the first thing he +recalled in mind was The Laird's remark that Donald planned to make +him foreman of the loading-sheds and drying-yards; so he wasted no +time in presenting himself before Donald's office door. To his +repeated knocking there was no reply, so he sought Mr. Daney. + +"Hello, Dan! You back?" Daney greeted him. "Glad to see you. Looking +for Mr. Donald?" + +"Yes, sor; thank you, sor." + +"Mr. Donald is ill in the company's hospital. We're afraid, Dan, that +he isn't going to pull through." + +"Glory be!" Mr. O'Leary gasped, horrified on two counts. First, +because he revered his young boss, and, second, because the latter's +death might nullify his opportunity to become foreman of the +loading-sheds and drying-yard. "Sure, what's happened to the poor +bhoy?" + +Before Daney could answer, a terrible suspicion shot through the agile +and imaginative O'Leary brain. In common with several million of his +countrymen, he always voiced the first thought that popped into his +head; so he lowered that member, likewise his voice, peered cunningly +into Andrew Daney's haggard face, and whispered: + +"Don't tell me he tried to commit suicide, what wit' his poor broken +heart an' all!" + +It was Andrew Daney's turn to peer suspiciously at Dirty Dan. For a +few seconds, they faced each other like a pair of belligerent +game-cocks. Then said Daney: + +"How do you know his heart was broken?" + +Dirty Dan didn't know. The thought hadn't even occurred to him until +ten seconds before; yet, from the solemnity of Daney's face and +manner, he knew instantly that once more his feet were about to tread +the trails of romance, and the knowledge imbued him with a deep sense +of importance. + +He winked knowingly. + +"Beggin' yer pardon, Misther Daney an' not m'anin' the least offinse +in life, but--I know a lot about that young man--yis, an' the young +leddy, too--that divil a sowl on earth knows or is goin' to find out." +He tried a shot in the dark. "That was a clever bit o' wurrk gettin' +her out o' Port Agnew--" + +Andrew Daney's hands closed about Dirty Dan's collar, and he was +jerked violently into the latter's office, while Daney closed and +locked the door behind them. The general manager was white and +trembling. + +"You damned, cunning mick, you!" he cried, in a low voice. "I believe +you're right. You do know a lot about this affair--" + +"Well, if I do, I haven't talked about it," Dirty Dan reminded him +with asperity. + +"You knew the girl had left Port Agnew and why, do you not?" Daney +demanded. + +"Of course I do. She left to plaze The Laird an' get rid o' the young +fella. Whether Th' Laird paid her to go or not, I don't know, but I'll +say this: 'If he gave her anythin' at all, 'twas damned little.'" + +"He didn't give her a red cent," Daney protested. + +"I believe you, sor," Mr. O'Leary assured him, as solemn as a Supreme +Court justice. "I judged so be the way she traveled an' the hotel she +shtopped at." + +Daney made another dive at the returned prodigal, but Mr. O'Leary +evaded him. + +"Where did she travel, and what hotel did she put up at?" the general +manager demanded. + +"She traveled to the same places an' put up at the same hotels that I +did," Dirty Dan replied evasively, for his natural love for intrigue +bade him hoard his secret to the last. + +Daney sat down and said very quietly: "Dan, do you know where Nan +Brent may be found?" + +"Where she _may_ be found? Faith, I can tell you where she can be +found--but I'll not." + +"Why not?" + +"Because 'tis her secret, an' why should I share it wit' you, m'anin' +no disrespect, sor, at that?" + +"Your sentiments do you honor, Dan--a heap more honor than I ever +thought you possessed. If Mr. Donald's life should happen to be the +price of your silence, however, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?" + +"I would. The young gintlemin's blood runs in my veins, sor." + +"Thank you, Dan. Give me her address." + +"Number one eighty-five Madison Avenue, Noo Yorrk City," Dirty Dan +replied promptly. "More I do not know. Am I on the pay-roll agin?" + +"You bet! I'll pick out a good job for you as soon as I find time to +think about it." + +"Could I have a dollar or two in advance--" the wanderer began, as +Daney hastened toward the door. + +"Certainly." The door slammed, and Dirty Dan could hear the general +manager shouting in the general office. "Dirty Dan is back. Give him +some money." + +Mr. O'Leary sighed contentedly. + +"Oh-ho, 'tis the great life we live," he murmured, and hastened +outside to present himself at the cashier's window, while Andrew Daney +continued on to the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital, tiptoed down the +corridor to the room where the young Laird of Port Agnew lay dying, +and rapped lightly on the door. A nurse came out and closed the door +after her. + +"Well?" Daney demanded. + +"No change. His temperature fell two degrees during the night and he +slept a little, but the fever is up again this morning, and he's +raving again. Any news at your end?" + +"Yes. I have the girl's address. She's in New York. Is his father +inside?" + +"Yes." + +"Ask him to step into the reception room for a few minutes, please." + +The Laird appeared promptly in response to this message, and the two +men walked slowly down the hall to the reception-room. Daney closed +the door and resolutely faced The Laird. + +"The doctors and the nurses tell me things, sir, they're afraid to +tell you," he began. "Ordinarily, the boy should be able to fight this +thing through successfully, for he has a splendid body and a lot of +resistance, but the fact of the matter is, he isn't trying. He doesn't +want to get well." + +The Laird's face went white. + +"They believe this?" he cried sharply. + +"They do. His subconscious mind clings to the memory of his loss. He +keeps calling for her in his delirium, doesn't he? Now that he is +assured she has dropped out of his life forever, he doesn't give a +snap whether school keeps or not--and the doctors cannot cure him. If +the girl were here--well, she might. Her very presence would bring +about a strong mental and physical reaction--" He paused a moment. +Then, "I know where she can be found." + +The Laird raised his haggard face and though his stern gray eyes were +dull with agony, yet Daney saw in them the light of an unfaltering +resolution. + +"I have left my son's honor and his life in the hands of God Almighty. +I have made my bed and I'll lie in it," he panted. + +"But if the boy should die--" + +"Rather that than--than--" + +"But you're not going to take a chance on his pulling through, in the +face of the advice of the doctors that only the girl's presence can +stimulate him to a desire to live. I tell you, Hector McKaye, man, +he's dying because he is not interested in living." + +"God's will be done, Andrew. If I asked her to come back and save my +lad, I'd have to surrender him to her, and I would be derelict in my +duty as a father if I permitted that. Better that he should pass out +now than know the horror of a living death through all the years to +come. God knows best. It is up to Him. Let there be no talk of this +thing again, Andrew." Abruptly he quitted the room and returned to his +vigil by the side of the son who was at once the light and the shadow +of his existence. + +The nurse came stealthily to the reception-room entrance and looked in +inquiringly. Daney shook his head, so she came into the room and +pointed at him a singularly commanding index-finger. + +"If that old man is permitted to have his stubborn way, Donald McKaye +will die," she declared. + +"So will old Hector. He'll be dead of a broken heart within the year." + +"He's sacrificing his son to his Scotch pride. Now, his mother is far +more bitter against the girl than The Laird is; in her distress she +accuses the Brent girl of destroying her son. Nevertheless, Mrs. +McKaye's pride and resentment are not so intense that she will +sacrifice her son to them." + +"Then give her this address," Daney suggested weakly, and handed it +over. "I'm caught between the upper and nether millstone, and I don't +care what happens to me. Damn the women, say I. Damn them! Damn them! +They're the ones that do all the talking, set up a cruel moral code, +and make a broad-minded, generous man follow it." + +"Thanks for the compliment," the nurse retorted blithely. "If I had +time, I'd discuss the matter with you to your disadvantage, but, +fortunately, I have other fish to fry. My job is to keep Donald McKaye +alive for the next five or six days until Nan Brent can get here. +She'll come. I know she will. She'd lie down in the street and die for +him. I know it. I spent two days with her when her father was dead, +and let me tell you something, Mr. Daney: 'She's too good for them. +There! I feel better now.'" + +"What a remarkable woman!" Mr. Daney reflected, as he walked back to +the mill office. "What a truly remarkable woman!" Then he remembered +the complications that were about to ensue, and to the wonderment of +several citizens of Port Agnew, he paused in front of the +post-office, threw both arms aloft in an agitated flourish, and cried +audibly: + +"Hell's bells and panther-tracks! I'd give a ripe peach to be in hell +or some other seaport. O Lordy, Lordy, Lordy! And all the calves got +loose!" + + + + +XXX + + +As a wife, it is probable that Nellie McKaye had not been an +altogether unqualified success. She lacked tact, understanding and +sympathy where her husband was concerned; she was one of that numerous +type of wife who loses a great deal of interest in her husband after +their first child is born. The Laird's wife was normally intelligent, +peacefully inclined, extremely good-looking both as to face and +figure, despite her years, and always abnormally concerned over what +the most inconsequential people in the world might think of her and +hers. She had a passion for being socially "correct." Flights of +imagination were rarely hers; on the few occasions when they were, her +thoughts had to do with an advantageous marriage for Jane and +Elizabeth, who, it must be confessed, had not had very good luck +holding on to the few eligible young bachelors who had seemed, for a +brief period, to regard them with serious intent. The poor soul was +worried about the girls, as well she might be, since the strides of +time were rapidly bearing both into the sere-and-yellow-leaf period of +life. For her son, she had earnest, passionate mother love, but since, +like all mothers, she was obsessed with the delusion that every girl +in the world, eligible and ineligible, was busy angling for her +darling, she had left his matrimonial future largely to his father. +Frequently her conscience smote her for her neglect of old Hector, but +she smoothed it by promising herself to devote more time to him, more +study to his masculine needs for wifely devotion, as soon as Elizabeth +and Jane should be settled. + +Her son's acute illness and the possibility that he might not survive +it had brought her closer to The Laird than these twain had been in +twenty years; the blow that had all but crushed him had not even +staggered her, for she told herself that, during this crisis she must +keep her feet and her head. A wave of pity for her husband and a tinge +of shame for her years of neglect of him revived more than a modicum +of the old honeymoon tenderness, and, to her mild amazement, she +discovered that she was still, in old Hector's eyes, young and +beautiful; her breast, her lips, still had power to soothe and +comfort. + +In those trying days she was The Laird's greatest asset. With maternal +stubbornness, she resolutely refused to entertain the thought that her +son might die. She could understand the possibility of some other +woman's son dying, but not hers! she, who knew him so well (or thought +she did, which amounts to the same thing), met with gentle tolerance +and contempt the portentous nods and anxious glances of doctors and +trained nurses. 'Fraid-cats--every last one of them! She told old +Hector so and, to a considerable extent, succeeded in making him +believe it. + +After The Laird's interview with Andrew Daney he came home that night +to The Dreamerie, and, to please Nellie, he pretended to partake of +some dinner. Also, during the course of the meal he suddenly decided +to relate to his wife and daughters as much as he knew of the course +of the affair between Donald and Nan Brent; he repeated his +conversation with Nan on the two occasions he had spoken with her, +and gave them to understand that his efforts to induce Donald to "be +sensible" had not been successful. Finally, his distress making him +more communicative, he related the cunning stratagem by which Daney +had made it possible for Donald to be separated from the source of +temptation. + +Elizabeth was the first to comment on his extraordinary revelations +when he appeared to have finished his recital. + +"The girl has a great deal more character than I supposed," she opined +in her soft, throaty contralto. + +"She played the game in an absolutely ripping manner!" Jane declared +enthusiastically. "I had no idea she was possessed of so much force. +Really, I should love to be kind to her, if that were at all possible +now." + +The Laird smiled but without animus. + +"You had ample opportunity once, Janey," he reminded her. "But then, +of course, unlike Donald and myself, you had no opportunity for +realizing what a fine, wholesome lass she is." He lowered his gaze and +rolled a bread-crumb nervously between thumb and forefinger. "They +tell me at the hospital, Nellie," he began again presently, "that her +absence is killing our boy--that he'll die if she doesn't come back. +They've been whispering to Daney, and this afternoon he mentioned the +matter to me." Three pairs of eyes bent upon him; gazes of mingled +curiosity and distress. "Have you heard aught of such talk from the +doctors and nurses," he continued, addressing them collectively. + +"I have," said Mrs. McKaye meekly, and the two girls nodded. "I think +it's all poppycock," Jane added. + +"It isn't all poppycock, my dear," old Hector rebuked her. He rolled +another bread-crumb. "Andrew has her address," he resumed after a long +silence. "She's in New York. He asked me to wire her to come +immediately, or else permit him to wire her in my name. I refused. I +told Daney that our boy's case was in the hands of God Almighty." + +"Oh, Hector!" Mrs. McKaye had spoken. There was gentle reproach and +protest in her voice, but she camouflaged it immediately by adding: +"You poor dear, to be called upon to make such a decision." + +"His decision was absolutely right," Elizabeth declared. "I'd almost +prefer to see my brother decently dead than the laughing-stock of the +town, married to a woman that no respectable person would dare receive +in her home." + +Old Hector looked up in time to see Jane nod approval of her sister's +sentiments, and Mrs. McKaye, by her silence, appeared also to agree +with them. The Laird reached forth and laid his great hand over hers. + +"Poor Nellie!" he murmured affectionately. "'Tis hard to stand between +our love and duty, is it not, lass? By God, sweetheart, I had to do +it. I couldn't stand to see him wedded wie a lass that any man or +woman could throw mud at." His voice shook with the intensity of his +emotion; his flashing glance swept the board in pitiful defiance. "I +have a right to protect my honor and the honor of my house!" he cried +sharply. "Is not Jesus Christ the embodiment of honor? How can He +blame me if I trust in His power and discretion. I've prayed to +Him--ach, man, how I've prayed to Him--to keep my son from makin' a +fule o' himself--" + +"Now, there you go again, Hector, dear," his wife soothed. She rose +from her place at the table, came round to him, put her arms around +his great neck, and laid her cheek against his. "An open confession is +good for the soul, they say, Hector. I'm glad you've taken us into +your confidence, because it permits us to share with you an equal +burden of this heart-breaking decision. But you mustn't feel badly, +father. Haven't I told you our boy isn't going to die?" + +"Do you really think so, Nellie?" he pleaded childishly, and for the +hundredth time. + +"Silly old Hector! I know so." And this time there was in her voice +such a new note of confidence and in her eyes such a gleam of triumph +that she actually did succeed in comforting him. "Ah, well, God's will +be done," he said piously, and attacked his dinner again, while Mrs. +McKaye slipped out of the room and up-stairs on some pretext. Once in +her bedroom, she seized the extension telephone and called up Andrew +Daney. + +"Andrew," she said softly but distinctly, "this is Nellie McKaye +speaking. Hector and I have been discussing the advisability of +sending for the Brent girl." + +"I--I was goin' to take the matter up with you, Mrs. McKaye. I had a +talk with your husband this afternoon, but he was a bit wild--" + +"He isn't so wild now, Andrew. He's talked it over with the girls and +me. It's a terrible alternative, Andrew, but it simply means our boy's +life for the gratification of our own selfish family pride--" + +"Exactly! Exactly! And though I understand just how you feel, Mrs. +McKaye, after all, now, it's only a nine days' wonder, and you can't +keep people from talking anyhow, unless you gag the brutes. The boy +has been raving, and some of the hospital attendants have talked, and +the gossip is all over town again. So why not send for her? She +doesn't have to marry him just because her presence will revive his +sinking morale--" + +"Certainly not. My idea, exactly, Andrew. Well, Andrew, suppose you +telegraph her--" + +"No, no, no! I'll telephone her. Remember, we have a transcontinental +telephone service nowadays. She might not realize the vital necessity +for speed; she might question her right to come if I tried to cover +the situation in a telegram. But, catch her on the 'phone, Mrs. +McKaye, and you can talk to her and convince her." + +"Oh, that's perfectly splendid! Place the call for me immediately, +Andrew, please. And--Andrew, don't mention to Hector what I've done. +He wants to do it, poor man, but he simply cannot bring himself to the +point of action." + +"Don't I know it?" Daney's voice rose triumphant. "The blessed old +duffer!" he added. "I'll put in a call for New York immediately. We +ought to get it through in an hour or two." + + + + +XXXI + + +It was Mr. Daney's task to place the call for Nan Brent in New York +City and while he did not relish the assignment, nevertheless he was +far from shrinking from it. While the citizens of Port Agnew had been +aware for more than two years that transcontinental telephoning was +possible, they knew also that three minutes of conversation for +twenty-five dollars tended to render silence more or less golden. As +yet, therefore, no one in Port Agnew had essayed the great adventure; +wherefore, Mr. Daney knew that when he did his conversation would be +listened to eagerly by every telephone operator in the local office +and a more or less garbled report of same circulated through the town +before morning unless he took pains to prevent it. This he resolved to +do, for the Tyee Lumber Company owned the local telephone company and +it was quite generally understood in Port Agnew that Mr. Daney was +high, low, and jack and the game, to use a sporting expression. + +He stood by the telephone a moment after hanging up the receiver, and +tugged at his beard reflectively. + +"No," he murmured presently, "I haven't time to motor up-country forty +or fifty miles and place the call in some town where we are not known. +It just isn't going to be possible to smother this miserable affair; +sooner or later the lid is going to fly off, so I might as well be +game and let the tail go with the hide. Oh, damn it, damn it! If I +didn't feel fully responsible for this dreadful state of affairs, I +would most certainly stand from under!" + +He turned from the 'phone and beheld Mrs. Daney, alert of countenance +and fairly pop-eyed with excitement. She grasped her husband by the +arm. + +"You have a private line from the mill office to The Dreamerie," she +reminded him. "Have the call run in on your office telephone, then +call Mrs. McKaye, and switch her in. We can listen on the office +extensions." + +Upon his spouse Mr. Daney bent a look of profound contempt. + +"When I consider the loyalty, the love, the forebearance, and +Christian charity that have been necessary to restrain me from tearing +asunder that which God, in a careless moment, joined together, Mary, +I'm inclined to regard myself as four-fifths superman and the other +fifth pure angel," he declared coldly. "This is something you're not +in on, woman, and I hope the strain of your curiosity will make you +sick for a week." + +He seized his hat and fled, leaving his wife to shed bitter, scalding +tears at his cruel words. Poor thing! She prided herself upon being +the possessor of a superior brand of virtue and was always quick to +take refuge in tears when any one decried that virtue; indeed, she +never felt quite so virtuous as when she clothed herself, so to speak, +in an atmosphere of patient resignation to insult and misunderstanding. +People who delude themselves into the belief that they can camouflage +their own nastiness and weaknesses from discovery by intelligent +persons are the bane of existence, and in his better half poor Daney +had a heavy cross to bear. + +He left the house wishing he might dare to bawl aloud with anguish at +the knowledge that he was yoked for life to a woman of whom he was +secretly ashamed; he wished he might dare to get fearfully intoxicated +and remain in that condition for a long time. In his youth, he had +been shy and retiring, always envying the favor which the ladies +appeared to extend to the daring devils of his acquaintance; +consequently, his prenuptial existence had not been marked by any +memorable amourous experiences, for where other young men sowed wild +oats Mr. Daney planted a sweet forget-me-not. As a married man, he was +a model of respectability--sacrosanct, almost. His idea of worldly +happiness consisted in knowing that he was a solid, trustworthy +business man, of undoubted years and discretion, whom no human being +could blackmail. Now, as he fled from the odor of respectability he +yearned to wallow in deviltry, to permit his soul, so long cramped in +virtue, to expand in wickedness. + +On his way down-town he met young Bert Darrow, son of the man after +whom the adjacent lumber-town had been christened. Mr. Darrow had +recently been indicted under the Mann law for a jolly little +interstate romance. But yesterday, Mr. Daney had regarded Bert Darrow +as a wastrel and had gone a block out of his way to avoid the +scapegrace; to-night, however, Bert appealed to him as a man of +courage, a devil of a fellow with spirit, a lover of life in its +infinite moods and tenses, a lad with a fine contempt for public +opinion and established morals. Morals? Bah, what were they! In +France, Bert Darrow would have earned for himself a wink and a shrug, +as though to say: "Ah, these young fellows! One must watch out for the +rascals!" In the United States, he was a potential felon. + +"Evening, Bert," Mr. Daney saluted him pleasantly, and paused long +enough to shake the latter's hand. "I saw your ad in the Seattle +_P.I._ this morning. You young dog! Hope you crawl out of that mess +all right." + +"_C'est la guerre_," Bert murmured nonchalantly. "Thanks, awfully." + +Mr. Daney felt better after that brief interview. He had clasped hands +with sin and felt now like a human being. + +He went directly to the local telephone office and placed his New York +call with the chief operator, after which he sat in the manager's +office and smoked until ten o'clock, when New York reported "Ready!" + +"You young ladies," said Mr. Daney, addressing the two young women on +duty, "may take a walk around the block. Port Agnew will not require +any service for the next twenty minutes." + +They assimilated his hint, and when he was alone with the chief +operator Mr. Daney ordered her to switch the New York call on to Mrs. +McKaye at The Dreamerie. Followed ten minutes of "Ready, Chicago." +"All right, New York. Put your party on the line!"--a lot of +persistent buzzing and sudden silence. Then: "Hello, Port Agnew." + +Mr. Daney, listening on the extension in the office of the manager, +recognized the voice instantly as Nan Brent's. + +"Go on, Mrs. McKaye," he ordered. "That's the Brent girl calling Port +Agnew." + +"Hello, Miss Brent. This is Donald McKaye's mother speaking. Can you +hear me distinctly?" + +"Yes, Mrs. McKaye, quite distinctly." + +"Donald is ill with typhoid fever. We are afraid he is not going to +get well, Miss Brent. The doctors say that is because he does not want +to live. Do you understand why this should be?" + +"Yes; I think I understand perfectly." + +"Will you come back to Port Agnew and help save him? We all think you +can do it, Miss Brent. The doctors say you are the only one that can +save him." There was a moment of hesitation. "His family desires this, +then?" "Would I telephone across the continent if we did not?" + +"I'll come, Mrs. McKaye--for his sake and yours. I suppose you +understand why I left Port Agnew. If not, I will tell you. It was for +his sake and that of his family." + +"Thank you. I am aware of that, Miss Brent. Ah--of course you will be +amply reimbursed for your time and trouble, Miss Brent. When he is +well--when all danger of a relapse has passed--I think you realize, +Miss Brent, all of the impossible aspects of this unfortunate affair +which render it necessary to reduce matters strictly to a business +basis." + +"Quite, dear Mrs. McKaye. I shall return to Port Agnew--on +business--starting to-morrow morning. If I arrive in time, I shall do +my best to save your son, although to do so I shall probably have to +promise not to leave him again. Of course, I realize that you do not +expect me to keep that promise." + +"Oh, I'm so sorry, my dear girl, that I cannot say 'No' to that. But +then, since you realized, in the first place, how impossible" + +"Good-night. I must pack my trunk." + +"Just a minute, my girl," Andrew Daney interrupted. "Daney speaking. +When you get to Chicago, call up the C.M. St. P. station. I'll have a +special train waiting there for you." + +"Thank you, Mr. Daney. I'm sorry you cannot charter an airplane for me +from New York to Chicago. Good-night, and tell Donald for me whatever +you please." + +"Send him a telegram," Daney pleaded. "Good-by." He turned to the +chief operator and looked her squarely in the eyes. "The Laird likes +discreet young women," he announced meaningly, "and rewards +discretion. If you're not the highest paid chief operator in the state +of Washington from this on, I'm a mighty poor guesser." + +The girl smiled at him, and suddenly, for the first time in all his +humdrum existence, Romance gripped Mr. Daney. He was riotously +happy--and courageous! He thrust a finger under the girl's chin and +tilted it in a most familiar manner, at the same time pinching it with +his thumb. + +"Young woman," he cautioned her, "don't you ever be prim and smug! And +don't you ever marry any man until you're perfectly wild to do it; +then, were he the devil himself, follow your own natural impulses." He +let go her chin and shook his forefinger between her eyes. "I'd rather +be happy than virtuous," the amazing man continued. "The calm +placidity that comes of a love of virtue and the possession of it +makes me sick! Such people are dull and stupid. They play +hide-and-seek with themselves, I tell you. Suspicious little souls +peering out of windows and shocked to death at everything they see or +hear--condemn everything they do not understand. Damn it, girl, give +me the virtue that's had to fight like the devil to stay on its +feet--the kind that's been scratched and has had the corners knocked +off in contact with the world and still believes that God made man to +his own image and likeness. I tell you, the Lord knew what he was +about when he invented the devil. If he hadn't, we'd all be so +nasty-nice nobody could trust the other fellow further'n you can throw +a bear up-hill by the tail. I tell you, young woman, sin is a great +institution. Why, just think of all the fun we have in life--we good +people--forgiving our neighbor his trespasses as he does not forgive +us for trespassing against him." + +And with this remarkable statement, Mr. Daney betook himself to his +home. Mrs. Daney, a trifle red and watery about the eyes and nose, sat +up in bed and demanded to be informed what had kept him down-town so +late. + +"Would you sleep any better if you knew?" he demanded. + +She said she would not. + +"Then, woman, resign yourself to the soft embrace of Bacchus, the god +of sleep," he replied, mixed metaphorically. "As for me, my dear, I'm +all talked out!" + + + + +XXXII + +Donald, trembling on the brink of Beyond, not from his disease but +from the exhaustion incident to it, was conscious when his father +entered the room and sat down beside his bed. + +"Well, lad," he greeted the boy with an assumption of heartiness he +was far from feeling, "and have you no good news for your old father +this morning. Tell me you're feeling better, lad." + +"Read the telegram," Donald whispered, and old Hector, seeing a +telegram lying on the bed, picked it up. It was dated from New York +that morning, and the Laird read: + + Due Port Agnew Friday morning. Remember the last line in the + fairy-tale. Love and kisses from your + + SWEETHEART. + +"God bless my soul!" The Laird almost shouted. + +"Who the devil is 'Sweetheart'?" + +"Only--have one--Scotty. Sorry--for you--but do you--happen to +know--last line--fairy-tale? Tell you. 'And so--they--were +married--and lived--happy--ever--after.'" + +Fell a long silence. Then, from The Laird: + +"And you're going to wait for--her, my son?" + +"Certainly. Foolish die--now. I'll try--to wait. Try hard." + +He was still trying when Nan Brent stepped off the special train at +Port Agnew on Friday morning. She was heavily veiled, and because of +the distinctly metropolitan cut of her garments, none recognized her. +With her child trotting at her side, she walked swiftly to the company +hospital, and the nurse, who had been watching for her, met her at the +door. The girl raised a white, haggard face, and her sad blue eyes +asked the question. The nurse nodded, led her down the hall, pointed +to the door of Donald's room, and then picked up Nan's child and +carried him off to the hospital kitchen for a cookie. + +The outcast of Port Agnew entered. Hector McKaye sat by the bed, +gazing upon his son, who lay with closed eyes, so still and white and +emaciated that a sudden fear rose in Nan's mind. Had she arrived too +late? + +The Laird turned and gazed at her an instant with dull eyes, then +sprang to meet her. + +"Well, lass," he demanded, and there was a belligerent and resentful +note in his voice, "is this playing the game?" She nodded, her blurred +eyes fixed upon his son, and old Hector's face softened with a +tenderness almost paternal. "Then," he whispered, "you didn't mean +that--about the last line of the fairy-tale?" + +Her head moved in negation, but she did not look at him. She had eyes +only for the wreck of the man she loved. + +"I heard you needed me--to save him, Mr. McKaye. So I'm here--to save +him, if I can--for you--nothing more." + +He bowed to her, deeply, humbly, as if she were in truth the grandest +lady in the land, then left the room hurriedly. Nan approached the +bed and leaned over Donald, gazing at him for several minutes, for he +was not as yet aware of her presence. Suddenly she commenced to sing +softly the song he loved: "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," and her +hand stole into his. The little grin that crept over his bearded face +was ghastly; after the first bar, she bent and laid her cool cheek +against his. + +"Well, old shipmate," she murmured in his ear, "I'm back." + +"'God's in--his heaven,'" he whispered. "'All's right--with +the--world.'" + + + + +XXXIII + + +From the company hospital, The Laird went straight to his general +manager's office. Entering, he strode to Daney's desk and transfixed +that harassed individual with an accusing finger. + +"Andrew, this is your work, is it not?" + +Mr. Daney's heart skipped a beat, but he remembered this was Friday +morning. So he decided not to be foolish and spar for time by asking +The Laird what work he referred to. Also, having read somewhere that, +in battle, the offensive frequently wins--the defensive never--he +glared defiantly at The Laird and growled. + +"Well, what are you going to do about it?" His demeanor appeared to +say: "This is my work, and I'm proud of it." + +To Daney's profound amazement, The Laird smiled benignantly and thrust +out his hand, which Mr. Daney shook gingerly, as one might a can of +nitroglycerin. + +"I thank you more than you will ever realize, Andrew, for taking this +matter out of my hands. I left the decision up to the Almighty and +evidently he inspired you to disobey me and save the day--without +compromising me." + +"Pooh! That's the easiest thing I do." Mr. Daney's courage had +returned with a rush. "For heaven's sake, don't talk about it, sir. I +placed a call for the girl on the telephone--at your expense. Yes, +sir; I talked with her clear across the continent, and before she +even started from New York, it was understood that she is to jilt +Donald the minute the doctors pronounce him strong enough to stand +jilting." + +"She told me, practically, the same thing. Oh, Andrew, Andrew, my boy, +this is bully work! Bully! Bully!" + +Mr. Daney replied to this encomium with a deprecatory shrug and hoped +The Laird would never ask _him who had made the bargain_. Thus far, he +flattered himself, he had not strayed from the straight and narrow +path of strict veracity, and he hoped he would not have to. To obviate +this, he decided to get rid of The Laird immediately; so he affected +embarrassment; fussed with the pile of mail on his desk, and growled: + +"All right, boss. If you're satisfied, I am. I haven't been able to +sleep very well since I started mixing in your family affairs, and +without sleep a man cannot hold up his job. I've got a lot of work to +do, and I cannot have any idle, interfering fellows stampeding round +my office; so I suggest that you run up to The Dreamerie to break the +good news to your poor wife and the girls, and let me get something +done." + +"All right, Andrew; I'll go in a minute. Er--ah--you're certain, +Andrew, the girl understands quite thoroughly that I haven't had a +thing to do with bringing her back to Port Agnew?" The Laird smote the +desk resolutely; he desired to be absolutely certain of his ground. + +Mr. Daney looked up with a slight frown. + +"I'll answer your question with another. Have you seen and talked with +Nan Brent this morning?" + +"Yes. I did--the minute she entered Donald's room." + +"And you demanded a show-down then and there?" + +Parenthetically it may be stated that Mr. Daney's intimate knowledge +of The Laird's character prompted this question. He was certain of an +affirmative reply. + +"I did." + +"And her answer was satisfactory?" + +"Absolutely!" + +"So I judged from the fact that you shook hands with me upon entering +my office. I had expected nothing more nor less than instant +dismissal.... Well, since you desire the girl's testimony confirmed, I +repeat that she came out here on the distinct understanding that +Donald's family had not receded from its original position. This is a +business trip, pure and simple, in so far as the McKaye family is +concerned, although I grant you there is a heap of sentiment on Nan's +part--at least sufficient to persuade her to do anything for the boy's +sake. She places his welfare above her own." + +The Laird nodded. + +"The girl is capable of doing the most unexpected things, Andrew. I +really think she'll play the game. When she told me what her +intentions were, I believe she stated the absolute truth." + +"Well, let us hope she doesn't change them, sir. Remember, she has no +more intention of marrying him this morning than she had when she fled +from Port Agnew. I was certain of that when listening to her on the +telephone the other night. However, sir, I want to go on record, here +and now, as disclaiming responsibility for anything that may occur +hereafter. I am not the seventh son of a seventh son, and neither was +I born with a caul. Hence, I do not pretend to foretell future events +with any degree of exactitude. I simply guarantee you, sir, that the +girl realizes that you have had nothing whatsoever, directly or +indirectly, to do with the request for her return. Also, I give you my +word of honor that I have not made her a single promise--directly or +indirectly." + +"Well, I am relieved. I dreaded the thought that I might be +compromised--indirectly, for, as you well know, Andrew, I have a +repugnance to asking favors from anybody to whom I am not prepared to +grant them. My son is my chief happiness. Now, if I were to ask her to +save my happiness, while at the same time reserving the right to deny +the girl hers--well, thank God, I'm saved that embarrassment! Thanks +to you, you fox!" he added. + +"Bless my wicked heart! I'm glad you've gone and that I'm out of it so +easy," the general manager soliloquized, as the door closed behind The +Laird. + +He reached for the telephone and called Mrs. McKaye at The Dreamerie. + +"Your husband is on his way home, Mrs. McKaye," he advised her. "The +girl is here, The Laird has met her and talked with her and is quite +happy over the situation. However, I want to warn you that you will +avoid unpleasantness by keeping from him the fact that you asked the +Brent girl to come back to Port Agnew. He thinks I did that, and I +have not seen fit, for reasons of my own, to deny it." + +"Why, I asked you not to tell him, Andrew," she replied, surprised +that he should forget it. + +"I know. But you had planned to tell him yourself if, after the girl +had arrived, you discovered he was secretly pleased that she had +come." + +"Yes; that is true. However, since you say Hector is quite pleased +with the situation, why should I not tell him, Andrew?" + +"I have a suspicion the news will trouble him. He is quite willing to +accept of the girl's services, as it were, but not at the behest of +any member of his family. Better hear what he has to say on the +subject before you commit yourself, Mrs. McKaye." + +"Oh, I think I can be depended upon to manage Hector," she replied +confidently, and hung up, for already through the window she could see +The Laird's car taking the grade up Tyee Head. He arrived a few +minutes later and entered smilingly, rubbing his hands as indicative +of his entire satisfaction with the universe as constituted that +morning. + +"My dears, I have wonderful news for you!" he announced. + +Elizabeth, warned by her mother of the impending announcement, and +already in the latter's confidence regarding the long-distance +conversation with Nan Brent, interrupted him. She was a born actress. + +"Oh, do tell us quickly, daddy dear," she gushed, and flew to throw +her arms round his neck. Over his shoulder she winked at Jane and her +mother and grimaced knowingly. + +"Donald's going to pull through. The doctors feel certain he'll take +in the slack on his life-line, now that the Brent girl has suddenly +turned up. In fact, the lad has been holding his own since he received +a telegram from her some days back. I didn't tell you about that, my +dears, not being desirous of worrying you; and since it was no doings +of mine, I saw it could not be helped, and we'd have to make the best +of it." + +"Oh, daddy! How could you? That's perfectly dreadful news!" the +artful Elizabeth cried, while her mother raised her eyes resignedly +upward and clasped her hands so tightly that they trembled. The Laird +thought his wife sought comfort from above; had he known that she had +just delivered a sincere vote of thanks, he would not have hugged her +to his heart, as he forthwith proceeded to do. + +"Now, now, Nellie, my dear," he soothed her, "it's all for the best. +Don't cross your bridges before you come to them. Wait till I tell you +everything. That fox, Daney, had the common sense to call the girl on +the telephone and explain the situation; he induced her to come out +here and tease that soft-hearted moonstruck son of ours back to life. +And when Donald's strong enough to stand alone--by Jupiter, that's +exactly how he's going to stand!--We're not the slightest bit +compromised, my dears. The McKaye family is absolutely in the clear. +The girl has done this solely for Donald's sake." + +"Hector McKaye," Jane declared, "you've really got to do something +very handsome for Andrew Daney." + +"Yes, indeed," Elizabeth cooed. + +"Dear, capable, faithful Andrew!" Mrs. McKaye sighed. + +"Ah, he's a canny lad, is Andrew," old Hector declared happily. "He +took smart care not to compromise me, for well he knows my code. When +I rejected his suggestion that I send for the lass, Andrew knew why +without asking foolish questions. Well, he realized that if I should +ask her to come and save my son, I would not be unfair enough to tell +her later that she was not a fit wife for that son. As a matter o' +manly principle, I would have had to withdraw my opposition, and +Donald could wed her if he liked and with my blessing, for all the +bitter cost. I did not build The Dreamerie with the thought that +Donald would bring a wife like this Brent lass home to live in it, +but--God be thanked!--the puir bairn loves him too well to ruin him--" + +He broke off, wiping his eyes, moist now with the pressure of his +emotions, and while he was wiping them, Mrs. McKaye and her daughters +exchanged frightened glances. Elizabeth's penchant for ill-timed humor +disappeared; she stood, alert and awed, biting her lip. Jane's +eyebrows went up in quick warning to her mother, who paled and flushed +alternately. The latter understood now why Andrew Daney had taken the +precaution to warn her against the danger of conjugal confidences in +the matter of Nan Brent; devoutly she wished she had had the common +sense to have left those delicate negotiations entirely in the hands +of dear, capable, faithful Andrew, for, delicate as they had been, she +realized now, when it was too late, that in all probability Mr. Daney, +although a mere man, would have concluded them without compromising +the McKaye family. Surely he would have had the good taste to assure +Nan that he was acting entirely upon his own initiative. + +On the instant, Mrs. McKaye hated the unfortunate general manager. She +told herself that, had he been possessed of the brains of a chipmunk, +he would have pointed out to her the danger of her course; that he had +not done so was proof that the craven had feared to compromise +himself. He had made a cat's-paw of her, that's what he had done! He +had taken advantage of a momentary lack of caution--the result of her +impetuous mother love. Ah, what a blockhead the man was, not to have +warned her of the diplomatic dangers she was risking! At that moment, +placid Nellie McKaye could have shrieked with fury; it would have been +a relief to her if she could have stuck her hatpin in that monumental +chucklehead, Daney. Like so many of her sex, the good lady's code of +sportsmanship was a curious one, to say the least. It had not been +prudence but an instinctive desire to protect her son that had moved +her to be careful when begging Nan to return to Port Agnew, to +indicate that this request predicated no retirement from the resolute +stand which the family had taken against the latter's alliance with +Donald. In a hazy, indefinite way, she had realized the importance of +nullifying any tendency on her part to compromise herself or her +family by the mere act of telephoning to Nan, and with the +unintentional brutality of a not very intelligent, tactless woman she +had taken this means of protection. + +Curiously enough, it had not occurred to her until this moment that +she had done something shameful and cruel and stupid and unwomanly. +She shriveled mentally in the contemplation of it. Not until her +husband had so unexpectedly revealed to her a hitherto hidden facet of +his character--his masculine code of an eye for an eye and a tooth for +a tooth--did she realize how dreadfully she had blundered. She +realized now that, without having given the slightest thought to the +commission of an act unworthy of her womanhood, she had acted because, +to her, the end appeared to justify the means; never given to +self-analysis, she had merely followed the imperative call of her +mother love to the point where nothing mattered save results. + +She looked up tearfully at The Laird. For thirty-odd years she had +lived with this strange soul; yet she had not known until now how +fierce was his desire for independence, how dear to him was his +passion for self-respect. Even now, she found it difficult to +understand why, even if he had been able to subdue his pride to the +point of asking Nan Brent to preserve life in that which was dearer to +him than his own life, his passion for always giving value received +should preclude bargaining with the girl. It was plain to her, +therefore, that her husband could never love their son as his mother +loved him, else, in a matter of life or death, he would not have +paused to consider the effect on himself of any action that might +safeguard his son's existence. She knew what he had thought when Daney +first proposed the matter to him. That sort of thing wasn't "playing +the game." Poor, troubled soul! She did not know that he was capable +of playing any game to the finish, even though every point scored +against him should burn like a branding-iron. + +The Laird, noting her great distress, held her fondly in his arms and +soothed her; manlike, he assumed that she wept because her heart was +overflowing with joy. For half an hour he chatted with her; then, with +a light step and a cheerful "Good-by, Nellie, wife," he entered his +automobile and drove back to town. + +His departure was the signal for Jane and Elizabeth to rally to their +mother's side and inaugurate a plan of defense. + +"Well, mother dear," Elizabeth opined calmly, "it appears that you've +spilled the beans." + +"What a funny old popsy-wops it is, to be sure!" Jane chirped. "It's +fine to be such a grand old sport, but so dreadfully inconvenient! +Beth, can you imagine what father McKaye would say if he only knew?" + +"I wouldn't mind the things he'd say. The things he'd do would be apt +to linger longest in our memories." + +"Oh, my dears, what shall I do?" poor Mrs. McKaye quavered. + +"Stand pat, should necessity ever arise, and put the buck up to Mr. +Daney," the slangy Elizabeth suggested promptly. "He has warned you +not to confess to father, hasn't he? Now, why did he do this? Answer. +Because he realized that if dad should learn that you telephoned this +odious creature from the Sawdust Pile, the head of our clan would +consider himself compromised--bound by the action of a member of his +clan, as it were. Then we'll have a wedding and after the wedding +we'll all be thrown out of The Dreamerie to make room for Master Don +and his consort. So, it appears to me, since Mr. Daney has warned you +not to tell, mother dear, that he cannot afford to tell on you +himself--no, not even to save his own skin." + +"You do not understand, Elizabeth," Mrs. McKaye sobbed. "It isn't +because that stupid Andrew cares a snap of his finger for us; it's +because he's devoted to Hector and doesn't want him worried or made +unhappy." + +And in this observation, it is more than probable that the lady spoke +more truly than she realized. + +"Oh, well, if that's the case, it's all as clear as mud!" Jane cried +triumphantly. "If the worst should ever come to the worst, Mr. Daney +will lie like a gentleman and--why, he has already done so, silly! Of +course he has, and it's rather gallant of him to do it, I think." + +"He's an imbecile, and why Hector has employed him all these +years--why he trusts him so implicitly, I'm sure I am at a loss to +comprehend." Mrs. McKaye complained waspishly. + +"Dear, capable, faithful Andrew!" Elizabeth mimicked her mother's +speech earlier in the day. "Cheer up, ma! Cherries are ripe." She +snapped her fingers, swayed her lithe body, and undulated gracefully +to the piano, where she brought both hands down on the keys with a +crash, and played ragtime with feverish fury for five minutes. Then, +her impish nature asserting itself, she literally smashed out the +opening bars of the Wedding March from Lohengrin, and shouted with +glee when her mother, a finger in each ear, fled from the room. + + + + +XXXIV + + +Mr. Daney worked through a stack of mail with his stenographer, +dismissed her, and, in the privacy of his sanctum, lighted his pipe +and proceeded to mend his fences. In the discretion of the chief +operator at the telephone exchange, he had great confidence; in that +of Mrs. McKaye, none at all. He believed that the risk of having the +secret leak out through Nan herself was a negligible one, and, of +course (provided he did not talk in his sleep) the reason for Nan's +return was absolutely safe with him. Indeed, the very fact that The +Laird had demanded and received an explanation from the girl would +indicate to Nan that Mrs. McKaye had acted on her own initiative; +hence, Nan would, in all probability, refrain from disclosing this +fact to The Laird in any future conversations. + +Reasoning further, Daney concluded there would be no future +conversations. The Laird, following his usual custom of refraining +from discussing a subject already settled to his satisfaction, could +be depended upon to avoid a discussion of any kind with Nan Brent in +future, for such discussions would not be to his interest, and he was +singularly adept in guarding that interest. + +His cogitations were interrupted by a telephone-call from Mrs. McKaye. +The good soul's first gust of resentment having passed, she desired to +thank him for his timely warning and to assure him that, on the +subject of that transcontinental telephone-conversation she and her +daughters could be depended upon to remain as silent as the Sphinx. + +This information relieved Mr. Daney greatly. "After all," he confided +to the cuspidor, "it is up to the girl whether we fish or cut bait. +But then, what man in his senses can trust a woman to stay put. +Females are always making high dives into shoal water, and those +tactless McKaye women are going to smear everything up yet. You wait +and see." + +The longer Mr. Daney considered this situation, the more convinced did +he become that mischief was brewing. Did not periods of seraphic calm +always precede a tornado? In the impending social explosion, a few +hard missiles would most certainly come his way, and in a sudden agony +of apprehension and shame because he had told The Laird a half-truth, +he sprang to his feet, resolved to seek old Hector, inform him that +Mrs. McKaye had compromised the family, and thus enable him to meet +the issue like a gentleman. But this decision was succeeded by the +reflection that perhaps this action would merely serve to precipitate +a situation that might not be evolved in the ordinary course of +affairs. Furthermore, he could not afford to betray Mrs. McKaye on the +mere suspicion that, sooner or later, she would betray herself, for +this would savor of too much anxiety to save his own skin at her +expense. "I'm a singularly unhappy old duffer," he groaned and kicked +his inoffending waste-basket across the office. "The females! The +mischief-making, bungling, thoughtless, crazy females! There are +millions of wonderful, angelic women in this terrible world, but what +I want to know is: Where the Sam Hill do they hide themselves?" + + + + +XXXV + + +Nan did not remain at the hospital more than fifteen minutes. She was +ill at ease there; it was no comfort to her to gaze upon the pallid, +wasted face of the man she loved when she realized that, by her +presence here, she was constituting herself a party to a +heart-breaking swindle, and must deny herself the joy of gazing upon +that same beloved countenance when, later, it should be glowing with +health and youth and high hopes. He was too weak to speak more than a +few words to her. The faintest imaginable pressure of his hand +answered the pressure of hers. It appeared to be a tremendous effort +for him to open his eyes and look up at her. When, however, he had +satisfied his swimming senses that she was really there in the flesh, +he murmured: + +"You'll not--run away--again? Promise?" + +"I promise, dear. The next time I leave Port Agnew, I'll say good-by." + +"You must not--leave--again. Promise?" + +She knew his life might be the reward of a kindly lie; so she told it, +bravely and without hesitation. Was she not there for that purpose? + +"Good--news! If I get--well, will you--marry me, Nan?" She choked up +then; nevertheless, she nodded. + +"More good--news! Wait for me--Sawdust Pile--sweetheart." + +She interpreted this as a dismissal, and gratefully made her exit. +From the hospital office she telephoned orders to the butcher, the +baker, the grocer, and the milkman, forcibly separated little Don from +the nurse, and walked down through Port Agnew to the Sawdust Pile. + +The old-fashioned garden welcomed her with its fragrance; her cat, +which she had been unable to give away and had not the heart to +destroy at the time of her departure, came to the little white gate to +meet her and rubbed against her, purring contentedly--apparently none +the worse for a month of vagabondage and richer by a litter of kittens +that blinked at Nan from under the kitchen stoop. From across the +Bight of Tyee, the morning breeze brought her the grateful odor of the +sea, while the white sea-gulls, prinking themselves on the pile-butts +at the outer edge of the Sawdust Pile, raised raucous cries at her +approach and hopped toward her in anticipation of the scraps she had +been wont to toss them. She resurrected the key from its hiding-place +under the eaves, and her hot tears fell so fast that it was with +difficulty she could insert it in the door. Poor derelict on the sea +of life, she had gone out with the ebb and had been swept back on the +flood, to bob around for a little while in the cross-currents of human +destinies before going out again with the ebb. + +The air in the little house was hot and fetid; so she threw open the +doors and windows. Dust had accumulated everywhere and, with a certain +detachment, she noted, even in her distress, that she had gone away +without closing the great square piano. She ran her fingers over the +dusty keys and brought forth a few, sonorous chords; then she observed +that the little, ancient, half-portion grandfather's clock had died of +inanition; so she made a mental note to listen for the twelve-o'clock +whistle on the Tyee mill and set the clock by it. The spigot over the +kitchen sink was leaking a little, and it occurred to her, in the same +curious detached way, that it needed a new gasket. + +She sighed. Once more, in this silent little house so fraught with +happy memories, the old burden of existence was bearing upon her--the +feeling that she was in jail. For a month she had been free--free to +walk the streets, to look in shop windows, to seek a livelihood and +talk to other human beings without that terrible feeling that, no +matter how pleasant they might appear to be, their eyes were secretly +appraising her--that they were _thinking_. And now to be forced to +abandon that freedom-- + +"Oh, well! It can't last forever," she soliloquized, and, blinking +away her tears, she proceeded to change into a house dress and put her +little home in order. Presently, the local expressman arrived with her +baggage and was followed by sundry youths bearing sundry provisions; +at twelve-thirty, when she and young Don sat down to the luncheon she +had prepared, her flight to New York and return appeared singularly +unreal, like the memory of a dream. + +She visited the hospital next day, choosing an hour when Port Agnew +was at its evening meal and too preoccupied with that important detail +to note her coming and going. She returned to her home under cover of +darkness. + +At the hospital, she had received a favorable report of the patient's +progress. His physicians were distinctly encouraged. Nan looked in on +her lover for a minute, and then hurried away on the plea that her +baby was locked in at the Sawdust Pile, in the absence of some one to +care for him; she had the usual maternal presentiment that he was +playing with matches. + +As she was going out she met The Laird and Mrs. McKaye coming in. Old +Hector lifted his hat and said quite heartily: + +"How do you do, my dear girl. The news this evening is most +encouraging--thanks to you, I'm told--so we are permitted to see +Donald for five minutes. Nellie, my dear, you remember little Nan +Brent, do you not?" + +Mrs. McKaye's handsome mouth contracted in a small, automatic smile +that did not extend to her eyes. She acknowledged Nan's "Good-evening, +Mrs. McKaye," with a brief nod, and again favored the girl with +another property smile, between the coming and going of which her +teeth flashed with the swiftness of the opening and closing of a +camera shutter. + +"We are _so_ grateful to you, Miss Brent," she murmured. And then, +womanlike, her alert brown eyes, starting their appraisal at Nan's +shoes, roved swiftly and calmly upward, noting every item of her +dress, every soft seductive curve of her healthy young body. Her +glance came to a rest on the girl's face, and for the space of several +seconds they looked at each other frankly while old Hector was saying: + +"Aye, grateful indeed, Nan. We shall never be out of your debt. There +are times when a kindness and a sacrifice are all the more welcome +because unexpected, and we had no right to expect this of you. God +bless you, my dear, and remember--I am always your friend." + +"Yes, indeed," his wife murmured, in a voice that, lacking his +enthusiasm, conveyed to Nan the information that The Laird spoke for +himself. She tugged gently at her husband's arm; again the automatic +smile; with a cool: "Good-night, Miss Brent. Thank you again--_so_ +much," she propelled The Laird toward the hospital entrance. He obeyed +promptly, glad to escape a situation that was painful to him, for he +had realized that which his wife did not credit him with having +sufficiently acute perception to realize--to-wit, that his wife's +camouflage was somewhat frayed and poorly manufactured. _She had not +played the game with him_. It would have cost her nothing to have been +as kindly and sincere as he had been toward this unfortunate girl; +nevertheless, while he had sensed her deficiency, his wife had carried +the affair off so well that he could not advance a sound argument to +convince her of it. So he merely remarked dryly as the hospital door +closed behind them: + +"Nellie, I'm going to propound a conundrum for you. Why did your +greeting of the Brent girl remind me of that Louis Quinze tapestry for +which you paid sixty thousand francs the last time you were abroad?" + +"I loathe conundrums, Hector," she replied coldly. "I do not care to +guess the answer." + +"The answer is: Not quite genuine," he retorted mildly, and said no +more about it. + +After that visit, Nan went no more to the hospital. She had met +Donald's mother for the first time in four years and had been greeted +as "Miss Brent," although in an elder day when, as a child, Donald had +brought her to The Dreamerie to visit his mother and sisters, and +later when she had sung in the local Presbyterian choir, Mrs. McKaye +and her daughters had been wont to greet her as "Nan." The girl did +not relish the prospect of facing again that camera-shutter smile and +she shrank with the utmost distress from a chance meeting at the +hospital with Elizabeth or Jane McKaye. As for The Laird, while she +never felt ill at ease in his presence, still she preferred to meet +him as infrequently as possible. As a result of this decision, she +wrote Andrew Daney, and after explaining to him what she intended +doing and why, asked him if he would not send some trustworthy person +to her every evening with a report of Donald's progress. + +Accordingly, Dirty Dan O'Leary, hat in hand and greatly embarrassed, +presented himself at the Sawdust Pile the following evening under +cover of darkness, and handed her a note from Daney. Donald's +condition was continuing to improve. For his services, Mr. O'Leary was +duly thanked and given a bouquet from Nan's old-fashioned garden for +presentation to the invalid. Tucked away in the heart of it was a tiny +envelop that enclosed a message of love and cheer. + +Dirty Dan was thrilled to think that he had been selected as the +intermediary in this secret romance. Clasping the bouquet in his grimy +left hand, he bowed low and placed his equally grimy right in the +region of his umbilicus. + +"Me hearrt's wit' ye, agra," he declared. "Sure 'tis to the divil an' +back agin I'd be the proud man to go, if 'twould be a favor to ye, +Miss Brint." + +"I know you would, Dan," she agreed, tactfully setting the wild rascal +at his ease when addressing him by his Christian name. "I know what +you did for Mr. Donald that night. I think you're very, very +wonderful. I haven't had an opportunity heretofore to tell you how +grateful I am to you for saving him." + +Here was a mystery! Mr. O'Leary in his Sunday clothes bound for +Ireland resembled Dirty Dan O'Leary in the raiment of a lumberjack, +his wild hair no longer controlled by judicious applications of pomade +and his mustache now--alas--returned to its original state of neglect, +as a butterfly resembles a caterpillar. Without pausing to consider +this, Dirty Dan, taking the license of a more or less privileged +character, queried impudently: + +"An' are ye glad they sint for ye to come back?" + +She decided that Mr. O'Leary was inclined to be familiar; so she +merely looked at him and her cool glance chilled him. + +"Becuz if ye are," he continued, embarrassed, "ye have me to thank for +it. 'Tis meself that knows a thing or two wit'out bein' told. Have ye +not been surprised that they knew so well where to find ye whin they +wanted ye?" + +She stared at him in frank amazement. + +"Yes, I have been tremendously interested in learning the secret of +their marvelous perspicacity." + +"I supplied Misther Daney wit' your address, allanah." + +"How did you know it? Did The Laird--" + +"He did not. I did it all be mesel'. Ah, 'tis the romantic divil I am, +Miss Brint. Sure I got a notion ye were runnin' away an' says I to +meself, says I: 'I don't like this idjee at all, at all. These +mysterious disappearances are always leadin' to throuble.' Sure, what +if somebody should die an' lave ye a fortun'? What good would it be to +ye if nobody could find ye? An' in back o' that agin," he assured her +cunningly, "I realized what a popular laddy buck I'd be wit' Misther +Donald if I knew what he didn't know but was wishful o' knowin'?" + +"But how did you procure my address in New York?" she demanded. + +"Now, I'm a wise man, but if I towld ye that, ye'd be as wise as I am. +An' since 'twould break me heart to think anybody in Port Agnew could +be as wise as mesel', ye'll have to excuse me from blatherin' all I +know." + +"Oh, but you must tell me, Dan. There are reasons why I should know, +and you wouldn't refuse to set my mind at ease, would you?" + +Dirty Dan grinned and played his ace. + +"If ye'll sing 'The Low-backed Car' an' 'She Moved Through the Fair' +I'll tell ye," he promised. "Sure I listened to ye the night o' the +battle, an' so close to death was I, sure I fought 'twas an angel from +glory singing'. Troth, I did." + +She sat down, laughing, at the antiquated piano, and sang him the +songs he loved; then, because she owed him a great debt she sang for +him "Kathleen Mavourneen," "Pretty Molly Brannigan," "The Harp That +Once Thro' Tara's Halls," and "Killarney." Dan stood just outside the +kitchen door, not presuming to enter, and when the last song was +finished, he had tears in his piggy little eyes; so he fled with the +posies, nor tarried to thank her and wish her a pleasant good-night. +Neither did he keep his promise by telling her how he came to know her +New York address. + +"Let me hear anny blackguard mintion that one's name wit' a lack o' +respect," Mr. O'Leary breathed, as he crossed the vacant lots, "an' +I'll break the back o' him in two halves! Whirro-o-o! Sure I'd make a +mummy out o' him!" + + + + +XXXVI + + +A month passed, and to the Sawdust Pile one evening, instead of Dirty +Dan, there came another messenger. It was Mr. Daney. To Nan's +invitation to enter and be seated, he gave ready acceptance; once +seated, however, he showed indubitable evidence of uneasiness, and +that he was the bearer of news of more than ordinary interest was +apparent by the nervous manner in which he twirled his hat and +scattered over her clean floor a quantity of sawdust which had +accumulated under the rim during his peregrinations round the mill +that day. + +"Well, Nan, he went home to The Dreamerie this afternoon," the general +manager began presently. "Got up and dressed himself unaided, and +insisted on walking out to the car without assistance. He's back on a +solid diet now, and the way he's filling up the chinks in his +superstructure is a sight to marvel at. I expect he'll be back on the +job within a month." + +"That is wonderful news, Mr. Daney." + +"Of course," Daney continued, "his hair is falling out, and he'll soon +be as bald as a Chihuahua dog. But--it'll grow in again. Yes, indeed. +It'll grow in." + +"Oh dear! I do hope it will grow out," she bantered, in an effort to +put him at his ease. "What a pity if his illness should leave poor Don +with a head like a thistle--with all the fuzzy-wuzzy inside." + +He laughed. + +"I'm glad to find you in such good spirits, Nan, because I've called +to talk business. And, for some reason or other, I do not relish my +job." + +"Then, suppose I dismiss you from this particular job, Mr. Daney. +Suppose I decline to discuss business." + +"Oh, but business is something that has to be discussed sooner or +later," he asured her, on the authority of one whose life had been +dedicated to that exacting duty. "I suppose you've kept track of your +expenses since you left New York. That, of course, will include the +outlay for your living-expenses while here, and in order to make +doubly certain that we are on the safe side, I am instructed to double +this total to cover the additional expenses of your return to New +York. And if you will set a value upon your lost time from the day you +left New York until your return, both days inclusive, I will include +that in the check also." + +"Suppose I should charge you one thousand dollars a day for my lost +time," she suggested curiously. + +"I should pay it without the slightest quibble. The Laird would be +delighted to get off so cheaply. He feels himself obligated to you for +returning to Port Agnew--" + +"Did The Laird send you here to adjust these financial details with +me, Mr. Daney?" + +"He did not. The matter is entirely in my hands. Certainly, in all +justice, you should be reimbursed for the expenses of a journey +voluntarily incurred for the McKaye benefit." + +"Did he say so?" + +"No. But I know him so well that I have little difficulty in +anticipating his desires. I am acting under Mrs. McKaye's promise to +you over the telephone to reimburse you." + +"I am glad to know that, Mr. Daney. I have a very high regard for +Donald's father, and I should not care to convict him of an attempt to +settle with me on a cash basis for declining to marry his son. I wish +you would inform The Laird, Mr. Daney, that what I did was done +because it pleased me to do it for his sake and Donald's. They have +been at some pains, throughout the years, to be kind to the Brents, +but, unfortunately for the Brents, opportunities for reciprocity have +always been lacking until the night Mrs. McKaye telephoned me in New +York. I cannot afford the gratification of very many desires--even +very simple ones, Mr. Daney--but this happens to be one of the rare +occasions when I can. To quote Sir Anthony Gloster, 'Thank God I can +pay for my fancies!' The Laird doesn't owe me a dollar, and I beg you, +Mr. Daney, not to distress me by offering it." + +"But, my dear girl, it has cost you at least five hundred dollars--" + +"What a marvelous sunset we had this evening, Mr. Daney. Did you +observe it? My father always maintained that those curious clouds +predicated sou'west squalls." + +"I didn't come here, girl, to talk about sunsets. You're foolish if +you do not accept--" + +The outcast of Port Agnew turned upon Mr. Daney a pair of sea-blue +eyes that flashed dangerously. + +"I think I have paid my debt to the McKayes," she declared, and in her +calm voice there was a sibilant little note of passion. "Indeed, I +have a slight credit-balance due me, and though Mrs. McKaye and her +daughters cannot bring themselves to the point of acknowledging this +indebtedness, I must insist upon collecting it. In view of the justice +of my claim, however, I cannot stultify my womanhood by permitting the +McKaye women to think they can dismiss the obligation by writing a +check. I am not an abandoned woman, Mr. Daney. I have sensibilities +and, strange to relate, I, too, have pride--more than the McKayes I +think sometimes. It is possible to insult me, to hurt me, and cause me +to suffer cruelty, and I tell you, Mr. Daney, I would rather lie down +and die by the roadside than accept one penny of McKaye money." + +Mr. Daney stared at her, visibly distressed. + +"Why, what's happened?" he blurted. + +She ignored him. + +"I repeat that The Laird owes me nothing--not even his thanks. I met +him one night with Mrs. McKaye on the hospital steps, and he tendered +me his meed of gratitude like the splendid gentleman he is." + +"Oh, I see!" A great light had suddenly dawned on Mr. Daney. "The +Laird led trumps, but Nellie McKaye revoked and played a little +deuce?" + +"Well, Mr. Daney, it seemed to me she fumbled the ball, to employ a +sporting metaphor. She bowed to me--like this--and smiled at me--like +that!" Her cool, patronizing nod and the sudden contraction and +relaxation of Nan's facial muscles brought a wry smile to old Daney's +stolid countenance. "Even if I felt that I could afford to or was +forced to accept reimbursement for my expenses and lost time," Nan +resumed, "her action precluded it. Can't you realize that, Mr. Daney? +And Jane and Elizabeth went her one--no, two--better. I'm going to +tell you about it. I went up-town the other day to send a telegram, +and in the telegraph-office I met Donald's sisters. I knew they would +not care to have me speak to them in public, so, when the telegrapher +wasn't looking at me and intuition told me that Elizabeth and Jane +were, I glanced up and favored them with a very small but very polite +smile of recognition." + +"And then," quoted Mr. Daney, reaching into his ragbag of a mind and +bringing up a remnant of Shakespeare, "'there came a frost--a killing +frost!'" + +"Two hundred and forty-five degrees below zero, and not even a stick +of kindling in the wood-box," she assured him humorously. "They looked +at me, through me, over me, beyond me--" + +"And never batted an eye?" + +"Not even the flicker of an eyelash." + +His canine loyalty bade Mr. Daney defend The Laird's ewe lambs. + +"Well, maybe they didn't recognize you," he protested. "A good deal of +water has run under a number of bridges since the McKaye girls saw you +last." + +"In that event, Mr. Daney, I charge that their manners would have been +extremely bad. I know town dogs that smile at me when I smile at them. +However, much as I would like to assure you that they didn't know me, +I must insist, Mr. Daney, that they did." + +"Well, now, how do you know, Nan?" + +"A little devil took possession of me, Mr. Daney, and inspired me to +smoke them out. I walked up and held out my hand to Jane. 'How do you +do, Jane,' I said. 'I'm Nan Brent. Have you forgotten me?'" + +Mr. Daney raised both arms toward the ceiling. + +"'Oh, God! cried the woodcock,--and away he flew!' What did the chit +say?" + +"She said, 'Why, not at all,' and turned her back on me. I then +proffered Elizabeth a similar greeting and said, 'Surely, Elizabeth, +_you_ haven't forgotten me!' Elizabeth is really funny. She replied: +'So sorry! I've always been absent-minded!' She looked at me steadily +with such a cool mirth in her eyes--she has nice eyes, too--and I must +have had mirth in mine, also, because I remember that at precisely +that minute I thought up a perfectly wonderful joke on Elizabeth and +Jane and their mother. Of course, the poor Laird will not see the +point of the joke, but then he's the innocent bystander, and innocent +bystanders are always, getting hurt." + +"Ah, do not hurt him!" Daney pleaded anxiously. "He's a good, kind, +manly gentleman. Spare him! Spare him, my dear!" + +"Oh, I wouldn't hurt him, Mr. Daney, if I did not know I had the power +to heal his hurts." + +Suddenly she commenced to laugh, albeit there was in her laugh a +quality which almost caused Mr. Daney to imagine that he had hackles +on his back and that they were rising. He much preferred the note of +anger of a few minutes previous; with a rush all of his old +apprehensions returned, and he rasped out at her irritably: + +"Well, well! What's this joke, anyhow? Tell me and perhaps I may +laugh, too." + +"Oh, no, Mr. Daney, you'd never laugh at this one. You'd weep." + +"Try me." + +"Very well. You will recall, Mr. Daney, that when Mrs. McKaye rang me +up in New York, she was careful, even while asking me to return, to +let me know my place?" + +"Yes, yes. I was listening on the line. I heard her, and I thought +she was a bit raw. But no matter. Proceed." + +"Well, since she asked me to return to Port Agnew, I'm wondering who +is going to ask me to go away again?" + +"I'll be shot if I will! Ha! Ha! Ha!" And Mr. Daney threw back his +head and laughed the most enjoyable laugh he had known since the night +an itinerant hypnotist, entertaining the citizens of Port Agnew, had +requested any adventurous gentleman in the audience who thought he +couldn't be hypnotized, to walk up and prove it. Dirty Dan O'Leary had +volunteered, had been mesmerized after a struggle, and, upon being +told that he was Dick Whittington's cat, had proceeded to cut some +feline capers that would have tickled the sensibilities of a +totem-pole. Mr. Daney's honest cachinnations now were so infectious +that Nan commenced to laugh with him--heartily, but no longer with +that strident little note of resentment, and cumulatively, as Mr. +Daney's mirth mounted until the honest fellow's tears cascaded across +his ruddy cheeks. + +"Egad, Nan," he declared presently, "but you have a rare sense of +humor! Yes, do it. Do it! Make 'em all come down--right here to the +Sawdust Pile! Make 'em remember you--all three of 'em--make 'em say +please! Yes, sir! 'Please Nan, forgive me for forgetting. Please Nan, +forgive me for smiling like the head of an old fiddle. Please, Nan, +get out of Port Agnew, so we can sleep nights. Please, Nan, be careful +not to say "Good-by." Please, Nan, knock out a couple of your front +teeth and wear a black wig and a sunbonnet, so nobody'll recognize you +when you leave, follow you, and learn your address.'" He paused to +wipe his eyes. "Why, dog my cats, girl, you've got 'em where the hair +is short; so make 'em toe the scratch!" + +"Well, of course," Nan reminded him, "they are not likely to toe the +scratch unless they receive a hint that toeing scratches is going to +be fashionable in our best Port Agnew circles this winter." + +Mr. Daney arched his wild eyebrows, pursed his lips, popped his eyes, +and looked at Nan over the rims of his spectacles. + +"Very well, my dear girl, I'll be the goat. A lesson in humility will +not be wasted on certain parties. But suppose they object? Suppose +they buck and pitch and sidestep and bawl and carry on? What then?" + +"Why," Nan replied innocently, regarding him in friendly fashion with +those wistful blue eyes, "you might hint that I'm liable to go to The +Laird and tell him I regard him as a very poor sport, indeed, to +expect me to give up his son, in view of the fact that his son's +mother sent for me to save that son's life. Do you know, dear Mr. +Daney, I suspect that if The Laird knew his wife had compromised him +so, he would be a singularly wild Scot!" + +"Onward, Christian soldier, marching as to war!" cried Mr. Daney, and, +seizing his hat from the table, he fled into the night. + + + + +XXXVII + + +Upon reaching his home, Mr. Daney telephoned to Mrs. McKaye. + +"It is important," he informed her, "that you, Miss Jane and Miss +Elizabeth come down to my office to-morrow for a conference. I would +come up to The Dreamerie to see you, but Donald is home now, and his +father will be with him; so I would prefer to see you down-town. I +have some news of interest for you." + +The hint of news of interest was sufficient to secure from Mrs. McKaye +a promise to call at his office with the girls at ten o'clock the +following morning. + +"What is this interesting news, Andrew?" Mrs. Daney asked, with +well-simulated disinterestedness. She was knitting for the French +War-Relief Committee a pair of those prodigious socks with which +well-meaning souls all over these United States have inspired many a +poor little devil of a _poilu_ with the thought that the French must +be regarded by us as a Brobdingnagian race. + +"We're arranging a big blowout, unknown to The Laird and Donald, to +celebrate the boy's return to health. I'm planning to shut down the +mill and the logging-camps for three days," he replied glibly. Of late +he was finding it much easier to lie to her than to tell the truth, +and he had observed with satisfaction that Mrs. Daney's bovine brain +assimilated either with equal avidity. + +"How perfectly lovely!" she cooed, and dropped a stitch which later +would be heard from on the march, in the shape of a blister on a +Gallic heel. "You're so thoughtful and kind, Andrew! Sometimes I +wonder if the McKayes really appreciate your worth." + +"Well, we'll see," he answered enigmatically and went off to bed. + +It was with a feeling of alert interest that he awaited in his office, +the following morning, the arrival of the ladies from The Dreamerie. +They arrived half an hour late, very well content with themselves and +the world in general, and filling Mr. Daney's office with the perfume +of their presence. They appeared to be in such good fettle, indeed, +that Mr. Daney took a secret savage delight in dissipating their +nonchalance. + +"Well, ladies," he began, "I decided yesterday that it was getting +along toward the season of the year when my thoughts stray as usual +toward the Sawdust Pile as a drying-yard. So I went down to see if Nan +Brent had abandoned it again--and sure enough, she hadn't." He paused +exasperatingly, after the fashion of an orator who realizes that he +has awakened in his audience an alert and respectful interest. "Fine +kettle of fish brewing down there," he resumed darkly, and paused +again, glanced at the ceiling critically as if searching for leaks, +smacked his lips and murmured confidentially a single word: "Snag!" + +"'Snag!'" In chorus. + +"Snag! In some unaccountable manner, it appears that you three ladies +have aroused in Nan Brent a spirit of antagonism--" + +"Nonsense!" + +"The idea!" + +"Fiddlesticks!" + +"I state the condition as I found it. I happen to know that the girl +possesses sufficient means to permit her to live at the Sawdust Pile +for a year at least." + +"But isn't she going away?" Mrs. McKaye's voice rose sharply. "Is she +going to break her bargain?" + +"Oh, I think not, Mrs. McKaye. She merely complained to me that +somebody begged her to come back to Port Agnew; so she's waiting for +somebody to come down to the Sawdust Pile and beg her to go away +again. She's inclined to be capricious about it, too. One person isn't +enough. She wants three people to call, and she insists that they +be--ah--ladies!" + +"Good gracious, Andrew, you don't mean it?" + +"I am delivering a message, Mrs. McKaye." + +"She must be spoofing you," Jane declared. + +"Well, she laughed a good deal about it, Miss Jane, and confided to me +that a bit of lurking devil in your sister's eyes the day you both met +her in the telegraph office gave her the inspiration for this joke. +She believes that she who laughs last laughs best." + +Mrs. McKaye was consumed with virtuous indignation. + +"The shameless hussy! Does she imagine for a moment that I will submit +to blackmail, that my daughters or myself could afford to be seen +calling upon her at the Sawdust Pile?" + +"She wants to force us to recognize her, mother." Jane, recalling that +day in the telegraph-office, sat staring at Daney with flashing eyes. +She was biting the finger of her glove. + +"Nothing doing," Elizabeth drawled smilingly. + +Mr. Daney nodded his comprehension. + +"In that event, ladies," he countered, with malignant joy in his +suppressed soul, "I am requested to remind you that The Laird will be +informed by Miss Brent that she considers him a very short sport, +indeed, if he insists upon regarding her as unworthy of his son, in +view of the fact that his son's mother considered her a person of such +importance that she used the transcontinental telephone in order to +induce--" + +"Yes, yes; I know what you're going to say. Do you really think she +would go as far as that, Andrew?" Mrs. McKaye was very pale. + +"Beware the anger of a woman scorned," he quoted. + +"In the event that she should, Mr. Daney, we should have no other +alternative but to deny it." Elizabeth was speaking. She still wore +her impish glacial smile. "As a usual thing, we are opposed to fibbing +on the high moral ground that it is not a lady's pastime, but in view +of the perfectly appalling results that would follow our failure to +fib in this particular case, I'm afraid we'll have to join hands, Mr. +Daney, and prove Nan Brent a liar. Naturally, we count on your help. +As a result of his conversation with you, father believes you did the +telephoning." + +"I told him half the truth, but no lie. I have never lied to him, Miss +Elizabeth, and I never shall. When Hector McKaye asks me for the +truth, he'll get it." In Mr. Daney's voice there was a growl that +spoke of slow, quiet fury at the realization that this cool young +woman should presume to dictate to him. + +"I think you'll change your mind, Mr. Daney. You'll not refuse the +hurdle when you come to it. As for this wanton Brent girl, tell her +that we will think her proposition over and that she may look for a +call from us. We do not care how long she looks, do we mother?" And +she laughed her gay, impish laugh. "In the meantime, Mr. Daney, we +will do our best to spare ourselves and you the ignominy of that fib. +The doctors will order Donald away for a complete rest for six months, +and dad will go with him. When they're gone that Brent house on the +Sawdust Pile is going to catch fire--accidently, mysteriously. The man +who scuttled the Brent's motor-boat surely will not scruple at such a +simple matter as burning the Brent shanty. Come, mother. Jane, for +goodness' sake, do buck up! Good-by, dear Mr. Daney." + +He stared at her admiringly. In Elizabeth, he discerned, for the first +time, more than a modicum of her father's resolute personality; he saw +clearly that she dominated her mother and Jane and, like The Laird, +would carry her objective, once she decided upon it, regardless of +consequences. + +"Good-morning, ladies. I shall repeat your message--verbatim, Miss +Elizabeth," he assured the departing trio. + +And that night he did so. + +"They neglected to inform you how much time they would require to +think it over, did they not?" Nan interrogated mildly. "And they +didn't tell you approximately when I should look for their visit?" + +"No," he admitted. + +"Oh, I knew they wouldn't submit," Nan flung back at him. "They +despise me--impersonally, at first and before it seemed that I might +dim the family pride; personally, when it was apparent that I could +dim it if I desired. Well, I'm tired of being looked at and sneered +at, and I haven't money enough left to face New York again. I had +dreamed of the kind of living I might earn, and when the opportunity +to earn it was already in my grasp, I abandoned it to come back to +Port Agnew. I had intended to play fair with them, although I had to +lie to Donald to do that, but--they hurt something inside of +me--something deep that hadn't been hurt before--and--and now--" + +[Illustration: "I'M A MAN WITHOUT A HOME AND YOU'VE _GOT_ TO TAKE ME +IN, NAN."] + +"Now _what_!" Mr. Daney cried in anguished tones. + +"If Donald McKaye comes down to the Sawdust Pile and asks me to marry +him, I'm going to do it. I have a right to happiness; I'm--I'm +tired--sacrificing--Nobody cares--no appreciation--Nan of the Sawdust +Pile will be--mistress of The Dreamerie--and when they--enter house of +mine--they shall be--humbler than I. They shall--" + +As Mr. Daney fled from the house, he looked back through the little +hall and saw Nan Brent seated at her tiny living-room table, her +golden head pillowed in her arms outspread upon the table, her body +shaken with great, passionate sobs. Mr. Daney's heart was constricted. +He hadn't felt like that since the Aurora Stock Company had played +"East Lynne" in the Port Agnew Opera House. + + + + +XXXVIII + + +At the Sawdust Pile the monotony of Nan Brent's life remained +unbroken; she was marking time, waiting for something to turn up. +Since the last visit of the McKaye ambassador she had not altered her +determination to exist independent of financial aid from the McKaye +women or their father,--for according to her code, the acceptance of +remuneration for what she had done would be debasing. Nan had made +this decision even while realizing that in waiving Mr. Daney's proffer +of reimbursement she was rendering impossible a return to New York +with her child. The expenses of their journey and the maintenance of +their brief residence there; the outlay for clothing for both and the +purchase of an additional wardrobe necessitated when, with +unbelievable good luck she had succeeded in securing twenty weeks time +over a high-class vaudeville circuit for her "Songs of the 'Sixties," +had, together with the cost of transportation back to Port Agnew, so +depleted her resources that, with the few hundred dollars remaining, +her courage was not equal to the problem which unemployment in New +York would present; for with the receipt of Mrs. McKaye's message, Nan +had written the booking agent explaining that she had been called West +on a matter which could not be evaded and expressed a hope that at a +later date the "time" might be open to her. Following her return to +the Sawdust Pile she had received a brief communication stating that +there would be no opening for her until the following year. The +abandonment of her contract and the subsequent loss of commissions to +the agent had seriously peeved that person. + +The receipt of this news, while a severe disappointment, had not +caused her to flinch, for she had, in a measure, anticipated it and +with the calmness of desperation already commenced giving thought to +the problem of her future existence. In the end she had comforted +herself with the thought that good cooks were exceedingly scarce--so +scarce, in fact, that even a cook with impedimenta in the shape of a +small son might be reasonably certain of prompt and well-paid +employment. Picturing herself as a kitchen mechanic brought a wry +smile to her sweet face, but--it was honorable employment and she +preferred it to being a waitress or an underfed and underpaid +saleswoman in a department store. For she could cook wonderfully well +and she knew it; she believed she could dignify a kitchen and she +preferred it to cadging from the McKayes the means to enable her to +withstand the economic siege incident to procuring a livelihood more +dignified and remunerative. + +Thus she had planned up to the day of her unexpected meeting with Jane +and Elizabeth McKaye in the Port Agnew telegraph office. On that day, +something had happened--something that had constituted a distinct +event in Nan Brent's existence and with which the well-bred insolence +of the McKaye girls had nothing to do. Indirectly old Caleb Brent had +been responsible, for by the mere act of dying, his three-guarter pay +as a retired sailor had automatically terminated, and Nan had written +the Navy Department notifying it accordingly. + +Now, the death of a retired member of the Army or Navy, no matter what +his grade may be, constitutes news for the service journals, and the +fact that old Caleb had been a medal of honor man appeared, to the +editor of one of these journals, to entitle the dead sailor to three +hundred words of posthumous publicity. Subsequently, these three +hundred words came under the eye of a retired admiral of the United +States Navy, who thereby became aware that he had an orphaned +grand-daughter residing in Port Agnew, Washington. + +As a man grows old he grows kindlier; those things which, at middle +age, appear so necessary to an unruffled existence, frequently undergo +such a metamorphosis, due to the corroding effects of time, that at +eighty one has either forgotten them or regards them as something to +be secretly ashamed of. Thus it was with Nan's grandfather. His pride +and dignity were as austere as ever, but his withered heart yearned +for the love and companionship of one of his own blood; now that Caleb +Brent was dead, the ancient martinet forgot the offense which this +simple sailor had committed against the pride of a long line of +distinguished gentlemen, members of the honorable profession of arms. +He thought it over for a month, and then wrote the only child of his +dead daughter, asking her to come to him, hinting broadly that his +days in the land were nearly numbered and that, in the matter of +worldly goods he was not exactly a pauper. + +Having posted this letter the old admiral waited patiently for an +answer, and when this answer was not forthcoming within the time he +had set, he had telegraphed the postmaster of Port Agnew, requesting +information as to her address. This telegram the postmaster had +promptly sent over to Nan and it was for the purpose of replying to it +that she had gone to the telegraph office on the day when Fate decreed +that Jane and Elizabeth McKaye should also be there. + +After her return to the Sawdust Pile that day Nan's thoughts +frequently adverted to the Biblical line: "The Lord giveth and the +Lord taketh away." Certainly, in her case, He appeared to be working +at cross purposes. At a time when she had resigned herself to domestic +labor in order to avoid starvation, her aristocratic, arrogant, +prideful grandfather had seen fit to forgive her dead father and offer +her shelter from the buffets of the world; yet, even while striving, +apparently to be kind, she knew that the reason underlying his +invitation was plain, old-fashioned heart-hunger, a tender conscience +and a generous admixture of human selfishness. She smiled bitterly at +his blunt hint of a monetary reward following his demise; it occurred +to her that the stubborn old admiral was striving to buy that which he +might have had for a different asking. + +She read the admiral's letter for the twentieth time--and from the +thick white page her glance went to her child. Would he be welcome in +that stern old sea dog's home? Would his great-grandfather forget the +bar sinister of little Don's birth and would her own misfortune be +viewed by him with the tenderness and perfect understanding accorded +her by old Caleb? She did not think so; and with the remembrance of +her dead father, the flames of revolt leaped in her heart. He had been +loyal to her and she would be loyal to him. No, no! She was not yet +prepared to come fawning to the feet of that fierce old man who had +robbed her father of his happiness. What right had he to expect +forgiveness, _sans_ the asking, _sans_ an acknowledgment of his +heartlessness? + +With a bitter smile she wrote him a long letter, relating in detail +the incident of her marriage, the birth of her child, her standing in +Port Agnew society and her belief that all of this rendered acceptance +of his invitation impossible, if she were to act with deference to his +point of view and still remain loyal to the memory of her dead father. +For these reasons she declined, thanked him for his kindness and +remained his very sincerely. When she had posted this letter she felt +better, and immediately took up the case of the McKayes. + +Until that moment she had not considered seriously the possibility of +a marriage with the young Laird of Port Agnew as a means of +humiliating these women who had humiliated her. The thought had +occurred to her in the telegraph office and at the moment had held for +her a certain delightful fascination; prior to that meeting her +resolution not to permit Donald McKaye to share her uncertain fortunes +had been as adamant. But long and bitter reflection upon the problem +thrust upon her by her grandfather had imbued her with a clearer, +deeper realization of the futility of striving to please everybody in +this curious world, of the cruelty of those who seek to adjust to +their point of view that of another fully capable of adjusting his +own; of the appalling lack of appreciation with which her piteous +sacrifice would meet from the very persons who shrank from the +ignominy incident to non-sacrifice oft the part of her whom they held +in open contempt! + +Donald McKaye was not unintelligent. He was a man, grown, with all a +man's passions, with all the caution to be expected in one of his +class. If he still loved her sufficiently, following a period of +mature deliberation and fierce opposition from his people, to offer +her honorable marriage, would she not be a fool to cast away such a +priceless gift? How few men know love so strong, so tender, so +unselfish, that they do not shrink from sharing with the object of +their love, the odium which society has always set upon the woman +taken in adultery. + +In rejecting his proffered sacrifice, she had told herself that she +acted thus in order to preserve his happiness, although at the expense +of her own. By so doing Nan realized that she had taken a lofty, a +noble stand; nevertheless, who was she that she should presume to +decide just wherein lay the preservation of his happiness? In her +grandfather's letter before her she had ample evidence of the +miscarriage of such pompous assumptions. + +There is a latent force in the weakest of women, an amazing capacity +for rebellion in the meekest and a regret for lost virtue even in the +most abandoned. Nan was neither weak, meek, nor abandoned; wherefore, +to be accorded toleration, polite contumely and resentment where +profound gratitude and admiration were her due, had aroused in her a +smouldering resentment which had burned like a handful of oil-soaked +waste tossed into a corner. At first a mild heat; then a dull red glow +of spontaneous combustion progresses--and presently flame and smoke. + +It is probable that mere man, who never has been able to comprehend +the intensity of feeling of which a woman is capable, is not equal to +the problem of realizing the effect of solitude, misunderstanding and +despair upon the mind of a woman of more than ordinary sensibilities +and imagination. The seed of doubt, planted in such soil, burgeons +rapidly, and when, upon the very day that Mr. Daney had made his last +call at the Sawdust Pile, Nan, spurred to her decision by developments +of which none but she was aware, had blazed forth in open rebellion +and given the Tyee Lumber Company's general manager the fright of his +prosaic existence. + + + + +XXXIX + + +After leaving the Sawdust Pile, Mr. Daney walked twice around the +Bight of Tyee before arriving at a definite decision as to his future +conduct in this intrigue, participation in which had been thrust upon +him by his own loyalty to his employer and the idiocy of three +hare-brained women. Time and again as lie paced the lonely strand, Mr. +Daney made audible reference to the bells of the nether regions and +the presence of panther tracks! This was his most terrible oath and +was never employed except under exceptional circumstances. + +At length Mr. Daney arrived at a decision. He would have nothing +further to do with this horrible love affair. In the role of Dan +Cupid's murderer he was apparently a Tumble Tom; for three months he +had felt as if he trod thin ice--and now he had fallen through! "I'll +carry no more of their messages," he declared aloud. "I'll tell them +so and wash my hands of the entire matter. If there is to be any +asking of favors from that girl the McKaye women can do it." + +It was after midnight when he returned to his home and his wife was +sitting up to receive an explanation of his nocturnal prowlings. +However, the look of desperation with which he met her accusing glance +frightened her into silence, albeit she had a quiet little crying +spell next morning when she discovered on the floor of Mr. Daney's +room quite a quantity of sand which had worked into his shoes during +his agitated spring around Tyee Beach. She was quite certain he had +indulged in a moonlight stroll on the seashore with a younger and +prettier woman, so she resolved to follow him when next he fared forth +and catch the traitor red-handed. + +To her surprise, Mr. Daney went out no more o' nights. He had kept his +word given to himself, and on the morning succeeding his extraordinary +interview with Nan he had again summoned the ladies of the McKaye +family to his office for a conference. However, the capable Elizabeth +was the only one of the trio to present herself, for this young +woman--and not without reason--regarded herself as Mr. Daney's mental +superior; she was confident of her ability to retain his loyalty +should he display a tendency to betray them. + +"Well, dear Mr. Daney," she murmured in her melted-butter voice, "what +new bugaboo have you developed for us?" + +"You do not have to bother calling upon the Brent girl, Miss +Elizabeth. She says now that if Donald asks her to marry him she'll +accept. She has an idea she'll be mistress of The Dreamerie." + +Elizabeth arched her eyebrows. "What else?" she queried amiably. + +"That's all--from Nan Brent. I have a small defi to make on my own +account, however, Miss Elizabeth. From this minute on I wash my hands +of the private affairs of the McKaye family. My job is managing your +father's financial affairs. Believe me, the next move in this +comedy-drama is a wedding--if Donald asks her in all seriousness to +marry him--that is, if he insists on it. He may insist and then again +he may not, but if he should, I shall not attempt to stop him. He's +free, white and twenty-one; he's my boss and I hope I know my place. +Personally, I'm willing to wager considerable that he'll marry her, +but whether he does or not--I'm through." + +Elizabeth McKaye sighed. "That means we must work fast, Mr. Daney. +Donald will be feeling strong: enough within two weeks to call on her; +he may even motor down to the Sawdust Pile within ten days. Mother has +already broached the subject of taking him away to southern California +or Florida for a long rest; Dad has seconded the motion with great +enthusiasm--and that stubborn Donald has told them frankly that he +isn't going away for a rest." + +"Gosh!" Mr. Daney gasped. "That makes it a little binding, eh?" + +She met his clear glance thoughtfully and said: "If her house should +burn down--accidentally--to-day or to-night, when she and her baby +aren't in it, she'll have to leave Port Agnew. There isn't a house in +town where she could find shelter, and you could see to it that all +the rooms in the hotel are taken." + +"You forget, my dear," he replied with a small smile. "I have no +further interest in this affair and moreover, I'm not turning +firebug--not this year." + +"You refuse to help us?" + +"Absolutely. What is to be will be, and I, for one, have decided not +to poke my finger into the cogs of destiny." + +"Well--thanks awfully for what you've already done, Mr. Daney." Again +she smiled her bright, impish smile. "Good-morning." + +"Good-morning, Miss Elizabeth." + +As she left the office, Mr. Daney noted her debutante slouch and +gritted his teeth. "Wonder if they'll call on Nan now, or make a +combined attack on the boy and try bluff and threats and tears," he +soliloquized. + +As a matter of fact they tried the latter. The storm broke after +luncheon one day when Donald declared he felt strong enough to go down +to Port Agnew, and, in the presence of the entire family, ordered the +butler to tell his father's chauffeur to bring the closed car around +to the door. Immediately, the astute Elizabeth precipitated matters by +asking her brother sharply if his projected visit to Port Agnew +predicated also a visit to the Sawdust Pile. + +"Why, yes, Elizabeth," he answered calmly. + +The Laird scowled at her, but she ignored the scowl; so old Hector +flashed a warning glance to Jane and her mother--a glance that said +quite plainly: "Let there be no upbraiding of my son." + +"Do you think it is quite--ah, delicate of you, Donald, to call upon +any young lady at her apartments in the absence of a proper chaperon, +even if the lady herself appears to have singularly free and easy +views on the propriety of receiving you thus?" + +He saw that she was bound to force the issue and was rather relieved +than otherwise. With a mental promise to himself to keep his temper at +all hazards he replied: "Well, Elizabeth, I'll admit the situation is +a trifle awkward, but what cannot be cured must be endured. You see, I +want to have a talk with Nan Brent and I cannot do so unless I call +upon her at the Sawdust Pile. It is impossible for us to meet on +neutral ground, I fear. However, if you will write her a nice +friendly little note and invite her up here to visit me, the question +of a chaperon will be solved and I will postpone my visit until she +gets here." + +"Don't be a fool," she retorted bitterly. + +"As for Nan's free and easy views on the subjects, who in Port Agnew, +may I ask, expects her to act differently? Why, therefore, since she +is fully convinced that I possess a few of the outward appearances of +a gentleman, should she fear to receive me in her home? To conform to +the social standards of those who decry her virtue? Elizabeth, you +expect too much, I fear." + +"Hear, hear," cried The Laird. He realized that Elizabeth was not to +be denied, so he thought best to assume a jocular attitude during the +discussion. + +"Father," his eldest daughter reminded him. "It is your duty to forbid +Donald doing anything which is certain to bring his family into +disrepute and make it the target for the tongue of scandal." + +"Oh, leave him alone, you pestiferous woman," old Hector cried +sharply. "Had it not been for the girl he would not be living this +minute, so the least he can do is to express his compliments to her. +Also, since this disagreeable topic has again been aired, let me +remind you that the lass isn't going to marry Donald. She came out +here, Donald," he continued, turning to his son, "with the distinct +understanding that her job was to humor you back to health, and for +that you owe her your thanks and I'm willing you should call on her +and express them. Don't flattter yourself that she'll marry you, my +boy. I've had a talk with her--since you must know it, sooner or +later--and she promised me she wouldn't." + +The young Laird's face paled a little but he maintained his +composure. "I greatly fear you misunderstood her, father," he replied +gently. "She promised me she'd marry me. You see," he added looking +the old man resolutely in the face, "I think she's virtuous, so I'm +going to marry her." + +His father smiled sadly. "Poor lad. God knows I'm sorry for you, +but--well, go see her and let's have the issue settled once for all. +For God's sake, lad, grant me peace of mind. End it to-day, one way or +the other." + +"Ah, yes, you're brave," Elizabeth flung at her father. "You're so +certain that girl will keep her promise, aren't you? Well, I happen to +have been informed, on very good authority, that she intends to betray +you. She had made the statement that she'll marry Donald if he asks +her--again." + +"The girl doesn't impress me as one who would lie, Elizabeth. Who told +you this?" + +"Andrew Daney." + +"Bear with me a moment, son, till I call Andrew on the telephone," the +Laird requested, and went into the telephone booth under the stairs in +the reception hall. When he emerged a few minutes later his face was +pale and haggard. + +"Well? What did I tell you?" Elizabeth's voice was triumphant. + +Her father ignored her. Placing himself squarely before his son, he +bent forward slightly and thrust his aggressive face close to +Donald's. "I command you to respect the honor of my house," he cried +furiously. "For the last time, Donald McKaye, ha' done wie this woman, +or--" and his great arm was outflung in a swooping gesture that +denoted all too forcibly the terrible sentence he shrank from +speaking. + +"Are you offering me an alternative?" Donald's voice was low and very +calm, but his brown eyes were blazing with suppressed rage. "The +Dreamerie or--" and he swung and pointed to the Brent cottage far +below them on the Sawdust Pile. + +"Aye," his father cried in a hard cracked voice. "Aye!" + +Donald looked over at his mother with the helplessness of a child who +has fallen and hurt himself. "And you, mother? What do you say to +this?" + +She thought she would faint. "You--you must obey your father," she +quavered. Until her son should marry Nan Brent she could not force +herself to the belief that he could possibly commit such an incredible +offense. + +"The opinions of you and Jane," Donald continued, turning to each +sister in turn, "do not interest me particularly, but while the polls +are open you might as well vote. If I marry Nan Brent are you each +prepared to forget that I am your brother?" + +Elizabeth nodded calmly. She had gone too far now to develop weakness +when an assumption of invincible strength might yet win the day. + +"I couldn't receive such a peculiar sister-in-law," Jane murmured, +evidently close to tears. "Surely, you would not expect us to take +such a woman to our hearts, Donald dear?" + +"I did not build The Dreamerie for yon lass," The Laird burst forth +passionately. + +His son stood with bowed head. "Have you, mother, or you, my sisters, +been down to the Sawdust Pile to thank Nan for inspiring me--no +matter how--with a desire to live? I think you realize that until she +came I was too unhappy--too disgusted with life--to care whether I got +well or not? Have you absolved yourselves of an obligation which must +be perfectly evident to perfect ladies?" + +"We have not." Elizabeth's calm voice answered him. "What the girl did +was entirely of her own volition. She did it for your sake, and since +it is apparent that she plans to collect the reward of her +disinterested effort we have considered that a formal expression of +thanks would be superfluous." + +"I see. I see. Well, perhaps you're right. I shall not quarrel with +your point of view. And you're all quite certain you will never recede +from your attitude of hostility toward Nan--under no circumstances, to +recognize her as my wife and extend to her the hospitality of The +Dreamerie?" + +He challenged his father with a look and the old man slowly nodded an +affirmative. His mother thought Donald was about to yield to their +opposition and nodded likewise. "I have already answered that +question," Jane murmured tragically, and Elizabeth again reminded him +that it was not necessary for him to make a fool of himself. + +"Well, I'm glad this affair has been ironed out--at last," Donald +assured them. "I had cherished the hope that when you knew Nan +better--" He choked up for a moment, then laid his hands on his +father's shoulders. "Well, sir," he gulped, "I'm going down to the +Sawdust Pile and thank Nan for saving my life. Not," he added +bitterly, "that I anticipate enjoying that life to the fullest for +some years to come. If I did not believe that time will solve the +problem--" + +The Laird's heart leaped. "Tush, tush, boy. Run along and don't do +anything foolish." He slapped Donald heartily across the back while +the decisive sweep of that same hand an instant later informed the +women of his household that it would be unnecessary to discuss this +painful matter further. + +"I understand just how you feel, dad. I hold no resentment," Donald +assured him, and dragged The Laird close to him in a filial embrace. +He crossed the room and kissed his mother, who clung to him a moment, +tearfully; seeing him so submissive, Jane and Elizabeth each came up +and claimed the right to embrace him with sisterly affection. + +The butler entered to announce that the car was waiting at the front +door. Old Hector helped his son into a great coat and Mrs. McKaye +wound a reefer around his neck and tucked the ends inside the coat. +Then The Laird helped him into the car; as it rolled slowly down the +cliff road, Old Hector snorted with relief. + +"By Judas," he declared, "I never dreamed the boy would accept such an +ultimatum." + +"Well, the way to find out is to try," Elizabeth suggested. "Sorry to +have been forced to disregard that optical S.O.S. of yours, Dad, but I +realized that we had to strike now or never." + +"Whew-w-w!" The Laird whistled again. + + + + +XL + + +With the license of long familiarity, Donald knocked at the front door +of the Brent cottage to announce his arrival; then, without awaiting +permission to enter, he opened the door and met Nan in the tiny hall +hurrying to admit him. + +"You--Donald!" she reproved him. "What are you doing here? You +shouldn't be out." + +"That's why I came in," he retorted drily and kissed her. "And I'm +here because I couldn't stand The Dreamerie another instant. I wanted +my mother and sisters to call on you and thank you for having been so +nice to me during my illness, but the idea wasn't received, very +enthusiastically. So, for the sheer sake of doing the decent thing +I've called myself. It might please you," he added, "to know that my +father thought I should." + +"He is always tactful and kind," she agreed. + +She led him to her father's old easy chair in the living room. + +"As Dirty Dan O'Leary once remarked in my presence," he began, "it is +a long lane that hasn't got a saloon at the end of it. I will first +light a cigarette, if I may, and make myself comfortable, before +putting you on the witness stand and subjecting you to a severe +cross-examination. Seat yourself on that little hassock before me and +in such a position that I can look squarely into your face and note +flush of guilt when you fib to me." + +She obeyed, with some slight inward trepidation, and sat looking up +at him demurely. + +"Nan," he began, "did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty +thing for you to do would be to run away and hide where I could never +find you?" + +She shook her head. + +"Did anybody ever suggest to you that the sporty thing for you to do +would be to return to Port Agnew from your involuntary exile and +inspire me with some enthusiasm for life?" + +His keen perception did not fail to interpret the slight flush of +embarrassment that suffused Nan's face. "I object to that question, +your honor," she replied with cleverly simulated gaiety, "on the +ground that to do so would necessitate the violation of a confidence." + +"The objection is sustained by the court. Did my father or Andrew +Daney, acting for him, ever offer you any sum of money as a bribe for +disappearing out of my life?" + +"No. Your father offered to be very, very kind to me the morning I was +leaving. We met at the railroad station and his offer was made _after_ +I informed him that I was leaving Port Agnew forever--and why. So I +know he made the offer just because he wanted to be kind--because he +is kind." + +"Neither he nor Daney communicated with you in anyway following your +departure from Port Agnew?" + +"They did not." + +"Before leaving New York or immediately after your return to Port +Agnew, did you enter into verbal agreement with any member of my +family or their representative to nurse me back to health and then +jilt me?" + +"I did not. The morning I appeared at the hospital your father, +remembering my statement to him the morning I fled from Port Agnew, +suspected that I had had a change of heart. He said to me: 'So this is +your idea of playing the game, is it?' I assured him then that I had +not returned to Port Agnew with the intention of marrying you, but +merely to stiffen your morale, as it were. He seemed quite satisfied +with my explanation, which I gave him in absolute good faith." + +"Did he ever question you as to how you ascertained I was ill?" + +"No. While I cannot explain my impression, I gathered at the time that +he knew." + +"He credited Andrew Daney with that philanthropic job, Nan. He does +not know that my mother communicated with you." + +"Neither do you, Donald. I have not told you she did." + +"I am not such a stupid fellow as to believe you would ever tell me +anything that might hurt me, Nan. One does not relish the information +that one's mother has not exhibited the sort of delicacy one expects +of one's mother," he added bluntly. + +"It is not nice of you to say that, Donald. How do you know that Mr. +Daney did not send for me?" + +He smiled tolerantly. "Before Daney would dare do that he would +consult with my father, and if my father had consented to it he would +never have left to Daney the task of requesting such a tremendous +favor of you for his account. If Daney ever consulted my father as to +the advisability of such a course, my father refused to consider it." + +"What makes you think so, old smarty?" + +"Well, I know my father's code. He had no hesitancy in permitting you +to know that you were not welcome as a prospective daughter-in-law, +although he was not so rude as to tell you why. He left that to your +imagination. Now, for my father to ask a favor of anybody is very +unusual. He has a motto that a favor accepted is a debt incurred, and +he dislikes those perennial debts. My father is a trader, my dear. If +he had, directly or indirectly, been responsible for your return to +Port Agnew for the purpose of saving his son's life, he would not +be--well, he just wouldn't do it," he explained with some +embarrassment. "He couldn't do it. He would say to you, 'My son is +dying because he finds life uninteresting without you. If you return, +your presence will stimulate in him a renewed interest in life and he +will, in all probability, survive. If you are good enough to save my +son from death you are good enough to share his life, and although +this wedding is about going to kill me, nevertheless we will pull it +off and make believe we like it.'" + +"Nonsense," she retorted. + +"Knowing how my father would act under such circumstances, I was +dumfounded when he informed me this afternoon that you had agreed to +perform under false pretenses. He was quite certain you would proceed +to jilt me, now that I am strong enough to stand it. He said you had +promised him you would." + +"I did not promise him. I merely told him truthfully what my firm +intention was at the time he demanded to be informed as to the nature +of my intentions. I reserved my woman's right to change my mind." + +"Oh!" + +"Had I made your father a definite promise I would have kept it. If I +were a party to such a contract with your father, Donald dear, all of +your pleading to induce me to break it would be in vain." + +"A contract without a consideration is void in law," he reminded her. +"Dad just figured he could bank on your love for me. He did you the +honor to think it was so strong and wonderful that death would be a +delirious delight to you in preference to spoiling my career by +marrying me--well--Elizabeth disillusioned him!" + +Nan's eyebrows lifted perceptibly. + +"She informed my father in my presence," Donald continued, "that you +had had a change of heart; that you were now resolved to accept me +should I again ask you to marry me. It appears you had told Andrew +Daney this--in cold blood as it were. So Dad went to the telephone and +verified this report by Daney; then we had a grand show-down and I was +definitely given my choice of habitation--The Dreamerie or the Sawdust +Pile. Father, Mother, Elizabeth and Jane; jointly and severally +assured me that they would never receive you, so Nan, dear, it appears +that I will have to pay rather a heavy price for the privilege of +marrying you--" + +"I have never told you I would marry you," she cried sharply. + +"Yes, you did. That day in the hospital." + +"That was a very necessary fib and you should not hold it against me. +It was a promise absolutely not made in good faith." + +"But did you tell Daney that you would accept me if I should ask you +again to marry me?" + +She was visibly agitated but answered him truthfully. "Yes, I did." + +"You said it in anger?" + +"Yes." Very softly. + +"Daney had come to you with an offer of monetary reward for your +invaluable services to the McKaye family, had he not? And since what +you did was not done for profit, you were properly infuriated and +couldn't resist giving Daney the scare of his life? That was the way +of it, was it not?" + +Nan nodded and some tears that trembled on her long lashes were +flicked off by the vigor of the nod; some of them fell on the big +gaunt hands that held hers. + +"I suppose you haven't sufficient money with which to return to New +York?" he continued. + +Again she nodded an affirmative. + +"Just what are your plans, dear?" + +"I suppose I'll have to go somewhere and try to procure a position as +a cook lady." + +"An admirable decision," he declared enthusiastically. "I'll give you +a job cooking for me, provided you'll agree to marry me and permit me +to live in your house. I'm a man without a home and you've just _got_ +to take me in, Nan. I have no other place to lay my weary head." + +She looked at him and through the blur of her tears she saw him +smiling down at her, calmly, benignantly and with that little touch of +whimsicality that was always in evidence and which even his heavy +heart could not now subdue. + +"You've--you've--chosen the Sawdust Pile?" she cried incredulously. + +"How else would a man of spirit choose, old shipmate?" + +"But you're not marrying me to save me from poverty, Donald? You must +be certain you aren't mistaking for love the sympathy which rises so +naturally in that big heart of yours. If it's only a great pity--if +it's only the protective instinct--" + +"Hush! It's all of that and then some. I'm a man grown beyond the +puppy-love stage, my dear--and the McKayes are not an impulsive race. +We count the costs carefully and take careful note of the potential +profits. And while I could grant my people the right to make hash of +my happiness I must, for some inexplicable reason, deny them the +privilege of doing it with yours. I think I can make you happy, Nan; +not so happy, perhaps, that the shadow of your sorrow will not fall +across your life occasionally, but so much happier than you are at +present that the experiment seems worth trying, even at the expense of +sacrificing the worldly pride of my people." + +"Are you entertaining a strong hope that after you marry me, dear, +your people will forgive you, make the best of what they consider a +bad bargain and acknowledge me after a fashion? Do you think they will +let bygones be bygones and take me to their hearts--for your sake?" + +"I entertain no such silly illusion. Under no circumstances will they +ever acknowledge you after a fashion, for the very sufficient reason +that the opportunity to be martyrs will never be accorded my mother +and sisters by yours truly, Donald McKaye, late Laird apparent of Port +Agnew. Bless, your sweet soul, Nan, I have some pride, you know. I +wouldn't permit them to tolerate you. I prefer open warfare every +time." + +"Have you broken with your people, dear?" + +"Yes, but they do not know it yet. I didn't have the heart to raise a +scene, so I merely gave the old pater a hug, kissed mother and the +girls and came away. I'm not going back." + +"You will--if I refuse to marry you?" + +"I do not anticipate such a refusal. However, it Hoes not enter into +the matter at all in so far as my decision to quit The Dreamerie is +concerned. I'm through! Listen, Nan. I could win my father to you--win +him wholeheartedly and without reservation--if I should inform him +that my mother asked you to come back to Port Agnew. My mother and the +girls have not told him of this and I suspect they have encouraged his +assumption that Andrew Daney took matters in his own hands. Father has +not cared to inquire into the matter, anyhow, because he is secretly +grateful to Daney (as he thinks) for disobeying him. Mother and the +girls are forcing Daney to protect them; they are using his loyalty to +the family as a club to keep him in line. With that club they forced +him to come to you with a proposition that must have been repugnant to +him, if for no other reason than that he knew my father would not +countenance it. When you told him you would marry me if I should ask +you again, to whom did Daney report? To Elizabeth, of course--the +brains of the opposition. That proves to me that my father had nothing +to do with it--why the story is as easily understood from deduction as +if I had heard the details from their lips. But I cannot use my +mother's peace of mind as a club to beat dad into line; I cannot tell +him something that will almost make him hate mother and my sisters; I +would not force him to do that which he does not desire to do because +it is the kindly, sensible and humane course. So I shall sit tight and +say nothing--and by the way, I love you more than ever for keeping +this affair from me. So few women are true blue sports, I'm afraid." + +"You must be very, very angry and hurt, Donald?" + +"I am. So angry and hurt that I desire to be happy within the shortest +possible period of elapsed time. Now, old girl, look right into my +eyes, because I'm going to propose to you for the last time. My +worldly assets consist of about a hundred dollars in cash and a six +dollar wedding ring which I bought as I came through Port Agnew. With +these wordly goods and all the love and honor and respect a man can +possibly have for a woman, I desire to endow you. Answer me quickly. +Yes or no?" + +"Yes," she whispered. + +"You chatterbox! When?" + +"At your pleasure." + +"That's trading talk. We'll be married this afternoon." He stretched +out his long arms for her and as she slid off the low hassock and +knelt beside his chair, he gathered her hungrily to him and held her +there for a long time before he spoke again. When he did it was to +say, with an air of wonder that was almost childlike: + +"I never knew it was possible for a man to be so utterly wretched and +so tremendously happy and all within the same hour. I love you so much +it hurts." He released her and glanced at his watch. "It is now two +o'clock, Nan. If we leave here by three we can reach the county seat +by five o'clock, procure a license and be married by six. By half past +seven we will have finished our wedding supper and by about ten +o'clock we shall be back at the Sawdust Pile. Put a clean pair of +rompers on the young fellow and let's go! From this day forward we +live, like the Sinn Fein. 'For ourselves alone.'" + +While Nan was preparing for that hurried ceremony, Donald strolled +about the little yard, looking over the neglected garden and marking +for future attention various matters such as a broken hinge on the +gate, some palings off the fence and the crying necessity for paint on +the little white house, for he was striving mightily to shut out all +thought of his past life and concentrate on matters that had to do +with the future. Presently he wandered out on the bulkhead. The great +white gulls which spent their leisure hours gravely contemplating the +Bight of Tyee from the decaying piling, rose lazily at his approach +and with hoarse cries of resentment flapped out to sea; his dull +glance followed them and rested on a familiar sight. + +Through the Bight of Tyee his father's barkentine Kohala was coming +home from Honolulu, ramping in before a twenty mile breeze with every +shred of canvas drawing. She was heeled over to starboard a little and +there was a pretty little bone in her teeth; the colors streamed from +her mizzen rigging while from her foretruck the house-flag flew. Idly +Donald watched her until she was abreast and below The Dreamerie and +her house-flag dipped in salute to the master watching from the cliff; +instantly the young Laird of Tyee saw a woolly puff of smoke break +from the terrace below the house and several seconds later the dull +boom of the signal gun. His heart was constricted. "Ah, never for me!" +he murmured, "never for me--until he tells them to look toward the +Sawdust Pile for the master!" + +He strode out to the gate where his father's chauffeur waited with the +limousine. "Take the car home," he ordered, "and as you pass through +town stop in at the Central Garage and tell them to send a closed car +over to me here." + +The chauffeur looked at him with surprise but obeyed at once. By the +time the hired car had arrived Nan and her child were ready, and just +before locking the house Nan, realizing that they would not return to +the Sawdust Pile until long after nightfall, hauled in the flag that +floated over the little cupola; and for the second time, old Hector, +watching up on the cliff, viewed this infallible portent of an event +out of the ordinary. His hand trembled as he held his marine glasses +to his blurred eyes and focussed on The Sawdust Pile, in time to see +his son enter the limousine with Nan Brent and her child--and even at +that distance he could see that the car in which they were departing +from the Sawdust Pile was not the one in which Donald had left The +Dreamerie. From that fact alone The Laird deduced that his son had +made his choice; and because Donald was his father's son, imbued with +the same fierce high pride and love of independence, he declined to be +under obligation to his people even for the service of an automobile +upon his wedding day. + +The Laird stood watching the car until it was out of sight; then he +sighed very deeply, entered the house and rang for the butler. + +"Tell Mrs. McKaye and the young ladies that I would thank them to come +here at once," he ordered calmly. + +They came precipitately, vaguely apprehensive. "My dears," he said in +an unnaturally subdued voice, "Donald has just left the Sawdust Pile +with the Brent lass to be married. He has made his bed and it is my +wish that he shall lie in it." + +"Oh, Hector!" Mrs. McKaye had spoken quaveringly. "Oh, Hector, dear, +do not be hard on him!" + +He raised his great arm as if to silence further argument. "He has +brought disgrace upon my house. He is no longer son of mine and we are +discussing him for the last time. Hear me, now. There will be no +further mention of Donald in my presence and I forbid you, Nellie, +you, Elizabeth and you, Jane, to have aught to do wie him, directly or +indirectly." + +Mrs. McKaye sat down abruptly and commenced to weep and wail her woe +aloud, while Jane sought vainly to comfort her. Elizabeth bore the +news with extreme fortitude; with unexpected tact she took her father +by the arm and steered him outside and along the terrace walk where +the agonized sobs and moans of her mother could not be heard--for what +Elizabeth feared in that first great moment of remorse was a torrent +of self-accusation from her mother. If, as her father had stated, +Donald was en route to be married, then the mischief was done and no +good could come out of a confession to The Laird of the manner in +which the family honor had been compromised, not by Donald, but by his +mother, aided and abetted by his sisters! The Laird, now quite dumb +with distress, walked in silence with his eldest daughter, vaguely +conscious of the comfort of her company and sympathy in his hour of +trial. + +When Elizabeth could catch Jane's attention through the window she +cautiously placed her finger on her lip and frowned a warning. Jane +nodded her comprehension and promptly bore her mother off to bed where +she gave the poor soul some salutary advice and left her to the meager +comfort of solitude and smelling salts. + + * * * * * + +Just before he retired that night, The Laird saw a light shine +suddenly forth from the Sawdust Pile. So he knew his son had selected +a home for his bride, and rage and bitterness mingled with his grief +and mangled pride to such an extent that he called upon God to take +him out of a world that had crumbled about his hoary head. He shook +his fist at the little light that blinked so far below him and Mrs. +McKaye, who had crept down stairs with a half-formed notion of +confessing to The Laird in the hope of mitigating her son's +offense--of, mother-like, taking upon her shoulders an equal burden of +the blame--caught a glimpse of old Hector's face, and her courage +failed her. Thoroughly frightened she returned noiselessly to her room +and wept, dry-eyed, for the fountain of her tears had long since been +exhausted. + +Meanwhile, down at the Sawdust Pile, Nan was putting her drowsy son to +bed; in the little living-room her husband had lighted the driftwood +fire and had drawn the old divan up to the blue flames. He was sitting +with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, outlining +plans for their future, when Nan, having put her child to bed, came +and sat down beside him. He glanced at her with troubled eyes and +grinned a trifle foolishly. + +"Happy?" he queried. + +She nodded. "In a limited fashion only, dear heart. I'm thinking how +wonderfully courageous you have been to marry me and how tremendously +grateful I shall always be for your love and faith." She captured his +right hand and fondled it for a moment in both of hers, smiling a +little thoughtfully the while as if at some dear little secret. "Port +Agnew will think I married you for money," she resumed presently; +"your mother and sisters will think I married you to spite them and +your father will think I married you because you insisted and because +I was storm-tossed and had to find a haven from the world. But the +real reason is that I love you and know that some day I am going to +see more happiness in your eyes than I can see to-night." + +Again, in that impulsive way she had, she bent and kissed his hand. +"Dear King Cophetua," she murmured, "your beggar maid will never be +done with adoring you." She looked up at him with a sweet and lovely +wistfulness shining in her sea-blue eyes. "And the sweetest thing +about it, you angelic simpleton," she added, "is that you will never, +never, never know why." + + + + +XLI + + +The first hint of the tremendous events impending came to Mr. Daney +through the medium of no less an informant than his wife. Upon +returning from the mill office on the evening of Donald McKaye's +marriage, Mr. Daney was met at his front door by Mrs. Daney who cried +triumphantly: + +"Well, what did I tell you about Donald McKaye?" + +Mr. Daney twitched inwardly, but answered composedly. "Not one-tenth +of one per cent, of what I have discovered without your valuable +assistance my dear." + +She wrinkled the end of her nose disdainfully. "He's gone motoring +with Nan Brent in a hired car, and they took the baby with them. They +passed through town about half past two this afternoon and they +haven't returned yet." + +"How do you know all this?" he demanded coolly. + +"I saw them as they passed by on the road below; I recognized that +rent limousine of the Central Garage with Ben Nicholson driving it, +and a few moments ago I telephoned the Central Garage and asked for +Ben. He hasn't returned yet--and it's been dark for half an hour." + +"Hum-m-m! What do you suspect, my dear?" + +"The worst," she replied dramatically. + +"What a wonderful fall day this has been," he remarked blandly as he +hung up his hat. She turned upon him a glance of fury; he met it with +one so calm and impersonal that the good lady quite lost control of +herself. "Why do you withhold your confidence from me?" she cried +sharply. + +"Because you wouldn't respect it, my dear; also, because I'm paid to +keep the McKaye secrets and you're not." + +"Is he going to marry her, Andrew? Answer me," she demanded. + +"Unfortunately for you, Mrs. Daney, the young gentleman hasn't taken +me into his confidence. Neither has the young lady. Of course I +entertain an opinion, on the subject, but since I am not given to +discussing the intimate personal affairs of other people, you'll +excuse my reticence on this subject, I'm sure. I repeat that this has +been a wonderful fall day." + +She burst into tears of futile rage and went to her room. Mr. Daney +partook of his dinner in solitary state and immediately after dinner +strolled down town and loitered around the entrance to the Central +Garage until he saw Ben Nicholson drive in about ten o'clock. + +"Hello, Ben," he hailed the driver as Ben descended from his seat. "I +hear you've been pulling off a wedding." + +Ben Nicholson lowered his voice and spoke out the corner of his mouth. +"What do you know about the young Laird, eh, Mr. Daney? Say I could +'a' cried to see him throwin' himself away on that Jane." + +Mr. Daney shrugged. "Oh, well, boys will be boys," he declared. "The +bigger they are the harder they fall. Of course, Ben, you understand +I'm not in position to say anything, one way or the other," he added +parenthetically, and Ben Nicholson nodded comprehension. Thereupon +Mr. Daney sauntered over to the cigar stand in the hotel, loaded his +cigar case and went down to his office, where he sat until midnight, +smoking and thinking. The sole result of his cogitations, however, he +summed up in a remark he directed at the cuspidor just before he went +home: + +"Well, there's blood on the moon and hell will pop in the morning." + +For the small part he had played in bringing Nan Brent back to Port +Agnew, the general manager fully expected to be dismissed from the +McKaye service within thirty seconds after old Hector should reach the +mill office; hence with the heroism born of twelve hours of +preparation he was at his desk at eight o'clock next morning. At nine +o'clock The Laird came in and Mr. Daney saw by his face instantly that +old Hector knew. The general manager rose at his desk and bowed with +great dignity. + +"Moritori salutamus, sir," he announced gravely. + +"What the devil are you talking about, Daney?" The Laird demanded +irritably. + +"That's what the gladiators used to say to the Roman populace. It +means, I believe, 'We who are about to die, salute you.' Here is my +resignation, Mr. McKaye." + +"Don't be an ass, Andrew," The Laird commanded and threw the proffered +resignation into the waste basket. "Why should you resign?" + +"To spare the trouble of discharging me, sir." + +"What for?" + +"Bringing the Brent girl back to Port Agnew. If I hadn't gotten her +address from Dirty Dan I would never have suggested to--" + +"Enough. We will not discuss what might have been, Andrew. The boy +has married her, and since the blow has fallen nothing that preceded +it is of the slightest importance. What I have called to say to you is +this: Donald McKaye is no longer connected with the Tyee Lumber +Company." + +"Oh, come, come, sir," Daney pleaded. "The mischief is done. You'll +have to forgive the boy and make the best of a bad business. What +can't be cured must be endured, you know." + +"Not necessarily. And you might spare me your platitude, Andrew," The +Laird replied savagely. "I'm done with the lad forever, for son of +mine he is no longer. Andrew, do you remember the time he bought that +red cedar stumpage up on the Wiskah and unloaded it on me at a profit +of two hundred thousand dollars?" + +Mr. Daney nodded. "And you, in turn, sold it at a profit of fifty +thousand," he reminded the irate old man. + +"Donald did not retain that profit he made at my expense. 'Twas just a +joke with him. He put the money into bonds and sent them to you with +instructions to place them in my vault for my account." Mr. Daney +nodded and The Laird resumed. "Take those bonds to the Sawdust Pile, +together with a check for all the interest collected on the coupons +since they came into my possession, and tell him from me that I'll +take it kindly of him to leave Port Agnew and make a start for himself +elsewhere as quickly as he can. He owes it to his family not to +affront it by his presence in Port Agnew, giving ground for gossip and +scandal and piling needless sorrow upon us. And when the Sawdust Pile +is again vacant you will remove the Brent house and put in the drying +yard you've planned this many a year." + +"Very well, sir. It's not a task to my liking, but--" His pause was +eloquent. + +"Have my old desk put in order for me. I'm back in the harness and +back to stay, and at that I'm not so certain it isn't the best thing +for me, under the present circumstances. I dare say," he added, with a +sudden change of tone, "the news is all over Port Agnew this morning." + +Mr. Daney nodded. + +"You will procure Donald's resignation as President and have him +endorse the stock I gave him in order to qualify as a director of the +company. We'll hold a directors' meeting this afternoon and I'll step +back into the presidency." + +"Very well, sir." + +"You will cause a notice to be prepared for my signature, to be spread +on the bulletin board in each department, to the effect that Donald +McKaye is no longer connected in any way with the Tyee Lumber +Company." + +"Damn it, man," Daney roared wrathfully, "have you no pride? Why wash +your dirty linen in public?" + +"You are forgetting yourself, my good Andrew. If you do not wish to +obey my orders I shall have little difficulty inducing your assistant +to carry out my wishes, I'm thinking." The Laird's voice was calm +enough; apparently he had himself under perfect control, but--the +Blue-Bonnets-coming-over-the-Border look was in his fierce gray eyes; +under his bushy iron-gray brows they burned like campfires in twin +caverns at night. His arms, bowed belligerently, hung tense at his +side, his great hands opened and closed, a little to the fore; he +licked his lips and in the brief silence that followed ere Mr. Daney +got up and started fumbling with the combination to the great vault in +the corner, old Hector's breath came in short snorts. He turned and, +still in the same attitude, watched Daney while the latter twirled and +fumbled and twirled. Poor man! He knew The Laird's baleful glance was +boring into his back and for the life of him he could not remember the +combination he had used for thirty years. + +Suddenly he abandoned all pretense and turned savagely on The Laird. + +"Get out of my office," he yelled. "I work for you, Hector McKaye, but +I give you value received and in this office I'm king and be damned to +you." His voice rose to a shrill, childish treble that presaged tears +of rage. "You'll be sorry for this, you hard-hearted man. Please God +I'll live to see the day your dirty Scotch pride will be humbled and +you'll go to that wonderful boy and his wife and plead for +forgiveness. Why, you poor, pitiful, pusillanimous old pachyderm, if +the boy has dishonored you he has honored himself. He's a gallant +young gentleman, that's what he is. He has more guts than a bear. He's +_married_ the girl, damn you--and that's more than you would have done +at his age. Ah, don't talk to me! We were young together and I know +the game you played forty years ago with the girl at the Rat +Portage--yes, you--you with your youth and your hot passions--turning +your big proud back on your peculiar personal god to wallow in sin and +enjoy it." + +"But I--I was a single man then," The Laird sputtered, almost +inarticulate with fury and astonishment. + +"He was a single man yesterday but he's a married man to-day. And she +loves him. She adores him. You can see it in her eyes when his name is +mentioned. And she had no _reason_ to behave herself, had she? She has +behaved herself for three long years, but did she win anybody's +approbation for doing it? I'm telling you a masterful man like him +might have had her without the wedding ring, for love's sake, if he'd +cared to play a waiting game and stack the cards on her. After all, +she's human." + +Suddenly he commenced to weep with fury, the tears cascading into his +whiskers making him look singularly ridiculous in comparison with the +expression on his face, which was anything but grievous. "Marriage! +Marriage!" he croaked. "I know what it is. I married a fat-head--and +so did my wife. We've never known romance; never had anything but a +quiet, well-ordered existence. I've dwelt in repression; never got out +of life a single one of those thrills that comes of doing something +daring and original and nasty. Never had an adventure; never had a +woman look at me like I was a god; married at twenty and never knew +the Grand Passion." He threw up his arms. "Oh-h-h, God-d-d! If I could +only be young again I'd be a devil! Praise be, I know one man with +guts enough to tell 'em all to go to hell." + +With a peculiar little moving cry he started for the door. + +"Andrew," The Laird cried anxiously. "Where are you going?" + +"None of your infernal business," the rebel shrilled, "but if you must +know, I'm going down to the Sawdust Pile to kiss the bride and shake +a man's hand and wish him well. After I've done that I'll deliver your +message. Mark me, he'll never take those bonds." + +"Of course he will, you old fool. They belong to him." + +"But he refused to make a profit at the expense of his own father. He +gave them to you and he's not an Indian giver." + +"Andrew, I have never known you to act in such a peculiar manner. Are +you crazy? Of course he'll take them. He'll have to take them in order +to get out of Port Agnew. I doubt if he has a dollar in the world." + +Mr. Daney beat his chest gorilla fashion. "He doesn't need a dollar. +Boy and man, I've loved that--ahem! son of yours. Why, he always _did_ +have guts. Keep your filthy money. The boy's credit is good with me. +I'm no pauper, even I if do work for you. I work for fun. Understand. +Or do you, Hector McKaye?" + +"If you dare to loan my son as much as a thin dime I'll fire you out +of hand." + +Mr. Daney jeered. "How?" he demanded very distinctly, and yet with a +queer, unusual blending of the sentence with a single word, as if the +very force of his breath had telescoped every syllable, "would you +like to stand off in that corner there and take a long runnin' jump at +yourself, proud father?" + +"Out of this office! You're fired." + +Mr. Daney dashed the tears from his whiskers and blew his nose. Then +he pulled himself together with dignity and bowed so low he lost his +center of gravity and teetered a little on his toes before recovering +his balance. "Fired is GOOD," he declared. "Where do you get that +stuff, eh? My dear old Furiosity, ain't my resignation in the +waste-basket? Good-by, good luck and may the good Lord give you the +sense God gives geese. I'm a better man than you are, Gunga Din." + +The door banged open. Then it banged shut and The Laird was alone. The +incident was closed. The impossible had come to pass. For the strain +had been too great, and at nine o'clock on a working day morning, +steady, reliable, dependable, automatic Andrew Daney having imbibed +Dutch courage in lieu of Nature's own brand, was, for the first time +in his life, jingled to an extent comparable to that of a boiled owl. + +Mr. Daney's assistant thrust his head in the door, to disturb The +Laird's cogitations. "The knee-bolters went out at the shingle mill +this morning, sir," he announced. "They want a six and a half hour day +and a fifty per cent. increase in wages, with a whole holiday on +Saturday. There's a big Russian red down there exhorting them." + +"Send Dirty Dan to me. Quick!" + +A telephonic summons to the loading shed brought Daniel P. O'Leary on +the run. "Come with me, Dan," The Laird commanded, and started for the +shingle mill. On the way down he stopped at the warehouse and selected +a new double-bitted ax which he handed to Dirty Dan. Mr. O'Leary +received the weapon in silence and trotted along at The Laird's heels +like a faithful dog, until, upon arrival at the shingle mill the +astute Hibernian took in the situation at a glance. + +"Sure, 'tis no compliment you've paid me, sor, thinkin' I'll be afther +needin' an ax to take that fella's measure," he protested. + +"Your job is to keep those other animals off me while _I_ take his +measure," The Laird corrected him. + +Without an instant's hesitation Dirty Dan swung his ax and charged the +crowd. "Gower that, ye vagabones," he screeched. As he passed the +Russian he seized the latter by the collar, swung him and threw him +bodily toward old Hector, who received him greedily and drew him to +his heart. The terrible O'Leary then stood over the battling pair, his +ax poised, the while he hurled insult and anathema at the +knee-bolters. A very large percentage of knee-bolters and shingle +weavers are members of the I.W.W. and knowing this, Mr. O'Leary begged +in dulcet tones, to be informed why in this and that nobody seemed +willing to lift a hand to rescue the Little Comrade. He appeared to be +keenly disappointed because nobody tried, albeit other axes were quite +plentiful thereabouts. + +Presently The Laird got up and dusted the splinters and sawdust from +his clothing; the Red, battered terribly, lay weltering in his blood. +"I feel better now," said The Laird. "This is just what I needed this +morning to bring me out of myself. Help yourself, Dan," and he made a +dive at the nearest striker, who fled, followed by his fellow-strikers, +all hotly pursued by The Laird and the demon Daniel. + +The Laird returned, puffing slightly, to his office and once more sat +in at his own desk. As he remarked to Dirty Dan, he felt better now. +All his resentment against Daney had fled but his resolution to pursue +his contemplated course with reference to his son and the latter's +wife had become firmer than ever. In some ways The Laird was a +terrible old man. + + + + +XLII + + +Nan was not at all surprised when, upon responding to a peremptory +knock at her front door she discovered Andrew Daney standing without. +The general manager, after his stormy interview with The Laird had +spent two hours in the sunny lee of a lumber pile, waiting for the +alcoholic fogs to lift from his brain, for he had had sense enough +left to realize that all was not well with him; he desired to have his +tongue in order when he should meet the bride and groom. + +"Good morning, Mr. Daney," Nan greeted him. "Do come in." + +"Good morning, Mrs. McKaye. Thank you. I shall with pleasure." + +He followed her down the little hallway to the living room where +Donald sat with his great thin legs stretched out toward the fire. + +"Don't rise, boy, don't rise," Mr. Daney protested. "I merely called +to kiss the bride and shake your hand, my boy. The visit is entirely +friendly and unofficial." + +"Mr. Daney, you're a dear," Nan cried, and presented her fair cheek +for the tribute he claimed. + +"Shake hands with a rebel, boy," Mr. Daney cried heartily to Donald. +"God bless you and may you always be happier than you are this +minute." + +Donald wrung the Daney digits with a heartiness he would not have +thought possible a month before. + +"I've quarreled with your father, Donald," he announced, seating +himself. "Over you--and you," he added, nodding brightly at both young +people. "He thinks he's fired me." He paused, glanced around, coughed +a couple of times and came out with it. "Well, what are you going to +do now to put tobacco in your old tobacco box, Donald?" + +Donald smiled sadly. "Oh, Nan still has a few dollars left from that +motor-boat swindle you perpetrated, Mr. Daney. She'll take care of me +for a couple of weeks until I'm myself again; then, if my father still +proves recalcitrant and declines to have me connected with the Tyee +Lumber Company, I'll manage to make a living for Nan and the boy +somewhere else." + +Briefly Mr. Daney outlined The Laird's expressed course of action with +regard to his son. + +"He means it," Donald assured the general manager. "He never bluffs. +He gave me plenty of warning and his decision has not been arrived at +in a hurry. He's through with me." + +"I fear he is, my boy. Er-ah-ahem! Harumph-h-h! Do you remember those +bonds you sent me from New York once--the proceeds of your deal in +that Wiskah river cedar?" + +"Yes." + +"Your father desires that you accept the entire two hundred thousand +dollars worth and accrued interest." + +"Why?" + +"Well, I suppose he thinks they'll come in handy when you leave Port +Agnew." + +"Well, I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, Andrew." + +"Your father instructed me to say to you that he would take it kindly +of you to do so--for obvious reasons." + +"I appreciate his point of view, but since he has kicked me out he +has no claim on my sympathies--at least not to the extent of forcing +his point of view and causing me to abandon my own. Please say to my +father that since I cannot have his forgiveness I do not want his +bonds or his money. Tell him also, please, that I'm not going to leave +Port Agnew, because that would predicate a sense of guilt on my part +and lend some support to the popular assumption that my wife is not a +virtuous woman. I could not possibly oblige my father on this point +because to do so would be a violent discourtesy to my wife. I am not +ashamed of her, you know." + +Mr. Daney gnawed his thumb nail furiously. "'The wicked flee when no +man pursueth'," he quoted. "However, Mr. Donald, you know as well as I +do that if your father should forbid it, a dicky bird couldn't make a +living in this town." + +"There are no such restrictions in Darrow, Mr. Daney. The +superintendent up there will give me a job on the river." + +Mr. Daney could not forbear an expression of horror. "Hector McKaye's +son a river hog!" he cried incredulously. + +"Well, Donald McKaye's father was a river hog, wasn't he?" + +"Oh, but times have changed since Hector was a pup, my boy. Why, this +is dreadful." + +"No, Mr. Daney. Merely unusual." + +"Well, Donald, I think your father will raise the ante considerably in +order to avoid that added disgrace and force you to listen to reason." + +"If he does, sir, please spare yourself the trouble of bearing his +message. Neither Nan nor I is for sale, sir." + +"I told him you'd decline the bonds. However, Mr. Donald, there is no +reason in life why you shouldn't get money from me whenever you want +it. Thanks to your father I'm worth more than a hundred thousand +myself, although you'd never guess it. Your credit is A-1 with me." + +"I shall be your debtor for life because of that speech, Mr. Daney. +Any news from my mother and the girls?" + +"None." + +"Well, I'll stand by for results," Donald assured him gravely. + +"Do not expect any." + +"I don't." + +Mr. Daney fidgeted and finally said he guessed he'd better be trotting +along, and Donald and Nan, realizing it would be no kindness to him to +be polite and assure him there was no need of hurry, permitted him to +depart forthwith. + +"I think, sweetheart," Donald announced with a pained little smile, as +he returned from seeing Mr. Daney to the front gate, "that it wouldn't +be a half bad idea for you to sit in at that old piano and play and +sing for me. I think I'd like something light and lilting. What's that +Kipling thing that's been set to music?" + + So we went strolling, + Down by the rolling, down by the rolling sea. + You may keep your croak for other folk + But you can't frighten me! + +He lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out on the old divan. +She watched him blowing smoke rings at the ceiling--and there was no +music in her soul. + +In the afternoon the McKaye limousine drew up at the front gate and +Nan's heart fluttered violently in contemplation of a visit from her +husband's mother and sisters. She need not have worried, however. The +interior of the car was unoccupied save for Donald's clothing and +personal effects which some thoughtful person at The Dreamerie had +sent down to him. He hazarded a guess that the cool and practical +Elizabeth had realized his needs. + + + + +XLIII + + +Returning to the mill office, Mr. Daney sat at his desk and started to +look over the mail. The Laird heard his desk buzzer sounding +frequently and rightly conjecturing that his general manager was back +on the job, he came into the latter's office and glared at him. + +"I thought I fired you?" he growled. + +"I know. You thought you did," the rebel replied complacently. "I see +by your knuckles you've been fighting. Hope it did you good." + +"It did. Are you going to leave this office?" + +"No, sir." + +"I didn't think you would. Well, well! Out with it." + +Mr. Daney drew a deal of pleasure from that invitation. "The boy +directs me to inform you, sir, that he will not accept the bonds nor +any monies you may desire to give him. He says he doesn't need them +because he isn't going to leave Port Agnew." + +"Nonsense, Andrew. He cannot remain in this town. He hasn't the +courage to face his little world after marrying that girl. And he has +to make a living for her." + +"We shall see that which we shall see," Mr. Daney replied +enigmatically. + +"I wonder if it is possible he is trying to outgame me," old Hector +mused aloud. "Andrew, go back and tell him that if he will go to +California to live I will deed him that Lassen county sugar and white +pine and build him the finest mill in the state." + +"The terms are quite impossible," Daney retorted and explained why. + +"He shall get out of Port Agnew," The Laird threatened. "He shall get +out or starve." + +"You are forgetting something, sir." + +"Forgetting what?" + +"That I have more than a hundred thousand dollars in bonds right in +that vault and that I have not as yet developed paralysis of the right +hand. The boy shall not starve and neither shall he crawl, like a +beaten dog currying favor with the one that has struck him." + +"I am the one who has been struck--and he has wounded me sorely," The +Laird cried, his voice cracked with anger. + +"The mischief is done. What's the use of crying over spilled milk? +You're going to forgive the boy sooner or later, so do it now and be +graceful about it." + +"I'll never forgive him, Andrew." + +Mr. Daney walled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Thank God," he murmured +piously, "I'm pure. Hereafter, every time Reverend Mr. Tingley says +the Lord's prayer I'm going to cough out loud in church at the line: +'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against +us.' You'll hear that cough and remember, Hector McKaye." + +A deeper shadow of distress settled over The Laird's stern features. +"You're uncommon mean to me this bitter day, Andrew," he complained +wearily. "I take it as most unkind of you to thwart my wishes like +this." + +"I'm for true love!" Mr. Daney declared firmly. "Ah come, come now! +Don't be a stiff-necked old dodo. Forgive the boy." + +"In time I may forgive him, Andrew. I'm not sure of myself where he is +concerned, but we canna receive the girl. 'Tis not in reason that we +should." + +"I believe I'll cough twice," Daney murmured musingly. + +And the following day being Sunday, he did! He sat two rows behind the +McKaye family pew but across the aisle, and in a cold fury The Laird +turned to squelch him with a look. What he saw in the Daney pew, +however, chilled his fury and threw him into a veritable panic of +embarrassment. For to the right of the incomprehensible general +manager sat the young ex-laird of Port Agnew; at Daney's left the old +Laird beheld his new daughter-in-law, while further down the pew as +far as she could retreat, Mrs. Daney, with face aflame, sat rigid, her +bovine countenance upraised and her somewhat vacuous glance fixed +unblinkingly at a point some forty feet over Mr. Tingley's pious head. +Donald intercepted the old man's amazed and troubled glance, and +smiled at his father with his eyes--an affectionate overture that was +not lost on The Laird ere he jerked his head and eyes once more to the +front. + +Mrs. McKaye and her two daughters were as yet unaware of the horror +that impended. But not for long. When the congregation stood to sing +the final hymn, Nan's wondrous mezzo-soprano rose clear and sweet over +the indifferent-toned notes of every other woman present; to the most +dull it would have been obvious that there was a trained singer +present, and Mrs. McKaye and her daughters each cast a covert glance +in the direction of the voice. However, since every other woman in the +church was gazing at Nan, nobody observed the effect of her presence +upon the senior branch of the McKaye family, for which small blessing +the family in question was duly grateful. + +At the conclusion of the service old Hector remained in his pew until +the majority of the congregation had filed out; then, assuring himself +by a quick glance, that his son and the latter's wife had preceded +him, he followed with Mrs. McKaye and the girls. From the church steps +he observed Donald and Nan walking home, while Mr. Daney and his +outraged spouse followed some twenty feet behind them. Quickly The +Laird and his family entered the waiting limousine; it was the first +occasion that anybody could remember when he had not lingered to shake +hands with Mr. Tingley and, perchance, congratulate him on the +excellence of his sermon. + +They were half way up the cliff road before anybody spoke. Then, with +a long preliminary sigh, The Laird voiced the thought that obsessed +them all. + +"That damned mutton-head, Daney. I'd run him out of the Tyee employ if +it would do a bit of good. I cannot run him out of town or out of +church." + +"The imbecile!" Elizabeth raged. Jane was dumb with shame and rage and +Mrs. McKaye was sniffling a little. Presently she said: + +"How dare he bring her right into church with him," she cried +brokenly. "Right before everybody. Oh, dear, oh dear, is my son +totally lacking in a sense of decency? This is terrible, terrible." + +"I shall not risk such another awful Sunday morning," Elizabeth +announced. + +"Nor I," Jane cried with equal fervor. + +"We shall have to leave Port Agnew now," Mrs, McKaye sobbed. + +Old Hector patted her hand. "Yes, I think you'll have to, Nellie. +Unfortunately, I cannot go with you. Daney doesn't appear to be quite +sane of late and with Donald out of the business I'm chained to a desk +for the remainder of my life. I fear, however," he added savagely, "I +do not intend to let that woman run me out of my own church. Not by a +damned sight!" + +The instant they entered the house, rightly conjecturing that the +Daneys had also reached their home, Mrs. McKaye went to the telephone +and proceeded to inform Mr. Daney of the opinion which the McKaye +family, jointly and severally, entertained for his idea of comedy. +Daney listened respectfully to all she had to say touching his sanity, +his intelligence, his sense of decency, and his loyalty to Hector and +when, stung because he made no defense, she asked: "Have you no +explanation to make us for your extraordinary behavior?" he replied: + +"I am an usher of our church, Mrs. McKaye. When Donald and his wife +entered the church the only vacant seats in it were in my pew; the +only person in the church who would not have felt a sense of outrage +at having your daughter-in-law seated with his or her family, was my +self-sacrificing self. I could not be discourteous to Donald and I'm +quite certain his wife has as much right in our church as you have. So +I shooed them both up to my pew, to the great distress of Mrs. Daney." + +"You should be ashamed of yourself, Andrew. You should!" + +"I'm not ashamed of myself, Mrs. McKaye. I've been a pussy-foot all +my life. I had to do something I knew would detract from my +popularity, but since I had to do it I decided to do it promptly and +as if I enjoyed it. Surely you would not have commended me had I met +the young couple at the door and said to them: 'Get out of this +church. It is not for such as you. However, if you insist upon +staying, you'll have to stand up or else sit down on the floor. Nobody +here wants to sit with you. They're afraid, too, they'll offend the +Chief Pooh-bah of this town'." + +"You could have pretended you did not see them." + +"My dear Mrs. McKaye," Daney retorted in even tones, "do you wish me +to inform your husband of a certain long distance telephone +conversation? If so--" + +She hung up without waiting to say good-by, and the following day she +left for Seattle, accompanied by her daughters. + +Throughout the week The Laird forbore mentioning his son's name to Mr. +Daney; indeed, he refrained from addressing the latter at all unless +absolutely necessary to speak to him directly--wherefore Daney knew +himself to be blacklisted. On the following Sunday The Laird sat alone +in the family pew and Mr. Daney did not cough during the recital of +the Lord's prayer, so old Hector managed to conquer a tremendous +yearning to glance around for the reason. Also, as on the previous +Sunday, he was in no hurry to leave his pew at the conclusion of the +service, yet, to his profound irritation, when he did leave it and +start down the central aisle of the church, he looked squarely into +the faces of Donald and Nan as they emerged from the Daney pew. Mrs. +Daney was conspicuous by her absence. Nan's baby boy had fallen asleep +during the service and Donald was carrying the cherub. + +Old Hector's face went white; he gulped when his son spoke to him. + +"Hello, Dad. You looked lonely all by yourself in that big pew. +Suppose we come up and sit with you next Sunday?" + +Old Hector paused and bent upon his son and Nan a terrible look. +"Never speak to me again so long as you live," he replied in a low +voice, and passed out of the church. + +Donald gazed after his broad erect figure and shook his head +dolefully, as Mr. Daney fell into step beside him. "I told you so," he +whispered. + +"Isn't it awful to be Scotch?" Nan inquired. + +"It is awful--on the Scotch," her husband assured her. "The dear old +fraud gulped like a broken-hearted boy when I spoke to him. He'd +rather be wrong than president." + +As they were walking home to the Sawdust Pile, Nan captured one of her +husband's great fingers and swung it childishly. "I wish you didn't +insist upon our going to church, sweetheart," she complained. "We're +spoiling your father's Christianity." + +"Can't help it," he replied doggedly. "We're going to be thoroughbreds +about this, no matter how much it hurts." + +She sighed. "And you're only half Scotch, Donald." + + + + +XLIV + + +By noon of the following day, Port Agnew was astounded by news brought +by the crew of one of the light draft launches used to tow log rafts +down the river. Donald McKaye was working for Darrow. He was their +raftsman; he had been seen out on the log boom, pike pole in hand, +shoving logs in to the endless chain elevator that drew them up to the +seas. As might be imagined, Mrs. Daney was among the first to glean +this information, and to her husband she repeated it at luncheon with +every evidence of pleasure. + +"Tut, tut, woman," he replied carelessly, "this is no news to me. He +told me yesterday after service that he had the job." + +The familiar wrinkle appeared for an instant on the end of her nose +before she continued: "I wonder what The Laird thinks of that, +Andrew?" + +"So do I," he parried skilfully. + +"Does he know it?" + +"There isn't a soul in Port Agnew with sufficient courage to tell +him." + +"Why do you not tell him?" + +"None of my business. Besides, I do not hanker to see people squirm +with suffering." + +She wrinkled her nose once more and was silent. + +As Mr. Daney had declared, there was none in Port Agnew possessed of +sufficient hardihood to inform the Laird of his son's lowly status and +it was three weeks before he discovered it for himself. He had gone +up the river to one of his logging camps and the humor had seized him +to make the trip in a fast little motor-boat he had given Donald at +Christmas many years' before. He was busy adjusting the carburetor, +after months of disuse, as he passed the Darrow log boom in the +morning, so he failed to see his big son leaping across the logs, +balancing himself skilfully with the pike pole. + +It was rather late when he started home and in the knowledge that +darkness might find him well up the river he hurried. + +Now, from the Bight of Tyee to a point some five miles above Darrow, +the Skookum flows in almost a straight line; the few bends are wide +and gradual, and when The Laird came to this home-stretch he urged the +boat to its maximum speed of twenty-eight miles per hour. Many a time +in happier days he had raced down this long stretch with Donald at the +helm, and he knew the river thoroughly; as he sped along he steered +mechanically, his mind occupied in a consideration of the dishonor +that had come upon his clan. + +The sun had already set as he came roaring down a wide deep stretch +near Darrow's mill; in his preoccupation he forgot that his +competitor's log boom stretched across the river fully two-thirds of +its width; that he should throttle down, swerve well to starboard and +avoid the field of stored logs. The deep shadows cast by the sucker +growth and old snags along the bank blended with the dark surface of +the log boom and prevented him from observing that he was headed for +the heart of it; the first intimation he had of his danger came to +him in a warning shout from the left bank--a shout that rose above the +roar of the exhaust. + +"Jump! Overboard! Quickly! The log boom!" + +Old Hector awoke from his bitter reverie. He, who had once been a +river hog, had no need to be told of the danger incident to abrupt +precipitation into the heart of that log boom, particularly when it +would presently be gently agitated by the long high "bone" the racing +boat carried in her teeth. When logs weighing twenty tons come gently +together--even when they barely rub against each other, nothing living +caught between them may survive. + +The unknown who warned him was right. He must jump overboard and take +his chance in the river, for it was too late now to slow down and put +his motor in reverse. In the impending crash that was only a matter of +seconds, The Laird would undoubtedly catapult from the stern sheets +into the water--and if he should drift in under the logs, knew the +river would eventually give up his body somewhere out in the Bight of +Tyee. On the other hand, should he be thrown out on the boom he would +stand an equal chance of being seriously injured by the impact or +crushed to death when his helpless body should fall between the logs. +In any event the boat would be telescoped down to the cockpit and sink +at the edge of the log field. + +He was wearing a heavy overcoat, for it was late in the fall, and he +had no time to remove it; not even time to stand up and dive clear. So +he merely hurled his big body against the starboard gunwale and +toppled overboard--and thirty feet further on the boat struck with a +crash that echoed up and down the river, telescoped and drove under +the log boom. It was not in right when old Hector rose puffing to the +surface and bellowed for help before starting to swim for the log +boom. + +The voice answered him instantly: "Coming! Hold On!" + +Handicapped as he was with his overcoat, old Hector found it a +prodigious task to reach the boom; as he clung to the boom-stick he +could make out the figure of a man with a pike pole coming toward him +in long leaps across the logs. And then old Hector noticed something +else. + +He had swum to the outer edge of the log boom and grasped the light +boom-stick, dozens of which, chained end to end, formed the floating +enclosure in which the log supply was stored. The moment he rested his +weight on this boom-stick, however, one end of it submerged +suddenly--wherefore The Laird knew that the impact of the motor-boat +had broken a link of the boom and that this broken end was now +sweeping outward and downward, with the current releasing the millions +of feet of stored logs. Within a few minutes, provided he should keep +afloat, he would be in the midst of these tremendous Juggernauts, for, +clinging to the end of the broken boom he was gradually describing a +circle on the outside of the log field, swinging from beyond the +middle of the river in to the left-hand bank; presently, when the boom +should have drifted its maximum distance he would be hung up +stationary in deep water while the released logs bore down upon him +with the current and gently shoulder him into eternity. + +He clawed his way along the submerging boom-stick to its other end, +where it was linked with its neighbor, and the combined buoyancy of +both boom-sticks was sufficient to float him. + +"Careful," he called to the man leaping over the log-field toward +him. "The boom is broken! Careful, I tell you! The logs are moving +out--they're slipping apart. Be careful." + +Even as he spoke, The Laird realized that the approaching rescuer +would not heed him. He _had_ to make speed out to the edge of the +moving logs; if he was to rescue the man clinging to the boom-sticks +he must take a chance on those long leaps through the dusk; he _must_ +reach The Laird before too much open water developed between the +moving logs. + +Only a trained river man could have won to him in such a brief space +of time; only an athlete could have made the last flying leap across +six feet of dark water to a four-foot log that was bearing gently +down, butt first, on the figure clinging to the boom-stick. His caulks +bit far up the side of the log and the force of his impact started it +rolling; yet even as he clawed his way to the top of the log and got +it under control the iron head of his long pike pole drove into the +boom-stick and fended The Laird out of harm's way; before the log the +man rode could slip by, the iron had been released and the link of +chain between the two boom-sticks had been snagged with the pike hook, +and both men drifted side by side. + +"Safe--o," his rescuer warned Old Hector quietly. "Hang on. I'll keep +the logs away from you and when the field floats by I'll get you +ashore. We're drifting gradually in toward the bank below the mill." + +The Laird was too chilled, too exhausted and too lacking in breath to +do more than gasp a brief word of thanks. It seemed a long, long time +that he clung there, and it was quite dark when his rescuer spoke +again. "I think the last log has floated out of the booming ground. +I'll swim ashore with you now, as soon as I can shuck my boots and +mackinaw." A few minutes later he cried reassuringly, "All set, +old-timer," and slid into the water beside The Laird. "Relax yourself +and do not struggle." His hands came up around old Hector's jaws from +the rear. "Let go," he commanded, and the hard tow commenced. It was +all footwork and their progress was very slow, but eventually they won +through. As soon as he could stand erect in the mud the rescuer +unceremoniously seized The Laird by the nape and dragged him high and +dry up the bank. + +"Now, then," he gasped, "I guess you can take care of yourself. Better +go over to the mill and warm yourself in the furnace room. I've got to +hurry away to 'phone the Tyee people to swing a dozen spare links of +their log boom across the river and stop those runaways before they +escape into the Bight and go to sea on the ebb." + +He was gone on the instant, clambering up the bank through the bushes +that grew to the water's edge; old Hector could hear his breath coming +in great gasps as he ran. + +"Must know that chap, whoever he is," The Laird soliloquized. "Think +he's worked for me some time or other. His voice sounds mighty +familiar. Well--I'll look him up in the morning." + +He climbed after his rescuer and stumbled away through the murk toward +Darrow's mill. Arrived here he found the fireman banking the fires in +the furnace room and while he warmed himself one of them summoned +Bert Darrow from the mill office. + +"Bert," The Laird explained, "I'd be obliged if you'd run me home in +more or less of a hurry in your closed car. I've been in the drink," +and he related the tale of his recent adventures. "Your raftsman saved +my life," he concluded. "Who is he? It was so dark before he got to me +I couldn't see his face distinctly, but I think he's a young fellow +who used to work for me. I know because his voice sounds so very +familiar." + +"He's a new hand, I believe. Lives in Port Agnew. I believe your man +Daney can tell you his name," Darrow replied evasively. + +"I'll ask Daney. The man was gone before I could recover enough breath +to thank him for my life. Sorry to have messed up your boom, Bert, but +we'll stop the runaways at my boom and I'll have them towed back in +the morning. And I'll have a man put in a new boom-stick and connect +it up again." + +Bert Darrow set him down at the Tyee Lumber Company's office, and wet +and chilled as he was, The Laird went at once to Mr. Daney's office. +The latter was just leaving it for the day when The Laird appeared. + +"Andrew," the latter began briskly. "I drove that fast motor-boat at +full speed into Darrow's boom on my way down river this evening; I've +had a ducking and only for Darrow's raftsman you'd be closing down the +mill to-morrow out of respect to my memory. Bert Darrow says their +raftsman used to work for us; he's a new man with them and Bert says +you know who he is." + +"I think I know the man," Mr. Daney replied thoughtfully. "He's been +with them about three weeks; resigned our employ a couple of weeks +before that. I was sorry to lose him. He's a good man." + +"I grant it, Andrew. He's the fastest, coolest hand that ever balanced +a pike pole or rode a log. We cannot afford to let men like that +fellow get away from us for the sake of a little extra pay. Get him +back on the pay-roll, Andrew, and don't be small with him. I'll +remember him handsomely at Christmas, and see that I do not forget +this, Andrew. What is his name?" + +"Let me think." Mr. Daney bent his head, tipped back his hat and +massaged his brow before replying. "I think that when he worked for +the Tyee Lumber Company he was known as Donald McKaye." + +He looked up. The old Laird's face was ashen. "Thank you, Andrew," he +managed to murmur presently. "Perhaps you'd better let Darrow keep him +for a while. G--g--good-night!" + +Outside, his chauffeur waited with his car. "Home--and be quick about +it," he mumbled and crawled into the tonneau slowly and weakly. As the +car rolled briskly up the high cliff road to The Dreamerie, the old +man looked far below him to the little light that twinkled on the +Sawdust Pile. + +"She'll have his dinner cooked for him now and be waiting and watching +for him," he thought. + + + + +XLV + + +Hector McKaye suffered that winter. He dwelt in Gethsemane, for he had +incurred to his outcast son the greatest debt that one man can incur +to another, and he could not publicly acknowledge the debt or hope to +repay it in kind. By the time spring came his heart hunger was almost +beyond control; there were times when, even against his will, he +contemplated a reconciliation with Donald based on an acceptance of +the latter's wife but with certain reservations. The Laird never quite +got around to defining the reservation but in a vague way he felt that +they should exist and that eventually Donald would come to a +realization of the fact and help him define them. + +Each Sunday during that period of wretchedness he saw his boy and Nan +at church, although they no longer sat with Mr. Daney. From Reverend +Tingley The Laird learned that Donald now had a pew of his own, and he +wondered why. He knew his son had never been remotely religious and +eventually he decided that, in his son's place, though he were the +devil himself, he would do exactly as Donald had done. Damn a dog that +carried a low head and a dead tail! It was the sign of the mongrel +strain--curs always crept under the barn when beaten! + +One Sunday in the latter part of May he observed that Nan came to +church alone. He wondered if Donald was at home ill and a vague +apprehension stabbed him; he longed to drop into step beside Nan as +she left the church and ask her, but, of course, that was unthinkable. +Nevertheless he wished he knew and that afternoon he spent the entire +time on the terrace at The Dreamerie, searching the Sawdust Pile with +his marine glasses, in the hope of seeing Donald moving about the +little garden. But he did not see him, and that night his sleep was +more troubled than usual. + +On the following Sunday Nan was not accompanied by her husband either. +The Laird decided, therefore, that Donald could not be very ill, +otherwise Nan would not have left him home alone. This thought +comforted him somewhat. During the week he thought frequently of +telephoning up to Darrow and asking if they still had the same +raftsman on the pay-roll, but his pride forbade this. So he drove up +the river road one day and stopped his car among the trees on the bank +of the river from the Darrow log boom. A tall, lively young fellow was +leaping nimbly about on the logs, but so active was he that even at +two hundred yards The Laird could not be certain this man was his son. +He returned to Port Agnew more troubled and distressed than ever. + +Mrs. McKaye and the girls had made three flying visits down to Port +Agnew during the winter and The Laird had spent his week-ends in +Seattle twice; otherwise, save for the servants, he was quite alone at +The Dreamerie and this did not add to his happiness. Gradually the +continued and inexplicable absence of Donald at Sunday service became +an obsession with him; he could think of nothing else in his spare +moments and even at times when it was imperative he should give all of +his attention to important business matters, this eternal, damnable +query continued to confront him. It went to bed with him and got up +with him and under its steady relentless attrition he began to lose +the look of robust health that set him off so well among men of his +own age. His eyes took on a worried, restless gleam; he was irritable +and in the mornings he frequently wore to the office the haggard +appearance that speaks so accusingly of a sleepless night. He lost his +appetite and in consequence he lost weight. Andrew Daney was greatly +concerned about him, and one day, apropos of nothing, he demanded a +bill of particulars. + +"Oh, I daresay I'm getting old, Andrew," The Laird replied evasively. + +"Worrying about the boy?" + +It was a straight shot and old Hector was too inexpressibly weary to +attempt to dodge it. He nodded sadly. + +"Well, let us hope he'll come through all right, sir." + +"Is he ill? What's wrong with him, Andrew? Man, I've been eating my +heart out for months, wondering what it is, but you know the fix I'm +in. I don't like to ask and not a soul in Port Agnew will discuss him +with me." + +"Why, there's nothing wrong with him that I'm aware of, sir. I spoke +to Nan after services last Sunday and she read me a portion of his +last letter. He was quite well at that time." + +"W-wh-where is he, Andrew?" + +"Somewhere in France. He's not allowed to tell." + +"France? Good God, Andrew, not _France_!" + +"Why not, may I ask? Of course he's in France. He enlisted as a +private shortly after war was declared. Dirty Dan quit his job and +went with him. They went over with the Fifth Marines. Do you mean to +tell me this is news to you?" he added, frankly amazed. + +"I do," old Hector mumbled brokenly. "Oh, Andrew man, this is +terrible, terrible. I canna stand it, man." He sat down and covered +his face with his trembling old hands. + +"Why can't you? You wouldn't want him to sit at home and be a slacker, +would you? And you wouldn't have a son of yours wait until the draft +board took him by the ear and showed him his duty, would you?" + +"If he's killed I'll nae get over it." The Laird commenced to weep +childishly. + +"Well, better men or at least men as fine, are paying that price for +citizenship, Hector McKaye." + +"But his wife, man? He was married. 'Twas not expected of him--" + +"I believe his wife is more or less proud of him, sir. Her people have +always followed the flag in some capacity." + +"But how does she exist? Andrew Daney, if you're giving her the +money--" + +"If I am you have no right to ask impertinent questions about it. But +I'm not." + +"I never knew it, I never knew it," the old man complained bitterly. +"Nobody tells me anything about my own son. I'm alone; I sit in the +darkness, stifling with money--oh, Andrew, Andrew, I didn't say +good-by to him! I let him go in sorrow and in anger." + +"You may have time to cure all that. Go down to the Sawdust Pile, take +the girl to your heart like a good father should and then cable the +boy. That will square things beautifully." + +Even in his great distress the stubborn old head was shaken +emphatically. The Laird of Port Agnew was not yet ready to surrender. + +Spring lengthened into summer and summer into fall. Quail piped in the +logged-over lands and wild ducks whistled down through the timber and +rested on the muddy bosom of the Skookum, but for the first time in +forty years The Laird's setters remained in their kennels and his +fowling pieces in their leather cases. To him the wonderful red and +gold of the great Northern woods had lost the old allurement and he no +longer thrilled when a ship of his fleet, homeward bound, dipped her +house-flag far below him. He was slowly disintegrating. + +Of late he had observed that Nan no longer came to church, so he +assumed she had found the task of facing her world bravely one +somewhat beyond her strength. A few months before, this realization +would have proved a source of savage satisfaction to him, but time and +suffering were working queer changes in his point of view. Now, +although he told himself it served her right, he was sensible of a +small feeling of sympathy for her and a large feeling of resentment +against the conditions that had brought her into conflict with the +world. + +"I daresay," Andrew Daney remarked to him about Christmas time, "you +haven't forgotten your resolve to do something handsome for that +raftsman of Darrow's who saved your life last January. You told me to +remind you of him at Christmas." + +"I have not forgotten the incident," old Hector answered savagely. + +"I think it might be a nice thing to do if you would send word to Nan, +by me, that it will please you if she will consent to have your +grandchild born in the company hospital. Otherwise, I imagine she will +go to a Seattle hospital, and with doctors and nurses away to the war +there's a chance she may not get the best of care." + +"Do as you see fit," The Laird answered. He longed to evade the +issue--he realized that Daney was crowding him always, setting traps +for him, driving him relentlessly toward a reconciliation that was +abhorrent to him. "I have no objection. She cannot afford the expense +of a Seattle hospital, I daresay, and I do not desire to oppress her." + +The following day Mr. Daney reported that Nan had declined with thanks +his permission to enter the Tyee Lumber Company's hospital. As a +soldier's wife she would be cared for without expense in the Base +Hospital at Camp Lewis, less than a day's journey distant. + +The Laird actually quivered when Daney broke this news to him. He was +hurt--terribly hurt--but he dared not admit it. In January he learned +through Mr. Daney that he was a grandfather to a nine-pound boy and +that Nan planned to call the baby Caleb, after her father. For the +first time in his life then, The Laird felt a pang of jealousy. While +the child could never, by any possibility, be aught to him, +nevertheless he felt that in the case of a male child a certain polite +deference toward the infant's paternal ancestors was always +commendable. At any rate, Caleb was Yankee and hateful. + +"I am the twelfth of my line to be named Hector," he said +presently--and Andrew Daney with difficulty repressed a roar of +maniac laughter. Instead he said soberly. + +"The child's playing in hard luck as matters stand; it would be adding +insult to injury to call him Hector McKaye, Thirteenth. Isn't that why +you named your son Donald?" + +The Laird pretended not to hear this. Having been fired on from +ambush, as it were, he immediately started discussing an order for +some ship timbers for the Emergency Fleet Corporation. When he retired +to his own office, however, he locked the door and wept with sympathy +for his son, so far away and in the shadow of death upon the occasion +of the birth of his first son. + + + + +XLVI + + +Spring came. Overhead the wild geese flew in long wedges, honking, +into the North, and The Laird remembered how Donald, as a boy, used to +shoot at them with a rifle as they passed over The Dreamerie. Their +honking wakened echoes in his heart. With the winter's supply of logs +now gone, logging operations commenced in the woods with renewed +vigor, the river teemed with rafts, the shouts of the rivermen echoing +from bank to bank. Both Tyee and Darrow were getting out spruce for +the government and ship timbers for the wooden shipyards along San +Francisco Bay. + +Business had never been so brisk, and with the addition of the war +duties that came to every community leader, The Laird found some +surcease from his heart-hunger. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had returned +to The Dreamerie, now that Donald's marriage had ceased to interest +anybody but themselves, so old Hector was not so lonely. But--the flag +was flying again at the Sawdust Pile, each day of toil for The Laird +was never complete without an eager search of the casualty lists +published in the Seattle papers. + +Spring lengthened into summer. The Marine casualties at Belleau Wood +and Chateau-Thierry appalled The Laird; he read that twenty survivors +of a charge that started two hundred and fifty strong across the wheat +field at Bouresches had taken Bouresches and held it against three +hundred of the enemy--led by Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary, of Port +Agnew, Washington! Good old Dirty Dan! At last he was finding a +legitimate outlet for his talents! He would get the Distinguished +Service Cross for that! The Laird wondered what Donald would receive. +It would be terrible should Dirty Dan return with the Cross and Donald +McKaye without it. + +In September, Donald appeared in the Casualty List as slightly +wounded. Also, he was a first lieutenant now. The Laird breathed +easier, for his son would be out of it for a few months, no doubt. It +was a severe punishment, however, not to be able to discuss his +gallant son with anybody. At home his dignity and a firm adherence to +his previous announcement that his son's name should never be +mentioned in his presence, forbade a discussion with Mrs. McKaye and +the girls; and when he weakly sparred for an opportunity with Andrew +Daney, that stupid creature declined to rise to the bait, or even +admit that he knew of Donald's commission. When told of it, he +expressed neither surprise nor approval. + +In November, the great influenza epidemic came to Port Agnew and took +heavy toll. It brought to The Laird a newer, a more formidable +depression. What if Donald's son should catch it and die, and Donald +be deprived of the sight of his first-born? What if Nan should succumb +to an attack of it while her husband was in France? In that event +would Donald forgive and forget and come home to The Dreamerie? +Somehow, old Hector had his doubts. + +For a long time now, he had felt a great urge to see Donald's son. He +had a curiosity to discover whether the child favored the McKayes or +the Brents. If it favored the McKayes--well, perhaps he might make +some provision for its future in his will, and in order to prove +himself a good sport he would leave an equal sum to Nan's illegitimate +child, which Donald had formally adopted a few days after his marriage +to Nan. Why make fish of one and fowl of the other? he thought. They +were both McKayes now, in the sight of the law, and for aught he knew +to the contrary they were full brothers! + +The child became an obsession with him. He longed to weigh it and +compare its weight with that of Donald's at the same age--he had the +ancient record in an old memorandum book at the office. He speculated +on whether it had blue eyes or brown, whether it was a blond or a +brunette. He wondered if Daney had seen it and wondering, at length he +asked. Yes, Mr. Daney had seen the youngster several times, but beyond +that statement he would not go and The Laird's dignity forbade too +direct a probe. He longed to throttle Mr. Daney, who he now regarded +as the most unsympathetic, prosaic, dull-witted old ass imaginable. + +He wanted to see that child! The desire to do so never left him during +his waking hours and he dreamed of the child at night. So in the end +he yielded and went down to the Sawdust Pile, under cover of darkness, +his intention being to sneak up to the little house and endeavor to +catch a glimpse of the child through the window. He was enraged to +discover, however, that Nan maintained a belligerent Airedale that +refused, like all good Airedales, to waste his time and dignity in +useless barking. He growled--once, and The Laird knew he meant it, so +he got out of that yard in a hurry. + +He was in a fine rage as he walked back to the mill office and got +into his car. Curse the dog! Was he to be deprived of a glimpse of his +grandson by an insensate brute of a dog? He'd be damned if he was! +He'd shoot the animal first--no, that would never do. Nan would come +out and he would be discovered. Moreover, what right had he to shoot +anybody's dog until it attacked him? The thing to do would be to put +some strychnine on a piece of meat--no, no, that would never do. The +person who would poison a dog--any kind of a dog-- + +It was a good dog. The animal certainly was acting within its legal +rights. Yes, he knew now where Nan had gotten it. The dog had belonged +to First Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary of the Fifth Marines; he had +doubtless given it to Nan to keep for him when he went to the war; The +Laird knew Dan thought a great deal of that dog. His name was Jerry +and he had aided Dirty Dan in more than one bar-room battle. + +Jerry, like his master, like the master of the woman he protected, was +a Devil-dog, and one simply cannot kill a soldier's dog for doing a +soldier's duty. Should Jerry charge there would be no stopping him +until he was killed, so The Laird saw very clearly that there was but +one course open to him. If he marched through that gate and straight +to the door, as if he meant business, as if he had a moral and legal +right to be there on business, Jerry would understand and permit him +to pass. But if he snooped in, like a thief in the night, and peered +in at a window-- + +"I wish I had a suit of Fifteenth Century armour," he thought. "Then +Jerry, you could chew on my leg and be damned to you. You're a silent +dog and I could have a good look while you were wrecking your teeth." + +He went back to the Sawdust Pile at dusk the next evening, hoping +Jerry would be absent upon some unlawful private business, but when he +approached the gate slowly and noiselessly Jerry spoke up softly from +within and practically said: "Get out or take the consequences." + +The following night, however, The Laird was prepared for Jerry. He did +not halt at the dog's preliminary warning but advanced and rattled the +gate a little. Immediately Jerry came to the gate and stood just +inside growling in his throat, so The Laird thrust an atomizer through +the palings and deluged Jerry's hairy countenance with a fine cloud of +spirits of ammonia. He had once tried that trick on a savage bulldog +in which he desired to inculcate some respect for his person, and had +succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Therefore, since +desperate circumstances always require desperate measures, the memory +of that ancient victory had moved him to attempt a similar +embarrassment of the dog Jerry. + +But Jerry was a devil-dog. He had been raised and trained by Dirty Dan +O'Leary and in company with that interesting anthropoid he had been +through many stormy passages. Long before, he had learned that the +offensive frequently wins--the defensive never. It is probable that he +wept as he sniffed the awful stuff, but if he did they were tears of +rage. + +Jerry's first move was to stand on his head and cover his face with +his paws. Then he did several back flips and wailed aloud in his +misery and woe, his yelps of distress quite filling the empyrean. But +only for the space of a few seconds. Recovering his customary aplomb +he made a flying leap for the top of the gate, his yelps now succeeded +by ambitious growls--and in self-defense The Laird was forced to spray +him again as he clung momentarily on top of the palings. With a sob +Jerry dropped back and buried his nose in the dust, while The Laird +beat a hurried retreat into the darkness, for he had lost all +confidence in his efforts to inculcate in Jerry an humble and contrite +spirit. + +He could hear rapid footsteps inside the little house; then the door +opened and in the light that streamed from within he was indistinctly +visible to Nan as she stood in the doorway. + +"Jerry!" he heard her call. "Good dog! What's the matter? After him, +Jerry. Go get him, Jerry!" She ran to the gate and opened it for the +dog, who darted through, but paused again to run his afflicted nose in +the dust and roll a couple of times. Apparently he felt that there was +no great hurry; his quarry could not escape him. It is probable, also, +that he was more or less confused and not quite certain which +direction the enemy had taken, for Jerry's sense of smell was +temporarily suspended and his eyes blinded by tears; certain his +language was not at all what it should have been. + +The Laird ran blindly, apprehensively, but for a very short distance. +Suddenly he bumped into something quite solid, which closed around him +viciously. "Halt, damn you," a commanding voice cried. + +Despite his years, Hector McKaye was no weakling, and in the knowledge +that he could not afford to be captured and discovered, seemingly he +slipped forty years from his shoulders. Once more he was a lumberjack, +the top dog of his district--and he proceeded to fight like one. His +old arms rained punches on the midriff of the man who held him and he +knew they stung cruelly, for at every punch the man grunted and strove +to clinch him tighter and smother the next blow. "Let go me or I'll +kill you," The Laird panted. "Man dinna drive me to it." He ceased his +rain of blows, grasped his adversary and tried to wrestle him down. He +succeeded, but the man would not stay down. He wriggled out with +amazing ease and had old Hector with his shoulders touching before The +Laird's heaving chest and two terrible thumbs closed down on each of +The Laird's eyes, with four powerful fingers clasping his face like +talons. "Quit, or I'll squeeze your eyeballs out," a voice warned him. + +The Laird's hand beat the ground beside him. He had surrendered to a +master of his style of fighting. With something of the air of an +expert, his conqueror ran a quick hand over him, seeking for weapons, +and finding none, he grasped The Laird by the collar and jerked him to +his feet. "Now, then, my hearty, I'll have a look at you," he said. +"You'll explain why you're skulking around here and abusing that dog!" + +The Laird quivered as he found himself being dragged toward the stream +of light, in the center of which Nan Brent stood silhouetted. He could +not afford this and he was not yet defeated. + +"A thousand dollars if you let me go now," he panted. "I have the +money in my pocket. Ask yon lass if I've done aught wrong." + +His captor paused and seemed to consider this. "Make it ten thousand +and I'll consider it," he whispered. "Leave it on the mail box just +outside the Tyee Lumber Company's office at midnight to-morrow night." + +"I'll do it--so help me God," The Laird promised frantically. + +His son's voice spoke in his ear. "Dad! You low-down, worthless +lovable old fraud!" + +"My son! My son!" Old Hector's glad cry ended in a sob. "Oh, my sonny +boy, my bonny lad! I canna stand it. I canna! Forgie me, lad, forgie +me--and ask her to forgie me!" His old arms were around his son's neck +and he was crying on Donald's shoulder, unashamed. "I was trying for a +look at the bairn," he cried brokenly, "and 'twas a privilege God +would nae gie me seeing that I came like a sneak and not like an +honest man. The damned dog--he knew! Och, Donald, say ye forgie ye're +auld faither. Say it, lad. Ma heart's breakin'." + +"Why, bless your bare-shanked old Scotch soul, of course I forgive +you. I never held any grudge, you know. I simply stood pat until you +could see things through my eyes." + +"Is that you, Donald?" Nan called. + +"Aye, aye, sweetheart. Dad's here. He wants to know if you regard him +as a particularly terrible old man. I think he's afraid you will +refuse to let him look at Laird Hector, Thirteenth." + +"Man, man," the old man urged, quite shocked at this casual greeting +of a returned hero to his wife, "go to her, lad. She'll not relish +favoritism." + +"Oh, this isn't our first meeting, Dad. I got home yesterday. I have +thirty days leave. They sent me home as an instructor in small arms +practice and gave me a boost in rank. I was just up town for a +beefsteak and I've lost the beefsteak battling with you." + +The Laird wiped his eyes and got control of himself. Presently he +said: "Keep that blessed dog off me," and started resolutely for the +front gate. Without a moment's hesitation he folded Nan in his arms +and kissed her. "Poor bairn," he whispered. "I've been cruel to you. +Forgie me, daughter, if so be you can find it in your heart to be that +generous. God knows, lass, I'll try to be worthy of you." + +"Am I worthy of him?" she whispered, womanlike. + +"Far more than his father is," he admitted humbly. "Damn the world and +damn the people in it. You're a good girl, Nan. You always were a good +girl--" + +"But suppose she wasn't--always?" Donald queried gently. "Is that +going to make any difference--to you?" + +"I don't care what she was before you married her. I haven't thought +about that for a long time the way I used to think about it. I built +The Dreamerie for you and the girl you'd marry and I--I accept her +unconditionally, my son, and thank God she has the charity to accept +an old Pharisee like me for a father-in-law." + +Donald slipped his arm around Nan's waist, and started with her toward +the door. "Tag along, father," he suggested, "and Nan will show you a +prize grandson." + +At the door, Nan paused. "Do you think, father McKaye," she queried, +"that the remainder of the family will think as you do?" + +"I fear not," he replied sadly. "But then, you haven't married the +family. They'll accept you or keep out of Port Agnew; at any rate +they'll never bother you, my dear. I think," he added grimly, "that I +may find a way to make them treat you with civility at least." + +"He's a pretty good old sport after all, isn't he, Nan?" her husband +suggested. + +"I'll tell the world he is," she answered archly, employing the A.E.F. +slang she had already learned from Donald. She linked her arm in old +Hector's and steered him down the hall to the living-room. "Your +grandson is in there," she said, and opening the door she gently +propelled him into the room. + + + + +XLVII + + +Nan was right. His grandson was there, but strange to relate he was +seated, as naked as Venus (save for a diaper) on his grandmother's +lap. + +Hector McKaye paused and glared at his wife. + +"Damn it, Nellie," he roared, "what the devil do you mean by this?" + +"I'm tired of being an old fool, Hector," she replied meekly, and held +the baby up for his inspection. + +"It's time you were," he growled. "Come here, you young rascal till I +heft you. By the gods of war, he's a McKaye!" He hugged the squirming +youngster to his heart and continued to glare at his wife as if she +were a hardened criminal. "Why didn't you tell me you felt yourself +slipping?" he demanded. "Out with it, Nellie." + +"There will be no post-mortems," Nan interdicted. "Mother McKaye and +Elizabeth and Jane and I patched up our difficulties when Donald came +home yesterday. How we did it or what transpired before we did it, +doesn't matter, you dear old snooper." + +"What? Elizabeth and Jane? Unconditional surrender?" + +She nodded smilingly and The Laird admitted his entire willingness to +be--jiggered. Finally, having inspected his grandson, he turned for an +equally minute inspection of his soldier son under the lamplight. + +"Three service stripes and one wound stripe," he murmured. "And +you're not crippled, boy dear?" + +"Do I fight like one? Hector, man, those punches of yours would have +destroyed a battalion of cripples. Oh, you old false-alarm! Honestly, +Dad, you're the most awful dub imaginable. And trying to bribe me into +permitting you to escape--what the deuce have you been monkeying with? +You reek of ammonia--here, go away from my son. You're poison." + +The Laird ignored him. "What's that ribbon?" he demanded. + +"Distinguished Service Cross." + +"You must have bought it in a pawnshop. And that thing?" + +"Croix de Guerre." + +"And that red one?" + +"Legion d'Honneur." + +A pause. "What did Dirty Dan get, son?" + +"The one thing in the world he thought he despised. The Congressional +Medal of Honor for valor in saving the life of a British colonel, who, +by the way, happens to be an Orangeman. When he discovered it he +wanted to bayonet the colonel and I won the Croix de Guerre for +stopping him." + +"Oh, cease your nonsense, Donald," his wife urged, "and tell your +father and mother something. I think they are entitled to the news +now." + +"Yes, Nan, I think they are. Listen, folks. Now that you've all been +nice enough to be human beings and accept my wife at her face value, I +have a surprise for you. On the day when Nan married the father of my +adopted son, he waited until the officiating minister had signed the +marriage license and attested that he had performed the ceremony; then +while the minister's attention was on something else, he took +possession of the license and put it in his overcoat pocket. Later he +and Nan drove to a restaurant for luncheon and the overcoat with the +license in the pocket was stolen, from the automobile. The thief +pawned the coat later and the pawnbroker discovered the license in the +pocket after the thief had departed. The following day the fellow was +arrested in the act of stealing another overcoat; the pawnbroker read +of the arrest and remembered he had loaned five dollars on an overcoat +to a man who gave the same name this thief gave to the police. So the +pawnbroker--" + +"I am not interested, my son. I require no proofs." + +"Thank you for that, father. But you're entitled to them and you're +going to get them. The pawnbroker found on the inside lining of the +inner breast pocket of the overcoat the tag which all tailors sew +there when, they make the garment. This tag bore the name of the owner +of the overcoat, his address and the date of delivery of the +overcoat." + +"Now, the pawnbroker noticed that the man who owned the overcoat was +not the person named in the marriage license. Also he noticed that the +marriage license was attested by a minister but that it had not been +recorded by the state board of health, as required by law--and the +pawnbroker was aware that marriage licenses are not permitted, by law, +to come into the possession of the contracting parties until the fact +that they have been legally married has been duly recorded on the +evidence of the marriage--which is, of course, the marriage license." + +"Why didn't the idiot send the license back to the minister who had +performed the ceremony?" The Laird demanded. "Then this tangle would +never have occurred." + +"He says he thought of that, but he was suspicious. It was barely +possible that the officiating clergyman had connived at the theft of +the license from his desk, so the pawnbroker, who doubtless possesses +the instincts of an amateur detective, resolved to get the license +into the hands of Nan Brent direct. Before doing so, however, he wrote +to the man named in the license and sent his letter to the address +therein given. In the course of time that letter was returned by the +post-office department with the notation that the location of the +addressee was unknown. The pawnbroker then wrote to the man whose name +appeared on the tailor's tag in the overcoat, and promptly received a +reply. Yes, an overcoat had been stolen from his automobile on a +certain date. He described the overcoat and stated that the marriage +license of a friend of his might be found in the breast pocket, +provided the thief had not removed it. If the license was there he +would thank the pawnbroker to forward it to him. He enclosed a check +to redeem the overcoat and pay the cost of forwarding it to him by +parcel post, insured. The pawnbroker had that check photographed +before cashing it and he forwarded the overcoat but retained the +marriage license, for he was more than ever convinced that things were +not as they should have been. + +"His next move was to write Miss Nan Brent, at Port Agnew, Washington, +informing her of the circumstances and advising her that he had her +marriage certificate. This letter reached Port Agnew at the time Nan +was living in San Francisco, and her father received it. He merely +scratched out Port Agnew, Washington, and substituted for that +address: 'Care of---- using Nan's married name, Altamont Apartments, +San Francisco.' + +"By the time that letter reached San Francisco Nan had left that +address, but since she planned a brief absence only, she left no +forwarding address for her mail. That was the time she came north to +visit her father and in Seattle she discovered that her supposed +husband was already married. I have told you, father, and you have +doubtless told mother, Nan's reasons for refusing to disclose this +man's identity at that time. + +"Of course Nan did not return to San Francisco, but evidently her +husband did and at their apartment he found this letter addressed to +Nan. He opened it, and immediately set out for San Jose to call upon +the pawnbroker and gain possession of the marriage license. Unknown to +him, however, his lines were all tangled and the pawnbroker told him +frankly he was a fraud and declined to give him the license. Finally +the pawnbroker tried a bluff and declared that if the man did not get +out of his place of business he would have him arrested as a +bigamist--and the fellow fled. + +"A month or two later the pawnbroker was in San Francisco so he called +at the Altamont Apartments to deliver the license in person, only to +discover that the person he sought had departed and that her address +was unknown. So he wrote Nan again, using her married name and +addressed her at Port Agnew, Washington. You will remember, of course, +that at this time Nan's marriage was not known to Port Agnew, she had +kept it secret. Naturally the postmaster here did not know anybody by +that name, and in due course, when the letter remained unclaimed he +did not bother to advertise it but returned it to the sender." + +"It doesn't seem possible," Mrs. McKaye declared, quite pop-eyed with +excitement. + +"It was possible enough," her son continued drily. "Well, the +bewildered pawnbroker thrust the license away in his desk, and awaited +the next move of the man in the case. But he never moved, and after a +while the pawnbroker forgot he had the license. And the minister was +dead. One day, in cleaning out his desk he came across the accumulated +papers in the case and it occurred to him to write the state board of +health and explain the situation. Promptly he received a letter from +the board informing him that inquiries had been made at the board of +health office for a certified copy of the license, by Miss Nan Brent, +of Port Agnew, Washington, and that the board had been unable to +furnish such a certified copy. Immediately our obliging and +intelligent pawnbroker, whose name, by the way, is Abraham Goldman, +bundled up the marriage license, together with the carbon copy of the +pawn ticket he had given the thief; a press clipping from the San Jose +_Mercury_ recounting the story of the capture of the thief; carbon +copies of all his correspondence in the case, the original of all +letters received, the photograph of the check--everything, in fact, to +prove a most conclusive case through the medium of a well-ordered and +amazing chain of optical and circumstantial evidence. This evidence he +sent to Miss Brent, Port Agnew, Washington, and she received it about +a week before I married her. Consequently, she was in position to +prove to the most captious critic that she was a woman of undoubted +virtue, the innocent victim of a scoundrel who had inveigled her into +a bigamous marriage. Of course, in view of the fact that the man she +went through a legal marriage ceremony with already had a wife living, +Nan's marriage to him was illegal--how do you express it? Ipso facto +or per se? In the eyes of the law she had never been married; the man +in the case was legally debarred from contracting another marriage. +The worst that could possibly be said of Nan was that she played in +mighty hard luck." + +"In the name of heaven, why did you not tell me this the day you +married her?" The Laird demanded wrathfully. + +"I didn't know it the day I married her. She was curious enough to +want to see how game I was. She wanted to be certain I truly loved +her, I think--and in view of her former experience I do not blame her +for it. It pleased you a whole lot, didn't it, honey?" he added, +turning to Nan, "when I married you on faith?" + +"But why didn't you tell us after you had discovered it, Donald?" Mrs. +McKaye interrupted. "That was not kind of you, my son." + +"Well," he answered soberly, "in the case of you and the girls I +didn't think you deserved it. I kept hoping you and the girls would +confess to Dad that you telephoned Nan to come back to Port Agnew that +time I was sick with typhoid--" + +"Eh? What's that?" The Laird sat up bristling. + +Mrs. McKaye flushed scarlet and seemed on the verge of tears. Donald +went to her and took her in his arms. "Awfully sorry to have to peach +on you, old dear," he continued. "Do not think Nan told on you, +Mother. She didn't. I figured it all out by myself. However, as I +started to remark, I expected you would confess and that your +confession would start a family riot, in the midst of it I knew +father would rise up and declare himself. I give you my word, Dad, +that for two weeks before I went to work up at Darrow I watched and +waited all day long for you to come down here and tell Nan it was a +bet and that we'd play it as it lay." + +Old Hector gritted his teeth and waged his head sorrowfully. "Nellie," +he warned his trembling wife, "this is what comes of a lack of +confidence between man and wife." + +She flared up at that. "Hush, you hypocrite. At least I haven't +snooped around here trying to poison dogs and kill people when I was +discovered playing Peeping Tom. A pretty figure you've cut throughout +this entire affair. Didn't I beg you not to be hard on our poor boy?" + +"Yes, you had better lay low, Father," Donald warned him. "You've been +married long enough to know that if you start anything with a woman +she'll put it all over you. We will, therefore, forget Mother's error +and concentrate on you. Remember the night I dragged you ashore at +Darrow's log boom? Well, permit me to tell you that you're a pretty +heavy tow and long before my feet struck bottom I figured on two +Widows McKaye. If I'd had to swim twenty feet further I would have +lost out. Really, I thought you'd come through after that." + +"I would if you'd waited a bit," old Hector protested miserably. "You +ought to know I never do things in a hurry." + +"Well, I do, Dad, but all the same I grew weary waiting for you. Then +I made up my mind I'd never tell you about Nan until you and Mother +and the girls had completely reversed yourselves and taken Nan for +the woman she is and not the woman you once thought she was." + +"Well, you've won, haven't you?" The Laird's voice was very husky. + +"Yes, I have; and it's a sweet victory, I assure you." + +"Then shut up. Shut up, I tell you." + +"All right! I'm through--forever." + +The Laird bent his beetling brows upon Nan. "And you?" he demanded. +"Have you finished?" + +She came to him and laid her soft cheek against his. "You funny old +man," she whispered. "Did you ever hear that I had begun?" + +"Well, nae, I have not--now that you mention it. And, by the way, my +dear! Referring to my grandson's half-brother?" + +"Yes." + +"I understand he's a McKaye." + +"Yes, Donald has legally adopted him." + +"Well, then, I'll accept him as an adopted grandson, my dear. I think +there'll be money enough for everybody. But about this scalawag of a +man that fathered him. I'll have to know who he is. We have a suit of +zebra clothing waiting for him, my dear." + +"No, you haven't, Father McKaye. My boy's father is never going to be +a convict. That man has other children, too." + +"I'm going to have a glass frame made and in it I'm going to arrange +photographic reproductions of all the documents in Nan's case," Donald +stated. "The history of the case will all be there, then, with the +exception, of course, of the name of the man. In deference to Nan's +desires I will omit that. Then I'll have that case screwed into the +wall of the post-office lobby where all Port Agnew can see and +understand--" + +"Nellie," The Laird interrupted, "please stop fiddling with that baby +and dress him. Daughter, get my other grandson ready, and you, Donald, +run over to the mill office. My car is standing there. Bring it here +and we'll all go home to The Dreamerie--yes, and tell Daney to come up +and help me empty a bottle to--to--to my additional family. He'll +bring his wife, of course, but then we must endure the bitter with the +sweet. Good old file, Daney. None better." + +Donald put on his cap and departed. As the front gate closed behind +him Hector McKaye sprang up and hurried out of the house after him. +"Hey, there, son," he called into the darkness, "What was that you +said about a glass case?" + +Donald returned and repeated the statement of his plan. + +"And you're going to the trouble of explaining to this sorry world," +the old man cried sharply. "Man, the longest day she lives there'll be +brutes that will say 'twas old man McKaye's money that framed an alibi +for her.' Son, no man or woman was ever so pure that some hypocrite +didn't tread 'em under foot like dust and regard them as such. Lad, +your wife will always be dust to some folks, but--we're kindred to +her--so what do we care? We understand. Do not explain to the damned +Pharisees. They wouldn't understand. Hang that thing in the +post-office lobby and some superior person will quote Shakespeare, and +say: 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much.'" + +"Then you would advise me to tell the world to go to--" + +"Exactly, sonny, exactly." + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KINDRED OF THE DUST*** + + +******* This file should be named 13532.txt or 13532.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/5/3/13532 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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