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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trail of the Axe, by Ridgwell Cullum
+
+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: The Trail of the Axe
+       A Story of Red Sand Valley
+
+Author: Ridgwell Cullum
+
+Illustrator: Clarence F. Underwood
+
+Release Date: June 26, 2011 [EBook #36522]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF THE AXE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Andrew Sly, Al Haines and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: "Don't think that makes any difference. I shall marry
+him just the same."  _Frontispiece.--The Trail of the Axe_.]
+
+
+
+
+
+The Trail of the Axe
+
+_A Story of the Red Sand Valley_
+
+
+BY RIDGWELL CULLUM
+
+Author of "The Watchers of the Plains," "The Sheriff of Dyke Hole", etc.
+
+
+
+With Frontispiece in Colors
+
+By CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD
+
+
+
+A. L. BURT COMPANY
+
+Publishers      New York
+
+
+
+
+Copyright, 1910, by
+
+George W. Jacobs & Company
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAP.
+
+      I. Dave
+     II. A Picnic in the Red Sand Valley
+    III. Affairs in Malkern
+     IV. Dick Mansell's News
+      V. Jim Truscott Returns
+     VI. Parson Tom Interferes
+    VII. The Work at the Mills
+   VIII. At the Church Bazaar
+     IX. In Dave's Office
+      X. An Auspicious Meeting
+     XI. The Summer Rains
+    XII. The Old Mills
+   XIII. Betty Decides
+    XIV. The Mills
+     XV. Betty Takes Cover
+    XVI. Disaster at the Mill
+   XVII. The Last of the Sawyer
+  XVIII. Face To Face
+    XIX. In the Mountains
+     XX. The Church Militant
+    XXI. An Adventure in the Fog
+   XXII. Terror in the Mountains
+  XXIII. The Red Tide of Anarchy
+   XXIV. In the Dead of Night
+    XXV. Mason's Prisoner
+   XXVI. To the Lumber Camp
+  XXVII. At Bay
+ XXVIII. Dave--the Man
+   XXIX. The End of the Strike
+    XXX. In the Dugout
+   XXXI. At Midnight
+  XXXII. Two Men--and a Woman
+
+
+
+
+The Trail of the Axe
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+DAVE
+
+
+Dave was thirty-two, but looked forty; for, in moulding his great,
+strong, ugly face, Nature had been less than kind to him. It is
+probable, from his earliest, Dave had never looked less than ten years
+older than he really was.
+
+Observing him closely, one had the impression that Nature had set
+herself the task of equipping him for a tremendous struggle in the
+battle of life; as though she had determined to make him invincible.
+Presuming this to have been her purpose, she set to work with a liberal
+hand. She gave him a big heart, doubtless wishing him to be strong to
+fight and of a great courage, yet with a wonderful sympathy for the
+beaten foe. She gave him the thews and sinews of a Hercules, probably
+arguing that a man must possess a mighty strength with which to carry
+himself to victory. To give him such physical strength it was necessary
+to provide a body in keeping. Thus, his shoulders were abnormally wide,
+his chest was of a mighty girth, his arms were of phenomenal length,
+and his legs were gnarled and knotted with muscles which could never be
+satisfactorily disguised by the class of "store" clothes it was his
+frugal custom to wear.
+
+For his head Nature gave him a fine, keen brain; strong, practical,
+subtly far-seeing in matters commercial, bluntly honest and temperate,
+yet withal matching his big heart in kindly sympathy. It was thrilling
+with a vast energy and capacity for work, but so pronounced was its
+dominating force, that in the development of his physical features it
+completely destroyed all delicacy of mould and gentleness of
+expression. He displayed to the world the hard, rugged face of the
+fighter, without any softening, unless, perhaps, one paused to look
+into the depths of his deep-set gray eyes.
+
+Nature undoubtedly fulfilled her purpose. Dave was equipped as few men
+are equipped, and if it were to be regretted that his architect had
+forgotten that even a fighting man has his gentler moments, and that
+there are certain requirements in his construction to suit him to such
+moments, in all other respects he had been treated lavishly. Summed up
+briefly, Dave was a tower of physical might, with a face of striking
+plainness.
+
+It was twelve years since he came to the Red Sand Valley. He was then
+fresh from the lumber regions of Puget Sound, on the western coast of
+the United States. He came to Western Canada in search of a country to
+make his own, with a small capital and a large faith in himself,
+supported by a courage that did not know the meaning of defeat.
+
+He found the Red Sand Valley nestling in the foot-hills of the Rocky
+Mountains. He saw the wonders of the magnificent pine woods which
+covered the mountain slopes in an endless sea of deep, sombre green.
+And he knew that these wonderful primordial wastes were only waiting
+for the axe of the woodsman to yield a building lumber second to none
+in the world.
+
+The valley offered him everything he needed. A river that flowed in
+full tide all the open season, with possibilities of almost limitless
+"timber booms" in its backwaters, a delicious setting for a village,
+with the pick of a dozen adequate sites for the building of lumber
+mills. He could hope to find nothing better, so he stayed.
+
+His beginning was humble. He started with a horse-power saw-pit, and a
+few men up in the hills cutting for him. But he had begun his great
+struggle with fortune, and, in a man such as Nature had made him, it
+was a struggle that could only end with his life. The battle was
+tremendous, but he never hesitated, he never flinched.
+
+Small as was his beginning, six years later his present great mills and
+the village of Malkern had begun to take shape. Then, a year later, the
+result of his own persistent representation, the Canadian Northwestern
+Railroad built a branch line to his valley. And so, in seven years, his
+success was practically assured.
+
+Now he was comfortably prosperous. The village was prosperous. But none
+knew better than he how much still remained to be achieved before the
+foundations of his little world were adequate to support the weight of
+the vast edifice of commercial enterprise, which, with his own two
+hands, his own keen brain, he hoped to erect.
+
+He was an American business man raised in the commercial faith of his
+country. He understood the value of "monopoly," and he made for it.
+Thus, when he could ill spare capital, by dint of heavy borrowings he
+purchased all the land he required, and the "lumbering" rights of that
+vast region.
+
+Then it was that he extended operations. He abandoned his first mill
+and began the building of his larger enterprise further down the
+valley, at a point where he had decided that the village of Malkern
+should also begin its growth.
+
+Once the new mill was safely established he sold his old one to a man
+who had worked with him from the start. The transaction was more in the
+nature of a gift to an old friend and comrade. The price was nominal,
+but the agreement was binding that the mill should only be used for the
+production of small building material, and under no circumstances to be
+used in the production of rough "baulks." This was to protect his own
+monopoly in that class of manufacture.
+
+George Truscott, the lumberman with whom he made the transaction,
+worked the old mills with qualified success for two years. Then he died
+suddenly of blood-poisoning, supervening upon a badly mutilated arm
+torn by one of his own saws. The mill automatically became the property
+of his only son Jim, a youth of eighteen, curly-headed, bright,
+lovable, but wholly irresponsible for such an up-hill fight as the
+conduct of the business his father had left him.
+
+The master of the Malkern mills, as might be expected, was a man of
+simple habits and frugal tastes. In his early struggles he had had
+neither time nor money with which to indulge himself, and the habit of
+simple living had grown upon him. He required so very little. He had no
+luxurious home; a mere cottage of four rooms and a kitchen, over which
+an aged and doting mother ruled, her establishment consisting of one
+small maid. His office was a shack of two rooms, bare but useful,
+containing one chair and one desk, and anything he desired to find a
+temporary safe resting-place for strewn about the floor, or hung upon
+nails driven into the walls. It was all he needed, a roof to shade him
+from the blazing summer sun when he was making up his books, and four
+walls to shut out the cruel blasts of the Canadian winter.
+
+He was sitting at his desk now, poring over a heap of letters which had
+just arrived by the Eastern mail. This was the sort of thing he
+detested. Correspondence entailed a lot of writing, and he hated
+writing. Figures he could cope with, he had no grudge against them, but
+composing letters was a task for which he did not feel himself
+adequately equipped; words did not flow easily from his pen. His
+education was rather the education of a man who goes through the world
+with ears and eyes wide open. He had a wide knowledge of men and
+things, but the inside of books was a realm into which he had not
+deeply delved.
+
+At last he pushed his letters aside and sat back, his complaining chair
+protesting loudly at the burden imposed upon it. He drew an impatient
+sigh, and began to fill his pipe, gazing through the rain-stained
+window under which his untidy desk stood. He had made up his mind to
+leave the answering of his letters until later in the day, and the
+decision brought him some relief.
+
+He reached for the matches. But suddenly he altered his mind and
+removed his pipe from his mouth. A smile shone in his deep-set eyes at
+the sight of a dainty, white figure which had just emerged from behind
+a big stack of milled timber out in the yard and was hurrying toward
+the office.
+
+He needed no second glance to tell him who the figure belonged to. It
+was Betty--little Betty Somers, as he loved to call her--who taught the
+extreme youth of Malkern out of her twenty-two years of erudition and
+worldly wisdom.
+
+He sprang from his chair and went to the door to meet her, and as he
+walked his great bulk and vast muscle gave his gait something of the
+roll of a sailor. He had no lightness, no grace in his movements; just
+the ponderous slowness of monumental strength. He stood awaiting her in
+the doorway, which he almost filled up.
+
+Betty was not short, but he towered above her as she came up, his six
+feet five inches making nothing of her five feet six.
+
+"This is bully," he cried delightedly, as she stood before him. "I
+hadn't a notion you were getting around this morning, Betty."
+
+His voice was as unwieldy as his figure; it was husky too, in the
+manner of powerful voices when their owners attempt to moderate them.
+The girl laughed frankly up into his face.
+
+"I'm playing truant," she explained. Then her pretty lips twisted
+wryly, and she pointed at the lintel of the door. "Please sit down
+there," she commanded. Then she laughed again. "I want to talk to you,
+and--and I have no desire to dislocate my neck."
+
+He made her feel so absurdly small; she was never comfortable unless he
+was sitting down.
+
+The man grinned humorously at her imperious tone, and sat down. They
+were great friends, these two. Betty looked upon him as a very dear,
+big, ugly brother to whom she could always carry all her little worries
+and troubles, and ever be sure of a sympathetic adviser. It never
+occurred to her that Dave could be anything dearer to anybody. He was
+just Dave--dear old Dave, an appellation which seemed to fit him
+exactly.
+
+The thought of him as a lover was quite impossible. It never entered
+her head. Probably the only people in Malkern who ever considered the
+possibility of Dave as a lover were his own mother, and perhaps Mrs.
+Tom Chepstow. But then they were wiser than most of the women of the
+village. Besides, doubtless his mother was prejudiced, and Mrs. Tom, in
+her capacity as the wife of the Rev. Tom Chepstow, made it her business
+to study the members of her husband's parish more carefully than the
+other women did. But to the ordinary observer he certainly did not
+suggest the lover. He was so strong, so cumbersome, so unromantic. Then
+his ways were so deliberate, so machine-like. It almost seemed as
+though he had taken to himself something of the harsh precision of his
+own mills.
+
+On the other hand, his regard for Betty was a matter of less certainty.
+Good comradeship was the note he always struck in their intercourse,
+but oftentimes there would creep into his gray eyes a look which spoke
+of a warmth of feeling only held under because his good sense warned
+him of the utter hopelessness of it. He was too painfully aware of the
+quality of Betty's regard for him to permit himself any false hopes.
+
+Betty's brown eyes took on a smiling look of reproach as she held up a
+warning finger.
+
+"Dave," she said, with mock severity, "I always have to remind you of
+our compact. I insist that you sit down when I am talking to you. I
+refuse to be made to feel--and look--small. Now light your pipe and
+listen to me."
+
+"Go ahead," he grinned, striking a match. His plain features literally
+shone with delight at her presence there. Her small oval, sun-tanned
+face was so bright, so full of animation, so healthy looking. There was
+such a delightful frankness about her. Her figure, perfectly rounded,
+was slim and athletic, and her every movement suggested the open air
+and perfect health.
+
+"Well, it's this way," she began, seating herself on the corner of a
+pile of timber: "I'm out on the war-path. I want scalps. My pocketbook
+is empty and needs filling, and when that's done I'll get back to my
+school children, on whose behalf I am out hunting."
+
+"It's your picnic?" suggested Dave.
+
+"Not mine. The kiddies'. So now, old boy, put up your hands! It's your
+money or your life." And she sat threatening him with her pocketbook,
+pointing it at him as though it were a pistol.
+
+Dave removed his pipe.
+
+"Guess you'd best have 'em both," he smiled.
+
+But Betty shook her head with a joyous laugh.
+
+"I only want your money," she said, extending an open hand toward him.
+
+Dave thrust deep into his hip-pocket, and produced a roll of bills.
+
+"It's mostly that way," he murmured, counting them out.
+
+But his words had reached the girl, and her laugh died suddenly.
+
+"Oh, Dave!" she said reproachfully.
+
+And the man's contrition set him blundering.
+
+"Say, Betty, I'm a fool man anyway. Don't take any sort of notice. I
+didn't mean a thing. Now here's fifty, and you can have any more you
+need."
+
+He looked straight into her eyes, which at once responded to his
+anxious smile. But she did not attempt to take the money. She shook her
+head.
+
+"Too much."
+
+But he pushed the bills into her hand.
+
+"You can't refuse," he said. "You see, it's for the kiddies. It isn't
+just for you."
+
+When Dave insisted refusal was useless. Betty had long since learned
+that. Besides, as he said, it was for the "kiddies." She took the
+money, and he sat and watched her as she folded the bills into her
+pocketbook. The girl looked up at the sound of a short laugh.
+
+"What's that for?" she demanded, her brown eyes seriously inquiring.
+
+"Oh, just nothing. I was thinking."
+
+The man glanced slowly about him. He looked up at the brilliant summer
+sun. Then his eyes rested upon the rough exterior of his unpretentious
+office.
+
+"It meant something," asserted Betty. "I hate people to laugh--in that
+way."
+
+"I was thinking of this shack of mine. I was just thinking, Betty, what
+a heap of difference an elegant coat of paint makes to things. You see,
+they're just the same underneath, but they--kind of look different with
+paint on 'em, kind of please the eye more."
+
+"Just so," the girl nodded wisely. "And so you laughed--in that way."
+
+Dave's eyes twinkled.
+
+"You're too sharp," he said. Then he abruptly changed the subject.
+
+"Now about this picnic. You're expecting all the grown folk?"
+
+The girl's eyes opened to their fullest extent.
+
+"Of course I do. Don't you always come? It's only once a year." The
+last was very like a reproach.
+
+The man avoided her eyes. He was looking out across the sea of stacked
+timber at the great sheds beyond, where the saws were shrieking out
+their incessant song.
+
+"I was thinking," he began awkwardly, "that I'm not much good at those
+things. Of course I guess I can hand pie round to the folks; any fellow
+can do that. But----"
+
+"But what?" The girl had risen from her seat and was trying to compel
+his gaze.
+
+"Well, you see, we're busy here--desperately busy. Dawson's always
+grumbling that we're short-handed----"
+
+Betty came up close to him, and he suddenly felt a gentle squeeze on
+his shoulder.
+
+"You don't want to come," she said.
+
+"'Tisn't that--not exactly."
+
+He kept his eyes turned from her.
+
+"You see," he went on, "you'll have such a heap of folk there. They
+mostly all get around--for you. Then there'll be Jim Truscott, and
+Jim's worth a dozen of me when it comes to picnics and 'sociables' and
+such-like."
+
+The girl's hand suddenly dropped from his shoulder, and she turned
+away. A flush slowly mounted to her sun-tanned cheeks, and she was
+angry at it. She stood looking out at the mills beyond, but she wasn't
+thinking of them.
+
+At last she turned back to her friend and her soft eyes searched his.
+
+"If--if you don't come to the picnic to-morrow, I'll never forgive you,
+Dave--never!"
+
+And she was gone before his slow tongue could frame a further excuse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A PICNIC IN THE RED SAND VALLEY
+
+
+Summer, at the foot of the Canadian Rockies, sets in suddenly. There
+are no dreary days of damp and cold when the east wind bites through to
+the bones and chills right down to the marrow. One moment all is black,
+dead; the lean branches and dead grass of last year make a waste of
+dreary decay. Watch. See the magic of the change. The black of the
+trees gives way to a warming brown; the grass, so sad in its
+depression, suddenly lightens with the palest hue of green. There is at
+once a warmth of tone which spreads itself over the world, and gladdens
+the heart and sets the pulses throbbing with renewed life and hope.
+Animal life stirs; the insect world rouses. At the sun's first smile
+the whole earth wakens; it yawns and stretches itself; it blinks and
+rubs its eyes, and presently it smiles back. The smile broadens into a
+laugh, and lo! it is summer, with all the world clad in festal raiment,
+gorgeous in its myriads of changing color-harmonies.
+
+It was on such a day in the smiling valley of the Red Sand River that
+Betty Somers held her school picnic. There were no shadows to mar the
+festivities she had arranged. The sky was brilliant, cloudless, and
+early in the season as it was, the earth was already beginning to crack
+and parch under the fiery sun.
+
+A dozen democrat wagons, bedecked with flags and filled to overflowing
+with smiling, rosy-faced children, each wagon under the charge of one
+of the village matrons, set out at eight o'clock in the morning for the
+camping-ground. Besides these, an hour later, a large number of private
+buggies conveyed the parents and provender, while the young people of
+the village rode out on horseback as a sort of escort to the
+commissariat. It was a gay throng, and there could be little doubt but
+that the older folk were as delighted at the prospect of the outing as
+the children themselves.
+
+Dave was there with the rest. Betty's challenge had had its effect. But
+he came without any of the enthusiasm of the rest of the young people.
+It was perfectly true that the demands of his mill made the outing
+inconvenient to him, but that was not the real reason of his
+reluctance. There was another, a far stronger one. All the years of his
+manhood had taught him that there was small place for him where the
+youth of both sexes foregathered. His body was too cumbersome, his
+tongue was too slow, and his face was too plain. The dalliance of man
+and maid was not for him, he knew, and did he ever doubt or forget it,
+his looking-glass, like an evil spirit, was ever ready to remind and
+convince him.
+
+The picnic ground was some five miles down the valley, in the depths of
+a wide, forest-grown glen, through which a tiny tributary of the Red
+Sand River tumbled its way over a series of miniature waterfalls. The
+place was large and magnificently rock-bound, and looked as though it
+had originally been chiseled by Nature to accommodate a rushing
+mountain torrent. It gave one the impression of a long disused waterway
+which, profiting by its original purpose, had become so wonderfully
+fertilized that its vegetation had grown out of all proportion to its
+capacity. It was a veritable jungle of undergrowth and forest, so dense
+and wide spreading as almost to shut out the dazzling sunlight. It was
+an ideal pleasure camping-ground, where the children could romp and
+play every game known to the Western child, and their elders could
+revel in the old, old game which never palls, and which the practice of
+centuries can never rob of its youth.
+
+All the morning the children played, while the women were kept busy
+with the preparations for the midday feast. The men were divided up
+into two sections, the elders, taking office under the command of Tom
+Chepstow, organizing the children's games, and the other half,
+acknowledging the leadership of Mrs. Tom, assisting those engaged in
+the culinary arrangements.
+
+As might be expected, the latter occupation found most favor with the
+younger men. There was far more fun in wandering through the tangled
+undergrowth of the riverside to help a girl fill a kettle, than in
+racking one's brains for some startlingly unoriginal and long-forgotten
+game with which to dazzle the mind of Malkern's youth. Then there were
+the joys of gathering fire-wood, a task which enlisted the services of
+at least a dozen couples. This was a much favored occupation. There was
+no time limit, and it involved a long, long ramble. Then, too, it was
+remarkable that every girl performing the simplest duty, and one in
+which she never required the least assistance when at home, found it
+quite impossible to do so here without the strong physical and moral
+support of the man she most favored.
+
+Thus the morning passed. While the girls and men flirted, and the older
+women took to themselves a reflected enjoyment of it all, the children
+shrieked their delight at the simplest game, and baited their elders
+with all the impudence of childhood. It was a morning of delight to
+all; a morning when the sluggish blood of the oldest quickened in the
+sunken veins; a morning when the joy of living was uppermost, and all
+care was thrust into the background.
+
+It was not until after dinner that Dave saw anything of Betty. As he
+had anticipated, Jim Truscott never left her side, and his own morning
+had been spent with Tom Chepstow and the children. Then, at dinner, it
+had fallen to his lot to assist the matrons in waiting upon the same
+riotous horde. In consequence, by the time he got his own meal, Betty
+and the younger section of the helpers had finished theirs and were
+wandering off into the woods.
+
+After dinner he sought out a secluded spot in which to smoke and--make
+the best of things. He felt he had earned a rest. His way took him
+along the bank of the little tumbling river. It was delightfully
+restful, cool and shadowed by the overhanging trees that nearly met
+across it. It was not an easy path, but it was calmly beautiful and
+remote, and that was all he sought.
+
+Just above one rapid, something larger than the others he had passed,
+he came to a little log footbridge. It was a delicious spot, and he sat
+down and filled his pipe. The murmur of the rapids below came up to him
+pleasantly. All the foliage about him was of that tender green inspired
+by the humidity of the dank, river atmosphere. Here and there the sun
+broke through in patches and lit up the scene, and added beauty to the
+remoter shadows of the woods. It was all so peaceful. Even the distant
+voices of the children seemed to add to the calm of his retreat.
+
+His pipe was nearly finished, and an insidious languor was stealing
+over him. He nodded once or twice, almost asleep. Then he started wide
+awake; a familiar laughing voice sounded just behind him, calling him
+by name.
+
+"Oh, Dave! So this is where you are! I've been hunting for you
+till--till my feet are sore."
+
+Before he could move Betty had plumped herself down beside him on the
+bridge. He was wide enough awake now, and his delight at the girl's
+presence was so apparent that she promptly and frankly remarked upon it.
+
+"I do believe you're glad I came, and--woke you up," she laughed.
+
+The man leant back luxuriously and propped himself against the post of
+the hand-rail.
+
+"I am, surely," he said with conviction. "I've been thinking about
+picnics. It seems to me they're a heap of fun----"
+
+"So you stole away by yourself to enjoy this one."
+
+Betty's brown eyes glanced slyly at him. There was a half smile in
+them, and yet they were serious. Dave began to refill his pipe.
+
+"Well, Betty, you see I just thought I'd like a smoke. I've been with
+the kiddies all morning."
+
+Suddenly the girl sat round facing him.
+
+"Dave, I'm a little beast. I oughtn't to have made you come. I know you
+don't care for this sort of thing, only--well, you are so kind, and you
+are so fond of making people happy. And you--you---- Oh, Dave, I--I want
+to tell you something. That's--that's why I was hunting for you."
+
+She had turned from him, and was gazing out down the stream now. Her
+face was flushed a deep scarlet. For an instant she had encountered his
+steady gray eyes and her confusion had been complete. She felt as
+though he had read right down into her very soul.
+
+Dave put his pipe away. The serious expression of his rugged face was
+unchanged, but the smile in his eyes had suddenly become more
+pronounced.
+
+"So that's why you hunted me out?" he said gently. "Well, Betty, you
+can tell me."
+
+He had seen the blushing face. He had noted the embarrassment and
+hesitancy, and the final desperate plunge. He knew in his heart what
+was coming, and the pain of that knowledge was so acute that he could
+almost have cried out. Yet he sat there waiting, his eyes smiling, his
+face calmly grave as it always was.
+
+For nearly a minute neither spoke. Then the man's deep voice urged the
+girl.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Betty rested her face in her hands and propped her elbows on her knees.
+All her embarrassment had gone now. She was thinking, thinking, and
+when at last her words came that tone of excitement which she had used
+just a moment before had quite gone out of her voice.
+
+"It's Jim," she said quietly. "He's asked me to marry him. I've
+promised--and--and he's gone to speak to uncle."
+
+Dave took out his pipe again and looked into the bowl of it.
+
+"I guessed it was that," he said, after a while. Then he fumbled for
+his tobacco. "And--are you happy--little Betty?" he asked a moment
+later.
+
+"Yes--I--I think so."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+Dave was astonished out of himself.
+
+"You only think so?" he went on, his breath coming quickly.
+
+Betty sat quite still and the man watched her, with his pipe and
+tobacco gripped tightly in his great hand. He was struggling with a mad
+desire to crush this girl to his heart and defy any one to take her
+from him. It was a terrible moment. But the wild impulse died down. He
+took a deep breath and--slowly filled his pipe.
+
+"Tell me," he said, and his tone was very tender.
+
+The girl turned to him. She rested an arm on his bent knee and looked
+up into his face. There was no longer any hesitation or doubt. She was
+pale under the warm tanning of her cheeks, but she was very pretty,
+and, to Dave, wildly seductive as she thus appealed to him.
+
+"Oh, Dave, I must tell you all. You are my only real friend. You, I
+know, will understand, and can help me. If I went to uncle, good and
+kind as he is, I feel he would not understand. And auntie, she is so
+matter-of-fact and practical. But you--you are different from anybody
+else."
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"I have loved Jim for so long," she went on hurriedly. "Long--long
+before he ever even noticed me. To me he has always been everything a
+man should and could be. You see, he is so kind and thoughtful, so
+brave, so masterful, so--so handsome, with just that dash of
+recklessness which makes him so fascinating to a girl. I have watched
+him pay attention to other girls, and night after night I have cried
+myself to sleep about it. Dave, you have never known what it is to love
+anybody, so all this may seem silly to you, but I only want to show you
+how much I have always cared for Jim. Well, after a long time he began
+to take notice of me. I remember it so well," she went on, with a
+far-away look in her eyes. "It was a year ago, at our Church Social. He
+spent a lot of time with me there, and gave me a box of candy, and then
+asked permission to see me home. Dave, from that moment I was in a
+seventh heaven of happiness. Every day I have felt and hoped that he
+would ask me to be his wife. I have longed for it, prayed for it,
+dreaded it, and lived in a dream of happiness. And now he has asked me."
+
+She turned away to the bustling stream. Her eyes had become
+pathetically sad.
+
+"And----" Dave prompted her.
+
+"Oh, I don't know." She shook her head a little helplessly. "It all
+seems different now."
+
+"Different?"
+
+"Yes, that wildly happy feeling has gone."
+
+"You are--unhappy?"
+
+The man's voice shook as he put his question.
+
+"It isn't that. I'm happy enough, I suppose. Only--only--I think I'm
+frightened now, or something. All my dreams seem to have tumbled about
+my ears. I have no longer that wonderful looking forward. Is it because
+he is mine now, and no one can take him from me? Or is it," her voice
+dropped to an awed whisper, "that--I--don't----"
+
+She broke off as though afraid to say all she feared. Dave lit his pipe
+and smoked slowly and thoughtfully. He had gone through his ordeal
+listening to her, and now felt that he could face anything without
+giving his own secret away. He must reassure her. He must remove the
+doubt in her mind, for, in his quiet, reasoning way, he told himself
+that all her future happiness was at stake.
+
+"No, it's not that, Betty," he said earnestly. "It's not that you love
+him less. It's just that for all that year you've thought and thought
+and hoped about it--till there's nothing more to it," he added lamely.
+"You see, it's the same with all things. Realization is nothing. It's
+all in the anticipation. You wait, little girl. When things are fixed,
+and Parson Tom has said 'right,' you'll--why, you'll just be the
+happiest little bit of a girl in Malkern. That's sure."
+
+Betty lifted her eyes to his ugly face and looked straight into the
+kindly eyes. Just for one impulsive moment she reached out and took
+hold of his knotty hand and squeezed it.
+
+"Dave, you are the dearest man in the world. You are the kindest and
+best," she cried with unusual emotion. "I wonder----" and she turned
+away to hide the tears that had suddenly welled up into her troubled
+eyes.
+
+But Dave had seen them, and he dared not trust himself to speak. He sat
+desperately still and sucked at his pipe, emitting great clouds of
+smoke till the pungent fumes bit his tongue.
+
+Then relief came from an unexpected quarter. There was a sharp
+crackling of bush just above where they sat and the scrunch of crushing
+pine cones trodden under foot, and Jim Truscott stepped on to the
+bridge.
+
+"Ah, here you are at last. My word, but I had a job to find you."
+
+His tone was light and easy, but his usually smiling face was clouded.
+Betty sprang to her feet.
+
+"What is it, Jim?" she demanded, searching his face. "Something is
+wrong. I know it is."
+
+Jim seated himself directly in front of Dave, who now watched him with
+added interest. He now noticed several things in the boy he did not
+remember having observed before. The face in repose, or rather without
+the smile it usually wore, bore signs of weakness about the mouth. The
+whole of the lower part of it lacked the imprint of keen decision.
+There was something almost effeminate about the mould of his full lips,
+something soft and yielding--even vicious. The rest of his face was
+good, and even intellectual. He was particularly handsome, with crisp
+curling hair of a light brown that closely matched his large expressive
+eyes. His tall athletic figure was strangely at variance with the
+intellectual cast of his face and head. But what Dave most noticed were
+the distinct lines of dissipation about his eyes. And he wondered how
+it was he had never seen them before. Perhaps it was that he so rarely
+saw Jim without his cheery smile. Perhaps, now that Betty had told him
+what had taken place, his observation was closer, keener.
+
+"What is it, Jim?" He added his voice to Betty's inquiry. Jim's face
+became gloomier. He turned to the girl, who had resumed her seat at
+Dave's side.
+
+"Have you told him?" he asked, and for a moment his eyes brightened
+with a shadow of their old smile.
+
+The girl nodded, and Dave answered for her.
+
+"She's told me enough to know you're the luckiest fellow in the Red
+Sand Valley," he said kindly.
+
+Jim glanced up into the girl's face with all the passion of his
+youthful heart shining in his handsome eyes.
+
+"Yes, I am, Dave--in that way," he said. Then his smile faded out and
+was replaced by a brooding frown. "But all the luck hasn't come my way.
+I've talked to Parson Tom."
+
+"Ah!" Dave's ejaculation was ominous.
+
+Suddenly Jim exploded, half angrily, half pettishly, like a
+disappointed schoolboy.
+
+"Betty, I've got to go away. Your uncle says so. He asked me all about
+my mill, what my profits were, and all that. I told him honestly. I
+know I'm not doing too well. He said I wasn't making enough to keep a
+nigger servant on. He told me that until I could show him an income of
+$2,500 a year there was to be no talk of engagement. What is more, he
+said he couldn't have me philandering about after you until there was a
+reasonable prospect of that income. We talked and argued, but he was
+firm. And in the end he advised me, if I were really in earnest and
+serious, to go right away, take what capital I had, and select a new
+and rising country to start in. He pointed out that there was not room
+enough here for two in the lumbering business; that Dave, here,
+complained of the state of trade, so what chance could I possibly have
+without a tithe of his resources. Finally, he told me to go and think
+out a plan, talk it over with you, and then tell him what I had decided
+upon. So here I am, and----"
+
+"So am I," added Betty.
+
+"And as I am here as well," put in Dave, "let's talk it over now. Where
+are you thinking of going?"
+
+"Seems to me the Yukon is the place. There's a big rush going on.
+There's great talk of fabulous fortunes there."
+
+"Yes, fabulous," said Dave dryly. "It's a long way. A big fare. You'll
+find yourself amongst all the scum and blacklegs of this continent.
+You'll be up against every proposition known to the crook. You'll get
+tainted. Why not do some ranching? Somewhere around here, toward
+Edmonton."
+
+Jim shook his head gloomily.
+
+"I haven't nearly enough capital."
+
+"Maybe I could manage it for you," said Dave thoughtfully. "I mean it
+as a business proposition," he added hastily.
+
+Jim's face cleared, and his ready smile broke out like sunshine after a
+summer storm.
+
+"Would you?" he cried. "Yes, a business proposition. Business interest.
+I know the very place," he went on ardently. "Betty, wouldn't that be
+bully? How would you like to be a rancher's wife?"
+
+But his spirits quickly received a damper. Betty shook her head.
+
+"No, Jim. Not at Dave's expense." Then she turned to the man who had
+made the offer. "No, no, Dave, old friend. Jim and I know you. This is
+not business from your point of view. You added that to disguise your
+kindly intention."
+
+"But----" Dave began to protest.
+
+But Betty would have none of it.
+
+"This is a debate," she said, with a brightness she did not feel, "and
+I am speaking. Jim," she turned gently to her lover, "we'll start fair
+and square with the world. You must do as uncle says. And you can do
+it. Do it yourself--yourself unaided. God will help you--surely. You
+are clever; you have youth, health and strength. I will wait for you
+all my life, if necessary. You have my promise, and it is yours until
+you come back to claim me. It may be only a year or two. We must be
+very, very brave. Whatever plan you decide on, if it is the Yukon, or
+Siberia, or anywhere else, I am content, and I will wait for you."
+
+The girl's words were so gently spoken, yet they rang with an
+irrevocable decision that astonished her hearers. Dave looked into the
+pretty, set face. He had known her so long. He had seen her in almost
+every mood, yet here was a fresh side to her character he had never
+even suspected, and the thought flashed through his mind, to what
+heights of ambition might a man not soar with such a woman at his side.
+
+Jim looked at her too. But his was a stare of amazement, and even
+resentment.
+
+"But why, Betty?" he argued sharply. "Why throw away a business offer
+such as this, when it means almost certain success? Dave offered it
+himself, and surely you will allow that he is a business man before all
+things."
+
+"Is he?" Betty smiled. Then she turned to the man who had made the
+offer. "Dave, will you do something for me?"
+
+"Why, yes, Betty--if it's not to go and wash up cups down there," he
+replied at once, with a grin.
+
+"No, it isn't to wash cups. It's"--she glanced quickly at Jim, who was
+watching her with anything but a lover-like stare--"it's--to withdraw
+that offer."
+
+Dave removed his pipe and turned to Jim.
+
+"That ranch business is off," he said.
+
+Then he suddenly sat up and leant toward the younger man.
+
+"Jim, boy, you know I wish you well," he said. "I wish you so well that
+I understand and appreciate Betty's decision now, though I allow I
+didn't see it at first. She's right. Parson Tom is right. I was wrong.
+Get right out into the world and make her a home. Get right out and
+show her, and the rest of us, the stuff you're made of. You won't fail
+if you put your back into it. And when you come back it'll be a great
+day for you both. And see here, boy, so long as you run straight you
+can ask me anything in the name of friendship, and I'll not fail you.
+Here's my hand on it."
+
+Something of Dave's earnestness rather than the girl's quiet strength
+seemed to suddenly catch hold of and lift the dejected man out of his
+moodiness. His face cleared and his sunny smile broke out again. He
+gripped the great hand, and enthusiasm rang in his voice.
+
+"By God, you're right, Dave," he cried. "You're a good chap. Yes, I'll
+go. Betty," he turned to the girl, "I'll go to the Yukon, where there's
+gold for the seeking. I'll realize all the money I can. I won't part
+with my mill. That will be my fall-back if I fail. But I won't fail.
+I'll make money by--no, I'll make money. And----" Suddenly, at the
+height of his enthusiasm, his face fell, and the buoyant spirit dropped
+from him.
+
+"Yes, yes," broke in Betty, anxious to see his mood last.
+
+Jim thought for a moment while the clouds gathered on his face. Then he
+looked steadily at Dave.
+
+"Dave," he said, and paused. Then he began again. "Dave--in
+friendship's name--I'll ask you something now. Betty here," he
+swallowed, as though what he had to say was very difficult. "You see, I
+may be away a long time, you can never tell. Will you--will you take
+care of her for me? Will you be her--her guardian, as you have always
+been mine? I know I'm asking a lot, but somehow I can't leave her here,
+and--I know there's her uncle and aunt. But, I don't know, somehow I'd
+like to think you had given me your word that she would be all right,
+that you were looking after her for me. Will you?"
+
+His face and tone were both eager, and full of real feeling. Dave never
+flinched as he listened to the request, yet every word cut into his
+heart, lashed him till he wondered how it was Jim could not see and
+understand. He moistened his lips. He groped in his pocket for his
+matches and lit one. He let it burn out, watching it until the flame
+nearly reached his fingers. Then he knocked his pipe out on his boot,
+and broke it with the force he used. Finally he looked up with a smile,
+and his eyes encountered Betty's.
+
+She smiled back, and he turned to her lover, who was waiting for his
+answer.
+
+"Sure I'll look after her--for you," he said slowly.
+
+Jim sprang to his feet.
+
+"I can never thank----"
+
+But Dave cut him short.
+
+"Don't thank me, boy," he said, preparing to return to the camp.
+"Just--get out and do." And he left the lovers to return at their
+leisure.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+AFFAIRS IN MALKERN
+
+
+Four glowing summers have gone; a fifth is dawning, driving before its
+radiant splendor the dark shadows and gray monotony of winter's icy
+pall. Malkern is a busy little town, spreading out its feelers in the
+way of small houses dotted about amidst the park land of the valley.
+Every year sees a further and further extension of its boarded
+sidewalks and grass-edged roadways; every year sees its population
+steadily increasing; every year sees an advancement in the architecture
+of its residences, and some detail displaying additional prosperity in
+its residents.
+
+Behind this steady growth of prosperity sits Dave, large, quiet, but
+irresistible. His is the guiding hand. The tiller of the Malkern ship
+is in his grasp, and it travels the laid course without deviation
+whatsoever. The harbor lies ahead, and, come storm or calm, he drives
+steadily on for its haven.
+
+Thus far has the man been content. Thus far have his ambitions been
+satisfied. He has striven, and gained his way inch by inch; but with
+that striving has grown up in him a desire such as inevitably comes to
+the strong and capable worker. A steady success creates a desire to
+achieve a master-stroke, whereby the fruit which hitherto he has been
+content to pluck singly falls in a mass into his lap. And therein lies
+the human nature which so often upsets the carefully trained and
+drilled method of the finest tempered brain.
+
+Dave saw his goal looming. He saw clearly that all that he had worked
+for, hoped for, could be gained at one stroke. That one stroke meant
+capturing the great government contract for the lumber required for
+building the new naval docks. It was a contract involving millions of
+dollars, and, with all the courage with which his spirit was laden, he
+meant to attempt the capture. His plans had been silently laid. No
+detail had been forgotten, no pains spared. Night and day his
+thoughtful brain had worked upon his scheme, and now had come that time
+when he must sit back and wait for the great moment. Nor did this great
+moment depend on him, and therein lay the uncertainty, the gamble so
+dear to the human heart.
+
+His scheme had been confided to only three people, and these were with
+him now, sitting on the veranda of the Rev. Tom Chepstow's house. The
+house stood on a slightly rising ground facing out to the east, whence
+a perfect view of the wide-spreading valley was obtained. It was a
+modest enough place, but trim and carefully kept. Parson Tom's stipend
+was so limited and uncertain that luxury was quite impossible; a rigid
+frugality was the ruling in his small household.
+
+It was Saturday. The day's work was over, and the family were watching
+the sunset and awaiting the hour for supper. The parson was luxuriating
+in a pipe in a well-worn deck-chair at one extremity of the deep,
+wild-cucumber-covered veranda. Dave sat near him; Mary Chepstow, the
+parson's wife, was crocheting a baby's woolen jacket, stoutly
+comfortable in a leather armchair; while Betty, a little more mature in
+figure, a little quieter in manner, but even prettier and more charming
+to look at than she was on the day of her picnic nearly five years ago,
+occupied a seat near the open French window, ready to attend at a
+moment's notice to the preparing of supper.
+
+Betty had been silent for quite a while. She was staring with
+introspective gaze out in the direction of the railroad depot. The two
+men had been discussing the best means of raising the funds for the
+building of a new church, aided by a few impracticable suggestions from
+Mrs. Chepstow, who had a way of counting her stitches aloud in the
+midst of her remarks. Suddenly Betty turned to her uncle, whose lean,
+angular frame was grotesquely hunched up in his deck-chair.
+
+"Will old Mudley bring the mail over if the train does come in this
+evening?" she inquired abruptly.
+
+The parson shook his head. His lean, clean-shaven face lit with a
+quizzical smile as he glanced over at his niece.
+
+"Why should he?" he replied. "He never does bring mail round. Are you
+expecting a letter--from him?"
+
+There was no self-consciousness in the girl's manner as she replied.
+There was not even warmth.
+
+"Oh, no; I was wondering if I should get one from Maud Hardwig. She
+promised to write me how Lily's wedding went off in Regina. It is a
+nuisance about the strike. But it's only the plate-layers, isn't it;
+and it only affects the section where they are constructing east of
+Winnipeg?"
+
+Her uncle removed his pipe.
+
+"Yes. But it affects indirectly the whole system. You see, they won't
+put on local mails from Regina. They wait for the eastern mail to come
+through. By the way, how long is it since you heard from Jim?"
+
+Betty had turned away and was watching the vanishing point of the
+railway track, where it entered the valley a couple of miles away.
+Dave's steady eyes turned upon her. But she didn't answer at once, and
+her uncle had to call her attention.
+
+"Betty!"
+
+"Oh, I'm sorry, uncle," she replied at once. "I was dreaming. When did
+I hear? Oh, nearly nine months ago."
+
+Mary Chepstow looked up with a start.
+
+"Nine months? Gracious, child--there, I've done it wrong."
+
+Bending over her work she withdrew her hook and started to unravel the
+chain she was making.
+
+"Yes," Betty went on coldly. "Nine months since I had a letter. But
+I've heard indirectly."
+
+Her uncle sat up.
+
+"You never told me," he said uneasily.
+
+The girl's indifference was not without its effect on him. She never
+talked of Jim Truscott now. And somehow the subject was rarely broached
+by any of them. Truscott had nominally gone away for two or three
+years, but they were already in the fifth year since his departure, and
+there was as yet no word of his returning. Secretly her uncle was
+rather pleased at her silence on the subject. He augured well from it.
+He did not think there was to be any heart-breaking over the matter. He
+had never sanctioned any engagement between them, but he had been
+prepared to do so if the boy turned up under satisfactory conditions.
+Now he felt that it was time to take action in the matter. Betty was
+nearly twenty-seven, and--well, he did not want her to spend her life
+waiting for a man who showed no sign of returning.
+
+"I didn't see the necessity," she said quietly. "I heard of him through
+Dave."
+
+The parson swung round on the master of the mills. His keen face was
+alert with the deepest interest.
+
+"You, Dave?" he exclaimed.
+
+The lumberman stirred uneasily, and Mary Chepstow let her work lie idle
+in her lap.
+
+"Dawson--my foreman, you know--got a letter from Mansell. You remember
+Mansell? He acted as Jim's foreman at his mill. A fine sawyer,
+Mansell----"
+
+"Yes, yes." Parson Tom's interest made him impatient.
+
+"Well, you remember that Mansell went with Jim when he set out for the
+Yukon. They intended to try their luck together. Partners, of course.
+Well, Mansell wrote Dawson he was sick to death of worrying things out
+up there. He said he'd left Jim, but did not state why. He asked him if
+my mill was going strong, and would there be a job for him if he came
+back. He said that Jim was making money now. He had joined a man named
+Broncho Bill, a pretty hard citizen, and in consequence he was doing
+better. How he was making money he didn't say. But he finished up his
+remarks about the boy by saying he'd leave him to tell his own story,
+as he had no desire to put any one away."
+
+Mrs. Chepstow offered no comment, but silently picked up her work and
+went on with it. Her husband sat back in his chair, stretching his long
+muscular legs, and folding his hands behind his head. Betty displayed
+not the least interest in Dave's haltingly told story.
+
+The silence on the veranda was ominous. Chepstow began to refill his
+pipe, furtively watching his niece's pretty profile as she sat looking
+down the valley. It was his wife who broke the oppressive silence.
+
+"I can't believe badly--three treble in the adjacent hole"--she
+muttered, referring to her pattern book, "of him. I always liked
+him--five chain."
+
+"So do I," put in Dave with emphasis.
+
+Betty glanced quickly into his rugged face.
+
+"You don't believe the insinuations of that letter?" she asked him
+sharply.
+
+"I don't."
+
+Dave's reply was emphatic. Betty smiled over at him. Then she jumped up
+from her seat and pointed down the track.
+
+"There's the mail," she cried. Then she came to her aunt's side and
+laid a hand coaxingly on her shoulder. "Will you see to supper, dear,
+if I go down for the mail?"
+
+Mrs. Chepstow would not trust herself to speak, she was in the midst of
+a complicated manipulation of the pattern she was working, so she
+contented herself with a nod, and Betty was off like the wind. The two
+men watched her as she sped down the hard red sand trail, and neither
+spoke until a bend in the road hid her from view.
+
+"She's too good a girl, Dave," Chepstow said with almost militant
+warmth. "She's not going to be made a fool of by--by----"
+
+"She won't be made a fool of by any one," Dave broke in with equal
+warmth. "There's no fear of it, if I'm any judge," he added. "I don't
+think you realize that girl's spirit, Tom. Here, I'll tell you
+something I've never told anybody. When Jim went away Betty came to me
+and asked me to let her study my mills. She wanted to learn all the
+business of 'em. All the inside of the management of 'em. If I'd have
+let her she'd have learnt how to run the saws. And do you know why she
+did it? I'll tell you. Because she thought Jim might come back broke,
+and he and she together could start up his old mill again, so as to win
+through. That's Betty. Can you beat it? That girl has made up her mind
+to a certain line of action, and she'll see it through, no matter what
+her feelings may be. No word of yours, or mine, will turn her from her
+purpose. She'll wait for Jim."
+
+"Yes, and waste the best of her life," exclaimed Mrs. Chepstow. "One,
+two, three--turn."
+
+Dave smiled over at the rotund figure crocheting so assiduously.
+Although Mary Chepstow was over forty her face still retained its
+youthful prettiness. The parson laughed. He generally laughed at his
+wife's views upon anything outside of her small household and the care
+of the sick villagers. But it was never an unkind laugh. Just a large,
+tolerant good-nature, a pronounced feature in his character. Parson
+Tom, like many kindly men, was hasty of temper, even fiery, and being a
+man of considerable athletic powers, this characteristic had, on more
+than one occasion, forcibly brought some recalcitrant member of his
+uncertain-tempered flock to book, and incidentally acquired for him the
+sobriquet of "the fighting parson."
+
+"I don't know about wasting the best of her life," he said. "Betty has
+never wasted her life. Look at the school she's got now. And, mark you,
+she's done it all herself. She has three teachers under her. She has
+negotiated all the finance of the school herself. She got the
+government by the coat-tails and dragged national support out of it.
+Why, she's a wonder. No, no, not waste, Mary. Let her wait if she
+chooses. We won't interfere. I only hope that when Jim does come back
+he'll be a decent citizen. If he isn't, I'd bet my last cent Betty will
+know how to deal with him."
+
+"She'll sure give him up, if he isn't," said Dave with conviction.
+
+Mary looked up, her round blue eyes twinkling.
+
+"Dave knows Betty better than we do, Tom. I'd almost think---- I'm not
+sure I like this shade of pink," she digressed, examining her wool
+closely. "Er--what was I saying? Oh, yes--I'd almost think he'd made a
+special study of her."
+
+A deep flush spread slowly over Dave's ugly face, and he tried to hide
+it by bending over his pipe and examining the inside of the bowl.
+
+Parson Tom promptly changed the subject. He shook his head and turned
+away to watch the ruddy extravagance of the sunset in the valley.
+
+"Dave has got far too much to think of in his coming government
+contract to bother with a girl like Betty. By the way, when do you
+expect to hear the result of your tender, Dave?"
+
+"Any time."
+
+The lumberman's embarrassment had vanished at the mention of his
+contract. His eyes lit, and the whole of his plain features were
+suddenly illumined. This was his life's purpose. This contract meant
+everything to him. All that had gone before, all his labor, his early
+struggles, they were nothing to the store he set by this one great
+scheme.
+
+"Good. And your chances?" There was the keenest interest in the
+parson's question.
+
+"Well, I'd say they're good. You see, that find of ours up in the hills
+opens a possibility we never had before. The new docks require an
+enormous supply of ninety-foot timber. It's got to be ninety-foot
+stuff. Well, we've got the timber in that new find. There's a valley of
+some thousands of acres of forest which will supply it. Tom," he went
+on eagerly, "we could cut 'em hundred-and-twenty-foot logs from that
+forest till the cows come home. It's the greatest proposition in
+lumbering. It's one of the greatest of those great primordial pine
+forests which are to be found in the Rockies, if one is lucky enough.
+At present we are the only people in Canada who can give them the stuff
+they need, and enough of it. Yes, I think I'll get it. I've set the
+wires pulling all I know. I've cut the price. I've done everything I
+can, and I think I'll get it. If I do I'll be a millionaire half a
+dozen times over, and Malkern, and all its people, will rise to an
+immense prosperity. I must get it! And having got it, I must push it
+through successfully."
+
+Mary and her husband were hanging on the lumberman's words, carried
+away by his enthusiasm. There was that light of battle in his eyes, the
+firm setting of his heavy under-jaw, which they knew and understood so
+well. To them he was the personification of resolution. To them his
+personality was irresistible.
+
+"Of course you'll push it through successfully," Tom nodded.
+
+"Yes, yes. I shall. I must," Dave said, stirring his great body in his
+chair with a restlessness which spoke of his nervous tension. "But it's
+this time limit. You see, it's a government contract. They want these
+naval docks built quickly. The whole scheme is to be rushed through.
+Since the Imperial Conference has decided that each colony is to build
+its own share of the navy for imperial defense, in view of the European
+situation, that building is to be begun at once. They are laying down
+five ships this year, and, by the end of the year, they are to have
+docks ready for the laying down of six more. My contract is for the
+lumber for those docks. You see? My contract must be completed before
+winter closes down, without fail. I have guaranteed that. Well, as I am
+the only lumberman in Canada that can supply this heavy lumber, if they
+do not give it to me they will have to go to the States for it. Yes,"
+he added, with something like a sigh, "I think I shall get it.
+But--this time limit! If I fail it will break me, and, in the crash,
+Malkern will go too."
+
+Mary Chepstow sighed with emotion. Her crochet was forgotten.
+
+"You won't fail," she murmured, her eyes glistening. "You can't!"
+
+"Malkern isn't going to tumble about our ears, old friend," Parson Tom
+said with quiet assurance.
+
+Dave had fallen back into his lounging attitude and puffed at his pipe.
+
+"No," he said. Then he pointed down the trail in the direction of the
+depot. "There's Betty coming along in a hurry with Jenkins Mudley."
+
+All eyes turned to look. Betty was almost running beside the tall thin
+figure of the operator and postmaster of Malkern. They came up with a
+final rush, the man flourishing a telegram at Dave. Betty was carrying
+a number of letters.
+
+"I just thought I'd bring this along myself," Mudley grinned.
+"Everything's been delayed through the strike down east. This, too.
+Felt I'd hate to let any one else hand it to you, Dave."
+
+Dave snatched at the tinted envelope and tore it open, while Betty,
+nodding at her uncle and aunt, her eyes dancing with delight, made
+frantic signs to them. But they took no notice of her, keeping their
+eyes fixed on the towering form of the master of the mills. Dave was
+the calmest man present. He read the message over twice, and then
+deliberately thrust it into his pocket. Then, as he returned to his
+seat, he said--"I've got my contract, folks."
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Betty, no longer able to control herself. The operator
+had previously imparted the fact to her. Then, with a jump, she was on
+the veranda and flung some letters into her uncle's lap, retaining one
+for herself that had already been read. The next moment she had seized
+both of Dave's great hands, and was wringing them with all her heart
+and soul shining in her eyes.
+
+"I'm so--so glad, I don't know what I'm doing or saying," she cried,
+and then collapsed on her uncle's knee.
+
+Dave laughed quietly, but her aunt, her face belying her words,
+reproved her gently.
+
+"Betty," she said warningly as the girl scrambled to her feet, "don't
+get excited. I think you'd better go and see to supper. I see you got
+your letter. How did the wedding go off?"
+
+Betty was leaning against one of the veranda posts.
+
+"Oh, yes," she said indifferently. "I'd forgotten my letter. It's from
+Jim. He's coming home."
+
+Her aunt suddenly picked up her work. The parson began to open his
+letters. Dave's eyes, until that moment smiling, suddenly became
+serious. The girl's news had a strangely damping effect. Dave cleared
+his throat as though about to speak. But he remained silent.
+
+Then Betty moved across to the door.
+
+"I'll go and get supper," she said quietly, and vanished into the house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+DICK MANSELL'S NEWS
+
+
+For Dave the next fortnight was fraught with a tremendous pressure of
+work. But arduous and wearing as it was, to him there was that thrill
+of conscious striving which is the very essence of life to the
+ambition-inspired man. His goal loomed dimly upon his horizon, he could
+see it in shadowy outline, and every step he took now, every effort he
+put forth, he knew was carrying him on, drawing him nearer and nearer
+to it. He worked with that steady enthusiasm which never rushes. He was
+calm and purposeful. To hasten, to diverge from his deliberate course
+in the heat of excitement, he knew would only weaken his effort.
+Careful organization, perfect, machine-like, was what he needed, and
+the work would do itself.
+
+At the mills a large extension of the milling floors and an added
+number of saws were needed. In its present state the milling floor
+could hardly accommodate the ninety-foot logs demanded by the contract.
+This was a structural alteration that must be carried out at express
+speed, and had been prepared for, so that it was only a matter of
+executing plans already drawn up. Joel Dawson, the foreman, one of the
+best lumbermen in the country, was responsible for the alterations.
+Simon Odd, the master sawyer, had the organizing of the skilled labor
+staff inside the mill, a work of much responsibility and considerable
+discrimination.
+
+But with Dave rested the whole responsibility and chief organization.
+It was necessary to secure labor for both the mill and the camps up in
+the hills. And for this the district had to be scoured, while two
+hundred lumber-jacks had to be brought up from the forests of the
+Ottawa River.
+
+Dave and his lieutenants worked all their daylight hours, and most of
+the night was spent in harness. They ate to live only, and slept only
+when their falling eyelids refused to keep open.
+
+Only Dave and his two loyal supporters knew the work of that fortnight;
+only they understood the anxiety and strain, but their efforts were
+crowned with success, and at the end of that time the first of the
+"ninety-footers" floated down the river to the mouth of the great boom
+that lay directly under the cranes of the milling floor.
+
+It was not until that moment that Dave felt free to look about him, to
+turn his attention from the grindstone of his labors. It was midday
+when word passed of the arrival of the first of the timber, and he went
+at once to verify the matter for himself. It was a sight to do his
+heart good. The boom, stretching right into the heart of the mills, was
+a mass of rolling, piling logs, and a small army of men was at work
+upon them piloting them so as to avoid a "crush." It was perilous,
+skilful work, and the master of the mills watched with approval the
+splendid efforts of these intrepid lumber-jacks. He only waited until
+the rattling chains of the cranes were lowered and the first log was
+grappled and lifted like a match out of the water, and hauled up to the
+milling floor. Then, with a sigh as of a man relieved of a great
+strain, he turned away and passed out of his yards.
+
+It was the first day for a fortnight he had gone to his house for
+dinner.
+
+His home was a small house of weather-boarding with a veranda all
+creeper-grown, as were most of the houses in the village. It had only
+one story, and every window had a window-box full of simple flowers. It
+stood in a patch of garden that was chiefly given up to vegetables,
+with just a small lawn of mean-looking turf with a centre bed of
+flowers. Along the top-railed fence which enclosed it were, set at
+regular intervals, a number of small blue-gum and spruce trees. It was
+just such an abode as one might expect Dave to possess: simple, useful,
+unpretentious. It was the house of a man who cared nothing for luxury.
+Utility was the key-note of his life. And the little trivial
+decorations in the way of creepers, flowers, and such small luxuries
+were due to the gentle, womanly thought of his old mother, with whom he
+lived, and who permitted no one else to minister to his wants.
+
+She was in the doorway when he came up, a small thin figure with
+shriveled face and keen, questioning eyes. She was clad in black, and
+wore a print overall. Her snow-white hair was parted in the middle and
+smoothed down flat, in the method of a previous generation. She was an
+alert little figure for all her sixty odd years.
+
+The questioning eyes changed to a look of gladness as the burly figure
+of her son turned in at the gate. There could be no doubt as to her
+feelings. Dave was all the world to her. Her admiration for her son
+amounted almost to idolatry.
+
+"Dinner's ready," she said eagerly. "I thought I'd just see if you were
+coming. I didn't expect you. Have you time for it, Dave?"
+
+"Sure, ma," he responded, stooping and kissing her upturned face. "The
+logs are down."
+
+"Dear boy, I'm glad."
+
+It was all she said, but her tone, and the look she gave him, said far
+more than the mere words.
+
+Dave placed one great arm gently about her narrow shoulders and led her
+into the house.
+
+"I'm going to take an hour for dinner to-day sure," he said, with
+unusual gaiety. "Just to celebrate. After this," he went on, "for six
+months I'm going to do work that'll astonish even you, ma."
+
+"But you won't overdo it, Dave, will you? The money isn't worth it. It
+isn't really. I've lived a happy life without much of it, boy, and I
+don't want much now. I only want my boy."
+
+There was a world of gentle solicitude in the old woman's tones. So
+much that Dave smiled upon her as he took his place at the table.
+
+"You'll have both, ma, just as sure as sure. I'm not only working for
+the sake of the money. Sounds funny to say that when I'm working to
+make myself a millionaire. But it's not the money. It's success first.
+I don't like being beaten, and that's a fact. We Americans hate being
+beaten. Then there's other things. Think of these people here. They'll
+do well. Malkern'll be a city to be reckoned with, and a prosperous
+one. Then the money's useful to do something with. We can help others.
+You know, ma, how we've talked it all out."
+
+The mother helped her son to food.
+
+"Yes, I know. But your health, boy, you must think of that."
+
+Dave laughed boisterously, an unusual thing with him. But his mood was
+light. He felt that he wanted to laugh at anything. What did anything
+matter? By this time a dozen or so of the "ninety-footers" were already
+in the process of mutilation by his voracious saws.
+
+"Health, ma?" he cried. "Look at me. I don't guess I'm pretty, but I
+can do the work of any French-Canadian horse in my yards."
+
+The old woman shook her silvery head doubtfully.
+
+"Well, well, you know best," she said, "only I don't want you to get
+ill."
+
+Dave laughed again. Then happening to glance out of the window he saw
+the figure of Joe Hardwig, the blacksmith, turning in at the gate.
+
+"Another plate, ma," he said hastily. "There's Hardwig coming along."
+
+His mother summoned her "hired" girl, and by the time Hardwig's knock
+came at the door a place was set for him. Dave rose from the table.
+
+"Come right in, Joe," he said cheerily. "We're just having grub. Ma's
+got some bully stew. Sit down and join us."
+
+But Joe Hardwig declined, with many protestations. He was a broad,
+squat little man, whose trade was in his very manner, in the strength
+of his face, and in the masses of muscle which his clothes could not
+conceal.
+
+"The missus is wantin' me," he said. "Thank you kindly all the same.
+Your servant, mam," he added awkwardly, turning to Dave's mother. Then
+to the lumberman, "I jest come along to hand you a bit of information I
+guessed you'd be real glad of. Mansell--Dick Mansell's got back! I've
+been yarnin' with him. Say, guess you'll likely need him. He's wantin'
+a job too. He's a bully sawyer."
+
+Dave had suddenly become serious.
+
+"Dick Mansell!" he cried. Then, after a pause, "Has he brought word of
+Jim Truscott?"
+
+The mother's eyes were on her son, shrewdly speculating. She had seen
+his sudden gravity. She knew full well that he cared less for Mansell's
+powers as a sawyer than for Mansell as the companion and sharer of Jim
+Truscott's exile. Now she waited for the blacksmith's answer.
+
+Joe shifted uneasily. His great honest face looked troubled. He had not
+come there to spill dirty water. He knew how much Dave wanted skilled
+hands, and he knew that Dick needed work.
+
+"Why, yes," he said at last. "At least--that is----"
+
+"Out with it, man," cried Dave, with unusual impatience. "How is Jim,
+and--how has he done?"
+
+Just for an instant Joe let an appealing glance fall in the old woman's
+direction, but he got no encouragement from her. She was steadily
+proceeding with her dinner. Besides, she never interfered with her boy.
+Whatever he did was always right to her.
+
+"Well?" Dave urged the hesitating man.
+
+"Oh, I guess he's all right. That is--he ain't hard up. Why yes, he was
+speakin' of him," Joe stumbled on. "He guessed he was comin' along down
+here later. That is, Jim is--you see----"
+
+But Dave hated prevarication. He could see that Joe didn't want to tell
+what he had heard. However he held him to it fast.
+
+"Has Jim been running straight?" he demanded sharply.
+
+"Oh, as to that--I guess so," said Joe awkwardly.
+
+Dave came over to where Joe was still standing, and laid a hand on his
+shoulder.
+
+"See here, Joe, we all know you; you're a good sportsman, and you don't
+go around giving folks away--and bully for you. But I'd rather you told
+me what Mansell's told you than that he should tell me. See? It won't
+be peaching. I've got to hear it."
+
+Joe looked straight up into his face, and suddenly his eyes lit angrily
+at his own thought. "Yes, you'd best have it," he exclaimed, all his
+hesitation gone; "that dogone boy's been runnin' a wild racket. He's
+laid hold of the booze and he's never done a straight day's work since
+he hit the Yukon trail. He's comin' back to here with a gambler's wad
+in his pocketbook, and--and--he's dead crooked. Leastways, that's how
+Mansell says. It's bin roulette, poker an' faro. An' he's bin runnin'
+the joint. Mansell says he ain't no sort o' use for him no ways, and
+that he cut adrift from the boy directly he got crooked."
+
+"Oh, he did, did he?" said Dave, after a thoughtful pause. "I don't
+seem to remember that Dick Mansell was any saint. I'd have thought a
+crooked life would have fallen in with his views, but he preferred to
+turn the lad adrift when he most needed help. However, it don't
+signify. So the lad's coming back a drunkard, a gambler and a crook? At
+least Dick Mansell says so. Does he say why he's coming back?"
+
+"Well, he s'poses it's the girl--Miss Betty."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Joe shifted uneasily.
+
+"It don't seem right--him a crook," he said, with some diffidence.
+
+"No." Then Dave's thoughtful look suddenly changed to one of business
+alertness, and his tone became crisp. "See here, Joe, what about that
+new tackle for the mills? Those hooks and chains must be ready in a
+week. Then there's those cant-hooks for the hill camps. The smiths up
+there are hard at it, so I'm going to look to you for a lot. Then
+there's another thing. Is your boy Alec fit to join the mills and take
+his place with the other smiths? I want another hand."
+
+"Sure, he's a right good lad--an' thankee. I'll send him along right
+away." The blacksmith was delighted. He always wanted to get his boy
+taken on at the mill. The work that came his way he could cope with
+himself; besides, he had an assistant. He didn't want his boy working
+under him; it was not his idea of things. It was far better that he
+should get out and work under strangers.
+
+"Well, that's settled."
+
+Dave turned to his dinner and Joe Hardwig took his leave, and when
+mother and son were left together again the old woman lost no time in
+discussing Dick Mansell and his unpleasant news.
+
+"I never could bear that Mansell," she said, with a severe shake of her
+head.
+
+"No, ma. But he's a good sawyer--and I need such men."
+
+The old woman looked up quickly.
+
+"I was thinking of Jim Truscott."
+
+"That's how I guessed."
+
+"Well? What do you think?"
+
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"I haven't seen Jim yet," he said. "Ma, we ain't Jim's judges."
+
+"No."
+
+"I'm going down to the depot," Dave said after a while. "Guess I've got
+some messages to send. I'm getting anxious about that strike. They say
+that neither side will give way. The railway is pretty arbitrary on
+this point, and the plate-layers are a strong union. I've heard that
+the brakesmen and engine-drivers are going to join them. If they do,
+it's going to be bad for us. That is, in a way. Strikes are infectious,
+and I don't want 'em around here just now. We've got to cut a hundred
+thousand foot a day steady, and anything delaying us means--well, it's
+no use thinking what it means. We've got to be at full work night and
+day until we finish. I'll get going."
+
+He pushed his plate away and rose from the table. He paused while he
+filled and lit his pipe, then he left the house. Joe Hardwig's news had
+disturbed him more than he cared to admit, and he did not want to
+discuss it, even with his mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+JIM TRUSCOTT RETURNS
+
+
+Dave was on the outskirts of the village when he fell in with Parson
+Tom. Tom was on ahead, but he saw the great lumbering figure swinging
+along the trail behind him, and waited.
+
+"Hello, Dave," he greeted him, as he came up. "It's ages since I've
+seen you."
+
+The master of the mills laughed good-naturedly.
+
+"Sure," he said, "my loafing days are over. I'll be ground hollow
+before I'm through. The grindstone's good and going. It's good to be at
+work, Tom. I mean what you'd call at your great work. When I'm through
+you shall have the finest church that red pine can build."
+
+"Ah, it's good to hear you talk like that. I take it things are running
+smoothly. It's not many men who deserve to make millions, but I think
+you are one of the few."
+
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"You're prejudiced about me, Tom," he replied smiling, "but I want that
+money. And when I get it we'll carry out all our schemes. You know, the
+schemes we've talked over and planned and planned. Well, when the time
+comes, we won't forget 'em----"
+
+"Like most people do. Hello!" The parson was looking ahead in the
+direction of a small crowd standing outside Harley-Smith's saloon.
+There was an anxious look in his clear blue eyes, and some
+comprehension. The crowd was swaying about in unmistakable fashion, and
+experience told him that a fight was in progress. He had seen so many
+fights in Malkern. Suddenly he turned to Dave--
+
+"Where are you going?" he inquired.
+
+"To the depot."
+
+"Good. I'll just cut along over there. That must be stopped."
+
+Dave gazed at the swaying crowd. Several men were running to join it.
+Then he looked down from his great height at the slim, athletic figure
+of his friend.
+
+"Do you want any help?" he inquired casually.
+
+Parson Tom shook his head.
+
+"No," he said, with a smile of perfect confidence. "They're children,
+all simple children. Big and awkward and unruly, if you like, but all
+children. I can manage them."
+
+"I believe you can," said Dave. "Well, so long. Don't be too hard on
+them. Remember they're children."
+
+Tom Chepstow laughed back at him as he hurried away.
+
+"All right. But unruly children need physical correction as well as
+moral. And if it is necessary I shan't spare them."
+
+He went off at a run, and Dave went on to the depot. He knew his friend
+down to his very core. There was no man in the village who was the
+parson's equal in the noble art of self-defense. And it was part of his
+creed to meet the rougher members of his flock on their own ground. He
+knew that this militant churchman would stop that fight, and, if
+necessary, bodily chastise the offenders. It was this wholesome
+manliness that had so endeared the "fighting parson" to his people.
+They loved him for his capacity, and consequently respected him far
+more than they would have done the holiest preacher that ever breathed.
+He was a man they understood.
+
+The spiritual care of a small lumbering village is not lightly to be
+entered upon. A man must be peculiarly fitted for it. In such a place,
+where human nature is always at its crudest; where muscle, and not
+intellect, must always be the dominant note; where life is lived
+without a thought for the future, and the present concern is only the
+individual fitness to execute a maximum of labor, and so give
+expression to a savage vanity in the triumph of brute force, the man
+who would set out to guide his fellows must possess qualities all too
+rare in the general run of clergy. His theology must be of the
+simplest, broadest order. He must live the life of his flock, and teach
+almost wholly by example. His preaching must be lit with a local
+setting, and his brush must lay on the color of his people's every-day
+life.
+
+Besides this, he must possess a tremendous moral and physical courage,
+particularly the latter, for to the lumber-jack nothing else so
+appeals. He must feel that he is in the presence of a man who is always
+his equal, if not his superior, in those things he understands. Tom
+Chepstow was all this. He was a lumberman himself at heart. He knew
+every detail of the craft. He had lived that life all his manhood's
+days.
+
+Then he possessed a rare gift in medicine. He had purposely studied it
+and taken his degrees, for no one knew better than he the strength this
+added to his position. He shed his healing powers upon his people, a
+gift that reaped him a devotion no sanctity and godliness could ever
+have brought him. Parson Tom was a practical Christian first, and
+attended only to spiritual welfare when the body had been duly cared
+for.
+
+Dave went on to the depot, where he despatched his messages. Then he
+extracted from Jenkins Mudley all the information he possessed upon the
+matter of the plate-layers' strike, and finally took the river trail
+back to the mills.
+
+His way took him across the log bridge over the river, and here he
+paused, leaning upon the rail, and gazed thoughtfully down the woodland
+avenue which enclosed the turbulent stream.
+
+Somehow he could never cross that bridge without pausing to admire the
+wonderful beauty of his little friend's surroundings. He always thought
+of this river as his friend. How much it was his friend only he knew.
+But for it, and its peculiarities, his work would be impossible. He did
+not have to do as so many lumbermen have to, depend on the spring
+freshet to carry his winter cut down to his mill. The melting snows of
+the mountains kept the river flowing, a veritable torrent, during the
+whole of the open season, and at such time he possessed in it a
+never-failing transport line which cost him not one cent.
+
+The hour he had allowed for his dinner was not yet up, and he felt that
+he could indulge himself a little longer, so he refilled his pipe and
+smoked while he gazed contemplatively into the depths of the dancing
+waters below him.
+
+But his day-dreaming was promptly interrupted, and the interruption was
+the coming of Betty, on her way home to her dinner from the schoolhouse
+up on the hillside. He had seen her only once since the day that
+brought him the news of his contract. That was on the following Sunday,
+when he went, as usual, to Tom Chepstow's for supper.
+
+Just at that moment Betty was the last person he wanted to see. That
+was his first thought when he heard her step on the bridge. He had
+forgotten that this was her way home, and that this was her
+dinner-time. However, there was no sign of his reluctance in his face
+when he greeted her.
+
+"Why, Betty," he said, as gently as his great voice would let him, "I
+hadn't thought to see you coming this way." Then he broke off and
+studied her pretty oval face more closely. "What's wrong?" he inquired
+presently. "You look--you look kind of tired."
+
+He was quite right. The girl looked pale under her tan, and there was
+an unusual darkness round her gentle brown eyes. She looked very tired,
+in spite of the smile of welcome with which she greeted him.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, Dave," she said at once. But her tone was
+cheerless, in spite of her best effort.
+
+He shook his great head and knocked his pipe out.
+
+"There's something amiss, child. Guess maybe it's the heat." He turned
+his eyes up to the blazing sun, as though to reassure himself that the
+heat was there.
+
+Betty leant beside him on the rail. Her proximity, and the evident
+sadness of her whole manner, made him realize that he must not stay
+there. At that moment she looked such a pathetic little figure that he
+felt he could not long be responsible for what he said. He longed to
+take her in his arms and comfort her.
+
+He could think of nothing to say for a long time, but at last he broke
+out with--
+
+"You'd best not go back to the school this afternoon."
+
+But the girl shook her head.
+
+"It's not that," she said. Then she paused. Her eyes were fixed on the
+rushing water as it flowed beneath the bridge.
+
+He watched her closely, and gradually a conviction began to grow in his
+mind.
+
+"Dave," she went on at last, "we've always been such good friends,
+haven't we? You've always been so patient and kind with me when I have
+bothered you with my little troubles and worries. You never fail to
+help me out. It seems to me I can never quite do without your help.
+I--I"--she smiled more like her old self, and with relief the man saw
+some of the alarming shadows vanishing from her face, "I don't think I
+want to, either. I've had a long talk with Susan Hardwig this morning."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+The man's growing conviction had received confirmation.
+
+"What did that mean?" Betty asked quickly.
+
+Dave was staring out down the river.
+
+"Just nothing. Only I've had a goodish talk with Joe Hardwig."
+
+"Then I needn't go into the details. I've heard the news that Dick
+Mansell has brought with him."
+
+It was a long time before either spoke again. For Dave there seemed so
+little to say. What could he say? Sympathy was out of the question. He
+had no right to blame Jim yet. Nor did he feel that he could hold out
+hope to her, for in his heart he believed that the man's news was true.
+
+With Betty, she hardly knew how to express her feelings. She hardly
+knew what her feelings were. At the time Mrs. Hardwig poured her tale
+into her ears she had listened quite impersonally. Somehow the story
+had not appealed to her as concerning herself, and her dominant thought
+had been pity for the man. It was not until afterward, when she was
+alone on her way to the school, that the full significance of it came
+to her; and then it came as a shock. She remembered, all of a sudden,
+that she was promised to Jim. That when Jim came back she was to marry
+him. From that moment the matter had never been out of her mind;
+through all her school hours it was with her, and her attention had
+been so distracted from her work that she found her small pupils
+getting out of hand.
+
+Yes, she was to marry Jim, and they told her he was a drunkard, a
+gambler, and a "crook." She had given him her promise; she had sent him
+away. It was her own doing. Her feelings toward him never came into her
+thoughts. During the long five years of his absence he had become a
+sort of habit to her. She had never thought of her real feelings after
+the first month or two of his going. She was simply waiting for him,
+and would marry him when he came. It was only now, when she heard this
+story of him, that her feelings were called upon to assert themselves,
+and the result was something very like horror at her own position.
+
+She remembered now her disappointment at the first realization of all
+her hopes, when Jim had asked her to marry him. She had not understood
+then, but now--now she did. She knew that she had never really loved
+him. And at the thought of his return she was filled with horror and
+dread.
+
+She was glad that she had met Dave; she had longed to see him. He was
+the one person she could always lean on. And in her present trouble she
+wanted to lean on him.
+
+"Dave," she began at last, in a voice so hopeless that it cut him to
+the heart, "somehow I believe that story. That is, in the main. Don't
+think it makes any difference to me. I shall marry him just the same.
+Only I seem to see him in his real light now. He was always weak, only
+I didn't see it then. He was not really the man to go out into the
+world to fight alone. We were wrong. I was wrong. He should have stayed
+here."
+
+"Yes," Dave nodded.
+
+"He must begin over again," she went on, after a pause. "When he comes
+here we must help him to a fresh start, and we must blot his past out
+of our minds altogether. There is time enough. He is young. Now I want
+you to help me. We must ask him no questions. If he wants to speak he
+can do so. Now that you are booming at the mills we can help him to
+reopen his mill, and I know you can, and will, help him by putting work
+in his way. All this is what I've been thinking out. When he comes, and
+we are--married," there was the slightest possible hesitation before
+the word, and Dave's quick ears and quicker senses were swift to hear
+and interpret it, "I am going to help him with the work. I'll give up
+my school. I've always had such a contingency in my mind. That's why I
+got you to teach me your work when he first went away. Tell me, Dave,
+you'll help me in this. You see the boy can't help his weakness.
+Perhaps we are stronger than he, and between us we can help him."
+
+The man looked at her a long time in silence, and all the while his
+loyal heart was crying out. His gray eyes shone with a light she did
+not comprehend. She saw their fixed smile, and only read in them the
+assent he never withheld from her.
+
+"I knew you would," she murmured.
+
+It was her voice that roused him. And he spoke just as she turned away
+in the direction of the schoolhouse trail, whence proceeded the sound
+of a horse galloping.
+
+"Yes, Betty--I'll help you sure," he said in his deep voice.
+
+"You'll help him, you mean," she corrected, turning back to him.
+
+But Dave ignored the correction.
+
+"Tell me, Betty," he went on again, this time with evident diffidence:
+"you're glad he's coming back? You feel happy about--about getting
+married? You--love him?"
+
+The girl stared straight up into the plain face. Her look was so
+honest, so full of decision, that her reply left no more to be said.
+
+"Five years ago I gave him my promise. That promise I shall redeem,
+unless Jim, himself, makes its fulfilment impossible."
+
+The man nodded.
+
+"You can come to me for anything you need for him," he said simply.
+
+Betty was about to answer with an outburst of gratitude when, with a
+rush, a horseman came galloping round the bend of the trail and
+clattered on to the bridge. At sight of the two figures standing by the
+rail the horse jibbed, threw himself on to his haunches, and then shied
+so violently that the rider was unseated and half out of the saddle,
+clinging desperately to the animal's neck to right himself. And as he
+hung there struggling, the string of filthy oaths that were hurled at
+the horse, and any and everybody, was so foul that Betty tried to stop
+her ears.
+
+Dave sprang at the horse and seized the bridle with one hand, with the
+other he grabbed the horseman and thrust him up into the saddle. The
+feat could only have been performed by a man of his herculean strength.
+
+"Cut that language, you gopher!" he roared into the fellow's ears as he
+lifted him.
+
+"Cut the language!" cried the infuriated man. "What in hell are you
+standing on a bridge spooning your girl for? This bridge ain't for that
+sort of truck--it's for traffic, curse you!"
+
+By the time the man had finished speaking he had straightened up in the
+saddle, and his face was visible to all. Dave jumped back, and Betty
+gave a little cry. It was Jim Truscott!
+
+Yes, it was Jim Truscott, but so changed that even Betty could scarcely
+believe the evidence of her eyes. In place of the bright,
+clever-looking face, the slim figure she had always had in her mind
+during the long five years of his absence, she now beheld a bloated,
+bearded man, without one particle of the old refinement which had been
+one of his most pronounced characteristics. It seemed incredible that
+five years could have so changed him. Even his voice was almost
+unrecognizable, so husky had it become. His eyes no longer had their
+look of frank honesty, they were dull and lustreless, and leered
+morosely. Her heart sank as she looked at him, and she remembered Dick
+Mansell's story.
+
+All three stared for a moment without speaking. Then Jim broke into a
+laugh so harsh that it made the girl shudder.
+
+"Well I'm damned!" he cried. "Of all the welcomes home this beats hell!"
+
+"Jim--oh, Jim!"
+
+The cry of horror and pain was literally wrung from the girl. Nor was
+it without effect. The man seemed to realize his uncouthness, for he
+suddenly took off his hat, and his face became serious.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Betty," he said apologetically. "I forgot where I
+was. I forgot that the Yukon was behind me, and----"
+
+"That you're talking to the lady you're engaged to be married to," put
+in Dave sharply.
+
+Dave's words drew the younger man's attention to himself. For a second
+a malicious flash shone in the bloated eyes. Then he dropped them and
+held out his hand.
+
+"How do, Dave?" he said coldly.
+
+Dave responded without any enthusiasm. He was chilled, chilled and
+horrified, and he knew that Mansell's story was no exaggeration. He
+watched Jim turn again to Betty. He saw the strained look in the girl's
+eyes, and he waited.
+
+"I'll come along up to the house later," Jim said coolly. "Guess I'll
+get along to the hotel and get cleaned some. I allow I ain't fit for
+party calls at a hog pen just about now. So long."
+
+He jabbed his horse's sides with his heels and dashed across the
+bridge. In a moment he was gone.
+
+It was some time before a word was spoken on the bridge. Dave was
+waiting, and Betty could find no words. She was frightened. She wanted
+to cry, and through it all her heart felt like lead in her bosom. But
+her dominant feeling was fear.
+
+"Well, little Betty," said Dave presently, in that gentle protecting
+manner he so often assumed toward her, "I must go on to the mills. What
+are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going home," she said; and to the keenly sympathetic ears of the
+man the note of misery in her voice was all too plain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+PARSON TOM INTERFERES
+
+
+It was nearly five o'clock and the table was set for tea. Betty was
+standing at the window staring thoughtfully out upon the valley.
+Ordinarily her contemplation would have been one of delighted interest,
+for the scene was her favorite view of the valley, where every feature
+of it, the village, the mill, the river, assumed its most picturesque
+aspect.
+
+She loved the valley with a deep affection. Unlike most people, who
+tire of their childhood's surroundings and pant for fresh sights, fresh
+fields in which to expand their thoughts and feelings, she clung to the
+valley with all an artist's love for the beautiful, and a strength
+inspired by the loyal affection of a simple woman. Her delight in her
+surroundings amounted almost to a passion. To her this valley was a
+treasured possession. The river was a friend, a fiery, turbulent
+friend, and often she had declared, when in a whimsical mood, one to
+whom she could tell her innermost secrets without fear of their being
+passed on, in confidence, to another, or of having them flung back in
+her face when spite stirred its tempestuous soul.
+
+She knew her river's shortcomings, she knew its every mood. It was
+merely a torrent, a strenuous mountain torrent, but to her it possessed
+a real personality. In the spring flood it was like some small
+individual bursting with its own importance, with its vanity, with
+resentment at the restraint of the iron hand of winter, from which it
+had only just torn itself loose, and stirred to the depths of its
+frothy soul with an overwhelming desire for self-assertion. Often she
+had watched the splendid destruction of which it was capable at such a
+time. She had seen the forest giants go down at the roar of its
+battle-cry. She had often joined the villagers, standing fearful and
+dismayed, watching its mounting waters lest their homes should be
+devoured by the insatiable little monster, and filled with awe at its
+magnificent bluster.
+
+Then, in the extreme heat of the late summer, when autumn had tinged
+the valley to a glorious gold and russet, she had just as often seen
+the reverse side of the picture. No longer could the river draw on the
+vast supplies of the melting mountain snows, and so it was doomed to
+fall a prey to the mighty grip of winter, and, as if in anticipation of
+its end, it would sing its song of sadness as it sobbed quietly over
+its fallen greatness, sighing dismally amongst the debris which in the
+days of its power it had so wantonly torn from its banks.
+
+There was a great deal of the girl's character in her love for the
+river. She possessed an enthusiastic admiration for that strength which
+fights, fights until the last drop of blood, the last atom of power is
+expended. Fallen greatness evoked her enthusiasm as keenly as success,
+only that the enthusiasm was of a different nature. With her it was
+better to have striven with all one's might and encountered disaster
+than to have lived fallow, a life of the most perfect rectitude. Her
+twenty-seven years of life had set her thrilling with a mental and
+physical virility which was forever urging her, and steadily moulding
+her whole outlook upon life, even though that outlook carried her no
+farther than the confines of her beautiful sunlit valley.
+
+Something of this was stirring within her now. She was not thinking of
+that which her eyes looked upon. She was thinking of the man to whom
+she had given her promise, her woman's promise, which carries with it
+all the best a woman has to give. She was no weakling, dreaming
+regretfully of all that might have been; she had no thought of
+retracting because in her heart she knew she had made a mistake. She
+was reviewing the man as she had seen him that noon, and considering
+the story of his doings as she had been told them, quietly making up
+her mind to her own line of action.
+
+He was presently to come up to her home to have tea with them, and she
+would be given the opportunity of seeing the man that five years'
+absence in the wilds had made of him. Once or twice she almost
+shuddered as the details of their meeting on the bridge obtruded
+themselves. She tried to shut them out. She understood the rough side
+of men, for she lived amongst a people in whom it was difficult enough
+to trace even a semblance of gentleness. She allowed for the moment of
+provocation when the man's horse had shied and unseated him. She
+realized the natural inclination it would inspire to forcibly, even if
+irresponsibly, protest. Even the manner of his protest she condoned.
+But his subsequent attitude, his appearance, and his manner toward
+herself, these were things which had an ugly tone, and for which she
+could find no extenuation.
+
+However, it should all be settled that afternoon. She unfolded and
+straightened out a piece of paper she had been abstractedly crumpling
+in her hand. She glanced at the unsteady writing on it, a writing she
+hardly recognized as Jim's.
+
+
+"Will come up to tea this afternoon. Sorry for this morning.--JIM."
+
+
+That was the note he had sent her soon after she had reached home.
+There was no word of affection in it. Nothing but a bare statement and
+an apology which scarcely warranted the name. To her it seemed to have
+been prompted by the man's realization of an unpleasant and undesired
+duty to be performed. The few letters she had received from him
+immediately before his return had borne a similar tone of indifference,
+and once or twice she had felt that she ought to write and offer him
+his freedom. This, however, she had never done, feeling that by doing
+so she might be laying herself open to misinterpretation. No, if their
+engagement were distasteful to him, it must be Jim who broke it. Unlike
+most women, she would rather he threw her over than bear the stigma of
+having jilted him. She had thought this all out very carefully. She had
+an almost mannish sense of honor, just as she possessed something of a
+man's courage to carry out her obligations.
+
+She glanced over the tea-table. There were four places set. The table
+was daintily arranged, and though the china was cheap, and there was no
+display of silver, or any elaborate furnishings, it looked attractive.
+The bread and butter was delicate, the assortment of home-made cakes
+luscious, the preserves the choicest from her aunt's store-cupboard.
+Betty had been careful, too, that the little sitting-room, with its
+simple furniture and unpretentious decorations, should be in the nicest
+order. She had looked to everything so that Jim's welcome should be as
+cordial as kindly hearts could make it. And now she was awaiting his
+coming.
+
+The clock on the sideboard chimed five, and a few moments later her
+uncle came in.
+
+"What about tea, Betty?" he inquired, glancing with approval at the
+careful preparations for the meal.
+
+"I think we ought to wait," she replied, with a wistful smile into his
+keen blue eyes. "I sent word to Jim for five o'clock--but--well,
+perhaps something has detained him."
+
+"No doubt," observed the parson dryly. "I dare say five minutes added
+on to five years means nothing to Jim."
+
+He didn't approve the man's attitude at all. All his ideas on the
+subject of courtship had been outraged at his delay in calling. He had
+been in the village nearly five hours.
+
+The girl rearranged the teacups.
+
+"You mustn't be hard on him," she said quietly. "He had to get cleaned
+up and settled at the hotel. I don't suppose he'd care to come here
+like--like----"
+
+"It doesn't take a man five hours to do all that," broke in her uncle,
+with some warmth. Then, as he faced the steady gaze of the girl's brown
+eyes, he abruptly changed his tone and smiled at her. "Yes, of course
+we'll wait. We'll give him half an hour's grace, and then--I'll fetch
+him."
+
+Betty smiled. There was a characteristic snap in the parson's final
+declaration. The militant character of the man was always very near the
+surface. He was the kindest and best of men, but anything suggesting
+lack of straightforwardness in those from whom he had a right to expect
+the reverse never failed to rouse his ire.
+
+For want of something better to do Betty was carrying out a further
+rearrangement of the tea-table, and presently her uncle questioned her
+shrewdly.
+
+"You don't seem very elated at Jim's return?" he said.
+
+"I am more than pleased," she replied gravely.
+
+Parson Tom took up his stand at the window with his back turned.
+
+"When I was engaged to your aunt," he said, smiling out at the valley,
+"if I had been away for five years and suddenly returned, she would
+probably have had about three fits, a scene of shrieking hysteria, and
+gone to bed for a week. By all of which I mean she would have been
+simply crazy with delight. It must be the difference of temperament,
+eh?" He turned round and stood smiling keenly across at the girl's
+serious face.
+
+"Yes, uncle, I don't think I am demonstrative."
+
+"Do you want to marry him?"
+
+The man's eyes were perfectly serious now.
+
+"I am going to marry him--unless----"
+
+"Unless?"
+
+"Unless he refuses to marry me."
+
+"Do you want to marry him, my dear? That was my question."
+
+Her uncle had crossed over to her and stood looking down at her with
+infinite tenderness in his eyes. She returned his gaze, and slowly a
+smile replaced her gravity.
+
+"You are very literal, uncle," she said gently. "If you want an
+absolutely direct reply it is 'Yes.'"
+
+But her uncle was not quite satisfied.
+
+"You--love him?" he persisted.
+
+But this catechism was too much for Betty. She was devoted to her
+uncle, and she knew that his questions were prompted by the kindliest
+motives. But in this matter she felt that she was entirely justified in
+thinking and acting for herself.
+
+"You don't quite understand," she said, with just a shade of
+impatience. "Jim and I are engaged, and you must leave us to settle
+matters ourselves. If you press me I shall speak the plain truth, and
+then you will have a wrong impression of the position. I perfectly
+understand my own feelings. I am not blinded by them. I shall act as I
+think best, and you must rely on my own judgment. I quite realize that
+you want to help me. But neither you nor any one else can do that,
+uncle. Ah, here is auntie," she exclaimed, with evident relief.
+
+Mrs. Chepstow came in. She was hot from her work in the kitchen, where
+she was operating, with the aid of her "hired" girl, a large bake of
+cakes for the poorer villagers. She looked at the clock sharply.
+
+"Why, it's half-past five and no tea," she exclaimed, her round face
+shining, and her gentle eyes wide open. "Where's Jim? Not here? Why, I
+am astonished. Betty, what are you thinking of?--and after five years,
+too."
+
+"Betty hasn't got him in proper harness yet," laughed the parson, but
+there was a look in his eyes which was not in harmony with his laugh.
+
+"Harness? Don't be absurd, Tom." Then she turned to Betty. "Did you
+tell him five?"
+
+Tom Chepstow picked up his hat, and before the girl could answer he was
+at the door.
+
+"I'm going to fetch him," he said, and was gone before Betty's protest
+reached him.
+
+"I do wish uncle wouldn't interfere," the girl said, as her aunt
+laughed at her husband's precipitate exit.
+
+"Interfere, my dear!" she exclaimed. "You can't stop him. He's got a
+perverted notion that we women are incapable of taking care of
+ourselves. He goes through life determined to fight our battles.
+Determined to help us out when we don't need it. He's helped me 'out'
+all our married life. He spends his life doing it, and I often wish
+he'd--he'd leave me 'in' sometimes. I've never seen a man who could
+upset a woman's plans more completely than your uncle, and all with the
+best intention. One of these days I'll start to help him out, and then
+we'll see how he likes it," she laughed good-humoredly. "You know, if
+he finds Jim he's sure to upset the boy, and he'll come back thinking
+he's done his duty by you. Poor Tom, and he does mean so well."
+
+"I know he does, auntie, and that's why we all love him so. Everybody
+loves him for it, He never thinks of himself. It's always others,
+and----"
+
+"Yes, my dear, you're right. But all the same I think he's right just
+now. Why isn't Jim here? Why didn't he come straight away? Why has he
+been in Malkern five hours before he comes to see you? Betty, my child,
+I've not said a word all these years. I've left you to your own affairs
+because I know your good sense; but, in view of the stories that have
+reached us about Jim, I feel that the time has come for me to speak.
+Are you going to verify those stories?"
+
+Mrs. Chepstow established her comfortable form in a basket chair, which
+audibly protested at the weight it was called upon to bear. She folded
+her hands in her lap, and, assuming her most judicial air, waited for
+the girl's answer. Betty was thinking of her meeting with Jim on the
+bridge.
+
+"I shall hear what he has to say," she said decidedly, after a long
+pause.
+
+Her aunt stared.
+
+"You're going to let him tell you what he likes?" she cried in
+astonishment.
+
+"He can tell me what he chooses, or--he need tell me nothing."
+
+Her aunt flushed indignantly.
+
+"You will never be so foolish," she said, exasperated.
+
+"Auntie, if Uncle Tom had been away five years, would you ask him for
+proof of his life all that time?" Betty demanded with some warmth.
+
+The other stirred uneasily.
+
+"That depends," she said evasively.
+
+"No, no, auntie, it doesn't. You would never question uncle. You are a
+woman, and just as foolish and stupid about that sort of thing as the
+rest of us. We must take our men on trust. They are men, and their
+lives are different from ours. We cannot judge them, or, at any rate,
+we would rather not. Why does a woman cling to a scoundrelly husband
+who ill-treats her and makes her life one long round of worry, and even
+misery? Is it because she simply has to? No. It is because he is her
+man. He is hers, and she would rather have his unkindness than another
+man's caresses. Foolish we may be, and I am not sure but that we would
+rather be foolish--where our men are concerned. Jim has come back. His
+past five years are his. I am going to take up my little story where it
+was broken five years ago. The stories I have heard are nothing to me.
+So, if you don't mind, dear, we will close the subject."
+
+"And--and you love him?" questioned the elder woman.
+
+But the girl had turned to the window. She pointed out down the road in
+the direction of the village.
+
+"Here is uncle returning," she said, ignoring the question. "He's
+hurrying. Why--he's actually running!"
+
+"Running?"
+
+Mrs. Chepstow bustled to the girl's side, and both stood watching the
+vigorous form of the parson racing up the trail. Just as he came to the
+veranda they turned from the window and their eyes met. Betty's were
+full of pained apprehension, while her aunt's were alight with
+perplexed curiosity. Betty felt that she knew something of the meaning
+of her uncle's undignified haste. She did not actually interpret it,
+she knew it meant disaster, but the nature of that disaster never
+entered into her thought. Something was wrong, she knew instinctively;
+and, with the patience of strength, she made no attempt to even guess
+at it, but simply waited. Her aunt rushed at the parson as he entered
+the room and flung aside his soft felt hat. Betty gazed mutely at the
+flaming anger she saw in his blue eyes, as his wife questioned him.
+
+"What is it?" she demanded. "What has happened?"
+
+Parson Tom drew a chair up to the table and flung himself into it.
+
+"We'll have tea," he said curtly.
+
+His wife obediently took her seat.
+
+"And Jim?" she questioned.
+
+The angry blue eyes still flashed.
+
+"We won't wait for him."
+
+Then Betty came to the man's side and laid one small brown hand firmly
+on his shoulder.
+
+"You--you saw him?" she demanded.
+
+Her uncle shook her hand off almost roughly.
+
+"Yes--I saw him," he said.
+
+"And why isn't he here?" the girl persisted without a tremor, without
+even noticing his rebuff.
+
+"Because he's lying on his bed at the hotel--drunk. Blind
+drunk,--confound him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE WORK AT THE MILLS
+
+
+It was sundown. The evening shadows, long drawn out, were rapidly
+merging into the purple shades of twilight. The hush of night was
+stealing upon the valley.
+
+There was one voice alone, one discordant note, to jar upon the peace
+of Nature's repose. It was the voice of Dave's mills, a voice that was
+never silent. The village, with all its bustling life, its noisy
+boarding-houses, its well-filled drinking booths, its roystering
+lumber-jacks released from their day's toil, was powerless to disturb
+that repose. But the harsh voice of the driving machinery rose dominant
+above all other sounds. Repose was impossible, even for Nature, where
+the restless spirit of Dave's enterprise prevailed.
+
+The vast wooden structures of the mills, acres of them, stood like some
+devouring growth at the very core of Nature's fair body. It almost
+seemed like a living organism feeding upon all the best she had to
+yield. Day and night the saws, like the gleaming fangs of a voracious
+life, tore, devoured, digested, and the song of its labors droned
+without ceasing.
+
+Controlling, directing, ordering to the last detail, Dave sat in his
+unpretentious office. Love of the lumberman's craft ran hot in his
+veins. He had been born and bred to it. He had passed through its every
+phase. He was a sawyer whose name was historical in the forests of
+Oregon. As a cant-hook man he had few equals. As foreman he could
+extract more work from these simple woodsman giants than could those he
+employed in a similar capacity.
+
+In work he was inevitable. His men knew that when he demanded they must
+yield. In this direction he displayed no sympathy, no gentleness. He
+knew the disposition of the lumber-jack. These woodsmen rate their
+employer by his driving power. They understand and expect to be ruled
+by a stern discipline, and if this treatment is not forthcoming, their
+employer may just as well abandon his enterprise for all the work they
+will yield him.
+
+But though this was Dave in his business, it was the result of his
+tremendous force of character rather than the nature of the man. If he
+drove, it was honestly, legitimately. He paid for the best a man could
+give him, and he saw that he got it. Sickness was sure of ready
+sympathy, not outspoken, but practical. He was much like the prairie
+man with his horse. His beast is cared for far better than its master
+cares for himself, but it must work, and work enthusiastically to the
+last ounce of its power. Fail, and the horse must go. So it was with
+Dave. The man who failed him would receive his "time" instantly. There
+was no question, no excuse. And every lumber-jack knew this and gladly
+entered his service.
+
+Dave was closeted with his foreman, Joel Dawson, receiving the day's
+report.
+
+"The tally's eighty thousand," Dawson was saying.
+
+Dave looked up from his books. His keen, humorous eyes surveyed the
+man's squat figure.
+
+"Not enough," he said.
+
+"She's pressing hard now," came the man's rejoinder, almost defensively.
+
+"She's got to do twenty thousand more," retorted Dave finally.
+
+"Then y'll have to give her more saw room."
+
+"We'll see to it. Meanwhile shove her. How are the logs running? Is
+Mason keeping the length?"
+
+"Guess he cayn't do better. We ain't handled nothin' under eighty foot."
+
+"Good. They're driving down the river fast?"
+
+"The boom's full, an' we're workin' 'em good an' plenty." The man
+paused. "'Bout more saw beds an' rollers," he went on a moment later.
+"Ther' ain't an inch o' space, boss. We'll hev to build."
+
+Dave shook his head and faced round from his desk.
+
+"There's no time. You'll have to take out the gang saws and replace
+them for log trimming."
+
+Dawson spat into the spittoon. He eyed the ugly, powerful young
+features of his boss speculatively while he made a swift mental
+calculation.
+
+"That'll mebbe give us eight thousand more. 'Tain't enough, I guess,"
+he said emphatically. "Say, there's that mill up river. Her as belongs
+to Jim Truscott. If we had her runnin' I 'lows we'd handle twenty-five
+thousand on a day and night shift. Givin' us fifty all told."
+
+Dave's eyes lit.
+
+"I've thought of that," he said. "That'll put us up with a small
+margin. I'll see what can be done. How are the new boys making? I've
+had a good report from Mason up on No. 1 camp. He's transferred his
+older hands to new camps, and has the new men with him. He's started to
+cut on Section 80. His estimate is ten million in the stump on that
+cut; all big stuff. He's running a big saw-gang up there. The roads
+were easy making and good for travoying, and most of the timber is
+within half a mile of the river. We don't need to worry about the
+'drive.' He's got the stuff plenty, and all the 'hands' he needs. It's
+the mill right here that's worrying."
+
+Dawson took a fresh chew.
+
+"Yes, it's the mill, I guess," he said slowly. "That an' this yer
+strike. We're goin' to feel it--the strike, I mean. The engineers and
+firemen are going 'out,' I hear, sure."
+
+"That doesn't hit us," said Dave sharply. But there was a keen look of
+inquiry in his eyes.
+
+"Don't it?" Dawson raised his shaggy eyebrows.
+
+"Our stuff is merely to be placed on board here. The government will
+see to its transport."
+
+The foreman shook his head.
+
+"What o' them firemen an' engineers in the mill? Say, they're mostly
+union men, an'----"
+
+"I see." Dave became thoughtful.
+
+"Guess that ain't the only trouble neither," Dawson went on, warming.
+"Strikes is hell-fire anyways. Ther' ain't no stoppin' 'em when they
+git good an' goin'. Ther's folk who'd hate work wuss'n pizin when
+others, of a different craft, are buckin'. I hate strikes, anyway, an'
+I'll feel a sight easier when the railroaders quits."
+
+"You're alarming yourself without need," Dave said easily, closing his
+books and rising from his seat. "Guess I'll get to supper. And see you
+remember I look to you to shove her. Are you posting the 'tally'?"
+
+"Sure. They're goin' up every shift."
+
+A few minutes later the foreman took his departure to hand over to
+Simon Odd, who ran the mills at night. Dave watched him go. Then,
+instead of going off to his supper, he sat down again.
+
+Dawson's warning was not without its effect on him, in spite of the
+easy manner in which he had set it aside. If his mills were to be
+affected by the strike it would be the worst disaster that could
+befall--short of fire. To find himself with millions of feet coming
+down the river on the drive and no possibility of getting it cut would
+mean absolute ruin. Yes, it was a nasty thought. A thought so
+unpleasant that he promptly set it aside and turned his attention to
+more pleasant matters.
+
+One of the most pleasant that occurred to him was the condition of
+things in the village. Malkern had already begun to boom as the first
+result of his sudden burst of increased work. Outside capital was
+coming in for town plots, and several fresh buildings were going up.
+Addlestone Chicks, the dry-goods storekeeper, was extending his
+premises to accommodate the enormous increase in his trade. Two more
+saloons were being considered, both to be built by men from Calford,
+and the railroad had promised two mails a day instead of one.
+
+Dave thought of these things with the satisfaction of a man who is
+steadily realizing his ambitions. It only needed his success for
+prosperity to come automatically to the village in the valley. That was
+it, his success. This thought brought to his mind again the matter of
+Jim Truscott's mill, and this, again, set him thinking of Jim himself.
+
+He had seen nothing of Jim since his meeting with him on the bridge,
+and the memory of that meeting was a dark shadow in his recollection.
+Since that time two days had passed, two days spent in arduous labor,
+when there had been no time for more than a passing thought for
+anything else. He had seen no one outside of his mills. He had seen
+neither Betty nor her uncle; no one who could tell him how matters were
+going with the prodigal. He felt somehow that he had been neglectful,
+he felt that he had wrongfully allowed himself to be swamped in the
+vortex of the whirling waters of his labors. He had purposely shut out
+every other consideration.
+
+Now his mind turned upon Betty, and he suddenly decided to take half an
+hour's respite and visit Harley-Smith's saloon. He felt that this would
+be the best direction in which to seek Jim Truscott. Five years ago it
+would have been different.
+
+He rose from his seat and stretched his cumbersome body. Young as he
+was, he felt stiff. His tremendous effort was making itself felt.
+Picking up his pipe he lit it, and as he dropped the charred end of the
+match in the spittoon a knock came at the door. It opened in answer to
+his call, and in the half-light of the evening he recognized the very
+man whom he had just decided to seek.
+
+It was Jim Truscott who stood in the doorway peering into the darkened
+room. And at last his searching eyes rested on the enormous figure of
+the lumberman. Dave was well in the shadow, and what light came in
+through the window fell full upon the newcomer's face.
+
+In the brief silence he had a good look at him. He saw that now he was
+clean-shaven, that his hair had been trimmed, that his clothes were
+good and belonged to the more civilized conditions of city life. He was
+good-looking beyond a doubt; a face, he thought, to catch a young
+girl's fancy. There was something romantic in the dark setting of the
+eyes, the keen aquiline nose, the broad forehead. It was only the lower
+part of the face that he found fault with. There was that vicious
+weakness about the mouth and chin, and it set him pondering. There were
+the marks of dissipation about the eyes too, only now they were a
+hundredfold more pronounced. Where before the rounded cheeks had once
+so smoothly sloped away, now there were puffings, with deep,
+unwholesome furrows which, in a man of his age, had no right to be
+there.
+
+Jim was the first to speak, and his manner was almost defiant.
+
+"Well?" he ejaculated.
+
+"Well?" responded Dave; and the newly-opened waters suddenly froze over
+again.
+
+They measured each other, eye to eye. Both had the memory of their
+meeting two days ago keenly alive in their thought. Finally Jim broke
+into a laugh that sounded harshly.
+
+"After five years' absence your cordiality is overwhelming," he said.
+
+"I seem to remember meeting you on the bridge two days ago," retorted
+Dave.
+
+Then he turned to his desk and lit the lamp. The mill siren hooted out
+its mournful cry. Its roar was deafening, and answered as an excuse for
+the silence which remained for some moments between the two men. When
+the last echo had died out Truscott spoke again. Evidently he had
+availed himself of those seconds to decide on a more conciliatory
+course.
+
+"That's nerve-racking," he said lightly.
+
+"Yes, if your nerves aren't in the best condition," replied Dave. Then
+he indicated a chair and both men seated themselves.
+
+Truscott made himself comfortable and lit a cigar.
+
+"Well, Dave," he said pleasantly, "after five years I return here to
+find everybody talking of you, of your work, of the fortune you are
+making, of the prosperity of the village--which, by the way, is
+credited to your efforts. You are the man of the moment in the valley;
+you are it!"
+
+Dave nodded.
+
+"Things are doing."
+
+"Doing, man! Why, it's the most wonderful thing. I leave a little dozy
+village, and I come back to a town thrilling with a magnificent
+prosperity, with money in plenty for everybody, and on every hand talk
+of investment, and dreams of fortunes to be made. I'm glad I came. I'm
+glad I left that benighted country of cold and empty stomachs and
+returned to this veritable Tom Tiddler's ground. I too intend to share
+in the prosperity you have brought about. Dave, you are a wonder."
+
+"I thought you'd come to talk of other matters," said Dave quietly.
+
+His words had ample effect. The enthusiasm dropped from the other like
+a cloak. His face lost its smile, and his eyes became watchful.
+
+"You mean----"
+
+"Betty," said Dave shortly.
+
+Truscott stirred uneasily. Dave's directness was a little
+disconcerting. Suddenly the latter leant forward in his chair, and his
+steady eyes held his visitor.
+
+"Five years ago, Jim, you went away, and, going, you left Betty to my
+care--for you. That child has always been in my thoughts, and though
+I've never had an opportunity to afford her the protection you asked of
+me, it has not been my fault. She has never once needed it. You went
+away to make money for her, so that when you came back you could marry
+her. I remember our meeting two days ago, and it's not my intention to
+say a thing of it. I have been so busy since then that I have seen
+nobody who could tell me of either her or you, so I know nothing of how
+your affairs stand. But if you've anything to say on the matter now I'm
+prepared to listen. Did you make good up there in the Yukon?"
+
+Dave's tone was the tone Truscott had always known. It was kindly, it
+was strong with honesty and purpose. He felt easier for it, and his
+relief sounded in his reply.
+
+"I can't complain," he said, settling himself more comfortably in his
+chair.
+
+"I'm glad," said Dave simply. "I was doubtful of the experiment,
+but--well, I'm glad. And----?"
+
+Suddenly Jim sprang to his feet and began to pace the room. Dave
+watched him. He was reading him. He was studying the nervous movements,
+and interpreting them as surely as though their meaning were written
+large in the plainest lettering. It was the same man he had known five
+years ago--the same, only with a difference. He beheld the weakness he
+had realized before, but now, where there had been frank honesty in all
+his movements and expressions, there was a furtive undercurrent which
+suggested only too clearly the truth of the stories told about him.
+
+"Dave," he burst out at last, coming to a sudden stand in front of him.
+"I've come to you about Betty. I've come to you to tell you all the
+regret I have at that meeting of ours on the bridge, and all I said at
+the time. I want to tell you that I'm a rotten fool and blackguard.
+That I haven't been near Betty since I came back. I was to have gone to
+tea that afternoon, and didn't do so because I got blind drunk instead,
+and when her uncle came to fetch me I told him to go to hell, and
+insulted him in a dozen ways. I want to tell you that while I was away
+I practically forgot Betty, I didn't care for her any longer, that I
+scarcely even regarded our engagement as serious. I feel I must tell
+you this. And now it is all changed. I have seen her and I want her. I
+love her madly, and--and I have spoiled all my chances. She'll never
+speak to me again. I am a fool and a crook--an utter wrong 'un, but I
+want her. I must have her!"
+
+The man paused breathlessly. His words carried conviction. His manner
+was passion-swept There could be no doubt as to his sincerity, or of
+the truth of the momentary remorse conveyed in his self-accusation.
+
+Dave's teeth shut tight upon his pipe-stem.
+
+"And you did all that?" he inquired with a tenseness that made his
+voice painfully harsh.
+
+"Yes, yes, I did. Dave, you can't say any harder things to me than I've
+said to myself. When I drink there's madness in my blood that drives me
+where it will."
+
+The other suddenly rose from his seat and towered over him. The look on
+his rugged face was one of mastery. His personality dominated Truscott
+at that moment in a manner that made him shrink before his steady,
+luminous eyes.
+
+"How've you earned your living?" he demanded sharply.
+
+"I'm a gambler," came Jim's uneasy reply, the truth forced from him
+against his will.
+
+"You're a drunkard and a crook?"
+
+"I'm a fool. I told you."
+
+Dave accepted the admission.
+
+"Then for God's sake get out of this village, and write and release
+Betty from her engagement. You say you love her. Prove it by releasing
+her, and be a man."
+
+Dave's voice rang out deep with emotion. At that moment he was thinking
+of Betty, and not of the man before him. He was not there to judge him,
+his only thought was of the tragedy threatening the girl.
+
+Truscott had suddenly become calm, and his eyes had again assumed that
+furtive watchfulness as he looked up into the larger man's face. He
+shook his head.
+
+"I can't give her up," he said obstinately, after a pause.
+
+Dave sat down again, watching the set, almost savage expression of the
+other's face. The position was difficult; he was not only dealing with
+this man, but with a woman whose sense of duty and honor was such that
+left him little hope of settling the matter as he felt it should be
+settled. Finally he decided to appeal again to the man's better nature.
+
+"Jim," he said solemnly, "you come here and confess yourself a crook,
+and, if not a drunkard, at least a man with a bad tendency that way.
+You say you love Betty, in spite of having forgotten her while you were
+away. On your conscience I ask you, can you wilfully drag this girl,
+who has known only the purest, most innocent, and God-fearing life,
+into the path you admit you have been, are treading? Can you drag her
+down with you? Can you in your utter selfishness take her from a home
+where she is surrounded by all that can keep a woman pure and good? I
+don't believe it. That is not the Jim I used to know. Jim, take it from
+me, there is only one decent course open to you, one honest one. Leave
+her alone, and go from here yourself. You have no right to her so long
+as your life is what it is."
+
+"But my life is going to be that no longer," Truscott broke in with
+passionate earnestness. "Dave, help me out in this. For God's sake, do.
+It will be the making of me. I have money now, and I want to get rid of
+the old life. I, too, want to be decent. I do. I swear it. Give me this
+chance to straighten myself. I know your influence with her. You can
+get her to excuse that lapse. She will listen to you. My God! Dave, you
+don't know how I love that girl."
+
+While the lumberman listened his heart hardened. He understood the
+selfishness, the weakness underlying this man's passion. He understood
+more than that, Betty was no longer the child she was five years ago,
+but a handsome woman of perfect moulding. And, truth to tell, he felt
+this sudden reawakening of the man's passion was not worthy of the name
+of the love he claimed for it, but rather belonged to baser
+inspiration. But his own feelings prevented his doing what he would
+like to have done. He felt that he ought to kick the man out of his
+office, and have him hunted out of the village. But years ago he had
+given his promise of help, and a promise was never a light thing with
+him. And besides that, he realized his own love for Betty, and could
+not help fearing that his judgment was biassed by it. In the end he
+gave the answer which from the first he knew he must give.
+
+"If you mean that," he said coldly, "I will do what I can for you."
+
+Jim's face lit, and he held out his hand impulsively.
+
+"Thanks, Dave," he cried, his whole face clearing and lighting up as if
+by magic. "You're a bully friend. Shake!"
+
+But the other ignored the outstretched hand. Somehow he felt he could
+no longer take it in friendship. Truscott saw the coldness in his eyes,
+and instantly drew his hand away. He moved toward the door.
+
+"Will you see her to-night?" he asked over his shoulder.
+
+"I can't say. You'll probably hear from her."
+
+At the door the man turned, and Dave suddenly recollected something.
+
+"Oh, by the way," he said, still in his coldest manner, "I'd like to
+buy that old mill of yours--or lease it. I don't mind which. How much
+do you want for it?"
+
+Jim flashed a sharp glance at him.
+
+"My old mill?" Then he laughed peculiarly. "What do you want with that?"
+
+The other considered for a moment.
+
+"My mill hasn't sufficient capacity," he said at last. "You see, my
+contract is urgent. It must be completed before winter shuts
+down--under an enormous penalty. We are getting a few thousand a day
+behind on my calculations. Your mill will put me right, with a margin
+to spare against accidents."
+
+"I see." And the thoughtfulness of Truscott's manner seemed
+unnecessary. He avoided Dave's eyes. "You're under a penalty, eh? I
+s'pose the government are a hard crowd to deal with?"
+
+Dave nodded.
+
+"If I fail it means something very like--ruin," he said, almost as
+though speaking to himself.
+
+Truscott whistled.
+
+"Pretty dangerous, traveling so near the limit," he said.
+
+"Yes. Well? What about the mill?"
+
+"I must think it over. I'll let you know."
+
+He turned and left the office without another word, and Dave stared
+after him, speechless with surprise and disgust.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+AT THE CHURCH BAZAAR
+
+
+Two days later brought Tom Chepstow's church bazaar. Dave had not yet
+had the opportunity of interceding with Betty and her uncle on behalf
+of Jim, but to-day he meant to fulfil his obligations as Tom's chief
+supporter in church affairs, and, at the same time, to do what he could
+for the man he had promised to help.
+
+The whole morning the valley was flooded with a tremendous summer
+deluge. It was just as though the heavens had opened and emptied their
+waters upon the earth. Dave viewed the prospect with no very friendly
+eye. He knew the summer rains only too well; the possibilities of flood
+were well grounded, and just now he had no desire to see the river rise
+higher than it was at present. Still, as yet there was no reason for
+alarm. This was the first rain, and the glass was rising.
+
+By noon the clouds broke, and the barometer's promise was fulfilled, so
+that, by the time he had clad himself in his best broadcloth, he left
+his office under a radiant sky. In spite of the wet under foot it was a
+delight to be abroad. The air was fresh and sparkling; the dripping
+trees seemed to be studded with thousands of diamonds as the poising
+rain-drops glistened in the blazing sun. The valley rang with the music
+of the birds, and the health-giving scent of the pine woods was wafted
+upon the gentlest of zephyrs. Dave's soul was in perfect sympathy with
+the beauties about him. To him there could be no spot on God's earth so
+fair and beautiful as this valley.
+
+Passing the mill on his way out of the yards he was met by Joel Dawson,
+whose voice greeted him with a note of satisfaction in it.
+
+"She's goin' full, boss," he said. "We set the last saws in her this
+mornin' an' she's steaming hard. Ther' ain't nothin' idle. Ther' ain't
+a' band' or 'gang' left in her."
+
+And Dave without praise expressed his satisfaction at the rapidity with
+which his orders had been carried out. This was his way. Dawson was an
+excellent foreman, and his respect for his "boss" was largely based on
+the latter's capacity to extract work out of his men. While praise
+might have been pleasant to him, it would never have fallen in with his
+ideas of how the mills should be run. His pride was in the work, and to
+keep his respect at concert pitch it was necessary that he should feel
+that his "boss" was rather favoring him by entrusting to him the more
+important part of the work.
+
+Dave passed out of the yards certain that nothing would be neglected in
+his absence. If things went wrong Dawson would receive no more
+consideration than a common lumber-jack, and Dawson had no desire to
+receive his "time."
+
+The Meeting House stood slightly apart from the rest of the village. It
+was a large, staring frame building, void of all pretentiousness and
+outward devotional sign. The weather-boarding was painted; at least, it
+had been. But the winter snows had long since robbed it of its original
+terra-cotta coloring and left its complexion a drab neutral tint. The
+building stood bare, with no encompassing fence, and its chief
+distinctive features were a large doorway, a single row of windows set
+at regular intervals, and a pitched roof.
+
+As Dave drew near he saw a considerable gathering of men and horses
+about the doorway and tie-post. He was greeted cordially as he came up.
+These men were unfeignedly glad to see him, not only because he was
+popular, but in the hopes that he would show more courage than they
+possessed, and lead the way within to the feminine webs being woven for
+their enmeshing.
+
+He chatted for some moments, then, as no one seemed inclined to leave
+the sunshine for the tempting baits so carefully set out inside the
+building, he turned to Jenkins Mudley--
+
+"Are you fellows scared of going in?" he inquired, with his large laugh.
+
+Jenkins shook his head shamefacedly, while Harley-Smith, loud and
+vulgar, with a staring diamond pin gleaming in his necktie, answered
+for him.
+
+"'Tain't that," he said. "His wife's kind o' dep'ty for him. She's in
+ther' with his dollars."
+
+"And you?" Dave turned on him quickly.
+
+"Me? Oh, I ain't no use for them cirkises. Too much tea an' cake an'
+kiddies to it for me. Give me a few of the 'jacks' around an' I kind o'
+feel it homely."
+
+"Say, they ain't got a table for 'draw' in there, have they?" inquired
+Checks facetiously. "That's what Harley-Smith needs."
+
+Dave smilingly shook his head.
+
+"I don't think there's any gambling about this--unless it's the bran
+tub. But that is scarcely a gamble. It's a pretty sure thing you get
+bested over it. Still, there might be a raffle, or an auction. How
+would that do you, Harley-Smith?"
+
+The saloon-keeper laughed boisterously. He liked being the object of
+interest; he liked being noticed so much by Dave. It tickled his vulgar
+vanity. But, to his disappointment, the talk was suddenly shifted into
+another channel by Checks. The dry-goods merchant turned to Dave with
+very real interest.
+
+"Talking of 'draw,'" he said pointedly, "you know that shanty right
+opposite me. It's been empty this year an' more. Who was it lived
+there? Why, the Sykeses, sure. You know it, it's got a shingle roof,
+painted red."
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Dave. "It belongs to me. I let Sykes live there
+because there wasn't another house available at the time. I used to
+keep it as a storehouse."
+
+"Sure, that's it," exclaimed Checks. "Well, there's some one running a
+game there at night. I've seen the boys going in, and it's been lit up.
+Some guy is running a faro bank, or something of the sort. My wife
+swears it's young Jim Truscott. She's seen him going in for the last
+two nights. She says he's always the first one in and the last to
+leave."
+
+"Psha!" Jenkins Mudley exclaimed, with fine scorn. "Jim ain't no
+gambler. I'd bet it's some crook in from Calford. There's lots of that
+kidney coming around, seeing the place is on the boom. The bees allus
+gets around wher' the honey's made."
+
+"Grows," suggested Checks amiably.
+
+Harley-Smith laughed loudly.
+
+"Say, bully for you," he cried sarcastically. "Young Jim ain't no
+gambler? Gee! I've see him take a thousand of the best bills out of the
+boys at 'craps' right there in my bar. Gambler? Well, I'd snigger!"
+
+And he illustrated his remark loudly and long.
+
+Dave had dropped out of the conversation at the mention of Jim
+Truscott's name. He felt that he had nothing to say. And he hoped to
+avoid being again brought into it. But Jenkins had purposely told him.
+Jenkins was a rigid churchman, and he knew that Dave was also a strong
+supporter of Parson Tom's. His wife had been very scandalized at the
+opening of a gambling house directly opposite their store, and he felt
+it incumbent upon him to fall in with her views. Therefore he turned
+again to Dave.
+
+"Well, what about it, Dave?" he demanded. "What are you going to do?"
+
+The lumberman looked him straight in the eye and smiled.
+
+"Do? Why, what all you fellows seem to be scared to do. I'm going into
+this bazaar to do my duty by the church. I'm going to hand them all my
+spare dollars, and if there's any change coming, I'll take it in
+dry-goods."
+
+But the lightness of his tone and smile had no inspiration from his
+mood. He was angry; he was disappointed. So this was the worth of Jim's
+promises! This was the man who, in a perfect fever of passion, had said
+that the old life of gambling and debauchery was finished for him. And
+yet he had probably left his (Dave's) office and gone straight to a
+night of heavy gaming, and, if Checks were right, running a faro bank.
+He knew only too well what that meant. No man who had graduated as a
+gambler in such a region as the Yukon was likely to run a faro bank
+straight.
+
+Then a light seemed to flash through his brain, and of a sudden he
+realized something that fired the blood in his veins and set his pulses
+hammering feverishly. For the moment it set his thoughts chaotic; he
+could not realize anything quite clearly. One feeling thrilled him, one
+wild hope. Then, with stern self-repression, he took hold of himself.
+This was neither time nor place for such weakness, he told himself. He
+knew what it was. For the moment he had let himself get out of hand. He
+had for so long regarded Betty as belonging to Jim; he had for so long
+shut her from his own thoughts and only regarded her from an impersonal
+point of view, that it had never occurred to him, until that instant,
+that there was a possibility of her engagement to Jim ever falling
+through.
+
+This was what had so suddenly stirred him. Now, actuated by his sense
+of duty and honor, he thrust these things aside. His loyalty to the
+girl, the strength of his great love for her, would not, even for a
+moment, permit him to think of himself. Five years ago he had said
+good-bye to any hopes and thoughts such as these. On that day he had
+struggled with himself and won. He was not going to destroy the effects
+of that victory by any selfish thought now. His love for the girl was
+there, nothing could alter that. It would remain there, deep down in
+his heart, dormant but living. But it was something more than a mere
+human passion, it was something purer, loftier; something that
+crystallized the human clay of his thought into the purest diamonds of
+unselfishness.
+
+In the few moments that it took him to pass into the Meeting House and
+launch himself upon his task of furthering the cause of Tom Chepstow's
+church, his mind cleared. He could not yet see the line of action he
+must take if the gossip of Mr. Addlestone Checks were true. But one
+thing was plain, that gossip must not influence him until its truth
+were established. Just as he was seized upon by at least half a dozen
+of the women who had wares to sell, and were bent on morally picking
+his pockets, he had arrived at his decision.
+
+The hall was ablaze with colored stuffs. There were festoons and
+banners, and rosettes and evergreen. Every bare corner was somehow
+concealed. There were drapings of royal blue and staring white, and
+sufficient bunting to make a suit of flags for a war-ship.
+
+All the seats and benches had been removed, and round the walls had
+been erected the stalls and booths of the saleswomen. One end of the
+room was given up to a platform, on which, in the evening, the most
+select of the local vocalists would perform. Beside this was a bran
+tub, where one could have a dip for fifty cents and be sure of winning
+a prize worth at least five. Then there was a fortune-telling booth on
+the opposite side, presided over by a local beauty, Miss Eva Wade,
+whose father was a small rancher just outside the valley. This
+institution was eyed askance by many of the women. They were not sure
+that fortune-telling could safely be regarded as strictly moral. Parson
+Tom was responsible for its inception, and his lean shoulders were
+braced to bear the consequences.
+
+Dave was by no means new to church bazaars. Any one living in a small
+western village must have considerable experience of such things. They
+are a form of taxation much in favor, and serve multifarious purposes.
+They are at once a pleasant social function where young people can
+safely meet under the matronly eye; they keep all in close touch with
+religion; they give the usually idle something to think of and work
+for, and the busy find them an addition to their burdens. They create a
+sort of central bureau for the exchange of scandal, and a ready market
+for trading useless articles to people who do not desire to purchase,
+but having purchased feel that the moral sacrifice they have made is at
+least one step in the right direction to make up for many backslidings
+in the past.
+
+Dave doubtless had long since considered all this. But he saw and
+appreciated the purpose underlying it. He knew Tom Chepstow to be a
+good man, and though he had little inspiration as a churchman, he
+spared no pains in his spiritual labors, and the larger portion of his
+very limited stipend went in unobtrusive charity. No sick bed ever went
+uncheered by his presence, and no poor ever went without warm clothing
+and wholesome food in the terrible Canadian winter so long as he had
+anything to give. Therefore Dave had come well provided with money,
+which he began at once to spend with hopeless prodigality.
+
+The rest of the men followed in the lumberman's wake, and soon the
+bustle and noise waxed furious. They all bought indiscriminately. Dave
+started on Mrs. Checks' "gentlemen's outfitters" stall. His heart
+rejoiced when he sighted a pile of handkerchiefs which the lady had
+specially made for him, and which she now thrust at him with an
+exorbitant price marked upon them. He bought them all. He bought a
+number of shirts he could not possibly have worn. He bought
+underclothing that wouldn't have been a circumstance on his cumbersome
+figure. He passed on to Louisa Mudley's millinery stall and bought
+several hats, which he promptly shed upon the various women in his
+vicinity. He did his duty royally, and bought dozens of things which he
+promptly gave away. And his attentions in this matter were quite
+impartial. He did it with the air of some great good-natured schoolboy
+that set everybody delighted with him, with themselves, with
+everything; and the bazaar, as a result, went with a royal, prosperous
+swing. Here, as in his work, his personality carried with it the magic
+of success.
+
+At last he reached Betty's stall. She was presiding over a hideous
+collection of cheap bric-a-brac. With her usual unselfishness and
+desire to promote harmony amongst the workers, and so help the success
+of the bazaar, she had sacrificed herself on the altar of duty by
+taking charge of the most unpopular stall. Nobody wanted the goods she
+had to sell; consequently Dave found her deserted. She smiled up at him
+a little pathetically as he came over to her.
+
+"Are you coming as a friend or as a customer? Most of the visits I have
+received have been purely friendly." She laughed, but Dave could see
+that the natural spirit of rivalry was stirred, and she was a little
+unhappy at the rush of business going on everywhere but at her stall.
+
+"I come as both," he said, with that air of frank kindliness so
+peculiarly his own.
+
+The girl's eyes brightened.
+
+"Then let's get to work on the customer part of your visit first," she
+said at once; "the other can wait. Now here I have a nice plate. You
+can hang it in your office on the wall. You see it's already wired. It
+might pass for old Worcester if you don't let in too much light. But
+there, you never have your windows washed, do you? Then I have," she
+hurried on, turning to other articles, "this. This is a shell--at least
+I suppose it is," she added naively. "And this is a Toby jug; and this
+is a pipe-rack; this is for matches; this is for a whisk brush; and
+these two vases, they're real fine. Look at them. Did you ever see such
+colors? No, and I don't suppose anybody else ever did." She laughed,
+and Dave joined in her laugh.
+
+But her laugh suddenly died out. The man heard a woman, only a few feet
+away, mention Jim Truscott's name, and he knew that Betty had heard it
+too. He knew that her smiling chatter, which had seemed so gay, so
+irresponsible, had all been pretense, a pretense which had suddenly
+been swept aside at the mere mention of Jim's name. At that moment he
+felt he could have taken the man up in his two strong hands and
+strangled him. However, he allowed his feelings no display, but at once
+took up the challenge of the saleswoman.
+
+"Say, Betty, there's just one thing in the world I'm crazy about: it's
+bits of pots and things such as you've got on your stall. It seems like
+fate you should be running this stall. Now just get right to it, and
+fetch out some tickets--a heap of 'em--and write 'sold' on 'em, and
+dump 'em on all you like. How much for the lot?"
+
+"What do you mean, Dave?" the girl cried, her eyes wide and questioning.
+
+"How much? I don't want anybody else buying those things," Dave said
+seriously. "I want 'em all."
+
+Betty's eyes softened almost to tears.
+
+"I can't let you do it, Dave," she said gently. "Not all. Some."
+
+But the man was not to be turned from his purpose.
+
+"I want 'em all," he said doggedly. "Here. Here's two hundred dollars.
+That'll cover it." He laid four bills of fifty dollars each on the
+stall. "There," he added, "you can sell 'em over again if any of the
+boys want to buy."
+
+Betty was not sure which she wanted to do, cry or laugh. However, she
+finally decided on the latter course. Dave's simple contradiction was
+quite too much for her.
+
+"You're the most refreshing old simpleton I ever knew," she said. "But
+I'll take your money--for the church," she added, as though endeavoring
+to quiet her conscience.
+
+Dave sighed in relief.
+
+"Well, that's that. Now we come to the friendly side of my visit," he
+said. "I've got a heap to say to you. Jim Truscott's been to me."
+
+He made his statement simply, and waited. But no comment was
+forthcoming. Betty was stooping over a box, collecting cards to place
+on the articles on her stall. Presently she looked up, and her look was
+an invitation for him to go on.
+
+The man's task was not easy. It would have been easy enough had he not
+spoken with Checks outside, but now it was all different. He had
+promised his help, but in giving it he had no clear conscience.
+
+He propped himself against the side-post of her stall, and his weight
+set the structure shaking perilously.
+
+"I've often wondered, Betty," he said, in a rumbling, confidential
+tone, "if there ever was a man, or for that matter a woman, who really
+understood human nature. We all think we know a lot about it. We size
+up a man, and we reckon he's good, bad, or indifferent, and if our
+estimate happens to prove, we pat ourselves, and hold our heads a shade
+higher, and feel sorry for those who can't read a man as easy as we
+can."
+
+Betty nodded while she stuck some "Sold" cards about her stall.
+
+"A locomotive's a great proposition, so long as it's on a set track.
+It's an all-fired nuisance without. Guess a locomotive can do
+everything it shouldn't when it gets loose of its track. My word, I'd
+hate to be around with a loco up to its fool-tricks, running loose in a
+city. Seems to me that's how it is with human nature."
+
+Betty's brown eyes were thoughtfully contemplating the man's ugly
+features.
+
+"I suppose you mean we all need a track to run on?"
+
+"Why, yes," Dave went on, brightening. "Some of us start out in life
+with a ready-made track, with 'points' we can jump if we've a notion.
+Some of us have a track without 'points,' so there's no excuse for
+getting off it. Some of us have to lay down our own track, and keep
+right on it, building it as we go. That's the hardest. We're bound to
+have some falls. You see there's so much ballasting needed, the
+ground's so mighty bumpy. I seem to know a deal about that sort of
+track. I've had to build mine, and I've fallen plenty. Sometimes it's
+been hard picking myself up, and I've been bruised and sore often.
+Still, I've got up, and I don't seem no worse for falling."
+
+Betty's eyes were smiling softly.
+
+"But _you_ picked yourself up, Dave, didn't you?" she asked gently.
+
+"Well--not always. You see, I've got a mother. She's helped a whole
+heap. You see, she's mostly all my world, and I used to hate to hurt
+her by letting her see me down. She kind of thinks I'm the greatest
+proposition ever, and it tickles my vanity. I want her to go on
+thinking it, as it keeps me hard at work building that track. And now,
+through her, I've been building so long that it comes easier, and
+thinking of her makes me hang on so tight I don't get falling around
+now. There's other fellows haven't got a mother, or--you see, I've
+always had her with me. That's where it comes in. Now, if she'd been
+away from me five years, when I was very young; you see----"
+
+Dave broke off clumsily. He was floundering in rough water. He knew
+what he wanted to say, but words were not too easy to him.
+
+"Poor Jim!" murmured Betty softly.
+
+Dave's eyes were on her in a moment. Her manner was somehow different
+from what he had expected. There was sympathy and womanly tenderness in
+her voice; but he had expected---- Then his thoughts went back to the
+time when they had spoken of Jim on the bridge. And, without knowing
+why, his pulses quickened, and a warmth of feeling swept over him.
+
+"Poor Jim!" he said, after a long pause, during which his pulses had
+steadied and he had become master of his feelings again. "He's fallen a
+lot, and I'm not sure it's all his fault. He always ran straight when
+he was here. He was very young to go away to a place like the Yukon.
+Maybe--maybe you could pick him up; maybe you could hold him to that
+track, same as mother did for me?"
+
+Betty was close beside him. She had moved out of her stall and was now
+looking up into his earnest face.
+
+"Does he want me to?" she asked wistfully. "Do _you_ think I can help
+him?"
+
+The man's hands clenched tightly. For a moment he struggled.
+
+"You can," he said at last. "He wants you; he wants your help. He loves
+you so, he's nearly crazy."
+
+The girl gazed up at him with eyes whose question the man tried but
+failed to read. It was some seconds before her lips opened to speak
+again.
+
+But her words never came. At that moment Addlestone Checks hurried up
+to them. He drew Dave sharply on one side. His manner was mysterious
+and important, and his face wore a look of outraged piety.
+
+"Something's got to be done," he said in a stage whisper. "It's the
+most outrageous thing I've seen in years. Right here--right here in the
+house where the parson preaches the Word! It sure is enough to set it
+shakin' to its foundation. Drunk! That's what he is--roarin', flamin',
+fightin' drunk! You must do something. It's up to you."
+
+"What do you mean? Who is drunk?" cried Dave, annoyed at the man's
+Pharisaical air.
+
+Before he could get a reply there was a commotion at the far end of the
+bazaar. Voices were raised furiously, and everybody had flocked in that
+direction. Once Dave thought he heard Chepstow's voice raised in
+protest. Betty ran to his side directly the tumult began.
+
+"Oh, Dave, what's the matter down there? I thought I heard Jim's voice?"
+
+"So you did, Miss Betty," cried Checks, with sanctimonious spleen. "So
+you did--the drunken----"
+
+"Shut up, or I'll break your neck!" cried Dave, threatening him
+furiously.
+
+The dry-goods dealer staggered back just as Betty's hand was gently,
+but firmly, laid on Dave's upraised arm.
+
+"Don't bother, Dave," she said piteously. "I've seen him. Oh,
+Jim--Jim!" And she covered her face with her hands.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+IN DAVE'S OFFICE
+
+
+It was the day after the bazaar. Betty had just returned home from her
+school for midday dinner. She was sitting at the open window, waiting
+while her aunt set the meal. The cool green of the wild-cucumbers
+covering the veranda tempered the blistering summer heat which
+oppressed the valley. The girl was looking out upon the village below
+her, at the woodland slopes opposite, at the distant narrowing of the
+mighty walls which bounded her world, but she saw none of these things.
+She saw nothing of the beauty, the gracious foliage, the wonderful
+sunlight she loved. Her gaze was introspective. She saw only the
+pictures her thoughts conjured up.
+
+They were not pleasant pictures either, but they were absorbing. She
+knew that she had arrived at a crisis in her life. The scene she had
+witnessed at the bazaar was still burning in her brain. The shame stung
+and revolted her. The horror of it was sickening. Jim's disgrace was
+complete; yet, in spite of it, she could not help remembering Dave's
+appeal for him.
+
+He had said that Jim needed her more than ever now, and the thought
+made her uneasy, and her tender heart urged her in a direction she knew
+she must not take. It was so easy for her to condemn, she who knew
+nothing of temptation. And yet her position was so utterly impossible.
+Jim had been in the village all this time and had not been near her,
+that is except on this one occasion, when he was drunk. He was
+evidently afraid to come near her. He was a coward, and she hated
+cowards.
+
+He had even persuaded Dave to intercede for him. She smiled as she
+thought of it. But her smile was for Dave, and not at the other's
+display of cowardice. It was not a smile of amusement either. She only
+smiled at the absurdity of Dave pleading for one whom he knew to be
+wholly unworthy. It was the man's large heart, she told herself. And
+almost in the same breath she found herself resenting his kindly
+interference, and wishing he would mind his own business. Why should he
+be always thinking of others? Why should he not think sometimes of
+himself?
+
+Her dreaming now became of Dave alone, and she found herself reviewing
+his life as she knew it. Her eyes grew tender, and she basked in the
+sunlight of a world changed to pleasant thought. His ugliness no longer
+troubled her--she no longer saw it. She saw only the spirit inside the
+man, and somehow his roughnesses of voice, manner and appearance seemed
+a wholly fitting accompaniment to it. Her thoughts of Jim had gone from
+her entirely. The crisis which she was facing had receded into the
+shadows. Dave became her dominant thought, and she started when her
+uncle's voice suddenly broke in upon her reverie.
+
+"Betty," he said, coming up behind her and laying one lean hand upon
+her rounded shoulder, "I haven't had time to speak to you about it
+since the bazaar, but now I want to tell you that you can have nothing
+more to do with young Truscott. He is a thorough-paced young scoundrel
+and----"
+
+"You need say no more, uncle," the girl broke in bitterly. "You can
+tell me nothing I do not already know of him."
+
+"Then I trust you will send him about his business at once," added her
+aunt, who had entered the room bearing the dinner joint on a tray, just
+in time to hear Betty's reply.
+
+Betty looked at her aunt's round, good-natured face. For once it was
+cold and angry. From her she looked up at her uncle's, and the decision
+she saw in his frank eyes left her no alternative but a direct reply.
+
+"I intend to settle everything this afternoon," she said simply.
+
+"In what way?" inquired her uncle sharply.
+
+Betty rose from her seat and crossed the room to her aunt's side. The
+latter, having set the dinner, was waiting beside her chair ready to
+sit down as soon as the matter should be settled. Betty placed her arm
+about her stout waist, and the elder woman's face promptly relaxed. She
+could never long keep up even a pretense of severity where Betty was
+concerned.
+
+The girl promptly addressed herself to her uncle with all the frankness
+of one assured of a sympathetic hearing.
+
+"You have always taught me, uncle dear, that duty must be my first
+consideration in life," she began steadily. "I have tried to live up to
+that, and it has possibly made my conscience a little over keen." Her
+face clouded, but the clouds broke immediately, chased away by a
+plaintive smile. "When Jim asked me to marry him five years ago I
+believed I loved him. At one time I'm sure I did, in a silly, girlish
+fashion. But soon after he went away I realized that a girlish
+infatuation is not real love. This knowledge I tried to hide even from
+myself. I would not believe it, and for a long time I almost managed to
+convince myself. That was until Jim's letters became fewer and colder.
+With his change I no longer attempted to conceal from myself the real
+state of my own feelings. But even then my conscience wouldn't let me
+alone. I had promised to wait for him, and I made up my mind that, come
+what might, unless he made it impossible I would marry him." She
+sighed. "Well, you know the rest. He has now made it impossible. What
+his real feelings are for me," she went on with a pathetic smile, "I
+have not had an opportunity of gauging. As you know, he has not been
+near me. I shall now make it my business to see him this afternoon and
+settle everything. My conscience isn't by any means easy about it, but
+I intend to give him up."
+
+Her aunt squeezed her arm sympathetically, and her uncle nodded his
+approval.
+
+"Where are you going to see him?" the latter asked. "You mustn't see
+him alone." Then he burst out wrathfully, "He's a blackguard, and----"
+
+"No, no, uncle, don't say that," Betty interrupted him. "Surely he is
+to be pitied. Remember him as he was. You cannot tell what temptations
+have come his way."
+
+The parson's face cleared at once. His angry outbursts were always
+short-lived.
+
+"I'm sorry, Betty," he said. "My dear, you shame me. I'm afraid that my
+hasty temper is always leading to my undoing as a churchman." The
+half-humorous smile which accompanied his words passed swiftly. "Where
+are you going to see him?" he again demanded.
+
+"Down at Dave's office," the girl replied, after a moment's thought.
+
+"Eh?" Her uncle was startled; but Mary Chepstow smiled on her
+encouragingly.
+
+"Yes, you see," she went on, "Dave had a good deal to do with--our
+engagement--in a way, and----"
+
+"I'm glad Dave is going to help you through this business," said her
+aunt, with a glance which effectually kept her husband silent. "He's a
+dear fellow, and--let's have our dinner--it's nearly cold."
+
+Aunt Mary was not brilliant, she was not meddlesome, but she had all a
+woman's intuition. She felt that enough had been said. And for some
+obscure reason she was glad that Dave was to have a hand in this
+matter. Nor had her satisfaction anything to do with the man's ability
+to protect her niece from possible insult.
+
+That afternoon Dave received an unexpected visit. He was alone in his
+office, clad for hard work, without coat, waistcoat, collar or tie. He
+had no scruples in these matters. With all an American's love of
+freedom he abandoned himself to all he undertook with a
+whole-heartedness which could not tolerate even the restraint of what
+he considered unnecessary clothing. And just now, in the terrific heat,
+all these things were superfluous.
+
+Betty looked particularly charming as she hurried across the
+lumber-yard. She was dressed in a spotless white cotton frock, and,
+under her large sun-hat, her brown hair shone in the sunlight like
+burnished copper. Without the least hesitation she approached the
+office and knocked peremptorily on the door.
+
+The man inside grudgingly answered the summons. His books were
+occupying all his attention, and his thoughts were filled with columns
+of figures. But the moment he beheld the white, smiling vision the last
+of his figures fled precipitately from his mind.
+
+"Why, come right in, little Betty," he cried, hastily setting the only
+available chair for her. Then he bethought himself of his attire. "Say,
+you might have let me know. Just half a minute and I'll fix myself up."
+
+But the girl instantly protested. "You'll do just as you are," she
+exclaimed. "Now you look like a lumberman. And I like you best that
+way."
+
+Dave grinned and sat down a little self-consciously. But Betty had no
+idea of letting any conventionalities interfere with the matter she had
+in hand. She was always direct, always single-minded, when her decision
+was taken. She gave him no time to speculate as to the object of her
+visit.
+
+"Dave," she began seriously, "I want you to do me a great favor." Then
+she smiled. "As usual," she added. "I want you to send for Jim Truscott
+and bring him here."
+
+Dave was on his feet in an instant and crossed to the door. The next
+moment his voice roared out to one of his foremen. It was a shout that
+could have been heard across his own milling floor with every saw
+shrieking on the top of its work.
+
+He waited, and presently Simon Odd came hurrying across the yard. He
+spoke to him outside, and then returned to the office.
+
+"He'll be along in a few minutes," he said. "I've sent Odd with the
+buckboard."
+
+"Are you sure he'll come?"
+
+Dave smiled confidently.
+
+"I told Odd to bring him."
+
+"I hope he'll come willingly," the girl said, after a thoughtful pause.
+
+"So do I," observed Dave dryly. "Well, little girl?"
+
+Betty understood the inquiry, and looked him fearlessly in the eyes.
+
+"You sowed your wheat on barren soil, Dave," she said decidedly. "Your
+appeal for Jim has borne no fruit."
+
+The man shifted his position. It was the only sign he gave. But the
+fires were stirred into a sudden blaze, and his blood ran fiercely
+through his veins.
+
+"That's not a heap like you, Betty," was all he said.
+
+"Isn't it?" The girl turned to the window. The dirt on the glass made
+it difficult for her to see out of it, but she gazed at it steadily.
+
+"I suppose you'll think me a mean, heartless creature," she said
+slowly. "You'll think little enough of my promises, and still less
+of--of my loyalty." She paused. Then she raised her head and turned to
+him again. "I cannot marry Jim. I cannot undertake his reformation. I
+cannot give up my life to a man whom I now know I never really loved. I
+know you will not understand. I know, only too well, your own lofty
+spirit, your absolute unselfishness. I know that had you been in my
+place you would have fulfilled your promise at any cost. But I can't. I
+simply can't."
+
+"No."
+
+It was the man's only comment. But his mind was busy. He knew Betty so
+well that he understood a great deal without asking questions.
+
+"Aunt Mary and uncle know my decision," the girl went on. "They know I
+am here, and that I am going to see Jim in your presence. You see, I
+thought if I sent for him to come to our house he might refuse. He
+might insult uncle again. I thought, somehow, it would be different
+with you."
+
+Dave nodded.
+
+"I don't blame your uncle and aunt for making you give him up," he
+said. "I'd have done it in their place."
+
+"Yet you appealed for him?"
+
+Betty's eyes questioned him.
+
+"Sure, I promised to help him. That was before the bazaar."
+
+Suddenly Betty held out her hands with a little appealing movement.
+Dave wanted to seize them and crush them in his own, but he did not
+stir.
+
+"Tell me you don't think badly of me. Tell me you do not think me a
+heartless, wretched woman. I have thought and thought, and prayed for
+guidance. And now it seems to me I am a thoroughly wicked girl. But I
+cannot--I must not marry him."
+
+The man rose abruptly from his seat. He could no longer look into her
+troubled eyes and keep his own secret. When he spoke it was with his
+back to her, as he made a pretense of filling his pipe at the tobacco
+jar on the table. His voice was deep with emotion.
+
+"I thank God you've decided," he said. "You've done right by everybody.
+And you've shown more courage refusing him than if you'd gone through
+with your promise, because you've done it against your conscience. No,
+little Betty," he went on, turning to her again with infinite kindness
+in his steady eyes, "there's no one can call you heartless, or any
+other cruel name--and--and they'd better not in my hearing," he
+finished up clumsily.
+
+A few minutes later the rattle of buckboard wheels sounded outside, and
+before Betty could reply Dave took the opportunity of going to the
+door. Jim Truscott was standing outside with the gigantic Simon Odd
+close behind him, much in the manner of a warder watching his prisoner.
+The flicker of a smile came and went in the lumberman's eyes at the
+sight. Then his attention was held by the anger he saw in Jim's
+dissipated face. He was not a pleasant sight. His eyes were heavy and
+bloodshot, and the lines about them were accentuated by his general
+unwashed appearance. Even at that distance, as they stood there facing
+each other, he caught the reek of stale brandy the man exhaled. His
+clothes, too, had the appearance of having been flung on hurriedly, and
+the shirt and collar he wore were plainly filthy. Altogether he was an
+object for pity, and at the same time it was not possible to feel
+anything for him but a profound repugnance.
+
+"He was abed," said the giant Odd, the moment Dave appeared. Then with
+a complacent grin, "But he guessed he'd come right along when I told
+him you was kind o' busy an' needed him important."
+
+But Jim's angry face flamed.
+
+"Nothing of the sort. This damned ruffian of yours dragged me out,
+blast him."
+
+"Cut it!" Dave warned him sharply. "There's a lady here to see you.
+Come right in."
+
+The warning had instant effect. Truscott stepped into the room and
+stood face to face with Betty. Dave closed the door and stood aside.
+For a few intense moments no word was spoken. The man stared stupidly
+into the girl's unsmiling face; then he looked across at Dave. It was
+Betty who finally broke the silence.
+
+"Well, Jim," she said kindly, "at last we meet." She noted all the
+signs of dissipation in the young face, which, but a few years ago, had
+been so fresh and clean and good-looking. Now it was so different, and,
+to her woman's eyes, there was more than the mere outward signs. There
+was a spirit looking out of his bloodshot eyes that she did not
+recognize. It was as though the soul of the man had changed; it had
+degenerated to a lower grade. There was something unwholesome in his
+expression, as though some latent brutality had been stirred into life,
+and had obliterated every vestige of that clean, boyish spirit that had
+once been his.
+
+"And," she went on, as he remained silent, "you had to be cajoled into
+coming to see me."
+
+Still the man did not speak. Whether it was shame that held him silent
+it was impossible to tell. Probably not, for there was a steadily
+growing light in his eyes that suggested thoughts of anything but of a
+moral tone. He was held by her beauty--he was held as a man is
+sometimes held by some ravishing vision that appeals to his lower
+senses. He lost no detail of her perfect woman's figure, the seductive
+contours so wonderfully moulded. His eyes drank in the sight, and it
+set his blood afire.
+
+Dave never turned his eyes. He too was watching. And he understood, and
+resented, the storm that was lashing through the man's veins.
+
+"Have you nothing to say to me after these long years?" the girl asked
+again, forced to break the desperate silence. Then the woman in her
+found voice, "Oh! Jim, Jim! the pity of it. And I thought you so
+strong."
+
+Dave clenched his hands at his sides, but made no other movement. Then
+Betty's manner suddenly changed. All the warmth died out of her voice,
+and, mistress of herself again, she went straight to her object.
+
+"Jim, it was I who sent for you. I asked Dave to do this for me."
+
+"A word from you would have been enough," the man said, with a sudden
+fire that lost nothing of its fierce passion in the hoarse tone in
+which he spoke.
+
+"A word from me?" There was unconscious irony in the girl's reply.
+
+"Yes, a word. I know. You are thinking of when your uncle came to me;
+you're thinking of our first meeting on the bridge; you're thinking of
+yesterday. I was drunk. I admit it. But I'm not always drunk. I tell
+you a word from you would have been enough."
+
+The girl's eyes reproached him.
+
+"A word from me, after five years' absence? It seems to me you should
+not have needed a word from me. Jim, had you come to me, whatever your
+state, poor or rich, it would have made no difference to me. I should
+have met you as we parted, ready to fulfil my pledge."
+
+"You mean----"
+
+The man's bloodshot eyes were alight. A tremendous passion was urging
+him to the limits of his restraining powers. He had almost forgotten
+where he was. He had quite forgotten Dave. The sight of this woman with
+her beautiful figure, her sweet face and serious eyes, almost maddened
+him. He was from the wilds, where he had long since buried his
+wholesome youthful ideals. The life he had lived had entirely deadened
+all lofty thought. He only saw with a brain debased to the level of the
+animal. He desired her. He madly desired her now that he had seen her
+again, and he realized that his desire was about to be thwarted.
+
+Betty drew back a step. The movement was unconscious. It was the
+woman's instinct at the sight of something threatening which made her
+draw away from the passion she saw blazing in his eyes. Dave silently
+watched the man.
+
+"I mean," said the girl solemnly, "that you have made our pledge
+impossible. I mean," she went on, with quiet dignity, "that I cannot
+marry you now, even if you wish it. No, no," as Jim made a sudden
+movement to speak, "it is quite useless to discuss the matter further.
+I insisted on this meeting to settle the matter beyond question. Dave
+here witnessed our engagement, and I wished him to witness its
+termination. You will be better free, and so shall I. There could have
+been no happiness in a marriage between us----"
+
+"But I won't give you up," the man suddenly broke out. He had passed
+the narrow limits of his restraint. His face flushed and showed
+blotched in the sudden scarlet. For a second, after that first fiery
+outburst, no words came. Then the torrent flowed forth. "Is this what I
+went away for? Is this what I have slaved for in the wilds of the
+Yukon? Is this what I am to find now that I have made the money you
+desired? No, no, you can't get rid of me like that; you don't mean it,
+you can't mean it. Betty, I want you more than anything on earth," he
+rushed on, his voice dropping to a persuasive note. "I want you, and
+without you life is nothing to me. I must have you!" He took a step
+forward. But it was only a step, for the girl's steady eyes held him,
+and checked his further advance. And something in her attitude turned
+his mood to one of fierce protest. "What is it that has come between
+us? What is it that has changed you?"
+
+Betty snatched at his pause.
+
+"Such questions come well from you, Jim," she said, with some
+bitterness. "You know the truth. You do not need me to tell you." Her
+tone suddenly let the demon in the man loose. His passion-lit eyes
+lowered, and a furtive, sinister light shone in them when he lifted
+them again.
+
+"I know. I understand," he cried. "This is an excuse, and it serves you
+well." The coldness of his voice was in painful contrast to his recent
+passion. "The old story, eh? You have found some one else. I never
+thought much of a woman's promise, anyhow. I wonder who it is." Then
+with a sudden vehemence. "But you shan't marry him. Do you hear? You
+shan't while I am----"
+
+"Quit it!"
+
+Dave's great voice suddenly filled the room and cut the man's threats
+short.
+
+Jim turned on him in a flash; until that moment he had entirely
+forgotten the lumberman. He eyed the giant for a second. Then he
+laughed cynically.
+
+"Oh, I'd forgotten you. Of course," he went on. "I see now. I never
+thought of it before. I remember, you were on the bridge together when
+I first----"
+
+Dave had taken a couple of strides and now stood between the two. His
+movement silenced the man, while he addressed himself to Betty.
+
+"You're finished with him?" he inquired in a deep, harsh voice.
+
+There was something so compelling about him that Betty simply nodded.
+Instantly he swung round on the younger man.
+
+"You'll vacate this place--quick," he said deliberately.
+
+The two men eyed each other for some seconds. Truscott's look meant
+mischief, Dave's was calmly determined. The latter finally stepped
+aside and crossing to the door held it open.
+
+"I said you'll--vacate," he said sharply.
+
+Truscott turned and glanced at the open door. Then he glanced at Betty,
+who had drawn farther away. Finally his frigid eyes turned upon Dave's
+great figure standing at the door. For an instant a wicked smile played
+round his lips, and he spoke in the same cynical tone.
+
+"I never thought of you in the marriage market, Dave," he said, with a
+vicious laugh. "I suppose it's only natural. Nobody ever associated you
+with marriage. Somehow your manner and appearance don't suggest it. I
+seem to see you handling lumber all your life, not dandling children on
+your knee. But there, you're a good catch--a mighty good one. And I was
+fool enough to trust you with my cause. Ye gods! Well, your weight of
+money has done it, no doubt. I congratulate you. She has lied to me,
+and no doubt she will lie----"
+
+But the man, if he finished his remark at all, must have done so to the
+stacks of lumber in the yards, and to the accompaniment of the shriek
+of the saws. There was no fuss. Scarcely any struggle. Dave moved with
+cat-like swiftness, which in a man of his size was quite miraculous,
+and in a flash Jim Truscott was sprawling on the hard red ground on the
+other side of the doorway.
+
+And when Dave looked round at Betty the girl's face was covered with
+her hands, and she was weeping. He stood for a second all contrition,
+and clumsily fumbling for words. He believed she was distressed at his
+brutal action.
+
+"I'm sorry, little Betty," he blurted out at last. "I'm real sorry. But
+I just couldn't help it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+AN AUSPICIOUS MEETING
+
+
+Malkern as a village had two moments in the day when it wore the
+appearance of a thoroughly busy city. At all other times there was
+little outward sign to tell of the prosperity it really enjoyed.
+Malkern's really bustling time was at noon, when its workers took an
+hour and a half recess for the midday meal, and at six o'clock in the
+evening, when the day and night "shifts" at the mill exchanged places.
+
+There was no eight-hour working day in this lumbering village. The
+lumber-jacks and all the people associated with it worked to make
+money, not to earn a mere living. They had not reached that deplorable
+condition of social pessimism when the worker for a wage believes he is
+the man who is making millions for an employer, who is prospering only
+by his, the worker's, capacity to do. They were working each for
+himself, and regarded the man who could afford them such opportunity as
+an undisguised blessing. The longer the "time" the higher the wages,
+and this was their whole scheme of life.
+
+Besides this, there is a certain pride of achievement in the
+lumber-jack. He is not a mere automaton. He is a man virile, strong,
+and of a wonderful independence all his own. His spirits are animal,
+keen of perception, keen for all the joys of life such as he knows. He
+lives his life, whether in play or work. Whether he be a sealer, a
+cant-hook man, a teamster, or an axeman, his pride is in his skill, and
+the rating of his skill is estimated largely by the tally of his day's
+work, on which depends the proportion of his wages.
+
+It was the midday dinner-hour now, and the mill was debouching its
+rough tide of workers upon the main street. Harley-Smith's bar was full
+of men seeking unnecessary "appetizers." Every boarding-house was
+rapidly filling with hungry men clamoring for the ample, even luxurious
+meal awaiting them. These men lived well; their work was tremendous,
+and food of the best, and ample, was needed to keep them fit. The few
+stores which the village boasted were full of eager purchasers
+demanding instant service lest the precious time be lost.
+
+Harley-Smith's hotel abutted on the main road, and the tide had to pass
+its inviting portals on their way to the village. Usually the veranda
+was empty at this time, for the regular boarders were at dinner, and
+the bar claimed those who were not yet dining. But on this occasion it
+possessed a solitary occupant.
+
+He was sitting on a hard windsor chair, tilted back at a dangerous
+angle, with his feet propped upon the veranda rail in an attitude of
+ease, if not of elegance. He was apparently quite unconcerned at
+anything going on about him. His broad-brimmed hat was tilted well
+forward upon his nose, in a manner that served the dual purpose of
+shading his eyes from the dazzling sunlight, and permitting his gaze to
+wander whither he pleased without the observation of the passers-by. To
+give a further suggestion of indolent indifference, he was luxuriously
+smoking one of Harley-Smith's best cigars.
+
+But the man's attitude was a pretense. No one passed the veranda who
+escaped the vigilance of his quick eyes. He scanned each face sharply,
+and passed on to the next; nor did his watchfulness relax for one
+instant. It was clear he was looking for some one whom he expected
+would pass that way, and it was equally evident he had no desire to
+advertise the fact.
+
+Suddenly he pushed his hat back from his face, and, at the same time,
+his feet dropped to the boarded floor. This brought his chair on its
+four legs with a jolt, and he sat bolt upright. Now he showed the
+bloated young face of Jim Truscott. There was a look in his eyes of
+something approaching venomous satisfaction. He had seen the man he was
+looking for, and promptly beckoned to him.
+
+Dick Mansell was passing at that moment, and his small, ferret-like
+eyes caught the summons. He hesitated, nor did he come at once in
+response to the other's smile of good-fellowship.
+
+"Dick!" Truscott said. Then he added genially, "I was wondering if
+you'd come along this way."
+
+Mansell nodded indifferently. His face was ill-humored, and his small
+eyes had little friendliness in them. He nodded, and was about to pass
+on, but the other stayed him with a gesture.
+
+"Don't go," he said. "I want to speak to you. Come up to my room and
+have a drink."
+
+He kept his voice low, but he might have saved himself the trouble. The
+passing crowd were far too intent upon their own concerns to bother
+with him. The fact was his attitude was the result of nearly
+forty-eight hours of hard thinking, thinking inspired by a weak
+character goaded to offense by the rough but justifiable treatment
+meted out to him in Dave's office. This man's character, at no time
+robust, was now morally run-down, and its condition was like the weakly
+body of an unhealthy man. It collected to itself every injurious germ
+and left him diseased. His brain and nerves were thrilling with
+resentment, and a desire to get even with the "board." He was furiously
+determined that Dave should remember with regret the moment he had laid
+hands upon him, and that he had come between him and the girl he had
+intended to make his own.
+
+Mansell, stepping on to the veranda, paused and looked the other full
+in the eye.
+
+"Well," he said, after a moment's doubtful consideration, "what is it?
+'Tain't like you givin' drink away--'specially to me. What monkey
+tricks is it?"
+
+There was truculence in the sawyer's tone. There was offense in his
+very attitude.
+
+"Are you coming to my room for that drink?"
+
+Truscott spoke quite coldly, but he knew the curse of the man's thirst.
+He had reason to.
+
+Mansell laughed without any mirth.
+
+"Guess I may as well drink your brandy. It'll taste the same as any
+other. Go ahead."
+
+His host at once led the way into the hotel and up the stairs to his
+room. It was a front room on the first floor, and comparatively
+luxurious. The moment the door closed behind him Mansell took in the
+details with some interest.
+
+"A mighty swell apartment--fer you," he observed offensively.
+
+Truscott shrugged as he turned his back to pour out drinks at the table.
+
+"That's my business," he said. "I pay for it, and," he added, glancing
+meaningly over his shoulder, "I can afford to pay for it--or anything
+else I choose to have."
+
+Mansell was a fine figure of a man, and beside him the other looked
+slight, even weedy. But his face and head spoiled him. Both were small
+and mean, and gave the impression of a low order of intelligence. Yet
+he was reputed one of the finest sawyers in the valley, and a man, when
+not on the drink, to be thoroughly trusted. Before he went away to the
+Yukon with Jim he had been a teetotaler for two years, and on that
+account, and his unrivaled powers as a sawyer, he had acted as the
+other's foreman in his early lumbering enterprise. Except, however, for
+those two years his past had in it far more shadows than light.
+
+He grinned unpleasantly.
+
+"No need to ast how you came by the stuff," he said.
+
+Truscott was round on him in an instant. His eyes shone wickedly, but
+there was a grin about his lips.
+
+"The same way you tried to come by it too, only you couldn't keep your
+damned head clear. You couldn't let this stuff alone." He handed the
+man a glass of neat brandy. "You and your cursed drink nearly ruined my
+chances. It wasn't your fault you didn't. When I ran that game up in
+Dawson I was a fool to take you into it. I did it out of decency,
+because you had gone up there with me, and quite against my best
+judgment when I saw the way you were drinking. If you'd kept straight
+you'd be in the same position as I am. You wouldn't have returned here
+more or less broke and only too ready to set rotten yarns going around
+about me."
+
+The sawyer had taken the brandy and swallowed it. Now he set the glass
+down on the table with a vicious bang.
+
+"What yarns?" he demanded angrily.
+
+"Tchah! Hardwig's a meddling busybody. You might have known it would
+come back to me sooner or later. But I didn't bring you here to throw
+these things up in your face. You brought it on yourself. Keep a civil
+tongue, and if you like to stand in I'll put you into a good thing.
+You're not working? And you've got no money?"
+
+Truscott's questions came sharply. His plans were clear in his mind.
+These points he had made sure of already. But he wanted to approach the
+matter he had in hand in what he considered the best way in dealing
+with a man like Mansell. He knew the sawyer to have scruples of a kind,
+that is until they had been carefully undermined by brandy. It was his
+purpose to undermine them now.
+
+"You seem to know a heap," Mansell observed sarcastically. Then he
+became a shade more interested. "What's the 'good thing'?"
+
+Jim poured some brandy out for himself, at the same time, as though
+unconsciously, replenishing the other's glass liberally. The sawyer
+watched him while he waited for a reply, and suddenly a thought
+occurred to his none too ready brain.
+
+"Drink, eh?" he laughed mockingly, as though answering a challenge on
+the subject. "Drink? Say, who's been doing the drink since you got
+back? Folks says as your gal has gone right back on you, that ther'
+wench as you was a-sparkin' 'fore we lit out. An' it's clear along of
+liquor. They say you're soused most ev'ry night, an' most days too. You
+should git gassin'--I don't think."
+
+The man's mean face was alight with brutish glee. He felt he had handed
+the other a pretty retort. And in his satisfaction he snatched up his
+glass and drank off its contents at a gulp. Indifferent to the gibe,
+Jim smiled his satisfaction as he watched the other drain his glass.
+
+"You've got no work?" he demanded, as Mansell set it down empty.
+
+"Sure I ain't," the other grinned. "An'," he added, under the warming
+influence of the spirit, "I ain't worritin' a heap neither. My credit's
+good with the boardin'-house boss. Y' see," he went on, his pride of
+craft in his gimlet eyes, "I'm kind o' known here for a boss sawyer.
+When they want sawyers there's allus work for Dick Mansell."
+
+"Your credit's good?" Truscott went on, ignoring the man's boasting.
+"Then you have no money?"
+
+"I allows the market's kind o' low."
+
+Mansell's mood had become one of clumsy jocularity under the influence
+of the brandy.
+
+"If you can get work so easily, why don't you?" Truscott demanded,
+filling the two glasses again as he spoke.
+
+Mansell seated himself on the bed unbidden.
+
+"Wal," he began expansively, "I'm kind o' holiday-makin', as they say.
+Y' see," he went on with a leer, "I worked so a'mighty hard gittin'
+back from the Yukon, I'm kind o' fatigued. Savee? Guess I'll git to
+work later. Say, one o' them for me?" he finished up, pointing at the
+glasses.
+
+Truscott nodded, and Mansell helped himself greedily.
+
+The former fell in with the other's mood. He found him very easy to
+deal with. It was just a question of sufficient drink.
+
+"Well, I don't believe in work, anyway. That is unless it happens to be
+my pleasure, too. I worked hard up at Dawson, but it was my pleasure. I
+made good money, too--a hell of a sight more than you or anybody else
+ever had any idea of."
+
+"You ran a dandy game," agreed the sawyer.
+
+"With plenty of customers with mighty fat rolls of money."
+
+Mansell nodded.
+
+"I was a fool to quit you," he said regretfully.
+
+"You were. But it isn't too late. If you aren't yearning to work too
+hard."
+
+Truscott's smile was crafty. And, even with the drink in him, Mansell
+saw and understood it.
+
+"Monkey tricks?" he said.
+
+"Monkey tricks--if you like."
+
+Mansell looked over at the bottle.
+
+"Hand us another horn of that pizen an' I'll listen," he said.
+
+The other poured out the brandy readily, taking care to be more than
+liberal. He watched the sawyer drink, and then, drawing a chair
+forward, he sat down.
+
+"What's that old mill of mine worth?" he asked suddenly.
+
+They exchanged glances silently. Truscott was watching the effect of
+his question, and the other was trying to fathom the meaning of it.
+
+"I'd say," Mansell replied slowly, giving up the puzzle and waiting for
+enlightenment--"I'd say, to a man who needs it bad, it's worth anything
+over fifteen thousand dollars. Fer scrappin', I'd say it warn't worth
+but fi' thousand."
+
+"I was thinking of a man needing it."
+
+"Fifteen thousand an' over."
+
+Truscott leant forward in his chair and became confidential.
+
+"Dave wants to buy that mill, and I'm going to sell it to him," he said
+impressively. "I'll take twenty thousand for it, and get as much more
+as I can. See? Now I don't want that money. I wouldn't care to handle
+his money. I've got plenty, and the means of making heaps more if I
+need it."
+
+He paused to let his words sink in. Mansell nodded with his eyes on the
+brandy bottle. As yet he did not see the man's drift. He did not see
+where he came in. He waited, and Truscott went on.
+
+"Now what would you be willing to do for that twenty thousand--or
+more?" he asked smilingly.
+
+The other turned his head with a start, and, for one fleeting second,
+his beady eyes searched his companion's face. He saw nothing there but
+quiet good-nature. It was the face of the old Jim Truscott--used to
+hide the poisoned mind behind it.
+
+"Give me a drink," Mansell demanded roughly. "This needs some thinkin'."
+
+Truscott handed him the bottle, and watched him while he drank nearly
+half a tumbler of the raw spirit.
+
+"Well?"
+
+Mansell breathed heavily.
+
+"Seems to me I'd do--a heap," he said at last.
+
+"Would you take a job as sawyer in Dave's mill, and--and act under my
+orders?"
+
+"It kind o' depends on the orders." For some reason the lumberman
+became cautious. The price was high--almost too high for him.
+
+Truscott suddenly rose from his seat, and crossing the room, turned the
+key in the door. Then he closed the window carefully. He finally
+glanced round the room, and came back to his seat. Then, leaning
+forward and lowering his tone, he detailed carefully all that the
+lumberman would have to do to earn the money. It took some time in the
+telling, but at last he sat back with a callous laugh.
+
+"That's all it is, Dick, my boy," he cried familiarly. "You will be as
+safe as houses. Not only that, but I may not need your help at all. I
+have other plans which are even better, and which may do the job
+without your help. See? This is only in case it is necessary. You see I
+don't want to leave anything to chance. I want to be ready. And I want
+no after consequences. You understand? You may get the money for doing
+nothing. On the other hand, what you have to do entails little enough
+risk. The price is high, simply because I do not want the money, and I
+want to be sure I can rely on you."
+
+The man's plausibility impressed the none too bright-witted lumberman.
+Then, too, the brandy had done its work. His last scruple fled,
+banished by his innate crookedness, set afire by the spirit and the
+dazzling bait held out to him. It was a case of the clever rascal
+dominating the less dangerous, but more brutal, type of man. Mansell
+was as potter's clay in this man's hands. The clay dry would have been
+impossible to mould, but moistened, the artist in villainy had no
+difficulty in handling it. And the lubricating process had been
+liberally supplied.
+
+"I'm on," Mansell said, his small eyes twinkling viciously. "I'm on
+sure. Twenty thousand! Gee! But I'll need it all, Jim," he added
+greedily. "I'll need it all, and any more you git. You said it
+yourself, I was to git the lot. Yes," as though reassuring himself,
+"I'm on."
+
+Truscott nodded approvingly.
+
+"Good boy," he said pleasantly. "But there's one thing more, Dick. I
+make it a proviso you don't go on any teetotal racket. I know you.
+Anyway, I don't believe in the water wagon worth a cent. It don't suit
+you in work like this. But don't get drunk and act foolish. Keep on the
+edge. See? Get through this racket right, and you've got a small pile
+that'll fill your belly up like a distillery--after. You'll get the
+stuff in a bundle the moment you've done the work."
+
+Mansell reached out for the bottle without invitation, picked it up,
+and put the neck to his lips. Nor did he put it down till he had
+drained it. It was the culminating point. The spirit had done its work,
+and as Truscott watched him he knew that, body and soul, the man was
+his. The lumberman flung the empty bottle on the bed.
+
+"I'll do it, you damned crook," he cried. "I'll do it, but not because
+I like you, or anything to do with you. It's the bills I need
+sure--green, crisp, crinkly bills. But I'll need fifty of 'em now. Hand
+over, pard," he cried exultingly. "Hand over, you imp of hell. I want
+fifty now, or I don't stir a hand. Hand 'em----"
+
+Suddenly the man staggered back and fell on the bed, staring stupidly
+at the shining silver-plated revolver in the other's hands.
+
+"Hold your noise, you drunken hog," Jim cried in a biting tone. "This
+is the sort of thing I suppose I can expect from a blasted fool like
+you. Now understand this, I'm going to give you that fifty, not because
+you demand it, but to seal our compact. And by the Holy Moses, when
+you've handled it, if you attempt to play any game on me, I'll blow you
+to hell quicker than any through mail could carry you there. Get that,
+and let it sink into your fool brain."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+THE SUMMER RAINS
+
+
+Truscott looked up from his paper and watched the rain as it hissed
+against the window. It was falling in a deluge, driven by a gale of
+wind which swept the woodlands as though bent on crushing out the last
+dignity of the proud forest giants. The sky was leaden, and held out no
+promise of relenting. It was a dreary prospect, yet to the man watching
+it was a matter of small moment.
+
+It was nearly midday, and as yet he had not broken his fast. In fact
+his day was only just beginning. His appearance told plainly the story
+of his previous night's dissipation. Still, his mood was in no way
+depressed--he was too well seasoned to the vicious life he had adopted
+for that. Besides, the prosperity of Malkern brought much grist to his
+mill, and its quality more than made up for the after effects of his
+excesses.
+
+He turned to his paper again. It was a day old. A large head-line faced
+him announcing the spreading of the railway strike. Below it was a
+column describing how business was already affected, and how, shortly,
+if a settlement were not soon arrived at, it was feared that the
+trans-continental traffic could only be kept open with the aid of
+military engineers. The rest of the paper held no interests for him; he
+had only read this column, and it seemed to afford him food for much
+thought. He had read it over twice, and was now reading it for a third
+time.
+
+At last he threw the paper aside and walked across to the table to pour
+himself out a drink. The thought of food sickened him. The only thing
+possible was a whiskey-and-milk, and he mixed the beverage and held it
+to his lips. But the smell of it sickened him, and he set it down and
+moved away to the window.
+
+There was little enough to attract him thither, but he preferred the
+prospect to the sight and smell of whiskey at that hour of the day.
+After some moments he made another attempt on his liquid breakfast. He
+knew he must get it down somehow. He turned and looked at it,
+shuddered, and turned again to the window. And at that instant he
+recognized the great figure of Dave, clad from head to foot in
+oilskins, making his way back from the depot to the mill.
+
+The sight fixed his attention, and all the venom in his distorted
+nature shone in the wicked gleam that sprang into his eyes. His blood
+was fired with hatred.
+
+"Betty for you? Never in your life," he muttered at the passing figure.
+"Never in mine, Dave, my boy. It's you and me for it, and by God I'll
+never let up on you!"
+
+All unconscious of the venomous thoughts the sight of him had inspired,
+Dave strode on through the rain. He was deep in his own concerns, and
+at that moment they were none too pleasant. The deluge of rain damped
+his spirits enough, but the mail he had just received had brought him
+news that depressed him still more. The Engineers' Union had called for
+a general cessation of work east of Winnipeg, and he was wondering how
+it was likely to affect him. Should his engineers go out, would it be
+possible to replace them? And if he could, how would he be able to cope
+with the trouble likely to ensue? He could certainly fall in with the
+Union's demands, but--well, he would wait. It was no use anticipating
+trouble.
+
+But more bad news was awaiting him when he reached his office. Dawson,
+in his absence, had opened a letter which had arrived by runner from
+Bob Mason, the foreman of the camps up in the hills.
+
+Dawson was no alarmist. He always looked to Dave for everything when a
+crisis confronted them. He felt that if not a crisis, something very
+like it was before them now, and so he calmly handed Mason's letter to
+his boss, confident in the latter's capacity to deal with the situation.
+
+"This come along by hand," he said easily. "Guess, seein' it's wrote
+'important' on it, I opened it."
+
+Dave nodded while he threw off his oilskins. He made no particular
+haste, and deposited his mail on his desk before he took the letter
+from his foreman. At last, however, he unfolded the sheet of foolscap
+on which it was written, and read the ominous contents. It was a long
+letter dealing with the business of the camps, but the one paragraph
+which had made the letter important threw all the rest into
+insignificance. It ran--
+
+
+"I regret to have to report that an epidemic of mountain fever has
+broken out in two of our camps--the new No. 8 and No. 1. We have
+already nearly eighty cases on the sick list, chiefly amongst the new
+hands from Ottawa who are not yet acclimatized. The summer rains have
+been exceedingly heavy, which in a large measure accounts for the
+trouble. I shall be glad if you will send up medical aid, and a supply
+of drugs, at once. Dysentery is likely to follow, and you know what
+that means.
+
+"We are necessarily short-handed now, but, by increasing hours and
+offering inducements, and by engaging any stray hands that filter up to
+the camps, I hope to keep the work going satisfactorily. I am isolating
+the sick, of course, but it is most important that you send me the
+medical aid at once," etc., etc.
+
+
+Dave was silent for a while after reading the letter, and the gravity
+of his expression was enhanced by the extreme plainness of his
+features. His steady eyes were looking out through the open doorway at
+the mill beyond, as though it were some living creature to whom he was
+bound by ties of the deepest affection, and for whom he saw the
+foreshadowing of disaster. At last he turned.
+
+"Damn the rain," he said impatiently. Then he added, "I'll see to it."
+
+Dawson glanced quickly at his chief.
+
+"Nothin' I ken do, boss?" he inquired casually.
+
+A grim smile played over Dave's rugged features.
+
+"Nothing, I guess," he said, "unless you can fix a nozzle on to
+heaven's water-main and turn it on to the strikers down east."
+
+The other shook his head seriously.
+
+"I ain't worth a cent in the plumbin' line, boss," he said.
+
+Dawson left the office. The mill claimed him at all times. He never
+neglected his charge, and rarely allowed himself long absences beyond
+the range of its strident music. The pressure of work seemed to
+increase every day. He knew that the strain on his employer was
+enormous, and somehow he would have been glad if he could have shared
+this new responsibility.
+
+Dave had just taken his slicker from the wall again when Dawson came
+back to the door.
+
+"Say, ther's that feller Mansell been around this mornin' lookin' fer a
+job. I sed he'd best come around to-morrer. I didn't guess I'd take him
+on till I see you. He's a drunken bum anyway."
+
+Dave nodded.
+
+"He used to be a dandy sawyer," he said, "and we need 'em. Is he
+drinking now?"
+
+"I've heard tell. He stank o' whiskey's mornin'. That's why I passed
+him on. Yes, he's a dandy sawyer, sure. He was on the 'water wagon'
+'fore he went off up north with young Truscott. Mebbe he'll sober up
+agin--if we put him to work."
+
+Dave clenched the matter in his decided way.
+
+"Put him on the 'time sheet' to-morrow, and set him on the No. 1
+rollers, beside our night office. You can keep a sharp eye on him
+there. He's a bit of a backslider, but if giving him a job'll pull him
+up and help him, why, give it him. We've no right to refuse."
+
+He struggled into his slicker again as Dawson went off. He inspected
+the weather outside with no very friendly eye. It meant so much to him.
+At the moment the deluge was like a bursting waterspout, and the yards
+were like a lake dotted with islands of lumber. But he plunged out into
+it without a moment's hesitation. His work must go on, no matter what
+came.
+
+He hurried off in the direction of Chepstow's house. It was some time
+since he had seen his friend, and though the cause of his present visit
+was so serious, he was glad of the opportunity of making it.
+
+Tom Chepstow saw him coming, and met him on the veranda. He was always
+a man of cheery spirits, and just now, in spite of the weather, he was
+well enough satisfied with the world. Matters between Betty and Jim
+Truscott had been settled just as he could wish, so there was little to
+bother him.
+
+"I was really considering the advisability of a telephone from here to
+your office, Dave," he said, with a smiling welcome. "But joking apart,
+I never seem to see you now. How's things down there? If report says
+truly, you're doing a great work."
+
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"The mills are," he said modestly.
+
+Chepstow laughed heartily.
+
+"That's your way of putting it. You and the mills are one. Nobody ever
+speaks of one without including the other. You'll never marry, my boy.
+You are wedded to the shriek of your beloved buzz-saws. Here, take off
+those things and come in. We've got a drop of Mary's sloe gin
+somewhere."
+
+They went into the parlor, and Dave removed his oilskins. While he hung
+them to drain on a nail outside, the parson poured him out a wineglass
+of his wife's renowned sloe gin. He drank it down quickly, not because
+he cared particularly about it, but out of compliment to his friend's
+wife. Then he set his glass down, and began to explain his visit.
+
+"This isn't just a friendly visit, Tom," he said. "It's business. Bad
+business. You've got to help me out."
+
+The parson opened his eyes. It was something quite new to have Dave
+demanding help.
+
+"Go ahead," he said, his keen eyes lighting with amusement.
+
+Dave drew a bunch of letters from his coat pocket. He glanced over them
+hastily, and picked out Mason's and handed it to the other. In picking
+it out he had discovered another letter he had left unopened.
+
+"Read that," he said, while he glanced at the address on the unopened
+envelope.
+
+The handwriting was strange to him, and while Tom Chepstow was reading
+Mason's letter he tore the other open. As he read, the gravity of his
+face slowly relaxed. At last an exclamation from the parson made him
+look up.
+
+"This is terrible, Dave!"
+
+"It's a bit fierce," the other agreed. "Have you read it all?" he
+inquired.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then you've got my meaning in coming to you?"
+
+"I see. I hadn't thought of it."
+
+Dave smiled into the other's face.
+
+"You're going to do it for me? It may mean weeks. It may even mean
+months. You see, it's an epidemic. At the best it might be only a
+couple of weeks. They're tough, those boys. On the other hand it might
+mean--anything to me."
+
+Chepstow nodded. He understood well enough what an epidemic of mountain
+fever in his lumber camps must mean to Dave. He understood the
+conditions under which he stood with regard to his contract. A
+catastrophe like that might mean ruin. And ruin for Dave would mean
+ruin for nearly all connected with Malkern.
+
+"Yes, I'll do it, Dave. Putting all friendship on one side, it is
+clearly my duty. Certainly. I'll go up there and lend all the aid I
+possibly can. You must outfit me with drugs and help."
+
+Dave held out his hand, and the two men gripped.
+
+"Thanks, Tom," he said simply, although he experienced a world of
+relief and gratitude. "I wouldn't insult you with a bribe before you
+consented, but when you come back there's a thumping check for your
+charities lying somewhere around my office."
+
+The parson laughed in his whole-hearted fashion, while his friend once
+more donned his oilskins.
+
+"I'm always open to that sort of bribery, old boy," he said, and was
+promptly answered by one of Dave's slow smiles.
+
+"That's good," he said. Then he held up his other letter, but he did
+not offer it to be read.
+
+"Betty told you what happened at my office the other day--I mean, what
+happened to Jim Truscott?" The parson's face clouded with swift anger.
+
+"The ras----"
+
+"Just so. Yes, we had some bother; but he's just sent me this. A most
+apologetic letter. He offers to sell me his mill now. I wanted to buy
+it, you know. He wants twenty thousand dollars cash for it. I shall
+close the deal at once." He laughed.
+
+"Hard up, I s'pose?"
+
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"I don't think so. His change of front is curious, though," he went on
+thoughtfully. "However, that don't matter. I want the mill, and--I'm
+going to buy. So long. I've got to go and look at that piece of new
+track I'm getting laid down. My single line to the depot isn't
+sufficient. I'll let you know about starting up to the camps. I've got
+a small gang of lumber-jacks coming up from Ottawa. Maybe I'll get you
+to go up with them later. Thanks, Tom."
+
+The two men shook hands again, and Dave departed.
+
+He battled his way through the driving rain to his railroad
+construction, and on the road he thought a good deal of Truscott's
+neglected letter. There was something in its tone he could not convince
+himself about. Why, he asked himself, should he, so closely following
+on the events which had happened in his office, deliberately turn round
+and display such a Christian-like spirit? Somehow it didn't seem to
+suit him. It didn't carry conviction. Then there was the letter; its
+wording was too careful. It was so deliberately careful that it
+suggested a suppression of real feeling. This was his impression, and
+though Dave was usually an unsuspicious man, he could not shake it off.
+
+He thought of little else but that letter all the way to his works, and
+after reviewing the man's attitude from what, in his own simple
+honesty, he considered to be every possible standpoint, he finally,
+with a quaint, even quixotic, kindliness assured himself that there
+could after all be but one interpretation to it. The man was penitent
+at his painful exhibition before Betty, and his vile accusations
+against himself. That his moral strength was not equal to standing the
+strain of a personal interview. That his training up at the Yukon,
+where he had learned the sordid methods of a professional gambler, had
+suggested the selling of his mill to him as a sort of peace-offering.
+And the careful, stilted tone of the letter itself was due to the
+difficulty of its composition. Further, he decided to accept his offer,
+and do so in a cordial, friendly spirit, and, when opportunity offered,
+to endeavor, by his own moral influence, to drag him back to the paths
+of honest citizenship. This was the decision to which his generous
+nature prompted him. But his head protested.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE OLD MILLS
+
+
+When Dave reached the construction camp the work was in full swing. The
+men, clad in oilskins, paid little heed to the rain. Ahead was the gang
+spreading the heavy stone gravel bed, behind it came those laying and
+trimming ties. Following close upon their heels came others engaged in
+setting and bolting the rails, while hard in the rear followed a gang
+leveling, checking gauge, and ballasting. It was very rough railroad
+construction, but the result was sufficient for the requirements. It
+was rapid, and lacked the careful precision of a "permanent way," but
+the men were working at high pressure against time.
+
+Dave saw that all was well here. He exchanged a few words with the
+foreman, and gave his orders. Then he passed on, intending to return to
+the mill for his buckboard. Crossing the bridge to take a short cut, he
+encountered Betty driving home from her school in her uncle's buggy.
+She drew up at once.
+
+"Whither away, Dave?" she cried. Then she hastily turned the dozy old
+mare aside, so as to open the wheels to let the man climb in. "Come
+along; don't stand there in the rain. Isn't it awful? The river'll be
+flooding to-morrow if it doesn't stop soon. Back to the mills?"
+
+Dave clambered into the buggy and divested himself of his dripping
+oilskins. The vehicle was a covered one, and comparatively rain-proof,
+even in such a downpour.
+
+"Well, I guess so," he said. "I'm just going back to get my buckboard.
+Then I'm going up to get a look at Jim Truscott's old mill. He's sent
+word this morning to say he'll sell it me."
+
+The girl chirruped at the old mare, but offered no comment. The simple
+process of driving over a road nothing could have induced the parson's
+faithful beast to leave seemed to demand all her attention.
+
+"Did he send, or--have you seen him?" she asked him presently. And it
+was plain that the matter was of unusual interest to her.
+
+"I said he sent. He wrote to me--and mailed the letter."
+
+"Was there anything--else in the letter?"
+
+The girl's tone was cold enough. Dave, watching her, was struck by the
+decision in her expression. He wanted to hear what she thought of the
+letter. He was anxious to see its effect on her. He handed it to her,
+and quietly took the reins out of her hands.
+
+"You can read it," he said. And Betty eagerly unfolded the paper.
+
+The mare plodded on, splashing solemnly and indifferently through the
+torrential streams flooding the trail, and they were nearly through the
+village by the time she handed the letter back and resumed the reins.
+
+"Curious. I--I don't think I understand him at all," she said gravely.
+
+"It's an apology," said Dave, anxious for her to continue.
+
+"Yes, I suppose it is." She paused. "But why to you?" Then a whimsical
+smile spread over her round face. "I thought you two were nearly
+square. Now, if the apology had come to me----"
+
+"Yes, I hadn't thought of that."
+
+Both sat thinking for some time. They arrived at the point where the
+trail turned up to Tom Chepstow's house. Betty ignored the turning and
+kept on.
+
+"Is that mill worth all that money?" she asked suddenly.
+
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"You've come too far," he said, pointing at her uncle's house. And the
+girl smiled.
+
+"I want to have a look at the mill. Why are you buying it at that
+price, Dave?"
+
+"Because there's no time to haggle, and--I want it."
+
+Betty nodded. She was looking straight ahead, and the man failed to see
+the tender light his words had conjured in her eyes. She knew that Dave
+would never have paid that money to anybody else, no matter how much he
+wanted the mill. He was doing it for Jim. However unworthy the man was,
+it made no difference to his large-hearted nature.
+
+The tenderness still lingered in her eyes when she turned to him again.
+
+"Is Jim hard up?" she inquired.
+
+The frigidity of her tone was wholly at variance with her expression.
+But it told plainly of her feelings for the subject of her inquiry.
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"From all I've heard, and from his own talk, I'd guess not."
+
+Betty suddenly became very angry. She wanted to shake somebody, even
+Dave, since he was the only person near enough to be shaken.
+
+"He says in his letter, 'as the mill is no further use to me,'" she
+cried indignantly. "Dave, your Christian spirit carries you beyond all
+bounds. You have no right to give all that money for it. It isn't worth
+it anyway. You are--and he--he--oh, I've simply no words for him!"
+
+"But your uncle, with due regard for his cloth, has," Dave put in
+quickly.
+
+Betty's indignation was gone in an instant, lost in the laugh which
+responded to his dry tone.
+
+He had no intention of making her laugh, but he was glad she did so. It
+told him so much. It reassured him of something on which he had needed
+reassurance. Her parting with Jim, giving up as it did the habit and
+belief of years, had troubled him. Then in some measure he had felt
+himself responsible, although he knew perfectly well that no word of
+his had ever encouraged her on the course she had elected. He was
+convinced now. Her regard for Jim was utterly dead, had been dead far
+longer than probably even she realized.
+
+With this conviction a sudden wild hope leapt within him; but, like
+summer lightning, its very brilliancy left the night seemingly darker.
+No, it could never be now. Betty liked him, liked him only too well.
+Her frank friendliness was too outspoken, and then--ah, yes, he knew
+himself. Did he ever get the chance of forgetting? Did not his mirror
+remind him every morning? Did not his hair brushes, even, force it upon
+him as they loyally struggled to arrange some order in his obstinate
+wiry hair? Did not every chair, even his very bed, cry out at the awful
+burden they were called upon to support? Somehow his thoughts made him
+rebellious. Why should he be so barred? Why should he be denied the
+happiness all men are created for? But in a man like Dave such
+rebellion was not likely to find vent in words, or even mood.
+
+In the midst of his thought the drone of his own distant mills came to
+him through the steady hiss of the rain. The sound held him, and he
+experienced a strange comfort. It was like an answer to his mute
+appeal. It reminded him that his work lay before him. It was a call to
+which he was wedded, bound; it claimed his every nerve; it demanded his
+every thought like the most exacting mistress; and, for the moment, it
+gripped him with all the old force.
+
+"Say," he cried, holding up a warning finger, untidy with years of
+labor, "isn't she booming? Hark at the saws," he went on, his eyes
+glowing with pride and enthusiasm. "They're singing to beat the band.
+It's real music."
+
+They listened.
+
+"Hark!" he went on presently, and Betty's eyes watched him with a
+tender smile in their brown depths. "Hear the rise and fall of it as
+the breeze carries it. Hear the 'boom' of the 'ninety-footers' as they
+drop into the shoots. Isn't it great? Isn't it elegant music?"
+
+Betty nodded. Her sympathy was with him if she smiled at his words.
+
+"A lumbering symphony," she said.
+
+Dave's face suddenly fell.
+
+"Ah," he said apologetically, "you weren't brought up on a diet of
+buzz-saw trimmings."
+
+Betty shook her head.
+
+"No," she said gently, "patent food."
+
+Dave's enthusiasm dropped from him, and his face, unlit by it, had
+fallen back into its stern set. At the sight of the almost tragic
+change Betty's heart smote her, and she hastened to make amends,
+fearful lest he should fail to realize the sympathy she had for him.
+
+"Ah, no, Dave," she cried. "I know. I understand. I, too, love those
+mills for what they mean to you, to us, to Malkern. They are your
+world. They are our world. You have slowly, laboriously built them up.
+You have made us--Malkern. Your prosperity means happiness and
+prosperity to hundreds in our beloved valley. You do not love those
+mills for the fortune they are piling up for you, but for the sake of
+those others who share in your great profits and whose lives you have
+been able to gladden. I know you, Dave. And I understand the real music
+you hear."
+
+The man shook his head, but his voice rang with deep feeling. He knew
+that he did not deserve all this girl's words conveyed, but, coming
+from her, it was very sweet.
+
+"Little Betty," he said, "you kind of run away with things. There's a
+fellow called 'Dave' I think about a heap. I think about him such a
+heap I'm most always thinking of him. He's got ambition bad--so bad he
+thinks of precious little else. Then he's most terrible human. You'd
+marvel if you knew just how human he was. Now you'd think, maybe, he'd
+not want anything he hasn't got, wouldn't you? You'd think he was happy
+and content to see everything he undertakes prospering, and other folks
+happy. Well, he just isn't, and that's a fact. He's mighty thankful for
+mercies received, but there's a heap of other mercies he grumbles
+because he hasn't got."
+
+There was so much sincerity in the man's voice that Betty turned and
+stared at him.
+
+"And aren't you happy, Dave?" she asked, hardly knowing what she said,
+but, woman-like, fixing on the one point that appealed to her deepest
+sympathy.
+
+He evaded the direct question.
+
+"I'm as happy as a third child in playtime," he said; and then, before
+she could fully grasp his meaning, "Ah, here's the mill. Guess we'll
+pull up right here."
+
+The old mare came to a standstill, and Dave sprang out before Betty
+could answer him. And as soon as she had alighted he led the horse to a
+shed out of the rain.
+
+Then together they explored the mill, and their talk at once became
+purely technical. The man became the practical lumberman, and,
+note-book in hand, he led the way from room to room and floor to floor,
+observing every detail of the conditions prevailing. And all the time
+they talked, Betty displaying such an exhaustive knowledge of the man's
+craft that at times she quite staggered him. It was a revelation, a
+source of constant wonder, and it added a zest to the work which made
+him love every moment spent in carrying it out.
+
+It was over an hour before the inspection was finished, and to Dave it
+scarcely seemed more than a matter of minutes. Then there was yet the
+drive home with Betty at his side. As they drove away the culminating
+point in the man's brief happiness was reached when the girl, with
+interest such as his own might have been, pointed out the value of his
+purchase.
+
+"It will take you exactly a week to outfit that mill, I should say,"
+she said. "Its capacity for big stuff is so small you shouldn't pay a
+cent over ten thousand dollars for it."
+
+Dave smiled. Sometimes Betty's keenness of perception in his own
+business made him feel very small. Several times already that morning
+she had put things so incisively before him that he found himself
+wondering whether he had considered them from the right point of view.
+He was about to answer her, but finally contented himself with a
+wondering exclamation.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, Betty, where did you learn it all?"
+
+It was a delighted laugh that answered him.
+
+"Where? Where do you think? Why, from the one man competent to teach
+me. You forget that I came to you for instruction five years ago."
+
+The girl's eyes were dancing with pleasure. Somehow the desire for this
+man's praise and approval had unconsciously become part of her whole
+outlook. Her simple honesty would not let her deny it--showed her no
+reason for denying it. She sometimes told herself it was just her
+vanity; it was the desire of a pupil for a master's praise. She, as
+yet, could see no other reason for it, and would have laughed at the
+idea that any warmer feeling could possibly underlie it.
+
+Dave's pleasure in her acknowledgment was very evident.
+
+"I haven't forgotten, Betty," he said. "But I never taught you all
+that. It's your own clever little head. You could give Joel Dawson a
+start and beat him."
+
+"You don't understand," the girl declared quickly. "It was you who gave
+me the ground-work, and then I thought and thought. You see, I--I
+wanted to help Jim when he came back."
+
+Dave had no reply to make. The girl's plain statement had damped his
+enthusiasm. He had forgotten Jim. She had done this for love of the
+other man.
+
+"I want you to do me a great favor," she went on presently. "I want it
+very--very much. You think I've learned a lot. Well, I want to learn
+more. I don't know quite why--I s'pose it's because I'm interested. I
+want to see the big lumber being trimmed. I want to see your own mill
+in full work, and have what I don't understand explained to me. Will
+you do it? Some night. I'd like to see it all in its most inspiring
+light. Will you, Dave?"
+
+She laid a coaxing hand on his great arm, and looked eagerly into his
+eyes. At that moment the lumberman would have promised her the world.
+And he would have striven with every nerve in his body to fulfil his
+promise.
+
+"Sure," he said simply. "Name your own time."
+
+And for once the girl didn't thank him in her usual frank way. She
+simply drew her hand away and chirruped at the old mare.
+
+For the rest of the drive home she remained silent. It was as though
+Dave's ready, eager promise had suddenly affected her in some
+disturbing way. Her brown eyes looked straight ahead along the trail,
+and they were curiously serious.
+
+They reached the man's home. He alighted, and she drove on to her own
+destination with a feeling of relief not unmixed with regret.
+
+Dave's mother had been long waiting dinner for her boy. She had seen
+the buggy and guessed who was in it, and as he came up she greeted him
+with pride and affection shining in her old eyes.
+
+"That was Betty?" she inquired, moving across to the dinner-table,
+while the man removed his slicker.
+
+"Yes, ma," he said coolly. He had no desire to discuss Betty with any
+one just then, not even with his mother.
+
+"Driving with her, dear?" she asked, with smiling, searching eyes upon
+his averted face.
+
+"She gave me a lift," Dave replied, coming over and sitting down at the
+table.
+
+His mother, instead of helping him to his food, suddenly came round to
+his side and laid one affectionate hand upon his great shoulder. The
+contrast in these two had something almost ridiculous in it. He was so
+huge, and she was so small. Perhaps the only things they possessed in
+common, outside of their mutual adoration, were the courage and
+strength which shone in their gray eyes, and the abounding kindliness
+of heart for all humanity. But whereas these things in the mother were
+always second to her love for her boy, the boy's first thought and care
+was for the great work his own hands had created.
+
+"Dave," she said very gently, "when am I going to have a daughter? I'm
+getting very, very old, and I don't want to leave you alone in the
+world."
+
+The man propped his elbow on the table and rested his head on his hand.
+His eyes were almost gloomy.
+
+"I don't want to lose you, ma," he said. "It would break me up ter'ble.
+Life's mostly lonesome anyhow." Then he looked keenly up into her face,
+and his glance was one of concern. "You--you aren't ailing any?"
+
+The old woman shook her head, and her eyes smiled back at him.
+
+"No, boy, I'm not ailing. But I worry some at times. You see, I like
+Betty very, very much. In a different way, I'm almost as fond of her as
+you are----"
+
+Dave started and was about to break in, but his mother shook her head,
+and her hand caressed his cheek with infinite tenderness.
+
+"Why don't you marry her, now--now that the other is broken off----"
+
+But Dave turned to her, and, swept by an almost fierce emotion, would
+not be denied.
+
+"Why, ma? Why?" he cried, with all the pent-up bitterness of years in
+the depth of his tone. "Look at me! Look at me! And you ask me why." He
+held out his two hands as though to let her see him as he was. "Would
+any woman think of me--look at me with thoughts of love? She couldn't.
+What am I? A mountain of muscle, brawn, bone, whatever you will, with a
+face and figure even a farmer would hate to set up over a corn patch at
+harvest time." He laughed bitterly. "No--no, ma," he went on, his tone
+softening, and taking her worn hand tenderly in his. "There are folks
+made for marriage, and folks that aren't. And when folks that aren't
+get marrying they're doing a mean thing on the girl. I'm not going to
+think a mean thing for Betty--let alone do one."
+
+His mother moved away to her seat.
+
+"Well, boy, I'll say no more, but I'm thinking a time'll come when
+you'll be doing a mean thing by Betty if you don't, and she'll be the
+one that'll think it----"
+
+"Ma!"
+
+"The dinner's near cold."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BETTY DECIDES
+
+
+Two nights later Dave was waiting in the tally room for his guests to
+arrive. The place was just a corner partitioned off from the milling
+floor. It was here the foreman kept account of the day's work--a bare
+room, small, and hardly worth the name of "office." Yet there was work
+enough done in it to satisfy the most exacting master.
+
+The master of the mills had taken up a position in the narrow doorway,
+in full view of the whole floor, and was watching the sawyer on No. 1.
+It was Mansell. He beheld with delight the wonderful skill with which
+the man handled the giant logs as they creaked and groaned along over
+the rollers. He appeared to be sober, too. His deliberate movements,
+timed to the fraction of a second, were sufficient evidence of this. He
+felt glad that he had taken him on his time-sheet. Every really skilful
+sawyer was of inestimable value at the moment, and, after all, this
+man's failing was one pretty common to all good lumbermen.
+
+Dawson came up, and Dave nodded in the sawyer's direction.
+
+"Working good," he observed with satisfaction.
+
+"Too good to last, if I know anything," grumbled the foreman. "He'll
+get breakin' out, an then---- I've a mind to set him on a 'buzz-saw'.
+These big saws won't stand for tricks if he happens to git around with
+a 'jag' on."
+
+"You can't put a first-class sawyer on to a 'buzzer,'" said Dave
+decisively. "It's tantamount to telling him he doesn't know his work.
+No, keep him where he is. If he 'signs' in with a souse on, push him
+out till he's sober. But so long as he's right let him work where he
+is."
+
+"Guess you're 'boss' o' this lay-out," grumbled the foreman.
+
+"Just so."
+
+Then, as though the matter had no further concern for him, Dawson
+changed the subject.
+
+"There's twenty 'jacks' scheduled by to-night's mail," he said, as
+though speaking of some dry-goods instead of a human freight.
+
+"They're for the hills to-night. Mr. Chepstow's promised to go up and
+dose the boys for their fever. I'm putting it to him to-night. He'll
+take 'em with him. By the way, I'm expecting the parson and Miss Betty
+along directly. They want to get a look at this." He waved an arm in
+the direction of the grinding rollers. "They want to see it--busy."
+
+Dawson was less interested in the visitors.
+
+"I see 'em as I come up," he said indifferently. "Looked like they'd
+been around your office."
+
+Dave turned on him sharply.
+
+"Go down and bring 'em along up. And say--get things ready for sending
+up to the camps to-night. Parson'll have my buckboard and the black
+team. He's got to travel quick. They can come right away back when he's
+got there. See he's got plenty of bedding and rations. Load it down
+good. There's a case of medical supplies in my office. That goes with
+him. Then you'll get three 'democrats' from Mulloc's livery barn for
+the boys. See they've got plenty of grub too."
+
+When Dave gave sharp orders, Dawson simply listened and obeyed. He
+understood his employer, and never ventured criticism at such times. He
+hurried away now to give the necessary orders, and then went on to find
+the visitors.
+
+Directly he had gone the master of the mills moved over to the sawyer
+on No. 1.
+
+"You haven't forgotten your craft, Mansell," he said pleasantly, his
+deep voice carrying, clarion-like, distinctly over the din of the
+sawing-floor.
+
+"Would you fergit how t' eat, boss?" the man inquired surlily,
+measuring an oncoming log keenly with his eye. He bore down on a
+"jolting" lever and turned the log into a fresh position. Then he leant
+forward and tipped the end of it with chalk. Hand and eye worked
+mechanically together. He knew to a hairsbreadth just where the
+trimming blade should strike the log to get the maximum square of
+timber.
+
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"It would take some forgetting," he said, with a smile. "You see
+there's always a stomach to remind you."
+
+The log was passing, and the man had a moment's breathing space while
+it traveled to the fangs of the rushing saw. He looked up with a pair
+of dark, brooding eyes in which shone a peculiarly offensive light.
+
+"Jest so," he vouchsafed. "I learned this when I learned t' eat, an'
+it's filled my belly that long, fi' year ain't like to set me
+fergittin'."
+
+He turned to the rollers and watched the log. He saw it hit the teeth
+of the saw plumb on his chalk mark.
+
+"An awful waste out of a lumberman's life, that five years," Dave went
+on, when the crucial moment had passed. "That mill would have been
+doing well now, and--and you were foreman."
+
+He was looking straight into the fellow's mean face. He noted the
+terrible inroads drink had made upon it, the sunken eyes, the pendulous
+lip, the lines of dissipation in deep furrows round his mouth. He
+pitied him from the bottom of his heart, but allowed no softness of
+expression.
+
+"Say," exclaimed the sawyer, with a vicious snap, "when I'm lumberin' I
+ain't got time fer rememberin' anything else--which is a heap good. I
+don't guess it's good for any one buttin' in when the logs are rollin'.
+Guess that log's comin' right back."
+
+The man's unnecessary insolence was a little staggering. Yet Dave
+rather liked him for it. The independence of the sawyer's spirit
+appealed to him. He really had no right to criticize Mansell's past, to
+stir up an unpleasant memory for him.
+
+He knew his men, and he realized that he had overstepped his rights in
+the matter. He was simply their employer. It was for him to give
+orders, and for them to obey. In all else he must take them as man and
+man. He felt now that there was nothing more for him to say, so while
+the sawyer clambered over to the return rollers, ready for the second
+journey of the log, he walked thoughtfully back to his office.
+
+At that moment his visitors appeared, escorted by Dawson. The foreman
+was piloting them with all the air of a guide and the pride of his
+association with the mills. Betty was walking beside him, and while
+taking in the wonderful scene that opened out before her, she was
+listening to the conversation of the two men.
+
+The foreman had taken upon himself to tell the parson of the orders he
+had received for the night journey, and the details of the preparations
+being made for it. The news came to Chepstow unpleasantly, yet he
+understood that its urgency must be great, or Dave would never have
+decided upon so sudden a journey. He was a little put out, but quite
+ready to help his friend.
+
+It was the first Betty had heard of it. She was astonished and
+resentful. She had heard that there was fever up in the hills, but her
+uncle had told her nothing of Dave's request to him. Therefore, before
+greetings had been exchanged, and almost before the door of the tally
+room had closed upon the departing foreman, she opened a volley of
+questions upon him.
+
+"What's this about uncle going up to the hills to-night, Dave?" she
+demanded. "Why has it been kept secret? Why so sudden? Why to-night?"
+
+Her inquiring glance turned from one to the other.
+
+Dave made no hurry to reply. He was watching the play of the strong,
+eager young face. The girl's directness appealed to him even more than
+her beauty. To-night she looked very pretty in a black clinging gown
+which made her look almost fragile. She seemed so slight, so delicate,
+yet her whole manner had such reserve of virile force. He thought now,
+as he had often thought before, she possessed a brain much too big and
+keen for her body, yet withal so essentially womanly as to be something
+to marvel at.
+
+The girl became impatient.
+
+"Why wasn't I told? For goodness' sake don't stand there staring, Dave."
+
+"There's no secrecy exactly, Betty," the lumberman said, "that is,
+except from the folks in the village. You see, anything likely to check
+our work, such as fever up in the camps, is liable to set them worrying
+and talking. We didn't mean to keep it from you----"
+
+"Yes, yes," the girl broke in. "But why this hurry? Why to-night?"
+
+And so she forced Dave into a full explanation, which alone would
+satisfy her. At the end of it she turned to her uncle, who had stood
+quietly by enjoying the manner in which she dictated her will upon the
+master of the mills.
+
+"It's an awful shame you've got to go, uncle, especially while you've
+got all the new church affairs upon your hands. But I quite see Dave's
+right, and we must get the boys well as quickly as possible. We've got
+to remember that these mills are not only Dave's. They also belong to
+Malkern--one might almost say to the people of this valley. It is the
+ship, and--and we are its freight. So we start at midnight. Does auntie
+know?"
+
+Instantly two pairs of questioning eyes were turned upon her. That
+coupling of herself with her uncle in the matter had not escaped them.
+
+"Your Aunt Mary knows I am going some time. But she hasn't heard the
+latest development, my dear," her uncle said. "But--but you said 'we'
+just now?"
+
+Dave understood. He knew what was coming. But then he understood Betty
+as did no one else. He smiled.
+
+"Of course I said 'we,'" Betty exclaimed, with a laugh which only
+served to cloak the resolve that lay behind it. "You are not going
+alone. Besides, you can physic people well enough, uncle dear, but you
+can't nurse them worth--worth a cent. School's all right, and can get
+on without me for a while. Well?" She smiled quickly from one to the
+other. "Well, we're ready, aren't we? We can't let this interfere with
+our view of the mill."
+
+Her uncle shook his head.
+
+"You can't go up there, Betty," he said seriously. "You can't go about
+amongst those men. They're good fellows. They're men. But----" he
+looked over at Dave as though seeking support, a thing he rarely
+needed. But he was dealing with Betty now, and where she was concerned,
+there were times when he felt that a little support might be welcome.
+
+Dave promptly added his voice in support of his friend's protest.
+
+"You can't go, little Betty," he said. "You can't, little girl," he
+reiterated, shaking his shaggy head. "You think you know the
+lumber-jacks, and I'll allow you know them a lot. But you don't know
+'em up in those camps. They're wild men. They're just as savage as
+wolves, and foolish as babes. They're just great big baby men, and as
+irresponsible as half-witted schoolboys. I give you my word I can't let
+you go up. I know how you want to help us out. I know your big heart.
+And I know still more what a help you'd be----"
+
+"And that's just why I'm going," Betty snapped him up. That one
+unfortunate remark undid all the impression his appeal might otherwise
+have made. And as the two men realized the finality of her tone, they
+understood the hopelessness of turning her from her purpose.
+
+"Uncle dear," she went on, "please say 'yes.' Because I'm going, and
+I'd feel happier with your sanction. Dave," she turned with a smile
+upon the lumberman, "you've just got to say 'yes,' or I'll never--never
+let you subscribe to any charity or--or anything I ever get up in
+Malkern again. Now you two dears, mind, I'm going anyway. I'll just
+count three, and you both say 'yes' together."
+
+She counted deliberately, solemnly, but there was a twinkle in her
+brown eyes.
+
+"One--two--three!"
+
+And a simultaneous "Yes" came as surely as though neither had any
+objection to the whole proceeding. And furthermore, both men joined in
+the girl's laugh when they realized how they had been cajoled. To them
+she was quite irresistible.
+
+"I don't know whatever your aunt will say," her uncle said lugubriously.
+
+"It's not so much what she'll say as--as what may happen up there,"
+protested Dave, his conscience still pricking him.
+
+But the girl would have no more of it.
+
+"You are two dear old--yes, 'old'--sillies. Now, Dave, the mills!"
+
+Betty carried all before her with these men who were little better than
+her slaves. They obeyed her lightest command hardly knowing they obeyed
+it. Her uncle's authority, whilst fully acknowledged by her, was
+practically non-existent. Her loyalty to him and her love for both her
+guardians left no room for the exercise of authority. And Dave--well,
+he was her adviser in all things, and like most people who have an
+adviser, Betty went her own sweet way, but in such a manner that made
+the master of the mills believe that his help and advice were
+practically indispensable to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MILLS
+
+
+Dave obediently led the way out of the tally room to the great milling
+floor, and at once they were in the heart of his world.
+
+It was by no means new to Betty; she had seen it all before, but never
+had the mills been driven at such a pressure as now, and the sensation
+the knowledge gave her was one which demanded the satisfaction of
+optical demonstration. She was thrilled with a sense of emergency. The
+roar of the machinery carried with it a meaning it had never held
+before. There was a current of excitement in the swift, skilful
+movements of the sawyers as they handled the mighty logs.
+
+To her stirred imagination there was a suggestion of superhuman agency,
+of some nether world, in the yellow light of the flares which lit that
+vast sea of moving rollers. As she gazed out across it at the dim,
+distant corners she felt as though at any moment the machinery might
+suddenly become manned by hundreds of hideous gnomes, such as she had
+read of in the fairy tales. Yet it was all real, real and human, and
+Dave was the man who controlled, whose brain and eyes watched over
+every detail, whose wonderful skill and power were carrying that
+colossal work to the goal of success. As she looked, she sighed. She
+envied the man whose genius had made all this possible.
+
+Above the roar Dave's voice reached her.
+
+"This is only part of it," he said; "come below."
+
+And she followed him to the spiral iron staircase which led to the
+floor below. Her uncle brought up the rear.
+
+At ordinary times the lower part of the mills was given over to the
+shops for the manufacture of smaller lumber, building stuff, doors and
+windows, flooring, and tongue and groove. Betty knew this. She knew
+every shop by heart, just as she knew most of the workmen by sight. But
+now it was all changed. The partitions had been torn down, and the
+whole thrown into one floor. It was a replica of the milling floor
+above.
+
+Here again were the everlasting rollers; here again were the tremendous
+logs traveling across and across the floor; here again were the roar
+and shriek of the gleaming saws. The girl's enthusiasm rose. Her eyes
+wandered from the fascinating spectacle to the giant at her side. She
+felt a lump rise in her throat; she wanted to laugh, she wanted to cry;
+but she did neither. Only her eyes shone as she gazed at him; and his
+plainness seemed to fall from him. She saw the man standing at her
+side, but the great ungainly Dave had gone, leaving in his place only
+such a hero as her glowing heart could create.
+
+They stood there watching, watching. None of the three spoke. None of
+them had any words. Dave saw and thought. His great unimaginative head
+had no care for the picture side of it. His eyes were on the sawyers,
+most of them stripped to the waist in the heat of their labors in the
+summer night. To him the interest of the scene lay in the precision and
+regularity with which log followed log over the rollers, and the skill
+with which they were cut.
+
+Parson Tom, with a little more imagination, built up in his mind the
+future prosperity of their beloved valley, and thanked the Almighty
+Providence that It had sent them such a man as Dave. But Betty, in
+spite of her practical brain, lost sight of all the practical side of
+the work. As she watched she was living in such a dream as only comes
+once in a lifetime to any woman. At that moment her crown of glory was
+set upon Dave's rough head. All she had hoped for, striven for all her
+life seemed so small at the thought of him. And the delight of those
+moments became almost painful. She had always looked upon him as "her
+Dave," her beloved "chum," her adviser, her prop to lean on at all
+times. But no. No, no; he was well and truly named. He was no one's
+Dave. He was just Dave of the Mills.
+
+They moved on to a small doorway, and passing along a protected gallery
+they worked their way toward the "boom." The place was a vast backwater
+of the river, enlarged to accommodate millions of feet of logs. It was
+packed with a mass of tumbled lumber, over which, in the dim light
+thrown by waste fire, a hundred and more "jacks" could be seen,
+clambering like a colony of monkeys, pushing, prizing, easing, pulling
+with their peaveys to get the logs freed, so that the grappling tackle
+could seize and haul them up out of the water to the milling floors
+above.
+
+Here again they paused and silently gazed at the stupendous work going
+on. There was no more room for wonder either in the girl or her uncle.
+The maximum had been reached. They could only silently stare.
+
+Dave was the first to move. His keen eyes had closely watched the work.
+He had seen log after log fly up in the grapple of the hydraulic
+cranes, he had seen them shot into the gaping jaws of the building, he
+had seen that not an idle hand was down there in the boom, and he was
+satisfied. Now he wanted to go on.
+
+"There's the 'waste,'" he said casually. "But I guess you've seen that
+heaps, only it's a bit bigger now, and we've had to build two more
+'feeders.'"
+
+Betty answered him, and her tone was unusually subdued.
+
+"Let's see it all, Dave," she said, almost humbly.
+
+All her imperiousness had gone, and in its place was an ecstatic desire
+to see all and anything that owed its existence to this man.
+
+Dave strode on. He was quite unconscious of the change that had taken
+place in Betty's thoughts of him. To him these things had become
+every-day matters of his work. They meant no more to him than the
+stepping-stones toward success which every one who makes for
+achievement has to tread.
+
+Their way took them up another iron staircase outside the main
+building. At the top of it was an iron gallery, which passed round two
+angles of the mill, and terminated at the three feeders, stretching out
+from the mills to the great waste fire a hundred yards away. From this
+gallery there was an inspiring view of the "everlasting" fire. It had
+been lit when the mill first started its operations years ago, and had
+been burning steadily ever since; and so it would go on burning as long
+as the saws inside continued to rip the logs.
+
+The feeders were three shafts, supported on iron trestle work, each
+carrying an ever-moving, endless bed on which the waste trimmings of
+the logs were thrown. These were borne upward and outward for a hundred
+yards till the shafts hung high above the blazing mass. Here the
+endless band doubled under, and its burden was precipitated below,
+where it was promptly devoured by the insatiable flames.
+
+For some moments they watched the great timber pass on its way to the
+fire, and so appalling appeared the waste that Parson Tom protested.
+
+"This seems to me positively wanton," he said. "Why, the stuff you're
+sending on to that fire is perfect lumber. At the worst, what grand
+fuel it would make for the villagers."
+
+Dave nodded his great head. He often felt the same about it.
+
+"Makes you sicken some to see it go, doesn't it?" he said regretfully.
+"It does me. But say, we've got a waste yard full, and the folks in
+Malkern are welcome to all they can haul away. Even Mary uses it in her
+stoves, but they can't haul or use it fast enough. If it wasn't for
+this fire there wouldn't be room for a rat in Malkern inside a year.
+Guess it's got to be, more's the pity."
+
+There was no more to be said, and the three watched the fire in silent
+awe. It was a marvelous sight. The dull red-yellow light shone luridly
+over everything. The mill on the one hand loomed majestically out of
+the dark background of night. The fire, over forty feet in height, lit
+the buildings in a curious, uncanny fashion, throwing grotesque and
+lurid shadows in every direction. Then all around, on the farther
+sides, spread the distant dark outline of ghostly pine woods, whose
+native gloom resisted a light, which, by contrast, was so
+insignificantly artificial. It gave a weird impression that had a
+strong effect upon Betty's rapt imagination.
+
+Dave again broke the spell. He could not spare too much time, and, as
+they moved away, Betty sighed.
+
+"It's all very, very wonderful," she said, moving along at his side.
+"And to think even in winter, no matter what the snowfall, that fire
+never goes out."
+
+Dave laughed.
+
+"If it rained like it's been raining to-day for six months," he said,
+"I don't guess it could raise more than a splutter." Then he turned to
+Tom Chepstow. "Is there anything else you'd like to see? You've got
+three hours to midnight."
+
+But the parson had seen enough; and as he had yet to overhaul the
+supplies he was to take up to the hill camps, they made their way back
+to the tally room. At the rollers on which Mansell was working Dave
+paused with Betty, while her uncle went on.
+
+They watched a great log appear at the opening over the boom. The
+chains of the hydraulic crane creaked under their burden. Dave pointed
+at it silhouetted against the light of the waste fire beyond.
+
+"Watch him," he said. "That's Dick Mansell."
+
+The pride in his tone was amply justified. Mansell was at the opening,
+waiting, peavey in hand. They saw the log dripping and swaying as it
+was hauled up until its lower end cleared the rollers. On the instant
+the sawyer leant forward and plunged his hook into the soft pine bark.
+Then he strained steadily and the log came slowly onward. A whistle,
+and the crane was eased an inch at a time. The man held his strain, and
+the end lowered ever further over the rollers until it touched. Two
+more whistles, and the log was lowered faster until it lay exactly
+horizontal, and then the rollers carried it in. Once its balance was
+passed, the sawyer struck the grappling chains loose with his peavey,
+and, with a rattle, they fell clear, while the prostrate giant lumbered
+ponderously into the mill.
+
+It was all done so swiftly.
+
+Now Mansell sprang to the foremost end and chalked the log as it
+traveled. Then, like a cat, he sprang to the rear of it and measured
+with his eye. Dissatisfied, he ran to its side and prized it into a
+fresh position, glancing down it, much as a rifleman might glance over
+his sights. Satisfied at length, he ran on ahead of the moving log to
+his saws. Throwing over a lever, he quickened the pace of the gleaming
+blade. On came the log. The yielding wood met the merciless fangs of
+the saw upon the chalk line, and passed hissing and shrieking on its
+way as though it had met with no obstruction.
+
+The girl took a deep breath.
+
+"Splendid," she cried. Well as she knew this work, to-night it appealed
+to her with a new force, a deeper and more personal interest.
+
+"Easy as pie," Dave laughed. Then more seriously, "Yet it's dangerous
+as--as hell."
+
+Betty nodded. She knew.
+
+"But you don't have many accidents, thank goodness."
+
+Dave shrugged.
+
+"Not many--considering. But you don't often see a sawyer with perfectly
+sound hands. There's generally something missing."
+
+"I know. Look at Mansell's arm there." Betty pointed at a deep furrow
+on the man's forearm.
+
+"Yes, Mansell's been through it. I remember when he got that. Like an
+Indian holds his first scalp as a sign of his prowess, or the knights
+of old wore golden spurs as an emblem of their knighthood, the sawyer
+minus a finger or so has been literally 'through the mill,' and can
+claim proficiency in his calling. But those are not the dangers I was
+figgering on."
+
+Betty waited for him to go on.
+
+"Yes," he said solemnly. "It's the breaking saw. That's the terror of a
+sawyer's life. And just now of mine. It's always in the back of my head
+like a black shadow. One breaking saw would do more damage cutting up
+this big stuff than it would take a fire to do in an hour. It would be
+the next best thing to bursting a charge of dynamite. Take this saw of
+Mansell's. A break, a bend out of the truth, the log slips while it's
+being cut. Any of these things. You wouldn't think a 'ninety-footer'
+could be thrown far. If any of those things happened, good-bye to
+anything or anybody with whom it came into contact. But we needn't to
+worry. Let's get in there to your uncle."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BETTY TAKES COVER
+
+
+In the office they found Parson Tom at work with pencil and note-book.
+The latter he closed as they came in.
+
+"For goodness' sake shut that door behind you," he laughed. "I've been
+trying to think of the things I need for my journey to-night, but that
+uproar makes it well-nigh impossible."
+
+The words brought Betty back to matters of the moment. Everything had
+been forgotten in the interest of her tour of the mills at Dave's side.
+Now she realized that time was short, and she too must make her
+preparations.
+
+Dave closed the door.
+
+"We'd best get down to the barn and fix things there," he said. "Then
+you can get right back home and arrange matters with Mary. Betty could
+go on and prepare her."
+
+The girl nodded her approval.
+
+"Yes," she said, "and I can get my own things together."
+
+Both men looked at her.
+
+She answered their challenge at once, but now there was a great change
+in her manner. She no longer laughed at them. She no longer carried
+things with a high hand. She intended going up to the camps, but it
+almost seemed as though she desired their justification to support her
+decision. Somehow that tour of the mills at Dave's side had lessened
+her belief in herself.
+
+"Yes," she said, "I know neither of you wants me to go. Perhaps, from
+your masculine point of view, you are both right. But--but I want to
+go. I do indeed. This is no mere whim. Uncle, speak up and admit the
+necessity for nursing. Who on earth is up there to do it? No one."
+
+Then she turned to Dave, and her earnest eyes were full of almost
+humble entreaty.
+
+"You won't refuse me, Dave?" she said. "I feel I must go. I feel that
+some one, some strange voice, is calling to me to go. That my presence
+there is needed. I am only a woman, and in these big schemes of yours
+it is ridiculous to think that I should play a part. Yet
+somehow--somehow---- Oh, Dave, won't you let me help, if only in this
+small way? It will be something for me to look back upon when you have
+succeeded; something for me to cherish, this thought that I have helped
+you even in so small a way. You won't refuse me. It is so little to
+you, and it means so--so much to me."
+
+Her uncle was watching the grave face of the lumberman; and when she
+finished he waited, smiling, for the effect of her appeal.
+
+It was some moments before Dave answered. Betty's eyes were shining
+with eager hope, and at last her impatience got the better of her.
+
+"You said 'yes' once to-night," she urged softly.
+
+Her uncle's smile broadened. He was glad the onus of this thing was on
+the broad shoulders of his friend.
+
+"Betty," said Dave at last, looking squarely into her eyes, "will you
+promise me to keep to the sick camps, and not go about amongst the
+'jacks' who aren't sick without your uncle?"
+
+There was something in the man's eyes which made the girl drop hers
+suddenly. She colored slightly, perhaps with vexation. She somehow felt
+awkward. And she had never felt awkward with Dave in her life before.
+However, she answered him gladly.
+
+"I promise--promise willingly."
+
+"Then I'll not go back on my promise. Go and get ready, little girl,"
+he said gently.
+
+She waited for no more. Her eyes thanked him, and for once, though he
+never saw it, nor, if he had, would he have understood it, there was a
+shyness in them such as had never been there before.
+
+As the door closed behind her he turned with a sigh to his old friend.
+
+"Well, Tom," he said, with a dry, half regretful smile, "it strikes me
+there are a pair of fools in this room."
+
+The parson chuckled delightedly.
+
+"But one is bigger than the other. You wait until Mary sees you. My
+word!"
+
+
+Betty hurried out of the mill. She knew the time was all too short;
+besides, she did not want to give the men time to change their minds.
+And then there was still her aunt to appease.
+
+Outside in the yards the thirsty red sand had entirely lapped up the
+day's rain. It was almost as dry as though the summer rains were mere
+showers. The night was brilliantly fine, and though as yet there was no
+moon, the heavens were diamond-studded, and the milky way spread its
+ghostly path sheer across the sky. Half running in her eagerness, the
+girl dodged amongst the stacks of lumber, making her way direct to a
+point in the fence nearest to her home. To go round to the gates would
+mean a long, circuitous route that would waste at least ten minutes.
+
+As she sped, the din of the mill rapidly receded, and the shadows
+thrown by the flare lights of the yards behind her lengthened and died
+out, merged in the darkness of the night beyond their radiance. At the
+fence she paused and looked about for the easiest place to climb. It
+was high, and the lateral rails were wide apart. It was all the same
+whichever way she looked, so, taking her courage in both hands, and
+lifting her skirts knee high, she essayed the task. It was no easy
+matter, but she managed it, coming down on the other side much more
+heavily than she cared about. Still, in her excited state, she didn't
+pause to trouble about a trifle like that.
+
+She was strangely happy without fully understanding the reason. This
+trip to the hills would be a break in the monotony of her daily
+routine. But somehow it was not that that elated her. She loved her
+work, and at no time wanted to shirk it. No, it was not that. Yet it
+was something to do with her going. Something to do with the hill
+camps; something to do with helping--Dave--ah! Yes, it was that. She
+knew it now, and the knowledge thrilled her with a feeling she had
+never before experienced.
+
+Her course took her through a dense clump of pine woods. She was far
+away from the direct trail, but she knew every inch of the way.
+
+Somehow she felt glad of the cool darkness of those woods. Their depth
+of shadow swallowed her up and hid her from all the rest of the world,
+and, for the moment, it was good to be alone. She liked the feeling
+that no one was near her--not even Dave. She wanted to think it all
+out. She wanted to understand herself. This delight that had come to
+her, this joy. Dave had promised to let her help him in his great work.
+It was too good to be true. How she would work. Yes, she would strain
+every nerve to nurse the men back to health, so that there should be no
+check in the work.
+
+Suddenly she paused in her thought. Her heart seemed to stand still,
+then its thumping almost stifled her. She had realized her true motive.
+Yes, she knew it now. It was not the poor sick men she was thinking of.
+She was not thinking of her uncle, who would be slaving for sheer love
+of his fellow men. No, it was of Dave she was thinking. Dave--her Dave.
+
+Now she knew. She loved him. She felt it here, here, and she pressed
+both hands over her heart, which was beating tumultuously and thrilling
+with an emotion such as she had never known before. Never, even in the
+days when she had believed herself in love with Jim Truscott. She
+wanted to laugh, to cry aloud her happiness to the dark woods which
+crowded round her. She wanted to tell all the world. She wanted
+everything about her to know of it, to share in it. Oh, how good God
+was to her. She knew that she loved Dave. Loved him with a passion that
+swept every thought of herself from her fevered brain. She wanted to be
+his slave; his--his all.
+
+Suddenly her passion-swept thoughts turned hideously cold. What of
+Dave? Did he?--could he? No, he looked upon her as his little "chum"
+and nothing more. How could it be otherwise? Had he not witnessed her
+betrothal to Jim Truscott? Had he not been at her side when she
+renounced him? Had he not always looked after her as an elder brother?
+Had he----
+
+She came to a dead standstill in the heart of the woods, gripped by a
+fear that had nothing to do with her thoughts. It was the harsh sound
+of a voice. And it was just ahead of her. It rang ominously in her ears
+at such an hour, and in such a place. She listened. Who could be in
+those woods at that hour of the night? Who beside herself? The voice
+was so distinct that she felt it must be very, very near. Then she
+remembered how the woods echo, particularly at night, and a shiver of
+fear swept over her at the thought that perhaps the sound of her own
+footsteps had reached the ears of the owner of the voice. She had no
+desire to encounter any drunken lumber-jacks in such a place. Her heart
+beat faster, as she cast about in her mind for the best thing to do.
+
+The voice she had first heard now gave place to another, which she
+instantly recognized. The recognition shocked her violently. There
+could be no mistaking the second voice. It was Jim Truscott's. Hardly
+knowing what she did, she stepped behind a tree and waited.
+
+"I can't get the other thing working yet," she heard Truscott say in a
+tone of annoyance. "It's a job that takes longer than I figured on.
+Now, see here, you've got to get busy right away. We must get the
+brakes on him right now. My job will come on later, and be the final
+check. That's why I wanted you to-night."
+
+Then came the other voice, and, to the listening girl, its harsh note
+had in it a surly discontent that almost amounted to open rebellion.
+
+"Say, that ain't how you said, Jim. We fixed it so I hadn't got to do a
+thing till you'd played your 'hand.' Play it, an' if you fail clear
+out, then it's right up to me, an' I'll stick to the deal."
+
+Enlightenment was coming to Betty. This was some gambling plot. She
+knew Jim's record. Some poor wretch was to be robbed. The other man was
+of course a confederate. But Jim was talking again. Now his voice was
+commanding, even threatening.
+
+"This is no damned child's play; we're going to have no quibbling. You
+want that money, Mansell, and you've got to earn it. It's the spirit of
+the bargain I want, not the letter. Maybe you're weakening. Maybe
+you're scared. Damn it, man! it's the simplest thing--do as I say
+and--the money's yours."
+
+At the mention of the man's name Betty was filled with wonder. She had
+seen Mansell at work in the mill. The night shift was not relieved
+until six o'clock in the morning. How then came he there? What was he
+doing in company with Jim?
+
+But now the sawyer's voice was raised in downright anger, and the
+girl's alarm leapt again.
+
+"I said I'd stick to the deal," he cried. Then he added doggedly, "And
+a deal's a deal."
+
+Jim's reply followed in a much lower key, and she had to strain to hear.
+
+"I'm not going to be fooled by you," he said. "You'll do this job when
+I say. When I say, mind----"
+
+But at this point his voice dropped so low that the rest was lost. And
+though Betty strained to catch the words, only the drone of the voices
+reached her. Presently even that ceased. Then she heard the sound of
+footsteps receding in different directions, and she knew the men had
+parted. When the silence of the woods had swallowed up the last sound
+she set off at a run for home.
+
+She thought a great deal about that mysterious encounter on her way. It
+was mysterious, she decided. She wondered what she should do about it.
+These men were plotting to cheat and rob some of Dave's lumber-jacks.
+Wasn't it her duty to try and stop them? She was horrified at the
+thought of the depths to which Jim had sunk. It was all so paltry,
+so--so mean.
+
+Then the strangeness of the place they had selected for their meeting
+struck her. Why those woods, so remote from the village? A moment's
+thought solved the matter to her own satisfaction. No doubt Mansell had
+made some excuse to leave the mill for a few minutes, and in order not
+to prolong his absence too much, Jim had come out from the village to
+meet him. Yes, that was reasonable.
+
+Finally she decided to tell Dave and her uncle. Dave would find a way
+of stopping them. Trust him for that. He could always deal with such
+things better--yes, even better than her uncle, she admitted to herself
+in her new-born pride in him.
+
+A few minutes later the twinkling lights through the trees showed her
+her destination. Another few minutes and she was explaining to her aunt
+that she was off to the hill camps nursing. As had been expected, her
+news was badly received.
+
+"It's bad enough that your uncle's got to go in the midst of his
+pressing duties," Mrs. Tom exclaimed with heat. "What about the affairs
+of the new church? What about the sick folk right here? What about old
+Mrs. Styles? She's likely to die any minute. Who's to bury her with him
+away? And what about Sarah Dingley? She's haunted--delusions--and
+there's no one can pacify her but him. And now they must needs take
+you. It isn't right. You up there amongst all those rough men. It's not
+decent. It's----"
+
+"I know, auntie," Betty broke in. "It's all you say. But--but think of
+those poor helpless sick men up there, with no comfort. They've just
+got to lie about and either get well, or--or die. No one to care for
+them. No one to write a last letter to their friends for them. No one
+to see they get proper food, and----"
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" her aunt exclaimed. "Now you, Betty, listen to
+me. Go, if go you must. I'll have nothing to do with it. It's not with
+my consent you'll go. And some one is going to hear what I think about
+it, even if he does run the Malkern Mills. If--if Dave wasn't so big,
+and such a dear good fellow, I'd like--yes, I'd like to box his ears.
+Be off with you and see to your packing, miss, and don't forget your
+thickest flannels. Those mountains are terribly cold at nights, even in
+summer." Then, as the girl ran off to her room, she exploded in a final
+burst of anger. "Well there, they're all fools, and I've no patience
+with any of 'em."
+
+It did not take long for Betty to get her few things together and pitch
+them into a grip. The barest necessities were all she required, and her
+practical mind guided her instinctively. Her task was quite completed
+when, ten minutes later, she heard the rattle of buckboard wheels and
+her uncle's cheery voice down-stairs in the parlor.
+
+Then she hurried across to her aunt's room. She knew her uncle so well.
+He wouldn't bother to pack anything for himself. She dragged a large
+kit bag from under the bed, and, ransacking the bureau, selected what
+she considered the most necessary things for his comfort and flung them
+into it. It was all done with the greatest possible haste, and by the
+time she had everything ready, her uncle joined her and carried the
+grips downstairs. In the meantime Mary Chepstow, all her anger passed,
+was busily loading the little table with an ample supper. She might
+disapprove her niece's going, she might resent the sudden call on her
+husband, but she would see them both amply fed before starting, and
+that the buckboard was well provisioned for the road.
+
+For the most part supper was eaten in silence. These people were so
+much in the habit of doing for others, so many calls were made upon
+them, that such an occasion as this presented little in the way of
+emergency. It was their life to help others, their delight, and their
+creed. And Mary's protest meant no more than words, she only hesitated
+at the thought of Betty's going amongst these rough lumber-jacks. But
+even this, on reflection, was not so terrible as she at first thought.
+Betty was an unusual girl, and she expected the unusual from her. So
+she put her simple trust in the Almighty, and did all she knew to help
+them.
+
+It was not until the meal was nearly over that Chepstow imparted a
+piece of news he had gleaned on his way from the mill. He suddenly
+looked up from his plate, and his eyes sought his niece's face. She was
+lost in a happy contemplation of the events of that night at the mill.
+All her thoughts, all her soul was, at that moment, centred upon Dave.
+Now her uncle's voice startled her into a self-conscious blush.
+
+"Who d'you think I met on my way up here?" he inquired, searching her
+face.
+
+Betty answered him awkwardly. "I--I don't know," she said.
+
+Her uncle reached for the salad, and helped himself deliberately before
+he enlightened her further.
+
+"Jim Truscott," he said at last, without looking up.
+
+"Jim Truscott?" exclaimed Aunt Mary, her round eyes wondering. Then she
+voiced a thought which had long since passed from her niece's mind.
+"What was he doing out here at this hour of the night?"
+
+The parson shrugged.
+
+"It seems he was waiting for me. He didn't call here, I s'pose?"
+
+Mary shook her head. Betty was waiting to hear more.
+
+"I feel sorry for him," he went on. "I'm inclined to think we've judged
+him harshly. I'm sure we have. It only goes to show how poor and weak
+our efforts are to understand and help our fellows. He is very, very
+repentant. Poor fellow, I have never seen any one so down on his luck.
+He doesn't excuse himself. In fact, he blames himself even more than we
+have done."
+
+"Poor fellow," murmured Aunt Mary.
+
+Betty remained silent, and her uncle went on.
+
+"He's off down east to make a fresh start. He was waiting to tell me
+so. He also wanted to tell me how sorry he was for his behavior to us,
+to you, Betty, and he trusted you would find it possible to forgive
+him, and think better of him when he was gone. I never saw a fellow so
+cut up. It was quite pitiful."
+
+"When's he going?" Betty suddenly asked, and there was a hardness in
+her voice which startled her uncle.
+
+"That doesn't sound like forgiveness," he said. "Don't you think, my
+dear, if he's trying to do better you might----"
+
+Betty smiled into the earnest face.
+
+"Yes, uncle, I forgive him everything, freely, gladly--if he is going
+to start afresh."
+
+"Doubt?"
+
+But Betty still had that conversation in the woods in her mind.
+
+"I mustn't judge him. His own future actions are all that matter. The
+past is gone, and can be wiped out. I would give a lot to see
+him--right himself."
+
+"That is the spirit, dear," Aunt Mary put in. "Your uncle is quite
+right: we must forgive him."
+
+Betty nodded; but remained silent. She was half inclined to tell them
+all she had heard, but it occurred to her that perhaps she had
+interpreted it all wrong--and yet--anyway, if he were sincere, if he
+really meant all he had said to her uncle she must not, had no right to
+do, or say, anything that could prejudice him. So she kept silent, and
+her uncle went on.
+
+"He's off to-morrow on the east-bound mail. That's why he was waiting
+to see me to-night. He told me he had heard I was going up into the
+hills, and waited to catch me before I went. Said he couldn't go away
+without seeing me first. I told him I was going physicking, that the
+camps were down with fever, and the spread of it might seriously
+interfere with Dave's work. He was very interested, poor chap, and
+hoped all would come right. He spoke of Dave in the most cordial terms,
+and wished he could do something to help. Of course, that's impossible.
+But I pointed out that the whole future of Malkern, us all, depended on
+the work going through. Dave would be simply ruined if it didn't.
+There's a tremendous lot of good in that boy. I always knew it. Once he
+gets away from this gambling, and cuts out the whiskey, he'll get right
+again. I suggested his turning teetotaler, and he assured me he'd made
+up his mind to it. Well, Betty my dear, time's up."
+
+Chepstow rose from the table and filled his pipe. Betty followed him,
+and put on her wraps. Aunt Mary stood by to help to the last.
+
+It was less than an hour from the time of Betty's return home that the
+final farewells were spoken and the buckboard started back for the
+mill. Aunt Mary watched them go. She saw them vanish into the night,
+and slowly turned back across the veranda into the house. They were her
+all, her loved ones. They had gone for perhaps only a few weeks, but
+their going made her feel very lonely. She gave a deep sigh as she
+began to clear the remains of the supper away. Then, slowly, two
+unbidden tears welled up into her round, soft eyes and rolled heavily
+down her plump cheeks. Instantly she pulled herself together, and
+dashed her hand across her eyes. And once more the steady courage which
+was the key-note of her life asserted itself. She could not afford to
+give way to any such weakness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+DISASTER AT THE MILL
+
+
+Night closed in leaden-hued. The threat of storm had early brought the
+day to a close, so that the sunset was lost in the massing clouds
+banking on the western horizon.
+
+Summer was well advanced, and already the luxurious foliage of the
+valley was affected by the blistering heat. The emerald of the trees
+and the grass had gained a maturer hue, and only the darker pines
+resisted the searching sunlight. The valley was full ripe, and kindly
+nature was about to temper her efforts and permit a breathing space.
+The weather-wise understood this.
+
+Dave was standing at his office door watching the approach of the
+electric storm, preparing to launch its thunders upon the valley. Its
+progress afforded him no sort of satisfaction. Everybody but himself
+wanted rain. It had already done him too much harm.
+
+He was thinking of the letter he had just received from Bob Mason up in
+the hills. Its contents were so satisfactory, and this coming rain
+looked like undoing the good his staunch friends in the mountain camps
+had so laboriously achieved.
+
+While Mason reported that the fever still had the upper hand, its
+course had been checked; the epidemic had been grappled with and held
+within bounds. That was sufficiently satisfactory, seeing Chepstow had
+only been up there ten days. Then, too, Mason had had cause to
+congratulate himself on another matter. A number of recruits for his
+work had filtered through to his camps from Heaven and themselves alone
+knew where. This was quite good. These men were not the best of
+lumbermen, but under the "camp boss" they would help to keep the work
+progressing, which, in the circumstances, was all that could be asked.
+
+A few minutes later Dave departed into the mills. Since the mill up the
+river had been converted and set to work, and Simon Odd had been given
+temporary charge of it, he shared with Dawson the work of overseeing.
+
+As he mounted to the principal milling floor the great syren shrieked
+out its summons to the night shift, and sent the call echoing and
+reechoing down the valley. There was no cessation of work. The "relief"
+stood ready, and the work was passed on from hand to hand.
+
+Dave saw his foreman standing close by No. 1, and he recognized the
+relief as Mansell. Dawson was watching the man closely, and judging by
+the frown on his face, it was plain that something was amiss. He moved
+over to him and beckoned him into the office.
+
+"What's wrong?" he demanded, as soon as the door was closed.
+
+Dawson was never the man to choose his words when he had a grievance.
+That was one of the reasons his employer liked him. He was so rough,
+and so straightforward. He had a grievance now.
+
+"I ain't no sort o' use for these schoolhouse ways," he said, with the
+added force of an oath.
+
+Dave waited for his next attempt.
+
+"That skunk Mansell. He's got back to-night. He ain't been on the
+time-sheet for nigh to a week."
+
+"You didn't tell me? Still, he's back."
+
+Dave smiled into the other's angry face, and his manner promptly drew
+an explosion from the hot-headed foreman.
+
+"Yes, he's back. But he wouldn't be if I was boss. That's the sort o'
+Sunday-school racket I ain't no use for. He's back, because you say
+he's to work right along. Sort of to help him. Yes, he's back. He's
+been fightin'-drunk fer six nights, and I'd hate to say he's dead sober
+now."
+
+"Yet you signed him on. Why?"
+
+"Oh, as to that, he's sober, I guess. But the drink's in him. I tell
+you, boss, he's rotten--plumb rotten--when the drink's in him. I know
+him. Say----"
+
+But Dave had had enough.
+
+"You say he's sober--well, let it go at that. The man can do his work.
+That's the important thing to us. Just now we can't bother with his
+morals. Still, you'd best keep an eye on him."
+
+He turned to his books, and Dawson busied himself with the checkers'
+sheets. For some time both men worked without exchanging a word, and
+the only interruption was the regular coming of the tally boys, who
+brought the check slips of the lumber measurements.
+
+Through the thin partitions the roar of machinery was incessant, and at
+frequent intervals the hoarse shouts of the "checkers" reached them.
+But this disturbed them not at all. It was what they were used to, what
+they liked to hear, for it told of the work going forward without hitch
+of any sort.
+
+At last the master of the mills looked up from a mass of figures. He
+had been making careful calculations.
+
+"We're short, Dawson," he said briefly.
+
+"Short by half a million feet," the foreman returned, without even
+looking round.
+
+"How's Odd doing up the river?"
+
+"Good. The machinery's newer, I guess."
+
+"Yes. But we can't help that. We've no time for installing new
+machinery here. Besides, I can't spare the capital."
+
+Dawson looked round.
+
+"'Tain't that," he said. "We're short of the right stuff in the boom.
+Lestways, we was yesterday. A hundred and fifty logs. We're doing
+better to-day. Though not good enough. It's that dogone fever, I guess."
+
+"What's in the reserve?"
+
+"Fifteen hundred logs now. I've drew on them mighty heavy. We've used
+up that number twice over a'ready. I'm scairt to draw further. You see,
+it's a heap better turning out short than using up that. If we're short
+on the cut only us knows it. If we finish up our reserve, and have to
+shut down some o' the saws, other folks'll know it, and we ain't
+lookin' for that trouble."
+
+Dave closed his book with a slam. All his recent satisfaction was gone
+in the discovery of the shortage. He had not suspected it.
+
+"I must send up to Mason. It's--it's hell!"
+
+"It's wuss!"
+
+Dave swung round on his loyal assistant.
+
+"Use every log in the reserve. Every one, mind. We've got to gamble. If
+Mason keeps us short we're done anyway. Maybe the fever will let up,
+and things'll work out all right."
+
+Dave flung his book aside and stood up. His heavy face was more deeply
+lined than it had been at the beginning of summer. He looked to be
+nearer fifty than thirty. The tremendous work and anxiety were telling.
+
+"Get out to the shoots," he went on, in a sharp tone of command he
+rarely used. "I'll see to the tally. Keep 'em right at it. Squeeze the
+saws, and get the last foot out of 'em. Use the reserve till it's done.
+We're up against it."
+
+Dawson understood. He gave his chief one keen glance, nodded and
+departed. He knew, no one better, the tremendous burden on the man's
+gigantic shoulders.
+
+Dave watched him go. Then he turned back to the desk. He was not the
+man to weaken at the vagaries of ill fortune. Such difficulties as at
+the moment confronted him only stiffened his determination. He would
+not take a beating. He was ready to battle to the death. He quietly,
+yet earnestly, cursed the fever to himself, and opened and reread
+Mason's letter. One paragraph held his attention, and he read it twice
+over.
+
+
+"If I'm short on the cut you must not mind too much. I can easily make
+it up when things straighten out. These hands I'm taking on are mostly
+'green.' I can only thank my stars I'm able to find them up here. I
+can't think where they come from. However, they can work, which is the
+great thing, and though they need considerable discipline--they're a
+rebellious lot--I mean to make them work."
+
+
+It was a great thought to the master of the mills that he had such men
+as Bob Mason in his service. He glowed with satisfaction at the
+thought, and it largely compensated him for the difficulties besetting
+him. He put the letter away, and looked over the desk for a memorandum
+pad. Failing to find what he required, he crossed over to a large
+cupboard at the far corner of the room. It was roomy, roughly built, to
+store books and stationery in. The top shelf alone was in use, except
+that Dawson's winter overcoat hung in the lower part. It was on the top
+shelf that Dave expected to find the pad he wanted.
+
+As he reached the cupboard a terrific crash of thunder shook the
+building. It was right overhead, and pealed out with nerve-racking
+force and abruptness. It was the first attack of the threatened storm.
+The peal died out and all became still again, except for the shriek of
+the saws beyond the partition walls. He waited listening, and then a
+strange sound reached him. So used was he to the din of the milling
+floor that any unusual sound or note never failed to draw and hold his
+attention. A change of tone in the song of the saws might mean so much.
+Now this curious sound puzzled him. It was faint, so faint that only
+his practiced ears could have detected it, yet, to him, it was
+ominously plain. Suddenly it ceased, but it left him dissatisfied.
+
+He was about to resume his search when again he started; and the look
+he turned upon the door had unmistakable anxiety in it. There it was
+again, faint, but so painfully distinct. He drew back, half inclined to
+quit his search, but still he waited, wondering. The noise was as
+though a farrier's rasp was being lightly passed over a piece of
+well-oiled steel. At last he made up his mind. He must ascertain its
+meaning, and he moved to leave the cupboard. Suddenly a terrific
+grinding noise shrieked harshly above the din of the saws. It
+culminated in a monstrous thud. Instinctively he sprang back, and was
+standing half-inside the cupboard when a deafening crash shook the
+mills to their foundations. There was a fearful rending and smashing of
+timber. Something struck the walls of the office. It crashed through,
+and a smashing blow struck the cupboard door and hurled him against the
+inner wall. He thrust out his arms for protection. The door was fast.
+He was a prisoner.
+
+Now pandemonium reigned. Crash on crash followed in rapid succession.
+It was as though the office had become the centre of attack for an
+overwhelming combination of forces. The walls and floor shivered under
+the terrific onslaught. The very building seemed to totter as though an
+earthquake were in progress. But at last the end came with a thunder
+upon the cupboard door, the panels were ripped like tinder, and
+something vast launched itself through the wrecked woodwork. It struck
+the imprisoned man in the chest, and in a moment he was pinned to the
+wall, gasping under ribs bending to the crushing weight which felt to
+be wringing the very life out of him.
+
+A deadly quiet fell as suddenly as the turmoil had arisen, and his
+quick ears told him that the saws were still, and all work had ceased
+in the mill. But the pause was momentary. A second later a great
+shouting arose. Men's voices, loud and hoarse, reached him, and the
+rushing of heavy feet was significant of the disaster.
+
+And he was helpless, a prisoner.
+
+He tried to move. His agony was appalling. His ribs felt to be on the
+verge of cracking under the enormous weight that held him. He raised
+his arms, but the pain of the effort made him gasp and drop them. Yet
+he knew he must escape from his prison. He knew that he was needed
+outside.
+
+The shouting grew. It took a definite tone, and became a cry that none
+could mistake. Dave needed no repetition of it to convince him of the
+dread truth. The fire spectre loomed before his eyes, and horror nigh
+drove him to frenzy.
+
+In his mind was conjured a picture--a ghastly picture, such as all his
+life he had dreaded and shut out of his thoughts. His brain suddenly
+seemed to grow too big for his head. It grew hot, and his temples
+hammered. A surge of blood rose with a rush through his great veins.
+His muscles strung tense, and his hands clenched upon the imprisoning
+beam. He no longer felt any pain from the crushing weight. He was
+incapable of feeling anything. It was a moment when mind and body were
+charged with a maddening force that no other time could command. With
+his elbows planted against the wall behind him, with his lungs filled
+with a deep whistling breath, he thrust at the beam with every ounce of
+his enormous strength put forth.
+
+He knew all his imprisonment meant. Not to himself alone. Not to those
+shouting men outside. It was the mills. Hark! Fire! Fire! The cry was
+on every hand. The mills--his mills--were afire!
+
+He struggled as never before in his life had he struggled. He struggled
+till the sweat poured from his temples, till his hands lacerated, till
+the veins of his neck stood out like straining ropes, till it seemed as
+though his lungs must burst. He was spurred by a blind fury, but the
+beam remained immovable.
+
+Hark! The maddening cry filled the air. Fire! Fire! Fire! It was
+everywhere driving him, urging him, appealing. It rang in his brain
+with an exquisite torture. It gleamed at him in flaming letters out of
+the darkness. His mill!
+
+Suddenly a cry broke from him as he realized the futility of his
+effort. It was literally wrung from him in the agony of his soul; nor
+was he aware that he had spoken.
+
+"God, give me strength!"
+
+And as the cry went up he hurled himself upon the beam with the fury of
+a madman.
+
+Was it in answer to his prayer? The beam gave. It moved. It was so
+little, so slight; but it moved. And now, with every fibre braced, he
+attacked it in one final effort. It gave again. It jolted, it lifted,
+its rough end tearing the flesh of his chest under his clothing. It
+tottered for a moment. He struggled on, his bulging eyes and agonized
+gasping telling plainly of the strain. Inch by inch it gave before him.
+His muscles felt to be wrenching from the containing tissues, his
+breathing was spasmodic and whistling, his teeth were grinding
+together. It gave further, further. Suddenly, with a crash, it fell,
+the door was wrenched from its hinges, and he was free!
+
+He dashed out into the wreck of his office. All was in absolute
+darkness. He stumbled his way over the debris which covered the floor,
+and finally reached the shattered remains of the doorway.
+
+Now he was no longer in darkness. The milling floor was all too
+brilliantly lit by the leaping flames down at the "shoot" end of the
+No. 1 rollers. He waited for nothing, but ran toward the fire. Beyond,
+dimly outlined in the lurid glow, he could see the men. He saw Dawson
+and others struggling up the shoot with nozzle and hose, and he put his
+hands to his mouth and bellowed encouragement.
+
+"Five hundred dollars if you get her under!" he cried.
+
+If any spur were needed, that voice was sufficient. it was the voice of
+the master the lumber-jacks knew.
+
+Dawson on the lead struggled up, and as he came Dave shouted again.
+
+"Now, boy! Sling it hard! And pass the word to pump like hell!"
+
+He reached out over the shoot. Dawson threw the nozzle. And as Dave
+caught it a stream of water belched from the spout.
+
+None knew better than he the narrowness of the margin between saving
+and losing the mills. Another minute and all would have been lost. The
+whole structure was built of resinous pine, than which there is nothing
+more inflammable. The fire had got an alarming hold even in those few
+minutes, and for nearly an hour victory and disaster hung in the
+balance. Nor did Dave relinquish his post while any doubt remained. It
+was not until the flames were fully under control that he left the
+lumber-jacks to complete the work.
+
+He was weary--more weary than he knew. It seemed to him that in that
+brief hour he had gone through a lifetime of struggle, both mental and
+physical. He was sore in body and soul. This disaster had come at the
+worst possible time, and, as a result, he saw in it something like a
+week's delay. The thought was maddening, and his ill humor found vent
+in the shortness of his manner when Dawson attempted to draw him aside.
+
+"Out with it, man," he exclaimed peevishly.
+
+Dawson hesitated. He noticed for the first time the torn condition of
+his chief's clothes, and the blood stains on the breast of his shirt.
+Then he blurted out his thankfulness in a tone that made Dave regret
+his impatience.
+
+"I'm a'mighty thankful you're safe, boss," he said fervently. Then,
+after a pause, "But you--you got the racket? You're wise to it?"
+
+Dave shrugged. Reaction had set in. Nothing seemed to matter, the cause
+or anything. The mill was safe. He cared for nothing else.
+
+"Something broke, I s'pose," he said almost indifferently.
+
+"Sure. Suthin' bust. It bust on purpose. Get it?"
+
+The foreman's face lit furiously as he made his announcement.
+
+Dave turned on him. All his indifference vanished in a twinkling.
+
+"Eh? Not--not an accident?"
+
+In an access of loyal rage Dawson seized him by the arm in a nervous
+clutch, and tried to drag him forward.
+
+"Come on," he cried. "Let's find him. It's Mansell!"
+
+With a sudden movement Dave flung him off, and the force he used nearly
+threw the foreman off his feet. His eyes were burning like two live
+coals.
+
+"Come on!" he cried harshly, and Dawson was left to follow as he
+pleased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE LAST OF THE SAWYER
+
+
+Dave's lead took the foreman in the direction of the wrecked office.
+Now, in calmer moments, the full extent of the damage became apparent.
+The first three sets of rollers were hopelessly wrecked, and the saws
+were twisted and their settings broken and contorted out of all
+recognition. Then the fire had practically destroyed the whole of the
+adjacent northwest corner of the mill. The office was a mere skeleton,
+a shattered shell, and the walls and flooring adjoining had been torn
+and battered into a complete ruin. In the midst of all this, half a
+dozen heavy logs, in various stages of trimming, lay scattered about
+where the machinery happened to have thrown them.
+
+It was a sickening sight to the master of the mills, but in his present
+mood he put the feeling from him, lost in a furious desire to discover
+the author of the dastardly outrage.
+
+He paused for a moment as one great log lying across half a dozen of
+the roller beds barred his way. He glanced swiftly over the wreckage.
+Then he turned to the man following him.
+
+"Any of the boys cut up?" he inquired.
+
+"Some o' them is pretty mean damaged," Dawson replied. "But it ain't
+too bad, I guess. I 'lows it was sheer luck. But ther's Mansell. We
+ain't located him."
+
+Mansell was uppermost in his mind. He could think of nothing, and no
+one, else. He wanted to get his hands about the fellow's throat. In his
+rage he felt that the only thing to give him satisfaction at the moment
+would be to squeeze the fellow's life slowly out of him. Dawson was a
+savage when roused, nor did he make pretense of being otherwise. If he
+came across the sawyer--well, perhaps it was a good thing that Dave was
+with him--that is, a good thing for Mansell.
+
+Dave scrambled over the log and the two men hurried on to the saw that
+had been Mansell's. Neither spoke until this was reached. Then Dave
+turned.
+
+"Say, go you right on over by the crane and rake around there. Maybe he
+jumped the boom and got out that way. I'll be along directly."
+
+It was a mere excuse. He wanted to investigate alone. The foreman
+obeyed, although reluctantly.
+
+The moment he was gone, Dave jumped up on the rollers to examine the
+machinery that had held the saw. The light of the dying fire was
+insufficient, and he was forced to procure a lantern. His first anger
+had passed now, and he was thoroughly alert. His practiced eye lost no
+detail that could afford the least possible clue to the cause of the
+smash. Dawson had said it was Mansell, and that it was no accident. But
+then he knew well enough that Dawson had a bad enough opinion of the
+sawyer, and since the smash had apparently originated on No. 1, he had
+probably been only too glad to jump to the conclusion. For himself, he
+was personally determined to avoid any prejudice.
+
+He quickly discovered that the saw in question had been broken off
+short. The settings were desperately twisted, and he knew that the
+force capable of doing this could have only been supplied by the
+gigantic log that had been trimming at the moment. Therefore the
+indication must come from the saw itself. He searched carefully, and
+found much of the broken blade. The upper portions were broken clean.
+There was neither dinge nor bend in them. But the lower portions were
+less clean. One piece particularly looked as though a sharp instrument
+had been at work upon it. Then the memory of that faint rasping sound,
+which had been the first thing to attract his attention before the
+smash, came back to him. He grew hot with rising anger, and stuffed the
+piece of saw-blade inside his shirt.
+
+"The cur!" he muttered. "Why? Why? Guess Dawson was right, after all.
+The liquor _was_ in him. But why should he try to smash us?"
+
+He jumped down to the alleyway, intending to join his foreman, when a
+fresh thought occurred to him. He looked over at the remains of the
+office, then he glanced up and down at the broken rollers of No. 1. And
+his lips shut tight.
+
+"I was in there," he said to himself, with his eyes on the wrecked
+office, "and--he knew it."
+
+At that moment Dawson's excited voice interrupted him. "Say, boss, come
+right along here. Guess I've got him."
+
+Dave joined him hurriedly. He found the foreman bending over a baulk of
+timber, one that had evidently been hurled there in the smash. It was
+lying across the sill of the opening over the boom, projecting a long
+way out. Beneath it, just where it rested on the sill, but saved from
+its full weight by the cant at which it was resting, a human figure was
+stretched out face downward.
+
+Dawson was examining the man's face when Dave reached him, and started
+to explain hurriedly.
+
+"I didn't rightly rec'nize him," he said. "Y'see he's got out of his
+workin' kit. Might ha' bin goin' to the Meetin'. He was sure lightin'
+out of here for keeps."
+
+To Dave the prostrate figure suggested all that the foreman said. The
+man had calculated that smash--manufactured it. No more evidence was
+needed. He had got himself ready for a bolt for safety, preferring the
+boom as offering the best means of escape and the least chance of
+detection. Once outside there would be no difficulty in getting away.
+As Dawson said, his clothes suggested a hurried journey. They were the
+thick frieze the lumber-jack wears in winter, and would be ample
+protection for summer nights out in the open. Yes, it had been
+carefully thought out. But the reason of this attack on himself puzzled
+him, and he repeatedly asked himself "Why?"
+
+There could not be much question as to the man's condition. If he were
+not yet dead, he must be very near it, for the small of his back was
+directly under the angle of the beam and crushed against the sill. Dave
+stood up from his examination.
+
+"Get one of the boys, quick," he said. "Start him out at once for Doc
+Symons, over at High River. It's only fifteen miles. He'll be along
+before morning anyhow. I'll carry--this down to the office. Don't say a
+word around the mill. We've just had an--accident. See? And say,
+Dawson, you're looking for a raise, and you're going to get it, that is
+if this mill's in full work this day week. We're short of logs--well,
+this'll serve as an excuse for saws being idle. 'It's an ill wind,' eh?
+Meantime, get what saws you can going. Now cut along."
+
+The foreman's gratitude shone in his eyes. Had Dave given him the least
+encouragement he would undoubtedly have made him what he considered an
+elegant speech of thanks, but his employer turned from him at once and
+set about releasing the imprisoned man. As soon as he had prized the
+beam clear he gathered him up in his arms and bore him down the spiral
+staircase to the floor below. Then he hurried on to his office with his
+burden.
+
+And as he went he wondered. The sawyer might dislike Dawson. But he had
+no cause for grudge against him, Dave. Then why had he waited until he
+was alone in the tally room? The whole thing looked so like a direct
+attack upon himself, rather than on the mills, that he was more than
+ever puzzled. He went back over the time since he had employed Mansell,
+and he could not remember a single incident that could serve him as an
+excuse for such an attack. It might have been simply the madness of
+drink, and yet it seemed too carefully planned. Yes, that was another
+thing. Mansell had been on the drink for a week, "fighting-drunk,"
+Dawson had said. In the circumstances it was not reasonable for him to
+plan the thing so carefully. Then a sudden thought occurred to him.
+Were there others in it? Was Mansell only the tool?
+
+He was suddenly startled by a distinct sound from the injured man. It
+was the sawyer's voice, harsh but inarticulate, and it brought with it
+a suggestion that he might yet learn the truth. He increased his pace
+and reached the office a few moments later.
+
+Here he prepared a pile of fur rugs upon the floor and laid the sawyer
+upon it. Then he waited for some minutes, but, as nothing approaching
+consciousness resulted, he finally left him, intending to return again
+when the doctor arrived. There was so much to be done in the mill that
+he could delay his return to it no longer.
+
+It was nearly four hours later when he went back to his office. He had
+seen the work of salvage in order, and at last had a moment to spare to
+attend to himself. He needed it. He was utterly weary, and his
+lacerated chest was giving him exquisite pain.
+
+He found Mansell precisely as he left him. Apparently there had been no
+movement of any sort. He bent over him and felt his heart. It was
+beating faintly. He lifted the lids of his closed eyes, and the
+eyeballs moved as the light fell upon them.
+
+He turned away and began to strip himself of his upper garments. There
+was a gash in his chest fully six inches long, from which the blood was
+steadily, though sluggishly, flowing. His clothes were saturated and
+caked with it. He bathed the wound with the drinking water in the
+bucket, and tearing his shirt into strips made himself a temporary
+bandage. This done, he turned to his chair to sit down, when, glancing
+over at the sick man, he was startled to find his eyes open and staring
+in his direction.
+
+He at once went over to him.
+
+"Feeling better, Mansell?" he inquired.
+
+The man gave no sign of recognition. His eyes simply stared at him. For
+a moment he thought he was dead, but a faint though steady breathing
+reassured him. Suddenly an idea occurred to him, and he went to a
+cupboard and produced a bottle of brandy. Pouring some out into a tin
+cup, with some difficulty he persuaded it into Mansell's mouth. Then he
+waited. The staring eyes began to move, and there was a decided
+fluttering of the eyelids. A moment later the lips moved, and an
+indistinct but definite sound came from them.
+
+"How are you now?" Dave asked.
+
+There was another long pause, during which the man's eyes closed again.
+Then they reopened, and he deliberately turned his head away.
+
+"You--didn't--get--hurt?" he asked, in faint, spasmodic gasps.
+
+"No." Dave leaned over him. "Have some more brandy?"
+
+The man turned his head back again. He didn't answer, but the look in
+his eyes was sufficient. This time Dave poured out more, and there was
+no difficulty in administering it.
+
+"Well?" he suggested, as the color slowly crept over the man's face.
+
+"Good--goo----"
+
+The sound died away, and the eyes closed again. But only to reopen
+quickly.
+
+"He--said--you'd--get--killed," he gasped.
+
+"He--who?"
+
+"Jim."
+
+The sawyer's eyelids drooped again. Without a moment's hesitation Dave
+plied him with more of the spirit.
+
+"You mean Truscott?" he asked sharply. He was startled, but he gave no
+sign. He realized that at any time the man might refuse to say more.
+Then he added: "He's got it in for me."
+
+The sick man remained perfectly still for some seconds. His brain
+seemed to move slowly. When he did speak, his voice had grown fainter.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Dave's face was hard and cold as he looked down at him. He was just
+about to formulate another question, when the door opened and Dr.
+Symons hurried in. He was a brisk man, and took the situation in at a
+glance.
+
+"A smash?" he inquired. Then, his eyes on the bottle at Dave's side:
+"What's that--brandy?"
+
+"Brandy." The lumberman passed it across to him. "Yes, a smash-up. This
+poor chap's badly damaged, I'm afraid. Found him with a heavy beam
+lying across the small of his back. You were the nearest doctor, so I
+sent for you. Eh? oh, yes," as the doctor pointed at the blood on his
+clothes. "When you've finished with him you can put a stitch in
+me--some of the boys too. I'll leave you to it, Doc, they'll need me in
+the mill. I gave him brandy, and it roused him to consciousness."
+
+"Right. You might get back in half an hour."
+
+Dr. Symons moved over to the sick man, and Dave put on his coat and
+left the office.
+
+When he returned the doctor met him with a grave face.
+
+"What's the night like?" he asked. "I've got to ride back."
+
+He went to the door, and Dave followed him out.
+
+"His back is broken," he said, when they were out of ear-shot. "It's
+just a question of hours."
+
+"How many?"
+
+"Can't say with any certainty. It's badly smashed, and no doubt other
+things besides. Paralysis of the----"
+
+"Has he said anything? Has he shown any inclination to talk?"
+
+"No. That is, he looked around the room a good deal as though looking
+for some one. Maybe you."
+
+"Can nothing be done for the poor chap?"
+
+"Nothing. Better get him a parson. I'll come over to-morrow to see him,
+if he's alive. Anyway I'll be needed to sign a certificate. I must get
+back to home by daylight. I've got fever patients. Now just come
+inside, and I'll fix you up. Then I'll go and see to the boys. After
+that, home."
+
+"You're sure nothing----"
+
+"Plumb sure! Sure as I am you're going to have a mighty bad chest if
+you don't come inside and let me stop that oozing blood I see coming
+through your clothes."
+
+Without further protest Dave followed the doctor into the office, and
+submitted to the operation.
+
+"That's a rotten bad place," he assured him, in his brisk way. "You'll
+have to lie up. You ought to be dead beat from loss of blood. Gad, man,
+you must go home, or I won't answer----"
+
+But Dave broke in testily.
+
+"Right ho, Doc, you go and see to the boys. Send your bill in to me for
+the lot."
+
+As soon as he had gone, Dave sat thoughtfully gazing at the doomed
+sawyer. Presently he glanced round at the brandy bottle. The doctor had
+positively said the poor fellow was doomed. He rose from his seat and
+poured out a stiff drink. Then he knelt down, and supporting the man's
+head, held it to his lips. He drank it eagerly. Dave knew it had been
+his one pleasure in life. Then he went back to his chair.
+
+"Feeling comfortable?" he inquired gently.
+
+"Yes, boss," came the man's answer promptly. Then, "Wot did the Doc
+say?"
+
+"Guess you're handing in your checks," Dave replied, after a moment's
+deliberation.
+
+The sawyer's eyes were on the brandy bottle.
+
+"How long?" he asked presently.
+
+"Maybe hours. He couldn't say."
+
+"'E's wrong, boss. 'Tain't hours. I'm mighty cold, an'--it's creepin'
+up quick."
+
+Dave looked at his watch. It was already past two o'clock.
+
+"He said he'd come and see you in the morning."
+
+"I'll be stiff by then," the dying man persisted, with his eyes still
+on the bottle. "Say, boss," he went on, "that stuff's a heap
+warming--an' I'm cold."
+
+Dave poured him out more brandy. Then he took off his own coat and laid
+it over the man's legs. His fur coat and another fur robe were in the
+cupboard, and these he added. And the man's thanks came awkwardly.
+
+"I can't send for a parson," Dave said regretfully, after a few
+moments' silence. "I'd like to, but Parson Tom's away up in the hills.
+It's only right----"
+
+"He's gone up to the hills?" the sick man interrupted him, as though
+struck by a sudden thought.
+
+"Yes. It's fever."
+
+Mansell lay staring straight up at the roof. And as the other watched
+him he felt that some sort of struggle was going on in his slowly
+moving mind. Twice his lips moved as though about to speak, but for a
+long time no sound came from them. The lumberman felt extreme pity for
+him. He had forgotten that this man had so nearly ruined him, so nearly
+caused his death. He only saw before him a dimly flickering life, a
+life every moment threatening to die out. He knew how warped had been
+that life, how worthless from a purely human point of view, but he felt
+that it was as precious in the sight of One as that of the veriest
+saint. He racked his thoughts for some way to comfort those last dread
+moments.
+
+Presently the dying man's head turned slightly toward him.
+
+"I'm goin', boss," he said with a gasp. "It's gettin' up--the cold."
+
+"Will you have--brandy?"
+
+The lighting of the man's eyes made a verbal answer unnecessary. Dave
+gave him nearly half a tumbler, and his ebbing life flickered up again
+like a dying candle flame.
+
+"The Doc said you wus hurt bad, boss. I heard him. I'm sorry--real
+miser'ble sorry--now."
+
+"Now?"
+
+"Yep--y' see I'm--goin'."
+
+"Ah."
+
+"I'm kind o' glad ther' ain't no passon around. Guess ther's a heap I
+wouldn't 'a' said to him."
+
+The dying man's eyes closed for a moment. Dave didn't want to break in
+on his train of thought, so he kept silent.
+
+"Y' see," Mansell went on again almost at once, "he kind o' drove me to
+it. That an' the drink. He give me the drink too. Jim's cur'us mean by
+you."
+
+"But Jim's gone east days ago."
+
+"No, he ain't. He's lyin' low. He ain't east now."
+
+"You're sure?" Dave's astonishment crept into his tone.
+
+Mansell made a movement which implied his certainty.
+
+"He was to give me a heap o' money. The money you give fer his mill. He
+wants you smashed. He wants the mill smashed. An' I did it. Say, I bust
+that saw o' mine, an' she was a beaut'," he added, with pride and
+regret. "I got a rasp on to it. But it's all come back on me. Guess
+I'll be goin' to hell fer that job--that an' others. Say, boss----"
+
+He broke off, looking at the brandy bottle. Dave made no pretense at
+demur. The man was rapidly dying, and he felt that the spirit gave him
+a certain ease of mind. The ethics of his action did not trouble him.
+If he could give a dying man comfort, he would.
+
+"There's no hell for those who are real sorry," he said, when the
+fellow had finished his drink. "The good God is so thankful for a man's
+real sorrow for doing wrong that He forgives him right out. He forgives
+a sight easier than men do. You've nothing to worry over, lad. You're
+sorry--that's the real thing."
+
+"Sure, boss?"
+
+"Dead sure."
+
+"Say, boss, I'd 'a' hate to done you up. But ther' was the money,
+an'--I wanted it bad."
+
+"Sure you did. You see we all want a heap the good God don't reckon
+good for us----"
+
+The man's eyes suddenly closed while Dave was speaking. Then they
+opened again, and this time they were staring wildly.
+
+"I'm--goin'," he gasped.
+
+Dave was on his knees in a second, supporting his head. He poured some
+brandy into the gasping mouth, and for a brief moment the man rallied.
+Then his breathing suddenly became violent.
+
+"I'm--done!" he gasped in a final effort, and a moment later the
+supporting hand felt the lead-like weight of the lolling head. The man
+was dead.
+
+The lumberman reverently laid the head back upon the rugs, and for some
+minutes remained where he was kneeling. His rough, plain face was
+buried in his hands. Then he rose to his feet and stood looking down
+upon the lifeless form. A great pity welled up in his heart. Poor
+Mansell was beyond the reach of a hard fate, beyond the reach of
+earthly temptation and the hard knocks of men. And he felt it were
+better so. He covered the body carefully over with the fur robe, and
+sat down at his desk.
+
+He sat there for some minutes listening to the sounds of the workers at
+the mills. He was weary--so weary. But at last he could resist the call
+no longer, and he went out to join in the labor that was his very life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+FACE TO FACE
+
+
+For the few remaining hours of night Dave took no leisure. He pressed
+forward the work of repairing the damage, with a zest that set Joel
+Dawson herding his men on to almost superhuman feats. There was no rest
+taken, no rest asked. And it said something for the devotion of these
+lumber-jacks to their employer that no "grouse" or murmur was heard.
+
+The rest which the doctor had ordered Dave to take did not come until
+long after his breakfast hour, and then only it came through sheer
+physical inability to return to his work. His breakfast was brought to
+the office, and he made a weak pretense of eating. Then, as he rose
+from his seat, for the first time in his life he nearly fainted. He
+saved himself, however, by promptly sitting down again, and in a few
+seconds his head fell forward on his chest and he was sound asleep,
+lost in the dreamless slumber of exhaustion.
+
+Two hours later Dawson put his head in through the office doorway. He
+saw the sleeping man and retreated at once. He understood. For himself,
+he had not yet come to the end of his tether. Besides, Simon Odd would
+relieve him presently. Then, too, there were others upon whom he could
+depend for help.
+
+It was noon when a quiet tap came at the office door. Dave's old mother
+peeped in. She had heard of the smash and was fearful for her boy.
+Seeing him asleep she tiptoed across the room to him. She had met the
+postmaster on her way, and brought the mail with her. Now she deposited
+it on his desk and stood looking down at the great recumbent figure
+with eyes of the deepest love and anxiety. All signs of his lacerated
+chest were concealed and she was spared what would have been to her a
+heartbreaking sight. Her gentle heart only took in the unutterably
+weary attitude of the sleeper. That was sufficient to set her shaking
+her gray head and sighing heavily. The work, she told herself sadly,
+was killing him. Nor did she know at the moment how near to the truth
+she was.
+
+For a moment she bent over him, and her aged lips lightly touched his
+mass of wiry hair. To the world he might be unsightly, he might be
+ungainly, he might be--well, all he believed himself to be; to her he
+possessed every beauty, every virtue a doting mother can bestow upon
+her offspring.
+
+She passed out of the office as silently as she came, and the man's
+stertorous breathing rose and fell steadily, the only sound in that
+room of death.
+
+Two hours later he awoke with a start. A serving girl blundered into
+the room with a basket of food. His mother had sent over his dinner.
+
+The girl's apologies were profuse.
+
+"I jest didn't know, Mr. Dave. I'm sure sorry. Your ma sent me over
+with these things, an' she said as I was to set 'em right out for you.
+Y' see she didn't just say you was sleepin', she----"
+
+"All right, Maggie," Dave said kindly. Then he looked at his watch, and
+to his horror found it was two o'clock. He had slept the entire morning
+through.
+
+He swiftly rose from his seat and stretched himself. He was stiff and
+sore, and that stretch reminded him painfully of his wounded chest.
+Then his eyes fell upon the ominous pile of furs in the corner. Ah,
+there was that to see to.
+
+He watched the girl set out his dinner and remembered he was hungry.
+And the moment she left the room he fell upon the food with avidity.
+Yes, he felt better--much better, and he was glad. He could return to
+his work, and see that everything possible was done, and then there
+was--that other matter.
+
+He had just finished his food when Dr. Symons came in with an apology
+on his lips.
+
+"A bit late," he exclaimed. "Sorry I couldn't make it before. Ah," his
+quick eyes fell upon the pile of furs. "Dead?" he inquired.
+
+Dave nodded.
+
+"Sure," the other rattled on. "Had to be. Knew it. Well, there are more
+good sawyers to be had. Let's look at your chest."
+
+Dave submitted, and then the doctor, at the lumberman's request, went
+off with a rush to see about the arrangements for the sawyer's burial.
+
+He had hardly left the place, and Dave was just thinking of going
+across to the mill again, when there was another call. He was standing
+at the window. He wanted to return at once to his work, but for some,
+to him, unaccountable reason he was a prey to a curious reluctance; it
+was a form of inertia he had never before experienced, and it half
+annoyed him, yet was irresistibly fascinating. He stood there more or
+less dreamily, watching the buzzing flies as they hurled themselves
+against the dirty glass panes. He idly tried to count them. He was not
+in the least interested, but at that moment, as a result of his wound
+and his weariness, his brain felt that it needed the rest of such
+trivialities.
+
+It was while occupied in this way that he saw Jim Truscott approaching,
+and the sight startled him into a mental activity that just then his
+best interests in the mills failed to stir him to.
+
+Then Mansell had told the truth. Jim had not gone east as he had
+assured Tom Chepstow it was his intention to do. Why was he coming to
+him now? A grim thought passed through his mind. Was it the fascination
+which the scene of a crime always has for the criminal? He sat down at
+his desk, and, when his visitor's knock came, appeared to be busy with
+his mail.
+
+Truscott came in. Dave did not look up, but the tail of his eye warned
+him of a peculiarly furtive manner in his visitor.
+
+"Half a minute," he said, in a preoccupied tone. "Just sit down."
+
+The other silently obeyed, while Dave tore open a telegram at
+haphazard, and immediately became really absorbed in its contents.
+
+It was a wire from his agent in Winnipeg, and announced that the
+railroad strike had been settled, and the news would be public property
+in twenty-four hours. It further told him that he hoped in future he
+would have no further hitch to report in the transportation of the
+Malkern timber, and that now he could cope with practically any
+quantity Dave might ship down. The news was very satisfactory, except
+for the reminder it gave him of the disquieting knowledge that his
+mills were temporarily wrecked, and he could not produce the quantities
+the agent hoped to ship. At least he could not produce them for some
+days, and--yes, there was that shortage from the hills to cope with,
+too.
+
+This brought him to the recollection that the author of half his
+trouble was in the office, and awaiting his pleasure. He turned at once
+to his visitor, and surveyed him closely from head to foot.
+
+Truscott was sitting with his back to the pile of rugs concealing the
+dead sawyer. Presently their eyes met, and in the space of that glance
+the lumberman's thought flowed swiftly. Nor, when he spoke, did his
+tone suggest either anger or resentment, merely a cool inquiry.
+
+"You--changed your mind?" he said.
+
+"What about?" Truscott was on the defensive at once.
+
+"You didn't go east, then?"
+
+The other's gaze shifted at once, and his manner suggested annoyance
+with himself for his display.
+
+"Oh, yes. I went as far as Winnipeg. Guess I got hung up by the strike,
+so--so I came back again. Who told you?"
+
+"Tom Chepstow."
+
+Truscott nodded. It was some moments before either spoke again. There
+was an awkwardness between them which seemed to increase every second.
+Truscott was thinking of their last meeting, and--something else. Dave
+was estimating the purpose of this visit. He understood that the man
+had a purpose, and probably a very definite one.
+
+Suddenly the lumberman rose from his seat as though about to terminate
+the interview, and his movement promptly had the effect he desired.
+Truscott detained him at once.
+
+"You had a bad smash, last night. That's why I came over."
+
+Dave smiled. It was just the glimmer of a smile, and frigid as a polar
+sunbeam. As he made no answer, the other was forced to go on.
+
+"I'm sorry, Dave," he continued, with a wonderful display of sincerity.
+Then he hesitated, but finally plunged into a labored apology. "I dare
+say Parson Tom has told you something of what I said to him the night
+he went away. He went up to clear out the fever for you, didn't he?
+He's a good chap. I hoped he'd tell you anyway. I just--hadn't the face
+to come to you myself after what had happened between us. Look here,
+Dave, you've treated me 'white' since then--I mean about that mill of
+mine. You see--well, I can't just forget old days and old friendships.
+They're on my conscience bad. I want to straighten up. I want to tell
+you how sorry I am for what I've done and said in the past. You'd have
+done right if you'd broken my neck for me. I went east as I said, and
+all these things hung on my conscience like--like cobwebs, and I'm
+determined to clear 'em away. Dave, I want to shake hands before I go
+for good. I want you to try and forget. The strike's over now, and I'm
+going away to-day. I----"
+
+He broke off. It seemed as though he had suddenly realized the
+frigidity of Dave's silence and the hollow ring of his own professions.
+It is doubtful if he were shamed into silence. It was simply that there
+was no encouragement to go on, and, in spite of his effrontery, he was
+left confused.
+
+"You're going to-day?" Dave's calmness gave no indication of his
+feelings. Nor did he offer to shake hands.
+
+Truscott nodded. Then--
+
+"The smash--was it a very bad one?"
+
+"Pretty bad."
+
+"It--it won't interfere with your work--I hope?"
+
+"Some."
+
+Dave's eyes were fixed steadily upon his visitor, who let his gaze
+wander. There was something painfully disconcerting in the lumberman's
+cold regard, and in the brevity of his replies.
+
+"Doc Symons told me about it," the other went on presently. "He was
+fetched here in the night. He said you were hurt. But you seem all
+right."
+
+Dave made it very hard for him. There were thoughts in the back of his
+head, questions that must be answered. For an instant a doubt swept
+over him, and his restless eyes came to a standstill on the rugged face
+of the master of the mills. But he saw nothing there to reassure him,
+or to give him cause for alarm. It was the same as he had always known
+it, only perhaps the honest gray eyes lacked their kindly twinkle.
+
+"Yes, I'm all right. Doc talks a heap."
+
+"Did he lie?"
+
+Dave shrugged.
+
+"It depends what he calls hurt. Some of the boys were hurt."
+
+"Ah. He didn't mention them."
+
+Again the conversation languished.
+
+"I didn't hear how the smash happened," Truscott went on presently.
+
+Dave's eyes suddenly became steely.
+
+"It was Mansell's saw. Something broke. Then we got afire. I just got
+out--a miracle. I was in the tally room."
+
+The lumberman's brevity had in it the clip of snapping teeth. If
+Truscott noticed it, it suited him to ignore it. He went on quickly.
+His interest was rising and sweeping him on.
+
+"On Mansell's saw!" he said. "When I heard you'd got him working I
+wondered. He's bad for drink. Was he drunk?"
+
+Dave's frigidity was no less for the smile that accompanied his next
+words.
+
+"Maybe he'd been drinking."
+
+But Truscott was not listening. He was thinking ahead, and his next
+question came with almost painful sharpness.
+
+"Did he get--smashed?"
+
+"A bit."
+
+"Ah. Was he able to account for the--accident?"
+
+The man was leaning forward in his anxiety, and his question was
+literally hurled at the other. There was a look, too, in his bleared
+eyes which was a mixture of devilishness and fear. All these things
+Dave saw. But he displayed no feeling of any sort.
+
+"Accidents don't need explaining," he said slowly. "But I didn't say
+this was an accident. Here, get your eye on that."
+
+He drew a piece of saw-blade from his pocket. It was the piece he had
+picked up in the mill.
+
+"Guess it's the bit where it's 'collared' by the driving arm."
+
+Truscott examined the steel closely.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It's--just smashed?" Truscott replied questioningly.
+
+Dave shook his head.
+
+"You can see where it's been filed."
+
+Truscott reexamined it and nodded.
+
+"I see now. God!"
+
+The exclamation was involuntary. It came at the sudden realization of
+how well his work had been carried out, and what that work meant. Dave,
+watching, grasped something of its meaning. There was that within him
+which guided him surely in the mental workings of his fellow man. He
+was looking into the very heart of this man who had so desperately
+tried to injure him. And what he saw, though he was angered, stirred
+him to a strange pity.
+
+"It's pretty mean when you think of it," he said slowly. "Makes you
+think some, doesn't it? Makes you wonder what folks are made of. If you
+hated, could you have done it? Could you have deliberately set out to
+ruin a fellow--to take his life? The man that did this thing figured on
+just that."
+
+"Did he say so?"
+
+Truscott's face had paled, and a haunting fear looked out of his eyes.
+It was the thought of discovery that troubled him.
+
+Dave ignored the interruption, and went on with his half-stern,
+half-pitying regard fixed upon the other.
+
+"Had things gone right with him, and had the fire got a fair hold,
+nothing could have saved us." He shook his head. "That's a mean hate
+for a man I've never harmed. For a man I've always helped. You couldn't
+hate like that, Truscott? You couldn't turn on the man that had so
+helped you? It's a mean spirit; so mean that I can't hate him for it.
+I'm sorry--that's all."
+
+"He must be a devil."
+
+The fear had gone out of Truscott's eyes. All his cool assurance had
+returned. Dave was blaming the sawyer, and he was satisfied.
+
+The lumberman shrugged his great shoulders.
+
+"Maybe he is. I don't know. Maybe he's only a poor weak foolish fellow
+whose wits are all mussed up with brandy, and so he just doesn't know
+what he's doing."
+
+"The man who filed that steel knew what he was doing," cried Truscott.
+
+"Don't blame him," replied Dave--his deep voice full and resonant like
+an organ note.
+
+But Truscott had achieved his object, and he felt like expanding. Dave
+knew nothing. Suspected nothing. Mansell had played the game for
+him--or perhaps----
+
+"I tell you it was a diabolical piece of villainy on the part of a cur
+who----"
+
+"Don't raise your voice, lad," said Dave, with a sudden solemnity that
+promptly silenced the other. "Reach round behind you and lift that fur
+robe."
+
+He had risen from his seat and stood pointing one knotty finger at the
+corner where the dead man was lying. His great figure was full of
+dignity, his manner had a command in it that was irresistible to the
+weaker man.
+
+Truscott turned, not knowing what to expect. For a second a shudder
+passed over him. It spent itself as he beheld nothing but the pile of
+furs. But he made no attempt to reach the robe until Dave's voice,
+sternly commanding, urged him again.
+
+"Lift it," he cried.
+
+And the other obeyed even against his will. He reached out, while a
+great unaccountable fear took hold of him and shook him. His hand
+touched the robe. He paused. Then his fingers closed upon its furry
+edge. He lifted it, and lifting it, beheld the face of the dead sawyer.
+Strangely enough, the glazed eyes were open, and the head was turned,
+so that they looked straight into the eyes of the living.
+
+The hand that held the robe shook. The nerveless fingers relinquished
+their hold, and it fell back to its place and shut out the sight. But
+it was some moments before the man recovered himself. When he did so he
+rose from his chair and moved as far from the dead man as possible.
+This brought him near the door, and Dave followed him up.
+
+"He's dead!"
+
+Truscott whispered the words half unconsciously, and the tone of his
+voice was almost unrecognizable. It sounded like inquiry, yet he had no
+need to ask the question.
+
+"Yes, he's dead--poor fellow," said Dave solemnly.
+
+Then, after a long pause, the other dragged his courage together. He
+looked up into the face above him.
+
+"Did--did he say why he did it--or was he----"
+
+It was a stumbling question, which Dave did not let him complete.
+
+"Yes, he told me all--the whole story of it. That's the door, lad. You
+won't need to shake hands--now."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+IN THE MOUNTAINS
+
+
+It was Sunday evening. Inside a capacious "dugout" a small group of two
+men and a girl sat round the stove which had just been lit.
+
+In the mountains, even though the heat of August was still at its
+height, sundown was the signal for the lighting of fires. Dave's lumber
+camps were high up in the hills, tapping, as they did, the upper forest
+belts, where grew the vast primordial timbers. In the extreme heat of
+summer the air was bracing, crisp, and suggested the process of
+breathing diamonds, but with the setting of the sun a cold shiver from
+the ancient glaciers above whistled down through the trees and bit into
+the bones.
+
+The daylight still lingered outside, and the cotton-covered windows of
+the dugout let in just sufficient of it to leave the remoter corners of
+the hut bathed in rapidly growing shadow. There was a good deal of
+comfort in the room, though no luxury. The mud cemented walls were
+whitewashed and adorned with illustrations from the _Police Gazette_,
+and other kindred papers. For the most part the furniture was of "home"
+manufacture. The chairs, and they were all armchairs of sorts, were
+mere frames with seats of strung rawhide. The table was of the roughest
+but most solid make, strong enough to be used as a chopping-block, and
+large enough for an extra bed to be made down upon it. There was a
+large cupboard serving the dual purpose of larder and pantry, and, in
+addition to the square cook-stove, the room was heated by a giant wood
+stove. The only really orthodox piece of furniture was the small
+writing-desk.
+
+For a dugout it was capacious, and, unlike the usual dugout, it
+possessed three inner rooms backing into the hill against which it was
+built. One of these was a storeroom for dynamite and other camp
+equipment, one was a bedroom, and the other was an armory. The
+necessity for the latter might be questioned, but Bob Mason, the camp
+"boss," the sole authority over a great number of lumber-jacks, more
+than a hundred and fifty miles from the faintest semblance of
+civilization, was content that it should be there.
+
+The three faces were serious enough as they gazed down in silence at
+the glowing, red-hot patch in the iron roof of the stove, and watched
+it spread, wider and wider, under the forced draught of the open
+damper. They had been silent for some moments, and before that one of
+them had practically monopolized the talk. It was Betty who had done
+most of the talking. Bronzed with the mountain air and sun, her cheeks
+flushed with interest and excitement, her sweet brown eyes aglow, she
+had finished recounting to her uncle and Bob Mason a significant
+incident that had occurred to her that afternoon on her way from the
+sick camp to the dugout.
+
+Walking through a patch of forest which cut the sick quarters off from
+the main, No. 1, camp, she had encountered two lumber-jacks, whom she
+had no recollection of having seen before.
+
+"They weren't like lumber-jacks," she explained, "except for their
+clothes. You can't mistake a lumber-jack's manner and speech,
+particularly when he is talking to a girl. He's so self-conscious
+and--and shy. Well, these men were neither. Their speech was the same
+as ours might be, and their faces, well, they were good-looking
+fellows, and might never have been out of a city. I never saw anybody
+look so out of place, as they did, in their clothes. There was no
+beating about the bush with them. They simply greeted me politely,
+asked me if I was Miss Somers, and, when I told them I was, calmly
+warned me to leave the hills without delay--not later than to-morrow
+night. I asked them for an explanation, but they only laughed, not
+rudely, and repeated their warning, adding that you, uncle, had better
+go too, or they would not be answerable for the consequences. I
+reminded them of the sick folk, but they only laughed at that too. One
+of them cynically reminded me they were all 'jacks' and were of no sort
+of consequence whatever, in fact, if a few of them happened to die off
+no one would care. He made me angry, and I told them we should
+certainly care. He promptly retorted, very sharply, that they had not
+come there to hold any sort of debate on the matter, but to give me
+warning. He said that his reason in doing so was simply that I was a
+girl, and that you, uncle, were a much-respected parson, and they had
+no desire that any harm should come to either of us. That was all.
+After that they turned away and went off into the forest, taking an
+opposite direction to the camp."
+
+Mason was the first to break the silence that followed the girl's story.
+
+"It's serious," he said, speaking with his chin in his hands and his
+elbows resting on his parted knees.
+
+"The warning?" inquired Chepstow, with a quick glance at the other's
+thoughtful face.
+
+Mason nodded.
+
+"I've been watching this thing for weeks past," he said, "and the worst
+of it is I can't make up my mind as to the meaning of it. There's
+something afoot, but---- Do you know I've sent six letters down the
+river to Dave, and none of them have been answered? My monthly budget
+of orders is a week overdue. That's not like Dave. How long have you
+been up here? Seven weeks, ain't it? I've only had three letters from
+Dave in that time."
+
+The foreman flung himself back in his chair with a look of perplexity
+on his broad, open face.
+
+"What can be afoot?" asked Chepstow, after a pause. "The men are
+working well."
+
+"They're working as well as 'scabs' generally do," Mason complained.
+"And thirty per cent, are 'scabs,' now. They're all slackers. They're
+none of them lumber-jacks. They haven't the spirit of a 'jack.' I have
+to drive 'em from morning till night. Oh, by the way, parson, that
+reminds me, I've got a note for you. It's from the sutler. I know
+what's in it, that is, I can guess." He drew it from his pocket, handed
+it across to him. "It's to tell you you can't have the store for
+service to-night. The boys want it. They're going to have a singsong
+there, or something of the sort."
+
+The churchman's eyes lit.
+
+"But he promised me. I've made arrangements. The place is fixed up for
+it. They can have it afterward, but----"
+
+"Hadn't you better read the note, uncle?" Betty said gently. She
+detected the rising storm in his vehemence.
+
+He turned at once to the note. It was short, and its tone, though
+apologetic, was decided beyond all question.
+
+
+"You can't have the store to-night. I'm sorry, but the boys insist on
+having it themselves. You will understand I am quite powerless when you
+remember they are my customers."
+
+
+Tom Chepstow read the message from Jules Lieberstein twice over. Then
+he passed it across to Mason. Only the brightness of his eyes told of
+his feelings. He was annoyed, and his fighting spirit was stirring.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do?" Mason inquired, as he passed the
+paper on to Betty in response to her silent request.
+
+"Do? Do?" Chepstow cried, his keen eyes shining angrily. "Why, I'll
+hold service there, of course. Jules can't give a thing, and, at the
+last minute, take it away like that. I've had the room prepared and
+everything. I shall go and see him. I----"
+
+"The trouble--whatever it is--is in that note, too," Betty interrupted,
+returning him the paper with the deliberate intention of checking his
+outburst.
+
+Mason gave her a quick glance of approval. Though he did not approve of
+women in a lumber camp, Betty's quiet capacity, her gentle womanliness,
+with her great strength of character and keenness of perception
+underlying it, pleased him immensely. He admired her, and curiously
+enough frequently found himself discussing affairs of the camp with her
+as though she were there for the purpose of sharing the burden of his
+responsibilities. In the ordinary course this would not have happened,
+but she had come at a moment when his difficulties were many and
+trying. And at such a time her ready understanding had become decided
+moral support which was none the less welcome for the fact that he
+failed to realize it.
+
+"You're right," he nodded. "There's something doing. What's that?"
+
+All three glanced at the door. And there was a look of uneasiness in
+each which they could not have explained. Mason hurried across the room
+with Chepstow at his heels.
+
+Outside, night was closing in rapidly. A gray, misty twilight held the
+mountain world in a gloomy shroud. The vast hills, and the dark
+woodland belts, loomed hazily through the mist. But the deathly
+stillness was broken by the rattle of wheels and the beating of hoofs
+upon the hard trail. The vehicle, whatever it was, had passed the
+dugout, and the sounds of it were already dying away in the direction
+of the distant camp.
+
+"There's a fog coming down," observed Mason, as they returned to the
+stove.
+
+"That was a buckboard," remarked the parson.
+
+"And it was traveling fast and light," added Betty.
+
+And each remark indicated the point of view of the speaker.
+
+Mason thought less of the vehicle than he did of the fog. Any
+uneasiness he felt was for his work rather than the trouble he felt to
+be brewing. A heavy fog was always a deterrent, and, at this time of
+year, fogs were not unfrequent in the hills. Chepstow was bent on the
+identity of the arrival, while Betty sought the object of it.
+
+Mason did not return to his seat. He stood by the stove for a moment
+thinking. Then he moved across to his pea-jacket hanging on the wall
+and put it on, at the same time slipping a revolver into his pocket.
+Then he pulled a cloth cap well down over his eyes.
+
+"I'll get a good look around the camp," he said quietly.
+
+"Going to investigate?" Chepstow inquired.
+
+"Yes. There have been too many arrivals lately--one way and another.
+I'm sick of 'em."
+
+Betty looked up into his face with round smiling eyes.
+
+"You need a revolver--to make investigations?" she asked lightly.
+
+The lumberman looked her squarely in the eyes for a moment, and there
+he read something of the thought which had prompted her question. He
+smiled back at her as he replied.
+
+"It's a handy thing to have about you when dealing with the scum of the
+earth. Lumbermen on this continent are not the beau ideal of
+gentlefolk, but when you are dealing with the class of loafer such as I
+have been forced to engage lately, well, the real lumber-jack becomes
+an angel of gentleness by contrast. A gun doesn't take up much room in
+your pocket, and it gives an added feeling of security. You see, if
+there's any sort of trouble brewing the man in authority is not likely
+to have a healthy time. By the way, parson, I'd suggest you give up
+this service to-night. Of course it's up to you, I don't want to
+interfere. You see, if the boys want that store, and you've got
+it--why----"
+
+He broke off with a suggestive shake of the head. Betty watched her
+uncle's face.
+
+She saw him suddenly bend down and fling the damper wider open, and in
+response the stove roared fiercely. He sat with his keen eyes fixed on
+the glowing aperture, watching the rapidly brightening light that shone
+through. The suggestion of fiery rage suited his mood at the moment.
+
+But his anger was not of long duration. His was an impetuous
+disposition generally controlled in the end by a kindly, Christian
+spirit, and, a few moments later, when he spoke, there was the mildness
+of resignation in his words.
+
+"Maybe you're right, Mason," he said calmly. "You understand these boys
+up here better than I do. Besides, I don't want to cause you any
+unnecessary trouble, and I see by your manner you're expecting
+something serious." Then he added regretfully: "But I should have liked
+to hold that service. And I would have done it, in spite of our Hebrew
+friend's sordid excuse. However---- By the way, can I be of any service
+to you?" He pointed at the lumberman's bulging pocket. "If it's
+necessary to carry that, two are always better than one."
+
+Betty sighed contentedly. She was glad that her uncle had been advised
+to give up the service. Her woman's quick wit had taken alarm for him,
+and--well, she regarded her simple-minded uncle as her care, she felt
+she was responsible to her aunt for him. It was the strong maternal
+instinct in her which made her yearn to protect and care for those whom
+she loved. Now she waited anxiously for the foreman's reply. To her
+astonishment it came with an alacrity and ready acceptance which
+further stirred her alarm.
+
+"Thanks," he said. "As you say two---- Here, slip this other gun into
+your coat pocket." And he reached the fellow revolver to his own from
+its holster upon the wall. "Now let's get on."
+
+He moved toward the door. Chepstow was in the act of following when
+Betty's voice stopped him.
+
+"What time will you get back?" she inquired. "How shall I know that----"
+
+She broke off. Her brown eyes were fixed questioningly upon the
+lumberman's face.
+
+"We'll be around in an hour," said Mason confidently "Meanwhile, Miss
+Betty, after we're gone, just set those bars across the door. And don't
+let anybody in till you hear either mine or your uncle's voice."
+
+The girl understood him, she always understood without asking a lot of
+questions. She was outwardly quite calm, without the faintest trace of
+the alarm she really felt. She had no fear for herself. At that moment
+she was thinking of her uncle.
+
+After the men had gone she closed the heavy log door but did not bar it
+as she had been advised; then, returning to the stove, she sat down and
+took up some sewing, prepared to await their return with absolute faith
+and confidence in the lumberman's assurance.
+
+She stitched on in the silence, and soon her thoughts drifted back to
+the man who had so strangely become the lodestone of her life. The
+trouble suggested by Mason must be his trouble. She wondered what could
+possibly happen on top of the fever, which she and her uncle had been
+fighting for the past weeks, that could further jeopardize his
+contract. She could see only one thing, and her quickness of perception
+in all matters relating to the world she knew drove her straight to the
+reality. She knew it was a general strike Mason feared. She knew it by
+the warning she had received, by the foreman's manner when he prepared
+to leave the hut.
+
+She was troubled. In imagination she saw the great edifice Dave had so
+ardently labored upon toppling about his ears. In her picture she saw
+him great, calm, resolute, standing amidst the wreck, with eyes looking
+out straight ahead full of that great fighting strength which was his,
+his heart sore and bruised but his lips silent, his great courage and
+purpose groping for the shattered foundations that the rebuilding might
+not be delayed an instant. It was her delight and pride to think of him
+thus, whilst, with every heart-beat, a nervous dread for him shook her
+whole body. She tried to think wherein she could help this man who was
+more to her than her own life. She bitterly hated her own womanhood as
+she thought of those two men bearing arms at that instant in his
+interests. Why could not she? But she knew that privilege was denied
+her. She threw her sewing aside as though the effeminacy of it sickened
+her, and rose from her seat and paced the room. "Oh, Dave, Dave, why
+can't I help you?" It was the cry that rang through her troubled brain
+with every moment that the little metal clock on the desk ticked away,
+while she waited for the men-folk's return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+THE CHURCH MILITANT
+
+
+Outside the hut Mason led the way. The mist had deepened into a white
+fog which seemed to deaden all sound, so quiet was everything, so
+silent the grim woods all around. It had settled so heavily that it was
+almost impossible to see anything beyond the edge of the trail. There
+was just a hazy shadow, like a sudden depth of mist, to mark the
+woodland borders; beyond this all was gray and desolate.
+
+The dugout was built at the trail-side, a trail which had originally
+been made for travoying logs, but had now become the main trail linking
+up the camp with the eastern world. The camp itself--No. 1, the main
+camp--was further in the woods to the west, a distance of nearly a mile
+and a half by trail, but not more than half a mile through the woods.
+It was this short cut the two men took now. They talked as they went,
+but in hushed tones. It was as though the gray of the fog, and the
+knowledge of their mission weighed heavily, inspiring them with a
+profound feeling of caution.
+
+"You've not had any real trouble before?" Chepstow asked. "I mean
+trouble such as would serve you with a key to what is going on now?"
+
+"Oh, we've had occasional 'rackets,'" said Mason easily. "But nothing
+serious--nothing to guide us in this. No, we've got to find this out.
+You see there's no earthly reason for trouble that I know. The boys are
+paid jolly well, a sight better than I would pay them if this was my
+outfit. The hours are exacting, I admit. This huge contract has caused
+that. It's affected us in most every way, but Dave is no niggard, and
+the inducement has been made more than proportionate, so there's no
+kick coming on that head. Where before axemen's work was merely a full
+eight hours, it now takes 'em something like nine and ten, and work
+like the devil to get through even in that time. But their wages are
+simply out of sight. Do you know, there are men in this camp drawing
+from four to five dollars a day clear of food and shelter? Why, the
+income of some of them is positively princely."
+
+"What is it you think is on foot?" Chepstow demanded, as he buttoned
+his coat close about his neck to keep out the saturating mist. Then, as
+his companion didn't answer at once, he added half to himself, "It's no
+wonder there's fever with these mists around."
+
+Bob Mason paid no heed to the last remark. The fever had lost interest
+for him in the storm-clouds he now saw ahead. Hitherto he had not put
+his thoughts on the matter into concrete form. He had not given actual
+expression to his fears. There had been so little to guide him.
+Besides, he had had no sound reason to fear anything, that is no
+definite reason. It was his work to feel and understand the pulse of
+the men under him, and it largely depended on the accuracy of his
+reading whether or not the work under his charge ran smoothly. He had
+felt for some time that something was wrong, and Betty's story had
+confirmed his feeling. He was some moments before he answered, but when
+he did it was with calm decision.
+
+"Organized strike," he said at last.
+
+Tom Chepstow was startled. The words "organized strike" had an
+unpleasant sound. He suddenly realized the isolation of these hill
+camps, the lawless nature of the lumber-jacks. He felt that a strike up
+here in the mountains would be a very different thing from a strike in
+the heart of civilization, and that was bad enough. The fact that the
+tone of Mason's pronouncement had suggested no alarm made him curious
+to hear his views upon the position.
+
+"The reason?" he demanded.
+
+The lumberman shrugged.
+
+"Haven't a notion."
+
+They tramped on in silence for some time, the sound of their footsteps
+muffled in the fog. The gray was deepening, and, with oncoming night,
+their surroundings were rapidly becoming more and more obscure.
+Presently the path opened out into the wide clearing occupied by No. 1
+camp. Here shadowy lights were visible in the fog, but beyond that
+nothing could be seen. Mason paused and glanced carefully about him.
+
+"This fog is useful," he said, with a short laugh. "As we don't want to
+advertise our presence we'll take to the woods opposite, and work our
+way round to the far side of the camp."
+
+"Why the far side?"
+
+"The store is that way. And--yes, I think the store is our best plan.
+Jules Lieberstein is a time-serving ruffian, and will doubtless lend
+himself to any wildcat scheme of his customers. Besides, this singsong
+of the boys sounds suggestive to me."
+
+"I see." Chepstow was quick to grasp the other's reasoning. The
+singsong had suggested nothing to him before.
+
+Now they turned from the open and hastened across to the wood-belt. As
+they entered its gloomy aisles, the fog merged into a pitchy blackness
+that demanded all the lumberman's woodcraft to negotiate. The parson
+hung close to his heels, and frequently had to assure himself of his
+immediate presence by reaching out and touching him. A quarter of an
+hour's tramp brought them to a halt.
+
+"We must get out of this now," whispered Mason. "We are about opposite
+the store. I've no doubt that buckboard will be somewhere around. I've
+a great fancy to see it."
+
+They moved on, this time with greater caution than before. Leaving the
+forest they found the fog had become denser. The glow of the camp
+lights was no longer visible, just a blank gray wall obscured
+everything. However, this was no deterrent to Mason. He moved along
+with extreme caution, stepping as lightly and quietly as possible. He
+wished to avoid observation, and though the fog helped him in this it
+equally afforded the possibility of his inadvertently running into some
+one. Once this nearly happened. His straining ears caught the faint
+sound of footsteps approaching, and he checked his companion only just
+in the nick of time to let two heavy-footed lumber-jacks cross their
+course directly in front of them. They were talking quite unguardedly
+as they went, and seemed absorbed in the subject of their conversation.
+
+"Y're a fool, a measly-headed fool, Tyke," one of them was saying, with
+a heat that held the two men listening. "Y'ain't got nuthin' to lose.
+We ain't got no kick comin' from us; I'll allow that, sure. But if by
+kickin' we ken drain a few more dollars out of him I say kick, an' kick
+good an' hard. Them as is fixin' this racket knows, they'll do the
+fancy work. We'll jest set around an'--an' take the boodle as it comes."
+
+The man laughed harshly. The shrewdness of his argument pleased him
+mightily.
+
+"But what's it for, though?" asked the other, the man addressed as
+"Tyke." "Is it a raise in wages?"
+
+"Say, ain't you smart?" retorted the first speaker. "Sure, it's wages.
+A raise. What else does folks strike for?"
+
+"But----"
+
+"Cut it. You ain't no sort o' savee. You ain't got nuthin' but to set
+around----"
+
+The voice died away in the distance, and Mason turned to his companion.
+
+"Not much doubt about that. The man objecting is 'Tyke' Bacon, one of
+our oldest hands. A thoroughly reliable axeman of the real sort. The
+other fellow's voice I didn't recognize. I'd say he's likely one of the
+scallywags I've picked up lately. This trouble seems to have been
+brewing ever since I was forced to pick up chance loafers who floated
+into camp."
+
+Chepstow had no comment to make, yet the matter was fraught with the
+keenest interest for him. Mason's coolness did not deceive him, and,
+even with his limited experience of the men of these camps, the thing
+was more than significant. Caution became more than ever necessary now
+as they neared their destination, and in a few moments a ruddy glow of
+light on the screen of fog told them they had reached the sutler's
+store. They came to a halt in rear of the building, and it was
+difficult to estimate their exact position. However, the sound of a
+powerful, clarion-like voice reached them through the thickness of the
+log walls, and the lumberman at once proceeded to grope his way along
+in the hope of finding a window or some opening through which it would
+be possible to distinguish the words of the speaker. At last his desire
+was fulfilled. A small break in the heavy wall of lateral logs proved
+to be a cotton-covered pivot-window. It was closed, but the light shone
+through it, and the speaker's words were plainly audible. Chepstow
+closed up behind him, and both men craned forward listening.
+
+Some one was addressing what was apparently a meeting of lumber-jacks.
+The words and voice were not without refinement, and, obviously, were
+not belonging to a lumberman. Moreover, it struck the listeners that
+this man, whoever he be, was not addressing a meeting for the first
+time. In fact Mason had no difficulty in placing him in the calling to
+which he actually belonged. He was discoursing with all the delectable
+speciousness of a regular strike organizer. He was one of those
+products of trade unionism who are always ready to create
+dissatisfaction where labour's contentment is most nourishing to
+capital--that is, at a price. He is not necessarily a part of trade
+unionism, but exists because trade unionism has created a market for
+his wares, and made him possible.
+
+Just now he was lending all his powers of eloquence and argument to the
+threadbare quackery of his kind; the iniquity of the possession of
+wealth acquired by the sweat of a thousand moderately honest brows. It
+was the old, old dish garnished and hashed up afresh, whose poisonous
+odors he was wafting into the nostrils of his ignorant audience.
+
+He was dealing with men as ignorant and hard as the timber it was their
+life to cut, and he painted the picture in all the crude, lurid colors
+most effective to their dull senses. The blessings of liberal
+employment, of ample wages, the kindly efforts made to add to their
+happiness and improve their lives were ignored, even rigorously shut
+out of his argument, or so twisted as to appear definite sins against
+the legions of labor. For such is the method of those who live upon the
+hard-earned wages of the unthinking worker.
+
+For some minutes the two men listened to the burden of the man's
+unctuous periods, but at last an exclamation of disgust broke from the
+lumberman.
+
+"Makes you sick!" he whispered in his companion's ear. "And they'll
+believe it all. Here!" He drew a penknife from his pocket and passed
+the blade gently through the cotton of the window. The aperture was
+small, he dared not make it bigger for fear of detection, but, by
+pressing one eye close up against it, it was sufficient for him to
+obtain a full view of the room.
+
+The place was packed with lumber-jacks, all with their keenest
+attention upon the speaker, who was addressing them from the
+reading-desk Tom Chepstow had set up for the purposes of his Sunday
+evening service. The desecration drew a smothered curse from the
+lumberman. He was not a religious man, but that an agitator such as
+this should stand at the parson's desk was too much for him. He
+scrutinized the fellow closely, nor did he recognize him. He was a
+stranger to the camp, and his round fat face set his blood surging.
+Besides this man there were three others sitting behind him on the
+table the parson had set there for the purposes of administering Holy
+Communion, and the sight maddened him still more. Two of these he
+recognized as laborers he had recently taken on his "time sheet," but
+the other was a stranger to him.
+
+At last he drew back and made way for his companion.
+
+"Get a good look, parson," he said. Then he added with an angry laugh,
+"I've thought most of what you'll feel like saying. I'd--I'd like to
+riddle the hide of that son-of-a-dog's-wife. We did well to get around.
+We're in for a heap bad time, I guess."
+
+Chepstow took his place. Mason heard him mutter something under his
+breath, and knew at once that the use of his reading-desk and Communion
+table had struck home.
+
+But the sacrilege was promptly swept from the parson's mind. The
+speaker was forgotten, the matter of the coming strike, even, was
+almost forgotten. He had recognized the third man on the table, the man
+who was a stranger to Mason, and he swung round on the lumberman.
+
+"What's Jim Truscott doing there?" he demanded in a sharp whisper.
+
+"Who? Jim Truscott?"
+
+For a second a puzzled expression set Mason frowning. Then his face
+cleared. "Say, isn't that the fellow who ran that mill--he's a friend
+of--Dave's?"
+
+But the other had turned back to the window. And, at that moment,
+Mason's attention was also caught by the sudden turn the agitator's
+talk had taken.
+
+"Now, my friends," he was saying, "this is the point I would impress on
+you. Hitherto we have cut off all communication of a damaging nature to
+ourselves with the tyrant at Malkern, but the time has come when even
+more stringent measures must be taken. We wish to conduct our
+negotiations with the mill-owner himself, direct. We must put before
+him our proposals. We want no go-betweens. As things stand we cannot
+reach him, and the reason is the authority of his representative up
+here. Such obstacles as he can put in our way will be damaging to our
+cause, and we will not tolerate them. He must be promptly set aside,
+and, by an absolute stoppage of work, we can force the man from Malkern
+to come here so that we can talk to him, and insist upon our demands.
+We must talk to him as from worker to fellow worker. He must be forced
+to listen to reason. Experience has long since taught me that such is
+the only way to deal with affairs of this sort. Now, what we propose,"
+and the man turned with a bow to the three men behind him, thus
+including them with himself, "is that without violence we take
+possession of these camps and strike all work, and, securing the person
+of Mr. Mason, and any others likely to interfere with us, we hold them
+safe until all our plans are fully put through. During the period
+necessary for the cessation of work, each man will draw an allowance
+equal to two-thirds of his wages, and he will receive a guarantee of
+employment when the strike is ended. The sutler, Mr. Lieberstein here,
+will be the treasurer of the strike funds, and pay each man his daily
+wage. There is but one thing more I have to say. We intend to take the
+necessary precautions against interference to-night. The cessation of
+work will date from this hour. And in the meantime we will put to the
+vote----"
+
+Chepstow, his keen eyes blazing, turned and faced the lumberman.
+
+"The scoundrels!" he said, with more force than discretion. "Did you
+hear? It means----"
+
+The lumberman chuckled, but held up a warning hand.
+
+"They're going to take me prisoner," he said. Then he added grimly,
+"There's going to be a warm time to-night."
+
+But the churchman was not listening. Again his thought had reverted to
+the presence of Jim Truscott at that meeting.
+
+"What on earth is young Truscott doing in there?" he asked. "He went
+away east the night I set out for these hills. What's he got to do with
+that--that rascally agitator? Why--he must be one of the--leaders of
+this thing. It's--it's most puzzling!"
+
+Chepstow's puzzlement did not communicate itself to Mason. The camp
+"boss" was less interested in the identity of these people than in the
+strike itself. It was his work to see that so much lumber was sent down
+the river every day. That was his responsibility. Dave looked to him.
+And he was face to face with a situation which threatened the complete
+annihilation of all his employer's schemes. A strike effectually
+carried out might be prolonged indefinitely, and then--
+
+"Look here, parson," he said coolly, "I want you to stay right here for
+a minute or so. They aren't likely to be finished for a while inside
+there. I want to 'prospect.' I want to find that buckboard. That damned
+agitator--'scuse the language--must have come up in it, so I guess it's
+near handy. The fog's good and thick, so there's not a heap of chance
+of anybody locating us, still----" he paused and glanced into the
+churchman's alert eyes. "Have a look to your gun," he went on with a
+quiet smile, "and--well, you are a parson, but if anybody comes along
+and attempts to molest you I'd use it if I were in your place."
+
+Chepstow made no reply, but there was something in his look that
+satisfied the other.
+
+Mason hurried away and the parson, left alone, leant against the wall,
+prepared to wait for his return. In spite of the plot he had listened
+to, the presence of Jim Truscott in that room occupied most of his
+thoughts. It was most perplexing. He tried every channel of supposition
+and argument, but none gave him any satisfactory explanation. One thing
+alone impressed its importance on his mind. That was the necessity of
+conveying a warning to Dave. But he remembered they--these
+conspirators--had cut communications. Mason and probably he were to be
+made prisoners.
+
+His ire roused. He blazed into a sudden fury. These rascals were to
+make them prisoners. Almost unconsciously he drew his gun from his
+pocket and turned to the window. As he did so the sound of approaching
+footsteps set him alert and defensive. He swung his back to the wall
+again, and, gun in hand, stood ready. The next moment he hurriedly
+returned the weapon to his pocket, but not before Mason had seen the
+attitude and the fighting expression of his face, and it set him
+smiling.
+
+"I've found the buckboard," he said in a whisper. Then he paused and
+looked straight into the churchman's eyes. "We're up against it," he
+went on. "Maybe you as well as myself. You can't tell where these
+fellows'll draw the line. And there's Miss Betty to think of, too. Are
+you ready to buck? Are you game? You're a parson, I know, and these
+things----"
+
+"Get to it, boy," Chepstow interrupted him sharply. "I am of necessity
+a man of peace, but there are things that become a man's duty. And it
+seems to me to hit hard will better serve God and man just now than to
+preach peace. What's your plan?"
+
+Mason smiled. He knew he had read the parson aright. He knew he had in
+him a staunch and loyal support. He liked, too, the phrase by which he
+excused his weakness for combat.
+
+"Well, I mean to do this sponge-faced crawler down, or break my neck in
+the attempt. I don't intend to be made a prisoner by any damned
+strikers. This thing means ruin to Dave, and it's up to me to help him
+out. I'm going to get word through to him. I understand now how our
+letters have been intercepted, and no doubt his have been stopped too.
+I'm going to have a flutter in this game. It's a big one, and makes me
+feel good. What say? Are you game?"
+
+"For anything!" exclaimed the parson with eyes sparkling.
+
+"Well, there's not a heap of time to waste in talk. I'll just get you
+to slip back to the dugout. Gather some food and truck into a sack, and
+a couple of guns or so, and some ammunition. Then get Miss Betty and
+slip out. Hike on down the trail a hundred yards or so and wait for me.
+Can you make it?"
+
+Chepstow nodded.
+
+"And you?" he asked.
+
+"I'm going to get possession of that buckboard, and--come right along.
+The scheme's rotten, I know. But it's the best I can think of at the
+moment. It's our only chance of warning Dave. There's not a second to
+spare now, so cut along. You've got to prepare for a two days' journey."
+
+"Anything else?"
+
+"Nothing. Miss Betty's good grit--in case----?"
+
+Chepstow nodded.
+
+"Game all through. How long can you give me?"
+
+"Maybe a half hour."
+
+"Good. I can make it in that."
+
+"Right. S'long."
+
+"S'long."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+AN ADVENTURE IN THE FOG
+
+
+Tom Chepstow set out for the dugout. Churchman as he was his blood was
+stirred to fighting heat, his lean, hard muscles were tingling with a
+nervous desire for action. Nor did he attempt to check his feelings, or
+compose them into a condition compatible with his holy calling.
+Possibly, when the time had passed for action, and the mantle of peace
+and good-will toward all men had once more fallen upon him, he would
+bitterly regret his outbreak, but, for the moment, he was a man, human,
+passionate, unreasoning, thrilling with the joy of life, and the
+delight of a moral truancy from all his accepted principles. No
+schoolboy could have broken the bonds of discipline with a greater joy,
+and his own subconscious knowledge of wrong-doing was no mar to his
+pleasure.
+
+The fog was thick, but it did not cause him great inconvenience. He
+took to the woods for his course, and, keeping close to the edge which
+encircled the camp clearing, he had little difficulty in striking the
+path to the dugout. This achieved he had but to follow it carefully.
+The one possibility that caused him any anxiety was lest he should
+overshoot the hut in the fog.
+
+But he need have had no fear of this. Dense as the fog was, the lights
+of the dugout were plainly visible when he came to it. Betty, with
+careful forethought, had set the oil lamps in the two windows. She
+quite understood the difficulties of that forest land, and she had no
+desire for the men-folk to spend the night roaming the wilderness.
+
+The parson found her calmly alert. She did not fly at him with a rush
+of questions. She was far more composed than he, yet there was a
+sparkling brilliancy in her brown eyes which told of feelings strongly
+controlled; her eyelids were well parted, and there was a shade of
+quickening in the dilation of her nostrils as she breathed. She looked
+up into his face as he turned after closing the door, and his tongue
+answered the mute challenge.
+
+"There's to be a great game to-night," he said, rubbing the palms of
+his hands together. The tone, the action, both served to point the
+state of his mind.
+
+Knowing him as she did Betty needed no words to tell her that the
+"game" was to be no sort of play.
+
+"It's a 'strike,'" he went on. "A strike, and a bad one. They intend to
+make a prisoner of Mason, and, maybe, of us. We've got to outwit them.
+Now, help me get some things together, and I'll tell you while we get
+ready. We've got to quit to-night."
+
+He picked up a gunny sack while he was speaking and gave it to Betty to
+hold open. Then he immediately began to deplete the lumberman's larder
+of any eatables that could be easily carried.
+
+Ever since the men had left her this strike had been in Betty's mind,
+so his announcement in no way startled her.
+
+"What of Dave?" she asked composedly. "Has he any--idea of it?"
+
+"That's just it. We've got to let him know. He's quite in the dark.
+Communications cut. Mason must get away at once to let him know. He
+intends to 'jump' their buckboard and team--I mean these strikers'
+buckboard." He laughed. He felt ready to laugh at most things. It was
+not that he did not care. His desire was inspired by the thought that
+he was to play a part in the "game."
+
+"The one that came in to-night?" Betty asked, taking up a fresh sack to
+receive some pots and blankets.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And we are to bolt with him?" she went on in a peculiar manner.
+
+Her uncle paused in the act of putting firearms and ammunition into the
+sack. Her tone checked his enthusiasm. Then he laughed.
+
+"We're not 'bolting' Betty, we're escaping so that Dave may get the
+news. His fortune depends on our success. Remember our communications
+are cut."
+
+But his arguments fell upon deaf ears. Betty smiled and shook her brown
+head.
+
+"We're bolting, uncle. Listen. There's no need for us to go. In fact,
+we can't go. Think for a moment. Things depend on the speed with which
+Dave learns of the trouble. We should make two more in the buckboard of
+which the horses are already tired. Mason, by himself, will travel
+light. Besides, a girl is a deterrent when it comes to--fighting. No,
+wait." She held up a warning finger as he was about to interrupt. "Then
+there are the sick here. We cannot leave them. They--are our duty.
+Besides, Dave's interests would be ill served if we left the fever to
+continue its ravages unchecked."
+
+In her last remark Betty displayed her woman's practical instinct.
+Perhaps she was not fully aware of her real motive. Perhaps she
+conscientiously believed that it was their duty that claimed her.
+Nevertheless her thought was for the man she loved, and it guided her
+every word and action; it inspired her. The threat of imprisonment up
+here did not frighten her, did not even enter into her considerations
+at all. Dave--her every nerve vibrated with desire to help him, to save
+him.
+
+Chepstow suddenly reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. His
+enthusiasm had passed, and, for the moment, the churchman in him was
+uppermost again.
+
+"You're right, Betty," he said with decision. "We stay here."
+
+The girl's eyes thanked him, but her words were full of practical
+thought.
+
+"Will Mason come here? Because, if so, we'll get these things outside
+ready."
+
+"No. We've got to carry them down the trail and meet him there. There
+may be a rush. There may be a scuffle. We don't know. I half think
+you'd better stay here while I go and meet him."
+
+Betty shook her head.
+
+"I'm going to help," she exclaimed, with a flash of battle in her eyes.
+
+"Then come on." Her uncle shouldered the heavier of the two sacks, and
+was about to tuck the other under his arm, but Betty took it from him,
+and lifted it to her shoulder in a twinkling.
+
+"Halves," she cried, as she moved toward the door.
+
+The man laughed light-heartedly and blew out the lights. Then, as he
+reached the girl's side, a distant report caused him to stop short.
+
+"What's that?" he demanded.
+
+"A pistol shot," cried Betty. "Come along!"
+
+They ran out of the hut and down the trail, and, in a moment, were
+swallowed up in the fog.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+Bob Mason intended to give Chepstow a fair start. He knew, if he were
+to be successful, his task would occupy far less time than the other's.
+And a vital point in his scheme lay in meeting his two friends at the
+appointed spot.
+
+He was fully alive to the rank audacity of his plan. It was desperate,
+and the chances were heavily against him. But he was not a man to
+shrink from an undertaking on such a score. He had to warn Dave, and
+this was the only means that suggested itself. If he were not a genius
+of invention, he was at least full of courage and determination.
+
+On his previous reconnoitre he had located the buckboard at the
+tying-posts in front of the store. Quite why it had been left there he
+could not understand, unless the strike-leader intended leaving camp
+that night. However, the point of interest lay in the fact of the
+vehicle and horses being there ready for his use if he could only
+safely possess himself of them, so speculation as to the reason of its
+being there was only of secondary interest.
+
+When he made his first move Tom Chepstow had been gone some ten
+minutes. He groped his way carefully along the wall until the front
+angle of the building was reached, and here he paused to ascertain the
+position of things. The meeting was still in progress inside, and, as
+yet, there seemed to be no sign of its breaking up. The steady hum of
+voices that reached him told him this.
+
+About twenty yards directly in front of him was the buckboard; while to
+the right, perhaps half that distance away, was the open door of the
+store, and adjacent to it a large glass window. Both were lit up, and
+the glow from the oil lamps shone dully on the fog bank. He was half
+inclined to reconnoitre these latter to ascertain if any one were
+about, but finally decided to go straight for his goal and chance
+everything. With this intention he moved straight out from the building
+and vanished in the fog.
+
+He walked quickly. Fortune favored him until he was within a few yards
+of the tying-post, when suddenly the clanging of an iron-handled bucket
+being set roughly upon the ground brought him to a dead standstill.
+Some one was tending the horses--probably watering them. Evidently they
+were being got ready for a journey. Almost unconsciously his hand went
+to the pocket in which he carried his revolver.
+
+At that moment a roar of applause came from the store, and he knew the
+meeting was drawing to a close. Then came a prolonged cheering,
+followed by the raucous singing of "He's a jolly good fellow." It _was_
+the end.
+
+He could delay no longer. Taking his bearings as well as the fog would
+permit, he struck out for the tail end of the buckboard. He intended
+reaching the "near-side" of the horses, where he felt that the reins
+would be looped up upon the harness, and as the best means of avoiding
+the man with the bucket.
+
+In this he had little difficulty, and when he reached the vehicle he
+bent low, and, passing clear of the wheels, drew up toward the horses'
+heads. By this time the man with the bucket was moving away, and he
+breathed more freely.
+
+But his relief was short-lived. The men were already pouring out of the
+store, and the fog-laden air was filled with the muffled tones of many
+voices. To add to his discomfiture he further became aware of footsteps
+approaching. He could delay no longer. He dared not wait to let them
+pass. Then, they might be the owners of the buckboard. His movements
+became charged with almost electrical activity.
+
+He reached out and assured himself that the bits were in the horses'
+mouths. Then he groped for the reins; as he expected, they were looped
+in the harness. Possessing himself of them, he reached for the
+collar-chain securing the horses to the posts. He pressed the swivel
+open, and, releasing it, lowered the chain noiselessly. And a moment
+later two men loomed up out of the fog on the "off-side." They were
+talking, and he listened.
+
+"It's bad med'cine you leaving to-night," he heard the voice of the
+strike-leader say in a grumbling tone.
+
+"I can't help that," came the response. It was a voice he did not
+recognize.
+
+"Well, we've got to secure this man Mason to-night. You can't trust
+these fellows a heap. Give 'em time, and some one will blow the game.
+Then he'll be off like a rabbit."
+
+"Well, it's up to you to get him," the strange voice retorted sharply.
+"I'm paying you heavily. You've undertaken the job. Besides, there's
+that cursed parson and his niece up here. I daren't take a chance of
+their seeing me. I oughtn't to have come up here at all. If Lieberstein
+hadn't been such a grasping pig of a Jew there would have been no need
+for my coming. You've just got to put everything through on your own,
+Walford. I'm off."
+
+Mason waited for no more. The buckboard belonged to the stranger, and
+he was about to use it. He laughed inwardly, and his spirits rose.
+Everything was ready. He dropped back to the full extent of the reins
+as stealthily and as swiftly as possible. This cleared him of the
+buckboard and hid him from the view of the men. Then with a rein in
+each hand he slapped them as sharply as he could on the quarters of the
+cold and restless horses. They jumped at the neck-yoke, and with a
+"yank" he swung them clear of the tying-posts. He shouted at them and
+slapped the reins again, and the only too willing beasts plunged into a
+gallop.
+
+He heard an exclamation from one of the men as the buckboard shot past
+them, and the other made a futile grab for the off-side rein. For
+himself he seized the rail of the carryall with one hand and gave a
+wild leap. He dropped into the vehicle safely but with some force, and
+his legs were left hanging over the back.
+
+But he had not cleared the danger yet. He was in the act of drawing in
+his legs when they were seized in an arm embrace, and the whole weight
+of a man hung upon him in an effort to drag him off the vehicle. There
+was no time to consider. He felt himself sliding over the rail, which
+only checked his progress for an instant. But that instant gave him a
+winning chance. He drew his revolver, and leveling it, aimed
+point-blank at where he thought the man's shoulder must be. There was a
+loud report, and the grip on his legs relaxed. The man dropped to the
+ground, and he was left to scramble to his feet and climb over into the
+driving-seat.
+
+A blind, wild drive was that race from the store. He drove like a fury
+in the fog, trusting to the instinct of the horses and the luck of the
+reckless to guide him into the comparative safety of the eastward trail.
+
+As the horses flew over the ground the cries of the strikers filled the
+air. They seemed to come from every direction, even ahead. The noise,
+the rattle of the speeding wheels, fired his excitement. The fog--the
+dense gray pall that hung over the whole camp--was his salvation, and
+he shouted back defiance.
+
+It was a useless and dangerous thing to do, and he realized his folly
+at once. A great cry instantly went up from the strikers. He was
+recognized, and his name was shouted in execration. He only laughed.
+There was joy in the feel of the reins, in the pulling of the
+mettlesome horses. They were running strong and well within themselves.
+
+It was only a matter of seconds from the time of his start to the
+moment when he felt the vehicle bump heavily over a series of ruts. He
+promptly threw his weight on the near-side rein, and the horses swung
+round. It was the trail he was looking for. And as the horses settled
+down to it he breathed more freely. It was only after this point had
+been gained and passed that he realized the extent of his previous
+risk. He knew that the entrance to the trail on its far side was lined
+by log shanties, and he had been driving straight for them.
+
+In the midst of his freshly-acquired ease of mind came a sudden and
+unpleasant recollection. He remembered the path through the woods to
+the dugout; it was shorter than the trail he was on by nearly a mile.
+While he had over a mile and a half to go, those in pursuit, if they
+took to the path, had barely half.
+
+He listened. But he knew beforehand that his fears were only too well
+founded. Yes, he could hear them. The voices of the pursuers sounded
+away to the left. They were abreast of him. They had taken to the
+woods. He snatched the whip from its socket and laid it heavily across
+the horses' backs, and the animals stretched out into a race. The
+buckboard jumped, it rattled and shrieked. The pace was terrific. But
+he was ready to take every chance now, so long as he could gain
+sufficient time to take up those he knew to be waiting for him ahead.
+
+In another few minutes he would know the worst--or the best. Again and
+again he urged his horses. But already they were straining at the top
+of their speed. They galloped as though the spirit of the race had
+entered their willing souls. They could do no more than they were
+doing; it was only cruelty to flog them. If their present speed was
+insufficient then he could not hope to outstrip the strikers. If he
+only could hear their voices dropping behind.
+
+The minutes slipped by. The fog worried him. He was watching for the
+dugout, and he feared lest he should pass it unseen. Nor could he
+estimate the distance he had come. Hark! the shouts of the pursuers
+were drawing nearer, and--they were still abreast of him! He must be
+close on the dugout. He peered into the fog, and suddenly a dark shadow
+at the trail-side loomed up. There was no mistaking it. It was the hut;
+and it was in darkness. His friends must be on ahead. How far! that was
+the question. On that depended everything.
+
+What was that? The hammering of heavy feet on the hard trail sounded
+directly behind him. He had gained nothing. Then he thought of that
+halt that yet remained in front of him, and something like panic seized
+him. He slashed viciously at his horses.
+
+He felt like a man obsessed with the thought of trailing bloodhounds.
+He must keep on, on. There must be no pause, no rest, or the ravening
+pack would fall on him and rend him. Yet he knew that halt must come.
+He was gaining rapidly enough now. Without that halt they could never
+come up with him. But--his ears were straining for Chepstow's summons.
+Every second it was withheld was something gained. He possessed a
+frantic hope that some guiding spirit might have induced the churchman
+to take up a position very much further on than he had suggested.
+
+"Hallo!"
+
+The call had come. Chepstow was at the edge of the trail. Mason's hopes
+dropped to zero. He abandoned himself to the inevitable, flung his
+weight on the reins, and brought his horses to a stand with a jolt.
+
+"Where's Miss Betty?" he demanded. But his ears caught the sound of the
+men behind him, and he hurried on without waiting for a reply. "Quick,
+parson! The bags! fling 'em in, and jump for it! They're close behind!"
+
+"Betty's gone back," cried Chepstow, flinging the sacks into the
+carryall. "I'm going back too. You go on alone. We've got the sick to
+see to. Tell Dave we're all right. So long! Drive on! Good luck! Eh?"
+
+A horrified cry from Mason had caused the final ejaculation.
+
+He was pointing at the off-side horse standing out at right angles to
+the pole.
+
+"For God's sake, fix that trace," he cried. "Quick, man! It's unhooked!
+Gee! What infern----"
+
+Chepstow sprang to secure the loosened trace. He, too, could hear the
+pursuers close behind. He fumbled the iron links in his anxiety, and it
+took some moments to adjust.
+
+"Right," he cried at last, after what seemed an interminable time.
+Mason whipped up his horses, and they sprang to their traces. But as
+they did so there was a sudden rush from behind, and a figure leapt on
+to the carryall. The buckboard rocked and the driver, in the act of
+shouting at his horses, felt himself seized by the throat from behind.
+
+Fortunately the churchman saw it all. His blood rushed to his brain. As
+the buckboard was sweeping past him he caught the iron rail and leapt.
+In an instant he was on his feet and had closed with Mason's assailant.
+He, too, went for the throat, with all the ferocity of a bulldog. The
+mantle of the church was cast to the winds. He was panting with the
+lust for fight, and he crushed his fingers deep into the man's
+windpipe. They dropped together on the sacks.
+
+Mason, released, dared not turn. He plied his whip furiously. He had
+the legs of his pursuers and he meant to add to his distance. He heard
+the struggle going on behind him. He heard the gasp of a choking man.
+And, listening, he reveled in it as men of his stamp will revel in such
+things.
+
+"Choke him, parson! Choke the swine!" he hurled viciously over his
+shoulder.
+
+He got no answer. The struggle went on in silence, and presently Mason
+began to fear for the result. He slackened his horses down and glanced
+back. Tom Chepstow's working features looked up into his.
+
+"I've got him," he said: then of a sudden he looked anxiously down at
+the man he was kneeling on. "He's--he's unconscious. I hope---- You'd
+better pull up."
+
+"I wish you'd choke the life out of him," cried Mason furiously.
+
+"I did my best, I'm afraid," the parson replied ruefully. "You'd better
+pull up."
+
+But the lumberman kept on.
+
+"Half a minute. Get these matches, and have a look at him. I'll slow
+down."
+
+The churchman seized the matches, and, in his anxiety at what he had
+done, struck several before he got one burning long enough to see the
+unconscious man's face. Finally he succeeded, and an ejaculation of
+surprise broke from him.
+
+"Heavens! It's Jim Truscott!" he cried.
+
+He pressed his hand over the man's heart.
+
+"Thank God! he's alive," he added.
+
+Mason drew up sharply. A sudden change had come over his whole manner.
+He sprang to the ground.
+
+"Here, help me secure him," he said almost fiercely. "I'll take him
+down to Dave."
+
+They lashed their prisoner by his hands and feet. Then Mason seized the
+churchman excitedly by the arm.
+
+"Get back, parson!" he cried. "Get back to the dugout quick as hell'll
+let you! There's Miss Betty!"
+
+"God! I'd forgotten! And there's those--strikers!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+TERROR IN THE MOUNTAINS
+
+
+Fear drove Chepstow headlong for the dugout. Mason's words, his tone
+and manner, had served to excite him to a pitch closely bordering upon
+absolute terror. What of Betty? Over and over again he asked himself
+what might not happen to her, left alone at the mercy of these savages?
+What if, baulked of their prey, they turned to loot and wreck his hut?
+It was more than possible. To his fear-stricken imagination it was
+inevitable. His gorge rose and he sickened at the thought, and he raced
+through the fog to the girl's help.
+
+The self-torture he suffered in those weary minutes was exquisite. He
+railed at his own criminal folly in letting her leave his side. He
+reviled Mason and his wild schemes. Dave and his interests were
+banished from his mind. The well-being of Malkern, of the mills, of
+anybody in the world but the helpless girl, mattered not at all to him.
+It was Betty--of Betty alone he thought.
+
+An innocent girl in the hands of such ruthless brutes as these
+strikers--what could she do? It was a maddening thought. He prayed to
+Heaven as he went, that he might be in time, and his prayers rang with
+a fervor such as they never possessed in his vocation as a churchman.
+And this mood alternated with another, which was its direct antithesis.
+The vicious thoughts of a man roused to battle ran through his brain in
+a fiery torrent. His whole outlook upon life underwent a change. All
+the kindly impulses of his heart, all the teachings of his church, all
+his best Christian beliefs, fell from him, and left him the naked,
+passionate man. Churchman, good Christian he undoubtedly was, but,
+before all things, he was a man; and just now a man in fighting mood.
+
+It probably took him less than twenty minutes to make the return
+journey, yet it seemed to him hours--he certainly endured hours of
+mental anguish. But at last it ended with almost ludicrous abruptness.
+In the obscurity of the fog he was brought to a halt by impact with the
+walls of the dugout.
+
+He recovered himself and stood for a moment listening. There was no
+sound of any one within, nor was there any sign of the strikers. He
+moved round to the door; a beam of light shone beneath it. He breathed
+more freely. Then, to his dismay, at his first touch, the door swung
+open. His fears leapt again, he dreaded what that open door might
+disclose. Then, in the midst of his fears, a cry of relief and joy
+broke from him.
+
+"Thank God, you're safe!" he exclaimed, as he rushed into the room.
+
+Betty looked up from the work in her lap. She was seated beside the
+box-stove sewing. Her calmness was in flat contrast to her uncle's
+excited state. She smiled gently, and her soft eyes had in them a
+questioning humor that had a steadying effect upon the man.
+
+"Safe? Why, dear, of course I'm safe," she said. "But--I was a little
+anxious about you. You were so long getting back. Did Bob Mason get
+safely away?"
+
+Chepstow laughed.
+
+"Yes, oh yes. _He_ got away safely."
+
+"He?"
+
+The work lay in Betty's lap, and her fingers had become idle.
+
+"Yes. But we captured one of the strikers."
+
+The parson suddenly turned to the door and barred it securely. Then, as
+he went on, he crossed to the windows, and began to barricade them.
+
+"Yes, we had a busy time. They were hard on his heels when he pulled up
+for me. We nailed the foremost. He jumped on the buckboard and almost
+strangled Mason. I jumped on it too, and--and almost strangled him."
+
+He laughed harshly. His blood was still up. Betty bent over her work
+and her expressive face was hidden.
+
+"Who was he? I mean your prisoner. Did you recognize him, or was he a
+new hand?"
+
+Chepstow's laugh abruptly died out. He had suddenly remembered who his
+prisoner was; and he tried to ignore the question.
+
+"Oh, yes, we recognized him. But," he went on hurriedly, "we must get
+some supper. I think we are in for a busy time."
+
+But Betty was not so easily put off. Besides, her curiosity was roused
+by her uncle's evident desire to avoid the subject.
+
+"Who was he?" she demanded again.
+
+There was no escape, and the man knew it. Betty could be very
+persistent.
+
+"Eh? Oh, I'm afraid it was Jim--Jim Truscott," he said reluctantly.
+
+Betty rose from her chair without a word. She stirred the fire in the
+cook-stove, and began to prepare a supper of bacon and potatoes and
+tea, while her uncle went on with his task of securing the windows. It
+was the latter who finally broke the silence.
+
+"Has any one--has anybody been here?" he asked awkwardly.
+
+Betty did not look up from her work.
+
+"Two men paid me a visit," she said easily. "One asked for you. He
+seemed angry. I--I told him you had gone over to the sick camp--that
+you were coming back to supper. He laughed--fiercely. He said if you
+didn't come back I'd find myself up against it. Then he hurried
+off--and I was glad."
+
+"And the other?"
+
+Chepstow's work was finished. He had crossed over and was standing
+beside the cook-stove. His question came with an undercurrent of
+fierceness that Betty was unused to, but she smiled up into his face.
+
+"The other? I think he had been drinking. He was one of those two I met
+in the woods. He asked me why I hadn't taken his warning. I told him I
+was considering it. He leered at me and said it was too late, and
+assured me I must take the consequences. Then he--tried to kiss me. It
+was rather funny."
+
+"Funny? Great Heavens! And you----"
+
+Betty's smile broadened as she pointed to a heavy revolver lying in the
+chair she had just vacated.
+
+"I didn't have any trouble. I told him there were five barrels in that,
+all loaded, and each barrel said he'd better get out."
+
+"Did--did he go?"
+
+Chepstow could scarcely control his fury. But Betty answered him in a
+quiet determined manner.
+
+"Not until I had emptied one of them," she said. Then with a rueful
+smile she added, "But it went very wide of its mark."
+
+Her uncle tried to laugh, but the result was little better than a
+furious snort.
+
+"Why did you leave the door open?" he inquired a moment later.
+
+"Well, you were out. You might have returned in--in a hurry and---- But
+sit down, uncle dear, food's ready."
+
+The man sat down and Betty stood by to supply him with all he needed.
+Then he noticed she had only prepared food for one.
+
+"Why, child, what about you?" he demanded kindly.
+
+"I've had some biscuits and tea, before you came in. I'm not hungry.
+Now don't bother about it, dear. Yes, I am quite well." She shook her
+head and smiled at him as he attempted to interrupt her, but the smile
+was a mere cloak to her real feelings. She had eaten before he came in,
+as she said. But if she hadn't she could have eaten nothing now. Her
+mind was swept with a hot tide of anxious thought. She had a thousand
+and one questions unanswered, and she knew it would be useless putting
+any one of them to her kindly, impetuous uncle. He was to her the
+gentlest of guardians, but quite impossible as a confidant for her
+woman's fears, her woman's passionate desire to help the man she loved.
+He was staunch and brave, and in what might lay before them she could
+have no better companion, no better champion, but where the subtleties
+of her woman's feelings were concerned there could be no confidence in
+him.
+
+She watched him eat in silence, and, presently, when he looked up at
+her, her soft brown eyes were lit by an almost maternal regard for him.
+He had no understanding of that look, and Betty knew it, otherwise it
+would not have been there.
+
+"I can't understand it all," he said. "Jim is a worse--a worse rascal
+than I thought. I believe he's not only in this strike, but one of the
+organizers. Why? That's what I can't make out. Is it mischief--wanton
+mischief? Is it jealousy of Dave's success? It's a puzzle I can't solve
+anyhow. After all his protestations to me the thing's inconceivable.
+It's enough to destroy all one's belief in human nature."
+
+"Or strengthen it."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"It is only natural for people to err," Betty said seriously. "And
+having erred it is human nature, whatever our motives, however good our
+intentions, to find that the mire into which we have fallen sucks hard.
+It is more often than not the floundering to save ourselves that drives
+us deeper into it. Poor Jim. He needs our pity and help, just as we so
+often need help."
+
+Her uncle stared into the grave young face. His astonishment kept him
+silent for a moment. He pushed impatiently away from the table. But it
+was not until Betty had moved back to her chair at the stove that he
+found words to express himself. He was angry, quite angry with her. It
+was not that he was really unchristian, but when he thought of all that
+this strike meant, he felt that sympathy for the man who was possibly
+the cause of it was entirely out of place.
+
+"Truscott needs none of your pity, Betty," he said sharply. "If pity be
+needed it is surely for those whom one man's mischief will harm. Do you
+know what this strike means, child? Before it reaches the outside of
+these camps it will turn a tide of vice loose upon the men themselves.
+They will drink, gamble. They will quarrel and fight. And when such men
+fight it more often than not results in some terrible tragedy. Then,
+like some malignant cuttlefish, this strike will grope its crushing
+feelers out from here, its lair, seeking prey on which to fix its
+sucking tentacles. They will reach Malkern, and work will be paralyzed.
+That means ruin to more than half the villagers who depend upon their
+weekly wage. It goes further than that. The mills will shut down. And
+if the mills shut, good-bye to all trade in Malkern. It means ruin for
+everybody. It means the wrecking of all Dave's hopes--hopes which have
+for their object the welfare of the people of our valley. It is a piece
+of rascality that nothing can justify. Jim Truscott does not need our
+pity. It is the penitentiary he needs. Betty, I'm--I'm----"
+
+But Betty looked up with passionate, glowing eyes from the work she had
+resumed.
+
+"Do you think I don't know what it means, uncle?" she demanded, with a
+depth of feeling that silenced him instantly. "Do you think because I
+pity poor Jim that I do not understand the enormity of his wickedness
+in this matter? Have I spent the best part of my life in our valley
+carrying on the work that has fallen to my share--work that has been my
+joy and happiness to do--without understanding the cruelty which this
+strike means to our people, those who are powerless to help themselves
+against it? Do you think I don't understand what it means to Dave? Oh,
+uncle, if you but knew," she went on reproachfully. "I know it means
+practically the end of all things for Dave if his contract fails. I
+know that he is all out for the result. That his resources are even now
+taxed to their uttermost limit, and that only the smooth running of the
+work can save him from a disaster that will involve us all. If I had a
+man's strength there is nothing I would not do to serve him. If my two
+hands, if my brain could assist him in the smallest degree, he would
+not need to ask for them. They are his--his!" she cried, with a passion
+that thrilled the listening man. "You are angry with me because I feel
+sorry for an erring man. I _am_ sorry for him. Yet should evil come to
+our valley--to Dave--through his work, no wildcat would show him less
+mercy than I. Oh, why am I not a man with two strong hands?" she cried
+despairingly. "Why am I condemned to be a useless burden to those I
+love? Oh, Dave, Dave," she cried with a sudden self-abandonment, so
+passionate, so overwhelming that it alarmed her uncle, "why can't I
+help you? Why can't I stand beside you and share in your battles with
+these two hands?" She held out her arms, in a gesture of appeal. Then
+they dropped to her side. In a moment she turned almost fiercely upon
+her uncle, swept on by a tide of feeling long pent up behind the
+barrier of her woman's reserve, but now no longer possible of
+restraint. "I love him! I love him! I know! You are ashamed for me! I
+can see it in your face! You think me unwomanly! You think I have
+outraged the conventions which hem our sex in! And what if I have? I
+don't care! I care for nothing and no one but him! He is the world to
+me--the whole, wide world. I love him so I would give my life for him.
+Oh, uncle, I love him, and I am powerless to help him."
+
+She sank into her chair, and buried her face in her hands. Blame,
+displeasure, contempt, nothing mattered. The woman was stirred, let
+loose; the calm strength which was so great a part of her character,
+had been swept aside by her passion, which saw only the hopelessness
+with which this strike confronted the man she loved.
+
+Chepstow watched her for some moments. He was no longer alarmed. His
+heart ached for her, and he wanted to comfort her. But it was not easy
+for him. At last he moved close to her side, and laid a hand upon her
+bowed head. The action was full of a tender, even reverential sympathy.
+And it was that, more than his words, which helped to comfort the
+woman's stricken heart.
+
+"You're a good child, Betty," he said awkwardly. "And--and I'm glad you
+love him. Dave will win out. Don't you fear. It is the difficulties he
+has had to face that have made him the man he is. Remember Mason has
+got away, and---- What's that?"
+
+Something crashed against the door and dropped to the ground outside.
+Though the exclamation had broken from the man he needed no answer. It
+was a stone. A stone hurled with vicious force.
+
+Betty sat up. Her face had suddenly returned to its usual calm. She
+looked up into her uncle's eyes, and saw that the light of battle had
+been rekindled there. Her own eyes brightened. She, too, realized that
+battle was imminent. They were two against hundreds. Her spirit warmed.
+Her recent hopelessness passed and she sprang to her feet.
+
+"The cowards!" she cried.
+
+The man only laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE RED TIDE OF ANARCHY
+
+
+Betty and her uncle spent the next few hours in preparing for
+eventualities. They explored the storeroom and armory, and in the
+latter they found ample provision for a stout defense. There were
+firearms in plenty, and such a supply of ammunition as should be
+sufficient to withstand a siege. The store of dynamite gave them some
+anxiety. It was dangerous where it was, in case of open warfare, but it
+would be still more dangerous in the hands of the strikers. Eventually
+they concealed it well under a pile of other stores in the hopes, in
+case of accident, it might remain undiscovered.
+
+During their preparations several more stones crashed against the walls
+and the door of the building. They were hurled at longish intervals,
+and seemed to be the work of one person. Then, finally no more were
+thrown, and futile as the attack had been, its cessation brought a
+certain relief and ease of mind. To the man it suggested the work of
+some drunken lumber-jack--perhaps the man who had been so forcibly
+rebuffed by Betty earlier in the evening.
+
+It was one o'clock when Chepstow took a final look round his
+barricades. Betty was sitting at the table with a fine array of
+firearms spread out before her. She had just finished loading the last
+one when her uncle came to her side. She looked up at him with quiet
+amusement in her eyes.
+
+"I was wondering," she said, with just a suspicion of satire in her
+manner, "whether we are in a state of siege, or--panic?"
+
+But her uncle's sense of humor was lacking at the moment. He saw only
+the gravity of his responsibility.
+
+"You'd best get to bed," he said a little severely. "I shall sit up.
+You must get all the rest you can. We do not know what may be in store
+for us."
+
+Betty promptly fell in with his mood.
+
+"But the sick?" she said. "We must visit them to-morrow. We cannot let
+them suffer."
+
+"No. We must wait and see what to-morrow brings forth. In the
+meantime----"
+
+He broke off, listening. Betty too had suddenly turned her eyes upon
+the barred door. There was a long pause, during which the murmur of
+many voices reached them, and the faint but distinct sound of tramping
+feet. The man's eyes grew anxious, his lean face was set and hard. It
+was easy enough to read his thoughts. He was weighing the possibilities
+of collision with these strikers, and calculating the chances in his
+favor. Betty seemed less disturbed. Her eyes were steady and interested
+rather than alarmed.
+
+"There's a crowd of them," said her uncle in a hushed voice.
+
+The girl listened for something which perhaps her uncle had forgotten.
+Sober, she did not expect much trouble from these people. If they had
+been drinking it would be different.
+
+The voices grew louder. The shuffling, clumping footsteps grew louder.
+They drew near. They were within a few yards of the building. Finally
+they stopped just outside the door. Instantly there was a loud
+hammering upon it, and a harsh demand for admittance.
+
+Neither stirred.
+
+"Open the door!" roared the voice, and the cry was taken up by others
+until it grew into a perfect babel of shouting and cursing.
+
+Betty moved to her uncle's side and laid a hand upon his arm. She
+looked up into his face and saw the storm-clouds of his anger gathering
+there.
+
+"We shall have to open it, uncle," she said. "That's--that's Tim
+Canfield's voice."
+
+He looked down into her eager young face. He saw no fear there. He
+feared, but not for himself: it was of her he was thinking. He wanted
+to open the door. He wanted to vent his anger in scathing defiance, but
+he was thinking of the girl in his charge. He was her sole protection.
+He knew, only too well, what "strike" meant to these men. It meant the
+turning of their savage passions loose upon brains all too untutored to
+afford them a semblance of control. Then there was the drink, and drink
+meant--
+
+The clamor at the door was becoming terrific. He stirred, and, walking
+swiftly across the room, put his mouth to the jamb.
+
+"What do you want?" he shouted angrily. "What right have you to come
+here disturbing us at such an hour?"
+
+Instantly the noise dropped. Then he heard Tim's voice repeating his
+words to the crowd, and they were greeted with a laugh that had in it a
+note of rebellion.
+
+The laugh died out as the spokesman turned again to the door.
+
+"Open this gorl-durned door, or we'll bust it in!" he shouted. And a
+chorus of "Break it in!" was taken up by the crowd.
+
+The parson's anger leapt. His keen nerves were on edge in a moment.
+Even Betty's gentle eyes kindled. He turned to her, his eyes blazing.
+
+"Hand me a couple of guns!" he cried, in a voice that reached the men
+outside. "Get hold of a couple yourself! If there's to be trouble we'll
+take a hand!" Then he turned to the door, and his voice was thrilling
+with "fight." "I'll open the door to no one till I know what you want!"
+he shouted furiously. "Beat the door in! I warn you those who step
+inside will get it good and plenty! Beat away!"
+
+His words had instant effect. For several seconds there was not a sound
+on the other side of the door. Then some one muttered something, and
+instantly the crowd took up a fierce cry, urging their leaders on.
+
+But the men in front were not to be rushed into a reckless assault, and
+a fierce altercation ensued. Finally silence was restored, and Tim
+Canfield spoke again, but there was a conciliatory note in his voice
+this time.
+
+"You ken open it, passon," he said. "We're talkin' fair. We ain't
+nuthin' up agin you. We're astin' you to help us out some. Ef you open
+that door, me an' Mike Duggan'll step in, an' no one else. We'll tell
+you what's doin'. Ther' don't need be no shootin' to this racket."
+
+The churchman considered. The position was awkward. His anger was
+melting, but he knew that, for the moment, he had the whip hand.
+However, he also knew if he didn't open the door, ultimately force
+would certainly be used. These were not the men to be scared easily.
+But Betty was in his thoughts, and finally it was Betty who decided for
+him.
+
+"Open it," she whispered. "It's our best course. I don't think they
+mean any harm--yet."
+
+The man reluctantly obeyed, but only after some moments' hesitation. He
+withdrew the bars, and as the girl moved away beyond the stove, and sat
+down to her sewing, he stepped aside, covering the doorway with his two
+revolvers.
+
+"Only two of you!" he cried, as the door swung open.
+
+The two men came in and, turning quickly, shut the rest of the crowd
+out and rebarred the door.
+
+Then they confronted the churchman's two guns. There was something
+tremendously compelling in Chepstow's attitude and the light of battle
+that shone in his eyes. He meant business, and they knew it. Their
+respect for him rose, and they watched him warily until presently he
+lowered the guns to his side.
+
+He eyed them severely. They were men he knew, men who were real
+lumber-jacks, matured in the long service of Dave's mills, men who
+should have known better. They were powerfully built and grizzled, with
+faces and eyes as hard as their tremendous muscles. He knew the type
+well. It was the type he had always admired, and a type, once they were
+on the wrong path, he knew could be very, very dangerous.
+
+"Well, boys," he demanded, in a more moderate tone, yet holding them
+with the severity of his expression. "What's all this bother about?
+What do you mean by this intolerable--bulldozing?"
+
+The men suddenly discovered Betty at the far side of the stove. Her
+attitude was one of preoccupation in her sewing. It was pretense, but
+it looked natural. They abruptly pulled off their caps, and for the
+moment, seemed half abashed. But it was only for the moment. The next,
+Canfield turned on the churchman coldly.
+
+"You're actin' kind o' foolish, passon," he said. "It ain't no use
+talkin' gun-play when ther' ain't no need whatever. It's like to make
+things ridic'lous awkward, an' set the boys sore. We come along here
+peaceful to talk you fair----"
+
+"So you bring an army," broke in Chepstow, impatiently, "after holding
+a meeting at the store, and considering the advisability of making
+prisoners of my niece and me."
+
+"Who said?" demanded Tim fiercely.
+
+"I did," retorted Chepstow militantly.
+
+The promptness of his retort silenced the lumberman. He grinned, and
+leered round at his companion.
+
+"Well?" The parson's voice was getting sharper.
+
+"Well, it's like this, passon. Ther' ain't goin' to be no
+prisoner-makin' if you'll act reas'nable. Ther' ain't nuthin' up to you
+nor the leddy but wot's good an' clean. You've see to our boys who's
+sick, an' just done right by us--we can't say the same fer others. We
+just want you to come right along down to the camp. Ther's a feller bin
+shot by that all-fired skunk Mason, an' I guess he's jest busy bleedin'
+plumb to death. Will you come?"
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+The shortness of Chepstow's tone was uncompromising.
+
+The lumber-jack stirred uneasily. He glanced round at his companion.
+The churchman saw the look and understood.
+
+"Come on, Mike Duggan, out with it. I'm not going to be played with,"
+he said. "Your mate doesn't seem easy about it. I suppose it's one of
+the ringleaders of your strike, and you want me to patch him up so he
+can go on with his dirty work. Well? I'm waiting."
+
+Duggan's eyes flashed.
+
+"Easy, passon," he said sharply. "The feller's name is Walford. You
+ain't like to know him fer sure. He's kind o' runnin' things fer us.
+He's hit in the shoulder bad."
+
+"Ah, it's that fellow who was speaking at your meeting. So he's got his
+medicine. Good. Well, you want me to fix him up?"
+
+The lumber-jacks nodded.
+
+"That's it," said Duggan cheerfully.
+
+Chepstow considered for a moment. Then he glanced over at Betty. Their
+eyes met, and his had a smile of encouragement in them. He turned back
+at once to the waiting men.
+
+"I'll help you, but on one or two conditions. I demand my own
+conditions absolutely. They're easy, but I won't change them or
+moderate them by a single detail."
+
+"Get to it, passon," said Canfield, as he paused. "Make 'em easy, an'
+ther' won't be no kick comin'."
+
+"You must bring the fellow here, and leave him with us until he is
+sufficiently recovered. Any of you can come and see him, if he's not
+too sick. Then you must give me a guarantee that my niece and I can
+visit the sick camp to tend the boys up there without any sort of
+molestation. You understand? You must guarantee this. You must
+guarantee that we are in no way interfered with, and if at any time we
+are out of this hut, no one will enter it without our permission. We
+are here for peace. We are here to help your sick comrades. Your
+affairs with your employers have nothing to do with us. Is it a deal?"
+
+"Why sure, passon," replied Duggan. And Tim nodded his approval.
+
+"It's folks like you makes things easy fer us," added the latter, with
+hearty good-will. "Guess we'll shake on it."
+
+He held out his hand, and Chepstow promptly gripped it. He also shook
+the other by the hand.
+
+"Now, boys," he said genially, "how about those others outside? How
+will you guarantee them?"
+
+"We'll fix that quick. Say, Mike, just open that door." Canfield turned
+again to Chepstow, while Mike obeyed orders. "I'll give 'em a few
+words," he went on, "an' we'll send right off for Walford. He's mighty
+bad, passon. He's----"
+
+The door was open by this time, and the two men hurried out. Chepstow
+secured it behind them, and stood listening for what was to happen. He
+heard Canfield haranguing the crowd, and his words seemed to have the
+desired effect, for presently the whole lot began to move off, and in
+two minutes the last sound of voices and receding footsteps had died
+out. Betty drew a sigh of relief.
+
+"Uncle," she said, smiling affectionately across at him as he left the
+door and came toward the stove, "you are a genius of diplomacy."
+
+The man laughed self-consciously.
+
+"Well, we have gained a point," he said doubtfully.
+
+Betty let her eyes fall upon her sewing again.
+
+"Yes, we have gained a point. I wonder how long that point will hold
+good, when--when the drink begins to flow."
+
+"That's what I'm wondering."
+
+And their question was answered in less than twenty-four hours.
+
+
+Half an hour later the wounded strike-leader was brought to the hut. He
+was in a semi-conscious state, and a swift examination showed him to be
+in a pretty bad way. The bullet had ploughed its way through the
+shoulder, smashing both the collar-bone and the shoulder-blade. Then,
+though no vital spot had been touched, the loss of blood had been
+terrific. He had been left lying at the store ever since he was shot by
+Mason, with just a rough bandage of his own shirt, which had been quite
+powerless to stop the flow of blood.
+
+It took Chepstow nearly two hours to dress the wound and set the bones,
+and by that time the man's weakness had plunged him into absolute
+unconsciousness. Still, this was due solely to loss of blood, and with
+careful nursing there was no real reason why he should not make a
+satisfactory recovery.
+
+The rest of the night was spent at the sick man's bedside. Betty and
+her uncle shared the vigil in reliefs, and, weary work as it was, they
+never hesitated. A life was at stake, and though the man was the cause
+of all the trouble, or instrumental in it, they were yet ready to spare
+no effort on his behalf. With the parson it was sheer love of his duty
+toward all men that gave him inspiration. With Betty there may have
+been a less Christian spirit in her motives. All this man's efforts had
+been directed against the man she loved, and she hated him for it; but
+a life was at stake, and a life, to her, was a very sacred thing.
+
+The next day was spent between care for the sick at the fever camp and
+the wounded man in their own quarters, and the guarantee of the
+strikers was literally carried out. There were one or two visits to
+their sick leader, but no interference or molestation occurred. Then at
+sundown came the first warning of storm.
+
+Betty was returning to the dugout. She was tired and sick at heart with
+her labors. For both it had been a strenuous day, but it had found her
+strength out a good deal more than it had her uncle's. Ahead of her she
+knew there yet lay a long night of nursing the wounded man.
+
+It was a gorgeous evening. The fog had quite passed away. A splendid
+sunset lit the glittering peaks towering about her with a cloak of
+iridescent fire. The snow caps shone with a ruddy glow, while the
+ancient glaciers suggested molten streams pouring from the heart of
+them to the darkling wood-belts below. The girl paused and for a moment
+the wonder of the scene lifted her out of her weariness. But it was
+only momentary. The whole picture was so transient. It changed and
+varied with kaleidoscopic suddenness, and vanished altogether in less
+than five minutes. Again the mountains assumed the gray cold of their
+unlit beauties. The sun had gone, and day merged into night with almost
+staggering abruptness. She turned with a sigh to resume her journey.
+
+It was then that her attention was drawn elsewhere. In the direction of
+the lumber camp, in the very heart of it, it seemed, a heavy smoke was
+rising and drifting westward on the light evening breeze. It was not
+the haze of smoke from campfires just lit, but a cloud augmented by
+great belches from below. And in the growing dusk she fancied there was
+even a ruddy reflection lighting it. She stared with wide-open,
+wondering eyes.
+
+Suddenly a great shaft of flame shot up into its midst, and, as it lit
+the scene, she heard the shouting of men mingling with the crash of
+falling timber. She stood spellbound, a strange terror gripping her
+heart. It was fear of the unknown. There was a fire--burning what? She
+turned and ran for the dugout.
+
+Bursting into the hut, she poured out her tidings to her uncle, who was
+preparing supper. The man listening to her hasty words understood the
+terror that beset her. Fire in those forest regions might well strike
+terror into the heart. He held a great check upon himself.
+
+"Sit down, child," he said gently, at the conclusion of her story. "Sit
+down and have some food. Afterward, while you see to Walford, I'll cut
+through the woods and see what's doing."
+
+He accomplished his object. Betty calmed at once, and obediently sat
+down to the food he set before her. She even forced herself to eat, and
+presently realized she was hungry. The churchman said nothing until
+they had finished eating. Then he lit his pipe.
+
+"It's drink, I expect," he said, as though he had been striving to
+solve the matter during supper. "Likely they're burning the camp. We
+know what they are."
+
+Betty took a deep breath.
+
+"And if they're doing that here, what about the outlying camps?"
+
+She knew that such an event would mean absolute ruin to Dave, and again
+her terror rose. This time it was for Dave, and the feeling sickened
+her.
+
+Her uncle put on his hat. He had no answer for her. He understood what
+was in her mind.
+
+"Don't leave this place, Betty," he said calmly. "Redress Walford's
+wound the way I showed you. Keep this door barred, and don't let any
+one in. I'll be back soon."
+
+He was gone. And the manner of his going suggested anything but the
+calmness with which he spoke.
+
+
+Once outside, the terror he had refused to display in Betty's presence
+lent wings to his feet. Night had closed in by the time he took to the
+woods. Now the air was full of the burning reek, and he tried to
+calculate the possibilities. He snuffed at the air to test the smell,
+fearful lest it should be the forest that was burning. He could not
+tell. He was too inexperienced in woodcraft to judge accurately. In
+their sober senses these lumber-jacks dreaded fire as much as a sailor
+dreads it at sea, then there could be little doubt as to the cause of
+it now. The inevitable had happened. Drink was flowing, scorching out
+the none too acute senses of these savages. Where would their orgy lead
+them? Was there any limit that could hold them? He thought not. If he
+were inexperienced in the woodsman's craft, he knew these woodsmen, and
+he shuddered at the pictures his thoughts painted.
+
+As he drew nearer the camp the smoke got into his lungs. The fire must
+be a big one. A sudden thought came to him, and with it his fears
+receded. He wondered why it had not occurred to him before. Of course.
+His eyes brightened almost to a smile. If what he suspected had
+happened, perhaps it was the hand of Providence working in Dave's
+interest. Working in Dave's, and---- Perhaps it was the cleansing fires
+of the Almighty sent to wipe out the evil inspired by the erring mind
+of man.
+
+He reached the fringe of woods which surrounded the clearing of the
+camp, and in another few seconds he stood in the open.
+
+"Thank God," he exclaimed. Then, in a moment, the horror of a pitying
+Christian mind shone in his eyes. His lips were tight shut, and his
+hands clenched at his sides. Every muscle strung tense with the force
+of his emotions.
+
+In the centre of the clearing the sutler's store was a blazing pile.
+But it was literally in the centre, with such a distance between it and
+the surrounding woods as to reduce the danger of setting fire to them
+to a minimum. It was this, and the fact that it was the store where the
+spirits were kept, that had inspired his heartfelt exclamation. But his
+horror was for that which he saw besides.
+
+The running figures of the strikers about the fire were the figures of
+men mad with drink. Their shoutings, their laughter, their antics told
+him this. But they were not so drunk but what they had sacked the store
+before setting it ablaze. Ah, he understood now, and he wondered what
+had happened to the Jew trader.
+
+He drew nearer. He felt safe in doing so. These demented savages were
+so fully occupied that they were scarcely likely to observe him. And if
+they did, he doubted if he were running much personal risk. They had no
+particular animosity for him.
+
+And as he came near, the sights he beheld sickened him. There were
+several fights in progress. Not individual battles, but drunken brawls
+in groups; mauling, savaging masses of men whose instinct, when roused,
+it is to hurt, hurt anyhow, and if possible to kill. These men fought
+as beasts fight, tearing each other with teeth and hands, gouging,
+hacking, clawing. It was a merciless display of brute savagery inspired
+by a bestial instinct, stirred to fever pitch by the filthy spirit
+served in a lumber camp.
+
+At another point, well away from the burning building, the merchandise
+was piled, tossed together in the reckless fashion only to be expected
+in men so inspired. Around this were the more sober, helping themselves
+greedily, snatching at clothing, at blankets, at the tools of their
+craft. Some were loaded with tin boxes of fancy biscuits and canned
+meats, others had possessed themselves of the cheap jewelry such as
+traders love to dazzle the eyes of their simple customers with. Each
+took as his stomach guided him, but with a gluttony for things which
+can be had for nothing always to be found in people of unbridled
+passions. It was a sight little less revolting than the other, for it
+spoke of another form of unchecked savagery.
+
+Not far from this, shown in strong relief by the lurid fires, was
+gathered a shouting, turbulent crowd round a pile of barrels and cases.
+Three barrels were standing on end, apart from the rest, and their
+heads had been removed, and round these struggled a maddened crew with
+tin pannikins. They were dipping the fiery spirit out of the casks, and
+draining each draught as hurriedly as the scorching stuff could pass
+down their throats, so as to secure as much as possible before it was
+all gone. The watching man shuddered. Truly a more terrible display was
+inconceivable. The men were not human in their orgy. They were wild
+beasts. What, he asked himself, what would be the result when the
+liquor had saturated the brains of every one of them? It was too
+terrible to contemplate.
+
+The roar of the blazing building, the babel of shouting, the darkly
+lurid light shining amidst the shadows of surrounding woods, the
+starlit heavens above, the stillness of mountain gloom and solitude;
+these things created a picture so awful of contemplation as to be
+unforgettable. Every detail drove into the watching man's heart as
+though graven there with chisel and hammer. It was a hellish picture,
+lit with hellish light, and set in the midst of gloom profound. The men
+might have been demons silhouetted against the ruddy fire; their
+doings, their antics, had in them so little that was human. It was
+awful, and at last, in despair, the man on the outskirts of the
+clearing turned and fled. Anything rather than this degrading sight; he
+could bear it no longer. He sickened, yet his heart yearned for them.
+There was nothing he could do to help them or check them. He could only
+pray for their demented souls, and--see to the safeguarding of Betty.
+
+
+Betty heard her uncle's voice calling, and flung down the bars of the
+door. She looked into his ghastly face as he hurried in. She asked no
+question, and watched him as with nervous hands he closed and secured
+the door behind him. Her eyes followed his movements as he crossed to
+the stove and flung himself into a chair. She saw his head droop
+forward, and his hands cover his eyes in a gesture of despair. Still
+she waited, her breath coming more quickly as the moments passed.
+
+She moved a step toward him, and slowly he raised a drawn haggard face,
+and his horrified eyes looked into hers.
+
+"You must not leave this hut on any pretense, Betty," he said slowly.
+Then he raised his eyes to the roof. "God have pity on them! They are
+mad! Mad with drink, and ready for any debauchery. I could kill the
+men," he went on, shaking his two clenched fists in the air, "who have
+driven them----"
+
+"Hush, uncle!" the girl broke in, laying a restraining hand upon his
+upraised arms. "One of them lies over there, and--and he is wounded. We
+must do what we can to help."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT
+
+
+It was sundown in the Red Sand Valley. The hush of evening had settled
+upon Malkern, and its calm was only broken by the droning machinery of
+the mills. The sky was lit by that chilly, yellow afterglow of sunset
+which, eastward, merges into the gray and purple of twilight. Already
+the long-drawn shadows had expanded into the dusk so rapidly obscuring
+the remoter distance. Straight and solemn rose spires of smoke from
+hidden chimneys, lolling in the still air, as though loath to leave the
+scented atmosphere of the valley below. It was the moment of delicious
+calm when Nature is preparing to seek repose.
+
+Two women were standing at the door of Dave's house, and the patch of
+garden surrounding them, so simple, so plain, was a perfect setting for
+their elderly, plainly clad figures. Dave's mother, very old, but full
+of quiet energy, was listening to the gentle complaint of Mrs.
+Chepstow. She was listening, but her gaze was fixed on the distant
+mills, an attitude which had practically become her settled habit. The
+mill, to her, was the end of the earth; there was nothing beyond.
+
+"I am dreadfully worried," Mrs. Tom was saying, the anxious wrinkles of
+her forehead lifting her brows perplexedly. "It's more than six weeks
+since I heard from Tom and Betty. It's not like him, he's so regular
+with letters usually. It was madness letting Betty go up there. I can't
+think what we were doing. If anything has happened to them I shall
+never forgive myself. I think I shall go down and talk to Dave about
+it. He may know something. He's sure to know if they are well."
+
+The other slowly withdrew her gaze from the mills. It was as though the
+effort required to do so were a great one, and one she reluctantly
+undertook. The pivot of her life was her boy. A pivot upon which it
+revolved without flagging or interruption. She had watched him grow to
+a magnificent manhood, and with all a pure woman's love and wonderful
+instinct she had watched and tended him as she might some great oak
+tree raised from the frailest sapling. Then, when his struggles came,
+she had shared them with him with a supreme loyalty, helping him with a
+quiet, strong sympathy which found expression in little touches which
+probably even he never realized. All his successes and disasters had
+been hers; all his joys, all his sorrows. And now, in her old age, she
+clung to this love with the pathetic tenacity of one who realizes that
+the final parting is not far distant.
+
+Her furrowed face lit with a wonderful smile.
+
+"I cannot say for sure," she said. "There are times when Dave will not
+admit me to the thoughts which disturb him. At such times I know that
+things are not running smoothly. There are other times when he talks
+quite freely of his hopes, his fears. Then I know that all is well.
+When he complains I know he is questioning his own judgment, and
+distrusts himself. And when he laughs at things I know that the trouble
+is a sore one, and I prepare for disaster. All his moods have meaning
+for me. Just now I am reading from his silence, and it tells me that
+much is wrong, and I am wondering. But I do not think it concerns
+Betty--and, consequently, not your husband; if anything were wrong with
+her I think I should know." She smiled with all the wisdom of old age.
+
+Mrs. Tom's anxiety was slightly allayed, but her curiosity was
+proportionately roused.
+
+"Why would you know--about Betty?" she asked.
+
+The older woman's eyes were again turned in the direction of the mill.
+
+"Why--why?" She smiled and turned to the churchman's wife. "It would
+produce a fresh mood in my boy, one I'm not familiar with." Then she
+became suddenly grave. "I think I should dread that mood more than any
+other. You see, deep down in his heart there are passionate depths that
+no one has yet stirred. Were they let loose I fear to think how they
+might drive him. Dave's head only rules just as far as his heart
+chooses."
+
+"But Betty?" demanded Mrs. Tom. "How is she----"
+
+"Betty?" interrupted the other, humorously eyeing the eager face. "The
+one great passion of Dave's life is Betty. I know. And he thinks it is
+hopeless. I am betraying no confidence. Dave hugs his secret to
+himself, but he can't hide it from me. I'm glad he loves her. You don't
+know how glad. You see, I am in love with her myself, and--and I am
+getting very old."
+
+"And--does Betty know?"
+
+Dave's mother shook her head and smiled.
+
+"Betty loves him, but neither understands the other's feelings. But
+that is nothing. Love belongs to Heaven, and Heaven will straighten
+this out. Listen!"
+
+The old woman's eyes turned abruptly in the direction of the mill.
+There was a curious, anxious look in them, and a perplexed frown drew
+her brows together. One hand was raised to hold the other woman's
+attention. It was as though something vital had shocked her, as though
+some sudden spasm of physical pain had seized her. Her face slowly grew
+gray.
+
+Three people passing along the trail in front of the house had also
+stopped. Their eyes were also turned in the direction of the mill.
+Further along a child at play had suddenly paused in its game to turn
+toward the mill. There were others, too, all over the village who gave
+up their pursuits to listen.
+
+"The mills have stopped work!" cried Mrs. Torn breathlessly.
+
+But Dave's mother had no response for her. She had even forgotten the
+other's presence at her side. The drone of the machinery was silent.
+
+
+Dawson was interviewing his employer in the latter's office. Both men
+looked desperately worried. Dave's eyes were lit with a brooding light.
+It was as though a cloud of storm had settled upon his rugged features.
+Dawson had desperation in every line of his hard face.
+
+"Have you sent up the river?" demanded Dave, eyeing his head man as
+though he alone were responsible for the trouble which was upon them.
+
+"I've sent, boss. We've had jams on the river before, an' I guessed it
+was that. I didn't worrit any for four-an'-twenty hours. It's different
+now. Ther' ain't bin a log come down for nigh thirty-six hours."
+
+"How many men did you send up?"
+
+"Six. Two teams, an' all the gear needed for breakin' the jam."
+
+"Yes. You're sure it is a jam?"
+
+"Ther' ain't nothin' else, boss. Leastways, I can't see nothin' else."
+
+"No. And the boom? You've worked out the 'reserve'?"
+
+"Clean right out. Ther' ain't a log in it fit to cut."
+
+Dave sat down at his desk. He idled clumsily for some moments with the
+pen in his fingers. His eyes were staring blankly out of the grimy
+window. The din of the saws rose and fell, and the music for once
+struck bitterly into his soul. It jarred his nerves, and he stirred
+restlessly. What was this new trouble that had come upon him? No logs!
+No logs! Why? He could not understand. A jam? Dawson said it must be a
+jam on the river. He was a practical lumberman, and to him it was the
+only explanation. He had sent up men to find out and free it. But why
+should there be a jam? The river was wide and swift, and the logs were
+never sent down in such crowds as to make a thing of that nature
+possible at this time of year. Later, yes, when the water was low and
+the stream slack, but now, after the recent rains, it was still a
+torrent. No logs! The thought was always his nightmare, and now--it was
+a reality.
+
+"It must be a jam, I s'pose," said Dave presently, but his tone carried
+no conviction.
+
+"What else can it be, boss?" asked the foreman anxiously.
+
+His employer's manner, his tone of uncertainty, worried Dawson. He had
+never seen Dave like this before.
+
+"That's so."
+
+Then a look of eager interest came into his eyes. He pointed at the
+window.
+
+"Here's Odd," he said. "And he's in a hurry."
+
+Dawson threw open the door, and Simon Odd lumbered hurriedly into the
+room. He seemed to fill up the place with his vast proportions. His
+face was anxious and doubtful.
+
+"I've had to shut down at the other mill, boss," he explained abruptly.
+"Ther' ain't no logs. Ther've been none for----"
+
+"Thirty-six hours," broke in Dave, with an impatient nod. "I know."
+
+"You know, boss?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The master of the mills turned again to the window, and the two men
+watched him in silence. What would he do? This man to whom they looked
+in difficulty; this man who had never yet failed in resource, in
+courage, to meet and overcome every obstacle, every emergency that
+harassed a lumberman's life.
+
+Suddenly he turned to them again. In his eyes there was a peculiar,
+angry light.
+
+"Well?" he demanded, in a fierce way that was utterly foreign to him.
+"Well?" he reiterated, "what are you standing there for? Get you out,
+both of you. Shut this mill down, too!"
+
+Simon Odd moved to the door, but Dawson remained where he was. It
+almost seemed as if he had not understood. The mill was to be shut down
+for the first time within his knowledge. What did it mean? In all his
+years of association with Dave he had seen such wonders of lumbering
+done by him that he looked upon him as almost infallible. And now--now
+he was tacitly acknowledging defeat without making a single effort. The
+realization, the shock of it, held him still. He made no move to obey
+the roughly-spoken command.
+
+Suddenly Dave turned on him. His face was flushed.
+
+"Get out!" he roared. "Shut down the mill!"
+
+It was the cry of a man driven to a momentary frenzy. For the time
+despair--black, terrible despair--drove the lumberman. He felt he
+wanted to hit out and hurt some one.
+
+Dawson silently followed Odd to the door, and in five minutes the saws
+were still.
+
+Dave sat on at his desk waiting. The moment the shriek of the machinery
+ceased he sprang to his feet and began pacing the floor in nervous,
+hurried strides. What that cessation meant to him only those may know
+who have suddenly seen their life's ambitions, their hopes, crushed out
+at one single blow. Let the saws continue their song, let the droning
+machinery but keep its dead level of tone, and failure in any other
+form, however disastrous, could not hurt in such degree as the sudden
+silencing of his lumberman's world.
+
+For some minutes he was like a madman. He could not think, his nerves
+shivered from his feet to the crown of his great ugly head. His hands
+were clenched as he strode, until the nails of his fingers cut the
+flesh of the palms into which they were crushed. For some minutes he
+saw nothing but the black ruin that rose like a wall before him and
+shut out every thought from his mind. The cessation of machinery was
+like a pall suddenly burying his whole strength and manhood beneath its
+paralyzing weight.
+
+But gradually the awful tension eased. It could not hold and its victim
+remain sane. So narrow was his focus during those first passionate
+moments that he could not see beyond his own personal loss. But with
+the passing minutes his view widened, and into the picture grew those
+things which had always been the inspiration of his ambitions. He flung
+himself heavily into his chair, and his eyes stared through the dirty
+window at the silent mill beyond. And for an hour he sat thus,
+thinking, thinking. His nervous tension had passed, his mind became
+clear, and though the nature of his thoughts lashed his heart, and a
+hundred times drove him to the verge of that first passion of despair
+again, there was an impersonal note in them which allowed the use of
+his usually clear reasoning, and so helped him to rise above himself
+once more.
+
+His castles had been set a-tumbling, and he saw in their fall the
+crushing of Malkern, the village which was almost as a child to him.
+And with the crushing of the village must come disaster to all his
+friends. For one weak moment he felt that this responsibility should
+not be his--it was not fair to fix it on him. What had he done to
+deserve so hard a treatment? He thought of Tom Chepstow, loyal, kindly,
+always caring and thinking for those who needed his help. He thought of
+the traders of the village who hoped and prayed for his success, that
+meant prosperity for themselves and happiness for their wives and
+children. And these things began to rekindle the fighting flame within
+him; the flame which hitherto had always burned so fiercely. He could
+not let them go under.
+
+Then with a rush a picture rose before his mind, flooding it, shutting
+out all those others, every thought of self or anybody else. It was
+Betty, with her gentle face, her soft brown hair and tender smiling
+eyes. Their steady courageous light shone deep down into his heart, and
+seemed to smite him for his weakness. His pulses began to throb, the
+weakened tide of his blood was sent coursing through his veins and
+mounted, mounted steadily to his brain. God! He must not go under. Even
+now the loyal child was up in the hills fighting his battles for him
+with----
+
+He broke off, and sprang to his feet. A terrible fear had suddenly
+leapt at his heart and clutched him. Betty was up there in the hills.
+He had not heard from the hill camps for weeks. And now the supply of
+logs had ceased. What had happened? What was happening up there?
+
+The lethargy of despair lifted like a cloud. He was alert, thrilling
+with all the virility of his manhood set pulsing through his veins.
+Once more he was the man Dawson had failed to recognize when he ordered
+the mills to be closed down. Once more he was the man whose personal
+force had lifted him to his position as the master of Malkern mills. He
+was the Dave whom all the people of the village knew, ready to fight to
+the last ounce of his power, to the last drop of his blood.
+
+"They shan't beat us!" he muttered, as he strode out into the yard. Nor
+could he have said of whom he was speaking, if anybody at all.
+
+
+It was nearly midnight. Again Dawson and Simon Odd were in their
+employer's office. But this time a very different note prevailed.
+Dawson's hard face was full of keen interest. His eyes were eager. He
+was listening to the great man he had always known. Simon Odd, burly
+and unassuming, was waiting his turn when his chief had finished with
+his principal foreman.
+
+"I've thought this thing out, Dawson," Dave said pleasantly, in a tone
+calculated to inspire the other with confidence, and in a manner
+suggesting that the affair of the logs had not seriously alarmed him,
+"and evolved a fresh plan of action. No doubt, as you say, the thing's
+simply a jam on the river. If this is so, it will be freed in a short
+time, and we can go ahead. On the other hand, there may be some other
+reason for the trouble. I can't think of any explanation myself, but
+that is neither here nor there. Now I intend going up the river
+to-night. Maybe I shall go on to the camps. I shall be entirely guided
+by circumstances. Anyway I shall likely be away some days. Whatever is
+wrong, I intend to see it straight. In the meantime you will stand
+ready to begin work the moment the logs come down. And when they come
+down I intend they shall come down at a pace that shall make up for all
+the time we have lost. That's all I have for you. I simply say, be
+ready. Good-night."
+
+The man went out with a grin of satisfaction on his weather-beaten
+face. This was the Dave he knew, and he was glad.
+
+Simon Odd received his orders. He too must be ready. He must have his
+men ready. His mill must be asked to do more than ever before when the
+time came, and on his results would depend a comfortable bonus the size
+of which quite dazzled the simple giant.
+
+With his departure Dave began his own preparations. There was much to
+see to in leaving everything straight for his foremen. Dawson was more
+than willing. This new responsibility appealed to him as no other
+confidence his employer could have reposed in him. They spent some time
+together, and finally Dave returned to his office.
+
+During the evening inquirers from the village flooded the place. But no
+official information on the subject of the cessation of work was
+forthcoming, nor would Dave see any of them. They were driven to be
+content with gleanings of news from the mill hands, and these, with the
+simple lumberman's understanding of such things, explained that there
+was a jam on the river which might take a day, or even two days, to
+free. In this way a panic in the village was averted.
+
+Dave required provisions from home. But he could not spare the time to
+return there for them. He intended to set out on his journey at
+midnight. Besides, he had no wish to alarm his old mother. And somehow
+he was afraid she would drag the whole truth of his fears out of him.
+So he sent a note by one of the men setting out his requirements.
+
+His answer came promptly. The man returned with the kit bag only, and
+word that his mother was bringing the food down herself, and he smiled
+at the futility of his attempt to put her off.
+
+Ten minutes later she entered his office with her burden of provisions.
+Her face was calmly smiling. There was no trace of anxiety in it. So
+carefully was the latter suppressed that the effort it entailed became
+apparent to the man.
+
+"You shouldn't have bothered, ma," he protested. "I sent the man up
+specially to bring those things down."
+
+His mother's eyes had a shrewd look in them.
+
+"I know," she said. "There's a ham and some bacon, biscuit, and a fresh
+roast of beef here. Then I've put in a good supply of groceries."
+
+"Thanks, dear," he said gently. "You always take care of my inner man.
+But I wish you hadn't bothered this way."
+
+"It's no sort of trouble," she said, raising her eyes to his. Then she
+let them drop again. "Food don't need a lumberman's rough handling."
+
+The smile on Dave's face was good to see. He nodded.
+
+"I'd better tell you," he said. "You know, we've--stopped?"
+
+His eyes lingered fondly on the aged figure. This woman was very
+precious to him.
+
+"Yes, I know." There was the very slightest flash of anxiety in the old
+eyes. Then it was gone.
+
+"I'm going up the river to find things out."
+
+"That's what I understood. Betty is up there--too."
+
+The quiet assurance of his mother's remark brought a fresh light into
+the man's eyes, and the blood surged to his cheeks.
+
+"Yes, ma. That's it--chiefly."
+
+"I thought so. And--I'm glad. You'll bring her back with you?"
+
+"Yes, ma."
+
+"Good-bye, boy." His simple assurance satisfied her. Her faith in him
+was the faith of a mother.
+
+The man bent down and kissed the withered, upturned face.
+
+She went out, and Dave turned to the things she had brought him. She
+had thought of everything. And the food--he smiled. She was his mother,
+and the food had the amplitude such as is characteristic of a mother
+when providing for a beloved son.
+
+He must visit the barn to see about his horses. He went to the door.
+Opening it, he paused. Standing there he became aware of the sound of
+approaching wheels. The absence of any noise from the mills had made
+the night intensely silent, so that the rattle of wheels upon the hard
+sand trail, though distant, sounded acutely on the night air. He stood
+listening, with one great hand grasping the door casing. Yes, they were
+wheels. And now, too, he could hear the sharp pattering of horses'
+hoofs. The sound was uneven, yet regular, and he recognized the gait.
+They were approaching at a gallop. Nearer they came, and of a sudden he
+understood they were practically racing for the mill.
+
+He left the doorway and moved out into the yard. He thought it might be
+the team which Dawson had sent out returning, and perhaps bringing good
+news of the jam on the river. He walked toward the yard gates and stood
+listening intently. The night was dark, but clear and still, and as he
+listened he fancied in the rattle of the vehicle he recognized the
+peculiar creak of a buckboard.
+
+Nearer and nearer it came, louder and louder the clatter of hoofs and
+the rattle of wheels. The gallop seemed labored, like the clumsy gait
+of weary horses, and the waiting man straining could plainly hear a
+voice urging them on.
+
+Suddenly he thought of the gates, and promptly opened them. He hardly
+knew why he did so. It must have been the effect of the pace at which
+the horses were being driven. It must have been that the speed inspired
+him with an idea of emergency. Now he stood out in the road, and
+stooping, glanced along it till the faint light of the horizon revealed
+a dark object on the trail. He drew back and slowly returned to the
+office.
+
+The man's voice urging his horses on required no effort to hear now. It
+was hoarse with shouting, and the slashing of his whip told the waiting
+man of the pace at which he had traveled. The vehicle entered the yard
+gates. The urging voice became silent, the weary horses clattered up to
+the office door and came to a standstill.
+
+From the doorway Dave surveyed the outfit. He did not recognize it, but
+something about the man climbing out of the vehicle was familiar.
+
+"That you, Mason?" he asked sharply.
+
+"Yes--and another. Will you bear a hand to get him out?"
+
+Dave went to his assistance, wondering. Mason was busy undoing some
+ropes. Dave's wonder increased. As he came up he saw that the ropes
+held a man captive in the carryall.
+
+"Who is it?" he inquired.
+
+"Jim Truscott--whoever he may be," responded Mason with a laugh, as he
+freed the last rope.
+
+"Ah! Well, come right in--and bring him along too."
+
+But Mason remembered the animals that had served him so well.
+
+"What about the 'plugs'?" He was holding his captive, who stood silent
+at his side.
+
+"You go inside. I'll see to them."
+
+Dave watched Mason conduct his prisoner into the office, then he sprang
+into the buckboard and drove it across to the barn.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+MASON'S PRISONER
+
+
+In a few minutes Dave returned from the barn. He had chosen to attend
+to the horses himself, for his own reasons preferring not to rouse the
+man who looked after his horses.
+
+His thoughts were busy while he was thus occupied. As yet he had no
+idea of what had actually occurred in the camps, but Mason's presence
+at such a time, the identity of his prisoner, the horses' condition of
+exhaustion; these things warned him of the gravity of the situation,
+and something of the possibilities. By the time he reentered the office
+he was prepared for anything his "camp-boss" might have to tell him.
+
+He noted the faces of the two men carefully. In Mason he saw the
+weariness of a long nervous strain. His broad face was drawn, his eyes
+were sunken and deeply shadowed. From head to foot he was powdered with
+the red dust of the trail. Dave was accustomed to being well served,
+but he felt that this man had been serving him to something very near
+the limits of his endurance. Jim Truscott's face afforded him the
+keenest interest. It was healthier looking than he had seen it since
+his first return to Malkern. The bloated puffiness, the hall-mark of
+his persistent debauches, had almost entirely gone. The health produced
+by open-air and spare feeding showed in the tan of his skin. His eyes
+were clear, and though he, too, looked worn out, there was less of
+exhaustion about him than his captor. On the other hand there was none
+of Mason's fearless honesty in his expression. There was a truculent
+defiance in his eyes, a furious scowl in the drawn brows. There was a
+nervousness in the loose, weak mouth. His wrists were lashed securely
+together by a rope which had been applied with scant mercy. Dave's eyes
+took all these things in, and he pointed to the latter as he addressed
+himself to his overseer.
+
+"Better loose that," he said, in that even voice which gave away so
+little of his real feelings. "Guess you're both pretty near done in,"
+he went on, as Mason unfastened the knots. "Got down here in a hurry?"
+
+"Yes; got any whiskey?"
+
+Mason had finished removing the prisoner's bonds when he spoke.
+
+"Brandy."
+
+"That'll do."
+
+The overseer laughed as men will laugh when they are least inclined to.
+Dave poured out long drinks and handed them to the two men. Mason drank
+his down at a gulp, but Truscott pushed his aside without a word.
+
+"There's a deal to tell," said the overseer, as he set his glass down.
+
+"There's some hours to daylight," Dave replied. "Go right ahead, and
+take your own time."
+
+The other let his tired eyes rest on his prisoner for some moments and
+remained silent. He was considering how best to tell his story.
+Suddenly he looked up.
+
+"The camp's on 'strike,'" he said.
+
+"Ah!" And it was Dave's eyes that fell upon Jim Truscott now.
+
+There was a world of significance in that ejaculation and the
+expression that leapt to the lumberman's eyes. It was a desperate blow
+the overseer had dealt him; but it was a blow that did not crush. It
+carried with it a complete explanation. And that explanation was of
+something he understood and had power to deal with.
+
+"And--this?" Dave nodded in Jim's direction.
+
+"Is one of the leaders."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+Again came Dave's meaning ejaculation. Then he settled himself in his
+chair and prepared to listen.
+
+"Get going," he said; but he felt that he required little more
+explanation.
+
+Mason began his story by inquiries about his own letters to his
+employer, and learned that none of them had been received during the
+last few weeks, and he gave a similar reply to Dave's inquiries as to
+the fate of his letters to the camp. Then he went on to the particulars
+of the strike movement, from the first appearance of unrest to the
+final moment when it became an accomplished fact. He told him how the
+chance "hands" he had been forced to take on had been the disturbing
+element, and these, he was now convinced, had for some reason been
+inspired. He told of that visit on the Sunday night to the sutler's
+store, he told of his narrow escape, and of his shooting down one of
+the men, and the fortunate capture, made with the timely assistance of
+Tom Chepstow, of his prisoner. Dave listened attentively, but his eyes
+were always on Truscott, and at the finish of the long story his
+commendation was less hearty than one might have expected.
+
+"You've made good, Mason, an' I'm obliged," he said, after a prolonged
+silence. "Say," he went on, glancing at his watch, "there's just four
+and a half hours to the time we start back for the camp. Go over to
+Dawson's shack and get a shake-down. Get what sleep you can. I'll call
+you in time. Meanwhile I'll see to this fellow," he added, indicating
+the prisoner. "We'll have a heap of time for talk on the way to the
+camps."
+
+The overseer's eyes lit.
+
+"Are you going up to the camps?" he inquired eagerly.
+
+"Yes, surely. We'll have to straighten this out." Then a sudden thought
+flashed through his mind. "There's the parson and----!"
+
+Mason nodded.
+
+"Yes. They've got my shack. There's plenty of arms and ammunition. I
+left parson to hurry back to----"
+
+"He wasn't with her when you left?"
+
+There was a sudden, fierce light in Dave's eyes. Mason shook his head,
+and something of the other's apprehension was in his voice as he
+replied--
+
+"He was going back there."
+
+Dave's eyes were fiercely riveted upon Truscott's face.
+
+"We'll start earlier. Get an hour's sleep."
+
+There was no misunderstanding his employer's tone. In fact, for the
+first time since he had left the camp Mason realized the full danger of
+those two he had left behind him. But he knew he had done the only
+possible thing in the circumstances, and besides, his presence there
+would have added to their danger. Still, as he left the office to seek
+the brief rest for which he was longing, he was not without a qualm of
+conscience which his honest judgment told him he was not entitled to.
+
+Dave closed the door carefully behind him. Then he came back to his
+chair, and for some moments surveyed his prisoner in silence. Truscott
+stirred uneasily under the cold regard. Then he looked up, and all his
+bitter hatred for his one-time friend shone in the defiant stare he
+gave him.
+
+"I've tried to understand, but I can't," Dave said at last, as though
+his words were the result of long speculation. "It is so far beyond me
+that---- This is your doing, all your doing. It's nothing to do with
+those--those 'scabs.' You, and you alone have brought about this
+strike. First you pay a man to wreck my mills--you even try to kill me.
+Now you do this. You have thought it all out with devilish cunning.
+There is nothing that could ruin me so surely as this strike. You mean
+to wreck me; nor do you care who goes down in the crash. You have
+already slain one man in your villainy. For that you stand branded
+a--murderer. God alone knows what death and destruction this strike in
+the hills may bring about. And all of it is aimed at me. Why? In God's
+name, why?"
+
+Dave's manner was that of cold argument. He displayed none of the
+passion that really stirred him. He longed to take this man in his two
+great hands, and crush the mean life out of him. But nothing of such
+feeling was allowed to show itself. He began to fill his pipe. He did
+not want to smoke, but it gave his hands something to do, and just then
+his hands demanded something to do.
+
+His words elicited no reply. Truscott's eyes were upon the hands
+fumbling at the bowl of the pipe. He was not really observing them. He
+was wrapped in his own thoughts, and his eyes simply fixed themselves
+on the only moving thing in the room. Dave put his pipe in his mouth
+and refolded his pouch. Presently he went on speaking, and his tone
+became warmer, and his words more rapid.
+
+"There was a time when you were a man, a decent, honest, happy man; a
+youngster with all the world before you. At that time I did all in my
+power to help you. You remember? You ran that mill. It was a matter of
+hanging on and waiting till fortune turned your way for success and
+prosperity to come. Then one day you came to me; you and she. It was
+decided that you should go away--to seek your fortune elsewhere. We
+shook hands. Do you remember? You left her in my care. All this seems
+like yesterday. I promised you then that always, in the name of
+friendship, you could command me. Your trust I carried out to the
+letter, and all I promised I was ready to fulfil. Need I remind you of
+what has happened since? Need I draw a picture of the drunkard, gambler
+who returned to Malkern, of the insults you have put upon her,
+everybody? Of her patience and loyalty? Of the manner in which you
+finally made it impossible for her to marry you? It is not necessary.
+You know it all--if you are a sane man, which I am beginning to doubt.
+And now--now why are you doing all this? I intend to know. I mean to
+drag it out of you before you leave this room!"
+
+He had risen from his seat and stood before his captive with one hand
+outstretched in his direction, grasping his pipe by the bowl. His
+calmness had gone, a passion of angry protest surged through his veins.
+He was no longer the cool, clear-headed master of the mills, but a man
+swept by a fury of resentment at the injustice, the wanton, devilish,
+mischievous injustice of one whom he had always befriended. Friendship
+was gone and in its place there burned the human desire for retaliation.
+
+Truscott's introspective stare changed to a wicked laugh. It was
+forced, and had for its object the intention of goading the other. Dave
+calmed immediately. He understood that laugh in time, and so it failed
+in its purpose and died out. In its place the man's face darkened. It
+was he who fell a victim to his own intention. All his hatred for his
+one-time friend rose within him suddenly, and swept him on its burning
+tide.
+
+"You stand there preaching! You!" he cried with a ferocity so sudden
+that it became appalling. "You dare to preach to me of honesty, of
+friendship, of promises fulfilled? You? God, it makes me boil to hear
+you! If ever there was a traitor to friendship in this world it is you.
+I came back to marry Betty. Why else should I come back? And I
+find--what? She is changed. You have seen to that. For a time she kept
+up the pretense of our engagement. Then she seized upon the first
+excuse to break it. Why? For you! Oh, your trust was well fulfilled.
+You lost no time in my absence. Who was it I found her with on my
+return? You! Who was present to give her courage and support when she
+refused to marry me? You! Do you think I haven't seen the way it has
+all been worked? You have secured her uncle's and aunt's support. You!
+You have taken her from me! You! And you preach friendship and honesty
+to me. God, but you're a liar and a thief!"
+
+For a moment the lumberman's fury leapt and in another he would have
+crushed the man's life out of him, but, in a flash, his whole mood
+changed. The accusations were so absurd even from his own point of
+view. Could it be? For a moment he believed that the loss of Betty had
+unhinged Truscott's mind. But the thought passed, and he grew as calm
+now as a moment before he had been furious, and an icy sternness
+chilled him through and through. There was no longer a vestige of pity
+in him for his accuser. He sat down and lit his pipe, his heavy face
+set with the iron that had entered his soul.
+
+"You have lied to yourself until you have come to believe it," he said
+sternly. "You have lied because it is your nature to lie, because you
+have not an honest thought in your mind. I'll not answer your
+accusations, because they are so hopelessly absurd; but I'll tell you
+what I intend to do."
+
+"You won't answer them because you cannot deny them!" Truscott broke in
+furiously. "They are true, and you know it. You have stolen her from
+me. You! Oh, God, I hate you!"
+
+His voice rose to a strident shout and Dave raised a warning hand.
+
+"Keep quiet!" he commanded coldly. "I have listened to you, and now you
+shall listen to me."
+
+The fire in the other's eyes still shone luridly, but he became silent
+under the coldly compelling manner, while, like a savage beast, he
+crouched in his chair ready to break out into passionate protest at the
+least chance.
+
+"I don't know yet how far things have gone in the way you wish them to
+go up there in the hills, but you have found the way to accomplish your
+end in ruining me. If the strike continues I tell you frankly you will
+have done what you set out to do. My resources are taxed now to the
+limit. That will rejoice you."
+
+Truscott grinned savagely as he sprang in with his retort.
+
+"The strike is thoroughly established, and there are those up there
+who'll see it through. Yes, yes, my friend, it is my doing; all my
+doing, and it cannot fail me now. The money I took from you for the
+mill I laid out well. I laid out more than that--practically all I had
+in the world. Oh, I spared nothing; I had no intention of failing. I
+would give even my life to ruin you!"
+
+"Don't be too sure you may not yet have to pay that price," Dave said
+grimly.
+
+"Willingly."
+
+Truscott's whole manner carried conviction. Dave read in the sudden
+clipping of his teeth, the deadly light of his eyes, the clenching of
+his hands that he meant it.
+
+"I'll ruin you even if I die for it, but I'll see you ruined first,"
+cried Truscott.
+
+"You have miscalculated one thing, Truscott," Dave said slowly. "You
+have forgotten that you are in my power and a captive. However, we'll
+let that go for the moment. I promise you you shall never live to see
+me suffer in the way you hope. You shall not even be aware of it. I
+care nothing for the ruin you hope for, so far as I am personally
+concerned, but I do care for other reasons. In dragging me down you
+will drag Malkern down, too. You will ruin many others. You will even
+involve Betty in the crash, for she, like the rest of us, is bound up
+in Malkern. And in this you will hurt me--hurt me as in your wildest
+dreams you never expected to do." Then he leant forward in his seat,
+and a subtle, deliberate intensity, more deadly for the very frigidity
+of his tone was in his whole attitude. His hands were outstretched
+toward his captive, his fingers were extended and bent at the joints
+like talons ready to clutch and rend their prey. "Now, I tell you
+this," he went on, "as surely as harm comes to Betty up in that camp,
+through any doings of yours, as surely as ruin through your agency
+descends upon this valley, as Almighty God is my Judge I will tear the
+life out of you with my own two hands."
+
+For a moment Truscott's eyes supported the frigid glare of Dave's. For
+a moment he had it in his mind to fling defiance at him. Then his eyes
+shifted and he looked away, and defiance died out of his mind. The
+stronger nature shook the weaker, and an involuntary shudder of
+apprehension slowly crept over him. Dave stirred to the pitch of
+threatening deliberate slaughter had been beyond his imagination. Now
+that he saw it the sight was not pleasant.
+
+Suddenly the lumberman sprang to his feet
+
+"We'll start right away," he said, in his usual voice.
+
+"We?" The monosyllabic question sprang from Truscott's lips in a sudden
+access of fear.
+
+"Yes. We. Mason, you, and me."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+TO THE LUMBER CAMP
+
+
+The gray morning mist rolled slowly up the hillsides from the bosom of
+the warming valley below. Great billows mounted, swelling in volume
+till, overweighted, they toppled, surging like the breaking rollers of
+a wind-swept ocean. Here and there the rosy sunlight brushed the
+swirling sea with a tenderness of color no painter's brush could ever
+hope to produce. A precocious sunbeam shot athwart the leaden prospect.
+It bored its way through the churning fog searching the depths of some
+benighted wood-lined hollow, as though to rouse its slumbering world.
+
+Dense spruce and hemlock forests grew out of the mists. The spires of
+gigantic pines rose, piercing the gray as though gasping for the
+warming radiance above. A perching eagle, newly roused from its
+slumbers, shrieked its morning song till the rebounding cries, echoing
+from a thousand directions, suggested the reveille of the entire
+feathered world. The mournful whistle of a solitary marmot swelled the
+song from many new directions, and the raucous chorus had for its
+accompaniment the thundering chords of hidden waters, seething and
+boiling in the mighty canyons below.
+
+The long-drawn, sibilant hush of night was gone; the leaden mountain
+dawn had passed; day, glorious in its waking splendor, had routed the
+grim shadows from the mystic depths of canyon, from the leaden-hued
+forest-laden valleys. The sunlight was upon the dazzling mountain-tops,
+groping, searching the very heart of the Rocky Mountains.
+
+Dave's buckboard, no more conspicuous than some wandering ant in the
+vast mountain world, crawled from the depths of a wide valley and
+slowly mounted the shoulders of a forest-clad ridge. It vanished into
+the twilight of giant woods, only to be seen again, some hours later,
+at a greater altitude, climbing, climbing the great slopes, or
+descending to gaping hollows, but always attaining the higher lands.
+
+But his speed was by no means a crawl in reality, only did it appear so
+by reason of the vastness of the world about him. His horses were
+traveling as fresh, mettlesome beasts can travel when urged by such a
+man as Dave, with his nerves strung to a terrific tension by the
+emergency of his journey. The willing beasts raced down the hills over
+the uneven trail with all the sure-footed carelessness of the
+prairie-bred broncho. They took the inclines with scarcely perceptible
+slackening of their gait. And only the sharp hills served them for
+breathing space.
+
+Dave occupied the driving-seat while Mason sat guard over Jim Truscott
+in the carryall behind. Those two days on the trail had been unusually
+silent, even for men such as they were, and even taking into
+consideration the object of their journey. Truscott and Mason were
+almost "dead beat" with all that had gone before, and Dave--he was
+wrapped in his own thoughts.
+
+His thoughts carried him far away from his companions into a world
+where love and strife were curiously blended. Every thread of such
+thought sent him blundering into mires of trouble, the possibilities of
+which set his nerves jangling with apprehension. But their
+contemplation only stiffened his stern resolve to fight the coming
+battle with a courage and resource such as never yet had he brought to
+bear in his bid for success. He knew that before him lay the
+culminating battle of his long and ardent sieging of Fortune's
+stronghold. He knew that now, at last, he was face to face with the
+great test of his fitness. He knew that this battle had always been
+bound to come before the goal of his success was reached; although,
+perhaps, its method and its cause may have taken a thousand other
+forms. It is not in the nature of things that a man may march untested
+straight to the golden pastures of his ambitions. He must fight every
+foot of his way, and the final battle must ever be the sternest, the
+crudest. God help the man if he has not the fitness, for Fate and
+Fortune are remorseless foes.
+
+But besides his native courage, Dave was stirred to even greater
+efforts by man's strongest motive, be his cause for good or evil. Love
+was the main-spring of his inspiration. He had desired success with a
+passionate longing all his life, and his success was not all
+selfishness. But now, before all things, he saw the sweetly gentle face
+of Betty Somers gazing with a heartful appeal, beckoning him, calling
+him to help her. Every moment of that long journey the vision remained
+with him; every moment he felt might be the moment of dire tragedy for
+her. He dared not trust himself to consider the nature of that tragedy,
+or he must have turned and rended the man who was its cause. Only he
+blessed each moment that passed, bringing him nearer to her side. He
+loved her as he loved nothing and no one else on earth, and somehow
+there had crept into his mind the thought of a possibility he had never
+yet dared to consider. It was a vague ray of hope that the
+impossibility of his love was not so great as he had always believed.
+
+How it had stolen in upon him he hardly knew. Perhaps it was his
+mother's persistent references to Betty. Perhaps it was the result of
+his talk with the man who had brought her to the straits she was now
+placed in. Perhaps it was one of these things, or both, coupled with
+the memory of trifling incidents in the past, which had seemed to mean
+nothing at the time of their happening.
+
+Whatever it was, his love for the girl swept through him now in a way
+that drove him headlong to her rescue. His own affairs of the mills,
+the fate of his friends in Malkern, of the village itself; all these
+things were driven into the background of his thoughts. Betty needed
+him. The thought set his brain whirling with a wild thrilling
+happiness, mazed, every alternate moment, with a horrible fear that
+drove him to the depths of despair.
+
+It was high noon when smoke ahead warned him that the journey was
+nearly over. The buckboard was on the ridge shouldering a wide valley,
+and below it was the rushing torrent of the Red Sand River. From his
+position Dave had a full view of the dull green forest world rolling
+away, east and west, in vast, undulating waves as far as the eye could
+reach. Only to the south, beyond the valley, was there a break in the
+dense, verdant carpet. And here it was he beheld the telltale smoke of
+the lumber camp.
+
+"That's the camp," he said, looking straight ahead, watching the slowly
+rising haze with longing eyes. "Guess we haven't to cross the river.
+Good."
+
+Mason was looking out over his shoulder.
+
+"No," he said after a moment's pause, while he tried to read the signs
+he beheld. "We don't cross the river. Keep to the trail. It takes us
+right past my shack."
+
+"Where Parson Tom and----?"
+
+"Yes, where they're living."
+
+In another quarter of a mile they would be descending the hollow of a
+small valley diverging from the valley of the Red Sand River. As they
+drew near the decline, Dave spoke again.
+
+"Can you make anything out, Mason?" he asked. "Seems to me that smoke
+is thick for--for stovepipes. There's two lots; one of 'em nearer this
+way."
+
+Mason stared out for some moments, shielding his eyes from the dazzling
+sun.
+
+"I can't be sure," he said at last. "The nearest smoke should be my
+shack."
+
+A grave anxiety crept into Dave's eyes.
+
+"It isn't thick there," he said, as though trying to reassure himself.
+"That's your stovepipe?"
+
+"Maybe."
+
+Mason's reply expressed doubt.
+
+Suddenly Dave leant over and his whip fell sharply across the horses'
+backs. They sprang at their neck-yoke and raced down into the final dip.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+AT BAY
+
+
+In the dugout Tom Chepstow was standing with his ear pressed against
+the door-jamb. He was listening, straining with every nerve alert to
+glean the least indication of what was going on outside. His face was
+pale and drawn, and his eyes shone with anxiety. He was gripped by a
+fear he had never known before, a fear that might well come to the
+bravest. Personal, physical danger he understood, it was almost
+pleasant to him, something that gave life a new interest. But
+this--this was different, this was horrible.
+
+Betty was standing just behind him. She was leaning forward craning
+intently. Her hands were clenched at her sides, and a similar dread was
+looking out of her soft eyes. Her face was pale with a marble coldness,
+her rich red lips were compressed to a fine line, her whole body was
+tense with the fear that lay behind her straining eyes. There was
+desperation in the poise of her body, the desperation of a brave woman
+who sees the last hope vanishing, swallowed up in a tide of disaster
+she is powerless to stem.
+
+For nearly a week these two had been penned up in the hut. But for the
+last thirty-six hours their stronghold had actually been in a state of
+siege. From the time of her uncle's realization of the conditions
+obtaining outside Betty had not ventured without the building, while
+the man himself had been forced to use the utmost caution in moving
+abroad. It had been absolutely necessary for him to make several
+expeditions, otherwise he, too, would have remained in their fortress.
+They required water and fire-wood, and these things had to be procured.
+Then, too, there were the sick.
+
+But on the third day the climax was reached. Returning from one of his
+expeditions Chepstow encountered a drunken gang of lumber-jacks. Under
+the influence of their recent orgy their spirit-soaked brains had
+conceived the pretty idea of "ilin' the passon's works"; in other
+words, forcing drink upon him, and making him as drunk as themselves.
+In their present condition the joke appealed to them, and it was not
+without a violent struggle that their intended victim escaped.
+
+He was carrying fire-wood at the time, and it served him well as a
+weapon of defense. In a few brief moments he had left one man stunned
+upon the ground and another with a horribly broken face, and was
+himself racing for the dugout. He easily outstripped his drunken
+pursuers, but he was quickly to learn how high a price he must pay for
+the temporary victory. He had brought a veritable hornets' nest about
+his ears.
+
+The mischief began. The attack upon himself had only been a drunken
+practical joke. The subsequent happenings were in deadly earnest. The
+mob came in a blaze of savage fury. Their first thought was for
+vengeance upon him. In all probability, up to that time, Betty's
+presence in the hut had been forgotten, but now, as they came to the
+dugout, they remembered. In their present condition it was but a short
+step from a desire to revenge themselves upon him, to the suggestion of
+how it could be accomplished through the girl. They remembered her
+pretty face, her delicious woman's figure, and instantly they became
+ravening brutes, fired with a mad desire to possess themselves of her.
+
+They were no longer strikers, they were not even men. The spirit taken
+from the burning store had done its work. A howling pack of demons had
+been turned loose upon the camp, ready for any fiendish prank, ready
+for slaughter, ready for anything. These untutored creatures knew no
+better, they were powerless to help themselves, their passions alone
+guided them at all times, and now all that was most evil in them was
+frothing to the surface. Sober, they were as tame as caged wolves kept
+under by the bludgeon of a stern discipline. Drunk, they were madmen,
+driven by the untamed passions of the brute creation. They were animals
+without the restraining instincts of the animal, they lusted for the
+exercise of their great muscles, and the vital forces which swept
+through their veins in a passionate torrent.
+
+Their first effort was a demand for the surrender of those in the hut,
+and they were coldly refused. They attempted a parley, and received no
+encouragement. Now they were determined upon capture, with loudly
+shouted threats of dire consequences for the defenders' obstinacy.
+
+It was close upon noon of the second day of the siege. The hut was
+barricaded at every point. Door and windows were blocked up with every
+available piece of furniture that could be spared, and the
+repeating-rifles were loaded ready, and both uncle and niece were armed
+with revolvers. They were defending more than life and liberty, and
+they knew it. They were defending all that is most sacred in a woman's
+life. It was a ghastly thought, a desperate thought, but a thought that
+roused in them both a conviction that any defense brain could conceive
+was justified. If necessary not even life itself should stand in the
+way of their defense.
+
+The yellow lamplight threw gloomy shadows about the barricaded room.
+Its depressing light added to the sinister aspect of their extremity.
+The silence was ominous, it was fraught with a portend of disaster;
+disaster worse than death. How could they hope to withstand the attack
+of the men outside? They were waiting, waiting for what was to happen.
+Every conceivable method had been adopted by the besiegers to dislodge
+their intended victims. They had tried to tear the roof off, but the
+heavy logs were well dovetailed, and the process would have taken too
+long, and exposed those attempting it to the fire of the rifles in the
+capable hands of the defenders. Chepstow had illustrated his
+determination promptly by a half dozen shots fired at the first moving
+of one of the logs. Then had come an assault on the door, but, here
+again, the ready play of the rifle from one of the windows had driven
+these besiegers hurriedly to cover. Some man, more blinded with drink
+than the rest of his comrades, had suggested fire. But his suggestion
+was promptly vetoed. Had it been the parson only they would probably
+have had no scruples, but Betty was there, and they wanted Betty.
+
+For some time there had been no further assault.
+
+"I wish I knew how many there were," Chepstow said, in a low voice.
+
+"Would that do any good?"
+
+The man moved his shoulders in something like a despairing shrug.
+
+"Would anything do any good?"
+
+"Nothing I can think of," Betty murmured bitterly.
+
+"I thought if there were say only a dozen I might open this door. We
+have the repeating-rifles."
+
+The man's eyes as he spoke glittered with a fierce light. Betty saw it,
+and somehow it made her shiver.
+
+It brought home to her their extremity even more poignantly than all
+that had gone before. When a brave churchman's thoughts concentrated in
+such a direction she felt that their hopes were small indeed.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, uncle dear. We must wait for that until they force an entrance."
+She was cool enough in her desperation, cooler far than he.
+
+"Yes," he nodded reluctantly, "perhaps you're right, but the suspense
+is--killing. Hark! Listen, they are coming at us again. I wonder what
+it is to be this time."
+
+The harsh voices of the drunken mob could be plainly heard. They were
+coming nearer. Brutal laughter assailed the straining ears inside, and
+set their nerves tingling afresh. Then came a hush. It lasted some
+seconds. Then a single laugh just outside the door broke upon the
+silence.
+
+"Try again," a voice said. "Say, here's some more. 'Struth you're a
+heap of G---- d---- foolishness."
+
+Another voice broke in angrily.
+
+"God strike you!" it snarled, "do it your b---- self."
+
+"Right ho!"
+
+Then there came a shuffling of feet, and, a moment later, a scraping
+and scratching at the foot of the door. Chepstow glanced down at it,
+and Betty's eyes were irresistibly drawn in the same direction.
+
+"What are they doing now?"
+
+It was the voice of the wounded strike-leader on his bunk at the far
+end of the room. He was staring over at the door, his expression one of
+even greater fear than that of the defenders themselves. He felt that,
+in spite of the part he had played in bringing the strike about, his
+position was no better than these others. If anything happened to them
+all help for him was gone. Besides, he, too, understood that these men
+outside were no longer strikers, but wolves, whiskey-soaked savages
+beyond the control of any strike-leader.
+
+He received no reply. The scraping went on. Something was being thrust
+into the gaping crack which stood an inch wide beneath the door.
+Suddenly the noise ceased, followed by a long pause. Then, in the
+strong draught under the door, a puff of oil smoke belched into the
+room, and its nauseous reek set Chepstow coughing. His cough brought an
+answering peal of brutal laughter from beyond the door, and some one
+shouted to his comrades--
+
+"Bully fer you, bo'! Draw 'em! Draw 'em like badgers. Smoke 'em out
+like gophers."
+
+The pungent smoke belched into the room, and the man darted from the
+door.
+
+"Quick!" he cried. "Wet rags! A blanket!"
+
+Betty sprang to his assistance. The room was rapidly filling with
+smoke, which stung their eyes and set them choking. A blanket was
+snatched off the wounded strike-leader, but the process of saturating
+it was slow. They had only one barrel of water, and dared not waste it
+by plunging the blanket into it. So they were forced to resort to the
+use of a dipper. At last it was ready and the man crushed it down at
+the foot of the door, and stamped it tight with his foot.
+
+But it had taken too much time to set in place. The room was dense with
+a fog of smoke that set eyes streaming and throats gasping. In reckless
+despair the man sprang at one of the windows and began to tear down the
+carefully-built barricade.
+
+But now the cunning of the besiegers was displayed. As the last of the
+barricade was removed Chepstow discovered that the cotton covering of
+the window was smouldering. He tore it out to let in the fresh air, but
+only to release a pile of smouldering oil rags, which had been placed
+on the thickness of the wall, and set it tumbling into the room. The
+window was barricaded on the outside!
+
+The smoke became unbearable now, and the two prisoners set to work to
+trample the smouldering rags out. It was while they were thus occupied
+that a fresh disaster occurred. There was a terrific clatter at the
+stove, and a cloud of smoke and soot practically put the place in
+darkness. Nor did it need the sound of scrambling feet on the roof to
+tell those below what had happened. The strikers, by removing the
+topmost joint of the pipe, where it protruded through the roof, had
+been able, by the aid of a long stick, to dislodge the rest of the pipe
+and send it crashing to the floor. It was a master-stroke of diabolical
+cunning, for now, added to the smoke and soot, the sulphurous fumes of
+the blazing stove rendered the conditions of the room beyond further
+endurance.
+
+Half blinded and gasping Chepstow sprang at the table and seized a
+rifle. Betty had dropped into a chair choking. The strike-leader lay
+moaning, trying to shut out the smoke with his one remaining blanket.
+
+"Come on, Betty," shouted the man, in a frenzy of rage. "You've got
+your revolver. I'm going to open the door, and may God Almighty have
+mercy on the soul of the man who tries to stop us!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+DAVE--THE MAN
+
+
+Dave's buckboard swept up the slope of the last valley. It reached the
+dead level of the old travoy trail, which passed in front of Mason's
+dugout on its way to the lumber camp. He was looking ahead for signs
+which he feared to discover; he wanted the reason of the smoke he had
+seen from afar off. But now a perfect screen of towering pine forest
+lined the way, and all that lay beyond was hidden from his anxious eyes.
+
+He flogged his horses faster. The perfect mountain calm was unbroken;
+even the speeding horses and the rattle of his buckboard were powerless
+to disturb that stupendous quiet. It was a mere circumstance in a world
+too vast to take color from a detail so insignificant. It was that
+wondrous peace, that thrilling silence that aggravated his fears. His
+apprehension grew with each passing moment, and, though he made no
+display, his clutch upon the reins, the sharpness with which he plied
+his whip, the very immobility of his face, all told their tale of
+feelings strung to a high pitch.
+
+Mason was standing directly behind him in the carryall. He steadied
+himself with a grip upon the back of the driving-seat. Beside him the
+wretched Truscott was sitting on the jolting slats of the body of the
+vehicle, mercilessly thrown about by the bumping over the broken trail.
+Mason, too, was staring out ahead.
+
+"Seems quiet enough," he murmured, half to himself.
+
+Dave caught at his words.
+
+"That's how it seems," he said, in a tone of doubt.
+
+"It's less than half a mile now," Mason went on a moment later. "We're
+coming to the big bend."
+
+Dave nodded. His whip fell across his horses' quarters. "Best get
+ready," he said significantly. Then he laughed mirthlessly and tried to
+excuse himself. "I don't guess there'll be a heap of trouble, though."
+
+"No."
+
+Mason's reply carried no conviction. Both men were in doubt. Neither
+knew what to expect. Neither knew in what way to prepare for the
+meeting that was now so near.
+
+Now the trail began to swing out to the right. It was the beginning of
+the big bend. The walls of forest about them receded slightly, opening
+out where logs had been felled beside the trail in years past. The
+middle of the curve was a small clearing. Then, further on, as it
+inclined again to the left, it narrowed down to the bare breadth of the
+trail.
+
+"Just beyond this----"
+
+Mason broke off. His words were cut short by a loud shout just ahead of
+them. It was a shout of triumph and gleeful enjoyment. Dave's whip fell
+again, and the horses laid on to their traces. From that moment to the
+moment when the horses were almost flung upon their haunches by the
+sudden jolt with which Dave pulled them up was a matter of seconds
+only. He was out of the buckboard, too, having flung the reins to
+Mason, and was standing facing a small group of a dozen men whom it was
+almost impossible to recognize as lumberjacks. In truth, there were
+only three of them who were, the others were some of those Mason had
+been forced to engage in his extremity.
+
+At the sight of Dave's enormous figure a cry broke from the crowd. Then
+they looked at the buckboard with its panting horses, and Mason
+standing in the carryall, one hand on the reins and one resting on the
+revolver on his hip. Their cry died out. But as it did so another broke
+from their midst. It was Betty's voice, and her uncle's. There was a
+scuffle and a rush. Gripping the girl by the arm Tom Chepstow burst
+from their midst and ran to Dave's side, dragging Betty with him.
+
+"Thank God!" he cried.
+
+But there was no answering joy from Dave. He scarcely even seemed to
+see them. A livid, frozen rage glared out of his eyes. His face was
+terrible to behold. He moved forward. His gait was cat-like, his head
+was thrust forward, it was almost as if he tiptoed and was about to
+spring upon the mob. As he came within a yard of the foremost of the
+men he halted, and one great arm shot out with its fist clenching.
+
+"Back!" he roared; "back to your camp, every man of you! Back, you
+cowardly hounds!"
+
+There were twelve of them; fierce, savage, half-drunken men. They cared
+for no one, they feared no one. They were ready to follow whithersoever
+their passions led them. There was not a man among them that would not
+fight with the last breath in his body. Yet they hesitated at the sound
+of that voice. They almost shrank before that passion-lit face. The
+man's enormous stature was not without awe for them. And in that moment
+of hesitation the battle was won for Dave. Chepstow's repeating-rifle
+was at his shoulder, and Mason's revolver had been whipped out of its
+holster and was held covering them.
+
+Suddenly there was a movement in the crowd, somewhere behind. If Dave
+saw it he gave no sign. But Mason saw it, and, sharply incisive, his
+voice rang out--
+
+"The first man that moves this way I'll shoot him like a dog!"
+
+Instantly every eye among the strikers was turned upon the two men with
+their ready weapons, and to a man they understood that the game was up.
+
+"Get out! Get out--quick!" Dave's great voice split the air with
+another deep roar. And the retreat began on the instant with those in
+the rear. Some one started to run, and in a moment the rest had joined
+in a rush for the camp, vanishing into the forest like a pack of timber
+wolves, flinging back fierce, vengeful glances over their shoulders at
+those who had so easily routed them.
+
+No one stirred till the last man had disappeared. Then Dave turned.
+
+"Quick!" he cried, in an utterly changed voice, "get into the
+buckboard!"
+
+But Betty turned to him in a half-hysterical condition.
+
+"Oh, Dave, Dave!" she cried helplessly.
+
+But Dave was just now a man whom none of them had ever seen before. He
+had words for no one--not even for Betty. He suddenly caught her in his
+arms and lifted her bodily into the buckboard. He scrambled in after
+her, while Chepstow jumped up behind. In a moment, it seemed, they were
+racing headlong for the camp.
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+The camp was in a ruinous condition. The destructive demon in men
+temporarily demented was abroad and his ruthless hand had fallen
+heavily. The whole atmosphere suggested the red tide of anarchy. The
+charred remains of the sutler's store was the centre of a net of ruin
+spread out in every direction, and from this radiated the wreckage of
+at least a dozen shanties, which had, like the store, been burned to
+the ground.
+
+In the circumstances it would be impossible to guess at the reasons for
+such destruction: maybe it was the result of carelessness, maybe a
+mischievous delight in sweeping away that which reminded these men of
+their obligations to their employer, maybe it was merely a consequence
+of the settlement of their own drunken feuds. Whatever the cause, the
+hideous effect of the strike was apparent in every direction.
+
+In the centre of the clearing was a great gathering of the lumbermen.
+Their seared faces expressed every variety of mental attitude, from
+fierce jocularity down to the blackest hatred of interference from
+those whose authority had become anathema to them.
+
+They were gathered at the call of those who had fled from the dugout,
+spurred to a defense of what they believed to be their rights by a
+hurried, garbled account of the summary treatment just meted out to
+them. They were ready for more than the mere assertion of their
+demands. They were ready to enforce them, they were ready for any
+mischief which the circumstances prompted.
+
+It was a deadly array. Many were sober, many were sobering, many were
+still drunk. The latter were those whose cunning had prompted them, at
+the outset of the strike, to secrete a sufficient supply of liquor from
+their fellows. And the majority of these were not the real
+lumber-jacks, those great simple children of the forest, but the
+riffraff that had drifted into the camp, or had been sent thither by
+those who promoted the strike. The real lumber-jacks were more or less
+incapable of such foresight and cunning. They were slow-thinking
+creatures of vast muscle, only swift and keen as the axes they used
+when engaged in the work which was theirs.
+
+Through the rank animal growth of their bodies their minds had remained
+too stunted to display the low cunning of the scallywags whose
+unscrupulous wits alone must supply their idle bodies with a
+livelihood. But simple as babes, simple and silly as sheep, and as
+dependent upon their shepherd, as these men were, they were at all
+times dangerous, the more dangerous for their very simplicity. Just
+now, with their unthinking brains sick with the poison of labor's
+impossible argument, and the execrable liquor of the camp, they were a
+hundred times more deadly.
+
+Men had come in for the orgy from all the outlying camps. They had been
+carefully shepherded by those whose business it was to make the strike
+successful. Discontent had been preached into every ear, and the seed
+had fallen upon fruitful, virgin soil. Thus it was that a great
+concourse had foregathered now.
+
+There was an atmosphere of restrained excitement abroad among them. For
+them the news of Dave's arrival had tremendous possibilities. A babel
+of harsh voices debated the situation in loud tones, each man forcing
+home his argument with a mighty power of lung, a never-failing method
+of supporting doubtful argument. The general attitude was threatening,
+yet it hardly seemed to be unanimous. There was too much argument.
+There seemed to be an undercurrent of uncertainty with no single,
+capable voice to check or guide it.
+
+As the moments sped the crowd became more and more threatening, but
+whether against the master of the mills, or whether the result of hot
+blood and hot words, it would have been difficult to say. Then, just as
+the climax seemed to be approaching, a magical change swept over the
+throng. It was wrought by the sudden appearance of Dave's buckboard,
+which seemed to leap upon the scene from the depth of the forest. And
+as it came into view a hoarse, fierce shout went up. Then, in a moment,
+an expectant hush fell.
+
+Dave's eyes were fixed upon the crowd before him. He gave no sign. His
+face, like a mask, was cold, hard, unyielding. No word was spoken by
+those in the buckboard. Every one, with nerves straining and pulses
+throbbing, was waiting for what was to happen; every one except the
+prisoner, Truscott.
+
+The master of the mills read the meaning of what he beheld with the
+sureness of a man bred to the calling of these men. He knew. And
+knowing, he had little blame for them. How could it be otherwise with
+these unthinking souls? The blame must lie elsewhere. But his sympathy
+left his determination unaltered. He knew, no one better, that here the
+iron heel alone could prevail, and for the time his heel was shod for
+the purpose.
+
+He drew near. Some one shouted a furious epithet at him, and the cry
+was taken up by others. The horses shied. He swung them back with a
+heavy hand, and forced them to face the crowd, his whip falling
+viciously at the same time. But, for a moment, his face relaxed its
+cold expression. His quick ears had detected a lack of unanimity in the
+execration. Suddenly he pulled the horses up. He passed the reins to
+Mason and leaped to the ground.
+
+It was a stirring moment. The mob advanced, but the movement seemed
+almost reluctant. It was not the rush of blind fury one might have
+expected, but rather as though it were due to pressure from behind by
+those under cover of their comrades in front.
+
+Dave moved on to meet them, and those in the buckboard remained deathly
+still. Mason was the first to move. He had just become aware that Dave
+had left his revolver on the seat of the vehicle. Instantly he lifted
+the reins and walked the horses closer to the crowd.
+
+"He's unarmed," he said, in explanation to the parson.
+
+Chepstow nodded. He moved his repeating-rifle to a handier position.
+Betty looked up.
+
+"He left that gun purposely," she said. "I saw him."
+
+Her face was ghastly pale, but a light shone in her eyes which nobody
+could have failed to interpret. Mason saw it and no longer hesitated.
+
+"Will you take these reins?" he said. "And--give me your revolver."
+
+The girl understood and obeyed in silence.
+
+"I think there'll be trouble," Mason went on a moment later, as he saw
+Dave halt within a few yards of the front rank of the strikers.
+
+He watched the men close about his chief in a semicircle, but the
+buckboard in rear always held open a road for retreat. Now the crowd
+pressed up from behind. The semicircle became dense. Those in the
+buckboard saw that many of the men were carrying the tools of their
+calling, prominent among them being the deadly peavey, than which, in
+case of trouble, no weapon could be more dangerous at close quarters.
+
+As he halted Dave surveyed the sea of rough, hard faces glowering upon
+him. He heard the mutterings. He saw the great bared arms and the
+knotty hands grasping the hafts of their tools. He saw all this and
+understood, but the sight in no way disturbed him. His great body was
+erect, his cold eyes unwavering. It was the unconscious pose of a man
+who feels the power to control within him.
+
+"Well?" he inquired, with an easy drawl.
+
+Instantly there was silence everywhere. It was the critical moment. It
+was the moment when, before all things, he must convince these lawless
+creatures of his power, his reserve of commanding force.
+
+"Well?" he demanded again. "Where's your leader? Where's the gopher
+running this layout? I've come right along to talk to you boys to see
+if we can't straighten this trouble out. Where's your leader, the man
+who was hired to make you think I wasn't treating you right; where is
+he? Speak up, boys, I can't rightly hear all you're saying. I want to
+parley with your leaders."
+
+Mason listening to the great voice of the lumberman chuckled inaudibly.
+He realized something of Dave's method, and the shrewdness of it.
+
+The mutterings had begun afresh. Some of the front rank men drew
+nearer. Dave did not move. He wanted an answer. He wanted an indication
+of their actual mood. Somebody laughed in the crowd. It was promptly
+shouted down. It was the indication the master of the mills sought.
+They wanted to hear what he had to say. He allowed the ghost of a smile
+to play round the corners of his stern mouth for a moment. But his
+attitude remained uncompromising. His back stiffened, his great
+shoulders squared, he stood out a giant amongst those giants of the
+forest.
+
+"Where's your man?" he cried, in a voice that could be heard by
+everybody. "Is he backing down? That's not like a lumber-jack. P'r'aps
+he's not a lumber-jack. P'r'aps he's got no clear argument I can't
+answer. P'r'aps he hasn't got the grit to get out in the open and talk
+straight as man to man. Well, let it go at that. Guess you'd best set
+one of you up as spokesman. I've got all the time you need to listen."
+
+"Your blasted skunk of a foreman shot him down!" cried a voice in the
+crowd, and it was supported by ominous murmurs from the rest.
+
+"By God, and Mason was right!" cried Dave, in a voice so fierce that it
+promptly silenced the murmurs. His dilating eyes rested on several
+familiar faces. The faces of men who had worked for him for years, men
+whose hair was graying in the service of the woods. He also flashed his
+lightning glance upon faces unfamiliar, strangers to his craft. "By
+God, he was right!" he repeated, as though to force the violence of his
+opinion upon them. "I could have done it myself. And why? Because he
+has come here and told you you are badly treated. He's told you the
+tale that the profits of this work of yours belong to you. He's told
+you I am an oppressor, who lives by the sweat of your labors. He tells
+you this because he is paid to tell you. Because he is paid by those
+who wish to ruin my mills, and put me out of business, and so rob you
+all of the living I have made it possible for you to earn. You refuse
+to work at his bidding; what is the result? My mill is closed down. I
+am ruined. These forests are my right to cut. There is no more cutting
+to be done. You starve. Yes, you starve like wolves in winter. You'll
+say you can get work elsewhere. Go and get it, and you'll starve till
+you get it at half the wage I pay you. I am telling you what is right.
+I am talking to you with the knowledge of my own ruin staring me in the
+face. You have been told you can squeeze me, you can squeeze a fraction
+more of pay out of me. But you can't, not one cent, any man of you; and
+if you go to work again to keep our ship afloat you'll have to work
+harder than ever before--for the same pay. Now pass up your spokesman,
+and I'll talk to him. I can't bellow for all the world to hear."
+
+It was a daring beginning, so daring that those in the buckboard gasped
+in amazement. But Dave knew his men, or, at least, he knew the real
+lumber-jack. Straight, biting talk must serve him, or nothing would.
+
+Now followed a buzz of excited talk. There were those among the crowd
+who from the beginning had had doubts, and to these Dave's words
+appealed. He had voiced something of what they had hazily thought.
+Others there were who were furious at his biting words. Others again,
+and these were not real lumber-jacks, who were for turning upon him the
+savage brutality of their drink-soaked brains.
+
+An altercation arose. It was the dispute of factions suddenly inflamed.
+It was somewhere in rear of the crowd. Those in front turned to learn
+the cause. Dave watched and listened. He understood. It was the result
+of his demand for a spokesman. Opinions were divided, and a dozen
+different men were urged forward. He knew he must check the dispute.
+Suddenly his voice rang out above the din.
+
+"It's no use snarling about it like a lot of coyotes," he roared. "Pass
+them all through, and I'll listen to 'em all. Now, boys, pass 'em
+through peaceably."
+
+One of the men in front of him supported him.
+
+"Aye, aye," he shouted. "That's fair, boys, bring 'em along. The
+boss'll talk 'em straight."
+
+The man beside him hit him sharply in the ribs, and the
+broad-shouldered "jack" swung round.
+
+"Ther' ain't no 'boss' to this layout, Peter," objected the man who had
+dealt the blow. "Yonder feller ain't no better'n us."
+
+The man scowled threateningly as he spoke. He was an enormous brute
+with a sallow, ill-tempered face, and black hair. Dave heard the words
+and his eyes surveyed him closely. He saw at a glance there was nothing
+of the lumberman about him. He set him down at once as a French
+Canadian bully, probably one of the men instrumental in the strike.
+
+However, his attention was now drawn to the commotion caused by six of
+the lumbermen being pushed to the front as spokesmen. They joined the
+front rank, and stood sheepishly waiting for their employer. Custom and
+habit were strong upon them, and a certain awe of the master of the
+mills affected them.
+
+"Now we'll get doing," Dave said, noting with satisfaction that four of
+the six were old hands who had worked beside him in his early days.
+"Well, boys, let's have it. What's your trouble? Give us the whole
+story."
+
+But as spokesmen these fellows were not brilliant. They hesitated, and,
+finally, with something approaching a shamefaced grin, one of them
+spoke up.
+
+"It's--it's jest wages, boss."
+
+"Leave it at 'wages,' Bob!" shouted a voice at the back of the crowd.
+
+"Yes," snarled the sallow-faced giant near by. "We're jest man to man.
+Ther' ain't no 'bosses' around."
+
+"Hah!" Dave breathed the ejaculation. Then he turned his eyes, steely
+hard, upon the last speaker, and his words came in an unmistakable
+tone. "It seems there are men here who aren't satisfied with their
+spokesmen. Maybe they'll speak out good and plenty, instead of
+interrupting."
+
+His challenge seemed to appeal to the original spokesman, for he
+laughed roughly.
+
+"Say, boss," he cried, "he don't cut no ice, anyways. He's jest a bum
+roadmaker. He ain't bin in camp more'n six weeks. We don't pay no
+'tention to him. Y'see, boss," he went on, emphasizing the last word
+purposely, "it's jest wages. We're workin' a sight longer hours than is
+right, an' we ain't gettin' nuthin' extry 'cep' the rise you give us
+three months back. Wal, we're wantin' more. That's how."
+
+He finished up his clumsy speech with evident relief, and mopped his
+forehead with his ham-like hand.
+
+"And since when, Bob Nicholson, have you come to this conclusion?"
+demanded Dave, with evident kindliness.
+
+His tone produced instant effect upon the man. He became easier at
+once, and his manner changed to one of distinct friendliness.
+
+"Wal, boss, I can't rightly say jest when, fer sure. Guess it must ha'
+bin when that orator-feller got around----"
+
+"Shut up!" roared some one in the crowd, and the demand was followed up
+by distinct cursing in several directions. The sallow-faced roadmaker
+seized his opportunity.
+
+"It's wages we want an' wages we're goin' to git!" he shouted so that
+the crowd could hear. "You're sweatin' us. That's wot you're doin',
+sweatin' us, to make your pile a sight bigger. We're honest men up
+here; we ain't skunks what wants wot isn't our lawful rights. Ef you're
+yearnin' fer extry work you got to pay fer it. Wot say, boys?"
+
+"Aye! That's it. Extry wages," cried a number of voices in the
+background. But again the chorus was not unanimous. There were those,
+too, in the front whose scowling faces, turned on the speaker, showed
+their resentment at this interference by a man they did not recognize
+as a lumber-jack.
+
+Dave seized his opportunity.
+
+"You're wanting extra wages for overtime," he cried, in a voice that
+carried like a steam siren. "Well, why didn't you ask for them? Why did
+you go out on strike first, and then ask? Why? I'll tell you why. I'll
+tell you why you chose this damned gopher racket instead of acting like
+the honest men you boast yourselves to be. I can tell you why you
+wanted to lock up your camp-boss, and so prevent your wishes reaching
+me. I can tell you why you had men on the road between here and Malkern
+to stop letters going through. I can tell you why you honest men set
+fire to the store here, and stole all the liquor and goods in it. I can
+tell you why you did these things. Because you've just listened like
+silly sheep to the skunks who've come along since the fever broke out.
+Because you've listened to the men who've set out to ruin us both, you
+and me. Because you've listened to these scallywags, who aren't
+lumbermen, who've come among you. They're not 'jacks' and they don't
+understand the work, but they've been drawing the same wages as you,
+and they're trying to rob you of your living, they're trying to take
+your jobs from you and leave you nothing. That's why you've done these
+things, you boys who've worked with me for years and years, and had all
+you needed. Are you going to let 'em rob you? They _are_ robbing you,
+for, I swear before God, my mills are closed down, and they'll remain
+closed, and every one of you can get out and look for new work unless
+you turn to at once."
+
+A murmur again arose as he finished speaking, but this time there was a
+note of alarm in it, a note of anger that was not against their
+employer. Faces looked puzzled, and ended by frowning into the faces of
+neighbors. Dave understood the effect he had made. He was waiting for a
+bigger effect. He was fighting for something that was dearer to him
+than life, and all his courage and resource were out to the limit. He
+glanced at the sallow-faced giant. Their eyes met, and in his was a
+fierce challenge. He drew the fellow as easily as any expert swordsman.
+The man had been shrewd enough to detect the change in his comrades,
+and he promptly hurled himself into the fray to try and recover the
+lost ground. He stepped forward, towering over his fellows. He meant
+mischief.
+
+"See, mates," he shouted, trying to put a jeer in his angry voice,
+"look at 'im! He's come here to call us a pack o' skunks an' gophers.
+Him wot's makin' thousands o' dollars a day out of us. He's come here
+to kick us like a lot o' lousy curs. His own man shot up our leader,
+him as was trying to fit things right fer us. I tell you it was
+murder--bloody murder! We're dirt to him. He can kick us--shoot us up.
+We're dogs--lousy yeller dogs--we are. You'll listen to his slobbery
+talk an' you'll go to work--and he'll cut your wages lower, so he can
+make thousan's more out o' you." Then he suddenly swung round on Dave
+with a fierce oath. "God blast you, it's wages we want--d'ye
+hear--wages! An' we're goin' to have 'em! You ain't goin' to grind us
+no longer, mister! You're goin' to sign a 'greement fer a rise o' wages
+of a quarter all round. That's wot you're goin' to do!"
+
+Dave was watching, watching. His opportunity was coming.
+
+"I came to talk to honest 'jacks,'" he said icily, "not to blacklegs.
+I'll trouble you to get right back into the crowd, and hide your ugly
+head, and keep your foul tongue quiet. The boys have got their
+spokesmen."
+
+His voice was sharp, but the man failed to apprehend the danger that
+lay behind it. He was a bigger man than Dave, and, maybe, he thought to
+cow him. Perhaps he didn't realize that the master of the mills was now
+fighting for his existence.
+
+There was an instant's pause, and Dave took a step toward him.
+
+"Get back!" he roared.
+
+His furious demand precipitated things, as he intended it should. Like
+lightning the giant whipped out a gun.
+
+"I'll show you!" he cried.
+
+There was a sharp report. But before he could pull the trigger a second
+time Dave's right fist shot out, and a smashing blow on the chin felled
+him to the ground like a pole-axed ox.
+
+As the man fell Dave turned again to the strikers, and no one noticed
+that his left arm was hanging helpless at his side.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+THE END OF THE STRIKE
+
+
+When the master of the mills faced the men again he hardly knew what to
+expect. He could not be sure how they would view his action, or what
+attitude they would adopt. He had considered well before provoking the
+sallow-faced giant, he had measured him up carefully; the thing had
+been premeditated. He knew the influence of physical force upon these
+men. The question was, had he used it at the right moment? He thought
+he had; he understood lumbermen, but there were more than lumbermen
+here, and he knew that it was this element of outsiders with whom he
+was really contending.
+
+The fallen man's pistol was on the ground at his feet. He put a foot
+upon it; then, glancing swiftly at the faces before him, he became
+aware of a silence, utter, complete, reigning everywhere. There was
+astonishment, even something of awe in many of the faces; in others
+doubt mingled with a scowling displeasure. The thing had happened so
+suddenly. The firing of the shot had startled them unpleasantly, and
+they were still looking for the result of it. On this point they had no
+satisfaction. Only Dave knew--he had reason to. The arm hanging limply
+at his side, and the throb of pain at his shoulder left him in no
+doubt. But he had no intention of imparting his knowledge to any one
+else yet. He had not finished the fight which must justify his
+existence as the owner of the mills.
+
+The effect of his encounter was not an unpleasant one on the majority
+of the men. The use of a fist in the face of a gun was stupendous, even
+to them. Many of them reveled in the outsider's downfall, and
+contemplated the grit of their employer with satisfaction. But there
+were others not so easily swayed. Amongst these were the man's own
+comrades, men who, like himself, were not real lumbermen, but agitators
+who had received payment to agitate. Besides these there were those
+unstable creatures, always to be found in such a community, who had no
+very definite opinions of their own, but looked for the lead of the
+majority, ready to side with those who offered the strongest support.
+
+All this was very evident in that moment of silence, but the moment
+passed so quickly that it was impossible to say how far Dave's action
+had really served him. Suddenly a murmur started. In a few seconds it
+had risen to a shout. It started with the fallen giant's friends. There
+was a rush in the crowd, an ominous swaying, as of a struggle going on
+in its midst. Some one put up a vicious cry that lifted clear above the
+general din.
+
+"Lynch him! Lynch him!"
+
+The cry was taken up by the rest of the makeshifts and some of the
+doubters. Then came the sudden but inevitable awakening of the slow,
+fierce brains of the real men of the woods. The awakening brought with
+it not so much a desire to champion their employer, as a resentment
+that these men they regarded as scallywags should attempt to take
+initiative in their concerns; it was the rousing of the latent hatred
+which ever exists in the heart of the legitimate tradesman for the
+interloper. It caught them in a whirlwind of passion. Their blood rose.
+All other considerations were forgotten, it mattered nothing the object
+of that mutiny, all thought of wages, all thought of wrongs between
+themselves and their employer were banished from their minds. They
+hated nothing so badly as these men with whom they had worked in
+apparent harmony.
+
+It was at this psychological moment that the final fillip was given. It
+came from a direction that none of the crowd realized. It came from one
+who knew the woodsman down to his very core, who had watched every
+passing mood of the crowd during the whole scene with the intentness of
+one who only waits his opportunity. It was Bob Mason in the buckboard.
+
+"Down with the blacklegs! Down with the dirty 'scabs'!" he shouted.
+
+In a moment the battle was raging. There was a wild rush of men, and
+their steel implements were raised aloft. "Down with the 'scabs'!" The
+cry echoed and reechoed in every direction, taken up by every true
+lumberman. A tumult of shouting and cursing roared everywhere. The
+crowd broke. It spread out. Groups of struggling combatants were dotted
+about till the sight suggested nothing so much as a massacre. It was a
+fight of brutal savagery that would stop short only at actual
+slaughter. It was the safety-valve for the accumulated spleen of a
+week's hard drinking. It was the only way to steady the shaken,
+drink-soaked nerves and restore the dull brains to the dead level of a
+desire to return to work and order.
+
+Fortunately it was a short-lived battle too. The lumber-jacks were the
+masters from the outset. They were better men, they were harder, they
+had more sheer "grit." Then, too, they were in the majority. The
+"scabs" began to seek refuge in flight, but not before they had
+received a chastisement that would remain a sore memory for many days
+to come. Those who went down in the fight got the iron-shod boots of
+their adversaries in their ribs, till, in desperation, they scrambled
+to their feet and took their punishment like men. But the victory was
+too easy for the lumber-jacks' rage to last. Like the wayward,
+big-hearted children of nature they were, their fury passed as quickly
+as it had stirred. The terror-stricken flight of those upon whom their
+rage had turned inspired in them a sort of fiendish amusement, and in
+this was perhaps the saving of a terrible tragedy. As it was, a few
+broken limbs, a liberal tally of wounds and bruises were the harvest of
+that battle. That, and the final clearing out of the element of
+discontent. It was victory for the master of the mills.
+
+In less than ten minutes the victors were straggling back from their
+pursuit of a routed foe. Dave had not moved. He was still standing
+beside the fallen giant, who was now recovering consciousness from the
+knock-out blow he had received. They came up in small bands, laughing
+and recounting episodes of the fight. They were in the saving mood for
+their employer. All thoughts of a further strike had passed out of
+their simple heads. They came back to Dave, like sheep, who, after a
+wild stampede, have suddenly refound their shepherd, and to him they
+looked for guidance. And Dave was there for the purpose. He called
+their attention and addressed them.
+
+"Now, boys," he said cheerfully, "you've got nicely rid of that scum,
+and I'm going to talk to you. We understand each other. We've worked
+too long together for it to be otherwise. But we don't understand those
+others who're not lumbermen. Say, maybe you can't all hear me; my voice
+isn't getting stronger, so I'll just call up that buckboard and stand
+on it, and talk from there."
+
+Amidst a murmur of approval the buckboard was drawn up, and not without
+tremendous pain Dave scrambled up into the driving-seat. Then it was
+seen by both lumbermen and those in the buckboard that he had left a
+considerable pool of blood where he had been standing.
+
+Betty, with horror in her eyes, turned to him.
+
+"What is it?" she began. But he checked her with a look, and turned at
+once to the men.
+
+"I'm first going to tell you about this strike, boys," he said. "After
+that we'll get to business, and I guess it won't be my fault if we
+don't figger things out right. Here, do you see this fellow sitting
+here? Maybe some of you'll recognize him?" He pointed at Jim Truscott
+sitting in the carryall. His expression was surly, defiant. But somehow
+he avoided the faces in front of him. "I'm going to tell you about him.
+This is the man who organized the strike. He found the money and the
+men to do the dirty work. He did it because he hates me and wants to
+ruin me. He came to you with plausible tales of oppression and so
+forth. He cared nothing for you, but he hated me. I tell you frankly he
+did this thing because he knew I was pushed to the last point to make
+good my contract with the government, because he knew that to delay the
+output of logs from this camp meant that I should go to smash. In doing
+this he meant to carry you down with me. That's how much he cares for
+your interests." A growl of anger punctuated his speech. But he
+silenced them with a gesture and proceeded. His voice was getting
+weaker, and a deadly pallor was stealing over his face. Chepstow,
+watching him, was filled with anxiety. Betty's brown eyes clung to his
+face with an expression of love, horror and pity in them that spoke far
+louder than any words. Mason was simply calculating in his mind how
+long Dave could keep up his present attitude.
+
+"Do you get my meaning, boys?" he went on. "It's this, if we don't get
+this work through before winter I'm broke--broke to my last dollar. And
+you'll be out of a billet--every mother's son of you--with the winter
+staring you in the face."
+
+He paused and took a deep breath. Betty even thought she saw him sway.
+The men kept an intense silence.
+
+"Well?" he went on a moment later, pulling himself together with an
+evident effort. "I'm just here to talk straight business, and that's
+what you're going to listen to. First, I'll tell you this fellow's
+going to get his right medicine through me in the proper manner. Then,
+second and last, I want to give you a plain understanding of things
+between ourselves. There's going to be no rise in wages. I just can't
+do it. That's all. But I'm going to give each man in my camp a big
+bonus, a nice fat wad of money with which to paint any particular town
+he favors red, when the work's done. That's to be extra, above his
+wages. And the whole lot of you shall work for me next season on a
+guarantee. But from now to the late fall you're going to work, boys,
+you're going to work as if the devil himself was driving you. We've got
+time to make up, and shortage besides, and you've got to make it up. I
+don't want any slackers. Men who have any doubts can get right out.
+You've got to work as you never worked in your lives before. Now, boys,
+give us your word. Is it work or----"
+
+Dave got no further. A shout--hearty, enthusiastic--went up from the
+crowd. It meant work, and he was satisfied.
+
+The next few minutes were passed in a scene of the wildest excitement.
+The men closed round the buckboard, and struggled with each other to
+grip the big man's hand. And Dave, faint and weary as he was, knew them
+too well to reject their friendly overtures. Besides, they were, as he
+said, like himself, men of the woods, and he was full of a great
+sympathy and friendliness for them. At last, however, he turned to
+Chepstow.
+
+"Drive back to the dugout, Tom," he said. "Things are getting misty. I
+think--I'm--done."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+IN THE DUGOUT
+
+
+Three arduous and anxious days followed the ending of the strike, and
+each of the occupants of Mason's dugout felt the strain of them in his
+or her own particular way. Next to the strike itself, Dave's wound was
+the most serious consideration. He was the leader, the rudder of his
+ship; his was the controlling brain; and he was a most exasperating
+patient. His wound was bad enough, though not dangerous. It would be
+weeks before the use of his left arm was restored to him; but he had a
+way of forgetting this, of forgetting that he had lost a great quantity
+of blood, until weakness prostrated him and roused him to a peevish
+perversity.
+
+Betty was his self-appointed nurse. Tom Chepstow might examine his
+wound and consider his condition, but it was Betty who dressed his
+wound, Betty who prepared his food and ministered to his lightest
+needs. From the moment of his return to the dugout she took charge of
+him. She consulted no one, she asked for no help. For the time, at
+least, he was her possession, he was hers to lavish all the fulness of
+her great love upon, a love that had something almost maternal in its
+wonderful protective instinct.
+
+Mason was busy with the work of reorganization. His was the practical
+hand and head while Dave was on his sick-bed. From daylight to long
+after dark he took no rest. Dave's counsel guided him to an extent, but
+much had to be done without any consultation with the master of the
+mills. Provisioning the camp was a problem not easily solved. It was
+simple enough to order up food from Malkern, but there would be at
+least a week's delay before its arrival. Finally, he surmounted this
+difficulty, through the return of Lieberstein, who had fled to the
+woods with his cash-box and a supply of provisions, at the first sign
+of trouble. Now he had returned to save what he could from the wreck.
+The Jew needed assistance to recover his looted property--what remained
+of it. The overseer gave him that assistance, and at the same time
+arranged that all provisions so recovered should be redistributed (at a
+price) as rations to the men. Thus the delay in the arrival of supplies
+from Malkern was tided over. But though he availed himself of this
+means of getting over his difficulty he was fully determined to rid the
+camp, at the earliest opportunity, of so treacherous a rascal as
+Lieberstein.
+
+In two days the work of restoration was in full swing. The burned store
+and shanties were run up with all a lumberman's rapidity and disregard
+for finish. Time was the thing that mattered. And so wonderfully did
+Mason drive and cajole his men, that on the third day the gangs once
+more marched out into the woods. Once again the forests echoed with the
+hiss of saw, the ringing clang of smiting axe, the crash of falling
+trees, the harsh voices of the woodsmen, and the hundred and one sounds
+of bustling activity which belong to a lumber camp in full work.
+
+That day was a pleasant one for the occupants of the dugout. It was a
+wonderful work Mason had done. They all knew and appreciated his
+devotion to his wounded employer, and though none spoke of it, whenever
+he appeared in their midst their appreciation of him showed in their
+manner. Betty was very gentle and kindly. She saw that he wanted for
+nothing in the way of the comforts which the dugout could provide.
+
+Tom Chepstow was far too busy with his sick to give attention to
+anything else. His hands were very full, and his was a task that showed
+so little result. Dave, for the most part, saw everything that was
+going on about him, and had a full estimate of all that was being done
+in his interests by the devoted little band, and, absurdly enough, the
+effect upon him was to stir him to greater irritability.
+
+It was evening, and the slanting sunlight shone in through one of the
+windows. It was a narrow beam of light, but its effect was sufficiently
+cheering. No dugout is a haven of brightness, and just now this one
+needed all that could help to lift the shadow of sickness and disaster
+that pervaded it.
+
+Betty was preparing supper, and Dave, lying on his stretcher, his vast
+bulk only half concealed by the blanket thrown over him, was watching
+the girl with eyes that fed hungrily upon the swift, graceful movements
+of her pretty figure, the play of expression upon her sweet, sun-tanned
+face, the intentness, the whole-hearted concentration in her steady,
+serious eyes as she went about her work.
+
+Now and again she glanced over at his rough bed, but he seemed to be
+asleep every time she turned in his direction. The result was an
+additional care in her work. She made no noise lest she should waken
+him. Presently she stooped and pushed a log into the fire-box of the
+cook-stove. The cinders fell with a clatter, and she glanced round
+apprehensively. Her movement was so sudden that Dave's wide-open eyes
+had no time to shut. In a moment she was all contrition at her
+clumsiness.
+
+"I'm so sorry, Dave," she exclaimed. "I did so hope you'd sleep on till
+supper. It's half an hour yet."
+
+"I haven't been sleeping at all."
+
+"Why, I----"
+
+He smiled and shook his head, and his smile delighted the girl. It was
+the first she had seen in him since his arrival in the camp. His
+impatience at being kept to his bed was perhaps dying out. She had
+always heard that the most active and impatient always became
+reconciled to bed in the end.
+
+"Yes, I did it on purpose," Dave said, still smiling. "You see I wanted
+to think. You'd have talked if I hadn't. I----"
+
+"Oh, Dave!"
+
+Betty's reproach had something very like resentment in it. She turned
+abruptly to the boiler of stew and tasted its contents, while the man
+chuckled softly.
+
+But she turned round on him again almost immediately.
+
+"Why are you laughing?" she demanded quickly.
+
+But he did not seem inclined to enlighten her.
+
+"Half an hour to supper?" he said musingly. "Tom'll be in directly--and
+Mason."
+
+Betty was still looking at him with her cooking spoon poised as it had
+been when she tasted the stew.
+
+"Yes," she said, "they'll be in directly. I've only just got to make
+the tea." She dropped the spoon upon the table and replaced the lid of
+the boiler. Then she came over to his bedside. "What did you mean
+saying I should have talked?" she asked, only now there was a smiling
+response to the smile still lurking in the gray depths of the man's
+eyes. Dave drew a long sigh of resignation.
+
+"Well, y'see, Betty, if I'd laid here with my eyes open, staring about
+the room, at you, at the roof, at the window for a whole heap of time,
+you'd have said to yourself, 'Dave's suffering sure. He can't sleep.
+He's miserable, unhappy.' You'd have said all those things, and with
+all your kind little heart, you'd have set to work to cheer me up--same
+as you'd no doubt have done for that strike-leader fellow you shipped
+over to the sick camp to make room for me. Well, I just didn't want
+that kind of cheering. I was thinking--thinking mighty hard--figgering
+how best to make a broken-winged--er--owl fly without waiting for the
+wing to mend. Y'see, thinking's mostly all I can do just now, and I
+need to do such a mighty heap to keep me from getting mad and breaking
+things. Y'see every hour, as I lie here, I kind of seem to be storing
+up steam like a locomotive, and sometimes I feel--feel as if I was
+going to bust. Being sick makes me hate things." His smiling protest
+was yet perfectly serious. The girl understood. A moment later he went
+on. "Half an hour to supper?" he said, as though suddenly reaching a
+decision that had cost him much thought. "Well, just sit right down on
+this stretcher, and I'm going to talk you tired. I'm sick, so you can't
+refuse."
+
+The man's eyes still smiled, but the seriousness of his manner had
+increased. Nor was Betty slow to observe it. She gladly seated herself
+on the edge of the stretcher, and without the least embarrassment,
+without the least self-consciousness, her soft eyes rested on the
+rugged face of her patient. She was glad that he wanted to talk--and to
+her, and she promptly took him up in his own tone.
+
+"Well, I've got to listen, I s'pose," she said, with a bright smile.
+"As you say, you're sick. You might have added that I am your nurse."
+
+"Yes, I s'pose you are. It seems funny me needing a nurse. I s'pose I
+do need one?"
+
+Betty nodded; her eyes were bright with an emotion that the man's words
+had all unconsciously stirred. This man, so strong for himself, so
+strong to help others--this man, on whom all who came into contact with
+him leaned as upon some staunch, unfailing support--this man, so
+invincible, so masterful, so eager in the battle where the odds were
+against him, needed a nurse! A great pity, a great sympathy, went out
+to him. Then a feeling of joy and gratitude at the thought that she was
+his nurse succeeded it. She--she alone had the right to wait upon him.
+But her face expressed none of these feelings when she replied. She
+nodded gravely.
+
+"Yes, you need a nurse, you poor old Dave. Just for once you're going
+to give others a chance of being to you what you have always been to
+them. It breaks my heart to see you on a sickbed; but, Dave, you can
+never know the joy, the happiness it gives me to be--your nurse. All my
+life it has been the other way. All my life you have been my wise
+counselor, my ever-ready loyal friend; now, in ever so small a degree,
+you have to lean on me. Don't be perverse, Dave. Let me help you all I
+can. Don't begrudge me so small a happiness. But you said you were
+going to talk me tired, and I'm doing it all." She laughed lightly, but
+it was a laugh to hide her real feelings.
+
+The man's uninjured arm reached out, and his great hand rested heavily
+on one of hers. The pressure of his fingers, intended to be gentle, was
+crushing. His action meant so much. No words could have thanked her
+more truly than that hand pressure. Betty's face grew warm with
+delight; and she turned her eyes toward the stove as though to see that
+all was well with her cooking.
+
+"They're cutting to-day?" Dave's eyes were turned upon the window. The
+sunlight was dying out now, and the gray dusk was stealing upon the
+room. Betty understood the longing in the man's heart.
+
+"Yes, they're cutting."
+
+He stirred uneasily.
+
+"My shoulder is mending fast," he said a moment later. And the girl saw
+his drift.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"It's mending, but it won't be well--for weeks," she said.
+
+"It's got to be," he said, with tense emphasis, after a long pause. His
+voice was low, but thrilling with the purpose of a mind that would not
+bend to the weakness of his body.
+
+"You must be patient, Dave dear," the girl said, with the
+persuasiveness of a mother for her child.
+
+For a moment the man's brows drew together in a frown and his lips
+compressed.
+
+"Betty, Betty, I can't be patient," he suddenly burst out. "I know I'm
+all wrong; but I can't be patient. You know what all this means. I'm
+not going to attempt to tell you. You understand it all. I cannot lie
+here a day longer. Even now I seem to hear the saws and axes at work. I
+seem to see the men moving through the forests. I seem to hear Mason's
+orders in the dead calm of the woods. With the first logs that are
+travoyed to the river I must leave here and get back to Malkern. There
+is work to be done, and from now on it will be man's work. It will be
+more than a fight against time. It will be a battle against almost
+incalculable odds, a battle in which all is against us. Betty, you are
+my nurse, and as you hope to see me through with this broken shoulder,
+so you must not attempt to alter my decision. I know you. You want to
+see me fit and well. Before all things you desire that. You will
+understand me when I say that, before all things, I must see the work
+through. My bodily comfort must not be considered; and as my friend, as
+my nurse, you must not hinder me. I must leave here to-night."
+
+The man had lifted himself to a half-sitting posture in his excitement,
+and the girl watched him with anxious eyes. Now she reached out, and
+one hand gently pressed him back to his pillow. As he had said, she
+understood; and when she spoke, her words were the words he wished to
+hear. They soothed him at once.
+
+"Yes, Dave. If you must return, it shall be as you say."
+
+He caught her hand and held it, crushing its small round flesh in the
+hollow of his great palm. It was his gratitude, his gratitude for her
+understanding and sympathy. His eyes met hers. And in that moment
+something else stirred in him. The pressure tightened upon her
+unresisting hand. The blood mounted to her head. It seemed to
+intoxicate her. It was a moment of such ecstasy as she had dreamed of
+in a vague sort of way--a moment when the pure woman spirit in her was
+exalted to such a throne of spiritual light as is beyond the dream of
+human imagination.
+
+In the man, too, was a change. There was something looking out of his
+eyes which seemed to have banished his last thought of that lifelong
+desire for the success of his labors, something which left him no room
+for anything else, something which had for its inception all the human
+passionate desire of his tremendous soul. His gray eyes glowed with a
+living fire; they deepened; a flush of hot blood surged over his rugged
+features, lighting them out of their plainness. His temples throbbed
+visibly, and the vast sinews shivered with the fire that swept through
+his body.
+
+In a daze Betty understood the change. Her heart leaped out to him,
+yielding all her love, all that was hers to give. It cried aloud her
+joy in the passion of those moments, but her lips were silent. She had
+gazed into heaven for one brief instant, then her eyes dropped before a
+vision she dared no longer to look upon.
+
+"Betty!"
+
+The man had lifted to his elbow again. A torrent of passionate words
+rushed to his lips. But they remained unspoken. His heavy tongue was
+incapable of giving them expression. He halted. That one feverish
+exclamation was all that came, for his tongue clave in his mouth. But
+in that one word was the avowal of such a love as rarely falls to the
+lot of woman. It was the man's whole being that spoke.
+
+Betty's hand twisted from his grasp. She sprang to her feet and turned
+to the door.
+
+"It's Bob Mason," she said, in a voice that was almost an awed whisper,
+as she rushed to the cook-stove.
+
+The camp-boss strode heavily into the room. There was a light in his
+eyes that usually would have gladdened the master of the mills. Now,
+however, Dave's thoughts were far from the matters of the camp.
+
+"We've travoyed a hundred to the river bank!" the lumberman exclaimed
+in a tone of triumph. "The work's begun!"
+
+It was Betty who answered him. Hers was the ready sympathy, the heart
+to understand for others equally with herself. She turned with a smile
+of welcome, of pride in his pride.
+
+"Bob, you're a gem!" she cried, holding out a hand of kindliness to him.
+
+And Dave's tardy words followed immediately with characteristic
+sincerity.
+
+"Thanks, Bob," he said, in his deep tones.
+
+"It's all right, boss, they're working by flare to-night, an' they're
+going on till ten o'clock."
+
+Dave nodded. His thoughts had once more turned into the smooth channel
+of his affairs. Betty was serving out supper.
+
+A few moments later, weary and depressed, the parson came in for his
+supper. His report was much the same as usual. Progress--all his
+patients were progressing, but it was slow work, for the recent battle
+had added to the number of his patients.
+
+There was very little talk until supper was over. Then it began as
+Mason was preparing to depart again to his work. Dave spoke of his
+decision without any preamble.
+
+"Say, folks, I'm going back to Malkern to-night," he said, with a
+smiling glance of humor at his friends in anticipation of the storm of
+protest he knew his announcement would bring upon himself.
+
+Mason was on his feet in an instant.
+
+"You can't do it, boss!" he exclaimed. "You----"
+
+"No you don't, Dave, old friend," broke in Chepstow, with a shake of
+his head. "You'll stay right here till I say 'go.'"
+
+Dave's smile broadened, and his eyes sought Betty's.
+
+"Well, Betty?" he demanded.
+
+But Betty understood.
+
+"I have nothing to say," she replied quietly.
+
+Dave promptly turned again to the parson. His smile had gone again.
+
+"I've got to go, Tom," he said. "My work's done here, but it hasn't
+begun yet in Malkern. Do you get my meaning? Until the cutting began up
+here I was not needed down there. Now it is different. There is no one
+in Malkern to head things. Dawson and Odd are good men, but they are
+only my--foremen. It is imperative that I go, and--to-night."
+
+"But look here, boss, it can't be done," cried Mason, with a sort of
+hopeless earnestness. "You aren't fit to move yet. The journey
+down--you'd never stand it. Besides----"
+
+"Yes, besides, who's to take you down? How are you going?" Chepstow
+broke in sharply. He meant to clinch the matter once for all.
+
+Dave's manner returned to the peevishness of his invalid state.
+
+"There's the buckboard," he said sharply.
+
+"Can you drive it?" demanded the parson with equal sharpness. "I can't
+take you down. I can't leave the sick. Mason is needed here. Well?"
+
+"Don't worry. I'm driving myself," Dave said soberly.
+
+Chepstow sprang to his feet and waved his pipe in the air in his angry
+impatience.
+
+"You're mad! You drive? Hang it, man, you couldn't drive a team of
+fleas. Get up! Get up from that stretcher now, and see how much driving
+you could do. See here, Dave, I absolutely forbid you to attempt any
+such thing."
+
+Dave raised himself upon his elbow. His steady eyes had something of an
+angry smile in them.
+
+"See here, Tom," he said, imitating the other's manner. "You can talk
+till you're black in the face. I'm going down to-night. Mason's going
+to hook the buckboard up for me and fetch Truscott along. I'll have to
+take him down too. It's no use in your kicking, Tom," he went on, as
+the parson opened his lips for further protest, "I'm going." He turned
+again to Mason. "I'll need the buckboard and team in an hour. Guess
+you'll see to it, boy. An' say, just set food for the two of us in it,
+and half a sack of oats for the horses----"
+
+"One moment, Bob," interrupted Betty. She had been merely an interested
+listener to the discussion, sitting at the far end of the supper table.
+Now she came over to Dave's bedside. "You'd best put in food for
+three." Then she looked down at Dave, smiling reassurance. From him she
+turned to her uncle with a laughing glance. "Trust you men to argue and
+wrangle over things that can be settled without the least difficulty.
+Dave here must get down to Malkern. I understand the importance of his
+presence there. Very well, he must go. Therefore it's only a question
+how he can get there with the least possible danger to himself. It's
+plain Bob can't go down. He must see the work through here. You, uncle,
+must also stay. It is your duty to the sick. We cannot send any of the
+men. They are all needed. Well, I'm going to drive him down. We'll make
+him comfortable in the carryall, and Truscott can share the
+driving-seat with me--carefully secured to prevent him getting away.
+There you are. I will be responsible for Dave's welfare. You need not
+be anxious."
+
+She turned with such a look of confident affection upon the sick man,
+that, for the moment, no one had a word of protest to offer. It was
+Dave who spoke first. He took her hand in his and nodded his great head
+at her.
+
+"Thanks, little Betty," he said. "I shall be perfectly safe in your
+charge."
+
+And his words were ample reward to the woman who loved him. It was his
+acknowledgment of his dependence upon her.
+
+After that there was discussion, argument, protest for nearly half an
+hour. But Dave and Betty held to their decision, and, at last, Tom
+Chepstow gave way to them. Then it was that Mason went off to make
+preparations. The parson went to assist him, and Betty and Dave were
+once more alone.
+
+Betty let her uncle go and then lit the lamp. For some moments no word
+was spoken between the sick man and his nurse. The girl cleared the
+supper things and put a kettle on the stove. Then, while watching for
+it to boil, she was about to pack up her few belongings for the
+journey. But she changed her mind. Instead she came back to the table
+and faced the stretcher on which the sick man was lying.
+
+"Dave," she said, in a low voice, "will you promise me something?"
+
+Dave turned his face toward her.
+
+"Anything," he said, in all seriousness.
+
+The girl waited. She was gauging the meaning of his reply. In anybody
+else that answer could not have been taken seriously. In him it might
+be different.
+
+"It's a big thing," she said doubtfully.
+
+"It don't matter, little girl, I just mean it."
+
+She came slowly over to his side.
+
+"Do you remember, I once got you to teach me the business of the mill?
+I wanted to learn then so I could help some one. I want to help some
+one now. But it's a different 'some one' this time. Do you understand?
+I--I haven't forgotten a single thing I learned from you. Will you let
+me help you? You cannot do all now. Not until your arm is better." She
+dropped upon her knees at his bedside. "Dave, don't refuse me. You
+shall just give your orders to me. I will see they are carried out.
+We--you and I together--will run your mills to the success that I know
+is going to be yours. Don't say no, Dave--dear."
+
+The man had turned to her. He was looking into the depths of the
+fearless brown eyes before him. He had no intention of refusing her,
+but he was looking, looking deep down into the beautiful, woman's heart
+that was beating within her bosom.
+
+"I'll not refuse you, Betty. I only thank God Almighty for such a
+little friend."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+AT MIDNIGHT
+
+
+The silence of the night was unbroken. The valley of the Red Sand River
+was wrapped in a peace such as it had never known since Dave had first
+brought into it the restless activity of his American spirit. But it
+was a depressing peace to the dwellers in the valley, for it portended
+disaster. No word had reached them of the prospects at the mill, only a
+vague rumor had spread of the doings at the lumber camp. Dave knew the
+value of silence in such matters, and he had taken care to enforce
+silence on all who were in a position to enlighten the minds which
+thirsted for such information.
+
+The people of Malkern were waiting, waiting for something definite on
+the part of the master of the mills. On him depended their future
+movements. The mill was silent, even though the work of repairing had
+been completed. But, as yet, they had not lost faith in the man who had
+piloted them through all the shoals of early struggles to the haven of
+comparative prosperity. However, the calm, the unwonted silence of the
+valley depressed and worried them. They longed for the drone, however
+monotonous, of the mill. They loved it, for it meant that their wheels
+of life were well oiled, and that they were driving pleasantly along
+their set track to the terminal of success.
+
+Yet while the village slept all was intense activity at the mills. The
+men had been gathered together again, late that night, and the army of
+workers was once more complete. The sawyers were at their saws, oiling
+and fitting, and generally making ready for work. The engineers were at
+their engines, the firemen at their furnaces, the lumber-jacks were at
+the shoots, and in the yards. The boom was manned by men who sat around
+smoking, peavey in hand, ready to handle the mightiest "ninety-footers"
+that the mountain forests could send them. The checkers were at their
+posts, and the tally boys were "shooting craps" at the foot of the
+shoots. The mill, like a resting giant lying prone upon his back, was
+bursting with a latent strength and activity that only needed the
+controlling will to set in motion, to drive it to an effort such as
+Malkern had never seen before, such as, perhaps, Malkern would never
+see again. And inside Dave's office, that Will lay watching and waiting.
+
+It was a curious scene inside the office. The place had been largely
+converted since the master of the mills had returned. It was half sick
+room, half office, and the feminine touch about the place was quite
+incongruous in the office of such a man as Dave. But then just now
+Dave's control was only of the mill outside. In this room he yielded to
+another authority. He was in the hands of womenfolk; that is, his body
+was. He had no word to say in the arrangement of the room, and he was
+only permitted to think his control outside.
+
+It was eleven o'clock, and his mother was preparing to take her
+departure. Since his return from the camp she was her son's almost
+constant attendant. Betty's chief concern was for the mill outside, and
+the careful execution of the man's orders to his foremen. She took a
+share of the nursing, but only in moments of leisure, and these were
+very few. Now she had just returned from a final inspection and
+consultation with Dawson. And the glow of satisfaction on her face was
+good to see.
+
+"Now, mother dear," she said, after having made her report to Dave,
+"you've got to be off home, and to bed. You've had a long, hard day,
+and I'm going to relieve you. Dave is all right, and," she added with a
+smile, "maybe he'll be better still before morning. We expect the logs
+down by daylight, and then--I guess their arrival in the boom will do
+more to mend his poor broken shoulder than all our quacks and nostrums.
+So be off with you. I shall be here all night. I don't intend to rest
+till the first log enters the boom."
+
+The old woman rose wearily from her rocking-chair at her boy's bedside.
+Her worn face was tired. At her age the strain of nursing was very
+heavy. But whatever weakness there was in her body, her spirit was as
+strong as the younger woman's. Her boy was sick, and nothing else could
+compare with a disaster of that nature. But now she was ready to go,
+for so it had been arranged between them earlier.
+
+She crossed to Betty's side, and, placing her hands upon the girl's
+shoulders, kissed her tenderly on both cheeks.
+
+"God bless and keep you, dearie," she said, with deep emotion. "I'd
+like to tell you all I feel, but I can't. You're our guardian
+angel--Dave's and mine. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, mother dear," said the girl, her eyes brightening with a
+suspicion of tears. Then, with an assumption of lightness which helped
+to disguise her real feelings, "Now don't you stay awake. Go right off
+to sleep, and--in the morning you shall hear--the mills!"
+
+The old woman nodded and smiled. Next to her boy she loved this
+motherless girl best in the world. She gathered up her few belongings
+and went to the bedside. Bending over the sick man she kissed his
+rugged face tenderly. For a moment one great arm held her in its
+tremendous embrace, then she toddled out of the room.
+
+Betty took her rocking-chair. She sat back and rocked herself in
+silence for some moments. Her eyes wandered over the curious little
+room, noting the details of it as though hugging to herself the memory
+of the smallest trifle that concerned this wonderful time that was hers.
+
+There was Dave's desk before the window. It was hers now. There were
+the vast tomes that recorded his output of lumber. She had spent hours
+over them calculating figures for the man beside her. There were the
+flowers his mother had brought, and which she had found time to arrange
+so that he could see and enjoy them. There were the bandages it was her
+duty to adjust. There were the remains of the food of which they had
+both partaken.
+
+It was all real, yet so strange. So strange to her who had spent her
+life surrounded by all those duties so essentially feminine, so closely
+allied to her uncle's spiritual calling. She felt that she had moved
+out into a new world, a world in which there was room for her to
+expand, in which she could bring into play all those faculties which
+she had always known herself to possess, but which had so long lain
+dormant that she had almost come to regard her belief in their
+existence as a mere dream, a mere vanity.
+
+It was a wonderful thing this, that had happened to her, and the
+happiness of it was so overwhelming that it almost made her afraid. Yet
+the fact remained. She was working for him, she was working with her
+muscles and brain extended. She sighed, and, placing her hands behind
+her head, stretched luxuriously. It was good to feel the muscles
+straining, it was good to contemplate the progress of things in his
+interests, it was good to love, and to feel that that love was
+something more practical than the mere sentimentality of awakened
+passion.
+
+Her wandering attention was recalled by a movement of her patient. She
+glanced round at him, and his face was turned toward her. Her smiling
+eyes responded to his steady, contemplative gaze.
+
+"Well?" he said, in a grave, subdued voice, "it ought to be getting
+near now?"
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"I don't see how we can tell exactly, but--unless anything goes wrong
+the first logs should get through before daylight. It's good to think
+of, Dave." Her eyes sparkled with delight at the prospect.
+
+The man eyed her for a few silent moments, and his eyes deepened to a
+passionate warmth.
+
+"You're a great little woman, Betty," he said at last. "When I think of
+all you have done for me--well, I just feel that my life can never be
+long enough to repay you in. Throughout this business you have been my
+second self, with all the freshness and enthusiasm of a mind and heart
+thrilling with youthful strength. I can never forget the journey down
+from the camp. When I think of the awful physical strain you must have
+gone through, driving day and night, with a prisoner beside you, and a
+useless hulk of a man lying behind, I marvel. When I think that you had
+to do everything, feed us, camp for us, see to the horses for us, it
+all seems like some fantastic dream. How did you do it? How did I come
+to let you? It makes me smile to think that I, in my manly superiority,
+simply lolled about with a revolver handy to enforce our prisoner's
+obedience to your orders. Ah, little Betty, I can only thank Almighty
+God that I have been blest with such a little--friend."
+
+The girl laid the tips of her fingers over his mouth.
+
+"You mustn't say these things," she said, in a thrilling voice.
+"We--you and I--are just here together to work out your--your plans.
+God has been very, very good to me that He has given me the power, in
+however small a degree, to help you. Now let us put these things from
+our minds for a time and be--be practical. Talking of our prisoner,
+what are you going to do with--poor Jim?"
+
+It was some moments before Dave answered her. It was not that he had no
+answer to her question, but her words had sent his mind wandering off
+among long past days. He was thinking of the young lad he had so
+ardently tried to befriend. He was thinking of the "poor Jim" of then
+and now. He was recalling that day when those two had come to him with
+their secret, with their youthful hope of the future, and of all that
+day had meant to him. They had planned, he had planned, and now it was
+all so--different. His inclination was to show this man leniency, but
+his inclination had no power to alter his resolve.
+
+When he spoke there was no resentment in his tone against the man who
+had so cruelly tried to ruin him, only a quiet decision.
+
+"I want you to tell Simon Odd to bring him here," he said. Then he
+smiled. "I intend him to spend the night with me. That is, until the
+first log comes down the river."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+The man's smile increased in tenderness.
+
+"Don't worry your little head about that, Betty," he said. "There are
+things which must be said between us. Things which only men can say to
+men. I promise you he will be free to go when the mill starts work--but
+not until then." His eyes grew stern. "I owe you so much, Betty," he
+went on, "that I must be frank with you. So much depends upon our
+starting work again that I cannot let him go until that happens."
+
+"And if--just supposing--that does not happen--I mean, supposing,
+through his agency, the mill remains idle?"
+
+"I cannot answer you. I have only one thing to add." Dave had raised
+himself upon his elbow, and his face was hard and set. "No man may
+bring ruin upon a community to satisfy his own mean desires, his
+revenge, however that revenge may be justified. If we fail, if Malkern
+is to be made to suffer through that man--God help him!"
+
+The girl was facing him now. Her two hands were outstretched
+appealingly.
+
+"But, Dave, should you judge him? Have you the right? Surely there is
+but one judge, and His alone is the right to condemn weak, erring human
+nature. Surely it is not for you--us."
+
+Dave dropped back upon his pillow. There was no relenting in his eyes.
+
+"His own work shall judge him," he said in a hard voice. "What I may do
+is between him and me."
+
+Betty looked at him long and earnestly. Then she rose from her chair.
+
+"So be it, Dave. I ask you but one thing. Deal with him as your heart
+prompts you, and not as your head dictates. I will send him to you, and
+will come back again--when the mill is at work."
+
+Their eyes met in one long ardent gaze. The man nodded, and the smile
+in his eyes was very, very tender.
+
+"Yes, Betty. Don't leave me too long--I can't do without you now."
+
+The girl's eyes dropped before the light she beheld in his.
+
+"I don't want you to--do without me," she murmured. And she hurried out
+of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+TWO MEN--AND A WOMAN
+
+
+It took some time for Betty to carry out Dave's wishes. Simon Odd, who
+was Jim Truscott's jailer while the mills were idle, and who had him
+secreted away where curious eyes were not likely to discover him, was
+closely occupied with the preparations at the other mill. She had to
+dispatch a messenger to him, and the messenger having found Simon, it
+was necessary for the latter to procure his prisoner and hand him over
+to Dave himself. All this took a long time, nearly an hour and a half,
+which made it two o'clock in the morning before Truscott reached the
+office under his escort.
+
+Odd presented him with scant ceremony. He knocked on the door, was
+admitted, and stood close behind his charge's shoulder.
+
+"Here he is, boss," said the man with rough freedom. "Will I stand by
+in case he gits gay?"
+
+But Dave had his own ideas. He needed no help from anybody in dealing
+with this man.
+
+"No," he said at once. "You can get back to your mill. I relieve you of
+all further responsibility of your--charge. But you can pass me some
+things to prop my pillow up before you go."
+
+The giant foreman did as he was bid. Being just a plain lumberman, with
+no great nicety of fancy he selected three of the ledgers for the
+purpose. Having propped his employer into a sitting posture, he took
+his departure in silence.
+
+Dave waited until the door closed behind him. His cold eyes were on the
+man who had so nearly ruined him, who, indirectly, had nearly cost him
+his life. As the door closed he drew his right hand from under the
+blankets, and in it was a revolver. He laid the weapon on the blanket,
+and his fingers rested on the butt.
+
+Jim Truscott watched his movements, but his gaze was more mechanical
+than one of active interest. What his thoughts were at the moment it
+would have been hard to say, except that they were neither easy nor
+pleasant, if one judged from the lowering expression of his weak face.
+The active hatred which he had recently displayed in Dave's presence
+seemed to be lacking now. It almost seemed as though the rough handling
+he had been treated to, the failure of his schemes for Dave's ruin, had
+dulled the edge of his vicious antagonism. It was as though he were
+indifferent to the object of the meeting, to its outcome. He did not
+even seem to appreciate the significance of the presence of that gun
+under Dave's fingers.
+
+His attitude was that of a man beaten in the fight where all the odds
+had seemed in his favor. His mind was gazing back upon the scene of his
+disaster as though trying to discover the joint in the armor of his
+attack which had rendered him vulnerable and brought about his defeat.
+
+Dave understood something of this. His understanding was more the
+result of his knowledge of a character he had studied long ago, before
+the vicious life the man had since lived had clouded the ingenuous
+impulses of a naturally weak but happy nature. He did not fathom the
+man's thoughts, he did not even guess at them. He only knew the
+character, and the rest was like reading from an open book. In his
+heart he was more sorry for him than he would have dared to admit, but
+his mind was thinking of all the suffering the mischief of this one man
+had caused, might yet cause. Betty had displayed a wonderful wisdom
+when she bade him let his heart govern his judgment in dealing with
+this man.
+
+"You'd best sit down--Jim," Dave said. Already his heart was defying
+his head. That use of a familiar first name betrayed him. "It may be a
+long sitting. You're going to stay right here with me until the mill
+starts up work. I don't know how long that'll be."
+
+Truscott made no answer. He showed he had heard and understood by
+glancing round for a chair. In this quest his eyes rested for a moment
+on the closed door. They passed on to the chair at the desk. Then they
+returned to the door again. Dave saw the glance and spoke sharply.
+
+"You'd best sit, boy. That door is closed--to you. And I'm here to keep
+it closed--to you."
+
+Still the man made no reply. He turned slowly toward the chair at the
+desk and sat down. His whole attitude expressed weariness. It was the
+dejected weariness of a brain overcome by hopelessness.
+
+Watching him, Dave's mind reverted to Betty in association with him. He
+wondered at the nature of this man's regard for her, a regard which was
+his excuse for the villainies he had planned and carried out against
+him, and the mills. His thoughts went back to the day of their boy and
+girl engagement, as he called it now. He remembered the eager,
+impulsive lover, weak, selfish, but full of passion and youthful
+protestations. He thought of his decision to go away, and the manner of
+it. He remembered it was Betty who finally decided for them both. And
+her decision was against his more selfish desires, but one that opened
+out for him the opportunity of showing himself to be the man she
+thought him. Yes, this man had been too young, too weak, too
+self-indulgent. There lay the trouble of his life. His love for Betty,
+if it could be called by so pure a name, had been a mere
+self-indulgence, a passionate desire of the moment that swept every
+other consideration out of its path. There was not that underlying
+strength needed for its support. Was he wholly to blame? Dave thought
+not.
+
+Then there was that going to the Yukon. He had protested at the boy's
+decision. He had known from the first that his character had not the
+strength to face the pitiless breath of that land of snowy desolation.
+How could one so weak pit himself against the cruel forces of nature
+such as are to be found in that land? It was impossible. The inevitable
+had resulted. He had fallen to the temptations of the easier paths of
+vice in Dawson, and, lost in that whirl, Betty was forgotten. His
+passion died down, satiated in the filthy dives of Dawson. Then had
+come his return to Malkern. Stinking with the contamination of his
+vices, he had returned caring for nothing but himself. He had once more
+encountered Betty. The pure fresh beauty of the girl had promptly set
+his vitiated soul on fire. But now there was no love, not even a love
+such as had been his before, but only a mad desire, a desire as
+uncontrolled as the wind-swept rollers of a raging sea. It was the
+culminating evil of a manhood debased by a long period of loose,
+vicious living. She must be his at any cost, and opposition only fired
+his desire the more, and drove him to any length to attain his end. The
+pity of it! A spirit, a bright buoyant spirit lost in the mad whirl of
+a nature it had not been given him the power to control. His heart was
+full of a sorrowful regret. His heart bled for the man, while his mind
+condemned his ruthless actions.
+
+He lay watching in a silence that made the room seem heavy and
+oppressive. As yet he had no words for the man who had come so nearly
+to ruining him. He had not brought him there to preach to him, to blame
+him, to twit him with the failure of his evil plans, the failure he had
+made of a life that had promised so much. He held him there that he
+might settle his reckoning with him, once and for all, in a manner
+which should shut him out of his life forever. He intended to perform
+an action the contemplation of which increased the sorrow he felt an
+hundredfold, but one which he was fully determined upon as being the
+only course, in justice to Betty, to Malkern, to himself, possible.
+
+The moments ticked heavily away. Truscott made no move. He gave not the
+slightest sign of desiring to speak. His eyes scarcely heeded his
+surroundings. It was almost as if he had no care for what this man who
+held him in his power intended to do. It almost seemed as though the
+weight of his failure had crushed the spirit within him, as though a
+dreary lassitude had settled itself upon him, and he had no longer a
+thought for the future.
+
+Once during that long silence he lifted his large bloodshot eyes, and
+his gaze encountered the other's steady regard. They dropped almost at
+once, but in that fleeting glance Dave read the smouldering fire of
+hate which still burned deep down in his heart. The sight of it had no
+effect. The man's face alone interested him. It looked years older, it
+bore a tracery of lines about the eyes and mouth, which, at his age, it
+had no right to possess. His hair, too, was already graying amongst the
+curls that had always been one of his chief physical attractions. It
+was thinning, too, a premature thinning at the temples, which also had
+nothing to do with his age.
+
+Later, again, the man's eyes turned upon the door with a calculating
+gaze. They came back to the bed where Dave was lying. The movement was
+unmistakable. Dave's fingers tightened on the butt of his revolver, and
+his great head was moved in a negative shake, and the ominous shining
+muzzle of his revolver said plainly, "Don't!" Truscott seemed to
+understand, for he made no movement, nor did he again glance at the
+door.
+
+It was a strange scene. It was almost appalling in its significant
+silence. What feelings were passing, what thoughts, no one could tell
+from the faces of the two men. That each was living through a small
+world of recollection, mostly bitter, perhaps regretful, there could be
+no doubt, yet neither gave any sign. They were both waiting. In the
+mind of one it was a waiting for what he could not even guess at, in
+the other it was for something for which he longed yet feared might not
+come.
+
+The hands of the clock moved on, but neither heeded them. Time meant
+nothing to them now. An hour passed. An hour and a half. Two hours of
+dreadful silence. That vigil seemed endless, and its silence appalling.
+
+Then suddenly a sound reached the waiting ears. It was a fierce
+hissing, like an escape of steam. It grew louder, and into the hiss
+came a hoarse tone, like a harsh voice trying to bellow through the
+rushing steam. It grew louder and louder. The voice rose to a
+long-drawn "hoot," which must have been heard far down the wide spread
+of the Red Sand Valley. It struck deep into Dave's heart, and loosed in
+it such a joy as rarely comes to the heart of man. It was the steam
+siren of the mill belching out its message to a sleeping village. The
+master of the mills had triumphed over every obstacle. The mill had
+once more started work.
+
+Dave waited until the last echo of that welcome voice had died out.
+Then, as his ears drank in the welcome song of his saws, plunging their
+jagged fangs into the newly-arrived logs, he was content.
+
+He turned to the man in the chair.
+
+"Did you hear that, Jim? D'you know what it means?" he asked, in a
+voice softened by the emotion of the moment.
+
+Truscott's eyes lifted. But he made no answer. The light in them was
+ugly. He knew.
+
+"It means that you are free to go," Dave went on. "It means that my
+contract will be successfully completed within the time limit. It means
+that you will leave this village at once and never return, or the
+penitentiary awaits you for the wrecking of my mills."
+
+Truscott rose from his seat. The hate in his heart was stirring. It was
+rising to his head. The fury of his eyes was appalling. Dave saw it. He
+shifted his gun and gripped it tightly.
+
+"Wait a bit, lad," he said coldly. "It means more than all that to you.
+A good deal more. Can you guess it? It means that I--and not you--am
+going to marry Betty Somers."
+
+"God!"
+
+The man was hit as Dave had meant him to be hit. He started, and his
+clenched hand went up as though about to strike. The devil in his eyes
+was appalling.
+
+"Now go! Quick!"
+
+The word leaped from the lumberman's lips, and his gun went up
+threateningly. For a moment it seemed as though Truscott was about to
+spring upon him, regardless of the weapon's shining muzzle. But he did
+not move. A gun in Dave's hand was no idle threat, and he knew it.
+Besides he had not the moral strength of the other.
+
+He moved to the door and opened it. Then for one fleeting second he
+looked back. It may have been to reassure himself that the gun was
+still there, it may have been a last expression of his hate. Another
+moment and he was gone. Dave replaced his gun beneath the blankets and
+sighed.
+
+
+Betty sprang into the room.
+
+"Hello, door open?" she demanded, glancing about her suspiciously. Then
+her sparkling eyes came back to the injured man.
+
+"Do you hear, Dave?" she cried, in an ecstasy of excitement. "Did you
+hear the siren! I pulled and held the valve cord! Did you hear it!
+Thank God!"
+
+Dave's happy smile was sufficient for the girl. Had he heard it? His
+heart was still ringing with its echoes.
+
+"Betty, come here," he commanded. "Help me up."
+
+"Why----"
+
+"Help me up, dear," the man begged. "I must get up. I must get to the
+door. Don't you understand, child--I must see."
+
+"But you can't go out, Dave!"
+
+"I know. I know. Only to the door. But--I must see."
+
+The girl came over to his bedside. She lifted him with a great effort.
+He sat up. Then he swung his feet off the bed.
+
+"Now, little girl, help me."
+
+It felt good to him to enforce his will upon Betty in this way. And the
+girl obeyed him with all her strength, with all her heart stirred at
+his evident weakness.
+
+He stood leaning on her shakily.
+
+"Now, little Betty," he said, breathing heavily, "take me to the door."
+
+He placed his sound arm round her shoulders. He even leaned more
+heavily upon her than was necessary. It was good to lean on her. He
+liked to feel her soft round shoulders under his arm. Then, too, he
+could look down upon the masses of warm brown hair which crowned her
+head. To him his weakness was nothing in the joy of that moment, in the
+joy of his contact with her.
+
+They moved slowly toward the door; he made the pace slower than
+necessary. To him they were delicious moments. To Betty--she did not
+know what she felt as her arm encircled his great waist, and all her
+woman's strength and love was extended to him.
+
+At the door they paused. They stared out into the yards. The great
+mills loomed up in the ruddy flare light. It was a dark, shadowy scene
+in that inadequate light. The steady shriek of the saws filled the air.
+The grinding of machinery droned forth, broken by the pulsing throb of
+great shafts and moving beams. Men were hurrying to and fro, dim
+figures full of life and intent upon the labors so long suspended. They
+could see the trimmed logs sliding down the shoots, they could hear the
+grind of the rollers, they could hear the shoutings of "checkers"; and
+beyond they could see the glowing reflection of the waste fire.
+
+It was a sight that thrilled them both. It was a sight that filled
+their hearts with thanks to God. Each knew that it meant--Success.
+
+Dave turned from the sight, and his eyes looked down upon the slight
+figure at his side. Betty looked up into his face. Her eyes were misty
+with tears of joy. Suddenly she dropped her eyes and looked again at
+the scene before them. Her heart was beating wildly. Her arm supporting
+the man at her side was shaking, nor was it with weariness of her task.
+She felt that it could never tire of that. Dave's deep voice, so
+gentle, yet so full of the depth and strength of his nature, was
+speaking.
+
+"It's good, Betty. It's good. We've won out--you and I."
+
+Her lips moved to protest at the part she had played, but he silenced
+her.
+
+"Yes, you and I," he said softly. "It's all ours--yours and mine.
+You'll share it with me?" The girl's supporting arm moved convulsively.
+"No, no," he went on quickly. "Don't take your arm away. I need--I need
+its support. Betty--little Betty--I need more than that. I need your
+support always. Say, dear, you'll give it me. You won't leave me alone
+now? Betty--Betty, I love you--so--so almighty badly."
+
+The girl moved her head as though to avoid his kisses upon her hair.
+Somehow her face was lifted in doing so, and they fell at once upon her
+lips instead.
+
+
+
+
+
+Popular Copyright Books
+
+AT MODERATE PRICES
+
+Ask your dealer for a complete list of A. L. Burt Company's Popular
+Copyright Fiction.
+
+
+  +Abner Daniel.+ By Will N. Harben.
+  +Adventures of A Modest Man.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Adventures of Gerard.+ By A. Conan Doyle.
+  +Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.+ By A. Conan Doyle.
+  +Ailsa Page.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Alternative, The.+ By George Barr McCutcheon.
+  +Ancient Law, The.+ By Ellen Glasgow.
+  +Angel of Forgiveness, The.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Angel of Pain, The.+ By E. F. Benson.
+  +Annals of Ann, The.+ By Kate Trimble Sharber.
+  +Anna the Adventuress.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Ann Boyd.+ By Will N. Harben.
+  +As the Sparks Fly Upward.+ By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+  +At the Age of Eve.+ By Kate Trimble Sharber.
+  +At the Mercy of Tiberius.+ By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+  +At the Moorings.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Awakening of Helen Richie, The.+ By Margaret Deland.
+  +Barrier, The.+ By Rex Beach.
+  +Bar 20.+ By Clarence E. Mulford.
+  +Bar-20 Days.+ By Clarence E. Mulford.
+  +Battle Ground, The.+ By Ellen Glasgow.
+  +Beau Brocade.+ By Baroness Orczy.
+  +Beechy.+ By Bettina von Hutten.
+  +Bella Donna.+ By Robert Hichens.
+  +Beloved Vagabond, The.+ By William J. Locke.
+  +Ben Blair.+ By Will Lillibridge.
+  +Best Man, The.+ By Harold McGrath.
+  +Beth Norvell.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Betrayal, The.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Better Man, The.+ By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+  +Beulah.+ (Illustrated Edition.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+  +Bill Toppers, The.+ By Andre Castaigne.
+  +Blaze Derringer.+ By Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.
+  +Bob Hampton of Placer.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Bob, Son of Battle.+ By Alfred Ollivant.
+  +Brass Bowl, The.+ By Louis Joseph Vance.
+  +Bronze Bell, The.+ By Louis Joseph Vance.
+  +Butterfly Man, The.+ By George Barr McCutcheon.
+  +By Right of Purchase..+ By Harold Bindloss.
+  +Cab No. 44.+ By R. F. Foster.
+  +Calling of Dan Matthews, The.+ By Harold Bell Wright.
+  +Call of the Blood, The.+ By Robert Hichens.
+  +Cape Cod Stories.+ By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+  +Cap'n Eri.+ By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+  +Captain Warren's Wards.+ By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+  +Caravaners, The.+ By the author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden."
+  +Cardigan.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Carlton Case, The.+ By Ellery H. Clark.
+  +Car of Destiny, The.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Carpet From Bagdad, The.+ By Harold MacGrath.
+  +Cash Intrigue, The.+ By George Randolph Chester.
+  +Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine.+ Frank S. Stockton.
+  +Castle by the Sea, The.+ By H. B. Marriot Watson.
+  +Challoners, The.+ By E. F. Benson.
+  +Chaperon, The.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Circle, The.+ By Katherine Cecil Thurston (author of "The
+      Masquerader," "The Gambler.")
+  +Colonial Free Lance, A + By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+  +Conquest of Canaan, The.+ By Booth Tarkington.
+  +Conspirators, The.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Cynthia of the Minute.+ By Louis Joseph Vance.
+  +Dan Merrithew.+ By Lawrence Perry.
+  +Day of the Dog, The.+ By George Barr McCutcheon.
+  +Depot Master, The.+ By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+  +Derelicts.+ By William J. Locke.
+  +Diamond Master, The.+ By Jacques Futrelle.
+  +Diamonds Cut Paste.+ By Agnes and Egerton Castle.
+  +Divine Fire, The.+ By May Sinclair.
+  +Dixie Hart.+ By Will N. Harben.
+  +Dr. David.+ By Marjorie Benton Cooke.
+  +Early Bird, The.+ By George Randolph Chester.
+  +Eleventh Hour, The.+ By David Potter.
+  +Elizabeth in Rugen.+ (By the author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden.")
+  +Elusive Isabel.+ By Jacques Futrelle.
+  +Elusive Pimpernel, The.+ By Baroness Orczy.
+  +Enchanted Hat, The.+ By Harold McGrath.
+  +Excuse Me.+ By Rupert Hughes.
+  +54-40 or Fight.+ By Emerson Hough.
+  +Fighting Chance, The.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Flamsted Quarries.+ By Mary E. Waller.
+  +Flying Mercury, The.+ By Eleanor M. Ingram.
+  +For a Maiden Brave.+ By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+  +Four Million, The.+ By O. Henry.
+  +Four Pool's Mystery, The.+ By Jean Webster.
+  +Fruitful Vine, The.+ By Robert Hichens.
+  +Ganton & Co.+ By Arthur J. Eddy.
+  +Gentleman of France, A.+ By Stanley Weyman.
+  +Gentleman, The.+ By Alfred Ollivant.
+  +Get-Rick-Quick-Wallingford.+ By George Randolph Chester.
+  +Gilbert Neal.+ By Will N. Harben.
+  +Girl and the Bill, The.+ By Bannister Merwin.
+  +Girl from His Town, The.+ By Marie Van Vorst.
+  +Girl Who Won, The.+ By Beth Ellis.
+  +Glory of Clementina, The.+ By William J. Locke.
+  +Glory of the Conquered, The.+ By Susan Glaspell.
+  +God's Good Man.+ By Marie Corelli.
+  +Going Some.+ By Rex Beach.
+  +Golden Web, The.+ By Anthony Partridge.
+  +Green Patch, The.+ By Bettina von Hutten.
+  +Happy Island+ (sequel to "Uncle William"). By Jennette Lee.
+  +Hearts and the Highway.+ By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+  +Held for Orders.+ By Frank H. Spearman.
+  +Hidden Water.+ By Dane Coolidge.
+  +Highway of Fate. The.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Homesteaders. The.+ By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
+  +Honor of the Big Snows, The.+ By James Oliver Curwood.
+  +Hopalong Cassidy.+ By Clarence E. Mulford.
+  +Household of Peter, The.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +House of Mystery, The.+ By Will Irwin.
+  +House of the Lost Court, The.+ By C. N. Williamson.
+  +House of the Whispering Pines, The.+ By Anna Katharine Green.
+  +House on Cherry Street, The.+ By Amelia E. Barr.
+  +How Leslie Loved.+ By Anne Warner.
+  +Husbands of Edith, The.+ By George Barr McCutcheon.
+  +Idols.+ By William J. Locke.
+  +Illustrious Prince, The.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Imprudence of Prue, The.+ By Sophie Fisher.
+  +Inez.+ (Illustrated Edition.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+  +Infelice.+ By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+  +Initials Only.+ By Anna Katharine Green.
+  +In Defiance of the King.+ By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
+  +Indifference of Juliet, The.+ By Grace S. Richmond.
+  +In the Service of the Princess.+ By Henry C. Rowland.
+  +Iron Woman, The.+ By Margaret Deland.
+  +Ishmael.+ (Illustrated.) By Mrs. Southworth.
+  +Island of Regeneration, The.+ By Cyrus Townsend Brady.
+  +Jack Spurlock, Prodigal.+ By Horace Lorimer.
+  +Jane Cable.+ By George Barr McCutcheon.
+  +Jeanne of the Marshes.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Jude the Obscure.+ By Thomas Hardy.
+  +Keith of the Border.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Key to the Unknown, The.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Kingdom of Earth, The.+ By Anthony Partridge.
+  +King Spruce.+ By Holman Day.
+  +Ladder of Swords, A.+ By Gilbert Parker.
+  +Lady Betty Across the Water.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Lady Merton, Colonist.+ By Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
+  +Lady of Big Shanty, The.+ By Berkeley F. Smith.
+  +Langford of the Three Bars.+ By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
+  +Land of Long Ago, The.+ By Eliza Calvert Hall.
+  +Lane That Had No Turning, The.+ By Gilbert Parker.
+  +Last Trail, The.+ By Zane Grey.
+  +Last Voyage of the Donna Isabel, The.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Leavenworth Case, The.+ By Anna Katharine Green.
+  +Lin McLean.+ By Owen Wister.
+  +Little Brown Jug at Kildare, The.+ By Meredith Nicholson.
+  +Loaded Dice.+ By Ellery H. Clarke.
+  +Lord Loveland Discovers America.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Lorimer of the Northwest.+ By Harold Bindloss.
+  +Lorraine.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Lost Ambassador, The.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Love Under Fire.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Loves of Miss Anne, The.+ By S. R. Crockett.
+  +Macaria.+ (Illustrated Edition.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+  +Mademoiselle Celeste.+ By Adele Ferguson Knight.
+  +Maid at Arms, The.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Maid of Old New York, A.+ By Amelia E. Barr.
+  +Maid of the Whispering Hills, The.+ By Vingie Roe.
+  +Maids of Paradise, The.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+  +Making of Bobby Burnit, The.+ By George Randolph Chester.
+  +Mam' Linda.+ By Will N. Harben.
+  +Man Outside, The.+ By Wyndham Martyn.
+  +Man In the Brown Derby, The.+ By Wells Hastings.
+  +Marriage a la Mode.+ By Mrs. Humphrey Ward.
+  +Marriage of Theodora, The.+ By Molly Elliott Seawell.
+  +Marriage Under the Terror, A.+ By Patricia Wentworth.
+  +Master Mummer, The.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Masters of the Wheatlands.+ By Harold Bindloss.
+  +Max.+ By Katherine Cecil Thurston.
+  +Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.+ By A. Conan Doyle.
+  +Millionaire Baby, The.+ By Anna Katharine Green.
+  +Missioner, The.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Miss Selina Lue.+ By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+  +Mistress of Brae Farm, The.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Money Moon, The.+ By Jeffery Farnol.
+  +Motor Maid, The.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Much Ado About Peter.+ By Jean Webster.
+  +Mr. Pratt.+ By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+  +My Brother's Keeper.+ By Charles Tenny Jackson.
+  +My Friend the Chauffeur.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson
+  +My Lady Caprice+ (author of the "Broad Highway"). Jeffery Farnol.
+  +My Lady of Doubt.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +My Lady of the North.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +My Lady of the South.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Mystery Tales.+ By Edgar Allen Poe.
+  +Nancy Stair.+ By Elinor Macartney Lane.
+  +Ne'er-Do-Well, The.+ By Rex Beach.
+  +No Friend Like a Sister.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Officer 666.+ By Barton W. Currie and Augustin McHugh.
+  +One Braver Thing.+ By Richard Dehan.
+  +Order No. 11.+ By Caroline Abbot Stanley.
+  +Orphan, The.+ By Clarence E. Mulford.
+  +Out of the Primitive.+ By Robert Ames Bennett.
+  +Pam.+ By Bettina von Hutten.
+  +Pam Decides.+ By Bettina von Hutten.
+  +Pardners.+ By Rex Beach.
+  +Partners of the Tide.+ By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+  +Passage Perilous, The.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Passers By.+ By Anthony Partridge.
+  +Paternoster Ruby, The.+ By Charles Edmonds Walk.
+  +Patience of John Moreland, The.+ By Mary Dillon.
+  +Paul Anthony, Christian.+ By Hiram W. Hays.
+  +Phillip Steele.+ By James Oliver Curwood.
+  +Phra the Phoenician.+ By Edwin Lester Arnold.
+  +Plunderer, The.+ By Roy Norton.
+  +Pole Baker.+ By Will N. Harben.
+  +Politician, The.+ By Edith Huntington Mason.
+  +Polly of the Circus.+ By Margaret Mayo.
+  +Pool of Flame, The.+ By Louis Joseph Vance.
+  +Poppy.+ By Cynthia Stockley.
+  +Power and the Glory, The.+ By Grace McGowan Cooke.
+  +Price of the Prairie, The.+ By Margaret Hill McCarter.
+  +Prince of Sinners, A.+ By E. Phillips Oppenheim.
+  +Prince or Chauffeur.+ By Lawrence Perry.
+  +Princess Dehra, The.+ By John Reed Scott.
+  +Princess Passes, The.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Princess Virginia, The.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Prisoners of Chance.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Prodigal Son, The.+ By Hall Caine.
+  +Purple Parasol, The.+ By George Barr McCutcheon.
+  +Reconstructed Marriage, A.+ By Amelia Barr.
+  +Redemption of Kenneth Galt, The.+ By Will N. Harben.
+  +Red House on Rowan Street.+ By Roman Doubleday.
+  +Red Mouse, The.+ By William Hamilton Osborne.
+  +Red Pepper Burns.+ By Grace S. Richmond.
+  +Refugees, The.+ By A. Conan Doyle.
+  +Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary, The.+ By Anne Warner.
+  +Road to Providence, The.+ By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+  +Romance of a Plain Man, The.+ By Ellen Glasgow.
+  +Rose in the Ring, The.+ By George Barr McCutcheon.
+  +Rose of Old Harpeth, The.+ By Maria Thompson Daviess.
+  +Rose of the World.+ By Agnes and Egerton Castle.
+  +Round the Corner in Gay Street.+ By Grace S. Richmond.
+  +Routledge Rides Alone.+ By Will Livingston Comfort.
+  +Running Fight, The.+ By Wm. Hamilton Osborne.
+  +Seats of the Mighty, The.+ By Gilbert Parker.
+  +Septimus.+ By William J. Locke.
+  +Set In Silver.+ By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
+  +Self-Raised.+ (Illustrated.) By Mrs. Southworth.
+  +Shepherd of the Hills, The.+ By Harold Bell Wright.
+  +Sheriff of Dyke Hole, The.+ By Ridgwell Cullum.
+  +Sidney Carteret, Rancher.+ By Harold Bindloss.
+  +Simon the Jester.+ By William J. Locke.
+  +Silver Blade, The.+ By Charles E. Walk.
+  +Silver Horde, The.+ By Rex Beach.
+  +Sir Nigel.+ By A. Conan Doyle.
+  +Sir Richard Calmady.+ By Lucas Malet.
+  +Skyman, The.+ By Henry Ketchell Webster.
+  +Slim Princess, The.+ By George Ade.
+  +Speckled Bird, A.+ By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+  +Spirit In Prison, A.+ By Robert Hichens.
+  +Spirit of the Border, The.+ By Zane Grey.
+  +Spirit Trail, The.+ By Kate and Virgil D.+ Boyles.
+  +Spoilers, The.+ By Rex Beach.
+  +Stanton Wins.+ By Eleanor M. Ingram.
+  +St. Elmo.+ (Illustrated Edition.) By Augusta J. Evans.
+  +Stolen Singer, The.+ By Martha Bellinger.
+  +Stooping Lady, The.+ By Maurice Hewlett.
+  +Story of the Outlaw, The.+ By Emerson Hough.
+  +Strawberry Acres.+ By Grace S. Richmond.
+  +Strawberry Handkerchief, The.+ By Amelia E.+ Barr.
+  +Sunnyside of the Hill, The.+ By Rosa N. Carey.
+  +Sunset Trail, The.+ By Alfred Henry Lewis.
+  +Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop.+ By Anne Warner.
+  +Sword of the Old Frontier, A.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Tales of Sherlock Holmes.+ By A. Conan Doyle.
+  +Tennessee Shad, The.+ By Owen Johnson.
+  +Tess of the D'Urbervilles.+ By Thomas Hardy.
+  +Texican, The.+ By Dane Coolidge.
+  +That Printer of Udell's.+ By Harold Bell Wright.
+  +Three Brothers, The.+ By Eden Phillpotts.
+  +Throwback, The.+ By Alfred Henry Lewis.
+  +Thurston of Orchard Valley.+ By Harold Bindloss.
+  +Title Market, The.+ By Emily Post.
+  +Torn Sails. A Tale of a Welsh Village.+ By Allen Raine.
+  +Trail of the Axe, The.+ By Ridgwell Cullum.
+  +Treasure of Heaven, The.+ By Marie Corelli.
+  +Two-Gun Man, The.+ By Charles Alden Seltzer.
+  +Two Vanrevels, The.+ By Booth Tarkington.
+  +Uncle William.+ By Jennette Lee.
+  +Up from Slavery.+ By Booker T. Washington.
+  +Vanity Box, The.+ By C. N. Williamson.
+  +Vashti.+ By Augusta Evans Wilson.
+  +Varmint, The.+ By Owen Johnson.
+  +Vigilante Girl, A.+ By Jerome Hart.
+  +Village of Vagabonds, A.+ By F.+ Berkeley Smith.
+  +Visioning, The.+ By Susan Glaspell.
+  +Voice of the People, The.+ By Ellen Glasgow.
+  +Wanted--A Chaperon.+ By Paul Leicester Ford.
+  +Wanted: A Matchmaker.+ By Paul Leicester Ford.
+  +Watchers of the Plains, The.+ By Ridgwell Cullum.
+  +Wayfarers, The.+ By Mary Stewart Cutting.
+  +Way of a Man, The.+ By Emerson Hough.
+  +Weavers, The.+ By Gilbert Parker.
+  +When Wilderness Was King.+ By Randall Parrish.
+  +Where the Trail Divides.+ By Will Lillibridge.
+  +White Sister, The.+ By Marion Crawford.
+  +Window at the White Cat, The.+ By Mary Roberts Rinehart.
+  +Winning of Barbara Worth, The.+ By Harold Bell Wright.
+  +With Juliet In England.+ By Grace S. Richmond.
+  +Woman Haters, The.+ By Joseph C. Lincoln.
+  +Woman In Question, The.+ By John Reed Scott.
+  +Woman In the Alcove, The.+ By Anna Katharine Green.
+  +Yellow Circle, The.+ By Charles E. Walk.
+  +Yellow Letter, The.+ By William Johnston.
+  +Younger Set, The.+ By Robert W. Chambers.
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: Italicized text is indicated with _underscores_;
+bolded text with +plus signs+.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Trail of the Axe, by Ridgwell Cullum
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