Colonel Pennington's imported British butler showed Bryce into the
Pennington living room at six-thirty, announcing him with due ceremony.
Shirley rose from the piano where she had been idly fingering the keys
and greeted him with every appearance of pleasure--following which, she
turned to present her visitor to Colonel Pennington, who was standing in
his favourite position with his back to the fireplace.
“Uncle Seth, this is Mr. Cardigan, who was so very nice to me the day I
landed in Red Bluff.”
The Colonel bowed. “I have to thank you, sir, for your courtesy to my
niece.” He had assumed an air of reserve, of distinct aloofness, despite
his studied politeness. Bryce stepped forward with extended hand, which
the Colonel grasped in a manner vaguely suggestive of that clammy-palmed
creation of Charles Dickens--Uriah Heep. Bryce was tempted to squeeze
the lax fingers until the Colonel should bellow with pain; but resisting
the ungenerous impulse, he replied instead:
“Your niece, Colonel, is one of those fortunate beings the world will
always clamour to serve.”
“Quite true, Mr. Cardigan. When she was quite a little girl I came under
her spell myself.”
“So did I, Colonel. Miss Sumner has doubtless told you of our first
meeting some twelve years ago?”
“Quite so. May I offer you a cocktail, Mr. Cardigan?”
“Thank you, certainly. Dad and I have been pinning one on about this
time every night since my return.”
“Shirley belongs to the Band of Hope,” the Colonel explained. “She's
ready at any time to break a lance with the Demon Rum. Back in Michigan,
where we used to live, she saw too many woodsmen around after the spring
drive. So we'll have to drink her share, Mr. Cardigan. Pray be seated.”
Bryce seated himself. “Well, we lumbermen are a low lot and naturally
fond of dissipation,” he agreed. “I fear Miss Sumner's Prohibition
tendencies will be still further strengthened after she has seen the
mad-train.”
“What is that?” Shirley queried.
“The mad-train runs over your uncle's logging railroad up into Township
Nine, where his timber and ours is located. It is the only train
operated on Sunday, and it leaves Sequoia at five p.m. to carry
the Pennington and Cardigan crews back to the woods after their
Saturday-night celebration in town. As a usual thing, all hands, with
the exception of the brakeman, engineers, and fireman, are singing,
weeping or fighting drunk.”
“But why do you provide transportation for them to come to town Saturday
nights?” Shirley protested.
“They ride in on the last trainload of logs, and if we didn't let them
do it, they'd ask for their time. It's the way of the gentle lumberjack.
And of course, once they get in, we have to round them up on Sunday
afternoon and get them back on the job. Hence the mad-train.”
“Do they fight, Mr. Cardigan?”
“Frequently. I might say usually. It's quite an inspiring sight to see a
couple of lumberjacks going to it on a flat-car travelling thirty miles
an hour.”
“But aren't they liable to fall off and get killed?”
“No. You see, they're used to fighting that way. Moreover, the engineer
looks back, and if he sees any signs of Donnybrook Fair, he slows down.”
“How horrible!”
“Yes, indeed. The right of way is lined with empty whiskey bottles.”
Colonel Pennington spoke up. “We don't have any fighting on the
mad-train any more,” he said blandly.
“Indeed! How do you prevent it?” Bryce asked.
“My woods-boss, Jules Rondeau, makes them keep the peace,” Pennington
replied with a small smile. “If there's any fighting to be done, he does
it.”
“You mean among his own crew, of course,” Bryce suggested.
“No, he's in charge of the mad-train, and whether a fight starts among
your men or ours, he takes a hand. He's had them all behaving mildly for
quite a while, because he can whip any man in the country, and everybody
realizes it. I don't know what I'd do without Rondeau. He certainly
makes those bohunks of mine step lively.”
“Oh-h-h! Do you employ bohunks, Colonel?”
“Certainly. They cost less; they are far less independent than most
men and more readily handled. And you don't have to pamper
them--particularly in the matter of food. Why, Mr Cardigan, with all due
respect to your father, the way he feeds his men is simply ridiculous!
Cake and pie and doughnuts at the same meal!” The Colonel snorted
virtuously.
“Well, Dad started in to feed his men the same food he fed himself, and
I suppose the habits one forms in youth are not readily changed in old
age, Colonel.”
“But that makes it hard for other manufacturers,” the Colonel protested.
“I feed my men good plain food and plenty of it--quite better food than
they were used to before they came to this country; but I cannot seem to
satisfy them. I am continuously being reminded, when I do a thing thus
and so, that John Cardigan does it otherwise. Your respected parent
is the basis for comparison in this country, Cardigan, and I find
it devilish inconvenient.” He laughed indulgently and passed his
cigarette-case to Bryce.
“Uncle Seth always grows restless when some other man is the leader,”
Shirley volunteered with a mischievous glance at Pennington. “He was the
Great Pooh-Bah of the lumber-trade back in Michigan, but out here he has
to play second fiddle. Don't you, Nunky-dunk?”
“I'm afraid I do, my dear,” the Colonel admitted with his best air of
hearty expansiveness. “I'm afraid I do. However, Mr. Cardigan, now that
you have--at least, I have been so informed--taken over your father's
business, I am hoping we will be enabled to get together on many little
details and work them out on a common basis to our mutual advantage. We
lumbermen should stand together and not make it hard for each other. For
instance, your scale of wages is totally disproportionate to the present
high cost of manufacture and the mediocre market; yet just because you
pay it, you set a precedent which we are all forced to follow. However,”
he concluded, “let's not talk shop. I imagine we have enough of that
during the day. Besides, here are the cocktails.”
With the disposal of the cocktails, the conversation drifted into a
discussion of Shirley's adventures with a salmon in Big Lagoon.
The Colonel discoursed learnedly on the superior sport of
muskellunge-fishing, which prompted Bryce to enter into a description
of going after swordfish among the islands of the Santa Barbara channel.
“Trout-fishing when the fish gets into white water is good sport;
salmon-fishing is fine, and the steel-head in Eel River are hard to
beat; muskellunge are a delight, and tarpon are not so bad if you're
looking for thrills; but for genuine inspiration give me a sixteen-foot
swordfish that will leap out of the water from three to six feet, and do
it three or four hundred times--all on a line and rod so light one dares
not state the exact weight if he values his reputation for veracity.
Once I was fishing at San--”
The butler appeared in the doorway and bowed to Shirley, at the time
announcing that dinner was served. The girl rose and gave her arm to
Bryce; with her other arm linked through her uncle's she turned toward
the dining room.
Just inside the entrance Bryce paused. The soft glow of the candles in
the old-fashioned silver candlesticks upon the table was reflected
in the polished walls of the room-walls formed of panels of the most
exquisitely patterned redwood burl Bryce Cardigan had ever seen. Also
the panels were unusually large.
Shirley Sumner's alert glance followed Bryce's as it swept around
the room. “This dining room is Uncle Seth's particular delight, Mr.
Cardigan,” she explained.
“It is very beautiful, Miss Sumner. And your uncle has worked wonders
in the matter of having it polished. Those panels are positively the
largest and most beautiful specimens of redwood burl ever turned out in
this country. The grain is not merely wavy; it is not merely curly; it
is actually so contrary that you have here, Colonel Pennington, a room
absolutely unique, in that it is formed of bird's-eye burl. Mark the
deep shadows in it. And how it does reflect those candles!”
“It is beautiful,” the Colonel declared. “And I must confess to a
pardonable pride in it, although the task of keeping these walls from
being marred by the furniture knocking against them requires the utmost
care.”
Bryce turned and his brown eyes blazed into the Colonel's. “Where DID
you succeed in finding such a marvellous tree?” he queried pointedly.
“I know of but one tree in Humboldt County that could have produced such
beautiful burl.”
For about a second Colonel Pennington met Bryce's glance unwaveringly;
then he read something in his guest's eyes, and his glance shifted,
while over his benign countenance a flush spread quickly. Bryce noted
it, and his quickly roused suspicions were as quickly kindled into
certainty. “Where did you find that tree?” he repeated innocently.
“Rondeau, my woods-boss, knew I was on the lookout for something
special--something nobody else could get; so he kept his eyes open.”
“Indeed!” There was just a trace of irony in Bryce's tones as he
drew Shirley's chair and held it for her. “As you say, Colonel, it is
difficult to keep such soft wood from being marred by contact with
the furniture. And you are fortunate to have such a woods-boss in your
employ. Such loyal fellows are usually too good to be true, and quite
frequently they put their blankets on their backs and get out of the
country when you least expect it. I dare say it would be a shock to you
if Rondeau did that.”
There was no mistaking the veiled threat behind that apparently
innocent observation, and the Colonel, being a man of more than ordinary
astuteness, realized that at last he must place his cards on the table.
His glance, as he rested it on Bryce now, was baleful, ophidian. “Yes,”
he said, “I would be rather disappointed. However, I pay Rondeau rather
more than it is customary to pay woods-bosses; so I imagine he'll
stay--unless, of course, somebody takes a notion to run him out of
the county. And when that happens, I want to be on hand to view the
spectacle.”
Bryce sprinkled a modicum of salt in his soup. “I'm going up into
Township Nine to-morrow afternoon,” he remarked casually. “I think I
shall go over to your camp and pay the incomparable Jules a brief visit.
Really, I have heard so much about that woods-boss of yours, Colonel,
that I ache to take him apart and see what makes him go.”
Again the Colonel assimilated the hint, but preferred to dissemble.
“Oh, you can't steal him from me, Cardigan,” he laughed. “I warn you in
advance--so spare yourself the effort.”
“I'll try anything once,” Bryce retorted with equal good nature.
“However, I don't want to steal him from you. I want to ascertain from
him where he procured this burl. There may be more of the same in the
neighbourhood where he got this.”
“He wouldn't tell you.”
“He might. I'm a persuasive little cuss when I choose to exert myself.”
“Rondeau is not communicative. He requires lots of persuading.”
“What delicious soup!” Bryce murmured blandly. “Miss Sumner, may I have
a cracker?”
The dinner passed pleasantly; the challenge and defiance between guest
and host had been so skillfully and gracefully exchanged that Shirley
hadn't the slightest suspicion that these two well-groomed men had,
under her very nose, as it were, agreed to be enemies and then, for the
time being, turned their attention to other and more trifling matters.
Coffee was served in the living room, and through the fragrant smoke
of Pennington's fifty-cent perfectos a sprightly three-cornered
conversation continued for an hour. Then the Colonel, secretly enraged
at the calm, mocking, contemplative glances which Bryce ever and anon
bestowed upon him, and unable longer to convince himself that he was too
apprehensive--that this cool young man knew nothing and would do nothing
even if he knew something--rose, pleaded the necessity for looking over
some papers, and bade Bryce good-night. Foolishly he proffered Bryce a
limp hand; and a demon of deviltry taking possession of the latter, this
time he squeezed with a simple, hearty earnestness, the while he said:
“Colonel Pennington, I hope I do not have to assure you that my visit
here this evening has not only been delightful but--er--instructive.
Good-night, sir, and pleasant dreams.”
With difficulty the Colonel suppressed a groan. However, he was not
the sort of man who suffers in silence; for a minute later the butler,
leaning over the banisters as his master climbed the stairs to his
library, heard the latter curse with an eloquence that was singularly
appealing.