Through the green timber Bryce Cardigan strode, and there was a lilt
in his heart now. Already he had forgotten the desperate situation from
which he had just escaped; he thought only of Shirley Sumner's face,
tear-stained with terror; and because he knew that at least some of
those tears had been inspired by the gravest apprehensions as to his
physical well-being, because in his ears there still resounded her
frantic warning, he realized that however stern her decree of banishment
had been, she was nevertheless not indifferent to him. And it was this
knowledge that had thrilled him into song and which when his song was
done had brought to his firm mouth a mobility that presaged his old
whimsical smile--to his brown eyes a beaming light of confidence and
pride.
The climax had been reached--and passed; and the result had been far
from the disaster he had painted in his mind's eye ever since the
knowledge had come to him that he was doomed to battle to a knockout
with Colonel Pennington, and that one of the earliest fruits of
hostilities would doubtless be the loss of Shirley Sumner's prized
friendship. Well, he had lost her friendship, but a still small voice
whispered to him that the loss was not irreparable--whereat he swung his
axe as a bandmaster swings his baton; he was glad that he had started
the war and was now free to fight it out unhampered.
Up hill and down dale he went. Because of the tremendous trees he could
not see the sun; yet with the instinct of the woodsman, an instinct
as infallible as that of a homing pigeon, he was not puzzled as to
direction. Within two hours his long, tireless stride brought him out
into a clearing in the valley where his own logging-camp stood. He went
directly to the log-landing, where in a listless and half-hearted manner
the loading crew were piling logs on Pennington's logging-trucks.
Bryce looked at his watch. It was two o'clock; at two-fifteen
Pennington's locomotive would appear, to back in and couple to the long
line of trucks. And the train was only half loaded.
“Where's McTavish?” Bryce demanded of the donkey-driver.
The man mouthed his quid, spat copiously, wiped his mouth with the
back of his hand, and pointed. “Up at his shanty,” he made answer, and
grinned at Bryce knowingly.
Up through the camp's single short street, flanked on each side with
the woodsmen's shanties, Bryce went. Dogs barked at him, for he was a
stranger in his own camp; children, playing in the dust, gazed upon him
owlishly. At the most pretentious shanty on the street Bryce turned in.
He had never seen it before, but he knew it to be the woods-boss's home,
for unlike its neighbours the house was painted with the coarse red
paint that is used on box-cars, while a fence, made of fancy pointed
pickets painted white, inclosed a tiny garden in front of the house. As
Bryce came through the gate, a young girl rose from where she knelt in a
bed of freshly transplanted pansies.
Bryce lifted his hat. “Is Mr. McTavish at home?” he asked.
She nodded. “He cannot see anybody,” she hastened to add. “He's sick.”
“I think he'll see me. And I wonder if you're Moira McTavish.”
“Yes, I'm Moira.”
“I'm Bryce Cardigan.”
A look of fright crept into the girl's eyes. “Are you--Bryce Cardigan?”
she faltered, and looked at him more closely. “Yes, you're Mr. Bryce.
You've changed--but then it's been six years since we saw you last, Mr.
Bryce.”
He came toward her with outstretched hand. “And you were a little girl
when I saw you last. Now--you're a woman.” She grasped his hand with the
frank heartiness of a man. “I'm mighty glad to meet you again, Moira. I
just guessed who you were, for of course I should never have recognized
you. When I saw you last, you wore your hair in a braid down your back.”
“I'm twenty years old,” she informed him.
“Stand right where you are until I have looked at you,” he commanded,
and backed off a few feet, the better to contemplate her.
He saw a girl slightly above medium height, tanned, robust, simply
gowned in a gingham dress. Her hands were soiled from her recent labours
in the pansy-bed, and her shoes were heavy and coarse; yet neither hands
nor feet were large or ungraceful. Her head was well formed; her hair,
jet black and of unusual lustre and abundance, was parted in the middle
and held in an old-fashioned coil at the nape of a neck the beauty
of which was revealed by the low cut of her simple frock. Moira was a
decided brunette, with that wonderful quality of skin to be seen only
among brunettes who have roses in their cheeks; her brow was broad and
spiritual; in her eyes, large, black, and listrous, there was a brooding
tenderness not untouched with sorrow--some such expression, indeed, as
da Vinci put in the eyes of his Mona Lisa. Her nose was patrician, her
face oval; her lips, full and red, were slightly parted in the adorable
Cupid's bow which is the inevitable heritage of a short upper lip; her
teeth were white as Parian marble; and her full breast was rising and
falling swiftly, as if she laboured under suppressed excitement.
So delightful a picture did Moira McTavish make that Bryce forgot all
his troubles in her sweet presence. “By the gods, Moira,” he declared
earnestly, “you're a peach! When I saw you last, you were awkward and
leggy, like a colt. I'm sure you weren't a bit good-looking. And now
you're the most ravishing young lady in seventeen counties. By jingo,
Moira, you're a stunner and no mistake. Are you married?”
She shook her head, blushing pleasurably at his unpolished but sincere
compliments.
“What? Not married. Why, what the deuce can be the matter with the
eligible young fellows hereabouts?”
“There aren't any eligible young fellows hereabouts, Mr. Bryce. And I've
lived in these woods all my life.”
“That's why you haven't been discovered.”
“And I don't intend to marry a lumberjack and continue to live in
these woods,” she went on earnestly, as if she found pleasure in this
opportunity to announce her rebellion. Despite her defiance, however,
there was a note of sad resignation in her voice.
“You don't know a thing about it, Moira. Some bright day your Prince
Charming will come by, riding the log-train, and after that it will
always be autumn in the woods for you. Everything will just naturally
turn to crimson and gold.”
“How do you know, Mr Bryce?”
He laughed. “I read about it in a book.”
“I prefer spring in the woods, I think. It seems--It's so foolish of me,
I know; I ought to be contented, but it's hard to be contented when it
is always winter in one's heart. That frieze of timber on the skyline
limits my world, Mr Bryce. Hills and timber, timber and hills, and the
thunder of falling redwoods. And when the trees have been logged off so
we can see the world, we move back into green timber again.” She sighed.
“Are you lonely, Moira?”
She nodded.
“Poor Moira!” he murmured absently.
The thought that he so readily understood touched her; a glint of tears
was in her sad eyes. He saw them and placed his arm fraternally
around her shoulders. “Tut-tut, Moira! Don't cry,” he soothed her. “I
understand perfectly, and of course we'll have to do something about
it. You're too fine for this.” With a sweep of his hand he indicated the
camp. He had led her to the low stoop in front of the shanty. “Sit down
on the steps, Moira, and we'll talk it over. I really called to see your
father, but I guess I don't want to see him after all--if he's sick.”
She looked at him bravely. “I didn't know you at first, Mr. Bryce. I
fibbed. Father isn't sick. He's drunk.”
“I thought so when I saw the loading-crew taking it easy at the
log-landing. I'm terribly sorry.”
“I loathe it--and I cannot leave it,” she burst out vehemently. “I'm
chained to my degradation. I dream dreams, and they'll never come true.
I--I--oh Mr. Bryce, Mr. Bryce, I'm so unhappy.”
“So am I,” he retorted. “We all get our dose of it, you know, and just
at present I'm having an extra helping, it seems. You're cursed with too
much imagination, Moira. I'm sorry about your father. He's been with us
a long time, and my father has borne a lot from him for old sake's sake;
he told me the other night that he has discharged Mac fourteen times
during the past ten years, but to date he hasn't been able to make it
stick. For all his sixty years, Moira, your confounded parent can still
manhandle any man on the pay-roll, and as fast as Dad put in a new
woods-boss old Mac drove him off the job. He simply declines to
be fired, and Dad's worn out and too tired to bother about his old
woods-boss any more. He's been waiting until I should get back.”
“I know,” said Moira wearily. “Nobody wants to be Cardigan's woods-boss
and have to fight my father to hold his job. I realize what a nuisance
he has become.”
Bryce chuckled. “I asked Father why he didn't stand pat and let Mac work
for nothing; having discharged him, my father was under no obligation
to give him his salary just because he insisted on being woods-boss. Dad
might have starved your father out of these woods, but the trouble
was that old Mac would always come and promise reform and end up by
borrowing a couple of hundred dollars, and then Dad had to hire him
again to get it back! Of course the matter simmers down to this: Dad is
so fond of your father that he just hasn't got the moral courage to work
him over--and now that job is up to me. Moira, I'm not going to
beat about the bush with you. They tell me your father is a hopeless
inebriate.”
“I'm afraid he is, Mr. Bryce.”
“How long has he been drinking to excess?”
“About ten years, I think. Of course, he would always take a few drinks
with the men around pay-day, but after Mother died, he began taking
his drinks between pay-days. Then he took to going down to Sequoia on
Saturday nights and coming back on the mad-train, the maddest of the
lot. I suppose he was lonely, too. He didn't get real bad, however, till
about two years ago.”
“Just about the time my father's eyes began to fail him and he ceased
coming up into the woods to jack Mac up? So he let the brakes go and
started to coast, and now he's reached the bottom! I couldn't get him
on the telephone to-day or yesterday. I suppose he was down in Arcata,
liquoring up.”
She nodded miserably.
“Well, we have to get logs to the mill, and we can't get them with
old John Barleycorn for a woods-boss, Moira. So we're going to change
woods-bosses, and the new woods-boss will not be driven off the job,
because I'm going to stay up here a couple of weeks and break him in
myself. By the way, is Mac ugly in his cups?”
“Thank God, no,” she answered fervently. “Drunk or sober, he has never
said an unkind word to me.”
“But how do you manage to get money to clothe yourself? Sinclair tells
me Mac needs every cent of his two hundred and fifty dollars a month to
enjoy himself.”
“I used to steal from him,” the girl admitted. “Then I grew ashamed of
that, and for the past six months I've been earning my own living. Mr.
Sinclair was very kind. He gave me a job waiting on table in the camp
dining room. You see, I had to have something here. I couldn't leave my
father. He had to have somebody to take care of him. Don't you see, Mr.
Bryce?”
“Sinclair is a fuzzy old fool,” Bryce declared with emphasis. “The idea
of our woods-boss's daughter slinging hash to lumberjacks. Poor Moira!”
He took one of her hands in his, noting the callous spots on the plump
palm, the thick finger-joints that hinted so of toil, the nails that had
never been manicured save by Moira herself. “Do you remember when I was
a boy, Moira, how I used to come up to the logging-camps to hunt and
fish? I always lived with the McTavishes then. And in September, when
the huckleberries were ripe, we used to go out and pick them together.
Poor Moira! Why, we're old pals, and I'll be shot if I'm going to see
you suffer.”
She glanced at him shyly, with beaming eyes. “You haven't changed a bit,
Mr. Bryce. Not one little bit!”
“Let's talk about you, Moira. You went to school in Sequoia, didn't
you?”
“Yes, I was graduated from the high school there. I used to ride the
log-trains into town and back again.”
“Good news! Listen, Moira. I'm going to fire your father, as I've said,
because he's working for old J.B. now, not the Cardigan Redwood Lumber
Company. I really ought to pension him after his long years in the
Cardigan service, but I'll be hanged if we can afford pensions
any more--particularly to keep a man in booze; so the best our old
woods-boss gets from me is this shanty, or another like it when we move
to new cuttings, and a perpetual meal-ticket for our camp dining room
while the Cardigans remain in business. I'd finance him for a trip to
some State institution where they sometimes reclaim such wreckage, if I
didn't think he's too old a dog to be taught new tricks.”
“Perhaps,” she suggested sadly, “you had better talk the matter over
with him.”
“No, I'd rather not. I'm fond of your father, Moira. He was a man when
I saw him last--such a man as these woods will never see again--and
I don't want to see him again until he's cold sober. I'll write him a
letter. As for you, Moira, you're fired, too. I'll not have you waiting
on table in my logging-camp--not by a jugful! You're to come down to
Sequoia and go to work in our office. We can use you on the books,
helping Sinclair, and relieve him of the task of billing, checking
tallies, and looking after the pay-roll. I'll pay you a hundred dollars
a month, Moira. Can you get along on that?”
Her hard hand closed over his tightly, but she did not speak.
“All right, Moira. It's a go, then. Hills and timber--timber and
hills--and I'm going to set you free. Perhaps in Sequoia you'll find
your Prince Charming. There, there, girl, don't cry. We Cardigans had
twenty-five years of faithful service from Donald McTavish before he
commenced slipping; after all, we owe him something, I think.”
She drew his hand suddenly to her lips and kissed it; her hot tears of
joy fell on it, but her heart was too full for mere words.
“Fiddle-de-dee, Moira! Buck up,” he protested, hugely pleased, but
embarrassed withal. “The way you take this, one would think you had
expected me to go back on an old pal and had been pleasantly surprised
when I didn't. Cheer up, Moira! Cherries are ripe, or at any rate they
soon will be; and if you'll just cease shedding the scalding and listen
to me, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll advance you two months' salary
for--well, you'll need a lot of clothes and things in Sequoia that you
don't need here. And I'm glad I've managed to settle the McTavish hash
without kicking up a row and hurting your feelings. Poor old Mac! I'm
sorry I can't bear with him, but we simply have to have the logs, you
know.”
He rose, stooped, and pinched her ear; for had he not known her since
childhood, and had they not gathered huckleberries together in the
long ago? She was sister to him--just another one of his problems--and
nothing more. “Report on the job as soon as possible, Moira,” he called
to her from the gate. Then the gate banged behind him, and with a smile
and a debonair wave of his hand, he was striding down the little camp
street where the dogs and the children played in the dust.
After a while Moira walked to the gate and leaning upon it, looked down
the street toward the log-landing where Bryce was ragging the laggard
crew into some thing like their old-time speed. Presently the locomotive
backed in and coupled to the log tram, and when she saw Bryce leap
aboard and seat himself on a top log in such a position that he could
not fail to see her at the gate, she waved to him. He threw her a
careless kiss, and the train pulled out.
Presently, when Moira lifted her Madonna glance to the frieze of timber
on the skyline, there was a new glory in her eyes; and lo, it was autumn
in the woods, for over that hill Prince Charming had come to her, and
life was all crimson and gold!
When the train loaded with Cardigan logs crawled in on the main track
and stopped at the log-landing in Pennington's camp, the locomotive
uncoupled and backed in on the siding for the purpose of kicking the
caboose, in which Shirley and Colonel Pennington had ridden to the
woods, out onto the main line again--where, owing to a slight downhill
grade, the caboose, controlled by the brakeman, could coast gently
forward and be hooked on to the end of the log-train for the return
journey to Sequoia.
Throughout the afternoon Shirley, following the battle royal between
Bryce and the Pennington retainers, had sat dismally in the caboose. She
was prey to many conflicting emotions; but having had what her sex
term “a good cry,” she had to a great extent recovered her customary
poise--and was busily speculating on the rapidity with which she could
leave Sequoia and forget she had ever met Bryce Cardigan--when the
log-train rumbled into the landing and the last of the long string of
trucks came to a stop directly opposite the caboose.
Shirley happened to be looking through the grimy caboose window at
that moment. On the top log of the load the object of her unhappy
speculations was seated, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that he
was back once more in the haunt of his enemies, although knowledge that
the double-bitted axe he had so unceremoniously borrowed of Colonel
Pennington was driven deep into the log beside him, with the haft
convenient to his hand, probably had much to do with Bryce's air of
detached indifference. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his
chin in his cupped hands, and a pipe thrust aggressively out the corner
of his mouth, the while he stared moodily at his feet.
Shirley suspected she knew what he was thinking of; he was less than
six feet from her, and a morbid fascination moved her to remain at the
window and watch the play of emotions over his strong, stern face.
She told herself that should he move, should he show the slightest
disposition to raise his head and bring his eyes on a level with hers,
she would dodge away from the window in time to escape his scrutiny.
She reckoned without the engine. With a smart bump it struck the caboose
and shunted it briskly up the siding; at the sound of the impact Bryce
raised his troubled glance just in time to see Shirley's body, yielding
to the shock, sway into full view at the window.
With difficulty he suppressed a grin. “I'll bet my immortal soul she
was peeking at me,” he soliloquized. “Confound the luck! Another meeting
this afternoon would be embarrassing.” Tactfully he resumed his study of
his feet, not even looking up when the caboose, after gaining the main
track, slid gently down the slight grade and was coupled to the rear
logging-truck. Out of the tail of his eye he caught a glimpse of Colonel
Pennington passing alongside the log-train and entering the caboose; he
heard the engineer shout to the brakeman--who had ridden down from the
head of the train to unlock the siding switch and couple the caboose--to
hurry up, lock the switch, and get back aboard the engine.
“Can't get this danged key to turn in the lock,” the brakeman shouted
presently. “Lock's rusty, and something's gone bust inside.”
Minutes passed. Bryce's assumed abstraction became real, for he had many
matters to occupy his busy brain, and it was impossible for him to sit
idle without adverting to some of them. Presently he was subconsciously
aware that the train was moving gently forward; almost immediately, it
seemed to him, the long string of trucks had gathered their customary
speed; and then suddenly it dawned upon Bryce that the train had started
off without a single jerk--and that it was gathering headway rapidly.
He looked ahead--and his hair grew creepy at the roots. There was no
locomotive attached to the train! It was running away down a two per
cent. grade, and because of the tremendous weight of the train, it was
gathering momentum at a fearful rate.
The reason for the runaway dawned on Bryce instantly. The road, being
privately owned, was, like most logging-roads, neglected as to roadbed
and rolling-stock; also it was undermanned, and the brake-man, who also
acted as switchman, had failed to set the hand-brakes on the leading
truck after the engineer had locked the air-brakes. As a result, during
the five or six minutes required to “spot in” the caboose, and an extra
minute or two lost while the brakeman struggled with the recalcitrant
lock on the switch, the air had leaked away through the worn valves
and rubber tubing, and the brakes had been released--so that the train,
without warning, had quietly and almost noiselessly slid out of the
log-landing and started on its mad career. Before the engineer could
beat it to the other switch with the locomotive, run out on the main
track, let the runaway gradually catch up with him and hold
it--no matter how or what happened to him or his engine--the first
logging-truck had cleared the switch and blocked pursuit. There was
nothing to do now save watch the wild runaway and pray, for of all the
mad runaways in a mad world, a loaded logging-train is by far the worst.
For an instant after realizing his predicament, Bryce Cardigan was
tempted to jump and take his chance on a few broken bones, before the
train could reach a greater speed than twenty miles an hour. His impulse
was to run forward and set the handbrake on the leading truck, but a
glance showed him that even with the train standing still he could not
hope to leap from truck to truck and land on the round, freshly peeled
surface of the logs without slipping for he had no calks in his boots.
And to slip now meant swift and horrible death.
“Too late!” he muttered. “Even if I could get to the head of the train,
I couldn't stop her with the hand-brake; should I succeed in locking the
wheels, the brute would be doing fifty miles an hour by that time--the
front truck would slide and skid, leave the tracks and pile up with me
at the bottom of a mess of wrecked rolling-stock and redwood logs.”
Then he remembered. In the wildly rolling caboose Shirley Sumner rode
with her uncle, while less than two miles ahead, the track swung in a
sharp curve high up along the hillside above Mad River. Bryce knew the
leading truck would never take that curve at high speed, even if the
ancient rolling-stock should hold together until the curve was reached,
but would shoot off at a tangent into the canyon, carrying trucks, logs,
and caboose with it, rolling over and over down the hillside to the
river.
“The caboose must be cut out of this runaway,” Bryce soliloquized,
“and it must be cut out in a devil of a hurry. Here goes nothing in
particular, and may God be good to my dear old man.”
He jerked his axe out of the log, drove it deep into the top log toward
the end, and by using the haft to cling to, crawled toward the rear
of the load and looked down at the caboose coupling. The top log was
a sixteen-foot butt; the two bottom logs were eighteen footers. With a
silent prayer of thanks to Providence, Bryce slid down to the landing
thus formed. He was still five feet above the coupling, however; but
by leaning over the swaying, bumping edge and swinging the axe with one
hand, he managed to cut through the rubber hose on the air connection.
“The blamed thing might hold and drag the caboose along after I've
pulled out the coupling-pin,” he reflected. “And I can't afford to take
chances now.”
Nevertheless he took them. Axe in hand, he leaped down to the narrow
ledge formed by the bumper in front of the cabooses--driving his face
into the front of the caboose; and he only grasped the steel rod leading
from the brake-chains to the wheel on the roof in time to avoid falling
half stunned between the front of the caboose and the rear of the
logging-truck. The caboose had once been a box-car; hence there was
no railed front platform to which Bryce might have leaped in safety.
Clinging perilously on the bumper, he reached with his foot, got his toe
under the lever on the side, jerked it upward, and threw the pin out
of the coupling; then with his free hand he swung the axe and drove the
great steel jaws of the coupling apart.
The caboose was cut out! But already the deadly curve was in sight; in
two minutes the first truck would reach it; and the caboose, though cut
loose, had to be stopped, else with the headway it had gathered, it,
too, would follow the logging-trucks to glory.
For a moment Bryce clung to the brake-rod, weak and dizzy from the
effects of the blow when, leaping down from the loaded truck to the
caboose bumper, his face had smashed into the front of the caboose. His
chin was bruised, skinned, and bloody; his nose had been broken, and
twin rivulets of blood ran from his nostrils. He wiped it away, swung
his axe, drove the blade deep into the bumper and left it there with the
haft quivering; turning, he climbed swiftly up the narrow iron ladder
beside the brake-rod until he reached the roof; then, still standing
on the ladder, he reached the brake-wheel and drew it promptly but
gradually around until the wheel-blocks began to bite, when he exerted
his tremendous strength to the utmost and with his knees braced doggedly
against the front of the caboose, held the wheel.
The brake screamed, but the speed of the caboose was not appreciably
slackened. “It's had too good a start!” Bryce moaned. “The momentum is
more than I can overcome. Oh, Shirley, my love! God help you!”
He cast a sudden despairing look over his shoulder downward at the
coupling. He was winning, after all, for a space of six feet now yawned
between the end of the logging-truck and the bumper of the caboose. If
he could but hold that tremendous strain on the wheel for a quarter of
a mile, he might get the demon caboose under control! Again he dug his
knees into the front of the car and twisted on the wheel until it seemed
that his muscles must crack.
After what seemed an eon of waiting, he ventured another look ahead. The
rear logging-truck was a hundred yards in front of him now, and from the
wheels of the caboose an odour of something burning drifted up to him.
“I've got your wheels locked!” he half sobbed. “I'll hold you yet, you
brute. Slide! That's it! Slide, and flatten your infernal wheels. Hah!
You're quitting--quitting. I'll have you in control before we reach the
curve. Burn, curse you, burn!”
With a shriek of metal scraping metal, the head of the Juggernaut ahead
took the curve, clung there an instant, and was catapulted out into
space. Logs weighing twenty tons were flung about like kindling; one
instant, Bryce could see them in the air; the next they had disappeared
down the hillside. A deafening crash, a splash, a cloud of dust--
With a protesting squeal, the caboose came to the point where the
logging-train had left the right of way, carrying rails and ties with
it. The wheels on the side nearest the bank slid into the dirt first and
plowed deep into the soil; the caboose came to an abrupt stop, trembled
and rattled, overtopped its centre of gravity, and fell over against the
cut-bank, wearily, like a drunken hag.
Bryce, still clinging to the brake, was fully braced for the shock and
was not flung off. Calmly he descended the ladder, recovered the axe
from the bumper, climbed back to the roof, tiptoed off the roof to the
top of the bank and sat calmly down under a manzanita bush to await
results, for he was quite confident that none of the occupants of the
confounded caboose had been treated to anything worse than a wild ride
and a rare fright, and he was curious to see how Shirley Sumner would
behave in an emergency.
Colonel Pennington was first to emerge at the rear of the caboose. He
leaped lightly down the steps, ran to the front of the car, looked down
the track, and swore feelingly. Then he darted back to the rear of the
caboose.
“All clear and snug as a bug under a chip, my dear,” he called to
Shirley. “Thank God, the caboose became uncoupled--guess that fool
brakeman forgot to drop the pin; it was the last car, and when it jumped
the track and plowed into the dirt, it just naturally quit and toppled
over against the bank. Come out, my dear.”
Shirley came out, dry-eyed, but white and trembling. The Colonel placed
his arm around her, and she hid her face on his shoulder and shuddered.
“There, there!” he soothed her affectionately. “It's all over, my dear.
All's well that ends well.”
“The train,” she cried in a choking voice. “Where is it?”
“In little pieces--down in Mad River.” He laughed happily. “And the logs
weren't even mine! As for the trucks, they were a lot of ratty antiques
and only fit to haul Cardigan's logs. About a hundred yards of roadbed
ruined--that's the extent of my loss, for I'd charged off the trucks to
profit and loss two years ago.”
“Bryce Cardigan,” she sobbed. “I saw him--he was riding a top log on the
train. He--ah, God help him!”
The Colonel shook her with sudden ferocity. “Young Cardigan,” he cried
sharply. “Riding the logs? Are you certain?”
She nodded, and her shoulders shook piteously.
“Then Bryce Cardigan is gone!” Pennington's pronouncement was solemn,
deadly with its flat finality. “No man could have rolled down into
Mad River with a trainload of logs and survived. The devil himself
couldn't.” He heaved a great sigh, and added: “Well, that clears the
atmosphere considerably, although for all his faults, I regret, for his
father's sake, that this dreadful affair has happened. Well, it can't be
helped, Shirley. Don't cry, my dear. I know it's terrible, but--there,
there my love. Do brace up. Poor devil! For all his damnable treatment
of me, I wouldn't have had this happen for a million dollars.”
Shirley burst into wild weeping. Bryce's heart leaped, for he understood
the reason for her grief. She had sent him away in anger, and he had
gone to his death; ergo it would be long before Shirley would forgive
herself. Bryce had not intended presenting himself before her in his
battered and bloody condition, but the sight of her distress now was
more than he could bear. He coughed slightly, and the alert Colonel
glanced up at him instantly.
“Well, I'll be hanged!” The words fell from Pennington's lips with a
heartiness that was almost touching. “I thought you'd gone with the
train.”
“Sorry to have disappointed you, old top,” Bryce replied blithely, “but
I'm just naturally stubborn. Too bad about the atmosphere you thought
cleared a moment ago! It's clogged worse than ever now.”
At the sound of Bryce's voice, Shirley raised her head, whirled and
looked up at him. He held his handkerchief over his gory face that the
sight might not distress her; he could have whooped with delight at the
joy that flashed through her wet lids.
“Bryce Cardigan,” she commanded sternly, “come down here this instant.”
“I'm not a pretty sight, Shirley. Better let me go about my business.”
She stamped her foot. “Come here!”
“Well, since you insist,” he replied, and he slid down the bank.
“How did you get up there--and what do you mean by hiding there spying
on me, you--you--oh, YOU!”
“Cuss a little, if it will help any,” he suggested. “I had to get out of
your way--out of your sight--and up there was the best place. I was on
the roof of the caboose when it toppled over, so all I had to do was
step ashore and sit down.”
“Then why didn't you stay there?” she demanded furiously.
“You wouldn't let me,” he answered demurely. “And when I saw you weeping
because I was supposed to be with the angels, I couldn't help coughing
to let you know I was still hanging around, ornery as a book-agent.”
“How did you ruin your face, Mr. Cardigan?”
“Tried to take a cast of the front end of the caboose in my classic
countenance--that's all.”
“But you were riding the top log on the last truck--”
“Certainly, but I wasn't hayseed enough to stay there until we struck
this curve. I knew exactly what was going to happen, so I climbed down
to the bumper of the caboose, uncoupled it from the truck, climbed up
on the roof, and managed to get the old thing under control with the
hand-brake; then I skedaddled up into the brush because I knew you were
inside, and---By the way, Colonel Pennington, here is your axe, which I
borrowed this afternoon. Much obliged for its use. The last up-train is
probably waiting on the siding at Freshwater to pass the late
lamented; consequently a walk of about a mile will bring you a means of
transportation back to Sequoia. Walk leisurely--you have lots of time.
As for myself, I'm in a hurry, and my room is more greatly to be desired
than my company, so I'll start now.”
He lifted his hat, turned, and walked briskly down the ruined track.
Shirley made a little gesture of dissent, half opened her lips to call
him back, thought better of it, and let him go. When he was out of
sight, it dawned on her that he had risked his life to save hers.
“Uncle Seth,” she said soberly, “what would have happened to us if Bryce
Cardigan had not come up here to-day to thrash your woods-boss?”
“We'd both be in Kingdom Come now,” he answered truthfully.
“Under the circumstances, then,” Shirley continued, “suppose we all
agree to forget that anything unusual happened to-day--”
“I bear the young man no ill will, Shirley, but before you permit
yourself to be carried away by the splendour of his action in cutting
out the caboose and getting it under control, it might be well to
remember that his own precious hide was at stake also. He would have cut
the caboose out even if you and I had not been in it.”
“No, he would not,” she insisted, for the thought that he had done it
for her sake was very sweet to her and would persist. “Cooped up in the
caboose, we did not know the train was running away until it was too
late for us to jump, while Bryce Cardigan, riding out on the logs, must
have known it almost immediately. He would have had time to jump before
the runaway gathered too much headway--and he would have jumped, Uncle
Seth, for his father's sake.”
“Well, he certainly didn't stay for mine, Shirley.”
She dried her moist eyes and blushed furiously. “Uncle Seth,” she
pleaded, taking him lovingly by the arm, “let's be friends with Bryce
Cardigan; let's get together and agree on an equitable contract for
freighting his logs over our road.”
“You are now,” he replied severely, “mixing sentiment and business; if
you persist, the result will be chaos. Cardigan has in a large measure
squared himself for his ruffianly conduct earlier in the day, and I'll
forgive him and treat him with courtesy hereafter; but I want you to
understand, Shirley, that such treatment by me does not constitute
a license for that fellow to crawl up in my lap and be petted. He is
practically a pauper now, which makes him a poor business risk, and
you'll please me greatly by leaving him severely alone--by making him
keep his distance.”
“I'll not do that,” she answered with a quiet finality that caused her
uncle to favour her with a quick, searching glance.
He need not have worried, however, for Bryce Cardigan was too well aware
of his own financial condition to risk the humiliation of asking Shirley
Sumner to share it with him. Moreover, he had embarked upon a war--a war
which he meant to fight to a finish.