The odd thing was that his name was really Dennis. In the West, Dennis
stands genetically for the under dog, for the man who is left. His
name is--Dennis! Why? The man in this story was christened Dennis,
and, being a native son of the Golden West, he took particular pains
to keep the fact a secret from the "boys." When he punched cattle on
our range he was known as "Kingdom Come" Brown, because, even in those
days, it was plain to tenderfeet that physically and intellectually D.
Brown, cowboy, was not likely to inherit the kingdoms of the earth.
Ever since he had been breeched ill-fortune had marked him for her
own. Nevertheless, he was rich in the possession of a temperament
which soared like a lark above suffering and disappointment. He
believed steadfastly that his "turn" would come. "It ain't goin' to be
like this yere--always," was a phrase familiar to us. To this we
replied, "Not much!"
In our hearts we, too, believed that the turn would come, but that,
humanly speaking, it would occur in the sweet by-and-by. Hence the
nickname. The hardest nuts admitted that Brown was travelling upon the
rough road which leads upwards. His golden slippers were waiting for
him--sure! He set an example which none followed, but which all, in
sober moments, commended. He neither drank nor swore. He remained
faithful to the memory of a woman who had married somebody else. For
her sake he sold his horse and saddle, and became a lumber-man. The
losing of his Mamie was, of course, the heaviest of his many
bludgeonings. She was a simple soul, like D. Brown, inured to hard
work, and at the mercy of a drunken father, who had perilously escaped
by the very skin of his teeth from the clutches of Judge Lynch. To
give to Mamie a home had been the consuming desire of poor Dennis. For
this he pinched and saved till, at last, the needful sum lay snug in a
San Lorenzo bank. Then the bank "bust"!
Without a word to Mamie, Dennis drifted away to some distant range,
and before he was seen again Tom Barker had appeared. Why Tom, a big,
brutal lumberman, desired to marry Mamie, no longer young, never
pretty, penniless, and admittedly fond of Dennis, must remain a
mystery. Why Mamie married Tom is a question easily answered. Tom was
"boss" of a logging-camp, and none had ever denied his Cæsarean
attributes. He had the qualities and vices conspicuously absent in
Dennis. He was Barker, of Barker's Inlet. The mere mention of his name
in certain saloons was enough to put the fear of God into men even
bigger than himself. A sort of malefic magnetism exuded from every
pore of his skin. When he held up his finger Mamie crawled to him. She
believed, probably, that she was escaping from a drunken father, and
she knew that Tom could and would supply many things for which she had
yearned--a parlour, for instance, possibly a piano, and a silk dress.
She would have taken Dennis without these amenities, but Dennis had
fled to the back of Nowhere without even saying good-bye.
Months after the marriage Dennis came back. Ajax described the wedding
and the subsequent flitting to Barker's Inlet. Dennis listened,
stroking his too thin, straggling moustache. Next day he sold his
horse and saddle.
When he appeared at Barker's Inlet and asked for a job, Tom Barker
smiled. He had heard of Dennis, and he knew that Mamie had given to
Dennis what never would be given to him--the love and confidence of a
simple woman. Into his savage bull-head crept the determination to
torment these two unsophisticated creatures delivered by Fate to be
his slaves, and as such at his mercy.
Accordingly, Dennis was engaged.
Tom's position at the inlet must be defined. Some years before he had
been known as a timber-cruiser--that is to say, a man who "locates,"
during his wanderings through forests primeval, belts of timber which
will be likely to allure the speculative lumberman. Barker, therefore,
had discovered the inlet which bore his name, and in consideration of
his services, and with a due sense of his physical and mental
qualifications, he had been appointed boss of the camp by the real
owners--a syndicate of rich men, who knew that logs were worth ten
dollars a thousand feet, and that the man to make them so was Tom
Barker. The syndicate wisely gave Tom a free hand, knowing that, in
everything which concerned the working of men and machinery to the
limit, Tom would begin at the point where their less elastic
consciences might leave off. The syndicate, therefore, remained in
Victoria, or Vancouver, or San Francisco, and said of Tom that he was
a rustler from "Way back, and as lively as they make 'em."
It will be guessed that Tom's principal difficulty was engaging men.
Having engaged them, he was certain to get plenty of work out of them,
and they couldn't leave till they had earned sufficient money to take
themselves elsewhere. All the boys came to Tom stoney-broke; otherwise
they would never have "signed on." To be treated like a hog, to root
assiduously for Tom, or to starve, stared several able-bodied men in
the face. One genial Californian remarked, "It's a choice between
Death and Damnation."
You will now understand why Tom smiled when Dennis Brown asked for a
job.
He knew that Dennis was a cow-puncher, and not a star performer on his
own pitch, and he had only to look at the man to realise how unfitted
he was for the rough work of a logging-camp. A derisive chuckle
gurgled from his huge, hairy throat as he growled out--
"Say! This ain't like teachin' Sunday-school."
"I know it ain't," said Dennis cheerfully. But his heart sank at the
mention of the Sunday-school. Long ago he had taught in a Sunday-
school. It was simply awful to think that the piety of a too ardent
youth was now to be held up to the ridicule of the boys.
"I believe your name is--Dennis?" continued the boss of Barker's
Inlet.
"It is," our unhappy friend admitted.
"Go up to the bunk-house," commanded Tom, "and tell Jimmy Doolan, with
my regards, to take particler care of yer. I'll speak to him later."
Then, as Dennis was moving off, he added, in a rasping voice: "You an'
my wife is acquainted, eh? Wal, when you've dropped your blankets,
come up to the house and say howdy."
Dennis went up to the house. There was one house at the inlet: a four-
roomed frame building with three coats of paint on it and a red roof.
It stood some distance from the collection of shacks and cabins at the
mouth of the Coho River, and it overlooked some of the most glorious
scenery in the world. In front stretched the Sound, a silver sea just
dimpled by the soft spring breeze. To right and left, and behind, lay
the forest--that silent land of the North, illimitable as space,
everlastingly green when the snows had melted, shadowy, mysterious,
terrible!
As Dennis approached the house he heard a terrific sound--the crash of
a felled and falling tree--some giant who had held his own in the
struggle for existence when William the Norman ruled in England. And
then, from all points of the compass, the echoes, in varying cadence,
repeated that tremendous, awe-inspiring sound--the last sobbing cry of
a Titan.
A moment later Mamie received him and ushered him into the parlour,
where a small piano, a table of shellwork, and crimson plush curtains
challenged the interest and curiosity of all who were privileged to
behold them. "Let me take yer hat," said Mamie.
The hand she held out trembled slightly. Dennis perceived that she was
thinner and paler.
"Yer well fixed," he murmured. "An' happy as a clam, I reckon?"
"I'd oughter be happy," said Mamie dubiously. Then she added hastily,
"Never expected to see you in a logging-camp."
"No? Wal, I kinder wondered how you was makin' it. You don't look
extry peart, Mis' Barker. Lonesome for ye, ain't it?"
Already he knew that except for a few squaws she was the only woman in
the camp.
"I don't mind that," said Mrs. Barker.
Something in her tone arrested his attention. Stupid and slow though
he was, he divined that Mamie's thin, white cheeks and trembling hands
were not caused by lonesomeness. He stared at her intently, till the
blood gushed into her face. And then and there he knew almost
everything.
"Got a baby?" he asked thickly.