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.