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."