BOUND FOR THE GREAT LAKES
"There is a chance for you, Owen," remarked Dale, as the reading of the
letter was finished.
"So it would seem," was the slow reply.
"It isn't every fellow who has the chance of becoming a foreman."
"That is true. If Mr. Paxton made the offer, I would jump at it."
"What's the matter? Don't you want to work for your uncle?"
"You know what I told you before, Dale. Uncle Jack Hoover is the
hardest man to work for that I know of."
"Perhaps he isn't so bad as he used to be. Anyway, you could give him a
trial. You wouldn't have to stay with him if you didn't want to."
"And there's another thing. You----"
"Oh, don't mind me!"
"I shan't go without you, Dale."
"Then, I'll go along. He says he wants more hands."
Owen's face brightened.
"If you'll do that I'll take him up, and write a letter to him
to-morrow. I'll tell him to keep places open for both of us, and that
we want to work together."
"It may not suit him to keep us together."
"He'll have to do it--if he wants us at all. This is a combination that
can't be broken, remember."
"All right, then, have your own way. But if we're to be there by the
first of next month, we can't stop for canal boats and slow lake lumber
boats."
"That is true. Perhaps we can get cut-rate tickets to Buffalo or
Cleveland, and then get a cheap lake trip to Detroit. We can find out
about that matter after the letter is written."
The communication to John Hoover was prepared the next morning,
immediately after breakfast. Owen insisted that Dale help on the
letter, and the result was that Dale wrote one sheet while his chum
wrote another. Owen told his uncle what a close friend Dale was, and
that they meant to work together in the future. He added that both
had worked for Mr. Paxton, and that that lumberman had been equally
satisfied with their labors. Dale's letter was more in the nature of an
application, and he referred John Hoover to John Larson, Peter Odell,
and several others by whom he had been employed.
As the letter was an important one to them, the young lumbermen did not
drop it into a box, but took it direct to the post-office. They were
just coming from the building when they came face to face with Mrs.
Wilbur and her husband.
"Oh, Jefferson, there they are now!" cried Mrs. Wilbur. "How fortunate
we are to meet them!"
She caught Dale by the arm and brought him and Owen to a halt, and
introduced them. In a minute more Jefferson Wilbur was shaking each by
the hand.
"We were trying to hunt you up," said the lumber merchant. "Have you an
hour to spare? If you have, I'd like both of you to come over to our
hotel with us. I want to talk to you."
"We can spare you all the time you wish," said Owen, with a laugh. "We
are out of work just now, so time is no object."
"Yes, I heard Paxton had closed down," replied Jefferson Wilbur. "So
you are out, eh? I thought you used to work in one of the sawmills?"
"We did, but they are all full now," said Dale.
The young lumbermen walked to the hotel with the merchant, while Mrs.
Wilbur left the party to do a little shopping. The merchant occupied a
fine apartment on the second floor front.
"I am tremendously glad to meet you," he said. "My wife has told me
the particulars of how you rescued my son and daughter from the forest
fire. It was a brave and noble thing to do."
"We didn't do so very much--at least, no more than others would have
done," said Dale, who felt bound to say something, since Owen kept
silent.
"Oh, yes, you did, young man. You did much better than the man I left
in charge up there."
"You mean Jasper Nown?"
"Yes. At the first intimation of danger he was scared to death, and he
was of no particular use to anybody. I had to discharge him."
"Well, the combined fire and heavy storm were enough to scare anybody,"
put in Owen. "The lightning laid low more than one big tree around
there."
"So I was told. It was a bad combination, although the fire, if left
alone, might have been worse. My preserve is about half ruined, and my
wife says she doubts if she will care to go back there another season."
There was a pause, and Jefferson Wilbur looked at both Dale and Owen
hesitatingly.
"I--er--I feel that I ought to do something for both of you," he went
on. "I don't know exactly how you feel about it, but----"
"We don't expect anything," came from both of the young lumbermen.
"I don't suppose you do--you are not that kind; I can tell that by your
looks."
"You've given us more than was coming to us already," added Dale.
"But I want to do something, I tell you. My children are very dear to
me, and if they had been burnt up----" Mr. Wilbur could not finish.
There was an awkward pause, neither Dale nor Owen knowing what to say.
If the truth must be told, each wished he was out on the street again,
so he might get away from the gentleman, who seemed bound to reward
them for their services.
"You're out of work, you say," went on Jefferson Wilbur. "As you know,
I own an interest in a lumber company operating in Oregon. How would
you like to go out there?"
"To Oregon!" repeated the pair.
"Yes. I think I could give you steady situations at good wages, if
you cared to go. Of course it is a long distance from here, but the
openings are better, I think, than they are here."
"I might go, if Owen would go too," came from Dale. "But we have just
sent a letter to his uncle in Michigan, saying we might come out there
to work for him."
"Then your uncle is a lumber dealer?" said Jefferson Wilbur, turning to
Owen.
"Yes. He owns several tracts of land in Michigan, and has an interest
in the Gamoine Lumber Company."
"I have heard of that concern. Well, in that event you wouldn't care to
go to Oregon." Jefferson Wilbur looked disappointed.
"But we might go later," put in Dale.
"Very well. Whenever you are at liberty to go, let me know, and I will
do what I can for you. When do you think you will start for Michigan,
if you go at all?"
"As soon as we hear from my uncle," answered Owen.
"I am going to stay here several days, and maybe a week. Will you come
and see me again before you go away?"
"If you wish it," said Dale.
More conversation followed, and then they bid Mr. Wilbur good-day
and left. As they walked away the lumber merchant looked after them
thoughtfully.
"Two good young men," was his mental comment. "They don't want to be
rewarded, and if I had offered them money they would have refused it.
I'll have to keep them in mind and square up some other way."
It was not until the next morning that Dale remembered with deep regret
that he had wished to ask Jefferson Wilbur about the mining claim in
Oregon.
"What a fool I was not to think of it," he said to his chum. "I have
the papers right here, too."
"Better go up and see him this morning."
"No, I don't care to do that."
"Why not?"
"He may think that I am hanging around for a reward, and I don't want a
cent," answered Dale.
Before the end of the week a letter came from John Hoover, intended for
both Dale and Owen. It was a long communication, but the gist of it was
that they might come on at once, and Owen's uncle would give each a
trial, Owen as a foreman, at thirty dollars a month, and Dale as a gang
hand, at twenty dollars a month, with board. If agreeable, they were to
send a telegram of acceptance.
"That isn't so bad," said Dale.
"He might have offered you a little more," replied Owen.
"Perhaps he wants to see what we are made of first."
"Then you are willing to go at that?"
"We might as well. We haven't got to stay with him, you know, and
something is better than nothing, at the start," added Dale, who was
intensely practical.
So the telegram was sent without further delay, after which the pair
began to look around for the cheapest method of getting to Detroit.
From a man who had traveled a good deal, they learned that the cheapest
and quickest way for them would be to take a regular steamer from
Bangor to Boston. Here they could change to a train running through
Albany to Buffalo, and from Buffalo they could get a lake steamer
direct for their destination.
"You won't lose much time that way," said the traveler, "and you'll
save quite a few dollars on car-fare," and so it proved.
As soon as passage was secured on the steamer bound for Boston, the
young lumbermen dressed in their best and started to pay the promised
call on Jefferson Wilbur. This time Dale carried the mining-claim
papers with him, resolved to get some information concerning them if it
was possible to do so.
But at the hotel a disappointment awaited them.
"Sorry," said the clerk at the desk. "But Mr. Wilbur got a telegram
last night that seemed to upset him, and he and his wife left early
this morning."
"Did he say where he was going?" questioned Owen.
"He said something about making connections for New York and the West.
I fancy he and his wife went to New York."
"Thank you," said Owen, and he and Dale walked away. Dale was much
disappointed, but said nothing, for talking would not have mended the
matter.
"I suppose he was so upset he forgot all about us," said Owen. "I
wonder what it was all about?"
"Something wrong in business, most likely. These big dealers are always
up to something new, and when a thing goes wrong they have to hustle to
make it come out right."
That night found them on the steamer bound down the river. This was a
journey they had taken before, still it retained sufficient novelty
to be pleasing, and they sat up until late watching the sights in the
moonlight.
The next day found them on the bosom of the Atlantic, and the morning
following saw them in Boston. Here they managed to procure two cut-rate
tickets for Buffalo from a broker, and less than an hour after they
were on a train, being whirled westward to new fields of industry and
fortune.