The thirteenth was a storm-centre at Wauchung. At six in the morning,
while Mr. William H. Babcock was sleeping peacefully in a Grand Rapids
hotel, dreaming sweet dreams and smiling childlike smiles, conscious
even in slumberland that his work was accomplished; while the Martin L.
Higginson No. 1 was lying at the Higginson wharves with two hundred and
fifteen thousand feet of lumber aboard, Halloran was up and tumbling
into his clothes. Captain Craig, master of the Higginson No. 1, was
sitting grimly on the corner of the bed.
“Do you know the man?” Halloran was asking.
“No.”
“Did he say whom he was acting for?”
The Captain shook his head.
At seven o'clock the No. 1. should be leaving the harbour; but here was
her master sitting on Halloran's bed, his seamed old face set hard with
the thoughts that were boiling behind it. Down by the mills, where the
first early risers were lounging in, where the lumber piles stretching
far along the wharves were glistening yellow under the light of the new
sun, all was quiet even to the steamer, whose stoke-room was cold, whose
boilers were giving out no sounds of preparation for the twelve-hour
journey. Over at Grand Rapids Mr. Babcock was still sleeping the sleep
of the just, dreaming once more that his man had come in by a late train
to report that all was well at Wauchung. And still Halloran was jerking
himself into his clothes, pulling on his old purple sweater rather than
waste time over collar and tie.
“All right,” he said; “I'm ready.” Then he paused. The next move was not
to be settled offhand. “You went around to Billy's house, Captain?”
“Yes; I've just come from there. The way that fellow talked bothered
me so last night that I couldn't sleep much. I got to thinking it over
after I'd gone to bed, and it struck me that if he wanted to cripple the
line he'd hardly stop at me. He'd go for Billy sure, for a good engineer
isn't an easy man to replace. And they tell me Billy hasn't been seen at
his boarding-house since noon yesterday.”
Very true, Captain Craig! A good suggestion just now when Halloran is
still shaking the sleep from his eyes and trying to get these amazing
facts in hand, and to relate them with certain suspicions that rose at
the first word. It will probably occur to Halloran, when once he shall
get facts, suspicions and all firmly gripped in his mind, that heads of
trusts do not fight haphazard; that if certain deliveries of timber are
to be prevented heads of trusts are not accustomed to move in vain.
It is Mr. Bigelow's habit to arrive at results: no getting off at
way-stations for G. Hyde Bigelow; and obstinate persons who venture on
open warfare with the Great must shake the sleep out very early in the
morning if they hope to reach even a way-station along the Bigelow line.
Steamers cannot be run without engineers: engineers cannot be had
for the whistling in far-away Michigan ports with but forty hours of
grace--forty valuable hours not a whit longer than other everyday hours;
even shorter--hours that were diminishing, were growing more valuable,
would soon be precious.
“How much did this man offer you?” Halloran asked.
“Five hundred a year more salary and a bonus of five hundred extra, cash
down.”
“Did he show the money?”
“He had a big roll.”
“Meant business, didn't he?” said Halloran dryly. “First thing we do,
we'd better go down and see if we have anybody left. Then we can talk
better.”
So they went down to the wharves, where they found a few wandering
deckhands by the silent steamer. Evidently deckhands were not important
to trusts.
“I guess Billy took the bait,” Halloran observed. “He is never as late
as this, is he?”
The Captain shook his head.
“Well, there is only one thing to do next, Captain. We've got to get her
down to Michigan City before to-morrow night whether the Trust likes it
or not. Do you suppose they've gobbled up the tug men, too?”
It was not a hard fact to discover, for there were only two tugs in the
harbour; and sure enough, when, twenty minutes later, the manager for
Higginson & Company and the Captain of the No. 1 met again on the wharf,
they were both beginning to understand how clean a sweep the Trust
people had made of it. The Captain was growing angrier every minute,
and so was Halloran. The rascality of it was what aroused the Captain.
Waters and winds he could understand, but the ways of men were beyond
him. Two days before, in Chicago, Mr. G. Hyde Bigelow had announced that
Higginson & Company must not make the delivery at Michigan City; and
this resulting moment, with Halloran sitting on the iron cap of a
snubbing-post and the Captain standing silent before him, was a very
dark moment for the Wauchung interests.
“The damned old rascal,” said Halloran, reflectively.
Craig's dull eye suddenly flashed.
“I ought to have foreseen it,” he burst out. “It's the kind of thing to
expect from that Bigelow.”
“Yes,” replied Halloran; “that's what I've been saying to myself. This
is a pretty fair sample of Bigelow's methods.” He was chagrined to think
that it could be done so easily. He had thought of anything, everything,
but this.
“I'd like to set Bigelow's head on that pile of two-by-fours,” Halloran
went on, “and have about three shots at him. I don't believe he'd know
himself the next time he looked in the glass.”
The Captain glanced at him mistrustfully. He liked this manager, but
this was not the time for jokes.
“Did you ever see him?” asked Halloran, swinging a leg on each side
of the snubbing-post and letting a twinkle come into his eyes as his
thoughts seemed to run on Bigelow.
The Captain sighed an impatient negative.
“He's a big, vain man. You ought to see him come into church Sunday
mornings and swell down the aisle, with his wife and children trotting
after him. He's proud of being thought the big financial man in the
church; and whenever they'll let him he gets up after the sermon and
makes a speech about the church debts. Great temperance man, too--likes
to preside at prohibition meetings and plead for the sanctity of the
home.”
Captain Craig was scowling. Every moment the situation was growing
more serious; and here was the manager of the company, sitting on a
snubbing-post and swinging his legs. Men were needed now, thought the
Captain angrily--grown men, not children.
“One spring house-cleaning time--I generally put in the early mornings
and evenings there--G. Hyde called me in--I was putting down the hall
rugs just then--he called me in to light the gas. I had a match ready to
strike and he reached over and took it away from me and put it back in
the box. 'Young man,' he said--he never liked to remember my name--'do
you know how I rose from nothing to be the owner of this property?' Then
he picked up a burnt match, held it down to the grate, and lighted the
gas with that.” Hal-loran smiled a far-away smile. “Aren't some of his
steamers up at Pewaukoe now?”
The question was asked in the same careless voice, and it took the
Captain a moment to realize that the subject had been changed. Then he
answered with a puzzled expression:
“Yes; the G. H. Bigelow should have come in there two or three days ago.
The other boats are at Chicago or up on Lake Superior.”
“Big boat, isn't it?”
“Yes.”
“Got a good crew for her?”
The Captain, all at sea, could think of nothing but an affirmative to
this.
“What's the Captain's name?”
“Carpenter.”
“Who's the engineer?”
“Robbie MacGregor.”
“Good man?”
“Robbie? Certainly. None better.”
Halloran slid down off the post and looked at his watch.
“Old G. Hyde is getting up just about now. He's a great hand at early
rising--preaches a good deal about it--likes to say that if he hadn't
been brought up on a good old gentleman known as B. Franklin he'd never
be where he is now. Well, maybe he wouldn't.”
The Captain's temper was hanging on the edge of an explosion, but
Halloran went on.
“There's nothing to be done here now. Try to keep everything ready--if
you can pick up a man to fire up, I should--and we'll probably get off
this afternoon sometime.” And he strolled off, leaving the Captain to
stare after him and give vent to the first rumblings of a storm.
Halloran, in his old clothes and faded purple sweater and college
cap, was headed for the railroad station. At the station he took the
Pewaukoe train; at Pewaukoe he walked down to the mills, fairly
certain that none of Bigelow's men there would recognize him. The _G. H.
Bigelow_ lay at the wharf, as Craig had said. She was taking on a cargo.
The mills were on the low ground by the river. From the road he could
overlook them and the great piles of lumber that crowded close to the
water's edge for hundreds of yards up and down stream, and he leaned on
the fence to take it in. As far up as he could see the river was blocked
with logs. The mills were singing and buzzing and humming--it was plain
that the Bigelow vitalizing process had begun, and that all hands
were being crowded on the work in order to sell lumber at a loss to
Higginson's customers. He thought he would walk down through the yards
toward the steamer.
As the unknown man, wearing a purple sweater and somewhat in need of
a shave, walked past the shore end of the nearer mill, the eyes of the
Superintendent fell upon him. A moment later the two met.
“How are you?” said the Superintendent, suspicious but civil.
“First rate. How are you?”
“Want to see any one?”
“No; just looking around.”
“Where were you going?” asked the Superintendent, trying to veil his
suspicions.
“Nowhere especially. I didn't suppose they'd be any objection if I
watched 'em loading the steamer.”
“No--certainly not.” This reluctantly.
“Got a great lot of lumber here, haven't you?” Halloran was looking, as
he spoke, at a long pile that extended to a point within fifty feet of
the mill.
“Yes; working nights right along--with all the men I can get. That
pile doesn't stay here; but we're so crowded I had to leave it over
night--just until I get the Bigelow loaded up. I'm going to put on a
big force this afternoon and carry it all down to the wharf. Some days
lately we've been so crowded I really haven't known how I was going to
get things done.”
Slowly it was dawning on Halloran that he was suspected of being--not
the manager for Higgin-son & Company--but a lynx-eyed insurance
inspector, out running down violations of the clear-space clause.
This wouldn't do. It was not on his books to be drawn into an extended
conversation with Bigelow's superintendent. He would have to fall back
on lying if this were to keep up much longer.
“Say,” he observed, “what was that fellow doing down in the water,
hopping around on the logs with a long pole?”
The Superintendent was beginning to lose interest.
“He picks out logs of the right sizes.”
“You don't mean to say he can tell just by looking at a log in the water
what size it will cut to?” A curt nod was the only reply.
“Isn't it remarkable how a man can get trained to things? Now if I were
to try a thing like that------”
But the Superintendent had fled.
Halloran walked slowly on to the wharf, and stood watching the gangs
that were carrying the heavy sticks over the rail of the steamer. Two
steam hoists were clanking and rattling as the booms swung back and
forth. Bosses were shouting and swearing--everywhere was confusion, but
confusion that moved steadily onward toward the loading of the steamer.
Halloran dodged around the labourers and walked along the wharf until
he was opposite the engine-room door. Within was a fat man in overalls
tinkering over the machinery. Halloran climbed up to the deck and stood
in the doorway.
“How are you?” he observed. “Nice day!” The engineer nodded.
“You must be Mr. MacGregor, aren't you?”
“That's my name.”
“Mine is Halloran.”
MacGregor looked up, surprised.
“Yes, I am with Higginson & Company.”
MacGregor did not know what to make of this. Halloran, however, went
right on.
“How do you like working for Bigelow?” And without leaving time to
reply, he added: “Mean old humbug, ain't he?”
“What do you know about Bigelow?”
“Used to work for him myself. I had all I wanted of him. He isn't
square. That's what brings me here. We need a good engineer, and Captain
Craig tells me you are the best on the lakes. Is that so?”
MacGregor's mind had not caught up yet; and Halloran continued:
“I want to take you back to Wauchung with me. We will raise your salary
five hundred dollars, and engage you for as long a time as you think
right! You know Higginson & Company--and you know we keep our promises.
Then you can tell Bigelow to go to hell if you want to. I know how
Bigelow's men feel.” He looked at his watch. “We can get the 9:53 train
down.”
“You don't mean to go this morning?” said MacGregor.
“Yes; right off. You surely have an assistant you can leave in charge of
the engine.”
The fat man backed up against the opposite door and looked at Halloran.
“See here,” he said, “what does this mean?”
“Mean?”--Halloran's anger, that had been rising since six o'clock, began
to boil over--“Mean? It means that Bigelow has come into the lumber
business with the idea of running Higginson out. And if you know
anything about Martin L. Higginson you know that old Bigelow has bitten
off the biggest hunk he ever tried to get his mouth around. It means
that G. Hyde Bigelow's going to get such a hob-nailed roost in the
breeches that he'll be lucky to come down at all. He's going to have the
whole damned zodiac buzzing around in his head before he gets through
with Higginson--that's what it means! I've come up here this morning to
tell you that we want an engineer, and that you're the man we want. And
we want you to go on the 9:53 train--that's about forty minutes now.”
[Illustration: 0103]
MacGregor was thinking hard. He knew a little about Bigelow and a good
deal more about Higginson. He liked the phrase, too--what was it--oh,
“the best engineer on the lakes.”
“Can't you give me a day to think it over, Mr. Halloran?”
“Sorry, but I'm afraid not. We need you right off.”
“What did you say your offer was?”
“What you think is fair. But I'll tell you flatly, we'll pay you
more than Bigelow will--five hundred a year more. You have just about
comfortable time to get up to your house and change your clothes. I'll
meet you at the station.”
“What if Bigelow should make trouble about my contract?” asked MacGregor
dubiously.
“Don't you worry a minute about that. We'll back you up to the last
notch.”
MacGregor thought it over a little longer. Then he turned his ponderous
frame and called to his assistant.
“All right,” he said over his shoulder to Halloran, “I'll meet you at
the station.”
At this moment Mr. William H. Babcock was rising from a hotel breakfast
in Grand Rapids and reaching for the toothpicks. As he strolled out to
the office to buy a paper he picked his teeth and smiled softly.
*****
Feeling painfully outside of it all--almost inclined to wonder if his
troubles were real, if the mills behind him, the lumber piled on either
side of him, the laden steamer before him were real; if this round
world, even, with its mixture of ups and downs and ins and outs, were
real--Mr. Higginson stood on the wharf at Captain Craig's side. The
steamer's fires had not yet been started and it was now after eleven
o'clock. The engineers had disappeared, and with them the oilers and
stokers; the wheelmen were gone, and the lookouts--nothing left in
Wauchung but a few deckhands. And now, to cap it all, Halloran had
dropped suddenly off the surface of the earth, leaving a certain old
Scotch captain to rumble internally and now and then to burst into
eruption with scorching phrases about boys that ought to be back in the
nursery, about babes that had been prematurely weaned.
Into this scene of gloom and desolation came Halloran, recognizable
half-way up to the mill by the purple sweater, carrying a bulging canvas
telescope; and following him, somewhat scant of breath, hurried a fat
man with a patent-leather valise. The gloomy ones observed them at the
same moment. Mr. Higginson gave a nervous start, then was swept by a
feeling of relief that almost brought a smile to his face. The Captain
looked--and looked--and--the rumblings ceased. Nothing further was heard
that day about nursing-bottles.
“Hallo, Robbie,” was all that Craig could bring himself to say when the
fat man had reached the wharf and set down his valise and begun swabbing
his face with a handkerchief that showed signs of use since he had
fallen into Halloran's hands.
“How are you, Cap'n?”
Mr. Higginson drew his manager aside.
“Who is this man?”
“He is the new engineer.”
Mr. Higginson's eyes shifted from Halloran to the fat man and back again
two or three times. Then, as time was pressing, he decided to ask no
questions.
“There is a man up the river that understands firing,” he said. “Crosman
has gone up to get him.”
“Have we any wheelmen?”
“Yes, one of Craig's old men is in the mill. When do you plan to start?”
“Right away--as soon as we can fire up.”
Mr. Higginson was on the point of suggesting a wait until the next
morning, but he withheld this, too. And so Halloran, who had promised to
deliver the lumber by the morning of the fourteenth, and who would have,
taken the steamer down himself rather than give Bigelow the pleasure of
delaying him fifteen minutes, went on with the work of preparation.
At three o'clock that afternoon they were off, with one man in the
wheel-house, a quartet of clumsy deckhands in the stoke-hole, a devoutly
profane fat man in the engine-room, and one combined lookout and
deckhand by the name of Halloran--every man of them facing a solid
twelve hours on duty. Never had steamer gone out between the Wauchung
piers in such plight before. If the white-clad Swede in the lookout of
the life-saving station could have seen through the walls of this good
ship _Higginson_, could have known the facts that lay behind this brave
front, he would have wagged his head dubiously and long.
But the stars were kind on the thirteenth of this month. Captain Craig,
standing on the wheel-house and guiding her out toward deep water, found
himself looking on a flat mirror that blended, miles away, into the blue
sky. Streaked with wide reaches of green and purple and corn-colour was
Lake Michigan to-day--wearing her gladdest dress over a calm heart.
And Halloran and the Captain, both of whom knew her temper, who had
met once, indeed, when she was angriest, near Evanston a few years
earlier--recognized themselves for very lucky men.
And so the old _Higginson No. 1_ headed southward, and plowed
deliberately down past Point Sable, and heaved out a long line of black
smoke just as if she had been a real full-handed steamer with real
firemen throwing coal into the greedy furnaces. There was even some
enthusiasm aboard; not one even of the stokers but knew dimly that they
were fighting. They even felt, the younger ones, like men marching into
battle, and when the _Higginson_ was fairly out on the lake and swinging
around on her course, one amateur fireman of the watch below ran down
the ladder to pass the good news to his less fortunate brethren on duty.
And if the heat of the work had been less trying, these grimy fellows,
stripped to the drawers and covered with sweat and coal, might even have
given three cheers.
They ran down slowly, of course. It was getting on toward daylight when
the _Higginson_ steamed into the harbour at Michigan City and tied up at
the wharf of the lumber company, and it was a heartily exhausted set
of men that rolled into their bunks to snatch a wink before day should
come, bringing more work with it.
At eight o'clock Halloran walked over to the Company's office and
inquired for the manager.
“I'm Halloran,” he said, “of Higginson & Company. How soon can you begin
unloading?”
“Right away,” replied the manager civilly, but with an odd expression.
“I'm just sending some men down.” His surprise was so great that it had
to find some expression. He seemed to be thinking it over as he left his
desk to go to the wharf. Finally, with an effort at an off-hand manner,
he added, “You're prompt on time.”
“Sure,” replied Halloran. “Why not?”