McLagan Returns from the Hills
McLagan surveyed the litter strewn about the beach. It was a queer
collection. There were two upturned boats with their white seams
smeared and daubed heavily with tar. They were hardly recognisable
as the well-painted lifeboats that had once stood on the boat deck
of the wreck lying on the far shore of the bay. A wealth of ship’s
ropes sprawled upon the shingle. Ropes collected as a result of
sheer covetousness rather than from a point of view of utility.
Many of them were great hawsers and of no use whatsoever in the
sort of sailing that Sasa Minnik undertook. Then there were heavy
cable chains, and ship’s buckets. There was a great store of
tumbled ship’s canvas. There were pots and pans and tools of every
description. There were an array of lumber, too, and blankets,
and plates, and knives and forks and dishes. It was an amazing
collection of sheer loot which only the undisciplined mind of the
half-breed could have prompted. And it had been amassed in the two
months and more that McLagan had been away on his trip up into the
hills.
For some moments the white man regarded the collection with
frowning eyes. Then his gaze came back to the sturdy figure of his
servant whose dark features were screwed up into that which the
other interpreted as a grin of sublime predatory satisfaction. His
own eyes were deadly serious for all the smile lurking behind them.
“Sasa,” he said quietly, “you always were a rogue and a thief and
a liar, but I never guessed you were a bigger rogue than coward.
The temptation of all this loot was too much even for your scare,
eh? You’ve been aboard that wreck, and you’ve looted it from end to
end. I guess I ought to beat you. I surely ought. But I’m not going
to. No. It kind of seems to me your low-down thieving nature’s
knocked something that’s even worse out of you--your rotten
scare of that ship. And that’s surely to the good. For me you
can keep your junk. But I don’t know what’ll happen when the big
Commissioner knows the thief you are. Maybe he’ll have you hanged
by your neck. You helped save my life when that guy wanted it bad.
But I don’t see how I’m going to butt in when the big Commissioner
gets busy on you.”
The half-breed was undisturbed by the threat. The creases on his
ugly face only deepened and he shook his head.
“The big man, Commissioner, not say nothing, boss,” he said. “He
come by ship. I tak him by ’em. Oh, yes. An’ I say him: ‘Dis junk.
It not nothing bimeby. The sea all have ’em. Why not Sasa have
’em?’ An’ him big man say: ‘Sasa have him all much plenty what he
darn please.’ So I tak ’em all dis thing much. An’ bimeby plenty
much more. Maybe bimeby I mak ’em good trade. Oh, yes.”
“I see. Boss Goodchurch has been around?”
“Sure, boss. He come with him mans two. Him look an’ look. Him see
all thing plenty, but not the devil spirit. Oh, no.” The man’s eyes
widened at the mere memory of the terrible shadow he still feared
so dreadfully. “Him no sun when big man come. Him not see. No. Then
Sasa think big much. Sasa say: ‘No sun, no devil spirit.’ It good.
Sasa go by ship when no sun. He wait. The sun him go down in sea.
It good. Bimeby Sasa get all thing that way. Yes.”
McLagan laughed, and the half-breed grinned back at him.
“You’re all sorts of a scoundrel, anyway, Sasa.”
“Sasa much wise man.”
The man’s final retort was quite unanswerable, and the white man
left it at that.
He glanced out over the grey, cold-looking waters. The whole bay
was more than usually desolate and bleak now that the height of
summer had spent itself. The fall lay ahead. It was already in
the atmosphere. That swiftly passing fall, when days shorten
mercilessly and the nights grow in length with the coming of the
fierce season when the interminable northern light makes life a
burden hard to bear. His absence of ten weeks was a slice out of
the northern summer that left little enough of a season in which
the heart of man can rejoice.
He had completed his work--that urgent work which meant so much
to his Corporation, and to himself, and those who shared in his
labours. But he knew that the importance of it by no means ended
there. In the end it would mean the complete establishment of the
whole region, and the well-being of those adventurers who had made
it their hunting ground. It had been ten weeks of enthralling
labour crowned by a success of which even he had hardly dared to
dream. All he had suspected, hoped for, all the astute Peter Loby
had assured him of, had been proved beyond any element of doubt.
The greatest coal and oil belt the world had ever known had been
definitely discovered.
It ran right back from within sixty miles of the coast sheer
through the hill country across into Canadian territory. And beyond
that it was almost impossible to say how much it occupied of that
chaotic region. The work had been hard. There had been times when
breaking trail by river and portage through well-nigh unexplored
regions was almost fierce. But nothing had deterred, nothing had
deflected his purpose. His investigation had been as complete as
the time permitted. And now he had returned to his home on the bay
with a rough draft map sufficiently detailed for the purposes of
obtaining at Washington and Ottawa the coveted concessions.
But his return had been an even greater triumph than that. After
all, the work of survey had been something prospective. It was a
wide searching forward for the future. It was something appealing
to his engineering mind, and would doubtless appeal to the men of
finance supporting him. But it would mean infinitely less to those
folk in Beacon who were yearning for the immediate. The appeal of
the immediate was awaiting his return to camp.
The great news reached him on the river fully three days east
of his oil camp. It came by a special river man who had been
despatched to locate his outfit. The man had been sent with an
urgent recall. For the lesser men in the camp, in the absence
of their chiefs, found themselves incapable of dealing with the
amazing situation that had arisen. A gusher had broken out at
“Number eight” drill. It was a tremendous gusher at a drilling
that had given no sign of the oil they were about to strike. It
had come in a flood that looked like thousands of barrels a day, a
stream for which their preparations were wholly inadequate. So the
urgency of the despatch.
That was more than a week ago now. They had speeded home in a
delirium of anticipation. And even their anticipation failed to
approach the reality. The thing was infinitely greater than the
fancy of the messenger had painted it, and the difficulties of its
control were immense. But their presence was a tremendous spur, and
the genius of Loby did the rest. At length order was achieved out
of chaos, and all chance of permanent disaster was averted.
Now McLagan was on his way to Beacon with his amazing news. All
sorts of urgent work lay before him. But on one thing he was fully
determined. Whoever else must wait, Claire should be the first
person to learn of the triumph in which his work of this drab grey
coast was about to terminate.
His mood was a happy one in which to greet the henchman who served
him so faithfully. Little wonder then there was a smile behind the
eyes witnessing the half-breed’s demonstration of human cupidity.
Even he found it difficult to administer the necessary chiding. In
a few hours’ time he would be in Beacon with his sensational news
that would send the stocks of his Corporation soaring sky high.
He would be gazing into wonderful eyes which had been one long
tantalizing dream to him during the week of his labours. He would
be holding Claire’s fair slim body in a tight embrace, and telling
her of the great things Fortune had cast for them. It was all so
very, very good to contemplate.
It was really all too good to permit of the obtrusion of lesser
things. But McLagan refused to yield to his natural excitement.
There were other things which must not be ignored. And the sense
of their importance was the more deeply impressed upon him as he
contemplated Sasa Mannik with his collection on the beach, and the
desperate shape which had befallen the pitiful wreck lying at the
far side of the bay.
Even from the distance the inroads of the storming tides were
discernible. The battering of the vessel’s hull was pathetic.
There were added gashes in the poor thing’s sides where her lumber
cargo somehow contrived to protrude. There was no longer a stitch
of canvas upon her yards to scare the sea-fowl with its whipping
in the chill wintry breeze blowing in off the ocean. Whether or
not this was due to Sasa’s depredations it was impossible to tell.
It might be. All her gear was limply adrift, and her yards were
lying sadly. She was leaning at a perilous angle, and the tides had
driven her farther up on to the rocks. One real great storm and
anything might happen to her.
McLagan turned again to his henchman.
“Well? What you been doing besides loading down the beach with all
this junk?”
“I fish by the Lias.”
The half-breed had lowered his tone significantly. And McLagan
sought to penetrate the close mask of immobility which seemed to
have settled upon the man’s features.
The white man permitted a shadowy smile.
“Did you make a swell catch?”
“Maybe, yes. Maybe, no.” Sasa shrugged. “I mak big look for the man
who mak shoot you all up. I think big. Plenty big. I say, this man.
Maybe I find him. Yes. Boss all say plenty Sasa big coward. Him
frightened of fool jack-rabbit. I mak find this man. Then I show
him. I kill him all up dead.”
McLagan laughed.
“But you didn’t find him,” he said slily.
Sasa shook his black head.
“No,” he said simply. “So he live. But I find some thing. Yes. I
mak find cave. Oh, yes. It camp for man. I know him. It all mak
clean not so as an Eskimo camp.”
He chuckled quietly. “Him all swep clean. So. An’ so.” He took
his cap from his mane of hair and a sweeping gesture illustrated
his words. “Maybe him camp this man. Oh, yes.” He returned his
head-gear to its place. “I watch him. Long time. Yes. No. He not
come. An’ bimeby I go. Yes.”
“That was the ‘some thing’?”
“Sure. An’--another some thing.”
“Ah.” McLagan’s tone was interested but he glanced away seawards.
Then, quite abruptly, he indicated the house on the cliff. “We’ll
get right back to home,” he said. “You can hand me your yarn as we
go. You’ll have to get food right away. I’m beating into Beacon as
soon as I’ve eaten. You’ll need to stop around this bay till I’m
through an’ get back. Guess, since the Commissioner doesn’t kick,
you can go right on collecting your junk till the beach is like a
ship’s store. I don’t care a curse what you do so you don’t quit
it. See? The fish can wait.”
* * * * *
McLagan’s journey into Beacon was made at his usual reckless speed.
But unlike his usual habit he did not drive straight to the Plaza
Hotel. It might have been expected that bearing such news as he
was conveying to the city he would have sought out the one place
whence its circulation would have been the most rapid. Then there
was Claire. A wild desire was urging him to go straight to the
square frame-built home that had now become almost the whole focus
of his life. But he resisted it. For once in his life he entered
the city almost secretly. His speed had been furious, and his
ponies were well nigh tuckered out, as, in the wintry cool of the
evening he drew up outside a remote livery barn that stood on the
farthest outskirts of the city.
The man’s plans were clearly designed. There was no hesitation.
There was no deviation from the line he had marked out for himself.
It was dark when he turned his spent team over to the proprietor
of the barn. He gave strict and minute instructions for the care
of the weary beasts. Then he set out on foot, and the darkness
swallowed him up.
* * * * *
It would have been difficult to associate shadows with Claire’s
smiling blue eyes, raised as they were so happily to the rugged
face of Ivor McLagan. His embrace showed no signs of yielding. It
was an embrace that expressed all the pent feeling of those weeks
of absence which haunting memory had so desperately prolonged. Yet
only a moment before his coming a deep depression had reigned where
now there were only happy smiles. So it had been for much of the
time of his absence.
The girl gently withdrew herself from his arms. It was as though
the riot of her own feelings was such as to demand restraint. She
laughed happily. And she strove to hold a torrent of questions in
check.
“Why, Ivor,” she cried almost reproachfully, “I hadn’t a notion you
were within miles of the city. When I heard your dear old voice
laughing and jollying Mum in the hall-way, I could have shouted for
joy. I surely could. When did you get through? When did you get in?”
She moved to a big rocker chair and pulled it forward. She led him
towards it and McLagan dropped his big body into it with a content
that was shining in every line of his plain face. Then she drew up
her own chair near to him.
“Why, last evening.”
“Last evening?”
McLagan nodded, and his smile deepened at the girl’s tone of
reproach. He spread out his hands in a gesture that was meant to
disarm.
“It had to be that way, kid,” he said. “It just had to be. I could
have beat it right along to here. But if I had I’d never have quit
to fix all the stuff that helped to bring me along back here to
you. Say, I hadn’t a minute till now that I haven’t been on the
dead run. And when I’ve told you you’ll be glad. I wasn’t getting
around here till I could sit and bask right along in the only smile
that makes a feller’s life worth while.”
He eased himself in his chair. Then he reached out and possessed
himself of the arm of the girl’s chair. His great hand closed
over it, and, with consummate ease, he drew it up to his. They
were facing each other, and so close that the polished arms of
the chairs touched side by side. He glanced quickly round the
sun-parlour. The door into the hall-way had been discreetly closed
by the mother, whose fondest hopes had at last been realised. She
had beaten a retreat to the domestic quarters which conveniently
claimed her.
The place still contrived to trap all the sunlight of the late
summer day. The full heat of the season had long since passed. The
wide open windows were no longer netted, for the not infrequent
night frosts had done much to banish the torment of flies and
mosquitoes.
Claire’s reproach had vanished. She was content.
“Tell me,” she said eagerly. “I’m just crazy for all
that’s--happened. It’s been so long, Ivor.” She laughed a little
self-consciously. “Oh dear, you know I just hated the weeks till
they’d passed.”
“They didn’t worry you worse than me,” the man returned. “And yet,
I don’t know. Maybe they did. You see, you hadn’t the thing I had
to--say, kid.” He sat up in his chair. He leant forward. Reaching
out he took possession of the slim hands lying in her lap, those
hands he had so often marvelled over in their deft manipulation
of the cards in the Speedway’s poker room. “I’ve hit the biggest
thing this world can show a feller in the work that’s mine. Gee!”
he breathed deeply, while his eyes narrowed as they gazed into the
beautiful eager face before him. “I’m through with it all. I’m
through--almost--with Beacon. We’re going to get right out. You and
me and your Mum. We’re going where we can live in sunshine all the
year round, where there’s no skitters and blizzards, and no muck.
Do you get me, little girl? It’s right up to you to hand the word.
We’re going to get married, you and me, just as soon as you say
it. And for the sake of all that’s merciful, let it be before the
winter closes down.”
Claire laughed happily.
“I guess you’ve fallen plumb off the main trail!” she cried
delightedly. “You--you--great big, queer old thing. Now, you sit
right back in that chair. My hands are good an’ comfortable in
my lap. You’ve got to sit around the same as if I was your most
important director, and, as my official mining engineer, hand me
your report so I can pass it on to the shareholders and keep them
good--tempered. Now begin.”
McLagan laughed. It was the laugh of a man whose delight was sheer
obedience to a woman’s will. He obeyed her literally. He released
her hands reluctantly enough and sat back. Then his smile faded out
and Claire fancied she detected weariness in his serious eyes.
“It’s easy making that report to you. You won’t need the maps, and
those figures a real director needs. Here it is, kid. We’ve hit a
belt of territory with a world’s coal and oil supply in it. We’re
in first and we’ll have the concession before a news sheet can grab
a detail. That’s that. Coal? There’s hundreds of miles of mountains
of it within a hundred miles of the coast. Say, in two years’ time,
there’ll be a railroad from here to our territory, and from here to
the coast where the mail boat only stands off at present. In a few
years there’ll be a city twice Beacon’s size right down there on
the coast where now ther’s only a fool sort of landing and a bunch
of longshore guys. But that isn’t all, kid. No. That’s all to come.
The real thing, the big thing that’ll set Beacon whooping crazy is
right there at our borings. ‘No. 8’ sprang a gusher on us. They’re
capturing thousands of barrels of the stuff. It’s the biggest oil
flood I’ve seen in fifteen years of a life mussed up in oil. Do you
get it?”
The girl nodded. A light of real excitement was shining in her eyes
and her oval cheeks were flushed to something of the hue of her
beautiful hair. She breathed deeply.
“Yes, I think I understand. Surely I do,” she cried, and her hands
clasped each other tightly. “It’s the big thing of your life, Ivor.
It’s your triumph. It’s all you’ve been patiently working for. I
know. We’ve often talked of it. Work. Always work. Disappointment.
Always disappointment. And then--oh, yes, I know. And Beacon.
That city that’s always been in your mind. That ‘muck-hole,’ as
you’ve always called it. In one bound you--you will have lifted it
right up to a swell prosperity where there won’t be any need for
the conditions you’ve always hated to see lying around. It’s your
complete triumph. Your big thing.”
“It should be.” The man laughed without mirth.
“Should be? It is.”
The girl’s enthusiasm was met with a shake of the head.
“I thought that way, little girl. I guess the notion set me nigh
crazy. The sort of junk I handed up to the gods of fortune would
have set you laffing if you’d seen into my head when I knew about
the thing we’d hit. That was at first. Then I came along down to
home and stood up on that hill and took a peek below. There was
the wreck. It’s the wreck of the ship that was bringing your Jim
home. And then I guess the gods for fortune must have got worried.
I hadn’t a notion of handing ’em up any more junk. The whole darn
thing left me cold. I told myself right there ther’s bigger things
in life than simple success. Much bigger! And amongst ’em, and
maybe biggest of ’em all is the woman who reckons to move along
down the trail of life with you, and all the things that go to
make up her life. Her sufferings are yours, her joys and sorrows,
and--and--no, little kid, the sight of that wreck got me right
away. And I knew that the other didn’t matter. I wasn’t through
with my work. I’d still got it to do. And so I came along. And
that’s why I didn’t get around, for all I was crazy to, until now.”
The girl’s eyes had grown very tender as she listened to the queer
rough tones of this man as he unconsciously laid bare his soul to
her. There was no smiling response. Only a nod. But it told McLagan
all he wanted to know. She, too, was caught again in the terrible
tragedy that had robbed her of a brother.
“You’re the first to hear these things,” he went on quietly. “Not
a soul else in Beacon knows a thing. Not even Victor, at the Bank.
No, I kept it for you. And you’re going to keep it close till I
say. I’ve been on the dead run. I’ve been so busy ... but, there,
little girl, there’s things I can tell you and things I can’t.
Maybe there’s some things you’ll never know. It don’t matter. The
thing I want to hand you right away is we’ve had word from Len
Stern. Goodchurch sent out word about that ship. He asked about
it. And the authority told him she was supposed lost in mid-ocean.
That was that. We knew. We’d got that. But we were playing big. I
guessed our only chance of things was a hope of the message getting
to Len Stern, if he was alive. It did. The news sheets took up our
inquiry and it found him in Perth, Western Australia. He cabled
Goodchurch he was sailing just after I’d set out for the hills. Two
weeks back Goodchurch got word from Seattle. The boy would be along
up right away. We figure he’ll be at the coast to-morrow and I’m
going right down to meet him. I want his story bad. I want it. And
when I got that, maybe----”
He broke off, and a deep, almost savagely brooding light was
shining in his contemplative eyes as he surveyed the table that
still contained the litter of the needlework with which Claire
passed so much of her leisure.
“Won’t you tell me, Ivor? Can’t you?” The girl had reached out,
and, for a moment, one of her hands rested on his, supported on the
arm of his chair.
McLagan shook his head and the girl’s hand was withdrawn.
“Leave all this to me, Claire,” he said with something of his old
brusqueness. “I’m right or I’m wrong. If I’m right----”
Again he broke off. And Claire saw the muscles of his clean-shaven
jaws constrict. Somehow the sight left her with no desire to press
him further.
“No, my dear,” he went on, with added gentleness, “you carry right
on. This thing’ll be through in a few weeks now, one way or the
other. All my own work is fixed. When the other’s cleared up, then
ther’s only to close up my shanty at the coast and come right along
in to wait for my folks--my directors. After that, we’ll beat it
from Beacon. And my work at Washington and Ottawa ’ll help to hand
us quite a swell honeymoon. Does that fix you? Will you----”
The girl nodded, and the man leant back again with an air of great
content.
“That’s fixed sure,” he said. “You’ll just carry right on at your
beloved Speedway.”
The girl shook her head.
“The time’s come for me to quit,” she said quietly.
Claire was smiling, but somehow her smile was unconvincing. McLagan
was sitting bolt upright. His eyes had suddenly narrowed.
“Why?”
It was a throw-back to all that was roughest in him. Again the girl
shook her head.
“Why?”
The man’s tone was unchanged. It was compelling. For another
moment Claire hesitated. She remembered the fashion in which he
had hurled himself to her defence before, and the thought of the
thing he might do caused her hesitation. It was the simple truth,
or complete denial. The latter was impossible. She laughed a little
mirthlessly.
“It’s the thing we once talked of,” she said.
“You mean--Max?”
Claire nodded.
“What is it? Tell me?”
“It was the night before--before I saw you last.”
McLagan nodded. His eyes were almost savage.
“He told me there was word of a hold-up for my automobile. He
offered to accompany me. He assured me no ‘hold-up’ would happen
with him there. It didn’t. In the automobile he offered me
jewellery. I refused it. Then he said something. Do you want what
he said?”
“Every word.” There was a grim clipping to the man’s words.
Accustomed as Claire was to fend for herself; accustomed as she was
to think and act without reference to anything but her own judgment
and inclination, there was something that excited and thrilled her
in the simple act of yielding to this man’s will. It was something
so new--something which, for all her independence, appealed to the
woman in her. He was so strong. He was so ruthlessly rough. But for
all her delight in him a queer apprehension lay back in her mind.
“It was when he left me at the door here,” she said slowly. “What
was it? Yes, I remember.” She laughed. “It isn’t easy to forget.
‘I guess the hold-up didn’t mature. I sort of felt it wouldn’t,
Claire, with me around. You see, the folk of this city have more
sense than to get across me. The toughest of them wouldn’t take
a chance that way. And they’re surely wise. I’m feeling sore, my
dear, you couldn’t feel like handling that toy I was hoping to pass
you. Think it over. Don’t leave it the way it is. Get a sleep on it
and maybe, like the hold-up, you’ll think better of it.’”
“It was a threat?”
The set of the man’s face was a match for his tone. There was
anger, hot anger in the eyes which Nature had designed so admirably
for frowning. The girl nodded.
“Oh, yes. And I remembered our talk. And I knew it was quitting
time. I thought and thought. Oh, I thought so hard. I didn’t
want to quit. I wanted to--to fight it out. You know, Ivor, I’m
foolish that way. I’d got all the money I needed, but it was the
thought of quitting because of--because I’m a woman and he’s a
man. I didn’t quit. No, I went on. But I refused his jewellery. I
refused his every advance. And then I realised. Things seemed to
change somehow, I can’t tell you how. The rest of the women acted
differently. The servants in the place. Oh, the boys didn’t. And
then one day Jubilee forgot to say fool stuff. He didn’t say much,
but it was characteristic. He said, ‘The Queen is dead. Long live
the Republic.’ I turned on him at once. I said, ‘You mean she’s
deposed.’ His face was dead serious for once. He said: ‘Same thing
or worse. They’ve a way of beheading deposed monarchs.’ Then his
queer eyes followed Max as he moved about the dance-room for a
while, and then he looked round on me. He said, ‘Say, Claire, why
not quit with the boodle? It makes a revolution sick to death
when anyone gets away with the stuff they reckon to handle for
themselves.’ I guess I managed to laugh, but there wasn’t a laugh
back of my mind. I thought of you, Ivor. And--two days later I got
a queer note. Here it is. You can read it.”
She took a folded paper from the bosom of her frock and passed it
to the man whose curious silence and seeming rigidity while she
told her story set a feeling of apprehension stirring in the girl.
McLagan took the paper and unfolded it. And his unsmiling eyes
perused its contents:
You don’t need to worry. The Light of the Aurora is shining, and
by its light all things are seen, all things are known.
FOR THE CHIEF LIGHT OF THE AURORA,
A Lesser Light.
McLagan passed back the paper without a sign, without a word. And
the girl went on.
“You know that note’s given me a notion, Ivor. Oh, I haven’t
worried since I got that. And not a thing has happened. I haven’t
even seen Max. But I’ve seen the boys one way and another. Those
boys who’ve never failed to be good to me. They’re just the same.
But to my mind there’s just one feller could have worded that note
that way. It’s Jub--”
McLagan stirred.
“Leave it at that, Claire,” he broke in quickly. “It don’t matter
who wrote it. But I’m kind of glad for that note, seeing I was
away. But I’m right here now and you belong to me.” He stood up.
He moved to an open window. For some moments he stood there with
his back turned silently gazing out on the distant dome of the
Speedway.
Claire watched him. His square shoulders seemed to fill up the
whole of the window opening. He was so big and strong, and----
“Ivor!”
Her voice was low but urgent. The man turned after a moment and
Claire drew a sharp breath. His face was almost livid with a
consuming rage. He came back to her and stood before her chair.
“I’m going to settle with Max,” he said, through lips that scarcely
moved. “No,” he denied, as Claire was about to protest. “It’s up
to me,” he went on harshly. “That dirty Dago swine threatened you
and would have carried out his threat if those Aurora boys hadn’t
jumped in. Don’t you see? I do. Max would have put a bunch of
sharps on to you. He’d have got at you by every trick of his dirty
Dago mind until he’d got you skinned of your last dollar and were
ready to squeal for mercy. Then, utterly helpless, he’d---- By God!
he’s going to pay. He’s going to pay me. He’s fat and rich out of
the weaknesses of the poor folk of this city, is he? We’ll see.
We’ll----”
“No, no, Ivor!” Claire sprang from her chair. Her hands were held
out in appeal. The terrible purpose shining in the man’s eyes
frightened her. “Don’t do a thing. My dear, my dear, there’s been
no harm done. Think of it. Thanks to those folk of the Aurora Clan,
I’ve a complete laugh on him. I’ve a fortune, almost, in Victor’s
bank. What does it matter? Sure it doesn’t, and then--and then in
the fall we’ll be married and away from Beacon. No, no, Ivor,
don’t look that way! Don’t act that way. You scare me. Besides,
he’s powerful. He can buy up the toughs of this place. You might
get---- No, boy, I can’t spare you now. I can’t! I surely won’t!
Ivor, promise me.”
The girl’s appeal was not without effect. The man’s ferocity seemed
to ease. And she almost fancied a smile was somewhere back of his
eyes. He shook his head.
“Max will have to pay--me,” he said grimly. “You don’t need to
worry for me, Claire. Max can do nothing to hurt--me.”
“But he can. He will. He----”
The girl’s protest died weakly away. She caught her breath. A flash
of thought swept through her mind as she gazed into the stern,
strong face she had learned at last to love so deeply.
Then the silence was broken. And it was she who was speaking again.
“Ivor,” she said, in low, gentle tones, but in a manner which
plainly displayed her resolve. “If anything happens to Max through
what I’ve told you, I’ll--I’ll never forgive you. I know what I’m
saying--I’m saying it for you. Do you understand, dear? My love for
you is so big that I won’t have you fall for a personal animosity.
No, no! I won’t stand for it. I want you to remember, too, that but
for Max and his Speedway I’d still be doing our rags of laundry
down on Lively Creek. Remember that. I’ve beaten the game and I’m
going to quit.”
The man raised a hand and passed it over his hair.
“You mean all that, Claire?” he asked.
The girl gazed squarely up into his hot eyes.
“I surely do, dear. There will be no----”
“Don’t say it, little girl.” The man’s smile had broken out at
last. “I know. There’ll be no marrying me in the fall. But there
will.” He reached out and caught her in his arms. “There will be,
my dear, because Max can go clear for me. I’ll not do a thing
since you ask it, since you order it. No, little girl, don’t look
questions at me, an’ don’t ask ’em. I can see them back of your
dandy eyes. I just love you to death, and I want you to feel the
game of life as I see it needs to be a straight one. I’m quitting
now. I’ve still got things to do. To-morrow I’m going to pick up
Len at the coast. He and I’ll have big work for maybe a week. After
that I’m through, and I’ll bring him right along to tell you of
your Jim. So long, little Claire. I guess that note’ll still stand
good. You’ll be safe till I get along back.”
* * * * *
The daylight was passing as McLagan left Claire’s home. He hurried
away down the unmade road leading back into the eastern purlieus
of the city. He came abreast of the Speedway which had so many
turbulent reminders for him. But he passed it by, and thrust from
him the leaping anger the sight of it inspired. He crossed over
to the Plaza Hotel where he ate a hurried meal. Then, later, he
passed again out into the night and his way lay westwards where the
moonlight waters of the lake shone still and cold.