Spring came. Overhead the wild geese flew in long wedges, honking,
into the North, and The Laird remembered how Donald, as a boy, used to
shoot at them with a rifle as they passed over The Dreamerie. Their
honking wakened echoes in his heart. With the winter's supply of logs
now gone, logging operations commenced in the woods with renewed
vigor, the river teemed with rafts, the shouts of the rivermen echoing
from bank to bank. Both Tyee and Darrow were getting out spruce for
the government and ship timbers for the wooden shipyards along San
Francisco Bay.
Business had never been so brisk, and with the addition of the war
duties that came to every community leader, The Laird found some
surcease from his heart-hunger. Mrs. McKaye and the girls had returned
to The Dreamerie, now that Donald's marriage had ceased to interest
anybody but themselves, so old Hector was not so lonely. But--the flag
was flying again at the Sawdust Pile, each day of toil for The Laird
was never complete without an eager search of the casualty lists
published in the Seattle papers.
Spring lengthened into summer. The Marine casualties at Belleau Wood
and Chateau-Thierry appalled The Laird; he read that twenty survivors
of a charge that started two hundred and fifty strong across the wheat
field at Bouresches had taken Bouresches and held it against three
hundred of the enemy--led by Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary, of Port
Agnew, Washington! Good old Dirty Dan! At last he was finding a
legitimate outlet for his talents! He would get the Distinguished
Service Cross for that! The Laird wondered what Donald would receive.
It would be terrible should Dirty Dan return with the Cross and Donald
McKaye without it.
In September, Donald appeared in the Casualty List as slightly
wounded. Also, he was a first lieutenant now. The Laird breathed
easier, for his son would be out of it for a few months, no doubt. It
was a severe punishment, however, not to be able to discuss his
gallant son with anybody. At home his dignity and a firm adherence to
his previous announcement that his son's name should never be
mentioned in his presence, forbade a discussion with Mrs. McKaye and
the girls; and when he weakly sparred for an opportunity with Andrew
Daney, that stupid creature declined to rise to the bait, or even
admit that he knew of Donald's commission. When told of it, he
expressed neither surprise nor approval.
In November, the great influenza epidemic came to Port Agnew and took
heavy toll. It brought to The Laird a newer, a more formidable
depression. What if Donald's son should catch it and die, and Donald
be deprived of the sight of his first-born? What if Nan should succumb
to an attack of it while her husband was in France? In that event
would Donald forgive and forget and come home to The Dreamerie?
Somehow, old Hector had his doubts.
For a long time now, he had felt a great urge to see Donald's son. He
had a curiosity to discover whether the child favored the McKayes or
the Brents. If it favored the McKayes--well, perhaps he might make
some provision for its future in his will, and in order to prove
himself a good sport he would leave an equal sum to Nan's illegitimate
child, which Donald had formally adopted a few days after his marriage
to Nan. Why make fish of one and fowl of the other? he thought. They
were both McKayes now, in the sight of the law, and for aught he knew
to the contrary they were full brothers!
The child became an obsession with him. He longed to weigh it and
compare its weight with that of Donald's at the same age--he had the
ancient record in an old memorandum book at the office. He speculated
on whether it had blue eyes or brown, whether it was a blond or a
brunette. He wondered if Daney had seen it and wondering, at length he
asked. Yes, Mr. Daney had seen the youngster several times, but beyond
that statement he would not go and The Laird's dignity forbade too
direct a probe. He longed to throttle Mr. Daney, who he now regarded
as the most unsympathetic, prosaic, dull-witted old ass imaginable.
He wanted to see that child! The desire to do so never left him during
his waking hours and he dreamed of the child at night. So in the end
he yielded and went down to the Sawdust Pile, under cover of darkness,
his intention being to sneak up to the little house and endeavor to
catch a glimpse of the child through the window. He was enraged to
discover, however, that Nan maintained a belligerent Airedale that
refused, like all good Airedales, to waste his time and dignity in
useless barking. He growled--once, and The Laird knew he meant it, so
he got out of that yard in a hurry.
He was in a fine rage as he walked back to the mill office and got
into his car. Curse the dog! Was he to be deprived of a glimpse of his
grandson by an insensate brute of a dog? He'd be damned if he was!
He'd shoot the animal first--no, that would never do. Nan would come
out and he would be discovered. Moreover, what right had he to shoot
anybody's dog until it attacked him? The thing to do would be to put
some strychnine on a piece of meat--no, no, that would never do. The
person who would poison a dog--any kind of a dog--
It was a good dog. The animal certainly was acting within its legal
rights. Yes, he knew now where Nan had gotten it. The dog had belonged
to First Sergeant Daniel J. O'Leary of the Fifth Marines; he had
doubtless given it to Nan to keep for him when he went to the war; The
Laird knew Dan thought a great deal of that dog. His name was Jerry
and he had aided Dirty Dan in more than one bar-room battle.
Jerry, like his master, like the master of the woman he protected, was
a Devil-dog, and one simply cannot kill a soldier's dog for doing a
soldier's duty. Should Jerry charge there would be no stopping him
until he was killed, so The Laird saw very clearly that there was but
one course open to him. If he marched through that gate and straight
to the door, as if he meant business, as if he had a moral and legal
right to be there on business, Jerry would understand and permit him
to pass. But if he snooped in, like a thief in the night, and peered
in at a window--
"I wish I had a suit of Fifteenth Century armour," he thought. "Then
Jerry, you could chew on my leg and be damned to you. You're a silent
dog and I could have a good look while you were wrecking your teeth."
He went back to the Sawdust Pile at dusk the next evening, hoping
Jerry would be absent upon some unlawful private business, but when he
approached the gate slowly and noiselessly Jerry spoke up softly from
within and practically said: "Get out or take the consequences."
The following night, however, The Laird was prepared for Jerry. He did
not halt at the dog's preliminary warning but advanced and rattled the
gate a little. Immediately Jerry came to the gate and stood just
inside growling in his throat, so The Laird thrust an atomizer through
the palings and deluged Jerry's hairy countenance with a fine cloud of
spirits of ammonia. He had once tried that trick on a savage bulldog
in which he desired to inculcate some respect for his person, and had
succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Therefore, since
desperate circumstances always require desperate measures, the memory
of that ancient victory had moved him to attempt a similar
embarrassment of the dog Jerry.
But Jerry was a devil-dog. He had been raised and trained by Dirty Dan
O'Leary and in company with that interesting anthropoid he had been
through many stormy passages. Long before, he had learned that the
offensive frequently wins--the defensive never. It is probable that he
wept as he sniffed the awful stuff, but if he did they were tears of
rage.
Jerry's first move was to stand on his head and cover his face with
his paws. Then he did several back flips and wailed aloud in his
misery and woe, his yelps of distress quite filling the empyrean. But
only for the space of a few seconds. Recovering his customary aplomb
he made a flying leap for the top of the gate, his yelps now succeeded
by ambitious growls--and in self-defense The Laird was forced to spray
him again as he clung momentarily on top of the palings. With a sob
Jerry dropped back and buried his nose in the dust, while The Laird
beat a hurried retreat into the darkness, for he had lost all
confidence in his efforts to inculcate in Jerry an humble and contrite
spirit.
He could hear rapid footsteps inside the little house; then the door
opened and in the light that streamed from within he was indistinctly
visible to Nan as she stood in the doorway.
"Jerry!" he heard her call. "Good dog! What's the matter? After him,
Jerry. Go get him, Jerry!" She ran to the gate and opened it for the
dog, who darted through, but paused again to run his afflicted nose in
the dust and roll a couple of times. Apparently he felt that there was
no great hurry; his quarry could not escape him. It is probable, also,
that he was more or less confused and not quite certain which
direction the enemy had taken, for Jerry's sense of smell was
temporarily suspended and his eyes blinded by tears; certain his
language was not at all what it should have been.
The Laird ran blindly, apprehensively, but for a very short distance.
Suddenly he bumped into something quite solid, which closed around him
viciously. "Halt, damn you," a commanding voice cried.
Despite his years, Hector McKaye was no weakling, and in the knowledge
that he could not afford to be captured and discovered, seemingly he
slipped forty years from his shoulders. Once more he was a lumberjack,
the top dog of his district--and he proceeded to fight like one. His
old arms rained punches on the midriff of the man who held him and he
knew they stung cruelly, for at every punch the man grunted and strove
to clinch him tighter and smother the next blow. "Let go me or I'll
kill you," The Laird panted. "Man dinna drive me to it." He ceased his
rain of blows, grasped his adversary and tried to wrestle him down. He
succeeded, but the man would not stay down. He wriggled out with
amazing ease and had old Hector with his shoulders touching before The
Laird's heaving chest and two terrible thumbs closed down on each of
The Laird's eyes, with four powerful fingers clasping his face like
talons. "Quit, or I'll squeeze your eyeballs out," a voice warned him.
The Laird's hand beat the ground beside him. He had surrendered to a
master of his style of fighting. With something of the air of an
expert, his conqueror ran a quick hand over him, seeking for weapons,
and finding none, he grasped The Laird by the collar and jerked him to
his feet. "Now, then, my hearty, I'll have a look at you," he said.
"You'll explain why you're skulking around here and abusing that dog!"
The Laird quivered as he found himself being dragged toward the stream
of light, in the center of which Nan Brent stood silhouetted. He could
not afford this and he was not yet defeated.
"A thousand dollars if you let me go now," he panted. "I have the
money in my pocket. Ask yon lass if I've done aught wrong."
His captor paused and seemed to consider this. "Make it ten thousand
and I'll consider it," he whispered. "Leave it on the mail box just
outside the Tyee Lumber Company's office at midnight to-morrow night."
"I'll do it--so help me God," The Laird promised frantically.
His son's voice spoke in his ear. "Dad! You low-down, worthless
lovable old fraud!"
"My son! My son!" Old Hector's glad cry ended in a sob. "Oh, my sonny
boy, my bonny lad! I canna stand it. I canna! Forgie me, lad, forgie
me--and ask her to forgie me!" His old arms were around his son's neck
and he was crying on Donald's shoulder, unashamed. "I was trying for a
look at the bairn," he cried brokenly, "and 'twas a privilege God
would nae gie me seeing that I came like a sneak and not like an
honest man. The damned dog--he knew! Och, Donald, say ye forgie ye're
auld faither. Say it, lad. Ma heart's breakin'."
"Why, bless your bare-shanked old Scotch soul, of course I forgive
you. I never held any grudge, you know. I simply stood pat until you
could see things through my eyes."
"Is that you, Donald?" Nan called.
"Aye, aye, sweetheart. Dad's here. He wants to know if you regard him
as a particularly terrible old man. I think he's afraid you will
refuse to let him look at Laird Hector, Thirteenth."
"Man, man," the old man urged, quite shocked at this casual greeting
of a returned hero to his wife, "go to her, lad. She'll not relish
favoritism."
"Oh, this isn't our first meeting, Dad. I got home yesterday. I have
thirty days leave. They sent me home as an instructor in small arms
practice and gave me a boost in rank. I was just up town for a
beefsteak and I've lost the beefsteak battling with you."
The Laird wiped his eyes and got control of himself. Presently he
said: "Keep that blessed dog off me," and started resolutely for the
front gate. Without a moment's hesitation he folded Nan in his arms
and kissed her. "Poor bairn," he whispered. "I've been cruel to you.
Forgie me, daughter, if so be you can find it in your heart to be that
generous. God knows, lass, I'll try to be worthy of you."
"Am I worthy of him?" she whispered, womanlike.
"Far more than his father is," he admitted humbly. "Damn the world and
damn the people in it. You're a good girl, Nan. You always were a good
girl--"
"But suppose she wasn't--always?" Donald queried gently. "Is that
going to make any difference--to you?"
"I don't care what she was before you married her. I haven't thought
about that for a long time the way I used to think about it. I built
The Dreamerie for you and the girl you'd marry and I--I accept her
unconditionally, my son, and thank God she has the charity to accept
an old Pharisee like me for a father-in-law."
Donald slipped his arm around Nan's waist, and started with her toward
the door. "Tag along, father," he suggested, "and Nan will show you a
prize grandson."
At the door, Nan paused. "Do you think, father McKaye," she queried,
"that the remainder of the family will think as you do?"
"I fear not," he replied sadly. "But then, you haven't married the
family. They'll accept you or keep out of Port Agnew; at any rate
they'll never bother you, my dear. I think," he added grimly, "that I
may find a way to make them treat you with civility at least."
"He's a pretty good old sport after all, isn't he, Nan?" her husband
suggested.
"I'll tell the world he is," she answered archly, employing the A.E.F.
slang she had already learned from Donald. She linked her arm in old
Hector's and steered him down the hall to the living-room. "Your
grandson is in there," she said, and opening the door she gently
propelled him into the room.