West of the city of Montreal were the works and the offices of John
Grier. Here it was that a thing was done without which there might have
been no real story to tell. It was a night which marked the close of the
financial year of the firm.
Upon John Grier had come Carnac. He had brought with him a small statue
of a riverman with flannel shirt, scarf about the waist, thick defiant
trousers and well-weaponed boots. It was a real figure of the river,
buoyant, daring, almost vicious. The head was bare; there were plain
gold rings in the ears; and the stark, half-malevolent eyes looked out,
as though searching for a jam of logs or some peril of the river. In the
horny right hand was a defiant pike-pole, its handle thrust forward, its
steel spike stabbing the ground.
At first glance, Carnac saw that John Grier was getting worn and old.
The eyes were not so flashing as they once were; the lips were curled
in a half-cynical mood. The old look of activity was fading; something
vital had struck soul and body. He had had a great year. He had fought
Belloc and his son Fabian successfully; he had laid new plans and
strengthened his position.
Tarboe coming into the business had made all the difference to him.
Tarboe had imagination, skill and decision, he seldom lost his temper;
he kept a strong hand upon himself. His control of men was marvellous;
his knowledge of finance was instinctive; his capacity for organization
was rare, and he had health unbounded and serene. It was hard to tell
what were the principles controlling Tarboe--there was always an element
of suspicion in his brown and brilliant eyes. Yet he loved work. The
wind of energy seemed to blow through his careless hair. His hands were
like iron and steel; his lips were quick and friendly, or ruthless,
as seemed needed. To John Grier’s eyes he was the epitome of
civilization--the warrior without a soul.
When Carnac came in now with the statue tucked under his arm, smiling
and self-contained, it seemed as though something had been done by Fate
to flaunt John Grier.
With a nod, Carnac put the statue on the table in front of the old
man, and said: “It’s all right, isn’t it? I’ve lifted that out of the
river-life. That’s one of the best men you ever had, and he’s only one
of a thousand. He doesn’t belong anywhere. He’s a rover, an adventurer,
a wanton of the waters. Look at him. He’s all right, isn’t he?” He asked
this again.
The timber-man waved the statue aside, and looked at the youth with
critical eyes. “I’ve just been making up the accounts for the year,” he
said. “It’s been the best year I’ve had in seven. I’ve taken the starch
out of Belloc and Fabian. I’ve broken the back of their opposition--I’ve
got it like a twig in iron teeth.”
“Yes, Tarboe’s been some use, hasn’t he?” was the suggestive response.
John Grier’s eyes hardened. “You might have done it. You had it in you.
The staff of life--courage and daring--were yours, and you wouldn’t take
it on. What’s the result? I’ve got a man who’s worth two of Fabian and
Belloc. And you”--he held up a piece of paper--“see that,” he broke off.
“See that. It’s my record. That’s what I’m worth. That’s what you might
have handled!” He took a cigar from his pocket, cut off the blunt end,
and continued: “You threw your chance aside.” He tapped the paper with
the point of the cigar. “That’s what Tarboe has helped do. What have you
got to show?” He pointed to the statue. “I won’t say it ain’t good. It’s
a live man from the river. But what do I want with that, when I can have
the original man himself! My boy, the great game of life is to fight
hard, and never to give in. If you keep your eyes open, things’ll happen
that’ll bring what you want.”
He stood up, striking a match to light his cigar. It was dusk, and the
light of the match gave a curious, fantastic glimmer to his powerful,
weird, haggard face. He was like some remnant of a great life, loose in
a careless world.
“I tell you,” he said, the smoke leaking from his mouth like a drift of
snow, “the only thing worth doing is making the things that matter in
the commerce and politics of the world.”
“I didn’t know you were a politician,” said Carnac. “Of course I’m
a politician,” was the inflammable reply. “What’s commerce without
politics? It’s politics that makes the commerce possible. There’s
that fellow Barouche--Barode Barouche--he’s got no money, but he’s a
Minister, and he can make you rich or poor by planning legislation at
Ottawa that’ll benefit or hamper you. That’s the kind of business that’s
worth doing--seeing into the future, fashioning laws that make good men
happy and bad men afraid. Don’t I know! I’m a master-man in my business;
nothing defeats me. To me, a forest of wild wood is the future palace of
a Prime Minister. A great river is a pathway to the palace, and all the
thousands of men that work the river are the adventurers that bring the
booty home--”
“That bring ‘the palace to Paris,’ eh!” interrupted Carnac, laughing.
“Paris be damned--that bring the forest to Quebec. How long did it take
you to make that?” he added with a nod towards the statue.
“Oh, I did it in a day--six hours, I think; and he stood like that for
three hours out of the six. He was great, but he’d no more sense of
civilization than I have of Heaven.”
“You don’t need to have a sense of Heaven, you need to have a sense of
Hell. That prevents you from spoiling your own show. You’re playing with
life’s vital things.”
“I wonder how much you’ve got out of it all, father,” Carnac remarked
with a smile. He lit a cigarette. “You do your job in style. It’s been a
great career, yours. You’ve made your big business out of nothing.”
“I had something to start with. Your grandfather had a business worth
not much, but it was a business, and the fundamental thing is to have
machinery to work with when you start life. I had that. My father was
narrow, contracted and a blunderer, but he made good in a small way.”
“And you in a big way,” said Carnac, with admiration and criticism in
his eyes.
He realized that John Grier had summed him up fairly when he said he was
playing with life’s vital things. Somehow, he saw the other had a grip
upon essentials lacking in himself; he had his tooth in the orange, as
it were, and was sucking the juice of good profit from his labours. Yet
he knew how much trickery and vital evasion and harsh aggression there
were in his father’s business life.
As yet he had never seen Tarboe--he had been away in the country
the whole year nearly--but he imagined a man of strength, abilities,
penetration and deep power. He knew that only a man with savage
instincts could work successfully with John Grier; he knew that Grier
was without mercy in his business, and that his best year’s work had
been marked by a mandatory power which only a malevolent policy could
produce. Yet, somehow, he had a feeling that Tarboe had a steadying
influence on John Grier. The old man was not so uncontrolled as in
bygone days.
“I’d like to see Tarboe,” Carnac said suddenly. “He ain’t the same
as you,” snapped John Grier. “He’s bigger, broader, and buskier.” A
malicious smile crossed over his face. “He’s a bandit--that’s what he
is. He’s got a chest like a horse and lungs like the ocean. When he’s
got a thing, he’s got it like a nail in a branch of young elm. He’s a
dandy, that fellow.” Suddenly passion came to his eyes. “You might have
done it, you’ve got the brains, and the sense, but you ain’t got the
ambition. You keep feeling for a thousand things instead of keeping
your grip on one. The man that succeeds fastens hard on what he wants to
do--the one big thing, and he does it, thinking of naught else.”
“Well, that’s good preaching,” remarked Carnac coolly. “But it doesn’t
mean that a man should stick to one thing, if he finds out he’s been
wrong about it? We all make mistakes. Perhaps some day I’ll wish I’d
gone with you.”
Grimness came into the old man’s face. Something came into his eyes that
was strange and revealing.
“Well, I hope you will. But you had your chance with me, and you threw
it down like a piece of rotten leather.”
“I don’t cost you anything,” returned Carnac. “I’ve paid my own way a
long time--with mother’s help.”
“And you’re twenty-six years old, and what have you got? Enough to give
you bread from day to day-no more. I was worth seventy thousand dollars
when I was your age. I’m worth enough to make a prince rich, and if I’d
been treated right by those I brought into the world I’d be worth twice
as much. Fabian was good as far as he went, but he was a coward. You”--a
look of fury entered the dark eyes--“you were no coward, but you didn’t
care a damn. You wanted to paddle about with muck of imagination--” he
pointed to the statue on the table.
“Why, your business has been great because of your imagination,” was the
retort. “You saw things ahead with the artist’s eye. You planned
with the artist’s mind; and brought forth what’s to your honour and
credit--and the piling up of your bank balance. The only thing that
could have induced me to work in your business is the looking ahead and
planning, seeing the one thing to be played off against the other, the
fighting of strong men, the politics, all the forces which go to make or
break your business. Well, I didn’t do it, and I’m not sorry. I have a
gift which, by training and development, will give me a place among the
men who do things, if I have good luck--good luck!”
He dwelt upon these last words with an intensity which dreaded
something. There was retrospection in his eyes. A cloud seemed to cross
his face.
A strong step crunching the path stopped the conversation, and presently
there appeared the figure of Tarboe. Certainly the new life had not
changed Tarboe, had not altered his sturdy, strenuous nature. His
brown eyes under the rough thatch of his eyebrow took in the room
with lightning glance, and he nodded respectfully, yet with great
friendliness, at John Grier. He seemed to have news, and he glanced with
doubt at Carnac.
John Grier understood. “Go ahead. What’s happened?”
“Nothing that can’t wait till I’m introduced to your son,” rejoined
Tarboe.
With a friendly look, free from all furtiveness, Carnac reached out a
hand, small, graceful, firm. As Tarboe grasped it in his own big paw, he
was conscious of a strength in the grip which told him that the physical
capacity of the “painter-fellow,” as he afterwards called Carnac, had
points worthy of respect. On the instant, there was admiration on the
part of each--admiration and dislike. Carnac liked the new-comer for
his healthy bearing, for the iron hardness of his head, and for the
intelligence of his dark eyes. He disliked him, however, for something
that made him critical of his father, something covert and devilishly
alert. Both John Grier and Tarboe were like two old backwoodsmen, eager
to reach their goal, and somewhat indifferent to the paths by which they
travelled to it.
Tarboe, on the other hand, admired the frank, pleasant face of the
young man, which carried still the irresponsibility of youth, but which
conveyed to the watchful eye a brave independence, a fervid, and perhaps
futile, challenge to all the world. Tarboe understood that this young
man had a frankness dangerous to the business of life, yet which,
properly applied, might bring great results. He disliked Carnac for his
uncalculating candour; but he realized that, behind all, was something
disturbing to his life.
“It’s a woman,” Tarboe said to himself, “it’s a woman. He’s made a fool
of himself.”
Tarboe was right. He had done what no one else had done--he had pierced
the cloud surrounding Carnac: it was a woman.
“I hear you’re pulling things off here,” remarked Carnac civilly. “He
says”--pointing to John Grier--“that you’re making the enemy squirm.”
Tarboe nodded, and a half-stealthy smile crept across his face. “I don’t
think we’ve lost anything coming our way,” he replied. “We’ve had good
luck--”
“And our eyes were open,” intervened John Grier. “You push the brush and
use the chisel, don’t you?” asked Tarboe in spite of himself with slight
scorn in his tone.
“I push the chisel and use the brush,” answered Carnac, smilingly
correcting him.
“That’s a good thing. Is it yours?” asked Tarboe, nodding and pointing
to the statue of the riverman. Carnac nodded. “Yes, I did that one day.
I’d like to do you, if you’d let me.”
The young giant waved a brawny hand and laughed. He looked down at his
knee-boots, with their muddied soles, and then at the statue again on
the table. “I don’t mind you’re doing me. Turn about is fair play.
“I’ve done you out of your job.” Then he added to the old man: “It’s
good news I’ve got. I’ve made the contract with the French firm at our
price.”
“At our price!” remarked the other with a grim smile. “For the lot?”
“Yes, for the lot, and I’ve made the contracts with the ships to carry
it.”
“At our price?” again asked the old man. Tarboe nodded. “Just a little
better.”
“I wouldn’t have believed those two things could have been done in the
time.” Grier rubbed his hands cheerfully. “That’s a good day’s work.
It’s the best you’ve done since you’ve come.”
Carnac watched the scene with interest. No envy moved him, his soul was
free from malice. Evidently Tarboe was a man of power. Ruthless he might
be, ruthless and unsparing, but a man of power.
At that instant a clerk entered with a letter in his hand. “Mrs. Grier
said to give you this,” he remarked to Carnac, handing it to him.
Carnac took it and the clerk departed. The letter had an American
postmark, and the handwriting on the letter brought trouble to his eyes.
He composed himself, however, and tore off the end of the envelope,
taking out the letter.
It was brief. It contained only a few lines, but as Carnac read them the
colour left his face. “Good God!” he said to himself. Then he put the
paper in his pocket, and, with a forced smile and nod to his father and
Tarboe, left the office.
“That’s queer. The letter seemed to get him in the vitals,” said John
Grier with surprise.
Tarboe nodded, and said to himself: “It’s a woman all right.” He smiled
to himself also. He had wondered why Carnac and Junia Shale had not come
to an understanding. The letter which had turned Carnac pale was the
interpretation.
“Say, sit down, Tarboe,” said John Grier. “I want to talk with you.”