Within the month events marched one upon the heels of the other as if
set in motion by some unseen intelligence working to an inscrutable
plan.
Dorothy left for her home in Victoria. Phil's chum and his wife
departed. The cousins returned to Montreal. Norquay senior betook
himself to town. Rod and Mary had Hawk's Nest largely to themselves,
with Phil coming and going on the _Haida_, his fingers lightly on the
pulse of the Norquay activities in the woods. And there was
Grandfather Norquay, who never left Hawk's Nest now, who sometimes
kept his room for days at a stretch, appearing only occasionally at
table for a meal. He was growing feebler, Rod noted. He walked
abroad now with two sticks instead of one.
So for a matter of ten days Rod and his wife were left pretty much to
their own devices. Time rested lightly on their hands. They were
still too engrossed in each other to count hours or days.
Then the _Kowloon_ slid into the landing one mid-afternoon. If Rod's
father had hand-picked a few people to welcome Rod and Mary home, so
Grove had selected his week-end guests for a purpose. If he had not
openly primed them, he must have indicated his attitude.
Rod got that impression at once. By dark, when they began to dance
on the roomy porch, this impression had grown to a certainty. Laska
hadn't come. With the lot Rod had only a casual acquaintance. They
were all some one or the children of some one, and like most of
Grove's friends, they were accustomed to a speedy pace.
Rod perceived that there was a compact to ignore Mary. It was too
pointed to be accidental. The women simply didn't see her. The men
were perfunctory. They were not rude. They were much too finished a
product for that. They simply didn't include Rod's wife in anything
that was said or done. But that was quite enough. A rapier in
skilled hands is as deadly as a spear.
Through that first evening Rod simmered. It was his home, the home
of his fathers. As matters stood, his rights and privileges there
were equal to Grove's. He knew he was under fire--platoon fire from
skilful ambush. And he couldn't shoot back. It didn't injure him.
But it did enrage him. It was so petty. Cheap malice. And stupid,
useless,--because Rod knew that Grove and Grove's friends could
neither make nor mar him socially or any other way. These people,
with their wealth, their modishness, their perfect assurance, were
after all only a certain clique. That portion of the Norquay family
which counted most had accepted Mary Thorn, at first out of common
courtesy and thereafter because they found her well worth acceptance.
The outer fringe of the Norquay connection would follow suit, and all
who knew them would be governed thereby.
But that knowledge did not lessen Rod's growing anger at such
tactics, nor still a little fear of the effect on Mary. This--this
sort of thing precisely--was what she had foreseen and feared and
shrunk from. It was only a passing phase, Rod knew. But he could
see that it rankled. She bore herself stoutly, as impassive as a
Chinese mandarin. No more than Rod himself would she or did she
retreat under fire. She did her duty as a hostess in a difficult
situation. But when they withdrew to their own rooms, at the end of
an interminable evening, she lay back in a chair silent and
thoughtful, while Rod spilled a vessel of wrath on his brother's head.
"Don't get fussed up about it, Rod," she said at last. "It doesn't
matter much, does it? If what I've seen of these people this
afternoon and evening is a fair sample of their normal behavior, I
wouldn't get on with them even if they wanted me to. I've overheard
more suggestive things and double-edged remarks in the last few hours
than I ever heard in all my life put together. If that's smartness,
I'll never be smart. I don't feel as if I'd been slighted. I'm glad
they didn't fall on my neck. I don't like them."
"Nor I," Rod growled. "Grove always did prefer damaged goods. But I
don't like them trying to put over anything like that on me--on us.
That's all. It's dirty."
"You can't do anything," Mary pointed out. "You can't challenge the
assembled company to bestow courteous attention on your wife under
pain of--what? If you even notice it, you'll only amuse them--make
yourself ridiculous."
"Certainly. That's why it's so damned annoying."
"Forget it," she smiled. "Come and sit down by me. What does it
matter?"
"I'll lock horns with him yet," Rod muttered.
Then, sitting on a hassock beside her with Mary's fingers weaving
tangles in his hair, Rod forgot his irritation.
It returned the following day. Grove moved about among his guests,
bland, courteous, engaging. He was at home in the polite raillery
that passes for wit in such gatherings, where open homage is paid
chiefly to the social trinity of food, liquor and dancing, and where
sex is no shrinking violet. Whenever his eyes met Rod's, Rod
detected a malicious sparkle. Grove was enjoying the situation. And
Rod yearned to make him smart for his petty, useless triumph. His
exasperation grew with his helplessness.
"Come on," he said to his wife at four in the afternoon. "You can
leave the dinner arrangements to Stagg. Let's go across the channel
and get the taste out of our mouths."
They had dinner at Oliver Thorn's.
"Funny," Rod thought, as he sat on the calk-splintered porch steps
watching the smoke curl and weave from the end of a cigarette.
"Funny what an atmosphere can do to you. 'Better a dinner of herbs
where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.' The ancient
wisdom is still wisdom. If Grove can pull off that sort of thing
whenever he likes, we'll have to leave Hawk's Nest. There's no
defence against it."
They rowed home at dusk. Phil had come back. The three of them sat
out on the porch and observed the merriment quickening to a livelier
tempo as the evening wore on. Phil made no comment for a long time.
"One would imagine," he observed at last, rather dryly, "that we
three were taboo. We don't seem to be very popular with this crowd."
"There's been about thirty hours of this semi-glacial period," Rod
informed him. "It's getting old with me."
"What about you?" Phil turned to Mary,
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm like the minister when he was kicked by the mule. I consider
the source," she said.
"Proper attitude," Phil said. "I've been taking notice. I know our
elder brother's pleasing little tricks. I wouldn't let it annoy me,
sister Mary. Grove often starts things he can't finish. I didn't
think he was quite stupid enough for this."
The _Kowloon_ departed early Monday morning. Thinking it over as he
watched her whip around the Gillard light, Rod decided that honors
were easy for the time being. But he very nearly determined to force
an open clash if Grove tried to carry it off again.
This clash, which Rod foresaw, and which he perhaps subconsciously
welcomed, was nearly due. They had Hawk's Nest to themselves, its
cool quiet rooms and corridors, the pleasant porches and grounds
bright with flowers and scented shrubs, its sweep of velvet lawn and
rolling acres of parked forest, where the great trees lifted plumed
heads to the sun. Into that blended atmosphere of peace and
permanence and beauty no jarring note came until another week-end
brought back the _Kowloon_. This time Norquay senior was home. Rod
sat back to see if Grove meant to carry on with his design of making
Mary's road as rough as lay in his power,--and also to see how their
father would take such obvious malice, if it were shown.
But Norquay senior missed all the calculated slights Grove and his
guests adroitly managed to put on Rod and his wife. It seemed to Rod
that they played up to Grove's lead with accomplished skill. It was
a new sort of game and Mary Norquay was "It." They found it amusing.
Or was it only that they were an ill-bred lot? Rod was not sure of
Grove's company, but he was sure of Grove. Grove saw to it, subtly,
that Rod should understand what he was driving at. Grove enjoyed the
situation. Rod's self-control didn't deceive him. He knew that Rod
was fuming inside. He took opportunity to let Rod know that he knew.
But something more fundamental brought matters to a head. Lacking
that, Rod would probably have ended by complete indifference to what
Grove and his friends did or said.
The _Kowloon_ was due to leave Monday afternoon. At ten in the
morning, Rod sat reading in the library. Phil was writing letters at
a desk in one corner. Norquay senior was walking in the grounds with
Mary. From his seat Rod could see the tall tweed-clad figure
sauntering beside his wife. His ill-humor vanished. That was answer
enough to Grove and his clique. He glanced indifferently up at
Grove's entrance. That gentleman didn't seem so gay and festive this
morning. He bit off a cigar end with unnecessary force and sat
smoking. He scowled. His eyes were a trifle glassy, the lids
reddened. Faint shadows showed beneath the lower lids.
"The morning after the night before sits heavier on him than it used
to," Rod thought cynically. "The pace is beginning to tell. Damn
fool."
He resumed his reading.
The butler came in.
"The foreman of the Valdez camp and two men want to see you, sir," he
addressed Phil.
"Send 'em here," Phil replied, without looking up.
Rod continued to read. There was nothing unusual in men from the
camps coming to Hawk's Nest with complaints or for instructions.
Disputes between men and logging bosses had been threshed out times
without number in that pleasant, book-lined room. The Norquay policy
had always been patriarchal.
Stagg ushered in Jim Handy and two men. One was Andy Hall. He
nodded to Rod with a genial grin. Handy looked fretful. His short,
white mustache stood out at the aggressive angle it always took when
things went wrong. All three had shed their calked boots and working
garments. They wore their town clothes. Above clean white collars
their faces were burned to the brown of weathered oak by summer sun
and hot winds.
"I got a strike on my hands," Handy announced to Phil. "They want
fifty cents a day raise all round. They want bathtubs. I expect
maybe they want regular hotel waiters to sling hash for 'em, too,"
Handy permitted himself a logger's witticism. "These two guys
represent the crew."
Phil turned to the loggers.
"Striking is rather a new kink in the logging business," he said
casually. "If you don't like the job, why don't you quit?"
"Quitting wouldn't change things," Andy Hall replied. "You want to
get out timber because it is profitable. We want to work because we
have to work for somebody. But we would like better working
conditions. Seems more reasonable to ask for 'em on the job than to
quit the job."
"Are you two a self-appointed committee?" Phil inquired.
"No," Hall assured him. "We were picked by the crowd to act as
spokesmen. A hundred and forty men can't all talk to a boss at once.
You can take it for granted we speak for the entire crew."
"All right, we'll take it for granted," Phil returned. "Just step
out into the hall for a minute or two. After I've had a word with
Handy you can state your case."
"You're foolish to waste time discussing anything whatever with these
fellows," Grove remarked, as the door closed on them. "I'd pay off
the works and have a new crew sent up. The bird that spoke is too
smooth-tongued for a logger. He's got agitator written all over him."
"Best high-rigger I ever saw," Jim Handy growled. "All loggers
agitates now and then."
Phil paid no attention to his brother's comment. He addressed Handy.
"When did they pull this strike?"
"This mornin'. They chewed the fat till midnight in the bunk house.
After breakfast not a man turned out. They wouldn't talk. They said
these two would talk for 'em. I've told you what they want. Fifty
cents a day raise. Six bathtubs."
"Bathtubs!" Grove snorted disdainfully.
"Short notice," Phil ruminated. "H'm. Have they been kicking?"
"Loggers always kicks," Handy grumbled. "They've been growlin' some.
I've told 'em they always got the privilege of quittin'. I've fired
three or four of the mouthy ones. When they all laid down at once, I
reckoned I'd better put it up to you."
"What do you think about it yourself?" Phil asked him. "Can you get
another crew together and go ahead?"
Handy shifted uneasily.
"I hear men's scarce in town," he said. "If I can dig up a crew, of
course I can go ahead. But no pick-up crew will get out as much
timber. Not for a month or two anyhow. Most of this bunch has been
on the job since the camp opened."
"We're paying standard wages," Phil observed. "If it were left to
you, Handy, would you give them the raise?"
"I don't know but I would," the logging boss brightened. "Cheapest.
One or two of the big Island camps have tilted wages. This crew can
sure get out timber. Breakin' in new men costs money."
"Just what have you told them?" Phil inquired. "If you haven't
stirred them up, I may be able to talk them out of it."
Handy grinned.
"I was darn careful not to stir 'em up. I know loggers. I'm a
logger myself. I didn't say much of anything. When I seen they was
set, I just said, 'Well we'll put it up to headquarters. I hire and
fire, but the owners sign the pay checks'."
"All right. Send those two in as you go out," Phil said finally.
"I'll see you down on the float after I get through."
Andy Hall and his companion entered.
"Tell me what you want," Phil said briefly, "and why you consider
yourselves entitled to it."
"We ask for fifty cents a day raise for every outside worker on the
job, from whistle-punks to hook-tenders," Wright voiced their
demands. "We ask for you to put in at least half a dozen baths,
tubs, or showers; showers would suit us best and they're easily
installed. That's all."
"Why go on strike at snap notice?" Phil complained. "Why didn't you
ask for these things? Does it seem to you that the way to get your
claims considered is to disorganize the work first and then make your
demands?"
Wright motioned to Andy Hall.
"You tell him."
"Mr. Norquay," Hall began quietly, "if you'd ever worked as a logger
in a logging camp you'd know that asking for changes doesn't bring
them about. There are a hundred and forty men in your woods on
Valdez. We are, if I say so myself, as skookum a logging crew as
ever was got together on the B.C. coast. And we have been asking for
these things. Jim Handy is your representative on the job. We
haven't anything against old Jim. He's as fair as the average woods
boss. But he has exactly the same idea as most employers--keep wages
down and prices up--get all the work possible out of the men. His
own job as foreman depends on getting results. For the last month
every time anybody has tried to talk to him about wages or camp
conditions, somebody has got fired. This particular crew is tired of
a take-it-or-leave-it basis of employment. That's why there's a
show-down. Neither of the things we ask for is unreasonable. It is
unreasonable to fire a man for wanting to talk about his wages and
the conditions under which he must live."
Phil eyed Andy Hall searchingly for a second or two. Grove had
twisted sidewise in his chair and glared at the logger with visible
displeasure.
"Let's take up the matter of the bathtubs," Phil resumed. "Why
should we supply casual labor with baths when there is a running
stream through the camp and the sea is at the door?"
Rod shifted in his seat. It sounded rather callous. He thought of
the unction with which he had heard worthy people declare that
cleanliness is next to godliness.
Andy shrugged his shoulders.
"I could easily justify bathing facilities on moral and sanitary
grounds," he said impassively. "I'll simply put it this way. Most
men prefer to be clean. If it's impossible for them to be reasonably
clean, they'll be uncomfortable. A man who is uncomfortable gets
discontented. A discontented workman is a poor investment. There
are a hundred and forty men coming out of your woods every night,
stinking with sweat and dust in the summer, plastered with mud in the
winter. There is one shallow wooden trough with tin washbasins and a
half-inch tap. We make shift with the creek and the salt-chuck in
summer. But a man who has done ten hours' hard labor in the woods
can't stand naked outdoors and bathe in cold weather."
"I never before heard of bathing as an issue in a logging camp," Phil
smiled. "Well, we'll concede the bathing facilities. We'll agree to
build a bathroom and install pipe showers with a hot-water supply."
"Now this raise in wages," he continued judicially, after a brief
pause. "I really don't believe we can go that far. We're paying the
standard wages--a fairly liberal scale, it seems to me. I suggest
that you go back and get the crew out to work on the understanding
that we'll adjust this claim for wages between now and next payday.
This strike is too much in the nature of a holdup. Wage questions
can't be settled offhand. Don't you think that would be the most
amiable way of ending the tie-up? The shower-bath matter will be
attended to at once."
Andy Hall shook his head.
"I'd like to be polite and agreeable," he said. "But I'm not acting
for myself as an individual, you must remember. The men threshed
this out pretty well before they took action. They won't move a
stick unless they get this raise. They've tried to talk to Handy and
Jim simply grinned and fired the men who insisted on talking. The
point is this. There is no such thing as a standard wage in the
logging industry. You are paying as much as most camps, more than
some, less than others. The International, on Vancouver Island,
employing over four hundred men, is paying what we ask. So are two
or three smaller concerns."
"And," Hall continued without heat, as deliberate as if he were
intoning a column of figures, "we are working under a foreman who is
a driver. That's nothing against Jim Handy. We're not sore on him.
A logging boss holds a boss's job by virtue of ability to get out
logs. But old Jim keeps a crew on its toes. If a man isn't up and
coming, he doesn't work long for Handy. We're putting more timber
per man per day into the booming ground than any crew on the coast."
"How do you know that?" Phil demanded sharply.
"We have made it our business to find out," Hall answered
imperturbably. "You know it's so--if you keep tab on your business.
That's why we want more money. We're earning it. We're entitled to
it."
"And," Wright put in, "if we don't get it, we're through. Nobody
wants to work on a job where he knows he's getting too much the worst
of the deal."
"We can, I suppose you know, pay you all off and get another crew,"
Phil reminded.
"And we can get other jobs," Hall replied unruffled. "But we'd both
be loser. No, that wouldn't benefit either party to this dispute.
You have a reputation for being fair, as fairness is reckoned in
logging camps. That's why you have efficient crews and a minimum of
labor trouble. We know we are entitled to what we ask. If we don't
get it, we'll be good and sure it isn't a question of the Norquay
Estate being unable to pay such wages and still show a profit. We'll
know the refusal is purely on the grounds of policy. And if a
logger's frank opinion is anything to you, you'll find it damned poor
policy."
Phil sat tapping his pencil on the desk, smiling a little to himself.
"Go down to the landing and wait for me there," he said. "I'll give
you a definite answer inside of half an hour."
The door closed on the two loggers. The three brothers looked at
each other.
"Cattle!" Grove broke out with quite unnecessary heat. "A mob like
that attempting to dictate to us."
"I'd hardly call two men a mob," Phil commented dryly. "It is
scarcely dictating for men to state the conditions under which they
are willing to work."
"Are you going to let them stick you up like that?" Grove demanded
unpleasantly.
"Your way of putting it is offensive, but I know what you mean," Phil
maintained his placidity. "I rather think I shall. I'm considering.
We can certainly afford to give them a raise. Handy is a driver. He
does get out--"
"It isn't a question of affording it," Grove broke in. "It's a
question of principle. You simply cannot afford to allow a crew of
dissatisfied loggers to imagine for a minute that they can tell you
how you're to run your business."
"Handy, as I said," Phil went on unheeding, "does get out timber."
"You mean," Rod supplemented, on the spur of an impulse, "he has the
faculty of keeping a crew going at top speed, and they get out
timber. Well, I can vouch for that, after twelve months under him.
If these fellows were paid on the basis of production, they'd get
bigger wages than they're asking. I made some calculations myself
from time to time before I left the camp. Hall's figures are
conservative. I got cost figures from the town office and reckoned
the output. That Valdez camp for six months straight put out twenty
per cent more timber per man than Hardwicke Island. I suppose you
know that?"
Phil nodded.
"That high-rigger is almost too clever to be a logger," he observed.
"Know anything about him, Rod? Notice the beggar's language? Most
reasoned and unemotional presentment of a case I ever heard a logger
make."
"He's a good man on the job. He has been there since the camp
opened," Rod prudently refrained from mentioning Andy's economic
heresies. He liked Andy Hall and he foresaw Andy marked as an
"agitator," that abused term which once tagged to a workingman makes
him anathema to most employers. "In fact, I'd say old Jim has a crew
it would be a pity to break up--if getting out timber efficiently is
any object--for so small a matter as fifty cents a day--and bathtubs."
"They never bathe," Grove sneered. "They don't look as if they did.
I never got close enough to smell 'em, but I suppose they don't mind
it themselves."
Rod sat silent. It struck him that Grove was thrusting at him. And
it struck him, too, how little either of his brothers knew about the
men they were discussing. They didn't discuss them as men, so much
as material,--a commodity, a necessary part of the producing
machinery which had the inconvenient quality of voicing its wants.
As if a donkey engine should protest against an overload. Rod
himself had got under the logger's skin. He would never be able to
think of them except as men, to deal with them otherwise. They had
their vices and virtues, but they were not impersonal machines. He
could not impart this knowledge, convey such an attitude and feeling,
to his brothers.
"First time I ever heard 'em kicking for baths," Phil grinned. "Did
you start a movement for cleanliness while you were among them, Rod?"
"It wasn't necessary," Rod assured him. "Most loggers like to be
clean if there's a chance. I bathed in the creek like the rest.
I've scrubbed myself off in a hand-basin in the winter. I didn't
think much of the inconvenience. I suppose because I knew I could
get away from it any time I wanted to. They can't. I'm for plenty
of baths, in every camp we run. It's only common decency."
"That's simple. I expect, on the whole, we'd better give them what
they ask without quibbling. I've always found it pays to keep 'em
reasonably satisfied."
"You'd better consult the governor before you commit yourself," Grove
said meaningly. "I'm opposed to it myself."
"My dearest elder brother," Phil shot back instantly with
exaggerated, icy politeness, "when you elected to pursue a career in
finance, the direction of the timber operations of the Norquay Estate
devolved on me. So long as I have the authority I shall use my own
judgment. Yours not to reason why--yours but to reap the profits
that accrue. You try putting your fingers in this pie and you'll get
them pinched. Do you get me?"
"You know," he went on sarcastically, after a brief silence, in which
Grove's face reddened perceptibly, "you really aren't in any
condition to give an impartial opinion on anything so early this
morning. Too heavy a hangover. Too many cocktails. Too much of a
muchness. You can't stand the pace the way you used to. You come
out of your morning bath grouching instead of singing. So leave the
loggers and logging to me. I have about decided to concede them both
points."
"_I_ would," Rod impulsively put himself on record. "Not only as a
matter of policy, but as a matter of simple justice."
"Oh, you," Grove turned on him. In his voice repressed fury and
utter contempt seemed to struggle for mastery. "One would naturally
expect _you_ to support any extravagant claim from such a source.
You fraternized with them. No doubt you find yourself quite
comfortable on terms of equality with them. Particularly since you
went the length of picking up a wife from among them. I have had
about--"
Rod got to his feet. Something in his face cut short Grove's
sentence.
"What you've had is not a patch to what you'll get," Rod said. "You
yellow dog!"
The open palm of his hand popped with a dull smacking sound on his
brother's mouth.
But characterizing a man as a yellow dog does not necessarily make
him one. Grove spat out the crushed cigar and bitter ashes and
lunged at Rod. He missed. While he was off balance, Rod knocked him
down.
He rose, stood one hesitant moment, hands up like a boxer, head
hunched between his shoulders. But when he rushed it was not to
strike, only to grasp.
"Don't let him get hold of you," Phil warned sharply.
Rod didn't need the warning. He knew Grove's strength, was aware of
his purpose. In school, Grove had been a hammer thrower, a putter of
the shot. He had never been beaten at his weight as a wrestler. And
though he was ten years past those athletics, he was dangerous still
at grips. Rod twisted aside, evaded his reach, struck and dodged,
struck and dodged again, quick sharp punishing blows that jerked
Grove's hands defensively up to guard his face. When he did that,
Rod put all his weight into a blow that would have ended the
scrimmage if it had reached Grove's jaw. It was deflected by his
forearm, smashed his ear. But it staggered him against a bookcase so
that broken glass fell with a tinkle. Rod followed up his advantage,
and Grove went down again.
Phil had his back against the door.
"It's locked," he announced calmly, in the brief time it took Grove
to rise. "May the best man win."
"The best man will win," Rod panted.
He tingled. A fine exultant feeling that he dealt justice in the
only adequate manner uplifted him. He had seldom fought in the
twenty-three years of his existence. He had never imagined it would
give him so keen a satisfaction to knock a man down. Yet it didn't
surprise him. He knew in that moment that for years he had been
longing to punish Grove as he intended to punish him now. Even in
that stress of passion his brain, the rational, critical part of him,
found time to wonder why so brutal an action seemed so eminently fit,
so natural, such a pleasure.
Grove came at him again, striking wild, blood trickling from his
mouth, from his nostrils. In the shift and exchange he trapped Rod
against a heavy chair. They grappled, went to the floor with a
crash. Grove's arm pinned him by the neck. Rod felt the other
seeking a crotch hold. He made a violent effort, broke loose, thrust
himself clear, bounded to his feet.
He had matched strength for strength and beaten Grove at his own
strong man's game. There was a thrill in that. He could break any
hold Grove could put on him. When he realized that, he dropped all
defense. He crowded within the scope of Grove's arms and struck as
hard and quickly as he could drive his arms, fists thudding against
Grove's body, over his heart, on his face,--until Grove's legs
buckled under him and he sank on all fours.
Rod stepped back, dropped his hands.
"Enough?" he asked briefly.
Grove nodded, voiceless. His face was an unsightly mess.
And as Rod opened his mouth to speak further, the library door
rattled, an imperative knock sounded. The voice of Norquay senior
demanded testily to know why the door was locked. Phil flashed a
look of mild dismay at Rod and turned the key. Their father walked
in.