ON his way home at night Strong was really nearing the City of
Destruction, like that pilgrim of old renown. Shall we say that Satan
had filled the man with his own greatness the better to work upon him?
However that may be, a new peril had beset the Emperor.
For long he had been conscious only of his faults. Now the thought of
his merits had caused him to forget them. Turning homeward, the world
in his view consisted of two parts--Silas Strong and other people. One
regrets to say it was largely Silas Strong--the great lifter, the guide
and hunter whose fame he had not until then suspected.
Master took the train with him that evening.
This old-fashioned man--Silas Strong--whose mind was, in the main,
like that of his grandfather--like that, indeed, of the end of the
eighteenth century--sat beside one who represented the very
latest ideals of the Anglo-Saxon.
They were both descended from good pioneer ancestry, but the grandfather
of one had moved to Boston, while the grandfather of the other had
remained in the woods. The boulevard and the trail had led to things
very different.
They had sat together only a few moments when the two Migleys entered
the car. These ministers of the great king got to work at once.
"Hello!" said the elder of them, addressing Master. "I congratulate you.
I told my son it was a great speech. Ask him if I didn't."
"I enjoyed your speech," said young Migley. "But there's no use talking
to us about saving the wilderness. If we did as you wish, we'd have
nothing to do but twirl our thumbs."
"On the contrary, you'd have a permanent business, whereas your present
course will soon lead you to the end of it. I would have you cut nothing
below twelve inches at the butt, and get your harvest as often as you
can find it."
"'Twouldn't pay," said "Pop" Migley, with a shake of his head.
"You condemn the plan without trial," Master continued. "Anyhow, if
an owner wants his value at once, let us have a law under which he can
transfer his timber-land to the State on a fair appraisal."
"The State wouldn't pay us half we can make by cutting it."
"Probably not, but you'd have your time and capital for other uses.
Then, too, you should think of the public good. You're rich enough."
"But not fool enough," said young Mr. Migley, in a loud voice.
The train stopped to take water, and those near were now turned to
listen.
"I thought you were ambitious to be a public servant," said Master,
calmly.
"But not as a professor of moral philosophy." This declaration of the
young candidate was greeted with laughter.
"And, of course, not as a professor of moral turpitude," said the woods
lover. "The public is not to be wholly forgotten."
"I'm for my part of the public, first, last, and always," young Migley
answered.
It is notable that lawless feeling--especially after it has passed from
sire to son--some day loses the shame which has covered and kept it
from insufferable offence. Two or three citizens who sat near began
to whisper and shake their heads. One of them spoke out loudly and
indignantly; "His part of the public is mostly himself. He is trying to
buy his way into the Assembly, and I hope he'll fail."
There were hot words between the Migleys and their accuser, until the
lumbermen left the car.
Soon Master fell asleep. Strong took out his old memorandum-book and
went over sundry events and reflections.
When Master awoke the Emperor still sat with the worn book in his hands.
"I've been asleep," said the young man. "What have you been doing?"
"Th-thinkin' out a few th-thoughts," Strong answered, as he put the book
in his pocket.
The Emperor began to speak of the Congressman's courtesies in a tone of
self-congratulation.
Master laughed heartily. "It was a pretty little plot," said he. "Those
common fellows couldn't manage you, and they passed you on. I'll bet he
asked you to help Migley."
Strong smiled and nodded.
"You haven't made me any promise, and I want you to feel free to do what
you think best," said the young man.
The train pulled into Bees' Hill in the edge of the wilderness, and they
left it and took quarters at the Rustic Inn.
Bees' Hill was a new lumber settlement where there were two mills, three
inns, a number of stores, and a post-office. The bar-room was crowded
with brawny mill-hands from across the border, in varying stages of
intoxication. The inn itself was full of the reek of cheap tobacco and
the sound of cheaper oaths. The most offensive in the crowd were of
the new generation of back-country Americans. Their boastfulness
and profanity were in full flood. They used the sacred names with a
cheerful, glib familiarity, as if they were only saying "Bill" or "Joe."
The town had begun to ruin the woodsman as well as the woods.
Here were some of the sons of the pioneers--mostly "guides" and choremen
of abundant leisure. Every day they were "dressed up," and sat about the
inn like one who patiently tries his luck at a fishing-hole. They had
discovered themselves and were like a child with its first doll. They
had, as it were, torn themselves apart and put themselves together
again. They had experimented with cologne, hair-oil, poker, colored
neckties, hotel fare, and execrable whiskey. They were in love with
pleasure and had sublime faith in luck. They spent their time looking
and listening and talking and primping and dreaming of sudden wealth and
kitchen-maids.
Strong and Master stood a moment looking at a noisy company of youths at
the bar.
"They speak of the President by his first name, and are rather free with
the Creator," said Master.
"J-jus' little mehoppers," Strong remarked, with a look of pity. In
his speech a conceited fellow, who spoke too frequently of himself, was
always a "mehopper."
"Large heads!" Master exclaimed, as he turned away.
"Like a b-balsam," Strong stammered. "B-big top an' little r-roots."
"And they can't stand against the wind," said Master.
Before he went to bed the Emperor made these entries in his
memorandum-book:
_"Strong says he had just as soon be seen with a coon as a congressman
also that a fool gits so big in his own eyes he dont never dast quarrell
with himself. Strong got to mehoppin. he has fit and conkered_
_"God never intended fer a man to see himself er else hed have set his
eyes difernt."_