XXI

Ever since Jean's outburst of passion upon the day of Hedin's arrest, a

certain constraint had settled upon father and daughter that amounted,

at times, to an actual coldness. Neither had mentioned the name of

Hedin in the other's hearing, but each evening at dinner, which was the

only meal at which they met, the studied silence with which the girl

devoted herself to her food bespoke plainer than words that the thought

of him was never out of her head.

So it was with some measure of surprise that Old John looked up from

his packing at the girl's question: "Where are you going, Dad?"

"North, into Canada. I've business there that needs my attention."

"Will you take me with you?"

"Take ye with me!" he cried in astonishment. "An' what would ye be

doin' in the wild country, with the black flies an' mosquitoes in the

height of their glory. They'd eat ye alive! An' the trailin'--why,

ye've never been outside a town in ye're life!"

"And that is just why I want to go outside one!" answered the girl.

"Please, Dad, take me with you. I can keep up on the trail, really I

can. Don't I play golf, and tennis, and paddle a canoe, and do

everything that anyone can do to keep themselves in shape? I bet right

now I can walk as far as you can in the woods or out of the woods. And

as for flies and mosquitoes, they won't eat me any worse than they will

you, and if worse comes to worst, I can plaster myself with that smelly

old dope you carry in that bottle--but I'd almost rather be eaten."

Old John grinned. "Well, I don't know. Maybe the trip would do ye

good. An' when ye get there ye may not find it so dull. Wentworth is

there an' he'll prob'ly show ye around."

"I don't need Captain Wentworth to show me around," she replied, and

McNabb was not slow to note her tone. "Of all people I ever met, I

think he's the biggest bore! I don't see what you hired him for."

Old John stared at her in amazement. "Why, it was on your own

recommendation--that, an' the fact that I found out he done some really

good work on the Nettle River project. But you asked me in so many

words to give him a job!"

"Well, if I did, I was an idiot," she replied. "And I guess you'll

wish you never hired him. You'll find you've made a grand mess of

things!" A high-pitched, nervous quality had crept into the girl's

voice, and McNabb saw that she was very near to tears. "Do you know

what they're saying?" she cried. "They're saying that Oskar has jumped

ten-thousand-dollar bail that some friend put up for him! They're

liars, and I hate them! Wherever he is, he'll come back at the proper

time. He'll show them--and he'll show you, too!" With an effort, the

girl steadied her trembling voice. "And when he does come back, he'll

find he's got one friend--and I'll--I'll make up for the rest. I'm

going to get ready now. I want to get away from it all. When do we

start?"

"To-night," answered old John, "on the late train." And when the door

closed behind his daughter, he grinned and winked at himself in the

mirror.

When old John McNabb and his daughter stepped off the sagging

combination coach at the siding which was the northern end of the new

tote-road, the first man they saw was Orcutt, resplendent in striped

mackinaw, Stetson hat, and high-laced boots. As the banker came toward

them, McNabb stared about him in evident perplexity, his glance

shifting from the piles of tarpaulin-covered material, to the loaded

trucks that with a clash and grind of gears were just pulling out upon

the new tote-road that stretched away between the tall balsam spires to

the southward.

"Hello, John," Orcutt greeted, lifting his Stetson in acknowledgment of

the presence of Jean. "Well, what do you think of it?"

McNabb continued to stare about him. "I don't seem to quite get the

straight of it," he said slowly. "Eureka Paper Company," he read the

legend emblazoned upon the trucks and tarpaulins scattered all over the

foreground. "What does it mean, Orcutt? An' what in the devil are you

doin' here? An' what business have those trucks got on my tote-road?"

Orcutt laughed, a nasty, gloating laugh, as he rubbed his hands

together after the manner of one performing an ablution. "It means,

John," he answered, in a voice of oily softness, "that at last I have

caught you napping. The Eureka Paper Company is my company, and the

pulp-wood that you held options on is my pulp-wood. I've been waiting

a long time for this day--more than twenty years. It's only fair to

give the devil his due, John--you've been shrewd. Time and again I

almost had you, but you always managed somehow to elude me. There have

been times when I could have murdered you, gladly. It wouldn't have

been so bad if you had gloated openly when you put one over on me, but

your devilish way of apparently ignoring the fact--of acting as though

outwitting me were too trifling an occurrence to even notice, at times

has nearly driven me crazy--that, and that damned secret laughter I see

in your eyes when we meet. Oh, I've waited a long time for my day--but

now my day has come! And to think how nearly I missed it! I go back

in an hour on the same train that brought you in."

McNabb had listened in silence to the tirade. "But I--I don't

understand it. My options----"

"Your options," interrupted Orcutt, and his voice rasped harsh,

"expired at noon on the first day of July. At one minute past twelve

on that day, the property passed into the hands of the Eureka Paper

Company of which I am president. I signed the contract and paid over

the money myself at Gods Lake Post."

"Was it July?" mumbled McNabb, apparently dazed. "But--there was

Wentworth. He had the papers. Surely he must have known."

Orcutt laughed. "Yes. Wentworth knew. He knew the day you hired him.

And he knew that you thought you had until the first of August. It was

Wentworth that tipped the deal off to me."

"But--why should he have double-crossed me?"

"Mere matter of business," replied Orcutt. "Figure it out for

yourself. If he stayed with you the best he could expect would be a

fair salary. With us he was in position to dictate his own terms.

They were stiff terms, too, for Wentworth is shrewd. But he has been

worth all he cost. He is now secretary of the Eureka, and a very

considerable stockholder."

McNabb was silent for what seemed a long time. When at length he

spoke, it was in a voice that sounded dull and tired. "But, Orcutt,

the tote-road is mine. I built it. It cost me a hundred thousand

dollars--that road did. If you hold the property the road is no good

to me, and it is valuable to you. Will you buy it?"

"Sure, I'll buy it. I'll buy it for just what I figure it is worth to

me. It cost you a thousand dollars a mile. It's worth a hundred to

me. Ten thousand dollars is my limit. Take it or leave it. Ten cents

on the dollar, John; you may as well save what you can out of the

wreck."

"Is that the best you can do by me? Man, it's robbery! I can't afford

to lose ninety thousand. It'll cripple me. An' I stood to make a

million!"

"Cripple you, eh? Well, it won't hurt my feelings to see you limping.

That's the very best we can do. You better take it, and go back to

selling your thread. You're getting too old for real business,

John--you're done!"

McNabb nodded slowly. "Aye, maybe ye're right, maybe ye're right."

The voice sounded old, tired. "I'll let ye know in a few days, Orcutt.

Now that I'm up here I think I'll slip down for a visit with my old

friend Murchison. He's the factor at Gods Lake. We were boys

together, an' together we worked for the Company. He's a friend a man

can trust. An' I feel the need of a friend. Ye'll not begrudge us a

ride down on one of ye're trucks, will ye, Orcutt?"

Before Orcutt could reply Jean, who had been a silent listener to all

that had passed, leaped forward and faced Orcutt with blazing eyes.

"You sneak!" she cried. "And all the time I thought you and Mrs.

Orcutt were my friends! And all the time you were lying in wait to

ruin an old man! You couldn't fight him in the open! You were afraid!

But my father is used to fighting men--not cowardly thieves! And as

for riding in one of your trucks, I would die first!" She turned to

McNabb. "Come on, Dad, we'll walk!"

"But, daughter, it's a hundred miles!"

"I don't care if it is five hundred miles! I'll walk, or crawl if I

have to, rather than accept anything from that--that rattlesnake! See,

there is a little store. We can lay in some provisions for the trip

and it will be loads of fun. It will remind you of your old days in

the North."

The girl took his arm, and the two turned abruptly away, leaving Orcutt

standing in his tracks watching their departure with somewhat of a grin.

As they came out of the store with bulging pack sacks, they saw him

step into the stuffy coach, and a moment later they watched the wheezy

little engine puff importantly down the track. Then, side by side they

stepped onto the tote-road and were swallowed up between the two walls

of towering balsams and spruces.

A mile farther on, a Eureka truck passed them, and the girl, scorning

the driver's offer of a lift, brushed its dust from her clothing as

though it were the touch of some loathsome thing.

That night they camped on a little hardwood knoll beside a stream, well

back from the road. Old John seemed to have regained his usual

spirits, and to her utter astonishment the girl surprised a grin upon

his face as he put up the shelter. He built a fire, and producing hook

and line from his pocket, jerked half a dozen trout from the water,

which were soon sizzling in the pan from which rose the odor of frying

bacon.

"Do you know, Dad," began the girl, after the dishes had been washed

and the man had thrown an armful of green bracken upon the fire to

smudge away the mosquitoes. "Do you know I think you are simply

wonderful?" She was leaning against his knee, and her eyes looked into

his.

"Tush, girl, what ails ye?" said the man, removing his pipe to send a

cloud of blue smoke to mingle with the gray of the smudge.

"I mean it, Daddy, dear. You are just wonderful. Oh, I know how

disappointed you are. I know just how it hurts to have a man like

Orcutt get the best of you. I saw it in your face."

"Did Orcutt see it, d'ye think?"

"Of course he did--and he just gloated."

"U-m-m," said McNabb, and his lips twitched at the corners.

"And on top of all that you can smile!"

"Yup, isn't it funny? I can even grin."

"But, Dad, will it--ruin you? Not that I care a bit, about the money.

We can be just as happy, maybe happier, without it. I'm not the little

fool you think I am. I have always spent a lot of money because I had

it to spend, but if we didn't have it, I could be just as happy making

what little I did have go as far as it could. Maybe we'll have to come

up here and live in a cabin. I love the North already, and I've hardly

seen it. We could have a cabin in the woods, and get some furniture

when we could afford it, and then we could arrange it so cozily.

Really, I would be crazy about it. And we could have trout every day,

and wild ducks, and venison. If we could afford a screened porch we

could eat and sleep on it, and in the living room we could have a

table----"

"Good Lord, girl, arrangin' furniture again!" cried old John. "An I'd

come home some night an' break my neck before I could find the

matchbox. If we was to live in a cabin I'd spike the stuff to the

floor! But--maybe it won't be so bad as all that."

"I've been hateful to you of late, Dad, because of--of Oskar. But

really, you made an awful mistake. I should think you would know that

he couldn't have taken that coat. It isn't in him!"

"I never said he ate it," grinned the man.

"Oh, don't joke about it! Dad, I love Oskar. He's--oh, he's

everything a man should be, and it hurts me so to have them saying he

is a thief. He isn't a thief! And the time will come when he will

prove it. Promise me, Dad, that when he does prove it, you will make

every effort in your power to right the wrong you have done him."

Old John's hand rested for a moment upon the girl's head. "I promise

all that, girl. Surely ye know I can be just. If it is as ye say,

I'll more than make it up to him. I promise ye, his name shall not

suffer."

"I love you, Dad. I know you are just--but you're a hard-hearted old

Scot, just the same. You don't make many mistakes, but you have made

two--about Oskar, and about hiring that Wentworth. I told you you'd be

sorry."

"Well, maybe ye're right," and John McNabb never blinked an eye.

"See, didn't I just say you were hard-headed? You won't admit you made

a mistake even after what Orcutt told you to-day. But tell me

honestly, Dad, are you ruined?"

"Well, we won't worry about that, lass. D'ye hear the hoot-owl? I

like to hear them of nights. I found one's nest once an' I took the

three eggs out an' slipped them under a hen that Mother McFarlane had

settin'. It was at Long Lake post, Mother McFarlane was the factor's

wife, an' I was his clerk. The eggs had been sat on a long time an'

they hatched out before the hen eggs. Ye should have seen Mother

McFarlane's face when she caught sight of them chickens! It was one of

the best jokes I ever made."

"And here you ought to be as solemn as an owl yourself, and you are

talking of jokes. I don't understand you at all."

"Maybe I should be an owl. D'ye notice in the stories, they make the

Scots say, 'hoot'? But about Wentworth, now. If we should meet up

with him, don't let on ye know anything about my deal with Orcutt.

Treat him nice an' pleasant----"

"After what he has done to you?" cried the girl, her eyes flashing.

"Just so. Be nice an' friendly to him--d'ye know what a poker face is?"

"Why, of course! Everybody plays poker in Terrace City."

"Mind ye, ye're settin' in a big game right now----"

"You mean," cried the girl, "that there's a chance? A chance to beat

Orcutt yet? Oh, if you only could!"

"Well, we're still settin' in the game--me an' you, daughter. An'

let's don't neither one of us throw down our hand till after the draw."