A rather strained silence greeted the entrance of McNabb into the
trading room. Jean and Murchison occupied the only two chairs the room
boasted, and Wentworth leaned against the counter, a half-sneering
smile on his lips. McNabb advanced to the group beneath the huge
swinging lamp, and Sven Larsen lingered in the shadows near the door.
The half-sneer changed to a look of open defiance, as Wentworth faced
McNabb. "It seems," he said truculently, "that I am guilty of a
serious _faux pas_ in mentioning a bit of Terrace City scandal that
reached my ears concerning the elopement of your estimable fur clerk,
Hedin, and a Russian sable coat. The idiot didn't have the brains to
get away with it. If you'd have been wiser you would have waited until
you could have laid hands on the coat, and then locked up your fur
clerk."
"H-m-m, maybe ye're right," answered McNabb.
"And," continued Wentworth, emboldened by the placidity of the other's
tone, "if you had been wiser, you wouldn't have lost your pulp-wood
holdings. Oh, there's no use beating about the bush--I knew the minute
Jean told me you had come in by the tote-road, that you had seen the
Eureka trucks hauling in Eureka material. We put one over on you,
McNabb, and you might as well be a sport and make the best of it."
The old Scot nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe ye're right," he admitted.
"But wasn't it a bit scurvy trick ye played me, acceptin' my money an'
usin' it to double-cross me?"
"Business, my dear man! Merely business! I saw my chance, and I took
it, that's all. Ten thousand a year, and a ten percent interest in a
paper mill isn't so poor--and I'm not yet thirty. It takes brains to
make money, and you can bet I'll make my money before my brain begins
to slip cogs. It's expensive--this slipping of cogs."
"Maybe ye're right," repeated McNabb.
"I'll tell the world I'm right! It won't be but a few years till I'll
be the big noise around this part of Canada! Brains to figure out a
proposition, and nerve to carry it through--that's all it takes to make
this old world pay up what it owes you."
"How he hates himself!" exclaimed Jean, and from his position in the
shadows, Hedin saw that her eyes flashed.
His heart gave a great bound, and it was with an effort that he
restrained himself from pushing into the group. Was it possible--? A
step sounded outside, and the next moment the screen door swung open to
admit the figure of a man who strode into the lamp-light and glanced
about the faces of the assembly.
The man was Cameron.
"A fine two days' stay you made of your trip to the mill site," he
grumbled, addressing Wentworth. "I waited here for a week for you or
Orcutt to show up, and then I decided to hunt you. I followed you to
Winnipeg, and from there to Ottawa, and back again to the head of the
tote-road. Orcutt had left for the States the day before I got there,
but they said you were down at the mill site. I rode down on a truck
only to find that you had come over here for your outfit."
"Well, now you've found me, what's on your mind?" grinned Wentworth.
"I have a memorandum here in my pocket signed by Orcutt in which he
authorized you to transact any and all business regarding the pulp-wood
lands."
"That's correct," admitted Wentworth. "I am a stockholder, an officer
in the company, and its sole representative in the field. Fire away.
What's this business that's so all-fired important as to send you
chasing all over Canada to reach me?"
"My business," replied Cameron gravely, "is to return to you as
representative of the Eureka Paper Company, three hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, which amount was paid over to me by Mr. Orcutt, and
which represents the initial payment of ten percent of the purchase
price of certain pulp-wood lands described in the accompanying contract
of sale."
"Return the money!" cried Wentworth. "What do you mean?"
"Simply, that the deal is off. Or, rather, no valid transaction was
ever consummated."
Every particle of color faded from the engineer's face at the words.
As he glanced wildly about him his eye caught a twinkle in the eyes of
McNabb. The color flooded his face in a surge of red, and his eyes
seemed to bulge with rage as he groped for words. "It's a damned lie!"
he cried. "A trick of McNabb's!" He turned upon the older man: "I
thought you took your defeat too easy, but you'll find you can't put
anything over on me! The deal stands--and we'll fight you to the last
court! If you've found some petty technicality in the contract, you
better forget it. We've gone ahead in good faith and spent a million.
We can employ as good lawyers as you can, and the courts won't stand
for any quibbling! It's a case for the equity courts."
Cameron smiled grimly. "I am a lawyer, and as such you will permit the
smile at your mention of the equity court. You would not be allowed to
enter its doors. For its first precept is: He who comes into equity
must come with clean hands. Are your hands clean? I think
not--neither your hands nor Orcutt's. But, the matter will never reach
the courts. There is no question of a technical error in the contract,
because there is no contract. The instrument I drew, and which was
signed by Orcutt and myself, has no legal existence. No valid contract
could have been drawn relative to the disposal of those lands until the
options held by Mr. McNabb had expired----"
"But they had expired!" cried Wentworth. "They expired at twelve
o'clock, noon, of July first, and the contract was not signed until two
or three minutes after twelve."
"By Orcutt's watch," retorted Cameron. "And Orcutt's watch was an hour
faster than official time. I had no reason to suppose his watch was
wrong, and believed the time had expired, until I was confronted, after
your departure, by the accredited representative of McNabb. I was
dumbfounded until I established the fact that he was within his rights
in tendering payment and closing the transaction for his principal.
Then there was no course open to me but to accept McNabb's money and
conclude the transfer to him. Murchison, here, is a witness, that the
facts are as I have stated them."
Wentworth's eyes flew to the face of the factor, who nodded
emphatically. Again the color left his face. "It's a damned trick!"
he muttered. "Why didn't you notify us at once, instead of waiting
nearly three weeks and allowing us to spend more than a million
dollars?"
"Orcutt told me he would return to the post in two days. I waited, and
when a week went by I used every means in my power to reach him. I
followed him by train. I learned his address and wired the facts to
his bank. The fault is his own. I am sorry you have lost so
heavily----"
"It isn't my money," Wentworth cried savagely. Then he suddenly
paused, and for upwards of thirty seconds the room was in dead silence.
When he spoke again, it was in a voice palpably held in control.
"I guess you have got us," he said. "There seems to be nothing for me
to do but accept the money." He held out his hand as Cameron slowly
counted out the big bills. Then without recounting, Wentworth thrust
them into his pocket, and with quick, nervous strokes of his pen signed
the receipt which Cameron placed before him. Then in a voice trembling
with suppressed rage he faced McNabb. "Damn you!" he cried. "I
thought--Orcutt said you were beginning to slip!"
"Well, maybe he's right," admitted McNabb, and the engineer saw that
his lips twitched at the corners.
"Who was your representative?" he demanded abruptly. "And, how did it
come that he arrived just in the nick of time?"
"Why, his name is Sven Larsen. He's Murchison's clerk," answered the
Scot. "And he was here all the time."
"Sven Larsen!" yelled Wentworth. "That half-wit! Why, he hasn't got
sense enough to come in out of the rain!"
"Maybe ye're right," admitted McNabb, "but that isn't what I hired him
to do."
With an oath, Wentworth pushed past Cameron and started for the door to
find himself suddenly face to face with Sven Larsen. "Get out of my
way, damn you!" he cried. "Go up in the loft and wallow in your
stinking furs!"
"Furs!" repeated the clerk dully, but without giving an inch. "Oh,
yes, furs." He was looking Wentworth squarely in the eyes with a heavy
stare. "Some fur is good, and some is bad. A Russian sable is better
than a baum marten." At the words, Jean McNabb, who had been a silent
but fascinated listener to all that transpired, leaned swiftly forward,
her eyes staring into the uncouth face of the speaker, who continued,
"And when the coat is dark, and of matched skins, it is very much
better than any baum marten. And when one receives the sable coat on a
winter's night from the hands of a beautiful Russian princess whom one
is helping to escape through a roaring blizzard in a motor car--or was
it a sleigh?"
"Stop, damn you!" In the lamp-light the on-lookers saw that the face
of the engineer had gone livid. His words came thickly. "You fool!
Are you crazy? Have you forgotten Pollak, and what happened in the
shop of Levinski, the furrier? Where is Pollak?"
A slow grin overspread the face of Sven Larsen. "I invented Pollak to
cover a mistake I made. There never was any Pollak, Wentworth, but
there is a Russian sable coat. The coat is in your trunk in the cabin.
It is the coat you stole from Miss McNabb on the night of the Campbell
dinner."
"Oskar!" cried Jean, leaping from her chair at the moment that
Wentworth hurled himself upon Hedin. Her cry was drowned in the swift
impact of bodies and the sound of blows, and grunts, and heavy
breathing. McNabb and Cameron drew back and the bodies, locked in a
clench, toppled to the floor, overturning a chair.
"Oh, stop them! Stop them!" shrieked the girl. "He'll kill him!"
"Who'll kill who?" grinned McNabb, holding her back with one hand,
without taking his eyes from the struggling, fighting figures that
writhed almost at his feet, overturning boxes and bales in their
struggles.
"He'll kill Oskar! He's bigger----"
"Not by a damn sight, he won't!" roared McNabb. "Look at um! Look at
um! Oskar's on top! Give him hell, lad!"
Jean had ceased her protest, and to her own intense surprise she found
herself leaning forward, watching every move. She cried out with pain
when Wentworth's fist brought the blood from Oskar's nose, and she
applauded when Hedin's last three blows landed with vicious thuds
against the engineer's upturned chin.
Hedin rose to his feet and held the handkerchief to his bleeding nose.
McNabb's hand gripped his shoulder. "Ye done fine, lad! Ye done
fine!" he exclaimed.
Dropping to his knees, Hedin slipped his hand into the unconscious
man's pocket and withdrew a key which he tossed to one of the Company
Indians who had come running in at the sound of battle. "Here, Joe
Irish," he said, "go to the cabin and unlock the trunk that is there
and bring back the coat of fur."
A few moments later Hedin handed the garment to McNabb. "Here is your
missing coat," he said, as Jean threw her arm about his shoulder.
"Oskar, dear--" she whispered, and the next moment Hedin's arms were
about her and she could feel the wild pounding of his heart against her
breast.
There was a movement on the floor near their feet, and releasing the
girl Hedin reached swiftly down. McNabb's hand stayed him before he
could seize hold of Wentworth, who was crawling toward the door.
"Let him go, lad," advised the old man. "We've got the coat.
An'--an'--we're all happy!"
"But the money? He's got the three hundred and fifty thousand!" cried
Hedin.
McNabb grinned. "Suppose we just let Orcutt worry about that," he said.
"I told you Oskar was innocent!" cried Jean triumphantly, as the door
closed behind the slinking form of Wentworth. "I told you so from the
first! I just knew he never took that coat!"
McNabb's eyes were twinkling. "I knew it, too, lass," he answered.
"That's why I bailed him out an' sent him up here with two hundred an'
fifty thousand dollars in negotiable paper in his pocket to close this
deal for me."
"And you knew all the time," cried the girl, staring at her father in
amazement, "when Orcutt was gloating over you back there, that you, and
not he, owned the timber? And you let him go on and humiliate you to
your face!"
"Sure I did," grinned McNabb. "He was havin' the time of his life, an'
I hated to spoil it. An' besides, while he was talkin', truck after
truck was rollin' off down the tote-road haulin' material to my mill
site that I'll buy in at ten cents on the dollar. Orcutt'll pay for
his fun!"
"But--your face--when he told you that you had lost the timber! It
positively went gray!"
"Poker face," laughed McNabb. "But run along now--the two of ye. It's
many a long day since Dugald an' I have had a powwow with our feet
cocked up on bales of Injun goods." As the two walked arm in arm
toward the door, McNabb called to the girl, "Here, lass, take your
coat!" He tossed the Russian sable which the girl caught with a glad
cry. "Ye'll be needin' it up here agin winter comes."
"Winter! Up here! What do you mean?"
"Oskar says he isn't goin' back to Terrace City," he explained.
"Except maybe for the weddin'. The North has got into his blood, an'
the McNabb Paper Company needs a competent manager."