"Why?"
Barry Houston could not answer the self-imposed question. He could
only stand and stare after her and the trotting, rolling Indian, as
they moved down the road and disappeared in the shadow of the aspens at
the next curve. She had seen him; there could be no doubt of that.
She had recognized him; more, Houston felt sure that she had mounted
her horse that she might better be able to pass him and greet him with
a formal nod instead of a more friendly acknowledgment. And this was
the girl who, an afternoon before, had sat beside him on the worn old
bench at the side of Ba'tiste's cabin and picked thorns from the palm
of his hand,--thorns from the stems of wild roses which she had brought
him! The enigma was too great for Houston. He could only gasp with
the suddenness of it and sink back into a dullness of outlook and
viewpoint which he had lost momentarily. It was thus that old friends
had passed him by in Boston; it was thus that men who had been glad to
borrow money from him in other days had looked the other way when the
clouds had come. A strange chill went over him.
"Thayer's told her!"
He spoke the sentence like a man repeating the words of an execution.
His features suddenly had grown haggard. He stumbled slightly as he
made the next rise in the road and went on slowly, silently, toward the
cabin.
There Ba'tiste found him, slumped on the bench, staring out at the
white and rose pinks of Mount Taluchen, yet seeing none of it. The big
man boomed a greeting, and Barry, striving for a smile, answered him.
The Canadian turned to his wolf-dog.
"_Peuff_! Golemar! Loneliness sits badly upon our friend. He is
homesick. Trot over the hill and bring to him the petite Medaine! Ah
_oui_," he laughed in immense enjoyment at his raillery, "bring to him
the petite Medaine to make him laugh and be happy." Then, seeing that
the man was struggling vainly for a semblance of cheeriness, he slid
beside him on the bench and tousled his hair with one big hand. "Nev'
min' old Ba'teese," he said hurriedly; "he joke when eet is no time.
You worry, huh? So, mebbe, Ba'teese help. There are men at the
boarding house."
"The Blackburn crowd?"
"So. Seven carpenters, and others. They work for Blackburn, who is in
Chicago. They are here to build a mill."
"A mill?" Barry looked up now with new interest. "Where?"
"Near the lake. The mill, eet will be sawing in a month. The rest,
the big plant, eet will take time for that."
"On Medaine's land then!" But Ba'tiste shook his head.
"No. Eet is on the five acres own' by Jerry Martin. He has been try'
to sell eet for five year. Eet is no good--rocks and rocks--and rocks.
They build eet there."
"But what can they do on five acres? Where will they get their lumber?"
The trapper shrugged his shoulders.
"Ba'teese on'y know what they tell heem."
"But surely, there must be some mistake about it. You say they are
going to start sawing in a month, and that a bigger plant is going up.
Do you mean a complete outfit,--planers and all that sort of thing?"
"So!"
Houston shook his head.
"For the life of me, I can't see it. In the first place, I have the
only timber around here with the exception of Medaine's land, and you
say that she doesn't come into that until next year. But they're going
to start sawing at this new mill within a month. My timber stretches
back from the lake for eight miles; they either will have to go beyond
that and truck in the logs for that distance, which would be ruinous as
far as profits are concerned, or content themselves with scrub pine and
sapling spruce. I don't see what they can make out of that. Isn't
that right? All I know about it is from what I've heard. I've never
made a cruise of the territory around here. But it's always been my
belief that with the exception of the land on the other quarter of the
lake--"
"That is all."
"Then where--"
But again Ba'tiste shrugged his shoulders. Then he pulled long at his
grizzled beard, regarding the wolf-dog which sat between his legs,
staring up at him.
"Golemar," came at last. "There is something strange. Peuff! We
shall fin' out, you and me and _mon ami_." Suddenly he turned.
"M'sieu Thayer, he gone."
"Gone? You mean he's run away?"
"By gar, no. But he leave hurried. He get a telephone from long
distance. Chicago."
"Then--"
"Ba'teese not know. M'sieu Shuler in the telephone office, he tell me.
Eet is a long call, M'sieu Shuler is curious, and he listen in while
they, what-you-say, chew up the rag. Eet is a woman. She say to meet
her in Denver. This morning M'sieu Thayer take the train.
_Bon_--good!"
"Good? Why?"
"What you know about lumber?"
Houston shook his head.
"A lot less than I should. It wasn't my business, you know. My father
started this mill out here during boom times, when it looked as though
the railroad over Crestline would make the distance between Denver and
Salt Lake so short that the country would build up like wild fire. He
got them to put in a switch from above Tabernacle to the mill and
figured on making a lot of money out of it all. But it didn't pan out,
Ba'tiste. First of all, the railroad didn't go to Salt Lake and in the
second--"
"The new road will," said the French-Canadian. "Peuff! When they
start to build eet, blooey! Eet will be no time."
"The new road? I didn't know there was to be one."
"_Ah, oui, oui, oui_!" Ba'tiste became enthusiastic. "They shall make
eet a road! Eet will not wind over the range like this one. Eet shall
come through the mountains with a six-mile tunnel, at Carrow Peak where
they have work already one, two, t'ree year. Then eet will start out
straight, and peuff! Eet will cut off a hundred mile to Salt Lake.
Then we will see!"
"When is all this going to happen?"
The giant shrugged his shoulders.
"When the railroad, eet is ready, and the tunnel, eet is done. When
that shall be? No one know. But the survey, eet is made. The land,
eet is condem'. So it must be soon. But you say you no know lumber?"
"Not more than any office man could learn in a year and a half. It
wasn't my business, Ba'tiste. Father thought less and less of the mill
every year. Once or twice, he was all but ready to sell it to Thayer,
and would have done it, I guess, if Thayer could have raised the money.
He was sick of the thing and wanted to get rid of it. I had gone into
the real estate business, never dreaming but that some day the mill
would be sold and off our hands. Then--then my trouble came along, and
my father--left this will. Since then, I've been busy trying to stir
up business. Oh, I guess I could tell a weathered scantling from a
green one, and a long time ago, when I was out here, my father taught
me how to scale a log. That's about all."
"Could you tell if a man cut a tree to get the greatest footage? If
you should say to a lumberjack to fell a tree at the spring of the
root, would you know whether he did it or not? Heh? Could you know if
the sawyer robbed you of fifty feet on ever' log? No? Then we shall
learn. To-morrow, we shall go to the mill. M'sieu Thayer shall not be
there. Perhaps Ba'tiste can tell you much. _Bien_! We shall take
Medaine, _oui_? Yes?"
"I--I don't think she'd go."
"Why not?"
"I'd rather--" Houston was thinking of a curt nod and averted eyes.
"Maybe we'd better just go alone, Ba'tiste."
"_Tres bien_. We shall go into the forest. We shall learn much."
And the next morning the old French-Canadian lived true to his promise.
Behind a plodding pair of horses hitched to a jolting wagon, they made
the journey, far out across the hills and plateau flats from
Tabernacle, gradually winding into a shallow cañon which led to places
which Houston remembered from years long gone. Beside the road ran the
rickety track which served as a spur from the main line of the
railroad, five miles from camp,--the ties rotten, the plates loosened
and the rails but faintly free from rust; silent testimony of the fact
that cars traveled but seldom toward the market, that the hopes of
distant years had not been fulfilled. Ahead of them, a white-faced
peak reared itself against the sky, as though a sentinel against
further progress,--Bear Mountain, three miles beyond the farthest
stretch of Empire Lake. Nearer, a slight trail of smoke curled upward,
and Ba'tiste pointed.
"The mill," he said. "Two mile yet."
"Yes, I remember in a hazy sort of way." Then he laughed shortly.
"Things will have to happen and happen fast if I ever live up to my
contract, Ba'tiste."
"So?"
"Yes, I put too much confidence in Thayer. I thought he was honest.
When my father died, he came back to Boston, of course, and we had a
long talk. I agreed that I was not to interfere out here any more than
was necessary, spending my time, instead, in rounding up business. He
had been my father's manager, and I naturally felt that he would give
every bit of his attention to my business. I didn't know that he had
other schemes, and I didn't begin to get on to the fact until I started
losing contracts. That wasn't so long ago. Now I'm out here, and if
necessary, I'll stay here and be everything from manager to lumberjack,
to pull through."
"_Bon_! My Pierre, he would talk like that." Then the old man was
silent for a moment. "Old Ba'tiste, he has notice some things. He
will show you. Golemar! Whee!"
In answer to the whining call of the giant, the wolf-dog, trotting
beside the lazy team, swerved and nipped at the horses' heels. The
pace became a jogging trot. Soon they were in view of the long, smooth
mound of sawdust leading to the squat, rambling saw shed. A moment
more and the bunk house, its unpainted clapboards blackened by the rain
and sun and snows, showed ahead. A half-mile, then Ba'tiste left the
wagon and, Barry following him, walked toward the mill and its whining,
groaning saws.
"Watch close!" he ordered. "See ever'thing they do. Then remember.
Ba'tiste tell you about it when we come out."
Within they went, where hulking, strong-shouldered men were turning the
logs from the piles without, along the skidways and to the carriage of
the mill, their cant hooks working in smooth precision, their muscles
bulging as they rolled the great cylinders of wood into place, steadied
them, then stood aside until the carriages should shunt them toward the
sawyer and the tremendous, revolving wheel which was to convert them
into "board feet" of lumber. Hurrying "off-bearers", or slab-carriers,
white with sawdust, scampered away from the consuming saw, dragging the
bark and slab-sides to a smaller blade, there to be converted into
boiler fuel and to be fed to the crackling fire of the stationary
engine, far at one end of the mill. Leather belts whirred and slapped;
there was noise everywhere, except from the lips of men. For they,
these men of the forest, were silent, almost taciturn.
To Barry, it all seemed a smooth-working, perfectly aligned thing: the
big sixteen-foot logs went forward, rough, uncouth things, to be
dragged into the consuming teeth of the saw; then, through the sheer
force of the blade, pulled on until brownness became whiteness, the
cylindrical shape a lopsided thing with one long, glaring, white mark;
to be shunted back upon the automatic carriage, notched over for a
second incision, and started forward again, while the newly sawn boards
traveled on to the trimmers and edgers, and thence to the drying racks.
Log after log skidded upon the carriage and was brought forward, while
Houston, fascinated, watched the kerf mark of the blade as it tore away
a slab-side. Then a touch on the arm and he followed Ba'tiste without.
The Canadian wandered thoughtfully about a moment, at last to approach
a newly stacked pile of lumber and lean against it. A second more and
he drew something to his side and stared at it.
"Oh, ho!" came at last. "M'sieu Houston, he will, what-you-say, fix
the can on the sawyer."
"Why?"
"First," said Ba'tiste quietly, "he waste a six-inch board on each
slab-side he take off. Un'stand? The first cut--when the bark, eet is
sliced off. He take too much. Eet is so easy. And then--look." He
drew his hand from its place of concealment, displaying a big thumb
measuring upon a small ruler. "See? Eet is an inch and a quarter.
Too thick."
"I know that much at least. Lumber should be cut at the mill an inch
and an eighth thick to allow for shrinkage to an inch--but not an inch
and a quarter."
"Bon!" Ba'tiste grinned. "Eet make a difference on a big log. Eight
cuts of the saw and a good board, eet is gone."
"No wonder I don't make money."
"There is much more. The trimmer and the edger, they take off too
much. They make eight-inch boards where there should be ten, and ten
where there should be twelve. You shall have a new crew."
"And a new manager," Houston said it quietly. The necessity for his
masquerade was fading swiftly now.
"And new men on the kilns. See!"
Far to one side, a great mass of lumber reared itself against the sky,
twisted and warped, the offal of the drying kilns. Ba'tiste shrugged
his shoulders.
"So! When the heat, eet is made too quick, the lumber twist. Eet is
so easy--when one wants some one to be tired and quit!"
To quit! It was all plain to Barry Houston now. Thayer had tried to
buy the mill when the elder Houston was alive. He had failed. Now, he
was striving for something else to make Houston the newcomer, Houston,
who was striving to succeed without the fundamentals of actual logging
experience, disgusted with the business and his contract with the dead.
The first year and a half of the fight had passed,--a losing
proposition; Barry could see why now, in warped lumber and thick-cut
boards, in broken machinery and unfulfilled contracts. Thayer wanted
him to quit; his father's death had tied up the mill proper to such an
extent that it could neither be leased nor sold for a long time. But
the timber could be bought on a stumpage basis, the lake and flume
leased, and with a new mill--
"I understand the whole thing now!" There was excitement in the tone.
"They can't get this mill--on account of the way the will reads. I
can't dispose of it. But they know that with the mill out of the way,
and the whole thing a disappointment, that I should be willing to
contract my timber to them and lease the flume. Then they can go ahead
with their own plans and their own schemes. It's the lake and flume
and timber that counts, anyway; this mill's the cheapest part of it
all."
"Ah, _oui_!" The big man wagged his head in sage approval. "But it
shall not be, eh?"
Houston's lips went into a line,
"Not until the last dog dies!"