Words would not come for a moment. Houston could only stare and
realize that his burden had become greater than ever. In the wagons
behind him were twenty men, guaranteed at least a month of labor, and
now there was nothing to provide it. The mill was gone; the blade was
still hanging in its sockets, a useless, distempered thing; the boiler
was bent and blackened, the belting burned; the carriages and muley
saws and edgers and trimmers were only so much junk. He turned at last
to Ba'tiste, to ask tritely what he knew could not be answered:
"But how did it happen, Ba'tiste? Didn't any one see?"
The Canadian shrugged his shoulders.
"Ba'teese come back. Eet is done."
"Let's see Agnes. Maybe she can tell us something."
But the woman, her arms about Houston's neck, could only announce
hysterically that she had seen the mill burning, that she had sought
help and had failed to find it.
"Then you noticed no one around the place?"
"Only Ba'tiste."
"But that was an hour or so before."
The big French-Canadian had moved away, to stand in doleful
contemplation of the charred mass. The voice of Agnes Jierdon sank low:
"I don't know, Barry. I don't want to accuse--"
"You don't mean--"
"All I know is that I saw him leave the place and go over the hill.
Fifteen minutes later, I saw the mill burning and ran down there. All
about the place rags were burning and I could smell kerosene. That's
all I saw. But in the absence of any one else, what should a person
think?"
Houston's lips pressed tight. He turned angrily, the old grip of
suspicion upon him,--suspicion that would point in time of stress to
every one about him, suspicion engendered by black days of
hopelessness, of despair. But in an instant, it all was gone; the
picture of Ba'tiste Renaud, standing there by the embers, the honesty
of his expression of sorrow, the slump of his shoulders, while the dog,
unnoticed, nuzzled its cold nose in a limp hand, was enough to wipe it
all out forever. Houston's eyes went straight to those of Agnes
Jierdon and centered there.
"Agnes," came slowly, "I want to ask a favor. No matter what may
happen, no matter what you may think personally, there is one man who
trusts me as much as you have trusted me, and whom I shall trust in
return. That man is Ba'tiste Renaud, my friend. I hope you can find a
friend in him too; but if you can't, please, for me, never mention it."
"Why, of course not, Barry." She laughed in an embarrassed manner and
drew away from him. "I just thought I'd tell you what I knew. I
didn't have any idea you were such warm comrades. We'll forget the
whole incident."
"Thank you." Then to Ba'tiste he went, to bang him on the shoulder,
and with an effort to whirl him about. "Well!" he demanded, in an echo
of Ba'tiste's own thundering manner, "shall we stand here and weep?
Or--"
"Eet was my fault!" The French-Canadian still stared at the ruins.
"Eet is all Ba'teese' fault--"
"I thought you were my friend, Ba'tiste."
"_Sacre_! I am."
"Then show it! We'll not be able to make a case against the
firebugs--even though you and I may be fairly sure who did it. Anyway,
it isn't going to break us. I've got about fifteen thousand in the
bank. There's enough lumber around here to build a new saw-shed of a
sort, and money to buy a few saws, even if we can't have as good a
place as we had before. We can manage. And I need help--I won't be
able to move without you. But--"
"_Oui_?"
"But," and Barry smiled at him, "if you ever mention any responsibility
for this thing again--you're fired. Do we understand each other?"
Very slowly the big trapper turned and looked down into the frank,
friendly eyes of the younger man. He blinked slightly, and then one
tremendous arm encircled Houston's shoulder for just a moment. At last
a smile came, to grow stronger. The grip about the shoulders
tightened, suddenly to give way to a whanging blow, as Batiste, jovial
now, drew away, pulled back his shoulders and squared himself as though
for some physical encounter.
"Ah, _oui_!" He bellowed. "_Oui, oui, oui_! _Bon_--good! Ba'teese,
he un'stan'. Now what you want me to do?"
"Take this bunch of men and turn to at clearing away this wreckage.
Then," and he smiled his confidence at Renaud, "make your plans for the
building of a saw-shed. That is--if you really want to go through with
it?"
"Ah, _oui--oui_!" The Canadian waved his arms excitedly and summoned
his men. For a moment, Barry stood watching, then returning to Agnes,
escorted her toward her cottage.
"Don't you think," he asked, as they walked along, "that you'd better
be going back? This isn't just the place for a woman, Agnes."
"Why not?"
"Because--well for one thing, this is a man's life out here, not a
woman's. There's no place for you--nothing to interest you or hold
you. I can't guarantee you any company except that of a cook--or some
one like that."
"But Mr. Thayer--" and Houston detected a strange tone in the
voice--"spoke of a very dear friend of yours, in whom I might be
greatly interested."
"A friend of mine?"
"Yes--a Miss Robinette. Fred said that she was quite interested in
you."
Houston laughed.
"She is--by the inverse ratio. So much, in fact, that she doesn't care
to be anywhere near me. She knows--" and he sobered, "that there's
something--back there."
"Indeed?" They had reached the cottage and the subject was
discontinued. Agnes lingered a moment on the veranda. "I suppose I'm
never to see anything of you?"
"That's just it, Agnes. It makes me feel like a cad to have you out
here--and then not to be able to provide any entertainment for you.
And, really, there's no need to worry about me. I'm all right--with
the exception of this broken arm. And it'll be all right in a couple
of weeks. Besides, there's no telling what may happen. You can see
from the burning of this mill that there isn't any love lost between
Thayer and myself."
"Why, Barry! You don't think he had anything to do with it?"
"I know he did. Directly or indirectly, he was back of it. I haven't
had much of a chance to talk to you, Agnes, but this much is a
certainty: Thayer is my enemy, for business reasons. I know of no
other. He believes that if he can make the going rough enough for me
that I'll quit, lease him my stumpage, and let him go into business for
himself. So far, he hasn't had much luck--except to tie me up. He may
beat me; I don't know. Then again, he may not. But in the meanwhile,
you can see, Agnes, that the battlefield is going to be no place for a
woman."
"But, Barry, you're wrong. I think you've done an injustice to--"
"Please don't tell me that, Agnes. I put so much faith in your
beliefs. But in this case, I've heard it from his own lips--I've seen
his telegrams. I know!"
The woman turned quickly. For a moment she examined, in an absent sort
of way, the blossoms of a climbing rose, growing, quite uninvited, up
the porch pillar of the cottage. Then:
"Maybe you're right, Barry. Probably I will go away. But I want to be
sure that you're all right first."
"Would you care to go to the village to-night? There's a picture show
there--and we could at least get a dish of ice cream and some candy."
"I think not," came the answer in a tired voice. "It's so far;
besides, all this excitement has given me a headache. Go back to your
work and forget about me. I think that I'll go to bed immediately I've
had something to eat."
"You're not ill?"
"Only a headache--and with me, bed is always the best place for that.
I suppose you'll go to Denver in the morning for new saws?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll wait until you return before I make up my mind. Good-by."
She bent forward to be kissed, and Barry obeyed the command of her lips
with less of alacrity than ever before. Nor could he tell the reason.
Five minutes more and he was back at the mill, giving what aid he could
with his uninjured arm.
Night, and he traveled with Ba'tiste to his cabin, only to fret
nervously about the place and at last to strike out once more, on foot,
for the lumber camp. He was worried, nervous; in a vague way he
realized that he had been curt, almost brusque, with a woman for whom
he felt every possible gratitude and consideration. Nor had he
inquired about her when work had ended for the day. Had the excuse of
a headache been made only to cover feelings that had been deeply
injured? Or had it meant a blind to veil real, serious illness? For
three years, Barry Houston had known Agnes Jierdon in day-to-day
association. But never had he remembered her in exactly the light that
he had seen her to-day. There had been a strangeness about her, a
sharpness that he could not understand.
He stopped just at the entrance to the mill clearing and looked toward
the cottage. It was darkened. Barry felt that without at least the
beckoning of a light to denote the wakefulness of the cook, he could
not in propriety go there, even for an inquiry regarding the condition
of the woman whom he felt that some day he would marry. Aimlessly he
wandered about, staring in the moonlight at the piled-up remains of his
mill, then at last he seated himself on a stack of lumber, to rest a
moment before the return journey to Ba'tiste's cabin. But suddenly he
tensed. A low whistle had come from the edge of the woods, a hundred
yards away, and Barry listened attentively for its repetition, but it
did not come. Fifteen minutes he waited, then rose, the better to
watch two figures that had appeared for just a moment silhouetted in
the moonlight at the bald top of a small hill. A man and a woman were
walking close together,--the woman, it seemed, with her head against
the man's shoulder; the man evidently with his arm about her.
There was no time for identities. A second more and they had faded
into the shadows. Barry rose and started toward the darkened cottage,
only to turn again into the road.
"Foolishness!" he chided himself as he plodded along. "She doesn't
know any one but Thayer--and what if she does? It's none of my
business. She's the one who has the claim on me; I have none on her!"
And with this decision he walked on. A mile--two. Then a figure came
out of the woods just ahead of him, cut across the road and detoured
into the scraggly hills on the other side, without noticing the
approaching Houston in the shadows. But Barry had been more fortunate.
The moonlight had shown full on the man's lean face and gangling form;
it was undoubtedly Fred Thayer. He was still in the neighborhood, then.
Had he been the man in the woods,--the one who had stood silhouetted on
the hill top? Barry could only guess. Again he chided himself for his
inquisitiveness and walked on. Almost to Ba'tiste's cabin he went; at
last to turn from the road at the sound of hoofbeats, then to stare as
Medaine Robinette, on horseback, passed him at a trot, headed toward
her home, the shadowy Lost Wing, on his calico pony, straggling along
in the rear. The next morning he went to Denver, still wondering, as
he sought to make himself comfortable on the old red plush seats,
wondering whether the girl he had seen in the forest with the man he
now felt sure was Fred Thayer had been Agnes Jierdon or Medaine
Robinette, whom, in spite of her coldness to him, in spite of her
evident distaste and revulsion that was so apparent in their meetings,
had awakened within him a thing he had believed, in the drabness of his
gray, harassed life, could never exist,--the thrill and the yearnings
of love.
It was a question which haunted him during the days in which he cut
into his bank account with the purchase of the bare necessities of a
sawmill. It was a question which followed him back to Tabernacle,
thence across country to camp. But it was one that was not to be
answered. Things had happened again.
Ba'tiste was not at the mill, where new foundations had appeared in
Houston's absence. A workman pointed vaguely upward, and Barry hurried
on toward the lake, clambering up the hill nearest the clearing, that
he might take the higher and shorter road.
He found no Ba'tiste but there was something else which held Houston's
interest for a moment and which stopped him, staring wonderingly into
the distance. A new skidway had made its appearance on the side of the
jutting mountain nearest the dam. Logs were tumbling downward in slow,
but steady succession, to disappear, then to show themselves, bobbing
jerkily outward toward the center of the lake. That skidway had not
been there before. Certainly, work at the mill had not progressed to
such an extent that Ba'tiste could afford to start cutting timber
already. Houston turned back toward the lower camp road, wondering
vaguely what it all could mean, striving to figure why Ba'tiste should
have turned to logging operations instead of continuing to stress every
workman's ability on the rebuilding of the burned structure. A mile he
went--two--then halted.
A thunderous voice was booming belligerently from the distance:
"You lie--un'stan'? Ba'teese say you lie--if you no like eet,
jus'--what-you-say--climb up me! Un'stan'? Climb up me!"
Houston broke into a run, racing along the flume with constantly
increasing speed as he heard outburst after outburst from the giant
trapper, interjected by the lesser sounds of argumentative voices in
reply. Faintly he heard a woman's voice, then Ba'tiste's in sudden
command:
"Go on--you no belong here. Ba'tiste, he handle this. Go 'long!"
Faster than ever went Barry Houston, at last to make the turn of the
road as it followed the flume, and to stop, breathless, just in time to
escape colliding with the broad back of the gigantic Canadian, squared
as he was, half across the road. Facing him were five men with shovels
and hammers, workmen of the Blackburn camp, interrupted evidently in
the building of some sort of contraption which led away into the woods.
Houston looked more closely, then gasped. It was another flume; they
were making a connection with his own; already water had been diverted
from the main flume and was flowing down the newly boarded conduit
which led to the Blackburn mill. A lunge and he had taken his place
beside Renaud.
"What's this mean?" he demanded angrily, to hear his words echoed by
the booming voice of his big companion:
"Ah, _oui_! Yes--what this mean? Huh?"
The foreman looked up caustically.
"I've told you about ten times," he answered, addressing himself to
Ba'tiste. "We're building a connection on our flume."
"Our flume?" Houston gasped the words. "Where do you get that 'our'
idea? I own this flume and this lake and this flume site--"
"If your name's Houston, I guess you do," came the answer. "But if you
can read and write, you ought to know that while you may own it, you
don't use it. That's our privilege from now on, in cold black and
white. As far as the law is concerned, this is our flume, and our
water, and our lake, and our woods back there. And we're going to use
all of 'em, as much as we please--and it's your business to stay out of
our way!"