THE JOB
The room was full of tobacco smoke, through which Peter dimly made out a
table with an oil lamp, beside which were chairs, a sofa, and beyond, a
steel safe between the windows. As Peter Nichols entered, a man advanced
from a window at the side, the shutter of which was slightly ajar. It
was evident that not content to leave his safety in the hands of those
he had employed to preserve it, he had been watching too.
He was in his shirt sleeves, a man of medium height, compactly built,
and well past the half century mark. The distinguishing features of his
face were a short nose, a heavy thatch of brows, a square jaw which
showed the need of the offices of a razor and his lips wore a short,
square mustache somewhat stained by nicotine.
In point of eagerness the manner of his greeting of the newcomer left
nothing to be desired. Peter's first impression was that Jonathan K.
McGuire was quite able to look out for himself, which confirmed the
impression that the inspection to which Peter had been subjected was
nothing but a joke. But when his employer began speaking rather jerkily,
Peter noticed that his hands were unsteady and that neither the muscles
of his face nor of his body were under complete control. Normally, he
would have seemed much as Sheldon, Senior, had described him--a
hard-fisted man, a close bargainer who had won his way to his great
wealth by the sheer force of a strong personality. There was little of
softness in his face, little that was imaginative. This was not a man
to be frightened at the Unseen or to see terrors that did not exist.
Otherwise, to Peter he seemed commonplace to the last degree, of Irish
extraction probably, the kind of person one meets daily on Broadway or
on the Strand. In a fur coat he might have been taken for a banker; in
tweeds, for a small tradesman; or in his shirt as Peter now saw him, the
wristbands and collar somewhat soiled from perspiration, for a laboring
man taking his rest after an arduous day. In other words, he was very
much what his clothes would make of him, betraying his origins in a
rather strident voice meant perhaps to conceal the true state of his
mind.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Nichols. Thought you were never comin'," he jerked
out.
"I walked most of the way from Pickerel River. Something went wrong,
with the 'Lizzie.'"
"Oh--er--'Lizzie'. The flivver! I couldn't send my own car. I've got
only one down here and I might need it."
"It doesn't matter in the least--since I'm here."
"Sit down, Mr. Nichols," went on McGuire indicating a chair. "You've
been well recommended by Mr. Sheldon. I talked to him yesterday over
long distance. He told you what I wanted?"
"Something. Not much," said Peter with a view to getting all the
information possible. "You wanted a forester----?"
"Er--er--yes, that's it. A forester." And then he went on
haltingly--"I've got about twenty thousand acres here--mostly scrub
oak--pine and spruce. I've sold off a lot to the Government. A mess of
it has been cut--there's been a lot of waste--and the fire season is
coming around. That's the big job--the all-the-year job. You've had
experience?"
"Yes--in Russia. I'm a trained woodsman."
"You're a good all-round man?"
"Exactly what----?" began Peter.
"You know how to look after yourself--to look after other men, to take
charge of a considerable number of people in my employ?"
"Yes. I'm used to dealing with men."
"It's a big job, Mr. Nichols--a ticklish kind of a job for a
furriner--one with some--er--unusual features--that may call for--er--a
lot of tact. And--er--courage."
It seemed to Peter that Jonathan K. McGuire was talking almost at
random, that the general topic of forestry was less near his heart
to-night than the one that was uppermost in Peter's mind, the mystery
that surrounded his employer and the agencies invoked to protect him. It
seemed as if he were loath to speak of them, as if he were holding Peter
off at arm's length, so to say, until he had fully made up his mind that
this and no other man was the one he wanted, for all the while he was
examining the visitor with burning, beady, gray eyes, as though trying
to peer into his mind.
"I'm not afraid of a forester's job, no matter how big it is, if I have
men enough," said Peter, still curious.
"And you're a pretty good man in a pinch, I mean----" he put in jerkily,
"you're not easy scared--don't lose your nerve."
"I'll take my chances on that," replied Peter calmly. "I'm used to
commanding men, in emergencies--if that's what you mean."
"Yes. That's what I mean. Er--you're an Englishman, Mr. Sheldon says."
"Er--yes," said Peter, "an Englishman," for this was the truth now more
than ever before, and then repeated the story he had told in New York
about his work in Russia. While Peter was talking, McGuire was pacing up
and down the room with short nervous strides, nodding his head in
understanding from time to time. When Peter paused he returned to his
chair.
"You British are a pretty steady lot," said McGuire at last. "I think
you'll do. I like the way you talk and I like your looks. Younger than
I'd hoped maybe, but then you're strong--Mr. Sheldon says you're strong,
Mr. Nichols."
"Oh, yes," said Peter, his curiosity now getting the better of him. "But
it might be as well, Mr. McGuire, if you let me know just what, that is
unusual, is to be required of me. I assume that you want me to take
command of the men policing your grounds--and immediate property?"
"Er--yes. That will have to be put in shape at once--at once." He leaned
suddenly forward in his chair, his hairy hands clutching at his knees,
while he blurted out with a kind of relieved tension, "No one must come
near the house at night. No one, you understand----"
"I understand, sir----" said Peter, waiting patiently for a revelation.
"There'll be no excuse if any one gets near the house without my
permission," he snarled. And then almost sullenly again--"You
understand?"
"Perfectly. That should not be difficult to----"
"It may be more difficult than you think," broke in McGuire, springing
to his feet again, and jerking out his phrases with strange fury.
"Nothing is to be taken for granted. Nothing," he raged. Peter was
silent for a moment, watching McGuire who had paced the length of the
room and back.
"I understand, sir," he said at last. "But doesn't it seem to you that
both I and the man under me could do our work with more intelligence if
we knew just who or what is to be guarded against?" Mr. McGuire stopped
beside him as though transfixed by the thought. Then his fingers
clutched at the back of a chair to which he clung for a moment in
silence, his brows beetling. And when he spoke all the breath of his
body seemed concentrated in a hoarse whisper.
"You won't know that. You understand, I give the orders. You obey them.
I am not a man who answers questions. Don't ask them."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. So long as this thing you fear is human----"
"Human! A ghost! Who said I was afraid? Sheldon? Let him think it. This
is _my_ business. There are many things of value in this house," and he
glanced towards the safe. "I'm using the right of any man to protect
what belongs to him."
"I see," said Peter.
The man's tension relaxed as he realized Peter's coolness.
"Call it a fancy if you like, Mr. Nichols----" he said with a shrug. "A
man of my age may have fancies when he can afford to gratify 'em."
"That's your affair," said Peter easily. "I take it then that the
systematic policing of the grounds is the first thing I am to consider."
"Exactly. The systematic policing of the grounds--the dividing of your
men into shifts for day and night work--more at night than in the day.
Three more men come to-morrow. They will all look to you for orders."
"And who is in charge now?"
"A man named Wells--a native--the foreman from one of the sawmills--but
he--er--well, Mr. Nichols--I'm not satisfied. That's why I wanted a man
from outside."
"I understand. And will you give the necessary orders to him?"
"Wells was up here to-day, I told him."
"How many men are on guard here at the house?"
"Ten and with the three coming--that makes thirteen----" McGuire
halted--"thirteen--but you make the fourteenth," he added.
Peter nodded. "And you wish me to take charge at once?"
"At once. To-night. To-morrow you can look over the ground more
carefully. You'll sleep in the old playhouse--the log cabin--down by the
creek. They'll show you. It's connected with this house by 'phone. I'll
talk to you again to-morrow; you'd better go down and get something to
eat."
McGuire went to the door and called out "Tillie!"
And as a faint reply was heard, "Get Mr. Nichols some supper."
Peter rose and offered his hand.
"I'll try to justify your faith in me, sir. Much obliged."
"Good-night."
Peter went down the stairs with mingled feelings. If the words of Beth
Cameron had created in his mind a notion that the mystery surrounding
Black Rock was supernatural in character, the interview with Jonathan K.
McGuire had dispelled it. That McGuire was a very much frightened man
was certain, but it seemed equally certain to Peter that what he feared
was no ghost or banshee but the imminence of some human attack upon his
person or possessions. Here was a practical man, who bore in every
feature of his strongly-marked face the tokens of a successful struggle
in a hard career, the beginnings of which could not have been any too
fortunate. A westerner whose broad hands and twisted fingers spoke
eloquently of manual labor, a man who still possessed to all appearances
considerable physical strength--a prey to the fear of some night danger
which was too ominous even to be talked about.
It was the quality of his terror that was disturbing. Peter was well
acquainted with the physical aspects of fear--that is the fear of
violence and death. That kind of fear made men restless and nervous, or
silent and preoccupied; or like liquor it accentuated their weaknesses
of fiber in sullenness or bravado. But it did not make them furtive. He
could not believe that it was the mere danger of death or physical
violence that obsessed his employer. That sort of danger perhaps there
might be, but the fear that he had seen in McGuire's fanatical gray eyes
was born of something more than these. Whatever it was that McGuire
feared, it reached further within--a threat which would destroy not his
body alone, but something more vital even than that--the very spirit
that lived within him.
Of his career, Peter knew nothing more than Sheldon, Senior, had told
him--a successful man who told nothing of his business except to the
Treasury Department, a silent man, with a passion for making money. What
could he fear? Whom? What specter out of the past could conjure up the
visions he had seen dancing between McGuire's eyes and his own?
These questions it seemed were not to be answered and Peter, as he sat
down at the supper table, put them resolutely from his mind and
addressed himself to the excellent meal provided by the housekeeper. For
the present, at least, fortune smiled upon him. The terrors of his
employer could not long prevail against the healthy appetite of
six-and-twenty.
But it was not long before Peter discovered that the atmosphere of the
room upstairs pervaded the dining room, library and halls. There were a
cook and housemaid he discovered, neither of them visible. The
housekeeper, if attentive, was silent, and the man who had opened the
front door, who seemed to be a kind of general factotum, as well as
personal bodyguard to Mr. McGuire, crept furtively about the house in an
unquiet manner which would have been disturbing to the digestion of one
less timorous than Peter.
Before the meal was finished this man came into the room and laid a
police whistle, a large new revolver and a box of cartridges beside
Peter's dish of strawberries.
"These are for you, sir," he whispered sepulchrally. "Mr. McGuire asked
me to give them to you--for to-night."
"Thanks," said Peter, "and you----"
"I'm Stryker, sir, Mr. McGuire's valet."
"Oh!"
Peter's accent of surprise came from his inability to reconcile Stryker
with the soiled shirt and the three days' growth of beard on the man
upstairs, which more than ever testified to the disorder of his mental
condition.
And as Stryker went out and his footsteps were heard no more, the
housekeeper emerged cautiously from the pantry.
"Is everything all right, Mr. Nichols?" she asked in a stage whisper.
"Right as rain. Delicious! I'm very much obliged to you."
"I mean--er--there ain't anythin' else ye'd like?"
"Nothing, thanks," said Peter, taking up the revolver and breaking it.
He had cut the cover of the cartridge box and had slipped a cartridge
into the weapon when he heard the voice of the woman at his ear.
"D'ye think there's any danger, sir?" she whispered, while she nervously
eyed the weapon.
"I'm sure I don't know. Not to you, I'd say," he muttered, still putting
the cartridges in the pistol. As an ex-military man, he was taking
great delight in the perfect mechanism of his new weapon.
"What is it----? I mean, d'ye think----," she stammered, "did Mr.
McGuire say--just what it is he's afraid of?"
"No," said Peter, "he didn't." And then with a grin, "Do you know?"
"No, sir. I wish t'God I did. Then there'd be somethin' to go by."
"I'm afraid I can't help you, Mrs. ----"
"Tillie Bergen. I've been housekeeper here since the new wing was put
on----"
"Oh, yes," said Peter, pausing over the last cartridge as the thought
came to him. "Then you must be Beth Cameron's aunt?"
"Beth?" The woman's sober face wreathed in a lovely smile. "D'ye know
Beth?"
"Since this afternoon. She showed me the way."
"Oh. Poor Beth."
"Poor!"
"Oh, we're all poor, Mr. Nichols. But Beth she's--different from the
rest of us somehow."
"Yes, she _is_ different," admitted Peter frankly.
Mrs. Bergen sighed deeply. "Ye don't know how different. And now
that--all this trouble has come, I can't get home nights to her. And she
can't come to see me without permission. How long d'ye think it will
last, sir?"
"I don't know," said Peter, slipping the revolver and cartridges into
his pockets. And then gallantly, "If I can offer you my services, I'd be
glad to take you home at night----"
"It's against orders. And I wouldn't dare, Mr. Nichols. As it is I've
got about as much as I can stand. If it wasn't for the money I wouldn't
be stayin' in the house another hour."
"Perhaps things won't be so bad after a time. If anything is going to
happen, it ought to be pretty soon."
She regarded him wistfully as he moved toward the door. "An' ye'll tell
me, sir, if anything out o' the way happens."
"I hope nothing is going to happen, Mrs. Bergen," said Peter cheerfully.
Stryker appeared mysteriously from the darkness as Peter went out into
the hall.
"The upstairs girl made up your bed down at the cabin, sir. The
chauffeur took your bag over. You'll need these matches. If you'll wait,
sir, I'll call Mr. Wells."
Peter wondered at the man in this most unconventional household, for
Stryker, with all the prescience of a well-trained servant, had already
decided that Peter belonged to a class accustomed to being waited on.
Going to the door he blew one short blast on a police whistle, like
Peter's, which he brought forth from his pocket.
"That will bring him, sir," he said. "If you'll go out on the portico,
he'll join you in a moment."
Peter obeyed. The door was closed and fastened behind him and almost
before he had taken his lungs full of the clean night air (for the house
had been hot and stuffy), a shadow came slouching across the lawn in the
moonlight. Peter joined the man at once and they walked around the
house, while Peter questioned him as to the number of men and their
disposition about the place. There were six, he found, including Wells,
with six more to sleep in the stable, which was also used as a
guardhouse. Peter made the rounds of the sentries. None of them seemed
to be taking the matter any too seriously and one at least was sound
asleep beneath some bushes. Peter foresaw difficulties. Under the
leadership of Shad Wells the strategic points were not covered, and, had
he wished, he could have found his way, by using the cover of shadow and
shrubbery, to the portico without being observed. He pointed this out to
Wells who, from a supercilious attitude, changed to one of defiance.
"You seem to think you know a lot, Mister?" he said. "I'd like to see ye
try it."
Peter laughed.
"Very well. Take your posts and keep strict watch, but don't move. If I
don't walk across the lawn from the house in half an hour I'll give you
ten dollars. In return you can take a shot if you see me."
He thought the men needed the object lesson. Peter was an excellent
"point." He disappeared into the woods behind him and making his way
cautiously out, found a road, doubling to the other side of the garage
along which he went on his hands and knees and crawling from shrub to
shrub in the shadows reached the portico without detection. Here he
lighted a fag and quietly strolled down to the spot where he had left
Shad Wells, to whom he offered a cigarette by way of consolation. Wells
took it grudgingly. But he took it, which was one point gained.
"Right smart, aren't ye?" said Shad.
"No," said Peter coolly. "Anybody could have done it,--in three ways.
The other two ways are through the pine grove to the left and from the
big sycamore by the stream."
"And how do you know all that?"
"I was in the Army," said Peter. "It's a business like anything else."
And he pointed out briefly where the five men should be stationed and
why, and Shad, somewhat mollified by the cigarette, shrugged and
agreed.
"We'll do sentry duty in the regular way," went on Peter cheerfully,
"with a corporal of the guard and a countersign. I'll explain in detail
to-morrow." And then to Shad, "I'll take command until midnight, when
you'll go on with the other shift until four. I'll make it clear to the
other men. The countersign is the word 'Purple.' You'd better go and
turn in. I'll call you at twelve."
Peter watched the figure of the woodsman go ambling across the lawn in
the direction of the garage and smiled. He also marked the vertical line
of light which showed at a window on the second floor where another kept
watch. The man called Jesse, the one who had been asleep beneath the
bushes, and who, fully awake, had watched Peter's exhibition of
scouting, now turned to Peter with a laugh.
"I guess you're right, Mister. S'long's we're paid. But I'd like to know
just what this 'ere thing is the ol' man's skeered of."
"You know as much as I do. It will probably have two legs, two hands and
a face and carry a gun. You'd better be sure you're not asleep when it
comes. But if you care to know what I think, you can be pretty sure that
it's coming--and before very long."
"To-night?"
"How do I know? Have a cigarette? You cover from the road to the big
cedar tree; and keep your eyes open--especially in the shadows--and
don't let anybody get you in the back."
And so making the rounds, instilling in their minds a sense of real
emergency, Peter gave the men their new sentry posts and made friends.
He had decided to stay up all night, but at twelve he called Shad Wells
and went down to look over his cabin which was a quarter of a mile away
from the house near Cedar Creek (or "Crick" in the vernacular). The key
was in the cabin door so he unlocked it and went in, and after striking
a match found a kerosene lamp which he lighted and then looked about
him.
The building had only one room but it was of large dimensions and
contained a wooden bed with four posts, evidently some one's heirloom, a
bureau, washstand, two tables and an easy chair or two. Behind the bed
was a miscellaneous lot of rubbish, including a crib, a rocking horse, a
velocipede, beside some smaller toys. Whom had these things belonged to?
A grandson of McGuire's? And was the daughter of McGuire like her
father, unlovely, soiled and terror-stricken? His desultory mental
queries suddenly stopped as he raised his eyes to the far corner of the
room, for there, covered with an old shawl, he made out the lines of a
piano. He opened the keyboard and struck a chord. It wasn't so bad--a
little tuning--he could do it himself....
So this was his new home! He had not yet had the time or the opportunity
to learn what new difficulties were to face him on the morrow, but the
personal affairs of his employer had piqued his interest and for the
present he had done everything possible to insure his safety for the
night. To-morrow perhaps he would learn something more about the causes
of this situation. He would have an opportunity too to look over the
property and make a report as to its possibilities. To a man inured as
Peter was to disappointments, what he had found was good. He had made up
his mind to fit himself soldierlike into his new situation and he had to
admit now that he liked the prospect. As though to compensate for past
mischief, Fate had provided him with the one employment in the new land
for which he was best suited by training and inclination. It was the one
"job" in which, if he were permitted a fair amount of freedom of action
and initiative, he was sure that he could "make good." The trees he
could see were not the stately pines of Zukovo, but they were pines, and
the breeze which floated in to him through the cabin door was laden with
familiar odors.
The bed looked inviting, but he resolutely turned his back to it and
unpacked his suitcase, taking off his tailor-made clothing and putting
on the flannel shirt, corduroy trousers and heavy laced boots, all of
which he had bought before leaving New York. Then he went to the doorway
and stood looking out into the night.
The moonbeams had laid a patine of silver upon the floor of the small
clearing before the door, and played softly among the shadows. So silent
was the night that minute distant sounds were clearly audible--the
stream seemed to be tinkling just at his elbow, while much farther away
there was a low murmur of falling water at the tumbling dam, mingling
with the sighs of vagrant airs among the crowns of the trees, the rustle
and creak of dry branches, the whispering of leaf to leaf. Wakeful birds
deceived by the moon piped softly and were silent. An owl called. And
then for the briefest moment, except for the stream, utter silence.
Peter strode forth, bathed himself in the moonlight and drank deep of
the airs of the forest. America! He had chosen! Her youth called to his.
He wanted to forget everything that had gone before, the horrors through
which he had passed, both physical and spiritual,--the dying struggles
of the senile nation, born in intolerance, grown in ignorance and
stupidity which, with a mad gesture, had cast him forth with a curse. He
had doffed the empty prerogatives of blood and station and left them in
the mire and blood. The soul of Russia was dead and he had thought that
his own had died with hers, but from the dead thing a new soul might
germinate as it had now germinated in him. He had been born again.
_Novaya Jezn!_ The New Life! He had found it.
He listened intently as though for its heartbeats, his face turned up
toward the silent pines. For a long while he stood so and then went
indoors and sat at the old piano playing softly.