ON BOARD THE _Empress_
It was the second day out and the passengers on the _Empress_ had
already settled down to their week's trip.
The sea was calm, with just that pleasant, lazy swell which the Atlantic
never really loses. The decks were thronged with a happy company of men
and women determined not to lose one single moment of the bodily ease
which the clemency of the weather vouchsafed to them.
Bull Sternford was amongst them. Engulfed in a heavy fur overcoat, he
stood lounging against the lee rail of the wide promenade deck,
contemplating the oily swell of the waters. His great stature was
somewhat magnified by his voluminous coat, with its deep, upturned
storm-collar. There was that about him to attract considerable
attention. But he remained unconscious of it, and his aloofness was by
no means studied.
Deep emotion was stirring. A man of iron nerve and purpose, a man of
cool deliberation under the harshest circumstances, just now Bull was
afflicted like the veriest weakling with alternating hope and doubt, and
something approaching indecision. The youth in him was plunged in that
agony of desire which maddens with delight and drives headlong to
despair. His whole horizon of life had changed. Old scenes, old dreams,
had been suddenly blotted out. And in their place was the wonderful
vision of a girl with vivid hair and gentle eyes. Nancy--Nancy McDonald.
The name was always with him now, unspoken, unwhispered even; but
occupying every waking thought.
It was a time of reckless resolve, of hot-headed planning. He knew in
his sober moments how almost impossible was the position. But these were
not sober moments. He told himself, in his headlong way, that if Nancy
was chained in the heart of Hell he would seek her out, and claim her.
She should be his even though every infernal power were arrayed against
him. His eyes were alight with a fierce smile, as he contemplated the
grey waters. It was a smile of conscious strength, of reckless purpose.
Well, he was ready. He was--
"Guess we'll git this sort of stuff all the way."
Bull started and swung around. A fur-coated man with a dark
close-cropped beard was leaning over the rail beside him. He was
expensively clad. His astrachan collar was turned up about his neck to
shut out something of the biting winter air; and a cap of similar fur
was pressed low down over his dark head. Bull noted the man's
appearance, and his reply was promptly forthcoming.
"Maybe," he admitted without interest.
"Sure we will. It's always that way with the _Empress's_ last trip of
the season from Quebec. I most generally make it for that reason. Your
first trip?"
"No."
"It's my nineteenth. You see," the stranger went on, "I can't spare
summer time. I'm too full gettin' orders out. I'm in the lumber
business. It's only with the freeze up I can quit my mills. Have a
cigar?"
Bull had no alternative. The man was there to talk, and his desire to do
so was frankly displayed.
"I won't smoke, thanks," Bull replied without offense. "It's too near
dinner."
"Dinner? There's a ha'f hour to the dressing bugle." The stranger
returned the elaborate case stuffed full of large, expensive cigars to
his pocket, and drew out a gold cigarette case instead. "Still I don't
blame you a thing. Cigars? Me for a cigarette all the time. I don't
guess any feller ever heard tell of tobacco, till he'd inhaled a good,
plain Virginia Cigarette."
Bull looked on while the man wasted half-a-dozen matches lighting his
beloved cigarette. He was not without interest. There was a slightly
Jewish caste about his face which was frankly smiling, and lit with
shrewd, twinkling dark eyes. He conveyed, too, somewhat blatantly, an
atmosphere of abounding prosperity.
Bull laughed as the cigarette was finally lighted.
"That's better," he said. "Now--you can inhale."
"Sure I can." The man's smile was full of amiability. "Inhale anything.
Say, up in the camps I've inhaled tea-leaves rolled in cracker paper
before now. Ever hit a lumber camp?"
"Yes."
"But not out West? British Columbia?"
"No. Only Quebec."
The stranger shook his head disparagingly.
"Quebec! Psha! Quebec ain't a thing. It ain't a circumstance," he said
complacently. "No, sir. The West. That's the place for lumbering. B.C.
West of the Rockies. Man, it's the world's greatest proposition. The
place you can spend a lifetime cutting ninety foot baulks, and lose
track of where you cut. Quebec's mostly small stuff," he went on
contemptuously, "pulp-wood an' that." He shook his head. "It's no place
for capital. And, anyway, the Frenchies have got the whole darn place
taped out. Oh, they're wise--the Frenchies. If a feller's lookin' to get
ahead of 'em he needs to stake out the Arctic, where you'd freeze the
ears of a brass image. The Frenchies got it all. The only big stuff lies
on Labrador, anyway. I know. I prospected. No, it's me for the big
hills, West. The big hills and the big waterways that 'ud leave Quebec
rivers looking like a leak in a bone dry bar'l. My name's Aylin P.
Cantor, Vancouver, B.C. Maybe you know the name?"
Bull shook his head.
"I'm not--"
"Oh, it don't matter," interjected Mr. Cantor. "You see, the West's one
hell of a long way--west. I just didn't get your--"
"Oh, my name's Sternford."
Mr. Cantor's face beamed.
"Why I'm glad to know you, Mr. Sternford," he exclaimed. Then a quick,
enquiring upward glance of his shrewd eyes suggested recollection. "But
say--you ain't Sternford of Labrador? The groundwood outfit up at--up
at--"
"Sachigo?"
"That's it, sure. Guess I'd lost the name a moment."
Bull nodded amusedly.
"Yes. That's where I hail from. And, as you say, there's big stuff up
there, too."
"Big? Why I'd say. Well, now! That's fine! I've heard tell big yarns of
Labrador. It's just great meeting--"
The man broke off at the sound of the first blast of the dressing bugle.
"Why, it's later than I guessed," he said. "Anyway, you'll take a
cocktail with me? This vessel's good and wet, thanks be to Providence,
and the high seas being peopled with fish instead of cranks. I hadn't a
notion I was goin' to run into a real lumberman on this trip. It's done
me a power of good."
* * * * *
Aylin P. Cantor was a diverting creature for all his appearance of
ostentatious prosperity. Good fortune had undoubtedly been his, and his
whole being seemed to have become absorbed in the trade which had so
generously treated him. Before the cocktail was consumed Bull had
listened to a long story of British Columbia, and forests of
incomparable extent. He had also learned that a country estate, miles in
extent, outside the city of Vancouver, and the luxuries associated with
the multi-millionaire had fallen to the lot of Aylin P. Cantor. But
somehow there was no offence in it all. The man was just a bubbling
fount of enthusiasm and delight that this was so. He simply had to talk
of it.
But the acquaintance was not to terminate over a cocktail. Shipboard
offers few avenues of escape to the man seeking to avoid another. So it
came that Bull found himself sipping a brandy, reputed to be one hundred
years old, over his coffee after dinner, while Aylin P. Cantor told him
the story of how it came into his possession at something far below its
market value.
Later, again, while the auction pool was being sold, he found himself
ensconced on a lounge in a far corner of the smokeroom beside his
fellow craftsman, still listening chiefly, and absorbing fact and
anecdote pertaining to a successful lumberman's life. And it was nearly
eleven o'clock, and the pool had been sold, and the bulk of the
occupants of the smoking-room were contemplating their last rubber of
Auction Bridge, when the busy-minded westerner consented to abandon his
particular venue for a brief contemplation of the despised East.
"Oh, I guess there's money in your territory, too," he condescended at
last. "I ain't a word to say against the stuff I've heard tell of
Labrador. But you're froze up more'n ha'f the year. That's your
trouble."
"Yes."
Bull nodded over the latter portion of his third cigar which Mr. Cantor
had not permitted him to escape.
"Sure," the man laughed. "Oh, the stuff's there. I know that. But
Labrador needs a mighty big nerve to exploit. I heard it all from a
feller I met when I was prospecting Quebec. You see, I had the notion of
playing a million dollars in the Quebec forests once. But I weakened. I
kind of fancied my chance against the Frenchies didn't amount to cold
water on a red hot cookstove. I cut it out and hunted my own patch,
West, again. But I guess I'd have fallen for the stories of Labrador, if
it hadn't been for the feller who put me wise."
"Who was that?" Bull had lost interest, but the man invited the enquiry.
"Oh, a sort of missionary crank," Cantor returned indifferently. "You
know the sort. We got 'em out West, too. They hound the boys around,
chasin' them heavenwards by a through route they guess they know about."
He laughed. "But the boys bein' just boys, the round up don't ever seem
to make good; and that through trip looks most like a bum sort of
freight in the wash-out season. Outside his missioner business I guess
the guy was pretty wise, though. And his knowledge of the lumber play
left me without a word. He knew it all--an' I guess he told it to me."
Bull laughed. But the laugh was inspired by the thought that there could
be found in the world a man who could leave Aylin P. Cantor without a
word on the subject of lumber.
"I'd like to make a guess at that feller," he said. "There's just one
man I know who's a missionary in Quebec who knows anything about
Labrador. Did he call himself, 'Father Adam?'"
"That's the thing he did."
"Ah, I thought so." Bull's smile had passed. "Where did you meet him?"
he went on after a moment.
"On the Shagaunty. The Skandinavia Corporation territory. He told me
he'd just come along through from Labrador."
"Oh, yes?"
Mr. Cantor laughed.
"Why he took me to his crazy shanty and handed me coffee. And he talked.
My, how he talked."
"Did he know you were--prospecting?"
There was no lack of interest in Bull now. His steady eyes were alight,
as he watched the stewards moving amongst the tables, setting the place
straight for the night.
"Yes. I told him."
Cantor's dark eyes were questioning. As Bull remained silent he went on.
"Why? Is he interested for the Skandinavia to keep folk out?"
Bull shook his head.
"No. It isn't that. He's a queer feller. No, I'd say he's got just one
concern in life. It's the boys. But you're right, he knows the whole
thing--the whole game of lumbering in Eastern Canada. And if he told
you and warned you, I'd say it was for your good as he saw it. No. He's
no axe to grind, and though you found him on the Skandinavia's
territory, I don't think he likes them. I'm sure he doesn't. Still, he's
not concerned for any employer. He just comes and goes handing out his
dope to the boys, and--You know the forest-jacks. They're a mighty tough
proposition. Well, it's said they feel about Father Adam so if a hair of
his head was hurt they'd get the feller who did it, and they'd cut the
liver out of him, and pass what was left feed for the coyotes."
Mr. Cantor nodded.
"Yes, I sort of gathered something of that from the folks I hit up
against. It seems queer a feller devoting his life to bumming through
the forests and seekin' shelter where you couldn't find shelter from a
summer dew. He's got no fixed home. Maybe he's sort of crazed."
Bull was prompt in his denial.
"Saner than you or me," he said. "You know I'd want to smile if I didn't
know the man. But I know him, and--but there we all owe him a deal, we
forest men. And maybe I owe him more than anyone."
"How's that?"
Mr. Cantor's question came sharply. Even Bull, tired as he was, noted
the keenly incisive tone of it. He turned, and his steady eyes regarded
the dark face of the lumberman speculatively. Then he smiled, and picked
up his glass and drained the remains of his whisky and soda.
"Why, he's more power for peace with the lumber-jacks of Quebec than if
he was their trade leader," he said, setting his empty glass down on the
table. "We employers owe him there's never any sort of trouble with the
boys."
"I see." Mr. Cantor gazed out across the nearly empty room, and a
shadowy smile haunted his eyes. "And if there was trouble? Could you
locate him in time?"
"We shouldn't need to. He'd be there."
The lumberman stirred, and persisted with curious interest.
"But he must have a place where you folks can get him? This coming and
going. It's fine--but--"
Bull stood up and stretched himself.
"Oh, he's got a home, all right. It's the forests."
Mr. Cantor threw up his hands and laughed.
"Who is he, anyway? A sort of Wandering Jew? A ghost? A spook? That sort
of thing beats me. He's got to be one of the two things. He's either a
crank--you say he ain't--or he's dodging daylight."
But Bull had had enough. Deep in his heart was a feeling that no man had
any right to pry into the life of Father Adam. Father Adam had changed
the whole course of his life. It was Father Adam who had made possible
everything he was to-day--even his association with Nancy McDonald. He
shook his head unsmilingly.
"Father Adam's one good man," he said. "And I wouldn't recommend anyone
to hand out anything to the contrary within hearing of the men of the
Quebec forests. Good-night."
He strode away. And Mr. Cantor followed him, slight and bediamonded in
his evening clothes. And somehow the dark eyes gazing on the broad back
of the man from Labrador had none of the twinkling shrewdness the other
had originally observed in them. They were quite cold and very hard. And
there was that in them which suggested the annoyance inspired by a long
evening of effort that had ended in complete failure.
The man's dark, foreign-looking features had lost every semblance of
their recent good-natured enthusiasm.