"Two million feet from the Walpole tract--where no ax has chipped a tree
for twenty-five years."
It was a return jolt and it made the Comas man blink. "But nobody can
buy the right to cut there."
"I have bought the right, Mr. Craig. An air-tight stumpage
contract--passed on by the best lawyer in this county--a clear title."
"Latisan, the Comas has never been able to round up those heirs--and
what we can't do with all our resources can't be done by you."
"The Latisans know this region better than the Comas folks know it, sir.
Five cousins by hard hunting--two gravestones by good luck! All heirs
located! Why don't you congratulate me?"
Just then the Comas director was thinking instead of talking.
In his operations he was a cocksure individual, Mr. Craig was! In his
hands, by his suggestion, his New York superiors had placed all the
details of business in the field of the north country. He had promised
consolidation with full belief in his ability to perform; one explicit
promise had been that this season would mark the end of the opposition
by the independents; the Comas would secure complete control of the
Toban timber and fix prices. But here were the ringleader Latisans in a
way to smash the corner which Craig had manipulated by bulldozing and
bribery! In the past Craig had not bothered headquarters with any minute
explanations of how he accomplished results. This crusher which
threatened all his plans and promises would make a monkey of him in New
York, he reflected.
"I want to say a last word to you, Mr. Craig," continued Latisan,
stiffly. "Probably we are now in for that fight on which you've been
insisting. I don't want to fight, but I'm ready for a fair stand-up.
Just a moment, please!" Craig had barked a few oaths preliminary to an
outpouring of his feelings. "I'm warning you to let up on those
guerrilla tactics of yours. I propose to find out whether your big men
in New York are backing you. I'm telling you now to your face, so you
can't accuse me later of carrying tales behind your back, of my
intention to go to New York and report conditions to the president of
the Comas."
"Don't you dare!"
"I do dare. I'm going. I expect you to run in ahead of me, but no
matter. And speaking of tales behind a man's back----"
Craig was having difficulty in finding speech for retort; Latisan was
rushing the affair. Again Craig blustered, "Don't you dare!"
"Yes, I do dare. When I went away last summer I had good reasons for
keeping my plans to myself. I got back to the Toban and found slander
accusing me of sporting in the city, deviling around with liquor and
women. That's a damnable lie!"
Latisan delivered the accusation hotly; there was unmistakable challenge
in his demeanor. "You yourself have handed around some of that slander,
Mr. Craig. I get it straight from men whose word is good!"
"I only said what others were saying."
"I don't know, of course, who started those stories, but I do know that
they have been used against me. They have helped you, it seems! I wanted
to keep my plans under cover--but I've got to protect myself with the
truth, even if the truth gives you a tip. I went away to take a special
course in hydraulic engineering, so as to know more about protecting the
common rights in the flowage of this river." He swung his hand to
indicate the thundering falls of Hagas. "You have used your tongue to
hurt my standing with some of the independents--they distrust my
reliability and good faith--you have pulled in a few of them. The others
will stand by me. Frankly, Mr. Craig, I don't like your style! It'll be
a good thing for both of us if we have no more talk after this." He
walked rapidly down the tote road, not turning his head when Craig
called furiously after him.
"Pretty uppish, ain't he?" ventured the driver, touching the horses with
the whip.
Craig, bouncing alone on the middle seat of the buckboard, grunted.
"Excuse me, Mr. Craig, but that's some news--what he said about getting
aholt of the old Walpole tract."
The Comas boss did not comment.
The driver said nothing more for some time; he was a slouchy woodsman of
numb wits; he chewed tobacco constantly with the slow jaw motion of a
ruminating steer, and he looked straight ahead between the ears of the
nigh horse, going through mental processes of a certain sort. "Now 't I
think of it, I wish I'd grabbed in with a question to young Latisan. But
he doesn't give anybody much of a chance to grab in when he's talking.
Still, I'd have liked to ask him something." He maundered on in that
strain for several minutes.
"Ask him what?" snapped Craig, tired of the monologue.
"Whuther he's talked with my old aunt Dorcas about the heir who went
off into the West somewheres. Grandson of the old sir who was the first
Walpole of the Toban--real heir, if he's still alive! My aunt Dorcas had
letters about him, or from him, or something like that, only a few years
ago."
"Look here!" stormed Craig. "Why haven't you said something about such
letters or such an heir?"
"Nobody has ever asked me. And he's prob'ly dead, anyway. Them lawyers
know everything. And he's a roving character, as I remember what my aunt
said. No use o' telling anybody about him--it would cost too much to
find him."
"Cost too much!" snarled the Comas director. "Oh, you----" But he choked
back what he wanted to say about the man's intellect. Craig pulled out
notebook and pencil and began to fire questions.
Latisan was headed for home, the old family mansion in the village of
Toban Deadwater where Ward and his widowed father kept bachelor's hall,
with a veteran woods cook to tend and do for them. The male cook was
Ward's idea. The young man had lived much in the woods, and the ways of
women about the house annoyed him; a bit of clutter was more
comfortable.
It was a long tramp to the Deadwater, but he knew the blazed-trail short
cuts and took advantage of the light of the full moon for the last stage
of the journey. He was eager to report progress and prospects to his
father.
Ward was not anticipating much in the way of practical counsel from
Garry Latisan.
Old John had been a Tartar, a blustering baron of the timberlands.
Garry, his son, had taken to books and study. He was slow and mild,
deprecatory and forgiving. Ward Latisan had those saving qualities in a
measure, but he was conscious in himself of the avatar of old John's
righteous belligerency when occasion prompted.
Ward, as he was trudging home, was trying to keep anger from clouding
his judgment. When he felt old John stirring in him, young Latisan
sought the mild counsel of Garry, and then went ahead on a line of
action of his own; he was steering a safe course, he felt, by keeping
about halfway between John's violence in performance and Garry's
toleration.
Ward was the executive of the Latisan business and liked the job; his
youth and vigor found zest in the adventures of the open. Old John's
timber man's spirit had been handed along to the grandson. Ward finished
his education at a seminary--and called it enough. His father urged him
to go to college, but he went into the woods and was glad to be there,
at the head of affairs.
The operations on the old tracts, thinned by many cuttings, had been
keeping him closely on the job, because there were problems to be solved
if profits were to be handled.
His stroke in getting hold of the Walpole tract promised profits without
problems; there were just so many trees to cut down--and the river was
handy!
In spite of his weariness, Ward sat till midnight on the porch with his
father, going over their plans. The young man surveyed the Latisan mill
and the houses of the village while he talked; the moon lighted all and
the mill loomed importantly, reflected in the still water of the pond.
If Craig prevailed, the mill and the homes must be left to rot, empty,
idle, and worthless. As Ward viewed it, the honor of the Latisans was at
stake; the spirit of old John blazed in the grandson; but he declared
his intention to fight man fashion, if the fight were forced on him. He
would go to the Comas headquarters in New York, he said, not to ask for
odds or beg for favors, but to explain the situation and to demand that
Craig be required to confine himself to the tactics of square business
rivalry.
"And my course in engineering was a good investment; I can talk turkey
to them about our dams and the flowage rights. I don't believe they're
backing up Craig's piracy!"
Garry Latisan agreed fully with his son and expressed the wistful wish,
as he did regularly in their conferences, that he could be of more real
help.
"Your sympathy and your praise are help enough, father," Ward declared,
with enthusiasm. "We're sure of our cut; all I'm asking from the Comas
is gangway for our logs. There must be square men at the head of that
big corporation!"