here, with a club?”
They followed the tracks left by Saleratus Bill until it was evident beyond doubt that the gun-man had in reality departed. Then they started to retrace their steps.
“Why not cut across?” asked Bob.
“I want to see whereabouts I _was_ shooting,” said Ware.
“We’ll cut across and wait for you on the road.”
“All right,” Ware agreed.
They made their short-cut, and waited. After a minute or so Ware shouted to them.
“Hullo!” Bob answered.
“Come here!”
They returned down the dusty mill road. Just beyond the forks Ware was standing, looking down at some object. As they approached he raised his face to them. Even under its tan, it was pale.
“Guess this is another case of innocent bystander,” said he gravely.
Flat on his back, arms outstretched in the dust, lay Oldham, with a bullet hole accurately in the middle of his forehead.
XXXV
“Good heavens!” cried Amy. “What an awful thing!”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Ware; “this is certainly tough. But I can’t see but it was a plumb accident. Who’d have thought he’d be coming along the road just at that minute.”
“Of course, you’re not to blame,” Amy reassured him quickly. “We must get help. Of course, he’s quite dead.”
Ware nodded, gazing down at his victim reflectively.
“I was shootin’ a little high,” he remarked at last.
Up to this moment Bob had said nothing.
“If it will relieve your mind, any,” he told Ware, “it isn’t such a case of innocent bystander as you may think. This man is the one who hired Saleratus Bill to abduct me in the first place; and probably to kill me in the second. I have a suspicion he got what he deserved.”
“Oh!” cried Amy, looking at him reproachfully.
“It’s a fact,” Bob insisted. “I know his connection with all this better than you do, and his being on this road was no accident. It was to see his orders carried out.”
Ware was looking at him shrewdly.
“That fits,” he declared. “I couldn’t figure why my old friend Bill didn’t cut loose. But he’s got a head on him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, when he see Oldham dropped, what use was there of going to shooting? It would just make trouble for him and he couldn’t hope for no pay. He just faded.”
“He’s a quick thinker, then,” said Bob.
“You bet you!”
The two men laid Oldham’s body under the shade. As they disposed it decently, Bob experienced again that haunting sense of having known him elsewhere that had on several occasions assailed his memory. The man’s face was familiar to him with a familiarity that Bob somehow felt antedated his California acquaintance.
“We must get to the mill and send a wagon for him,” Ware was saying.
But Amy suddenly turned faint, and was unable to proceed.
“It’s perfectly silly of me!” she cried indignantly. “The idea of my feeling faint! It makes me so angry!”
“It’s perfectly natural,” Bob told her. “I think you’ve shown a heap of nerve. Most girls would have flopped over.”
The men helped her to a streamlet some hundreds of yards away. Here it was agreed that Ware should proceed in search of a conveyance; and that Bob and Amy should there await his return.
XXXVI
Ware disappeared rapidly up the dusty road, Bob and Amy standing side by side in silence, watching him go. When the lean, long figure of the old mountaineer had quite disappeared, and the light, eddying dust, peculiar to the Sierra country, had died, Amy closed her eyes, raised her hand to her heart, and sank slowly to the bank of the little creek. Her vivid colour, which had for a moment returned under the influence of her strong will and her indignation over her weakness, had again ebbed from her cheeks.
Bob, with an exclamation of alarm, dropped to her side and passed his arm back of her shoulders. As she felt the presence of his support, she let slip the last desperate holdings of physical command, and leaned back gratefully, breathing hard, her eyes still closed.
After a moment she opened them long enough to smile palely at the anxious face of the young man.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m all right. Don’t be alarmed. Just let me rest a minute. I’ll be all right.”
She closed her eyes again. Bob, watching, saw the colour gradually flowing up under her skin, and was reassured.
The girl lay against his arm limply. At first he was concerned merely with the supporting of the slight burden; careful to hold her as comfortably as possible. Then the warmth of her body penetrated to his arm. A new emotion invaded him, feeble in the beginning, but gaining strength from instant to instant. It mounted his breast as a tide would mount, until it had shortened his breath, set his heart to thumping dully, choked his throat. He looked down at her with troubled eyes, following the curve of her upturned face, the long line of her throat exposed by the backward thrown position of her head, the swell of her breast under the thin gown. The helplessness of the pose caught at Bob’s heart. For the first time Amy–the vivid, self-reliant, capable, laughing Amy–appealed to him as a being demanding protection, as a woman with a woman’s instinctive craving for cherishing, as a delicious, soft, feminine creature, calling forth the tendernesses of a man’s heart. In the normal world of everyday association this side of her had never been revealed, never suspected; yet now, here, it rose up to throw into insignificance all the other qualities of the girl he had known. Bob spared a swift thought of gratitude to the chance that had revealed to him this unguessed, intimate phase of womanhood.
And then the insight with which the significant moment had endowed him leaped to the simple comprehension of another thought–that this revelation of intimacy, of the woman-appeal lying unguessed beneath the comradeship of everyday life, was after all only a matter of chance. It had been revealed to him by the accident of a moment’s faintness, by which the conscious will of the girl had been driven back from the defences. In a short time it would be over. She would resume her ordinary demeanour, her ordinary interest, her ordinary bright, cheerful, attractive, matter-of-fact, efficient self. Everything would be as before. But–and here Bob’s breath came quickest–in the great goodness of the world lay another possibility; that sometime, at the call of some one person, for that one and no other, this inner beautiful soul of the feminine appeal would come forth freely, consciously, willingly.
Amy opened her eyes, sat up, shook herself slightly, and laughed.
“I’m all right now,” she told Bob, “and certainly very much ashamed.”
“Amy!” he stammered.
She shot a swift look at him, and immediately arose to her feet.
“We will have to testify at a coroner’s inquest, I presume,” said she, in the most matter-of-fact tones.
“I suppose so,” agreed Bob morosely. It is impossible to turn back all the strongly set currents of life without at least a temporary turmoil.
Amy glanced at him sideways, and smiled a faint, wise smile to herself. For in these matters, while men are more analytical after the fact, women are by nature more informed. She said nothing, but stooped to the creek for a drink. When she had again straightened to her feet, Bob had come to himself. The purport of Amy’s last speech had fully penetrated his understanding, and one word of it–the word _testify_–had struck him with an idea.
“By Jove!” he cried, “that lets out Pollock!”
“What?” said Amy.
“This man Oldham was the only witness who could have convicted George Pollock of killing Plant.”
“What do you mean?” asked Amy, leaning forward interestedly. “Was he there? How do you know about it?”
A half-hour before Bob would have hesitated long before confiding his secret to a fourth party; but now, for him, the world of relations had shifted.
“I’ll tell you about it,” said he, without hesitation; “but this is serious. You must never breathe even a word of it to any one!”
“Certainly not!” cried Amy.
“Oldham wasn’t an actual witness of the killing; but I was, and he knew it. He could have made me testify by informing the prosecuting attorney.”
Bob sketched rapidly his share in the tragedy: how he had held Pollock’s horse, and been in a way an accessory to the deed. Amy listened attentively to the recital of the facts, but before Bob had begun to draw his conclusions, she broke in swiftly.
“So Oldham offered to let you off, if you would keep out of this Modoc Land case,” said she.
Bob nodded.
“That was it.”
“But it would have put you in the penitentiary,” she pointed out.
“Well, the case wasn’t quite decided yet.”
She made her quaint gesture of the happily up-thrown hands.
“Just what you said about Mr. Welton!” she cried. “Oh, I’m _glad_ you told me this! I was trying so hard to think you were doing a high and noble duty in ignoring the consequences to that poor old man. But I could not. Now I see!”
“What do you mean?” asked Bob curiously, as she paused.
“You could do it because your act placed you in worse danger,” she told him.
“Too many for me,” Bob disclaimed. “I simply wasn’t going to be bluffed out by that gang!”
“That was it,” said Amy wisely. “I know you better than you do yourself. You don’t suppose,” she cried, as a new thought alarmed her, “that Oldham has told the prosecuting attorney that your evidence would be valuable.”
Bob shook his head.
“The trial is next week,” he pointed out. “In case the prosecution had intended calling me, I should have been summoned long since. There’s dust; they are coming. You’d better stay here.”
She agreed readily to this. After a moment a light wagon drove up. On the seat perched Welton and Ware. Bob climbed in behind.
They drove rapidly down to the forks, stopped and hitched the team.
“Ware’s been telling me the whole situation, Bobby,” said Welton. “That gang’s getting pretty desperate! I’ve heard of this man Oldham around this country for a long while, but I always understood he was interested against the Power Company.”
“Bluff,” said Bob briefly. “He’s been in their employ from the first, but I never thought he’d go in for quite this kind of strong-arm work. He doesn’t look it, do you think?”
“I never laid eyes on him,” replied Welton. “He’s never been near the mill, and I never happened to run across him anywhere else.”
By this time they had secured the team. Ware led the way to the tree under which lay the body of the land agent. Welton surveyed the prostrate figure for some time in silence. Then turned to Bob, a curious expression on his face.
“It wasn’t an accident that I never met him,” said he. “He saw to it. Don’t you remember this man, Bobby?”
“I saw him in Los Angeles some years ago.”
“Before that–in Michigan–many years ago.”
“His face has always seemed familiar to me,” said Bob slowly. “I can’t place it–yes–hold on!”
A picture defined itself from the mists of his boyhood memories. It was of an open field, with a fringe of beech woods in the distance. A single hickory stood near its centre, and under this a group lounged, smoking pipes. A man, perched on a cracker box, held a blank book and pencil. Another stood by a board, a gun in his hand. The smell of black powder hung in the atmosphere. Little glass balls popped into the air, and were snuffed out. He saw Oldham distinctly, looking younger and browner, but with the same cynical mouth, the same cold eyes, the same slanted eyeglasses. Even before his recollections reproduced the scorer’s drawling voice calling the next contestant, his memory supplied the name.
“It’s Newmark!” he cried aloud.
“Joe Newmark, your father’s old partner! He hasn’t changed much. He disappeared from Michigan when you were about eight years old; didn’t he! Nobody ever knew how or why, but everybody had suspicions…. Well; let’s get him in.”
They disposed the body in the wagon, and drove back up the road. At the little brook they stopped to let off Ware. It was agreed that all danger to Bob was now past, and that the gun-man would do better to accompany Amy back to headquarters. Of course, it would be necessary to work the whole matter out at the coroner’s inquest, but in view of the circumstances, Ware’s safety was assured.
At the mill the necessary telephoning was done, the officials summoned, and everything put in order.
“What I really started over to see you about,” then said Bob to Welton, “is this matter of the Modoc Company.” He went on to explain fully Amy’s plan for checkmating Baker. “You see, if I get in my word first, Baker is as much implicated as you are, and it won’t do him any good to turn state’s evidence.”
“I don’t see as that helps me,” remarked Welton gloomily.
“Baker might be willing to put himself in any position,” said Bob; “but I doubt if he’ll care to take the risk of criminal punishment. I think this will head him off completely; but if it doesn’t, every move he makes to save his own skin saves yours too.”
“It may do some good,” agreed Welton. “Try it.”
“I’ve already written Baker. But I didn’t want you to think I was starting up the bloodhounds against you without some blame good reason.”
“I’d know that anyway, Bobby,” said Welton kindly. He stared moodily at the stovepipe. “This is getting too thick for an old-timer,” he broke out at last. “I’m just a plain, old-fashioned lumberman, and all I know is to cut lumber. I pass this mess up. I wired your father he’d better come along out.”
“Is he coming?” asked Bob eagerly.
“I just got a message over the ‘phone from the telegraph office. He’ll be in White Oaks as fast as he can get there. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Wire him aboard train to go through to Fremont, and that we’ll meet him there,” said Bob instantly. “It’s getting about time to beard the lion in his den.”
XXXVII
The coroner’s inquest detained Bob over until the week following. In it Amy’s testimony as to the gun-man’s appearance and evident intention was quite sufficient to excuse Ware’s shooting; and the fact that Oldham, as he was still known, instead of Saleratus Bill, received the bullet was evidently sheer unavoidable accident. Bob’s testimony added little save corroboration. As soon as he could get away, he took the road to Fremont.
Orde was awaiting his son at the station. Bob saw the straight, heavy figure, the tanned face with the snow-white moustache, before the train had come to a stop. Full of eagerness, he waved his hat over the head of the outraged porter barricaded on the lower steps by his customary accumulation of suit cases.
“Hullo, dad! Hullo, there!” he shouted again and again, quite oblivious to the amusement of the other passengers over this tall and bronzed young man’s enthusiasm.
Orde caught sight of his son at last; his face lit up, and he, too, swung his hat. A moment later they had clasped hands.
After the first greetings, Bob gave his suit case in charge to the hotel bus-man.
“We’ll take a little walk up the street and talk things over,” he suggested.
They sauntered slowly up the hill and down the side streets beneath the pepper and acacia trees of Fremont’s beautiful thoroughfares. So absorbed did they become that they did not realize in the slightest where they were going, so that at last they had topped the ridge and, from the stretch of the Sunrise Drive, they looked over into the canon.
“So you’ve been getting into trouble, have you?” chaffed Orde, as they left the station.
“I don’t know about that,” Bob rejoined. “I do know that there are quite a number of people in trouble.”
Orde laughed.
“Tell me about this Welton difficulty,” said he. “Frank Taylor has our own matters well in hand. The opposition won’t gain much by digging up that old charge against the integrity of our land titles. We’ll count that much wiped off the slate.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” said Bob heartily. “Well, the trouble with Mr. Welton is that the previous administration held him up–” He detailed the aspects of the threatened bribery case; while Orde listened without comment. “So,” he concluded, “it looked at first as if they rather had him, if I testified. It had me guessing. I hated the thought of getting a man like Mr. Welton in trouble of that sort over a case in which he was no way interested.”
“What did you decide?” asked Orde curiously.
“I decided to testify.”
“That’s right.”
“I suppose so. I felt a little better about it, because they had me in the same boat. That let me out in my own feelings, naturally.”
“How?” asked Orde swiftly.
“There had been trouble up there between Plant–you remember I wrote you of the cattle difficulties?”
“With Simeon Wright? I know all that.”
“Well, one of the cattlemen was ruined by Plant’s methods; his wife and child died from want of care on that account. He was the one who killed Plant; you remember that.”
“Yes.”
“I happened to be near and I helped him escape.”
“And some one connected with the Modoc Company was a witness,” conjectured Orde. “Who was it?”
“A man who went under the name of Oldham. A certain familiarity puzzled me for a long time. Only the other day I got it. He was Mr. Newmark.”
“Newmark!” cried Orde, stopping short and staring fixedly at his son.
“Yes; the man who was your partner when I was a very small boy. You remember?”
“Remember!” repeated Orde; then in tones of great energy: “He and I both have reason to remember well enough! Where is he now? I can put a stop to him in about two jumps!”
“You won’t need to,” said Bob quietly; “he’s dead–shot last week.”
For some moments nothing more was said, while the two men trudged beneath the hanging peppers near the entrance to Sunrise Drive.
“I always wondered why he had it in for me, and why he acted so queerly,” Bob broke the silence at last. “He seemed to have a special and personal enmity for me. I always felt it, but I couldn’t make it out.”
“He had plenty of reasons for that. But it’s funny Welton didn’t recognize the whelp.”
“Mr. Welton never saw him,” Bob explained–“that is, until Newmark was dead. Then he recognized him instantly. What was it all about?”
Orde indicated the bench on the canon’s edge.
“Let’s sit,” said he. “Newmark and I made our start together. For eight years we worked together and built up a very decent business. Then, all at once, I discovered that he was plotting systematically to do me out of every cent we had made. It was the most cold-blooded proposition I ever ran across.”
“Couldn’t you prove it on him?” asked Bob.
“I could prove it all right; but the whole affair made me sick. He’d always been the closest friend, in a way, I had ever had; and the shock of discovering what he really was drove everything else out of my head. I was young then. It seemed to me that all I wanted was to wipe the whole affair off the slate, to get it behind me, to forget it–so I let him go.”
“I don’t believe I’d have done that. Seems to me I’d have had to blow off steam,” Bob commented.
Orde smiled reminiscently.
“I blew off steam,” [A] said he. “It was rather fantastic; but I actually believe it was one of the most satisfactory episodes in my life. I went around to his place–he lived rather well in bachelor quarters, which was a new thing in those days–and locked the door and told him just why I was going to let him off. It tickled him hugely–for about a minute. Then I finished up by giving him about the very worst licking he ever heard tell of.”
[Footnote A: See “The Riverman.”]
“Was that what you told him?” cried Bob.
“What?”
“Did you say those words to him?–‘I’m going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard tell of’?”
“Why, I believe I did.”
Bob threw back his head and laughed.
“So did I!” he cried; and then, after a moment, more soberly. “I think, incidentally, it saved my life.”
“Now what are you driving at?” asked Orde.
“Listen, this is funny: Newmark had me kidnapped by one of his men, and lugged off to a little valley in the mountains. The idea was to keep me there until after the trial, so my testimony would not appear. You see, none of our side knew I had that testimony. I hadn’t told anybody, because I had been undecided as to what I was going to do.”
Orde whistled.
“I got away, and had quite a time getting home. I’ll tell you all the details some other time. On the road I met Newmark. I was pretty mad, so I lit into him stiff-legged. After a few words he got scared and pulled a gun on me. I was just mad enough to keep coming, and I swear I believe he was just on the point of shooting, when I said those very same words: ‘I’m going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard tell of.’ He turned white as a sheet and dropped his gun. I thought he was a coward; but I guess it was conscience and luck. Now, wouldn’t that come and get you?”
“Did you?” asked Orde.
“Did I what?”
“Give him that licking?”
“I sure did start out to; but I couldn’t bring myself to more than shake him up a little.”
Orde rose, stretching his legs.
“What are your plans now?”
“To see Baker. I’m going to tell him that on the first indications of his making trouble I’m going to enter complaint for bribery against _both_ him and Mr. Welton. You see, I was there too. Think it’ll work?”
“The best way is to go and see.”
“Come on,” said Bob.
XXXVIII
The two men found Baker seated behind his flat-top desk. He grinned cheerfully at them; and, to Bob’s surprise, greeted him with great joviality.
“All hail, great Chief!” he cried. “I’ve had my scalp nicely smoke-tanned for you, so you won’t have to bother taking it.” He bowed to Orde. “I’m glad to see you, sir,” said he. “Know you by your picture. Please be seated.”
Bob brushed the levity aside.
“I’ve come,” said he, “to get an explanation from you as to why, in the first place, you had me kidnapped; and why, in the second place, you tried to get me murdered.”
Baker’s mocking face became instantly grave; and, leaning forward, he hit the desk a thump with his right fist.
“Orde,” said he, “I want you to believe me in this: I never was more sorry for anything in my life! I wouldn’t have had that happen for anything in the world! If I’d had the remotest idea that Oldham contemplated something of that sort, I should have laid very positive orders on him. He said he had something on you that would keep your mouth shut, but I never dreamed he meant gun play.”
“I don’t suppose you dreamed he meant kidnapping either,” observed Bob.
Baker threw himself back with a chuckle.
“Being kidnapped is fine for the health,” said he. “Babies thrive on it. No,” he continued, again leaning forward gravely, “Oldham got away from his instructions completely. Shooting or that kind of violence was absurd in such a case. You mustn’t lay that to me, but to his personal grudge.”
“What do you know of a personal grudge?” Bob flashed back.
“Ab-so-lute-ly nothing; but I suspected. It’s part of my job to be a nifty young suspector–and to use what I guess at. He just got away from me. As for the rest of it, that’s part of the game. This is no croquet match; you must expect to get your head bumped if you play it. I play the game.”
“I play the game, too,” returned Bob, “and I came here to tell you so. I’ll take care of myself, but I want to say that the moment you offer any move against Welton, I shall bring in my testimony against both of you on this bribery matter.”
“Sapient youth!” said Baker, amused; “did that aspect of it just get to you? But you misinterpreted the spirit of my greeting when you came in the room. In words of one syllable, you’ve got us licked. We lie down and roll over. We stick all four paws in the air. We bat our august forehead against the floor. Is that clear?”
“Then you drop this prosecution against Welton?”
“Nary prosecution, as far as I am concerned.”
“But the Modoc Land case—-“
“Take back your lands,” chaffed Baker dramatically. “Kind of bum lands, anyway. No use skirmishing after the battle is over. Your father would tell you that.”
“Then you don’t fight the suit?”
“That,” said Baker, “is still a point for compromise. You’ve got us, I’m willing to admit that. Also that you are a bright young man, and that I underestimated you. You’ve lifted my property, legally acquired, and you’ve done it by outplaying my bluff. I still maintain the points of the law are with me–we won’t get into that,” he checked himself. “But criminal prosecution is a different matter. I don’t intend to stand for that a minute. Your gang don’t slow-step me to any bastiles now listed in the prison records. Nothing doing that way. I’ll fight her to a fare-ye-well on that.” His round face seemed to become square-set and grim for an instant, but immediately reassumed its customary rather careless good-nature. “No, we’ll just call the whole business off.”
“That is not for me to decide,” said Bob.
“No; but you’ve got a lot to say about it–and I’ll see to the little details; don’t fret. By the way,” mentioned Baker, “just as a matter of ordinary curiosity, _did_ Oldham have anything on you, or was he just a strong-arm artist?” He threw back his head and laughed aloud at Bob’s face. At the thought of Pollock the young man could not prevent a momentary expression of relief from crossing his countenance. “There’s a tail-holt on all of us,” Baker observed.
He flipped open a desk drawer and produced a box of expensive-looking cigars which he offered to his visitors. Orde lit one; but Bob, eyeing the power-man coldly, refused. Baker laughed.
“You’ll get over it,” he observed–“youth, I mean. Don’t mix your business and your personal affairs. That came right out of the copy book, page one, but it’s true. I’m the one that ought to feel sore, seems to me.” He lit his own cigar, and puffed at it, swinging his bulky form to the edge of the desk. “Look here,” said he, shaking the butt at the younger man. “You’re making a great mistake. The future of this country is with water, and don’t you forget it. Fuel is scarce; water power is the coming force. The country can produce like a garden under irrigation; and it’s only been scratched yet, and that just about the big cities. We are getting control; and the future of the state is with us. You’re wasting yourself in all this toy work. You’ve got too much ability to squander it in that sort of thing. Oldham made you an offer from us, didn’t he?”
“He tried to bribe me, if that’s what you mean,” said Bob.
“Well, have it your way; but you’ll admit there’s hardly much use of bribing you now. I repeat the offer. Come in with us on those terms.”
“Why?” demanded Bob.
“Well,” said Baker quaintly, “because you seem to have licked me fair and square; and I never want a man who can lick me to remain where he is likely to do so.”
At this point Orde, who had up to now remained quietly a spectator, spoke up.
“Bob,” said he, “is already fairly intimately connected with certain interests, which, while not so large as water power, are enough to keep him busy.”
Baker turned to him joyously.
“List’ to the voice of reason!” he cried. “I’m sorry he won’t come with us; but the next best thing is to put him where he won’t fight us. I didn’t know he was going back to your timber–“
Bob opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again at a gesture from his father.
Baker glanced at the clock.
“Well,” he remarked cheerfully, “come over to the Club with me to lunch, anyway.”
Bob stared at him incredulously. Here was the man who had employed against him every expedient from blackmail to physical violence; who had but that instant been worsted in a bald attempt at larceny, nevertheless, cheerfully inviting him out to lunch as though nothing had happened! Furthermore, his father, against whose ambitions one of the deadliest blows had been aimed, was quietly reaching for his hat. Baker looked up and caught Bob’s expression.
“Come, come!” said he; “forget it! You and I speak the language of the same tribe, and you can’t get away from it. I’m playing my game, you’re playing yours. Of course, we want to win. But what’s the use of cutting out lots of bully good people on that account?”
“You don’t stick to the rules,” insisted Bob stoutly.
“I think I do,” said Baker. “Who’s to decide? You believe one way, I believe another. I know what you think of my methods in business; and I’d hate to say what I think of you as the blue ribbon damn fool in that respect. But I like you, and I’m willing to admit you’ve got stuff in you; and I know damn well you and your father and I can have a fine young lunch talking duck-shooting and football. And with all my faults you love me still, and you know you do.” He smiled winningly, and hooked his arm through Bob’s on one side and his father’s on the other. “Come on, you old deacon; play the game!” he cried.
Bob laughed, and gave in.
XXXIX
Bob took his father with him back to headquarters. They rode in near the close of day; and, as usual, from the stovepipe of the roofless kitchen a brave pillar of white smoke rose high in the shadows of the firs. Amy came forth at Bob’s shout, starched and fresh, her cheeks glowing with their steady colour, her intelligent eyes alight with interest under the straight, serene brows. At sight of Orde, the vivacity of her manner quieted somewhat, but Bob could see that she was excited about something. He presented his father, who dismounted and greeted her with a hearty shake of the hand.
“We’ve heard of you, Miss Thorne,” said he simply, but it was evident he was pleased with the frankness of her manner, the clear steadiness of her eye, the fresh daintiness of her appearance, and the respect of her greeting. On the other hand, she looked back with equal pleasure on the tanned, sturdy old man with the white hair and moustache, the clear eyes, and the innumerable lines of quaint good-humour about them. After they had thus covertly surveyed each other for a moment, the aforesaid lines about Orde’s eyes deepened, his eyes twinkled with mischief, and he thrust forth his hand for the second time. “Shake again!” he offered. Amy gurgled forth a little chuckle of good feeling and understanding, and laid her fingers in his huge palm.
After this they turned and walked slowly to the hitch rails where the men tied their horses.
“Where’s the Supervisor?” Bob asked of Amy.
“In the office,” she replied; and then burst out excitedly: “I’ve the greatest news!”
“So have I,” returned Bob, promptly. “Best kind.”
“Oh, what is it?” she cried, forgetting all about her own. “Is it Mr. Welton?”
“It’ll take some time to tell mine,” said Bob, “and we must hunt up Mr. Thorne. Yours first.”
“Pollock is free!”
“Pollock free!” echoed Bob. “How is that? I thought his trial was not until next week!”
“The prosecuting attorney quashed the indictment–or whatever it is they do. Anyhow, he let George go for lack of evidence to convict.”
“I guess he was relying on evidence promised by Oldham, which he never got,” Bob surmised.
“And never will,” Orde cautioned them. “You two young people must be careful never to know anything of this.”
Bob opened his mouth to say something; was suddenly struck by a thought, and closed it again.
“Why do you say that?” he asked at last. “Why do you think Miss Thorne must know of this?”
But Orde only smiled amusedly beneath his white moustache.
They found Ashley Thorne, and acquainted him with the whole situation. He listened thoughtfully.
“The matter is over our heads, of course; but we must do our best. Of course, by all rights the man ought to be indicted; but there can be no question that there is a common sense that takes the substance of victory and lets the shadow go.”
Orde stayed to supper and over night. In the course of the evening California John drifted in, and Ware, and Jack Pollock, and such other of the rangers as happened to be in from the Forest. Orde was at his best; and ended, to Bob’s vast pride, in getting himself well liked by these conservative and quietly critical men of the mountains.
The next morning Bob and his father saddled their horses and started early for the mill, Bob having been granted a short leave of absence. For some distance they rode in silence.
“Father,” said Bob, “why did you stop me from contradicting Baker the other day when he jumped to the conclusion that I was going to quit the Service?”
“I think you are.”
“But–“
“Only if you want to, Bob. I don’t want to force you in any way; but both Welton and I are getting old, and we need younger blood. We’d rather have you.” Bob shook his head. “I know what you mean, and I realize how you feel about the whole matter. Perhaps you are right. I have nothing to say against conservation and forestry methods theoretically. They are absolutely correct. I agree that the forests should be cut for future growths, and left so that fire cannot get through them; but it is a grave question in my mind whether, as yet, it can be done.”
“But it is being done!” cried Bob. “There is no difficulty in doing it.”
“That’s for you to prove, if you want to,” said Orde. “If you care to resign from the Service, we will for two years give you full swing with our timber, to cut and log according to your ideas–or rather the ideas of those over you. In that time you can prove your point, or fail. Personally,” he repeated, “I have grave doubts as to whether it can be done at present; it will be in the future of course.”
“Why, what do you mean?” asked Bob. “It is being done every day! There’s nothing complicated about it. It’s just a question of cutting and piling the tops, and–“
“I know the methods advocated,” broke in Orde. “But it is not being done except on Government holdings where conditions as to taxation, situation and a hundred other things are not like those of private holdings; or on private holdings on an experimental scale, or in conjunction with older methods. The case has not been proved on a large private tract. Now is your chance so to prove it.”
Bob’s face was grave.
“That means a pretty complete about-face for me, sir,” said he. “I fought this all out with myself some years back. I feel that I have fitted myself into the one thing that is worth while for me.”
“I know,” said Orde. “Don’t hurry. Think it over. Take advice. I have a notion you’ll find this–if its handled right, and works out right–will come to much the same thing.”
He rode along in silence for some moments.
“I want to be fair,” he resumed at last, “and do not desire to get you in this on mistaken premises. This will not be a case of experiment, of plaything, but of business. However desirable a commercial theory may be, if it’s commercial, _it must pay_! It’s not enough if you don’t lose money; or even if you succeed in coming out a little ahead. You must make it pay on a commercial basis, or else it’s as worthless in the business world as so much moonshine. That is not sordid; it is simply common sense. We all agree that it would be better to cut our forests for the future; but _can it be done under present conditions?_”
“There is no question of that,” said Bob confidently.
“There is quite a question of it among some of us old fogies, Bobby,” stated Orde good-humouredly. “I suppose we’re stupid and behind the times; but we’ve been brought up in a hard school. We are beyond the age when we originate much, perhaps; but we’re willing to be shown.”
He held up his hand, checking over his fingers as he talked.
“Here’s the whole proposition,” said he. “You can consider it. Welton and I will turn over the whole works to you, lock, stock and barrel, for two years. You know the practical side of the business as well as you ever will, and you’ve got a good head on you. At the end of that time, turn in your balance sheet. We’ll see how you come out, and how much it costs a thousand feet to do these things outside the schoolroom.”
“If I took it up, I couldn’t make it pay quite as well as by present methods,” Bob warned.
“Of course not. Any reasonable man would expect to spend something by way of insurance for the future. But the point is, the operations must pay. Think it over!”
They emerged into the mill clearing. Welton rolled out to greet them, his honest red face aglow with pleasure over greeting again his old friend. They pounded each other on the back, and uttered much facetious and affectionate abuse. Bob left them cursing each other heartily, broad grins illuminating their weatherbeaten faces.
XL
Bob’s obvious course was to talk the whole matter over with his superior officer, and that is exactly what he intended to do. Instead, he hunted up Amy. He justified this course by the rather sophistical reflection that in her he would encounter the most positive force to the contrary of the proposition he had just received. Amy stood first, last and all the time for the Service; her heart was wholly in its cause. In her opinion he would gain the advantage of a direct antithesis to the ideas propounded by his father. This appeared to Bob an eminently just arrangement, but failed to account for a certain rather breathless excitement as he caught sight of Amy’s sleek head bending over a pan of peas.
“Amy,” said he, dropping down at her feet, “I want your advice.”
She let fall her hands and looked at him with the refreshing directness peculiarly her own.
“Father wants me to take charge of the Wolverine Company’s operations,” he began.
“Well?” she urged him after a pause.
“What do you think of it?”
“I thought you had worked that all out for yourself some time ago.”
“I had. But father and Mr. Welton are getting a little too old to handle such a proposition, and they are looking to me–” he paused.
“That situation is no different than it has been,” she suggested. “What else?”
Bob laughed.
“You see through me very easily, don’t you? Well, the situation is changed. I’m being bribed.”
“Bribed!” Amy cried, throwing her head back.
“Extra inducements offered. They make it hard for me to refuse, without seeming positively brutal. They offer me complete charge–to do as I want. I can run the works absolutely according to my own ideas. Don’t you see how I am going to hurt them when I refuse under such circumstances?”
“Refuse!” cried Amy. “Refuse! What do you mean!”
“Do you think I ought to leave the Service?” stammered Bob blankly.
“Why, it’s the best chance the Service has ever had!” said Amy, the words fairly tumbling over one another. “You must never dream of refusing. It’s your chance–it’s our chance. It’s the one thing we’ve lacked, the opportunity of showing lumbermen everywhere that the thing can be made to pay. It’s the one thing we’ve lacked. Oh, _what_ a chance!”
“But–but,” objected Bob–“it means giving up the Service–after these years–and all the wide interests–and the work—-“
“You must take it,” she swept him away, “and you must do it with all your power and all the ability that is in you. You must devote yourself to one idea–make money, make it pay!”
“This from you,” said Bob sadly.
“Oh, I am so _glad_!” cried Amy. “Your father is a dear! it’s the one fear that has haunted me–lest some visionary incompetent should attempt it, and should fail dismally, and all the great world of business should visit our methods with the scorn due only his incompetence. It was our great danger! And now it is no longer a danger! You can do it, Bob; you have the knowledge and the ability and the energy–and you must have the enthusiasm. Can’t you see it? You _must!_”
She leaned over, her eyes shining with the excitement of her thought, to shake him by both shoulders. The pan of peas promptly deluged him. They both laughed.
“I’d never looked at it that way,” Bob confessed.
“It’s the only way to look at it.”
“Why!” cried Bob, in the sudden illumination of a new idea. “The more money I make, the more good I’ll do–that’s a brand new idea for you!”
He rose to his feet, slowly, and stood for a moment lost in thought. Then he looked down at her, a fresh admiration shining in his eyes.
“Yours is the inspiration and the insight–as always,” he said humbly. “It has always been so. I have seemed to myself to have blundered and stumbled, groping for a way; and you have flown, swift as a shining arrow, straight to the mark.”
“No, no, no, no!” she disclaimed, coming close to him in the vigour of her denial. “You are unfair.”
She looked up into his face, and somehow in the earnestness of her disclaimer, the feminine soul of her rose to her eyes, so that again Bob saw the tender, appealing helplessness, and once more there arose to full tide in his breast the answering tenderness that would care for her and guard her from the rough jostling of the world. The warmth of her young body tingled in recollection along his arm, and then, strangely enough, without any other direct cause whatever, the tide rose higher to flood his soul. He drew her to him, crushing her to his breast. For an instant she yielded to him utterly; then drew away in a panic.
“My dear, my dear!” she half whispered; “not here!”
XLI
Bob rode home through the forest, singing at the top of his voice. When he met his father, near the lower meadow, he greeted the older man boisterously.
“That,” said Orde to him shrewdly, “sounds to me mighty like relief. Have you decided for or against?”
“For,” said Bob. “It’s a fine chance for me to do just what I’ve always wanted to do–to work hard at what interests me and satisfies me.”
“Go to it, then,” said Orde. “By the way, Bobby, how old are you now?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Well, you’re a year younger than I was when I started in with Newmark. You’re ahead of me there. But in other respects, my son, your father had a heap more sense; he got married, and he didn’t waste any time on it. How long have you been living around in range of that Thorne girl, anyway? Somebody ought to build a fire under you.”
Bob hesitated a moment; but he preferred that his good news should come to his father when Amy could be there, too.
“I’m glad you like her, father,” said he quietly.
Orde looked at his son, and his voice fell from its chaffing tone. “Good luck, boy,” said he, and leaned from his saddle to touch the young man on the shoulder.
They emerged into the clearing about the mill. Bob looked on the familiar scene with the new eyes of a great spiritual uplift. The yellow sawdust and the sawn lumber; the dark forest beyond; the bulk of the mill with its tall pines; the dazzling plume of steam against the very blue sky, all these appealed to him again with many voices, as they had years before in far-off Michigan. Once more he was back where his blood called him; but under conditions which his training and the spirit of the new times could approve. His heart exulted at the challenge to his young manhood.
As he rode by the store he caught sight within its depths of Merker methodically waiting on a stolid squaw.
“No more economic waste, Merker!” he could not forbear shouting; and then rocked in his saddle with laughter over the man’s look of slow surprise. “It’s his catchword,” he explained to Orde. “He’s a slow, queer old duck, but a mighty good sort for the place. There’s Post, in from the woods. He’s woods foreman. I expect I’ll have lively times with Post at first, getting him broken into new ways. But he’s a good sort, too.”
“Everybody’s a good sort to-day, aren’t they, son?” smiled Orde.
Welton met them, and expressed his satisfaction over the way everything had turned out.
“I’m going duck shooting for fair,” said he, “and I’m going fishing at Catalina. Out here,” he explained to Orde, “you sit in nice warm sun and let the ducks insult you into shooting at ’em! No freeze-your-fingers-and-break-the-ice early mornings! I’m willing to let the kid go it! He can’t bust me in two years, anyway.”
Later, when the two were alone together, he clapped Bob on the back and wished him success.
“I’m too old at the game to believe much in new methods to what I’ve been brought up to, Bob,” said he; “but I believe in you. If anybody can do it, you can; and I’d be tickled to see you win out. Things change; and a man is foolish to act as though they didn’t. He’s just got to keep playing along according to the rules of the game. And they keep changing, too. It’s good to have lived while they’re making a country. I’ve done it. You’re going to.”
THE END