All next day train-loads of logs came down from Camp One to be decked in Jim’s yard. Thirty-five thousand feet had been rolled off the first night and day; upward of forty thousand feet were added to it the second. It was enough to supply the saws for a week. Moran had made no visible move; no attempt to interfere with the men in the woods or with the running of trains had been made. This did not reassure Jim. Moran was not the man to be beaten so easily. He knew he would strike back—that the Clothespin Club would strike back—for Moran and the Club were as one in this war.
The blow came from the Club—one not altogether unlooked for. It was their logical move, but it would be costly to them. News of it came in telegrams from Jim’s agents, telling him that Welliver and Jenkins and Plum were offering clothespins at a further cut of ten per cent. in price.
Jim figured rapidly. He knew that now his mill was running efficiently, his crew of operators were trained, each machine was showing its production of seventy-five boxes of pins or better a day, he was making pins more cheaply than any other manufacturer in the country. He knew they could not make pins at such a price; that every box sold at such a figure represented a loss. It represented a loss to Jim of something like a cent and a half a box. Probably it meant from three to five cents to the Club. But they could stand it for a time. They had capital in reserve. Jim had none, or very little, to carry on an extended war. But fight he had to, whether he had the money or not.
Perhaps he could borrow more, but he very much doubted it. One resource he had—the option on old Louis Le Bar’s timber. That must be sold at once.
He determined to take the afternoon train to Grand Rapids to go over it in the big lumber offices. His immediate action was to wire his representatives generally to take no orders at the new price. To New York and Chicago he gave directions to sell one car-load each at a drop of five per cent. under the Club’s last figure. This would serve further to demoralize the markets in those centers and to compel the Club to protect its customers on the additional decline. It would cost Jim a few hundreds of dollars. How much more expensive it would be to the Club he did not know.
The morning found him in Grand Rapids. The lumbermen received him with suspicion. It was apparent they were aware of his existence, had expected his arrival. They were willing to talk, but not to deal. They knew the Le Bar tract, of course. It was desirable, but none of them cared to undertake it.
Their attitude was difficult to understand until one old gentleman bruskly informed Jim he did not care to spend his good money buying a lawsuit.
“Why a lawsuit?” Jim asked.
“We were tipped off to you, young man. From a dependable source we know there’s something wrong with that tract, and we’re taking no chances on it.”
“Have you investigated it? Will you investigate it?”
“No. It’s a desirable tract, but it’s not necessary. We can get along without it, and just now we’re too busy to go fooling round with a doubtful title.”
“You can easily investigate the title.”
“What’s the use? We know your option is disputed. We know we’d take on a lawsuit with it, and we don’t need any lawsuits.”
At last Jim understood. Moran had taken his steps, as he said he would. He had promised that Jim would be unable to dispose of his option, and had made good his promise. The task had been simple. He had notified all possible buyers that he would contest Jim’s option; that he claimed some lien or title. Jim knew when he came face to face with the impassable. He put his option in his pocket and returned to Diversity.
Neither magazine nor newspaper could hold his attention on the train. His mind could not be made to forget the weight that lay upon it; his heart could not be numbed to pain by anaesthetic. Jim was young. Suffering was new to him, and experience had not showed him how best to endure it.
It was not the ruin that hung over his business that clouded with anguish the eyes he fixed on the scudding landscape. It was not the knowledge that he was in a corner, fighting for his financial life with his back to the wall. It was Marie—only Marie. Youth can look forward to the building of another fortune; the losses of to-day will be wiped out in the gains of to-morrow. But when love crashes down in sordid ruin there is no to-morrow. Youth cannot see that the unguent of time will close the wound; it can see only that hope, the sweet anticipations which make of the future a magical realm almost within the grasp of the extending hand, has been swept away beyond recall.
Marie was not true, steadfast, as he had believed; her soul did not shine clearly, purely, with the guiding light he thought he had seen. Marie, the wonderful, the womanly, was erased from the picture; replaced by one sordid, despicable, treacherous even. Perhaps the bitterest pain is rending asunder of the trust of youth.
What remained? Work, feverish exertion, the comfort of facing an antagonist, of straining breast to breast with him.
At the junction Jim changed to the Diversity railroad. In the smoker when he entered was a sprinkling of Diversity folk, who, as the train got in motion, edged together to talk politics. Politics in Diversity was a topic of conversation as it had not been for twenty years. Zaanan Frame had taken the zest from it. He had been the county’s politics so long. In the eyes of the inhabitants the present condition assumed almost the importance of a revolution.
“Zaanan’s beat, and he knows it,” was an opinion boldly expressed. “He hain’t even makin’ a fight for it. Calc’late he’s too old.”
“Calc’late,” replied a gesticulating individual, “he’s plum disgusted. Who’s the best friend Diversity folks has had, eh? Zaanan Frame; that’s who. And now, because a dollar for a vote is easy money to earn, men that ought to think shame is turnin’ against him. It hain’t that he can’t fight. Don’t git sich an idee into your head. It’s that he’s too disgusted to fight.”
“He’s run things long enough. Nobody kin call his soul his own. He comes perty clost to sayin’ who shall marry who, and which kind of a baby they’ll have after they’re married. We hain’t goin’ to stand that kind of thing much longer. No, sir; we’re a-goin’ to run our own affairs like we want to—”
“You’re a-goin’ to swap Zaanan Frame for Michael Moran, that’s what you’re goin’ to do—and you’re welcome to your bargain. Wait till Moran gits the power Zaanan’s got now. See how he uses it. Has any feller here got a word to say ag’in Zaanan’s honesty? Eh?”
Nobody replied.
“Kin anybody here lay his hand on a wrong Zaanan’s done? Kin anybody p’int to a case in court that hain’t come out as near fair and just as human men kin make it? No, you can’t. But wait. Why d’you calc’late Moran is reachin’ out for Zaanan’s place? It’s so he can chase the law out and put Mike Moran’s will in. That’s why. It’s so he kin make of Diversity what Quartus Hembly made of Owasco a few years back. He’ll rob you and git his courts to back him up; there’ll be wrongs done and nobody punished. Diversity is run by Zaanan Frame because we’ve turned over the job to him. But it’s run like an American town. Moran’ll run it like a town in Roosian Siberier. Mark me!”
“I call to mind the times ’fore Zaanan got his office first,” piped up a toothless octogenarian. “Diversity and Hell was first cousins. Sich things as I’ve seen! Wa-al, Zaanan he turned to, and ’twa’n’t long ’fore there wa’n’t a quieter, better-behaved town in the timber. He’s deserved a heap of this town.”
“He’s gone too far. Kind of figgers he’s king, or somethin’ like that. We hain’t goin’ to stand for it no more.”
“Go ahead,” squeaked the old man; “whatever you git is comin’ to you. ’Twon’t be a year ’fore you’re on your knees prayin’ for Zaanan Frame to come back, and it’ll be too late, ’cause this Moran’ll have the power and nobody’ll git it away from him.”
“Zaanan’s beat,” repeated the first speaker.
“Looks so,” admitted the old man; “but money done it. Votes has been bought, lies has been told. He hain’t beat fair.”
Jim was interested in spite of himself. Here was a fight, one more fight for him to get into. He, clearer than these men, saw what it would mean to the town and county for Moran to become its dictator. He welcomed another task; it would coax his mind away from Marie. If the new task was also a high duty of citizenship it was so much the more welcome. He sat erect in his seat; again he was Sudden Jim. He addressed the men within hearing.
“Zaanan Frame isn’t beaten,” he said. “Maybe he won’t fight for himself, but there are folks who will fight for him, and I’m one of them. The time’s short, but, you men who are against him, take this thought away with you: If you’ve taken money for your votes or influence, begin to worry. If there has been crookedness you may carry word from me to the man who is to blame for it that he shall answer for his crookedness. The time’s short, as I said, but a lot of fighting can be done in a short time. It isn’t too late.”
“And you’re some fighter, Mr. Ashe,” grinned a little Irishman. “When you come into the car I says to my friend, says I, ‘There’s an illigant lad wid knuckles to his fists.’”
“Thanks, O’Toole. Tell the boys I’m against the man who robs his woodsmen in the wanigans. Tell them I’m against the man who would steal away their chance to get justice. Tell them I know Zaanan Frame is their best friend, and beg them to vote for him.”
“Have no worries about the b’ys wid corked boots,” said O’Toole. “Think ye we don’t know Mike Moran?”
“But Zaanan won’t help himself,” said the old man.
“I’ll see Zaanan the minute we get to town,” promised Jim.
He kept his word. From the train he walked straight to Zaanan’s office. Dolf Springer sat on the door-step, his head hunched down between his shoulders, a very picture of disconsolation. He scarcely looked up as Jim passed him.
Zaanan, as always in his leisure moments, was reading Tiffany’sJustices’ Guide. Jim fancied that the old man’s figure was less erect than formerly, that it drooped with discouragement, with disappointment over the crumbling of the work of his life. Jim could mark on Zaanan’s face the effects of the blow he had received when it became plain his people were turning against him. To realize their ingratitude, how little they appreciated the expenditure of his life in their behalf, must have grieved the old justice sorely.
He greeted Jim with his usual brief phrase, “Howdy?”
“Judge,” said Jim, breaking impetuously into the subject of his coming, wasting no time in preliminaries, “we’ve got to get up and stir ourselves.”
“Um! What’s been happenin’ to you now? Worried ’cause you couldn’t sell your option?”
Jim was a bit startled at Zaanan’s knowledge of the failure of his errand, but brushed aside his curiosity to know how the old justice came by his information.
“It’s not myself I’m worrying about; it’s you, Judge, and Diversity. Even your friends admit you’re beaten. They say you admit it yourself. They think you’re too old to get out and fight.”
“Heard me admittin’ I was beat, Jim, eh? Heard me sayin’ any sich thing?”
“No.”
“Think I’m too old, Jim, eh? Past my usefulness?”
“You’re the best man of all of us. That’s why—”
Zaanan’s eyes twinkled for a moment, then he bent his head in an attitude of weariness, “Folks is tired of me, Jim. They calc’late I’ve outstayed my welcome. Noticed that, Jim, eh?”
“They’ve been bamboozled into thinking it, or paid to think it.”
“But they think it, all the same. Any reason I shouldn’t give ’em a chance to run their logs without me? See why I shouldn’t git a minnit’s peace and quiet at the tail end of my life, eh? Specially when folks is anxious I should?”
“Yes, Judge, I do see a reason. These are your people. You’ve made them what they are. You’ve looked after them for years and, maybe, because you’ve looked after them so thoroughly and well, they are less able to look after themselves than they should be. You’re responsible for them. Nobody but you can save them and this town from passing into a condition that will be intolerable. You aren’t entitled to rest. You’ve got to get into this fight—and win.”
“Perty late, hain’t it, Jim? Perty late in the day?”
“We’ll just have to work that much harder.”
“Dun’no’s I kin agree with you, Jim. Seems to me time’s too short. Maybe I should ’a’ fought, but there wa’n’t much encouragement. Folks was flockin’ to Peleg. Shouldn’t wonder if a dose of Peleg ’u’d be the thing to cure ’em.”
“You mustn’t leave them in the lurch. It’s natural you should feel hard against them, but they-they’ve been fooled. It’s not their fault.”
“Somehow, Jim, I don’t feel as able to undertake things as I did once.” Zaanan’s voice was weary, old. “Looks to me like it would be wastin’ time to stir things up now. Calc’late I’m done for, Jim.”
“All your friends haven’t left you. But they need you to lead them. They don’t know what to do.”
“There hain’t nothin’ to do, Jim, against Moran and all his money.”
“But won’t you come out and try? Go down fighting, anyhow.”
“Hain’t no occasion for it, Jim. Better save up what strength I’ve got left. No use wastin’ it in vain efforts.”
A surge of sympathy for the old man welled up in Jim. Sitting there in the latter end of his days, deserted by friends, abandoned by those for whom he had striven for a score of years, he could not be contemplated unmoved. In his discouragement he was pitiful indeed.
“Judge,” Jim said, impulsively, “I wish I could drop everything and jump into this thing for you. I can’t do that, but I can do something. Until caucus day I’m going to give every possible minute to this election, whether you help or not.”
“Much obleeged,” said Zaanan, without enthusiasm. “What’s your special int’rest in this thing, eh? Seems to me like you was consid’able wrought up over it.”
Jim hesitated.
What was his interest? Was it merely hatred for Moran, or was it something worthier? He paused to search his soul for the answer.
“Before my father induced me to take over this business I had other plans. I had been a newspaper man in the city. I had seen things, and it seemed to me that there was room for somebody who wanted to help. The people—the people at the bottom of the heap—need help, Judge. They don’t belong. They pay their dues in money or labor, but they’re not members. They have none of the privileges. Perhaps they aren’t entitled to the privileges; perhaps they wouldn’t know what to do with them if they got them, but they’re entitled to something. Our Declaration of Independence says something about all men being born free and equal. In theory that may be true. In practice only those are free and equal who are strong enough to force others to recognize their freedom and equality. I wanted to do something—one man could do only a little—toward helping the bottom of the heap out from under to where the weight of the top of the heap wouldn’t crush them.”
“Um! One of them newfangled socialists, eh?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know just what a socialist is, but if what I’ve said makes me one, then I’m guilty of the charge.”
“Hain’t jest normal for a feller employin’ men and women like you do.”
“That is one of the things that moved me to accept father’s proposition when he turned things over to me. I could do my small part here. I could at least see that my bottom-heapers got a fair trade from me, who was their top-heaper. And I guess that’s why I’m interested in this election. You’ve kept things spread out so the bottom was not smashed by the top. Moran wants to take your place so he can crush the bottom as he wants to.”
“Um! No pers’nal spite?”
Jim flushed.
“I hate Moran.”
“Not astonished to hear it. Now, abandonin’ the election for a minute and takin’ up your affairs: I bought me a couple shares in the Diversity Hardwood Company t’other day. Had the chance. Thought maybe you’d be wantin’ to take ’em off my hands. Figgered you might find a use for ’em. Think you kin, eh? Annual meetin’ of that corporation comes day follerin’ caucus. Better git them shares properly transferred on the company’s books right off. Here they be.”
“But—” began Jim.
“Hain’t I said them shares might come in handy? Paid two hundred dollars for ’em. Gimme check.”
Zaanan’s methods were now more or less familiar to Jim. He knew the justice would not have bought this stock for him without some good reason. He scented some plan that Zaanan was working out.
“All right, Judge.”
“Git that transfer made right off.”
“Without fail,” said Jim.
“G’-by, Jim.”
“Good afternoon, Judge. But I wish you—”
“G’-by, Jim,” repeated Zaanan, with a convincing tone of finality.
From that day for the week that remained before the caucus Jim talked, argued, pleaded with the voters of Diversity. He even essayed public speaking; hired the local opera-house for the purpose, and there publicly denounced Peleg Goodwin as Moran’s cat’s-paw; publicly excoriated Moran. But he came to perceive his was a hopeless task.
He could not arouse the people. Zaanan himself might have stirred them, but no stranger could. Especially no stranger could stir them to fight for Zaanan when Zaanan himself acknowledged defeat.
Some there were who fought shoulder to shoulder with Jim. Dolf Springer did what was in him, and when he saw the futility of it his watery eyes grew more watery still. Dolf was faithful; Zaanan was his great man. His faith in the goodness of God was shaken.
Moran did not abate his exertions. He himself, his agents, his hirelings, traversed the township, the county. Ceaselessly they worked, and tirelessly, efficiently. Their faces wore no looks of discouragement; their bearing was jaunty. Any man with half a political eye could see the victory was theirs. On the eve of the caucus Jim grudgingly admitted it, too.
That night—the hour was not quite nine—the young man who was Grierson’s assistant in the bookkeeping realm—his name was Newell—rushed up to Jim on the hotel piazza. Obviously he was in a state of high excitement.
“Mr. Ashe! Mr. Ashe!” he panted.
Jim drew him aside.
“What is it, Newell?” he asked.
“Crab Creek Trestle, Mr. Ashe. They’re going to burn it to-night, so you can’t get any more logs.”
“How do you know? Who told you?”
“I don’t know the man—tall, carried a gun under his arm.”
“Gilders,” said Jim to himself. It was sufficient verification for him if the warning came from that man. “All right, Newell. Go along about your business and keep your mouth shut.”
Jim did not pause to determine the best course to follow. For him there was but one course—instant action. Without halt, without plan, without aid, he set out for Crab Creek. It was a trip to be taken afoot. No road led to the spot. Jim made for the railroad, sped down it toward the threatened spot.
Marie Ducharme was expecting Michael Moran. He had sent word he would see her that evening, and she, her heart numbed by the blow it had received, was inclined to welcome him. Her mood was one of recklessness, bred and nurtured by days and nights of brooding over the injustice of which she was the victim. She had spent her night of agony and struggle; had come down from the moonlit knoll strengthened, lifted up by a surrender to love, exalted by victory won over sordid temptations. She had come down with soul renewed, purified, with fresh aspirations, with tender hopes, with a sort of pitiful pride. The gates of her heart had not been opened to the love that gained admittance. She had heard it clamoring without, had striven to exclude it; but it had won past her barriers. Once within, she had fought with it, opposed it with all the strength of her will. When her capitulation came it was complete. And Jim Ashe’s cruel accusation had been its reward.
Her moment of hysteria in the garden passed, gave place to sullenness, to dull, throbbing pain, to revolt. At first there had been amazed grief, terror, unbelief in the possibility of such a thing. It would not be true. Such a thing could not happen to her. Realization followed. That it had happened was past denial. In her supreme moment, her moment of confession to Jim, he had rejected her love, responded to it with scorn. She had laid low her pride for his sake, and he had trampled on it. There were moments when she fancied she hated him. These moments recurred more frequently. Grief gave way to anger. He had prated of love, of the trust, the beauty of love, and at the first shadow his love had not been trustful. He had denied her a hearing, condemned her before she could make defense; and as she had come to understand love, defenses were abhorrent to it. His heart, his instinct, should have held him steadfast in his faith. It had failed, so his love had failed. Then love was not what she had come to believe.
She had told Jim her love would be a fiery thing, jealous, demanding. She had seen it so; but now she knew love was not of that warp and woof. The joy of love was in service, in surrender. It lay not in compelling service of its object, but in rendering service to him. In that spirit she had gone to Jim; and how had he received her?
So she believed she hated him. Also, as she tried to peer ahead, she saw a future without peace, troubled, dark. If it were to be so, what was the use of further struggle? In the old days she had contemplated without abhorrence a deliberate choice of the lower course. Now she fondled the suggestion. If that way had pleasure, life, joys, no matter how spurious, why should she not take them? Life owed her something. Hitherto it had withheld; latterly it had ruthlessly heaped woe upon her. Why not reach out and seize whatever the world had to give? It would entail pain, perhaps. But would that be harder to bear than what lay ahead if she held steadfast in the course she had chosen? Love had come—and gone. It would not renew its coming. Such was her judgment.
Moran came, sat beside her. He was agitated, not wholly by his feeling for her, but by rage, jealousy, vindictiveness which he burned to vent on Jim Ashe. When he spoke, that gentler note which he had used in talking to her on former occasions was absent from his voice; it was harsh, strained. Marie sat numb, silent, shivering a trifle. She was conscious of a physical repulsion for the man; conscious she would be compelled to pay a price exorbitant for the toys she hoped to buy.
“Marie,” said Moran, “you’ve dallied with me. You’ve held me off. You’ve pretended not to understand me when I knew you understood, when it was plain you did understand. And I’ve been patient—because a man must be a fool when he deals with women. You’re no child. You know what you want. You know I can give it to you. When are you going to make up your mind?”
“When I am ready to make up my mind. When I know what I want.”
“You know now. It’s just the infernal woman in you that wants to toy with a man. I’m no man to be toyed with—past a safe point. I’d have been contented to play your game a little longer if it hadn’t been for old Frame’s meddling.”
“Judge Frame? What meddling?”
Moran shrugged his shoulders angrily.
“Don’t talk as if you thought I was an imbecile. What meddling? Don’t you suppose I knew why old Frame sent that man Ashe here?” At mention of Jim’s name Marie winced.
“Why did Judge Frame—”
“To marry you,” said Moran, his tone brutal as a blow. “And you knew it. You’ve been playing Ashe against me—to see which of us you could get the most from. You’ve landed Ashe high and dry—anybody can see that. It’s my business to see Ashe doesn’t land you.”
Jealousy showed there. Marie flinched as though Moran touched an exposed nerve.
“I hate him! I hate him!” she cried.
“Hate him or love him, it don’t matter. He sha’n’t have you. I’ve fixed that. After to-night—to-morrow—you won’t want him if you want him now. Maybe you hate him. I’m not fool enough to believe it because you say so. It don’t matter. I don’t care who you love or hate, so long as I have you. I’d have smashed him, anyhow. That was business. But he’s shoved in between you and me, and I’ll smash him and stamp on him. It’s as good as done. And Frame—he’ll be disposed of to-morrow.” His voice was rising, becoming shrill as he fanned his passion.
Marie felt the stirring of some emotion within her. It was apprehension, fear. Even in that moment she could scrutinize it as something outside herself, wonder at it. Why was she apprehensive? She was not afraid for herself. For whom was she afraid? She must be afraid for Jim Ashe, for he was the threatened man. It was unbelievable. She told herself she did not, could not, care what befell Jim Ashe. She hated him, despised him.
“You may as well cast Ashe out of your reckoning,” Moran went on. “There’ll be nothing to reckon on. I know what you want—money. Money to buy excitement, movement, money to throw away, money to buy for you everything Diversity can’t give. I know. Well, Ashe will have trouble giving you a decent meal in another twenty-four hours.”
“I do hate him!” Marie said, aloud, but to herself. “I do! I do!”
“Then you’ll be glad to hear his stay in Diversity is coming to a sudden end.”
Here was a threat which it seemed to her touched Jim’s own person, his safety. Marie uttered a scarce audible gasp. “Jim?” she whispered. “No.... No.... Not that. Not Jim.” In that instant she knew her fear was for Jim, a living, chilling fear. If fear lived, then love must live, too. She did not hate him; she had lied to herself, deceived herself. No matter how he had wronged her, no matter how he had judged her, she loved him. And she was glad, glad, for it rekindled her faith in human love. Love should forgive all, suffer all. And she loved with such a love. It was good.
“I’m through waiting for your whims,” Moran said. “What I want I take. I’ve put him out of the way. I’ve made it necessary for you to come to me. To-morrow you’ll be told you aren’t needed here any more.”
“What?” said Marie.
“You’ll teach no more school in Diversity. You’ve hated it. Well, I saw to that.”
She did not know if what he said were fact or threat.
It did not matter. Moran had made his big mistake, for hers was not a will to brook threat. If more was needed to array her actively against him, he had contributed what was needed.
In the gloom of the porch he could not see the transformation that took place in her; could not see that a different woman sat opposite him—a woman alert, full of the wiles that from time immemorial have been the weapon of women, a woman to fear. The numbness that had clung to her, oppressed her—a heavy fog obscuring the world—was wafted away in an instant, as a fog on her own Lake Michigan dissipated, disappeared before morning breeze and morning sun. She sat there, not Marie Ducharme crushed, ready for any fate that promised a measure of kindliness, but Marie Ducharme with youth and love in her heart—youth and love, and fear for the man she loved.
And there was something else. There was the will to fight for the love that was hers; the will to win again what she had lost. It was not right, fair, that she should lose. It was error. She did not even blame Jim now. She was given to see that the words he had spoken to her lacerated his own heart more than they lacerated hers. Opposite Michael Moran sat Marie Ducharme, fighting with all the force and the gifts that were in her for the man she loved.
She moved forward in her chair, leaned a little toward Moran.
“You—you have a will,” she said.
Moran saw her weakening. It had been a perfect thing, not too apparent, convincing.
“You’re through backing and filling,” he said, stating it as a fact, not asking it as a question.
“And you’re sure—sure you can do what you say, to him?”
He glanced at her quickly, astonished at the vindictiveness that cut through her words.
“What’s he been doing to you?” he asked, jocularly.
“Enough. No matter. He—he can’t avoid it? You know you can do as you say—crush him?”
“I wouldn’t care to have you get a spite against me, young lady. Yes, I’ve got him—so.” He closed his hand tightly. “It’s a matter of business, with you added to make it more interesting. I’m here to make money, and I’m going to make some of it out of Ashe—so much, in fact, that he won’t have any left. And that’s interesting to you, isn’t it? From now on he’s going to learn something about business.”
“But,” she said, “he’s had the best of you, hasn’t he?”
“He bragged of that, eh? I’ll admit he had more gumption than I figured on, but he’s gone his limit. I’m taking personal charge now. He’s in deep water, Marie. He’s up against a hard fight in his own line, bucking a combination. They’ve put prices down to where he loses money on every clothespin he makes.
“He’s in deep—borrowed money all over the shop, and no way to pay it. To-night will end his thrashing round. Can’t run without logs.”
“Yes,” Marie said, setting a thorn into Moran’s skin, “but he’s getting logs. Didn’t he take your logging-road away from you?”
“But he won’t run it any longer. You know where Crab Creek Trestle is? Well, the logs are all on the other side of it. And they’re going to stay there. The Diversity Hardwood Company is going to have the misfortune to lose its trestle by fire to-night. He’ll have to shut down. Then creditors will get worried. They’ll be down on him, but I’ll be there a little ahead.”
“How?” said Marie, breathlessly.
“I’m a director of the Diversity Bank,” he chuckled. “Ashe borrowed thirty thousand dollars of us, and gave a demand-note. You know what that is?”
“Yes.”
“To-morrow the note will be presented. He’ll have to raise that amount of money inside of three days—and he can’t do it. Oh, it won’t be long before a man named Michael Moran will be manufacturing clothespins with Ashe’s machinery.”
“But if you should fail about the trestle, if it shouldn’t burn, would he be able to beat you and keep his mill?”
Moran shrugged his shoulders.
“Possibly, but there’s no use thinking about that, The trestle is as good as gone.”
“Oh!” said Marie, and sank back in her chair.
It was so complete, so perfect. Jim was beaten. He had worked so hard, so faithfully; had builded such high hopes—to go down in ruin! Jim! And nothing she could do or say would stay the disaster, would postpone it an instant. She shivered, coughed.
“It’s cold. A moment while I get my shawl.”
She stepped into the house. Moran waited, warmed by a feeling of complete satisfaction. She was his; at last she had surrendered. And Ashe was in the hollow of his hand. Zaanan Frame, too, was beaten.
From first to last the thing had been handled efficiently, as an able business man should handle it. He leaned back and lighted a cigar.
For a few moments he puffed contentedly. Marie did not return. Presently he grew impatient. Another few minutes, and he leaped up to tramp the length of the porch.
Still she did not come. He stepped to the door and called:
“Marie! Marie! What’s keeping you all this time?”
There was no answer. He called again, went inside. Marie was not down-stairs. He called Mrs. Stickney. The widow answered from above.
“Is Marie up there?” Moran called.
“Hain’t seen her,” said the widow.
“Didn’t she just come up there?”
“Not unless she’s quieter’n a spook. Nobody’s passed my door.”
“Where is she, then?” He was in a rage now. “Where’s she gone to?”
“I hain’t no idee,” said the widow, sharply, “but if she’s where you don’t know where she is I calc’late I’m satisfied.”
Her door slammed. Moran stood an instant. The suspicion that had been germinating within him became certainty. The girl had played him like a fish. She was gone to warn Ashe.
He pulled his hat on furiously and ran—ran toward the hotel to intercept Marie.
Marie stopped, panting, at the hotel piazza. “Mr. Ashe?” she said. “Where’s Mr. Ashe?”
“Hain’t been gone more ’n couple of minutes. Feller, all excited up, stopped and says somethin’ to him, and off he goes like somebody was robbin’ his hen-house.”
She was too late! He was gone! Where? Marie guessed. Somebody else had warned him, and he was off for Crab Creek Trestle.
“Who was with him? Did he go alone?”
“Just up and rushed off like sixty. Didn’t wait for nothin’ or nobody.”
It was like him. Sudden Jim! He had not paused for help, but had plunged ahead alone. How futile it was! What could he do alone save rush into danger? Marie felt there was danger. A business matter Moran had called it, yet in the heart of the woods that might happen which could not be considered a business transaction. Jim might come upon Moran’s agents as they set their fire. What then? Would they pause to consider if here were business? Would Jim pause to think of business? No. There would be violence—and Jim alone.
There is a cave-dweller hidden in each of us. At some hour it will emerge, our varnish of civilization will peel from us, and we shall stand forth primitive, thinking, functioning as did the remote ancestors of the race. This was Marie’s hour. Her man was rushing into danger—and she was not with him.
She did not consider if her presence would help; if she could do better service otherwise. Her instinct was to be with him, to share what came to him. She would warn him, delay him, if possible. But that was not the chief thing. The foremost thought was to stand at his side, to feel his presence.
Unconscious of the stares of astonishment that followed her, the buzz of comment and surmise that remained behind, she followed the path Jim had taken, heading toward the railroad. But she did not follow the rails as Jim had done. She crossed the track and plunged into a marshy country, treacherous underfoot, grown thickly with undergrowth that tore at her garments, scratched her face. She was cutting across a curve in the railroad, hoping so to overtake Jim.
Now she floundered and fell, was up again to struggle forward. Her feet sank in marsh ooze; sometimes she waded stagnant water that gurgled above her shoe-tops. But she stopped for nothing. Another might have become confused in the blackness of the night, for the moon was hidden by clouds which promised storm, but Marie had traversed those woods again and again. She was the daughter of a lumberjack, and woodcraft was bred into the very fiber of her.
Once her ankle turned under her with a sickening pain; but she forced herself to rise and limp onward. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” she whispered to herself over and over again, unconscious that she was whispering. Her body was not inured to such endeavors, but her will was master of her body. When exhaustion would have brought her to the ground her will held her upright, gave her strength to flounder onward, always to the accompaniment of that hysterical whisper: “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
Her skirts, soggy with the slime of marsh pools, clung to her legs; her hair hung about her face, caught on projecting branches, to be torn loose ruthlessly. She seemed not to feel the pain of it. The flesh of her hands was lacerated; blood oozed from more than one abrasion upon her cheeks. She was unconscious of it. All of consciousness that remained was the knowledge that Jim Ashe was there ahead of her somewhere, going to his death, perhaps; that she could, must warn him, save him So she floundered on, with the whispered words “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” urging her ahead. Perhaps she heard the words; perhaps they helped to spur her on. There came a moment when she did hear them, but fancied they were spoken by another. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
It seemed as if she had been traveling so always, forcing her way through nightmare obstructions, encountering such vain labors as are only to be met with in vivid, horrible dreams. Then she tripped, fell, striking her shoulder against something hard, cold. She felt it with her hand, and cried aloud. It was the railroad! She had won to the railroad!
Was Jim ahead or behind? There was no time to study. Her mind was in no condition to reason; there was only the feverish urge that forced her on. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” She turned up the track, now trying pitifully to run, now wavering, staggering, but always persevering.
How black it was! She strained her eyes forward. He might be near, very near, yet she could not see him, and any moment her strength might fail.
She demanded yet another effort from the forces so near exhaustion. “Jim!” she cried, shrilly, wildly. “Jim! Jim! Wait, oh, wait!”
A hundred yards up the track Jim heard the cry, stopped, listened.
“Jim, wait!” It sounded more faintly. A woman’s voice, here, calling his name! There was but one woman in Diversity who had ever called him Jim.
In this moment, a moment he knew was weighted with danger to him, came her voice out of the black mystery that lay behind him. It was startling, unbelievable. He asked himself if much worry, much travail of heart, had not deranged some spring or cog in his imagination, so that he heard things which were not. If it really were Marie, what was she doing there? She had betrayed him once; was this another act in tune with her betrayal? He braced himself against a fresh danger, an unforeseen danger, and waited.
She tottered up to him out of the black blanket of night; tottered, hands fumbling before her, his name on her lips, his name and that other word which her will had set there so that it was repeated endlessly without volition: “Jim, hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
Her fingers touched him before she was aware of his presence; touched him, clung to him. She cried aloud, inarticulately. Panting, sobbing, she tried to speak, but only repeated over and over that one word: “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!”
He felt her fingers slipping from him, felt her body sagging, falling. His arm passed round her, sustaining her. Her head sank in the hollow of her arm and she sighed with weary contentment.
“Marie, what is it?”
“Hurry!” she muttered.
But he shook her, not roughly, but with boyish impatience, boyish alarm.
“No, no! Why are you here? What is the matter?”
Her mind cleared slowly; her will that had set on one determination, to reach him—set so it could not loose its hold—relaxed. She breathed deeply, pushed against him in an effort to stand free.
“Crab Creek Trestle,” she said. “He’s—going to burn it. He warned you—to get you—out here.”
His suspicion reared itself between them.
“How do you know? What are you doing here? Did he send you?”
She quivered, sobbed dryly—then she shoved him away.
“I know because he boasted of it. That—and other things. To-morrow that—note. The bank will make you pay it. He—said he—would be making clothespins—in your mill—”
“But you—why are you here? What do you want?”
She summoned her strength and her pride.
“It doesn’t—matter why—I am here. You must go back. You mustn’t go on.”
“So that’s it,” he said, bitterly. “He sent you to hold me back till they could do the work.”
He turned and began to stride away.
“No!” she cried. “You mustn’t go!”
“Go back to town, Marie,” he said, his voice quivering, not with wrath, but with pain. “Go back. I’m going on.”
“You mustn’t!” She took one tottering step toward him and sank until she was on her knees. He would not believe her. He would not be warned.
What she had suffered, the things she had just done, had been in vain.
“Go back,” he said, dully. “It isn’t safe out there. Go back.”
“It isn’t safe for you—foryou. It’s planned to have you come—alone.”
He moved away from her. She forced herself to rise.
“Then I’ll go with you,” she said.
“Go back!” he commanded.
“No,” she said, and tottered on.
He set his teeth, turned his face away from her, and went on, unmindful of her sobbing, gasping breaths. At one moment they saw a redness in the sky; saw the darkness ahead fluttering like a waved cloth.
“Fire,” Jim muttered, and began to run. He was too late—Crab Creek Trestle was in names!
As best she could Marie followed. He gained, but she did not falter, urged herself to her utmost. Ahead of them the trestle came into view, wreathed in flames, flames that leaped and writhed and strained upward as if seeking to be released from bonds that held them to earth. The trees and bushes about seemed to rise and fall with the swelling of the tongues of fire. In the midst the framework of the trestle stood black, stark, startlingly vivid.
For a moment Jim stood where bank and trestle met, stood undecided. There was nothing to do, yet he must do something, for it was his nature to do something. Nothing would save the trestle. He perceived that, though he hesitated to admit it. He saw that the work of incendiarism had been done efficiently; timbers had been well soaked with oil, and the match applied not in one spot but in scores of places. Except for a matter of thirty feet at the end where Jim stood the whole structure was flame-wrapped. From the very brook fire seemed to flow upward; here and there, twenty feet below, marsh grass burst into ruddy, living flower.
Without plan or reason Jim started forward upon the trestle, as if to plunge headlong into the dancing, undulating, seething mass of destruction and stifle it with his hands.
Marie, now at his side, clutched his arm to restrain him. He shook her off ungently, sprang forward. She kept at his side. Again he was forced to pause, shading his face from the heat that reached out to meet him. His eyes were for nothing but the fire; saw nothing aside from it.
Waves of heat surged against him, forced him to draw back, and the very action of retreating cleared his head, restored him to something resembling calm. Instinct, impulse withdrew, leaving intellect in command. He thought of his father. What he saw before him was his father’s—Clothespin Jimmy’s—life-work disappearing in flames. He had been given his father’s shoes. How had he filled them? The destruction of this trestle was the destruction of the Ashe Clothespin Company. He should have foreseen this danger, guarded against it adequately. In that he had failed.
Again Marie was at his side. “Come back,” she said. “You can do no good.”
He did not notice her, but stepped forward again, forcing himself against the heat. She clung to him.
“You can’t put it out,” she said again. “Come back out of danger.”
He turned on her, eyes flashing, jaw set.
“Put it out!” he said, harshly. “I’m not thinking about putting it out. It’s gone!” He was Sudden Jim now, not defeated, still fighting.
“Go back and tell Moran you left me figuring how to get logs from there to here. And tell him I’m going to do it. Tell him if he’d burned the woods I’d find some way to make logs out of the ashes.”
Presently he spoke again—to himself.
“I wish Nelson was here,” he said. He was trying to figure construction, needed his millwright’s advice.
In that moment Clothespin Jimmy might have felt satisfaction in his son, for young Jim had forgotten the blow just dealt him, had forgotten the fire that raged at his feet. His thoughts dealt only with the future. He wasted no moment in discouragement, though he might well have been discouraged. One thought he held: Logs must cross the gap before him. But how? His fingers doubled into determined fists.
“It can be done,” he said, “and I’ll find the way!”
An older woodsman than Jim, a man experienced in the handling of logs, would have shaken his head. Such a man would have seen the difficulties of the task; would have declared it impossible to haul timber across that swamp before winter.
Jim’s inexperience refused to be daunted.
His head was clear now; he was himself. Marie—she had been there. He turned upon her.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded, fiercely, but she was not upright before him. She lay upon the cross-ties, one arm dangling limply through, the garish light exaggerating the pallor of her face.
“Marie!” he whispered, hoarsely.
She did not stir or answer. Her endurance had been urged to the point of breakage, had given way. He was on his knees beside her, his heart gripped by fear, for he had never seen a woman faint. He lifted her. Her head lopped grotesquely to one side as he moved her, and this multiplied his fright. He had loved her, and she was dead. She had not been worth a man’s love; had been treacherous; had betrayed him; but he had given her all of his love. Her breast lifted laboriously. He was conscious of a feeling of relief, not of gladness. So this would not be the end of things between them. They would continue to inhabit the same world. To him it seemed the world was oversmall to house them both.
Whatever she had done, he could not leave her so. He strained until she lay partly across his shoulder—a weight it would have been joy for him to bear a few short hours before—and so, staggering under his burden, he strove toward Diversity.
Long miles lay between him and town; no help was nearer; no shelter for Marie. He found himself near the point of exhaustion. But he labored on.
After a length of time that seemed to have stretched into hours Jim was aware of the dark figure of a man standing between the tracks before him.
Somehow Jim was not interested in it, was not interested in anything save the effort to keep on his feet and make progress. The man spoke with a voice Jim knew but did not identify.
“Who are you?” Jim asked, in a whisper.
“Gilders,” said the man. “Here, I’ll take her. You carry my rifle. You’ve lugged her about as far as you can, hain’t you?”
“All of that,” Jim said, surrendering his burden and sitting down abruptly.
“Rest a bit,” said Gilders. “When you’re ready, say so. We’ll take her to my place—it’s nearer ’n Diversity.”
Presently Jim got to his feet.
“All right,” he said.
Gilders raised Marie without effort and strode away with her in his arms. Jim followed. At times Gilders waited to permit Jim to rest, for Jim could not equal the woodsman’s pace, indeed could not have sustained any pace at all without frequent stops.
That last tramp was a thing of vagueness to Jim. How long it was, how many minutes, hours, days it required to traverse the distance, he did not know. It was a hades of blackness and weariness and pain. At last they arrived at Gilders’s shanty. Steve laid Marie on his bed. Jim waited for no bed, but sank to the floor, and the night held no further consciousness for him.
Somehow Steve procured a neighbor woman who gave of her kindliness and skill to Marie, ministering, watching through the night. Steve let Jim lie as he had fallen. Sleep, he knew, would work its own reviving miracle.