The room was full of tobacco smoke, through which Peter dimly made out a table with an oil lamp, beside which were chairs, a sofa, and beyond, a steel safe between the windows. As Peter Nichols entered, a man advanced from a window at the side, the shutter of which was slightly ajar. It was evident that not content to leave his safety in the hands of those he had employed to preserve it, he had been watching too.
He was in his shirt sleeves, a man of medium height, compactly built, and well past the half century mark. The distinguishing features of his face were a short nose, a heavy thatch of brows, a square jaw which showed the need of the offices of a razor and his lips wore a short, square mustache somewhat stained by nicotine.
In point of eagerness the manner of his greeting of the newcomer left nothing to be desired. Peter's first impression was that Jonathan K. McGuire was quite able to look out for himself, which confirmed the impression that the inspection to which Peter had been subjected was nothing but a joke. But when his employer began speaking rather jerkily, Peter noticed that his hands were unsteady and that neither the muscles of his face nor of his body were under complete control. Normally, he would have seemed much as Sheldon, Senior, had described him—a hard-fisted man, a close bargainer who had won his way to his great wealth by the sheer force of a strong personality. There was little of softness in his face, little that was imaginative.This was not a man to be frightened at the Unseen or to see terrors that did not exist. Otherwise, to Peter he seemed commonplace to the last degree, of Irish extraction probably, the kind of person one meets daily on Broadway or on the Strand. In a fur coat he might have been taken for a banker; in tweeds, for a small tradesman; or in his shirt as Peter now saw him, the wristbands and collar somewhat soiled from perspiration, for a laboring man taking his rest after an arduous day. In other words, he was very much what his clothes would make of him, betraying his origins in a rather strident voice meant perhaps to conceal the true state of his mind.
"Glad to see you, Mr. Nichols. Thought you were never comin'," he jerked out.
"I walked most of the way from Pickerel River. Something went wrong, with the 'Lizzie.'"
"Oh—er—'Lizzie'. The flivver! I couldn't send my own car. I've got only one down here and I might need it."
"It doesn't matter in the least—since I'm here."
"Sit down, Mr. Nichols," went on McGuire indicating a chair. "You've been well recommended by Mr. Sheldon. I talked to him yesterday over long distance. He told you what I wanted?"
"Something. Not much," said Peter with a view to getting all the information possible. "You wanted a forester——?"
"Er—er—yes, that's it. A forester." And then he went on haltingly—"I've got about twenty thousand acres here—mostly scrub oak—pine and spruce. I've sold off a lot to the Government. A mess of it has been cut—there's been a lot of waste—and the fire season is coming around. That's the big job—the all-the-year job. You've had experience?"
"Yes—in Russia. I'm a trained woodsman."
"You're a good all-round man?"
"Exactly what——?" began Peter.
"You know how to look after yourself—to look after other men, to take charge of a considerable number of people in my employ?"
"Yes. I'm used to dealing with men."
"It's a big job, Mr. Nichols—a ticklish kind of a job for a furriner—one with some—er—unusual features—that may call for—er—a lot of tact. And—er—courage."
It seemed to Peter that Jonathan K. McGuire was talking almost at random, that the general topic of forestry was less near his heart to-night than the one that was uppermost in Peter's mind, the mystery that surrounded his employer and the agencies invoked to protect him. It seemed as if he were loath to speak of them, as if he were holding Peter off at arm's length, so to say, until he had fully made up his mind that this and no other man was the one he wanted, for all the while he was examining the visitor with burning, beady, gray eyes, as though trying to peer into his mind.
"I'm not afraid of a forester's job, no matter how big it is, if I have men enough," said Peter, still curious.
"And you're a pretty good man in a pinch, I mean——" he put in jerkily, "you're not easy scared—don't lose your nerve."
"I'll take my chances on that," replied Peter calmly. "I'm used to commanding men, in emergencies—if that's what you mean."
"Yes. That's what I mean. Er—you're an Englishman, Mr. Sheldon says."
"Er—yes," said Peter, "an Englishman," for this was the truth now more than ever before, and then repeated the story he had told in New York about his work in Russia. While Peter was talking, McGuire was pacing up and down the room with short nervous strides,nodding his head in understanding from time to time. When Peter paused he returned to his chair.
"You British are a pretty steady lot," said McGuire at last. "I think you'll do. I like the way you talk and I like your looks. Younger than I'd hoped maybe, but then you're strong—Mr. Sheldon says you're strong, Mr. Nichols."
"Oh, yes," said Peter, his curiosity now getting the better of him. "But it might be as well, Mr. McGuire, if you let me know just what, that is unusual, is to be required of me. I assume that you want me to take command of the men policing your grounds—and immediate property?"
"Er—yes. That will have to be put in shape at once—at once." He leaned suddenly forward in his chair, his hairy hands clutching at his knees, while he blurted out with a kind of relieved tension, "No one must come near the house at night. No one, you understand——"
"I understand, sir——" said Peter, waiting patiently for a revelation.
"There'll be no excuse if any one gets near the house without my permission," he snarled. And then almost sullenly again—"You understand?"
"Perfectly. That should not be difficult to——"
"It may be more difficult than you think," broke in McGuire, springing to his feet again, and jerking out his phrases with strange fury.
"Nothing is to be taken for granted. Nothing," he raged. Peter was silent for a moment, watching McGuire who had paced the length of the room and back.
"I understand, sir," he said at last. "But doesn't it seem to you that both I and the man under me could do our work with more intelligence if we knew just who or what is to be guarded against?" Mr. McGuire stopped beside him as though transfixed by the thought. Thenhis fingers clutched at the back of a chair to which he clung for a moment in silence, his brows beetling. And when he spoke all the breath of his body seemed concentrated in a hoarse whisper.
"You won't know that. You understand, I give the orders. You obey them. I am not a man who answers questions. Don't ask them."
"Oh, I beg your pardon. So long as this thing you fear is human——"
"Human! A ghost! Who said I was afraid? Sheldon? Let him think it. This ismybusiness. There are many things of value in this house," and he glanced towards the safe. "I'm using the right of any man to protect what belongs to him."
"I see," said Peter.
The man's tension relaxed as he realized Peter's coolness.
"Call it a fancy if you like, Mr. Nichols——" he said with a shrug. "A man of my age may have fancies when he can afford to gratify 'em."
"That's your affair," said Peter easily. "I take it then that the systematic policing of the grounds is the first thing I am to consider."
"Exactly. The systematic policing of the grounds—the dividing of your men into shifts for day and night work—more at night than in the day. Three more men come to-morrow. They will all look to you for orders."
"And who is in charge now?"
"A man named Wells—a native—the foreman from one of the sawmills—but he—er—well, Mr. Nichols—I'm not satisfied. That's why I wanted a man from outside."
"I understand. And will you give the necessary orders to him?"
"Wells was up here to-day, I told him."
"How many men are on guard here at the house?"
"Ten and with the three coming—that makes thirteen——" McGuire halted—"thirteen—but you make the fourteenth," he added.
Peter nodded. "And you wish me to take charge at once?"
"At once. To-night. To-morrow you can look over the ground more carefully. You'll sleep in the old playhouse—the log cabin—down by the creek. They'll show you. It's connected with this house by 'phone. I'll talk to you again to-morrow; you'd better go down and get something to eat."
McGuire went to the door and called out "Tillie!"
And as a faint reply was heard, "Get Mr. Nichols some supper."
Peter rose and offered his hand.
"I'll try to justify your faith in me, sir. Much obliged."
"Good-night."
Peter went down the stairs with mingled feelings. If the words of Beth Cameron had created in his mind a notion that the mystery surrounding Black Rock was supernatural in character, the interview with Jonathan K. McGuire had dispelled it. That McGuire was a very much frightened man was certain, but it seemed equally certain to Peter that what he feared was no ghost or banshee but the imminence of some human attack upon his person or possessions. Here was a practical man, who bore in every feature of his strongly-marked face the tokens of a successful struggle in a hard career, the beginnings of which could not have been any too fortunate. A westerner whose broad hands and twisted fingers spoke eloquently of manual labor, a man who still possessed to all appearances considerable physical strength—a prey tothe fear of some night danger which was too ominous even to be talked about.
It was the quality of his terror that was disturbing. Peter was well acquainted with the physical aspects of fear—that is the fear of violence and death. That kind of fear made men restless and nervous, or silent and preoccupied; or like liquor it accentuated their weaknesses of fiber in sullenness or bravado. But it did not make them furtive. He could not believe that it was the mere danger of death or physical violence that obsessed his employer. That sort of danger perhaps there might be, but the fear that he had seen in McGuire's fanatical gray eyes was born of something more than these. Whatever it was that McGuire feared, it reached further within—a threat which would destroy not his body alone, but something more vital even than that—the very spirit that lived within him.
Of his career, Peter knew nothing more than Sheldon, Senior, had told him—a successful man who told nothing of his business except to the Treasury Department, a silent man, with a passion for making money. What could he fear? Whom? What specter out of the past could conjure up the visions he had seen dancing between McGuire's eyes and his own?
These questions it seemed were not to be answered and Peter, as he sat down at the supper table, put them resolutely from his mind and addressed himself to the excellent meal provided by the housekeeper. For the present, at least, fortune smiled upon him. The terrors of his employer could not long prevail against the healthy appetite of six-and-twenty.
But it was not long before Peter discovered that the atmosphere of the room upstairs pervaded the dining room, library and halls. There were a cook and housemaid he discovered, neither of them visible. The housekeeper,if attentive, was silent, and the man who had opened the front door, who seemed to be a kind of general factotum, as well as personal bodyguard to Mr. McGuire, crept furtively about the house in an unquiet manner which would have been disturbing to the digestion of one less timorous than Peter.
Before the meal was finished this man came into the room and laid a police whistle, a large new revolver and a box of cartridges beside Peter's dish of strawberries.
"These are for you, sir," he whispered sepulchrally. "Mr. McGuire asked me to give them to you—for to-night."
"Thanks," said Peter, "and you——"
"I'm Stryker, sir, Mr. McGuire's valet."
"Oh!"
Peter's accent of surprise came from his inability to reconcile Stryker with the soiled shirt and the three days' growth of beard on the man upstairs, which more than ever testified to the disorder of his mental condition.
And as Stryker went out and his footsteps were heard no more, the housekeeper emerged cautiously from the pantry.
"Is everything all right, Mr. Nichols?" she asked in a stage whisper.
"Right as rain. Delicious! I'm very much obliged to you."
"I mean—er—there ain't anythin' else ye'd like?"
"Nothing, thanks," said Peter, taking up the revolver and breaking it. He had cut the cover of the cartridge box and had slipped a cartridge into the weapon when he heard the voice of the woman at his ear.
"D'ye think there's any danger, sir?" she whispered, while she nervously eyed the weapon.
"I'm sure I don't know. Not to you, I'd say," he muttered, still putting the cartridges in the pistol. Asan ex-military man, he was taking great delight in the perfect mechanism of his new weapon.
"What is it——? I mean, d'ye think——," she stammered, "did Mr. McGuire say—just what it is he's afraid of?"
"No," said Peter, "he didn't." And then with a grin, "Do you know?"
"No, sir. I wish t'God I did. Then there'd be somethin' to go by."
"I'm afraid I can't help you, Mrs.——"
"Tillie Bergen. I've been housekeeper here since the new wing was put on——"
"Oh, yes," said Peter, pausing over the last cartridge as the thought came to him. "Then you must be Beth Cameron's aunt?"
"Beth?" The woman's sober face wreathed in a lovely smile. "D'ye know Beth?"
"Since this afternoon. She showed me the way."
"Oh. Poor Beth."
"Poor!"
"Oh, we're all poor, Mr. Nichols. But Beth she's—different from the rest of us somehow."
"Yes, sheisdifferent," admitted Peter frankly.
Mrs. Bergen sighed deeply. "Ye don't know how different. And now that—all this trouble has come, I can't get home nights to her. And she can't come to see me without permission. How long d'ye think it will last, sir?"
"I don't know," said Peter, slipping the revolver and cartridges into his pockets. And then gallantly, "If I can offer you my services, I'd be glad to take you home at night——"
"It's against orders. And I wouldn't dare, Mr. Nichols. As it is I've got about as much as I can stand. If itwasn't for the money I wouldn't be stayin' in the house another hour."
"Perhaps things won't be so bad after a time. If anything is going to happen, it ought to be pretty soon."
She regarded him wistfully as he moved toward the door. "An' ye'll tell me, sir, if anything out o' the way happens."
"I hope nothing is going to happen, Mrs. Bergen," said Peter cheerfully.
Stryker appeared mysteriously from the darkness as Peter went out into the hall.
"The upstairs girl made up your bed down at the cabin, sir. The chauffeur took your bag over. You'll need these matches. If you'll wait, sir, I'll call Mr. Wells."
Peter wondered at the man in this most unconventional household, for Stryker, with all the prescience of a well-trained servant, had already decided that Peter belonged to a class accustomed to being waited on. Going to the door he blew one short blast on a police whistle, like Peter's, which he brought forth from his pocket.
"That will bring him, sir," he said. "If you'll go out on the portico, he'll join you in a moment."
Peter obeyed. The door was closed and fastened behind him and almost before he had taken his lungs full of the clean night air (for the house had been hot and stuffy), a shadow came slouching across the lawn in the moonlight. Peter joined the man at once and they walked around the house, while Peter questioned him as to the number of men and their disposition about the place. There were six, he found, including Wells, with six more to sleep in the stable, which was also used as a guardhouse. Peter made the rounds of the sentries. None of them seemed to be taking the matter any too seriously and one at least was sound asleep beneath somebushes. Peter foresaw difficulties. Under the leadership of Shad Wells the strategic points were not covered, and, had he wished, he could have found his way, by using the cover of shadow and shrubbery, to the portico without being observed. He pointed this out to Wells who, from a supercilious attitude, changed to one of defiance.
"You seem to think you know a lot, Mister?" he said. "I'd like to see ye try it."
Peter laughed.
"Very well. Take your posts and keep strict watch, but don't move. If I don't walk across the lawn from the house in half an hour I'll give you ten dollars. In return you can take a shot if you see me."
He thought the men needed the object lesson. Peter was an excellent "point." He disappeared into the woods behind him and making his way cautiously out, found a road, doubling to the other side of the garage along which he went on his hands and knees and crawling from shrub to shrub in the shadows reached the portico without detection. Here he lighted a fag and quietly strolled down to the spot where he had left Shad Wells, to whom he offered a cigarette by way of consolation. Wells took it grudgingly. But he took it, which was one point gained.
"Right smart, aren't ye?" said Shad.
"No," said Peter coolly. "Anybody could have done it,—in three ways. The other two ways are through the pine grove to the left and from the big sycamore by the stream."
"And how do you know all that?"
"I was in the Army," said Peter. "It's a business like anything else."
And he pointed out briefly where the five men should be stationed and why, and Shad, somewhat mollified by the cigarette, shrugged and agreed.
"We'll do sentry duty in the regular way," went on Peter cheerfully, "with a corporal of the guard and a countersign. I'll explain in detail to-morrow." And then to Shad, "I'll take command until midnight, when you'll go on with the other shift until four. I'll make it clear to the other men. The countersign is the word 'Purple.' You'd better go and turn in. I'll call you at twelve."
Peter watched the figure of the woodsman go ambling across the lawn in the direction of the garage and smiled. He also marked the vertical line of light which showed at a window on the second floor where another kept watch. The man called Jesse, the one who had been asleep beneath the bushes, and who, fully awake, had watched Peter's exhibition of scouting, now turned to Peter with a laugh.
"I guess you're right, Mister. S'long's we're paid. But I'd like to know just what this 'ere thing is the ol' man's skeered of."
"You know as much as I do. It will probably have two legs, two hands and a face and carry a gun. You'd better be sure you're not asleep when it comes. But if you care to know what I think, you can be pretty sure that it's coming—and before very long."
"To-night?"
"How do I know? Have a cigarette? You cover from the road to the big cedar tree; and keep your eyes open—especially in the shadows—and don't let anybody get you in the back."
And so making the rounds, instilling in their minds a sense of real emergency, Peter gave the men their new sentry posts and made friends. He had decided to stay up all night, but at twelve he called Shad Wells and went down to look over his cabin which was a quarter of a mile away from the house near Cedar Creek (or "Crick" inthe vernacular). The key was in the cabin door so he unlocked it and went in, and after striking a match found a kerosene lamp which he lighted and then looked about him.
The building had only one room but it was of large dimensions and contained a wooden bed with four posts, evidently some one's heirloom, a bureau, washstand, two tables and an easy chair or two. Behind the bed was a miscellaneous lot of rubbish, including a crib, a rocking horse, a velocipede, beside some smaller toys. Whom had these things belonged to? A grandson of McGuire's? And was the daughter of McGuire like her father, unlovely, soiled and terror-stricken? His desultory mental queries suddenly stopped as he raised his eyes to the far corner of the room, for there, covered with an old shawl, he made out the lines of a piano. He opened the keyboard and struck a chord. It wasn't so bad—a little tuning—he could do it himself....
So this was his new home! He had not yet had the time or the opportunity to learn what new difficulties were to face him on the morrow, but the personal affairs of his employer had piqued his interest and for the present he had done everything possible to insure his safety for the night. To-morrow perhaps he would learn something more about the causes of this situation. He would have an opportunity too to look over the property and make a report as to its possibilities. To a man inured as Peter was to disappointments, what he had found was good. He had made up his mind to fit himself soldierlike into his new situation and he had to admit now that he liked the prospect. As though to compensate for past mischief, Fate had provided him with the one employment in the new land for which he was best suited by training and inclination. It was the one "job" in which, if he werepermitted a fair amount of freedom of action and initiative, he was sure that he could "make good." The trees he could see were not the stately pines of Zukovo, but they were pines, and the breeze which floated in to him through the cabin door was laden with familiar odors.
The bed looked inviting, but he resolutely turned his back to it and unpacked his suitcase, taking off his tailor-made clothing and putting on the flannel shirt, corduroy trousers and heavy laced boots, all of which he had bought before leaving New York. Then he went to the doorway and stood looking out into the night.
The moonbeams had laid a patine of silver upon the floor of the small clearing before the door, and played softly among the shadows. So silent was the night that minute distant sounds were clearly audible—the stream seemed to be tinkling just at his elbow, while much farther away there was a low murmur of falling water at the tumbling dam, mingling with the sighs of vagrant airs among the crowns of the trees, the rustle and creak of dry branches, the whispering of leaf to leaf. Wakeful birds deceived by the moon piped softly and were silent. An owl called. And then for the briefest moment, except for the stream, utter silence.
Peter strode forth, bathed himself in the moonlight and drank deep of the airs of the forest. America! He had chosen! Her youth called to his. He wanted to forget everything that had gone before, the horrors through which he had passed, both physical and spiritual,—the dying struggles of the senile nation, born in intolerance, grown in ignorance and stupidity which, with a mad gesture, had cast him forth with a curse. He had doffed the empty prerogatives of blood and station and left them in the mire and blood. The soul of Russia was dead and he had thought that his own had died with hers, but from the dead thing a new soul might germinate as it had nowgerminated in him. He had been born again.Novaya Jezn!The New Life! He had found it.
He listened intently as though for its heartbeats, his face turned up toward the silent pines. For a long while he stood so and then went indoors and sat at the old piano playing softly.
Some of the men on guard in the middle watch reported that they had heard what seemed to be the sounds of music very far away in the woods and were disturbed at the trick their ears had played upon them. But Peter didn't tell them the truth. If listening for the notes of a piano would keep them awake, listen they should. He slept until noon and then went to the house for orders.
Morning seemed to make a difference in the point of view. If the moon had made the night lovely, the sun brought with it the promise of every good thing. The walk through the woods to Black Rock House was a joy, very slightly alleviated by the poor condition of the trees under which Peter passed. It was primeval forest even here, with valuable trees stunted and poor ones vastly overgrown according to nature's law which provides for the survival of the fittest. This was the law too, which was to be applied to Peter. Would he grow straight and true in this foreign soil or gnarled and misshapen like the cedars and the maples that he saw? Yes. He would grow and straight ... straight.
Optimism seemed to be the order of the new day. At the house he found that his employer had put on a clean shirt and was freshly shaven. The windows of the room were opened wide to the sunlight which streamed into the room, revealing its darkest corners. McGuire himself seemed to have responded to the effulgence of the sun andthe balmy air which swept across his table. His manner was now calm, his voice more measured.
When Peter came into the room, Mr. McGuire closed the heavy doors of the steel safe carefully and turned to greet him.
"Oh, glad to see you, Nichols," he said more cheerfully. "A quiet night, I understand."
"Yes," laughed Nichols, "except for the man who got through the guards and smoked a cigarette on your portico."
"What!" gasped McGuire.
"Don't be alarmed, sir. It was only myself. I wanted to show Shad Wells the defects of his police system."
"Oh! Ah! Ha, ha, yes, of course. Very good. And you weren't shot at?"
"Oh, no, sir—though I'd given them leave to pot me if they could. But I think you're adequately protected now."
"Good," said McGuire. "Have a cigar. I'm glad you've come. I wanted to talk to you."
And when they had lighted their cigars, "It's about this very guard. I—I'm afraid you'll have to keep your men under cover at least in the daytime."
"Under cover?"
"Well, you see," went on McGuire in some hesitation, "my daughter (he called it darter) Peggy is motoring down from New York to-day. I don't want her, but she's coming. I couldn't stop her. She doesn't know anything about this—er—this guarding the house. And I don't want her to know. She mustn't know. She'd ask questions. I don't want questions asked. I'll get her away as soon as I can, but she mustn't be put into any danger."
"I see," said Peter examining the ash of his cigar."You don't want her to know anything about the impending attempts upon your life and property."
"Yes, that's it," said McGuire impatiently. "I don't want her to find out. Er—she couldn't understand. You know women, Nichols. They talk too much." He paused "It's—er—necessary that none of her friends in New York or mine should know of—er—any danger that threatens me. And of course—er—any danger that threatens me would—in a way—threaten her. You see?"
"I think so."
"I've put all weapons under cover. I don't want her to see 'em. So when she comes—which may be at any moment—nothing must be said about the men outside and what they're there for. In the daytime they must be given something to do about the place—trimming the lawns, pruning trees or weeding the driveway. Pay 'em what they ask, but don't let any of 'em go away. You'll explain this to the new men. As for yourself—er—of course you're my new superintendent and forester."
McGuire got up and paced the floor slowly looking at Peter out of the tail of his eye.
"I like you, Nichols. We'll get along. You've got courage and intelligence—and of course anybody can see you're a gentleman. You'll keep on taking your meals in the house——"
"If you'd like me to go elsewhere——"
"No. I see no reason why Peggy shouldn't like you. I hope she will. But she's very headstrong, has been since a kid. I suppose I humor her a bit—who wouldn't? I lost my oldest girl and her boy with the 'flu.' Her husband's still in France. And Peggy's got a will of her own, Peg has," he finished in a kind of admiring abstraction. "Got a society bee in her bonnet. Wants to go with all the swells. I'm backin' her, Nichols. She'll do it too before she's through," he finished proudly.
"I haven't a doubt of it," said Peter soberly, though very much amused at his employer's ingenuousness. Here then, was the weak spot in the armor of this relentless millionaire—his daughter. The older one and her child were dead. That accounted for the toys in the cabin. Peggy sounded interesting'—if nothing else, for her vitality.
"I'd better see about this at once, then. If she should come——"
Peter rose and was about to leave the room when there was a sound of an automobile horn and the sudden roar of an exhaust outside. He followed McGuire to the window and saw a low red runabout containing a girl and a male companion emerging from the trees. A man in the road was holding up his hands in signal for the machine to stop and had barely time to leap aside to avoid being run down. The car roared up to the portico, the breathless man, who was Shad Wells, pursuing. Peter was glad that he had had the good sense not to shoot. He turned to his employer, prepared for either anger or dismay and found that McGuire was merely grinning and chuckling softly as though to himself.
"Just like her!" he muttered, "some kid, that!"
Meanwhile Shad Wells, making a bad race of it was only halfway up the drive, when at a signal and shout from McGuire, he stopped running, stared, spat and returned to his post.
There was a commotion downstairs, the shooting of bolts, the sounds of voices and presently the quick patter of feminine footsteps which McGuire, now completely oblivious of Peter, went to meet.
"Well, daughter!"
"Hello, Pop!"
Peter caught a glimpse of a face and straggling brown hair, quickly engulfed in McGuire's arms.
"What on earth——" began McGuire.
"Thought we'd give you a little touch of high life, Pop. It was so hot in town. And the hotel's full of a convention of rough necks. I brought Freddy with me and Mildred and Jack are in the other car. We thought the rest might do us good."
The voice was nasal and pitched high, as though she were trying to make herself audible in a crowd. Peter was ready to revise his estimate that her face was pretty, for to him no woman was more beautiful than her own voice.
"But you can't stay here, Peg," went on McGuire, "not more than over night—with all these people. I'm very busy——"
"H-m. We'll see about that. I never saw the woods look prettier. We came by Lakewood and Brown's Mills and—Why who——?"
As she sidled into the room she suddenly espied Peter who was still standing by the window.
"Who——? Why—Oh, yes, this is my new superintendent and forester. Meet my daughter,—Mr. Nichols."
Peter bowed and expressed pleasure. Miss McGuire swept him with a quick glance that took in his flannel shirt, corduroy breeches and rough boots, nodded pertly and turned away.
Peter smiled. Like Beth Cameron this girl was very particular in choosing her acquaintances.
"I nearly killed a guy in the driveway," she went on, "who was he, Pop?"
"Er—one of the gardeners, I've told them to keep people off the place."
"Well. I'd like to see him keepmeoff! I suppose he'll be trying to hold up Mildred and Jack——"
She walked to the window passing close beside Peter, paying as little attention to his presence as if he had been, an article of furniture.
"Can't you get this man to go down," she said indicating Peter, "and tell them it's all right?"
"Of course," said Peter politely. "I'll go at once. And I'd like to arrange to look over part of the estate with Wells, Mr. McGuire," he added.
"All right, Nichols," said the old man with a frown. And then significantly—"But remember what I've told you. Make careful arrangements before you go."
"Yes, sir."
Peter went down the stairs, amused at his dismissal. On the veranda he found a young man sitting on some suitcases smoking a cigarette. This was Freddy, of course. He afterwards learned that his last name was Mordaunt, that he was a part of Peggy's ambitions, and that he had been invalided home from a camp and discharged from the military service. As Freddy turned, Peter bowed politely and passed on. Having catalogued him by his clothing, Freddy like Peggy had turned away, smoking his cigarette.
Peter thought that some Americans were born with bad manners, some achieved bad manners, and others had bad manners thrust upon them. Impoliteness was nothing new to him, since he had been in America. It was indigenous. Personally, he didn't mind what sort of people he met, but he seemed to be aware that a new element had come to Black Rock which was to make disquietude for Jonathan K. McGuire and difficulty for himself. And yet too there was a modicum of safety, perhaps, in the presence of these new arrivals, for it had been clear from his employer's demeanor that the terrors of the night had passed with the coming of the day.
He commented on this to Shad Wells, who informed him that night was always the old man's bad time.
"Seems sort o' like he's skeered o' the dark. 'Tain't nateral. 'Fraid o' ghosts, they say," he laughed.
"Well," said Peter, "we've got our orders. And the thing he fears isn't a ghost. It's human."
"Sure?"
"Yes. And since he's more afraid after dark he has probably had his warning. But we're not to take any chances."
Having given his new orders to Jesse, who was to be in charge during their absence, they struck into the woods upon the other side of the Creek for the appraisal of a part of the strip known as the "Upper Reserve." From an attitude of suspicion and sneering contempt Peter's companion had changed to one of indifference. The unfailing good humor of the new superintendent had done something to prepare the ground for an endurable relation between them. Like Beth Cameron Shad had sneered at the word "forester." He was the average lumberman, only interested in the cutting down of trees for the market—the commercial aspect of the business—heedless of the future, indifferent to the dangers of deforestation. Peter tried to explain to him that forestry actually means using the forest as the farmer uses his land, cutting out the mature and overripe trees and giving the seedlings beneath more light that they may furnish the succeeding crop of timber. He knew that the man was intelligent enough, and explained as well as he could from such statistics as he could recall how soon the natural resources of the country would be exhausted under the existing indifference.
"Quite a bit of wood here, Mister—enough for my job," said Shad.
But after a while Peter began to make him understand and showed him what trees should be marked for cutting and why. They came to a burned patch of at least a hundred acres.
"Is there any organized system for fighting these fires?" Peter asked.
"System! Well, when there's a fire we go and try to put it out——" laughed Wells.
"How do the fires start?"
"Campers—hunters mos'ly—in the deer season. Railroads sometimes—at the upper end."
"And you keep no watch for smoke?"
"Where would we watch from?"
"Towers. They ought to be built—with telephone connection to headquarters."
"D'ye think the old man will stand for that?"
"He ought to. It's insurance."
"Oh!"
"It looks to me, Wells," said Peter after a pause, "that a good 'crown' fire and a high gale, would turn all this country to cinders—like this."
"It's never happened yet."
"It may happen. Then good-by to your jobs—and to Black Rock too perhaps."
"I guess Black Rock can stand it, if the old man can."
They walked around the charred clearing and mounted a high sand dune, from which they could see over a wide stretch of country. With a high wooden platform here the whole of the Upper Reserve could be watched. They sat for a while among the sandwort and smoked, while Peter described the work in the German forests that he had observed before the war. Shad had now reached the point of listening and asking questions as the thought was more and more borne into his mind that this new superintendent was not merely talking for talk's sake, but because he knew more about the woods than any man the native had ever talked with, and wanted Shad to know too. For Peter had an answer to all of his questions, and Shad, though envious of Peter's grammar—for he hadreached an age to appreciate it—was secretly scornful of Peter's white hands and carefully tied black cravat.
This dune was at the end of the first day's "cruise" and Shad had risen preparatory to returning toward Black Rock when they both heard a sound,—away off to their right, borne down to them clearly on the breeze—the voice of a girl singing.
"Beth," said Shad with a kindling eye. And then carelessly spat, to conceal his emotions.
"What on earth can she be doing in here?" asked Peter.
"Only half a mile from the road. It's the short cut from Gaskill's."
"I see," from Peter.
"Do you reckon you can find your way back alone, Nichols?" said Shad, spitting again.
Peter grinned. "I reckon I can try," he said.
Shad pointed with his long arm in the general direction of Heaven. "That way!" he muttered and went into the scrub oak with indecent haste.
Peter sat looking with undisguised interest at the spot where he had disappeared, tracing him for a while through the moving foliage, listening to the crackling of the underbrush, as the sounds receded.
It was time to be turning homeward, but the hour was still inviting, the breeze balmy, the sun not too warm, so Peter lay back among the grasses in the sand smoking a fresh cigarette. Far overhead buzzards were wheeling. They recalled those other birds of prey that he had often watched, ready to swoop down along the lines of the almost defenseless Russians. Here all was so quiet. The world was a very beautiful place if men would only leave it so. The voice of the girl was silent now. Shad had probably joined her. Somehow, Peter hadn't been able to think of any relationship, other than the cousinly one, between Shad Wells and Beth. He had only known thegirl for half an hour but as Aunt Tillie Bergen had said, her niece seemed different from the other natives that Peter had met. Her teeth were sound and white, suggesting habits of personal cleanliness; her conversation, though careless, showed at the very least, a grammar school training. And Shad—well, Shad was nothing but a "Piney."
Pity—with a voice like that—she ought to have had opportunities—this scornful little Beth. Peter closed his eyes and dozed. He expected to have no difficulty in finding his way home, for he had a pocket compass and the road could not be far distant. He liked this place. He would build a tower here, a hundred-foot tower, of timbers, and here a man should be stationed all day—to watch for wisps of smoke during the hunting season. Smoke ... Tower ... In a moment he snored gently.
"Halloo!" came a voice in his dream. "Halloo! Halloo!"
Peter started rubbing his eyes, aware of the smoking cigarette in the grasses beside him.
Stupid, that! To do the very thing he had been warning Shad Wells against. He smeared the smoking stub out in the sand and sat up yawning and stretching his arms.
"Halloo!" said the voice in his dream, almost at his ear. "Tryin' to set the woods afire?"
The question had the curious dropping intonation at its end. But the purport annoyed him.
Nothing that she could have said could have provoked him more! Behind her he saw the dark face of Shad Wells break into a grin.
"I fell asleep," said Peter, getting to his feet.
Beth laughed. "Lucky you weren't burnt to death.Thenhow would the trees get along?"
Peter's toe burrowed after the defunct cigarette.
"I know what I'm about," he muttered, aware of further loss of dignity.
"Oh, do you? Then which way were you thinkin' of goin' home?"
Peter glanced around, pointed vaguely, and Beth Cameron laughed.
"I guess you'd land in Egg Harbor, or thereabouts."
Her laugh was infectious and Peter at last echoed it.
"You's better be goin' along with us. Shad asked me to come and get you, didn't you, Shad?"
Peter glanced at the woodsman's black scowl and grinned, recalling his desertion and precipitate disappearance into the bushes.
"I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you both," said Peter diplomatically. "But I think I can find my way in."
"Not if you start for Hammonton or Absecon, you can't. I've known people to spend the night in the woods a quarter of a mile from home."
"I shouldn't mind that."
"But Shad would. He'd feel a great responsibility if you didn't turn up for the ghost-hunt. Wouldn't you, Shad?"
Shad wagged his head indeterminately, and spat. "Come on," he said sullenly, and turned, leading the way out to the northward, followed by Beth with an inviting smile. She still wore her denim overalls which were much too long for her and her dusty brown boots seemed like a child's. Between moments of avoiding roots and branches, Peter watched her strong young figure as it followed their leader. Yesterday, he had thought her small; to-day she seemed to have increased in stature—so uncertain is the masculine judgment upon any aspect of a woman. But his notions in regard to her grace and loveliness were only confirmed. There was no concealing them under herabsurd garments. Her flanks were long and lithe, like a boy's, but there was something feminine in the way she moved, a combination of ease and strength made manifest, which could only come of well-made limbs carefully jointed. Every little while she flashed a glance over her shoulder at him, exchanging a word, even politely holding back a branch until he caught it, or else when he was least expecting it, letting it fly into his face. From time to time Shad Wells would turn to look at them and Peter could see that he wasn't as happy as he might have been. But Beth was very much enjoying herself.
They had emerged at last into the road and walked toward Black Rock, Beth in the center and Peter and Shad on either side.
"I've been thinkin' about what you said yesterday," said Beth to Peter.
"About——?"
"Singin' like an angel in Heaven," she said promptly aware of Shad's bridling glance.
"Oh, well," repeated Peter, "you do—you know."
"It was very nice of you—and you a musician."
"Musician!" growled Shad. "He ain't a musician."
"Oh, yes, he is, and he says I've a voice like an angel.Younever said that, Shad Wells."
"No. Nor I won't," he snapped surlily.
Peter would have been more amused if he hadn't thought that Shad Wells was unhappy.
He needed the man's allegiance and he had no wish to make an enemy of him.
"Musician!" Shad growled. "Then it was you the men heard last night."
"I found a piano in the cabin. I was trying it," said Peter. Shad said nothing in reply but he put every shade of scorn into the way in which he spat into the road.
"A piano——!" Beth gasped. "Where? What cabin?"
"The playhouse—where I live," said Peter politely.
"Oh."
There was a silence on the part of both of his companions, awkwardly long.
So Peter made an effort to relieve the tension, commenting on the new arrivals at Black Rock House.
At the mention of Peggy's name Beth showed fresh excitement.
"Miss McGuire! Here? When——?"
"This morning. Do you know her?"
"No. But I've seen her. I think she's just lovely."
"Why?"
"She wears such beautiful clothes and—and hats and veils."
Peter laughed. "And that's your definition of loveliness."
"Why, yes," she said in wonder. "Last year all the girls were copyin' her, puttin' little puffs of hair over their ears—I tried it, but it looked funny. Is she going to be here long? Has she got a 'beau' with her? She always had. It's a wonder she doesn't run over somebody, the way she drives."
"She nearly got me this mornin'," growled Shad.
"I wish she would—if you're going to look like a meat-ax, Shad Wells."
There was no reconciling them now, and when Beth's home was reached, all three of them went different ways. What a rogue she was! And poor Shad Wells who was to have taken Peter at a gobble, seemed a very poor sort of a creature in Beth's hands.
She amused Peter greatly, but she annoyed him a little too, ruffled up the shreds of his princely dignity, not yet entirely inured to the trials of social regeneration. And Shad's blind adoration was merely a vehicle for her amusement. It would have been very much better if she hadn'tused Peter's compliment as a bait for Shad. Peter had come to the point of liking the rough foreman even if he was a new kind of human animal from anything in Peter's experience.
And so was Beth. A new kind of animal—something between a harrier and a skylark, but wholesome and human too, a denim dryad, the spirit of health, joy and beauty, a creature good to look at, in spite of her envy of the fashionable Miss Peggy McGuire with her modish hats, cerise veils and ear puffs, her red roadsters and her beaux. Poverty sat well upon Beth and the frank blue eyes and resolute chin gave notice that whatever was to happen to her future she was honorable and unafraid.
But if there was something very winning about her, there was something pathetic too. Her beauty was so unconscious of her ridiculous clothing, and yet Peter had come to think of it as a part of her, wondering indeed what she would look like in feminine apparel, in which he could not imagine her, for the other girls of Black Rock had not so far blessed his vision. Aunt Tillie Bergen had told him, over his late breakfast, of the difficulties that she and Beth had had to keep their little place going and how Beth, after being laid off for the summer at the factory, had insisted upon working in the Gaskill's vineyard to help out with the household. There ought to be something for Beth Cameron, better than this—something less difficult—more ennobling.
Thinking of these things Peter made his way back to the cabin. Nothing of a disturbing nature had happened around Black Rock House, except the arrival of the remainder of McGuire's unwelcome house party, which had taken to wandering aimlessly through the woods, much to the disgust of Jesse Brown, who, lost in the choice between "dudes" and desperadoes, had given up any attempt to follow Peter's careful injunctions in regard toMcGuire. It was still early and the supper hour was seven, so Peter unpacked his small trunk which had arrived in his absence and then, carefully shutting door and windows, sat at the piano and played quietly at first, a "Reverie" of Tschaikowsky, a "Berceuse" of César Cui, the "Valse Triste" of Jean Sibelius and then forgetting himself—launched forth into Chopin's C Minor Étude. His fingers were stiff for lack of practice and the piano was far from perfect, but in twenty minutes he had forgotten the present, lost in memories. He had played this for Anastasie Galitzin. He saw the glint of the shaded piano lamp upon her golden head, recalled her favorite perfume.... Silver nights upon the castle terrace.... Golden walks through the autumn forest....
Suddenly a bell rang loudly at Peter's side, it seemed. Then while he wondered, it rang again. Of course—the telephone. He found the instrument in the corner and put the receiver to his ear. It was McGuire's voice.
"That you, Nichols?" it asked in an agitated staccato.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, it's getting dark, what have you done about to-night?"
"Same as last night," said Peter smiling, "only more careful."
"Well, I want things changed," the gruff voice rose. "The whole d—n house is open. I can't shut it with these people here. Your men will have to move in closer—but keep under cover. Can you arrange it?"
"Yes, I think so."
"I'll want you here—with me—you understand. You were coming to supper?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well—er—I've told my daughter and so—would you mind putting on a dress suit——? Er—if you have one—a Tuxedo will do."
"Yes, sir," said Peter. "That's all right."
"Oh—er—thanks. You'll be up soon?"
"Yes."
"Good-by."
With a grin, Peter hung up the receiver, recalling the soiled, perspiring, unquiet figure of his employer last night. But it seemed as though McGuire were almost as much in awe of his daughter as of the danger that threatened, for, in the McGuire household, Miss Peggy, it appeared, was paramount.
Peter's bathroom was Cedar Creek. In his robe, he ran down the dusky path for a quick plunge. Then, refreshed and invigorated, he lighted his lamp and dressed leisurely. He had come to his cravat, to which he was wont to pay more than a casual attention, when he was aware of a feeling of discomfort—of unease. In the mirror something moved, a shadow, at the corner of the window. He waited a moment, still fingering his cravat, and then sure that his eyes had made no mistake, turned quickly and, revolver in hand, rushed outside. Just as he did so a man with a startled face disappeared around the corner of the cabin. Peter rushed after him, shouting and turned the edge just in time to see his shape leap into the bushes.
"Who goes there?" shouted Peter crisply. "Halt, or I'll fire."
But the only reply was a furious crashing in the undergrowth. Peter fired twice at the sound, then followed in, still calling.
No sound. Under the conditions a chase was hopeless, so Peter paused listening. And then after a few moments a more distant crackling advised him that his visitor had gotten well away. And so after a while he returned to the cabin and with his weapon beside him finished his interrupted toilet.
But his brows were in a tangle. The mystery surrounding him seemed suddenly to have deepened. For the face that he had seen at the window was that of the stranger who had stared at him so curiously—the man of the soft hat and dark mustache—who had seemed so startled at seeing him in the Pennsylvania Station when he was leaving New York.