For many years there had been installed in Cardigan's mill a clock set to United States observatory time and corrected hourly by the telegraph company. It was the only clock of its kind in Sequoia; hence folk set their watches by it, or rather by the whistle on Cardigan's mill. With a due appreciation of the important function of this clock toward his fellow-citizens, old Zeb Curry, the chief engineer and a stickler for being on time, was most meticulous in his whistle-blowing. With a sage and prophetic eye fixed upon the face of the clock, and a particularly greasy hand grasping the whistle-cord, Zeb would wait until the clock registered exactly six-fifty-nine and a half—whereupon the seven o'clock whistle would commence blowing, to cease instantly upon the stroke of the hour. It was old Zeb's pride and boast that with a single exception, during the sixteen years the clock had been in service, no man could say that Zeb had been more than a second late or early with his whistle-blowing. That exception occurred when Bryce Cardigan, invading the engine room while Zeb was at luncheon, looped the whistle-cord until the end dangled seven feet above ground. As a consequence Zeb, who was a short, fat little man, was forced to leap at it several times before success crowned his efforts and the whistle blew. Thereafter for the remainder of the day his reason tottered on its throne, due to the fact that Bryce induced every mill employee to call upon the engineer and remind him that he must be growing old, since he was no longer dependable!
On the morning following Bryce Cardigan's return to Sequoia, Zeb Curry, as per custom, started his engine at six-fifty-eight. That gave the huge bandsaws two minutes in which to attain their proper speed and afforded Dan Kenyon, the head sawyer, ample time to run his steam log-carriage out to the end of the track; for Daniel, too, was a reliable man in the matter of starting his daily uproar on time.
At precisely six fifty-nine and a half, therefore, the engineer's hand closed over the handle of the whistle-cord, and Dan Kenyon, standing on the steam-carriage with his hand on the lever, took a thirty-second squint through a rather grimy window that gave upon the drying-yard and the mill-office at the head of it.
The whistle ceased blowing, but still Dan Kenyon stood at his post, oblivious of the hungry saws. Ten seconds passed; then Zeb Curry, immeasurably scandalized at Daniel's tardiness, tooted the whistle sharply twice; whereupon Dan woke up, threw over the lever, and walked his log up to the saw.
For the next five hours Zeb Curry had no opportunity to discuss the matter with the head sawyer. After blowing the twelve o'clock whistle, however, he hurried over to the dining-hall, where the mill hands already lined the benches, shovelling food into their mouths as only a lumberman or a miner can. Dan Kenyon sat at the head of the table in the place of honour sacred to the head sawyer, and when his mouth would permit of some activity other than mastication, Zeb Curry caught his eye.
“Hey, you, Dan Kenyon,” he shouted across the table, “what happened to you this mornin'? It was sixteen seconds between the tail end o' my whistle an' the front end o' your whinin'. First thing you know, you'll be gettin' so slack an' careless-like some other man'll be ridin' that log-carriage o' yourn.”
“I was struck dumb,” Dan Kenyon replied. “I just stood there like one o' these here graven images. Last night on my way home from work I heerd the young feller was back—he got in just as we was knockin' off for the day; an' this mornin' just as you cut loose, Zeb, I'll be danged if he didn't show up in front o' the office door, fumblin' for the keyhole. Yes, sirree! That boy gets in at six o'clock last night an' turns to on his paw's job when the whistle blows this mornin' at seven.”
“You mean young Bryce Cardigan?” Zeb queried incredulously.
“I shore do.”
“'Tain't possible,” Zeb declared. “You seen a new bookkeeper, mebbe, but you didn't see Bryce. He aint no such hog for labour as his daddy before him, I'm tellin' you. Not that there's a lazy bone in his body, for there ain't, but because that there boy's got too much sense to come bollin' down to work at seven o'clock the very first mornin' he's back from Yurrup.”
“I'm layin' you ten to one I seen him,” Dan replied defiantly, “an' what's more, I'll bet a good cigar—a ten-center straight—the boy don't leave till six o'clock to-night.”
“You're on,” answered the chief engineer. “Them's lumberjack hours, man. From seven till six means work—an' only fools an' hosses keeps them hours.”
The head sawyer leaned across the table and pounded with the handle of his knife until he had the attention of all present. “I'm a-goin' to tell you young fellers somethin',” he announced. “Ever since the old boss got so he couldn't look after his business with his own eyes, things has been goin' to blazes round this sawmill, but they ain't a-goin' no more. How do I know? Well, I'll tell you. All this forenoon I kept my eye on the office door—I can see it through a mill winder; an' I'm tellin' you the old boss didn't show up till ten o'clock, which the old man ain't never been a ten o'clock business man at no time. Don't that prove the boy's took his place?”
Confused murmurs of affirmation and negation ran up and down the long table. Dan tapped with his knife again. “You hear me,” he warned. “Thirty year I've been ridin' John Cardigan's log-carriages; thirty year I've been gettin' everythin' out of a log it's possible to git out, which is more'n you fellers at the trimmers can git out of a board after I've sawed it off the cant. There's a lot o' you young fellers that've been takin' John Cardigan's money under false pretenses, so if I was you I'd keep both eyes on my job hereafter. For a year I've been claimin' that good No. 2 stock has been chucked into the slab-fire as refuge lumber.” (Dan meant refuse lumber.) “But it won't be done no more. The raftsman tells me he seen Bryce down at the end o' the conveyin' belt givin' that refuge the once-over—so step easy.”
“What does young Cardigan know about runnin' a sawmill?” a planer-man demanded bluntly. “They tell me he's been away to college an' travellin' the past six years.”
“Wa-ll,” drawled the head sawyer, “you git to talkin' with him some day an' see how much he knows about runnin' a sawmill. What he knows will surprise you. Yes, indeed, you'll find he knows considerable. He's picked up loose shingles around the yard an' bundled 'em in vacation times, an' I want to see the shingle-weaver that can teach him some tricks. Also, I've had him come up on the steam carriage more'n once an' saw up logs, while at times I've seen him put in a week or two on the sortin' table. In a pinch, with a lot o' vessels loadin' here at the dock an' the skippers raisin' Cain because they wasn't gettin' their cargo fast enough, I've seen him work nights an' Sundays tallyin' with the best o' them. Believe me that boy can grade lumber.”
“An' I'll tell you somethin' else,” Zeb Curry cut in. “If the new boss ever tells you to do a thing his way, you do it an' don't argue none as to whether he knows more about it than you do or not.”
“A whole lot o' dagos an' bohunks that's come into the woods since the blue-noses an' canucks an' wild Irish went out had better keep your eyes open,” Dan Kenyon warned sagely. “There ain't none o' you any better'n you ought to be, an' things have been pretty durned slack around Cardigan's mill since the old man went blind, but—you watch out. There's a change due. Bryce Cardigan is his father's son. He'll do things.”
“Which he's big enough to throw a bear uphill by the tail,” Zeb Curry added, “an' you fellers all know how much tail a bear has.”
“Every mornin' for thirty years, 'ceptin' when we was shut down for repairs,” Dan continued, “I've looked through that winder, when John Cardigan wasn't away from Sequoia, to watch him git to his office on time. He's there when the whistle blows, clear up to the time his eyes go back on him, an' then he arrives late once or twice on account o' havin' to go careful. This mornin', for the first time in fifty year, he stays in bed; but—his son has the key in the office door when the whistle blows, an'—”
Dan Kenyon paused abruptly; the hum of conversation ceased, and silence fell upon the room as Bryce Cardigan strolled in the door, nodded to the men, and slid in on the bench to a seat beside the head sawyer.
“Hello, Dan—hello, Zeb,” he said and shook hands with each. “I'm mighty glad to see you both again. Hello, everybody. I'm the new boss, so I suppose I'd better introduce myself—there are so many new faces here. I'm Bryce Cardigan.”
“Yes,” Zeb Curry volunteered, “an' he's like his daddy. He ain't ashamed to work with his men, an' he ain't ashamed to eat with his men, nuther. Glad you're back with us again, boy—mighty glad. Dan, here, he's gittin' slacker'n an old squaw with his work an' needs somebody to jerk him up, while the rest o' these here—”
“I noticed that about Dan,” Bryce interrupted craftily. “He's slowing up, Zeb. He must have been fifteen seconds late this morning—or perhaps,” he added “you were fifteen seconds earlier than the clock.”
Dan grinned, and Bryce went on seriously: “I'm afraid you're getting too old to ride the log-carriage, Dan. You've been at it a long time; so, with the utmost good will in the world toward you, you're fired. I might as well tell you now. You know me, Dan. I always did dislike beating about the bush.”
“Fired!” Dan Kenyon's eyes popped with amazement and horror. “Fired—after thirty years!” he croaked.
“Fired!” There was unmistakable finality in Bryce's tones. “You're hired again, however, at a higher salary, as mill-superintendent. You can get away with that job, can't you, Dan? In fact,” he added without waiting for the overjoyed Dan to answer him, “you've got to get away with it, because I discharged the mill-superintendent I found on the job when I got down here this morning. He's been letting too many profits go into the slab-fire. In fact, the entire plant has gone to glory. Fire-hose old and rotten—couldn't stand a hundred-pound pressure; fire-buckets and water-barrels empty, axes not in their proper places, fire-extinguishers filled with stale chemical—why, the smallest kind of a fire here would get beyond our control with that man on the job. Besides, he's changed the grading-rules. I found the men putting clear boards with hard-grained streaks in them in with the No. 1 clear. The customer may not kick at a small percentage of No. 2 in his No. 1 but it's only fair to give it to him at two dollars a thousand less.”
“Well,” purred Zeb Curry, “they don't grade lumber as strict nowadays as they used to before you went away. Colonel Pennington says we're a lot o' back numbers out this way an' too generous with our grades. First thing he did was to call a meetin' of all the Humboldt lumber manufacturers an' organize 'em into an association. Then he had the gradin'-rules changed. The retailers hollered for a while, but bimeby they got used to it.”
“Did my father join that association?” Bryce demanded quickly.
“Yes. He told Pennington he wasn't goin' to be no obstructionist in the trade, but he did kick like a bay steer on them new gradin'-rules an' refused to conform to 'em. Said he was too old an' had been too long in business to start gougin' his customers at his time o' life. So he got out o' the association.”
“Bully for John Cardigan!” Bryce declared. “I suppose we could make a little more money by cheapening our grade, but the quality of our lumber is so well known that it sells itself and saves us the expense of maintaining a corps of salesmen.”
“From what I hear tell o' the Colonel,” Dan observed sagely, “the least he ever wants is a hundred and fifty per cent. the best of it.”
“Yes,” old Zeb observed gravely, “an' so fur as I can see, he ain't none too perticular how he gets it.” He helped himself to a toothpick, and followed by the head sawyer, abruptly left the room—after the fashion of sawmill men and woodsmen, who eat as much as they can as quickly as they can and eventually die of old age rather than indigestion. Bryce ate his noonday meal in more leisurely fashion and at its conclusion stepped into the kitchen.
“Where do you live, cook?” he demanded of that functionary; and upon being informed, he retired to the office and called up the Sequoia meat-market.
“Bryce Cardigan speaking,” he informed the butcher. “Do you ever buy any pigs from our mill cook?”
“Not any more,” the butcher answered. “He stung me once with a dozen fine shoats. They looked great, but after I had slaughtered them and had them dressed, they turned out to be swill-fed hogs—swill and alfalfa.”
“Thank you.” Bryce hung up. “I knew that cook was wasteful,” he declared, turning to his father's old manager, one Thomas Sinclair. “He wastes food in order to take the swill home to his hogs—and nobody watches him. Things have certainly gone to the devil,” he continued.
“No fault of mine,” Sinclair protested. “I've never paid any attention to matters outside the office. Your father looked after everything else.”
Bryce looked at Sinclair. The latter was a thin, spare, nervous man in the late fifties, and though generally credited with being John Cardigan's manager, Bryce knew that Sinclair was in reality little more than a glorified bookkeeper—and a very excellent bookkeeper indeed. Bryce realized that in the colossal task that confronted him he could expect no real help from Sinclair.
“Yes,” he replied, “my father looked after everything else—while he could.”
“Oh, you'll soon get the business straightened out and running smoothly again,” Sinclair declared confidently.
“Well, I'm glad I started on the job to-day, rather than next Monday, as I planned to do last night.”
He stepped to the window and looked out. At the mill-dock a big steam schooner and a wind-jammer lay; in the lee of the piles of lumber, sailors and long-shoremen, tallymen and timekeeper lounged, enjoying the brief period of the noon hour still theirs before the driving mates of the lumber-vessels should turn them to on the job once more. To his right and left stretched the drying yard, gangway on gangway formed by the serried rows of lumber-piles, the hoop-horses placidly feeding from their nosebags while the strong-armed fellows who piled the lumber sat about in little groups conversing with the mill-hands.
As Bryce looked, a puff of white steam appeared over the roof of the old sawmill, and the one o'clock whistle blew. Instantly that scene of indolence and ease turned to one of activity. The mill-hands lounging in the gangways scurried for their stations in the mill; men climbed to the tops of the lumber-piles, while other men passed boards and scantlings up to them; the donkey-engines aboard the vessels rattled; the cargo-gaffs of the steam schooner swung outward, and a moment later two great sling-loads of newly sawed lumber rose in the air, swung inward, and descended to the steamer's decks.
All about Bryce were scenes of activity, of human endeavour; and to him in that moment came the thought: “My father brought all this to pass—and now the task of continuing it is mine! All those men who earn a living in Cardigan's mill and on Cardigan's dock—those sailors who sail the ships that carry Cardigan's lumber into the distant marts of men—are dependent upon me; and my father used to tell me not to fail them. Must my father have wrought all this in vain? And must I stand by and see all this go to satisfy the overwhelming ambition of a stranger?” His big hands clenched. “No!” he growled savagely.
“If I stick around this office a minute longer, I'll go crazy,” Bryce snarled then. “Give me your last five annual statements, Mr. Sinclair, please.”
The old servitor brought forth the documents in question. Bryce stuffed them into his pocket and left the office. Three quarters of an hour later he entered the little amphitheatre in the Valley of the Giants and paused with an expression of dismay. One of the giants had fallen and lay stretched across the little clearing. In its descent it had demolished the little white stone over his mother's grave and had driven the fragments of the stone deep into the earth.
The tremendous brown butt quite ruined the appearance of the amphitheatre by reason of the fact that it constituted a barrier some fifteen feet high and of equal thickness athwart the centre of the clearing, with fully three quarters of the length of the tree lost to sight where the fallen monarch had wedged between its more fortunate fellows. The fact that the tree was down, however, was secondary to the fact that neither wind nor lightning had brought it low, but rather the impious hand of man; for the great jagged stump showed all too plainly the marks of cross-cut saw and axe; a pile of chips four feet deep littered the ground.
For fully a minute Bryce stood dumbly gazing upon the sacrilege before his rage and horror found vent in words. “An enemy has done this thing,” he cried aloud to the wood-goblins. “And over her grave!”
Presently, smothering his emotion, he walked the length of the dead giant, and where the top tapered off to a size that would permit of his stepping across it, he retraced his steps on the other side of the tree until he had reached a point some fifty feet from the butt—when the vandal's reason for felling the monster became apparent.
It was a burl tree. At the point where Bryce paused a malignant growth had developed on the trunk of the tree, for all the world like a tremendous wart. This was the burl, so prized for table-tops and panelling because of the fact that the twisted, wavy, helter-skelter grain lends to the wood an extraordinary beauty when polished. Bryee noted that the work of removing this excrescence had been accomplished very neatly. With a cross-cut saw the growth, perhaps ten feet in diameter, had been neatly sliced off much as a housewife cuts slice after slice from a loaf of bread. He guessed that these slices, practically circular in shape, had been rolled out of the woods to some conveyance waiting to receive them.
What Bryce could not understand, however, was the stupid brutality of the raiders in felling the tree merely for that section of burl. By permitting the tree to stand and merely building a staging up to the burl, the latter could have been removed without vital injury to the tree—whereas by destroying the tree the wretches had evidenced all too clearly to Bryce a wanton desire to add insult to injury.
Bryce inspected the scars on the stump carefully. They were weather-stained to such an extent that to his experienced eye it was evident the outrage had been committed more than a year previously; and the winter rains, not to mention the spring growth of grasses and underbrush, had effectually destroyed all trace of the trail taken by the vandals with their booty.
“Poor old Dad!” he murmured. “I'm glad now he has been unable to get up here and see this. It would have broken his heart. I'll have this tree made into fence-posts and the stump dynamited and removed this summer. After he is operated on and gets back his sight, he will come up here—and he must never know. Perhaps he will have forgotten how many trees stood in this circle. And I'll fill in the hole left by the stump and plant some manzanita there to hide the—”
He paused. Peeping out from under a chip among the litter at his feet was the moldy corner of a white envelope. In an instant Bryce had it in his hand. The envelope was dirty and weather-beaten, but to a certain extent the redwood chips under which it had lain hidden had served to protect it, and the writing on the face was still legible. The envelope was empty and addressed to Jules Rondeau, care of the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, Sequoia, California.
Bryce read and reread that address. “Rondeau!” he muttered. “Jules Rondeau! I've heard that name before—ah, yes! Dad spoke of him last night. He's Pennington's woods-boss—”
He paused. An enemy had done this thing—and in all the world John Cardigan had but one enemy—Colonel Seth Pennington. Had Pennington sent his woods-boss to do this dirty work out of sheer spite? Hardly. The section of burl was gone, and this argued that the question of spite had been purely a matter of secondary consideration.
Evidently, Bryce reasoned, someone had desired that burl redwood greatly, and that someone had not been Jules Rondeau, since a woods-boss would not be likely to spend five minutes of his leisure time in consideration of the beauties of a burl table-top or panel. Hence, if Rondeau had superintended the task of felling the tree, it must have been at the behest of a superior; and since a woods-boss acknowledges no superior save the creator of the pay-roll, the recipient of that stolen burl must have been Colonel Pennington.
Suddenly he thrilled. If Jules Rondeau had stolen that burl to present it to Colonel Pennington, his employer, then the finished article must be in Pennington's home! And Bryce had been invited to that home for dinner the following Thursday by the Colonel's niece.
“I'll go, after all,” he told himself. “I'll go—and I'll see what I shall see.”
He was too wrought up now to sit calmly down in the peace and quietude of the giants, and digest the annual reports Sinclair had given him. He hastened back to the mill-office and sought Sinclair.
“At what hour does the logging-train leave the Laguna Grande Lumber Company's yard for our log-landing in Township Nine?” he demanded.
“Eight a.m. and one p.m. daily, Bryce.”
“Have you any maps of the holdings of Pennington and ourselves in that district?”
“Yes.”
“Let me have them, please. I know the topography of that district perfectly, but I am not familiar with the holdings in and around ours.”
Sinclair gave him the maps, and Bryce retired to his father's private office and gave himself up to a study of them.
When Shirley Sumner descended to the breakfast room on the morning following her arrival in Sequoia, the first glance at her uncle's stately countenance informed her that during the night something had occurred to irritate Colonel Seth Pennington and startle him out of his customary bland composure. He greeted her politely but coldly, and without even the perfunctory formality of inquiring how she had passed the night, he came directly to the issue,
“Shirley,” he began, “did I hear you calling young Cardigan on the telephone after dinner last night or did my ears deceive me?”
“Your ears are all right, Uncle Seth. I called Mr. Cardigan up to thank him for the pie he sent over, and incidentally to invite him over here to dinner on Thursday night.”
“I thought I heard you asking somebody to dinner, and as you don't know a soul in Sequoia except young Cardigan, naturally I opined that he was to be the object of our hospitality.”
The Colonel coughed slightly. From the manner in which he approached the task of buttering his hot cakes Shirley knew he had something more to say and was merely formulating a polite set of phrases in which to express himself. She resolved to help him along.
“I dare say it's quite all right to have invited him; isn't it, Uncle Seth?”
“Certainly, certainly, my dear. Quite all right, but er—ah, slightly inconvenient.”
“Oh, I'm so sorry. If I had known—Perhaps some other night—”
“I am expecting other company Thursday night—unfortunately, Brayton, the president of the Bank of Sequoia, is coming up to dine and discuss some business affairs with me afterward; so if you don't mind, my dear, suppose you call young Cardigan up and ask him to defer his visit until some later date.”
“Certainly, Uncle. There is no particular reason why I should have Mr. Cardigan on Thursday if his presence would mean the slightest interference with your plans. What perfectly marvellous roses! How did you succeed in growing them, Uncle Seth?”
He smiled sourly. “I didn't raise them,” he replied. “That half-breed Indian that drives John Cardigan's car brought them around about an hour ago, along with a card. There it is, beside your plate.”
She blushed ever so slightly. “I suppose Bryce Cardigan is vindicating himself,” she murmured as she withdrew the card from the envelope. As she had surmised, it was Bryce Cardigan's. Colonel Pennington was the proprietor of a similar surmise.
“Fast work, Shirley,” he murmured banteringly. “I wonder what he'll send you for luncheon. Some dill pickles, probably.”
She pretended to be very busy with the roses, and not to have heard him. Her uncle's sneer was not lost on her, however; she resented it but chose to ignore it for the present; and when at length she had finished arranging the flowers, she changed the conversation adroitly by questioning her relative anent the opportunities for shopping in Sequoia. The Colonel, who could assimilate a hint quicker than most ordinary mortals, saw that he had annoyed her, and he promptly hastened to make amends by permitting himself to be led readily into this new conversational channel. As soon as he could do so, however, he excused himself on the plea of urgent business at the office, and left the room.
Shirley, left alone at the breakfast-table, picked idly at the preserved figs the owlish butler set before her. Vaguely she wondered at her uncle's apparent hostility to the Cardigans; she was as vaguely troubled in the knowledge that until she should succeed in eradicating this hostility, it must inevitably act as a bar to the further progress of her friendship with Bryce Cardigan. And she told herself she did not want to lose that friendship. She wasn't the least bit in love with him albeit she realized he was rather lovable. The delight which she had experienced in his society lay in the fact that he was absolutely different from any other man she had met. His simplicity, his utter lack of “swank,” his directness, his good nature, and dry sense of humour made him shine luminously in comparison with the worldly, rather artificial young men she had previously met—young men who said and did only those things which time, tradition, and hallowed memory assured them were done by the right sort of people. Shirley had a suspicion that Bryce Cardigan could—and would—swear like a pirate should his temper be aroused and the circumstances appear to warrant letting off steam. Also she liked him because he was imaginative—because he saw and sensed and properly understood without a diagram or a blueprint. And lastly, he was a good, devoted son and was susceptible of development into a congenial and wholly acceptable comrade to a young lady absolutely lacking in other means of amusement.
She finished her breakfast in thoughtful silence; then she went to the telephone and called up Bryce at his home. Mrs. Tully, all aflutter with curiosity, was quite insistent that Shirley should leave her name and telephone number, but failing to carry her point, consented to inform the latter that Mr. Bryce was at the office. She gave Shirley the telephone number.
When the girl called the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, Bryce answered. He recognized her voice instantly and called her name before she had opportunity to announce her identity.
“Thank you so much for the beautiful roses, Mr. Cardigan,” she began.
“I'm glad you liked them. Nobody picks flowers out of our garden, you know. I used to, but I'll be too busy hereafter to bother with the garden.”
“Very well. Then I am not to expect any more roses?”
“I'm a stupid clodhopper. Of course you may. By the way, Miss Sumner, does your uncle own a car?”
“I believe he does—a little old rattletrap which he drives himself.”
“Then I'll send George over with the Napier this afternoon. You might care to take a spin out into the surrounding country. By the way, Miss Sumner, you are to consider George and that car as your personal property. I fear you're going to find Sequoia a dull place; so whenever you wish to go for a ride, just call me up, and I'll have George report to you.”
“But think of all the expensive gasoline and tires!”
“Oh, but you mustn't look at things from that angle after you cross the Rocky Mountains on your way west. Moreover, mine is the only real car in the country, and I know you like it. What are you going to do this afternoon?”
“I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead.”
“For some real sport I would suggest that you motor up to Laguna Grande. That's Spanish for Big Lagoon, you know. Take a rod with you. There are some land-locked salmon in the lagoon—that is, there used to be; and if you hook one you'll get a thrill.”
“But I haven't any rod.”
“I'll send you over a good one.”
“But I have nobody to teach me how to use it,” she hinted daringly.
“I appreciate that compliment,” he flashed back at her, “but unfortunately my holidays are over for a long, long time. I took my father's place in the business this morning.”
“So soon?”
“Yes. Things have been happening while I was away. However, speaking of fishing, George Sea Otter will prove an invaluable instructor. He is a good boy and you may trust him implicitly. On Thursday evening you can tell me what success you had with the salmon.”
“Oh, that reminds me, Mr. Cardigan. You can't come Thursday evening, after all.” And she explained the reason.
“By Jove,” he replied, “I'm mighty glad you tipped me off about that. I couldn't possibly remain at ease in the presence of a banker-particularly one who will not lend me money.”
“Suppose you come Wednesday night instead.”
“We'll call that a bet. Thank you.”
She chuckled at his frank good humour. “Thank YOU, Mr Cardigan, for all your kindness and thoughtfulness; and if you WILL persist in being nice to me, you might send George Sea Otter and the car at one-thirty. I'll be glad to avail myself of both until I can get a car of my own sent up from San Francisco. Till Wednesday night, then. Good-bye.”
As Bryce Cardigan hung up, he heaved a slight sigh, and a parody on a quatrain from “Lalla Rookh” ran through his mind:
I never loved a dear gazelle, To glad me with its limpid eye, But when I learned to love it well, The gol-darned thing was sure to die!
It was difficult to get out of the habit of playing; he found himself the possessor of a very great desire to close down the desk, call on Shirley Sumner, and spend the remainder of the day basking in the sunlight of her presence.
The days passed swiftly, as they have a habit of passing after one has discovered one's allotted task in life and has proceeded to perform it. Following his discovery of the outrage committed on his father's sanctuary, Bryce wasted considerable valuable time and effort in a futile endeavour to gather some further hint of the identity of the vandals; but despairing at last, he dismissed the matter from his mind, resolving only that on Thursday he would go up into Pennington's woods and interview the redoubtable Jules Rondeau. Bryce's natural inclination was to wait upon M. Rondeau immediately, if not sooner, but the recollection of his dinner engagement at the Pennington home warned him to proceed cautiously; for while harbouring no apprehensions as to the outcome of a possible clash with Rondeau, Bryce was not so optimistic as to believe he would escape unscathed from an encounter. Experience had impressed upon him the fact that in a rough-and-tumble battle nobody is quite so thoroughly at home as a lumberjack; once in a clinch with such a man, even a champion gladiator of the prize ring may well feel apprehensive of the outcome.
Wednesday evening at five o'clock Mr. Sinclair, the manager, came into Bryce's office with a handful of folded papers. “I have here,” he announced in his clerky voice with a touch of solemnity to it, “a trial balance. I have not had time to make an exact inventory; but in order to give you some idea of the condition of your father's affairs, I have used approximate figures and prepared a profit-and-loss account.”
Bryce reached for the papers.
“You will note the amount charged off to profit and loss under the head of 'Pensions,'” Sinclair continued. “It amounts approximately to two thousand dollars a month, and this sum represents payments to crippled employees and the dependent families of men killed in the employ of the Company.”
“In addition to these payments, your father owns thirty-two thirty-acre farms which he has cleared from his logged-over lands. These little farms are equipped with bungalows and outbuildings built by your father and represent a considerable investment. As you know, these farms are wonderfully rich, and are planted in apples and berries. Other lands contiguous to them sell readily at two hundred dollars an acre, and so you will see that your father has approximately two hundred thousand dollars tied up in these little farms.”
“But he has given a life-lease at nothing a year for each farm to former employees who have been smashed beyond the possibility of doing the hard work of the mill and woods,” Bryce reminded the manager. “Hence you must not figure those farms among our assets.”
“Why not?” Sinclair replied evenly. “Formal leases have never been executed, and the tenants occupy the property at your father's pleasure.”
“I think that will be about as far as the discussion on that point need proceed,” Bryce replied smilingly. “My father's word has always been considered sufficient in this country; his verbal promise to pay has always been collateral enough for those who know him.”
“But my dear boy,” Sinclair protested, “while that sort of philanthropy is very delightful when one can afford the luxury, it is scarcely practical when one is teetering on the verge of financial ruin. After all, Bryce, self-preservation is the first law of human nature, and the sale of those farms would go a long way toward helping the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company out of the hole it is in at present.”
“And we're really teetering on the edge of financial ruin, eh?” Bryce queried calmly.
“That is expressing your condition mildly. The semi-annual payment of interest on the bonded indebtedness falls due on July first—and we're going to default on it, sure as death and taxes. Colonel Pennington holds a majority of our bonds, and that means prompt suit for foreclosure.”
“Well, then, Sinclair,” Bryce retorted, carefully pigeon-holing the documents the manager had handed him, “I'll tell you what we'll do. For fifty years my father has played the game in this community like a sport and a gentleman, and I'll be damned if his son will dog it now, at the finish. I gather from your remarks that we could find ready sale for those thirty-two little farms?”
“I am continually receiving offers for them.”
“Then they were not included in the list of properties covered by our bonded indebtedness?”
“No, your father refused to include them. He said he would take a chance on the financial future of himself and his boy, but not on his helpless dependents.”
“Good old John Cardigan! Well, Sinclair, I'll not take a chance on them either; so to-morrow morning you will instruct our attorney to draw up formal life-leases on those farms, and to make certain they are absolutely unassailable. Colonel Pennington may have the lands sold to satisfy a deficiency judgment against us, but while those life-leases from the former owner are in force, my father's proteges cannot be dispossessed. After they are dead, of course, Pennington may take the farms—and be damned to him.”
Sinclair stared in frank amazement at his youthful superior. “You are throwing away two hundred thousand dollars,” he said distinctly.
“I haven't thrown it away—yet. You forget, Sinclair, that we're going to fight first—and fight like fiends; then if we lose—well, the tail goes with the hide, By the way, Sinclair, are any of those farms untenanted at the present time?”
“Yes. Old Bill Tarpey, who lost his three boys in a forest fire over on the San Hedrin, passed out last week. The Tarpey boys died in the Cardigan employ, and so your father gave Bill the use of a farm out near Freshwater.”
“Well, you'd better be his successor, Sinclair. You're no longer a young man, and you've been thirty years in this office. Play safe, Sinclair, and include yourself in one of those life-leases.”
“My dear boy—”
“Nonsense! United we stand, divided we fall, Sinclair; and let there be no moaning of the bar when a Cardigan puts out to sea.”
Smiling, he rose from his desk, patted the bewildered Sinclair on the latter's grizzled head, and then reached for his hat. “I'm dining out to-night, Sinclair, and I wouldn't be a kill-joy at the feast, for a ripe peach. Your confounded figures might make me gloomy; so we'll just reserve discussion of them till to-morrow morning. Be a sport, Sinclair, and for once in your life beat the six o'clock whistle. In other words, I suggest that you go home and rest for once.”
He left Sinclair staring at him rather stupidly.
Colonel Pennington's imported British butler showed Bryce into the Pennington living room at six-thirty, announcing him with due ceremony. Shirley rose from the piano where she had been idly fingering the keys and greeted him with every appearance of pleasure—following which, she turned to present her visitor to Colonel Pennington, who was standing in his favourite position with his back to the fireplace.
“Uncle Seth, this is Mr. Cardigan, who was so very nice to me the day I landed in Red Bluff.”
The Colonel bowed. “I have to thank you, sir, for your courtesy to my niece.” He had assumed an air of reserve, of distinct aloofness, despite his studied politeness. Bryce stepped forward with extended hand, which the Colonel grasped in a manner vaguely suggestive of that clammy-palmed creation of Charles Dickens—Uriah Heep. Bryce was tempted to squeeze the lax fingers until the Colonel should bellow with pain; but resisting the ungenerous impulse, he replied instead:
“Your niece, Colonel, is one of those fortunate beings the world will always clamour to serve.”
“Quite true, Mr. Cardigan. When she was quite a little girl I came under her spell myself.”
“So did I, Colonel. Miss Sumner has doubtless told you of our first meeting some twelve years ago?”
“Quite so. May I offer you a cocktail, Mr. Cardigan?”
“Thank you, certainly. Dad and I have been pinning one on about this time every night since my return.”
“Shirley belongs to the Band of Hope,” the Colonel explained. “She's ready at any time to break a lance with the Demon Rum. Back in Michigan, where we used to live, she saw too many woodsmen around after the spring drive. So we'll have to drink her share, Mr. Cardigan. Pray be seated.”
Bryce seated himself. “Well, we lumbermen are a low lot and naturally fond of dissipation,” he agreed. “I fear Miss Sumner's Prohibition tendencies will be still further strengthened after she has seen the mad-train.”
“What is that?” Shirley queried.
“The mad-train runs over your uncle's logging railroad up into Township Nine, where his timber and ours is located. It is the only train operated on Sunday, and it leaves Sequoia at five p.m. to carry the Pennington and Cardigan crews back to the woods after their Saturday-night celebration in town. As a usual thing, all hands, with the exception of the brakeman, engineers, and fireman, are singing, weeping or fighting drunk.”
“But why do you provide transportation for them to come to town Saturday nights?” Shirley protested.
“They ride in on the last trainload of logs, and if we didn't let them do it, they'd ask for their time. It's the way of the gentle lumberjack. And of course, once they get in, we have to round them up on Sunday afternoon and get them back on the job. Hence the mad-train.”
“Do they fight, Mr. Cardigan?”
“Frequently. I might say usually. It's quite an inspiring sight to see a couple of lumberjacks going to it on a flat-car travelling thirty miles an hour.”
“But aren't they liable to fall off and get killed?”
“No. You see, they're used to fighting that way. Moreover, the engineer looks back, and if he sees any signs of Donnybrook Fair, he slows down.”
“How horrible!”
“Yes, indeed. The right of way is lined with empty whiskey bottles.”
Colonel Pennington spoke up. “We don't have any fighting on the mad-train any more,” he said blandly.
“Indeed! How do you prevent it?” Bryce asked.
“My woods-boss, Jules Rondeau, makes them keep the peace,” Pennington replied with a small smile. “If there's any fighting to be done, he does it.”
“You mean among his own crew, of course,” Bryce suggested.
“No, he's in charge of the mad-train, and whether a fight starts among your men or ours, he takes a hand. He's had them all behaving mildly for quite a while, because he can whip any man in the country, and everybody realizes it. I don't know what I'd do without Rondeau. He certainly makes those bohunks of mine step lively.”
“Oh-h-h! Do you employ bohunks, Colonel?”
“Certainly. They cost less; they are far less independent than most men and more readily handled. And you don't have to pamper them—particularly in the matter of food. Why, Mr Cardigan, with all due respect to your father, the way he feeds his men is simply ridiculous! Cake and pie and doughnuts at the same meal!” The Colonel snorted virtuously.
“Well, Dad started in to feed his men the same food he fed himself, and I suppose the habits one forms in youth are not readily changed in old age, Colonel.”
“But that makes it hard for other manufacturers,” the Colonel protested. “I feed my men good plain food and plenty of it—quite better food than they were used to before they came to this country; but I cannot seem to satisfy them. I am continuously being reminded, when I do a thing thus and so, that John Cardigan does it otherwise. Your respected parent is the basis for comparison in this country, Cardigan, and I find it devilish inconvenient.” He laughed indulgently and passed his cigarette-case to Bryce.
“Uncle Seth always grows restless when some other man is the leader,” Shirley volunteered with a mischievous glance at Pennington. “He was the Great Pooh-Bah of the lumber-trade back in Michigan, but out here he has to play second fiddle. Don't you, Nunky-dunk?”
“I'm afraid I do, my dear,” the Colonel admitted with his best air of hearty expansiveness. “I'm afraid I do. However, Mr. Cardigan, now that you have—at least, I have been so informed—taken over your father's business, I am hoping we will be enabled to get together on many little details and work them out on a common basis to our mutual advantage. We lumbermen should stand together and not make it hard for each other. For instance, your scale of wages is totally disproportionate to the present high cost of manufacture and the mediocre market; yet just because you pay it, you set a precedent which we are all forced to follow. However,” he concluded, “let's not talk shop. I imagine we have enough of that during the day. Besides, here are the cocktails.”
With the disposal of the cocktails, the conversation drifted into a discussion of Shirley's adventures with a salmon in Big Lagoon. The Colonel discoursed learnedly on the superior sport of muskellunge-fishing, which prompted Bryce to enter into a description of going after swordfish among the islands of the Santa Barbara channel. “Trout-fishing when the fish gets into white water is good sport; salmon-fishing is fine, and the steel-head in Eel River are hard to beat; muskellunge are a delight, and tarpon are not so bad if you're looking for thrills; but for genuine inspiration give me a sixteen-foot swordfish that will leap out of the water from three to six feet, and do it three or four hundred times—all on a line and rod so light one dares not state the exact weight if he values his reputation for veracity. Once I was fishing at San—”
The butler appeared in the doorway and bowed to Shirley, at the time announcing that dinner was served. The girl rose and gave her arm to Bryce; with her other arm linked through her uncle's she turned toward the dining room.
Just inside the entrance Bryce paused. The soft glow of the candles in the old-fashioned silver candlesticks upon the table was reflected in the polished walls of the room-walls formed of panels of the most exquisitely patterned redwood burl Bryce Cardigan had ever seen. Also the panels were unusually large.
Shirley Sumner's alert glance followed Bryce's as it swept around the room. “This dining room is Uncle Seth's particular delight, Mr. Cardigan,” she explained.
“It is very beautiful, Miss Sumner. And your uncle has worked wonders in the matter of having it polished. Those panels are positively the largest and most beautiful specimens of redwood burl ever turned out in this country. The grain is not merely wavy; it is not merely curly; it is actually so contrary that you have here, Colonel Pennington, a room absolutely unique, in that it is formed of bird's-eye burl. Mark the deep shadows in it. And how it does reflect those candles!”
“It is beautiful,” the Colonel declared. “And I must confess to a pardonable pride in it, although the task of keeping these walls from being marred by the furniture knocking against them requires the utmost care.”
Bryce turned and his brown eyes blazed into the Colonel's. “Where DID you succeed in finding such a marvellous tree?” he queried pointedly. “I know of but one tree in Humboldt County that could have produced such beautiful burl.”
For about a second Colonel Pennington met Bryce's glance unwaveringly; then he read something in his guest's eyes, and his glance shifted, while over his benign countenance a flush spread quickly. Bryce noted it, and his quickly roused suspicions were as quickly kindled into certainty. “Where did you find that tree?” he repeated innocently.
“Rondeau, my woods-boss, knew I was on the lookout for something special—something nobody else could get; so he kept his eyes open.”
“Indeed!” There was just a trace of irony in Bryce's tones as he drew Shirley's chair and held it for her. “As you say, Colonel, it is difficult to keep such soft wood from being marred by contact with the furniture. And you are fortunate to have such a woods-boss in your employ. Such loyal fellows are usually too good to be true, and quite frequently they put their blankets on their backs and get out of the country when you least expect it. I dare say it would be a shock to you if Rondeau did that.”
There was no mistaking the veiled threat behind that apparently innocent observation, and the Colonel, being a man of more than ordinary astuteness, realized that at last he must place his cards on the table. His glance, as he rested it on Bryce now, was baleful, ophidian. “Yes,” he said, “I would be rather disappointed. However, I pay Rondeau rather more than it is customary to pay woods-bosses; so I imagine he'll stay—unless, of course, somebody takes a notion to run him out of the county. And when that happens, I want to be on hand to view the spectacle.”
Bryce sprinkled a modicum of salt in his soup. “I'm going up into Township Nine to-morrow afternoon,” he remarked casually. “I think I shall go over to your camp and pay the incomparable Jules a brief visit. Really, I have heard so much about that woods-boss of yours, Colonel, that I ache to take him apart and see what makes him go.”
Again the Colonel assimilated the hint, but preferred to dissemble. “Oh, you can't steal him from me, Cardigan,” he laughed. “I warn you in advance—so spare yourself the effort.”
“I'll try anything once,” Bryce retorted with equal good nature. “However, I don't want to steal him from you. I want to ascertain from him where he procured this burl. There may be more of the same in the neighbourhood where he got this.”
“He wouldn't tell you.”
“He might. I'm a persuasive little cuss when I choose to exert myself.”
“Rondeau is not communicative. He requires lots of persuading.”
“What delicious soup!” Bryce murmured blandly. “Miss Sumner, may I have a cracker?”
The dinner passed pleasantly; the challenge and defiance between guest and host had been so skillfully and gracefully exchanged that Shirley hadn't the slightest suspicion that these two well-groomed men had, under her very nose, as it were, agreed to be enemies and then, for the time being, turned their attention to other and more trifling matters. Coffee was served in the living room, and through the fragrant smoke of Pennington's fifty-cent perfectos a sprightly three-cornered conversation continued for an hour. Then the Colonel, secretly enraged at the calm, mocking, contemplative glances which Bryce ever and anon bestowed upon him, and unable longer to convince himself that he was too apprehensive—that this cool young man knew nothing and would do nothing even if he knew something—rose, pleaded the necessity for looking over some papers, and bade Bryce good-night. Foolishly he proffered Bryce a limp hand; and a demon of deviltry taking possession of the latter, this time he squeezed with a simple, hearty earnestness, the while he said:
“Colonel Pennington, I hope I do not have to assure you that my visit here this evening has not only been delightful but—er—instructive. Good-night, sir, and pleasant dreams.”
With difficulty the Colonel suppressed a groan. However, he was not the sort of man who suffers in silence; for a minute later the butler, leaning over the banisters as his master climbed the stairs to his library, heard the latter curse with an eloquence that was singularly appealing.