CHAPTER XVIII
"There is a chance for you, Owen," remarked Dale, as the reading of the letter was finished.
"So it would seem," was the slow reply.
"It isn't every fellow who has the chance of becoming a foreman."
"That is true. If Mr. Paxton made the offer, I would jump at it."
"What's the matter? Don't you want to work for your uncle?"
"You know what I told you before, Dale. Uncle Jack Hoover is the hardest man to work for that I know of."
"Perhaps he isn't so bad as he used to be. Anyway, you could give him a trial. You wouldn't have to stay with him if you didn't want to."
"And there's another thing. You——"
"Oh, don't mind me!"
"I shan't go without you, Dale."
"Then, I'll go along. He says he wants more hands."
Owen's face brightened.
"If you'll do that I'll take him up, and write a letter to him to-morrow. I'll tell him to keep places open for both of us, and that we want to work together."
"It may not suit him to keep us together."
"He'll have to do it—if he wants us at all. This is a combination that can't be broken, remember."
"All right, then, have your own way. But if we're to be there by the first of next month, we can't stop for canal boats and slow lake lumber boats."
"That is true. Perhaps we can get cut-rate tickets to Buffalo or Cleveland, and then get a cheap lake trip to Detroit. We can find out about that matter after the letter is written."
The communication to John Hoover was prepared the next morning, immediately after breakfast. Owen insisted that Dale help on the letter, and the result was that Dale wrote one sheet while his chum wrote another. Owen told his uncle what a close friend Dale was, and that they meant to work together in the future. He added that both had worked for Mr. Paxton, and that that lumberman had been equally satisfied with their labors. Dale's letter was more in the nature of an application, and he referred John Hoover to John Larson, Peter Odell, and several others by whom he had been employed.
As the letter was an important one to them, the young lumbermen did not drop it into a box, but took it direct to the post-office. They were just coming from the building when they came face to face with Mrs. Wilbur and her husband.
"Oh, Jefferson, there they are now!" cried Mrs. Wilbur. "How fortunate we are to meet them!"
She caught Dale by the arm and brought him and Owen to a halt, and introduced them. In a minute more Jefferson Wilbur was shaking each by the hand.
"We were trying to hunt you up," said the lumber merchant. "Have you an hour to spare? If you have, I'd like both of you to come over to our hotel with us. I want to talk to you."
"We can spare you all the time you wish," said Owen, with a laugh. "We are out of work just now, so time is no object."
"Yes, I heard Paxton had closed down," replied Jefferson Wilbur. "So you are out, eh? I thought you used to work in one of the sawmills?"
"We did, but they are all full now," said Dale.
The young lumbermen walked to the hotel with the merchant, while Mrs. Wilbur left the party to do a little shopping. The merchant occupied a fine apartment on the second floor front.
"I am tremendously glad to meet you," he said. "My wife has told me the particulars of how you rescued my son and daughter from the forest fire. It was a brave and noble thing to do."
"We didn't do so very much—at least, no more than others would have done," said Dale, who felt bound to say something, since Owen kept silent.
"Oh, yes, you did, young man. You did much better than the man I left in charge up there."
"You mean Jasper Nown?"
"Yes. At the first intimation of danger he was scared to death, and he was of no particular use to anybody. I had to discharge him."
"Well, the combined fire and heavy storm were enough to scare anybody," put in Owen. "The lightning laid low more than one big tree around there."
"So I was told. It was a bad combination, although the fire, if left alone, might have been worse. My preserve is about half ruined, and my wife says she doubts if she will care to go back there another season."
There was a pause, and Jefferson Wilbur looked at both Dale and Owen hesitatingly.
"I—er—I feel that I ought to do something for both of you," he went on. "I don't know exactly how you feel about it, but——"
"We don't expect anything," came from both of the young lumbermen.
"I don't suppose you do—you are not that kind; I can tell that by your looks."
"You've given us more than was coming to us already," added Dale.
"But I want to do something, I tell you. My children are very dear to me, and if they had been burnt up——" Mr. Wilbur could not finish.
There was an awkward pause, neither Dale nor Owen knowing what to say. If the truth must be told, each wished he was out on the street again, so he might get away from the gentleman, who seemed bound to reward them for their services.
"You're out of work, you say," went on Jefferson Wilbur. "As you know, I own an interest in a lumber company operating in Oregon. How would you like to go out there?"
"To Oregon!" repeated the pair.
"Yes. I think I could give you steady situations at good wages, if you cared to go. Of course it is a long distance from here, but the openings are better, I think, than they are here."
"I might go, if Owen would go too," came from Dale. "But we have just sent a letter to his uncle in Michigan, saying we might come out there to work for him."
"Then your uncle is a lumber dealer?" said Jefferson Wilbur, turning to Owen.
"Yes. He owns several tracts of land in Michigan, and has an interest in the Gamoine Lumber Company."
"I have heard of that concern. Well, in that event you wouldn't care to go to Oregon." Jefferson Wilbur looked disappointed.
"But we might go later," put in Dale.
"Very well. Whenever you are at liberty to go, let me know, and I will do what I can for you. When do you think you will start for Michigan, if you go at all?"
"As soon as we hear from my uncle," answered Owen.
"I am going to stay here several days, and maybe a week. Will you come and see me again before you go away?"
"If you wish it," said Dale.
More conversation followed, and then they bid Mr. Wilbur good-day and left. As they walked away the lumber merchant looked after them thoughtfully.
"Two good young men," was his mental comment. "They don't want to be rewarded, and if I had offered them money they would have refused it. I'll have to keep them in mind and square up some other way."
It was not until the next morning that Dale remembered with deep regret that he had wished to ask Jefferson Wilbur about the mining claim in Oregon.
"What a fool I was not to think of it," he said to his chum. "I have the papers right here, too."
"Better go up and see him this morning."
"No, I don't care to do that."
"Why not?"
"He may think that I am hanging around for a reward, and I don't want a cent," answered Dale.
Before the end of the week a letter came from John Hoover, intended for both Dale and Owen. It was a long communication, but the gist of it was that they might come on at once, and Owen's uncle would give each a trial, Owen as a foreman, at thirty dollars a month, and Dale as a gang hand, at twenty dollars a month, with board. If agreeable, they were to send a telegram of acceptance.
"That isn't so bad," said Dale.
"He might have offered you a little more," replied Owen.
"Perhaps he wants to see what we are made of first."
"Then you are willing to go at that?"
"We might as well. We haven't got to stay with him, you know, and something is better than nothing, at the start," added Dale, who was intensely practical.
So the telegram was sent without further delay, after which the pair began to look around for the cheapest method of getting to Detroit. From a man who had traveled a good deal, they learned that the cheapest and quickest way for them would be to take a regular steamer from Bangor to Boston. Here they could change to a train running through Albany to Buffalo, and from Buffalo they could get a lake steamer direct for their destination.
"You won't lose much time that way," said the traveler, "and you'll save quite a few dollars on car-fare," and so it proved.
As soon as passage was secured on the steamer bound for Boston, the young lumbermen dressed in their best and started to pay the promised call on Jefferson Wilbur. This time Dale carried the mining-claim papers with him, resolved to get some information concerning them if it was possible to do so.
But at the hotel a disappointment awaited them.
"Sorry," said the clerk at the desk. "But Mr. Wilbur got a telegram last night that seemed to upset him, and he and his wife left early this morning."
"Did he say where he was going?" questioned Owen.
"He said something about making connections for New York and the West. I fancy he and his wife went to New York."
"Thank you," said Owen, and he and Dale walked away. Dale was much disappointed, but said nothing, for talking would not have mended the matter.
"I suppose he was so upset he forgot all about us," said Owen. "I wonder what it was all about?"
"Something wrong in business, most likely. These big dealers are always up to something new, and when a thing goes wrong they have to hustle to make it come out right."
That night found them on the steamer bound down the river. This was a journey they had taken before, still it retained sufficient novelty to be pleasing, and they sat up until late watching the sights in the moonlight.
The next day found them on the bosom of the Atlantic, and the morning following saw them in Boston. Here they managed to procure two cut-rate tickets for Buffalo from a broker, and less than an hour after they were on a train, being whirled westward to new fields of industry and fortune.