HE SOURCE

CLARENCE B. KELLAND

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Books by CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

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SUDDEN JIM. lUustrated.

THE HIDDEN SPRING. Illustrated.

MARK TIDD. lUustrated.

MARK TIDD IN THE BACKWOODS. Illustrated.

MARK TIDD IN BUSINESS. Illustrated.

MARK TIDD'S CITADEL. Illustrated.

MARK TIDD, EDITOR

THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER. Illustrated, aoth.

Illustrated. Leather.

HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK Established 1817

"how could you do it when we trusted you?"

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A NOVEL

BY

CLARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND

Author of " The Hidden Spring " "Sudden Jim" etc.

HARPER y BROTHERS PUBLISHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

J>

■l\

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Copyright, 1918, by Harper & Brothers

Printed in the United States of America

Published April, 1918

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CHAPTER I

FOUR men were loading a flat-car. They worked in pairs, going two by two into an adjacent shed to reappear with an object similar to a sack of flour between them — only the object was longer and somewhat limper. They would then approach the car, swing their burden back and forth a time or two to gain momentum, and hurl it with enthusiasm to the planking of the car. Sometimes the load lay perfectly still where it fell — sometimes it twitched uneasily or gave forth sound similar to human grunt or groan.

The burdens possessed other points of similarity to humankind. For instance, each had two arms and two legs, each had shoulders which continued upward into something unpleasant to see which might have been compared to a human head. There the similarity ended.

SLxteen of them were loaded onto the flat-car,

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then the largest of the four loaders vaulted up beside them and regarded them dispassionately.

"Sweet lot of birds," said he, and then pro- ceeded dehberately to walk from one end of the car to the other upon the bodies. He had no end to serve in doing this. It would have been easier to drop to the ground and walk, but the thing was characteristic of the man. It was his fashion of advertising his wares, for he was one who aspired to rule by fear and left undone no act which might inflate the legend fast growing up about him in the Vermont woods.

"Where'd these here come from, Langlois.'^" asked one of the loaders.

"Bums out of the Boston gutter," said the big man, in a soft voice. "Them's the kind of woods- men we're calc'lated to git out thirty thousand cord of pulp wood with this year. Huh!"

It was so. Aboard that car were sixteen bits of human wreckage from our most polished of cities, who, unfortunately for them, had been cast up on the unfriendly beach of a certain bums' lodging- house. The proprietor of the lodging-house had profitable arrangements with an emploj'ment agency which included the sale of his boarders into bondage. The boarders were given drink to insensibility, were loaded on cars with a competent guard to see that none became sober and escaped.

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and were shipped where there was present need of them.

This time the shipment was made to the Green Mountain Pulp Company, where it was hoped it might be whipped into something resembling a company of lumberjacks.

Lumberjacks ! There was hardly a man among them that had ever seen a tree not growing behind an iron park fence, or between . sidewalk and pavement !

The race of lumberjacks has vanished from the hills; from time to time a few are imported at great pains from Canada or from Maine. Hitherto these had been pieced out with day laborers, with Italians, Polacks, anything that could be made to do. Now, with the Great War moving toward its second year, the laborers departed from the moun- tains, lured to steel-mill, munition-factory, in- dustrial plant by promise of undreamed-of wages, and their places must be filled, for spruce must be cut, must be converted into pulp, or a public hun- gry for news, hungry for magazines or books, must go with appetite gnawing. For the spruce-tree is literature at its ultimate source.

Therefore sodden bums from Boston!

Toward the middle of that squalid mass of creatures a bearded, dead-eyed face arose slowly. Its owner blinked, looked owlishly about to find

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that his elbow was resting on a neighbor's ribs. He shifted, sat more erect, and bobbed his head in what must have been intended for a bow in the direction of the owner of the ribs.

*'I beg your pardon, sir," he said. *'I rested — my — elbow on you — inadvertently."

Then he sank back with mutterings to brutish sleep.

Langlois looked down at him and then looked at his helpers. "My Gawd!" said he. "Did you get that? What 'II be comin' up to us next ? 'Inadvertently,' says he. 'I beg your pardon,' he says." Quite evidently the big man was non- plussed, for he remained silent a moment, staring at the bum. "Now hain't that a sweet piece of meat to whittle into a lumberjack!"

Presently an excitable little narrow-gauge engine came fussing onto the switch and attached itself to the flat-car and an accompanying train of timber trucks. Langlois and his men sat on the flat, their feet dangling over, and settled themselves for their twenty-mile ride back into the hills. The little engine bustled away with them.

Soon they passed out from the mills and yards, and the laborers' shacks about the mills, and rolled along the river's edge. Below, white water boiled and rushed over a rocky bed; above, the mountain, forest-clad, rose upward and upward.

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Over them blew the breath of the spruce woods; over the bums on the flat-car it blew as well, for it did not discriminate, and they drew it into their abused lungs. Such tonic had never before been theirs. There was a tingle to it, a life, a cleanness that could not but leave something of itself. It carried away fumes of cheap liquor; worked on them to awaken them and refresh them.

They began to seethe, to roll, to toss and flounder. One by one they sat up dazedly, clutch- ing throbbing heads, peering about dully, af- frightedly, curiously, as was the nature of each individual. Then they began to take stock of themselves, of one another and of their situation, mumbling to one another suspiciously, eying Langlois and his men furtively.

"Say, pardner," said one, emboldened by his curiosity, "where are we at?"

"None of your business," said Langlois, dis- passionately. "Lay down and shut up."

The man who had astounded Langlois by his use of the word "inadvertently" spoke again. "It seems to me," he said, in a well-modulated, if somewhat hoarse, voice, a voice still capable of expressing courtesy, "that we are entitled to so much. Why not satisfy our natural curiosity?"

"Because I hain't goin' to," said Langlois.

"Then," said the man, "I will guess. I should

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say we were either in New Hampshire or Vermont, and I imagine we are on our way to the lumber- camps. I guess lumber-camps because of your manners. They seem to be that kind."

Langlois turned and glared at the man. In the glare were both ferocity and appraisal, for one who aspires to lead men must know those whom he leads. He saw a face covered with many days* beard, a fair Anglo-Saxon beard. The face seemed to belong to a man of middle life, in the forties at least, but Langlois was able to make some discount for alcoholic excesses and the beard. His guess was thirty. As a matter of fact the man was twenty-nine. He was lean, tall; in their natural condition his eyes were blue.

Chins were a specialty of Langlois's. They went far with him when estimating a man's potential- ities, and this man had a chin that gave promise, or that had given promise. Langlois's eyes roved over the remainder of the bums — they were just bums, rabbits to be dealt with as rabbits, all of a piece. This man might be no better, indeed, might prove more useless, but at least he was different.

"Well?" said the man.

"I'm figgerin'," said Langlois, "if it's worth the

trouble to come back there and teach you to keep

your mouth shut."

"The way I feel at this minute," said the man,

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"it would be a sort of favor if yoii would beat me into insensibility."

Langlois grinned. "If you need it I can tend to it later when I won't have to walk so far."

The man lowered himself to the floor and pillowed his head on his arms, nor did he give other signs of life till the train came to a stop an hour later at woods headquarters, a farm-house in a pleasant valley where lived the woods super- intendent, John Nord.

From headquarters the narrow-gauge radiated up branching valleys to the six lumber-camps; it was the handle of a fan, from which Nord could keep in touch with the workings.

Nord, a short, stocky Dane, came out on his piazza and walked slowly down to the track, nodding to Langlois.

*'What you got?" he asked, sententiously.

"Bums," said Langlois. "Sixteen."

Nord shrugged his shoulders. "Send ten of them to Six; you take the rest at Four. Go to Six first, then come back here after yours."

Langlois turned to his cargo of derelicts. "You," he said to the courteous young man, "git off here. And you two, and you and you and you."

The men scrambled off, and with unanimity sank to the soft grass. Langlois leaped aboard

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again, signaled the engineer, and the train pulled away up the line to Camp Six.

Presently there came around the corner of the farm-house a young woman, hatless, so that her northern yellow hair blew enticingly about her face. She wore a gray flannel waist, a short corduroy skirt of the same color. The young man raised himself on his elbow and gazed at her; then quickly removed the battered derby hat from his head and hurled it from him. He ran his fingers through his hair with some anxiety, then passed his hand over his chin ruefully.

"The Goddess Freya shows herself to men," said he to himself, "and me two weeks away from a razor."

The girl walked past the men with no more than a passing, disinterested glance. The young man's eyes followed her to the ample kitchen garden, where she filled a basket with fresh vegetables for the noonday meal. The basket seemed heavy as she started back, for she repeatedly changed it from hand to hand.

The young man leaped to his feet and ap- proached her.

"May 1?'' he said, extending his hand for the basket.

The girl stopped, drew back a step, but eyed him without alarm — only with repugnance and

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curiosity. Men of his stripe were new to her. She had known rough men, tough men — the product of the lumber-camps — but until lately she had never encountered the bum of the city slums.

"May I carry your basket.'^" he said. "It seems too heavy for you."

"Set it outside the kitchen door," she replied, as though the thing were matter of course, and turned away. But curiosity overcame repug- nance. The man's voice, though hoarse, was courteous, carrying the inflection of the born gentleman. There had been little room for grammatical error in what he said, but his few words convinced her that he was not one to be guilty of uncouth speech. She wondered how he came there, and why.'' She wondered if there was not a story in this derelict that the sea of chance had cast up on her beach.

*T have never spoken to one of you — ^you — " she hesitated over the only word she had ever heard applied to these wrecks from Boston.

"Bums.''" he said.

She nodded her head. "Are all of you polite and — grammatical .''"

"I'm afraid not," he said. "I am grammatical by habit, but I am afraid it needs inspiration nowadays to make me polite."

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*'That, I suppose, was intended for a com- pliment."

*'In its poor way it was a compliment." "Don't you see," she said, without haughtiness, without affectation, without even the appearance of striving to administer a rebuke, but as one stating a fact that should be patent, "that a compliment from a man like you is an imperti-

"I know," he said, quietly, outwardly unhurt by her words, yet she saw that he lifted his hand to his lips and that the hand trembled, "but I — forgot. Pardon me."

"You are forgetting my basket," she said, and moved away toward the house as though elimi- nating him from her consciousness.

As he returned to his companions, after placing the basket at the kitchen door, one of them blinked and asked, "Did you get a hand-out, pardner.f^"

"Such a hand-out, friend, as would satisfy no appetite known to you," he said, and rolled over upon his face. Thus he lay prone until Langlois and the train returned to bear him to Camp Four.

CHAPTER II

THE returning train excited no interest in the six prone figures beside the track, for they were asleep. Langlois found it no difficult matter to awaken them, for his shoes were thick of sole. One after another he grasped them by the shoul- ders and hoisted them to their feet, where they stood tottering, blinking.

"Git aboard there!" he ordered.

Their scramble to obey held elements of piti- fulness; their clumsiness, their ineffectualness of control over their members, had to tell its story of physical abuse. One cannot become a bum of the streets and keep intact the body of a man. i

"You,*' said Langlois to the young man, "what's your name?"

The young man regarded him blinkingly. It required seconds for the demand to penetrate to his consciousness.

"Van Twiller Yard," he said, mouthing his

words.

^'What?'* roared Langlois.

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"Van Twiller Yard,'* repeated the young man. "Generally called Van." He smiled ingratiatingly.

"Gawd!" exclaimed the boss. " 'Van Twiller Yard — beg your pardon — inadvertently. . . .' Gawd!" He was lost in amazement and con- tempt. "What was you before you come up here to be a lumberjack.'^ Eh? Dancin '-teacher? Lemme see your hands."

Yard extended them. They were not immacu- late, but, what was less to Langlois*s liking,' they showed no sign of callous. They were hands unacquainted with labor.

"Know what an ax is?" The boss's voice in- dicated pent-up emotion.

"An ax," said Yard, speaking carefully, "is an implement used for chopping wood."

"Huh! Ever seen one?"

"Only," said Yard, "at a distance — ^a con- siderable distance."

"Well," snapped Langlois, "you*re goin* to see one clost. You and an ax," said he, "is goin* to git to be what you might call companions. . . . Forty bucks a month and board for that!** The last sentence was addressed to the overshadowing mountain.

Five miles of silence ensued. The train pulled in upon a siding to give right of way to a down- coming train of logs. Yard sat up again, looked

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at Langlois, who was regarding with astonishment and animosity a figure that reclined beside the track. It was a long figure, beginning with dilapidated shoes and .white woolen socks, and ending with a shock of colorless hair which rested on a cheap paper suit-case for a pillow. Overalls cut off just below the knee covered its legs; the trunk was sheltered by a woolen shirt. The man did not move, did not pay the train so much as the compliment of a glance. He was reading a magazine with the picture of a beautiful young woman on the cover.

*'Hey!" Langlois exploded the word. He was, take him day in and day out, an explosive sort of individual; one who burst suddenly into words — more suddenly into action.

The reclining man did not move. Langlois sprang to the ground and stood over him threaten- ingly.

""What you doin* here.''" he demanded.

"Lit'ry pursoots," said the man, looking up mildly. "Figger later on follerin' up this rail- road till I git to a camp. Figger on askin' for a job."

"Doin' what?"

"Choppin'."

"You*re hired. Throw your turkey aboard and git on after it. What's your name.''"

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"Sim Samuels." It was a name destined speedily to be contracted to Sim-sam by the population of Camp Four.

The man clambered aboard and sat beside Yard. He opened his magazine again, and ap- peared to be swallowed up in the interest of its contents.

"Good story?" asked Yard.

Sim-sam regarded him with mild sheepishness before replying, then carefully turned down the corner of a page.

"I hain't exactly sure," said he. "You see, it's like this: I hain't what you'd call a readin' man. No, I hain't. To git right down to facts, I hain't able to tell one letter from t'other."

"But you appeared to be reading."

"What I call readin'," said Sim-sam. "I always hankered to read, but somehow I never made out to catch on how to do it. But I git the sensation, so to speak. Yes, sir. I git me these little books and I open 'em up and look 'em over. Then I take her line by line, jest like I was readin', and make her up as I go along. I pertend I'm a-readin' what's wrote on the page, when the fact is I'm a-makin' it all up in my head. Power- ful useful makeshift, say I."

"Shut up!" whipped Langlois's voice. 'Cert'nly, cert'nly," said Sim-sam.

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Presently clanked by another little engine pulling eleven trucks piled high with spruce logs. Langlois*s train backed out on the line and started once more for Camp Four.

The train rounded a curve and came to a stop on the east bank of the river. Below and across. Van Twiller Yard saw for the first time a lumber- camp, and it did not entice him. From the open-front depot a sturdy bridge of poles — a corduroy bridge — led across the swift water to a squat group of buildings, black and uninviting, their sides and roofs covered with building-paper. There stood the cook-shanty; at its rear the bunk-house, and beyond that the stables — with the exception of the scaler's shanty, the only log structure in camp. Facing the cook-shanty was the wanigan, and next it a small house, evidently a habitation, for it owned a piazza of sorts and a child played on the piazza. Yard was to learn that here lived Billings, the walker over the East Branch camps.

A number of youthful pigs rooted between the buildings ; the ground was of black muck, littered, wheel-rutted, an offense to the eye. It occupied a semicircle of perhaps an acre — beyond that was forest.

"They're eatin' in there," whispered Sim-sam.

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Yard had not been conscious of hunger before, but now a faint odor of cookery flavored the air, and straightway he desired greatly to eat. An- other matter gave him occasion for surprise — he had not felt that stabbing demand for stimu- lant which comes on the morning after a debauch. He was in no mental condition to study over this, or to tag it with a reason — he simply noted it as an unusual fact, and wondered at it.

Langlois herded them across the bridge and into the cook-shanty, where sixty men sat on wooden benches along rude tables which sprouted like fingers from the west side of the room. On the east side were the big stoves with their huge kettles and pots, and along the wall shelving and drawers made from starch-boxes, constituting the pantry. At the far end water poured from a tap into a barrel — clear, cold water piped from a near- by spring.

As Yard stood there the relic of a refined stomach turned against the food he expected to find. On this matter he was about to receive a lesson.

"Git down there and fill up,'* said Langlois. Then, with a surly grin, "You're goin' to need it 'fore night."

"I should like," said Yard, "to wash first, if I

may."

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Langlofs jerked his thumb toward the water- barrel and took an unoccupied place at one of the tables. Yard walked to the barrel, filled the rust-spotted tin wash-pan with water with the chill of ice on it, and laved hands and face. It was as though he had taken into his veins an in- jection of some powerful elixir. He seized the cup and drank rapidly, thirstily, as the chill of the water would permit. Then he turned to the table.

His relic of a refined stomach figuratively sat back on its haunches with surprise. What he had expected to find in the way of food he did not exactly know, but his certainty was it would be uncouth, unappetizing, filthy. It was no dainty luncheon served on Sevres; the dishes were of tin or granite ware, but they were clean. The table was clean — and the food! There were beef and pork and headcheese; there were potatoes and baked beans; there was tea; there were pie, stewed prunes, doughnuts, plates of cake, three varieties of cookies. But first of all there was pea soup!

Yard filled his tin plate with it, tasted with some apprehension, and then ate soup as few Bos- tonians have ever eaten it. . . . As for the bums, his companions, it was undoubtedly the finest repast they had ever seated themselves before.

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"Forty a month and board," said Sim-sam. "And boardr

Yard finished his dinner and drew from a coat pocket a box of cigarettes, which he examined and, to his satisfaction, found half full. He lighted one.

Instantly it was slapped from his lips and he saw Langlois grinding it under his "corked" shoe.

"I don't allow them things in this camp," he said.

Yard did not resent the affront; instead, he cringed, as it is the nature of the bum to cringe, and backed away.

Langlois sneered. "Out of here and git to work," he ordered. Then his eyes caught Sim- sam. "Chopper, eh.^* We'll darn soon see."

Yard found himself with a double-bitted ax in his hand, being led with his fellow-bums back over a tote-road which he did not recognize as a road at all. What city-dweller would? It wound up the hillside, turning out for neither boulder nor stump. In spots one sank to the knees in black muck; in other spots the road canted almost on edge as it skirted a ledge of granite. It seemed impossible a team could keep its feet there, let alone haul a load. No wagon could have con- tinued whole if it traveled a hundred yards of it«

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Presently they reached the end of this; the road vanished in sapHngs, dead logs, underbrush. There appeared here and there the top of a stump, freshly cut.

"Here, you bums," said Langlois, "swamp out this road. Clean her out rigid.'' He turned from Yard and his companions looking helplessly at their axes and wondering what one did when he swamped a road, to Sim-sam.

"Chopper, eh? Here." He patted the bole of a fine spruce, then walked straight away from it and pushed a small stake into the ground. "Drive that," he sneered.

Sim-sam walked to the tree, cast his eye casu- ally toward the stake, swung his ax and began notching the tree. When his notch was a matter of three inches deep he paused and glanced again at the stake, then removed a few more chips from the further side of the notch.

"Saw," he said.

A man was waiting with a cross-cut; he passed one end to Sim-sam and retained the other, passing the blade across the tree on the side opposite the notch. Rhythmically the pair began to draw it back and forth, and Yard marveled to see how sweetly and smoothly it melted into the wood. The tree creaked, cracked, swayed. Then with a mighty rush, as of a giant bird swooping on its

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prey, it fell, ripping, smashing through the branches of tree or sapling in its way, to strike the ground with a hollow boom — precisely upon Langlois's stake, driving it into the earth.

"Huh!" Langlois grunted, and walked away. There was one authentic lumberjack in camp, at least.

Yard was speedily informed that swamping a road means to clear it of underbrush, saplings, rotten stumps, fallen limbs. It requires little skill, but is no task for a man without physical stamina. In half an hour Yard's palms were blistered; his back, shoulders, legs, felt as though some practical joker had knotted them like one small boy, safely garbed, will knot the clothes of his friends at the swimming-hole. He dropped his ax and sat down.

It was at an unfortunate moment, for Langlois had just come up behind him. The boss cuffed him to his feet. "Pick up that ax," he said. "Drop it again, and I'll drop you — so you won't git up without bein' h'isted."

Yard recovered his ax and went dizzily to work again; he dared not rest. The soul of a rabbit and the soul of a bum are strangely alike. He worked on and on, haggling through saplings, tugging pitifully at roots that a healthy boy could have torn from the ground, staggering

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under weights that a man would have tossed out of the way. It became mechanical, subconscious. He labored blindly, with but two matters piercing sharply to his consciousness: that he was in tor- ment, and that he was afraid to rest. He groped about, accomplishing little with a maximum of eflfort.

It seemed to him he was going on endlessly, that he had been working, not hours, but days, weeks. His hands bled; his feet, shod in dilapi- dated shoes, were gouged and torn by sharp roots, stones. But he dared not stop. Always he felt Langlois behind him, though Langlois was not there. He was afraid of Langlois, physically afraid, but more afraid of the impact of that dynamic will.

At last it was over and Yard was staggering back to camp, his ax dragging after him, held by his hand whose fingers feared to let go. Men were rushing and jostling into the cook-shanty and he followed them. Not because he wanted food, but because others were going, because he was too weary to make a decision for himself.

He began to eat mechanically. The warm food, more especially the hot coffee, gave him back something of what the toil had taken away. His head cleared. But his body — it was borne down by a weariness such as he had never known.

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Why not? Van Twiller Yard had just completed the first half-day of labor he had ever done.

He sat, with the other bums, about the end of a table. They had automatically segregated themselves a little from the rest, for they were in an alien place, among aliens.

The man next Yard looked furtively about, whispered cautiously: *'We got to beat it out of here. This here's hell."

"You know it!" responded another, fervently. *T got enough."

"Plant some grub in your pockets," said a third. "It's a long drill to town, and no hand- outs on the way."

They laid their plans in an undertone. Yard taking no part.

"Say, pal," said the man next him, "hain't you got nothin' to say.f* You're with us, hain't you.''"

Yard looked up from his plate, peered from one to the other of his companions slowly, then turned his head and looked about the big room. He sighed, moved his arms painfully.

"No, I thank you," he said. "I think I shall stay."

"Stay! What's the matter with you, bo.'* Crazy? This here '11 kill a man in a week. Sneak some grub into your pocket and beat it with us to-night,"

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Yard shook his head. *'I shall stay," he said.

*'What's the idea?"

*'I think," said Yard, "that I have found it."

With which cryptic saying, the meaning of which was, perhaps, not objectively clear even to himself, he struggled to his feet.

"I'm very tired," said he. "Will some one show me where I am to sleep?"

CHAPTER III

IT was faint daylight when Yard was jerked out of his bunk, clothed even to the shoes, as he had crawled in the night before.

*'Youre here, eh?'* snarled Langlois. "Where's them other bums?"

*T don't know."

"Well," said Langlois, "I'll find out— and Gawd help 'em then."

To Yard every movement brought a pang of sharpest pain. He shivered in the chill of the morning; shifted from one foot to the other, for to stand on his feet was not pleasurable.

"Mr. Langlois," he said, "can I get suitable clothing, especially shoes, in this place? You see" — he extended his foot — "that these were not made for use in the woods."

Langlois stared. "You hain't figgerin' on stayin' — voluntary?"

"Yes."

Langlois snorted. "Go to the wanigan. You can draw ag'in' your pay."

"Would you mind going with me? I do not

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know what to select." This was asked so courte- ously that even Langlois could find no excuse to refuse. He moved off brusquely.

"Come on," he said.

*T should like a razor, too, if possible," said Yard.

Presently Yard limped into the woods after the other men, outfitted for the work he was to do. He began with suppressed groans, blundered along until noon with the feeling that every movement was the last possible to make. Strengthened by food and a moment of rest at noon, he went back. At nightfall he was barely able to drag himself into camp.

The third day was little better, but on the fourth the torment was less keen; for the first time he was able to bring something besides futile physical effort to his work. For the first time he was able to think about something besides his suffering. He began to appreciate how futile he was, how little he accomplished.

On the fifth day he began to regard his ax with interest. At no distance Sim-sam was notching a tree. Yard left his swamping and walked toward the old Imnberjack.

*T beg your pardon," said he. *T wonder if you could give me a little instruction in the use of this — ax. I am — exceedingly clumsy with it."

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Sim-sam was delighted, first, at having some one to talk to; second, at the opportunity to show his skill. He began with the rudiments, showing Yard how to grasp the ax, how to balance it, talking a great deal that was unin- telligible to Yard, but dropping much helpful information.

*'Now," he said, "come and see what you've learned."

He led Yard to a ten-inch spruce, pointed out the spot to notch, and told him to go ahead. Yard swung the ax high and brought it down so that it bit into the tree a liberal six inches from the point aimed at.

*'No, no! Gimme that ax. You'll hack off your head. Back off there, now. . . . Look!"

The lesson proceeded a quarter of an hour, both teacher and pupil lost in the interest of it. Langlois interrupted it.

"Here, you bum, git to your work. You hain't hired for an audience."

Yard looked furtively at his boss, cringed back a step, but said: "Mr. Langlois, this man is showing me how to use an ax. • I have never used one, and waste much time. I cannot be- come really useful until I learn. I think I am getting the idea, and if you will allow us to go on with the lesson I shall be much more valuable.

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The time taken up by the instruction will be more than made up by my added efficiency."

Langlois loved to rule by fear; he preferred cruelty to anything remotely resembling gentle- ness; but he was a capable camp boss. It was his effort to get the most out of his men, and his intelligence was not rated cheaply by his superiors.

"Go to it," he said, grudgingly, "but don't ride a good thing to death."

So the lesson went forward — that lesson and other lessons.

At the end of two weeks Yard actually was able to take some pleasure in his work. The soreness had vanished from his muscles; he was able to eat three times daily such meals as he would not have believed it possible for a human being to consume. His face no longer favored in color a toad's belly; it was taking on a tinge of brown. The repulsive sacs which had served for ej^elids were vanishing. But something of the old furtiveness, something of the old carriage of the city bum, remained. A man is not made over in a fortnight. He shaved each night, no matter how weary he returned to camp. He still started when Langlois spoke near him. . . .

"I think I've found it," he said to himself more than once.

The second Sunday of his residence in camp

27

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he drew Sim-sam aside. "I'd like to see what work I'd make of cutting down a tree," he said. "Do you imagine Langlois would object if we took a saw and ax back to the cutting?"

"Him.'' Ever hear him raise his voice ag'in' anybody workin'.^^"

So they went back a short distance and se- lected a spruce. Yard walked off from it as he had once seen Langlois do, and pushed the point of a small stake into the ground. Then he went back to his tree and commenced to cut the notch. He was slow about it, not skilful, but he studied each stroke of the ax.

"Now," he said, "if you please, we'll take the saw."

Sim-sam obeyed, grinning broadly, and they began drawing the cross-cut back and forth.

"Hey," Sim-sam complained, "we're sawin', boy! You hain't supposed to ride on that end of her."

There is an art to the saw as well as the ax.

It was not long before the tree groaned, cracked, fell. It boomed to the ground a generous six feet away from the stake. Yard looked at it ruefully; Sim-sam with a grin. Then, to Yard's bewilderment, he began suddenly to bow and scrape and duck his head in the direction of camp. Yard turned and saw standing in the tote-road, watching them, the youthful Mrs. Billings, wife

28

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to the walking boss, and another young woman whose northern yellow hair blew enticingly about her face. She wore the same gray flannel waist, the same corduroy skirt, she had worn the morn- ing Yard first saw her at woods headquarters. He breathed deeply — once.

"Freya!" he said, aloud, speaking the name of the fair-haired goddess of Viking lore whose per- sonification she seemed to be, and the sound of the word startled him, for he had not willed to speak.

She wrinkled her brow and peered at him, advanced a step, hesitated, then spoke. "Are you the man who carried my basket.^" she asked.

*Yes," he said.

*You have changed," she said. "Besides, I thought all the — " she hesitated.

"Bums," he said.

" — had run away from camp," she finished her sentence.

"All but myself."

"Why did you stay.'*" she asked, curiously.

"It's hard to say," he responded, thought- fully. "It is not pleasant here. Men like myself are not supposed to like such work as this — but I found I wanted to stay. It is the first work, I think, that I ever wanted to stay with. ... It seems worth doing."

29

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"You had never found a worth-while occupa- tion before?" she said, half in question, half in stating a thought of her own.

"No," he replied. "The profession I was educated for, and the trades and businesses I knew anything about, were dull. When your work was done — it was done. That was all there was to it. They were gray. I don't know why, but I always looked for color in my work, for colors that changed and wove patterns. There was nothing to interest a man and make him want to go on, not merely to earn a living, but for the interest there was in what he did. So I grew tired of looking for it. . . . My great-grandfather followed the sea. There is no sea for Americans to follow nowadays."

"I have thought it must be like that to live in a city," she said.

"I really tried to find something — that was worth working at," he said, defensively, "but it wasn't there. Now I seem to have found it — but I'm a bum," he ended, with some bitterness.

*'You were a bum," she said.

He looked at her eagerly, and she found his eyes pitiful. "You see a change.'^"

"A great change."

"Then you think a bum — need not always be a bum?"

30

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"Why should he? If he wants to become something else he can. I think it is all a question of what a person wants to be. You can be almost anything — if you want hard enough."

He shook his head doubtfully. *'I don't know," he said, slowly, thinking aloud and not con- sciously talking to her. "With plenty of will a man might stop being the things which make him a bum, but, having been one, he never could climb up to a place where a woman like you would forget he had been one."

She flushed, but replied evenly, "I think he could."

He turned his back abruptly, walked away a few steps, and stood looking through a rift in the forest to the valley beneath. When he turned his eyes were bright with a hope that had long been dead; his jaw — the jaw that Langlois had appraised as worthy of attention, was set. "I — I thank you," he said, in a voice so low it hardly carried to her ears. . , . And then Langlois strode into view.

The boss saw the little group, increased his pace, and advanced savagely. Yard tried to maintain the bearing of a man — but it was not yet his time. . . . He cringed.

"You bum!" snarled Langlois. "How dast you speak to them ladies? I'll teach you!" His fist

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snapped from his side to Yard's jaw, and the young man sprawled on the ground, nor did he attempt to rise. He shielded his face with his hands. Langlois turned his back, knowing well his man. He would not have to strike again.

"I'm sorry he was disturbin' you. Miss Nord," he said, "but I calc'late he won't do it again."

Miss Nord stood frowning, looking expectantly at Yard. Presently she turned to Langlois. "Is that — all?" she said. "Isn't he — agoing to resent that— blow.?*"

"Him.''" Langlois grinned at the thought. "He hain't nothin' but a bum."

"And for a bum," said Miss Nord, clearly, "who is also a coward there isn't much hope. . . . Come, Nell," she said to Mrs. Billings, and, turn- ing, they walked down the road. Langlois followed them, satisfaction warming his heart. He had shown his prowess before the woman he aspired to impress.

Sim-sam bent over Yard. "Hurt much.^*" he asked. "That was a reg'lar wallop."

"The blow— didn't hurt."

"What did, then, for Gawd's sake?"

"Not — daring — to fight back. And with her looking on."

"Hum! . . . Wasn't exactly the way to git a young woman excited about you. Funny

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about 'em, hain't it? Abhor fightin', every one, but not a girl but expects her feller to be able and willin' to lick all comers. A homely fightin' man's got more chance every time than a peaceful fellow that's as handsome as a actor."

" *A bum who is also a coward,' " Yard quoted.

"That was rubbin' it in. . . . Was you always afraid of fightin'.?"

"There was a time — " said Yard, gritting his teeth.

"Well, then," said Sim-sam, "I figger there can git to be a time ag'in. This here's the way I look at it, when you got to be a bum, you sort of let go all holts, and darin' to fight was one of 'em. I've seen consid'able of them bums, and they're all alike. Got the bum-disease, so to speak. Bein' scairt of folks is jest a symptom of it. See? Well, it looks to me like the last couple weeks got you to convalescin' like. You hain't near so sick with bein' a bum as you was, but neither be you cured yet. Sev'ral more doses of the same ol' medicine necessary. When you git the measles you're all spotty. WTien you git well of 'em them spots go away. That's how it '11 be with that there timidity of yourn. Sure."

"I'm afraid not, Sim-sam."

"Now hold on. If you git a relapse now, it '11 go hard with you — always does. Maybe you

33

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won't git well a-tall. Once I heard tell of a feller that was sick, and up and died because he jest wasn't able to want to git well. Don't you git that way. You keep right on wantirC to git over bein' sick with this bum-sickness, and the chances is with you. Keep on a-wantin'."

Yard turned his face to the ground and lay silent for a long time. Sim-sam sat beside him, also silent, watching with real sympathy while the young man fought his fight. Presently he touched him on the shoulder.

"Boy," he said, gently.

*'Yes, Sim-sam."

"You hain't goin' to give it up? Seems like I'd be mighty disapp'inted if you was to do that — me that's been teachin' you to be a lumberjack. Maybe I'd take to drink, or somethin'. ... I hain't never had no — babies. So there wasn't no way for me to have a growed son, was there, eh? . . . Well, I've sort of, after a fashion, took that kind of a int'rest in you, boy, and it's almost what you might call damn necessary for me to see you pull through. . . . Eh, boy?"

Yard got slowly to his feet and began to walk away.

"Boy," said Sim-sam, "j'ou hain't mad with mer

"No, Sim-sam. You've thrown me a rope,

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and I've caught it. Now I want to go back in the woods and — be ashamed alone."

Sim-sam stood looking after him until he disappeared among the trees. "I never yet got me a pet, cat, dog, man, or rabbit, that it didn't up and die on me jest as I was gittin' attached to it." He wagged his head dolefully and plodded back to camp.

CHAPTER IV

BIG John Beaumont, who owned the Green Mountain Pulp Company with all its rami- fications, including thousands of acres of timbered mountains, and a sawmill with a capacity of fifty thousand feet a day, went seldom into the woods nowadays. It was not his fault, for he was a woodsman, but the possession of much money and property required his presence to guard it. He had been more contented in less opulent days.

On a Sunday early in October, when Van Twiller Yard had been in the woods a matter of three months. Big John went over questionable roads in his big automobile, to woods head- quarters.

There he leaped out, eager as a boy, for all his sixty-two years, sniffing the odors of the forest joyously. Nord came out to meet him, and though the woods boss was a man who outweighed most, though his shoulders were the shoulders of a blacksmith. Big John made him appear puny, so huge was his bulk.

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«(^

*Nord," he said, "the row's on. They've started making trouble at the new mill."

"Who?" asked Nord.

"The Swedes — the Swedes," said Beaumont, impatiently. "You know, or ought to know, the situation. New mill is to make Swedish sulphite- pulp, isn't it? Foundation for Kraft paper. Before the war Sweden had a monopoly of it, practically. Few mills in Canada. No sub- stitute for Kraft. Sweden has put an embargo on exports. Canadian mills closed down for want of labor — all in the army. Saw it all coming. Hired an expert and started to run up this mill. Does Sweden like it? Well, rather not. Those manufacturers have had a sweet thing, and they want it again. Don't blame 'em. They don't want America in the game, and they'll keep us out if they can. We're their biggest customer. Awhile back I get a letter advising me to keep out of it — in fact, offering to buy me off. I answered and told them to go to blazes. They came back with what amounted to a threat to see to it I didn't make good. . . . And they've started at the mill. Next they'll start in the woods. That's why I'm here. I need a

man."

'You need a man."

*A man I can depend on if I need him — de-

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pend on for brains and knowledge and fight. Got any suggestions?"

Nord thought a moment, wagging his head, as was his habit.

"How about that fellow you told me of a while back?" asked Beaumont. "That bum, I mean, who's been studying the game, who took lessons in chopping, and sits under the scaler nights to learn timber, and that sort of thing?"

"Don't know much about him. My daughter told me that."

"Ask her out, please."

"Svea," called Nord, and presently his daughter appeared on the piazza, with a smile of welcome for Beaumont.

"I'm curious about that lumberjack of yours — the Boston bum with ambitions, so to speak. Tell me about him.'*

Svea flushed, and was angry with herself for flushing. Why should she do so at mention of a common lumberjack, at forty a month and board — who wasn't really a lumberjack — and who was a coward to boot? However, she told what she knew, ending with the statement that she had not seen the man for two months and had her later information from Mrs. Billings. It appeared Mrs. Billings had the notion Svea would be interested to hear about the fellow,

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*'Has he brains?" Beaumont asked.

"Yes, and I am sure education. I don't mean just scliooling, but a real education. Before he got to be what he was — he must have been a — gentleman."

"Huh! . . . Honest? Dependable?"

*'I don't know. I think he was once."

"Fighter?"

Svea flushed again and bit her lips. The recollection of the last time she had seen Yard, cringing on the ground, covering his face in fear of another blow from Langlois's fist, was painful to her. It had been to her a sickening glimpse of a human soul, ulcer-eaten.

"No," she said, almost in a whisper.

"Why do you say so?"

She told him briefly, honestly, omitting no part of the matter.

"Hum!" said he. "Hand-car here, Nord?"

"Yes."

"Come with me to Camp Four. Will you come, too, IVIiss Nord? I have a special reason for asking."

"Surely," she said, and went inside the house for a cap.

"Now," said Beaumont, "we're going to look over this fellow. But keep quiet about it. Don't want him nor anybody else to suspect it. I'll

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find out about him. Questions 'II get at what he knows; his eyes 'II tell if he's on the square; and a little test, sort of laboratory assay, as it were, will give us a line on his fighting spirit."

When they arrived at Camp Four Beaumont said to Svea: "Run over now and visit with Billings's wife. But come out on their fancy piazza to do it. Just sit there and keep your eyes open."

Big John and Nord found Langlois in the barn and talked woods matters with him for some time; then Beaumont left Nord with him, saying, "Guess I'll stroll around a bit and talk to the boys."

He had a very special pride in his judgment of men, and felt sure he would be able to pick out the one he wanted without assistance. So he moved from group to group, scrutinizing the men he talked with, but found none to fit his require- ments. At last he opened the door of the scaler's shanty and saw three men inside, O'Toole, the scaler, whom he knew, Sim-sam, whom he had never seen, and a tall, lean young man who leaned against the wall and listened to the talk of the others. The face of the young man was brown, the eyes were clear. There was no slouch to his shoulders now, no hint of the bum of three months ago.

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Beaumont took stock of his features in one swift appraising glance. They were the features of a man with generations of gentlemen behind him; they told of culture, of intelligence. They were pleasing features, and the smile that came to the lips and eyes was winning. Altogether Big John was pleased.

"H'm!" he said.

O'Toole jumped to his feet. "Come in, IMr. Beaumont, and set," he said. "These here is Sim-sam and Van Yard."

Beaumont nodded to them and joined in their conversation as one of themselves. It was a knack he possessed. They were talking of timber, of log-hauls, of skidways, of steam-loaders. It was shop talk to the nth power — and all for the benefit of Van Twiller Yard. He was taking his Sabbath lesson.

Presently Beaumont edged further into the conversation; began to question Yard as though he were a reluctant witness and he a clever cross- examiner. He found Yard well grounded in the theory of the felling and loading of logs, of the arts of the woodsman.

"You came up in that assignment of bums from Boston?" he asked, bluntly.

"Yes," said Yard.

"Ever been in the woods before.^"

4 41

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"Never."

"Seem to catch on pretty well. Like it?"

"Yes."

"It's real," said Yard, after a second's pause. "It's work for a man. We aren't parasites here, living on other folks' quarrels or on middlemen's profits, but we're at the very source of the in- dustry. We're taking from nature with our hands." His eyes sparkled, his voice took on a tone of enthusiasm. "Think," he said, "we stand at the very fountain-head of human knowl- edge. Without us there would be no daily papers, no magazines. To-day we fell a tree; a month hence, on the paper manufactured from that spruce, the country may read the news of a great battle or learn of a great new thought; may read a book of science. Beyond us the art of the preservation of human knowledge cannot go. It all derives from us. To me the woods are not the woods. These mountain-sides of spruce are something more. It may sound impractical and a great deal more like a dreamer than a lumber- jack— but to me they are The Source — just that."

"H'm!" said Big John. "Shouldn't be sur- prised if you grew up to be a real chopper." His big, red, smooth-shaven face grew stern. "Young

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man, how came you to land here with a cargo of bums?"

"Because," said Yard, "it didn't seem as if there was anything to do that was worth the bother of doing. So I did nothing — but become a poHte sort of bum . . . and then an impoHte sort of bum."

"How about the booze?"

"I never had a real desire for it — haven't thought about a drink since I came here."

"H'm! Just took to it, failing any other occu- pation, eh?"

"Exactly."

"Well," said Big John, moving to the door, "I shall keep my eye on you. You're going at it right."

He stepped outside. The others followed. Big John had timed his movements to fit his design, for Nord and Langlois were just coming around from the barn. Beaumont walked to meet them, frowning. In an instant, it appeared, something had put him in a savage humor. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Mrs. Billings and Svea Nord on the piazza.

He was gnawing his lip by the time he reached

Langlois, and breathing as a man breathes who

holds in check his temper. "What's the matter,

Langlois?" he said, angrily. "Can't you put the

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fear of God into your men? Some of *em getting pretty cocky. W]io*s the tall young fellow there?'* He jerked his head toward Yard.

"One of them bums/' said Langlois. "Been gettin' fresh?"

"Used his mouth considerable," said Beau- mont.

Langlois showed his teeth. "Thought I'd showed that bird, but if he needs more here's where he gets it. Don't worry none about me puttin' the fear of God into him. Jest watch."

He strode to Yard, clutched his shoulder, and swung him around so that they stood face to face.

"What's your game?" he snarled. "Hain't I taught you manners? Eh? Seems like you need another lesson." He clenched his fist for the blow.

This time Yard did not flinch or cringe. He too had seen Svea Nord, and the recollection of their last meeting was like a brand applied to his naked flesh. She had seen his degradation; it was a spectacle she would not witness again. He stepped one pace closer to Langlois, so that their bodies touched.

"Langlois," he said, almost in a whisper, but steadily, "there's been a change in the last two months. It's fair to you to tell you. If you're looking for trouble with me I want you to know that this will be no one-punch affair. Before I

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got to be a bum I was middling fair with my fists. . . . How about it?"

"I'm goin' to bust you open," grated Langlois.

"One moment, then."

He wheeled and strode to the piazza, Langlois staring after him, unable to comprehend what was passing. "Miss Nord," he said, "two months ago you saw that man knock me down and saw me afraid to return the blow. I was still a bum. , . . Your opinion is of value to me. It was no fault of mine that you saw that episode, but you saw it. Now, in fairness to me, I ask you to see the one about to happen. It will not be pleasant. I ask you to see it out." With that he turned and walked back to Langlois. "Ready," he said.

Langlois, now heated with rage, struck. Yard laid his head quickly on his shoulder, and the fist passed his ear. Then he countered and his knuckles bruised themselves on Langlois's teeth; he uttered a sound — a sound that was not a laugh, but kin to it, for there was joy in it. Twice more he struck before Langlois could recover himself, and the boss went down. Yard stepped back and waited for him to rise. The boss got to his hands and knees and launched himself on the young man from that position, both arms driving viciously. Yard met him half-way, giving blow for_blow. Breast to breast they stood, striking

4,5

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from the shoulder, with the desire to maim behind each blow.

Suddenly Langlois sought to clinch and trip, but Yard's fist, coming up from his knee in a wicked upper-cut, met him full on the jaw and again he went down.

It was a savage creature, not human, that flew at Yard now. Not fists alone, but feet and teeth were ready for use. A wicked kick missed the young man's knee-cap, and he sank his fist in Langlois's stomach. The boss grunted, but came on. Now, with skill that was beautiful to see, that rejoiced the hearts of the men who watched. Yard began to cut the boss to ribbons. He fought not to exterminate with a blow, but to punish while he himself went unpunished. In and out he danced, chopping his adversary's face, and leaping away from the counter. Again and again he struck. Langlois's face took on queer contours. His lips were shredded, his eyes closing; he bellowed with insane rage.

Suddenly he darted to one side and snatched an ax from the woodpile. Yard was conscious of a woman's scream; then he was on his man before the ax could be swung aloft, and struck, once, twice, with all his strength. Then as Langlois, lifted from his feet, was actually in the air, Yard struck again.

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He did not wait to see the result. He knew. Abruptly he turned toward the piazza without a glance at the man who lay motionless on the ground.

*'I'm — sorry — Miss Nord," he said. "But you had to see."

"Yes," she replied, her voice but a breath, "I had to see — and I am — glad I saw." . . .

"Thank you," he said, gravely.

"I think," she said, mastering a matter-of-fact tone, "that you need a little attention. Cold water — "

He trod heavily toward the bunk-house, for the intense exertion had taken its toll of him. Sim- sam met him, took his arm.

"Boy," the old lumberjack said, tremulously, "I knowed it! ... I knowed it!"

They passed Nord and Beaumont. "When you are washed up," said Big John, "come here. Bring your turkey."

It was the formula of dismissal in the woods, for a man's turkey is his personal effects. To be ordered to get it is to be ordered to move out.

In fifteen minutes Yard returned, not immacu- late, not without Langlois's handiwork plain to be seen.

"Yes, sir," he said to Beaumont.

"From now on," said Big John, "you're my

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man. Responsible to me. I need you. You go down with me."

"But the woods—"

"You will come back. It is here I shall need

you."

"I have a friend," said Yard, diffidently. "Is it — Can I not take him with me?"

"Can you trust him?"

"I am not sure I can trust myself without him.";

"Fetch him," said Big John, for he knew men.

So it was that Big John Beaumont found his man; so it was that Van Twiller Yard and Sim- sam left Camp Four; so it was that a new figure to be reckoned with arose in the mountains of Vermont — a man who was but ninety days distant from free lunches and a bums' lodging- house.

CHAPTER V

NEXT day Big John Beaumont sat in his office, talking pulp with Van Twiller Yard.

*T brought you down to the mill because I wanted you to know what we are up against and what we are trying to do. . . . This morning the president of the largest user of sulphite-pulp in America will be here. He w^ants to contract for our output, and I want you to hear what he has to say. I want you to hear, because I want you to do some dreaming about pulp — like you did about spruce. The Source — that was a good notion, young fellow."

Yard nodded.

"But sulphite is something else, again. What do you know about it?'*

"Only what you told me the other day."

"But you know it's different from the pulp we've been making before — different process — different result. Ground wood-pulp makes print paper and the cheaper grades of papers. Sulphite goes to the making of Kraft, and Kraft is the toughest,

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firmest, most dependable wrapping-paper in the world. It has strength. It stands strain, and that's why it is used in making all fiber and currugated-board containers. There's no sub- stitute. And it's a virgin industry in America. We're building up something new. We're helping to make America independent. Now's our chance. Imports are shut off, or practically shut off. Our manufacturers must have a lot of things that they have depended on foreign manufacturers to get, and now it's up to Americans to manufacture those things for themselves. Somehow, young fellow, it looks to me like a sort of patriotism to go after that stuff, eh?"

"It does," said Yard.

"Also," said Beaumont, with a twinkle in his gray eyes, "it's a matter of profit. Wlien I started building this new mill sulphite-pulp sold at thirty dollars a ton. To-day it's sixty -five. In six months it '11 be a hundred. We made a nice profit at thirty. . . . See?"

"It's enormous," Yard said, and felt it.

"Our capacity will be fifty tons a day. . . . Looks pretty sweet, eh? . . . The mill will be ready to start in a month — I hope. You never can tell about mills. That day we shut down and begin to dismantle the ground- wood-pulp mill. We're through with it. . . . But you're

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still at your Source — the Source of a new in- dustry. Can you dream about that?"

"I think," said Yard, speaking carefully, as was his custom, "that it is better stuff for dreams than the other."

"Good. . . . Now Swedish manufacturers, as I said, want to keep the game in their own hands. They were a bit late getting on to me, but they started at me hard. Their representatives are in this country — and they've made trouble. Already, in one way and another, they've cost us a month's delay, and twenty-five thousand dollars' extra cost." His jaws shut down with the firmness of steel doors closing. "But we've got away with it so far. . . . Now their game will be to make a failure of the mill, and there are two ways to go at it: first, by messing up the manufacture, and, second, by gumming up the woods end so we don't get enough pulp wood to manufacture on. . . . And that's why I needed a man. You're him."

There seemed to be no necessity for reply, so Yard made none.

In half an hour the morning train arrived, bringing IVIr. Knowles, president of the Republic Corrugated Container Company. Beaumont in- troduced Yard, and immediately the two older men fell upon their business like hounds upon a rabbit.

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«i

'I want your output, Beaumont, and I'm going to have it,** commenced Knowles. "You know the situation. The cards are on the table. I've got to have sulphite to keep in business — and I'll pay for it — through the nose, probably.'*

"You want a contract at a stated price?"

"Yes. I'm tired of this shilly-shallying. Half the time our mills are down. Strawboard manu- facturers, who have no reason in the world for it, are holding us up. There are seven of them, and they're in a tight combine. Got bids from the whole of them the other day. Seven men in the office. I took them into my room one at a time, and each made a price of twenty-seven dollars — and grinned in my face. . . . And this sulphite thing. , We used to buy all of one brand. Now brands have disappeared, and such shipments as come through are without brands. We get a wire to-day from a broker in Baltimore saying a certain vessel is about to dock with a lot of pulp — to be had at such and such a price. No matter what it is, I wire back to ship it. Im- mediately we get a wire saying that lot was sold ahead of us, but that another will land in a week — at five dollars more a ton. And there you are. I want to get into a chair where I can sit tight."

"What's your proposition?"

"You to guarantee delivery of three hundred

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tons of sulphite a week — average for two years. Bonus at the end of each year — or penalty. Stiff ones. Price to be flat."

"Good! We'll go you. Market on sulphite to-day is sixty-five dollars. In a couple of months it '11 be a hundred or more. I'm no hog. Make a flat price of ninety dollars. Penalty or bonus of a hundred thousand a year."

"That makes about a million and a half a year."

"Counting the bonus, exactly a million five hundred and four thousand."

"Get your papers ready."

"Got 'em," said Beaumont. "Never waste time." He went to the door and called the bookkeeper, directing him to bring the contracts. They were duly signed, witnessed, delivered — and the deal was made. Deliveries to commence not later than ninety days from date.

When Knowles was gone that afternoon, after inspecting the plant and dining with Beaumont and Yard, Big John said to the young man: "You see. That's what we're up against. I stand to make a profit of upward of a million on that deal — or to lose half a million if we fall down. Your job is to see to it the woods end makes good."

"But," said Yard, "how about Nord.? Isn't he

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woods boss? Won't he resent my meddling in his affairs?"

*'Nord and I have talked this over. He'll be busy with the details. It's up to you to watch out for the Swedes. There won't be any clash."

"Then I'll— tackle the job."

Beaumont smiled a little, for the last three words were not characteristic of Yard. They were too colloquial, too rough-and-tumble for that young man of culture — as he had been. But already the change had set in. It was only the beginning.

"Your salary," said Big John, "will be fifteen

hundred a year — and board. ... But make

good — well — make good and drop in in a year.

We'll make that fifteen hundred look like a

plugged copper. We've been getting out thirty

thousand cords of pulp wood a year. It's up to

the woods end to double it now. . . . I'm through

with you, young man. Your title is assistant

woods boss, but you're responsible to me — and

only me. Use your judgment when you have

any. If you run out — run down and spill it to

me. Don't override an order given by Nord

unless it's necessary — and be diplomatic if it is

necessary. Nord's a good man — but limited.

Now go to it."

The next few days were full of motion for Van

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Twiller Yard. In them he tried to become ac- quainted with the whole woods situation; the lay of the land; what to demand from each camp; where possible danger lay. He began at Camp Eight.

This remotest camp lay in the heart of the forest, to be reached only by the narrow-gauge railroad. It was "above the dam" — that is, it lay beyond the point where the Eastern States Power Company had erected a huge dam across the East Branch — a storage dam, creating a lake where had once been a stream hidden by forest. The lake was a matter of ten miles long by a mile wide, and in it the Power Company stored water in spring, winter, and fall, to be fed down the East Branch as needed in the months of drought, to its power stations below.

The track reaching to Camps Seven and Eight lay along this lake to the dam, then branched off in a huge curve to Five and Six and finally to woods headquarters. All logs from these camps must go by rail to the mills; there was no river to float them down. The logs from Seven and Eight, the two largest camps, must pass over the little railroad along the verge of the pond.

Here was a matter that Yard studied carefully. It seemed to him the railroad ran perilously near the water-level. Now the water was some six

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feet lower, but. Yard thought, it might be made to rise three or even four feet above the tracks. There were three trestles, too, crossing arms of the lake. It was a remote possibility, an im- probability, but it found a place in Yard's mental warehouse, and did not rest easily there.

Camps One, Two, Three, and Four were set upon the banks of the tortuous East Branch — and the East Branch derived from the big pond. Its waters were the waters loosed by the Power Company to operate its turbines below, and down that river went most, if not all, the pulp wood from the four camps. The hardwood, for the sawmill, was transported by rail — for hard- wood logs cannot well be floated.

"Sim-sam," said Yard, "what would happen if the Power Company closed the tunnel at the dam — and kept it closed .^^ Where would the East Branch go.^^"

"I calc'late there wouldn't be enough of it left to float a chip," said the old fellow.

"In which case," said Yard, "it would be up to the railroad to haul both pulp wood and hard- wood— which it couldn't do. . . . What do you know about this Power Company, Sim-sam?"

"Nothin' 'ceptin' it's got power-plants all over the States hereabouts, and that a feller by name of Ekstrom is boss of it."

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"Named what?"

"Ekstrom."

"H'm!" said Yard. "Sounds Swedish."

"Ahnighty Swedish," agreed Sim-sam.

"It looks to rae, Sim-sam, as if we ought to find out more about this concern. It has a gun pointed at our head — and the gun's loaded. When a thing hke that is apparent, one wishes to know the disposition of the man holding the gun — if he's likely to shoot."

That evening Van Yard arrived at woods head- quarters in time for supper. His first act was to telephone Big John Beaumont.

"Get me all the information possible about the Power Company," he said. "About its officers and stockholders — and where the bonds are owned. Especially their nationality."

"All right, Yard," said Big John, asking no questions. But his face, if Yard could have seen it, expressed notable satisfaction. "I knew it," he said to his stenographer, who did not in the least comprehend what he was talking about. "I've got a real man. He has the kind of eyes that see."

As for Yard, he went from the telephone to sit

at table with Svea Nord. It was the first time

he had dined with a young woman in more than

one year. More important with that, it was the 5 57

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first time he was to meet that especial young woman on terms of social equality — as a man, trusted, in position of importance; not as a bum out of the gutter. It is only natural that he should not have been wholly at his ease.

Her manner was guiltless of constraint. She arose to meet him in the home-like parlor, and extended her hand. He took it, and not for days, not while memory remained, did he forget that first touch — it was only a touch, for he did not dare clasp her hand in firm handshake as he might another's.

"Mr. Yard," said she, gravely, "I cannot tell you how glad I am to be able to welcome you here, and I can't tell you how wonderful it seems that you have made it possible."

Yard wished to say something, but hesitated, fearing to offend her. *'I don't think I could have done it if it hadn't been for you," he said, finally, with boyish diffidence.

*'I^had nothing to do with it," she said, but not unkindly — merely in a matter-of-fact tone.

"You had a great deal to do with it," he said, stubbornly.

"I'd rather you didn't say so. It seems so like the obvious thing for you to say. A sort of society compliment."

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"The women I used to know liked compliments,'* he said.

*'I don't. So many men seem to think they have to say pretty things to every woman they meet, and it's silly."

"But if a compliment is sincere. Miss Nord?"

*T think there is only one man who has a right to say those things to a woman. It would be sweet to hear one's husband say them."

"Most men have a theory that women like to hear pleasant things, and that to say them isto win approval."

"Not with me," she said, simply. "I think only one thing will count, and words will have nothing to do with it. It will be the man himself* as he is every day. I shouldn't look for him to do wonderful things, but just to do what he had to do. . . . To be true and trustworthy. ... I think supper is ready. You must be hungry."

That evening Yard sought out Sim-sam. "You've had experience, Sim-sam," he said. "You must know a great deal about women.**

"I know consid'able about three. Two I've buried; one I got left back in town. I had to learn the first one, and it was a chore. When I took me the second, I says to myself: 'This 'II be easy. I got 'em learned.' But I had to start the job all over. Then when I come to the third

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I felt perty sure I was eddicated right up to the hilt, but I fetched up again' another disapp'int- ment. There was more to learn about her than about the other two put together. . . . Sure I know about wimmin — them three. You kin learn one of 'em by livin' with her for years — but what you learn hain't worth a darn to com- mence business with another. Boy, there hain't no sich thing as knowin' 'em in bulk."

"She said actions alone would count with her," Yard said, more than half to himself.

"Ho!" said Sim-sam. "Ketched, be you? Dum it all, if it don't happen to everybody! Well, young feller, if she says actions is what '11 count, my advice to you is to be doggone active. If they want a thing, give it to 'em — and plenty."

"Just doing what a man has to do," said Yard. ' "That's sound. Not great deeds. That makes it some easier. . . . True and trustworthy. That's my job, Sim-sam. True and trustworthy — and me just graduated from a bum. ... It '11 take a,] lot of doing what a man has to do to wipe that off the slate. If only she hadn't seen me then, Sim-sam."

"Dunno about that, boy. Calc'late seein' you then, and seein' how you clambered out of it, 'U do more good 'n harm. It's got her int'rested. That's a p'int. Now you keep her int'rested, like

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I keep myself interested in them stories I make up when I'm follerin' ht'ry pursoots — and work up till you git darn int'restin'. Keep her thinkin' about you and figgerin' you over in her mind. Like one of them proverbs: *Count that day lost whose low-descendin' sun sees no darned int'- restin' action done.' Make a sort of a kind of a story out of yourself for her to keep readin' — and have it look all the time like it was goin' to end well. . . . Now, that's all you git out of me. I hain't no expert, but knowin' I hain't sort of qualifies me to pass out advice. Better git to bed so's to be fresh for them noble acts to-morrow." Yard took the advice. "True and trustworthy," he said over and over again before he slept. "That would be a mighty pleasant thing to have written on a fellow's tombstone."

CHAPTER VI

BEAUMONT'S reply to Yard's telephone re- quest was prompt.

"The Power Company," it read, "was financed by Ekstrom, its president, largely in Sweden. Sixty per cent, of the bonds are owned there and probably a third of the stock. Four members of the board are Swedish-Americans. They show a marked preference for employing Swedes in various positions. We have a lawsuit against them for damages caused by flowing our timber- lands when the dam was built. The attitude of the concern toward us is not friendly."

Yard's reply to this was: "Buy and ship to Camp Eight a motor-boat. Anything with an engine that will pull will do."

So, in due time, a thirty-foot boat came up on the narrow-gauge, carefully covered with canvas so as to pass unrecognized, and was stored in a shed at Camp Eight.

Yard went to Nord, too, in the matter. "I want to make some transfers among the men,"

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he said. "Gradually. I want to get picked crews in Seven and Eight — the cream of the men."

It was all preparation against a possibility — preparation by guesswork against an attack that might not come, or that might be delivered by some adversary not entering at all into Van Yard's present calculations. But it was all he could do. He must be ready for the expected and the foreseen; at the same time he must take such measures as his intelligence indicated against the coming of the unforeseen emergency; against the unexpected shock of attack by an unsuspected enemy.

As matters stood Van believed the machinery of the Power Company would be at the disposal of the Swedish manufacturers. It was ready to hand; its strategical position was little short of overwhelming. But that a concern of its pre- tentious character should strike openly, save in face of necessity, he did not believe. Therefore it was not against the closing of the dam, the flooding of the railroad, the shutting off of water from the East Branch, that he must guard at the beginning. There would be more subtle manoevering, no such high-handed use of power. It was not the large thing he must fear, but a

multiplication of small things which, each con- es

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tribuiing its bit, would hamper the work of the camps, curtail their out]>ut, and turn tlie flow of logs to the mill into a trickle.

Now, with the leaves not wholly fallen from the trees and with snow many weeks distant, it was a trickle at best. Logging without snow, especially in that rugged, uneven country, was no joyous labor. It was drudgery. The cold of winter was not there to push tJie men to effort; when the thermometer stood at zero or below, the labor coniributeil by each man would increase by a third. But most heartbreaking of iill was "snaking" the logs to the skidways.

Four horses panted and snorted and slipped where two horses would haid with ease over an iced road. Wheels were an impossibility. A coui^lc of logs would be chained to a sled at one end, leaving the other ends to drag eccentrically on the ground, and so the sweating teams would be forced to drag them over roads tJiat were no roads at all, jutting with boulders and stumps, down mountain grades to the hungry skidways. The labor that in winter brought five logs found it not easy now to account for one.

Then there was the matter of labor, that shortage of man power which had brought Van Yard, unwilling, to the woods and to what, with honesty, might be called his resurrection. Men

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were liard to come by, and ihcir quality was what Sim-sam called "number three common and culls." Weekly arrived consignments of bums from Boston, of the sweepings and scour- ings and refuse of humanity — who looked upon the work with wry faces and silently faded from view.

It seemed to Van there was a constant pro- cession of men "going out." Always, by the smile of good fortune, there remained a sturdy, dependable nucleus of lumberjacks, some indig- enous to the locality, others imported from Quebec, New Brunswick, even Minnesota and Michigan. These men knew their work and, what was of infmilely greater value, they knew loyalty to their employer. These were the back- bone of the organization. Without them it could not have persisted.

Even the most hungry of fighting-men would have been satisfied with his struggle in the con- ditions that existed — war-made conditions, the hardships worked on America by Europe's mad- ness— but augment those conditions by an in- dividual struggle for life by a new industry against the wealth and jealousy of its foreign rival, and the matter became such as to surfeit the veriest glutton for battle.

Van threw himself into his endeavors, sparing

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neither body nor mind. He became obsessed with his work. In one thing he differed from the most faithful employees of Big John Beaumont — Van's work was a religion to him. He was not working for Beaumont; not working for wages; not working merely to supply the mills with hard wood and pulp — he labored with the art of the sharer in creation. He was assisting to bring something into being — a new industry. He felt himself to be important in it. He felt the forests to be overwhelmingly important. To him they were, in this industry as they had been in the old. The Source.

"Sim-sam," he said, one night, after a long silence, "these trees were grown here to be turned into sulphite-pulp.'* It was so that his mind worked these days. He was aiding in a law of nature — to use a product of nature and to help to transmute it into the finished article for which nature intended it should be used when the seed was planted. It might have made some men laugh. There is a species of man who would have thought him very humorous — and a bit awry in the head.

It was not long before he realized that an in- sidious force was working against him — a force that seemed to know his intentions as soon as they became intentions. If, for some reason, he

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desired to push the work at Camp Five, the work at Camp Five decHned. If he required that Camp Five should turn out a certain quantity of timber or pulp wood, that was the very camp that fell below its normal output. Mysteriously there J would be an exodus of labor thence. Teams [would go lame. Quarrels would arise among the men. Everybody would find fault with the cook. Once, in Camp Six, the men awoke in the morning to find the cook vanished wholly, and no one to get their breakfast.

Each thing was tiny in itself, but they made, when bulked, for ineflSciency. It was not that the things occurred that troubled Yard, so much as that they occurred in the manner they did. Whoever was working to bring them about exerted himself as if he knew Yard's plans. Gradually Van became convinced that this was so. He knew it, and, knowing it, he knew there must be some one, somewhere, in a place of trust who was giving information to the invisible enemy.

In November Yard was in the village. At noon he lunched at the hotel with Big John, who asked few questions because he knew that, were there information to give. Van would produce it. That was his way. WTien he trusted a man he trusted him. Not only trusted him so far as

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concerned his moral equipment, but with respect to his common sense. Which, after all, is a rarer confidence.

"We've got to have more men," said Yard. He did not, it will be noticed, recite a more carefully worded sentence such as, "It is essential that we increase our force of employees," as he would have done four months ago — or four years ago. Physically, mentally. Yard was stripped to essentials.

"I'm sending in an average of two dozen a week."

"I said men*' replied Yard, with no thought of brusqueness. "Every time one of those bums quits it's an improvement."

"One of those bums!" Beaumont's cheeks twitched to hear those words coming from the lips of one of those bums. "Some of *em turn out pretty fair," he said, quizzically.

Yard looked at him blankly, then smiled the shadow of a smile. "I'm losing my sense of humor," he said. "But, Mr. Beaumont, I've found out one thing about myself. I wasn't even a bona fide bum. I was an imitation. A sophomoric imitation."

"It was a darn impressive performance, from all accounts."

"About those men?" Yard persisted.

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"I'll do what I can — I have been doing what I could."

"Thanks. . . . Next, somebody's not playing square. Somebody close to me. The other side know what I plan as soon as I've planned it."

"Hate to hear it. Whom do you suspect?"

"Everybody," said Yard, gloomily.

Beaimiont looked at the young man's face. It was tired, older by days of labor and nights of anxiety, but its most notable change was to be found in its austerity, its asceticism. At times Yard's eyes glowed with the fire of one who marches forward with a new creed. Big John Beaumont had seen such a look before on the faces of workers — but rarely. It was the face of a man to whom his work had become a religion, a philosophy, the working out of a creed. And the creed of this young man was that it had been ordained by the ruling powers of the universe that growing spruce should be transmuted into sul- phite-pulp through his instrumentality.

"What do you want.^" Big John asked.

"I want what the old Romans used to give a selected man when the state was threatened."

"That was when they created a dictator.''"

"Yes."

Beaumont considered. "You want to replace Nord?"

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"No. There's no reason for it. But I want the power to replace him if I need to. Give me a letter to Nord, and to everybody it may concern, saying that the ultimate authority back there in the woods belongs to me, and that I may hire and fire from top to bottom — that what I say goes, without appeal or reference to anybody."

"You're asking quite some mouthful, young

man."

*'I tell 3"ou," said Yard, with the impatience of a man engrossed by a dominating intention, "that I can't trust anybody. I sha'n't use that letter unless it comes to a matter of make or break. It may be Nord need never know it exists. I hope so — " His voice halted, trailed into silence, and then he repeated to himself, forgetful of Big John : "My God! I hope so — it's got to be so."

"Why.?" The tone aroused Beaumont's curios- ity. "Are you so friendly with Nord.^^ Do you like the man that much.f*"

"Like Nord?" Yard said, bewilderment in his eyes. "Why, I've never thought about that. I — He's a good sort, I expect."

"Why, then, the near-prayer that you won't have to do it?"

"It would break her heart," he said. " 'True and

trustworthy.' She abhors anything not true and

trustworthy."

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"Oh," said Beaumont, openly grinning now, "she does, does she? Well, well! . . . Philander- ing with Svea Nord, eh? Look out, son, heaps of boys have tried it. She doesn't seem to take to it."

Yard would have replied, but his attention was arrested by the stare of a man at a table across the dining-room. The man was small, blond, with whitish hair parted down the middle and flattened to his head. He was dressed, and pressed, and manicured. One foot protruding into the;aisle was clad in a patent-leather shoe and gray spat. Yard thought him the most perfectly insignificant-looking individual he had ever seen.

"Who," he asked, "is that man? He's been staring at me ever since we sat down."

Beaumont glanced over his shoulder. "That's Holmquist, Ekstrom's fixer. Little pussy-cat."

"Looks like a parlor pet."

"Don't imagine he shoots a very big bullet," said Big John, with the genuine contempt which his sort must always hold toward the Holmquists of this world — an undervaluation often to their undoing.

Presently he said: "I've got an appointment. Van. You sit here and finish your lunch in comfort. Haven't taken much time for meals

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lately, have you? . . . Drop in the oflSee before you go out. The letter will be ready for you.*'

Beaumont had been gone from the room but a couple of minutes when Yard looked up from a cup of first-rate coffee and a piece of superlative apple pie to see Holmquist standing beside his table, wearing a smile that verged upon a simper.

"Mr. Yard.?" he asked, mincing his words.

Van nodded.

*'My card," said Holmquist, presenting a correct bit of engraving. "I've heard — er — con- siderable about you of late. Glad to have — er — an opportunity to know you. May I sit down.f^"

Van nodded again.

"Not many personalities hereabouts," said the man, at each word becoming more objectionable to Yard, "so when a new one — er — arises, we have to know him. Eh.^^ Pretty near right, what.f^"

"I suppose so," said Yard.

"I'm in the employ of the Power Company — er — field work, you might say. Big concern."

"Yes," agreed Yard. He was afraid the man would commence to purr and put out his head to be scratched.

"Mighty generous with its employees," said Holmquist.

"Glad to hear it," said Yard.

"But a bad concern to — er — buck against."

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"No doubt."

"It's always on the lookout for good men. Indeed, right now I know of a twenty -five-hundred- dollar job that's going begging. Legal depart- ment.'*

"I hope you succeed in filling it."

"Yes, oh yes! To be sure. I think we shall. We — er — have our eyes on a man. Twenty-five hundred dollars a year. And chances." Holm- quist rolled his eyes as if overwhelmed by the thought of the chances. "Studied law yourself, didn't you.'*" Yes.

Silence ensued.

"Couldn't recommend anybody — er — offhand, could you.^"

"No."

"Could you at — say — three thousand?"

"No," said Yard, impatiently, "nor at thirty thousand."

"The company might pay a bang-up, first- class man as high as thirty-five hundred."

Yard found no reply necessary.

''Thirty -five hundred. Headquarters in Boston. . . . Some different — er — from sleeping in a bunk -house and eating beans in a lumber- camp."

It was apparent to Yard that Holmquist con-

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sidered beans as an article of food not to be under- taken by a gentleman.

"Look here," said Yard, "I don't know whether I understand you or not. Are you trying to offer me that job?"

"Er — why, not exactly. Not precisely. Merely — ^ah — sounding you out, as it were. Sounding you out."

"Such thirty-five-hundred-dollar jobs," said Yard, "are offered only when the men like you want to buy — ^not hire — men like me. If that's what you're trying to do, you infernal Persian pussy-cat, it may, or may not, gladden you to know that I used to put the shot, and that on a bet I could probably put you through that window. It isn't more than ten feet away. If you're not trying to buy me up, why, I apologize for the Persian pussy-cat, and for boasting about my athletic ability. . . . Sit down!'*

Holmquist complied with promptness.

"It looks," said Van, "as if the Power Company felt — er — unfriendly toward Mr. Beaumont." His imitation of Holmquist's mincing speech did not draw so much as a glare from that gentleman. Certainly he made no reply.

"I've had a fat, well-fed suspicion of your outfit," Yard went on, "but I needed confirma- tion. I'm indebted to you. Now, then, I don't

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want to ruffle your pretty fur, nor soil tlie dainty ribbon your master's tied around your neck, but you may trot back to him and tell him from me that if he ever sends you to me again with a message like this, I'll — I'll drown you in a pail of water. . . . And tell him that from to-day our camps are closed to outsiders, and our woods become a private park. Anybody found trespass- ing, who can't hand in to teacher a mighty sub- stantial excuse, will have imperative cause to hunt for a bone-setter. . . . One thing I wish you'd do for me before you go away from here — just tell me which of my men you've grabbed off the bargain-counter. You've got one of 'em, and pretty soon I'll find out which one. When I do," and Van's voice sounded decidedly as if he meant literally what he said, "I'll send you his skin for a weskit. Now — scat!**

Holmquist departed, not hastily — ^it must be admitted in no panic, but treading daintily like the most aristocratic of pet kittens.

"Anyhow," said Yard to himself, presently, "I know now who's going to hit, and how much of a punch he carries. But when and where will he land on me?"

It was a question which was to remain un- answered fully for some time.

CHAPTER VII

THE thing the woods end of tlic business must accomplish was this: First, it must ac- cumulate in the big pond beside the mills sufficient pulp wood to run the mills through the winter, with what might be dribbled down in addition on the rails; second, it must pile on roll ways and skidways and landings a matter of eight to ten million feet of hardwood for the sawmill; third, it must haul out to the skidways and to the river and cut and pile enough spruce to equal thirty thousand cords when cut to four-foot lengths. The first requirement must be fulfilled before ice covered the pond, so the bolts could be barked in the big barker and piled ready for winter use. The whole winter lay before to meet the other two demands.

To do this would require the labor of upward of six hundred men — and Van Yard found the camps a hundred men short.

Everywhere the work dragged; nowhere did the men exhibit that loyalty of thought and

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effort necessary to the best results. The whole woods machinery was inchoate; it rattled and rumbled and groaned. Camp ^bosses failed to work together.

"The woods are disorganized," he said to Nord, in his intense way. *'The camps are like a raw bunch of football men — they don't play low and charge together. It's every camp for itself — and everybody goes at his work as if he were bored. Can't they see? Can't they understand what this thing means? Or don't they care?"

"Forty a month and board is all they care for," said Nord.

"I'm going to tell them," said Yard, with a light in his eyes that might well have shone from the eyes of a missionary bearing a new gospel, "they're not working just for wages. It isn't just for Mr. Beaumont and the Pulp Company — it's for more than that. They're giving some- thing to our country. I can't believe that patriot- ism is dead among such men — among any men. It must be there. It lies dormant, but the spirit that fought our Revolution, that carried men through Valley Forge, and that urged them into the Civil War to hold the nation together, must exist. We're in another war for independence, IVIr. Nord — conmiercial independence. Our chance has come. Why, can't you see that every

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new industry like this one is adding a new star to the flag? That's what I'm going to talk to the men."

"Might as well talk astronomy," said Nord.

*T don't believe it, and I'm going to try."

He did try. Night after night he sat in this bunk-house or that preaching his gospel— and because he talked plain language well he was listened to. But that seemed to be all — ^he was listened to, yet conditions kept on as ^they were.

Beaumont kept a stream of men flowing toward the woods; something that Yard could not ex- plain kept a counter-stream surging out again. He was facing a condition that every employer of labor from ocean to ocean was facing. For the first time in many years labor could pick and choose where and how it would work. Wages were high, which in the case of thousands of conmion laborers meant, not greater earnings and greater comforts and greater savings — but days to lay off. If, a year before, a man could live on a dollar and seventy-five cents a day, working six days a week, now he could live on two dollars a day and work only five days.

When there are more jobs than men labor becomes independent. That labor should be independent, Yard recognized, was just and good;

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but that labor should feel no responsibility to employers was neither just nor good.

Yard was, after a fashion, a socialist. He was wholly a humanitarian. But his dominating note was loyalty, loyalty to friends, loyalty to his work and his wage, loyalty to his cause — which was this battle to establish for all time a new industry to the profit and honor and safety of his country. So he felt that labor was not be- having fairly. Well, labor has felt, since labor was first ordained to man, that it was not treated fairly, with much justice. Now it seemed as if labor's day was arrived — and who shall blame it for making what it could of the circumstance.''

In the old days lumberjacks would work without food or sleep to accomplish a feat of labor. They labored that they might boast of their accomplishments, and the wage was a small matter to them — a thing to be carried in the pocket when spring came, and blown in a single night or week of Tsald dissipation. It was the work they loved. The breed is well-nigh extinct. To them Yard could have talked as he talked to his men, and they would have followed him into battle joyously. Eighty per cent, of Yard's men were lumberjacks only in name. They were common laborers who worked in the woods — that was all. Many of them would have been more

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at home on a railroad grade, in the trench of a sewer, with pick and shovel rather than ax and saw. In such men it was hard to light the spark of enthusiasm.

But there were some of the other stripe, and gradually Yard concentrated them in Camps Seven and Eight — where he worked upon them mightily.

Sometimes he found time to talk to Svea Nord about his work — and found her interested. It was his part to do the talking, hers to do the listening, but it was plain to Yard that his point of view pleased her. She responded to it, not with external show of enthusiasm, for that would have been impossible to her, but with quiet, steadying approval. That was a word he applied to her in his thoughts many times — steadying. She was just that. She appeared never to be excited, never thrown off her poise. He had a feeling that if he rushed in to her saying the forest was burning and that escape from the flames was impossible, she would look at him calmly with her unfathomable blue eyes and say, "I shall see about that presently — when I have finished dusting the parlor."

Then she would have dusted the parlor, and without flurry would have found an impossible way to safety. And Yard knew he would have

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waited for her to finish her dusting, alarm quieted, excitement quenched, certainty of rescue assured.

When he talked to her he weighed his words meticulously, taking care neither to exaggerate nor to underestimate — to tell the thing as it was. He did not seek to put himself forward, to magnify his importance, nor to impress her with his ability. Somehow he was certain that she would satisfy herself on those points and would resent keenly any direct effort on his part to give himself stature in her eyes.

True and trustworthy — that was what he had to become, and if he attained to it she would know. He knew she would know, and the matter gave him no worry. What troubled him was, would she care? He had not the slightest knowl- edge of how he stood in her sight, whether she liked him, was attracted to him, approved of him, allowed him to talk to her because she was in- terested in him as that quaint and curious thing, a man resurrected, or what her attitude might be. She was always courteous. Wlien she had a word to say it was said plainly and directly — and after thought. Serenity — that was another word that belonged to her. She was steadying; she was serene.

One might have thought he or another man would have been in some awe of her, but it was

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not so. She inspired a deep-set respect first of all; then, in Van Yard, she kindled a sort of worship which he had not known it was possible for a man to hold for a woman. Love he thought he knew something about — from books, from youthful excursions into that land. He had seen men in love, but they had not acted at all as he felt now. Those men had been attracted by beauty; they seemed obsessed with a desire to talk about their ladies; their sole hope was to possess and wear. Van's case was not as these.

His first sentiment toward Svea was, as has been recorded, one of profound respect. His second was one of reverence such as one might bestow upon a mother of the highest type. His third was worship such as might be given to a real goddess Freya sitting in a Norse paradise. Then came love for her as a young woman, delight in her beauty, a desire to have her for his own, sustained by an unflagging hope and by a determination to stand the test in the laboratory of her heart — and to assay high in truth and trustworthiness.

Elsewhere he forgot it, forgot for days at a time, when he mixed with men and labored, that he had but shortly ago been a bum in the gutter. With Svea it stood always between him- self and her, a veil separating them from each

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other. He could not see her save through its obscurity.

"Do you think," he asked her, almost timidly, "that you can ever forget that I was a — bum?"

"No," she said, honestly.

"Never?"

"Never," she replied.

"Nor how I looked that first day you saw me?"

"No," she said.

"That," he said, quite unable to conceal his pain, "is not — pleasant to hear."

"Why should I forget?" she asked, looking at him with eyes that told of some surprise.

"Because — " he said, then clamped tight his jaws, for a flood of words urged to be out and away, words that would lay bare his heart, that could never be withdrawn, that he must stand upon — and fall with. He knew the time was not yet when he might speak to her of love.

"There are worse things than being a bum. A bum is nothing in itself but a man who is either weak by nature or who has allowed himself to be weak. One can't respect a bum, but neither does one abhor him as one does, for instance, a man who cheats another, or who is not true to a trust, or who accepts a bribe."

"Could you" — his voice was strained — "could

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you — you — ever trust or respect a man who had once been a bum?"

"Perhaps," said she, thoughtfully, '*more than one who had not. Don't you think it requires greater powers to — climb up from the depths than it does just to remain safely on the heights? I do."

His eyes shone. *'Svea — " he said, and halted himself again.

It was as if she had not heard him. "Now yourself, for instance," she said, impersonally. "I have seen something of what you have done. I saw you at your worst, and I see you now. I think in your place I should be rather — proud — that I had once been a bum. It would be a satisfaction to me to feel I had the strength that would lift me out of it. Yes — that is the way I should feel."

"Do you mean you could ever be real friends with a man who had been a bum?"

"Of course," she said. "Why not?"

"Miss Nord, I want to tell you something. And I want you to listen and to remember. I am asking nothing. The time may never come when I can with decency ask anything. This is just so you will know. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I think so," she said, without embarrassment.

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"When I got off that train here and lay with the other ffve bums beside the track I had no idea I should be — ever — anything but what I was. I didn't care much. But a girl came out and passed me and went into the garden, and I watched her. That made me see things. I was a man at the bottom of a well looking up at a star. It made me do more than see things — it made me want — things. For the first time in many months I had a desire that could not be expressed in terms of material wants. I wanted, INIiss Nord, to be again fit to look into the eyes of such a woman, and have her eyes look back into mine without — abhorrence. It was not a resolve then — merely a wish." He paused and looked at her as if for permission to proceed.

"Yes," she said, quietly.

"You were not you that day, you were merely a sign that stood for something. But when I got back there in camp I thought about you a great deal, and when I thought about you the wish became stronger. It became a wish to look into your eyes — unafraid. So I made my effort."

"Yes," she said.

"It was not easy going. You think you know what it is to be a bum, but you don't. Before anything else a bum is contemptible. He is a rat. He has no soul and no courage. I knew

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that until I could take Jear and hold it at arm's length I couldn't rise an inch. . . . You saw me once when I was afraid.'*

"Yes."

"So I had to show you there was some man left in me yet."

She nodded understandingly.

"Then I knew I could do it — and I have done it. I am not a bum to-day. I shall never be one again. . . . Because I have found two things to love — a woman and my work."

Svea did not answer, but her eyes did not leave his face. They seemed to study him rather than his words.

"That is what I wanted to tell you — ^that I have found a woman to love." He had been speaking with his eyes on the floor. Now he lifted them to her face. "You know the woman.?"

"Yes," she said, simply, without pretense.

"I think that is all," he said. "I wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that I love you; that you are the most important thing in the world to me."

"More important than your work?" she asked, but the question was not coquettish. It was serious.

He replied, seriously, after a pause. "You are more important than my work because you are

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you. Because you would not stand in the way of my work, but would help me in it. I have heard that men have given up everything — even betrayed their countries — for women. Somehow I do not think I should do that." He did not say this boastingly, but rather is if he were asking the question of his soul and receiving its answer. "But the women who could ask that do not cause the sort of love I have for you. Yes, you are more important than my work.'* He was not conscious that he had made a reservation, but Svea was conscious of it, and put that conscious- ness away in a safe, secret place, to be brought out some day with pride — if this should prove to be the man.

"I had to tell you," he said, as if in extenu- ation.

"It was your right," she said. "If such a man as you are loves a woman, she owes him the privilege of telling her — whether she admires him or not. You have asked no question and want no answer?"

"No," he said, well knowing what the answer must be. "But some day I shall ask."

"Yes," she said, "but not before I am ready to answer. I do not think you will ask too soon. We shall not refer to this again, shall we? But I shall think of you, Van" — it was the first time

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she had ever used that name — "and I shall think of what you have said. I shall be thinking a great deal."

The telephone rang in the next room. In a moment Nord called, "Yard! On the 'phone!'*

It was Sim-sam, calling from Camp Four.

"Mr. Yard.?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Hustle. Somebody's give the boys booze — by the barrel. Whole camp's lit up, from Langlois to the cook, and they're bustin' her loose. There won't be no camp left if you don't hurry."

"Where are you?"

"Locked in the cook-shanty, and they're tryin' to bust in the door — and there she goes."

Indistinctly Yard heard sounds of violence, and judged that Sim-sam was enjoying ungentle attentions. At the same time he heard the front door of the house open, and was conscious that some one had entered and was being received by Svea. He went into the next room.

"Haven't meant to neglect you, Svea," a man whose back was turned to Yard was saying. "Been pretty busy. But I'll make up for it. Here's a box of flowers I had sent on from Boston. Thought you might like 'em, now your garden's gone for the year."

"I do like them — very much," said Svea.

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Then she saw Yard and turned to him without flush or embarrassment.

"Mr. Yard," she said, "this is Mr. Holmquist, a very old friend."

Holmquist, the Power Company's "fixer" — the man who had tried to bribe him with the offer of a doubled salary. Yard advanced me- chanically and bowed, but did not offer his hand. "IVIr. Holmquist and I," he said, "have met. . . . I'm sorry. Miss Nord, but I have rather a troublesome situation in one of the camps, and IVe got to go. Good night." He said this so coolly and formally that Svea allowed her gaze to rest on him a second longer than necessary.

"Hope it's not serious. Yard," said Holmquist.

"It is," said Yard, "very serious. And when I lay hands on the man who's to blame for it — God help him."

Then he went out abruptly.

7

CHAPTER VIII

VAN had more time than was comfortable to think while his gasolene hand-car carried him to Camp Four. The thing that most occupied his mind was not what would happen to him when he got there, but what Holmquist's call upon Svea meant — and how much it meant. It did not^seem possible a girl like Svea could be at- tracted by Holmquist's type — but Yard knew well that types which men abhor sometimes hold their appeal for women. Also the man might exliibit a counterfeit front to her which would deceive her.

Of one thing Yard was certain: if Holmquist was there he was there with a purpose — a purpose not connected with the courting of Svea Nord. That he should appear on the moment of the first serious trouble in the woods bore no re- semblance to coincidence in Yard's calculations. He connected the events as cause and effect.

As he approached the camp it was impossible it should not have demanded his attention. It

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may truthfully be said that none of the Yards of Boston had ever sallied forth to quell a drunken lumber-camp. But there had been grandfathers and great-grandfathers who had quelled mutinies in their fo 'castles, a fact which Yard recollected with some glimmer of encouragement.

He was alone. The night was black. He was urging ahead into a very real danger and a situa- tion which his training, or lack of training, had not prepared him to handle. It was a splendid opportunity for a man to lose his courage — Yard thought he had never seen a better opportunity. Frankly, he did not like it. Equally frankly he was afraid. Any human being with the power of reason in working order would have been afraid. The pit of his stomach was chill within him and he felt a tingling of nerves from head to foot, Aliead there were sevent^'-five men, drunk, doubtless savage, undoubtedly reckless and riotous and not likely to regard wath satisfaction an in- terruption of their orgy. And there was one of Van Yard. The mathematical chances were overwhelmingly in favor of an unpleasant out- come so far as he himself was concerned.

He considered going for help, but recognized it

as merely an excuse to keep out of the thing

himself. He even considered allowing something

to happen to the mechanism of the motor-car so

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he could not get there. But he allowed nothing to happen to it. It was not lack of fear that restrained him. He knew he was afraid, and was afraid of his fear. The possibility that he might flunk the thing when he faced it weighed upon him. But he kept on going.

Gradually the crisis took shape in his mind. He saw himself not as a mere woods boss going out to prevent damage to property; but as one of the leaders of an army on his way to combat a stratagem of the enemy. He saw himself serving, not Big John Beaumont, but American sulphite- pulp — a cause. His duty was a duty to his country as he perceived it. He was fighting to retain something for his country as important to it as territory. He knew he was serving his land as well to-night as he could serve it by fighting in the trenches against a foreign invader.

But still he was afraid. There crept insidiously into his mind the thought that he might revert — might in emergency become once more the furtive, cringing bum. He shut his eyes and his teeth sank into his lip.

One sees more visions with the eyes closed than when he opens them to look on the finite world. Perhaps that minute action was the salvation of Van Yard; perhaps he did not actually stand in need of salvation. At any rate, he saw as plainly

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as though she stood before him the calm, depend- able face of Svea Nord. Her eyes looked into his without question, without doubt. There was trust and confidence in them.

"True and trustworthy,*' he said, aloud, and opened his eyes. "You've done your part," he said to her. "Steadying — that's how I've thought of you, and you've steadied me. I — I am much indebted to you, my dear. Now you may go back home. I sha'n't need you again to-night. There'll be no collapse."

He was still afraid; still he appreciated the danger he was to encounter, but he did not fear his fear. He knew he could push it aside, for Svea had given him the strength to that end.

Yard stopped his car at the end of the bridge and walked rapidly across to the camp. Then, for the first time, he thought of IVIi's. Billings. He went at once to the walking boss's house, past the deserted cook-shanty, disregarding the din of hilarity and riot ripping forth from the bunk- house.

Billings's house was dark. Yard walked around to the back door and knocked softly.

"Who's there?" challenged Billings.

"Yard. Just got here. Mrs. Billings all right?"

"Yes, and she'll be all right as long as this shot-gun holds together."

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"Good boy! What's happened?"

"Somebody sneaked in enough booze to drive logs on. Every man has a bottle and I guess Langlois has two. There was no concealment about it. Everybody was drinking in the cook- shanty at supper. The excitement started up right after."

"Any idea where the stuff came from?"

"None at all, but there must have been a wagon-load of it. Listen to that! They're tear- ing things to pieces, all right."

"Well," said Van, "I'll go over and see what's to be done."

"How many men you got?"

"Men? . . . None." Then he remembered that he had forgotten to tell even Nord what was wrong, and most positively it had been Nord's right to know, for this was his business as much as Yard's.

"You came batting into this alone?"

"Yes," said Yard, not feeling easy in his mind.

"Wait a minute. I'll go along."

"You'll stay right where you are. Mrs. Billings needs you. Your job is cut out for you. . . . I'll tend to the rest."

As Yard strode toward the bunk-house he calculated the problem. Among the revelers were two dozen real woodsmen, lumberjacks,

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fighters of the old school. These were the men most to be feared. The remamder were Poles, Italians, a few transplanted farm-hands, and a smattering of bums from Boston. These Yard considered as close to negligibility ._ It was with Langlois and the two dozen he would have to deal.

He found the door of the bunk-house closed and fastened within. The door opened outward. Yard hesitated a moment, then picked up the cookee's ax, which stood against the wall, and struck a splintering blow, destroying the flimsy catch. With his foot he jerked the door toward him and stepped over the tlireshold.

The inside of the bunk-house was chaotic. Supports had been knocked from imder bunks which lopped drunkenly downward; the stove had been overturned; the floor was covered with a litter of blankets, clothing, bottles, rubbish, and at the far end the major part of the men were grouped about a man who sang a song, the first verse of which was:

Frankie and Nellie were lovers.

Oh, my Gawd! how they loved! They vowed to be true to each other.

As true as the stars above.

At which sixty hoarse voices crashed into the

choral line, shouting it manfully:

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But he done her wrong. He done her wrong.

Even the noise of Yard's forced entrance had not attracted their attention, but speedily an eye discovered him standing framed in the doorway; then other eyes; then the song stopped and silence descended, thick as fog, watchful, por- tentous.

The men stared at Yard; Yard stared at the men.

A very drunken man laughed. There was one roar of laughter from all, and again silence. It was like a blow upon a nerve center. Then, without warning, some one threw a bottle. It hurtled through the air, end over end, whistling ominously at each revolution, and smashed harmless against the wall. Yard took one step into the room.

"Langlois, you swine,'* he said, evenly, "come here."

"Listen to the bum!" Langlois roared, savagely. "Leave me at him ! He's my meat."

"Sure you can chaw him?" asked a voice, and another roar of laughter exploded.

Nothing could delight such a crowd more than a fight — not a fight ordered by prize-ring rules, but a rough-and-tumble whose object was to

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destroy one's antagonist utterly in any way that opened itself — w^th teeth, calked boots, fists, nails. The men waited, expecting much of the occasion. It was clearly up to Langlois.

Since Yard thrashed him the camp boss had been sullen, but not threatening. Yard fancied the man recognized him as his master, and ac- cepted the thrashing in a resentful, but not revengeful spirit. Apparently this was erroneous.

"Lemme git my corks in his face!*' shouted Langlois. "Lemme stomp him into the floor." He uttered a hoarse shout to startle his enemy or to bring his own courage to the flood, and ad- vanced. "You bum!" he derided, leering at Yard. "You got me unexpected. I got you now." He raised the bottle in his hand to his lips and drank.

Yard stood motionless. Langlois came closer, then crouched and began to tiptoe forward tiger- ishly. The man was a cat in movement, graceful, dangerous, equally without mercy. The men watched, breathless, motionless. Langlois stopped six feet away, twitching for the leap.

Equally cat-like was Yard's quickness. He snatched the ax which he had leaned against the back of his leg and struck. He did not strike to kill, though the men could not know that, nor could they know he struck with the flat. The

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iron spatted against the side of Langlois's head, and the camp boss retreated a step before he slumped to the floor and lay inert.

"I'm sorry," said Van, reverting in voice and diction to the Yard of Boston who had once been, "but I haven't time to fight to-night. I'm other- wise occupied."

Even a wolf pack may be appalled and held in check by a man who brains one of themselves with an ax. The men saw Yard strike, and by that token Ivnew he would strike again, and more than one of them looked at his fellows uneasily. Yard did not look at them, but stooped, picked up Langlois's bottle and smashed it against the wall. Then he advanced, trailing his ax.

"Into bed with you!" he said, in no wise lifting his voice.

Not a man moved; the moment of real crisis was come.

Yard came on slowly, without hurrj^ but with ominous steadiness. The men in front felt a willingness to surrender their places of honor to those behind, for an ax is not a pleasant weapon to encounter. They gave back. Still Yard ad- vanced. Suddenly a Pole in the front rank emitted an animal cry and broke for the rear. The foreigners and bums caught the panic. Not so the lumberjacks, but they were caught in the

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rush for the back door, a rush which halted suddenly, for BilHngs stepped into view, shot- gun at shoulder, and gave mute notice that here was no thoroughfare.

"Give it to 'em, Yard!" he called.

And Yard gave it to them. He was on them striking, shaking, pummeling, and wherever he struck a man went down. From clutching hands he snatched half-empty bottles and more than one man discovered that the skull was not in- tended by nature to break glass upon. Then Yard backed off, dragging a man, and slammed him into a bunk.

And so Yard and Billings dragged and drove the men to their beds. After the first dozen there was little need for violence. They were cowed, not so much by force as by Yard's blazing ruthless- ness, by that one sudden remorseless blow of an ax.

From each man was snatched his store of liquor, and bottles were smashed against walls and floor until the bunk-house reeked and stunk with the fumes of it.

"Get padlocks and hasps from the wanigan," said Yard to Billings, and with these fastened to the outside of the doors, they locked the crew in.

"We need 'em," Yard said, quietly. "Can't afford to lose any men now."

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"Did you kill Langlois?"

"No. Drag him to your house, if Mrs. Billings won't mind, and we'll bring him to. I want to give that citizen the third degree."

Langlois's limp body was carried to the house and there securely tied in an arm-chair, after which precaution Yard labored to restore the man to consciousness.

"I thought I told you to stay with your wife, Billings."

"She told me to go after you — and she's a bigger boss than you are."

Yard turned to Mrs. Billings and regarded her gravely an instant before he spoke. "Thank you," he said, simply. "That is what I should like my wife to do."

Mrs. Billings colored with pleasure, for she recognized a rare compliment.

Langlois regained consciousness slowly, but at last he sat in his chair, fully aware of his sur- roundings, glowering at Yard with the eyes of a trapped cat.

"You'd better go now, Mrs. Billings," said Yard. "This will not be pretty to watch."

She obeyed without question or protest.

"Langlois," said Yard, "where did you get that booze?"

Langlois merely snarled.

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"Where did you get that booze?** repeated BIlHngs from the other side.

No other words were uttered by the two men than those. "WTiere did you get that booze? Where did you get that booze?" They continued it steadily, unremittingly, unpityingly. At first Langlois remained dumb, defiant. Then he began to strain at his bonds; then he lifted up his voice in revilings, but still those calm voices beat against his will. "Where did you get that booze? Where did you get that booze?'*

It became maddening, unbearable. He writhed, cursed, howled like an animal, but they did not stop for an instant. As one man completed the question the other uttered the first word of it again.

An hour it continued, two hours, and Langlois*s will and venom withstood the pounding of it. Then came the ine\'itable weakening, a weaken- ing which might not have come to another of slighter physique, of slighter physical courage, of more highly developed mind.

"I got it!*' he shouted. "I got it, and I put it there, a bottle in every bunk — in every bunk. And there*s more where that came from — more, more, more!'* His voice trailed off and his eyes closed with a terrible, \ntal-gnawing sleepiness.

But they would not let him sleep. They shook

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him awake and pelted the question in his face with machine-gun rapidity. Suddenly the man screamed and slumped forward against the ropes that held him.

"He's broken," said Yard, steadily. "Some water."

They brought him to again, and as his eyelids flickered his first consciousness was of that question battering, burning his brain. "Wliere did you get that booze. ^ Where did you get that booze. 5^"

Then — it was a terrible thing to see — Langlois collapsed, and cried — cried! Billings turned away his face, for he could not bear to see it, but not so Yard.

"Did Holmquist get it to you.''" he demanded.

"Yes, yes, yes, yes," and Langlois sobbed and choked upon vitriolic, barbarous cursings.

"He paid you to do it.^"

"Yes — ^yes — ^yes. Lemme go. Lemme go, Mr. Yard. Aa-aaagh! I'll tell. Lemme git to sleep — to sleep."

"Wlio else was in it with you.''"

"No — body." The man's head dropped, his eyes closed even as he spoke, and he slept — a sight to affect strong men with embarrassment, a thing not to be lightly looked upon.

"God!" said Billings, and breathed deeply.

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"I couldn't have done it. I — Mr. Yard — I was sorry for him."

There was no sympathy in Yard's face or voice. "Outside with him. Let him sleep in the air. He ought to stand up before a firing squad — or do they hang traitors?"

Before that night Billings had spoken to Van as "Yard." From that night onward, though there grew up friendship between them, he never omitted the "Mister." There was something in Yard that had made its impress on the walking boss, something he could never cast aside so long as he remembered that scene — and that scene was one not to be dimmed by years.

"He's a big man," Billings said to his wife, who was waiting for him in their room. "I'm — yes — I'm a little afraid of him. He's ruthless. He's like steel."

His wife smiled at him wearily. "Men don't understand," she said. "He's not ruthless — he's driven.*'

"Driven?"

"Yes. The thing he has to do, the thing he hclicves In, drives him. He — he's almost a fanatic. This new sulphate industry is a religion to him, and he worships it almost like a god."

"How do you know that?"

"Svea Nord told me," said Mrs. Billings, a

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circumstance which would have been a drop of sweet water on Van Twiller Yard's tongue. Svea Nord thought about him; analyzed him; knew him.

"And something else — he's fighting to get as far away from what he was — as there is room in the world. Because the farther he gets away from that the nearer he comes to Svea."

"Did she tell you that.'^" asked Billings.

"It's printed on him," she said. "Any woman can read it."

"Huh!" said Billings in some dismay, wonder- ing just how much of a man's soul a woman could really read if she set her mind to the matter. It was a disquieting speculation even for the most faitliful of husbands.

CHAPTER IX

YARD slept but a couple of hours and was up before daylight. Langlois lay where he had been tossed in the sort of sleep that carries a man around the clock; no signs of life were yet ap- parent in the bunk-house. Van sat down on the piazza to wait, and then, for the first time, he wondered what had befallen Sim-sam. The night before had been so occupied that thought of his eccentric friend had been impossible, or, had it been possible, there was no opportunity to give attention. Yard was not the man to desert a friend or to be careless of a friend, but the Cause came first. It was bigger than one man, than many men.

But his fears were needless, for presently Sim- sam emerged from the underbrush, peering about him cautiously. He would have been welcome in no parlor, for besides having slept in the woods his face had been so worked upon by willing hands that it did not charm the eye. Sim-sam had been manhandled.

"Mornin', boy," said Sim-sam, unconcernedly.

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"If they'd got you, Sim-sam," said Yard, with intention, "somebody would have wished his birth had been omitted."

"Git me! Huh! Think this old bird never seen a fracas before? Say! If I had a dollar for every fist my face has stopped I'd buy me a hotel for my wife to run. Me, I got mashed some — not to speak of — but I gits in a few licks personal, and then I up and ducks through the door. I wasn't hankerin' none to come back, neither. I kept on a-goin'. . . . Say, boy, ever meet up with the postmaster.^*"

"What postmaster.f*"

"Reg'lar one, down to the post-oflSce."

"Don't think I ever saw him."

"See him, then," said Sim-sam, wagging his head. "You git to see him. 'Cause why.f* 'Cause, boy, he's the dum'dest postmaster in these here U-nited States. Hain't what you'd call pleasin' to the eye, and he's got a sweet natur' like a bear stung by a bee, but there's a clock in his head that keeps a-tickin' thirty hours out of twenty- four, and p'ints plumb to the right time every whack. You mind what I say, boy, and git yourself all acquainted with him."

"Sleep out.?"

"I got me under some young spruce, carryin' one of them magazines in my pocket, and there

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was a moon givin' light to see the pictures by. Some story, boy. That was a reg'Iar magazine. Don't think I ever made up no better story than that one was. Couldn't git to sleep for it. Kept me awake till nigh mornin'. Excitin'! Say, boy, that yarn was a ring-dinger."

Now the bunk-house began to come to life. Yard got up and unlocked the door.

"Good morning, boys!" he said, as if nothing had happened.

The men, rubbing their eyes and feeling, not with enjoyment, of their heads, peered at him sullenly.

"Listen," said Yard. "Last night was last night. To-day is to-day. I'm not blaming j^ou boys for what happened. It was shoved under your noses. There'll be a new boss to-day — but an old crew. I'm depending on you boys to stick by me. I'm in a fight, and it's going to be a big fight. I shouldn't wonder if you saw a lot of fun before spring, and the men who stick by me won't regret it. You've had a chance to look me over. I've had some chance to look you over. Now make up your minds quick. Do you stick or do you walk out?"

A big Frenchman jumped to his feet. "By gar!

I stick!" he shouted. "Eh, boys? Wat? I work

for some boss' and den maybe some more boss',

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you bet, but Misser Yard, she's a daisy! I stick."

*'Count me in," bellowed another, "and say, Mr. Yard, if you got any friends you want beat up, you call on me. And I got this to say, any bird here that quits you comes ag'in' me prompt. That goes."

"No coercion," laughed Yard. "How about the rest of you.'*"

There was a brief consultation, enlivened by lOud words from the two men who had spoken their minds; then the second speaker took the floor again.

"You're elected, Mr. Yard. You git the u-nanimous vote. I guess the fellers has took a likin' to your way of doin' business."

Yard scrutinized the man. He was big, rough, but there was undoubted intelligence and power of will within him. That he was a thorough woodsman Yard knew by visual evidence.

"Good!" he said. "Thank you, boys. Thank you, Meggs. Can you run this camp?'*

"I can give her a hell of a rassle," said Meggs.

"Then you're it. Boys, Meggs is boss of Camp Four. You're in charge now. I'm going back where I came from, and I'm expecting Camp Four to give the rest of the camps a mark to shoot at."

108

THE SOURCE

<^^

'Watch us," said Meggs. That the man was delighted at his promotion and at the trust reposed in him was evident. Yard knew he had one camp boss to be depended on through thick and thin. "Where's that cook.?^" shouted Meggs. "Git busy, there. You fellers hump some. This here day's half gone and not a tree notched.'

Yard smiled and went his way. The matter had turned out to his complete satisfaction. He had labored better than he knew, for the story of that night traveled far through the mountains, and expanded and ramified to legendary quality. Yard was endowed with characteristics something more than human; men discussed him. It was even a fact that men journeyed from distances to work under such an individual — which brought into those woods more than one good lumberjack. It had been a profitable night's work.

As Yard was crossing the bridge to his motor- hand-car Sim-sam trotted after him.

"When you git to see the Postmaster" — he pronounced the word with a capital letter, thus setting the subject apart from all other post- masters— "don't let on you come to see him special. Go in casual-like, to buy a chaw of gum or somethin'. The more cantankerous he acts to you the more, prob'ly, he takes to you."

As Yard rattled down the track he wondered

109

fs^t

THE SOUBCB

S I

THE SOURCF

^.m^'

substantial to lean agauLst. You v. w d]uitel\* it was a jxvst-officr?, becai nd-made

sign over the door announced the fi^ Hoirever, you had a choice of belie\-ing j^t of surmis-

ing that somebody was allowing ; .>r humor

to roam at large.

Yard stoppetl the motor-«tf aiijcru<>sed the river on the stones. The first *' '" he noticeii was a rope leading away from i... .-j-t-oflSce into the wootls, leading from a sign with said, **If you want the postmaster when h^ out, jerk.** Th«« was a suspicion that the r ' "

somewhere up the slope, but its wiif«..it)outs Wiis a mvstorv.

However, the door of the > the poslniivster was inside. Ix> dividual. .Vs Yanl enlertxl t' his throiit and said:

"Ginmie a niokol plug. To-

Behind the counter an v^

letters. He was Ivnt and w:

dangUxl rather than hung fro

an eniaciateil sjvirrow of tui oh! •

dressed for a msisquerade. V

his full height the crown of h

five ftvt and an inch or twv» av

Every motion he made reminde

scratching for insects, .nnd jkxmh iauigril^-

111

1 and

r in-

rtxl

- s*->rling

i>kers

^.. Ho w:is

>lxirrow

.* stotxi to

was all of

n the fk»r.

* a s|x»rrovr

H

THE SOURCE

what Sim-sam's anxiety to have him meet the postmaster could mean. This became active curiosity, which took form as an impulse to visit the post-office. This lay below woods head- quarters and not distant from the track. Yard had seen it more than once, and, being city bred and not acquainted with the ways of the world, had marveled at it.

It would be complimentary exaggeration to call the post-office a shanty. It would have required considerable remodeling to make it into a shanty. It filled the description of no building known to man. It was "the jDOst-office" — a type apart.

High above the road it sat, as inaccessible to visitors as ingenuity could make it. It looked as if particularly unskilful boys had built it and tired of the job before they were through. It covered a space approximating ten feet by eight, and if there were two boards of a length or size in it that fact could not have been intentional. The roof was covered with black paper; the door was held on by leather hinges made from the upper of a cast-off shoe. There was one window — a stationary one — intended solely to admit light, but deprived of the pleasure of doing so by long accumulation of dust, cobwebs, and the deposit of inclement weather. Finally it slanted toward the hill as if it were tired and wanted something

110

THE SOURCE

substantial to lean against. You knew imme- diately it was a [post-office, because a hand-made sign over the door announced the fact. However, you had a choice of believing the sign or of surmis- ing that somebody was allowing a bent for humor to roam at large.

Yard stopped the motor-car and crossed the river on the stones. The first thing he noticed was a rope leading away from the post-office into the woods, leading from a sign which said, "If you want the postmaster when he's out, jerk." There was a suspicion that the rope rang a bell somewhere up the slope, but its whereabouts was a mystery.

However, the door of the edifice was open and the postmaster was inside. So was another in- dividual. As Yard entered the individual cleared his throat and said :

"Gimme a nickel plug. Postmaster.**

Behind the counter an old man was sorting

letters. He was bent and withered, and whiskers

dangled rather than hung from his chin. He was

an emaciated sparrow of an old man — a sparrow

dressed for a masquerade. When he stood to

his full height the crown of his head was all of

five feet and an inch or two away from the floor.

Every motion he made reminded one of a sparrow

scratching for insects, and pecking hungrily at

111

THE SOURCE

those he uncovered. Let it be mentioned again, he was sorting letters; sorting them with abandon, so to speak, and a degree of concentration that should have endeared him to the postal depart- ment.

"Gimme a nickel plug," repeated the individual, with impatience.

The postmaster suspended operations with one thumb an inch from the tongue which was about to dampen it.

"Don't hender the U-nited States mail,*' he said, fiercely.

"Can't I git it myself.'^ It lays right there, Postmaster."

"Don't allow nobody behind my counter. When I git through servin' the Gove'ment I'll 'tend to you. Calc'late you weigh heavy ag'in' Gove'ment business.'^ Now shet up and stay shet up."

Presently the sorting was completed and the postmaster grudgingly sold the individual his five-cent plug. Then, when the individual had withdrawn, he turned to Yard.

"Name's Yard, hain't it.'^" he snapped.

"Yes."

"Don't show no signs of bein' a bum." The postmaster studied Van belligerently.

"I hope they've worn off," said Yard.

112

THE SOURCE

"What made you come in here? Eh? Curiosity, I'll warrant. Sight-seein'. I'll have you know the U-nited States mail hain't no side-show."

*'I came," said Van, "to buy some stamps."

"Didn't, neither. You come to see me. Me! You dunno why, but you did. Hain't no use hedgin' around."

"All right, IVIr. Postmaster, I came to see you. What did I come to see you for?"

" 'Cause I sent for you, that's why. 'Cause I heard that there talk you're makin' about servin' the country, and a new industry's wuth as much as a new State, and sich. Kinder int 'rested in the Gove'ment myself. Mean what you been sayin'? Eh? Jest talk and wind, or was there somethin' to it?"

"I meant it," said Yard.

"Huh! Kinder snappish about it, hain't you? . . . That cart-load of booze do much damage?'*

Yard was startled. He looked at the post- master with increased interest. "How did you hear of it?" he asked.

" 'S my business to hear — and keep my mouth shet. Might hear somethin' useful to the Gove'- ment. Might hear somethin' useful to me. IVIight hear somethin' useful to you, if there was any

reason for tellin' you about it."

lis

K

A brttcr ritm ol \

-< ' .- he 1.

Mm I .ont hain

lo be . . . whkh w;

brrtvlin' to me.'* / klr )roa mm! me k

•lu an

to Kiiirt* mmt0

i*trf wyvn*

mrP ( w-fit ,

Mrr t

Grttn«r» fDl mor

■ftif Id. UC mi UmI *d iiau* Ml

. ; jf

HoscT to gain at him io

r»

•«>tKH4

Aadtk

m moment, 'that

•m Imt:' r fool*n he used

L-orn big.** Tlun

that man's

"CaJc*.

II turnntm and

iL Powerful

1* I decide to

.in<l vou vitli

•

: «ion*t appear ll.iin't aeaaot

t makin* vou

'.«• thfy done

no confidence in a

\'..imf» fflle-r, I

' -.tTnastrr- i:i ni«*, .'Vnd . ' T hain't

riuin. iKx-s il

.-.• I've had ex-

jk Ihim: out I set and

■noi^. I haul out 3 mite

I

4

THK SOTM'fj

niayhc, Imt llic >.iiii< , for solved. Tliafs my .s!rnn;_

Tlic tiling alwut this li. Yard was the i>oaliniu»ler*s ■ with the situation. He wivi t had not talked alx>ut the « • sources. Uc was sure he • was far from Ix'ing a matter « — yet the |M)>t master knew ji. how nuieli mt>rc he knew.

"Will," s;iid the iH>Ntn. Feel the need of a ;:ui«lin'

"I should Ik- Klad to I guidancr," saiil Van, not a he woulil Ik*. lie felt there n httle wizene<I Iiea<l, and li eccentric talk {RThaiM niaski deadly acuteness.

"It's honorin' a young fe" him with a truste<l servant ui the postmaster, dubiously, don't try it a spell. I may I ' he warned, "dot a motor-lxi hain't you?" the little man ;i

"Yes,'* said Van, really >

*'Goin' to need it. Coin boom logs ready, eh? Boat L. boom logs.'*

115

Tr

.1 rrady

Mr. II Mil

from Swctli&li dune to. It

ion knowlwlgr

\ .1'-! \v.>ii'!'re<l

.int me in it.^

•ur help and

' .•xfin

:; in that

deal of

u battery uf

ou to associate ve'ment,"»ajM n dum'etl if I over, though,"

•" r.-i.t.

now.

<I it. Got J good without

THE SOURCE

The postmaster moved a little closer to gain a better view of Yard, and peered at Iiim in frowning silence.

*'Calc'late," he said, after a moment, "that John Beaumont hain't no bigger fool'n he used to be . . . which wasn't very darn big." Then again: "When John picks a man, that man's int'restin' to me." After another pause: "Calc'- late you and me kin give them furriners and Swedes and sich a tussle if we set to it. Powerful combination, you and me — pervidin' I decide to go into it. Me with the brains and you with your fists, eh.'^ . . . Not that you don't appear to have some brains — some. Hain't seasoned, though. Don't find the Gove'ment makin' you postmaster nowheres, do you, like they done niQ^ Gove'ment don't repose no confidence in a feller till he's had experience. Young feller, I don't presume there's many men the Postmaster- General's got more confidence in than me. And why? I hain't never failed him, and I hain't likely to. Let me come slap up ag'in' a problem that 'd flatten out an ordinary man. Does it flatten me? Not a mite. 'Cause I've had ex- perience. If I can't reason a thing out I set and fish back into my recollection — and I git a nibble. Every time. And there, sure enough, I haul out that same problem, lookin' a mite different,

114

THE SOURCE

maybe, but the same, for all that — and ready solved. That's my strong holt."

The thing about this harangue that interested Yard was the postmaster's evident acquaintance with the situation. He was certain Mr. Beaumont had not talked about the opposition from Swedish sources. He was sure he had not done so. It was far from being a matter of common knowledge — yet the postmaster knew it. Yard wondered how much more he knew.

"Well," said the postmaster, *Vant me in it.^* Feel the need of a guidin' brain.''"

"I should be glad to have your help — and guidance," said Van, not amused as it might seem he would be. He felt there was something in that little wizened head, and that a great deal of eccentric talk perhaps masked a battery of deadly acuteness.

"It's honorin' a young feller like you to associate him with a trusted servant of the Gove'ment," said the postmaster, dubiously, "but I'm dum'ed if I don't try it a spell. I may throw you over, though," he warned. "Got a motor-boat up to Camp Eight, hain't you?" the little man asked, suddenly.

"Yes," said Van, really startled now.

"Goin' to need it. Goin' to need it. Got boom logs ready, eh.^^ Boat hain't no good without boom logs."

115

THE SOURCE

"No," said Van, "but work will start on them to-day." Here was a valuable suggestion at the first discharge.

"Holmquist was at Nord's last night, wasn't he.'* Seen him, didn't you? Who d'you s'pose he wanted to see most, Svea or her dad? Ever ask yourself that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Tried to bribe you, didn't he? His business, hain't it? Not that he hain't hankerin' after Svea consid'able. Can't understand it. Can't see how that girl '11 let that insec' buzz around her, but wimmin is past human understandin*. What you^d figger that they^d figger was pizen to 'em, why, they jest up and wallers in it some- times. About ninety-nine per cent, of a rattlin' good woman is too doggone wonderful for any- thin' under a seraphim or a archangel to under- stand, but there's one per cent, in every one of 'em that's plain imbecile. Never knowed it to fail. And sometimes, young feller, that one per cent, jest raises hell."

There seemed to be nothing Yard could say that would help the conversation at this point.

"Kinder hankerin' after Svea Nord yourself, hain't you?"

Van admitted it without embarrassment.

"I'll see about it," said the postmaster. "Maybe

116

THE SOURCE

you hain't fit for her. If you hain't you won't git her — I'll see to that — but if you be — " He left this sentence unfinished, and Yard wondered if the postmaster had been on the point of promis- ing to act the efficient Cupid if it seemed advisable.

"Now you git along. I got U-nited States business to 'tend to. Nothin' much '11 happen before spring, but we got to be ready. When I need you I'll send for you. If you git pinched — why, come and I'll see what kin be done. . . . And when you git a chance study up on dams. Particular on dams like the big one the Power Company's got up here. Git so's you know all about 'em. It '11 come handy, besides increasin' your general store of knowledge. . . . Go on out of here."

Van went obediently, wonderingly. Where did this peculiar little person fit into the puzzle picture? he wondered. Of one thing he carried away an abiding certainty — the postmaster could and would fit into an important place.

CILVPTKU X

THE new mill was at last in oiH'ration, an \Vv^ John ncaunionl calknl Van TwilKr Yar in (o town to see them operate — osteni»iI>ly — bu in reality to talk to the young man, to look hii over and see how he was wearing.

"We*re started,** he said, "and we're pretl. safe for winter. We figure there*s close to cnoug' j)ulp wood in the ikmkI to kei^p us going till sprinj. Hut we're shy of hardwooil. Got to have sau logs to kei'p the sawmill going, and we've got t have slahs and sawdust and edgings from the saw null for fuel to keej) the pulp-mill going. Be;: that in miuil."

"I've been giving too nmeh attention to th pulp," said Yard.

"No. Keep on giving the pulp all you've got—

and then give just as nmeh to the beech, birch

and maple." Big John grinned boyishly. "All ]

ask of you is every ounce you've got in you — anc!

then just as much again on the side. I'm nol

unreasonable, you see."

Van was in no mood to respond to humor,

lis

()( KCE

though then him. Bt'anri that v>iis ^\ll. tlie dcuiantl> not yet ni< or he would so therr ni:; him. He \vn it to detect n

•Thesitti.. said Big Joiii' has passetl t' clambering to what that n sulphate wt- amount we'r profit of t! just crowd t tons a day — we can ^ fortvor iii And I want ;. able in this" to the proiiL.-

**It is fair, the flag. Y'

"Ever^-thi have fallen tc

ii

" ' " I vein of fiumor in

not d with him —

\. llr had fallen short of

nation. Ap[)arently he did

• the full statiire of a man,

iucetl full acconij .''nl;

'liin;; «)f the f)um left alwut

1. ' • p a watchful eye for

Mit it.

velofiing just as I figured,"

market for sulphate-pulp

icd-dollar mark. I see it

Iretl and Iwenlv-five. See

it means that everj* ton of

luce over and above the

'ed to deliver will give us a

';irs a ton. If we can

to give an extra four or five

- all within the possibilities

velvet to the tune of

i in the next twelve months.

;in get. I'm risking consider-

i*»: and if I risk Tm entitled

:r. I c annexing a new industry* to rve your reward." ntributing. Imports of rags ong. More paper is being used

119

CHAPTER X

THE new mill was at last in operation, and Big John Beaumont called Van Twiller Yard in to town to see them operate — ostensibly — but in reality to talk to the young man, to look him over and see how he was wearing.

"We're started,'* he said, "and we're pretty safe for winter. We figure there's close to enough pulp wood in the pond to keep us going till spring. But we're shy of hardwood. Got to have saw- logs to keep the sawmill going, and we've got to have slabs and sawdust and edgings from the saw- mill for fuel to keep the pulp-mill going. Bear that in mind."

"I've been giving too much attention to the pulp," said Yard.

"No. Keep on giving the pulp all you've got — and then give just as much to the beech, birch, and maple." Big John grinned boyishly. "All I ask of you is every ounce you've got in you — and then just as much again on the side. I'm not unreasonable, you see."

Van was in no mood to respond to humor,

118

THE SOURCE

though there was a well-defined vein of humor in him. Beaumont was not satisfied with him — that was what Yard saw. He had fallen short of the demands of the situation. Apparently he did not yet measure up to the full stature of a man, or he would have produced full accomplishment; so there must be something of the bum left about him. He would have to keep a watchful eye for it to detect and uproot it.

"The situation is developing just as I figured," said Big John. "The market for sulphate-pulp has passed the hundred-dollar mark. I see it clambering to a hundred and twenty-five. See what that means? It means that every ton of sulphate we can produce over and above the amount we're contracted to deliver will give us a profit of thirty or forty dollars a ton. If we can just crowd the mill to give an extra four or five tons a day — and that's all within the possibilities — we can gather genuine velvet to the tune of forty or fifty thousand in the next twelve months. And I want all I can get. I'm risking consider- able in this^'new game; and if I risk I'm entitled to the profits. It's fair."

"It is fair. You're annexing a new industry to the flag. You deserve your reward."

"Everything's contributing. Imports of rags have fallen to nothing. More paper is being used

119

THE SOURCE

every year — and to-day, because of the rag shortage, manufacturers of book papers are turn- ing to sulphite-pulp. Not sulphate. Bear in mind that difference when you think about it. Sulphate is our game — chemical pulp — Swedish pulp. Sulphite — spelled with an *i/ is acid pulp, and another matter — but it helps. No Kraft without us, and the country's educated to Kraft wrapping-papers. Everything contributes. Of course the pickings are big to-day. But they won't always be. If we make a go of this, other fellows will come in. There'll be mills and mills. The supply will crawl up near the demand and prices will go down. That's why I'm entitled to my rake-off. I'm showing the way. As soon as the others begin to tail in, war profits will go. Then the consumer will profit. Your publisher will buy his paper cheaper; country newspapers won't have to go out of business because paper costs more than their gross receipts; manufacturers who ship in corrugated or fiber containers won't be giving up most of their possible profit. . . . And we'll be safe against another happening like this forever. So far as papers of all sorts are concerned, we won't care a hang when another European war breaks out. See?"

"Yes," said Yard. "We're doing our bit to make solid the future prosperity of our country."

120

THE SOURCE

*'And you, Yard, are at The Source — just as you said. It's all up to the woods end."

"It's big, isn't it? Think," said Yard, his face the face of an enthusiast, "of an America that is self-sufficient; that need not ask a thing of the world. It would be a Golden Age for us."

"More likely it would bring the world about our ears with large, unpleasant cannon and such trifles. No. You're going too far. If it were possible — which it isn't — I should dread the day when America had nothing to ask of the rest of the world. We'd be like a general store, stocked with everything the owner needed for life. He'd be satisfied. He would neither buy nor sell, but would settle back and eat himself up. Trade and commerce mustn't be forgotten, son. If we're to exist, to become mightier than we are, we must give and take. But" — he smiled quizzically — "we must see to it we get a little the best of the deal."

Van changed the subject abruptly. "Do you know the postmaster.'^" he asked.

Beaumont looked at him sharply. "Yes," he said, but added nothing to the monosyllable. Something in his voice restrained Yard from con- tinuing the topic.

"You asked about the Power Company," said Big John, tentatively.

9 121

THE SOURCE

"Yes. Of course you knew they were bucking us before I dreamed it."

"I had an inkling — an inkling. Have they shown their hand.''"

"Not to any effect yet. Their time hasn't come."

"^Vhen do you figure it will come.'^" Big John was interested now. Here was a man who looked to to-day, but looked twice to to-morrow. Such men were to be tied to.

"In the spring. When it's time to drive down the pulp wood we've accumulated during the winter."

"Don't expect to be bothered before then.''"

*T expect something — every day."

"But haven't bumped against it yet.'*"

"Nothing worth mentioning."

"What about the trouble at Camp Four?"

Of that Yard had not spoken. It had been a mere incident to him; one that, ending well, was therefore of slight importance. He shrugged his shoulders, and Beaumont wondered for an in- stant if it were a pose; decided it was not. Here was a young man so intent, so concentrated, that the world's opinion of himself did not matter.

"Yard," he said, "I don't think I'm paying you enough money."

122 "

THE SOURCE

«i

'Eh?" Yard's mind had been on something else. **0h, that's all right, I guess," he said, indifferently.

Beaumont mentally patted himself on the back. Here was that rare animal, the man who worked for an end and forgot all about what the work brought to himself. So Big John said no more about wages. He would see to that when the time came.

"Mr. Beaumont," said Yard, suddenly, "do you ever see anything in me that — reminds you of — of the man who came into the woods?"

"You mean is there any bum left in you?"

"Yes."

"About as much," said Beaumont, "as there is cream in the average brick."

Yard drew a long breath and looked out of the window. Big John did not know what his com- panion was thinking then; might, perhaps, have been surprised or disappointed if he knew. Van was not thinking of work, nor of sulphate. He was thinking of a girl with searching blue eyes, and wondering if those eyes saw more than Beaumont's; if anything of the bum was still apparent to Svea Nord.

"What do you need most right now?" Big John asked.

'Snow," said Van, succinctly,

THE SOURCE

"I'll pray for it," said Beaumont, "but that's the best I can do. How about men?"

"Keep 'em coming."

"Want anything else.^"

"No."

He arose and went out of the o£Bce. On his way to the hotel he saw approaching him Holm- quist and a tall, spare gentleman of marked ap- pearance. He was a man one would turn to study, for not alone was he what is sometimes described as an aristocrat, but ability — sheer ability — seemed to radiate from him. Yard saw Holmquist look at him and then say something quickly to his companion, whose face did not alter, nor did his eyes turn to Yard, though it was apparent Yard had been mentioned.

As they came face to face Holmquist and his companion stopped.

"Mr. Yard," said the dapper little man, "I would like to present you to Mr. Ekstrom, presi- dent of the Eastern States Power Company."

Van bowed courteously, but did not offer his hand. Ekstrom's hand had not moved toward him, either.

"I have heard much of Mr. Yard," he said, speaking precisely, in a cultivated voice, his words betraying by an indefinable something in the inflection that English was not the language

124

THE SOURCE

he was born to speak. "May I add that what I have heard is wholly admirable?"

Van bowed slightly.

"You are not, I judge, a man to — mince words with. I believe that is the idiom," said Ekstrom. "You are an employee of INIr. Beaumont's, and know how the Power Company views this new venture of his. I do not attempt to conceal from you that we do not hope for its success."

Yard waited silently.

"You," said Ekstrom, "are a man who can con- tribute much to its success. Therefore it seems expedient, if we can arrange it, to deprive Beau- mont of your services. Frankly, we would rather have you with us than against us."

Van saw no occasion to reply.

"This," said Ekstrom, "is not to be an attempt to bribe you. It is an honest effort to secure for my company a valuable man. Irrespective of the present situation, I should be glad to acquu'e you. Surely tliere is nothing unfair in that. ... As to the sulphate industry, let me state my position there. It is not a matter of dollars and cents with me. I am a Swede. I am at this moment a citizen of that country, and owe it my allegiance. It is not a rich country, nor can it endure to have its wealth or its wealth-producing machinery im- paired. Should the sulphate industry succeed

125

THE SOURCE

here it will be so impaired, and therefore, as a citizen who has the welfare of his country at heart, I am doing, and shall continue to do, what I can in its interest. I think that explains clearly my position."

"Yes," said Yard.

"Then," said Ekstrom, "is there any reasonable inducement I can offer you to bring you into my employ?"

"None," said Yard.

"For a man of your capacity and ambition there is ample room with us."

"Undoubtedly," said Yard.

"Your decision is final.''"

"Yes."

"Have you considered what the enmity of the Power Company might mean to you — ^person- ally.?"

"No, and I shall not. That, I take it," said Yard, reverting, as he did in moments of stress, to the diction inherited from the Yards of Boston, "is in the nature of a threat, is it not.''"

"This is industrial warfare. We cannot con- sider individuals."

"May I ask if you are threatening — violence?"

"Our wish is either to have you with us — or to — let us say, nullify — you."

"I don't know," said Van, softly, almost as

126

THE SOURCE

though speaking to himself. "I'm not wholly sure of myself yet — not perfectly acquainted with myself, but my judgment is that you will find me somewhat difficult to — nullify."

"Every man," said Ekstrom, "has his point of vulnerability. You oblige us to exert ourselves to discover yours."

"Mr. Ekstrom," said Yard, "I do not know whether you have expressed yourself honestly or if you are inspired in this matter by patriotism. You have been frank with me, and I shall try to be equally so with you. I think, sir, that you have tried to seduce me with sophistry." Sud- denly he set his eyes upon Ekstrom's. The Bostonese diction dropped from him; he became Van Yard, woodsman, in an instant. "You have made a threat. I'll give you a chance to make good — but tell the man or men you send on the errand to come ready for trouble. You seem to want fight. Well, you'll get fight. . . . Patriot- ism— helll This country gave you wealth. It gives you a home. You will live and die here. If you owe anything to any country you owe it to America. You're a damned ingrate, sir, and should be led to our border and kicked over it. . . . Good morning." Yard pushed by them and strode on his way.

Ilolmquist was blazing with wrath; not so

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Ekstrom. He smiled and looked after Van with something of admiration in his eyes.

*'There goes a good man," he said. "I've got to have him, and I'll get him of his own free will — or by some other means. I — want — that —

man.''*

Yard rode back to the woods in the cab of the engine that pulled a string of empty trucks to be loaded with hardwood logs in the morning. About a mile from headquarters the railroad branched, the line to the left passing head- quarters and continuing upward beyond the dam, the other to the East Branch camps. Van leaped to the ground to walk the remaining mile to Nord's.

He had traversed half the distance when he saw ahead of him, stopped by the roadside, a ramshackle buckboard, hitched to a horse so thin and threadbare that it narrowly escaped continuing to be a horse altogether. On the seat was huddled a small, female figure which, on nearer approach. Yard discovered to be sobbing with a skill which only many repetitions could have brought about. It was clear that there must have been many occasions to sob, and consequently that the way of the sobber had led in the valleys and swamps of unhappiness, rather than along the hilltops of delight.

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Yard stopped and explored the back of his collar with a dubious finger. Women in tears did not come within his experience; but he had once been reared as a gentleman, and gentlemen do not pass women in trouble without at least an inquiry. Yard essayed a question.

"Er — can I be of any — assistance?" he asked.

A face, tear-streaked, was slowly presented to view. It was a young face, a girl's face. Had it been laughing it would have owned a sort of fresh prettiness. Yard judged her to be a couple of years short of twenty.

"Has — anything happened?" he asked, pres- ently.

"I — I — 1-Iost it," she said, mingling words with sniffles.

"What did you lose?"

"Dad's fern money. He — ^he sent me to town with a 1-Ioad of ferns — and I — got paid for 'em — and 1-lost it."

"Um — and dad's likely to — be unpleasant about it?"

"He'll perty nigh — kill me," she said, rising to a height of sobbing not before touched.

"Of course," said Van, helplessly, "girls who are sent on errands should — er — refrain from more than a reasonable amount of carelessness. A reasonable amount. Just how much that is I

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H

■X

rwK sorncE

tufi liiiubl'r lo Miy, liut in llic casK. of a girl of your age I hlioulfj jiJflg'i it would be — coosiderable. Your fafln-r, I gaUier, won't look to that fact.**

"V^ou'n? rnakin* fun of rnc/* she said, dolefully.

*'R<ally Tim not— at all. Would it U* imperti- ncnl l() ank how much you — mi.slaid?'*

"TIiirljTn dollars," she said.

"Ilrilufky nuHihcr — very. It should have warned you. You should have been cs[>ecially — dlscr<'rt in I In- Iiandling of it; and you seem to luive been exactly the contrary.**

"Are are you a perfessor or somothin'," she a.sk<'d, lier .sobs held in check by dawning inlen'st.

"Why, no — not exactly. Thirfeen dollars, j'ou say. Now your father wouldn't recognize a — substitution, would he? That is to say, he wouldn't know it. if you — gave him a thirteen <l»)llMrs lli.il wiisn't the precise thirteen dollars he was - expecting.,', would he.''"

"F ^loti't know what you're Uilking about," she said.

"You have — a little advantage of me. Women have very rarely sobbed like that in my presence. It is disconcerting. Really, I think you should stop it. . . . Here" — he felt in his pocket — "here's thirteen dollars. If you can pass them off on your fatlier as — the genuine thirteen dollars, probably

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kt^

I

^^^

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he woG*t — come i: ~ ' anticfpiite."

^*Qh, mUierr sbe said.

"Honest?'

lor, &e

and M— III] it c<g^^y; tkeB» too idfev^ for tknks» she ^mked the icprcttdble korse vith the fines and went away from tliat place. Yard wasrdieved.

He looked about and saw wafting toward kki» not thirty feet dL>t;int, Svea Nonl. Her face was expressiaiiless. but there was a subtle soHKtlng;* a hmt of suppressed cmiuMtj, pe^aps, in lier eves that made Yard sore ske had witnesed at least the latter part of the ^lisode and was not ahogethef satisfied with it. As a matter of fact. Yard was not perfectly satisfied. He was stire he had not risen to the event as he should ha\*e done.

distantly, also, the matter presented itself to

him as it might to an unprejudiced beholder —

or perhaps to one with a possible prejudiiv.

Y'oung men did not as a common pmctioe hand

sm^dl rolls of bULs to young women at roadsides

imless there were a motive of some sort. It was

a situation in which the motive might \'ery

easily be interpreted in a manner he would ha\*e

suffered much pain to prevent S\-ea Xorvl frvnu

interpreting it. It filk\i him with luixiety, ;uid

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i

THE SOURCE

am unable to say, but in the case of a girl of your age I should judge it would be — considerable. Your father, I gather, won't look to that fact."

"You're makin' fun of me," she said, dolefully.

"Really I'm not — at all. Would it be imperti- nent to ask how much you — mislaid?"

"Thirteen dollars," she said.

"Unlucky number — very. It should have warned you. You should have been especially — • discreet in the handling of it; and you seem to have been exactly the contrary."

"Are — are you a perfessor or somethin'," she asked, her sobs held in check by dawning interest.

"Why, no — not exactly. Thirteen dollars, you say. Now your father wouldn't recognize a — substitution, would he? That is to say, he wouldn't know it if you — gave him a thirteen dollars that wasn't the precise thirteen dollars he was — expecting, would he?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said.

"You have — a. little advantage of me. Women have very rarely sobbed like that in my presence. It is disconcerting. Really, I think you should stop it. . . . Here" — he felt in his pocket — "here's thirteen dollars. If you can pass them off on your father as — the genuine thirteen dollars, probably

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he won't — come so near to killing you as you anticipate."

"Oh, misterr she said. "Honest.?"

"Honest — Injun,^* he responded, soberly.

She reached, almost snatched for, the money, and counted it eagerly; then, too relieved for thanks, she spanked the regrettable horse with the lines and went away from that place. Yard was relieved.

He looked about and saw walking toward him, not thirty feet distant, Svea Nord. Her face was expressionless, but there was a subtle something, a hint of suppressed curiosity, perhaps, in her eyes that made Yard sure she had witnessed at least the latter part of the episode and was not altogether satisfied with it. As a matter of fact. Yard was not perfectly satisfied. He was sure he had not risen to the event as he should have done.

Instantly, also, the matter presented itself to him as it might to an unprejudiced beholder — or perhaps to one with a possible prejudice. Young men did not as a common practice hand small rolls of bills to young women at roadsides unless there were a motive of some sort. It was a situation in which the motive might very easily be interpreted in a manner he would have suffered much pain to prevent Svea Nord from interpreting it. It filled him with anxiety, and

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his anxiety made him awkward. Awkwardness in such a moment is strong to create misappre- hensions.

"Good afternoon, Svea," he said. "I — I had no idea of meeting you here."

"Good afternoon, Mr. Yard," she said, not coldly, but he felt that she had raised a barrier between herself and him — and she had called him Mr. Yard.

It was not a thing he could explain. At any rate, it seemed to him, it would be too like boasting of a charity. And he felt some delicacy in talking about a business which was purely the concern of the young woman with the sobs. Therefore he kept uncomfortably silent. He made the tactical error of ignoring the thing altogether, and of seeming to seek to divert Svea*s attention from it.

The remaining half-mile seemed extraordinarily long to him. He had difficulty in finding topics of conversation, for it was apparent that the personal note would not be welcomed. He was not happy. Yet when he glanced covertly at Svea he could see no reason for unhappiness. She did not seem displeased; her face was not troubled; she was calm as was her wont, and responded to his conversational advances readily. Yet something was lacking. Perhaps she was not suspicious;

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perhaps she had read nothing into the incident he would not have had her read. At any rate, it was too late to ask or to offer explanation. To do so now would be but to arouse suspicion. It would bear the appearance of a story that it had taken time to perfect. He was glad when the house was reached and she preceded him through the door and passed on to the rear of the house.

Nord heard his step and called: "Number Three just jumped the track this side of Camp Four. She rolled down the bank into the river, yankin* the whole string of trucks after her."

The announcement erased Svea from Yard's mind instantly. It was a call to action. It was, perhaps, a telling point scored by the enemy, for at one blow it abated twenty-five per cent, of the rolling-stock which was essential to getting logs to the mill.

He had told Beaumont the enemy would not strike until spring. This — for he was positive in laying the wreck to no accident — proved him an unreliable prophet.

"Come on," he said, and started headlong for the scene of trouble.

CHAPTER XI

THE wreck of Number Three was the first warning of an epidemic of mishaps to the railroad. Trucks, loaded two high, spilled their logs in awkward places. Reaches broke un- accountably; loose rails became so common that engineers had almost to walk the tracks ahead of their engines. The big steam-loader fell ill. Fire broke out in the machine shop. All these things added to the fact that one engine out of four was totally suppressed for weeks to come cut unpleasantly into the supply of logs that went to the mills. More than one half-day was lost for lack of fuel.

And then, for the first time, friction began to manifest itself between Nord, Yard's nominal boss, and Yard. Yard was patient, for he laid misunderstandings to the fact that Nord was worried and hustled by the situation and so made irritable and at times unreasonable. Orders given by Yard were countermanded by Nord. Nord issued instructions which went directly contrary

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to plans Yard had formulated. At first Yard was silent; then he was forced to expostulation.

"Mr. Nord," he said one evening, when he found that orders given by him to the East Branch camps to send down that day nothing but hardwood logs had been reversed, and that nothing but spruce had traveled to the mill, "you and I seem to be working at cross pur- poses. Somehow we're not pulling together as we used to."

Nord turned on him sharply. **I'm boss in these woods," he said, "and it's time you was finding it out. It isn't a question of us working together; it's a question of you working for me."

"But it's bad for discipline to have you go over my head and reverse my instructions."

"No worse than for you to ram ahead the way you've been doing. The men don't know who's boss — and I'm showing 'em."

"I'll be glad to consult with you and issue orders in your name," said Yard, placatingly.

"You'll do as you're told," said Nord, and, turning on his heel, walked away.

Here was a hard situation for the young man. He knew Nord was disrupting his plans; it was apparent that Nord, offended to pig-headedness, was asserting authority at the cost of efficiency in the woods. Van refused to lay the condition to

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anything but offended vanity, but he — Yard — felt himself responsible to Beaumont for the output. Responsible, he felt, not to Beaumont alone, but to sulphate-pulp, to the new industry in process of birth.

Two options were presented: to do the best he could in the circumstances, and to seek, by ready compliance with Nord's whims, to bring about the establishment of the old relations; or drastically to seize the authority which was his by virtue of Big John Beaumont's letter, and remove his titular superior.

Here Svea Nord entered into the problem, complicating it. What would she think? What would be her attitude toward the man who dis- credited her father? Van's respect for her in- telligence and fairness was boundless. It was possible he could explain to her the necessity for his act — but it was questionable. It was possible she might question the motive for the removal and lay it not to expediency, but to Yard's per- sonal ambition, to his willingness to rise by treading down another ruthlessly.

True and trustworthy — that was what her man must be. She might — probably would, regard his action as treachery to his superior; and treachery could arouse in her nothing less than disgust.

The crisis was one not readily to be met by a

13G

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young man whose love for a girl was as deep, as compelling, as grateful as was Yard's for Svea.

He decided, and he hoped his decision rested* not on fear of consequences to himself, but upon good judgment, to take no steps save friendly ones; to exert himself to the utmost to regain Nord's friendship. And there he let the matter rest.

For weeks Yard had been filling Camps Seven and Eight with picked men; to those camps he had been giving more of his time than to all the rest — and they were showing results. Gradually the men at that far end of the line came to be called by the rest Yard's roughnecks — and rough- necks they were. Fighters, drinkers, workers, every one of them! Hard customers to handle, dangerous men to oppose; but Yard worked on them in his way, and they responded.

Your roughneck, your born fighter, is capable of depths of loyalty. He likes to fight, but better than anything else he likes to fight for a friend — and Yard became their friend. More than that, he was admired by them, for he never avoided an argument; never showed uncertainty or nervous- ness— and he had thrashed Langlois, reputed to be the worst man in the mountains. He had managed to put their relations with him on a personal basis, and had you asked who they

lo 137

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worked for they would have told you it was Van Yard, not the Green Mountain Pulp Company. They were Van's men, collected and worked upon by him for a purpose — to take care of an emergency which he saw arising in the future.

Yard's roughnecks! Already stories of those camps began to trickle down the mountain roads and spread through the southern^counties. If it had been announced that Yard and his rough- necks were coming to town the villagers would have closed their stores, barricaded their houses, and petitioned the Governor to call out the militia.

For weeks Yard saw these collections of men were twanging on Nord's nerves. The woods boss referred to them angrily; pointed to actions of theirs which, indeed, were not gentle. More than once he threatened to break up the camps and scatter the men throughout the woods. Van was determined to hold his roughnecks together, not because they were his, but because he looked upon them as his strong army of defense. It was those disreputable citizens, he believed, who would one day stand between sulphate-pulp and failure.

Yard stopped seldom at woods headquarters during these wearing days, and saw little of Svea. That she was not unaware of her father's attitude

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toward him he felt certain. Her eyes were too clear, her intelligence too quick not to have carried her to the truth. But sometimes business com- pelled him there.

On one of these days, made as rare as he could make them, Svea sat on the porch as he dis- mounted from his hand-car. She greeted him impersonally, not with frank friendship as had been her habit before that inconsiderable incident in the road which had transferred thirteen dollars from Yard's pocket to the sobbing girl's. This was not the smallest of Van's troubles.

"Mr. Yard," said Svea, "a girl has been asking for you several times this week. She was here again to-day. The matter seemed to be very urgent."

"A girl?" exclaimed Yard, astonished. "What

girl?"

"Her name, I believe, is Ruth Piggins."

Van frowned. The name meant nothing to him.

"She's a fern-picker," said Svea, her tone be- coming not merely impersonal, but cold. "I*m sure you know her."

Fern-picker! Yard had not thought of the

sobbing girl until now. Of course it was she.

Who else could it be? He felt himself flushing,

felt he looked and acted like a man detected in

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something discreditable; and the knowledge of this made him act the more so.

"What — what did she want?" he asked.

"You," she said, pointedly, and went abruptly into the house.

Presently Yard followed, going directly to the little room used as an office. He had been there but a moment when the telephone sounded.

"Woods headquarters," said Yard into the trans- mitter.

"Is Mr. Yard there.?"

"Yard speaking."

"This is Holmquist," said the voice. "Can you see me in town to-night.^^"

"I can," said Yard, "but I won*t."

"Mr. Yard," said Holmquist, "something has hapj>ened that makes it necessary for me to talk to you. Not in the interests of the Power Com- pany, but of yourself — and other people. If you re- fuse to see me you'll regret it as long as you live."

"Let it come over the telephone."

"This is something no telephone was built to carry. I'm acting for myself in this thing. I've got to see you."

"Nothing doing."

"Yard—"

"I tell you, Holmquist, I have nothing to talk to you about."

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"I have something to talk to you about. I'm running risks; but I'd run any risk to have five minutes with you. I'll give you a hint. Suppose Ekstrom had decided to get rid of me.*'

Yard thought quickly. There might be some- thing useful to be learned. Holmquist might be telling the truth. At least no harm could come from seeing the man.

"Very well, Holmquist," he said. "I'll see you at the hotel at six."

He hung up the receiver and turned. Svea was standing in the door waiting.

"Father wants to see you. He's down in the barn," she said.

"Thank you," he said, and went out. She remained standing a moment, her eyes on the telephone. Her hand traveled slowly up to her lips and pressed them hard against her teeth; she shut her eyes and breathed once, deeply, as though making a mighty effort for self-control. Then she swung about and went rapidly up- stairs to her room, where she shut herself in, where she stood before the window with hands clenched and eyes wide and staring, looking out upon the mountain, but seeing it not at all because of a curtain of moisture that blinded her eyes.

"Yard," said Nord, as soon as the young man came in hearing, "I've made up my mind. To-

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morrow I bust up those two gangs of roughnecks. I'll scatter 'em so they won't be able to send letters to each other with a dollar's worth of stamps."

"I've selected those men, and put them there because I believe they can be of most use where they are. I hope you will reconsider, Mr. Nord."

"You heard what I said. That goes."

Yard looked at the man's face and knew it mirrored a stubborn determination, one not to be changed by argument or pleading. Now, indeed, he had come to a stage in the journey where he must choose one fork of the road or the other; where he must displace Nord, or pass over his duty — which was plain before his eyes.

Yet he hesitated, and, hesitating, yielded to the voice of procrastination. He would put off the decision. Hours remained. He would not have to act until morning. So, with this partial surrender accusing him from the moment of its birth, he swung on his heel and strode away toward the railroad.

Life was becoming too complicated for Yard. His experiences had not been complex hitherto; rather the contrary. Now he swam amid cross- currents and undertows which sucked and drew him this way and that, desire, love, straining to tear him from duty, from that which had become

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his religion. At that moment the lot of a bum in the gutter seemed not unenviable.

He cranked the hand -car and mounted to his seat. It sputtered down the grade toward town, bearing a young man who wished with all the strength of his heart that he had never seen the forests that clothed those stately mountains. For the first time their lofty reaches failed to exhilarate and inspire him. Rather they seemed to frown down upon him accusingly.

At six o'clock he entered the hotel. Holmquist sat in the little office, but at Yard's approach he arose and hurried through an adjoining door, motioning furtively for Yard to follow.

They went up the stairs to a bedroom, when Holmquist cautiously closed the door and drew Yard away from it to a position near the window. He seemed apprehensive of eavesdroppers.

"Yard," said Holmquist, manifesting some un- easiness, "this meeting is under a flag of truce."

"Yes."

"You agree to that."

"I sha'n't manhandle you, whatever you have to say."

"Very well, then. I have reasons for doing what I'm about to do. They're good reasons. I wouldn't turn against a concern like the Power Company — and run the risks of what might

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happen to me — unless my reasons were mighty good."

"I suppose not — knowing you slightly."

"Maybe you've noticed," said Holmquist, "that we got next to things pretty quickly. As soon as you planned a thing we knew about it, eh? Notice that?"

"Yes. But not lately." Yard smiled wryly.

"No. You kept your plans to yourself. But haven't you noticed something else since that time? Haven't your plans been upset and your orders countermanded? How about that?"

"You have correct information."

"That's why I'm here — or what I'm here for — to tell you who's our friend.'*

Yard leaned forward, his eyes not leaving Holmquist's face. "You'll tell me that?" he said.

"Exactly."

"Then," said Yard, "you're a little more con- temptible than I placed you. . . . You're a crook, Holmquist, but even a crook must have some sort of moral standards."

Holmquist shrugged his shoulders. "I have my reasons. Here, look at this."

He held, just out of Yard's reach, a check — a canceled check — drawn by Ekstrom as president of the Eastern States Power Company to Nord. The sum it bore written on its face was five

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hundred dollars. Holmquist turned it over. It carried Nord's indorsement.

"That's the gentleman," Holmquist said, crisply.

Yard felt numb. He wanted, suddenly, to sit dowTi. His brain refused to work.

"I don't believe it," he said.

"I'll prove it. To-morrow Nord has promised to break up your roughnecks."

Yard remained silent, staring, staring at the outrageous roses woven in the carpet.

"That proves it, I guess," said Holmquist.

"Yes," said Yard, dully. "Is that all.?"

"Yes."

"Then," said Yard, uttering the first word calmly, but advancing before he spoke the sec- ond, " — then go away from here — quick — before I pull you apart."

Holmquist did not remain to plan a dignified exit, but obeyed to the letter.

True and trustworthy! True and trustworthy! It was only those words that beat inward on Van Twiller Yard's consciousness. How would this thing affect her to whom truth and trustworthi- ness were as the breath of life to her &ov\? How would she bear the shock of knowing that the very blood in her veins was derived from a man who was a traitor; who sold his truth and trustworthi- ness for a matter of five hundred dollars.'^ She

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was strong. Yard had gloried in her calm strength. She had sustained him, but who would sustain her now?

Yard could see her wither under that knowledge, unable to raise her eyes to face the world. Truth and trustworthiness! Two words to be bandied about by rhetoricians! Yet to those who wore engraved on their souls, not the words, but the things — the things they stood for — how lofty! Very beacon-lights placed on high mountain-tops, guiding to wonderful harbors! Svea Nord had placed her beacon-lights upon the highest moun- tain-top of all. Because she stood upon the topmost height the Valley of Degradation seemed deeper to her than to those who could not climb to stand by her side.

Her father — of her blood — was guilty of the sin for which she could see no atonement; and the duty of bringing him to justice and of blighting her with his turpitude was placed in the hands of the man who would have descended into hell to keep her light burning unobscured.

"I can't do it!" he cried aloud. "I carCtr

The gutter reached up unclean hands to claim again a soul that had well-nigh been its own.

CHAPTER XII

IT was Holmquist's business to read character, and he was apt at his calling. Ekstrom had seen his Man Friday's judgments proven correct so many times that he began to believe the fellow had some uncanny sense which gave him his power to appraise men and to foresee how they would react to certain emergencies. It is true that Holmquist dealt for the most part with characters of no considerable complexity, with men who did not require to be dug into far below their sm'faces — but his successes had been im- pressive.

Therefore, when Holmquist laid before his em- ployer a plan to eliminate Van Twiller Yard from their problem Ekstrom was inclined to listen and to act.

":Mr. Ekstrom," said Holmquist, "I thmk I have a scheme that will get rid of Yard. I've been sizing him up."

"Yes.?"

*'He's the sentimental type — the sort who likes

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heroics. I'd bet he'd sacrifice himself in an outburst of noble sentimentalism for somebody else — especially for a woman."

"He looks pretty hard-headed to me," said Ekstrom.

Holmquist shrugged his shoulders. "He's a fighter, all right, and a bad actor. But I've grabbed his weak point. If he was in a fight that meant a hurt to a woman — especially a woman he was in love with — he'd quit."

"Yes.?"

"He's in love with Svea Nord."

"Yes.?"

"Suppose I go to him under the pretense that you and I have fallen out, and tell him we've bought up Svea Nord's father. What will he do then, eh? Easy as A B C. It '11 be up to him either to go to Beaumont with the story — or disappear. He'll disappear."

"I'm not so sure," said Ekstrom.

"I know. I've studied him."

"But we need Nord pretty badly the way things are working out."

"We don't stand to lose anything. We'll keep Nord and we'll get rid of Yard. How many times have you seen me go wrong when I size up a man?"

"But this Yard seems to me to be a little more

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of a man tlian youVe met before. Several sizes larger."

"It's his weak point.**

Ekstrom considered. "Very well,'* he said, presently. "The game is worth the candle."

It seemed that Holmquist had made a true appraisal. Van Twiller Yard had quit. At the junction, just below woods headquarters, he ran his hand-car on a siding and started to walk back toward town. He was deserting the woods, deserting sulphate-pulp, deserting everything and everybody in the new life that had opened for him — excepting Svea Nord. He was giving it up for her; going back to the thing he had escaped from — from which there would never again be escape.

He did not walk erectly with the carriage that his resurrection had brought with it. His shoul- ders lopped; he shuffled. The man on that rutted mountain road was not Van Twiller Yard, actual boss of the woods, but Van Yard, bum. He had let go deliberately with both hands and was falling, he cared not where. He was dropping his soul back into the cesspool from which a miracle had dragged it — and he was conscious of it. He did not glory in it. There was no exulta- tion in sacrifice made.

True and trustworthy! He was not being that,

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but he was saving Svea Nord from the knowledge that her father was despicable. His mind did not register the truth that in the life of every woman there is a man whose shame will crush her more surely than her father's shame. Perhaps this was because he knew he had no place in Svea's heart.

He shuffled on.

As he rounded a curve in the road he saw glimmering down from the slope above a dim light. Suddenly loneliness obsessed him, a fear of being alone, an aching necessity for a human being to be near him. He thought he was merely afraid of the dark, and he was ashamed. But it was not that. It was no finite fear, but a clutching by his falling soul at another soul to cling to like the straw of a drowning man.

It was without objectively realizing he was at

the post-office that Yard climbed the bank and

opened the crazily hanging door. The little

postmaster's head was just visible above the

counter on which sat the oil-lamp that gave him

light to read the Proceedings of Congress by.

This was his sole literature, and nightly he gave

himself to it, reading strictly every word with a

view to keeping himself assured that the country

was being well taken care of. He looked up as

Yard entered.

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*</

'Git outside," he snapped. "Quick. Manners teaches most folks to knock on doors, but some has to be told."

Yard turned to go. If he had done so, doubtless he would not have returned, for he would have lacked the courage. But the postmaster saw his face by the yellow light of his lamp, and to such keen old eyes as the postmaster's there was need of but scant scrutiny to read the story of torture it told.

"Hey!" he said, quickly, "it's you, eh? Hum! . . . What fetched you here this time of night? Somethin's upset you, and you come to the old man, eh? Set down."

Yard obeyed, dully, silently, and let his eyes turn to the floor.

"WTiat ails you, young feller? Out with it."

"I — couldn't do it," said Yard, as though recit- ing a phrase in a language he did not understand.

"How d' you know?" snapped the postmaster. "Bet you could. You hain't more 'n half tried."

"I don't want — to try," said Van. "I don't dare — to try. I might forget. I might do it. . . . And it would hurt Aer."

"And so," said the postmaster, with quick com- prehension, "you're goin' off. You're quittin' under fire. You're desertin' in the face of the enemy."

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Yard made no answer, but continued to gaze dully at the floor. The postmaster did not speak, either, for minutes, but shut his sharp little eyes in concentrated thought.

"You found out'somethin*," he said, presently, "and it's knocked you galley west — somethin' that'll hurt her, and her is Svea Nord. Um! . . . Now I wonder did you find it out yourself, or did somebody tell you." Suddenly he leaned over Yard and fairly bellowed, "Say, who told you?"

Perhaps it was inspiration; perhaps the shrewd old man had some rough working knowledge of psychology; at any rate he succeeded. The sudden vehement question compelled an answer that came without Yard's volition.

"Holmquist," he said.

"Huh!" snorted the postmaster, eying Yard alertly. "You set right there while I make a drawin' of tea. You need somethin' bracin'. You need to be let alone some for a while till you sort of git back onto your feet. . . . Huh! . . . You need some coddlin' — and then you need to be lit into like blazes. Lucky you come to me — darn lucky!"

The postmaster pottered about, talking jerkily to himself, and in a few minutes thrust a cup of hot tea into Van's hand.

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"Drink that," he said, "and git ready to ketch hell."

Yard gulped down the tea obediently.

"Great stimy-Iint," said the postmaster. "Beats rum all to nothin'. Don't hit you no sudden wallop, but fetches you around gradual. Kind of rouse you up a mite.''"

"Yes," said Yard. "Thank you. I'll go along now."

"You'll set right where you be. . . . Kjiow where you're headin' to if you go now? ^h? Right back to the gutter, that's where. You set till I git done with you. . . . Now then, you're runnin' away from your job, hain't you?"

"I'm going away."

"Why?"

Yard was rousing gradually, becoming more himself — or, better, more an enfeebled imitation of himself.

"There's no use going into that. Postmaster," he said. "I can't stay."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you."

"Then I'll tell you, consarn you! It's because you hain't never been nothin' but a bum dressed up to fool folks. This man Yard that the moun- tains is talkin' about hain't never been a-tall. Nothin' but a bum foolin' folks for a spell. You're

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goin' *cause you hain't no good. That's why you're goin'. You hain't got no bone runnin' up and down your back. . . . And for the exact, precise, i-dentical reason that's takin' you away, why, I kin tell you that, too. Hohnquist he got hold of you and told you somethin'. Somethin' you're afraid Svea Nord '11 find out. Somethin' you ought to tell, or do somethin' about. They couldn't bribe you and they couldn't scare you." The postmaster failed to realize he was being in- consistent now. "So they set out to git you another way. How about sulphate-pulp now? How about buildin' a new industry? How about you bein* a patriot and fightin' for your country? Huh! You hain't got insides enough to be a sutler's clerk. If Langlois was to see you now he'd lick you with one hand tied behind him. He'd know you been a bluff all along."

This forced a protest from Yard, and the post- master's eyes twinkled with satisfaction.

"I wasn't bluffing," said Yard. "It was real — all real — but it's gone."

"Sure. . . . Jest because a slinkin' little dude told you somethin' that might hurt a girl's feelin's. And right off you forgit you're a man; you forgit you're fightin' for sulphate-pulp; you forgit what you owe your country — and you sneak off. Perty slinkum shed think you was."

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"Better me than — " Yard checked himself.

"Better you than" — the postmaster pounced on the hint with a mental agihty worthy of one in a higher place — "better you than Nord, eh? That's it. Huh! Should 'a' seen it right off. Holmquist's got some brains — some, but not enough to run ag'in' the trusted representative of the Gove'ment. Kinder suspected Nord some myself. The way things was runnin' made it look like him. Workin' for Big John and takin' pay from them furriners, eh?"

"No— no! It wasn't that."

"Don't lie to me, young feller. It was that. Wasn't it? . . . Wasn't that it?"

"No," said Yard.

"No matter. I know it was. And Holmquist told you. Wliat for, d' j^ou calc'late? What was he aimin' at? He give away Nord for a purpose, didn't he?"

Yard made no reply.

"Lemme see. If / was a slinkin* little dude how'd I work it? Um! . . . How'd I figger you? . . . Hull! Easy. Holmquist he says to you he's had trouble with Ekstrom, that's it. And he wants to git even with Ekstrom, so he's tellin' you. . . . See why the Gove'ment trusts me, young feller? 'Cause I got brains and know how to use 'em. . . .