Other Main-Travelled Roads Part 43

"No, sir; I'm going to enjoy every moment of it; and you're going to let me help, you know--look over papers, and all that. I'm the heiress, you must remember," she added, wickedly.

"Well, we won't quarrel about that until we see how the legacy turns out. It may not be worth my time up here. I shall charge you roundly as your lawyer, depend on that."

The outlook grew more attractive as the train sped on. Old Mosinee rose, a fine rounded blue shape, on the left.

"Why, there's a mountain! I didn't know Wisconsin had such a mountain as that."

"Neither did I. This valley is fine. Now, if your uncle's estates only included that hill!"

The valley made off to the northwest with a bold, large, and dignified movement. The coloring, blue and silver, purple-brown and bronze-green, was harmonious with the grouping of lines. It was all fresh and vital, wholesome and very impressive.

From this point the land grew wilder--that is to say, more primeval.

There was more of Nature and less of man. The scar of the axe was here and there, but the forest predominated. The ridges of pine foliages broke against the sky, miles and miles, in splendid sweep.

"This must be lovely in summer," the wife said, again and again, as they flashed by some lake set among the hills.

"It's fine now," he replied, feeling the thrill of the sportsman. "I'd like to shoulder a rifle and plunge into those snowy vistas. How it brings the wild spirit out in a man! Women never feel that delight."

"Oh, yes, we do," she replied, glad that something remained yet unexplained between them. "We feel just like men, only we haven't the strength of mind to demand a share of it with you."

"Yes, you feel it at this distance. You'd come back mighty quick the second night out."

She did not relish his laughter, and so looked away out of the window.

"Just think of it--Uncle Edwin lived here thirty years!"

He forebore to notice her inconsistency. "Yes, the wilderness is all right for a vacation, but I prefer Chicago for the year round."

When they came upon Ridgeley, both cried out with delight.

"Oh, what a dear, picturesque little town!" she said.

"Well, well! I wonder how they came to build a town without a row of battlemented stores?"

It lay among and upon the sharp, low, stumpy pine ridges in haphazard fashion, like a Swiss village. A small brook ran through it, smothered here and there in snow. A sawmill was the largest figure of the town, and the railway station was the centre. There was not an inch of painted board in the village. Everywhere the clear yellow of the pine flamed unstained by time. Lumber piles filled all the lower levels near the creek. Evidently the town had been built along logging roads, and there was something grateful and admirable in its irregular arrangement. The houses, moreover, were all modifications of the logging camps; even the drug store stood with its side to the street. All about were stumps and fringes of pines, which the lumbermen, for some good reason, had pa.s.sed by. Charred boles stood purple-black out of the snow.

It was all green and gray and blue and yellow-white and stern. The sky was not more illimitable than the rugged forest which extended on every hand.

"Oh, this is glorious--glorious!" said the wife. "Do I own some of this town?" she asked, as they rose to go out.

"I reckon you do."

"Oh, I'm so glad!"

As they stepped out on the platform, a large man in corduroy and wolf-skin faced them like a bandit.

"h.e.l.lo, Ed!"

"h.e.l.lo, Jack! Well, we've found you. My wife, Mr. Ridgeley. We've come up to find out how much you've embezzled," he said, as Ridgeley pulled off an immense glove to shake hands all round.

"Well, come right over to the hotel. It ain't the Auditorium, but then, again, it ain't like sleeping outdoors."

As they moved along they heard the train go off, and then the sound of the saw resumed its domination of the village noises.

"Was the town named after you, or you after the town?" asked Field.

"Named after me. Old man didn't want it named after him; would kill it,"

he said.

Mr. and Mrs. Field found the hotel quite comfortable and the dinner wholesome. They beamed upon each other.

"It's going to be delightful," they said.

Ridgeley was a bachelor, and made his home at the hotel also. That night he said: "Now we'll go over the papers and records of your uncle's property, and then we'll go out and see if the property is all there. I imagine this is to be a searching investigation."

"You may well think it. My wife is inexorable."

As night fell, the wife did not feel so safe and well pleased. The loud talking in the office below and the occasional whooping of a crowd of mill-hands going by made her draw her chair nearer and lay her fingers in her husband's palm.

He smiled indulgently. "Don't be frightened, my dear. These men are not half so bad as they sound."

II

Mrs. Field sat in the inner room of Ridgeley's office, waiting for the return of her husband with the team. They were going out for a drive.

Ridgeley was working at his books, and he had forgotten her presence.

She could not but feel a deep admiration for his powerful frame and his quick, absorbed action as he moved about from his safe to his desk. He was a man of great force and ready decision.

Suddenly the door opened and a stranger entered. He had a sullen and bitter look on his thin, dark face. Ridgeley's quick eyes measured him, and his hand softly turned the key in his money drawer, and as he faced about he swung shut the door of the safe.

The stranger saw all this with eyes as keen as Ridgeley's. A cheerless and strange smile came upon his face.

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "I'm low, but I ain't as low as that."

"Well, sir, what can I do for you?" asked Ridgeley. Mrs. Field half rose, feeling something tense and menacing in the att.i.tude of the two men.

But the intruder quietly answered, "You can give me a job if you want to."

Ridgeley remained alert. His eyes ran over the man's tall frame. He looked strong and intelligent, although his eyes were fevered and dull.

"What kind of a job?"

"Any kind that will take me out into the woods and keep me there."

There was a self-accusing tone in his voice that Ridgeley felt.