The Lady of Big Shanty Part 15

"By the way, before I forget it"--here Thayor drew from his pocket a package of letters--"how about this Mr. Steinberg, the dealer who sold us the horses?" he inquired.

"Who, Bergstein?"

"Yes, this Mr. Bergstein, as you call him. I gather from your last letter--I thought I had it with me," he said, searching hurriedly among the packet of correspondence, "but I have evidently left it--I gather," he resumed, "from your last letter that he did not make a very favourable impression. I can't understand it," he went on seriously, "for he was recommended by one of the vice-presidents of one of our Canadian companies, a man whom I have had dealings with by letter for years. I should hesitate to believe he would recommend anyone to us whom he did not thoroughly know about--who, shall we say, was sharp in his dealings."

Holcomb for a moment did not reply. Then suddenly he looked straight into the eyes of his employer.

"I know a man may sometimes be wrong in sizing up another," he began, "but Bergstein seems to me to have considerable of the peddler in him."

"And yet you say, Billy, the horses he sent were sound, and the price fair."

"The price he asked was not," replied Holcomb. "I gave him what I knew they were worth--he wasn't long in taking it. That's where the peddler part of it struck me."

Thayor made no attempt to reply; he was listening as calmly as a lawyer to a defence.

"There are a lot of the boys here who think Bergstein is all right,"

Holcomb continued, "but neither Freme, Hite, nor myself liked his looks from the first. He's too mysterious in his movements--whanging off at night to catch a train and turning up again--sometimes before daylight."

"Yet you say he is a good worker," interrupted Thayor, settling in his chair.

"There isn't a lazy bone in him," confessed Holcomb. "He's all hustle, and smarter than a steel trap--that's why I put him in charge of the gang in the lower shanty--besides, I saw the boys wanted him."

"I must see Mr. Bergstein in the morning," was Thayor's reply.

"He left day before yesterday," said Holcomb. "He told me an uncle of his had died in Montreal; he'll be back, he said, in three or four days."

"Ah, indeed," said Thayor with a nod. "I trust we are all mistaken in the fellow. You know, my boy," he said turning suddenly about, "we must all learn to be tolerant of others--of their ignorance. I've found in life a true philosophy in this. It's my creed, Billy--'Be tolerant of others, even of those who at times seem intolerable to you.'"

Holcomb was not the man to censure another without the strength of his conviction. He had been frank in giving his opinion of Bergstein, since Thayor had put the question point blank to him. Their talk before the fire had been a genial one, save for this somewhat unpleasant subject, yet despite Thayor's kindly optimism in regard to Bergstein, owing purely to his excellent recommendation, Holcomb felt a distrust of the mysterious stranger who had wormed his way into Big Shanty. He could not help being personally convinced that the vice-president of the Canadian company was either a rascal or a man of poor judgment. It was also possible that the said vice-president had never seen Bergstein at all.

CHAPTER TEN

Two nights later Holcomb again bade Thayor good-night in the square room with its heavy-beamed ceiling. All the accounts had now been gone over--even to the minutest detail, and Billy felt supremely happy and relieved at his employer's enthusiastic approval of all he had done, so much so that even the one discordant note--Bergstein--seemed of vague importance.

He crossed the clearing on his way to his cabin cautiously, feeling his way with his feet to avoid tripping over an unseen root. The night was intensely dark--so dark that as he neared his cabin he was forced to stop and feel for his card of matches. At that instant someone in the pitch darkness ahead of him coughed.

"Is that you, Freme?" called Holcomb, watching the sputtering sulphur blaze into flame.

"No," answered a hard nasal voice to the right, and within a rod of him; "it's me--Bergstein. Got any gin in your place? the nigh hoss on Jimmy's team is took bad with the colic."

"Come inside," said Holcomb.

"Bad luck," muttered Bergstein, as he followed Holcomb into the cabin; "there ain't a better work hoss on the place. Must have catched cold drawin' them heavy loads on the mountain."

Holcomb lighted a candle, extracted a bunch of keys, unlocked a cupboard, and handed Bergstein a black bottle.

"I thought you were in Canada," he said, eyeing Bergstein closely.

"I jest got back--I didn't wait for the funeral."

"Well, keep that horse covered," Holcomb added; "you'll find some extra heavy blankets back of the feed bin." After his door was closed, Holcomb stood thinking for some moments, his eyes fastened on the candle flame.

"That nigh horse seemed all right this fore-noon," he said to himself.

"That's the second horse with colic."

Thayor's first meeting with Bergstein occurred the next morning. It was brief and business-like, but it left a good impression on Thayor's mind. What little he had seen of the man, he told Holcomb, had convinced him of his honesty and ability; that the nigh horse had died was no fault of Bergstein's, since he and the boys at the lower shanty had evidently done everything that could be done. What pleased him most was Bergstein's humane and untiring efforts to save the poor beast, adding that he had decided to order him to leave for Montreal at once with instructions to purchase another horse, together with some other things, amounting to over three thousand dollars in all, which were badly needed. He liked, too, his quick return from Canada--this showed his interest in his work.

An hour later the two, with Bergstein, stood on the veranda before the latter's departure.

"Is there anything else you can think of that we need, Billy?" Thayor asked.

"That's about all I can think of," returned Holcomb, glancing over the long list that Bergstein held in his hand.

"He was a hard-working man," Bergstein casually remarked, referring to the uncle who had so suddenly succ.u.mbed. There was nothing to lead up to it, but that was a way with Bergstein. As he spoke he folded the list and tucked it into his black portfolio.

"Married?" asked Thayor.

"Yes, and to as nice a little woman as you ever see, Mr. Thayor.

He ain't left her much, not more than will keep her out of the poor-house." Bergstein's voice had grown as soft as an Oriental's.

"I buried him at my own expense. It's hard on her--she's got a little girl who was always ailin'--sickly from the first." He fumbled at his scrubby black beard, his rat-like eyes focussed on the ground.

"One moment, Mr. Bergstein," said Thayor, suddenly turning on his heel and going into the house. Presently he returned and handed Bergstein an unsealed white envelope. "Will you kindly give this to the mother and the little girl," he said. "You will oblige me by not saying whom it is from."

"Well, now, that's mighty good of you, Mr. Thayor," Bergstein faltered; "she'll--"

"I trust you will have a pleasant journey," returned Thayor and with a nod to Billy the two disappeared through the door of Thayor's den, before the man with the scrubby beard could finish his sentence.

Bergstein tucked the envelope within the black portfolio and went down the steps to the buckboard waiting to take him out to the railroad.

The boy Jimmy drove, Bergstein taking the back seat. He waited until they were well into the stretch of wood between the camp and the lower shanty, then he hurriedly extracted the envelope and glanced within.

It contained a new one-hundred-dollar bill.

That night Bergstein put up at the best hotel in Troy.

Three days after Bergstein's departure Holcomb sat in his cabin going over his accounts. When it grew dark he lighted his kerosene lamp and drew a chair beside his desk. As he bent over and unlaced his shoes the sash of the square cabin window in front of him was raised cautiously and four bony fingers slipped in and gripped the sill. As he sprang to his feet the gaunt face of a man rose slowly above the window sill and a pair of brilliant, cavernous eyes, framed in a shock of unkempt beard and sandy hair, stared into his own.

It was Bob Dinsmore--the hide-out. The next instant Holcomb was out of his boots and had raised the sash with a whispered welcome. With the quickness of a cornered cat Dinsmore was inside.

"It's took me most a week to git this chance to see ye, Billy,"

the hide-out began in a faint, husky voice weakened by exposure.

He glanced about him nervously, his thin body shivering under the patchwork of skins and threadbare rags that covered him. Holcomb, without a word, crossed to the cupboard.

"Eat, Bob," he said, putting a dish of cold meat and beans and another bottle on the table. For the s.p.a.ce of a quarter of an hour the hide-out ate hurriedly in silence, his food and drink guarded between his soaked forearms like an animal fearful lest its prey be stolen.

Holcomb watched him the while with now and then a friendly word. When he had finished eating, the cavernous eyes looked up gratefully.