The Man in the Twilight Part 55

With the man's going Bull pa.s.sed a hand back over his ample hair.

"G.o.d!" he exclaimed wearily. "It's been a tough night."

"Tough?"

Bat's response spoke a whole world of feeling. He moved from his window and flung himself into a chair.

"He saved us," he went on. "Father Adam. He saved the whole of our darn outfit. How he did it I don't just know. Maybe I'll never know. He don't talk a lot. I gathered something of it from the boys. But there wasn't time for talk." He shook his grizzled head. "You see, I didn't even know he was around. And you never told me it was him brought you word from the camps. He must have been at work around from the start. He must have got hold of a bunch of the boys he knew. And when he got 'em right, why--Say, I'd have given a thousand dollars to have heard him fire his dope at that lousy gang. It must have been pretty. But they got him. And I guess that was the craziest thing they did. The fool man who could shoot up Father Adam in face of the forest-boys could only be fit for the bughouse."

He sighed. It was not for the man's madness in shooting, but for the hurt inflicted. Then a grim, vengeful smile lit his eyes.

"Why, I guess there ain't a single agent of the Skandinavia down there left with a puff of wind in his rotten carcase. The boys were plumb crazed for their blood an' got right up to their necks in it. I'm glad.

I'm--"

"Oh, forget it, man." Bull spoke sharply. "There's things we can take a joy in remembering. But this isn't one of 'em. No. The thing for us now is work. Plenty of work. The mill needs to be in full work inside a week. We haven't an hour to lose, with young Birchall coming along over. Skert's promised us power in twenty-four hours. He's at it right now. The camps on the river'll be working full, and making up lost time.

The rest's up to us right here. But--but," he added, pa.s.sing a hand nervously across his forehead, "I've got to get sleep or I'll go stark crazy."

Bat eyed the younger man seriously. It was the first time he had realised his condition. His sympathy found the rough expression of a nod.

"You had a h.e.l.l of a time up there," he said.

Bull laughed. There was no mirth in his laugh.

"It was tough all right. I wonder if you'd guess how tough." He shook his head. "No. You wouldn't. You reckon Father Adam's a pretty good man, but I tell you right here you don't know how good, or the thing he did for us single-handed. I know--now. He set me wise to it all, and didn't leave me a thing to do but make the trail he'd set for me. It was an easy play dealing with the fool forest-jacks who'd swallowed the Skandinavia's dope. Yes. That was easy," he added thoughtfully. "But that was just the start of the game. Father Adam had located the trail of the outfit the Skandinavia had sent and it was my job to come right up with 'em and silence 'em."

He broke off and sat staring straight in front of him. His fine eyes were half smiling for all the weariness he complained of. He yawned.

"Well, I hit that trail," he went on presently. "I hit it, and hung to it like a she-wolf out for offal. I just never quit. It was that way I forgot sleep. It wasn't till between No. 10 and 11 Camps we got sight.

We were out in the open, up on the high land. We'd a run of fifty mile ahead of the dogs. When we got sight that boy Gouter was after 'em like a red-hot devil. Drive? Gee, how he drove!"

Again came the man's mirthless laugh.

"There's things in life seem mighty queer at times. It was that way then. There was a man I wanted to kill once bad. Guess I've never quit wanting to kill him, though I'm glad Father Adam saved me from doing it.

He was Laval--Arden Laval, one of the Skandinavia's camp-bosses. Well, I saw him killed on that trip, and I helped bury him in the snow. Gouter drew on him on the dead run at fifty yards. He dropped him cold, and wrecked the outfit the feller was driving. There were two in the bunch that the Skandinavia sent there to raise trouble for us. Laval and another. Laval's dead, and the other we brought right along as prisoner.

That other's here in this--"

A light knock interrupted the story. Bull turned with a start. Then he sprang to his feet, every sign of weariness gone. He stood for a moment as though in doubt. And the lumberman, watching him, remarked the complete transformation that had taken place. He was smiling. His straining eyes had softened to a tenderness the onlooker failed to understand.

He moved swiftly across the room and flung open the door.

"Will you come right in?"

The lumberman heard the invitation. The tone was deep with a gentleness he had never before discovered in it. And in his wonder he craned to see who it was who had inspired it.

Bull moved aside.

It was then that Bat started up from his chair, and a sharp e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n broke from him. Nancy McDonald was standing framed in the doorway.

CHAPTER XXIII

NANCY

Bat was hurrying down the woodland trail. For once in his hard life he knew the meaning of rank cowardice. The sight of Nancy McDonald had completely robbed him of the last vestige of courage. The atmosphere of the office, that room so crowded with absorbing memories for him, had suddenly seemed to threaten suffocation. He felt he must get out. He must seek the cold, crisp air of the world he knew and understood. So he had fled.

Now he was alone with a riot of thought that was almost chaotic. There was only one thing that stood out clearly, definitely, in his mind. It was the Nemesis of the thing that had happened. It was Nemesis with a vengeance.

His busy jaws worked furiously under his emotion. He spat, and spat again, into the soft white snow. Once he stopped abruptly and gazed back over the circuitous trail. It was as though he must look again upon the thing that had so deeply stirred him, as though he must look upon it to rea.s.sure himself that he was not dreaming. That the thing had driven him headlong was real, and not some troublesome hallucination.

Nancy McDonald! The beautiful stepdaughter of Leslie Standing, with her red hair and pretty eyes, was the agent of the Skandinavia, paid to wreck the great work he and Leslie had set up. She was paid to achieve the destruction at--any cost.

It was amazing. It was overwhelming. It was even--terrible.

He pursued his way with hurried steps. And as he went his mind leapt back to the time when he had made his great appeal for the poor, deserted child shut up in the coldly correct halls of Marypoint College.

What an irony it all seemed now. Then he remembered her first coming to Sachigo, and the mystery of the letter from Father Adam heralding her arrival. He had understood the moment Nancy had announced her name to him on the quay. He had understood the thought, the hope which had inspired the letter.

In his rugged heart he had welcomed the letter which Father Adam had written. He had welcomed the girl's first coming to the place he felt should be her inheritance. He had seen in those things the promise of the belated justice for which years ago he had appealed. Father Adam had asked Bull to receive her well. Why? There was only one answer to that in the lumberman's mind. Father Adam had seen her. He understood her beauty, and had fallen for it. What more reasonable then that Bull should do the same.

But that was all past and done with now. All the things he had dreamed of, and so ardently desired, had been lost through a mischievous Fate.

The neglected stepdaughter of Leslie Standing was body and soul part of their enemy's armament of offence. It was all too crazy. It was all too devilish for calm contemplation.

The sight of the girl's pathetic eyes, so weary, so troubled, had been sufficient. Bat could not have remained in that room another minute. No.

Down at the mill were the things he understood. They were the things he was bred to, and could deal with. These others were something that left him hopeless and helpless. So he went, determined to lay the ghost of the thing behind him in the tremendous effort the necessities of the mill demanded he should put forth.

Bull's emotions were deeply stirred. He gazed into the tired eyes of the girl, so beautiful for all their complete dejection. He marked the cold pallor of her cheeks, and realised the dishevelled condition of her glorious ma.s.ses of hair. An intense pity left him gravely troubled.

As Nancy stood gazing up at the man, complete hopelessness oppressed her. She remembered well enough the declaration of war between them. She remembered, too, that it had meant nothing personal when it was made. At the time she had had no inkling of the terrible thing it could mean, or how nearly it could bring them into real, personal conflict.

She had been wholly unprepared for the demand that had been thrust upon her by the man, Peterman. It had frightened her at first. She had shrunk from it. Then, finally, she had accepted it as her duty, under pressure.

Peterman had made it appear so trifling. A journey, a trying journey, perhaps, but one to be made with all the comfort he could provide. And then to preach to those ignorant forest-men the disaster towards which their employers were heading. As Peterman had put it, it had almost seemed a legitimate thing to do. Convinced as she had been of the disaster about to fall on Sachigo, it had seemed as if she were even doing them a service.

Had she been able to search Peterman's mind she would never have taken part in the dastardly thing he had planned. Had she been able to read him she would have quickly discovered the real motive he had in sending her. She would have discovered the furious jealousy and wounded vanity which meant her to be a prime instrument in the wrecking of Bull Sternford and his mills. She would have realised the devilish ingenuity with which he intended to wreck her friendship with another man so that he might the more truly claim her for himself. But she had no suspicion, and had blindly yielded herself to the duty she believed to be hers.

After Bat's hurried departure Bull cast about in his mind for the thing to say to her. And somehow, without realising it, the right words sprang to his lips.

"We won!" he said. And the smile accompanying his words was one of gentle raillery, and suggested nothing of the real tragedy of the thing that had happened.

The girl's eyes widened. She strove to understand the dreadful lightness with which Bull spoke. Victory? Defeat? At that moment they were the two things furthest from her mind.

Bull drew forward a chair, and gently insisted. And Nancy, accepting it, realised in a dull sort of way that it was the chair she had occupied at the time of her first visit, which now seemed so far, far back in her memory. Bull sat again in his rocker. He leant forward.

"Sure," he went on, "we've won out. Your Skandinavia's beaten. Beaten a mile. We've won, too, at less cost than I hoped. Does it grieve you?"