The Silver Horde Part 37

"I--I didn't mean to give out any secrets--I don't remember doing it,"

Alton apologized, lamely. "You know I can't drink much. I don't remember a thing about it, honestly." Boyd regarded him coldly, but the young man's penitence seemed so genuine, he looked so weak, so pitifully incompetent, that the other lacked heart to chastise him. It requires resistance to develop heat, and against the absence of character it is impossible to create any sort of emotion.

"When you got drunk that night you not only worked a great hardship on all of us, but afterward you allowed me to misjudge a very faithful man,"

declared Boyd. "Fraser's ways are not mine, and I have said harsh things to him when my temper prompted; but I am not ungrateful for the service he has done me and the sacrifices he has made. Now, Alton, you have chosen to join us in a desperate venture, and the farther we go the more vigorous will be the resistance we shall meet. If you can't keep a close mouth, and do as you are told, you'd better go back to Chicago. By rare good luck we have averted this disaster, but I have no hope of being so fortunate again."

"Don't climb any higher," admonished "Fingerless" Fraser. "He's all fluffed up now. I'll lay you eight to one he don't make another break of the kind."

"No, I was so com-cussed-pletely pickled that I forgot I even spoke about the salmon-canning business. I'll break my corkscrew and seal my flask, and from this moment until we come out next fall the demon rum and I are divorced. Is that good news?"

"Everything is a joke to you, isn't it?" said Boyd. "If this trip doesn't make a man of you, you'll never grow up. Now I've got work for all of us, including you, Fraser."

"What is it?"

"Go down to the freight-office and trace a shipment of machinery, while I--"

"Nix! That ain't my line. If you need a piece of rough money quick, why I'll take my gat and stick somebody up in an alley, or I'll feel out a safe combination for you in the dark; but this chaperoning freight cars ain't my game. I'd only crab it."

"I thought you wanted to help."

"I do, sure I do! I'll be glad when you're on your way, but I must respectfully duck all bills-of-lading and shipping receipts."

"You are merely lazy," Emerson smiled. "Nevertheless, if we get in a tight place, I'll make you take a hand in spite of yourself."

"Any time you need me," cheerfully volunteered the other, lighting a fresh cigar. "Only don't give me child's work."

As if Hilliard's conversion had marked the turning-point of their luck, the partners now entered upon a period of almost uninterrupted success. In the reaction from their recent discouragement they took hold of their labors with fresh energy, and fortune aided them in unexpected ways. Boyd signed his charter, securing a tramp steamer then discharging at Tacoma.

Balt closed his contracts for Chinese labor, and the scattered car-loads of material, which had been lost en route or mysteriously laid out on sidings, began to come in as if of their own accord. Those supplies which had been denied them they found in unexpected quarters close at hand; and almost before they were aware of it _The Bedford Castle_ had finished unloading and was coaling at the bunkers.

A brigade of Orientals and a miniature army of fishermen had appeared as if by magic, and were quartered in the lower part of the city awaiting shipment. Boyd and Big George worked unceasingly in the midst of a maelstrom of confusion, the centre of which was the dock. There, one throbbing April evening, _The Bedford Castle_ berthed, ready to receive her cargo, and the two men made their way toward their hotel, weary, but glowing with the grateful sense of an arduous duty well performed. The following morning would find the wharf swarming with stevedores and echoing to the rattle of trucks, the clank of hoists, and the shrill whistles of the signalmen.

"Looks like they couldn't stop us now," said Balt.

"It does," agreed Emerson. "We ought to clear in four days--that'll be the 15th."

"It smells like an early spring, too," the fisherman observed, sniffing the air. "If it is, we'll be in Kalvik the first week in May."

"Is your sense of smell sharp enough to tell what's happening up there?"

"Sure."

"Suppose it's a backward season?"

"Then we'll lay in the ice alongside the Company boats till she breaks.

That may be in June."

"I would like to get in early, and have the buildings started before Marsh arrives. There's no telling what he may try."

George gave his companion a short nod. "And there ain't no telling what we may try right back at him. Anyhow, he'll have to fight in the open, and that's better than this shadow-boxing that we've been doing."

"I'm off to tell Cherry," said Boyd. "She'll need to be getting ready."

His course took him past Hilliard's bank, and when abreast of it he nearly collided with a man who came hurrying forth, an angry scowl between his eyes giving evidence of a surly humor. In the well-groomed, fiery-haired, plump-figured man who, absorbed in his own anger, was rushing by without raising his eyes, Emerson recognized the manager of the North American Packers' a.s.sociation.

"Good-evening, Mr. Marsh."

Marsh whirled about. "Eh? Ah!" With a visible effort he smoothed the lines from his brow; his full lips lost their angry pout, and he showed his teeth in a startled, apprehensive smile.

"Why, yes--it's Emerson. How are you, Mr. Emerson?" He extended a soft hand, which Boyd took. Apparently rea.s.sured by this mute response, Marsh continued: "I heard you were in town. How is the new cannery coming on?"

"Nicely, thank you. When did you arrive from the East?"

"I just got in. Haven't had time to get straightened out yet. We--Mr.

Wayland and I--were speaking of you before I left Chicago. We were-- somewhat surprised to learn that you were engaging in the same line of business as ourselves."

"Doubtless."

"I told him there was room for us all."

"You did?"

"Yes! I a.s.sured him that his resentment was unwarranted."

"He resents something, does he?"

"Well, naturally," Marsh declared, with a wintry smile. "In view of the circ.u.mstances I may truthfully say that his feelings embrace not only a sense of resentment, but the firmly fixed idea that he has been betrayed-- however, you are no doubt aware of all that. You have an able champion on the ground." He looked out across the street abstractedly. "Miss Wayland and I did our utmost to convince him you merely took a legitimate commercial advantage in dining at his house the night before you left."

"It was good of you to take my part," said Boyd, with such an air of simple cordiality that Marsh shot a startled glance at him. "Now that we are to be neighbors this summer, I hope we will get well acquainted, for Mr. Wayland spoke highly of you, and strongly advised me to pattern after you."

Marsh hid his bewilderment behind an expression which he strove to make as friendly as Emerson's own. "I understand you are banking here," he said, jerking his head toward the building at his back.

"Yes. I was offered a number of propositions, but Mr. Hilliard was so insistent and made such substantial inducements that I finally placed the business with him."

The animosity that glimmered for one fleeting instant in Marsh's eyes amused Boyd greatly, advertising as it did, that for once the Trust's executive felt himself at a disadvantage. The younger man never doubted for an instant that his coup in securing Hilliard's a.s.sistance at the eleventh hour was responsible for his enemy's sudden appearance from cover, nor that the arrival of _The Bedford Castle_ had brought Marsh to the banker's office out of hours in final desperation. From the man's bearing he judged that the interview had not been as placid as a spring morning, and this awoke in him not only a keen sense of elation but the very natural desire to goad his opponent.

"All in all, we have been singularly fortunate in our enterprise thus far," he continued, smoothly. "We were held up on some of our machinery, but in every instance the delay turned out a blessing in disguise, for it enabled us to buy in other quarters at a saving."

"I'm delighted to hear it," Marsh declared. "When do you sail?"

"Immediately. We begin to load to-morrow."

"I have changed my plans somewhat," the other announced. "I'll follow your tracks before long."

"What is your hurry?"

"Repairs. Kalvik is our most important station, so I want to get it in first-cla.s.s shape before Mr. Wayland and Mildred arrive."

"Mildred!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Boyd, surprised past resenting Marsh's use of the girl's first name. "Is she coming?"