The Trail Of The Axe Part 17

There was something so compelling about him that Betty simply nodded.

Instantly he swung round on the younger man.

"You'll vacate this place--quick," he said deliberately.

The two men eyed each other for some seconds. Truscott's look meant mischief, Dave's was calmly determined. The latter finally stepped aside and crossing to the door held it open.

"I said you'll--vacate," he said sharply.

Truscott turned and glanced at the open door. Then he glanced at Betty, who had drawn farther away. Finally his frigid eyes turned upon Dave's great figure standing at the door. For an instant a wicked smile played round his lips, and he spoke in the same cynical tone.

"I never thought of you in the marriage market, Dave," he said, with a vicious laugh. "I suppose it's only natural. n.o.body ever a.s.sociated you with marriage. Somehow your manner and appearance don't suggest it. I seem to see you handling lumber all your life, not dandling children on your knee. But there, you're a good catch--a mighty good one. And I was fool enough to trust you with my cause. Ye G.o.ds! Well, your weight of money has done it, no doubt. I congratulate you. She has lied to me, and no doubt she will lie----"

But the man, if he finished his remark at all, must have done so to the stacks of lumber in the yards, and to the accompaniment of the shriek of the saws. There was no fuss. Scarcely any struggle. Dave moved with cat-like swiftness, which in a man of his size was quite miraculous, and in a flash Jim Truscott was sprawling on the hard red ground on the other side of the doorway.

And when Dave looked round at Betty the girl's face was covered with her hands, and she was weeping. He stood for a second all contrition, and clumsily fumbling for words. He believed she was distressed at his brutal action.

"I'm sorry, little Betty," he blurted out at last. "I'm real sorry. But I just couldn't help it."

CHAPTER X

AN AUSPICIOUS MEETING

Malkern as a village had two moments in the day when it wore the appearance of a thoroughly busy city. At all other times there was little outward sign to tell of the prosperity it really enjoyed.

Malkern's really bustling time was at noon, when its workers took an hour and a half recess for the midday meal, and at six o'clock in the evening, when the day and night "shifts" at the mill exchanged places.

There was no eight-hour working day in this lumbering village. The lumber-jacks and all the people a.s.sociated with it worked to make money, not to earn a mere living. They had not reached that deplorable condition of social pessimism when the worker for a wage believes he is the man who is making millions for an employer, who is prospering only by his, the worker's, capacity to do. They were working each for himself, and regarded the man who could afford them such opportunity as an undisguised blessing. The longer the "time" the higher the wages, and this was their whole scheme of life.

Besides this, there is a certain pride of achievement in the lumber-jack. He is not a mere automaton. He is a man virile, strong, and of a wonderful independence all his own. His spirits are animal, keen of perception, keen for all the joys of life such as he knows. He lives his life, whether in play or work. Whether he be a sealer, a cant-hook man, a teamster, or an axeman, his pride is in his skill, and the rating of his skill is estimated largely by the tally of his day's work, on which depends the proportion of his wages.

It was the midday dinner-hour now, and the mill was debouching its rough tide of workers upon the main street. Harley-Smith's bar was full of men seeking unnecessary "appetizers." Every boarding-house was rapidly filling with hungry men clamoring for the ample, even luxurious meal awaiting them. These men lived well; their work was tremendous, and food of the best, and ample, was needed to keep them fit. The few stores which the village boasted were full of eager purchasers demanding instant service lest the precious time be lost.

Harley-Smith's hotel ab.u.t.ted on the main road, and the tide had to pa.s.s its inviting portals on their way to the village. Usually the veranda was empty at this time, for the regular boarders were at dinner, and the bar claimed those who were not yet dining. But on this occasion it possessed a solitary occupant.

He was sitting on a hard windsor chair, tilted back at a dangerous angle, with his feet propped upon the veranda rail in an att.i.tude of ease, if not of elegance. He was apparently quite unconcerned at anything going on about him. His broad-brimmed hat was tilted well forward upon his nose, in a manner that served the dual purpose of shading his eyes from the dazzling sunlight, and permitting his gaze to wander whither he pleased without the observation of the pa.s.sers-by. To give a further suggestion of indolent indifference, he was luxuriously smoking one of Harley-Smith's best cigars.

But the man's att.i.tude was a pretense. No one pa.s.sed the veranda who escaped the vigilance of his quick eyes. He scanned each face sharply, and pa.s.sed on to the next; nor did his watchfulness relax for one instant. It was clear he was looking for some one whom he expected would pa.s.s that way, and it was equally evident he had no desire to advertise the fact.

Suddenly he pushed his hat back from his face, and, at the same time, his feet dropped to the boarded floor. This brought his chair on its four legs with a jolt, and he sat bolt upright. Now he showed the bloated young face of Jim Truscott. There was a look in his eyes of something approaching venomous satisfaction. He had seen the man he was looking for, and promptly beckoned to him.

d.i.c.k Mansell was pa.s.sing at that moment, and his small, ferret-like eyes caught the summons. He hesitated, nor did he come at once in response to the other's smile of good-fellowship.

"d.i.c.k!" Truscott said. Then he added genially, "I was wondering if you'd come along this way."

Mansell nodded indifferently. His face was ill-humored, and his small eyes had little friendliness in them. He nodded, and was about to pa.s.s on, but the other stayed him with a gesture.

"Don't go," he said. "I want to speak to you. Come up to my room and have a drink."

He kept his voice low, but he might have saved himself the trouble. The pa.s.sing crowd were far too intent upon their own concerns to bother with him. The fact was his att.i.tude was the result of nearly forty-eight hours of hard thinking, thinking inspired by a weak character goaded to offense by the rough but justifiable treatment meted out to him in Dave's office. This man's character, at no time robust, was now morally run-down, and its condition was like the weakly body of an unhealthy man. It collected to itself every injurious germ and left him diseased. His brain and nerves were thrilling with resentment, and a desire to get even with the "board." He was furiously determined that Dave should remember with regret the moment he had laid hands upon him, and that he had come between him and the girl he had intended to make his own.

Mansell, stepping on to the veranda, paused and looked the other full in the eye.

"Well," he said, after a moment's doubtful consideration, "what is it?

'Tain't like you givin' drink away--'specially to me. What monkey tricks is it?"

There was truculence in the sawyer's tone. There was offense in his very att.i.tude.

"Are you coming to my room for that drink?"

Truscott spoke quite coldly, but he knew the curse of the man's thirst.

He had reason to.

Mansell laughed without any mirth.

"Guess I may as well drink your brandy. It'll taste the same as any other. Go ahead."

His host at once led the way into the hotel and up the stairs to his room. It was a front room on the first floor, and comparatively luxurious. The moment the door closed behind him Mansell took in the details with some interest.

"A mighty swell apartment--fer you," he observed offensively.

Truscott shrugged as he turned his back to pour out drinks at the table.

"That's my business," he said. "I pay for it, and," he added, glancing meaningly over his shoulder, "I can afford to pay for it--or anything else I choose to have."

Mansell was a fine figure of a man, and beside him the other looked slight, even weedy. But his face and head spoiled him. Both were small and mean, and gave the impression of a low order of intelligence. Yet he was reputed one of the finest sawyers in the valley, and a man, when not on the drink, to be thoroughly trusted. Before he went away to the Yukon with Jim he had been a teetotaler for two years, and on that account, and his unrivaled powers as a sawyer, he had acted as the other's foreman in his early lumbering enterprise. Except, however, for those two years his past had in it far more shadows than light.

He grinned unpleasantly.

"No need to ast how you came by the stuff," he said.

Truscott was round on him in an instant. His eyes shone wickedly, but there was a grin about his lips.

"The same way you tried to come by it too, only you couldn't keep your d.a.m.ned head clear. You couldn't let this stuff alone." He handed the man a gla.s.s of neat brandy. "You and your cursed drink nearly ruined my chances. It wasn't your fault you didn't. When I ran that game up in Dawson I was a fool to take you into it. I did it out of decency, because you had gone up there with me, and quite against my best judgment when I saw the way you were drinking. If you'd kept straight you'd be in the same position as I am. You wouldn't have returned here more or less broke and only too ready to set rotten yarns going around about me."

The sawyer had taken the brandy and swallowed it. Now he set the gla.s.s down on the table with a vicious bang.

"What yarns?" he demanded angrily.

"Tchah! Hardwig's a meddling busybody. You might have known it would come back to me sooner or later. But I didn't bring you here to throw these things up in your face. You brought it on yourself. Keep a civil tongue, and if you like to stand in I'll put you into a good thing.

You're not working? And you've got no money?"

Truscott's questions came sharply. His plans were clear in his mind.

These points he had made sure of already. But he wanted to approach the matter he had in hand in what he considered the best way in dealing with a man like Mansell. He knew the sawyer to have scruples of a kind, that is until they had been carefully undermined by brandy. It was his purpose to undermine them now.

"You seem to know a heap," Mansell observed sarcastically. Then he became a shade more interested. "What's the 'good thing'?"