The Vagrant Duke Part 43

"I'm sorry, Nichols--sorry. I'll do anything you like. What do you want me to do?"

Instead of replying at once Peter took out a cigarette and lighted it carefully. And then,

"You've never taken the trouble to make any inquiries as to the whereabouts of the family of Ben Cameron?" he asked.

The old man shook his head.

"Why not?"

"I was afraid to ask."

"I see. Don't you think it's about time you did? It's _his_ money that made your fortune."

"He was no good. n.o.body knew him. So far as I ever heard, n.o.body ever asked about him."

"Nevertheless he must have had some friends somewhere."

"Maybe. I don't know. I'm willing to help them if I can, providing this thing can be kept quiet." And then, pleadingly, "You're not going to talk--to use it against me, Nichols?"

Peter's pity for McGuire had come back. The man's terror, his desperation of the past weeks had burned him out, worn him to a sh.e.l.l.

"No, I'm not going to talk. Hawk Kennedy didn't dare tell what you've told me. That's why I believe you."

"And you'll stay on here and help me?"

"Yes----We'll see how we can balk Hawk Kennedy."

"I'll pay him fifty thousand--a hundred thousand--for that agreement----"

"Not a dollar. I've got a better use for your money than that."

McGuire thought Peter referred to the necessary improvements of the estate. But Peter had another idea in mind.

CHAPTER XIII

THE CHASE

Peter had discovered the means of providing for Beth's musical education. Upon inquiry he had found that McGuire hardly knew Beth except as a dependent relative of Mrs. Bergen, who came in sometimes to help her aunt with the cleaning--usually before McGuire came down from New York. Their little home was not on his visiting list.

He delayed telling McGuire. There was plenty of time and there was no doubt of his employer's doing the right thing by the daughter of the murdered man. Meanwhile, having completed his plans for the estate, he had suggested that McGuire go off for a trip somewhere to rest and recover his poise. Peter had promised his allegiance to McGuire when Hawk Kennedy returned, but he knew that he would have to fight fire with fire. For Hawk had proved himself both skillful and dangerous, and would struggle desperately to get what he thought was his own. It was his last chance to make a big stake--to be independent for the rest of his life.

He was tasting luxury now and wouldn't give up without a fight to the death. Something must be thought of--some plan to outwit him, to circ.u.mvent the schemes which would come out of his visit of investigation to the copper country.

Peter had said nothing to Beth or to Mrs. Cameron of what he had discovered. He was under no oath of secrecy to the old man, but he realized that while Hawk Kennedy held the "confession" McGuire was in a predicament which would only be made more difficult if the facts got abroad. And so Peter had gone about his work silently, aware that the burden of McGuire's troubles had been suddenly shifted to his own shoulders. He spent most of his days at the lumber camp and now had every detail of the business at his fingers' ends. Timbers had been hauled to the appointed sites and under his direction the fire towers were now half way to completion.

He had found Shad Wells down at the mills, morose, sullen and disposed to question his authority, but McGuire had visited the bunk-house one night before he went away, and it was soon discovered that Peter and no other was the boss of the job. Peter for reasons of his own retained Shad, much to that gentleman's surprise, as foreman of the lumbering gang, but Peter wasn't at all satisfied with conditions as he had found them at the lumber camp and mills and, as he discovered later, the continuance of Shad in the foreman's job was a mistake. If Peter had hoped by this act of conciliation to heal Shad's wounds and bring about a spirit of useful cooperation with the man, he soon found that the very reverse of this had been accomplished. The lumbermen were an unregenerate lot, some of them "pineys," a few Italians, but most of them the refuse of the factories and shipyards, spoiled by the fatal "cost plus" contracts of war time. All of these facts Peter learned slowly, aware of an undercurrent moving against him and yet entirely dependent upon this labor--which was the best, indeed the only labor, to be had. He made some improvements in the bunk-house for their comfort, increased the supply of food and posted notices that all complaints of whatever nature would be promptly investigated. But day after day new stories came to him of shirking, of dissatisfaction and continued trouble-making.

This labor trouble was no new thing at Black Rock, and had existed practically since the beginning of the work on the lumber contract six months before Peter had been employed. But it was not long before Peter discovered through Jesse Brown, whose confidence he had gained, that there were agitators in the camp, undoubtedly receiving their inspiration and pay from sources inimical to all capital in the abstract and to all order and decency at Black Rock in the concrete, who were fomenting the unrest and dissatisfaction among the men. In order to investigate the difficulties personally Peter went down to the camp and lived there for a time, bunking with the men and listening to their stories, winning some of them to his side and tracing as far as he could the troubles to their sources, two men named Flynn and Jacobi. He discharged these two men and sent them out of the camp over Wells's protest. But even then he had a sense of failure. The trouble was deeper than was manifest upon the surface. No mere raise in wages would clear it away. It was born of the world's sickness, with which the men from the cities had been inoculated.

One night while he sat in the bunk-house smoking a pipe and talking with Jesse Brown, Shad Wells suddenly appeared in the doorway, framed against the darkness. Shad's gaze and Peter's met--then Peter's glance turned to Shad's companion. As this man saw Peter he turned his head and went down the length of the bunk-house. Peter got up at once, followed him and faced him. The man now wore a dark beard, but there was no mistake. It was the fellow of the black mustache--the stranger whom Peter had seen in the Pennsylvania Station in New York, the same man he had caught prowling some weeks ago around his cabin in the darkness.

Peter stared at him for a moment but the man would not meet his gaze.

"Who are you?" asked Peter at last. And then, as he made no reply, "What were you doing prowling around my cabin up by the creek?"

The stranger shook his head from side to side.

"No understan'," he muttered.

At this point, Shad Wells, who had followed with Jesse Brown, came in between them.

"That's right, Nichols," he growled. "No understan'--He's a 'guinea.'"

To Wells all men were "guineas" who didn't speak his own language.

"Italian? Are you? French? Spanish? Slovak?"

Each time the man shook his head. And then, with an inspiration, Peter shot at him a quick phrase in Russian. But the man gave no sign of comprehension.

"Who put this man on?" asked Peter, turning to Wells.

"I did," said the native sullenly.

"Why?" said Peter, growing warmer. "Didn't I tell you that in future I would hire all the men myself?"

"We're short-handed, since you fired two of the best axmen we got----"

"You disobeyed orders----"

"_Orders_--h.e.l.l!"

"All right. We'll see who's running this camp, you or me. To-morrow morning Jesse Brown starts as foreman here. Understand?"

Shad's eyes shot fire, then smoldered and went out as he turned with a sneering laugh and walked away.

"As for you," said Peter to the stranger, who stood uncertainly, "you go to the office in the morning and get your envelope." Then repeated the sentence in Russian. "If you don't understand--find somebody who does."

That the stranger had understood Peter's demeanor if not his language was evident, for in the morning he had vanished.

After that clearing of the air things went somewhat better at the camp.

Jesse Brown, though not aggressive, was steady and honest and had a certain weight with the Jerseymen. As to the others, there was doubt as to whether anything would have satisfied them. For the present, at least, it was a question of getting on as well as possible with the means at hand. There was a limit to Peter's weekly pay roll and other men were not to be had. Besides, Peter had promised McGuire to keep the sawmills busy. He knew that when he had come to Black Rock the work on the lumber contract had already fallen behind the schedule, and that only by the greatest perseverance could he make up the time already lost.

As he rode back to his cabin on the afternoon after his encounter with Shad Wells and the stranger with the black mustache, he found himself quite satisfied with regard to his summary dismissal of them both. On Beth's account he had hesitated to depose Shad. He knew that before he had come to Black Rock they had been friends as well as distant relatives, and Beth in her frequent meetings with Peter had expressed the hope that Shad would "come around." Peter had given him every chance, even while he had known that the Jerseyman was working against both McGuire's and Peter's interests. Flynn and Jacobi, the men Peter had sent away, were radicals and agitators. Flynn had a police record that did not bear close inspection, and Jacobi was an anarchist out and out. Before Peter had come to Black Rock they had abused Shad's credulity and after the fight at the Cabin, he had been their willing tool in interrupting the completion of the contract. For of course Shad had hoped that if Peter couldn't get the lumber out when promised, McGuire would put the blame on the new superintendent and let him go.

That was Shad's idea. If he had ever been decent enough to warrant Beth's friendship, his jealousy had warped his judgment. Peter was no longer sorry for Shad Wells. He had brought all his troubles on himself.

As to the stranger with the black mustache, that was a more serious matter. Every circ.u.mstance--the recognition in New York, the skill with which the man had traced him to Black Rock, the craft with which he had watched Peter and his success in finally getting into the camp and gaining Shad's confidence, made a certainty in Peter's mind that the stranger had some object in remaining near Peter and keeping him under observation. And what other object than a political one? The trail he had followed had begun with the look of recognition in the Pennsylvania Station in New York. And where could that look of recognition have sprung from unless he had identified Peter Nichols as the Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch? It seemed incredible, but there could be no other explanation. The man had seen him somewhere--perhaps in Russia--perhaps in Paris or London, or perhaps had only identified him by his portraits which had been published frequently in the Continental magazines and newspapers. But that he had really identified him there could not be the slightest doubt and Peter's hope that he would have been able to lose his ident.i.ty in the continent of America and become merged into a different civilization where he could work out the personal problem of existence in his own time, by his own efforts and in his own way, seemed destined to failure.