The Vagrant Duke Part 60

YAKIMOV REVEALS HIMSELF

It was with some misgivings that Peter left his cabin, leaving Hawk Kennedy there to sleep off the effects of his potations, but the situation at the lumber camp was so hazardous that his presence was urgently required. Hawk had awakened early, very early, and very thirsty, but Peter had told him that there was no more whisky and threatened to throw over the whole affair if he didn't sober up and behave himself. And so, having exacted a promise from Hawk Kennedy to leave the Cabin when he had had his sleep out, Peter had gotten the "flivver" from McGuire's garage (as was his custom) and driven rapidly down toward the camp.

He had almost reached the conclusion that the copy of the partnership agreement which Hawk had held as a threat over McGuire had ceased to exist--that it had been lost, effaced or destroyed. But he wanted to be more certain of this before he came out into the open, showed his hand and McGuire's and defied the blackmailer to do his worst. He felt pretty sure now from his own knowledge of the man that, desperate though he was in his intention to gain a fortune by this expedient, he was absolutely powerless to do evil without the signature of McGuire. The question as to whether or not he would make a disagreeable publicity of the whole affair was important to McGuire and had to be avoided if possible, for Peter had given his promise to bring the affair to a quiet conclusion.

Until he could have a further talk with McGuire, he meant to lead Hawk Kennedy on to further confidences and with this end in view and with the further purpose of getting him away from the Cabin, had promised to meet him late that afternoon at a fork of the road to the lumber camp, the other p.r.o.ng of which led to a settlement of several shanties where Hawk had managed to get a lodging on the previous night and on several other occasions. In his talk with the ex-waiter he learned that on his previous visits the man had made a careful survey of the property and knew his way about almost as well as Peter did. It appeared that he also knew something of Peter's problems at the lumber camp and the difficulties the superintendent had already encountered in getting his sawed lumber to the railroad and in completing his fire-towers. Indeed, these difficulties seemed only to have begun again, and it was with great regret that Peter was obliged to forego the opportunity of seeing Beth that day, perhaps even that evening. But he had told her nothing of his troubles the night before, not wishing to cloud a day so fair for them both.

The facts were these: Flynn and Jacobi, the men he had dismissed, had appeared again at the camp in his absence, bent on fomenting trouble, and Shad Wells, already inflamed against the superintendent, had fallen an easy prey to their machinations. Accidents were always happening at the sawmills, accidents to machinery and implements culminating at last in the blowing out of a tube of one of the boilers. It was this misfortune that had held the work up for several days until a spare boiler could be installed. Peter tried to find out how these accidents had happened, but each line of investigation led up a blind alley. Jesse Brown, his foreman, seemed to be loyal, but he was easy-going and weak.

With many of his own friends among the workers both at the camp and mills he tried to hold his job by carrying water on both shoulders and the consequences were inevitable. He moved along the line of least resistance and the trouble grew. Peter saw his weakness and would have picked another man to supersede him, but there was no other available.

The truth was that though the men's wages were high for the kind of work that they were doing, the discontent that they had brought with them was in the air. The evening papers brought word of trouble in every direction, the threatened railroad and steel strikes and the prospect of a coalless winter when the miners went out as they threatened to do on the first of November.

At first Peter had thought that individually many of the men liked him.

He had done what he could for their comfort and paid them the highest price justifiable, but gradually he found that his influence was being undermined and that the good-natured lagging which Peter had at first tried to tolerate had turned to loafing on the job, and finally to overt acts of rebellion. More men had been sent away and others with even less conscience had taken their places. Some of them had enunciated Bolshevist doctrines as wild as any of Flynn's or Jacobi's. Jonathan K.

McGuire stood as a type which represented the hierarchy of wealth and was therefore their hereditary enemy. Peter in a quiet talk at the bunk-house one night had told them that once Jonathan K. McGuire had been as poor, if not poorer, than any one of them. But even as he spoke he had felt that his words had made no impression. It was what McGuire was _now_ that mattered, they told him. All this land, all this lumber, was the people's, and they'd get it too in time. With great earnestness, born of a personal experience of which they could not dream, Peter pointed out to them what had happened and was now happening in Russia and painted a harrowing picture of helplessness and starvation, but they smoked their pipes in silence and answered him not at all. They were not to be reasoned with. If the Soviet came to America they were willing to try it. They would try anything once.

But Shad Wells was "canny" and Peter had never succeeded in tracing any of the accidents or any of the dissensions directly to his door. Without evidence against him Peter did not think it wise to send him out of camp, for many of the men were friendly to Shad and his dismissal was sure to mean an upheaval of sorts. Peter knew that Shad hated him for what had happened at the Cabin but that in his heart he feared to come out into the open where a repet.i.tion of his undoing in public might destroy his influence forever. So to Peter's face he was sullenly obedient, taking care to give the appearance of carrying out his orders, while as soon as Peter's back was turned he laughed, loafed and encouraged others to do the same.

And for the last week Peter had not liked the looks of things. At the lumber camp the work was almost at a standstill, and the sawmills were silent. Jesse Brown had told him that Flynn and Jacobi had been at the bunk-house and that the men had voted him down when the foreman had tried to send them away. It was clear that some radical step would have to be taken at once to restore discipline or Peter's authority and usefulness as superintendent would be only a matter of hours.

It was of all of these things that Peter thought as he b.u.mped his way in the "flivver" over the corduroy road through the swampy land which led to the lower reserve, and as he neared the scene of these material difficulties all thought of Hawk Kennedy pa.s.sed from his mind. There was the other danger too that had been one of the many subjects of the letter of Anastasie Galitzin, for Peter had no doubt now that the foreigner with the dark mustache who had followed him down from New York and who some weeks ago had been sent out of the camp was no other than the agent of the Soviets, who had forwarded to London the information as to his whereabouts. Peter had not seen this man since the day of his dismissal, but he suspected that he was in the plot with Flynn, Jacobi and perhaps Shad Wells to make mischief in the lumber camp.

The opportunity that Peter sought to bring matters to a focus was not long in coming, for when he reached the sawmills, which had resumed desultory operations, he found Flynn and Jacobi, the "Reds," calmly seated in the office, smoking and talking with Shad Wells. Peter had left his "flivver" up the road and his sudden entrance was a surprise.

The men got up sullenly and would have slouched out of the door but Peter closed it, put his back to it, and faced them. He was cold with anger and held himself in with difficulty, but he had taken their measure and meant to bring on a crisis, which would settle their status and his own, once and for all time.

"What are you doing here?" he began shortly, eying Flynn.

The Irishman stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged impudently.

"That's my business," he muttered.

"H-m. You two men were discharged because you were incompetent, because you were getting money you didn't earn and because you were trying to persuade others to be as worthless and useless as yourselves. You were ordered off the property----"

"Ye can't keep us off----"

"I'll come to that in a moment. What I want to say to you now is this,"

said Peter, planting his barbs with the coolness of a matador baiting his bull. "Some men go wrong because they've been badly advised, some because they can't think straight, others because they'd rather go wrong than right. Some of you 'Reds' believe in what you preach, that the world can be made over and all the money and the land divided up in a new deal. You two don't. You don't believe in anything except getting a living without working for it--and trying to make honest men do the same. You, Jacobi, are only a fool--a cowardly fool at that--who hides behind the coat-tails of a man stronger than you----"

"Look-a here, Mister----"

"Yes, Flynn's your master, but he isn't mine. And he isn't the master of any man on this job while I'm superintendent----"

"We'll see about that," said Flynn with a chuckle.

"Yes, we will. Very soon. _Now_, as a matter of fact----"

"How?"

"By proving which is the better man--you or me----"

"Oh, it's a fight ye mean?"

"Exactly."

The Irishman leered at him cunningly.

"I'm too old a bird to be caught wit' that stuff--puttin' you wit' the right on yer side. We're afther sheddin' no blood here, Misther Nichols.

We're on this job for peace an' justice fer all."

"Then you're afraid to fight?"

"No. But I'm not a-goin' to----"

"Not if I tell you you're a sneak, a liar and a coward----"

Flynn's jaw worked and his glance pa.s.sed from Jacobi to Wells.

"I'll make ye eat them names backwards one day, Misther Nichols--but not now--I'm here for a bigger cause. Stand away from the door."

"In a moment. But first let me tell you this, and Shad Wells too.

You're going out of this door and out of this camp,--all three of you.

And if any one of you shows himself inside the limits of this property he'll have to take the consequences."

"Meanin' what?" asked Wells.

"Meaning _me_," said Peter, "and after me, the law. Now go."

He stood aside and swung the door open with one hand, but he didn't take his eyes from them.

They laughed in his face, but they obeyed him, filing out into the open, and strolled away.

Peter had hoped to coax a fight out of Flynn, thinking that the Irish blood in him couldn't resist his taunts and challenge. But Flynn had been too clever for him. A defeat for Flynn meant loss of prestige, a victory possible prosecution. Either way he had nothing to gain. Perhaps he was just a coward like Jacobi or a beaten bully like Shad. Whatever he was Flynn seemed very sure of himself and Peter, though apparently master of the situation for the present, was conscious of a sense of defeat. He knew as Flynn did that no matter what forces he called to his aid, it was practically impossible to keep trespa.s.sers off a property of this size, and that, after all, the success of his logging operations remained with the men themselves.

But he breathed more freely now that he had made his decision with regard to Shad Wells. He spent a large part of the morning going over the mills, getting the men together and giving them a little talk, then went up to the camp in search of Jesse Brown. The news of his encounter with Shad and the "Reds" had preceded him and he saw that trouble was brewing. Jesse Brown wagged his head in a deprecating way and tried to side-step the entire situation. But Peter had reached a point where he was tired of equivocation.

"I say, Jesse," he said at last, "you've let things get into a pretty bad mess down here."

"I'm a peaceable man, Mr. Nichols," said Jesse. "I've tried to steer this camp along easy-like, 'til this bit of woods is cleared up and here you go stirrin' up a hornet's nest about our ears."

Peter frowned. "You know as well as I do that the men are doing just as they please. At the rate they're going they wouldn't have this section finished by Christmas. I'm paying them for work they don't do and you know it. I put you in here to see that McGuire gets what he's paying for. You haven't done it."

"I've done the best I could," muttered Jesse.

"That isn't the best I want. You knew Flynn and Jacobi were back in camp yesterday. Why didn't you tell me so?"

"I can't do nothin'. They've got friends here."

"And haven't you got friends here too? I sent those men out of camp. If they're here again I'll find the power to arrest them."