The Valley of the Giants Part 12

"Yes. Old Bill Tarpey, who lost his three boys in a forest fire over on the San Hedrin, pa.s.sed out last week. The Tarpey boys died in the Cardigan employ, and so your father gave Bill the use of a farm out near Freshwater."

"Well, you'd better be his successor, Sinclair. You're no longer a young man, and you've been thirty years in this office. Play safe, Sinclair, and include yourself in one of those life-leases."

"My dear boy--"

"Nonsense! United we stand, divided we fall, Sinclair; and let there be no moaning of the bar when a Cardigan puts out to sea."

Smiling, he rose from his desk, patted the bewildered Sinclair on the latter's grizzled head, and then reached for his hat. "I'm dining out to-night, Sinclair, and I wouldn't be a kill-joy at the feast, for a ripe peach. Your confounded figures might make me gloomy; so we'll just reserve discussion of them till to-morrow morning. Be a sport, Sinclair, and for once in your life beat the six o'clock whistle. In other words, I suggest that you go home and rest for once."

He left Sinclair staring at him rather stupidly.

CHAPTER XIII

Colonel Pennington's imported British butler showed Bryce into the Pennington living room at six-thirty, announcing him with due ceremony. Shirley rose from the piano where she had been idly fingering the keys and greeted him with every appearance of pleasure --following which, she turned to present her visitor to Colonel Pennington, who was standing in his favourite position with his back to the fireplace.

"Uncle Seth, this is Mr. Cardigan, who was so very nice to me the day I landed in Red Bluff."

The Colonel bowed. "I have to thank you, sir, for your courtesy to my niece." He had a.s.sumed an air of reserve, of distinct aloofness, despite his studied politeness. Bryce stepped forward with extended hand, which the Colonel grasped in a manner vaguely suggestive of that clammy-palmed creation of Charles d.i.c.kens--Uriah Heep. Bryce was tempted to squeeze the lax fingers until the Colonel should bellow with pain; but resisting the ungenerous impulse, he replied instead:

"Your niece, Colonel, is one of those fortunate beings the world will always clamour to serve."

"Quite true, Mr. Cardigan. When she was quite a little girl I came under her spell myself."

"So did I, Colonel. Miss Sumner has doubtless told you of our first meeting some twelve years ago?"

"Quite so. May I offer you a c.o.c.ktail, Mr. Cardigan?"

"Thank you, certainly. Dad and I have been pinning one on about this time every night since my return."

"Shirley belongs to the Band of Hope," the Colonel explained. "She's ready at any time to break a lance with the Demon Rum. Back in Michigan, where we used to live, she saw too many woodsmen around after the spring drive. So we'll have to drink her share, Mr.

Cardigan. Pray be seated."

Bryce seated himself. "Well, we lumbermen are a low lot and naturally fond of dissipation," he agreed. "I fear Miss Sumner's Prohibition tendencies will be still further strengthened after she has seen the mad-train."

"What is that?" Shirley queried.

"The mad-train runs over your uncle's logging railroad up into Township Nine, where his timber and ours is located. It is the only train operated on Sunday, and it leaves Sequoia at five p.m. to carry the Pennington and Cardigan crews back to the woods after their Sat.u.r.day-night celebration in town. As a usual thing, all hands, with the exception of the brakeman, engineers, and fireman, are singing, weeping or fighting drunk."

"But why do you provide transportation for them to come to town Sat.u.r.day nights?" Shirley protested.

"They ride in on the last trainload of logs, and if we didn't let them do it, they'd ask for their time. It's the way of the gentle lumberjack. And of course, once they get in, we have to round them up on Sunday afternoon and get them back on the job. Hence the mad- train."

"Do they fight, Mr. Cardigan?"

"Frequently. I might say usually. It's quite an inspiring sight to see a couple of lumberjacks going to it on a flat-car travelling thirty miles an hour."

"But aren't they liable to fall off and get killed?"

"No. You see, they're used to fighting that way. Moreover, the engineer looks back, and if he sees any signs of Donnybrook Fair, he slows down."

"How horrible!"

"Yes, indeed. The right of way is lined with empty whiskey bottles."

Colonel Pennington spoke up. "We don't have any fighting on the mad- train any more," he said blandly.

"Indeed! How do you prevent it?" Bryce asked.

"My woods-boss, Jules Rondeau, makes them keep the peace," Pennington replied with a small smile. "If there's any fighting to be done, he does it."

"You mean among his own crew, of course," Bryce suggested.

"No, he's in charge of the mad-train, and whether a fight starts among your men or ours, he takes a hand. He's had them all behaving mildly for quite a while, because he can whip any man in the country, and everybody realizes it. I don't know what I'd do without Rondeau.

He certainly makes those bohunks of mine step lively."

"Oh-h-h! Do you employ bohunks, Colonel?"

"Certainly. They cost less; they are far less independent than most men and more readily handled. And you don't have to pamper them-- particularly in the matter of food. Why, Mr Cardigan, with all due respect to your father, the way he feeds his men is simply ridiculous! Cake and pie and doughnuts at the same meal!" The Colonel snorted virtuously.

"Well, Dad started in to feed his men the same food he fed himself, and I suppose the habits one forms in youth are not readily changed in old age, Colonel."

"But that makes it hard for other manufacturers," the Colonel protested. "I feed my men good plain food and plenty of it--quite better food than they were used to before they came to this country; but I cannot seem to satisfy them. I am continuously being reminded, when I do a thing thus and so, that John Cardigan does it otherwise.

Your respected parent is the basis for comparison in this country, Cardigan, and I find it devilish inconvenient." He laughed indulgently and pa.s.sed his cigarette-case to Bryce.

"Uncle Seth always grows restless when some other man is the leader,"

Shirley volunteered with a mischievous glance at Pennington. "He was the Great Pooh-Bah of the lumber-trade back in Michigan, but out here he has to play second fiddle. Don't you, Nunky-dunk?"

"I'm afraid I do, my dear," the Colonel admitted with his best air of hearty expansiveness. "I'm afraid I do. However, Mr. Cardigan, now that you have--at least, I have been so informed--taken over your father's business, I am hoping we will be enabled to get together on many little details and work them out on a common basis to our mutual advantage. We lumbermen should stand together and not make it hard for each other. For instance, your scale of wages is totally disproportionate to the present high cost of manufacture and the mediocre market; yet just because you pay it, you set a precedent which we are all forced to follow. However," he concluded, "let's not talk shop. I imagine we have enough of that during the day. Besides, here are the c.o.c.ktails."

With the disposal of the c.o.c.ktails, the conversation drifted into a discussion of Shirley's adventures with a salmon in Big Lagoon. The Colonel discoursed learnedly on the superior sport of muskellunge- fishing, which prompted Bryce to enter into a description of going after swordfish among the islands of the Santa Barbara channel.

"Trout-fishing when the fish gets into white water is good sport; salmon-fishing is fine, and the steel-head in Eel River are hard to beat; muskellunge are a delight, and tarpon are not so bad if you're looking for thrills; but for genuine inspiration give me a sixteen- foot swordfish that will leap out of the water from three to six feet, and do it three or four hundred times--all on a line and rod so light one dares not state the exact weight if he values his reputation for veracity. Once I was fishing at San--"

The butler appeared in the doorway and bowed to Shirley, at the time announcing that dinner was served. The girl rose and gave her arm to Bryce; with her other arm linked through her uncle's she turned toward the dining room.

Just inside the entrance Bryce paused. The soft glow of the candles in the old-fashioned silver candlesticks upon the table was reflected in the polished walls of the room-walls formed of panels of the most exquisitely patterned redwood burl Bryce Cardigan had ever seen. Also the panels were unusually large.

Shirley Sumner's alert glance followed Bryce's as it swept around the room. "This dining room is Uncle Seth's particular delight, Mr.

Cardigan," she explained.

"It is very beautiful, Miss Sumner. And your uncle has worked wonders in the matter of having it polished. Those panels are positively the largest and most beautiful specimens of redwood burl ever turned out in this country. The grain is not merely wavy; it is not merely curly; it is actually so contrary that you have here, Colonel Pennington, a room absolutely unique, in that it is formed of bird's- eye burl. Mark the deep shadows in it. And how it does reflect those candles!"

"It is beautiful," the Colonel declared. "And I must confess to a pardonable pride in it, although the task of keeping these walls from being marred by the furniture knocking against them requires the utmost care."

Bryce turned and his brown eyes blazed into the Colonel's. "Where DID you succeed in finding such a marvellous tree?" he queried pointedly.

"I know of but one tree in Humboldt County that could have produced such beautiful burl."