The Valley of the Giants Part 13

For about a second Colonel Pennington met Bryce's glance unwaveringly; then he read something in his guest's eyes, and his glance shifted, while over his benign countenance a flush spread quickly. Bryce noted it, and his quickly roused suspicions were as quickly kindled into certainty. "Where did you find that tree?" he repeated innocently.

"Rondeau, my woods-boss, knew I was on the lookout for something special--something n.o.body else could get; so he kept his eyes open."

"Indeed!" There was just a trace of irony in Bryce's tones as he drew Shirley's chair and held it for her. "As you say, Colonel, it is difficult to keep such soft wood from being marred by contact with the furniture. And you are fortunate to have such a woods-boss in your employ. Such loyal fellows are usually too good to be true, and quite frequently they put their blankets on their backs and get out of the country when you least expect it. I dare say it would be a shock to you if Rondeau did that."

There was no mistaking the veiled threat behind that apparently innocent observation, and the Colonel, being a man of more than ordinary astuteness, realized that at last he must place his cards on the table. His glance, as he rested it on Bryce now, was baleful, ophidian. "Yes," he said, "I would be rather disappointed. However, I pay Rondeau rather more than it is customary to pay woods-bosses; so I imagine he'll stay--unless, of course, somebody takes a notion to run him out of the county. And when that happens, I want to be on hand to view the spectacle."

Bryce sprinkled a modic.u.m of salt in his soup. "I'm going up into Township Nine to-morrow afternoon," he remarked casually. "I think I shall go over to your camp and pay the incomparable Jules a brief visit. Really, I have heard so much about that woods-boss of yours, Colonel, that I ache to take him apart and see what makes him go."

Again the Colonel a.s.similated the hint, but preferred to dissemble.

"Oh, you can't steal him from me, Cardigan," he laughed. "I warn you in advance--so spare yourself the effort."

"I'll try anything once," Bryce retorted with equal good nature.

"However, I don't want to steal him from you. I want to ascertain from him where he procured this burl. There may be more of the same in the neighbourhood where he got this."

"He wouldn't tell you."

"He might. I'm a persuasive little cuss when I choose to exert myself."

"Rondeau is not communicative. He requires lots of persuading."

"What delicious soup!" Bryce murmured blandly. "Miss Sumner, may I have a cracker?"

The dinner pa.s.sed pleasantly; the challenge and defiance between guest and host had been so skillfully and gracefully exchanged that Shirley hadn't the slightest suspicion that these two well-groomed men had, under her very nose, as it were, agreed to be enemies and then, for the time being, turned their attention to other and more trifling matters. Coffee was served in the living room, and through the fragrant smoke of Pennington's fifty-cent perfectos a sprightly three-cornered conversation continued for an hour. Then the Colonel, secretly enraged at the calm, mocking, contemplative glances which Bryce ever and anon bestowed upon him, and unable longer to convince himself that he was too apprehensive--that this cool young man knew nothing and would do nothing even if he knew something--rose, pleaded the necessity for looking over some papers, and bade Bryce good- night. Foolishly he proffered Bryce a limp hand; and a demon of deviltry taking possession of the latter, this time he squeezed with a simple, hearty earnestness, the while he said:

"Colonel Pennington, I hope I do not have to a.s.sure you that my visit here this evening has not only been delightful but--er--instructive.

Good-night, sir, and pleasant dreams."

With difficulty the Colonel suppressed a groan. However, he was not the sort of man who suffers in silence; for a minute later the butler, leaning over the banisters as his master climbed the stairs to his library, heard the latter curse with an eloquence that was singularly appealing.

CHAPTER XIV

Colonel Seth Pennington looked up sourly as a clerk entered his private office. "Well?" he demanded brusquely. When addressing his employees, the Colonel seldom bothered to a.s.sume his pontifical manner.

"Mr. Bryce Cardigan is waiting to see you, sir."

"Very well. Show him in."

Bryce entered. "Good morning, Colonel," he said pleasantly and brazenly thrust out his hand.

"Not for me, my boy," the Colonel a.s.sured him. "I had enough of that last night. We'll just consider the hand-shaking all attended to, if you please. Have a chair; sit down and tell me what I can do to make you happy."

"I'm delighted to find you in such a generous frame of mind, Colonel.

You can make me genuinely happy by renewing, for ten years on the same terms as the original contract, your arrangement to freight the logs of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company from the woods to tidewater."

Colonel Pennington cleared his throat with a propitiatory "Ahem-m-m!"

Then he removed his gold spectacles and carefully wiped them with a silk handkerchief, as carefully replaced them upon his aristocratic nose, and then gazed curiously at Bryce.

"Upon my soul!" he breathed.

"I realized, of course, that this is reopening an issue which you have been pleased to regard as having been settled in the last letter my father had from you, and wherein you named terms that were absolutely prohibitive."

"My dear young friend! My very dear young friend! I must protest at being asked to discuss this matter. Your father and I have been over it in detail; we failed to agree, and that settles it. As a matter of fact, I am not in position to handle your logs with my limited rolling-stock, and that old hauling contract which I took over when I bought the mills, timber-lands, and logging railroad from the late Mr. Henderson and incorporated into the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, has been an embarra.s.sment I have longed to rid myself of. Under those circ.u.mstances you could scarcely expect me to saddle myself with it again, at your mere request and solely to oblige you."

"I did not expect you to agree to my request. I am not quite that optimistic," Bryce replied evenly.

"Then why did you ask me?"

"I thought that possibly, if I reopened negotiations, you might have a reasonable counter-proposition to suggest."

"I haven't thought of any."

"I suppose if I agreed to sell you that quarter-section of timber in the little valley over yonder" (he pointed to the east) "and the natural outlet for your Squaw Creek timber, you'd quickly think of one," Bryce suggested pointedly.

"No, I am not in the market for that Valley of the Giants, as your idealistic father prefers to call it. Once I would have purchased it for double its value, but at present I am not interested."

"Nevertheless it would be an advantage for you to possess it."

"My dear boy, the possession of that big timber is an advantage I expect to enjoy before I acquire many more gray hairs. But I do not expect to pay for it."

"Do you expect me to offer it to you as a bonus for renewing our hauling contract?"

The Colonel snapped his fingers. "By George," he declared, "that's a bright idea, and a few months ago I would have been inclined to consider it very seriously. But now--"

"You figure you've got us winging, eh?" Bryce was smiling pleasantly.

"I am making no admissions," Pennington responded enigmatically "-- nor any hauling contracts for my neighbour's logs," he added.

"You may change your mind."

"Never."

"I suppose I'll have to abandon logging in Township Nine and go back to the San Hedrin," Bryce sighed resignedly.

"If you do, you'll go broke. You can't afford it. You're on the verge of insolvency this minute."

"I suppose, since you decline to haul our logs, after the expiration of our present contract, and in view of the fact that we are not financially able to build our own logging railroad, that the wisest course my father and I could pursue would be to sell our timber in Township Nine to you. It adjoins your holdings in the same township"

"I had a notion the situation would begin to dawn upon you." The Colonel was smiling now; his handsome face was gradually a.s.suming the expression pontifical. "I'll give you a dollar a thousand feet stumpage for it."

"On whose cruise?"

"Oh, my own cruisers will estimate it."

"I'm afraid I can't accept that offer. We paid a dollar and a half for it, you know, and if we sold it to you at a dollar, the sale would not bring us sufficient money to take up our bonded indebtedness; we'd only have the San Hedrin timber and the Valley of the Giants left, and since we cannot log either of these at present, naturally we'd be out of business."