Chapter 21

The Laird returned, puffing slightly, to his office and once more sat in at his own desk. As he remarked to Dirty Dan, he felt better now. All his resentment against Daney had fled but his resolution to pursue his contemplated course with reference to his son and the latter's wife had become firmer than ever. In some ways The Laird was a terrible old man.

XLII

Nan was not at all surprised when, upon responding to a peremptory knock at her front door she discovered Andrew Daney standing without. The general manager, after his stormy interview with The Laird had spent two hours in the sunny lee of a lumber pile, waiting for the alcoholic fogs to lift from his brain, for he had had sense enough left to realize that all was not well with him; he desired to have his tongue in order when he should meet the bride and groom.

"Good morning, Mr. Daney," Nan greeted him. "Do come in."

"Good morning, Mrs. McKaye. Thank you. I shall with pleasure."

He followed her down the little hallway to the living room where Donald sat with his great thin legs stretched out toward the fire.

"Don't rise, boy, don't rise," Mr. Daney protested. "I merely called to kiss the bride and shake your hand, my boy. The visit is entirely friendly and unofficial."

"Mr. Daney, you're a dear," Nan cried, and presented her fair cheek for the tribute he claimed.

"Shake hands with a rebel, boy," Mr. Daney cried heartily to Donald. "God bless you and may you always be happier than you are this minute."

Donald wrung the Daney digits with a heartiness he would not have thought possible a month before.

"I've quarreled with your father, Donald," he announced, seating himself. "Over you--and you," he added, nodding brightly at both young people. "He thinks he's fired me." He paused, glanced around, coughed a couple of times and came out with it. "Well, what are you going to do now to put tobacco in your old tobacco box, Donald?"

Donald smiled sadly. "Oh, Nan still has a few dollars left from that motor-boat swindle you perpetrated, Mr. Daney. She'll take care of me for a couple of weeks until I'm myself again; then, if my father still proves recalcitrant and declines to have me connected with the Tyee Lumber Company, I'll manage to make a living for Nan and the boy somewhere else."

Briefly Mr. Daney outlined The Laird's expressed course of action with regard to his son.

"He means it," Donald assured the general manager. "He never bluffs. He gave me plenty of warning and his decision has not been arrived at in a hurry. He's through with me."

"I fear he is, my boy. Er-ah-ahem! Harumph-h-h! Do you remember those bonds you sent me from New York once--the proceeds of your deal in that Wiskah river cedar?"

"Yes."

"Your father desires that you accept the entire two hundred thousand dollars worth and accrued interest."

"Why?"

"Well, I suppose he thinks they'll come in handy when you leave Port Agnew."

"Well, I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, Andrew."

"Your father instructed me to say to you that he would take it kindly of you to do so--for obvious reasons."

"I appreciate his point of view, but since he has kicked me out he has no claim on my sympathies--at least not to the extent of forcing his point of view and causing me to abandon my own. Please say to my father that since I cannot have his forgiveness I do not want his bonds or his money. Tell him also, please, that I'm not going to leave Port Agnew, because that would predicate a sense of guilt on my part and lend some support to the popular assumption that my wife is not a virtuous woman. I could not possibly oblige my father on this point because to do so would be a violent discourtesy to my wife. I am not ashamed of her, you know."

Mr. Daney gnawed his thumb nail furiously. "'The wicked flee when no man pursueth'," he quoted. "However, Mr. Donald, you know as well as I do that if your father should forbid it, a dicky bird couldn't make a living in this town."

"There are no such restrictions in Darrow, Mr. Daney. The superintendent up there will give me a job on the river."

Mr. Daney could not forbear an expression of horror. "Hector McKaye's son a river hog!" he cried incredulously.

"Well, Donald McKaye's father was a river hog, wasn't he?"

"Oh, but times have changed since Hector was a pup, my boy. Why, this is dreadful."

"No, Mr. Daney. Merely unusual."

"Well, Donald, I think your father will raise the ante considerably in order to avoid that added disgrace and force you to listen to reason."

"If he does, sir, please spare yourself the trouble of bearing his message. Neither Nan nor I is for sale, sir."

"I told him you'd decline the bonds. However, Mr. Donald, there is no reason in life why you shouldn't get money from me whenever you want it. Thanks to your father I'm worth more than a hundred thousand myself, although you'd never guess it. Your credit is A-1 with me."

"I shall be your debtor for life because of that speech, Mr. Daney. Any news from my mother and the girls?"

"None."

"Well, I'll stand by for results," Donald assured him gravely.

"Do not expect any."

"I don't."

Mr. Daney fidgeted and finally said he guessed he'd better be trotting along, and Donald and Nan, realizing it would be no kindness to him to be polite and assure him there was no need of hurry, permitted him to depart forthwith.

"I think, sweetheart," Donald announced with a pained little smile, as he returned from seeing Mr. Daney to the front gate, "that it wouldn't be a half bad idea for you to sit in at that old piano and play and sing for me. I think I'd like something light and lilting. What's that Kipling thing that's been set to music?"

So we went strolling, Down by the rolling, down by the rolling sea. You may keep your croak for other folk But you can't frighten me!

He lighted a cigarette and stretched himself out on the old divan. She watched him blowing smoke rings at the ceiling--and there was no music in her soul.

In the afternoon the McKaye limousine drew up at the front gate and Nan's heart fluttered violently in contemplation of a visit from her husband's mother and sisters. She need not have worried, however. The interior of the car was unoccupied save for Donald's clothing and personal effects which some thoughtful person at The Dreamerie had sent down to him. He hazarded a guess that the cool and practical Elizabeth had realized his needs.

XLIII

Returning to the mill office, Mr. Daney sat at his desk and started to look over the mail. The Laird heard his desk buzzer sounding frequently and rightly conjecturing that his general manager was back on the job, he came into the latter's office and glared at him.

"I thought I fired you?" he growled.

"I know. You thought you did," the rebel replied complacently. "I see by your knuckles you've been fighting. Hope it did you good."

"It did. Are you going to leave this office?"

"No, sir."

"I didn't think you would. Well, well! Out with it."

Mr. Daney drew a deal of pleasure from that invitation. "The boy directs me to inform you, sir, that he will not accept the bonds nor any monies you may desire to give him. He says he doesn't need them because he isn't going to leave Port Agnew."

"Nonsense, Andrew. He cannot remain in this town. He hasn't the courage to face his little world after marrying that girl. And he has to make a living for her."

"We shall see that which we shall see," Mr. Daney replied enigmatically.

"I wonder if it is possible he is trying to outgame me," old Hector mused aloud. "Andrew, go back and tell him that if he will go to California to live I will deed him that Lassen county sugar and white pine and build him the finest mill in the state."

"The terms are quite impossible," Daney retorted and explained why.

"He shall get out of Port Agnew," The Laird threatened. "He shall get out or starve."

"You are forgetting something, sir."

"Forgetting what?"

"That I have more than a hundred thousand dollars in bonds right in that vault and that I have not as yet developed paralysis of the right hand. The boy shall not starve and neither shall he crawl, like a beaten dog currying favor with the one that has struck him."

"I am the one who has been struck--and he has wounded me sorely," The Laird cried, his voice cracked with anger.

"The mischief is done. What's the use of crying over spilled milk? You're going to forgive the boy sooner or later, so do it now and be graceful about it."

"I'll never forgive him, Andrew."

Mr. Daney walled his eyes toward the ceiling. "Thank God," he murmured piously, "I'm pure. Hereafter, every time Reverend Mr. Tingley says the Lord's prayer I'm going to cough out loud in church at the line: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' You'll hear that cough and remember, Hector McKaye."

A deeper shadow of distress settled over The Laird's stern features. "You're uncommon mean to me this bitter day, Andrew," he complained wearily. "I take it as most unkind of you to thwart my wishes like this."

"I'm for true love!" Mr. Daney declared firmly. "Ah come, come now! Don't be a stiff-necked old dodo. Forgive the boy."

"In time I may forgive him, Andrew. I'm not sure of myself where he is concerned, but we canna receive the girl. 'Tis not in reason that we should."

"I believe I'll cough twice," Daney murmured musingly.

And the following day being Sunday, he did! He sat two rows behind the McKaye family pew but across the aisle, and in a cold fury The Laird turned to squelch him with a look. What he saw in the Daney pew, however, chilled his fury and threw him into a veritable panic of embarrassment. For to the right of the incomprehensible general manager sat the young ex-laird of Port Agnew; at Daney's left the old Laird beheld his new daughter-in-law, while further down the pew as far as she could retreat, Mrs. Daney, with face aflame, sat rigid, her bovine countenance upraised and her somewhat vacuous glance fixed unblinkingly at a point some forty feet over Mr. Tingley's pious head. Donald intercepted the old man's amazed and troubled glance, and smiled at his father with his eyes--an affectionate overture that was not lost on The Laird ere he jerked his head and eyes once more to the front.

Mrs. McKaye and her two daughters were as yet unaware of the horror that impended. But not for long. When the congregation stood to sing the final hymn, Nan's wondrous mezzo-soprano rose clear and sweet over the indifferent-toned notes of every other woman present; to the most dull it would have been obvious that there was a trained singer present, and Mrs. McKaye and her daughters each cast a covert glance in the direction of the voice. However, since every other woman in the church was gazing at Nan, nobody observed the effect of her presence upon the senior branch of the McKaye family, for which small blessing the family in question was duly grateful.

At the conclusion of the service old Hector remained in his pew until the majority of the congregation had filed out; then, assuring himself by a quick glance, that his son and the latter's wife had preceded him, he followed with Mrs. McKaye and the girls. From the church steps he observed Donald and Nan walking home, while Mr. Daney and his outraged spouse followed some twenty feet behind them. Quickly The Laird and his family entered the waiting limousine; it was the first occasion that anybody could remember when he had not lingered to shake hands with Mr. Tingley and, perchance, congratulate him on the excellence of his sermon.

They were half way up the cliff road before anybody spoke. Then, with a long preliminary sigh, The Laird voiced the thought that obsessed them all.

"That damned mutton-head, Daney. I'd run him out of the Tyee employ if it would do a bit of good. I cannot run him out of town or out of church."

"The imbecile!" Elizabeth raged. Jane was dumb with shame and rage and Mrs. McKaye was sniffling a little. Presently she said:

"How dare he bring her right into church with him," she cried brokenly. "Right before everybody. Oh, dear, oh dear, is my son totally lacking in a sense of decency? This is terrible, terrible."

"I shall not risk such another awful Sunday morning," Elizabeth announced.

"Nor I," Jane cried with equal fervor.

"We shall have to leave Port Agnew now," Mrs, McKaye sobbed.

Old Hector patted her hand. "Yes, I think you'll have to, Nellie. Unfortunately, I cannot go with you. Daney doesn't appear to be quite sane of late and with Donald out of the business I'm chained to a desk for the remainder of my life. I fear, however," he added savagely, "I do not intend to let that woman run me out of my own church. Not by a damned sight!"

The instant they entered the house, rightly conjecturing that the Daneys had also reached their home, Mrs. McKaye went to the telephone and proceeded to inform Mr. Daney of the opinion which the McKaye family, jointly and severally, entertained for his idea of comedy. Daney listened respectfully to all she had to say touching his sanity, his intelligence, his sense of decency, and his loyalty to Hector and when, stung because he made no defense, she asked: "Have you no explanation to make us for your extraordinary behavior?" he replied:

"I am an usher of our church, Mrs. McKaye. When Donald and his wife entered the church the only vacant seats in it were in my pew; the only person in the church who would not have felt a sense of outrage at having your daughter-in-law seated with his or her family, was my self-sacrificing self. I could not be discourteous to Donald and I'm quite certain his wife has as much right in our church as you have. So I shooed them both up to my pew, to the great distress of Mrs. Daney."

"You should be ashamed of yourself, Andrew. You should!"

"I'm not ashamed of myself, Mrs. McKaye. I've been a pussy-foot all my life. I had to do something I knew would detract from my popularity, but since I had to do it I decided to do it promptly and as if I enjoyed it. Surely you would not have commended me had I met the young couple at the door and said to them: 'Get out of this church. It is not for such as you. However, if you insist upon staying, you'll have to stand up or else sit down on the floor. Nobody here wants to sit with you. They're afraid, too, they'll offend the Chief Pooh-bah of this town'."

"You could have pretended you did not see them."

"My dear Mrs. McKaye," Daney retorted in even tones, "do you wish me to inform your husband of a certain long distance telephone conversation? If so--"

She hung up without waiting to say good-by, and the following day she left for Seattle, accompanied by her daughters.

Throughout the week The Laird forbore mentioning his son's name to Mr. Daney; indeed, he refrained from addressing the latter at all unless absolutely necessary to speak to him directly--wherefore Daney knew himself to be blacklisted. On the following Sunday The Laird sat alone in the family pew and Mr. Daney did not cough during the recital of the Lord's prayer, so old Hector managed to conquer a tremendous yearning to glance around for the reason. Also, as on the previous Sunday, he was in no hurry to leave his pew at the conclusion of the service, yet, to his profound irritation, when he did leave it and start down the central aisle of the church, he looked squarely into the faces of Donald and Nan as they emerged from the Daney pew. Mrs. Daney was conspicuous by her absence. Nan's baby boy had fallen asleep during the service and Donald was carrying the cherub.

Old Hector's face went white; he gulped when his son spoke to him.

"Hello, Dad. You looked lonely all by yourself in that big pew. Suppose we come up and sit with you next Sunday?"

Old Hector paused and bent upon his son and Nan a terrible look. "Never speak to me again so long as you live," he replied in a low voice, and passed out of the church.

Donald gazed after his broad erect figure and shook his head dolefully, as Mr. Daney fell into step beside him. "I told you so," he whispered.

"Isn't it awful to be Scotch?" Nan inquired.

"It is awful--on the Scotch," her husband assured her. "The dear old fraud gulped like a broken-hearted boy when I spoke to him. He'd rather be wrong than president."

As they were walking home to the Sawdust Pile, Nan captured one of her husband's great fingers and swung it childishly. "I wish you didn't insist upon our going to church, sweetheart," she complained. "We're spoiling your father's Christianity."

"Can't help it," he replied doggedly. "We're going to be thoroughbreds about this, no matter how much it hurts."

She sighed. "And you're only half Scotch, Donald."

XLIV

By noon of the following day, Port Agnew was astounded by news brought by the crew of one of the light draft launches used to tow log rafts down the river. Donald McKaye was working for Darrow. He was their raftsman; he had been seen out on the log boom, pike pole in hand, shoving logs in to the endless chain elevator that drew them up to the seas. As might be imagined, Mrs. Daney was among the first to glean this information, and to her husband she repeated it at luncheon with every evidence of pleasure.

"Tut, tut, woman," he replied carelessly, "this is no news to me. He told me yesterday after service that he had the job."

The familiar wrinkle appeared for an instant on the end of her nose before she continued: "I wonder what The Laird thinks of that, Andrew?"

"So do I," he parried skilfully.

"Does he know it?"

"There isn't a soul in Port Agnew with sufficient courage to tell him."

"Why do you not tell him?"

"None of my business. Besides, I do not hanker to see people squirm with suffering."

She wrinkled her nose once more and was silent.

As Mr. Daney had declared, there was none in Port Agnew possessed of sufficient hardihood to inform the Laird of his son's lowly status and it was three weeks before he discovered it for himself. He had gone up the river to one of his logging camps and the humor had seized him to make the trip in a fast little motor-boat he had given Donald at Christmas many years' before. He was busy adjusting the carburetor, after months of disuse, as he passed the Darrow log boom in the morning, so he failed to see his big son leaping across the logs, balancing himself skilfully with the pike pole.

It was rather late when he started home and in the knowledge that darkness might find him well up the river he hurried.

Now, from the Bight of Tyee to a point some five miles above Darrow, the Skookum flows in almost a straight line; the few bends are wide and gradual, and when The Laird came to this home-stretch he urged the boat to its maximum speed of twenty-eight miles per hour. Many a time in happier days he had raced down this long stretch with Donald at the helm, and he knew the river thoroughly; as he sped along he steered mechanically, his mind occupied in a consideration of the dishonor that had come upon his clan.

The sun had already set as he came roaring down a wide deep stretch near Darrow's mill; in his preoccupation he forgot that his competitor's log boom stretched across the river fully two-thirds of its width; that he should throttle down, swerve well to starboard and avoid the field of stored logs. The deep shadows cast by the sucker growth and old snags along the bank blended with the dark surface of the log boom and prevented him from observing that he was headed for the heart of it; the first intimation he had of his danger came to him in a warning shout from the left bank--a shout that rose above the roar of the exhaust.

"Jump! Overboard! Quickly! The log boom!"

Old Hector awoke from his bitter reverie. He, who had once been a river hog, had no need to be told of the danger incident to abrupt precipitation into the heart of that log boom, particularly when it would presently be gently agitated by the long high "bone" the racing boat carried in her teeth. When logs weighing twenty tons come gently together--even when they barely rub against each other, nothing living caught between them may survive.

The unknown who warned him was right. He must jump overboard and take his chance in the river, for it was too late now to slow down and put his motor in reverse. In the impending crash that was only a matter of seconds, The Laird would undoubtedly catapult from the stern sheets into the water--and if he should drift in under the logs, knew the river would eventually give up his body somewhere out in the Bight of Tyee. On the other hand, should he be thrown out on the boom he would stand an equal chance of being seriously injured by the impact or crushed to death when his helpless body should fall between the logs. In any event the boat would be telescoped down to the cockpit and sink at the edge of the log field.

He was wearing a heavy overcoat, for it was late in the fall, and he had no time to remove it; not even time to stand up and dive clear. So he merely hurled his big body against the starboard gunwale and toppled overboard--and thirty feet further on the boat struck with a crash that echoed up and down the river, telescoped and drove under the log boom. It was not in right when old Hector rose puffing to the surface and bellowed for help before starting to swim for the log boom.

The voice answered him instantly: "Coming! Hold On!"

Handicapped as he was with his overcoat, old Hector found it a prodigious task to reach the boom; as he clung to the boom-stick he could make out the figure of a man with a pike pole coming toward him in long leaps across the logs. And then old Hector noticed something else.

He had swum to the outer edge of the log boom and grasped the light boom-stick, dozens of which, chained end to end, formed the floating enclosure in which the log supply was stored. The moment he rested his weight on this boom-stick, however, one end of it submerged suddenly--wherefore The Laird knew that the impact of the motor-boat had broken a link of the boom and that this broken end was now sweeping outward and downward, with the current releasing the millions of feet of stored logs. Within a few minutes, provided he should keep afloat, he would be in the midst of these tremendous Juggernauts, for, clinging to the end of the broken boom he was gradually describing a circle on the outside of the log field, swinging from beyond the middle of the river in to the left-hand bank; presently, when the boom should have drifted its maximum distance he would be hung up stationary in deep water while the released logs bore down upon him with the current and gently shoulder him into eternity.

He clawed his way along the submerging boom-stick to its other end, where it was linked with its neighbor, and the combined buoyancy of both boom-sticks was sufficient to float him.

"Careful," he called to the man leaping over the log-field toward him. "The boom is broken! Careful, I tell you! The logs are moving out--they're slipping apart. Be careful."

Even as he spoke, The Laird realized that the approaching rescuer would not heed him. He _had_ to make speed out to the edge of the moving logs; if he was to rescue the man clinging to the boom-sticks he must take a chance on those long leaps through the dusk; he _must_ reach The Laird before too much open water developed between the moving logs.