CHAPTER XI

A VISIT TO JARRED’S CABIN

After breakfast the next morning Scott started back up the mountain. It was a beautiful morning. A light haze still lay like a blanket over the valley but the mountain ridges glistened in the sunshine. The woods seemed alive with birds everywhere he looked and many of them were new to him. It was the kind of morning that made a man feel as though he would never get tired, and Scott walked with a light step. The gloom of the night before had left him and everything seemed as bright as the mountain tops. He felt as though everything must come out all right.

As he passed the Sanders’ cabin the old man was sweeping off his little front porch. “Morning,” he called cheerfully, “going up to beard the lion in his den, are you?”

“Yes,” Scott said, “and I am not a bit scared either. I met him last night and I liked him. He seems like a real man.”

“Last night?” the old man repeated doubtfully.

“Yes, your little friend Vic fell off her horse down below here and hurt herself a little and I took her home.”

“Oh!” Mr. Sanders exclaimed as though some mystery had been solved. “That’s how it happened. I was wondering how you got into old Jarred’s house at night. Vic was not hurt bad, was she?”

“Not so bad but what she almost tore me up before I got her home,” Scott replied. And he told the old man what had happened.

“Sounds like Vic. So she was running away from home, was she? She’ll never go back either. I thought something would come of that row yesterday.”

Scott was puzzled. “How is that?” he asked.

“Jim let Foster grab her. She’ll never forgive him for that.”

“I see,” Scott said. “I can’t say that I blame her much, either.”

“Well,” the old man sighed, “it may be wrong to back the girl against her father, but I like Vic and there is no denying she is twice the man Jim is. She is just like her grandfather.”

“I liked him,” Scott exclaimed. “He told me right away last night that he never would give up the feud, but I liked him all the same.”

The old man opened his mouth as though to speak but changed his mind and closed it again. Then after a pause, “Well, stop in when you come down and tell me how Vic is. I’ll be anxious about her.”

Scott hurried on. At the Morgan gate he remembered Mr. Sanders’ advice and shouted before he entered. Old Jarred appeared almost instantly in the doorway. When he saw who it was, he stood the long rifle against the corner beside the door and called to Scott to come in. He met him halfway to the gate with extended hand.

“Come in, sir, come in, sir,” he repeated hospitably. “Vic is a little shy but I reckon she’ll be glad to see you.”

“She seemed anything but glad to see me when I picked her up last night,” Scott laughed. “I thought she was going to tear me up before I could get her home.”

Old Jarred chuckled. “Vic’s a fighter, she is. You see she had heard that rumor about the logging contract and she hates the Waits worse than I do. She feels right ashamed of herself this morning.”

“Well, she needn’t,” Scott said. “I understood why it was and admired her nerve.”

“If the Morgan men had half Vic’s nerve this feud might end,” old Jarred remarked bitterly.

“Why not drop it, anyway?” Scott asked. “I’ll wager there is not one of your worst enemies who would not admit that you did not do it because you were afraid. It seems such a pity to have it go on. It can end in only one way some day.”

Old Jarred stopped in the doorway and looked at him for a moment. Scott had not intended to broach the subject so suddenly and he half expected a burst of anger, but it did not come.

“Yes,” the old man answered sadly, “it can have only one ending. They will get me some day. But as I told you last night I shall never give it up; so let’s not discuss it.” He saw the disappointment in Scott’s face and laid a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I am sorry, my boy, for I know that you mean well. I suppose it does look to you like a wholly unreasonable thing, but you don’t know all the story. You are asking something that it is utterly impossible for me to do. So it is better to drop it.”

Scott could not hide his disappointment but he bowed his respect for the old man’s request. “I hope Vic was not badly hurt last night?” he asked.

Jarred smiled his gratitude. “No, no. Sprained her knee a little, but she is hobbling around this morning and will be all right in a day or so.”

The cabin into which Jarred led the way was a plain oblong structure built of logs. There was but one room which served as bedroom, dining room, living room and kitchen, but it was clean and everything seemed to be in order.

“Pretty neat for an old man’s den,” Jarred chuckled with evident pride. “Vic did that for me this morning in spite of her crippled knee.”

There was an uncertain thump on the back step and Scott turned to see Vic hopping in on one foot. She certainly looked like a different girl from the one he had struggled with the night before. She hopped toward him without embarrassment and held out her hand.

“I am sorry I acted so badly last night,” she said frankly. “I hope that you will forget it. I would have been in a pickle without you.”

Could this be the little wildcat he had picked up in the road the night before? Scott stared at her open-mouthed for a moment before he could find his tongue.

“I could not very well expect anything else when I picked you up and carried you off against your will,” he laughed, when he had finally recovered from his astonishment.

“She says she is going to stay with me now,” Jarred said. “Says she has had a row with her father and is not going back. I don’t know what the trouble is and I’m afraid to look it up for fear I might have to send her back.”

He put his arm affectionately around the child and it was plain to see where he would put the blame. She cast an apprehensive glance at Scott and he knew she was worrying about the promise she had extracted from him the night before. He relieved her mind at once.

“There are one or two things I would like to know before I go on with this timber sale, Mr. Morgan, and I think you can probably answer my questions better than any one else if you will.”

Jarred nodded. “I’ll be glad to help you all I can.”

“I have already told you,” Scott proceeded, “that I am not willing to give the contract to either the Waits or the Morgans unless they will take it jointly. I have heard—and heard it so often that I think it must be true—that Mr. Reynolds promised this contract to the Waits. Of course either of you has a right to bid on it if you want to, and I can’t stop you. I could turn either of you down even though you were the high bidder, but you can easily see in what a disagreeable position that would place me and I don’t want to do it.”

Jarred nodded his comprehension.

“Could either faction put up a bond of fifty thousand dollars as a guaranty?” Scott asked.

Jarred smiled sourly. “Five thousand would strain either of us considerable.”

“Then it will be simple enough,” Scott said. “The law requires that guaranty. But I want to be perfectly certain that it cannot be met.”

“You need not worry about that,” Jarred replied. “It would be altogether impossible.”

Scott felt relieved. Here would be an easy way to get out of the promise Mr. Reynolds had made the Waits. Probably he had not told them anything about the necessity for a bond.

“Then my next question, Mr. Morgan, is this. If an outsider takes that contract will the Waits and the Morgans work for him on the same job?”

“They will not,” Jarred replied decisively, and Vic bristled visibly at the mere thought of it. “Moreover,” Jarred continued, “no outsider will take the contract.”

“Why not?” Scott asked sharply. He had taken this as a threat and it made him bristle a little on his own part.

“Because none of them will touch it for fear of getting mixed up in this feud. They have tried that and no one would risk it.”

“It’s a wonder Mr. Reynolds would not tell me about that!” Scott exclaimed indignantly.

“You would not need to know it if you had followed his plan,” Jarred remarked ironically.

“Then I have one last question. Would the people here interfere with an outsider if he brought his own crew in here?”

“I would not,” Jarred replied promptly, “and I don’t think any of our people would. I can’t answer for the others.”

Scott rose to go. “I certainly appreciate your help, Mr. Morgan, and I feel that I can rely on what you say.”

“Don’t leave a man much chance to do anything,” Jarred said sympathetically.

“Not much,” Scott admitted, “but I am going to get that stuff logged if I have to do it myself.”

“Maybe you won’t always have this trouble,” Jarred said with a twinkle in his cold gray eye and a wink toward the child. “When I’m gone the rest of them will all let the feud drop.”

The child straightened suddenly and the blood rushed to her cheeks, but she caught sight of the twinkle and subsided again with exactly the same twinkle in her own.

Scott took his leave and when he rounded the turn in the road that shut off the view of the Morgan cabin the old man was still standing at the gate with his arm around the girl’s shoulders. To Scott they represented the last link which was holding the old feud together.