Chapter 6

"And you were an hour fast! Orcutt carried Terrace City time, which is an hour faster than standard. It is the so called daylight saving plan adopted by many cities and villages in the United States by act of council. All that, of course, has no bearing on McNabb's options, so there is nothing for you to do but accept payment and return Orcutt his money."

"But you were here all the time!" cried Cameron. "And you must have known what was going on. Why didn't you make yourself known? Why did you let me go ahead with Orcutt? We could have had the business over and done with two days ago--and no complications."

Hedin laughed. "You will have to take that up with Mr. McNabb. I was following out instructions to the letter. And those instructions were very specific about not closing the deal within half an hour of the expiration of the options."

"But what was his idea?"

"As I said before, you will have to ask him. He had a reason, you may be sure. I have noticed in my association with John McNabb that there is generally a reason for the things that he does--though in many instances the reason is beyond me."

Cameron's exasperation at the sudden turn of events subsided. He even managed a smile. "He was within his rights," he admitted, "and as you say, he must have had a reason. But I don't understand it. Wentworth was McNabb's man too--until he swung over to Orcutt. Yet he never suspected you were anything but Murchison's clerk."

Hedin laughed. "The reputation of being a fool doesn't hurt anyone. It is rather an advantage at times."

"You have played your part well," admitted Cameron. "And McNabb has played his part well--whatever that part is. Orcutt said he was losing his grip, was in his dotage. Well, he will not be the first man that has had to change his mind. He has gone to inspect the mill site and will return day after to-morrow. Wentworth accompanied him. I imagine we will have an interesting half-hour when they find out that the deal is off."

The formalities of payment were soon over with, and the moment they were completed, Hedin despatched a messenger with a telegram to his employer.

When John McNabb received the message he grinned broadly, and for several minutes sat at his desk and stabbed at his blotter with his pencil point. "So, Orcutt, Wentworth & Company set out to down poor old John McNabb," he muttered. "I kind of figured rope was all Wentworth wanted to hang himself with--an' rope's cheap. But Orcutt an' his Eureka Paper Company--now he must have gone to quite a little bother, first an' last, an' some expense. Too bad! But I won't worry about that--he ought to 'tend to his bankin'. Guess I'll be startin' North in about ten days."

A week later McNabb got another wire from the engineer in charge of his road construction. As he read and reread it, a slow smile trembled upon his lips and widened into a broad grin.

"Sixty-five miles of road completed. Eureka Paper Company cement and material piling up at road head. Have their own trucks. Shall we let them use road?"

The grin became an audible chuckle. "I don't understand it. Orcutt must have cleared out so quick he don't know the deal is off." Then he called a messenger and sent two telegrams. The first in answer to the one just received.

"Double your force and hurry road to completion in shortest possible time. Allow all Eureka Paper Company goods to be delivered as fast as received. Facilitate delivery same to mill site in every way possible."

The other telegram was to the home office of the engineering firm and read:

"Hold off on purchase of material for mill until further notice. Writing full particulars."

Then he closed his desk and went home where, a few minutes later, his daughter found him packing his outfit in a well worn duffle bag.

XXI

Ever since Jean's outburst of passion upon the day of Hedin's arrest, a certain constraint had settled upon father and daughter that amounted, at times, to an actual coldness. Neither had mentioned the name of Hedin in the other's hearing, but each evening at dinner, which was the only meal at which they met, the studied silence with which the girl devoted herself to her food bespoke plainer than words that the thought of him was never out of her head.

So it was with some measure of surprise that Old John looked up from his packing at the girl's question: "Where are you going, Dad?"

"North, into Canada. I've business there that needs my attention."

"Will you take me with you?"

"Take ye with me!" he cried in astonishment. "An' what would ye be doin' in the wild country, with the black flies an' mosquitoes in the height of their glory. They'd eat ye alive! An' the trailin'--why, ye've never been outside a town in ye're life!"

"And that is just why I want to go outside one!" answered the girl. "Please, Dad, take me with you. I can keep up on the trail, really I can. Don't I play golf, and tennis, and paddle a canoe, and do everything that anyone can do to keep themselves in shape? I bet right now I can walk as far as you can in the woods or out of the woods. And as for flies and mosquitoes, they won't eat me any worse than they will you, and if worse comes to worst, I can plaster myself with that smelly old dope you carry in that bottle--but I'd almost rather be eaten."

Old John grinned. "Well, I don't know. Maybe the trip would do ye good. An' when ye get there ye may not find it so dull. Wentworth is there an' he'll prob'ly show ye around."

"I don't need Captain Wentworth to show me around," she replied, and McNabb was not slow to note her tone. "Of all people I ever met, I think he's the biggest bore! I don't see what you hired him for."

Old John stared at her in amazement. "Why, it was on your own recommendation--that, an' the fact that I found out he done some really good work on the Nettle River project. But you asked me in so many words to give him a job!"

"Well, if I did, I was an idiot," she replied. "And I guess you'll wish you never hired him. You'll find you've made a grand mess of things!" A high-pitched, nervous quality had crept into the girl's voice, and McNabb saw that she was very near to tears. "Do you know what they're saying?" she cried. "They're saying that Oskar has jumped ten-thousand-dollar bail that some friend put up for him! They're liars, and I hate them! Wherever he is, he'll come back at the proper time. He'll show them--and he'll show you, too!" With an effort, the girl steadied her trembling voice. "And when he does come back, he'll find he's got one friend--and I'll--I'll make up for the rest. I'm going to get ready now. I want to get away from it all. When do we start?"

"To-night," answered old John, "on the late train." And when the door closed behind his daughter, he grinned and winked at himself in the mirror.

When old John McNabb and his daughter stepped off the sagging combination coach at the siding which was the northern end of the new tote-road, the first man they saw was Orcutt, resplendent in striped mackinaw, Stetson hat, and high-laced boots. As the banker came toward them, McNabb stared about him in evident perplexity, his glance shifting from the piles of tarpaulin-covered material, to the loaded trucks that with a clash and grind of gears were just pulling out upon the new tote-road that stretched away between the tall balsam spires to the southward.

"Hello, John," Orcutt greeted, lifting his Stetson in acknowledgment of the presence of Jean. "Well, what do you think of it?"

McNabb continued to stare about him. "I don't seem to quite get the straight of it," he said slowly. "Eureka Paper Company," he read the legend emblazoned upon the trucks and tarpaulins scattered all over the foreground. "What does it mean, Orcutt? An' what in the devil are you doin' here? An' what business have those trucks got on my tote-road?"

Orcutt laughed, a nasty, gloating laugh, as he rubbed his hands together after the manner of one performing an ablution. "It means, John," he answered, in a voice of oily softness, "that at last I have caught you napping. The Eureka Paper Company is my company, and the pulp-wood that you held options on is my pulp-wood. I've been waiting a long time for this day--more than twenty years. It's only fair to give the devil his due, John--you've been shrewd. Time and again I almost had you, but you always managed somehow to elude me. There have been times when I could have murdered you, gladly. It wouldn't have been so bad if you had gloated openly when you put one over on me, but your devilish way of apparently ignoring the fact--of acting as though outwitting me were too trifling an occurrence to even notice, at times has nearly driven me crazy--that, and that damned secret laughter I see in your eyes when we meet. Oh, I've waited a long time for my day--but now my day has come! And to think how nearly I missed it! I go back in an hour on the same train that brought you in."

McNabb had listened in silence to the tirade. "But I--I don't understand it. My options----"

"Your options," interrupted Orcutt, and his voice rasped harsh, "expired at noon on the first day of July. At one minute past twelve on that day, the property passed into the hands of the Eureka Paper Company of which I am president. I signed the contract and paid over the money myself at Gods Lake Post."

"Was it July?" mumbled McNabb, apparently dazed. "But--there was Wentworth. He had the papers. Surely he must have known."

Orcutt laughed. "Yes. Wentworth knew. He knew the day you hired him. And he knew that you thought you had until the first of August. It was Wentworth that tipped the deal off to me."

"But--why should he have double-crossed me?"

"Mere matter of business," replied Orcutt. "Figure it out for yourself. If he stayed with you the best he could expect would be a fair salary. With us he was in position to dictate his own terms. They were stiff terms, too, for Wentworth is shrewd. But he has been worth all he cost. He is now secretary of the Eureka, and a very considerable stockholder."

McNabb was silent for what seemed a long time. When at length he spoke, it was in a voice that sounded dull and tired. "But, Orcutt, the tote-road is mine. I built it. It cost me a hundred thousand dollars--that road did. If you hold the property the road is no good to me, and it is valuable to you. Will you buy it?"

"Sure, I'll buy it. I'll buy it for just what I figure it is worth to me. It cost you a thousand dollars a mile. It's worth a hundred to me. Ten thousand dollars is my limit. Take it or leave it. Ten cents on the dollar, John; you may as well save what you can out of the wreck."

"Is that the best you can do by me? Man, it's robbery! I can't afford to lose ninety thousand. It'll cripple me. An' I stood to make a million!"

"Cripple you, eh? Well, it won't hurt my feelings to see you limping. That's the very best we can do. You better take it, and go back to selling your thread. You're getting too old for real business, John--you're done!"

McNabb nodded slowly. "Aye, maybe ye're right, maybe ye're right." The voice sounded old, tired. "I'll let ye know in a few days, Orcutt. Now that I'm up here I think I'll slip down for a visit with my old friend Murchison. He's the factor at Gods Lake. We were boys together, an' together we worked for the Company. He's a friend a man can trust. An' I feel the need of a friend. Ye'll not begrudge us a ride down on one of ye're trucks, will ye, Orcutt?"

Before Orcutt could reply Jean, who had been a silent listener to all that had passed, leaped forward and faced Orcutt with blazing eyes. "You sneak!" she cried. "And all the time I thought you and Mrs. Orcutt were my friends! And all the time you were lying in wait to ruin an old man! You couldn't fight him in the open! You were afraid! But my father is used to fighting men--not cowardly thieves! And as for riding in one of your trucks, I would die first!" She turned to McNabb. "Come on, Dad, we'll walk!"

"But, daughter, it's a hundred miles!"

"I don't care if it is five hundred miles! I'll walk, or crawl if I have to, rather than accept anything from that--that rattlesnake! See, there is a little store. We can lay in some provisions for the trip and it will be loads of fun. It will remind you of your old days in the North."

The girl took his arm, and the two turned abruptly away, leaving Orcutt standing in his tracks watching their departure with somewhat of a grin.

As they came out of the store with bulging pack sacks, they saw him step into the stuffy coach, and a moment later they watched the wheezy little engine puff importantly down the track. Then, side by side they stepped onto the tote-road and were swallowed up between the two walls of towering balsams and spruces.

A mile farther on, a Eureka truck passed them, and the girl, scorning the driver's offer of a lift, brushed its dust from her clothing as though it were the touch of some loathsome thing.

That night they camped on a little hardwood knoll beside a stream, well back from the road. Old John seemed to have regained his usual spirits, and to her utter astonishment the girl surprised a grin upon his face as he put up the shelter. He built a fire, and producing hook and line from his pocket, jerked half a dozen trout from the water, which were soon sizzling in the pan from which rose the odor of frying bacon.

"Do you know, Dad," began the girl, after the dishes had been washed and the man had thrown an armful of green bracken upon the fire to smudge away the mosquitoes. "Do you know I think you are simply wonderful?" She was leaning against his knee, and her eyes looked into his.

"Tush, girl, what ails ye?" said the man, removing his pipe to send a cloud of blue smoke to mingle with the gray of the smudge.

"I mean it, Daddy, dear. You are just wonderful. Oh, I know how disappointed you are. I know just how it hurts to have a man like Orcutt get the best of you. I saw it in your face."

"Did Orcutt see it, d'ye think?"

"Of course he did--and he just gloated."

"U-m-m," said McNabb, and his lips twitched at the corners.

"And on top of all that you can smile!"

"Yup, isn't it funny? I can even grin."

"But, Dad, will it--ruin you? Not that I care a bit, about the money. We can be just as happy, maybe happier, without it. I'm not the little fool you think I am. I have always spent a lot of money because I had it to spend, but if we didn't have it, I could be just as happy making what little I did have go as far as it could. Maybe we'll have to come up here and live in a cabin. I love the North already, and I've hardly seen it. We could have a cabin in the woods, and get some furniture when we could afford it, and then we could arrange it so cozily. Really, I would be crazy about it. And we could have trout every day, and wild ducks, and venison. If we could afford a screened porch we could eat and sleep on it, and in the living room we could have a table----"

"Good Lord, girl, arrangin' furniture again!" cried old John. "An I'd come home some night an' break my neck before I could find the matchbox. If we was to live in a cabin I'd spike the stuff to the floor! But--maybe it won't be so bad as all that."

"I've been hateful to you of late, Dad, because of--of Oskar. But really, you made an awful mistake. I should think you would know that he couldn't have taken that coat. It isn't in him!"

"I never said he ate it," grinned the man.

"Oh, don't joke about it! Dad, I love Oskar. He's--oh, he's everything a man should be, and it hurts me so to have them saying he is a thief. He isn't a thief! And the time will come when he will prove it. Promise me, Dad, that when he does prove it, you will make every effort in your power to right the wrong you have done him."

Old John's hand rested for a moment upon the girl's head. "I promise all that, girl. Surely ye know I can be just. If it is as ye say, I'll more than make it up to him. I promise ye, his name shall not suffer."

"I love you, Dad. I know you are just--but you're a hard-hearted old Scot, just the same. You don't make many mistakes, but you have made two--about Oskar, and about hiring that Wentworth. I told you you'd be sorry."

"Well, maybe ye're right," and John McNabb never blinked an eye.

"See, didn't I just say you were hard-headed? You won't admit you made a mistake even after what Orcutt told you to-day. But tell me honestly, Dad, are you ruined?"

"Well, we won't worry about that, lass. D'ye hear the hoot-owl? I like to hear them of nights. I found one's nest once an' I took the three eggs out an' slipped them under a hen that Mother McFarlane had settin'. It was at Long Lake post, Mother McFarlane was the factor's wife, an' I was his clerk. The eggs had been sat on a long time an' they hatched out before the hen eggs. Ye should have seen Mother McFarlane's face when she caught sight of them chickens! It was one of the best jokes I ever made."

"And here you ought to be as solemn as an owl yourself, and you are talking of jokes. I don't understand you at all."

"Maybe I should be an owl. D'ye notice in the stories, they make the Scots say, 'hoot'? But about Wentworth, now. If we should meet up with him, don't let on ye know anything about my deal with Orcutt. Treat him nice an' pleasant----"

"After what he has done to you?" cried the girl, her eyes flashing.

"Just so. Be nice an' friendly to him--d'ye know what a poker face is?"

"Why, of course! Everybody plays poker in Terrace City."

"Mind ye, ye're settin' in a big game right now----"

"You mean," cried the girl, "that there's a chance? A chance to beat Orcutt yet? Oh, if you only could!"

"Well, we're still settin' in the game--me an' you, daughter. An' let's don't neither one of us throw down our hand till after the draw."

XXII

Toward evening of the fourth day after leaving the railway, the two stepped into the broad clearing that surrounded the Gods Lake post.

"Oh, real Indians!" cried Jean, as she caught sight of the dozen or more tepees that were pitched between the lake and the low log trading post.

"Aye, real Injuns, lass--an' good it is to see them again. It will be the remnant of the spring tradin'. 'Tis about over now, but always there's some of the Injuns will hang around the post all summer."

"They're cooking over open fires, and look, there comes one from the lake with some fish! Oh, don't you just love it?"

They were crossing the clearing, and old John glanced at his daughter with approval. "Aye, I love it. An' proud I am that you love it, too. Ye've taken to the North like a duck takes to water. Ye've trailed like a real sourdough, an' never a word of the hard work an' the discomfort. 'Tis born in ye, lass--the love of the bush--an' I'm glad. I've come to know ye better the last four days than I have in twenty-one years of school, an' dancing an' all the flibberty-jibbitin' nonsense ye carry on."

They had reached the door of the trading room, and the man interrupted her laughing reply. "Wait ye here a minute while I see if Dugald is inside."

Oskar Hedin paused in the act of putting the finishing touches on the edge of his belt ax, and as John McNabb entered the room, he rose hastily to meet him.

"Where's Murchison?" asked the newcomer, and Hedin noted that no slightest hint of recognition flickered in his employer's eyes.

Repressing the desire to laugh, he answered in the slow, dull-witted manner of Sven Larsen. "He is in there," pointing to the door of the factor's room.

"Tell him to come out here," commanded McNabb brusquely.

"Do you want to see him?"

"What in the devil d'ye think I'm waitin' here for? Hurry, now, an' don't be standin' there gawpin'."

Hedin grinned broadly as he entered Murchison's door, and a moment later McNabb's hands were gripped by the two hands of the factor. "It's glad I am to see ye, John. An' how does it feel to get home once more?"

"Ye'll be knowin' yourself how it feels to a man that's been thirty years out of the bush. But where's Hedin?"

"He'll be here directly," answered Murchison. "John, I want ye to meet my clerk, Sven Larsen. He's the best clerk I ever had."

McNabb glanced into the bearded face that blinked stupidly at him. "Ye haven't be'n over favored with clerks, I'd say, Dugald. But how are ye fixed for quarters?"

Murchison laughed. "I guess we can rig up a bunk for ye, John."

"It ain't myself I was thinkin' about. It's the lass. She's had four pretty hard days on the trail, an' she'd be the better for a comfortable bunk."

"The lass!" exclaimed Murchison.

"Jean! Here!" Strong fingers gripped McNabb's arm, and he stared in astonishment into the face of Sven Larsen. The loose-lipped, vapid expression was gone, and the blue-gray eyes stared into his own with burning intensity.

"You don't mean----? Why, Oskar lad!"

"Sh--sh. But she mustn't know! Promise me--both of you! She will be going to bed early, and after supper I'll see you at the landing."

McNabb studied the face quizzically. "Ye fooled me, all right, but I'm doubtin' ye can fool Jean."

"At least, I can try," answered the clerk. "I'll see you at supper," and without waiting for a reply, he ascended the ladder that led to the fur loft.

"Where is the lass? Fetch her in, John." Murchison's eyes twinkled as he stepped closer. "He thinks he's lost her," he whispered. "But tell me, John, d'ye think the lass cares for this damned Wentworth?"

"Who can say?" grinned McNabb. "'Twill not be long now till we can see for ourselves," and stepping to the door he called Jean, who was trying to make friends with a group of Indian children.

"She'll have my room," said Murchison, as he followed McNabb to the door. "An' no bunk, either, but a brass bed that I bought in Winnipeg out of respect for my old bones an' the weakening flesh that covers 'em. You an' me will pitch a tent, an' 'twill be the first time in many years, John, we've slept under canvas together."

The next moment he was welcoming the girl with a deference he would have scarce accorded to royalty.

XXIII

Supper over, McNabb left Jean to be entertained by Murchison, and strolled down to the landing to join Hedin. "Well, how's everything comin'?" he asked, as he seated himself beside the clerk upon a damaged York boat.

"I wired you that the deal was closed, and the pulp-wood is safe. But there have been complications that you could never suspect."

"So?"

"Yes. In the first, you were dead right about Wentworth--about not trusting him. And you knew who he expected to let in on the deal?"

"Why, Orcutt, of course," replied McNabb. "I know all about that. That's why I told ye to hold off till the last minute about closing."

"But you couldn't have foreseen that Orcutt wouldn't bother to set his watch back, or that they would use his watch in concluding their deal."

McNabb shook his head. "No, an' I don't know yet what ye're talkin' about. All I know is, that Orcutt thinks he has got title to the pulp-wood. We met him back at the railway, an' he took pains to tell me about it. What puzzles me is, how did ye work it so that after two weeks have gone by he still thinks he owns the timber?"