CHAPTER XXVII

JORDAN'S SCHEME

Carnforth had been gone some twenty minutes when Eleanor stood among the orchard grass, from which the ranks of blackened fir-stumps rose outside the ranch. She had recovered her composure, and was looking toward the dusty road which wound, a sinuous white ribbon, between the somber firs. Jordan, whom she had not expected to see just then, was walking along it with Forster, and, since it was evident that he must have met Carnforth, she was wondering, with a somewhat natural shrinking from doing so, how far it would be necessary to take him into her confidence. This, as she recognized, must be done eventually; but she was not sure that her legitimate lover would be in a mood to understand or appreciate her course of action when fresh from a meeting with the one she had discarded. Jordan had laid very little restraint upon her, but he was, after all, human and had a temper.

She lost sight of the two men for a few minutes when they passed behind a great colonnade of fir-trunks that partly obscured her view of the road, but she could see them plainly when they emerged again from the shadow. Instead of turning toward the house they came toward her, and there was, she noticed, a curious red mark on Jordan's cheek, as well as a broad smear of dust on his soft hat, which appeared somewhat crushed. His attire was also disordered, and his face was darker in color than usual. Forster, who walked a pace or two behind him, because the path through the grass was narrow, also appeared disturbed in mind, and when they stopped close by the girl it was he who spoke first.

"I had gone down the road to see whether there was any sign of Mrs. Forster when I came upon Mr. Jordan; and, considering how he was engaged, it is perhaps fortunate that I did," he said. "Although it is not exactly my business, I can't help fancying that you have something to say to him."

He went on, but he had said enough to leave Eleanor with a tolerably accurate notion of what had happened, and to make it clear that he was not altogether pleased. The rancher and his wife were easy-going, kindly people, with liberal views, but it was evident that their toleration would not cover everything. Then she turned to Jordan, who stood looking at her steadily with a certain hardness in his face, and the red mark showing very plainly on his cheek.

"Well," she said, "how did you get here?"

"On my feet," said Jordan. "There was little to do this afternoon in the city, and two or three things were worrying me. It struck me that I'd walk it off, and I'm glad I did."

"Ah!" said Eleanor, "won't you go on a little?'"

"It's what I mean to do. I met Carnforth driving away from here, and since the fact that he has been here quite often has been troubling me lately, I invited him to pull up right away. When he didn't do it I managed to get hold of the horses' heads, and went right across the road with them. Still, I stopped the team, and I was getting up to talk to Carnforth when Forster came along. I hated to see him then."

Somewhat to his astonishment, Eleanor laughed softly. "Forster persuaded you to abandon the--discussion?"

"He did. If there's a split up the back of my jacket, as I believe there is, he made it. Anyway, he wasn't quite pleased, and I don't blame him. He and his wife have let you do 'most whatever you like, but, after all, you couldn't expect them to put up with everything."

"Or expect too much from you? You feel you have borne a good deal, Charley? Well, Forster was right in one respect. We have something to say to each other, and it may take a little time. There is a big fir he has just chopped yonder."

She walked slowly toward the fallen tree, and seated herself on a great branch before she turned to the man who was about to take a place beside her.

"No," she said, "you can stand there, Charley, where I can see you. To commence with, how much confidence have you in me?"

"All that a man could have;" and there was no doubt about Jordan's sincerity. "Still, I don't like Carnforth. He's not fit for you to talk to, and I can't have him coming here. In fact, I'll see that he doesn't. I've wanted to say this for quite a while, but it would have pleased me better to say it first to him. That's one reason why I feel it's particularly unfortunate Forster didn't stay away a minute or two longer."

A faint tinge of color crept into Eleanor's cheek, but she looked at him with a smile.

"Charley," she said, "I am a little sorry too that Forster came along when he did. I don't know that it's what every girl would say, but I think if you had thrashed that man to within an inch of his life it would have pleased me."

She stopped for a moment, and the color grew a trifle plainer in her face, though there was no wavering in her gaze. "I want you to understand that I knew just what that man was--and still I led him on. It is a little hard to speak of; but one has to be honest, and when it is necessary I think both of us can face an unpleasant thing. Well, I encouraged him because I couldn't see how I was to attain my object any other way. Still, you mustn't suppose it cost me nothing. It hurt all the time--hurt me horribly--and now I almost feel that I shall never shake off the contamination."

The man, who did not know yet what her purpose was, realized that the task she had undertaken must have heavily taxed her strength and courage. He knew that she was vindictive, and one who was not addicted to counting the cost, but he also knew that there was a certain Puritanical pride in her which must have rendered the part she had played almost insufferably repulsive. His face burned as he thought of it, and he drew in his breath with a curious little gasp while he gazed at her with a look in his eyes that sent a thrill of dismay through her.

"Oh!" she said, "don't ask, Charley. I couldn't bear that from you. I--I kept him at a due distance all the time."

Jordan's tense face relaxed. "I can't forgive Forster for coming along when he did," he said. "Eleanor, you have courage enough for anything. In one way, it isn't natural."

"You have felt that now and then?"

The man said nothing for almost a minute, for he was still a little shaken by what she had told him. It had roused him to fierce resentment and brought the blood to his face, but he now recognized that there were respects in which the momentary dismay of which he had been sensible was groundless. She had given him sympathy and encouragement freely, and at times had shown him a certain half-reserved tenderness, but very little more, and he felt that it should have been quite clear to him that she had unbent no further toward the stranger. Then he straightened himself as he looked at her.

"My dear," he said, "I needn't tell you there is nobody on this earth I would place beside you."

Eleanor smiled wistfully. "Ah!" she said, "I like to hear you say that, though it is, of course, foolish of you; and perhaps I shall change and be gentler and more like other women some day. Still, that wouldn't be advisable just now. We must wait, and in the meanwhile there are other things to think of. Listen for a minute, and you will understand why I led Carnforth on. He is, of course, never coming here again."

She told him quietly all she had heard respecting Merril's affairs, and when at last she stopped, Jordan made an abrupt gesture.

"It's a pity I can't act upon what you have told me," he said.

"You can't act upon it?"

"No," said Jordan firmly. "You should never have done it--it cost you too much. Oh, I know the shame and humiliation it must have brought you. You can't make things like these counters in a business deal."

"You must;" and Eleanor's eyes grew suddenly hard again. "Is all I have gained by doing what I loathed to be thrown away? Listen, Charley. I loved my father, and looked up to him until Merril laid a trap for him. Then he went downhill, and I had to watch his courage and control being sapped away. He lost it all, and his manhood, too, and died crazed with rank whisky."

She rose, and stood very straight, pale in face and quivering a little. "Could anything ever drive out the memory of that horrible night? You could hardly bear what had to be done, and you can fancy what it must have been to me--who loved him. Can I forgive the man who brought that on him?"

Jordan shivered a little with pity and horror, as the scene in the room where the burned man gasped out his life in an extremity of pain rose up before him. Then he was conscious that Eleanor had recovered herself and was looking at him steadily.

"Charley," she said, "you must stand by me in this, or go away and never speak to me again. There is no alternative. Only support me now, and afterward I will obey you for the rest of our lives."

The man realized that she meant it, and though it cost him an effort, he made a sign of resignation.

"Then," he said, "it must be as you wish. And I guess, after what you have told me, we hold Merril in our hand. That is, if Jimmy and I can do our part."

Both of them had felt the tension, and now that it had slackened they said nothing for several minutes as they walked toward the house. Then Eleanor turned to her companion.

"I am glad I can depend on you," she said. "When the pinch comes Jimmy will fail us."

"Jimmy," said Jordan quietly, "is your brother as well as my friend."

"Ah!" said Eleanor, "don't misunderstand. Jimmy would flinch from nothing on a steamer's bridge. Still, it isn't nerve of that kind that will be needed, and Miss Merril has a hold on him."

Jordan saw the faint sparkle in her eyes. "After all, you can't hold the girl responsible for her father?"

"I do," said Eleanor, with a curious bitter smile. "At least, I would keep her away from Jimmy."

Jordan said nothing, but there was trouble in his face, for he had seen how things were going, and though he was Eleanor's lover he was Jimmy's friend. When they reached the ranch they found that Mrs. Forster had come back, and she glanced at Jordan with a smile in her eyes when he crossed the room.

"Do you know that you have split your jacket up the back?" she asked.

Jordan looked reproachfully at Forster. "Well," he said, "I almost think that your husband does."

"Then he will lend you another one while I sew it for you."

"One would fancy that Eleanor would prefer to do it," said the rancher dryly.

His wife pursed up her face. "It is possible that she may bring herself to do such things by and by. Still, I can't quite imagine Eleanor quietly sitting down and mending a man's clothes."

Jordan laughed. "It's quite likely that she'll have to. It depends on how the _Shasta_ pleases the miners. Forster, I'll trouble you to lend me a jacket. I guess you owe it to me."

Forster promised to get him the garment, and when they went away together his wife asked Eleanor a plain question or two. It was some time before she said anything to her husband about that interview, but she appeared somewhat thoughtful until supper was brought in. Shortly after it was over Jordan, who borrowed a horse from Forster, rode away, and the rancher, who was sitting on the veranda, smiled at his wife when Eleanor walked back from the slip-rails toward the house.

"Well," he said reflectively, "though I'm rather fond of Miss Wheelock, I can't help thinking that Jordan is an unusually courageous man. It is fortunate that he is so, considering everything."

Mrs. Forster flashed a keen glance at him, but it said a good deal for her capability of keeping a promise that she contented herself with a simple question.

"Why?" she asked.

"He expects to marry her," said Forster dryly.

In the meanwhile Jordan was riding down the dusty road, and thinking out a scheme which, though he had been reluctant to adopt it in the first case, was now commencing to compel his attention. As the result of this, he spent most of the evening in certain second-rate saloons where sailormen and wharf-hands congregated, which, though he had been well acquainted with such places in his struggling days, was a thing he had not done for several years. However, he came across one or two men there who, while they were probably not aware of it, gave him a little useful information, and he had a project in his mind when he went on board the _Shasta_ on the following morning. She was then in the hands of the ship-carpenters, for, although the treasure-seekers in their haste to reach the auriferous north would if necessary have gone in a canoe, it was evident that the _Shasta_ Company must offer them at least some kind of shelter in view of the opposition of larger vessels. Jordan also knew that niggardliness is not always profitable, and the new passenger deck that was being laid along the beams was well planned and comfortable. He drew Jimmy into the room beneath the bridge, and taking out his cigar-case laid it on the table.

"Take one. We have got to talk," he said. "Now, the _Shasta_'s out after money, and it 'most seems to me that Merril is going to have an opportunity for providing some of it. You don't know any reason why you shouldn't get what he screwed out of your father, and, perhaps, a little more, out of him?"

"No," said Jimmy grimly, though there was a shadow on his face; "I could find a certain pleasure in making him feel the screw in turn."

"Then I'll show you how it can be done. But first of all we'll go back a little. Merril has had to make the road to his pulp-mill, and it's costing him and the other men a lot of money. His particular share is quite a big one. Then he's saddled with an old-type steamer that can't be run economically, and, as you know, we'll have to come down in freight and passage rates now that the other people are putting on new boats. Besides, Carnforth, who was to take a big share in the concern, is going to leave him."

"How do you know that?"

Jordan hesitated for a moment. "Well," he said, "I do, and that's about all I mean to tell you. Anyway, I've cause for believing that Merril is tightly fixed for money, and can't lay his hands on it. There are reasons why he couldn't let up on the pulp-mill if he wanted. Still, there is one way he could get the money, and that is by making the underwriters, who hold the steamboat covered, provide it."

"Ah!" said Jimmy, "it wouldn't be very difficult either."

His companion smiled dryly. "I have a notion how she is insured, and, so far as I can gather, it's under an economical policy. Underwriters face total constructive loss, but don't stand in for minor damage or salvage. Well, I've ground for believing the thing is to be done by the engineer, and he is a man who has to do just what Merril tells him. You and Fleming could figure out how he will probably manage. But one thing is clear: when that steamboat's engines give out you have got to be somewhere round to salve her."

"You are sure of this?" asked Jimmy. "What makes you so?"

Jordan did not answer him for a moment, and once more there was hesitation in his manner.

"Well," he said, "that is my affair, and I've been worrying over it quite a while now. Anyway, I think it's a sure thing."

"What do you purpose if I salve that steamer and we find anything wrong on board her?"

"In that case I'm not sure the salvage will content the _Shasta_ Company. It's admissible to break your trading opponent. As I tried to show you, Merril's tightly fixed, and while the man's quite clever enough to wriggle loose, it will be our business to see that he doesn't."

Jimmy sat still for a few moments with trouble in his face, which was hard and grim, until his comrade turned to him again.

"Jimmy," he said quietly, "that man had no pity on your father. The thing has to be done, and the _Shasta_ Company stood by you. We have got to have that salvage, and you're not going to go back on us now."

Jimmy stood up and straightened himself in a curious slow fashion. "No," he said, "I'm with you. As you say, the thing has to be done--and it naturally falls to me. Well, though it'll probably cost me a good deal, I'm ready. When do you expect him to try it?"

"I don't quite know--you couldn't expect me to. Still, I should figure it won't be until she goes north, after the lay-off, in spring. Guess he'll hold on as long as he can. Freights won't drop much before then."

He rose and laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder as they went out. "I think I understand how you are fixed, but you have to face it," he went on. "There's another thing I want to mention. If you can, get hold of Merril's engineer, and scare him into some admission."