The Valley of the Giants Part 47

Her violet eyes were uplifted to his, and in them he read the answer to his cry. "Ah, may I?" he murmured, and kissed her.

"Oh, my dear, impulsive, gentle big sweetheart," she whispered--and then her arms went around his neck, and the fullness of her happiness found vent in tears he did not seek to have her repress. In the safe haven of his arms she rested; and there, quite without effort or distress, she managed to convey to him something more than an inkling of the thoughts that were wont to come to her whenever they met.

"Oh, my love!" he cried happily, "I hadn't dared dream of such happiness until to-day. You were so unattainable--the obstacles between us were so many and so great--"

"Why to-day, Bryce?" she interrupted him.

He took her adorable little nose in his great thumb and forefinger and tweaked it gently. "The light began to dawn yesterday, my dear little enemy, following an interesting half-hour which I put in with His Honour the Mayor. Acting upon suspicion only, I told Poundstone I was prepared to send him to the rock-pile if he didn't behave himself in the matter of my permanent franchise for the N.C.O.--and the oily old invertebrate wept and promised me anything if I wouldn't disgrace him. So I promised I wouldn't do anything until the franchise matter should be definitely settled--after which I returned to my office, to find awaiting me there no less a person than the right-of-way man for the Northwestern Pacific. He was a perfectly delightful young fellow, and he had a proposition to unfold. It seems the Northwestern Pacific has decided to build up from Willits, and all that powwow and publicity of Buck Ogilvy's about the N.C.O. was in all probability the very thing that spurred them to action. They figured the C.M. & St.P. was back of the N.C.O.--that it was to be the first link of a chain of coast roads to be connected ultimately with the terminus of the C.M. & St.P. on Gray's Harbour, Was.h.i.+ngton, and if the N.C.O.

should be built, it meant that a rival road would get the edge on them in the matter of every stick of Humboldt and Del Norte redwood-- and they'd be left holding the sack." "Why did they think that, dear?"

"That amazing rascal Buck Ogilvy used to be a C. M. me that the money had been deposited in escrow there awaiting formal deed. That money puts the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company in the clear--no receivers.h.i.+p for us now, my dear one. And I'm going right ahead with the building of the N.C.O.--while our holdings down on the San Hedrin double in value, for the reason that within three years they will be accessible and can be logged over the rails of the Northwestern Pacific!"

"Bryce," s.h.i.+rley declared, "haven't I always told you I'd never permit you to build the N.C.O.?"

"Of course," he replied, "but surely you're going to withdraw your objections now."

"I am not. You must choose between the N.C.O. and me." And she met his surprised gaze unflinchingly.

"s.h.i.+rley! You don't mean it?"

"I do mean it. I have always meant it. I love you, dear, but for all that, you must not build that road."

He stood up and towered above her sternly. "I must build it, s.h.i.+rley.

I've contracted to do it, and I must keep faith with Gregory of the Trinidad Timber Company. He's putting up the money, and I'm to do the work and operate the line. I can't go back on him now."

"Not for my sake?" she pleaded. He shook his head. "I must go on," he reiterated.

"Do you realize what that resolution means to us?" The girl's tones were grave, her glance graver.

"I realize what it means to me!"

She came closer to him. Suddenly the blaze in her violet eyes gave way to one of mirth. "Oh, you dear big b.o.o.by!" she cried. "I was just testing you." And she clung to him, laughing. "You always beat me down--you always win. Bryce, dear, I'm the Laguna Grande Lumber Company--at least, I will be to-morrow, and I repeat for the last time that you shall NOT build the N.C.O.--because I'm going to--oh, dear, I shall die laughing at you--because I'm going to merge with the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, and then my railroad shall be your railroad, and we'll extend it and haul Gregory's logs to tidewater for him also. And--silly, didn't I tell you you'd never build the N.C.O.?"

"G.o.d bless my mildewed soul!" he murmured, and drew her to him.

In the gathering dusk they walked down the trail. Beside the madrone tree John Cardigan waited patiently.

"Well," he queried when they joined him, "did you find my handkerchief for me, son?"

"I didn't find your handkerchief, John Cardigan," Bryce answered, "but I did find what I suspect you sent me back for--and that is a perfectly wonderful daughter-in-law for you."

John Cardigan smiled and held out his arms for her. "This," he said, "is the happiest day that I have known since my boy was born."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

Colonel Seth Pennington was thoroughly crushed. Look which way he would, the bedevilled old rascal could find no loophole for escape.

"You win, Cardigan," he muttered desperately as he sat in his office after s.h.i.+rley had left him. "You've had more than a shade in every round thus far, and at the finish you've landed a clean knockout. If I had to fight any man but you--"

He sighed resignedly and pressed the push-b.u.t.ton on his desk. s.e.xton entered. "s.e.xton," he said bluntly and with a slight quiver in his voice, "my niece and I have had a disagreement. We have quarrelled over young Cardigan. She's going to marry him. Now, our affairs are somewhat involved, and in order to straighten them out, we spun a coin to see whether she should sell her stock in Laguna Grande to me or whether I should sell mine to her--and I lost. The book-valuation of the stock at the close of last year's business, plus ten per cent.

will determine the selling price, and I shall resign as president.

You will, in all probability, be retained to manage the company until it is merged with the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company--when, I imagine, you will be given ample notice to seek a new job elsewhere.

Call Miss Sumner's attorney, Judge Moore, on the telephone and ask him to come to the office at nine o'clock to-morrow, when the papers can be drawn up and signed. That is all."

The Colonel did not return to his home in Redwood Boulevard that night. He had no appet.i.te for dinner and sat brooding in his office until very late; then he went to the Hotel Sequoia and engaged a room. He did not possess sufficient courage to face his niece again.

At four o'clock the next day the Colonel, his baggage, his automobile, his chauffeur, and the solemn butler James, boarded the pa.s.senger steamer for San Francisco, and at four-thirty sailed out of Humboldt Bay over the thundering bar and on into the south. The Colonel was still a rich man, but his dream of a redwood empire had faded, and once more he was taking up the search for cheap timber.

Whether he ever found it or not is a matter that does not concern us.

At a moment when young Henry Poundstone's dream of legal opulence was fading, when Mayor Poundstone's hopes for domestic peace had been shattered beyond repair, the while his cheap political aspirations had been equally devastated because of a certain d.a.m.nable doc.u.ment in the possession of Bryce Cardigan, many events of importance were transpiring. On the veranda of his old-fas.h.i.+oned home, John Cardigan sat tapping the floor with his stick and dreaming dreams which, for the first time in many years, were rose-tinted. Beside him s.h.i.+rley sat, her glance bent musingly out across the roofs of Sequoia and on to the bay sh.o.r.e, where the smoke and exhaust-steam floated up from two sawmills--her own and Bryce Cardigan's. To her came at regularly s.p.a.ced intervals the faint whining of the saws and the rumble of log- trains crawling out on the log-dumps; high over the piles of bright, freshly sawed lumber she caught from time to time the flash of white spray as the great logs tossed from the trucks, hurtled down the skids, and crashed into the Bay. At the docks of both mills vessels were loading, their tall spars cutting the skyline above and beyond the smokestacks; far down the Bay a steam schooner, loaded until her main-deck was almost flush with the water, was putting out to sea, and s.h.i.+rley heard the faint echo of her siren as she whistled her intention to pa.s.s to starboard of a wind-jammer inward bound in tow of a Cardigan tug.

"It's wonderful," she said presently, apropos of nothing.

"Aye," he replied in his deep, melodious voice, "I've been sitting here, my dear, listening to your thoughts. You know something, now, of the tie that binds my boy to Sequoia. This"--he waved his arm abroad in the darkness--"this is the true essence of life--to create, to develop the gifts that G.o.d has given us--to work and know the blessing of weariness--to have dreams and see them come true. That is life, and I have lived. And now I am ready to rest." He smiled wistfully. "'The king is dead. Long live the king.' I wonder if you, raised as you have been, can face life in Sequoia resolutely with my son. It is a dull, drab sawmill town, where life unfolds gradually without thrill--where the years stretch ahead of one with only trees, among simple folk. The life may be hard on you, s.h.i.+rley; one has to acquire a taste for it, you know."

"I have known the lilt of battle, John-partner," she answered; "hence I think I can enjoy the sweets of victory. I am content."

"And what a run you did give that boy Bryce!"

She laughed softly. "I wanted him to fight; I had a great curiosity to see the stuff that was in him," she explained.

CHAPTER XL

Next day Bryce Cardigan, riding the top log on the end truck of a long train just in from Cardigan's woods in Towns.h.i.+p Nine, dropped from the end of the log as the train crawled through the mill-yard on its way to the log-dump. He hailed Buck Ogilvy, where the latter stood in the door of the office.

"Big doings up on Little Laurel Creek this morning, Buck."

"Do tell!" Mr. Ogilvy murmured morosely.

"It was great," Bryce continued. "Old Duncan McTavish returned. I knew he would. His year on the mourner's-bench expired yesterday, and he came back to claim his old job of woods-boss."

"He's one year too late," Ogilvy declared. "I wouldn't let that big Canadian Jules Rondeau quit for a farm. Some woods-boss, that--and his first job with this company was the dirtiest you could hand him-- smearing grease on the skid-road at a dollar and a half a day and found. He's made too good to lose out now. I don't care what his private morals may be. He CAN get out the logs, hang his rascally hide, and I'm for him."

"I'm afraid you haven't anything to say about it, Buck," Bryce replied dryly.

"I haven't, eh? Well, any time you deny me the privilege of hiring and firing, you're going to be out the service of a rattling good general manager, my son. Yes, sir! If you hold me responsible for results, I must select the tools I want to work with."

"Oh, very well," Bryce laughed. "Have it your own way. Only if you can drive Duncan McTavish out of Cardigan's woods, I'd like to see you do it. Possession is nine points of the law, Buck--and Old Duncan is in possession."

"What do you mean--in possession?"