The Challenge of the North Part 12

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 s.h.i.+fting 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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 d.a.m.ned 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 pa.s.sed into the hands of the Eureka Paper Company of which I am president. I signed the contract and paid over the money myself at G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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."