The Challenge of the North Part 14

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 t.i.tle 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?"

"I didn't work it. He came up here on the twenty-ninth and waited around until the first of July. Then he and Cameron went over to the shack and concluded the deal, using Orcutt's watch, which was Terrace City time--an hour fast. Then Orcutt and Wentworth hit straight for the mill site, saying they were coming back in two days. Half an hour later I called Cameron's attention to the error in time and took up the options for you. After the papers were signed he decided to wait for the return of Orcutt and Wentworth. But they didn't return. He waited for a week, and then went to look for them. They haven't shown up yet."

Old John was chuckling aloud. "An' the Eureka Paper Company's stuff is rollin' down my tote-road as fast as they can unload it."

"Do you mean they've started to haul the material for their mill?"

"Aye, not only material but machinery."

"But what's become of Cameron?"

"Losh, lad, I don't even know the man. We won't worry about him."

"But why did you want to put off the closing till the last minute?"

McNabb grinned. "Why did you let Jean wear the sable coat?" he asked in return. "'Twas only to string Orcutt along, thinkin' he had me bested till the last minute--then bring him up with a jolt. I didn't know it would work out so lucky for me."

"How do you mean--lucky?"

"You wait an' see," grinned McNabb. "D'ye know, Orcutt offered me ten thousand dollars for my tote-road? An' it cost me a hundred thousand!"

A long silence followed McNabb's words, during which Hedin cleared his throat several times. The older man smoked his pipe, and cast covert glances out of the tail of his eye. Finally he spoke. "What's on ye're mind, lad? Speak out."

Hedin hesitated a moment and plunged into the thing he had dreaded to say. "Mr. McNabb, I've been up here several months now--" he hesitated, and as the other made no comment, proceeded. "I have come to like the country. It--I don't think--that is, I don't want to go back to Terrace City. You can understand, can't you? You have lived in the North. I wasn't born to be a clerk. I hate it! My father was a real man. He lived, and he died like a man. This is a man's country. I am going to stay." Hedin had expected an outburst of temper, and had steeled himself to withstand it. Instead, Old John McNabb nodded slowly as he continued to puff at his pipe.

"So ye're tired of workin' for me. Ye want to quit----"

"It isn't that. I would rather work for you than any man I ever knew.

You have been like a father to me. You will never know how I have appreciated that. I know it seems ungrateful. But the North has got me. I never again could do your work justice. My heart wouldn't be in my work. It would be here."

"An' will ye keep on workin' for Murchison? What will he pay ye?"

"It isn't the pay. I don't care about that. I have no one but myself to think of. And Murchison said that with my knowledge of fur the Company would soon give me a post of my own."

"But--what of the future, lad?"

Hedin shrugged. "All I ask of the future," he answered, and McNabb noted just a touch of bitterness in the tone, "is that I may live it in the North."

"H-m-m," said McNabb, knocking the ashes from his pipe, "I guess the North has got ye, lad. An' I'm afraid it's got Jean. The la.s.s has been rantin' about it ever since we left the railway. But--who is that? Yonder, just goin' into the post? My old eyes ain't so good in the twilight."

"Wentworth!" exclaimed Hedin, leaping to his feet. "Come on! The time has come for a showdown!"

Hedin's voice rasped harsh, and McNabb noticed that the younger man's fists were clenched as he laid a restraining hand upon his arm. "Take it easy lad," he said. "Maybe it's better we should play a waitin'

game."

"Waiting game!" cried Hedin. "I've been playing a waiting game for months--and I'm through. Good G.o.d, man! Do you think my nerves are of iron? I love Jean--love her as it is possible for a man to love one woman. I have loved her for years, and I will always love her. And I've lost her. That d.a.m.ned cad with his airs and his graces has won her completely away. But, by G.o.d, he'll never have her! I'll show him up in his true colors----"

"An' with him out of the way, lad, ye'll then----"

"With him out of the way she'll despise me!" interrupted Hedin. "She will never marry him out of loyalty to you, when she finds out he has tried to knife you. I haven't told you all I know--when he falls, he'll fall hard! But I know what women think, and I know she'll despise me for disguising myself and spying on him."

"If ye know what women think, lad, ye're the wisest man G.o.d has yet made, an' as such I'm proud to know ye."

"It is no time to joke," answered Hedin bitterly. "That's a thing I've never been able to fathom, why you always joke in the face of a serious situation, and then turn around and raise h.e.l.l over some trivial matter that don't amount to a hill of beans."

McNabb grinned. "Do I?" he asked. "Well, maybe ye're right. But listen, lad, I know ye've regard for me, an' I'm askin' as a personal favor that ye hold off a bit with your denouncement of yon Wentworth.

Just play the game as ye've been playin' it. Keep on bein' Sven La.r.s.en, the factor's clerk, heavy of wit, an' able with fool questions.

Ye've a fine faculty for actin'; for all durin' supper the la.s.s never suspected ye. Keep it up for a while; it won't be for long."

"But what's the good of it? We know as much as we'll ever know. Man, do you know what you're asking? Loving Jean as I love her, I must stand about and play the fool, while that d.a.m.ned thief basks in her favor under my very eyes! If there were a good reason, it would be different. But Wentworth and Orcutt can go no farther; they're done----"

"Aye, but they're not done," interrupted McNabb. "Ye'll be knowin' me well enough to know I always have a reason for the things that I do.

It's a hard thing I'm askin' of ye, an' in this case I'll show ye the reason, though 'tis not my habit. D'ye mind I told ye that the Eureka material was rollin' down the tote-road by the truck load? Thousands of dollars worth of it every day is bein' delivered at the mill site.

Why? Because for some reason Orcutt has not yet found out that he does not own the timber. The minute he does find out, not another pound will be delivered."

"You mean----?"

"I mean that portland cement, an' the reinforcin' steel, an' plate an'

whatever else goes into the construction of a paper mill is bein' set down on the Shamattawa, one hundred miles from a railway at Orcutt's expense. And that every ton of it is stuff that won't pay its way out of the woods. The freight an' the haulin' one way doubles the cost.

An' even if he tried to take it out, he'd have a hundred miles of tote-road to build. Eureka freight travels only one way on McNabb's tote-road--an' that way is in!"

Hedin stared at the man in astonishment. "And you can buy it at your own figure!" he cried. "Why, you can prevent even his empty trucks from going back. G.o.d, man, it will ruin Orcutt!"

"'Tis his own doin's," answered the man. "'Twill serve him right. He should have 'tended to his bankin' instead of pickin' on poor old John McNabb, that should be back of his counter sellin' thread, as he told me himself. Ten cents on the dollar he offered for my tote-road."

"I'll do it!" exclaimed Hedin. "It will be hard, but it will be worth it, to see that crook get what's coming to him. And then I'm going away. Murchison will give me a letter, and I'll strike the Company for a job."

McNabb nodded. "I guess ye're right, about not goin' back to the store," he said slowly. "Your heart is in the North."

There was a strange lump in Hedin's throat. He glanced into the face of his employer, and was surprised at a certain softness in the shrewd gray eyes that gazed far out over the lake. After a time the old man spoke, more to himself than to him. "Ye could both run down for a month or two in the winter!"

"What?" asked Hedin, regarding the speaker with a puzzled expression.

"Both of who? A factor only gets away in the summer."