The Challenge of the North Part 15

"So they do--so they do," answered McNabb, absently. "Well, we'll be goin' back now. My engineer, maybe, will be wantin' a conference."

XXIV

A rather strained silence greeted the entrance of McNabb into the trading room. Jean and Murchison occupied the only two chairs the room boasted, and Wentworth leaned against the counter, a half-sneering smile on his lips. McNabb advanced to the group beneath the huge swinging lamp, and Sven La.r.s.en lingered in the shadows near the door.

The half-sneer changed to a look of open defiance, as Wentworth faced McNabb. "It seems," he said truculently, "that I am guilty of a serious _faux pas_ in mentioning a bit of Terrace City scandal that reached my ears concerning the elopement of your estimable fur clerk, Hedin, and a Russian sable coat. The idiot didn't have the brains to get away with it. If you'd have been wiser you would have waited until you could have laid hands on the coat, and then locked up your fur clerk."

"H-m-m, maybe ye're right," answered McNabb.

"And," continued Wentworth, emboldened by the placidity of the other's tone, "if you had been wiser, you wouldn't have lost your pulp-wood holdings. Oh, there's no use beating about the bush--I knew the minute Jean told me you had come in by the tote-road, that you had seen the Eureka trucks hauling in Eureka material. We put one over on you, McNabb, and you might as well be a sport and make the best of it."

The old Scot nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe ye're right," he admitted.

"But wasn't it a bit scurvy trick ye played me, acceptin' my money an'

usin' it to double-cross me?"

"Business, my dear man! Merely business! I saw my chance, and I took it, that's all. Ten thousand a year, and a ten percent interest in a paper mill isn't so poor--and I'm not yet thirty. It takes brains to make money, and you can bet I'll make my money before my brain begins to slip cogs. It's expensive--this slipping of cogs."

"Maybe ye're right," repeated McNabb.

"I'll tell the world I'm right! It won't be but a few years till I'll be the big noise around this part of Canada! Brains to figure out a proposition, and nerve to carry it through--that's all it takes to make this old world pay up what it owes you."

"How he hates himself!" exclaimed Jean, and from his position in the shadows, Hedin saw that her eyes flashed.

His heart gave a great bound, and it was with an effort that he restrained himself from pus.h.i.+ng into the group. Was it possible--? A step sounded outside, and the next moment the screen door swung open to admit the figure of a man who strode into the lamp-light and glanced about the faces of the a.s.sembly.

The man was Cameron.

"A fine two days' stay you made of your trip to the mill site," he grumbled, addressing Wentworth. "I waited here for a week for you or Orcutt to show up, and then I decided to hunt you. I followed you to Winnipeg, and from there to Ottawa, and back again to the head of the tote-road. Orcutt had left for the States the day before I got there, but they said you were down at the mill site. I rode down on a truck only to find that you had come over here for your outfit."

"Well, now you've found me, what's on your mind?" grinned Wentworth.

"I have a memorandum here in my pocket signed by Orcutt in which he authorized you to transact any and all business regarding the pulp-wood lands."

"That's correct," admitted Wentworth. "I am a stockholder, an officer in the company, and its sole representative in the field. Fire away.

What's this business that's so all-fired important as to send you chasing all over Canada to reach me?"

"My business," replied Cameron gravely, "is to return to you as representative of the Eureka Paper Company, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which amount was paid over to me by Mr. Orcutt, and which represents the initial payment of ten percent of the purchase price of certain pulp-wood lands described in the accompanying contract of sale."

"Return the money!" cried Wentworth. "What do you mean?"

"Simply, that the deal is off. Or, rather, no valid transaction was ever consummated."

Every particle of color faded from the engineer's face at the words.

As he glanced wildly about him his eye caught a twinkle in the eyes of McNabb. The color flooded his face in a surge of red, and his eyes seemed to bulge with rage as he groped for words. "It's a d.a.m.ned lie!"

he cried. "A trick of McNabb's!" He turned upon the older man: "I thought you took your defeat too easy, but you'll find you can't put anything over on me! The deal stands--and we'll fight you to the last court! If you've found some petty technicality in the contract, you better forget it. We've gone ahead in good faith and spent a million.

We can employ as good lawyers as you can, and the courts won't stand for any quibbling! It's a case for the equity courts."

Cameron smiled grimly. "I am a lawyer, and as such you will permit the smile at your mention of the equity court. You would not be allowed to enter its doors. For its first precept is: He who comes into equity must come with clean hands. Are your hands clean? I think not--neither your hands nor Orcutt's. But, the matter will never reach the courts. There is no question of a technical error in the contract, because there is no contract. The instrument I drew, and which was signed by Orcutt and myself, has no legal existence. No valid contract could have been drawn relative to the disposal of those lands until the options held by Mr. McNabb had expired----"

"But they had expired!" cried Wentworth. "They expired at twelve o'clock, noon, of July first, and the contract was not signed until two or three minutes after twelve."

"By Orcutt's watch," retorted Cameron. "And Orcutt's watch was an hour faster than official time. I had no reason to suppose his watch was wrong, and believed the time had expired, until I was confronted, after your departure, by the accredited representative of McNabb. I was dumbfounded until I established the fact that he was within his rights in tendering payment and closing the transaction for his princ.i.p.al.

Then there was no course open to me but to accept McNabb's money and conclude the transfer to him. Murchison, here, is a witness, that the facts are as I have stated them."

Wentworth's eyes flew to the face of the factor, who nodded emphatically. Again the color left his face. "It's a d.a.m.ned trick!"

he muttered. "Why didn't you notify us at once, instead of waiting nearly three weeks and allowing us to spend more than a million dollars?"

"Orcutt told me he would return to the post in two days. I waited, and when a week went by I used every means in my power to reach him. I followed him by train. I learned his address and wired the facts to his bank. The fault is his own. I am sorry you have lost so heavily----"

"It isn't my money," Wentworth cried savagely. Then he suddenly paused, and for upwards of thirty seconds the room was in dead silence.

When he spoke again, it was in a voice palpably held in control.

"I guess you have got us," he said. "There seems to be nothing for me to do but accept the money." He held out his hand as Cameron slowly counted out the big bills. Then without recounting, Wentworth thrust them into his pocket, and with quick, nervous strokes of his pen signed the receipt which Cameron placed before him. Then in a voice trembling with suppressed rage he faced McNabb. "d.a.m.n you!" he cried. "I thought--Orcutt said you were beginning to slip!"

"Well, maybe he's right," admitted McNabb, and the engineer saw that his lips twitched at the corners.

"Who was your representative?" he demanded abruptly. "And, how did it come that he arrived just in the nick of time?"

"Why, his name is Sven La.r.s.en. He's Murchison's clerk," answered the Scot. "And he was here all the time."

"Sven La.r.s.en!" yelled Wentworth. "That half-wit! Why, he hasn't got sense enough to come in out of the rain!"

"Maybe ye're right," admitted McNabb, "but that isn't what I hired him to do."

With an oath, Wentworth pushed past Cameron and started for the door to find himself suddenly face to face with Sven La.r.s.en. "Get out of my way, d.a.m.n you!" he cried. "Go up in the loft and wallow in your stinking furs!"

"Furs!" repeated the clerk dully, but without giving an inch. "Oh, yes, furs." He was looking Wentworth squarely in the eyes with a heavy stare. "Some fur is good, and some is bad. A Russian sable is better than a baum marten." At the words, Jean McNabb, who had been a silent but fascinated listener to all that transpired, leaned swiftly forward, her eyes staring into the uncouth face of the speaker, who continued, "And when the coat is dark, and of matched skins, it is very much better than any baum marten. And when one receives the sable coat on a winter's night from the hands of a beautiful Russian princess whom one is helping to escape through a roaring blizzard in a motor car--or was it a sleigh?"

"Stop, d.a.m.n you!" In the lamp-light the on-lookers saw that the face of the engineer had gone livid. His words came thickly. "You fool!

Are you crazy? Have you forgotten Pollak, and what happened in the shop of Levinski, the furrier? Where is Pollak?"

A slow grin overspread the face of Sven La.r.s.en. "I invented Pollak to cover a mistake I made. There never was any Pollak, Wentworth, but there is a Russian sable coat. The coat is in your trunk in the cabin.

It is the coat you stole from Miss McNabb on the night of the Campbell dinner."

"Oskar!" cried Jean, leaping from her chair at the moment that Wentworth hurled himself upon Hedin. Her cry was drowned in the swift impact of bodies and the sound of blows, and grunts, and heavy breathing. McNabb and Cameron drew back and the bodies, locked in a clench, toppled to the floor, overturning a chair.

"Oh, stop them! Stop them!" shrieked the girl. "He'll kill him!"

"Who'll kill who?" grinned McNabb, holding her back with one hand, without taking his eyes from the struggling, fighting figures that writhed almost at his feet, overturning boxes and bales in their struggles.

"He'll kill Oskar! He's bigger----"

"Not by a d.a.m.n sight, he won't!" roared McNabb. "Look at um! Look at um! Oskar's on top! Give him h.e.l.l, lad!"

Jean had ceased her protest, and to her own intense surprise she found herself leaning forward, watching every move. She cried out with pain when Wentworth's fist brought the blood from Oskar's nose, and she applauded when Hedin's last three blows landed with vicious thuds against the engineer's upturned chin.