The Challenge of the North Part 2

For half an hour Jean tried on coats, until her choice had narrowed down to a handsome dark baum marten, and a s.h.i.+mmery gray squirrel.

"I think they're both lovely, and I can't quite make up my mind," she said at last, in a tone of mock despair. "It's worse than picking out toboggan caps. I just helped Mr. Wentworth select one--and, oh, by the way, I believe dad is going to find a place for him."

"For who?" asked Hedin, and Jean noticed tiny wrinkles gather between his eyes.

"Why, for Mr. Wentworth, of course. You see, I told dad that he'd just lost his position with that old Nettle River thing they were trying to put through, and Dad said if he was a civil engineer, and out of a job, to tell him to drop in and see him, so I took him in and introduced him and I guess they're still talking."

"Humph," grunted Hedin.

"You don't need to be so grumpy about it. Mr. Wentworth is awfully nice, and all the girls are crazy about him."

"I don't think that gives you any call to rave much over him when it was Fred Orcutt that brought him here, and he brought him for no other purpose than to knife your father," replied Hedin dryly.

Jean laughed. "You take Dad too seriously. He really believes Mr.

Orcutt has it in for him, and he sees an ulterior motive in everything he does in a business way. But, really, the Orcutts are all right.

There was some business deal, years and years ago, in which Dad fancied Mr. Orcutt tried to get the best of him, and he has never forgotten it.

You see, Dad is the dearest thing that ever lived, but he is sort of crusty, and it isn't everybody that knows how to take him. Why, Mr.

and Mrs. Orcutt are going to be at dinner this evening, and are going to the theatre, too. They know it is my birthday party, so that doesn't look as though they were such fierce enemies of the McNabbs, does it?

"Let's get back to the subject of coats. This squirrel is beautiful, but I believe I like the dark fur the better. I think I'll try that marten again."

Hedin was thinking rapidly. He had known from the first that the darker fur was the fur for her, yet he had refrained from making any direct suggestion.

"Just a moment, please," he said. "Won't you b.u.t.ton that coat once more, I want to get an artificial light effect." As he spoke, he moved toward the windows and drew the shades. Returning in the gloom, he reached swiftly into the fur safe and withdrew the Russian sable coat which he deftly deposited on top of the marten coat that lay with several others upon a nearby table. As the girl turned from the gla.s.s, he switched on the light.

"All right," he said, a moment later. "If you care to try on the marten again, we'll see how that shows up under the artificial."

Deftly he lifted the squirrel from her shoulders, and, picking up the Russian sable, held it while she slipped her arms into the sleeves. As she b.u.t.toned it, he stepped back, and viewed the result through critically puckered eyes. With an effort he refrained from voicing his enchantment with the living picture before him. Old John was right--it was a coat fit for a queen!

"I like this one best. I'll take it."

Hedin agreed. "I think you have chosen wisely," he answered, adding, as she started to loosen the garment at the throat, "Just a minute--the set of the collar in the back----" He stepped behind her, raised the collar a trifle with his fingers, smoothed it into place, and stepped aside to note the effect. "Just a trifle low," he said, "but it's too late to have it altered to-day."

"Oh, bother! I think the set is all right. Who would ever notice it?

Let it go."

Hedin smiled. "You can wear it to-night, all right, but you must promise me to send it down the first thing Monday morning for the alteration.

"I will bring it to the house this afternoon."

A sudden caprice seized her. "Why, I think I'll wear it!" she answered. "Just help me on with it, Oskar. And thank you so much for helping me select it. Here comes Mr. Wentworth, now. I wonder whether he will like it. I'm crazy about it. What kind of a marten did you say it is? Everybody will be asking me, and I want to be able to tell them what my own coat is."

"Baum marten," answered Hedin stiffly, heartily wis.h.i.+ng the coat safe in its accustomed place. In vain he regretted the wild impulse that had led him to subst.i.tute the sable coat for the marten. The impulse had come when the girl told him that Mrs. Orcutt was to be one of the theatre party. The plan had flashed upon him with overwhelming brilliance. He knew that Jean would in all probability never notice that the coat was not a marten. And he knew that Mrs. Orcutt most certainly would, for McNabb had once publicly compared it with her coat, much to the New York coat's detriment and Mrs. Orcutt's humiliation. It was not altogether loyalty for his employer that led him to plot the woman an uncomfortable evening, for he owed her a grudge on his own account. Ever since the coming of Wentworth, whom she had taken under her special patronage, Hedin had been studiously omitted from her scheme of social activities--and Jean McNabb had been as studiously included. He knew that McNabb was leaving town to be gone until the following evening, and that the chance of his seeing the garment was exceedingly small, and he had invented the fiction of the low collar in order to get the coat back on Monday morning when he would, of course, subst.i.tute the baum marten and return the sable to its safe. But now he felt vaguely uneasy.

Hedin saw that Wentworth was staring at the coat with a swiftly appraising eye. "It's a baum marten," Jean went on. "It took me a long time to choose between this and a squirrel. There was one that was a luscious gray, but I like this better--don't you?"

Wentworth nodded. "I certainly do," he agreed. "And I do not believe it would have taken me long to decide between that and a squirrel." He turned to Hedin. "What do you think, Mr.--ah--Haywood? That the choice was a wise one? This is certainly a handsome--er--what did you say it is?"

"Baum marten," snapped Hedin, with scarcely a glance at the questioner, as he turned and began to replace the coats that lay upon the table.

Wentworth watched Hedin return the baum marten to its place, and Jean stepped swiftly to Hedin's side.

As she spoke, he saw that her eyes were flas.h.i.+ng angrily.

"If your surly mood doesn't change," she whispered, "you will not add much to the enjoyment of our coasting party."

"I shall neither add to, nor detract from it," answered Hedin, meeting her gaze squarely. "Please don't wait for me. I find that I shall not be able to attend."

V

The United States Government formally entered the world war in April, and the following month Ross Wentworth had been graduated from a technical college, and through the auspices of an influential relative was commissioned a captain of engineers, and a.s.signed to duty in one of the larger cantonments. In due course of events he was sent overseas, and was attached to the forces operating in northern Russia. During the sixteen months of his service in the land of the erstwhile Czar, he acquired a fund of military terms, both official and slang. Also he built and maintained in a state of inutility, nine and one-half miles of military swamp road, over which no gun nor detachment of troops ever pa.s.sed. The abrupt termination of hostilities caught him with a formidable and inexplicable discrepancy of company funds--which discrepancy was promptly and liberally met by the aforementioned relative. Whereupon, Captain Wentworth was honorably discharged from the service of his country.

For many months after his discharge he lived by his wits and looks, but when this grew unproductive of ready cash, he decided to seek employment in his accredited vocation.

This decision he arrived at while sojourning in the home of a wealthy fruit-grower who was interested in the Nettle River project, and who furnished him a letter of recommendation to Orcutt, who promptly employed him. Thereafter all went well until McNabb's ultimatum brought the Nettle River project to as sudden a termination as the armistice had brought the war. Whereupon Wentworth found himself in the uncomfortable predicament of having no available a.s.sets and many pressing liabilities, incurred in the course of his endeavor to win the good graces of the wealthy Jean McNabb.

While scarcely knowing Hedin, Wentworth recognized him as a possible rival. He, himself, was no connoisseur of fur, but at least he knew a Russian sable when he saw one, and as he preceded Jean down the aisle, his brain worked rapidly.

By the time he reached the street, a daring scheme was half-formed in his brain--a scheme which, if successful, would work the utter ruin of Hedin, and leave him a clear field with the girl. At the first corner he excused himself.

Hardly was the girl's back turned when Wentworth dodged around the corner and entered McNabb's store by another door just in time to see old John rush from the building, bag in hand, and hurry down the street in the direction of the station.

McNabb's was the only big store in Terrace City, and being a department store, it kept city hours, so while on Sat.u.r.day evenings all the other stores remained open for business until a late hour, McNabb's closed at noon. Pa.s.sing unnoticed down the aisle, Wentworth's eyes darted here and there in search of a place of concealment, until at length he took up a position close beside McNabb's private office, the door of which, he noted with satisfaction, stood slightly ajar.

Watching his opportunity, Wentworth slipped unnoticed into the private office, closed the door softly behind him, and sank comfortably into McNabb's desk chair.

A gong sounded, and was repeated, dimly, upon the floors above.

Wentworth could hear the tramp of feet in the aisles as the clerks poured from the building through a door that gave on to a side street.

In a few minutes the rush was over, and then they came scatteringly, singly, and by twos and threes. He could hear the opening of the door, and the click of the lock as it closed behind them. The footsteps ceased. He drew his watch and waited. Noises from the street reached him, sounding far off and m.u.f.fled, but the store was silent as a tomb.

Twelve minutes ticked away. A footstep sounded. Wentworth could trace it descending the stairs, and walking the length of an aisle. Followed the sound of the opening door, and the click of the latch. Some belated department head, he thought. Possibly Hedin, himself--and he grinned at the thought.

In the silence of the great building Wentworth suddenly realized that he was nervous. It was all well enough to plan a thing, but the carrying out of the plan was quite another matter. He took a silent turn or two the length of the office, his footsteps making no sound upon the soft carpet. He waited twenty minutes and, hearing no sound, closed his watch and dabbed at his forehead with the handkerchief which he drew from his sleeve. Turning the k.n.o.b, he stepped out upon the uncarpeted floor. The sound of his footsteps upon the hardwood seemed to reverberate through the whole building. He walked a few steps on tiptoe, and then decided that in case anyone should see him, the tiptoeing would look furtive. So he walked to the foot of the stairway, his footsteps sounding in his ears like the ring of a hammer on an anvil. As he ascended the stairs he called out, "Hey, isn't there any one here? I am locked in, and can't get out! h.e.l.lo!

Someone show me the way out!"

Swiftly he ascended to the third floor and crossed to the fur case.

Silently he slid back the door and lifted the baum marten coat from its place, and stepping to a counter upon which was fixed a huge roll of wrapping paper, he proceeded to make the coat into a package. This done, he hastened toward the stairway with the package under his arm.

Down the stairs he flew, taking them two and three at a time, down the next flight, and across the floor, until he brought up panting at the door with the spring lock by which the employees had left the building.

Thought of material gain had not until this point entered into the scheme. He had merely plotted the undoing of a rival, but at the sudden realization of his status in the eyes of the world, a new thought struck him. "If I can get away with it--why not? A Russian sable! Why, it's worth _thousands_!"

It took a concentrated effort to open the door a tiny crack and peer through. Swiftly opening the door, Wentworth stepped onto the sidewalk, closed the door behind him, and clutching his package tightly, hurried down the street. He had entirely gained his composure by the time he reached his hotel, and hastening to his room, placed the package in his trunk and turned the key. He glanced at his watch. It lacked three minutes of one, and remembering his appointment with Orcutt, he hastened to the Wolverine Bank.

VI

Orcutt greeted his caller without enthusiasm. For despite the a.s.surance over the telephone that Wentworth wanted no money, he felt that he was in for a touch.