The Man in the Twilight

Chapter XX—On The Home Trail

Nancy's eyes were desperately troubled as she gazed out across the great valley of the Beaver River. Somewhere behind her, in the shelter of the woods, a mid-day camp had been pitched, and the men who had captured her red-hand in the work of their enemies were preparing the, rough food of the trail. But she was beyond all such concern.

Far out on every hand lay the amazing panorama of the splendid valley, but she saw none of it. The mighty frozen waterway, the depths of virgin snow, the far-reaching woodlands its gaping lips embraced; they were things of frigid beauty for her eyes to gaze upon, but their meaning was lost upon a mind tortured with the vivid, hateful pictures it was powerless to escape.

From the moment of that dreadful night when she had witnessed the ruthless climax of the work to which she had given herself she had known no peace. It was no thought of her failure, her capture, that inspired her trouble. She could have been thankful enough for that. It was the only mercy, she felt, that had been vouchsafed to her.

No, long before her capture, a deep undermining of regret had set in. She had been without realisation of it, perhaps. But it had been there. In yielding to the demands of those she served, in her self-confidence she had forgotten the woman in her. She had forgotten everything but the crazy ambition which had blinded her to all consequences. Yes, even in the excitement of the work itself she had forgotten everything but the achievement she desired. But through it all, under it all, the woman in her had been slowly awakening, and an unadmitted regret at the destruction of work which meant the whole life of another had been stirring. Then, when the leading tongues of the guns had flashed out, and human life, even the life of dogs, had yielded to the demand of her cause, the last vestige of her dreaming had been swept away, and she told herself it was murder, murder at her bidding!

Now her soul was afire with the bitterness of repentance, with passionate self-accusation. Murder had been done through her. Murder! The horror of it all had driven her well-nigh demented when she gazed from the distance while the two men disposed of Arden Laval's body under the snow. The dogs? They had been left where they fell. The living had been cut loose from their trappings to roam the forests at their will, while the dead had remained to satisfy the fierce hunger of the savage forest creatures. Even the sled had been destroyed, and its wood used to make fire that the living might endure on those pitiless northern heights. The memory of it all was days old now, but its horror showed no abatement. The agony was still with her. She felt that never again could she know peace.

So she had moved away out from camp, as she had done at every stopping they had made on the long journey from the highlands down to Sachigo. Somehow it seemed to her impossible to do otherwise. She felt she must hide herself from the sight of those others who were her captors, and who, in their hearts, she felt, must deeply abhor the presence of so vile a creature in their camp.

How long she had been standing there, while the men prepared the mid-day meal, she did not know. It was a matter of no sort of consequence to her anyway. Nothing really seemed of any consequence now. Her jaded mind was obsessed by a horror she could not shake off. There was nothing, nothing in the world to do but nurse the anguish driving her.

"You'll come right along and eat, Nancy?"

The girl almost jumped at the gentle tones of the man's voice, and glanced round at Bull Sternford in an agony of sudden terror.

"I—I—" she stammered. Then composure returned to her. "If you wish it," she said submissively. "But I don't need food."

Bull regarded the averted face for moments. Sympathy and love were in his clear gazing eyes. He understood something of the thing she was enduring, and the tone of his voice had been a real expression of his feelings. This girl, with the courage of twenty men, with her radiant beauty, and in her pitiful, heartbroken condition, was far more precious to him than any victory he had set himself to achieve. He knew that the world held nothing half so precious.

He came a step nearer.

"I wonder if you'll listen to me, Nancy," he said, with a hesitation and doubt utterly foreign, to him. "You know, for all that's happened, for all we're mixed up against each other in this war, I'm the same man you found me on the Myra and in Quebec. I—"

"Don't."

The girl flung out her hands in a piteous appeal. And Bull recognised the hysteria lying behind the movement.

"I know," she cried. "Oh, I know. But—don't you understand? You must know what I am. It's my doing that Laval has gone to his death. I'm responsible, just as surely as if I'd fired the gun that robbed him of his life. Oh, why, why didn't I refuse the work? Why did they send me? And those dogs. Those poor helpless dogs. They, too. I must have been mad—mad. How can you come near me? How can you stand there summoning me to eat food—with you? It's useless. It's—I who sent that man to his death—I who—"

"Why, I thought it was Gouter."

Bull's manner had suddenly changed. The danger signal in the girl's eyes had determined him. So he smiled, and there was laughter in his challenge.

"Say," he went on rapidly, "if you told that to Gouter he'd be crazy mad. He's the boss running shot on Labrador, and if you claimed responsibility for the killing of Laval you'd be dead up against it with him." He shook his head. "No, he's sort of grieved he didn't drop him plumb on the instant as it is. It won't do you talking that way with him around."

He watched for the effect of his words and realised a slight relaxing of the strained look in the hazel eyes. Forthwith he plunged into the thing he contemplated.

"I'm going to make a big talk with you before we eat," he said. "You see, I've wanted to right along, Nancy, but—Well, I want to tell you you're no more responsible for Laval's life, and the lives of those dogs, than I am. We're each playing our little parts in the things of life like the puppets we are. Our hands are clean enough, but it's not that way with the skunks that could send you, a girl, almost a child, to do the work, and live the life that boys like Gouter hardly know how to get through. That man, Peterman, is going to get it one day from me if I have luck. And I won't call it murder when I get my hands on his dirty alien throat. But never mind that. I want to ease that poor aching head of yours. I want to try and get you some peace of mind. That's why I tell you you've nothing to chide yourself for, nothing at all. It's true. You've played the game like the loyal adversary you are. And, for the moment, I'm top dog. You've handed me a bad nightmare by the wonderful courage and grit you've well-nigh shamed me, as a man, with. True, true you haven't a thing to blame yourself with. You've fought a mighty big fight I'd have been pleased to fight. It's just circumstances pitched you into the muss up, and let you see the thing your folks have brought about. It's that that's worrying. Think, Nancy, think hard. This is their fight. Not yours. The blood of Laval is on Elas Peterman's head. His, and those other creatures who are ready to commit any crime to steal our country from us. Oh, I'm not preaching just my side. It's true, true. We at Sachigo were content to compete openly, honestly. Peterman and those others saw disaster in our competition. And so they got ready to murder—if necessary. It's the soulless crime of a gang of unscrupulous foreigners, and those hounds of hell have left you to suffer for it just as sure as if they'd seared your poor gentle heart with a red hot iron. Say, Nancy," he went on, with persuasive earnestness, "put it all out of your mind. Forget it all. You're out of the fight now. And it just hurts me to see your eyes troubled, and that poor tender heart of yours all broken up. Won't you?"

The girl had turned away to the gaping valley again. But she answered him. And her tone was less dull, and it was without the dreadful passion of moments ago.

"I—I've tried to tell myself something of that," she said, with the pathetic helplessness of a child.

"Then try some more."

Bull had drawn nearer. He laid one hand gently on her shoulder. It moved down and took possession of the soft arm under her furs. Nancy shook her head. But there was no decision in the movement.

"Oh, I wish—" she began.

But she could get no further. Suddenly she buried her face in her hands, and broke into a passion of weeping.

Bull stood helplessly by. He gazed upon the shaking woman while great sobs racked her whole body. There was nothing he could do, nothing he dared do. He knew that. His impulse was to take her in his arms and protect her with his body against the things which gave her pain. But—somehow he felt that perhaps it was good for her to weep. Perhaps it would help her. So he waited.

Slowly the violence of the girl's grief subsided. And after a while she turned to him and gazed at him through her tears.

"I'm—I'm—"

But Bull shook his head.

"Come. Shall we go and eat?"

He still retained his hold upon her arm. And as he spoke he led her unresistingly away towards the camp.

Chapter XXI—The Man In The Twilight

Bat Harker passed out of the house on the hillside. Muffled in heavy furs he stood for a moment filling up the storm doorway, gazing out over a desolate prospect, a scene of grave-like, significant stillness.

The mills he loved were completely idle. But that was not all. He knew them to be at the mercy of an army of men who had abandoned their work at the call of wanton political and commercial agitators. It was disaster, grievous disaster. And he told himself he was about to beat a retreat like some hard-pressed general, hastily retiring in face of the enemy from a position no longer tenable.

There was no yielding in the lumberman. But to a man of his forcefulness and headstrong courage the thought of retreat was maddening. He was yearning to fight in any and every way that offered. He knew that he was going to fight this thing out, that his present retreat was purely strategic. He knew that the whole campaign was only just beginning. But it galled his spirit that his first move must be a—retreat.

The late winter day was fiercely threatening, fit setting for the disaster that had befallen. The cold was bitterly intense, but no more bitter than the lumberman's present mood. There down below were the deserted quays with their mountains of baled wood-pulp buried deep under white drifts of snow. And the voiceless mills were similarly half buried. Look where he would the scene was dead and deserted. There was not one single stirring human figure to break up the desolation of it all.

It was a sad, white, desolate world, which for over fifteen years he had known only as a busy hive. Roadways should have been clear. Traffic should have been speeding, every service, even in the depth of winter, should have been in full running. The mills—those wonderful mills—should have been droning out their chorus of human achievement in a world set out for Nature's fiercest battle ground.

From the moment of that first encounter in the recreation hall Bat had known the strike to be inevitable. Bull's swift action at the outset had had its effect. For the moment it had checked the movement, and reduced it to a simmer. Heat and power had been restored, and work had been resumed, and outwardly there had been peace. But it was artificial, and the lumberman and the engineer had been aware that this was so.

Brief as was the respite it was valuable time to the men in control, and they used it to the uttermost. The leaders of the strike had been robbed of the advantage they had sought from a lightning strike. But they were by no means defeated. It was only that they had lost a move in the game they had prepared.

At the end of a week Bat awoke one morning to find the mills and all traffic at a standstill, and the workers skulking within the shelter of their own homes.

Then it was that the benefit of a week's respite was made plain. Every plan that had been prepared was forthwith put into operation. Power and heat were again cut off. The loyalists, which included a large number of the engineering staff, and the staff of the executive offices, were equipped with such weapons as would serve, and set guard over the food and liquor stores, and the essentials of the mills. And the power house was fortified for siege.

But the strikers gave no sign. There was no attempt at violence. There was no picketing, and no apparent attempt at coercion of the loyalists. It almost seemed as if the objects of the leaders had been achieved by the simple cessation of work.

This silent condition of the strike had gone on for days with exasperating effect upon the defenders. Bat endeavoured by every means in his power to bring the leaders of the movement into the open to discuss the situation. But every effort ended negatively. The men would not contemplate the conference table, and finally, in headlong mood, the lumberman had committed the grave mistake of provocation. He threatened to cut off food supplies if the leaders continued in their refusal to confer.

Two weeks elapsed before his threat reacted. Two weeks of continued silence and apparent inaction by the strike leaders. The men's first terror at the loss of heat and power seemed to have passed. As Bull had suggested they had resorted to the methods of the trail, and day and night mighty beacon fires burned along the fore-shores of the cove upon which their homes were built. The men and women came and went peaceably but silently between the food stores and their homes, purchasing such provisions as they needed. And the manner of it all, the cold silence, should have served a warning of the iron hand in exercise behind the strike.

The bombshell came at the end of the third week. It came in the form of a message crouched in the flamboyant phraseology beloved of the Communist fraternity. It was conveyed by a small youth some ten years of age, as though its authors were fearful lest a full grown bearer should be made to suffer for the temerity.

Bat had received it at the office, and his manner had been characteristic.

"Fer me, laddie?" he had said, as he took possession of the official-looking envelope. Then he gently patted the boy's shoulder. "All right, sonny," he added. "You get right back to your folks. Pore little bit."

With the boy's departure he had lost no time in reading the ultimatum the message contained.

At the finish of his reading Bat had looked up into the dark face of Pete Loale who was standing by.

"Leo Murko?" he said, in an ominously restrained tone. "Ther' ain't no guy o' that name on our pay-roll. Guess he'll be that feller Bull dropped out into the snow." Then with a sudden explosive force: "In God's name why in hell didn't he break that skunk's neck?"

The week's grace had expired. It had been a week of further hasty preparations. Every day had been used to the uttermost, and even far into the night the work had gone on. The office on the hill, as well as the executive offices down at the mill, had been cleared out. Documents, cash, books, safe. Everything of real importance had been removed to the citadel power house. The mining of the penstocks had been completed, and left ready to be blown sky high at a moment's notice. Whatever befell, the men who had given their lives to the building of the mills were determined that only a useless husk should fall into the hands of the strikers.

Now had come the Communists' final declaration of war. The message had been brought less than an hour ago by the same youth, who had again departed with Bat's smiling expression of pity. The letter was ominously brief.

Bat's fury had blazed as he read the message. Again it was signed "Leo Murko." How he hated that name. He had been alone in the office when the letter came, and had seized the 'phone and called up the engineer at the power house, and read the message to him. Skert Lawton's reply was as instant as it was characteristic.

"That's all right," he said. "We're fixed for the scrap. Just come right over."

It was this last act that Bat contemplated now. And he hated it. He knew well enough he must go. There was no sane alternative. The power station was the prepared fortress. It had everything in it that must be guarded and fought for. But his fierce regret was none the less for the knowledge.

Then, too, his regret was for something else. It was at the absence of Bull Sternford. This was no expression of weakness. It was simply he desired the man's companionship. They had worked together. They had planned and built together. And, now, in the moment of battle, it seemed to him they should still be together.

But he knew that was impossible. When Bull's call to the forest had come in the night there had been no opportunity for explanation. He, Bat, had been engaged down at the mill, and the other had been rushed in his preparations. Bull had made his farewell to him in a great hurry. He had outlined briefly the thing happening in the forests. That had been all. That and a few words on the affairs of the mill.

How the news had reached Bull, and who the messenger, had never transpired between them. Perhaps Bull had forgotten to mention it. Perhaps, in the hurry of it all, Bat had forgotten to ask. Perhaps, even, the messenger himself had impressed secrecy for his visit, which had been timed for the dead of night. At any rate Bat knew none of these things, and was in no way concerned for them. All he was concerned for was the absence of the man who was something more to him than a mere partner.

Thinking of him now Bat remembered the other's final words, and the memory stirred him deeply.

"Remember, old friend," he had said, "young Ray Birchall will be over from England at the break of winter. On his report to his people depends the whole thing we've built up. We've got to have these mills running full when that boy gets around. There's not a darn thing else matters."

It was the final spur. The mills running full. Bat spat out his chew, and turned and locked the door behind him. Then he moved away hurriedly, gazing straight in front of him as though he dared not even think of the place he was leaving.

* * * * *

On the foreshore of the Cove, out towards the guarding headlands, half a hundred fires were burning. They were immense beacon fires of monstrous proportions. Belching columns of smoke clouded the whole region till the water-front looked to be in the grip of a forest fire.

Men, and women, and children were gathered about them. They were basking in a moderation of temperature such as their homes could no longer afford them. But it was a curious, silent gathering, indifferent to everything but the feeding of the fires on which they felt their very existence depended.

The forests which supplied the fuel came down to the edge of the now idle trolley track. Already acres and acres had been felled to feed the insatiable fires. The woodland decimated, and the devastation was going on in every direction.

About the houses there were others engaged in homely chores. There were men, and women, too, clad heavily in the thick sheepskin clothing which alone could defeat the fierce breath of winter. Here again was silence and gloom, and even the children refrained from their accustomed pastimes.

A tall, fur-clad figure was moving through the settlement. His feet were encased in moccasins, and thick felt leggings reached up just below his knees. For the rest his nether garments were loose fur trousers, and his body was covered by a tunic reaching just below his middle, with a capacious hood attached to it almost completely enveloping his head.

He moved slowly and without any seeming object. He passed along, and paused when he encountered either man, woman, or child. With the men he spoke longest. But the women claimed him, too. And generally he left behind him a change of expression for the better in those with whom he talked.

He paused beside a small party of elderly men. They were at work upon a prone tree trunk of vast girth. They were cutting and splitting it, fresh feed for the fires which must never be permitted to die down.

The men had ceased work on his approach. But they went on almost immediately, all except one. He was a grizzled veteran, a man just past middle life. His face was deeply lined, and a scrub of whisker protected it from the cold. He had been seated on the log, but he stood up as the tall man addressed him by name.

"You'll be there, Michael," he said, brushing the frost from his darkly whiskered face, and breaking the icicles hanging from his fur hood where it almost closed over his mouth.

The man's grey eyes were smiling as they looked into the wide black eyes so mildly encouraging.

"Sure, Father," came his prompt reply. "We got to be ther' anyway. That don't matter. But we're for your lead, an' we'll stand by it, sure. There's going to be no sort of damn fool mistake this time."

The tall man nodded.

"There must be no mistake this time," he said keenly. "Say, how many years is it since I sent you along here with a promise of good work and better wages, and a square deal?"

"Nigh five years, Father."

"And you got all—those things?"

"Sure. More."

Father Adam nodded.

"And those are the things a man's entitled to. Just those," he said. "If a man wants more it's up to him. He must earn it in competition with the rest of his fellows. If he can't earn it he must do without, or quit the honesty that entitles him to hold his head up in the world. There's no honesty in the things these men propose."

"That's so, Father."

There was decision in the man's agreement. But even as he spoke his gaze wandered in the direction of two small children, like bundles of fur, playing in the snow.

"Poor little kids," he said. "Say, it's hell for them with heat cut off."

Again the tall man nodded as he followed the other's gaze.

"That's so. But I don't blame the mill-bosses. This gang is trying to steal from the men who've always handed out a straight deal. Do you blame them for defending themselves?"

Michael shook his head.

"I don't see I can. After all—"

"No. Listen. You boys have it in your own hands. These crooks from the Skandinavia got a strangle holt on the youngsters of this outfit who've no kiddies like those. You older boys let 'em get it. You weren't awake. Now you find yourselves caught in the tide. We've got to make a break for it. There'll be heat in plenty when you break free. Seven o'clock. That's the time your masters ordered the meeting for. Seven o'clock. That's the time they intend to commit their great crime—with you helping them."

Father Adam smiled as he drove his satire home.

"Not on your life!" The man's grey eyes were fierce. "Give us the lead, Father," he cried. "We—we just got to have that. Ther' ain't a real lumber-jack in these forests won't follow it. It'll be a scrap. A hell of a scrap. Oh, I know. Maybe some of us'll never see the light of another day. But sure it's got to be. We ought to've gone over from the start, and stood by our jobs. But I guess none of us with wives and kiddies had the guts. They threatened our women and children, an' we weakened. But it's different now, sure. We've learned our lesson. It's themselves they're out for, an' we'll be their dogs to be kicked and bullied as they see fit. We'll follow your lead, Father, an' it don't matter a cuss when the scrap comes."

Father Adam nodded. His dark eyes were alight with something more than the smile shining in them.

"Good," he said. "I shall be there."

He moved away and Michael rejoined his companions. They talked together for a moment or two while their eyes followed the receding figure. They saw it stop and speak to one of their wives. She had a small child with her. They saw it bend down into a squatting attitude and draw the child towards it. Then they saw a lean hand draw out of its mit and proceed to touch a swelling on the little mite's neck. They understood. And when the figure finally passed on out of sight, they returned to their work, each man absorbed in his own thought, each man with a surge of deep feeling for that lonely figure. For they were all men who knew, and understood the man who lived in the twilight of the forests.

* * * * *

The recreation room was packed to suffocation, packed from end to end with a human freight. The benches were crowded, and the tables groaned under the weight of as many rough-clad creatures as could crowd themselves thereon. Every inch of floor space was occupied, and even the recesses in the log walls which contained the windows were utilised as sitting places for the audience which had gathered at the imperative order of the Soviet of the Workers.

Kerosene lamps had replaced the brilliant electric light to which the men were accustomed. A haze of tobacco smoke created a sort of fog throughout the length of the building, and contrived to soften the harsh lines of the sea of human faces turned towards the raised platform whereon sat the members of the ruling Soviet. The temperature of the room was cold for all the warming influence of the human gathering, and every man wore his fur-lined pea-jacket closely buttoned.

Once, in a light moment, Bull Sternford had declared that male human nature in the "bunch" was the ugliest thing in the world. Had he witnessed that sea of faces, so intently, so anxiously turned towards the leaders they had presumably elected, he must have been well satisfied with the truth of his conviction.

Such was the ascendancy and power the Bolshevist leaders had gained in the brief month since the first rumble of industrial war had been heard in Sachigo, that there were few who had failed to obey their summons. Not only was the hall crowded but a gathering of many hundreds waited outside. It was the hour of Fate for all. They understood that. It was the hour of that Fate which had been decreed by men, who, under the guise of democratic selection had usurped a power over the rest of the community such as no elected parliament of the world had ever been entrusted with.

It was doubtful if the majority fully realised the significance of what was being done. It is certain that a feeling of deep regret stirred voicelessly in many hearts. But every man there was a simple wage earner whose horizon was bounded by that which his wage opened up. For the rest he was left guessing, but more often fearing. So, with his muscles of iron, his human desires, and his reluctance to apply such untrained reasoning as he possessed, he was ripe subject for fluent, unscrupulous, political agitators, and ready to sweep along with any tide that set in.

The leaders on the platform understood this well enough. It was their business to understand it. The others, the leaders' immediate supporters, were men of fiery youth, or those whose work it was to wreck at all costs, and snatch to themselves, in addition to pay for their fell work, such loot as the wreckage afforded them.

The hum of talk snuffed right out as the leader rose to address the meeting. It was Leo Murko, the same man, a hard-faced, foreign-looking Hebrew whom a month before Bull's great arms flung through the broken window into the snowdrift beyond. His position now, however, was far different from that which it had been when his endeavours had been concentrated upon enrolling a Communist following. All that had been achieved or sufficiently so. Now he was the dictator whose orders could be backed by an irresistible force. His whole manner had changed. The velvet glove of persuasion had been discarded, and he hurled his commands with deep-throated authority, and the smile of encouragement and persuasion was completely abandoned.

His preliminary was brief. A phrase or two of flattery and acknowledgment to those on the platform supporting him dismissed that. Then he passed on to the objects in view. In five minutes he had dismissed also the ultimate destiny of the mills, and the manner in which the Workers were to benefit by its administration. Then he flung himself into a fiery denunciation of all capitalists, and particularly those who had dared to employ his audience on good wages for something like fifteen years. That completed he passed on to the plans for taking over the mills forthwith.

During the earlier part of his address the audience listened with grave attention. Here and there little outbursts of applause punctuated his sentences. But when he came to the task which had been set for that night a deathly silence prevailed everywhere. The intensity was added to rather than broken by the harsh clearing of throats that came from almost every part of the hall.

"The whole thing needs cleaning up before daylight," he hurled at them. "Our organisation is complete. Here," and he indicated the table nearby littered with papers and surrounded by four or five men who were members of the elected Soviet, "we have the lists of the names of every comrade, and the numbers of men to be used in every detail of the work before us. They have been carefully drawn up with a view to the task required to be put through. Some tasks will be simple. Some will be less so." A grim light that was almost a smile shone in his black eyes. "But we have carefully discriminated in our personnel. That is as it should be. There will be certain bloodshed. Knowing the temperament and preparations of your late masters this seems to be inevitable. But again we have provided. Our greatest and most important task is the possession of the power station, and for the capture of that we have machine guns which will quickly reduce the enemy to capitulation. The strength of the enemy we know to the last fraction—"

"Do you?"

The challenge came from the back of the hall. It came in a quiet, refined voice that swept through the hall with the cold cut of a knife. Someone had risen from a sitting position on a table. He stood up. It was the tall, dark figure of Father Adam clad in a garment which enveloped him from head to foot like the black cassock of a priest.

"Do you?" he cried again, as the startled leader stared stupidly at the interrupter.

Every eye turned to the back of the hall on the instant. The men on the platform looked up from their work to witness the daring of one who could interrupt the elected leader of the people. One man, slight, foreign-looking, who had been seated at the back of the platform stood up and leant against the wall.

"You know nothing of these people you are determined to destroy with machine guns," Father Adam went on. "You know nothing of the men with whom you are dealing, either the owners of the mill, or the men who have found an ample livelihood under their organisation. How can you know them? You are dastardly agents of an alien company, sent and paid to wreck a wholly Canadian enterprise. This is your first object. Your second is even more sinister, for you are the agents of that mad Leninism which has destroyed a whole race of workers in a vast country like Russia. You are a supreme pestilence seeking to destroy such human nature as will listen to your vile doctrines. It is I, I, Father Adam, tell you so. The men here to-night, whom you are inciting to theft and brutal murder, know me. They know me as their servant, as their loyal comrade and helper, ready to answer their call when trouble overtakes them, ready to yield them of my best service in the day of prosperity or the night of their woe. And as it is with them so it is with their women and their babes. That's the reason I am here to-night, the black night of their woe. And so I ask them to listen to me now as they have listened many times before in the woods and the mills, which is the world to which we all belong. If they do that, if only reason asserts itself, they'll here and now turn on you, and rend you, you and your wretched gang. They'll cast you out of their midst, and fling off a foreign yoke, as they would cast out any other unclean pestilence for the purification of their homes. They'll pack you out into the northern night where no foul germs can exist. Are they to become thieves at your bidding? Are they to become murderers because your foreign money has bought them machine guns? Would they go back to their women, and their innocent babes, wiping their blood-stained hands to ask them to rejoice in the brutal crime committed in the name of brotherhood and fellowship? No, sir. I know them. You don't—"

The Bolshevist flung out a denouncing hand and bellowed in his seething wrath:

"Traitor! He is of the Cap—"

But immediate uproar drowned his denunciation and a great voice shouted in the din.

"Let him speak."

A dozen other voices strove to make themselves heard, and a wild pandemonium was rising when clear and sharp Father Adam's voice rang out again above it.

"I tell you they'll have no more of you," he cried as the leader dropped back to his seat, and the dark man at the back of the platform further bestirred himself. "Order them now to man your machine guns and murder the men in the power house! Give your orders here and now! Read out your list of names and see—"

A shot rang out. The flame of a gun leapt somewhere at the back of the platform, to be followed by complete, utter silence.

Then came a sound. It was a hardly-suppressed moan. Father Adam reeled slowly. He half turned about. Then he crumpled and dropped to his knees and fell forward into hands outstretched to catch him.

Paralysis seemed to grip that dense-packed human throng. But it was only for a second. Then the avalanche leapt for the abyss.

"Father! Father Adam!"

The cry went up seemingly from a thousand throats. And with a roar the crowd surged forward. It hurled itself at the platform.

* * * * *

Bull stared up at the house. He moved away and glanced over the windows. Then his eyes turned to the valley below, and his gaze settled itself on the great fires burning on the northern foreshore of the Cove.

For some moments he stood contemplating the thing he beheld. Then, at last, he turned back to the locked door of his office. Without a word he raised one foot, and, with all his force, crashed its sole against the lock.

The lock gave and the door fell back into the pitch darkness beyond. He passed within. After a while a light appeared in the office window. It passed. Then it reappeared in each window of the building in succession. Presently it remained stationary and fresh lights appeared in several of the windows. Minutes later he reappeared in the doorway.

He stepped out into the snow and came over to the waiting dog train.

"It's a cold sort of welcome," he said quietly. "But—will you please come right in, and I'll see how I can fix you up for comfort. I guess things have happened since I've been away. They've turned off heat. However—"

Nancy McDonald rose from her place in the sled. She flung back the wealth of furs under which she had been well-nigh buried and stepped out. She made no reply, but stood waiting while Bull gave orders to his driver.

"Get those dogs fixed, Gouter," he said. "Then come right along back here. You'll need to gather fuel and set those stoves going."

* * * * *

A great fire was roaring in the wood stove in the office. Nancy and Bull were standing before it seeking to drive out the cold which seemed to have eaten into their bones. Bull had drawn up his own rocker-chair for the girl but she had not availed herself of it.

"You are not going to keep me here, prisoner in—your house?"

The girl spoke in a low, hushed tone. In the indifferent lamp-light she looked ghastly pale and utterly weary-eyed. She had removed her furs, revealing herself clad in the heavy clothing which alone could have served on her desperate journey through the camps. It robbed her figure of much of its usual grace.

"I'm afraid I am." Bull smiled gently, for all the decision of his words. "You see, Nancy, we're still at war. Still fighting the battle that others have forced on us."

Nancy inclined her head.

"I'd forgotten," she said almost humbly. "But you have no women folk around you," she went on urgently a moment later. "Does war mean that—that I must submit even—to that?"

It was the woman in her that had taken alarm. Her hands were pressed together as she held them over the stove. The man understood. She moved away to the window, over which the curtains had not been drawn, and Bull watched her.

"Every respect will be paid you," he said. "You've nothing to fear. When Gouter returns he'll get food, and we'll make the best preparations we can. I've to consider others with more at stake than even I."

"Look!"

The girl had turned. Her eyes were wide with terror. She was pointing at the window, and Bull hurried to her side.

A great fire was raging on the north shore of the Cove. It was the recreation room, that room which Bat had so bitterly come to hate. It was ablaze from end to end, and lit up its neighbourhood so that the scene was of daylight clearness. A horde of human figures were gathered about it, in a struggling, seething mass, and the man realised that a battle was raging, a human battle, whilst the demon of fire was left to work its will.

He stood there, held speechless by the thing he beheld.

"What is it? What does it mean?"

Panic drove the questions to the girl's lips. And she turned in an agony of appeal to the man beside her.

"It means the work of the Skandinavia has been well and truly done."

Chapter XXII—Dawn

The hush of dawn was unbroken. The shadows of night receded slowly, reluctantly renouncing their long reign in favour of the brief winter daylight. The shores of the Cove lay hidden under a haze of fog.

There were no sounds of life. The world was desperately still. No cry of wild fowl rose to greet the day. There was not even the doleful cry of belated wolf, or the snapping bark of foraging coyote to indicate those conditions of life which never change in the northern wilderness. It was as if the world of snow and ice were waking to a day of complete mourning, a day of bitter reckoning for the tumult of furious human passions, which, under the cloak of night, had been loosed to work the evil of men's will.

With the first gleam of the rising sun a breeze leapt out of the east. It came with an edge like the keenest knife, and ripped the fog to ribbons. It churned and tangled it. Then it flung it clear of its path, leaving bare the scene of wreckage which the rage of battle had produced.

It was a scene for pity and regret. Gone was the building which had been set up for the workers' recreation. Only a smoking ruin remained in its place. A dozen other buildings in the neighbourhood bore the scars of fire, which they would doubtless carry for all time of their service. The mill, however, was safe. The work of more than fifteen years remaining intact. But it had been so near, so very near to complete destruction.

With the passing of the fog further disaster was revealed. It was the wreck of human life which the night had produced. Daylight had made it possible to deal with the injured and those beyond all human aid. And the work was going forward in the almost voiceless fashion which the presence of death ever imposes on the living.

Viewed even from a distance there could be no mistaking the meaning, the hideous significance of it all. And Nancy, gazing from a window in the house on the hill, shrank in terror before that which she believed to be the result of the cruel work to which she had lent herself.

It had been a dreary, heartbreaking night of sleepless watching and poignant feeling. Nancy was alone in her prison, a beautiful apartment, the best in the house. Bull Sternford had conducted her thither personally, and, in doing so, had told her the thing he was doing, and of his real desire to save her unnecessary distress.

"You see," he had explained, with a gentleness which Nancy felt she had no right to expect, "there's just about the best of everything right here. It's as it was left by the feller who designed and decorated it for the woman he loved better than anything in life. No one's ever used it since. I'd be glad for you to have it. We've only a Chink servant to wait around on us, and a rough choreman, and I guess they don't know a thing about fixing things for a woman. But they've kept it clean and wholesome, and that's all I can say. Can you make out in it to-night?"

He smiled. Then his steady eyes had turned away to the window where the light of the raging fire could be seen. And after a moment he went on.

"You're a prisoner. I can't help that. That's got to be. But no lock or bolt will be set to keep you here. You're free to come and go as you choose. You can make the doors of the room fast against intrusion, if you feel that way. But there'll be none. To-night you'll just be dead alone in the place. You see, I've got to get out and pull my weight down there."

So he had left her. He had left her to a punishment more desperate than anything he could have designed. Her windows looked out over the mill. And a subtle force attracted her thereto, and held her sleepless and despairing the whole night long. She had been forced to sit there watching the tragedy being enacted. A tragedy with which she knew she was connected, and for which, in her exaggerated self-condemnation, she believed herself responsible.

The agony of that prolonged vigil would never be forgotten. Fascinated, dreading, every act of it seared the girl's soul as with a red hot brand. It was the Skandinavia's work. The agents of the Skandinavia. And she knew that she, perhaps, was their principal agent. The rattle of machine guns. The human slaughter. She had witnessed the terror of it all in the fierce light of the conflagration which looked to be devouring the whole world of the mills. She could never forget it. She could never forgive herself her share in the ghastly plans for that hideous destruction. But more than all she knew she could never forgive, or again associate herself with those who had designed the inhuman work of it all and plunged her into the maelstrom of its execution.

Now, in the daylight, she was still at the window. There was no relief. On the contrary. With the smoke cleared from the smouldering ruins she saw the full extent of the wreckage. It was sprawling everywhere, human and material. An army of men, it seemed, was searching the battlefield. It was searching and collecting amongst the ruins. And she watched the bearing away on improvised stretchers, of still, helpless, human burdens which none could mistake. She could bear no more of it. She shut out the sight and fled from the window, covering her eyes with her hands.

But she was recalled almost instantly. The sound of men's rough voices startled her. Whence came the sound she could not judge. But it seemed to her it was from somewhere outside. So she stealthily peered out. It was a small group of fur-clad figures. They were approaching the house over the snowy trail that came up from the mill.

New terror leapt. They were supporting a prone, human body! They were bringing it up to the house! Who—who could they be bringing up to that house, which was the home and the office of the master of the mill? In that supreme moment all that which had gone before was completely forgotten. She stood clutching at the window casing, in a desperate effort to steady herself.

She knew. Oh, yes, it could be no other. It must be Bull Sternford they were bringing up. Bull Sternford—the man who—The agents of the Skandinavia had done him to death! The agents of the Skandinavia!

* * * * *

Bat Harker was standing at the window of the office on the hill. His hard, grey eyes were searching the distance below, and his square jaws were busy on their usual occupation. Bull was sitting in a rocker-chair. He was leaning forward, gazing down at the thickly carpeted floor, and his hands were clasped between his outspread knees. Both men were dishevelled. Their clothing was stained, and their hands and faces were begrimed as a result of the fierce work of the night.

Bat suddenly turned from his silent scrutiny.

"He'll pull around? You think so?" he demanded.

There was an appeal in his harsh voice such as Bull had never heard in it before, and he looked up with a start.

"That's how Jason reckoned," he said.

"Oh, to hell with Jason!" Bat's retort was fiercely uncompromising. "Who's Jason anyway? A medical student who hadn't the guts for his job. Leastways he got on the crook. It's the thing you reckon I want to know."

"I reckon he'll pull around," Bull returned quietly. Then he stirred wearily. "But you're hard on young Jason, Bat. He's bright enough. I like the way he handles his job. And anyway he's the only feller around this layout with any knowledge of a sick man. He's qualified you know. He wasn't just a student. He practised before he went down and out and took to the forests. We've got to rely on him till we get a man up from Montreal, which won't be for weeks. He'll be through along from fixing him in a while. Then we can hear the thing he's got to say. Maybe we'll be able to judge better then."

"I wired Montreal," Bat said sharply.

"Good."

The lumberman turned again to his window, and Bull continued to regard the carpet which had no interest for him. Both were weary, utterly weary in body as well as mind.

It was full, broad daylight now, with the low, northern sun gleaming athwart the scene which these men had so recently left. They were conscious of the victory gained. They rejoiced in the complete defeat of an enemy who had come so near to defeating all their plans. But the cost appalled them. They had both faced the play of machine guns. They had seen their men fall to the scythe-like mowing of a cruel weapon of which its victims had no understanding. Then, when the machine guns had been silenced, they had witnessed the rage with which these hard-living jacks had meted out their ideas of just punishment upon the murderers of their comrades.

The wanton inhumanity of the whole thing had sickened them both. Both knew and were indifferent to the roughness of the fierce northland. But the ordeal through which they had passed was something far beyond the darkest vision of conflict they had ever contemplated.

Neither had been present to witness the shooting of Father Adam. But both had been there within minutes of the beginning of the battle which it had started. From the power house Bat had discovered the thing happening, just as Bull had seen from the window of his office the leaping flames which had threatened the mill. It had been largely due to their timely leadership that ultimate victory had been snatched. But the work of it had been terrible.

Now they had returned to their quarters, their night's work completed. Down below comrade was attending to comrade in such fashion as lay to hand, and those beyond earthly aid were being disposed to their last rest. Thus these men had been left free to succour the wounded creature whose timely lead had made possible the defeat that had been inflicted.

Bat had but one concern just now. Father Adam. The man whose secret he held. The man who counted for everything in his rugged life. He raised his blood-shot eyes to his companion's face.

"If—Father Adam—passes, I'm done with Sachigo, Bull," he declared almost desperately. "It 'ud break me to death. You can't know the thing that feller means to me. You know him for the sort of missioner all these folks guess he is. That's how he'd have you know him. And it goes with me all the time. But I know him just as he is."

Bull nodded. He made no reply. He knew the lumberman was well-nigh beside himself, and he gazed back into the hot eyes and wondered.

But Bat had nothing more to say. He even felt he had said more than he had any right to say. So he turned again to the window.

A few moments later the door communicating with the house was unceremoniously thrust open. The two men looked round. It was a youngish man dressed in the overalls of an engineer who hurried in. He was alert and full of business; a condition which he seemed to appreciate.

"It's all right, boss," he cried cheerfully, addressing himself to Bat. "Guess the good Father'll get away with it. He's out of his dope an' smiling plenty. I jerked that darn plug that holed him right out, an' it's a soft-nosed swine. I left it back there for you to see. The feller who dropped him deserves rat poison. I hope to God they got him. Anyway I got the wound cleaned up and fixed things. Now we just got to keep it clean and open, and watch his temperature. Then we don't need to worry a thing. I'll do that. But someone'll have to sit around and nurse him. I'll have to get along down. There's nigh a hundred needin' me. Gee I An' after all these years, too. It makes me wonder."

There was a smile of keen appreciation in the eyes that looked into those of the lumberman. And the look deepened when Bat thrust out a large and dirty hand at him.

"Thanks, boy," he said, in obvious relief. "I'm goin' to nurse that pore feller. Maybe I ain't much in that line. But I'll promise he don't lack a thing I can hand him. Here, shake. You'll be along to fix him again?"

"Right on time," was the quick rejoinder.

Jason had readily enough gripped the outstretched hand. Then he hurried away. And neither of the men begrudged him the obvious vanity which his momentary importance had inflamed.

With the man's going Bull passed a hand back over his ample hair.

"God!" he exclaimed wearily. "It's been a tough night."

"Tough?"

Bat's response spoke a whole world of feeling. He moved from his window and flung himself into a chair.

"He saved us," he went on. "Father Adam. He saved the whole of our darn outfit. How he did it I don't just know. Maybe I'll never know. He don't talk a lot. I gathered something of it from the boys. But there wasn't time for talk." He shook his grizzled head. "You see, I didn't even know he was around. And you never told me it was him brought you word from the camps. He must have been at work around from the start. He must have got hold of a bunch of the boys he knew. And when he got 'em right, why—Say, I'd have given a thousand dollars to have heard him fire his dope at that lousy gang. It must have been pretty. But they got him. And I guess that was the craziest thing they did. The fool man who could shoot up Father Adam in face of the forest-boys could only be fit for the bughouse."

He sighed. It was not for the man's madness in shooting, but for the hurt inflicted. Then a grim, vengeful smile lit his eyes.

"Why, I guess there ain't a single agent of the Skandinavia down there left with a puff of wind in his rotten carcase. The boys were plumb crazed for their blood an' got right up to their necks in it. I'm glad. I'm—"

"Oh, forget it, man." Bull spoke sharply. "There's things we can take a joy in remembering. But this isn't one of 'em. No. The thing for us now is work. Plenty of work. The mill needs to be in full work inside a week. We haven't an hour to lose, with young Birchall coming along over. Skert's promised us power in twenty-four hours. He's at it right now. The camps on the river'll be working full, and making up lost time. The rest's up to us right here. But—but," he added, passing a hand nervously across his forehead, "I've got to get sleep or I'll go stark crazy."

Bat eyed the younger man seriously. It was the first time he had realised his condition. His sympathy found the rough expression of a nod.

"You had a hell of a time up there," he said.

Bull laughed. There was no mirth in his laugh.

"It was tough all right. I wonder if you'd guess how tough." He shook his head. "No. You wouldn't. You reckon Father Adam's a pretty good man, but I tell you right here you don't know how good, or the thing he did for us single-handed. I know—now. He set me wise to it all, and didn't leave me a thing to do but make the trail he'd set for me. It was an easy play dealing with the fool forest-jacks who'd swallowed the Skandinavia's dope. Yes. That was easy," he added thoughtfully. "But that was just the start of the game. Father Adam had located the trail of the outfit the Skandinavia had sent and it was my job to come right up with 'em and silence 'em."

He broke off and sat staring straight in front of him. His fine eyes were half smiling for all the weariness he complained of. He yawned.

"Well, I hit that trail," he went on presently. "I hit it, and hung to it like a she-wolf out for offal. I just never quit. It was that way I forgot sleep. It wasn't till between No. 10 and 11 Camps we got sight. We were out in the open, up on the high land. We'd a run of fifty mile ahead of the dogs. When we got sight that boy Gouter was after 'em like a red-hot devil. Drive? Gee, how he drove!"

Again came the man's mirthless laugh.

"There's things in life seem mighty queer at times. It was that way then. There was a man I wanted to kill once bad. Guess I've never quit wanting to kill him, though I'm glad Father Adam saved me from doing it. He was Laval—Arden Laval, one of the Skandinavia's camp-bosses. Well, I saw him killed on that trip, and I helped bury him in the snow. Gouter drew on him on the dead run at fifty yards. He dropped him cold, and wrecked the outfit the feller was driving. There were two in the bunch that the Skandinavia sent there to raise trouble for us. Laval and another. Laval's dead, and the other we brought right along as prisoner. That other's here in this—"

A light knock interrupted the story. Bull turned with a start. Then he sprang to his feet, every sign of weariness gone. He stood for a moment as though in doubt. And the lumberman, watching him, remarked the complete transformation that had taken place. He was smiling. His straining eyes had softened to a tenderness the onlooker failed to understand.

He moved swiftly across the room and flung open the door.

"Will you come right in?"

The lumberman heard the invitation. The tone was deep with a gentleness he had never before discovered in it. And in his wonder he craned to see who it was who had inspired it.

Bull moved aside.

It was then that Bat started up from his chair, and a sharp ejaculation broke from him. Nancy McDonald was standing framed in the doorway.