When the master of the mills faced the men again he hardly knew what to expect. He could not be sure how they would view his action, or what attitude they would adopt. He had considered well before provoking the sallow-faced giant, he had measured him up carefully; the thing had been premeditated. He knew the influence of physical force upon these men. The question was, had he used it at the right moment? He thought he had; he understood lumbermen, but there were more than lumbermen here, and he knew that it was this element of outsiders with whom he was really contending.
The fallen man's pistol was on the ground at his feet. He put a foot upon it; then, glancing swiftly at the faces before him, he became aware of a silence, utter, complete, reigning everywhere. There was astonishment, even something of awe in many of the faces; in others doubt mingled with a scowling displeasure. The thing had happened so suddenly. The firing of the shot had startled them unpleasantly, and they were still looking for the result of it. On this point they had no satisfaction. Only Dave knew—he had reason to. The arm hanging limply at his side, and the throb of pain at his shoulder left him in no doubt. But he had no intention of imparting his knowledge to any one else yet. He had not finished the fight which must justify his existence as the owner of the mills.
The effect of his encounter was not an unpleasant one on the majority of the men. The use of a fist in the face of a gun was stupendous, even to them. Many of them reveled in the outsider's downfall, and contemplated the grit of their employer with satisfaction. But there were others not so easily swayed. Amongst these were the man's own comrades, men who, like himself, were not real lumbermen, but agitators who had received payment to agitate. Besides these there were those unstable creatures, always to be found in such a community, who had no very definite opinions of their own, but looked for the lead of the majority, ready to side with those who offered the strongest support.
All this was very evident in that moment of silence, but the moment passed so quickly that it was impossible to say how far Dave's action had really served him. Suddenly a murmur started. In a few seconds it had risen to a shout. It started with the fallen giant's friends. There was a rush in the crowd, an ominous swaying, as of a struggle going on in its midst. Some one put up a vicious cry that lifted clear above the general din.
"Lynch him! Lynch him!"
The cry was taken up by the rest of the makeshifts and some of the doubters. Then came the sudden but inevitable awakening of the slow, fierce brains of the real men of the woods. The awakening brought with it not so much a desire to champion their employer, as a resentment that these men they regarded as scallywags should attempt to take initiative in their concerns; it was the rousing of the latent hatred which ever exists in the heart of the legitimate tradesman for the interloper. It caught them in a whirlwind of passion. Their blood rose. All other considerations were forgotten, it mattered nothing the object of that mutiny, all thought of wages, all thought of wrongs between themselves and their employer were banished from their minds. They hated nothing so badly as these men with whom they had worked in apparent harmony.
It was at this psychological moment that the final fillip was given. It came from a direction that none of the crowd realized. It came from one who knew the woodsman down to his very core, who had watched every passing mood of the crowd during the whole scene with the intentness of one who only waits his opportunity. It was Bob Mason in the buckboard.
"Down with the blacklegs! Down with the dirty 'scabs'!" he shouted.
In a moment the battle was raging. There was a wild rush of men, and their steel implements were raised aloft. "Down with the 'scabs'!" The cry echoed and reëchoed in every direction, taken up by every true lumberman. A tumult of shouting and cursing roared everywhere. The crowd broke. It spread out. Groups of struggling combatants were dotted about till the sight suggested nothing so much as a massacre. It was a fight of brutal savagery that would stop short only at actual slaughter. It was the safety-valve for the accumulated spleen of a week's hard drinking. It was the only way to steady the shaken, drink-soaked nerves and restore the dull brains to the dead level of a desire to return to work and order.
Fortunately it was a short-lived battle too. The lumber-jacks were the masters from the outset. They were better men, they were harder, they had more sheer "grit." Then, too, they were in the majority. The "scabs" began to seek refuge in flight, but not before they had received a chastisement that would remain a sore memory for many days to come. Those who went down in the fight got the iron-shod boots of their adversaries in their ribs, till, in desperation, they scrambled to their feet and took their punishment like men. But the victory was too easy for the lumber-jacks' rage to last. Like the wayward, big-hearted children of nature they were, their fury passed as quickly as it had stirred. The terror-stricken flight of those upon whom their rage had turned inspired in them a sort of fiendish amusement, and in this was perhaps the saving of a terrible tragedy. As it was, a few broken limbs, a liberal tally of wounds and bruises were the harvest of that battle. That, and the final clearing out of the element of discontent. It was victory for the master of the mills.
In less than ten minutes the victors were straggling back from their pursuit of a routed foe. Dave had not moved. He was still standing beside the fallen giant, who was now recovering consciousness from the knock-out blow he had received. They came up in small bands, laughing and recounting episodes of the fight. They were in the saving mood for their employer. All thoughts of a further strike had passed out of their simple heads. They came back to Dave, like sheep, who, after a wild stampede, have suddenly refound their shepherd, and to him they looked for guidance. And Dave was there for the purpose. He called their attention and addressed them.
"Now, boys," he said cheerfully, "you've got nicely rid of that scum, and I'm going to talk to you. We understand each other. We've worked too long together for it to be otherwise. But we don't understand those others who're not lumbermen. Say, maybe you can't all hear me; my voice isn't getting stronger, so I'll just call up that buckboard and stand on it, and talk from there."
Amidst a murmur of approval the buckboard was drawn up, and not without tremendous pain Dave scrambled up into the driving-seat. Then it was seen by both lumbermen and those in the buckboard that he had left a considerable pool of blood where he had been standing.
Betty, with horror in her eyes, turned to him.
"What is it?" she began. But he checked her with a look, and turned at once to the men.
"I'm first going to tell you about this strike, boys," he said. "After that we'll get to business, and I guess it won't be my fault if we don't figger things out right. Here, do you see this fellow sitting here? Maybe some of you'll recognize him?" He pointed at Jim Truscott sitting in the carryall. His expression was surly, defiant. But somehow he avoided the faces in front of him. "I'm going to tell you about him. This is the man who organized the strike. He found the money and the men to do the dirty work. He did it because he hates me and wants to ruin me. He came to you with plausible tales of oppression and so forth. He cared nothing for you, but he hated me. I tell you frankly he did this thing because he knew I was pushed to the last point to make good my contract with the government, because he knew that to delay the output of logs from this camp meant that I should go to smash. In doing this he meant to carry you down with me. That's how much he cares for your interests." A growl of anger punctuated his speech. But he silenced them with a gesture and proceeded. His voice was getting weaker, and a deadly pallor was stealing over his face. Chepstow, watching him, was filled with anxiety. Betty's brown eyes clung to his face with an expression of love, horror and pity in them that spoke far louder than any words. Mason was simply calculating in his mind how long Dave could keep up his present attitude.
"Do you get my meaning, boys?" he went on. "It's this, if we don't get this work through before winter I'm broke—broke to my last dollar. And you'll be out of a billet—every mother's son of you—with the winter staring you in the face."
He paused and took a deep breath. Betty even thought she saw him sway. The men kept an intense silence.
"Well?" he went on a moment later, pulling himself together with an evident effort. "I'm just here to talk straight business, and that's what you're going to listen to. First, I'll tell you this fellow's going to get his right medicine through me in the proper manner. Then, second and last, I want to give you a plain understanding of things between ourselves. There's going to be no rise in wages. I just can't do it. That's all. But I'm going to give each man in my camp a big bonus, a nice fat wad of money with which to paint any particular town he favors red, when the work's done. That's to be extra, above his wages. And the whole lot of you shall work for me next season on a guarantee. But from now to the late fall you're going to work, boys, you're going to work as if the devil himself was driving you. We've got time to make up, and shortage besides, and you've got to make it up. I don't want any slackers. Men who have any doubts can get right out. You've got to work as you never worked in your lives before. Now, boys, give us your word. Is it work or——"
Dave got no further. A shout—hearty, enthusiastic—went up from the crowd. It meant work, and he was satisfied.
The next few minutes were passed in a scene of the wildest excitement. The men closed round the buckboard, and struggled with each other to grip the big man's hand. And Dave, faint and weary as he was, knew them too well to reject their friendly overtures. Besides, they were, as he said, like himself, men of the woods, and he was full of a great sympathy and friendliness for them. At last, however, he turned to Chepstow.
"Drive back to the dugout, Tom," he said. "Things are getting misty. I think—I'm—done."
Three arduous and anxious days followed the ending of the strike, and each of the occupants of Mason's dugout felt the strain of them in his or her own particular way. Next to the strike itself, Dave's wound was the most serious consideration. He was the leader, the rudder of his ship; his was the controlling brain; and he was a most exasperating patient. His wound was bad enough, though not dangerous. It would be weeks before the use of his left arm was restored to him; but he had a way of forgetting this, of forgetting that he had lost a great quantity of blood, until weakness prostrated him and roused him to a peevish perversity.
Betty was his self-appointed nurse. Tom Chepstow might examine his wound and consider his condition, but it was Betty who dressed his wound, Betty who prepared his food and ministered to his lightest needs. From the moment of his return to the dugout she took charge of him. She consulted no one, she asked for no help. For the time, at least, he was her possession, he was hers to lavish all the fulness of her great love upon, a love that had something almost maternal in its wonderful protective instinct.
Mason was busy with the work of reorganization. His was the practical hand and head while Dave was on his sick-bed. From daylight to long after dark he took no rest. Dave's counsel guided him to an extent, but much had to be done without any consultation with the master of the mills. Provisioning the camp was a problem not easily solved. It was simple enough to order up food from Malkern, but there would be at least a week's delay before its arrival. Finally, he surmounted this difficulty, through the return of Lieberstein, who had fled to the woods with his cash-box and a supply of provisions, at the first sign of trouble. Now he had returned to save what he could from the wreck. The Jew needed assistance to recover his looted property—what remained of it. The overseer gave him that assistance, and at the same time arranged that all provisions so recovered should be redistributed (at a price) as rations to the men. Thus the delay in the arrival of supplies from Malkern was tided over. But though he availed himself of this means of getting over his difficulty he was fully determined to rid the camp, at the earliest opportunity, of so treacherous a rascal as Lieberstein.
In two days the work of restoration was in full swing. The burned store and shanties were run up with all a lumberman's rapidity and disregard for finish. Time was the thing that mattered. And so wonderfully did Mason drive and cajole his men, that on the third day the gangs once more marched out into the woods. Once again the forests echoed with the hiss of saw, the ringing clang of smiting axe, the crash of falling trees, the harsh voices of the woodsmen, and the hundred and one sounds of bustling activity which belong to a lumber camp in full work.
That day was a pleasant one for the occupants of the dugout. It was a wonderful work Mason had done. They all knew and appreciated his devotion to his wounded employer, and though none spoke of it, whenever he appeared in their midst their appreciation of him showed in their manner. Betty was very gentle and kindly. She saw that he wanted for nothing in the way of the comforts which the dugout could provide.
Tom Chepstow was far too busy with his sick to give attention to anything else. His hands were very full, and his was a task that showed so little result. Dave, for the most part, saw everything that was going on about him, and had a full estimate of all that was being done in his interests by the devoted little band, and, absurdly enough, the effect upon him was to stir him to greater irritability.
It was evening, and the slanting sunlight shone in through one of the windows. It was a narrow beam of light, but its effect was sufficiently cheering. No dugout is a haven of brightness, and just now this one needed all that could help to lift the shadow of sickness and disaster that pervaded it.
Betty was preparing supper, and Dave, lying on his stretcher, his vast bulk only half concealed by the blanket thrown over him, was watching the girl with eyes that fed hungrily upon the swift, graceful movements of her pretty figure, the play of expression upon her sweet, sun-tanned face, the intentness, the whole-hearted concentration in her steady, serious eyes as she went about her work.
Now and again she glanced over at his rough bed, but he seemed to be asleep every time she turned in his direction. The result was an additional care in her work. She made no noise lest she should waken him. Presently she stooped and pushed a log into the fire-box of the cook-stove. The cinders fell with a clatter, and she glanced round apprehensively. Her movement was so sudden that Dave's wide-open eyes had no time to shut. In a moment she was all contrition at her clumsiness.
"I'm so sorry, Dave," she exclaimed. "I did so hope you'd sleep on till supper. It's half an hour yet."
"I haven't been sleeping at all."
"Why, I——"
He smiled and shook his head, and his smile delighted the girl. It was the first she had seen in him since his arrival in the camp. His impatience at being kept to his bed was perhaps dying out. She had always heard that the most active and impatient always became reconciled to bed in the end.
"Yes, I did it on purpose," Dave said, still smiling. "You see I wanted to think. You'd have talked if I hadn't. I——"
"Oh, Dave!"
Betty's reproach had something very like resentment in it. She turned abruptly to the boiler of stew and tasted its contents, while the man chuckled softly.
But she turned round on him again almost immediately.
"Why are you laughing?" she demanded quickly.
But he did not seem inclined to enlighten her.
"Half an hour to supper?" he said musingly. "Tom'll be in directly—and Mason."
Betty was still looking at him with her cooking spoon poised as it had been when she tasted the stew.
"Yes," she said, "they'll be in directly. I've only just got to make the tea." She dropped the spoon upon the table and replaced the lid of the boiler. Then she came over to his bedside. "What did you mean saying I should have talked?" she asked, only now there was a smiling response to the smile still lurking in the gray depths of the man's eyes. Dave drew a long sigh of resignation.
"Well, y'see, Betty, if I'd laid here with my eyes open, staring about the room, at you, at the roof, at the window for a whole heap of time, you'd have said to yourself, 'Dave's suffering sure. He can't sleep. He's miserable, unhappy.' You'd have said all those things, and with all your kind little heart, you'd have set to work to cheer me up—same as you'd no doubt have done for that strike-leader fellow you shipped over to the sick camp to make room for me. Well, I just didn't want that kind of cheering. I was thinking—thinking mighty hard—figgering how best to make a broken-winged—er—owl fly without waiting for the wing to mend. Y'see, thinking's mostly all I can do just now, and I need to do such a mighty heap to keep me from getting mad and breaking things. Y'see every hour, as I lie here, I kind of seem to be storing up steam like a locomotive, and sometimes I feel—feel as if I was going to bust. Being sick makes me hate things." His smiling protest was yet perfectly serious. The girl understood. A moment later he went on. "Half an hour to supper?" he said, as though suddenly reaching a decision that had cost him much thought. "Well, just sit right down on this stretcher, and I'm going to talk you tired. I'm sick, so you can't refuse."
The man's eyes still smiled, but the seriousness of his manner had increased. Nor was Betty slow to observe it. She gladly seated herself on the edge of the stretcher, and without the least embarrassment, without the least self-consciousness, her soft eyes rested on the rugged face of her patient. She was glad that he wanted to talk—and to her, and she promptly took him up in his own tone.
"Well, I've got to listen, I s'pose," she said, with a bright smile. "As you say, you're sick. You might have added that I am your nurse."
"Yes, I s'pose you are. It seems funny me needing a nurse. I s'pose I do need one?"
Betty nodded; her eyes were bright with an emotion that the man's words had all unconsciously stirred. This man, so strong for himself, so strong to help others—this man, on whom all who came into contact with him leaned as upon some staunch, unfailing support—this man, so invincible, so masterful, so eager in the battle where the odds were against him, needed a nurse! A great pity, a great sympathy, went out to him. Then a feeling of joy and gratitude at the thought that she was his nurse succeeded it. She—she alone had the right to wait upon him. But her face expressed none of these feelings when she replied. She nodded gravely.
"Yes, you need a nurse, you poor old Dave. Just for once you're going to give others a chance of being to you what you have always been to them. It breaks my heart to see you on a sickbed; but, Dave, you can never know the joy, the happiness it gives me to be—your nurse. All my life it has been the other way. All my life you have been my wise counselor, my ever-ready loyal friend; now, in ever so small a degree, you have to lean on me. Don't be perverse, Dave. Let me help you all I can. Don't begrudge me so small a happiness. But you said you were going to talk me tired, and I'm doing it all." She laughed lightly, but it was a laugh to hide her real feelings.
The man's uninjured arm reached out, and his great hand rested heavily on one of hers. The pressure of his fingers, intended to be gentle, was crushing. His action meant so much. No words could have thanked her more truly than that hand pressure. Betty's face grew warm with delight; and she turned her eyes toward the stove as though to see that all was well with her cooking.
"They're cutting to-day?" Dave's eyes were turned upon the window. The sunlight was dying out now, and the gray dusk was stealing upon the room. Betty understood the longing in the man's heart.
"Yes, they're cutting."
He stirred uneasily.
"My shoulder is mending fast," he said a moment later. And the girl saw his drift.
She shook her head.
"It's mending, but it won't be well—for weeks," she said.
"It's got to be," he said, with tense emphasis, after a long pause. His voice was low, but thrilling with the purpose of a mind that would not bend to the weakness of his body.
"You must be patient, Dave dear," the girl said, with the persuasiveness of a mother for her child.
For a moment the man's brows drew together in a frown and his lips compressed.
"Betty, Betty, I can't be patient," he suddenly burst out. "I know I'm all wrong; but I can't be patient. You know what all this means. I'm not going to attempt to tell you. You understand it all. I cannot lie here a day longer. Even now I seem to hear the saws and axes at work. I seem to see the men moving through the forests. I seem to hear Mason's orders in the dead calm of the woods. With the first logs that are travoyed to the river I must leave here and get back to Malkern. There is work to be done, and from now on it will be man's work. It will be more than a fight against time. It will be a battle against almost incalculable odds, a battle in which all is against us. Betty, you are my nurse, and as you hope to see me through with this broken shoulder, so you must not attempt to alter my decision. I know you. You want to see me fit and well. Before all things you desire that. You will understand me when I say that, before all things, I must see the work through. My bodily comfort must not be considered; and as my friend, as my nurse, you must not hinder me. I must leave here to-night."
The man had lifted himself to a half-sitting posture in his excitement, and the girl watched him with anxious eyes. Now she reached out, and one hand gently pressed him back to his pillow. As he had said, she understood; and when she spoke, her words were the words he wished to hear. They soothed him at once.
"Yes, Dave. If you must return, it shall be as you say."
He caught her hand and held it, crushing its small round flesh in the hollow of his great palm. It was his gratitude, his gratitude for her understanding and sympathy. His eyes met hers. And in that moment something else stirred in him. The pressure tightened upon her unresisting hand. The blood mounted to her head. It seemed to intoxicate her. It was a moment of such ecstasy as she had dreamed of in a vague sort of way—a moment when the pure woman spirit in her was exalted to such a throne of spiritual light as is beyond the dream of human imagination.
In the man, too, was a change. There was something looking out of his eyes which seemed to have banished his last thought of that lifelong desire for the success of his labors, something which left him no room for anything else, something which had for its inception all the human passionate desire of his tremendous soul. His gray eyes glowed with a living fire; they deepened; a flush of hot blood surged over his rugged features, lighting them out of their plainness. His temples throbbed visibly, and the vast sinews shivered with the fire that swept through his body.
In a daze Betty understood the change. Her heart leaped out to him, yielding all her love, all that was hers to give. It cried aloud her joy in the passion of those moments, but her lips were silent. She had gazed into heaven for one brief instant, then her eyes dropped before a vision she dared no longer to look upon.
"Betty!"
The man had lifted to his elbow again. A torrent of passionate words rushed to his lips. But they remained unspoken. His heavy tongue was incapable of giving them expression. He halted. That one feverish exclamation was all that came, for his tongue clave in his mouth. But in that one word was the avowal of such a love as rarely falls to the lot of woman. It was the man's whole being that spoke.
Betty's hand twisted from his grasp. She sprang to her feet and turned to the door.
"It's Bob Mason," she said, in a voice that was almost an awed whisper, as she rushed to the cook-stove.
The camp-boss strode heavily into the room. There was a light in his eyes that usually would have gladdened the master of the mills. Now, however, Dave's thoughts were far from the matters of the camp.
"We've travoyed a hundred to the river bank!" the lumberman exclaimed in a tone of triumph. "The work's begun!"
It was Betty who answered him. Hers was the ready sympathy, the heart to understand for others equally with herself. She turned with a smile of welcome, of pride in his pride.
"Bob, you're a gem!" she cried, holding out a hand of kindliness to him.
And Dave's tardy words followed immediately with characteristic sincerity.
"Thanks, Bob," he said, in his deep tones.
"It's all right, boss, they're working by flare to-night, an' they're going on till ten o'clock."
Dave nodded. His thoughts had once more turned into the smooth channel of his affairs. Betty was serving out supper.
A few moments later, weary and depressed, the parson came in for his supper. His report was much the same as usual. Progress—all his patients were progressing, but it was slow work, for the recent battle had added to the number of his patients.
There was very little talk until supper was over. Then it began as Mason was preparing to depart again to his work. Dave spoke of his decision without any preamble.
"Say, folks, I'm going back to Malkern to-night," he said, with a smiling glance of humor at his friends in anticipation of the storm of protest he knew his announcement would bring upon himself.
Mason was on his feet in an instant.
"You can't do it, boss!" he exclaimed. "You——"
"No you don't, Dave, old friend," broke in Chepstow, with a shake of his head. "You'll stay right here till I say 'go.'"
Dave's smile broadened, and his eyes sought Betty's.
"Well, Betty?" he demanded.
But Betty understood.
"I have nothing to say," she replied quietly.
Dave promptly turned again to the parson. His smile had gone again.
"I've got to go, Tom," he said. "My work's done here, but it hasn't begun yet in Malkern. Do you get my meaning? Until the cutting began up here I was not needed down there. Now it is different. There is no one in Malkern to head things. Dawson and Odd are good men, but they are only my—foremen. It is imperative that I go, and—to-night."
"But look here, boss, it can't be done," cried Mason, with a sort of hopeless earnestness. "You aren't fit to move yet. The journey down—you'd never stand it. Besides——"
"Yes, besides, who's to take you down? How are you going?" Chepstow broke in sharply. He meant to clinch the matter once for all.
Dave's manner returned to the peevishness of his invalid state.
"There's the buckboard," he said sharply.
"Can you drive it?" demanded the parson with equal sharpness. "I can't take you down. I can't leave the sick. Mason is needed here. Well?"
"Don't worry. I'm driving myself," Dave said soberly.
Chepstow sprang to his feet and waved his pipe in the air in his angry impatience.
"You're mad! You drive? Hang it, man, you couldn't drive a team of fleas. Get up! Get up from that stretcher now, and see how much driving you could do. See here, Dave, I absolutely forbid you to attempt any such thing."
Dave raised himself upon his elbow. His steady eyes had something of an angry smile in them.
"See here, Tom," he said, imitating the other's manner. "You can talk till you're black in the face. I'm going down to-night. Mason's going to hook the buckboard up for me and fetch Truscott along. I'll have to take him down too. It's no use in your kicking, Tom," he went on, as the parson opened his lips for further protest, "I'm going." He turned again to Mason. "I'll need the buckboard and team in an hour. Guess you'll see to it, boy. An' say, just set food for the two of us in it, and half a sack of oats for the horses——"
"One moment, Bob," interrupted Betty. She had been merely an interested listener to the discussion, sitting at the far end of the supper table. Now she came over to Dave's bedside. "You'd best put in food for three." Then she looked down at Dave, smiling reassurance. From him she turned to her uncle with a laughing glance. "Trust you men to argue and wrangle over things that can be settled without the least difficulty. Dave here must get down to Malkern. I understand the importance of his presence there. Very well, he must go. Therefore it's only a question how he can get there with the least possible danger to himself. It's plain Bob can't go down. He must see the work through here. You, uncle, must also stay. It is your duty to the sick. We cannot send any of the men. They are all needed. Well, I'm going to drive him down. We'll make him comfortable in the carryall, and Truscott can share the driving-seat with me—carefully secured to prevent him getting away. There you are. I will be responsible for Dave's welfare. You need not be anxious."
She turned with such a look of confident affection upon the sick man, that, for the moment, no one had a word of protest to offer. It was Dave who spoke first. He took her hand in his and nodded his great head at her.
"Thanks, little Betty," he said. "I shall be perfectly safe in your charge."
And his words were ample reward to the woman who loved him. It was his acknowledgment of his dependence upon her.
After that there was discussion, argument, protest for nearly half an hour. But Dave and Betty held to their decision, and, at last, Tom Chepstow gave way to them. Then it was that Mason went off to make preparations. The parson went to assist him, and Betty and Dave were once more alone.
Betty let her uncle go and then lit the lamp. For some moments no word was spoken between the sick man and his nurse. The girl cleared the supper things and put a kettle on the stove. Then, while watching for it to boil, she was about to pack up her few belongings for the journey. But she changed her mind. Instead she came back to the table and faced the stretcher on which the sick man was lying.
"Dave," she said, in a low voice, "will you promise me something?"
Dave turned his face toward her.
"Anything," he said, in all seriousness.
The girl waited. She was gauging the meaning of his reply. In anybody else that answer could not have been taken seriously. In him it might be different.
"It's a big thing," she said doubtfully.
"It don't matter, little girl, I just mean it."
She came slowly over to his side.
"Do you remember, I once got you to teach me the business of the mill? I wanted to learn then so I could help some one. I want to help some one now. But it's a different 'some one' this time. Do you understand? I—I haven't forgotten a single thing I learned from you. Will you let me help you? You cannot do all now. Not until your arm is better." She dropped upon her knees at his bedside. "Dave, don't refuse me. You shall just give your orders to me. I will see they are carried out. We—you and I together—will run your mills to the success that I know is going to be yours. Don't say no, Dave—dear."
The man had turned to her. He was looking into the depths of the fearless brown eyes before him. He had no intention of refusing her, but he was looking, looking deep down into the beautiful, woman's heart that was beating within her bosom.
"I'll not refuse you, Betty. I only thank God Almighty for such a little friend."
The silence of the night was unbroken. The valley of the Red Sand River was wrapped in a peace such as it had never known since Dave had first brought into it the restless activity of his American spirit. But it was a depressing peace to the dwellers in the valley, for it portended disaster. No word had reached them of the prospects at the mill, only a vague rumor had spread of the doings at the lumber camp. Dave knew the value of silence in such matters, and he had taken care to enforce silence on all who were in a position to enlighten the minds which thirsted for such information.
The people of Malkern were waiting, waiting for something definite on the part of the master of the mills. On him depended their future movements. The mill was silent, even though the work of repairing had been completed. But, as yet, they had not lost faith in the man who had piloted them through all the shoals of early struggles to the haven of comparative prosperity. However, the calm, the unwonted silence of the valley depressed and worried them. They longed for the drone, however monotonous, of the mill. They loved it, for it meant that their wheels of life were well oiled, and that they were driving pleasantly along their set track to the terminal of success.
Yet while the village slept all was intense activity at the mills. The men had been gathered together again, late that night, and the army of workers was once more complete. The sawyers were at their saws, oiling and fitting, and generally making ready for work. The engineers were at their engines, the firemen at their furnaces, the lumber-jacks were at the shoots, and in the yards. The boom was manned by men who sat around smoking, peavey in hand, ready to handle the mightiest "ninety-footers" that the mountain forests could send them. The checkers were at their posts, and the tally boys were "shooting craps" at the foot of the shoots. The mill, like a resting giant lying prone upon his back, was bursting with a latent strength and activity that only needed the controlling will to set in motion, to drive it to an effort such as Malkern had never seen before, such as, perhaps, Malkern would never see again. And inside Dave's office, that Will lay watching and waiting.
It was a curious scene inside the office. The place had been largely converted since the master of the mills had returned. It was half sick room, half office, and the feminine touch about the place was quite incongruous in the office of such a man as Dave. But then just now Dave's control was only of the mill outside. In this room he yielded to another authority. He was in the hands of womenfolk; that is, his body was. He had no word to say in the arrangement of the room, and he was only permitted to think his control outside.
It was eleven o'clock, and his mother was preparing to take her departure. Since his return from the camp she was her son's almost constant attendant. Betty's chief concern was for the mill outside, and the careful execution of the man's orders to his foremen. She took a share of the nursing, but only in moments of leisure, and these were very few. Now she had just returned from a final inspection and consultation with Dawson. And the glow of satisfaction on her face was good to see.
"Now, mother dear," she said, after having made her report to Dave, "you've got to be off home, and to bed. You've had a long, hard day, and I'm going to relieve you. Dave is all right, and," she added with a smile, "maybe he'll be better still before morning. We expect the logs down by daylight, and then—I guess their arrival in the boom will do more to mend his poor broken shoulder than all our quacks and nostrums. So be off with you. I shall be here all night. I don't intend to rest till the first log enters the boom."
The old woman rose wearily from her rocking-chair at her boy's bedside. Her worn face was tired. At her age the strain of nursing was very heavy. But whatever weakness there was in her body, her spirit was as strong as the younger woman's. Her boy was sick, and nothing else could compare with a disaster of that nature. But now she was ready to go, for so it had been arranged between them earlier.
She crossed to Betty's side, and, placing her hands upon the girl's shoulders, kissed her tenderly on both cheeks.
"God bless and keep you, dearie," she said, with deep emotion. "I'd like to tell you all I feel, but I can't. You're our guardian angel—Dave's and mine. Good-night."
"Good-night, mother dear," said the girl, her eyes brightening with a suspicion of tears. Then, with an assumption of lightness which helped to disguise her real feelings, "Now don't you stay awake. Go right off to sleep, and—in the morning you shall hear—the mills!"
The old woman nodded and smiled. Next to her boy she loved this motherless girl best in the world. She gathered up her few belongings and went to the bedside. Bending over the sick man she kissed his rugged face tenderly. For a moment one great arm held her in its tremendous embrace, then she toddled out of the room.
Betty took her rocking-chair. She sat back and rocked herself in silence for some moments. Her eyes wandered over the curious little room, noting the details of it as though hugging to herself the memory of the smallest trifle that concerned this wonderful time that was hers.
There was Dave's desk before the window. It was hers now. There were the vast tomes that recorded his output of lumber. She had spent hours over them calculating figures for the man beside her. There were the flowers his mother had brought, and which she had found time to arrange so that he could see and enjoy them. There were the bandages it was her duty to adjust. There were the remains of the food of which they had both partaken.
It was all real, yet so strange. So strange to her who had spent her life surrounded by all those duties so essentially feminine, so closely allied to her uncle's spiritual calling. She felt that she had moved out into a new world, a world in which there was room for her to expand, in which she could bring into play all those faculties which she had always known herself to possess, but which had so long lain dormant that she had almost come to regard her belief in their existence as a mere dream, a mere vanity.
It was a wonderful thing this, that had happened to her, and the happiness of it was so overwhelming that it almost made her afraid. Yet the fact remained. She was working for him, she was working with her muscles and brain extended. She sighed, and, placing her hands behind her head, stretched luxuriously. It was good to feel the muscles straining, it was good to contemplate the progress of things in his interests, it was good to love, and to feel that that love was something more practical than the mere sentimentality of awakened passion.
Her wandering attention was recalled by a movement of her patient. She glanced round at him, and his face was turned toward her. Her smiling eyes responded to his steady, contemplative gaze.
"Well?" he said, in a grave, subdued voice, "it ought to be getting near now?"
The girl nodded.
"I don't see how we can tell exactly, but—unless anything goes wrong the first logs should get through before daylight. It's good to think of, Dave." Her eyes sparkled with delight at the prospect.
The man eyed her for a few silent moments, and his eyes deepened to a passionate warmth.
"You're a great little woman, Betty," he said at last. "When I think of all you have done for me—well, I just feel that my life can never be long enough to repay you in. Throughout this business you have been my second self, with all the freshness and enthusiasm of a mind and heart thrilling with youthful strength. I can never forget the journey down from the camp. When I think of the awful physical strain you must have gone through, driving day and night, with a prisoner beside you, and a useless hulk of a man lying behind, I marvel. When I think that you had to do everything, feed us, camp for us, see to the horses for us, it all seems like some fantastic dream. How did you do it? How did I come to let you? It makes me smile to think that I, in my manly superiority, simply lolled about with a revolver handy to enforce our prisoner's obedience to your orders. Ah, little Betty, I can only thank Almighty God that I have been blest with such a little—friend."
The girl laid the tips of her fingers over his mouth.
"You mustn't say these things," she said, in a thrilling voice. "We—you and I—are just here together to work out your—your plans. God has been very, very good to me that He has given me the power, in however small a degree, to help you. Now let us put these things from our minds for a time and be—be practical. Talking of our prisoner, what are you going to do with—poor Jim?"
It was some moments before Dave answered her. It was not that he had no answer to her question, but her words had sent his mind wandering off among long past days. He was thinking of the young lad he had so ardently tried to befriend. He was thinking of the "poor Jim" of then and now. He was recalling that day when those two had come to him with their secret, with their youthful hope of the future, and of all that day had meant to him. They had planned, he had planned, and now it was all so—different. His inclination was to show this man leniency, but his inclination had no power to alter his resolve.
When he spoke there was no resentment in his tone against the man who had so cruelly tried to ruin him, only a quiet decision.
"I want you to tell Simon Odd to bring him here," he said. Then he smiled. "I intend him to spend the night with me. That is, until the first log comes down the river."
"What are you going to do?"
The man's smile increased in tenderness.
"Don't worry your little head about that, Betty," he said. "There are things which must be said between us. Things which only men can say to men. I promise you he will be free to go when the mill starts work—but not until then." His eyes grew stern. "I owe you so much, Betty," he went on, "that I must be frank with you. So much depends upon our starting work again that I cannot let him go until that happens."
"And if—just supposing—that does not happen—I mean, supposing, through his agency, the mill remains idle?"
"I cannot answer you. I have only one thing to add." Dave had raised himself upon his elbow, and his face was hard and set. "No man may bring ruin upon a community to satisfy his own mean desires, his revenge, however that revenge may be justified. If we fail, if Malkern is to be made to suffer through that man—God help him!"
The girl was facing him now. Her two hands were outstretched appealingly.
"But, Dave, should you judge him? Have you the right? Surely there is but one judge, and His alone is the right to condemn weak, erring human nature. Surely it is not for you—us."
Dave dropped back upon his pillow. There was no relenting in his eyes.
"His own work shall judge him," he said in a hard voice. "What I may do is between him and me."
Betty looked at him long and earnestly. Then she rose from her chair.
"So be it, Dave. I ask you but one thing. Deal with him as your heart prompts you, and not as your head dictates. I will send him to you, and will come back again—when the mill is at work."
Their eyes met in one long ardent gaze. The man nodded, and the smile in his eyes was very, very tender.
"Yes, Betty. Don't leave me too long—I can't do without you now."
The girl's eyes dropped before the light she beheld in his.
"I don't want you to—do without me," she murmured. And she hurried out of the room.