"That"s all right," he said sharply. "That"s just talk. You"ve come a h.e.l.l of a long way with those boys of yours down at the _Lizzie_ to worry out some body-s.n.a.t.c.hing. That"s all right. I don"t just see how you"ve figgered to do it. But that"s your affair. The point is, I"m going to do the body-s.n.a.t.c.hing instead of you. And it"s quite clear to me how I intend doing it. You"re going a trip--right off. And it"s a trip from which you won"t get a chance of getting back to Quebec under this time next year. You see, winter"s closing down in a month, and Labrador and Northern Quebec aren"t wholesome territory for any man to set out to beat the trail in winter, especially with folks around anxious to stop him. You reckon I"m to pa.s.s a while in a States penitentiary. Well, meanwhile you"re going to try what this country can show you in the way of a--prison ground. And you"re going to try it for at least a year. You"ll be treated white. But you"ll need to work for your grub like other folks, and if you don"t feel like working you won"t eat. We"re fifty-three degrees north here, and our ways are the tough ways of the tough country we live in. There"s no sort of mercy in this country. Bat, here, is going to see you on your trip, and, if you take my advice, you won"t rile Bat. He"s got it in him, and in his hands, to make things darn unpleasant for you. You"ve a goodish nerve, and maybe you"ve goodish sense. You"ll need "em both for the next twelve months.
After that it"s up to you. But if you try kicking between now and then, why--G.o.d help you."
Standing beckoned Bat from his seat at the window. He held up the door key.
"You best take this," he said. "No. 10. And he starts out right away. He needs to be well on the road before the _Lizzie_ puts to sea."
Bat took the key. He moved away and unlocked the door, and remained beside it grimly regarding the man who had listened without comment to the sentence pa.s.sed on him, without the smallest display of emotion.
Idepski was smoking his second cigarette.
"No. 10. I s"pose that"s one of your lumber camps." Idepski looked up from his contemplation of the cigarette. His dark eyes were levelled at the man across the writing table. "A tough place, eh? or you wouldn"t be sending me there." He laughed in a fashion that left his eyes coldly enquiring.
Standing inclined his head. He was without mercy, without pity.
"It"s a tough camp in a tough country," he said deliberately. "It"s a camp where you"ll get just as good a time as you choose to earn. The boy who runs it learnt his job in the forests of Quebec, and you"ll likely understand what that means. Well, you"re going right off now. But there"s this I want to tell you before I see the last of you--for a year. I know you, Idepski. I know you for all you are, and all you"re ever likely to be. You"re an unscrupulous blackmailer and crook. You"re a parasite battening yourself on the weakness of human nature, taking your toll from whichever side of a dispute will pay you best. You"re taking h.e.l.lbeam"s money in the dispute between him and me, and you"ll go on taking it till you pull off the play he"s asking, or get broken in the work of it. That"s all right as far as I"m concerned. You"ve nerve, you"ve courage, or you wouldn"t be the crook you are. I guess you"ll go on because I"ve no intention of competing with h.e.l.lbeam for your services. But I want you to understand clearly you"ve jumped into a mighty big fight. This is a country where a fight can go on without the prying eyes of the laws of civilisation peeking into things. And by that I take it you"ll understand I reckon to make war to the knife. You came here prepared to use force. That"s all right. We shan"t hesitate to use force on our side. And we"re going to use it to the limit. If peace is only to be gained at the cost of your life you"re going to pay that cost--if it suits me. That"s all I"ve to say at the moment. For the present, for a year, you"ll be safely muzzled. You see, I don"t need to worry with those boys you brought with you. You best go along with Bat now. He"ll fix things ready for your trip."
The dismissal was complete, and Bat was prompt to accept his cue. He moved towards the man smoking at the table, much in the fashion of a warder advancing to take possession of his prisoner after sentence of the court.
It was at that moment that the cold mask of indifference fell from the agent. Hardy as he was, the contemplation of his momentary failure, which was about to cost him twelve months of hardship in one of the roughest lumber camps in Labrador, robbed him of something of that nerve which was his chief a.s.set. He glanced for the first time at the burly figure of Bat. He contemplated the rugged features of the man whose battling instinct was his strongest characteristic. He read the purpose in the grim set of the square jaws, and in the unyielding light of the grey eyes peering out from under s.h.a.ggy brows. And that which he read reduced him to a feeling of impotence. He flung a look of fury and hate at the man behind the desk.
"Maybe that"s all you"ve to say," he cried, his jaws snapping viciously over his words, his eyes fiercely alight. "You think you"ve won when you"ve only gained a moment"s respite. You can"t win. You don"t know.
Oh, yes. I guess you can send me along out of the way. You can do just all you reckon. And if it suits you, you can shoot me up or any other old thing. You forget h.e.l.lbeam. You tell me I"m a crook and a blackmailer, you give me credit for nerve and courage. That"s all right.
You think these things, and I don"t have to worry. But you"ve robbed h.e.l.lbeam. You"ve robbed him like any common "hold-up"--of millions. It"s not for you to talk of crooks and blackmailers. The laws of the States are going to find you the crook, and h.e.l.lbeam"ll see they don"t err for leniency. h.e.l.lbeam"ll get you as sure as G.o.d. You"ve got months to think it over, and when you"ve done I reckon you won"t fancy shouting. Well, I"m ready for this joy spot you call No. 10. I"m not going to kick. I"ve sense enough to know when the drop"s on me. But you"ll see me again. Oh, yes, you"ll see me again because you"re not going to shoot me up. For all your talk you haven"t the nerve. You"ll see me again, and when you do--well, don"t forget h.e.l.lbeam"s at the other end of this business.
Guess I"m ready."
The man stood up. And as he stood his eyes looked squarely into those of Bat.
"Get on with it," he cried, and flung the remains of his lighted cigarette on the pile of the carpet, and trod it viciously underfoot with his heavy sea boot.
Standing was alone. He was alone with the thoughts his encounter with Idepski had inspired. Judging by the expression of his reflective eyes they were scarcely those of a man confident of victory. Had Bat been there to witness, the task he was at that moment engaged upon would surely have been robbed of half its satisfaction.
But Bat had gone. And with him had gone the man who was to learn the rigours of a Labrador winter under conditions of hardship he had not yet realised. Meanwhile Standing was free to think as his emotions guided him, with no watchful eyes to observe.
"You"ll see me again, and when you do--well, don"t forget h.e.l.lbeam"s at the other end of this business."
The words haunted. The threat of them appealed to an imagination that was a-riot.
After a time Standing stirred restlessly. He sat up and brushed the litter of paper aside. Then he leant back in his chair and his fine eyes were lit with an agony of doubt and disquiet. The poisonous seed of the agent"s retort had fallen upon fruitful soil.
But after awhile the tension seemed to relax, and his gaze wandered from the grey daylight beyond the window and was suddenly caught and held by the mail bag, still lying where the man had flung it. It was like the swift pa.s.sing of a summer storm. The man"s whole expression underwent a complete transformation. The mail! The mail from Quebec--unopened!
He sprang to his feet. For the moment Idepski, h.e.l.lbeam, everything was forgotten. His thought had bridged the miles between Farewell Cove and the ancient city of the early French, Nancy! That woman--that devoted wife who was striving with all the power of a frail body to serve him.
There would be a letter in that mail from Nisson, telling him--Yes.
There might even be a letter from Nancy herself.
The sack was in his hands. He had broken the seals. He shook out the contents upon the floor. A packet of less than half a hundred letters, and the rest was an a.s.sortment of parcels of all shapes and sizes. It was the letter packet that interested him, and he untied the string that held it.
A swift search produced the expected. Standing looked for the handwriting of Charles Nisson, the shrewd, obscure lawyer in the country town of Abercrombie. He had never yet failed him. He would not be likely to. A bulky letter remained in his hand. The others lay scattered broadcast upon the desk.
For some moments he held the letter unopened. The lean fingers felt the bulk of the envelope, while feverish eyes surveyed, and read over and over the address in the familiar small, cramped handwriting. The impulse of the moment was to tear open the letter forthwith, to s.n.a.t.c.h at the tidings he felt it to contain. But something deterred. Something left him doubting, hesitating. It was what Bat had called his "yellow streak." Suppose--suppose--But with all his might he thrust his fears aside. He tore off the outer cover and unfolded the closely written pages.
Long, silent moments pa.s.sed, broken only by the shuffling of the sheets of the letter as he turned them. Not once did he look up from his reading. Right through to the end, the dreadful, bitter end, he read the hideous news his loyal friend had to impart. Twice, during the reading, the sharp intake of breath, that almost whistled in the silence of the room, told of an emotion he had no power to repress, and at the finish of it all the mechanically re-folded page"s fell from shaking, nerveless fingers upon the littered desk.
His eyes remained lowered gazing at the fallen letter. His hands remained poised where the letter had fallen from them. His face had lost its healthful hue. It was grey, and drawn, and the lips that parted as he muttered had completely blanched.
"Dead!" he whispered without consciousness of articulation. "Dead!
Nancy! My boy! Both! Oh, G.o.d!"
CHAPTER IV
THE "YELLOW STREAK"
The grey, evening light was significant of the pa.s.sing season. A chilly breeze whipped about the faces of the men at the fringe of the woods.
They were resting after a long tramp of inspection through the virgin forests. It was on a ledge, high up on the hillside of the northern sh.o.r.e of the cove, where the ground dropped away in front of them several hundreds of feet to the waters below. Behind them was a backing of standing timber which sheltered them from the full force of the biting wind.
It was nearly a week since Bat Harker had returned from his mission to No. 10 Camp. He had returned full of satisfaction at the completion of his task, and comforted by the knowledge that the horizon of the mill had been cleared of threatening clouds for at least the period of a year. Then he encountered the ricochet of the blow which Fate had dealt his friend and employer.
It had been within half an hour of his return, while yet the stains and dust of his journey remained upon him, while yet he was yearning for that rest for his body to which it was ent.i.tled.
Bat had concluded the report of his journey, and the two men were closeted together in the office on the hillside. The lumberman had had no suspicion of the thing that had happened in his absence, and Standing had given no indication. Standing seemed unchanged. There had been the customary smile of welcome in his eyes. There had been the cordial handshake of friendship. Maybe Standing had talked less, and the searching questions usual in him had not been forthcoming. Maybe there was a curiously tired, strained look in his eyes. But that was all.
At the conclusion of his report Bat had bent eagerly forward over the desk which stood between them. His hard eyes were smiling. His whole manner was that of a man antic.i.p.ating something pleasant.
"Say, Les," he cried, "guess you"ve maybe some news for me, too. It"s more than a month since--and you were expecting--Things all right?"
Standing reached towards the drawer beside him, and as he did so there was a sound. It was a curious, inarticulate sound that Bat interpreted into a laugh. The other opened the drawer and drew out the folded pages of a letter. These he pa.s.sed across the table, and his eyes were without a shadow of the laugh which Bat thought he had heard.
"Best read it," he said. "Take your time. I"ll just finish these figures I"m working on."
It was the curious, cold tone that stirred Bat to his first misgiving.
He took the letter. There were pages of it. He set them in order and commenced to read. And meanwhile Standing remained apparently engrossed in his figures.
He read the letter through. He read it slowly, carefully. Then, like the other had done, the man to whom it was addressed, he read it a second time. And as he read every vestige of his previous satisfaction pa.s.sed from him. A cold constriction seemed to fasten upon his strong heart. And a terrible realisation of the tragedy of it all took possession of him. At the end of his second reading he handed the letter back to its owner without comment of any sort, without a word, but with a hand that, for once in his life, was unsteady.
"That was in the mail Idepski brought," Standing said, as he returned the letter to its place, and shut and locked the drawer.
"You remember?" he went on, pointing. "He flung it down there. Just by the door. Yes, it was just there, because I stood against the door, and was only just clear of it."
He paused and his hand remained pointing at the spot where the mail bag had lain. It was as if the spot held him fascinated. Then his arm lowered slowly, and his hand came to rest on the edge of the table, gripping it with unnecessary force.
"Seems queer," he went on, after a while. Then he shook his head. "Think of it. Nancy--my Nancy. Dead! She died giving birth to my boy. And he--he was stillborn. Why? I--I can"t seem to realize it. I--don"t--" He paused, and a strained, hunted look grew in his eyes. "No. It"s easy.
It"s just Fate. That"s it. There"s no escape."