He drew a deep breath and one lean hand smoothed back his shining black hair. Then his eyes came back to the face of the man opposite, and the agony in them was beyond words. After a moment their terrible expression became lost as he bent over his work. "I"m glad you"re back, Bat," he said, without looking up.
"There"s a h.e.l.l of a lot of orders to get out. We"re running close up to winter."
The lumberman understood. At a single blow this man"s every hope had been smashed and ground under the heel of an iron fate. The wife, the woman he had worshipped, had given her life to serve him, and with her had gone the man-child, about whom had been woven the entire network of a father"s hopes and desires.
A week had pa.s.sed since Bat had witnessed the voiceless agony of his friend. A week of endless labour and unspoken fears. He knew Standing as it is given to few to know the heart of another. His sympathy was real.
It was of that quality which made him desire above all things to render the heartbroken man real physical and moral help. But no opening had been given him, and he feared to probe the wound that had been inflicted. During those first seven days Standing seemed to be obsessed with a desire to work, to work all day and every night, as though he dared not pause lest his disaster should overwhelm him.
Now it was Sunday. Night and day the work had gone on. No less than ten freighters had been loaded and dispatched since Bat"s return, and only that morning two vessels had cast off, laden to the water-line, and pa.s.sed down on the tide for the mouth of the cove. At the finish of the midday meal Standing had announced his intentions for the afternoon.
"We need to get a look into the lumber on the north side, Bat," he said.
"You"d best come along with me. How do you think?"
And Bat had agreed on the instant.
"Sure," he said. "There"s a heap to be done that way if we"re to start layin" the penstocks down on that side next year."
So they had spent the hours before dusk in a prolonged tramp through the forests of the Northern sh.o.r.e. And never for one moment was their talk and apparent interest allowed to drift from the wealth of long-fibred timber they were inspecting.
But somehow to Bat the whole thing was unreal. It meant nothing. It could mean nothing. He felt like a man walking towards a precipice he could not avoid. He felt disaster, added disaster, was in the air and was closing in upon them. He knew in his heart that this long, weary inspection, all the stuff they talked, all the future plans they were making for the mill was the merest excuse. And he wondered when Standing would abandon it and reveal his actual purpose. The man, he knew, was consumed by a voiceless grief. His soul was tortured beyond endurance.
And there was that "yellow streak," which Bat so feared. When, when would it reveal itself? How?
Now, at last, as they rested on the ledge overlooking the mill and the waters of the cove, he felt the moment of its revelation had arrived. He was propped against the stump of a storm-thrown tamarack. Standing was stretched p.r.o.ne upon the fallen trunk itself. Neither had spoken for some minutes. But the trend of thought was apparent in each. Bat"s deep-set, troubled eyes were regarding the life and movement going on down at the mill, whose future was the greatest concern of his life.
Standing, too, was gazing out over the waters. But his darkly brooding eyes were on the splendid house he had set up on the opposite hillside.
It was the home about which his every earthly hope had centred. And even now, in his despair, it remained a magnet for his hopeless gaze.
Winter was already in the bite of the air and in the absence of the legions of flies and mosquitoes as well as in the chilly grey of the lapping waters below them. It was doubtless, too, searching the heart of these men whose faces gave no indication of the sunlight of summer shining within.
"Bat!"
The lumberman turned sharply. He spat out a stream of tobacco juice and waited.
"Bat, old friend, it"s no use." Standing had swung himself into a sitting posture. He was leaning forward on the tree-trunk with his forearms folded across his knees. "We"ve done a lot of talk, and we"ve searched these forests good. And it"s all no use. None at all. There"s going to be no penstocks set up this side of the water next year--as far as I"m concerned. I"ve done. Finished. Plumb finished. I"m quitting.
Quitting it all."
The lumberman ejected a masticated chew and took a fresh one.
"You see, old friend, I"ll go crazy if I stop around," Standing went on.
"I"ve been hit a pretty desperate punch, and I haven"t the guts to stand up to it. When it came I set my teeth. I wanted to keep sane. I reminded myself of all I owed to the folks working for us. I thought of you. And I tried to bolster myself with the schemes we had for beating the Skandinavians out of this country"s pulp-wood trade. Yes, I tried. G.o.d, how I tried! But my guts are weak, and I know what lies ahead. For nearly six weeks I"ve been working things out, and for a week I"ve been wondering how I should tell you. I brought you here to tell you.
"I want you to understand it good," he went on, after the briefest pause. "I can"t stand to live on in the house that Nancy and I built up.
Every room is haunted by her. By her happy laugh, and by memories of the hours we sat and talked of the boy-child we"d both set our hearts on. I just can"t do it without going stark, staring, raving mad. I can"t."
"That"s how I figgered. I"ve watched it in you, Les. Tell me the rest."
Bat chewed steadily. It was a safety-valve for his feelings.
"The rest?" Standing turned to gaze out at the house across the water.
"If it weren"t for you, Bat, I"d close right down. I"d leave everything standing and--get out," he went on slowly. "The whole thing"s a nightmare. Look at it. Look around. The forests of soft wood. The township we"ve set up. The harnessed water power. That--that house of mine. It"s all nightmare, and I don"t want it. I"m afraid. I"m scared to death of it."
Bat moved away from the stump he had been propped against. He pa.s.sed across to the edge of the ledge and stood gazing down on the scenes below.
"You needn"t worry for me," he said. "It don"t matter a cuss where or how I hustle my dry hash. I was born that way. Fix things the way you feel. Cut me right out."
The man"s generosity was a simple expression of his rugged nature. His love of that great work below him, in the creation of which he had taken so great a part, was nothing to him at that moment. He was concerned only for the man, who had held out a succouring hand, and led him, in his darkest moments, to safety and prosperity.
Standing shook his head at the broad back squared against the grey, wintry sky.
"I didn"t mean it that way, old friend," he said.
Bat swung around. His grey eyes were wide. His face seemed to have softened out of its usual harsh cast.
"But I do, Les," he cried. "You don"t need to figger a thing about me.
You"re hurt, boy. You"re hurt mighty sore. Cut me right out of your figgers, and do the things that"s goin" to heal that sore. If there"s a thing I can do to help you, why, I guess I"d be glad to know it."
For a few moments Standing remained silent. Perhaps he was pondering upon what he had to say. Perhaps he was simply gaining time to suppress the emotions which the selflessness of the other had inspired.
"Here," he cried at last, "I best tell you the whole story that"s in my mind. I told you I"ve been figuring it out. Well, it"s figured to the last decimal. You think you know me. Maybe you do. Maybe you know only part of the things I know about myself. If you knew them all I"d hate to think of the contempt you"d have to hand me. You see, Bat, I"m a coward, a terrible moral coward. Oh, I"m not scared of any man living when it comes to a fight. But my mind"s full of ghosts and nightmares ready to jump at me with every doubt, every new effort where I can"t figure the end. Years ago, when I was a youngster, I yearned for fortune. And I realised that I had it in me to get it quick by means of that crazy talent for figures you reckon is so wonderful. I got the chance and jumped, for it. But every step I took left me scared to the verge of craziness. When I hit up against h.e.l.lbeam I got a desire to beat him that was irresistible, and I jumped into the fight with my heart in my mouth. It was easy--so easy. h.e.l.lbeam was a babe in my hands. I could play with him as a spider plays with its victim, and when, like a spider, I"d bound him with my figures, hand and foot, I was free to suck his blood till I was satiated. I did all that, and then my nightmare descended upon me again. You know how I fled with h.e.l.lbeam"s hounds on my heels. I was terrified at the enormity of the thing I"d done. I could have stood my ground and beaten him--and them. But moral cowardice overwhelmed me and drove me to these outlands. G.o.d, what I suffered! And after all I haven"t the certainty that I deserved it."
Bat came back to his stump and stood against it while Standing pa.s.sed a weary hand across his forehead.
"The happenings since then you know as well as I do. I don"t need to talk of them. I mean, how I met and married Nancy, when she was widow of that no-account McDonald feller, the editor of _The Abercrombie Herald!_"
Bat nodded.
"Yes, sure, I know, Les. When you married Nancy an" made her thirteen-year-old daughter--your daughter."
"Yes. I"d almost forgotten. Yes, there"s her girl, Nancy. She"s still at school. Well, anyway, you know, these things, all of "em. But what you don"t know is that you--you Bat, old friend, are solely responsible for all the work that"s being done here. You, old friend, are responsible that I"ve enjoyed seven years of something approaching peace of mind.
You, you with your bulldog fighting spirit, you with your h.e.l.l-may-care manner of shouldering responsibility, and facing every threat, have been the staunch pillar on which I have always leant. Without you I"d have gone under years ago, a victim of my own mental ghosts. No, no, Bat," he went on quickly, as the lumberman shook his head in sharp denial, "it"s useless. I know. Leaning on you I"ve built up around me the reality of that original dream, with the other things I"ve now lost, and with every ounce in me I"ve worked for its fulfilment.
"Well, what"s the logic of it all?" he continued, after a moment"s pause. "Yes, it is the logic of it. You may argue that for seven years I"ve been doing a big work and there"s no reason, in spite of what"s happened, that I should now abandon it all. But there is. And in your strong old heart you"ll know the thing I say is true--if cowardly.
During seven years, or part of them, I"ve known a happiness that"s compensated for every terror I"ve endured. Nancy"s been my guardian angel, and the boy, that was to be born, was the beacon light of my life. My poor little wife has gone, and that beacon light, the son we yearned for, has been snuffed right out. And in the shadows left I see only the groping hand of h.e.l.lbeam reaching out towards me. In the end that hand will get me, and crush the remains of my miserable life out. I know. Just as sure as G.o.d, h.e.l.lbeam"s going to get me."
The sweat of terror stood on the man"s high forehead, and he wiped it away.
Bat flung a clenched fist down upon the tree stump.
"You"re wrong, Les. You"re plumb wrong. If it means murder I swear before G.o.d h.e.l.lbeam"ll never lay hands on you. h.e.l.lbeam? Gee! Let him set his nose north of "fifty" and I"ll promise him a welcome so hot that"ll leave h.e.l.l like a glacier. As for his darn agents? Why, say, I want to feel sorry for "em "fore they start. Idepski"s hating himself right--"
"I know," cried Standing impatiently. "I know it all. Everything you"ve said you mean, but--it won"t save me. But we can leave all that. There"s the other things. Why should I go on living here, working, slaving, haunted by the terror of h.e.l.lbeam? With my boy, my wife, to fight for it was worth all the agony. But without them--why? Why in the name of sanity should I go on? To beat the Skandinavians out of Canada"s trade, and claim it all for a country that doesn"t care a curse? To build up a great name that in the end must be dragged in the mire of public estimation? Not on your life, Bat. No, no. I"m going to cut adrift. I"m going to quit. I"m going to lose myself in these forests, and live the remaining years of my life free to run to earth at the first shot of the hunter"s gun. It"s all that"s left me--as I see it."
"And all this?" Bat said, reaching out one great hand in the direction of the Cove. "An" that school gal "way down at Abercrombie, learning her knitting, an" letters, an" crying her dandy eyes out for the mother who had to leave her there when she pa.s.sed over to you? Say, Les, you best go on. Jest go right on an" I"ll say my piece after."
Standing sat up. A deep earnestness was in the dark eyes that looked fearlessly into Bat"s. He took the other at his word and went on. He had nothing to conceal.
"The mill? Why, I want to pa.s.s it over to your care, Bat," he said, permitting one swift regretful glance in the direction of the grey waters below them. Then he spoke almost feverishly. "Here"s the proposition. I"m going to hand you full powers--through Charles Nisson.
You"ll run this thing on the lines laid down. If you fancy carrying on the original proposition of extension, well and good. If not, just carry on and leave the rest for--later. You"ll be manager for me through Nisson. I shan"t remove one cent of capital. I don"t want h.e.l.lbeam"s money beyond the barest grub stake. It"ll remain under Nisson"s guardianship for your use in running this mill. You"ll simply satisfy Nisson. For the rest I shan"t interfere. You"re drawing a big salary now. Well, seeing I go out of the work, that salary will be doubled.
That"s for the immediate. Then there"s the future. I"ve a notion. Maybe it"s a crazy notion. But it"s mine and I mean to test it. Here. We reckon to build up this enterprise for one great, big purpose. It was my dream to break the Skandinavian ring governing the groundwood trade of this country. It was work that appealed to my imagination. I wanted to build this great thing and pa.s.s it on to my boy. It seemed to me fine.