"The mill? Where is it?" He demanded.
"Sachigo. Farewell Cove."
"Sachigo! Why it"s--"
"The greatest groundwood mill in the world."
There was a note of pride and triumph in the missionary"s tone. But it pa.s.sed unheeded. Bull was struggling with recollection.
"This man? Wasn"t it Leslie Standing who built it? Didn"t it break him or something? That"s the story going round. There was something--"
Father Adam shook his head.
"There"s ten million dollars says it didn"t. Ten millions you can handle yourself."
"Gee!"
Bull drew a sharp breath. Strong, forceful as he was the figure was overwhelming.
"This--all this you"re saying--offering? It"s all real, true?" Bull demanded at last.
"All of it."
"You want me to go and take possession of Sachigo, and ten--Say, where"s the catch?"
"There"s no "catch"--anywhere."
The denial was cold. It was almost in the tone of affronted dignity. The missionary had thrust his hand in a pocket. Now he produced a large, sealed envelope. Bull"s eyes watched the movement, but bewilderment was still apparent in them. Suddenly he raised a bandaged hand, and smoothed back his hair.
Father Adam held out the sealed letter. It was addressed to "Bat Harker," at Sachigo Mill.
"Here," he said quietly. "You"re the man with iron guts Leslie Standing wants for his purpose. Take this. Go right off to Sachigo and take charge of the greatest enterprise in the world"s paper industry. You"re looking to make good. It"s your set purpose to make good in the groundwood industry. Opportunities don"t come twice in a lifetime. If you"ve the iron courage I believe, you"ll grab this chance. You"ll grab it right away. Will you? Can you do it? Have you the nerve?"
There was a taunt in the challenge. It was calculated. There was something else. The missionary"s dark eyes were almost pleading.
Bull seized the letter. He almost s.n.a.t.c.hed it.
"Will I do it? Can I do it? Have I the nerve?" he cried, in a tone of fierce exulting. "If there"s a feller crazy enough to hand me ten million dollars and trust me with a job--if it was as big as a war between nations--I"d never squeal. Can I? Will I? Sure I will. And time"ll answer the other for you. Iron guts, eh! I tell you in this thing they"re chilled steel."
"Good!"
Father Adam was smiling. A great relief, a great happiness stirred his pulses as he stood up and moved over to the miserable fire with its burden of stewing food.
"Now we"ll eat," he said. And he stooped down and stirred the contents of the pot.
CHAPTER III
BULL LEARNS CONDITIONS
The _Myra_ ploughed her leisurely way up the cove. There was dignity in the steadiness with which she glided through the still waters. The c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l of the Atlantic billows had become a thing of pride in the shelter of Farewell Cove. Her predecessor, the _Lizzie_, had never risen above her humble station.
Her decks were wide and clean. Her smoke-stack had something purposeful in its proportions. The bridge was set high and possessed a s.p.a.cious chart house. She had an air of importance not usual to the humble coasting packet.
"Old man" Hardy was at his post now. One of his officers occupied the starboard side of the bridge, while he and another looked out over the port bow.
"It"s a deep water channel," the skipper said, with all a sailor"s appreciation. "That"s the merricle that makes this place. It"ud take a ten-thousand tonner with fathoms to spare right away up to the mooring berth. Guess Nature meant Sachigo for a real port, but got mussed fixing the climate."
Bull Sternford was leaning over the rail. For all summer was at its height the thick pea-jacket he was wearing was welcome enough. His keen eyes were searching, and no detail of the prospect escaped them. He was filled with something akin to amazement.
"It compares with the big harbours of the world," he replied. "And I"d say it"s not without advantages many of the finest of "em lack. Those headlands we pa.s.sed away back. Why, the Atlantic couldn"t blow a storm big enough to more than ripple the surface here inside." He laughed.
"What a place to fortify. Think of this in war time, eh?"
The grizzled skipper grinned responsively.
"It"s all you reckon," he said. "But she needs humouring. You need to get this place in winter when ice and snow make it tough. This cove freezes right around its sh.o.r.es. You"d maybe lay off days to get inside, only to find yourself snow or fog bound for weeks on end. We make it because we have to with mails. But you can"t run cargo bottoms in winter. It"s a coasting master"s job in snow time. It"s a life study.
You can get in, and you can get out--if you"ve nerve. If you"re short that way you"ll pile up sure as h.e.l.l."
He turned away to the chart room, and a moment later the engine-room telegraph chimed his orders to those below.
Bull was left with his busy thoughts.
It was a remarkable scene. The forest slopes came right down almost to the water"s edge on either hand. They came down from heights that rose mountainously. And there, all along the foresh.o.r.e were dotted timber-built habitations sufficient to shelter hundreds of workers.
Their quality was staunch and picturesque, and pointed much of the climate rigour they were called upon to endure. But they only formed a background to, perhaps, the most wonderful sight of all. A road and trolley car line skirted each foresh.o.r.e, and the mind behind the searching eyes was filled with admiration for the skill and enterprise that had transplanted one of civilisation"s most advanced products here on the desperate coast of Labrador. Many of the forest whispers of Sachigo had been incredible. But this left the onlooker ready to believe anything of it.
The mill, and the township surrounding it, were already within view, a wide-scattered world of buildings, occupying all the lower levels of the territory on both sides of the mouth of the Beaver River before it rose to the heights from which its water power fell.
Bull was amazed. And as he gazed, his wonder and admiration were intensified a hundredfold by his self-interest. This place was to be in his control, possibly his possession if he made good. He thrust back the fur cap pressed low on his forehead.
His thought leapt back on the instant to the man who had sent him down to this Sachigo. Father Adam, with his thin, ascetic features, his long, dark hair and beard, his tall, spare figure. His patient kindliness and sympathy, and yet with the will and force behind it which could fling the muzzle of a gun into a man"s face and force obedience. He had sent him. Why? Because--oh, it was all absurd, unreal. And yet here he was on the steamer; and there ahead lay the wonders of Sachigo. Well, time would prove the craziness of it all.
"Makes you wonder, eh?" The coasting skipper was at his side again. "You know these folks needed big nerve to set up this enterprise. It keeps me guessing at the limits where man has to quit. I"ve spent my life on this darn coast, an" never guessed to see the day when trolley cars "ud run on Labrador, and the working folk "ud sit around in their dandy houses, with electric light making things comfortable for them, and electric heat takin" the place of the cordwood stove it seemed to me folk never could do without. Can you beat it? No. You can"t. Nor anyone else."
"Who is it? A corporation?" Bull asked, knowing full well the answer. He wanted to hear, he wanted to learn all that this man could tell him.
Hardy shook his head.
"Standing," he said. "That was the guy"s name who started it all up.
But," he added thoughtfully, "I never rightly knew which feller it was.
If it was Standing, or that tough hoboe feller who calls himself Bat Harker. They never talk a heap. But since Leslie Standing pa.s.sed out o"
things eight years back--the time I was first handed command of this kettle--the mill"s jumped out of all notion. Those trolleys," he pointed at the foresh.o.r.e of the cove: "They started in to haul the "hands" to their work only two years back. I"d say it"s Bat Harker. But he looks more like a longsh.o.r.e tough than a--genius."
He shrugged expressively. Then he shook his head.
"No," he went on. "I don"t know a thing but what any guy can learn who comes along up this coast. I"ve thought a heap. An", like you, I"ve ast questions all the time. But you don"t learn a thing of this enterprise but the things you see. Bat Harker don"t ever talk." He laughed in quiet enjoyment. "He"s most like a clam mussed up in a cement bar"l. There don"t seem any clear reason either. The only thing queer to me was Standing"s "get out." There was talk then when that happened along. But it was jest talk. Canteen talk. Something sort of happened. No one seemed rightly to know. They guessed Bat was a tough guy who"d boosted him out--some way. Then I heard his wife had quit and he was all broke up. Then they said he"d made losses of millions on stock market gambles.