For many minutes Hedin puffed at his pipe. "I am glad to hear that," he said at length, "for I am not going back."

"Not going back!" cried Murchison. "D'ye mean it? An' what about that lass of John McNabb's?"

"That lass of John McNabb's has chosen another," answered Hedin in a dull tone.

It was the seventh of June when Wentworth had dispatched the Indian with the reports to McNabb and to Orcutt, and thereafter he settled himself for three weeks of waiting. The activity at the post bored and annoyed him. He complained of the noisy yapping of the night-prowling dogs, cursed the children that ran against his legs in their play, and when necessity compelled him to cross the encampment, he passed among the tepees, obviously avoiding and despising their occupants.

Upon the fifth or sixth day, to rid himself of annoyance, Wentworth essayed a journey to the rapids, and because no one could be spared from the post, he ventured forth alone. When not more than ten miles from the post, he turned his head, as he topped a rock-ribbed ridge for a casual survey of the broad brule he had just crossed. The next instant he brought up rigidly erect as his eye caught a swift blur of motion far back on his trail at the opposite edge of the brule. He looked again but could make out only an army of blackened stumps. Entering the scrub with a vague sense of uneasiness, he circled among the stunted trees and took up a position under cover of a granite outcropping that gave him a view of his back trail. He had hardly settled himself before a man stepped from behind a stump and struck out rapidly upon his trail. The man was traveling light, apparently studying the ground as he walked. Wentworth glanced about him and noted that the rocky ridge would give the man scant opportunity for trailing him to his position. The figure was coming up the ridge now. As it passed a twisted pine, Wentworth got a good look into his face, and the sight of it sent cold shivers up his spine that prickled uncomfortably at the roots of his hair. For the face was that of Alex Thumb, and at close range Wentworth could see that the black eyes glittered evilly. Icy fingers gripped the engineer's heart. He felt suddenly weak and cold.

Raising a shaking hand to his forehead, Wentworth withdrew it wet and glistening with sweat. His brain conjured fantastic stories of the powers of the Indian tracker, and fearfully he scanned the rocks over which he had come. Suddenly it occurred to him that if the man were still upon his trail, he would have come up with him before this. Evidently the tracker was wasting no time on the broad rocky ridge, but taking it for granted that his quarry would proceed on his way, figured on picking up the trail again in the softer ground of the next valley; in which case he would soon discover his error and circle to correct it. Discarding his pack, the terrified man swiftly descended the ridge and crossed the brule at a run. Gaining the shelter of the forest he paused and looked back. The wide clearing was tenantless, and regaining his breath, he resumed his flight, crashing through patches of underbrush, and splashing through streams until, just at dusk, the lights of the Gods Lake campfires came into view.

Completely done up, he staggered into his cabin and, closing the door, fell sprawling upon his bunk, where for an hour he lay while his overtaxed muscles slowly regained their strength. Then he stood up, lighted his candle, and proceeded to remove the record of his mad flight from his scratched skin and torn clothing.

That evening at supper he was surprised to find that Downey had returned to the post. And he wondered if he only fancied that the officer eyed him meaningly.

He said nothing of his experience, but thereafter he was content to remain at the post, never venturing alone beyond the boundaries of the clearing. He became more and more nervous with the passing of the days. One by one, he checked them off, and during the latter days of June he spent hours pacing restlessly up and down, or making the round of the clearing, shunned by Indian dogs and Indian children, and ignored by their elders. And always three questions were uppermost in his mind: Would Orcutt come? Would McNabb come? Would they both come? And finding no answer, he would continue his restless pacing, or raise the imaginary stakes in his game of solitaire to stupendous proportions.

He became more and more irritable as the tension increased. The breaking of a shoe lace called forth a flow of profanity, and when the mainspring of his watch snapped, he hurled the instrument against the log wall in his senseless rage.



XVII

The morning of June 29th brought Cameron, armed with credentials which empowered him to transact any and all business connected with the pulp-wood holdings of the Canadian Wild Lands Company, Ltd. Murchison introduced him to Wentworth, who insisted that the man share his cabin.

"So you are McNabb's man?" queried Cameron with a smile, as he swung his pack to the floor and seated himself upon the edge of a bunk. "Do you know, we rather hoped I would not find you here."

"Why?" asked Wentworth, returning the smile.

"Pulp-wood has gone up since that contract was made. If the stuff were to revert to us we could do much better with it."

"How much better?"

Cameron shot a keen glance at his questioner. "Well, considerably," he answered non-committally.

"A dollar an acre?"

"Two of them."

A brief silence ensued, during which Wentworth was conscious that the eyes of the other were upon him. "Seven dollars an acre," he said. "Pretty high, isn't it, when you consider the inaccessibility to your markets?"

Cameron laughed. "Inaccessibility to markets don't seem to be worrying McNabb any. Bringing his paper mills into the woods seems to have solved that problem. I was talking to the engineer in charge of his road construction day before yesterday——"

"Engineer in charge of road construction!" exclaimed Wentworth. "What road construction—where?"

"Why, north of here. You knew he was building a tote-road, didn't you? I followed the blazed trail clear down to the rapids of the Shamattawa. And he's pushing it, too—got twenty-five or thirty miles of it ready for traffic."

"No—I didn't know he had begun construction," admitted Wentworth. "I knew there was to be a road—laid it out myself. But I did not know that the work had started."

"Well, it has, and we may as well conclude out business."

"But the options do not expire until noon of July first."

"No, but what is to be gained by waiting here until the last minute? He intends to close the deal, so why not get at it? I suppose you were provided with the necessary funds to make the initial payment?"

Wentworth shook his head. "No," he answered. "In fact I have nothing whatever to do with the transaction. I am an engineer sent up here to locate the mill site, lay out the tote-road, and incidentally, to make a survey of additional pulp-wood holdings. I am surprised to hear that McNabb has begun construction of the road."

Cameron stared at the man in astonishment. "What do you mean?" he asked, "that McNabb has added the expense of road construction to the money he put into the options, without making provision for acquiring title to the property? That does not sound like McNabb—what I've heard of him."

"He has until noon of the first," reminded Wentworth.

"Yes, but where is he? He knows the North, and the hundred-an'-one things that can happen to upset a schedule. If I had as much invested in this thing as he has, you may believe I would have been here with plenty of time to spare."

Wentworth nodded. "So would I. But in case he does not show up, what then? The first man that offers seven dollars an acre, and is prepared to make a substantial payment takes the property?"

"Just so. If McNabb, or his representative, is not here on the stroke of twelve, the day after to-morrow, with tender of a cash payment of ten percent. of the purchase price as stipulated in his contract, then he is out of the reckoning altogether. But why do you ask? You speak as though there were some doubt in your mind as to McNabb's appearance?"

"You can never tell," answered Wentworth. "He told me he would be here himself to close the deal at the proper time. If he does not come, it is no affair of mine, except that I should be out of a job. I need the job, so I tipped off his chief rival capitalist as to the date of expiration, and told him that in case for any reason McNabb fell down on the proposition, he had better show up here at the post on the first day of July with a big bunch of coin." He paused and grinned at Cameron. "I was merely playing safe. If McNabb shows up, well and good. If he don't, well and good again—I still have a job, and you get seven dollars an acre, instead of five."

"But will the other be here?"

Wentworth shrugged. "That is what I have been asking myself for a week. Will McNabb come? Will Orcutt come? Or will they both come? In the latter case I may have let myself in for some unpleasant complications. But I had to take a chance—to avoid taking a chance."

Cameron laughed. "Let us hope for your sake that only one of the parties arrives, and for my sake, that it is the rival, for the additional two dollars an acre will mean an additional million for my company."



XVIII

Along toward the middle of the following afternoon Orcutt appeared at the post, accompanied by two guides and two operatives of a detective agency, who were ostensibly merely members of a party of three, but who in reality were the guardians of a certain thick packet of large bills that reposed in the very bottom of a waterproof rucksack.

Into the trading room he stamped, cursing the black flies and mosquitoes whose combined and persistent attack had left his face and neck red and swollen. Hedin was behind the counter, and without a hint of recognition Orcutt inquired the whereabouts of Wentworth. Upon being informed that he was probably in his cabin, he turned on his heel and stamped from the room.

"This is a hell of a country!" he said in greeting, as Wentworth opened his door to admit him. "The damned flies and mosquitoes just naturally eat a man alive!"

"It isn't so bad when you get used to it," laughed Wentworth, and turned toward the man who had risen from his chair. "Mr. Orcutt, this is Mr. Cameron, representative of the Canadian Wild Lands Company."

"Wild lands is right," grinned Orcutt as he acknowledged the other's greeting. "I never saw so much timber or so many insects in my life. And now," he continued, meeting Cameron's eyes, "I'm a busy man, and the sooner I get out of this God-forsaken country, the better I'll like it. Why can't we go ahead and get the business over with?"

"You forget, Mr. Orcutt, that the McNabb options do not expire until noon to-morrow," Cameron answered.

Orcutt nodded impatiently. "Yes, yes, I suppose we've got to wait. But as far as that goes, I don't think we've got to worry any. I always make it my business to keep an eye on the other fellow, and I know to certainty that John McNabb will not be here. As a matter of fact, he has mistaken the day his options expire. He believes he has until the first of August."

Cameron whistled. "Are you sure?" he asked incredulously. "I don't know him personally, but his reputation for shrewdness——"

"And ninety-nine times out of a hundred he's as shrewd as his reputation calls for," interrupted Orcutt, "but this is the hundredth time! He is so dead sure he is right that I don't suppose he has examined his papers in years. John McNabb makes damned few mistakes—I've been more than twenty years waiting for him to make this one. And now, by God, I've got him! What do you hold the timber at?"

"Seven dollars an acre."

"Make it six, and I'll take it. It ought to be worth something not to have to hunt up a buyer."

"It is," answered Cameron. "But seven dollars is the price. In a month—two months it will be eight."

"About two percent down?"

"Ten."

"Ten percent!" raved Orcutt. "Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars! Do you think a man takes a jaunt into the woods with any such amount of money as that in his possession?"

"I think you did. If not, then as you people say in the States, you are out of luck."

"I'll buy an option on it."

Cameron shook his head. "No, the time has come for a sale. We can't afford to hold timber ourselves, and as to finding purchasers, I know a dozen men who would snap it up at seven dollars."

"All right," growled Orcutt. "Make out your papers and I'll sign 'em. At least, we can get the routine business all finished to-day so all there will be left to do to-morrow noon will be to sign up and pay over the money."

"No harm in that," agreed Cameron. "I shall proceed at once to draw up a contract of sale. Just a question or two will give me all the information I need. In the first place, is the prospective purchaser an individual or a corporation?"

"Corporation. The Eureka Paper Company."

"And their home office?"

"Orcutt, Canada."

"Orcutt? Where is Orcutt?"

Orcutt smiled. "There isn't any—now. But there will be one as soon as we start construction of the mill. The enterprise will be of sufficient magnitude to necessitate a town at the mill site, and the name of that town will be Orcutt."

"Very good. I think that is all I need to know."

"About the subsequent payments——" began Orcutt, but Cameron interrupted him:

"Let us not discuss that now. The better way will be for you to allow me to draw up the contract, and then to-morrow morning we can go over it, clause by clause."

"Good idea," agreed Orcutt. "Come on, Wentworth," and leading the way from the cabin, he spent half an hour strolling about among the tepees viewing their owners, their lares, penates and offspring as he would have inspected an exhibit at a fair. Tiring of this, he led the way to a fallen log at the edge of the clearing, and produced his cigar case.

"How is everything in Terrace City?" asked Wentworth, as he lighted his cigar.

"Oh, about as usual, I guess. Been so damned busy getting this paper deal in shape for the last two months that I haven't had much time to keep track of things. By the way, you remember Hedin—that clerk in old John McNabb's fur department?"

"Yes, I believe I do."

"Well, old John trusted him to the limit—made a kind of a pet of him—and what does the fellow do but slip up to the store one night and steal a Russian sable coat, worth somewhere around thirty thousand. Then the damned fool, instead of getting out of the country, stayed right on the job. Of course old John missed the coat next day, and the night watchman told of Hedin's visit to the store."

"Did he confess?" asked Wentworth a shade too eagerly.

"Confess nothing! He swears he's innocent. But there's nothing to it. They've got the goods on him—everything but the coat. They can't find that, and they never will. I got the story from Hicks, the police chief. Old John had him arrested and he knocked Hicks down and got away. They caught him again, and Judge Emerson fixed his bail at ten thousand. Someone furnished the bail that same night, and Hedin has skipped out, slick and clean. They sure put one over on McNabb—ten thousand for bail, twenty thousand to divide between them, and McNabb is holding the bag."

"And we'll leave him holding the bag again," grinned Wentworth.

"That's what we will. He's been a hard man to down. I don't mind saying it to you, I've laid for him ever since I've been in Terrace City, and I've never been able to get him. Several times I've thought I had him, but he always managed to wriggle out someway. But now he seems to have let down all of a sudden. Either his luck has deserted him, or he has begun to break."

"You are pretty sure he will not be here to-morrow?"

Orcutt nodded. "Dead sure. You were right about his believing that he has till the first of August on those options. I overheard him telling Bronson on the golf links that he had to be in Canada on August first, and that he would leave about the middle of July."



XIX

After breakfast on the morning of the first of July, Orcutt and Cameron repaired to the cabin where, with the rough pine table littered with maps, they discussed the terms and conditions of the contract of sale. While Wentworth, palpably nervous, paced the clearing; his eyes were upon the trails that led into the forest, and out upon the lake, for a sign of a canoe from the southward.

When at last the pros and cons had all been threshed over, clauses inserted, and clauses struck out, Orcutt drew from his pocket a heavy gold watch, and snapping it open, detached it from its chain and laid it upon the table between them. "Half past eleven," he announced. "I suppose you insist upon waiting until the uttermost minute ticks to its close."

"Yes," answered Cameron. "McNabb's options hold good until twelve o'clock."

"I am anxious to get back," said Orcutt, offering his cigar case, "but I don't want to return without having a look at the mill site. How far is it from here?"

"About forty miles. If you leave here right after noon you will make it before noon to-morrow."

"I'll do it, and return the following day."

The two men smoked with their eyes upon the minute hand that slowly crept toward twelve. Now and then Cameron's glance strayed through the window toward the trading post, as though he half expected to see John McNabb step to its door.

"Twelve o'clock!" announced Orcutt, in a voice that held a ring of triumph. "And I don't mind telling you that, sure as I was that McNabb would not be here, I am breathing easier now than I was two minutes ago."

Leaning forward, Cameron verified the announcement, and dipping the pen in ink, he signed the contract and passed the instrument across to Orcutt, who hastily affixed his signature. Then from the fat bundle upon which his elbow had rested, the banker removed the wrapping and counted out three hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold certificates of five- and ten-thousand dollar denominations. Cameron recounted, and receipted for the money, and after depositing it in his pocket he extended his hand. "I congratulate you, Mr. Orcutt, upon your purchase, and trust that you have launched upon an enterprise that will prove immensely profitable to yourself and your associates. But for the life of me, I cannot understand McNabb's failure to put in an appearance."

Orcutt's eyes flashed. "Nor can I, except on the theory that he is breaking—losing his grip on affairs. For years we have been business rivals, and for years I have tried to get the upper hand of him, but until this moment I have always failed. It will be a different story from now on," he added vindictively. "Never again will he have the old confidence, the nerve and sureness that has been his chief asset. John McNabb is done. But I'm wasting time. I should right now be on my way to the mill site."

"You will wait for dinner?"

"No. We can eat as we travel," he answered impatiently. "Good-by!" And stepping to the door, he called to Wentworth and the guides and plainclothes-men who waited beside the door.

"Come on! We strike out at once for the mill site. The deal is closed, and we're wasting time. We've got a forty mile hike ahead of us! We'll snatch a lunch later. By the way, Cameron, you may not be here when I return, so I will inform you now that until further notice Mr. Wentworth will be our accredited representative in the field. If anything should come up that needs my attention, take it up with him."

"Just put it on paper, Mr. Orcutt," advised the canny Scot, and with a show of impatience Orcutt scribbled the memorandum.

"Where are we going?" asked Wentworth.

"To the mill site. I want to look it over and return here by the day after to-morrow. All ready?"

The guides swung their packs to their backs and struck into the timber, followed closely by the others of the party.

The following day, Orcutt and Wentworth stood at the head of the rapids and Orcutt listened as the engineer, with the aid of his field notes and maps, explained the construction of the dam, and roughly indicated the contour of the reservoir. "But what's this line—the dotted one, that crosses the river just above us?"

"That is our western property line. It crosses about a mile above here, and we are standing about the same distance above the mill site."

"Do you mean that we own only a mile of timber on the big river above this point?"

"Just about a mile. Our property runs a long way up Gods River, and both sides of the Shamattawa below the dotted line."

Orcutt studied the map for a moment. "Who owns the land above here?" he asked sharply.

"The Hudson's Bay Company on the north side, and the Government on the south."

"Well, what in hell is to prevent someone—McNabb, for instance—from buying up that land and starting operations above us? Even if they didn't put in a dam they could raise the devil with us by driving their stuff through. John McNabb knows every trick of the logging game, and when he finds out what has happened he'll go the limit to buck us."

Wentworth considered. "I guess he could do that, all right. We would have to let his stuff through—"

"I'll fix him!" cried Orcutt. "I'll beat him to it! Where do we do business with the Government and the Hudson's Bay Company?"

"With the Government in Ottawa, and the Company in Winnipeg."

"Hell's bells!" cried Orcutt. "That means we'll be gallivanting all over Canada for the next week or ten days. Well, it can't be helped. I know John McNabb well enough not to leave any loop-hole for him to take advantage of." He called to the guides. "Hey, you Injuns! What's the quickest way to the railroad?"

The guides pointed due north. "Mebbe-so wan hondre mile," announced one.

"But," cried Wentworth, "we're going back by way of the post, aren't we?"

"We're going to hit for the railway the quickest way God will let us!"

"But, I—I left something—that is, I have nothing to travel in but these field clothes, and they're shockingly soiled and tattered."

"Soiled and tattered—hell! What's that got to do with saving years of trouble at the mill? Maybe you ain't as pretty as you'd like to be—but, you've got enough on so they can't arrest you——"

Wentworth felt a decidedly uncomfortable thrill at the word "arrest." He was thinking of a certain Russian sable coat that lay in his trunk at the cabin, and guarded from prying eyes by only a flimsy trunk lock. He thought, also, of Downey—and wondered. He would have given much to have returned to that cabin, but a single glance into Orcutt's face stilled any thought of further objection, and he reluctantly acquiesced.

"We can follow the line of the tote-road," he said. "I blazed it to the railway, and by the way, Cameron said that McNabb had already started construction—had twenty or thirty miles of it completed several days ago."

"Started construction?" cried Orcutt. "Construction of what?"

"The tote-road. He figured it would be quicker and cheaper to haul his material for the mill in from the new railway than to ship by boat around through the Bay to Port Nelson, and then drag it up the river by scow."

"And you mean to say he's started the work? Laid out good money on top of what his options cost him—and forgot to take up the options?"

"That's just what he's done, according to Cameron."

Orcutt burst out laughing. "We'll let him go ahead and build the road," he cried. "Every dollar he puts in will be ninety cents saved for us. It may be two or three weeks before he finds out that he has lost the timber, and possibly the road will be completed by that time. Then I'll buy it in for almost nothing. McNabb has certainly gone fluie! And in the meantime we will use his road to haul in our own material. I'll wire Strang to begin hustling the stuff through."



XX

After watching Orcutt depart, Cameron folded his maps and his papers and walked around to the trading room where Murchison and his clerk were comparing the skins of a silver gray and a black cross fox.

The clerk greeted him with a smile. "Just the man I wanted to see, Mr. Cameron. In fact I was about to go in search of you."

Cameron stared at him in surprise. During the day or two he had spent at the post, he had come to regard the clerk as a stupid, morose individual, whose only excuse for existence, as Murchison had said, was his knowledge of fur. But here was this unkempt clerk actually smiling, and addressing him as a man of affairs. He glanced inquiringly at Murchison before replying. "And why should you go in search of me?"

"As accredited representative of the Canadian Wild Lands Company, I have business to transact with you." Hedin stepped forward and extended a paper. "I represent John McNabb."

"John McNabb!" cried Cameron, staring at him as though he had taken leave of his senses. "You mean——"

Hedin interrupted him, speaking crisply. "I mean that this paper, as you will note, is a power of attorney which gives me authority to transact any and all business for Mr. McNabb, concerning the purchase of certain pulp-wood lands."

"Dut, man!" cried Cameron excitedly.

Ignoring the interruption, Hedin continued. "And I hereby, in the presence of Mr. Murchison, tender payment of ten percent, of the purchase price, as provided in the terms of the option contract."

"But you're too late!" roared Cameron. "McNabb's options expired at noon! The land has been sold and payment accepted! Good Lord, man! Do you mean that McNabb sent you up here to close the deal, and you deliberately neglected to attend to it until the options had expired?"

"Too late?" smiled Hedin. "What do you mean, too late? The options do not expire until noon," he paused and glanced up at the clock that ticked upon the wall, "and it still lacks twenty-five minutes of twelve."

Cameron stared at the clock. "It is a trick!" he cried. "You turned the clock back! What time have you, Murchison?"

The factor meticulously consulted his watch. "Twenty-four minutes to twelve," he announced.

"You are into it, too!"

Murchison smiled. "Look at your own watch," he suggested. "What time have you got?"

Cameron drew out his timepiece and stared at it blankly. "He laid his watch on the table between us," he said in a bewildered tone, "and not until the hands reached twelve were the papers signed and the money paid."

"What do you mean?" asked Hedin. "The papers signed, and the money paid?"

"Why Orcutt, president of the Eureka Paper Company, bought the land after McNabb's options expired. Wentworth is his representative."

"But McNabb's options have not expired," insisted Hedin. "His payment has been tendered in the presence of a witness before the time of their expiration. Any sale or contract entered into with Orcutt or anyone else concerning title to these lands is, of course, void."

Cameron continued to stare at his watch. "I do not understand it," he muttered.

"I think I do," offered Hedin. "Was it Orcutt's watch you consulted?"

"Yes, he laid it on the table, and we watched the hands mark off the time."

"And you were an hour fast! Orcutt carried Terrace City time, which is an hour faster than standard. It is the so called daylight saving plan adopted by many cities and villages in the United States by act of council. All that, of course, has no bearing on McNabb's options, so there is nothing for you to do but accept payment and return Orcutt his money."

"But you were here all the time!" cried Cameron. "And you must have known what was going on. Why didn't you make yourself known? Why did you let me go ahead with Orcutt? We could have had the business over and done with two days ago—and no complications."

Hedin laughed. "You will have to take that up with Mr. McNabb. I was following out instructions to the letter. And those instructions were very specific about not closing the deal within half an hour of the expiration of the options."

"But what was his idea?"

"As I said before, you will have to ask him. He had a reason, you may be sure. I have noticed in my association with John McNabb that there is generally a reason for the things that he does—though in many instances the reason is beyond me."

Cameron's exasperation at the sudden turn of events subsided. He even managed a smile. "He was within his rights," he admitted, "and as you say, he must have had a reason. But I don't understand it. Wentworth was McNabb's man too—until he swung over to Orcutt. Yet he never suspected you were anything but Murchison's clerk."

Hedin laughed. "The reputation of being a fool doesn't hurt anyone. It is rather an advantage at times."

"You have played your part well," admitted Cameron. "And McNabb has played his part well—whatever that part is. Orcutt said he was losing his grip, was in his dotage. Well, he will not be the first man that has had to change his mind. He has gone to inspect the mill site and will return day after to-morrow. Wentworth accompanied him. I imagine we will have an interesting half-hour when they find out that the deal is off."

The formalities of payment were soon over with, and the moment they were completed, Hedin despatched a messenger with a telegram to his employer.

When John McNabb received the message he grinned broadly, and for several minutes sat at his desk and stabbed at his blotter with his pencil point. "So, Orcutt, Wentworth & Company set out to down poor old John McNabb," he muttered. "I kind of figured rope was all Wentworth wanted to hang himself with—an' rope's cheap. But Orcutt an' his Eureka Paper Company—now he must have gone to quite a little bother, first an' last, an' some expense. Too bad! But I won't worry about that—he ought to 'tend to his bankin'. Guess I'll be startin' North in about ten days."

A week later McNabb got another wire from the engineer in charge of his road construction. As he read and reread it, a slow smile trembled upon his lips and widened into a broad grin.

"Sixty-five miles of road completed. Eureka Paper Company cement and material piling up at road head. Have their own trucks. Shall we let them use road?"

The grin became an audible chuckle. "I don't understand it. Orcutt must have cleared out so quick he don't know the deal is off." Then he called a messenger and sent two telegrams. The first in answer to the one just received.

"Double your force and hurry road to completion in shortest possible time. Allow all Eureka Paper Company goods to be delivered as fast as received. Facilitate delivery same to mill site in every way possible."

The other telegram was to the home office of the engineering firm and read:

"Hold off on purchase of material for mill until further notice. Writing full particulars."

Then he closed his desk and went home where, a few minutes later, his daughter found him packing his outfit in a well worn duffle bag.



XXI

Ever since Jean's outburst of passion upon the day of Hedin's arrest, a certain constraint had settled upon father and daughter that amounted, at times, to an actual coldness. Neither had mentioned the name of Hedin in the other's hearing, but each evening at dinner, which was the only meal at which they met, the studied silence with which the girl devoted herself to her food bespoke plainer than words that the thought of him was never out of her head.

So it was with some measure of surprise that Old John looked up from his packing at the girl's question: "Where are you going, Dad?"

"North, into Canada. I've business there that needs my attention."

"Will you take me with you?"

"Take ye with me!" he cried in astonishment. "An' what would ye be doin' in the wild country, with the black flies an' mosquitoes in the height of their glory. They'd eat ye alive! An' the trailin'—why, ye've never been outside a town in ye're life!"

"And that is just why I want to go outside one!" answered the girl. "Please, Dad, take me with you. I can keep up on the trail, really I can. Don't I play golf, and tennis, and paddle a canoe, and do everything that anyone can do to keep themselves in shape? I bet right now I can walk as far as you can in the woods or out of the woods. And as for flies and mosquitoes, they won't eat me any worse than they will you, and if worse comes to worst, I can plaster myself with that smelly old dope you carry in that bottle—but I'd almost rather be eaten."

Old John grinned. "Well, I don't know. Maybe the trip would do ye good. An' when ye get there ye may not find it so dull. Wentworth is there an' he'll prob'ly show ye around."

"I don't need Captain Wentworth to show me around," she replied, and McNabb was not slow to note her tone. "Of all people I ever met, I think he's the biggest bore! I don't see what you hired him for."

Old John stared at her in amazement. "Why, it was on your own recommendation—that, an' the fact that I found out he done some really good work on the Nettle River project. But you asked me in so many words to give him a job!"

"Well, if I did, I was an idiot," she replied. "And I guess you'll wish you never hired him. You'll find you've made a grand mess of things!" A high-pitched, nervous quality had crept into the girl's voice, and McNabb saw that she was very near to tears. "Do you know what they're saying?" she cried. "They're saying that Oskar has jumped ten-thousand-dollar bail that some friend put up for him! They're liars, and I hate them! Wherever he is, he'll come back at the proper time. He'll show them—and he'll show you, too!" With an effort, the girl steadied her trembling voice. "And when he does come back, he'll find he's got one friend—and I'll—I'll make up for the rest. I'm going to get ready now. I want to get away from it all. When do we start?"

"To-night," answered old John, "on the late train." And when the door closed behind his daughter, he grinned and winked at himself in the mirror.

When old John McNabb and his daughter stepped off the sagging combination coach at the siding which was the northern end of the new tote-road, the first man they saw was Orcutt, resplendent in striped mackinaw, Stetson hat, and high-laced boots. As the banker came toward them, McNabb stared about him in evident perplexity, his glance shifting from the piles of tarpaulin-covered material, to the loaded trucks that with a clash and grind of gears were just pulling out upon the new tote-road that stretched away between the tall balsam spires to the southward.

"Hello, John," Orcutt greeted, lifting his Stetson in acknowledgment of the presence of Jean. "Well, what do you think of it?"

McNabb continued to stare about him. "I don't seem to quite get the straight of it," he said slowly. "Eureka Paper Company," he read the legend emblazoned upon the trucks and tarpaulins scattered all over the foreground. "What does it mean, Orcutt? An' what in the devil are you doin' here? An' what business have those trucks got on my tote-road?"

Orcutt laughed, a nasty, gloating laugh, as he rubbed his hands together after the manner of one performing an ablution. "It means, John," he answered, in a voice of oily softness, "that at last I have caught you napping. The Eureka Paper Company is my company, and the pulp-wood that you held options on is my pulp-wood. I've been waiting a long time for this day—more than twenty years. It's only fair to give the devil his due, John—you've been shrewd. Time and again I almost had you, but you always managed somehow to elude me. There have been times when I could have murdered you, gladly. It wouldn't have been so bad if you had gloated openly when you put one over on me, but your devilish way of apparently ignoring the fact—of acting as though outwitting me were too trifling an occurrence to even notice, at times has nearly driven me crazy—that, and that damned secret laughter I see in your eyes when we meet. Oh, I've waited a long time for my day—but now my day has come! And to think how nearly I missed it! I go back in an hour on the same train that brought you in."

McNabb had listened in silence to the tirade. "But I—I don't understand it. My options——"

"Your options," interrupted Orcutt, and his voice rasped harsh, "expired at noon on the first day of July. At one minute past twelve on that day, the property passed into the hands of the Eureka Paper Company of which I am president. I signed the contract and paid over the money myself at Gods Lake Post."

"Was it July?" mumbled McNabb, apparently dazed. "But—there was Wentworth. He had the papers. Surely he must have known."

Orcutt laughed. "Yes. Wentworth knew. He knew the day you hired him. And he knew that you thought you had until the first of August. It was Wentworth that tipped the deal off to me."

"But—why should he have double-crossed me?"

"Mere matter of business," replied Orcutt. "Figure it out for yourself. If he stayed with you the best he could expect would be a fair salary. With us he was in position to dictate his own terms. They were stiff terms, too, for Wentworth is shrewd. But he has been worth all he cost. He is now secretary of the Eureka, and a very considerable stockholder."

McNabb was silent for what seemed a long time. When at length he spoke, it was in a voice that sounded dull and tired. "But, Orcutt, the tote-road is mine. I built it. It cost me a hundred thousand dollars—that road did. If you hold the property the road is no good to me, and it is valuable to you. Will you buy it?"

"Sure, I'll buy it. I'll buy it for just what I figure it is worth to me. It cost you a thousand dollars a mile. It's worth a hundred to me. Ten thousand dollars is my limit. Take it or leave it. Ten cents on the dollar, John; you may as well save what you can out of the wreck."

"Is that the best you can do by me? Man, it's robbery! I can't afford to lose ninety thousand. It'll cripple me. An' I stood to make a million!"

"Cripple you, eh? Well, it won't hurt my feelings to see you limping. That's the very best we can do. You better take it, and go back to selling your thread. You're getting too old for real business, John—you're done!"

McNabb nodded slowly. "Aye, maybe ye're right, maybe ye're right." The voice sounded old, tired. "I'll let ye know in a few days, Orcutt. Now that I'm up here I think I'll slip down for a visit with my old friend Murchison. He's the factor at Gods Lake. We were boys together, an' together we worked for the Company. He's a friend a man can trust. An' I feel the need of a friend. Ye'll not begrudge us a ride down on one of ye're trucks, will ye, Orcutt?"

Before Orcutt could reply Jean, who had been a silent listener to all that had passed, leaped forward and faced Orcutt with blazing eyes. "You sneak!" she cried. "And all the time I thought you and Mrs. Orcutt were my friends! And all the time you were lying in wait to ruin an old man! You couldn't fight him in the open! You were afraid! But my father is used to fighting men—not cowardly thieves! And as for riding in one of your trucks, I would die first!" She turned to McNabb. "Come on, Dad, we'll walk!"

"But, daughter, it's a hundred miles!"

"I don't care if it is five hundred miles! I'll walk, or crawl if I have to, rather than accept anything from that—that rattlesnake! See, there is a little store. We can lay in some provisions for the trip and it will be loads of fun. It will remind you of your old days in the North."

The girl took his arm, and the two turned abruptly away, leaving Orcutt standing in his tracks watching their departure with somewhat of a grin.

As they came out of the store with bulging pack sacks, they saw him step into the stuffy coach, and a moment later they watched the wheezy little engine puff importantly down the track. Then, side by side they stepped onto the tote-road and were swallowed up between the two walls of towering balsams and spruces.

A mile farther on, a Eureka truck passed them, and the girl, scorning the driver's offer of a lift, brushed its dust from her clothing as though it were the touch of some loathsome thing.

That night they camped on a little hardwood knoll beside a stream, well back from the road. Old John seemed to have regained his usual spirits, and to her utter astonishment the girl surprised a grin upon his face as he put up the shelter. He built a fire, and producing hook and line from his pocket, jerked half a dozen trout from the water, which were soon sizzling in the pan from which rose the odor of frying bacon.

"Do you know, Dad," began the girl, after the dishes had been washed and the man had thrown an armful of green bracken upon the fire to smudge away the mosquitoes. "Do you know I think you are simply wonderful?" She was leaning against his knee, and her eyes looked into his.

"Tush, girl, what ails ye?" said the man, removing his pipe to send a cloud of blue smoke to mingle with the gray of the smudge.

"I mean it, Daddy, dear. You are just wonderful. Oh, I know how disappointed you are. I know just how it hurts to have a man like Orcutt get the best of you. I saw it in your face."

"Did Orcutt see it, d'ye think?"

"Of course he did—and he just gloated."

"U-m-m," said McNabb, and his lips twitched at the corners.

"And on top of all that you can smile!"

"Yup, isn't it funny? I can even grin."

"But, Dad, will it—ruin you? Not that I care a bit, about the money. We can be just as happy, maybe happier, without it. I'm not the little fool you think I am. I have always spent a lot of money because I had it to spend, but if we didn't have it, I could be just as happy making what little I did have go as far as it could. Maybe we'll have to come up here and live in a cabin. I love the North already, and I've hardly seen it. We could have a cabin in the woods, and get some furniture when we could afford it, and then we could arrange it so cozily. Really, I would be crazy about it. And we could have trout every day, and wild ducks, and venison. If we could afford a screened porch we could eat and sleep on it, and in the living room we could have a table——"

"Good Lord, girl, arrangin' furniture again!" cried old John. "An I'd come home some night an' break my neck before I could find the matchbox. If we was to live in a cabin I'd spike the stuff to the floor! But—maybe it won't be so bad as all that."

"I've been hateful to you of late, Dad, because of—of Oskar. But really, you made an awful mistake. I should think you would know that he couldn't have taken that coat. It isn't in him!"

"I never said he ate it," grinned the man.

"Oh, don't joke about it! Dad, I love Oskar. He's—oh, he's everything a man should be, and it hurts me so to have them saying he is a thief. He isn't a thief! And the time will come when he will prove it. Promise me, Dad, that when he does prove it, you will make every effort in your power to right the wrong you have done him."

Old John's hand rested for a moment upon the girl's head. "I promise all that, girl. Surely ye know I can be just. If it is as ye say, I'll more than make it up to him. I promise ye, his name shall not suffer."

"I love you, Dad. I know you are just—but you're a hard-hearted old Scot, just the same. You don't make many mistakes, but you have made two—about Oskar, and about hiring that Wentworth. I told you you'd be sorry."

"Well, maybe ye're right," and John McNabb never blinked an eye.

"See, didn't I just say you were hard-headed? You won't admit you made a mistake even after what Orcutt told you to-day. But tell me honestly, Dad, are you ruined?"

"Well, we won't worry about that, lass. D'ye hear the hoot-owl? I like to hear them of nights. I found one's nest once an' I took the three eggs out an' slipped them under a hen that Mother McFarlane had settin'. It was at Long Lake post, Mother McFarlane was the factor's wife, an' I was his clerk. The eggs had been sat on a long time an' they hatched out before the hen eggs. Ye should have seen Mother McFarlane's face when she caught sight of them chickens! It was one of the best jokes I ever made."

"And here you ought to be as solemn as an owl yourself, and you are talking of jokes. I don't understand you at all."

"Maybe I should be an owl. D'ye notice in the stories, they make the Scots say, 'hoot'? But about Wentworth, now. If we should meet up with him, don't let on ye know anything about my deal with Orcutt. Treat him nice an' pleasant——"

"After what he has done to you?" cried the girl, her eyes flashing.

"Just so. Be nice an' friendly to him—d'ye know what a poker face is?"

"Why, of course! Everybody plays poker in Terrace City."

"Mind ye, ye're settin' in a big game right now——"

"You mean," cried the girl, "that there's a chance? A chance to beat Orcutt yet? Oh, if you only could!"

"Well, we're still settin' in the game—me an' you, daughter. An' let's don't neither one of us throw down our hand till after the draw."



XXII

Toward evening of the fourth day after leaving the railway, the two stepped into the broad clearing that surrounded the Gods Lake post.

"Oh, real Indians!" cried Jean, as she caught sight of the dozen or more tepees that were pitched between the lake and the low log trading post.

"Aye, real Injuns, lass—an' good it is to see them again. It will be the remnant of the spring tradin'. 'Tis about over now, but always there's some of the Injuns will hang around the post all summer."

"They're cooking over open fires, and look, there comes one from the lake with some fish! Oh, don't you just love it?"

They were crossing the clearing, and old John glanced at his daughter with approval. "Aye, I love it. An' proud I am that you love it, too. Ye've taken to the North like a duck takes to water. Ye've trailed like a real sourdough, an' never a word of the hard work an' the discomfort. 'Tis born in ye, lass—the love of the bush—an' I'm glad. I've come to know ye better the last four days than I have in twenty-one years of school, an' dancing an' all the flibberty-jibbitin' nonsense ye carry on."

They had reached the door of the trading room, and the man interrupted her laughing reply. "Wait ye here a minute while I see if Dugald is inside."

Oskar Hedin paused in the act of putting the finishing touches on the edge of his belt ax, and as John McNabb entered the room, he rose hastily to meet him.

"Where's Murchison?" asked the newcomer, and Hedin noted that no slightest hint of recognition flickered in his employer's eyes.

Repressing the desire to laugh, he answered in the slow, dull-witted manner of Sven Larsen. "He is in there," pointing to the door of the factor's room.

"Tell him to come out here," commanded McNabb brusquely.

"Do you want to see him?"

"What in the devil d'ye think I'm waitin' here for? Hurry, now, an' don't be standin' there gawpin'."

Hedin grinned broadly as he entered Murchison's door, and a moment later McNabb's hands were gripped by the two hands of the factor. "It's glad I am to see ye, John. An' how does it feel to get home once more?"

"Ye'll be knowin' yourself how it feels to a man that's been thirty years out of the bush. But where's Hedin?"

"He'll be here directly," answered Murchison. "John, I want ye to meet my clerk, Sven Larsen. He's the best clerk I ever had."

McNabb glanced into the bearded face that blinked stupidly at him. "Ye haven't be'n over favored with clerks, I'd say, Dugald. But how are ye fixed for quarters?"

Murchison laughed. "I guess we can rig up a bunk for ye, John."

"It ain't myself I was thinkin' about. It's the lass. She's had four pretty hard days on the trail, an' she'd be the better for a comfortable bunk."

"The lass!" exclaimed Murchison.

"Jean! Here!" Strong fingers gripped McNabb's arm, and he stared in astonishment into the face of Sven Larsen. The loose-lipped, vapid expression was gone, and the blue-gray eyes stared into his own with burning intensity.

"You don't mean——? Why, Oskar lad!"

"Sh—sh. But she mustn't know! Promise me—both of you! She will be going to bed early, and after supper I'll see you at the landing."

McNabb studied the face quizzically. "Ye fooled me, all right, but I'm doubtin' ye can fool Jean."

"At least, I can try," answered the clerk. "I'll see you at supper," and without waiting for a reply, he ascended the ladder that led to the fur loft.

"Where is the lass? Fetch her in, John." Murchison's eyes twinkled as he stepped closer. "He thinks he's lost her," he whispered. "But tell me, John, d'ye think the lass cares for this damned Wentworth?"

"Who can say?" grinned McNabb. "'Twill not be long now till we can see for ourselves," and stepping to the door he called Jean, who was trying to make friends with a group of Indian children.

"She'll have my room," said Murchison, as he followed McNabb to the door. "An' no bunk, either, but a brass bed that I bought in Winnipeg out of respect for my old bones an' the weakening flesh that covers 'em. You an' me will pitch a tent, an' 'twill be the first time in many years, John, we've slept under canvas together."

The next moment he was welcoming the girl with a deference he would have scarce accorded to royalty.



XXIII

Supper over, McNabb left Jean to be entertained by Murchison, and strolled down to the landing to join Hedin. "Well, how's everything comin'?" he asked, as he seated himself beside the clerk upon a damaged York boat.

"I wired you that the deal was closed, and the pulp-wood is safe. But there have been complications that you could never suspect."

"So?"

"Yes. In the first, you were dead right about Wentworth—about not trusting him. And you knew who he expected to let in on the deal?"

"Why, Orcutt, of course," replied McNabb. "I know all about that. That's why I told ye to hold off till the last minute about closing."

"But you couldn't have foreseen that Orcutt wouldn't bother to set his watch back, or that they would use his watch in concluding their deal."

McNabb shook his head. "No, an' I don't know yet what ye're talkin' about. All I know is, that Orcutt thinks he has got title to the pulp-wood. We met him back at the railway, an' he took pains to tell me about it. What puzzles me is, how did ye work it so that after two weeks have gone by he still thinks he owns the timber?"

"I didn't work it. He came up here on the twenty-ninth and waited around until the first of July. Then he and Cameron went over to the shack and concluded the deal, using Orcutt's watch, which was Terrace City time—an hour fast. Then Orcutt and Wentworth hit straight for the mill site, saying they were coming back in two days. Half an hour later I called Cameron's attention to the error in time and took up the options for you. After the papers were signed he decided to wait for the return of Orcutt and Wentworth. But they didn't return. He waited for a week, and then went to look for them. They haven't shown up yet."

Old John was chuckling aloud. "An' the Eureka Paper Company's stuff is rollin' down my tote-road as fast as they can unload it."

"Do you mean they've started to haul the material for their mill?"

"Aye, not only material but machinery."

"But what's become of Cameron?"

"Losh, lad, I don't even know the man. We won't worry about him."

"But why did you want to put off the closing till the last minute?"

McNabb grinned. "Why did you let Jean wear the sable coat?" he asked in return. "'Twas only to string Orcutt along, thinkin' he had me bested till the last minute—then bring him up with a jolt. I didn't know it would work out so lucky for me."

"How do you mean—lucky?"

"You wait an' see," grinned McNabb. "D'ye know, Orcutt offered me ten thousand dollars for my tote-road? An' it cost me a hundred thousand!"

A long silence followed McNabb's words, during which Hedin cleared his throat several times. The older man smoked his pipe, and cast covert glances out of the tail of his eye. Finally he spoke. "What's on ye're mind, lad? Speak out."

Hedin hesitated a moment and plunged into the thing he had dreaded to say. "Mr. McNabb, I've been up here several months now—" he hesitated, and as the other made no comment, proceeded. "I have come to like the country. It—I don't think—that is, I don't want to go back to Terrace City. You can understand, can't you? You have lived in the North. I wasn't born to be a clerk. I hate it! My father was a real man. He lived, and he died like a man. This is a man's country. I am going to stay." Hedin had expected an outburst of temper, and had steeled himself to withstand it. Instead, Old John McNabb nodded slowly as he continued to puff at his pipe.

"So ye're tired of workin' for me. Ye want to quit——"

"It isn't that. I would rather work for you than any man I ever knew. You have been like a father to me. You will never know how I have appreciated that. I know it seems ungrateful. But the North has got me. I never again could do your work justice. My heart wouldn't be in my work. It would be here."

"An' will ye keep on workin' for Murchison? What will he pay ye?"

"It isn't the pay. I don't care about that. I have no one but myself to think of. And Murchison said that with my knowledge of fur the Company would soon give me a post of my own."

"But—what of the future, lad?"

Hedin shrugged. "All I ask of the future," he answered, and McNabb noted just a touch of bitterness in the tone, "is that I may live it in the North."

"H-m-m," said McNabb, knocking the ashes from his pipe, "I guess the North has got ye, lad. An' I'm afraid it's got Jean. The lass has been rantin' about it ever since we left the railway. But—who is that? Yonder, just goin' into the post? My old eyes ain't so good in the twilight."

"Wentworth!" exclaimed Hedin, leaping to his feet. "Come on! The time has come for a showdown!"

Hedin's voice rasped harsh, and McNabb noticed that the younger man's fists were clenched as he laid a restraining hand upon his arm. "Take it easy lad," he said. "Maybe it's better we should play a waitin' game."

"Waiting game!" cried Hedin. "I've been playing a waiting game for months—and I'm through. Good God, man! Do you think my nerves are of iron? I love Jean—love her as it is possible for a man to love one woman. I have loved her for years, and I will always love her. And I've lost her. That damned cad with his airs and his graces has won her completely away. But, by God, he'll never have her! I'll show him up in his true colors——"

"An' with him out of the way, lad, ye'll then——"

"With him out of the way she'll despise me!" interrupted Hedin. "She will never marry him out of loyalty to you, when she finds out he has tried to knife you. I haven't told you all I know—when he falls, he'll fall hard! But I know what women think, and I know she'll despise me for disguising myself and spying on him."

"If ye know what women think, lad, ye're the wisest man God has yet made, an' as such I'm proud to know ye."

"It is no time to joke," answered Hedin bitterly. "That's a thing I've never been able to fathom, why you always joke in the face of a serious situation, and then turn around and raise hell over some trivial matter that don't amount to a hill of beans."

McNabb grinned. "Do I?" he asked. "Well, maybe ye're right. But listen, lad, I know ye've regard for me, an' I'm askin' as a personal favor that ye hold off a bit with your denouncement of yon Wentworth. Just play the game as ye've been playin' it. Keep on bein' Sven Larsen, the factor's clerk, heavy of wit, an' able with fool questions. Ye've a fine faculty for actin'; for all durin' supper the lass never suspected ye. Keep it up for a while; it won't be for long."

"But what's the good of it? We know as much as we'll ever know. Man, do you know what you're asking? Loving Jean as I love her, I must stand about and play the fool, while that damned thief basks in her favor under my very eyes! If there were a good reason, it would be different. But Wentworth and Orcutt can go no farther; they're done——"

"Aye, but they're not done," interrupted McNabb. "Ye'll be knowin' me well enough to know I always have a reason for the things that I do. It's a hard thing I'm askin' of ye, an' in this case I'll show ye the reason, though 'tis not my habit. D'ye mind I told ye that the Eureka material was rollin' down the tote-road by the truck load? Thousands of dollars worth of it every day is bein' delivered at the mill site. Why? Because for some reason Orcutt has not yet found out that he does not own the timber. The minute he does find out, not another pound will be delivered."

"You mean——?"

"I mean that portland cement, an' the reinforcin' steel, an' plate an' whatever else goes into the construction of a paper mill is bein' set down on the Shamattawa, one hundred miles from a railway at Orcutt's expense. And that every ton of it is stuff that won't pay its way out of the woods. The freight an' the haulin' one way doubles the cost. An' even if he tried to take it out, he'd have a hundred miles of tote-road to build. Eureka freight travels only one way on McNabb's tote-road—an' that way is in!"

Hedin stared at the man in astonishment. "And you can buy it at your own figure!" he cried. "Why, you can prevent even his empty trucks from going back. God, man, it will ruin Orcutt!"

"'Tis his own doin's," answered the man. "'Twill serve him right. He should have 'tended to his bankin' instead of pickin' on poor old John McNabb, that should be back of his counter sellin' thread, as he told me himself. Ten cents on the dollar he offered for my tote-road."

"I'll do it!" exclaimed Hedin. "It will be hard, but it will be worth it, to see that crook get what's coming to him. And then I'm going away. Murchison will give me a letter, and I'll strike the Company for a job."

McNabb nodded. "I guess ye're right, about not goin' back to the store," he said slowly. "Your heart is in the North."

There was a strange lump in Hedin's throat. He glanced into the face of his employer, and was surprised at a certain softness in the shrewd gray eyes that gazed far out over the lake. After a time the old man spoke, more to himself than to him. "Ye could both run down for a month or two in the winter!"

"What?" asked Hedin, regarding the speaker with a puzzled expression. "Both of who? A factor only gets away in the summer."

"So they do—so they do," answered McNabb, absently. "Well, we'll be goin' back now. My engineer, maybe, will be wantin' a conference."



XXIV

A rather strained silence greeted the entrance of McNabb into the trading room. Jean and Murchison occupied the only two chairs the room boasted, and Wentworth leaned against the counter, a half-sneering smile on his lips. McNabb advanced to the group beneath the huge swinging lamp, and Sven Larsen lingered in the shadows near the door. The half-sneer changed to a look of open defiance, as Wentworth faced McNabb. "It seems," he said truculently, "that I am guilty of a serious faux pas in mentioning a bit of Terrace City scandal that reached my ears concerning the elopement of your estimable fur clerk, Hedin, and a Russian sable coat. The idiot didn't have the brains to get away with it. If you'd have been wiser you would have waited until you could have laid hands on the coat, and then locked up your fur clerk."

"H-m-m, maybe ye're right," answered McNabb.

"And," continued Wentworth, emboldened by the placidity of the other's tone, "if you had been wiser, you wouldn't have lost your pulp-wood holdings. Oh, there's no use beating about the bush—I knew the minute Jean told me you had come in by the tote-road, that you had seen the Eureka trucks hauling in Eureka material. We put one over on you, McNabb, and you might as well be a sport and make the best of it."

The old Scot nodded thoughtfully. "Maybe ye're right," he admitted. "But wasn't it a bit scurvy trick ye played me, acceptin' my money an' usin' it to double-cross me?"

"Business, my dear man! Merely business! I saw my chance, and I took it, that's all. Ten thousand a year, and a ten percent interest in a paper mill isn't so poor—and I'm not yet thirty. It takes brains to make money, and you can bet I'll make my money before my brain begins to slip cogs. It's expensive—this slipping of cogs."

"Maybe ye're right," repeated McNabb.

"I'll tell the world I'm right! It won't be but a few years till I'll be the big noise around this part of Canada! Brains to figure out a proposition, and nerve to carry it through—that's all it takes to make this old world pay up what it owes you."

"How he hates himself!" exclaimed Jean, and from his position in the shadows, Hedin saw that her eyes flashed.

His heart gave a great bound, and it was with an effort that he restrained himself from pushing into the group. Was it possible—? A step sounded outside, and the next moment the screen door swung open to admit the figure of a man who strode into the lamp-light and glanced about the faces of the assembly.

The man was Cameron.

"A fine two days' stay you made of your trip to the mill site," he grumbled, addressing Wentworth. "I waited here for a week for you or Orcutt to show up, and then I decided to hunt you. I followed you to Winnipeg, and from there to Ottawa, and back again to the head of the tote-road. Orcutt had left for the States the day before I got there, but they said you were down at the mill site. I rode down on a truck only to find that you had come over here for your outfit."

"Well, now you've found me, what's on your mind?" grinned Wentworth.

"I have a memorandum here in my pocket signed by Orcutt in which he authorized you to transact any and all business regarding the pulp-wood lands."

"That's correct," admitted Wentworth. "I am a stockholder, an officer in the company, and its sole representative in the field. Fire away. What's this business that's so all-fired important as to send you chasing all over Canada to reach me?"

"My business," replied Cameron gravely, "is to return to you as representative of the Eureka Paper Company, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, which amount was paid over to me by Mr. Orcutt, and which represents the initial payment of ten percent of the purchase price of certain pulp-wood lands described in the accompanying contract of sale."

"Return the money!" cried Wentworth. "What do you mean?"

"Simply, that the deal is off. Or, rather, no valid transaction was ever consummated."

Every particle of color faded from the engineer's face at the words. As he glanced wildly about him his eye caught a twinkle in the eyes of McNabb. The color flooded his face in a surge of red, and his eyes seemed to bulge with rage as he groped for words. "It's a damned lie!" he cried. "A trick of McNabb's!" He turned upon the older man: "I thought you took your defeat too easy, but you'll find you can't put anything over on me! The deal stands—and we'll fight you to the last court! If you've found some petty technicality in the contract, you better forget it. We've gone ahead in good faith and spent a million. We can employ as good lawyers as you can, and the courts won't stand for any quibbling! It's a case for the equity courts."

Cameron smiled grimly. "I am a lawyer, and as such you will permit the smile at your mention of the equity court. You would not be allowed to enter its doors. For its first precept is: He who comes into equity must come with clean hands. Are your hands clean? I think not—neither your hands nor Orcutt's. But, the matter will never reach the courts. There is no question of a technical error in the contract, because there is no contract. The instrument I drew, and which was signed by Orcutt and myself, has no legal existence. No valid contract could have been drawn relative to the disposal of those lands until the options held by Mr. McNabb had expired——"

"But they had expired!" cried Wentworth. "They expired at twelve o'clock, noon, of July first, and the contract was not signed until two or three minutes after twelve."

"By Orcutt's watch," retorted Cameron. "And Orcutt's watch was an hour faster than official time. I had no reason to suppose his watch was wrong, and believed the time had expired, until I was confronted, after your departure, by the accredited representative of McNabb. I was dumbfounded until I established the fact that he was within his rights in tendering payment and closing the transaction for his principal. Then there was no course open to me but to accept McNabb's money and conclude the transfer to him. Murchison, here, is a witness, that the facts are as I have stated them."

Wentworth's eyes flew to the face of the factor, who nodded emphatically. Again the color left his face. "It's a damned trick!" he muttered. "Why didn't you notify us at once, instead of waiting nearly three weeks and allowing us to spend more than a million dollars?"

"Orcutt told me he would return to the post in two days. I waited, and when a week went by I used every means in my power to reach him. I followed him by train. I learned his address and wired the facts to his bank. The fault is his own. I am sorry you have lost so heavily——"

"It isn't my money," Wentworth cried savagely. Then he suddenly paused, and for upwards of thirty seconds the room was in dead silence. When he spoke again, it was in a voice palpably held in control.

"I guess you have got us," he said. "There seems to be nothing for me to do but accept the money." He held out his hand as Cameron slowly counted out the big bills. Then without recounting, Wentworth thrust them into his pocket, and with quick, nervous strokes of his pen signed the receipt which Cameron placed before him. Then in a voice trembling with suppressed rage he faced McNabb. "Damn you!" he cried. "I thought—Orcutt said you were beginning to slip!"

"Well, maybe he's right," admitted McNabb, and the engineer saw that his lips twitched at the corners.

"Who was your representative?" he demanded abruptly. "And, how did it come that he arrived just in the nick of time?"

"Why, his name is Sven Larsen. He's Murchison's clerk," answered the Scot. "And he was here all the time."

"Sven Larsen!" yelled Wentworth. "That half-wit! Why, he hasn't got sense enough to come in out of the rain!"

"Maybe ye're right," admitted McNabb, "but that isn't what I hired him to do."

With an oath, Wentworth pushed past Cameron and started for the door to find himself suddenly face to face with Sven Larsen. "Get out of my way, damn you!" he cried. "Go up in the loft and wallow in your stinking furs!"

"Furs!" repeated the clerk dully, but without giving an inch. "Oh, yes, furs." He was looking Wentworth squarely in the eyes with a heavy stare. "Some fur is good, and some is bad. A Russian sable is better than a baum marten." At the words, Jean McNabb, who had been a silent but fascinated listener to all that transpired, leaned swiftly forward, her eyes staring into the uncouth face of the speaker, who continued, "And when the coat is dark, and of matched skins, it is very much better than any baum marten. And when one receives the sable coat on a winter's night from the hands of a beautiful Russian princess whom one is helping to escape through a roaring blizzard in a motor car—or was it a sleigh?"

"Stop, damn you!" In the lamp-light the on-lookers saw that the face of the engineer had gone livid. His words came thickly. "You fool! Are you crazy? Have you forgotten Pollak, and what happened in the shop of Levinski, the furrier? Where is Pollak?"

A slow grin overspread the face of Sven Larsen. "I invented Pollak to cover a mistake I made. There never was any Pollak, Wentworth, but there is a Russian sable coat. The coat is in your trunk in the cabin. It is the coat you stole from Miss McNabb on the night of the Campbell dinner."

"Oskar!" cried Jean, leaping from her chair at the moment that Wentworth hurled himself upon Hedin. Her cry was drowned in the swift impact of bodies and the sound of blows, and grunts, and heavy breathing. McNabb and Cameron drew back and the bodies, locked in a clench, toppled to the floor, overturning a chair.

"Oh, stop them! Stop them!" shrieked the girl. "He'll kill him!"

"Who'll kill who?" grinned McNabb, holding her back with one hand, without taking his eyes from the struggling, fighting figures that writhed almost at his feet, overturning boxes and bales in their struggles.

"He'll kill Oskar! He's bigger——"

"Not by a damn sight, he won't!" roared McNabb. "Look at um! Look at um! Oskar's on top! Give him hell, lad!"

Jean had ceased her protest, and to her own intense surprise she found herself leaning forward, watching every move. She cried out with pain when Wentworth's fist brought the blood from Oskar's nose, and she applauded when Hedin's last three blows landed with vicious thuds against the engineer's upturned chin.

Hedin rose to his feet and held the handkerchief to his bleeding nose. McNabb's hand gripped his shoulder. "Ye done fine, lad! Ye done fine!" he exclaimed.

Dropping to his knees, Hedin slipped his hand into the unconscious man's pocket and withdrew a key which he tossed to one of the Company Indians who had come running in at the sound of battle. "Here, Joe Irish," he said, "go to the cabin and unlock the trunk that is there and bring back the coat of fur."

A few moments later Hedin handed the garment to McNabb. "Here is your missing coat," he said, as Jean threw her arm about his shoulder.

"Oskar, dear—" she whispered, and the next moment Hedin's arms were about her and she could feel the wild pounding of his heart against her breast.

There was a movement on the floor near their feet, and releasing the girl Hedin reached swiftly down. McNabb's hand stayed him before he could seize hold of Wentworth, who was crawling toward the door.

"Let him go, lad," advised the old man. "We've got the coat. An'—an'—we're all happy!"

"But the money? He's got the three hundred and fifty thousand!" cried Hedin.

McNabb grinned. "Suppose we just let Orcutt worry about that," he said.

"I told you Oskar was innocent!" cried Jean triumphantly, as the door closed behind the slinking form of Wentworth. "I told you so from the first! I just knew he never took that coat!"

McNabb's eyes were twinkling. "I knew it, too, lass," he answered. "That's why I bailed him out an' sent him up here with two hundred an' fifty thousand dollars in negotiable paper in his pocket to close this deal for me."

"And you knew all the time," cried the girl, staring at her father in amazement, "when Orcutt was gloating over you back there, that you, and not he, owned the timber? And you let him go on and humiliate you to your face!"

"Sure I did," grinned McNabb. "He was havin' the time of his life, an' I hated to spoil it. An' besides, while he was talkin', truck after truck was rollin' off down the tote-road haulin' material to my mill site that I'll buy in at ten cents on the dollar. Orcutt'll pay for his fun!"

"But—your face—when he told you that you had lost the timber! It positively went gray!"

"Poker face," laughed McNabb. "But run along now—the two of ye. It's many a long day since Dugald an' I have had a powwow with our feet cocked up on bales of Injun goods." As the two walked arm in arm toward the door, McNabb called to the girl, "Here, lass, take your coat!" He tossed the Russian sable which the girl caught with a glad cry. "Ye'll be needin' it up here agin winter comes."

"Winter! Up here! What do you mean?"

"Oskar says he isn't goin' back to Terrace City," he explained. "Except maybe for the weddin'. The North has got into his blood, an' the McNabb Paper Company needs a competent manager."



XXV

When Wentworth left the trading room he went straight to his cabin, and disregarding his open trunk, he lifted a pack-sack from the floor and swung it to his shoulders. It was the pack he had deposited there scarcely an hour before when he had trailed in from the mill site, and he knew that it contained three or four days' supply of rations.

On the Shamattawa he had heard from a truck driver that an old man and a girl had started for Gods Lake post, and he instantly recognized McNabb and Jean from the man's description. Thereupon he made up a pack and headed for the post for the sole purpose of baiting the two, and of flaunting his prowess as a financier in their faces.

An angry flush flooded his face as he realized how completely the tables had turned. Then the flush gave place to a crafty smile, as he remembered the bills in his pocket. "McNabb's money, or Orcutt's," he muttered under his breath, "it's all the same to me. Three hundred and fifty thousand is more money than I ever expected to handle. And now for the get-away."

Closing the door behind him he struck across the clearing toward the northeast. At the end of the bush he paused. "Hell!" he growled. "I can't hit for the railway. Cameron said he had wired Orcutt at the bank, and I might meet him coming in." For some time he stood irresolute. "There's a way out straight south," he speculated, "about three hundred miles, and a good share of it water trail. I'll be all right if I can pick up a canoe, and I can get grub of the Indians." Skirting the clearing, he entered the bush and came out on the shore of the lake at some distance below the landing, where several canoes had been beached for the night. Stooping, he righted one, and as he straightened up he found himself face to face with Corporal Downey of the Mounted. For a moment the two stood regarding each other in silence, while through Wentworth's brain flashed a mighty fear. Had McNabb changed his mind and sent Downey to arrest him for the theft of the coat? He thought of Orcutt's big bills in his pocket, and his blood seemed to turn to water within him. Then suddenly he remembered that for the present, at least, he held those bills under color of authority. In the deep twilight that is the summer midnight of the North he searched the officer's face. Damn the man! Why didn't he say something? Why did he always force another to open a conversation? Wentworth cleared his throat.

"Hello, Corporal," he said sourly. "Aren't you out pretty late?"

"Not any later than you are, Captain. An' I'm headed in. Put over any more big deals lately?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I run onto Cameron about a week back. He was huntin' you or Orcutt. He told me how you beat old John McNabb out of his pulp-wood—almost. You ought to be ashamed—a couple of up-to-date financiers like you two, pickin' on an' old man that's just dodderin' around in his second childhood."

Wentworth flushed hot at the grin that accompanied the words.

"To hell with McNabb—and you, too!" he cried angrily, and carrying the canoe into the water, he placed his pack in it. When he returned for a paddle, Downey was gone, and stepping into the canoe, he pushed it out into the lake. "Of course, he'd have to show up, damn him!" he muttered as he propelled the light craft southward with swift strokes of the paddle. "And now if Orcutt should show up within the next day or two, Downey will know just where to follow, and even with a two days' start, I doubt if I could keep ahead of him. They say he's a devil on the trail. But I'll fool him. I'll leave the canoe at the end of the lake, and instead of striking on down the river I'll hit out overland. Once I get to the railway, they can all go to hell!"

The mistake Wentworth made on the trail when he first came into the North was not so much the insisting upon bringing in his trunk, nor his refusal to carry a pack; it was in striking Alex Thumb with the dog-whip when he refused to pull the outfit in the face of a blizzard. Thumb's reputation as a "bad Injun" was well founded. The son of a hot-tempered French trader and a Cree mother, his early life had been a succession of merciless beatings. At the age of fourteen he killed his father with a blow from an ice chisel, and thereafter served ten years of an indeterminate sentence, during the course of which the unmerciful beatings were administered for each infraction of reformatory rules, until in his heart was born a sullen hatred of all white men and an abysmal hatred of the lash. When Wentworth struck, his doom was sealed, but as Murchison said, Alex Thumb was canny. He had no mind to serve another term in prison.

All through the spring and summer he trailed the engineer, waiting with the patience that is the heritage of the wilderness dweller for the time and the place to strike and avoid suspicion. And as time drew on the half-breed's hatred against all white men seemed to concentrate into a mighty rage against this one white man. There had been times when he could have killed him from afar. More than once on the trail Wentworth unconsciously stood with the sights of Alex Thumb's rifle trained upon his head, or his heart. But such was his hatred that Thumb always stayed the finger that crooked upon the trigger—and bided his time.

Thus it was that half an hour after Wentworth pushed out into the lake another canoe shot out from the shore and fell in behind, its lone occupant, paddling noiselessly, easily kept just within sight of the fleeing man. When daylight broadened Wentworth landed upon a sandy point and ate breakfast. Upon another point, a mile to the rear, Alex Thumb lay on his belly and chewed jerked meat as his smouldering black eyes regarded gloatingly the man in the distance.

Gods Lake is nearly fifty miles in its north and south reach, and all day Wentworth paddled southward, holding well to the western shore.

At noon he rested for an hour and ate luncheon, his eyes now and then scanning the back reach of the lake. But he saw nothing, and from an aspen thicket scarce half a mile away Alex Thumb watched in silence.

As the afternoon wore to a closer the half-breed drew nearer. The shadows of the bordering balsams were long on the water when Wentworth first caught sight of the pursuing canoe. His first thought was that Orcutt had arrived at the post and that Downey had taken the trail. He ceased paddling for a moment and his light canoe swung into the trough of the waves and rocked crankily.

The other canoe was only a half mile behind, and Wentworth saw with relief that its occupant was not Downey. Some Indian fishing, he thought, and resumed his paddling. The south shore was only an hour away now, and tired as he was, he redoubled his efforts.

Farther on he looked back again. The canoe still followed. Surely no Indian would set his nets so far from his camp. Yet the man was an Indian. He had drawn closer and Wentworth could distinguish the short, jabbing strokes of the paddle.

Another quarter of an hour and Wentworth looked again—and as he looked, the blood seemed to freeze in his veins. The pursuing canoe was close now, and he was staring straight into the eyes of Alex Thumb. The half-breed was smiling—a curious, twisted smile that was the very embodiment of savage hate. Wentworth's muscles felt weak, and it was with difficulty that he drove them to the task of forcing the canoe out of the trough of the waves. Mechanically he paddled with his eyes fixed on the ever nearing south shore. He was very tired. He would soon make land now. But when he did make land—what then? He cursed himself for going unarmed. He could hear the slop of the waves on Thumb's canoe. He turned his head and saw that the man was only two lengths behind him. What would he do? With the mechanical swing of his arms the words of Murchison and Downey repeated themselves in his brain. "Serving with the devils in hell; serving with the devils in hell," with a certain monotonous rhythm the words kept repeating themselves through his brain. Why had he ever come North? Why hadn't he told McNabb that he would have nothing to do with his pulp-wood? The half-breed's canoe was alongside, but its occupant did not speak. He merely jabbed at the waves with his paddle and looked with that devilish twisted smile.

Wentworth hardly knew when his canoe grated upon the gravel. Stiffly he half walked, half crawled to the bow and lifted out his pack. Alex Thumb stood upon the gravel and smiled.

"What do you want?" faltered Wentworth, his voice breaking nervously.

The half-breed shrugged. "You no lak no pardner on de trail?" he asked.

"Where are you going?"

Thumb pointed vaguely toward the south. "Me—I'm lak de pardner on de trail."

"Look here," cried Wentworth suddenly. "Do you want money? More money than you ever saw before?"

The breed shook his head. "No. De money can't buy w'at I wan'."

"What do you want?"

Again came the twisted smile. "Mebbe-so we eat de suppaire firs'. I got som' feesh. We buil' de fire an' cook 'um."

The meal was eaten in silence, and during its progress Wentworth in a measure recovered his nerve.

"You haven't told me yet what you want," he suggested when they had lighted their pipes and thrown on an armful of greens for a smudge.

Between the narrowed lids the black eyes seemed to smoulder as they fixed upon the face of the white man. "I wan' you heart," he said, casually. "Red in my han's I wan' it, an' squeeze de blood out, an' watch it splash on de rocks. Mebbe-so I'm eat a piece dat heart, an' feed de res' to my dog."

Wentworth's pipe dropped to the gravel and lay there. He uttered no sound. The wind had died down and save for the droning hum of a billion mosquitoes the silence was absolute. A thin column of smoke streamed from the bowl of the neglected pipe. In profound fascination Wentworth watched it flow smoothly upward. An imperceptible air current set the column swaying and wavering, and a light puff of breeze dispersed it in a swirl of heavy yellow smoke from the smudge. Dully, impersonally, he sensed that the half-breed had just told him that he would squeeze the red blood from his heart and watch it splash upon the rocks. His eyes rested upon the rocks rimmed up by the ice above the gravelly beach. The blood would splash there, and there, and those other rocks would be spattered with tiny drops of it—his blood, the blood from his own heart which Alex Thumb would squeeze dry, as one would wring water from a sponge. He wondered that he felt no sense of fear. He believed that Alex Thumb would do that, yet it was a matter that seemed not of any importance. He raised his eyes and encountered the malevolent glare of the breed. The black eyes seemed to glow with an inner lustre, like the smoulder of banked fires.

With a start he seemed to have returned from some far place. The words of Corporal Downey flittered through his brain: "You'll be servin' with the devils in hell if you don't quit makin' enemies of men like Alex Thumb." And there was Alex Thumb regarding him through narrowed smouldering eyes across the little fire. Alex Thumb would kill him! Would kill him—Ross Wentworth! The whole thing was preposterous. If the man had really meant to kill him he would have done it before this. He wouldn't dare; there were the Mounted. Other words of Downey came to him, "If he does kill you, I'll get him." So there was a possibility that the man would kill him. Why not? Who would ever know? They would think he disappeared with Orcutt's money—would even institute a world-wide search from him—but not in the bush. Thought of the money nerved him to speak.