Bryce bent over him. "Now, damn you," he roared, "who felled that tree in Cardigan's Redwoods?"

"I did, M'sieur. Enough—I confess!" The words were a whisper.

"Did Colonel Pennington suggest it to you?"

"He want ze burl. By gar, I do not want to fell zat tree—"

"That's all I want to know." Stooping, Bryce seized Rondeau by the nape of the neck and the slack of his overalls, lifted him shoulder- high and threw him, as one throws a sack of meal, full at Colonel Pennington.

"You threw me at him. Now I throw him at you. You damned, thieving, greedy, hypocritical scoundrel, if it weren't for your years and your gray hair, I'd kill you."

The helpless hulk of the woods-boss descended upon the Colonel's expansive chest and sent him crashing earthward. Then Bryce, war-mad, turned to face the ring of Laguna Grande employees about him.

"Next!" he roared. "Singly, in pairs, or the whole damned pack!"

"Mr. Cardigan!"

He turned. Colonel Pennington's breath had been knocked out of his body by the impact of his semi-conscious woods-boss, and he lay inert, gasping like a hooked fish. Beside him Shirley Sumner was kneeling, her hands clasping her uncle's, but with her violet eyes blazing fiercely on Bryce Cardigan.

"How dare you?" she cried. "You coward! To hurt my uncle!"

He gazed at her a moment, fiercely, defiantly, his chest rising and falling from his recent exertions, his knotted fists gory with the blood of his enemy. Then the light of battle died, and he hung his head. "I'm sorry," he murmured, "not for his sake, but yours. I didn't know you were here. I forgot—myself."

"I'll never speak to you again so long as I live," she burst out passionately.

He advanced a step and stood gazing down upon her. Her angry glance met his unflinchingly; and presently for him the light went out of the world.

"Very well," he murmured. "Good-bye." And with bowed head he turned and made off through the green timber toward his own logging-camp five miles distant.



CHAPTER XVI

With the descent upon his breast of the limp body of his big woods- bully, Colonel Pennington had been struck to earth as effectively as if a fair-sized tree had fallen on him. Indeed, with such force did his proud head collide with terra firma that had it not been for the soft cushion of ferns and tiny redwood twigs, his neck must have been broken by the shock. To complete his withdrawal from active service, the last whiff of breath had been driven from his lungs; and for the space of a minute, during which Jules Rondeau lay heavily across his midriff, the Colonel was quite unable to get it back. Pale, gasping, and jarred from soul to suspenders, he was merely aware that something unexpected and disconcerting had occurred.

While the Colonel fought for his breath, his woodsmen remained in the offing, paralyzed into inactivity by reason of the swiftness and thoroughness of Bryce Cardigan's work; then Shirley motioned to them to remove the wreckage, and they hastened to obey.

Freed from the weight on the geometric centre of his being, Colonel Pennington stretched his legs, rolled his head from side to side, and snorted violently several times like a buck. After the sixth snort he felt so much better that a clear understanding of the exact nature of the catastrophe came to him; he struggled and sat up, looking around a little wildly.

"Where—did—Cardigan—go?" he gasped.

One of his men pointed to the timber into which the enemy had just disappeared.

"Surround him—take him," Pennington ordered. "I'll give—a month's pay—to each of—the six men that bring—that scoundrel to me. Get him—quickly! Understand?"

Not a man moved. Pennington shook with fury. "Get him," he croaked. "There are enough of you to do—the job. Close in on him—everybody. I'll give a month's pay to—everybody."

A man of that indiscriminate mixture of Spaniard and Indian known in California as cholo swept the circle of men with an alert and knowing glance. His name was Flavio Artelan, but his straight black hair, dark russet complexion, beady eyes, and hawk nose gave him such a resemblance to a fowl that he was known among his fellows as the Black Minorca, regardless of the fact that this sobriquet was scarcely fair to a very excellent breed of chicken. "That offer's good enough for me," he remarked in businesslike tones. "Come on— everybody. A month's pay for five minutes' work. I wouldn't tackle the job with six men, but there are twenty of us here."

"Hurry," the Colonel urged them.

Shirley Sumner's flashing glance rested upon the Black Minorca. "Don't you dare!" she cried. "Twenty to one! For shame!"

"For a month's pay," he replied impudently, and grinned evilly. "And I'm takin' orders from my boss." He started on a dog-trot for the timber, and a dozen men trailed after him.

Shirley turned helplessly on her uncle, seized his arm and shook it frantically. "Call them back! Call them back!" she pleaded.

Her uncle got uncertainly to his feet. "Not on your life!" he growled, and in his cold gray eyes there danced the lights of a thousand devils. "I told you the fellow was a ruffian. Now, perhaps, you'll believe me. We'll hold him until Rondeau revives, and then—"

Shirley guessed the rest, and she realized that it was useless to plead—that she was only wasting time. "Bryce! Bryce!" she called. "Run! They're after you. Twenty of them! Run, run—for my sake!"

His voice answered her from the timber: "Run? From those cattle? Not from man or devil." A silence. Then: "So you've changed your mind, have you? You've spoken to me again!" There was triumph, exultation in his voice. "The timber's too thick, Shirley. I couldn't get away anyhow—so I'm coming back."

She saw him burst through a thicket of alder saplings into the clearing, saw half a dozen of her uncle's men close in around him like wolves around a sick steer; and at the shock of their contact, she moaned and hid her face in her trembling hands.

Half man and half tiger that he was, the Black Minorca, as self- appointed leader, reached Bryce first. The cholo was a squat, powerful little man, with more bounce to him than a rubber ball; leading his men by a dozen yards, he hesitated not an instant but dodged under the blow Bryce lashed out at him and came up inside the latter's guard, feeling for Bryce's throat. Instead he met Bryce's knee in his abdomen, and forthwith he folded up like an accordion.

The next instant Bryce had stooped, caught him by the slack of the trousers and the scruff of the neck and thrown him, as he had thrown Rondeau, into the midst of the men advancing to his aid. Three of them went down backward; and Bryce, charging over them, stretched two more with well-placed blows from left and right, and continued on across the clearing, running at top speed, for he realized that for all the desperation of his fight and the losses already inflicted on his assailants, the odds against him were insurmountable.

Seeing him running away, the Laguna Grande woods-men took heart and hope and pursued him. Straight for the loading donkey at the log- landing Bryce ran. Beside the donkey stood a neat tier of firewood; in the chopping block, where the donkey-fireman had driven it prior to abandoning his post to view the contest between Bryce and Jules Rondeau, was a double-bitted axe. Bryce jerked it loose, swung it, whirled on his pursuers, and rushed them. Like turkeys scattering before the raid of a coyote they fled in divers directions and from a safe distance turned to gaze apprehensively upon this demon they had been ordered to bring in.

Bryce lowered the axe, removed his hat, and mopped his moist brow. From the centre of the clearing men were crawling or staggering to safety—with the exception of the Black Minorca, who lay moaning softly. Colonel Pennington, seeing his fondest hopes expire, lost his head completely.

"Get off my property, you savage," he shrilled.

"Don't be a nut, Colonel," Bryce returned soothingly. "I'll get off— when I get good and ready, and not a second sooner. In fact, I was trying to get off as rapidly as I could when you sent your men to bring me back. Prithee why, old thing? Didst crave more conversation with me, or didst want thy camp cleaned out?"

He started toward Pennington, who backed hastily away. Shirley stood her ground, bending upon Bryce, as he approached her, a cold and disapproving glance. "I'll get you yet," the Colonel declared from the shelter of an old stump behind which he had taken refuge.

"Barking dogs never bite, Colonel. And that reminds me: I've heard enough from you. One more cheep out of you, my friend, and I'll go up to my own logging-camp, return here with a crew of bluenoses and wild Irish and run your wops, bohunks, and cholos out of the county. I don't fancy the class of labour you're importing into this county, anyhow."

The Colonel, evidently deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, promptly subsided, although Bryce could see that he was mumbling threats to himself, though not in an audible voice.

The demon Cardigan halted beside Shirley and stood gazing down at her. He was smiling at her whimsically. She met his glance for a few seconds; then her lids were lowered and she bit her lip with vexation.

"Shirley," he said.

"You are presumptuous," she quavered.

"You set me an example in presumption," he retorted good humouredly. "Did you not call ME by MY first name a minute ago?" He glanced toward Colonel Pennington and observed the latter with his neck craned across his protecting stump. He was all ears. Bryce pointed sternly across the clearing, and the Colonel promptly abandoned his refuge and retreated hastily in the direction indicated.

The heir to Cardigan's Redwoods bent over the girl. "You spoke to me —after your promise not to, Shirley," he said gently. "You will always speak to me."

She commenced to cry softly. "I loathe you," she sobbed.

"For you I have the utmost respect and admiration," he replied.

"No, you haven't. If you had, you wouldn't hurt my uncle—the only human being in all this world who is dear to me."

"Gosh!" he murmured plaintively. "I'm jealous of that man. However, I'm sorry I hurt him. He is no longer young, while I—well, I forgot the chivalry my daddy taught me. I give you my word I came here to fight fairly—"

"He merely tried to stop you from fighting."

"No, he didn't, Shirley. He interfered and fouled me. Still, despite that, if I had known you were a spectator I think I should have controlled myself and refrained from pulling off my vengeance in your presence. I shall never cease to regret that I subjected you to such a distressing spectacle. I do hope, however, that you will believe me when I tell you I am not a bully, although when there is a fight worth while, I never dodge it. And this time I fought for the honour of the House of Cardigan."

"If you want me to believe that, you will beg my uncle's pardon."

"I can't do that. He is my enemy and I shall hate him forever; I shall fight him and his way of doing business until he reforms or I am exhausted."

She looked up at him, showing a face in which resentment, outrage, and wistfulness were mirrored.

"You realize, of course, what your insistence on that plan means, Mr. Cardigan?"

"Call me Bryce," he pleaded. "You're going to call me that some day anyhow, so why not start now?"

"You are altogether insufferable, sir. Please go away and never presume to address me again. You are quite impossible."

He shook his head. "I do not give up that readily, Shirley. I didn't know how dear—what your friendship meant to me, until you sent me away; I didn't think there was any hope until you warned me those dogs were hunting me—and called me Bryce." He held out his hand. "'God gave us our relations,'" he quoted, "'but thank God, we can choose our friends.' And I'll be a good friend to you, Shirley Sumner, until I have earned the right to be something more. Won't you shake hands with me? Remember, this fight to-day is only the first skirmish in a war to the finish—and I am leading a forlorn hope. If I lose—well, this will be good-bye."

"I hate you," she answered drearily. "All our fine friendship— smashed—and you growing stupidly sentimental. I didn't think it of you. Please go away. You are distressing me."

He smiled at her tenderly, forgivingly, wistfully, but she did not see it. "Then it is really good-by," he murmured with mock dolorousness.

She nodded her bowed head. "Yes," she whispered. "After all, I have some pride, you know. You mustn't presume to be the butterfly preaching contentment to the toad in the dust."

"As you will it, Shirley." He turned away. "I'll send your axe back with the first trainload of logs from my camp, Colonel," he called to Pennington.

Once more he strode away into the timber. Shirley watched him pass out of her life, and gloried in what she conceived to be his agony, for she had both temper and spirit, and Bryce Cardigan calmly, blunderingly, rather stupidly (she thought) had presumed flagrantly on brief acquaintance. Her uncle was right. He was not of their kind of people, and it was well she had discovered this before permitting herself to develop a livelier feeling of friendship for him. It was true he possessed certain manly virtues, but his crudities by far outweighed these.

The Colonel's voice broke in upon her bitter reflections. "That fellow Cardigan is a hard nut to crack—I'll say that for him." He had crossed the clearing to her side and was addressing her with his customary air of expansiveness. "I think, my dear, you had better go back into the caboose, away from the prying eyes of these rough fellows. I'm sorry you came, Shirley. I'll never forgive myself for bringing you. If I had thought—but how could I know that scoundrel was coming here to raise a disturbance? And only last night he was at our house for dinner!"

"That's just what makes it so terrible, Uncle Seth," she quavered.

"It IS hard to believe that a man of young Cardigan's evident intelligence and advantages could be such a boor, Shirley. However, I, for one, am not surprised. You will recall that I warned you he might be his father's son. The best course to pursue now is to forget that you have ever met the fellow."

"I wonder what could have occurred to make such a madman of him?" the girl queried wonderingly. "He acted more like a demon than a human being."

"Just like his old father," the Colonel purred benevolently. "When he can't get what he wants, he sulks. I'll tell you what got on his confounded nerves. I've been freighting logs for the senior Cardigan over my railroad; the contract for hauling them was a heritage from old Bill Henderson, from whom I bought the mill and timber-lands; and of course as his assignee it was incumbent upon me to fulfill Henderson's contract with Cardigan, even though the freight-rate was ruinous.

"Well, this morning young Cardigan came to my office, reminded me that the contract would expire by limitation next year and asked me to renew it, and at the same freight-rate. I offered to renew the contract but at a higher freight-rate, and explained to him that I could not possibly continue to haul his logs at a loss. Well, right away he flew into a rage and called me a robber; whereupon I informed him that since he thought me a robber, perhaps we had better not attempt to have any business dealings with each other—that I really didn't want his contract at any price, having scarcely sufficient rolling-stock to handle my own logs. That made him calm down, but in a little while he lost his head again and grew snarly and abusive—to such an extent, indeed, that finally I was forced to ask him to leave my office."

"Nevertheless, Uncle Seth, I cannot understand why he should make such a furious attack upon your employee."

The Colonel laughed with a fair imitation of sincerity and tolerant amusement. "My dear, that is no mystery to me. There are men who, finding it impossible or inadvisable to make a physical attack upon their enemy, find ample satisfaction in poisoning his favourite dog, burning his house, or beating up one of his faithful employees. Cardigan picked on Rondeau for the reason that a few days ago he tried to hire Rondeau away from me—offered him twenty-five dollars a month more than I was paying him, by George! Of course when Rondeau came to me with Cardigan's proposition, I promptly met Cardigan's bid and retained Rondeau; consequently Cardigan hates us both and took the earliest opportunity to vent his spite on us."

The Colonel sighed and brushed the dirt and leaves from his tweeds. "Thunder," he continued philosophically, "it's all in the game, so why worry over it? And why continue to discuss an unpleasant topic, my dear?"

A groan from the Black Minorca challenged her attention. "I think that man is badly hurt, Uncle," she suggested.

"Serves him right," he returned coldly. "He tackled that cyclone full twenty feet in advance of the others; if they'd all closed in together, they would have pulled him down. I'll have that cholo and Rondeau sent down with the next trainload of logs to the company hospital. They're a poor lot and deserve manhandling—"

They paused, facing toward the timber, from which came a voice, powerful, sweetly resonant, raised in song. Shirley knew that half- trained baritone, for she had heard it the night before when Bryce Cardigan, faking his own accompaniment at the piano, had sung for her a number of carefully expurgated lumberjack ballads, the lunatic humour of which had delighted her exceedingly. She marvelled now at his choice of minstrelsy, for the melody was hauntingly plaintive— the words Eugene Field's poem of childhood, "Little Boy Blue."

"The little toy dog is covered with dust, But sturdy and stanch he stands; And the little toy soldier is red with rust, And his musket molds in his hands. Time was when the little toy dog was new, And the soldier was passing fair; And that was the time when our little boy blue, Kissed them and put them there."

"Light-hearted devil, isn't he?" the Colonel commented approvingly. "And his voice isn't half bad. Just singing to be defiant, I suppose."

Shirley did not answer. But a few minutes previously she had seen the singer a raging fury, brandishing an axe and driving men before him. She could not understand. And presently the song grew faint among the timber and died away entirely.

Her uncle took her gently by the arm and steered her toward the caboose. "Well, what do you think of your company now?" he demanded gayly.

"I think," she answered soberly, "that you have gained an enemy worth while and that it behooves you not to underestimate him."



CHAPTER XVII

Through the green timber Bryce Cardigan strode, and there was a lilt in his heart now. Already he had forgotten the desperate situation from which he had just escaped; he thought only of Shirley Sumner's face, tear-stained with terror; and because he knew that at least some of those tears had been inspired by the gravest apprehensions as to his physical well-being, because in his ears there still resounded her frantic warning, he realized that however stern her decree of banishment had been, she was nevertheless not indifferent to him. And it was this knowledge that had thrilled him into song and which when his song was done had brought to his firm mouth a mobility that presaged his old whimsical smile—to his brown eyes a beaming light of confidence and pride.

The climax had been reached—and passed; and the result had been far from the disaster he had painted in his mind's eye ever since the knowledge had come to him that he was doomed to battle to a knockout with Colonel Pennington, and that one of the earliest fruits of hostilities would doubtless be the loss of Shirley Sumner's prized friendship. Well, he had lost her friendship, but a still small voice whispered to him that the loss was not irreparable—whereat he swung his axe as a bandmaster swings his baton; he was glad that he had started the war and was now free to fight it out unhampered.

Up hill and down dale he went. Because of the tremendous trees he could not see the sun; yet with the instinct of the woodsman, an instinct as infallible as that of a homing pigeon, he was not puzzled as to direction. Within two hours his long, tireless stride brought him out into a clearing in the valley where his own logging-camp stood. He went directly to the log-landing, where in a listless and half-hearted manner the loading crew were piling logs on Pennington's logging-trucks.

Bryce looked at his watch. It was two o'clock; at two-fifteen Pennington's locomotive would appear, to back in and couple to the long line of trucks. And the train was only half loaded.

"Where's McTavish?" Bryce demanded of the donkey-driver.

The man mouthed his quid, spat copiously, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and pointed. "Up at his shanty," he made answer, and grinned at Bryce knowingly.

Up through the camp's single short street, flanked on each side with the woodsmen's shanties, Bryce went. Dogs barked at him, for he was a stranger in his own camp; children, playing in the dust, gazed upon him owlishly. At the most pretentious shanty on the street Bryce turned in. He had never seen it before, but he knew it to be the woods-boss's home, for unlike its neighbours the house was painted with the coarse red paint that is used on box-cars, while a fence, made of fancy pointed pickets painted white, inclosed a tiny garden in front of the house. As Bryce came through the gate, a young girl rose from where she knelt in a bed of freshly transplanted pansies.

Bryce lifted his hat. "Is Mr. McTavish at home?" he asked.

She nodded. "He cannot see anybody," she hastened to add. "He's sick."

"I think he'll see me. And I wonder if you're Moira McTavish."

"Yes, I'm Moira."

"I'm Bryce Cardigan."

A look of fright crept into the girl's eyes. "Are you—Bryce Cardigan?" she faltered, and looked at him more closely. "Yes, you're Mr. Bryce. You've changed—but then it's been six years since we saw you last, Mr. Bryce."

He came toward her with outstretched hand. "And you were a little girl when I saw you last. Now—you're a woman." She grasped his hand with the frank heartiness of a man. "I'm mighty glad to meet you again, Moira. I just guessed who you were, for of course I should never have recognized you. When I saw you last, you wore your hair in a braid down your back."

"I'm twenty years old," she informed him.

"Stand right where you are until I have looked at you," he commanded, and backed off a few feet, the better to contemplate her.

He saw a girl slightly above medium height, tanned, robust, simply gowned in a gingham dress. Her hands were soiled from her recent labours in the pansy-bed, and her shoes were heavy and coarse; yet neither hands nor feet were large or ungraceful. Her head was well formed; her hair, jet black and of unusual lustre and abundance, was parted in the middle and held in an old-fashioned coil at the nape of a neck the beauty of which was revealed by the low cut of her simple frock. Moira was a decided brunette, with that wonderful quality of skin to be seen only among brunettes who have roses in their cheeks; her brow was broad and spiritual; in her eyes, large, black, and listrous, there was a brooding tenderness not untouched with sorrow— some such expression, indeed, as da Vinci put in the eyes of his Mona Lisa. Her nose was patrician, her face oval; her lips, full and red, were slightly parted in the adorable Cupid's bow which is the inevitable heritage of a short upper lip; her teeth were white as Parian marble; and her full breast was rising and falling swiftly, as if she laboured under suppressed excitement.

So delightful a picture did Moira McTavish make that Bryce forgot all his troubles in her sweet presence. "By the gods, Moira," he declared earnestly, "you're a peach! When I saw you last, you were awkward and leggy, like a colt. I'm sure you weren't a bit good-looking. And now you're the most ravishing young lady in seventeen counties. By jingo, Moira, you're a stunner and no mistake. Are you married?"

She shook her head, blushing pleasurably at his unpolished but sincere compliments.

"What? Not married. Why, what the deuce can be the matter with the eligible young fellows hereabouts?"

"There aren't any eligible young fellows hereabouts, Mr. Bryce. And I've lived in these woods all my life."

"That's why you haven't been discovered."

"And I don't intend to marry a lumberjack and continue to live in these woods," she went on earnestly, as if she found pleasure in this opportunity to announce her rebellion. Despite her defiance, however, there was a note of sad resignation in her voice.

"You don't know a thing about it, Moira. Some bright day your Prince Charming will come by, riding the log-train, and after that it will always be autumn in the woods for you. Everything will just naturally turn to crimson and gold."

"How do you know, Mr Bryce?"

He laughed. "I read about it in a book."

"I prefer spring in the woods, I think. It seems—It's so foolish of me, I know; I ought to be contented, but it's hard to be contented when it is always winter in one's heart. That frieze of timber on the skyline limits my world, Mr Bryce. Hills and timber, timber and hills, and the thunder of falling redwoods. And when the trees have been logged off so we can see the world, we move back into green timber again." She sighed.

"Are you lonely, Moira?"

She nodded.

"Poor Moira!" he murmured absently.

The thought that he so readily understood touched her; a glint of tears was in her sad eyes. He saw them and placed his arm fraternally around her shoulders. "Tut-tut, Moira! Don't cry," he soothed her. "I understand perfectly, and of course we'll have to do something about it. You're too fine for this. "With a sweep of his hand he indicated the camp. He had led her to the low stoop in front of the shanty. "Sit down on the steps, Moira, and we'll talk it over. I really called to see your father, but I guess I don't want to see him after all—if he's sick."

She looked at him bravely. "I didn't know you at first, Mr. Bryce. I fibbed. Father isn't sick. He's drunk."

"I thought so when I saw the loading-crew taking it easy at the log- landing. I'm terribly sorry."

"I loathe it—and I cannot leave it," she burst out vehemently. "I'm chained to my degradation. I dream dreams, and they'll never come true. I—I—oh Mr. Bryce, Mr. Bryce, I'm so unhappy."

"So am I," he retorted. "We all get our dose of it, you know, and just at present I'm having an extra helping, it seems. You're cursed with too much imagination, Moira. I'm sorry about your father. He's been with us a long time, and my father has borne a lot from him for old sake's sake; he told me the other night that he has discharged Mac fourteen times during the past ten years, but to date he hasn't been able to make it stick. For all his sixty years, Moira, your confounded parent can still manhandle any man on the pay-roll, and as fast as Dad put in a new woods-boss old Mac drove him off the job. He simply declines to be fired, and Dad's worn out and too tired to bother about his old woods-boss any more. He's been waiting until I should get back."

"I know," said Moira wearily. "Nobody wants to be Cardigan's woods- boss and have to fight my father to hold his job. I realize what a nuisance he has become."

Bryce chuckled. "I asked Father why he didn't stand pat and let Mac work for nothing; having discharged him, my father was under no obligation to give him his salary just because he insisted on being woods-boss. Dad might have starved your father out of these woods, but the trouble was that old Mac would always come and promise reform and end up by borrowing a couple of hundred dollars, and then Dad had to hire him again to get it back! Of course the matter simmers down to this: Dad is so fond of your father that he just hasn't got the moral courage to work him over—and now that job is up to me. Moira, I'm not going to beat about the bush with you. They tell me your father is a hopeless inebriate."

"I'm afraid he is, Mr. Bryce."

"How long has he been drinking to excess?"

"About ten years, I think. Of course, he would always take a few drinks with the men around pay-day, but after Mother died, he began taking his drinks between pay-days. Then he took to going down to Sequoia on Saturday nights and coming back on the mad-train, the maddest of the lot. I suppose he was lonely, too. He didn't get real bad, however, till about two years ago."

"Just about the time my father's eyes began to fail him and he ceased coming up into the woods to jack Mac up? So he let the brakes go and started to coast, and now he's reached the bottom! I couldn't get him on the telephone to-day or yesterday. I suppose he was down in Arcata, liquoring up."

She nodded miserably.

"Well, we have to get logs to the mill, and we can't get them with old John Barleycorn for a woods-boss, Moira. So we're going to change woods-bosses, and the new woods-boss will not be driven off the job, because I'm going to stay up here a couple of weeks and break him in myself. By the way, is Mac ugly in his cups?"

"Thank God, no," she answered fervently. "Drunk or sober, he has never said an unkind word to me."

"But how do you manage to get money to clothe yourself? Sinclair tells me Mac needs every cent of his two hundred and fifty dollars a month to enjoy himself."

"I used to steal from him," the girl admitted. "Then I grew ashamed of that, and for the past six months I've been earning my own living. Mr. Sinclair was very kind. He gave me a job waiting on table in the camp dining room. You see, I had to have something here. I couldn't leave my father. He had to have somebody to take care of him. Don't you see, Mr. Bryce?"

"Sinclair is a fuzzy old fool," Bryce declared with emphasis. "The idea of our woods-boss's daughter slinging hash to lumberjacks. Poor Moira!"

He took one of her hands in his, noting the callous spots on the plump palm, the thick finger-joints that hinted so of toil, the nails that had never been manicured save by Moira herself. "Do you remember when I was a boy, Moira, how I used to come up to the logging-camps to hunt and fish? I always lived with the McTavishes then. And in September, when the huckleberries were ripe, we used to go out and pick them together. Poor Moira! Why, we're old pals, and I'll be shot if I'm going to see you suffer."

She glanced at him shyly, with beaming eyes. "You haven't changed a bit, Mr. Bryce. Not one little bit!"

"Let's talk about you, Moira. You went to school in Sequoia, didn't you?"

"Yes, I was graduated from the high school there. I used to ride the log-trains into town and back again."

"Good news! Listen, Moira. I'm going to fire your father, as I've said, because he's working for old J.B. now, not the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company. I really ought to pension him after his long years in the Cardigan service, but I'll be hanged if we can afford pensions any more—particularly to keep a man in booze; so the best our old woods-boss gets from me is this shanty, or another like it when we move to new cuttings, and a perpetual meal-ticket for our camp dining room while the Cardigans remain in business. I'd finance him for a trip to some State institution where they sometimes reclaim such wreckage, if I didn't think he's too old a dog to be taught new tricks."

"Perhaps," she suggested sadly, "you had better talk the matter over with him."

"No, I'd rather not. I'm fond of your father, Moira. He was a man when I saw him last—such a man as these woods will never see again— and I don't want to see him again until he's cold sober. I'll write him a letter. As for you, Moira, you're fired, too. I'll not have you waiting on table in my logging-camp—not by a jugful! You're to come down to Sequoia and go to work in our office. We can use you on the books, helping Sinclair, and relieve him of the task of billing, checking tallies, and looking after the pay-roll. I'll pay you a hundred dollars a month, Moira. Can you get along on that?"

Her hard hand closed over his tightly, but she did not speak.

"All right, Moira. It's a go, then. Hills and timber—timber and hills—and I'm going to set you free. Perhaps in Sequoia you'll find your Prince Charming. There, there, girl, don't cry. We Cardigans had twenty-five years of faithful service from Donald McTavish before he commenced slipping; after all, we owe him something, I think."

She drew his hand suddenly to her lips and kissed it; her hot tears of joy fell on it, but her heart was too full for mere words.

"Fiddle-de-dee, Moira! Buck up," he protested, hugely pleased, but embarrassed withal. "The way you take this, one would think you had expected me to go back on an old pal and had been pleasantly surprised when I didn't. Cheer up, Moira! Cherries are ripe, or at any rate they soon will be; and if you'll just cease shedding the scalding and listen to me, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll advance you two months' salary for—well, you'll need a lot of clothes and things in Sequoia that you don't need here. And I'm glad I've managed to settle the McTavish hash without kicking up a row and hurting your feelings. Poor old Mac! I'm sorry I can't bear with him, but we simply have to have the logs, you know."

He rose, stooped, and pinched her ear; for had he not known her since childhood, and had they not gathered huckleberries together in the long ago? She was sister to him—just another one of his problems— and nothing more. "Report on the job as soon as possible, Moira," he called to her from the gate. Then the gate banged behind him, and with a smile and a debonair wave of his hand, he was striding down the little camp street where the dogs and the children played in the dust.

After a while Moira walked to the gate and leaning upon it, looked down the street toward the log-landing where Bryce was ragging the laggard crew into some thing like their old-time speed. Presently the locomotive backed in and coupled to the log tram, and when she saw Bryce leap aboard and seat himself on a top log in such a position that he could not fail to see her at the gate, she waved to him. He threw her a careless kiss, and the train pulled out.

Presently, when Moira lifted her Madonna glance to the frieze of timber on the skyline, there was a new glory in her eyes; and lo, it was autumn in the woods, for over that hill Prince Charming had come to her, and life was all crimson and gold!

When the train loaded with Cardigan logs crawled in on the main track and stopped at the log-landing in Pennington's camp, the locomotive uncoupled and backed in on the siding for the purpose of kicking the caboose, in which Shirley and Colonel Pennington had ridden to the woods, out onto the main line again—where, owing to a slight downhill grade, the caboose, controlled by the brakeman, could coast gently forward and be hooked on to the end of the log-train for the return journey to Sequoia.

Throughout the afternoon Shirley, following the battle royal between Bryce and the Pennington retainers, had sat dismally in the caboose. She was prey to many conflicting emotions; but having had what her sex term "a good cry," she had to a great extent recovered her customary poise—and was busily speculating on the rapidity with which she could leave Sequoia and forget she had ever met Bryce Cardigan—when the log-train rumbled into the landing and the last of the long string of trucks came to a stop directly opposite the caboose.

Shirley happened to be looking through the grimy caboose window at that moment. On the top log of the load the object of her unhappy speculations was seated, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that he was back once more in the haunt of his enemies, although knowledge that the double-bitted axe he had so unceremoniously borrowed of Colonel Pennington was driven deep into the log beside him, with the haft convenient to his hand, probably had much to do with Bryce's air of detached indifference. He was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his chin in his cupped hands, and a pipe thrust aggressively out the corner of his mouth, the while he stared moodily at his feet.

Shirley suspected she knew what he was thinking of; he was less than six feet from her, and a morbid fascination moved her to remain at the window and watch the play of emotions over his strong, stern face. She told herself that should he move, should he show the slightest disposition to raise his head and bring his eyes on a level with hers, she would dodge away from the window in time to escape his scrutiny.

She reckoned without the engine. With a smart bump it struck the caboose and shunted it briskly up the siding; at the sound of the impact Bryce raised his troubled glance just in time to see Shirley's body, yielding to the shock, sway into full view at the window.

With difficulty he suppressed a grin. "I'll bet my immortal soul she was peeking at me," he soliloquized. "Confound the luck! Another meeting this afternoon would be embarrassing." Tactfully he resumed his study of his feet, not even looking up when the caboose, after gaining the main track, slid gently down the slight grade and was coupled to the rear logging-truck. Out of the tail of his eye he caught a glimpse of Colonel Pennington passing alongside the log- train and entering the caboose; he heard the engineer shout to the brakeman—who had ridden down from the head of the train to unlock the siding switch and couple the caboose—to hurry up, lock the switch, and get back aboard the engine.

"Can't get this danged key to turn in the lock," the brakeman shouted presently. "Lock's rusty, and something's gone bust inside."

Minutes passed. Bryce's assumed abstraction became real, for he had many matters to occupy his busy brain, and it was impossible for him to sit idle without adverting to some of them. Presently he was subconsciously aware that the train was moving gently forward; almost immediately, it seemed to him, the long string of trucks had gathered their customary speed; and then suddenly it dawned upon Bryce that the train had started off without a single jerk—and that it was gathering headway rapidly.

He looked ahead—and his hair grew creepy at the roots. There was no locomotive attached to the train! It was running away down a two per cent. grade, and because of the tremendous weight of the train, it was gathering momentum at a fearful rate.

The reason for the runaway dawned on Bryce instantly. The road, being privately owned, was, like most logging-roads, neglected as to roadbed and rolling-stock; also it was undermanned, and the brake- man, who also acted as switchman, had failed to set the hand-brakes on the leading truck after the engineer had locked the air-brakes. As a result, during the five or six minutes required to "spot in" the caboose, and an extra minute or two lost while the brakeman struggled with the recalcitrant lock on the switch, the air had leaked away through the worn valves and rubber tubing, and the brakes had been released—so that the train, without warning, had quietly and almost noiselessly slid out of the log-landing and started on its mad career. Before the engineer could beat it to the other switch with the locomotive, run out on the main track, let the runaway gradually catch up with him and hold it—no matter how or what happened to him or his engine—the first logging-truck had cleared the switch and blocked pursuit. There was nothing to do now save watch the wild runaway and pray, for of all the mad runaways in a mad world, a loaded logging-train is by far the worst.

For an instant after realizing his predicament, Bryce Cardigan was tempted to jump and take his chance on a few broken bones, before the train could reach a greater speed than twenty miles an hour. His impulse was to run forward and set the handbrake on the leading truck, but a glance showed him that even with the train standing still he could not hope to leap from truck to truck and land on the round, freshly peeled surface of the logs without slipping for he had no calks in his boots. And to slip now meant swift and horrible death.

"Too late!" he muttered. "Even if I could get to the head of the train, I couldn't stop her with the hand-brake; should I succeed in locking the wheels, the brute would be doing fifty miles an hour by that time—the front truck would slide and skid, leave the tracks and pile up with me at the bottom of a mess of wrecked rolling-stock and redwood logs."

Then he remembered. In the wildly rolling caboose Shirley Sumner rode with her uncle, while less than two miles ahead, the track swung in a sharp curve high up along the hillside above Mad River. Bryce knew the leading truck would never take that curve at high speed, even if the ancient rolling-stock should hold together until the curve was reached, but would shoot off at a tangent into the canyon, carrying trucks, logs, and caboose with it, rolling over and over down the hillside to the river.

"The caboose must be cut out of this runaway," Bryce soliloquized, "and it must be cut out in a devil of a hurry. Here goes nothing in particular, and may God be good to my dear old man."

He jerked his axe out of the log, drove it deep into the top log toward the end, and by using the haft to cling to, crawled toward the rear of the load and looked down at the caboose coupling. The top log was a sixteen-foot butt; the two bottom logs were eighteen footers. With a silent prayer of thanks to Providence, Bryce slid down to the landing thus formed. He was still five feet above the coupling, however; but by leaning over the swaying, bumping edge and swinging the axe with one hand, he managed to cut through the rubber hose on the air connection. "The blamed thing might hold and drag the caboose along after I've pulled out the coupling-pin," he reflected. "And I can't afford to take chances now."

Nevertheless he took them. Axe in hand, he leaped down to the narrow ledge formed by the bumper in front of the cabooses—driving his face into the front of the caboose; and he only grasped the steel rod leading from the brake-chains to the wheel on the roof in time to avoid falling half stunned between the front of the caboose and the rear of the logging-truck. The caboose had once been a box-car; hence there was no railed front platform to which Bryce might have leaped in safety. Clinging perilously on the bumper, he reached with his foot, got his toe under the lever on the side, jerked it upward, and threw the pin out of the coupling; then with his free hand he swung the axe and drove the great steel jaws of the coupling apart.

The caboose was cut out! But already the deadly curve was in sight; in two minutes the first truck would reach it; and the caboose, though cut loose, had to be stopped, else with the headway it had gathered, it, too, would follow the logging-trucks to glory.

For a moment Bryce clung to the brake-rod, weak and dizzy from the effects of the blow when, leaping down from the loaded truck to the caboose bumper, his face had smashed into the front of the caboose. His chin was bruised, skinned, and bloody; his nose had been broken, and twin rivulets of blood ran from his nostrils. He wiped it away, swung his axe, drove the blade deep into the bumper and left it there with the haft quivering; turning, he climbed swiftly up the narrow iron ladder beside the brake-rod until he reached the roof; then, still standing on the ladder, he reached the brake-wheel and drew it promptly but gradually around until the wheel-blocks began to bite, when he exerted his tremendous strength to the utmost and with his knees braced doggedly against the front of the caboose, held the wheel.

The brake screamed, but the speed of the caboose was not appreciably slackened. "It's had too good a start!" Bryce moaned. "The momentum is more than I can overcome. Oh, Shirley, my love! God help you!"

He cast a sudden despairing look over his shoulder downward at the coupling. He was winning, after all, for a space of six feet now yawned between the end of the logging-truck and the bumper of the caboose. If he could but hold that tremendous strain on the wheel for a quarter of a mile, he might get the demon caboose under control! Again he dug his knees into the front of the car and twisted on the wheel until it seemed that his muscles must crack.

After what seemed an eon of waiting, he ventured another look ahead. The rear logging-truck was a hundred yards in front of him now, and from the wheels of the caboose an odour of something burning drifted up to him. "I've got your wheels locked!" he half sobbed. "I'll hold you yet, you brute. Slide! That's it! Slide, and flatten your infernal wheels. Hah! You're quitting—quitting. I'll have you in control before we reach the curve. Burn, curse you, burn!"

With a shriek of metal scraping metal, the head of the Juggernaut ahead took the curve, clung there an instant, and was catapulted out into space. Logs weighing twenty tons were flung about like kindling; one instant, Bryce could see them in the air; the next they had disappeared down the hillside. A deafening crash, a splash, a cloud of dust—

With a protesting squeal, the caboose came to the point where the logging-train had left the right of way, carrying rails and ties with it. The wheels on the side nearest the bank slid into the dirt first and plowed deep into the soil; the caboose came to an abrupt stop, trembled and rattled, overtopped its centre of gravity, and fell over against the cut-bank, wearily, like a drunken hag.

Bryce, still clinging to the brake, was fully braced for the shock and was not flung off. Calmly he descended the ladder, recovered the axe from the bumper, climbed back to the roof, tiptoed off the roof to the top of the bank and sat calmly down under a manzanita bush to await results, for he was quite confident that none of the occupants of the confounded caboose had been treated to anything worse than a wild ride and a rare fright, and he was curious to see how Shirley Sumner would behave in an emergency.

Colonel Pennington was first to emerge at the rear of the caboose. He leaped lightly down the steps, ran to the front of the car, looked down the track, and swore feelingly. Then he darted back to the rear of the caboose.

"All clear and snug as a bug under a chip, my dear," he called to Shirley. "Thank God, the caboose became uncoupled—guess that fool brakeman forgot to drop the pin; it was the last car, and when it jumped the track and plowed into the dirt, it just naturally quit and toppled over against the bank. Come out, my dear."

Shirley came out, dry-eyed, but white and trembling. The Colonel placed his arm around her, and she hid her face on his shoulder and shuddered. "There, there!" he soothed her affectionately. "It's all over, my dear. All's well that ends well."

"The train," she cried in a choking voice. "Where is it?"

"In little pieces—down in Mad River." He laughed happily. "And the logs weren't even mine! As for the trucks, they were a lot of ratty antiques and only fit to haul Cardigan's logs. About a hundred yards of roadbed ruined—that's the extent of my loss, for I'd charged off the trucks to profit and loss two years ago."

"Bryce Cardigan," she sobbed. "I saw him—he was riding a top log on the train. He—ah, God help him!"

The Colonel shook her with sudden ferocity. "Young Cardigan," he cried sharply. "Riding the logs? Are you certain?"

She nodded, and her shoulders shook piteously.

"Then Bryce Cardigan is gone!" Pennington's pronouncement was solemn, deadly with its flat finality. "No man could have rolled down into Mad River with a trainload of logs and survived. The devil himself couldn't." He heaved a great sigh, and added: "Well, that clears the atmosphere considerably, although for all his faults, I regret, for his father's sake, that this dreadful affair has happened. Well, it can't be helped, Shirley. Don't cry, my dear. I know it's terrible, but—there, there my love. Do brace up. Poor devil! For all his damnable treatment of me, I wouldn't have had this happen for a million dollars."

Shirley burst into wild weeping. Bryce's heart leaped, for he understood the reason for her grief. She had sent him away in anger, and he had gone to his death; ergo it would be long before Shirley would forgive herself. Bryce had not intended presenting himself before her in his battered and bloody condition, but the sight of her distress now was more than he could bear. He coughed slightly, and the alert Colonel glanced up at him instantly.

"Well, I'll be hanged!" The words fell from Pennington's lips with a heartiness that was almost touching. "I thought you'd gone with the train."

"Sorry to have disappointed you, old top," Bryce replied blithely, "but I'm just naturally stubborn. Too bad about the atmosphere you thought cleared a moment ago! It's clogged worse than ever now."

At the sound of Bryce's voice, Shirley raised her head, whirled and looked up at him. He held his handkerchief over his gory face that the sight might not distress her; he could have whooped with delight at the joy that flashed through her wet lids.

"Bryce Cardigan," she commanded sternly, "come down here this instant."

"I'm not a pretty sight, Shirley. Better let me go about my business."

She stamped her foot. "Come here!"

"Well, since you insist," he replied, and he slid down the bank.

"How did you get up there—and what do you mean by hiding there spying on me, you—you—oh, YOU!"

"Cuss a little, if it will help any," he suggested. "I had to get out of your way—out of your sight—and up there was the best place. I was on the roof of the caboose when it toppled over, so all I had to do was step ashore and sit down."

"Then why didn't you stay there?" she demanded furiously.

"You wouldn't let me," he answered demurely. "And when I saw you weeping because I was supposed to be with the angels, I couldn't help coughing to let you know I was still hanging around, ornery as a book-agent."

"How did you ruin your face, Mr. Cardigan?"

"Tried to take a cast of the front end of the caboose in my classic countenance—that's all."

"But you were riding the top log on the last truck—"

"Certainly, but I wasn't hayseed enough to stay there until we struck this curve. I knew exactly what was going to happen, so I climbed down to the bumper of the caboose, uncoupled it from the truck, climbed up on the roof, and managed to get the old thing under control with the hand-brake; then I skedaddled up into the brush because I knew you were inside, and—-By the way, Colonel Pennington, here is your axe, which I borrowed this afternoon. Much obliged for its use. The last up-train is probably waiting on the siding at Freshwater to pass the late lamented; consequently a walk of about a mile will bring you a means of transportation back to Sequoia. Walk leisurely—you have lots of time. As for myself, I'm in a hurry, and my room is more greatly to be desired than my company, so I'll start now."

He lifted his hat, turned, and walked briskly down the ruined track.

Shirley made a little gesture of dissent, half opened her lips to call him back, thought better of it, and let him go. When he was out of sight, it dawned on her that he had risked his life to save hers.

"Uncle Seth," she said soberly, "what would have happened to us if Bryce Cardigan had not come up here to-day to thrash your woods- boss?"

"We'd both be in Kingdom Come now," he answered truthfully.

"Under the circumstances, then," Shirley continued, "suppose we all agree to forget that anything unusual happened to-day—"

"I bear the young man no ill will, Shirley, but before you permit yourself to be carried away by the splendour of his action in cutting out the caboose and getting it under control, it might be well to remember that his own precious hide was at stake also. He would have cut the caboose out even if you and I had not been in it."

"No, he would not," she insisted, for the thought that he had done it for her sake was very sweet to her and would persist. "Cooped up in the caboose, we did not know the train was running away until it was too late for us to jump, while Bryce Cardigan, riding out on the logs, must have known it almost immediately. He would have had time to jump before the runaway gathered too much headway—and he would have jumped, Uncle Seth, for his father's sake."

"Well, he certainly didn't stay for mine, Shirley."

She dried her moist eyes and blushed furiously. "Uncle Seth," she pleaded, taking him lovingly by the arm, "let's be friends with Bryce Cardigan; let's get together and agree on an equitable contract for freighting his logs over our road."

"You are now," he replied severely, "mixing sentiment and business; if you persist, the result will be chaos. Cardigan has in a large measure squared himself for his ruffianly conduct earlier in the day, and I'll forgive him and treat him with courtesy hereafter; but I want you to understand, Shirley, that such treatment by me does not constitute a license for that fellow to crawl up in my lap and be petted. He is practically a pauper now, which makes him a poor business risk, and you'll please me greatly by leaving him severely alone—by making him keep his distance."

"I'll not do that," she answered with a quiet finality that caused her uncle to favour her with a quick, searching glance.

He need not have worried, however, for Bryce Cardigan was too well aware of his own financial condition to risk the humiliation of asking Shirley Sumner to share it with him. Moreover, he had embarked upon a war—a war which he meant to fight to a finish.



CHAPTER XVIII

George Sea Otter, summoned by telephone, came out to Freshwater, the station nearest the wreck, and transported his battered young master back to Sequoia. Here Bryce sought the doctor in the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company's little hospital and had his wrecked nose reorganized and his cuts bandaged. It was characteristic of his father's son that when this detail had been attended to, he should go to the office and work until the six o'clock whistle blew.

Old Cardigan was waiting for him at the gate when he reached home. George Sea Otter had already given the old man a more or less garbled account of the runaway log-train, and Cardigan eagerly awaited his son's arrival in order to ascertain the details of this new disaster which had come upon them. For disaster it was, in truth. The loss of the logs was trifling—perhaps three or four thousand dollars; the destruction of the rolling-stock was the crowning misfortune. Both Cardigans knew that Pennington would eagerly seize upon this point to stint his competitor still further on logging-equipment, that there would be delays—purposeful but apparently unavoidable—before this lost rolling-stock would be replaced. And in the interim the Cardigan mill, unable to get a sufficient supply of logs to fill orders in hand, would be forced to close down. Full well Pennington knew that anything which, tends to bring about a shortage of raw material for any manufacturing plant will result inevitably in the loss of customers.

"Well, son," said John Cardigan mildly as Bryce unlatched the gate, "another bump, eh?"

"Yes, sir—right on the nose."

"I meant another bump to your heritage, my son."

"I'm worrying more about my nose, partner. In fact, I'm not worrying about my heritage at all. I've come to a decision on that point: We're going to fight and fight to the last; we're going down fighting. And by the way, I started the fight this afternoon. I whaled the wadding out of that bucko woods-boss of Pennington's, and as a special compliment to you, John Cardigan, I did an almighty fine job of cleaning. Even went so far as to muss the Colonel up a little."

"Wow, wow, Bryce! Bully for you! I wanted that man Rondeau taken apart. He has terrorized our woods-men for a long time. He's king of the mad-train, you know."

Bryce was relieved. His father did not know, then, of the act of vandalism in the Valley of the Giants. This fact strengthened Bryce's resolve not to tell him—also to get the fallen monarch sawed up and the stump blasted out before an operation should restore his father's sight and reveal to him the crowning cruelty of his enemy.

Arm in arm they walked up the garden path together.

Just as they entered the house, the telephone in the hall tinkled, and Bryce answered.

"Mr. Cardigan," came Shirley Sumner's voice over the wire.

"Bryce," he corrected her.

She ignored the correction,

"I—I don't know what to say to you," she faltered.

"There is no necessity for saying anything, Shirley."

"But you saved our lives, and at least have a right to expect due and grateful acknowledgment of our debt. I rang up to tell you how splendid and heroic your action was—"

"I had my own life to save, Shirley."

"You did not think of that at the time."

"Well—I didn't think of your uncle's, either," he replied without enthusiasm.

"I'm sure we never can hope to catch even with you, Mr. Cardigan."

"Don't try. Your revered relative will not; so why should you?"

"You are making it somewhat hard for me to—to—rehabilitate our friendship, Mr. Cardigan. We have just passed through a most extraordinary day, and if at evening I can feel as I do now, I think you ought to do your share—and help."

"Bless your heart," he murmured. "The very fact that you bothered to ring me up at all makes me your debtor. Shirley, can you stand some plain speaking—between friends, I mean?"

"I think so, Mr. Cardigan."

"Well, then," said Bryce, "listen to this: I am your uncle's enemy until death do us part. Neither he nor I expect to ask or to give quarter, and I'm going to smash him if I can."

"If you do, you smash me," she warned him.

"Likewise our friendship. I'm sorry, but it's got to be done if I can do it. Shall—shall we say good-bye, Shirley?"

"Yes-s-s!" There was a break in her voice. "Good-bye, Mr Cardigan. I wanted you to know."

"Good-bye! Well, that's cutting the mustard," he murmured sotto voce, "and there goes another bright day-dream." Unknown to himself, he spoke directly into the transmitter, and Shirley, clinging half hopefully to the receiver at the other end of the wire, heard him— caught every inflection of the words, commonplace enough, but freighted with the pathos of Bryce's first real tragedy.

"Oh, Bryce!" she cried sharply. But he did not hear her; he had hung up his receiver now.

The week that ensued was remarkable for the amount of work Bryce accomplished in the investigation of his father's affairs—also for a visit from Donald McTavish, the woods-boss. Bryce found him sitting in the private office one morning at seven o'clock.

"Hello, McTavish," he saluted the woods-boss cheerfully and extended his hand for a cordial greeting. His wayward employee stood up, took the proffered hand in both of his huge and callous ones, and held it rather childishly.

"Weel! 'Tis the wee laddie hissel," he boomed. "I'm glad to see ye, boy."

"You'd have seen me the day before yesterday—if you had been seeable," Bryce reminded him with a bright smile. "Mac, old man, they tell me you've gotten to be a regular go-to-hell."

"I'll nae deny I take a wee drappie now an' then," the woods-boss admitted frankly, albeit there was a harried, hangdog look in his eyes.

Bryce sat down at his desk, lighted his pipe, and looked McTavish over soberly. The woods-boss was a big, raw-boned Scotsman, with a plentiful sprinkling of silver in his thick mane of red hair, which fell far down on his shoulders. A tremendous nose rose majestically out of a face so strong and rugged one searched in vain for aught of manly beauty in it; his long arms hung gorilla-like, almost to his knees, and he was slightly stooped, as if from bearing heavy burdens. Though in the late fifties, his years had touched him lightly; but John Barleycorn had not been so considerate. Bryce noted that McTavish was carrying some thirty pounds of whiskey fat and that the pupils of his fierce blue eyes were permanently distended, showing that alcohol had begun to affect his brain. His hands trembled as he stood before Bryce, smiling fatuously and plucking at the cuffs of his mackinaw. The latter realized that McTavish was waiting for him to broach the object of the visit; so with an effort he decided to begin the disagreeable task.

"Mac, did Moira give you my message?"

"Aye."

"Well, I guess we understand each other, Mac. Was there something else you wanted to see me about?"

McTavish sidled up to the desk. "Ye'll no be firin' auld Mac oot o' hand?" he pleaded hopefully. "Mon, ha ye the heart to do it—after a' these years?"

Bryce nodded. "If you have the heart—after all these years—to draw pay you do not earn, then I have the heart to put a better man in your place."

"Ye was ever a laddie to hae your bit joke."

"It's no good arguing, Mac. You're off the pay-roll onto the pension- roll—your shanty in the woods, your meals at the camp kitchen, your clothing and tobacco that I send out to you. Neither more nor less!" He reached into his desk and drew forth a check. "Here's your wages to the fifteenth. It's the last Cardigan check you'll ever finger. I'm terribly sorry, but I'm terribly in earnest."

"Who will ye pit in ma place?"

"I don't know. However, it won't be a difficult task to find a better man than you."

"I'll nae let him work." McTavish's voice deepened to a growl. "You worked that racket on my father. Try it on me, and you'll answer to me—personally. Lay the weight of your finger on your successor, Mac, and you'll die in the county poor-farm. No threats, old man! You know the Cardigans; they never bluff."

McTavish's glance met the youthful master's for several seconds; then the woods-boss trembled, and his gaze sought the office floor. Bryce knew he had his man whipped at last, and McTavish realized it, too, for quite suddenly he burst into tears.

"Dinna fire me, lad," he pleaded. "I'll gae back on the job an' leave whusky alone."

"Nothing doing, Mac. Leave whiskey alone for a year and I'll discharge your successor to give you back your job. For the present however, my verdict stands. You're discharged."

"Who kens the Cardigan woods as I ken them?" McTavish blubbered. "Who'll swamp a road into timber sixty per cent. clear when the mill's runnin' on foreign orders an' the owd man's calling for clear logs? Who'll fell trees wi' the least amount o' breakage? Who'll get the work out o' the men? Who'll—"

"Don't plead, Mac," Bryce interrupted gently. "You're quite through, and I can't waste any more time on you."

"Ye dinna mean it, lad. Ye canna mean it."

"On your way, Mac. I loathe arguments. And don't forget your check."

"I maun see yer faither aboot this. He'll nae stand for sic treatment o' an auld employee."

Bryce's temper flared up. "You keep away from my father. You've worried him enough in the past, you drunkard. If you go up to the house to annoy my father with your pleadings, McTavish, I'll manhandle you." He glanced at his watch. "The next train leaves for the woods in twenty minutes. If you do not go back on it and behave yourself, you can never go back to Cardigan woods."

"I will nae take charity from any man," McTavish thundered. "I'll nae bother the owd man, an' I'll nae go back to yon woods to live on yer bounty."

"Well, go somewhere, Mac, and be quick about it. Only—when you've reformed, please come back. You'll be mighty welcome. Until then, however, you're as popular with me—that is, in a business way—as a wet dog."

"Ye're nae the man yer faither was," the woods-boss half sobbed. "Ye hae a heart o' stone."

"You've been drunk for fifteen days—and I'm paying you for it, Mac," Bryce reminded him gently. "Don't leave your check behind. You'll need it."

With a fine show of contempt and rage, McTavish tore the check into strips and threw them at Bryce. "I was never a mon to take charity," he roared furiously, and left the office. Bryce called after him a cheerful good-bye, but he did not answer. And he did not remain in town; neither did he return to his shanty in the woods. For a month his whereabouts remained a mystery; then one day Moira received a letter from him informing her that he had a job knee-bolting in a shingle mill in Mendocino County.



CHAPTER XIX

In the interim Bryce had not been idle. From his woods-crew he picked an old, experienced hand—one Jabez Curtis—to take the place of the vanished McTavish. Colonel Pennington, having repaired in three days the gap in his railroad, wrote a letter to the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, informing Bryce that until more equipment could be purchased and delivered to take the place of the rolling-stock destroyed in the wreck, the latter would have to be content with half-deliveries; whereupon Bryce irritated the Colonel profoundly by purchasing a lot of second-hand trucks from a bankrupt sugar-pine mill in Lassen County and delivering them to the Colonel's road via the deck of a steam schooner.

"That will insure delivery of sufficient logs to get out our orders on file," Bryce informed his father. "While we are morally certain our mill will run but one year longer, I intend that it shall run full capacity for that year. In fact, I'm going to saw in that one year remaining to us as much lumber as we would ordinarily saw in two years. To be exact, I'm going to run a night-shift."

The sightless old man raised both hands in deprecation. "The market won't absorb it," he protested.

"Then we'll stack it in piles to air-dry and wait until the market is brisk enough to absorb it," Bryce replied.

"Our finances won't stand the overhead of that night-shift, I tell you," his father warned.

"I know we haven't sufficient cash on hand to attempt it, Dad, but— I'm going to borrow some."

"From whom? No bank in Sequoia will lend us a penny, and long before you came home I had sounded every possible source of a private loan."

"Did you sound the Sequoia Bank of Commerce?"

"Certainly not. Pennington owns the controlling interest in that bank, and I was never a man to waste my time."

Bryce chuckled. "I don't care where the money comes from so long as I get it, partner. Pennington's money may be tainted; in fact, I'd risk a bet that it is; but our employees will accept it for wages nevertheless. Desperate circumstances require desperate measures you know, and the day before yesterday, when I was quite ignorant of the fact that Colonel Pennington controls the Sequoia Bank of Commerce, I drifted in on the president and casually struck him for a loan of one hundred thousand dollars."

"Well, I'll be shot, Bryce! What did he say?"

"Said he'd take the matter under consideration and give me an answer this morning. He asked me, of course, what I wanted that much money for, and I told him I was going to run a night-shift, double my force of men in the woods, and buy some more logging-trucks, which I can get rather cheap. Well, this morning I called for my answer—and got. it. The Sequoia Bank of Commerce will loan me up to a hundred thousand, but it won't give me the cash in a lump sum. I can have enough to buy the logging-trucks now, and on the first of each month, when I present my pay-roll, the bank will advance me the money to meet it."

"Bryce, I am amazed."

"I am not—since you tell me Colonel Pennington controls that bank. That the bank should accommodate us is the most natural procedure imaginable. Pennington is only playing safe—which is why the bank declined to give me the money in a lump sum. If we run a night-shift, Pennington knows that we can't dispose of our excess output under present market conditions. The redwood trade is in the doldrums and will remain in them to a greater or less degree until the principal redwood centres secure a rail outlet to the markets of the country. It's a safe bet our lumber is going to pile up on the mill dock; hence, when the smash comes and the Sequoia Bank of Commerce calls our loan and we cannot possibly meet it, the lumber on hand will prove security for the loan, will it not? In fact, it will be worth two or three dollars per thousand more then than it is now, because it will be air-dried. And inasmuch as all the signs point to Pennington's gobbling us anyhow, it strikes me as a rather good business on his part to give us sufficient rope to insure a thorough job of hanging."

"But what idea have you got back of such a procedure, Bryce?"

"Merely a forlorn hope, Dad. Something might turn up. The market may take a sudden spurt and go up three or four dollars."

"Yes—and it may take a sudden spurt and drop three or four dollars," his father reminded him.

Bryce laughed. "That would be Pennington's funeral, Dad. And whether the market goes up or comes down, it costs us nothing to make the experiment."

"Quite true." his father agreed.

"Then, if you'll come down to the office to-morrow morning, Dad, we'll hold a meeting of our board of directors and authorize me, as president of the company, to sign the note to the bank. We're borrowing this without collateral, you know."

John Cardigan sighed. Such daring financial acrobatics were not usual with him, but as Bryce had remarked there was no reason why, in their present predicament, they should not gamble. Hence he entered no further objection, and the following day the agreement was entered into with the bank. Bryce closed by wire for the extra logging- equipment and immediately set about rounding up a crew for the woods and for the night-shift in the mill.

For a month Bryce was as busy as the proverbial one-armed paper- hanger with the itch, and during all that time he did not see Shirley Sumner or hear of her, directly or indirectly. Only at infrequent intervals did he permit himself to think of her, for he was striving to forget, and the memory of his brief glimpse of paradise was always provocative of pain.

Moira McTavish, in the meantime, had come down from the woods and entered upon her duties in the mill office. The change from her dull, drab life, giving her, as it did, an opportunity for companionship with people of greater mentality and refinement than she had been used to, quickly brought about a swift transition in the girl's nature. With the passing of the coarse shoes and calico dresses and the substitution of the kind of clothing all women of Moira's instinctive refinement and natural beauty long for, the girl became cheerful, animated, and imbued with the optimism of her years. At first old Sinclair resented the advent of a woman in the office; then he discovered that Moira's efforts lightened his own labours in exact proportion to the knowledge of the business which she assimilated from day to day.

Moira worked in the general office, and except upon occasions when Bryce desired to look at the books or Moira brought some document into the private office for his perusal, there were days during which his pleasant "Good morning, Moira," constituted the extent of their conversation. To John Cardigan, however, Moira was a ministering angel. Gradually she relieved Bryce of the care of the old man. She made a cushion for his easy-chair in the office; she read the papers to him, and the correspondence, and discussed with him the receipt and delivery of orders, the movements of the lumber-fleet, the comedies and tragedies of his people, which had become to him matters of the utmost importance. She brushed his hair, dusted his hat, and crowned him with it when he left the office at nightfall, and whenever Bryce was absent in the woods or in San Francisco, it fell to her lot to lead the old man to and from the house on the hill. To his starved heart her sweet womanly attentions were tremendously welcome, and gradually he formed the habit of speaking of her, half tenderly, half jokingly, as "my girl."

Bryce had been absent in San Francisco for ten days. He had planned to stay three weeks, but finding his business consummated in less time, he returned to Sequoia unexpectedly. Moira was standing at the tall bookkeeping desk, her beautiful dark head bent over the ledger, when he entered the office and set his suitcase in the corner.

"Is that you, Mr. Bryce?" she queried.

"The identical individual, Moira. How did you guess it was I?"

She looked up at him then, and her wonderful dark eyes lighted with a flame Bryce had not seen in them heretofore. "I knew you were coming," she replied simply.

"But how could you know? I didn't telegraph because I wanted to surprise my father, and the instant the boat touched the dock, I went overside and came directly here. I didn't even wait for the crew to run out the gangplank—so I know nobody could have told you I was due."

"That is quite right, Mr. Bryce. Nobody told me you were coming, but I just knew, when I heard the Noyo whistling as she made the dock, that you were aboard, and I didn't look up when you entered the office because I wanted to verify my—my suspicion."

"You had a hunch, Moira. Do you get those telepathic messages very often?" He was crossing the office to shake her hand.

"I've never noticed particularly—that is, until I came to work here. But I always know when you are returning after a considerable absence." She gave him her hand. "I'm so glad you're back."

"Why?" he demanded bluntly.

She flushed. "I—I really don't know, Mr. Bryce."

"Well, then," he persisted, "what do you think makes you glad?"

"I had been thinking how nice it would be to have you back, Mr. Bryce. When you enter the office, it's like a breeze rustling the tops of the Redwoods. And your father misses you so; he talks to me a great deal about you. Why, of course we miss you; anybody would."

As he held her hand, he glanced down at it and noted how greatly it had changed during the past few months. The skin was no longer rough and brown, and the fingers, formerly stiff and swollen from hard work, were growing more shapely. From her hand his glance roved over the girl, noting the improvements in her dress, and the way the thick, wavy black hair was piled on top of her shapely head.

"It hadn't occurred to me before, Moira," he said with a bright impersonal smile that robbed his remark of all suggestion of masculine flattery, "but it seems to me I'm unusually glad to see you, also. You've been fixing your hair different."

The soft lambent glow leaped again into Moira's eyes. He had noticed her—particularly. "Do you like my hair done that way?" she inquired eagerly.

"I don't know whether I do or not. It's unusual—for you. You look mighty sweetly old-fashioned with it coiled in back—somewhat like an old-fashioned daguerreotype of my mother. Is this new style the latest in hairdressing in Sequoia?"

"I think so, Mr. Bryce. I copied it from Colonel Pennington's niece, Miss Sumner."

"Oh," he replied briefly. "You've met her, have you? I didn't know she was in Sequoia still."

"She's been away, but she came back last week. I went to the Valley of the Giants last Saturday afternoon—"

Bryce interrupted. "You didn't tell my father about the tree that was cut, did you?" he demanded sharply.

"No."

"Good girl! He mustn't know. Go on, Moira. I interrupted you."

"I met Miss Sumner up there. She was lost; she'd followed the old trail into the timber, and when the trees shut out the sun, she lost all sense of direction. She was terribly frightened and crying when I found her and brought her home"

"Well, I swan, Moira! What was she doing in our timber?"

"She told me that once, when she was a little girl, you had taken her for a ride on your pony up to your mother's grave. And it seems she had a great curiosity to see that spot again and started out without saying a word to any one. Poor dear! She was in a sad state when I found her."

"How fortunate you found her! I've met Miss Sumner three or four times. That was when she first came to Sequoia. She's a stunning girl, isn't she?"

"Perfectly, Mr. Bryce. She's the first lady I've ever met. She's different."

"No doubt! Her kind are not a product of homely little communities like Sequoia. And for that matter, neither is her wolf of an uncle. What did Miss Sumner have to say to you, Moira?"

"She told me all about herself—and she said a lot of nice things about you, Mr. Bryce, after I told her I worked for you. And when I showed her the way home, she insisted that I should walk home with her. So I did—and the butler served us with tea and toast and marmalade. Then she showed me all her wonderful things—and gave me some of them. Oh, Mr. Bryce, she's so sweet. She had her maid dress my hair in half a dozen different styles until they could decide on the right style, and—"

"And that's it—eh, Moira?"

She nodded brightly.

"I can see that you and Miss Sumner evidently hit it off just right with each other. Are you going to call on her again?"

"Oh, yes! She begged me to. She says she's lonesome."

"I dare say she is, Moira. Well, her choice of a pal is a tribute to the brains I suspected her of possessing, and I'm glad you've gotten to know each other. I've no doubt you find life a little lonely sometimes."

"Sometimes, Mr. Bryce."

"How's my father?"

"Splendid. I've taken good care of him for you."

"Moira, you're a sweetheart of a girl. I don't know how we ever managed to wiggle along without you." Fraternally—almost paternally —he gave her radiant cheek three light little pats as he strode past her to the private office. He was in a hurry to get to his desk, upon which he could see through the open door a pile of letters and orders, and a moment later he was deep in a perusal of them, oblivious to the fact that ever and anon the girl turned upon him her brooding, Madonna-like glance.

That night Bryce and his father, as was their custom after dinner, repaired to the library, where the bustling and motherly Mrs. Tully served their coffee. This good soul, after the democratic fashion in vogue in many Western communities, had never been regarded as a servant; neither did she so regard herself. She was John Cardigan's housekeeper, and as such she had for a quarter of a century served father and son their meals and then seated herself at the table with them. This arrangement had but one drawback, although this did not present itself until after Bryce's return to Sequoia and his assumption of the direction of the Cardigan destinies. For Mrs. Tully had a failing common to many of her sex: she possessed for other people's business an interest absolutely incapable of satisfaction— and she was, in addition, garrulous beyond belief. The library was the one spot in the house which at the beginning of her employment John Cardigan had indicated to Mrs. Tully as sanctuary for him and his; hence, having served the coffee this evening, the amiable creature withdrew, although not without a pang as she reflected upon the probable nature of their conversation and the void which must inevitably result by reason of the absence of her advice and friendly cooperation and sympathy.

No sooner had Mrs. Tully departed than Bryce rose and closed the door behind her. John Cardigan opened the conversation with a contented grunt:

"Plug the keyhole, son," he continued. "I believe you have something on your mind—and you know how Mrs. Tully resents the closing of that door. Estimable soul that she is, I have known her to eavesdrop. She can't help it, poor thing! She was born that way."

Bryce clipped a cigar and held a lighted match while his father "smoked up." Then he slipped into the easy-chair beside the old man.

"Well, John Cardigan," he began eagerly, "fate ripped a big hole in our dark cloud the other day and showed me some of the silver lining. I've been making bad medicine for Colonel Pennington. Partner, the pill I'm rolling for that scheming scoundrel will surely nauseate him when he swallows it."

"What's in the wind, boy?"

"We're going to parallel Pennington's logging-road."

"Inasmuch as that will cost close to three quarters of a million dollars, I'm of the opinion that we're not going to do anything of the sort."

"Perhaps. Nevertheless, if I can demonstrate to a certain party that it will not cost more than three quarters of a million, he'll loan me the money."

The old man shook his head. "I don't believe it, Bryce. Who's the crazy man?"

"His name is Gregory. He's Scotch."

"Now I know he's crazy. When he hands you the money, you'll find he's talking real money but thinking of Confederate greenbacks. For a sane Scotchman to loan that much money without collateral security would be equivalent to exposing his spinal cord and tickling it with a rat- tail file."

Bryce laughed. "Pal," he declared, "if you and I have any brains, they must roll around in our skulls like buckshot in a tin pan. Here we've been sitting for three months, and twiddling our thumbs, or lying awake nights trying to scheme a way out of our difficulties, when if we'd had the sense that God gives geese we would have solved the problem long ago and ceased worrying. Listen, now, with all your ears. When Bill Henderson wanted to build the logging railroad which he afterward sold to Pennington, and which Pennington is now using as a club to beat our brains out, did he have the money to build it?"

"No."

"Where did he get it?"

"I loaned it to him. He only had about eight miles of road to build then, so I could afford to accommodate him."

"How did he pay you back?"

"Why, he gave me a ten-year contract for hauling our logs at a dollar and a half a thousand feet, and I merely credited his account with the amount of the freight-bills he sent me until he'd squared up the loan, principal and interest."

"Well, if Bill Henderson financed himself on that plan, why didn't we think of using the same time-honoured plan for financing a road to parallel Pennington's?"

John Cardigan sat up with a jerk. "By thunder!" he murmured. That was as close as he ever came to uttering an oath. "By thunder!" he repeated. "I never thought of that! But then," he added, "I'm not so young as I used to be, and there are any number of ideas which would have occurred to me twenty years ago but do not occur to me now."

"All right, John Cardigan. I forgive you. Now, then, continue to listen: to the north of that great block of timber held by you and Pennington lie the redwood holdings of the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company."

"Never heard of them before."

"Well, timber away in there in back of beyond has never been well advertised, because it is regarded as practically inaccessible. By extending his logging-road and adding to his rolling-stock, Pennington could make it accessible, but he will not. He figures on buying all that back timber rather cheap when he gets around to it, for the reason that the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company cannot possibly mill its timber until a railroad connects its holdings with the outside world. They can hold it until their corporation franchise expires, and it will not increase sufficiently in value to pay taxes."

"I wonder why the blamed fools ever bought in there, Bryce."

"When they bought, it looked like a good buy. You will remember that some ten years ago a company was incorporated with the idea of building a railroad from Grant's Pass, Oregon, on the line of the Southern Pacific, down the Oregon and California coast to tap the redwood belt."

"I remember. There was a big whoop and hurrah and then the proposition died abornin'. The engineers found that the cost of construction through that mountainous country was prohibitive."

"Well, before the project died, Gregory and his associates believed that it was going to survive. They decided to climb in on the ground floor—had some advance, inside information that the road was to be built; go they quietly gathered together thirty thousand acres of good stuff and then sat down to wait for the railroad, And they are still waiting. Gregory, by the way, is the president of the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company. He's an Edinburgh man, and the fly American promoters got him to put up the price of the timber and then mortgaged their interests to him as security for the advance. He foreclosed on their notes five years ago."

"And there he is with his useless timber!" John Cardigan murmured thoughtfully. "The poor Scotch sucker!"

"He isn't poor. The purchase of that timber didn't even dent his bank-roll. He's what they call in England a tinned-goods manufacturer—purveyor to His Majesty the King, and all that. But he would like to sell his timber, and being Scotch, naturally he desires to sell it at a profit. In order to create a market for it, however, he has to have an outlet to that market. We supply the outlet—with his help; and what happens? Why, timber that cost him fifty and seventy-five cents per thousand feet stumpage—and the actual timber will overrun the cruiser's estimate every time—will be worth two dollars and fifty cents—perhaps more."

The elder Cardigan turned slowly in his chair and bent his sightless gaze upon his son. "Well, well," he cried impatiently.

"He loans us the money to build our road. We build it—on through our timber and into his. The collateral security which we put up will be a twenty-five-years contract to haul his logs to tidewater on Humboldt Bay, at a base freight-rate of one dollar and fifty cents, with an increase of twenty-five cents per thousand every five years thereafter, and an option for a renewal of the contract upon expiration, at the rate of freight last paid. We also grant him perpetual booming-space for his logs in the slough which we own and where we now store our logs until needed at the mill. In addition we sell him, at a reasonable figure, sufficient land fronting on tidewater to enable him to erect a sawmill, lay out his yards, and build a dock out into the deep water.

"Thus Gregory will have that which he hasn't got now—an outlet to his market by water; and when the railroad to Sequoia builds in from the south, it will connect with the road which we have built from Sequoia up into Township Nine to the north; hence Gregory will also have an outlet to his market by rail. He can easily get a good manager to run his lumber business until he finds a customer for it, and in the meantime we will be charging his account with our freight- bills against him and gradually pay off the loan without pinching ourselves."

"Have you talked with Gregory?"

"Yes. I met him while I was in San Francisco. Somebody brought him up to a meeting of the Redwood Lumber Manufacturers' Association, and I pounced on him like an owl on a mouse."

John Cardigan's old hand came gropingly forth and rested affectionately upon his boy's. "What a wonderful scheme it would have been a year ago," he murmured sadly. "You forget, my son, that we cannot last in business long enough to get that road built though Gregory should agree to finance the building of it. The interest on our bonded indebtedness is payable on the first—"

"We can meet it, sir."

"Aye, but we can't meet the fifty thousand dollars which, under the terms of our deed of trust, we are required to pay in on July first of each year as a sinking fund toward the retirement of our bonds. By super-human efforts—by sacrificing a dozen cargoes, raising hob with the market, and getting ourselves disliked by our neighbours—we managed to meet half of it this year and procure an extension of six months on the balance due.

"That is Pennington's way. He plays with us as a cat does with a mouse, knowing, like the cat, that when he is weary of playing, he will devour us. And now, when we are deeper in debt than ever, when the market is lower and more sluggish than it has been in fifteen years, to hope to meet the interest and the next payment to the sinking fund taxes my optimism. Bryce, it just can't be done. We'd have our road about half completed when we'd bust up in business; indeed, the minute Pennington suspected we were paralleling his line, he'd choke off our wind. I tell you it can't be done."