The Trail Of The Axe Part 20

"That's your way of putting it. You and the mills are one. n.o.body ever speaks of one without including the other. You'll never marry, my boy.

You are wedded to the shriek of your beloved buzz-saws. Here, take off those things and come in. We've got a drop of Mary's sloe gin somewhere."

They went into the parlor, and Dave removed his oilskins. While he hung them to drain on a nail outside, the parson poured him out a winegla.s.s of his wife's renowned sloe gin. He drank it down quickly, not because he cared particularly about it, but out of compliment to his friend's wife. Then he set his gla.s.s down, and began to explain his visit.

"This isn't just a friendly visit, Tom," he said. "It's business. Bad business. You've got to help me out."

The parson opened his eyes. It was something quite new to have Dave demanding help.

"Go ahead," he said, his keen eyes lighting with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Dave drew a bunch of letters from his coat pocket. He glanced over them hastily, and picked out Mason's and handed it to the other. In picking it out he had discovered another letter he had left unopened.

"Read that," he said, while he glanced at the address on the unopened envelope.

The handwriting was strange to him, and while Tom Chepstow was reading Mason's letter he tore the other open. As he read, the gravity of his face slowly relaxed. At last an exclamation from the parson made him look up.

"This is terrible, Dave!"

"It's a bit fierce," the other agreed. "Have you read it all?" he inquired.

"Yes."

"Then you've got my meaning in coming to you?"

"I see. I hadn't thought of it."

Dave smiled into the other's face.

"You're going to do it for me? It may mean weeks. It may even mean months. You see, it's an epidemic. At the best it might be only a couple of weeks. They're tough, those boys. On the other hand it might mean--anything to me."

Chepstow nodded. He understood well enough what an epidemic of mountain fever in his lumber camps must mean to Dave. He understood the conditions under which he stood with regard to his contract. A catastrophe like that might mean ruin. And ruin for Dave would mean ruin for nearly all connected with Malkern.

"Yes, I'll do it, Dave. Putting all friends.h.i.+p on one side, it is clearly my duty. Certainly. I'll go up there and lend all the aid I possibly can. You must outfit me with drugs and help."

Dave held out his hand, and the two men gripped.

"Thanks, Tom," he said simply, although he experienced a world of relief and grat.i.tude. "I wouldn't insult you with a bribe before you consented, but when you come back there's a thumping check for your charities lying somewhere around my office."

The parson laughed in his whole-hearted fas.h.i.+on, while his friend once more donned his oilskins.

"I'm always open to that sort of bribery, old boy," he said, and was promptly answered by one of Dave's slow smiles.

"That's good," he said. Then he held up his other letter, but he did not offer it to be read.

"Betty told you what happened at my office the other day--I mean, what happened to Jim Truscott?" The parson's face clouded with swift anger.

"The ras----"

"Just so. Yes, we had some bother; but he's just sent me this. A most apologetic letter. He offers to sell me his mill now. I wanted to buy it, you know. He wants twenty thousand dollars cash for it. I shall close the deal at once." He laughed.

"Hard up, I s'pose?"

Dave shook his head.

"I don't think so. His change of front is curious, though," he went on thoughtfully. "However, that don't matter. I want the mill, and--I'm going to buy. So long. I've got to go and look at that piece of new track I'm getting laid down. My single line to the depot isn't sufficient. I'll let you know about starting up to the camps. I've got a small gang of lumber-jacks coming up from Ottawa. Maybe I'll get you to go up with them later. Thanks, Tom."

The two men shook hands again, and Dave departed.

He battled his way through the driving rain to his railroad construction, and on the road he thought a good deal of Truscott's neglected letter. There was something in its tone he could not convince himself about. Why, he asked himself, should he, so closely following on the events which had happened in his office, deliberately turn round and display such a Christian-like spirit? Somehow it didn't seem to suit him. It didn't carry conviction. Then there was the letter; its wording was too careful. It was so deliberately careful that it suggested a suppression of real feeling. This was his impression, and though Dave was usually an unsuspicious man, he could not shake it off.

He thought of little else but that letter all the way to his works, and after reviewing the man's att.i.tude from what, in his own simple honesty, he considered to be every possible standpoint, he finally, with a quaint, even quixotic, kindliness a.s.sured himself that there could after all be but one interpretation to it. The man was penitent at his painful exhibition before Betty, and his vile accusations against himself. That his moral strength was not equal to standing the strain of a personal interview. That his training up at the Yukon, where he had learned the sordid methods of a professional gambler, had suggested the selling of his mill to him as a sort of peace-offering.

And the careful, stilted tone of the letter itself was due to the difficulty of its composition. Further, he decided to accept his offer, and do so in a cordial, friendly spirit, and, when opportunity offered, to endeavor, by his own moral influence, to drag him back to the paths of honest citizens.h.i.+p. This was the decision to which his generous nature prompted him. But his head protested.

CHAPTER XII

THE OLD MILLS

When Dave reached the construction camp the work was in full swing. The men, clad in oilskins, paid little heed to the rain. Ahead was the gang spreading the heavy stone gravel bed, behind it came those laying and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g ties. Following close upon their heels came others engaged in setting and bolting the rails, while hard in the rear followed a gang leveling, checking gauge, and ballasting. It was very rough railroad construction, but the result was sufficient for the requirements. It was rapid, and lacked the careful precision of a "permanent way," but the men were working at high pressure against time.

Dave saw that all was well here. He exchanged a few words with the foreman, and gave his orders. Then he pa.s.sed on, intending to return to the mill for his buckboard. Crossing the bridge to take a short cut, he encountered Betty driving home from her school in her uncle's buggy.

She drew up at once.

"Whither away, Dave?" she cried. Then she hastily turned the dozy old mare aside, so as to open the wheels to let the man climb in. "Come along; don't stand there in the rain. Isn't it awful? The river'll be flooding to-morrow if it doesn't stop soon. Back to the mills?"

Dave clambered into the buggy and divested himself of his dripping oilskins. The vehicle was a covered one, and comparatively rain-proof, even in such a downpour.

"Well, I guess so," he said. "I'm just going back to get my buckboard.

Then I'm going up to get a look at Jim Truscott's old mill. He's sent word this morning to say he'll sell it me."

The girl chirruped at the old mare, but offered no comment. The simple process of driving over a road nothing could have induced the parson's faithful beast to leave seemed to demand all her attention.

"Did he send, or--have you seen him?" she asked him presently. And it was plain that the matter was of unusual interest to her.

"I said he sent. He wrote to me--and mailed the letter."

"Was there anything--else in the letter?"

The girl's tone was cold enough. Dave, watching her, was struck by the decision in her expression. He wanted to hear what she thought of the letter. He was anxious to see its effect on her. He handed it to her, and quietly took the reins out of her hands.

"You can read it," he said. And Betty eagerly unfolded the paper.

The mare plodded on, splas.h.i.+ng solemnly and indifferently through the torrential streams flooding the trail, and they were nearly through the village by the time she handed the letter back and resumed the reins.

"Curious. I--I don't think I understand him at all," she said gravely.