The Trail Of The Axe Part 5

"I don't know about wasting the best of her life," he said. "Betty has never wasted her life. Look at the school she's got now. And, mark you, she's done it all herself. She has three teachers under her. She has negotiated all the finance of the school herself. She got the government by the coat-tails and dragged national support out of it.

Why, she's a wonder. No, no, not waste, Mary. Let her wait if she chooses. We won't interfere. I only hope that when Jim does come back he'll be a decent citizen. If he isn't, I'd bet my last cent Betty will know how to deal with him."

"She'll sure give him up, if he isn't," said Dave with conviction.

Mary looked up, her round blue eyes twinkling.

"Dave knows Betty better than we do, Tom. I'd almost think---- I'm not sure I like this shade of pink," she digressed, examining her wool closely. "Er--what was I saying? Oh, yes--I'd almost think he'd made a special study of her."

A deep flush spread slowly over Dave's ugly face, and he tried to hide it by bending over his pipe and examining the inside of the bowl.

Parson Tom promptly changed the subject. He shook his head and turned away to watch the ruddy extravagance of the sunset in the valley.

"Dave has got far too much to think of in his coming government contract to bother with a girl like Betty. By the way, when do you expect to hear the result of your tender, Dave?"

"Any time."

The lumberman's embarra.s.sment had vanished at the mention of his contract. His eyes lit, and the whole of his plain features were suddenly illumined. This was his life's purpose. This contract meant everything to him. All that had gone before, all his labor, his early struggles, they were nothing to the store he set by this one great scheme.

"Good. And your chances?" There was the keenest interest in the parson's question.

"Well, I'd say they're good. You see, that find of ours up in the hills opens a possibility we never had before. The new docks require an enormous supply of ninety-foot timber. It's got to be ninety-foot stuff. Well, we've got the timber in that new find. There's a valley of some thousands of acres of forest which will supply it. Tom," he went on eagerly, "we could cut 'em hundred-and-twenty-foot logs from that forest till the cows come home. It's the greatest proposition in lumbering. It's one of the greatest of those great primordial pine forests which are to be found in the Rockies, if one is lucky enough.

At present we are the only people in Canada who can give them the stuff they need, and enough of it. Yes, I think I'll get it. I've set the wires pulling all I know. I've cut the price. I've done everything I can, and I think I'll get it. If I do I'll be a millionaire half a dozen times over, and Malkern, and all its people, will rise to an immense prosperity. I must get it! And having got it, I must push it through successfully."

Mary and her husband were hanging on the lumberman's words, carried away by his enthusiasm. There was that light of battle in his eyes, the firm setting of his heavy under-jaw, which they knew and understood so well. To them he was the personification of resolution. To them his personality was irresistible.

"Of course you'll push it through successfully," Tom nodded.

"Yes, yes. I shall. I must," Dave said, stirring his great body in his chair with a restlessness which spoke of his nervous tension. "But it's this time limit. You see, it's a government contract. They want these naval docks built quickly. The whole scheme is to be rushed through.

Since the Imperial Conference has decided that each colony is to build its own share of the navy for imperial defense, in view of the European situation, that building is to be begun at once. They are laying down five s.h.i.+ps this year, and, by the end of the year, they are to have docks ready for the laying down of six more. My contract is for the lumber for those docks. You see? My contract must be completed before winter closes down, without fail. I have guaranteed that. Well, as I am the only lumberman in Canada that can supply this heavy lumber, if they do not give it to me they will have to go to the States for it. Yes,"

he added, with something like a sigh, "I think I shall get it.

But--this time limit! If I fail it will break me, and, in the crash, Malkern will go too."

Mary Chepstow sighed with emotion. Her crochet was forgotten.

"You won't fail," she murmured, her eyes glistening. "You can't!"

"Malkern isn't going to tumble about our ears, old friend," Parson Tom said with quiet a.s.surance.

Dave had fallen back into his lounging att.i.tude and puffed at his pipe.

"No," he said. Then he pointed down the trail in the direction of the depot. "There's Betty coming along in a hurry with Jenkins Mudley."

All eyes turned to look. Betty was almost running beside the tall thin figure of the operator and postmaster of Malkern. They came up with a final rush, the man flouris.h.i.+ng a telegram at Dave. Betty was carrying a number of letters.

"I just thought I'd bring this along myself," Mudley grinned.

"Everything's been delayed through the strike down east. This, too.

Felt I'd hate to let any one else hand it to you, Dave."

Dave s.n.a.t.c.hed at the tinted envelope and tore it open, while Betty, nodding at her uncle and aunt, her eyes dancing with delight, made frantic signs to them. But they took no notice of her, keeping their eyes fixed on the towering form of the master of the mills. Dave was the calmest man present. He read the message over twice, and then deliberately thrust it into his pocket. Then, as he returned to his seat, he said--"I've got my contract, folks."

"Hurrah!" cried Betty, no longer able to control herself. The operator had previously imparted the fact to her. Then, with a jump, she was on the veranda and flung some letters into her uncle's lap, retaining one for herself that had already been read. The next moment she had seized both of Dave's great hands, and was wringing them with all her heart and soul s.h.i.+ning in her eyes.

"I'm so--so glad, I don't know what I'm doing or saying," she cried, and then collapsed on her uncle's knee.

Dave laughed quietly, but her aunt, her face belying her words, reproved her gently.

"Betty," she said warningly as the girl scrambled to her feet, "don't get excited. I think you'd better go and see to supper. I see you got your letter. How did the wedding go off?"

Betty was leaning against one of the veranda posts.

"Oh, yes," she said indifferently. "I'd forgotten my letter. It's from Jim. He's coming home."

Her aunt suddenly picked up her work. The parson began to open his letters. Dave's eyes, until that moment smiling, suddenly became serious. The girl's news had a strangely damping effect. Dave cleared his throat as though about to speak. But he remained silent.

Then Betty moved across to the door.

"I'll go and get supper," she said quietly, and vanished into the house.

CHAPTER IV

d.i.c.k MANSELL'S NEWS

For Dave the next fortnight was fraught with a tremendous pressure of work. But arduous and wearing as it was, to him there was that thrill of conscious striving which is the very essence of life to the ambition-inspired man. His goal loomed dimly upon his horizon, he could see it in shadowy outline, and every step he took now, every effort he put forth, he knew was carrying him on, drawing him nearer and nearer to it. He worked with that steady enthusiasm which never rushes. He was calm and purposeful. To hasten, to diverge from his deliberate course in the heat of excitement, he knew would only weaken his effort.

Careful organization, perfect, machine-like, was what he needed, and the work would do itself.

At the mills a large extension of the milling floors and an added number of saws were needed. In its present state the milling floor could hardly accommodate the ninety-foot logs demanded by the contract.

This was a structural alteration that must be carried out at express speed, and had been prepared for, so that it was only a matter of executing plans already drawn up. Joel Dawson, the foreman, one of the best lumbermen in the country, was responsible for the alterations.

Simon Odd, the master sawyer, had the organizing of the skilled labor staff inside the mill, a work of much responsibility and considerable discrimination.

But with Dave rested the whole responsibility and chief organization.

It was necessary to secure labor for both the mill and the camps up in the hills. And for this the district had to be scoured, while two hundred lumber-jacks had to be brought up from the forests of the Ottawa River.

Dave and his lieutenants worked all their daylight hours, and most of the night was spent in harness. They ate to live only, and slept only when their falling eyelids refused to keep open.

Only Dave and his two loyal supporters knew the work of that fortnight; only they understood the anxiety and strain, but their efforts were crowned with success, and at the end of that time the first of the "ninety-footers" floated down the river to the mouth of the great boom that lay directly under the cranes of the milling floor.

It was not until that moment that Dave felt free to look about him, to turn his attention from the grindstone of his labors. It was midday when word pa.s.sed of the arrival of the first of the timber, and he went at once to verify the matter for himself. It was a sight to do his heart good. The boom, stretching right into the heart of the mills, was a ma.s.s of rolling, piling logs, and a small army of men was at work upon them piloting them so as to avoid a "crush." It was perilous, skilful work, and the master of the mills watched with approval the splendid efforts of these intrepid lumber-jacks. He only waited until the rattling chains of the cranes were lowered and the first log was grappled and lifted like a match out of the water, and hauled up to the milling floor. Then, with a sigh as of a man relieved of a great strain, he turned away and pa.s.sed out of his yards.

It was the first day for a fortnight he had gone to his house for dinner.

His home was a small house of weather-boarding with a veranda all creeper-grown, as were most of the houses in the village. It had only one story, and every window had a window-box full of simple flowers. It stood in a patch of garden that was chiefly given up to vegetables, with just a small lawn of mean-looking turf with a centre bed of flowers. Along the top-railed fence which enclosed it were, set at regular intervals, a number of small blue-gum and spruce trees. It was just such an abode as one might expect Dave to possess: simple, useful, unpretentious. It was the house of a man who cared nothing for luxury.

Utility was the key-note of his life. And the little trivial decorations in the way of creepers, flowers, and such small luxuries were due to the gentle, womanly thought of his old mother, with whom he lived, and who permitted no one else to minister to his wants.

She was in the doorway when he came up, a small thin figure with shriveled face and keen, questioning eyes. She was clad in black, and wore a print overall. Her snow-white hair was parted in the middle and smoothed down flat, in the method of a previous generation. She was an alert little figure for all her sixty odd years.