The Way of the Strong Part 76

Suddenly the man sprang from his seat. He went to the outer door and flung it open. The girl followed, and stood beside him. The sound grew louder. At last the man turned. His excitement had given place to his usual taciturn expression. He shook his head ominously.

"That's Hendrie's automobile," he said. "If he's in it--there's a h.e.l.l of a poor chance of getting a surgeon from Winnipeg."

But Phyllis made no answer. She was staring out down the trail, watching, watching for the coming of the vehicle, in the hope that Hendrie was not with it.

The moment pa.s.sed. Then all of a sudden she cried out, and stood with outstretched arm pointing.

"Look," she cried. "Look, look! It is--Mr. Hendrie."

A few moments later the great machine rolled up. The millionaire, at sight of Angus and Phyllis, signed to the driver, and, instead of going on to the front of the house, the machine drew up at the office door.

He leaped to the ground and came over to them at once.

"I just made it," he cried. "Got the last train out of Winnipeg.

They've closed down tighter than h.e.l.l. There's not a locomotive running in the country to-day--except to carry mails. Just the loco and caboose--that's all. I was dead in luck. Inside information put me wise. Say--there's going to be the devil to pay."

"There sure is," replied Angus grimly. "Say, just come right in.

There's things--doing."

Hendrie glanced sharply into the man's face. Then his eyes turned quickly upon Phyllis. But he followed his manager into the office without a word.

Inside Angus pushed a chair forward for the millionaire's accommodation. But the latter made no attempt to use it.

"Well?" he demanded, looking from one to the other. "What's--doing?"

Angus shrugged and picked up the message he had written out. He handed it to him.

"Guess that'll tell you--quickest," he said.

The millionaire took the paper. As he read the long message it contained, his eyes lit, and a half smile stirred the corners of his mouth.

Finally he looked up into the Scot's face.

"Well?" he said. "We've guessed that all along. That's not worrying any of us. You got my message? The deal's through. Every grain of wheat on Deep Willows is sold in the ear. I've sold no more, but I stand a personal guarantee for the rest. You see, I've a notion that the risk lies in my property--only. Nowhere else. My guarantee for the rest of the trust farmers, which includes your property, goes. The trust must get the full benefit of the market. This is its first year of operation, and I want to show a good result. Strike or no strike, we've got them beaten to a mush. The trust just gets to work as per schedule.

Say, they can't hurt us a thing. Even this railroad strike can't seriously interfere. All it will do, if it only lasts long enough, is to send up the price of the crop. That's not going to worry us a little----"

At that moment Phyllis, unable to contain herself longer, made a move towards the millionaire. Angus saw the movement, and Hendrie became aware of it as his manager's eyes were turned upon the girl.

"Ah, my dear," he cried, still buoyant in his confidence, "guess I'd forgotten you. Eh?"

Phyllis was holding up her message. The message she had brought for Angus to dispatch.

"What, more trouble?" cried Hendrie, taking the paper with a laugh.

Phyllis made no answer. She felt sick at heart. Her unaccustomed eyes had not yet adjusted their focus to matters involving life and death.

Besides, since she had first encountered Monica upon the trail, a great affection had steadily grown up in her heart for the woman, who, later, she had learned, was the woman whom Frank had always regarded as his mother. Now, to her inexperienced mind, there seemed to be no hope for her, whichever way she looked. She was pinning her faith to this man whose strength and dominating force alone seemed possible in such an emergency. She waited, scarcely daring to breathe, watching for that ray of hope she dared to think his expression as he read might afford her.

But her hopes fell completely, still further below the zero at which they had stood. First, as she watched, she saw that ominous drawing together of the man's heavy brows, then, the naturally cold gray of his eyes seemed to change. Their stony gleam shone like the pinnacles of an iceberg in the light of a winter sun. Then they lit with a sudden violent emotion, and it seemed to her that the strength she was relying upon was about to fail her.

He looked up from the paper which fluttered to the floor from fingers which no longer seemed to obey the controlling will. He looked at Angus for a moment in a sort of dazed inquiry. Then his gaze sought the girl, and the storm burst.

"G.o.d in heaven!" he cried.

It was the exclamation of a mind which scarcely grasps the reality of the position, and yet has received the full shock.

"Why was I not told?" he demanded fiercely. "Why, in G.o.d's name, was it left till now? You Angus! You girl!" He turned furiously from one to the other. "Do you know what you've done? Do you?" He laughed wildly.

"Of course you do? You've timed it. Timed it, do you hear? So it's impossible to get poor Mon the help she needs. Oh, as if I can't see.

Am I blind? Am I an imbecile? You, you rotten Scot, you've always hated her. I saw it from the first. And now maybe you're satisfied. As for you, girl"--he turned upon Phyllis with upraised arms, as though about to strike her to the ground--"you're as bad. You wanted your revenge for what your man has been made to suffer. That's it. Oh, G.o.d, that I should have been so blind! Was there ever such a devilish vengeance?

You, with your mild ways and simple air, you've stolen into my house that you might break my heart to square with me for your man's sufferings. And between you my Monica, my poor Mon, is lying in extremity, waiting for the help you would deny her. You thought to hurt me, and by G.o.d! you have succeeded," he cried, his voice rising to greater violence. "Oh, yes, you've succeeded, between you. You've done more. You've--you've killed her!"

He brought one great fist cras.h.i.+ng down upon the desk. Then he rushed on--

"That fool doctor talks of hope. How can there be hope? I tell you there's none--not a shadow. There's not a train to go through. North, South, East and West, we are cut off as if those cursed plains were an ocean. Hope?" he laughed harshly. "There's as much hope as there is in h.e.l.l. That woman'll be left to die. Do you hear me? Die! And between you, some of you, you've killed her!"

His frenzy was the frenzy of a madman. It was a frenzy such as, once before in his life, he had displayed. All this man's strength was swept aside by the pa.s.sionate torrent of his dreadful feelings. All power of reason was lost to him. No hysterical child could have been weaker in its mental balance than this great savage man was at that moment.

Phyllis understood something of this. Angus simply eyed him watchfully.

His was not the discerning eye of the girl. His att.i.tude was the outcome of a nature which understood violence only at its face value, therefore he was physically and mentally alert. But the girl, a mere child, saw deeper. And her observation roused her own latent courage and mentality to activity.

She saw that she must fling herself into the arena that he might be brought up to the only fighting pitch that could serve them all, that could serve Monica. She seized upon his final charge to attack him almost as fiercely as he had attacked them.

"You are talking like a child," she cried recklessly. "You're talking out of a yellow strain that lies somewhere in your own wicked heart.

How dare you say such things to us--to me? It's you--you who've laid poor Monica on her bed of sickness. You, with your cruel wickedness.

Your vile suspicions. It is you, alone, who's responsible, and you know it.

"Say, Mr. Hendrie," she went on, her tone changing from pa.s.sionate anger to one of taunting mockery. "You're a great man. There's no one can beat you when they get up against you. That's why you can stand there bullying and accusing us. You think to crush us right into the dust, like--like slimy reptiles. Oh, you're a great man. You're so strong."

Then, in a flash, her mockery was merged into a fierce challenge, the more strong for her very youth and girlishness.

"Prove it! Prove it!" she cried. "Prove your power against the fate barring your way. Don't stand there accusing folks who're right here to help you all they know. Save your Monica. There's time--yes, I tell you there's time--if you've the heart and courage to do it!"

She stood before him, her slim figure palpitating with the fierce emotion his madness had stirred in her. Her dark eyes flashed into his with all the courage of her young heart s.h.i.+ning in their depths. And before it the man's insane frenzy died abruptly.

Angus, watching, beheld this girl's--this child's--victory. His cool Scotch brain marveled, and reluctantly admired, while he waited for the millionaire's reply.

It came after a long pause. It came in the hard, cold tones to which he was used, when stress of affairs demanded the concentrated force which lay behind his methods.

"Run away, girl," he cried harshly. "Run away, and leave me to think this thing out. Guess I'm sorry for what I said---- Now I just want to think."

CHAPTER XV

PHYLLIS GOES IN SEARCH OF FRANK

Hendrie's return home became something like an epoch in the life of Phyllis Raysun. It was the moment of her pa.s.sing from girlhood to the full maturity of a woman. She began to see with eyes more widely open, and a mind whitted to the keenest understanding of the actions and motives of those about her.

Ever since her first coming to Deep Willows, Hendrie, with all her reason for abhorrence of him, had never failed to interest her. Nor was it long before this interest begat forgiveness, and even liking. His colossal powers for dealing with affairs excited her youthful imagination and impelled admiration. But more than all else, his evident pa.s.sionate devotion to Monica appealed to her.