_ PART II. EIGHT YEARS LATER
CHAPTER VI. THE LONELY FIGURE
The girl was leaning against the storm-ripped bole of a fallen tree. The great figure of her companion was silhouetted against the brilliant sky-line. He was contemplating the distance at the brink of a sheer-cut ravine, which dropped away at his feet to giddying depths.
Nancy gazed out beyond him. For the moment he held no interest for her. She only had eyes for the splendid picture of Nature. They were on high ground, a great shoulder lifted them clear above their surroundings. Far as the eye could see was a lustreless green world of unbroken forest. It seemed to have neither beginning nor end. To the girl's imagination there could be no break in it until the eternal snows of the Arctic were reached.
The breadth of it all was a little overwhelming. Nancy was gazing upon just one portion of the Skandinavia's untouched forest limits, and somehow it left her with a feeling of protest.
She pointed with one gauntleted hand, stirred to an impulse she could not deny.
"It's too beautiful," she said. "It isn't fair: it's not right. To think it's all ours, and we have the right to destroy it."
The man turned. He gazed back at this unusual vision of a beautiful, well-gowned woman in the heart of the forests. He grinned ironically, this great, rough-bearded creature, in hard cord clothing, and with his well-worn fur cap pressed low over his lank hair that reached well-nigh to his shoulders.
"Why not?" he demanded roughly. "Oh, yes. It's Skandinavia's, every mile of it. An' I guess there's hundreds an' hundreds of 'em. Ain't that what Canada's forests are for? To feed us the stuff we're needin'? But you don't need to worry any. We ain't cuttin' that stuff for years. Guess the waterways out there are mostly a mean outfit that wouldn't raft a bunch of lucifers. We need to wait permanent railroad for haulage."
Nancy accepted the statement without reply. It was impossible to stir a man like Arden Laval to any sort of sympathy. He was hardened, crude, first, last and all the time. He was big and brutal. His limbs were like to the trees his men were accustomed to fell, and his hands reminded her of the hind limbs of the mutton. She felt he had a mind that matched his physical development.
Nancy McDonald was nearing the end of her third month of forest travel. The Shagaunty valley lay behind her, desolated by the fierce axe of the men who lived by their slaughter. She had seen it all. She had studied the re-afforestation which followed on the heels of the axemen. And the seeming puerility of this effort to salve the wounds inflicted upon Nature had filled her with pitying contempt.
She knew the whole process of the forest industry by heart now. It fascinated her. Oh, yes. It was picturesque, it was real, vital. The men on the river driving down to the booms had stirred her greatest admiration. These supermen with their muscles of iron, with the hearts of lions, and the tongues and habits of beasts of the forest. But they were men, wonderful men for all their savage crudity. So, too, with the transporters and freighters handling sixty-foot logs as though dealing with matchwood. But above all, and before all, the axemen made their appeal.
There was nothing comparable with the rough skill of these creatures. She had watched the flash and swing of the axe, with its edge like the finest razor. She had seen the standing muscles like whipcord writhing under sunburnt flesh as they served the lethal weapon. She had noted every blow, how it was calculated to a hair's-breadth, and fell without waste of one single ounce of power. And then the amazing result. The fallen tree stretched out on the exact spot and in the exact direction ready for the hauliers to bear straight away to the final transport station.
The summer days had been filled with vital interest. And at night, weary in body, Nancy still had time, lying in the amply, if crudely blanketed bed provided for her in some lumber-built shanty, to contemplate the lives of this strangely assorted race. She knew the pay of the forest men, from the haulier to the princely axeman and river-jack. She had seen their food, and their dwelling accommodation. She had heard such details as were possible of telling of their recreations, and had guessed the rest. And for all her admiration of their manhood she pitied, in her woman's way, and felt shame for the slavery of it all.
Oh, yes. She had no illusions. She was not weakly sentimental. She looked at it all with wide-open eyes. It was a well-paid animal life. It was a life of eating well, of sleeping well, of gambling, and drinking, and licence. But it was a life of such labour that only perfect physical creatures could face.
She felt that these folks were wage slaves in the crudest meaning of the words. There was nothing for them beyond their daily life, which was wholly animal. Of spirituality there was none. Of future there was none. Their leisure was given over to their pastimes, while ahead the future lay always threatening. Stiffening muscles, disease, age. The king of them all in his youth, in age would be abandoned and driven forth, weary in body, aching in limbs, a derelict in the ranks of the world's labour.
She was gravely impressed by the things she saw, by the men she met.
Her summer had been an education which had stirred feelings and sympathies almost unguessed. It was the father, she could scarcely remember, making himself known to her. For all the ambitions firing her, the long, fascinating days in the forests of the Shagaunty had taught her of the existence of an "underdog," who, in himself, was the foundation upon which the personal ambition of the more fortunate was achieved. Without him to support the whole edifice of civilisation must crash to the ground, and life would go back again to the bosom of that Nature from which it sprang.
Her realisation inspired her with an added desire. It was a desire coming straight from an honest, unsophisticated heart. She registered a vow that whithersoever her ambitions might lead her, she would always remember the "underdog," and work for his betterment and greater happiness.
"So you can only cut the stuff here within reach of our light haulage system?" Nancy demanded at last. "The rest's gone. The real big stuff, I mean, down below in the valley. We're just driven to the plateau where the cut looks to me more like one in twenty than any better?"
Arden Laval left his position at the brink of the ravine. He came back to the girl in her modish costume that seemed so out of place beside the rough clothing that Covered his body.
"Why, I guess that's so," he said. "Still, it's a deal better than one in twenty." He laughed. "Sure. If it wasn't the darn booms 'ud need to go hungry."
The man's French temperament left him more than appreciative of the beauty he beheld. But he was wondering. He was searching his shrewd mind for the real explanation of Nancy's presence in these forests. To him it was amazing that the Skandinavia should send this girl, this good-looker, on a journey through their forests alone. He would willingly have asked the question. But he remembered her written commission, signed by Elas Peterman. So he was left with no alternative but to yield the utmost respect.
"Y'see, mam," he went on easily. "I guess I could talk quite a piece on this thing, but maybe you won't fancy my dope. Skandinavia's been badly spoilt by the cut in the Shagaunty Valley. You've seen it all. Guess you've come right through. Well, that being so, you'll understand the Shagaunty cut's been far above average. Now we're down to average. That's all. That's how the Skandinavia's been spoilt."
He thrust his cap back from his forehead. It was a movement of irritation. Then he produced a plug of tobacco from his hip-pocket, and bit off a chew.
"I've been twenty odd years lumbering," he went on a moment later. "I've lumbered most every forest in Ontario and Quebec. There ain't more'n one bunch of plums like the Shagaunty. Mostly the forest's full of the sort of stuff we're handling here. These forests are average and I'd like to say to the Skandinavia, 'you've got to figger results on the average.' We're cutting down to the minimum because we've got to, to feed the booms right. Well, that's goin' on if I know my job. There's patch stuff better. I daresay there's new ground on our limits liable to hand us Shagaunty stuff. But that's just as I say, patch stuff, an' not average. If they want Shagaunty quality right through let 'em get out and get limits up on Labrador. I reckon there's a hundred years cutting up there that 'ud leave Shagaunty a bunch of weed grass. They say the folks out on the coast are worried to death there's so much stuff, an' so big, an' good, an' soft, an' long-fibred. The jacks out that way are up to the neck in a hell of a good time, sure. I get it they've time to sleep half the year, it's so easy. Well, it ain't that way here. We've no time singing hymns around this lay-out. It's hell, here, keeping the darn booms fed. Speakin' for my outfit I'd say they're a pretty bright lot of boys. What a feller can do they can do, I guess. But there are times I get mighty sick chasing to get even the minimum. An' it's all the time kick. The Skandinavia seems to have got a grouch about now you couldn't beat with a tank of rye whisky. You've seen it all as far as I can show you, mam, and I'd be glad to know if you're satisfied I've done the things you want. If I have, and you feel good about it, I'd be thankful if you'd report the way we're workin' this camp. And if you've a spare moment to talk other things, you might say that the boys of my camp are mighty hard put to get the stuff, and they're as tough a gang of jacks as ever heard tell of the dog's life of the forest."
The man spoke with the fluency of real protest. He somehow felt he was on his defence in the presence of this woman representative of his employers. This girl was not there enduring the discomforts of the forests for amusement. She came with authority, and she seemed to possess great understanding. Arden Laval knew his own value. His record was one of long service with his company. Furthermore, his outfit was trusted with the pioneering work of the forest where judgment and enterprise, and great experience were needed. He felt it was the moment to talk, and to talk straight to this woman with the red hair who had invaded his domain. So he gave full rope to his feelings.
It was some moments before the girl replied, and the man waited expectantly. He was studying the far-off gaze of the pretty hazel eyes, and wondering at the thought moving behind them. At length Nancy withdrew her gaze from the forest.
"I shall certainly report the things I've seen," she said with a smile that found prompt response in the man's dark eyes. "You've certainly done your best to show me, and tell me, the exact position. I shall make a point of reporting all that. Yes, I've seen it all, thank you very much."
Then her smile suddenly vanished. The shrewd gaze of commercial interest replaced it.
"But these Labrador folk?" she demanded. "Is that stuff just--hearsay?"
The man shook his head. He was feeling easier.
"It's God's truth, mam." He spat out a stream of tobacco juice. "I know them forests. Say," his eyes had lost their smile, "I don't guess I figger to know the business side of things, I don't calculate to know if the folks on Labrador work with, or against the Skandinavia. But I do know that if they're up against us they've got us plumb beat before we start. They got the sort of lumber the jacks dream about when they got their bellies full on a Saturday night, and they're going to wake up to find it Sunday mornin'. I'm just a lumberman, and if I hadn't fifteen years' record with the Skandinavia, and wasn't pouching two hundred and fifty bucks, and what I can make besides, a month, why, it 'ud be me for the coast where you can jamb the rivers in a three months' cut, and souse rye the rest of the year till the bugs look as big as mountains. Guess it's the summer rose garden of the lumber-jack, for all it's under snow eight months in the year, when you can't tell your guts from an iceflow, and the skitters, in summer, mostly reach the size of a gasoline tank. It's a dog's life, mam, lumberin' anywhere. But they're lap-dogs out that way."
The man's words brought the return of the girl's smile. "Yes, I spose it's--tough," she observed thoughtfully. Then quite suddenly she spread out her hands. "Oh, yes," she exclaimed, with a sudden vehemence, "it's worse than tough. It's hopeless. Utterly hopeless. I've seen it. I've watched it. I had to. I couldn't escape it. It's so desperately patent. But it's not the life as these folk live it. It's the future I'm thinking of. It's middle life and old age. These boys. They're wonders--now. How long does it last, and then--what happens? I'm here on business, hard business. But I guess this thing's got hold of me so I can't sometimes sleep at nights. Tell me about them."
Arden Laval, one of the hardest specimens of the lumber boss, turned away. His understanding of women was built up out of intimacy with the poor creatures who peopled the camps he knew. This girl's burst of feeling only stirred him to a cynical humour.
"Mam," he said, with a grin that was almost hateful, "if I was to start in to hand you the life history of a lumber-jack you'd feel like throwing up your kind heart, and any other old thing you hadn't use for in your stummick. But I guess I can say right here, a lumber-jack's a most disgustin' sort of vermin who hasn't more right than a louse to figger in your reckonin'. I guess he was born wrong, and he'll mostly die as he was born. And meanwhile he's lived a life that's mostly dirt, and no account anyway. There's a few things we ask of a lumber-jack, and if he fulfils 'em right he can go right on living. When he can't fulfil 'em, why, it's up to him to hit the trail for the pay box, an' get out. Guess you feel good when you see a boy swingin' an axe, or handlin' a peavy. Sure. That sort of thing don't come your way often. Neither does it come your way to see the rest. He's mostly a sink of filth in mind and body, and if he ain't all that at the start he gets it quick. He's a waster of God's pure air, and is mostly in his right surroundings when the forest does its best to hide him up from the eyes of the rest of the world. Guess he's the best man I know--dead."
For all his grin Arden Laval was in deadly earnest. Nancy stared at the broad back he had turned on her with his final word. And her indignation surged.
"I don't believe it," she cried. "I can't believe it. You're just talking out of years of experience of a life you've probably learned to hate. Man, if that's your opinion of your fellows, then it's you who ought never to leave the forest you claim does its best to hide up folk from the eyes of the rest of the world. You're a camp boss. You're our head man in these forests. You're trusted, and we know your skill. Well, it seems to me you've a duty that goes further than just feeding the booms right. You've a moral duty towards these men you condemn. You can help them. It should surely be your pride to lift them out of the desperate mire you claim they are floundering in. I'll not believe you mean it all."
The man turned away as a black-clothed figure emerged from the trees, and came to a stand at the brink of the ravine some hundred and more yards to the east of them. Nancy, too, beheld the lonely figure and she, too, became interested in its movements.
The lumber boss laughed shortly, roughly, and raised an arm, pointing as he turned a grinning face to the girl.
"See him, there?" he cried. "Say, mam, with all respect, I'd say to you, if you're feeling the way you talk, and look to get the sort of stuff you'd maybe fancy hearing, that's the guy you need to open out to. As you say, I'm the head camp-boss on the Skandinavia's limits. I've had nigh twenty years an' more experience of the lumber-jack. An' I'm tellin' you the things any camp-boss speakin' truth'll tell you. That's all, I don't hate the boys. I don't pity 'em. But I don't love 'em. They're just part of a machine to cut lumber, and it don't matter a hoot in hell to me what they are, or who they are, or what becomes of 'em. I ain't shepherdin' souls like that guy. It ain't in me, anyway. I just got to make good so that some day I ken quit these cursed forests and live easy the way I'd fancy. When that time comes maybe I'll change. Maybe I'll feel like that guy standin' doping over that spread of forest scene. I don't know. And just now I don't care--a curse."
But Nancy was no longer listening. The lonely, black-coated figure Laval had pointed out absorbed all her interest. His allusion to the man's calling had created in her an irresistible desire.
"Who is he? That man?" she demanded abruptly.
Laval laughed.
"Why, Father Adam," he replied. There was a curious softening in his harsh voice, which brought the girl's eyes swiftly back to him.
"Father Adam? A priest?" she questioned.
Laval shook his head. He had turned again, regarding the stranger. His face was hidden from the searching eyes of the girl.
"I just can't rightly say," he demurred. "Maybe he is, an' maybe he ain't. But," he added reflectively "he's just one hell of a good man. Makes me laff sometimes. Sometimes it makes me want to cry like a kid when I think of the things he's up against. He's out for the boys. He's out to hand 'em dope to make 'em better. Oh, it ain't Sunday School dope. No. He's the kind o' missioner who does things. He don't tell 'em they're a bum lot o' toughs who oughter to be in penitentiary. But he makes 'em feel that way--the way he acts. He's just a lone creature, sort of livin' in twilight, who comes along, an' we don't know when he's comin'. He passes out like a shadow in the forests, an' we don't see him again till he fancies. He's after the boys the whole darn time. It don't matter if they're sick in body or mind. He helps 'em the way he knows. An', mam, they just love him to death. There's just one man in these forests I wouldn't dare blaspheme, if I felt like it--which I don't. No, mam, my life wouldn't be worth a two seconds buy if I blasphemed--Father Adam. He's one of God's good men, an' I'd be mighty thankful to be like him--some. Gee, and I owe him a piece myself."
"How?"
Nancy's interest was consuming.
"Why, only he jumped in once when I was being scrapped to death. He jumped right in, when he looked like gettin' killed for it. And," he laughed cynically, "he gave me a few more years of the dog's life of the forest."
The girl moved away from her support.
"I want to thank you, Mr. Laval, for the trouble you've taken, and the time you've given up to me." The hazel eyes were smiling up into the man's hard face. "I don't agree with some of the things you've just been telling me; I should hate to, anyway. I don't even believe you feel the way you say about your men. Still, that's no account in the matters I came about. The things I've got to say when I get back are all to your credit. I'm going over now to talk to--Father Adam. And you needn't come along with me. You see, you've fired my curiosity. Yes, I want to hear the stuff I fancy about the--boys. So I'll go and talk to your--shepherd of souls. Good-bye."
Nancy's eyes were bright and smiling as she gazed up into the lean, ascetic face of the man in the black, semi-clerical coat. His garments were worn and almost threadbare. At close quarters she realised an even deeper interest in the man whose presence had wrought such a magical change in the harsh tones of the camp-boss. He was in the heyday of middle life, surely. His hair was long and black. His beard was of a similar hue, and it covered his mouth and chin in a long, but patchy mass. His eyes were keen but gentle. They, too, were very dark, and the whole cast of his pale face was curiously reminiscent.
"I just had to come along over, sir," she said. "I was with Mr. Laval, and he told me of the work--the great work you do in these camps. Maybe you'll forgive me intruding. But you see, I've come from our headquarters on business, and the folk of these camps interest me. I kind of feel the life the boys live around these forests is a pretty mean life. There's nothing much to it but work. And it seems to me that those employing them ought to be made to realise they've a greater responsibility than just handing them out a wage for work done. So when I saw you come out of the forest and stand here, and Mr. Laval told me about you, I made up my mind right away to come along and--speak to you. My name's McDonald--Nancy McDonald."
It was all a little hasty, a little timidly spoken. The dark eyes thoughtfully regarding the wonder of red hair under the close fitting hat were disconcerting, for all there was cordiality in their depths.
At Nancy's mention of her name, Father Adam instantly averted his gaze, and dropped the hand which he had taken possession of in greeting. It was almost as if the pronouncement had caused him to start. But the change, the movement, were unobserved by the girl.
"And you are--Father Adam?" she asked.
The man's gaze came quickly back.
"That's how I'm known. It--was kind of you to come along over."
In a moment all the girl's timidity was gone. If the man had been startled when she had announced her name, he displayed perfect ease now.
"Do you know," Nancy went on, with a happy laugh, "I almost got mad with Laval for his cynicism at the expense of the poor boys who work under his orders. But I think I understand him. He's a product of a life that moulds in pretty harsh form. He doesn't mean half he says."
"I'd say few of us do--when we let our feelings go." Father Adam smiled back into the eyes which seemed to hold him fascinated. "You see, Laval's much what we all are. He's got a tough job to put through, and he does his utmost. He's a big man, a brave man, a--yes, perhaps--a harsh man. But he couldn't do his job as he's paid to do it if he weren't all those things." He shook his head. "No, I guess we can't play with fire long without getting a heap of scars." He shrugged. "But after all I suppose it's just--life. We've got to eat, and we want to live. We don't need to judge too harshly."
"No. That's how I feel about the boys--he so condemned."
The girl turned away gazing pensively over the forest. Father Adam was free to regard her without restraint. With her turning the whole expression of his eyes had changed. Incredulous amazement had replaced his smiling ease.
"Would you care to come along through the woods to my shanty, Miss McDonald?" he said, almost diffidently, at last. "Maybe I've a cup of coffee there. And I'd say coffee's the most welcome thing on earth in these forests. It's a pretty humble shanty but, if you feel like talking things, why, I guess we can sit around there awhile."
The girl snatched at the invitation.
"I was just hoping you'd say something that way," she laughed readily. "I'd give worlds for a cup of coffee, and I guess the folks in the forests of Quebec know more about coffee in half a second than we city folk know in a year. Which way?"
"It's only a few yards. You'd best follow me."
* * * * *
The girl stood amazed. She was even horrified. She was gazing in through the opening of the merest shelter, a shelter built of green boughs with roof and sides of interlaced foliage. True it was densely interlaced, but no sort of distorted imagination could have translated the result into anything but a shelter. Habitation was out of the question. She stared at the primitive, less than aboriginal home, of the priestly man. She stared round her at the undergrowth upon which were spread his brown coarse blankets airing. She looked down at the smouldering fire between two granite stones upon which a tin of coffee was simmering and emitting its pleasant aroma upon the woodland air. It was too crude, too utterly lacking in comfort and even the bare necessites of existence.
The man emerged from the interior bearing two enamelled tin cups. He realised the amazement with which Nancy was regarding his home, and shook his head with a pleasant laugh as he indicated two upturned boxes beside the fire.
"You'd best sit, and I'll tell you about it," he said. "It's not exactly a swell hotel, is it? But it's sufficient."
The girl silently took her seat on one of the boxes. Father Adam took the other. Then he poured out two cups of coffee, and passed a tin of preserved milk across to the girl. There was a spoon in it. After that he produced a small tin of sugar and offered that.
"You see, it's all I need," he said, in simple explanation. "When the rain comes I mostly get wet, except at nights when I get under my rubber sheet. But, anyway, there's plenty of sun to dry me. Oh, winter's different. I cut out a dug-out then, and burrow like the rest of the forest creatures. But, you see, this thing suits me well. I'm never long in one place. I've been here two weeks, and I pull out to-morrow."
"You pull out? Where to?"
"Why, I just pass on to some other camp. The boys are pretty widely scattered in these forests. You'd never guess the distances I sometimes make. Even Labrador. But it doesn't much matter. I've a good smattering of physic, and the boys are always getting hurt one way and another. I'd hate to feel I couldn't go to them wherever they are. Maybe if I built a better house I'd not want to leave it. It would be hard getting on the move. You see, I get their call any old time. Maybe it comes along on the forest breezes," he said whimsically. "Then I have to be quick to locate it, and read it right."
The girl had helped herself to milk and sugar, and sipped the steaming coffee. But she was listening with all her ears and thinking feverishly. This strange creature, with his deprecating manner, and smiling, sane eyes, filled her with a sense of shame at his utter selflessness.
She nodded.
"You mean they--always want help?"
"Sure. Same as we all do."
Father Adam sipped his coffee appreciatively.
"But tell me," he said. "It's kind of new the Skandinavia sending a woman along up here. It's your first trip?"
Nancy set her cup down.
"Yes."
"They're a great firm," Father Adam went on, reflectively. "I mean the--extent of their operations."
Nancy smiled.
"I like the distinction. Yes, they're big. You don't like their--methods?"
It was the man's turn for a smiling retort.
"Their methods?" he shook his head. "I don't know, I guess they pay well. And their boys are no worse treated than in other camps. They employ thousands. And that's all to the good."
"But you don't like them," Nancy persisted. "I can hear it in your voice. It's in your smile. Few people like the Skandinavia," she added regretfully.
"Do you?"
Like a shot the challenge came, and Nancy found herself replying almost before she was aware of it.
"Yes. Why shouldn't I? They've been good to me. More than good, when those who had a right to be completely deserted me. No. I mustn't say just that," she hurried on in some contrition. "They provided for me, but cut me out of their lives. Maybe you won't understand what that means to a girl. It meant so much to me that I wouldn't accept their charity. I wouldn't accept a thing. I'd make my own way with the small powers Providence handed me. So I went to the Skandinavia who have only shown me the best of kindness. Well, I'm frankly out for the Skandinavia and all their schemes and methods in consequence. It's not for me to look into the things that make folks hate them. That's theirs. My loyalty and gratitude are all for them for the thing they've done for me. Isn't that right?"
"Surely," the man concurred. "But your coffee. It's getting cold," he added.
Nancy hastily picked up her cup.
"Why am I telling you all this?" she laughed. "We were going to talk of the--boys."
"We surely were." Father Adam laughed responsively. "But personal interest I guess doesn't figure to be denied for long. We sort of get the notion we can shut it out. But we can't. We try to guess there's other things. Things more important. Things that matter a whole lot more." He shook his head. "It's no use. There aren't. I guess it doesn't matter where we look. Self's pushing out at every angle, and won't be denied. It would be hypocrisy to deny it, wouldn't it? It's the biggest thing in life. It's the whole thing."
"And it's such a pity," Nancy agreed slyly. "Just think," she went on, "I've got a hundred notions for the good of the world. These boys for instance. I'd like to make their lives what they ought to be. Full of comfort and security and--and everything to make it worth while. Instead of that my first and whole concern is to make good for Nancy McDonald. To do all those things for her. It's dreadful when you think of it, isn't it?" She sighed. "I want to do good to the--the 'underdog,' and all the time I'm planning for myself. I want to fight all the time for those who hold opportunity out to me. It doesn't really matter to me why the Skandinavia is disliked. They give me opportunity. I reckon they've been good to me. So I'm their slave to fight for them, and work for them, whatever their methods. Yes. It's too bad," she laughed frankly. "I can't deny it. I'd like to, but--I can't."
"No."
Father Adam set down his empty cup, and sat with his arms resting on his parted knees. His hands were clasped.
"You remind me of someone," he said, in his simple disarming fashion. "Queerly enough it's a man. A strong, hard, kindly, good-natured man. I found him without a thought but to make good. And I knew he would make good. Then it came my way to show him how. I offered him a notion. The notion was fine. Oh, yes--though I say it. It was the sort of thing if it were carried to success would hand the fellow working it down to posterity as one of his country's benefactors. The notion appealed to him. It stirred something in him, and set fire to his enthusiasm. He jumped for it. Why? Was it the thought of doing a great act for his country? Was it for that something that was all good stirring in him? No. I guess it was because he was a strong, physical, and spiritual, and mental force concentrated on big things, primarily inspired by Self. Personal achievement. It seems to me the good man always does what's real and worth while in the way of helping himself."
"Yes. I think I understand." The girl nodded. "And this strong physical, and spiritual, and mental force? Have I heard of him? Is he known? Has he achieved?"
"He's carrying on. Oh, yes." Father Adam paused. Then he went on quickly. "You don't know him yet. But I think you will. He's out on the coast of Labrador. He's driving his great purpose with all his force through the agency of a groundwood mill that would fill your Skandinavia folk with envy and alarm if they saw it. He's master of forests such as would break your heart when compared with these of your Skandinavia. His name's Sternford. Bull Sternford, of Sachigo."
At the mention of Sachigo, Nancy's eyes widened. Then she laughed. It was a laugh of real amusement.
"Why, that's queer. It's--I'm going right on there from here. I'm going to meet this very man, Sternford. They tell me I've just time to get there and pull out again for home before winter freezes them up solid. So he is this great man, with this great--notion. Tell me, what is he like?"
"Oh, he's a big, strong man, as ready to laugh as to fight."
Father Adam smiled, and stooped over the fire to push the attenuated sticks of it together.
"May I ask why you're going to Sachigo?" he asked, without looking up.
Just for a moment Nancy hesitated. Then she laughed happily.
"I don't see why you shouldn't," she cried. "There's no secret. Skandinavia intends to buy him, or crush him."
The man sat up.
"And you--a girl--are the emissary?"
Incredulity robbed the man of the even calmness of' his manner.
"Yes. Why not?"
The challenge in the girls's eyes was unmistakable.
"You won't buy him," Father Adam said quietly. "And you certainly won't crush him."
"Because I'm a girl?"
"Oh, no. I was thinking of the Skandinavia." The man shook his head. "If I'm a judge of men, the crushing will be done from the other end of the line."
"This man will crush Skandinavia?"
The idea that Skandinavia could be crushed was quite unthinkable to Nancy. It was the great monopoly of the country. It was--but she felt that this lonely creature could have no real understanding of the power of her people.
"Surely," he returned quietly. "But that," he added, with a return of his pleasant smile, "is just the notion of one man. I should say it's no real account. Yes, you go there. You see this man. The battle of your people with him matters little. It will be good for you to see him. It--may help you. Who can tell? He's a white man, and a fighter. He's honest and clean. It's--in the meeting of kindred spirits that the great events of life are brought about. It should be good for you both."
"I wonder?" Nancy rose from her chair.
The man rose also.
"I think so," he said, very decidedly.
The girl laughed.
"I hope so. But--" She held out her hand. "Thank you, Father," she said. "I'll never be able to think of the things I'm set on achieving without remembering our talk--and the man I met in the forest. I wish--but what's the use? I've got to make good. I must. I must go on, and--do the thing I see. Good-bye."
Father Adam was holding the small gauntleted hand, and he seemed loth to release it. His eyes were very gentle, very earnest.
"Don't worry to remember, child. Don't ever think about--this time. It won't help you. You've set your goal. Make it. You will do the good things you fancy to do, though maybe not the way you think them. It seems to me that 'good' mostly has its own way all the time. You can't drive it. And the best of it is I don't think there's a human creature so bad in this world, but that in some way God's work has been furthered through his life. Good-bye."
* * * * *
For some moments the lonely figure stood gazing down the woodland aisles. The deep, shining light of a great hope was in his eyes. A wonderful tender smile had dispersed the shadows of his ascetic face. At length, as the girl's figure became completely swallowed up in the twilight of it all, he turned away and passed into the foliage shelter which was his home.
He was squatting on his box, and the small canvas bag containing his belongings was open beside him. Its contents were strewn about. He was writing a long letter. There was several pages of it. When he had finished he read it over carefully. Then he carefully folded it and placed it in an envelope, and addressed it. It was addressed:
MR. BULL STERNFORD,
Sachigo, Farewell Cove,
Labrador. _