_ PART II. EIGHT YEARS LATER
CHAPTER XVIII. BULL STERNFORD'S VISION OF SUCCESS
"I'd say it's best story I've listened to since--since--Say, those fellers are pretty big. They surely are."
Bat Harker stirred. He shifted his feet on the rail of the stove, where the heavy leather soles of his boots were beginning to burn.
Bull's shining eyes were raised to his.
"Big?" he echoed. "I tell you that feller, Leader, has the widest vision of any man I know."
He leant back in his chair and imitated his companion's luxurious attitude. And so they sat silent, each regarding the thing between them from his own angle.
It was the night of Bull's return from his journey to England. He had completed the final stage only that afternoon. He had travelled overland from the south headland, where he had been forced to disembark from the
Myra under stress of weather. It was storming outside now, one of those fierce wind storms of Labrador's winter, liable to blow for days or only for a few hours.
He and Harker were closeted together in the warm comfort of the office on the hill. Here, without fear of interruption, in the soft lamplight, lounging at their ease, they were free to talk of those things so dear to them, and upon which hung the destiny of their enterprise.
Winter was more than half spent. Christmas and New Year were already seasons which only helped to swell the store of memory. Labrador was frozen to the bone, and would remain so. But there were still two months and more of snow and ice, and storm, to be endured before the flies and mosquitoes did their best to make life unendurable.
Bull's return home had been a time of great looking forward. Life to him had become full of every alluring possibility. He saw the approaching fulfilment of his hopes and aims. The contemplation of the pending war with the Skandinavia only afforded his fighting instincts satisfaction. Then there was that other. That great, new sensation which stirred him so deeply--Nancy McDonald. So he had returned home full of enthusiasm and ready to tackle any and every problem that presented itself.
He had just completed the telling of the story he had brought back with him. It was a story of success that had stirred even the cast-iron emotions of Bat Harker. Nor had it lost anything in the telling, for Bull was more deeply moved than he knew.
The recounting of his dealings in London with the man, Sir Frank Leader, had been coloured by the enthusiasm with which the Englishman had inspired him. Sir Frank Leader was known as the uncrowned king of the world's pulp-wood trade. But Bull felt, and declared, that the appellation did not come within measurable distance of expressing the man's real genius. Then there were those others: Stanton Brothers, and Lord Downtree, and the virile, youthful creature, Ray Birchall. All of them were strong pillars of support for the ruling genius of the house of Leader & Company. But it was the man himself, the head of it, who claimed all Bull's admiration for his intensity of national spirit, and the wide generosity of his enterprise.
The story he had had to tell was simple in its completeness. Before setting out on his journey he had spent months in preparation of the ground by means of voluminous correspondence and documentary evidence. It was a preparation that left it only necessary to convince through personal appeal on his arrival in London. This had been achieved in the broad fashion that appealed to the men he encountered. His "hand" had been laid down. Every card of it was offered for their closest scrutiny, even to the baring of the last reservation which his intimate knowledge of the merciless climate of Labrador might have inspired.
The appeal of this method had been instant to Sir Frank Leader. And the appeal had been as much the man himself as the thing he offered. The result of it all was Bull's early return home with the man's whole organisation fathering his enterprise, and with a guarantee of his incomparable fleet of freighters being flung into the pool. Leader had swept up the whole proposition into his widely embracing arms, and taken it to himself. Subject to Ray Birchall's ultimate report, after personal inspection on the spot of the properties involved, the flotation was to be launched for some seventy million dollars, and thus the consummation of Sachigo's original inspiration would be achieved.
Bat had listened to the story almost without comment. He had missed nothing of it. Neither had he failed to observe the man telling it. The story itself was all so tremendous, so far removed from the work that pre-occupied him that he had little desire to probe deeper into it. But the success of it all stirred him. Oh, yes. It had stirred him deeply, and his mind had immediately flown to that other who had laboured for just this achievement and had staggered under the burden of it all.
Bull removed his pipe and gazed across the stove.
"And now for your news, Bat," he said, like a man anticipating a pleasant continuation of his own good news.
Bat shook his head decidedly.
"No," he said, in his brusque fashion. "Not to-night, boy. Guess I ain't got a thing to tell to match your stuff. We just carried on, and we've worked big. We're in good shape for the darn scrap with the Skandinavia you told me about. Guess I'll hand you my stuff to-morrow, when I'm goin' to show you things. This night's your night--sure."
His twinkling eyes were full of kindly regard, for all the brusqueness of his denial. And Bull smiled back his content.
"Well, it's your 'hand' Bat," he said easily. "You'll play it your way."
His eyes turned to the comforting stove again, as the howl of the storm outside shook the framing of the house.
Presently the other raised a pair of smiling eyes.
"You know, boy," the lumberman said, ejecting a worn-out chew of tobacco, "all this means one mighty big thing your way. You see, you got life before you. Maybe I've years to run, too. But it ain't the same. No," he shook his grizzled head, "you can't never make nuthin' of me but a lumber-boss. You'll never be a thing but a college-bred fighter all your life. There's a third share in this thing for both of us. Well, that's goin' to be one a' mighty pile. I was wonderin'. Shall you quit? Shall you cut right out with the boodle? What'll you do?"
Bull sat up and laughed. And his answer came on the instant.
"Why, marry," he said.
Bat nodded.
"That's queer," he said. "I guessed you'd answer that way."
"Why?"
Bat folded his arms across his broad chest.
"You're young," he replied.
Bull laughed again.
"Better say it," he cried. "An' darn foolish."
"No, I hadn't that in mind. No, Bull. If I had your years I guess I'd feel that way, too. I wonder--"
"You're guessing to know who I'd marry, eh?" Bull's pipe was knocked out into the cuspidore. Then he sat up again and his eyes were full of reckless delight. "Here," he cried, "I guess it's mostly school-kids who shout the things they reckon to do--or a fool man. It doesn't matter. Maybe I'm both. Anyway, I'm just crazy for--for--"
"Red hair, an'--an' a pair of mighty pretty eyes?"
"Sure."
Bat nodded. A deep satisfaction stirred him.
"I reckoned that way, ever since--Say, I'm glad."
But Bull's mood had sobered.
"She's in the enemy camp though," he demurred.
"It'll hand you another scrap--haulin' her out."
"Yes."
Bat rose from his chair and stretched his trunk-like body.
"Well," he said, "it's me for the blankets." Then he emitted a deep-throated chuckle. "You get at it, boy," he went on. "An' if you're needin' any help I can pass, why, count on it. If you mean marryin' I'd sooner see you hook up team with that red-haired gal than anything in the world I ever set two eyes on. Guess I'll hand you my stuff in the morning if the storm quits."
* * * * *
The dynamos were revolving at terrific speed. There were some eighteen in all, and their dull roar was racking upon ears unused. Bat was regarding them without enthusiasm. All he knew was the thing they represented. Skert Lawton had told him. They represented the harnessing of five hundred thousand horse power of the Beaver River water. The engineer had assured him, in his unsmiling fashion, that he had secured enough power to supply the whole Province of Quebec with electricity. All of which, in Bat's estimation, seemed to be an unnecessary feat.
Bull was gazing in frank wonder on the engineer's completed work. It was his first sight of it. The place had been long in building. But the sight of it in full running, the sense of enormous power, the thought and labour this new power-house represented, filled him with nothing but admiration for the author of it all.
Bat hailed one of the electricians serving the machines.
"Where's Mr. Lawton?" he shouted.
"He went out. He ain't here," the man shouted back.
Bat regarded the man for a moment without favour. Then he turned away. He beckoned Bull to follow, and moved over to the sound-proof door which shut off the engineer's office. They passed to the quiet beyond it.
It was quite a small room without any elaborate pretensions. There was a desk supporting a drawing board, with a chair set before it. There was also a rocker-chair which accommodated the lean body of Skert Lawton at such infrequent moments as it desired repose. Beyond that there was little enough furniture. The place was mainly bare boards and bare walls. Bat sat himself at the desk and left Bull the rocker-chair.
"I'd fixed it so Skert was to meet us here," he said. "All this is his stuff. I couldn't tell you an' amp from a buck louse."
Bull nodded.
"That's all right," he said. "Maybe he's held up down at the mill. He'll get--"
"Held up--nuthin'!"
The lumberman was angry. But his anger was not at the failure of his arrangements. Back of his head he was wondering at the thing that claimed the engineer. He felt that only real urgency would have kept him from his appointment. And he knew that urgency just now had a more or less ugly meaning.
"Lawton's a pretty bright boy--" Bull began. But the other caught him up roughly.
"Bright? That don't say a thing," Bat cried. "Guess he's a whole darn engineering college rolled into the worst shape of the ghost of a man it's been my misfortune ever to locate. He's a highbrow of an elegant natur'. He calls this thing 'co-ordination,' which is another way of sayin' he's beat nigh a hundred thousand dollars out of our bank roll to hand us more power than we could use if we took in Broadway, New York, at night. But it's elegant plannin' and looks good to me. Your folks over the water'll maybe see things in it, too. It's them blast furnaces we set up for him last year made this play possible. Them, and the swell outfit of machine shops he squeezed us for. He figgers to raise all sorts of hell around. An' his latest notion's to build every darn machine from rough-castin' to a shackle pin, so we don't have to worry with the world outside. He's got a long view of things. But--"
He pulled out his timepiece, and the clouds of volcanic anger swept down again upon his rugged brow. But it was given no play. The door of the office was thrust open, and the lean figure of the engineer, clad in greasy overalls, came hurriedly into the room.
Bat challenged him on the instant.
"What's the trouble, boy?" he demanded in his uncompromising fashion.
"Trouble?" Skert's eyes were wide, and his tone was savage. "That's just it. I reckoned to show Sternford all this stuff," he went on, indicating the machine hall with a jerk of his head. "But we'll have to let it pass. Say," he glanced from one to the other, his expression developing to something like white fury. "They started. It's business this time. I got a message up they were stopping the grinders. It's the 'heads' gave the order. Oh, they're all in it. They got a meeting on in that darn recreation parliament place of theirs, and every mother's son on the machines was called to it. They've shut down! You get that? There isn't even a greaser left at the machines. It's set me with a feeling I'm plumb crazy. I've been down, and they're right there crowding out that hall. And--"
"I guessed something that way," Bat interrupted with ominous calm. He turned to Bull, who was closely regarding his lieutenants.
"It's mutiny first and then a sheer strike," he said. "Here, listen. I'll hand you just what's happenin'. There's been Bolshie agitators workin' the boys months, and I guess they got a holt on 'em good. It started with us openin' the new mill on this north shore. We were forced to collect our labour just where we could. An' they got in like the miser'ble rats they are. Gee! It makes me hot--hot as hell! The leaders of this thing ain't workers. I don't guess they done a day's work with anything but their yahoo mouths in their dirty lives. They're part of the crowd that's paid from Europe to get around and heave up this blazin' world of ours just anyway they know. The only thing I don't get is their coming along here, which is outside most all the rest of the world. If Labrador can hand 'em loot I'd like to know the sort it is. And it's just loot they're out for. If I'm a judge there's one hell of a scrap comin,' and if we're beat it looks like leaving Sachigo a thing forgotten."
Bull stood up. He laughed without the least mirth.
"It's the Skandinavia," he said decidedly. "War's begun. I'm going right down to that meeting."
Bat leapt to his feet.
"No," he said. "This is for Skert an' me--"
"Is it?"
Bull brushed his protest aside almost fiercely. Then he turned as the door opened and a small man hurried in. The fellow snatched his cap from his head and his eyes settled on Skert Lawton, the man he knew best.
"It ees a document," he cried, in the broken English of a French Canadian. "They sign him, oh, yes. You no more are the boss. They say the mill it ees for the 'worker.' All dis big mill, all dis big money. Oh, yes. Dey sign him."
"Who's this?" Bull demanded.
"One of my machine-minders. He's a good boy," the engineer explained.
Bull nodded.
"That's all right We want all we can get of his sort." He turned to Bat. "Are there others? I mean boys we can trust?"
"Quite a bunch."
"Can we get them together?"
"Sure."
"Right. This is going to be the real thing. The sort of thing I'd rather have it."
He turned to Skert who stood by, watching the light of battle in his chief's eyes.
"Here, shut down the dynamos. Set them clean out of action. Do you get me? Leave the machines for the time being so they're just so much scrap. Then, if you got the bunch you can rely on, leave 'em guard. We'll get on down, an' sign that damned document for 'em."
* * * * *
The recreation room was crowded to suffocation. Men of every degree in the work of the mill had foregathered. A hubbub of talk was going on. Voices were raised. There was anger. There was argument, harsh-voiced argument which mainly expressed feeling. At the far end of the hall, on the raised platform designed for those who fancied their vocal attainments, a group of men were gathered about a table upon which was outspread the folios of an extensive document. The men at the table were talking eagerly.
The gathering had listened to the furious oratory of a pale-faced man, with long black hair and a foreign accent. It had listened, and agreed, and applauded. For he had talked Communism, and the overthrow of the Capitalists, and the possession of the wealth creating mills for those who operated them. It had listened to an appeal to the latent instinct in every human creature, freedom from everything that could be claimed as servitude, freedom, and possession, and independence for those who would once and for all rid themselves of the shackles which the pay-roll and time-sheet imposed upon them.
They had been called together to witness the iniquity of spending their lives in the degrading operation of filling the pockets of those who laboured not, by the toil in which their lives were spent. They had been told every flowery fairy tale of the modern communistic doctrine, which possesses as much truth and sanity in it as is to be found in an asylum for the mentally deficient. And they had swallowed the bait whole. The talk had been by the tongue of a skilled fanatic, who was well paid for his work, and who kept in the forefront of his talk that alluring promise of ease, and affluence, and luxury, which never fails in its appeal to those who have never known it.
But something approaching an impasse had been reached when the would-be benefactors passed over the demand that their deluded victims should sign the roll of Communal Brotherhood. The bait that had been offered had been all to the taste of these rough creatures who had never known better than an existence with a threat of possible unemployment overshadowing their lives. But in the signature to the elaborate document they scented the concealed poison in the honeyed potion. There was hesitation, reluctance. There was argument in a confusion of tongues well-nigh bewildering. A surge of voices filled the great building.
The agents were at work, men who posed as workers to attain their ends. And the pale, long-haired creature and his satellites waited at the table. They understood. It was their business to understand. They knew the minds they were dealing with, and their agents were skilled in their craft. The process they relied on was the unthinking stupidity of the sheep. Every man that could be persuaded had his friends, and each friend had his friend. They knew friend would follow friend well-nigh blindly, and, having signed, native obstinacy and fear of ridicule would hold them fast to their pledge.
Presently the signing began. It began with a burly river-jack who laughed stupidly to cover his doubt. He was followed by a machine-minder, who hurled taunts at those who still held back. Then came others, others whose failure to think for themselves left them content to follow the lead of their comrades.
The stream of signatures grew. A pale youth, whose foolish grin revealed only his fitness for the heavy, unskilled work he was engaged upon, came up. The pen was handed him, and the name of Adolph Mars was scrawled on the sheet. The long-haired man at the table looked up at him. He smiled with his lips, and patted the boy's hand. Then something happened.
It was movement. Sudden movement on the platform. The babel in the body of the hall went on. But the long-haired man and his supporters at the table turned with eyes that were concerned and anxious. A dozen men had entered swiftly through the door in rear of the platform. Bull Sternford led them. And he moved over to the table, with the swift, noiseless strides of a panther, and looked into the unwholesome face of the Bolshevist leader.
It was only for the fraction of a second. The man made a movement which needed no interpretation. His hand went to a hip pocket. Instantly Bull's great hands descended. The man was picked up like a child. He was lifted out of his seat and raised aloft. He was borne towards the window where he was held while the master of the mill crashed a foot against its wooden sash. The next moment the black-clothed body was hurled with terrific force out into the snowdrift waiting to receive it. It was all so swiftly done. The whole thing was a matter of seconds only. Then Bull Sternford was back at the table, while his comrades, Bat and Lawton, and the men of loyalty they relied on, lined the platform.
As Bull snatched up the document and held it aloft, a deathly silence reigned throughout the hall, and every eye was turned angrily upon the intruders. Bull yielded not a moment for those witless minds to recover from their shock. His voice rang out fiercely.
"Here," he cried, "d'you know what you're doing, listening to that fool guy I've thrown through that window, and signing this crazy paper he's set out for you? No. You don't unless you're just as crazy yourselves. You're declaring war. You're starting a great fight to steal the property that hands you your living. You reckon you've got all you need of our brains, and your own brute force and darnation foolishness can run these great mills which are to hand you the big money you reckon it hands us. That means war. Maybe you fancy it's the one-sided war you'd like to have it. Maybe you fancy there's about a dozen of us, and we're going to be made to work for the wage you figger to hand us. You're dead wrong. It's going to be a hell of a war if you swallow the dope these fellows hand you. You've begun it, and we're taking up the challenge. We've fired the first shot, too. It's not gun-play yet. No. Maybe it'll come to that and you'll find we can hand you shot for shot. No. We're quicker than that. The mill's closed down! Wages have ceased! And all power has been cut off! There's not a spark of light or heat, for the whole of Sachigo. The vital parts of the power station have been removed, and you can't get 'em back. I've only to give the word and the
penstocks on the river will be cut so you can't repair them. It's forty degrees below Zero out there, where I've shot that crazy Bolshie, and so you know just how you stand here on Labrador with no means of gettin' away until the thaw comes. You and your wives and kiddies'll have to pay in the cold for the crime of theft you reckon to put through. We're ready for you, whether it's gun-play or any other sort of war you want to start. That's the thing I've come here to tell you."
He paused for a moment to watch the effect of his words. It was there on the instant. A furious hubbub arose. There was not a man in the room who did not understand the dire threat which the
coup of the master mind imposed. Power cut off! Light! Heat! Power! Forty degrees below Zero! The terror of the Labrador winter was in every man's mind. Life would be unendurable without heat. There were the forests. Oh, yes. They could get heat of sorts. The sort of heat which the men on a winter trail were accustomed to.
Their electrically-heated houses were without stoves in which they could burn wood.
Bull listened to the babel of tongues while his men watched for any act that might come. Every man on the platform was armed ready.
"Here!"
Bull's voice rang out again, but he was interrupted.
A man shouted at him from the back of the hall.
"Who the hell are you, anyway? You ain't the guy owning these mills. We know where you come from--"
Like lightning Bull took him up.
"Do you?" he shouted back. "Then we know where you come from. The man who knew me before I became boss here must belong to the Skandinavia. That's the only place any lumber-jack could have known me. Here. Come up here. Stand out. Show yourself. And I'll hand the boys your pedigree. It'll be easy. It's the trouble with us just now, we've got too many stiffs from the Skandinavia, and you've got our own good boys paralysed. They haven't the guts to stand on the notions that have handed them the best wages in the pulp trade these fifteen years. Guess you've persuaded them they ain't got swell houses, and good food, and cheap heat and light, and, instead are living like all sorts of swine in their hogpens. It's the way of the Skandinavia just now. The Skandinavia's out for our blood. They want to smash us. Do you know why? Because they're an alien firm who wants to steal these forests from the Canadians to fill their own pockets with our wealth. We're for the Canadians, and we've built up a proposition that's going to beat the foreigner right out into the sea. But that don't matter now. These guys, these long-haired, unwashed guys, that reckon to hand you boys these mills, are sent by the Skandinavia to wreck us. Well, go right over to 'em. Help 'em. Sign every darn document they hand you. They'll be your own death warrants, anyway. You want war. You can have it. I'm here to fight. Meanwhile you best get home to your cold houses, for the mills are closed down. You're locked out."
He turned without waiting a second and passed through the back door by which he had entered. And his men followed on his heels.
* * * * *
Bull was in his office. For all the storm of the morning the rest of the day had passed quietly. Now it was late at night. His stove was radiating a luxurious heat. He was quite unconcerned that the electrically-heated steam radiators were cold. He was alone. Harker and the engineer were still down at the mill. He was awaiting the report they would bring him later.
He had passed some time in reading the pledge of Communal Brotherhood which he had brought away with him from the recreation room, and he had read the signatures that had been affixed to it. The latter were few, and every name inscribed was of foreign origin. But it was the document itself which concerned him most. If it were honest he felt that its authors were wild people who should be kept under restraint. If it were not honest, then hanging or shooting was far too lenient a fate to be meted out to them. It was Communism in its wildest, most unrestrained form.
In his final disgust he flung the papers on his desk. And as he did so a sound reached him from the outer office, which had long since been closed for the night by the half-breed, Loale.
He leapt to his feet. Without a second thought he moved over to the door and flung it wide.
"What the--?" He broke off. "Good God!" he cried. "You, Father?" He laughed. "Why I thought it was some of the Bolshies from down at the mill."
He withdrew the gun from his coat pocket in explanation. Then he stood aside.
"Will you come right in?"
The man Bull had discovered made no answer. But as he stood aside, tall, clad in heavy fur from head to foot, Father Adam strode into the room.
Bull watched him with questioning eyes. Then he closed the door and his visitor turned confronting him in the yellow lamplight.
"I've made more than a hundred miles to get you to-night," Father Adam said.
Then he flung back the fur hood from his head, and ran a hand over his long black hair, smoothing it thoughtfully.
"Yes?"
Bull's eyes were still questioning.
"Won't you shed your furs and sit?" he went on. "The Chink's abed, but I'll dig him out. You must get food."
The other glanced round the pleasant office, and his eyes paused for a moment at the chair at the desk.
"Food don't worry, thanks," he said, his mildly smiling eyes coming back to his host's face. "I've eaten--ten miles back. I rested the dogs there, too. I've maybe a ha'f hour to tell you the thing I came for. There's trouble in the woods. Bad trouble. If it's not straightened out, why, it looks like all work at your mills'll quit, and you're going to get your forest limits burnt out stark." _