_ PART II. EIGHT YEARS LATER
CHAPTER II. FATHER ADAM
The hush of the forest was profound. For all the proximity of the busy lumber camp its calm was unbroken.
It was a break in the endless canopy of foliage, a narrow rift in the dark breadth of the shadowed woods.
It was one of those infinitesimal veins through which flows the life-blood of the forest.
A tiny streamlet trickled its way over a bed of decayed vegetation often meandering through a dense growth of wiry reeds in a channel set well below the general level. Banks of attenuated grass and rank foliage lined its course, and the welcome sunlight poured down upon its water in sharp contrast with the twilight of the forest.
Clear of the crowding trees a rough shanty stood out in the sunlight. It was a crazy affair constructed of logs laterally laid and held in place by uprights, with walls that looked to be just able to hold together while suffering under the constant threat of collapse. The place was roofed with a thatch of reeds taken from the adjacent stream-bed, and its doorway was protected by a sheet of tattered sacking. There was also a window covered with cotton, and a length of iron stove-pipe protruding through the thatch of the roof seemed to threaten the whole place with fire at its first use.
Inside there was no attempt to better the impression. There was no furnishing. A spread of blankets on a waterproof sheet laid on a bed of reeds formed the bed of its owner, with a canvas kit-bag stuffed with his limited wardrobe serving as a pillow. There were several upturned boxes to be used as seats, and a larger box served the purpose of a table and supported a tiny oil lamp. There was not even the usual wood stove connected up to the protruding stove-pipe. A smouldering fire was burning between two large sandstone blocks, which, in turn, supported a cooking pot. An uncultured Indian of the forests would have demanded greater comfort for his resting moments.
But Father Adam had no concern for comfort of body. He needed his blankets and his fire solely to support life against the bitterness of the night air. For the rest the barest, hardest food kept the fire of life burning in his lean body.
Squatting on his upturned box he gazed out upon the sunlit stream below him. His dark eyes were full of a pensive calm. His body was inclining forward, supported by arms folded across his knees. An unlit pipe thrust in the corner of his mouth was the one touch that defeated the efforts of his flowing hair and dark beard to suggest a youthful hermit meditating in the doorway of his retreat.
Bull Sternford was seated on another box at the opposite side of the doorway. He, too, had a pipe thrust between his strong jaws. But he was smoking. Beyond the dressings applied to a few abrasions he bore no signs of his recent battle. But there still burned a curiously fierce light in his handsome blue eyes.
"You shouldn't have butted in, Father," he said, in a tone which betrayed the emotion under which he was still labouring. "You just shouldn't." Then with a movement of irritation: "Oh, I'm not a feller yearning for homicide. No. It's not that. You know Arden Laval," he went on, his brows depressing. "Of course you do. You must know him a whole heap better than I do. Well? Say, I guess that feller hasn't a right to walk this earth. He boasts the boys he's smashed the life clean out of. He's killed more fool lumber-jacks than you could count on the fingers of two hands. He wanted my scalp to hang on his belt. That man's a murderer before God. But he's beyond the recall of law up here. And he stops around on the fringe looking for the poor fool suckers who don't know better than to get within his reach. Gee, it was tough! I'd a holt on him I wouldn't get in a thousand years, and I'd nearly got the life out of him. I'd stood for all his dirt weeks on end. He made his set at me because I'm green and college-bred. But he called me a 'son-of-a-bitch!' Think of it! Oh, I can't rest with that hitting my brain. It's no use. I'll have to break him. God, I'll break him yet. And I'll see you aren't around when I do it."
The man's voice had risen almost to a shout. His bandaged hands clenched into fists like limbs of mutton. He held them out at the man opposite, and in his agony of rage, it gave the impression he was threatening.
Father Adam stirred. He reached down into the box under him and picked up a pannikin. Then he produced a flask from an inner pocket. He unscrewed the top and poured out some of its contents. He held it out to the other.
"Drink it," he said quietly.
The blue eyes searched the dark face before them. In a moment excitement had begun to pass.
"What is it?" Bull demanded roughly.
"It's brandy, and there's dope in it."
"Dope?"
"Yes. Bromide. You'll feel better after you've swallowed it. You see I want to make a big talk with you. That's why I brought you here. That's why I stopped you killing that feller--that, and other reasons. But I can't talk with you acting like--like I'd guess Arden Laval would act. Drink that right up. And you needn't be scared of it. It'll just do you the good you need."
Father Adam watched while the other took the pannikin. He watched him raise it, and sniff suspiciously at its contents. And a shadowy smile lit his dark eyes.
"It's as I said," he prompted. Then he added: "I'm not a--Caesar."
The youth glanced across at him, and for the first time since his battle a smile broke through the angry gleam of his eyes. He put the pannikin to his lips and gulped down the contents.
Father Adam drew a deep sigh. It was curious how this act of obedience and faith affected him. The weight of his responsibility seemed suddenly to have become enormous.
It was always the same. This man accepted him as did every other lumber-jack throughout the forests of Quebec. He was a father whose patient affection for his lawless children was never failing, a man of healing, with something of the gentleness of a woman. An adviser and spiritual guide who never worried them, and yet contrived, perhaps all unknown to themselves, to leave them better men for their knowledge of him. He came, and he departed. Whence he came and whither he went no one enquired, no one seemed to know. He just moved through the twilight forests like a ghostly, beneficent shadow, supreme in his command of their rugged hearts.
Bull set the pannikin on the ground beside him. His smile had deepened.
"You needn't to tell me that, Father," he said, almost humbly. "There isn't a feller back there in the camp," he added with a jerk of his head, "that would have hesitated like me when you handed him your dope. Thanks. Say, that darn stuff's made me feel easier."
"Good."
The missionary removed his empty pipe, and Bull hastily dragged his pouch from a pocket in his buckskin shirt. He held it out.
"Help yourself," he invited. And the other took it. For a moment Bull looked on at the thoughtful manner in which Father Adam filled his pipe. Then a curiosity he could no longer restrain prompted him.
"This big talk," he said. "What's it about?"
The missionary's preoccupation vanished. His eyes lit and he passed back the pouch.
"Thanks, boy," he said in his amiable way. "Guess I'll need to smoke, too--you see our talk needs some hard thinking. Pass me a stick from that fire."
Bull did as he was bid. And the missionary's eyes were on the fair head of the man as he leant down over the smouldering embers stewing his own meagre midday meal.
Bull Sternford was a creature of vast stature and muscular bulk. It was no wonder that the redoubtable Laval had run up against defeat. The camp boss had lived for twenty years the hard life of the forests. His body was no less great than this man's. His experience in physical battle was well-nigh unlimited. But so, too, was his debauchery.
Bull Sternford was younger. He was clean and fresh from one of the finest colleges of the world. He was an athlete by training and nature. Then, too, his mentality was of that amazing fighting quality which stirs youth to go out and seek the world rather than vegetate in the nursery of childhood. It was all there written in his keen, blue eyes, in the set of his jaws of even white teeth. It was all there in the muscular set of his great neck, and in the poise of his handsome head, and in the upright carriage of his breadth of shoulder. Even his walk was a thing to mark him out from his fellows. It was bold, perhaps even there was a suggestion of arrogance in it. But it was only the result of the military straightness of his body.
Little wonder, then, a man of Arden Laval's brutal nature should mark him down as desired victim. This man was "green." He was educated. He possessed a spirit worth breaking. Later he would learn. Later he would become a force in the calling of the woods. Now he would be easy.
The brute had sought every opportunity to bait and goad the man to his undoing. For months he had "camped on his trail," and Bull had endured. Then came that moment of the filthy epithet, and Bull's spirit broke through the bonds of will that held it. The insult had been hurled at the moment and at the spot where the battle had been fought. Bull had flung himself forthwith at the throat of the French Canadian almost before the last syllable of the insult had passed the man's lips. And the end of nearly a two hours' battle had been the downfall of the bully, with the name of Bull Sternford hailed as a fighting man in his place.
The firebrand was passed to the waiting missionary. He sucked in the pleasant fumes of a lumberman's tobacco. Then the stick was flung back to its place in the fire.
Father Adam nursed one long leg, which he flung across the other, while his wide, intelligent eyes gazed squarely into the eyes of the man opposite.
"Tell me," he said. "What brought you into the life of the woods? What left you quitting the things I can see civilisation handed you? This is the life of the wastrel, the fallen, the man who knows no better. It's not for men starting out in possession of all those things--you have."
Bull sat for a moment without replying. Father Adam's "dope" had done its work. His passionate moments had vanished like an ugly dream. His turbulent spirit had attained peace. Suddenly he looked up with a frank laugh.
"Now, why in hell should I tell you?"
It was an irresistible challenge. The missionary nodded his approval.
"Yes. Why--in hell--should you?"
He, too, laughed. And his laugh miraculously lit up his ascetic features.
Instantly Bull flung out one bandaged hand in a sweeping gesture.
"Why shouldn't I--anyway?" he cried, with the abandon of a man impatient of all subterfuge. "Guess I ought to turn right around and ask who the devil you are to look into my affairs? Who are you to assume the right of inquisitor?" He shook his head. "But I'm not going to. Now I'm sane again I know just how much you did for me. I meant killing Laval. Oh, yes, there wasn't a thing going to break my hold until he was dead--dead. You got me in time to save me from wrecking my whole life. And you got in at--the risk of your own. If I'd killed him all the things and purposes I've worried with since I left college would have been just so much junk; and I'd have drifted into the life of a bum lumber-jack without any sort of notion beyond rye whiskey, and the camp women, and a well swung axe. You saved me from that. You saved me from myself. Well, you're real welcome to ask me any old thing, and I'll hand you all the truth there is in me. I'm an 'illegitimate.' I'm one of the world's friendless. I'm a product of a wealthy man's licence and unscruple. I'm an outcast amongst the world's honest born. But it's no matter. I'm not on the squeal. Those who're responsible for my being did their best to hand me the things a man most needs. Mind, and body, and will. Further, they gave me all that education, books, and college can hand a feller. More than that, my father, who seems to have had more honesty than you'd expect, handed me a settlement of a hundred thousand dollars the day I became twenty-one. I never knew him, and I never knew my mother. The circumstances of my birth were simply told me on my twenty-first birthday. I know no more. And I care nothing to hunt out those spectres that don't figger to hand a feller much comfort. The rest is easy. I hope I'm a feller of some guts--"
Father Adam nodded, and his eyes lit.
"Sure," was all he commented.
"Anyway, I feel like it," Bull laughed. "When I learned all these things I started right in to think. I thought like hell. I said to myself something like this: 'There's nothing to hold me where I am. There's no one around to care a curse. There's that feeling right inside the pit of my stomach makes me feel I want to make good. I want to build up around me all that my birth has refused me. A name, a life circle, a power, a--anyway, get right out and do things! Well, what was I going to do? It needed thinking. Then I hit the notion."
He laughed again. He was gazing in at himself and laughing at the conceits he knew were real, and strong, and vital.
"Say." He nodded at the prospect through the doorway. "There it is. This country's beginning. We don't know half it means to the world yet. Well, I hadn't enough capital to play with, so I resolved right away to start in and learn a trade from its first step to its topmost rung, and to earn my keep right through. Meanwhile my capital's lying invested against the time I open out. I'm going to jump right into the groundwood pulp business when the time comes. And out of that I mean to build a name that folks won't easily forget. Well, I guess you won't find much that's interesting in all this. It don't sound anything particularly bright or new. But for what it is it's my notion, and--I'm going to put it through. That's why I'm here. I'm learning my job from the bottom."
The decision and force of the man were remarkable. The conciseness of his story, and his indifference to the tragedy of his birth, indicated a level mind under powerful control. And Father Adam knew he had made no mistake.
"It's the best story I've heard in years," he replied, a whimsical smile lighting his dark eyes.
"Is it?"
Bull's smile was no less whimsical.
"Yes. You've guts of iron, boy. And I've been looking years for just such a man."
"That sounds--tough," Bull laughed, but he was interested. "What's the job you want him for? Are you yearning to hand out a killing? Is it a trip--a trip to some waste space of God's earth that 'ud freeze up a normal heart? Do you want a feller to beat the laws of God and man? Guts of iron! It certainly sounds tough, and I'm not sure you've found the feller you're needing."
"I am."
Father Adam was no longer smiling. The gravity of his expression gave emphasis to his words.
Bull was impressed. His laugh died out.
"I don't know I'm yearning," he said deliberately. "Anyway I don't quit the track I've marked out. That way there's nothing doing. It's a crank with me; I can't quit a notion."
"You don't have to."
"No?"
They were regarding each other steadily.
"Here, it's not my way to beat around," the missionary exclaimed suddenly. "When you find the thing you need you've got to act quick and straight. Just listen a while, while I make a talk. Ask all you need as I go along. And when I've done I'd thank you for a straight answer and quick. An answer that'll hold you, and bind you the way your own notions do."
"That's talk."
Bull nodded appreciatively. The missionary let his gaze wander to the pleasant sunlight through the doorway, where the flies and mosquitoes were basking.
"There was a fellow who started up a groundwood mill 'way out on the Labrador coast. He was bright enough, and a mighty rich man. And he'd got a notion--a big notion. Well, I know him. I know him intimately. I don't know if he's a friend to me or not. Sometimes I think he isn't. Anyway, that doesn't matter to you. The thing that does matter is, he set out to do something big. His notions were always big. Maybe too big. This notion was no less than to drive the Skandinavians out of the groundwood trade of this country. He figured his great mill was to be the nucleus of an all-Canadian and British combination, embracing the entire groundwood industry of this country. It was to be Canadian trade for Canada with the British Empire."
Bull emitted a low whistle.
"An elegant slogan," he commented.
He shifted his position. In his interest his pipe had gone out, and he leant forward on his upturned box.
"Yes," Father Adam went on. "And, like your notion, it was something not easily shifted from his mind. It was planned and figured to the last detail. It was so planned it could not fail. So he thought. So all concerned thought. You see, he had ten million dollars capital of his own; and he was something of a genius at figures and finance--his people reckoned. He was a man of some purpose, and enthusiasm, and--something else."
"Ah!"
Bull's alert brain was prompt to seize upon the reservation. But denial was instant.
"No. It wasn't drink, or women, or any foolishness of that sort," the missionary said. "The whole edifice of his purpose came tumbling about his ears from a totally unexpected cause. Something happened. Something happened to the man himself. It was disaster--personal disaster. And when it came a queer sort of weakness tripped him, a weakness he had always hitherto had strength to keep under, to stifle. His courage failed him, and the bottom of his purpose fell out like--that."
Father Adam clipped his fingers in the air and his regretful eyes conveyed the rest. Then, after a moment, he smiled.
"He'd no--iron guts," he said, with a sigh. "He had no stomach for battle in face of this--this disaster that hit him."
"It has no relation to his--undertaking?"
"None whatever. I know the whole thing. We were 'intimates.' I know his whole life story. It was a disaster to shake any man."
The missionary sighed profoundly.
"Yes, I knew him intimately," he went on. "I deplored his weakness. I censured it. Perhaps I went far beyond any right of mine to condemn. I don't know. I argued with him. I did all I could to support him. You see, I appreciated the splendid notion of the thing he contemplated. More than that, I knew it could be carried out."
He shook his head.
"It was useless. This taint--this yellow streak--was part of the man. He could no more help it than you could help fighting to the death."
"Queer."
A sort of pitying contempt shone in the younger man's eyes.
"Queer?" Father Adam nodded. "It was--crazy."
"It surely was."
The missionary turned back to the prospect beyond the doorway. But it was only for a moment. He turned again and went on with added urgency.
"But the scheme wasn't wholly to be abandoned. It was--say, here was the crazy proposition he put up. You see I was his most intimate friend. He said: 'The forests are wide. They're peopled with men of our craft. There must be a hundred and more men capable of doing this thing. Of putting it through. Well, the forests must provide the man, or the idea must die.' He said: 'We must find a man!' He said: 'You--you whose mission it is to roam the length and breadth of these forests--you may find such a man. If you do--when you do--if it's years hence--send him along here, and there's ten million dollars waiting for him, and all this great mill, and these timber limits inexhaustible waiting for him to go right ahead. It doesn't matter a thing who he is, or what he is, or where he comes from, so long as he gets this idea--sticks to it faithfully--and puts it through. I want nothing out of it for myself. And the day he succeeds in the great idea all that would have been mine shall be his.'"
As Father Adam finished, he looked into the earnest, wonder-filled eyes of the other.
"Well?" he demanded.
Bull cleared his throat.
"The mill? Where is it?" He demanded.
"Sachigo. Farewell Cove."
"Sachigo! Why it's--"
"The greatest groundwood mill in the world."
There was a note of pride and triumph in the missionary's tone. But it passed unheeded. Bull was struggling with recollection.
"This man? Wasn't it Leslie Standing who built it? Didn't it break him or something? That's the story going round. There was something--"
Father Adam shook his head.
"There's ten million dollars says it didn't. Ten millions you can handle yourself."
"Gee!"
Bull drew a sharp breath. Strong, forceful as he was the figure was overwhelming.
"This--all this you're saying--offering? It's all real, true?" Bull demanded at last.
"All of it."
"You want me to go and take possession of Sachigo, and ten--Say, where's the catch?"
"There's no 'catch'--anywhere."
The denial was cold. It was almost in the tone of affronted dignity. The missionary had thrust his hand in a pocket. Now he produced a large, sealed envelope. Bull's eyes watched the movement, but bewilderment was still apparent in them. Suddenly he raised a bandaged hand, and smoothed back his hair.
Father Adam held out the sealed letter. It was addressed to "Bat Harker," at Sachigo Mill.
"Here," he said quietly. "You're the man with iron guts Leslie Standing wants for his purpose. Take this. Go right off to Sachigo and take charge of the greatest enterprise in the world's paper industry. You're looking to make good. It's your set purpose to make good in the groundwood industry. Opportunities don't come twice in a lifetime. If you've the iron courage I believe, you'll grab this chance. You'll grab it right away. Will you? Can you do it? Have you the nerve?"
There was a taunt in the challenge. It was calculated. There was something else. The missionary's dark eyes were almost pleading.
Bull seized the letter. He almost snatched it.
"Will I do it? Can I do it? Have I the nerve?" he cried, in a tone of fierce exulting. "If there's a feller crazy enough to hand me ten million dollars and trust me with a job--if it was as big as a war between nations--I'd never squeal. Can I? Will I? Sure I will. And time'll answer the other for you. Iron guts, eh! I tell you in this thing they're chilled steel."
"Good!"
Father Adam was smiling. A great relief, a great happiness stirred his pulses as he stood up and moved over to the miserable fire with its burden of stewing food.
"Now we'll eat," he said. And he stooped down and stirred the contents of the pot. _