Donald left the following morning in the automobile for the logging-camps up-river, and because of his unfamiliarity with their present location, his father's chauffeur drove him up. He was to be gone all week, but planned to return Saturday afternoon to spend Sunday with his family.
As the car wound up the narrow river road, Donald found himself thinking of Nan Brent and her tragedy. Since his visit to the Sawdust Pile the day before, two pictures of her had persisted in his memory, every detail of both standing forth distinctly.
In the first, she was a shabby, barelegged girl of thirteen, standing in the cockpit of his sloop, holding the little vessel on its course while he and old Caleb took a reef in the mainsail. The wilderness of gold that was her uncared-for hair blew behind her like a sunny burgee; her sea-blue eyes were fixed on the mainsail, out of which she adroitly spilled the wind at the proper moment, in order that Donald and her father might haul the reef-points home and make them fast. In his mind's eye, he could see the pulse beating in her throat as they prepared to come about, for on such occasions she always became excited; he saw again the sweet curve of her lips and her uplifted chin; he heard again her shrill voice crying, "Ready, about!" and saw the spokes spin as she threw the helm over and crouched from the swinging boom, although it cleared her pretty head by at least three feet. He listened again to her elfin laugh as she let the sloop fall off sufficiently to take the lip of a comber over the starboard counter and force Donald and her father to seek shelter from the spray in the lee of the mainsail, from which sanctuary, with more laughter, she presently routed them by causing the spray to come in over the port counter.
The other picture was the pose in which he had seen her the morning previous at the Sawdust Pile, when, to hide her emotion, she had half turned from him and gazed so forlornly out across the Bight of Tyee. It had struck him then, with peculiar force, that Nan Brent never again would laugh that joyous elfin laugh of other days. He had seen the pulse beating in her creamy neck again--a neck fuller, rounder, glorious with the beauty of fully developed womanhood. And the riot of golden hair was subdued, with the exception of little wayward wisps that whipped her white temples. Her eyes, somewhat darker now, like the sea near the horizon after the sun has set but while the glory of the day still lingers, were bright with unshed tears. The sweet curves of her mouth were drawn in pain. The northwest trade-wind blowing across the bight had whipped her gingham dress round her, revealing the soft curves of a body, the beauty of which motherhood had intensified rather than diminished. Thus she had stood, the outcast of Port Agnew, and beside her the little badge of her shame, demanding the father he had never known and would never see.
The young laird of Tyee wondered what sort of man could have done this thing--this monumental wickedness. His great fists were clenched as there welled within him a black rage at the scoundrel who had so wantonly wrecked that little home on the Sawdust Pile. He wondered, with the arrogance of his years, assuming unconsciously the right of special privilege, if Nan would ever reveal to him the identity of the villain. Perhaps, some day, in a burst of confidence, she might. Even if she did tell him, what could he do? To induce the recreant lover to marry her openly and legally would, he knew, be the world's way of "righting the wrong" and giving the baby a name, but the mischief had been done too long, and could never be undone unless, indeed, a marriage certificate, with proper dating, could be flaunted in the face of an iconoclastic and brutal world. Even then, there would remain that astute and highly virtuous few who would never cease to impart in whispers the information that, no matter what others might think,
they had their doubts. He was roused from his bitter cogitations by the chauffeur speaking.
"This is Darrow, Mr. Donald. I don't believe you've seen it, have you? Darrow put in his mill and town while you were away."
Donald looked over the motley collection of shacks as the automobile rolled down the single unpaved street.
"Filthy hole," he muttered. "Hello! There's one of my late friends from the Sawdust Pile."
A woman, standing in the open door of a shanty on the outskirts of the town had made a wry face and thrust out her tongue at him. He lifted his hat gravely, whereat she screamed a curse upon him. An instant later, an empty beer-bottle dropped with a crash in the tonneau, and Donald, turning, beheld in the door of a Darrow groggery one of the Greek fishermen He had dispossessed.
"Stop the car!" Donald commanded. "I think that man wants to discuss a matter with me."
"Sorry, sir, but I don't think it's wise to obey you just now," his father's chauffeur answered, and trod on the accelerator. "They call that place the 'Bucket of Blood,' and you'll need something more than your fists if you expect to enter there and come out under your own power."
"Very well. Some other time, perhaps."
"You don't appear to be popular in Darrow, Mr. Donald."
"Those people left the Sawdust Pile yesterday--in a hurry," Donald explained. "Naturally, they're still resentful."
"They were making quite a little money down there, I believe. Folks do say business was good, and when you take money from that kind of cattle you make a worth-while enemy. If I were you, sir, I'd watch my step in dark alleys, and I'd carry a gun."
"When I have to carry a gun to protect myself from vermin like that mulatto and those shifty little Greeks, I'll be a few years older than I am now, Henry. However, I suppose I'd be foolish to neglect your warning to mind my step."
He spent a busy week in the woods, and it was his humor to spend it entirely felling trees. The tough, experienced old choppers welcomed him with keen interest and played freeze-out each night in the bunk-houses to see which one should draw him for a partner next day; for the choppers worked in pairs, likewise the cross-cut men. Their bucolic sense of humor impelled the choppers to speed up when they found themselves paired with the new boss, for it would have been a feather in the cap of the man who could make him quit or send him home at nightfall "with his tail dragging," as the woods boss expressed it.
Donald sported a wondrous set of blisters at the close of that first day, but after supper he opened them, covered them with adhesive tape, and went back to work next morning as if nothing had happened. During those five days, he learned considerable of the art of dropping a tree exactly where he desired it, and bringing it to earth without breakage. He rode down to Port Agnew with the woods crew on the last log-train Saturday night, walked into the mill office, and cashed in his time-slip for five days' work as a chopper. He had earned two dollars a day and his board and lodging. His father, who had driven into town to meet him, came to the window and watched him humorously.
"So that's the way you elect to work it, eh?" he queried. "I told Daney to pay you my salary when I quit."
"I like to feel that I'm earning my stipend," Donald replied, "so it pleases me to draw the wages of the job I'm working at. When I'm thoroughly acquainted with all the jobs in the Tyee Lumber Company, or at least have a good working knowledge of them, I think I'll be a better boss."
The Laird took his son's big brown hands in his and looked at the palms.
"I rather think I like it so," he answered. "A man whose hands have never bled or whose back has never ached is a poor man to judge a labor dispute. 'Twould improve you if you were a married man and had to live on that for a week, less twenty-five cents for your hospital dues. The choppers pay a dollar a month toward the hospital, and that covers medical attendance for them and their families."
Donald laughed and flipped a quarter over to the cashier, then turned and handed ten dollars to a wiry little chopper standing in line.
"I was feeling so good this morning I bet Sandy my week's pay I could fell a tree quicker than he and with less breakage. He won in a walk," he explained to The Laird.
"Come with me," his father ordered, and led him into the office.
From the huge safe he selected a ledger, scanned the index, and opened it at a certain account headed, "Sandy dough." To Sandy's credit each month, extending over a period of fifteen years, appeared a credit of thirty dollars.
"That's what it's costing me to have discovered Sandy," his father informed him; "but since I had served an apprenticeship as a chopper, the time required to discover Sandy was less than half an hour, I watched him one day when he didn't know who I was--so I figured him for a man and a half and raised him a dollar a day. He doesn't know it, however. If he did, he'd brag about it, and I'd have to pay as much to men half as good. When he's chopped for us twenty years, fire him and give him that. He's earned it. Thus endeth the first lesson, my son. Now come home to dinner."
After dinner, Donald returned to town to buy himself some working-clothes at the general store. His purchases completed, he sought the juvenile department.
"I want some kid's clothing," he announced. "To fit a child of three. Rompers, socks, shoes--the complete outfit. Charge them to my account and send them over to Nan Brent at the Sawdust Pile. I'll give you a note to enclose with them."
Notwithstanding the fact that she was an employe of the Tyee Lumber Company, the girl who waited on him stared at him frankly. He noticed this and bent upon her a calm glance that brought a guilty flush to her cheek. Quickly she averted her eyes, but, nevertheless she had a feeling that the young laird of Tyee was still appraising her, and, unable to withstand the fascination peculiar to such a situation, she looked at him again to verify her suspicions--and it was even so. In great confusion she turned to her stock, and Donald, satisfied that he had squelched her completely, went into the manager's office, wrote, and sealed the following note to Nan Brent:
Saturday night. FRIEND NAN:
Here are some duds for the young fellow. You gave me the right to look after him, you know; at least, you didn't decline it. At any rate, I think you will not mind accepting them from me.
I sent to Seattle for some books I thought you might like. They have probably arrived by parcel-post. Sent you a box of candy, also, although I have forgotten the kind you used to prefer.
Been up in the logging-camp all week, chopping, and I ache all over. Expect to be hard and not quite so weary by next week-end, and will call over for Sunday dinner.
Sincerely, DONALD McKAYE
He spent Sunday at The Dreamerie, and at four o'clock Sunday afternoon boarded the up train and returned to the logging-camp. Mrs. Andrew Daney, seated in Sunday-afternoon peace upon her front veranda, looked up from the columns of the
Churchman as the long string of logging-trucks wound round the base of the little knoll upon which the general manager's home stood; but even at a distance of two blocks, she recognized the young laird of Tyee in the cab with the engineer.
"Dear, dear!" this good soul murmured. "And such a nice young man, too! I should think he'd have more consideration for his family, if not for himself."
"Who's that?" Mr. Daney demanded, emerging from behind the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer.
"Donald McKaye."
"What about him?" Mr. Daney demanded, with slight emphasis on the pronoun.
"Oh, nothing; only--"
"Only what?"
"People say he's unduly interested in Nan Brent."
"If he is, that's his business. Don't let what people say trouble you, Mrs. Daney."
"Well, can I help it if people will talk?"
"Yes--when they talk to you."
"How do you know they've been talking to me, Andrew?" she demanded foolishly.
"Because you know what they say." Andrew Daney rose from the wicker deck-chair in which he had been lounging and leveled his index-finger at the partner of his joys and sorrows. "You forget Donald McKaye and that Brent girl," he ordered. "It's none of your business. All Don has to say to me is, 'Mr. Daney, your job is vacant'--and, by Judas Priest, it'll be vacant. Remember that, my dear."
"Nonsense, dear. The Laird wouldn't permit it--after all these years."
"If it comes to a test of strength, I'll lose, and don't you forget it. Old sake's sake is all that saved me from a run-in with Donald before he had been in command fifteen minutes. I refer to that Sawdust Pile episode. You dissuaded me from doing my duty in that matter, Mary, and my laxity was not pleasing to Donald. I don't blame him a whit."
"Did he say anything?" she demanded, a trifle alarmed.
"No; but he looked it."
"How did he look, Andrew?"
"He looked," her husband replied, "like the Blue Bonnets coming over the border--that's what he looked like. Then he went down to the Sawdust Pile like a raging demon, cleaned it out in two twos, and put it to the torch. You be careful what you say to people, Mary. Get that boy started once, and he'll hark back to his paternal ancestors; and if The Laird has ever told you the history of that old claymore that hangs on the wall in The Dreamerie, you know that the favorite outdoor sports of the McKaye tribe were fighting and foot-racing--with the other fellow in front."
"The Laird is mild enough," she defended.
"Yes, he is. But when he was young, he could, and frequently did, whip twice his weight in bear-cats. Old as he is to-day, he's as sound as a man of forty; he wouldn't budge an inch for man or devil."
Mrs. Daney carefully folded the
Churchman, laid it aside, and placed her spectacles with it.
"Andrew, I know it's terrible of me to breathe such a thing, but--did it ever occur to you that--perhaps--the father of Nan Brent's child might be--"
"Donald?" he exploded incredulously.
She nodded, and about her nod there was something of that calm self-confidence of an attorney who is winning his case and desires to impress that fact upon the jury.
"By God, woman," cried Daney, "you have the most infernal ideas--"
"Andrew! Remember it's the Sabbath!"
"It's a wonder my language doesn't shrivel this paper. Now then, where in hades do you get this crazy notion?" Daney was thoroughly angry. She gazed up at him in vague apprehension. Had she gone too far? Suddenly he relaxed. "No; don't tell me," he growled. "I'll not be a gossip. God forgive me, I was about to befoul the very salt I eat. I'll not be disloyal."
"But, Andrew dear, don't you know I wouldn't dare breathe it to anyone but you?"
"I don't know how much you'd dare. At any rate, I'll excuse you from breathing it to me, for I'm not interested. I know it isn't true."
"Then, Andrew, it is your duty to tell me why you know it isn't true, in order that I may set at rest certain rumors--"
"You--mind--your--own--business, Mary!" he cried furiously, punctuating each word with a vigorous tap of his finger on the arm of her chair. "The McKayes meet their responsibilities as eagerly as they do their enemies. If that child were young Donald's, he'd have married the Brent girl, and if he had demurred about it, The Laird would have ordered him to."
"Thank you for that vote of confidence in the McKaye family, Andrew," said a quiet voice. "I think you have the situation sized up just right."
Andrew Daney whirled; his wife glanced up, startled, then half rose and settled back in her chair again, for her legs absolutely refused to support her. Standing at the foot of the three steps that led off the veranda was Hector McKaye!
"I drove Donald down from The Dreamerie to catch the up train, and thought I'd drop over and visit with you a bit," he explained. "I didn't intend to eavesdrop, and I didn't--very much; but since I couldn't help overhearing such a pertinent bit of conversation, I'll come up and we'll get to the bottom of it. Keep your seat, Mrs. Daney."
The advice was unnecessary. The poor soul could not have left it. The Laird perched himself on the veranda railing, handed the dumfounded Daney a cigar, and helped himself to one.
"Well, proceed," The Laird commanded. His words apparently were addressed to both, but his glance was fixed on Mrs. Daney--and now she understood full well her husband's description of the McKaye look.
"I had finished what I had to say, Mr. McKaye," Andrew Daney found courage to say.
"So I noted, Andrew, and right well and forcibly you said it. I'm grateful to you. I make no mistake, I think, if your statement wasn't in reply to some idle tale told your good wife and repeated by her to you--in confidence, of course, as between man and wife."
"If you'll excuse me, Mr. McKaye, I--I'd rather not--discuss it!" Mary Daney cried breathlessly.
"I would I did not deem it a duty to discuss it myself, Mary. But you must realize that when the tongue of scandal touches my son, it becomes a personal matter with me, and I must look well for a weapon to combat it. You'll tell me now, Mary, what they've been saying about Donald and Caleb Brent's daughter."
"Andrew will tell you," she almost whispered, and made as if to go. But The Laird's fierce eyes deterred her; she quailed and sat down again.
"Andrew cannot tell me, because Andrew doesn't know," The Laird rebuked her kindly. "I heard him tell you not to tell him, that he wasn't a gossip, and wouldn't befoul the salt he ate by being disloyal, or words to that effect. Is it possible, Mary Daney, that you prefer me to think you are not inspired by similar sentiments? Don't cry, Mary--compose yourself."
"Idleness is the mother of mischief, and since the children have grown up and left home, Mary hasn't enough to keep her busy," Daney explained. "So, womanlike and without giving sober thought to the matter, she's been listening to the idle chattering of other idle women. Now then, my dear," he continued, turning to his wife, "that suspicion you just voiced didn't grow in your head. Somebody put it there--and God knows it found fertile soil. Out with it now, wife! Who've you been gossiping with?"
"I'll name no names," the unhappy woman sobbed; "but somebody told me that somebody else was down at the Sawdust Pile the day Donald burned those shacks, and after be burned them he spent an hour in the Brent cottage, and when he came out he had the baby in his arms. When he left, the child made a great to-do and called him, 'daddy.'"
The Laird smiled.
"Well, Mary, what would you expect the boy to do? Beat the child? To my knowledge, he's been robbing the candy department of my general store for years, and the tots of Port Agnew have been the beneficiaries of his vandalism. He was born with a love of children. And would you convict him on the prattle of an innocent child in arms?"
"Certainly not, Mr. McKaye. I understand. Well then, on Saturday night he sent over a complete outfit of clothing for the child, with a note in the bundle--"
"Hm-m-m."
"And then somebody remembered that the child's name is Donald."
"How old is that child, Mrs. Daney?"
She considered.
"As I recall it, he'll be three years old in October."
"Since, you're a married woman, Mrs. Daney," The Laird began, with old-fashioned deprecation for the blunt language he was about to employ, "you'll admit that the child wasn't found behind one of old Brent's cabbages. This is the year 1916."
But Mrs. Daney anticipated him.
"They've figured it out," she interrupted, "and Donald was home from college for the holidays in 1912."
"So he was," The Laird replied complacently. "I'd forgotten. So that alibi goes by the board. What else now? Does the child resemble my son?"
"Nobody knows. Nan Brent doesn't receive visitors, and she hasn't been up-town since the child was born."
"Is that all, Mary?"
"All I have heard so far."
Old Hector was tempted to tell her that, in his opinion, she had heard altogether too much, but his regard for her husband caused him to refrain.
"It's little enough, and yet it's a great deal," he answered. "You'll be kind enough, Mary, not to carry word of this idle gossip to The Dreamerie, I should regret that very much."
She flushed with the knowledge that, although he forgave her, still he distrusted her and considered a warning necessary. However, she nodded vigorous acceptance of his desire, and immediately he changed the topic. While, for him, the quiet pleasure he had anticipated in the visit had not materialized and he longed to leave at once, for Daney's sake he remained for tea. When he departed, Mrs. Daney ran to her room and found surcease from her distress in tears, while her husband sat out on the veranda smoking one of The Laird's fine cigars, his embarrassment considerably alleviated by the knowledge that his imprudent wife had received a lesson that should last for the remainder of her life.
About eight o'clock, his wife called him to the telephone. The Laird was on the wire.
"In the matter of the indiscreet young lady in the store, Andrew," he ordered, "do not dismiss her or reprimand her. The least said in such cases is soonest mended."
"Very well, sir."
"Good-night, Andrew."
"Good-night, sir."
"Poor man!" Daney sighed, as he hung up. "He's thought of nothing else since he heard about it; it's a canker in his heart. I wish I dared indicate to Donald the fact that he's being talked about--and watched--by the idle and curious, in order that he may bear himself accordingly. He'd probably misunderstand my motives however."