 8 Along the well-remembered streets of Sequoia, Bryce Cartigan and his father walked arm in arm, their progress continuously interrupted by well-meaning but impulsive Sequoians, who insisted upon halting the pier to shake hands with Bryce and bid him welcome home. In the presence of those third parties, the old man quickly conquered the agitation he had felt at this long-deferred meeting with his son, and when presently they left the business section of the town and turned into a less-frequented street, his emotion assumed the character of a quiet joy evidenced in a more erect bearing and a firmer tread, as if he strove, despite his seventy-six years, not to appear in Congress as he walked beside his splendid son. I wish I could see you more clearly, he said presently. His voice, as well as his words, expressed profound regret, but there was no hint of despair or heartbreak now. Bryce, who up to this moment had refrained from discussing his father's misfortunes, drew the old man a little closer to his side. What's wrong with your eyes, pal? he queried. He did not often address his parent after the fashion of most sons as father, dad, or pop. They were closer to each other than that. And a rare sense of perfect comradeship found expression on Bryce's part in such salutations as pal, partner, and infrequently old sport. When arguing with his father, protesting with him or affectionately scolding him, Bryce, with mock seriousness, sometimes called the old man John Cartigan. Cataracts, son, his father answered, merely the penalty of old age. But can't something be done about it? demanded Bryce. Can't they be cured somehow or other? Certainly they can, but I have to wait until they are completely matured and I have become completely blind. Then a specialist will perform an operation on my eyes, and in all probability my sight will be restored for a few years. However, I haven't given the matter a great deal of consideration. At my age one doesn't find very much difficulty in making the best of everything. And I am about ready to quit now. I'd like to, in fact. I'm tired. Oh, but you can't quit until you've seen your redwoods again, Bryce reminded him. I suppose it's been a long time since you've visited the Valley of the Giants. Your long exile from the wood problems has made you a trifle gloomy, I'm afraid. John Cartigan nodded. I haven't seen them in a year and a half, Bryce. Last time I was up I slipped between the logs on the old skid-road and liked to broke my old, full neck. But even that wasn't warning enough for me. I cracked right on into the timber and got lost. Lost? Poor old partner. And what did you do about it? It's a sensible thing, my boy. I just sat down under a tree and waited for George Seawater to trail me and bring me home. And did he find you, or did you have to spend the night in the woods? John Cartigan smiled humorously. I did not. A long about sunset George found me. Seems he had been following me all the time, and when I sat down he waited to make certain whether I was lost or just taking a rest where I could be quiet and think. I've been leaving to an Indian the fulfilment of my duty, Bryce murmured bitterly. No, no, son. You have never been deficient in that, the old man protested. Why didn't you have the old skid-road planked with refuse lumber so you wouldn't fall through? And you might have had the woods-boss swamp a new trail into the timber and fence it on both sides in order that you might feel your way along. Yes, quite true, admitted the old man. But then I don't spend money quite as freely as I used to, Bryce. I consider carefully now before I part with a dollar. Pal, it wasn't fair of you to make me stay away so long. If I had only known, if I had remotely suspected, you would have spoiled everything, of course. Don't scold me, son. You're all I have now, and I couldn't bear to send for you until you'd had your flank. His trembling old hand crept over and closed upon his boy's hand, so firm but free from signs of toil. It was my pleasure, Bryce, he continued, and you wouldn't deny me my choice of sport, would you? Remember, lad, I never had a boyhood. I never had a college education, and the only real travel I ever had was when I worked my way around Cape Horn as a foremost hand. And all I saw then was water and hardships. All I've seen since is my little world here in Sequoia and in San Francisco. You've sacrificed enough, too much for me, Dad. It pleased me to give you all the advantages I wanted and couldn't afford until I was too old and too busy to consider them. Besides, it was your mother's wish. We made plans for you before you were born, and I promised her, ah, well, why be a cry, baby? I knew I could manage until you were ready to settle down to business. And you have enjoyed your little run, haven't you? he concluded wistfully. I have, Dad. Bryce's great hand closed over the back of his father's neck. He shook the old man with mock ferocity. Stubborn old lumberjack, he chided. John Cartigan shook with an inward chuckle, for the loving abuse his boy had formed a habit of heaping on him never failed to thrill him. Instinctively Bryce had realized that tonight obvious sympathy copiously expressed was not the medicine for his father's bruised spirit. Hence he elected to regard the latter's blindness as a mere temporary annoyance, something to be considered lightly, if at all. And it was typical of him now that the subject had been discussed briefly to resolve never to refer to it again. He released his hold on the old man's neck and tapped the latter's grey head lightly, while with his tongue he made hollow-sounding noises against the roof of his mouth. Ha! I thought so, he declared. After your fifty-odd years in the lumber business your head has become packed with sawdust. Be serious and talk to me, Bryce. I ought to send you to bed without your supper. Talk to you. You bet I'll talk to you, John Cartigan. And I'll tell you things, too, you scandalous bunco-steer. Tomorrow morning I'm going to put a pair of overalls on you, arm you with a tin can and a swab, and set you to greasing the skid ways. Partner, you've deceived me. Oh, nonsense. If I had whimpered, that would only have spoiled everything. Nevertheless you were forced to cable me to hurry home. I summoned you the instant I realized I was going to need you. No you didn't, John Cartigan. You summoned me because, for the first time in your life, you were panicky and let yourself get out a hand. His father nodded slowly. You aren't over it yet, Bryce continued, his voice no longer bantering but lowered affectionately. What's the trouble, Dad? Trot out your old panic and let me inspect it. Trouble must be very real when it gets my father on the run. It is, Bryce, very real indeed. As I remarked before, I've lost your heritage for you, he sighed. I waited till you would be able to come home and settle down to business. Now you're home, and there isn't any business to settle down to. Bryce chuckled, for he was indeed far from being worried over business matters. His consideration now being entirely for his father's peace of mind. All right! he retorted. Father has lost his money and will have to let the servants go and give up the old home. That part of it has settled, and weak, anemic, tenderly nurtured little Bryce Cartigan must put his turkey on his back and go into the woods looking for a job as lumberjack. Busted, huh? Did I or did I not hear the six o'clock whistle blow at the mill? Bet you a dollar I did. Oh! I have titled to everything yet. How I do have to dig for good news. Then it appears we still have a business. Indeed, we may always have a business, for the very fact that it is going, but not quite gone, implies a doubt as to its ultimate departure, and perhaps we may yet scheme away to retain it. Oh! my boy! When I think of my years of toil and scheming, of the big dreams I dreamed, belay all. If we can save enough out of the wreck to ensure you your customary home comforts, I shan't cry, partner. I have a profession to fall back on. Yes, sir, re. I own a sheepskin, and it says I'm an electrical and civil engineer. What? I said it. An electrical and civil engineer. Slipped one over on you at college, John Cartigan, when all the time you thought I was having a good time. Thought I'd come home and surprise you. But, but... It drives me wild to have a man sputter at me. I'm an electrical and civil engineer, I tell you, and my two years of travel have been spent studying the installation and construction of big plants abroad. He commenced to chuckle softly. I've known for years that our sawmill was a debilitated old coffee grinder and would have to be rebuilt. So I wanted to know how to rebuild it. And I've known for years that some day I might have to build a logging railroad. My dear boy! And you've got your degree? Partner, I have a string of letters after my name like the tail of a comet. You comfort me, the old man answered simply. I have reproached myself with the thought that I reared you with the sole thought of making a lumberman out of you. And when I saw your lumber business slipping through my fingers, you were sorry I didn't have a profession to fall back on, huh? Or were you fearful lest you had raised the usual rich man's son? If the latter you did not compliment me, pal. I've never forgotten how hard you always strove to impress me with a sense of the exact weight of my responsibility as your successor. How big are you now, his father queried suddenly? Well, sir, Bryce answered, for his father's pleasure putting aside his normal modesty. I am six feet two inches tall and I weigh two hundred pounds in the pink of condition. I have a forty-eight inch chest with five and a half inches chest expansion and a reach as long as a gorilla's. My underpinning is good too. I'm not one of these fellows with spidery legs and a barrel chest. I can do a hundred yards in ten seconds. I'm no slouch of a swimmer, and at Princeton they say I made football history. And in spite of it all, I haven't an athletic heart. That is very encouraging, my boy. Very. Ever do any boxing? Quite a little. I'm fairly up in the manly art of self-defense. That's good. And I suppose you did some wrestling at your college gymnasium, did you not? Naturally. I went in for everything my big carcass could stand. The old man wagged his head approvingly, and they had reached the gate of the cardigan home before he spoke again. There is a big Buck Woods boss up in Pennington's camp, he remarked irrelevantly. He's a French-Canadian imported from northern Michigan by Colonel Pennington. I daresay he's the only man in this country who measures up to you physically. He can fight with his fists and wrestle right cleverly, I'm told. His name is Jules Rondeau, and he's top dog among the lumberjacks. They say he's the strongest man in the county. He unleashed the gate. Folks used to say that about me once, he continued wistfully. Ah, if I could have my eyes to see you meet Jules Rondeau. The front portal of the quaint old cardigan residence opened, and a silver-haired lady came out on the porch and hailed Bryce. She was Mrs. Tully, John Cardigan's old housekeeper, and almost a mother to Bryce. Oh, here's my boy! She cried, and a moment later found herself encircled by Bryce's arms and saluted with a hearty kiss. As she stepped into the familiar entrance hall, Bryce paused, raised his head, and sniffed suspiciously like a bird-dog. Mrs. Tully arms a Kimbo, watched him pleasurably. I smell something, he declared, and advanced to step down the hall for another sniff. Then, in exact imitation of a foxhound, he gave tongue and started for the kitchen. Mrs. Tully, waddling after, found him pointing two hot Blackberry Pies which had but a few minutes previous been taken from the oven. He was baying legubriously. "'They're wild Blackberries, too,' Mrs. Tully announced pridefully. "'I remembered how fond you used to be a wild Blackberry Pie. So I phoned up the logging-camp and had the woods-boss send a man out to pick them.' "'I'm still a Pie-hound, Mrs. Tully, and you're still the same dear thoughtful soul.' "'I'm so glad now that I had sense enough to think of you before I turned my footsteps toward the setting sun,' he patted her gray head. "'Mrs. T,' he declared, "'I've brought you a nice big collar of Irish lace. Bought it in Belfast, by gosh. It comes down around your neck and buckles right here with an old ivory cameo I picked up in Burma, and which formerly was the property of a Hindu queen.' Mrs. Tully simpered with pleasure and protested that her boy was too kind. "'You haven't changed a single speck,' she concluded proudly. "'Has the Pie?' "'I should say not. "'How many did you make?' "'Two.' "'May I have one all for myself, Mrs. Tully?' "'Indeed you may, my dear.' "'Thank you, but I do not want it for myself.' "'Mrs. Tully, will you please wrap one of those wonderful pies in a napkin, and the instant George Sea Otter comes in with the car, tell him to take the pie over to Colonel Pennington's house and deliver it to Miss Sumner?' "'There's a girl who doubtless thinks she has tasted pie in her day, and I want to prove to her that she hasn't.' He selected a card from his card case, sat down, and wrote, "'Dear Miss Sumner, here is a priceless, hut, wild, blackberry pie, especially manufactured in my honor. It is so good I wanted you to have some. In all your life you have never tasted anything like it.'" Sincerely, Bryce Cardigan. He handed the card to Mrs. Tully and repaired to his old room to remove the stains of travel before joining his father at dinner. Some twenty minutes later his unusual votive offering was delivered by George Sea Otter to Colonel Pennington's Swedish maid, who promptly brought it into the Colonel and Shirley Sumner, who were even then at dinner in the Colonel's fine, burl-redwood paneled dining-room. Miss Sumner's amazement was so profound that for fully a minute she was mute, contenting herself with scrutinizing alternately the pie and the card that accompanied it. Presently she handed the card to her uncle, who affixed his pince-nez and read the epistle with deliberation. Isn't this young Cardigan a truly remarkable young man, Shirley? he declared. Why, I have never heard of anything like his astounding action. If he had sent you over an armful of American beauty roses from his father's old-fashioned garden I could understand it. But an infernal blackberry pie? Good heavens! I told you he was different, she replied. After the Colonel's amazement, she did not appear at all amused. Colonel Pennington poked a fork through the delicate brown crust. I wonder if it is really as good as he says it is, Shirley? Of course! If it wasn't, he wouldn't have sent it. How do you know? By intuition, she replied, and she cut into the pie and helped the Colonel to a quadrant of it. That was a genuine hasty faux pas, announced the Colonel a few moments later, as Shirley was pouring coffee from a Samovar-shaped percolator in the library. The idea of anybody who has enjoyed the advantages that fellow has, sending a hot blackberry pie to a girl he has just met. Yes, the idea, she echoed, I find it rather charming. You mean amusing! I said charming. Bryce Cardigan is a man with the heart and soul of a boy, and I think it was mighty sweet of him to share his pie with me. If he had sent roses, I should have suspected him of trying to rush me. But the fact that he sent a blackberry pie proves that he's just a natural, simple, sane, original citizen. Just the kind of person a girl can have for a dear friend without incurring the risk of having to marry him. I repeat that this is most extraordinary. Only because it is an unusual thing for a young man to do, although, after all, why shouldn't he send me a blackberry pie if he thought a blackberry pie would please me more than an armful of roses? Besides, he may send the roses to-morrow. Most extraordinary, the Colonel reiterated. What should one expect from such an extraordinary creature? He's an extraordinary fine-looking young man, with an extraordinary scowl and an extraordinary crinkly smile that is friendly and generous and free from masculine guile. Why, I think he's just the kind of man who would send a girl a blackberry pie. The Colonel noticed a calm little smile fringing her generous mouth. He wished he could tell, by intuition, what she was thinking about, and what effect a hot, wild blackberry pie was ultimately to have upon the value of his minority holding in the Laguna Grande Lumber Company. CHAPTER IX Not until dinner was finished and father and son had repaired to the library, for their coffee and cigars, did Bryce Cartigan advert to the subject of his father's business affairs. Well, John Cartigan, he declared comfortably, today is Friday. I'll spend Saturday and Sunday in sinful sloth and the renewal of old acquaintance. And on Monday I'll sit in at your desk and give you a long deferred vacation. How about that, program part? Our affairs are in such shape that they could not possibly be hurt or bettered, no matter who takes charge of them now, Cartigan replied bitterly. We're about through. I waited too long and trusted too far. And now, well, in a year we'll be out of business. Suppose you start at the beginning and tell me everything right to the end. George Sea Otter informed me that you've been having trouble with this, Johnny, come lately, Colonel Pennington. Is he the man who has us where the hair is short? The old man nodded. The Squaw Creek Timber Deal, huh? Bryce suggested. Again, the old man nodded. You wrote me all about that, Bryce continued. You had him blocked whichever way he turned. So effectually blocked, in fact, that the only pleasure he has derived from his investment since is the knowledge that he owns two thousand acres of timber with the exclusive rights to pay taxes on it, walk in it, look at it, and admire it. In fact, do everything except log it, mill it, and realize on his investment. It must make him feel like a bolly jackass. On the other hand, his father reminded him, no matter what the Colonel's feelings on that score may be, misery loves company. And not until I had pulled out of the Squaw Creek country and started logging in the Sanhedrin watershed did I realize that I had been considerable of a jackass myself. Yes, Bryce admitted, there can be no doubt but that you cut off your nose despite your face. There was silence between them for several minutes. Bryce's thoughts harked back to that first season of logging in the Sanhedrin, when the cloudburst had caught the river filled with cardigan logs and whirled them down to the bay to crash through the log-boom at Tidewater and continue out to the open sea. In his mind's eye he could still see the red ink figures on the profit and loss statement Sinclair, his father's manager, had presented at the end of that year. The old man appeared to divine the trend of his son's thoughts. Yes, Bryce, that was a disastrous year, he declared. The mere loss of the logs was a severe blow, but in addition I had to pay out quite a little money to settle with my customers. I was loaded up with low-priced orders that year, although I didn't expect to make any money. The orders were merely taken to keep the men employed. You understand, Bryce. I had a good crew, the finest in the country, and if I had shut down my men would have scattered and, well, you know how hard it is to get that kind of a crew together again. Besides, I had never failed my boys before and I couldn't bear the thought of failing them then. Half the mills in the country were shut down at the time and there was a lot of distress among the unemployed. I couldn't do it, Bryce. Bryce nodded. And when you lost the logs you couldn't fill those low-priced orders. Then the market commenced to jump and advance three dollars in three months. Exactly, my son! And my customers began to crowd me to fill those old orders. Praise be! My regular customers knew I wasn't the kind of lumberman who tries to crawl out of filling low-priced orders after the market has gone up. Nevertheless, I couldn't expect them to suffer with me. My failure to perform my contracts, while unavoidable, nevertheless would have caused them a severe loss. And when they were forced to buy elsewhere, I paid them the difference between the price they paid my competitors and the price at which they originally placed their orders with me. And the delay in delivery caused them further loss. How much? Nearly a hundred thousand, to settle for losses to my local customers alone. Among my orders I had three million feet of clear lumber for shipment to the United Kingdom, and these foreign customers, thinking I was trying to crawfish on my contracts, sued me and got judgment for actual and exemplary damages for my failure to perform, while the demerge on the ships they sent to freight the lumber sent me hustling to the bank to borrow money. He smoked meditatively for a minute. I've always been land-poor, he explained apologetically. Never kept much of a reserve work in capital for emergencies, you know. Whenever I had idle money I put it into timber in the San Hedron watershed, because I realized that some day the railroad would build in from the south, tap that timber and double its value. I have not as yet found reason to doubt the wisdom of my course, but, he sighed, the railroad is a long time coming. John Cartigan here spoke of a most important factor in the situation. The crying need of the country was a feeder to some transcontinental railroad. By reason of natural barriers Humboldt County was not easily accessible to the outside world except from the sea, and even this avenue of ingress and egress would be closed for days at a stretch when the harbour bar was on a rampage. With the exception of a strip of level fertile land, perhaps five miles wide and thirty miles long, and contiguous to the sea coast, the heavily timbered mountains to the north, east and south rendered the building of a railroad that would connect Humboldt County with the outside world a profoundly difficult and expensive task. The northwestern Pacific, indeed, had been slowly building from San Francisco Bay up through Marin and Sonoma Counties to Willets and Mendocino County. But there it had stuck to await that indefinite day when its finances, and the courage of its board of directors, should prove equal to the colossal task of continuing the road two hundred miles through the mountains to Sequoia on Humboldt Bay. For twenty years the Humboldt pioneers had lived in hope of this. But eventually they had died in despair, or were in process of doing so. Don't worry, Dad, it'll come, Bryce assured his father. It's bound to. Yes, but not in my day, and when it comes a stranger may own your Sanhedrin timber and reap the reward of my lifetime of labor. Again a silence fell between them, broken presently by the old man. That was a mistake, logging in the Sanhedrin, he observed. I had my lesson that first year, but I didn't heed it. If I had abandoned my camps there, pocketed my pride, paid Colonel Pennington two dollars for his Squaw Creek timber, and rebuilt my old logging-road, I would have been safe today. But I was stubborn. I'd played the game so long, you know, I didn't want to let that man Pennington out game me. So I tackled the Sanhedrin again. We put thirty million feet of logs into the river that year, and when the fresh it came, MacTavish managed to make a fairly successful drive. But he was all winter on the job, and when spring came, and the men went into the woods again, they had to leave nearly a million feet of heavy butt logs permanently stranded in the slack water along the banks, while perhaps another million feet of lighter logs had been lifted out of the channel by the overflow, and left high and dry when the water receded. There they were, Bryce, scattered up and down the river, far from the cables and logging-donkeys, the only power we could use to get those monsters back into the river again, and I was forced to decide whether they should be abandoned or split during the summer into railroad ties, posts, pickets and shakes, commodities for which there was very little call at the time, and in which, even when sold, there could be no profit after deducting the cost of the twenty mile wagon-hall to Sequoia, and the water freight from Sequoia to market, so I abandoned them. I remember that phase of it, partner. To log at the third year only meant that more of those heavy logs would jam and spell more laws. Besides, there was always danger of another cloudburst which would put me out of business completely, and I couldn't afford the risk. That was the time you should have offered Colonel Pennington a handsome profit on a Squaw Creek timber, pal. If my hindsight was as good as my foresight, and I had my eyesight, I wouldn't be in this dilemma at all, the old man retorted briskly. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, and besides, I was obsessed with the need of protecting your heritage from attack in any direction. Captain Cardigan straightened up in his chair, and laid the tip of his right index finger in the center of the palm of his left hand. Here was the situation, Bryce. The center of my palm represents Sequoia. The end of my fingers represents the Sanhedrin Timber, twenty miles south. Now, if the railroad built in from the south, you would win. But if it built in from Grants Pass, Oregon, on the north from the base of my hand, the terminus of the line would be Sequoia, twenty miles from your timber in the Sanhedrin watershed. Bryce nodded. In which event, he replied, we would be in much the same position with our Sanhedrin Timber as Colonel Pennington is with his Squaw Creek Timber. We would have the comforting knowledge that we owned it and paid taxes on it, but couldn't do a dad-burned thing with it. Right you are! The thing to do, then, as I viewed the situation, Bryce, was to acquire a body of timber north of Sequoia and be prepared for either eventuality. And this I did. Silence again descended upon them. And Bryce, gazing into the open fireplace, recalled an event in that period of his father's activities. Old Bill Henderson had come up to their house to dinner one night, and quite suddenly, in the midst of his soup, the old fox had glared across at his host and bellowed, John, I hear you've bought six thousand acres up in Township Nine! John Cartigan had merely nodded, and Henderson had continued, going to log it or hold it for investment. It was a good buy, Cartigan had replied enigmatically. So I thought I'd better take it at the price. I suppose Bryce will log it some day. Then I wish Bryce wasn't such a boy, John. See here now, neighbor, I'll fess up. I took that money Pennington gave me for my Squaw Creek Timber, and put it back into Redwood in Township Nine. Slam bang up against your holdings there. John, I'd build a mill on Tidewater if you'd sell me a site, and I'd log my timber if— I'll sell you a mill site, Bill, and I won't stab you to the heart, either. Consider that settled. That's bullied, John, but still, you only dispose a part of my troubles. There's twelve miles of logging-road to build to get my logs to the mill, and I haven't enough ready money to make the grade. Better throw in with me, John, and we'll build the road and operate it for our joint interest. I'll not throw in with you, Bill, at my time of life. I don't want to have the worry of building, maintaining, and operating twelve miles of private railroad. But I'll loan you without security. You'll have to take an unsecured note, John. Everything I've got is hot. The money you need to build and equip the road, finished Cardigan. In return you are to shoulder all the grief and worry of the road, and give me a ten-year contract at a dollar-and-a-half per thousand feet, to haul my logs down to Tidewater with your own. My minimum haul will be twenty-five million feet annually, and my maximum fifty million. Sold! cried Henderson, and it was even so. Bryce came out of his reverie. And now, he queried of his father, I mortgaged the Sanhedrin timber in the south to buy the timber in the north, my son. Then after I commenced logging in my new holdings came several long lean years of famine. I stuck it out, hoping for a change for the better. I couldn't bear to close down my mill and logging camps, for the reason that I could stand the loss far more readily than the men who worked for me and depended upon me. But the market dragged in the doldrums, and Bill Henderson died, and his boys got discouraged, and a sudden flash of inspiration illumined Bryce Cardigan's brain. And they sold out to Colonel Pennington, he cried. Exactly. The Colonel took over my contract with Henderson's company, along with the other assets, and it was incumbent upon him, as a signee, to fulfill the contract. For the past two years the market for redwood has been most gratifying, and if I could only have gotten a maximum supply of logs over Pennington's road, I'd have worked out of the whole, but he manages to hold you to a minimum annual haul of twenty-five million feet, huh? John Cardigan nodded. He claims he's short of rolling stock. That wrecks and fires have embarrassed the road. He can always find excuses for failing to spot and logging trucks for Cardigan's logs. Bill Henderson never played the game that way. He gave me what I wanted, and never held me to the minimum haulage when I was prepared to give him the maximum. What does Colonel Pennington want, part? He wants, said John Cardigan slowly, my valley of the giants, and a right of way through my land, from the valley to a log dump on deep water. And you refused him? Naturally. You know my ideas on that big timber. His old head sank low on his breast. Folks call them Cardigan's redwoods now, he murmured. Cardigan's redwoods, and Pennington would cut them. Oh, Bryce, the man hasn't a soul. But I fail to see what the loss of Cardigan's redwoods has to do with the impending ruin of the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, his son reminded him. We have all the timber we want. My ten-year contract has but one more year to run, and recently I tried to get Pennington to renew it. He was very nice and sociable, but he named me a freight rate for a renewal of the contract for five years, of three dollars per thousand feet. That rate is prohibitive and puts us out of business. Not necessarily, Bryce returned evenly. How about the State Railroad Commission? Hasn't it got something to say about rates? Yes, on common carriers. But Pennington's load is a private logging road. My contract will expire next year, and it is not incumbent upon Pennington to renew it. Then one can't operate a sawmill without logs, you know. Then, said Bryce calmly, we'll shut the mill down when the log hauling contract expires, hold our timber as an investment, and live the simple life until we can sell it or a transcontinental road builds into Humboldt County and enables us to start up the mill again. John Cardigan shook his head. I'm mortgaged to the last penny, he confessed, and Pennington has been buying Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company first mortgage bonds until he is in control of the issue. He'll buy in the Sanhedrin timber at the foreclosure sale, and in order to get it back and save something for you out of the wreckage, I'll have to make an unprofitable trade with him. I'll have to give him my timber adjoining his north of Sequoia, together with my Valley of the Giants, in return for the Sanhedrin timber to which he'll have a sheriff's deed. But the mill, all my old employees, with their numerous dependents, gone with you left land poor and without a dollar to pay your taxes, smashed like that! And he drove his fist into the palm of his hand. Perhaps, but not without a fight, Bryce answered, although he knew their plight was well nigh hopeless. I'll give that man Pennington a run for his money, or I'll know the reason. The telephone and the table beside him tinkled, and he took down the receiver and said, Hello! Mercy! came the clear sweet voice of Shirley Sumner over the wire. Do you feel as savage as all that, Mr. Cardigan? For the second time in his life the thrill that was akin to pain came to Bryce Cardigan. He laughed. If I had known you were calling Miss Sumner, he said, I shouldn't have growled so. Well, you're forgiven, for several reasons, but principally for sending me that delicious blackberry pie. Of course it discolored my teeth temporarily, but I don't care. The pie was worth it, and you are awfully dear to think of sending it. Thank you so much. Glad you liked it, Miss Sumner. I dare to hope that I may have the privilege of seeing you soon again. Of course. One good pie deserves another. Some evening next week, when that dear old daddy of yours can spare his boy, you might be interested to see our burl redwood paneled dining-room Uncle Seth is so proud of. I'm too recent an arrival to know the hour at which Uncle Seth dines, but I'll let you know later and name a definite date. Would Thursday night be convenient? Perfectly. Thank you a thousand times. She bade him good night. As he turned from the telephone his father looked up. What are you going to do to-morrow, lad? He queried. I have to do some thinking to-morrow, Bryce answered, so I'm going up into Cardigan's redwoods to do it. Up there a fellow can get set, as it were, to put over a thought with a punch in it. The dog-woods and rhododendrons are blooming now, the old man murmured wistfully. Bryce knew what he was thinking of. I'll attend to the flowers for mother, he assured Cardigan, and he added fiercely. And I'll attend to the battle for father. We may lose, but that man Pennington will know he's been in a fight before we fint. He broke off abruptly, for he had just remembered that he was to dine at the Pennington house the following Thursday, and he was not the sort of man who smilingly breaks bread with his enemy. End of Chapter 9 Recording by Roger Maline CHAPTER X For many years there had been installed in Cardigan's mill, a clock set to the United States Observatory time, and corrected hourly by the Telegraph Company. It was the only clock of its kind in Sequoia, hence folks at their watches by it, or rather by the whistle on Cardigan's mill. With the due appreciation of the important function of this clock toward his fellow-citizens, old Zeb Currie, the chief engineer and a stickler for being on time, was most meticulous in his whistle-blowing. With a sage and prophetic eye fixed upon the face of the clock, and a particularly greasy hand grasping the whistle-cord, Zeb would wait until the clock registered exactly six-fifty-nine and a half, whereupon the seven o'clock whistle would commence blowing, to cease instantly upon the stroke of the hour. It was old Zeb's pride and boast that with a single exception, during the sixteen years the clock had been in service, no man could say that Zeb had been more than a second late or early with his whistle-blowing. That exception occurred when Bryce Cardigan, invading the engine room while Zeb was at luncheon, looped the whistle-cord until the end dangled seven feet above ground. As a consequence, Zeb, who was a short, fat little man, was forced to leap at it several times before success crowned his efforts and the whistle blew. Thereafter, for the remainder of the day, his reason tottered on its throne, due to the fact that Bryce induced every mill-employee to call upon the engineer and remind him that he must be growing old since he was no longer dependable. On the morning following Bryce Cardigan's return to Sequoia, Zeb Currie, as per custom, started his engine at six-fifty-eight. That gave the huge band saws two minutes in which to attain their proper speed and afforded Dan Kenyon, the head sawyer, ample time to run his steam-log carriage out to the end of the track, for Daniel, too, was a reliable man in the matter of starting his daily uproar on time. At precisely six-fifty-nine and a half, therefore, the engineer's hand closed over the handle of the whistle-cord, and Dan Kenyon, standing on the steam-carriage with his hand on the lever, took a thirty-second squint through a rather grimy window that gave upon the drying-yard and the mill-office at the head of it. The whistle ceased blowing, but still Dan Kenyon stood at his post, oblivious of the hungry saws. Ten seconds passed, then Zeb Currie, immeasurably scandalized at Daniel's tardiness, tooted the whistle sharply twice, whereupon Dan woke up, threw over the lever, and walked his log up to the saw. For the next five hours Zeb Currie had no opportunity to discuss the matter with the head sawyer. After blowing the twelve o'clock whistle, however, he hurried over to the dining-hall, where the mill-hands already lined the benches, shoveling food into their mouths as only a lumberman or a miner can. Dan Kenyon sat at the head of the table in the place of honor sacred to the head sawyer, and when his mouth would permit of some activity other than mastication, Zeb Currie caught his eye. "'Hey, you, Dan Kenyon!' he shouted across the table. "'What happened to you this morning? It was sixteen seconds between the tail end of my whistle and the front end of your winen. This thing you know you'll be getting so slack and careless like some other man'll be riding that log carriage a yearn.' "'I was struck dumb,' Dan Kenyon replied. "'I just stood there like one of these here graven images. Last night, on my way home from work, I heard the young fellow was back. He got in just as we was knocking off for the day, and this morning, just as you cut loose, Zeb, I'll be danged if he didn't show up in front of the office door, fumbling for the keyhole. Yes, sir, ree. That boy gets in at six o'clock last night, and turns two on his pause job when the whistle blows this morning at seven. "'You mean young Bryce Cardigan?' Zeb queried incredulously. "'I sure do.' "'Tain't possible,' Zeb declared. "'You've seen a new bookkeeper, maybe, but you didn't see Bryce. He ain't no such hug for labor as his daddy before him, I'm telling you. Not that there's a lazy bone in his body, for there ain't. But because that there boy's got too much sense to come bowling down to work at seven o'clock the very first morning he's back from Europe.' "'I'm laying you ten to one, I seen him,' Dan replied defiantly. "'And what's more, I'll bet a good cigar, a ten-center straight. The boy don't leave till six o'clock tonight.' "'You're on,' answered the chief engineer. "'Them's lumberjack hours, man. From seven till six means work, and only fools and husses keeps them hours.' The head Sawyer leaned across the table and pounded with the handle of his knife until he had the attention of all present. "'I'ma gonna tell you, young fellow, something,' he announced. Ever since the old boss got so he couldn't look after his business with his own eyes, things has been going to blazes round this sawmill, but they ain't a going to no more. How do I know?' "'Well, I'll tell you. All this forenoon I kept my eye on the office door. I can see it through a mill-winder.' "'And I'm telling you, the old boss didn't show up till ten o'clock, which the old man ain't never been a ten o'clock businessman at no time. Won't that prove the boys took his place?' Confused murmurs of affirmation and negation ran up and down the long table. Dan tapped with his knife again. "'You hear me,' he warned. "'Thirty year I've been riding John Cardigan's log-carriages. Thirty year I've been getting everything out of a log it's possible to get out, which is more new-fellars that the tremors can get out of a board after I've sawed it off the can't. There's a lot of you young-fellars that's been taking John Cardigan's money under false pretenses. So if I was you, I'd keep both eyes on my job hereafter. For a year I've been claiming that good number two-stock has been chucked into the slab-fire as Refuge Lumber.' Dan meant Refuge Lumber. "'But it won't be done no more.' The Raphsman tells me he's seen Bryce down at the end of the conveying-belt given that Refuge the once over. So step easy.' "'What does young Cardigan know about running a sawmill?' A planar man demanded bluntly. "'They tell me he's been away to college and travel in the past six years.' "'Well,' drawled the head-soyer, "'you get to talking with him some day and see how much he knows about running a sawmill. What he knows will surprise you. Yes, indeed, you'll find he knows considerable. He's picked up loose shingles around the yard and bundled them in vacation times, and I want to see the shingle-weaver that can teach him some tricks. Also I've had him come up on the steam-carriage more and once and saw up logs. While at times I've seen him put in a week or two on the sorting-table. In a pinch, with a lot of vessels loading here at the dock and the skippers raising cane, because they wasn't getting their cargo fast enough, I've seen him work nights and Sundays tallying with the best of them. Believe me, that boy can grade lumber.' "'And I'll tell you something else,' Zebcurrie cut in. "'If the new boss ever tells you to do a thing his way, you do it, and don't argue none as to whether he knows more about it than you do or not. A whole lot of dagos and bo hunks that's come into the woods since the blue-noses and canucks and wild Irish went out had better keep your eyes open,' Dan Kenyon warned sagely. "'There ain't none of you any better than you ought to be, and things have been pretty darn slack around Cardigan's mill since the old man went blind. But you watch out. There's a change-do.' Grace Cardigan is his father's son. He'll do things.' "'Which he's big enough to throw a bear uphill by the tail,' Zebcurrie added. "'And you fellas all know how much tail a bear has.' "'Every morning for thirty years, except when he was shut down for repairs,' Dan continued. "'I've looked through that window when John Cardigan wasn't away from Sequoia to watch him get to his office on time. He's there when the whistle blows, clear up to the time his eyes go back on him, and then he arrives late once or twice on account of having to go careful. This morning, for the first time in fifty years, he stays in bed. But his son has the key in the office door when the whistle blows, and,' Dan Kenyon paused abruptly, the hum of conversation ceased, and silence fell upon the room as Bryce Cardigan strolled in the door, nodded to the men, and slid in on the bench to a seat beside the head-soyre. "'Hello, Dan. Hello, Zeb,' he said, and shook hands with each. "'I'm mighty glad to see you both again. "'Hello, everybody. I'm the new boss, so I suppose I'd better introduce myself. There are so many new faces here. "'I'm Bryce Cardigan.' "'Yes,' Zeb Curry volunteered. "'And he's like his daddy. He ain't ashamed to work with his men, and he ain't ashamed to eat with his men, neither. "'Glad you're back with us again, boy, mighty glad. "'Dan here. He's getting slackered in an old squaw with his work and needs somebody to jerk him up, while the rest of these here.' "'I noticed that about Dan,' Bryce interrupted craftily. "'He's slowing up, Zeb. "'He must have been fifteen seconds late this morning. "'Or perhaps,' he added. "'You were fifteen seconds earlier than the clock.' "'Dan grinned, and Bryce went on seriously. "'I'm afraid you're getting too old to ride the log, carriage Dan. "'You've been at it a long time, so with the utmost good will in the world toward you, you're fired. "'I might as well tell you now.' "'You know me, Dan. "'I always did dislike beating about the bush.' "'Fired!' Dan Kenyon's eyes popped with amazement and horror. "'Fired after thirty years?' he croaked. "'Fired!' There was unmistakable finality in Bryce's tones. "'You're hired again, however, at a higher salary, "'as mill superintendent. "'You can get away with that job, can't you, Dan?' "'In fact,' he added, without waiting for the overjoyed Dan "'to answer him, "'You've got to get away with it, "'because I discharged the mill superintendent I found on the job "'when I got down here this morning. "'He's been letting too many profits go into the slab fire. "'In fact, the entire plant has gone to glory. "'Fire hose old and rotten. "'Couldn't stand a hundred-pound pressure. "'Fire buckets and water barrels empty. "'Axes not in their proper places. "'Fire extinguishers filled with stale chemical. "'Why, the smallest kind of fire here would get beyond our control "'with that man on the job.' "'Besides, he's changed the grading rules. "'I found the men putting clearboards with hard-grained streaks "'in them, in with the number one clear. "'The customer may not kick at a small percentage of number two "'in his number one, but it's only fair to give it to him "'at two dollars a thousand less.' "'Well,' purred Zeb Curry, they don't grade lumber as strict "'nowadays as they used to before you went away. "'Colonel Pennington says we're a lot of back numbers out "'this way, and too generous with our grades. "'First thing he did was to call a meeting of all the Humboldt "'lumber manufacturers and organize them into an association. "'Then he had the grading rules changed. "'The retailers hollered for a while, but by and by they got used "'to it.' "'Did my father join that association?' Bryce demanded quickly. "'Yes. "'He told Pennington he wasn't going to be no obstructionist "'in the trade, but he did kick like a bay steer on them new "'graden rules and refused to conform to him. "'Said he was too old and had been too long in business to start "'gouging his customers at his time of life, so he got out of "'the association.' "'Bully for John Cardigan,' Bryce declared. "'I suppose we could make a little more money by cheapening "'our grade, but the quality of our lumber is so well known "'that it sells itself and saves us the expense of maintaining "'a core of salesmen.' "'From what I hear tell of the Colonel,' Dan observed, "'Sage Lee, the least he ever wants is a hundred and fifty percent the best of it.' "'Yes,' old Zeb observed gravely. "'And so far as I can see he ain't none too particular how "'he gets it.' He helped himself to a toothpick and followed by the head-soyer abruptly left the room after the fashion of sawmill men and woodsmen who eat as much as they can as quickly as they can and eventually die of old age rather than indigestion. Bryce ate his noonday meal in more leisurely fashion and at its conclusion stepped into the kitchen. "'Where do you live, Cook?' he demanded of that functionary. And upon being informed he retired to the office and called up the Sequoia Meat Market. "'Brice Cardigan speaking,' he informed the butcher. "'Do you ever buy any pigs from our mill, Cook?' "'Not any more,' the butcher answered. "'He stung me once with a dozen fine shoates. "'They looked great, but after I had slaughtered them and had them dressed they turned out to be swill-fed hogs, swill and alfalfa.' "'Thank you,' Bryce hung up. "'I knew that Cook was wasteful,' he declared, turning to his father's old manager, one Thomas Sinclair. He wastes food in order to take the swill home to his hogs, and nobody watches him. Things have certainly gone to the devil,' he continued. "'No fault of mine,' Sinclair protested. "'I've never paid any attention to matters outside the office. Your father looked after everything else.' Bryce looked at Sinclair. The latter was a thin, spare, nervous man in his late fifties. And though generally credited with being John Cardigan's manager, Bryce knew that Sinclair was, in reality, little more than a glorified bookkeeper, and a very excellent bookkeeper indeed. Bryce realized that in the colossal task that confronted him he could expect no real help from Sinclair. "'Yes,' he replied. My father looked after everything else, while he could. "'Oh, you'll soon get the business straightened out and running smoothly again,' Sinclair declared confidently. "'Well, I'm glad I started on the job today rather than next Monday, as I planned to do last night.' He stepped to the window and looked out. At the mill-dock, a big steam-scooner and a wind-jammer lay. In the lee of the piles of lumber, sailors and longshoremen, tallymen and time-keeper lounged. Enjoying the brief period of the noon hour still there is before the driving-mates of the lumber-vessels should turn them to on the job once more. To his right and left stretch the drying-yard. On the way, on gangway, formed by the serried rows of lumber-piles, the hoop-horses placidly feeding from their nose-bags, while the strong-armed fellows who piled the lumber sat about in little groups conversing with the mill-hands. As Bryce looked, a puff of white steam appeared over the roof of the old sawmill and the one-o'clock whistle-blue. Instantly that scene of indolence and ease turned to one of activity. The mill-hands lounging in the gangways scurried for their stations in the mill. Men climbed to the tops of the lumber-piles, while other men passed boards and scantlings up to them. The donkey-engines aboard the vessels rattled. The cargo-gaffes of the steam-scooner swung outward, and a moment later two great sling-loads of newly-sawed lumber rose in the air, swung inward, and descended to the steamer's decks. All about, Bryce, were scenes of activity, of human endeavor, and to him in that moment came the thought, My father brought all this to pass, and now the task of continuing it is mine. All those men who earn a living in Cardigan's mill and on Cardigan's dock, those sailors who sail the ships that carry Cardigan's lumber into the distant marts of men, are dependent upon me. And my father used to tell me not to fail them. Must my father have wrought all this in vain? And must I stand by and see all this go to satisfy the overwhelming ambition of a stranger? His big hands clenched. No, he growled savagely. If I stick around this office a minute longer, I'll go crazy!" Bryce snarled then. Give me your last five annual statements, Mr. Sinclair, please. The old servitor brought forth the documents in question. Bryce stuffed them into his pocket and left the office. Three-quarters of an hour later he entered the little amphitheater in the Valley of the Giants, and paused with an expression of dismay. One of the Giants had fallen and lay stretched across the little clearing. In its descent it had demolished the little white stone over his mother's grave and had driven the fragments of the stone deep into the earth. The tremendous brown butt quite ruined the appearance of the amphitheater by reason of the fact that it constituted a barrier some fifteen feet high, and of equal thickness a thwart the center of the clearing, with fully three-quarters of the length of the tree lost to sight where the fallen monarch had wade between its more fortunate fellows. The fact that the tree was down, however, was secondary to the fact that neither wind nor lightning had brought it low, but rather the impious hand of man. For the great jagged stump showed all too plainly the marks of cross-cut saw and axe. A pile of chips four feet deep littered the ground. For fully a minute Bryce stood dumbly gazing upon the sacrilege before his rage and horror found vent in words. "'An enemy has done this thing!' he cried aloud to the wood-goblins. And over her grave!' Presently smothering his emotion he walked the length of the dead giant, and where the top tapered off to a size that would permit of his stepping across it he retraced his steps to the other side of the tree until he had reached a point some fifty feet from the butt, when the vandals reasoned for felling the monster became apparent. It was a burl tree. At the point where Bryce paused a malignant growth had developed on the trunk of the tree for all the world like a tremendous wart. This was the burl so prized for tabletops and paneling because of the fact that the twisted, wavy, helter-skelter grain lends to the wood an extraordinary beauty when polished. Bryce noted that the work of removing this excretion had been accomplished very neatly. Where the cross-cut saw the growth, perhaps ten feet in diameter, had been neatly sliced off much as a housewife cut slice after slice from a loaf of bread. He guessed that these slices, practically circular in shape, had been rolled out of the woods to some conveyance waiting to receive them. What Bryce could not understand, however, was the stupid brutality of the raiders in felling the tree merely for that section of burl. By permitting the tree to stand and merely building a staging up to the burl, the latter could have been removed without vital injury to the tree, whereas, by destroying the tree, the wretches had evidenced all too clearly to Bryce a wanton desire to add insult to injury. Bryce inspected the scars on the stump carefully. They were weather-stained to such an extent that, to his experienced eye, it was evident the outrage had been committed more than a year previously. And the winter rains, not to mention the spring growth of grasses and underbrush, had effectually destroyed all trace of the trail taken by the vandals with their booty. Poor old dad, he murmured. I'm glad now he has been unable to get up here and see this. It would have broken his heart. I'll have this tree made into fence posts, and the stump dynamited and removed this summer. After he is operated on and gets back his sight, he will come up here, and he must never know. Perhaps he will have forgotten how many trees stood in this circle, and I'll fill in the hole left by the stump and plant some manzanita there to hide the—' He paused. Peeping out from under a chip among the litter at his feet was the moldy corner of a white envelope. In an instant Bryce had it in his hand. The envelope was dirty and weather-beaten, but to a certain extent the redwood chips under which it had lain hidden had served to protect it, and the writing on the face was still legible. The envelope was empty and addressed to Jules Rondeau, care of the Laguna Grande Lumber Company, Sequoia, California. Bryce read and reread that address. Rondeau, he muttered. Jules Rondeau. I've heard that name before. Ah, yes! Dad spoke of him last night. He's Pennington's woods-boss. He paused. An enemy had done this thing, and in all the world John Cartigan had but one enemy, Colonel Seth Pennington. Had Pennington sent his woods-boss to do this dirty work out of sheer spite? Hardly. The section of burl was gone, and this argued that the question of spite had been purely a matter of secondary consideration. Evidently, Bryce reasoned, someone had desired that burl redwood greatly, and that someone had not been Jules Rondeau, since a woods-boss would not be likely to spend five minutes of his leisure time in consideration of the beauties of a burl tabletop or panel. Hence, if Rondeau had superintended the task of felling the tree, it must have been at the behest of a superior. And since a woods-boss acknowledges no superior, save the creator of the payroll, the recipient of that stolen burl must have been Colonel Pennington. Finally he thrilled. If Jules Rondeau had stolen that burl to present it to Colonel Pennington, his employer, then the finished article must be in Pennington's home, and Bryce had been invited to that home for dinner the following Thursday by the Colonel's niece. "'I'll go after all,' he told himself. "'I'll go, and I'll see what I shall see.' He was too wrought up now to sit calmly down in the peace and quietude of the giants, and digest the annual report Sinclair had given him. He hastened back to the mill-office and sought Sinclair. "'At what hour does the logging-train leave the Laguna Grande Lumber Company's yard, for our log-landing in Township Nine?' he demanded. "'Eight a.m. and one p.m. daily, Bryce. Have you any maps of the holdings of Pennington and ourselves in that district?' "'Yes?' "'Let me have them, please. I know the topography of that district perfectly, but I am not familiar with the holdings in and around ours.' Sinclair gave him the maps, and Bryce retired to his father's private office, and gave himself up to a study of them. CHAPTER X When Shirley Sumner descended to the breakfast-room on the morning following her arrival in Sequoia, the first glance at her uncle's stately countenance informed her that during the night something had occurred to irritate Colonel Seth Pennington and startle him out of his customary bland composure. He greeted her politely but coldly, and without even the perfunctory formality of inquiring how she had passed the night, he came directly to the issue. "'Surely,' he began, "'did I hear you calling young Cartigan on the telephone after dinner last night, or did my ears deceive me?' Your ears are all right, Uncle Seth. I called Mr. Cartigan up to thank him for the pie he sent over, and incidentally to invite him over here to dinner on Thursday night. I thought I heard you asking somebody to dinner, and as you don't know a soul in Sequoia except young Cartigan, naturally I opined that he was to be the object of our hospitality.' The Colonel coughed slightly. From the manner in which he approached the task of buttering his hut-cakes, Shirley knew he had something more to say and was merely formulating a polite set of phrases in which to express himself. She resolved to help him along. "'I dare say it's quite all right to have invited him, isn't it, Uncle Seth?' "'Certainly, certainly, my dear, quite all right, but slightly inconvenient.' "'Oh, I'm so sorry. If I had known—perhaps some other night?' "'I am expecting other company Thursday night. Unfortunately, Brayton, the President of the Bank of Sequoia, is coming up to dine and discuss some business affairs with me afterward.' "'So, if you don't mind, my dear, suppose you call young Cartigan up and ask him to defer his visit until some later date.' "'Certainly, Uncle. There is no particular reason why I should have Mr. Cartigan on Thursday if his presence would mean the slightest interference with your plans.' "'What perfectly marvelous roses! How did you succeed in growing them, Uncle Seth?' He smiled sourly. "'I didn't raise them,' he replied. "'That half-breed Indian that drives John Cartigan's car brought them around about an hour ago, along with a card. There it is, beside your plate.' She blushed ever so slightly. "'I suppose Brayton Cartigan is vindicating himself,' she murmured as she withdrew the card from the envelope. As she had surmised, it was Brayton Cartigan's. General Pennington was the proprietor of a similar surmise. "'Fast work, surely,' he murmured banteringly. "'I wonder what he'll send you for luncheon. Some dill-pickles, probably.' She pretended to be very busy with the roses and not to have heard him. Her uncle's sneer was not lost on her, however. She resented it, but chose to ignore it for the present. And when at length she had finished arranging the flowers, she changed the conversation adroitly by questioning her relative and meant the opportunities for shopping in Sequoia. The colonel, who could assimilate a hint quicker than most ordinary mortals, saw that he had annoyed her, and he promptly hastened to make amends by permitting himself to be led readily into this new conversational channel. As soon as he could do so, however, he excused himself on the plea of urgent business at the office and left the room. Shirley, left alone at the breakfast-table, picked idly at the preserved figs the owlish butler set before her. Vaguely she wondered at her uncle's apparent hostility to the cardigans. She was as vaguely troubled in the knowledge that until she should succeed in eradicating this hostility, it must inevitably act as a bar to the further progress of her friendship with Bryce Lincoln. And she told herself she did not want to lose that friendship. She wasn't the least bit in love with him, albeit she realized he was rather lovable. The delight which she had experienced in his society lay in the fact that he was absolutely different from any other man she had met. His simplicity, his utter lack of swang, his directness, his good nature, and dry sense of humor made him shine luminously in comparison with the worldly, rather artificial young men she had previously met. Young men who said and did only those things which time, tradition, and hallowed memory assured them were done by the right sort of people. Shirley had a suspicion that Bryce Cardigan could, and would, swear like a pirate should his temper be aroused and the circumstances appeared a warrant letting off steam. Also she liked him because he was imaginative, because he saw and sensed and properly understood without a diagram or a blueprint. And lastly he was a good, devoted son and was susceptible of development into a congenial and wholly acceptable comrade to a young lady absolutely lacking in other means of amusement. She finished her breakfast in thoughtful silence. Then she went to the telephone and called up Bryce at his home. Mrs. Tully, all a flutter with curiosity, was quite insistent that Shirley should leave her name and telephone number. But failing to carry her point consented to inform the latter that Mr. Bryce was at the office. She gave Shirley the telephone number. When the girl called the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company, Bryce answered. He recognized her voice instantly and called her name before she had opportunity to announce her identity. Thank you so much for the beautiful roses, Mr. Cardigan," she began. I'm glad you liked them. Nobody picks flowers out of our garden, you know. I used to, but I'll be too busy here after to bother with the garden. Very well. Then I am not to expect any more roses. I am a stupid Claude hopper. Of course you may. By the way, Miss Sumner, does your uncle own a car? I believe he does, a little old rattletrap which he drives himself. Then I'll send George over with the Napier this afternoon. You might care to take a spin out into the surrounding country. By the way, Miss Sumner, you are to consider George and that car as your personal property. I fear you're going to find Sequoia a dull place, so whenever you wish to go for a ride, just call me up and I'll have George report to you. But think of all the expensive gasoline and tires. Oh, but you mustn't look at things from that angle after you cross the Rocky Mountains and your way west. Moreover, mine is the only real car in the country, and I know you like it. What are you going to do this afternoon? I don't know. I haven't thought that far ahead. For some real sport I would suggest that you motor up to Laguna Grande. That's Spanish for big lagoon, you know. Take a rod with you. There are some landlocked salmon in the lagoon, that is, there used to be. And if you hook one, you'll get a thrill. But I haven't any rod. I'll send you over a good one. But I have nobody to teach me how to use it, she hinted daringly. I appreciate that compliment, he flashed back at her. But unfortunately my holidays are over for a long, long time. I took my father's place in the business this morning. So soon? Yes. Things have been happening while I was away. However, speaking of fishing, George Sea Otter will prove an invaluable instructor. He is a good boy and you may trust him implicitly. On Thursday evening you can tell me what success you had with the salmon. Oh, that reminds me, Mr. Cartigan, you can't come Thursday evening after all. And she explained the reason. By Jove, he replied, I'm mighty glad you tipped me off about that. I couldn't possibly remain at ease in the presence of a banker, particularly one who will not lend me money. Suppose you come Wednesday night instead. We'll call that a bet. Thank you! She chuckled at his frank good humor. Thank you, Mr. Cartigan, for all your kindness and thoughtfulness. And if you will persist in being nice to me, you might send George Sea Otter and the car at one thirty. I'll be glad to avail myself of both until I can get a car of my own sent up from San Francisco. Till Wednesday night, then, good-bye. As Bryce Cartigan hung up, he heaved a slight sigh and a parody on a quatrain from Lalla Rook ran through his mind. I never loved a dear gazelle to glad me with its limpid eye, but when I learned to love it well, the gall-darned thing was sure to die. It was difficult to get out of the habit of playing. He found himself the possessor of a very great desire to close down the desk, call on Shirley Sumner, and spend the remainder of the day basking in the sunlight of her presence. End of CHAPTER XI OF THE VALLEY OF THE GIANTS. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Valley of the Giant by Peter B. Kyn. CHAPTER XII. The days passed swiftly, as they have a habit of passing after one has discovered one's allotted task in life and has proceeded to perform it. Following his discovery of the outrage committed on his father's sanctuary, Bryce wasted considerable valuable time and effort in a futile endeavor to gather some further hint of the identity of the vandals. But despairing at last he dismissed the matter from his mind, resolving only that on Thursday he would go up into Pennington's woods and interview the redoubtable Jules Rondeau. Bryce's natural inclination was to wait upon Monsieur Rondeau immediately, if not sooner, but the recollection of his dinner engagement at the Pennington home warned him to proceed cautiously. For while harboring no apprehensions as to the outcome of a possible clash with Rondeau, Bryce was not so optimistic as to believe he would escape unscathed from an encounter. Experience had impressed upon him the fact that in a rough and tumble battle nobody is quite so thoroughly at home as a lumberjack. Once in a clinch with such a man, even a champion gladiator of the prize-ring may well feel apprehensive of the outcome. Wednesday evening, at five o'clock, Mr. Sinclair, the manager, came into Bryce's office with a handful of folded papers. "'I have here,' he announced in his clerky voice with a touch of solemnity to it, "'a trial balance. I have not had time to make an exact inventory, but in order to give you some idea of the condition of your father's affairs I have used approximate figures and prepared a profit and loss account.' Bryce reached for the papers. "'You will note the amount charged off to profit and loss under the heading of pensions,' Sinclair continued. "'It amounts approximately to two thousand dollars a month, and this sum represents payments to crippled employees and the dependent families of men killed in the employ of the company. In addition to these payments your father owns thirty-two thirty-acre farms which he has cleared from his logged-over lands. These little farms are equipped with bungalows and outbuildings built by your father and represent a considerable investment. As you know these farms are wonderfully rich and are planted in apples and berries. Other lands contiguous to them sell readily at two hundred dollars an acre, and so you will see that your father has approximately two hundred thousand dollars tied up in these little farms. But he has given a life lease at nothing a year for each farm to former employees who have been smashed beyond the possibility of doing the hard work of the mill and woods," Bryce reminded the manager. "'Hence you must not figure those farms among our assets.' "'Why not?' Sinclair replied evenly. Formal leases have never been executed and the tenants occupy the property at your father's pleasure. "'I think that will be about as far as the discussion on that point need proceed,' Bryce replied smilingly. "'My father's word has always been considered sufficient in this country. His verbal promise to pay has always been collateral enough for those who know him.'" "'But, my dear boy,' Sinclair protested. "'While that sort of philanthropy is very delightful when one can afford the luxury, it is scarcely practical when one is teetering in the verge of financial ruin. After all, Bryce, self-preservation is the first law of human nature, and the sale of those farms would go a long way toward helping the Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company out of the hole it is in at present. "'And we're really teetering on the edge of financial ruin, huh?' Bryce queried calmly. "'That is expressing your condition mildly. The semi-annual payment of interest on the bonded indebtedness falls due on July 1, and we're going to default on it, sure as death and taxes. Colonel Pennington holds a majority of our bonds, and that means prompt suit for foreclosure.'" "'Well then, Sinclair,' Bryce retorted, carefully pigeonholing the documents the manager had handed him, "'I'll tell you what we'll do. For fifty years my father has played the game in this community like a sport and a gentleman. And I'll be damned if his son will dog it now, at the finish. I gather from your remarks that we could find ready sale for those thirty-two little farms. I am continually receiving offers for them. Then they were not included in the list of properties covered by our bonded indebtedness? No, your father refused to include them. He said he would take a chance on the financial future of himself and his boy, but not on his helpless dependent.'" "'Good old John Cardigan. Well, Sinclair, I'll not take a chance on them either. So tomorrow morning you will instruct our attorney to draw up formal life leases on those farms, and to make certain they are absolutely unassailable. Colonel Pennington may have the land sold to satisfy a deficiency judgment against us, but while those life leases from the former owner are in force, my father's protégés cannot be dispossessed. After they are dead, of course, Pennington may take the farms and be damned to them.'" Sinclair stared in frank amazement at his youthful superior. "'You are throwing away two hundred thousand dollars,' he said distinctly. "'I haven't thrown it away yet. You forget, Sinclair, that we're going to fight first, and fight like fiends. Then, if we lose, well, the tale goes with the hide. By the way, Sinclair, are any of those farms untenanted at the present time?' "'Yes. Old Bill Tarpe, who lost his three boys in a forest fire over in the Sanhedrin, passed out last week. The Tarpe boys died in the Cartigan employ, and so your father gave Bill the use of a farm out near Freshwater. "'Well, you'd better be a successor, Sinclair. You're no longer a young man, and you've been thirty years in this office. Play safe, Sinclair, and include yourself in one of those life leases. My dear boy, nonsense! United we stand, divided we fall, Sinclair, and let there be no moaning of the bar when a Cartigan puts out to sea.' Smiling, he rose from his desk, padded the bewildered Sinclair on the latter's grizzled head, and then reached for his hat. "'I'm dining out tonight, Sinclair, and I wouldn't be a killjoy at the feast for a ripe peach. Your confounded figures might make me gloomy, so we'll just reserve discussion of them till tomorrow morning. "'Be a sport, Sinclair, and for once in your life beat the six o'clock whistle. In other words, I suggest that you go home and rest for once.' He left Sinclair staring at him rather stupidly. End of Chapter 12 Recording by Roger Maline Chapter 13 Of the Valley of the Giants This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Maline The Valley of the Giants by Peter B. Kine Chapter 13 Colonel Pennington's imported British butler showed Bryce into the Pennington living-room at 6.30, announcing him with due ceremony. Shirley rose from the piano where she had been idly fingering the keys and greeted him with every appearance of pleasure. Following which she turned to present her visitor to Colonel Pennington, who was standing in his favorite position with his back to the fireplace. "'Uncle Seth, this is Mr. Cardigan, who is so very nice to me the day I landed in Red Bluff.' The Colonel bowed. "'I have to thank you, sir, for your courtesy to my niece.' He had assumed an air of reserve, of distinct aloofness, despite his studied politeness. Bryce stepped forward with extended hand, which the Colonel grasped in a manner vaguely suggestive of that clammy-palmed creation of Charles Dickens, Uriah Heap. Bryce was tempted to squeeze the lax fingers until the Colonel should bella with pain, but resisting the ungenerous impulse, he replied instead, "'Your niece, Colonel, is one of those fortunate beings the world will always clamor to serve.' "'Quite true, Mr. Cardigan. When she was quite a little girl I came under her spell myself.' "'So did I, Colonel. Miss Sumner has doubtless told you of our first meeting some twelve years ago.' "'Quite so. May I offer you a cocktail, Mr. Cardigan?' "'Thank you, certainly. Dad and I have been pinning one on about this time every night since my return.' "'Surely belongs to the band of hope,' the Colonel explained. She's ready at any time to break a lance with the demon rum. Back in Michigan, where we used to live, she saw too many woodsmen around after the spring drive. So we'll have to drink her share, Mr. Cardigan. Pray be seated.' Bryce seated himself. "'Well, we lumbermen are a low lot and naturally fond of dissipation,' he agreed. I fear Miss Sumner's prohibition tendencies will be still further strengthened after she has seen the mad train.' "'What is that?' surely queried. "'The mad train runs over your uncle's logging-rail road up into Township 9, where his timber and ours is located. It is the only train operated on Sunday, and it leaves Sequoia at 5 p.m. to carry the Pennington and Cardigan crews back to the woods after their Saturday night celebration in town. As a usual thing, all hands, with the exception of the breakmen, engineers, and firemen, are singing, weeping, or fighting drunk. "'But why do you provide transportation for them to come to Town Saturday nights?' surely protested. "'They ride in on the last train load of logs, and if we didn't let them do it, they'd ask for their time. It's the way of the gentle lumberjack. And, of course, once they get in, we have to round them up on Sunday afternoon and get them back on the job, hence the mad train.' "'Do they fight, Mr. Cardigan?' "'Frequently. I might say usually. It's quite an inspiring sight to see a couple of lumberjacks going to it in a flat car traveling thirty miles an hour. "'But aren't they liable to fall off and get killed?' "'No. You see, they're used to fighting that way. Moreover, the engineer looks back, and if he sees any signs of Donnie Burke Fair, he slows down. "'How horrible!' "'Yes, indeed. The right-of-way is lined with empty whiskey-bottles.' Colonel Pennington spoke up. "'We don't have any fighting on the mad train any more,' he said, blandly. "'Indeed. How do you prevent it?' Bryce asked. "'My woods-boss, Jules Rondeau, makes them keep the piece,' Pennington replied with a small smile. "'If there's any fighting to be done, he does it.' "'You mean among his own crew, of course,' Bryce suggested. "'No. He's in charge of the mad train, and whether a fight starts among your men or ours, he takes a hand. "'He's had them all behaving mildly for quite a while, because he can whip any man in the country, and everybody realizes it. "'I don't know what I'd do without Rondeau.' "'He certainly makes those bo hunks of mine step lively.' "'Oh, do you employ bo hunks, Colonel?' "'Certainly.' "'They're far less independent than most men and more readily handled, and you don't have to pamper them, particularly in the matter of food. "'Why, Mr. Cartigan, with all due respect to your father, the way he feeds his men is simply ridiculous. "'Cake and pie and donuts at the same meal,' the Colonel snorted virtuously. "'Well, Dad started in to feed his men the same food he fed himself, and I suppose the habits one forms in youth are not readily changed in old age, Colonel. "'But that makes it hard for other manufacturers,' the Colonel protested. "'I feed my men good plain food and plenty of it, quite better food than they were used to before they came to this country. "'But I cannot seem to satisfy them. I am continuously being reminded, when I do a thing thus and so, that John Cartigan does it otherwise. "'Your respected parent is the basis for comparison in this country, Cartigan, and I find it devilish and convenient.' He laughed indulgently and passed his cigarette case to Bryce. "'Uncle Seth always grows restless when some other man is the leader,' surely volunteered with a mischievous glance at Pennington. "'He was the great Puba of the lumber trade back in Michigan, but out here he has to play second fiddle. Don't you, Nunky-Dunk?' "'I'm afraid I do, my dear,' the Colonel admitted, with its best air of hearty expansiveness. "'I'm afraid I do. However, Mr. Cartigan, now that you have, at least I have been so informed, taken over your father's business, I am hoping we will be unable to get together on many little details and work them out on a common basis to our mutual advantage. We lumbermen should stand together and not make it hard for each other. For instance, your scale of wages is totally disproportionate to the present high cost of manufacture and the mediocre market. Yet, because you pay it, you set a precedent which we are all forced to follow. However,' he concluded, "'let's not talk shop. I imagine we have enough of that during the day.' "'Besides, here are the cocktails.' With the disposal of the cocktails, the conversation drifted into a discussion of Shirley's adventures with the salmon in Big Lagoon. The Colonel discoursed learnedly on the superior sport of muskelunge fishing, which prompted Bryce to enter into a description of going after swordfish among the islands of the Santa Barbara Channel. Trout fishing when the fish gets into white water is good sport, salmon fishing is fine, and the steelhead and eel river are hard to beat. Muskelunge are a delight, and tarpon are not so bad, if you're looking for thrills. But for genuine inspiration, give me a sixteen foot swordfish that'll leap out of the water from three to six feet, and do it three or four hundred times, all on a line and rod so light one dares not state the exact weight if he values his reputation for veracity. "'Once I was fishing at Sam,' the butler appeared in the doorway and bowed to Shirley, at the time announcing that dinner was served. The girl rose and gave her arm to Bryce, with her other arm linked through her uncles she turned toward the dining-room. Just inside the entrance Bryce paused. The soft glow of the candles in the old-fashioned silver candlesticks upon the table was reflected in the polished walls of the room walls formed of panels of the most exquisitely patterned redwood burl Bryce Cartigan had ever seen. Also the panels were unusually large. Shirley Sumner's alert glance followed Bryce's as it swept around the room. "'This dining-room is Uncle Seth's particular delight, Mr. Cartigan,' she explained. "'It is very beautiful, Ms. Sumner, and your uncle has worked wonders in the matter of having it polished. Those panels are positively the largest and most beautiful specimens of redwood burl ever turned out in this country. The grain is not merely wavy, it is not merely curly, it is actually so contrary that you have here, Colonel Pennington, a room absolutely unique in that it is formed of bird's-eye burl. Mark the deep shadows in it, and how it does reflect those candles.' "'It is beautiful,' the Colonel declared, and I must confess to a pardonable pride in it, although the task of keeping these walls from being marred by the furniture knocking against them requires the utmost care.' Bryce turned, and his brown eyes blazed into the colonels. "'Where did you succeed in finding such a marvelous tree?' he queried pointedly. "'I know of but one tree in Humboldt County that could have produced such beautiful burl.' For about a second Colonel Pennington met Bryce's glance unwaveringly. Then he read something in his guest's eyes, and his glance shifted while over his benign countenance a flush spread quickly. Bryce noted it, and his quickly roused suspicions were as quickly kindled into certainty. "'Where did you find that tree?' he repeated innocently. "'Brando, my woods-boss, knew I was on the lookout for something special, something nobody else could get, so he kept his eyes open.' "'Indeed!' There was just a trace of irony in Bryce's tones, as he drew Shirley's chair and held it for her. "'As you say, Colonel, it is difficult to keep such soft wood from being marred by contact with the furniture. And you are fortunate to have such a woods-boss in your employ. Such loyal fellows are usually too good to be true, and quite frequently they put their blankets on their backs and get out of the country when you least expect it. I daresay it would be a shock to you if Rando did that.' There was no mistaking the veiled threat behind that apparently innocent observation, and the Colonel, being a man of more than ordinary astuteness, realized that at last he must place his cards on the table. His glance, as he rested it on Bryce now, was baleful, Ophidian. "'Yes,' he said. I would be rather disappointed. However, I pay Rando rather more than it is customary to pay woods-bosses, so I imagine he'll stay unless, of course, somebody takes a notion to run him out of the county. And when that happens, I want to be on hand to view the spectacle.' Bryce sprinkled a modicum of salt in his soup. "'I'm going up into Township Nine tomorrow afternoon,' he remarked casually. "'I think I shall go over to your camp and pay the incomparable jewel a brief visit.' "'Really, I have heard so much about that woods-boss of yours, Colonel, that I ache to take him apart and see what makes him go.' Again the Colonel assimilated the hint. But preferred to dissemble. "'Oh, you can't steal him from me, Cardigan,' he laughed. "'I warn you in advance, so spare yourself the effort.' "'I'll try anything once,' Bryce retorted with equal good nature. However, I don't want to steal him from you. I want to ascertain from him where he procured this burl. There may be more of the same in the neighborhood where he got this.' "'He wouldn't tell you.' "'He might. I'm a persuasive little cuss when I choose to exert myself.' "'Rondo is not communicative. He requires lots of persuading.' "'What delicious soup!' Bryce murmured blandly. "'Miss Sumner, may I have a cracker?' The dinner passed pleasantly. The challenge and defiance between guest and host had been so skillfully and gracefully exchanged that surely hadn't the slightest suspicion that these two well-groomed men had, under her very nose, as it were, agreed to be enemies, and then, for the time being, turned their attention to other and more trifling matters. Coffee was served in the living-room, and through the fragrant smoke of Pennington's fifty-cent perfectos, a sprightly three-cornered conversation continued for an hour. Then the colonel secretly enraged at the calm, mocking, contemplative glances which Bryce ever and a non bestowed upon him, and, unable longer to convince himself that he was too apprehensive, that this cool young man knew nothing and would do nothing even if he knew something. Rose pleaded the necessity for looking over some papers, and bade Bryce good-night. Foolishly he proffered Bryce a limp hand, and a demon of deviltry taking possession of the latter, this time he squeezed with a simple hearty earnestness, the while he said, Colonel Pennington, I hope I do not have to assure you that my visit here this evening has not only been delightful, but, uh, instructive. Good night, sir, and pleasant dreams. With difficulty the colonel suppressed a groan. However, he was not the sort of man who suffers in silence. For a minute later the butler, leaning over the banisters as his master climbed the stairs to his library, heard the latter curse with an eloquence that was singularly appealing. End of Chapter 13, Recording by Roger Maline